Audience of One is the weblog of Matthew Weston, a UK student, Christian, technophile and musician.
Space Trilogy
“I don’t know much about what people call the religious view of life,” said Ransom, wrinkling his brow. “You see, I’m a Christian.”
I’m just starting the second volume of C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy. The second book was described by Sara yesterday as full of conversations about philosophy, so “just your kind of book then”. The first book (Out of the Silent Planet) was excellent, and the second (Perelandra) is shaping up to be just as good. Mind-twisting in places – so my kind of book, then. Definitely worth reading!
Last week while recording a concert, somehow Sara and I got talking about environmentalism. Oddly enough, though we’d never discussed the issue before, it seemed like just the kind of thing we’d talked about before, for reasons that will become apparent.
Environmentalism is one of those issues which many Christians have lost their way about. One the one hand, you have Christians who would make the following argument. God is sovereign over his creation, and therefore this stuff about man-made disaster, human-caused global warming, and the necessity of working hard to save the planet from destruction, is all a load of nonsense. Some might add that the world is getting worse, and that this is a sign of the second coming of Christ and so is in some ways a good thing. Working to save the environment shows a distrust in God’s goodness and his sovereignty. That, and environmentalism is very much a “liberal” cause, and as such shouldn’t be considered worth pursuing by “conservatives”. It’s nothing more than nature-worship, and therefore idolatry.
On the other hand, you have Christians for whom the environment becomes the one cause worth fighting for. We’ve messed up God’s creation, and it’s now up to us to put it right. It can combine a low view of God’s sovereignty (“there’s nothing God can do about it, we’ve got to do something”) with a right view of creation (it’s something good, corrupted by the fall, but still something of value). Environmentalism becomes our way of helping our messed-up world.
Neither can be right, because neither have the whole picture. The latter is missing the gospel of salvation for sinners, replacing it with a creation-centric idea about humans saving the world through their own effort. The world needs saving, yes – but sin is the more pressing issue, surely?
But the former view is missing a biblical view of creation. God created this world, and the fall doesn’t negate the first thing he tells humans to do: “fill the earth and subdue it”. The word translated “subdue” doesn’t mean what the first group might think it does – it’s actually similar to the “take care” imperative of the later chapters. Creation is a good gift from God, given to us to look after and steward. If we don’t care about the environment, we’re guilty of ignoring God’s command to us. Sure, the world’s biggest issue is its rebellion against God; but that doesn’t mean that green issues don’t matter!
It’s similar to the view that some hold about social action. I’d never heard of this buzz phrase until a few years ago, when I first heard about the Noise. My initial reaction was exactly what I’m writing against now: I thought it was time and resources better spent telling people the gospel.
The issue, though, is that Christians become very next-world centred, and are seen to not be living “in the real world”. Obviously there’s a large extent to which we don’t conform to the ways of this world, and are going to be distinctive. But our God is a God who cares about this physical world now. Psalm 145:9 says “He has compassion on all he has made”. This shows itself in many ways, but one way the Bible mentions is God’s care for the people he has made. The book of Amos is written about people ignoring the poor and treating them with injustice. Parts of the Old Testament law were designed to keep the ground productive and look after the environment of the promised land so it would remain fertile. God cares about this world and its people – not just that they might be saved. He shows grace to everyone, though saving grace only to some.
If we live in a Christian bubble, only caring about whom we can invite to the next evangelistic event, or about spiritual conversations, we’re going to be highly unattractive people to the world. Christians must be those who look after physical needs in their communities, who care for the environment, because that’s the kind of God that God is, and not to do so would be to say the spiritual is all that matters. It’s not; that idea is called Gnosticism and owes more to Greek philosophy than the Bible.
It’s a similar issue with culture and creativity. It’s very easy for Christians to withdraw completely, spend all their time together, creating Christian art for Christian consumers, not involved with the culture of the day. I’ve heard people describe music written by non-Christians as immoral, and seen Christians applauding those who have thrown out their secular record collections. I know some of it is immoral, but a lot of it isn’t! Most of it is showing God’s common grace to humanity. Steve Turner writes in his book Imagine:
…[T]here are areas of daily living where the experience of the Christian is no different from that of the agnostic, atheist or believer in false gods. For example, I like relaxing in a warm bath. If I were to discuss this with anyone, regardless of belief, they would at least know what I meant even if they didn’t share my enthusiasm. Uniting us would be our common humanity. We all laugh, cry, eat, sleep and sweat, and some of us take baths.
Sport and singing, chocolate or cheese appreciation, wine tasting, cooking, travelling – none of these things are inherently “anti-Christian”, but part of the common ground between Christians and non-Christians. We’re all human, and we all start from the same place.
We can cut ourselves off from culture, get ourselves in a nice little ghetto, and have no effect on the world around us. We can go to the other extreme and lose our integrity as we engage with culture. Or, we can see creativity and culture as good gifts of God, corrupted by the fall but still worth something, and use God’s gifts to reflect his glory back to him.
We don’t solve the world’s biggest problem by singing, or saving electricity, or social action. Not to work at these things too, though, is to ignore what God has also told us: to fill the earth, develop it, subdue it; to look after the poor and the oppressed; to reflect his creativity with our own. To say “we’re gospel-focused people, so we don’t bother with that social action stuff” is to be unloving and unlike God.
Another way of looking at this was suggested by a blog entry entitled Evangelicalism and Art by James Cary. The universe exists to bring God glory, and so our priority as Christians is to live to bring God glory. If we put evangelism as our most important priority, then we’re potentially saying that our priority is the salvation of people, and not the glory of God. It’s a subtle distinction, because of course God is greatly glorified through salvation… but not just through salvation! There’s probably more that we could all do to help proclaim the gospel, but that doesn’t mean that nothing else is worth pursuing.
If evangelism is all that matters, then creating art with no evangelistic purpose is therefore a waste of time. Similarly, if evangelism is all that matters, who cares about global warming? Why bother looking after the poor? Why get involved in politics?
There’s far more to life than just scurrying around like sailors on a sinking ship, trying to get as many people as possible into the lifeboats. Cary writes in a comment to Matthew Mason’s blog entry on a related subject:
To place man’s salvation at the centre of everything is breathtakingly arrogant but it happens a lot.
God is glorified through our stewardship of creation, our use of the creativity he gave us, our involvement in society as salt (and not just light!), our care for the poor and the planet, AND our proclaiming of Jesus Christ as Lord, making disciples of all nations. We mustn’t focus on one to the exclusion of others: those Christians who only care about social action, or environmentalism, and forget evangelism, have got it wrong. They’ve got it partly right though, because the reason they went so far away from the “only evangelism and Bible teaching” wing is because that wing is not biblical; it doesn’t paint a full picture of what Christian living is about, and so to want to react against it was a right thing (they just went too far).
Over the coming months the plan is to look at each of these areas in a bit more depth. Currently art and creativity’s the one I’m reading about, but I’m getting Planetwise by Dave Bookless soon, and hoping to borrow Tim Chester’s Good News to the Poor. It’s all about whole-life Christian living, not compartmentalising. I want to live my whole life for Jesus.
In 1971 the composer Gavin Bryars was given a recording of a homeless man singing a song, not too many weeks before he died. Bryars discovered that he was remarkably in tune, and that the song was emotionally powerful (see his own story on the subject). He orchestrated and harmonised the song, creating a piece of music entitled “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”. Three days ago this piece was performed by Gavin Bryars and the university symphony orchestra and choral society, in a version approximately half an hour long. The day before, Bryars had given a lecture in the music department, and had said the following about the piece (not a precise quote; I can only partially remember it):
I found the words the homeless man sung to be terribly ironic; after all, if anyone had been failed, this man had.
The song’s lyrics are as follows:
Jesus’ blood never failed me yet; never failed me yet.
Jesus’ blood never failed me yet.
There’s one thing I know: for he loves me so.
I was saddened by Bryars’ comment, because of course he has missed the whole point of the homeless man’s song. Yes, he has been failed by everything else: in his late seventies, living on the streets, about to die. But Jesus’ blood will never fail him. In the midst of all the rubbishness of this man’s life, there was one thing he could hold onto: that he was loved by Jesus, whose blood was shed for him.
