The "Christian" Label: How the modern church deals with culture

I'll be the first to admit that I probably have a large stake in this, in that there are a lot of things that I enjoy and partake in a lot of pop culture stuff. Thus, maybe it just sounds like I'm trying to justify the things I do in the context of my faith. Maybe. I'll be honest, I'm going to be a little biased about it, but at the same time, I think it is a Biblically sound premise that the idea is to bring God into everything that we do (1 Corinthians 10:31), while certainly there are (sinful) things that we cannot bring God into, at the same time there are things that are neither explicitly for or against God outside of how we use them.

What I hope to accomplish here, is to get us to critically (and theologically) look at how we approach different things and to hopefully spur on Christian creatives to be bold in their faith in their creativity but also to encourage Christian consumers to be wise and discerning in a world of media saturation where certain truths (particularly about life and humanity) are either ignored or consciously subverted.

My Fellow Americans...

I borrow this address of President Johnson not because I think I'm someone special or important, but because I find it the most fitting address. Granted, most people won't read this, and those that do might ask, "Who is this guy? Why should we listen to him?" I don't really have an answer to either of those questions. I'm just another American citizen trying to make sense of everything. Election 2016 was a roller coaster and one that was neither exhilarating or satisfying, but rather nauseating and disappointing.

Love Misunderstood

We don’t get love.

It’s something that’s easy to say and has been said enough that it’s almost kind of clichéd. I grant that point. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any less true. Love is one of those commonly overused words. We sort of intuitively have this understanding that the English language’s limitation to this single word “love” is somewhat insufficient to denote the depth of meaning behind it. Some of us may also know that other languages, such as Greek, have different words for different types of love. Sure, that makes sense. However, that knowledge does not necessarily mean that we have no idea what we’re actually saying when we use the word.

Moral Necessity

As much as we would like to live in a world where moral relativity were a reality, the fact of the matter is we don’t. In fact, as much as we say we would want to live in such a world, if we were to really think about it, we don’t.

I am biased

Some people might be looking at the title and think, "Well, no duh." 

While we all conceptually understand that there is bias in everything, it must be a context that is taken into account with every reading. Why is that? Well if you don't take into account the bias of any given author, you naturally give credence to (or accept) any assumption that the author walks in with before even putting words on a page. That is dangerous. We all learn in school that even journalism, arguably objective reporting, will have bias. A liberal, atheist, vegan will approach everything (from education to abortion to women's rights to entertainment) very differently than a conservative, theist, hunter. We might jokingly say that then all journalism should be only attempted by moderates, but that's not the point. Everyone believes something, and that something colors how they perceive the world around them, and that perceived color will impact how we act.

In this blog, I want to consider a lot of the questions that maybe get overlooked because they are so fundamental. Perhaps because they are so fundamental, they are not really practical to consider outside of a philosophy class or something, because they don't pragmatically get us anywhere. It's difficult to draw on how it immediately impacts our day-to-day. However, just because it doesn't change the ins and outs of our daily lives (e.g. grocery shopping, paying rent, going to work, etc...) doesn't mean that it's not important. I've found that in order to change any of the day to day, we need to begin with a paradigm shift. I want us to be able to flesh out the assumptions that we just naturally assume, why we might assume them, and whether or not those assumptions are valid. It's a simple exercise to explain but perhaps significantly more difficult to accomplish. However, I think we ought not be daunted by that difficulty, rather we should take that challenge to really examine our lives, how we live, and why we live that way.

Say what you mean: What do I believe?

We live in a world of growing contradiction and inconsistency. As much as we would like to think that we are growing in rationality and progressing in reason, if we honestly look at everything that's happening today, it's pretty hard to say that we have. Then again, if we're honest with ourselves, perhaps it's just that there isn't really all that much to progress, there isn't some new epiphany of reasoning or rationality that seems reasonable or rational. That may seem a little dubious to some of us, but one thing I think is rather undeniable is we live in an era of growing "political correctness". I suppose the phrase "political correctness" as the general desire to not offend people. While that in and of itself is a noble goal, carried to an extreme, we essentially are forced to communicate by saying almost nothing, because almost anything can be construed as offensive. Now that I really think about it, the idea of "political correctness" seems rather irrational and unreasonable as well.

