Issue21_JulAug06-web by RELEVANT Media Group

BLOC PARTY MAT KEARNEY GNARLS BARKLEY THE STILLS INDIA.ARIE STEPHEN COLBERT | SURFER TIMMY CURRAN | TOY WARS: PS3 VS. WII | PAT ROBERTSON’S FEATS OF STRENGTH

GOD. LIFE. PROGRESSIVE CULTURE.

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ISSUE 21 | JULY_AUGUST 2006

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GETTING OVER YOURSELF THE REVOLUTION: SEX SLAVERY LOST SEASON 3 SECRETS REVEALED!

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GOD. LIFE. PROGRESSIVE CULTURE. RELEVANT magazine July/August 2006, Issue 21 Check out daily news and features at RELEVANTmagazine.com Cameron Strang Editor and Publisher cameron@relevantmediagroup.com

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POURING OUT HOPE INDIA.ARIE EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF BOUND BY DEBT EMERGENT: MISSING THE POINT? BLOC PARTY MAT KEARNEY SUMMER READING GUIDE MUSIC REVIEWS: GNARLS BARKLEY Snow Patrol, Jason Morant, The Raconteurs, Underoath

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16 ALBUMS YOU SHOULD KNOW LAST WORD

COVER STORY

THRICE As he prepares for his solo debut, Thrice’s frontman gets vulnerable about his band and where his faith is taking them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

5/31/06 5:05:03 PM

CAMERON

STRANG THE MOST PERFECT GENERATION

AFTER READING THE FEEDBACK that poured in surrounding a discussion on a recent RELEVANT Podcast, I realized something about our generation that is truly amazing. Did you know we have a gift that has literally bypassed every other generation? One that is so signiﬁcant, so unique, it affects many of our thoughts and actions on a daily basis. In a nutshell, we’re faultless. It’s really a wonderful thing being perfect. We know so much more than everyone else, we’re able to spot ﬂaws in almost everything. And, being good stewards of this gift, we make it a point to let others know what we think. Continually. Frankly, our gift has a myriad of uses, but it is at its absolute best when applied to spiritual things. Whether it’s letting everyone know when we think a sermon was weak, or that the Religious Right is a bunch of hypocrites, or that the model of contemporary church is completely wrong, we feel compelled to wear our opinions on our sleeves. And good for us. How else will everyone else know how right we are? The only possible problem with our acute correctness—and this is just a minor, minor possibility—is that we might not always be exactly, completely right. The problem is that annoying Matthew 7:1-2: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (TNIV). Or, as The Message puts it:

“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment.” Crap. Does this honestly mean we have to consider the fact that, just possibly, there could be validity to opinions, choices and lifestyles other than our own? Say it isn’t so. But did you hear about the preacher who signed a $13 million book deal and has a jet? That’s completely wasteful. He should give that money to the poor. If he has money, that means he’s relying on his bank account and not God. I’m going to go blog about it. But did you hear about the pastor who wrote a book that sold more than 60 million copies? He gave a ton of the earnings away and has committed his life to engaging the church to help the poor and leading people to Jesus. I’m sure he lives a financially blessed life, but his actions sure imply that his focus isn’t on the money those books have earned him. (By the way, he writes on page 42.) That’s where our perfection gets sticky. We only know what our opinion is, which probably isn’t the full story. Protected by our fortresses of pride, we feel emboldened to lob arrows of judgment at all of the easy targets: friends, pastors, people with more (or less) money than us, bosses, you name it. The problem is, those arrows could be just as easily pointed at us. And they probably should be. It’s easy to think having a mansion is wasteful. But on a normal income, is buying a $4 coffee at Starbucks wasteful? Or what about buying an Xbox 360? The Bible talks about not loving money, but nowhere does it say having (or using) it is wrong if your heart is in the right place. Our heart’s focus could be just as off-the-mark making $18,000 a year as it could be making $18,000,000. We all have different callings, convictions, styles, paths and passions. Just because we may disagree with someone else doesn’t necessarily make their path any less God-honoring than our own. We need to be careful about jumping to conclusions. After all, the only heart whose motive we can know for sure is our own. I wish that sticky “do to others what you’d have them do to you” thing would quit rearing its ugly head. That simple idea might actually force us to have to stop jumping to conclusions and forming one-sided opinions about people and situations that don’t involve us. It might require us to consider where the other side is coming from first. That’s a problem, mainly because it could unravel our generation’s most endearing trait. If we’re not always correct, then what are we? People who need to get over ourselves, listen and be known for our love and humility. People who need to die to our pride and self-worth so we can see SLEEPING AT LAST the things God is trying to Keep No Score get our attention about in our own lives if we’d just stop nitpicking and pointing out the BEN HARPER flaws in everything else long Both Sides of the Gun enough to listen. People who need to change. Then again, I could be GNARLS BARKLEY wrong. Nobody’s perfect. 0 St. Elsewhere

LISTENING TO

CAMERON STRANG is the president and founder of RELEVANT. He shaved his head recently because “hair was too hot.”

MAT KEARNEY Nothing Left to Lose

EDITORS The Back Room

FIRST WORD

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JULY/AUGUST 2006

COMMENTS. CONCERNS. SMART REMARKS. Send your love and hate mail to feedback@relevantmagazine.com.

Man, people need to hear and listen to what Derek Webb has to say (May/June 2006)! I realize he’s just one man and isn’t perfect, but his comments on Christians and politicians are dead-on! His heart for Africa shows his commitment to truly live out his faith. Reading that interview was a breath of fresh air. —RANDALL BURKE

Thank you for introducing me to Derek Webb! Listening to him is so refreshing. His music and words seem to capture a lot of what is in my heart. I don’t want to be rebellious to Christianity in general, but I want change, and I want genuine truth to be out there! Derek reminds me of a modern day Keith Green. —AUSTIN MALONE You know what else is refreshing? Showers. Derek Webb said that he was going [to visit Africa], but then felt the money they had raised to pay for plane tickets would be better used for the people ﬂat-out. I have been to Senegal and continue to work with a small village there on water projects, and the people need our resources, but they need our lives, too. Jesus gave practical resources and help, but He also gave His heart. The next time you get a chance to go to Africa, take it and share your life. —DAN COLWIN

Derek Webb is a gifted musician and songwriter, but clearly not well versed in politics. He should continue to make thoughtprovoking music, but to pretend that politics aren’t at play when he tries to call for a move to help Africa, a land devastated by several non-democratic dictatorships, doesn’t quite wash. The only person I’ve heard who speaks convincingly on such matters is Bono.

“A Case for Hope” and “Start a Revolution” grabbed my attention immediately. The articles’ presentation of current world issues, inextricable ties with Scripture and helpful steps toward progress deemed them worthy to be read and lived.

I enjoyed “Start a Revolution” (May/June 2006). One thing that did catch me offguard, though, was the advice to buy organic. Without nitrogen fertilizers, the productivity of farmland decreases over time, which would make it impossible to feed the world’s current population. While these fertilizers do have problems, such as nitrates in water, I think we also need to look at the alternative. —TIM GWYNN

You guys pretty much have the “counter culture” down to a science. How about sports? We’ve heard from the celebs, musicians and other renowned ﬁgures. What do you think? —BEN JOHANNING

Once upon a time, we put an athlete on our cover. Nobody bought that issue. That’s not to say we never will again, but we’ll wait until the right opportunity comes along. This magazine makes breathing easier for me. I feel like I’ve been swimming through church, holding my ideas like my breath. —TIM POSTLEWAITE

You know what else would make you breathe easier? Nasal strips.

We were getting worried, because we were afraid that this would be a Bono-free issue. Thanks for saving us, Eric. From the travel slices to the Last Word, it was clear that this issue (May/June 2006) was one of a global kingdom focus. The articles

Kudos to Underoath for being able to do what they do. It can’t be easy being a light in a place where there is so much dark, and

—ROB DUNHAM

—MAGGIE GUNN

I really appreciate the article on Underoath and their take on religion (May/June 2006). However, I would like to point out that complete acceptance must be in a biblical manner to bridge the gap and bring people back to the Church. —MICAH JANSEN

—ERIC BRAMLETT

thanks to RELEVANT for continuing to push the boundaries and causing Christians to look at their beliefs and ﬁgure out why is it we believe what we do, instead of just accepting it as what we’ve been told.

Totally awesome article by Mark Steele (“Seize the Duh,” May/June 2006). He had me in stitches the whole time! —AMY SKRETTA

Our recommendation would be to let doctors, not Mark Steele, do your stitches. The article by David Crowder (“Naked Before God,” May/June 2006) was laugh-out-loud funny! Not only was it a humorous read, but it really spoke the truth to me as a Christian. I feel encouraged to forget about everyone else, myself included, and just concentrate on a deeper relationship with God. —BOB RICHARDSON

Thanks for not sucking. Your product is quality and an inspiration. Thanks for not looking like a dressed-up church bulletin that was made in Microsoft Publisher. —ZACK BULICK

Zack, thank you for not sucking. I think I’m in love with RELEVANT. Getting my magazine in the mail brings me such joy. I spend hours reading, rereading and gazing at the beautiful pages. The aesthetics of the magazine, and website for that matter, are gorgeous. Also, I’ve never read a magazine that brings so much of my emotions to the surface. Your pages have made me cry, made me angry, made me laugh and given me hope. I love listening to your podcast too! —AMY COLE

Amy, we think we’re in love with you, too. Have you met Zack?

LETTERS

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JULY/AUGUST 2006

COMMENTS. CONCERNS. SMART REMARKS. Send your love and hate mail to feedback@relevantmagazine.com.

You guys pretty much have the “counter culture” down to a science. How about sports? We’ve heard from the celebs, musicians and other renowned ﬁgures. What do you think? —BEN JOHANNING

You know what else would make you breath easier? Nasal strips.

Kudos to Underoath for being able to do what they do. It can’t be easy being a light in a place where there is so much dark, and

—ROB DUNHAM

—MAGGIE GUNN

—ERIC BRAMLETT

Totally awesome article by Mark Steele (“Seize the Duh,” May/June 2006). He had me in stitches the whole time! —AMY SKRETTA

Thanks for not sucking. Your product is quality and an inspiration. Thanks for not looking like a dressed-up church bulletin that was made in Microsoft Publisher. —ZACK BULICK

Zack, thank you for not sucking. I think I’m in love with RELEVANT. Getting my magazine in the mail brings me such joy. I spend hours reading, rereading and gazing at the beautiful pages. The aesthetics of the magazine, and website for that matter, are goregous. Also, I’ve never read a magazine that brings so much of my emotions to the surface. Your pages have made me cry, made me angry, made me laugh and given me hope. I love listening to your podcast too! —AMY COLE

Amy, we think we’re in love with you, too. Have you met Zack?

LETTERS

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5/30/06 4:54:14 PM

Part of the proceeds from Hope in the Dark go directly to African relief agencies.

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Beauty blends with despair as photojournalist Jeremy Cowart documents Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s AIDS generation, introducing real faces and real lives to the statistics. By capturing the hope and beauty that stand strong against the epidemic, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll see the problem firsthand through his unflinching and revealing lens. Available at bookstores everywhere or order today at RELEVANTstore.com

TIMMY CURRAN • THE SMASHING PUMPKINS REUNITE • BRITISH TV FINDS JESUS?

THE NEW AMERICAN HERO? STEPHEN COLBERT,

the host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report— and self-proclaimed purveyor of truthiness—has become a cult hero since his April 29 speech at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Colbert received only a lukewarm response at the event and little mainstream press, but the video of his hilarious speech quickly began making its rounds on the Internet. (It’s now available for download through iTunes.) Colbert didn’t break character as the same Bush-loving, fact-hating Bill O’Reillymimicking news commentator he plays on his show. Although Republicans and Democrats alike got a hard laugh out of Colbert’s satirizing of Bush and the press corp, not everyone was laughing. The 20-minute comedy bit has sparked some serious debate, with some calling Colbert “the last true journalist”—we are talking about the comedian, right?—and others calling him “rude” and an “insulting bully.” The lowest blow of all was when The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen said he just plain wasn’t funny. In the end, though, Colbert got the last laugh, with The Colbert Report receiving a 37 percent increase in viewers in the week following the speech. Take that, liberal haters of truthiness.

SLICES

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TIMMY CURRAN • THE SMASHING PUMPKINS REUNITE • BRITISH TV FIND JESUS?

THE NEW AMERICAN HERO? STEPHEN COLBERT,

SLICES

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MISC. The Irish are Google’s loneliest users. The word lonely was searched for more frequently in Ireland than any other country. Ironically, Ireland was named the best place to live by Economist magazine ... The creator of Super Columbine Massacre RPG claims that his game, which puts players in the role of murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold during the Columbine school shooting, will “promote a real dialogue on the subject of school shootings.” Family members of victims—and anyone else with a beating heart—disagree ...

TIMMY CURRAN RIDES A NEW WAVE As one of the world’s top surfers—not to mention one of the field’s most outspoken Christians—Timmy Curran has toured with the World Championship Tour (WCT) and has earned a serious place in surf history by being the first surfer to successfully land a backflip. So now may not sound like the best time to switch to a new line of work. Last spring, though, Curran quit the WCT and released his debut album, Citsuca, a collection of whispery surf-folk tunes. Going from all-star surfer to novice songwriter was an intimidating move for Curran. “I’m kind of putting myself out there,” he says. “It took me 10 years to start playing my own songs in front of anyone.” Curran began playing guitar when he was 13 years old. His dad turned him on to singer/songwriters like James Taylor and Neil Young. Those artists continue to influence him today. The surf community has been particularly positive toward his new venture, and that support has encouraged him to continue making music. He has no grand illusions of musical superstardom, and he certainly isn’t finished with his first love. He’s been surfing too long to think about leaving. But his success as a surfer has allowed him to attempt something else with little fear of failure. “I’ll always be a surfer,” he says. “Any of this music stuff is just a bonus.”

The city council of Black Jack, Mo., recently rejected a measure that would allow unmarried couples with multiple children to live together. Oddly, an unmarried couple with only one child is exempt from this restriction ...

SMASHING PUMPKINS v2.O When the Smashing Pumpkins called it quits in 2000, it seemed to be the end of the line. But rumors of a reunion started swirling last year when Billy Corgan took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times saying that he wanted to renew and revive the Smashing Pumpkins. In April of this year, another announcement was made. “It’s ofﬁcial,” the Pumpkins said via their website. “The Smashing Pumpkins are currently writing songs for their upcoming album, their ﬁrst since 2000. No release date has yet been set, but the band plans to begin recording this summer.” While a new release from the Smashing Pumpkins looks certain, it is still uncertain whether the entire group will be back. Estranged band members D’Arcy Wretzky and James Iha have not commented on whether they will rejoin Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin.

THE BBC HEARTS JC

Actor/director Jodie Foster, who is known for being one of the most intelligent people in Hollywood, quoted Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” during a commencement speech. Didn’t see that coming ...

The BBC has been finding success with religious programming recently, specifically religiously themed reality shows. The Monastery, a reality show about five laymen who spend 40 days in a Benedictine monastery, was a hit with people of a variety of faiths. Other BBC successes include Priest Idol, in which clergymen have 12 months to increase church attendance, and The Manchester Passion, an Easter special that told the passion story through the lyrics of Britpop songs. While these faith-based shows have been receiving major audiences, the BBC hasn’t made known whether its new affection for Jesus is a long-term relationship or just a passing fling.

SLICES

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THE BBC HEARTS JC

Actor/director Jodie Foster, who is known for being one of the most intelligent people in Hollywood, quoted Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” during a commencement speech. Didn’t see that coming ...

SLICES

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5/30/06 5:53:43 PM

BIBLE SHOWDOWN • COFFEE TRANSLATORS

MISC. A SECRET SOCIETY OF BIBLE TRANSLATORS? When talking with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke about his newest musical endeavor The Eraser, don’t call it a solo album. Yorke claims the new collection of songs does not suggest a rift in the British rock group. “I want no crap about me being a traitor or splitting up or whatever,” he said in a statement. Yorke’s “not-solo” album hits store July 11 ...

THE ULTIMATE COFFEE SHOWDOWN Starbucks, the coffee giant, is known for its complicated set of beverages and hip atmosphere. Dunkin’ Donuts is most widely known for its donuts and awesome “time to make the donuts” commercials. Lately, though, Dunkin’ Donuts has been on the warpath, edging its way into the designer coffee market and trying to give Starbucks a run for its money. Boston-based Dunkin’ Donuts’ strategy is to be a cheaper, faster alternative to its Seattlebased competitor.

HOW DO THEY STACK UP? STARBUCKS

DUNKIN’ DONUTS

AVG.WAIT TIME

2 min. 55 sec.

2 min. 4 sec.

HOUSE BLEND

$9.99, 1 lb.

$7.99, 1 lb.

SKIM VAN. LATTE

$3.69

$2.16

CAPPUCCINO

12 oz., 120 cal.

