I am fascinated by our need to mark “significant” anniversaries. Tomorrow marks 10 years since September 11, 2001.

I think many people will be writing about what they were doing that day, or reposting journal entries or recalling phone conversations they had. Though I had been journalling regularly for a few years at that point, I didn’t actually write anything that day in my journal.

Instead of writing a long post about politics, theology and justice, I will simply be posting a prayer tomorrow. I hope you take the time to read it and spend some time of your own in prayer.

Though the perpetrators of the attacks either died that day or have long since been punished, we still live in a fallen world. We can try to reason ourselves into believing there is a political or military course of action which can provide absolute peace, protection and freedom. But this is sadly not the case.

Our ultimate hope for a better tomorrow can only come from outside of this world.

Filed under: justice by Jonathan on Saturday, 10 September 2011
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“Without an appreciation for grace and beauty, there’s no pleasure in creating things

and no pleasure in having them!” – Calvin

No, that is not a quote from John Calvin but rather the eponymous child from Calvin and Hobbes. I want pick back up with this metaphor of languages I talked about in my last post on church and culture. As a writer, I’m intrigued by the definitions of words. I find their origins fascinating, as well as the fact a single word can have multiple, and drastically different, meanings.

Grace and Beauty, incarnate

Beauty is a term that most people have some idea of. They may disagree about specifics and why or what is worthy of being called beautiful, but for the most part they agree something like a sunset, for example, is beautiful.

Grace on the other hand is an interesting word. In the above quote, one could assume Calvin is speaking of “grace” in the sense of elegance and artistic form. A “graceful” dancer, for example. But as Christians we know there is an alternate definition that significantly changes the profundity of the statement.

Grace is the freely given, unconditional love of Christ by which our sins are forgiven. Think of how the above quote is changed if we are creating art out of a space where we are giving thanks for the Grace and Beauty of God’s love! This is a message the Church can bring to culture.

But as with any message, it must be delivered in a language that can be understood. The language used by much of the church today is not the language of people on the streets outside of the church. It’s not that the culture necessarily rejects God’s grace, they may just have not yet encountered it in a language or style they understand.

Grace and culture

I’ve talked before about my love for all things Wes Anderson. I think there is a powerful thread of grace and reconciliation that runs through his films. The reconciliation of Royal Tennenbaum to the rest of his family, between the three brothers in Darjeeling Limited, and between a father and son in The Life Aquatic. There are many for whom these films conjure stronger feelings and reactions than any theological argument, or even Bible story.

Speaking the language of culture doesn’t mean compromising the Gospel, rather it simply means leading with words and images familiar to a post-church, post-Christian world rather than assuming people understand the Four Spiritual Laws. To be honest, I hardly expect anyone to have heard of the Four Spiritual Laws let alone understand what they are. I can’t even tell you what they are without looking them up.

I do want to finish by saying though that we shouldn’t stop with simply co-opting examples and spiritual illustrations from culture, we should be creating our own as well. Excellent art from Christians grounded in the community of the church but using the language of the street is a powerful tool for changing the culture. This must be done with authenticity, but it can be done. There is a whole generation of artists already doing it.

Filed under: Art, Church by Jonathan on Friday, 5 August 2011
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I spent four days this last week at the Kindlings Fest conference up on Orcas Island. Kindlings is an organization dedicated “to rekindle the spiritual, intellectual and creative legacy of Christians in culture.”

The theme of this year’s conference was “turning mourning into dancing.” Most of the art centered around how we deal with grief and suffering while moving toward healing and rejoicing, toward dancing.

I struggled during this conference because I expected a far different experience than I had. Previously I attended Kindlings Muse events in Seattle focused on discussion of pop culture and theology. In contrast, I found the overall tenor of the conference, along with much of the art present, to be very safe, conservative and out of style.

This is not to say it was lacking in technical excellence, though. Simply, it did not resonate with me as a young creative in the church because what I saw and experienced in many ways represented the art of older generations. It spoke a language I did not understand.

Tongue-tied

I am glad we are no longer fighting about whether or not there should be drums in church. I am glad the conversation has shifted now to a discussion of style and artistic merit. A conversation not about should we use art, but how best to use art. But I fear the conversation has become a stalemate between artists who want to take more risks, try new ideas and styles, and a greater church body that has become comfortable and sees no reason to change.

