Author: Teddy Ray

Derivative art, rock and roll, teenage angst, and God

mellon collieI remember sitting with friends in 1995 and trying to name any “happy” songs. We came up with the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today.” You know it: “Today is the greatest day I’ve ever known…” But then we learned it was a song about suicidal thoughts.

I remember listening over and over to the Smashing Pumpkins’ album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It began with, “The world is a vampire // set to drain.” The whole album seemed to climax with, “Emptiness is loneliness, and loneliness is cleanliness, and cleanliness is godliness, and God is empty just like me.”

I would say that most of music while I was in high school could have been defined as “misery makes for great art.” If you grew up in the ’90’s, you surely agree. Wasn’t it just perfect for dealing with teenage angst?

It’s interesting how things can change with time. If you haven’t yet seen this clip from an interview with Billy Corgan [frontman of the Smashing Pumpkins], you should take 2 minutes and watch.

Some highlights from the interview with Corgan – nearly 20 years after the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album:

What are you exploring now?

God. God’s the third rail in rock and roll. You’re not supposed to talk about God. I think God’s the great unexplored territory in rock & roll music.

[…]

What would you say to Christian rockers, then?

Make better music… I think Jesus would like better bands.

Here’s a better quote: Hey, Christian rock, if you wanna be good, stop copying U2. U2 already did it.

I didn’t expect Billy Corgan to give some of the most interesting commentary on theology that I’ve heard in a while.

Two things I’d like to draw out:

1. One of the artists who made the most of misery is now talking about “maturing into the deeper work,” and the “deeper work” is about God.

What happens when you’ve explored misery and existential crisis, and are ready to mature and move into something deeper? Corgan says the natural place to go is to explore God.

A lot of our world wants to promote a sort of nihilism. All misery, no remedy. Just angst. The misery can lead where it led Corgan 20 years ago: “God is empty just like me.” Or it can lead where it’s leading Corgan today – to a deeper exploration of God. Perhaps God isn’t empty after all.

I think we’re seeing here what some have called the “God-shaped hole.” Less generically, I think we’re seeing how deep examination of life may lead us right in God’s direction. It may take us through a valley of despair first. In fact, the depth of that valley may have something to do with the extent of that next exploration: the pursuit of God.

Let me stop here, then, and give you an invitation. If you have been exploring the depths of emptiness, loneliness, and purposelessness, might it be that the only real answer is an exploration of God? Stop here, if this is you. Seriously – I don’t think the rest will apply. And if you’re interested in moving past exploration of misery, I’d love to help point you in same good directions. Those will vary a lot depending on where you are. Maybe we could start with an e-mail conversation?

This all leads to a second point for Christian artists and pastors…

2. It’s hard to fake depth.

In art terms, Corgan is calling out Christian music as derivative. They’re taking the template that U2 created, and they’re copying it.

Michael Gungor (a brilliant musician who you must listen to) says the same thing in a different way. He was trying to figure out how he’s so good at the game “Christian or Secular?” — a game where you listen to a few seconds of a song and say whether it’s Christian or secular. He said he realized the difference is that the Christian music doesn’t have a soul. He compares it to a zombie.

What Corgan and Gungor both seem to be saying to many (not all) Christian artists: you have it… but you don’t. There is no greater, deeper, and more profound subject of our art than God. But rather than actually engaging that subject, trying to catch her beauty in a new way, you’re just putting new wrapping on the work someone else has already done. And just as it’s hard to fake a good marinade, it’s hard to fake depth when all you’re doing is repackaging.

A plea for depth and originality in Christian art… and preaching and ministry

The lesson here isn’t just for Christian musicians. I think it goes to all Christians. God has revealed himself and continues to reveal himself. He is worthy of our deepest and most passionate pursuits. And as we explore God, it will radically transform us and thus what we produce.

This is an important note for all the pastors and youth pastors who go to mega-churches’ conferences each year to figure out the keys to building a mega-church or mega-youth-ministry. It’s an important note for the preachers who find their best material on desperatepreacher.com rather than in their own study and living.

Pastors — what we need is a church with leaders who have searched the Scriptures deeply and wrestled with the meatiest points of theology and considered how they speak to us and the Church and the culture. We need that much more than we need another Saddleback or Willow Creek imitation. And we should acknowledge that the imitators never really emulate the “success” of the originators. The wrapping may be similar, but the depth gained in getting there isn’t.

