Evangelical Expatriate

Psst.

2007-01-26T21:22:00.000-05:00

I'm over here.

If you haven't lost all patience with me, please be kind enough to update your blogrolls.

Comings and goings.

2006-07-25T11:18:00.000-04:00

I’ve been silent here for so long that I don’t quite know where to start. A lot is going on in my life, and it’s occupied my day-to-day doings so completely that the thought of writing about it, mulling it over in print, is too daunting.

When things become so overwhelming, I resort to lists. Which is part of why I’m becoming a librarian. Which is one of those things I haven’t mentioned here (see “daunting”).

Hopefully I will be able to discuss each of these items in more detail in the future, but for now, a barebones outline of What’s Going On With My Life:

1. On June 28, I ended my job at Calvin College after working there for three years.

2. On August 13, my husband and I will move to Philadelphia.

3. Contrary to our original plans, Nate will be working full-time while I go to school full-time.

4. I’m going to school to become a librarian. Not sure what kind yet. Maybe public, specializing in young adult literature. Maybe a broadcast librarian, maintaining digital archives and doing research and reference work for journalists.

What’s pertinent in this forum is that I’m not sure what to do with Evangelical Expat. Part of the reason that I haven’t posted much, in addition to the Big Life Changes I named above, is that I’ve grown tired of deliberately filtering everything through my jaded-yet-hopeful expatriate lens. There have been things that I’ve wanted to write about here that I didn’t feel I could, because they didn’t fit topically with the stated purpose of this blog.

That’s frustrating, because the fact is, being an evangelical expatriate is no longer my primary identity. For a long time, largely because I was working at Calvin, I was wrestling with what it meant to be a Christian outside the mainstream, what it meant to be in the subculture but not of it, yet of the subculture and not in it. That took most of my energy, but I got the energy back from having conversations about the very things that drained me.

It’s not that I don’t wrestle anymore. It’s not that I’ve given up. It’s just that I’ve made peace. I’m an evangelical. I’m not content with that 99.9% of the time, but contentedness and peace are two different things.

The point is, I want and need to widen my focus. The expatriate identity has become stifling, because it’s not all there is to who I am or, more importantly, what trying to know and honor God is about. I just want to be myself, not a representative of a somewhat contrived movement.

That doesn’t mean I’ll never write about expatriotic issues anymore. I will, because they’re part of me. But I’ll have more energy for them if I can also tell you about the radio project a girlfriend and I have conceived that will revolutionize your car trips. If I can also muse over what happens when we move back to the east coast and try to reintegrate our Midwestern experience with our Yankee roots (and Nathan’s Southern ancestry, too). If I can just talk about what I’ve been listening to, what I’ve been reading, the television show I really like. If I can post links to my obsessive Flickring, documenting our new neighborhood and our best friends. If I can share my favorite recipes, because you know what? I really like to cook.

I haven’t felt free to do any of that before, and it’s time. I hope what I have to say will still be interesting to the people who occasionally stop by here. My guess is that it will be more interesting to me, if no one else, and right now that seems worth it.

At this point, I’m uncertain whether I should keep the Evangelical Expatriate name. It might be time to move to another address, one which doesn’t promise something it can no longer deliver. I won’t be hasty, but I’d appreciate your input on that. Should I stay or should I go?

Darfur burning.

2006-05-02T09:12:00.000-04:00

The final score of yesterday’s deathmatch with technology:

Technology: 1

Human who forgot to Ctrl-S: 0 and falling

Obviously this indicates that the Singularity is one step closer to evolving our homo sapien asses into obscurity. On a less colossal scale, I hope you will forgive my inability to muster up the chutzpah to recreate my piece at the moment.

However, since I am on deadline for Sojourners, I will have to write about celebrity activism at some point this week. I hope to be able to whip up some musings about why it takes George Clooney dressed in snappy journalist-on-safari khakis to convince Americans to give a half a shit about Darfur. I’m not yet sure if this will be a thoughtful analysis, as in “here’s why,” or a half-crazed lament, as in “WHY GOD WHY?!”

All [scratch that: "most," as of an interview this morning] of the professional activists and organizers I talked to for my article took the former approach, explaining to me that though celebrity worship is weird and occasionally unsavory, it gets people to sign up for their campaigns, and who are they to question that reality? I, on the other hand, threw up on the Marie Claire spread where Drew Barrymore waxes romantic about poverty, while a Valentino model poses erotically on the facing page. I can’t quite reconcile the incongruities, but the fact that so many devoted activists support celebrity activism in spite of them humbles me.

Speaking of humbling, I want to pass on a portion of an email from my friend Sarah, who as you may remember is an aid worker in Sudan. She is my Darfur connection, and I greet each of her electronic updates with a mixture of wonder and trepidation. Wonder because Sarah herself is a wonder, strong and competent and loving, her writing hopping gleefully between the five languages that occupy her brain, illuminating the daily news from the other side of the world. And trepidation because that daily news is so often bad news. Last week, she forwarded me a BBC report, and her comments were simply, “Bad here. Really bad.”

Wonder and trepidation meet as usual in her latest letter, which describes the awfulness of the escalating violence and upheaval in Darfur, the slow march of tens of thousands of Sudanese, the tentative prospects of a fragile peace, on a gut-wrenchingly human scale. The suffering of our brothers and sisters around the world can be so overwhelming, because globalization makes possible the 24/7 electronic transmission of that suffering. We all suffer from “disaster fatigue.” I am thankful to have friends who are known and beloved to me in the midst of it, because they help me remember that what I see on television is real.

Here is what Sarah wrote:

April 25th, 2006

I walk into the office - the meeting room is full of Dinka sultans, a tribe originally from south Sudan that moved to Darfur to escape the conflict of south Sudan. Long dark faces, weathered eyes, slender limbs and hands.

"Can you help us... were from X (village 10 minutes away from fighting) - we want to go home, to south Sudan. We are afraid, we can hear the fighting, there is too much death in this place too much death. Can u help us get home?"

"Last year they came from that side, they came from this side - they don't even care about us, but were always caught in the middle. I can't protect my people... we've seen our wives, children, parents die. There is much water in our eyes... we only have water in our eyes. Can you help us go home? No more water in our eyes... please."

_____________________

Water in their eyes, water in my eyes, water in God's eyes, water in the Churches' eyes. May there be water in all our eyes for the hurting places of this world. But may there be more - may there be that fierce anger and determination that says enough - please remember Darfur.

I would confess discouragement - but I am not discouraged. Rather, again I realize how important the power of presence is, even when you know damage cannot be undone, even when you know more often than not your lose rather than win. We, as believers are called to the dark and hurting places of this world. I get up every morning and I am so GLAD to be here - so grateful to be apart of something that says ENOUGH.

Please continue to say enough back home. Please remember Darfur.

Darfur is the headliner on BBC and CNN international tonight - please watch tonight's evening news as the AU seeks to broker a new peace treaty. There is also a new congressional supplemental budget scheduled for Darfur in June - if you have the time please write your congressman.

Please remember Darfur.

Paul Rusesabagina, the now-famous Rwandan hotelier, often reminds us that the most abused words about genocide are the post-Holocaust vow, “Never again.” Rusesabagina reminds us that is not enough—because genocide is happening even now, again and again and again and again.

