Think Christian Articles

Stephen Cone on church youth groups and Wise Kids

2012-05-20T06:53:29Z

Posted on 05/20/12

Editor's note: Agendas Aside, a Think Christian series on homosexuality and the church, also includes pieces by Neil de Koning, Joshua Walters, Glenn Goodfellow and Jason E. Summers.

People aren’t quite sure what to do with The Wise Kids.

An independent coming-of-age drama about members of a church youth group who learn that one of their members is gay, the movie has respect for its characters’ faith and sexuality, as well as the way these teens try to reconcile the two. In other words, The Wise Kids resists being used as weapon in the current culture wars.

With positive reviews in places like The New York Times and appearances at both gay and mainstream film festivals, the picture has nonetheless become an important part of the conversation for those trying to process such issues. Stephen Cone, the film’s writer, director and co-star, recently sat down with Think Christian to discuss the movie and its journey.

Has it been difficult to find an audience for The Wise Kids?

If you premiere at a gay (film) festival, which we did - not because I was targeting it but because it was the first big festival to take us - then you suddenly get branded a gay film even if you’re not. Half the audience I made it for wouldn’t be caught dead at gay festivals. What I’ve tried to do is sort of, in a parallel way, target non-gay festivals along (with) the gay festivals. To try to play both. But it’s been a really interesting lesson in what it means to premiere at a gay festival. As soon as you do, then you’re the new big gay film. Then people see (it) and they’re like, “Why is this playing at gay festivals?”

Why did you choose to make this an ensemble piece about a number of the kids in the youth group, rather than the story of Tim (Tyler Ross), who reveals he’s gay?

I guess I just became increasingly interested in making a portrait of a community. One thing about growing up in the Southern Baptist church is you realize it’s as diverse a community as any other… For me it’s just about the individual human experience and wanting to talk about Christians as people as opposed to Christians. One semi-recurring theme amongst several of my films over the years has been the fact that the one thing that believers and nonbelievers share is the human body. That interests me, that Christians can’t help but be human, as much as they may want to focus on the transcendental otherness of themselves, at the end of the day they really are just walking around in human bodies like the rest of us.

Was this a personal story for you?

I grew up in a youth group, so so much of it comes from my own youth group and how much I value that final year of high school. That final year of high school and first year of college is really when the plant comes out from underneath the soil into the world. I just think teenagers - a lot of teenagers are underrated and undervalued as thinkers and seekers. There’s obviously lots of slackers and people who are shutting down in high school but what we never hear about are the kids who are actually engaging with each other and engaging with their existence. I guess I felt those tensions a little bit in my youth group in a positive way, of people being honest about what they may be doubting or not doubting.

How have people reacted to the film?

I’ve spoken to people of every type who have responded positively and engaged with the film. Sometimes it’s inadvertently and in small ways. I may have a very conservative Christian friend who may not have said something to me after the movie but will all the sudden start liking everything about The Wise Kids on Facebook and in that way they’re hinting to me that they understand the film. What they’re responding to is the open engagement of ideas and values, of people unironically and uncynically engaging with each other about their lives… There is someone I have in mind who I grew up knowing, her husband is a charismatic preacher and they’re very devout… the entire family came to the Charleston screening and loved it for their own specific reasons. Then there’s the other end. There’s the 65-year-old gay man in Los Angeles who responds in equally positive ways for very different reasons.

What role can the church play in helping people wrestle with the issue of homosexuality?

I suppose my first thought is that even if there’s not an answer, society is going to end up doing a lot of the work for these people and for churches. The issue of women’s rights and slavery and interracial relationships – those things didn’t necessarily reign supreme because churches had a powwow and engaged with each other. They didn’t wait for the churches. So whether churches decide to chat about it or not I just think the train is moving and 50 years from now we’ll be talking about it like we do any other issue that we’ve moved past. There will be 80-year-old people talking about this 50 years from now, maybe, but no one else. I really don’t think it will be an issue.

Where can people find The Wise Kids?

All the screenings are at thewisekids.com and the Wise Kids Facebook page. And that’s where, when we do have a distributor, we’ll announce it.

Why metal isn’t just for Satan anymore

2012-05-22T07:47:10Z

Posted on 05/22/12

“Every curse, lie, violation of our lives / Every careless error of breath, corruption of our minds

All the blood and the shame, defamation of name / The weight of a wicked world

Embodied on a thankless crucifix / Embodied on a blood-soaked crucifix”

So opens True Defiance, the sixth studio album of one of the heaviest bands in all of rock - Demon Hunter. Sure, there may be faster or even louder bands, but the gothic melodies, baritone vocals, throttled screams and nightmare-inducing lyrics of Demon Hunter gives them the heavy music crown right now.

The fact that the band is unabashedly Christian, even as they unrelentingly delve into the darkest shades of modern metal, is absolutely not shocking to anyone – Christian or not – at this point. Several of the most popular and successful modern metal bands on the scene today are openly Christian and aren’t afraid to talk about it.

While Christians have been working in the metal genre to some extent or another for nearly 40 years, it has often been from the sidelines. Heavy Christian bands like Jerusalem, Resurrection Band, Saint, Messiah Prophet or Bloodgood struggled to gain any traction in the hedonistic and decadent metal scene. But something new has been happening over the last decade or so. Several of the most well-respected, strongest-selling and critically acclaimed metal bands in the world are blatantly Christian. Though they are sometimes more subtle in their delivery than the in-your-face Christian metal of old, everyone in the scene knows where they are coming from – and they’re cool with it. The devil seems to have lost his grip on the music he supposedly invented.

