Page 2527 – Christianity Today (2024)

Just last month, I met the gregarious and animated Andrew Marin, founder of The Marin Foundation and author of Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community. Marin has a fascinating story, which you can read more about in the upcoming issue of Leadership journal.

In summary, this ultra-conservative, self-proclaimed “hom*ophobe” felt God draw him into conversation and ministry with Chicago’s gay and lesbian community. He’s been at it for about six years now, and with great success. His book is a guide for those of us who want to learn from his experience how best to engage the gay community.

One of Marin’s primary goals in Love Is an Orientation is explaining the way the gay community perceives the evangelical community. Among the GLBT community’s most frequently felt questions, Marin says, are: How can I possibly relate to Christians in a church environment? Will Christians always look at me as just gay? Do they think that hom*osexuality is a special sin? When will I be rejected? And so on.

Marin also delves into the intricacies of identity–how gays and lesbians understand themselves and how the church often talks past them. He also explores what it means to be gay and Christian.

Finally, Marin offers concrete principles for making the interaction between the gay and evangelical communities more constructive and life giving.

Some warnings: Marin avoids easy answers. There are a couple of questions, in fact, that he refuses to answer for readers at conferences (“How many people have you changed?” and “Do you think that being gay is a sin?”), because he feels to do so would close down the conversation altogether. His posture is aggressive; he believes evangelicals should make the first move. For these reasons, his book can be unsettling. But I think it’s unsettling in a good way.

I’ve heard it said that some of Marin’s comments come across in print as a little abrasive. It’s hard to read his writing that way when you’ve met him in person. He’s just so outgoing. In any case, we’ve included a short audio file here from an interview I conducted with him at the National Pastors Convention. I hope meeting him here will help you read him aright.

Or right-click here to download the clip.

UPDATE: Books & Culture‘s review.

Once in a great while, everything seems to go right …really, really right. That happened recently while I was speaking at a conference. In the first session, I was given an over-the-top introduction that strained credulity (even mine). But I admit it was nice to hear. Then, during my presentations, I felt a close connection with the audience. The responsiveness was energizing to me. To borrow from an old Broadway tune, I could have spoken all night. Then, at the end, there was an embarrassing amount of applause. I tried to remind myself that it’s Jesus who is supposed to get the honor, but I deducted 10 percent of it for myself. Sort of a tithe in reverse.

Ever been there?

Afterward at the hotel where I would spend the night before returning home the next morning, I called my wife, Gail. I told her everything (everything!), including the stuff about the audience, the introduction, and the applause. I should have left it alone, but I had to share it with someone. Gail listened and told me she was glad for me. Then she abruptly changed the subject and inquired about my travel plans the next day. I gave her my flight numbers and arrival time.

Her response? “Good. You’ll be home in time to rake the leaves after lunch.”

Rake the leaves? Hadn’t she heard all I told her about the conference? The bloated ego in me wanted to protest, “Why should a conference-speaker like me be expected to rake leaves?” I wanted to wallow in the afterglow of my experience. But I didn’t protest.

We ended the conversation with her words, “Come home to your loved ones.”

Gail knows me well. She senses those times when I need to be pulled back from the seductions and distortions of public life to the company of loved ones, where the ego is quickly restored to true size. Raking leaves is one of the therapies.

Hear that term? Loved ones. I heard it more frequently when I was a boy. It referred to one’s intimate community—the people at home: your spouse (if married); your children (if a parent); your extended family; a few very close friends. If the group were any larger, the term loved ones would be diluted and meaningless.

I hope loved ones has not become an obsolete term, a casualty of our enlarged capacity for superficial human “contacts” made possible by technology and fast transportation.

Cultivating “Loved Ones”

Loved ones are (or should be) at the foundation of a leader’s life. Loved ones should come first in a leader’s affections and priorities. Loved ones should never have to compete with all the other ones that make up the public world of a leader. Loved ones are those “who have to take you in” (Robert Frost) whether successful or unsuccessful, energized or exhausted, exhilarated or dispirited.

The little things (leaf raking) are part of life among loved ones. There character is revealed.

When I meet someone for the first time and there is opportunity for conversation, I often ask, “Tell me what your loved ones are like.” The answer often indicates something about the relational balances in a person’s life. You find out who he or she includes in the loved ones category. Sometimes you find yourself wanting to ask of a busy, highly-driven person: do you even have any loved ones?

The place of loved ones on the priority list was defined for me early in my pastoral life. Walking one day with a wise old man, at least fifty years my senior, I asked what now seems to be a stupid question: “What should be my priority? My family (meaning loved ones) or the Lord’s work?” It seemed an appropriate question then. I’d grown up in a Christian tradition that made it clear that the “Lord’s work” always came first. Sacrifices had to be made, and loved ones got the leftovers in a leader’s schedule, the last dregs of his or her energy.