With Sarah and with many other voices in Africa, let us all try to say “enough.”

Watch this space.

2006-05-01T10:51:00.000-04:00

Well, I have learned my lesson.

I am typing this blog entry in Word right now. I’m sure most other people figured out a long time ago that this (or some other self-saving, blog-specific software) was the way to go.

Not me. Until now.

I was happily typing away this morning, about to update EE with its first substantial entry in ages. I was chugging along on a piece about Darfur and celebrity activism, as a preamble/first draft for the Sojourners article I’m writing. I was amped.

It occurred to me once or twice that I should “Save as Draft” or copy and paste into Word, just in case. I am militant about saving when I’m writing in Word, but somehow that safety net escapes me whenever I’m blogging. There was even a nagging little voice that surfaced to remind me that I have, at times, managed spastic and involuntary navigation away from the page, and what was to ensure that this time would be any different?

I ignored the voice. I plowed ahead. I was kicking ass. I was on my second-to-last sentence.

The power went out.

I lost everything.

So did one of my co-workers, and she and I flailed around and moaned for a little while in the dark. We actually lay down on the grubby office carpet. There was sackcloth and ashes and rending of garments. I threw things.

I have no one to blame but myself, of course.

So now I am typing in Word, making sure my fingers hit Ctrl-S every few seconds. If anyone knows of a magic trick to resurrect the original entry I’d written in Blogger, I’d certainly appreciate it. A page somehow cached, perhaps. I know it’s most likely futile. Words are vapor when you don’t Ctrl-S them.

I’ll probably try to reconstruct the Darfur piece, because what’s happening there is important and I want to showcase some of the reflections of a friend on the ground. I’m still mourning the original words right now, even though I’m the one who neglected them and let them die.

I can't believe the news today.

2006-04-27T17:24:00.000-04:00

Four students and a staff member are dead at Taylor University.

How many times have I driven that stretch of highway between Taylor and Fort Wayne?

I am overwhelmed by how unfair everything is.

This is too much I want to say and can't. Later. For now, I am grateful that students have an opportunity to grieve with one another without having to worry about going to classes. One of my worst memories of my time at Taylor is having to take a pop quiz the day after 9/11. Classes were not canceled on that awful day, and the "prayer service" consisted of belting out "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." I am exceedingly thankful that Taylor has a new president (among other assorted administrators) who recognizes the value of mourning corporately and taking time out from the ordinary when something this out-of-the-ordinary crashes in on our reality.

Going public.

2006-03-15T14:46:00.000-05:00

There's a video featuring the late, revered Christian Reformed writer Lewis Smedes that's been getting a lot of press in the web-circles I run in. I finally got around to reading the transcript today, and I felt that I couldn't let another minute go by without adding my "amen" to the chorus.

Like the Real Live Preacher, I abandoned any hope of orthodoxy on the matter of gay folks in the church a few years ago. I just gave up. Because I couldn't bring myself to believe it's a sin, and I couldn't bring myself to believe that gay people should be excluded from either general community, the eucharist or leadership in the church. I've known too many gay people, and I've loved them too much. I've never felt right agreeing that they ought to be prohibited at the outset from experiencing romantic love in their lives, was the main thing.

I got tired of arguing about it with others, though, those cyclical debates in which no one could win but everyone lost. It all came to a head last spring when a group of my friends from college got together for a reunion and ended up debating homosexuality over Cheerios one morning. I simply didn't have the energy for that discussion and so sat there silently--but as a result, I ended up hanging one of my best friends out to dry. She carried "our" side on her own, and when we were alone later, she became furious with me for leaving her to be torn apart by friends she loves, to be questioned on her doctrine and the very grain of her faith. She was right to be angry.

It's taken me awhile to admit it, but reading Lewis Smedes put everything right in my mind and heart. If you read what Lewis Smedes has to say on the topic of homosexuality, you know what I have to say, too. I'm still reluctant to take part in debates on the subject, because they never seem to go anywhere useful or gracious. But it is important to speak up for the people you call your friends, even if you are a vanilla, heterosexual white girl like me. I know where I stand now, for as I always suspected, I can do no other. Amen.

What to wear?

2006-01-23T12:12:00.000-05:00

Originally uploaded by kebojo.

My office at Calvin sponsored a student-run fashion show this Saturday. Calvin is an unusually hostile environment for people who are interested in textiles and the fashion industry, but the reception garnered by their original designs and creatively assembled outfits was nothing but enthusiastic. The response was invigorating, particularly given the near-constant antagonism our office has received (mostly from faculty) since the show's inception.

Following is a piece I wrote that was included in the program for the fashion show.

************************************************

What’s the first thing you do when you get up in the morning? You probably shower, brush your teeth—and then, you stand in front of your closet and figure out what to wear.

To some, this decision may not seem important. Clothing is purely functional; society requires people to cover their bodies in fabric, and so they do—no matter what that fabric feels like, how it drapes, or how it complements or clashes with other fabrics on their body.

But others are considering just that. Would this top look better with a belt or hanging loose? Do these two patterns contradict one another or bring out the unique qualities of both? Is adding earrings to this outfit overkill or just the right touch? What does a skinny tie say when paired with this shirt?

Unfortunately, that people ask these questions is often derided as materialistic, narcissistic, and vapid by those who dress for comfort or utility. This is especially common among Christians who have been influenced by traditional Protestant values like thrift and modesty. To them, fashion is the antithesis of faith, representing all that is worldly and vulgar.

Certainly there is much in modern fashion that Christians ought to criticize. Impossibly thin models are held up as the standard by which all other women are judged, nevermind the health risks and distorted ideas of what it means to be female. Working conditions for those who make most of our clothing are dismal, and our purchases reinforce an economy that thrives on cheaply made goods. And among popular mall designers, fashion lacks subtlety and class, as evidenced by the particularly gauche trend of labeling t-shirts with brash sexual solicitations.

But adorning one’s body does not necessarily have to be an exercise in the sexier-than-thou oneupsmanship that permeates popular culture. As the students behind tonight’s show will demonstrate, the question of “what to wear” is about more than what’s hot in fashion, whether in mall windows or on the runways. Calvin’s designers, make-up artists, and hair artists are just that—artists. From hand-sewn evening gowns to found-object accessories to hodge-podge thrift-store castoffs, the clothing in tonight’s show is a testament to the potential of fashion to speak truth aesthetically, culturally, and theologically.

These students are motivated by a variety of considerations in deciding what to wear. Some dress to shock, to awaken, to give affront to homogeneity. Others say that their clothing is an opportunity to literally wear their personalities on their sleeves. Others select their outfits mindful that not everyone in the world has that luxury, favoring designers who pay seamstresses a fair wage and use materials that are gentle on the earth. For still others, fashion is primarily a creative act; to design clothing or apply make-up or arrange hair is to work with a living canvas and make a walking, talking work of art.

In a cultural climate that sees fashion as a means of adhering to the status quo, attracting sexual partners, or demonstrating wealth, these students’ attitude towards fashion is profoundly countercultural. It is also profoundly Christian. In the Reformed tradition, we believe in the redemption of all things, including the earth on which we stand and our bodies that work and play and eat and, yes, dress every day.

