I gave up on Christian radio a long time ago because it was the sugary and sappy equivalent of Top 40 radio. The same song over and over. The same lazy games and quizzes over and over. Boring!!!

As I began to think that being a Christian means being creational, of doing something new, different, and beautiful, Christian radio seemed like it was Christian in name only. Music is primarily about art, not about a "safe family environment." Good Christian music made by artists, not pop music copy cats, are about as far apart as the Metropolitan Museum of Art is from Disneyland. Disneyland is so contrived and pop induced it is gag worthy.

My father made a similar, equally justifiable comment when we toured the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. He posed the question to me of whether Warhol created art at all. I offered that my father's reaction was the whole point of Warhol's work: consumerism had devalued art so much that people were finding artistic value in his paintings of soup cans, but it is hard not to just accept that it wasn't really art at all but cool copy-cat derivatives. People liked his art because he was a celebrity, not because he necessarily made amazing art work. He was contriving the contrivers, and people got a kick out of seeing beautiful consumer goods. Warhol captured the modernist paradox of the lowest common denominator: the devaluation of art into something so bland it can be marketed to every demographic. Lamentably, I think Christian radio has gone the same way.

Not to be alone, Chad Hall wrote a great essay on why he is Tuning Out Christian Radio. A great quote:

"I’ve noticed Christian radio becoming, for me, a sort of faith vending machine. Need some encouragement? Just push a button! I suspect that too frequent exposure to otherwise fine music hackneys that music and causes spiritual satisfaction to become one more commodity in my life. This makes real corporate worship feel like an imitation of the canned radio versions of the songs. Plus, it keeps me from developing truly nourishing habits. After all, who needs real corporate worship and challenging formative disciplines when I can just tune my radio dial and get a quick God fix?"

What is so destructive about Christian radio and TV is the wall built between congregation and individual. The whole media of worship as radio or TV disconnects one from the body. Paul has written that we are tied together as one body in community, and these ties should be made of hand-shakes, holy kisses, hugs, tears, singing, prayer, silence, and communion. None of those things happen over the radio or TV.

Media is a tool that can be used in a corporate setting. But when media forms a barrier between relationships and fellowship, when it becomes a "little bird" in our ear telling us what we want to hear (like in Fahrenheit 451), then media begins to distort reality and encapsulate us in our own contrived, individualistic worlds. ... more

When the above painting was first exhibited, there was a gigantic uproar. To a twenty-first century audience, John Everett Millais' painting ‘Christ in the House of His Parents' would rarely raise an eyebrow in response. More likely it would be glanced over simply as a realistic, but uninteresting biblical scene. If one reads criticism from the time period, however, one realizes two points. First, viewers were genuinely angry and disgusted with Millais' depiction of the holy family. Secondly, there really was a reason for the dismay-at least to those writing the critiques. "We are presented with that which is merely disgusting," wrote the author of A Glance at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1850, "forced and painful attitudes; elaboration of ugliness; expatiation on sordid or unimportant details; and all this to the contemptuous banishment of the mysteries and beauties of nature."[1] Another critic, Wornum, is quoted: "The dirty corrugated skin of an emaciated frame" should never, ...[be selected as ] model for sacred or historic character"; "The physical ideal alone", he went on, "can harmonise with the spiritual ideal: in Art, whatever it may be in Nature in its present condition, the most beautiful soul must have the most beautiful body; lofty sentiment and physical baseness are essentially antagonistic; even in the lowest sinks of poverty in the world, the purest mind will shine transcendent."[2] ... more

Some guy named Frank Viola wrote a book called Pagan Christianity in 2002 and no one cared it did not make many waves. Apparently, he sold George Barna on the concept in the first edition and it is being reprinted with Barna's name on the front.

From Out of Ur:

Viola argues in his preface that the "practices of the first-century church were the natural and spontaneous expression" of believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit that were "solidly grounded in timeless principles and teachings of the New Testament.quot; Regrettably, he maintains, most practices of contemporary churches—including everything from having a professional pastor to meeting in a church building—are at odds with New Testament teachings. Worse yet, those extra-biblical practices were adopted from pagan culture. This is unsettling, Viola sympathizes; but it is also "unmovable, historical fact." The remainder of the volume is an argument from Scripture and church history to support this thesis: "the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to function as it does."

... more

Sitting in class at Rutgers a strange thing has been happening: the local Episcopal church has begun ringing its bell hourly.  This is my fourth semester there, and this is the first time I have noticed it, and for me it is taken for granted---I have always belonged to a church that has bells, electronic or (gasp!) the real, metal bell.  I have fond memories of being catapulted into the air as I held fast to a bell rope, and then descending slowly back to earth again.

The new bell ringing has been granted with a subdued disdain, a nuisance perhaps, by many in the Rutgers community.  It interrupts their thoughts, is loud, and seems out of place.  For some, it might sound like their cell phone alarm, and they are aggravated by a reminder that is not personal.

And that is what I think the biggest shock of the ringing bell is: it is not individual but communal.  We have become greedy for time and bend it to our will by personalizing it.  We don't get up at dawn, we get up precisely when we set our alarms, and when that fails we have snooze buttons to personalize our whims further.  We have individual calendars and individual phones to mark time for us individually.  It is almost as if the time-space continuum has become personalized.

But then the bell tolls, and it tolls for all to hear.  Time becomes a communal event.  Six times during class: 5:30, 6:00, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30, and 8:00 PM the bell chimes a song that reminds everyone that they are existing in time together, and that it is passing for all of us.  It also reminds us that we can do nothing to stop it.  The bell cannot be turned off, it cannot be silenced---it will ring whether we want it to or not. 

Time is an interesting thing, as anyone who has gazed at a Dali painting will realize.  But I think the egomaniacal artist was correct in the way Time passes as a melt instead of grains of sand in a timepiece.  The grains of time do not dissipate without a trace, they leave a film, an ooze, a mark on our lives as they pass through our fingertips.  And when a bell rings, it does not pour like sand it oozes like a melting clock---it stops us in our tracks---and we reflect on what happened in between each toll.  Time has the ability to drift away unnoticed in a 24/7 age of instant access, but when a bell tolls it makes Time seem finite, and that scares us just like a surrealist painting.

O God, let us remember that Time is in your hands, and we are but a short breathe in the history of the cosmos. ... more

Or, why is everyone in Hollywood movies suddenly keeping their babies?

Maybe it's courage, maybe it's subversive, maybe it's countercultural---but the latest unwed movie mommies have all been shunning abortion and carrying their babies to term, sometimes getting married to the father (as in Knocked Up), or sometimes giving the child up for adoption (Bella and Juno).