on passion then and now

When I was a student at Shorter College in the late 90's, I first heard about a conference for college students in Texas called "Passion". There were CD's of new and inspiring worship songs coming out of the conference, as well as sermons from compelling speakers. Every local college worship service seemed determined to capture some of the energy that was coming out of this new movement, which, at that time, according to the vision and leadership of Louie Giglio, was to culminate in an event called "OneDay"--a solemn assembly/worship festival to be held in a field near Memphis. 

As my wife and I were talking about this evolution, within the Passion movement and within the life of faith, she asked "I wonder what would have happened had it not had that inner focus?" As a social worker, she knows all too well that a commitment to change and justice rarely provide endurance for the task. "Without the sense of purpose and filling up" she said "you'll never make it to actually doing anything about it."

And that gets to the Church. In many ways, the Passion movement as irrevocably altered the course of the American evangelical Church. Yes, there were praise and worship choruses and bands that pre-date the Passion movement (remember Shout to the Lord?) but the movement made it mainstream. My first Christian CD was the wunderkind of Contemporary Christian Music, Steven Curtis Chapman. Today's generation knows only his heir, Chris Tomlin--perhaps the nations most successful worship leader and a key figure in the Passion movement. Most of the contemporary worship movement has been pushed forward by some aspect of the Passion movement, resulting in mega-churches trying to recreate the feeling of a Passion conference every Sunday.

Back in our car, driving on the interstate, my wife said "I wonder if the churches will evolve". For whatever one's opinion may or may not be of the Passion movement, the irrepressible enthusiasm of youth has nowhere else so clearly been capitalized to a singular end. As the Passion movement evolves, it appears that end has moved from internal to external--from self, to neighbor. Perhaps the most persistent question for the Church--particularly those who wished to capture the same zeitgeist--is will they follow course?

on youth and creativity (and how internet killed the video star)

We got cable in my house when I was in high school. As a teenager I was excited to have a 24-hour sports network in ESPN, thrilled to have channels like USA and TNT that re-ran shows like "Gilligan's Island", "Magnum, P.I." and my all-time favorite show, "The A-team". But perhaps more than any of those other channels, I was most excited to have MTV. Granted, this was the 90's--when bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam were captivating and expressing the angst and fury of a million teenagers who felt enslaved in their suburban prisons. While I never grew my hair out or sported a flannel shirt and combat boots, I felt that music expressed something of what I felt--anxiety about the future, frustration with what seemed at the time to be a predetermined life path--all of the emotions associated with basic American adolescence. 

on truth-telling

Every once in awhile you hear a story too strange, too preposterous to be believed. While driving home one night I happened to catch an episode of "This American Life" and a certain story that sounded that ridiculous. In a nutshell, it was the story of Julian Koenig--a self-proclaimed inventor of everything from thumb-wrestling to Earth Day. The better part of the story is spent talking about Koenig's legacy as "an ad man", including his influence on the breakout show "Mad Men."

Admittedly, the claims made seem unbelievable on their own, but perhaps the most startling line comes at the end of the radio segment, when Sarah Koenig, Julian's daughter and a producer for This American Life, shares a personal phone interview with her brother--where he claims Julian, his father--the progenitor of Volkswagen's "Think Small" campaign, Earth Day, Thumb Wrestling and a hundred other things--tells him "If you don't find something to do, you'll end nup like me--a writer of short sentences." As Sarah presses her father on how he could possibly think himself a failure, he says Julian Koenig, ad-man extraordinare "Advertising is built on puffery and at heart, deception, and I don't think anyone can go proudly into the next world with a life based on deception."

Later that same week, again on a long drive home, I turned to yet another radio story--this time an interview with Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show". As the interviewer insists that what Stewart and his staff do is, in fat journalism, Stewart replies with pithy non-sequiturs--"I don't call it journalism, I call it Googling." Eventually he confesses that as politicians and media folks make audacious claims, they need only use a few basic research tools to see if there is merit to their remarks. When the interviewer almost belligerently insists "But THAT'S journalism!" Stewart says simply--"We don't fact-check [and] look at context because of any journalistic criteria that has to be met; we do that because jokes don't work when they're lies."