The piece of music is incredibly moving, particularly the longer version. Towards the end of last week’s performance, as the instruments dropped out gradually, the lights went dimmer, until they went out completely and only the violins were left. Afterwards, as the lights came back up and the audience applauded, you could see that many of them had been crying. I, too, had been incredibly moved, but for reasons beyond what most people there understood. Jesus’ blood never fails. As Paul writes:
What a wretched man I am! Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24-25a, NIV.)
Or the writer to the Hebrews:
[Jesus] did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. (Emphasis mine, Hebrews 9:12, NIV.)
Whatever I do, however wretched I am, I am forgiven and washed clean by Jesus’ blood, and that will never change.
Afterwards I went up to the composer, wanting to explain what the man had been singing about. I stood around awkwardly, a mere undergraduate wanting to approach a famous composer. Eventually I went up to him, but didn’t take the chances I had to mention it to him, because one of my lecturers (another well-known composer) was also there. I left, having missed my chance, but went back ten minutes later to see if I could catch him before he left – only to have him raise a hand and wave from the seat of his car as he drove off.
I felt my failure to speak quite deeply – who could say if anyone would have a chance to talk to this guy about the real Jesus ever again? Why do I not feel that with my friends – that same sense of urgency? Why did I not take the chance later, as my friends who’d been in the orchestra discussed the concert in a pub afterwards, to explain to them why the piece was even more powerful than they knew? Jesus’ blood never failed me yet; it never will fail me. How do I know God loves me? By looking at the cross of Christ. That’s how much he loves me. Why do I not speak more of this?
UCCF have just put a video they showed at New Word Alive up on Youtube, so for those who weren’t there or aren’t students, here it is!
I’ve read a few of them and it seems an excellent selection. Delighting in the Trinity and Let the nations be glad! are on my to-read list.
Sam Allberry posted a list entitled “You know you’re an Ebbe’s student when…” back in 2006, which I’ve just discovered. Favourites of mine (which are more widely true, I’d say!) include:
You can’t remember the last time you asked a Christian “How are you?”. “Are you well?” is the only appropriate enquiry.
Now Google has search analysis tools as well, and so I can inform the world that in Googlebot’s humble opinion, the four most important words on this website are:
God
Matthew
Christian
Joy
Grace clocks in at #17 – should probably work on that.
In keeping with the “new me” who has recently rediscovered the joys of culture as a good gift from God and not something inherently “unspiritual”, I went to see Hamlet last night. I’ve never seen a live Shakespeare tragedy, so it was something I was looking forward to greatly (particularly as the Tobacco Factory do great Shakespeare). I was going with a friend who’d not ever seen Hamlet, but was a fan of Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (based on arguably pointless characters in Hamlet). So we were both quite excited, though wondering if we were just going to be thoroughly depressed by Hamlet moping for three hours. (Major plot points mentioned in the next paragraph – just in case someone cares.)
Turns out he was a very excitable and – though depressed – lively and almost comic character, so not a stereotypical Hamlet in any way, but brilliant none the less. An incredibly young-looking Ophelia was suitably melancholic; Polonius, (“brevity is the soul of wit”) wonderfully long-winded; and Claudius and Gertrude suitably guilt-ridden, schmaltzy and scheming as the situation demanded. You’re left guessing as to what’s going on in Hamlet’s head, and it makes Ophelia’s death and Hamlet’s reaction all the more poignant when up until then it had seemed that his desire for revenge had made him forget his love for her.
On Sunday we’d been discussing how Christians should engage with art that portrays immoral acts – is it okay to enjoy watching a tragedy like this, where none of the main characters (excepting Ophelia) seem to be those you can sympathise with? Is portrayal of sin outside of the oft-quoted Philippians verse: “whatever is noble and praiseworthy, think about such things”? Maybe I’ll come back to that another time. I did enjoy it, despite the tragic ending – almost because of the tragic ending! The play shows a world tainted by sin, and its consequences. It’s not enjoyable because I’m delighting in the sin shown, but as an act of creative genius that shows us our own natures. God in his grace has restrained human sinfulness in many ways, because if he hadn’t, many more stories would end up like Hamlet’s. If reading or watching such things was wrong, then we couldn’t read much of Old Testament history!
