Age of ADZ and The Wall: Inspiring Canonical/Dramatical Reading

If you’ve ever been around me long enough, and talked with me about the right subjects, you may have found out that I am intrigued by theories of reading and the finding of meaning in a text (though text being a open ended word meaning music, art, literature, plays). And you may have even heard me talk about canonical or dramatic theories of reading as opposed to grammatical or historical/cultural theories. What the differences are between these two fields is bound up in many, many, many books on the topics, and I don’t want to go into a full description of the theories and their criticisms, but let me simply lay it out this way: canonical reading seeks to look at a piece of work within the text that is considered canon, or as only these texts. It is hard for me to capture what exactly that means especially outside of the Bible, where the books we have bound together are considered canon, but a close concept would be to take Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: only the text within the covers are considered canon, not any other text that Shakespeare wrote, or what others may have written. Canonical reading seeks to find the meaning held within Romeo and Juliet, using, consequentially, only the text within Romeo and Juliet; one does not use Othello, or Macbeth to try to interpret Romeo and Juliet. But if one were to take a Historical/Cultural model of interpretation, she or he would try to connect Shakespeare’s words and ideas with those that would have been around during his time. Thus she may interpret the word “love” as those in the 16th century were using the word, not as Shakespeare uses it.

But as I said, there are books upon books discussing these different theories, and I’m not necessarily hear to discuss them. Let us just take for granted that I desire the canonical approach first. Rather, the problem comes when I am attempting to endorse this theory and the difficulty of inspiring and revealing how this approach can be used for good, for beauty, for aesthetics.

A quick aside: I want to quickly explain those last three words I used. I tossed around the idea of using the words “productive” or “efficient” but they weren’t what felt right. Finding meaning isn’t a labor or and end product, but rather a good, a beautiful thing, an aesthetic. And I am not trying to inspire a better search for meaning that will cut out labor costs, but rather I am attempting to inspire a search for meaning that touches us intellectually, emotionally, bodily. I want to inspire a search for meaning that isn’t necessarily efficient, but one that embraces our whole being. To be honest, a canonical approach requires more time searching and listening, constantly attending again and again to the text, and requires us to know the text fully. It is not a theory that quickly finds meaning.

So in an attempt to show how this theory works, I have been found two great sources as examples: Sufjan Stevens “Age of ADZ” and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. I must first admit that “The Wall” as a canonical example was brought to me by Joey Wulf years ago as he brought canonical reading to my attention, and then had us listen to “The Wall” canonically. But recently on my own I have also found out that “The Age of ADZ” works as a great example. One of the struggles when it comes to canonical reading (or listening) is figuring out which texts can be used, and which cannot; or, where are the boundaries of the canon. These is a larger subject that must be fleshed out another time, but the great thing about these two examples is that we know how far to look: no farther than the album. “The Wall” is an album meant to tell a story, and was even meant as an opera, so we know that it begins with the first song, and ends with the last one; there is no need to reach beyond the album. And “Age of ADZ” is seen largely as auto-biographical, and any experience with Sufjan Stevens reveals that his albums are usually stories in themselves. In a way, we don’t have to spend much time deciding whether we can or cannot look at these two albums canonically; the authors themselves tell us so.

So why do they work as examples?

On a pragmatic level these albums work because they are, relatively, short, requiring only a hour or so of someone’s time. And in a way this is a good thing because an attempt to inspire canonical theory would be hard to do if it took days and weeks to do so. These albums give a nice compact example of what canonical theory can do to a text, what it can reveal about meaning. Like learning to run a marathon, you start with a short exercise, and then slowly work your way up. It also helps that they are musical examples that can be listened to by a group of people, rather than a book that would have to be read aloud (though not a bad thing) or passed around to be read by each person. You can easily convince someone to sit down and listen to an album with you; it would be harder to have him or her sit down with you and listen to a story read aloud.

On another level these albums work because for us to understand the meaning in these albums we must learn something that we aren’t normally taught very well: to hold onto what has been revealed. Often when we read, or watch, or listen, we get a little stuck in the moment and we don’t really call to mind what we already know, or remember. What someone said at the beginning of a book, movie, play, song gets forgotten by the half way point, and so we get confused when it is referenced again, unless there is a cool flashback that reminds us of it. But in these albums we can, given a hour or so, learn to develop that ability, a beginning exercise in remembering. These albums seem to rely on us remembering what has already been revealed. “The Wall” requires us to recall the very first line spoken in the album when we get to the end; “Age of ADZ” requires us to remember that the first song is the author’s purpose for these songs, giving meaning to all of the following songs, for “words are futile devices” and yet he attempts to use them to trace out this story.

What remembering does for us as well is learning to keep the tensions, the revelations, the themes in our hands as we go into the “future,” the next song. By remembering what has been revealed, we also learn not to forget it and close off that theme; rather we learn to leave open the questions, and concepts that have been started, and only when we get to the end do we attempt to figure them out. We learn not to give a quick answer to the question, but to leave it open, to allow other voices to speak to the question before we attempt to give a final answer. And in this way, we pull the the past into the present, and with us into the future. We don’t allow the quick answer to always be the final answer, but the final only to come at the closing of the text. (That also ties into our own lives, but let me forgo that conversation.)

These albums also push us towards a dramatical reading as well, but this can only while looking at them canonically. What I mean to say is that these albums are also a drama that we must allow ourselves to be suspended within. If we look at them as only songs and puzzles to solve, we miss out on being carried along by the drama held therein. And I believe we miss out on a very big part of the text, and a big of the aesthetics. By learning to immerse ourselves in the drama of these albums, we learn an important skill to be able to inhabit the same space as the “actors” in the drama, helping us to understand better their emotions, their motivations, why they say what they say. As a great example, Sufjan’s resounding claim in the song “I Want to be Well” doesn’t effect us much if we haven’t been caught up in the drama of love and loss that has been laid out in the previous nine songs. Or the abuse and abandonment in “The Wall” seems like whining if we haven’t attempted to empathize with the character. Without being carried by the drama, we may find a meaning, but it will be a meaning only half felt, if even felt at all. We would not be able to truly speak out about the author’s experience if we forwent the drama; we would only be unsympathetic critics.

