>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
STARS | joanna newsom | gungor | The Civil Wars | arcade fire
is facebook killing your soul? p. 72
Black rebel motorcycle club p. 44
The guiding ethic of john c. Reilly p. 70
is the oil spill really bp’s fault?
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GOD. LIFE. PROGRESSIVE CULTURE. RELEVANT magazine September/October 2010, Issue 47 The best Halloween costume? Your mom.
EDITOR, PUBLISHER & CEO Cameron Strang > cameron@relevantmediagroup.com Editorial Director | Roxanne Wieman > roxanne@relevantmediagroup.com Associate Editor | Ashley Emert > ashley@relevantmediagroup.com Associate Editor | Ryan Hamm > ryan@relevantmediagroup.com Editorial Assistant | Alyce Gilligan > alyce@relevantmediagroup.com Contributing Writers: John Brandon, Chris Calloway, Jesse Carey, Christy Gualtieri, Shane Hipps, Adam and Chrissy Jeske, David Johnson, Carl Kozlowski, Lindsey Learn, Brett McCracken, Jonathan Merritt, Jessica Misener, John Pattison, David Roark, Kevin Selders, Sara Sterley, Frank Viola, Natalie Wigg-Stevenson, Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove Print Design Manager | Amy Duty > amy@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Marketing Designer | Jesse Penico > jesse@relevantmediagroup.com Junior Designer | Justin Mezzell > justinm@relevantmediagroup.com Contributing Photographers: Tessa Angus, Ben De Rienzo, DigitalGlobe, DuckDuck Collective, Derick E. Hingle/Bloomberg, Shannon Osborne Episcopo, Eric Liebowitz, Mary Ellen Matthews, Annabel Mehran, Raychel Mendez, Justin Stephens/NBC, Jon Willis, Cole Wilson, Norman Wong, Gage Young, Chuck Zlotnick Chief Innovation Officer | Chris Miyata > chris@relevantmediagroup.com Digital Manager | Tim Dikun > tim@relevantmediagroup.com Audio/Video Producer | Chad Michael Snavely > chad@relevantmediagroup.com Systems Administrator | Josh Strohm > joshs@relevantmediagroup.com Programmer | Casey Morford > casey@relevantmediagroup.com Web Production Assistant | David Barratt > david@relevantmediagroup.com Chief Operations Officer | Josh Babyar > josh@relevantmediagroup.com Director of Channel Development | Philip Self > philip@relevantmediagroup.com Director of Strategic Development | Josh Loveless > joshl@relevantmediagroup.com Advertising & Sponsorship Manager | Michael Romero > michael@relevantmediagroup.com Advertising Associate | Jen Cook > jen@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Marketing Manager | Hemarie Vazquez > hemarie@relevantmediagroup.com Field Coordinator | Sarahbeth Wesley > sarahbeth@relevantmediagroup.com Marketing Assistant | Richard Butcher > richard@relevantmediagroup.com Finance Manager | Maya Strang > mstrang@relevantmediagroup.com Executive Assistant & Ad Traffic Coordinator | Theresa Dobritch > theresa@relevantmediagroup.com Fulfillment Manager | Rachel Gittens > rachel@relevantmediagroup.com FOR ADVERTISING INQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT Michael Romero (407) 660-1411 x 125
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CONTENTS ISSUE 47 SEPT_OCT 2010 / RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
10 First Word 12 Letters 14 Slices 30 The Drop
The Civil Wars, Joanna Newsom, Flobots
36 deeper walk: A Vanishing God 38 WORLDVIEW: Why This Election Matters 40 The Gospel According to Hipsters 44 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
On why rock ‘n’ roll is the best religion
48 Whose Fault Is It?
Why just pointing fingers at BP isn’t enough
52 Stars 62 Buried By Busy 66 How to Make Friends and Influence People: The 2010 Edition 70 The Evolution of John C. Reilly The everyman actor talks comedy, faith
and improvising
72 What’s [Actually] On Your Mind? Social networking is changing the way we
think, pray and “like.” But what has it cost us?
78 Gungor 80 Taking Stock
Finding the good in a bad economy
84 These Numbers Have Faces
Justin Zoradi has a new plan for sustainable development in South Africa
90 Recommends
5 SHOWS REDEEMING TV
INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PRAYER presents
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December 28–31
Kansas City Convention Center
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Mike Bickle Lou Engle Misty Edwards Allen Hood Wes Hall Cory Asbury and more mo
FREECONFERENCE America finds itself poised at a critical juncture in history. Our nation is experiencing seismic shifts in the religious, political, economic, and cultural spheres of society that will forever alter the spiritual climate of our nation. God is raising up a people who have set their hearts to live with abandonment to Jesus, to experience His power, and to release His justice on earth. To that end, we are calling for young adults everywhere to join over 20,000 in Kansas City on December 28-31 for onething 2010, a FREE young adult conference filled with worship, teaching, and ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit.
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FIRST WORD
Finding God in Unexpected Places > Cameron Strang
W
hile we were putting the finishing touches on this issue, I got an email from an angry reader about a review of the cable hit Burn Notice on our website. “It is so sad to see people who claim to be ‘Christians’ telling others to find meanings of ‘serving others’ in TV shows such as Burn Notice,” it read. “Seriously? Do you even realize how stupid that is? Do you honestly think Christ would fill his mind with that secular garbage, full of violence, lying, stealing and sexuality?” The email got pretty mean and negative after that. But the writer illuminated a huge tension in the Church today—one we’re running into headfirst with this issue’s cover story. For many Christians, there is an uncrossable line between sacred and secular art. They say if art isn’t explicitly talking about Christ and issues of faith, it isn’t redemptive. Secular entertainment is sinful, the thinking goes, and Christians need to separate themselves and keep mindful only of spiritual things. While well-intentioned, I actually don’t see where only engaging art with an overtly Christian message is a biblical mandate. In Paul’s letter to the church in Philipi (Philippians 4:8), he exhorts believers to a pretty clear standard. Here’s what The Message says: You’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. There will absolutely always be need for Christians to make Christ-centered art for the Church with the sole purpose of moving people to encounter God and grow in their faith. It can be a powerful and essential way for people to connect to the Divine. But this expression is not the only way we can see and experience God through art. We are all created beings who reflect our Creator. We are spiritual. At the core of every
10 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
person is a soul yearning to be reconciled with the One who made the universe. That yearning can be revealed in many ways— as a crying out to God, as worship, as hope, as beauty and creativity; or, as David did at times, by messing up, getting mad at God, and wrestling with doubt, anger, brokenness and fear. Experiencing authentic expressions of the human heart can teach us about ourselves and warn us to our fallen nature. It can lead us to hope and reveal our need for a Savior.
All true art—even secular—eventually reveals the sacred. True art is honest. In one moment, it can help us see reflections of God through beauty, love and creativity, but in another, it can move us in a completely different way. It can be difficult when, for example, a film character shows deep imperfections before (hopefully) finding redemption—and for that reason, we must never just mindlessly embrace entertainment. Instead, we should continually practice discernment. Not just about whether the art reflects Paul’s mandate of being true and noble, but also about what God might be wanting to say to us through that moment. True art taps into the spiritual realm. When artists are being authentic, they reflect the truest expression of who they are—either revealing aspects of their weakness or reflecting the heart of their Creator. Those expressions can inform our spiritual journey, and God can reveal Himself to us through them. Because we are spiritual beings, all true art—even secular— eventually reveals the sacred. Sometimes I watch a show like Friday Night Lights and see the brokenness in which certain characters are living, and it breaks my heart. I’ve seen hatred in the eyes of a Christian character,
or deep-rooted hurt in the actions of others, and it moves me to live out the compassion and love I’ve found in Christ. Because the FNL writers are honest about their stories, the characters inevitably have to deal with the consequences of their actions. They see their own emptiness and realize in those moments they need something more. It’s not neat and tidy, and sometimes it’s hard to watch, but it serves as a sobering reminder that life without God is a dead-end street. True art is honest. It moves us. And even through broken vessels, God can speak to us. We don’t have to have all the answers worked out— we’re allowed to wrestle in the journey. As you’ll see us discuss on page 56, shows like Lost, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights, Fringe and even Community and 30 Rock are telling important stories. While imperfect, the shows are dripping with themes of redemption, faith, hope and beauty—if we’re looking. Sure, we can be taught those lessons on Sunday mornings too, but how much more moving is it to see played out in a real way? There is power in story. In Mark 4:9 (The Message), Jesus asks His disciples, “Are you listening to this? Really listening?” The passage continues: When they were off by themselves, those who were close to him, along with the Twelve, asked about the stories. He told them, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom—you know how it works. But to those who can’t see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight. May we all have the eyes to see, ears to hear and spirits to discern. CAMERON STRANG is the dad of Cohen, husband of Maya and founder of RELEVANT. Connect with him daily at Twitter.com/ CameronStrang and Facebook.com/CameronStrang.
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COMMENTS, CONCERNS, SMART REMARKS > Write us at feedback@RELEVANTmagazine.com
LETTERS Having recently returned from a week in Haiti, I appreciate the complexity of the problems and the difficulty in finding solutions expressed in “Is There Any Hope for Haiti Now?” [July/August ‘10]. We want to see problems fixed quickly and that’s just not likely to happen here. More than anything else, I think the root of their problems is spiritual. Money is needed. Help is needed. But a changed heart is also needed. —Ken summerline / via RELEVANTmagazine.com our rights. But we’re called to surrender them to God—not to a government. It is because America has not surrendered these rights that the American church has been free to thrive and become one of the biggest sending countries for international missions and one of the most generous givers of charitable aid. —Jim brewer / RELEVANTmagazine.com I really appreciated Brett McCracken’s article on movies, especially the bigger questions to ask, rather than just looking for a line to cross or not cross [“Crossing the Line,” July/ August ‘10]. Art is meant to be experienced in community and reflected on together. My family and I learn so much by talking about a movie afterward—we learn about the art itself, about bigger questions the art provokes and about each other. The art becomes a catalyst to relationship, not just entertainment to be consumed and then forgotten. —Paul Maley / RELEVANTmagazine.com So, it’s safe to say you don’t ever go to the movies by yourself? “Why Your Light Bulb Matters” [July/August ‘10] is an excellent article, one I agree with completely. The first job of a Christian is to be faithful. This does not mean we should not care about the effectiveness of our actions (we should always seek to do things that advance the cause of justice as much as possible), but neither should we fall into the trap of thinking our actions don’t matter unless they produce tangible, measurable results. —sdewittofm / RELEVANTmagazine.com I like my hometown, state and nation, to an extent, because it’s home to me [“The Idolatry of Patriotism,” July/August ‘10]. But my real home is in the New Jerusalem with Jesus, the lover of my soul. Anything we like/love can become an idol. Nation is just one example. —Rachel Stella / Channahon, IL I think it’s a mistake to say there’s nothing Christian about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Yes, we’re called to surrender
12 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
While thumbing through the latest issue, my lap was assaulted by not one, not two, but three “Subscribe to RELEVANT” cards! I get the message, but try pop-up book-style ads with different bands holding the card (and maybe a candy bar) out to me and you’ll have me for life! I may even show a friend. —Aaron Brown / Allegan, MI
RELETWEETS If you didn’t know, we tweet every day at Twitter.com/RELEVANTmag. Here is some of the scuttlebutt:
Just read a very informative & sobering article in @RELEVANTmag on the continued devastation in Haiti. Thankful they’re keeping this issue b4 me. —@nmillican @RELEVANTmag Just read the article on #Haiti. I’ve been in H for the last month, and I think the writer really got it right. Pas plus mal. —@erinsommerville
You may recall, for seven years we had a bindin page for subscription cards that made the magazine hard to flip through. Now, by going to just “blow-in” cards, you can easily turn the magazine upside-down, shake and enjoy the articles unencumbered. Because we love you.
“The Day God Called Me to Be the Christian Michael Jackson” has got to be my favorite article ever. I love you, @RELEVANTmag. —@kaylynbell
I love RELEVANT.fm! I think whoever chooses the music is my clone. Thank you for being cool, but still having God at the centre of it all. —leaH jefferson / Birmingham, England
Stumbled upon @RELEVANTmag and absolutely fell in love with it. Honest writing ... it’s now one of my daily website stop-bys. Check ‘em out! —@ellearrr
As much as I love the magazine, I have to say, there wasn’t enough fluff in this issue. You know—the frivolous tidbits, the Jesus in the News bit, the random updates about Chuck Norris. The people want more fluff! —kristy coughlin / Los Angeles, CA The fluff felt weird when the cover story focused on, you know, hundreds of thousands dying in Haiti and all. But to make up for it, here are pictures of Cheetos that look like Jesus:
Love that Future of Forestry is in the new @RELEVANTmag... such a great band. —@treytaylor Congrats @onedayswages & @eugenecho. Great article in @RELEVANTmag discusses action not just awareness. 1 step closer 2 eradicating poverty. —@lauramknudson
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THE VIBRANT DANCE OF FAITH AND SCIENCE
D
slices
a bi-montHly look at life, Faith & culture
Invisible Children Staffer Killed in Ugandan Bombing After losing one of its own, the nonprofit stays committed to fighting terror with compassion On July 11, a bomb exploded in a crowded Kampala, Uganda bar. More than 70 people were killed, and dozens more injured while watching the World Cup Final. One of those killed was 25-year-old Nate Henn, an American worker with Invisible Children (IC)—an organization that rescues child soldiers in Uganda and empowers its people. Henn was visiting his aunt and uncle, missionaries in the country, and his friend Innocent. A Ugandan student, Innocent had recently toured the U.S. with IC, speaking about the war in Uganda. Henn—nicknamed “Oteka,” “the strong one,” by some of IC’s Ugandan students—finally had a reason to visit Uganda, something he'd wanted to do since he started volunteering with IC last year. The bombing wasn’t a random attack—it was committed by Al-Shabaab, a militant Islamic group in Somalia, as a protest against peacekeeping troops from other African nations, including Uganda, stationed in Somalia. Somalia was recently deemed the numberone failed state in the world—its government is completely decentralized, and it’s under the control of various warring factions. According to Jedidiah Jenkins, a spokesman for IC, it’s this instability that feeds militant groups like Al-Shabaab. “They take advantage and make wild promises of happiness and wealth and sustenance on Earth, or promises in the afterlife. They make huge claims that can
le s aw a y b u o you r t r
create dramatic action because any action is better than the barely scraping by, slow death of poverty that these people face.” The question is, when—and how—will it end? “It requires a holistic approach,” Jenkins says. “Kind of like what we believe we’re doing in Northern Uganda—it’s not just pursuing the [terrorists], and trying to stop them, it’s also helping rebuild with education and economic opportunity in Northern Uganda so that another rebellion does not rise out of poverty and need. The only reason militant fundamentalist groups find supporters is because they offer promises that the needy, hungry people desperately need.” Though it may be complicated to implement peacekeeping and aid, they are the factors
that may prevent more attacks like that on the bar in Uganda. “I think if we’re willing to go in there as peacekeepers and as humanitarians,” Jenkins says, “we can really impact them with love first and plant the seeds of peace so that the harvest of violence will not be reaped by the terrorist leaders who now have the power.” Henn’s passion for justice is the reason IC and other nonprofits continue their fight against injustice. Jenkins says: “Their friendship has given us a face to the idea we’ve been espousing from day one, which is: ‘Why is my American suburban life any more important than yours? I will stand by you, brother, and fight for your freedom until it’s here.’ And that's exactly what Nate was doing, living out that in relationship, the day he died.”
Shannon Osborne Episcopo
relevantmagazine.com
14 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
Invisible Children staffer Nate Henn
™
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[slices]
George Clooney is The American. And he’d like his Oscar, thank you.
culture
5 The King’s Speech Here’s a tip to win an Academy Award: make a movie about a British monarch, cast Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth and add a dash of speech impediment. That’s what The King’s Speech has done (it’s about King George VI), and will likely be one of those on the nomination shortlist.
The Oscar Chase
For whatever reason, most studios wait until the autumn to start releasing the movies they hope will compete for trophies come early spring. This year the potential nominees are about everything from cloning to speech impediments to nomadic assassins. Here are our early picks for Oscar worthiness:
1
3
6
THE AMERICAN
Love and other drugs
Never Let me go
Any time George Clooney plays a conflicted character seeking redemption, the Academy goes nuts. So this story of Clooney as an assassin who befriends a priest and then finds love will no doubt leave Oscar voters swooning.
Any movie about the pharmaceutical industry is guaranteed to get some buzz. This one stars current industry darlings Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal, and is from the director of Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai and Glory.
Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan have already been nominated for Academy Awards. So put the two of them together in a movie about “dark secrets” and cloning? Oscar gold. Plus, it’s based on an acclaimed novel, which never hurts.
2 the Next three Days Even though Paul Haggis’ last film (In the Valley of Elah) had all the subtlety of a punch in the face, his Crash Oscar glow still lasts. So this film, his third, should pull in some votes–especially with Russell Crowe attached.
4
7
conviction
SOMEWHERE
You saw Avatar. But did you miss these critical favorites?
Facts: Hilary Swank wins Oscars, biographic pictures always win awards and movies about wrongfully convicted people get praised. This movie has all three. Plus, check out Sam Rockwell’s goatee.
Sofia Coppola is one of the best directors working today, and her new film has all kinds of things the Academy loves, particularly insider-y Hollywood stuff like this story of a washed-up actor. Sure to be one of the most beautiful films of the year.
Bright Star
An Education
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Food, Inc.
A Serious Man
The Messenger
relevantmagazine.com
16 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
2010’s Under-the Radar Nominees
Haiti was home to one of the worst disasters of our time. Then the earthquake hit. The true disaster in Haiti struck long before January 12. It’s what caused thousands of homes to be made of inferior concrete, featherweight bricks and a lack of rebar. It kept Haiti’s government from responding efficiently when those houses dominoed in a crushing cascade of rubble down precariously steep hillsides. Take 95 seconds to see the disaster behind the disaster at compassion.com/haitivideo.
TIM GLENN USA Advocacy Port-au-Prince January 20, 2010
Haiti’s true disaster? Poverty. It’s why Haiti lost more than 220,000 lives while a similar magnitude quake in California claimed 63 in 1989. Truth be told, it’s poverty that steals, kills and destroys more than any force of nature ever could. But it’s an enemy the Church is powerfully equipped to defeat in Haiti — and everywhere poverty attacks.
[slices]
Halloween Is All Fun & Games Until Someone Eats an Apple with a Razor in It
life
“Method” Mayhem
As kids, we all heard the reasons why we shouldn’t go trick-or-treating: crazy people poison the candy, you could get hit by a car and, of course, it’s Satan’s birthday. So this year, why not keep it safely indoors and throw a truly memorable Halloween party (or, ahem, a harvest party) instead? If you can get your costumed comrades to sit still long enough, these fresh game ideas could guarantee your party is a Halloween hit.
Scared Pin-less Give each guest a clothespin to wear on their sleeve, collar, superhero cape or respective clothing item. Throughout the night, attendees are to look for opportunities to scare one another by jumping out of dark rooms, making loud noises or other startling techniques. If the scarer legitimately succeeds (to be determined by “scream factor”), they get to keep the pin of their victim, who is then out. Whoever has the most (or all) clothespins by the end of the party is Top Scarer. Heck, give them a trophy. Or a clip art certificate.
Costume Bingo
Candy Jar
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent information, America produced 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins in 2008. The value of that much squash? $141 million. And to think at least half of those pounds were cut out as triangle eyes.
Fill a jar with candy corn. Pass it around and let guests guess how many pieces of candy are in the jar. Whoever guesses closest to the actual amount wins the jar. Then they must eat the entire thing before the party is over. OK, just kidding about that last part. But if they really want to ...
At the beginning of the party, split the guests into a few teams. Instruct them to write down 10-15 popular (and not-so-popular) costume ideas. As trick-or-treaters arrive, teams check off the costumes that appear on their list. Whichever team correctly predicts more of the costume selections wins.
eat … If you dare [cue spooky laugh here]
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eyeballs Place jumbo marshmallows on a tray. In the center of each, add a cranberry, raisin or brown M&M. With red icing, draw squiggly lines along the top and sides to make these “eyes” appear bloodshot.
Monster toes Serve pigs in a blanket, but wrap them so only one end of the cocktail wiener can be seen. Cover that end with extra ketchup. Ta-dah! Bloody monster toes.
Slime Melt some chocolate fondue, stir in 2 tbsp of heavy cream and 12 drops of green food coloring. This slime is perfect for dipping pretzels, fruit and eyeballs.
Orange Elephant Instruct partygoers to bring a wrapped Halloween item— something cheap and fun, like goofy glasses, a Freddie Krueger action figure or your beloved copy of Ernest Scared Stupid. Everyone unwraps a present other than their own and shows it to the circle. Starting with the host and moving clockwise, guests decide if they want to keep theirs or steal another. But to steal it, they must perform a “trick.” If the group deems the trick deserving, the trickster gets to exchange. If not, they keep their gift until the end of the game, or until someone tries to steal it. Gifts can only be stolen twice before they are “dead.” Yes, we know this is the same thing as a White Elephant exchange, but why should something so awesome be limited to once a year?
relevantmagazine.com
Every Halloween party needs some creepy cuisine. It’s immature. It’s fun. It’s delicious. Plus, it has the added bonus of letting you feel like you just entered a Nickelodeon game show from the mid-‘90s.
If you are throwing a costume party (as you should), bring out some lively board games such as Cranium or Quelf. The twist is that each player must stay in their costume’s character the entire time. The Star Performer card just got that much more embarrassing. Unless you’re that guy in the “This T-Shirt Is My Costume” shirt. In which case: for shame.
Win an
iPad
[slices]
culture
Beck Does Dad-Rock As part of his ongoing “record club” project (he invites friends to cover and record an album in a day with no rehearsal) Beck has his sights on a classic ’90s favorite: Yanni’s Live at the Acropolis. Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and avant-garde group Tortoise provide musical support. Moore also supplies “improvised lyrics,” such as, Roasted pigs, roasted pigs/ Oinkin’ oinkin’ oinkin’ to the night sky/ Orange orange disaster! Yeah—it’s as weird as it sounds.
Finland Makes Broadband Internet a Human Right If you’re homeless, chances are you’re trying to find stuff to keep you warm and stuff to eat. But you also might have an epic game of Farmville going. So who’s going to feed your animals and harvest your corn if you’re unable to find an Internet connection because you’re, you know, homeless? If you find yourself in this predicament, you’d best relocate to Finland. Starting July 1, the Finnish government officially made having an Internet connection (of 1 Mbps, the equivalent of a basic plan from any cable company in the U.S.) a legal right for all of its citizens. Finland’s communication minister Suvi Linden told the BBC: “We considered the role of the Internet in Finns’ everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment.” Though Linden didn't specifically mention it, we’re pretty sure he’s talking about Mafia Wars. In the end, though, “life, liberty and the pursuit of Internet connectivity” just doesn’t have the same ring.
Other albums your parents love that Beck should cover Kenny G, Breathless The seminal album from the wellcoiffed saxophonist. Chicago, Chicago 17 Because “You’re the Inspiration” should reach a new generation. Vangelis, Chariots of Fire soundtrack Think how inspiring a DIY, indie version of the theme song would be! John Tesh, Sax by the Fire Because there has never been a better album cover.
Pretty Sure no ONe is supportive of this
20 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
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It’s fairly audacious to rob a church. It’s even worse to rob a collection box. But using a crucifix to pry off the lid? That’s the burglary equivalent of kicking a puppy before stealing all of his food and water. The suspect—who was videotaped during the entire crime—is named George Horn. He’s 48 and has a tattoo on his leg. While no one has announced what the tattoo says, we’re guessing it says something like, “I love to disappoint my mom.” Also not explained: Why is he shirtless? At least put on clothes if you’re going to be taped doing the slimiest crime ever.
