Evangelical Manifesto - Part 4

Unless there’s more discussion on the topic, I’m going to wrap up my views of the Evangelical Manifesto today.

The third section of the document, which I initially termed “let’s all get along,” (and actually listed in the Manifesto as “We Must Rethink Our Place in Public Life”) makes some good points.

The opening, grounded in Scripture, lays out a guiding principle too often ignored.

Citizens of the City of God, we are resident aliens in the Earthly City. Called by Jesus to be “in” the world but “not of” the world, we are fully engaged in public affairs, but never completely equated with party, partisan ideology, economic system, class, tribe, or national identity.

In light of this fundamental concept, the Manifesto then decries several extremes. The first set is the privatization of faith on one hand with the politicization of it on the other. Good points, I think. Our faith should not be divorced from our public life, nor should it be something we try to establish around us through the political process.

The second set of extremes is similar. In the terms of the Manifesto, Evangelicals ought to repudiate the effort to establish a sacred public square on one hand, but also to repudiate the effort to establish a “naked” public square on the other. The point here is that the public square—rather than stripping faith from all discussion—should be a place for civil discourse, even when discussing faith—any faith or even no faith.

Much is made here of avoiding Constantine’s approach—establishing Christianity as Truth through governmental decree—and following Jesus’s example instead. Part of the reason for this seems to be the desire to eliminate the “powerful backlash against all religion in public life among many educated people.”

Another factor seems to be “the fact that the advance of globalization and emergence of a global public square finds no matching vision of how we are to live freely, justly, and peacefully with our deepest differences on the global stage.”

Here is where I begin to disagree with the direction this section is heading. I would counter that Jesus, who the writers of this Manifesto say they want to follow, was not concerned with us living freely, justly, peacefully with our deepest differences. Rather, he told his followers to shake the dust off their feet when confronted with people who rejected their message, and move on. He told them they could expect persecution, not peace; he warned that if the world hated Him, it will hate us.

The point is, the declaration that Jesus is The way, truth, life, is an affront to those in our society who have rejected Him. And this will always be so, no matter how kindly we speak, how fairly we treat others, how much we stand for justice.

The burden, in my view, is for Christians to love our neighbors without any expectation that we will receive anything in return except ridicule, hatred, vindictive slights, and worse. Why should we expect people of other faiths to act in a Christ-like manner? It won’t happen. So the civil discourse is sort of a pie-in-the-sky dream.

But most troubling to me is the conclusion. Here’s the final paragraph in the Manifesto:

Here we stand. Unashamed and assured in our own faith, we reach out to people of all other faiths with love, hope, and humility. With God’s help, we stand ready with you to face the challenges of our time and to work together for a greater human flourishing.

The truth is, there is no such thing as “human flourishing” apart from Christ. Oh, sure, people might be healthy, wealthy, and at ease, during this temporal existence, but without Christ even those things mean nothing. They don’t even insure happiness in the here and now, let alone for eternity. Why would we ever work together with unbelievers for such an ephemeral purpose?

Evangelical Manifesto - Part 3

Short on time today (I hear many sighs of relief whooshing through cyberspace. )

I thought I’d focus today on a part of the Evangelical Manifesto I find refreshing and honest. The second section addresses purpose number two: We must reform our own behavior. Here’s one portion I found insightful:

All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus, but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques, worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism, concern for the church and for the local congregation with expressions of faith that are churchless and little better than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. In the process we have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk, each of which is indistinguishable from the passing fashions of he surrounding world.

There’s more.

All too often we have set out high, clear statements of the authority of the Bible, but flouted them with lives and lifestyles that are shaped more by our own sinful preferences and by modern fashions and convenience.

And more, but I’ll let you read it on your own.

My thought is, maybe this call to reform should really be a call to repent. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had leaders like Jeremiah to stand before God and confess, though he himself wasn’t even in Jerusalem when the sins he repents of were committed. I am not saying the leaders should act like a priest confessing the sins of the people. But that example … I think it is powerful. It says, This sin breaks my heart and I can only weep before God for His mercy over us and beg for revival within the Body of believers because I love the church and I love God and do not want to see this heinous fractious behavior continue.