In this growing trend of "political correctness" we've often come to mouthing meaningless and often pithy platitudes with a certain amount of sincere insincerity. First, I want to make clear that I'm not here to bash propriety or politeness. I think those are important. We ought to be polite and nice to one another. The point I am trying to make is that we've become so accustomed to mouthing these words that we no longer understand nor really care to understand, their meanings. We say things we don't mean. Frankly, I would argue, we don't really know the meaning of the things we say anymore. That's a problem. A rather big one I would say.

Misunderstandings: We don't get grace

I think we live in a world of concepts. We (especially me) are good at conceptually understanding things and unfortunately, we often fail to realize that it never goes beyond a concept. While with something like math or engineering, that's a very valuable tool to have, unfortunately, when it comes to how we live our lives, our values, our priorities, our morals, our worldview, well, we have applied it here as well, and therefore, while we often purport to hold to certain ideals the way we live our lives is very different. I know I do this. I'm not going to sit here and call everyone hypocrites, that's not my goal, but I think we ought to clearly examine and understand ourselves better. To better know what exactly it is that we are affirming in our professions of belief, in our faith.

Timeliness and Tardiness: A Measure of Priorities

We've all heard it before. It's an Asian thing. It's a Hawaiian thing, It's a Southern thing. If we're really honest with ourselves, being late has become so prevalent that quite frankly, it's a human thing. I recall reading an article about how we've become accustomed to being late to everything that, as a society, we pretty much accept it as the standard norm. Look, I get as much as the next person that different people place different values on time, and therefore not everyone views time equally despite everyone having an equal amount of time. However, I would argue that it's generally untrue that people are late to everything in their lives. Regardless of how much relative value people place on time, I would posit that pretty much everyone values time. And while I may unfortunately, perhaps offend some in this regards, I feel it is something worth saying. You may disagree with me, but ultimately speaking, we are late to things because we don't care.

Those in Need

There are a lot of these people. You could almost argue that everyone is in need of something. Lately, I've found myself getting into listening to various podcasts and such. It's an interesting scene, that of the internet celebrity. Specifically, I listened to a podcast by a comedian named Chris Hardwick that goes by the title of Nerdist. The last episode that I listened to was one in which Chris and his guests (Jonah Ray, Matt Myra, and Chloe Dykstra) were reflecting on what had happened over the past year. Now, I think a lot of what I say is a general reflection and reaction to this specific episode, but I think that it would also be a good reflection in general, well perhaps a reflection of people in the modern media who are oft influential in modern media (or just very visible in general to the public).

No Regrets

I watched a skit once with this title, it was full of music, singing and dancing college seniors. It was a well-prepared presentation, powerful and touching story, and I think, overall a good message. I won't spoil it for you in the event you want to watch it. The whole production is called G-Live, the specific skit if you haven't surmised already is called "No Regrets". Which got me thinking about a question that perhaps a lot of us ask, which is, "What would I do over?" A lot of times I have wished that I could do entire parts of life over again, or maybe go back in time with my current knowledge, which sounds ideal, and really cool, but having watched enough science fiction to know about creating a space-time paradox or alternate unstable timeline, and all that random pseudo-science (or maybe real science, I don't know the difference) type jargon.

Historically Relevant

I am a pretty big NBA fan. I mean, I can list off stats, such as the fact that only three teams hold 15 of the last 21 NBA championship titles (Chicago Bulls 6, Los Angeles Lakers 5, San Antonio Spurs 4), but while that is an interesting bit of trivia, what does that really mean to me? In other words, how does that impact what I do day-in and day-out? In short, so what? Maybe it would mean more to me if I were directly involved in the NBA, such as working in a franchise front office or somehow working for a team, because then I might see how I might emulate the success of these three teams. However, as the casual fan, other than as pieces of interesting (or random depending on your perspective) trivia, it doesn't really affect what I do or how I live.

What about when it comes to something bigger? I recently finished the book The Case for Christ by journalist Lee Strobel, and realized that behind all of the apologetics, the facts, the history, this question needs to be addressed: so what? Having the privilege of serving as a youth leader this past year I realized both the import and the challenge in addressing this question, particularly with young people of today (it makes me sound kind of old, but I suppose I mean this term in a general sense, and perhaps to some degree include myself in it). So behind all of this historical evidence for Jesus what impact does it have for me in my life? Should it have one? I believe the answer is yes.

