'Perfect' is just my pathetic attempt to hide

Comedian Marc Maron has a fantastic recent podcast episode where he interviews jazz pianist Ben Sidran.

In the midst of a long, fascinating discussion about jazz and rock music and the music scene of the 60’s and 70’s, Maron and Sidran has this interchange that’s really about more than just music [starting at about 36:20 on the podcast]:

Sidran: In jazz you can spend 8 hours a day blowing through a copper tube, right, and I promise you that after 10 years that tube will not change, but you will be totally transformed.

We’re transforming ourselves here, and you can’t do it if you’re not in public. If you can’t make your mistakes in front of people, it doesn’t matter, so what? You can’t make a mistake alone and you’re sitting there with friends - you gotta go out and hang it out.

Maron: That’s getting lost in the culture we live in now, across the board - there’s an expectation of quality content to be provided at all times, and if you do let it hang out and it doesn’t go well, you’ve got an entire culture of people who are gonna be ‘Aaah, he didn’t, you know, he let it hang out and he’s an a**hole, and it didn’t work’, and now that’s out there being misinterpreted.

Here we are as human beings looking for personal truths, willing to make mistakes in public and fight the good fight, and you’ve got a bunch of a**holes who are gonna be, like, ‘well, you didn’t quite do it, did you?’. Well that’s part of the thing! We’re at risk of losing what is organically human in the creative process.

Sidran: Well that’s the same thing in the music business, especially as you get further and further into digital technology, it’s possible to fix it. You know, just because it’s possible to make something perfect doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Maron: What is “perfect”, right?

Sidran: What is “perfect”. Perfect is just your pathetic attempt to hide in the technology, right? “Ooh, I made a mistake.” But the stuff that we love is, for me, and I’ll bet it’s the same in comedy - it’s not so much avoiding the mistakes but how you recover from mistakes.

Like if you’re in public and you do something and you didn’t intend to do it and the first thought in your mind is “shit, what did I just do?”, if you can train yourself to say “I’m gonna make something out of that”, in that recovery there is transcendence, and people have a sense that something magical just happened. It’s in the recovery. It’s not in being perfect, it’s in letting it all come through and using it.

Maron: Right, I love it. I never thought about it like that. Like every moment of misstep is an opportunity to transcend that moment.

There’s so much truth there, and the spiritual application isn’t far off, whether Maron and Sidran know it or not. Each of us as Christians have our own experiences of pain and failure to work through - some greater than others. (My mind immediately went to recent pieces from blog friends Aaron Smith and Zach Hoag, just two of many.)

And while our ultimate hope is for the day when Jesus will restore us from brokenness and transform us into something beautiful, new, and eternal, we see temporal glimpses of that transformation as God works in us now, in the responses that Maron and Sidner talk about here.

In the recovery, we see transcendence. Something holy working to heal and transform.

If you can’t make your mistakes in public, what does it matter? How much do I really believe in grace if I want to go into the studio and edit all the mistakes out of my life before I show it in public?

“Perfect” is just my pathetic attempt to hide. It’s not in being “perfect”, because perfect is impossible. Often due to my own failings - sometimes due to the failings of others who have hurt me. Where we see the transcendent, though, is when we let all of that through, and then see God working and shining through the brokenness.

One more fun musical post for the weekend

Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye together on stage having far more fun than any two people should be allowed to have. How can you not enjoy this?

Bluegrass and Bach: Something Relaxing for the Weekend

It’s Friday headed in to a holiday weekend and I’m tired of writing about serious topics, so it’s time to share this video - a 6-minute PBS feature on mandolin player extraordinaire Chris Thile.

Thile, only 32 years old but long known for his bluegrass/folk/Americana, has recently released an album of Bach Sonatas and Partitas played on the mandolin. As you’ll see in the video - he’s fantastic, and Bach’s music translates remarkably well.

This album is available on Amazon and probably lots of other places. I picked it up this morning and I’m looking forward to spending some time with it over the weekend.

Recommended reading: Guilt Factories

My brother-from-another-mother Daniel Deboer has a great post up about what he calls “Guilt Factories” that’s worth reading. A snippet:

First you say that grace/faith is all that matters. Then you say that works flow out of grace. Then, as a result of that, you say that what God really cares about is your “heart”. Because if you heart is in the right place, your works are going to be in the right place too.

Then finish it off with a dollop of strictly enforced cultural norms, traditions, and piety. The piety is where it really gets intense, because the grace/faith you’ve been given is supposed to end up in works that are supposed to end up looking exactly like the received norms, the traditions, and the piety.

If you don’t have that piety, you don’t have the works. If you don’t have the works, you don’t have the faith. Either you (at best) have a “hard heart” or (at worst) are plain wolf among sheep.