I have carried a mental picture of my father, a one-time pastor, all my life. It is of his back when, each morning, he walked away from our home to his church office. In my imaginative picture, I never see his face. Only his back. But I understand why. It was because he was told by his mentors that “you must give yourself to God’s work, and God will take care of your family.” I know he loved me, but it’s still his back, not his face, that I see in my mind.

So I asked the old pastor, “What should be my priority: the family or the Lord’s work?”

His answer? “Gordon, your family is the Lord’s work.” That simple sentence, spoken in a very teachable moment, changed a large part of how I structured relationships in my life.

When among loved ones—assuming a healthy relational environment—you see certain important transactions: exchanges of affection, care, laughter, encouragement. You see openness that provides opportunity to process dreams and aspirations, fears and doubts. Growth and maturation happen among loved ones as ideas and skills are shared and learned. With loved ones, you feel more truly human (as God meant us to be) than you do out in the larger world.

Among loved ones, there is a certain “basicness” to life. Loved ones, for example, expect you to rake leaves or perform other daily necessities. Inside such earthy expectations, you and I—if we are public leaders—are restrained from falling into the trap of thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think (a familiar line from Romans 12).

An infrequently mentioned Bible character, Uzziah, had a meteoric beginning to his royal career. Set on the throne in Jerusalem at the age of 16, Uzziah was an instant success. “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.” He sought God. “As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success.”

He was well on his way to becoming the greatest king in Jerusalem since David. Then after several decades, this: “After Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord.”

Life flourishes among loved ones who know who you should be. Routines help you become that.

Somewhere along the line, someone should have told Uzziah to go home and rake some leaves. It might have prevented a bad ending to his life.

A companion story might be the one told about a young, university-degreed man who went to participate in a retreat led by Gandhi. When he learned that he was expected to assist in the daily cleaning of the latrines, he vigorously protested: “Don’t you know that I have a doctorate from the London School of Economics. I am meant to do great things.”

Gandhi is said to have replied: “I know you can do great things. What I do not know is whether you can do little things.”

Varieties of Leaf Raking

Doing the little things (leaf-raking) is part of life among the loved ones. There our most basic sins are revealed. With loved ones masks come off, character is revealed, and the true quality of our Christian faith is tested. No wonder some leaders minimize time with loved ones.

Henri Nouwen wrote: “Most Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love.”

When Gail told me to hurry home so that I could rake the leaves, she was steering me away from that trap.

Raking leaves is only one of many essential activities among loved ones. None of them are novel or new. But when neglected, they take a pretty serious toll on the vitality of life. Here are some other forms of “leaf-raking.”

Thankfulness

I liken the habit of thankfulness to raking leaves. We’ve been taught to be thankful ever since we were old enough to talk. Who has not heard the voice of mother saying, “Now say thank you to the nice lady.” And we learned to say the words. Even if our hearts were not in the effort.

A grandson of ours at age 3 refuses his mother’s admonition to say thank you to me after I have purchased him an ice cream cone. He simply will not say it no matter how hard she tries. When she gives up and steps away, he looks at me and says quietly, “I’m thankful; I just don’t want to say it.”

A person naturally given to a genuine thankfulness is rare. We must learn to become people who fit Paul’s description “overflowing with thanksgiving.” Such people walk through the day looking for things to be thankful for. They thank strangers; they thank associates. But their greatest, most intense thankfulness, is toward their loved ones.

Thankfulness is a recognition that I am in community with a special few. When I express thanks—in whatever way I say it—I am saying, “I needed what you have given. I could not be where I am without you.” In short, thankfulness is the act of humbling oneself and exalting the place and efforts of another. That’s rather biblical.

Unfortunately, it is easy to fall into the habit of assuming the support and contribution of loved ones, and to direct our efforts of thankfulness toward those, relatively speaking, who count the least.

Listening

This seems so obvious at first. Then one day as a leader you find yourself too busy to listen to the most important people in your life. All day long you listen to associates, to big givers, to the persistent critics, the loudest voices. And slowly the temptation grows to listen less to those who love you most: the child, a spouse, a best friend. They’re always there, you reason; you can find time to listen to them later.

But later you’re tired or preoccupied. And one day you discover that those to whom you should have listened most have found others to listen to them. Or they have simply stopped talking.

A friend who in his earlier life gave himself obsessively to his youth ministry sat on the edge of his small daughter’s bed as she was going to sleep. Knowing that he was going to return to the church as soon as she was asleep, she launched a zinger of a question at him: “Daddy, do you love the young people at church more than you love me?” The question launched a total reappraisal of life.

A most memorable piece of advice came to Gail and me from the late Walter Trobisch, who warned us that ministry would inevitably crowd out any fresh time for us to talk and listen to each other unless we were careful.

“Schedule a mandatory time-out for husband/wife conversation when you first get home,” he said to us. “Plan your schedules so that you’re ready to suspend all other activity in order to talk about the experiences of the day in those first moments of homecoming. Listen to one another!” We did what he said and made it work about 75 percent of the time.

Cooperation

Cooperatoin means sharing the work of running a home. This is usually (but not always) more of a challenge for men than for women. Most men are far more tolerant of disorder and undone tasks around the house. They can live with more chaos. I know; I used to be like that.

An unmade bed would not have bothered me as a young husband. Dishes left in the sink would have had no effect. Dirty clothes left lying around? No problem. Trash not disposed of? It’s okay; wait till tomorrow. Leaves unraked? A wind will probably blow them over to the neighbor’s lawn.

One day I had a Damascus-road-like experience. I had a vision of how much of a burden I was to live with, how much I expected Gail to shoulder the responsibilities for making our home an orderly, hospitable place of peace. I was little more than one of the “kids” she had to pick up after.

When I discovered cooperation, our marriage upticked. I stopped “using” my wife and became more of an adult, sharing the responsibility of keeping our home in a way that it should be. I determined that “house-keeping” would be a part of my life also. It not only made a practical difference in the economy of our lives, but it drew us together in ways that simply would not have happened otherwise.

Repenting

By this I mean one’s readiness to acknowledge responsibility when there has been a failure in a relationship. Something has been forgotten or poorly done. Someone has spoken sharply; someone has been insensitive; someone has been selfish.

Repenting begins with a readiness to say, “Í’m sorry. I was wrong. I need your forgiveness.”

Such common words, those expressions of repentance. But they keep a relationship well-oiled in grace. Without them issues aren’t cleansed. By mid-life you have a marriage or a family made up of people hardened toward one another. Respect has dissipated; resentment fills each soul.

Some have likened repenting to keeping short accounts. The old principle, oft stated, was to never allow the sun to go down upon unresolved wrath. How many times I can remember lying next to my wife in our bed, the room darkened, the hour late. Some issue has divided us, and there we are, not speaking, not allowing any part of our bodies to touch. Someone—often me—needs to say “I’m sorry,” but the words come hard. Pride, needing to be right, is on the line. Then, finally, the words are spoken and two people reach out and touch one another. Love is exchanged. But not before repentance.

Cheerleading

Cheering means making sure that those most intimate to us are being encouraged to their highest potential.

Gail taught me how it worked. She started cheering me the first time we met. She got behind my preaching, my life as a graduate student, my hopes to be a writer. Whenever she saw that I had a dream about something, her immediate effort was to support it.

I was not that quick. But once I caught on, I watched her grow and cheered. Her life as a reader, a speaker, a counselor to women took off, and I could see the life of God in her efforts. I never realized how satisfying it would be to watch my wife in action and know that I had played a role in helping her get where God wanted her to be.

Similarly, I came to see how important was my cheery voice in the lives of our children. Standing on the sidelines of their games, sitting on the edge of their beds, rubbing their backs as they drifted off into sleep, staying at the dinner table long after the eating to talk about the world of teenagers: these things all took on the form of cheer.

Cheering others on is important for both loved ones and those beyond that circle.

Playing

I cannot resist putting playing in the leaf-raking category. In younger years, playing happened because we had children who pulled us into their world. We loved being with them. And then they left home for school and marriage. Where was our play now? At first, Gail and I simply did more work until we realized that we had forfeited something important to our relationship.

We had to relearn laughing, relaxing, doing the fun things. It wasn’t all that easy, because the claims of those beyond the circle of our loved ones always had one more thing for us to do. Meaningful things. But things that could suck the fun out of our walk together.

We are now a couple who with our extended family and our close friends know a lot about playing. It has made a great difference.

A Shared Spiritual Life

Learning how to pray together (even over the phone when we are separated). Sharing the fruit of discoveries when reading the Bible or the spiritual masters. Describing our doubts and fears or our hopes and challenges. These are all part of a shared spiritual journey. Like leaf-raking, they don’t happen automatically. But these little routines help souls meld together into an uncommon union.

So when Gail says to come home and rake the leaves, there’s more at stake than just disposing of what the trees have dropped on our lawn. She wants me to come home. Life starts and flourishes among the loved ones who know who you really are, who you should be, and the routines help you to become that.

The other day the phone rang. It was one of our grandchildren. Naturally I was glad to hear the voice, but it was interrupting the writing of this article. I was tempted to keep the conversation short. Couldn’t this child wait for another time? My concentration was interrupted. This grandchild wanted to know if I’d drop everything and drive him to the store for a video game.

Turn off my computer and turn my attention to a video game? I was reminded of raking leaves.

Gordon MacDonald is editor at large of Leadership and interim president of Denver Seminary.

Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

For years I served on the staff of a megachurch with a very contemporary style of worship. We had a state-of-the-art sound system, large video projection screens, pop-rock music, and a sophisticated lighting system. The worship services were programmed to the minute: predetermined transitions, upbeat intro songs, announcements backed with PowerPoint slides, sermons crafted with felt-need application points, and abundant video clips.

The church was growing as several thousand people connected with the presentations each week. But at the same time the church was thriving with one generation, I began to notice that younger adults were not engaging as well as their parents. So I began listening to these young people to discover why they were not resonating with this way of doing church.