That’s what I think anyway.

Evangelical Manifesto - Part 2

From what I understand, the release of the Evangelical Manifesto was recent. I think I came across May 7 as the date it went public. In case you’re wondering who’s behind it, here are the people listed on the Steering Committee:

• Timothy George
  Dean, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
• Os Guinness
  Author/Social Critic
• John Huffman
  Pastor, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, CA
  Chair, Christianity Today International
• Rich Mouw
  President, Fuller Theological Seminary
• Jesse Miranda
  Founder & Director, Miranda Center for Hispanic Leadership, Vanguard University
• David Neff
  Vice President and Editor in Chief, Christianity Today Media Group
• Richard Ohman
  Businessman
• Larry Ross
  President, A. Larry Ross Communications
• Dallas Willard
  Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern California
  Author

The introduction to the project is also important because it clarifies motives, and there are three:

An Evangelical Manifesto is an open declaration of who Evangelicals are and what they stand for …

As an open declaration, An Evangelical Manifesto addresses not only Evangelicals and other Christians but other American citizens and people of all other faiths in America, including those who say they have no faith. It therefore stands as an example of how different faith communities may address each other in public life, without any compromise of their own faith but with a clear commitment to the common good of the societies in which we all live together.

For those who are Evangelicals, the deepest purpose of the Manifesto is a serious call to reform—an urgent challenge to reaffirm Evangelical identity, to reform Evangelical behavior, to reposition Evangelicals in public life, and so rededicate ourselves to the high calling of being Evangelical followers of Jesus Christ.

The Manifesto tackles all three areas, with the identity section first, the call for reform second, and the “let’s all get along” section third. OK, my characterization of the last section is simplistic. I wanted a nutshell way of referring to it, but it probably defies such paring. More accurately, the third section (second in their stated purpose in the intro) is to encourage openness and civility in discussion of faith or non-faith, as the case may be.

Yesterday I posted my initial three reactions to the Manifesto. I hope, at some point, you visitors here at A Christian Worldview of Fiction will take a look at the Manifesto for yourselves. It is beginning to create some stir—there are some 1300 blog posts on the subject already. Until then, here are a few more of my random thoughts on the content.

1. The Manifesto’s “identity definition” flies in the face of post-modern thought that resists propositional truth. There are parts of the document that make me think this is purposeful.

2. While I applaud much of what the Manifesto intends, I see areas that I wish were … more accurate, more Biblical.

And speaking of the Bible, one of the weak points is the watered-down statement of belief about the Bible. From the Manifesto itself, not the summary version (which is even weaker):

Fourth, we believe that Jesus’ own teaching and his attitude toward the total truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible, God’s inspired Word, make the Scriptures our final rule for faith and practice.

Compare that to the statement about the Bible from the National Association of Evangelicals:

I. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

Or how about this statement from my church, First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton:

The Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, are the inspired Word of God without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for the salvation of men, and the divine and final authority for all Christian faith and life.

Yes, the Manifesto states, in its round-about way, that the Bible is inspired and that it is authoritative. One could suppose that it implies the Bible is without error. But why the ambiguous language on such a pivotal point?

I mention this because I read one blog post in which the writer praises the Manifesto as needed since from his church experience he had not received clear teaching on “these seven foundational points,” referring to the beliefs the Manifesto enumerates as part of the evangelical identity.

Granted, the Steering Committee probably wanted to choose wording that would allow believers with different shades of understanding to agree, but isn’t that what started the slippery slide away from a clear understanding of evangelical—and more importantly of Christian (you knew I’d throw this in one more time, didn’t you? )—in the first place?

OK, this post is much too long, and I have more to say on the subject. As always, I’m interested in your reaction, either to what I’ve spouted or to the original document that brought these ideas bubbling to the surface.