In this economy, even the most quotidian activities matter. People need food, shelter, and clothing to survive, but we need beauty, too, to point beyond mere survival. Like a delicious meal or innovative architecture, clothing can be a celebration of the life abundant, and of the bodies that God created and called good.

This is what we celebrate tonight. We invite you to enter the creative process with us, considering thoughtfully and imaginatively what to wear.

Dying well.

2006-01-13T16:42:00.000-05:00

Last week, we learned of the death of a beloved member of the extended Sojourners family. Jeanie Wylie-Kellerman, who had fought brain tumors for seven years, passed away on New Years Eve.

I never got to meet Jeanie, but she and her husband, Bill, were a strong presence in the collective memory and ethos when I was interning at Sojourners. There was a little prayer table set up in the hallway outside the library with pictures of the W-Ks and their daughters, some writing that Jeanie had done, some candles. Everyone always spoke of them so warmly, so fondly. Their lives were about Kingdom work, about speaking truth to power and speaking up for the little guy and showing up.

Jeanie lived and died on the buoyancy of grace. Take the time to read two remarkable obituaries from the Detroit Free Press and the Metro Times, which chronicle her deeds as well as her community funeral. Even more moving is the website that chronicled her family's journey through the disease in the form of online diary entries, right up to the end:

"Recent days have been a gift of grief and grace. We are not crushed. We are held by a beloved community. We now know of ashes to ashes, but the days of surrounding and caring for her body were an incomprehensible gift. Every act of practical care proved to be simultaneously sacramental. ... We’re sending her off with a shout. Shout with us. Or shout where you are."

I shout with this family and its beloved community: Death is not our friend. It is our enemy, and oh, how deaths like Jeanie trouble me in my deepest parts. A wife, a mother, a woman who had done so much good and yet had barely even begun. But God has made his victory over death, which has bearing not only on the way we die, but the way we live. I hope my beloved and I will be able to do both with the firey hope and grace of Jeanie.

The night is half spent.

2005-12-23T11:57:00.000-05:00

Advent display.
Originally uploaded by kebojo.

This year, we have been marking the journey through Advent by lighting candles and opening the daily doors on this calendar. You may recognize the illustrative style; the calendar was designed by Steve Erspamer, whose artwork adorns the Real Live Preacher's blog. We love this calendar not only for its visual beauty and its unusual six-sided city design, but because of the way it forces us to make space for wonder and reflection during our culture's busiest season.

Each evening, we open a flap (sometimes two, if it's a special feast day) with the exclamation, "Lift up your heads, o gates, and be lifted up, o ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in!" We then read a reflection from the booklet that came with the calendar, which usually focuses on a particular saint of either antiquity or modernity; early on, for instance, we revealed a lovely iconic painting of Rosa Parks standing in front of a bus. This week, we've been reading the "O Antiphons," which guide us through the verses of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." After Christmas, we will celebrate its twelve days, ending with an Epiphany celebration.

These rituals are not a natural part of "the holiday season" as we know it in America. But they are a vital one for our household. They force us to slow down, to consider what we are really celebrating when we finally arrive at Christmas day. Marking the light is necessary in the midst of the darkest time of year. The night is half spent, and we eagerly wait for the dawn.

Being there.

2005-12-16T14:08:00.001-05:00

This is my friend and former roommate Christa. She was arrested yesterday in Washington, DC, along with 114 other people.

So what's she smiling about?

The thing is, Christa is one of those peaceniks who gets arrested on purpose. I know--didn't she get the memo that the Civil Rights movement ended decades ago?

Except that it didn't. Christa knows that in this country, justice has not yet rolled down like water, nor righteousness like a mighty stream. The fact is that lots of people in this country are still in chains, oppressed by poverty, denied the right to health care, food, and housing. The federal government could help to fix this. It could make some changes that favor poor folks. It can't solve all problems, of course, though it can try to solve a few. But it hasn't. It won't. To people like Christa, this is discouraging, but it's not an excuse to give up. You have to show up in spite of the odds. You have to keep telling the truth. You have to be present. You have to speak the prophetic "no," while pointing to God's emphatic "yes." Sometimes you have to do this while standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Yes, like most religious people, Christa just won't shut up about the good news. Good news as in, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor" (Luke 4:18). Good news as in, "He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty" (Luke 1:53-54). You can read some more of this type of good news in Christa's commentary about her arrest.

Don't misunderstand me: I don't think something like the recent budget cut-slash-tax break, which prompted this DC protest, is a cut and dried issue. I struggle with what we should expect from the government on behalf of the poor, for what exactly we should hold it responsible. I wince when the rhetoric of the Christian left comes across merely as a photographic negative of that of the Christian right; I do not expect the U.S. government to behave as though it were guided by biblical principals, and some of the Sojourners language can come across as imperialistic as Focus on the Family's. Christians should not be surprised when the government does things like, say, passing a budget that cuts taxes for those who need them least and cuts programs for those who need them most. That's par for the course.

But though I may quibble with the rhetoric (and, occasionally, its motivation), it's the showing up that gets me. It's the bearing witness. Speaking the no, pointing to yes. That matters.

I recently got an email from a friend of mine in a different part of the world. She lives and works in Darfur, Sudan. Up until a few weeks ago, her city wasn't the scariest in Sudan, although it's far more dangerous than anywhere I've ever been, and it's only becoming worse. My friend works there to foster education about gender and sexual violence. Women are frequently raped on their way to get wood for their stoves. It's happened to almost everyone my friend knows there. It's that kind of place. And now the civil war has spread into their backyards. Thousands of people have been killed, almost overnight. It's one of the most hopeless places on planet earth.

Yet this is what my friend had to say in her email:

"I wish I could tell you guys that we are making a difference. I wish that as humans we could truly do something to alleviate suffering on a permanent basis. I wish we could offer more than temporary alleviation.

"Yet for all the bad on both sides and despite all the mistakes that we make, agencies and the powers that be, I know that between being here and not being here, it is better to be present. At least the presence of the international community communicates to those innocent and caught in the middle that they are worthy of attention and assistance even if it is never quite enough.

"I think war is a great place to go if you need any convincing that there isn't a solution outside of Jesus. I don't mean that tritely or cynically. Even if the fighting stops here the hellacious leftovers will last generations. For every town you help another one gets burned down. For every child you feed at least two more die. You can't really stop evil. But I believe our victory lies in knowing that its hold is only on this world and not the one to come. And even though you can't necessarily stop evil on any kind of grand scale you can at least say, scream, shout out that it is wrong. That is why I am here – to say its wrong even if I can't stop it."

This friend won't shut up about the good news, either. Good news as in, "Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God's Sunrise will break in upon us, shining on those in the darkness, those sitting in the shadow of death, then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace" (Luke 1:78-79).

Sometimes showing up lands you in jail. Sometimes it lands you in the belly of hell on earth. Showing up is almost never as productive as you hope it will be, and it's usually rewarding only in the most painful, circuitous, internal way. It rarely counts in the economy of this world. But being there is not about making a difference, although we try in spite of everything, and we rejoice when we place even the tiniest chink in the armor of the enemy. The point is not how efficient the good news becomes when we tell it. The point is that we tell it at all.

