Do you seek refinement from community?

"Thus deceit can be a function of wanting to think of ourselves as honest persons...." - Hauerwas

This is so key to what I was trying to say last week. I think we all want to think of ourselves as honest persons but the reality of the matter is that it is likely that we deceive ourselves. The problem is, once recognized, how does this play itself out in real life in our communities?

This excerpt comes from a short book called Let Your Life Speak, by Parker Palmer (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2000) and although I don't agree with everything he says in it, this section is profound. And I do recommend the book. I hope this is a concrete example of some of the theories we've been throwing around these past few weeks.

"...I was offered the opportunity to become the president of a small educational institution. I had visited the campus; spoken with trustees, administrators, faculty, and students; and had been told that if I wanted it, the job was mine.

"Vexed as I was about vocation, I was quite certain that this was the job for me. So as is the custom in the Quaker community, I called on half a dozen trusted friends to help me discern my vocation by means of a 'clearness committee,' a process in which the group refrains from giving you advice but spends three hours asking you honest, open questions to help you discover your own inner truth. Looking back, of course, it is clear that my real intent in convening this group was not to discern anything but to brag about being offered a job I had already decided to accept.

"For a while, the questions were easy, at least for a dreamer like me: what is your vision for this institution? What is the mission in the larger society? How would you change the curriculum? How would you handle decision making? What about dealing with conflict?
"Halfway into the process, someone asked a question that sounded easier yet turned out to be very hard: 'What would you like most about being a president?'

"The simplicity of the question loosed me from my head and lowered me into my heart. I remember pondering for at least a full minute before I could respond. Then, very softly and tentatively, I started to speak: 'Well, I would not like having to give up my writing and teaching....I would not like the politics of the presidency , never knowing who your real friends are....I would not like having to glad-hand people I do not respect simply because they have money....I would not like...'

"Gently but firmly, the person who had posed the question interrupted me: 'May I remind you that I asked what you would most like?'

"I responded impatiently, 'Yes, yes, I'm working my way toward an answer." Then I resumed my sullen but honest litany: 'I would not like having to give up my summer vacations....I would not like having to wear a suit and tie all the time....I would not like...

"Once again the questioner called me back to the original question. But this time I felt compelled to give the only honest answer I possessed, an answer that came from the very bottom of my barrel, an answer that appalled even me as I spoke it.

"'Well,' said I, in the smallest voice I possess, 'I guess what I'd like most is getting my picture in the paper with the word President under it.'

"They did not laugh at all but went into a long and serious silence - a silence in which I could only sweat and inwardly groan.

"Finally my questioner broke the silence with a question that cracked all of us up - and cracked me open: 'Parker,' he said, 'can you think of an easier way to get your picture in the paper?'

"By then it was obvious, even to me, that my desire to be president had much more to do with my ego than with the ecology of my life - so obvious that when the clearness committee ended, I called the school and withdrew my name from consideration. Had I taken that job, it would have very bad for me and a disaster for the school.

"The ecological theory of life, the theory of limits, works wonderfully well with situations like this: my nature makes me unfit to be president of anything, and therefore - if I stay true to what i know about myself - I will die having avoided a fate that for me would be worse than death.

"...If I try to be or do something noble that has nothing to do with who I am, I may look good to others and to myself for a while. But [it] will eventually have consequences. I will distort myself, the other, and our relationship - and may end up doing more damage than if I had never set out to do this particular 'good.'"

Some reflections as I read this:

1) He gathered a group of people whom he trusted to ask him honest and open questions. No criticizing or judging, just simple questions. When was the last time I made myself vulnerable like that with people who loved me?

2) He was mature enough to know that it needed to be done and didn't make a major decision without consulting the community. Granted, it is a part of his theological tradition, but can I make this a regular part of my life--asking my community of believers to join me in making decisions? What are some other decisions besides a new job?

3) In the end the truth set him free. He admits that if he had taken the job he would have been in it for the wrong reasons and both parties (himself and the school) would have been worse off because of it. That admittance was probably a hard conclusion to come to but he is now able to go forward in hope and with freedom that he can make wiser decisions--that is, decisions more in line with God's will for the world.

Last week we talked about seeking refinement of our hearts from Scripture, but what about community? Do you have a group of guys you can sit down with and talk about your heart, your motivations? Will you let other guys be painfully honest with you? Why not?

Is it really just about the heart?

Yes, it probably is, but let's take a look at what that might mean.

In Matthew's Gospel, especially in the Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5-7), Jesus has a series of statements that are framed by, "You have heard it said...but I tell you...." What Jesus is doing here is expounding the Torah and redefining the ethics of the Jewish people. For example, from Matthew 5:27ff:

You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

The point is that committing adultery is the action that is a symptom of a deeper problem that lies within the sinner's heart. A similar example in Matthew 5:21ff:

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder'. . . But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother (some manuscripts: 'without cause') will be subject to judgment...

Again, anger at your brother or sister (without cause) is actually the problem, not murder. Murder is just the outflow of what is already in your heart.