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faith
Reformation Day Is the New Black
S
ure, you know Oct. 31 is Halloween—but did you also know it’s Reformation Day? The day commemorates Martin Luther’s nailing of his famous “95 Theses” on the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg, Germany. But that was just the (sort of) beginning of the story. His actions led to a series of events that are still affecting us today. Here’s a quick timeline of what went down:
1440 | The movable type printing press is invented, which is responsible for the Reformation. It allows theological pamphlets to spread like wildfire. 1510 | Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, visits Rome and is appalled at the corruption he sees. Pope Alexander VI has fathered seven children with two mistresses, and the papacy has installed a tax on brothels and on priests who have mistresses. Most appalling to Luther is the system of indulgences, which basically promises people they can get their loved ones out of purgatory for a while via a fee. 1517 | Luther pounds his famed “95 Theses” to the door of the church in Wittenberg. The theses are mostly against the selling of indulgences and the idea that the pope possesses the ability to grant the pardon of sin apart from God’s grace. 1519 | Huldrych Zwingli begins his ministry in Switzerland, calling for reform of the Catholic Church there. 1520 | Luther is excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. 1536 | John Calvin publishes the first edition of his Institutes on the Christian Religion, a summation of his own reformed theology.
1548 | The Book of Common Prayer is written, solidifying the English Reformation. It’s pretty awesome.
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The Reformation was one of the most tumultuous times in Church history. Make no mistake: no person was either completely good or bad in their actions. Luther brought much-needed theological reforms to the Catholic Church and a break where one was needed, but he was also a voracious anti-Semite. The Roman
Catholic Church made some of the reforms suggested by Luther, but were vicious and brutal in their putdowns of the Reformers. The effects of the Reformation continue to this day. It was a needed corrective in Church history and, despite the chaos, was led by people—flawed, imperfect people—who genuinely wanted to serve God and to serve His Church.
Anabaptists: the Other Reformers Throughout the Reformation period, the Anabaptists were the people who didn’t quite fit. The forebears of the Amish and Mennonites, the Anabaptists were noted for withdrawing from civil society—and for being persecuted by everyone, Protestant or Catholic.
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1545 | The Council of Trent starts, which seeks to address some of the concerns of the Reformation in the Catholic Church. They label the Protestants heretics and uphold Roman Catholic theology, but also amend Church laws to get rid of secularism in the church (especially corruption) and amend the theology of indulgences.
[T h e B a ck g r o un d ]
[slices]
culture
[Q&A ]
The Enduring Robert Duvall BY CARL KOZLOWSKI There are few actors in Hollywood who hold as iconic a place in film as Robert Duvall. Having acted in more than 80 films, he’s played roles as diverse as consigliere Tom Hagen in The Godfather and town bogeyman “Boo” Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird. Of course, there have been a few less-thaniconic roles along the way as well (remember Days of Thunder?)—“I had to pay the rent,” Duvall says—but his trademark grimace/ squint/smile and his familiar voice have made him a lasting favorite. His new movie, Get Low, has Duvall taking on a new American paragon: the backwoods hermit. Loosely based on a true story, Get Low is a fable, folk tale and legend. Duvall stars as a Tennessee loner who decides to stage his own funeral—while he’s still alive. Bill Murray also stars as the owner of the town’s funeral parlor and an unlikely friend for the aging hermit. Duvall spoke with RELEVANT about the film’s themes, why he’s drawn to spiritual roles and what it’s like to work with Bill Murray.
Q: A:
“If you’re gonna do something of faith that people might admire and cling to if they see, you have to do your homework and do it the right way.”
What’s your favorite role? And are there any roles you regret? I’m sure there’s some regret—I had to pay the rent. Augustus McCrae from Lonesome Dove was my favorite, but Get Low is my wife’s favorite since The Apostle almost 15 years ago.
What was it like working with Bill Murray in this movie? How did you choose the cast? Bill Murray is kind of a smart aleck, but a good smart aleck. He’s always on top of things, but always has a great respect for the project and wants it to be the best it can be. It was a wonderful cast we assembled for a very lowbudget film, so to speak. Such a unique, lovely script that people responded to it.
Get Low is your third big film with Christian themes, after Tender Mercies and The Apostle. What draws you to these films? Horton Foote wrote Tender Mercies with me in mind. … With The Apostle, I had attended a Pentecostal church years ago. … I don’t believe in message movies, but if there’s a message about humanity and a positive thing a man can gain from his fruits and go into his future in a positive way, that’s good.
Does spirituality play a part in the roles you choose?
What was the biggest challenge of Get Low?
Spirituality plays a role in my decision. If you’re gonna do something of faith that people might admire and cling to if they see, you have to do your homework and do it the right way. Some thought I was making fun of Pentecostal people [in The Apostle] … but both Billy Graham and Marlon Brando liked it—I won over both spiritual and secular. I had to do it right to get that.
The challenge of Get Low was to do the part. … I spent Christmas in Northern Argentina to gain a sense of privacy the way [Felix Bush] has. … When we were doing the scene where the casket rolls out, Horton’s son-inlaw told us Horton had just died. I learned that as the camera was rolling. … It was almost like he was there, all the way from To Kill a Mockingbird to that very moment.
Essential Duvall
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To Kill A Mockingbird “Boo” Radley was Duvall's screen debut and introduced him as a vital talent.
The Apostle Duvall did everything in this film, about a Pentecostal preacher with a wandering eye.
Lonesome Dove Duvall won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of a Texas Ranger peace officer in this mini-series.
Tender Mercies His turn as country-western singer Mac Sledge won Duvall an Oscar for Best Actor.
The Godfather Duvall played Tom Hagen, helping the Corleones during weddings, wars and betrayals.
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Robert Duvall has been a cornerstone of Hollywood for decades. He’s acted in some of the most critically acclaimed films and created unforgettable characters. Here are a few of his best roles:
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Don’t see your city on the list? Maybe you should be less selfish.
REJECT APATHY
The 10 Most Charitable Cities in America Charity Navigator recently released its annual study of how U.S. cities match up on fundraising and philanthropy. Cost of living and the city’s focus on causes were among the factors affecting rank.
top 10 cities 1
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Dr. Ferdousi Begum
Bangladeshi Doctor Invests in Women If the answer to many of the world’s problems is empowering women, Dr. Ferdousi Begum of Bangladesh has certainly implemented this solution. Begum realized she could bring treatment to more people by training others in what she knew as a gynecologist. Considering the infant mortality rate in Bangladesh (41 deaths for every 1,000 live births), this has quite an impact. Since 2005, Begum has trained 3,200 volunteers who have provided care to 300,000 women and many children. In 2008, the organization Save the Children made her the program manager of their Maternal, Newborn and Child Health division. “To really try to have a healthy baby,” Begum says, “the best option is to invest in the mother.”
California bans plastic bags
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banned noncompostable, plastic carryout bags from being distributed at stores with a large customer base—i.e., supermarkets grossing more than $2 million and pharmacies with at least five locations. A couple of aspects legislators must keep in mind: the effect on the plastic industry’s workforce, and the possible increased usage of also-notenvironmentally-friendly paper bags.
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Pittsburgh, PA Top Charity Cause: Humanities Religious causes rank 8 of 9
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Houston, TX Top Charity Cause: Human Services Religious causes rank 9 of 9
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Dallas, TX Top Charity Cause: Human Services Religious causes rank 2 of 9
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San Francisco, CA Top Charity Cause: Public Benefit Religious causes rank 2 of 9
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Kansas City, MO/KS Top Charity Cause: Public Benefit Religious causes rank 3 of 9
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Miami, FL Top Charity Cause: Human Services Religious causes rank 7 of 9
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Orlando, FL Top Charity Cause: Human Services Religious causes rank 2 of 9
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Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN Top Charity Cause: Humanities Religious causes rank 9 of 9
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New York City, NY Top Charity Cause: International Religious causes rank 7 of 9
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Washington, D.C. Top Charity Cause: Public Benefit Religious causes rank 9 of 9
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California has always been on the forefront of green endeavors—and now the Golden State is on its way to a first-of-its-kind statewide ban of plastic grocery bags. The California State Assembly has passed a bill that, if signed into law by the State Senate, would prohibit supermarkets and pharmacies from providing single-use carryout bags effective Jan. 1, 2012. In 2007, San Francisco
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5
WHEN CHRISTIANS GET IT WRONG
Trying to repair the damage from Christians acting unChristianly
We’ve all seen it (and probably gone through it ourselves). People acting crazy and mean, all in the name of Christ. It happens on TV all the time, but possibly even worse is when it happens in everyday life. People react without compassion; people claim God’s name for their own bigotry; people use the label of “Christian” to further their own notso-Christian agenda. So how can we right the ship? Pastor Adam Hamilton lays out his experiences with Christians who’ve gotten it wrong, and suggests some ways we can get it right. We’re called to be God’s salt and light in the world, and that starts with everything being soaked in love. Go to RELEVANTmagazine.com and search “Adam Hamilton.”
5 Things To Do Online This Month If you only get our magazine, you’re only getting part of the story.
1 REJECT APATHY
12 Hours with a Sex Tourist The European Operations Director for Love146 (an organization dedicated to ending child sex trafficking) wrote this shocking tale of sitting next to a sex tourist on a flight to Bangkok. Most jarring is the seatmate’s disregard for the consequences of his actions. The article is a searing look into a hidden industry. Head to RELEVANTmagazine. com and search “sex tourist.”
The Top 10 from RELEVANT.fm Here’s the Top 10 favorite songs playing over at RELEVANT.fm right now:
Dear God 2.0 1
2 MAKING YOUR LIFE 56% AWESOMER
Frivolity, interviews, music
by School of Seven Bells 3
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Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars 4
The Shaded Forests by Deastro 5
Say No to Love
4 RELEVANT.FM
6
American, Idle
For your streaming pleasure
Tune your dial, er, move your mouse over to RELEVANT.fm. We’re playing some great music—not only cool in form, but deep and meaningful in content. We’re not big fans of dividing listeners among genre lines (as you can see from the list to the right), so you’ll get everything from hip-hop to electronica to the very freshest indie rock. We’ve got a feature song of the week, and we’re always adding new, exclusive, live recordings from our studio. RELEVANT.fm is a great place to explore styles—and find your new favorite band.
by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
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by Heath McNease (feat. Pigeon John)
Stay Positive by The Hold Steady 8
Happen Every Time 9
by Waterdeep
Tightrope 10
by Janelle Monae (feat. Big Boi)
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You know RELEVANT.tv plays a lot of great music videos. In fact, there’s a new one every day. But you should also know we’ve started to film select performances from bands that come through our studios. So right now on RTV, you can check out live performances from Gungor, House of Heroes, Lovedrug and others. Basically, it’s like MTV Unplugged without all the drug addicts. Get into it.
by Arcade Fire
Prince of Peace
We’re excited to unveil a bunch of new newsletters. The daily Deeper Walk devotional is a perfect way to start your day, and the newly redesigned RELEVANT This Week keeps you in the know about the site. To subscribe, head to http://www.relevantmagazine.com/ newsletter-subscription-center.
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Know what else you can do online this month? Play this: http://gearpatrol.com/blog/2010/04/29/super-mario-bros-crossover.
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To hear more emerging artists, check out The Drop at RELEVANTmagazine.com
THE DROP
W
hen John Paul White and Joy Williams were paired during an exercise at a songwriting convention in Nashville, it was love at first sound. “The first time our voices sounded out together, it was a weird, pinchme kind of moment,” White says. “I’d never heard that kind of marriage between two voices before.” The two solo artists reconvened a few months later, this time to pursue a collective project now known as The Civil Wars. By working with Sensibility, the music management firm run by Williams’ husband, Nate Yetton, they’ve been able to take more liberties than usual, such as releasing their EP Live at Eddie’s Attic as a free download. “It was no grand scheme. It was the second show we had played and
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the board take was just so good,” White says. A year later, a substantial fan base eagerly awaits the first full-length offering from The Civil Wars, which White describes as both “multi-layered” and “stripped down.” Though they will tell you there’s a collision between the male and the female apparent in all their music, their own musical union can only be described as effortless. “We have different viewpoints on things, being from totally different backgrounds and geographical areas, but there’s a common thread to all of it too,” explains White, an Alabama boy who worked with a number of country artists before becoming a singer/songwriter. For Williams, The Civil Wars was a liberating diversion from CCM. “I’ve been enjoying the freedom
to write what I see through my worldview,” Williams says. “Beauty can be bittersweet, and truth can be hard to swallow. We inadvertently write within that tension, though it’s never actually discussed.” Such contrast is a major theme of their melodies as well as their lyrics. Listening to The Civil Wars is like floating in very deep water— vulnerable, but also triumphant. Williams and White favor the mournful acoustic ballad, with influences from Billie Holiday to bluegrass. It can be a laborious listen, but like their fortuitous meeting, it’s surprisingly natural. “Somehow the joining of the two musically just makes sense,” Williams says. “It feels more fluid than most things I’ve ever done.” —ALYCE GILLIGAN
Website:
myspace.com/thecivilwars
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j
oanna Newsom is a bit of an enigma. She’s a harpist who can take classical traditions, American songcraft and Joni Mitchell pop and create a new kind of music. How does she link such disparate influences? “I feel very much a product of where I’m from,” Newsom says. “No doubt that association connects with the fact that a lot of important music to me, as a listener and as a student, tends to belong to a genre specifically ‘American’ in nature—like George Gershwin and Aaron Copland.” It’s difficult to overstate how good of a lyricist Newsom is (it’s no surprise to learn she was a creative writing major in college). Images and sounds crash into one another to create something moving, even if you’re not sure why. Especially when
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you’re trying to figure out what—or who—the songs are “about.” “I’m not trying to write actively confessional music, but the songs are a product, or a byproduct, of my life,” Newsom says. “The particular fictions that attract us reveal something about us. An autobiography can be written out of fictions.” While that might seem too abstract to hold any meaning, Newsom uses music to explore remarkably deep topics and stories. Reading her lyrics is like hearing bits of a tall tale, and Newsom admits to owing much to our myths and legends. “I’ve always been interested in the funny sort of cultural and historical and epistemological accumulations that we all hoard,” she says, “to the point of conferring upon them a kind of supernatural
power, as though simply invoking the notion of one of these entities might serve somehow as shorthand for the feeling that we want so badly and so restlessly to express, but can’t.” If it sounds like Newsom has an almost spiritual approach to music, that’s not a wrong impression. Newsom says she’s a spiritual person, but that any question of spirituality is “tricky.” “I do undertake an action, most days, which resembles praying,” Newsom says, “a sort of foundering, myopic, almost superstitious casting-out of intention, gratitude, supplication or intercession; some outgrowth of the templates I learned as a child—but I can’t precisely identify the object of that prayer, within or without my imagination. It’s still finding its form.” —RYAN HAMM
Website:
dragcity.com/artists/joanna-newsom
For Fans of:
Joni Mitchell, Bright Eyes, Devendra Banhart
featured artist
Annabel Mehran
artists have in common? They’ve all performed at
Calvin College
of Clay
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www.calvin.edu/go/culture
www.calvin.edu/go/culture 3201 Burton SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 (616) 526-6106 or 1-800-688-0122
Matt Wertz José González
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Holy Spirit’s work of restoration by seeking to make all things better. All things matter, because of the Kingdom.
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All Things. God created all things, and they were good. All things have fallen from that original goodness.
Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection redeemed all things, eventually will restore them. We join the
THE DROP
A
ll concertgoers have experienced the intense energy shared at a show. But what if that energy was directed to something bigger than the show? Denver-based rock/hip-hop group Flobots have taken on this idea, and they’re seeing the results. Earlier this year, the socially conscious group released their sophomore album, Survival Story. Boasting power chords, anthemic songs and viola-playing galore, the album is about more than music. The title itself indicates an idea that ignites the group’s collective heart: that we can survive on a global scale if we’re willing to make the effort. This idea took shape for the group when they created the nonprofit organization Flobots.org in 2008. Various activists in the community
34 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
had approached them about starting an organization, and their words found fertile ground. “We finally decided, ‘Look, we gotta do this,’” says MC Jamie Laurie, better known as Jonny 5. Through a friend at his church, Laurie discovered Denver Children’s Home. Flobots then constructed a recording studio and created a program of music-related classes covering everything from instrumental performance to studio recording. The program is still going strong, but it was only the beginning. “The second idea for the nonprofit was to try to take the same empowerment that young people at Denver Children’s Home were feeling and take that to audience members who were coming to shows and say, ‘Great, you’re a music fan,
you support these ideas, but why not take that same energy and do something with it?’” Laurie says. The band started with voter registration training in Denver, but soon fans everywhere expressed interest. The Fight with Tools site was created to help them organize and mobilize. The site lists povertyfighting fundraisers, environmental events, peace-building workshops, boycotts and more. Dedication to worthy causes is nothing new to Laurie, who was raised in a church dedicated to service. “They are a source of strength,” Laurie says of his fellow church members. “Specifically I think the two of us who are the MCs, they keep us on track. It’s a place where we go to retune in with our sense of life’s mission.” —CHRIS CALLAWAY
Website: flobots.com
For Fans of:
Aesop Rock, Rage Against the Machine, Gym Class Heroes
DEEPER WALK
A Vanishing God > Frank Viola
J
esus often comes to us in unexpected ways and unexpected means. Think about how He came to Earth. For centuries, Israel had waited for a political Messiah. They expected Him to lead a rebellion and free Israel from Roman oppression. But how did the Messiah make His entrance? He came in a way that made it easy for His own people to reject Him. He came as a frail baby, born in a feeding room for animals. There He was. The promised Messiah who was expected to overthrow the Roman Empire and set Israel free from oppression. A needy Nazarene born in a manger. When Jesus grew up, He ate and drank in their presence and taught in their streets (Luke 13:26). Yet they didn’t recognize Him. He was unassumingly modest. A mere craftsman; the son of a craftsman. He grew up in the despised city of Nazareth, fraternizing with the despised and oppressed. But more startling, He befriended sinners (Luke 7:34). As such, the people of God didn’t recognize Him. Why? Because He came in a way that made it easy for them to reject Him. And what about the disciples? Read the story again. Jesus continued to break out of their expectations. He couldn’t be pinned down, figured out or boxed in. The Twelve were constantly confounded by Him. His teachings were offensive. His actions scandalous. His reactions baffling. But the greatest offense of all was the cross. It offended everyone— both Jew and Gentile. The only crown the promised Messiah-King would accept was a crown of thorns. Look at Him again. A suffering Messiah, a defeated King. It’s easy to reject Him. One of the Lord’s most faithful disciples teaches us this principle well. Mary Magdalene was the first person to see Jesus after His death and resurrection. Do you remember what she did as soon as she recognized Him? She grabbed Him, and she wouldn’t stop clinging to Him. Jesus responded, “Stop clinging to me” (see John 20:17, Greek text). Why did Jesus tell Mary to stop clinging to Him? Because Jesus had somewhere to go. He was on the move. Jesus was poised to go to Galilee to see the other disciples and then to ascend to His Father. Note the principle: He was moving forward, but she was clinging to Him. Jesus was in effect saying to her: “Mary, stop holding on to me. There’s a new way to know me that’s different from what you’ve experienced thus far. Let me go. I must move on.” Do you remember the disciples who walked on the road to Emmaus? Their hopes were shattered by Jesus’ horrible death. Suddenly, the resurrected Christ began walking beside them, yet their eyes were blinded from recognizing Him. However, when He engaged in the very simple gesture of breaking bread (something He had done frequently before them), their eyes were opened.
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He then quickly disappeared from their sight. These stories hold a critical insight. You cannot cling to the Christ you know today. He will vanish from your midst. Jesus Christ is an elusive Lover. Seeking Him is a progressive engagement that never ends. He doesn’t dance to our music. He doesn’t sing to our tune. Perhaps He will in the beginning when He woos us, but that season will eventually end. Just when you think you’ve laid hold of Him, He will slip out of your grasp. He will appear to you as a stranger. But on second glance, we’ll discover He’s no stranger at all. Emmaus will be repeated. We all wish to cling to the Lord who we know now. We all wish to hold on to the Christ who has been revealed to us today. But mark my words: He will come to us in a way we do not expect—through people we’re prone to ignore and inclined to write off. Perhaps they don’t talk our religious language. Perhaps they aren’t theologically sophisticated. Perhaps they don’t use our vocabulary. Perhaps they don’t share our insider knowledge nor parrot our religious idioms. So we cling fast to the Lord we recognize—receiving only those who talk our language, use our jargon and employ our catchphrases—and all along we end up turning the Lord Jesus Christ away. What, then, does Jesus do after we fail to receive Him when He comes to us in an unexpected way? He moves on. And the revelation we have of Him ceases to grow. Jesus Christ is richer, larger and more glorious than any of us could ever imagine. And He comes to us in ways that make it tempting to reject Him. When Peter, James and John saw the transfigured Lord on the holy mountain, Peter wanted to build a tabernacle for Jesus, Moses and Elijah and remain on the mountain to enjoy the encounter. But God would not allow it (Matthew 17:1-13). There is something in our fallen nature that, like Peter, wishes to build a monument around a spiritual encounter with God and remain there. But the Lord will not have it. He will always break free from our frail attempts to pin Him down, box Him up and hold Him in place. And He does so by coming to us in new and unexpected ways.
You cannot cling to the Christ you know today. He will vanish from your midst.
FRANK VIOLA is the co-author (with Leonard Sweet) of Jesus Manifesto (Thomas Nelson). You can learn more about the book at TheJesusManifesto.com.
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Why This Election Matters > Tyler Wigg-Stevenson
I
n Jesus’ parable of the talents, a master gives a coin to each of his servants before leaving for a while. When he returns, he asks what profit each has made. Suffice it to say it doesn’t go well for the guy who hides the money and hands it back with no gain. The moral is clear: God’s gifts come with a responsibility to use them in His service. And, for those of us who are American citizens and over 18, one of these gifts is your vote—a say in the largest political, military and economic power on earth. Many younger Christians take a dim view of politics, oftentimes based on personal exposure to the missteps of a previous generation’s foray into governmental activism. In many ways, this represents a welcome shift toward a more holistic mission toward culture as a whole. But the importance of government in Scripture should make us cautious about letting the pendulum swing away entirely from political engagement. Earthly citizenship—and, by implication, its most basic actions of voting and paying taxes—are upheld by the New Testament. Three decades after Jesus’ ascension, Paul wrote to the Roman Christians that even the officials of the pagan imperial “powers that be” were, literally, “ministers of God” for upholding good and punishing evil. No country is a substitute for the Kingdom of God. But in Kingdomseekers’ patient waiting for God’s completed rule, we are exhorted to see the hand of God in the righteous administration of human government. This truth endures even into our current system of a government of, by and for the people. The gift of modern democracy comes with a responsibility: if you want to find “the powers that be,” ordained by God for the good of all, just look in the mirror. We’re it. With this kind of mandate, simply opting out is not an option. So why does it feel so tempting to blow off voting—especially in a distinctly un-glamorous midterm election? One significant problem is that our culture is decreasingly suited to the act of voting. Our cultural obsession with individual customization means we live more and more in environments tailored to our specific preferences—and we demonstrate less and less patience with situations that don’t reflect our wishes. Voting doesn’t make much sense in this climate. After all, being a voter is the opposite of being at the center of the action. But this is also why, in our current social moment, voting is a profoundly countercultural act of loving our neighbors as ourselves. Many younger Christians feel disillusioned with both parties—and maybe the state of candidates and government in general. That’s why it’s important to remember that elections are about people—and don’t let anyone get away with saying it doesn’t matter who wins. That’s always a cop-out. It may be that no candidate feels completely
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satisfying to vote for, but your satisfaction isn’t the point of voting. The point is making an informed decision about the person you think will best serve your neighbors. Elections are going to happen whether or not Christians are ready to vote. And the people who are elected will make decisions on issues large and small. The same is true for the various referenda and regulations put forward by our states and municipalities. The vast majority of these decisions won’t affect the vast majority of us directly. But each affects somebody, and there’s the rub: Whether you’re personally motivated by a given issue or candidate, do you love your neighbor enough to learn what’s at stake in your community’s life, and then pull the lever? Of course, there’s zero chance one person’s vote will sway an election either way, and if the results don’t go your way, you still have to live with them. But voting in spite of the seeming insignificance of individual action may be the most subtly redemptive aspect of punching the ballot. We don’t vote because it’s a guaranteed way to make a difference. We vote because it’s an act of fidelity to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, to which God has called us. So how should you vote? It requires work: voting is just the tip of the iceberg of informed citizenship. Politically neutral websites like VoteSmart.org and FactCheck.org are a good source of information for national races. And you’ll find good information on more local issues in the endorsements from your local papers (whether or not you agree with them) and trusted regional nonprofits. We can also all benefit from the advice of former Sen. Sam Nunn when asked what kind of candidates we should look for: Someone who lets facts determine their opinions and puts country above party. As John Stott has quipped, you don’t blame a house for being dark at night—you blame the people who don’t turn on the lights. When Christians can’t be bothered to bring the light of neighbor-love to the ballot box, we shouldn’t be surprised—or look for anyone else to blame— when those with less noble aims bend the machinery of power to their purposes. If we don’t show up to represent a God whose common grace serves the common good—sun and rain that nourish the wicked and righteous alike—who will?
