Easter Monday: On belonging, not knowing, and "What do we do then?"

So, I meant to post something awhile ago, since I was in the middle with this blog-alog with Andy. But then Holy Week and Easter...and also getting engaged!! So I've been a bit preoccupied. So here it is, my final response to the questions that Andy asked in this post: "What if God isn’t just that which gives us meaning or allows us to feel like we belong? What do we do then?" I thought that trying to answer the last two questions (since I took a shot at the meaning part in my last post) would be a good way to finish out a sort-of-series about not knowing. It's impossibly long and you probably won't read it all, but...here it is anyway.

So, Andy asks:

What if God isn't just that which allows us to feel like we belong?

Two thoughts on belonging.

One: as Andy said in his post, belonging is a very powerful thing. It's a wonderful word but often has dangerous consequences. Here's Andy's take on it:

"We fight wars (literal as well as theological) in order to figure out who belongs and who does not. We witness the attraction and comfort that is created by a sense of belonging, and yet we also see the trail of wreckage left behind when that same belonging is kept just out of arms reach. We can’t figure out where that desire for belonging comes from or what will finally rid us of the grip that it holds on out lives, but we know that we are terrified of what life looks like when we are alone."

Part of what Andy is getting at here, I think, is the way that we find belonging by creating an in-group, which of course requires an out-group. We figure out how we belong by excluding others. And this exclusion is often violent--emotionally, spiritually, and all too often physically. Religion is pretty adept at this, and certainly Christianity is no exception.

Interestingly, however, right at the center of Christian faith is, I would argue, a powerful rebuke of this tendency to create belonging by "othering," scapegoating, and excluding. This has been very much on my mind over this past (Holy) week.

The Catholic theologian James Allison, inspired by Rene Girard, points to Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as a refusal to go along with the exclusion mechanisms of humanity. Take John's gospel, for example. Perhaps no other biblical text has been so often used to exclude and create Christian "in-groups." One of my students shared with me recently that she had been spit on by a Christian who was holding a John 3:16 sign. And John 14:6 is always quoted with the emphasis on the to make it as exclusionary as possible: "I am the way and the truth and the life."

But John also has some insight into the insider-outsider scapegoat mechanism. In 11:50, Caiaphas the High Priest says: "You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for people than to have the whole nation destroyed." A similar story in Luke's gospel has Herod and Pilate, natural enemies, becoming friends because of Jesus' death. Jesus death becomes a uniting factor, a way to bring people together. A way to create belonging.

And then (spoiler alert) comes the resurrection. And Jesus is alive. The scapegoating mechanism falls apart. And yet, instead of taking revenge, Jesus breathes peace. Offers life. Shares forgiveness. Jesus, in other words, doesn't just reinscribe the mechanism by creating a new in-group. Jesus challenges the type of belonging that is created by exclusion. The violence of exclusion is defeated and a new type of inclusion, one that is nonviolent and open and inviting, is created. In the words of Jesus, again from John, "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold."

So followers of Jesus, then, should always be looking to the outsider, the excluded, and saying: how do we go there? Because that's where Jesus is, living and dying and being raised. In other words, God doesn't make us feel like we belong. God challenges the basis of our sense of belonging. God disturbs our belonging. God sends us out to give and receive love in places outside the comfort of belonging. And as soon as the out-group becomes the in-group, God troubles the waters of belonging and sends us out yet again from the comfort of our cliques.

--

Ok. Second thought:

The other way that I think religion often is used to create belonging is by assuring people that they are not alone in the universe. This is, I think, a good thing. It's part of the fundamentals of what I believe.

But the way this idea is constructed can sometimes be a bit of a problem. What I mean is that I often hear this idea posed in a very individualistic way that seems to set it up in opposition to human relationship. The idea, for example, that fickle friends will abandon you but God never will. Or that when we're lonely we can just turn to God and we won't be lonely anymore. My girlfr...er, holy cow, my fiance!!!!....Leigh once went to a church that changed U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" into "I finally found what I'm looking for." And she cringed, and I cringe, not only because you probably shouldn't mess with U2 lyrics, but also because the changed lyrics don't match our experience. Finding Jesus or building a relationship with God or becoming Christian didn't magically satisfy our desires or make us never lonely or sad again. In fact, there's something dissatisfying about following Jesus. A sense of always being sent somewhere uncomfortable, of being dissatisfied with the world-as-is because we've been given a sense of the possibility of a world-as-it-could-be, a realm of justice and peace and truth and love. Of abundant life for all.

So I also think that God isn't something that gives us belonging over and against the real human need for community. There are very lonely people out there and they don't just need to hear about Jesus and then everything will be fine. They need us, sitting with them and listening to them and holding open holy space for silence and loneliness. To paraphrase the letter of James, "If a brother or sister is lonely or excluded, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; know that God loves you and that you are not alone,' and yet you do not supply them with companionship and love, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."

There are people who feel Godforsaken and they don't just need to hear, "You're wrong, God's still here." They need to hear, "I've felt like that too, and so have so many of the saints and holy people throughout history." Even, as we were reminded on Good Friday, Jesus. Or maybe they don't need to hear that so much as they need to feel it by having us sit next to them and not judge them for their experiences.

We need friends. Jesus, if John 15 is to be believed, needed friends. Which, in a boring old orthodox Christian understanding, means that God needs friends. Which means that we need to be friends, to each other and to the friendless.

--

So there it is. God doesn't give us belonging. God challenges our belonging, and sends us to be with people who feel excluded or lost or lonely, and not just to offer them trite theologizing of their plight but to actually be with them and be their friends.

Which helps to answer Andy's last question. If God doesn't just give us meaning or belonging, then what do we do then? Well, we stand with those who are face-to-face with experiences of meaningless and exclusion. We stand with them, not with easy assurances of meaning (God has a plan) or belonging (God loves you but I don't have much time for you), but rather with our presence, with our friendship, with our lives. And that's really, really hard, and will take a whole lot of work over a whole lifetime, and we'll probably mess it up all the time, and, to paraphrase Rumi, we'll need more grace than we thought. But, to quote that old beast John again: "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."

--

But here is one more thing, one more answer to the question of "What do we do then?" As I said in my last post, in Andy's initial questions I hear the echo of concerns that belief in God is just a human projection. Author Rachel Held Evans, in one of my favorite pieces of writing ever, writes about doubt on Easter Sunday and poses the question this way: "What if we made this up because we’re afraid of death?"

You'll have to read her post to see how she answers the question. It's far more articulate than mine.

But her question reminds me of another favorite piece, from a wonderful book called the Sparrow. In it, an agnostic character asks a Jesuit priest, "What if you made all of this up? What if it's just a story?"

And the priest thinks for a second, and smiles, and says, "Then what a story."

If God isn't just that which gives meaning or belonging, what do we do then?

Why, what we always do. We tell our stories. We share our stories with each other. And that, ultimately, is how we find true meaning and belonging and love. In the telling, in the listening, and the sharing.

So:

Whatever you believe, share your story.

I would love to hear it.

And if you care to listen to my story as well, I will tell you that my story is just a little story in a very, very big story about a love that is so deep and so big and so old that it overcomes death to be with us. That my story is, somehow, inextricably caught up in the story of a homeless Palestinian Jew who stumbles up to Jerusalem, knowing it will cost everything. Who, after a miracle of miracles, is scrubby enough that a woman who loves him confuses him with a groundskeeper. Who teaches that the greatest commandment, the greatest law, is love, and then shows us how that is true.

I will tell you that, in the big story that my little story is a part of, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, life wins. Love wins.

And if what I think I know is all wrong? And if it's all just a story?

Well...what a story.

What a story.

A happy Easter season to all of you. Whatever your story, you are loved.

Not Knowing with Andy , pt. I

Wouldn't the title of this post make a great ongoing podcast?