We are called as Christians to engage with the world outside of the church. Unfortunately, many interpret this as the proverbial Jesus fish bumper sticker and playing Christian radio at work. Clearly there is nothing wrong with either of these things, but to think somehow they speak meaningfully to a non-churched culture? We might as well speak literal Greek!

The church and the culture no longer speak the same language. Fortunately, this coming generation of artists of faith is bilingual. They speak both the language of the church and the language of the culture. There are ways our worship in the church can be enriched and brought to new depths with this new language; not just in our musical styles or powerpoint slides, but our entire Sunday morning church experience. Poets, photographers, film makers, dancers and creatives all want to be part of the discussion now.

One of my favorite film makers is Wes Anderson. I bring Christ to the culture when I see his films with friends and talk about the brokenness of people and families, and ultimate redemption and grace. I don’t bring Christ by forcing my non-Christian friends to watch Kirk Cameron’s latest Left Behind movie.

Much of the art I engaged with at Kindlings Fest was, to me, of the Jesus fish variety. It was art, and it was fine in a technical sense, but there was little depth or relevance to the world I encounter outside the church. Had I invited a non-Christian, non-churched twentysomething to attend, I fear they would have been rather put off by the seemingly out of date styles and sounds.

Teaching the Church to speak

My struggle at this conference was not aesthetic in the sense I thought the art was “bad art”. My problem was much more with language, or more specifically the perceived lack of a language I understood. During the discussion after Septien a women mentioned the church has no language for mourning or trauma. But it does–the church just has forgotten about it or isn’t listening to it.

After my friend Katie’s fiance died, I posted a reflection and video of The Opiate Mass performing “I heard the bells on Christmas day”. I highlighted the words of the final two stanzas:

Then in despair, I bowed my head
“There is no peace on Earth”, I said
Cause hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good will to men

Then peeled the bells, more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth he sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on Earth, good will toward men

A new style breathes new life into words that have rung true across generations. No generation has a monopoly on truth, nor does any generation have a monopoly on style. We are at a time when the traditional church is confused about why young people are leaving, and young people are confused about why the church won’t change.

The Christian titans highlighted during the conference–Lewis, Bonhoeffer and Wilberforce–have powerful voices and are all cornerstones on which we should build. However, with a new generation comes new language for mourning and new language for dancing. Our language is different and often more nuanced, but the message is the same. We are finding our voice and yearn to speak!

Organizations like Kindlings (of which there are precious few!) are doing good work, but the road is long and they can’t get us there alone. The church and the culture no longer speak the same language. My prayer is for an artistic movement in the church that acknowledges the traditions of thousands of years of believers, but continually translates that liturgy into the language of the present culture.

So I leave you with a simple question: Are you bi-lingual?

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Filed under: Art, Church by Jonathan on Sunday, 31 July 2011
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I’m up on Orcas Island at an art and faith conference called Kindlings Fest. I wanted to take time to put this post up and share the talk I gave last Sunday at my Dad’s church in Edmonds. Most of this is based on portions of my thesis, but I didn’t go into any of the art stuff. Take a look and let me know what you think. This is the first time I’ve talked about anything like this so I’d love to hear your feedback! (EDIT: I should clarify, this is not just the first time I’ve given this talk, it’s the first time I’ve done any kind of public speaking outside of school. So I really would love your feedback! )

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re_defining justice

Filed under: life by Jonathan on Thursday, 28 July 2011
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Paulo Freire, in his book ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, writes:

“Yet it is–paradoxical though it may seem–precisely in the response of the oppressed to the violence of their oppressors that a gesture of love may be found. Consciously or unconsciously, the act of rebellion by the oppressed can initiate love. Whereas the violence of the oppressors prevents the oppressed from being fully human, the response of the latter to this violence is grounded in the desire to pursue the right to be human. As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized. As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors’ power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression.

It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.”

As we reflect on the birth of our own country, and watch the wave of change sweeping through the Arab world, it is worth remembering a revolution which achieves true justice not only brings an end to the current oppression, but also provides opportunities for the oppressors to be reconciled to the oppressed.

Filed under: justice by Jonathan on Tuesday, 5 July 2011
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