Your satisfaction isn’t the point of voting.
Tyler Wigg-Stevenson is the founding director of the Two Futures Project (Twitter @2FP) and author of Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age (Seabury Books).
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The Gospel
ACCORDING TO HIPSTERS
How the pursuit of cool has helped and hurt Christianity By Brett Mccracken
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Raychel Mendez
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et’s get the obvious out of the way first. “Hipster” is a bloated, lame, overused, cringeinducing label that’s been co-opted by mass culture and subsequently stripped of all meaning, if it ever had any to begin with. It’s a term that’s annoyingly inescapable on the Internet these days. A week rarely goes by without some new hipster Tumblr blog becoming a sensation that’s as ephemeral as the 2007-09 Victorian suspenders-andarm-garter trend. Sites like “Unhappy Hipsters” and “Hipster Puppies” have demonstrated that “hipster” has reached a final tipping point. One of the most prominent, apocalyptic pronouncements of “hipster” came in a 2008 Adbusters article by Douglas Haddow, entitled “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization,” that argued the current hipster generation is “pointlessly obsessing over fashion, faux individuality, cultural capital and the commodities of style.” For him, the contemporary hipster represents an end to society as we know it—“a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal.” The hipster-scholar consensus, it seems, is that contemporary hipsters are a harbinger of some sort of post-colonialist cultural annihilation, late-capitalistic consumer implosion, or some other pretentiously worded doomsday scenario. Which is all a bit ridiculous. But it doesn’t mean hipsterdom isn’t a significant cultural phenomenon with implications for all sorts of things. “Hipster” is just the latest, most consolidated iteration of the notion of being cool/elite/fashionable. As such, it serves as a convenient entry point for a crucial discussion of what all of this means for Christianity, which to outside observers probably seems about as far from “cool/hipster” as possible. What does it mean that “hipster Christianity” exists? If hipsters spell disaster and cultural holocaust for the world at large, what does it forecast for the future of Christianity that Christian hipsters are now so ubiqui-
tous? Should we be alarmed and unnerved by the marriage of seemingly competing aims: following Christ and being cool? Or are there good things “hipster” has done for Christianity? Yes and yes.
How Hipster Helps Christianity It teaches the Church to appreciate culture, beauty and other good things Hipsters have good taste. They like good things. On first glimpse, they appear to shun quality (what with their affinity for thrift store, secondhand clothes), and certainly many of them can’t afford the highest quality of
hipsters have also tended to be much more avid readers of serious literature, theory, philosophy and theology. If it challenges their faith or rocks their spiritual paradigm, that’s exactly the point. They’ve revived “everyday Christian” interest in theology, gobbling up tomes by everyone from Calvin to Bonhoeffer, Tillich to N.T. Wright. Hipsters tend to think deeply and feel deeply. They appreciate the detail and artistry of creative, wellcrafted things like a Terrence Malick film or Animal Collective album. They take culture seriously and rightly recognize it as a crucial part of human existence. Evangelical Christianity—too long in the ghetto of subpar subculture—should take notes.
The tragically neglected truth about Christianity is it calls us to be pretty radically different from the world—and this is something Christian hipsterdom (at least in some ways) helps us to see. anything, but by and large they are passionately appreciative of the finer things in life. I’m talking about material things here (clothes, jewelry, sunglasses, cameras, antiques, food, wine, etc.), but also the experience of life in general. With childlike awe and wonder that betrays their otherwise cynical demeanor, hipsters glory in the little pleasures of life—like riding bikes along rivers, eating homemade macaroons on a blanket in a friend’s front yard or playing Frisbee in the park. Perhaps this attitude is something the rest of Christendom might do well to model. These Christian hipsters are taking joy in God’s creation, in the colors and sounds and textures and tastes of all the good things He has created. They are glorying in the little pleasures of life (smoking a pipe and drinking Intelligentsia coffee on a beach patio on a cloudy Saturday morning) in a way that is worshipful and thankful and full of the sort of passion that stirs within us a longing for God and His more perfect Kingdom, of which these little pleasures are just a glimpse. As an outgrowth of this intellectual curiosity about the world, Christian
It teaches the Church to care for the oppressed and to fight for justice It’s hard to argue against hipsters on this point. They are, in general, quite concerned about issues of justice— whether it be sweatshops or sex trafficking, water wells or finance reform. Complain about the “trendiness” of these things all you want, but the fact is hipsters are frequently a good example of actually doing things to solve global problems. Sure, it may be convenient that protesting against oil consumption affords the hipster the chance to ride an awesome fixed-gear (or drive a Prius!) across town to the farmer’s market. And yes, it may be annoying that some very noble causes have accompanying T-shirt lines that rival the coolness of anything you might find at a Portland thrift store. But the “cause equals cool” dilemma is not enough to dismiss the whole endeavor. Hipsters are by nature on the side of the oppressed. They almost always side with the underdogs (immigrants, poor, minorities) over those with power and privilege, and Christians would be hard pressed to find any Scripture
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T HE E V OLUTION of the C HRISTIAN HIPSTER J e s u s p e o p l e hip p ie s 1967-1979
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t he e i g h t ie s : A hip s t e r b l a c k h o l e 1980-1989
• White pants and tunics • Long hair, beards
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• “Wanted: Jesus” posters
• Love Song, Church Girard, Larry Norman, Phil Keaggy, The Way, Mustard Seed Faith, Daniel Amos • Massive beach baptisms
• “Choose Life” T-shirts
C hr i s t i a n S l a c k e r s 1990-1997 • Baggy clothes, flannel
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• Thief in the Night • JPUSA and other Christian communes
that said Jesus wasn’t the same way. Many of today’s Christians have sadly moved away from social justice and fighting for the downtrodden, but Christian hipsters are leading the way back. And that’s a good thing.
It embraces the countercultural, revolutionary nature of the Gospel In the Western, post-Constantine, “Christianity is the state religion” world, it’s easy to imagine Christianity as a pretty tame, sweet, innocuous thing. It’s easy to just go to church on Sundays, live lives like everyone else the rest of the week and happily mark “Christian” whenever a survey asks us about religion. But the tragically neglected truth about Christianity is it calls us to be pretty radically different from the world—and this is something Christian hipsterdom (at least in some ways) helps us to see. Hipsters are always excited by the undermining of conventions. And Christian hipsters are excited when they can throw the whole “comfortable and/or American Christianity” thing under the bus and force people to rethink what it means to be citizens of God’s Kingdom. But what does this look like? In Jesus for President, authors Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw go into great detail about what a real countercultural Christianity should look like, and their vision can be instructive to many in the Church today. They describe Christians as political misfits, cultural refugees, resident aliens, exiles in their own land, living a life of countercultural habits and norms largely inspired by the Sermon on the Mount. These “ordinary radicals” participate in holy nonconformity, practice resurrection (“making ugly things beautiful”), live in diverse community, make and grow things (clothes, food, etc.), love people, practice forgiveness and “revolutionary patience” (as opposed to preemptive attacks to rid the world of evil), alternative economics (pooling money, sharing everything, being a “village of interdependence”) and the art of “bustin’ out a can of grace” whenever necessary.
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• DeGarmo & Key, Steve Taylor, Stryper, Petra, U2, getting down with the DC Talk (on a Walkman) • Stonewash tight jeans and Members Only jackets
• Calvary Chapel, Vineyard • Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar
• “Jesus, Inc.” Christian kitsch explodes
• Ska, swing, “skanking,” Supertones • “Organic/alternative/folksy” music: Over the Rhine, Vigilantes of Love, Waterdeep • Christian coffeehouses
it a poor companion for a faith that calls us into community and collective purpose.
How Hipster Hurts Christianity It makes the problem of individualism worse At its core, hip is an individual pursuit. It’s about how I can set myself apart, how I can advance my standing in the world, turn heads toward me, be noticed, be envied, etc. It’s a way to announce oneself to the world, to assert one’s agency against the behemoth of abstracted culture. It’s a way to advertise one’s privileged knowledge about how to look and act in a fashionable way. And all of this is a thoroughly individualistic affair—meant to distance oneself (or at least distinguish oneself) from the pack. In terms of Christianity, this is a problem. Contemporary evangelicalism has drifted away from the corporate tradition of Christianity and adopted a more malleable “spirituality” that traffics in phrases like “do-it-yourself,” “selfhelp” and “your best life now!” That is, we’ve moved from a Christianity that was primarily about living out the Gospel collectively to one that is now almost entirely about “that’s how I like it,” ice cream parlor personal preference. As a result, something so wholeheartedly individualistic and self-serving as “hip” has become commonplace and even virtuous. But I’m convinced it is actually a hindrance. “Hip” says we can and should rely on our own devices in terms of how we define ourselves. It calls us to be different and unique and not bound by the norms and standardizations of group culture. There’s a reason why you rarely hear people talking about how “that group or institution or belief system is so cool!” Cool is by nature something that happens in small doses and in the expressions of individuals fighting for recognition and affirmation in a crowded marketplace of attention-getting. This necessarily individualist, egocentric nature of “hip” makes
It alienates people Being fashionable is alienating. Some will argue it is attractive, to which I say yes, but it’s attractive mostly in an invidious way. It’s attractive in the way that someone driving a Porsche is attractive: mostly because we really wish we could be that person. Being fashionable might gain you friends, but more often than not these “friends” are attracted to the image of fashionable association with you more than they are attracted to your personhood or spirit. Chances are they actually can’t stand you. This is cynical, yes, but unfortunately true. “Cool” is ultimately a lonely world because it makes people fear you. It signifies elitism. It makes uncool people really uncomfortable. It makes it hard for cool people and not-so-cool people to mix and enjoy each other’s company. This bodes ill for our churches, which are supposed to be welcoming for all people—both cool and uncool. In most hipster churches today, the demographics are pretty homogenous: mostly white, mostly twentysomething. There are several reasons for this: 1) most every church these days is homogenous, 2) hipsters flock together and 3) when lots of hipsters get together, most other people (especially older people and soccer moms) get as far away as they can. It’s not so hard to see why this is the case. It’s simply uncomfortable to be around people who confidently flaunt their fashion-forwardness or transgressive antiestablishmentarianism.
It fosters pride and vanity Being a hipster does not help one’s ego. Quite the opposite. The whole notion of “cool” is that we are better than the majority—that we are a minority with privileged knowledge and narrow access to whatever is “in” at the moment. Cool advertises the notion that we have everything together and can execute a style or fashion bet-
C hr i s t i a n hip s t e r 1 . 0 1998-2004
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C hr i s t i a n hip s t e r 2 . 0 2005-present
• Thrift store clothes • Organic food and the rise of vegan
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• Pedro the Lion, Switchfoot, Sixpence None the Richer • Worship music enters a cool phase • Charismatic revival: Passion conferences, 24/7 prayer • Voting for George W. Bush, but also loving Radiohead • Protesting the Iraq War • Protesting globalization • Emerging church
ter than just about anyone. It’s an expression of self-aggrandizement and provides coals for the fires of our pride and arrogance. To be hip is to be haughty and elitist, scorning those “lessthans” and “have-nots” who can’t compete with our fashionable aesthetic—in movies, in clothes, in books, in music ... even in food. Hip also fosters vanity. To be overly concerned about one’s appearance—even the “I just rolled out of bed!” look—necessitates a huge amount of time in front of the mirror. It means we lose sleep over shoes and cardigans. It means we are strategic about every piece of clothing we put on, even if it only cost $4 at a thrift store. You don’t have to read far in the New Testament to recognize all of this is pretty unChristian. Christ says we should not be anx-
bike is a rebellion against gasoline, etc. ... The point is: to be a hipster is to be a rebel. If you want to keep the rules and abide by established conventions, you can only be so cool. Rebellion itself is not a bad thing, of course. It’s sometimes called for and frequently productive. Jesus was a rebel. He was God incarnate; how could He not be? But His purpose was higher than just subverting the norms and standards for rebellion’s sake. Hipster culture today elevates rebellion as an end unto itself, and this is problematic. Being “cool” requires we bend the rules or break them, because rules are oppressive and systems of control are highly dubious. As a result, the hipster existence is frequently rife with vices. If hipsters can’t completely
The central logic of hip is rebellion. Every incarnation of hip is a rebellion against something. ious about clothing (Matthew 6:25, 28; Luke 12:23). In Philippians 2:3, Paul instructs Christians to “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (NIV). In Romans, there is the directive to not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought (12:3). And what about that mandate for all followers of Christ to “deny [themselves] and take up [their] cross daily”? It’s hard to deny yourself or take up any cross daily when you spend 10 minutes trying to decide which pair of sunglasses to wear and how high to roll up your skinny jeans before leaving the house in the morning.
It’s too much about rebellion The central logic of hip is rebellion. It’s about asserting one’s own personal agency against the forces that be. Every incarnation of hip is a rebellion against something. Trendy fashion is a rebellion against convention. Jazz is a rebellion against strict meter. Riding a fixed-gear
overthrow the structures that bind them, they can at least destabilize and unnerve those structures by engaging in hedonistic, naughty behavior. It’s about freedom, partying and transgression. If you aren’t willing to engage in at least some vices, it will be hard for you to maintain any sort of hipster credibility. This is one of the most important and common sources of tension for the Christian hipster. This is where the inherent dissonance in cool Christianity creates the most ruptures. I’ve known many young Christians (myself included) who have engaged in these “vices” to an unhealthy extent—in the name of “fun” and “cool,” but chiefly “rebellion.” All these things were forbidden and unfairly demonized in evangelicalism for so long, and now the pendulum is swinging. Christian hipsters are rebelling against that old legalism and proclaiming their “freedom in Christ.” But the life of a Christian is about putting to death our earthly desires, right? (Colossians
• Skinny jeans, v-necks, Ray-Bans • Fixed-gear bikes • TOMS shoes, Invisible Children • Tattoos • Rob Bell, Don Miller, Mark Driscoll • Obama (aka, voting Democrat for the first time) • Pitchfork as Bible • ‘60s fashion • Liturgy, Catholic prayer candles • Sufjan, Welcome Wagon, Danielson
3:5) It’s about meditating on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and commendable (Philippians 4:8), not flirting with darkness and the corrupt, right? If so, how can we justify living into the patterns of hipster hedonism and rebellion, which esteems vice and shuns the alternative as prudish legalism?
At the end of the day, the moral of this story is that appearances do matter. Many young, fashionable Christians would like to think that looking and being “cool” should not affect or be affected by being a Christian. Why should being Christian spoil all the fun of being a hipster? “Can’t I continue to smoke cloves, dress like a thrift store bohemian, look down on people for liking Daughtry and also be a Christian?” Christian hipsters tend to find refuge in this sort of dualism, refusing to believe there might be anything implicitly unChristian in the hipster way of life. But lurking beneath this belief is a sort of gnostic assumption that “being a Christian” is mostly a spiritual thing rather than a physical, embodied thing. Christianity, they might think, mostly has to do with believing things and loving people, and has little if anything to do with the clothes we wear, or whether we smoke or get tattoos. But it seems much more likely that these things do matter, at least somewhat. Christianity is always an embodied thing, and plays out in the material, cultural, socioeconomic world. And this means we have to think about how Christ is seen through our lives in a holistic way. The “hipster” image is rife with implications and associations and messages that mean something to the world. Can Christ be seen in the midst of the oft-reviled, oft-lampooned hipster lifestyle? Sure. But it might be harder than you think.
BRETT M cCRACKEN is the author of Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide (Baker Books). He works for Biola University in Los Angeles.
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Black Rebel Motorcycle Club BY kevin selders
44 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
Tessa Angus
didn’t really know how to communicate to someone else how to play or what we’re going for, you know, we don’t really use words when we go into the studio and we write. She just had an intuitive sense of what was missing and what was needed. And through writing the songs as a band it felt like there was music to be made together. We just kind of went with what the music was asking. We didn’t really steer it, thankfully. It just kind of happened one night by accident. That’s the best way it can happen.
What were some other influences on the album, or did you really take a “let’s see what happens” approach to recording?
early a decade after breaking through with their critically acclaimed debut album, B.R.M.C., Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is still making music and gaining accolades, even as they continue to evolve their sound. After covering shoegaze and classic psychedelia with their first two albums, they experimented with a stomping folk sound on Howl and Baby 81 before making a completely instrumental album (The Effects of 333). And now they’ve released Beat the Devil’s Tattoo, showcasing a new drummer and a strong collection of their brand of sneering rock ‘n’ roll and front porch, acoustic singalongs. Robert Levon Been, a founding band member, who plays bass, guitar, piano, writes lyrics and sings, recently discussed Devil’s Tattoo, where all the gritty Christian imagery in their lyrics comes from and what circumstances led to them almost being arrested in Germany.
On your website, you’re encouraging fans to submit photos of their “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo” graffiti tags. That’s quite a marketing campaign ...
We were trying our best not to steer it toward anything, at least in the beginning, because we could’ve missed what it was meant to be or what it wanted to be, so we tried to stay out of the way the best we could. I think near the end of the album, we were listening to a lot of Stooges and a lot of Elvis and Doors, and those kinds of things ended up leaking on production-wise, you know, going for certain sounds. I don’t know, I watched one too many David Lynch movies. It felt like—more than anything—being in love with music again. We kind of fell out of [that] feeling for a while, [but] we started getting all of those feelings again. I remember it being a good reminder of why we’re doing this.
“A s fa r a s s p iri t u a l i t y goe s , I s t il l h av e more que s t ion s t h a n a n s w er s a b ou t i t, a nd I hop e i t s tay s t h at way f or a s l ong a s p o s s ibl e . S omeho w t h at s eem s l ik e t he way y ou k eep i t a l i v e , y ou k eep y our o w n s p iri t a l i v e .”
We’re not encouraging them to tag. We’re just encouraging them to submit their photos if they’ve already done it, for the record. [laughs] We did a bunch of them in the beginning. It was just [some] stupid idea late at night where we wanted to see what kind of trouble we could get into. It seemed like something like the mark of the beast, and it seemed to feel right for this album and us taking the reigns back as far as we’ve got our own label and more of a do-it-yourself kind of feel. We don’t have any money for ads, anyway, so you’ve got to get the word out any way you can.
Have you heard of anybody getting arrested doing that? Not yet, except for ourselves in Berlin, which we ended up getting out of it. I can’t tell you how (or everyone would do it), but I’ve got a really good story that works if you’re in a bind.
Beat the Devil’s Tattoo seems like a mix of your previous work with a new feel to it. How did you approach the making of this album? It kind of all started when we had a falling-out with our old drummer, Nick Jago. We kind of didn’t know which direction we wanted to go. It was the last thing on our minds. Thankfully, we found Leah Shapiro, who played with this band called Dead Combo, and we were really into her style of drumming so we asked her just to do some European dates. When we toured with her in Europe and [we were] just fooling around at sound check, we came up with a lot of really cool ideas for things. It just kind of happened naturally. We weren’t really putting the pressure on to make an album straight off the bat. We were just trying to learn the old songs and get through that tour, but it sounded really good and it came natural. I don’t think any of us expected that. We’d just been with Nick for so many years, we
You guys have been together about a decade as a band—after the lineup changes and the changes in your sound, where do you see yourselves as a band in the future? I never expected to get this far. It’s a bit of a shock that we’re still here and people are still asking us to come play shows halfway around the world. There is still music to be made, and when there isn’t, we’ll bow out and let someone else give it a shot if they think they can. [laughs] It’s a lot easier than it looks. I mean, wait, no the opposite of that. It’s a lot harder than it looks. Actually, both are true. Don’t quit your day job—just make sure your day job is making rock ‘n’ roll. And give yourself a raise.
What influenced the song “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo,” lyrically? The actual final line, I thread the needle through/ You beat the devil’s tattoo, wasn’t finished until the day before we had to deliver the album to the label. We came up with the album title from this Edgar Allen Poe short story. We liked it so much that I started humming it in my head and then thought that would go really cool at the end of [the song]. So we went in late at night and recorded these vocals at the end. Once that ending came, we felt it was the missing piece of the puzzle.
Spirituality seems to run through your lyrics on each album to varying degrees. What would you say is your own faith background, and does it play into your lyrics? I’m sure it does, but we try to keep ourselves out of it as much as possible. You kind of get more out of it by asking questions than giving answers. As far as spirituality goes, I still have more questions than answers about it, and I hope it stays that way for as long as possible. Somehow that
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seems like the way you keep it alive, you keep your own spirit alive. It seems a little too easy or comfortable to think you can sum it all up and live your life on one path and one path only for everyone. I don’t really believe that. It’s in all the music. Music is spirit. I just don’t think it has much to do with any one particular religion. I don’t think any religion’s been able to sum it up, so it stays a mystery, which means it will stay beautiful.
As much as some artists shy away from Christian themes and imagery, there are also the artists whose music drips with it: Elvis, Dylan, Johnny Cash, U2. Where does that come from in your music? [Long pause] When I think about it, it feels like it’s narrative. And I don’t know if that’s the way society is now, or how I’ve been taught what religion is and what it kind of brings to the table. Music seems bigger than that— everyone’s included and everyone can come together under a song. It doesn’t really matter who you are or what you believe in. That’s kind of why rock ‘n’ roll is the best religion we’ve found so far, you know, because everyone can be involved in it. I wish it didn’t feel that way. I think there are some really brilliant messages in Christianity, and it’s sad that when it’s brought up with music, it seems like it’s forced upon it rather than just welcome at the table as everyone is and should be. It’s strange. I don’t really know why that is. Maybe everyone’s got a different interpretation of it. It might just be as simple as that.
“ T h at ’ s k ind of w h y r oc k ‘ n ’ r ol l i s t he be s t rel igion w e ’ v e f ound s o fa r , y ou k no w, bec a u s e e v er y one c a n be in v olv ed in i t.”
In a lot of the songs throughout your albums you’ll mention Christ, but it’s almost with anger. For example, in “White Palms,” you chant, “Jesus, I dare you to come back.” Why is that? That was kind of more the lashing out. There’s a lot of anger to be had with any religion, but I think that’s a good thing. I don’t know why it’s portrayed most of the time that you should show “be happy and loving and boldfaced in compassion for all things.” That’s just not the way the human experience is. You’re going to reject that sometimes and yourself because you can’t love everybody all the time.
You get into the areas of sin and evil frequently, too. Is that just you tackling traditional “rock ‘n’ roll” topics, or is there more behind it? I think heaven and hell are a bit overrated and evil. [That] the Devil and things exist in the mind and here on Earth a lot more than in some fantasy world far off in the distance. Sin, judgment, guilt and all these things
The two sides of brmc B.R.M.C. The band’s debut album, it’s got shoegaze-y, Britrock swagger. Think Jesus and Mary Chain.
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Howl This 2005 album is when BRMC let go of shoegaze and fully embraced stomping, country rock.
are human frailties that we all gotta go through. You can’t really put them on the back of the bogeyman. I don’t think one man is going to come and save us all. That’s a little off-base and fairly simple to understand, which is why I think most people subscribe to it. I don’t think it’s quite accurate. The blues has always been wrestling with your own demons and making deals with anybody—as long as he lets you play guitar. [laughs]
You haven’t shied away from political topics either. “U.S. Government” and “American X” have that rage you were talking about. Where does that come from? It’s just about being aware of what’s going on around you. We try not to preach about anything. That can leave a bad taste in my own mouth, let alone someone else’s. It’s just being aware of the world you live in, starting with your hometown, your family. It’s a pretty good thing to be conscious. Most people point to “play your part to make your life better”— at least that’s what they’re selling this week.