My friend Andy and I used to get into these long theological conversations/debates/duels, which I miss. He wrote a post the other night that I thought was really interesting, based on a Neil Gaiman poem that ends:

"I really don’t know what I love you means 

I think it means don’t leave me here alone"

You should check out Andy's whole post here. He ended it with these questions:

"What if God isn't just that which gives us meaning or allows us to feel like we belong? What do we do then?"

I told Andy I'd write a post in response to his question, but he had to write a blog in response to the question, "What if God really is that which gives us meaning or allows us to feel like we belong? What do we do then?"

He's done his part. Now it's my turn.

Andy did something wise, which was to break his response into 3 shorter posts rather than one long post. So I'm going to follow that same format.

So, part one is: "What if God isn't that which gives us meaning?"

--

In Andy's question I hear echoes of the critiques brought against religion by the so-called "Masters of Suspicion"--Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche. For Freud, God was just a projection of the desires of humans. Marx is well known for calling religion the "opiate of the masses," but the image he uses that I think is more illustrative of his position is of religion as the beautiful flowers hiding the chains of oppression. And Nietzsche (if I understand him correctly, which I probably don't) felt that the Christian religion was just a way to try to deny the creeping nihilism that he felt was infecting European society.

Christianity's response to these critiques has generally been to shout them down, to try to drown them out with the beating of bibles and the ever-louder singing of praise songs (don't get me wrong. I love me some ever-louder singing). But I think that if we're not willing to actually engage with these criticisms that it probably says more about us and our doubts than it does about some German (Austrian?) guys. And indeed a growing number of Christian scholars are doing just that, engaging with the Masters of Suspicion with an attitude of curiosity and self-reflection rather than defensiveness. (It's worth noting that Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848, during which time chattel slavery, supported by many Christians, was the law of the land in the USAmerican South. I'd imagine Jesus was a wee bit more pissed off at the latter than the former).

What does that have to do with meaning?

First off, let me say that I very much agree with something Andy says in his post on meaning:

"For starters, I believe that there are acts that are devoid of meaning. I think that we can try our best to theologize everything, but acts like genocide, rape, murder, and the like are inherently meaningless. This doesn’t mean that we cannot grow or recover from such acts, just that the acts in and of themselves are meaningless."

I'm preaching at a funeral this week for a young man (who I did not know) who died in a car accident. There's no inherent meaning in it. It's a tragedy, period. It is not part of a plan. It will not make more sense by and by.

And so I think what I hear in Andy's first question--"What if God isn't that which gives meaning?"--is an echo of the question that I think folks like Freud and Marx and Nietzsche first raised: "What if we've just created God because we need to feel like everything is ok?"

And the thing is that I just don't think that everything is ok. The God that I believe in thinks some stuff isn't ok. Stuff like what Andy mentioned--mass murder, sexual assault. Things like economic oppression and racism.

The prophet Jeremiah reports God saying: "Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more." There are some things that cannot simply be ok, some things that cannot be redeemed in-and-of themselves, some events after which there is no immediate comfort.

What God does, I'd argue, is stand in solidarity with us in the midst of meaninglessness, and give us the grace and the strength to figure out how to continue our stories. How to integrate meaninglessness into a broader story of meaning. And the thing is that God doesn't show up and "poof" do it for us, but rather walks with us and stands with us.

In Acts, there's this great story of Peter and Cornelius. At one point Peter sees a vision of unclean food and a voice telling him to eat (it's worth noting that he has this vision as he's praying on the roof instead of eating. I've had this happen as well. PrayPrayPray...mmmmbacon....PrayPrayPray). Then folks from Cornelius' house--not just a Gentile but a Roman centurion, so definitely not the "good guy" for Peter--show up and say that Peter should come with them. And he does, and by the time he's gotten to Cornelius' house he's decided that his vision means that he shouldn't call any person unclean.

Check Acts 10 out for yourself if you want, but at no point does the author say that God says to Peter: "You shouldn't think Gentiles are unclean." Peter has come to that conclusion based on a dream about bacon (well, ok, actually lizards or something) and a conversation with some Gentile servants. And yet exactly there is God acting to bring about meaning. Not by magically creating it out of nothing, but by participating in the meaning-making, story-crafting efforts of humans, who are in turn made in the image of a storytelling God.

God's grace allows us to read our stories as part of a bigger story. In Donald Miller's words, "I am a tree in a story about a forest."

But that's different than turning to God for meaning; different than saying "God has a plan"; different than saying "We'll understand it better by and by."

God empowers us to confront meaningless, not deny it.

Which, oddly enough, is sort of what Nietzsche--the great detractor of religion, the declarant of the death of God--wanted to do, too.

In this post I will throw aside epistemic humility and will tell you exactly what the United Methodist Church will look like in 1,000 years.

In class on Wednesday, we were talking about the work of Phyllis Tickle, who is sort of the kindly godmother of emergence Christianity. (She just turned 80, although my professor refuses to believe it).

Tickle has this idea that USAmerican Christianity could historically have been grouped into 4 broad categories--High Liturgy, Social Justice, Evangelical, and Charismatic. But that there is starting to be crossover conversations, with an emerging center, which is in turn leading some people in each of those categories to double down and draw back into their respective corners. So...like this:

Anyway. At the very end of class, one of my classmates raised what I thought was a really interesting point. He said that he felt like Tickle, and many of the other folks we're reading, seem a bit too sure of their theories about where the church is going over the next century. What I thought was really perceptive about his comment was that it wasn't a critique so much as a self-realization: sort of a, "Look, I really want to believe that right now we are deciding the future of Christianity, cuz that seems pretty cool, but what if that's not really what happens at all? What if we're actually sort of a mediocre generation?"

Now, I think that what Tickle and others are trying to do is articulate what a Christianity might look like that can speak into--and be spoken into--by very real cultural shifts that are taking place. But there is a level of confidence to it all that I think should raise some healthy challenge. I happened to glance at the back cover of another book we read for this class, by Pete Rollins. Tickle wrote a blurb for the book (it's a fantastic book, by the way, and worth reading: How (Not) to Speak of God) that reads in part: "Here, in pregnant bud, is third-millennium Christianity."

So, ok. I love Tickle and I love Rollins, so here's hoping she's right. But it's 2014. We're only in the second decade of the third millennium, and Rollins' book was written in 2006. So...isn't there sort of a pretty huge chance she's way wrong?

That third-millennium Christianity will look like something totally completely and utterly unrelated to Rollins or her or me or you?

I mean, 1,000 years is a long time. A little humility about our claims is probably called for. That's actually a really important reminder for me, because I've been spending a lot of time and words recently debating the politics of United Methodism/ordination/church schism/denominationalism/so-on-and-so-forth. I won't rehash all of that conversation here; go check out my friend Jeremy at Hacking Christianity for some good details and links. Jeremy's very anti-schism in the UMC; I'm not sure where I stand but have been feeling sort of pessimistic about it all. One of my classmates noted on Wednesday that he knows a lot of people who seem to be doubling down on denominationalism at the same time as other people are declaring denominations to be dinosaurs, beasts of the past who once ruled but are now destined for extinction.

And maybe we all need a big bucket of ice cold "who the hell knows" water dumped on our heads. Not in the sense of a dismissive shrug and a "who cares," but rather in the sense of: "If we suspect that the Spirit might be up to something, let's all try to be faithful to that, knowing that we know little, knowing that it will look different for all of us, and so trying to be a little bit gentler with the rest of the know-nothings."

Which maybe is a bit dissatisfying but, in the words of a major prophet: "So it goes."

There's a translation of Psalm 16 that I've been mulling over for a class this week that sticks with me.

The psalmist addresses God and says:

"Beautiful things are always in your right hand."

I don't have a clue what the future of the church looks like, to be honest. But that's ok. Beautiful things might just be at hand, anyway.

Some music

So a while ago I made some recordings that I said would be a CD, and the CD itself never really materialized.

