the tindog coffeehouse

How’s that for a broad title?

First, a little background. In March, I wrote a blog post in response to a review of the upcoming movie adaptation of Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. In the post I voiced concern over how homosexuality may be portrayed in the movie, worried that (according to the review) the movie was consciously pursuing a pro-homosexual agenda, which I believed was the wrong message to send to both the Christian community and to non-Christians. I made it clear that since I had not seen the movie, I was only responding to the review.

The post generated a few comments, including a response from the movie’s producer, Steve Taylor. And although it wasn’t originally intended to be a political discussion, it more or less evolved into that.

Now the Weekly Standard has published an article attacking Miller for his support of Barack Obama and his apparent disdain for conservatives:

True or not, Miller and other “emergent” church voices do speak for growing numbers of evangelical college students and young adults who are wary of cultural confrontation. Miller is a former Southern Baptist from Houston who now attends a socially conscious church in Seattle. The “emerging church” describes the progeny of the evangelical world who are trying to transcend polemics and speak to post-modernity. Critics claim that Christian “emergents” have surrendered to post-modernity’s moral relativity, just as theological liberals of earlier generations surrendered to modernity’s rejection of the supernatural. …

Miller’s implied comfort with same-sex marriage and seeming apathy about pro-life causes would have upset one-time Religious Right icon Bill Bright, the late founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, the international college ministry that elevated Miller to best-selling author by distributing Blue Like Jazz to thousands of college freshmen. Bright, like other old-line evangelicals, might also have been discomfited with Miller’s casual references to profanity, liquor, sexuality and marijuana in his spiritual odyssey.

Miller then answered back on his blog, refuting some of the article’s statements and clarifying his views on politics:

The article describes the church I attend as “a socially conscious church in Seattle” and then makes the leap of positioning me as part of the emergent church movement—perhaps because I am under the age of forty. I am not a member of the emergent church movement. I attend a conservative church (in Portland, not Seattle) that reaches out to the poor. I doubt most of the people at my church voted the way I voted in the last election, but quite honestly, we don’t talk about it. We are involved in larger things. …

As for my support for President Obama, I travelled around the country during the campaign and publicly disagreed with Obama’s position on abortion. I encouraged conservatives to do more on the issue than speak loudly because I saw the last 40 years as hardly being successful as far as reducing the number of abortions or ending the tragedy taking place in our country. This is hardly a soft stand on the issue. Not many people in the Obama camp were saying such a thing. And yet they accepted me and listened to my position. I found them to be open to dialogue. I still do.

I appreciate Mr. Miller’s clarification, but it brings up a question I touched on in my earlier blog post: Should a Christian who disagrees with abortion or homosexuality based on their faith support a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual political candidate? In my opinion, the answer is no.

Does that make Donald Miller’s support for Obama wrong? Obviously, I would say that it does. But does that mean that Christians should automatically vote Republican or blindly support conservatives? Absolutely not. (Case in point: Mitt Romney.)

As Christians, what we believe and how we live our lives should be based on one thing and one thing only, and that’s the Bible. We shouldn’t bring politics into the church, nor should we use the pulpit to promote a political agenda. However, our faith should determine how we vote. If we really believe that homosexuality is a sin and that abortion is infanticide, then by supporting a pro-homosexual, pro-abortion candidate, we are acting contrary to those beliefs.

Now, there are many Christians out there who would disagree with me on this point, particularly those within the “emerging church” movement referred to in the Weekly Standard article. Trending toward a more postmodern, post-evangelical (and typically left-leaning) approach to Christianity, the emerging church tends to downplay issues such as abortion and homosexuality, choosing instead to promote tolerance and community over Biblical theology or ideology. As a result, relevance and relatability become more important than strict adherence to Scripture.

While I wholeheartedly agree that the Church should be outward-focused and active within the community, the moral ambiguity of the emerging church sends a very dangerous message to the non-Christian world, namely that there are no absolutes, no judgment, and no consequences for wrong choices. And it was precisely this mindset — as displayed in Gabe Lyons’ movie review — that I took issue with back in March.