There are many other things that could be said about these two albums, how they teach us to interpret texts better, but that requires actually listening to them with me, or someone else, and plodding slowly through as we attempt to see where canonical listening takes us. But as examples they work oh so well, and I wanted to at least pique your interest in them, in hopes that one day you would want to see what I mean. And hopefully I would be able to show you how remembering and empathizing brings a deeper, better understanding, and what it then looks like to go into the future with these things in hand.

Cameron

 

A “Rant” About Starbucks Guy

I had hoped to attach this little post onto my last blog but things looked like they were getting a little long, so I decided to make it a separate post. You may have heard the story about the Starbucks Guy that wrote a song, and then got fired. If not, those posts will take you to the song and stories about it. As a fellow Starbucks barista I can’t help but laugh along with him; I can’t help but agree with him. In one of the stories the guy admits that he loved working at Starbucks and even the customers, but was just blowing off some steam in hopes of bringing a little comedic relief for other baristas; he was singing of things that we only would know.

There is an interesting schism between barista and customer, two worlds that intersect over coffee; there are the baristas that are working in the world behind the counter, and the customer living in the world in front of the counter. Unless you have worked in any sort of food business or retail, it is very hard to catch onto what might actually be going on behind the counter, to see the stress, the problems, the hold-ups. Especially since most customers see only a few minutes of what is going on, and not the hourly workings; it is easy to complain about coffee running out, or the 5 minute long wait when you haven’t seen the hundreds of other customers before you wanting the same thing. American consumerism has placed each customer in a world of his or her own, taking them out of a world inhabited by other people, doing things that may hamper what he or she wants.

So in the end, do I agree with Chris Cristwell? Do I endorse his song? In the sense that it was meant only for other baristas, I have to say I endorse it. I and other baristas have heard the song and find ourselves agreeing with him; it is almost like he works with us. And yet I am not drawn to agree whole heartedly with him for two reasons: Exclusion & Embrace, by Miroslav Volf, and the source of the pun in my title, Rant, by Chuck Palahniuk.

First off, Rant:

The story of Rant, if you have never read it, is an interesting retelling of Rant’s, the main character, life. Palahniuk does a really cool job of revealing the story of Rant through other people, and throwing in tidbits of other information that you would expect from actual individuals telling the story of someone else. I must warn you if you are interested in reading it that the book is for more mature audiences. But something he does through out the book is to place a small sun or moon next to each person’s name. You don’t find out the real reason for this later in the book, and I hope I don’t reveal too much, but the two symbols come to represent two different worlds, if you will. The sun and the moon never exist in the same world, at the same time, but instead each group develops their own culture, activities, concept of identity. They have learned to exist in their own place, to be a people outside of the other.

I don’t think there is much of a jump here between barista and customer, between employee and employer.

Cristwell is describing the world he inhabits, the culture of the barista that is separated from the consumer. And as well the culture that is separated from the corporate employer. I see why Starbucks fired Cristwell, but I am also saddened by it because Cristwell is often the voice of many other baristas, and they are not listened to. As I said, many of us at my own store understood what he was saying; he put our thoughts to word and song.

And many other friends, in jobs differing from Starbucks barista, have felt this same cry; this isn’t exclusive to baristas. Restaurant wait staff, fast food workers, book store cashiers, clothing store workers, the list goes on, have struggled against the collision between serving and being waited on. A friend of mine, Austin Freese, has endorsed the idea that everyone should at some point in their life work in a restaurant so they will learn to be nicer to the wait staff. My own wife wishes everyone worked in a clothing store once so that we would learn not to just throw clothes around.

But, I digress, because I’m not here to just complain about customers. Many others have done that. I’m here to discuss Exclusion & Embrace, a “theological exploration of identity, otherness, and reconciliation” (Volf).

In his book Volf discusses, ultimately, the two choices we undertake in our daily confrontation with others. We either exclude them, defining our identity and culture on our own, never allowing the other any say in our lives, or we open our arms, extending them to the other, making room for the other person in our lives. This is probably the biggest, most important description of how we should deal with other, the risk of opening ourselves and allowing the other person to have room in our lives, to have a say in what we do, to allow ourselves to be shaped by them, for this is the very same thing that the triune God has done; though he was perfect in his own communion, he nonetheless opened himself on the cross, embracing humanity and allowing them to be a part of his identity.

So how does this play into Cristwell’s song, and the whole situation of barista and consumer? Ultimately Cristwell’s song is meaningless if the other does not listen to what he has to say. But Cristwell’s song is also meaningless if he himself, and baristas feeling the same, do not respond to the embrace of the consumer. When Cristwell wrote his song, and when baristas complain, it can be an opening, a call for others to respond and embrace the other, to listen to his cries and seek reconciliation for all parties, consumer, employee, and employer. And yet Cristwell and others must be willing to embrace as well. For if reconciliation is not sought out, Cristwell’s song does not become open arms of an embrace, but instead the dagger held close to attack.

Often complaining is not a cry for embrace, for understanding, but just an attack from the underdog. But in situations like this both parties should not seek to inhabit their own worlds, to create their own cultures, but to embrace one another, to understand each other, to end the exclusion of one from the other. And as Volf said, we must risk embrace knowing that sometimes we can be attacked when in this vulnerable state, but we do it because it has been done to us.

On a last note, if Cristwell’s song was an opening for embrace, and even if it wasn’t, I am saddened that he was fired, for it means he wasn’t listened to. It would seem his employers sought to exclude Cristwell from their sense of identity, to quiet his voice rather than to make room for his criticism. But maybe Cristwell will help continue the case for those working in customer service. Or maybe all parties will continue to exclude the other.

Cameron

 

The Gospel in Starbucks

Recently I got to sit down with one of my best friends, Joey Wulf, whom you might know from here and here. As always I love talking with Joey because he is one of the few people I feel most connected to. We began discussing my time at Starbucks (over three years now) and how funny of a place it is. I mean funny in this way: I originally started working at Starbucks because I needed a job (I had been jobless for 6 months), and also because I wanted to work in a place that stretched my concepts of loving people that normally go unloved. I know, Starbucks might seem like a funny place for that, but I get the feeling that often the people working in retail/food are some of the most unloved. Our culture has delegated them to service, aka servitude. Servants. It is a role of doing what the customer wants, when they want it, and how they want it done. No questions. As Starbucks says, the answer is always “Yes!” This has worked out great for Starbucks as a business theory, but terribly for many of the ground level baristas who struggle day in and day out with some of the most insane requests. And I feel many other retail/food employees can agree.