Those two stories--those two ideologies--have been ringing in my ears ever since. I can't seem to shake the relentless, gut-of my stomach feeling that somewhere in between non-journalist comics and advertising geniuses nee failures, the Spirit is saying something to the churches.

There is a great deal of time and marketing that congregations and non-profits pour into crafting an identity that can be clearly communicated, a logo that conveys the theme and mission statement of the church--a pithy saying that might be that perfect short sentence. Many churches would kill to have Samuel Koenig join their church, or at least bump somebody from the Outreach or Sign Committee to help him "use his gifts and talents" for the benefit of the Kingdom, of course.

Conversely, comedy is most often avoided in the pulpit. By comedy, I don't mean e-mail forwards or tired jokes that ultimately demean others or even ourselves. I remember once hearing Tony Campolo retell an apocryphal story of Peter and Paul arguing at the gates of heaven. Peter insisted Paul was letting too many people through--Paul insisted he was only letting in the folks Peter had on his list. After several exchanges of escalting irritation, Paul approaches Peter with a wry smile and says "I figured it out. Jesus was in the back, boosting people in over the wall." To quote one of my favorite founts of truth-telling, "The Simpsons"--"it's funny AND true." That joke both heals and stings--like most any medicine does that's actually good for you .

Ultimately I think we avoid comedy and stick to marketing because we want to make it easy for folks to understand, easy for them to come to Jesus, easy for them to get beyond theological jargon and tough questions--into some nascent, purer form of discipleship--a holy grail of perfect, perhaps even thoughtless understanding. In fairness I should say I don't think we help ourselves when we over-complicate things so as to make faith obseqious--Jesus told the disciples to "let the little children come to me" while I'm sure the Disciples were trying to figure out whether to capitalize the “D” in disciples or figuring out how to use words like obsequious to talk about faith. But let's be honest, this Jesus-following thing isn't easy--and that's the truth.

It isn't easy to get your teeth kicked in and then tell your attacker "You missed a few in the back!" It isn't easy to tell your developmentally delayed child that when someone calls him stupid he should ask that kid to play with him and be extra nice to him. It isn't easy to watch people with better advertising bring people to a church 15 miles away when you're faithfully trying to be the presence of Christ in your community. It isn't easy to listen to others call you a liar or a heretic--or to say your ministry is invalid because you've chosen not to accept easy answers when it comes to questions of the Bible and what it might really mean.

But it is easy to lick wounds. It is easy to say "Well, they're wrong--I've got the real Jesus." It is easy to say "Fight back, Call him a meaner name, write something snarky on his facebook wall." It is easy to shout them down. And it's always easier when you can find somebody to be "them."

A few months back I went and heard a pastor speak who was viewed by many as "controversial." Outside the church were a dedicated few with tracts and sandwich boards, megaphones and protest signs--all warning us to enter the church at our eternal peril. At the end of the night, during the question and answer, someone asked the pastor "How are you holding up?" After muttering a few words about how he was doing okay the pastor stopped and said "I can tell you this, these two weeks have been the hardest two weeks of my life." The entire crowd started clapping. The young pastor downplayed it, but then took a visible deep breath. I like to think he was drinking it in--this room full of people who were drawn to the fact that someone could be honest about life, faith, God, the Bible, and all the questions that those things spark.

I remember having another thought a few weeks after that. I remember thinking "What if we walked around with sandwich boards that told the truth? With slogans like 'I'm sorry.' or 'The greatest of these is love' or, my favorite, 'I don't have it all figured out.'" Maybe it would be refreshing, maybe people would think we were strange--maybe it would be truth-telling or maybe it would be just writing short sentences. Maybe it could be filled with grace--or at least we could be in the process.