I repeatedly heard that they were longing for something less "programmed." At the same time, I began hearing questions about "liturgy," a word I'd never heard before. I was not raised in the church, and my only church experiences at the time had been at an organ-led Baptist church and the megachurch where I was on staff. Even in seminary, I had never been taught about liturgy (literally, the "work of the people") or ancient forms of worship. And ministry conferences I attended only seemed concerned with the newest, cutting-edge trends.

One young man left our church to become part of a small Orthodox congregation. I was curious enough that I decided to visit. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. From the quietness and sense of history to the use of incense and chanting—I was intrigued.

All of this led me to study the history of worship. I was suddenly made aware of the myriad ways the church has worshipped throughout history, and I decided to experiment with some of these forms in the young adult ministry I led. It sounds cliché now, but we started by darkening the room and lighting candles and incense. We began singing some hymns and the Doxology. We also recited readings and prayers from The Book of Common Prayer. One of the elders at the church was concerned. He asked me, "Are you going Roman Catholic on us?"

The older generation may have been confused, but the younger adults found the changes refreshing. All they had known in church was pop bands and video screens. The introduction of ancient practices helped them feel grounded and rooted to something bigger than themselves.

Then I spoke at a conference about our rediscovery of liturgy and tradition. The room was packed—by that time liturgy had become a very hot topic. During my presentation, a leader raised his hand and commented in a very disappointed tone.

"I don't understand," he said. "You're telling us that young adults are drawn to liturgy and ancient worship forms, but I serve at a liturgical church and our young people want to get away from liturgy and traditions. They think it's boring. I came to this conference to learn new ideas from contemporary churches. I want to move forward, not back."

I realized that worship trends among the young were complicated. Those raised in contemporary churches found practicing liturgy and following the church calendar refreshing and meaningful. But some who had grown up in traditional and liturgical churches saw these same practices as lifeless or routine. They were eager to incorporate more contemporary forms. One group wanted to rediscover the past, and the other was trying to escape it.

Several years later I worked with a team of young people to plant a new church. We decided that it would not help our goal of reaching the lost if our worship pretended it was stuck in A.D. 800. But we also did not want to dismiss the rich history and depth of ancient practices. So on any given Sunday our young congregation sings a mix of contemporary choruses and traditional hymns. We now celebrate Advent each year with candles, responsive readings, and benedictions. We draw from liturgical elements in ancient worship and prayer books. But we also display modern art, project videos, and use a variety of 21st century worship elements.

We have found that the goal shouldn't be to maintain the past or to always be on the cutting edge. Our goal is to worship in a way that represents our community to God and God to our community. That means contextualizing worship for today, but not forgetting the family of God throughout history to which we belong.

Dan Kimball is the pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California.

Studying French in Paris or working on housing projects in Latin America are what come to the minds of most college students looking for a semester of cross-cultural experience. But for Kevin Roose, foreign culture was as close as Lynchburg, Virginia. The irreligious Brown University student found exactly the otherness he was seeking at a bastion of conservative evangelicalism, Liberty University.

Although Roose could barely name the four gospels, he set out to explore the other side of what he calls the “God divide” after meeting some Liberty students while traveling for a summer job. He chronicles his semester in The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University. Here, he shares some observations about leaving Brown’s lax social world to study at a school where kissing carries a $10 fine.

How does a self-professed “liberal” from Brown end up at Liberty?

I was fascinated by the idea of a school where every student has to follow this 46-page code of conduct called the Liberty Way, with no smoking, no drinking, no R-rated movies, no cursing. For me, this was more foreign than any European capital. And it struck me as sort of sad when I met the Liberty students. They looked like me, they talked like me, they acted like me, but they led totally different lives from me and I didn’t know what that entailed. I wanted to see if I could build a bridge there and find any common ground between my experience at Brown as a blue-state liberal, and the experience of a Liberty student.

What most fascinated you about evangelicals and evangelical culture?

My social circle was pretty much empty when it came to evangelical Christians, so my impression was that these students were just interesting and smart and personable. They were not at all like the caricatures I had adopted in the secular world: the placard-waving, backwoods evangelical. They were just nothing like that, so I was heartened by that. But it also made me intensely curious; they seemed like people I would get along with. What would actually happen if I tried? So I think it was their humanity that came through to me.

To prepare for your semester at Liberty, you asked your only evangelical friend, Laura, to coach you. What did you have to learn?

She would drill me on who was the first martyr and what was created on the third day. Evangelicals speak English, but it’s a slightly tweaked version. I had to stop cursing, so I bought this book, 30 Days to Taming Your Tongue. At the beginning of the semester, my conversations would have sounded very minimalist. I had to be a very quick study about the Bible, because I was going to school with kids who had gone to Sunday school their whole lives.

What did you dislike about Liberty’s campus culture?