You guys support several causes, including The Truth Isn’t Sexy, the Not For Sale Campaign and CLUE. Why is it important for you to support causes like that? It’s just people we’ve met, come across along the road that opened our eyes to things that are a lot bigger than our band and music. If we can help in any way, it’s always the best avenue to go through music to make change—and with some of them you have to just kind of do it yourself. We try to turn people on or at least show them it’s there, and if they’re interested in joining up, they just become more knowledgeable of a situation, especially with the Not For Sale Campaign. It’s a lot bigger than anyone can imagine. You have to know what’s going on around you— incredible injustice. It’s an unbelievable world we live in that we keep our eyes closed to. We try not to sell it or be spokesmen for any one thing. You can turn plenty of people off. If people want to actually do something, they’ll find their way. You’re not going to wake up the dead.
Why just pointing fingers at BP isn’t enough by jonathan merritt When a drill column on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, no one could have predicted it would wreak so much havoc. The explosion itself killed 11 people, but the fallout over the past four months made it the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Untold millions of gallons of oil have leaked into the surrounding waters, killing marine wildlife and birds and wrecking economies in the already suffering Gulf Coast. More than 12,000 Louisiana residents have filed for unemployment. How does one respond to such a tragedy? Should we disregard what’s happening and simply let the “experts” handle it? Do we blame BP and see to it that this is their last hoorah? Or maybe we should seize the opportunity to attack our political foes? In what seems to be a case of PR schizophrenia, the American Christian community has reacted in each of these ways, none of which are making any sort of progress.
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The Christian response so far: an overview Ignoring it. Some Christians have responded with little more than a yawn.
They seem apathetic to what is going on in the Gulf. A search of many Christian news outlets and religious organizations’ websites returns few to no results. Extolling it. According to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, about one-third of America’s 60 million white evangelicals believe the world will end in their lifetime, and a surprisingly large portion of them believe the oil spill is a sign of the apocalypse. Theodore Turner, a pastor in Louisiana, told CBS he was sure this marked the end. Lisa Miller of Newsweek called this response “a growing conversation among Christian fundamentalists.” Pointing fingers. Anger and blame seem to be the most common reaction. Some prominent Christian leaders—among them those who have fought government environmental regulation in the past—are turning the tragedy into an opportunity. Sarah Palin and Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council, for example, have responded by lobbing bombs at the Obama administration. Others have lashed out against BP malfeasance, and many are even boycotting the Brits.
The first two responses aren’t very helpful. No one ever solves a crisis with complacency, and focusing exclusively on future events does little to address our present problems. But the most common reaction—angry finger-pointing—is outright counterproductive and often subverts the changes most of us long for. Anger distances us—it allows us to put the fault on an impersonal “they” instead of recognizing our own culpability and taking responsibility for our part. In our efforts to find someone to blame, we’ve missed an opportunity to assess and address our real problems. Rather than attacking others, perhaps we need to begin looking inward.
A bubbling addiction It’s been 48 years since Jed Clampett sold his property in the Ozark swamp to the OK Oil Company and headed for Beverly Hills, but the oil industry is still big business. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, OPEC revenues this year are expected to reach nearly $800 billion. North America, dominated by the United States, is the largest consumer globally. To put that number into perspective, that’s nearly $1 trillion of net proceeds spent on a product, which is partly responsible for our smoggy skylines, record high childhood asthma rates and a warming climate that threatens the lives of untold millions. Additionally, many OPEC nations are run by petrol-dictatorships that suppress women and persecute Christians. “Through our energy purchases we are funding both sides of the war on terror,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes. “I cannot think of anything more stupid.” Americans have recognized and subsequently failed to solve this conundrum for some time. The increased fuel efficiency standards passed in 2007 were the first big increase in 32 years, and we’re still well behind many other countries. “Over the last 25 years, opportunities to head off the current crisis were ignored, missed or deliberately blocked, according to analysts, politicians and veterans of the oil and automobile industries,” says Nelson Schwartz of The New York Times. “What’s more, for all the surprise at just how high oil prices have climbed, and fears for the future, this is one crisis we were warned about. Ever since the oil shortages of the 1970s, one report after another has cautioned against America’s oil addiction.” Since 1974, American presidents have all said we should end our dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, when it came to making a Where there’s smoke, there’s fire Smoke billows from controlled burns of oil on the surface of the water near the site of the BP Plc Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, U.S., on Saturday, June 19, 2010. (Photo by: Derick E. Hingle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
the difficult decisions necessary to change, most of these presidents made little progress. For example, President George W. Bush once said in a State of the Union Address, “America is addicted to oil.” When asked at a news conference if Americans needed to do anything about their high energy consumption, Bush’s spokesperson, Ari Fleischer, said, “The president believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policymakers to protect the American way of life.” “Because of politicians’ inability to act, there is very little incentive to get off foreign oil. So we keep shipping money overseas, then we burn up the oil we buy, and then we ship more. But we never see that money again,” says Christopher Steiner, author of $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better. As our current president attempts to deal with the oil spill, he faces the same criticism as those who came before him, but we must realize politicians share only a portion of the blame. Every day, Americans have grown quietly comfortable with a society that needs the infamous “black gold” to operate. It’s not just our cars, either. Look around you, and you’ll notice almost everything in the room where you sit is likely an energy-consuming device. Light bulbs, computers, cell phones and even the food you eat and the clothes you’re wearing came about as the result of large energy investments. Americans have an addictive personality. Whether it is anxiety medication, television or oil, overuse has become an epidemic of modern American society. At the top, we have politicians who are unwilling to make the tough decisions necessary to push America into a sustainable future, and at the bottom, we have hundreds of millions of Americans who, with the way they’re living, proclaim that they are just fine with the way things are—oil spill or not. “It is pretty clear that this has not affected Americans’ day-to-day life, except those who live in the Gulf,” Steiner says. “Sure, it has made us angry, but we turn that anger off when we go to bed. It doesn’t affect people in Chicago and New York and San Francisco. We aren’t driving less or using less energy.” Meanwhile, our current need for nonrenewable energy like oil has contributed to a spike in environmentally linked diseases, a warming climate, oppressive petroldictatorships and disproportionate energy consumption between the wealthy and wanting worlds. Subsequently, the demand for that nonrenewable energy has created a need for oil rigs like Deepwater Horizon. Unfortunately, our most common responses are distracting us from really making progress in a moment when progress couldn’t be more necessary.
The BP OIl Spill a timeline
April 20 | Explosion on Deepwater Horizon kills 11, injures 17 others. May 3 | A flotilla of 200 boats is sent to the Gulf to begin containment operations. May 12 | James Dupree, BP’s senior vice president for the Gulf, admits that a safety valve protecting the oil well failed a key pressure test just hours before the explosion. May 18 | Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, assures the media that the environmental impact of the spill will be “very, very modest.” May 28 | “Top Kill” procedure attempted to plug the spill. June 1 | BP admits that Top Kill has failed. June 20 | Internal BP document estimates spill could be releasing up to 100,000 barrels per day. July 9 | Tar balls show up in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. July 12 | BP installs cap (named “Top Hat 10”) with hopes to contain the oil until relief wells can be built in August. July 15 | BP confirms they have stopped the leak for the first time since April 20. Late july | BP drills relief well, which permanently stops the leak. Hayward announces he’ll resign in October. He’ll then work at a BP joint venture in Russia, TNK-BP.
Oil Consumption by Country In thousand barrels per day
1 United States
6 Germany
2 China
7 Brazil
3 Japan
8 Canada
4 Russia
9 Saudi Arabia
5 India
10 South Korea
20,680
7,578
5,007
2,858
2,722
2,456
2,372
2,371
2,311
2,214
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a Yeah, that’s Water In this satellite image, vessels are seen at the site of the oil spill June 15 in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo by DigitalGlobe via Getty Images)
in our efforts to find someone to blame, we’ve missed an opportunity to assess and address our real problems. Where would Jesus drill? The debate over our oil addiction seems to center on where to drill. Politicians often talk about opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) region for drilling or constructing more offshore rigs. But does this address the fundamental problem of dependency, or simply slap a Band-Aid over it? Experts say more domestic drilling will not wean us from our oil addiction, and won’t even make much of a difference on foreign oil purchases or the price of gasoline. As Dr. Robert W. Hahn of Georgetown University’s Center for Business and Public Policy writes, ”Development of ANWR and off-limits OCS [Outer Continental Shelf] is likely to have only a modest impact on future world—and thus domestic—oil prices, on the order of 1 percent.” If we realize the problem is unhealthy addiction, it seems the solution should be weaning our dependency, not increasing supply. Doing otherwise is akin to a cocaine addict fighting his addiction by planting more coca plants at home so he won’t have to purchase from a South American dealer. We do well to reflect on the words of Jesus in Matthew 23:23-24 (NIV): Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
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The Pharisees were laser-focused on the minutiae of the Law and overlooking the big picture foundations of the Law itself. They were majoring on minors (“straining out a gnat”) and minoring on majors (“swallowing a camel”). In their pursuit of the symptomatic expressions of sin, they had neglected the root of the problem: their sinful hearts. Isn’t this an enduring tendency of all human beings? Do we not often wrestle with the symptoms of our problems and avoid the diseases that truly afflict us? To put a finer point on it, what does it profit us to focus on getting more oil into the system or attacking derelict politicians if we refuse to address our unsustainable system itself? If Christians are going to be faithful to our calling as cultural restorers, we must get serious about the fundamental brokenness in our system.
Taking the soft path out of the Gulf In 1977, a 29-year-old physicist named Amory Lovins published a controversial article in Foreign Affairs entitled “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?” In it, he declared that Americans had come to an energy crossroads and must take one of two paths. The road we were currently traveling—“the hard path”— promised greater dependence on fossil fuels, a steep rise in carbon dioxide emissions and serious environmental consequences. But we didn’t have to continue trodding this way, Lovins said. We could begin favoring renewable energy sources, such as wind and sun, and begin aggressively conserving energy in our
everyday lives. He dubbed this “the soft path” and argued it would lead us to a healthier future with a cleaner world, fewer wars over oil, a flourishing economy and decreased dependence on foreign oil. Lovins’ words were hotly debated but largely unheeded. And today we find ourselves in a world with the same energy struggle of 23 years ago. The oil-drenched Gulf Coast sits in silent reproach of a society that has chosen the hard road for far too long. We can continue to respond with apathy, theological posturing and misdirected anger. Or we can become an impetus for redirecting culture to a softer, better path through changing political and social expectations. Demand energy reform. Evangelical Christians have always had an uneasy conscience when it comes to environmental regulation. “Because we believe in free markets, we’ve acted as though this means we should trust corporations to protect the natural resources and habitats,” says Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Seminary. “But a laissez-faire view of government regulation of corporations is akin to the youth minister who lets the teenage girl and boy sleep in the same sleeping bag at church camp because he ‘believes in young people.’” The government is endowed by God, Moore argues, to restrain those who would otherwise do harm. We need to demand our elected officials enact prudent legislation that will properly regulate the oil industry, raise CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards and incentivize the development of renewable energy. Conserve. The Christian call to simplicity is as timely as it’s ever been. We need fresh thinking in our homes, offices and churches. Gasoline consumption can be mitigated if we carpool, walk and bike whenever possible. We need to recolonize walkable communities and learn to conserve energy from lights, appliances, heating and air conditioning. Change must derive from the will of people, families and those in the private sector. Now is the time for Christians to respond with a vision for a better way. Christians could be—no, should be—leading these discussions to make sure we emerge from the oily mire a stronger, healthier, better people. If we miss this opportunity, Americans won’t just lose faith in big corporations and the government; they’ll lose faith in faith. Jonathan Merritt is the author of Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet (FaithWords).
Stars
Using music to unpack life’s (and death’s) biggest mysteries
BY JESSICA MISENER
Norman wong
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O
n
a warm summer night in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Torquil Campbell, one of the lead singers of Stars, is onstage surrounded by keyboards; but he’s not projecting the image of the traditional rock ‘n’ roll frontman. Instead, he’s tossing flower petals everywhere. “Our band started here in 1997, and it sure has changed since then!” he tells the sold-out crowd with a smile, shredding a white flower he’ll later tuck into the mic stand. As rose petals rain down around him, he grabs a melodica and blows into the mouthpiece, easing the band into the plaintive lilts of “Your Ex-Lover is Dead.” Campbell is referring to the gentrification of the New York hipster neighborhood, where Stars has stopped on the first leg of their summer tour, but he could just as easily be talking about the metamorphosis of the band itself. In the decade or so the band has been around, it’s moved from a mostly electronic band only briefly featuring female vocals, to a fleshed-out, baroque pop group with co-lead singer and guitarist Amy Millan front and center. “We’re always trying to reach deeper into ourselves with every album,” Millan says. “I think that both individually and as a group, we work together well when we write, and the five of us have gotten closer as a result,” echoes keyboardist Chris Seligman. They’ve been penning songs
tete-a-tete since their genesis in Canada in 2000—where Campbell and Seligman moved after hatching the idea for the band in New York—and for the past decade, Stars has followed a slow-burning orbit around the indie stratosphere. Set Yourself on Fire spawned the breakout single “Ageless Beauty” in 2004, and they’ve since released a slew of EPs, cover songs and an LP, culminating in the release of their fifth full-length album, The Five Ghosts, in June of this year. “When I first tried out for Stars, the chemistry was immediate,” says Millan, who joined the band when Campbell, Seligman and bassist Evan Cranley were auditioning lead vocalists in 1999. “I felt like I was at home, like I had found my people. “Torquil and I always write characters into our songs,” Millan continues. “Evan and Chris write us very thematic music, and then we try to match that sound in words.” But Stars’ sound has always been a paradoxical tension. Millan’s angelic vocals dovetail seamlessly into Campbell’s, and the band’s
“No one ever went broke writing songs about heartbreak,” Millan jokes. With album titles like In Our Bedroom After the War, it’s clear Stars is intent on mining the vernacular of apocalypse and ruin to evoke the downfall of love. But underneath all the melancholy is an underpinning of hope. The most powerful fuel burning behind the band has always been their profundity. By keeping a tenacious devotion to deep lyrics, Stars has managed to avoid the major pitfall of twee indie pop bands; that is, making music that’s much too maudlin. Whether it’s despondency in “Take Me to the Riot,” or workaholism in “Elevator Love Letter,” the band hasn’t shied away from delving into the thorny aspects of love and life, and fittingly, the catalyst behind their latest album was grief. During the writing of Ghosts, Campbell experienced a pair of life-changing events: he became a father (with his wife, actress Moya O’Connell), and his own father, Canadian stage actor Douglas Campbell, passed away. “One thing I’ve learned from
“We all mourned the death of Torquil’s dad,” Millan says, admitting that they were all close to him. At the time, Seligman was renting an apartment in a gritty part of downtown Vancouver and says he experienced a ghostly presence each night, leading to insufferable insomnia. “I’ve always been drawn to the sadder side of music and its more haunting qualities,” Seligman says. “The idea of the record began with me, feeling like I was actually haunted by ghosts and me dealing with actually being afraid of being haunted by this presence. When Torquil’s dad passed, we all got to thinking about death and mourning and haunting.” Do they believe we are literally haunted by the souls of the past? “I really hope so,” Campbell says. “I mean, I’m really praying for it. And I don’t even know what’s up there. But if anyone knows anyone who can get a message to the ghosts out there, tell them I love them.” Millan is more cagey. “None of us know the answer to that, and
“Every rite of passage in life is celebrated through music, whether it’s the banging of a drum, or singing a gospel song. Life, death, love—they’re all expressed through music.”—Amy Millan keyboard-based sonic layers create music that sounds lighter than dreams, while possessing an incisive depth that surpasses most precocious indie pop. “There’s a certain obsession that Stars has with hooks,” Millan says. “Chris will come up with a really good hook, and the rest of us will contribute a lyric here or a chord change there, and before you know it we’ve created a beautiful song as a team.” Teamwork began to pay off for the fledgling band, and in 2006 they opened for Coldplay. Landing songs on the soundtrack for The O.C. further boosted the band’s visibility, setting their love paeans against the backdrop of tortured teen romance.
having a child is that music helps with absolutely everything,” Campbell says. “It is as natural to sing as it is to breathe. Breathing definitely helps you get over death. But you know what? You don’t get over it. And telling people about your experience of death is like telling them something they already know. It comes around us. It comes into us. Every single one of us is entitled to be afraid of it and live in it and move toward it our entire lives.” “I can’t deny I’m in these songs,” Campbell said in the runup to Ghosts’ release. “I’ve always written from a kind of theatrical perspective, which I’m still doing, but the guy in the film might look a lot like me this time.”
that’s the major theme of the album,” she says. “If you have a dream, and a dead person comes to you in a dream, is that your brain helping you reconnect with them, or are they literally visiting you in your sleep? No one knows. “There’s a very old gospel hymn I like that says, ‘The circle will be unbroken,’” she continues. “The thought of losing loved ones forever is so devastating. It’s the idea that we will all be lifted up and be reunited in death.” For The Five Ghosts, the band returns to producer Tom McFall, who fiddled the knobs for 2005’s Set Yourself on Fire. “We wanted to work with someone who would really push us and challenge us,” Seligman
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“If a dead person comes to you in a dream, is that your brain helping you reconnect with them, or are they literally visiting you in your sleep? No one knows.” —Amy Millan says, “while also being someone we knew would understand where we wanted to go with the record.” “He became the sixth member of the band when he worked on our previous album, and we all loved him,” Millan adds. “We actually met him at a radio show in London, and he turned out to be the nicest person in England.” They also decided to drop the Canadian release of the album on their own record label, Soft Revolution, and have plans to get all of their music on that label. As Stars continue to mine their talent, they’re not limiting themselves to one creative facet. Millan released her second solo album, Masters of the Burial, in late 2009, and most of the band’s members also do stints in indie supergroup Broken Social Scene. “Broken Social Scene is like the mistress, but Stars is our wife,” Millan says with a laugh. “The important thing is not how big our band gets, but how long it lasts,” she adds.
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The Five Ghosts is at once familiar and experimental for fans of the band. Crackling with buzzy synthesizers and rich bass melodies, the songs traverse the bounds of haunted love with a keen emotional acumen. At the same time, “We Don’t Want Your Body” and “I Died So I Could Haunt You” belie their ominous titles to comprise some of the most upbeat, rock-driven music the band has produced. As they toured internationally this summer in support of Ghosts, Stars played their thenunreleased record live in its entirety. But as a reward, fans got
a treat: they got to pick the set lists for every show by casting votes on the band’s website. “We always like coming up with unique ideas, and it was a payoff for the fans for forcing them to sit through a whole album of music they’d never heard before,” Millan says. Millan’s eccentric way of dealing with stage fright also inspired her to pen the chorus of the album’s lead-off track. “They say when you’re onstage, you’re supposed to look out and picture everyone naked,” she says, “but I do something different. I look out and picture everyone dead, because everyone in the audience will in fact be dead someday. Every single heart will one day stop beating, and that’s the vision that made me write that chorus [to ‘Dead Hearts’], ‘Dead hearts are everywhere.’ And it does make me less nervous.
“Every rite of passage in life is celebrated through music, whether it’s the banging of a drum, or singing a gospel song. Life, death, love—they’re all expressed through music,” Millan continues. “I know through a lot of the letters we’ve received that a lot of people have been lifted and carried through a dark period in their life through the music of Stars, and that’s the whole point of what we do. We do it for them. We’re not the kind of band that’s about the face of the band. It’s not about us.” Millan says she just has to look out at that audience to remember her role—and the role of music— in daily life: “If you look at the audience, most of the audience isn’t even looking at us during our shows. The girls are making out with their boyfriends. We’re just the soundtrack to the starring role that is their lives.”
The Stars Guide to a sappy Mix Tape Elevator love letter (Heart) If you don’t love this song, you might not have a heart. No pun intended.
Ageless Beauty (Set yourself on fire) It’s just what it sounds like. It’s treacly, but so driving you have to like it.
Going, Going, gone (Sad Robots ep) This song will make you wish you were 15 and experiencing the first pangs of love.
HAVE WE
DRAWN THE WRONG
FINISH “This book will help you understand and reach the next generation.” Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church and author of Primal
LINE?
How do we keep college-aged people engaged in faith? They need their faith communities more than ever. So what’s the answer? You. The Slow Fade offers insight and suggestions and makes a compelling case for personal, intergenerational relationships as the way to stop the slow fade.
Redraw the EQUIP line in your student ministry THE PARENTS AND LEADERS IN YOUR CHURCH and STOP the slow fade. 800.323.7543 www.davidccook.com
The Slow Fade, available at bookstores everywhere.
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5 shows redeeming tv >>>>>
RELEVANT looks at TV’s most acclaimed shows— and finds God in unexpected roles
Jon Hamm and January Jones in Mad Men
We’re in a new golden age of TV. Shows like Lost, The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica and The Wire have done what television has never dared to do. They tell stories that aren’t simple, and they use their episodic structure to maximum effect—telling stories movies simply don’t have the time to tell. As a result, their characters can be more difficult or prickly, and their storylines don’t need to resolve in two hours (or 20). These shows explore life in ways TV never has before—the happy Full House hug and cheesy score is a thing of the past. One of the more unexpected things in this new golden age is that suddenly God is all over TV. Maybe it’s not that surprising—when
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humankind makes art that challenges us, it’s usually because someone is asking the big questions, and those are almost always addressed to or about God. But the way these shows approach God and portray people living for—or in opposition to—Him gives us a lot to chew on. Here are five TV shows saying really interesting things about God, morality and faith. None of them are necessarily “safe”—they show plenty of bad decisions being made, and often the consequences are messier than the decisions. But through all that, these shows and their characters reveal a sometimes surprising and always meaningful perspective on God’s love and His purposes.
copyright 2010 amc
Mad Men By Ryan Hamm
The most critically acclaimed show on television has a lot to say about morality and God’s forgiveness, even if it takes a messy road to get there Perhaps the most surprising thing about Mad Men is that it deserves all of the accolades and awards it receives. It’s a show that dwells in nuance, in the gray spaces between the black and white, and does so with such aplomb that it catches you off guard when you realize the show is challenging your own assumptions about people—and making you understand the often immoral actions of its characters, even when you strongly disagree. The world of Mad Men is the world of the late ’60s, magnified for effect. The characters smoke like chimneys, drink as if it’s last call all day and seem to think the sacrament of marriage is more of a suggestion than a commitment. They’re casually sexist, racist and homophobic. Their concern with saving face and social status trumps all other considerations. What could a show like this have to teach us about morality and God? As it turns out, plenty. The more you watch, the more obvious it becomes that Mad Men is also a very subtle moral show. It doesn’t smack you over the head with its lessons, and it gives both sides of the story. But we know what right and wrong are—the show doesn’t glamorize its vices. If anything, the vices’ consequences are shown for full effect as the characters wrestle with their repercussions. Lead character (it’d be wrong to call him “hero” or “antihero”) Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is the most complicated character on television. In a season one episode, Don tells a lover “this is all there is.” And he lives like it—he knows what he should do and how he should live, and even manages to be a good husband and father occasionally. But then he remembers the hole in his soul and tries to fill it with drinking, work and women. It wouldn’t be far off to rephrase his quote and use it for the theme of his life: “Is this all there is?” It’s the times when he values his family above himself and makes moral choices that the light comes
on in Draper’s eyes. When he tells his estranged wife he wants to make it work, you believe him—because he believes himself. And then he goes and messes it up again and is too prideful to ask for forgiveness. As the third season of Mad Men came to a close, it was obvious the proverbial chickens had come home to roost. Don lost everything and is now forced to begin anew. He’s (finally) seen there are consequences for his actions. He sees that his actions cause hurt to those he loves. There is hope that this time he’ll be able to make it work, that this time he’ll find what he’s looking for. But the sins of his past that he keeps ducking have found him before—and they’ll find him again. One of the major story arcs of season two is also one of the most explicit when it comes to God’s presence in the world of Mad Men. Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), the first female copywriter at Draper’s ad agency and symbol of female empowerment, begins attending church at the behest of her devoutly Catholic mother. She befriends a
the minds of Americans, Father Gill’s thoughts drift to eternity. “As Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Castro push our leadership toward the threat of nuclear war,” he says during a sermon, “it is tempting to be angry. But I urge all of you to remember that even on the cross, Jesus forgave His transgressors. And though we cannot control these frightening events, let us take charge of our own souls, and let us prepare ourselves for the most important summit meeting of all.” And then, because this show doesn’t let any character get away without showing us at least a few of their flaws, he again talks to Peggy, and warns her she is in danger of Hell if she doesn’t reconcile herself to God. But contrary to his other interactions, it’s in a rough, thoughtless manner—as if the time for a reminder of Christ’s forgiveness is over and the intensity of the situation requires a “turn-orburn” strategy. It’s no coincidence that one of the closing shots of the episode is Peggy sitting in bed, praying silently and making the Sign of the Cross.
