Off the shelf: Culture Making

Thank you, Tullian Tchvidjian, for recommending Andy Crouch's Culture Making.

I can't remember who it was that said that reading William F. Buckley made them feel both smarter and dumber at the same time. That was my experience with this text. It is a humbling thing to read an author who articulates my best thoughts about christian practice and the call to make culture. The ideas ring like a solid and true tower bell within me, but Crouch phrases them far better that I have been able to at this point. Humbling.

And then, after 100 pages of being simultaneously excited over finding a kindred spirit and humbled over this man's craftsmanship, I found myself being whisked to new places where I hadn't even considered going. Crouch takes us on a gallop through redemptive history....pointing out God's redemptive purposes through culture. From Genesis to Revelation, friends. It was a glorious guided tour.

By the time I arrived in the third section of this book, in which Crouch suggests some disciplines for daily living, I found myself grabbing my notebook and scribbling down ideas. If Crouch's goal is to create cultural goods that expand the horizons of others, then he has succeeded wildly. Tullian was not indulging himself in hyperbole when he wrote: "Mark my words: this is one serious book, that if taken seriously, has the potential to make a serious impact. Seriously!"

I've finished it, and now I'm going to go back through a second time with you, dear readers. So rush out to the bookstore or library and pick up your copy. I'll be starting the Culture Making series, Lord willing, tomorrow.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Off the Shelf: The Crucifixion of Ministry

Next month, our church plays host to Andrew Purves, professor of Pastoral Theology at Pittsburgh Seminary. He came for last year's fall conference. With him he brought wonderful teaching, pointing to Jesus as the center of our hope and faith.

Thus, it is good to prepare for Andrew's return by reading through his latest book, The Crucifixion of Ministry: Surrendering Our Ambitions to the Service of Christ. I requested the Cincinnati Public Library to stock a few copies...they purchased 6 and have them available.

The book is a 149 page medidation on this theme: Ministry isn't ours, it's His. It's all His. In every pastoral situation, Jesus is up to something. We need to kill our ambitions and desire to appear in control. Only then are we released to be used by Jesus in the unfolding work of His Kingdom.

Like a great Jazz artist, Purves weaves key themes through the text: the Mystic Union with Christ (that when we are His, we're united with him...thus his righteousness is exchanged for our rags, and vice versa) and the Vicarious Ministry of Jesus Christ (that even now he reigns, he continues to serve as the High Priest in the Heavenlies, and He offers His worship to the Father). Thus everything important is being done.

None of these are new to me....cognitively I was aware of them and their implications long ago. However Purves shows some great wisdom in making us aware that intellectually knowing a truth is not the same as living into it: “More elusive is the deep conversion of mind, will and heart where we know the inner reality of being laid hold of by Christ in the Spirit, so we share in his active obedience to, communion with and mission from the Father. From my observation it requires the pains of ministry in midcareer to prepare a person for the radical transformation of ‘I, yet not I, but Christ.’”(111)

From my vantage point, I see pastors who talk about the transformational power of Christ, but live as practical atheists....little prayer beyond the obligitory few sentences at the start of a committee meeting. Little brokenheartedness before the Lord. Sure we can pray, but then let's get on to something practical for Pete's sake. As though Jesus' work wouldn't get done without them. And there's a vast moneymaking industry of conferences, publishing houses, gurus, and seminars designed to give you the magic keys to effective ministry. I suggest that none of the people involved in this industry would deny the truths that Purves lays out. Yet in the room are palpable and false excitements that betray where the treasure is buried.

I know, because I'm there too. I know better, but too often have I picked up Leadership Magazine with despair because I'm not on the cutting edge. Too often have I felt anxiety because we're not doing some cutting edge ministry. And time and again, I must repent.

A helpful illustration comes from Iain Murray's Revival and Revivalism. Murray looks at the history of the Second Great Awakening. He shows the difference between true revival of heartfelt religion and the manufactured kind of revivalism that relied on technique, tents, and snappy goodfellow preachers. Murray leans heavily on BB Warfield's history of Perfectionism, in which Warfield shows that the revivalist Finney was very good at using technique to get people to come forward, but very bad at making disciples who would last. The Ghosts of revivalism float around today, and they haunt me with their howling.

