An honest woman

In today's Palm Beach Post:

Quest for something to believe in moves beyond church walls

"It's not really a church," says Nelson, a retired restaurateur who grew up Lutheran and gave up religion nearly 50 years ago. "They call themselves a congregation. They don't have a creed there, and you can be anything you want there."

Persepolis

Let's do some word association. Say Iran and you probably envision bearded mullahs and "axis of evil", but say Persia and much different associations come to mind. This tension forms the backdrop to Persepolis, the animated film based on Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical comics about her coming of age in Teheran and Vienna, a return to Iran, and then her final leavetaking for Paris in 1992. As Marjane's voiceover tells us, this was the last time she saw her beloved grandmother--"freedom comes with a price", she says. Marjane's story begins in the closing days of the Shah's regime, followed by a brief period of hope before the oppressive nightmare of the Islamic revolution. We see the tragic history of 20th-century Iran through her eyes, as she reminisces. We experience her rage, determination and humorous take on things. Satrapi is a clever satirist, and it's not surprising that the film was condemned by the Iranian government as "Islamaphobic".


The Satrapi family are resisters, first resisting the Shah and then the Ayatollah. And it's not just the men. The black headscarves that Iranian women are required to wear comes to signify the subtle tug-of-war between the Satrapi women and the authorities. Another means of resistance (and source of escape) comes through music and there are times when Persepolis seems like a rock musical. Marjane haggles with shady characters for tapes of banned Western bands, and Marjane and her friends debate who's better: Abba or the Bee Gees? In one tragicomic scene Iron Maiden becomes the soundtrack to the Iran/Iraq war raging outside the Satrapi family's window. There's also a hilarious sequence featuring Marjane and a group of her friends dancing (Rocky-like) to "Eye of the Tiger". In addition to this music, the film features an outstanding caberet-like score by Olivier Bernet which provides much of the dramatic impetus. The voices are well done and feature Catherine Deneuve as the voice of Marjane's mother.


The animation is deceptively simple. It's sometimes starkly minimalist and other times downright baroque. Satrapi and her collaborator Vincent Paronnaud do a wonderful job of conveying a great deal of information with small, whimsical touches. Animation is limiting, but watching this I was reminded of things that animation can do that live action can't -- by the use of caricature and skewed perspective. During the Vienna section -- where adolescent Marjane experiences a series of unfortunate relationships -- her Germanic boyfriend Markus's face morphs into a disco ball. This clever touch shows Marjane's perception of her new beau, and clues us in that her perspective may be an illusion.


Persepolis is certainly a classic coming of age story, but it's also a tribute to Marjane Satrapi's family. While she is voluntarily exiled to Vienna, she can't understand the disgust that her nihilistic European friends have for their families. They complain about having to spend Christmas with the family, while she longs to be back home. Many scenes convey nostalgia for happier times in Iran and for family members who lost their lives. In an early scene, little Marjane's father explains how the Shah first came to power (oil had something to do with it) and why members of their family had been imprisoned or executed. There is an important subplot involving a Communist uncle -- Uncle Anoush. He takes a special shine to Marjane, and she's allowed to visit him in prison the night before he's executed. This encounter seems to haunt Marjane's life thereafter. Persepolis reminds us that idealogies come and go, but the bonds of family endure.

Cliburn on "the soul of the piano"

In 1958 a 23-year old pianist from Texas went to Moscow and shocked the musical world. Fifty years later Scott Simon talks to Van Cliburn about his life, music and the piano.

Beautiful.

Wilco for the weekend

Wilco (the band whose bitter melodies turn my orbit around) recently completed a 5-night gig in their hometown. It was something of a rarity in that they played every song in their catalogue.

Joel Berk has a recap complete with photos and audio. Please come to South Florida!

William F. Buckley, Jr. (24 November 1925 - 27 February 2008)

William F. Buckley, Jr., the "man who stood athwart history and yelled stop" is dead at 82. I was a long-time subscriber to National Review, read God and Man at Yale as a teenager, and have fond memories of watching Buckley joust with his guests on Firing Line. Although I've moved away from the Buckleyesque conservatism of my younger years, I still owe him a lot. R.I.P.