More and more I’m seeing the wonders of God’s gift of creativity. I pray that I won’t now go to the extreme and put art in the place of God (exchanging the giver for the gift). Art was made by God, and points to God: may I never lose sight of that.
The student worker at my church had some good words to say to us students while round his house on Sunday – paraphrased and condensed massively here.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24, NIV
Two perils when it comes to work:
Being idle. We’re told to work, whatever we do, with all of our hearts, as we are serving Christ through it. The temptation can be to do the least we can get away with, even with a “good” motivation of leaving lots of time to serve the CU. That’s not the attitude we should have. We work hard! We’re serving Christ through our degree work, just as much as our involvement with the CU.
Making work an idol. You’ve got to love homophones. It’s also possible, at the other extreme, to make your work all that you care about. Those particular exam results become your focus, not God – you work to achieve a first, not to serve God. Yet we’re told to work as if for the Lord, because it is the Lord we’re serving. If we understand that, we’ll not idolise our work. As a result, we’ll be able to take time off and rest as well – which God made us to do too! God made work; work is good. It’s only good, however, when it’s in its right place. Money, marriage or music are gifts from God which, if we put them in the primary position, don’t ever satisfy. If we accept them as a gift from God, our ultimate treasure, then money, marriage and music are wonderful and we can appreciate them for what they are. It’s very similar with work. We’re designed to work, but also to take time off.
What’s this mean then in brief? Firstly, don’t be lazy. Secondly, get some rest!
I’ve continued to think on the issue of so-called “secular” and “Christian” careers, and was helped yesterday by Vaughan Roberts’ book “God’s Big Design”, particularly the chapter on work. Roberts has what I think is a brilliant way of referring to the “twin callings”, namely “creation” and “new creation” work. So all work is Christian work, but some is more focused on this creation (in obeying the “First Great Commission” as Hardyman puts it – culture, development, conservation etc.) and some more focused on the new creation (evangelism, pastoring, Bible teaching etc.). The categories aren’t distinct (those doing “creation” work are still involved in evangelism; pastors are there to help those in “creation” work; evangelists still do the washing up!) but can overlap, however the essential calling is to “creation” work or set-aside ministry. Both are biblical, both are good, both are worthwhile. To deny the worth of “creation” callings is to say that God’s good creation is not as good as all that; even to say that “new creation” callings have more value is to say something the Bible never does.
Martin Luther taught the controversial message that all work, even street sweeping or looking after a sick child, is something done for God and has value and worth. In recent times, it seems like a bit of the world’s ideas about status have crept into Christian thinking to create a hierarchy of “worthy” professions: church planters and other missionaries at the top, followed by pastors, then people like doctors or teachers, then maybe accountants, and down the bottom politicians, or cleaners. This is unbiblical, and hopefully this isn’t the way we think. But maybe in certain situations we take a look at this list and start comparing things. So I have a choice between a “creation” or a “new creation” job: those advising me might say “being a pastor is more important than being a recording engineer, so become a pastor”. Maybe we’re more hierarchical in our thinking than we thought.
One big thing I haven’t touched on yet (mainly because I’ve no real idea about it) is the issue of “calling”. I might have various gifts which could lead me into creation or new creation work; every book or article I’ve read so far suggests that I assume I’m doing creation work until I’m “called” to be set apart in new creation work. So what constitutes a calling? Does it mean a pastor or other leader taking you aside and saying “you should consider this work”? Does it mean you feel like you could do it and would quite like to do it? Does it mean trying it out in an apprenticeship scheme and seeing by doing whether it’s for you?
Just because it’s been a few years since participating in a meme, and because this one’s actually interesting, here’s what I think it’d be great to see at New Word Alive 2009, focusing on seminar tracks and morning sessions. (For those who didn’t go, there were morning options and afternoon seminars as well as evening meetings; the morning options were slightly longer with less interaction.)
Following from my latest entry, I think the issue of God’s common grace to humanity, including stuff about secular careers, the comparative importance of cultural development given the Great Commission of Matthew 28, and other related issues would be a great topic to look at – not just because I’m trying to figure it out but because other people must be too. Julian Hardyman’s probably the man for this. On a not-entirely-unrelated issue, “Our Missionary God” would be a great topic – get Chris Wright to do it, and make it one of the morning options.