I am personally convinced that we need more comedy, and less advertising. The irony that many churches now refer to their congregants as "Christ-followers" and not Christians shows that we cannot easily be trusted with names, logos and language without somehow tainting it. What could happen if our churches told the truth about heaven and hell--about what we do know, and what we don't know? or about leadership? wealth? government? sexuality? It might get a laugh--it might or might not draw a crowd. Jokes don't work when their lies--and people rarely give themselves to anything that is easy--they most often only give themselves over fully to something that has drawn them in and captivated them--a story that has awakened something within them they did not previously know was there. When a person finds that thing, they'll lay their life down for it. It's funny, most people call that "the truth".

jesus stoops

a poem on Maundy Thursday, 2011

on holy week

I'm trying to practice writing on a regular basis and look forward to posting more regularly here. Recently I heard it said that "Christ still comes to us" as he did on Palm Sunday and we still are not quite sure what to do with Him. And the same is true for the closest of his followers.

on heaven and hell...on earth

The belief in an afterlife—and the summary belief that said eternity can be one of either eternal reward or eternal punishment—is inextricably linked to historic expressions of Christianity. And as you also might have heard the rejection of the doctrine of eternal punishment—hell--is apparently being thoughtfully questioned in a new book by pastor Rob Bell. This particular debate (which, as many have pointed out, is at least as old as Origen's rejection of hell) is being heralded as a watershed moment in American evangelicalism—perhaps even a Scopes Monkey trial within the Christian sub-culture.

It's not fruitful at this point to me to engage this debate. As much as I've tried to engage other people on this particular issue it seems we only leave the conversation further assured of our own positions. In all honesty, I am a particular fan of Rob Bell—not for what he says as much as his ability to express it succinctly, provocatively and in a way that is refreshingly devoid of religious jargon. I don't know what he'll say exactly, but I have an idea—and it's one that I think is worth sharing.

In Bell's second book “SexGod” he tells the story of a close friend who talked openly of his ability to charm women for his own ego and exploits. Over time, a conversion process began to occur—one that formed him into a monster, a shell of a man. Fast forward a few years later and the same man hears an impassioned speech on sex trafficking in Southeast Asia and makes the trip—to run covert missions under cover of darkness, rescuing women from the very kind of exploitation he once perpetuated. Bell wryly states “He's charging into hell and bringing heaven with him.”

Long before the present debate over heaven, hell and eternity, Bell suggests that there are situations—evil, pernicious, life-stripping, humiliating, torturous situations that may well be hell on earth. When Jesus spoke of Hell he most often used the word “Gehenna” which was, as best as scholars can determine, a reference to a physical place—a trash-heap outside of Jerusalem where rubbish burnt perpetually and the worm never died. By many traditions, Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom, was a particularly worthy site for a trash heap as it once served as a place of child sacrifice for Canaanite cultures—the places that the Hebrew Bible speaks of where children “pass through the fire.”

It is, as some scholars have suggested, entirely possible that when Jesus spoke of Hell, he used this physical place as a metaphor for everlasting torment. It seems equally possible that Jesus meant it as a literal place of destruction, abandonment, and annihilation pointed toward his political and religious nemeses the Pharisees.

Recently a friend of mine who lives in Uganda posted this video. It tells the story of the people living in the Masese Slum and the recent dumping of hot boiler ash from a local industry there. The dumping ground is along a major trail that women and children walk frequently and though the ash occasionally smolders, few realize the temperature of the soil until they have already stepped into it. In the last few weeks, dozens of people have been treated for severe burns and a child lost their life to the fire after being unable to safely escape the trash-heap.

It's quite hard for me to conceptualize traditional interpretations of hell—but I am quite sure that this would be a decent equivalent. The tragedy of a child burning to death seems somehow worse than any torment Hieronymus Bosch could have ever painted. The issue currently being debated in the blogosphere is whether or nor an eternal heaven and hell exist. What is viscerally real is that in our very midst—in the wake of tsunamis and earthquakes, meltdowns and trash-heaps, we've got a whole lot of hell on our hands already. When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, it often sounded like the in-breaking of a whole new world--”heaven come to earth” as so many have poets and songwriters have said. Could it be that we hold the potential of heaven within ourselves—and that through our efforts, we might charge in, and make a heaven of hell? Is it possible to pray, to campaign, to fight for those who walk through hell simply because of their social location? Is it possible for the love of God to so transform a heart that it can ransom that which it once capriciously exploited? And perhaps more than all of that—beyond the words and debates of a million well-intentioned people—could the in-breaking of God be happening and we missed the chance to help put out the fire?

