On the Verge of Denouncing the Culture Wars Outright

It's not that the Gospel shouldn't be a force to transform culture -- it should. My problem with the "Culture Wars" is that they subvert the Gospel by turning it into an agenda which we should push forth in the culture. It's sometimes a fine line, but always a crucial one. It's the line that denotes the area between ultraconservative Pharisees and libertine drunks and tax-collectors in which Jesus lived.

Sex is always fun to talk about, and provides a good example.

In The East Corner

I went to one series of sermons about "Sex and the Soul." They were firmly Christian sermons (though I would've wished they'd put a bit more of an emphasis on the fact that marriage is ultimately a symbol of God's relationship with the Church.) The first sermon in the series began with a reading from the book Blue Like Jazz describing a group of young boys as they first encounter pornography. The section was touching, humorous, and tragic -- but above all, it was observational. They saw the unclothed female form. They were scared of it. They liked it. There was something a bit off-kilter.
The sermon went on to point out how deeply important the sexuality of our beings is, if just a bunch of dots on a page can be that meaningful. It went on to talk about both sex as a good thing, and the brokenness and incompletion of sex in this world. By the end of the series, I had a new respect for God's gifts of sex and sexuality, and a deeper understanding of the deep connection of our souls to our gender and sexuality. Because I came out of the series with a greatly strengthened positive view of what sex should be, I felt I was far better equipped to see how messed up sexuality was in our society. I really couldn't (and still can't) imagine what benefits there could be in sexual immorality, since the whole meaning of sex itself can only be found in marriage.
This first sermon series also included a line about how "I'm going to say words like penis and vagina, because those are necessary in discussing the subject and I'm not going to ignore them." I felt vaguely uncomfortable, but didn't care. The preacher had something valuable and meaningful to say, and I wanted to hear it.

And in the West Corner

Currently, I am attending another Christian series on "sex, dating and marriage." This series began in a different manner. "There are many voices in this society trying to tell you what sexuality is..." The preacher went on to say how screwed up the world's view of sex was. How pervasive such wrong views were. He gave a quote discussing how we had moved from the misguided (yet at least idealistic) term "making love" to the mechanical term "hooking up" to describe the sexual act. He said a lot about the importance of taking the Scriptures seriously. He said a lot about people don't take the Scriptures seriously, and how bad that is. He grouped people into three categories, all based on the basic assumption that no one in his audience had examined the Bible's claims about sexuality and taken them seriously. He talked some more about the fundamental importance of Scriptures. He said sex was a great thing, though it must occurr within proper limits.
Other than vague comments abou it being a "great thing," or that it should occurr within marriage and everyone here wants to get married, he didn't say anything about sex. He sure had a lot to say about the fact that no one hears wise council about sex. And a lot to say about the importance of Scriptures. But I have based my life on the Christ of the Scriptures. I also ignore a lot of what is said about sex. I hadn't even seen a single episode of Friends, much less considered it a familiar landmark of my life. I have a girlfriend, and we are trying to live pure lives before God that both acknowledge that romantic love is naturally coupled with physical expression, but that God has set limits and since we aren't married we need to be damn sure to stay within them. Naturally, I was bored.
This second sermon series also included a line about how "I'm going to say words like penis and vagina, because those are necessary in discussing the subject and I'm not going to ignore them." I felt vaguely uncomfortable, and really wasn't sure that it was worthwhile for me to subject myself to a preacher talking about such almost sacred subjects, when he hadn't shown in any way that he had anything worthwhile to say to me.

And Back to the Culture Wars Again

The first sermon-series has changed my life. The second has merely mildly inconvienced it. I think the reason was simple.
The first sermon-series took the scriptures, and explained them to the congregation. It didn't give an elaborate justification of the importance of the Scriptures, it didn't give an elaborate description of what was wrong with the world (except for where it was required.) Christ was preached, and it was made very clear that only through Christ can sex be truly made whole. I can't imagine that anyone could put into practice anything said in the sermon without living a life counter to the destructive trends of our culture. But, at the same time, I didn't ever feel called by the preacher to stand against culture and help reverse the tides of evil that had been unleashed on America starting in the 1960's. Rather, I felt called to a Biblical view of sexuality.