Purves, however aims his guns at the more prevalent model in the mainline churches...not revivalism, but Ministry as Chaplaincy. Purves describes the stereotypical Chaplaincy model of pastoral ministry: “Everybody…has something that oppresses them. Your job as a hospital chaplain is to assist people to bring the feelings from that oppression to the surface and then to draw from within themselves the strength to overcome it. You connect with people on the ground of their own agenda and needs. Ministry means drawing out latent possibilities for healing that lie buried within. It is not your job to introduce God language or to provide a theological commentary on the person’s situation.” (58)

Now don't get me wrong, I profited greatly from my Chaplaincy experience. That said, I'm with Purves that Chaplaincy is not the model for Pastoral Ministry. “….the only mission strategy which will encourage our congregations, usefully employ our clergy, enable history-changing and kingdom-of God anticipating ministry, and enable us to evangelize with any degree of faithfulness and power is the preaching that there is salvation in no other name.” (44).

Purves speaks of God who is not a frozen celestial iceburg, but rather a vital living active God. Perhaps the best part of this book for me is Purves' own story of God showing up in the midst of his own crisis:

“I remember lying in hospital after cancer surgery, wondering what the upcoming six months of chemotherapy would be like and whether I was going to make it through the process. What I need now, I thought, is not a theological treatise to edify my mind, though that has its place, not some sense that God in Christ is in solidarity with me in my suffering and fear, though that too is helpful. What I need is a God of power. I need a God who acts to change things.

As I cried out ‘Save me, Lord!’ I did not expect any rending of the heavens. What I did hear in an inner way was the quiet word of the God who acts. It was a voice heard by a lonely, fearful, pain-filled, morphine-dominated, fifty-six year old man.

God said to me that whether I lived or died, I did so unto the Lord, and he would not abandon me.Not everyone gets healed, and that is a great mystery, but the promise of his peace is not an empty promise, and it is given for all who know him. God acts. I believe it even when God acts in ways that utterly confounds my xpectations.” (49-50)

The most common error in critiquing Purves book is to accuse him of saying that pastors should do nothing. Far from the point, indeed. Rather, Purves calls us to be freed from distraction and throw ourselves with abandonment into the work that we're called to. “Grace does not leave us passive. In grace (charis) the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Grace (Hebrews 10:29) gives to each Christian his or her particular grace-gift (charismata), which is to be expressed in thankfulness (eucharista) in Christian service and ministry.” (67) Christ's grace is utterly transformational of us ministers too. Deep down we want to be useful. Grace frees us to be useful, rather than simply "productive"

I think that Purves' point could benefit from reflecation on the doctrine of Providence. Providence talks of God's superintending of all the Universe. And in His Providence, He delights to use His servants. Providence helps us see ourselves as agents, as pots in the hands of the potter, as an instrument in the hands of the musician. Michael Card captures this sense in his wonderful song "Poem of Your Life"



This is a book that could also profit anyone in the church. Too many people are burned out by church machines that chew up their gifts and then move on when the people are exhausted. Too many people buy into the idea that they can buy God's love by service to the institution. I would love to see Purves come out with a second title: "The Crucifixion of Church Membership."

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

For a more critical analysis of this text, check out Jesus Creed's take on it from last December: He points out that Purves doesn't interact with the Pastoral Epistles in working up his theology of pastoral ministry, and that there are an awful lot of "do" commands when the Bible actually speaks of pastoral ministry. I think that this critique misses some of Purves' point. It also misses out on how the Last Supper Discourse of John 14-16 is likely the most pointed treatise on pastoral ministry ever given .... Jesus to his twelve disciples who will carry on his ministry. I suggest that in dealing with John's discourse, Purves is deeply rooting his theology in what the bible says about Pastoral ministry. Even so, it's worth reading the critique.

Off the Shelf: The Emmaus Mystery

It beckoned to me as I was browsing the extensive stacks at Cincinnati Public Library. The Emmaus Mystery carried the subtitle "discovering the evidence for the risen Christ." After dealing with James Tabor's Jesus Dynasty, I thought it would be nice to see something that takes seriously the biblical accounts.

The book didn't live up to the advertisement. It didn't give evidence for the resurrection.