UPDATE 2/28: I just came across this fascinating interview of WFB by Dick Staub. In addition to being a brilliant contender for conservative ideas, Buckley reveals himself in this interview to be a stout defender of Christian orthodoxy.

Sarah Young's story

New Attitude is giving away books. Send them a story about taking the gospel to someone around you and they'll send you a free copy of The Gospel & Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever.

Here's one such story.

unChristian (sheltered)

Last week I introduced unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, and offered some highlights and observations from the first five chapters. The book is up to #226 on Amazon (not bad). I wrote about three of the six main perceptions of Christianity that emerged from The Barna Group's research into the perceptions of 16 to 29-year olds -- Christians are hypocritical, too focused on getting converts and antihomosexual. Instead of covering the last three in one post, I'm going to divide them up, and then offer some closing thoughts.

Perception #4: Christians are sheltered

Jonathan (age 22) says, "Christians enjoy being in their own community. The more they seclude themselves, the less they can function in the real world. So many Christians are caught in the Christian bubble."

In an afterword to this chapter, John Stott writes:

If we belong to Jesus Christ, we have a double calling in relation to the world. On the one hand, we are to live, serve and witness in the world and not try to escape from it. On the other hand, we are to avoid being contaminated by the world. So we have no liberty either to preserve our holiness by escaping from the world or to sacrifice our holiness by conforming to the world. Escapism and conformism are both forbidden to us. (pp. 150-151)

And therein lies the dilemma. It's nothing new, but Kinnaman and Lyons make the case that today's Christian faces unprecedented challenges in seeking the Biblical path between escapism and conformism. More on that later.

A common complaint heard from outsiders to Christianity is that it's boring and not relevant to their lives. My first reaction is: of course, Christ always seems boring and irrelevant to the unregenerate heart. But I understand their point. Surprisingly, many of them also say Christianity seems disconnected from the supernatural -- surprising, since Christianity uniquely stands or falls based on supernatural events. The authors suggest that part of the problem is we haven't done a good job of conveying the radical, exciting nature of Christian faith and practice. I'd also suggest that the Western church has too often adopted the rationalistic assumptions of the Enlightenment, thus stripping Christianity of it's supernatural element. It's no wonder then that "Christianity is perceived as separated from real spiritual vitality and mystery." Hopefully, churches will appeal to the postmodern yearning for mystery and transcendence by adopting a back to the future approach -- returning to the primacy of Word and Sacrament instead of trying to conjure up mystery with candles and incense.

Kinnaman and Lyons also found that a lot of outsiders view Christianity as anti-intellectual, which further leads to the assumption that it's ill-equipped to deal with a complex, modern world. Of all the criticisms leveled in this chapter, I think this one sticks the most. There are lots of historical reasons one could offer for why this is. A lot of it stems from the fact that evangelical Christians have been playing defense as the culture grows increasingly hostile to our beliefs. 20th-century fundamentalism, while based on a legitimate desire to defend the fundamentals of the faith, unfortunately took on an anti-intellectual, "hunker-down" mentality that made it unable to shape the culture in the way Christians had been able to do for centuries before.

Many outsiders believe Christianity insulates people from thinking. Often young people (including many insiders) doubt that Christianity boosts intellect. We discovered a range of opinions on this, but Christianity is not generally perceived to sanction a thoughtful response to the world. One comment illustrates this image: "Christianity stifles curiosity. People become unwilling to face their doubts and questions. It makes people brain-dead." The vast majority of outsiders reject the idea that Christianity "makes sense" or is "relevant to their life." So part of the sheltered perception is that Christians are not thinkers. (p. 123)

This is surprising and tragic because:

Christianity offers a sophisticated, livable response to the nature of the world and how we "work" as humans. As Christians, we understand that sin is everywhere and attached to everyone. We also know that humans are made in the image of God, capable of creating and doing good. Though a biblical worldview is not simplistic or always easy to understand, it enables us to make sense of creation and ourselves. Mosaics (ages 16-23) and Busters (ages 24-41) inside and outside the church have rarely been exposed to how well this worldview explains life as we know it. (p. 124)

So what are the challenges to getting involved in the lives of young adults and showing them that the gospel is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying?