on two cinematic parables (with a shared theme)

I’ve never been a true critic. I tend to see things in broad strokes and themes—the kind of ideas and themes that are writ so large on screen that they hit you over the head with a two by four. Unfortunately, that means that often whatever idea has been rattling in my head most recently I tend to read into a film, even if it’s a minor thing (or perhaps not even there at all.)

Perhaps this is why after seeing “The Social Network” for the first time I couldn’t get “The King’s Speech" out of my head. Full disclaimer: I loved “The King’s Speech”. It’s the best film I’ve seen this year, or for the last 10 years for that matter. I hope it wins everything, but I particularly hope Colin Firth wins the Oscar for best actor. It’s portrayal of genuine friendship between two adult men (however embellished or apocryphal it may be) had a profound effect on me that I still am hard-pressed to fully articulate. Which brings me to “The Social Network”.

Loosely, (and without spoiling it for all you other procrastinating movie fans) “The Social Network” is about facebook—but by the end of the film you rather forget that. Moreover it’s about two friends—or at least two people who were, at one point friends—and how envy grows like leaven, eventually poisoning what once was something of great value. By contrast, “The King’s Speech” is very nearly completely the opposite.

Two men, also at opposite ends of the social spectrum, with every reason to maintain class and distinction and not cross the proprietary nature of British society, are drawn together by necessity. The friendship that grows out of it is appropriate—not overly sentimental but, at least in my opinion, entirely believable. Simply put, I left that movie wanting to be a better friend, and entirely grateful for the friendships I had and, I might add, in some form of grief for others I’d mistreated. The parable found its mark with me and the message was clear.

“The Social Network” ends with a main character still trying to make meaningful connections and relationships. Where “The Kings Speech” is comedy—Twelfth Night or Much Ado About Nothing—“The Social Network” is simultaneously Hamlet and Macbeth—a tragedy of the worst kind that illustrates how the desire to connect millions of people was born out of one’s own inability to do so. By the end I felt like I had seen another parable, but from the shadow side. I felt about it as I can only imagine the Baby Boomers felt the first time they saw Wall Street. It points out a shallowness in our culture—a dark place that seems to reward avarice and one’s ability to rid one’s self of any kind of conscience or moral ethic. The weathered optimism of “The King’s Speech” is nowhere to be found here. The picture is bleak and the film leaves off with only the hope of a meaningful connection for the profoundly disconnected.

After both films, I couldn’t help but feel as though each spoke to an oft-neglected aspect of our shared human experience. The friendships we share are often so visceral that we struggle to articulate them intelligibly. There is a tendency in the day-to-day madness of life to see connections and relationships as part of the infra-structure of our existence—as sure and steady as the ground we trod. This is almost always the case until we meet conflict or brokenness—until we encounter something that threatens that mystical, intangible bond of friendship. At that point we run headlong into our own pride and ambition, failings and triumphs, trying desperately to restore something we had for so long considered sure.

The lesson I’ve learned from these two mirror-themed films is that it is in the birth of new friendship and in the potential death of one that we are forced to consider the profound gift of knowing that we are not alone—that we may be both loved and loving. In the “in-between times” I’m far more likely to take these relationships for granted—to see them as something less than the divine gift of presence that they are. And I am thankful for parables great and small that remind me of the goodness of God that has been so often mediated to me through a friend.

on my long, twisted baptist history

on mary and music

Hush Missus Teenage Mary by Ken Medema

(download)

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03 Hush Missus Teenage Mary.mp3 (5.45 MB)

Mary Sleeping, Softly Lies by Towne View Choir

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14 Mary Sleeping, Softly Lies.mp3 (3.99 MB)

on (not) praying part II: a grief observed

"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand."--C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed