Bad Christian Art

There’s a great post over on Image Journal addressing the concerns of “bad christian art”. Author Tony Woodlief is clearly fed up with movies and books that pander to “good Christian people who judge art by criteria like message and wholesomeness and theological purity.”

Bad art derives, he says, from bad theology:

To know God falsely is to write and paint and sculpt and cook and dance Him falsely. Perhaps it’s not poor artistic skill that yields bad Christian art, in other words, but poor Christianity.

He goes on to address Christian books specifically, noting “common sins” including “neat resolution”, one-dimensional characters, sentimentality, and cleanliness. (In my opinion: any reader of books marketed as “Christian fiction” will immediately recognize these issues with pretty much any such novel.)

He brings it home with some piercing questions about how the proliferation of bad Christian art reflects on the state of the evangelical church that embraces and consumes it:

In short, if Christian novels and movies and blogs and speeches must be stripped of profanity and sensuality and critical questions, all for the sake of sparing us scandal, then we have to wonder what has happened that such a wide swath of Christendom has failed to graduate from milk to meat.

And if we remember that theology is the knowing of God, we have to ask in turn why so many Christians know God so weakly that they need such wholesomeness in order for their faith to be preserved.

My friend (and talented songwriter) Andy Osenga often talks about two approaches to songwriting as a Christian (and I’m sure this isn’t original to him, but I heard it from him): you can either write about the light, or you can look out at the world and write about what the light shows you.

What strikes me is that the art that Woodlief is talking about here doesn’t fall into either of those categories. The purveyors of this particular flavor of Christian art have rather chosen to ignore the reality of what the light shows them. Instead, they paint an unrealistic fantasy world that reflects what they hope might be.

We, and all of creation, are broken, and in need of redemption. If we pretend through our art that this Christian life is neat and tidy and that all the threads resolve by page 350, not only do our stories ring hollow, but we fail to acknowledge the greatness of the work of redemption that Jesus Christ is doing in the world. Christians must do better.

Postscript: after passing along a rant like this, I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend the work of Christians I know who are creating good art. Hit up The Rabbit Room to find excellent art, books, and music that may not always be “safe” but will always be good.

Running again

I started my dalliance with running nearly 4 years ago. I was looking for some motivation to get off the couch and lose some weight, and figured that if I signed myself up for a race that the potential embarrassment of walking the whole thing might motivate me into action. I didn’t train too hard, but I made it through my first 5k in around 32 minutes.

I never devoted too much time to running. I’d hit the gym maybe once or twice a week when the weather was bad and do a couple of miles on a treadmill; maybe run a couple of miles outside if the weather was good. And I didn’t notice huge improvements in my times or endurance, but I kept at it, albeit intermittently.

Then came April 1 of this year. I don’t know what possessed me, but I was on the treadmill at the gym and ran 5 miles in 49 minutes. And, as with a few other times in my life, it was as if some sort of mental switch flipped. Suddenly running is enjoyable, something I don’t have to do, but rather that I want to do. (I wish I could figure out what it is that causes that switch to flip. There are other places in my life it’d be useful…)

I started tracking my runs on Runkeeper, which was great. (Android app + GPS in phone = easy run tracking!) I ran 16 times in April, for a total of just over 52 miles. I’ve been a little bit of a slacker in May so far - have only run 3 times for 12+ miles, but that included a 6-mile run. I’m losing weight (slowly), definitely building endurance, and feeling great doing it.

I’ve been tossing around ideas for a season-long motivator to keep me pushing this summer, and the one that’s tantalizing me is the New Bo Fest Half Marathon, held Labor Day weekend in Cedar Rapids. I don’t know how quickly I can add endurance and distance, but it seems like it’d be doable if I’m committed to putting in the time. I found a great little training app for my phone (Epic Runner) and I’m using it to push me along. I’ve not yet been brave enough to sign up for the race, but I think I will… soon.