Father Gill’s message is bracing in its simplicity: “There is no sin too great to bring to God.” visiting priest, the young Father John Gill (Colin Hanks), who offers Peggy a continual message of redemption. Peggy’s sin (no spoilers here— suffice it to say it’s a big deal) rules her heart and actions. It makes her defensive, vulnerable in all the wrong ways and constantly wracked with guilt. Father Gill’s message is bracing in its simplicity: “There is no sin too great to bring to God,” he says. “You can reconcile yourself with Him and have a whole new start.” But it’s nothing compared to his next question: “Do you feel you don’t deserve His love?” Peggy’s tearful silence is all the answer we need. Later in the season, as the Cuban Missile Crisis consumes
It doesn’t need to be said—she’s somehow reconciled herself to God, and found peace in His forgiveness. It’s another reminder that God works through people—even when we mess up how we communicate His message. This is perhaps the greatest trait of Mad Men. The morality in the show is cloaked in distinct immorality. The road to get to where these characters end up is bumpy; perhaps as bumpy, immoral and ridiculous as reality. But it’s a show that teaches us about the consequences of our sins, our ultimate frailty, the fleetingness of the pleasures we seek out and, perhaps most compellingly, a forgiving God who’s always willing to reconcile us, if we’d only ask.
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>>>>>
Friday Night Lights By Brett McCracken
The criminally under-watched show has a lot to say about family, faith, Texas, relationships—and yes, how obsessed people get with football It’s easy to look at Friday Night Lights and say: “It’s just a football show. I’ve already seen Varsity Blues.” Easy, that is, until you actually watch a couple episodes and discover it’s about so much more. Lights is a show about contemporary life. Small town, Texas life. Drenched in nostalgia, adolescent angst and Midwestern truisms (Dairy Queen, sports radio, Applebees), the show bursts forth with quotidian drama. The Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award-winning show is elegant, mature American art, at once a soft-spoken tone poem—recalling the literary Frontier of Willa Cather, Horton Foote or The Last Picture Show—and a tumultuous tableaux of soap opera with the kinetic Americana of Thomas Hart Benton or Aaron Copland. But it’s much less highfalutin than it sounds. It’s really just a show about everyday life: family, friends, community—all deeply enmeshed in a culture of Christian values and red-state conservatism (Bud Light keggers, church potlucks and teen pregnancy included). Friday Night Lights is a show where God and Christian faith play regular roles. Most characters attend church (albeit primarily because it’s the cultural “thing to do”), a diversity of denominations are represented (evangelical megachurch, mainline, AfricanAmerican church) and one character plays in a Christian speed-metal band called Crucifictorious. In season two, a main character recommits her life to Christianity and becomes something of a short-lived evangelical zealot (the season premiere shows her being baptized). In season four, the ever explosive issue of abortion comes up, receiving what is probably the most honest, nuanced treatment of the issue ever on network television. Instead of quickly deciding to “keep it” or “get rid of it,” the characters wrestle with the implications of both and ultimately make a decision that reflects reality, if not our values. And the nuance continues with the fallout and anger from the decision—it’s not quick or easy, but it’s real. Throughout the series, moral dilemmas are
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From L-R: Taylor Kitsch, Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Madison Burge, Aimee Teegarden, Micahel B. Jordan
A show that gives reality its messy, unromantic due, even while it almost always tips its hat in the direction of hope. the centerpiece of conflict: Should we sleep together? Are steroids OK to use? What does it mean to love one’s neighbor? The show wrestles with thorny topics (issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, vocation, etc.) with uncommon grace, but almost never with a didactic “nice tidy lesson” wrap-up. It’s a show that gives reality its messy, unromantic due, even while it almost always tips its hat in the direction of hope. Though the show’s cast of characters includes an array of teenagers—football players, nerds, cheerleaders, outcasts—the heart of Lights is its centerpiece family: the Taylors. Coach Eric and Principal Tami Taylor (Emmy nominees Kyle Chandler and Connie
Britton) and their daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) are as good as TV families get. They are the show’s rock. They are a good, loving, shockingly functional American family— not without their faults, but always tender and utterly believable. It’s something of a miracle that a contemporary network television show could so vividly remind us of what is wonderful about families who stay together, struggle together and grow together. We so often only get the struggle. What makes Lights so special is that it gives us goodness—in the form of families that rally around each other, communities that still believe in small-town heroes, and teenagers who make bad decisions but ultimately strive to do what’s right (as opposed to, say, the amoral adolescents of Gossip Girl-type shows). On an average episode of Lights, Eric and Tami Taylor will have a moment where they sit down together on the couch, or in bed after a long, stressful day. They’ll talk about their days, their struggles, their needs. Sometimes they’ll just look at each other and laugh. Sometimes they’ll fight or flirt. It’s a hopeful picture of marriage as a partnership and a balm, soothing the struggles of everyday life through companionship. It’s a metaphor for how life is meant to be lived—in tandem, together, as a team. In football, and in everything else.
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From L-R: Blair Brown, Lance Reddick, Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Kirk Acevedo, Jasika Nicole
FRINGE
By Lindsey Learn
A crazy sci-fi show might not be the place you’d expect to find God. But appearances can be deceiving.
Fringe is science fiction at its purest. Alternate realities, shapeshifters, telepathy, time travel, mutation, creepy bald guys—these are the unexplainable events FBI agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) and her team of misfits face on a regular basis. That rather quirky team includes Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), who spent the past 17 years in a mental institution. He is a bona fide genius, and originally created many of the scientific formulas used in the strange cases they investigate. Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), Walter’s son, was enlisted by Olivia to act as Walter’s guardian. The team also includes Astrid (Jasika Nicole), a lab assistant, and a cow named Gene—who, to Walter’s delight, occasionally offers the luxury of fresh milk. They work in a laboratory under Harvard University—the same lab where Walter used to do research for the government
justin stephens/fox
before he was admitted to the mental institution. Aside from the glaring science fiction stuff, Fringe is another crime scene investigation show. However, it’s the mysterious nature of the show combined with the dynamic characters
science,” going on to explain how inventions in the medical field (the flu vaccine, MRI machines, artificial hearts) are the only things in which people of science need to have faith. Walter Bishop, though a man of science, feels differently. He is the character we frequently get to explore these spiritual themes through, and is often the voice of faith on Fringe. After years of “playing God,” Walter must come to terms with the many mistakes he’s made, lives he’s ruined and secrets he’s kept. His most
“When you open your mind to the impossible, sometimes you find the truth.” –Walter Bishop that give viewers an opportunity to investigate more than just crime scenes—important spiritual themes about God, faith, the soul and forgiveness are regularly up for examination and exploration. Because Fringe revolves around science, perhaps one of the largest spiritual themes of the show (and a familiar one for the show’s creator, J.J. Abrams), is the relationship between God and science, and which defines the other. One character says, “God is
important secret jeopardizes his valued relationship with his son, Peter, and he must face the repercussions of that decision. He is convinced that meddling in the extraordinary is not our place in the universe, but God’s. These ideas are debated during a season two episode titled “White Tulip.” Walter tries to discourage another scientist, Peck, from traveling back in time to save his fiancé from a tragic accident. Walter believes Peck will
regret this decision and will travel through madness and back before he realizes it. Walter knows from experience— it’s the darkest secret he keeps from Peter. He can only hope for forgiveness. He explains to Peck that he’s asked God for a sign of forgiveness in the form of a white tulip. When Peck thinks the request in vain, Walter says: “But He’s God. And if God can forgive me for my acts, then maybe it’s in the realm of possibility that my son might possibly be able to forgive me too.” As Walter wrestles with his own forgiveness on the show, we have the opportunity to ask ourselves these same questions: Can God and science work together? Do my actions define the universe, or is there someone else in control? Do I believe forgiveness from God offers freedom from guilt? It’s through Fringe’s many mysteries that we get the chance to contemplate these important spiritual questions regarding our own world—and what we believe about it. As we travel through the show’s impossibilities, there are ample opportunities to discover something new about our own faith along the way.
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>>>>>>>>> How to make it in America By Christy Gualtieri
A message of God’s love and redemption—hidden within a show about hustling in New York City Above: Luis Guzmán on the set of How to Make It in America Below: (L-R) Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk
In HBO’s How to Make It in America, which chronicles the lives of young entrepreneurs trying to survive the hustle of pursuing their dreams, God and His message of mercy and faith are as vibrant as the clothes the characters wear—and just as important to the city’s culture. Similar to most mainstream television portrayals of Him, God is presented to the twentysomethings in the series as more of a “good idea” than anything else—a nebulous figure hovering just beneath their consciousness. After his plan to finally break into the fashion industry seemingly goes bust, main character Ben Epstein (Bryan Greenberg) sits in the park and tells a friend he is cursed. “I’m not blessed,” he glumly admits. “Sometimes,” his friend counsels, “there are greater forces at work than we’re aware of. You just gotta roll with those punches.”
God and His message of mercy and faith is as vibrant as the clothes the characters wear—and just as important to the city’s culture. But surprisingly, a more concrete image of God shows up for—and is most sought after by—the show’s in-house villain, Rene Calderon (Luis Guzmán), a two-time felon with trouble shaking his rough past. As he tries to make his living marketing “Rasta Monsta,” a new energy drink, Rene struggles with running an honest operation, trying his best not to fall backward into the violent way of doing business that landed him in prison in the first place. Rene grows increasingly troubled as the season continues, and confides in a priest who runs the nearby parish his grandmother attends—a moment remarkable not only for the fact of Rene’s desire to do what’s right and his search for redemption, but also for the show’s refusal to present the priest as a corrupt religious caricature. In fact, God is represented through the priest as someone from the neighborhood, who grew up with its people and who cares deeply about them, and as such, knows them. God understands the heartbreaking hustle of having to make a living and the risks that need to be taken to chase down those dreams; He knows humanity and the innate desires to succeed—and the darker means some will take to get there, even if it
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means causing pain to someone else. He does not judge for past actions, but shows mercy and compassion for where people have been. But on How to Make It, that’s not an excuse to fall back into old behaviors. The priest encourages Rene in the hard work of going straight, reminding him to be the good person God intended him to be. The priest is well aware of Rene’s checkered past—and the times when he falls—but encourages Rene to leave his dark, loan-shark instincts behind and to work hard to get good, honest results. “You’re strong enough to do this, Rene,” he tells him, and God tells us the same. Yes, God knows our pasts. He knows the impure, sometimes desperate desires we have to get what we want. But He also knows we are more than those things. He encourages us to remember life is more about who you are than what you achieve (or don’t achieve).
Eric Liebowitz/hbo
From L-R: Jane Krakowski, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey, Jack McBrayer
30 rock
By Natalie Wigg-Stevenson
NBC’s best comedy wastes no time in skewering God ... and the people who would be wishy-washy about Him
However God is portrayed in 30 Rock, He—like everyone else—is affectionately mocked. And we use the “He” loosely after the feminine-Divine naming employed by Wesley (Martin Sheen’s Brit/ jerk of a boyfriend to Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon). It was a reference that received an eye roll even from our otherwise feminist leading lady. Surprisingly, though, throughout the ridicule, God usually gets the last laugh. Recall the season five Christmas episode: Frank, Toofer and Lutz invent a religion, Verdukianism, to avoid Kenneth’s (Jack McBrayer) Secret Santa. After hilarious attempts to meet these new religious practitioners’ needs, Kenneth realizes their ruse. Faced for the first time with the 19th century’s central critique of religion—that it’s human-made— Kenneth ceases believing in God … a faith lapse he only overcomes in the final scene when the three guys are somewhat randomly arrested. And so, with a grin, Kenneth re-embraces his vengeful God’s ability to punish sin.
mary ellen mathews/nbc
God most often endures this mocking not through vengeance, however, but through a loving acceptance. Despite Kenneth’s panoply of familiar yet strange religious practices (refusing to drink alcohol—except when convinced it’s “hill people milk” and an abstinence that somehow comes across as menacing), Kenneth is self-giving, openminded and loving. He loves the 30 Rockers not despite but because of their socially dysfunctional ways. In season five’s finale, Kenneth (after accidentally getting drunk) rants about listening to his coworkers’ “east coast, media elite problems,” launching into how he “really” feels about them. “You people are my best friends,” he slurs. “I hope you get everything you want.” And then with the sweetest form of universalism or, at least, eschatological hope, he follows: “Kiss my face; I’ll see you in Heaven!” While Kenneth is the most obvious place of God’s appearance, he’s certainly not
the only. The women Jack (Alec Baldwin) dates, for example, have a tendency to get him into Catholic church. With Elisa (played by Salma Hayek), church is a foil to sex. Elisa wants Jack to pray with her; Jack wants to make love to her. And so he does the former in the hope of gaining the latter. More poignant, though, is how church functions in Jack’s relationship with last season’s Nancy (Julianne Moore). Here, church symbolizes Jack’s lost innocence, as sitting in a service with Nancy lets him cling to the boy he once was. In an odd twist, Jack’s pursuit of God gets wrapped up in tangible yearnings, as it does for most of us. Of course, that church scene with Nancy offered one of 30
for a specific Word often ends in frustrating misdirection. God’s best appearances in 30 Rock, though, are the weirdly specific ones that play like inside jokes for seminary graduates. Liz’s derision of Unitarians, Jack’s reference to “Episcopal cryogenic freezing services” and Nancy’s statement at Cerie’s wedding (“You can never tell when one of these non-denominational, goofaround weddings is gonna start.”) all mock more expansive, liberal forms of Christianity. If there’s one understanding of God 30 Rock dislikes, even as it’s drawn to it, it’s lukewarm, uncommitted understanding. So 30 Rock makes its religious jokes at the expense of the Right’s rigidity and the Left’s leniency, leaving central space for us
If there’s one understanding of God 30 Rock dislikes, even as it’s drawn To it, it’s lukewarm, uncommitted understanding. Rock’s funniest God-moments as Liz, attempting to stall the wedding, mad-libs the Bible for stories involving her marriage to Japheth, living in Ninevah and working as a prostitute. As most Christians learn the hard way, randomly opening the Bible
to write our own story of the Divine. Even as the show and its characters expose the ludicrous ways many of us believe in God, they manage to do so lovingly. Perhaps that space and love are what allow God to show up on 30 Rockefeller Plaza at all.
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15 tips to help you calm down, cut back and relax by adam and chrissy jeske
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Gage young
G
et up early. Go to bed late. Attack the inbox. Make lists. Relate. Send texts. Keep up with friends. Don’t miss opportunities. Make it to the end. Accomplish. Plan. Go fast. Work it. Shoot for the moon. Don’t be last. Run. Go. Don’t eat that. Lead the meeting. Cover the shift. Go to class. Mishmash. “Gotta tweet that, share that, digg that.” Forget that. Busyness is a modern status symbol, the currency of social capital. We lament this situation and yet still brag about it—even while it overwhelms us. We try to battle back, but the crush of information and activity is always a step ahead of us. We resolve to change and improve, keep our schedules clearer and our free time freer. But we lose again and again. Our efficiency drops as we scramble to keep the plates spinning. Our health suffers when our sleep is cut short, when our exercise is skipped and when our only food is fast. More alarmingly, our relationships weaken as the tidal wave of activity throws our equilibrium out of whack. We lose our sense of the peace and grace that give a foundation for our lives. So what to do? It’s not like the world will slow down just because you need to. Here are a few tips for bringing back that oh-so-elusive balance.
Throw away your phone and burn your planner. | How can you stay busy if you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing? When you think of something you “should” do, if you have time, go ahead and do it. If not, forget it until you remember it again. You might want to pay your rent a month or two ahead of time when you take this drastic step. OK, that’s not really going to happen for most of us. But there are some real steps you can make to utilize these tools. Be realistic and specific about each day. Choose and plan the key and urgent items you can and will finish today. This gets you a finish line to hit, at which point you plan the next day, then leave your work space (and that includes your smartphone with that beeping new email alert).
Purge the list. | If you’ve been keeping a list, whether on paper (so 1975), on a computer (so 1985), on your PDA (so 1995), on your phone (so 2005) or online via any number of devices you use now, you’ve probably got stuff scribbled and typed all over—lots of lists with far more tasks and ideas than you could ever finish. You’ve got to cut some of it. Karate lessons, that letter you’ve meant to write all year and your awesome idea for a new blog have all gotta go. And anyway, putting that stuff on your list only slows you down, makes you feel bad and keeps you from getting stuff done and getting on with life. So be very careful with what you put on your current to-do lists. Make sure it’s important and timely. Keep a separate list of “someday” tasks and dreams.
Just do it. | Figure out what you need to do today, and then—this is really very simple—do it. Decide how often you need to get snacks or check email, phone messages and social networks. Stop letting them be your happy escape every 10 minutes when work gets tough (i.e., begins). One technique is to start the day by listing the amount of time you want to spend on each activity. When the time is up, stop and move on to the next. Getting a little done on your highest priority tasks and completing a few of them will feel better than getting stuck on one problem all afternoon. Don’t be ruled by guilt over what you did not accomplish. Accept that time is a bulldozer—it will keep on pushing you along, and what you don’t get done will slide off the edges of the blade each day. But stop wishing something fit that didn’t. There’s always tomorrow. And tomorrow will worry about itself.
Skip school or work—make it a “wellness day.” | Why do you need to wait until you have an ulcer to take a day off to regain or maintain your health? Let’s declare the death of “sick days.” Rather, let us have “wellness days,” which we take whenever it’s all getting to be a bit much.
Wellness days are kind of like sick days, but you don’t feel ill. You get plenty of sleep, you eat stuff that’s good for your body, you do some chill stuff you like to do and you also putter around the house getting stuff done that doesn’t happen in the warp and woof of the working world. If you haven’t already thrown away your phone and burned your planner, you may want to do so now. Or at least do some of the stuff in them, so you can feel a bit more balanced and capable. Or even just write “throw away planner” in your planner.
Axe your inbox. | Same deal here—just like the task list, you need to proclaim aloud, “Let’s get real here!” And then get real—fast—on your emails. There’s drivel, forwards and long-term ideas. There’s stuff you’ve saved with plans to reply or check on later. You won’t. So just delete what you can right now, satisfied that you’re no longer a lying liar telling lies to yourself. Then go as quickly as you can through everything that’s come in during the last month, replying to what needs it now, marking what needs to be done later and deleting the rest. That will get you back on top of the recent heap. Finally, go to the oldest messages, scanning for anything truly important, dealing with those few and deleting the rest, working toward the present. You will feel like a superhero when you cut your inbox by a couple hundred messages in a few minutes.
Sleep it off. | Different folks have different clocks in their bodies. You need to use yours to your advantage. You may need to set an alarm to rock through some important stuff at dawn (and have the self-discipline to go to bed at a set hour). Or you might need to push through on key tasks late at night, if that’s when you’re in an alpha state. Either way, make sure you’re getting your basic minimum need, but also not sleeping away your life. And when Sunday comes, take a cue from antiquity and do nothin’ but rest, whatever that means for you. Working to get yourself sufficient rest nightly with the occasional big sleep goes a long way in helping you cope with the Molotov cocktails you’re juggling.
Our ef f ic ienc y dr op s a s w e s c r a mbl e t o k eep t he p l at e s s p inning.
Don’t be a boob. | Shut off the TV. And the interwebs. And your phone (if you didn’t throw it away). Or at least track for a week how much time you’re spending on shows and sites. Then plan for the next week how much time you’ll spend in front of the TV and online, as well as what and when you’ll view them, and stick to it. Be intentional ... or end up a couch potato with weird sprouts coming out of your cracks and crevices. Hold the Psalms in your palms. | Need a kick in the pants? Or perhaps a dose of brain-calming perspective? Crack open a Bible to refresh your attitude. Crank it up with Psalm 119:32—“I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free” (NIV). Or find wisdom like Psalm 127:2—“In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.” Or read in Psalm 90:17—“Establish the work of our hands for us.” And that’s not even touching the rest of the Good Book.
Make big choices—don’t have them make you. | Don’t buy a home just because it feels “so grown up” if renting will work better. And when you do sign on the dotted line (promising where you’ll live for the foreseeable future), think carefully. How much time do you want to spend commuting to school or work, to see friends, to church, to shop? Is there any place beautiful within walking distance of your door? How much time
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it needs. Try a new recipe like injera or chocolate gravy biscuits, and while you’re at it, invite a friend to join you. Do your best to make eating a soulful activity, an event of beauty and quality. And let that same attitude seep into and through the rest of your daily activity, including your errands, your cleaning and your conversations.
“ T he mo s t imp or ta n t p er s on i s t he one in f r on t of y ou.” — Mil l a rd f ul l er Get to the root of energy. | If coffee (or tea or Rockstar or Diet
do you want to spend mowing a lawn you never sit in, and do you want to replace siding? Make sure where you live is in line with how you want to live. Otherwise, you’ll be hanging out with neighbors you don’t connect with, or only with people like yourself, or you’ll be just plain lonely.
Look for peace, not time-saving tricks. | Much of what the time-saving-crazed world tells you will make your life less busy actually makes your life less happy and peaceful. Take food, for example. The advertising world tells you the faster you can cram flavor into your mouth, the better your life. But cooking is a perfect way to get a touch of creativity into an otherwise mundane existence, and it forces you to stop and deal with what your body needs for once. So give it what
Coke or Water Joe) is the air you breathe, perhaps you should tell your beverage you need some more space in your relationship because you have better ways to use your money and body. If coffee shops are the only spots you frequent outside your home and office, get creative and stroll into a bookstore, an empty church sanctuary, a museum, a gritty diner or a bench at the mall or post office (a fascinating sociological study). To get a similar fix that will also benefit you in other ways, remember there’s always exercise for generating endorphins. Rather than a precipitous caffeine peak, you’ll feel like you’ve got a low-grade IV drip of bounce and attention—without the late-in-the-day crash or addictive hold.
Chuck more. | Choose what you don’t own as carefully as what you do. Go through every single item you own and ask, “Do I need this?” Then throw it in a keep-it pile or a ditch-it mountain. And post the mountain on Craigslist or Freecycle. Toss out your doodad gizmos, the furniture you got off the street, the aluminum frying pan passed on from your grandmother, the CDs you don’t listen to, the clothes you wore once last year and whatever hides in the top corner of your closet in the spider fuzzies. Then don’t let yourself ever get them again. The next time you’re eyeing that new umbrella or contemplating those ecofriendly shoes, ask yourself, “Really?”
Just decide. | “Nothing is more difficult—and therefore more precious— than to be able to decide.” Napoleon nailed it there, folks. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out next steps and best options and action plans and such. There is recourse, though—you just pick one and roll with it. In hindsight, it may not have been the best choice. But you’ve got to break the hypnosis of selection, the paralysis of choice. So read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink on ultra-fast deciding, and get a move on already! Pay attention to the person in front of you. | Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, has been quoted as saying, “The most important person is the one in front of you.” Being around people (especially creative ones) will refresh your mind and remind you that your humanity is what matters. Don’t let stress be an excuse to skimp on being around people and present in conversation. Even as you are deluged with information and distant relationships, it’s critical to keep a priority on the personal, the tangible, the right-here-right-now. That’s where you are and where you can have the greatest effect, even when you are stretched around the world with busyness. Stop talking about how busy you are. | At the end of the day, know that this is how the world is now, brimming with tasks, ideas, things to read and sort, and ever more relationships. With technological evolution in communications and travel, we’ve begun to reap the whirlwind. We need to acknowledge this, consider it carefully and be disciplined in our approach to it. Let us learn to live well on this journey despite our busyness and even because of it.