Now I’m not saying that technical, how-to help has no place. If you have something profound to say but haven’t learned how to communicate, it won’t have much effect. Sure, read an occasional how-to book and go to an occasional how-to conference. But read more Augustine and Calvin and Wesley and Barth and Bonhoeffer — oh, and more of the Bible!

Not shunning the past

Some people go the other direction with this. Billy Corgan tells Christian musicians to stop copying U2, so perhaps we should just trash anything that’s old and come up with our own, better, newer things. But I don’t think Billy Corgan is uninterested in those who have gone before him. Ask him, and I expect he would speak glowingly of Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, and Cheap Trick. I doubt I would have listened to his music if all he did was play Jimi Hendrix covers, though.

New explorations aren’t about shunning the past. I presume that some of the world’s greatest artists and musicians and even athletes have been among the greatest historians of their trade. They have been deeply formed by watching, admiring, and learning from those who came before them. And out of that depth they have done something that reflects the past without mimicking it.

The most theologically destructive phrase uttered each Sunday

Offering plateIn many churches, just before the offering is taken up, someone says, “Now let’s give God his tithe and our offerings.”

Have you heard it before?

Do they say it in your church?

The idea is that 10% of what we earn (i.e. the tithe) rightfully belongs to God. It further suggests that anything “over and above” that 10% is your free decision. It’s God’s tithe, our offering.

This is one of the most theologically destructive phrases uttered each Sunday. If you’re using it, can I urge you to stop? If you’re a leader in a church that uses it, could you have some polite discussion with your pastor about it? And note: the people who are saying this are well-meaning, probably even fairly knowledgeable of the Bible. Don’t judge them or look down on them. Just ask them to stop.

Why it’s time to quit talking about “God’s tithe”

You don’t find the concept of tithing used positively in the New Testament or in most of Christian history.

The New Testament mentions the practice of tithing three times (Matt 23:23; Luke 11:42; 18:12). In all three, Jesus is speaking of hypocritical, legalistic Pharisees. Two of the three references begin with “Woe to you!” The other is a parable about a Pharisee who is not justified before God. In these cases, the Pharisees think they have been duly obedient because they have tithed – giving even a tenth of their spices and herbs!

Throughout Christian history, many of the great theologians reference the tithe as something that “even the Pharisees did.” Their point: tithing is no big deal, certainly not a worthy Christian standard. Only in the past few centuries will you begin to find pastors and theologians positively referring to the tithe as a Christian standard.

For the majority of Christian history, tithing was not at issue. If you had asked a Christian if he/she “tithed,” I think they would have looked at you strangely.

Yes, the Old Testament says that a tenth of all the Israelites’ produce and animals belongs to the Lord (see Leviticus 27:30-32). But this is neither the last word nor the most prevalent word in Scripture about our possessions and God.

Faithful stewards

Much more prevalent – even in the Old Testament, and certainly in the New – is that all we have is from God and belongs to God. We live by God’s constant provision (see, e.g., Deut 8:1-18; Ps 104:24; 1 Chr 29:11-12). As our material wealth goes, whether it be a few nickels in our pocket or a few million in investments, the consistent message of Scripture is that it all belongs to God and is given to us as faithful stewards.

The call to us – rich or poor – isn’t to “give back to God” 10% of our earnings and do what we please with the rest. The call is to take 100% of what we have and ask what God would have us do with it.**

If we understand ourselves as faithful stewards of God, our focus shifts from giving God the 10% he’s due to a focus on simplicity and generosity. That’s a much harder focus, I’ll admit.

The tithe allows you to do the math, give away what you’re supposed to give, and go ahead without more thought. Simplicity and generosity is a constant challenge. “What would God have me do with this? How would God have me use this?”

If you’d prefer to keep it clean and easy, stick with the tithe. If you want a living faith – something beyond mindless following of simple rules – start thinking in terms of full stewardship of your life and resources.

How this can be so destructive – an illustration

So you may (or may not) agree that this is a better way to look at things. But theologically destructive seems a bit much. I don’t think it is. An illustration…

Several years ago during a Q & A after a stewardship sermon, someone asked a mega-church pastor if any amount of excess or wealth was too much for a Christian to keep. His response:

No. As long as you give back 10%, anything else is at your discretion. That’s between you and God.