There were fewer things than I expected. I expected to go in and have a lot of qualms, especially about the social-political views, because Liberty is not a middle-of-the-road Christian college. hom*osexuality there, it being Jerry Falwell’s college, was over-emphasized. I heard more about gay people at Liberty than anyplace I’d been where gay people actually existed in the open. So that got a little old. I think it was a little annoying having a curfew. I got reprimands, which are these demerit type things, and I got four of them for sleeping in convocation.

What did you like?

I loved the people I met there. I think they were some of the nicest, most genuine college students in America. They still to this day call me, text me, Facebook message me, and we’re good friends. The book is full of things I liked about Liberty: their emphasis on community, the sense that this is the body of Christ and they’re all in this together. In the secular world and secular colleges we try to build up a spirit of individuality, and that’s great, but there’s something about the group experience. Emile Durkheim, who is a French philosopher, called it “collective effervescence”—a feeling you can only get when you’re surrounded by other people and you’re collectively striving toward the same goal.

You had the last print interview with Jerry Falwell just before he passed away in May 2007. If you could interview him again, what would you say?

I’ve puzzled over that a lot. I think I would thank him first of all, because indirectly he was responsible for the semester I had. And I would tell him some of my qualms about the way he preached and the way he led the school, but I don’t think I’d spend too much time on that. I’d probably be asking him more questions.

You largely blame “paranoia and lack of exposure” for the culture war between evangelicals and non-evangelicals. Do you think it’s possible to bridge the gap between the two sides?

A lot of my friends at Brown, I love them to death, but a lot of them are paranoid of evangelical culture. A lot of them would send me e-mails during my semester saying, ‘Are you getting tortured down there? Are they burning you at the stake?,’ and then the same thing on the other side. My Liberty friends would talk about secular culture as one big orgy, and it’s not. My fantasy is to have other people do versions of what I did. How cool would it be to have an exchange program between secular colleges and evangelical colleges and have [students] switch places for a semester? I think we could do a lot to break down that wall.

You mention the possibility of conversion several times. So why didn’t you?

I didn’t end up converting to evangelicalism because I felt it would be dishonest of me. I wasn’t convinced that the Bible is inerrant and that Jesus is the only way to heaven. But I did find myself really pulled to evangelicals’ faith, and I did start reading the Bible on my own without it being mandatory for a class. I still read the Bible and I still pray. I go to church once in a while—it’s not a regular part of my life, but when I do it, I really enjoy myself. So I’m not scared of faith in the way I used to be; it doesn’t bother me. And I’m still, to some extent, trying to piece together my own worldview.

Looking back, are you glad you spent the semester at Liberty? How did it change you?

Absolutely, I would do it again in a second. I’m so glad I went. I think there’s real value in opening up these lines of communication, and now I have this integrated world where I have a social life at Brown and I’m still in contact with my friends at Liberty. I think I’m the only person on Facebook who has friends at both Brown and Liberty. I feel very fortunate to have been able to go to this school and have these people take me into their lives.

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

The Unlikely Discipleis available at ChristianBook.com and other book retailers. Excerpts are available at The Daily Beast, Salon.com, and Roose’s website.

The Lynchburg News & Advancehas an interview. Mental Floss has some excerpty-type lists by Roose based on his book. He has a summary of sorts in the Brown University alumni magazine.

Karen Swallow Prior reviewed The Unlikely Disciple for Books & Culture, Christianity Today‘s sister publication.

See our similar interview with A. J. Jacobs (author of The Year of Living Biblically), and our reviews of Benyamin Cohen’s My Jesus Yearand Mark Pinsky’s A Jew Among the Evangelicals. Roose, by the way, was Jacob’s “slave” (unpaid intern) in The Year of Living Biblically.

See also our full coverage area for Jerry Falwell and our pastcoverage of Liberty University.

The skimpy tops and flirty miniskirts on sale at Forever 21, a cheap-chic mega-retailer known for its runway knockoffs and rock-bottom prices, seem to have more in common with Paris and Milan than the local church.

But the retailer's ultimate accessory – the iconic yellow bags seen dangling from the arms of teenagers at malls across the country – features one unexpected design element decidedly absent from this season's runways: an imprint that reads simply John 3:16.

Owners Don and Jin Chang have built a fashion empire on two principles that don't often get mentioned in the same breath: fashion and faith. The Changs attend church daily, give generously to their church, and attend mission trips. In May they will launch Faith 21, a plus-sized version of their flagship store. This new venture embraces overt language of faith in an industry that generally steers clear of the potentially polarizing issue.

But what does it really mean to be a Christian retailer? Forever 21 is known for producing less-than-modest clothes, though in recent years more professional and mid-market garments have found their way onto the shelves alongside the tank tops and miniskirts that define the brand's image. The retailer has been criticized by the fashion industry for blatantly ripping off runway designs (US copyright law only protects logos and brand names) and their styles often end up on racks before the higher-end originals as they rush the typically months-long process from sketch to store into just a few weeks.

Last year Radar magazine ran a profile of the Changs that highlighted the couple's outspoken faith as well as their questionable business practices. The pair champion young Christian designers: "She plucks young designers out of the companies she's working with," said an anonymous business associate of Jin Chang. "And if they're Christian and religious, she puts them in business." Rowena Rodriguez, a former designer for Forever 21, told Radar, "In the short time I worked with Mrs. Chang, my life was transformed, and I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Mrs. Chang prayed me into the Kingdom!"

As in any creative industry, the ethics of fashion are complicated for both producer and consumer. Where we choose to shop is not an innocuous decision; our money is supporting the organization behind it. Is Forever 21 to be commended for bringing language of faith into our malls? Or should their controversial reputation give pause to Christian consumers? What does it really mean to be a Christian retailer?

The numbers are staggering. 315 nations visited. 38,000 miles walked. 76 million steps putting over 16 billion pounds of weight on the feet of one Arthur Blessitt, the man who carried a cross 1.5 times around the world. “This wood,” he says, caressing a pitted, dented, darkened beam, “is my friend.”

The Cross, directed by Matthew Crouch, gives Blessitt a platform with which to tell his story in his own words. Perhaps the plural “stories” is more accurate, because it’s as if even Blessitt himself can’t grasp the enormity of his endeavor. His mission from God, which began 40 years ago, can only be expressed through the thousands of people whom Blessitt encountered, each of whom made a lasting impression on his heart.

As a fresh-faced, hopelessly conservative young man, Blessitt heard about the burgeoning hippie movement and headed straight to Southern California to win hearts for Christ. He began passing out tracts and preaching the gospel in Griffith Park, where his sincerity led him to be dubbed “The Minister of Sunset Strip.”

Blessitt built a vibrant ministry reaching out to the poor, the disenfranchised, and the criminal, but in 1968 everything changed, when he says God told him to pick up a cross—a physical cross—and carry it to the ends of the earth. Puzzled but amazed, he accepted the call, only to suffer a near-fatal aneurysm shortly thereafter. In the hospital, he was told that he should refrain from physical activity, so he figured he would have to give up his task. But then he had a profound realization: “The circ*mstances don’t alter the call.” Off he went.

The Cross opens by following Blessitt through New York City’s Union Square, as he drags his cross (it’s wheeled, to save on wear and tear) up to various denizens. We see no hostile encounters. Many are mildly indifferent. Some, however respond to Blessitt with an openness that’s almost embarrassing. One such encounter with a hardened man ends with the sinner’s prayer. After the “amen,” Blessitt holds the gaze of this new convert, tracing the tattoo of a crucifix the man has emblazoned on his arm, connecting the two crosses in a physical sign of God’s sovereignty.

Crouch includes a few more conversion moments, and they’re among the most powerful in the film. Blessitt is charismatic, warm and approachable, the cross towering over him, lending him an air of vulnerability. He’s bound and determined to share the love of Christ with every single person he encounters, be they beggar or world leader.

As a person, Blessitt is captivating. He leaps off the screen. But as a movie, The Cross suffers under a lack of structure. It’s a formless mass that fawns over Blessitt’s stories and fails to give them a proper setting. At a certain point, Blessitt’s tales become so much noise, which the filmmakers even acknowledge, creating a montage scene comprised only of tantalizing snippets of bigger stories.

The film is dominated by Blessitt’s voice. Occasionally, we hear someone give a response, but invariably their voices are muted, softened, no match in volume or intensity to the prophet himself. As counterpoint, Crouch offers up himself, in a clumsy voiceover where he tells the audience that he made the movie to find out what makes Blessitt tick. Crouch fails to recognize that his personal interest in Blessitt, however fascinating he may be, is simply not enough to justify a film, unless the purpose of the film is purely promotional.

In the midst of his wanderings, Blessitt found the time to father six kids with his first wife and one with his second. At no point does Crouch show the effect of Blessitt’s ministry on his family, even when handed a silver-platter opportunity. Slipped into the beginning of one of his anecdotes is the startling revelation that he brought one of his sons, Joshua, with him on his trip to then war-torn Beirut. He and his son were held at gunpoint and threatened with their lives, only to bravely stare down the soldiers and gain audience with Yasir Arafat himself. News footage shows Blessitt praying with Arafat, a sight stripped of its shock value by the image of youthful Joshua. The story raises so many questions, none of which are even glanced upon by Crouch—the son of Trinity Broadcasting Network founders Paul and Jan Crouch and the CEO of Gener8Xion Entertainment. Crouch had produced several films (One Night with the King, Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, Carman: The Champion), but this was his first full-length film as director.

Because Crouch avoids any deep questioning of Blessitt, and fails to bring in any other voices, The Cross lacks structure. While Blessitt is appealing, once the novelty of his walk wears off, there’s nothing left for audiences to sink their teeth into. Crouch piles up Blessitt-story after Blessitt-story, but never finds The Story. It’s just a mess. If the purpose was to lionize Blessitt, then mission accomplished. However, if the purpose was to impress upon viewers the magnitude and depth of Blessitt’s service, then sadly, The Cross falls far too short.