The second sermon called for a war against culture. It dwelt ad nauseum on the icons of culture, and what wretched examples they provided. It defended Scriptures as a standard. It "took a stand." It drew cultural lines and stood for them. But it never said what to stand for. Often, I suppose, the only thing a soldier can really see is the faces of enemies peeking above the opposing trench.

Simply Pointing Out the Idiocy of a Certain Unimportant Misconception

I have heard it said a number of times that one difference between cinema and literature is that everyone who sees a movie has the same experience, while everyone who reads a book has a difference experience.

This comment does have two things going for it:

1) Moviewatching is a communal activity. It happens in theaters or in groups with friends. This really does make a difference -- I enjoyed the Shelob scene in Return of the King far more because I watched it in a theater where everyone gasped as Frodo got stung, for instance. But here, I think it is a mistake to confuse "communal" with "pre-produced." Just because I'm experiencing entertainment along with others, and we are working together to make the experience of watching the film "our own," doesn't mean I'm being a mindless drone who refuses to read because then he would have to use his "creativity" to make the story "his own."

(Btw, this communal element is quite enhanced in live theater, and is the reason why people are still (rightfully) willing to pay $65 to see The Phantom of the Opera live when they can see it for free with friends in their personal home theaters.)

2) Movies do present a single visual presentation, which is generally the same for everyone. I always thought that Tolkien's Ballrog had wings, but many fellow readers of The Lord of the Rings disagreed. We can all agree that Peter Jackson's Ballrog has wings.

At the same time, people often don't realize that there's a lot said in books that is left to the viewer's imagination in cinema. Why does Etta Place stay with Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid so long, and why does she leave so suddenly. I'm pretty sure that if I were given the book, I'd be offered psychological explanations. Admittedly, Goldman is so cinematically focused that I'd be given multiple explanations and asked to choose between them. But in any case, I have to use my creativity to finish up the story of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in a way that I wouldn't if I were reading a book.

(For another example, I could ask "what does the briefcase's contents mean to Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction?")

I think, though, that the most conclusive argument is the simplest: look at the reviews of The Passion of the Christ. If everyone watching the movie saw the exact same movie in the exact same manner, then they could not possibly have written such diverging and contradictory reviews. Instead, the movie did what many great movies and many great works of literature have always done -- it presented a story before the audience's eyes in a profoundly affecting manner, and invited each member of the audience to meditate on its meaning, and make the story his or her own. Sure, everyone saw the same cross and the same blood and the same warped-reflection in the first drop of rain -- but everyone brought his or her own experiences to the film, and therefore everyone brought something different away.

Call Me Thursday

Angels in the architecture
A better cynic said
Spinning to infinity
With joy he lost his head

Yet joy has come in human flesh
I live for I believe
More, joy with blessings in me mesh
My tears drain like a sieve

From nightmares deep
From monsters mild
From cynic sleep
From rages wild
From life, from sin
From fear-led death
I run and loose
I waste my breath

This joy -- for me? -- in human flesh
I sin, can I believe?
My reason errs when joy is gone
To God my soul I leave.

The Four Obediences

In C. S. Lewis' The Four Loves, he set out to categorize "love" in a manner that points to the goodness and beauty of three lesser loves (sexual love, familial love, and friendship) while always remembering that all the lesser loves can only exist under the lordship of Christ, and must be fulfilled in Christian love, or "charity." A modern example, I suppose, would be that a man shouldn't love his wife only "as a sister in Christ." He should love her as a man loves a woman, he should protect and cherish her as a man protects and cherishes the woman he loves, etc. But unless a couple bases thier marriage on the transcendent Christian ideals of humility and self-sacrifice, and upon those ideals' reality as came to the world in the God-man Jesus the Christ, then the couple will not be able to experience the fullness of sexual love as God intended it when he made Eve for Adam.

As a result, The Four Loves is a very good book. It manages to simultaneously be Christian and to resist the "puritanism" which Lewis hated and constantly struggled against. (By puritanism, Lewis mean not that which lead Jonathan Edwards to write at length about the beauty of the natural world, but that which makes an ancient pharisee scream against healing on a Saturday afternoon or a less-ancient Baptist scream about dancing on a Saturday night.) In other words, the book manages to be Christian.

