LifeWay, the publishing and retail arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently decided to pull the film "The Blind Side" from its shelves due to the complaints of a Florida pastor that the movie contained inappropriate things. Among those things? Cursing, violence and racial slurs.
Many Christians have expressed their frustration with the decision. Author Eric Metaxas, whose recent biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been a best-seller, had harsh words to say about LifeWay's decision and its broader impact on how others view evangelical culture, saying that "If we Christians can't get [what makes 'The Blind Side' redeemable], then maybe we really should refrain from commenting on culture in the first place."
This whole debacle gets at something that has been on my mind for quite some time, which is that the mainstream evangelical church in the U.S. often fails to encompass the complete range of human experience. It produces almost no art, nothing culturally noteworthy in any fashion. It recoils from anything that could be deemed too gray or too dicey or too dark. Instead it creates its own subcultures that often (though not always) prize the neat, tidy and redemptive over the realities of life.
As Eric Metaxas also points out, I think this does a huge disservice to the church. I know many creative people who pull away from the faith because it has nothing compelling to offer them. To my knowledge, a robust theology of art in mainstream American Protestantism does not exist as it does in Roman Catholic thought. Thus, many creative people leave, only to find something richer and more exciting in the "secular" art world, where they feel free to express and explore.
This is a shame, because the Bible itself does in fact speak to the entire range of human experience. Depths of despair? Read the Psalms. Some of the most beautiful erotic love poetry ever penned? Read Song of Songs. Existential crisis? Read Ecclesiastes. Tales of epic battles and mighty kings and tortured souls abound. Oh, and there's also the New Testament, where we hear about that guy Jesus and end with that sweeping vision of the apocalypse...
One blogger named "Pastor Jeff" wryly commented that "One writer already pointed out that if it is sex and violence that is found to be objectionable then the first volume to be 'pulled' [from a Christian bookstore] should possibly be the Bible."
And I happen to know Southern Baptists have a high regard for the Bible.
Having grown up in a Southern Baptist church surrounded by other Southern Baptist churches, I'm no stranger to their proclivity for fighting against the tides of the prevailing culture, generally in a attempt to live out the biblical dictum to "be in the world but not of the world." Yet the way in which Christians often live out this sentiment stifles the church's ability to create culture for themselves. Instead of proactively creating, the church is characterized as perpetually prohibiting; it's characterizes by what it stands against, not what it stands for. Thus, the Christian narrative has all but disappeared in the world of high art, and even in the tiny glimmers it does appear, it is mostly to provoke or be pushed against as a kind of power structure.
Though I don't really consider "The Blind Side" to be " high art," per se -- despite the fact that it did win some high-profile awards -- I think that the fact it isn't "high art" only proves my point. If a movie like "The Blind Side" isn't even allowed to exist on the shelves of LifeWay Christian Stores, then why should we expect any real art to flourish in the mainstream evangelical church? Surely we can create art "in the world" that is not "of" it?
It has been done before. Just ask: Where would LifeWay put a book like Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" or the forthcoming screen adaptation of the award-winning musical based on this 19th century masterpiece? Where would they put Trollope's "Chronicles of Barsetshire"? Or the works of Tolstoy? Of Dostoevsky?
Barnes and Noble doesn't put them in the "Christian Fiction" section, and I think that tells us something.
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Religious hypocrisies..
Put simply, the sensors that make up the CCM "music" industry, and the "Christian" movies that are produced, are produced out of a seemingly honest, yet misguided effort to create something enjoyable for all.
I've received judgement many time, not because I've done anything wrong, but because I cited secular musicians as influences in my own music production.
Somehow, people value the influence of the valueless far more than their own, because they are terrified that a "secular" instrumental is going to corrupt my soul.
I pointed out that if a non-Christian painter decided to paint a gorgeous landscape, and an untalented Christian painter decided to paint an incohesive mess of colours, with Christian symbolism.. Well, we'd all agree that the landscape is a better example of what art is.
This applies to all things.
If your music is focused on lyrically "sounding like a Christian", then you need to get a different job, and write your drab poetry on the side. Music is the art of audiophiles, not the platform to campaign to recycled melodies.
We shouldn't be afraid of art, music, theatre, science, etc.
We shouldn't xenophobically isolate ourselves, we should inspire and influence the world.
If we have an issue, we should take action and solve the problem, not put a band-aid on it.
Anyway, I'm rambling profusely.
Typically fundamentalists are more defined by their lifestyle (no dancing, smoking, drinking, etc.) and their narrow bilicism than by doctrine. The pastor of a church I attended while I was in college was fond of making fun of how many books there are in the world and that there really wasn't a need for many more. The group I hung around at the time got concerned when I started reading more widely moving beyond just the Bible and devotional books. It was a very narrow and truncated view of reality, and like the author says, one based almost entirely on negation and not affirmation.
I would stick the yahoos at Lifeway solidly in the fundamentalist camp, and not paint the more engaged evangelicals, like Eric Metaxas, as in any way similar to them.
When we decide as a religion that one book has all the answers to life written by a whole hosts of people you know there is going to be some hardships and struggles in life.
Humans tend to want one book to give them all the answers to these mysteries of life. some call it lazy but I think something much more profound in the human mind is to be discovered.
One only has to look into the world and those nations controlled by a religion. it aint pretty and most if not all are third world nations.
The evangels are pawns of corp america and the 1%ers. they will get into bed with anyone that will support $$$$$$$ their evangel almost everything is a sin agenda. when a nation is in a decline of wealth many will turn to religion and right wing politics.
America is in deep do do but what may bring nations together or really separate them is this global warming that will play havoc on the environment and life on earth for the human species.
As a body, the ultimate purpose for the Christian Church is to bring glory to its Head, Jesus Christ. As the church brings honor to Christ, it also fulfills two specific purposes related to God's plan for mankind: (1) evangelism to non-believers and (2) edification for fellow members of the church through the Word of God found in the Scriptures. [3] administer the Holy Sacraments as given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ found in Scripture.
Among other things, the church is also known as the bride of Christ and the living temple of the true God. Obviously, the church is not a building, a meeting place, an organization, or a denomination. The church is the totality of all believers in Christ, regardless of denomination or meeting place. The entire body of believers is the church, and as such, the church is the dwelling place of God.
To dilute what God has instituted with any additions or subtractions concocted in the minds of sinful, finite humans is a rebellion against almighty God.
TO: pballen
I believe you will find that Scripture teaches what you are concerned about in both points of 1 & 2: “ (1) evangelism to non-believers and (2) edification for fellow members of the church through the Word of God found in the Scriptures”.
I don’t think you will find anything concerning “me and mine” in the definition for the word EVANGELISM.
Why do Christians (specifically Southern Baptists) need to "create" a culture? Believing in and living by God's word is the only culture we need. We don't need to "fit in"...just proclaim God's word to all who will hear and heed, and to love our fellow man as ourselves...nothing else required.