10 oz., 80 cal.

LATTE

12 oz., 200 cal.

10 oz., 120 cal.

SEATING

Couches

Plastic Booths

Wi-Fi

Yes

# OF STORES

7,569

5,800

FAIR TRADE

Yes

If you are looking for a swanky place to hang out and the prestige of knowing you are a coffee connoisseur, then you’ll still want to head over to the Starbucks on the nearest block. But if your time or money is more important to you than hipster status, ﬁnd your way to Dunkin’ Donuts, where you can get your caffeine ﬁx for less cash and less time.

Not wanting to compete with the fantasy film The Water Horse, Walt Disney Pictures has postponed the release of the second Narnia film, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, until December 2008 ... Does President Bush plan to see Al Gore’s global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth? “Doubt it,” he told an audience in May. Bush, who beat Gore in the 2000 presidential election, did say that he remains committed to environmental issues ...

In an online poll, the artist currently known as Prince was voted “world’s sexiest vegetarian” by PETA supporters. “Purple Rain” was great and all, but sexy? Really?

The newly formed Ecclesia Bible Society (EBS) is releasing a full-orbed narrative and artistic retelling of the Bible through a new project called The Voice, a series of books and CDs that will release throughout the next ﬁve years. It launched with last spring’s The Last Eyewitness: The Final Week and the album Songs from The Voice, Volume 1: Please Don’t Make Us Sing This Song. The ﬁrst segment of the project includes work from notable authors such as Donald Miller, Lauren Winner, Phyllis Tickle, Tim Keel, Brian McLaren and Dieter Zander, as well as musicians and visual artists including Derek Webb, Sara Groves and the Robbie Seay Band. Project originator Chris Seay describes The Voice as a serious translation that allows the original biblical authors to speak in all their truth, beauty and stylistic diversity. The Voice is not a new translation of Scripture. (You can continue reading that TNIV you just bought.) Instead, it presents Scripture in its original artistic or literary form. Biblical poetry will be retold by poets, songs by musicians and history by historians. The EBS believes that many traditional Bible translation committees have muted the original biblical authors’ unique voices, Seay says. “The Chronicles of Narnia and Blue Like Jazz ... [are] among my favorite books,” he says. “But 100 years from now, if a committee of translators tried to make C.S. Lewis’ and Don Miller’s voices sound the same on the page, you wouldn’t want to read either one. “What we long to do is retell the stories of Scripture, not only in truth but in beauty,” Seay says. “We hope that you fall in love with these stories anew.”

SLICES

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BIBLE SHOWDOWN • COFFEE TRANSLATORS

HOW DO THEY STACK UP? STARBUCKS

DUNKIN’ DONUTS

AVG.WAIT TIME

2 min. 55 sec.

2 min. 4 sec.

HOUSE BLEND

$9.99, 1 lb.

$7.99, 1 lb.

SKIM VAN. LATTE

$3.69

$2.16

CAPPUCCINO

12 oz., 120 cal.

10 oz., 80 cal.

LATTE

12 oz., 200 cal.

10 oz., 120 cal.

SEATING

Couches

Plastic Booths

Wi-Fi

Yes

# OF STORES

7,569

5,800

FAIR TRADE?

Yes

In an online poll, the artist currently known as Prince was voted “world’s sexiest vegetarian” by PETA supporters. “Purple Rain” was great and all, but sexy? Really?

The newly formed Ecclesia Bible Society (EBS) is releasing a full-orbed narrative and artistic retelling of the Bible through a new project called The Voice, a series of books and CDs that will release throughout the next ﬁve years. It launched with last spring’s The Last Eyewitness: The Final Week and the album Songs from The Voice, Volume 1: Please Don’t Make Us Sing This Song. The ﬁrst segment of the project includes work from notable authors such as Donald Miller, Lauren Winner, Phyllis Tickle, Tim Keel, Brian McLaren and Dieter Zander, as well as musicians and visual artists including Derek Webb, Sara Groves and the Robbie Seay Band. Project originator Chris Seay describes The Voice as a serious translation that allows the original biblical authors to speak in all their truth, beauty and stylistic diversity. The Voice is not a new translation of Scripture. (You can continue reading that TNIV you just bought.) Instead, it presents Scripture in its original artistic or literary form. Biblical poetry will be retold by poets, songs by musicians and history by historians. The EBS believes that many traditional Bible translation committees have muted the original biblical authors’ unique voices, Seay says. “The Chronicles of Narnia and Blue Like Jazz ... [are[ among my favorite books,” he says. “But 100 years from now, if a committee of translators tried to make C.S. Lewis’ and Don Miller’s voices sound the same on the page, you wouldn’t want to read either one. “What we long to do is retell the stories of Scripture, not only in truth but in beauty,” Seay says. “We hope that you fall in love with these stories anew.”

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THE STILLS • PLANKEYE • DON’T MAKE PAT ROBERTSON ANGRY

SOMETHING FISHY ABOUT LIAM: (L-R) Oliver Corbeil, Tim Fletcher, Liam O’Neil, Dave Hamelin and Julian Blais

PAT ROBERTSON: ONE OF THE STRONGEST MEN ALIVE? If recent reports are true, televangelist Pat Robertson may very well have some of the strongest legs in the world. The 76-year-old claims he can leg press a massive 2,000 pounds. This feat of strength is possible, he says, due to “rigorous training” and his special formula “age-defying protein shake.” What makes the claim all the more astounding is that while no world record is kept in this category, the Florida State University leg-press record is a mere 1,335 pounds. And during that attempt, the lifter, Dan Kendra, burst the capillaries in both of his eyes. Despite national skepticism, Robertson isn’t backing down. (A man who can lift 2,000 pounds with his legs doesn’t back down to anyone.) “We have multiple witnesses to the 2,000-pound leg press, plus video of the 10 reps of 1,000 pounds,” says his spokesperson, who adds that it “really is not as difficult as it sounds.” What’s more, Robertson’s doctor can allegedly leg press 2,700 pounds. The moral of the story? Pat Robertson could snap you like a twig using only his legs. So watch out, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

THE STILLS In 2003 The Stills were one of the most discussed and least heard bands on the planet. Although originally from Montreal, the band was part of the much-hyped New York rock art-punk scene. They were deemed cool by association, even before their debut album, Only Logic Will Break Your Heart, was released. “The press was saying all of these great things about us, and we hardly had any music out,” guitarist Dave Hamelin says. “At that point, we felt we hadn’t lived up to any of the hype. We were so new.” When the band went back in the studio earlier this year to record their follow-up, Without Feathers, they knew it was important to prove themselves based on their music, instead of on being part of a certain scene. “I’m really proud of this record,” Hamelin says. “If anything justiﬁes the hype, this one does.” —TYLER CLARK

THEN In the mid-’90s, Plankeye was one of the hottest bands on Tooth & Nail’s roster. They defined indie rock for kids in the Christian rock scene. When lead singer Scott Silletta left in 1998, things headed downhill quickly.

Things Pat Robertson can lift with his legs: 1,600 copies of the Bible

1 Volkswagen Beetle and a 214-lb. driver

3 male gorillas, 4 cheetahs and 1 newborn African elephant

18 Magnavox 27” TVs

ONLINE BONUS: Stream a video of Robertson leg pressing 1,000 pounds and download the recipe for his age-defying protein shake at http://www.cbn.com/ communitypublic/shake.asp.

NOW Silletta opened Orange Crush Studio, in Orange, Calif. He’s recorded with House of Heroes, Letters Kill and As Hope Dies. He and his wife, Genny, are expecting their first daughter this summer. “I’m very happy not being in the spotlight,” he says. As far as his old Plankeye days, there isn’t a lot he misses. “The problems that we faced as one of the early ‘Christian alternative rock’ bands were hard,” he says. “It was hard to swallow mothers telling me that I wasn’t saved because I had tattoos.”

PLANKEYE

ONLINE BONUS: Hit up RELEVANTmagazine.com to read the full interview with Scott Silletta.

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THE STILLS • PLANKEYE • DON’T MAKE PAT ROBERTSON ANGRY

SOMETHING FISHY ABOUT LIAM: (L-R) Oliver Corbeil , Tim Fletcher, Liam O’Neil, Dave Hamelin and Julian Blais

PAT ROBERTSON: ONE OF THE STRONGEST MEN ALIVE? If recent reports are true, televangelist Pat Robertson may very well have some of the strongest legs in the world. The 76-year-old claims he he can leg press a massive 2,000 pounds. This feat of strength is possible, he says, due to “rigorous training” and his special formula “age-defying protein shake.” What makes the claim all the more astounding is that while no world record is kept in this category, the Florida State University leg-press record is a mere 1,335 pounds. And during that attempt, the lifter, Dan Kendra, burst the capillaries in both of his eyes. Despite national skepticism, Robertson isn’t backing down. (A man who can lift 2,000 pounds with his legs doesn’t back down to anyone.) “We have multiple witnesses to the 2,000 poundleg press, plus video of the 10 reps of 1,000 pounds,” says his spokesperson, who adds that it “really is not as difficult as it sounds.” What’s more, Robertson’s doctor can allegedly leg press 2,700 pounds. The moral of the story? Pat Robertson could snap you like a twig using only his legs. So watch out, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Things Pat Robertson can lift with his legs: 1,600 copies of the Bible

1 Volkswagen Beetle and a 214-pound driver

3 Male Gorillas, 4 Cheetahs and 1 newborn African Elephant

18 Magnavox 27” TVs

ONLINE BONUS: Stream a video of Robertson leg pressing 1,000 lbs. and download the recipe for his age-defying protein shake at http://www.cbn.com/ communitypublic/shake.asp.

PLANKEYE

ONLINE BONUS: Hit up RELEVANTmagazine. com to read the full interview with Scott Silletta.

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Live high-energy modern worship…strongly driven by a passion for God…by a hungry desperate generation. That’s at the core of Desperation Band and their songs (''Rescue, ''I Am Free,'' ''Amazed'') which have reached far beyond through radio, churches and other artists worldwide. Appearing at high profile events such as Creation festivals, Kingdombound and Acquire The Fire arena events, Desperation Band continues to keep a local church foundation. The three principle members (Jared Anderson, Jon Egan, and Glenn Packiam) are associate worship pastors at New Life Church in Colorado Springs under the leadership of Senior pastor Ted Haggard and worship pastor Ross Parsley.

Includes Free

BONUS DVD

Featuring Live Worship & Behind The Scenes Footage

verticalmusic Available At Your Favorite Christian Music Retailer or www.IntegrityMusic.com

THE STILLS • PLANKEYE • DON’T MAKE PAT ROBERTSON ANGRY

SOMETHING FISHY ABOUT LIAM: (L-R) Oliver Corbeil , Tim Fletcher, Liam O’Neil, Dave Hamelin and Julian Blais

Things Pat Robertson can lift with his legs: 1,600 copies of the Bible

1 Volkswagen Beetle and a 214-lb. driver

3 male gorillas, 4 cheetahs and 1 newborn African elephant

18 Magnavox 27” TVs

ONLINE BONUS: Stream a video of Robertson leg pressing 1,000 pounds and download the recipe for his age-defying protein shake at http://www.cbn.com/ communitypublic/shake.asp.

PLANKEYE

ONLINE BONUS: Hit up RELEVANTmagazine. com to read the full interview with Scott Silletta.

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SAVE ON GAS SO YOU CAN BUY A PS3 • JESUS IN THE NEWS

TWO NEW REASONS TO STAY INSIDE

BEATING THE GAS-GOUGE MONSTER

Make sure your vehicle is in top working order, and heed the recommendations in the owner’s manual. This will not only get you better gas mileage but will help your vehicle run better, longer.

THE PS3: For only $500 you can have something that looks exactly like the PS2!

Geeks, rejoice! The wait is almost over. Sony has announced that the PS3 is set to release Nov. 17. Much like the Xbox 360, there will be two versions available. A 20 GB version will go for $499, and one with a 60 GB drive for a whopping $599. The PS3’s controller will include a built-in gyroscope and almost exactly resemble the controller for the PS2. Nintendo also announced the name of its new console, Wii still don’t know what to which releases think about this one. this fall. The Nintendo Wii (pronounced “we”) is intended to convey the all-inclusive nature of the system. The name has come under harsh criticism for its “kiddiness.” Nintendo has essentially abandoned the typical controller with the Wii. Their new controller resembles a television remote and numchucks—yes, numchucks—with a gyroscope inside.

PS3 Traditional controller

Two controllers that function as one

$599 or $499, depending on option

Nintendo has promised it will cost less than PS3, but hasn’t said specifics

60 GB or 20 GB of memory, depending on option Wi-Fi connection only in 60 GB version

Wii

512 MB of memory Wi-Fi connection

If the high gas prices are killing you this summer and car-less forms of transportation are out of the question, these seven simple techniques will help your car guzzle less gas ...

Drive carefully. Follow the speed limit and coast whenever possible to conserve fuel as you drive. Use cruise control on the highway and don’t push the gas pedal more than a quarter of the way down at any time.

Lay off the A/C. Relying too heavily on air conditioning does affect fuel economy. That said, when you get on the highway, make sure to close your windows—at higher speeds, the drag that occurs when the windows are open wastes more fuel than running your A/C.

Travel light. According to www. fueleconomy.gov, an extra 100 pounds in your car can reduce your miles per gallon by up to 2 percent.

Don’t let your car idle excessively. When idling, a car gets zero miles per gallon. Avoid warming up your engine for prolonged periods, and at railroad crossings and long traffic lights, put your car in neutral.

6. Gas up your car at the coolest time of day, i.e., early in the morning. When it’s cool outside, gasoline is at its densest; since gas pumps measure volumes of gasoline rather than densities of fuel concentration, buyers are charged by “volume of measurement.”

Avoid rough roads whenever possible. Also, turning corners and changing lanes can require extra gas, so choose the straighter path when navigating your travel routes.

JESUS IN THE NEWS NOT MUCH LIKE A VIRGIN? Madonna proved that she still knows how to shock and offend when she launched her Confessions Tour by appearing on stage strapped to an oversized cross with a crown of thorns on her head. “Knock off the Christ-bashing,” Catholic League president Bill Donohue said after the first concert of the tour. “It’s just pathetic” ...

COMING TO AMERICA Three Iraqi men seeking asylum in the United States as persecuted Christians were arrested and sentenced to six months in prison after being apprehended crossing the Rio Grande. The

men pled guilty to illegal entry from Mexico. The judge was sympathetic to their plight but said they should have gone to an international bridge rather than trying to sneak across the border. He said their prison sentence should give them ample time to apply for asylum ...

HARVARD BIBLE COLLEGE Harvard University has recently seen a considerable rise as of late in evangelical Christians joining its ranks. According to the university’s president, the number of Harvard students who identify themselves as evangelical Christians has doubled in the last decade ...

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IT’S THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOK IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION. YET FEW OF US HAVE A CLUE WHAT’S GOING ON WITHIN ITS GOLD-LINED PAGES.

UNTIL NOW.

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THE SUBWAYS • RELEVANT.TV

WHITE MEN CAN JUMP: (L-R) Billy Lunn, Josh Morgan and Charlotte Cooper

RELEVANT.TV

VIEWER

TOP TEN 1. Switchfoot “We Are One Tonight” 2. Imogen Heap “Goodnight and Go” 3. Arcade Fire “Neighborhood #1” 4. Mat Kearney “Nothing Left to Lose” 5. Norma Jean “Liarscenic”

6. Mars Ill “Sound Off” 7. Angels and Airwaves “The Adventure” 8. Gnarls Barkley “Crazy” 9. Mindy Smith “Come to Jesus” 10. Matisyahu “King Without a Crown”

RECENT SPOTLIGHT VIDEOS

Gnarls Barkley “Crazy”

Anberlin “Paperthin Hymn”

India.Arie “I Am Not My Hair”

Mat Kearney “Nothing Left to Lose”

The Flaming Lips “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”

Angels and Airwaves “The Adventure”

THE SUBWAYS Not long after The Subways released their debut album, Young for Eternity, earlier this year, bassist Charlotte Cooper found one downside to the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. “It’s very strange when we go home, because we get into the routine of touring, and when we are home it’s not for more than a few days,” she says. “If it’s for any more than a week, we start to feel really strange. We like going home to see our friends and family, but we’re always thinking about the next tour.” But she—along with her ﬁancé/lead singer Billy Lunn and drummer Josh Morgan—is not letting that keep her down. “The important thing about the idea of Young for Eternity for us is we never want to become jaded or take things for granted,” she says. “There’s a certain struggle to keep that ideal, because you do get used to things, but we want to go against that.” —CAMERON LAWRENCE

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READ. MEDITATE. PRAY. CONTEMPLATE ÊLi iÛiÊ ÊÌ iÊÃÕ iÛi ÊÜ i Ê ÌÊ ÃÊ ÌÊÃ }° ÊLi iÛiÊ Ê Ûi iÛi ÊÜ i Ê Êvii Ê ÌÊ Ì° ÊLi iÛiÊ Ê ` iÛi ÊÜ i Ê iÊ ÃÊÃ i Ì° –WRITTEN ON A WALL IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP

7iÊÃ Õ `Ê ÌÊLiÊÃÕÀ«À Ãi`ÊÌ >ÌÊ>Ê vi }Ê ÕÀ iÞÊÜ Ì Ê `Ê } ÌÊ LÀ }ÊÕÃÊÃÕvviÀ }Ê> `Ê >À`Ã «°Ê vÊÌ iÊVÀ ÃÃÊÌi>V iÃÊÕÃÊ> ÞÌ }]Ê ÌÊ Ìi>V iÃÊÕÃÊÌ >ÌÊÃ iÌ iÃÊ `ÊV iÃÊÌ À Õ} Ê>vÌiÀÊÜi½ÛiÊLii Ê i`° –ERWIN McMANUS

Featuring insights from classical writers and todayʼs freshest voices, Todayʼs Devotional Bible provides deep daily devotions from both a classic voice and a contemporary voice on the same topic. This devotional Bible also features powerful weekend reflections that pattern the Lectio Divina helping you to discover and develop a spiritual rhythm in your life journey.