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A quarter century ago Stryper shocked sinners and saints with their Gospel-tinted pop metal and grin-inducing songs (“To Hell with The Devil”). They certainly impacted the mainstream music culture of the day, but beyond their undeniably strong pop sensibilities, it was the novelty of a band of Christians playing what was clearly the devil’s music that had people talking. Several others tried to break through that way, but the doors to the metal world were firmly shut from the inside. Unless you hid your faith you were not welcomed to the party.

The rules changed in a big way with P.O.D.’s breakthrough in 1999. There was no denying their power as a live band, their chops or their sincerity. Underoath took the torch next and brought metal to a whole new level of popularity. Then the floodgates seemed to break wide open with many of the most respected bands in the metal scene coming from a position of faith. As I Lay Dying, The Devil Wears Prada, Thrice and August Burns Red pack out venues and maintain the pole position in the modern hard music scene right now.

Doug Van Pelt has been covering the intersection of faith and hard music for over 25 years as the editor of HM Magazine and for him this whole phenomenon is like Christmas. He told me that “all of these bands, especially As I Lay Dying, are simply outstanding and impressive as musicians. They take the stage and just blow the audience away. It's jaw-dropping good. That must be why these bands are getting so much respect, coverage, sales and concert attendance.”

At a recent metal show in Nashville I asked a Haste The Day fan what they thought of Christian bands being so popular in the scene.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It seems to me that the Christian bands work harder, play better and treat their fans really cool. It’s just different with them.”

It was the last thing he said that really made me smile; “I don’t love these bands because they are Christian,” he added with a big grin. “I love them because they are awesome.”

Listening to these bands and seeing them play, it’s clear that believers have earned a seat at the big table in this scene the old-fashioned way. They earned it.

What Do You Think?

Are you a fan of Christian metal?
What is metal music able to convey about the spiritual experience?
Why do you think Christian metal is so widely accepted right now?

My day at the NATO protests

2012-05-21T16:02:52Z

Posted on 05/21/12

I don’t make a habit of going to these things.

As Chicago braced itself for road closures, heightened security and masses of protesters surrounding the NATO summit, I reflected on why I wanted to march in this protest, at this particular moment in time. I’m a Christian feminist who’s been accused of being liberal on more than one occasion, but this just seemed so radical. And for what purpose? My reasons, I realized, had everything to do with my faith.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance of 28 nations in North America and Europe. Formed after World War II, NATO employs a strategy of collective defense, which means that an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. Such was the case after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, at which time NATO engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States is spending $115 billion on conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, on top of the Department of Defense budget of over half a trillion dollars. Critics generally argue that NATO has outlived its original purpose and should disband, and that its collective defense strategy is little more than “might makes right.”

The day before the march I wrote down about 20 reasons I protest NATO. Here are just a few. Like more than 70% of Americans, I disapprove of the war in Afghanistan; I believe that the financial costs of unjust wars weigh heavily on all of us; I protest as an expression of my Christian faith, which takes into account Jesus’s radical commitment to justice.

As I joined with thousands of other protesters for a rally at noon Sunday, I realized that our reasons for resisting NATO were numerous, some even in conflict with one another. I saw posters for three different presidential candidates. I heard people disagree about when and how to end the wars. Some people want social reform, others want complete overhaul. These discussions were peaceful and even fruitful for most of the day. As I walked through the streets of Chicago, clapping and chanting, I saw these differences as a strength, not a weakness. During a chant of “Stop the war! Feed the poor!” I shouted these words as a prayer. Keep our soldiers safe. Bring justice to the children living in a war zone. Help the people hurting here at home.

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The march ended at Cermak and Michigan Avenue, just a few blocks from the site of the NATO summit. This was as far as the demonstration was permitted to go. White flags bearing doves and the words “Veterans for Peace” flew as it was announced over a loudspeaker that Iraq war veterans would be returning their medals of honor in protest. However, my two friends and I grew uneasy as soon as the crowd stopped moving. With nowhere to go, spaces got tighter and the ever-present rows of police, who had been walking right alongside us, were now reinforced by officers in riot gear. At this final stop of the march, the news cameras were on. With a gut feeling and a train to catch, we decided to leave. A peaceful march was what we came for, and it was what we got. We decided there was nothing else to gain, no greater message to spread. After four peaceful hours of rallying and marching we headed down an empty street at 4 p.m., passing literally hundreds more officers on the way.

Our anxiety was well-founded, because by 4:45 the scene back at Cermak and Michigan had turned ugly. When I got home at 6 p.m., I was dismayed to see live television coverage of police clashing with just a few dozen remaining demonstrators. To me, this was pointless hijacking of a peaceful, tremendously meaningful day by a group representing less than one tenth of one percent of the original crowd. Where were the live cameras when the officers returned their medals? Where were they when environmentalists, feminists and other peacemakers shared ideas about a better future?

Justice is comprised of acts big and small, and God is never short on ideas. In the pursuit of a better world, we’re going to disagree about how to get there. Some Christians will judge me for marching at all, while others will judge me for leaving too soon. I don’t think everyone must share my politics, nor do I believe that social justice necessarily demands participation in a mass demonstration like this one. How we enact justice is between us and God, but act we must.

What Do You Think?

Have you ever participated in a protest or demonstration?
How should Christians use such tools for justice?
What should Christians make of NATO?

The uneasy alliances of Syrian Christians

2012-05-18T06:00:58Z

Posted on 05/18/12

Hani Sarhan is a Christian in Syria who says none of his relatives works with Syrian president Bashar Assad's regime or have anything to do with it.

"But what we heard from (the protesters) at the beginning of this revolution saying, 'Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the coffin,' started us thinking about the real aim of this revolution," he said. "So from this point of view, fearing for my life, I declared my support for President Assad."

Muslims dominate this nation of 22 million people, but Christians can be found at all levels of Syrian government, business and military. The 2 million Christians here trace their roots to ancient communities and have survived under many rulers even as Christian enclaves in other Arab nations, such as Saudi Arabia, have withered.

The rebellion of hundreds of thousands of Muslims against Assad that began in March 2011 has not seen Christians abandon their support for the Alawites, the Muslim sect to which Assad belongs and that has controlled Syria for decades. Christians have largely remained quiet as Assad's forces pummeled rebel cities and towns with artillery, killing close to 10,000 people, according to the United Nations.

Many of Syria's Christians continue to stand by the regime not out of support for Assad, but out of fear of a civil war resulting in an Islamist government that's hostile to religious minorities.

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Qatana, a town 20 miles southwest of Damascus, is home to a Christian community of several hundred families. Protests here against the Assad regime have prompted military incursions and clashes between renegade soldiers and the regular army. At checkpoints surrounding the town, some Christians chat to Alawite security officers. Others offer water and whiskey.

Christians firmly believe that the Alawite regime will keep them safe. With the town's two churches located in Sunni Muslim neighborhoods, for months many families were too fearful to attend service, Christians here said. But a teacher at a Christian school said life is better now than before.

"The crisis is almost over," she said, asking her name be withheld because she feared retribution. "Our church was full on Easter Sunday; last year, it was practically empty. We were allowed to parade around the town, when last year we could only go in the street outside the church."

Yet Christian communities elsewhere have seen trouble.

In March, a Middle East leader for Think Christian's parent ministry reported violence against Syrian Christians in Hama and Homs.

"A predominately Christian neighborhood of west Hama, named Mahrada, was overrun by Islamist armed men," he said. "They forced families to flee and occupied homes.Three men were shot dead before their families. In Homs a similar incident occurred on a larger scale in the predominately Christian neighborhood of Hamidiyah. There dozens of men were killed and 23 women were kidnapped and raped before being freed when the Syrian army regained control."

Many Christians simply do not want to upset their way of living in a country where their fate will always be decided by Muslims, according to Syria experts. Christian doctors, lawyers and dentists have established successful and stable careers. Others occupy leading positions in the Syrian army, though a new constitution mandates the head of state must be Muslim.

"They do support (Assad) and are feeling quite anxious," said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and a Syria expert. "Even so, there are plenty of Christians (in Syria) who believe that democracy in the long run is the best protection for Christians."

Careful cultural engagement

2012-05-17T06:27:44Z

Posted on 05/17/12

Last year my husband and I joined our friends in a 200-seat theater to hear a relatively unknown band called The Civil Wars. This was before the Grammys and before their collaboration with Taylor Swift for the Hunger Games soundtrack. I hadn’t heard much about the duo before this show was scheduled, but all of our friends were over-the-top excited, so we joined in the date-night fun. That show turned us into big fans. Even our children now know the songs on Barton Hollow.

Perhaps six months later The Civil Wars returned to the city to play a sold-out show at a big theater. We weren’t able to go, but when I asked one of the formerly over-the-top excited friends if she was going, she made a face. “Nah. I mean, what have they done lately?”

It was less than a year since their first release and only a few months since we had seen them with so much fan excitement. Her response made me think about the current state of Christian cultural engagement.

A few years ago, Christians knowledgeable about the latest music, television, movies and books would have been seen as worldly. In a lot of churches now, it’s almost a requirement. To the extent that it brings us out of our self-imposed ghettos and back in touch with the mainstream human experience, engaging culture is both healthy and glorifying to God.

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In a recent Think Christian piece, Josh Larsen argued that “clumsy cultural engagement by believers” is better than none at all. He’s right, because when we close ourselves off to culture as a whole, we begin to ignore the rest of the world, making it hard to truly show Jesus to anyone.

There’s an opposite danger, though, and one that the conversation with my friend about The Civil Wars brought to mind. What if we become too savvy, too well-versed in popular culture? What if we begin to look at the world first as 21^st-century Americans, and only second as followers of Christ? When we become as consumer-minded (or, worse, more) as the non-believers among us, we actually risk losing the ability to see God in anything.

Andy Crouch, in his book Culture Making, argues that there are four ways in which we can engage culture. We can consume it, copy it, critique it and condemn it. Each approach is valid and appropriate at different times, though all have their dangers. Crouch’s example for healthy consumption is a loaf of bread and a cup of tea. We can’t critique the Christ-likeness of it, we can’t make it “more Christian” and only a fool would condemn tea and bread. We consume it. However, when we begin to talk about the more complex question of popular culture, consumption is not the best default.

In our honest efforts to “engage” the culture around us, seeking to change people’s lives by the power of Christ, we can quickly slide into merely consuming. After all, in this millennium, information and trends move so fast, the minute you conquer one, there’s a new one right behind it. We can spend our days keeping up with the latest fashions, bands and hip places to eat and drink. Before we know it, we’ve put all our time and efforts into keeping up with culture, and when someone asks us for the hope we have in us (which they won’t, unless they see it), we won’t have an answer.

This is not a blatant condemnation of popular culture, of course. Rather, we need to develop a lens through which to judge a given cultural artifact for ourselves and for our families. Perhaps Philippians is a good place to start:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

This is the beginning of healthy engagement. When we start here, we loosen culture’s grip a little and put ourselves, with the power of Holy Spirit, back in control.

What Do You Think?

How do you define healthy cultural engagement?
What guidelines can Christians keep in mind as they partake of mainstream culture?

What books should every Christian read?

2012-05-16T09:19:40Z

Posted on 05/16/12

When I co-wrote Besides the Bible, a collection of essays about books my co-authors and I think every Christian should read, our hopes for the project were modest. We wanted to encourage followers of Jesus to talk about books, especially the really good books.

“This is not a list of the most important books in Christendom,” we say in the introduction. “It is not a comprehensive catalog of the history of the Christian church. It is a list of 100 books, culled from the vast library of the written word, we believe our siblings in Christ will be stronger for having read.”