To see if the film is playing near you, click here.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Arthur Blessitt is likened to an Old Testament prophet. How does his mission echo theirs?
2. How does Blessitt challenge your concept of evangelism?
3. How can you pick up your cross and follow Jesus? What does that look like in everyday life?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

The Cross is rated PG for thematic material, some violent images, and mild language including drug references. Blessitt’s stories contain some mention of violence and drug abuse, but none is seen onscreen.

Photos © Copyright Gener8xion Entertainment

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

What other Christian critics are saying:

1. Plugged In
2. Crosswalk
3. Catholic News Service
4. Past the Popcorn

This year’s Super Bowl broadcast featured one highly touted, heavily technical special effect—and I’m not talking about Bruce Springsteen’s slide into the camera. TV spots leading up to the big game urged viewers to stop by their local grocery store and pick up a special pair of 3-D glasses, in order to view what was said to be the world’s first 3-D television commercial, to be played some time during the game. It was a curious mix of the hi-tech and the lo-fi; as far as 3-D imaging has apparently come, you still need to obtain a pair of cheap, flimsy glasses in order for it to work at all.

In much the same way, the entire concept of a 3-D movie strikes one as being somehow futuristic and retro at the same time; as cutting-edge as the technology may be, it’s hard to divorce it from images of the Golden Age of the B movie, when a pair of red-and-blue-tinted, cardboard spectacles were worn in order to see a zombie’s hand or a flying saucer pop off the screen in whatever the week’s serial adventure movie happened to be. One presumes that the visual gimmickry was largely designed to distract one’s senses from the storytelling, which may have been just as flimsy as the 3-D glasses.

But back to that Super Bowl commercial: It was for a new animated film called Monsters vs. Aliens, one of just a handful of recent films to be presented in 3-D. And alas, for whatever old-school vibes the 3-D goggles might convey or vintage B-movie frivolity the title might suggest, the film is decidedly and unashamedly the product of modern-day trends in family movie-making. Which is to say: There are poop jokes. There are pop culture references. And there’s not much in the way of storytelling or characterization.

The movie comes from DreamWorks—the studio that fared well last year with the popular Kung Fu Panda. That movie was good, if not Pixar-level great, but Monsters vs. Aliens finds itself several rungs down the ladder of quality. I could sum up this whole muddled affair by saying that it’s about a tenth as creative and entertaining and lasting as, say, Monsters, Inc.—one of the lesser Pixar movies!—and that it doesn’t reach the same heights as DreamWorks’ previous monster franchise, Shrek.

I’ll also say that this project might have been something pretty cool, had it been developed by Pixar, or even the folks who did Panda. One imagines that the premise—alien invaders swoop down to take over our planet, and our only hope is to unleash a group of monsters that the U.S. government has captured and hidden from the public over the years—would prove rife for playful homage and subversion in different hands; the potential to toy with B-movie conventions seems rich with possibilities, both for humor and for good storytelling, two things that are in short supply here.

Instead, Monsters vs. Aliens takes the lowest-common-denominator route of family entertainment—in most respects, anyway. Rather than focus on developing a good story, the film uses its so-so plot as a vessel for weak, Saturday morning cartoon antics, an occasional crass or anatomical joke, and references aplenty to other movies and pop culture tropes (including everything from an E.T. name-drop to a reference to An Inconvenient Truth—which is, admittedly, really funny).

And rather than develop memorable characters, the film reduces its players to one-note gags. B.O.B., an amorphous blob, is dumb and likes to eat things; all the humor surrounding him stems from some variation on these two traits. Dr. co*ckroach is a mad scientist, half-man and half-bug, and his jokes mostly involve his maniacal, evil laugh, while his contributions to the story all revolve around him constructing some elaborate machinery. And so on.

The voice casting is exceedingly funny and very clever, but also indicative of some of the movie’s larger problems. The characters are matched to actors to whose real-life personas they bear some ironic resemblance; thus, the mad scientist is matched to Dr. House himself, Hugh Laurie, while the American president is voiced by Stephen Colbert. The actors are all very good—especially Seth Rogen as the good-natured but mindless blob, Will Arnett as the evolutionary “missing link,” and Kiefer Sutherland, hamming it up as a military guy (of course) who sounds like he escaped from Dr. Strangelove—but this kind of casting illuminates the film’s chief flaw: That it is concerned with being clever and culturally aware, above all else.

The actors are good enough that they make us care about some of the characters—particularly Arnett’s Link—even if we don’t remember them for very long after the end credits roll. Indeed, the movie has enough redeeming scenes—a “prologue” sequence at the beginning shows us how one character, Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), first turns into a monster, and it opens up the door for some decent character development and life lessons learned down the road; meanwhile, a comedic action sequence on the Golden Gate Bridge is both very funny and modestly thrilling, while all of Colbert’s lines are amusing enough—silly in a sometimes-appealing way. But it’s not a particularly meaningful or even interesting movie, beyond its value as a Saturday matinee that kids may somewhat enjoy and parents will tolerate.

