Josh McDowell and Christian Solutions

I spent my day off with my Godsister Courtney and my Godson Christopher on a trip down to Tyler, TX.  We were charged to set up and man a table for a fantastic Christian summer conference at a Josh McDowell event at a  local Christian School/ church.  It’s not the first time that I’ve heard apologetics events like these, and not the first time I’ve heard one from McDowell.  I, like many other fine-arts oriented Christians, believe that “beauty will save the world”, and that there are strong limitations to Christian apologetics.

The Christian Apologetic mission is not limited because it is wrong, but because it’s a solution that often fits the problem it tries to face the way defensive driving classes fit speeding.  Information of this kind can influence behavior people are ambivalent about, but it will not change your life.

As a sophomore in High School I took a class called “Apologetics”, and for our main text we used McDowell’s A Ready Defense.  Though later on I would find some issues treated a little simply, for the most part the book was wonderfully helpful.  Truth be told, I believe that book saved me a lot of grief because it helped me to think through some issues and provided me with some credible reasons to believe Christianity was true.

It was not enough to save me from doubt and anxiety.  This was because my anxiety, like most people’s, didn’t have to do with the exact number of texts that attest to the historicity of Holy Scripture, or textual variances in certain manuscripts. No amount of McDowell or William Lane Craig can give to the human soul what Chesterton’s Orthodoxy or Lewis’ Till We Have Faces can.  These books do more than testify to the historical veracity of Christ, they reflect the One who is Truth and Beauty in their very makeup. The human being craves more than just information, and needs much more than the facts in order to mature and make good decisions.  Plato reminds us that there is a great discrepancy between knowledge and information, and what McDowell wanted to do — self admittedly– was to dispense information to the mass of Christian youths.

After McDowell’s apologetics greatest hits, he dedicated a session to sex and love.  You might think, as I did, that the information gushing was now likely to slow down and leave room for fatherly wisdom.  This was not the case;  McDowell started delivering the important statistics that teens are not usually told: how the number of STD’s has increased by hundreds of percents over the past decades, how condoms are only 70% effective, etc.  Certainly this is good to know, but does it solve the problem?

And this is what Courtney and I talked about in the car on the way back: what is this event, and those like it, trying to fix?  We might surmise that  this particular segment was trying to combat sexual activity among teens.  It would be naïve to think that this kind of solution would be greatly effective; keeping say, 50% of the teens in the crowd that would otherwise be fornicating with their serious significant other from doing so.  Certainly it is good, but is it a solution?

I don’t think it is a good solution because I don’t think the problem is the right one to treat.  The goal of stopping kids from having sex is a bad goal.  I say this not because I’m ambivalent about premarital sex or about teen health, but because such a goal cannot but come across as unwarranted policing.  To put my point into contrast, why not give skin cancer the same treatment we give STD’s?  It’s a problem that is easily cured by self-control, and knowing the risk may help temper kids vanity as they decided whether to join the rest of sunbathing crowd.  The answer is that there is much more to sex than health risks and divine commands.  Sex is a meaningful and precious thing, and its misuse is sorrowful; like spray paint on the Sistine Chapel.

The reason McDowell, and the others like him, grab a microphone and fill an auditorium with their young’uns is because they love them (however generally and abstractly) and want to see their lives develop into something wonderful.  Instead of calling the problem “teen sex” the problem is “helping awaken kids to the Good Life”.  Abstinence is just a part of living a meaningful and beautiful life.

That is why I shuddered when McDowell tried to separate ”love” from “sex” for the young crowd.  He was trying to help those who think that they must sleep with the person they love, and he thought the thing to do here is to make sure that the definition of “sex” and “love” did not overlap.  That’s why he said,

We call sex ‘making love’ but that is really a misnomer.  Love and sex are two VERY different things.  It is not ‘making love’.  It’s just getting it on!

I contend that the single greatest threat to our children is the withdrawal  of meaninglessness from their lives. Stealing meaning from sex by divorcing it from love is a recipe for disaster, even if it successfully keeps teens abstinent.  What kind of marriage do we want for our kids?  If sex is a rather meaningless activity that, by the way we should only engage in within the bounds of marriage while consider the significant health issues involved, then what human activity is meaningful?

I’m sure that if you asked any of the kids, parents, or teachers  in the audience if you thought that was what McDowell was driving at they would rush to his defense.  And they are right to do so insofar as he is not intending to further an agenda of meaninglessness.  However, statements like this have significant impact as part of the “dreadful tide” that mounts against the souls of this culture.

Add “Sex is just getting it on” to “Food is just fuel” as innocuous slogans that rot away a generations ability to find meaning, joy, and happiness in life.

“Naive” and “Death By Church”

One of the things I’ve been tracking is the current Christian trend of hating religion and religious establishments.  Sometimes is takes rather hostile and aggressive tones (Derek Webb for example) while other times it takes the form of well meaning Christian encouragement and empathy. I say “encouragement and empathy”, because I’m not really sure what to make of books like Mike Erre’s Death By Church, and other such books.  Regardless of its goal and genre, Death By Church is certainly not pleased with institutionalized Christianity.  If anything it is organized Christianity that plays the part of the Big Bad Wolf as the Christian Red Riding Hood takes the Gospel to the mission field of Grandmother’s house.  But why is this, and how can it be that getting Red Riding Hoods together in a way that makes you file your taxes so often — apparently — creates an anti- Gospel monster?

