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Wall of Separation

Brian Godawa's new documentary Wall of Separation is set to air on PBS during the month of June. Click here to read the PBS press release and check local listings. Here is a description from Godawa's website:

The “wall of separation” is a metaphor deeply embedded in the American consciousness, and an idea that continues to cause deep controversy within the country. In this historical documentary, Godawa takes a look at what the Founding Fathers intended when they framed the Constitution and wrote the First Amendment religion clauses. Were they trying to create a Christian nation, a secular paradise, or something in between?

An examination of the humble origins of the “wall of separation” in Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists reveals a meaning quite different from the modern understanding, yet one that foreshadowed the ongoing debate of today.

The documentary takes a look at how our understanding of church and state relations has changed through history by means of Supreme Court decisions and cultural pressures. From Everson vs. Board of Education to the most recent decisions over Ten Commandments displays, such interpretations are explored in comparison with the Founder’s original intent. This raises questions: Should "original intent" guide modern interpretation? Should government be secular, or should religion have influence on the State? There are no easy answers to this ongoing debate that polarizes the nation. (see also PBS pressroom).

Click to watch a five minute segment of the film from Godawa's website

RELATED
Godawa at IMDB
Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films With Wisdom & Discernment

(HT: JT)

Technorati Tags: documentary, Godawa, PBS, Church+State, America+Religion

Francis Schaeffer & Learning to Cry for the Culture

As an undergraduate student, I read several of Francis Schaeffer's books. I loved the questions he asked and he modeled for me a form of cultural engagement that I had never encountered. Last summer, I purchased The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, and have read bits and pieces between projects and deadlines. I hope to read through them in a more systematic fashion when I finish this degree. Though the world Schaeffer engaged with is, in many ways, departed, I still find that he has a great deal to teach me.

Today, Justin Taylor pointed to John Fischer's article, Learning to Cry for the Culture (Christianity Today) and I was reminded again what it was about Schaeffer that I first found so compelling:

Francis Schaeffer was not afraid to ask why, and he did not rest until he had an answer. Why are our most brilliant thinkers in despair? Why is our art so dark? Why have abortion and euthanasia become so easy on the conscience of a generation? What process of thinking has led to this ultimate denial of the value of human life? Though some may disagree with his answers, no one can gainsay the passion with which he sought them.

The normal human reaction is to hate what we don't understand. This is the stuff of prejudice and the cause of hate crimes and escalating social evil. It is much more Christ-like to identify with those we don't understand—to discover why people do what they do, because we care about them, even if they are our ideological enemies.

Jesus asked us to love our enemies. Part of loving is learning to understand. Too few Christians today seek to understand why their enemies think in ways that we find abhorrent. Too many of us are too busy bashing feminists, secular humanists, gay activists, and political liberals to consider why they believe what they do. It's difficult to sympathize with people we see as threats to our children and our neighborhoods. It's hard to weep over those whom we have declared enemies.
Perhaps a good beginning would be to more fully grasp the depravity of our own souls and the depth to which God's grace had to go to reach us. I doubt we can cry over the world if we've never cried over ourselves.

Fischer concludes:

Schaeffer is not without his critics, even among Christians. But perhaps, in the end, his greatest influence on the church will not be his words as much as his tears. The same things that made Francis Schaeffer cry in his day should make us cry in ours.
(read more)

Technorati Tags: FrancisSchaeffer

Ed Stetzer on Mission & Contextualization (Baptist Identity Conference)

Ed Stetzer: Toward a Missional Convention (via Timmy Brister)

Missional is not a new word and is not my word. It was first found in Oxford Dictionary in 1907. The normative application of NT Christianity is missional. Part of the debate over “missional” is because it has been used in various contexts in many ways.

Being missional is not about terminology, but focus. We spend so much time objecting to terms that we never get around to changing our churches. We have embraced this idea on the foreign mission field, but this has not been implemented here in North America. A shift is absolutely essential in light of the declining and dying churches. Only 11% of churches are experiencing healthy evangelistic growth.

Missional thinking is not the same thing as missiological support. We have confused missiological support with being on mission where we have relegated the work of the Great Commission to someone else, somewhere else. (read more)

Technorati Tags: Ed+Stetzer

Christianity Today's Top Ten Most Redeeming Films of 2006

Top Ten Most Redeeming Films of 2006

Sufjan Headed to Rome?

The Catholic Herald Interviews Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan explains that a lot of his friends have recently converted. "I think there's a renaissance of people just wanting to be part of the greater universal Church and putting aside all their qualms about it."

So what stops him? "There's a fear that I have of the authority of Catholicism, the cardinals, the bishops, the pope. I feel that nobody should have that much control."
read the whole thing

This is one trend I hope Sufjan does not follow...

