Art for Christ's sake

I'm all too guilty of being able to spot problems without really having the solution. Or of only having an answer/ solution in the broadest, most general way.

So, despite having thought about the big picture of 'Christ and Culture' at various points throughout the last year, I must confess to being still largely clueless about how 'transforming culture' works out in practice. Yes, Jesus is Lord of all areas of life, including painting, sculpting and window-cleaning. But what does it actually mean to sculpt, paint, clean windows, in a 'Jesus is Lord' way? What is involved in a truly Christian approach to the arts, or to science, or to greengrocery?

With this in mind, Ally Gordon's blog looks interesting. Ally works for UCCF with arts students in the UK. He wants Christian artistry to go beyond simply copying its non-christian counterpart, and "to make culture, pioneer it and define it." I don't really know whether we agree on the relationship between Christ and culture (though I suspect quite strongly that we agree on a lot). But I do know I've been really enjoying his posts so far and am looking forward to what more I can learn.

The LORD your God is the only Lord...

The Vatican has added another seven to the 'old school' seven deadly sins. They are:

Environmental pollution

Genetic manipulation

Accumulating excessive wealth

Inflicting poverty

Drug trafficking and consumption

Morally debatable experiments

Violation of fundamental rights of human nature

The reason? It seems like the old sins just aren't driving people to the confession box enough. [After all, who really gets upset these days by a bit of lust, greed, or sloth?]

Apart from questioning the presumption to decide which sins are death-inducing, cynics might also worry that the Apostolic Penitentiary (who, according to the BBC are "in charge of fixing the punishments and indulgences handed down to sinners") is motivated by self-interest in trying to stem the tide of ever-diminishing visits to confession.

Meanwhile Libby Purves has some thoughtful things to say about the way our tax and benefit system treats the poor as if they are incapable of looking after their own money. She says "the message [repeatedly given in successive government budgets] is that if you are poor, you must be kept in the status of client and petitioner..." handing wads of your hard earned money over to the government in order to "immediately beg nanny government to give them back." She sums up:

"If you are poor, the Government's message is simple: “You are not in charge of your life and prosperity. We are. Trust us. Keep on voting for us or you're stuffed.”"

All this in the same week that someone suggests that school-leavers should be encouraged to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country. What I found very telling was how Lord Goldsmith understood the education system: "The citizenship ceremonies, which are just one of the many things I have suggested, are a way of marking that passage of being a student of citizenship to a citizen in practice." It might surprise many of us Christians to discover that the education system is not, after all, about being taught 1+1 and your p's and q's in a value-neutral environment (as if one actually exists), but about being given "a sense of shared belonging, a sense that you are part of a community with a common venture, to integrate better newcomers to our society and be clearer about what the rights and responsibilities are."

Meanwhile, back in reality, there is still only one God whose righteous law defines what is sin and determines the punishment, only one Lord to whom we owe absolute allegiance, and only one Saviour in whom we trust for forgiveness, prosperity, and identity.

Towards the redemption of television

Still not sure I know the answer to the question I posed in the previous post. But the points below seem like good things to be getting on with, some more long term than others, some more specific than others.

These points are part-stolen, part-adapted from Schultze's "Redeeming Television."

1. Christians should be discriminating viewers of TV.
Rather than start by blaming the television industry or some other institution, Schultze suggests getting our own TV habits in order first. Christians must be discerning, and Christian parents in particular must teach and train their families to make careful, considered viewing choices. Discernment means finding the good to enjoy. Discernment means balancing television appropriately with all the priorities and tasks we have in life.

2. Christians should push for televisual literacy in education.
The medium we choose shapes the message. Communication methods encourage certain patterns of thought, certain ways of learning, certain kinds of worldview. Television is biased in a certain way, just as print is. Television, as it currently stands, tends towards fragmentation/ incoherence, the valuing of entertainment as the way to communicate anything, and a bunch of other things. People more aware of these tendencies are in a better position to interpret these inherent (whether intended or accidental) messages.

3. Christians should be active in TV protest.
Whether writing in to the BBC, or filling in the market researcher’s form, or signing the appropriate petition, Christians should make known their views on television as it currently stands. These views, of course, should come from analysis of television from the perspective of a biblical worldview. It might be that some Christians should voice their ‘protest’ by exercising their consumer choice in not buying a TV license.

4. Christians should work to redeem television’s institutions.
TV belongs to God. The technology, but also the institutions, the personnel, the programmes. Christians who are talented and thus inclined should enter the industry and seek to change priorities, make Christ’s values known, bring others to Christ, and live out their Christian faith within the TV world. Living with integrity within any sphere dominated by more secular (or just confused in a sort of postmodern way) agendas will be extremely difficult, and Christians must be prepared to lose their jobs for the sake of doing so. But it might also turn out that some are able to change some things for the good. Christians in the media world need help, encouragement, challenge, not suspicion from well-meaning Pastors.

5. Christians should work to provide alternatives to secular television.
One of the problems with Christian television is that it is often an inferior version of the secular. Just like a lot of Christian pop music. Rather, Christian television should pursue aesthetic and artistic excellency. Christian TV programmes should be good, not cringeworthy. Christian TV should be innovative, creative, not merely a low budget version of Trisha with a sheen of ‘God-talk’. This is probably where we’re ‘furthest back.’ So much work needs to be done in the area of a Christian perspective on beauty/ aesthetics/ art/ story-telling before Christian cultural produce can be more like what it should be.

6. Christians should prioritise evangelism and holistic discipleship.
Ultimately, bringing TV to glorify God comes from the transformation of people into God-glorifiers in all areas of their lives. Preaching Christ (the whole Christ that is) will always be the first stone in the jar.

Redeeming Television?

“Redemptive cultural discourse seeks to redeem culture from a fallen world, to rehabilitate, to reconfigure, and to reorient culture to the glory and service of God, that is, to cause culture to affirm God as the awesome and beautiful Lord of creation.” (Here for full article)

Here's probably the biggest question I have coming away from my own seminar on television. What does the above look like in the case of television?

Some people might think television is simply irredeemable (others might get itchy at the use of the language of redemption for anything other than people, but I might blog on that another day).

And for sure, human technology is not neutral, nothing is.

And certainly there's a whole load of godless bilge out there on the box.

But then they're not necessarily evil in and of themselves either. Rather, they're biased (thanks to Doug Wilson, via David Batchelor for this) - prone to certain specific temptations and tendencies. Like money.

And that doesn't mean TV is irredeemable.

Television

Television has come in for a lot of bad press. It is the drug of the nation, the tool for numbing us into mindless obedience to the status quo in the hands of the establishment. It causes obesity, family breakdown and postmodernism.

Or, on the other hand, it is the mechanism through which God speaks to us in the questions, struggles, doubts, hopes, dreams, confessions of the nation. It is the 'common grace donkey' through which we hear God's prophetic voice calling us into dealings with him.

These, and related matters, were discussed in a seminar I had to lead this past Wednesday on media. I chose to focus on television because it is really really popular, and really really easy to have a go at. I wanted to see what, positively and negatively, a Christian worldview could make of television. In the end I got far more questions than answers. Matters for further though/ action/ study include:

• What is the proper relationship between words and images? I suspect the answer starts to be answered once we engage with the specifics of the relationship between God's general revelation and his special revelation, between the two halves of Psalm 19.

• Relatedly, since God gave us a book not a video, are text-based cultures the bees knees? Are they better than image-based ones? Better than oral cultures? Are they the only sort of culture the gospel produces?

• Relatedly again, should we be seeking to go backwards (to text) or forwards (from image). What would moving on from the negatives of a very visual culture mean?
• How do we evangelise and disciple post-literates and illiterates? And people with very different learning styles?

• How do we help people engage critically and christianly with television? How do we help them 'tame' it and use it with moderation?

• How do we disciple those Christians already working within the media world and encourage them to have a transformative, provocative, positive Christian presence and witness in that sphere?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address please.

Christianophobia in Public Life (updated)

Interesting BBC article here about a debate being held in Westminster today.

What's more, here is a BBC report on some of what was said at the debate and the website of the MP who called for it.

Through New Eyes 4

James B Jordan is a transformationist. He thinks culture matters, and that Christians should develop Christian culture.

One of the arguments against Christian involvement in transforming culture is that cultural produce doesn't last, so is only good in the sense that it can help us to learn how to be more godly, or in as much as it might be useful somehow for evangelism. Jordan's view is different.

This second aspect also gives perspective to the transitory nature of human works. The great paintings of the Reformation era are darkening and cracking with age. Many have been destroyed in wars. Of Bach’s five great Passions, only two are extant. All our works are like castles of sand. Thus, it is sometimes argued that human work in the creation has meaning only in that it trains men: Adam himself is progressively transformed and glorified through the six-fold action. While this touches an important truth, the problem is with the word “only.” By itself, the notion that human labor exists only to train men reduces the value of work only to the subjective dimension. The objective foundation needed is the confession that human labor, if it is ultimately worthwhile, progressively reveals and glorifies God. Even if the artifact does not itself endure, like the crude sketches of a child, the revelation of God and glorification of the creation is cumulative (p124).

Our task is to 'do' the being human/ Genesis 1-2 thing called 'culture' in such a way that God's glory is reflected back to him. That can never be a worthless activity, or useful only in the sense that it morally has an impact on me.

Many years from now... Abortion and the long term perspective.

Charles Moore writes in the Telegraph on the occasion of 40 years since the abortion act was passed.

"I found myself wondering how abortion will be viewed by museum curators, teachers, historians and moralists 200 years from now."

"We reserve particular scorn for those who sought to justify slavery on moral grounds. We look at the moral blindness of the past, and tut-tut, rather complacently."

"It is not hard to imagine how a future Museum of London exhibition about abortion could go. It could buy up a 20th-century hospital building as its space, and take visitors round, showing them how, in one ward, staff were trying to save the lives of premature babies while, in the next, they were killing them."

He then warns about the danger of senationalising the past, and stresses the need to help mothers with unwanted children rather than jump to preachy condemnation. After that he continues

"But the reason I throw this argument into the future is that, with the passage of time, abortion, especially late abortion, is slowly coming to be seen as a "solution" dating from an era that is passing. It will therefore be discredited."

"If you want to do people wrong, you must first undermine the idea that they are people... One of the good moral trends of our time has been to reject this way of looking at things. Instead, we insist, in the great debate about what it means to be human, that weakness is not a disqualification, but, by a famous Christian paradox, a strength. Abortion runs against this trend, and so civilisation will eventually reject it, as once it rejected slavery."

I for one hope that future generations will look back at this period of our history in disbelief at the unwanted, defenceless, aborted unborn. And I hope that a significant part of the reason is that Christians have left the ghetto and reclaimed the public square for the Lord Jesus Christ, seeking bring his just, loving, serving, compassionate leadership to our society. (Here for more)

Gospel Optimism 5: Syncretism and Sectarianism

I am currently enjoying reading Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle - a book about trying to engage with culture without losing the (gospel) plot. Driscoll's big passion for the world and for the Lord Jesus is on every page. Moreover, his chapter on the twin pitfalls of syncretism (when the Church becomes too much like the world) and sectarianism (when the Church hides away from the world) reveals strong convictions about the scope of the gospel's power.

The problem with both syncretism and sectarianism is that they deny the clear teaching of the Scriptures that the power of God unleashed through the gospel of Jesus Christ can transform anyone. Sectarians do not live by the necessary faith in the gospel and therefore believe that evil hearts and sinful actions and worldly social structures are more powerful than God, unable to be redeemed, and therefore are a waste of our energies because they are destined to be meat on God's grill anyway, so why bother? Likewise, syncretists do not live by the necessary faith in the gospel and therefore believe that the hearts of people aren't that bad, their actions aren't that sinful, and since people are doing the best they can, we can't expect any sort of radical transformation, and so we should simply bless them with a sentimental love.

What he says at the end of the chapter is pure gospel optimism rooted in a reformed model of culture.

Here's what I'd like you to remember from this chapter: reformission is not about abstention; it is about redemption. We must throw ourselves into the culture so that all that God made good is taken back and used in a way that glorifies him. Our goal is not to avoid drinking, singing, working, playing, eating, love-making, and the like. Instead, our goal must be to redeem those things through the power of the gospel so that they are used rightly according to Scripture, bringing God glory and his people a satisfied joy.

[Previous posts on Gospel Optimism HERE]

Anyone any good at drawing stick men?

I love the 2 ways to live gospel outline for so many reasons. It roots sin in creation, it (sort of) attempts to incorporate elements systematic and redemptive-historical theology, and yet...

Having read (and chatted about) this post I've been reminded of something I have been thinking about for a while now on and off.

I think we need another (maybe more than one more) gospel outline in our armoury for use in evangelism and in tracts etc. One that (for example)

a. Does not assume pagans that someone's initial interest in the gospel stems from a feeling that he/she 'needs to be right with God'.

b. But perhaps (for e.g.) starts from the big concerns and worries and hopes and dreams people do have (the environment, relationships, hedonism, and so on) and gets to the big themes of creation-sin-wrath-cross/resurrection etc. from there.

c. Even more than 2ways2live (which is probably the best on the market for this type of thing) marries biblical with systematic theology (story and proposition).

d. Incorporates the communal/corporate aspects of the gospel (and of what the gospel creates i.e. Church) with the appropriate challenge to the individual.

I imagine getting c. right is a key to the others.

After all the gospel is rich and the links between it and people's needs, concerns, questions, failings, fears, dreams etc. are multiple. A big understanding of the gospel and its application more than appropriately equips us for engaging with postmoderns/goths/new-agers/Hindus/political extremists/hedonists/every other sub-group and 'tribe' in out culture.

So, if anyone wants to help me devise one (and especially if you are good at drawing)...

The Gospel according to the UN

One of the places we visited in the US was the UN building. Of the touristy stuff we did it was probably the most interesting part of the trip. As a Christian it was especially interesting for a number of reasons.

In particular two murals struck me as interesting, almost startling.

The first one (outside the Security Council Chamber) pictures the story of human history from early 20th century confusion, death, plague in a war-torn fractured world followed by something of a recreation of humanity through the UN (which emerges from the chaos of the 'old' world) into a world of peace etc.

The second one (inside the Security Council Chamber) tells a similar story, similar imagery of re-birth and unification is used, though this time the UN is pictured as a pheonix rising from the ashes and death of the old world order.

So...

• Both of these murals picture 'gospels' - they tell the story of human history as a story of re-birth, decreation, new creation, death-resurrection of humanity/the world.
• In both of these 'gospels' the Messianic saviour/redeemer/peacemaker/re-creator of the world is the UN.
• Both of these murals display therefore a false hope, false gospel, false saviour, all based on secular humanism and religious pluralism (the UN was big on that too - another chamber sported another mural with the slogan 'do unto others...' etc. We were told that the mural was intended to represent the core message of all religions. Elsewhere we were treated to a view of some construction containing Buddha's remains, added in deference to the unique contribution Buddhism has made to the world).
• Even though it might do some good, the UN, when it sees itself in the same vein as in these murals, is an idol, an antichrist even, and therefore destined to failure.
  
• Only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ really offers what the UN seeks to achieve. This obviously is best seen if we have a creation-affirming understanding of the gospel that sees Christ's Lordship as extending to political/economic & social structures, as a Lordship that re-creates and reconciles creation as well as individuals, as a Lordship that directly rivals secular humanism's claim to provide the path to true human life and experience in God's world. A society/city/world-building gospel (which fitted really well with what we'd been reading/seeing/hearing from the Redeemer Presbyterian people).
  

'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you'

'May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. May desert tribes bow before him and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastland render him tribute...May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed'

'Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat'

Statistics

This is the report based on a survey that I took part in (at least I think I remembered to fill it in and send it off) and it's about men and full-time pastoral ministry in the UK. There are other related items on this website.

And while we're on the subject of statistics and issues of growth and decline in the UK Church, 'Christian Research' have some excellent information on their t'internet site, including some details from the 2005 English Church survey.

To me, the most alarming statistic from the 2005 survey is that now only 6.3% of the population attends Church (just over 3 million people). There is some good news as well in the report (decline is slowing down, about a third of churches are now growing) but 6.3% is very low indeed. Especially when you consider that the 6.3% is not made up entirely of gospel people or gospel churches.

All of which is a good reminder of why someone would go to bible college in the first place. By the grace of God we'll see these statistics turn around to the glory of God in Christ.

CUs in the Guardian

THIS article from the Guardian the other day is worth a read. It's by Richard Cunningham (Mr UCCF) and comments on the recent problems some CUs have been experiencing (see other posts with this label for more information).

Bob Dylan's Modern Times

As well as being a great listen, the lyrics for Bob Dylan's new album 'Modern Times' are riddled with biblical allusions/imagery and religious themes in a broadly Judaeo-Christian mold. Here's some examples of the most striking ones (full lyrics can be found here).

Song: Spirit on the water

Spirit on the water
Darkness on the face of the deep
I keep thinking about you baby I can't hardly sleep

I wanna be with you in paradise
And it seems so unfair
I can't go to paradise no more
I killed a man back there

Song: Nettie Moore

I'm the oldest son of a crazy man,
I'm in a cowboy band
Got a pile of sins to pay for and I ain't got time to hide

Well, the world of research has gone berserk

Too much paperwork

Albert's in the graveyard, Frankie's raising hell

I'm beginning to believe what the scriptures tell

Today I'll stand in faith and raise

The voice of praise

The sun is strong, I'm standing in the light

I wish to God that it were night

Song: Thunder on the Mountain

Thunder on the mountain, and there's fires on the moon
A ruckus in the alley and the sun will be here soon
Today's the day, gonna grab my trombone and blow
Well, there's hot stuff here and it's everywhere I go

Thunder on the mountain rolling to the ground
Gonna get up in the morning walk the hard road down
Some sweet day I'll stand beside my king
I wouldn't betray your love or any other thing

Song: When the Deal goes Down

Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air

Song: Beyond the Horizon

It's dark and it's dreary
I've been pleading in vain
I'm wounded, I'm weary
My repentance is plain

Song: The Levee's Gonna Break

I can't stop here I ain't ready to unload
I can't stop here I ain't ready to unload
Riches and salvation can be waiting behind the next bend in the road

Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress
Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress
Few more years of hard work, then there'll be a 1,000 years of happiness

Song: Ain't Talkin'

They say prayer has the power to heal,
So pray for me, mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I am a-tryin' to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well

I practice a faith that's been long abandoned
Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road

As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, a hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma'am, I beg your pardon
There's no one here, the gardener is gone

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Up the road, around the bend.
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
In the last outback at the world's end.

Christian Unions in the press and in the dock

Three articles in the Times about what's been going on with various Christian Unions around the country.

This one and also this one are about potential legal action from various CUs against their unions.

This one is a comment on religious extremism and the place of religion in public life by Ruth Gledhill.

Three (not at all profound) thoughts off the back of those articles.

1. All of which seems to highlight the sort of times we are living in and the kinds of issues we are going to have to speak about carefully and clearly, lovingly and boldly. And be prepared to go to prison for.

2. Which in turn could be a good thing if it means Ruth Gledhill is correct and we are seeing an end to the days when religion could be put safely away in its box. I suspect this is probably not the case but it could be that we are seeing the start of such a change. And surely it would be better to be marginalised and despised and imprisoned for Christ than blandly ignored. Opposition has to be better than apathy. And a little more 'extremism' (both christian and secular) could be a good things if it means we are rescued from what Ruth Gledhill calls "woolly Anglican liberalism" and death-by-the-Archbishop's-nuances.

3. Most importantly, we should pray pray pray for our brothers and sisters in CUs and in UCCF.

The Puritans and the Veil Issue

THIS is sort of interesting, making a connection I'd not really thought of. Of course, it's also half-correct 'pop history' which perhaps too easily reads modern categories of moderacy and radicalism back into events of the past. And the Puritans don't come out of it that well either.

The Pure Course under Fire

This is worth a look and a pray. Especially when we remember that often today's Student Union reps/Societies leaders are tomorrow's MPs.

Contextualisation

Today I came across a great quote from Tim Keller about contextualisation in Christian mission (click here for the Source);

'Contextualisation is the giving of God's answers (which they may not want) to the questions they're asking, and in forms they can understand'

It seems obvious when you think about it.

Meaning of Meme

Following on from the previous post, I have discovered what Meme means, thanks to
dictionary.com, which tells me that

Meme = 'A cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes'

It was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 from the greek /mimeisthai/ which means 'to imitate/copy'.

Presumably then, your worldview or culture is your 'memetic makeup'?

Mars Hill Church

Following on from the previous post, this church looks interesting. Mars Hill Church Seattle is pastored by Mark Driscoll, and defines itself as in some ways an emerging church whilsts wanting to be distanced from the theological liberalism elsewhere in the movement (Mark seems to be basically Reformed Evangelical in his thinking as far as I can tell, with some Charismatic stuff thrown in for good measure). Apparently Don Carson recommended two books by Mark at a recent conference as combining good theology and practice with respect to the whole Emerging Church issue.