Love your enemy: within a divided self

It’s been at least a week since John H. linked this James Alison essay on Twitter, so it’s high time that I passed it along with my recommendation. It’s not light reading, but it’s quite an insightful consideration of Jesus’ command to love your enemies.

In the first half of the essay Alison explores “mirror neurons” and infant imitation to bring us to an understanding from science that our minds and actions are influenced by those around us. He summarizes:

With this we are well on the way to being able to understand, for the first time rigorously, how it is that what we normally call the “self” of each one of us is constituted by the desire of another. How it is in fact that the self of each one of us, rather than being something hermetic, locked into itself until we choose to enter into relationship with what is other than us, is in the first instance a real but malleable construct which is a symptom of the way this body has been brought into being and is held in being by the relationships which preceded it.

With the remainder of the essay Alison then brings home how Jesus’ instruction to love our enemies beautifully works within this scientific understanding…

But, Jesus says, this being run by the adulatory other, or the excoriating other, which is the same thing, has nothing to do with God. What God’s love looks like is being creatively for the other without being defined over against the other in any way at all. That is what is meant by grace and freedom. It is going to involve breaking through the strong-seeming but ultimately fragile dichotomies of “in group” and “out group”, “pure” and “impure”, “good guys” and “bad guys” which are quite simply the ambivalent functions of our cultural identity, and coming to love other people without any over against at all. Living this out is going to look remarkably like a loss of identity, a certain form of death. And living it out as a human is what it is to be a child of God, and to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect.

If you’ve hung in through those two quotes, I really encourage you to go read the whole thing. Alison has much good insight here about how the attitudes of the groups we’re in and the attitudes we take towards those around us affect us… well worth the read.

Good Things in April 2011

01 - Ran five miles in 49 minutes. Longest run ever for me. 02 - Beautiful day, lots of garden and yard work 03 - Top-notch message from Pastor Keith 04 - Planned audits were canceled! Happy Monday! 05 - nice chance for a walk in the sunshine mid-day 06 - Up early and got in a 2.5-mile run 07 - little sister came to visit! 08 - Hung out with mom and sister 09 - A nice 4-mile run in the afternoon 10 - Worship team and a good chat w/ Pastor Phil 11 - Corporate jet to Melbourne, FL 12 - Two sessions of teaching went really well 13 - Ran 2 miles on the beach 14 - Flew back home on the same spiffy jet, got home early! 15 - Lunch out with the family 16 - WT practice and lunch w/ Phil and Jim 17 - great Palm Sunday worship - kids leading You Alone Can Rescue 18 - discovered new video driver for the HTPC - much better netflix/hd performance (Iamsuchanerd!) 19 - good run and then dinner out w/ the family 20 - date night w/ Becky! 21 - Finally getting caught up at work 22 - Headed to Wisconsin for Easter weekend 23 - fun day hanging out at my brother’s house 24 - He is risen! 25 - Audits went well 26 - Had Marc over for dinner, nice visit 27 - Last Wednesday night of kids’ church activities - fun end-of-year program 28 - Impromptu lunch w/ the family 29 - Took the afternoon off, mowed the lawn for the first time 30 - Fun relaxing day with the family

The Royal Wedding: This, Too, Shall Pass

The interwebs have been going gaga for weeks now about the British royal wedding, and this morning Twitter and Facebook are bursting with comments as this spectacle is broadcast live around the world.

There seem to be two primary types of online responses this morning. First, there are the adoring. They got up in the wee hours of the morning (US time) to watch on TV. People who are usually sleeping in until mid-morning were posting ISN’T IT ALL A FAIRY TALE OMG SQUEEE! at three AM. It is, as I read somewhere yesterday, sort of the ultimate in reality TV, and these folks were up to enjoy every minute of it.

On the flip side of the noise are the cynical. Not content to simply ignore the hoopla, they tweeting regularly about how they couldn’t care less, about how it’s so wasteful and unimportant in the grand scheme of things, about how they wish the TV stations would get back to talking about “real news”. Even those in my Twitter feed who aren’t typically cynical seem to have cynicism drawn to the surface by this event.