So it is right to note that Jesus is literally addressing the heart of the matter. Furthermore, Jesus says to the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Matthew 15:

Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean...

Jesus is surely concerned with the heart. And so, too, should we. But is that it? Does that mean that I can do whatever I want as long as my heart is in the right place? Of course not. But does it mean that I must sit back uncritically as my Christian brothers and sisters live out their faith in a way that seems to contradict our call? This is where I think we have the most problems. We are so afraid to 'judge' each other that we completely abstain from even questioning each other. If I say I'm a Christian but destroy the earth, would you stop me? If I say I'm a Christian but treat others as if they are not worthy of respect, would you call me out on it? If I say I'm a Christian but make or sell a product that encourages laziness, gluttony, greed, envy, lust, or is just plain idolatrous, would you be able to question me at all?

I would hope so. Because otherwise I'm screwed. Jeremiah says in chapter 17:

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

"I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve."

Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay
is the man who gains riches by unjust means.
When his life is half gone, they will desert him,
and in the end he will prove to be a fool.

The heart is wicked and deceitful. Jeremiah's words are an indictment of all humanity. I know--because it happens almost every day--that it is easy to lie to myself. I deceive myself so easily that I don't usually know that I'm doing it. In fact, unless someone helps me to see the deceit, it will go unnoticed. I submit that the deceitfulness of our hearts and our lack of attention to it has allowed us to play a sadly accommodating role to the consumeristic society that we find ourselves in. We have unquestionably (for the most part) gone along with our society so much that we no longer can see the problems in our own hearts. Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University says this:

"Societal roles provide a ready vehicle for self-deception, since we
can easily identify with them without any need to spell out what we
are doing. The role is accepted into our identity. It may define our
identity in the measure that we feel committed to live out and defend
our identification with it. In the narrow confines of a job and of
corporate loyalty, such an individual can easily be caricatured as a
'company man,' and come under a simple censure of establishment
myopia. Where the description is more exalted and vocational, however,
the opportunity for deceiving oneself increases. A man may think of
himself as a public servant concerned with the public good. Even
though he may be party to decisions which compromise the public good,
he has a great deal invested in continuing to describe them as
contributing to the public good. To call certain decisions he makes by
their proper name would require too painful a readjustment in his
primary identification of himself as a public servant. Thus deceit can
be a function of wanting to think of ourselves as honest persons....

"[W]e will remain subject to those propensities which lead to a state
of self-deception as long as we feel ourselves to be constituted
either by the conventional roles we have assumed or by the level of
awareness we have been able to articulate."

So yes, it is all about the heart. But the heart is deceitful. That means that I must know this and make certain decisions to address it. Perhaps that means getting together with the community of believers and retelling the story of Jesus so we remember who we are. Maybe that will expose some of the lies we have been living with that drive us to attain popularity and wealth. Perhaps it means looking around at the Christians we see in the world and, in love, asking them how their hearts are. It may even mean calling out actions we think are unethical and go against the basic narrative of the Christian story. John Powell, S.J. right says, "It is for God, not for you or me, to judge human responsibility. If, however, we could not judge the rightness or wrongness of an action in itself, it would be the end of all objective morality. Let us not fall into this, that there is nothing objectively wrong or right, that it is all in the way you look at it. However, to judge the responsibility of another is playing God."

Most importantly we must see this as a conversation, not an indictment. None of us have the last word and we should be quick to remember that. When my Christian brothers and sisters are involved in something I think to be wrong, it is my duty to question. It is also my duty to listen gracefully to their response.

So what is your response? The Christian Evangelical stereotype is that we regularly play God by dispensing judgment at every opportunity. But based on last week's comments, we wonder if some of the guys on this blog tend to the other extreme -- refusing to judge the rightness or wrongness of an action because it's all about the heart. Does it have to be one extreme or the other? Do you find Hauerwas' comments to be true in your life, that your identity is so wrapped up in what you do or what you've always done that it's hard to be objective about what is truly right and wrong? I know I do.

Are Christian artists pimping Jesus?

As we continue the conversation about creativity, I want to consider whether we, as Christians, should be selling Christ-focused products (I'll use music for the sake of this conversation). Is that not selling Jesus for the sake of profit? Is it not pimping Jesus? Yes, that is offensive, but shouldn't it be?

If you are reading this blog, I am assuming you have at least a handful of albums from Christian bands so we are all implicit in this conundrum. Most of those bands have signed record deals and their labels market them as Christian artists. They play in churches on tour and sell "merch" at a table in the back. They set up email lists and promotions to specifically target Christians. Question is: Is this shrewd marketing or detestable sin?

What I'm trying to say is this: If their music is worship (we can agree on that, right?) and they are selling that music, is it not accurate to say they are profiting off of worship? Off of Jesus? Are they prostituting Jesus?

Obviously, this question can be applied to books, art, clothing, churches, and all kinds of other stuff through which people use Jesus to extract money from us. But I want to focus on music for two reasons: 1) I respect many Christian musicians so this is a tough question for me, and 2) the sale of worship music seems to bear some similarity to the merchants selling tools of worship in the temple (John 2:13-17).

