RELEVANT - Issue 48 - November/December 2010 by RELEVANT Media Group

pete yorn | shad | audrey assad | john Legend | hip-hopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rebirth

the genius behind Freakonomics p. 50

Rob Bell breaks down Advent (sort of) p. 76

12 unreal christmas gift ideas p. 30

Zach Galifianakis:

BEHIND THE

BEARD The piano-playing, Jesus-liking, fiercely private funnyman tells us why itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rude to ask about his facial hair

printed on recycled paper

now printed on recycled paper

p. 56

25274 63696

ISSUE ISSUE 47 48||SEpt_oct NOV_DEC 2010 2010 || $4.95 $4.95

“Authentic worship and radical love for both God and people is impossible apart from right thinking.”

– John Piper

TO LOVE LIKE CHRISTIANS, WE FIRST NEED TO THINK LIKE CHRIST

Available wherever books are sold

Think is one of the mos t impor tan t book s John Piper has ever writ ten. In a sense, it is foundational to ever y thing he has published and preached over t he l as t 30 year s. Piper expl ains that thinking isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t merely an exercise in knowing, but it is cruci al to wor shiping, living and ser ving well.

Fail.

Photo by Kent Kessinger for Appalachian Voices

Nearly 500 mountains have already been destroyed, and almost 2,000 miles of streams have been buried or polluted by mountaintop removal coal mining. Mountaintop removal needlessly poisons water, destroys lives and is devastating the Appalachian culture. HELP US END THE DESTRUCTION. Please visit restoringeden.org/endmtr for more information.

GOD. LIFE. PROGRESSIVE CULTURE. RELEVANT magazine November/December 2010, Issue 48 Fact: Zach G. and Santa Claus are never seen in the same room. Coincidence?

EDITOR, PUBLISHER & CEO Cameron Strang > cameron@relevantmediagroup.com

EDITORIAL Roxanne Wieman | Editorial Director > roxanne@relevantmediagroup.com Ashley Emert | Associate Editor > ashley@relevantmediagroup.com Ryan Hamm | Associate Editor > ryan@relevantmediagroup.com Alyce Gilligan | Editorial Assistant Josh Loveless | Contributing Editor Contributing Writers: Rob Bell, John Brandon, Jesse Carey, Jon Foreman, Robert Ham, Wesley Jakacki, David Johnson, Carl Kozlowski, Jonathan Merritt, Jessica Misener, John Pattison, David Roark, Sara Sterley, Philip Yancey

DESIGN Amy Duty | Print Design Manager Jesse Penico | Senior Marketing Designer Justin Mezzell | Designer Contributing Photographers: Lauren Dukoff, Abby Drucker, Ty Fujimura, Christine Lim, Faith McCormick, Vivian Stockman, Jim Wright

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The Post Office makes us print this once a year. We’re not sure why: STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION RELEVANT magazine (Publication Number: 1543-317X) is published bimonthly by RELEVANT Media Group. Filing date: 9-30-10. Number of issues published annually: 6. Annual subscription price: $14.95. The complete mailing address and General Business Offices of the Publisher are located at 1220 Alden Road, Orlando, FL 32803. The names and addresses of the Publisher, Editor and Managing Editor are: Publisher, Cameron Strang; Editor, Cameron Strang; Managing Editor, Roxanne Wieman; 1220 Alden Road, Orlando, FL 32803. The owners are: Cameron Strang, 1220 Alden Road, Orlando, FL 32803; Stephen Strang, 600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, FL 32746. There are no known bondholders, mortgagees and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities. The tax status, the purpose, function and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income purposes have not changed during the preceding 12 months. Issue date for circulation data: July/August 2010. Extent and Nature of Circulation are as follows. Total number of copies (net press run): average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 57,667; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 52,500. Mailed outside-county paid subscriptions stated on PS Form 3541: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 30,473; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 28,293. Mailed in-county paid subscriptions stated on PS Form 3541: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 0; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 0. Paid distribution outside the mails including sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales, and other paid distribution outside USPS: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 14,217; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 14,470. Paid distribution by other classes of mail through the USPS: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 4,358; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 3,450. Total paid distribution: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 49,049; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 46,213. Free or nominal rate outside-county copies included on PS Form 3541: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 403; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 434. Free or nominal rate in-county copies included on PS Form 3541: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 0; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 0. Free or nominal rate copies mailed at other classes through the USPS: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 0; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 0. Free or nominal rate distribution outside the mail: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 3,565; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 640. Total free or nominal rate distribution: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 3,968; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 1,074. Total distribution: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 53,017; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 47,287. Copies not distributed: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 4,650; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 5,213. Total: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 57,667; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 52,500. Percent paid: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 92.5%; number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 70.6%. Annual publication of this statement is required. Published November/December 2010.

—Cameron Strang, RELEVANT magazine

Media Group 1220 Alden Road, Orlando, FL 32803 Phone: 407-660-1411 Fax: 407-401-9100 www.RELEVANTmediagroup.com

CONTENTS ISSUE 48 NOV_DEC 2010 / RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

12 First Word 14 Letters 20 Slices 36 Reject Apathy: 100cameras 38 deeper walk: What Good is God? 40 The Pulse: The Drunk and the Hypocrite 42 The Drop

Greg Laswell, School of Seven Bells

46 Shad The hip-hop artist talks Jesus,

honesty and Kanye West

50 The Genius Behind Freakonomics

We talk to the producers behind this fallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most unexpected documentary

54 The Next Christians

Gabe Lyons identifies how this new generation of believers is different

60 The Art of Faith 70 Pete Yorn

The singer-songwriter is adapting to a new stage

72 Deck the Halls (Not Your Family) 76 Why We Wait Rob Bell on why Advent is a critical part

of celebrating Christmas

80 The Worst Environmental Problem Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve Never Heard Of

The lasting effects of mountaintop removal

86 Audrey Assad 90 Recommends

zach

galifianakis

Fusion is Where It’s At.

There are leaders who want the intimacy of small house churches. Then there are leaders who want the impact of large megachurches. What if there was a way to fuse both approaches into one?

AVAILABLE NOW

Hybrid Church is a practical guide for leaders who want both intimacy and impact. Dave Browning says Church isn’t about numbers—it’s about people—so we need a new model. One that draws from the best of both worlds.

FIRST WORD

the price of vision BY CAMERON STRANG “So, I have an idea to make a magazine just like RELEVANT. How’d you do it? Is there a book? Where’d you get money?” Those rapidfire questions were the first words out of his mouth after we shook hands. It wasn’t that this college student was wanting my help to make a magazine “just like RELEVANT“ that got me (they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess). I can overlook the fact he was wanting my help to make a competitor. What got me was the idea that there’s some sort of cheat sheet he thought I was privy to—a step-by-step guide to launching a magazine or a database of free money. He wanted the quickest and easiest path to accomplishing his idea. So he thinks: This guy’s done it. I’ll just copy what he learned. I wish I could say it was the first time I’ve gotten this question, but every week I get emails from twentysomethings pitching me their big plans. All they need is some free marketing, some funding or, sometimes, for me to write them back detailing what I did. They they could see their dream happen. What they’re really looking for is a shortcut. While it may sound harsh to say that, there is a sense of entitlement and urgency that saturates our generation. We’ve grown up hearing nothing but yes. We’re going to be the best. We’re going to change the world. We’re going to surpass our parents’ generation.

12 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

We haven’t had to wait for anything. If we want something, we get it on demand. Our lives are filled with drive-thru Starbucks, oneclick ordering and Netflix instant streaming. We’ve had things handed to us, and when it comes to our dreams, we’ve been told God will give us the desires of our hearts. But are we actually willing to pay the price?

to have unwavering resolve to pursue the vision He put in me. What happens when your dreams don’t happen easily, quickly or how you thought they would? How do you deal with the delay? It’s in those seasons our foundation is laid. Our response determines everything else. A lot of people give up. They get distracted. They get packed social schedules. They choose an easier path and eventually the dream that once consumed them fades away. If something comes easily and without sacrifice, it’s rarely significant. In this issue, we spotlight several people who didn’t waver in the pursuit of their Godgiven vision. In a section we dubbed “The Art of Faith,” for example, we look at critically acclaimed New York-based artist Makoto Fujimura—who not only has conquered the New York art scene, but is doing amazing work that reflects his deep personal faith. Max McLean is similar. He had a vision to adapt C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters for the theater, which he’s done with critical and commercial success. It’s unlike anything else on the stage. The list goes on. In March, we’ll celebrate the 50th issue of RELEVANT. In those eight years, we’ve talked to countless people who said yes to God and ventured into uncharted territory with their lives. Each tells a unique story of vision and sacrifice, because the two go hand-in-hand. God has put dreams in each of us, something we can contribute to the world that no one else can. What’s yours? And what are you doing today to pursue it? If your dream is worth doing, it won’t be easy. But rather than give up when obstacles

if something comes easily and without sacrifice, it’s rarely significant. The truth is, it was eight years after I first said, “This is something God has called me to do,” that I finally got to see RELEVANT become a reality. In that time, I had to face disappointment and frustration because my plan wasn’t happening how I wanted. I had to take other jobs (turns out it’s hard to launch a magazine with no money); I had to keep refining my plan; I had to keep learning this business. But above all, I had to grow. In hindsight, I didn’t know nearly as much as I thought I did. I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t prepared for what He was calling me to do yet. I needed to struggle. I needed to doubt. I needed to let go of the controls. If God called me to do this, He would open the doors, not me. And at the same time, somewhat paradoxically, I needed

arise, push through. Embrace the process. Embrace how you’ll change. Be teachable, passionate, humble and determined. Remember, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Philippians 1:6, NIV). God has a purpose for each of our lives. Choose to make a difference with yours. If your dream is truly God-given, it will happen. Just don’t go looking for a cheat sheet.

CAMERON STRANG is the founder and CEO of RELEVANT. He’s a lover, not a fighter. You can connect with him daily via Twitter (@ cameronstrang) or less often at Facebook.com/cameronstrang.

LETTERS Thank you for including Friday Night Lights in “5 Shows Saving TV” [Sept/Oct ‘10]. The Taylors are the most realistic, functional American family I’ve seen on TV. The show inspires me to strive for this kind of family and to question what I’m doing to impact lives in my community. —AMY CORRIHER / Beaver Falls, PA

[ COMMENTS, CONCERNS, SMART REMARKS ] Write us at feedback@RELEVANTmagazine.com or Facebook.com/RELEVANT.

I loved the article “5 Shows Saving TV.” Though perhaps I’d have chosen a slightly different five, Fringe would still be on it. Thank you for highlighting this complex show, and especially the episode “White Tulip,” which was incredibly powerful and moving. —J.M. Richards / Pittsburgh, PA You’re right, we should have included Touched by an Angel and 7th Heaven. Ran out of room though.

Thank you for looking at the BP oil spill from a different angle [“Whose Fault Is It?” Sept/Oct ’10]. It’s uncomfortable to assume any kind of responsibility in such crises, and I’ve struggled with the idea myself. But the bottom line is we can only answer for ourselves, no matter who we might want to blame along the way. —M. Coquille / West Palm Beach, FL

Mr. Viola hit a significant point [“A Vanishing God,” Sept/Oct ‘10]—our fawning over spiritual events and encounters. May we never devote ourselves to that single spiritual moment but grow and follow Christ as we are called to do. —Jonathan Keck / San Bernardino, CA

I would rave about the article “What’s (Actually) on Your Mind?” [Sept/Oct ’10] for days, but I seem incapable of processing over 140 characters at a time ... —Nathan Eckman / Barberton, OH Your letter was 142 characters.

14 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

Although I agree with the assertions against individualism, alienation, pride, vanity, etc. we must be careful to avoid judgment [“The Gospel According to Hipsters,” Sept/Oct ‘10]. When people are desperate for God, they will pursue holiness out of a genuine hunger. Let’s focus on that—not just somehow trying to sidestep materialism. —Chris Frost / Port Elizabeth, South Africa

I completely agree with “The Gospel According to Hipsters.” I don’t believe the article is stereotyping a group of people as much as it is warning of a cultural mindset sweeping the young, progressive church culture. We should all be consistently aware of the bond necessary in following Christ, cautious of anything that might destroy unity in Him. —K. Haley Sheffield / Macon, GA

Reading about the story and work of “These Numbers Have Faces” [Sept/Oct ’10] was such an inspiration. Justin Zoradi’s question, “Would you deny for others what you demand for yourself?” has haunted me since. This is a call to action I can’t stop reflecting on and is pushing me to view my world differently. —Michael Chapman / Fresno, CA We agree: cookies for all!

The article on the economy [“Taking Stock,” Sept/Oct ‘10] by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove hit home for me. There really are so many ways God can make us better people during a time like this—less consumeristic, more rooted, more community-oriented. Thank you for challenging us to take these lessons with us out of the bad economy! —Alice Daughlin / Portland, OR

TWEET THIS Be sure to connect with us/vent at Twitter.com/RELEVANTmag. Here is some of your mag scuttlebutt: james_halfhill: Amazing article in issue of @RELEVANTmag “Is Facebook Killing Your Soul?” Makes you really think about what effect tech is having on us. mksteele: Really really loved @cameronstrang’s article in this month’s @RELEVANTmag. Great comments on secular vs Christ-centered art. #goodstuff coachsixstring: My favorite magazine, @RELEVANTmag, showed love to my two favorite TV shows this month: 30 Rock and Fringe! Love it. 1eyedjak: Jesse’s article “How to Win Friends and Influence People” made my day! Just relocated rather recently, maybe I’ll try them! Haha timstidham: This is the best issue in over a year!! Voting, hipsters and Jesus-shaped Cheetos! Who could ask for more? knitmetogether: Issue 47 of @RELEVANTmag in a nutshell: timely call to vote? Check. Best shows on TV? Check. Antidisestablishmentarianism? Check. Awesome. katiebboyd: Just read @RELEVANTmag. The articles on hipster Christianity and the oil spill were very thought-provoking. Examining my heart and mind now. ruthschmidt: Just took the advice of @RELEVANTmag and archived every email. My inbox is empty and I feel like a new woman.

16 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM / 17

artists have in common? They’ve all performed at

Calvin College

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Gift of Gab

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www.calvin.edu/go/culture

www.calvin.edu/go/culture 18 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

3201 Burton SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 (616) 526-6106 or 1-800-688-0122

Matt Wertz José González

Broken Social Scene

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Ratata e Explosions in the Sky t ia D t s o e Bright My l l a h t a An Joanna Newsom n Anberlin JoForeman

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Holy Spirit’s work of restoration by seeking to make all things better. All things matter, because of the Kingdom.

What do all these

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All Things. God created all things, and they were good. All things have fallen from that original goodness.

Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection redeemed all things, eventually will restore them. We join the

Mars Hill Graduate School is transforming stories for a changing world… …beginning with your story.

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM / 19

slices

a bimontHly look at life, Faith & culture

Kid Cudi

Hip-Hop Finds Emo

Kanye, Kid Cudi and Drake take rap in a new direction

20 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

makes Everclear’s “Father of Mine” seem surface-level by comparison. So what does this mean? Is arrogant posturing in hip-hop over? Well, not quite. All of these artists still greatly deserve their “parental advisory” notices, with plenty of profanity scattered throughout. Drake still finds time to laud his wealth and sexual prowess in between whining about being sad and lonely. Kid Cudi’s emotions are likely to be just as affected by his apparently constant drug use as his secret Yellowcard obsession (we’re just assuming here). And Kanye ... well, he’s Kanye. But still, many are enjoying the emergence of emotion in hip-hop. If Nas can be acclaimed for telling honest stories about growing up in the projects, and Ghostface Killah is praised for authentically gritty tales of the drug trade, then why can’t the new emo rappers be similarly admired for being honest about feeling scared and sad? Though if Kanye releases a track called “Screaming Infidelities” next year, we’re going to be weirded out.

(they're not joking about the “explicit lyrics“ thing—we suggest SAMPLING the edited versions)

Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak Where the heartbreak started. (See what we did there?) The-Dream, Love King In between way too many songs about sex, The-Dream gets sad about relationships. Drake, Thank Me Later Has anyone ever felt more conflicted about being famous before he was? Wale, Attention Deficit Amidst lots of tough talk and swearing, Wale also finds time to ponder lost love and skin color. Kid Cudi, Man on the Moon: The End of Day Yes, Cudi, you’re very sad that you grew up in the Cleveland suburbs. B.o.B., The Adventures of Bobby Ray Why is he so sad? Hayley Williams is ridonkulously cute.

relevantmagazine.com

If you’ve listened to the radio in the last decade, you know rap was the toughest genre out there. While indie rock had sad sacks Bright Eyes and Dashboard Confessional, Dr. Dre was frequently threatening people with bodily harm, 50 Cent was surviving bullet wounds and Wu-Tang Clan members ruled album charts with grimy street tales. Well, that was then. In 2010? Kanye West raps about being “the abomination of Obama’s nation.” Kid Cudi’s song “Erase Me” bemoans unrequited love. And Drake was worried about being famous before he ever had a debut album. This is the year hip-hop went completely (and sometimes over-the-top) emo. West started all of this. Reading the lyrics on 2008’s 808s & Heartbreaks was like reading your little brother’s ninth grade diary. But this year, West and friends have taken it even farther. His Twitter feed (@KanyeWest) has been an odd mish-mash of haute couture and intense personal reflection, including a 100ish-tweet apology to Taylor Swift. And his new album is just as introspective: “Mama’s Boyfriend” is a rumination on divorce that

A quick rundown of emo-rap

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[slices]

Kinect Games We Want: PLEASE Make these now

Tech

On Nov. 4, Microsoft unleashes the Kinect on Xbox owners. It’s a motion-control system that uses your whole body instead of a controller. Here are four games they need to make immediately:

4 Inventions that Could Change the World

Inventors all over the world compete for the James Dyson Award, making some pretty awesome stuff The James Dyson Award is given annually to a student or group of students in design engineering (they can be recent graduates, too). The instructions? “Design something that solves a problem.” The winner of the overall competition is announced in October, but here are some of our favorites among the finalists. They solve a problem, but more importantly, they help people and communities.

1 THE COPENHAGEN WHEEL

2 PURE

These designers created a small device that goes on a rear bike tire. It absorbs energy from braking and provides an extra boost of power when going uphill. It also connects to your smartphone to provide community maps and information for other users.

3 E.QUINOX BATTERY BOX

The Hula Hoop A 10-hour record for hula hooping. It fell? Start over. Shark Week: The Game Strap a bunch of meat to your back and swim away. Worship Leader Get points for hand raising, repeating lyrics during prayer and closing your eyes! The Wave Everyone loves to hate this at sporting events. Now, do it at home.

Using a two-part filtration system, this water bottle can purify water from any source. Dirty water passes from the outside chamber to the internal through a micro-filter, and then a UV light (powered by a crank built into the bottle) purifies the water in the internal chamber.

4 SEAKETTLE

After seeing Rwandans use kerosene to power their homes, these designers created a battery with an outlet in it, rechargeable at a “charging kiosk.” If produced cheaply and in enough quantity, this project could change places without access to energy.

When considering what to make for the Dyson Foundation Award, this designer thought of those who die of dehydration while stranded among undrinkable water. So the designer made a life raft with a built-in filtration system that transforms sea water into drinking water.

One Mini scooter To Rule Them All

22 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

relevantmagazine.com

Fact: scooters are awesome. They’re great for the environment, they get amazing gas mileage and have incredible design. And now BMW has upped the ante on all of those factors. The Mini Scooter E (in the Mini line, a la Mini Cooper) is set to debut this year. It’s completely electricpowered and plugs into a normal wall socket. The best/geekiest part? The dash is powered by your smartphone. It’s the next step toward our phones doing everything.

[slices]

culture

Misc Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral tale Belle Yang A sort of Chinese version of Persepolis, this true tale blends autobiography with the story of Yang’s family, both immediate and extended. Yang’s art is whimsical yet stirring, and her writing reflects both an empathetic and critical eye on her childhood. It’s a moving memoir and a deep look into Chinese culture, particularly the ways in which women fit—and don’t fit—into expectations and stereotypes.

More than Superman

Comics aren't just for nerds anymore. Here are 5 graphic novels that’ll make you think. Over the past few years, comic books and graphic novels have left the realm of underground geek culture and entered the mainstream. It’s no longer nerdy to pull out a beautifully illustrated story on the bus, and you’re not going to get weird looks from your friends when you gush about Brian K. Vaughan, Alan Moore and Marjane Satrapi. Of course, if you’ve been into comics and graphic novels all along, you know there’s precedent for using this unique medium to communicate important ideas—Maus, Persepolis, Watchmen and the works of R. Crumb and Harvey Pekar have all used words and images to tell challenging stories. But something has changed; maybe it was the film version of Watchmen or the one-two punch of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Because suddenly, graphic novels are cool. Here are a few that were recently released or scheduled to be released in the next year—they’re well-written, beautifully illustrated ... and will make you think.

STigmata

Kathryn and Stuart Immonen This novel tells the story of Ila Gardner’s life in pre-World War II and Nazi-occupied France. Gardner works as a curator in a museum, and this is the story of her efforts to save the art she oversees from the Nazis. The book is drawn in black and white and uses its hyper-stylized look to tell the story subtly and beautifully.

Lorenzo Mattotti and Claudio Piersanti This story is about a drunk who finds himself with the stigmata—that is, bleeding from the palms like the wounds of Christ. It costs him his job and he ends up as part of a traveling circus. The tale is one of redemption (and how we find it) and the search for love and healing.

A.D.: NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE DELUGE Josh Neufeld Now in paperback, this colorful and artful story tells the tales of multiple New Orleans residents before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. The book shows the effect of Katrina in a very personal way—and uses visuals to pack an emotional punch.

Market Day James Sturm This novel is kind of about life as a Jew at the turn of the century, as the protagonist is a rug-maker trying to provide for his family on market day, but it’s also about the commoditization of art. And it boasts some of the most beautiful illustrations you’ll ever see.

Get ready for an awesome Christmas episode of Community. This year, the show is going animated in the style of the old Rankin-Bass holiday specials, like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We really hope they make Troy and Abed into chipmunks ...

Apparently, the world’s best paid athlete (of all time) was an ancient Roman named Gaius Appuleius Diocles. According to the historical record, he also stabbed a city in the back and took his talents to South Beach ... relevantmagazine.com

24 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

Moving Pictures

In what is sure to be good news for all of us who grew up with headphones, researchers have discovered that listening to loud music might not cause as much permanent hearing loss as was previously thought. We’re pretty sure this will be emailed a lot with the subject line of “See, Mom?” ...

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[slices]

REJECT APATHY

Pakistan by the Numbers Here are some of the effects of the massive flooding that began in Pakistan in July:

Congo Finally Bans Mining of Conflict Minerals The mining of minerals used in cell phones and computers, such as tin-ore and coltan, has contributed to conflict in Africa for many years. Yet there has been no legislation to combat the problem—until a four-day period in July when nearly 300 women were raped by rebel soldiers. Now, stating his desire to create better conditions for local people and put a stop to the “mafia” involved in mining, President Joseph Kabila has banned mining in three provinces of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Though it is unclear how a ban will be enforced, another element of the mining may come under fire: After the mass rapes in July, rebel group leaders were warned they could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

17.6 million people affected by floods, including 8 million children

1,677 estimated deaths

1.2 million houses destroyed or damaged

6 million homeless

40 times — the amount the Indus River has swelled to (forty-fold)

Italy — the size of this continent is equal to the amount of land covered by water in Pakistan

200,000 livestock killed —and thousands more lost —equivalent to the Western stock market crash wiping out years of savings

“Greenasium” Uses Exercisers’ energy

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relevantmagazine.com

Calories aren’t the only thing burned at the gym—mass amounts of electricity are also used up. But now a gym in San Diego, named the Greenasium, is harnessing its patrons’ energy with a special bike. Called the visCycle, it generates enough electricity to offset the box fan the Greenasium uses in place of air conditioning. When more than one person uses the bike, they can generate enough power to also offset the music, computer and lights. “We’re in a very health-conscious and green-oriented community,” says Byron Spratt, the co-owner and business manager of the Greenasium. “By living in that community, we have to contribute if we want to stay in good standing.”

operation Christmas Child is making a world of differenCe for millions of boys and girls. fill a shoe box with simple gifts. together we Can take Christmas joy and the good news of godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s love

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Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Purse, Franklin Graham, President..

Use your smart phone to scan the QR code (above) to watch a new video. Download a free QR code scanner at samaritanspurse.org/QR.

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faith

Americans Uninformed About Religion?

4 ways to Spread Christmas Cheer Well, in addition to singing loud for all to hear 1

host a discounted shopping day

MAKE cookies FOR PEOPLE IN YOUR COMMUNITY

VISIT 24-HOUR ESTABLISHMENTS

OBSERVE ADVENT

Work with your church or a local not-for-profit to host a day for people in your community to do Christmas shopping at deeply discounted prices. Have people donate toys and gifts, and then charge 10 cents on the dollar to the recipients. The act allows those in need to provide gifts for their children at prices they can afford, boosting dignity, and the money raised can go back into the community.

Let’s face it: most Christmas cookies are disgusting. So this year, make good ones. That means doing more than buying dough and baking it. Have a bunch of friends over and turn it into a party. Then pack plates of cookies and take them to neighbors and people who serve you throughout the year—postal workers, garbage collectors, your landlord and so on.

Even though most businesses are closed for Christmas and Christmas Eve, there are a lot of people who still have to work those days. So go to places like 7-11, all-night diners, the ER of your local hospital or the check-in area at the airport, and bring small gifts, a plate of cookies (see number 2) or even a miniature Christmas dinner to the people who have to work. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to create Christmas.

Advent pulls us out of our own patterns and pushes us to observe God’s plan of salvation and promise to “make all things new.” Whether at church or home, use Advent as a time to reflect on your own heart and anticipate what Jesus’ birth did for humanity. (See Rob Bell’s article on Advent, “Why We Wait,” on p. 76 to learn about the meaning of each week leading up to this important holiday on the church calendar. )

IHOP V. IHOP

Pancakes fight prayer. Only one will win.

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45% of Roman Catholics didn’t know that in Catholic teaching, the bread and wine become the physical Body and Blood of Christ during Communion. Mormons scored the highest on questions about Christianity, followed by white evangelicals. Less than half of Americans know that the Dalai Lama is Buddhist. Even though most Americans know public school teachers cannot lead classes in prayer, less than 25 percent know it’s fine for teachers to read to their class from the Bible (or any other religious book) as an example of literature.

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The International House of Pancakes recently sued Kansas Citybased International House of Prayer over the ministry’s use of the IHOP acronym. IHOP(ancakes) says since IHOP(rayer) has expanded nationally and now that some locations serve food, it causes brand confusion. We think the whole thing could be solved by a delicious pancake-prayer breakfast.

A new survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life revealed some interesting insights on how Americans view faith. Perhaps most surprising was that atheists and agnostics outperformed Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) when it came to answering questions about major religions. Some of the other more fascinating findings:

“Lovers of Tolkien’s Middle-earth will ﬁnd in Heinze’s Karolan a world that is far closer to our own—all the characters are human—but that nevertheless retains the wonder, the awe and the heroism of The Lord of the Rings.” –Louis

Markos, Professor of English and Scholar-in-Residence, Houston Baptist University

BUY THEM TODAY www.hopewriter.com

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life

[ 2 0 1 0 gift g u ide ]

2010 RELEVANT GIFT GUIDE It’s that time of year again—when department stores are filled to capacity with stressed-out shoppers willing to knock anyone over on the quest to the sale rack, and the war wages between “Season’s Greetings” and “Merry Christmas.” This year, do yourself a favor and avoid the mall when it comes to your shopping needs. We’ve done a bit of the footwork for you with this handy gift guide (consider it an early Christmas present). From the sustainably made and the opportunity-giving, to the whoknew-that-existed and the just-becauseit’s-awesome, you’ll find something for everyone on these pages. With most of the products, your purchase will help those who made the item. Now that’s a gift that keeps on giving.

1. tea sub: $14 fredflare.com Who knew Earl Gray was among those aboard the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine? Add some humor to your morning cuppa with this psychedelic tea infuser.

2. T-shirt–turned– laptop sleeve: $49

3. Leather-Bound Journal: $29

4. re-cycle frame: $16

hellorewind.com

tradeasone.com

tenthousandvillages. com

Partnering with Restore NYC, Hello Rewind offers jobs to sex trafficking survivors. Send in an old T-shirt and a survivor will make it into a laptop sleeve.

Made by artisans who are given a fair wage and the ability to help develop their communities, this journal provides a great place for thoughts.

For your friend who has a photo involving a fixie and a sun flare. Or just for someone who needs a picture frame. Either way, it’s a perfect gift.

5. un-capped pen cup: $18

6. Of mice and men T-shirt: $28

fredflare.com

outofprintclothing.com

Just right for an office friend who could use some humor on his/ her desk. (No, Dilbert comics taped to their cube don’t count.)

For every shirt sold (and they each feature different classic book covers), a book is donated through Books for Africa.

7. Bell Nativity Ornament: $10 tenthousandvillages. com

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relevantmagazine.com

Made in the West Bank, this miniature nativity is hand-carved out of olive wood. A unique alternative to the runof-the-mill nativities normally spotted this time of year.

Clearly identify God’s leadings and learn how to respond to them confidently.

Hardcover Book

Participant’s Guide

4-Session DVD

God still speaks today...are you listening? Join bestselling author and Willow Creek Community Church senior pastor, Bill Hybels, and embark on a journey your small group will remember. Developed both as a church-wide campaign and a small group curriculum, The Power of a Whisper will help you and your small group explore what it looks like to relate with God consistently, frequently, and intimately. Together, you will learn how to know if it’s God you’re hearing from, and what you can do to respond to his voice more confidently.

www.zondervan.com/whispers WATCH HOW THE POWER OF A WHISPER IS CHANGING LIVES Use this QR Code with your mobile device. Or access directly at http://zph.com/qr39/

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[ 2 0 1 0 gift g u ide ]

life

8. intelligentsia coffee: $20/lb intelligentsiacoffee. com

Ever wonder who makes your coffee? On this site, you can read each farmer’s story. Bonus: these farmers are paid 25 percent over the fair trade rate.

9. 3-d drawing pad: $8 perpetualkid.com

Now your doodles can jump on the 3-D trend! Feel free to sketch out plans for Wall Street 3-D, Legally Blond 3-D and other trilogiesthat-shall-never-be (hopefully).

Relevant subscription: $12 relevantmagazine.com

11. freeloader portable solar charger: $4999 thinkgeek.com

Awesome content, great design, free hugs—well, not yet, but we’re working on it. Anyway, need we say more? The perfect stocking stuffer for anyone on your list.

10. savin’ up’ to buy a new tattoo bank: $12 urbanoutfitters.com

The tin bank isn’t just for kids anymore. Whether ironically gifted to someone with no ink, or to someone truly savin’ up, this bank is a winner.

An ideal accessory for the outdoorsy person in your life. This charger harnesses the power of the sun and juices up phones, MP3 players and even PSPs.

Misc

12. fair trade sports football, basketball or soccer ball: $3999 fairtradesports.com All after-tax profits from the sale of this vegan, fair trade football go to children’s charities.

If you’re a serious vinyl-head, you’re going to be excited about this: when you die, you can now have your ashes pressed into LP form. You can even choose the song. Obviously, you should choose something epic. “The Final Countdown” would be best ...

What is fair trade, anyway? An explanation of the justice-minded movement—and why it matters

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relevantmagazine.com

It can be hard to tell if products were ethically made, but that’s where fair trade comes in. Espousing transparency and sustainability, fair trade ensures those making the goods are given their due wage and respect. Buying fair trade products as Christmas gifts guarantees a merry Christmas for the recipient and the worker who made it.

Bono told Rolling Stone that U2 is working on a “club-sounding” album. They’re also working on a rock album and an album of leftovers from the No Line on the Horizon sessions. 2010: the year U2 jumped the shark? ...

PRAY WHAT ON MAKES A PURPOSE BODY GOOD?

PILGRIMAGE OF A SOUL

UNSQUEEZED

Here we see that contemplation is an essential aspect of the Christian life—even for activists. Tracing seven movements from sleepfulness to wakefulness, Phileena Heuertz shows us that life is a journey that repeats itself as we gain a truer knowledge of God.

Do you feel squeezed into someone else’s mold? Join Margot Starbuck in her journey to become unsqueezed! In twenty-seven brief, funny chapters she demonstrates that women can spring free from the world’s prefabricated body image and discover the body’s real purpose.

978-0-8308-3615-4, $15.00

978-0-8308-3616-1, $16.00

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LIFE

Flavor of the Bi-Month Seven things to make your end of 2010 memorable: [RE AL LIFE]

[IN T ERW EBz]

See Mumford & Sons (on tour now)

If you have any remaining doubts there are spiritual experiences to be had at even “secular” rock concerts, then you should go see Mumford & Sons. The band seems genuinely excited to be there (refreshing in a world of rock star apathy) and their lyrics of confession and God’s redemption are something to experience in a crowd full of people singing along.

Watch Raising Hope This new show on FOX is one of those that might only be good for a season. Or it might be a cult classic a la Malcolm in the Middle. Written by My Name is Earl creator Greg Garcia, Raising Hope is similarly concerned with people on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. And, of course, it’s got a lot of absurdist humor, much of it courtesy of Cloris Leachman. It could be this season’s Modern Family—touching and hilarious.

watch this baby preacher video If you grew up in the church, you know there’s nothing funnier than a super into it preacher taken out of context. That’s what we thought too, until we saw this video of a baby who imitates the preachers’ cadences and mannerisms. It’s almost eerie how well he sounds like a fired-up minister. His parents are likely either proud or mortified. http://bit.ly/cJZViS

Blow your mind in an hour-long podcast

a Check out the New NeueMagazine.com It’s the brand new website for our sister magazine, Neue. If you’re at all involved in making decisions at your church (either as staff or as a volunteer), you’ll want to check out the site. It has a weekly podcast, articles from influential leaders and ideas that are shaping the future of the Church.

Search “Christian and Gay” to read a powerful piece challenging some of our assumptions about how faith and sexuality intersect.

Follow AMAZONMP3 (@AmazonMP3) Yes, we know you have a diehard allegiance to iTunes. But it’s time to cut the cord, because the Amazon.com MP3 store has ridiculous deals. And this is the best way to hear about them—every month, they have 100 albums for $5 each, and they usually have a deal of the day that’ll snag you a great album for less than $3. They’ve done it with Arcade Fire, The Avett Bros. and Johnny Cash, so it’s frequently good stuff too. Just don’t blame us when your iPod runs out of room.

Take a Break: http:// www.ferryhalim.com/ orisinal Everyone needs a break from their work day. Here’s one that will relax you and lift your spirits. It’s a selection of flash games, but each has an incredibly soothing soundtrack and (let’s be honest) adorable protagonists. Plus, some of the games tend to be pretty challenging. It’s the perfect way to take that 15-minute coffee break.

relevantmagazine.com

Join the Conversation on RELEVANTMagazine.com

Become an expert on everything Head over to FiveBooks.com. Then peruse through the ridiculous number of topics they have on there. Each topic is presented by an expert who tells you the best (in their opinion) five books on the topic. So you want to hold your own when people at a party talk about Jane Austen? Sounds like a lame party, but FiveBooks has you covered.

If you’re a fan of This American Life (and you really should be), you’ll love the RadioLab podcast (RadioLab.org). It’s a combination of stories about life, science, sociology, philosophy and general human experience. One of our favorites is called “Memory and Forgetting”—it’s thoughtprovoking and brain-melting. Plus, you’ll never think about rats in the same way again.

shameless plugs of the bi-month

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REJECT APATHY

100cameras

How one organization is giving kids cameras—and a voice BY ALYCE GILLIGAN

Sometimes a picture is worth far more than a thousand words. Sometimes it can change a life. 100cameras is a nonprofit that uses creativity for a greater cause by giving cameras to children in underprivileged areas around the world—from the streets of Manhattan to the dusty roads of Africa. Each child is instructed to capture what life looks like through their eyes. Their photos are then sold online or at 100cameras events, with all proceeds going to improve the quality of life and create opportunities for the children. By teaming up with various organizations, 100cameras can meet their greatest needs, whether that be providing food or improving literacy. Susanna Kohly, one of the founders and a photographer herself, first carried out this photonarrative advocacy while working in a Sudanese orphanage in 2008. Upon returning to New York City, she displayed her photos at a gallery. Interest in the project quickly grew and eventually Kohly and three of her friends—Angela Francine Bullock, Kelly Reynolds and Emily Schendel—founded 100cameras. “We are united under this vision to carry out this task of giving children that have been victims of social economic and racial injustice the means to document their stories,” Kohly says. By partnering with organizations already providing sustainable growth and targeting issues such as education and health care, 100cameras ensures the aid given to the children involved has a lasting impact.

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FAITH McCormick

Though 100cameras is not technically a faithbased organization by government standards, the individual faith of its founders guides their purpose. “Since our team is grounded in the love and freedom that we have experienced from the Gospel, we desire to share it,” Bullock says. “Because we have individually experienced the freedom of grace, we are empowered to be an organization that reflects this with our actions. “We seek to follow the model Jesus exemplified through His love by meeting the needs of people. He also challenged disciples to have faith like a child, reminding [us] that the seemingly least of these will greatly bring glory to God.” 100cameras has completed projects in Sudan and the Lower East Side of New York City, and they launched their third project this year in a politically sensitive area they won’t announce until after the project’s completion. They also won the Entrepreneur Initiative Competition this year, which was sponsored by Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. Their prize was up to $25,000 and the help of a panel of business advisors to guide their organizational development and help them continue to, as their website says, “let photography empower change.” “Photography allows others to see the world through the perspective of a child,” Bullock says, “and our team believes that the seemingly small voice of a child can enable great change within their community.”

How to get involved 100cameras distributes digital cameras to children in underprivileged areas—from Sudan to the Lower East Side in New York City—giving them the opportunity to show life from their perspective. The photos are then sold online or at 100cameras events, with all the proceeds going to help improve the children’s quality of life. So how can you get involved? The easiest way is to purchase prints of the children’s photography. Groups can also help adopt a project, lending their support to the work of 100cameras by raising funds or hosting gallery shows. To find out more, make donations or purchase your own photo prints, visit 100cameras.org. Twitter: @100cameras Facebook: 100cameras Web: 100cameras.org

“

Dr. Joel C. Hunter, Senior Pastor, Northland – A Church Distributed, on ‘Exodus from Hunger’

achievable solutions

“

fascinating statistics

riveting: engaging stories wise strategy This book is

hope so rich you can

and almost taste it!

Order your copies of Exodus from Hunger, by David Beckmann, Bread for the World president and 2010 World Food Prize Laureate, from www.bread.org/go/exodus. Available now.

www.bread.org 1-800-82-BREAD

DEEPER WALK

What Good is God? by Philip Yancey How do I get myself into these predicaments? I asked myself as the plane left the chaos of India and sped toward my Colorado home. It’s a good question—one I ask after each grueling trip. I travel for the same reason anyone travels. We experience beauty and adventure, expand horizons, gain a new perspective on our own culture. I have watched the first rays of sun hit the Taj Mahal, and snorkeled the warm waters of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. I have toured in developing-world countries where traffic and pollution are oppressive, the food suspect. Just as I’m feeling sorry for myself, I meet a nurse who runs an AIDS program in remote villages and rides a motorbike on muddy roads four to five hours every day. At that point, I remind myself of a second, deeper reason why I travel: I go in search of a faith that matters. On the somber campus of Virginia Tech and in the shell-shocked city of Mumbai, I saw the Church as a haven of comfort for those who grieve. The Church opened wide its doors at a time of profound suffering. I also saw the Church can offer a place to confront evil without giving in to revenge. A world marked by acts of terrorism and madness desperately needs the Church to show another way to cope with differences in culture, race and caste. In interviews with addicts and prostitutes, I heard several dozen wrenching accounts of the power of evil to control and destroy

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lives—and the power of God to overcome that evil. No doubt skeptics would have a different, psychosocial explanation for the changes, but hearing a dozen such stories in an afternoon tends to overwhelm rational argument. Jesus rarely offered theological “proofs”; He simply went around transforming lives. China gave me snapshots of transformation that percolates through society. Jesus likened

imposed by force rarely produces the desired results. Likewise, a faith that matters grows best from the ground up, working its way through society without coercion. Christianity first spread by this route through the eastern frontier of the Roman empire, and after a period of triumphalism, Christians in that Middle East region find themselves once again as a beleaguered minority. Their example of compassion for social outcasts and women’s rights may do more to advance democratic values than any imposed political solution. Of all the places I’ve visited, South Africa presents the most excitement and the most daunting challenge. Nelson Mandela may well have asked “What good is God?” as he spent 27 years in prison under a regime that quoted the Bible to support its racist doctrine. Yet Mandela’s faith held strong, and with a moral authority backed by Bishop Desmond Tutu, he led his nation through a peaceful transition when nearly everyone was predicting a bloodbath. Today, South Africa has a flourishing church, and people of all races are working to tackle the enormous problems of poverty, AIDS, crime and corruption. Often when people pose a question like “What good is God?” they are asking why God doesn’t intervene more directly. Why did God let Hitler do so much damage, or Stalin and Mao? Why doesn’t God take a more active role in human history? I can think of several possible reasons. According to the Old Testament, God did take an active and forceful role in the past, yet it failed to produce lasting faith among the Israelites. And, as earthly powers have learned, force and freedom make uneasy partners and an emphasis on one always diminishes the other; God consistently

Jesus rarely offered theological “proofs”; He simply went around transforming lives. the Kingdom to small things—salt on meat, yeast in bread, a tiny seed in the garden—as if to emphasize we dare not judge the Gospel’s impact by numbers. Visitors to communist countries, with their doctrinaire atheism, might ask an opposite question: What good is no-God? Stalin and Mao, ardent enemies of religion, caused the deaths of 100 million of their own citizens. Meanwhile, Christians carrying candles and singing hymns marched through the streets of Eastern Europe until the Iron Curtain fell in a heap. And below the radar screen of media attention, a religious revival broke out in Mao’s China that may yet change the history of Asia and the world. Western powers have learned a related and painful lesson in Iraq and Afghanistan: change

tilts toward human freedom. In the end, though, we have no sure answer and only fleeting glimpses of God’s ultimate plan. For whatever reason, God chooses to make Himself known primarily through ordinary people like us. “What good is God?” is an open question, and God has invested His answer in us, His followers. We are called to demonstrate a faith that matters to a watching world.

