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10 June 2007
Definition by Negation.
‘I’m not like you.’ This may be the most impoverished form of identity possible. I am me because I am not you. It is an identity borne of fear, an isolationist impulse which precludes any further understanding. Perhaps there is one worse. At least ‘I’m not you’ involves some degree of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou.’ So then, ’I’m not like them.’ The very nadir of identity. I’m not like ’it.’ I’m not like the bogeymen and the monsters. I create an antithesis to justify whatever thesis I desire, and in doing so, I abandon all desire to understand. This principle has given rise to too many oppressive governments, and has stunted the growth of too many easily-scared people.
When describing themselves, a Christian friend of mine described himself very emphatically as ‘not CCM.’ Attending a Christian conference, I remember the speaker describing the mega-church movement with disgust, a sentiment received with much applause by the gathering. I recall many a time hearing in conversation Tim LaHaye’s apocalyptic fiction mentioned with derision. Opinions are one thing, and surely there are valid critiques on the style or effectiveness of these things. Yet, in the shrillness one starts to hear statements about identity. Once the objections reach a certain volume, they stop sounding like ’this isn’t my preference,’ and start sounding like ’I’m not like them.’
Religion vs. Relationship; the Christian-ese culture vs. Christianity. Mankind likes stability and comfort. This is not inherently a bad thing. We stake out land, tame the wilds, and build a home. In that home, we know how and where things go, and sometimes they even go according to plan, and all is right (or at least comfortable) in the world. Mankind in community does the same thing by making cultures. We find an idea strong enough to create an identity, and we begin to build along with the others congregated around the idea. Over time, repetition creates stability in ritual; norms hold the community together. It should not be then be surprising that an Idea as powerful as Jesus Christ creates a culture, even as He transforms culture. But we need to throw the variable of human fallenness into our Christian culture equation. Power, control, pettiness, ignorance, we express all of these in community, as we do individually. Mix in some history, geography and economics, and we get American Christian-ese culture. Just as no individual Christian has a corner on the Jesus market, Christian-ese culture is not the summation and totality of who Jesus is. It should not surprise us, then, that many true Christians choose to pursue Him outside the often-constricting confines of Christian-ese culture.
There is a difference between fealty and loyalty. I may not recognize the Papal claim of authority over the Body of Christ, but I certainly will recognize Pope Benedict XVI as an honored and holy brother in Christ. Only a fool abandons all loyalty and fellowship with Catholic brothers and sisters in the course of disputing Catholic doctrine. Even while I may not see eye to eye with Catholic thought, even while I may find some Catholic beliefs unnecessary or even unhelpful, I will not build my identity around those differences. Telling people why I am Christian is a far better investment of my time than telling people why I am not Catholic. Ultimately, it is a question of loyalty between siblings, and a question of priorities. So let us apply the same rules to Christian-ese culture.
I understand the critiques. In many cases, I agree with them. I don’t really listen to that many CCM-type artists. Top-40 never was really my preference. Corporate music, Sunday School lyrics, maybe. I don’t listen to enough to really know. I must confess the same for ‘Left Behind.’ The two books I read seemed to have one-dimensional characters and a constant undertone of preachiness, so I stopped reading there. That said, I would not feel comfortable condemning Narnia after reading only Prince Caspian, so I will embrace my ignorance about LaHaye’s series in the same vein. On Mega-Churches, though, I can speak with some experience. For almost two years, I took part in ‘The Mill,‘ the College group at New Life Church. Sitting atop the Christian cultural Mecca of Colorado Springs, New Life was in its prime. The pastor served as the spokesperson for the entire American Evangelical community, the praise team was full of soon-to-be national level recording artists, the brand new World Prayer Center ambitious in its scope. I found that there was a ‘New Life’ type of person, who thought and felt the way the church did, and there was ‘non-New Life’ type of person. The former found their way into leadership, into internships, into ministries. I was the latter. To me, the endeavor seemed somewhat artificial, somewhat impersonal, somewhat consumeristic. But I knew many good people who bought into the church, people who believed passionately in perfecting worship music as an art form, people who thought that an unpracticed talk expressed sloppiness, not vulnerability. So while I may not feel New Life merited my allegiance, I will still give them the loyalty of a sibling.