ÀÊ ÀiÊ v À >Ì Ê>L ÕÌÊÌ iÊ iÜÊ/ `>Þ½ÃÊ iÛ Ì > Ê L iÊÛ Ã ÌÊ ÜÜÜ°/ 6°V ]Ê ÀÊ« V Ê iÊÕ«Ê>ÌÊÞ ÕÀÊv>Û À ÌiÊL ÃÌ Ài°

JONEZETTA • RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM POLLS

JONEZETTA Jonezetta is a joke. Or at least they used to be. “We were in high school together,” says frontman Robert Chisolm of the angular dance-punk band. “We were all in different bands, and those bands were kind of serious. And then we wanted a band that wasn’t so serious, so we started this band as a joke and to have fun. We’d do stuff on the weekends. We didn’t really think that much about doing music until we were discovered by our manager, who was like, ‘You guys should do this.’ So we recorded our demos, and that’s what sparked it all off.” They ended up in a bidding war with a number of labels and got great word of mouth about their good-time music and live show. “I think that we try to write music that we like,” says bassist Ty Garvey. “When we write songs, we try to envision people having a good time to the songs.” Now one of the biggest buzz bands on Tooth & Nail’s roster, Jonezetta—and their fans—get the last laugh. —JEREMY HUNT

RELEVANT MAGAZINE .COM

WE ASK STUPID QUESTIONS, YOU ACTUALLY TAKE THE TIME TO ANSWER

WHAT SONG LYRIC BEST DESCRIBES YOU? God put a smile upon my face I’m a Jesus freak I’m losing my religion Heaven knows I’m miserable now Mo money mo problems Total votes: 2,442

NATURE LOVERS: (L-R) Mick Parsons, Robert Chisolm, Kyle Howe and Ty Garvey

48% 22% 14% 9% 7%

HOW MANY TIMES A WEEK DO YOU EAT FAST FOOD?

WHERE DO YOU SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME ONLINE?

1-2 3-4 5-6 More than 6 I never eat fast food

Blog sites RELEVANTmagazine.com News sites iTunes Chat rooms

Total votes: 950

60% 26% 7% 4% 3%

57% 22% 11% 7% 3%

Total votes: 2,563

SLICES

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JONEZETTA • RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM POLLS

RELEVANT MAGAZINE .COM

WE ASK STUPID QUESTIONS, YOU ACTUALLY TAKE THE TIME TO ANSWER

WHAT SONG LYRIC BEST DESCRIBES YOU? God put a smile upon my face I’m a Jesus freak I’m losing my religion Heaven knows I’m miserable now Mo money mo problems Total votes: 2,442

NATURE LOVERS: (L-R) Mick Parsons, Robert Chisholm, Kyle Howe and Ty Garvey

48% 22% 14% 9% 7%

HOW MANY TIMES A WEEK DO YOU EAT FAST FOOD?

WHERE DO YOU SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME ONLINE?

1-2 3-4 5-6 More than 6 I never eat fast food

Blog sites RELEVANTmagazine.com News sites iTunes Chat rooms

Total votes: 950

60% 26% 7% 4% 3%

57% 22% 11% 7% 3%

Total votes: 2,563

SLICES

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DO YOU SUBSCRIBE?

TO SUBSCRIBE: TOLL-FREE: (866) 512-1108 | RELEVANTmagazine.com/subscribe

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DO YOU SUBSCRIBE?

TO SUBSCRIBE: TOLL-FREE: (866) 512-1108 | RELEVANTmagazine.com/subscribe

LAUREL BRANDSTETTER

LAUREL BRANDSTETTER MAD IMPORTS TELL US ABOUT MAD IMPORTS. Mad Imports is a Fair Trade company that offers eclectic accessories handmade in Madagascar and Kenya. Our handbags are designed through a collaborative process with NYC and African designers. Sales are reinvested in education, community and economic development projects. We currently fund an orphanage, a children’s education project, and business and product development workshops. Our sales provide jobs and help grow small businesses in Madagascar and Kenya.

WHAT KIND OF IMPACT DOES THIS HAVE ON THE LOCAL ECONOMIES IN MADAGASCAR AND KENYA? In Madagascar, millions of people are involved in the handicrafts industry on some level. It’s an art-loving nation. This business creates the opportunity for individuals and families to earn fair compensation for their creations and participate in international trade. Malagasy people earn less than a dollar a day, on average. Most people are farmers dependent on dwindling resources. This work allows women to farm and care for children while earning income from home. It promotes environmental conservation because it makes use of renewable materials and creates jobs along the supply chain for the rural poor.

WHERE CAN PEOPLE BUY MAD IMPORT PRODUCTS? All of our products are available on our website, www.madimports.net. You can also ﬁnd our handbags and stationery at stores around the country.

COUNTER CULTURE

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LAUREL BRANDSTETTER

WHERE CAN PEOPLE BUY MAD IMPORT PRODUCTS? All of our products are available on our website, www.madimports.net. You can also ﬁnd our handbags and stationery at stores around the country.

COUNTER CULTURE

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RELEVANT GURU • WHERE TO BUY FAIR TRADE • NEEDTOBREATHE

THE RELEVANT GURU How to Be Relevant, #212 The next time you’re sitting next to a stranger on a plane, cock your iPod at just the right angle so your neighbor can see your jams. Start with something to build credibility. Don’t forget—people won’t listen to you unless they think you’re really cool. So after you’ve played enough Ladytron and Arctic Monkeys, go in for the kill with some independent—not lame major-label—worship music. When your curious neighbor asks about your musical interests, hit him with the Gospel. But not the parts about hell and sin. After all, you still want him to think you’re cool.

NEEDTOBREATHE It doesn’t take much to rise above the ﬁlth of the bar scene. Or so say the members of Needtobreathe. The South Carolina pop-rock band has been playing shady bars and clubs for almost as long as they’ve been a band. Simultaneously, they’ve been playing the Christian rock circuit. While it isn’t uncommon for a band to play the Christian scene for a few years before jumping to a mainstream label, Needtobreathe did it from the beginning. Their debut album, Daylight, has been released through both Atlantic Records and Sparrow Records. Lead singer Bear Rinehart said that although the markets are very different, the band’s behavior or performance is not. “You don’t have to go crazy for people to see that you’re a Christian,” he says. “People can see that there’s something different.” Rinehart really experienced this one night after the band’s set at a club, when he overheard a conversation between two drunk guys. “Do you think those guys were a Christian band?” one said. “I don’t know, man,” the other answered. “I think they might be. But they sure can rock.” —TYLER CLARK

FINDING FAIR TRADE So you’ve been bombarded with Fair Trade facts and you’ve decided you want to buy Fair Trade products. But how do you know what’s Fair Trade and what’s not? The next time you head to the grocery store—grocers that specialize in organic and natural foods are a good place to start—be sure to look for these brands:

COFFEE • Starbucks • Sam’s Club • Dunkin’ Donuts • Seattle’s Best Coffee • Millstone • Dean’s Beans Look for this Fair Trade logo

SUGAR • Alter Eco • Corigins, Inc. • Equal Exchange • Wholesome Sweeteners

BUYING ONLINE • transfairusa.org • fairtradefederation.org • gxonlinestore.org

FRUIT • Jonathan’s Organics • New Harvest Organics • Turbana Corporation • New Century Produce

SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT: (L-R) Joe Stillwell, Bear Rinehart, Bo Rinehart and Seth Bolt

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h)TS MESSAGE IS SIMPLE BEING A #HRISTIAN REQUIRES MORE THAN JUST DROPPING A CHECK IN THE COLLECTION PLATE EVERY 3UNDAY MORNING v 4HE .EW 9ORK 4IMES h"E PREPARED TO HAVE YOUR HEART TOUCHED AND YOUR LIFE CHANGED v *ANET 0ARSHALL (OST OF *ANET 0ARSHALL S !MERICA

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h"E PREPARED TO HAVE YOUR HEART TOUCHED AND YOUR LIFE CHANGED v *ANET 0ARSHALL (OST OF *ANET 0ARSHALL S !MERICA

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RELEVANT’S LOOK AT WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD

jittery toe to The Cars’ “Let the Good Times Roll.” Friend, you’ve just found the Holy Grail. Other coffee spigots worth their beans include Ristretto Roasters on NE Fremont, World Cup Coffee on NW Glisan and Sydney’s on NW Thurman, quite possibly the coolest kid-friendly place in town, where well-heeled urban mamas and their babes nibble on pastries and watch Blue Planet ﬂ icks on plasma screen.

PORTLAND GET CREATIVE If creative juices were ever to flow freely to the masses, Portland, Ore., would be its artesian well. From the omnipresent arts scene to influential ad agencies and production facilities, Portland’s panoply of creative stimuli bursts at the seams. Athletic apparel is the city’s main export. Mega-sports giant Nike makes its home here, as do Adidas-Salomon and Columbia Sportswear. Throw in the city’s geological amenities—the Columbia River Gorge, Mount Hood and the Oregon Coast—and you’ve got yourself an adrenaline junkie’s toy box. Snowboarding, windsurfi ng, kiteboarding, paragliding—there’s no end to cheating death in Portland.

WHERE TO WORSHIP

City Bible Church

At Imago Dei Community (www.imagodeicommunity. com), you’ll find this über-indie gathering’s pursuit of authentic faith and honesty in worship refreshingly nontraditional. It’s invigorating for someone reared on evangelicalism. Home to Portland Bible College, City Bible Church (www.citybiblechurch.org) is a vibrant multi-campus outfit with a young edge and a focus on deep worship and open community. Pastor Frank Damazio’s thought-provoking sermons are more like a fireside chat than in-your-face preacherism.

IMBIBE THE VIBE WITH THE LOCALS Starbucks? Don’t even bother. If you want to hang with the locals, go to one of Portland’s other coffeehouses whose brews make Starbucks taste like warm canal sludge. Stumptown Coffee Roasters (www. stumptowncoffee.com) is the crème de la créme (Roast Magazine put them at the top of the heap in 2006). The downtown location boasts a DJ who sensibly spins the tunes. Sip down a velvety latte and tap your

Doug Fir Lounge

WHERE TO HANG OUT Say Paul Bunyan puts on a Dolce & Gabbana suit and heads out for some late-night nosh. Where does he go? The Doug Fir Lounge (www.dougfirlounge.com). Here, log cabin/’70s truck-stop kitsch cozies up to svelte urban panache. Two years ago it was a greasy café among the sleaziest joints in town, but some serious vision and regentrification turned it into a funky, super-swanky lair. The friendly wait staff treats you like a rock star, and the food is fit for one. Breakfast, lunch, dinner—it’s all good (don’t miss the biscuits and gravy). Downstairs, catch some of Portland’s best bands performing any night of the week. The Horse Brass (www.horsebrass.com) on Hawthorne is a hole-in-the-wall English pub that’s so legit, you’ll be bad-mouthing the Queen by morning. Other must-see hangouts include Saucebox (www.saucebox. com) and Olea (www.olearestaurant.com).

CASEY HILL is a Portland writer. A couple of years ago the Witness Protection Program found him a job at City Bible Church. He Stumptown

and his wife, Sabina, have a 1-year-old son, Levi.

SLICES

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AGENCY SPOTLIGHT CAPTIVE DAUGHTERS

LET MY PEOPLE GO

They combat sexual trafﬁcking by increasing worldwide awareness, participating in national and international forums and encouraging media groups to further spread the word. Their action plan focuses on eliminating the demand of sexual trafﬁcking. www.captivedaughters.org

THE NUMBERS 27 million people are in modern-day slavery across the world.

BY ERIC SULLIVAN

WHEN WE THINK ABOUT SLAVERY, it’s easy to think back to America’s shameful history of slaves. It’s hard to imagine that it still exists today—even in the United States. Every day young girls and boys are tricked and brought into the United States for the sole purpose of serving as sexual slaves. Sex traffickers, primarily in Eastern Europe and Mexico, target poor women and girls. They often advertise for waitressing jobs in Paris or the United States, or pose as talent scouts looking for models and actresses. Young girls go with them in the hopes of getting a good job and instead are forcibly transported to the trafficker’s destination and forced into a life of prostitution. If tricking doesn’t work, women and girls are kidnapped outright and told that if they don’t do what they are told, their family members will be killed. Sex trafficking is oftentimes associated with organized crime rings. Mob ties allow traffickers to turn the sex trade into a multibillion-dollar industry. Human trafficking is the third largest source of money for organized crime, behind arms and drugs, according to the United Nations. Corrupt foreign police receive large payments from traffickers in return for aid in moving their “products” across borders. These criminal groups take orders from brothels in the United States and provide them with whatever type of girls they want. Girls taken from both Europe and Mexico are transported illegally across the MexicoU.S. border and sold to brothels in major American cities. They are often held captive in the basements of suburban homes and leave only to meet with “Johns,” during which time they are repeatedly raped and forced to perform all manners of sexual acts. The girls are eventually forced to have sex with 20 to 30 men a day for up to months at a time—often at the tender age of 12 or 13. Sex traffickers sell girls of all ages, from toddlers to those in their early 20s. Victims usually last two to four years. Then they either die in the brothel or are dumped and deported. Most girls don’t want to see their parents again because they fear that they will be shunned. With all the attention that has been focused on the Mexico-U.S. border with the current immigration issues, it’s important to remember that many people are forcibly trafficked across the border every day. For the victims of human trafficking, the America they dreamed about can often be their hell. Whether they become slave labor or sex slaves, these people need our help and our attention.

TRAFFICKERS HAVE TURNED THE SEX TRADE INTO A MULTIBILLIONDOLLAR INDUSTRY.

An estimated 2 million women and children are held in sexual servitude throughout the world. 800,000-900,000 girls are trafﬁcked across international borders each year for the purpose of sexual exploitation. 10,000-20,000 people are trafﬁcked into the United States as sex slaves. 30,000-50,000 sex slaves are estimated to be in the United States.

RESOURCES www.humantrafﬁcking.com www.catwinternational.org www.trafﬁckinginpersons.com www.polarisproject.org www.ijm.org

DIG DEEPER Genesis 21:23 Galatians 5:1 Hebrews 2:14-15

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING “The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another’s labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live.” —Leo Tolstoy

FOR MORE INFORMATION, check out www.RELEVANTmagazine.com/therevolution and The Revolution: A Field Manual for Changing Your World (RELEVANT Books).

REVOLUTION

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2 % ( 4 5 , / % , ) , ! ' ' . ) 3 ( 5 4 $ *%3 ! " ! 4 . 3 ) 9 (%2%3 From the daring pens of Spencer Burkeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;former pastor, creator of the Web site TheOoze.com and emergent church activistâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and Barry Taylor comes a new book that explores grace beyond religion and challenges you to follow the heretical â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy for inquisition-launchers to go on fault-finding missions ... Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more challenging, and ... much more worthwhile, is to instead go on a truthfinding mission. And yes, even in a book with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;hereticâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the title, I believe any honest reader can find much truth worth seeking.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;From the Foreword by Brian McLaren

path of Jesus.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Every age, and particularly an age like ours, needs hereticsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; those who will push past and beyond the accepted conventional wisdom of the dominant group and pull us across sacred fences that hold us back and keep us tied to perceived orthodoxies.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Spencer Burke in A Hereticâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide to Eternity

CONTEMPLATIONS FOR THE SOUL

QUESTIONS ON EVIL BY WINN COLLIER AS I WRITE, THE LONG GENOCIDAL BLOODBATH in Darfur grows more brutal and more complex as the Janjaweed, the Sudanese government-backed militia, spreads its massacre across the border into Chad, threatening the refugees who mistakenly thought they had escaped the ruthless raids. The sickening violence has gone on for years, and the words used to describe the nightmarish scenario— genocide, rape, burning—are simply inadequate. Dateline NBC coanchor Ann Curry, in a blog entry from the savaged region, asks, “How could a child not struggle after seeing ﬁrsthand the crime of ethnic cleansing, when adults can barely comprehend it?” Who, young or old, could possibly comprehend such evil? How can one human inﬂict such vile harm on another human? The question is hard, but for a people proclaiming to serve a God who is both powerful and just, there is a harder question. If God is good (which we insist He is) and if He has the means to stop the madness (which we say He does), why doesn’t He? God’s intentions, He says, are to run interference on just this sort of human injustice. The Psalms tell us God is for the weak, aligned with the oppressed against the oppressor. Supposedly, God cares deeply when wrong is done to the poor or the defenseless. “Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan, I will now arise,’ says the Lord. ‘I will protect them.’”(Psalm 12:5, TNIV). In long-ravaged Darfur and in now-ravaged Chad, in urban Chicago and in rural New Mexico, the poor are being plundered; the needy are

A DEEP WRONG BY ERIC HURTGEN A DEEP WRONGNESS EXISTS just below the surface of everyday human interaction. Behind the eyes of people sharing stairwells, elevators, sidewalks and freeways, there are wounds of varying significance. There are all kinds of evil in this world, and no one goes unaffected. Headlines feature local businessmen imprisoned for brutally murdering their own children; news of international torture and genocide filters in through car radios; televisions tell of the cruelest kind of human wreckage, of sexual abuse and domestic violence. We can observe this viciousness in the photojournalism of the 20th century. From the killing fields of Cambodia and the My Lai Massacre, from Hitler’s death camps to the modern ethnic cleansings of Sudan, we find the signposts of a darkness that seems nearly unfathomable. Where do we stand in the face of such evil? How dare we presume some kind of eternal goodness in the light of unmitigated pain and premeditated murder? Where is God’s answer to this sea of suffering? For God’s answer we have to look to Jesus.

groaning. And the questions mount. Why is God not arising? Why is He not protecting? These disheartened, angry questions have surfaced as long as humanity has wrestled with the fact that God is God and we are not. The disconnect with how such depraved evil can coexist with a good God is a primary critique from those wondering if it is naïve wishful thinking to hold on to the primitive notion of a powerful, good God. Look at Sudan. Explain that. A faithful reading of the Psalms DIG DEEPER does not sideline our questions. JOB 1-3, PSALM 12, Often, it encourages them. Among PSALM 73, HABAKKUK, its pages, there is no shortage of ROMANS 8-11 disappointment and bewilderment with God. The Psalms do not allow ONLINE BONUS: Dig deeper us to live in denial of the harsh into the discussion of evil with realities of our world. They do, discussion questions and book however, engage in a subversive act. recommendations. They raise questions all their own. They ask us if our depravity might have some complicity in human sorrow (Psalm 12:8). They ask us if there is anyone other than God, bewildering as He sometimes is, whom we can trust for justice during our distress (Psalm 12:1, 6). They ask if our sense of timing (our insistence on when God must act) and means (our insistence on how God must act) reveals more about our narrow perspective than about God’s supposed inactivity (Psalm 12:3, 8). In short, they ask us which is harder to imagine: How a good God could allow such evil, or how we could ever hope to be delivered from evil if there is no God to deliver us. Nothing trumps a perplexing question like an even more perplexing question. WINN COLLIER is the author of Restless Faith (NavPress).

Jesus was certainly conscious of the RESOURCES deep evil that existed during His own time. From Caesar to Pilate, Jesus recognized the IS GOD TO BLAME? brutal way of the empire; He recognized GREGORY A. BOYD the specter of fundamentalism in forms [IVP] both liberal and conservative. Jesus was Controversial as usual, Boyd certainly not blind to the troubles in the asserts that Satan’s (rather world, yet He never felt the need to defend than God’s) will is forefront in His Father’s goodness. most acts of suffering. Agree or Jesus’ ultimate answer to evil’s question not, Boyd offers a stimulating was the action of insurmountable good, a foray into a hard subject. death that atones. In Jesus’ painful path DARING, TRUSTING SPIRIT to His execution, we see God’s answer to JOHN W. DE GRUCHY our suffering. Christ on the cross became [FORTRESS PRESS] a symbol of God’s solidarity with human This biography recounts the suffering; a God who sacriﬁces a son friendship between Dietrich for the good of humanity is a God who Bonhoeffer and Eberhard understands pain and suffering. On the Bethge, a friendship that night of His arrest, Jesus warned of the walked through both evil and continuing presence of evil while offering good. real comfort: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, TNIV). ERIC HURTGEN is an artist, musician, writer and teacher who lives with his wife, Amanda, in Charlotte, N.C.

DEEPER WALK

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CONTEMPLATIONS FOR THE SOUL

Jesus was certainly conscious of the RESOURCES deep evil that existed during His own time. From Caesar to Pilate, Jesus recognized the IS GOD TO BLAME? brutal way of the empire; He recognized GREGORY A. BOYD the specter of fundamentalism in forms [IVP] both liberal and conservative. Jesus was Controversial as usual, Boyd certainly not blind to the troubles in the asserts that Satan’s (rather world, yet He never felt the need to defend than God’s) will is forefront in His Father’s goodness. most acts of suffering. Agree or Jesus’ ultimate answer to evil’s question not, Boyd offers a stimulating was the action of insurmountable good, a foray into a hard subject. death that atones. In Jesus’ painful path DARING, TRUSTING SPIRIT to His execution, we see God’s answer to JOHN W. DE GRUCHY our suffering. Christ on the cross became [FORTRESS PRESS] a symbol of God’s solidarity with human This biography recounts the suffering; a God who sacriﬁces a son friendship between Dietrich for the good of humanity is a God who Bonhoefer and Eberhard understands pain and suffering. On the Bethge, a friendship that night of His arrest, Jesus warned of the walked through both evil and continuing presence of evil while offering good. real comfort: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, TNIV). ERIC HURTGEN is an artist, musician, writer and teacher who lives with his wife, Amanda, in Charlotte, N.C.

DEEPER WALK

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Bayard Taylor prepares Christians to understand differing belief systems with this simple and witty guide that includes tools for representing their faith in a thoughtful, respectful way. Blah, Blah, Blah by Bayard Taylor

Available from Bethany House Publishers 1-866-241-6733 â&#x20AC;˘ www.bethanyhouse.com

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RICK WARREN HOW DO I KNOW WHAT’S TRUE?

ABOUT 35 YEARS AGO,

I was at a camp in the mountains. Alone in a room, I prayed, “God, if there is a God, I’m open. If You’re real, I want to know You’re real. And, Jesus, if You can change my life, if there is a purpose for my life, I want to know it.” You know what happened? Nothing. I didn’t get goose bumps. I didn’t cry. No bright lights shone down. Nothing. But that was the turning point in my life, because I was no longer biasing myself against God. I wanted to know the truth, even if it was inconvenient. Truth can be discovered, but ﬁrst we have to have an attitude of openness that says, “I want the truth more than anything else.” Once you choose that attitude, you can discover the truth. How? Here are ﬁve ways:

1. THROUGH CREATION We learn a lot about God just by looking at nature. This is why science is so important. It helps us understand God and His universe. The Bible says in Romans 1:19, “The basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is” (MSG). By discovering there are 60,000 types of beetles, I learn God likes variety. By seeing a volcano, tidal wave or earthquake, I know God is powerful. From the balanced ecosystem, I realize God is organized. 2. THROUGH CONSCIENCE Some things are hard-wired by God; we know some things are always right or always wrong. Our conscience tells us. The Bible says that some people naturally obey God’s commands even though they don’t have the law. This proves that the conscience is like a law written in the human heart (Romans 2:14-15).

Say we take a random sample of 1 million people from around the planet and put them on a corner in New York City. We say, “Here’s a 92-year-old blind lady with a walker. She needs to cross the street. Tell me which of these three options is morally right. 1) You can let her try to cross on her own; 2) You can help her cross the street; 3) You can push her into oncoming trafﬁc.” You don’t have to be a Christian or Jew or Muslim or even a spiritual person; inside, you know the right thing to do. 3. THROUGH CONSIDERATION Truth is knowable. You can test it. You can experiment with it. You can prove it. If I want to go to San Francisco and I follow a map that takes me there, and the next week I follow the same map again, eventually I ﬁgure out this map is true. For more than 40 years I’ve been following this map called the Bible. I have found it to be true. It always takes me where it says it’s going to take me. I don’t always like it there, but it always takes me where it says it’s going to. Often people say, “Why won’t God just write it in the sky?” Why would God do that? He gave you a brain. But most people never slow down long enough for consideration. Most people just drift through life. The Bible tells us over and over, “Ponder the path of your feet” (Proverbs 4:26, NKJV). Spend some time in consideration, in observation. Ask yourself: “Am I on a true path?” 4. THROUGH GOD’S COMMANDMENTS “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right,” says Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16 (NLT). If I discover truth from the Bible, how do I know the Bible is true? Does objective evidence show me that? There’s a world of objective evidence, both external and internal, that says this book is true. External evidence proves the Bible is a historical book that you can rely on. According to Bible historian Philip W. Comfort, there are 5,366 copies of the Bible dating from the time it was written to just 70 years afterward. This fact dispels the urban legend that the Bible was changed as it passed through generations and languages. External evidence also includes many archeological discoveries. For example, historians used to say that Solomon couldn’t have had the horses the Bible says he had because no one had horses at that time. But then thousands of horse stables were found in a dig. 5. THROUGH CHRIST The Bible says that Jesus is full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Truth is not a principle. Truth is a person. Truth is relational. Truth is Jesus Christ. One of the clearest and most well-known verses in the Bible is “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, TNIV). Notice Jesus says “I.” Not a religion. Not a ritual. Not rules and regulations. I. Truth is a person. This is what separates Jesus Christ from every other leader of every other faith. Other leaders have said, “I’m looking for the truth” or “I’m teaching the truth” or “I point to the truth” or “I’m a prophet of truth.” Jesus comes and says, “I am the truth.” Everybody’s betting their life on something. I’m betting my life that Jesus is who He said He was. 0

RICK WARREN is the author of The Purpose Driven Life and the founder of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

STATEMENTS: RICK WARREN

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that his next promotion was to be regional manager. When the owner became aware of this, he flew down to personally give the young man the promotion over lunch. On the big day, as they were going through the cafeteria-style line for lunch, the owner noticed that the young man deliberately hid a 1-cent pat of butter under his roll so as not to be charged for it. The lunch went fine—except that no promotion was given—and when the owner returned to his offices, he had the young man fired. A close friend of mine suggested that such an extreme action was a bit severe and presumptuous. Whatever the other circumstances, the point is that the owner understood that the young man’s character flaw of dishonesty would be magnified under pressure and, like a weak spot in an inner tube, would eventually blow out.

DAVE RAMSEY THE SPIRITUAL ASPECTS OF MONEY THERE ARE THOSE who believe that finance is merely an exact mathematical science. In fact, finance is an exact mathematical science—until a human touches it. Personal finance is who you are. Your personal, philosophical and emotional problems and strengths will be reflected in your use of money. If you are disciplined, you can be a good saver. If you are selfish or self-centered, you will surround yourself with expensive toys that you cannot afford. THE CHARACTER OF MONEY Larry Burkett, a noted author on this subject, says money problems are normally not the real problem but instead are only the symptom of a personal shortfall. An extreme amount of money or extreme lack of it magnifies character. A person not totally committed to honesty will tell white lies and sometimes even commit fraud by lying on a loan application when money is tight. In his sermon “A Life Above the Ordinary,” Doug Parsons tells an interesting story about character. One of the richest men in America owned a huge company. This gentleman pointed out a low-level manager to his upper-level staff. The owner noticed the young man because of his work ethic and talent, and commented that this young man would be a regional manager long before his time. Sure enough, the young man was promoted up through the ranks to the point

INDEPENDENT OF WHAT? Many Americans have identified a concept in the last 30 years, something we all strive for: financial independence. Independent from what? Can you gain enough money to never have to worry again? Can you gain enough money that you can protect your family from injury or sickness? Can you accumulate enough money to be guaranteed you won’t lose everything due to war, famine or the collapse of financial markets? I’ve never heard of anyone who could hoard this much money. You can never be totally independent. Money is active, and you must keep managing it and moving it, no matter how much you attain. You should handle your money well and try to gain as much as you are able, but this pursuit should not be all-consuming. You must be careful of spending all your energy and time trying to reach “financial independence” because this place is as nonexistent as the golden calf the Israelites worshipped. THE DIRTY WORD We have discussed how the strengths and weaknesses in your life will affect your finances, but we cannot leave that subject without dealing with one of life’s dirtiest words—discipline. You will have conflict, worry, shortages and a general lack of fun until you achieve some discipline in the way you handle your funds. You don’t have to run or live in a financial boot camp, but you must start to think before you swipe that card. You must begin to look at your finances differently than how you have in the past. You must recognize that you need to bring your finances totally under your control. TO GIVE OR NOT TO GIVE? The last spiritual aspect you must understand is farming. No farmer has ever grown a crop without planting some seed. Personal growth requires that you give money away. The institutions to which you give will survive if you don’t give, but you will have missed an opportunity to benefit. If you feel like you don’t have enough to give, start by giving small amounts and by donating your time. You can always give something.You need to plant the seed of self-growth, and you can do this only by giving. I meet very few well-balanced, happy, healthy, wealthy people who don’t give money away. You must, however, beware whom you give to and what they do with the money. You must be responsible with your giving. John Wesley said, “Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” Giving helps us keep proper priorities in our lives. It is essential to good money management. 0 DAVE RAMSEY is host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show The Dave Ramsey Show and the best-selling author of Financial Peace, More Than Enough and The Total Money Makeover. www.daveramsey.com.

STATEMENTS: DAVE RAMSEY

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Smile, God loves you.

Sometimes it’s not the thought that counts. There’s always been room in the good news for some good doing. We’re not talking “social gospel” here; we’re just suggesting that our proclamation can be fortiﬁed with some demonstration. Dealing with the whole person requires a whole education. At Bethel Seminary, we offer an M.A. degree in Community Ministry Leadership. It will prepare you for professional ministry in places where improving quality of life today is indispensable in winning people for eternity. If you’d like to learn about the M.A. that is preparing men and women for compassionate ministry to the whole person, contact Bethel today. 800-255-8706, ext. 6288.

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it. Some were upset. A few took pity on me and wrote me back with several ideas for devotionals. One was offended that I would take up a whole devotional talking about nothing but my computer screensaver, and unsubscribed. Another wanted to know why I didn’t write about the joys of God, and why wasn’t I glorifying Him! Quite a few people didn’t get the joke. These responses got me thinking. These are common reactions for Christians, and they force the following conclusions:

JOHN FISCHER TOO LITERAL, TOO LIMITED A FEW MONTHS AGO, I had an epiphany while working on my regular daily devotional for PurposeDrivenLife.com. I was sitting at my computer struggling over an idea for the next day’s inspiration when I suddenly realized I had been staring at some pretty incredible pictures of God’s creation on my screensaver. Then it dawned on me that I had been caught up in worshipping God through my screensaver, without thinking of it as worship. I decided to write my devotional in such a way as to take my readers through this same experience of discovery. (I wanted them to be sideswiped in the same way I had just been.) I decided the best way was to set them up by admitting that I didn’t know how I was going to worship that day, but I had gotten caught up in some pretty incredible pictures on my screensaver anyway, such as: • A STAND OF TALL ASPENS, the green of their tops and the green forest floor blending into a black background, leaving only the straight, bare skeleton-white trunks to emerge ghostly through the fog. • A CLOSE-UP OF A SINGLE DEW DROP suspended under a blade of grass, so still and pure, you could see your reflection in it. Then, after describing five or six more images, I concluded by writing: “After all this, I'm still sitting here, hands clasped behind my head, wondering what I should write about today to help lead us all in the worship of God. Any ideas?” Now the irony was supposed to be the point, but a number of readers didn’t get

1. Many Christians are not very adept at reading into anything. Most everything is taken as literal fact. Irony, sarcasm, hyperbole, juxtaposition and innuendo are largely wasted on Christian audiences. How we have gotten to be in this state when Jesus, our leader, was a master at all of the above is hard for me to imagine. It raises some serious questions as to whether anyone is teaching Christians to think for themselves, and whether anyone is truly reading the words and stories of Jesus, or only reading what someone else says about what Jesus said. If we are bound to taking Jesus literally, then we are all in trouble: No camel can pass through the eye of a needle, no mustard seed can move a mountain, and Jesus never destroyed the Temple and built it back up in three days like He said He would, so how can we trust anything else He said? To study the words of Jesus is to receive a complex lesson in indirect statements. I believe there are reasons for this that in the end, reﬂect on our theology. Jesus did this to show us that truth cannot always be nailed down into principles and propositional statements. It can’t be put into four laws, 10 steps or a notebook of basic conﬂict situations with a biblical answer for each one. God, truth and people are far too complex for that. Many Christians have created a world out of taking the Bible literally when a more careful reading would have revealed subtleties that make for a broader interpretation. The Bible was not written as a textbook to explain the world, but as a collection of narrative inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak to our souls and lead us to God. 2. Regardless of what we say, we still tend to compartmentalize our lives far more than we should. Why was my screensaver an inappropriate catalyst for the worship of God? Why were some people unable to see that I was worshipping God through the pictorial representations of the things that He had made? Because it was on my computer? Because it was designed by Apple Computer, Inc.? Had it been a screensaver I bought from a Christian software company, there would have been no doubt I was worshipping God. But as it is, if the connection is not made by a label or by some trusted authority, it will not be made at all. Worship never needs to be announced. In fact, it can take place all the time. Last winter, after speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., Bono was asked why, if he is a Christian, his music doesn’t proclaim Christ. He replied, “Does nature scream the name of Christ? Does a tree?” So I offer a new version of the age-old question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did it really fall?” How about this? “If a tree threw up its branches into the air and a Christian saw it, or even a picture of it, would he or she praise God without anyone suggesting it?” Would you? 0 JOHN FISCHER is an author, speaker and singer/songwriter who lives in Southern California. He writes a daily devotional for PurposeDrivenLife.com.