The Evanelical Manifesto - Part 1

Discussion is heating up about the recently released Evangelical Manifesto, a document put together by a number of, uh, Evangelical leaders, I suppose. I don’t recognize all the names listed on the list Steering Committee. Notably absent were scholars from some of the more prominent seminaries. Notably present were people connected with Christianity Today.

Interestingly, one key motivation behind this manifesto seems to be the idea that the term “evangelical” has been hijacked. The people constructing the manifesto then are aiming to clarify the definition.

Why interesting? Because I’ve said much the same thing about the word Christian. So here’s my first reaction to the Evangelical Manifesto. Why put forth all this effort to redefine a term that is nowhere in the Bible used to identify followers of Jesus? The tag, and others like it—Protestant for instance, and denominational names—have been created by people to label differences. All the while, the label that should identify our unity—Christian—has been left to absorb whomsoever wishes, illustrated most recently by the effort of Mormons to be included as just another Christian denomination.

The result of this neglect to redefine Christian is serious, I believe. An effort was made perhaps thirty years ago to clarify rather than redefine the term, so people began speaking about being “born-again Christians.” One commenter noted that the phrase is actually redundant—like saying, I’m a Christian Christian. But it would seem such a clarification is needed because so many people who don’t share a Biblical worldview were nevertheless riding the coattail of the term.

I guess I’ve given a second reaction to the Evangelical Manifesto—surprise at those included and those not included in writing such a serious document. How can this treatise be take seriously if the main players proclaiming Evangelical theology are left out of the process?

A third reaction. I understand the desire to distance Christianity from extremist groups. I hate the fact that there are undoubtedly numbers of non-Christians watching the news about the fundamentalist, polygamist Mormon sect, and those non-Christians think this is another arm of Christianity. Or they hear health and wealth preaching and label all Christians as pie-in-the-sky, greedy fools. Or they hear about child-abusing or sexually deviant pastors or priests, and they brand all Christians as hypocrites. In light of this mischaracterization, I think the Steering Committee behind the Evangelical Manifesto is trying to do something helpful. If nothing else, they are drawing attention to the fact that we are not all alike.

What I don’t understand is the need to divide evangelicals from other Christians. As the Manifesto itself points out, there are many points of denominational difference among evangelicals, but there are key points of agreement. Isn’t that true of all Christians? And here, I am using the term Christians in its restrictive sense, the way I defined it in my recent post on Christian Worldview:

But the key is, those externals don’t define me as a Christian. My relationship with God does—a relationship I enjoy solely because Jesus Christ willingly took my just due, swapping in His righteousness instead.

That’s who any Christian is, and it colors how we see Truth.

The fact is, some “Christian” churches no longer believe in the atoning death of Jesus because they no longer believe Mankind is under judgment due to original sin. Instead, Jesus is someone to copy because of his teaching, his exemplary life, his inspiring acts of kindness. Hogwash.

I’m not saying Jesus’s life was not exemplary or his teaching truth-filled, but these are not the things that set Him apart from Gandhi or Confucius or the Dalai Lama.

As far as I’m concerned, before we have any need whatsoever to redefine “evangelical,” we must first reclaim Christian—the word the Bible uses to identify believers, saints, individual members of the body of Christ.

Great Writing

I don’t know how to make the step from good writer to great. There’s an intangible quality to art that separates good from excellent and I yearn to discover it and apply it. I’m sure there’s a lot to be said for practice and dogged determination, but there’s also a magic that makes some writing sparkle. Where can I get me some of that pixie dust?

Recently agent Rachelle Gardner, in her blog, Rants & Ramblings, turned the tables and invited her readers to rant about the publishing industry, and quite a number of us did. Towards the end, however, thoughtful commenter Patty made the statement I quoted above.

I agree about the intangible quality, the “something” that makes good writing better and better writing great. Can it be captured? Isn’t that what all of us writers aspiring to publication would like to believe? I know I’ve been there. Just give me the five secrets, and I’ll work to get them right. And when I submit, if some editor could just please tell me which of the five I haven’t yet mastered.