THE PULSE

The Drunk and the Hypocrite by jon foreman I’ve played music in churches and bars all my life. In many ways, these two gatherings are very similar. Both sets of “regulars” are looking for meaning, carrying out a ritual of sorts—hoping to find purpose, something that makes sense of the pain. At first glance, it might seem the Church is a better place to look for hope than the bottom of a bottle. Every day, alcoholism and drug abuse destroy families, ruin careers and wreck communities. On the other hand, theological beliefs and misunderstandings have been blamed for divisions, divorces and wars around the world. The trouble with each institution lies within us. True, alcohol feeds a different fire than pietism, but neither a drunk nor a hypocrite look very good in the daylight. We carry our problems into the church the same way we carry them into a bar— they just react differently in each location. Unfortunately, the sins that exist within the walls of the Church are harder to spot. Pride, for example, can hide incredibly well in the religious community. I rarely hear the words “I don’t know” uttered at church. And yet the triune Creator of time and space will always be wrapped in mystery and holiness. Why not start in the seat of humility? Surely all of us have gotten a few things wrong in our attempts at Christianity. Isn’t it pride that causes divisions among us? When we begin to slander other believers

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in the name of God, we know we’ve gotten off course. Did our Master’s words fall on deaf ears? “Love each other as I have loved you.” “Let them be one, Father, even as we are one.” These are not optional thoughts on how things could be done, but rather prerequisites for

me nothing. If I rise up against the cheesy Christian T-shirts but have not love, it helps no one. If I hate the legalistic hatred but have not love, it builds nothing. Has the enemy tricked us into a new form of legalism? Is not our judgment committing the same offense? Ah, we may have found a way, but it is not love. Walking the line between the clubs and the Church, I’ve been misunderstood by both sides. I’m sure you’ve felt the same thing: people throw rocks at the things they don’t understand. But it hurts worst when it comes from well-intending brothers and sisters, the folks who are purportedly filled with the love of Christ. Our knee-jerk response is to retaliate, to fight back. And the cycle begins again. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. God will take care of the speck in my neighbor’s eye. The more faith I have in Him and His strong voice, the less I have to yell. The more faith I have in Him, the freer my hands become to serve those around me. Washing feet is not extra credit. We are called to bear each other’s burdens. Unity is a miraculous achievement, but it’s intended for this side of the grave. Unity is the transforming work of the power of the cross in our lives. In the dark, blood-stained shadow of the cross, our boasting is laughable. Our differences are minute. Take another look at the cross. Look at how much He loves you. Look at His surrender, His sacrifice. Unity comes into focus only when we realize the magnificent grace of the Savior. Let us acknowledge our neediness, our beautiful desperation. Yes, our unanswerable,

Unity is a miraculous achievement, but it’s intended for this side of the grave. entrance into Kingdom of Heaven life. Unity is serious business. The Church is called to be one even as the triune God is one. The comprehensive salvation of our planet is built on the final unity of the Church and her God: the bride and her Savior. Unfortunately, unity within the ecclesial community is the exception, not the rule. It’s to our shame many folks looking for hope find more grace at the local bar than the local church. When we speak with a fire and anger that burns differently than the fresh air of the cross, we do the Gospel a disservice. We know deep down something is wrong. So we revolt against those fiery speeches. We say the method needs to change. We call the old model irrelevant. And yes! The fresh winds of the Spirit are ready to blow upon us, let us pray for new tongues of the same eternal flame. And yet if I speak with the tongues of angels and of men but have not love, it profits

aching, longing poverty is a prerequisite for the balm of salvation. We, the people—the failures, the losers, the outsiders—we have found our King. Christ, the King of the fools; the Lord of the sick, broken souls like us. Let us remain in continual awe of the love we have been shown. And let us love! Let us celebrate the reckless love of the one who risked all that we might be loved. And let us follow in the path of a God who loves us. The tax collectors and the rabbis. The prostitutes and the Sadducees. In the bars and in the churches. Yes, God even loves Christians.

jon foreman is the co-founder and lead singer of the band Switchfoot and lead singer of Fiction Family. You can follow him on Twitter @jonathanforeman.

God’s creation. Our responsibility.

Restoring Eden makes hearts bigger, hands dirtier and voices stronger by encouraging Christians to learn to love, serve and protect God’s creation. To ﬁnd out more, please visit restoringeden.com.

To hear more emerging artists, check out The Drop at RELEVANTmagazine.com

THE DROP

aving just released his third full-length ode to heartache since 2006, one would imagine Greg Laswell loves what he does. However, he may not always like it. “It always surprises people, but I don’t really listen to a whole lot of music. And I really don’t listen to anything remotely like me,” Laswell confesses. “My least favorite music is male singer-songwriters.” We can excuse the guy for needing a break from the smoky, soul-baring songs he crafts on his own time. Laswell’s music plays like the kind of mix you give to a girl you terribly want to love—or who you used to love, until she dragged your heart through the mud. “I write very present tense. I don’t write fictionally—I write from

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a very truthful place,” Laswell explains. However, for his latest introspective album, Take a Bow, he managed to gain a little distance—if not from himself, at least from everyone else. Determined to write a new kind of record, Laswell holed up in a friends’ cabin in Flagstaff, Ariz. Though he says loneliness eventually set in, the isolation may have been just what Laswell needed to clear his head. “There are some writers who will say it’s better to write about something when you’re out of it. ” Laswell explains. “I feel like I owed it to myself to do that. It feels different to me because I wasn’t in the midst of feeling a lot of things I’m singing about on this record.” As a result, Take a Bow is like a sigh of relief for Laswell.

“There are some happy songs on this record for the first time in my career, which was nice,” he says. “I think I’m kind of done with that whole thing.” Of course, for those familiar with Laswell’s work, the line between a “happy song” and a “sad song” is deceptive. Melodically, you might be bopping along before the emotional weight of Laswell’s lyrics register. But the artist is as decidedly unexpected as his songs, just as comfortable crooning obscure covers as he is supplying closing tracks for a primetime soap (Grey’s Anatomy, to be exact). Even Laswell acknowledges this duality as his favorite trick. “I like masking a sad song with an upbeat rhythm. I like the juxtaposition of the two.” —ALYCE GILLIGAN

Website:

greglaswell.com

For Fans of:

Mat Kearney, Cary Brothers

featured artist

Lauren Dukoff

THE DROP

hile writing their second album, Disconnect from Desire, neo-shoegazers School of Seven Bells found themselves writing about a lot of the same themes. Themes of love, heartbreak and how each of us lives a life that matters. How did three different people end up with the same feelings at the same time? “The way this came together was actually pretty bizarre,” says Alejandra Deheza, one of the lyricists and singers in the band. “I wouldn’t say something as hokey as ‘everything happens for a reason,’ but I feel like there are certain times where you and the people around you are somehow dialed into this specific way of thinking. When it happens, especially with people you are creative with, it’s really amazing. You don’t have

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to force anything; things just come naturally. We were all exactly at the same spot emotionally.” While the themes of the album suggest a detached feeling (echoed in the spacey, dreamy sound the band has developed), Deheza says it’s not— at least, not completely. “I wouldn’t say it’s from a place of ‘love is not worth it,’” she says, “Who am I to say that? I feel like this past year, there was a lot of ‘resetting.’ The lyrics are really personal to me so much.” For Deheza, part of that “resetting” came from learning to value both the good and the bad in life. “You can’t look at the bad stuff as bad or the good as good,” she says. “It’s just what’s going on. It’s about not adding too much weight to either.” Deheza also sees the process of growth as distinctly spiritual. “I think

everything in your life is a spiritual process,” she says. “Especially if you’re open to what’s going on in your life and you don’t numb yourself to it, which is really easy to do. I’d hate to tell somebody else how to approach their life. But for me, it’s all about trying and messing up and [doing] it again. You have to value all of it. “Honestly, I think the only way to approach [life] is to figure it out,” she continues. “And I think your own way of figuring it out is the exact way. You shouldn’t feel bad if you compare yourself to someone else and you’re like, ‘Oh, things seem to turn out way better for them.’ Don’t discard anything as a failure, because it’s not like anybody knows what they’re doing. Nobody knows what they’re doing. Everyone is trying.” —Ryan Hamm

Website: sviib.com

For Fans of:

Mazzy Star, New Order, The Radio Dept.

featured artist

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Christine Lim

The new voice in hip-hop talks honesty, Jesus ... and why he admires Kanye West BY Wesley Jakacki

ang out with Shad for five minutes, or listen to one of his albums, and it becomes apparent the Kenyanborn Canadian rapper has a rare candidness—a trait that is making him one of the most compelling new voices in hip-hop. “I think good art is honest and creative,” he says. “If you can come out and be honest about who you are, where you’re at, what you’ve been through, what you’ve gotten through or what you haven’t gotten through, that’s appealing.” Shad regularly raps about the irony of being a hip-hop artist in the decidedly non-hip-hop capital of British Columbia, but there’s a lot more to his story than that. Though he grew up mostly in London, Ontario, Shad was born to Rwandan refugees in Kenya and went to a French school. Several members of his extended family were killed during the Rwandan genocide, and his parents recently moved back to their home country. Shad remains in Canada, but his story has given him a much more personal view of tragedy and suffering than might normally be the case for a rapper who grew up in suburban Ontario. It’s a worldview that bleeds into his music. “I grew up seeing that life is different for different people in different places,” he says. “Not everything in life is fair. Sometimes you get opportunities, and sometimes you don’t.” While Shad’s multicultural surroundings have significantly

shaped his music, his Christian faith also informs his lyrics. And, he says, his music has played a key role in his faith. “Making music has been a big part of my spiritual life,” he says. “You are trying to express something profound all the time, and so you are constantly engaging with that part of your life. There are parts of it that are prophetic, for lack of a better term. You are saying things and putting them out into the world, so, spiritually, it is powerful. “Spiritual themes are very inspiring to me, and I think they are to most artists since that’s what is most profound.” For Shad, it all comes back around to authenticity. “Maybe [that tension] just comes down to the same old challenge of being honest.” It’s that willingness to live—and rap—in the tension between honesty and living out his faith that makes Shad different from so many hip-hop artists.

Honesty—Even if It’s Contradictory Many rappers have bits of faith or spiritual themes in their songs, but then contradict them with rhymes about greed, misogyny, drugs and violence. While Shad’s music doesn’t fall into that trap, he can respect the honesty of that duality in others’ music as long as it’s true. “An artist’s responsibility is to be honest and creative,” he says. “I think [that contradiction] is where a lot of people’s lives are at.”

“Religion is something people compartmentalize as opposed to having it part of their whole life,” he continues. “For me, I am comfortable with art that is sometimes contradictory or complex. I can see where it comes from. If I’m listening to College Dropout, and Kanye West is saying, ‘I really feel like I need to make a song about God—I feel like I just went through the hardest time of my life, and I was relying on God,’ no part of me is saying, ‘You shouldn’t do that unless all your other songs are like that as well.’

Brendan are just kind people, and they [were] just down.” While TSOL has no shortage of Shad’s trademark wisecracking wordplay and contagious hooks, it also serves up some weighty reflections. On “A Good Name,” Shad discusses the meaning and heritage behind his unusual name, Shadrach Kabango, highlighting the story in Daniel about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego as well as his Rwandan heritage. “When I think about my first name and that story, I think this is a great, really powerful story,” he

“Making music has been a big part of my spiritual life. There are parts of [making music] that are prophetic.” “I think [Kanye] is a powerful voice and a pretty bold artist, especially for his stature in pop music. To still be as daring as him is pretty rare, and I admire that.”

Indie Rock, Names and a Social Conscience Shad’s third album, TSOL, which released in October in the U.S., is a short-list nominee for the Polaris Prize, Canada’s award for best album of the year. Another nominee is indie rock collective Broken Social Scene. In a “what a small world” connection, BSS members Brendan Canning and Lisa Lobsinger contributed to TSOL. “The guys I was working on the album with were good friends of Brendan and Lisa’s and had worked on some Broken Social Scene stuff,” Shad says. “They would just kind of be in the studio from time to time, and I would just sort of be like, ‘We are working on this song, you wanna throw down whatever?’ Lisa and

says. “That is the name my parents selected for me. I think it’s cool that was intentional. The idea of that courage [is] inspiring for me on a day-to-day basis.” The dazzling “Keep Shining” comments on misogyny in music, a subject often disregarded in rap except for the work of a few of Shad’s contemporaries (like Common and Talib Kweli). Shad says hip-hop is maledominated and that as a male artist, he writes for his predominantly male crowd. But he isn’t satisfied with that as merely status quo, and says it prompted him to consider the other side of the coin. “That made me think of my music. Not that my music is misogynist, but maybe in some ways it is if I’m not thinking about a female audience when I write.” Though Shad speaks to a lack of female presence in hip-hop, he does praise female artists like underground Canadian rapper Eternia and former-Fugee Lauryn

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bustle of “We Myself and I,” Shad discusses our relationship with the world and Christ’s call for us to be His hands to the world. “At the end of the day [that] song is about the relationship between us to ourselves and us to the world. We are part of a bigger picture, part of a bigger story and it’s not about us.”

The Challenge of Jesus

goes beyond having something to do to stay out of trouble, and it’s like maybe we should be moving a step beyond that. A real kind of change, and coming up in terms of education and activism. “ He remembers a discussion he had in one of his college classes at Simon Frazier University (where he is pursuing a master’s degree). The discussion centered around the origins of hip-hop with Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, the hip-hop faction Bambaataa pioneered in the South Bronx to keep kids out of trouble. Hill, who he says “is as competent as anyone who has done hip-hop.” TSOL also finds Shad expanding on his brand of good-natured, introspective rap with a vibe that is more politically urgent. Shad calls this an “interesting time” and admits TSOL probably sounds more political as a result. He points to the changing global dynamic brought on by “economy, technology, immigration and the world shrinking.” He also happened to catch Glenn Beck on TV while on tour, an incident he describes in “Rose Garden.” “[Beck] is probably the mostwatched political commentator,” Shad says. “I think a lot of the emotions and ideas he encourages are really dangerous. He preys on some really negative emotions [and] he’s generally misinformed.

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“You read some of the stuff Jesus said, and it’s like, ‘that’s intense.’ It’s a call, really, that Your life is not your own, and you got to live for other people.” So that was pretty difficult to watch, so I figured I could poke a little fun at him.”

Hope for Hip-Hop In contrast to his alarm at the American political climate, Shad finds a lot to be excited about in global hip-hop. “Part of me [feels] like maybe the next step of the hip-hop generation is [that] it goes beyond music,” he says, “It

“If Afrika Bambaataa had a vision of where he wanted to see hip-hop 40 years later, maybe that’s where it would be,” Shad reflects. In other words, maybe it’s time for hip-hop to broaden its focus into wider social spheres—to embrace its responsibility as more than just a mouthpiece. Shad is also focused on staying outside himself and serving others. On the hard-hitting hustle and

Shad isn’t connected to any particular causes or organizations, but tries to follow Christ’s example primarily through small deeds done for people in his parents’ community in Rwanda. “There is a community my parents are involved with that might talk to their friends in London and say, ‘Hey, this guy has a job interview, he needs a suit,’ [or,] ‘This kid is going to high school and could use some help with tuition.’ So I put on a couple of shows, and raise a couple grand, and that can go a long way in some very tangible ways for people.” It’s Christ’s example that Shad says challenges him the most in how to live. “You read some of the stuff Jesus said, and it’s like, ‘That’s intense.’ It’s a call, really, that your life is not your own, and you got to live for other people. I think it comes down to that challenge, and it flies in the face of a lot of what we know and live. “Anytime I read four or five verses of what Jesus said and taught, that’s enough for me,” Shad continues. “It’s a serious challenge. It’s a way of life that’s very foreign to all of us. But it resonates as the right way to go about things.” While Jesus is often misrepresented in culture, Shad doesn’t let himself off the hook. “If I want to say how I think Christ is misrepresented,” he says, “I don’t think I have to look too far beyond my own life and the things we do all the time—when our focus isn’t there, and we aren’t thinking about who Christ really was and represented.”

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THE GENIUS BEHIND

FREAKONOMICS by Carl Kozlowski

IT CAN BE EASY to assume the reasons behind some of society’s biggest issues are determined by cause-andeffect. Consider the last few years’ worth of economic issues: it was a matter of supply and demand, dollars and cents, imports versus exports. Or think about people who sell crack cocaine—they do so because it’s easy and good money, right? And everyone knows kids with parents who care about their education make the best grades. Don’t they? Well, maybe. But what often slips under the radar are the countless other issues underlying the big ones. Questions such as whether rewarding schoolchildren with money for good grades will pay off with their working harder and achieving a brighter future. Or whether a child’s name has an impact—positive or negative—on his or her ability to eventually get the job they want. Or how about examining whether violent crime rates have plummeted in the past four decades because of improved police funding

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and tactics? Or could this correlation be the result of an uncomfortable possibility: that legalized abortion has led to many likely criminals not being born in the first place? These are the fascinating and sometimes controversial questions posed by Steven D. Levitt, an economist from the University of Chicago, and Stephen J. Dubner, a New York Times Magazine reporter, in the 2005 book Freakonomics (a word created by Levitt’s sister, because their findings were often so “freaky”). Their goal, as stated in the book’s subtitle, was to “explore the hidden side of everything.” In the five years since the book has been released, it has sold a whopping 4 million copies worldwide and been published in 35 languages. Now it is the subject of a new documentary, also titled Freakonomics. Six of the bestknown directors in documentary film—Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Seth Gordon (The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters), Alex

Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side), Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight), and Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp)—have teamed up to bring the book to life in a film that is alternately witty, harrowing, provocative and never less than fascinating.

What’s In It for Me? “I think the book is deceptively complicated and sophisticated. They’re great writers, so they make pretty complicated concepts sound sort of natural,” says Seth Gordon, a producer of the film who also directed the intermediary segments tying the main pieces together. “I felt like as much as I enjoyed the book when I originally read it, digging into the work when I tried to adapt it for film made me look more at the incentives the two guys write about.” According to Levitt and Dubner, these incentives are the basis for everything involved in economics. People are either lured by a positive motivation of reward, or repelled

from doing poorly by the fear of punishment. Taken to the extreme, this defines the struggle between good and evil that every human being faces: Do you want the eternal reward of Heaven, or the eternal punishment of Hell? Levitt and Dubner teamed up after Dubner was assigned by The New York Times Magazine to profile Levitt in the summer of 2003. Dubner was surprised to find that, unlike most economists, Levitt was able to easily explain economics in layman’s terms, rather than the jargon-heavy talk favored by most in his profession. Meanwhile, Levitt found that Dubner had smarter questions than many of the journalists he had encountered while giving interviews. With their mutual respect and friendship quickly established, the pair decided to team up for a book that would explain how people get what they want. Beyond that, Levitt explained to Dubner that his three main sub-interests were the issues of cheating, corruption and crime. These interests led to much of Freakonomics’ focus on topics like teachers’ willingness to cheat for students in order to attain a better teaching record for themselves, and why it is that most street-gang drug dealers are stuck living at home with their mothers. The book and the film also look at the world of sumo wrestling and discover how one of the most honor-based sports on the planet is one of the most corrupt games in existence. Yet no matter what approach they take or topic they handle, it’s nearly impossible to peg the pair and their work as either liberal or conservative—not because the work has no point of view, but rather because it is so different in its setup and presentation that the results create many unexpected twists. For instance, on the abortion-crime angle— which neither Levitt nor a spokesperson for National Right to Life replied to questions about—they note that crime began dropping about 18 years after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in America and that the drop in crime couldn’t be attributed simply to increased policing and anti-crime funding. Even as it seems they might be making a facile, onesided argument that borders on eugenics, they still acknowledge the moral questions involved in making such a conclusion are stark and valid, and the statistics don’t make abortion an efficient means of fighting crime. Even as the book and film touch on the dark side of what drives the economy, neither forget to also show the lighter side. “One of the most fun segments for me to make was showing how Levitt was trying to

potty-train his daughter by bribing her with M&Ms—and how she quickly broke the incentive scheme,” says Gordon, who incorporated Levitt’s personal toilet travails into one of the film’s transition segments. “His wife couldn’t properly potty-train her, and he thought the best way was to offer her a bag of M&Ms for every time she went successfully. “His daughter controlled her pee to go again and again, a little bit at a time, to keep getting bags of candy,” Gordon continues. “I thought the two authors are healthy enough in their presentation of ideas to admit where they’re fallible, and [it] shows how they carefully define their work as separate from the macroeconomics of the country or the world. That piece is among the most relatable we do because everybody admits kids rule the house. That segment makes me realize how little economists can really control people with incentive schemes. People will always find a way to get what they want.” Among the other topics Gordon explored in his segments were whether real estate agents have an incentive to sell your house for less rather than hanging in for the best price, as well as examining the now-discredited theory

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Why Do Gang Members Still Live with Mom?

Necessity. While a gang leader in Chicago might make more than $100,000 a year, his foot soldiers make $7,400 a month combined—less than minimum wage. Not exactly fair pay for a job with a 1 in 4 chance of getting killed.

Gang leader

Foot soldier

66/hr 3.30/hr

Extras in movies about gangs

7.25/hr

cheating Teachers

Students aren’t the only ones cheating to get ahead. Some teachers cheat for their students in order to maintain high performance on standardized tests—a requirement for keeping their jobs.

5 percent of third- to seventhgrade tests in the Chicago Public school system between 1993 and 2000 revealed teacher cheating.

25,000 bonus offered to California teachers for high test scores. Eventually revoked after proof much of the money was going to cheaters. $

35 percent of surveyed North Carolina school teachers said they’d witnessed a colleague cheating.

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chet vs. deshawn What’s in a name? More than you might think—an insight into the black-white gap, for example. • More than 40 percent of the black girls born in California in a given year receive a name that not one of the roughly 100,000 baby white girls received that year. • Nearly 30 percent of the black girls are given a name unique among the names of every baby, white and black, born that year in California. A person with a distinctively black name often does have a worse life outcome. But it isn’t the fault of the names. Parents who name their son Chet don’t tend to share economic circumstances with those who name their son DeShawn. A DeShawn is more likely to have been handicapped by a low-income, low-education, single-parent background. His name is an indicator—not a cause—of his outcome.

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that polio was caused by children eating ice cream. While the movie’s main segments are each filmed—albeit in their own distinct styles— Gordon frequently employed animation for his interstitials. “I thought one of the approaches that makes a lot of sense is to use animation wherever possible because you can do a lot with animation that you can’t get with talking heads—like animating teachers as we show why they’d cheat for students, or in showing the story of the M&Ms with Levitt’s daughter,” Gordon says. “You can get a lot of interesting, layered stuff with animation, and an overall challenge in terms of adapting that book is how to do it justice because we all revere it so much and think it’s so great. How do you take that wonderful work without compromising it or dumbing it down? One of the virtues is five different filmmaking teams interpreting the book, each in their own voice.”

Why Do People Look at the World in That Way? One of those voices is documentarian Morgan Spurlock. As the director of Super Size Me, a 2004 documentary in which he ate and drank nothing but McDonald’s products for 30 days straight, Spurlock was used to looking at the world in an unusual way. After all, the results weren’t pretty—he gained 25 pounds and nearly experienced liver failure, with his doctor urging him at one point to stop the insanity of his project. It took him years to shake off the weight he gained in that month. But the film taught him that documentaries can be used as a real force for social change. Many credited the film’s success with the fast food giant’s rapid decision to stop using the term “supersize” and start offering healthier menu items, including salads and apple slices for snacks. “I can’t be arrogant enough to say it’s all because of this movie that McDonald’s changed,” Spurlock says, “but it helped move them along faster. It made them realize they

the bigger they are, the harder they Cheat Ranking highly in sumo wrestling means living the high life. To keep a high ranking, some wrestlers cheat. If a sumo wrestler finishes a tournament with a winning record, his ranking rises. A losing record makes it fall. A sumo wrestler entering the final day of a tournament

with a 7-7 record has more to gain from a victory than an opponent with a record of 8-6 has to lose. The following statistic—representing hundreds of matches in which a 7-7 wrestler faced an 8-6 wrestler on a tournament’s last day—illustrates the prevalence of cheating in the sport.

7-7 Wrestler’s Predicted Win Percentage Against 8-6 Opponent: 48.7% 7-7 Wrestler’s ACTUAL Win Percentage Against 8-6 Opponent: 79.6%

52 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

needed to make some changes and do it faster than normal, which is great. We focused on them because they’re the market leader, so they made changes, but it was across the board in fast food. Burger King made changes and all the others. “But I haven’t eaten any fast food since I finished shooting the film in 2003.” Since then, Spurlock made another documentary called Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? in which he took a camera crew to the Middle East ostensibly to find the Al Qaeda mastermind. He also created a critically acclaimed FX cable series, 30 Days, which ran for three seasons and followed people immersing themselves in an alien environment for 30 days, documenting the impact it had on their lives and thinking. In one scenario, a woman who insisted a gay couple couldn’t properly raise children was sent to live with a gay couple who had adopted a child. It seemed to go well for a while, but by the end, acrimony developed and the woman maintained her position. It’s such moments Spurlock believes are particularly powerful when found in the documentary form because they are truly unexpected and unplanned. “Just because you don’t agree with someone’s point of view doesn’t mean not to listen,” Spurlock says. “It’s too easy to build a wall around yourself and go through life with blinders on. A situation you don’t agree with is a chance to discover something about yourself and shed a light on something you didn’t know before. It’s a defense mechanism to shield ourselves from the unknown.

“Whether it’s me going into a situation or the show, we tried to cast people with an open mind [who], while set in their ways, [are] at least open to engaging someone. “That one episode is a perfect example of [how] people don’t always change. You may not steer their path, but it doesn’t make them terrible people or wrong. It’s just the way they look at the world.”

“ P eop l e w il l a lway s find a way to ge t w h at t he y wa n t.” — Set h g ordon What’s in a Name? Figuring out how (and why) people look at the world was part of the attraction for working on Freakonomics. The way Spurlock looks at the world in Freakonomics is by examining the effect of a child’s name on their eventual success or failure in life. “I just had a son, but even before we had the boy, I was [approached] by a producer about being part of it. I loved the book ever since it came out and found [out] that the chapter on names was still available,” Spurlock says. “We were talking about what to name our kid, because it’s literally a badge that kid will live with [for the] rest of their lives. I thought it was worth exploring because it not only defines

you, but makes people judge you.” Spurlock’s interpretation of this chapter, called “Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?” in the book, includes a series of lighthearted montages of man-on-the-street interviews in which he asks black people what they consider “white” names and white people about their assumptions of a “black” name. The frank approach to the topic, without the use of PC euphemisms, is a reflection of why Freakonomics is so popular: it has a straightforward attitude that tackles subjects, light or heavy, head-on. And in the case of “Roshanda,” Spurlock may employ a lighthearted approach, but he addresses heavy realities. One section shows what happens when two men—one black, one white, with nearly matching educational and professional backgrounds, but names that sound stereotypically black and white—apply for the same job. The white-sounding man gets a third more interviews than the man with the blacksounding name, which could mean if it takes the white man 10 months to find employment, it might reasonably take 15 months for the black man. But even there, it’s not so simple. What Spurlock, Levitt and Dubner show is that it may not be the names but the circumstances of families that choose a certain name for their kids. A child with a name like DeShawn, for instance, can statistically be found to come from a poorer neighborhood with less opportunities than a child named Chet. “I think it ... demonstrates, even at a base level, racism still exists in this country, that

people make judgments before meeting face to face,” Spurlock says. “Judging someone in 2010 on the brand stuck to you still exists—you have to live up to or defy the moniker.” Perhaps the most incredible example from both the film and the book is the story of a man who named one of his son’s Winner and the other one Loser. One might think Winner would be the success in life, but he wound up becoming a career criminal with an arrest and conviction record a mile long, while Loser graduated from college and became a sergeant with the New York Police Department. He now goes by “Lou.” “In the end, the classic rules apply to our big problems,” Spurlock says. “Save more, spend less is what we all need to do. Put more money in the bank. We’re a nation of instant gratification, and the more we become people like my grandparents—putting away money for a house, land and their kids’ education—the better off we’ll be. It’s a commitment to a deeper obligation we’ve taken as a family and as a society.” Freakonomics is the study of how those “classic rules” affect all of us—even if we don’t know it. In a world where we’re all eager to boil down problems to the easiest possible solution, Freakonomics reminds us every problem has more causes than we think. It’s also a stark reminder that true solutions to some of society’s biggest problems are a lot more complicated (and occasionally a lot more simple) than we think. The biggest lesson? Don’t dismiss a possible connection—it’s never merely apples and oranges.

Freakonomics is in theaters now (Oct. 1).

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Brittany, Karen and ...

waverly? We all know about the trickle-down economy, but how about trickle-down baby names? Here are a few names currently popular among the rich and elite that will likely be mainstream by 2015.

GIRLS:

BOYS:

Ansley, Linden, Maeve, Philippa, Waverly

Beckett, Cooper, Johan, Maximilian, Sumner

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM / 53

THE

CHRISTIANS By Roxanne WiemAn

Many would argue America is entering a post-Christian era—a time when Christianity is no longer the majority worldview or policy shaper. But unlike many Christians, author and speaker Gabe Lyons says that’s a good thing. He argues that the end of Christian America is heralding the beginning of a new generation of Christians—a generation he says is ushering in a new reformation.

54 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

Tell us about these next Christians. They aren’t satisfied with the world as it is and are driven by their understanding of the Gospel to play a part in restoring the world back to God’s original intention. They recognize they may not see all the fruit of their efforts, but believe faithfulness demands they make the transforming love of Christ not only known in word, but expressed in deed. These next Christians tend to be 25-45 years old—some gen X, some Millennial—who, in many cases, grew up in church but left disenchanted with it and dissatisfied with the integration of their faith [in] the rest of their life and the rest of their world. What we’re finding is this generation is making that connection really viable again, and it’s completely rejuvenating their faith.

You’ve said it’s the end of Christian America—but there’s good news. Why is it the end, and why are the next Christians part of the good news? For much of society, the underlying assumption has been that we’re all “Christian” and therefore, Christian values governed society. But in the last 50 years, that’s been dramatically changing. The idea of tolerance is one of the most celebrated attributes of a new generation. Even in the latest debates around Islam and Christianity, the discussion around religious liberty and the rights of other faiths to participate—debates you wouldn’t have heard 30 or 40 years ago being brought to the fore. The America our parents knew and many of us grew up in is on this shift toward a more pluralistic

setting, and that’s new for most Christians. Many are lamenting that our largely JudeoChristian influenced culture is sliding toward secularism. But what I’m finding in this next generation is instead of lamenting the shift, they’re energized that we’re in new pioneering territory. They believe the Gospel will go forward, it’s just a matter of how. Although it’s creating tension, confusion and fear at times, the opportunity is enormous for this generation to produce a much healthier, much more substantive discussion about how Christian ideas really can relate to the wider world.

You identify several characteristics of the next Christians. Why are these important attributes? When we understand the concept of restoration and allow it to flood every area of our being, it becomes a lens we can’t help but see the world through. The way we interact with the rest of the world looks and feels dramatically different than if we only saw our singular mission in life as to “get others saved.” For example, the next Christians are provoked, not offended—simply put, the next Christians are running toward the problems of our world. They’re not offended by seeing sin or being around corruption or confronted with some of the evil and injustice of the world. They’re provoked to get involved, to get busy with the work of seeing that solved. Instead of being critics when these issues arise, they start creating a better culture. They are creators, not critics. The next Christians look at their work as a calling instead of thinking of themselves as employees who just show up every day. This generation is looking at every area they feel they have talent in—their vocation, their volunteer time, their enjoyment and work hours—and seeing it through the lens of a calling. But they aren’t ignorant enough to think they can engage the world without being grounded in Christ. In the midst of this tumultuous culture, they have an anchor in Christ through Scripture-reading, prayer, through old disciplines, as well as new ones. In the middle of a culture where technology reigns, we’re finding a generation of Christians who are interested in being embodied and present and not constantly distracted by technology. They don’t have the philosophy that being “relevant” is the be all, end all. They recognize the faithful life of a Christian will stand out as countercultural at times, yet committed to the common good of all people.

How is this more than young people just rebelling against their parents? This generation is being confronted with a very different dynamic than just the passing of generations. There’s a collision of different

elements creating a new world, a context that truly, in the last several hundred years, did not exist. So you have this clash of postmodern ideas mixed with a pluralistic world where all faiths are celebrated. Add in that the Church has moved from the center of society to the periphery—and you can see the sea change. This generation is growing up in a globalized world where technology is prevalent, where the meaning of being human is being questioned, entertainment consumes our lives and yet we each have more of a voice than ever. All these kind of futuristic questions people have been talking about for decades, we now find ourselves in the middle of. But this generation’s response isn’t just another pendulum swing. For instance, if they grew up in a very conservative home where evangelism was the main way to talk about being Christian, this generation isn’t just saying, “OK, we shouldn’t focus on evangelism—we should focus on good works.” This generation is finding a way to do both; they’re trying to recover the best of what they’ve been presented with on both sides. So they’re not only doing good works, but their good works are infused with natural ways to communicate the Gospel and to talk to others in a way that helps them understand who God is and to experience the person of Jesus Christ.

How can we partner with our parents and grandparents on this? [My] grandmother prays for me every day. [My] parents daily read Scripture and pray for all kinds of needs, as well as for me and for my family. We have to fight hard to remain deeply tied to Christ through Scripture, through our participation in communion with Him, through prayer, through so many of the disciplines the previous generation really did right. [They] understood that without this anchoring to Christ, we have nothing. I think to not lose that, but yet to wrestle through what it looks like to apply that love of Jesus to my friends, to my neighbors, to people who are very different than me with different beliefs than me is the key.

What does church look like for the next generation? First off, this generation thinks of the church much more globally than ever before. Even if they participate in different “local churches” or are part of a different stream or denomination, they are more comfortable than previous generations living within that ambiguity. Living out an effective witness of the Christian life is not possible apart from the local church or from a local faith community. Now, those local faith communities can show up in a variety of ways. There will be great diversity in how an actual program or a service is conducted, but the point is a body of Christ gathering together to share

Gabe Lyons is the author of The Next Christians (Doubleday), co-author with David Kinnaman of unChristian (Baker) and founder of Q, a community that mobilizes Christians to advance the common good in society.

one another’s burdens, to learn, to be fed, to be encouraged, and equipped and built up for the work they are called to do. I do believe a major shift in the church—which we are already seeing signs of in major urban centers—will be a withdrawal of intellectual and creative energy toward Sunday morning programming and a deposit into equipping Christians to understand how the Gospel can break through in their places of work and calling the other six days of the week. In this new focus, churches will be constantly trying to stimulate the imagination of their people and to partner and support their work to be restorers in every field they engage. The skill set required to lead this kind of church will be much different than just eloquent communication gifts, but will require a sort of entrepreneurial hankering to take risks, pursue unproven models and find more creative ways to make sustainable change happen throughout communities. The application of Gospel teaching will have to be tailored to the young, information-overloaded, socially conscious twentysomething who has to make the connection between Christian teaching and ultimate meaning and purpose in this life—not just the afterlife. For some, there is sort of an individualistic way of thinking about church where we can be fed by listening to a podcast and not literally have to interact with other people. But there is something beautiful about the body of Christ coming together with all of our differences— from socioeconomic, to vocational callings, to our different races, to the way we act and think and talk. To be in that mix is a beautiful thing. It’s the thing that makes the church one of the most unique environments in the world, and if we truly are going to be counter to our culture and paint a picture to the world of what it looks like for Jesus to show up in our midst, it can’t be done alone and likely won’t happen outside of a community of believers.

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inside the

bizarre, off-kilter, hilarious

mind of

zach galifianakis by jessica misener

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courtesy WmA

Don’t go into an interview with Zach Galifianakis expecting him to provide you with straight answers. Like when asked a throwaway question of what band he’d like to jam out with onstage, the actor and comedian pauses, strokes his famous beard and stares at the ceiling, as if deeply pondering the most important question he’s ever been asked. You’re unsure for a second: Is he really thinking about the question? Maybe mentally rifling through his record collection? Finally, with a hint of glee in his eyes, he leans forward. “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.” Zach Galifianakis is not like most people. He’s the actor who’s portrayed a person with mental illness in this fall’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, the human leader of guinea pigs in G-Force and, of course, the scene-stealing, not-quite-all-there, pager-wearing Alan in The Hangover. He’s become a breakout star known for portraying bizarre characters and for straddling a line of comedy and insanity that makes audiences feel uncomfortable and crack up at the same time. When Galifianakis asked, “Can you really trust your mind?”in a rare serious moment during his stand-up comedy documentary Live at the Purple Onion, he might have given more of a glimpse into his real self than he intended—and why he chooses the roles he does. “I think we’re all a bit off-kilter in our own way,” he says. “Everybody has got an issue, whether they want to admit it or not.” Galifianakis uses the term “off-kilter” with authority. For him, the notion of reality can get so skewed, sometimes even he doesn’t know where his characters end and he begins. His public guise is a steel-fronted mixture of offbeat humor and absurdist irony, mixed with a healthy dose of darkly comic audiencebaiting and self-lacerating observations. Under the layers, it’s often hard to penetrate to the real Zach, to tell what’s authentic and what’s a well-timed joke. “Maybe I have a mental disorder,” he laments in the documentary The Comedians of Comedy. “Reality is becoming a joke. It really is. I don’t know how to put it in words.” Then he waits a beat, chews on a nail and shrugs his shoulders. “Eh ... oh well.” It’s not that Galifianakis is known for having a mental disorder or anything (well, beyond a crippling claustrophobia). His surreal and caustic view of life from the stage just makes you wonder if he does. “I think there’s a gravitational pull in the entertainment business toward people who are [messed] up already,” he says, “and the business makes them even worse.” It’s that draw to the unpredictable Galifianakis’ “messed-up-ness” that keeps audiences coming back for more. This fall, he was the scene-stealing star of Due Date (co-starring Robert Downey Jr.) and It’s Kind of a Funny Story. Has the business really made him “worse”? “Zach is such a friendly, nice, smart guy in real life—not like the characters I’d seen in his stand-up or other movies,” says Ryan Fleck, co-director of Funny Story. In fact, in “real life,” Galifianakis is, well, normal. He has a girlfriend of several years, and he owns a farm in North Carolina that he says he wants to turn into a “self-sustaining writers’ retreat.” An accomplished

pianist, he often incorporates improvised songs into his act. And like any musician, he geeks out a little bit about recently playing with one of his favorite bands, My Morning Jacket: “It was a five-hour concert, the last of their tour, and I was up there onstage with them.” All of these often-conflicting perspectives into “who Zach is” just lead back to the initial question that keeps everyone on their toes. Is Galifianakis kidding ... or serious?

The Man Behind the Persona, Behind the Myth, Behind the Enigma In person, Galifianakis is unassuming. At 5’8”, he’s not quite the larger-than-life goofball you’d expect from his outlandish comedic persona. He’s obviously intelligent, which comes across when he talks and even in his act—who else can tell a dirty joke about Noam Chomsky? He’s also not as viciously insulting in person as he is when he’s onstage and in character. Even though his wit and intelligence are keys to his success, everybody knows: it’s all about the beard. “Everyone always asks me about that,” he says, perhaps annoyed, perhaps amused. “Would you ever say to [actor] Adrien Brody, ‘What’s the deal with your nose?’ But the scabies is the worst part about having a beard.” So where did Galifianakis—the beard and the man—come from? It’s a lot more ordinary than you might suspect. He grew up in rural Wilkesboro, N.C., with his parents: Harry, an oil heating vendor, and Mary. After majoring in communication at North Carolina State University—but dropping out one credit shy of achieving his degree— he moved to New York in 1992 to pursue his comedy career. As far as childhood influences go, Galifianakis and his brother and sister were raised in his father’s Greek Orthodox tradition, although today he says he’s unsure about his beliefs. “Well, it is hard to argue the teachings of Jesus—whether you believe or not,” Galifianakis told That Other Paper, an Austin, Texas-based alternative weekly. “The Sermon on the Mount is all about turning the other cheek. I think if Jesus were to come back, He would more likely hang out with lowlifes and perhaps be in a really bad cover band but do His good work. ... The Bible has too many typos.” “I grew up Greek Orthodox, and I wish I knew more about the Bible,” he told Brian Palmer in an online interview. “But I haven’t really made my mind up about it. I think it’s all mythology. It would be nice to believe in something, just in case. I mean, what do you have to lose? We can be all scientific about it, but just in case. I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it.” What does “still thinking about it” mean? Galifianakis says, for him, life is lived in the now. It’s a theme echoed in the carpe diem message of Funny Story. Galifianakis says it’s all about being present. “I am a big believer in ‘live for today,’” he says. “I don’t necessarily live for the future, and I find that for those who live in the past, their best days are already over.” “You go back to your hometown and there’s still people talking about high school,” he continues. “There’s more to life than high school! That’s not the pinnacle of your life. There’s an author, Eckhart Tolle, who’s made a lot of money preaching that message, and I

“I think we’re all a bit offkilter in our own way. Everybody has got an issue, whether they want to admit it or not.”

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“‘Really funny’ is very hard to play. People don’t realize how difficult it is to make a bunch of people laugh.”

listened to his book and I was like, ‘I already do that in my own life.’”

A More Earnest Role Galifianakis’ turn in It’s Kind of a Funny Story shows a new side of the actor—even if he can’t resist poking fun at himself while describing it. It’s the most serious role of his career—a dramatic turn in a film about suicide, psychiatric drugs and troubled relationships. In other words, a drastic departure from the goofball characters Galifianakis has portrayed in the past. “I was interested in doing a story that wasn’t so over-the-top crazy comedy, which I was coming out of,” he says. “But I don’t overthink acting. I draw on what I know inside of me. Which is not a lot.” In Funny Story, Galifianakis plays Bobby, a psychiatric patient who befriends a depressed 16-year-old boy named Craig who checks himself into the same facility. The movie, which also stars Emma Roberts, is based on a 2006 young adult novel by Ned Vizzini, and though it sounds like a grim character study, the film turns out to be a warm, charming look at relationships and the bonds that form between people in community. “In the book, my character is chubby and

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has a beard, so obviously they were trying to go more handsome when they cast me for the movie,” Galifianakis quipped to the audience at a New York screening of the film.

ooks aside, he also felt uniquely ready to take on a more earnest role at this point in his career. “There are a lot of ‘regular’ actors who do comedy, but a comedian trying to do a more straightforward role is seen as strange,” he says. “But I wanted to challenge myself, and if that means a more dramatic thing, fine. ’Really funny’ is very hard to play. People don’t realize how difficult it is to make a bunch of people laugh.” But now that Galifianakis is taking a stride away from comedy with his new movie, he’s facing a set of challenges different from making twentysomethings chuckle. Making Funny Story was an exercise in personal vulnerability for both the actors and directors of the movie. “The character of Bobby is more similar to me than any other character, which maybe isn’t speaking too highly of me,” Galifianakis says. “But I find this movie very real, at least in

terms of the dialogue back and forth between the characters. I think Bobby is one of those guys who probably needs actual help, he may need [psychiatric] drugs. With some people, they think they have it bad in life, but a lot of it is self-pity, and maybe he’s guilty of that a little bit. There are a lot of things you can do to help yourself, if you’re feeling sorry for yourself, that are not chemical.” Besides tapping into his own past to bring inspiration to his portrayal of Bobby, Galifianakis traveled to mental hospitals in New Mexico in order to do research and observe interactions between the patients. “I felt like I had to visit hospitals myself before this movie in order to give it its due diligence,” he says. “The patients I observed in the psych ward seemed functioning, like they could present well enough on the outside. But they also had something behind their eyes that seemed like they could snap.” In one scene in the movie, Bobby’s wife brings their 8-year-old daughter to visit him at the hospital, which turns into a raging fight between the parents. Galifianakis says it was one of his most intuitive scenes to film. “I like the non-verbal aspects of acting. I don’t say much in that family scene at all, and I think you can just read on [Bobby’s] face with his wife that he’d been through the same fight a thousand times. Sometimes in acting, I think saying nothing says a lot.” And even though this role required research, it’s Galifianakis’ ability to dredge up emotion from his experiences that the production staff seized upon when wooing him. “When we cast Zach, we thought that if he can bring some of himself to this role and combine that with the more creepy elements of his other characters, it would bring something fresh audiences hadn’t seen,” Fleck says. “You still get that humor that he pulls off really wonderfully, but he also tones it down.”

A Quirky Trip to the Top Galifianakis has had a long, strange trip to household-name status. His first stand-up gig was at a Times Square hamburger restaurant in New York City. After working as a writer for Saturday Night Live for two weeks, Galifianakis focused on laboring in the underground standup comedy scene. He soon began to land quirky bit-parts in movies like Bubble Boy and Into the Wild, as well as a recurring role from 2003 to 2005 on Fox’s Tru Calling (a show he regularly criticizes in interviews). Since then, he’s slowly crept into the view of the mainstream, growing from screwball jokester beloved by baseball cap-clad college guys to one of comedy’s A-listers. Galifianakis has also gained recognition for his Between Two Ferns video series on the website Funny or Die. Ferns is a parody of an awkward talk show on which he brings guests like Michael Cera and Conan O’Brien and takes jabs at their careers (“Did you ever think about going into comedy like your father?” he posits to Ben Stiller). In a postDane Cook comedy era, Galifianakis’ subtler, more deadpan sense of humor seems to have hit all the right buttons with an irony-adoring generation. Despite his rampant fame and viral success, it’s puzzling—and refreshing in a world where TMZ exists—that we don’t know much more about Galifianakis other than his taste for oddball punch lines. Perhaps this is why he lives on a farm in rural North Carolina. He rarely talks about his personal life without being prodded, and the more he seems to garner mainstream recognition, the more he deliberately tries to keep his privacy. “I don’t want my personal life to change. I don’t understand why people strive for

[fame],” he told Esquire last year. He’s also admittedly wary of seeing his name in print. “You say something to a reporter, and it shockingly gets reported, so I’ve had to edit certain things. I’m not as free as I used to be,” Galifianakis says.

ven with that said, he’s still willing to be shockingly vulnerable during his stand-up routine and in his acting roles. Despite the knowledge that his onstage personality is an act, you have to wonder: Maybe when he berates audience members for talking during his act, he really is annoyed at them for talking on their cell phones and just uses his stage presence as a way to deal with

that frustration. And maybe acting is a way for him to deal with feelings he’s had that he hasn’t had an opportunity to express. “I’m a graduate of the self-taught acting school in my head, which is hard to get into,” he says dryly about an intense scene in It’s Kind of a Funny Story. “You develop a coordination of past thoughts and past emotions; they probably teach that in acting schools, but I am able to do that naturally for some reason, and

Galifianakis on youtube

Did he really just say that? From misleading to deprecating, here are a couple of Galifianakis one-liners:

Live at the Purple Onion “If you love Barry Manilow, you’re gonna love the Insane Clown Posse. Love them. They’re exactly ... well, they’re not exactly alike, but they’re a little bit alike.”

that is probably based on some kind of rage I’ve had. It’s a ‘push a button and it happens’ experience. I don’t overthink things too much in life in general. “I’ve been that angry before, not often, but when I do get mad, I get that mad. I can’t believe I just admitted that.” “I’m the most mellow person offstage,” Galifianakis told Esquire. “I think it’s just that going onstage lets me get out some frustration that I’m too shy to do in real life.” After chatting with Galifianakis, one is left just as puzzled as before. His public antics range from silly (appearing as his “twin brother Seth” on Jimmy Kimmel Live, shaving his beard mid-sketch while hosting Saturday Night Live) to surprisingly low-key (taking his girlfriend to a stuffy Metropolitan Opera House gala). Behind closed doors, he is carefully close-guarded and wary of the omnipresent media spotlight. He’s a walking paradox: the private celebrity who simultaneously embodies an attitude of comic frankness and pragmatic discretion. The incredibly caustic comic who’s also a nice guy. Put it all out there, but play your cards close to the vest. He’s a J.D. Salinger who lives in the public eye. It’s easy to suspect most of Galifianakis’ zaniness as an actor is just that: a performance ramped up for laughs, and then discarded when the lights go down. But beyond all of that, who is the real Zach: the quiet, somewhat vulnerable man reluctantly being interviewed, or the brash comedian with the unhinged one-liners? When one meets Zach—or as anyone seeing his movies—are you granted a glimpse into the Galifianakis psyche, or just witnessing another performance? Perhaps with Galifianakis, you have to make peace with the most solid fact you can dredge up: everyone’s a little offkilter, including him.

Between Two Ferns with Jon Hamm “Does it make you sick when you look in the mirror to see how handsome you are and to know that people are disfigured?”

Late World with Zach In this clip from his VH1 show, he tapes a monologue in a preschool class. He tells age-appropriate jokes and it’s still hilarious. http://bit.ly/9yJpLb

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his isn’t how it’s always been. For most of modern human history, Christianity has been one of the primary producers—and patrons—of the arts. Without their faith, Michelangelo, Duke Ellington, Bach, Flannery O’Connor and John Donne would have made vastly different art. Yet each of them created work that is recognized as both important and sacred. But ask someone what they think about Christians and the arts now, and you’re likely to get a blank stare, a repressed chuckle or a 30-minute tirade on Thomas Kinkade. Somewhere along the line, Christians have gone from being an essential part of artistic dialogue to a side note (with a few important exceptions) in the overall conversation. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. And there are many people trying to stem the tide. While RELEVANT always tries to feature Christians who are making excellent art, in this issue we wanted to call attention to and explore portions of the art world beyond popular culture. We talked to three artists who are making an impact in fine arts, theater and film. These artists aren’t just Christians who happen to make good art—they are passionately committed to making excellent art because they are Christians. How do Christians in culture work within the tension of their faith and their art? Why does that tension even exist? Perhaps it’s fear, perhaps it’s a result of modernism, perhaps it’s a pursuit of segregation. Whatever

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How do Christians work within the tension of their faith and their art?

the reason, it hasn’t always seemed possible to be both committed to Christ and committed to participating and influencing the artistic world. But the artists featured on the following pages are doing so, and doing so well. In her classic work Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, novelist and essayist Madeleine L’Engle says the goal of a Christian artist is to point to “the journey homewards. Coming home.” “That’s what it’s all about,” L’Engle writes. “The journey to the coming of the Kingdom. That’s probably the chief difference between the Christian and the secular artist—the purpose of the work, be it story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the Kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God ... to turn our feet toward home.” These three artists have demonstrated that for us. We’re inspired by their examples and hope their stories and their art challenge all of us to engage with culture—not in spite of our faith, but because our faith compels us to do so. These people are creating art to “make us aware,” as L’Engle says, and, indeed, to turn our feet toward home.

visual art

makoto fujimura

Embracing the arts as a powerful tool for ref lection, prayer and offering hope in the darkest of times by Jessica Misener

akoto Fujimura’s art studio is hidden away in a peculiar part of Manhattan on 39th Street, an otherwise nondescript, vaguely touristy area tucked between Times Square and the bustling garment district. Once you finally find its mysterious entrance, obscured by a downstairs wine bar, the elevator leads to an unexpectedly serene environment on the third floor: sprawling white walls, floor-to-ceiling windows and a back room stuffed with easels and bottles of paint. It’s here Fujimura makes his paintings, which have adorned the walls of museums around the world, from the National Modern Museum of Art in Tokyo to the Dillon Gallery in New York. And it’s from here he runs International Arts Movement (IAM), a nonprofit artists’ collective devoted to uniting and mentoring Christian artists for the past 20 years. Just don’t call them Christians.

Ty Fujimura

“We try not to talk in terms of secularism versus Christianity because that’s not reality,” Fujimura says. “Reality is pluralistic. Even within Christianity there’s pluralism.” Fujimura’s career is an expression of his holistic views on Christian living. Born in Boston but having grown up bilingual and bicultural, he’s a successful studio artist who studied in a doctoral program at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, making him the first nonnative to do so. President George W. Bush appointed him to the National Council on the Arts from 2003-2009, and he’s painted live onstage at New York’s Carnegie Hall as part of an ongoing collaboration with composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra. Fujimura is also informed by his rich, thoughtful, Christian faith. An author of two books on spirituality (Refractions and Images of Grace), he endeavors to blend his art, his writing and his faith as

Top right to bottom right: Makoto Fujimura was commissioned to create the Four Holy Gospels project for the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The four Gospel paintings are to the right, and are, from top to bottom, “Consider the Lilies” (Matthew), “Water Flames” (Mark), “Prodigal God” (Luke) and “In the Beginning” (John).

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authentically as possible. His passion for seeing artistic Christians engage and influence culture outside of a purely Christian sphere is part of what draws him to Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where he’s served as an elder. The church is well-known for its encouragement of creativity and culture-shaping, and Pastor Tim Keller was instrumental in helping launch IAM. “When I first started to show in New York, which was in 1995, it was very difficult to identify yourself in the arts scene as a Christian of any kind and be taken seriously,” Fujimura says. “And that’s changed in the time I’ve been here, which is good. God has been working in the city, but I think also it’s not just Christians being welcomed, but there’s a tendency toward pluralism in general, so it’s welcome in the conversation. “When you talk about faith you have to talk in terms of historical aspects of faith, but also the demise of secularism,” he continues. “Secularism has not been successful in terms of society as a whole, and especially in New York. An NYU sociologist who’s not a Christian has said this idea that ‘faith is dead’ is socio-

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“we are all constantly responding to the events of our lives. The arts give me a way to communicate and to pray ...” logically impossible to prove; in fact, it’s the opposite. There are more churches and mosques, more faith communities in New York City than there are so-called secular communities. It’s actually far more dominant than people realize. So Christians often feel like we’re being bombarded against secular pluralism, but that’s not always the reality.” Accordingly, Fujimura, who is IAM’s creative director, says his hope for emerging Christian artists is that they’d learn “to wrestle with the deep questions of art, faith and humanity.” “There’s no other place than the arts to learn the capacity to use your senses, to grow, to take in the world, to be able to step out of your shoes. The arts are there to serve people. “ Fujimura says Christianity has an important and unique role in the artistic society—and in

culture at large. “We want to learn from the arts and artists and to be able to speak into our own faith journeys and speak into the context of the Church, which is kind of in a denial as far as culture goes,” Fujimura says. “You look at all the data points from abortion to divorce, and the Church has the same statistical numbers of those things as the rest of the world. We don’t really have a platform. God has given me a great platform to live creatively and be honest about my shortcomings. So we try to talk about that, rather than about how as Christians we feel marginalized.” Though his interests transcend the strictest boundaries of the New York art scene, Fujimura and his works are well-respected among his contemporaries and critics. His painting is in the traditional Nihonga style, a Japanese meth-

visual art od dating to medieval times; his canvases are seeped with color and swept up in speckles of earth tones, pulsing with quiet expressionism. Fujimura’s latest project, to be released in January, is an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels, commissioned by Crossway Publishing in honor of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. “This project allowed me to view tension and mystery as the theme of the Bible,” Fujimura says. “If you read the Bible as a creative work, the theme is there, from Genesis to Revelation.” Inspiration comes in other ways as well. On Sept. 11, 2001, Fujimura was living with his wife and children in Manhattan’s financial district, mere blocks from the location of the terrorist attacks on the day that would change New York forever. His art studio then was also nearby.

He recalls in his book Refractions rushing to find his son at his school, four blocks from the World Trade Center site, and seeing him covered in white dust from the collapsed buildings. “September 11 wasn’t just a tragedy felt here in the city on that one fateful day. There are Ground Zeros everywhere. You have personal Ground Zeros, your own private devastations. In a way, the absence of the Twin Towers is a symbol of our own brokenness in the world. “You have the T.S. Eliots, the Dantes, the Hemingways of the world, who felt the wounds of what they experienced and gave it a voice. We are all constantly responding to the events in our lives. None of us are isolated. The arts give me, and all of us, a way to communicate and to pray, to see hope in the ashes of something like Ground Zero.”

FEAR

What is nihonga Painting? Fujimura paints in the Nihonga style, the term for the traditional Japanese style of painting, dating to the eighth century. Deeply entrenched in the importance of tradition, here are some steps of the process. Handmade pigments Nihonga is distinguished by its use of rock-based pigments. Fujimura makes his own paint pigments by pulverizing different shells, corals and minerals, and then mixing the powders with glue and water: “It’s the same method of pigment-making used in medieval times.”

Canvas stretching Traditionally done on Japanese “washi” paper, Nihonga paintings were originally created for hanging scrolls or folding screens. Silk is another organic canvas sometimes used for Nihonga. In addition to creating pigments, Fujimura creates his own canvases, using only natural materials.

Working slowly “Nihonga painting is a slow movement and method.” Fujimura puts careful work into each painting, considering each one to be a “private act of devotion.”

Emphasizing tradition Based on the importance of traditional Japanese styles, Nihonga blends together different traditional schools, like Kano-ha, Rinpa and Maruyama Okyo.

BASICSERIES.COM

THEATER

Max Mclean

Using theater, C.S. Lewis and his talent to make people ask, “Could this be true?” by RYAN HAMM

ven though it seems odd for a Christian playing a devil to have so much fun doing so, for actor Max McLean, it could be the role of a lifetime. He plays Screwtape in a dramatization of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, a production that’s been getting rave reviews from Christian and secular critics alike. It’s another renowned effort for McLean, who is also the president of an organization dedicated to creating quality theater from a Christian worldview. McLean talked to us about why Christians make bad art, how to improve your artistic lens and portraying a devil onstage.

You’re currently in your fifth month in New York City on The Screwtape Letters. What has it been like to translate something intended as a literary meditation to the stage? Well, [The Screwtape Letters] was the second Christian book I read after I was converted, outside of the New Testament. The first book I read was C.S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy, which I didn’t understand a word of. But the second book I read was The Screwtape Letters and I said, “Whoa, I know this guy.” So it’s been in my consciousness for many years. I’ve been doing one-person shows for a long time, but a friend suggested I would make a really good Screwtape. I didn’t know if that was a compliment or not, but I was intrigued. I didn’t see how it would work onstage; I didn’t see the book as dramatic literature. [Rather,] I saw it as a rather profound meditation on the banality of evil. But then I started reading it, and I started thinking of oral text. The question was how to translate into oral text and how to find the arc of the story within it. What’s the journey and the story that would make it dramatic? We focused on that and found it. It’s there, it’s not obvious, but it’s definitely there. So if you kind of highlight that and bring it to the fore, then there is a very pleasant journey for the audience to participate in.

Who’s coming to see the play? How have they reacted to it? It’s been an extraordinary ride. The audience has been quite diverse. We certainly get a strong Christian audience, but that’s actually in itself so diverse because the Christian community Lewis attracts is probably the broadest of the broad—from liberal, high-Anglican or Episcopalian, very high church, to ethnic Pentecostal—we get them all. There is probably no more diverse show ethnically in New York. If you go to ours, you’ll see African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, young, old, single. Anecdotally, I hear from atheists and agnostics who really like the psychological and theological and philosophical insights that are

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projected and the stagecraft that is told and they always say, and I hear this in different ways, “It’s fascinating to spend an evening with the devil.”

Why do you think there continues to be so much badly done Christian art? I think a lot of times you do have to fail before you succeed, because I’ve produced a lot of bad, poorly conceived art. And a lot of it is [that] the zeal for the arts is among young Christians, and they don’t have the funding, or the experience, but they are willing to make a go of it and fail. The question is then, can you survive the failure? And are you in a world that, if you fail, you don’t get to try again? And that’s kind of what tends to happen because everybody has to start somewhere. Even Steven Spielberg made some bad movies. Everyone has to be able to make their mistakes. What’s happened is there are not many people that have been in situations God has put them in where they can succeed, except in the music world.

Max McLean as the demon Screwtape in the stage adaptation of Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape advises a junior tempter, as he attempts to ensnare a British man. The story shows the hidden nature of temptation and how easy it is for Christians to fall prey.

What can Christians of all ages and ethnicities do to be better patrons of the arts? You can attend. That’s a very important thing. And let us fail. I’ve known of a lot of really serious Christians that are artists, and the work they do is not really accepted in the Church—it might be a little too edgy in the Church. There is a little bit of a judgment placed on them, so they feel like, “Gosh, I don’t mind going to church and I don’t mind fellowshipping in the church, but I better do my art somewhere else.”

Do you think there is a limit to how far one can push the envelope? [The question of a line] is a tough one because I’m not one of those

artists that wants to push the envelope to the extreme. [But] no, I don’t. [Those artists] haven’t gone too far for me, but I think the heart of evangelical Christianity is perhaps a little more suburban or middle class, and there is a cultural norm that people are used to, and sometimes what the artist wants to do doesn’t fit that cultural norm, and you have to translate that. I think that is also part of the work of the artist: “How do I translate my message to the form that it will be received?” And some people haven’t been good at translating, and then what tends to happen, and [what] all we artists suffer from, is self-pity, and we decide nobody understands us.

FILLED

Do you view your art as an evangelistic ministry or do you view it as art for the sake of itself? I’ve wrestled with that for a long time. Lewis himself said all his books are primarily evangelistic; that was his intent. But of course his style of evangelism, his whole life was the life of the mind, [as] an Oxford intellectual. It was all tailored to that, but he was definitely trying to make people understand the Christian faith and to encourage people who had questions about it to try to answer their questions about it so they would give it a reasonable hearing. All his books—The Problem of Pain, The Great Divorce, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters—were that way, and even the children’s books were done by teaching Christianity through story. So that was his intent and one of the things we’re interested in, of course, is staying true to Lewis. When I first started Fellowship for the Performing Arts, the Christian community just lamented the influence of the arts on our culture in a negative sense. You heard so much condemnation, particularly in the ‘80s all of the national arts that were being funded, and how the arts were ruining our culture. And then on the left there was this total embrace of the arts, uncritically. So there were these leftist churches that were actually funding works of art that really had undermined the central tenets of the Christian faith. That was this whole world I was thrust into. And I just thought, How do you break through? Because there were very few Christians actively engaged in artistic expression when I was in my 20s and 30s, and especially in the theater, and if they were involved, they had this kind of compartmentalization between their art and their faith—and never the twain should meet. Christians didn’t support it; they didn’t go to the theater. And then if any Christians were trying to express the Christian worldview through the arts, the cultural elite would simply marginalize it as being quaint and irrelevant, and they mostly mocked the low quality of it. I did feel like the art itself had to be at a level that would break through. The first thing we do is be very careful in what we select and what we decide to invest in to produce, and of course that led us to Lewis and Screwtape. And the second thing you have to do is to execute the art at a level that would be worthy to be produced in mainstream venues where a diverse audience would see it. The arts world is an incredibly competitive one in terms of quality. The quality bar is really, really high. So that’s where we just invested. We said, “If we pick the right material and we invest in it at a very high level, then let the chips fall where they may.” And I don’t mean that in a willy-nilly way, but my Christian faith tells me [that] in Romans 1. The power of theater and the power of storytelling is that it flies under the radar, and it hits us in our imagination where Romans 1:19 says the knowledge of God exists. And the power of art is to draw people into that world that is created. And I believe I’ve succeeded if the audience asks the question, “Could this be true?” And that’s really where we want to land with our work: “Could this be true?”

BASICSERIES.COM

Literature & film How did C.S. Lewis’ faith impact his work? Well, I think Jack’s faith impacted his work in the sense that it’s quite discernible to those of us who have committed our lives to Christ. The Holy Spirit of God really was the author of the works; Jack was the coauthor through which they came, particularly the Narnia Chronicles. He made no secret that the ideas and the stories themselves just floated through his head, and he recorded them. So I think it’s pretty obvious when you read the Narnia Chronicles that this man had a very close connection with the Author of all things.

As an artist and producer, how do you incorporate your faith into your work? I cheat. By that I mean I pray a lot. One of the dangers with things, particularly [things] like Narnia, is the temptation to put one’s own Christian thinking into the movie script or whatever. I think one has to resist that temptation and stick to exactly what the original author of the works wrote. There is a temptation, always, to think one knows better, and that’s something one has to resist.

Why do you think many Christian artists have such bad reputations? It’s probably because they try to inject their own thinking and their own ideas into their art, rather than themselves becoming a co-author for the work of the Holy Spirit. There’s a thing called creative license and another thing called creative ego, and as soon as creative ego takes over creative license, I think you get into trouble.

C.S. Lewis &

Douglas Gresham Revealing the inherent beauty and power of a well-told story

What could Christian artists learn from Lewis? I think one of the things we all need as artists to start with, and certainly as Christians, is humility. Jack had a great deal of it. I think that’s one of the things often missing from the work of Christian authors. There are many of us who make the mistake of launching out into something—a good idea we have for Jesus. But if Jesus and the Holy Spirit aren’t actually involved in that and don’t really want us to do it, we’re making a gross mistake. I think the most important thing for anyone wanting to be in any kind of ministry, whether it be an artistic ministry or otherwise, is to first discern the difference between what we want to do for Jesus and what Jesus actually wants us to do for Him.

by David roark

ouglas Gresham knew C.S. Lewis as more than just a great author and apologist. He knew him as a father. Gresham was adopted and raised by Lewis when his mother, Joy Davidman, married Lewis in 1956. Gresham went on to develop a deep bond with the man he knew as Jack, and their relationship inspired in him a dream to someday make the Chronicles of Narnia books into movies. Now, more than 40 years later, Gresham is in the throes of making that dream a reality. As the producer of the Narnia franchise, Gresham is working with Walden Media and 20th Century Fox to release the third film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, this December. Some people—critics and audiences alike— have expressed disappointment with the films, questioning whether they have successfully represented the books and Lewis. We talked to Gresham about translating these beloved works for the screen and his thoughts on how Lewis merged his faith and his art.

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Above: C.S. Lewis is the author of the Chronicles of Narnia as well as various other works including The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, Mere Christianity and Surprised by Joy. Next page: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third chronological book in the Narnia series, opens in theaters Dec. 10.

How have you tried to bring the faith that’s so engulfed in the book series into the movies? What I really concentrate on in the films is to make sure it’s what Jack said in the books that goes into the movies. I try to make sure we stay as close to the original books as is possible. Of course, it’s quite a tough job to adapt a book into a movie. The two mediums are so different from each other. So we have to wend our way through the various pitfalls in adapting. The important thing to me is to keep the messages of Jack incorporated in the films, and I think we’ve succeeded in doing that so far.

So the messages haven’t been compromised? I don’t think we’ve compromised any of the messages in the movies we’ve so far made or the one we’re making now for that matter. I think, in some ways, the reverse has happened. The essential messages of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian have shone through very strongly. Some people, some Christians indeed, have told me they shine through in the movies even more strongly than in the books.

How does that work with the studio and directors? Do you have disagreements? All the time—fortunately, the directors I’ve worked with are very open to discussing things at length. We work as a team, and it’s a good team. We do have disagreements, of course. I see things in different ways sometimes, but we always come to some sort of a compromise in the end,

“one of the things we all need as artists to start with is humility.”

which works for both parties. Sometimes, certainly, it’s been hard work. It’s been heartbreaking work at times, where I really felt strongly about something, and I haven’t been able to get my message across. But it’s a team. I’m blessed to have had some really good teams working with me.

When have you had to make a compromise? Sometimes we compromise on the detail of how things are actually represented on-screen, but I don’t think anything really desperately important has ever been lost. I have to go through the book and decide what is essential to go into the screenplay and what doesn’t matter so much. It’s always, for me, the deep theological meanings Jack wrote that I think are essential. The stuff like language usage in 1940s England as opposed to now, as far I’m concerned, isn’t so vital. But all in all, I think if you’ve seen the first two movies, then you’d probably agree we did a pretty good job at getting Jack’s message across.

So you are satisfied with the first two movies?

Yes, very much so. Everybody is in love with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because of the story itself. Prince Caspian was a much more difficult story to adapt to the screen because, basically, the book is all about the kids who get into Narnia. They meet a dwarf. They rescue a dwarf. They all sit down around a campfire. He tells them a long story about somebody they’ve never met. They go for a walk in the woods, and then there’s a battle. Now, that doesn’t make a good movie. We had to bring other things in and make some action happen and so forth. But I think the essential messages that are in Prince Caspian come forth extremely well in the film. I’m very happy with it.

Is that why Prince Caspian wasn’t as critically successful? Well, I think the critics liked it well enough, but I think there are a lot of reasons why it didn’t succeed in terms of finances. One of the main ones, of course, is, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has the greatest story ever told anywhere in the history of man, and Prince Caspian doesn’t. But don’t forget, Prince Caspian was a highly successful movie. It grossed over $400 million in the box office, and that’s a blockbuster. The problem is, of course, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was such a standout film—it’s such a standout book—that you can’t really compare the two.

Does critical reception matter to you? Not a great deal because I know how critics work; I used to be one. There are critics who make it a point of their work to say something nasty about whatever they’re criticizing, and that’s a shame. We’ve had some great reviews; we’ve had some bad reviews. I don’t really read reviews anymore, as [much as] I can possibly help. What matters to me is what people feel about it, what the audiences

courtesy 20th Century Fox

BASICSERIES.COM

Literature & film

Top: The Narnia Chronicles tell the story of four children’s various adventures in the faroff world of Narnia. The books are well-known for their Christian allegory.

feel about it. I’ve had some wonderful emails from audience members all around the world on both of those movies. For example, someone who watched Prince Caspian said: “Thank you so much for making that film. My 17-year-old son saw the movie and suddenly committed his life to Christ.” And that is magnificent.

Left: Douglas Gresham is C.S. Lewis’ stepson and the producer of the adapted Narnia films.

Where will The Voyage of the Dawn Treader stand? This film, again, is about a different thing. This is all about temptation, when you’re trying to live a Christian life. This is about the temptations that get you and that it’s not the temptation that’s sin, but it’s how you react to it that makes a difference. I think you’ll find that very powerfully portrayed in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, magnificently in fact.

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Do you plan to make a movie for every book? This depends very largely on how successful our movies are. The first two have been greatly successful. If The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a big success, we will certainly be able to go back to our financiers and plan to make the next one, and so it goes. I would love for us to be successful enough to make all seven. They are potentially wonderful movies. We’ve proven that with the first two. I think we’re proving it right now with the third one. I hope we go on to make the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh.

What would Lewis think about all this? Jack always had his worries about the thought of anyone filming the Narnia Chronicles because he thought it would have to be done by the old-fashioned cartoon animation, and he never wanted Aslan presented as a cartoon character. I can quite understand why. But I think if he looked at the Aslan we’ve put on the screen, he would be absolutely thrilled. And I certainly think he would understand and enjoy the changes we made to Prince Caspian. I sincerely hope so; otherwise, I’ve just wasted the last 15 years of my life.

What do you ultimately want to accomplish through the movies? I want to accomplish the same thing Jack did when he wrote the books. The idea being that when you read the Narnia Chronicles, you should be able to get to know Aslan very well throughout the seven books. If that happens, as it should happen and does happen, you’ll then know his new name, his different name here in this world as a result of having known him as Aslan in Narnia. That’s also what I want to accomplish with the movies: to know Aslan there, so you can know him better here.

What does He ask of us? What are the basics we need to know? Can a better understanding of the basics lead to life as He intended? In this small group experience, Francis Chan challenges Christians to dive deep on three foundational truths: fearing God, following Jesus, and being filled with the Spirit. WHO IS GOD? uses the first three films in the BASIC film series, FEAR GOD, FOLLOW JESUS, and HOLY SPIRIT, and an in-depth follower’s guide and leader materials to engage small groups in a fresh and life-changing way. In seven unique sessions, participants are challenged to discover the “basics” in order to live life as God intended. What is church? You are church. I am church. We are church. “If I only had this as my guide ... if all I had was the Bible ... and I was to read this book and then start a “church” what would it look like? Would it look like the thing that we’ve built here and all refer to as church? Or would it look radically different?” – FRANCIS CHAN

WHO IS GOD A Small Group Experience featuring Francis Chan

AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2010 BASICSERIES.COM

The singer-songwriter on simplicity, legacy and finally getting his parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; approval to be a rock star by Robert Ham

Jim wright

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Tessa Angus

Growing Up and Going Home

singer-songwriter is certainly no stranger to self-reflection—such introspection is their bread and butter. But as he stares down his 40th birthday (a mere four years away), Pete Yorn is going through an even deeper period of looking inward. “I’m at the age when people start thinking about getting married or not getting married. Whether they want something else, or whether a happy marriage is the key to success in life. Should you be trying to find a place where you’re happy within and not based on these external ideas?” In the past, Yorn’s self-reflection has primarily been focused on picking apart the remains of past romantic relationships. Yorn has a talent for weaving blood, sweat and emotional despondency into his music. But it’s the shaky personal ground Yorn finds himself on that carries through as the theme for his fifth solo album, the self-titled PY.

A Long Career, an Uncertain Future A fixture on the indie pop scene for nearly a decade, Yorn is facing new challenges in the age of the a la carte download and the quick turnover that has followed in its wake. He no longer has a long-term contract with a major record label, with his latest LP being a one-shot deal for Vagrant Records. He’s still dependent upon the kindness of strangers like Coldplay, R.E.M. and Dave Matthews Band, who have all chosen Yorn as an opening act for their stadium tours. And he’s releasing an album that throws out any frills, was knocked out in a matter of days and features songs that either hinge on distractions to the larger issues at play or pour them out in some of the most direct lyrics he has written to date. PY is a decidedly stripped-back affair, born of a recording session with famed Pixies frontman and solo artist Frank Black. The two gathered in Black’s Salem, Ore., studio with a bunch of session players and tore through 11 of Yorn’s tunes in about three days. “Maybe it was just an attitude Frank brought out in me,” Yorn says. “When we were in the studio, he would be egging me on, pushing me, saying: ‘C’mon! Let’s go for it! Let’s rock!’ It’s just straight-up rock ‘n’ roll, and it felt right for the songs.” On paper, it sounds a little strange to marry the poignant lyrics of songs like “Future Life” and the weepy “Stronger Than” with such barebones accompaniment. Therein lies the album’s power, though: It plays loose with the rules, starting off with goofball odes to a pair of shoes and a singalong aimed at the thousands of people who will likely see Yorn in concert later this year (“Rock Crowd”). Then it blindsides the listener with the emotional material that touches on the possibility of getting older without someone to share your life with. It can be stirring for listeners.

The songs on PY come from a particularly fruitful period for the songwriter. It was recorded in late 2008, alongside his last two projects (his final Columbia album, Back and Fourth, and his collaboration with actress Scarlett Johansson, Break Up, both released in 2009). During the stretch when these songs were written, Yorn spent a lot of time looking backward as he visited his hometown in New Jersey and found a deeper emotional connection with it than when he toiled away there as a young man. “Moving out West like I did was great, but when you start to come back, you learn to appreciate where you came from.” His hometown is Montville, N.J., located a half-hour outside of New York City and perhaps best known as the location of Bayer Pharmaceuticals’ headquarters. Yorn’s father was a dentist there, while his mother was a piano teacher for the kids in the neighborhood. Yorn started young, learning piano from his mom and teaching himself drums and guitar. Although he played a bit with friends in town, he didn’t work on his own material until he was a student at Syracuse University. “When I started college, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get into music at all,” he says, “but while I was there, I started writing a lot of songs. And I got restless, like that Springsteen song ‘Born To Run,’ wanting to experience more and to get out of town.” That wanderlust took him to Los Angeles, where he quickly became a staple of the coffeehouse circuit and survived some lean times that left his parents concerned about his future. “Years would go by and nothing would be happening,” Yorn says, “and they would say, ‘You’ve got to get a real job.’ My brothers were always the supportive ones. They were the ones who would have the little arguments with them: ‘He’s got to do it! You don’t know!’” Yorn finally started commanding some attention with his regular sets at Café Largo, a performance space that was the center of the alternative comedy scene in Los Angeles, as well as the home for performers like Jon Brion, Aimee Mann and her husband, Michael Penn. It was there that Yorn met a film producer who connected him with the Farrelly brothers, the directors behind discomforting but heartfelt comedies like There’s Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber. They took a liking to Yorn’s work and gave him the plum gig of scoring their film Me, Myself & Irene, even including some of his songs on the soundtrack. Yorn has

“I’m not the type of thinker that thinks about the end result. I’m more interested in staying in the present and using my instincts to fulfill my biggest desires.” since sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his work and found himself being asked to contribute to even more high-profile projects like the last Dixie Chicks album. Yorn has had a career most would envy, but he’s not done yet. After a time of such prolific writing and recording, he’s only ready for more. Yorn says his main focus is staying inspired and interested “in the process of making music and writing songs and performing.” “I’m not the type of thinker that thinks about the end result,” he says. “I’m more interested in staying in the present and using my instincts to fulfill my biggest desires. I think of the artists I respect who are still making music after 30, 40, 50 years: Springsteen, Dylan, Willie Nelson. They are still out there, and I can learn from what they do and see that it is possible to play music for a long time and enjoy it.”

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Deck the H lls

(NOT YOUR FAMILY) by Jesse Carey

Every year, there’s a sense of anxiety that accompanies the cooling weather, return of televised football and proliferation of creative vegetable casseroles. We’re referring, of course, to that unmistakable combination of awkwardness and heartburn that is a family holiday: the interesting meals, uncomfortable conversations and kindred togetherness of Thanksgiving and Christmas get-togethers. There’s a reason Chevy Chase made a successful career out of portraying family gatherings. Coming together with your own relatives, extended family and in-laws can get a little dramatic. In an effort to alleviate the winter anxiety and help make this year’s gatherings more enjoyable, here are six keys to surviving the holidays at home:

Master the greeting

You walk in, scope the room and approach the first of several dozen relatives you haven’t seen in a year. Do you extend a hand for a handshake? Is it appropriate to open your arms for a hug? What about a simple fist bump?

Although etiquette varies from family to family, follow these basic guidelines to minimize the awkwardness of initial physical contact: The Hug. This one is most acceptable for family members of the opposite gender. As a rule of thumb, the older the relative, the more likely they are expecting a hug. (If they’re over 75, you’ll probably also find yourself on the receiving end of a wet cheek kiss, so prepare.) If you’re not a big “hugger,” try to approach each family member very slowly. You can use those extra seconds to read body language and ascertain if the person is bringing a full embrace—or if a friendly side-hug/back-pat would suffice.

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Be prepared to answer the tough questions

Inevitably, at any family gathering, you will be faced with a barrage of uncomfortable, unnecessarily frank, personal questions. These passive-aggressive dinner interrogation sessions will most likely come from relatives who, despite their complete absence from your life for the last 10 months, feel obligated to interject their opinion and subtly express their disapproval for your life decisions. The best way to avoid the awkwardness of these questions is to prepare answers in advance so you’re not caught off guard. To assist in your preparation, here’s a list of possible questions you may be expected to answer in front of your entire family: • Are you planning on finally moving out of your parents’ house? • So, you still don’t have a boyfriend/ girlfriend? • When are you two finally getting engaged—or is something not OK with your relationship? • How much money are you making at your new job? • Have you considered checking out Weight Watchers? • How’s the job search coming—hasn’t it been over a year? • When are you two planning on having kids? • Are you going to have that removed?

T here ’ s a re a s on C he v y C h a s e m a de a s uc c e s s f ul c a reer ou t of p or t r ay ing fa mily g at hering s . The Handshake. Visiting in-laws for the first time? Want to make a good impression on your new father-in-law and his toughguy brothers? Have an emotionally distant cousin you never really speak to anymore? Good news! You can’t go wrong with the handshake. It’s versatile, formal and, most of all, safe. Of course, if you have grossly misread the situation and need to quickly abort the handshake and demonstrate the desired intimacy, there’s always the … Handshake/Hug Super-Combo. This one is for the unsure moments. Extend the hand for the shake, but as you approach, if the look on their face is telling you, “Really—a handshake?” quickly grab their hand and throw your other hand around their back, embracing firmly. It’s always good to say something in their ear toward the end of this maneuver (preferably, something that ends with the word “bro”),

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like, “So good to see you, bro!” or, “Merry Christmas, bro” or, “I hardly recognized you with that sweet mustache, bro!” The Fist Bump. Though it probably won’t fly with members of the older generation, it can be the perfect, non-threatening greeting for the following: the guy in the corner on his third plate of turkey whose identity and purpose for being there you’re unsure of; your cousin’s new, creepy boyfriend; an uncle who is more interested in watching the football game than actually saying hi to you. The Kiss on the Cheek. Generally try to steer clear of this one. (Though if you’re confident enough to actually touch your mouth to another family member’s face, more power to you.) Exceptions to the “steer clear” rule: 1) Your Thanksgiving dinner coincides with a big fat Greek wedding; 2) Your in-laws are in the mafia.

Know your food

Along with awkward greetings and uncomfortable questions, another hallmark of holiday family gatherings is the massive consumption of homemade food. Staples of these Viking-style feasts include everything from creative casseroles (at least three of which are required to contain marshmallow as a primary ingredient) to excessively layered cakes to a turkey weighing more than several of the children in the family. But unlike in years past—when your job was just to show up and not misbehave like your unruly cousins—now that you’re an adult, you need to contribute to the dinner spread. If you’re like many twentysomethings getting their real world feet under them, cooking extravagant side dishes is probably not your forte. But if you’re going to make it through the holidays, you need to master at least one dish, even if the extent of your culinary knowledge stems from watching Man vs. Food. Here are some easy suggestions: Macaroni and cheese with—wait for it— cut-up hot dogs! Any competent adult can throw together some Easy Mac, but adding a little something extra shows you know what you’re doing in the kitchen. Just slice up a

couple of dogs and stir them in with the macand-cheese. Your family will be impressed. “Ramen Surprise.” Boil the Ramen (any flavor will do, but picante is an especially delicious and unexpected choice), then add the “surprise” ingredient—you guessed it—cut-up hot dogs! Entenmann’s cake. Here’s the key on this one: Take it out of the box and put it on a dish you own. They’ll never know it’s not homemade. Turducken. Want to be a real hero at your holiday gathering? Nothing feeds a hungry family like a chicken-stuffed-inside-a-duckstuffed-inside-a-turkey.

Brush up on your sports knowledge

Need a temporary escape from an overzealous political debate or an unpleasant conversation about an elderly relative’s recent medical procedure? Some basic knowledge of professional sports can offer a perfect out. If your family is like most, there’s a TV on in the background at pretty much every family gathering (with at least two uncles permanently affixed on a seat somewhere close to the screen). When faced with an undesirable conversation and nowhere else to turn, simply take a seat next to one of these uncles and begin a conversation about that day’s big game. Even if you know nothing about athletic activities (much less professional sports), there’s really only two things you need to know: The Cowboys and Lions always play football on Thanksgiving, and Shaq is a Christmas Day basketball staple. “At least we don’t live in Detroit!” is a great way to break the ice with an uncle watching a little pigskin on Turkey Day (that is, unless you actually do live in Detroit—in that case, just start bemoaning General Motors). And on Christmas, all you have to do is reference Shaq’s horrific free-throw shooting and you’ll be good to go.

are slammed, old arguments are rehashed and a series of regrettable things are said in front of the elderly and small children present. No one wants to be that guy. Sure, it might feel good to get some things off your chest (a la the Festivus airing of grievances), but in a few years’ time, your little outburst will be remembered more as a joke than a confession. (“Remember that time Uncle Steve freaked out and threw the turkey down the stairs after everyone complained that he’d undercooked it? That was hilarious!”) This holiday season, if you feel the stress mounting and you know you’re just minutes away from completely wigging out, take a deep breath, walk to the dessert table and tear into an unnaturally large piece of pumpkin pie. You’ll feel better.

Don’t Bail

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve all had the grand illusion of ditching— to forego the travel and the stress and the family drama, to just chill at home, put on the Macy’s Parade and eat some takeout Boston Market. (Similar to the little-seen Tim Allen vehicle Christmas with the Kranks, where he and Jamie Lee Curtis decide to skip Christmas with the family and go on a Caribbean cruise. As you may have assumed—because this is Tim Allen—hilarity fails to ensue.) But ask anyone who has missed a holiday with their family and they’ll tell you, it’s just not the same. Christmas and Thanksgiving without family ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Even if you’ve always considered these gatherings, with their requisite awkward greetings, uncomfortable questions and sketchy side dishes, a necessary evil—and sometimes a source of yearlong dread—once

you’re away from it, you’ll remember more than the painful drama. You’ll remember the laughter, the love and the inviting smell of fresh, homemade food. In the end, holidays aren’t about you and your comfort zone. Family is about the good and the bad—it’s about being together no matter what. In a way, the holidays are like a lot of things involving family—there are plenty of moments of awkwardness and goofiness, but when you’re away from them, you realize most of the memories are good ones. That’s the thing about families; too often, you don’t realize how much they mean to you until you’re apart. This Thanksgiving and Christmas, relish the awkward moments and try to laugh at the drama. Enjoy time with your family, even if it means eating that marshmallow casserole.

What not to do c hri s t m a s f il m edi t ion

Avoid the Clark Griswold Meltdown

There’s a reason family holidays have a reputation for inducing stress. Inevitably, the combination of traveling, preparing lavish meals and seeing people you’ve known your whole life for the first time in almost a year leads to anxiety. Even so, the last thing anyone wants is to be the one who has the public meltdown in front of the entire family. We’ve all seen it go down: A conversation starts off innocently enough— about political preferences, the economy or your recent string of unfortunate life decisions. Then, out of nowhere, it goes too far. Dishes

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation This perennial classic offers up many possible Christmas snafus. Among its lessons: Avoid leaking or meowing gifts from great-aunts— they’re surely Jello-O and her old cat Fluffy, respectively.

Home Alone

Jingle All the Way

Kevin McAllister’s solo Christmas adventure instructs us to keep plenty of paint cans, rope and voice recorders on hand in case things get out of control. And gentlemen: refrain from using aftershave right after shaving.

Starring the strange comedic pairing of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad, this not-quite-classic film serves as a reminder to avoid last-minute shopping trips. They can only lead to arson, theft and other crimes.

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How the Advent season was designed to prepare our hearts for the Saviorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s birth

BY ROB BELL 76 / RELEVANT_NOV/DEC 10

hristmas is coming. It may seem like it’s way too soon to be talking about trees and lights and presents and eggnog and all that. But Christmas is the culmination of Advent, and Advent is about the church calender and the church calender is something we never stop talking about. So that’s what I’m writing on here: Advent. But to talk about Advent, we need to talk about sound, and then time and then Spirit. First, then, a bit about sound. If you are quiet enough in your kitchen, you will hear a noise. It is a continuous sound, a long, droning noise with no particular beginning or ending. It has very little, if any, dynamic range. It may go up and down in volume, but those changes are rarely perceptible. It is the same flat noise, and it goes on and on and on, hour after hour, day after day. If it’s loud enough, it can grate on the nerves, but otherwise it’s simply there. Making that sound, mostly unnoticed, there in the corner of your kitchen. It is the buzzing of your refrigerator. Now for another noise. I’m currently listening to the new Jónsi album (he of Sigur Rós fame), which I’ve had on repeat for a number of weeks now. From the first bleeps, squawks and chirps of the first song, the album is full of noises. Drums, voices, piano—the noises stop and start, come and go, they’re loud and quiet. Some notes sustain for a measure or two, others come and go within the second. The kick drum rumbles, the

cymbals clang, the strings flutter. All those sounds work together to make something compelling, inspiring, beautiful, evocative, confrontative, urgent, hopeful, honest or peaceful—something that sounds stunning. And so it is noise, it is the sound—but it is a particular, intentional arrangement of those noises and sounds that make it what we commonly refer to as music. Two kinds of noise, two variations on sound—one we call music and the other we call refrigerator buzz. Next, then, a bit about time, because time is a lot like sound. A song works because the noises and sounds and voices and drums are arranged with a precise awareness of time. Music divides time up into beats, giving time a shape, a flow, a pattern, a rhythm. We’ve all experienced the low-grade despair that comes when our days blend into each other—wake up, eat breakfast, brush teeth, go to school or work or the office, change another diaper, do another load of laundry, write a check, fill a tank, cook a meal and then repeat it all over again the next day. One day looks like the next, everything starts to feel the same, life starts to feel like the existential equivalent of refrigerator buzz. And that, of course, takes us back to the

God gives them commands, one of the most urgent being to take a Sabbath day a week, a day unlike the others. A day without bricks. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh, don’t. Why is this so monumental? God gives them rhythm. But not the rhythm of sound, the rhythm of time. Life before was an interminable succession of sevens. Seven, seven, seven. But now, their time is broken up, measured, arranged with a beat: six and one, six and one, six and one. God is the God of the groove. We need rhythm in our time—it’s what makes one moment different from another. It gives shape and color and form to all of life. The first Christians understood this—that time, like sound, is best when broken up, divided and arranged into patterns and rhythms. And so they created the church calender. A way to organize the year, a way to bring variance to our days, a way to find a song in the passing of time. For example, Lent. For the seven weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday, we practice sober awareness of our frailty, sins and smallness. It starts on Ash Wednesday when those ashes are traced on our foreheads in the shape of the cross, a tactile reminder of

God i s t he G od of t he Gr oo v e . W e need r h y t hm in our t ime . . . . I t gi v e s s h a p e a nd c olor a nd f orm t o a ll of l if e . Exodus. (Didn’t see that coming, did you?) The story of those Hebrew slaves being rescued from Pharaoh isn’t just a story about the God who rescues people from having to make bricks every day—it’s about the God who rescues people from other kinds of slavery as well. Namely, the one involving time. Life in Egypt was comprised of making bricks for the Pharaoh every day, all day. Bricks, bricks, bricks, eat, sleep, more bricks, bricks, bricks. Tomorrow will be just like today: bricks, bricks, bricks. When the Israelites are rescued, however,

our origins in the dust. From there we come, and to there we will go. You want to really live, the kind of living that drains the marrow from every day? Then start by facing your death, your weakness, your smallness. We spend seven weeks facing our death and despair and doubt, entering into it with the fullness of our being—heart, mind, emotions—we leave nothing behind. We do this for a number of reasons, chief among them the simple truth that Sunday comes after Friday. Only when you’ve gotten through, not around “My God, my God, why

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ROB BELL is the pastor of Mars Hill church in Grand Rapids, Mich. He is also the author of Drops Like Stars, Sex God and Velvet Elvis (all Zondervan) , and is the featured speaker in the NOOMA short film series. Connect with him on Twitter @realrobbell.

have you forsaken me?” are you ready to throw the only kind of Resurrection party worthy of the occasion—that Sunday when we run huffing and puffing from the open tomb, beating our pots and pans in that clanging raucous outburst that begins with those three resounding words: “He is risen.” That day when all the amps are turned up to “11.” But that’s not the end—don’t let your pastor start a preaching series on tithing or marriage that next week—because Resurrection is just the beginning. On we go to the season of Pentecost—the celebration of the Spirit, the One who moves in mysterious ways. Jesus is not with us in body, He’s with us in Spirit. He’s risen, but He’s also here, in ways that transcend language, and so reflect on this for a season, tuning your radar to the divine presence in every moment of every day. And so we’re headed somewhere, we’re coming from somewhere else, and we’re doing it together, as a community of disciples, as a church. Finally, then, a bit about Spirit. Because Spirit, it turns out, is a lot like sound and time. The first thing Spirit does in creation is move. That tells us the deepest matters of the Spirit are constantly moving, shifting and morphing. The life of the spirit is a dynamic reality, taking us through a myriad of emotions, experiences and states of being.

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Sometimes we’re exhausted, other times we’re overwhelmed with doubt. Sometimes we’re on top of the world and everything is going smoothly, other times we find ourselves standing in the midst of the wreckage, surrounded by smoldering flames, wondering how it all went so wrong. What the church calender does is create space for Jesus to meet us in the full range of human experience, for God to speak to us across the spectrum, in the good and the bad, in the joy and in the tears. This is the crime of only singing happy victory songs in church (we often ask sad people to sing happy songs)—half of the Psalms are laments. The math should move us on that. The Bible is not a collection of war chants from victors— it’s an incredibly varied collection of writings reflecting an intensely diverse amount of postures, moods and perspectives. A lot like how life is, actually. Sometimes you’re furious with God, other times you’re madly in love. The issue then, as it is now, isn’t just getting us out of Egypt—it’s getting the Egypt out of us. Rescuing us from sameness, dullness, flatlined routine, reminding us that however we’re feeling, whatever we’re experiencing, wherever we are in our heart—the Spirit waits to meet us there. And that takes us to Advent. Advent, then, is a season. Lots of people know about holidays— one day a year set apart. The church calender is about seasons, whole periods of time we enter into with a specific cry, a particular intention, for a reason. Advent is about anticipating the birth of Christ. It’s about longing, desire, that which is yet to come. That which isn’t here yet. And so we wait, expectantly. Together. With an ache. Because all is not right. Something is missing. Why does Advent mean so much to me? Because cynicism is the new religion of our world. Whatever it is, this religion teaches that it isn’t as good as it seems. It will let you down. It will betray you. That institution? That church? That politician? That authority figure? They’ll all let you down. Whatever you do, don’t get your hopes up. Whatever you think it is, whatever it appears to be, it will burn you, just give it time. Advent confronts this corrosion of the heart with the insistence that God has not abandoned the world, hope is real and something is coming. Advent charges into the temple of cynicism with a whip of hope, overturning the tables of despair, driving out the priests of that jaded cult, announcing there’s a new day and it’s not like the one that came before it.

“The not yet will be worth it,” Advent whispers in the dark. Old man Simeon stands in the temple, holding the Christ child, rejoicing that now he can die because what he’d been waiting for actually arrived. And so each December (though Advent starts the last Sunday of November this year), we enter into a season of waiting, expecting, longing. Spirit meets us in the ache. We ask God to enter into the deepest places of cynicism, bitterness and hardness where we have stopped believing that tomorrow can be better than today. We open up. We soften up. We turn our hearts in the direction of that day. That day when the baby cries His first cry and we, surrounded by shepherds and angels and everybody in between, celebrate that sound in time that brings our Spirits what we’ve been longing for.

A Guide To observing Advent Advent is a cool thing. It’s also a little confusing, especially if your church doesn’t observe it. So here’s how you can experience it yourself or, ideally, with a community of friends and other believers. You’ll need an Advent wreath, which is basically a wreath with four candles around the outside and one in the middle. (For a more in-depth Advent guide, check out http://bit.ly/ d6GdJf). Nov. 28 — The Hope candle Read Isaiah 11:1-10. Discuss the hope of Advent—the hope we have because of Christ’s birth and the hope we have in Christ’s second coming. Dec. 5 — The Peace Candle Read Matthew 3:1-6. This passage reminds us to repent and seek Christ’s peace. Reflect on the peace that Christ’s life, death and resurrection provides. Dec. 12 — The Joy CAndle Read John 1:19-34. How does God’s redemption grant us joy? Discuss how to be joyful even in brokenness. Dec. 19 — The Love Candle Revelation 21:1-4. This passage reminds us that God will make all things new. How should that animate us to love each other better? Dec. 25 — The Christ Candle Luke 2:1-20 This is the culmination of what we have prepared for. Reflect on the hope, peace, joy and love offered by Christ’s birth.

T HE W ORS T EN VIRONMEN TAL PR OBLEM YOU’ VE NE VER HE ARD O F The l asting effects of mountaintop removal by jonathan merritt

No one knows who first discovered coal. Some Eastern historians say the ancient Chinese were burning lackluster rocks in their fires thousands of years ago, while many archaeologists point to the Romans in England who were using it in the second and third centuries A.D. In North America, we know the Hopi Indians were using it as early as the 1300s to bake clay pottery. Everything changed with the Industrial Revolution. In the 18th and 19th centuries, industries and factories began populating like rabbits, railroads made transportation of

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goods easier, and major inventions such as the light bulb, telephone and automobile changed everyday American life. A growing need for energy and the affordability of coal converged in a sooty cloud of human advancement. But advancement is never cheap, and Americans—who still get most of their energy from coal—are paying the price. Coal is partly responsible for record-high asthma rates, and burning it releases toxic mercury into surrounding communities. Worse still, mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) is obliterating landscapes and wrecking lives.

Rather than sending down miners to chisel out the coal seams hidden within the mountain, MTR uses powerful explosives to level the mountain layer by layer, extracting coal along the way. MTR is most frequently practiced in the poorest regions of Appalachia—especially West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 2,200 square miles in this region will be cleared by 2012, causing unfathomable damage to air, water, biodiversity and human health. The same black

Associated press

a Kayford Mountain, west Virginia Located in Eskdale, W.Va., Kayford Mountain is one of the most high-profile MTR sites. b manmade roads on Bald mountains Bulldozers create paths along the newly created mountaintops of Kayford Mountain.

rock that spawned steam engines and heats homes simultaneously produces asthma, acid rain and the annihilation of some of Earth’s oldest mountains.

Think Decapitation, Not Haircut For some people, a mountain is just a mountain. For the people of Appalachia, however, these are their grandfathers’ hunting grounds and childhood playgrounds. More than just piles of rocks, mountains are memories and homeplaces watching over the local residents. To understand the emotions that accompany MTR, one must consider the process itself. The trees die first. Roaring bulldozers remove every maple, oak and pine tree from a beautiful native forest that resembles a Bob Ross painting. Some of the timber is sold, but much of it is hastily burned. Wood is not what they’re after. After the mountain is completely bald, drills burrow “core holes” into the mountains, which are stuffed with explosives. All the charges are strung together and blown simultaneously. The sound is ear-splitting and is repeated again and again until the job is done and the mountain is gone. Sometimes more than 1,000 vertical feet of mountain is blown off to reach veins of coal underneath. As writer Josh MacIvor-Andersen has described it, “Think decapitation, not haircut.” In West Virginia alone, more than 2 million pounds of explosives are detonated every day, and 800 square miles have already been destroyed. If that weren’t reprehensible enough, much of the dirt and rocks that have just been removed—and are now contaminated with toxic waste—are dumped into the surrounding valleys. Often this means completely burying low-lying rivers and their headwaters. When the families and communities of this land cry out because they are forced to endure the noise, breathe in the dust, navigate the unstable slopes and drink polluted water, they are flashed a governmentissued permit and shooed away. In Appalachia, where many of our nation’s poorest people live, this is exactly what is going on every day. Over the past 20 years, 500 square miles of West Virginia have been “stripped” into desert land. Though many coal companies would like you to think the land is reclaimed and restored, such is not the case. Pat Hudson, a lifelong resident of

Vivian Stockman

In west Virginia alone, more than 2 million pounds of explosives are detonated every day. Appalachia and executive director of LindquistEnvironmental Appalachian Fellowship (LEAF), has seen the truth. “Coal companies are able to point to a few window-dressing projects that have been converted into a golf course or a strip mall, but they are few and far between,” she says. “I have stood on sites that were ‘reclaimed’ 20 years ago that are wastelands. The coal companies simply don’t have the resources to convert even most of these. “When man destroys a mountain, he exceeds his authority. When man tries to rebuild a mountain, he exceeds his ability.” The statistics confirm her experience. For example, more than 300,000 acres of West Virginia have received surface-mining permits, but less than 1 percent of the mined land is ever reused for any development purpose whatsoever. When Matthew Sleeth, author of Serve God, Save the Planet and a former emergency room doctor, flew over an MTR site, he described it in medical terms: rape. This is something the land doesn’t want and the people don’t want, but the coal companies are doing it anyway. The land God loves is being pillaged at the

expense of thousands of poor people, and most Americans aren’t doing a thing. What’s worse, many Americans have never heard about MTR.

Why Haven’t I Heard About This? You’ve probably never heard of the Buffalo Creek Disaster. But the residents of Logan County in West Virginia find it impossible to forget. In 1972, the worst flood in history was caused by a dam that burst as a result of strip mining. Approximately 138 million gallons of black coal slurry from the Buffalo Creek Coal Company flooded the narrow hollow, spoiling the land, killing 125 people and leaving 4,000 homeless. It was a national disaster, but you probably never read about it in a history book. The Martin County sludge spill in 2000 is considered one of the southeastern United States’ worst environmental disasters ever, but it was largely ignored by most media outlets. Just after midnight on Oct. 11, the bottom of a coal sludge pond in Martin County, Ky., broke and sent more than 300 million gallons of sludge into neighboring rivers. The spill was approximately 30 times larger than the Gulf oil spill. It ruined the water supply for

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JOIN THE MOVEMENT ILoveTheMountains.org | The website for the Alliance for Appalachia. Full of information about MTR and efforts to stop it. Christians for the Mountains | A Christian organization working to stop MTR. Their website includes a blog and a collection of statements from various denominations and Christian leaders. Restoring Eden | A Christian organization that facilitates MTR site visits and mobilizes Christian students against injustice in Appalachia. Regional Organizations | There are many organizations working within specific states, including Coal River Mountain Watch (WV), LEAF (TN) and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KY).

b Protestors assemble at epa offices Activists protest at the EPA headquarters in an attempt to sway the organization to veto the Spruce mine permit. more than 25,000 residents and killed most aquatic life in the region. The TVA Kingston Fossil Plant spill in Tennessee in 2008 was three times the size of Martin County. You’ve likely never heard about either. Many Americans who were alive during the Buffalo Creek Disaster have largely forgotten about it, while other coal-related atrocities can’t steal a headline. Why? “You haven’t heard about it because it is occurring in a poor region that most people don’t think about and don’t care about,” Hudson says. “These people, unfortunately, are considered disposable. This would not be happening in the Sierras or the Adirondacks or any other wealthier stretch of mountains where there isn’t a greater than average number of poor people.” More tangibly, she notes that the coal companies employ powerful lobbying arms, PR representation and legal teams to make sure these stories don’t get told. Furthermore, they’ve done a good job of hiding all their operations—from extraction to burning—so Americans don’t even stop to think when they turn on a light switch. Some lawmakers, including some conservative Christian advocacy groups with a penchant for defending big corporations, have turned a blind eye to this atrocity. They claim MTR is good for the economy and that people aren’t suffering too badly. But an MTR tour, a conversation with those affected or even using Google Earth to view the massive scars on the Appalachians tells a different story. Seeing the devastation with your own eyes is a reminder

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that while you might pay an electric bill each month, the people of Appalachia know the real cost of electricity.

The Theology of MTR Scripture teaches us repeatedly that one of the functions of the Earth is to glorify the Creator and reveal things about Him to us. As Psalm 19:1-2 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they communicate knowledge” (NIV). One of the reasons God gave human beings the responsibility of caring for planet Earth was to ensure God was magnified by the good things He made (Genesis 2:15; Romans 1). If the Earth is God’s divine soundtrack, then MTR is like adding static to the frequency. No one will ever stand atop a strip-mined mountain and consider the works of the Creator. Irreversible ecological destruction permanently distorts the message God is trying to communicate. Anytime we are faced with ecological destruction, we must ask ourselves whether or not such an action glorifies God. Does a pile of rubble amassed where a mountain shaped by God once stood glorify God? Do thousands of

homeless people glorify God? Does shortage of drinking water or coal sludge ponds glorify God? How about 125 dead West Virginians? What was once breathtaking country that spoke volumes about God’s beauty, majesty and provision now looks like a travel guide for the Sahara. The mountains, which should be declaring God’s glory, are being devoured, cut off from the divine plan. MTR is also one of the clearest examples of injustice. America is shifting the burden of our energy usage to some of our nation’s poorest citizens. According to Ohio News Now, only eight of the 410 counties in Appalachia are equal to or better than the national average for per-capita income, poverty and unemployment rates. The chronically poor have become victims of injustice and greed. Such events bring to mind the words of the prophet Ezekiel: “Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?” (Ezekiel 34:18) If we respect our call to steward the Earth, seek to glorify God and truly want to pursue

There’s a Bethel Seminary student who started a church in an urban coffee shop. Wackily caffeinated idea? Not to the people who cram in for one of the three services every Sunday. Something’s happening. God is at work in unusual ways and places. And if He’s calling you, get ready to go at Bethel Seminary. Go online and see why.

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g Wary Witnesses Kayford Mountain is one of the few MTR sites not hidden from public view. a irreversible effects After years of being bombed, Kayford Mountain and others like it will never be the same.

justice, then Christians must wake up to the atrocities of MTR.

Rising from the Rubble America clearly needs a new revolution. The Industrial Revolution increased our need for coal, but the next revolution should reduce it. “Coal isn’t evil. It has simply been exhausted as an energy source compatible with stewarding the planet in a healthy, responsibly way,” writes MacIvor-Andersen in PRISM magazine. But what can we do to fight this atrocity and bring about such a transformation? Turn off the lights. We can start by not using so much energy. “The energy demand is still going up, and we are not doing a good enough job as a country to talk about how we need to

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conserve,” says Bill Price, the Sierra Club’s point man on Appalachia. “Once we get serious about conservation and efficiency, we are going to see a decreased demand in coal.” Every time we needlessly turn on a light switch, and every day we postpone the installation of more efficient light bulbs and household appliances, we are giving the companies responsible for MTR a bigger slice of our paychecks. We need to begin conserving our precious energy. The billboards in Appalachia don’t lie: “Coal Keeps the Lights On.” Let’s begin changing this industry by turning ours off. Alternative energy. Where I live in the Southeast, 0.1 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources of energy like wind or solar. Nationally, more than half of our electricity

courtesy of Ohio Valley Environmental Council and Southwings

comes from coal. We can easily do better. “I’ve heard it said that when you do things the way you always have, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten,” says Jeff Barrie of the film Kilowatt Ours: A Plan to Re-Energize America. “My greatest fear is that people will see the problem as too big and too severe to do something about it. But I’m an optimist. I believe we can do something, and I have seen proof.” Barrie mentions solar panels, geothermal heating and cooling models, wind power and lighting rooms with natural sunlight during the day. Support the Clean Water Act. This legislation was first passed in the 1970s to protect our clean drinking water. It also protects the people of Appalachia who have been affected by floods and spoiled water as a result of mountaintop removal. The measure has been weakened by subsequent court decisions, but there is a movement afoot to strengthen it. Let your representatives know you support it. When we think about God’s Kingdom, mountains don’t normally come to mind. But when the issue is viewed through the prisms of justice, compassion, poverty and God’s glory in creation, everything changes. People in Appalachia are suffering as coal companies are running rampant, and Christians might just be the help they’ve been waiting on. We need to stand up and act, recognizing that we can’t build God’s Kingdom with one hand and tear down God’s creation with the other.

Jonathan Merritt is the author of Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet (FaithWords). Connect with him at JonathanMerritt.com.

Be careful not to fill your mind with empty mottos and mantras. Instead fill it with the truth of God’s Word. In 100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart, you’ll be greatly encouraged by pastor Rob Morgan as he walks you through an enriching routine you may not have considered. You can also find Scripture memory apps for iPhone and iPad, plus other Scripture memory resources at RobertMorganBooks.com. It’s something worth thinking about.

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Tessa Angus Sparrow Records

t first glance, Audrey Assad seems like the next in a long line of Christian pop stars. Quirky, but not too quirky. Stylish, without seeming vain. Introspective but cheerful. Then she pops off a comment about how playing in a bar is worship, too. “I love to sing covers, and I used to play at bars all the time,” Assad says. “I call that worship, too—just doing what I’m gifted to do and being myself in the process.” Assad first timidly wandered into the spotlight as a worship leader, and then took tours and duets with male counterparts like Chris Tomlin, Matt Maher, Tenth Avenue North and Brandon Heath. But with last summer’s release of her debut album, The House You’re Building, this free-spirited musician has plans to break the market’s mold. “We’ve learned to categorize things as worship when they feel worshipful,” Assad says. Her own definition tends to be more liberal. “Worship is literally interwoven into every task throughout your day, and that includes performing. Even if I’m performing a song that isn’t a ‘worship’ song, which I do a lot.” This boldness puts Assad on her own stage, as both a female singer-songwriter and a Christian music artist. “I hate how few women there are in the music industry, particularly Christian music, but it’s the plain matter of fact that there aren’t as many,” Assad says. She is perhaps used to feeling like she doesn’t quite fit in, an idea she explores in the title track of The House You’re Building. During the two years she was writing the album, Assad converted from her Plymouth Brethren upbringing to Catholicism. The 27-year-old says the decision was a long time coming and that much of her lyrics allude to this period of seeking, questioning and defining her faith. “I had those questions long before this record was even born in my mind, or possibly even before I knew I was going to do this for a living,” she admits.

Assad’s hope is that her music will provide listeners with a sense of belonging, regardless of their doubts, scars and quirks. “I want people to really believe; not just know, but believe. And maybe even feel—such a dirty word in theology these days,” she says, sighing in mock exasperation. “Suffering is redemptive, beautiful, meaningful and very important to the Christian life. It shouldn’t be avoided, but instead consecrated to Christ.” The balance of suffering and redemption is echoed in Assad’s musical style—airy melodies carried by a full voice, light piano contrasted with heavy drums. The deeply personal songs have received careful treatment from producer Marshall Altman (Marc Broussard, Natasha Bedingfield, Bethany Dillon). “It was musically a romantic experience ... like falling in love with the music,” Assad says of the recording process. Like many artists before her, Assad relates creating her first album to giving birth. “It’s such a mixture of excitement and feeling, like I’m finally giving birth to something that’s been gestating, in a way,” Assad laughs. “Basically, you have your whole life to write your first record. You have all these years to live, and experience and write songs. You have all these ideas that have been floating around in the back of your head for so long.”

least do something I know will be relevant and also teach me in the process,” Assad says, referring to the busy tour schedule that accompanies her album. To stoke the creative fires, Assad is chronologically working her way through the books of C.S. Lewis, losing herself in his philosophies and phrasing in hopes they’ll naturally resurface when she approaches her own art. “What I instead decided to do was pick a writer who I believe has something to say to this generation and inform my perspective with his work.” Fortunately, she chose a worthy muse. “I’ve read a bunch of his books already, but I was rereading my favorite, The Great Divorce, and that book never ceases to just draw out of me this hunger, this longing, this aching for heaven, for God, for beauty, for truth,” Assad goes on, her passion evident. “I could spend the rest of my life writing lyrics from his books and never stop. It’s just so rich.” As a performer, she’s gained a reputation for frankness and admits even her team gets nervous about how off-the-cuff her interluding banter may become. But like her literary mentor, Lewis, Assad feels a sincere spiritual pursuit is more beneficial than “covering things over with this veneer of Christian happiness.”

“I want people to believe; Not just know, but believe. And maybe even feel—such a dirty word in theology these days.” For Assad, the best of her musical ideas have literary roots. The Arizona girl says she usually takes to the piano only after she’s put down a book, whether it be poetry, nonfiction or children’s literature. “I believe good writers have to be good readers. You learn to read before you learn to write stories, and it’s something I do all the time,” she says. “[I] try to really keep my mind sharp and my artist’s heart full of ideas.” This voracious reading habit has only been encouraged by the realization that a sophomore album looms ahead. The first has been warmly received, prompting comparisons to Joni Mitchell, Natalie Merchant, Brooke Fraser and Sarah McLachlan. But it won’t be long before Assad will have to pen its successor, with less time and more pressure. “Since I don’t have the time to live my own stories in the next year, I thought I would at

“I have to tell you, I get it that some people want to present that image, but I’m over it. I feel like I’m willing to not just say things like, ‘When times are hard, God is good,’ but actually to open up the can of worms and to say, ‘Explore what hard times really mean,’” Assad says. “One thing I hope I’ll never be guilty of is being glossy.”

Audrey Assad’s debut THE HOUSE You’re building Assad’s debut showcases her talent for songwriting and airy melodies. Though House is an album of reflective worship, Assad considers worship a part of daily life—not just while performing what’s typically considered “worship” music.

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The opening track, “Set Your Arms

hometown pride as the bass sounds

Down,” almost sounds like a junior high

like it was played through amplified

band rehearsal, all nervous energy

pillows. On both “Birthday” and “Mi

and insecure melodies. By the song

Amigo,” there’s a pleasant California

“Bees,” the anxiety finally lifts and

chill-rock vibe. Yet even when a

chaos ensues—a guitar that sounds like

song starts out like the Grateful

it’s a bee tracking down pollen, slap-

Dead incarnate, there’s always some

happy drums and vocals that seem

bubbling angst, a rubber band pulled

borrowed from a sad-sack musical at

tight. The band could be mocking

the community theater—but it all adds

Phish or Elbow, always hinting at an

up to a brilliant, solidified whole.

imminent, unavoidable implosion.

Wake Up!

If you see this symbol, it means we’re featuring a song from this project on RELEVANT.fm. We’re cool like that.

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The Walkmen Lisbon (Fat Possum)

Jars of Clay The Shelter (Provident)

Belle & Sebastian Write About Love (Rough Trade)

Josh White Achor (Bec Recordings / Emd)

> Far from the foot-tapping good

> Jars of Clay pulls out the flannel

> I’ve seen God in the sun/ I’ve seen

> Achor, the Hebrew word for trouble,

times of, say, Vampire Weekend, yet

board and provides a quick lesson

God in the street/ God before bed

is mentioned in Hosea 2:15 as a valley

still in the same musical zip code,

in reality-based Christianity. Shelter

and the promise of sleep, sings Stuart

that will become a door of hope. On his

The Walkmen sound like an Irish pub

is all about community worship and

Murdoch on “The Ghost of Rockschool,”

solo debut as a Christian artist, former

band that knows how to tune their

finding God in the kindness of others.

a slow-burn pop confection on Belle &

Telecast frontman Josh White melds

instruments. On Lisbon, the band

They worked with no less than 15

Sebastian’s eighth album since 1996.

weepy slide-guitar and understated

backs away slowly from the edge of

artists from both ends of the Christian

The happy-rock outfit (think: Love

flute into inspirational odes, aching like

the cliff: the fantastic drunk-baroque

rock spectrum (hello, TobyMac and

or maybe Big Star) use trumpets,

Bon Iver or Damien Rice with more than

pop on “Stranded”—which sounds

Third Day!) to fashion a true group

baritones, organ segues and oblique

just a passing glint of Jesus People rock

like someone pummeled Arcade Fire

effort. Several songs, including the

poetic allusions to prime effect. Is

and early Larry Norman. Fortunately,

in an alleyway far away from their

opener “Small Rebellions,” suggest

it psych rock? Not really—but there

there’s an underlying incantation: Our

suburbs—and the curious, twisting

that without our fellow believers, we

are some stoner-rock segments and

burning desire for meaning is only

chimes on “Victory” grow on you like

will quickly implode. We will never

maybe some shoegazing, including

fulfilled in Christ, and the same God

a Joshua Ferris novel. “Woe Is Me,” a

walk alone again, sings Dan Haseltine,

a The Byrds-meet-Pink Floyd organ

who allows sorrow is the only one who

misnomer that’s actually about falling

and he’s right. Though, both “We

solo on the title track. Here’s hoping

can wash it away. White, looking like the

in love, chatters with incessantly good

Will Follow” and “Call My Name”

the time warp works out for them and

Swedish-Norwegian painting of Jesus,

drums and a boom-bump bass line.

make it clear that God is in charge.

everyone gets back to 1967 safely.

uncorks a few glorious epiphanies.

MUD & POETRY: Love, Sex, and the Sacred Tyler Blanski, Fresh Air Books, $16.95, paperback • ISBN 9781935295098 www.mudandpoetry.com To order, call 1.800.972.0433 • Also available at www.freshairbooks.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

RECOMMENDS

dvds/// Inception (Warner Bros., PG-13) > Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, a subconscious thief who steals ideas through dreams, Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi action thriller follows Cobb as he takes on one last job. If successful, Cobb will be freed from the inescapable life he’s created for himself, having lost everything he loves—including his wife and kids. But he doesn’t do it alone. Joined by a special team made up of point man Arthur (Joseph GordonLevitt) and architect Ariadne (Ellen Page), Cobb becomes resolute to execute the operation. The dangers of his own mind stand in his way, including memories of his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), and the laws and complexities of inception: dreams within dreams, rules surrounding time and subconscious security. Nolan has taken a fascination with the unknown and explored it with pure imagination, creating a multifaceted concept concerned with the physical and metaphysical. A loud and powerful score, stunning visuals, quality action sequences and solid performances bring it all together. DiCaprio gives the story heart and soul by embodying a character motivated by love, yet hindered by remorse. Visually, intellectually and emotionally, Inception is a masterpiece.

Please Give (Sony Pictures, PG-13)

The Secret of Kells (New Video Group, R)

> A convincing Catherine Keener

> Set in a monastery, this magical

carries this realistic dramedy by

story centers on Brendan, a young

director Nicole Holofcener. Keener

monk charged with finishing an

plays Kate, a New York City woman

illuminated Gospel manuscript known

who buys furniture for next to nothing

as the Book of Kells. Setting out to

at estate sales and resells it for a

gather gall nuts for the sacred ink,

fortune in her little antique store. But

he travels to an enchanted forest.

as her life begins to intersect with

There, he meets Aisling the fairy.

her neighbor’s caring granddaughter,

She introduces him to a wider world

she becomes besieged with guilt for

and challenges him to finish his

her dishonest business practices

task. Contrasting the CG animation

and privileged life. To appease

of Hollywood today, the Irish-

her shame, she engages in acts

French-Belgian motion picture is a

of kindness in her neighborhood,

throwback to old-fashioned cartoons.

leading her to discover contentment

It features hand-drawn illustrations,

in simplicity, as well as charity.

bold and bright colors, borders and frames, and stylized visuals.

Win a full-tuition scholarship to film school Do you have a story to tell? At Regent University, our students create high-quality, positive-value films and have won over 240 film-festival awards. Now, it’s your turn. Submit a five-minute film with a redemptive or positive theme. Become a finalist and you will spend a weekend at our beautiful Virginia Beach campus, networking with a panel of professional judges. Grand prize: a full-tuition scholarship to Regent University’s award-winning film school. Ready to tell your story? This is your chance.

Early Entry DEaDlinE: SepTemBeR 15, 2010 www.reeldreamsfilmfest.com 888.777.7729

Void where prohibited. See website for complete rules and regulations. Regent University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award associates, baccalaureate, masters, and doctorate degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404.679.4500 for questions about the accreditation of Regent University. Regent University admits students without discrimination on the basis of race, color, disability, COm100352 gender, religion or national or ethnic origin. Regent University is certified by the State Council of Higher education for Virginia to operate campuses within the Commonwealth of Virginia. COm100352

That Evening Sun (Image Entertainment, Unrated)

Toy Story 3 (Disney*Pixar, PG)

Winter’s Bone (Lionsgate, PG-13)

> After getting separated from Andy

Ondine (Magnolia Home Entertainment, PG)

> In his first directorial feature,

yet again, Woody, Buzz and the gang

> A modern-day fantasy of romance

in the backwoods of the Ozarks with

Christian filmmaker Scott Teems

find themselves in a frightening

and hope, writer-director Neil

her sister and brother. Her mother is

intertwines art and faith without

daycare filled with unruly children

Jordan’s latest tells the tale of a

mentally ill. Her father was jailed for

compromising story. Anchored by

and overseen by a shrewd teddy bear

lonely Irish fisherman who catches

cooking meth. She is everything but a

Hal Holbrook, Teems’ film stars the

who smells like strawberries. This,

a mysterious woman in his net. The

hero. But when her dad skips bail and

veteran actor as Abner Meecham,

as in the first two films, leads to a

lady may be a selkie or a mermaid—

puts the house up as collateral, that’s

a flawed 80-something widower.

harrowing escape and a victorious

or she may be a human. Whatever

exactly what she has to be. She has

When Meecham flees a nursing

return home. Unlike its predecessors,

the case, her presence becomes

one week to find him before vacating

home and returns to his Tennessee

though, Toy Story 3 is less about

an escape for the former alcoholic

the premises. Sending her on the run,

farm, he plans to reclaim his old

going home than it is about growing

and his struggling young daughter.

director Debra Granik’s dark drama

life. Instead, he finds his home

up, letting go and starting over. More

Beautifully filmed in local grays and

becomes an intense thriller with high

inhabited by his former enemy and

than just a great sequel, it stands

greens and enchantingly scored, well-

emotion—all accompanied by a bluegrass

the coward’s redneck family. Leading

as one of the most emotionally

rounded characters and believable

soundtrack akin to O Brother, Where Art

to a gripping feud between the two

mature films Pixar has made. From

performances make the film magical

Thou? Based on the novel of the same

aging men, Teems’ Southern gothic

suspense and ridiculous action

yet realistic. Lead Colin Farrell is

name by Danielle Woodrell, Winter’s

narrative explores universal themes

scenes to a whole slew of wit, the film

at his best: honest and charming.

Bone is about a race to survive, to

of isolation and redemption.

never falls short of entertaining.

> Ree Dolly is a 17-year-old girl living

endure past a life of drugs and poverty.

Many Lamps, One Light Prepare to serve in a world of religious difference.

Ryan Althaus, MDiv Student Explore these degrees | Master of Divinity, MA Marriage & Family Therapy, MA (Religion), Doctor of Ministry

800.264.1839 | www.lpts.edu

RECOMMENDS

BOOKS/// The Cookbook Collector

Allegra Goodman The Dial Press > Often referred to as the Jane Austen of our time, Allegra Goodman has solidified her reputation with The Cookbook Collector, a modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility. Cookbook tells the story of two sisters: Emily, the practical and ambitious CEO of a dot-com startup in Silicon Valley during the late ‘90s, and her younger sister, Jess, a philosophy major at Berkeley with a part-time job at an antiquarian bookstore. George, her boss at the bookstore, is older, handsome and independently wealthy—those familiar with Austen’s classic (OK, even those who aren’t) will see what’s coming. But that is part of the fun of books like Cookbook, and a little foreknowledge does not diminish the pleasure of reading Goodman’s story, which is expertly and insightfully told as love, ambition and idealism vie for control of the characters’ decisions. Goodman captures the inner struggles of the sisters as they trace the arc of the dot-com bubble, and the set pieces describing the eponymous cookbook collection are a special treat. Read The Cookbook Collector this weekend and then Jane Austen the next.

Permission to Speak Freely Anne Jackson (Thomas Nelson)

The Tenth Parallel Eliza Griswold (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

> Permission to Speak Freely arose

book of the year, poet and journalist

out of a question Anne Jackson

Eliza Griswold travels along the tenth

posed on her blog in May 2008:

parallel—the line of latitude 700

What is the one thing you feel you

miles north of the equator—to report

can’t say in church? Her question

on the collision of Christianity and

struck a chord with readers all over

Islam. Griswold focuses on Africa and

the world. She used the hundreds of

Southeast Asia as the front lines in a

responses she received, in addition to

centuries-old conflict still reshaping

her own story of hurt and healing, to

our world. She witnesses the messy

compile her second book, Permission

confluence of faith and foreign policy

to Speak Freely, a collection of

(as when she accompanies evangelist

essays, art and poetry. Jackson

Franklin Graham to meet the president

hopes the book will jump-start a

of Sudan), and talks with followers of

movement that speaks to all those

both religions, only some of whom are

“determined to make every moment

content with coexistence. Seven years

and every word count for love.”

in the making, The Tenth Parallel is a

> In what may be the most important

masterwork of artistry and courage.

“An extremely engaging and original take on the traditional coming-of-age memoir.” —DANIEL PINCHBECK, author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl A memoir not just of survival, but of rebirth. A harrowing true story of a minister’s son escaping his anguished youth to gain spiritual awareness and a closer connection to his Christian faith through ayahuasca, a mind-expanding South American jungle vine.

“Heartbreakingly poignant . . . The journey he writes about should not be missed. This is a book for fathers and their sons; it beats the swagger of war stories.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Intertwined in this taut narrative are the strands of preacher father and doubting son, of evangelical Christianity, of family turmoil, and finally, of hard-earned redemption. This is a fearless book.” —Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire

www.FishersOfMenBook.com

TARCHER/PENGUIN A member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost Lan Samantha Chang (W.W. Norton & Company)

The Land Between Jeff Manion (Zondervan)

The Kosher Nation Sue Fishkoff (Schocken)

> According to Jeff Manion, first-

> Last summer’s massive recalls

> At the center of Lan Samantha

time author and longtime pastor,

of eggs and spinach make Sue

> Alister McGrath wants to return

Chang’s new novel are two poets who

“the land between” refers to the

Fishkoff’s Kosher Nation an especially

theology to its rightful place in the

meet at a prestigious Midwestern

difficult transitions we all encounter

timely read. Fishkoff first traces

everyday practice of the church. The 11

writing program and forge paths

at one time or another. Drawing

the historical and religious roots of

chapters in The Passionate Intellect:

that converge and diverge across

parallels between the Israelites’

kosher food laws. Then she explores

Christian Faith and the Discipleship

decades: Roman Morris becomes the

time in the desert before reaching

the ramifications of religious and

of the Mind originated as lectures in

leading voice of his generation, as

Canaan and our own periods of

non-religious Americans alike

which McGrath argues for theology’s

he always intended; Bernard Sauvet,

discontent, mourning and other

embracing the kosher food industry

vital role in “transforming the way

an awkwardly brilliant writer, labors

crises, The Land Between helps

so wholeheartedly that nearly half

we see things, leading to an enriched

for years over a single epic poem.

us see these trying seasons as a

the food in the grocery store is

perception of reality and a deeper

Chang writes what she knows—she

breeding ground for growth and

now certified kosher. Beautifully

sense of our own possibilities and

is the director of the Iowa Writers’

transformation. For Manion, the

weaving her own Jewish heritage

responsibilities within the world.”

Workshop. Shining a light on the

land between is a place Christians,

throughout the book, Fishkoff argues

For McGrath, the study of theology

lives of these poets, she explores

if they choose, “come to possess

that kosher food has become widely

isn’t a disengaged and abstract

the demands of risk, ambition and

a vital faith that allows us to be at

accepted because “what we put into

exercise; rather, it finds its authentic

truth, and the secrets that threaten to

our best when life is at its worst.”

our bodies has a lot to say about

purpose and best expression when

who we are and what we value.”

put into practice in the local church.

undermine even the best-laid plans.

Relevant 2_3.65 x 4.98

8/3/09

10:39 AM

Page 1

Live The Language • Stay with a host family • Native Spanish professors • Gain more fluency • Seville and beyond is your classroom

www.semesterinspain.org/rm spain@trnty.edu or call us 800.748.0087

The Passionate Intellect Alister McGrath (IVP Books)

CONTENTS ISSUE 48 NOV_DEC 2010 / RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

12 First Word 14 Letters 20 Slices 36 Reject Apathy: 100cameras 38 deeper walk: What Good is God? 40 The Pulse: The Drunk and the Hypocrite 42 The Drop

Greg Laswell, School of Seven Bells

46 Shad The hip-hop artist talks Jesus,

honesty and Kanye West

50 The Genius Behind Freakonomics

We talk to the producers behind this fallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most unexpected documentary

54 The Next Christians

Gabe Lyons identifies how this new generation of believers is different

60 The Art of Faith 70 Pete Yorn

The singer-songwriter is adapting to a new stage

72 Deck the Halls (Not Your Family) 76 Why We Wait Rob Bell on why Advent is a critical part

of celebrating Christmas

80 The Worst Environmental Problem Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve Never Heard Of

The lasting effects of mountaintop removal

86 Audrey Assad 90 Recommends

zach

galifianakis

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