That’s a Guilt Factory right there.

OK, that’s more than a snippet, but there’s enough more over on his site that if you’ve made it this far you should go read the whole thing.

A few thoughts on the "yuck factor" discussion

In case you’re not already caught up: the discussion started with Thabiti Anyabwile’s post on TGC, “The Importance of Your Gag Reflex When Discussing Homosexuality and “Gay Marriage””. One-line summary: “Return the [gay marriage] discussion to sexual behavior in all its yuckiest gag-inducing truth.”

Then yesterday Richard Beck posted a response: On Love and the Yuck Factor. Two-line summary: (1) “I don’t think it’s healthy to use disgust to regulate moral behavior.” (2) “When disgust is involved any purported distinction being made between persons and behavior is… a verbal obfuscation of the underlying psychology.”

There have been a bunch of other thoughtful responses (to both men), including a long comment on Beck’s piece from “dmr5090” (sheesh, people, can’t you use real names at least?). Key points in those rebuttals to Beck have often been along the lines of (1) Shouldn’t sin gross us out?, (2) “Aren’t you just trying to argue that ‘homosexuality isn’t a sin’ without admitting it?” and (3) “The words ‘gag reflex’ and ‘yuck factor’ aren’t Anyabwile’s - he’s just quoting a gay journalist.”

To be fair, I have grossly simplified, hopefully not unfairly, all the posts I’ve linked so far. If you want to dig into this argument, go read them all.

So here’s the thing: I know there’s a battle raging among various flavors of Protestants and even evangelicals over homosexuality. But I can believe on one hand that homosexual acts are sinful, and on the other hand still respond with revulsion to Anyabwile’s post. Here’s why:

1. Inconsistent application of the tactic. Why do we not hear preachers like Anyabwile use this “gag reflex” topic when addressing other, more “acceptable” sins? Let’s hear a few sermons on gluttony that try to gross me out with discussions of sweaty mounds of obese flesh before you try to claim that the “gross out” strategy is really one you think should be used across the board.

2. The encouragement to revulsion at the act quickly leads to revulsion of the person. Yes, sin is revolting. All sin should be revolting to us. But to encourage a “gag reflex” response to homosexuality will very quickly lead a person to have that “gag reflex” toward the homosexual person. And that’s the furthest thing from what Christ calls us to. I know that Anyabwile says in his post that we “should not be mean and bigoted”. But I don’t understand how you can encourage a gag reflex when you hear “homosexual” and not end up that way. (Beck made this point in his post far better than I’m saying it here.)

(Observation: while writing this I was about to say that Anyabwile said we should still love the sinners, but he never actually says that in his piece. All he says is that we should not be mean and bigoted, and that we should ‘speak the truth in love’. And the truth, he says, is that homosexual relationships cannot properly be called ’love’. Not sure it’s fair to draw a conclusion from that, but it’s bothersome.)

3. This is the old “culture warrior” position again. Have we not learned yet that sin is not going to be defeated by us making the right arguments to those in privileged positions in the halls of power? Anyabwile seems to think that if he’d just managed to gross out the right people in powerful positions, we wouldn’t have legalized gay marriage. I say that’s baloney. We’ve had the evangelical attempts at political power for at least 30 years. Buchanan, Falwell, Dobson… How’s that worked out for us?

4. The Gospel is not “sin is icky”. The Gospel message is that we are all sinful, all equally in need of Christ’s grace and forgiveness. That God is in the process of making all things new, of drawing people to himself. That’s the message we need to be spending our time on.

Steve Martin & Kermit the Frog play 'Dueling Banjos'

There is no way I could not post this.

(That being said, whoever voiced Kermit at the end of the video is a pale imitation of the original.)

Does your church have room for me?

What if I don’t have 100% agreement with your doctrinal statement, but still want to be a part of your church?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I’m perfectly willing to accept that you’re not going to change your church’s views just because I disagree?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I don’t know that I want to be at your church for the rest of my life, but that it’s just the right place for right now?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I want to blog about the things I’m wrestling with theologically, even if I’m using things I hear in the sermons as discussion points?

What if I’m not willing to accept the stock answer to the tough question?

What if I think disagreement doesn’t automatically mean disunity?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I’d like to publicly acknowledge that I don’t always (or even usually) vote Republican?

What if I’d like to publicly support things like single-payer healthcare?

What if I want to say publicly that we shouldn’t be demonizing the cause of illegal immigrants?

Does your church have room for me?

On the other hand,

What if I think that the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin?

What if I believe that God really knows the end from the beginning?

Does your church have room for me?

What if I believe that there is real faith to be found in churches that are very unlike yours? Among trendy Evangelicals, mainline Protestants, wild Pentecostals, and old-school Catholics?

