Against evangelistic billboards

The recent Dallas Morning News headline read, ‘I Am Second’ advertising campaign aims to put God first
.

The story mentioned billboards throughout the North Texas region and an accompanying Web site featuring videos from actor Stephen Baldwin, football coach Joe Gibbs, and other famous people.

While I find some of the “I Am Second” campaign compelling, I’m going to offer a dissenting opinion regarding evangelistic advertising and marketing campaigns.

I think many well-intentioned people are still playing out a trend that began in the early 1900s in the U.S. and the U.K.

Beginning back then, various fundamentalist, evangelical, and Pentecostal groups saw the principle problem as one of competing messages in a time when mass media was rapidly increasing its influence. The pre-set cultural touchstone of Christianity was no longer pre-set, so the goal became to answer the “bad” messages with “good” messages.

Some of these message campaigns, well-intentioned, got out of hand, like when Prohibition became law.

Today, we have too many messages — advertising prompts, marketing slogans, campaigns of various kinds — and most of them reflect a certain set of values that runs counter to traditional religious views.

Therefore, the well-intentioned, yet wrongly oriented, fundie/evangelical/Pente mind thinks that the problem is too many of the wrong kinds of messages.

Unfortunately, in their answers to the wrong kinds of messages, they are simply adding to the message-overload of our media age, in a time when message-overload is a problem unto itself.

They took the premise of our media age for granted, when the premise itself was a problem.

We need more conscientious objectors in the Message Wars (borrowing from Gregory Wolfe’s approach to the Culture Wars).

“The lost,” as the fundie/evangelical/Pente crowd defines them, do not need more messages. They really, really don’t. Meanwhile, inside some religious crowds, folks have abstracted the impact of the Gospel into polling and statistics. Who believes? Who doesn’t? Who is winning?

If the Gospel is about a relationship — with someone who has already won it all — then why make evangelization about competing messages?

To speak in fundie/evangelical/Pente terms, “the lost” need more genuine relationships with Christians who are going to stick around (instead of leaving when evangelistic efforts don’t produce an immediate conversion), and who can actually relate to others within common interests, instead of constantly proselytizing for their point of view. Inside some religious crowds, folks need to be able to identify those with whom they share common interests, and those with whom they don’t share any interests (ergo, don’t push it), and understand that the foundational commonality of bearing the image of God is our essential human nature, even if some of those images are brutally warped instead of partially restored.

Since the early 1900s, there have been generations of fundie/evangelical/Pente folks who “spread the Gospel” by handing out impersonal, mass-produced pamphlets and by inviting people to big-arena crusades (where, if they came forward, they could receive an impersonal, mass-produced pamphlet).

As a person of something like Reformed Anglican faith, I can’t say all the messages and pamphlets and crusades are entirely bad, and I understand how they can be a welcome change within all the static and visual clutter, but I think the people behind the campaigns subtly reinforce fundamental misunderstandings about what the Gospel actually is (a media event? a popular movement? a momentary triumph in the Message Wars?), as well as what actually influences people, which would be relationships.

We need a few more conscientious objectors in the Message Wars.

-Colin Foote Burch

The Tale of Despereaux: a parent’s short review

Today, I took my daughters, ages 8, 6, and 3, to see The Tale of Despereaux. It’s rated G, and the run time, after plenty of previews, is an hour and 34 minutes.

QUICK SHOT: See it. The story is good, and it includes a wonderful, redemptive lesson. Plus, the animation is sharp and exciting. Good characters. Interesting subplot. One caution: my 6-year-old seemed frightened by some scenes, although the 3-year-old seemed to take the tension — and menaces to main characters — in stride. It is, after all, rated G.

SYNOPSIS (no spoilers!): A rather civilized rat goes to a kingdom of people and accidentally sets off an unfortunate chain of events in the human realm. As a result, the rather civilized rat winds up in a Ratworld, where the rats aren’t so civilized. Meanwhile, we learn of the birth of a mouse (over in Mouseworld) who has a startling lack of fear and a strong sense of adventure. (I’m trying very hard to avoid spoilers in what follows.) The young mouse meets the princess of the people world, and they begin a friendship. However, the officials of Mouseworld do not appreciate the young mouse’s courage and adventurous nature — and their lack of appreciation for those things eventually results in the meeting of the rather civilized rat and the young mouse. The young mouse works to vindicate his courage while the rather civilized rat attempts to undo the damage of his earlier accident.

MEMORABLE LINE: Something like, “The most powerful feeling in the world is forgiveness.”