Personally, I don’t think that it does; or at least that this happens automatically.  I think that there is a very common trendy perception that it does, and the straw man has been scotch-taped onto the real thing.  It’s a part-for-the-whole error, where the sins of the few create the perceived identity for the whole.  More importantly, this trendy habit created by kitsch universalists of the Hollywood variety has not only caught on but picked up steam in the Protestant world.  This is sad, though unsurprising, considering that this habit of mitigating the possibility of  the Church being the present body of believers who are being actively guided and corrected by Christ their Head through the Holy Spirit.  For many, and this includes Protestants, maturity looks like critiquing, and there’s a certain enthusiasm and self-satisfaction that criticism breeds.

Trust me.  As witnessed by this blog, I know the fruits of criticism well.

It certainly is not the case that there is nothing to criticize.  Erre’s shots are moderately delivered at just targets.  For him, Death By Church is a sign of love for the people of God. It is addressed to the church as a kind of warning sign.  This is where the confusion kicks in: that the mean Church is the thing killing the poor innocent Church.  Oh yeah, because the Church (institutional) is not the Church (invisible)?

All of this to say: hating religion and the institutional church (even if I don’t think it is the Church Christ Instituted) makes me sad.  Really, really sad.  It hit me again today when I was listening to the new album from one of my favorite bands, Sleeping at Last.  The song is called “Naive“, and as most S@L songs do, it tries to end hopefully.  I’ve posted the lyrics after the jump.

Derek Webb: Stockholm Syndrome

The title says it all.

Derek Webb’s newest album bears the title Stockholm Syndrome; the term coined for when a hostage forms a bond with their captor, becoming loyal and defensive on behalf of the ones that abuse them. In this one title Webb has succinctly and clearly summed up the theme of not only his present album, but his last two albums and five years of work.

Many people are lauding the new album, which comes in and edited and “explicit” version because of the song “What Matters More”.  That’s right, Caedmon’s Call’s good ol’ Derek Webb, whose CD’s almost exclusively sell to a Christian audience has an explicit version of his album. Webb’s label, knowing that they were sending the album to Christian bookstores, balked at including a song that features two curses, including a certain unpleasantry that begins with “sh”.  The entire album can be listened to for free at his website.

I don’t think much needs to be made of Webb’s decision to curse on his album; or of his label’s reasonable decision to suppress the song. (Derek is giving away the song for free at his website anyway.) Webb has been almost unilaterally been praised for pushing the envelope in a way that gets his message across, but there is some reason to be suspicious.  As one of the founders of noisetrade.com, Derek has proved to be an adept, and bold marketer who targets niches.  If you think I’m taking this too far, just check out the crazy morse code videos he released in anticipation of Stockholm Syndrome.

Despite the kudos that keep rolling in, I can’t really find anyone who is lambasting Derek’s locker-room vocabulary.  Truth is, rather than cutting against the grain, Webb is just being hip. And being a cussing rebel is very Christian chic.

“What Matters More” asks the listener — in a rather, um, agitated manner — if they care more about the issue of homosexuality or… other things, like lots of people dying.  The philosopher in me cringes at this argument.   “Dear reader, what matters more to you: AIDS or husbands cheating on their wives? Genocide or child prostitution?”  Considering the fact that we naturally care about the problems in backyard first (as well we should), perhaps a better comparison would be something like, “What matters more to you: unemployment in Detroit or your child stealing from Walmart?”  All of them are bad questions.

Bad question or not, the song suffers from something even worse: it’s belittling.  Webb sounds, not like a strong truth-trumpeting prophet, but like a cowardly and sarcastic hatemonger.  Consider:

You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
‘Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak
‘Cause if you really believe what you say you believe
You wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak…

Anyone who hears the song from the perspective of the audience can’t help but be offended, while those who listen and are not offended are joining Derek in casting the first stone.

And again…

If I can tell what’s in your heart by what comes out of your mouth
Then it sure looks to me like being straight is all it’s about
It looks like being hated for all the wrong things
Like chasin’ the wind while the pendulum swings
‘Cause we can talk and debate until we’re blue in the face
About the language and tradition that he’s comin’ to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit
About 50,000 people who are dyin’ today
Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

Apparently Derek is so upset about homosexuality that he is just fine presenting a false dilemma to his audience and insulting them for good measure.  I’m not sure what good he thinks that is going to do, but it looks like “what matters more” to Mr. Webb is keeping things punchy and stirred up; more than serious and thoughtful lyrics about important and immediate problems.  If it wasn’t for Webbs’  CCM reputation this song would be a considered just a poor man’s version of Third Eye Blind’s “About to Break”.