Jesus, etc.

2005-11-21T15:31:00.000-05:00

When Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy took the stage at Calvin College last Thursday, it wasn’t a new experience for those of us who live and work here: Wilco, along with other bands of its ilk, has performed here in the past. But for many in the audience who don’t attend Calvin, the evening was anything but ordinary. As if seeing their alt-country anti-hero at a Christian college weren’t bizarre enough, Calvin had the gall to plop Tweedy down in the middle of its chapel—organ, choir loft, and all.

The Tweedy show, and the response it generated from mainstream Wilco fans, was a wake-up call for me that confusion about what we’re trying to do at Calvin isn’t unique to evangelicals. Sure, we field angry phone calls from denominational donors upset with the occasional Indigo Girls concert or screening of Fahrenheit 9/11. But following Tweedy’s show, I was also reminded that regular, music-loving folks have little understanding of Christian, music-loving folks.

This realization hit home when I was perusing a prominent Wilco fan site, Via Chicago, a few days after the show.

Read the rest of this article at *catapult magazine...

Evangelicals out of the box.

2005-10-24T12:45:00.000-04:00

Given my long absence, I'm sure no one but spambots checks this site anymore. Thus, I will begin my return to the blogosphere unceremoniously, with a list of links, for old times' sake.

Since last year's election, the mainstream media have been obsessed with evangelicals--first the conservative red-staters supposedly responsible for keeping Bush in office, and now the ones who squawk that not all evangelicals are conservative red-staters. (I use the word "squawk" with affection, of course--I'm a squawker myself, as you'll see if you scroll down to the bit about Calvin College.) This phenomenon is not a new one, it's just getting more publicity lately. And being a squawker, I can't say I'm disappointed in this trend in media. Aside from the ill effects it might have on various The Daily Show segments, I fully support dispeling the aura of googily-eyed crazy-pants Falwellism that has previously accompanied reports on evangelicals. Here are a few people doing their part:

James K.A. Smith, appearing on PRI's Speaking of Faith last Sunday. In addition to being a first-rate scholar, Jamie is also my next-door neighbor (an equally venerable distinction, I assure you). He gives you the one-two punch right off the bat: "There are days when the last thing I want to do is call myself an evangelical, and it's usually after I've... read some editorial that James Dobson wrote." (Hmm, perhaps I should have previewed this interview before sending the link straightaway to my mother-in-law, a big Jamie Smith fan as well as a former Dobson devotee.) But Smith goes on to say why he thinks the term "evangelical" can be reclaimed and redeemed: "For all the times that I've been absolutely frustrated with and maddened by what happens under the banner of evangelicalism, I've never felt released to not be identified with that and to not be a part of that community, and probably have felt more impassioned to say, 'I need to sit here and stick with this community, and if I think it can be something different, try to be part of the solution and not just part of a nitpicking problem or pointing out the problem.'" You can see why I lucked out having Jamie and his family right across the driveway.

Justin Zoradi, blogging from Northern Ireland. Justin was the intern in my office at Calvin last year, and now he's working with Steve Stockman and a dormful of Presbyterian students in Belfast. He writes about daily life in the midst of a historic and ongoing conflict with the insight of an on-the-ground observer, the awed reflection of an American non-native, and the passion of a Jesus revolutionary. Each entry is poignantly illustrated with photos from his travels in local neighborhoods. My favorite entry so far is about the boys he works with after school. All is not well in Belfast, but Justin testifies to another way: "Aslan is on the move... Hope isn't lost, another world is possible, and God is at work 'beating swords into plowshares.' This website is a symbol of allegiance to the Kingdom in a country burdened by conflict." Boy am I glad that people like Justin exist. He shames the rest of us with his clear-eyed hope and the fire in his bones for justice.

Jars of Clay. No, seriously: Jars of Clay. You may remember Jars as the soundtrack to youth group roadtrips in the mid-nineties, as I do. In those days, I was a fan, such a fan. I could tell you embarrassing stories about my exploits, cringe-inducing ones that involve repeated responses to altar calls and desperate attempts to meet the band. Those days are long over, which makes the above recent interview with Dan Haseltine hilariously ironic. Since shaking the CCM dust from my feet, I've become a writer for publications like Sojourners magazine--and yet, here I am, a decade later, chatting up the icons of my CCM heydey. My 16-year-old self would have died and gone to youth-groupie heaven. She also might've been appalled that her favorite band has taken up such "liberal" causes as poverty and AIDS relief. Actually, Haseltine says that Jars has always been interested in issues of justice--they just weren't allowed to talk about them from the stage back when "Flood" was a hit. Toto, I don't think we're at DC/LA '97 anymore...

Whither thou goest.

2005-04-21T16:47:00.000-04:00

Well, I knew I hadn't written anything here in a long time--but it wasn't until I looked at the date of my last post that I realized it'd been almost three months.

There are a lot of reasons for my absence from the blogosphere (which, I'm sorry, is a word I can't say and keep a straight face), including how busy I've been at work and the fact that I spend a lot of time training for a 25K road race I got roped into. But the major one is that my boyfriend and I became engaged at the end of January and have spent the subsequent three months in a general state of high-level activity (and anxiety) trying to pull off a wedding by June 18.

It's not that we're having some kind of extraordinarily highbrow, fancy shindig that demands I quit my job just to plan it. In fact, we're having a backyard barbecue. I bought my dress off the rack at the mall, and most of the help we need is coming from friends and family who have generously volunteered their time and talents.

But nobody ever tells you how exhausting engagement itself can be. Sure, there are lots of little event details to take care of, but that's not what's left me drained. Perhaps our engagement has been unusual (though I somehow doubt it), but we have spent most of it negotiating constantly with our families. And not just over tablecloth colors and invitation wording--we're talking some major theological and ideological battles here. We're talking, not even sure our parents think we're Christians anymore (at least not faithful ones).

This whole process has solidified some of my feelings of alienation from evangelicalism. After all, in my day to day life, I don't have to deal with the fact that my parents don't believe women should be pastors or that my future in-laws believe we're sinning because we don't practice male headship. But engagement brings all those opinions and convictions to the forefront, and everybody wants their own way when it comes to a wedding (believe me--I sure want mine). Although for a long time I've felt relatively outside evangelicalism despite my roots and identity there, there's nothing quite like being told you're grieving the people who raised you to make you realize just how far gone you really are.

I want to write more on this--we're past the shock and pain enough now to have a reasonably good sense of humor about some of the hurt we've endured, and I think there are some lessons to be learned from wondering if your wedding officiant will make you say "I do" to various contortions of Ephesians 5. The gender expectations involved in the technicalities of wedding planning--particularly when the couple are presumed to be evangelicals--are enough for a novel alone!

So, thanks to those who have wondered where I've been, and I'll hopefully be back soon. In addition to the engagement hooplah, I'm just sort of in an absorbing, listening, observing stage of my life right now. I find I don't have much to say, or the energy to hunt for the words in which to say it, and so I've kept my mouth shut and my fingers still.

There are seasons, I suppose, and I'll be glad when this one's over.