As for the 3-D effects: They’re occasionally fun, but surprisingly lacking in any invention or excitement, popping up mostly during action scenes or as we hurtle through space. At the screening I attended, the biggest awestruck gasp from the audience came when the opening titles appeared onscreen, in all their 3-D glory—but a minute or so later, we all grew accustomed to the effects and the gimmick lost its power to distract us from the movie we were watching—which, alas, could use a good diversion.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Susan is initially dismayed by her transformation into a “monster,” but ultimately comes to accept it. What is her attitude toward her own identity? What does the film suggest about the way we view ourselves?
2. Who are the people who love and support Susan the most? Her fiancée? Her family? Her fellow monsters?
3. What does the film tell us about teamwork? About friendship?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

Monsters vs. Aliens is rated PG for some sci-fi action scenes, crude humor, and mild language. The action scenes are all very cartoony and harmless, but some of the dialogue is disappointing; there are jokes about bodily functions and at least one mention of a woman’s “boobies”—played for laughs, but not especially funny.

Photos © Copyright DreamWorks

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

What other Christian critics are saying:

1. Plugged In
2. Crosswalk
3. Catholic News Service
4. Past the Popcorn

Two weeks ago the American Religious Identification Survey [ARIS] released its findings and announced that “secular” Americans now account for 15 percent of the population. That is up from 8 percent in 1990 and just 2 percent in 1962. Among the young the trend is even higher. Only 25 percent of people between 21 and 45 years old regularly attend church.

Who is responsible for this dramatic downturn in commitment to church attendance? According to some church leaders it’s the government.

In a blog post from March 19, Al Mohler discusses an article in The Wall Street Journal by W. Bradford Wilcox who believes “the expansion of the government sector to offer cradle-to-grave social services contributes to the secularization of society.” According to Wilcox as people become increasingly dependent on government programs for their daily bread, they become less dependent upon the church.

Mr. Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, warns:

“A successful Obama revolution providing cradle-to-career education and cradle-to-grave health care would reduce the odds that Americans would turn to their local religious congregations and fellow believers for economic, social, emotional and spiritual aid.”

Wilcox recognizes that many people engage religious institutions for reasons other than material aid, but then reminds his readers that “many of those who initially turn to religious organizations for mutual aid end up developing a faith that is as supernatural as it is material. But first they need to enter the door.” Mohler shares this viewpoint saying that Wilcox’s article “is not only an article that should be read, but an argument that must be heard.”

Am I the only one who finds this line of reasoning dubious? Are we to believe that the number of secular Americans has nearly doubled in the last 18 years because of liberal government programs? The argument becomes even more incongruous when we remember that conservatives ran the Congress for 12 of those years and the White House for 10. And are we supposed to oppose health care reform and better schools because healthier, more educated Americans may be less likely to attend a worship service?

Government has always been a popular boogeyman for cultural crusaders, but this is downright bizarre. What if the exodus of young people from the church isn’t the government’s fault but ours? And what if the solution isn’t opposing a certain political agenda, but working harder at building relational trust with the young adults in our churches, families, and neighborhoods?

It’s time to stop blaming the big bad liberal wolf for the church’s collapse, and start recognizing that we carry responsibility for building our houses out of hay and sticks.

In part two of the post, Jethani addresses the notion that the increase in the number of single adults is to blame for declining church attendance.

Sarah Palin told a group of Alaska Republicans last week about preparing to go on stage for the vice presidential debate. “So I’m looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra,” she said. “And the McCain campaign, love ’em, you know, they’re a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray.”

McCain staffers have taken umbrage at the suggestion that they’re not the praying types.

The rest of the anecdote (starting at the 4 minute mark) is actually quite charming. She asks her daughter Piper to pray that God gives her strength and “speaks through me.” Little Piper responds, “That would be cheating!”

What’s politically interesting is that Palin could easily have told the Piper anecdote without dissing the McCainiacs. You can see why religious conservatives love her: unabashed about her faith and her contempt for McCain staffers.

(Originally posted at Steve Waldman’s blog at Beliefnet.)

Ten members of the President’s Council on Bioethics have issued a statement raising concerns about President Obama’s decision to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

They criticize Obama’s characterization of what actually took place in 2001, since President Bush never banned embryonic stem cell research. “The aim of this policy was not to shackle scientific research but to find a way to reconcile the need for research with the moral concerns people have,” they say.

The council members say that pluripotent stem cell research has eclipsed embryonic research. They argue, “Because producing them does not require human ova, and because they are patient-specific stem cells that are less likely to be rejected by their recipients, they also have distinct scientific advantages.

The authors write that Obama’s decision would encourage cloning human embryos that then must be destroyed. “We cannot believe that this would advance our society’s commitment to equal human dignity,” they write.

(h/t Emily Belz)