I am a rather hesitant theologian, even if I have managed to develop a number of places where I'll stand against certain teachings I grew up with. Largely this is because I haven't felt a calling to become a preacher, and don't have the encyclopedic knowledge of the Scriptures (and Christian thought about the Scriptures) that would give me the weapons to stand against most real theologians in a battle of knowledge. This is what God used rabid hypercalvinists to teach me. That said, and in the vein of Lewis' The Four Loves (Lewis wasn't a career theologian, either), here goes my attempt to sketch out four important aspects of what I think it means to try to "follow God" and live a Christian life.

1) Intellectual Belief

This is the first, and most obvious to the average nonchristian walking around America, aspect of a Christian's life. He ought to believe in God. Now, a lot of times the word "belief" is tossed around in discussions as something that you do in your free time, and I'll admit that I personally DO think about theology a lot in my free time. But anyone who has read the book of Job, seen a man deprived of everything he loved and derided by his friends for no fault of his own, and seen that same man say "even though you slay me, yet shall I love you," ought to have a better understanding of those "intellectual assertations." They ain't easy, and they ain't optional. God calls us to acknowledge Him. Even if, at times, it means He has to slap us on the face to shock us out of our self-pity and anger at Him.

2) God's Reasonable Commandments

Here's where Focus on the Family comes in (when they're being good, at least.) A lot of what God has commanded for us is pretty straightforward, and Scriptures often give us those explanations. For example, we shouldn't have sex before marriage, because sex really is meant to join two people together for the rest of their lives and God set up marriage to announce this joining publically. It's still a commandment from God, so it doesn't mean that just because I'm convinced I want to marry Hannah I am authorized to shack up with her while waiting for the marriage. But in general, there are commandments like this that God gives us (often through prophets or Paul) with the gentler voice of a patient father who wants to say "look you idiot, to do this the wrong way is just dumb, so just don't do it," but is explaining his reasons in little, simple words.

3) God's Direct Orders

Then again, sometimes God just says "do this, because I say so," without calling upon a moral principle other than "obey your God, who is smart, wise, good, and way the hell beyond anything you could think up." For instance:

God: Jonah, go to Nineva and preach there.
Jonah: But there are lots of good Israelites who could use my preachings here...
God: Jonah, go.
Jonah: ***points behind God's messenger*** Good gracious! What in the world could that be?
God: Do I have to send another fish? Are you not green enough as it is?

Now there are times in Scriptures where such revelations come after a concerted seeking of God's will. The 13th Disciple was decided upon by casting lots to determine God's will, and there's nothing to say that this wasn't a good idea. The Holy Spirit is certainly sent to lead us into the discernment of all truth. But for the most part, the Scriptures don't seem to speak of God as a constant voice in our heads giving us instructions on what we should do. Instead, they seem to talk about a process wherein God makes us better able to be "the mature [believers], who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil." It's not that God can't (and won't at times) supernaturally convince us what to do at a particular given moment -- it is just that when God does that, it is an exceptional and unexpected event.

4) God's Unreasonable Commands

Finally, we come to the core of Christian morality. God doesn't command us to have a philosophy only so that we can be right. He doesn't call us to live only a reasonable, healthy and well-balanced life. He doesn't call us always in a booming voice or through a burning bush. He calls us to live the life of Christ, a homeless man who went around saying and doing such ridiculous things that he was declared dangerous and executed, but who turned out to be God in disguize whose secret plan, it turns out, was to be executed. He calls us to "take up our cross and follow Me," to "love thy neighbor as Christ loved the Church" (and thy neighbor means everyone), to "turn the other cheek," to have all the fruits of the Spirit. Everything else God has to say is perfectly reasonable and sane, even if God occassionally (like Plato) reminds us that we are all rather stupid. But these unreasonable commands are pure insanity. We can't do them. When people who know about Jesus like Jesus, it is because the world Jesus talks about is one they'd like to live in. When people who know about Jesus hate Jesus, it is because they know they could never be the kind of person Jesus requires, and they want to be content with their imperfections. So of course, they tear branches from trees and coats from their bodies to pave the way to Jerusalem for a man on a donkey. And just as naturally they would rather Jesus be tortured and killed than a serial killer.

And here, of course, we have an unreasonable and insane grace that draws us into this kingdom of Heaven. We walk the road to Heaven only because of Christ, and only through faith in Christ. All other areas of morality just describe limits, and taken on their own they are dead, as a fence set up in the middle of a pasture. On our journey to Heaven, we realize that the fences of morality are but the edges of the path that Christ, through the slow processes of growth and maturity that predated the fall, supernaturally leads us along.