2005-02-10T10:04:00.000-05:00

For my catapult column this month, I conducted an interview with my friend and colleague James Stewart. I've gotten to know James and his wife Kari (another Calvin employee) via the committee for the Festival of Faith and Music and subsequent hanging out, talking, eating good food, and going to concerts. (Seeing the Blind Boys of Alabama at Ann Arbor's Folk Festival a few weeks ago at their invite was a musical highlight of my life.)

Anyhow, James is involved in a far-reaching community (most of whom you wish you were friends with) made up of students of faith, justice, popular culture, art, and the interconnectivity thereof. James has quite a past with contemporary Christian music, so when it turned out that my column was going to be about just that, I asked him a few questions. I couldn't include all of his insights--which extend far beyond just CCM--in my article, but thought they were so valuable that they ought to be available in their entirety. The interview that follows is long, but worth the time it takes to read it. Enjoy.

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What's your history with contemporary Christian music? What was your early involvement with it? What drew you to it?

I discovered CCM in my early teens, largely because of a couple of magazines and its presence at Greenbelt. The artists I identified early on were Christians, who helped me think through my faith, but there was definitely always a tendency towards artists who expressed some sort of exploration.

I quickly saw a need for supporting musicians who are Christians, and since the web was just taking off at that point I developed a website which sought to foster communication between those musicians in the UK and Ireland. At the same time I got heavily involved in writing music reviews, primarily for online magazines but also a few print publications. Through that, and some dalliances with concert promotion, I got to know a lot of artists.

I don't think I ever fell for CCM as its own industry, and my work was always with the expectation that the artists I was working with would be performing in the general market. That was probably influenced by the integrated approach to the arts I learned primarily at Greenbelt, but also through reading theologians such as Walter Brueggeman, and also from the fact that CCM has never reached its own critical mass in the UK.

What are your theological quibbles with CCM's underlying tenets about God, art, and life in general?

I believe in a God who invites us to be co-creators of the future of the cosmos, a God of redemption, and a God of engagement. CCM rarely seems to break from the mould of appropriating rather than creating, redeeming or engaging. Any artist who wants to tell a story in the third-person, or one that may not have a neat conclusion finds themself having to explain exactly what's going on. Anyone who wants to ask questions has to step outside (every now and again things shift a little, and a few questions emerge as being 'acceptable' for a while, but they're rarely controversial) and the idea of respecting an artist while disagreeing with them, and maybe even enjoying the fact that you disagree with them is so very rare.

In the latest issue of Paste Andy Whitman talks about Merle Haggard. He says that in the late 60s when Haggard was writing songs criticising Vietnam War protestors he was entirely turned off from Haggard's albums. In retrospect, he is able to look back and see that Haggard's songs maybe weren't quite so adversarial as he thought, and that whether or not he agrees with them they're good songs, both for the artfulness of the writing and because they show a deep concern for his fellow people. I found that piece very affecting. It's natural to want to cut ourselves off from critique but every now and again we need to be startled and challenged by someone who cares about us. That's something CCM just doesn't have.

I suspect to really understand why I'd be uncomfortable with CCM someone would have to have some grasp of what I'd see as the shortcomings of much of contemporary evangelicalism.When I read the Bible I find a string of narratives that require some work to weave together, particularly if you come to them with a post-enlightenment modernist mindset that says "this must all fit together within my pre-defined bounds of logic." One of the great achievements of narrative theology has been to say "read them as stories and see what ideas emerge" rather than "try to force it all together and find ways to explain away the inconsistencies".

When I try to take that former path I find that very different ideas float to the surface. Fostering a transformative community that strives to be inclusive, that works for the poor, that stands against empire but engages with government to establish justice, bringing shalom and building the Kingdom.It's an entirely different paradigm from that which most CCM emerges from. In that world it feels like "personal sin" always trumps "corporate sin," that some idealised 19th century/1950s middle-class values are the normative form of Christian faith, and that all the rest of the world needs is our pre-packaged Jesus -- "McJesus" as some friends of mine had it -- as if that negates the need for food, shelter, clean air… It's a closed bubble.

Or maybe it's that CCM is all about letting some mythical gatekeeper do all your thinking for you, even though St. Paul (among others) was pretty clear on the need to 'test the spirits'?

Why do you continue to care what happens to CCM? If it's so terrible, why not just shake the dust from your heels?

For a while I did shake the dust from my heels, I guess. I drew away from writing reviews when I ran out of synonyms for 'bland' and the website fell into some disrepair as my time was drawn in other directions, and I realised just how much hard work it was to explain to people that I wanted to foster community, not industry. But disgust was always mingled with a little voyeurism, and while I'm no longer the authority on CCM happenings that people say I once was, I am a long way from being current.

What's drawn me back of late has been a continuing passion for theology, art and politics. Experiencing the '04 US presidential election from this side of the Atlantic, it was at times difficult to remember why I'd want to espouse the label 'Christian' at all. But when the chips fall, I still believe that the community Jesus called us to be is vital for our society. Trying to work out how anyone can fall for the rhetoric of Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and their ilk has drawn me back to the realisation that the Church rarely does anything to develop the critical faculties, and I think CCM operates (whether willfully or no) as a sedative. An opiate for the masses, if you will. :)

Great art engages minds and works as a mirror for people and for communities. If more Christians were involved in the pursuit of art, perhaps the tone of debate around all areas of life in Christ would rise?

What is your goal in calling out shows like Christian Music Makeover?

My key problem with Christian Music Makeover was (and remains) the use of the phrase "spiritual makeover." Certainly my theology embraces the idea that we are all in need of redemption and are working towards that redemption, but I don't think that can be reduced down to the superficialities that spring to mind when the phrase 'makeover' comes to mind. Nor is it something that I think should be laid bare in the manner their press release indicated. Redemption happens in community, but community is about more than fandom.

So the reason I called it out was to try and foster a discussion of whether this is really a good model of discipleship to be suggesting to impressionable music fans. I passionately believe that one of the key tenets of our faith we need to be constantly reclaiming and re-imagining is community, and I see the use of phrases like this as part of the disintegration of that pillar. Obviously blogs thrive on polemic, so my entries were often direct, but I hope and believe it caused some discussion.

The other way this all bothered me, and this grew as time went on, was the sense that rather than modeling constructive engagement with culture, which to my mind requires careful analysis and positive contribution, this initiative simply seems to be appropriating a tired medium that many agree has had a detrimental effect on television programming. I was told that 'reality TV' is hugely popular, which it is, and that the programmes would be promoting healthy living and spiritual discipline, which are great things, but Jesus told us a cautionary tale about building on solid foundations, and I really think that's missing here.

You and some of your friends are working to set up an alternative event during Gospel Music Association week in Nashville this year. What does your event aim to accomplish?

We're still trying to decide for sure on the shape, focus and form of the event. Having experienced GMA week in all its torrid glory, I observed that there were a number of people who for a variety of reasons were a part of that industry but weren't comfortable at the event. In some cases, they had only come to a realisation of the underbelly of that industry once they were tied in by contractual obligations, in other cases they didn't know where else to turn, and in some there was a lack of language to identify what it was that was wrong.

I'm a strong believer in the importance of the 'fringe,' people who are on the edges of groups or events are often the ones who are most likely to transform it because they are aware of what goes on within and without, and because being on the edge forces you to analyse. I felt that if a fringe were fostered at GMA week that it would perhaps affect some of the much needed transformation there, or at the very least help provide a community for those who feel on the edge.