A Lack of Discernment

I don't know about you, but I have spent a lot of time agonizing over the idea of what God's will is. What is God's will in my life? There are numerous verses in the Bible that give us an indication of what God desires for us in essence, wills, for us, but again the question comes out, what does that look like specifically? Is it God's will that I take this job or that one? That I go to this church or that one? That I marry this person or that one? I can't count the number of times in life where I have been idle, sitting around "trying to figure out God's will". Don't get me wrong, it's important to know and to do God's will, as Jesus says in Mark 3:35 doing God's will is how we demonstrate that we are of his family. Yet I suppose that begs the question as to what God's will exactly is. How can I do something that I don't know?

Relational Thinking

You know, it's something that I've probably heard all my life growing up, and a word that I've learned to take entirely for granted: relationship. It's a word that I feel has changed significantly over the course of the years, or maybe it's just me, I know that how I now understand the word relationship is very different from how I once understood the word. Now, of course, we ought to have the technical definition of the word, and according to dictionary.com:

1.

a connection, association, or involvement.

2.

connection between persons by blood or marriage.

3.

an emotional or other connection between people: the relationship between teachers and students.

4.

a sexual involvement; affair.

Okay, fair enough. For a while growing up, I generally only thought of the word relationship in the context of the fourth definition presented above. I blame television and my own naivete. As I grew older, I became more and more aware of the breadth of the word, and it began encompassing the other three definitions. Relationships nowadays for me, encompass more and more the third definition, that is my "default definition", what I automatically think of when I hear the word. 

Does this mean I've sold out?

Okay, for those non-music junkies out there, sorry, this is going to have some terminology that may not be understood to the general public, though I will try, because I can't rightly call myself a music junkie either. Now, today, I'm probably going to offend a number of Indie music fans, and for that, I apologize, but, hey, you're Indie fans, you're used to it. Have I sold out? Well, that's an interesting question. I can humorously answer "no" because frankly, I haven't sold anything. However, recently, I've been considering a couple of things, and they're all somewhat interestingly tie together. In his book How Now Shall We Live, Charles Colson writes that art ought to be a reflection of the beauty of creation. God was very intentional when he created sound, and that's why we have these nice mathematical ratios (which I won't talk about because I don't really get it entirely) for consonance (sounds that sound good together). Now, if that is the case, then there are a limited number of sounds that sound good together (chords) and therefore, a limited number of chord progressions that will work. Given 400 or so years of written musical history, I'm sure that it's understandable why we recycle some musical ideas. So, this idea of a sellout, well, what is it? This can be broken down into a number of questions, the first, who did we sell out to? The common answer may be, mainstream audiences, money, I suppose. The second question then is, who did we sell out from? The arguable answer is the abstract concept of "musical integrity". Which, I honestly find kind of funny. However, the general principle I think behind it is the motivation, do I write songs in a certain way because people will listen to it and therefore I will make lots of money because it'll sell? Yet, I would posit, despite perhaps insincere motivations, these "sellouts" (and "musicians") alike have stumbled upon something that we've lost over the years.

 Now Colson goes into this little tirade in his book about how pop culture has produced and influenced these things that may not be bad, but aren't necessarily good for us either. He pretty much equates it all with being "cultural junk food". I personally have a hard time swallowing that. While I would agree that classical composers were tremendously gifted in their grasp of music in general, I would also posit that a lot of them composed because they needed to make money (I believe Mozart at least early on was money motivated, at least his father was). While the medium of rock-and-roll may have been have been produced and refined in the morally questionable, drug-induced '80s, I don't necessarily think that other music doesn't have its follies as well. Certainly, classical music generally tends to be more complex, thereby requiring us to think harder to appreciate it, and I do agree there is some merit to working to understand what you are listening to, but inherently, I hold more that content is kind of the deal-breaker. As much as the argument of "God gave us brains for a reason" is used, likewise the argument "God gave us hearts for a reason" is equally valid. Okay, so this is a big tangent, but I felt I needed to clear that up.