Nevertheless, while I may disagree with certain aspects of the emerging church movement, the fact remains that we are all still Christians, and our focus first and foremost should remain on glorifying God and furthering His Kingdom. And I believe Donald Miller is doing that through his books. Even if we did vote for different people in November.

Previously:
Concern over movie version of ‘Blue Like Jazz’
The election is meaningless
Faith and the Presidency

The past few weeks have been pretty stressful for me. I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say, I really needed to read this article that I came across in Relevant Magazine last week:

True freedom is being liberated from our misplaced dependencies for life, love, worth, significance, peace and fulfillment. I’ve discovered my most significant needs in life correspond with a deeper need that only God Himself can satisfy. … Most people want to feel their lives matter and set out to make their mark in the world. But if you look to the world to tell you who you are, you’re in for one wild and painful ride. Do well, and you’re a hero; screw up, and you’re a zero.

Paul’s word content seems a little weak, but it actually describes a very powerful freedom. What if we were content (satisfied and fulfilled) with God’s perfect love and were free to give love, rather than constantly maneuvering to get it? Or what if we were content with our identity in God and were free to serve the world, rather than trying to prove we have a right to exist in it. Geez, all this time I’ve been seeking life, love, worth out there somewhere only to find that the source of all of these was inside me all the time through the risen Christ. No person, endeavor, thrill, formula or achievement is capable of delivering what we all crave deep within. There’s always something that could go better, but the peace and joy God provides go with you … even if life throws you overboard. That’s freedom!

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller is a wonderful book. Beautifully poetic, humorous, and deeply insightful, it is composed of a series of seemingly random essays about various topics such as love, grace, and community. Miller’s book challenged me, as it should. I don’t agree with him on everything, but I followed along his journey anyway, willing to listen to what God had to say to me through it.

So when I heard that they were making a movie version of the book, my curiosity was piqued. First off, it’s not like this is a novel, but it’s not purely an autobiography either. Secondly, it’s not structured in such a way that it would easily translate to a screenplay. So I was excited to see the end result.

But after reading a review of the screenplay on Miller’s blog, my excitement has turned to concern:

Blue Like Jazz portrays a vivid tension between Christianity and the world. I thought it was fantastic. It was hard to swallow some the direct obligations towards Christianity – they are so true though. The times of hope and resolve allowed me to emotionally connect to the character of Don. I laughed out loud and swallowed hard at times when reading through the script. The story touched on every single issue that outsiders have with Christianity (Judgmental, Hypocritical, Antihomosexual, Sheltered, Too Political, and Proselytizing based on the research of unChristian). It’s an emotional ride that brought me to an ending that gave me much hope and confidence in (1) Being Christian (2) The story I am developing with God on a personal level and (3) Jesus.

The Evangelical viewer is going to come face to face with some tough criticisms. However, the honest Christian is going to come away feeling refreshed. The cultural elite are going to laugh at the cynicism and debate that takes place during the Reed College scenes and they will appreciate the genuine tension that Don has with God. Your Juno fans are going to love the the witty dialogue, emotional connection to each character and who they represent. They will also love the scenes dealing with rabbits, the Pope, condoms, college parties, and the journey Don is on. The dialogue comes off as very genuine, even when reading it as opposed to seeing it on screen. Homosexuals who believe in God will love the relationship between Don and Laura. Conservative Christians are going to have the hardest time with it – but it is a necessary affliction they need to feel. The postmodern crowd of Christianity is going to rave about it. Since the story is about a guy who is in college your college students will love it on so many different levels, especially, the character development of Don. I think majority of criticisms will come from your extreme conservative and your extreme liberal – However, majority of the world rides the fence.

I suppose that because I disagree with homosexuality, that puts be into the category of “conservative” Christian rather than “postmodern” Christian. So it’s probably no surprise that the way homosexuality is apparently portrayed in the movie concerns me a great deal. Further, the arrogance of the statement that such concern is a “necessary affliction they need to feel” leads me to believe that this is not simply about including a homosexual character in a Christian movie, but that there is an obvious agenda behind it. That is to say that if I’m a conservative Christian, then I must be wrong, and this movie is supposed to put me in my place. (It should be noted that in the book, Laura isn’t a homosexual.)

What message is this movie sending not only to the Christian community, but to non-Christians? From the review it seems to be that true Christianity (the “honest” kind that is not judgmental or “antihomosexual”) is made for the majority of people who “ride the fence” between conservative and liberal. It’s the kind that doesn’t pick sides or stand for absolutes, but loves the sinner while refusing to hate the sin.

That is not the Christianity of the Gospel, and I don’t believe that was Miller’s intent in the book.

Please understand this is not an indictment of Donald Miller or his book, only a reaction to a review of the screenplay.  I’m still curious about how the movie will turn out. I just hope the review is way off the mark.

Update, 4/16/09:
Here’s a good interview with Donald Miller and producer Steve Taylor (who was kind enough to respond to my original blog post), discussing how they deal with the controversy surrounding their work:

A few observations about the interview:

1. The interview was conducted at Mars Hill Graduate School in Portland, Oregon. According to their website, MHGS is an “evangelical and progressive institution. The faculty consciously submits to the authority of Scripture and the model of a hermeneutical framework that interprets the Bible in light of its grammatical, historical, literary, and theological contexts. Relational hermeneutics is a full-bodied, soul-engaged, heart-transforming encounter that involves the subjective worldview of the interpreter as much as the process of interpretation.” I’m certainly no theologian, but my assumption is that their views on issues like homosexuality are probably more liberal than those of conservative seminaries in the South.
2. Miller contrasts Christians in the Pacific Northwest, who he deems more “balanced” because they didn’t grow up in a religious environment, with Christians in the Southeast, who he characterizes as being more apt to get drunk and sleep with their girlfriends. I thought this was an interesting statement, if only to demonstrate how he views conservative “red state” Christians.
3. Miller mentions supporting Barack Obama for president. He doesn’t elaborate why, but he wouldn’t have supported him without having his reasons. Again, this demonstrates a difference between Miller and conservative “red state” Christians. For example, as a Christian I disagree with abortion and homosexuality, and therefore will not vote for a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage candidate, regardless of political party. Miller obviously feels differently if he actively supported someone like Obama.

These observations are important to keep in mind because they show where Miller and Taylor are coming from as they produce this movie, which is to say that their point of view is probably much more liberal than that of conservative Christians like myself. It will be interesting to see how that point of view affects the message of the movie.

Previously:
¡Viva La Revolución!
What number are you?
When we worship God
‘How Apple Plays Upon Our Insecurities’

From Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller:

When we worship God we worship a Being our life experience does not give us the tools with which to understand. If we could, God would not inspire awe. Eternity, for example, is not something the human mind can understand. We may be able to wrap our heads around living forever (and we can do this only because none of us has experienced death), but can we understand what it means to have never been born? I only say this to illustrate that we, as Christians, believe things we cannot explain. And so does everybody else. …

I was talking to a homeless man at a laundry mat recently, and he said that when we reduce Christian spirituality to math we defile the Holy. I thought that was very beautiful and comforting because I have never been good at math. Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever. …

Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little time is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder.

I began seeing friends on Facebook join a group called I Am Second, and it didn’t really mean anything. Then I saw it mentioned in an article in the Dallas Morning News. Hmm. OK, so what is this about?

That’s the question Plano-based e3 Partners Ministry hopes North Texans will ask as part of “I Am Second,” a multimillion-dollar media campaign intended to promote God as the source of a shared, purposeful life. The initiative – which began this month and is planned to last three years – has attracted professional athletes and Hollywood celebrities and drawn more than 160,000 Web site hits from people in at least 150 countries. …

The mysterious ads list a Web site – iamsecond.com – with provocative testimonial videos by celebrities like movie star Stephen Baldwin, Dallas Cowboys linebacker Greg Ellis and former NASCAR champion Darrell Waltrip.

Dallas-area residents also share stories of eating disorders, loneliness, drug abuse and pornography addiction. The intimate clips appear more like the makings of a professional documentary than a homegrown church movement.

I have to admit, I wasn’t sold on the idea at first. To me, it seemed like another catchy pop-Christian movement like The Purpose-Driven Life, something that everyone at church is excited about for a while but then forgets when the new car smell wears off. What was the point, anyway, to get people to join I Am Second groups at church, probably sell bracelets and T-shirts that say, “I Am Second”? I don’t know. That kind of mass-marketed pop-culture Christianity gets a little old after a while. Why does Christianity have to have a catchphrase?

But that’s not what it’s really about, or at least I don’t think it is. The point of the campaign is to reach out to people, talk to them where they are, relate to the struggles that they’re going through. It’s to provide answers to the question of who Jesus is and why that matters to us.

Donald Miller writes in Blue Like Jazz:

The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me. …

I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I have had habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.

And that’s what I Am Second is all about: realizing that we are not meant to be the most important things in our lives, that there is something — someone — greater than us, that there is a purpose and meaning beyond our immediate problems and circumstances.

I think it’s wonderful that this message would come at Christmas time. After all, that’s what Christmas is all about. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son….”

Our lives, our problems, our stuff. That’s not what it’s all about. Putting God first, realizing that He is so much bigger than anything we might be facing, that’s when we can finally be free.

The Bible says that we are to die to ourselves, and in so doing, we will be able to live a new life, no longer bound to the problems of our old one (Romans 6:4-6).

And that’s the best Christmas gift anyone could ask for.

Check out the website: www.iamsecond.com

I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, and so far I’ve really been challenged and inspired by it.

In one chapter, he talks about his friend Penny, who wanted nothing to do with Christians but eventually became a Christian herself. One day, she told him about how she started to read the Bible with her Christian friend Nadine:

We started reading through Matthew, and I thought it was all very interesting, you know. And I found Jesus very disturbing, very straightforward. He wasn’t diplomatic, and yet I feel like if I met Him, He would really like me. Don, I can’t explain how freeing that was, to realize that if I met Jesus, He would like me. I never felt like that about some of the Christians on the radio. I always thought if I met those people they would yell at me. But it wasn’t like that with Jesus. There were people He loved and people He got really mad at, and I kept identifying with the people He loved, which was really good, because they were all the broken people, you know, the kind of people who are tired of life and want to be done with it, or they are desperate people, people who are outcasts or pagans. There were others, regular people, but He didn’t play favorites at all, which is miraculous in itself. That fact alone may have been the most supernatural thing He did. He didn’t show partiality, which every human does.

The Gospels are my favorite part of the Bible. They’re the core of the entire thing, the main attraction, the moment when we finally see Jesus in the flesh. Everything in the Old Testament simply leads up to that moment, and everything after refers back to it.

And what many people who’ve never read them don’t realize is just how much of a revolutionary Jesus was. He directly took on the establishment–not the Roman government which controlled Israel at the time, but the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees who really ran the show. His ministry was a threat to them, to their way of life, so much so that they finally had Him arrested and crucified.

And yet, the reason His ministry was so dangerous to the Pharisees wasn’t because He was leading a political or military uprising (which the Jews expected their Messiah to do against the Romans), it was because He was talking about love.

So yes, Jesus is very disturbing. And that’s a good thing.

There’s an old song by the Christian band Jacob’s Trouble, “Way of the Cross”, that puts it better:

Jesus was born in the dung and straw
Israel’s king in a donkey’s stall
It was no accident
It was the way of the cross
He had a bad reputation and a scandalous streak
Passed over doctors and lawyers
To hang with beggars and thieves
It was no accident
It was the way of the cross
Brings forth life from a barren womb
Puts wise words in the mouth of a fool

He pardoned the sinners and healed the diseased
But the teachers of religion were His enemies
It was no accident
It was the way of the cross
He gave the keys of the kingdom
To the meek and the mild
He told the self-righteous grownups to
Act like a child
It was no accident
It was the way of the cross
Cuts down giants by the hand of a boy
Knocks down city walls with nothing but noise

He tore down the curtains, blew open the doors
For a handful of fishermen, pushers, and whores
It was no accident
It was the way of the cross
He stripped off our disguises
Our cover was blown
At the end of all we thought we knew
Naked past the bone
It was no accident
It was the way of the cross
Slays whole armies with the jaw-bone of an ass
Puts the end of the world in a book from the past

Jesus was killed on a cross of wood
The king of the Jews died like an ordinary hood
It was no accident
Brings forth life from an empty tomb
Burns His words in the heart of a fool like me