Now, from the pictures I’ve seen (I didn’t get up to watch it), the wedding was a beautiful, colorful spectacle, full of pomp and pageantry. The bride was beautiful, the groom impressive in uniform, and the service fittingly solemn. I wish for William and Kate what I wish for any newly married couple: decades of faithful love for each other, and true and personal knowledge of the God in whose name their marriage was performed.

That all being said, I’d like to encourage some moderation in the whole thing. (Stances like this are why my blog doesn’t have many readers!) The up-at-three-AM crowd need to take a grain of truth from the cynics, and remember that fairy tale dreams are fleeting and quickly replaced by the troubles of the real world. But the cynics need to heed some truth from the breathless and rapt: that God made us to appreciate beauty, to treasure love, and to celebrate the union of a man and a woman in marriage. (All those “bride of Christ” statements in the New Testament only work because of the metaphor, folks.)

So let’s give it a rest, friends. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Celebrate love and beauty. But keep your feet firmly grounded in the truth of who you are and who God is making you. It’s also OK to keep your mouth shut sometimes. God doesn’t award merit badges for cynicism.

Some thoughts on the proposed new mission statement for Stonebridge

A couple of weeks ago Becky and I attended a Friday night meeting at church where the church leadership discussed their notional new mission statement for the church. While this statement is still a draft, and has yet to be presented to the full congregation, with the pastors’ permission I want to explore the new statement in some detail and explain why I’m very much in favor of it.

First, the statement:

“The mission of Stonebridge Church is to walk alongside each person we meet as they take their next step with Jesus.”

Let’s look at some key phrases.

  • “to walk alongside”. I am more and more convinced that this is the posture that we as Christians should take with all those that we encounter. We are not enemies in opposition of those who don’t believe the way we do; we are not self-righteous, hypocritical mockers of those whose sin is more obvious; we are not insulated saints who retreat to the comfortable hidey-hole where everything is “safe”. Instead, we are right there alongside people, where they are. We have an arm around their shoulders and we are speaking words of love and encouragement. We need to be alongside both the lost and the found, among the rebellious and the repentant alike.
  • “each person we meet”. This phrase reminds us that our calling isn’t limited to the church but is as expansive as each person that God places in our path. The heart of the believer is to be outwardly-focused, and a heart filled with the love of God will overflow into each one they meet.
  • “as they take their next step”. This recognizes that all of us, believers or not, are still in progress, taking one step at a time. It reminds us to be gracious with each person we encounter, because they are on a journey just like we are, even if they’re at a different point. And it reinforces the message of 1 Corinthians 3:5 - 8: that we may each play a different role in God’s work to bring someone to Himself. Whether we plant the seed or water the seed or see the seed blossom into flower, it is God providing the growth, and we are reminded not to be discouraged if our work doesn’t create instant results.
  • “with Jesus.” And this brings us back to the ultimate object of our lives in service to others: to bring them to, and encourage them with, Jesus. Whatever work God calls us to do, it is done out of love for Jesus, in the name of Jesus, and for the glory of Jesus. Whether you are serving on the stage or behind the scenes, publicly proclaiming Christ in the midst of a crowd or quietly sharing with a friend or co-worker, working for justice in a far-off country or just caring for the weak and needy person on your street, you do it for Jesus. God has given diverse roles and functions, but puts us all together in one body, and says that it is the body of Christ (1 Cor 12).

I feel like this mission statement does a good job of capturing the essential direction of ministry that we’re already on at Stonebridge, and I hope that as it is further refined and rolled out it will encourage each of us to be constantly mindful of being alongside those that we encounter every day.