But over 3+ years things have changed for me. Most people might know that I would like to work somewhere else, and currently I’m working towards a PhD so that I can hopefully one day teach, but in this moment Starbucks fulfills a funny role in my life; and this is what Joey and I were talking about. Often Christians have sought ways to bring the Gospel to the rest of the world through tracts, movies, books, crusades (why do we still use this word?), and songs, but despite all of this we’ve never brought the Gospel into the world like Jesus did, by incarnating it. Despite growing up in the church and even attending Bible College while working at Starbucks, it was ironically Starbucks (and albeit the books/people/conversations I was apart of) that taught me best what it looks like to live Gospel-y. It was my time at Starbucks that taught me more about speaking/acting the Gospel in everyday language than all the camps I went to. It was involving myself in the lives of co-workers and customers, tabernacling (if you will) among people that taught me most about what the Gospel looks like. It was spending time listening to the people around me that taught me what it looked like to be real with them, like Jesus was real with the people he came in contact with; mourning, rejoicing, being frustrated, being tired.

But always there will be a tension that exists, a question that people raise every time you are at work? To whom does the Gospel go to? Do you spend your time reaching out to the hundreds of customers that come in through the drive thru? Or only focus on your co-workers? Or maybe only on the regulars? I cannot claim to have the specific answer to any of this, but I had some thoughts after talking with Joey about what living the Gospel may look like at Starbucks (and the rest of the world).

1. It isn’t about being happy: I have heard probably a dozen of times that baristas should be smiling all the time. We’re actually told that as the people who are there to give customers their coffee, we see people at their worst part of the day, and we are to be at our best. People won’t be happy or energetic; they come to us to get to that point. So because of that we’re often not allowed to show much emotions outside of smiles and thank-you’s. And I think sometimes that church asks the same thing. But Christ mourned, was angry, enjoyed eating, and showed the myriad of emotions that human beings are capable of displaying. Maybe we should begin to act like human beings that are created in the image of God, a God who came into human flesh and showed real emotions. The Gospel doesn’t require us to be fake, but to show real emotions. And not only show emotions, but to acknowledge those of others as well. Co-workers have often struggled with what to say when a customer tells them they are going to a funeral, or the hospital, or start crying. I think as Gospel-beings it might start being time we acknowledge the misery of a world in sin. We should acknowledge that people mourn, and not just spit out a “you know, Jesus can restore your joy.” As Gospel-beings it is time we start living out not only the joy and peace, but also the passion of Christ, the suffering spirit.

2. Sometimes it is not about the customer (it is about your co-worker): I know anyone who has ever worked in retail/food might be a little confused about this one, but hear me out. The customer is the end of the business for many retail/food workers, the person who keeps you employed, who pays your checks, and so the customer is seen as the most important person. But as a Gospel-being our concern should not always be for the customer, but our co-worker. It is our co-worker that sees us for hours a day, that struggles alongside us, that has crappy days and wants to go home. If you pile upon them all of the requests from the people out there without reserve, they will resent you for it. It doesn’t matter if the customer wants it, you have to think about the people who really see you daily. The 30 second interaction with the customer is less important than the eight hour long day you spend with that other person. It can be the most meaningful for your co-worker to see you struggling alongside them, to push and strive to help them out, to be sacrificial to them, than any 30 second interaction with a customer that just wants their coffee. If you want to be able to speak into the lives of your co-workers, don’t be the person that they resent for being lazy or abusive. Die to your c0-workers, and you will gain a greater influence in their life than anything else you do. Protect them from the frantic cries of customers, and they will more than likely trust you.

3. Grace isn’t just for you: I feel silly saying this, but learning to live out grace to the people around you should be an important part of living out the Gospel. Grace isn’t just a transaction between you and God, but especially flows out to the people around you. And hear this, it is always scandalous. The grace of God is a grace that goes to those who don’t deserve it; rather it is a grace that goes out to enemies. If we truly seek to live out the gospel, we will most importantly show grace daily to those we work with, and also to our customers who can sometimes be the most mean people ever. Grace isn’t a God-and-me thing, it is a God-through-me-to-those-around-me thing. Grace is not an enclosed circle, but an open embrace seeking to draw the other in. I think often the people of God are some of the most lacking when it comes to grace, the very people who didn’t deserve the grace in the first place. In a way Starbucks’ “always say yes” rule captures this. I hate to say that, but sometimes grace demands that we smile and allow abuse upon us because as people living out the Gospel we must suffer the abuse of a sinful world like Jesus did.

4. Somedays you’re not Gospel-y: After those last two comments, though, I want to almost restate comment number 1 again. We have our bad days, our days of giving customers decaf coffee, when we aren’t very full of grace or compassion. That is okay; grace also comes to you. And sometimes this can be significant to the people around you as well because you become more real to them. You are not a fake robot that believes everyday is Friday; you are a fellow sufferer that hasn’t gotten it all together yet, and never will in this age. I honestly believe that allowing those around us to see our good and “bad” days can be more significant that always painting a smile on your face. I return once again to Jesus and his own events of mourning, anger, and depression. Be real as Jesus was real, and they will see the Gospel lived out.

This is not a definitive list, but it is a start of how to live out the Gospel in Starbucks (and most other jobs, I would think). We can be more influential living out the Gospel than just merely “speaking” it. I have had more heartfelt conversations because I learned to live out the Gospel than I ever did trying to slip Jesus into a conversation so that I may sell him or her the Gospel.

And what about you? Add to the list, grow it. Let us figure out how to better speak-act out the Gospel.

Cameron

 

On the Topic of Art: Self-Expression and Christianity

I got to thinking about art today as I took my first listen through Bon Iver’s new album Bon Iver and I realized that I really like Bon Iver, and other musical talents out there. Art is something of a phenomenon when we think about it: it isn’t always logical, it isn’t about precision, it isn’t always properly categorized and difficult to do so. There is something that art touches upon that mere discussion and science can’t always reach, a way in which it connects with us in just that way that nothing else does. We may be able to describe loss with precise words, but precision doesn’t touch us the way a metaphor does (i.e. “My endorphins are transmitting” as opposed to “I am dying inside.”) There is a way in which art is the better way of expressing ourselves, and it is often called just that: self-expression. And I want to discuss that a little bit.