I don't really love the recordings, and I more than don't love my voice. But people still ask me about it even though it's been 3 years. Which is really flattering, I mean it. So...here's some songs. Enjoy:
 







And, as a bonus, here's a live recording from a worship service in Oxnam Chapel at Wesley Seminary, with my friends Rachel and Drew singing and playing musics:

Doubting doubt, or the double-edged sword of epistemic humility

So on Monday I wrote about how I hate theodicy (i.e. if God is good why does awful stuff happen) and how that's sort of a problem 'cuz it's kind of a big deal in seminary.

As I hoped he would, my friend and former roommate Andy responded on facebook. Andy's a bit of a theodicy buff so I was glad he took time to comment. I'm just going to quote him here (since it's on facebook and public anyway):

"So you've got me on the fence. Part of me absolutely agrees that there is a time and a place for talking about theodicy and that that time and place usually isn't in the midst of suffering. On the other hand, wrestling with how my conception of God fits in with my experiences (individual and communal) of suffering in the world is what brought me back from the ledge and has kept me going on a number of occasions. Either way, I agree 100% that having epistemic humility and being willing to say "I don't know" has to be part of the equation."

Since I know Andy, and know a bit of his story, I know he's on to something here: his own wrestling with the "Why, God?" has been a huge part of his journey. So it was perhaps a bit arrogant of me to declare, in my last post, that theodicy is unhelpful in the face of real suffering.

Although come to think of it, Theodicy is Dead would be kind of a great name for a book.

The phrase "epistemic humility" that Andy mentions just means being humble about what we can claim to know. And what his response got me thinking about is how that sort of humility is a two-edged sword. I can declare that theodicy is irrelevant because it claims certainty in the face of deeply uncertain events; but can I acknowledge a genuine claim for its relevance?

And that question, in turn, got me thinking about my own journey. About how, in high school, when my mentor and coach killed himself and everything felt fragile and awful, I got so angry at the church because I felt like there were no answers there. And while my little church did the best thing, which was just to love me and keep telling me they loved me, I could also have used a few folks with some theodicy chops to yell at. Because as it was, it was just me--in one vivid memory--yelling at the ocean. Asking why, and how God could let someone be in so much pain, and whether someone who kills themselves goes to hell and if so what kind of God would do that and if not then why don't we all just do it? And honestly it was awfully lonely.

That's raw stuff when you're 15. It doesn't get too much less raw 15 years later.

So my own "I don't know" is a hard-fought one, and that's important to remember. Because while "I don't know" is often the best response, sometimes there is healing in the wrestling. Or, to be a bit more biblical with the imagery, maybe the wrestling is going to hurt but it's going to make us into a new person.

I guess what I'm left with is this: the "I don't know" of my response to suffering needs to inform what I believe about the world. And my belief about the world needs to inform my response to suffering. It's a conversation requiring a steady return to humility, on all sides. There's not one singular starting place with a solid path to the right answer.

But that's true even if I claim that the right answer is, "I don't know."

Theodicy and not knowing (or, stop being a jerk and just admit that sometimes life sucks and you have no idea why.)

True confessions of a seminarian: I hate theodicy.

If you're not a seminary type, see this brief explanation from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:



Theodicy comes from the words for "God's justice," and basically just means "if there's a God why do things suck for a lot of people and often for me?"

The problem with hating theodicy is that, as a seminary person, it's supposed to be all, like, THE BIG QUESTION and what not. It's supposed to be the thing that sort of gnaws at all our theological brains. And I hate it, not because it's a hard question to answer, but because I've seen it hurt a lot and I don't think I've ever seen it help.

I've heard a lot of awful things said to suffering people to explain why they're suffering.

And rarely, if ever, have I heard a suffering person say, "Oh, thank goodness you explained to me how my suffering still fits with your view of God! That's a relief!"

Maybe I'm wrong. Feel free to disagree.

Anyway. This has been on my mind this week because we talked about it in Emergent Gathering on Wednesday, and then I heard John 9 preached on Thursday morning, and then we talked about John 9 in my class on Thursday afternoon, and then I heard John 9 preached on Sunday.

You can read the text itself, but at least part of it involves the disciples assuming that some guy is blind either because he's a sinner or his parents are sinners, and Jesus tells them that's not true, but then goes on to say something that sounds suspiciously like "God made him blind so that we could all see how cool God is when he gets healed."

Many people, myself included, would argue that that's not really what the text says, but either way probably not a good one to quote to people who are in pain.

The thing that I find interesting about John's gospel, though, is that these long theological discourses that John's Jesus embarks on, such as in John 9, get scandalously interrupted by Jesus doing human stuff like crying and touching people who are suffering and getting thirsty and what not.

All the theological back and forth in John 9 can't really explain the fact that Jesus heals somebody by spitting in dirt and making it into mud and smearing it in the dude's eyes. There's all sorts of great theological symbolism in there, but what's more important, I think, is that it's physical touch and physical elements--mainly, dirt--that seem to mediate healing. Not just ethereal power, but skin and mud and spit.

Or, in the words of Whitley, "To touch something real / Will make your wounds heal."

So what I get out of that is that showing up and listening and touching and holding and playing in the dirt and saying things like, "That sucks, that really sucks," is probably better than trying to explain things. And I think that holds true even of the best attempts at explanation. Even Moltmann's "crucified God" or Caputo's "weak God" or the idea of the "freedom of all reality" that's sort of emerged out of religious engagement with post-Einstein science seem to me to fall completely flat in the face of real suffering. It might be good for my own theology, it might inform my response to suffering, but I probably shouldn't quote it in the hospital.

In contrast is the comforting power of the "I don't know" that Parker Palmer talks about in a conversation with a woman suffering from depression. She asked him why some people who are depressed kill themselves and some people don't. And Parker Palmer tried to come up with a good explanation and all he could come up with was, "I have no idea." And a few days later the woman sent him a thank you note. All of the people in her Christian circles had tried to explain it, and it had been awful. And Parker Palmer said, "I don't know," and it was a huge relief.

"I don't know. But I'm here if you need me."

Sounds a lot better than:

"Here's why there's suffering."

Sometimes, what's called for is a reverent silence and a steady presence. Because that might not help. But at least it won't increase the hurt.

justification, self-justification, and blame

Today in my Emergent Gathering class we spent quite a bit of time talking about pluralism, and how Christians relate to folks of other religions/no particular religion.

What struck me about the conversation, given some struggles in my life and this idea of "giving up knowing" for Lent, is how easy it is for me to think about giving up my rightness when it comes to people with different faith backgrounds or religious beliefs...

...and how terribly difficult it is for me to give up being right in other areas of my life...

...and what that says about what I value. About where my treasure is and, therefore, where my heart is.

It's easy for me to shrug off being right about Jesus.

It's hard for me to give up a the feeling of being wounded or treated unfairly.

I was at Leigh's church the other day and we were doing a lectio divina, where the text is read meditatively instead of intellectually and we focus on words or images that seem to stick or stand out. A few of us shared, and then someone shared that she just "takes the text literally and just reads what the Word says."

This stands against everything I believe about scripture. Frankly that kind of statement annoys me. And still, I shrugged it off pretty easily. She's entitled to her beliefs.

But once I start feeling hurt or devalued? Once I get upset about something? It's very hard for me to turn off the hunt for rightness.

And that hunt is almost always dissatisfying. Brene Brown says that's because looking for blame is actually the opposite of accountability, because it allows us to focus on the feeling of being wronged rather than on clearly communicating our feelings of hurt or confusion.

It is always a hard thing to come face to face with the worst in ourselves, with the petty and the small, the self-centered and even the violent, that lurks in us. That's happened to me more than a few times over the past few months. And it's made me realize (again) that my addiction isn't theological rightness; it's being "right" in a much more superficial or petty sense. I don't know quite what to make of that, but there it is.