Since Besides the Bible was released we’ve been criticized for some of the books we included (The Last Temptation of Christ, Left Behind and books by prominent atheists). We’ve also been criticized for some of the books we excluded. For example, we made the decision early on that we would only allow one book per author. C.S. Lewis was one of the few exceptions. We included guest essays on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and A Grief Observed, but Mere Christianity did not make the final cut. The absence of certain books and authors makes our list immediately suspect for some people. But part of the fun of putting together a recommended reading list is the conversation that develops about the strengths and weaknesses of the list itself.

Here are a few other books that Jordan Green, Dan Gibson and I wrote about:

Strength to Love, by Martin Luther King, Jr.: Most of the sermons in this collection would have ended with an altar call. If the altar calls didn’t make the text, we still reach a moment of decision. The question King asked explicitly four years later in a different book is the same facing every Christian who has an authentic encounter with Dr. King: Where do we go from here?

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard: In a virtual reality culture of blogs, status updates, tweets and memes, The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek displays an attentiveness to the natural world that has become increasingly difficult, even as it becomes more and more essential.

Anarchy and Christianity, by Jacques Ellul: Conservatives may have appreciated his Reformed theology and participation in the French Resistance, but they bristled at his affection for Marx. Liberals liked his rebukes of theocracy, but they winced when he blasted the impotence of government. In the end, like many prophets, Ellul was ignored.

Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock, by Andrew Beaujon: The music Christian culture produces is a continuing influence internally, but it’s a confusing transmission to those exclusively in the secular world. Body Piercing Saved My Life might be the best record of what it all means.

We recommended our books. Through a now-dormant blog - and especially through the 30 guest essays in the book itself - we had books recommended to us. It was thrilling for us to read David Dark on J.D. Salinger: “Franny and Zooey situates salvation and the just life lived by faith squarely within the here and now, remaining alive to the possibility, for instance, of consecrated cups of chicken soup passed between people.”

And Phyllis Tickle on poetry: “[The] best companion to the Bible, at least for folks like me, is The Norton Anthology of Poetry, that treasure trove of what we have been and that record in pathos and glory of what we, under God, are becoming.”

Now we’d like to add your voice to the conversation. Which books do you think every Christian should read?

Frank Langella and fame

2012-05-15T06:44:23Z

Posted on 05/15/12

I recently came across two interviews with Frank Langella discussing his memoir Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them. I first saw Langella on the Tavis Smiley Show and then Charlie Rose the next night. Both times I watched with great fascination as Langella talked as much or more about what he learned as a result of writing the book as the famous figures (all deceased) in the text.

In the midst of discussing Rita Hayworth with Smiley, Langella stated that after writing the book he became aware of how many famous people weren’t well parented. By this he meant that no imprimatur (in the sense of approval) was given to them and the result was great damage to their identity. He added that while many famous people went into show business or similar careers as a means to address the damage, what actually happened is that the trappings, perks and rewards of fame covered up the deep damage. He noted that many of these people succumbed later in life to the damage, especially after the spotlight had moved on. In a similar vein, Langella told Rose that “Fame is corrosive.” The reason for this is that the “toys” and other products/elements of fame (power, one’s name, wealth, sex appeal, etc.) create a distance between the person and their deepest self, keeping them from addressing the most fundamental things in their lives, which does not serve them well as they get older.

Langella did not put himself forward as a saint (indeed far from it), but as more of a survivor who is also a damaged person but who has gotten to a place where fame is not something he needs to protect himself from the shifting winds life brings. As I watched these interviews a few times, I pondered why it is that so many of us are seduced by the what Lady Gaga aptly titled “The Fame Monster.” (I’m not much of a fan, but she got that one right.)

When I was growing up, people who graced the television and movie screen were a rare breed who occupied a special place in the universe off limits to mere mortals. I wondered how anyone could actually cross paths with famous actors and actresses, stars of the music world, great athletes and even those on local and national news broadcasts. These were people who had a level of public recognition and approval that many dreamed of but few could ever attain; I’m not sure as a child that I believed they were human like the rest of us.

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Things have changed a lot since then. There’s still a rarefied world occupied by celebrities, but the possibility of orchestrating one’s own fame is now available via the world of social media. If you make the right kind of YouTube video or find a niche in certain domains of the blogosphere, you might have a shot at getting at least five minutes of fame, if not the full Warhol 15. But why do we want it? And why is this as seductive for Christians as much as anyone else? What do we believe will happen to us and for us if we arrive at stardom (whether hard fought or sudden)? What does this mean about the way that our faith penetrates to the core of our identity and how we address our brokenness?

My sense is that what happens with many people is that they see the serial carnage of lives that succumbed to internal dysfunction or fame’s corrosion, yet they say “I’ll get it right. I’ll be careful and I won’t be one of the statistics.” But what often happens is that fame monster consumes them as well.

I don’t think public recognition is toxic by definition, nor do I believe that we should run from affirmation. Indeed, affirmation is important, but are we aware of the difference between healthy affirmation and addictive, heroin- or crack-like approval that keeps us from learning how to travel through this often disappointing life until the eschaton comes?

What Do You Think?

What aspect of our brokenness does fame seem able to heal?
Is public recognition something Christians should avoid at all costs?
What are examples of people who have best handled fame?

Journey and the value of companionship

2012-05-13T06:58:43Z

Posted on 05/13/12

When I first saw a figure in the distance, I was unsure how I should react. I wanted to yell - I had been walking alone for what seemed like miles and I wasn’t entirely sure where I was. However, I didn’t know this person. How could I know that I could trust her? I didn’t speak. I simply walked toward her, she acknowledged me and turned and began walking toward the looming mountain in the horizon. I followed.