A number of friends who attend Downtown Presbyterian Church—which is a church in Nashville that is working with some great artists, running programmes for the homeless, and whose building lies the other side of the Ryman Theatre from the convention centre where GMA is based—expressed enthusiasm and that church got behind the idea. Right now, we're working towards a simple programme of events that have value in their own right but which will be of some interest to the crowds at GMA. We decided that the best approach is to produce something with a value that stands outside of the critique it presents. I think that will allow us to demonstrate both the critical and constructive power of this thing called art.

Ken [Heffner, student activities director at Calvin College] argues that CCM is on the verge of crumbling because the assumptions that made it possible are crumbling. Do you agree with this? If it were up to you, what would happen to the CCM industry in the future?

I've been thinking about that a lot and finding it difficult to judge, since I feel like I now stand a long way from being informed. Paging through CCM [magazine] it certainly does look like that world's crumbling, but I wonder if anyone within that world has noticed. It seems as if CCM redefines itself so that any criticism is on the outside, and looking at some message boards there certainly are the usual rabid set of fans. My gut feeling is that Ken's right, but it's pretty difficult to gather the evidence.

I wonder if one of the biggest problems facing CCM at the moment is that recent years saw so much emphasis on "our artists are crossing over" that the industry shot itself in the foot. Their own propaganda destroyed the belief that being on a "Christian" label was a measure of theological purity. Perhaps the either/or attitude that CCM artists should either be the biggest thing in that world or the biggest thing in the general market has turned into a realisation that CCM artists are just a bunch of fish in a big ocean.

I have been very glad to see CCM artists jumping on the DATA bandwagon. I really pushed for that when I worked at Jubilee 2000 and it's great to see it happening, even if they are generally trying to steer well clear of the more structural economic and political issues involved in those campaigns.

I'd like to see the industry fall apart right now, but I don't think it'll happen. And just like the collapse of a cult there'd be a lot of follow-up to be done. Perhaps the best thing would be for more and more artists to make clear statements to their fans that "I'm done here. I want a space for us to ask questions together and this isn't it. Please check my website for my next move. By the way, I have flaws." The artists would need to be heavily involved in the de-programming.

One of the big factors for me is that I suspect the general music industry is headed for a meltdown or paradigm shift. There has been a string of new rock bands making waves, but it's becoming progressively more difficult to break a new band or to lift bands from the top-tier of 'indie' to the first tier of 'household name'. With the challenges that the web, file sharing, the monopolies of Ticketmaster and Clearchannel, and such, something's got to give.

And at the same time, I'd want to add that the general market isn't a whole lot better than CCM. I don't consider it blasphemous in the same way as it doesn't use poor theology to sell its product, but there isn't much engagement going on there either. It's again on the fringes where that happens. My ideal would be for all Christian efforts in music to be fostering engagement everywhere, making a transformative impact on the general music industry.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

2005-02-07T15:06:00.000-05:00

Remember, in grammar school, when two kids would get into it by the water fountain or in the coatroom or near the monkey bars? And everyone else would gather around and chant, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" And then one lone messenger, ye olde towne crier of the playground, would zip around the blacktop making sure everyone in the vicinity knew about it? And then the teacher on duty would get wind of it, sigh, and attempt to break it up. Or call the principal. Who would tighten his khaki overcoat and tell the wrassling second-graders, "That's enough, that's enough" in a tired, disgruntled voice as he shooed the rest of us away. If he had even a speck of a sense of humor, he would be trying not to laugh.

Maybe that was just my school. It was public, after all.

Anyway, the point of this is that a lovely acquaintance of mine called Lara wrote up a lovely endorsement of my last catapult column about Bono and bawdiness. The thread went at least 38 comments before someone actively disagreed with me, which must be some kind of miracle, because I sure do spout a lot of bee-ess. So anyway, finally, someone popped on, positioned him-or-her-self as "one small voice," and took me to task for my apostasy. When I read the line, "[Jesus'] wife (no wife of course) was not at home watching him grind [his] toes into Mary's boobs as she washed his feet," I knew I had to reply.

Come on, everybody, it's such a Monday. I'm my own towne crier. Gather 'round the monkey bars, ball up your little fists inside the mittens which are clothespinned to your jacket, and chant it like you mean it! Fight! Fight! Fight!

(Sidenote, related but less funny: to be honest, the meta-fight here is kind of wearing me out. I am sooooo tiiiiiiiiired of explaining why pornography is not the same thing as art to people who are just not going to change their minds. Times like these, I really start feeling my expat status. And thinking that I might need to scoot a little further away from my homeland.)

Money makes the Word go round.

2005-02-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

Curious why I feel alienated from evangelicalism? Just click here for a summary.

White men! White men in suits! White men in suits everywhere! (Brian McLaren, I mean you no ill will.)

I feel very sad.

The FCC won't let me be.

2005-01-19T13:28:00.000-05:00

I just love it when I can parlay a recent favorite quote (see entry below) into a full-length essay.

This month's Catapult column, "Ineffable bawdiness," had actually been rattling around in my brain ever since the incident that inspired it--U2's November performance on Saturday Night Live--but the broader themes I wanted to address weren't really gelling. When I came across that Andre Dubus line, everything started coming together, and I was able to finish the column despite my seasonal-affective-disorder-inspired bout of writers block. Not that I met my deadline, but the article is done nevertheless, and available for your perusal.

The subject of Bono's bawdy behavior also afforded me the opportunity to link to a photo of him as Macphisto, taken during my personal favorite era in the U2 echelon, Zoo TV. I think Christians need to get back in touch with that period in the life of the band--kicking at the darkness by becoming the darkness itself (which my colleague Ken refers to as "doing judo" on evil--using something's own force to defeat it) not only suits them, but it's achingly incarnational.

In the flesh.

2005-01-10T11:53:00.000-05:00

I haven't written anything here for awhile, and I'm sorry. My intention is to crank out an essay on why I'm still a Christian (in general) and an evangelical (kind of), but these weeks have been busy and harrowing with the post-traumatic stress of the holiday and the specter of the tsunami.

So in the meantime, a quote. I found this today, quite by accident, while cataloguing some old emails. My beloved sent this to me during the first year we knew each other, and it still rings true. It is the kernel of how both of us manage to keep a foot in evangelicalism and to fight for it--which sometimes looks like fighting against it. Somehow we have managed to find an imperfect church that preaches the gospel of the Word made flesh, that resists Platonizing the body into something to be resisted and ignored and disposed of in favor of the spirit or soul caged within it. Over the last few years I have lived among people who have convinced me that being a Christian means loving this world and dwelling in it and inhabiting it fully as the way in which we know God, and I think it all started here:

"I need sacraments I can receive through my senses. I need God manifested as Christ, who ate and drank and shat and suffered, and laughed." - Andre Dubus

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.

2004-12-24T17:28:00.000-05:00

Three for the holiday that teach us to embody faith, from the annals of public radio:

01. An Immigrant's First American Christmas - Congolese Diary. Heard this as I was driving from Michigan to Connecticut on Wednesday morning. Crushingly beautiful.

02. Couple Gives the Gift of Electricity to Town Residents. A couple in Iowa paid the December electric bill for every home, business and public building in their city. Come on now. If that ain't what Christmas is all about!

03. Short story: "A Fool For Christmas," by Allan Gurganus. One of the best works of fiction I've ever heard on public radio, possibly even anywhere. My phone started playing its irritating little Latin loop immediately after it finished, and it was Nathan calling to make sure I'd heard the story of Vernon and his pregnant mallrat.

And two simply to make you laugh:

04. Vanquishing 'The Frozen Thing' from the Holiday Table. Commentator Laura Lorson exorcises the culinary demons of Christmases past in a hokey Southern accent.

05. David Sedaris's immortal Santaland Diaries, rebroadcast this morning on Morning Edition.

Addendum! A piece on the New York City Ballet's production of the Nutcracker.

Merry Christmas! Wishing you and yours peace and joy and comfort...

All I ever get for Christmas is blue.

2004-12-17T10:21:00.000-05:00

I ripped myself off for my catapult magazine column this month, using one of my previous blog entries ("Haul out the holly") as a springboard to talk about the grossly inappropriate music we North Americans tend to listen to in the weeks (sometimes months) preceding December 25. I also make some recommendations--of which you people got a sneak preview--for tunes that better suit Advent season. (I didn't mention that Mariah Carey song, but after hearing it in a store again yesterday, I think I could make a pretty good argument about the virtues of its longing and exuberance. And its awesome jingle bell beat.)

You can read the column here. It looks like it still needs some tweaking as far as the format goes, but thar she blows!

ETA (12/20/04): BW, who was hosting the Sufjan songs on his website, has taken them down because they require too much of his bandwidth. If anyone would like to host the songs on her or his own site and has the bandwidth to do so, please contact me and I will put you in touch with BW.

Let she who has ears to hear...

2004-12-14T11:05:00.000-05:00

I promise not to make it a big hairy deal every time I add someone to my blogroll, but Jeshua Erickson deserves such a mention. And it's not just because he's my friend and former housemate.

Well, okay, it is.

But he also stands on his own merit. Jeshua is a great musician who recently put out an album called Swords Into Plowshares, which includes songs he wrote while we were both interns at Sojourners/Call to Renewal in Washington, DC. Stanley Effing Hauerwas likes this man's tunes, people. That should be reason to check him out right there.

Jeshua is also blogging, and that's the link I added to the Expat resources on the right.

Finally, I give you a snapshot of life as a Sojourners intern:

I think Jeshua and I were imitating the Holy Family (minus le petit bebe) at a Christmas party, but it's also quite likely that we were simply trying to keep warm. Notice we are wearing bulky coats indoors. That's because when you work for a non-profit organization whose office building features a 96-year-old furnace, you can't always expect to have heat in the dead of winter. It's just one of those trade-offs: funky digs that used to be an embassy = freezing your ass off in December and trying to type with two pairs of gloves on. Worth it, if you ask me.

Haul out the holly.

2004-12-13T15:07:00.000-05:00

I have a number of friends who start listening to Christmas music right around Halloween, which, I'm sorry, I've just never understood. Growing up, we were allowed to put on Handel's Messiah (which doesn't even count as a Christmas composition, really) the day after Thanksgiving, and I just never saw the need to get started any sooner, if at all. Call me a scrooge, call me a grinch, but I actually have very little innate holiday spirit, particularly when it comes to the seasonal soundtrack.

Traditionally, I make a limited number of exceptions to tide me over when I do holiday-related activities, such as making cookies and wrapping presents:

One, the Carnegie Hall Christmas Concert album of my youth, featuring Kathleen Battle, Wynton Marsalis, and a token boychoir.

Two, Over the Rhine's brooding, sad-sack Darkest Night of the Year, which evidently caused an acquaintance to wonder, "So, do they actually like Christmas?" A valid question, but clearly this person had not heard Karin and Linford's recent, more lighthearted "Martini Jingle" (complete with "bell solo" and Karin purring lyrics like "you look dashing in the snow...").

Three, the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas album (and lo, the accompanying movie).

Four, that one ubiquitous, jingly song by Mariah Carey, which inexplicably fills me with girlish glee. (In a similar vein--Exception Four-point-five, if you will--I stumbled upon the Most Annoying and Yet Best Christmas Song Ever this weekend, also known as "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.")

And five, a compilation of depressing Christmas songs mixed by my dear friend Joanna. I can't remember what's on it--some Aimee Mann, I think, some Bing Crosby and Otis Redding--but I do remember that it's good.

Aside from these, my policy on the vast majority of yuletide tunes is strictly zero-tolerance. Now, however, I will be forced to make another exception, which is kind of irritating considering that my list fit into a nice, traditional top five. But actually, I'm glad to do so--the seasonal offerings of this banjo-strumming, scout-uniforming-wearing, faith-and-arts-articulating, all around fascinating fellow has rocketed to the top of my Advent exceptions.

"Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming" - sublime.

"Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!" - ridiculous.

Yes, friends, it's a very Sufjan Christmas.*

(Thanks to BW, co-proprietor of tiny drawings arts collective, for providing this link on his livejournal. As BW mentions in his thoughtful disclaimer, Sufjan evidently made these albums as gifts for friends and family, but they've been distributed on the web with abandon. I hope that policy still stands and would appreciate knowing if it does not.)

*Not familiar with ol' Soof? And you call yourself an expat--for shame! Educate yourself.

Saturday night and Sunday morning.

2004-12-09T11:16:00.000-05:00

If you're not listening to NPR right now, you should be. Emily Saliers (of the Indigo Girls) and her kind father Don (a church musician and professor of theology and worship at Emory University) are talking about their new book, which describes their desire for readers to find the sacred in all authentic and truth-revealing music, regardless of genre. Both of them are so articulate, and the biggest bonus is that they've performed several songs live--Don joins in on "All That We Let In," and Emily sings on a beautiful liturgical song written by her dad, based on Psalm 139.

Go to the Diane Rehm show homepage to stream it, or if you've missed it you can listen to the archived episode when it goes online an hour after the program airs. Which you should. Because you don't want to miss Emily Saliers singing music from Taize.

It's interesting to listen to this having watched the insipid coverage of so-called "Christian" music on 60 Minutes last night. There is simply no comparison, not only between the interviewers' styles and grasp of their subjects' work (ie, Bob Simon playing Clueless White Guy to Kanye West's "dope-ass" beats--gimme a break, man), but in the depth of the interviewees' responses. Given the work I do at Calvin, I have developed much more empathy with musicians who have a "lover's quarrel" with the established church than those who are entrenched in the contemporary Christian music industry, regardless of whether they're getting mainstream airplay.

With all the exposure "Christian music" is supposedly getting, it never fails to amaze me how narrowly it continues to be defined. People raise a huge stink when the Indigo Girls perform at Calvin (which they've done twice in the last few years), as if their hot-button sexuality negates all else that might be good about them. But no one would so much as blink were we to bring in a band like Third Day, which is musically derivative and, on occasion, theologically sketchy. If you're going to question the Indigo Girls' theology (which you should), you need to question the theology of your favorite CCM bands, too. Just because they're signed to Essential Records doesn't mean everything they say is true. And just because the Indigo Girls are lesbians doesn't mean everything they say is false.