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66 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
Gage young
How To Win Friends & Influence People Everyone knows you only get one first impression ...
BY Jesse carey
It’s fall, which means it’s time for you to make some new friends. Or, at the very least, to prepare yourself for some unfamiliar (and awkward) situations demanding of your social skillz. You’re probably starting a new small group at church or you landed a new job, or you’re headed back to school. Or maybe you just need a new fantasy football league. Having literally done all of the above myself, I’ve learned a few things about meeting new people and making friends (I have several). For generations, social novices have consulted Dale Carnegie’s 1937 classic self-help guide, How to Win Friends and Influence People, for advice on doing what the title implies. Recently, I read the book (and by read, I mean skimmed its Wikipedia page) to see if his advice stood the test of time. And frankly, I found it lacking. You see, the 1930s were simpler times when principles like “Be a good listener,” “Smile” and “Avoid arguments” were all you needed to make a new friend. Unfortunately, not only are these tips no longer applicable, they also lack some of the most basic friend-making rules in today’s more complicated culture. Here, I give you eight updated, practical tips for winning friends and influencing people.
Rule one Focus on making grand entrances Everyone knows you only get one first impression—that’s why I always make the most elaborate entrance imaginable any time I know
I’ll be encountering new people. Usually, this involves a zip line. But in settings that will not support a grand zip line entrance (nothing’s more embarrassing or dangerous than a failed zip line), I employ several techniques to make myself unforgettable. The first is a hype-man. His entire job is to announce your presence via a sweet ‘80s hip-hop beat that plays moments before you enter a room. Typically, a good hype-man will be wearing an outrageous, florescent-colored suit along with several notable accessories (usually a top hat and scepter). Most of the time you can find a good freelance hype-man on Craigslist under “skill’d trade.” If for some reason you’re unable to secure the services of a qualified hype-man (side note: there are a shocking number of under-qualified, uncertified hype-men on Craigslist), I suggest the use of over-the-counter fireworks and lasers. Just light a couple of Blacksnakes smoke bombs and start wildly waving laser pointers when you enter a room (if lasers and smoke are good enough for NBA teams, they’re good enough for you and me).
Rule two Use socially appropriate greetings Too often when people meet, they are unaware of the proper greeting. Learning and practicing time-tested introductions ahead of time will show your true sophistication. First, when introducing yourself to someone of the opposite gender, kiss the back of his or her hand. This is always appropriate. Second, when being introduced to a large group of people (oh, I forgot to mention you’ll need to wear a cape at all times), hide half of your face behind your cape, then quickly spin around so your cape majestically flows through the air as you shout your name. Then, simply extend your hand. Everyone will immediately know you are a person they must befriend.
Rule three Develop secret handshakes This one is a no-brainer. Every good friendship must be centered around a unique combination of high-five, knuckle bump, Step Up-style dance move and gun sound. Don’t take my word for it; just ask DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, or the Freemasons.
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If every time you greet someone doesn’t involve three quick low-fives, two identical pop-locks and both of you yelling “BLAMP!” at the same time, you have to wonder, Were you ever really friends? It’s important to establish this greeting early in your relationship, preferably in your first meeting. After introducing yourself to a potential new friend, retreat to a secluded place to establish and rehearse your new handshake to be unveiled at your next meeting.
Rule four Be willing to give unsolicited advice In order to make new friends, it’s important to show others you are not only an expert in a variety of subjects, but also that you don’t mind giving your opinion on any of them—this includes fashion, relationships, politics and personal hygiene. You also have to show new acquaintances you’re comfortable sharing your expert opinions on deeply personal matters, even when you’re not asked for them. For example, when being introduced to a couple, immediately predict out loud if you think the relationship will last. Trust me, they will appreciate your candidness. (If they don’t, then you probably don’t want to be their friend anyway.) Also, be sure to tell people if you disapprove of their choices of clothing and hairstyles, even if you don’t really know them yet. They’ll know you’re real friendship material. (After all, only a true friend would be willing to tell them that thrift store vest they’re wearing is totally lame.)
Rule five Everyone loves a good back rub After spotting an individual across the room who you surmise could be a potential new friend, sneak up behind them and start rubbing their shoulders. What could possibly go wrong? This will also serve as a good conversationstarting icebreaker: “Wow, you feel tense. What do you do for a living that is causing you so much stress?” Works every time.
Rule six People love public displays of feats of strength Everyone likes to hang out with someone who is incredibly strong and who likes to impress others with how much they can lift. Don’t
believe me? Maybe you’ve never heard of The Situation. Still don’t believe me? Ask the members of The Power Team if they’ve ever had trouble getting invited to parties. (I know they’ve received invitations to any party I’ve ever thrown.) I can guarantee you this: If you learn to rip a telephone in half with your bare hands, run through an 8-foot thick wall of ice, or explode a hot water bag with your lung-power, then you’ll have no problem making tons of new friends.
Rule seven Dueling Some people will probably tell you that when a disagreement arises between two new friends, you should try to resolve it using things like “words” and “conflict resolution strategies.” These never work. True friends challenge each other to a duel in order to avoid even the most trivial arguments. (Friend: “I think Nacho Cheese Doritos are way better than Zesty Taco Chipotle Doritos.” You: “What?!?!”) Now, these duels don’t have to be as drastic as a Burr-Hamilton-style pistol fight, but it should begin with one of you dramatically removing a white glove—one finger at a time—and then slapping your friend across the face with it while loudly proclaiming that a duel has been challenged. What proceeds will probably be as follows: a thumb-wrestling match, an old-fashioned hot-rod drag race on your nearest stretch of desert highway, a game of Battleship or a dance-off in an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. Such contests will provide a definitive resolution to any conflict.
Rule eight Apply for reality shows A friend once told me he saw Rupert from Survivor—the bearded guy who always wore tie-dye—in the airport. Rupert was easily the most popular guy in the entire terminal. According to my friend, everyone wanted to meet him, shake his hand and receive survival tips. What I learned from this is that being the star of a reality show equals instant popularity. With this in mind, apply for every reality show that even remotely interests you. When people find out you were on Hell’s Kitchen or Celebrity Apprentice, they will literally be begging to be your friend (especially if you happened to win the reality show and are now a millionaire—but let’s be realistic, people).
A speaking tour for 20/30-somethings and the churches that love them.
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Speaker and author of Picking Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life Weeds, and Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation
Life Coach, Pastor, and Author of Your Secret Name, The Fine Line, Called, and The Journey Toward Relevance
Spirited Author and Writer to the twentysomethings and Author of Faithbook of Jesus
Conference Speaker, Writer, and Author of the Church of Facebook
Experiences Pastor and Author of 200 Pomegranates and an Audience of One, and Wasabi Gospel
T he E v ol u t ion of
john c.reilly BY Carl kozlowski
T he e v er y m a n A C T OR ta l k s comed y, fa i t h a nd Imp r o v i s ing John C. Reilly is both an everyman and a movie star. He’s got the talent to be a star, but doesn’t have the pin-up looks. Which, of course, means he’s all the more beloved. Since starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie, Hard Eight, he went on to form the moral center of Anderson’s follow-up, the sprawling and intense ensemble piece Magnolia. He also scored a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the castoff husband in Chicago—which also proved to be the beginning in a series of musical performances, including his turn as Dewey Cox in the fictional biopic, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Reilly’s biggest successes have been his two pairings with Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, but he returned to his art-film roots in this summer’s Cyrus. In it, Reilly stars as John, a middle-aged, seemingly hopeless loser who finds love with the eccentric Molly (Marisa Tomei). But Molly’s unusually close attachment to her twentysomething son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill), proves threatening to John’s new relationship. Reilly sat down with RELEVANT to discuss the roles he chooses, why improv is such a big part of his acting style and, of course, why he and Will Ferrell make such a good team.
70 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
How did you decide to jump into acting? You grew up in a big family in Chicago, so was it a need for attention? [Laughs] I was an odd kid. I was an imaginative kid who was in my own fantasy world already, and when I was 8 years old, a friend of mine said, “Let’s go over to the park, I heard about something called drama class.” I really fell in love with it—fell in with that crowd, playing the acting games and theater games—and I haven’t stopped since. I did a lot of musicals when I was a kid and all through high school, and then I went to an acting conservatory in Chicago.
Chuck zlotnick
What was it like working with the Steppenwolf Theatre [a legendary theater in Chicago that counts Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, Joan Allen and John Mahoney among its principal members]? After college, it was the first place I worked. I did Shakespeare plays for high-schoolers during the day, understudied for our main stage shows at night. The first main stage show I officially did with them was The Grapes of Wrath, which went on to go to Broadway. That was very cool. Steppenwolf was an amazing group of people. When I got out of school, I was so honored to be there I would have done anything—even swept up. I still keep up with theater, and every year I try to do something, like I’ve done True West on Broadway again with Philip Seymour Hoffman.
In Magnolia, you were a daily-praying Catholic cop—sort of the moral center of the movie. But in Cyrus, it’s the reverse in that you’re the one who’s messed up at the start of the movie. What drew you to these roles? In Magnolia, the woman I help save saves me, too. Love saves all. They’re both kind of lonely characters, and they’re in a place where they’ve reached a low point for both of them—certainly my character in Cyrus. What’s beautiful about both characters is that they’re both still finding the courage to love. Even though life has thrown them a couple curves and they’re in a dark place when it starts, they take the chance on love despite the risk of being hurt or left alone again. I find it interesting when characters do that.
Do you look for movies or roles that offer a message of compassion, love and forgiveness? I was raised Catholic and went regularly to Mass till my college years when I took a broader view of spirituality in general. I still have beliefs in a higher power. It’s not that I seek out roles that reflect my own morality, because oftentimes characters I play don’t. But when you sign up for something as an actor, you’re going to have to live in that world for a while, and I’ve been offered really dark and cynical parts at times in my life when I just cannot do that. I cannot spend every day in that dark place where that character is at— someone who’s extremely vicious or evil. You just have to do what you’re able to do at the times these things come to you. That said, I like to think I’m an ethical person. I certainly was raised that way, and I feel in a broader sense my mission as an actor is to illuminate the human condition. That isn’t to say I always have to play characters who are
purely positive or ethically correct. It’s more that I look for characters as complicated as life is, and who illuminate something about human existence. I’m not really drawn to extremely negative characters, mostly because it’s not as much fun spending the day as a negative person as it is a positive one.
“ I ’ v e been of f ered re a l ly d a rk a nd c y nic a l pa r t s at t ime s in m y l if e w hen I j u s t c a nno t do t h at. I c a nno t s p end e v er y d ay in t h at d a rk p l a c e .” The Duplass Brothers are known for micro-budget movies and a loose improvisational style. What was it like working with them—especially when compared to P.T. Anderson, whose films are much more formal? The truth is, I improvise things with almost every director I work with. Film is a collaborative art. The screenplay is the road map of what you do, and then you get to the set and custom-fit that script to what you’re doing. Some people try to stick as close as they can to the script, sanding off an edge here or there, but other people, like the Duplass Brothers, will completely toss out the script, saying, “That was the idea of where we’re heading, now put it in your own words, and we’re gonna shoot in order so we can even adjust what the plot of the movie is going to be.” And also, of course, the characters. Paul Anderson is wide open to improvisation—there are scenes in Boogie Nights that are purely improvised, where his script literally says, “Then they do this” and we make it all up, while there’s other parts where he’s like David Mamet, with written dialogue he hears in his head and wants said exactly the way he’s heard it. Certainly on Talladega Nights and broad comedies, we improvise to keep the jokes fresh. But Cyrus was a cool movie to make because I got to improvise emotionally and wasn’t just chasing the laugh. I could have anything happen, not just a laugh.
Speaking of Talladega Nights, what makes your collaborations with Will Ferrell so special? We share the same sense of humor in terms of the absurd, and he’s a very talented guy.
From the moment we met, we had a kinship for each other, like brothers. Adam McKay [the director of Talladega Nights] is a brilliant improviser himself. A lot of directors would say, “Just come up with something,” but Adam can rattle off eight different ideas: do this, or this or this. The ideas just flow out of him. He’s like the secret engine of those movies I do with Will. We have a lot of fun improvising with each other, and whenever we come up short, Adam’s right there with 10 more ideas.
Do you prefer a big movie like Talladega Nights, small films like Cyrus, or is it all just apples and oranges? I want to find the emotional truth of a character, and immerse myself in the circumstance. If the circumstance is a comedy, then I’ll have a ridiculous point of view. If it’s weird, then I’m not. It’s whatever needs to be done.
Is there any line you won’t cross? A moment where you say, “Take that out” or, “I won’t do that”? Honestly, no. Once I sign on for something, I’m like a loyal soldier. I read the script and if it’s in there, I’m prepared to do it. If a filmmaker thought it was important enough to tell the story or get a laugh, then I’m in it for the duration. There’s very little I won’t do, just tell a story. If it’s a gratuitous thing, I won’t do it, but I don’t work in the first place with folks who work like that.
Did you know anyone like your character, John, in Cyrus? How did you relate to him? I liked how he rehabilitated himself in the pursuit of love. It starts in a dark place—he’s just a mess when the movie starts. [He] doesn’t know how to interact with people and he’s locked into this lonely life. Shooting the movie in order was a big part, being allowed to improvise and put it in my own words constantly helped me empathize and make it real. I think I have a lot in common with him—not circumstances, but his emotional vulnerability and his reactions to situations are similar to mine. A lot of it was: “What would you do? What if someone said that to you? What should happen? You’re the character.”
Do you ever go back and watch your old films? I don’t go back a lot and watch. But I figure my kids will be able to watch someday and go on an interesting archaeological dig through my life. I think of my father and the few bits of photos and papers I had to remember him by, and it’s going to be a different story for me.
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TONIGHT 2,000 CHILDREN WILL DIE FROM MOSQUITO BITES We know how to end malaria. Until 60 years ago, malaria was a major killer in the U.S. Then, in 1946, the U.S. opened the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its first mission: ELIMINATE MALARIA. It took just five years to wipe out malaria in the U.S. When made a PRIORITY, malaria can be stopped. Malaria cases in the U.S.
1920
375,000
1950
2,000
*Today, the majority of malaria cases reported in the U.S. are found in people traveling from malaria-infected countries, not homegrown.
MALARIA IS A DEADLY DISEASE THAT THREATENS HALF OF THE WORLD’S POPULATION (3 BILLION PEOPLE)
each year, An estimated 250 million people get infected. That is equal to 83% of the U.S. population.
that’s like
83%
of the U.S. infected
3 BILLION THREATENED
DEATHS FROM ALL WARS
20 Million*
DEATHS FROM AIDS
SINCE 1950
25 Million**
Child Deaths from Malaria * **
Peace Research Institute Oslo. The Battle Deaths Dataset version 3.0. W.H.O and UNAIDS. AIDS Epidemic Update 2009
#
41 Million#
Based on estimates by World Vision from World Health Report 1999, between 41 million and 65 million have died from malaria since 1950
And it’s entirely preventable THE GOOD NEWS
Malaria can be prevented and treated using inexpensive, proven interventions. Sleeping under a treated bed net, spraying insecticide inside homes and using the right anti-malarial drugs dramatically reduce the impact of malaria. The United Nations, United States and key partners set a goal to eliminate malaria deaths by 2015. In 2008, Congress passed and the president signed into law legislation committing to $5 billion over five years for malaria programs.
THE BAD NEWS
Unfortunately, for the nearly 3 billion people living on less than $2 a day, these life-saving interventions remain unaffordable and inaccessible. Most nations, including the U.S., are behind on fulfilling funding promises. Without the support of governments, ending malaria is not possible. The need is so great and widespread that it requires coordination on a global scale.
THE ANSWER
The American church should work with our government, governments from around the globe and businesses to get the job done. Ending malaria is not possible without greater resources and strong coordination from everyone. Governments must enhance their responses to malaria and prioritize solutions aimed at and involving local communities. If malaria deaths are going to end by 2015, we need your help. Millions of lives are depending on us.
Since 1950 (when malaria was eliminated in the U.S.), more than 41 million people worldwide have died from malaria. That is more than THE TOTAL NUMBER OF deaths from AIDS or all the wars in the world DURING THIS PERIOD.
The Hidden Cost of Malaria
$12 Billion
Malaria costs Africa more than $12 billion in lost economic recovery every year.
30%
Malaria accounts for up to 30% of school absenteeism in Africa.
40%
Malaria drains Africa’s health infrastructure, accounting for as much as 40% of public heath expenditures and up to 50% of hospital admissions.
YOU NEED TO CARE ABOUT ENDING MALARIA • Malaria largely affects the poor. It slows economic and educational development, perpetuating the cycle of poverty. • Malaria becomes exponentially more deadly when accompanied by malnutrition and AIDS. In areas where both diseases are present, the vicious cycle of poverty is often exacerbated as children, families and communities are overburdened by decreased health and economic productivity.
Nearly 750,000 African children die each year from malaria. That is equal to all the children in Florida under age 5.
TURN TO FIND OUT how
END MALARIA
Together, we can end malaria DEATHS by 2015. Here’s how:
Ignite a movement through creative activism ACT:S to END MALARIA is a campaign to mobilize our churches, campuses and communities to use our voices and actions to end malaria deaths by 2015. Creative activism moves people from awareness to action. Experiential activities and events bring issues to life and change hearts and minds. Whether it’s simple or extravagant, start taking action to raise awareness around malaria today. We will equip you with the following tools to create your own campaign to end malaria: • A compelling DVD explaining the deadly disease, why we need to act and what will happen if we don’t.The video was created by RELEVANT and is perfect to show to a group of friends, church/campus group or large gathering • An “ACT:S to END MALARIA” booklet to help you develop your own creative activism campaign for taking over your community, hosting meaningful events and mobilizing life-saving actions • Tools for creating your own grassroots shirts, art, posters and more for raising awareness and promoting action • Action resources to educate, raise funds and mobilize advocacy around ending malaria
Visit www.actstoendmalaria.org to order your free kit.
Provide life-saving bed nets For just $6, you can donate an insecticide-treated bed net that can save two lives and help kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes. When 80 percent of a community is covered by these nets, malaria deaths are dramatically reduced. If maintained, malaria could be eliminated. Visit www.actstoendmalaria.org to make a donation.
PRESSURE OUR GOVERNMENT
To combat malaria effectively, the United States must increase its funding to at least $1 billion a year. They passed a law promising to do so, but haven’t yet followed through. • Call or email your senators, representative and the president, and tell them to keep our promises to end malaria. • Your voice is powerful. Just 10 phone calls can persuade your representative to fund life-saving interventions.
For more information on how to contact your elected leaders, visit www.actstoendmalaria.org.
MILLIONS OF LIVES ARE DEPENDING ON US. PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY. TOGETHER, WE CAN END MALARIA DEATHS BY 2015.
World Vision ACT:S is a network of young people committed to creating a modern-day Book of Acts through our exploration of faith and justice, creative activism to bring issues to life and change hearts, and using our voices to advocate on malaria, hunger, AIDS, and child slavery. www.worldvisionacts.org
72 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
Gage young
What’s [Actually] On Your Mind? S ocial net working is ch anging th e way w e t hink, pray and “ like.” But wh at h as it cost us ? By Shane Hipps
If you make it to the end of this article, you are an impressive and rare breed of human—an intellectual Navy SEAL, an elite mind, trained with an ability most people just don’t have anymore: the ability to sustain concentration over long periods of time. The ability to endure a mental marathon involving the unnatural act of decoding thousands of abstract meaningless squiggly shapes, which are somehow arranged to create meaning—also known as reading.
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B
ut not just any kind of reading—the kind of reading reserved only for an endangered species: a lengthy monologue of unbroken paragraphs. There are no pithy sayings, no bullet points, no status updates, no hyperlinks, no place for you to comment. Fortunately, there will be an online version that will be far more humane. I suspect comments will be allowed, providing the feeling of dialogue, and editors will likely embed hyperlinks as release valves so you can be freed from this relentless linear reasoning. A kind of thinking increasingly antiquated.
Out with lines. In with webs. Out with hard, slow, laborious rationality. In with flexible, fast intuition. It is perhaps entirely too obvious to say our culture is changing. What may not be obvious is exactly how and why it’s changing. While the reasons for such shifts are legion, there is one cause most often overlooked. The fact that fewer and fewer people are able to finish this article is due to a major shift in the technologies we use to communicate. In the simplest terms, to quote Marshall McLuhan, we become what we behold. Our thinking patterns begin to mirror the things we use to think with. Technology is the hidden shaper of people and cultures. Its transformative effects hover just beneath conscious awareness. Consider the shift in our reading capacities. Although image culture has led to a decline in literacy rates over the last 40 years, we are not headed for illiteracy—we are witnessing the rise of a different kind of literacy. Our new text-based media cause people to prefer short, simple messages rather than lengthy, uninterrupted essays like this one. These hidden technologies are rewiring our mental processing without our permission. Not only this, technology is dramatically transforming our understanding of ourselves, our definition of community and our experience of God. As with nearly everything new in life, it brings both gains and losses. For some reason, we seem quite unaware of the bargain we make when we adopt a new technology into our lives.
The iGeneration For a person who writes about how technology shapes us, I’m embarrassed to admit I ended up on Facebook by accident. I received an email from an acquaintance requesting we become “friends.” To be polite, I said yes.
74 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
I clicked a few buttons and agreed to a few things without paying much attention. For the next three days, my inbox was flooded with email notifications from a large number of my real-life friends who were also apparently now my virtual friends. They were thrilled. They congratulated me on joining Facebook— an achievement I didn’t consider worthy of accolade. I was also a bit mortified. Not just at how invasive Facebook was, but how excited these people were. What was wrong with them? I’ll admit I found some appeal. There is a certain thrill in looking at pictures of high school friends from long ago without them knowing. It’s like being a fly on the wall at your high school reunion. I was instantly connected to long-lost friends. People I would never go searching for, but would love to know what they are doing. And all at once I was not only updated on their life, I was also introduced to their moment-by-moment mental fidgets in the form of status updates. This was simply a remarkable technological connector. And all this without the hassle of long phone conversations complete with requisite, time-consuming social pleasantries. What a simple joy.
me to see everything I’m seeing. They want me to know what they’re eating, wearing, feeling and thinking in each moment. They are actually exhibitionists. An exhibitionist is someone who wants you to see them. So while there is a little voyeurism, there is a lot of exhibitionism on Facebook. Such exhibitionism has an unusual effect on us. We not only want others to see us, we like to see us. We are able to inspect and tweak what others are seeing about us. We become fascinated by the image we project. It’s like having a mirror on your desk or in your pocket. And every so often, you pull it out to gaze upon your own image. Perhaps you want to adjust your hair or find postures of the head to smooth out the double chin. This kind of regular self-inspection eventually gives rise
M a n y of t he s e t ec hnol ogie s c re at e a c ondi t ion of a b s enc e in a w orl d de s p er at e f or our p re s enc e . There are times when I felt a bit like a voyeur must feel. However, this is not voyeurism. Voyeurism assumes the people you are watching don’t want you to see them. Voyeurism is what happens when you steal glimpses into people’s lives they don’t intend for you to see. The people I’m looking at want
to a subtle narcissism. A feature especially pronounced among young people. Young people are generally full of themselves, but a new study suggests today’s kids are far more self-centered than preceding generations. The Narcissistic Personality Inventory is a 40-question survey that was
like a funhouse mirror. Feeling short and squatty, no problem, just bend the mirror and presto! You are who you wish you were. Over enough time, this subtle effect creates a minor split in us. A split between who we are, and who we think we are. This tiny fracture may seem insignificant, but if we remain unconscious, it leads us away from a life of wholeness and integration.