–Colin Foote Burch, member, Society of Professional Journalists

Atheist promotes Christianity for Africa: ‘the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa’

From Matthew Parris’ extraordinary article in The Times of London, written following his recent return visit to Africa:

“Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

“I used to avoid this truth by applauding – as you can – the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it.”

Parris’ article is full of first-hand, personal observations. Read the entire article.

Theological Book Network offers opportunity to contribute books to readers in poor countries; a charity for knowledge

Grand Rapids, MI — For those who at year-end have a desire to give but fewer dollars to spare, the Theological Book Network offers an opportunity to make a significant difference in the poorest countries of the world by contributing new and used scholarly and theological books.

“The books that collect dust on our shelves are often greatly needed in libraries, schools and seminaries in the poor countries of the world,” said Kurt Berends, executive director of the Network. “Individuals and institutions that clean out their book shelves can contribute to the education of many who often have no books at all.”

Although the Network does not collect Bibles or popular literature, it does seek scholarly and theological books and journals, which are often unappreciated in general book drives.

Such theologians as Martin Marty and Roberta Hestenes have donated their libraries when they retired, knowing the books would be used by those who truly understood their value.

The value of donated books and the postage to send them to the Theological Book Network are tax deductible. Books and journals can be sent using media mail, a special rate offered by the US Postal Service. For more information, visit http://www.TheologicalBookNetwork.org or send books to: Theological Book Network, 3529 Patterson SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49512. A letter acknowledging the donation will be sent upon receipt of the book.

–Press release; emphasis added

New York Times’ review of Matisyahu’s Festival of Lights concert: a disco ball shaped like a dreidel

From the New York Times:
Music Review | Matisyahu
By JON PARELES
Published: December 22, 2008

Matisyahu deployed what may be the only large, mirrored, rotating dreidel in show business — a Jewish answer to a disco ball — at Webster Hall on Sunday night, the first night of Hanukkah. It was also the first of eight New York City shows for Matisyahu in his third annual Festival of Lights series, bringing different opening acts and guests each night. A large menorah was set up for a mid-concert lighting ceremony, with the blessings declaimed in Hebrew by an audience volunteer.

Matisyahu, who was born Matthew Miller, sings explicitly devotional songs about God, Moshiach (the Messiah) and Orthodox Jewish identity. By setting them to reggae, rock and hip-hop beats, and after working his way up the jam-band circuit, he also reaches listeners with their minds on more secular pursuits, like dancing and drugs. Simcha Levenberg, the M.C. who introduced him, drew big laughs with jokes about marijuana and LSD, although Matisyahu’s song “King Without a Crown” insisted, “If you’re trying to stay high, then you’re bound to be low.”

Matisyahu has built a career on analogies between Rastafarian roots reggae and Hasidic songs. Both are concerned with faith and survival struggles and have lyrics phrased in Biblical allusions; both draw on modal scales and melismatic vocal lines that can sound Middle Eastern. Near the end of the concert Matisyahu sang long, cantorial phrases while rocking back and forth, as if davening, or praying. Yet if his lyrics weren’t so clear about their references to Jewish history and the majesty of God, most of the time Matisyahu would simply be one more reggae-loving rocker.

In “Jerusalem,” which drew heartfelt singalongs, he worries about assimilation, singing, “Cut off the roots of your family tree/Don’t you know that’s not the way to be.” But the roots of his music are Afro-Caribbean and African-American. He uses Jamaican reggae and dancehall toasting, sometimes delivered with a Jamaican accent; he also uses hip-hop cadences and showed off his vocal beatboxing.

His band also segues into rock, for chiming marches that borrow their idealistic sound from U2. Matisyahu is less concerned with a musical heritage than with a religious one.

Album by album Matisyahu has expanded his music. Along with basic roots reggae he now uses faster, tongue-twisting dancehall toasting and the electronic beats and brooding chords of hip-hop. And he’s looking farther: Matisyahu joined Crystal Method, the thumping, rock-tinged electronica duo that opened the show, to sing and rap on a song from their next album, due in March.

Matisyahu rarely improves on his sources. His voice is thin and sometimes nasal, closer to Jack Johnson than to Bob Marley or Sting; his rhymes can be as awkward as they are earnest. But his band — which was augmented, for a few songs, by an Israeli oud player — carries simple vamps through multiple transformations, from meditations to shredding guitar solos. It’s music for believers, with a groove for everyone else.