(HT: The Holy Pontiff Himself...Kniffin )

Technorati Tags: Catholicism, Sufjan

The Festival of Faith & Music

The Festival of Faith & Music // Calvin College // March 30-31, 2007

Designed to forward a comprehensive interrogation of the ways grace, love, compassion, and the Christian faith are expressed in the world of popular music.

Events for ffm 2007 include two nights of LIVE performances by some of the leading artists in folk, rock, roots, and independent music, workshops led by musicians, critics, scholars, producers, and keynote speakers.

Concert Line-up (Sufjan, Anathallo, Neko Case, Emmylou Harris)
Speakers (includes David Dark, Brian Walsh & Sylvia Keesmaat, Sufjan, Andrew Beaujon)

The conference website also has a "recommended reading, etc" list that is well worth checking out (In fact, go there now).

Register

(Anyone with an inordinate overflow of Christmas bonus money or something that wants to pay my way to this...feel free to email me...)

Secular Music & Christian Longing

Mike Mitchell asks an interesting question:

How can art created by people who are so adamantly against the truth of Christianity evoke such a longing for Christ?

Some would no doubt like to remove Mitchell's how from the question, but his essay offers an interesting analysis of aesthetics through the lens of "joy" from C.S. Lewis' The Pilgrim's Regress

If you're interested to know the answer to the above question, or, "Can the music of a Pearl Jam song evoke a longing for Heaven in the listener?" read Mitchell's essay.

Stories & An American Christmas, Joe Thorn

Stories and an American Christmas (Joe Thorn // Relevant Magazine)

Many of us expel a collective sigh of frustration at the popular level of celebration of Christmas these days. Even many outside of the Church have tired of Christmas, not because of the spiritual and religious connotations it bears, but because of the materialistic and consumeristic flavor of the whole thing. This is a fair criticism, but a mistake is made when we conclude that this is what the true American Christmas looks like. It is worldly for sure. And it is Western—no doubt. But the American perspective on Christmas is worth noting, even embracing. And it is not just about the birth of Jesus.

[...]

I hear from quite a few people that all of this amounts to us pretending to like each other for a few days of the year. That the smiles, acts of kindness and all the holiday cheer is a superficial facade that is dishonest. But I disagree. I think it is less of a lie and more of the recognition that this is the way it is supposed to be. It is a yearning to be and experience what is right—what is best. It is a recognition of the imago dei, and seeing that, even in literature, is exciting. It resonates with fallen humanity.

Understanding this helps me to better connect with the culture redemptively. I do not feel the need to fight with the world about the true meaning of Christmas. Instead, I can find common ground from which we can talk, really talk, about Jesus.
(read more)

Technorati Tags: Christmas

Books & Culture: Sufjan Stevens and the Problem of Christian Music

Hidden Under a Bushel: Sufjan Stevens and the Problem of Christian Music

Certainly an overtly Christian message is a bitter pill to swallow for the average indie rock fan, but in song after song Stevens is open about his faith. As critical acclaim has mounted, though, he's become much more evasive when questioned about his faith. He routinely brushes aside the matter of his personal beliefs, strategically separating himself from the weird world of contemporary Christian music. He has a "knee-jerk reaction to that kind of [Christian] culture," he quipped in one interview. "Maybe I'm a little more empathetic … because we have similar fundamental beliefs. But culturally and aesthetically, some of it is really embarrassing."1 More bluntly, he has said, "I don't make faith-themed music."

Stevens seems convinced that to own up to evangelicalism would amount to professional or artistic suicide, and he is probably right. Though Christian culture warriors are put off by his calculated ambiguity, fans and critics are captivated. The high praise he has garnered from The New York Times and Rolling Stone—let alone thousands of fans around the world—may be the direct result of Stevens' willingness to grapple, in a suitably cryptic fashion, with issues of faith. Indeed, the secular music press now views the spiritual component of his work as an asset, best summed up by the Village Voice, which called him "the Next Flannery [O'Connor]." (read more)

Technorati Tags: Sufjan

Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Conference Audio

David Wells
The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

Justin Taylor, John Piper, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll
A Conversation with the Pastors

Voddie Baucham
The Supremacy of Christ and Truth in a Postmodern World

Tim Keller
The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World

Mark Driscoll
The Supremacy of Christ and the Church in a Postmodern World

Justin Taylor, Voddie Baucham, John Piper, D. A. Carson, David Wells
Speaker Panel

D. A. Carson
The Supremacy of Christ and Love in a Postmodern World

John Piper

The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World
Read | Listen

(Thank you Desiring God for making the audio available for free-- and for doing it so quickly and all at the same time!)

Technorati Tags: AboveAllEarthlyPowers, DesiringGod, DGM+Conference, SermonAudio