STATEMENTS: JOHN FISCHER

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GET A AND A REAL JOB

WHY A LITTLE AMBITION MIGHT ACTUALLY BE IMPORTANT TO YOUR FUTURE

BY MARK STEELE

YOU’VE COMPLETED FIVE TO SEVEN YEARS of soul-sucking, wallet-vacuuming education, and you’re ready to put all of that wisdom and wit to use in the workplace. The only challenge: You don’t know what you want to do with your life. So, you label the next 12 months the “find yourself” window, and take that job as a barista/fire dancer/Survivor contestant, hoping that somewhere along the road an inspiring downloaded iMix will stimulate a thimbleful of urgency. The next thing you know, one year has become three, and your “season off” has become the new you. In fact, your new life is practically college, with study replaced by Xbox 360 and friends replaced by a ferret. A few hundred mochaccinos later, the weekly overdose of soy steam has erased the part of your brain that is supposed to have ambition. You have failed to launch. Chances are, if you ever do find yourself, you won’t recognize yourself. It seems that a growing number of twentysomethings are lost in Neverland— that post-college phantom satisfaction that lulls one into whims of lackadaisy. But payday is around the corner, and you can’t reap what you didn’t sow. Harsh? Perhaps. But this crisis is too important to handle with kid gloves. We’re all adults, and we all want the best for one another. Each of us has been in your Birkenstocks at one point, and some are still paying the penalty for

GET A REAL JOB

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leisurely acclimation to reality. The future needs leaders! If you and your generation don’t do something about it now, the president in 2032 will know how to do little else than champion a frothy foam. You desire to change the world, and—here’s the kicker—you actually can. But it isn’t very comfortable to begin the process. It never will be. This is the rub, and hey, who can blame you? We all love comfort. We all pursue it from time to time. It’s simply not a good idea to expect to make a living from comfort. So, let’s assume that you would be out there saving orphans and inventing life-saving medicines if you didn’t lack the necessary information to kick-start what you call “your future” but I call “this Tuesday.” Let’s also assume that the information you lack is hidden within this article. Now, let’s assume you will keep reading.

1. DON’T HIT SNOOZE Life, as does morning, begins with moving your body from the horizontal position to the vertical. Nothing kills ambition more than waking at the last possible moment. Yes, we all enjoy a good sleepin, but the whole purpose behind having a weekly Sabbath is that lethargy is the exception, not the rule. Continual late nights and later mornings create a pattern that is hard to break: chronic fatigue, radical stress and a constant lack of enough time. Instead, eat healthier (and earlier), go to bed at a decent hour (one with two digits) and give yourself time in the morning to exercise, pray and—here’s a new one: think! Some of your best and most original life-changing thoughts will come at the top of the day. If you want to get out of your ambitionless rut, start leading your day instead of constantly chasing it.

2. MAKE A FREAKIN’ MOVE Statistics show that most ambition-challenged post-collegiates believe the above headline says “Make a Freakin’ Movie,” as in feature ﬁlm. Statistics also show that most ambition-challenged postcollegiates, when asked what they are going to do with their life, will answer, “Make a freakin’ movie.” Statistics also show that making a freakin’ movie is freakin’ hard, and if your friends were actually going to make a freakin’ movie, they would have already done so by now. Here’s a thought: Work with what you’ve got. Take a long hard look at your skill set, and then actually do something related to that skill set. An internship. A bottom rung on a ladder. Just do something. It might not be ideal, but it’s better than a freakin’ movie that you’ll never actually make. And before you ask: No, debating plot points from Lost is not a skill set.

3. PERHAPS YOU ARE THE POSER I hate to break this to you, but if you talk big plans about your “mission” or “calling” but lack any forward motion, (spoiler alert) you are a massive tool. Sorry. I know it’s hard. The problem is that many people do not act because they await clarity. They expect God to speak through the wind or a self-help book or the mouth of Conan and reveal the intricate details of next steps. God rarely does that. Why? Because that isn’t faith—it’s feeding a baby. And God doesn’t want you to be a baby. He wants you to faithfully act upon what you know is true. If you are uncertain about the speciﬁc direction of your life, there are other ways to act upon the truth. They are called “disciplines,” and they develop as such in your life. Don’t wait for answers. Instead, be practical and spiritual. Exercise. Pray. Expand your knowledge. Fast from meals—or fast from media—or, heck, fast from Mark Steele articles if it helps. Put yourself in a lifestyle pattern of growth, and growth will indeed come.

4. OPINIONATED IS EASY You’re educated, you’re well-read, you’re postmodern—and you speak negatively of everything. Big shocker. Welcome to the elite everybody. There are literally dozens of reasons not to do any given thing. If you obsess hard enough, I’m quite certain you can devalue another’s career, the Church throughout history, fans of Michael W. Smith, the Bible and your mother’s claim to have birthed you, but that doesn’t make anything you do productive. You have been placed on this planet to add something. Expend some energy on that. Yes, the world needs critics in order to expel as much hot air as the rest of us need to breathe, but a lifestyle of criticism will lead absolutely nowhere. If you disagree with the way something has been done in history, how about attempting a new way instead of knocking down those attempting the old? And here’s a buzzword for you: perspective. As in, yours isn’t the only one. Believe me, in its day, Smitty’s “Secret Ambition” rocked the Casbah.

5. YOU CAN (REALLY) GO IT ALONE … Resist the urge to soak in a bubble bath for eight days straight just because your dreams seem too gargantuan. Every great thing is a first, which means someone had to do the thing that set the precedent. History is not finished. There are many more precedents left to be set, and you just might be the person to set one. Yes, you need to take action on step #3 (while you naysayers read step #4), but if the passion is in you for a frightening thing, then you need to get out there and get frightened. Just because your dream is daunting does not make it untrue. However, you could make it untrue by refusing to take the first step, then the second and so on. God continues to do great things, and for some amazing reason, He continues to do them through people. However, He is looking for those who will both trust Him and take action. Life is Hoosiers. Be the ball.

6. … BUT NOT TOO ALONE God’s greatest mandate in this life is also His most effective plan for you. It is the best formula for passion, ambition and clarity. That mandate is for you to get out and help other people. This is ambition embodied: to attempt to make the life of everyone you encounter better than before. It does not take skill, awareness or résumés. It is something you could accomplish the moment you put down this magazine. Stewing in uncertainty? Go help someone. Tend to be critical? Go love someone. Waiting for a next step? Go encourage someone. Looking for value? Go to someone’s rescue. The worst plan imaginable is for each and every one of us to wallow in isolation until we think we have our plan ﬁgured out, because isolation is the opposite of the real plan. It is in the selﬂess efforts toward one another that we actually change and grow. It is by this doing that we discover what we are actually capable of doing—and in the process, who knows? You may just accidentally push someone else toward his own passion. The real enemy of forward motion is the deception that your answer is different than the answer. The truth is, your plan is simply a derivative of a plan that has been in motion for thousands of years. You get to play an irreplaceable part. You have the opportunity to change the world, but it will require a change in your perspective and your actions. A push toward the uncomfortable—and away from the you that had previously settled for the Starbucks within. 1

MARK STEELE is president and executive creative of Steelehouse Productions, where he makes freakin’ movies and occasionally sleeps in.

GET A REAL JOB

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5/30/06 1:25:46 PM

THRICE

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5/30/06 9:58:51 AM

BY JAMIE TWORKOWSKI

THRICE

~Thrice_cameron.indd 051

5/30/06 10:00:18 AM

THE ENTERTAINMENT WORLD IS FULL of “are they or aren’t

finally learned that I will never have absolute knowledge of anything. they” Christians. There are rumors that the guitarist of a certain band I can know many things up to a point, but then I choose to take that is a Christian, but he won’t go into specifics. Other times, a known last step, which is faith. actor claims to follow Christ, but will refrain from pinning down just what that means and how it affects his life. The lead singer of Thrice Describe the relationship between your faith and your music. is not one of those entertainers. My music is influenced by my life, thoughts, feelings and actions. Dustin Kensrue helped form Thrice in 1998 with some friends from These are, in turn, influenced by my faith. I don’t have a mission high school. In the last few years, his band has become one of the to deal with anything specifically in my lyrics, which I think can most respected and innovative post-hardcore bands in popular music. be seen in the ways the lyrics approach the subject of faith: from a Between their hit singles like “Red Sky” and “All That’s Left” and distance at times, as if looking in a window, and at other times, from selling more than 1 million records—their latest two albums breaking inside the house itself. I deal with issues that are pertinent to me into the Billboard 200—Thrice has garnered mainstream attention at the time. By being honest about the things I deal with, it allows without losing indie-rock approval. others to connect with the music in a way that can’t be achieved by Kensrue has also done this without pretending to be something pandering to what you think people want to hear, or even what you he’s not—or pretending not to be something think people should hear. he is. Unlike many other Christians in mainstream music, Kensrue never played the Your lyrics use a lot of imagery and Christian music circuit. His band didn’t play metaphors to capture the weight of Cornerstone or sign to a Christian label before so many things—pain, rescue, love, their big break. They are not a Christian band. healing. Where does it come from? However, Kensrue has never denied that he I have to be able to connect to is, in fact, a Bible-believing Christian. everything I write in a mental and Now, as he prepares to release his first emotional way. I use imagery from —DUSTIN KENSRUE solo album, Thrice’s frontman shares with situations I have never been in to RELEVANT about how he penetrates the communicate the things I am trying world’s darkness with God’s light and love instead of labels. He also to express in a more dramatic way. For instance, I wrote the song speaks candidly about his new music, his heart for social justice and “Melting Point of Wax” about the place that I felt like we were at as a his feelings toward the Church. band at the time—the decisions we had made, the warnings of others. I used the myth of Icarus to get across what that felt like, putting my How did Thrice come together? feelings in the head of Icarus and taking a different approach to the Just screwing around really. [Lead guitarist] Teppei [Teranishi] and common logic applied to the story. Though I have never flown on I had wanted to start a band, and we recruited Ed [Breckenridge], who wings of wax, I can imagine what it would be like. I think most writers had never played bass before, to play bass. Ed’s brother was a lot older tire rather quickly of only writing about experiencing from their own than us but decided to jam around until we could find a drummer. We lives. At first it is fun and therapeutic even, but it becomes boring after started writing and everything just went from there. a while. I use things that I have felt, or seen through those close to me, as building blocks to bigger stories. What role has faith and the Church played in your life? I have had the good fortune of some amazing mentors at the church Do you write songs with the goal of introducing faith to people, or where I grew up. I was never discouraged from questioning things and do you simply write songs? thinking deeply about my faith. I was involved in leading worship and I write songs about what I believe in, and I believe there is hope. other things in junior-high and high-school groups. When I graduated I can’t compartmentalize how I write. I am trying to get things off high school (or probably right before), I started helping out with the my chest and empathize with others at the same time. There is no junior-high group on staff. After I started touring, I basically stopped great artist who didn’t write about or express strongly the things they going to church for a while because I was always gone. During that believe in. I love Bob Dylan, and I think we can all agree that he is time, I went through some very dark spiritual times. At this point, I not the best singer ever. But he speaks from his heart, about things he attend a different church, and am very fed when I am able to attend. believes, and it resonates with people as true. Not in the universal Even though I am gone a lot, I’m trying to find ways to stay connected. sense, but true to his heart, and people want to touch something true It’s strange because I grew up being very involved in church, and now in that way. Hopefully the things I say can be true in that sense and I am very peripheral. true in a bigger way as well.

“IF WE ARE TO BE CHRISTIANS, WE SHOULD BE WORTHY OF THE NAME.”

How did you get through those “dark spiritual times”? Like I said, I always had the answers to everything. One day I realized I didn’t and that I never would. It really freaked me out. Through a series of events, I came to realize that I never really understood faith. You can have answers up to a certain point, and then you choose to believe. This is true with anything. We use faith every time we sit in a chair, or step on the brakes of our car. We have no guarantee that the chair will hold our weight or the car will stop, but we sit and drive all the same. We do this because we have reasons to trust these things, even in the absence of absolute knowledge. All of life is like this. I

How do you answer fans who ask if Thrice is a Christian band? No. Some of us are Christians; some of us are not. We are just a band—just four people who play music. What are your thoughts on “contemporary Christian music”? I want to preface this by saying that I don’t want people to be offended by this personally. I know a lot of people who are in Christian bands and have their hearts in the right place. I won’t say that there aren’t some good things about bands that are labeled “Christian,” but I will say that there are not many, in my opinion. The only one that comes

THRICE

~Thrice_cameron.indd 052

6/2/06 5:09:26 PM

THE ENTERTAINMENT WORLD IS FULL of “are they or aren’t

finally learned that I will never have absolute knowledge of anything. they” Christians. There are rumors that the guitarist of a certain band I can know many things up to a point, but then I choose to take that is a Christian, but he won’t go into specifics. Other times, a known last step, which is faith. actor claims to follow Christ, but will refrain from pinning down just what that means and how it affects his life. The lead singer of Thrice Describe the relationship between your faith and your music. is not one of those entertainers. My music is influenced by my life, thoughts, feelings and actions. Dustin Kensrue helped form Thrice in 1998 with some friends from These are, in turn, influenced by my faith. I don’t have a mission to high school. In the last few years, his band has become one of the deal with anything specifically in my lyrics, which I think can be seen most respected and innovative post-hardcore bands in popular music. in the ways the lyrics approach the subject of faith: from a distance at Between their hit singles like “Red Sky” and “All That’s Left” and times, as if looking in a window, and at other times, from inside the selling more than 1 million records—their latest two albums breaking house itself. I deal with issues that are pertinent to me at the time. By into the Billboard 200—Thrice has garnered mainstream attention being honest about the things I deal with, it allows others to connect without losing indie-rock approval. with the music in a way that can’t be achieved by pandering to what Kensrue has also done this without pretending to be something he’s you think people want to hear, or even what you think people should not—or pretending not to be something he is. hear. Unlike many other Christians in mainstream music, Kensrue never played the music Your lyrics use a lot of imagery and circuit. His band didn’t play Cornerstone or metaphors to capture the weight of sign to a Christian label before their big break. so many things—pain, rescue, love, They are not a Christian band. However, healing. Where does it come from? Kensrue has never denied that he is, in fact, a I have to be able to connect to Bible-believing Christian. everything I write in a mental and Now, as he prepares to release his first emotional way. I use imagery from —DUSTIN KENSRUE solo album, Thrice’s frontman shares with situations I have never been in to RELEVANT about how he penetrates the communicate the things I am trying world’s darkness with God’s light and love instead of labels. He also to express in a more dramatic way. For instance, I wrote the song speaks candidly about his new music, his heart for social justice and “Melting Point of Wax” about the place that I felt like we were at as a his feelings toward the Church. band at the time—the decisions we had made, the warnings of others. I used the myth of Icarus to get across what that felt like, putting my How did Thrice come together? feelings in the head of Icarus and taking a different approach to the Just screwing around really. [Lead guitarist] Teppei [Teranishi] and common logic applied to the story. Though I have never flown on I had wanted to start a band, and we recruited Ed [Breckenridge], who wings of wax, I can imagine what it would be like. I think most writers had never played bass before, to play bass. Ed’s brother was a lot older tire rather quickly of only writing about experiencing from their own than us but decided to jam around until we could find a drummer. We lives. At first it is fun and therapeutic even, but it becomes boring after started writing and everything just went from there. a while. I use things that I have felt, or seen through those close to me, as building blocks to bigger stories. What role has faith and the Church played in your life? I have had the good fortune of some amazing mentors at the church Do you write songs with the goal of introducing faith to people, or where I grew up. I was never discouraged from questioning things and do you simply write songs? thinking deeply about my faith. I was involved in leading worship and I write songs about what I believe in, and I believe there is hope. other things in junior-high and high-school groups. When I graduated I can’t compartmentalize how I write. I am trying to get things off high school (or probably right before), I started helping out with the my chest and empathize with others at the same time. There is no junior-high group on staff. After I started touring, I basically stopped great artist who didn’t write about or express strongly the things they going to church for a while because I was always gone. During that believe in. I love Bob Dylan, and I think we can all agree that he is time, I went through some very dark spiritual times. At this point, I not the best singer ever. But he speaks from his heart, about things he attend a different church, and am very fed when I am able to attend. believes, and it resonates with people as true. Not in the universal Even though I am gone a lot, I’m trying to find ways to stay connected. sense, but true to his heart, and people want to touch something true It’s strange because I grew up being very involved in church, and now in that way. Hopefully the things I say can be true in that sense and I am very peripheral. true in a bigger way as well.