My disappointment with Stockholm Syndrome doesn’t end with “What Matters More”, but is also highlighted by the swing-fused “Freddie, Please” — a seriously toned take-down of spite filled nut-job pastor Fred Phelps.  Yes Derek, we know that “God Hates Fags” signs are a horrible, horrible thing that has caused pain and harm to many people.  Phelps is shameful.  We all know he’s shameful. You really don’t have to waste your wind in him; there are far more important issues.  Oh, and please spare us from a scathing attack on Kim Jung Il and Jeffery Dahmer.

The in-your-face bluntness that made the confessional “I Repent” one of your most convicting and sober songs has gone off the rails.  Now you’re just spitefully preaching to us about tolerance, which you like to call Love.

Don’t worry, conservatively minded Christians aren’t the only ones Webb takes aim at.  He follows up “What Matters More” by stringing together a strident medley that accuses America of all kinds of injustices.  From what might be the most poetic song on the album, “The Proverbial Gun”.

Now I can buy the proverbial gun
And shoot the proverbial child
When my uncle looks me in the eye
And speaks of freedom
My conscience goes up on trial
In the courtrooms of the mind
Where the judges all have sons
And all the lawyers are wounded
And the backs are all broke
And the bailiff is my brother
And the witness is my sister
And I’m guilty as hell
And by the afternoon I’m out
On the pavement walking
Reeking of salt and blood
No hat upon my head
No shoes upon my feet
Picking your body from my teeth
No stars above me
No stripes upon me

Free

While I think that Stockholm Syndrome’s comparisons to Kid A are undue, it is by far the best thing he has done musically since She Must And Shall Go Free, and maybe even as far back as Long Line of Leavers.  The insightful and  complex and “I Love /Hate You” captures some of the confusion and paradoxes of a romantic relationship. (Read in the context of the rest of the album’s Stockholm Syndrome theme, the song can be seen simply as perverse false love, and loses all its profundity.  But I’ll give Webb the benefit of the doubt here: he’s earned it when it comes to songs about women.) Webb’s synth sound fits somewhere between Radiohead and The Notwist, yet the chill hypnotic feel from the other bands is not to be had.  Sure it’s ear candy, but the lyrics grab and blister with their thinly veiled accusations.  Perhaps this is what Limp Bizkit would have sounded like it they had stuck around.

The title says it all: and what Derek is saying with Stockholm Syndrome is that we have mistakenly fallen in love with our abusers, who are America (“God bless these bombs/Baptize this rope/Lie with us in the bed we’ve made”) and the Conservative Christian Establishment.  Webb alone is — as a friend described it — is above the fray.  Nowhere does he empathize with those in dilemma; just judges when it can’t all be roses. He really seems to think that we are two blinded by the Syndrome to realize that Fred Phelps is not a good role model, and that we should “want the Father and not a vending machine”.  I want to commend honest and gutsy artists, but I don’t see Webb’s voice being much of  a minority.  As Chesterton is wont to remind us, in order to criticize something you first have to love it.  Webb sees himself removed himself from the situation entirely– or at least that how he sounds– and sits more in the position of a judge than a encouraging coach or stern father.

I have taken a good hard at all his albums since I See Things Upside Down, and I cannot claim to know what Derek asks from his listeners.  Surely we can’t “fix” Fred Phelps, and many of us are working very hard to combat what is wrong with America.  His exhortation has turned to berating.  And berating someone for something they are not responsible for and cannot do anything about is abuse.  And in this case at least, I am not a victim of the Stockholm Syndrome.

St. Maximus on Philosophy

I’ve been working on a review of Derek Webb’s new album, Stockholm Syndrome, and an article on the recent OCA/ ACNA conference at Nashota House, but I wanted to briefly share a quote from St. Maximus the Confessor on the good of philosophy.  I ran into it while reading through Andrew Louth’s book on St. Maximus.

The passage is from Difficulty 10, which tries to dissolve the tension between philosophy and ascetic struggle, and the knowledge gained by both.  In a move characteristic of Orthodoxy, he refuses to allow the physical and the immaterial to be divorced from each other, calling to mind the reasonable movements of our bodies.

For the movement of the body is ordered by reason, which by correct thinking restrains, as by a bridle, any turning aside towards what is out of place, and the rational and sensible choice of what is thought and judged is reckoned to contemplation, like a most radiant light manifesting truth itself through knowledge.  By these two especially every philosophical virtue is created and protected and by them is manifest through the body, though not wholly.

Frankly, I was expecting  a move towards union in the opposite way; because philosophical investigation– like any other artistic act– is an act of ascetic striving.  The truth of this St. Maximus does not deny, and the union of reasoning in our daily bodily movements informs my more mundane observation.  Discipline in one’s physical actions reveals health in one’s rational and contemplative mind.  Rational movement is part of the prudent life. Prudence and profound thoughts are not just relatives, but close kin.

St. Maximus continues by talking of “the grace of philosophy” and how it wonderfully subtracts from our unfortunate state of disrepair.  Once rid of these entanglements we primed for the ascetical struggle that is so much of the righteous life.