The authors include a depressing laundry list of indicators which show that "the activities that were on the fringe for Boomers (ages 42-60) now define the lifestyles of Busters." Incidences of violence, casual sex at a young age, drug/alcohol abuse and suicide are dramatically higher in this generation of young adults than previous ones. I was raised in a very sheltered environment, for which I'm thankful. I believe it protected me from most of the things reflected in these statistics. I can sympathize with the desire to shelter ourselves from this cultural onslaught (especially as parents), but the church can't afford to abandon what the authors call these "fractured generations". Not only are families and lives fracturing, but society itself is fragmenting.

America is fragmenting into diverse subcultures. The "mainstream" experience, if there ever was such a thing, has now surrendered virtually all its gravitational pull. These days most Americans take their cues from a unique subculture, deriving meaning, values, heroes, self-expression, identity, and viewpoints from a unique segment of society. When people say that America is a mission field, it would be more accurate to say it is many diverse mission fields. And this phenomenon is particularly true among young people. The world of Mosaics and Busters is splintering into more subcultures than ever before. (p. 134)

The challenges may be new, but the answer isn't. "Missional" is a word used a lot these days. I think a better word is "incarnational". To quote Derek Webb:

Take to the world this love, hope and faith
take to the world this rare, relentless grace
and like the three in one
know you must become what you want to save
‘cause that’s still the way
He takes to the world

The gospel and means of grace mustn't be adapted to fit new circumstances, but the way we as individual Christians engage with the world must adapt. It may involve moving into the "hood" (like my friends Chris and Stephen) so you can minister to inner-city kids from within instead of preaching at them from outside, or it may involve studying at Yale Divinity (like a young woman from our church) even though you're surrounded by people who don't share your evangelical, conservative convictions. As the authors point out, it will mean engaging with people at both ends of the continuum -- the intellectual elites and the overlooked -- and everyone in between. Each of us has a role.

The Coen's sandbox

We're very thankful to all of you out there for letting us continue to play in our corner of the sandbox.
- from Joel Coen's acceptance speech last night


I made it a point not to watch the Super Bowl this year. That's because my overhyped event of choice is the Academy Awards. Each year the connection between what I love about movies and this overblown spectacle is less and less, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't plan on watching again next year when they pass out those golden statuettes.

The highlight this year was seeing Joel and Ethan Coen score an impressive trifecta of wins: best adapted screenplay, best director and best picture. Sadly, their long-time editor Roderick Jaynes couldn't make it 4 for 4. Pretty amazing for a couple of nerdy kids from Minneapolis, who grew up spending the frigid Midwestern winters grooving on classic Hollywood fare from the likes of Preston Sturges and Frank Capra. Despite the "aw shucks" demeanor of Brothers Coen, I'm sure it was a gratifying experience for them and their families (Mrs. Joel Coen a/k/a Frances McDormand looked especially thrilled). For all the cinematic virtuosity and style that makes them particular favorites of film buffs, I think they'd want to be known simply as great storytellers. Which they are. And for one night, at least, the entire sandbox was their's.

I Come to the Garden Alone

Yesterday at church Rev. Owen Stepp preached on the topic "MySpace Jesus" from the text Revelation 1:4-8. His sermon contrasted the Jesus revealed to us in this scripture -- standing astride history and at the begining and end of every human life ("the Alpha and the Omega...who is and who was and who is to come") -- with the subjective "personal Jesus" so much in vogue today.

This week's White Horse Inn broadcast picks up on the theme. Mike Horton and the gang continue their series on "Christless Christianity" by taking on one of the sacred cows of American religion: individualistic, experience-driven belief.

Top 10 shots of 2007

As promised here's Part Two of Kristopher Tapley's top ten shots of 2007. Nicely done! Lists like this are more interesting than the usual end-of-the-year top ten lists and I wholeheartedly agree with his #1.