(For what it’s worth, his church didn’t do the “God’s tithes and our offerings” bit. They say something good about giving out of a spirit of generosity. But I think this quote and other things I heard from him revealed the same mentality.)

That same pastor resigned a year later after confessing to a lengthy (and continuing) affair.

I don’t think the affair and the view of giving are unrelated here. The pastor believed that as long as you gave God his 10%, the rest was left to personal discretion. And he handled his own life similarly. He publicly gave God his part each week – showing up to faithfully preach – and then went in secrecy to his girlfriend’s house on his own time. I think he continued living such a contradictory lifestyle because he had convinced himself that continuing to preach throughout the affair was good — that he was still giving back to God his 10%, even if he did what he wanted with the rest of his life.

That’s not to say that if he had answered that one Q & A question differently, none of the rest would have happened. Please don’t write in the comments, “Yeah, because he believed in the tithe, he had an affair. Makes total sense!” That direct cause and effect isn’t what I’m suggesting. I don’t believe these are unrelated, though…

One piece of cloth

Scripture shows us that our lives are one piece of cloth. We don’t tear out a piece and give it to God, then do as we please with the rest. That’s true of our money, our time, our actions, our thoughts… all of it.

When we tell people to give God “his tithe and our offerings,” we tell people there are two pieces to life: the part that’s due God, and the part that’s ours to do as we choose.

Yes, we see tithes and freewill offerings in the Old Testament, but frankly, I think something very different is happening there. The call to us now is to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1). We offer everything – all of it is a living sacrifice. That doesn’t make each moment or each dollar look the same. It doesn’t mean we spend all of our waking hours in worship services, or at outreach centers, or in Bible studies. And it doesn’t mean we put 100% of our earnings into an offering plate. But it means that all of it, in all of its variety, is God’s. And we handle all of it in that way — as stewards of what God has given, not as owners who choose to do whatever we feel like.

Living as if it’s all one piece of cloth is more difficult in some ways. It requires more discernment. It will probably involve constant reassessment. I don’t think my thinking and praying and struggling about how I should use the time and money God has given will ever end.

But this is also more freeing. Sometimes when something is ours, we hold it a bit more tightly. When it’s from God and belongs to God, we can give it back to God a bit more freely and fully. We can do what may be considered “radical” or “more than we have to do” with confidence and joy (and perhaps yet some trepidation) because they’re done as small responses to God’s already extravagant generosity.

So don’t give God his tithe and your offering. Offer all of yourself – your resources, your time, your body – as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. After all, it’s all God’s to begin with.

———————

** Some points I don’t have space to fully articulate in this post:

  • A call to simplicity and generosity would mean some people give away less than 10% — actually, that some people might be financial recipients rather than givers. You know that popular story about the widow’s mite (Luke 21)? I think Jesus is lamenting the devouring of this widow’s house, not celebrating her extravagant generosity. (This isn’t to discredit her great generosity, just to say that I think there’s a different point to this story.)
  • If abolishing a “tithe rule” excites you because it lets you off the hook, be sure to do some self-examination first. If you’ve recently eaten out, been to the movies, taken a trip, or have cable or Internet (just as a handful of examples), you might slow down before you say you just aren’t able to give any more…
  • If you’re a pastor telling people that you tithe, and they should, too, are you including your housing and utilities allowances in your own tithe calculations? If not, you’re either being deceitful, or you’re clueless about how the rest of your congregation lives.
  • I’ve heard many people say that our first giving must go to the local church. I don’t think that’s bad, but I’m also not convinced that it’s prescribed. If a church leader tells you the Bible (i.e. the Old Testament) clearly prescribes that our first 10% goes to the local church, ask them if they’re really ready for their local church to start handling money according to Old Testament prescriptions. (They’re not.)
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Can an elephant give birth to rabbits?

rabbit - elephantA few years ago, BarnaBooks put out a book titled The Rabbit and the Elephant: Why Small Is the New Big for Today’s Church. 

The premise of the book: If you put two elephants in a room together and close the door, in three years you may get one baby elephant. Put two rabbits in a room for three years and you better watch out when you open the door. There’s the potential for just over 100,000 rabbits.

