“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.

This is the most rough draft-ish of any of the sections I’ve posted so far but it’s complete enough that I’ll post it for now. If nothing else it at least proves I’m continuing to work on my thesis! I’ve got two sections which are currently partly written and a conclusion to polish and then I’ll be done with the heart of my thesis, so the end is definitely in sight! Very exciting times indeed! Anyway, on to the paper…

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In Luke 4 Jesus stands up in the temple in Nazareth and reads from a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (vs 18-19). With this proclamation of justice, the Son of God announces the start and purpose of his mission. Jesus stands as the ultimate proof of God’s love for creation and desire for restored relationships. Jesus’ ministry was at its heart about reconciliation, restoration and relationship. Time and again in both parables and actions Jesus redefines our understanding of justice and wholeness. Healing was not simply an act of physical restoration. Often emotional, spiritual and social restoration takes place at the same time; the woman at the well, the many lepers and physically disabled people he heals, and the parable of the good Samaritan are all examples.

One of the most profound examples of this redefinition of justice in the New Testament is the parable of the Prodigal Son. It stands out almost as if it is God’s love letter to humanity. In the story, the rich man’s son rejects his father and what he sees as a boring and sheltered life on the family farm so he can chase after a life of wealth and excess. After squandering his inheritance, the son shamefully and humbly crawls back to the father. Instead of being chastised and turned away for his foolishness, he is welcomed with open arms and rejoicing by his father. But there is an older brother who wants to see “justice” done. He wants his younger brother to face the consequences of his actions, complaining that his father is rewarding the young man’s foolishness. But the father redefines our understanding of justice. We often like to think of ourselves as the young, repentant son being welcomed back with open arms. But as often as not, we act more like the older son, proud of our obedience and loyalty to our father and bitter about the blessings he freely gives. There is a part of us that wants the story to end with the father relegating his foolish son to the role of field hand. We could then point to the story as a cautionary tale and praise the righteousness of obedience. But this is not the justice God wants for us. Justice is not about punishment or restitution. Justice is the restored relationship between father and son, between God the Father and His child creation. There is justice in God’s grace.

But if all the parables and actions of Jesus during his ministry serve as examples of what justice is like, his death on the cross was a radical statement of how grace restores righteousness. Christ was already modeling the new kingdom and covenant by forgiving sins and healing the sick on a case-by-case basis. The new kingdom would not fully be brought into reality however until a final sacrifice was made to satisfy God’s righteousness, something a mere human could never accomplish. Only the perfect Son of God could make that sacrifice. Jesus taking on the sin of the world and dying on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice is what finally allowed a broken world to freely receive the grace of God. The work of building the new kingdom that Jesus began in the synagogue in Luke 4 could now spread out into the world.

When Jesus ascends after his resurrection and leaves the disciples with the Great Commission, he charges them to carry on his message of restoration and hope. We see right away in the early chapters of Acts that one of the first concerns of the early church was care for the widows and other needy members of the community. The church looked far more like a charity organization working among the poor, the sick and the oppressed than an institution of great social and political influence. It was only after legalization under Constantine when Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire that the church began to move from solidarity with the poor to wrapping itself with the vestiges of nobility and taking comfort in the halls of power.

The Kingdom-oriented life Jesus modeled redefined justice not as retribution as it had been under the old covenant, but now as restoration under the new covenant. Andy Couch writes of this new vision, “The kingdom of God would touch every sphere and every scale of culture. It would reshape marriage and mealtimes, resistance to the Roman occupiers and prayer in the temple, the social standing of prostitutes and the piety of Pharisees, the meaning of cleanliness and the interpretation of illness, integrity in business and honesty in prayer” (Crouch, 2008). Justice in the Kingdom of God is people living in right relationship with each other and with God. In the light of this justice-centered kingdom we as artists create art for our community, calling people into the narrative of relationship, restoration and justice.

Lest anyone get the impression I have been slacking off and not working on my thesis, here is another big chunk of it. This is the first half – two thirds of the section on the connection between faith and justice. As always, thoughts and comments are welcome!