Often when people begin to think about art and what it means to them, whether it is their own or someone else’s, there is a common trend these days to see meaning in art as pluralistic. There is no one meaning, no one authority, only what you make of it. What the author may have meant or felt as they authored their work is rather meaningless as long as you pull something from it. In this view no one can say for certain what a given piece of art means. Now there is something positive about this as no one is able to run around and clobber their critics over the head with the “authority” meaning, but there are some huge flaws in seeing art this way, and one major point being that art no longer becomes self-expression. The character of self is eliminated from the discussion. Art becomes a selfless concept, with essentially no author behind it, an entity all it’s own. In a way, the author no longer has any voice, any say in what she was trying to communicate in her art; she is rather muted. Now I may point out that some authors do that, leaving the meaning up to the audience to determine, but by that point art becomes meaningless. There is not a meaning, and so the author may as well have put random words down on paper and hoped he was lucky enough to put two things together that you fancied. If art does not find its meaning from the author, it may as well not be done. Art without meaning is art without purpose.

Now there is a selfless aspect to art as the artist composes her work and releases it into the world. She is giving of herself for others to see, exposing a thought, a feeling, a fear, in hopes that she may bring understanding and connection with another, or even to say, “see the world this way.” And first of all she should be applauded taking such a leap for she knows there will be criticism for what she has said. I believe criticism should come in the context of safety and intimacy, not obscurity and ferocity. For as an artist is critiqued and asked, “does this mean this?” she is better able to adjust her art, possibly give a more precise communication. And there is a place for art to achieve a deeper meaning then is first seen. As the artist gives her self-expression to the world, others may come along and give the meaning a wider application then just a singular instance. But first and foremost the author must always be given authority to claim what is and isn’t true. Someone may come along and claim an opposite meaning from the art that the author did not intend, and she should always be given to right to tell him, “No, do not see it that way.”

When authors do not take up authority of their art, when they leave it open for anyone to say anything about, they also lose their voices. It may seem noble and mature to release art into the world and to allow it to grow and become something you never guessed it would be, but such an idea is ignorant of what it means to author something. Without authority to claim how people interpret your work you have not achieved something noble, but something pointless. You have left the world with nothing, a shapeless mold that anyone, friend or foe, may use for whatever means they wish. Your self-expression has become null and void.

Now on the other hand it may be difficult to always understand the artist’s message, or to fully grasp what has been expressed, and we may often have to come back and back again to a given work to finally come to some meaning. And sometimes as we do with a child, we may have to ask, “Do you mean this? Or this?” and this can especially be hardest when the author may no longer be living, but when we position ourselves, as the receivers of a self-expression, as understanders and not over-standers, striving with humility to understand without our own pretenses, we come closer to respect the author than any personal interpretation will come.

And as was stated earlier, we must be willing to let our work be critiqued, and applied to different contexts then we ever would have thought of, for failure to do so is not self-expression but selfish-expression. Though as authors we have authority to say, “Yes” and “No” we must be willing to also say, “Also in that way, and in that place.” If we cling onto our expression and allow it only to be used in this way, in this place we may as well, like the meaningless art spoken of earlier, never have put pen to paper, or brush to canvas, or fingers to instrument. If our art is kept close and bound up, there is no reason for our art to ever be seen.

Now onto another point:

As I listened to Bon Iver, and realized that I really like it, I also realized there are types of music that I do not like. Now this doesn’t seem like much of an epiphany, but there is something about music that is realistic, open, vulnerable that I like a whole lot more than anything else, precisely because it is realistic, open, vulnerable. There is something welcoming and freeing to the songs that do not claim a worldview that is unsustainable. And as I thought about this I realized something profound, and sad: most often “Christian” music and much “Secular” music juxtapose one another, not as one good and one bad, but as two extremes of life that are unsustainable. Now if you were to explore my music library you would probably see an even split between “Christian” and “Secular” artists, but that is because these are usually the ones who do not portray a worldview that is unachievable, that are honest about the struggles and don’t blow them off with optimistic lines like “God is in control” or “You and I, we’ll be young forever.”

Often when “Secular” music is critiqued there are claims of “drugs, sex, booze, lewdness” which, to be honest, is often there. Many songs attempt to convey a lifestyle that is honestly unsustainable, and not because it is wrong, but because if someone really did those things all the time, they would be unable to live for long. Science itself tells us that the human body needs sleep, nutrients, cleansing for it to continue for long; failure to life a healthy lifestyle leads to many problems. Or often such songs are wrapped up in the moment, the feeling of ecstasy and invulnerability that sadly doesn’t last. Often those feelings are rather connected to endorphins and other chemicals, not to an actual sustainable living. But sadly so do many “Christian” songs.

Often the lyrics are about keeping your head up, living courageously, confidently, turning a blind eye to suffering. Ironically it forgets that many biblical passages are keenly aware of suffering (Ps. 109). Often optimism is substituted for encouragement, telling believers that “everything’s gonna be alright.” Instead of encouragement, though, often the believer is left feeling insufficient, as if their faith is not enough, or that they are weak. Sadly “Christian” music never sings like the Psalms of Lament, never questions where God’s hand is at work. Instead it seems to pat you on the head and say, “Weak Christian, just have faith.” And once more this is not a sustainable lifestyle, where the believer feels insufficient for a time, then when good times come along they stride confidently with their head held high, but once suffering comes again they wonder what they did wrong, or why they can’t see God’s hand at work. This vicious cycle continues constantly.

Instead Christian music should be the music that speaks truth and honesty into the world, that calls out the suffering of innocents, cries alongside the mourners, knows when to dance, and when to put on sackcloth. It shouldn’t stray to either of the two extremes, but should be planted in the realm of realism, of honesty, and from there proclaim hope, not optimism. And hope starts from a place of suffering, but looks beyond it, not away from it.

Cameron

 

On Animals and the Animal Kingdom

Author’s Note: I was going to write about the Rapture, but I’ll do that tomorrow. Or the day after.