Stunted growth
The dark side of Facebook’s history On Oct. 1, Sony releases The Social Network, which tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and the dubious circumstances around the beginning of the social
networking behemoth. The film raises questions about the copyright of the Facebook software itself, and will tie into lingering concerns about Facebook’s privacy policy. Facebook (and
administered to 16,475 current and recent college students nationwide between 1982 and 2006. The test asked students to agree or disagree with statements like, “I think I am a special person” and, “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place.” The results indicate a steady rise in narcissism—a “positive and inflated view of the self.” Overall, almost two-thirds of the most recent sample display a higher level of narcissism than the 1982 average. Why the increase? No one knows. Researchers think technology may have something to do with it. Narcissism is especially acute among people born after 1982, the group likely to use “self-focused” sites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. The narcissism created by these technologies is unique. It encourages not just self-absorption, but, more accurately, self-consumption. We become creators and consumers of our own brand. We become enamored by a particular kind of self, a
Zuckerberg) have recently come under a firestorm of criticism for their seemingly cavalier attitude toward privacy, even being forced by public opinion to amend the policy in May of this year.
pseudo-self. A self-image controlled in much the same way corporate brands are controlled. Complete with pictures, videos, songs and, most of all, metrics—the number of friends we have, the kinds of friends we have and the kind of associations we have. We endlessly noodle, refine, create and consume a digital projection we want others to see. However, we are rarely what we project. This image approximates reality, but it is not reality. This heavily edited and carefully controlled self easily hides certain parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see. This is hardly new, of course. In any social situation, we seek to control the impression we give. The problem is that in real social settings, there are limits to what we can hide. At a certain point, people intuitively see through us. Eventually they get a sense of who we really are. And in this way, real friendships can function as a healthy mirror. They become an honest mirror that loves but doesn’t flatter us. Facebook is more
Narcissism is a rather exquisite vice. It is very difficult to detect in oneself. And when something is hard to identify it makes it hard to dissolve. The real buzzkill, though, is how it affects relationships. Studies indicate narcissists have trouble forming meaningful relationships, tend to be materialistic and are prone to higher levels of infidelity, substance abuse and violence. So while Facebook and other social media connect us to more digital relationships, at the same time, they deteriorate our ability to maintain healthy relationships in real life. This effect is particularly acute among adolescents for developmental reasons. I have a 2-year old daughter who has yet to eat peanut butter. Because allergies run in the family, doctors advised us not to expose her to it until a more appropriate developmental stage. If introduced too early, peanut butter— which is benign—could become an unnecessary and even lethal allergy. Once the body has gone through the appropriate developmental stages, peanut butter becomes a non-issue. A similar phenomenon happens in developmental psychology. Ego development in young people is crucial for child development. A child must learn to establish firm ego structures and self-boundaries in order to differentiate from their parents and thrive independently in the world as an adult (that’s what the terrible 2’s, and even-moreterrible teen years are all about). At the same time, they must also learn to temper this with a growing awareness, sympathy and empathy for others. To do one without the other or in the wrong order can lead to pathology. To give oneself to others without first developing a sense of self may lead to neurotic codependency. To focus only on oneself at the expense of others can lead to narcissism. In a sense, the soul must develop in a particular sequence and through the entire sequence in order to develop stable, healthy relationships in life. It is a precarious journey fraught with many pitfalls, turns and obstacles along the way. Our social technologies are increasingly serving as an obstacle to this process in young people. If certain kinds of social media are introduced prematurely in the lives of
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teens, they may inadvertently short-circuit basic developmental milestones crucial for establishing healthy relationships later in life. Facebook is the perfect cocktail: a medium that focuses much of our attention on ourselves, while appearing to focus our attention on relationship with others. It is a mirror masquerading as a window. It recreates the conditions of the myth of Narcissus on a mass cultural scale. You recall the story of the young, handsome Narcissus who stumbles upon a pool in the woods. Peering into the silvery water, he mistakes his own reflection for that of a beautiful water spirit. He falls in love instantly with her (or himself) and never leaves the pool. The image is so enchanting, he shuns even food and drink in order to gaze upon it and eventually withers and dies. The clinical diagnosis of narcissism derives its name from this story. Just because this developmental hiccup is acute in adolescents doesn’t mean adults are immune from the narcotic effects of social media. It’s true that most adults have stabilized basic ego structures, but the human psyche is anything but static; it remains profoundly plastic throughout life. As a result, human development never really ends and regression is always possible. If we persist in consuming these or any technologies without conscious awareness, we will be formed in ways we don’t intend. But I must be clear on this point. The problem is not using the technology. The problem is using it unconsciously. The sin of Narcissus was not that he looked at his own reflection in a pool; it was that he didn’t know he was looking at himself. The cost for this unconsciousness was steep. Had he understood the medium, he could have used it rather than be used by it. How then do we become conscious? One of the most powerful ways is by practicing a technology fast. Don’t look at your Facebook account for one week and see what you notice about yourself. See what you miss. See what you gain. If nothing happened in a week, try two. The point is not the time—it’s the distance.
Find ways to gain enough distance to perceive. You will reap the benefits.
Mental fidgets A related technology is found in the emergence of Facebook’s close cousin, Twitter. As with any new technology, it takes time for a culture to know exactly what it is best used for, and what it is not. Twitter’s calling in the world is still not entirely clear. Certainly it proved to be a powerful source of information during the 2009 protests in Iran. While much of the information was not verifiable, it clearly affected how protestors organized themselves in the face of the government crackdown. It helped them get a particular message out to the watching world.
T he s e up d at e s m ay be p r of ound, b u t more of t en t he y a re mo s t ly a t w i t c h of t he br a in — a men ta l f idge t a dding t o t he s tat ic of t he uni v er s e . To truly understand the purpose and power of a technology, we must identify its innate bias. All technologies come with biases that cause users to naturally prefer certain things. The basic bias of Facebook updates and Twitter is that it encourages everyone to share whatever is on their mind in real time, it begs for your thoughts at all times. It’s a constant reminder to externalize our thoughts. These updates may be profound, but more often they are mostly a twitch of the brain—a mental fidget adding to the static of the universe. This inadvertently reinforces the narcissism of the digital age. Twitter helps me believe
even my most mundane thoughts are now somehow important and need to be shared. It begs me to step out of the stream of experience long enough to record it. The effect is that we are no longer present in any of our experiences. We are living as unpaid journalists who chronicle life as it passes by. This may seem insignificant. But our presence matters. Our brief but increasingly
(the evolution of social media)
b Chat rooms & Forums Way back in ‘98, you know you were all over the chat rooms for your favorite bands. You probably weren’t talking about the bands, but it was a good beginning.
76 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
b
b
b
Friendster
MySpace
Even though not many people in North America use it (it’s still hugely popular in Asia), this is the service that beget the ones we use today. It still has 61 million unique monthly visitors.
Everyone’s got a creepy MySpace story. And chances are, you still have an account you haven’t signed into for four years that has tons of animated GIFs. Admit it.
It was cool when you first got this. And then OK when your younger siblings did. But then your parents got it, and it was weird. And now your grandparents? Deadly.
If someone had invented a steady feed of Facebook statuses, they would have come up with Twitter. Now, even news anchors use it awkwardly while “reporting.”
Twitter has no patience for time. Twitter bypasses these things so it can express. And in so doing contributes simple white noise and occasionally interesting fragments of information. This does not make Twitter bad, invalid or useless. It simply means Twitter is a medium more likely to convey clichés rather than deep aphorisms of profound insight. It will more likely introduce more information that is less and less usable. My point is not simply to advocate a rejection of Twitter. My interest is to help us understand what Twitter is doing and undoing in our lives. The answer to this question gets more clear when we find ways to get distance from the technology. Once again, a simple fast may be appropriate. Ignore your Twitter feed for a week and see what happens. What do you miss? What do you gain? Pay attention when you feel an impulse to check Twitter and ask yourself, what is this about? Am I bored? Restless? Lonely? Curious? Feeling disconnected? Needing a break from the monotony of existence? Then sit with the feeling. Let it arise without resisting it or retaining it. See what it might have to teach you. And check to see if there is something else beneath it. Often there is wisdom waiting to be born. But it means being patient.
Wake up
frequent moments of absence add up. Imagine a father who flickers in and out of a child’s life every time he checks his iPhone. He might be there physically, but he may as well be at the office or on a business trip. People can feel our absence. And it is usually a loss. We become digital nomads glancing around the globe, never fully present. It is a ghost-like condition. It diminishes one of God’s greatest gifts to us—a body. There is a reason God made us with bodies. There is a reason God became a body in Jesus. The incarnation is about becoming a body to bless the world through physical presence in the lives of others. To hold the hand of those who grieve, to feed and clothe those who are poor, to love those who are alone by being “with” them. Many of these technologies create a condition of absence in a world desperate for our presence. Beyond our ability to stay with and experience the present moment, Twitter is also shaping our thought patterns. The combination of real-time speed and an enforced character limit encourage a kind
of simplistic and impulsive thinking. This contributes to its bias for creating an echo chamber of platitudes and clichés. In a way, it functions to sedate the imagination rather than actually open it. It limits our capacity to uncover and articulate that which is profound. Simplicity is not the main problem. In fact, most profound insights are incredibly simple. But there are two kinds of simplicity. One is the simplicity of a teenager who says, “Jesus loves you.” The other is the simplicity of a 90-yearold woman—who has lived through the Great Depression, lost her husband and is witnessing her body deteriorate—saying, “Jesus loves you.” Both are simple, but one is informed by time, wisdom, experience, suffering and complexity. This is how something can be both profound and simple. The reason Twitter precludes profound insights is not due to its brevity. It is due to its speed. In other words, it’s about time, not space. Wisdom is born of suffering, waiting, experience, wrestling, grieving and complexity—and these things take time.
(If you made it to the end of this article, you are to be congratulated. That is an amazing feat of astounding intellectual fortitude. You are a rare individual.) Now it will be tempting to conclude after all this ranting that I am simply a Luddite, a technophobe bent on the dismantling of all digital technologies. This is not the case. Admittedly, I was hardly even-handed in my observations. However, to herald the virtues of our technology is mostly redundant, it would be like trying to argue the importance of breathing. It’s already here, and the value it adds is self-evident. This is why the technologies are so prevalent: we automatically know their benefits, otherwise we wouldn’t use them. My concern is that our culture seems only capable of seeing the benefit and utterly blind to the liabilities, the inevitable losses certain technologies bring. I have no interest in trying to end or stop such technological innovations; to do so is like trying to resist the wind or the tides. Instead, I want us to understand them with depth. Not with naïve embrace, or fearful rejection. If we learn to wake up and understand, perhaps we will be able to use them rather than be used by them. Shane Hipps is the author of Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith (Zondervan), and is teaching pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. Connect with him at ShaneHipps.com.
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On e x p ec t ing God t o m a k e be a u t if ul t hing s How does one go from singing run-of-themill worship music to creating “liturgical post-rock”? (And what exactly is liturgical post-rock, anyway?) For Michael Gungor, lead guitarist and singer/songwriter of Gungor, it has been a “long, gradual process.” “I grew up in the church playing music, and music was always associated with my
spirituality,” he says. “How I got from there to here ... it’s been a long, bumpy journey.” Gungor’s journey from singing at worship services every Sunday (his father is a pastor) to touring with his band started in 2003, when he co-wrote the Dove award-nominated “Friend of God” with Christian music artist Israel Houghton. Since then, Gungor (the
by ashley emert
band) has released four albums, including 2008’s Ancient Skies, which contains the controversial “White Man,” and February’s Beautiful Things—their first release since changing the band name to just Gungor (from The Michael Gungor Band). “It’s not just about me. I don’t want people to come to just watch me perform for them,”
Ben De Rienzo
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Gungor says. “But we’re trying to, in our shows and in our experiences, create this transcendent moment. So we went with Gungor because it’s a little bit more abstract.” Michael’s wife, Lisa, who he met while they were both students at Oral Roberts University, contributes vocals and plays the keyboard in the band. She says their live performances don’t allow for any one person to be in the spotlight. “There’s nine of us up there playing, so it’s very evident that there’s no one person center stage,” she says. “There’s so many different things happening: the poetry, the video, just the whole feel of it is a group thing.” The transcendent moment Michael mentions originates in a recent personal theological shift. He says while he was growing up, the message of the music seemingly had to be more important than the music itself. But it’s different now. “I think this often happens in Christian music—we try to make the message so prevalent, we can forget that the music actually is the message,” he says. “Sometimes we’ve forgotten how important beauty is, how important aesthetics are, and art is sacred within itself because it’s beauty coming into the world—it’s part of the Kingdom of God.”
N
ow the band—which includes guitarist Brad Waller, bassist Josh Harvey and several other touring members—lets the art speak for the message at their Beautiful Things events. Often held in non-religious venues, a multitude of instruments (including a glockenspiel and banjo), visual elements (such as paintings and bright colors) and even poetry onstage give their concerts an Arcade Fire-esque feel. “For this record and these events, we’ve really taken art more seriously, just as sacred within itself—it’s not just a means to deliver a message, but it actually within itself is a message,” Michael says. “So for these events, we’re not afraid to just let art be art and not sing for a while if we need to go into some instrumental, transcendent moment.” Michael and Lisa agree that a key change to their approach in making music has been the decision to let go of outside expectations. “[With] the first record, we were a little more mindful of, ‘Gosh, OK, remember people might want to play this on the radio.’ This record I just tried to push all of that out of my mind. ... Just be honest to who we are. God made us to be who we are and put our particular set of gifts together.” It’s a common sentiment among bands approaching their second or third album—to cast off people’s opinions and stay “true to
themselves”—but the Gungors say it’s not merely a vanity; it’s more about rooting their worship in real, gritty life. “Growing up, it was me singing love songs to Jesus and pushing myself away from humanity sometimes,” Michael says. “[Beautiful Things is] a lot more of us and reminding ourselves God breaks Himself open for us, and we need to break ourselves open for the world.”
“Art is sacred within itself because it’s beauty coming into the world—it’s part of the Kingdom of God.” —Michael Gungor That bent toward justice and sacrifice is another level Michael and Lisa have been exploring—both in their music and in their personal lives. The couple recently founded a church in Denver, Colo.—Bloom—whose focus is on relationship and community social justice. The church plant stemmed from their desire to explore what it means to be the Church with other people. “It’s obvious God has had His hand on this for us because it brings so much life. It’s a community where you can be very real with people,” Lisa says. “One of my favorite things about it is that when someone is in need, people are there to help right away. And isn’t that what community is about?” Part of Bloom’s dedication to community is Love Train, a text messaging service. Once or twice a week, texts are sent to subscribers of Love Train informing them of opportunities to serve in the area. Truly being the Church proved to be more difficult than Michael and Lisa anticipated, as entering into community at Bloom meant entering into the pain experienced by others. They faced this firsthand while working with the needy in Denver, as well as visiting Africa last September with Mocha Club, a nonprofit focused on development projects ranging from clean water to orphan care. “The interesting thing about social justice is you’re staring right in the face of the depravity of the world and it sucks, it’s hard, and all these questions come up [like], ‘God, where are you?’” Lisa says. She says she felt like she was losing faith for about a year, overcome by the suffering she was seeing. But Lisa had a turning point one
day while halfheartedly praying with a member of Bloom. “I felt God, the Holy Spirit, say: ‘Stop. Just stop. Who do you think you’re praying to? Who do you think I am?’” she says. “It kind of jolted me—it was almost like a slap in the face. On one hand, you’re wanting to see God and feel all these things and feel His love, and it was almost just like: ‘You’re not praying to me. You’ve forgotten who I am. You’ve seen so much of the pain of the world, you’re not seeing the things that are coming out of it and how I am working.’”
T
he Gungors wrote Beautiful Things during this time, as they wrestled with the pain and tension of living as Christfollowers—not just singing about it. “Going through that really hard time, I wasn’t really writing a whole lot,” Lisa says, “but it was actually coming out of that, that was the inspiration for ‘You make beautiful things,’ of, ‘OK, yeah, there is all this pain, but, God, you are stronger ... You are bringing redemption, you are bringing heaven into the chaos.’” The reality and messiness of authentic community overtook the idealistic ideas they’d originally had when starting Bloom—that perfect community where love conquers all— but it also showed them what surrendering to Christ looked like. “People disappoint you, and you love them and they turn their back on you,” Michael says. “Often it looks like nothing is changing. There is a lot of personal angst [on this album], but I think there’s also a thread of hope that goes through all the songs that says, ‘Here it is— what we have isn’t much to offer, but could you do something with this, please?’”
Gungor albums Gungor has been making music for years, but here are their two most recent albums:
Beautiful Things
Ancient Skies
Gungor’s newest release was inspired by Michael and Lisa’s journey into the world of authentic community, as well as their experiences of seeing injustice firsthand.
Michael wrote the controversial “White Man,” on this release, after hearing a pastor who thought he had God figured out. Sample lyric: “God is not a white man.”
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finding the good in a bad economy BY Jonathan wilson-Hartgrove
80 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT 10
I know a guy in California who caught a ride on the dot-com bubble in the ’90s and made some easy money right out of college. Right place at the right time, some people say. Others say it was a blessing from the Lord. This particular friend, Alan, had grown up in the church and was earnest about his faith. He started attending a church where the preacher told him God was in the “blessing business.” If Alan was faithful with his thousands, God might entrust him with millions. Alan was ready to name it and claim it. But the bubble didn’t last. When Alan lost his job, his church told him he needed more faith. When he asked the Lord to increase his faith, he was plagued by doubt (and a growing pile of bills). Alan ended up leaving his church, burned by its “prosperity gospel.” Its message felt empowering when all was going well. But when everything came crashing down, the weight landed on the shoulders of those who were hurting the most. This wasn’t good news to Alan. He figured he could do better without the Church. Many economists say we’re approaching the end of the Great Recession. This good news has inspired hope throughout the land, as people who’ve struggled for the past two years look to better days ahead. But how many Alans had their faith shaken by the economic crisis? How many people prayed when they lost their job (or couldn’t even find one), only to realize their theology was bankrupt? How do we recover from that? Hard times force people to be creative (almost all new jobs in the past year have come from new companies, not the old standbys who promised security). But times like these can also stretch our understanding of who God is. Indeed, for many people this most recent crisis has stretched their faith to the breaking point. Are we, like Alan, to figure out survival on our own? Or does the Gospel offer economic hope for the here and now?
How the light gets in While no one looks forward to a recession, moments like this do give us a chance to step back and think critically about things we usually take for granted. The cracks in our global economic system have opened a space
for truth to shine on the deceptive lending practices of huge financial institutions. As one theologian pointed out to me, Christians usually complain the world is too materialistic. But those who’ve studied the roots of the Great Recession say the real problem was financial products that had no real material value. That is to say, our banks lost touch with the material world, driven by greed to make more and more money by selling debt to institutions further and further removed from the realities of land and buildings. The crash exposed their hubris. We’ve all suffered its consequences.
a re w e t o f igure ou t s ur v i va l on our o w n? Or Doe s t he Go s p el of f er ec onomic hop e f or t he here a nd no w ? But it would be unfair to blame it all on the banks. The light of truth that exposed their error also reveals how we are, all of us, caught up in an economy that tries to out-do our creaturely-ness. If we’ve read our Bibles, we know we are dust, always connected to the ground beneath our feet. We are made of dirt and the breath of God, always dependent on our Creator, but also on the ground from which we’re made. We can’t live without the food that grows in the ground or the trees that are rooted there. Yes, we are made for life with God. But we are also made for life on Earth. Our biggest mistakes are usually made when we’re trying to get away from the ground beneath us. Remember Babel (Genesis 11)? When the people of Earth were determined to unite and build a tower all the way to heaven, God introduced a crisis of sorts. He confused their language and, in short, brought them down to earth. Competition between rival
peoples was to keep us in our place. In an ironic twist of fate, however, our modern economy turned competition into a virtue, reasoning that our desire to be better than our neighbor would somehow push us all to greater and greater productivity. The results are, no doubt, impressive. I’m writing this on an affordable piece of technology that was unimaginable a hundred years ago. Our technical advances have led to huge achievements in public health, a drastically increased life expectancy and the elimination of diseases that once killed millions. But all of our building still doesn’t get us to heaven. Sometimes it takes a crash for us to reconsider what the good news really is.
Jesus in the 21st century If Jesus had been born in the 21st century instead of the first, He might have been born in Basra, Iraq. Of course, Jesus is a Jew, so it matters that He was born in Bethlehem of Judea. But it also matters that He took on flesh in a place under occupation. Jesus was not born into first-world wealth. He lived and taught among Palestinian peasants who were struggling to survive in Rome’s economy. When Jesus taught abundant life, He taught it to people who had no hope of getting a good job downtown. This is why it’s hard for us to get Jesus when everything is going well. Jesus preached, “Blessed are the poor” because the poor are, generally speaking, not in a position to think they have everything figured out. Having seen the cracks in this world’s system, poor people are more likely to see the incredible power of the new life Jesus proposes. So before we jump to celebrate America’s economic recovery, it’s worth taking a little time to ask what we can learn about the Gospel while we’re poor (or poor-er, relatively speaking).
Three lessons from the Great Recession Jesus cares about our economic well-being. A lot of churches that tended to people’s “spiritual” needs before this crisis have started ministries to meet immediate needs, help people find jobs and support people who are suffering from financial loss. It’s nothing new, really, to do this as an outreach ministry. But the Great Recession has helped some churches realize that taking care of one
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another’s needs is part of what it means to truly be the Church. I visited a megachurch in the suburbs of Nashville, Tenn., that started a sort of inhouse cooperative to help people buy back homes they lost in the mortgage crisis. In the interim, some members shared houses, got to know one another better and deepened friendships in ways they never could have otherwise. It’s one thing to say we love one another at church on Sunday. But those words come to life when we take care of one another’s most basic needs. This isn’t just good news for us. Jesus said it’s the main way we share good news with the world. “By this will all people know you are my disciples: if you love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:35). Healthy growth is rooted in real places and real relationships. If the Great Recession has unveiled the lie of limitless growth, each of us has to ask what habits we’ve picked up from a culture that assumes limits only exist to be overcome. Most of us weren’t trading complicated financial products two years ago, but almost all of us assume it’s reasonable to carry tens of thousands of dollars in debt as we pursue higher education and a more comfortable lifestyle. The assumption passed down to us from previous generations is that education is always a wise investment that will more than pay for itself in the long run. If “opportunity” presents itself in the form of a degree program or a promotion elsewhere, common sense has said: “Go for it. It’s always best to move up.” But those who lost jobs in the past couple of years know that, when highly skilled people lose the positions they’ve invested everything in, they’re often stuck on their own. What they most need is friends to sustain them in a community where they
the more you know THE WISDOM OF STABILITY Jonathan WilsonHartgrove (Paraclete Press) A look at the modern tendency toward transcience and the effect on our communities. plan b Pete Wilson (Thomas Nelson) Hope for anyone who has been faced with a failed plan A, and is trying to figure out where God is in the mess.
