The Lion, The Mouse and the Dawn Treader

A review of The Lion, The Mouse and The Dawn Treader: Spiritual Lessons from C.S. Lewis's Narnia, by Carl McColman.

I don’t know how old I was when I got my boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Sometime in early elementary school, I’m sure. The cover art is copyright 1975. When I got married, I found that my new husband had the exact same boxed set of paperbacks. We finally (after ten years or so?) agreed to keep only one set, and we decided which one based solely on the fact that his set was not falling apart as badly as mine.

I don’t know how many times I read and reread the books in my childhood. The ones I didn’t like as well, like The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle, I probably only read three times. The Horse and His Boy is still my favorite. I’ve read it at least three times in the last five years.

But I certainly didn’t read any of them for religious purposes. I was a freshman in college the first time I heard someone claim they were Christian books and I hotly denied it. I have since re-read them with that lens and I can see how someone could make that mistake come to that conclusion. But I want to firmly testify that it is possible to read and love them without that meaning at all. I’ve heard that C.S. Lewis himself insisted that the Narnia Chronicles were not Christian allegories.

Despite all this disclaimer, Carl McColman has written a wonderful explanation of the religious themes to be found in the Chronicles and particularly in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. McColman says, “VDT directly maps out the contours of the Christian spiritual life.” (Here I just have to quibble for a minute and point out that I suspect most of these lessons are relevant in any mystical tradition. But McColman, and I, are navigating the waters of the Christian tradition and from here on in, I’m just going to accept that framework. Also, McColman always uses masculine language for God but we’re just going to accept that He is McColman’s preferred pronoun.)

The major theological lessons I took away from McColman’s interpretation of VDT:

1. We don’t choose our mystical experiences – they come to the willing and the unwilling alike.
2. Mysticism is not a worthy end in itself but it can get your attention to help you focus on true holiness.
3. Three dramatic metaphors for sin: being sold into slavery, being turned into a dragon, and using magic to gain power over others.
4. Both the storms and the doldrums of life get in the way of our journey.
5. Be not afraid. [And isn’t this the big spiritual lesson from Jesus in any case?]

For Quakers, these are all really important lessons. Our worship is a ritual of willingness to have a mystical experience. And sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t. For me, it was my experience while I was still unwilling that set me on the path that led to Quakers.

But whether or not we have great visions in meeting for worship, it is the path of holiness, as Carol Spencer writes about it, that we are traveling. (The link is to a post from last year’s Quaker Heritage Day. I’ll have more to write about this year’s QHD by the end of the week.) Quaker testimonies are all about translating the unseen into the seen. The outward expressions of our inward experiences become our efforts at holiness.

Quakers have long held that we can escape the bindings of sin and walk in the Light. But we are always being tempted. No matter how strong or well armed or well trained, we are always in danger through carelessness or weakness of being caught and dragged down in our greed, or desire for power or popularity, or of just giving in to the world’s marketplace of degradation and capitulation.

And in a tradition that doesn’t have a written creed or a liturgical year, we can be shipwrecked either by the storms of our inner spiritual lives or by conflicts in our meetings/churches. Just as easily, we can be grounded on a soft, sandy beach by complacency and letting someone else do the hard work. Whether we pay those people to do the work or we lean on burnt-out volunteers makes no difference.

George Fox was not afraid. Tom Fox was not afraid. Or maybe they were but they did the hard work, said the necessary things anyway. Reepicheep was brave to the point of foolishness. Caspian was brave enough to admit when he was wrong. Eustace discovered his own courage as he walked among people who were doing their own imperfect best. As we listen to our Inward Guide, we find the courage to be faithful.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a good enough story to hold both page-turning adventure and deep spiritual truths. You gotta love that. I thank Carl McColman for opening my eyes to more in the story.

The book is available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon. I was sent a free review copy by the Viral Bloggers program of The Ooze.

Eve: A Novel of the First Woman

Eve: A Novel of the First Woman by Elissa Elliot

Another book sent to me by The Ooze. The first outright fiction, I think, and the first book by a woman that they’ve sent.

When Julie Clawson suggested a synchroblog for International Women’s Day featuring women in the Bible, I thought, “Great! I’ll finally write a review of that book I’ve been reading.” It is the story of the first family, told through the eyes of Eve and three of her daughters.

I finally finished it yesterday. I haven’t been reading much fiction lately, at least not fiction written for grownups. And definitely not the kind that includes references to “swollen manhood.” I suppose you can’t really write about Eve without getting into the topic of sex, yet this book clearly is written for a religious audience and so probably it can’t get too explicit. Still, it was a little jarring for me, more than actually erotic.

The story of Eve and Adam and their children is also the story of a pretty dysfunctional family. This book delves into how that started and how it connects to untold generations of unhealthy families to come.

There are some very good passages about how the temptation of Eve might actually have happened, and how and why the offerings of Cain and Abel were made and received, and how it all affected everyone so badly.

Throughout the book, Elohim is an interesting character, known only through the memories and experiences of other people, never speaking for himself. The first family’s interaction with another culture is also interesting. The other religion is clearly portrayed as false, while Elohim is portrayed as elusive but real. Which is how I tend to experience God, but still. It’s pretty clear what the author’s opinion is, and there are some tangential threads that back up the understanding that all of this is leading to the need for a future Savior, without quite coming out and saying that. Which probably appeals to some people and not to others. You know who you are.

Definitely thought provoking. Also disturbing, imaginative, and gripping. I never stopped to imagine what really happened to Eve and Adam and their children in this “earthy-gritty fashion,” as the author says on her website. A worthy attempt, I’d say.

A New Kind of Christian

Brian McLaren’s 2001 semi-autobiographical semi-novel. The first part of a trilogy that continues with The Story We Find Ourselves In and The Last Word and the Word After That. It’s just come out in paperback, and it’s published by my friends at Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint. It was sent to me by The Ooze, and I actually read it in the same month I received it!

It’s the story of how a pastor finds his faith again, and understands why he’s been increasingly unsatisfied with his life and his church. It’s not just him; he's feeling the discomfort of a transition from modernity to postmodernity, and he’s making the transition a little sooner than some.

It’s a fictionalized account of a transition that McLaren and a lot of other people have gone through. It’s hard for me to picture how radical this must have sounded in 2001. I suspect it must have been shocking to a lot of people. OK, I know it is still controversial for a lot of people – I just don’t know very many of them. For more people I do know, I think their response is going to sound like “finally”, and “Thank God somebody is making sense out of Christianity.” And a sense of “of course, I get it now,” because McLaren is articulating what we already knew but couldn’t quite explain.

This is a story more than an academic treatise. There’s just enough plot and character development to make it entertaining reading. As a novel, wellllllll, it’s a lot more telling than showing. But still, it’s a lot easier reading than most academic explanations or even personal interpretations of this complex set of theories and transitions. At least the ones that I’ve read.

I liked the comparison of the postmodern shift to puberty. You’re not better before or after puberty, you’re just different, and you have to learn to think and act differently. And you’re not better or worse for going through puberty early or late, although being on either extreme can be uncomfortable, for you and for those who love you.

I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but I’m still looking for a book about the emerging church that doesn’t assume that you already were a conservative evangelical Christian and that this shift represents a liberation. I’m looking for one that represents the transition from “I didn’t want to be a Christian” to “Now I can see a way that I can call myself a Christian.” You know, like my journey. (I’m also writing more about that topic, but I think it’s for another blog post.) If you have suggestions, I’m really interested.

What I'm Reading Now (or Not) -Tenth Month 2008

I miss writing every day. A week or so ago, I had a couple of hours to myself while waiting to pick one of my kids at a birthday party. As soon as I found parking, I went into a local doughnut shop and wrote in my journal for an hour. (Okay, I had a doughnut and some decaf too.) Afterwards, I felt physically lighter. Despite the doughnut. I just felt better for writing. I hope that, as I adjust to the new job and the new commute pattern, I will find time and energy for writing more often again.

And reading. I haven’t had much time or energy for reading anything that wasn’t about child care policy in California, or else written at the level of a fifth or first grader. (I highly recommend the books Guests by Michael Dorris and Triumph on Everest: A Photobiography of Sir Edmund Hillary by Broughton Coburn. I’m not so fond of the Akiko on the Planet Smoo series, but my kids love them.)

However, I made a commitment a few months ago to review books for The Ooze. Ahem. I am a little behind.

I should just admit now that I’m probably not going to read The Becoming of G-d by Ian Mobsby any time soon. Not that it’s not a good book. I’m just not that interested in “What the Trinitarian nature of God has to do with Church and a deep Spirituality for the Twenty First Century.” But if I was going to read a book with a real life interpretation of the Trinity, I would start with this. I think I met Ian Mobsby, sort of, at a Re-Imagine event a year or two ago. He's the Priest Missioner to a group called Moot which he describes as an Anglican Emerging & Fresh Expression of Church.

I am still working my way s-l-o-w-l-y through The Emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin. I was put off by the cheesy author photo and the fancy chart in the middle when I first picked it up, but then for some unknown reason I looked at it again and realized that it’s like a “how to help your existing congregation be more emergent” book of instructions. And interesting. But I got into just at the point when I have no real time to help anything or anyone be more emergent/convergent/religious. And I’m not sure how realistic it is. Like I said, I haven’t had a chance to try any of it. But it sounds nice.

And then today I got another package. A book and a CD. Hey, that’s cool.

The CD is called Evensong Rising. Or maybe that’s the name of the band, or both; I’m not sure.

The album is put together like a worship service. You know, Processional, Adoration, Offertory, Doxology, Preparation, Sermon, etc. I googled Stanwich Church, which is referenced in the liner notes, and it’s the Congregational Church in Greenwich, CT. I think this is the band for their evening service.

The sticker on the shrinkwrap says “Featuring the hit single Satisfied Evensong Rising ignites the Ancient/Future Worship Movement” Who knew? It’s way better than most of what passes as Christian rock. Good production quality. And it’s not all the same tempo, or same genre even. The lyrics are a mix of old hymns and modern twists. Mostly indie rock type stuff. I liked the song “Unto Him” more than “Satisfied.” But then I’m a sucker for a good fiddle line.


But the book. The book is A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren. His book from 2001 about the pastor and the science teacher. I’m not sure why it needs a new set of reviews from The Ooze Select Bloggers, but I’m glad to have a chance to read it. Maybe it will work as subway reading, better than some of these other more academic texts I’ve been reading.

The New Conspirators - the book

Fourth in a series of reviews for The Ooze.

I just received two new books in an unmarked package which I assume came from the same source. They’re similar in tone and topic, but there was no cover letter or even a return address, so who knows? I’ve started receiving inquiries from other publicists and authors asking me to review their books – maybe these are like that. I’m frankly less inclined to read the new ones, but I’ll try to get around to it.

I’ve also finished Emerging Churches by Gibbs and Bolger and I’d really like to write about that. And Chris M. recommended Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw so I’m trying to read that. True confession: I just don’t want to. It looks so gimmicky to me, like a book designed for people who don’t like to read. Way over the top in terms of pomo design elements. But Chris really liked it, despite all that, and other people think a lot of what Claiborne has to say is worthwhile. Heck, even I admire what little I know about The Simple Way community. So I’m still trying, but the book is not really grabbing me so far.

But back to the The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time by Tom Sine, with a foreword by Shane Claiborne, published 2008 by InterVarsity Press. I already blogged about the conference that happened about the time the book came out. (I wanted to go but didn’t.) I already like his explanation of the four streams of renewal in the Christian church today. And I still wonder where convergent Friends fit in. But that’s only the first chapter (or “Conversation”) of the book.

The middle part of the book (Conversations 2-4) is a sharp analysis of the state of the world and some credible projections about what’s to come in the near future. One organizing metaphor Sine uses is the 1960's book/movie “The Ship of Fools.” His extrapolation is that we are all on this planet on the same ship. Some are cruising, obliviously or nervously, in connoisseur class. Some are traveling quietly in cabin class and a huge number are traveling and dying in the cargo hold, unknown to the rest. I haven’t seen the 1965 movie by Stanley Kramer, but I will look for it or the 1962 book by Katherine Porter at the library.

The third part of the book is about what we can do about it. It starts by inviting us to use our fullest imaginations to picture a world where Jesus is already active. Then Sine explores how we might live into that vision of whole life community, whole life stewardship and whole life mission, with examples from all over the world. Finally he encourages us to join the entrepreneurial edge in responding to God’s calling. Not necessarily starting new churches, but a following your leading, flying by the seat of your pants, one day at a time, approach to religious life and community. Near the beginning, Sine quotes Claiborne, “Get ready friends … God is preparing us for something really, really – small.” (p. 23)

Sine’s image for this is the mustard seed. His group based in Seattle is called Mustard Seed Associates. They are, as best I can tell, an association of Jesus followers who are “trying to be a difference and make a difference and help other followers of Jesus create the future one mustard seed at a time.” (p. 300) You can contact them if you’d like to know more or tell them about what you’re doing or dreaming of.

I’ll end by quoting further from the introduction. “For followers of Jesus, times of challenge are always times of opportunity to give new creative expression to God’s love for a people and a world. The character Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings reminds us that we can’t choose the times in which we are born, but says, ‘We are responsible for the time that is given to us.” (p. 18)

Amen, Friends.

The Tangible Kingdom

The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community:
The Posture and Practices of Ancient Church Now
by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay.
A Leadership Network Publication by Jossey-Bass, 2008.

This is my third review of a book that was sent to me by the good folks at The Ooze.

I’m going to start with the good news. I think this is the most practical book about forming and living in Christian community that I’ve ever read. (Outside of maybe the Benedictine Rule.) It’s funny, engaging, and easy to read. It’s really well-organized, with helpful diagrams and reflection suggestions/queries at the end of each chapter.

The authors are leaders of Adullam, a congregational network of incarnational communities in Denver, Colorado, and of Missio, a global network of missional leaders and church planters, which is part of Church Resource Ministries.

The first half of the book has a great analysis of what's going on in Christianity today - what works and what's not working and how long it's been that way and why. The second half is about how the authors are doing and being church.

The authors explain that they see three main elements to incarnational community: Mission, Communion, and Community, and they give examples from early Christian stories and from their current lives. [I think equivalent examples could be pulled from early Quaker stories as well.] They also outline three main barriers to incarnational communities.

By Community, they mean connecting to each other: sharing friends, food and life. The main barrier to community is individualism, which looks like not having enough time for the community, and can be overcome by discipling togetherness, gentle confrontation, and not allowing people to remain invisible.

By Communion, they mean connecting to God, through sharing scripture, sabbath gatherings, and other spiritual practices. The main barrier to communion is consumerism, the sense that others should produce spiritual experiences for me to consume. This is overcome by discipling participation rather than passivity, and sharing our gifts widely.

By Mission, they mean connecting to new people, through benevolent action, spontaneous blessing, sacrificial giving, and sending of leaders. The main barrier to mission is materialism, which manifests as not having enough money to share, especially for people who have gone into debt in order to have more stuff. This can be overcome by discipling charitable giving, especially helping one another in times of extra need.

Here’s one of the basic nuggets: Whatever you give leadership to will grow. This may sound like a cliché to some of you. For most church leaders, they are pointing out that if you put all your best time and people and energy into creating more engaging worship, then it’s likely that more people will come to your worship gatherings. But that doesn’t mean that they will actually be doing the hard work of transformation the other 167 hours of the week. For a liberal, unprogrammed meeting, this might translate as, if you put your best time and people and energy into making newcomers feel welcome, then it’s likely that more people will come, and come back. But again, that doesn’t mean they will actually be having a transformative experience.

So among the lessons I learned are:

#1 Be good news [present, loving, an advocate] to your family. (People will notice.)
#2 Be good news to the people around you (neighbors, coworkers, your softball team, the Starbucks baristas, etc.)
#3 Invite people to join you in your regular life activities
#4 When people see that you are a present and loving advocate for the important things in life, they will start to talk to you about important things. Talk to them honestly.
#5 Be willing to give credit where credit is due: God and your faith community

This doesn’t sound so difficult, does it?

I think the main point is that living incarnationally will show. I liked the line on p. 42: “In our Adullam Network, we specifically ask people not to try to be ‘evangelistic.’ We suggest to them that if people aren’t asking about their lives, then we haven’t postured [read: embodied] our faith well enough or long enough.”

I liked the general prescription for new church groups getting started. Once a month, just have a party together that you can invite all your friends to. Once a month, do some kind of service together. And a couple times a month, do some kind of scripture reading, prayer or something that connects you to God. Which works out to basically meeting once a week, but not necessarily every week on Sunday mornings at 11. And it offers a whole lot of different ways to connect to each other, to the community and to the Divine.