While I’m slightly biased, a series on “Music in the church” run by Bob Kauflin and Richard Simpkin would be great, if unlikely. I reckon something like “Francis Schaeffer for the Stupid” might help me finally finish reading The God Who Is There. Seriously though, Schaeffer’s engagement with culture and philosophy was to a far greater and higher extent than anyone seems to bother with today, and so maybe a track on “how to be a Christian in our culture” or something similar would be good.
I’m coming up to the end of my second year of uni and so have started thinking about what I want to do when I leave. I’ve always assumed that I would do some kind of apprenticeship, maybe alongside Cornhill or other theological training. In fact, I’ve always assumed that in the long term full-time work for a church or Christian organisation was where I was heading.
Recently, as I’ve got into more depth in certain parts of my degree, I’ve realised that I could now see myself in a secular work environment, whether the media or some part of the music industry. I’ve also realised that the New Testament pattern for finding church leaders was by the pastors and elders appointing them, not themselves volunteering. Secular work has value of itself, and just because I could become a full-time pastor-teacher, youth worker, church music director or whatever, doesn’t necessarily mean that I should.
Contrasting with that is the realisation that the world needs to hear the saving message of Jesus, and that as a member of a UK church I not only have the financial resources but the Biblical knowledge to be of great help in the mission field. When the Christian Union movement started in the UK, the first members went all over the world to reach students of all nations. Maurice McCracken writes near the end about his prayers for students of our time – that they would do the same. How can that not be a good prayer?
Not only that, but this country needs more church leaders. It’s not often you hear about staffing crises for church leaders (though they do happen), so it’s easy to think there’s no great need. That’s probably because we’re not planting enough churches. This country, as much as any other, needs to hear the good news about Jesus.
Howard Guinness, one of the students who left the UK to reach students around the world, was quoted by John Piper at New Word Alive:
Where are the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap and be faithful even unto death? Where are those who will lose their lives for Christ’s sake – flinging them away for love of Him? Where are those who will live dangerously, and be reckless in His service?
Piper’s implication was: “They’re here”. He was speaking to a group of two thousand students from across the UK. He and Richard Cunningham challenged all of us to be those people, people whose whole lives would be sacrificial worship to the one who deserves it.
There are so many needs all over the country, all round the world, all of which would be great things for me, or my friends, or you, to go and do. We could go as Bible translators, church planters, itinerant evangelists to jungle villages, student workers, relief workers in Muslim or communist areas cut off from missionaries – the list goes on. All would be great things to do. There’s a problem though: what should we do? How can we know?
Is secular work therefore worthless, and not an option worth bothering with, given so many apparently “better” things to be doing? Is it a waste of our lives to go work in an office, or a school, or for a theatre company, or be a politician, or a computer programmer? Or to take two examples, is the only reason it might be worthwhile for me to work as a sound engineer because it would give me opportunities to share the gospel with colleagues in the studio? Or are Christian doctors only doing a worthwhile job if they manage to talk to their patients about Christ? Do secular jobs have value in themselves, or only so far as they allow us to tell others the gospel?
I’m pretty certain the answer is that they do have value in themselves – after all, God created us to work (Genesis 2:15), and while work is now imperfect because of the fall, [the command isn’t taken away (Genesis 3:23). Julian Hardyman’s book Glory Days is on a very similar topic, that of dividing our lives into the “glory bits” (the spiritual stuff we do for God) and the rest (our hobbies, jobs, chores etc.). We live the whole of our lives for God’s glory, so we can’t make this distinction. How does the desperate need for gospel workers worldwide fit in though?
I’m in a situation where I could get a secular job, serve God by working as if working for the Lord (Ephesians 6:7-8), serve my church, pray for the world, and give money to missionaries; or, I could go work for a church, or a Christian charity, whether here or abroad. How do I know what I should do? Is this a matter of Christian freedom (you can serve God either way, so it doesn’t matter), or is one inherently better, or of more eternal worth than the other?
Currently, I’ve got no real answers. Anyone got any wisdom on this?
(Just as an aside, I think this is the first blog entry since I restarted writing that doesn’t sound like I know everything and am trying to pass it on those less enlightened. Either my wisdom ran out, or my arrogance did.)