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are known. Like the Prodigal Son, many have come to themselves, realizing that even if the jobs aren’t as exciting back home, even dish washers and floor sweepers are better off in a place they know. I’m encouraged by experiments in urban gardening that are springing up around the country. What could be more basic to economic life than growing food? Yet, in all of our society’s enthusiasm over limitless growth, most of us have never learned how to eat from the land we live on. Fewer than 2 percent of Americans make their living farming. A more humble vision of economic well-being will no
young man from our neighborhood who’s in college now. Last year, when money was tight for most everyone we knew, this fellow, Brian, called to tell us he was having terrible tooth pain. I looked up a dentist and got him an appointment. The dentist called back to tell me he needed two root canals—$2,000. Thankfully, I have some friends who believe in God’s economy. Every month they commit to give away 10 percent of their income to people who have immediate needs. I contacted them and we paid for the root canals. Then the dentist’s office called back. If these teeth were going to make it, they said,
W e ’ re emb odied s oul s w ho need t o ge t our h a nd s dir t y e v er y bi t a s muc h a s w e need t o l if t t hem in p r a i s e t o our God. doubt move us to learn skills that have been basic to human existence since God first blessed us to “till the earth and keep it.” I know a farmer who likes to say, “This is one of those rare examples when doing the right thing is good to you, not just good for you.” Once you’ve tasted a tomato grown in your front yard, it’s hard to imagine that those red things you buy at the grocery store can even be called the same name. Beyond good food, a rhythm of life that keeps us connected to the ground beneath our feet is also good for our spirits. I have a friend who, after struggling with depression in graduate school, decided to read less and start taking care of the yard around the apartment he was renting. The hours he put into landscaping transformed the place (and delighted his landlord, no doubt). But they also gave him his sanity back. Like the monks who keep a rhythm of “work and prayer,” we’re embodied souls who need to get our hands dirty every bit as much as we need to lift them in praise to our God. Economic activity that acknowledges human limits helps us integrate body and spirit. We see God’s abundance when we share what we have (however little it may be). Long before the Great Recession, Christian financial planners were saying we need to reduce debt, resist the culture of consumption and invest money wisely. But “wise” investment looks a little different after everyone’s 401(k) has turned into a 101(k). Maybe it’s time for us to think again about what Jesus meant when He invited us to “store up treasures for yourselves in heaven.” The new monastic community where I live became friends several years ago with a
Brian needed two caps and some periodontal work. All of this would cost another $4,000. I told the kind woman on the phone I’d have to call her back. I prayed for a minute about the situation. I talked to my wife. Then we realized: “Brian has a lot of friends around here. Let’s see if anyone can help out.” In a day or two, we’d collected $1,600. I called the dentist’s office and told them about our friends and neighbors who’d chipped in—some of them people who were struggling to make ends meet themselves. I said, “To tell you the truth, it’s been so much fun to be part of this that I wanted to call and ask if y’all would chip in, too.” The woman on the other end told me she’d have to call me back. When the phone rang again in 10 minutes, she sounded excited. “The dentist says he’d be glad to do the work for the money you have.” I was reminded of Jesus, who, when asked by the disciples to send the crowds away to find food, asked the disciples, “What do you have?” They didn’t have much—and what they had wasn’t theirs (they’d borrowed it from a kid)—but Jesus blessed it and broke it and fed 5,000 people. Like all the miracles in the gospels, the feeding of the multitudes is about more than proving that Jesus has power. If we have ears to hear, it reveals the truth about God’s economy: when we take what we have and break it, God sustains us where we are, bringing us into beloved community even with folks we’ve never met. If an economic crisis can help us see that, I am grateful for it. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a new monastic in Durham, NC, and the author of God’s Economy (Zondervan) and The Wisdom of Stability (Paraclete Press). JonathanWilsonHartgrove.com.
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These Numbers Have Faces Justin Zoradi has a new plan for sustainable development in South Africa BY Alyce Gilligan
84 / RELEVANT_SEPT/OCT10
Cole wilson
This past summer, all eyes were on South Africa. Over the course of the 2010 World Cup, viewers became acquainted with the symbol of its flag, the names of its townships and the buzz of its vuvuzelas. But for Justin Zoradi, victory in South Africa began years before on a far smaller, though perhaps far more significant, soccer field.
“South Africa had not really been on my radar at all, to be honest,” admits Zoradi, founder of These Numbers Have Faces (TNHF), a nonprofit that provides scholarships to deserving youth. Zoradi had devoted much of his undergraduate studies to the civil conflict of Northern Ireland, and first came to South Africa with a team from Belfast to learn from the nation’s recent transition to democracy. But it didn’t take Zoradi long to recognize there was more to this mission. He became involved with a local youth soccer league, the J.L. Zwane Football Club, forming relationships that anchor the work of TNHF today. “I felt God begin something really powerful in me,” he says of that summer. When the coach of the soccer club proposed that Zoradi help the boys go to college, he was daunted. Not to mention, his own graduate education awaited him in the U.S. He suppressed the idea, promising to keep in touch. But one afternoon while waiting for a class at Portland State University, the thought emerged, almost audibly: Would you deny for others what you demand for yourself? That same afternoon, he walked to a bookstore and purchased a guide to starting a nonprofit. Three years later, the book still sits on the shelf of the Portland office of TNHF. “I knew my friends were not statistics. They were not pie
year. Such a prospect is even more precious in a post-apartheid community where only 3.5 percent of black South Africans graduate from college. “The opportunity for these young people is absolutely radical. It’s something that, honestly, you and I can’t fathom,” Zoradi says. “In our communities, for the most part, you go to college. That’s what you do after high school. It’s kind of a nobrainer. That’s not the case over there at all.” A college education is even more elusive for females, prompting TNHF’s Women’s Empowerment campaign. “Women are, without a doubt, the secret weapon in international development. When you educate a woman, everything changes,” says Zoradi, who identifies academic equality as one of the primary purposes of TNHF. Evidence shows that an educated woman in an underdeveloped area is less likely to contract HIV/AIDS
graphs, or color-coded charts or Excel spreadsheets,” Zoradi says. He continues to partner with the J.L. Zwane Football Club, as well as lintombi Zilapha, a girls’ dance team. It is primarily from these two groups that TNHF selects students for whom they will provide scholarships. Research shows that students from lowincome areas who are involved in sports programs are more likely to stay away from crime and to succeed academically and socially in the future. “We don’t just give out college scholarships for free. They have to do something for them. That is the difference between aid and development,” Zoradi explains TNHF implements what they call the Community Impact Model, requiring scholarship recipients to participate in community service projects, mentorship programs and financial literacy courses. In an effort to create a selfsustaining operation, students also commit 1 percent of their future earnings to the ongoing work of TNHF. “How exciting would it be for our South African TNHF team to one day tell us to go elsewhere, or stop fundraising because they had it taken care of on their own?” Zoradi says. “That’ll be an exciting day.” Currently, TNHF has eight students enrolled in local colleges, which costs $23 a day per student. The goal is to have 20 students by this time next
Attention from the World Cup was what Zoradi calls “a perfect storm” for interest and support. By hosting an online World Cup Benefit Bracket, they raised $2,500 for their education programs, roughly the amount needed for a student to complete one year of college in South Africa. Two of their scholarship students also had the honor of being selected by FIFA to serve as World Cup ambassadors. Of course, expansion means restructuring. TNHF launched an internship program in May, opened a new office in Cape Town and applied to be a South African charity in addition to their American nonprofit status. But the ultimate goal of TNHF has always been to shut down—in a good way. “We need to have exit strategies,” Zoradi says. He believes a successful nonprofit is one that empowers its people to maintain development independently. In a place where
“Education is key because it is lasting aid. It doesn’t dry up. It doesn’t go bad.” —Justin Zoradi and more likely to reinvest into her community. Statistically, her earning potential increases 10-20 percent for every year in school. “We are trying to right the wrongs of the past and move these students forward into this new, post-racial, post-apartheid society that South Africa is sort of floundering in,” Zoradi says. He expects 10-12 new female students to begin the program come January 2011.
food and clean water can be a luxury, this is something of a challenge. But TNHF is restoring the promise of education in South Africa, and consequently producing knowledgeable, connected citizens who can care for their community like no organization can. “Education is key because it is lasting aid,” Zoradi says. “It doesn’t dry up. It doesn’t go bad. It can never be taken from you.”
(These Numbers Have Faces) www.thesenumbers.org
These Numbers Have Faces awards scholarships to hardworking, deserving students in South Africa. They also offer students training in a variety of fields, giving them the opportunity to make the most of their education and become the leaders of tomorrow. TNHF also works to empower women in the community.
1
How You Can Help TNHF In addition to traditional, monetary donations, TNHF also takes donations of soccer equipment and frequent flier miles.
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Education Programs TNHF trains students in several ways so they will get the most out of their education: Financial literacy and computer training: From budgeting to basic computer programs, TNHF teaches students practical skills to apply to future careers Opportunities for community service and volunteer work: TNHF hopes to instill in students a sense of community by helping those around them Leadership and development training: TNHF students are required to mentor and build relationships with future members of the program
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Kingdom n o i t a r o b Colla
BE PART OF EQUIPPING A NEW GENERATION OF BIBLE TEACHERS Today, at least 75% of the world’s Christians are non-Western, or living in what is called the “Majority World.” This means Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. But 80% of Majority World pastors have no formal biblical training. And they’re trying to bring Biblical truth to areas suffering from extreme poverty and injustice. That’s where we fit in. John Stott Ministries (JSM) has a simple purpose. We are about: Equipping Majority World churches for mission and maturity through the ministry of local Christian leaders and pastors who sincerely believe, diligently study, faithfully expound and relevantly apply the Word of God. And people who’ve benefitted from our Preaching, Scholars and Literature programs are making a difference in their culture. For example, through the work of JSM Scholar Seble Daniel, a biblically sound voice in Ethiopia is helping to eradicate the unbiblical custom of female genital mutilation.
We invite you to help make a difference. Tell your friends about our work, pray for the Majority World and/or select a project to fund. To begin, visit our website at www.johnstottministries.org.
The growth of the non-Western church is going to change the world. John Stott Ministries is a leader in equipping the global church to grow in maturity. I can think of no more strategic work. They have my full support and should have yours too. Tim Keller, bestselling author and pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City
We are the U.S. affiliate of Langham Partnership International, founded by John Stott. www.johnstottministries.org
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Visit RachelHeldEvans.com to join the discussion.
Get the benefit of the doubt at JasonBoyett.com.
To purchase your copies today, visit www.Zondervan.com or your favorite local bookseller.
RECOMMENDS
music /// Arcade Fire
Future of Forestry travel III (Credential)
Sun Kil Moon Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde)
Merge
> An EP brings out an artist’s eclectic
> When Mark Kozelek catches you, he
side. Travel III, part of the three-EP
won’t let go. The former Red House
> No one has ever accused Arcade Fire of levity. After Funeral, their delicately anguished 2004 debut, 2007’s Neon Bible drove the somber sojourn further into heart and soul. They now return with The Suburbs, a brilliantly nuanced concept album that explores the tensions of physical and emotional entrapment. The band mixes suburban boredom into dystopia, like on “City with No Children” and the eerie moods evoked by dual songs like “Half Light I and II.” And yet Suburbs isn’t exclusively melancholy; on songs like “Ready to Start,” a pulsing beat drives to places Funeral seemed too timid to tread. Lead singers Win Butler and Régine Chassagne meld their voices into a perfectly wounded sound, bathing tracks like “Suburban War” in aching catharsis. But just when you think they’re too sad to see the light of hope, a song like the punkedged “Month of May” (“all the kids are standing with their arms folded tight”) rattles in, shaking up the sidewalks with an energy gone rogue.
Travel series, finds Eric Owyoung, the
Painters singer/songwriter strips away
sole member of Future of Forestry
the accoutrements (e.g., drums, bass,
(the name is from a C. S. Lewis poem)
an obvious chorus) on this fourth
decoupling from his emo roots and
release as Sun Kil Moon, his third with
experimenting with an organic and
original songs. “Sam Wong Hotel” and
sparse recording style. “Working to
“Third and Seneca” both showcase
Be Loved,” Owyoung’s best song yet,
his exceptional acoustic guitar skills,
is lighter than air, but the themes
intricate and always sullen, this time
are colossus: how we often work
with a bit less repetition. “You Are
to be loved when grace should be
My Sun” is dark and mysterious,
sufficient. “Did You Lose Yourself”
lifting slowly from a groundswell with
is equally devolved with hints of The
themes about personal restoration.
Postal Service and M83. The fantastic
“Church of the Pines” is a naturalist’s
thump-rock song “Protection” is like
ode, airy and organically wrought.
MuteMath without the vocal hysterics.
It might be all acoustic, but the
It’s a fitting end to the Travel trilogy.
feelings evoked are pure electricity.
The Suburbs
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Janelle Monae ArchAndroid (Atlantic)
Half-Handed Cloud Stowaways (Asthmatic Kitty)
Ra Ra Riot The Orchard (Barsuk)
John Mark McMillan The Medicine (Integrity)
> Janelle Monae makes crazy
> John Ringhofer, the trombone
> New York’s Ra Ra Riot got help from
> With his debut release on Integrity
music. Archandroid doesn’t have a
player for Sufjan Stevens, plays folksy
Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla and
Music, John Mark McMillan has
genre because it bounces from one
psyche-rock similar to Danielson
Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij
managed to do something rarely heard
to another with no seeming care
Famile or Modest Mouse without any
on their sophomore outing, filled with
these days: create worshipful rock ‘n’
for boundaries or categories. But
distortion or drums. Stowaways, his
brilliant string accents thanks to cellist
roll that doesn’t feel and sound like
somehow it’s all a singular vision
fifth release, does essentially what all
Alexandra Lawn and Rebecca Zeller on
every other album on the Christian
and works wonderfully. And that’s
Christian music should do: It explores
violin, all amid an ‘80s pop sensibility.
market. Psalm-like lyrics give an
without mentioning the album’s
beyond the hallelujah sentiments and
“Too Dramatic,” the song anyone in
intimate read through what feels like
primary conceit—a “messianic android”
finds a deeper resonance in obscure
a new relationship will want to play
his personal journal, while musical nods
who is sent back in time to save the
Old Testament references. Who has
right after their first fight (yeah, Ra
land generously in the direction of Pete
android community. But the bizarre
measured out the oceans/ Cupped in
Ra Riot still makes emo cool), sounds
Yorn, Greg Laswell and Jeff Tweedy.
story is told through soul (“Cold
the hollows of His hands, he wonders.
like the band really likes Talk Talk,
With The Medicine, McMillan has proved
War”), aggressive rockabilly (“Come
Following up the philosophical question
Duran Duran and other New Wave
that a well-crafted, under-produced
Alive (The War of the Roses)”),
from Job with a short-lived, ‘60s guitar
bands with two names. When unusually
album will still make people sit up and
British folk (“Oh, Maker”) and more
solo and bee-bop chorus. OK, it’s really
attractive and gifted musicians join
notice (it debuted at No. 3 on the iTunes
straight-ahead hip-hop (“Tightrope”).
weird, but weird in that can’t-stop-
forces and do not create a lip-syncing
Rock chart). Accolades aside, as he sings
The entire affair is tightly wound
listening-to-it-because-I-remember-
Disney sensation, we’re there.
in “Skeleton Bones,” McMillan has one
with perfect production and lyrics
this-from-Sunday-school way.
goal: “We just wanna love You, yeah …”
about love, loss and redemption.
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RECOMMENDS
dvds/// Holy Rollers (First Independent Pictures, R) > Anyone who grew up in a religious subculture, as with the Coen brothers’ 2009 triumph, A Serious Man, can easily relate to Jewish director Kevin Asch and Mormon screenwriter Antonio Macia’s indie drama set in a Hasidic Jewish community in 1998 Brooklyn. The spiritual film, which is inspired by actual events from the ‘90s, centers on a frustrated youth named Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg). Awaiting an arranged marriage, the young rabbi-in-the-making questions the spiritual path his family has set before him and acts on such reluctance when his neighbor, Yosef (Justin Bartha), convinces him to start smuggling ecstasy from Europe to the United States. Before long, Gold finds himself spiraling deep into a life of crime, experimenting with sex and drugs, until he realizes the lie behind that destructive lifestyle. Now caught between two pitting selves, he struggles to return back to a path toward God and goes on the run. With help from a convincing performance by Eisenberg, this crime drama—while not a critical masterpiece—succeeds through a compelling story and a bottomless exploration of religious versus secular identity.
The Ghost writer (Summit Entertainment, PG-13)
Casino Jack and the United States of Money (Magnolia Pictures, R)
> Five years after his last feature film,
> In this documentary, director
Academy Award-winning filmmaker
Alex Gibney explores the roots of
Roman Polanski returns to the
lobbyism and themes of power and
big screen with an intense thriller
greed through the rise and fall of
adapted from English novelist Robert
conservative Jack Abramoff. (The
Harris’ controversial book, The Ghost.
former D.C. superlobbyist was
Transparently alluding to the life of
convicted of fraud, conspiracy and
former British Prime Minister Tony
tax evasion in 2006, and is now
Blair, the narrative follows Ewan
serving a six-year prison sentence.)
McGregor as an unnamed ghost
Abramoff—described in the film by
writer who pursues the opportunity
a past associate as able to “sweet-
of a lifetime: completing the memoirs
talk a dog off a meat truck”—reflects
of an ex-political leader (Pierce
a political and financial zeal and
Brosnan). The story leads him
a corrupted capitalism that thrive
down a dark road of mystery and
throughout the country, despite
secrets, making for a suspenseful
his personal confinement.
ride that hardly slows down.
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Vincere (IFC Films, Unrated) > Director Marco Bellocchio’s
A Prophet (Sony Pictures Classics, R)
emotional drama is based on the
> Nominated for Best Foreign Film
How To Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks Animation, PG)
Clash of the Titans (Warner Bros. Pictures, PG-13)
life of Ida Dalser, the one-time
in the 2010 Academy Awards, this
> Loosely based on Cressida Cowell’s
mistress of Benito Mussolini who
intense prison film by renowned
2003 children’s novel, the animated
Davis’ cheesy cult classic, director Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans takes
allegedly married the fascist
French director Jacques Audiard
fable centers on a smart and scrawny
root in a revision of the Greek myth
leader and bore him a son. The film
exceeds its genre’s formula and
boy, voiced by Hollywood’s new
of Perseus, the son of Zeus. Perseus
centers on Dalser’s condition and
usual limitations. A Prophet is
favorite nerd, Jay Baruchel, who
is literally hell-bent on avenging the
personal experiences throughout
a brutally honest story about a
unexpectedly befriends the very thing
deaths of his adoptive parents and
World War I, as her feelings for the
young, timid Muslim, convicted of
his Viking people live to kill: a dragon.
sister, who were murdered by the
infamous dictator move quickly
a crime unknown, who enters the
Full of imagination, humor, memorable
wrathful god Hades, and stopping the
from passion to obsession. Drawing
pen in France as a naïve outcast.
characters, instructive themes and
underworld from diffusing evil across
heavily upon the couple’s romance
There, he joins a Corsican mafia
some of the most breathtaking visual
the world. Starring Avatar’s Sam
and fallout, Vincere is anchored by
group, and prison life begins to
effects yet to make it on-screen, this
Worthington, Liam Neeson and Ralph
profound performances—particularly
transform him into a ruthless killer.
DreamWorks picture, like Pixar’s
Fiennes, this action-fantasy blockbuster
that of lead actress Giovanna
A Prophet offers a commentary on
Up, is the kind of movie you just
offers top-notch performances,
Mezzogiorno—and its beautiful,
tainted justice systems notorious for
can’t help but fall in love with.
exquisite action sequences and
historical setting in Rome.
oppressing non-white immigrants.
> A mostly purist remake of Desmond
heavy spiritual undertones.
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RECOMMENDS
BOOKS/// The Rage Against God Peter Hitchens
The Shallows Nicholas Carr (W.W. Norton & Company)
A Place for Truth edited by Dallas Willard (IVP Books)
Zondervan
> The rise of the Internet is changing
> The Veritas Forum began at Harvard
everything: how we work, how
University in 1992 as an effort to
we access information, how we
engage students with the deep issues
communicate with and relate to
of truth and meaning that its founders
others. And according to Nicholas
believed were lacking in the modern
Carr’s fascinating new book, The
university setting. In A Place for Truth,
Shallows, it’s changing the way we
Dallas Willard has edited a collection
think in fundamental ways. Time
of speeches from two decades of
spent surfing the Web rewires our
Veritas discussions that attempt to
brains to function in a permanent
address life’s most difficult questions.
state of distraction, one that allows
Tackling topics ranging from atheism
us to quickly find new information,
to human rights, A Place for Truth is
but impedes our ability to evaluate
important because, as Yale Professor
this information or think deeply
John Hare says in his Veritas
about it. Everyone should read
conversation with philosopher Peter
Carr’s book—it will change your
Singer, “it matters how we think
understanding of the Internet’s
because that changes what we do.”
> In 1967, when he was 15 years old, Peter Hitchens assembled some friends and burned his Bible. “The book did not, as I had hoped, blaze fiercely and swiftly. Only after much blowing and encouragement did I manage to get it to ignite at all, and I was left with a disagreeable, halfcharred mess.” This ceremony marked Hitchens’ initiation into atheism, and for the next 14 years he took his “anti-beliefs” to their logical conclusions: delinquency, persecuting the weak, drug use, political violence and arrest. The Rage Against God is the story of his journey from militant atheism to faith—a journey that began with a 15th-century religious painting. In Part Two of the book, Hitchens, a well-known British journalist, also addresses three failed arguments used by atheists—including his brother, Christopher, perhaps the world’s most famous atheist—to justify their beliefs. But Hitchens doesn’t believe his brother can be argued out of atheism. “It is my belief that passions as strong as his are more likely to be countered by the unexpected force of poetry, which can ambush the human heart at any time.”
ubiquitous presence in modern life.
As a Messiah student, you work to better the lives of others and discover that they better your life in return. When you find opportunities for human connection in unlikely places, you become a force for Christian community in a fractured world. Messiah College. See anew.
sharpening intellect deepening christian faith inspiring action
messiah.edu 800.233.4220
admiss@messiah.edu Grantham, pa
Come see us at a Fall 2010 open house Oct. 11 (Columbus Day), Oct. 30, Nov. 8
Students: 2,800 • Student/Faculty ratio: 13:1 • Percentage of students receiving financial aid: 97 Athletics: 22 NCAA Division III sports • Majors: 55+ • Study abroad: 41 locations
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake Aimee Bender (Doubleday)
God & Football Chad Gibbs (Zondervan) > Chad Gibbs was raised in two
A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan (Knopf)
> The protagonist of The Particular
churches in the American South.
> Jennifer Egan’s new work of fiction
> Just as Jesus asked the disciples
One was a regular, run-of-the-mill
isn’t a novel, exactly. It’s a solar system
early in His ministry, each new
Sadness of Lemon Cake is Rose
Sunday morning church. The other:
of interlocking narratives set against
generation of Christians must answer
Edelstein, a 9-year old girl who can
the church of the Southeastern
the backdrop of the music industry and
His question, “Who do you say that I
taste people’s emotions in food. In
Conference. In God and Football:
orbiting around the dual loci of two
am?” According to Leonard Sweet and
her lemon birthday cake, she can
Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC,
characters: Bennie, a record producer,
Frank Viola—two of today’s leading
taste her mother’s loneliness; in
Gibbs brings an irreverent sense
and Sasha, his assistant. From
thinkers on the Church and co-authors
toast, her brother’s depression.
of humor to his exploration of how
different perspectives and in different
of Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the
Horrified by homemade food, Rose
to be both a passionate fan and a
voices, including what must be literary
Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus
develops a preference for vending
committed Christian. His quest:
fiction’s first PowerPoint short story,
Christ—the body of Christ has lost sight
machines. But as an adult, she
to spend a season traveling to the
the book follows Bennie and Sasha
of this question. They also believe
learns to harness her ability as a
SEC 12 schools to watch games,
(and other characters in their fields of
Christ-followers have missed what
gift. Author Aimee Bender’s gift is
visit churches and talk to people
gravity) around the world and across
should be their all-encompassing
illuminating the inner lives of one
“who love their team and love their
decades. Egan seems especially
purpose and calling: to know, love and
suburban family in a second novel
God, but are doing a better job at
interested in those moments of
manifest Jesus Christ; in other words,
that is sad, alarming, funny and
separating and prioritizing the two.”
passage that alter the inner landscape
to be living Jesus Manifestos in the
touching—sometimes all at once.
forever—even as time marches on.
Relevant 2_3.65 x 4.98
Jesus Manifesto Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola (Thomas Nelson)
world—“Nothing more. Nothing less.”
8/3/09
10:39 AM
Page 1
DON’T ALL HUMANS DESERVE
SOCIAL JUSTICE? Live The Language
SOCIAL JUSTICE
• Stay with a host family • Native Spanish professors • Gain more fluency • Seville and beyond is your classroom
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CONTENTS ISSUE 47 SEPT_OCT 2010 / RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
10 First Word 12 Letters 14 Slices 30 The Drop
The Civil Wars, Joanna Newsom, Flobots
36 deeper walk: A Vanishing God 38 WORLDVIEW: Why This Election Matters 40 The Gospel According to Hipsters 44 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
On why rock ‘n’ roll is the best religion
48 Whose Fault Is It?
Why just pointing fingers at BP isn’t enough
52 Stars 62 Buried By Busy 66 How to Make Friends and Influence People: The 2010 Edition 70 The Evolution of John C. Reilly The everyman actor talks comedy, faith
and improvising
72 What’s [Actually] On Your Mind? Social networking is changing the way we
think, pray and “like.” But what has it cost us?
78 Gungor 80 Taking Stock
Finding the good in a bad economy
84 These Numbers Have Faces
Justin Zoradi has a new plan for sustainable development in South Africa
90 Recommends
5 SHOWS REDEEMING TV