It was, however, an entertaining and lively read. Thiede's thesis is that the gospel accounts are indeed reliable historical sources (contra the idea that they are mostly fabrications), and thus historians and archaeologists can use them for clues. He writes: “Hardly anyone will turn Christian because of an ancient inscription discovered among the ruins of a first-century village, and likewise no one will lose their faith if stories told in the Bible cannot be proven archaologically. ‘Proving’ faith is a futile endeavour. Appreciating the intelligence and learning of the witnesses and writers of the first centuries, on the other hand, takes us closer to the roots of our civilization.” (22) Thiede seeks to prove this assertion by using the account in Luke to help him find the "lost" village of Emmaus.

Thiede explains the various theories of where Emmaus was actually located....and takes us on a tour of history from Roman times up through the Crusades and beyond. However, be forewarned, he does like to ramble. This text reads a bit like an after supper conversation ... ranging back and forth and down little side alleys, but slowly pushing forward toward an end goal.

That end goal is the recounting of the archaeological digs that Thiede directed near Moza starting in 2002. For those not familiar with archaeological procedure, this might provide an interesting snapshot to the frustrations and the unexpected discoveries that await the researcher.

Some of the interesting points and quotes he makes:

on the antiquity of the gospels (Theide argues for an early dating of the gospels...say in the 30s - 40s): “No one, so far, has produced a single convincing reason why the Christians should have waited for ten years or more before they set pen to paper, given the fact that their neighbours, the rival messianic eschatological movement of the Essenes, produced, copied, and distributed scroll after scroll to proclaim their own messianic vision. It should be obvious enough that a new movement which proclaimed the fulfillment of these Jewish hopes and expectations had to write down what they knew and believed. An oral tradition was valuable, but on its own it was inadequate. The incident at Beroea proves the point: those pious Jews listened to Paul and Silas ….but afterwards they studied the Scriptures to find out if it were true.” (85)

on the nature of mystery cults they understood that myth “…simply was the oral and literary form of any given mystery cult. And mysteries were anything but secret affairs: contrary to what most of us assume, none of the ancient mystery cults was restricted to a small circle of select followers. We know from ancient sources that over the centuries literally millions of people were initiated into …the Eleusinian Mysteries, celebrated in the Greek city of Eleusis in honour of the female godhead Demeter and her daughter Persepone.” (82)

All told an interesting read....though not entirely satisfying for those who are looking for hard scholarly evidence on the textual issues.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Off the Shelf: Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

Pardon my enthusiasm. This is a must-read for those who would lead, influence, or work for any kind of group goal. Shirky looks at the proliferation of Web 2.0 technology ... tools that enable users to connect and generate content themselves. If Web 1.0 was the idea of a bunch of online articles that were hyperlinked so people could go and get information, Web 2.0 is the idea that we extend our social relationships online so that we can share, collaborate, and accomplish more together.


Shirky believes that these tools will bring about a fundamental change in society (and he's been writing about that belief for a while....see his extensive list of articles here). Even so, he's no doe-eyed utopian who uncritically embraces technology as a panacea. He gives some frightening examples of negative uses of online tools as well as thrilling examples of positive uses.


There are many who consider social media to be a colossal waste of time. It's easy to come to such conclusions...for so many waste their time amassing vast stores of trivia online (though, part of the genius of Web 2.0 is that anyone is able to connect with people who share their same interests...or as Shirky puts it "people who are odd in the same ways you are odd").


Shirky makes this an interesting tale by loading up with real world stories of how social media has been used to accomplish ends. He begins with the story of a stolen cell phone, and how one man was able to use blogging, news aggrigator sites, and online message boards to mobilize a veritable army of helpers who assisted in the recovery of the phone. Shirky uses this as a parable to point us to the truth that the rules are changing “When we change the way we communicate, we change society. The tools that society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life.” (17)


He then backs up and does a little sociology...spending time talking about why heirarchical organizations fit a particular need. He explains how as a group grows, the complexity increases numerically. I wish I could find a visual representation of this online, but instinctively we know this. We understand that when a small group grows over 12-15 members, the dynamics radically change. When a congregation grows over 150 the dynamics radically change. This is because we're not only considering our relationship with each person in the group, but also each person's relationships with others in the group. If a group of 150 adds just one person, you don't just add one more point of complexity, you add 150 points of complexity (how does x person relate to y...do they know each other...are they mad at each other...etc). Centralized heirarchy allowed for levels of bureacracy to manage that complexity.