Sunday I preached at AU and I said something like, "We're not called to be right, we're called to be faithful."

And that means giving up self-justification and embracing justification, that old, old idea that it's a loving God that makes things right, not my conviction that I am right.

I suppose it's as hard, and as easy, as it always has been.

A sermon: "You Know Nothing, Jon Snow"

I preached last night at American University, on John 3:1-17. Our Lent & Easter series at AU is riffing on Game of Thrones. So the sermon was called "You Know Nothing, Jon Snow." The text is available here. The audio is, I think, available here, but if it doesn't work and you want to listen you can find me on facebook.

The sermon is about the faithfulness of unknowing.

little easters

They say that every Sunday is a little Easter,
    and so during Lent, there's no fasting on Sundays.

We break our fasts, we eat our chocolates or have our coffee.

So, what does that mean if you're fasting from knowing?
Is Sunday a day of certainty, of surefootedness?

I don't think it works like that, with this fast
    Sunday is just as much a day for stumbling along our stumbling way
            As Friday ever will be.

And maybe more so.

And maybe more so.

What do you do when it's not Ash Wednesday anymore?

I mean, what do you do the other 364 days of the year?
When being human seems like the most complicated option,
And you really need ashes,
And the reminder of dust,
And limits,
And that desperate searching for some good news
                       
                             in the middle of all of this.

On Ash Wednesday and not knowing

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day in the Christian year that marks the beginning of Lent. Lent is a season of repentance and fasting. It lasts 40 days, not including Sundays, which are always considered celebrations of resurrection. Because of the traditional association of Lent with fasting, people often "give something up" for Lent. Last year I wrote about things I wasn't giving up on.

A number of things have come together this year. In my Emergent Gathering class, we've been talking about epistemology--theories about how we know what we know or how we understand truth. We've compared foundationalism--an understanding of truth in which we look for a firm, unchangeable foundation to base everything we know on--and non-foundationalism--in which truth is understood more as a web with multiple anchor points, so that changing or removing one doesn't bring the whole structure down.

We've talked a bit about apophatic theology--the sense that we can't say what God is, just what God is not. We read Pete Rollins, who talks about how the hidden-ness of God is actually the hyper-presence of God. Not a new idea, as he would freely admit. A hymn from the mid 1800s, "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise," sings that God is "in light inaccessible hid from our eyes" and that "'tis only the splendor of light hideth thee." That God is too bright to look at directly. That, like light itself, God more allows us to see the world than is seen in and of itself.

We've talked a bit about epistemic humility--humility about what we can know. About strong beliefs, held loosely. Held gently.

And I went to the State House today, and got called an anti-Semite and a Nazi, and stuttered through a testimony, and left feeling an acute sense of my own limits.

And then there's this sermon I'm working on for the AU students, based loosely on the Game of Thrones series, about John 3 and knowing nothing. Stay tuned for that, or come hear it on March 16 in Kay Chapel if you want.

And now I am sitting here, typing this, with ashes on my forehead and the smell of burnt palm fronds in the air, having been reminded of humility, of repentance, of fragile and perishable humanity.

"From dust we are, and to dust we are to return." And that is good news, because if I am an angel than I am a failure of an angel, but if I am dust than maybe, maybe I am ok. Maybe I can try to be human, after all.

So, this Lent I'm going to try to give up knowing. I'm going to try to give up certainty. I'm going to try on, at least for a few weeks, the faithfulness of unknowing.

I don't know exactly how that will play out. I was thinking about blogging every day about something I am certain of, and then questioning it and interrogating it. Deconstructing it, you might say. But that felt a bit contrived for something so nebulous, so intentionally fragile.

So I will try it, and I'll see where it takes me, and I'll write about it when I can.

And I'll pray the prayer of those great poets and prophets, mewithoutYou:

"We hunger, and though all that we eat brings us no relief we don't know quite what else to do.
We have all our beliefs, but we don't want our beliefs.
O God of peace, we want You."

A sermon (that allowed me to squeeze the last bit of juice out of the 30 Day Challenge)

Yeah, I preached a sermon about the K-LOVE 30 Day Challenge, because after 30 days I better be able to squeeze at least a little more material out of the thing. Scripture was Psalm 119:33-40.

Last month, while driving through Western Maryland, I was flipping through radio stations, trying to find something that wouldn’t disappear as soon as I turned the next mountain bend. I happened to stumble across the local broadcast of a nationally syndicated Christian radio station.[i] And I happened to land on this station just as they were offering me something called “The 30 Day Challenge.” Listen to nothing but Christian music for 30 days straight, and they promised that my life would be changed.

            Also I might win an iPad mini.      

For Jesus.

            “Nothing but Christian music for 30 days!” I thought to myself. “That sounds terrible!”

            So I did it. From January 20^th through February 20^th, with a few necessary exceptions so that my friends wouldn’t kill me, I listened to nothing but Contemporary Christian Music.

            I know what you’re asking. And no, I didn’t win the iPad.

            Now, if you like Contemporary Christian Music, I don’t mean any of this to sound judgmental. After the sermon you can feel free to make fun of my pretentious love of NPR. But I just don’t like it. It all sounds the same to me, like all the guitar players have the same effects pedals and all the vocalists learned to sing from one of two of the same overly sincere white men. I don’t like it, I don’t like the sound of it, I don’t like a lot of the theology of it. I don’t like how so many of the songs could be easily confused with pop love songs, because if our theology can’t be distinguished from Taylor Swift than our devotion probably isn’t very reliable. And to be honest I have trouble believing the sincerity of a lot of it.

            But after 30 days of listening to Christian music, I’m wondering if there’s something else going in my reactions to the genre. I’m actually wondering—and this is confessional time—I’m actually wondering if I feel a bit…jealous of it all.

            I mean, it’s not that I’m going to switch all of my radio pre-sets to Christian music. But I’m wondering if I am just a bit jealous of the sort of devotion, the sort of emotion, that CCM artists and listeners seem to have. I’m wondering if my suspicion of their sincerity is actually a suspicion of my own sincerity. I’m wondering if part of me, maybe a big part of me, wishes I felt like that.

            See, when I came to seminary, I figured that it would be a sort of spiritual mountaintop experience, a kind of pilgrimage to theology geek Mecca where my spiritual practices would flourish and where I would be upheld and inspired by a deeply devoted Christian community. And then I got here, and I ended up feeling...well, a bit dry. Maybe more than a bit cynical. In the frenzy of paper writing and sermon preparation and living situation stress and classmate conflict and mental health challenges, I sometimes found myself asking: do I feel God anymore? Or even more simply: do I even remember how to pray? And I know, from many conversations with fellow seminarians past and present, that I am not alone in this experience. Maybe we’re all just doing seminary wrong. I don’t know. But it makes me, and I know it’s made others, wonder: how can I lead people to a place that I’ve forgotten how to get to?

            I bring all this up because I think if the poet of Psalm 119 was alive today, they would listen to Contemporary Christian Music. I mean, this Psalm is not just a love song to God. That would be one thing. This Psalm is a love song to the Torah. An impassioned ode about just how great the Bible is. Talk about overly sincere devotion—this thing drips with it. One of the songs that plays over and over again on the local Christian music station (“WGTS, 91.9!!”) is MercyMe’s chorus, “Word of God speak/Would you pour down like rain,” and Psalm 119 makes that song of devotion to the Bible seem restrained by comparison.[ii]

            Psalm 119 is 176 verses long. I’ve never written a 176 verse poem in my life. Wait. There’s more. It’s an acrostic poem, which means that each of the 22 stanzas begins with consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Wait. There’s more. Within every single one of the 22 stanzas, each line begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet that the first line of the stanza started with. So in stanza 1, every line begins with the Hebrew letter aleph, and in stanza 2 every line begins with the Hebrew letter bet, and so on. Wait. There’s more. The psalm uses 8 different words to refer to God’s word, words like Torah and commandments and ordinances, and with the exception of 3 verses in the whole psalm, every single line of the poem contains one of those 8 words.[iii]

            I get exhausted just thinking about writing something like that. I thought about writing this whole sermon as an acrostic poem but I figured I couldn’t pull it off.