So I stumbled across a video today of one cat fighting another cat while two crows sort of agitate the whole mess. It isn’t very gruesome, just an ordinary cat fight, but as I watched the video I felt kind of angry at the person videotaping it because they just sat there and watched it all happen. One cat seems to specifically get picked on, and I will admit that I’m a sucker for the underdog (undercat?) and also a cat person, so seeing the all happen made me want to get in the midst of it and stop the whole fight. Shoo them all off, maybe throw some water down there and yell, “Hey, knock it off!” And I’m okay if you think I sound silly right now, but it bothers me when we just sit by and watch these things happen.

I usually love nature documentaries, but it always frustrates me when the people videotaping just sit by as animals suffer, or end up dying because humans don’t want to get involved: it is all the Circle of Life, we say. Nature needs to be allowed to work itself out, and the worst thing we can do is to get involved. But it still angers me. I understand that if one animal is saved, then another may go hungry, or the saved animal will begin to over run the predator and suddenly another species goes extinct. We have heard stories and stories, I’m sure, of human involvement in the lives of animals and the atrocities committed. But I’m not okay with sitting by. And I wonder about the people who are.

I don’t want to completely generalize everyone, but I wonder if the people who are okay with sitting by as animals suffer in the Circle of Life are also the people okay with sitting by and watching other humans suffer because it is the Circle of Life. I wonder if the callous hearts that can watch an animal fight against two predators and not get involved are also the same people who can watch companies abuse employees and shrug it off.

I understand the designation we would make as Christians, that humans are more important than animals, that we can’t stop lions from eating lambs. And I understand that I may be sounding like some crazy conservationist, eco-friendly, liberal, hippie right now, but I have to wonder if it is alright that animals kill each other, and humans kill animals. You see, I ask these questions because I believe that God doesn’t just care about human souls, but about everything he made. Genesis reminds us that in the beginning everything was good, and there was peace and completion. What I also notice is that all the plants were given as food, but never do we hear the idea that animals ate and slaughtered one another. And yet we, living in a sin filled world, now see this very thing happening, and we turn a blind eye to it. “We can’t stop them from eating one another,” we may remark. “Sin has ruined this world.”

It wasn’t until I started reading Heaven by Randy Alcorn that I began to question the assumption that God is just interested in saving our souls. And once I saw that God’s plan wasn’t just to save humans so they could dwell in heaven, but was to redeem all of Creation (Rev. 21), that is physical creation, not just spiritual, that I began to understand other parts of the Bible. Ever notice John’s emphasis at the beginning of his gospel, and in his letters, that Jesus wasn’t just the son of God, but seen, and more importantly felt? Ever notice Paul’s fascination with Jesus death and physical resurrection in Colossians 2:12, that all of Christ deity is in bodily form? It is God’s plan to redeem all of creation, all spiritual and physical things. So what of it?

Living as one in a world marred by sin I find it in myself not to sit back and watch this place tear itself apart, but to be, like Christ, a redeeming factor in this world. But let me specify that being a redeeming factor isn’t just to save man’s souls, but also to strive to redeem the physical things as well. I cannot bring about the redemption of the world by my own doings, but as one redeemed I am called to work towards a time when “A wolf and a lamb will graze together; a lion, like an ox, will eat straw, and a snake’s food will be dirt. They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain” (Isa. 65:25). As Trevor Hart and Richard Bauckham discuss in their book Hope Against Hope, we live in a time when we must imagine what the future holds for us, and then pull those ideas into the present. So rather than sit by as humans and animals tear each other apart, maybe we should be redemptive agents in the Animal Kingdom. Instead of walking around and ignoring the pain of not just humans but also animals, we should be the ones caring for the hurting creation around us. It may seem silly, and it may be more time and effort than feels necessary, but maybe in redeeming small parts of creation we begin to see the world as God sees it, not as a place to escape, or a broken, unsalvageable mess, but as something worth saving, something that demands our time and energy.

If we return to Genesis, we see that man was made to subdue and rule over creation, and however you interpret those words, it must be done in light of God’s previous statement that all of the plants were given for food, and it was a command in the midst of a perfect creation. Not a broken world. Instead of furthering along the suffering of animals, humans were called to continue this sense of peace and perfection. Yes, we screwed that up, but as redeemed individuals maybe it is time we begin to bring about rule and redemption to the whole of creation, not just pain and further suffering. We messed things up already, let us not continue to break it more.

Cameron

 

Religion as Behavior

Driving a car is a funny thing: I do it for a total of an hour going to and from work. There is the straight shot that I tend to take in the mornings, and then there are the back roads that I take when I feel like driving away from everything. Sadly, neither route is much faster or slower than the other: I will spend about the same time driving whichever way I go, though at 3:30 in the morning when I drive I can get there five minutes faster. But that is neither here, nor there.

On the back roads, right about the time I’m allowed to go 50 mph, I pass by this Baptist church that has a little slogan on their marquee that changes every once in a while. Now usually I don’t care much for church marques because they tend to be cheesy, or just an announcement about God’s will for your life, but I have to admit that when I read them I usually think about them. I think maybe I must think about them; I’ve developed this habit of taking a message and dissecting it, thinking about it, and making necessary changes.

The message this time on the marquee was not just a statement I wanted to discuss, but rather a story of my own religious behavior. “Religion is not just belief, it is behavior” is what it said. And I would have dealt with that message differently throughout the stages of my life.

Early years:

As the youngest child of a Reformed pastor, growing up with discussions about religion and Christianity were just topics I took for granted. I think religion for me was just something that my family was a part of, so if I had read that marquee I think I would have been more concerned with trying to figure out exactly what religion was and meant. On one hand I am grateful that religion was such a part of my family’s life that it wasn’t something that could be separated out into Sunday mornings, or not saying bad words. But on the other hand, if you had asked me what religion was, I think I would be able to explain as well as the theory of gravity: it was just this thing that I woke up to and was affected by.