But with that bureacracy comes a cost. To accomplish the ends of the group, a significant amount of energy needed to be poured into managing the group. Therefore, certain tasks -- that might be interesting to a few -- were left undone because it just didn't make economic sense to do them...it would cost to much in terms of oversight and management for the organization to do them.


Shirky's thesis is that social media tools lower to the "management costs" of organizing people. “So long as the absolute cost of organizing a group is high, unmanaged groups will be limited to undertaking small efforts – a night out at the movies, a camping trip. Even something as simple as a potluck dinner typically requires some hosting institution. Now that it is possible to achieve large-scale coordination at low cost, a third category has emerged: serious complex work, taken on without institutional direction.” (47) From this vantage point, he talks about the different means of collaboration: sharing of information (like sharing photos on flickr); cooperation (synchronizing with people who share a similar interest); collaboration (a group committing to a particular undertaking together).

Sharing

He then spends a chapter explaining the development of media....particularly interesting was his approach to the Gutenburg printing press revolution....it destroyed a scribal tradition that dated back for a millenia. Scribes solved a great problem, but the printing press eliminated that problem, and it created opportunities for new literature. In much the same way, social media is transforming our understanding of "news" and it is creating new opportunities for new ways of packaging events. But the most interesting change comes in the next chapter, titled "Publish, then filter." The concept here is that because of printing and distribution costs, old media institutions added value by deciding what was important ("all the news that's fit to print") and delivering it to us. Get that...the old media did the job of filtering.


Now that the costs of printing and distribution have virtually been erased there is still a need for a filter argues Shirky. He gives the illustration of taking a library, shaking all its contents out into a football field, and then randomly picking up a book and hoping it's Aristotle. Access to information still doesn't solve the problem of filtration. Shirky posits that new "communities of practice" arise that allow people to filter in groups. He believes that we as humans are wired to be social...we like creating and sharing things that we've found that are helpful. When we gather together around a common interest or common cause, we naturally share what we've found helpful. And thus, our community becomes a filtration system. (It's like all the hunter gatherers around the fire telling stories about the great hunts and great battles....they filter out information for each other so the group learns....only now that sharing can happen across great geographical distances).

Collaborating
Shirky then moves on to the more complex task of getting people to self collaborate. And he uses the idea of Wikipedia as an example. The core idea of Wikipedia was to facilitate editing. The original intent of the tool was to let experts quickly publish drafts of encyclopedia articles and then let the editing process happen quickly. The experts didn't want to give up control, so they loosed Wikipedia on the web and it became a quick smash...there are a few reasons why.

1) Simplicity of the idea. Everybody knew what an encyclopedia was already. They had a mental model. This lowers the amount of creativity required to take a first stab at something. Also “In a system where anyone is free to get something started, however badly, a short, uninformative article can be the anchor for the good article that will eventually appear. Its very inadequacy motivates people to improve it: many more people are willing to make a bad article better than are willing to start a good article from scratch.” (122)

2) A dedicated core. Shirky talks about the "power distribution" --- basically a graphical curve illustrating the old 80/20 principle. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. That small group becomes the core who defends Wikipedia against the vandals and raiders. That small core makes it possible for the other 80% to submit their articles and have them be meaningful....having a small dedicated core actually empowers all the others to be able to come and make a contribution.

3) Quick reward. We all get a good feeling from sharing our knowledge (no matter how esoteric) and feeling like we've left a positive mark. When our contribution is out there, we're more bonded with the community and more likely to come back. Soon the project becomes a labor of love, not just for a dedicated few, but for a broader set: “We don’t often talk about love when trying to describe the public world, because love seems to squishy and too private. What has happened, though, and what is still happening in our historical moment, is that love has become a lot less squishy and a lot less private. Love has a half-life too, as well as a radius, and we’re used to both of those being small. We can affect the people we love, but the longevity and social distance of love are both constrained. Or were constrained – now we can do things for strangers who do things for us, at a low enough cost to make that kind of behavior attractive, and those effects can last well beyond our original contribution. Our social tools are turning love into a renewable building material. When people care enough, they can come together and accomplish things of a scope and longevity that were previously impossible; they can do big things for love.” (141-2)

Collective Action
Shirky then ventures into the most interesting arena: Collective Action. Joining forces to achieve some specific common goal. Here the stories come fast and furious. Voices of the Faithful using blogs and social media to keep the story of the priest sex abuse scandal alive. Airline customers across the country banding together to push for an airline passenger bill of rights. Activists in Egypt using twitter to give instant updates on police movements, and track their own movements through the judicial system. Dissidents in Belarus using cell phones and text messaging to organize "Flash Mobs" to protest governmental oppression. People using Meetup to develop all new social groupings and to facilitate face to face get togethers with folks of like interest.