            It takes a whole lotta love to write a poem like that. And the psalmist loves scripture. I mean, is really in love with it. This is a poet, a singer, who claims to “delight” in God’s commandments. Delight. I mean, I do love the Bible, but I don’t exactly get giddy about it.

            Eminent Hebrew Bible scholars Toni Craven and Walter Harrelson try to come to the psalm’s rescue, writing that “The sheer existence of this extraordinary meditation on God’s Torah is a telling reminder that Israel’s Law was no heavy burden laid upon a people, constricting its life and energies. Rather, God’s law is presented as the best of gifts of a good God.”[iv]

Fair enough.

But I tend to feel a bit more like Russell Rathbun, founder of the House of Mercy church in St. Paul, MN, who says of this psalm: “Unless it is a euphemism for something else, it’s difficult for me to see how longing and ordinances ever make it into the same sentence. An ordinance is something issued by the parks department to keep people from dumping their garbage in the woods. It is not an object of desire.”[v]          

In verse 55, the poet sings that they “remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your instruction.” Not that there’s anything wrong with lying in bed and thinking about scripture, exactly. It’s just not really what tends to keep me up at night. Is there something wrong with me? Can a poor, dried up, cynical seminarian like me get anything out of this psalm other than the vague feeling that maybe seminary has burned me out instead of building me up?

            Well, maybe.

            The Bible nerd in me was fascinated to find out that the stanza I read earlier is the Hey stanza, with each line in Hebrew beginning with an “H” sound. And in Hebrew, words beginning with the letter Hey are often imperative verbs.[vi] If it’s been awhile since grammar lessons, just listen to the first word of each line in English:

            Teach me.

            Give me.

            Lead me.

            Turn me.

            Confirm to me.

            Each of these lines is directed toward God. It’s asking God for something. Or, more accurately, it’s telling God to do something.

            This is important, I think, because Psalm 119 is often classified as a wisdom psalm, a psalm in which good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. I don’t like wisdom psalms. They’re too neat, too black and white. Give me a good lament psalm any day. Yet this stanza, at least, seems to me to be an inversion of the usual wisdom formula. It’s God that’s good here, not the psalmist. It’s God that needs to act. In fact, the psalmist admits to being stuck in addiction to selfish gain and vanities. You know, the stuff it’s easy to get stuck on: Money. Fame. Success. The sort of things that I get stuck on: wanting the affirmation and admiration of elders and peers. Wanting to be cool and relevant. Wanting you to like this sermon.

The poet struggles with these same things, and they know they need God in order to be transformed. Verse 38 reads, “confirm to your servant your promise.” In other words, “God, you promised! God, you’ve made some promises here. Keep them!” And there’s that powerful last line of the stanza: “In your righteousness, give me life.” That word “righteousness” could also be translated “justice.” God, if you are a just God, if you are a faithful God, if you are who you say you are—give me life!

            I wonder if the poet of Psalm 119 actually felt kind of like I do when I listen to Christian rock. I wonder if they were looking around at a whole temple full of seemingly devout, pious, impassioned worshipers, and saying to God, “God, why don’t I feel like that? God, why do I feel distracted by money and jealousy and insecurity? God, why do I feel so…well, dry? You promised, God! You promised.”

            This time, I think Toni Craven and Walter Harrelson are right when they claim that “One who pleads for God’s help with such earnestness and who asserts that it is time, indeed, for God to act, is by no means satisfied with the existing state of affairs.”[vii] If that’s the case, then this psalm is less of a CCM ode to the Bible as it is a U2 song, a bit easier for me to sing along to: “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”[viii] Because God doesn’t really satisfy our desires.

God changes how we desire.

Knowing God leaves us with a feeling of dissatisfaction about the world, because the world isn’t yet the Kingdom. Knowing God leaves us looking at the world and imagining that a different world, a redeemed world, is possible. In the words of theologian Peter Rollins, “Desire is not satisfied in God. Desire is born in God.”[ix] In other words, God isn’t the object of devotion, another topic for a Taylor Swift song. God is the subject that acts to transform us and to transform the world.

            The poet of Psalm 119 is longing to know God, and that gives them a real, deep longing for a transformed life. In fact, the Hebrew word that is translated as “give me life” or “preserve my life”—what the old King James Version translated as “quicken me”—appears 10 times in this Psalm. I don’t think they’re asking for a “I listened to Christian music for 30 days” transformed life, though if that works for you then that’s awesome. Not a life without worries and problems. Not a 100% satisfying life with all desires fulfilled. But maybe a life that is abundant and real and full. Messy, in-flux life. Life with its traumas and turmoil, but also life with its celebrations and successes.

Life in which I’m learning to stumble through prayers again. Life in which I can stumble up to the table of grace, to the bread and the wine I need to sustain me on the rest of my stumbling way. Life in which I might just stumble into signs of God’s kingdom, God’s new, abundant community.

And that is something I can wake up in the morning and really, sincerely ask for. Even on the dry days. That’s something that I can pray when my feet, by some miracle, hit the floor in the morning. “God, give me life today. Don’t give me numbness or distraction today, God. Don’t give me riches or affirmations of my vanities. Give me life today, God. Give me life today.”

And that’s something, I think, that we all need to be asking for, whatever we are feeling or not feeling, believing or doubting. Because, in one form or another, we are all in ministry. And ministry, in the words of that great excommunicated Southern Baptist preacher, Clarence Jordan, isn’t a job. It’s a commitment. Of life. To life. For life.

I think, as present and future ministers of the gospel, we can do worse than starting each morning by praying this prayer:

God, if you are a just God. If you are a faithful God. If You are who You say You are, a God who keeps promises: then give me life. So that I can commit my life. To life. For life. Amen.

---

[i] “Positive, Encouraging” K-LOVE, to be exact: www.klove.com.

[ii] MercyMe, “Word of God Speak,” Spoken For (Columbia Records, 2005).

[iii] See Rolf Jacobson, “Commentary on Psalm 119:33-40, Working Preacher, available online at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1025.

[iv] Toni Craven and Walter Harrelson, “The Psalms,” The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 864.

[v] Russell Rathbun, “It’s a Long Way to the Punch Line,” THQ: The Hardest Question, available online: http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/featured/ordinary29psalm/#more-666.

[vi] Jacobson, “Commentary on Psalm 119:33-40, Working Preacher.

[vii] Craven and Harrelson, “The Psalms,” New Interpreter’s Study Bible, 864.

[viii] U2, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” Joshua Tree Remastered (Universal-Island Records Ltd., 2007).

[ix] Peter Rollins, “200 Dollar Conversions,” The Work of the People, available online: http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/200-dollar-conversions.

The Aftermath: On change, balance, and learning

Well, the 30 Day Challenge is over, and as far as I can tell I didn't win an iPad mini. Oh darn.

But of course the question I'm sure you're asking is, "Did my life change? Were K-LOVE's transformational promises fulfilled?"

Well, no. Not exactly.

I mean, sort of. Did my life change in 30 days? Yes, of course. And it will in the next 30 days of listening to heathen rock music as well.

To put it another way, I think one of the things the Challenge led me to reflect on is how I think of--or better, how I tend to experience--change.

I have friends--mainly I'm thinking of Christians who tend to swim in more evangelical waters, but also some more secular folks, too--who have had very genuine experiences of rapid and radical change. Addicts who stumbled into an 12-step meeting and never took another drink or hit. Non-Christians who met Jesus--in a church or on a sidewalk or at a sporting event--and whose lives were turned upside down. People who went to the Holy Land as raging Zionists and came back to start BDS movements in their churches.