For philosophy is not limited by a body, since it has the character of divine power, but it has shadowy reflections, in those who have been stripped through the grace of philosophy to become imitators of the godlike conduct of God-loving men.  Through participation in the Good they too have put off the shamefulness of evil to become worthy of being portions of God, through assitance they needed from those empowered, and having received it they make manifest in the body through ascetic struggle the virtuous disposition that is hidden in the depths of the soul.  So they become all things to all men and in all things make present to all the providence of God, and thus are a credit to God-loving men.

For Plato, Wittgenstein, and now St. Maximus, the role of philosophy is not to add something missing to the human being, but to keep us where we need to be: in humility, wonder, and holiness.

The Devolution of Derek Webb

Few songwriters have had more impact on my life than Derek Webb.  I distinctly remember the first time I heard “Center Isle”.  I didn’t know that songs could do that to you: give you all the slow sweetness of the personal nostalgia to a place you’ve never been with people you don’t know, and hit you like a Mac Truck.  I remember sharing his “Standing up for Nothing” with some of my fellow high school Freshmen, and they all just sat there like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

And it just got better. 40 Acres ushered in “Faith My Eyes”, which is probably my favorite of Derek’s songs, and a song that never far from my favorite playlists. I remember seeing Caedmon’s Call in concert right before Long Line of Leavers, showing up early to see Derek play guitar by himself for about an hour and half before the show started.  During that show the band would turn over the stage entirely to Derek for a couple of songs; and I distinctly remember him unveiling “Can’t Lose You” there.  Judging by all the times I’ve played “What You Want” and “Somewhere North” I didn’t think he could ever lose me either.

Derek’s career would reach a watershed in 2003 when he released his first solo album, She Must and Shall Go Free.  The album, recorded during his engagement, is an intense reflection on the idea of marriage as it relates to the Christ and His Bride, the Church.  Musically reminiscent of a backwoods Sunday service, and lyrically commanding Webb left us with several passionate and profound songs. Chiefly mentioned of these is “Wedding Dress“, the chorus of which is “I am a whore I do confess, but I put you on just like a wedding dress, and run down the isle to you.”  I’m more personally fond of “Lover”and “Beloved” (yeah, I know it sounds redundant, but hey its theme album!) and “The Church”.  One of the most resonant ideas on the album is that the Church communal is His Bride, and not individual Christians.  ”You cannot care for me, with no regard for her, if you love me you will love the Church.”

She Must and Shall Go Free was followed up by I See Things Upside Down and the EP The House Show, which contains more preaching than singing.  When I heard “I Repent“, which appears on both albums, I immediately ditched the other song I had been planning on playing for church for it.  The song was received as it was intended; as a “thank you” for a needed slap across the face.

There’s only so much loving that can be delivered in the form of a punch in the face though, and Derek began to make a habit of it.  One of the throw-a-way songs from I See Things Upside Down is “T-shirts“; a cheap criticism on the easy target of Christian sloganeering.  More disappointing is Derek’s 2005 Mockingbird, a rather unthoughtful apolgetic for disliking America and George Bush.  Also, with the exception of the  title track, the album is musically uninspired and has disappeared into the recesses of my coat closet.

For the first time Webb seemed angry, and self righteous.  His usually provocative lyrics culminated this time in the entirely unhelpful anthem “Love is Not Against the Law“.  Sure I couldn’t disagree with Webb, but I couldn’t agree with him either, mostly because he wasn’t saying anything very coherent or meaningful.  The album didn’t strike me as controversial, thoughtful, or even interesting, just basically vapid. Other than the title track, the album gets pretty much no play time from me.

2007’s The Ringing Bell is perhaps only a little better of a sample from the same vein. Webb, in usual outcast tone, sings of the inability of children to learn when you “stack them like lumber” and don’t feed them.  I can indulge these sort of heavy-handed obvious statements if they build to a legitimate payoff, but when the album was over, no payoff came.  I was officially unenthusiastic, and I didn’t think much about Derek Webb and his career.

That is, till Stockholm Syndrome hit the airwaves: or rather, when it didn’t.  But that story will have to wait for another day.

“The New Evangelical Scandal”

I commend to you a lengthly but  interesting article in The City by fellow Biolan Matt Anderson about the current state of Protestantism and what he calls the “new Evangelical scandal”.  Matthew is a good example of certain ilk of the Biola graduate population; one who feels the responsibility to shape what it means to be Evangelical, and usher in the next (and more enduring) breed of Evangelicals, one that is centered in a strong traditional identity.  Wanting to get away from the term “Protestant” (which is essentially reactive in its meaning) and unwilling to limit themselves to those circles ambiguously called “Reformed” (also reactive in definition), these folks aspire to be the vision-casters that galvanize the next generation of Christians.  Many of my close friends share this aspiration — with varying degrees of party-lineness — and these sharp and winsome thinkers stand to offer American Protestantism a great deal of direction and wisdom.

This project has some really tricky edges to it.  For starters, it is largely in-house, and I get the sense that this is pretty much the extent their vision.  They take the old argument that the product of the Protestant Reformation produced has yet to be defined as their rallying cry of opportunity, insisting that the new evangelical ethos is marked by a desire to reform evangelicalism from within”.  The ins and outs aside, the project is more or less aims to replace “Protestantism”, and therefore it is essentially ecumenical.  Since what they are aiming to helm is the entity that stands definitionally apart from Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy the project’s ecumenical implications must be considered, something only one of my friends seems to have seriously considered.    This is why articles like this one are conspicuously absent of a mention of  what is to be done with Anglicanism.  After all the title “Protestant” has gladly been applied to some Anglicans, and refused by others — what is their role in this proposed new iteration?