“IF WE ARE TO BE CHRISTIANS, WE SHOULD BE WORTHY OF THE NAME.”

THRICE

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5/30/06 10:01:28 AM

THRICE

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5/30/06 10:01:55 AM

to mind really is that certain parents will only let their children buy “Christian” music. So, I guess it’s good that they get to listen to —DUSTIN KENSRUE something. In regard to that, though, we are called to “examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” [1 Thessalonians 5:21, NASB], not to just blindly accept things that are labeled a certain way. At the church where I grew up, a man recently came and talked about music. He was trying to recommend “Christian” bands that were bad copies of the popular music that kids were listening to. On his website, we were listed as a band that he had better “Christian” alternatives to. It was just frustrating that he hadn’t even listened to the music he was recommending against. This may come as a shock to some people, but there is a ton of good in the world that is not “Christian.” This labeling is so destructive to our God-given creative impulses; it neuters our art. Not to mention the fact that having a little world separate from everything else in life is what is wrong with a lot of the Church today in general. When there is a “Christian” band, it automatically is an exclusive thing, and the invitation to Christ is anything but exclusive. I feel that people who happen to be both artists and Christians need to make art from the center of their beings, art that is honest and real and glorifying to God all at the same time. Art that can vibrate to the chords of anyone’s hearts, despite what they profess to believe. Are we not all human, and is not art a bridge that crosses over otherwise unbridgeable chasms? There is an amazing book called Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by H.R. Rookmaaker that deals with a lot of this, as well as people’s misunderstandings of the good intentions of those who don’t agree with them. I highly recommend it.

“I’M NOT NATURALLY A VERY EMPATHETIC PERSON.”

It must have been frustrating to be so misunderstood by Christians. Is it difficult for you to identify with and love the Church, when that is a perfect example of how broken it appears? For a long time, I didn’t want to be called a Christian because of how many negative things it brings up for a lot of people. But I realized that I just needed to be part of the solution, rather than running from the problem. What’s your hope for the Church? For the Church, I would like to see it become ﬁlled with God’s mercy and love. There are parts of the Church moving in this direction, and others moving so far away from it. If we are to be Christians, I think we should be worthy of the name. We need to see how Christ acted toward others and imitate Him. He reached out to the people in society who were shunned by everyone else, the people who everyone saw as hopeless. It is these people who He chose to eat with, which in that culture was a huge deal. We need to learn how to really love. It makes me sick how we have elevated certain sins above others and chosen not to see the logs in our own eyes. We are told, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned” [Luke 6:37, NASB]. But we are so quick to accuse, to throw the ﬁrst stone. The essence of Christ’s message was that we would love each other the way that God loved us—unconditionally and recklessly. My prayer is that the Church, and all of us individually, can learn this above all things.

You seem to have a burden for broken people. Where does that come from? My personality is somewhat inward looking, and, therefore, I am somewhat selfish and self-centered by nature. I am not naturally a very empathetic person. I would have to say that my burden for broken people comes from the influence of Christ in my life, showing me how to love people like He loved them. I have a long way to go. I’ve heard that a percentage of every Thrice record sold goes to support social justice organizations. That is true. Our records have and continue to benefit Crittenton Children’s Services, A Place Called Home, SSE and 826 Valencia. We started doing this with Sub City Records with our record Identity Crisis and have continued on since then. Was the decision to give away a portion of your income a difficult one? It wasn’t really that difficult. It was the main reason in the end that we went with Sub City over other labels. Sometimes it’s hard to see a large chunk of money go away when you have bills to pay, but giving isn’t supposed to be easy, I guess. And the people the money is going to definitely need it more than us. We started giving a percentage of our earnings away before we really had earnings. So as we grew, that money started to grow as well, and we were able to really make a difference. I see people getting frustrated because they aren’t raising thousands of dollars with their charity show or whatnot. But there is no reason to be frustrated. Your hundreds will be used and will have an impact. We are not judged on what we give, but on what we do with what we are given. What can you tell us about your plans to record a solo album and tour? I’m very excited about it. It is such a great feeling to just show up to a show with an acoustic guitar and that’s it. The whole goal of the project is to be an outlet for a different style of music and writing, more of a singer/songwriter storytelling vibe, and for all the songs to be able to work just as well with one guitar and me singing as with a whole band. I will be recording this summer and hopefully putting out a record in the fall. I will also be playing some dates in the Southwest and Northeast in late summer. People can check out MySpace.com/ dustinkensrue for more info. How are those songs coming? The songs are coming along very nicely. I think there will be a decent amount of diversity on the record, but it’ll still have a general vibe. I really want to concentrate on not letting it get away from me instrumentally. I want it to be pretty stripped down most of the time. I find that with a lot of my favorite artists—Elvis Costello, for example— I end up liking their demo versions of songs almost better than the finished product. I think the record will end up being 10 songs or so and, God willing, will retain the raw vibe that I feel the songs need. What’s next for Thrice? For the band, we are embarking on a new project that will end up being four EPs, released as a set. It will most likely have about 20 songs on it. As for now, we aren’t releasing any more info, but we will be soon. We are very excited about it. d JAMIE TWORKOWSKI, 26, is writer of “To Write Love on Her Arms” and works for Hurley in Central Florida. www.myspace.com/towriteloveonherarms

THRICE

~Thrice_cameron.indd 054

5/30/06 10:02:46 AM

@[iki jkhdi [l[hoj^_d]

ed _ji ^[WZ$ Bei[ je ]W_d" Z_[ je b_l["

“Jarrod continues to encourage me with his love for God and people, and his dedication to sharing Jesus with the world.”

—Mac Powell

lead vocalist, Third Day

and the first shall be last. Discover how much fuller your life can be when you revel in living in reverse— with a fun and frank discussion on The Backward Life you were made for.

Available at your local bookstore

POURING OUT HOPE BY JASON BOYETT

THE STORY OF INJUSTICE IS NOT ABOUT A CONTINENT OR NATION. STATISTICS ABOUT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE DYING OF AIDS IN AFRICA OR THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN WITHOUT EDUCATION IN SOUTH AMERICA LEAD US TO BELIEVE OTHERWISE. THE TRUE STORY OF INJUSTICE IS ABOUT EACH SINGULAR FAMILY, VILLAGE OR COMMUNITY RAVAGED BY VARIOUS ABUSES. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE STORIES …

POURING OUT HOPE

~pouring out hope.indd 056

5/30/06 11:09:49 AM

DARLIN SUAZO, a young system technician for Healing Waters International in the change. At the heart of the transformation is the water purification system, which Dominican Republic, pulls up to a church in the most notorious barrio in Santo Domingo. combines chlorination, carbon filtration, His truck is loaded with 50-pound bags of salt for the water purification system inside. Across reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light to the street at the bus station, a group of men see him and turn his way. He recognizes them as transform contaminated tap water into water tigres, young criminals who are members of a powerful—and violent—local gang. Undeterred, that’s purer than most bottled water sold in Suazo parks and begins unloading the bags, which must be carried up three flights of stairs to the United States. the roof where the water tanks and filters are located. Healing Waters opened the Gualey As one, the tigres—feared by most people in the town—move toward the heavy bags and system in the summer of 2005. It regularly help Suazo haul them up the stairs. Once finished, Suazo nods his thanks, and the tigres distributes more than 1,000 gallons a day. return to the bus station. “The people are responding very well to the Welcome to Gualey. water system,” Allison says, especially as Lining the banks of the Rio Ozama, which runs through the heart of Santo Domingo, Gualey (pronounced Gwah-LAY) is one of many impoverished urban communities served by Healing Waters International (HWI), a Denver, Colo.-based organization that installs water purification systems within local churches in developing nations. HWI operates more than 41 systems in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala and Kenya, with further expansion planned in the coming year. “The lack of clean drinking water has always been a problem in places like the Dominican The community of Gualey is little more than a steep hillside of makeshift shacks, perched above the Rio Ozama in Republic,” says Tom Larson, who founded the middle of Santo Domingo. Healing Waters in 2002 with his wife, Dana. awareness grows. The line of people waiting “The infrastructure is there, especially in urban areas like La Romana or Santo Domingo. You for water outside the church is constant, often can turn on a faucet, and most of the time water comes out. But it’s contaminated. Everyone stretching halfway around the block. “Church knows it, but not everyone can afford to buy purified water at the neighborhood store.” attendance increased after the inauguration, According to a March 2006 United Nations report, 1.1 billion people worldwide don’t have and people are even coming from other access to clean drinking water. What’s worse, Larson says, is that semi-developed countries communities some distance away to get clean like the Dominican Republic aren’t even reflected in that number, because its residents do water.” have access to safe water. It’s available on retail shelves. Because HWI partners with local churches “The urban poor, who for its distribution systems—rather than have access to clean water setting up shop on its own—spiritual healing but can’t afford it, are the often accompanies the physical healing that forgotten ones,” he says. takes place once clean drinking water becomes Gualey, a community available. “We’re all about helping the church racked by severe poverty, to leverage the ministry of the water system is a prime example. —PASTOR RAMÓN RODRÍGUEZ “Gualey attracts people to create transformation,” Larson says. “The searching for a solution to the problem of where to live, because the land along the river isn’t owned by anyone,” says Herb Allison, HWI’s program manager in the Dominican Republic. “Since the river floods regularly, this land is undesirable to all but the most desperate.” Those who are desperate enough set up shacks along the riverbank, living in makeshift homes of rusted metal, weathered wood and hammered-out aluminum scavenged from the city dump. The result is a dense assortment of structures packed against the river and carved out of the hillside above. Flowing next to many homes are open sewers that drain trash, dead animals and bodily waste into the Ozama. Despite—or perhaps as a result of—the poverty, social problems flow through the community as easily as the sewage. Gualey is widely considered one of the most violent and dangerous places in the country. Prison escapees and convicted felons extradited from the United States make their homes among the neighborhood’s twisting alleys and dead-end streets. Turf wars among rival gangs and drug dealers consume most afternoons, and according to Allison, even the police are hesitant to enter some parts of the barrio to enforce the law. “Just the name of this place, ‘Gualey,’ brings people shame,” says Pastor Ramón Rodríguez of the Iglesia de Dios de Gualey, the site of the HWI water project. “To our neighbors, Gualey represents delinquency, prostitution, drugs and crime.” Thanks to the pastor and his church, however, that perspective is slowly beginning to

A boy hau ls cle an dri nki ng water via mu lita (“lit tle mu le”) in Gua ley. The mu lita wa s one of severa l given away at the sys tem’s inaugu rati on.

“PEOPLE ARE EVEN COMING FROM OTHER COMMUNITIES TO GET WATER.”

POURING OUT HOPE

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5/30/06 11:10:48 AM

Ramón Rodríguez, pastor of Iglesia de Dios de Gualey.

pastor [in Gualey] is a visionary, which always helps us because he’s already sold on the idea that his role, and the church’s, is not just to preach but actually to care for the community like Jesus cared for people.” Like other HWI churches, the church in Gualey provides clean water to area schools and medical clinics for free. To individuals in the community, it sells water for a reduced rate of 10 pesos for five gallons, compared to a price of 40 pesos at the local market. The minimal cost makes each HWI project selfsustaining, paying for utilities, supplies and the salaries of those who operate the system. Healing Waters then requires a significant percentage of the remaining revenue to be poured back into the community. Iglesia de Dios de Gualey uses that fund to feed and clothe the most desperate in its neighborhood. It provides medication for AIDS patients and delivers hot meals to drug addicts and the homeless. And according to Pastor Rodríguez, it has plans to use the system funds to help improve some of the homes along the river. “The church and pastor were already doing everything possible to help the community before the water system was installed,” Allison says. A partner with Compassion International in caring for children in the neighborhood, the church had developed a reputation for serving outside its walls. “But the water system reinforced that perception exponentially,” Allison says. “It’s having the most impact by far.” Rodríguez has used his raised profile since the inauguration to push for substantial changes to the community. He brought together the police, local leaders and the neighborhood council to form an anti-violence

Outside the Healing Waters partner church in Gualey, a resident hauls water for several of his neighbors.

community. It’s changing the bad reputation of Gualey.” The change won’t happen overnight, Allison warns. Gang members like the tigres—many of whom are loyal customers of the water project—maintain their visibility, and violence and drug Raw sewage flows arou nd the makeshi ft homes use remain prevalent. “The people in Gua ley. are still dealing with many of the same but does not attend the church. He used to problems now that they were having before get water from nearby colmados, corner the water system,” he says. “Changes are stores that sell puriﬁed water but often under slowly occurring in the economic conditions unsanitary conditions. “I am very grateful for and spiritual lives, and those will have an this service. This kind of help goes straight to impact as time goes on. But the clear and dramatic transformation at this point is in the people who need it.” Since the opening of the HWI system in the health of the people who are getting their Gualey, the colmados and trucks have given water from the church.” up their attempts to distribute water in the These include community, Allison says. They can’t compete people like Milagros with the quality, the taste or the price. Valdez, a church Nor can they compete with the spiritual member who used transformation that often results. “Helping to buy water from people get clean water is what we do,” Larson large trucks that says. “But the byproduct is giving these peddled unpuriﬁed churches the vision and resources to go out water throughout the neighborhood. Fuel for boiling the trucks’ water was expensive and into the world, and that’s exciting.” Pastor Rodríguez agrees. “Since the water dangerous, and Valdez and her family often system opened, our church now has a direct had parasitic, water-related illnesses as a relationship with people that they can’t result. Her family has been healthy since they deny,” he says. “It’s more than just the water. began buying water from the church. Not only are they saving on the water, she says, Now, there is a spiritual water we are also able to give.” d but they no longer have to spend money on doctors or medication to treat their illnesses. All Photos: Herb Allison / Healing Waters International “The church is the only organization in Gualey that is doing anything to help the JASON BOYETT is a writer from Amarillo, Texas, people,” says Rafael Mejía Ortiz, who also and the author of several books. buys water from Iglesia de Dios de Gualey www.jasonboyett.com

“HEALING WATERS IS AN ANSWER FROM GOD.” —PASTOR RAMÓN RODRÍGUEZ action committee, which quickly established neighborhood security patrols. According to the pastor, the government is beginning to become more active in the community, and local police presence has increased as a result. “For me, Healing Waters is an answer from God,” Rodríguez says. “When I ﬁrst came here, I saw the needs and prayed, ‘God, can You bring me a tool to help the people here?’ Healing Waters is that tool. The community sees the water system as a blessing from God. It’s transforming every aspect of this

POURING OUT HOPE

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RELEVANT AD TEMPLATE.indd 5

5/30/06 7:19:51 PM

HER JOURNEY FROM WIDE-EYED NOVICE TO SOULFUL POWERHOUSE BY SHELLIE R. WARREN

I WILL NEVER FORGET my first encounter with India.Arie. I was a new writer transitioning from being a glorified intern (in other words, unpaid) for any and everyone that would have me, to actually getting a byline and check from my first steady entertainment magazine gig. She was an Atlanta-based singer/songwriter who had recently signed to Motown Records. In a world of “And why do you have a record deal, again?” artists, I quickly became a fan after checking out the rough cuts of the songs “Video,” “Back to the Middle” and “Always in My Head.” There was something about India.Arie that was profound, wise and deeply soulful. Her smooth, contralto voice was not something that you merely heard; it was something that you actually felt. I wasn’t the only one who shared that opinion. The first time we spoke, she was still coming down from the high of receiving great praise by music legend Stevie Wonder (someone with whom she earned her 12th Grammy nomination this year for the title track from his latest release, A Time to Love). He had checked out a promotional copy of her debut LP, Acoustic Soul, and told her that she was going to be a star and that he would love to work with her sometime.

INDIA.ARIE

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5/30/06 10:04:26 AM

That was in 2001. In just ﬁve short years, India.Arie has earned the credentials that many musicians will never see in a lifetime. Her two albums have earned her multi-platinum sales and a host of awards including two Grammys, three NAACP Awards and other recognitions from BET, Billboard Music, MTV, VH-1, Vogue Fashion and Essence magazine. In 2004 the critically acclaimed artist was named Ambassador for UNICEF, and last summer she was featured in the VH-1 documentary Tracking the Monster: Ashley Judd and India.Arie Confront AIDS in Africa. Ironically, the girl who made her formal introduction to the world with the lyrics I’m not your average girl from your video has become a trailblazer in music and fashion, while proving that you don’t have to be super-skinny, blond or scantily clad to capture the attention of the music industry or the people who keep it going—the fans. Back then, she was a novice. Now she is a marvel. But some things remain the same. She still has the same infectious giggle that she gets any time she is complimented on her craft. She still gives the same thoughtful but slightly awkward pause before answering a question about her private life. She still seems to be not all that amused by the smoke-and-mirrors game of celebrity and commercialism. And she still remains totally in love with her guitar, her mother and the little things in life. What has changed, however, is evident in the way she now carries herself. The conﬁdence that resonates in her latest video, “I Am Not My Hair,” is one that comes not from the mirage of living the so-called glamorous life, but from the wisdom that comes from simply living— behind the camera and off the stage.

GROWTH In June, India.Arie released her third LP, Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship, and, according to her, it’s quite a transition from her earlier recordings. “I have come really far from the ﬁrst one,” she says. “It dealt with love and romance. It was so ideal. The second one [Voyage to India] was rushed, so I didn’t get to put as much into it as I would have liked. Plus, I was in a relationship with someone at the time. With this one, I am more grounded in reality and the reality of that relationship. It’s more melancholy, and I don’t think people will be used to seeing me in that way.” Insightful? Yes. Melancholy? Probably not, but India.Arie gives some insight into the reason behind the transition. The ﬁrst song on her album, “These Eyes,” addresses the emotions that come along with experiencing a breakup—something that India.Arie knows about far too well. “This whole album addresses the feelings and revelations that come with a relationship I had with someone who was the closest person to me, next to my family,” India.Arie says. “It taught me so many lessons about who I was at the time, but one of the biggest ones was that I was someone who would not speak my mind, just for the sake of harmony. Isn’t it funny how some of the most outspoken people at times can be most nonconfrontational, based on the circumstances? There were so many times when I wouldn’t say anything or I would keep my feelings inside just to keep the peace. Because of this, I ended up doing both of us an injustice. To some, I [came] across as really strong, but looking back, I was really weak.”

issue that needs addressing does nothing to help a relationship grow and remain healthy. “I used to be the kind of person who, if there was something that was hard to deal with, especially if it was someone close to me—whether it was with my mom, my brother, my label, whoever—I would simply avoid it,” she says. “I may [have held] onto it for ﬁve years, but I used to think even that was better than not having to really face it. I have learned that if you want to have authentic relationships, you need to get ‘it’ out, whatever that ‘it’ may be. Lying is not just about not telling the truth; it’s also about withholding it.”

“LOOKING BACK, I WAS REALLY WEAK.” —INDIA.ARIE According to India.Arie, what has given her the strength to speak on such a personal page of her life’s diary is the acceptance of knowing that “you can’t make everyone happy” and “so long as I am comfortable with what I said, I am at peace.” India.Arie’s newfound peace and contentment reflects in both her personal and professional life—even down to the clothes she wears. More and more it seems like she has abandoned her flowing, bootlength custom-designed skirts for fitted jeans. But according to her, if we are just noticing, then we haven’t been paying close attention. “If you actually go back to Acoustic Soul, I was wearing jeans, highheeled boots and tank tops then,” she says. “It’s just that I would also wear long sleeves and skirts too, and for some reason, it just seemed to make a stronger statement. Nothing’s really changed; I am just discovering more about myself. It’s all about balance. I like myself a lot, and I’m open to taking certain risks.” Soon—give or take a few years, she says—India.Arie will gear up to take on other ventures besides music and fashion. After being barely beaten out for a recurring role as a gypsy in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, she is interested in acting if the right role comes along (“I’m not looking for it … when it comes, it comes”). She would also like to write and produce more for other artists, write a book and assist her mom/stylist with a line of bags that will debut in the near future. India.Arie says she believes that a clothing and jewelry line could spin off from this opportunity. She also speaks passionately about producing a short film, India’s Song, a 10-minute DVD that she would like to distribute in the “spiritual cinema circles.”

GOD IS REAL India.Arie is known for the positive, spiritual messages in her music, and although she describes her present spiritual resolve as “vague but full of truth” and “doesn’t like to get into specifics,” there are certain things that she definitely sees in black and white. “I believe in love and in being a good person,” she says. “I believe in being accepting, kind, compassionate and empathetic. I believe in a creator that is vast and that there are different ways to learn and discover God. I know that music fits into so many different philosophies, that I was given a gift to heal through music and that we are all called to seek truth. That is something I make a point to do every day and will for the rest of my life.” d

STRENGTH, COURAGE & WISDOM Through this experience, India.Arie has learned that avoiding an

SHELLIE R. WARREN is a writer in Nashville, Tenn. www.shellierwarren.com

INDIA.ARIE

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6/2/06 4:19:19 PM

EVERY

MAN FOR

HIMSELF

DECONSTRUCTING A ME-FIRST FAITH

BY CRAIG BORLASE

~everyman.indd 062

EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF

5/30/06 10:30:21 AM

BEING A CHRISTIAN IN CHINA at the turn of the last century was one of two extremes: exceedingly good or exceptionally bad. Reacting to decades of colonial rule by distant Western nations, the extreme nationalist group known as the Boxers gathered momentum. Uniting under the slogan “Support the Qing and destroy the foreigners,” they launched an unsuccessful rebellion. Yet while they failed to gain power, they left an audacious body count in their wake, including 188 foreign missionaries and 32,000 Chinese Christians slaughtered for their faith. There is no point attempting to argue that these events were anything but tragic. Yet take even the briefest of glances, and it’s clear that from the 32,188 comes a seemingly endless supply of stories of courage, compassion and premium-grade faith. Like the tale of the Chinese pastor who refused to recant his faith. Incensed by his stand, the mob cut off his eyebrows, lips and ears. When he still resisted, they wrenched his heart from his body. The pastor’s 14-year-old daughter saw it all and wouldn’t turn her back on Christ. She shared her father’s fate as well as his faith. The Boxers were intent on ridding their land of the “white devils” and were convinced they had caught and could humiliate another one as they tied a pastor to a pillar inside a pagan temple. All night the man preached to his captors. Morning brought with it an angry mob 1,000 strong. Again they tore out his heart. The same crowd in Tsun-hua chopped the feet off an “uncooperative” Chinese Christian teacher, while a colleague implored her pupils to “keep the faith” as she was burned alive. How far would we go for our own beliefs? The 19th-century Polish poet Cyprian Norwid said a truly fulfilling life must contain three essential requirements: “something to live on, something to live for and something to die for. The lack of one of these attributes results in drama. The lack of two results in tragedy.” So much of modern life seems far, far removed from such life-and-death decisions. It seems as though we spend more time worrying about iTunes playlists and pensions than persecution and prayer. Not that we treat the freedoms we enjoy lightly. Not at all. To be able to exercise our beliefs in a country that broadly accepts them is a privilege. Bu it’s so easy to live a life that revolves solely around a single agenda: our own. Everything in the surrounding culture encourages us to create the life that we want, to see the fulfilment of our own goals as the ultimate prize, to stand apart from the crowd by being truly selfish. Of course, Christianity suggests otherwise. It tells us that meeting our own desires is not the path to godly success. In one of those brilliant arcs that joins the millennia and the two testaments, Jesus quotes from the ancients in Deuteronomy and Leviticus when He reminds His audience precisely what we ought to value most: to love God with all of our energy and passion, and to love others as much as ourselves. This second point loops us back to Leviticus 19:18, where we are told that trying to get revenge or bearing a grudge is the opposite of such selfless attitudes. Three New Testament Gospel writers who cover the story choose to follow a different route in the end. Matthew reports Jesus as saying that “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40, TNIV). Mark, on the other hand, decides to focus on Jesus’ reaction to someone who clearly understood these words: “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34, TNIV). Yet it is Luke who makes the most telling link, following the story in chapter 10 with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Selfless living does not mean placing others on an equal footing with ourselves, handing out the compassion in step with the self-indulgence. True Christianity—to be near the kingdom of God, to understand the very fibers that hold together the essence of Christianity, to put our faith into bold practice—means handing over our own agendas in place of serving God and others. It might not be sexy or culturally on-message, but it’s there, in plain and simple truth. Sadly, though, it often takes a slightly louder voice than the Bible to break through to us. We

IT’S SO EASY TO LIVE A LIFE THAT REVOLVES SOLELY AROUND A SINGLE AGENDA: OUR OWN.

EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF

~everyman.indd 063

5/30/06 10:31:32 AM

can deal with some of the more obvious temptations toward selfish living. But strip us back, and it’s clear that time and time again we’re living for ourselves. Whether that means being too tired to talk, too stressed to pray, too poor to give or too busy to help, the story of our lives many times pushes faith to the wings. But for me, not today. Things are different right now and have been for the last 48 hours. A horrible tragedy has landed on some dear friends, and I find myself caught up in the wake of their grief. And, of course, among the tears and the phone calls, life suddenly shifts back into some kind of perspective. The vain irrelevancies, the sugary additives that offer my soul very little nutritional benefit—I can see them for what they are. What matters now is prayer. What matters now is standing shoulder to shoulder with two grieving parents. Whether it’s Chinese martyrs or dead babies, sometimes we all need to get yanked back from the here and now in order to regain our sense of perspective. While the shops might tell us that life begins and ends with our desires, Pope John Paul II got it right when he commented that “faith leads us beyond ourselves.” And so it should. Get it right, It starts with the acknowledgment and it leads us toward a clearer view that we are all responsible, that we and fresher perspective. It helps us work are all connected. In the same way out what it means to love God with all that God made us for relationship with we have and to offer love to our fellow Him, He made us in such a way that our actions impact others. How are people. It helps us see the value in taking your life choices having a negative— His commands seriously, like the one in or positive—impact on the poor? Deuteronomy 15:4-5 where God’s chosen

THE PURSUIT OF A LESS SELFISH LIFE

people are told that “there need be no poor people among you” (TNIV). They were given strict instructions on how to achieve such a utopian state— cancellation of debts every seven years, the edges of ﬁelds left unharvested so that the poor could glean the remaining crops, fallen grapes left on the ground so that those without would not be left behind. All very practical, all very simple, all very much concerned with being a little more selﬂess. Faith should lead us beyond ourselves. Yet so often it doesn’t. So often we manipulate it to suit our purposes. Do we really dare handle it so lightly? 0

OUR TIME WITH GOD Are we serving Him with wish lists or listening for His Word?

OUR COMMUNITIES Are we standing alongside the last, the least, the lost, or forcing them further out?

THE ENVIRONMENT What’s the real price of our lifestyles?

OUR NATION We live in a powerful nation. Do we exercise our democratic rights effectively?

THE GLOBAL MARKET Do our purchases leave a trail of oppression and maltreatment?

CRAIG BORLASE lives in the U.K. and is the author of God’s Gravity: The Upside-Down

Life of Selfless Faith (RELEVANT Books).

OUR MONEY Is it there for our enjoyment, or have we hooked up to a grander purpose?

www.craigborlase.com.

~everyman.indd 064

5/30/06 10:32:32 AM

Brand_Relevant-WS Brand_Relevant-WS 7-8-06.indd 7-8-06.indd1 1 Brand_Relevant-WS 7-8-06.indd 1

5/22/06 5/22/064:27:18 4:27:18 PM PM 5/22/06 4:27:18 PM

MP 81:7

BOUND BY DEBT

Controlling (and Escaping) the Beast Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Killing Our Generation BY CARMEN WONG ULRICH

BOUND BY DEBT

~debt_cameron.indd 066

5/30/06 10:35:25 AM

IS THIS SOME KIND OF CONSPIRACY? BETWEEN STUDENT LOANS, CAR PAYMENTS, CREDIT CARD BILLS AND RENT, YOUNG ADULTS ARE DROWNING IN BILLS. SEEMS LIKE SUCH PROSPEROUS TIMES—SO WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? IT CERTAINLY DIDN’T HAPPEN TO OUR PARENTS. TO QUOTE KANYE, “WE’RE BROKE! BROKE! BROKE! PHI BROKE!” First off, yes, a college education has become a necessity to compete in the workplace. And it’s expensive—very expensive. So pricey, in fact, that college tuition is one of the fastestrising consumer costs in the country, having increased 46 percent in the five years between 2000 and 2004. What about grants and aid? Disappearing. Back in the 1970s Pell grants covered up to 84 percent of the costs of a four-year college. Now that number is around 35 percent. So we take out student loans and open credit cards to get that degree, racking up an average four-year bill of $20,000+ in loans and $2,500+ in credit card debt. All this, and you begin your professional life with a starting salary of around $30,000. But how much of this debt load is our fault? There is no doubt that student loans for a college education are like mortgages—a lot of debt, but an investment in your future and your net worth. But what about credit card debt? Is that college’s fault as well, or, as the numbers show, are we spending ourselves into a dangerous downward spiral of consumption? We live in a consumer culture, and we have an entitled way of life. We reject delayed gratification and the patience our forebears had to reap the well-earned rewards of hard work over time—to wait patiently until we can really afford that new car or pair of jeans or indulgences as simple as that $5 Jamba Juice you put on your credit card. We want and need things now—Why wait? Don’t we deserve it? And what about our friends? Our parents are used to hearing about “keeping up with the Joneses.” Who are you struggling to keep up with? It’s a human tendency to want to hang with a flock similar to yourself, but where does the bonding end and the competition to have the best stuff begin? Just because your best friend has a great new cell phone, do you have to have one too? How much are you influenced by those around you—especially those who have it easier with money? How you’re able to deal with the pressures to conform and resist joining the race to the checkout line for the latest thing has more bearing on your financial future than you think. Generations X, Y and younger have been dropped into a petri dish of credit-cards-for-all and a gimme-gimme competitive society. We know how to spend—and we have more ways than ever to do it—but we don’t know how to say no. Young adults are the fastest-rising group showing up in bankruptcy courts, and they are living back at home with parents longer than ever in a state of extended semi-adolescence—“boomerang kids,” as they’re now called. Businesses are catching on. SRI Consulting released a report in April 2006 stating that, at 8 million and counting, “boomerang households present an emerging market opportunity.” Someone has to help parents who are trying to save for retirement while their grown children

GENERATIONS X AND Y HAVE BEEN DROPPED INTO A GIMME-GIMME COMPETITIVE SOCIETY.

BOUND BY DEBT

~debt_cameron.indd 067

5/30/06 10:36:56 AM

MASTERING DEBT If you’re already in a load of debt, do not despair. Follow this plan to get yourself out as quickly and cheaply as possible:

1) STOP SPENDING! Seems obvious, but it’s hard to do. Cut up all but one or two cards (for emergencies only) or freeze or lock them up—whatever you have to do to get them out of your wallet and prevent them from being swiped. Go retro and pay cash wherever you go. When cash is in hand rather than a credit card, the consequences of spending are much more concrete.

KNOW WHAT YOU OWE. Quick, rattle off who you owe and how much you owe them. Knowledge is half the battle. At the end of the month, pull together all your bills—credit cards and student loans—and rank them in order of interest rate, highest to lowest. What is your total I.O.U.? Which card or loan has the highest interest rate? This is very important information to get to the next step.

PICK UP THE PHONE. Here’s a great tip that credit card companies probably wish people didn’t know—if you have a good credit history (meaning you pay your bills on time), you can call them up and ask for a lower interest rate. The fierce competition between credit card companies works in your favor—all you have to do is ask! Call the customer service number on the bill and ask for a lower interest rate. Depending on how much you owe, you’ve probably just saved yourself a couple hundred dollars in interest payments.