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The central narrative of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the relationship between God and His creation. In the Garden, God and humanity lived in perfect communion with each other. Life as it was meant to be. However, in the Fall the relationship was severed. God desires a relationship with his creation and is moving through time to the eventual restoration of that relationship in the completion of His Kingdom. The nature of the Kingdom of God is justice—the restoration of relationships; between people and God and between people and each other.

The term “social justice” itself has come to take on many different meanings. Tragically these are often highly politicized. Even devoid of its “social” qualifier, justice is still a term up for interpretation. Is justice punishment for crimes, or restoration for the community? But referring to some justice as social and inferring that other justice is not is a misnomer. Justice is inherently social. Whether referring to re-distribution of wealth, free health care and high taxes, or to tough immigration law, retribution for criminal activity and free enterprise, all justice is social. Where we often get caught up is in the argument behind what kind of justice is good versus what is bad. This argument often misses the point. The idea of justice as a political or economic concept capable of being enacted into law is known as “right order” and is not what God calls us to as Christians, nor is it what he called the Israelites to either. God’s justice, even in the Old Testament is not about rule following. It is not about having the right laws, but rather living in right relationship with God and creation.

The idea behind the “right order” society is that by finding the proper way of doing government, of doing society, and then codifying it in our laws we will achieve the ideal utopian society. When you see or hear politicians using religious language to argue for or against a new law, often they are arguing for a right order. Unfortunately this has lead to a reality in which religion, politics and social will are often at odds. The irony of this is God gave us a model for what a rightly ordered society looks like. Ancient Israel after being lead up out of slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land was to live as a people set apart to be an example to the rest of the world of an entire nation living in relationship with God. God was to be the King over Israel and would protect them and provide for them in return for their devotion. God gave the Ten Commandments and the Deuteronomic code as instructions for how to live in a just society and be that example He called them to be. Deuteronomy 4:5-7 reads,

“See, I [Moses] have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. ⁶ Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ ⁷ What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?”

The problem with this model is our efforts to enforce it, that is not really the point of the rules. It is not the law itself which prospers Israel, it is the relationship with God adherence to the law allows which is what allows God to prosper and protect Israel. As long as this relationship was in right order, as long as Israel worshiped God alone and followed the law, prosperity flowed freely from Heaven. But when Israel turned away from God and broke the law, the relationship was severed and God removed his prosperity and protection until Israel turned back to Him. Andy Crouch says, “Just as Babel was the cultural embodiment of independence from God, so Israel will be the embodiment of dependence on God. … In the midst of the nations, Israel will be a sign that it is possible to be a nation whose key characteristic is the trust in the world’s invisible Maker—to use the biblical word, a culture defined by faith” (Crouch, 2008).

The book of Judges records the back and forth of Israel from adherence to the law, worship of God alone and their prosperity as a result, to Israel turning from God to worship idols and their suffering as a result. Finally, the people of Israel grew tired of this cycle and decided they had a solution. They looked around at other nations and petitioned God for a king. God desired Israel to be an example of a people in relationship with their one true King. But after prosperity under Samuel, they saw the wickedness and injustice of his sons and decided they had enough. Instead of trusting in their relationship with God, they looked at the earthly power and spoils of the human kings of their enemies and chose that path instead. And so in choosing Saul as king they began a path away from relationship and toward destruction.

In 1 Samuel 8:10-17 God says what the cost of having a King will be for the people of Israel. The king will demand the best of their crops, will conscript their sons into his army and their daughters into his courts, distribute the wealth of the nation as he sees fit and claim 10 percent of all they own as his. And then God says in verse 18 of the suffering this will cause for the people, “When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.” God grants them their king, but no longer will he send judges to rescue them and restore justice when they cry out. The people have rejected their King and as a result God tells them of the consequences.

As long as the king of Israel and the people followed the law, God continued to prosper them. However as time passed it became more and more difficult for the people and their king to follow God’s commandments. Kings changed, the nation was split in two, Israel was lead away in captivity, returned to the Promised Land, then again lead away only to return once more. Yet even at this point, God continued to champion Israel. As long as they were living according to the law he protected them. God never stopped desiring a relationship with his chosen people. In fact, God would go so far as to completely scrap the old covenant and in the ultimate act of justice sacrifice His Son so the entirety of creation might be restored to relationship with Him.