Recently, I revisited a couple of old musical comedy bits, the first by Rob Paravonian who remarks how the Pachabel Canon in D chord progression (FYI: D A Bm F#m G D G A) is found in every song (and the piece itself makes for a crappy cello part), the second is by a group called Axis of Awesome (who, because they are Australian, can be humorously introduced as Destiny's Child, if they were white... and men) talking about how all pop hits have the same 4 chord progression (FYI: I-V-vi-IV, which incidentally, essentially can function as the first four chords of Pachabel's Canon). As a brief warning to those who actually finish reading before they click on a link, there may be a little bit of crass language in this, in case you have sensitive ears, but overall it's pretty clean. While we find it funny at these people ridiculing all these songs, it inherently remains true that anyone that has listened to the radio in the past decade or two will probably have heard a lot of these songs on the radio somewhere at some point in time. Of the most popular songs, for example, U2's hit With or Without You (which is mentioned in both comedy pieces) literally uses the Axis of Awesome's 4-chord pop song formula the ENTIRE song. Another of U2's popular songs, Where the Streets Have No Name, additionally pretty much use the same 4 chords (perhaps not in that exact order) and throw in a flat-VII chord at the end before resolving each chorus, but the basic structure is the same. Yet we still listen to these songs. Sure we can agree that nobody likes Justin Bieber's music, or that U2 is awesome, but they're still flooding the charts. Why?

Frankly, I think it's because that is the fundamental nature of music. From the Beatles to Green Day, they've stumbled across something that inherently "works". As much as the musician in me chafes at boiling it down to something this simple, it really is the foundation of music. Sure there will be good music not based on this, but generally speaking, I find most music is. When I've tried to compose songs, I've always tried to do something "original" but in the end always end up coming back to the four basic chords of music (I-V-vi-IV, not necessarily in that order), frankly, because they sound good. God made those four chords sound good together in a progression, now how do we use that to glorify Him?

A study in vocation

What does the word "vocation" mean to most people? I can do the first natural thing which is to look at a dictionary, which tells me:

noun
1. a particular occupation, business, or profession; calling.
2. a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career.
3. a divine call to God's service or to the Christian life.
4. a function or station in life to which one is called by God 

 Okay, fair enough. I would posit that generally, we trend towards the first definition of vocation, and that's it. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and I won't go into the etymology of vocation extensively except to point out that its root is in the Latin vocatio, which means "to call". So generally speaking, the word vocation probably most accurately has the meaning of "a calling". I was attending a men's Bible study group when these questions in regards to vocation were brought up and frankly, while I feel they have been overlooked, when you stop and think about it, they're really quite natural and frankly, something that we don't consider enough. When we consider our "calling" the two questions that immediately should be considered are these: called by whom? and for what? Generally speaking, we only really consider what we're called to do, but seldom who called us and why.

Watch what you sing...

As a worship leader, I'm often contemplating over what songs to choose often because I am often mulling over the lyrics of each song. It's a long, but relatively straightforward, process that I won't labor you with. That being said, it's given me a perspective in regards to how we treat music in our everyday lives. Frankly, in this generation, with our iPods and Pandora and even just our car radio, it's pretty rare to go a couple of steps without hearing some kind of music. Sometimes we're inclined to sing along, sometimes we hum, sometimes we memorize all the lyrics (maybe because we like karaoke), but that being said, do we really pay attention to what we're singing? Some might say that music is an "expression of the soul" and therefore the lyrics don't really matter, it's all about the melody or sound that is conveyed. Now, I grant that a catchy tune makes the song that much better (or in some cases worse), but does that really justify ignoring the lyrics? If music truly is "an expression of the soul" as some are wont to put it, don't the lyrics matter that much more?

The gives and takes of growing up

We live in a generation and society that more and more asks the question “What’s in it for me?” Is it a bad question to ask? It’s pretty hard for me to say, but nonetheless, it’s a question that we instinctively ask when faced with a new opportunity or situation. The question belies the attitude that anything worth doing is worth doing because of the result that comes out of it. To any degree, I believe that this generally holds true. While the Bible does tell us that it is more “blessed give than it is to receive” you are still storing up an eternal reward in heaven, a reward which, I believe far outweighs anything you could reap in this lifetime. Yet, this is not really what I want to discuss either. I wrote an earlier piece on this advent of “adultescents” which I believe is a growing problem in this day and age, and I’d now like to further continue to explore this issue. Am I an expert? Well, not really, but this is just my personal observation and speculations, but I’d say that I have some experience with this issue. Why? Probably because I’m likely and “adultescent” as well, though I’d say if I were I’m in denial (though if I’m really honest, I’d have to say that I really am something of an “adultescent”).