And then there’s the issue of history. Historically, the church’s growth has looked much more like rabbit reproduction than elephant reproduction. Early Christianity spread by the increase of new, small churches across the land.

No one should know a history like this better than Methodists, whose circuit riding preachers spread the faith across England and the United States by establishing new churches everywhere they went. It’s telling that when Methodist preachers met with their district superintendents in those early days, they were to report how many churches they had started. Now, they must meet with their district superintendents to receive permission to start a new church. What a change in roles and assumptions!

I come across a lot of people who agree with the premise of The Rabbit and the Elephant. I get the sense that more and more people in the Western Church are coming to see the “strategic advantage” of spreading like rabbits.

Not just a different strategy, a different organism

What I’m not sure is taken into account: rabbits and elephants are different organisms altogether.

An elephant can’t survive if it’s the size of a rabbit. Baby elephants are ~260 pounds at birth. We see that mentality plenty in the church: “You need at least 75 people for critical mass to start a new church.”

And a rabbit’s health isn’t measured by becoming the size of an elephant. What do you call a 15-pound rabbit? Obese.

The difference between rabbits and elephants isn’t just size, but the very makeup of their internal systems. The same is true of rabbit churches and elephant churches. A typical American elephant church will spend about 50% on staffing, 20% on debt and property expenses, and the other 30% on programs, missions, and denominational dues (give or take 10% on each item). Though they all differ, elephant church staff/leadership structures are relatively predictable: senior pastor, discipleship, missions, music, age-level ministries, and administration.

Look at the budget and leadership structures of the early churches and the early Methodist movement, and I bet you’ll find a significantly different internal system.

What are America’s small churches? Rabbits or little elephants?

Most of America’s churches are relatively small. The mega church isn’t the norm. So you might say that most of our churches are more like rabbits. I don’t think they are, though. I think most of our churches are very little elephants. In fact, they might be such small elephants that their odds of long-term survival are pretty slim.

Look at our little churches and you’ll see budget allocations that are roughly the same as the big ones, though they may be skewed because the churches are too small to handle the needs of a typical elephant structure. Look at their leadership structures and you’ll see something quite a bit like those elephant churches, though three people may be filling all of the positions, and some (e.g., youth ministry) may be future goals rather than present realities.

Look at our little churches’ aspirations, and you’ll see a little elephant mindset. If they could, they would become full-grown elephants, with a 50-person choir and the VBS that everyone in town wants to come to. They go to conferences at jumbo elephant churches to learn how to do things like them. Their denominational leadership sets elephant-like goals for them (i.e. growth = success).

Can an elephant give birth to rabbits?

You see, I think a lot of people in the American Church see the strategic advantage to rabbit-like multiplication.* But they’re still elephants. They think like elephants, they act like elephants, and their “success” is judged on elephant scales.

Which leads to my question: can an elephant give birth to rabbits? I’m dubious. I think it’s as likely for God to create a rabbit ex nihilo as it is for God to bring forth a rabbit from the womb of an elephant.

I know I’ve more clearly defined/identified an elephant church than a rabbit church. I’ll save further definition of the rabbit church, and my reasons for preferring its nature, for the comments or a later post.

I’ll close with a great quote from “Messages from the Chinese Church: An Army of Worms” [pdf]:

It will not be an army of elephants that marches into nations like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran with the gospel, trampling down the strongholds. Sometimes it seems as if a lot of mission effort consists of “elephant” plans – huge and grandiose strategies for overwhelming the devil’s strongholds and making him surrender his captives. But it is easy for border guards to detect an elephant entering the country! It makes a lot of noise and is impossible to hide. Elephants are easy to catch because they move slowly and are so visible. This seems to be how much mission work is conducted today. (Please understand we are talking in generalities here, for we know many of the Lord’s people from all around the world have faithfully been
laboring in these difficult nations for years. God bless them!)

[…]

While an elephant cannot advance into sensitive areas, little worms and ants can go anywhere. They can go into temples, mosques and even into king’s palaces.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Agree, disagree, want to ask a question?

————-

* Although let’s acknowledge that elephant-style growth — two elephant churches create a baby elephant every three years — would be breathtaking compared to current rates of new church plants. The reason we’re not seeing even elephant-like growth: giving birth to a 260-pound baby elephant is no easy task. And it requires a healthy elephant to begin with.

 

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