One of my favorite Madeleine L'Engle quotes sums this up: "God chooses his artists with as calm a disregard for surface moral qualifications as he chooses his saints." Praise God that he accepts and embraces the things we nitpick.

"Schizophrenic Christians in search of orthodoxy."

2004-12-02T11:44:00.000-05:00

I'm usually not a fan of memoirs written by people still in their twenties. Maybe this is based on an unfair generalization, but let's face it--two decades and change makes for a pretty measely retrospective. It also doesn't give you much of an opportunity to write from the reflective, wizened perspective that comes only from years and years of seeing how your life actually turned out.

Yet it seems that these stories of life-in-process are becoming ever more popular in the publishing world, particularly in the religious press. There's Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God, which she wrote before she reached a quarter of a century. And Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, who is supposedly "the male Anne Lamott." (Not if you ask me, though.)

Patton Dodd is the latest twentysomething memoirist, but at least he's blunt about his limited life experience, given his new book's title: it's called My Faith So Far. While I hope this doesn't mean he'll be giving us an update every ten years ("My Faith Even Farther: Now With Cute Anecdotes About My Teenaged Offspring"), I'm interested in Patton's book, mainly because he appears to be the poster child for expatriates like me.

I first heard about Patton Dodd years ago, because of my friendship with Cameron Strang, now the all-powerful and omniscient CEO of Relevant magazine. Cameron and Patton went to Oral Roberts University together, and in the initial planning stages for Relevant, Patton's name came up as an excellent writer who might be interested in working with the publication in some capacity.

I don't think that connection ever materialized (and my connection to Relevant has since dissolved--which is one of those proverbial whole 'nother stories), but Cameron's enthusiasm for Patton's writing stuck with me. I've spotted Patton's byline here and there over the years, but most frequently as a contributing editor for Killing the Buddha. (If you are reading this blog, you should also be reading KtB. It's written in part for "people made anxious by churches." I don't know if that describes you, but personally, most churches give me overhead-projector-induced anxiety attacks. I wish I was kidding about this. I know I've found a church I can live with when I can actually breathe there--for me this usually means, as a commentor said in an entry below, "less sermon, more sacrament.")

But I digress. So, Patton Dodd has written this book, and everything's come full circle because I heard about it from Relevant's weekly e-newsletter. I wish I could link to the interview, but they don't archive them online. So here, simply, is the question that I thought summed things up rather nicely: RM: So where are you now? How would you "label" your beliefs after all this?

PD: This will come as no surprise to anyone who is at all in touch with trends among young religious people, but at the moment I'd say I'm a schizophrenic Christian in search of orthodoxy. I'm an evangelical by virtue of my past and the basic structures of my belief, but I'm not entirely comfortable there. As the book makes clear, I'm not comfortable rejecting it either. I'm middled.

This certainly isn't anything profound, but there is a certain satisfying virtue in reading something that explicitly states how one already feels. Patton is one twentysomething writer I'll be giving a chance. Has anyone else read his book yet?

You and many others in your clean well-lighted place.

2004-11-23T10:53:00.000-05:00

As you may have noticed, I finally figured out how to add a bunch of links to my sidebar, over yonder on the right-hand side of your screen. I wanted to make a few comments about the blogs I've listed there.

First of all, I've only included blogs for now. I hope soon to add links to relevant online magazines (but not necessarily Relevant magazine) and essayists (such as the divine Ms. Annie Lamott, who is once again stringing words together for Salon) and bands (like Over the Rhine, from whose lyrics this entry's title was taken) and etcetera. But for now it's just blogs.

Also, I want to be clear that, although I call them "other expats," the authors of these blogs have not agreed to be identified as such. It was simply the easiest way to categorize them. (I'm open to suggestions for other headings for that links section.) These bloggers represent a diversity of approaches to church and theology and life in general. Some of them intentionally attend (or even pastor) churches firmly within the evangelical tradition in America. Some of them were never fundamentalists in the first place. Some of them are gentle in their constructive criticism, some of them are righteously indignant as hell and not gonna take it anymore. But all of them have been helpful to me in my journey as an outside-insider, which is why I included them.

Today's assigned expatriate reading, selected from among these blogs, is the Slacktivist's treatise on the American Family Association and its protest of the language used in ABC's airing of Saving Private Ryan last week. This entry struck me not only because it is representative of the useless moralizing regularly exercised by organizations like the AFA, but also because it reminded me of a hilarious story from the very beginning of my expatriate experience.

My old friend Kyle Minor is a very talented writer, and many moons ago, he wrote for a number of Christian culture magazines. For one of his assignments, he had to conduct a phone interview with the president of the AFA, during which the president held forth on the evils of modern popular culture as demonstrated by the sheer number of profanities and expletives peppering it. He talked about the ubiquitous "f-word" regularly being forced upon "our children" and "our families" whenever they turned on the radio or the television. He kept putting it that way: "the f-word."

Kyle decided he might at least eke a little humor out of this interview. "I'm sorry, sir," Kyle said, "but for journalistic purposes, I'm going to have to make sure I know which f-word you're talking about. Are you referring to the word 'fuck'?"

A long, long pause on the other end of the phone line. Finally: "Yes. That's the word I was referring to."

The interview ended abruptly shortly thereafter, and Kyle became the hero who had cussed out the president of the American Family Association.

And the Slacktivist is proudly continuing that tradtion today.

Love it and never shut up.

2004-11-19T10:26:00.000-05:00

My column on the subject at Catapult Magazine, including some discussion about our recent screening of Saved! at Calvin. This article explains in more detail what I mean by "evangelical expatriate" (for instance, I'm not a fundamentalist living in Siberia), and also marks the creation of this blog.

(You can watch the PowerPoint presentation we showed before the film here. I know, PowerPoint, right? Bane of my existence. But it's a good way to get conversations going.)

And by the way, each and every one of you should add Catapult/*culture is not optional to your weekly reads--the people responsible for it are marvelous doers of expatriate deeds.

"Can buying sundries score me points with God?"

2004-11-18T15:10:00.000-05:00

The old Ark, the biblical Ark, constructed to save the chosen from the Great Flood, had two of every creature in existence. The new Ark, the cultural Ark, built to save the chosen from the Great Media Flood, also has two of everything I'm learning. You say you're a Pearl Jam fan? Check out Third Day. They sound just like them--same soaring guttural vocals, same driven musicianship, same crappy clothes, just a slightly different message: Repent! You say you like Grisham- and Clancy-style potboilers! Grab a copy of Ted Dekker's Heaven's Wager--same stick-figure characterizations, same preschool prose, just a slightly different moral: Repent! Your kids enjoy Batman, you say? Try Bibleman. Same mask, same cape, just a slightly different...

That's the convincing logic of the Ark: If a person is going to waste his life cranking the stereo, clicking the remote, reading paperback pulp and chasing diet fads, he may as well save his soul while he's at it. Holy living no longer requires self-denial. On the Ark, every mass diversion has been cloned, from Internet news sites to MTV to action movies, and it's possible to live inside the spirit, without unplugging oneself from modern life, twenty-four hours a day.