We’ve had a great deal of discussion about style vs. substance and method vs. message since the creation of this blog, and it still boggles the mind when I see Christians writing articles like the one recently published in WORLD magazine.  (No, not National Geographic WORLD, which I enjoyed as a kid, but an ODM WORLD).

From the article (and no, I’m not making this up):

There are two kinds of people in the world. People who hate Christian Rock, and people who vomit when they hear it. The other kind of people – i.e., the ones who like it – don’t count as people. But then again, many of my friends here at WMB probably do, and I am almost certain you are all people. The short reasons for why it’s bad are these:

1. It’s just so bad. People who like good music and who also like God find themselves between a Rock and a Hard Place.

2. Christian music has, for about 2000 years, been about venerating God. Rock music has, for about 50 years, been about venerating other things, some good, some bad. Christian Rock music has, for about 30 or 40 years, been confused about what it should venerate. The form would suggest venerating anger, passion, rebellion, sex. The content would suggest venerating Jesus. Audiences are predictably confused.

3. Rock is about being cool. Christianity is about not being cool. Musicians are understandably confused about how they should be.

Yup.  There you have it.  I would agree that the quality of music that has come out of the CCM movement has not always been, shall we say, “stellar”.  However, I’m somewhat perplexed by the inability to see the difference between style and substance, method and message.  What is at the core of the misunderstanding?  Fear? Loathing? Or, is it as simple as Nathan’s grandfather’s future epitath for the Christian church in the USA – “we’ve never done it that way before…”

In case you missed it, our friends John and Scott at Verum Serum posted an interesting article last weekend, which got a good deal of ‘heated discussion’ on the usefulness of ODM’s like Slice.

Check it out here.

We all have prejudices, though some of us are in greater states of denial than others. I recently had to add another prejudice to my ever-lengthening list (which I’ll get to in a minute), though I have also successfully (and painfully) removed a few in the past year, as well.

If you’re wondering about my previously stated prejudice against people’s extended usage of the KJV translation of the Bible, it still exists. Mind you, quoting from the book that defines Truth is not the problem – quoting at length in the KJV or quoting at length from ANY translation without an obvious tie-in to the discussion at had cause my eyes to glaze and skip on to the next article/comment/thread.

I also find myself very sympathetic to Julie Neidlinger’s list of reasons ‘why I don’t take you seriously’ – and I could probably add to her list. In particular, I am in concert with her observation:

The strength of the blogosphere is people writing about what they know. The weakness is people yammering away on stuff they don’t know anything about.

Which brings me to one of my new prejudices: People who casually toss about accusations which include the word ‘Semi-Pelagian’. Upon hitting that word, it is like my brain converts everything following it into “blah, blah, blah … apostate blah, blah, blah”, and my mind wanders back to ‘why I don’t take you seriously’.

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A recent letter from a Slice Reader was posted at the site today. He attended the festival that Luis Palau was sponsoring in Nebraska. I knew it was a bit slanted when the author wrote that he told his son only these three types of people would be there

#1 True Christians who didn’t realize what was missing in this festival and what was wrong with the philosophy behind it.

#2 Professing Christians who would someday hear, “Depart, I never knew you” unless they could be awakened and truly converted.

#3 The Un-religious who simply came for the world class carnival atmosphere and who, as Ingrid says, “… Don’t mind if a little Jesus is drizzled on top.”

I will definitely give him the benefit of a doubt that he forgot the fourth and fifth types of people that were more than likely there

#4 True Christians who probably spent hours in prayer and hard work on the event so that they could attract an audience to share the gospel with. Their ultimate goal is not to entertain, but to see people saved

#5 The lost and broken who have yet to find an answer for their life. People that are in need of a savior and will probably encounter an opportunity to find it there.

after all, the Luis Palau festival website says

Luis Palau gives multiple presentations of the Good News and calls to commitment to Jesus Christ. The Gospel is proclaimed throughout the festival grounds, through action sport and children’s evangelists, as well as through thousands of local Christians in attendance. More than 71,000 Americans have made public decisions for Jesus Christ at our U.S. festivals.

The man and his son were removed from the grounds for passing out tracts that read

not only is God good, but He is Holy. Yes, God loves them, but they are condemned already because of sin. Jesus died for them, but even the devil “believes” and is not saved, they must therefore examine themselves by the law to see their great need, then, “repent toward God, and put faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

and objecting to remove his sandwich board sign (after being asked to simply take it down) that read:

Jesus said: Go and Sin No More

Conditional forgiveness

Limited time offer

Read the Bible

www.consumingfirefellowship.org

The love and grace of God

Will either make you holy

Or cast you into hell.

Fear God- Jesus

www.consumingfirefellowship.org

He says this in his letter

Within a minute or two, a bicycle mounted policeman arrived (I don’t know if the 3 arrived together or first one and then the other two) and without either asking my name, what I was doing, ordering me to leave, or reading me my rights, he began to handcuff me as if he himself worked for Palau’s goons and took orders from them. He wouldn’t answer any questions, but ordered me to lace my fingers together behind my back and then asked where my I.D. was and whether “anything sharp” was in my pocket with my wallet. (sure officer, I always keep a blowfish and a porcupine in there to thwart pickpockets) (I didn’t actually say that but would have if I’d thought of it)

I think his letter made enough commentary for this article. It is sad what these guys are willing to do to make their point.

It seems that so many watch doggies are upset about the emerging church allowing culture to infiltrate the church. Some of their biggest complaints are the films, coffee bars, music and seating that we have allowed into our communities of faith. This has always been a strange concept for me. I mean, my response back would be how do we keep culture out of the church? For me it is like being upset that humans have allowed air to touch their skin. It’s impossible to separate a person from the culture in which they live. In the same way that Jesus was very much a part of the Jewish ethnic culture in dress, food, entertainment, I am very much a part of the Los Angele culture.

I don’t think that the church was ever meant to be separated from its culture, and unfortunately that is what has happened. Somewhere in the 1950s we decided that we were going to freeze the church in time, and allow the culture to go on without us. Somehow the idea that being our own bubble equated with being more Godly. Unfortunately what we did is now having disastrous effects on both believers and the culture around us. Today we have Christian bookstores, coffee shops, online stores, dating services, television stations and music. We have created a horrible “us vs. them” atmosphere. Our persecution is a product of our own ignorance. And even more unfortunate, we are the ones who have a very relevant message but live out terribly irrelevant lives.

And relevance really has nothing to do with wearing the right clothes, drinking the right coffee and knowing the right bands. Relevance come from having a living and breathing relationship with Christ in the real world. It has more to do with being able to love and yet giving sound spiritual direction from the scriptures to an African American transvestite prostitute who just waked into your church gathering (as has happened many times with my church). Relevance comes with doing everything possible to translate the message of Christ in a language that real people in real settings can understand. And that is precisely why we use film and dance and artist my community of faith, Mosaic. It’s not for the sake of entertainment and being relevant for relevance sake. It is just that Angelinos speak the language of art, so we speak the message of Christ back to them in art form.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think there are elements in our cultures with which we need to be very counter cultural. I don’t think that these are things like coffee shops, music and fashionable clothes. I believe it has more to do with ideas, values, paradigms and attitudes that we are to engage and become change agents for. So if a song speaks counter to what the truth of the scriptures say, we counter. If a film speaks counter to what the truth of the scriptures say, we counter. But it is foolish to speak out against all film, music, art, and all things good in the world just because they are part of our culture. Unfortunately, we have become counter cultural with the wrong type of elements and have become the very thing that Jesus hates… religious. We are known by what we hate and we often hate the wrong things.