It is not unimportant that the article begins with politics, in the form of a recap of the past presidential election and the trends of the Evangelical voting block.  As telling as it is, I find it uninteresting at best, and perhaps even a bit misguided.  After all, much of what Matt calls the Evangelical voting block includes Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians like yours truly. True, the article is meant for those inside Evangelicalism, but mistakes such as these reinforce the sense that the new Evangelicals consider themselves the only relevant American Christianity, which in turn reveals a drastic misunderstanding of the Other Two.

To be sure there is much more of interest in the article that just its ecumenical fallout, including a harsh illustration of the current generation of Protestant Christians as a trend-obsessed culture surfer, and several different levels of ironic behavior from well meaning Evangelicals. According to Anderson the threats seem to be twofold, a general dissolution of the “Evangelical” identity (as foreshadowed by the current Evangelical unenthusiasm for the Republican party) and outright exodus to the Other Two.  Says Matthew,

While young evangelicals are still flocking to the altar, they are taking their time to do it—and exploring their options along the way.

In addition to their political, national, and familial affiliations, young evangelicals have slowly moved away from identifying with their own theological systems and heritage (the trend of evangelical converts to Anglicanism that Robert Webber first noted has not abated—if anything, it has expanded toward Rome and Constantinople). Such conversions belie, I think, evangelicalism’s failure to articulate its own theological distinctives and advantages and its rich intellectual and spiritual heritage. Few young evangelicals who convert have read—much less heard of—the writings of John Wesley, Andrew Murray, A.W. Tozer or other giants of the evangelical past (one wonders whether the new evangelical leaders like Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Rob Bell and others have read them). And even fewer evangelicals are inclined to give the tradition in which they were raised the benefit of the doubt, to see the errors and problems and remain regardless.

All this bodes badly for the future of evangelicalism. In the face of declining partisanship, patriotism, and eroding family ties, young evangelicals have increasingly turned away from their roots in search of a sense of grounding and stability. They have the intelligence to notice the flaws, but often lack the charity and the patience to work to fix them.

Having been in Anderson’s shoes, I understand where he is coming from and how sensible this analysis might seem.  However, since I am just such a convert from Protestantism, and because I know a good deal of people in the Other Two  who have come from there, I have to say that here Matthew is entirely off the mark. I know of no convert to the Other Two that would fit his analysis of the situation.  This is not to say that I don’t know converts who haven’t read Tozer and Wesley, and I even know a few that exhibited the lack of patience and commitment for Protestantism that Anderson bemoans.  The picture that Matt paints is a conversion of rootless kind of drifting into someplace other than Protestantism; one that could be stopped if the roots were just pointed out.  To be honest, I share Matt’s analysis as it relates to Anglicanism: I know plenty of happenstantial Anglicans who started out in the more mainline Protestant milue, and whose attendence there would likely have been retained if people would follow Anderson’s advice.

In his usual fashion, Anderson uses irony as a means of critique.

All this, ironically, signals the triumph of western individualism on the evangelical (and post-evangelical) mind. The renewed focus on community and on institutional structures is still grounded in the decisionism that has always marked evangelicalism. The fact that we are born as Americans—or as evangelicals—is unimportant. What is important is that we choose to be patriotic, that we choose to be Republican, that we choose to be evangelicals (or emergent, or Catholic, or Presbyterian)—and that we make that choice independent from and irrespective of any tradition that may have shaped us.

The young evangelical fashions himself into his own preferred identity, and then finds others who have done likewise. More often than not, this results in a rejection of the traditions—political or otherwise—in which younger evangelicals were raised.

In other words, as the traditional identity shaping institutions have eroded or become passé, young evangelicals have turned to carving out their own identities.

If the problem is that the usual American institutions that held the Evangelical identity in place are now weak, uncool, or gone, than the obvious solution is to rebuild this institutions to be strong, hip, and present.  This looks like a restructuring of the Republican Party, schools and Universities.  Somehow the voluntary choosing of a corporate Evangelical identity by creating the traditions that shape it does not strike me as being less ironic that the Evangelical hipster who strolls out of the Republicanized pew of the Southern Baptists and into an Emergent church or one of the Other Two.

Anderson’s argument reads like a strange reiteration of the famous Chesterton quote: “Evangelicalism has not been tried and found wanting , it has been found uncool and not tried.” Yet I, like so many others, not only “tried” it, but immersed ourselves in it.  Still we left; not primarily because Evangelicalism was lacking, but because the Church was beckoning.