The new bee in my bonnet is this word “incarnational.” I think another way to say this is to be the change you wish to see in the world. One of the things that worked well in my workshop at FGC was the invitation to people to try on some new/old Quaker practices to see if they had Light & Power in them: to live them out. Halter and Smay are giving me theory and evidence for some things I (and others) have intuited.

In my own life, in this intersection between my leading in ministry and my family’s practical needs, I believe God is calling me to a new phase of incarnational life. To the opportunity to live my faith and leading while working full time and still homemaking. It’s not just a life for people with nothing else to do but be holy.

Among other changes, it will offer my husband and me a chance to return to a more equal distribution of labor, both in paying the bills and in housekeeping.

More to the point, I have to learn to live as my increasingly religious fanatic self in a more secular environment. Even my paid jobs over the last ten years were in religious institutions. I have to learn to talk like normal people again.

And who knows where this will lead? I have some suspicions, but they are still very fragile and weak. In any case, I am learning some lessons that may be fruitful. And maybe this is all preparation for something else that I can’t even imagine yet. That has happened before.

So that’s the good news. Back to the book.

The first negative thing I have to say about this book is not its fault. It’s one more book that assumes the reader is escaping fundamentalist evangelical Christian culture. Which I’m not. I’m still waiting for the book written for other people interested in the emerging church. I’m open to suggestions, any day now.

The second thing is to complain about the completely gratuitous swipe at Quakers and the Amish on p. 160. The authors seem to have confused their stereotypes of us with my stereotypes of fundamentalist Christians as the people who are not allowed to have fun. But as a mark of Christian charity, I forgive them.

Now for my real quandary about this book. What do reviewers usually do when they read a book that has really good content wrapped in some less relevant stuff that is mildly offensive? I’m not talking about the cussing in Oh Shit! It’s Jesus! I’m talking about a less than equally respectful and inclusive attitude towards women and LGBTQ folks. It’s not overtly, intentionally, offensive. It’s mixed in with some good language about not judging others and about treating all of God’s children with love. But it is implicit in their examples of talking to young men about how they are spiritually leading their girlfriends, fiancees, or wives without any sense that this is a mutual exchange. It’s evident in the lack of examples of female leadership. Or describing one of the trends in the folks they train as, “They think the homosexuals’ fight for sexual clarity isn’t that much different in God’s sight than the heterosexuals’ struggle against pornography.” Umm, that’s a step up from utter damnation, but, well, that’s not quite good enough for me. But does that negate all the good stuff in this book?

Everybody has a weak point. Everybody fails to live up to Jesus’s example in some ways. Does that nullify their good points? The ways in which they’ve got it right? Sometimes I suppose it makes it too hard to hear what a person has to say, even when he or she is right. But in this case, I’d say it’s worth sifting through.

And while I’m at it, I think it’s a good exercise for all of us. How can we listen beyond our disagreements that we know are in the way in order to hear the Truth coming out of our brothers’ and sisters’ mouths?

Lord, help us all.

Oh Shit! It's Jesus!

Oh Shit! It’s Jesus: The Relevance of Jesus Without All the Religious Crap by Steve Hughes

This is the second review of a book sent to me by The Ooze. From the back cover:

“Jesus was a peasant day laborer. However, his teachings and miraculous deeds were revolutionary. When religious leaders saw Jesus walking up, out of frustration, they would say ‘Oh shit! It’s Jesus!’ Jesus was trouble for them. He taught that God was more concerned about social justice and loving restoration of individuals, rather than blind allegiance to an oppressive and irrelevant religious system.

“When Jesus would walk along the shore of a fishing village, a life hardened fisherman would see Jesus and shout out, ‘Oh shit! It’s Jesus!’ After a hard day of labor, fishermen, women from the fields, and children would sit in the evening sun and listen to Jesus teach about the love and mercy God desires for everyone.

"The reality and message of Jesus' life are amazing. You may see organized religion and the church as a negative option for your spiritual life, but I encourage you to look at the actual life of Jesus as a positive choice for your spirituality.”

It’s basically a collection of sermons, each a chapter long, with a retelling of a scriptural story or two and a suggestion for a way to try out following Jesus plus an invitation to join the discussion on his website or Facebook page. They’re mostly lessons that seem obvious to me, but are clearly controversial in some parts: Being a friend of Jesus isn’t limited to the jerks who use his name. God could use evolution to create the world we know. Jesus respected women. Jesus was teaching a way of being in right relationship with God and other people right now, not offering a free “Get Out of Hell” ticket.

I don’t disagree with Hughes, much, but at the same time it didn’t really speak to my condition. It’s not subtle, and if you don’t like the words shit and crap and sucks, it’s not for you. But if these are everyday pieces of your vocabulary; if you are tired of hearing crap come out of so-called Christians’ mouths; if you’ve been wondering about getting your life together, this book could be right for you.

Rapture Ready!

Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture by Daniel Radosh

Have you heard about this book already? It's becoming more well known, in part because it is being promoted by The Ooze, the alt-Christian website. They sent it to me for review.

Yes, the book is funny. And not in a mean way. The author is pretty open about his biases going in and he openly admits how he changed his mind about certain people once he got to know them a little, closer up.

He lays out the stream(s) of thought that led to the Rapture mentality (doctrine?) in Chapter 5. From the arrival of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909 to the website www.raptureready.com – you’ll have to make your own way there – I don’t want you to be confused with Radosh’s site www.GetRaptureReady.com which has all kinds of photos and music and video from his journey while writing the book.

But his eventual point is that mainstream Christianity, particularly in its pop culture forms, can save the world from fundamentalists.

I don’t know about that, especially as someone who doesn’t participate much in pop culture, for some of the same reasons as the fundamentalists. (Gasp! Horror!)

I’m not completely opposed to pop culture. I have consumed some over the last forty years. I occasionally go to a movie. But I’m just not comfortable with most of what passes for a grown-up, rated R film these days. I don’t want to watch other people having sex or killing each other.

I wouldn’t say “Quakers should never go to movies,” although early Friends certainly would have. I wouldn’t say that “Quakers should only go to PG, Christian-themed movies,” although some contemporary Friends would. But I do think we have to be very careful about how much pollution we consume.

The worst example for me was last year when I saw the latest James Bond movie on an airplane. “Great,” I thought, “I’d never go see this in a theater but as long as I’m here, I might as well enjoy it.” I even paid the two bucks for the headset. But I was very disturbed by the scenes of torture: of Bond onscreen and the verbal description of what happened to one of his lovers. All I saw was the edited for the airplane version, so I don’t know if it got worse or not in the original. But the idea that torture is titillating is disgusting to me. And yet it passes as mainstream entertainment these days.

But back to Rapture Ready! I was intrigued by the categories of Christian music, as outlined by Jay Howard (p. 164). There’s the separationals, who think Christians should only write and listen to Christian music, the more JPM (Jesus per minute) the better. The integrationals think that by playing regular music with tangentially Christian themes, they can have more of an influence on the wider society. The transformationals think that their role is just to live Christian lives while creating the best music they can.

Frankly, I don’t care if musicians pray between songs or not. I don’t see that pop music (or movies or chick lit or skateboarding) are going to be good media for the anti-materialist message. Musicians who are trying to sell as many albums or tshirts or downloads as possible are less likely to promote the “don’t buy more stuff just because it’s new” philosophy that matters to me. Radosh’s conversation with the dumpster diving, biodiesel tourbus driving, lead singer of the band mewithoutYou, Aaron Weiss (pages 192-199) was great about this conflict. It may be my favorite part of the whole book. This is Aaron Weiss talking:

“It’s really a question of what do you do when rebellion becomes the norm, when you’re wearing a stylish new shirt with a cross on it, where the cross represents a dying to all the things of the world, and a rejection of the powers and the comforts and luxuries and values of the world? I’m not sure it can be done. At the same time, if you go about two hundred feet that way, you can find our T-shirts for sale for something like twelve dollars, and it’s something I wrestle with and something I don’t feel content about. Does the world need more T-shirts? Well, maybe somewhere. Not in America. But yet, we print them. When we started five or six years ago, I had no problem with T-shirts. In fact, my main concern was how do we get the biggest profit margin. So we got the cheapest shirts we could and sold them for the most we could respectable and reasonably sell them for, just to make the most money. It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I started to think, Maybe that’s not what we should be doing, is trying to make the most money.” (p.197)

So, there is self-awareness in Christian pop music. But have you ever heard of mewithoutYou?

I enjoyed reading Rapture Ready! I mostly agreed with Radosh’s reactions to the various elements of Christian pop culture. (Except for Christian pro wrestling. I really don’t get the attraction of live action cartoon violence, with or without plotlines of eternal redemption.) But I kept wondering why someone like Radosh wanted to write this book. So I asked him. (Another advantage to being an Ooze Select blogger is access to authors. Well, that and his email address is on his website.) Here are his answers:

R: So my main question is simply why did you want to write this book? Was it a joke at first? "So this Humanist Jew walks into a Christian rock festival and decides to write about Evangelical Christians and their Jesus junk…" (I'm sure there are comedians who could come up with some great one liners here, but I'm not one of them.) Or were you already looking for ways to write about how our society can escape the influences of fundamentalist Christians?

D: I know that joke. It ends, "And the publisher says, 'humor books don't sell well, can you make it witty cultural criticism instead? Or something about a plucky dog?'" Actually, I didn't even give them a chance to say that. At the very beginning I did think the book would be mostly me running around having a laugh at all the weirdness. But my intellectual curiosity quickly overcame my love of snark. If I just went looking for comedy I wouldn't actually learn anything, and I wanted to. There are still a lot of comic moments in the book, but they're more firmly grounded in an understanding, and in some cases appreciation, of this world that I really got to know well.

As for the politics of the book, I never wanted to write a polemic. I was willing to share my own political and social views when it was relevant, but mostly I wanted to observe, decipher and entertain. It's true, however, that when I began the project I thought I'd be talking mostly about Christian pop culture as an incubator for fundamentalism and conservatism. The original subtitle included the phrase "religious right." One of the things I came to understand was how much more diverse the evangelical scene is than the media -- and some of its own self-appointed leaders -- would have people believe. To the extent that I have written a book about escaping the influences of fundamentalist Christians, that only came about because I realized that Christian pop culture itself is already serving that cause in many ways, whether intentionally or not.

R: And the related question is more about craft. At what point, or how did you decide this was a topic for a whole book as opposed to a magazine article or two?

D: There have been thousands of magazine articles about various aspects of Christian pop culture. I'd already written a few myself. But even the best of these are inherently superficial. A society is more than just the sum of its discrete parts. The meaning of Christian pop culture lies in the interconnections among people and ideas, in the path from past to present to future, and, importantly, in the vigorous and wide-ranging debates among Christians themselves. Readers can decide for themselves whether I did justice to all of that, but I did realize right away that a book was the right format if I wanted to say anything that people hadn't already heard.

So a thumbs up on Rapture Ready!

Actually, don’t read it if you are easily offended, because something in it will bother you – whether it’s the mere existence of Christian pro wrestling, or Radosh flagrantly doubting the effectiveness of the witness potential of t-shirts that say “Be a camouflage Christian … Hunt for God” or “Arrest me. I prayed in school today.” If you don’t want to think about that, don’t read this book.

But if you are interested in the intersection between living a faithful life and participating in culture, this is a great book to articulate the questions, compromises and commitments that come up.

And did I mention? I laughed a lot while reading it.

What I'm Reading Now - Seventh Month 2008

One of the things that was waiting for me when I got home was a package. And not just any package, but my first shipment of free books, courtesy of The Ooze Select Blogger Book Reviewers Program. (or something like that)

Basically, I got an email inviting me to join this project. They send me a few books every other month and I agree to read (most of) them and write about them on my blog. “What a deal!” I thought, “Is this for real?” A few investigative emails later, I decided to go for it. After all, wasn’t I just a few months ago looking for ways to make enough money from my blog to buy books? Yeah, well, that didn’t really work out, but this did.

So the first shipment included the following titles:

Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh
Oh Shit! It’s Jesus! by Steve Hughes
The New Conspirators by Tom Sine
The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay

Which all sound potentially interesting. I’ll let you know more as I finish them. I’m already in the middle of Rapture Ready. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I’m also in the middle of

Emerging Churches by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger
Soul Graffiti by Mark Scandrette
The Eternal Promise by Thomas Kelly

It is a very good month!