Shirky draws a few lessons
1) the cost of failure with these groups is so low, that it pays to keep trying different things until they fit (again, back to the publish then filter model)....if something doesn't work, we have lots of leeway to tinker with it and try yet again.
2) there is a process that marks the successful efforts. Promise - Tool - Bargain. Your social group has to offer a promise that is enticing, yet attainable (We'll offer you a chance to contribute articles to a reliable encyclopedia; we'll offer you a chance to .....) - then you have to match your tool to your promise (see earlier point...not all tools fit all purposes....) and then you have to keep to the bargian ... you provide certain parameters within which people will operate, and they'll provide content/interaction.
3) Defend what you love. Shirky gives a great illustration .... utopian anarchists (who believe that people are basically good and can self organize) in Holland launched a White Bicycle program in the mid 60s. They distributed bicycles in Amsterdam for all to use for free. Pick up a white bike, ride it, and leave it for the next guy. It was an instant failure. Within a month, all the bicycles had been stolen or thrown into the canals. Other utopians have tried the same scheme "The cumulative results of these experiments are unambiguous: programs that offer unrestricted access to communal bicycles have struggled with theft, and most have ended up collapsing completely." (282)....the programs that succeed have registrations and ID cards and places to check them out and return them to. The point being....we need to consider human depravity when working through our social networks....and defend them, just like we would defend our property.

Lots of stuff there....lots of implications for how the church (or Christians) can take advantage of social media. More thoughts are going on at the Geek Culture Mission Project on Facebook. Feel free to chime in here or there.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Off the Shelf: Bleak House

Four Months and 881 pages later, I can say "finis" -- I've completed reading Charles Dicken's Bleak House. Just for comparison -- I finished World War Z in three days, same for The Da Vinci Code. I couldn't just do a hit and run reading of Dickens' massive tome -- I had to dwell in it for a while. With a work like this, you don't just read about the characters, you develop relationships with them -- they become a part of you.

Way back in January, I put up this post about the joys of reading -- and I also linked this this great article from the Washington Post in which a school commends Bleak House to a student:

I recently spoke with a junior who was stressed about her decreasing ability to focus on anything for longer than two minutes or so. I tried to inspire her by talking about the importance of reading as a way to train the brain. I told her that a good reader develops the same powers of concentration that an athlete or a Buddhist would employ in sport or meditation. "A lot out there is conspiring to distract you," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "That's your opinion about books. It doesn't make it true." To her, the idea that reading might benefit the mind was, well, lame.

A library's neglected shelves reveal the demise of something important, especially for young readers starved for meaning -- for anything profound. Still, I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. I'm turning the new-arrivals shelf into a main attraction in my school's library. Recently I stood Charles Dickens's "Bleak House" next to the DVD version produced by the BBC. Lady Dedlock (Gillian Anderson) graced both covers. A senior fingered the DVD for a minute, then turned it over to read the blurb. "The book is too long," she said. "Is the movie any better?"

So is the book too long? Not at all. Dickens is masterful in this one -- he tells about a dozen different stories under the umbrella of the story of young Esther Summerson, a sweet, lovable orphan who is taken under the care of John Jarndyce, a benevolent British gentleman who wants her to become friend and companion to his two young cousins Richard and Ada. Sounds kind of tame --

But John, Richard, and Ada are all potential inheiritors in a will that is contested in one of the most convoluted lawsuits of English history -- as the young cousins come into their own, will that drive a wedge between them? What of the brooding noblewoman, Lady Dedlock, who has a mysterious secret that she conspires to keep hidden -- and of the retired soldier who is deeply indebted to Smallweed, the loan shark. Their stories tie in along with a legion of crafty lawers who make John Grisham's creations look like the muppetts. I believe there are about four dozen characters in all, each of them vivid in detail. Dickens sketches his characters in such a way that they pull up a seat beside you and take a cup of tea (or pour the hot tea on your lap, if that's their type). You learn to love them or hate them.