When Anderson extols the virtues of the Evangelical tradition I tend to agree with him. I appreciate the heritage, history, and writings of many of the same Protestant authors.  I too am frustrated with those who off-handedly dismiss what is good and commendable about America, Republicanism, and main line Protestant churches.  Yet the headstones and tomes huddled inside Matthew’s camp is not a tradition that can compare to the Other Two.  When people encounter Holy Tradition and the need for it, Evangelicalism just will not do.  Evangelicalism is not something that a generation of healthy Ravi Zacharias trends and a strong Republican Party can make stand shoulder to shoulder against Roman Catholicism, traditional Anglicanism, and Orthodoxy.  This is not about numbers and influence. No amount of attendance and/ or money will make Anderson’s religious party into the Tradition that many of his friends have found.  This is why there is so little  of the regret among converts to the Other Two that Protestants expect: it’s not like changing from one cell-phone carrier to another, it’s saying yes when someone asks you if you want to be plugged into the Living Tradition that produced Holy Scripture.

Several times Anderson speaks of the distinctives that Evangelicalism has to offer, and suggests that these distinctives are what give contour to the Evangelical tradition.  Yet, one of the commonly held distinctions of the tradition he promotes is a mitigation of the what tradition is, and how it relates to what is Holy (Scripture and people’s justification).  Anderson wants to have his cake and eat it to.  He argues that his party should be considered a valuable alternative to other traditions based on distinctives that remove it from being a tradition in any meaningful way outside of his own Evangelical circle.  Moreover, it is the American/ Protestant virtue of taking personal responsibility that offers ex- Protestants the license to leave, and this is part of the tradition Anderson wants to see extolled. This, of course, I find ironic.

All of this points to a fundamental misunderstanding of the Other Two.  When Anderson says that the Evangelical’s “great hope and promise—both in the past and now—is its vibrant energy, missionary impulse, and its deep commitment to the authority of Scripture” he fails in showing us anything truly distinctive.  This failure is even more of a let down because of the beguiling statement that “one could reasonably argue that the distinctives of evangelicalism are such that it is exactly where intellectuals ought to be, and that they have an obligation to remain evangelical.”

What interests me in this article is not simply the Orthodox/ Evangelical ax I perpetually grind, but a fascination on the movements of Protestantism in general.  It’s intriguing that values that endure, and those that don’t.  From the four letter words and phrases that seem to have be banned from the time of Moses to the acceptance of theater and movie-going, from the anathematizing of tattoos to their youth-pastor trendiness, from the desire for acceptance among the broader culture to the establishment of the CCM sub-culture, what Protestantism is up to is just plain interesting.  It has many good things to offer, but the only way for it to be the Church is for the Church to be something else entirely; something not real and Holy and authoritative.

On Not Being Yourself

So I’m sitting at work when a coworker reminds us all that the problem with most people is that they’re not always themselves; that they change who they are depending on their whereabouts and social setting.  It just so happens that I agree with my coworker, inasmuch as a statement like this can be agreed upon.  That is to say that – technically – I do not agree with the statement as it appears on your computer screen, but that I agree with it considering its particular whereabouts and setting.

Ironic, huh?

And this is precisely my point: that the statement simply as is useless, and it is useless because people are incapable of “being themselves” regardless of their whereabouts and social setting.  Sure, we all know what she was trying to say: duplicity and fractured living is a sad and sick thing to behold in people.  In this case, a woman from my coworker’s church, who happens to lead a charitable ministry, has some less then savory dealings with the retail store where I am currently employed.  Yes, the situation is all too sad and typical.

Why does it behoove us to be critical of my coworkers statement?  I suggest that the sloppiness of the statement leads to a lack of understanding of the problem, and more importantly, an inability to grasp the solution.

The human being is not a closed social unit.  Just like we are a moderately open environmental unit — we breathe in and out, we allow substances like food and water inside of us — we are a moderately open social unit.  To think of “being who you are” regardless of social setting is as faulty and fictional as thinking of us living as we are on Mars.  It just ain’t gonna happen.  We must accept this fact and move on; which, in this case, is moving back.

If setting is a factor, how are we to be “ourselves” regardless of setting?  If I am going to change my ways depending on where I am, what I’m doing, and who is around, how do I avoid being an evil duplicitous person? Where do we find that solidarity of character that is noble, honored and rare?

Adding to the milieu is the issue of disposition, or what Aristotle might call habituation.  I am a person pointed in direction.  Where I am going, and whence, is an essential part of “being who I am”.  One thinks of how the early Christian Creeds explain the person of Christ in terms of these questions, or the importance of the surname in almost every culture other than ours.  Consider “attitude” in the aeronautical sense, which is the disposition of the aircraft to the horizon, landscape, and the direction of travel. The term also used to have a sense of physical carriage and posture which, of course, bespeaks of the persons inner composure and mindset.  Sadly, these days the term simply refers to taking the temperature of one’s feelings at a given moment. (“Are you feeling good or bad about it?”  “Are you fur it, or agin it?”)  Rather than focusing on some esoteric and ever-vanishing core of “yourself” that we are supposed to firmly hold in place, we can consider our disposition and concentrate on holding the course.

The term “habituation” reminds us that character is not as much found as it is made.  There are watershed moments in our lives to be sure, but these are put in place by plain ol’ boring repetition. Solidarity of disposition is no small thing, and part of reaching it is attending to the environment.  It cannot be gained by “reaching within yourself”, “following your heart”, or continuing to see yourself as opposed to the “world”.