I honestly don't know where I fall on this one. I get extremely upset at just the words "pimping Jesus" and yet the beautiful music created by the Robbie Seay Band is encouraging and challenging me as I type. God has used the music of Caedmon's Call, Derek Webb, Shane & Shane, David Crowder and others to shape my character and transform my heart. It would be sad not to experience their art but is it not an indication of non-existent community that we have to buy a CD with worship music on it? It seems one of these two options would be better for Christian musicians:

1) Churches fund the distribution of this music as ministry, and/or
2) Musicians facilitate worship in community. After Jesus rose into heaven, the disciples "were continually in the temple blessing God" (Luke 24:50); they not only went together to the temple every day, they broke bread together in their homes (Acts 2:42-47).

So what should think of all this? Would Jesus take His whip of cords to the Christian music industry if He were on earth today? Do you agree with my suggestion that this is a product we have created and justified due to an absence of true community?

PS -- The guy on this blog takes pimping Jesus to a different level. It's a great, sobering read...but note the irony of advertisements selling sermons, journals, and books.

Also, I don't want to derail the question for this week but I do want to call out some great comments left on previous posts that we should all spend time thinking about:

"I think that maybe it's hard to focus on what is beautiful, unique, and creative when in the depths of my soul, I am hell-bent on conforming to what is ordinary." -- Alex

Grabow's comments about accountability within creativity (last one on this page)

What are Kingdom values?

It's great to see that we had a lot of response to last weeks discussion. Because of the feedback, we're going to stay on this track for another week to see where we can go with it.

I read an article interviewing Derek Webb this week and I wanted to narrow the discussion to something I alluded to in last weeks comments, and to which Webb hits on in this article.

From, Warning: Explicit Lyrics:

"Switchfoot, P.O.D., Sixpence, Jars of Clay - we know who they are," Webb ticks them off on his fingers. "These are the bands that are making good art and are therefore invited into that big discussion. I can't stand it when my own heart, or my friends, or people I know who are Christian artists say, 'Man, we have a mission to cross over and to get into that discussion but they don't want to hear what we have to say. It's 'cause we're Christians.' They talk like they are martyrs. It is not because we are Christians that the world won't listen to us. It is because we make bad art. The church at this point in history champions bad art. We hold our artists to a ridiculous standard by saying, 'Your art is only useful in the church if it is explicit.' But that is not true. We have to learn to define what is beautiful, what is good."

“What are the things that we American Christians value in our culture," Webb asks. "And how is that different, and often ‘upside down’ from true Kingdom values? I’ve found that often success looks more like failure, riches more like poverty, and have found that real life often feels more like death, as the Christian life is very literally the process by which we are killed.”

It's the last paragraph I want to focus on. What are the things that we American Christians value in our culture? How is that different, and often 'upside down', from true Kingdom values? Where does a theology of the Cross fit into the way we look at art or business and, let's not forget, all of life?

Why is “Christian” business so boring?

"Christians often ignore the pressing questions of the day. This could be because they fear that even to understand the issues in depth might weaken their faith. Or it could be because they believe that timeless truths don't need to refer to contemporary anxieties. This is why the most common criticism of Christian art is that it is old-fashioned and irrelevant. In other words, it looks, sounds, or reads like something from another period, and the issues it addresses are not the issues currently bothering people.

"It can be disheartening to put the words 'Christian' and 'art' together in an Internet search engine. Instead of discovering something vital, perceptive, challenging and earth shaking, you are led to sites that display cute greeting cards, comforting verse and bland illustrations.

"When I was researching my radio series 'The History of Religion and Rock' I taped songs by some leading CCM (contemporary Christian music) recording artists and gave them to the editor of a highly influential music paper to see what he would make of them. I then asked him what he thought. 'I felt embarrassed,' he told me. 'The music is paralyzingly dated. There is no fire in it. There is no innovation and no energy. The music is basically a prop for the lyrics which sound like a groovy Californian sermon. The music and the words don't mesh together and the sentiments are pretty wet.'" -- Steve Turner, Imagine, Pg. 101-102

Do you agree with this criticism? Have you ever listened to a Christian radio station and been frustrated at the lack of musical innovation? Why?

For me, it is a frustration at the failure to accurately represent the creativity of God. Instead of creating something "vital, perceptive, challenging and earth shaking" Christians often simply take something that is culturally relevant and put a "Christian" spin on it. Exhibit A: t-shirts that say "A Bread Crumb and Fish" instead of "Abercrombie and Fitch." Why do we do that?

What are some examples of "Christian" businesses? I immediately think of Family Christian Bookstores -- are there other examples? With Christ-following men and women throughout the business world, we have to have created other businesses besides bookstores that sell "A Bread Crumb and Fish" t-shirts.

Why is "Christian" business so boring, so unimaginative?

How can we be U2 instead of Justin Timberlake or Michael W. Smith? How can we use the imaginations God gave to us to be "vital, perceptive, challenging and earth shaking" while being Christ-centered in business?