I’ve sometimes wondered if I have a slightly unhealthy preoccupation with time. I know I’m still young, and I know people are living older and older, but I sometimes can’t escape the feeling that I need to make sure my life is moving in the direction of the work I believe God has called me to. Sometimes that isn’t entirely clear to me–grad school at Northwest was obvious, what I’ll be doing a year from now is still a little foggy–but I have a hard time ‘being still’ for long periods of time. Though I can see now the things God wanted to teach me and show me while I was in California, while I was there was a very frustrating time to me. I knew I didn’t want to spend my life working in Christian camping but I knew that is where God had called me to at that time.

I guess the point of all this is I want to ask if we would live our lives differently if we started thinking now about our legacy, rather than waiting until we’ve spent a career doing whatever it is we do? Part of this is just me thinking out loud. I don’t think we should necessarily obsess about what people will say at our funeral when we’re in our 20s, 30s, 40s, even 50s–we all easily have at least 30-40 years before that point. I guess part of my struggle is against culture that promotes legacy in terms of material goods; climb the ladder, buy the homes, the cars, be remembered for your wealth. I feel like our world needs a kind of Ebeneezer Scrooge moment where the ghosts of our past rattle their chains and remind us of the legacy of empire we have built. I think if we live our lives in a way that strives always to build a world in the image of the Kingdom of God, rather than being preoccupied with our legacy and righting past wrongs at the end of our lives, we can look forward instead to the time when we hear “well done my good and faithful servant.”

Driving around the other day I was following a car with a license plate frame that read, ‘If you’re living like there’s no God, you’d better be right.’ I had two reactions to that. My first, sarcastic reaction was wondering if anyone seriously thinks that license plate frame has ever caused a non-Christian driver to pull into the first church they see and repent. I mean, really. What that frame is really saying is, ‘I think you’re an idiot–you just haven’t realized it yet–but since I’m so busy going somewhere in my car, I don’t have the time to build a relationship with you and tell you this in person so you’ll just have to settle for this cheap piece of plastic.’ Effective ministry, right?

My second reaction was disappointment. Much for the same reason, it saddens me that Christians feel like we have to define the world in terms of us and them, secular and sacred. I was in a class once at Vintage Faith where the teacher pointed out that there is no such thing as ‘secular.’ The whole idea of ‘secular’ is that it is something outside of God’s creation. Certainly there are evil and bad things in the world that God did not create Himself, but God didn’t create Christians and non-Christians. God created all people and He loves all people. If you’re going to have a license plate frame that proclaims your belief in something why not say ‘God loves you’? Cheesy for sure, but really, who can argue with that? I mean, you’re just reminding them that the all powerful Creator of the universe knows their name and even loves them!

Walking around downtown Edmonds today I saw the above sign outside of a Christian Science church. ‘All Are Welcome.’ Not, ‘Only those who believe,’ or ‘Only those who have it all figured out,’ but ALL. Why do Christians so often make Sunday morning about being right? The right church, the right mission statement, the right pastor… We don’t need church to remind us that we’re right, we need church to remind us of the amazing grace that covers our sins. We need church to remind us of the humility of a Savior who came and took on flesh, bled, and died so that we don’t have to be perfect, so that we don’t have to have it all figured out, so that we don’t have to be ‘right’. If we were perfect and right, we wouldn’t need the Church. We wouldn’t need God. And if we don’t need God, then really what does it matter if we’re right or not?

I had the greatest church experience I’ve had in a long time this last weekend. Know where it was? It wasn’t in any cathedral, sanctuary, or chapel. Nor was it in any amphitheater, auditorium, or high school gym. No, it was sitting in the living room of my family’s cabin up on Camano Island with four good friends from school. We read a devotion, read from the Bible, shared some thoughts, prayed together, and spent some time in silence together. I can honestly say that was one of the most refreshing Sunday morning experiences I’ve had in a very long time.