Dickens isn't shy about making social statements either. He lampoons the byzantine legal system of the British Chancery courts (this novel played a part in the reform of those very systems); he upholds the plight of the urban poor (social workers should read this book -- many things have changed, and many things stay the same); he skewers the hypocrisy of "do gooders" who care awfully much about causes, but care very little for people.

Oh yes, he also includes murder, death by drug overdose, and spontaneous human combustion. Anyone approaching this book claiming boredom has only his lack of imagination to blame. It's a long read -- the kind of thing to settle down with and enjoy over a season of time. But it's one of those glorious works that made me feel cleaner, better, and ennobled through the reading. It certainly fits the criteria of Philippians 4:8: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these thngs."

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Off the Shelf: World War Z (an oral history of the zombie war)

Disclaimer: I don't do horror/monster stuff well. Interview with the Vampire creeped me out so bad, I couldn't sleep. I refuse to watch horror movies anymore because they don't sit well with my overactive imagination.

Max Brooks' World War Z is not a horror book. It uses a motif from horror (the undead rising up to plague the living) as a plot device to tell the story of an international struggle against a highly contagious plague. Neither is it an action book; even though it tells the story of a war, it is written as "oral history" -- meaning that it is written in the voices of survivors of this fictional conflict. The survivors look back with the eye of "how did this happen", "what did we do well", "how did we triumph", and most importantly "how do we move on". Because Brooks choose this narrative style, his book reads more like a highly engaging PBS documentary script than it does a plotline for Dawn of the Living Dead.

It would be easy to dismiss the book without ever reading it: "Zombies -- oh, that's pulp fiction; don't waste my time." or better yet "I only read serious fiction". Don't make this mistake. Brooks has written what I believe to be one of the best pieces of social commentary that I've read in a long time. At the same time he finds a way to appeal to the inner William Wallace within us -- we can overcome great adversity and at the same time affirm that which essentially makes us human. This book demonstrates a familiarity with international politics, military strategy, sound economic practice (he actually deals with the problem of how does a country reconstruct itself after almost being overrun by zombies), tough ethical questions, materialism and celebrity culture, and the psychological toll of war.

What's even more engaging is that each character has his/her own voice. Brooks makes these characters breathe. As they tell their stories, they feel fleshed out and real. I cared for these characters; I celebrated their triumphs and ached for their struggles. I'm not alone in thinking this is a far more serious book than the title lets on. Read this excerpt from Jeremy Taylor's review:

World War Z is interesting and compelling and horrifying and heartwarming all at once. I would characterize it as being extremely well written, insofar as each of the three-to-four-page first-person accounts are told with a unique voice. Very often, items in a single-author short-story collection tend to run together and become almost indistinguishable from each other because all the stories, being written by the same author, have the same general voice. They all feel sort of the same, even though the subjects are different. That’s not the case with this book. Brooks was able to infuse different motivations, emotions, disappointments, and struggles into each different narrator with the end result being a real sense of collaboration rather than simple narration.Brooks’s sense of how the world would respond to an existence-threatening crisis is fascinating as well. Predictably, and probably accurately, the U.S. responds with collaborative military force. China responds by shutting down the flow of all incoming and outgoing information. Russia responds by returning to its Orthodox religious roots. Britain and Israel respond pragmatically, looking after their own citizens at the expense of all others. Discussions of political and military strategies, detailed examinations of the strengths and weaknesses of various weapons systems, and realistic military-sounding jargon and nicknames for the undead enemy add realism and a sense that events really could play out this way were the dead to rise.

Faithful Eagle and Child readers may remember last summer's series on the Fourth Turning. In it, Strauss and Howe posited that every 80-100 years or so a society wide crisis grips the culture and shakes it from top to bottom. This crisis creates the basis of a new societal arrangement and it brings into sharp light the failings of the previous era. That's exactly what Brooks does for us in this book -- he imagines the crisis and the kind of moral strength it will take to survive the crisis.

Be forewarned -- there's violence, there's profanity, there are bad people who do bad things (Brooks is honest about sin and its consequences). Yet overall, I found it actually inspiring. I believe it is a fine example of the kind of book that teaches - it makes one want to be a better person (much as Michael Flaherty suggests in this month's Imprimis article).