The thing is, the more I tried to adhere to the five or ten or twenty-five secrets/rules/principles of writing good fiction, the more I saw my writing morph into blandness. And what did the editors want? Something fresh. Unique. Original. They want a story with a high concept. They want characters with depth. They want stories that hook you early and don’t let you go.

But great? If Patty really means great, which I have no reason to doubt, I don’t know that a killer premise, wonderful characters, and a page-turner plot adds up to great. Probably sale-able. Why, maybe even a best-seller. But great?

I think great writing takes what few Christian novelists talk about—time. Not just time coming up with a story. I actually think that can happen fairly quickly. I’m talking about time to craft a story, looking at the sentence structure and word choice as well as the character development and plot structure.

Mind you, I’m not saying there aren’t writers doing this. I can think of several off the top of my head. But I don’t think very many are talking about it. I suggest a good bit of our writing instruction is geared toward beginners and perhaps intermediates. I went to a particular conference some time ago and noticed that for the “advanced” and “professional” tracks, the topics were about marketing, promotion, spiritual substance. All good, but no craft. As if we in Christian fiction are content with average, not great.

Maybe if more of us asked the question Patty asked …

A Christian Worldview Revisited

Last Friday’s post, The Need for Christian Worldview SF/Fantasy, generated some great discussion.

I especially liked J’s comment:

So, a Christian worldview in writing is essential to understanding our universe.

I think that’s true. But what do we mean by this worldview term? Some people may be yawning right about now, thinking that we’ve been around this block more than once. Undoubtedly so. I defined the term, as I understand it, when I first started this blog. And just this past year, J. Mark Bertrand and I discussed the subject in conjunction with his book Rethinking Worldview.

But maybe this is one of those subjects that can never be discussed enough. I mean, we’re talking about the basic framework upon which all the rest of our beliefs hang. On top of that, the culture in which we live is racing further and further from a Christian worldview, so it seems to me that this discussion should be ongoing.

I ran across an event recorded in the Gospel of Luke that made me realize Jesus’s followers when He walked on earth faced some of the same issues Christians today face. I’m thinking here of our need to separate the trappings of cultural Christianity from an actual Christian worldview.

Too often people, both Christians and non-Christians, have this external do’s-and-don’t list associated with Christianity. Case in point: when I mentioned in the newspaper office that I would be attending a Christian writers’ conference, one editor immediately responded to the effect that they better start watching their language. Clearly, to him Christian meant something about being offended at bad language.

But back to the Biblical example. Jesus sent out seventy of his followers to preach, heal, cast out demons. Told them to go all over. Told them to take no money, food, change of clothes, nothing. Told them to stay with the first home they came across in a city. AND told them to eat whatever was set before them.

Why this last? It dawned on me, some of those seventy might have been offended if they knew they were eating food that didn’t adhere to Jewish dietary laws. So Jesus told them, essentially, don’t ask. Don’t research the matter. Take what they give you and don’t worry about whether or not the food passes “kosher” requirements.

On the other hand, Jesus also told the seventy to shake the dust from their feet on their way out of any city that didn’t accept them.

The point is, What divided the seventy from those showered with dust was not to be a matter of food.

Soon after recounting this event, Luke chronicles a parable Jesus told, one we commonly refer to as the Good Samaritan. Most noticeable to me as I read it was that the priest and the Levite who did not help the mugging victim were most likely concerned with their own safety and/or their own ceremonial purity. They well might have been doing what Jesus told the seventy NOT to do—ducking out of relationship for fear of breaking a Jewish law.

It strikes me, then, that we Christians of the twenty-first century must not accept a definition that marginalizes what we believe. A Christian is NOT defined as a person who reads the Bible every day, doesn’t drink, cuss, snort, and who shows up at church at least once a week. Mind you, that actually does describe me, so I am not advocating their opposites.

But the key is, those externals don’t define me as a Christian. My relationship with God does—a relationship I enjoy solely because Jesus Christ willingly took my just due, swapping in His righteousness instead.

That’s who any Christian is, and it colors how we see Truth.

Fantasy Here, Fantasy There, Fantasy Everywhere

My head is full of fantasy. Just last Monday Sharon Hinck had a live chat with members of the ACFW Book Club discussing the April feature, Restorer’s Son, the second book in Sharon’s Sword of Lyric series. Great stuff. I was heartened to see so many readers, not normally fantasy lovers, who raved about the book. And I do mean raved.

On top of this, as you know, we’ve been collecting nominations for the Clive Staples Award. It’s been lots of fun to see what books readers are putting forward as worthy of recognition.

Yesterday I visited the web site of the Mythopoeic Society, a fantasy organization tilting toward the literary and scholarly, inspired by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings. I discovered this organization also gives out awards—has for almost forty years.

Well, on Monday I also posted over at Spec Faith, and in the midst of writing the article got the idea for a “Commenters’ Choice” award for the best Christian speculative web or blog site. I’m still not sure if we should lump the two together and have one award or separate and have two separate awards. Still, the idea was exciting.

Then we’re nearly ready to put out the next issue of Latest In Spec, so the news authors are listing is always interesting to me.

Let’s see. One example, Bryan Davis’s next series, the one published by Zondervan, has launched this week with the first book, Beyond the Reflection’s Edge. This sounds like an intriguing series.

Besides the contests and news, there’s this little movie coming out very soon, launching here in the L.A. area, I think, May 18. I’m referring to Prince Caspian. You can read an interesting blog post regarding the movie over at Fiction Mirrors Truth (love the name of that blog).

So there you have it. That should get your brain thinking about fantasy, too. One more recommendation: pick up a good fantasy to read when you want to relax. You just might find yourself transported to another world where you’ll stay until the last word on the last page. Ah, that’s the fantasy experience!

Thoughts on the Most Popular Post

Picture me surprised. The post here at A Christian Worldview of Fiction that gets the most hits—a steady number each week—is Myths and Legends, Fairy Tales and Fables … Oh, My.

When I first notice that post was receiving traffic, often from search words, I reread it to see what profundity had captured the minds of blog searchers near and far. What I discovered was … nothing profound at all. A throw-away post, I thought. Some good comments, but nothing controversial. Nothing that led me to explore the topic in more depth. In fact, the comments made me think categorizing fiction into kinds might be a waste of time.

This week I notice that this post had surpassed the previous high traffic article, so I reread it yet again, hoping this time to discover the magical element that brought readers to the topic. Nope. I still don’t see it. If anything, I ask more questions and give few answers.

The one thing that intrigues me about the post is that the definitions for the different fantasy types seem to indicate a differing purpose lurking in the minds of the authors. Was Lewis intentionally passing on lessons in the Narnia stories? Was Tolkien intentionally making a statement about the supernatural as he constructed a history of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings? When Stephen Lawhead embellished the stories of Robin Hood in his King Raven series, was he intending to take the reader away from the old traditional stories for a particular purpose?

In all these types—fairy tales, fables, legends, myths, and add in allegories—it seems the theme is a strong thread holding the stories together. In some cases, the thread is quite plain, while in others it is more subtly woven as a highlight, though it changes the entire tapestry with its presence.

What I’m wondering now is, Are some of the current so-so fantasies missing the mark because they are missing the theme element? Just wondering.

Community, Community, Community

When I began working as a full time writer, I realized I needed to connect with others in the profession. I went online hoping to find information about live writing groups in my area. Instead I found a budding online community of Christian writers.

First it was an email group, then a blog. A discussion board followed, and there I stayed for a long, long time—until more and more of the participants deserted to start their own blogs. At long last, I caved and started A Christian Worldview of Fiction. Only to discover an excellent community growing up here. And at another writer’s forum, which led to the formation of the CSFF Blog Tour (and Spec Faith) and a greater community.

Why this little trot down Memory Trail? I mentioned in my last promotion post, Going to the Dogs Again, that an author’s best bet in promoting through online sources is through “organic discussion.” This kind of communication is in contrast to a “mass market blogging” approach.

But who do you “discuss” with? Not strangers. You discuss with people you know or people who are interested in the same things you are. You discuss with your friends, those you work with, those you sit next to in church.

And online? You discuss with those in community: group blogs, bloggers you meet on tours, email groups, discussion forums, online book clubs. There are probably other options, too. The point is, the chance to connect with others in a meaningful way has expanded beyond the furtherest reaches of my imagination.

But with so many voices clamoring for attention, does anyone listen?

We’re back to the many dogs yammering analogy. People listen if they care.

One way to make people care is to speak about something vital. When my dog would bark in the middle of the night, he got my attention. No stranger should have been within his “danger range” to cause him to bark that deep-throated warning bark of his, so if he woof-woofed his loudest, it was vital that I listen.

People also care if they are engaged with others. The first writer’s forum I went to was by invitation—someone I already knew told me about it and suggested I stop by. One of the email loops I’m on came about because of people I met at a writer’s conference. Later, I joined a writing group, and became involved in their forums, because of a blogger/writer I met at a conference.

Of course, the reverse happens, too. As I enter into discussions, I make friends with those I’ve never actually met. But their ideas influence me. I respect their opinions. What they say matters.

The drawback to all this community involvement, of course, is that it is time consuming. But aren’t booksignings and speaking engagements time consuming as well?

And now I realize, my time today is half past up, so I’ll continue this another day.

The Need for Christian Worldview SF/Fantasy

I’ve mentioned this in passing a time or two, but recently the point has come home more forcefully. Speculative fiction is hugely popular in the culture, but for the most part, since there has been little Christian science fiction or fantasy published, the genre is driven by those with an opposing worldview.

But what makes this particularly different from suspense or mystery or literary fiction, movies, or television? After all, CSI isn’t Christian, and neither was Murder, She Wrote. Mysteries have a long history, with few surfacing as Christian, and no one seems to think this is a serious problem. So why would it be for SF/fantasy?

Simply put, because of the required tropes. In a mystery, a crime is committed and someone has to solve it. Justice triumphs. There is little leeway. In science fiction and, more so in fantasy, good clashes with evil. Good wins out. But, and here’s the central issue, what is “good”?

Spec Faith blogger Stephen Burnett wrote in his post yesterday about the British sci-fi television series Doctor Who. From what he says, I thought of the Star Trek: Next Generation or Voyager or Deep Space Nine or even Enterprise. All those showed essentially a fight between good and evil, but good was defined as sentient life that is willing to do no harm to other sentient life. Those wonderful shows primarily said night in and night out, Can’t we all just get along? No matter the sexual orientation or the cultural practices—unless said practices harm others.

I called them “wonderful” because they built these captivating worlds and populated them with interesting people, but I also think the programs reinforced a solid humanist worldview. Certainly, for a Christian aware of this, the shows were informative, providing a basis for understanding our culture. And yet, there was that “reinforcing” aspect.

In some ways, this is the question, Does art reflect culture or influence it? I suggest the answer is, Yes.

Which brings us back to the issue of the need for a Christian worldview in SF/fantasy. While humanists have been defining good and evil for some time, now atheists are beginning to do the same. And New Age writers, Buddhists, Mormons …

Once, even in works by a-religious authors, a good/evil struggle nevertheless mirrored Truth. But with writers shaping good after their own image or in the image of their favorite idolatrous religion, good has been turned on its head.

I was reminded of this just last Wednesday when I saw the Spiderwick Chronicles at our local dollar theater (which charges $1.50 ). In that movie there is a clearly defined evil, but good? Not so easy to spot. The closest representation of supernatural good was actually more concerned with self-preservation than with anything else, even becoming an antagonist at one point to those trying to defeat the evil.

And who was fighting evil? Humans. So, the real good vs. evil struggle was humans vs. supernatural evil, with supernatural good sort of neutral—sometimes aiding and sometimes hindering.

God? Not present.

Is this the Truth we think art should reflect … or the influence on society we would like to see prevail?