Likewise another companion to solidarity is the environment itself.  The more that one can get away with anything, the more likely one is to feel the need to recreate and reestablish his or her identity on a daily basis. And as we have all seen before, when someone is allowed to get away with anything, they often do.  The decay of community (which in this case means. “a consistent environment– social and geographic”) has naturally led to an increase in hypocrisy.  Considering this, it is not surprising for us to see the women from our church’s acting out of sync with their typical Sunday behavior.

If we wish to move towards solidarity of behavior and disposition, we must embrace and foster our community.  To be sure this is a bit ironic– that we may choose our environment– but this bit of irony does not preclude us from moving towards solidarity. Committing to your community, fostering your environment, attending to your disposition, practicing the proper habits, are key ingredients to personal solidarity.  If you want to be who you are, you must be who you are becoming.

Culture Revisited, Again

A couple things have sparked my interest in the misconception of culture. The first is my experience at the strange little private school I work at, aka “Flexing Poplars”. Walking into the place is a bit like walking into another world. Hogwarts would be more relateable. When I first started working there a year ago several of the students had heroin problems. One of my favorite students was a 14 year old boy who was working very hard to kick a nasty cocaine problem. Everything I normally assume was exchanged for the opposite, and it has been difficult adjusting without being derailed.

What does a place like Flexing Poplars need? It needs more than just motivation, direction, vision, and competence. It needs a culture change. So I have been focusing on using my presence there to affect a culture change, both in and outside of class.

Teaching high school Sunday School has afforded me a means of comparison. The problems there are similar but different, and the discussions between the priests and myself have been on the same motif: culture creation.

The more direct impetus for this rant was a discussion with a group of conservative Christian men (from many denominations) about how Christians should view education. The issue was brought up by a man who has been deliberating over different post-high school options for his daughter, and it bears noting that his daughter was present. During the conversation I noticed that culture and education were sometimes used synonymously, and sometimes antithetically. Now both these terms suffer frequent violence, but the drum of “impacting culture” was beat regularly and unenthusiastically by everyone present.

The man’s main concern was for his daughter’s development; he wants her to be a happy, responsible, and respectable person. His worries were concerning the information she would be fed, and that the conglomeration of ideas, themes, and values present in the media would be absorbed by her. Surely these fears are reasonable, but what is the response? I know people who went to Berkley in the 60’s and are as conservative as they come. There are plenty of people who are media-literate who aren’t enslaved to whatever happens to be channeled on a given week.

The problem is not as simple as where you get your information from. It’s about who you are.

Of course that seems like a tall order: “who you are”. How does one become a good person? This is in fact the question that forms culture.

So I asked the man’s daughter, “What has shaped you into who you are?” This question is beyond the scope of this piece, but it throws into relief where I think we go wrong. Culture isn’t mainly about information, it’s about the vision of the Good Person.

Two sober remarks need to be made about the current state of our culture: American culture was not formed as a Christian culture, and the secular/sacred distinction has neutralized American culture from developing. The founding fathers’ view of the Good Person was largely the Ben Franklin model. Franklin, not a Christian, was working towards human perfection sans God. Ingenuity, hard work, and habits that supported these virtues took the spotlight. Humility and mercy receded. Ben Franklin, who was not meek, has inherited this piece of earth.

The founding fathers were largely deistic in their philosophy, and certainly shows in their politics. They created a government that assumes that God will not be acting within it, and encouraged mankind to prepare to live and govern without His help. Government, then became a space neutral to divinity. Secularism is built into political philosophy.

Christ was baptized. Water has not been the same since. He was nailed to a tree, and they have yet to forget it. He was buried in the earth, and it is hallowed. I may render to Caesar what belongs to him, but he belongs to God. Christ is present, and he is the Good Person. Christianity is about this Good Person and us becoming more and more like Him as we abide in Him. Christianity acknowledges everything as sacred, and the role of humankind is to take the fruits of the earth and, lifting it up to Him, allow Him to exchange it with something holy. Everything is being transformed, nothing is secular.

Living this way is a tall order, and it is one that we cannot do by ourselves. Convinced as we might be of the sacredness of all things, we wake up in the morning feeling removed from the sacred and ignorant of how to continue in the movement of Christ’s transformation of the cosmos. This is because transformation is occurring within us: we are growing and developing. That is, we are developing if we continue.

I’ve found myself asked quite frequently if being a Christian has any impact in our lives. Can it be the case that I can look like everyone else, act like everyone else, and be a perfect Christian because what Christ has done for me has already been done. However, until death, what is there for us to do? Evangelizing doesn’t seem to match many people’s personalities, and those who seem suited to it are often very annoying and counterproductive.

The dilemma is, in other words, either Christ affects my entire life, or He affects only my post-death destination. Personally, I understand this dilemma well, and it points to a deficiency in contemporary Christianity. Why do we have no Christian culture, no development, no hope? How can we read the Bible and not see the concern that God and his authors have for the continual deification of His people?