It’s really kind of sad that in some ways I think we’ve let the structure and familiarity of church get in the way of actually worshiping. Don’t get me wrong, I love the music and the pastors at my ‘home’ church in Seattle, but at the same time, I certainly haven’t experienced the same closeness with God and other believers as I did this Sunday. It’s difficult though to do much different with the institution of Sunday morning church. Changing to a more organic structure will likely cost you parishioners. Lots of people who are church shopping are looking for–or at least thing they are looking for–a church with better music or a bigger youth group for their kids. I think what they are really looking for though is a real and genuine encounter with Christ. And at the risk of going out on a little bit of a limb, I don’t think they are finding it in some of the churches they visit.

I don’t ever want chasing the next God encounter to become like a junky’s search for a new fix. I think we do need to find some kind of routine that grounds our faith. But I don’t want to ever settle just because where I’m at feels good and comfortable. I want and need friends and role models in my life who will challenge me to be more. Sitting in a reclined Lazy Boy on Camano Island praying with my friends this last week made me want to be a better friend and a better follower of Jesus. Does your church make you feel that way?

Typically in my late night rantings and ravings I am wrestling with ghosts. I am struggling with theologies and philosophies, debating Kant and Plato. Struggling to make sense of inherent rights and bestowed worth, to make sense of the human condition and the problem of evil. I make no effort to disguise that I understand these things from a Christian perspective and believe that my faith informs my worldview. However, I also try to argue in a way that leaves room for debate. If you don’t believe in the same things I do, I don’t want my orthodoxy to prevent our being in dialogue and struggling together through this thing called life in community. But tonight I find myself in a difficult situation.

In recent days, Glenn Beck has drawn press for calling Americans to leave their church if their pastor makes any mention of social or economic justice. Even further he declared social justice to be a perversion of the gospel. I won’t go into the reasons why because that is a pointless debate. I will say this. I wish I had Glenn Beck’s faith. I wish I believed in the Bible and Jesus he believes in. Because that would sure be a lot easier than believing the Jesus I find in the Bible. The Jesus I know has called me to be an advocate for the poor (Matt. 25:45). The Jesus I know came to preach good news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed (Luke 4:16). The Jesus I know declares the poor are blessed and are the true inheritors of the Kingdom of God (Luke 6:20). The Jesus I know reminds me that the things of this world are fleeting and can be taken from me as easily as they came, but that I belong in body and soul to God alone and no earthly power can take me from Him (Matt. 22:21). The Jesus I know has called me, above all else, to love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, all my mind, and to love my neighbor as I love myself (Luke 10:27). The Jesus I know has given us a model for how to do these things together in community (Acts 2:42-47). And the Jesus I know makes no excuses about how hard it will be to do these things (Mark 8:34-35). The Biblical narrative of justice begins in the Prophets and continues through the Gospels and the Epistles (Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Matthew, Luke, Philemon, & James). Indeed it is difficult to read the Bible and NOT see justice as a primary concern of God. I wish I was called to an easier faith.

I wish.

I wish.

I wish.

But I am here today not because of what I wish, but because of what I believe. I am here today because I believe that at the beginning of time God spoke my name and had a plan for me. I believe that God has called me, a broken and fallen man, to work for the restoration of His Kingdom until that day when it is completed in the return of His Son Jesus Christ. I am here today to say that I cannot stop calling for justice for the poor and oppressed and I will not be silent because that is what the powers of this world want, I am not theirs to command. I am here today to call for the restoration of relationships, for compassion and mercy, for peace and justice. I am here today to be a voice for healing and comfort. I am not calling for these things now because my voice is more eloquent than others, nor am I saying that I am doing these things better than anyone else. I struggle with vanity and conceit, with lust and greed, with selfishness and cynicism. I am here today to do these things because to choose not to, to walk away from these things to which I have been called is to walk away from my God. And in a world where there is so much pain and suffering, so much hate and injustice, I cannot turn my back on the One who is working through love to restore justice.

“. . . righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who belive. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:22-24

This is my answer for why Christianity is different from other religions. It’s not about us.