Does your church have room for me?

What if, after all this, I’d like to use my leadership gifts? What if I’m willing to not push for my own position in the 5% where I disagree, but not willing to deny the disagreement?

What if I can teach for years on topics where we are all in blessed agreement, but occasionally will write a personal blog that none of the other leaders will agree with?

Does your church leadership have room for me?

What if all I want is to have a place where I can fellowship, love, and serve, while at the same time being honest about my views and how they are changing over time?

Does your church have room for me?

When church and convictions conflict - a personal follow-up

Yesterday I recommended Ed Cyzewski’s post talking about when church and your personal convictions come into conflict. Today I’d like to follow up by telling my own story.

The Idea

A little over ago my church decided it was time to promote men’s small groups. And the timing seemed great for me. I was coming through a time of spiritual wrangling and frustration, and was convinced that I needed more frequent and better interaction with godly men in my life. Then I found out how it was going to be themed: Band of Brothers.

bandofbros

(This isn’t my church’s actual ministry logo, but it’s close to what was used.)

If I’m objective, I’ve gotta give the planners props for buying in to the theme. The small groups are called “squads”. Each level of the leadership had a “rank”, and the promotional videos showed the leaders wearing fatigues, moving little army men around a map on a planning table. The invitations to various events were titled “Marching Orders”.

I’m pretty sure that the two pastors leading it up weren’t whole-hog into the theme, but the lay leaders who helped with it were, and so it got adopted. The activities were all camping and outdoors themed. They included plans for a “commitment ceremony” taken straight out of a Courageous movie marketing pack.

And I’ll be honest: my first reaction was to squirm.

Why must men’s ministries be focused around shooting/camping/hunting/outdoorsy stuff? Is it really that big a motivator? I’m not a big outdoorsy guy, so maybe I’m just not their target audience. I’m a musician. And a computer geek / engineer. I mean, I also run and play sports and know how to work with my hands, but I’ve never shot anything bigger than a .22 or more alive than a cardboard box.

But I think it was more than discomfort - it was conviction. Conviction that it would be wrong for me to participate in a program that appeared to be focused around all the militaristic trappings that I believe to be unnecessary and at times very unhelpful.

An attempt

After a couple days of mulling it over, I came up with what I thought would be a win-win solution. So I emailed the pastor leading it, explained that I really wanted to be in a small group but couldn’t stomach the militaristic trappings. So, was there room for “conscientious objector” status within the Band of Brothers? (Hey, creative thinking and humor oughta get me somewhere, right?)

The response I got back the next day was unexpectedly infuriating. Sorry, he said, but no. There was no room for “conscientious objectors”. He said it would be “detrimental to squad morale” if all the members weren’t totally committed to all the activities.

And that was that. I was pissed.

Here I am, I thought, trying to participate in a ministry that I know I need, and they won’t let me.

(Did I mention I was angry?)

That was the first time in what was then four years at my church where I seriously thought about looking for someplace else. Fortunately, there’s a better ending to this story.

A redirection

I talked to my wife about it for a while. I talked to another pastor about it. (Yeah, for you scoring at home, that’s the third different pastor mentioned in this story. Our church has five at the moment. Four will appear in this story before it’s done.)

That other pastor told me (very wisely) that he was more worried about my relationship with pastor #1 than he was about the small group thing. (I was appropriately brought down a notch or two.) My wife reminded me that there were other similar options that the church offered that I had, to this point, not pursued. (Down another couple notches.)

So I didn’t sign up for the Band of Brothers. Instead, the next Tuesday morning at 6 AM I came, bleary-eyed and with coffee in hand, to a men’s prayer group / Bible study hosted by our senior pastor. And within 15 minutes I knew I was in the right place.

At age 36 I’m the youngest guy in the Tuesday morning study by almost 10 years. There’s one regular in his 40s, but most are between late 50s and early 70s. Our senior member is a WWII veteran.

The agenda each Tuesday is simple: share requests, pray for each other, and study whatever the sermon text is going to be for the following Sunday. (Whichever activity we start with usually goes long, so we tend to alternate between mostly prayer one week and then mostly study the next week.) The accumulated wisdom in that room each week is deep and vast. I am (mostly) keeping my mouth shut and learning a lot. It’s awesome.

So this fall they’re cranking up the second year of Band of Brothers, and I’m starting my second year of the Tuesday morning study. And I’m at peace that I’ve made the right choice for me, for now.