Like I said, I'm not talking about phonies here. I'm talking about friends of mine whose stories I trust who were walking along one day and then found themselves walking completely differently the next.

But for me--and for most people I know--change doesn't work like that. Change happens slowly, incrementally, often weakly. Little habits, hard earned. The slow accumulation of repeated conversations, steadily changing minds. Healing that never looks linear. Choosing to get out of bed again on hard days. Learning new skills or new ways of dealing. Figuring out how to pray again. Saying, "I'm so sorry," again.

Grace seems abundant some days, but many days seems barely sufficient. I'm a total Wesleyan nerd, and I believe in sanctification. But for me, anyway, it's gonna take awhile. And as William James is reported to have said: “I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.”

--

So then what did I learn in 30 days? Well, other than learning that Christian radio is just as annoying as most other radio--more annoying in some ways, less annoying in others--I think that I learned that there is a real mix of good, bad, and ugly in the CCM world.

Here are some things I heard:

I heard the story of a psychologist who killed himself told in a way that suggested that if he had known Jesus it wouldn't have happened, as if suicide and mental illness are symptoms of a lack of faith.

But I also heard the mic handed to people, from CCM artist Jamie Grace to random people who called in, who told stories of real struggle and hurt and pain and for whom the music of stations like K-LOVE helped them keep taking that next step.

I heard a radio station that claims to want to avoid scaring people off with Christian or sectarian language give airtime to the deeply socially conservative group Focus on the Family (whose CEO Jim Daly, incidentally, paid himself more than $250,000 in 2011, a salary most of the call-in listeners of WGTS could only dream of).

But I also heard some honest and powerful advice given about families. Like that there are going to be times when you like one kid more than another, and that that's not a sign that you're a terrible person.

I heard a lot of language about shame, some of it not so good, but some of it sending the message that the good news is a good news that releases us from shame, a gospel message that reminded me of the powerful work of Brene Brown.

I heard Matt West's song "Do Something," which--every single time of the 1,000 times I heard it--hilariously reminded me of Aldous Snow's latest single in Saving Sarah Marshall (I mean, seriously, the videos even have the same "hold up a card with a message on it" thing going on):




But I also heard Matthew West's song "Do Something," about a thousand times; and it's a song about standing up for justice and advocating for people who are being crushed, and it's playing over and over again on Contemporary Christian Music radio, and I think that's a really good thing.

I heard God called King over and over again, mostly because it handily rhymes with sing.

But I also heard about God as an oceanic force, as Love that never stops loving, as a Storyteller and a Dreamer and a Friend.

I heard a musical genre so narrowly defined by an industry that no non-Christian artists with positive and encouraging messages, and not even a lot of Christian artists that I love, will ever get a voice in it; a Christian subculture that doesn't seem to recognize itself as such.

But I also read the genuine, humble, and deeply considered thought of a station manager who wanted me to know that he wanted to share music and message with people in a way that wasn't intimidating or sectarian, that he didn't have all the answers, and that he welcomed further conversation.

I heard almost exactly the same guitar loops, over and over.

But I also heard...ok, no, I basically heard almost exactly the same guitar loops, over and over.

--

So, it's not surprising, exactly, but it is good to experience first-hand, that like any social/cultural phenomenon, there is plenty to be valued and appreciated about K-LOVE.

Will I keep listening to K-LOVE/WGTS? Probably not. Maybe occasionally if I'm looking to glean a new worship song or two, but mainly I'll go back to my NPR or my Spotify account (on my schnazzy new iPhone!!).

But I like to think that I have learned a few things, become a bit more open-minded, and started some great conversations.

And so, in those little ways, I suppose that my life has, in fact, been changed by the 30 Day Challenge.

So thanks, K-LOVE. You keep doin' what your doin'. If your positive, encouraging music helps Shelly in Omaha who's helping her daughter get through school by working two jobs get through her week, then God bless you, and God bless and sustain and uphold her.

--

Currently playing on klove.com...just kidding, I'm listening to Son Lux on Spotify because Mike Stavlund told me to, and I like ironically treating post-modernist writers as arbiters of absolute Truth 'cuz it drives 'em crazy. 

"The Challenge" Day....HOLY CRAP IT'S DAY 30!!!

It's true! It's Day 30 of the K-LOVE Challenge and I didn't even realize it! I figured they'd email me to ask if my life had changed or something.

For the report on whether or not my life has changed, you'll have to wait until tomorrow's post. Today, on Day 30, I figured I'd give you a totally cheesy top 10 list, because....crap, y'all, because it's Day 30 of this blog series and I can't come up with anything good and my reflection paper for Emergent Gathering was on an old Anglican hymn instead of CCM, ok? Don't judge. Jeeze. Y'all need some positive, encouraging music in your life.

So here it is, the Top 10 things I like about K-LOVE and/or WGTS, in no particular order.

1) The song "Oceans" by Hillsong United (as previously mentioned)
2) The fact that one WGTS DJ declared the week after Valentine's Day to be "singles appreciation week"
3) The relative lack of commercials (again, as previously mentioned)
4) The relative lack, especially on K-LOVE, of social-conservativism-confused-with-Christian-theology (with the exception of a few songs and a few DJ comments)
5) The genuine commitment to their particular understanding of sharing something they're passionate about (Rob Conway's response to my email is a great example)
6) The fact that the DJs know that they've got cheesy senses of humor. They strike me as total dorks, not as people trying to be cool to impress the youths, which I like. I love dorks. I'm a dork. It's cool.
7) The theological content of the songs is actually broader than I expected when I entered into this experiment, with some great creative metaphors like "write your story on my heart" and "you call me out upon the waters"
8) CCM takes seriously a very important idea: that shame is one of the major addictions of our society and is a major barricade to a healthy life. Many, many songs address the idea of healing from shame (more on that tomorrow)
9) The attempts to create a community by having people call in to share stories or prayer requests. While many radio shows have "call-in" segments, how many radio shows let you call in to share with folks that you're worried about your mom's cancer or your son's struggles in school? I honor anyone who creates spaces for vulnerability
10) I have been able to glean a few songs that I could use in worship, which is definitely a good thing.

So there you have it. Tomorrow, post-challenge, I'll let you know if I have, in fact, had a life-changing experience and, I think, give a bit of a "good, bad, and ugly" overview.

Much love to ya!

--

Currently playing on klove.com: "Beautiful Day" by Jamie Grace

"The Challenge" Day 24: Thoughtful response from local CCM station

So as I mentioned, I emailed K-LOVE and the local CCM station that I've been listening to (WGTS 91.9), to ask about the tendency not to use (or at least not to emphasize) the word "Christian" on air. I got a form response from K-LOVE saying that they have pastors on staff and one would love to talk to me. I think I probably will call the number they gave me but I honestly haven't had the time to.

I was really impressed, though, that Rob Conway at WGTS took the time to provide a very well thought out response. I include it, with his permission, below, and with no further comment from me. When I asked for his permission to use it, he provided the following caveat: "Please feel free to use on your blog--it's a good discussion to have...and believe me, no one in CCM radio will (or should) tell you we have all the answers." 

Here's Rob's response:

Hi David, 

Really appreciate you taking the time to write us and asking about that. I think it's great that you're listening critically and curious. I'll try to give you the abridged version, but hopefully it'll give you a little "peek behind the curtain" to help bring a little more understanding to our mission and goals here. 

First, I'll answer your question with a question. What makes something "Christian?" No doubt, we like to have defined lines between the sacred and the secular. But are we Christian just because we claim we are? The first followers of Christ simply called themselves "followers of The Way." It wasn't until later that others (outsiders) labeled them "Christians." And this was because of what they saw lived out. 

So in essence, we would rather have people call us Christian because of what they see in us, rather than make the claim ourselves. In fact, we like to think of this as a radio station operated by people that happen to be Christian. 

Second, the term "Christian" has an unfortunate amount of baggage that comes with it. (See books like unChristian and You Lost Me by David Kinnaman). Christianity is a subculture--which even comes with its own lingo--"Christianese." Maybe you've heard other Christians say something like this: "Brother, I felt like I was really backsliding, so I crucified my old man and put on my new man, and now the fruit of the spirit is evident in my life!" (Ok, a little over-the-top--depending on your background). 

And in a city as diverse as Washington, DC--people from all walks of life--we don't want to shut the door before they're willing to crack it just a bit to see what it's all about first. We'd rather allow the songs to speak the truth, since music has a universal appeal that is able to break barriers that even the spoken word can't. 

Lastly, it's about finding common ground. As a station that has put emphasis on family over the years, it's been a way for us to connect with anyone--no matter where they are in their faith. Because family is something we can all agree is important. One person may think baptism by immersion is what we should do, while someone else believes in Christening, or even someone else doesn't even really care either way. We're not here to debate points of doctrine, but to encourage the next step in someone's faith, no matter where they are in that journey. And it's one reason why we've been intentional with our Chaplain's program, which has started ministries like our Saturday afternoon gathering Gateway Fellowship, which is a worship gathering in a relaxed setting, where people can come and not feel threatened to take that next step and connect them to churches around our area. 

But what I'd like to make sure is clear--we are not ashamed of Christ, or of what being a Christian is about. We're humbled every day that God gives us a new opportunity to serve Him and reach others--and we see evidence that it's working so far. But every day presents a new challenge, as times and culture changes, it can be like chasing your own tail to remain relevant for our times. We just hope that through it all, Christ is uplifted (sorry, had to use some of my own Christianese for a moment). 

Anyway, I hope that helps you understand just a bit. Again, I appreciate your openness to learning about what we do. If you have any questions at all, or if there is anything else I can do for you, please let me know...you've got my email. 

Blessings, 

Rob Conway 

--

Now playing on WGTS 91.9:  "Amazed" by Kutless 

"The Challenge" Day 23: Amazing Grace (or, a toast to John Newton)

One. Week. Left. If you don't know what this is about, you can start at Day 1, but I wouldn't recommend it. 

Here's to you, John Newton.

Former slave trader turned Anglican priest. Mentor to British abolitionists, including William Wilberforce. Suspected Methodist sympathizer.

And author, in 1779, of a little hymn called "Amazing Grace."

235 years later, and if you flip on K-LOVE you will likely hear all of the following in a day (or, in an hour):

1) Chris Tomlin and His Perfect Hair's version of the song, "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)," which appeared on the soundtrack of a film about William Wilberforce called...wait for it...Amazing Grace
2) Matt Redman's "Your Grace Finds Me" (to which I gave the Moltmann treatment to a few posts back), which is an ode to God's "great grace" and which includes an overt melodic reference to the familiar tune of Newton's hymn
3) David Crowder's "I Am," which begins with the lines: "There’s no space that His love can’t reach/There’s no place that we can’t find peace/There’s no end to Amazing Grace"
4) Phil Wickham's "This Is Amazing Grace"

And that's just the current CCM references to the song off the top of my head.

Not bad, John Newton. Not bad.

Just to make sure, I did a search of the phrase "amazing grace" in the KJV. Nope. It's Newton's phrase.

I'm not going to go into any sort of long hypothesis about why the song has stuck around so long.

But I am going to give a brief nod to the fact that a song about conversion from complicity in the systemic sin of slavery has stuck around.

Maybe Redman, Crowder, and Wickham weren't overtly referencing that aspect of the hymn in their songs. But then again, maybe they were. And Tomlin's version was included in a movie about abolitionism, so I'm assuming he was conscious of the fact that the grace he was singing about was not a just-me-and-Jesus, fire-insurance sort of grace. That the grace that is so amazing that we just keep singing about it is the kind of grace that can break addiction to injustice and violence. That grace doesn't just make you feel good, it can change the world.

That's some good news.

That, in fact, is some amazing news.

So here's a toast to you, John Newton. Thank you, from one wretch to another. Pardon the pun, but you really struck a chord.

--
Instead of telling you what's playing on klove.com, I'm going to post this video of Chris Tomlin's Platinum Hair singing about justice:

"The Challenge" Day 22: Some more thoughts on the word "Christian"

If you're not sure what the hell I'm talking about, you could start at Day 1. You know. If you're bored. 

Last week I wrote about K-LOVE not really talking much about being Christian, at least on air. I actually wrote a quick email to the folks at K-LOVE and at 91.9 here in DC, asking for their thoughts. They haven't gotten back to me but it was only last night that I sent the emails, so I'm holding out hope for a response. I think it would be cool to hear what they say.

In the meantime, I've been pondering the question in relation to a discussion that we had last week in my Emergent Gathering class.

We weren't talking about music, per se, but we did talk about the aesthetics of church/worship spaces. For example, we talked about churches that meet in movie theaters. On the one hand, it moves church out of a specialized building--a place where only "church people" go--to a shared cultural space. Part of the idea is that church buildings--certainly the building where my office is located is a good example--can be quite intimidating:

I mean, look at that thing. It has buttresses. 

On the other hand, movie theaters are designed--aesthetically and functionally--for a purpose. That purpose is viewing a movie. So worship ends up looking kind of like viewing a movie: you are alone in your seat, with minimal interaction, watching a big image on a screen. That can make things like growing together in community a challenge. (And any other set up, from traditional church building to coffee shop, will have its own advantages and disadvantages).

So is the avoidance of "Christian" language meant to have the same effect as a movie theater setting--to be non-threatening and make it clear that this is not just music for churchy-type people?

What's interesting about that to me is, as I mentioned a few posts back, the music has overtly religious language. So the question is--if it's designed to be non-threatening, does it work? I don't know--because I'm pretty much a churchy-type person, a person who feels comfortable in church buildings.

The flip side of this is that the campus ministry I work with tends to be very traditionally "churchy" in a lot of ways. Our chaplain wears a clergy shirt and collar, and an alb in worship. We sing out of a hymnal. Our logo involves the UMC cross-and-flame.

Yet, as I shared in class last week, people with a lot of questions about their faith--and people who explicitly are not of the Christian faith--attend worship and participate in the campus ministry activities. Somehow the very "churchy" language and aesthetics create a safe space, or a safe space is created in spite of the traditional aesthetic. Not sure which. On the flip side, my undergrad's campus ministry was much less "churchy" looking, but tended to be much less tolerant of divergent views.

We talked in class a bit about the breakdown of traditional terms to differentiate churches, such as "conservative" and "liberal." Metropolitan is "liberal" in its politics and theology, but "conservative" in aesthetics and structure. My undergrad campus ministry was quite "liberal" aesthetically and structurally, but very "conservative" politically and theologically.

I guess I just want to make two quick points to close this. The first is that I think authenticity, as much of a buzzword as it is, matters. Rev. Amy Butler, my preaching prof and a pastor in DC, made the point in class the other day that someone can be transparent in a high pulpit or faking it from the floor, and I think that is true. To a certain extent there's no "should" to worship styles or aesthetics--just be real. There's room for a diversity of expressions.

The second is a bit more critical, and that's to say: there is more to being welcoming of folks who are scared off by church than trying to mess with aesthetics a bit. There is also a need to create room for doubt and pain and even anger at the church. I think that's some of what my students tried to do last semester with their "What Sucks About Christianity" tabling.

So how do we do that, more, together?

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It's hard to tell what's playing right now on klove.com, because the connection keeps crapping out on me, but I think it's "The Proof of Your Love," by the oddly named for KING & COUNTRY, a band that would get John Wesley's stamp of approval on its name. Damn Tory. 