Despite my best efforts, I seem to always end up awake late at night with some existential rhetorical question stuck in my head.  We had the School of Theology at Vintage earlier tonight and we were talking about what the costs of being a Christian are.  Obviously, here in America at least, modern day Christians don’t have to fear Roman soldiers breaking down their doors and feeding them to the lions, but that doesn’t mean our lives are all honey and lattes.  One of the main things we talked about is how crazy it seems when you start looking at what Jesus said it takes to get into heaven.  Time and again you read of Him giving people tasks that are impossible.  For a person to enter Heaven based on their own merits requires them to be absolutely perfect and blameless.  Since this is impossible in a post-fall world, it is by the grace of Jesus we are able to cross that hurdle and gain entry.  Now, think about this for a second, what if Jesus ministry had been based around the idea that if you just tried hard enough or had good enough intentions you could gain entry to Heaven?  Suddenly there is no need for the cross, no need for grace, no need to be compassionate and love your neighbor.  The fact perfect adhearance to the law (ie the Old Covenant) is the only way a person can gain entrance to Heaven is one of the things that makes what Jesus says make any sense at all.  Jesus doesn’t so much tell us to ignore Rabbinic law as He provides an end around for post-fall creation to be reconciled on the cross.  By becoming the final ultimate sacrifice under the old covenant, He broke down the barriers and made it possible for us to attain the impossible.

Imagine taking all of the worst things about Christianity, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, the Inquisition, Manifest Destiny, the brutal subjugation of the New World and Africa, the guilt, the poor treatment of women, the persecution of men like Galileo who dared to oppose the Church on questions of science, the legalism, the closed-mindedness, the hypocrisy, the apathy toward suffering, everything, all the worst of the worst, and then threw out everything else.  No love, no compassion for the suffering, no Mother Theresa, no C.S. Lewis, no Wounded Healer, no grace, no acceptance, no love for right and justice and peace and hope.  Just a painful trudging through the horrible bleakness of a broken world until finally one day we die and melt away into nothingness.  This is the world of the Golden Compass, this is the Christianity Philip Pullman, this is the world he believes we live in.  I don’t want this to sound like a flat out rejection and denunciation of the books (which as you might guess I just finished) but rather as a rebuttal.

First off, on a literary point, I was frustrated with Pullman because I felt like the first book, The Golden Compass, was far and away superior to the other two books in the trilogy.  I felt like he had a clear focus to the book and it was exciting and daring and then the further into The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass I got the more the books started to loose their focus and sound more and more like propaganda.  Characters randomly popped in and out of the story, what seemed like things that should be major plot points ended up being little more than a paragraph before being passed by, there was no liberating meaning to anything.  It’s as if Pullman decided to turn the phrase, “life sucks, then you die” into a trilogy.  That is one of the things I don’t understand about atheism as a whole however.  It isn’t really an alternative to Christianity.  It is Nihilism.  It is nothingness.  There is no reason to strive for justice and peace and righteousness because in the end nothing matters.  You pass from this world into nothing.  As the character of Mary struggles with in the book, it is freeing but leaves you feeling disconnected.  Even as a political theory Anarchy promotes the idea that when we strip away government and artificial command structures, man will naturally choose what is good and right.  Pullman just says live for the present because there isn’t anything else.  I refuse to accept that premise!  I reject it on the basis that I have inside me a compulsion to be compassionate and seek to help others even when I gain nothing more than the feeling that by doing right I have somehow made the world a better place.  I believe in doing right because I look at the world and see it scared and broken and longing for some meaning to the pain and suffering we see every day and I want to give it some hope.  As long as we are striving to love each other and be good and caring people I think we will make a difference and I feel it is my faith calling me to these things.

I am angry, in a way, with Pullman for not representing all of Christianity.  He only chooses to represent the corrupt and deceitful portions that seek to use guilt and sin as a club with which to batter people into submission to a worldly authority while taking some perverse pleasure in claiming they are saving souls.  I can only imagine when the final day of judgement comes all those who have done wicked deeds in the name of God will look at those they persecuted and weep when they see how their victims exalted all the more in Heaven for their suffering.  I don’t purport to be any kind of saint myself but I can only hope one day when I am judged God will take joy at the times when I strivved to make some kind of difference in the world.  That might be what angers me most with Pullman, the idea there is no ultimate justice.

Not everyone can be a C.S. Lewis or Mother Theresa or Desmond Tutu or Dietrich Bonhoeffer but I don’t think God calls us to be.  I hope though that when non-believers encounter true followers of Jesus their lives are made better for it and they can’t help but ask the reason for their hope.