Teen years:

As I grew older and began to take Christianity seriously, the statement on the marquee was have been common sense to me. Of course religion is behavior; that was how I marked myself as a Christian. I didn’t listen to secular music, I didn’t cuss (but I wanted to), I never smoke or drank anything bad; I was “holy.” And growing up in the Northwest that was easy to do: there was such aversion to Christianity that all you had to do was say “Jesus” and people grew annoyed with you. It didn’t matter what I actually believed, as long as I claimed I was on the right team. But than Houston shook everything up for me. In the Bible-belt of America, everyone went to church, and everyone was on the right team. And yet people did things, said stuff, and acted in such opposite ways that not smoking and drinking and saying “Jesus” did not mean anything. It just meant I was dumb for not taking part in the fun stuff.

I still believe this was an important part of my life as I had to suddenly contemplate, and quite seriously, the first part of the statement, that “Religion is not just belief” but belief is an important part. I couldn’t just act, I had to understand, comprehend, and know what was the foundation of my acting. I didn’t know what I believed, I just behaved. And through this process I became skeptical towards behavior, and tipped my hand to belief. I didn’t care if you went to church, had been baptized, didn’t have sex until you were married, it was what you believed that mattered. Those years in Houston I would have laughed at that marquee, because what mattered was belief, not behavior.

Twenties and on:

Sadly my journey isn’t very far progressed. We can really break this story into three sections, but yet this last section has quite a few shifts in it that are important in how I think about the statement “Religion is not just belief, it is behavior.” As I moved back to the Northwest, charged with thoughts and discussions about what I and others believe, and whether it is important how you act, I found myself returning back to the land where saying “Jesus” was all it took to be shunned. And yet I did not find that to be completely true. I found some people were okay with me talking about Jesus, liked the guy at times, and even sought spiritual events. And like me they didn’t care much about behavior, they cared about belief.

I wasn’t satisfied with this.

But at the time I continued down the path of belief over behavior because just acting or talking right wasn’t going to save anyone. I was convinced there were people who acted and spoke the right words on Sunday that still didn’t know Jesus. But I also found that there were people who believed in Jesus but never acted on it, as I was quickly becoming. Even to this day I am still running into people who lean on the side of belief over behavior.

Watching and attending emergent churches has shown me that even the term “religion” has so much baggage loaded onto it that the members aren’t aware it can be a good word. Speaking about religion and behavior is equated to legalism and Pharisees. There is a shift these days to claim “follower of Christ” over “Christianity” because it is a religion, and I understand this: I felt this way too. Religion is behavior and good/bad actions, hateful to dissenters, oppressive. And it is beyond this that I have begun to move.

You see, what struck me one day while reading for one of my classes was that if you asked anyone before the 1900′s whether they were a Christian or a follower of Christ, you would have gotten a lot of confused looks. If you told them you weren’t a Christian but a follower of Christ, because Christian had too much baggage attached to it, you would have been scoffed at. Now don’t get me wrong, “Christianity” and “Christian” sadly do have a lot of shameful baggage attached to them, but it always has had that baggage attached to it. Since the beginning of time the people of God have failed to be perfect, and sometimes the baggage hurts us. But from Abraham, to Jacob, to David, to Elisha, to Ezra, to Peter and John, to Cyril, to Martin Luther, to Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian has been a follower of Christ, someone who prescribes to the religion of YHWH. Baggage included.

This may seem like a random tangent, but it affected how I deal with belief over behavior, because no matter what I believe, the biblical authors are also concerned with how I behave. To steal from speech-act theory, to act is to speak, and to speak is to act.

James is a book that many people struggle with and flat-out do not like. Many times in the history of the Bible James was a book people tried to remove. Here is one instance why:

2:17 So also faith,if it does not have works, is dead being by itself.

Especially for evangelicals this is a statement we struggle with and attempt to manipulate into meaning something else. But maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe religion, believing in Jesus Christ as the only Son of God the Father, who died for our sins, was buried, resurrected, who with the Father sent the Holy Spirit to indwell the church, is not just belief, but behavior.

In my own story I have swung from one side to the other, claiming solely behavior, or solely belief, but in these last couple of years I have begun to rest in the middle. And as I stated previously, it is due to speech-act theory, and specifically The Drama of Doctrine by Kevin Vanhoozer. It is because of statements like “To speak is to act, and to act is to speak” that I have modified what I do with belief and behavior. You see, if my actions speak as much as my words do, than my actions and words must agree. Or as James would say, what good is it to say “God bless you” to someone who is poor and hungry? Or as someone else put it, if what you say about the Bible and God does not match up with how you act, you have failed to interpret correctly.

So I may claim God is love, and that I am his follower, but I must act then in love, or I have failed to interpret correctly. If I speak about Christ redeeming creation, and claim that I am his follower, but fail to redeem anything, I have failed to interpret correctly. Thus religion is not just belief and behavior, but also acting, thinking, speaking, and living correctly. And when all of those fields do not agree with one another, I have failed to understand what God is doing, and what I must be doing.

I believe what I act, and I act what I believe.

And if how I act and believe do not match up with the God of the Bible, than I have failed to understand him correctly.

Cameron

 

The Obscurity of God’s Will

“Do you know God’s will for your life?” is a question I have heard quite a few times now at different churches. It seems to be one of those recurring messages, like tithing and sex, that everyone has heard at least once. I personally ran into this question just the other day as I was driving into work and passed by a church. I was quite surprised that had I gone to the 10 A.M. service I could have figured out what God’s will was for my life. So why didn’t I?

Many of us want to know what God’s will is for our lives, and I will admit I struggle with trying to understand what God is doing most of the time. I think we believe that if we knew God’s will for our lives, we could be at peace that we aren’t screwing it up, or that God’s will isn’t for us to die in a fiery car crash. But on the other hand, we may say to ourselves, if we knew than we would never do those things that would be necessary for to achieve God’s will, or that we would be too afraid to go outside the house lest the car explode the second we get in it. We might even talk about living in faith, allowing God to fulfill his will without our butting in. It seems if you have ever wondered what God’s will is for your life, you have had that internal argument about whether you should know or not. Or maybe some of you don’t care and just want to know.

And then there is the argument about whether God really does have a specific will for each person, or just a general will, and if he does have a will for you, can you choose to follow it or not. These multitudes of questions fly around and entire books are written about it.

So why didn’t I attend the 10 A.M. service?