"The Challenge" Day 21: "Oceans"

If you want to know what the Challenge is, you can start with Day 1. If you want to know why it's sort of a miracle I've made it to Day 21, read Day 2. 

So, I'm sort of sorry that I haven't posted in days, but actually pretty much not sorry because it's been a totally bizarre and stressful week. Lots of amazing and beautiful things and lots of discouraging and demoralizing things. So most of my creative energy was spent getting through the week and reminding myself (and being reminded by many loving others) of the truth of some of the things I always say about where God is. So... #sorrynotsorry

One of the things I said I'd write about in this blog series was images of God on K-LOVE. And one of the songs that I've heard a million times on K-LOVE is "Oceans" by Hillsong United. And I'll be honest: I love this song. God as ocean, vast, unchanging-but-always-changing, is one of my favorite God-images. And the story of Peter being called by Jesus out into stormy seas is one of my favorite stories. I love the movement-imagery in this song. The idea that we're calling on Christ's name because we are trying to go out into uncertain waters, because we are doing the kind of daring and confusing things that we might be called to do.

So I love this song. So much so that I'm not even going to use this post as a launching point for a discussion about what we mean by calling God "sovereign."

Enjoy:



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Currently playing on klove.com: "Write Your Story" by Francesca Battistelli 

"The Challenge" Day 16: On not saying "Christian"

What's the K-LOVE Challenge? Why am I doing it? Check out Day 1 for some explanation...

So here's an interesting tidbit: K-LOVE doesn't really describe itself as Christian, at least not often.

The word is almost never mentioned on air.

At this moment, if you search the homepage for the word Christian, you get one hit, and its in reference to a particular artist.

Click on "About Us" and do the same search, and you again come up with only one hit.

I'm fascinated by this. Why the avoidance of the word Christian?

It's not as if the Christian content of the music is subtle or anything. And you can certainly click on their "Mission, Beliefs, and Values" to discover not only a vague Christian affiliation but a traditional/conservative (depending where you stand) theological bent (Bible as infallible, God as Trinity, virgin birth).

I'm actually kind of stumped by this. Is the word "Christian" associated with stuffy religious folks and K-LOVE wants to be cooler than that? Does "Christian radio" conjure up more of a TBN/Christian TV sort of feel, with more talking/sermons/overtly politicized discourse?

The local DC station that I'm listening to (since there's no K-LOVE station in DC) talks a lot about introducing people to God through their music, people who would be uncomfortable in a church setting. I know a lot of folks who are uncomfortable in church settings, but I don't know that many of them would be any more comfortable with CCM on the radio.

I will say this, though. An interesting--and I think positive--side effect of this downplaying of the word "Christian" is that I don't tend to feel like K-LOVE thinks of itself as the only Christian voice out there. That's important because it speaks to a lot of the concerns that I've raised. For example, I often feel like there's little room for lament in CCM. But maybe it's ok to have a station that's full of "positive and encouraging" music, as long as there are other spaces for lament. Maybe K-LOVE doesn't have to do all things.

I'd love to talk to some of the DJs to find out what they think about that. Do they think that "positive and encouraging" encompasses the totality of faith? Or do they see themselves as fulfilling a particular role, with other spaces being open for lament, anger, doubt, and/or silence? Is K-LOVE a symptom of a Christian culture that's afraid to break down? Or is it a space to escape from the break downs?

I don't know, what do you all think? Why avoid the word "Christian" but play overtly Christian music?

--

Currently playing on klove.com: "Your Love Never Fails" by Newsboys [who I am not-so-secretly-delighted are still a thing]

"The Challenge" Day 14: On dragons, families, and the power of media

Don't know what the K-LOVE Challenge is and why I'm doing it? No problem! You can start at Day 1 and learn all about it!

Sorry it's been a few days. I've known what I wanted to post on, in general, but was processing a bit. Still don't have it quite nailed down but the perfect is the enemy of the good. Or, in this case, the coherent is the enemy of the "well at least I posted something."

Last post I quoted Pete quite a bit, and he and several others posted some great follow ups on my Facebook page. Hope he doesn't mind me quoting him again:

"Family friendly" actually implies that everywhere else "there be dragons here" - patently false fear mongering.

"Family friendly" is, explicitly or implicitly, how I've heard a lot of CCM stations describe themselves. K-LOVE often has little blurbs from listeners who will say things like, "It's great to be able to listen to the radio with my kids and not have to worry about what they'll hear."

There are a bunch of things to say here, and they go in all sorts of directions, so forgive me. There's a sense in which I think Pete is spot on--that calling Christian radio "family friendly" is a way to say that anything that's outside of our little Christian box is scary and dangerous. And while Jesus certainly had some particular things to say about those who would endanger kids (something about millstones and necks and the sea, I think), Jesus also had some particular things to say about those who closed themselves off in pure religious boxes. He also had some particularly challenging things to say about families--stuff about divisions and turning against one another and hating mother and father--which, while certainly in need of a lot of interpretation, at the very least make me a bit suspicious when "Christian" and "traditional family values" are assumed to be synonymous.

On the other hand, there are a few dragons out there, aren't there? Dragons like sexual objectification, based on understandings of beauty so unrealistic and oppressive that Jennifer Lawrence has to be photo shopped in order to be magazine cover ready. Dragons like graphic violence as entertainment. Dragons like greed being worshiped. Dragons like the Hit Song of the Summer being about rape. And not in like an awareness raising way. In like a "this is the soundtrack to your rape" way.

I don't think that to try to ignore these things, or to try to create a "nice, safe" world where nothing hurts, is the best answer. But I'm not sure that uncritical consumption is the answer either (not saying that's what Pete was saying--it's just what I'm chewing on). Because I think that media and art are really, really powerful stuff, and can have real effects on us.

Case in point: Leigh and I watched 12 Years a Slave the other night. Let me first say this: every USAmerican who can stand to should watch this movie. It is incredibly made and acted and it shines light into ugly, ugly, ugly places of our collective past that continue to affect how we relate to each other today.

But when I left the theater, I felt like I needed some sort of cleansing. I felt dirty, or more accurately, I felt poisoned. Like a bitter, angry liquid had replaced my blood. That film had an impact, a real, physically felt impact on me. It took me a day or so to even be able to talk much about it.

Now, 12 Years a Slave was designed to disturb, to trouble. To lead to reflection. But what about all of the incredibly violent and objectifying stuff that we consume without reflection? Isn't it a bit naive to think that none of that can affect us? Isn't there some sense in being discerning about the types of media that we consume?

I don't think that said discernment should be confined to a sort of religious-secular divide, though I don't judge K-LOVE-listening parents who would really rather not have to explain to their kids what Bruno Mars means in the lyrics to "Gorilla."

When I was little, my dad didn't let my sister and I own a radio. In his car, we always listened to mix tapes that he would make. They had all sorts of stuff on them -- Michael Jackson, Iron Butterfly, Pink Floyd, gospel music, and for some reason Mary Chapin Carpenter. I probably owe my sort of weird, eclectic musical likes to those tapes. They certainly weren't K-LOVE. But, in my dad's unique way, they were kid safe.

There's nothing wrong with having "family friend and kid safe" radio. It's just that if that's the only form of Christian expression we let ourselves have access too (although K-LOVE never describes itself as "Christian," an interesting tidbit that will be the topic of my next post) then I think we're limiting ourselves too much.

Or, to pull from a message I gave at AU about two years ago on Psalm 102:

Scripture, and the message of the gospel, is so much fuller than that. It covers the entire range of human experience and emotion....I have trouble imagining a Christian radio station whose tagline is “Hold the stones dear, and have pity on the dust.” It’s not exactly an uplifting slogan. But in a deep way, it is a hopeful slogan, a testament to a God who does not leave us even when we feel we have left God, even when we feel that there is nothing left.

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Now playing on klove.com: "God's Great Dance Floor" by Chris Tomlin's Perfect Hair