We walked silently together. At first I followed, but we soon reversed roles and I began leading the way. At some point suspicion of my companion gave way to trust. When we arrived at the caves in the foothills of the mountain and I slipped and fell, my companion helped me up. When I lost my way in the dark, she would come near and lead the way. I soon found myself helping her when she fell and signaling to her when she turned the wrong way. She became to me a guide and a friend. It was still my journey, but I no longer wanted to be alone.

Somewhere near the mountain’s peak, I lost sight of my friend. I retraced my steps, looked in every direction, but she was nowhere to be found. I waited for her at the summit. Time slowed and after what seemed like an eternity, I continued on, climbed up the peak and stepped into glory.

I suppose Journey could be interpreted in many ways as it presents us with a stunning but desolate world and charges us with a simple task: collect bits of an old scarf as you make your way toward the mountain and eventually to its summit. The world of Journey is plagued with uncertainty. There is no prologue and there are no written or spoken words throughout. Its lack of stated goals and its mysteriously quiet world will make you question yourself. There is an intentional lack of guidance from the game itself.

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You enter Journey alone but it’s up to you to determine whether you will remain that way. When you happen upon another traveler – representing a real flesh-and-blood person randomly placed into your game, just as you are randomly placed into theirs - you cannot speak, you can only produce a small beacon to inform them of your location. There are no extra points scored for traveling together or special locations reachable only by teamwork. Traveling together is entirely up to you and whoever you happen upon.

Journey is perhaps the most meaningful game experience I have ever had. To me it was a metaphor for my own personal journey as a Christian - the journey toward eternal glory with the Father, the journey made possible for me by Christ. I was traversing sparse landscapes, foreboding caverns and strange ruins, but always moving upward toward the peak of the glorious mountain. Every misstep was a trial or temptation seeking to defer my gaze from my goal and every step toward the mountain was a reminder of the promise of eternal reward.

Like many of That Game Company’s games, Journey makes a strong case for the aesthetic value and emotional potential of video games as a medium. It’s a game about progress and yet it has the potential to be much more. For many, it’s a game about the value of human interaction, trust and companionship. I doubt that my companion internalized her experience in Journey the same way that I did, but I am glad that she was there. Perhaps I would have made it without her. I cannot be sure, but I know that she helped me reach my goal. I could have made my pilgrimage alone, but if Journey taught me anything about myself, it taught me that I didn’t want to.

What Do You Think?

Have you played Journey? How would you describe the experience?
What other metaphors does the game bring to mind?
What role does companionship play in our faith journeys?

The missed opportunity of the Freedom Tower

2012-05-11T07:52:39Z

Posted on 05/11/12

The Empire State Building has once again lost its claim to being New York City’s tallest tower (having been eclipsed several times in the “world’s tallest” category). With 100 floors complete and counting, the Freedom Tower, aka 1 World Trade Center, has passed the venerable Art Deco landmark recently and isn’t looking back.

This event, though greeted with press releases and mild fanfare, left me more sad than satisfied. For one thing, the so-called Freedom Tower owes its very existence to the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an event I experienced from the seat of a commercial airliner and an unplanned stay in Salt Lake City, Utah. Without 9/11, after all, there is no need for a Freedom Tower.

Its origin is sad enough in itself, but the story of the tower’s design is even sadder. Building anything in Manhattan is famously difficult, but the Freedom Tower’s story is more fraught than most. The commission to design the tower (and its name) originally belonged to Daniel Libeskind, an engaging architect whose work mostly leaves me cold, but whose inspiring back story made his proposed Freedom Tower a worthy successor to the World Trade Center’s twin towers.

Libeskind’s design, which clocked in at an unsubtle 1,776 feet, was an office tower whose twisting form and upraised mast was a subtle, abstracted salute to the Statue of Liberty, symbol of American freedom. Not a replica, but an homage, it was, in my opinion, well done (this from a less than tepid fan of most of Libeskind’s work). It was a heartfelt, bracing, uplifting proposal for a tragic site.

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But among other problems, Libeskind could never be sure who his client was: Silverstein Properties, the real estate company that owned the World Trade Center; the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who owned the site; or the commission appointed to oversee the rebuilding of the site and buildings destroyed in the 9/11 attack. The resulting process - a torturous web of panels, commissions, bosses, landlords and behind-the-scenes posturing - resulted in a new architect and a new plan that eviscerated Libeskind’s evocative design.

Fast forward through several years of politics, panels and backstage maneuverings, and the design work ended up going to David Childs, the blue-chip design head of a blue-chip corporate design firm, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, which counts Lever House, the John Hancock Center and the (formerly) Sears Tower among its past commissions. Child’s take on Libeskind’s design is plainer (Hancock Center plain) and less sculptural, with a mast that looks more like a TV antenna (which it is) than an upraised arm. Though still 1,776 feet tall, all the allusion has been drained from Libeskind’s idea, along with the elegance. The new Freedom Tower sits on a 200-foot-tall concrete base meant to render it impervious to ground-level explosions. And the Titanic was unsinkable, right?

Christians should, I suppose, be cheered by the valiant attempt of those involved to redeem the tragedy of 9/11 through the reconstruction of the site (though of course the actual site of the Twin Towers is now a commemorative park, previously discussed on Think Christian). But the process of arriving at this point - the incredibly Byzantine path to Childs’ redesign of Libeskind’s tower and the resultant building - is truly the proverbial camel, a horse designed by a committee. Instead of redemption, mostly what I see is ego, posturing, hubris and the raw exercise of political power in a city where the latter, more than the dollar, is the true coin of the realm. Redemption? Not so much.

What Do You Think?

What is your impression of the Freedom Tower?
How could a skyscraper best capture the theme of restoration?
What notable skyscrapers resonate with you and why?

What science cannot say about morality

2012-05-10T06:29:40Z

Posted on 05/10/12

Editor's note: Agendas Aside, a Think Christian series on homosexuality and the church, also includes pieces by Neil de Koning, Joshua Walters and Glenn Goodfellow.

“Black people are worth less than white people,” my 11-year-old African-American mentee matter-of-factly informed me as we were working on his science-fair project. As we talked about this it became clear that he had somehow collapsed the value of human beings into a conflation of lifetime income and economic productivity such that he was certain the “worth” of an individual could be determined by imagining the cash ransom they would command if abducted. I was worth more than a black person, he assured me, but - somewhat incongruously - less than a basketball star.

Putting aside the conversation that followed - in which I labored to explain that the value of all human beings comes from their having been created in the image of God - if we were to instead accept my mentee's false definition of human value, we could easily determine that the economic and sociological data broadly confirm his hypothesis. However, in truth, those data do not and cannot reveal anything about the value of human beings.

It's particularly appropriate that my mentee and I had our conversation in the context of completing his science-fair project, because it is science that people most often turn to when attempting to make moral claims based on what is observed in the world. In no case is this truer than when trying to answer questions about the moral status of homosexuality.

It is commonly accepted that the outcome of the debate over the moral status of homosexuality hangs on the scientific question of whether homosexuality is a choice. As such, groups in favor of normalization of homosexuality in society and broader legal recognition of gay and lesbian relationships champion findings that tie homosexuality to genetic factors or neurobiology. In contrast, groups that disapprove of homosexuality and wish to prevent public legal recognition of gay and lesbian relationships dispute such findings. But, as Professor Alice Dreger reviews in her recent article in the Atlantic, the current status of scientific knowledge on the matter outlines a much more complex landscape of questions and does little to deliver a smoking gun that would serve either set of partisan ends.

As a scientist, I'm encouraged to see public interest in scientific findings, but as a Christian with an avocational interest in ethics, I find appeals to science in search of answers to moral questions troubling. Looking for scientific evidence that individuals are (or are not) born with a particular sexual identity does not and cannot address questions about the moral status of a particular sexual identity.

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As moral philosopher David Hume famously observed, what is does not determine what ought to be. And, more than that, Christians - who affirm that the world was created by God and that God has ordained the right ordering of things - know that, despite the ongoing effects of sin that ensure that what we observe is not what ought to be, the deepest truth of things remains not what we observe them to be, but what they are created to be. Though we may not see it now, we believe in hope that all things are being brought to perfection through Christ.

Christian ethics is teleological in this sense: it recognizes as good that which moves the created order closer toward the ends for which it was created. We misrepresent the moral vision of our faith when we reduce it to a question of whether people are free to choose to obey a particular rule - with both sides arguing whether people are “born this way” or not. It is a flawed line of reasoning (due primarily to Kant) that elevates individual choice while diminishing the power of God.

In real life, there is not such a clear distinction between what is determined and what is chosen, just as the findings described by Dreger, writing in the Atlantic, reflect. Choices are never fully free, nor fully constrained; neither purely a matter of our personality (disposition) nor our circumstances (situation). As I have previously written, “Jesus' parable of the talents advocates a richer view: we are accountable for our choices and actions (disposition), but in accordance with what we are given (situation).” What we are accountable for is becoming ever more fully what we are created to be, which is something we can never discern from our status at birth, but only our nature as children of God.

Christians must root their moral questions here, beginning with the understanding that all people are created in the image of God and seeking to understand how all of us are to work, together with Christ, towards the fulfillment and consummation of creation.

What Do You Think?

Will scientifically determining whether or not homosexuality is a choice also determine the moral aspect of the debate?
What does it mean to become what God created us to be?
In what ways has sin led you to fall short of God's original, creative intention?

Why Maurice Sendak should be next to your kids’ story Bible

2012-05-09T19:05:48Z

Posted on 05/09/12

Every Sunday I read the announcement - the one about the book drive to stock the kids’ library at my church with classic children’s books. Every Sunday, I think, I’ve got so many books. I have to go through them and donate. And then every Sunday I come back from church, look at the stacks and rows of books on our bookshelves and wonder which books I should donate. So far, every Sunday I’ve walked away from my shelves without pulling any books out. Without giving a one.

The problem is not my greed. It’s not any hoarding compulsion. The problem is: one day one of these authors will die. And my kids will read the story and gasp or sigh and their minds will wander back to the huge influence, the wonderful impact the author had on their lives and they will call me up and ask if I still have that book. And I’d hate to say I didn’t.

I realize this sounds extreme. But yesterday, when I read the news that Maurice Sendak had died, after I gasped and sighed, my mind went to the books, the ones my mother had saved for me. The ones I had read to my own kids a million times. I ran up the stairs, knelt in front of the white book shelf outside the kids’ rooms and ran my fingers along the spines, looking for Sendak.

As I did, my brain went further back - to the times I’d searched the spines for Sendak as a child. The times I’d longed to return to Where the Wild Things Are, when I wanted to imagine Alligators All Around or to learn more about that Rosie - who’d sung on TV about being a “great big deal.” Words I desperately want to believe about myself. In fact, each of the books I returned to (of Sendak’s and others) either said something about or fed something in me. They were key elements in my growing up, in my forming.

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I suppose this is why - even though I’ve yet to donate a one - I’m thrilled to belong to a church willing to gather and display and offer these classic and wonderful stories for our children. That I worship in a place that believes un-officially inspired-by-God books can inspire nevertheless. That these books deserve a hallowed place on our shelves - right next to the children’s Bibles and Bible stories.

Because these books can and do help us train up children. They trained me up when I struggled to make sense of myself, my circumstances, my very life. The great books made me feel less alone or misfit; they offered glimpses of a bigger picture and a bigger story and just where I might fit in it.

They do this for my kids too, which is why I’m nervous to give any away. Because I’m not exactly sure which books, which words, which writers my own kids are holding near and dear, which lyrics or turns of phrase they’ve tucked deep into their hearts, which stories they know themselves better because of.

And I’m not exactly sure which stories have stirred up their imaginations so much that they begin to see God at work in the stories, the illustrations, in the humor and in the sad bits. But I know some do. And I know they help kids imagine their own place in God’s story. Because it’s in these great books that - if we look and imagine - that we see stories of disobedience and consequence, of bravado and loneliness and longing for home, of redemption and grace. When our faith is indeed childlike, we see the Gospel played out where wild things are.

What Do You Think?

Does Sendak's work have a special meaning for you?
Can classic children's books, despite being irreligious, aid in spiritual formation?

Listening to Edvard Munch’s Scream

2012-05-09T06:49:06Z

Posted on 05/09/12

Last week, Edvard Munch's 1895 pastel version of The Scream went under the gavel at Sotheby’s to set a new record as the most expensive piece of art ever sold at auction. One of our culture’s most recognizable and reproduced images, it rivals even the Mona Lisa for the irreverent parodies it has inspired. Yet despite its proliferation as an overused trope, there is something about Munch’s work that remains enduringly fascinating once we begin to peel back the layers of pastiche.

Munch created four versions of his fin de siècle masterpiece, and though they differ slightly in color and composition, all are painted with those broad and undulating bands of garish and exaggerated colors that amplify and give visual form to the cry of a skeletal figure in throes of desperation. The figure, while autobiographical, is not a portrait, but fear personified. As it sways, the world around it is distorted. Sky, harbor and sea bend and contort as if they are echoes of the scream. The image is potent visual shorthand for something most of us have experienced: a sense of helplessly corybantic anxiety.

Munch was inspired by a sunset stroll along a path running over an Oslo fjord where he could hear howls emanating from both the asylum where his sister was incarcerated and an abattoir where animals were being slaughtered. In that moment, he recounted, “I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."

Anxiety, defined in medical terms, describes an inner state of inquietude that usually manifests itself through a series of external disorders and phobias. All of us have felt anxious at one time or another, but often that is linked to some kind of empirical threat. Students may feel anxious about final exams or a business owner anxious at the state of the economy. To understand the type of anxiety Munch was trying to describe we need to use another word: angst. Angst is a Norwegian word that entered the lexicon through the writings of the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard to describe a feeling of deep-seated spiritual isolation in which existence seems to have no overriding meaning or order.

For this reason, The Scream has been widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of the human condition in a post-Nietzschian world where God has been declared dead, followed by the terrible realization that we have nothing to replace Him with. Munch was born and raised under the stern tutelage of his pietistic father, a poor army doctor whose hellfire and brimstone version of Christianity planted the seeds of his spiritual dread. Later, he would abandon the beliefs that had shaped his childhood. For Munch, The Scream represented his final breaking point from a judgmental God distorted by the lens of wrath.

I wonder if this helps to explain our cultural fascination with the image? As Kierkegaard pointed out, angst attends the life lived without God, and as Munch himself pointed out, the image was designed as a type of icon “for the godless age." Perhaps it remains an icon for us because it captures the religious disillusionment of our age as well.

For Kierkegaard, however, angst was not the end of the story. It was not a disorder, he argued, but God’s way of calling us to commitment. It is only when we get to the place of complete and utter helplessness, so vividly represented in The Scream, that we can take a leap of faith into the waiting arms of God. It is grace, in the end, that remains the sole exception to our psycho-spiritual tragedy.

What Do You Think?

Does The Scream still affect you or have the countless reproductions caused the painting to lose its power?
Does understanding Munch’s journey away from God (and his purpose to create a godless icon) make his Scream more or less appealing to you?
What other art has captured this sort of severe spiritual angst?

Do women really want 50 Shades of Grey?

2012-05-08T06:38:41Z

Posted on 05/08/12

I recently watched the “Saturday Night Live” spoof of 50 Shades of Grey, the E.L. James book that millions of women all over the world are claiming has rejuvenated their sex lives. The spoof made me laugh, but it also made me sad.

Because I teach a course on gender to hundreds of Christian college students, I pay attention to cultural phenomena like the Twilight series and other novels that shape many female fantasies of love and sexuality. Generally, my students are disdainful of romance novels, but the 50 Shades discussion is unique in the way it has captured our culture’s attention. “Ellen,” “Dr. Oz,” “SNL” and nearly every talk show on TV references women’s obsession with these novels, and they also talk about the number of married men who are looking to these books to determine the answer to the age-old question, “What do women want?” This is a frightening thing.

Some argue, “It’s only fantasy. Lighten up. If it sparks the sex life of married couples what harm can it do?” Others point out that the subtext of the books, often referred to as “mommy porn,” can be dangerous.

Should Christians read these books? I think Christians who choose to read the books should start talking openly about their responses to 50 Shades. If we believe that Christ’s redemption shapes our response to culture, we cannot be afraid of what our culture is talking about.

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When students ask me questions about sexuality I emphasize to them that sex, like everything else in our world, was created by God as a gift, but then was subject to the Fall. Through Christ’s sacrifice, though, we live in the knowledge that our sexuality has been redeemed, and we are free to explore it within the bounds of what God intends for human creatures. Within this framework, there are three things that should trouble us about these books.

First, the woman in the story agrees to the man’s rules of dominance in the relationship in part because she believes she will eventually be able to reach him and heal his troubled psyche. Friends who have suffered in abusive relationships tell me that this fantasy - that with sufficient love one can heal the abuser - is more damaging than we know. It shields abusers and keeps the abused in a bad situation.

