This is going to be the hottest mess of thoughts and while I won’t apologize for them (but may recant halfway though) I hope everyone who reads this feels simultaneously confused and empowered. I recently endured a personal tirade of my brother’s against academics, artists, chris nolan, and other “storytellers” who gate-keep (even raising arguments against the beloved Malcolm Guite – I wanted to cover my ears!!) for talking entirely too much, too much about themselves, too loftily about topics that feel elite and slippery and can come across as arrogant and snobbish. This reminded me of my summer class professor; I loved him, but felt a similar self-centered aura of superiority. As a classmate said: “He uses examples upon examples from his own life to prove his point of what we ought to do, it feels self-centered.” Is it? Yah, probably. Or, in more scathing words from my brother: “Why do they have to write ten books to say two things? Do they just love to hear themselves talk?” So, something needs to give. The language of the people must prevail!
This summer’s cultural outreach class is over. I just finished submitting the last of the assignments, which means I get a couple weeks off (hopefully filled with for-fun reading, and by that I mean realistically no reading) before fall semester starts. It would be remiss not to spend time reflecting on how impactful this class has felt and the ideas it’s fostered and grown. The class has mainly been a Schaeffer-infused1 education on evangelism. How does one engage with culture and evangelize across art, gender/sexuality, race, secularism, politics, etc… There are a multitude of cultural touch points that we have engaged with, but, for myself and the apologetics squad (cool cats janice & nevin) we decided to tackle the apologetic of art. Our prof was more than happy to let us swim in our favorite pool of art & faith authors and honestly, I feel like for the first time, I’ve spent some serious time thinking about the intersection of art & evangelism. Which is why christian merch is out of control, but first…
Summer Class Recap
Jerram Barrs is apparently a big deal — he’s written books, he has a British accent, he’s old, and tells stories about wartime. All of these things make him a big deal, and I’ve had to both endure & enjoy hours of lectures as he talks about the decades of evangelical prowess that has shaped his theology around cultural outreach. A few things will stay with me:
For the Christian, everything must be interesting. There is nothing un-interesting to a Christian. No sphere of culture is off limits. Barrs’ issue with Christians is that they pick their interests (maybe just cultivate one or two) and never get out there and get interested in others and others’ interests. The first step to witness is about becoming a person who is interested other people. Which means getting interested in what they’re interested in. Christian witness requires a fight against insolation physically, mentally, intellectually, and emotionally. It’s a cost. Be interesting. (Today, a friend told me she had to do “homework” to try to connect with some unbelieving classmates, just so she could build a relationship, a bridge, a conversation-entry-point if you will. That “homework” was watching k-dramas.)
It’s easy to give up and assume that people are far gone and hate religion and God and don’t want to hear you out. But we have to ask engaging questions about the beliefs of others, look for evidence where the Spirit has not abandoned them, and start with prayer. The Spirit is everything.
Understand your cultural language. One of the barriers (and Barrs outlined nine) to evangelical witness is a loss of common meaning in language and culturally understood spiritual and religious themes. Unless someone has been catechized in church, they’re not going to understand words like sin, sanctification, redemption, grace… these are foreign concepts and words to most people. Approaching someone with — “don’t you want eternal life in heaven?” — presupposes that they believe in the spiritual realm and believe they have an eternal soul. It’s not a relevant question. Maybe a Pre-Modern society that believed in the Enchanted world would be motivated and interested in eternal life, but people today don’t really care about it and generally think it’s fantasy. Skip ahead to Post-Modernity.
The apostle Paul used words that were common for his culture to understand by utilizing philosophical arguments of his day and well-known analogies that would make sense to most people. Furthermore, the NT was written in the basic greek of the people, not the classic greek that could only be understood by the elite. I am starting to understand the accessibility issue of theological professors. Can one be “so heavenly-minded that they’re no earthly good?”
Let’s be earthly good. We have to build bridges toward others in ways that make sense and work with our cultural moment.
There is much more I could say about how impactful this class has been for my personal spiritual formation, but there is one thread I want to entertain, which is:
Art as an Apologetic
Let’s tie it all together: Art is an apologetic. By apologetic, I mean it is a formal defense. And it can be a defense of the faith. Art and beauty get in sideways. It bears witness to the whole Christian story of creation, rebellion, redemption & consummation. Art primarily engages with the imagination which is a key instrument for meaning in language. To witness, Michael Ward says:
“Apologetic arguments must be imaginatively realized before they can begin to make traction on the reader’s reason, let alone the reader’s will. Things must rise up out of the swamp of nonsense into the realm of meaning if the imagination is to get any handle on them. Before anything can be true or false, it must mean.”2
Simply put: We have to know what the words mean before the truth can be known or action can be taken upon the reason and the will.
In Holly Ordway’s excellent book, Apologetics and the Christian Imagination she writes:
For instance, the statement ‘Jesus loves you’ may be meaningless to a skeptic. For the Christian it’s meaning-full. If there is no meaning (and desire) attached to these ideas, then “Jesus loves you “ is insubstantial and irrelevant. Worse-case scenario, a statement like “Jesus loves you” comes across like the nonesense-language in Lewis Carroll’s poem ‘Jabberwocky”3
Why should people care that Jesus loves them? It doesn’t matter to most people, other than a collective “that’s nice” because there is a deep loss of language around spiritual themes. There won’t be any understanding of grace unless there is an understanding of why someone would ever need grace.
(I feel like this substack post is going sideways and I’m trying to combine too many ideas, but we’re in too deep now!)
What is Happening with Christian Merch
Instagram has been pushing Christian merch shopping ads at me so I’ve started saving them (bad algorithm tactic, would not recommend). These t-shirts and crewnecks are the equivalent of poorly written and produced christian movies in the early 2000s. I said what I said.
Would someone without a catechized church background really know what these words mean? Isn’t this just direct propaganda? They’re not beautiful, they’re just trendy fonts using the same drop-shipped company as every other social media shop.
Is this the art we really want as witness to the Christian faith? Yikes.
All I’m saying, is if we want to share our faith, either use the apologetic of art or promote christian thinkers that don’t hinder imaginative realization. Use language that makes sense. Be very interested in others. And pray a lot. That’s all!4
I’m convinced Schaeffer is the GOAT of evangelism and witness. All things L’Abri.
Ward, The Good Serves the Better and Both the Best.
Ordway, Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith.
That is not all. Really wanted to continue and talk about Jerry Lorenzo’s Essentials: Fear of God clothing line, but I’ll save that for another time.
Love this!
And, yes, please talk about Fear of God.
Also, talk about RIVINGTON roi Rebis. I talked to a guy in London this weekend wearing a RRR shirt which had a smattering of the coldest Bible lines -- "you brood of vipers," "i come like a thief," "their throats are open graves," etc... -- and he had absolutely no clue.
Love this rant