The funny thing about churches discussing God’s will for my life, or your life, or your friend’s life, is that the discussion often leaves me feeling like I just saw a fortune-teller at the county fair: there is the temptation to know my future, to be given insight into how my life will play out, but in the end it is all broad and general statements. The answers we usually receive feel less like biblical insight and more like cheap parlor tricks at the fair: I bet there is a beautiful brunette in my future, but that is because I like brunettes. As well, I’m sure God does want me to stop sinning, but haven’t we talked about this before when we weren’t talking about God’s will for my life?

The church seems to have taken up the cheap tricks of the circus to draw people in, rather than admitting ignorance of God’s will for your life. And it must be your specific life, because if the church asked, “Do you know God’s general will for people?” I don’t think many would attend that service; for the most part turn on the t.v. and all sorts of different voices will tell you what God’s will is for people. But that is the question that really gets answered in these services as broad strokes are used to paint a general picture for your life that most people will get behind. And strangely enough the picture tends to be bright, sunny, and happy. Whether it is a white picket fence house, a new job, a happy family, Heaven, the message is positive. And yet the very same Bible used to back up that happy picture, when read thoroughly, paints a different picture of hardship and struggles, promises of death and sickness, and accepts that there will be trials. The biblical picture seems less concerned with giving us a happy feeling, and more concerned with encouraging steadfast faith through trials (ref. Rev. 1-3). The biblical story speaks of a hope that is to come, but talks about the pain and hardship that is now. And yet our churches want to tell us that God’s will for us is a happy story, and not a story that mimics Jesus’ own story. And maybe that is why nobody falls for it.

Instead, if we are to speak about the will of God for our lives, maybe it should be honest; maybe we pull people in, but we shock them as they leave by admitting that we don’t know their specific role in this life, but that we do know the story, and how it ends. Rather than telling people about Heaven and the eternal joy we’ll have there, we tell them about Jesus and the suffering he went through. And then we tell them about how God wants us to follow Jesus in his own footsteps of redemption, to be cross bearers for the world, and to die to redeem each other. Maybe the church is called to preach a will for people’s lives that doesn’t sound very good, that shocks them to hear such honesty.

And maybe all they want is an honest answer.

Cameron

 

“Jesus Loves You!” as Trinitarian Thought

While driving home from work the other day I noticed written in the dirt on the back of a dump truck the words “Jesus loves u (sic)” and because I have heard Rob Bell’s Gandhi story so many times recently, I had to ask: Really? Jesus loves me? He does? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt? And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know?

I know these sound like silly questions for me to be thinking about, but in a moment of clarity I realized that no where in the Bible, at least that I can think of, does it ever flat-out say, “Jesus loves you!” And one of the few places where Jesus says he loves someone is in John 15, and even in that instance he is talking to the disciples, not to the person driving down the road reading the back of a dump truck. But somehow the idea “Jesus loves u” is so ingrained in us, we would never question it. Even when someone questions whether Jesus loves them, they do not question the validity of that question; they question how it could be that such terrible things have happened in his or her life if Jesus really loved them. No one ever asks, “Did Jesus really say that?”

I do not deny the statement “Jesus loves u,” I am just curious where we get that idea from. And as I unpacked that statement I realized that to claim “Jesus loves u” is such a trinitarian leap, it is a surprise Christians do not think so trinitarian all the time. Let me unpack this for you.

Within the history of the Israelites God has often portrayed himself as the lover of his bride Israel (NOT Song of Songs. That is not about God/Israel, Christ/Church, or Jesus/believer; instead see Jer. 31, Mal. 1, or Hosea). One of Israel’s greatest sins is not that they merely broke the ten commandments, but that they broke the first commandment, to have no other gods before them, because Israel’s God loved them like they were his own bride. Many times in the prophets God does not call Israel out for breaking the rules, but for acting as a harlot, cheating on her first love. So this idea that God loves his people beyond simple rule keeping permeates the entire Israelite story, but with Israel’s failure to stay in this relationship with God, he sends them into exile. But one of their own prophets, Jeremiah, reveals that it is not a permanent exile, and that one day God will renew the covenant with his people, pulling in not just the Israelites but also all other nations.

So for a couple of centuries the covenant goes on hiatus. And then Jesus is born and is seen as the one who will restore Israel, the promised messianic king. And a verse you would probably use to show that “Jesus loves u” would be John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.” There, that proves it, right? Except it is not Jesus loving us, it is God, presumably the Father, since Jesus is his son. So then to prove that Jesus loves us from this verse, we would need to prove that Jesus is God. Luckily within the same book Jesus says “the Father and I are one” (Jn. 10:30), and also “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous deeds themselves” (Jn. 14:11). Like many other instances one of Jesus claims was not just that he was sent by the Father, but that he and the Father were one. So if God so loved the world that he sent his only son, then Jesus also loved the world so much that he was sent. And we begin to slip into trinitarian thought. Jesus is not just a different mask that God puts on, or a cool human that God uses, but somehow we have a God that is one (“Hear Israel, the Lord your God is one”) yet somehow there are two persons. Huh.

But let us now ask this question: if Jesus is dead, is it not better to say “Jesus loved you”? Or rather, what good is it that Jesus loved you? Or, Jesus loves, as in actively, you? How can we make this claim. I’m sure none of us has really thought this out, but how can we be certain Jesus still loves us? Maybe he died, was resurrected, and now sits in heaven without even thinking about us.

Well look at this, the book of John again! In John 14:15-31 Jesus tells his disciples about how he is going to send the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to be with his disciples and to make him known in their lives. Jesus even says he will send the Advocate, but just a second later claims he himself will come to them, and then says the Father will come and take up residence in the disciples. So who is it, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, or the Father that comes to them? And we begin to see that God is not just two person, but three, and as one does, so does the other two. So if the Holy Spirit comes into the world, so too does Jesus and the Father, making the statement not “Jesus loved you”, but “Jesus loves you.” Or “Jesus loves u.”

So in the end you may see this as a lot of words used to prove something we’ve been claiming all the time anyway. But don’t look at it as mindless doctrine or theology; this is what makes us able to state these claims, to stand with surety that Jesus loves us and the rest of the world. And we know that Jesus loves us because we believe in a trinitarian God, and it is most important that we understand how this works. Even in simple statements like “Jesus loves u” is packed with trinitarian thought and if we don’t understand this, we portray a god that isn’t portrayed in the Bible. We must understand that the Trinity impacts all of our thinking about God, not just boring theology.