Second, the story depicts sex as something that men do to women: real men dominate and women crave it. Christians who believe that males and females both reflect God’s image have to talk more openly about what God’s design for sexual partnership might look like. Sadly, there are few scholars that have taken up this topic well, but I think Lewis Smedes’ Sex for Christians remains one of the most thoughtful commentaries available. Students tell me that his theological discussion prepares them for engaging culture better than anything else out there.

Third, the dominance fantasy is dangerous when we only understand part of the picture. A fantasy can be benign - it is not reality. But if people are reading these books to determine what women want then we have a serious problem. The submissive character in the book consents to the treatment she receives, but historically and legally the nature of consent has always been a complicated issue. When government statistics tell us that one in five American women has been or will be sexually assaulted, we do ourselves no favor by insisting that dominance fantasy and violence have no relationship to each other. We must at least explore the possibility.

Sex can be complicated. We owe it to men and women to be more honest about sexuality, desire, the nature of the Fall and the blessing of God’s redemptive power. Christians should be leading the way on this discussion, not shying away from it.

What Do You Think?

Is 50 Shades of Grey harmless fantasy or something more problematic?
Should Christians spend more time discussing how sexuality relates to faith?
How do you understand the Fall’s effect on human sexuality?

Hypocritical humanism in The Avengers

2012-05-07T14:17:14Z

Posted on 05/07/12

The big surprise of Marvel’s The Avengers – a culmination of at least five previous superhero movies – is that it isn’t Iron Man or Thor or Captain America or even The Hulk who proves to be the most interesting character. It’s the villain Loki, largely unknown outside of comic-book circles.

An alien who has lost a power struggle on his own planet, Loki has come to earth wielding an army and advanced technology. Played by Tom Hiddleston with amusing petulance, Loki expects this outgunned civilization to be an easy conquest. When he’s told that humans have no quarrel with him, he shrugs in agreement and says, “An ant has no quarrel with a boot.”

Loki enjoys squashing. Later in the film, he stands before a crowd of cowering victims and commands them to kneel. “You crave subjugation,” he says. “It’s the unspoken need of humanity.” Everyone obeys except for a single older man, who looks at Loki and tells him he refuses to bow “to men like you.”

The Avengers wants to side with that lone man. Though populated by aliens, super-powered scientists and others who have astonishing mental and physical skills, the movie does its best to put on a humanist face. The defense of humanity – the protection of its dignity – is the rallying cry that brings this superhero team together. What’s more, writer-director Joss Whedon is adept at emphasizing the personalities and relationships of his characters, so that we learn their insecurities and foibles. We’re meant to cheer for the heroes precisely because they’re fallibly human (well, most of them anyway) going up against inhuman odds.

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Yet at its heart, the movie yearns to kneel. Agog at the powers its characters wield, The Avengers can’t resist becoming a dazzling showcase for how far they can leap, how hard they can punch, how clever they can be. The camerawork itself is a giveaway. More than once, we look up at a looming superhero from the vantage point of their boot. An ant’s-eye-view if I’ve ever seen one.

In the way that its faith in humanity leads to the creation of pop gods, The Avengers echoes the tension that can be felt by Christian humanism. At its best, Christian humanism is a blending of respect for imago dei with reverence for the Almighty. The Avengers, by the very nature of its narrative, forgets the Almighty part, of course. But how often do we? To what extent do we marvel at our “gods” – our athletes, our rock stars, Steve Jobs - before we find ourselves coming close to kneeling? At what point do we forget to say, “Not to men like you?” The Avengers is a reminder of humanism’s ugly side, the one that yearns to not simply venerate, but to elevate.

Perhaps this is why superhero myths have always had a hold on our collective consciousness. We hold others up for adoration out of a misguided sense of humanism, yes, but also because, deep within us, is the desire to worship. Could it be that Loki was right? “You were made to be ruled,” he sneers to that cowering crowd. Christians would agree.

What Do You Think?

What themes resonated for you in The Avengers?
What do you think the movie emphasized: its characters' humanity or their godlike abilities?
How would you define Christian humanism?

Narnia or Neverland: what fantasy land would you visit?

2012-05-06T06:34:57Z

Posted on 05/06/12

Evangelicals prefer Narnia, Catholics have a wanderlust for Wonderland and mainline Protestants are split between hitching a ride to Hogwarts, Narnia or Neverland.

Those are the results from a unique poll by the television show "60 Minutes" and Vanity Fair magazine. The survey asked 1,000 Americans what fantasy land they'd most like to visit (Washington, D.C., excluded).

Evangelicals showed a clear preference for Narnia, the fantastical world of talking beasts entered through an enchanted wardrobe in C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia series.

Lewis, an Anglican, topped the list for 28 percent of evangelicals. Both his fiction - commonly interpreted as Christian allegories - and also his nonfiction have become touchstones in contemporary evangelicalism.

Just 8 percent of evangelicals said they would like to visit Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry from the Harry Potter series.

Alice's Wonderland was many Catholics' cup of tea, with 21 percent saying they'd like to take a trip down the rabbit hole. Peter Pan's Neverland (18 percent), Hogwarts (18 percent) and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth (16 percent) weren't far behind.

Mainline Protestants were similarly split between Neverland (19 percent), Narnia (18 percent) and Hogwarts (18 percent).

Among those listed as "other" religions, Hogwarts was the clear favorite (31 percent). And Middle Earth led the way for those who professed no religious affiliation (23 percent). The survey, conducted in late 2010 and recently highlighted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, includes a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

What Do You Think?

What fantasy land would you most like to visit?
How do you account for the preferences among different sets of Christians?
Why did those with no religious affiliation prefer The Lord of the Rings’ Middle Earth?