A Call to Love

In John 21 there's an exchange between Jesus and Peter involving the word "love". It's a pretty common word in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus summarily condenses the entire Jewish law into these to basic premises; love God, love people. In John 13:34 Jesus commands his disciples to love each other as they have been loved by Christ. Needless to say, it's a pretty important concept in the scheme of Christianity. Now, we can go on discussing the different kinds of love, as C.S. Lewis does so well in his book The Four Loves. I'm not a Greek expert, so I'll basically just give a summary here and recommend that if you have time, pick up Lewis's work and give a good go through. From the Greek, we know that there are four words to express what we currently translate as the word "love"; storge, phileo, eros, and agape. I'm sure that many of you have heard this before in a sermon somewhere, but to give a brief recounting, storge is affection through familiarity, phileo is love between family and friends, eros is the emotional state of being "in love", and agape can also be translated as charity, it is an unconditional love. Now, knowing the basic differences between each of these aspects, Christ commands us to "agape" others, as agape is the only love of the four that can be commanded, as it is the only love that is demonstrated through physical action, the only love without the prerequisite of "liking" the subject of love prior to that action. It's a little difficult to put into words, however, I believe this distinctive difference is something that is important. I can't "phileo" or "eros" someone I don't like, because those two aspects of love are based on my emotional attachment to the person whom I am loving, however, with agape, I can still love said person, as charity is not based entirely in emotional connection. Granted, liking the person makes it easier to love that person, but only in a situation where our love is not tied to our emotions can the concept of "loving our enemies" be a command that we can expect to fulfill. As far as I've seen, I've definitely not suddenly started liking everyone I met since becoming a Christian.

So where am I going with all this? Well, I believe that there's an inherent change that needs to take place in how I perceive things that happen around me. Naturally, we've all heard that we need to see others "through the eyes of Christ", that we need to have compassion for the lost around us, yet my pondering has led me to ask what that really looks like. It's pretty hard for me to say where I'm going because naturally, I'm not entirely sure myself, but I believe that this is something that needs to be pondered.

Entymological Rant: "Studying" Context

I suppose the topic of this specific post is geared more towards Christians than not, though if perhaps it can be applied more broadly to other aspects of life as well. What I would like to specifically discuss today is the word "study", specifically when used in the context of the phrase "Bible study". To put it in the most simple and straightforward means possible, I wish to explore the question: What is a Bible study? I find there to be various approaches to this, but let us take this piece by piece. Why go through this? Well, for myself, it is an exercise to consider a number of things, among them are these two key points: first, why do I attend a Bible study? Secondly, what do I think a good Bible study looks like? Another way of considering that would be: what sort of Bible study would impact me the most?

Naturally, the most logically definition, would be the one in which our personal context is most familiar. Bible study is that function that I go to outside of church. It could take a variety of shapes and forms. For some it could be a small group of people sharing and exegeting some piece of Scripture. For others it may be that same small group reading a good Christian book. And yet for others it could be going to hear someone else exegeting some piece of Scripture. Yet what I would like to consider when we look at the form of what Bible study is, I would like to consider the phrase "Bible study" in and of itself.

Adultescents: The Growing Epidemic

Adultescent? What the heck? Frankly, I'd only heard of the word last week at a conference in Portland, but apparently it's been around since 2004, well, at least the word has. I'm sure there were other less friendly labels used for such people before then. Yet, why was this word created? Well, NY Times gives an interesting look at it. Surely, statistically we see that there's some kind of phenomenon happening here, for better of or worse, something's happening. For those of you that didn't click on the link and are still wondering what an adultescent is, simply put, it's a kid in an adult body, or one other way of thinking of it is someone who just doesn't grow up. As you might have gathered from my title, there are a growing number of these types of people, and frankly, I find it to be a problem.