Once upon a time, Brandon Ebel started an underground record label called Tooth and Nail Records. You see, there were a lot of good Christian bands who didn’t fit nicely in Christian-ese culture. (There is a question of capitalism and labeling, as most contemporary Christian labels are subsidiaries of larger secular labels. I‘ll leave that to someone more involved in the industry.) Most Christian punk bands don’t have a lead singer that a Christian-ese suburban mom would think ‘looks Christian,’ and most Christian punk bands couldn’t find enough chords to put the Plan of Salvation in each song at least three times. So, back in 1993, Tooth and Nail creates a niche for underground Christian music, and fifteen years later, it’s the Christian underground bands that are impacting mainstream music for Christ (P.O.D. from Rescue Records; Switchfoot from Five Minute Walk; Chevelle, Underoath and Blindside from T&N. Lifehouse was independent until signed by the mainstream.) The thing I find intriguing about the whole story is that Tooth and Nail never felt it had to define itself as ‘not a mainstream Christian label.’ They simply did their thing, more or less independent of what other people were doing, and God blessed it.
It is easy to understand the desire to break free of the confines of Christian-ese culture. But I wonder how free someone truly is when they need to constantly prove to others how free they are. The adolescent defines his independence vice his parents, openly defying their rules. The adult defines his independence in and of himself, and has no need to prove it. The adult has the wisdom and humility to understand the intentions and goodwill of his parents, even if he chooses to disagree with them at times. The Dove award is the highest accolade in the Christian music industry. Therefore, it is not surprising that accepting that award would mark someone as a member of the culture that supports that industry. The lead cheerleader wins the Prom Queen crown, and Nicole Nordeman wins a Dove award. Yet, Jennifer Knapp, an artist with a far different journey and far edgier subject matter wins one as well. Still, she ministers primarily within the bounds of the culture, so it is appropriate that culture honors her for her music. The band POD finds themselves in a much different position. They feel called outside the bounds of that culture to impact the mainstream culture. Self-identifying with a set-apart subculture interferes with their ministry, therefore when approached with a Dove award, they decline it. But they do so with grace. In stark contrast is Evanescence. Their first tours are with explicitly Christian bands, and they are largely supported by the fiercely loyal Christian underground scene. Yet, when they break through to the mainstream, they describe the Christian scene with four-letter words, and demand that their music is removed from the shelves of Christian bookstores. Theirs is not just a lack of charity, but a failure of basic human loyalty.
Modern music, though, is not really a relevant concern to most of the Christians who vilify Christian-ese culture. Let’s look at books. Most Christian publishers, like Christian music labels, belong well within the bounds of Christian-ese culture. And for every ten editions of the latest Christian rendition of pop psychology or dieting, there are one or two copies of Chesterton’s Orthodoxy or Pilgrim’s Progress. The recent resurgence in interest in the great mystics exists almost exclusively in a Christian niche market. If you look through your local bookstore for the ‘Practice of the Presence of God,’ you will most likely find it in the ‘Christian Inspiration’ section, or something of the sort. This section exists largely as a function of Christian publishers making books for Christian-ese culture. Harvest Books, a Christian-ese subsidiary of Harcourt, keeps many of C.S. Lewis’ books in print. The reality is that many of the great Christian works stay in major circulation as a function of the Christian publishing industry, which in turn exists as a function of the Christian-ese culture. IVP’s Likewise Books specializes in edgy, Emerging Church-type, post-Christian-ese works. Yet, the shelf space for these books exists because larger Christian-ese publishers continue to prove that Christian-themed books are economically viable. There is a dialectic, and both sides need each other.
That dialectic is surely not without tension. Without a doubt, both sides sometimes get in each other’s way. The almost-pharisaical Christian-ese political pundits immediately come to mind. As do the almost-syncretistic neo-Social Gospel types. I think of an interesting conversation I had at an InterVarsity graduate school conference a while back. While talking to a full-time staffer, the topic of policy came up. While tremendously passionate on the injustice of American tariff policy, they became somewhat fidgety when abortion came up. Not so much that they were pro-choice, far from it. More that they just didn’t like those on the national forefront of that issue, and they didn’t like being associated with them. ‘They make us look bad. They get in our way. We’re not them.’
It is not really an issue of convenient causes. Persecution and derision is not necessarily a sign of the prophetic voice. Surely we all know enough Jerks for Jesus to prove that one. So just because it’s a Live 8 cause doesn’t make it illegitimate. But there is a temptation in supporting a popular cause: the popular crowd who support that cause may invite you to join them. Often, acceptance by that crowd is preconditioned on the rejection of those who support unpopular causes. These are the vicissitudes of pop culture. We do well to remember the words of Our Lord: ‘be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men.’ There are times we will have to be unpopular if we are to represent Christ. Not the ‘fight the power’ anti-establishment popular ‘unpopularity.’ Actually unpopular, Sermon on the Mount-style ‘insulted, persecuted, and falsely spoke evil of’ unpopular. Even if we are not faced with our own ‘white martyrdoms,’ (ref. John Paul II) we are called to solidarity with those who are called. There are different battlefields, certainly, and different tactics. We may be called to step out of the crossfire of one fight to engage in another. So be it. But we need to at least remember that we are brothers in arms, and give our brothers and sisters the benefit of the doubt.
Really, it is a question of relevance v. popularity. The scriptures constantly call us to relevance, they call us to preach the whole Gospel to the whole world. Christ embodied humility as He became relevant to humanity, laying aside His throne for the stool of a carpenter. We are called to do the same, to step outside our stability and our comfortable worlds and enter into the lives of others. This often means that we step outside of our Christian communities and cultures. But when we conquer the temptation of the comfort of Christian culture, we are faced with the temptation of comfort with the world. A good warning sign of this temptation is a growing revulsion toward those who endanger your popularity with the world through their association with you. Consider your allegiances. If you cannot find love and grace for your brothers and sisters in Christ, how can you pretend to have it for the world? Lust for popularity is a sin of identity. When we look to culture (popular or Christian-ese) for identity, we will forever grasp at approval, acceptance and popularity. Our identity is in Christ, and that identity should lead us to relevance. We cannot have it the other way around. Love justice, practice mercy, and measure yourself in God’s sight even as you build bridges to the world.
What does it say about a family when the siblings constantly say ‘I’m not like my brother,’ and ‘I’m not like my sister?’ It is natural that siblings differ, even that they build their identities in contrast to each other. The sisters in Sense & Sensibility are quite different from each other. But they never forget that they are sisters, nor do they abandon loyalty, even when they frustrate each other. There will always be intramural differences. I can imagine that Roman Christians and Jewish Christians had some pretty significant policy differences in the first Century. Yet, they managed to stay one church, and they managed to remember that the Name that bound them together was thicker than the names that tore them apart. Surely the family of God is better served talking about the glories of the Father rather than the differences between the siblings. We are not the only ones listening.
(As a final note, there is always a place for internal discussions. I think of Frank Peretti’s ‘The Visitation.’ Largely an indictment of contemporary Christian culture, he takes strong issue with certain aspects of Pentecostalism, Mega-Churches, and church politics. His purpose, though, is to minister to those ground under the wheels of that culture, not to condemn that culture to the world. He writes it for a very specific audience, he confines his critique to that audience, and he identifies himself strongly with the group being critiqued. He writes for relevance, not for popularity… I doubt his indictments earned him positive secular reviews.)
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