If culture is “how one sees the world”, and we cannot see Christ anywhere in the world, then either Christ is false or we are blind to reality. Fr. Alexander Schmemman offers this definition of a Christian: one who sees Christ in everything and rejoices. The mark of culture is that those who grow it see the world in a mature, developed, and cultivated way, and the mark of Christian culture is that we see Truth in the world, shining in the light of His glory.

The Public’s place in Josh Hamilton’s sin

Even with the Cowboys in training camp, the Dallas/ Fort Worth area has been talking about the Rangers. Sure, a lot of it has to do with the fact that they have the fourth best record in the Major Leagues, and that they just won a series in LA against the Angels behind Derrik Holland’s 3-hit complete game shutout. But a lot of the buzz has also to do with Josh Hamilton’s night in a bar this past January.

The two-time All Star slugger – whose year has been derailed by injury, surgery, and a seemingly endless slump – is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. As a once touted prospect and number one pick he developed major addictions which eventually cost him a chance to play for Major League Baseball. Broken, alone, and ashamed, he turned up on his grandmother’s doorstep looking for mercy and redemption. Though the Prodigal did not enjoy the fatted calf that night, he did receive the love and support that would earn him a second chance with MLB. Josh found Jesus, a wife and family, and through the Grace of God and those around him, turned his life around. He was last years feel-good story; a living, breathing, Lifetime movie. He released a book, and became an inspiration for millions of people.

Then one night, while staying in Tempe AZ for preseason workouts, he decided to try a drink. This drink led to another drink, and then several more, and then a night of reckless relapse. During the night, which Josh does not entirely remember the details of, Josh did not ingest any controlled substances, or engage in anything illegal.

The next morning Josh did was he was supposed to do, activate his support structure. He called his wife, telling her everything that happened that he could remember. He called Major League Baseball, sparing no details. And he called his team, the Texas Rangers, letting them handle the situation as they saw fit.

Since the release of photos from his relapse this past week, the response from the Dallas area has been supportive, the only question is: should he have also informed the public, which he wooed and won over, of his fall off the wagon? Should he have shown those that he had invited to see his transformation– physical, behavioral, and spiritual– the embarrasing and indiscreet photos that document his sin? He invited us into his personal life to show us the good, is he now obligated to show us the bad?

As far as I’m concerned, just because someone invites you into their house a couple times, it doesn’t follow that they should give you the key. I’m a fan of Hamilton’s and I do not feel betrayed or deceived by him, just because he handled his sin “privately”. On the contrary, Hamilton responded to his sin more publically than most of us do, by honestly airing it out to those who he has real relationships with and real accoutability to. He owes me, and the rest of his fans, honesty: not an all access open door.

While most Rangers’ fans seem to feel this way, much of the media does not. Some of them whine about how Hamilton is not forthcoming enough, others marvel at how mismanged the PR was, and several are quick to label him a hypocrite about his spirituality. For once I appreciated Michael Irvin on this matter: a recovering addict who winsomely expressed how “drawing nearer to Christ” really does help an addict, but that falls still do happen. Irvin also was quick to point out that while many people think about how this news affects them, they fail to consider what Hamilton needs. He has to fight shame and hopelessness, and this is not a battle that the public can help him win.

While I am inclined to get angry with those who are all too happy to say, “I knew it, the whole Jesus thing never helped anybody”, I also realize that this is not exactly their fault. They are used to hearing Jesus envoked by salesmen, as if he were OxiClean or ShamWow. This is not Christianity, and adding Jesus to your life never made them instantly say “Wow!”. Or if He did, it certainly wasn’t that way “every time”.

But to many (including many Christians) Josh Hamilton’s slip up creates a sort of theological dillema for them. If Jesus was responsible for Hamilton’s recovery, as we want to claim He is, than how could Josh fail? If Christ is not responsible for Josh’s profound change, then what does Christ have to offer us broken humans? It seems that we are either forced to accept the virtues of will power and 12 step programs, or the fallability of God’s work in human life.

The horns of this dillema are illusory, created by a misunderstanding of Grace; a misunderstanding that threatens to take the hope out of relationship with Christ. Grace is not a product, or even a discrete “thing” that is dispensed upon humanity. We are not beings with Grace shaped wholes in us, that some missing piece clicks into upon entering into a relationship with the Almighty. Grace is the Divine Energies, Holy Light that burns brightly during every second of existence; and Christ’s work is that which enables us to join our energies to that of Persons of the Trinity. His working becomes our working. The life of the Trinity becomes the power by which we live, and have life more abundantly. The gifts of God come out of union with this Grace, as does our transformation into the likeness of God. When failure happens it is because we have rejected God’s Grace, and like St. Paul did at the beginning of his Christian life, we “kick against the goads”. The victory is ours, and yet not because of us; because the standard state human life is to be being part of that which is most beyond us.

Met. Jonah to ACNA

Says, the head of the OCA: “The Orthodox Church is not just the past of Anglicanism, it is the future.”

This might be the beginning of something great, or it might be one of those things history looks at and sees “what might have been”. What do you think the response is going to be? How does this come across to those not Orthodox or Anglican? Tell me what you think.

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