Intro to Now

I hope you all don't think I'm completely obnoxious, goin' to town posting on here so much...but maybe I'm so used to spending this time of year on assignments that I feel compelled to "submit" things in some fashion? Besides, I know for a fact the rest of you are going to be all caught up in having to actually do so for school, so consider this my "gift" to you--brief distractions from your homework that are entirely rhetorical (and maybe even hopefully a breath of fresh air or something)!

Today's selection comes to us from one spectacularly brilliant fellow named Dick Staub. I read his Too Christian, Too Pagan: How to Love the World Without Falling For It a couple times for some youth culture classes and really loved it. He's a rad old dude who has a passion for bringing faith and culture together and helping them understand and complement each other. Another freaking amazing book I read in a similar vein was Fearless Faith: Living Beyond the Walls of Safe Christianity by John Fischer. I highly recommend both of 'em!

I just started in on Staub's latest:
The Culturally Savvy Christian: A Manifesto For Deepening Faith and Enriching Popular Culture in an Age of Christianity-Lite.

I've only read the introduction so far, but I'm psyched for it. It's cool to hear the wisdom of a guy a generation ahead and see how things are already on the move...changing..shifting...to create fertile soil for new things that old souls are praying for. It's sad to me that a whole generation has had to live through such a cultural and spiritual famine (and that their children have been raised up into the barren landscape of it). But it's awesome that their prayers are being answered and we can feel it happening within our young hearts--the curiosity and the call, the hunger and thirst for a righteousness and a mission that's been hibernating beneath a heap of misdirection all these years.

So yeah. I just wanted to share some of Mister Staub's words from the Intro here! I hope he doesn't mind! :)

In this intellectually and aesthetically impoverished age of Christianity-Lite, it is heartening to remember that for centuries, Christians were known for their intellectual, artistic, and spiritual contributions to society. Bach, Mendelssohn, Dante, Dostoevsky, Newton, Pascal, and Rembrandt are but a few who personified the rich tradition of faith, producing the highest and best work, motivated by a desire to glorify God and offered in service of others for the enrichment of our common environment: culture. These were culturally savvy Christians--serious about the centrality of faith in their lives, savvy about both faith and culture, and skilled in relating the two. Their calling was to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who came into the world as a loving, transforming presence. They transformed culture by fulfilling their roles as creators of culture, as communicators in culture, and, at times, as countercultural influencers who operated like aliens in a foreign land.
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Lewis...and Tolkien...passed from the scene when they were needed most--during an era of global cultural devolution characterized by the rising influence of popular culture and the declining influence of Christianity. Their generation of thoughtful creatives, whose work was built on a solid foundation of spiritual depth, intellectual rigor, and creative excellence and was therefore influential in the broader culture, was succeeded by a generation of Christians who were content to withdraw from culture, do combat with it, or, worse yet, build an imitative, intellectually and aesthetically vacuous parallel culture.
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I have concluded that both pupular culture and Christian faith are mired in intellectual superficiality and artistic mediocrity, the result of seeds sown in the 1960s that are now deeply rooted and in full bloom. The hopeful new spiritual era promised by the pervasive, powerful popular culture created by my generation in the 1960s has produced, for the most part, an unsatisfying, mindless, soulless, and spiritually delusional popular culture today.

The same may also be said of American Christianity. Since the 1960s, many conservative Christians have sought comfort in a protective cocoon, circling the wagons to keep the "good people" inside and the "bad people" out, only occasionally venturing out of the cocoon to do combat with the wider culture. They view popular culture as a threat because it conveys beliefs, values, and behaviors antithetical to faith, and they wish not to enrich culture by actively participating in it but rather to isolate themselves from culture or to prevail in culture through the political process.

Furthermore, it is my position that the evangelical movement, which from its earliest days chose not to withdraw from culture but rather to influence it, has instead been more influenced by the culture than influential in it...Today, evangelicalism is the fastest-growing and, arguably, the most influential Christian movement in America. The press describes evangelicals as a large and powerful voting bloc; a marketing niche that purchases billions of dollars' worth of books, music, and other commercial products; and a burgeoning distribution network of megachurches, colleges, publishers, and broadcasters. But when did you last hear evangelicals described as an intellectual and artistic force in the broader culture?
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early intellectual and cultural aspirations of evangelicals have...largely given way to a pop Christianity that mirrors and sometimes exceeds the superficiality of popular culture.
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The Christian community has degenerated into an intellectually and artistically anemic subculture, and the general population is consuming an unsatisfying blend of mindless, soulless, spiritually delusional entertainment. We are caught between a popular culture attempting to build art without God and a religious culture that believes in a God disinterested in art.
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Michael Stipe...adds,"We are floundering more--culturally, politically, spiritually--than I can imagine anyone has been in several centuries. It's hard to imagine that so many people are confused about who they are, what their dreams, hopes and aspirations and desires are--and who's pulling the strings."
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Walker Percy observed,"You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing."
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the rediscovery of our common lineage as humans created in the image of God and made to glow with God's presence...evidence of God's presence and transforming work in an individual's life is revealed in the culture produced by that person.
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Evaluated by that standard, both today's culture and the Christian subculture operating within it reflect a spiritual, intellectual, artistic, relational, and moral impoverishment.
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I do believe that there is hope, and I believe that the next generation is poised to embrace a deeper faith and create a richer culture.
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Such radically fully human people, aglow with God's presence, will create a culture, counter culture, and communicate a better way of life in culture.


I've been assaulting young people all year with the breaking news that they don't have to ship off to bible college to become a pastor or a missionary in order to minister...so thank you Jamison, for making musics! and Adam for writing life! and Karl for taking care of people! and Graeme for pursuing creative solutions! and Nanc' for being a wreckless adventurer! ('cause I know you're reading this ;)

I love and respect you guys a lot, and appreciate your support and action in our quest to bring Love to life!


Let's do this thing.

<3