Matisyahu is at Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, East Village, Tuesday and Thursday , and at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 North Sixth Street, at Wythe Avenue, Saturday through Dec. 30. Tickets: (212) 307-7171 or ticketmaster.com.

Conor Cruise O’Brien: A forgotten article

One of my favorite National Review pieces was the cover article for the April 22, 1996 edition. It was “Liberalism and Terror” by the late Conor Cruise O’Brien, who died last Thursday, and the article was an outstanding example of insightful and intellectually vigorous writing. In his honor, I offer two paragraphs from “Liberalism and Terror.”

Liberalism and terrorism appear as opposing concepts. But they have something in common. Both belong to the large and heterogeneous family of the devotees of freedom. Freedom is the most powerful and the most ambiguous of abstract ideas. There are two main divisions within the massive ambiguities. There is freedom combined with order and limited by law. This is the freedom of England’s Glorious Revolution and of the American Constitution. This is the “manly, moral, regulated liberty” which Burke defended in Reflections on the Revolution in France. This is the freedom of the mainstream liberal tradition in the English-speaking world. And it is also the freedom of the mainstream conservative tradition in the same world. In their philosophy of freedom, the common ground between the two traditions is more important than the differences. Edmund Burke belongs to both those traditions, and no one should seek to wrest him from one of them in order to monopolize him for the other.

Outside the zone of ordered freedom, now more or less coextensive with the Western world, the idea of freedom and the love of freedom take starter and more elemental forms. Freedom is thought of as the appurtenance and rightful heritage of a particular group of people defined by nationality, religion, language, ancestry, or territorial affiliation, and usually by some combination of several of these elements. Some other group or groups of people are felt to be denying freedom to us, who must have it. Freedom so understood is one of the most powerful of human motivating forces and the most destructive, impelling large numbers of people to risk their lives for it and to take the lives of others, the enemies of freedom. Serbs and Croats cut one another’s throats, and all for freedom’s sake.

Does Christianity claim exclusive access to ‘truth’?

This passing remark — at the opening of an article entitled “When Jesus met Buddha” — made me pause:

“Was the Buddha a demon?

“While few mainline Christians would put the matter in such confrontational terms, any religion claiming exclusive access to truth has real difficulties reconciling other great faiths into its cosmic scheme.”

It was just a passing comment in an article that goes in an entirely different direction, but consider:

Is it true that Christianity claims exclusive access to “truth”?

To answer, the questions should run along these lines:

The truth about what?

The “truth” as it is most generally and broadly understood?

Or is it the truth about a few essentials matters such as the meaning of the world, the human condition, what exactly salvation is, and why we would need it?

Prominent Western Christian thinkers would never have suggested that Christianity held all the “truth” (in the broad and general sense) about everything.

They would, as the old saying goes, affirm that “all truth is God’s truth.” But it doesn’t stand to reason that they would say no truth (broad and general) comes out of other religions and philosophical schools.

Augustine thought the philosophical school of neo-Platonism provided a great service to truth.

Aquinas structured his theological writings with materials provided by Aristotle.

The biblical passages within Proverbs 22:17-24:22 show similarities to the Egyptian instructional sayings within “Wisdom of Amenemope” (according to my NIV Study Bible).

Just four years before the appearance of the first edition of Institutes of Religion in 1536, John Calvin thought enough of Seneca to write a commentary on the Roman Stoic’s book On Clemency. (See “Calvin and the Christian Calling” by Alister McGrath in The Second One Thousand Years, edited by Richard John Neuhaus.)

Yet Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and the Christian canon of Scripture would all insist that the Christian Gospel speaks the truth on matters of God, the human condition, and salvation.

The church at Friendfield Village

Below are photos of the church at Friendfield Village, where former slaves once lived, at Hobcaw Barony, just north of Georgetown, S.C. (Click to enlarge.) The church, rebuilt in 1890, replaced a former slave chapel, and was renovated again in 1905.

Out of the mouths of babes

Sadie, age 3, following yesterday’s class at Trinity’s Learn-and-Play:

“We learned about the baby Jesus… He’s already been born.”

Education: ‘learning is always the reflective unfolding of our beliefs about things’

A quote I cribbed from the Mars Hill Audio site: “Learning and faith cannot be separated because learning is always the reflective unfolding of our beliefs about things. We can with good confidence return to the ancient theological conviction that all human knowledge is faith seeking understanding.” — Norman Klassen and Jens Zimmerman, The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education (2006)
Click here to see the book at Amazon.com