Sometimes it takes me some time

This seems to be the story of my music-listening life: catching up with albums years after they are released, and only eventually having them resonate with me . Sure, there are a few records that have immediately grabbed me and then stayed at the top of my favorites list for years. But often it takes time for the music or the particular sound to grow on me. For instance:

Coldplay

My brother Ryan was first trying to get me to listen to Coldplay’s A Rush Of Blood to the Head within the first year after it was released. He’s always been the Brit Rock guy, after all, and I’ve been the slow-to-adopt older brother. I remember giving it a first listen and thinking that I wasn’t fond of it at all. A couple of years later, though, they started to make sense. And without diving into the argument of whether Coldplay’s older stuff is better or the newer stuff is better, let me just sum up their popularity in my household now by saying that whenever Laura requests a song while we’re driving, it’s “Shiver” (from Parachutes), but that if Addie requests a song, it’s “Strawberry Swing” (from Viva la Vida). I guess we’ve covered the full spectrum.

Radiohead

I never did get Radiohead. I remember downloading In Rainbows when the band first offered it for free, listening to it once, and not getting it at all. Then one day a couple of years ago I turned it back on, and BAM!, it made sense. Now I’ve gone back and gained appreciation for Kid A, The Bends, and OK Computer, too. (I’m working on Hail to the Thief… maybe someday I’ll figure it out.)

Jazz

Sure, that’s a big topic. Didn’t listen to a lot of jazz growing up, but in high school somebody gave me a copy of Harry Connick Jr.’s When Harry Met Sally soundtrack. (That was one of those albums that immediately grabbed me and never let go.) So sure, I liked Harry’s big band. But more modern jazz still left me cold. Then one day I picked up Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. (Come to think of it, I think Ryan pointed me to that one, too.) Classic jazz album. Had me hooked.

Then one day somebody mentioned that if I liked Harry Connick, I might like Thelonious Monk. I’d never heard any Monk before, but listening to some album previews… the guy was amazing! And yeah, it was obvious that Harry had picked up some things from him. And Monk led to Coltrane. Coltrane led to Charlie Parker. I think I’ve sort of hit my limit with Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come. I sort of get it, but it doesn’t grab me or leave me wanting more. Maybe someday it’ll click, too, and I’ll move on to the more modern jazz.

Let us now return to where we started this post:

Stravinsky

I vaguely remember trying to listen to Stravinsky back 10 years ago, and thinking that his stuff was a cacophonous mess. Didn’t get it at all. But for some reason I picked up a CD at the library last week of Stravinsky symphonies, and, lo and behold, it’s brilliant! I think it took me progressing through Philip Glass and Steve Reich and Sufjan Stevens’ The BQE to get me ready for it.

Have you had a similar experience with a band or type of music?

Good things in March 2011

06 - dinner with the family at Casa las Glorias and the kids were all well-behaved! 07 - resolved to start keeping this list 08 - pancakes. lots of pancakes. 09 - folks at church volunteered to keep K for an hour so Becky and I could go out by ourselves 10 - got dates set for our trip to St. Thomas / St. John 11 - left work early to hang out family, temps > 50! 12 - great WT practice, new monitor headphones work great 13 - Addie’s birthday, had friends over for dinner 14 - my birthday 15 - 16 - 17 - Chinese food with the family and a spring afternoon at the park 18 - Babysitter and date with Becky 19 - Worship practice can’t be beat 20 - KP turns 2! 21 - Kickboxing class w/ Becky kicked my butt 22 - 23 - 24 - People starting to get well 25 - KP puked at the mall, but Steve & Meg were working CFA and so helpful 26 - Gotta love the NCAA tournament 27 - Awesome sermon from Pastor Randy 28 - Managed to only have to support a half-day of audits 29 - Haircuts and Sonic drive-thru with L and A 30 - First yard work of the season 31 - Mid-year performance review went well

A first look at Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

Amazon is offering two new services this morning: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player. Time to take a quick look at what they’re offering. The front page on Amazon.com gives the basic details:

Cloud Player comes in two varieties: Web and Android. All you need is a computer with a web browser and you can listen to your music with Cloud Player for Web - no software to install - just a web browser. The Android version is an app that lets you do the same thing from your Android phone or tablet.