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Off the shelf: The Creative Call

As I’ve been working through the idea of the arts as soulcraft, I’ve received some great thoughts and ideas from people – and I’ve found several books to be interesting. Janice Elsheimer’s The Creative Call popped up on several recommended reading lists, so I went straight to the library website and put a hold on it, hoping it would give insight.

Elsheimer’s book is more a practical workbook than a detailed treatise of theology. She aims her writing not so much at the professional artist as at the individual who used to play music in high school and college, but dropped it for more practical things. In many ways, her book is more like a Christian perspective on the very popular The Artist’s Way. Elsheimer rightly recognizes that there’s a lot of vague “spirituality” talk in books about reclaiming creative powers – but very little talk about the specifics of working out your art in relationship with the living savior Christ. She aims to correct that imbalance:

“Most artists see creativity and spiritual growth as intimately related, but Christian artists go a step further. They understand the need to reconnect our talents back to their source: the God who created us and who calls us to become a cocreator with him. The Creative Call offers Christians a point of view and an approach that is consistent with Christ’s teachings. Instead of hoping that finding ourselves will result in practicing art again, we need to realize that only through losing ourselves and becoming reliant upon God can we discover how to use those gifts the way he wants us to use them. We will find the artist God intends us to be when we empty ourselves of self and become open to his plan and to the inspiration of his Holy Spirit. Only then will we experience personal artistic revival.”

As such, this book isn’t a theology of aesthetics – it is a series of exercises designed to help people overcome barriers from their past and learn to exercise their creativity. She begins with a basic framework of all humans being made as creative beings in the image of God – and then she moves on through concepts of learning to listen, awakening to what God is stirring within, exercising forgiveness (for past rejection that may have led to stopping creative effort), breathing in (taking in material), breathing out (producing material), time management, and simplification. Through each chapter, she gives several exercises and cites numerous sources (possibly one of the more valuable resources of this book are the sources she cites – a ready list of where to go for deeper information). The book ends with a blueprint for a personal retreat in which one can launch one’s new artistic endeavors.

This book is meant to be used for the exercises. Thus, there’s not new information here – rather a deliberate arrangement of material from a host of other sources. It’s essentially a course workbook that could be useful for a group setting. Thus, Elsheimer gives us lots of practical tips about clearing the mind to do art. And these tips reveal insight into how the arts can advance sanctification. For instance, when talking about the idea of the “artist’s daybook”, Elsheimer acknowledges that journaling isn’t a new idea -- but she presents it not just as a technical exercise of recording ideas and working out thoughts – it’s also a spiritual discipline for working out prayers, recording insights on scripture, and pouring out the things on our mind so that we can more readily attend to our relationship with God. She also emphasizes scripture memory as a key ingredient in “listening” – listening to God’s call upon our lives. “Learning to hear God’s voice despite the cacophony of our everyday lives is something that will take time. Reading his Word, memorizing passages that speak to our desire to reawaken the artist within us, and writing regularly in our artist’s daybook are ways of quieting our minds so that we can hear God’s voice as we offer our words to him.” (35) Immediately we see how the regular discipline of working in the daybook involves self-control and patience – and the subjection of the creative impulse to the encounter with the word of the Living God will result in growth of other spiritual fruit alongside the development of creative material.

Similarly, in her chapter on breathing in (taking in material), she talks about paying attention to the details and wonder of the world. This is a basic need for any artist – to see the details that most of us miss. However Elsheimer takes this to a different level by reminding us that we are attending to the handiwork of the God whom we worship. Attending to the details and wonder is attending to the craftsmanship of the Lord. She quotes Annie Lamott: “There is ecstasy in paying attention. You can get into a kind of Wordsworthian openness to the world, where you see in everything the essence of holiness, a sign that God is implicit in all of creation…to see everything as an outward and visible sign of inward, invisible grace.” And thus we see the spiritual fruit of Joy – developing the capacity to rejoice in all the handiwork of the Lord.

The chapters on making time and simplifying rehash much of the same work that can be found in any time management text. However, in the context of the book, they remind us that our use of time and use of things are intimately related to our vocation and to our spiritual life – thus calling us to a greater exercise of self-control. I would have liked to see more about dependence on the Holy Spirit to help us accomplish these goals.

All said, a helpful book for the right audience. Not intellectually too challenging, but practical in its application.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell