Charlie Brown: Isn’t there anyone, who knows what Christmas is all about?!
Linus: Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights please?
And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, “Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings o great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men.
That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
Over the years I’ve read a variety of things about Charles Darwin’s faith and his so called struggle with it, as if he was truly ambivalent about it. The deeper he got into his theory of evolution, the story goes, the more his faith gave way to doubt and eventually to nothing. A short letter by Darwin was sold at auction affirming he in fact did not believe in the Bible or in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and I guess for some this was news.
[T]his is only news if we have accepted the usual stories—indeed, myths—about Darwin’s alleged struggle between faith and doubt. The usual story we’ve been fed is that he was a faithful Bible-believing Anglican until he discovered incontrovertible evidence for evolution on his 1831-1836 journey on the HMS Beagle (mythical option 1), or until spiritually broken by the death of his beloved daughter Anne (mythical option 2).
The truth is that Darwin’s unbelief was a family inheritance, as was his adherence to a godless account of evolution, reaching back through his father, Robert, to his grandfather, Erasmus. Charles could have written that letter long before he ever set foot on the Beagle.
With hit “faith-based” movies like War Roomand Captive, there was much discussion about Christians and film making. Interestingly enough, some of the harshest critics of these movies are from Christians themselves who seem embarrassed by what I call the cheese factor in many such movies.
A good example can be found at The Federalist by Christopher Hutton. The title of the piece: “‘War Room’ Is Just As Cheesy As All Kendrick Brothers Films.” There is no doubt that many of these movies, not just those by the Kendrick brothers, have a generous helping of cheese, but such criticisms are in many ways myopic. They are especially so in light of the history of evangelical Christianity in America. I’m actually encouraged, as a Christian, that these movies are being made at all, cheese notwithstanding.
Since Father Time took the great David Bowie, I have read numerous speculations about what might have been the state of his soul. Bowie, the consummate showman and actor, was a very private man, refreshing in the age of instant everything. So there isn’t a lot to go on, and I am never one to speculate on such things, leaving that to a power infinitely higher than I. But a friend sent me an encouraging piece that doesn’t bother with speculation: “Why David Bowie Knelt and Said the Lord’s Prayer at Wembley Stadium.” Yeah, I didn’t know that either. The title on the video of him kneeling in prayer: “The Bravest Moment in Rock & Roll History.” Given that sex and drugs are two words most often associated with rock ‘n roll, such a prayer before a hundred thousand rock fans could most definitely be called brave.
As I read this piece and then looked at the video of him kneeling before the crowd saying the Lord’s Prayer, I started to see another video for the song “Lazarus” from his final album, Blackstar, in a different light. (The name of the song kind of gives it away if you’re familiar with the biblical story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead.) Bowie had to be a fan of C.S. Lewis to use a wardrobe so prominently. If you look carefully at the beginning of the song you’ll see a young man open the wardrobe and stare at Bowie laying on what looks like a hospital bed. He starts with the words, “Look up here, I’m in heaven.” The young man appears to become older as the video goes on; maybe an alter ego? Bowie writes in a journal as he struggles with what could be his last thoughts. You’ll notice a skull on the desk as he writes, a la MacBeth? To be or not to be? Ah mortality, the great equalizer, the great question mark over human existence. Leave it to Bowie to ask the most profound of questions as he exits this mortal coil. In the last scene we see Bowie backing into the wardrobe from which the young man came, and shutting the door. Godspeed in Narnia, David Bowie. Thank you for the joy you brought untold millions over so many years.
I read James Davison Hunter’s “To Change The World” several years ago and thought it was a brilliant analysis of the power of cultural institutions to shape the culture. His strategy for cultural engagement, though, left me puzzled at the time. He called it “faithful presence,” and there didn’t seem to be any sense that he believes Christians should want to influence the culture. This question of Christians and their relationship to culture is a complicated one, as H. Richard Niebuhr described in his seminal book on the subject, Christ and Culture. I think I understand “faithful presence” better now, but what is the take away of a discussion of culture for Christian parents?
We cannot take for granted or be unaware of the culture’s influence on our kids. It is more than obvious that we live in a post-Christian culture hostile to our faith. Some parents fear this hostility, or try to protect their children from it. I have a different take: culture can be our children’s best friend, if we know how to use it. We call using culture to defend and affirm the faith cultural apologetics, and it gets an entire chapter in the book; it is that important. Culture is ubiquitous, so every day we practically we have a myriad of opportunities to strengthen our kids faith as we interact with the culture.
Christian parents will want to read Hunter’s book to get an understanding of where true cultural influence comes from, and why the assault on Christianity has such power in our day. The Gospel Coalition has just published a eBook that takes a look at Hunter’s work five years later:
In 2010, noted University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter published the landmark book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. On the five-year anniversary of its publication, we asked eight contributors to engage the book’s thesis and assess its effect on the ongoing interaction of evangelical Christians with the surrounding culture. The result is The Gospel Coalition’s first eBook, Revisiting ‘Faithful Presence’:To Change the World Five Years Later. You can download the book, for free, to read in your preferred format.
You can find an introduction to the book at The Gospel Coalition’s website, and and links to download it in various formats.
I recently wrote a post at The American Culture about how the hot fall TV trend is interracial lesbian relationships. I argued that Hollywood has long had an agenda to normalize homosexual behavior, and because of that many Americans vastly overestimate the gay and lesbian population. One commenter, Edmond D. Smith, was kind enough to say that because I had the temerity to say such things that I am “obviously racist, sexist and homophobic.” You gotta love that: three for the price of one! In the fevered totalitarian leftist secularist progressive mind if you speak unpopular truths, to them, you are unmitigated evil. But speak we must.
As I wrote in that previous post, last year the CDC did an extensive study and found that self-professed homosexuals make up 1.6 percent of the American population. Yet because of popular culture, and specifically the number of gay and lesbian story lines coming out of Hollywood, most Americans would be shocked at this number. I got startling confirmation of this distorted perception from my own family not long ago. I don’t know why I was so surprised. (more…)
Recent Comments