Cameron

 

Post Lent-Thought

So it has been some time since Easter came, bringing the end to Lent, and I have to say that it was an exciting time. It seemed like the whole mindset of Lent caused me to be more intentional in the writing process, and it led me to analyze the world around me a whole lot more. There is so much to talk about, to think about, to contemplate as the world spins, and I won’t admit to having all the answers: that’s what pretentious people do. I understand my situatedness; I know that I am still developing, thinking, changing, working. But there is something about putting my thoughts down and working through them.

As well, coming out of Lent and hearing the sighs of relief as people returned to twitter, facebook, videogames, and drinking (if they didn’t give in during Lent) I began to think once again about the whole idea behind Lent post-resurrection. And I’m glad. I’m glad I did Lent with the mindset of not just suffering, but also of recreating because it made everything worth it. I wonder how everyone else feels post-Lent about the things they sacrificed and whether it was all worth it. What did you learn? What did you feel? Did it change anything? For myself the work of creating and starting something new is not something I want to give up; it was a chance for me to do things differently, and coming to this moment post-Lent I do not want to stop. I’m okay with not wasting time on random websites, spending time doing things that matter to me, and putting thoughts down. I’m not saying I have no fun, or don’t watch hilarious videos; I do, I just steward that time a whole lot better. Thus, Lent feels like it was a good thing.

So in the end, I enjoyed Lent. I enjoyed changing my life and becoming a different person. I enjoyed making sacrifices in the light of bringing about a new creation. And maybe as an image bearer of God, and living as one following in Jesus steps, there is a reason for it. Maybe Lent can be a microcosm of the grander play in our own lives, and in the larger story of all of creation, of sacrificing to make something new.

Cameron

 

Lent-Thoughts Day 38 (Thursday of Holy Week): The Church in the Neighborhood

I went on a bike ride today, wandering down streets and neighborhoods, with no real set path. I just rode my bike leisurely, keeping my bike in lower gears because I wasn’t in the mood to over-exert myself. And as I rode down one little street I came upon two surprises: 1. A school I never knew existed (Burnt Bridge Elementary: I guess I knew it existed, I just never knew where it was, or that it was on the street I happened to be riding on) and 2. A Mormon church. Now the Mormon churches don’t necessarily surprise me, but I didn’t know this one, along with the school, was on this street, in this neighborhood. As I rode past the church I looked across the street and noticed a slightly run-down house and it just struck me as odd. I felt like the Mormon church, with all of its American Polytheism, would be the church to be most at work on the houses right across the street. For a religion that essentially preaches Americanism, it is weird to find a slightly run-down house across from their church.

Now I feel a little silly proclaiming that the Mormon church should or shouldn’t have run-down houses across from them. I even have to question my own silly preconceptions of what “run-down” really means. I mean, it wasn’t that bad of a house. And what struck me even more silly is that I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a run-down house outside of a Christian church, and I mean truly run-down because often the church doesn’t do much of redemption in its immediate context.

There are two views of the church, among many, that I have seen often in America: fortress and other-worldly. As a fortress the church has often hidden itself from the world around it, secluding its members from the outside horrors. It seems the church often views itself much like the medieval castle, built not for the world to come inside, but as an impenetrable, enclosed, structure protecting those who live inside. In this way the church would care little for the world around it, allowing things to go to hell while keeping the sheep safe. I must admit there is some truth to this: the church isn’t the sole redeeming force in society. While yes, the church can do much, and should do much, to help redeem the world, it isn’t responsible to for fixing every problem that exists. Often when the church flees from society it loses its voice in society. You will sometimes see the very people bemoaning the fall of society are also the ones who are the least involved in society, and the least listened too.

But there is some desire to protect people from the world around them as often it can be a hard place for those who are first coming to believe in the God of Christianity. It is important that the church not throw new believers back into the fire right away; but the church must be training and discipling these new believer (do not read indoctrinating) so that they can return to the fallen world and be a redeeming voice. In other words, there should be some protection, but the walls of the church must not be built thick and tall, the door unopened.

The second view I have seen is the church as a selective entity. In this concept the church is open to people, but only reaches out to certain types. In a way the church reaches beyond its immediate context, pulling in people from outside the neighborhood. You see this very often in motorized contexts as people drive miles, often past other churches, to go to the church that they attend. There is this sense that the church, spread out all over the city, comes together for one moment (like Voltron or the Power Rangers) to be a church, and then disperses again. The neighborhood around the church never really feels the impact of the church, and sees them maybe as a society like the Masons, meeting together in secrecy and with closed doors. But there is something good about his view, because it catches onto the idea of the church dispersing, not holing itself up in the building. To some extent it is true that Christians are called to live around and among the city, coming together to profess and celebrate the work of Christ. There is even a sort of Babel/Acts/Diaspora aspect to it. As Jeremiah called the Israelites to live in and bless the city they were exiled in, so should Christians (Jer. 29). I want to overly endorse this idea.

But often the immediate surroundings of the church are unaffected. Often instead of impacting the city in which they live, Christians in this church seem to live separated, ineffective lives. They may achieve small acts of redemption, which is not to be downplayed, but they never leave a lasting impact in the city. There are even times when these Christians may come together and bring a more lasting impact to the city, but it is away from the immediate context of the church; if you will, completely separate from the church. Yes, the church should be about big and small redemptive acts, but I have to ask what is really happening when those people or places closest to the church don’t know anything about it.

So I want to endorse this idea: that the catholic church become a redeeming force in society, and the local church become a redeeming force in it’s immediate context. And to go back to my previous example this doesn’t mean the surrounding houses get spruced up and look nice; that is merely aesthetic. Instead the church should be felt and known by the houses and people surrounding the building, a place where redemptive acts flow out into the city. The church should become the center of redemptive acts in its neighborhood, a place known for reconciling the area around it. If I may say so, if someone wanted to destroy the work of the church they shouldn’t need to destroy other businesses and buildings, but the central place to strike should be the church. And yet the church will never be destroyed just by destroying the building. But it should be the symbol and the center of where all redemptive acts flow out of.

Cameron