First, about the pricing: Amazon Cloud Drive is a freemium service - free for the first 5 GB of storage, with paid plans above that. The pricing structure is straightforward: $1 / GB / year, with plans at 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 GB. The pricing chart tells us that each plan “holds up to” not only X number of songs but also X number of photos or X minutes of HD video, so Amazon is pitching this service as a real Cloud Drive (backup service?), good for storing more than just music. In addition, any purchases from AmazonMP3 don’t count against your storage space, and if you purchase from the AmazonMP3 store in any time in 2011 they’ll give you the 20GB plan for free for one year.

Setting up the Cloud Drive couldn’t be easier; I purchased a $5 album from the MP3 store (Eisley’s The Valley) and then I had the option to either download via the Amazon MP3 downloader or to store to the cloud drive. With one click it had kicked my tracks over into the Cloud Drive and opened up the player.

Cloud Player (web version) is a fairly basic music player design; there’s an Album view where you can select a full album to play; you can also create playlists, download, or delete the tracks. Playback starts quickly and there’s a QR code right on the player that you can scan with your phone to download the Android app.

OK, so next you want to upload some music from your existing collection. Click on the “Upload to your Cloud Drive” button and a prompt comes up telling you that you need to download the Amazon MP3 Uploader application (why include MP3 in the title?), which is a (platform neutral) Adobe Air app. Install the app and point it to your music library and it will scan for all the supported types that you could upload.

Yes, there are some unsupported music types. At the moment, it’ll only support MP3 and M4A files, and (obviously) won’t support anything you bought from iTMS that’s wrapped with DRM. It defaults to assuming you want to upload everything in your library, and it gives you an estimated time to upload. (For my 74 GB of music library, it estimates 42 hours and change.)

Minor gripe with the uploader: rather than just showing you the entire directory tree and allowing you to select the pieces you want to upload, it flattens it and shows you an alphabetized list of lowest-level folders. This is a major pain. Now if I want to upload my entire, say, Sufjan Stevens collection, I can’t just click on the Sufjan top-level folder; I have to scroll through the list and select The Age of Adz, The BQE, Illinois, Seven Swans, etc. Amazon, fix this in the next version, please?

Otherwise, the uploader seems to do its thing well enough. It tells you how much storage you’re going to use with your uploads, how much you have left available on your Cloud Drive, and there’s the ever-present link to Buy Additional Storage.

Once the upload was going I fired up my Samsung Galaxy phone, scanned that QR code, and downloaded the Amazon Cloud Player app. No big surprise here: Amazon is going for integration. The Android Cloud Player app is an update to the existing Amazon MP3 store app. This brings it awfully close to being to Android what the iTunes Music Store is to the iPhone; you can browse the store, make a purchase, start listening immediately. But Amazon does one better and lets you access your stuff in the cloud.

I’m looking forward to playing with the Amazon Cloud Player some more; it looks pretty slick at first glance. The first screen gives you the option of browsing the Amazon MP3 store, browsing/playing on-device music, or browsing/playing/downloading music from your Cloud Drive. It recognized all of the music I already had loaded on my phone just fine. You’re able to browse the stuff that you have on the Cloud Drive and either stream it for immediate play or download it to your phone for playback later. The download will run in the background while you do other things. (Wonder when they’re gonna have the Amazon App Store do that? It can’t be long now.) There are settings so you can restrict downloads to wifi-only if you want to conserve your phone’s data plan.

Actual music playback is pretty straightforward, and the player part of the app looks nice and is easy to use. (Dang, I wish there was an easy way to take screenshots on my Android phone. The “hold down back and press home” thing that Google turns up doesn’t seem to work for me.) Don’t know if the player will replace DoubleTwist as my go-to music player; guess we’ll have to see.

It’ll take some time to see if the cloud storage thing is a big enough deal for me to want to pay to store my entire collection, but for now, at first look, it’s clear that Amazon got a lot of things right on the first try.