Some final thoughts

As I reflect on this after a year to cool off, I’ve got some thoughts:

  • I still think the militaristic theme is unnecessary. But having not attended any of the events I can’t fairly opine on the ministry any more than that.
  • I know that they had far greater numbers of men in the ministry last year than they had expected. If it’s bringing men in and sharpening them, praise God.
  • Like Ed said his post: look for ways to participate and serve that don’t confict with your convictions. While they weren’t going to change the men’s ministry just for me (nor should they have), there were other opportunities available if I was willing to seek them out.
  • This situation highlights one of the benefits of a larger church: that diversity of opportunities. If this had played out at a smaller church it might well have had a less happy ending.
  • Even though I disagree with them at times, I’m hugely blessed to have good pastors and leaders in my church.

When church and convictions conflict

Ed Cyzewski put up a great post yesterday about diversity of churches and ministries and about using your unique giftings to serve God. He tells a couple of stories about his own experience being pulled into churches or ministries that put him at great unease, then follows up with these words which were of great encouragement to me:

You have your own way of interacting with God and with others. Don’t be ashamed of that….

Diversity in church experience doesn’t mean there are those who do it right and those who do it wrong.

Look for the life of God.

Ed manages to strike a good balance between complete “me-focus” and totally ignoring one’s own personality and convictions here:

Sometimes our desires and opinions will lead us astray, prompting us to try to remake the church in our own image. I’ve done that and seen that first hand.

However, in seeking a church community, pay attention to the things that resonate with you. How is God speaking to you? What burdens are on your heart?

God doesn’t give us burdens and desires in order to frustrate us—at least, to frustrate us for the rest of our lives.

Then he brings it home (emphasis mine):

Here’s the key: Church shouldn’t force us to sacrifice our freedom and convictions.

Church should both nurture and provide an outlet for the life that God is building up in us.

Wise words.

Internet filtering and government 'protection'

Internet filtering has been a hot topic in the news the past few days. In Britain, prime minister David Cameron has proposed that all British internet service providers must turn on a “family-friendly filter” by default for all users, which would only be turned off at the account holder’s specific request. The goal: to keep pornography away from children.

Today, Gospel Coalition blogger Joe Carter published a piece titled “Why Online Pornography is Being Blocked in the UK—and Why It Should Be in the U.S. Too”. Says Carter,

[T]he support for unlimited access to pornography, distributed freely in every home with an Internet connection, is not a cause that any Christian should tolerate, much less support.

Now on one hand I want to agree with Mr. Carter on this one. I think internet filtering is an excellent idea. I have my home computers set up with filters to help keep myself out of trouble and to try to help protect my children. But I’m hesitant to support filtering as a government requirement, for at least a couple of reasons:

Technical Implementation To put it simply: it ain’t that easy. Existing filtering sites/mechanisms are typically based on blacklists - lists of domains known to contain objectionable material. And the granularity on those blacklists isn’t so good. An image sharing site, for example, could contain both perfectly acceptable and very improper material. So do you block it or let it go? And secondly, let’s face it: how many teenage boys with hacking skills are going to let this slow them down? It won’t last long.

On Principle… I’m also concerned about establishing the precedent that the government should dictate content filtering of some sort. Sure, right now in Britain you can request to have it turned off. But once the filtering is there, it’s a much shorter step to just say it needs to stay turned on all the time for some content. And who decides which content?

Sure, it’s easy for Christians to agree that porn should be filtered. But what happens when the government decides that maybe certain “hate speech” should be filtered, too? What happens when the government decides that “hate speech” includes speaking what you believe the Bible says about, say, homosexuality? Suddenly that government-mandated filtering doesn’t seem so wonderful, does it?

There’s a right way to do it Here’s the thing: I’m not against filtering. Not in the least. And if ISPs want to provide filtering, even turned on by default, as a service to their customers, and as good citizens, I think that’d be excellent. Every parent should be encouraged to take steps to protect their children from things they don’t need to see.

I’ll be honest: I’ve been wrestling with this position quite a bit this morning. I’ve had a good Twitter conversation with my friend Andy Osenga, who disagrees with me on this one. And I’ve certainly not complained when the government has taken steps to restrict unhealthy/destructive personal behavior for the public good. (I love Iowa’s no-smoking laws.) But I think this situation is different.

Unrestricted internet communication is the 21st century analogue of the free speech that the First Amendment prohibits the Congress from infringing upon. And I’d rather not start giving away that freedom.

And yeah, I know I’m making a slippery slope argument. But this is the government that in the past decade has told us that it’s just “enhanced interrogations” of the really bad guys, and next thing you know we have drones killing a 16-year-old American citizen without any due process. So forgive me if I’m not inclined to believe that the government won’t expand its reach at every opportunity.

There are a lot of current rights / privileges that American Christians enjoy that we could consider worth giving up in order to better follow Christ or to have a better society. But speech? Eesh, let’s be careful there.