4) CONCENTRATE YOUR POWER. OK, you’ve knocked those rates down. Now pull those bills together and order them again from highest interest rate debt to lowest—not from highest dollar amount owed. The debt with the highest interest rate is actually your most expensive debt—it cost you the most to borrow— so you want to pay it off more quickly than your other debts. While you pay the minimums—on time!—for the rest of your bills, concentrate your financial power on sending as much money as you can possibly afford to pay off the bill at the top of your list. Once that debt is gone, start hacking away at the next until you’ve said buhbye to them all. Pssst … Remember, though, that student loans are, for the most part, a fairly inexpensive debt because their interest rates run lower than credit cards or car payments. So keep them at the bottom of your pile, and, no matter how small, work off those higher-interest debts first.

come back home to nest. Wasn’t there a movie about this recently? Failure to Launch? “But debt’s normal!” you say. Yup, it’s normal all right, but like drinking, eating or partying, it can easily get out of hand. And sometimes you pay a very big price for the privilege. So, the struggle is how to be more responsible when it comes to pulling out your wallet. It’s not easy to ﬁlter out all the pop culture and media noise that begs us to spend, spend, spend. Taking control of your spending and rejecting the need to buy the hottest gadget, follow the latest fashion or go to the newest bar or restaurant is going against the grain. Just like saying no to one too many drinks or to that proposition from an attractive acquaintance, it takes values, commitment and an understanding of cause and effect. But what do you do when it’s too late and debt is already knocking down your door? Subdue the debt demon and avoid future credit woes with a combination of the right mindset, action and information. Here are two tips to build a useful just-say-no attitude and to show you how to take control of your ﬁnancial future:

DEFINE NEEDS VS. WANTS When you don’t have a lot of money to spread around, the dividing line between what you need and what you want is probably not on par with deciding between a vacation in Maui and a new set of golf clubs. It’s more likely to sound like choosing between buying concert tickets or paying your Internet service bill. One of the best habits you can develop is asking yourself—before you buy something—“Do I really need this, or do I want it?” It can be agonizing sometimes, but it’s more likely that you need cash for transportation and basic cell phone service as opposed to 20 new downloads or another night out on the town. A good starting point to grasp the need-versus-want dividing line is jotting down your monthly fixed expenses and flexible expenses. Fixed expenses are setamount bills or items that you pay for each month, such as rent, Internet service, gas and electricity, or car payments. Flexible expenses are things like magazines, dinners out, new clothes, lattes and movies. For the most part, fixed expenses are things you need—you pretty much can’t function well without them. Your flexible expenses are just

that—flexible—and most of the time, they’re wants. You may not be able to cut down on your fixed expenses, but you certainly can cut down on some flexible expenses. Understanding the difference between what you need and what you want gets you in the habit of controlling your money; then you can begin to look at why you yearn for more new things—boredom, low self-esteem or the drive to one-up your roommate.

IDENTIFY YOUR GOALS Surely you’ve heard stories of people who get a death-sentence diagnosis from a doctor and then, with little time left to live, go on a wild spending spree. Well, God willing, that won’t happen to you. One thing we hopefully all have is plenty of time on this earth. And within that time, a lot can happen with the money we earn. If you’re deciding how to spend your money, doesn’t it make sense to think it out and plan? What do you want to do with your money? What are your goals? Do you want to save up for an auto upgrade? Or maybe an engagement ring? How about a down payment for a home so you can stop paying rent? Or an annual vacation? What about something as seemingly small as painting your bathroom? Having and keeping ﬁnancial goals in mind, both big and small, can serve as the Hoover Dam on your spending. The next time you go shopping with your friends and you really, really want those new jeans, remember: jeans now, or toes in the white sandy beach later? Take some time to write up some ﬁnancial goals for yourself and give each of these goals two things: a price tag and a deadline. The price tag will let you know how much you need to save up to achieve your goal, and the deadline will tell you how much time you have. Just remember, these two goals should be at the top of your list: getting rid of credit card debt and saving up three to six months’ worth of living expenses in case you lose your job or are too injured or sick to work for a while. Trust me, you’ll thank yourself. Your future does not have to be in the red. Anything and everything you do with your money now can help get you where you want to go. Debt doesn’t have to be your demon. You have the power and ability to change your attitude about and approach to money, and you’ll soon change your life. v CARMEN WONG ULRICH is the author of

Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money (Warner Books).

BOUND BY DEBT

~debt_cameron.indd 068

5/30/06 10:38:25 AM

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MISSING T THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH BEHIND POSTMODERNISM, EMERGENT AND THE EMERGING CHURCH BY PETER J. WALKER WITH TYLER CLARK

WHAT ARE YOUR MOTIVES FOR WRITING THIS ARTICLE? Are you truly coming from a place of care and concern, or have you found yourself at the front of a convenient controversy with a lot of public interest?” Jim Henderson wants to know what he’s in for. He’s used to putting up with critics who are more interested in destroying his credibility than truly seeking answers. Henderson is the director of Off The Map, a nonproﬁt that works with church leaders. The critics aren’t so much interested in Henderson himself but

~emergence.indd 070

the group in which he has many friendships—Emergent, a loosely afﬁliated “friendship” of church leaders looking to rediscover what exactly the Christian faith and church should look like. For a generation raised on televangelists, pedophile priests and megachurches, Emergent seems like a pretty good deal. It represents “a new kind of Christian,” a phrase coined by Emergent’s unofﬁcial patriarch, Brian McLaren. To those who have been burned by the Church, this kind of Christian is more open-minded, intelligent, loving and sophisticated than the Christians who came before. It’s quite enchanting to the religiously disenchanted. But this is sacred territory, and it’s easy to see why this makes many

MISSING THE POINT?

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HE POINT? Christians uncomfortable. To Emergent’s critics—and it has many—the group is off base at best and heretical at worst. Others, some of whom used to be closely afﬁliated with the group, are wondering aloud if Emergent is losing control and being steered in a very dangerous direction. The greatest hurdle in discussing Emergent stems from the elusive nature of the group. “How do you even identify Emergent?” Henderson asks. “Part of its own ethos is not having an identity.” McLaren echoes this. “You may be assuming that Emergent is a more deﬁned thing than it really is,” he says. Emergent has no formal doctrine, and, thus, the group is quite

mixed. “We have Texas Baptists who don’t let women preach, and we have lesbian mainline pastors in New England,” says Tony Jones, Emergent’s national coordinator. It’s dangerous business to offer commentary on a movement with vast afﬁliates. Emergent (with a capital E) is a group of friends and a nonproﬁt organization. The emerging church (lowercase e this time) is a general description for churches that share a certain mentality. Most members of Emergent could be categorized as members of the emerging church, but not all members of the emerging church are members of Emergent, which is both a movement and an organization. So just what is Emergent? That’s the million-dollar question. Jones

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says that there are many misunderstandings of exactly what Emergent is and isn’t. “It’s not a denomination,” he says. “It’s not a theological think tank. It’s not a capitalist moneymaking venture. It’s not heresy. It’s not the new Christian Left.” So, then, just what is it? “Emergent is an amorphous collection of friends who’ve decided to live life together, regardless of our ecclesial afﬁliations, regardless of our theological commitments,” Jones says. “We want to follow Christ in community with one another. In a very messy way, we’re trying to ﬁgure out what that means.” McLaren puts it a slightly different way. “We’ve tried to accurately describe ourselves as a growing friendship engaging in what we hope will be constructive conversation.”

EMERGENT EMERGES Emergent began in the late ’90s when Doug Pagitt, currently the pastor at Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, was working for Leadership Network. He was given the assignment of ﬁnding a group of young, innovative church leaders. The Leadership Network Young Leaders group—consisting of McLaren, Jones, Pagitt, Chris Seay, Mark Driscoll and a few others—was assembled. “Very quickly, our conversations went from the best ministry practices, which is what the generation before us was really concerned with, and moved more toward philosophy and theology,” Jones says. “Within a few years [by 2001], Leadership Network very graciously pushed us out of the nest and said, ‘We’ve launched you guys. Here you go.’ We

TONY JONES National Coordinator of Emergent

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kept meeting and thinking about what it means to live life together as we’re planning churches and raising families.” The group then began writing books together, speaking at conferences, hosting their own conferences, being involved in church plants and developing an overall larger platform for itself. As the name Emergent and the names of some of its members became better known in church circles, people grew curious. They wanted to know what Emergent stood for and what it was all about. To this day, Emergent has yet to proclaim a doctrine or statement of belief, and it doesn’t look like they will anytime soon. “I’m even more concerned that people have statements of faith,” Jones says. “Statements of faith are about drawing borders, which means you have to load your weapons and place soldiers at those borders. It becomes an obsession to guard the borders. That is simply not the ministry of Jesus.” According to Jones, there is one principle that ties Emergent together. “What binds people in Emergent is that most everybody would rally under the ﬂag of hope,” he says. “We have hope for the future. We have hope for the Church. We have hope for the kingdom of God to break into the present and transform the present.” Dan Kimball, author of The Emerging Church (Zondervan) and the forthcoming They Like Jesus, but Not the Church (Zondervan), says that Emergent’s diversity in theology is one of its strengths. “This way we learn from each other, and we are challenged to really think about why we believe what we do as other viewpoints are expressed,” he says. “However, even with diversity, I can say that mostly everyone I know in emerging church circles does hold to the core beliefs of the historic Christian faith such as the Nicene Creed.” This theological diversity has some Christians up in arms, so much so that Emergent posted an ofﬁcial statement on why they don’t have a formal statement of beliefs.

“We’re not against beliefs,” Jones says. “We’re against formalized statements of beliefs.” Although Emergent’s lack of collective doctrine prevents collisions of collective belief, personal beliefs do collide. How can Emergent’s “Texas Baptist who doesn’t let women preach” stand alongside the “lesbian mainline pastor from New England” and not have to draw a line in the sand?

EMERGENT, INC. For many of Emergent’s followers, part of the group’s appeal is how it differs from modern religious institutions. It’s not a denomination; it’s a friendship. So when EmergentVillage.com recently started sending e-bulletins that featured personal testimonies explaining “why I gave money to Emergent!” some followers became concerned. The group took another organizational step forward in summer 2005 by naming Jones as Emergent’s national coordinator. In the eyes of their critics, they were campaigning for donations just like The 700 Club before them. This is where criticism of the general emerging church stops and criticsm of Emergent continues. “What happens when a movement starts fundraising?” asks Len Sweet, guest professor at George Fox Evangelical Seminary at Oregon’s George Fox University. “It stops

“THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS SO HUGE, SO POWERFUL ... being a movement, an adhocracy, and starts being an organization, a bureaucracy. But blaming Emergent for this is like blaming Methodism or Presbyterianism.” Sweet is a longtime friend of Emergent and was an early inﬂuence on the group. Although he and McLaren have written together and he has participated in other Emergent opportunities, he’s been concerned lately with where the group is heading. After all, a group that has prided itself on its informality

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and inability to define itself seems bound for change when fundraising gets involved. “It could be a disastrous mistake,” Jones admits, but he claims that the move toward increased structure should be of minimal concern. Furthermore, the recent decisions are not signs of a change in direction but of improving the current direction. “So many things were falling through the cracks,” he says. “Although we’ve been a nonprofit for several years, we were not good stewards of the little money that we had. We weren’t returning calls to journalists, burnedout pastors, pastors who’d been fired because they were caught reading the ‘wrong’ book. Nobody had the bandwidth to respond. We weren’t serving the very people whom we’d committed to serve.” Scot McKnight, professor of religion at North Park University in Chicago, says that Emergent moving in a more organized direction is fine—as long as Emergent maintains its ideological focus. “Development into more organization doesn’t concern me in the least,” he says. “It all has to do with how top-heavy something becomes.” According to Kimball, the changes are not only inevitable, but also beneficial. “All types of nonprofit and grassroots organizations need to be raising funds for websites, communication, events and having

Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church,” he says, referencing the 2005 book that has quickly become one of the cornerstone books in Emergent criticism. “I want to be seen as a friend of Emergent.” But he feels it’s important to add to the conversation. One of his biggest concerns is what he sees as an “increasing obsession with politics in Emergent. It really bothers me when Jesus is portrayed as having a political agenda. Politics aren’t even the real power paradigm anymore.” Between the fundraising and the politics, has Emergent lost its edge? The movement has always shied from deﬁning itself and making doctrinal claims on the basis that it’s a conversation. “Maybe it’s my unjust hopes and dreams,” Sweet says. “I just expected Emergent to be more sophisticated. I thought this thing would be something entirely new, something that would move us beyond postmodernity’s deconstructive critique and into a postpostmodern construction. We got to this point in the ’70s where you could not tell the difference between the Democratic Party platform and the Church’s portrayal of the kingdom of God. I think that any intrusion of Christianity into politics—whether Right or Left—is ugly. So I don’t see Jesus as coming with a political agenda. Yes, there are radical

THAT ANY DIVERGENCE FROM IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY BECOME THE RELIGIOUS LEFT.” —JIM HENDERSON staff to be able to coordinate it,” he says. “Now if we started hearing there are plans for a multimillion-dollar Emergent Theme Park in the works, or we see photos of Tony sitting behind a large mahogany desk with a view from his window of a large fountain and ﬂower garden with ﬂowers forming the Emergent logo, then I would be concerned.” In recent months, Sweet has been talking with his seminary classes about his concerns with Emergent, but he doesn’t call himself a critic of Emergent. “This is not D.A. Carson’s

social and economic consequences to His message, but to claim that Jesus’ message was a political one [is incorrect]. It’s Jim Wallis’ evangelical updating of the Social Gospel movement, or liberalism’s liberation theology of the ’70s and ’80s.” But in America, is political alignment inevitable? “The Religious Right is so huge, so powerful, that any divergence from it will automatically become the Religious Left,” Henderson says. “It’s unavoidable. You can’t

BRIAN MCLAREN Author of A New Kind of Christian and vocal member of Emergent

ﬁnd middle ground in that environment.” McLaren himself says that he’s not a liberal. (Jones says that McLaren is more liberal than some in Emergent but more conservative than others.) “I think [the Religious Right’s] strategy is wrong,” he says. “But that doesn’t make me Left.” Jones says that most people in Emergent are politically engaged but that McLaren’s politics do not represent those of Emergent. He says that Emergent has Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens and everything in between. “We have no political ideology,” he says. “That’s a ridiculous charge.” Maybe apolitical Christianity is too idealistic in America. Maybe not.

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE TRUTH Postmodern is a dangerous word. It’s been at the core of fears and criticism of Emergent. One commonly held belief about the friendship is that its members don’t believe in absolute truth. As a result, many within Emergent now shy from the term postmodern, as it proves to be problematic. But even when the words change, the fears remain. The belief that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation is a principal value in Christianity, and a refusal to profess absolute truth is, to some Christians, a move toward pluralism or relativism. “If we embrace the philosophical, theoretical ideas behind the postmodern thinkers [McLaren] and others appeal to, I think we will undermine core doctrines of Christianity,” says R. Scott Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor of ethics and Christian apologetics at Biola University in California

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and author of Truth & The New Kind of Christian (Crossway). Like everything else in Emergent, though, there is no official statement on absolute truth. “Emergent surely has people in it who strongly believe that there is absolute truth,” Jones says. Many of the leaders in Emergent, however, are not in that camp of absolutists. “I think putting the qualifier absolute in front of truth is a modernistic fallacy,” Jones says. “Truth is not qualified by adjectives like absolute. So for me personally, talking about absolute truth is a nonsensical way to talk, and Christian theologians shouldn’t talk in that way. It isn’t helpful, because it doesn’t make sense.” As soon as he says this, he realizes that he has just baited his critics. “Do you know what that last statement is going to look like in an article in RELEVANT? ‘Oh, I told you. They don’t believe in absolute truth. There’s the national coordinator saying he doesn’t believe in absolute truth.’” McLaren and Jones both say that the study of absolute truth is nothing to tread through lightly. For them, the problem is not with truth but with absolute. “It’s such a complex philosophical, epistemological question,” Jones says, and he hopes that people will study it for themselves before making judgments. “Those of us who’ve been living in this friendship and talking through these issues have been hard at this work for nearly a decade,” he says. “Why wouldn’t you give me, your brother in Christ, the benefit of the doubt? What is it in Christian circles that the immediate knee-jerk reaction is, ‘Oh,

LEN SWEET Author, theologian, professor at Drew University and George Fox University

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they’ve lost their way. They’re heretics’? Why wouldn’t your initial gut reaction be ‘Oh, those are brothers in Christ. They love Jesus and Scripture. I probably don’t agree with them on everything, but why don’t we take the time to really ﬁgure out what they’re saying?’”

are not the most recent, but the most ancient. Without a historical sense, or the spiritual discipline of historical context, there’s confusion between keeping relevant and just keeping up. We have to be in touch with the culture but in tune with the Spirit.” Emergent has brought many people back

“THERE’S CONFUSION BETWEEN KEEPING RELEVANT AND JUST KEEPING UP.” —LEN SWEET Sweet rides both sides of the fence, aware of the tension therein. “I am both an absolutist and a relativist,” he says. “You can’t escape absolutism. To say there are no absolutes is in itself absolute. The Pharisees were the absolutists. Pilate [was] the relativist, asking, ‘What is truth?’ I ﬁnd both of them within me. But both the Pharisees and Pilate stared truth in the face and didn’t see it.” The tricky part with truth, he says, is how it resonates with people. “I believe in absolute truth, but the New Testament presents a new understanding of absolute,” Sweet answers. “Fundamentally, truth is relational. Absolute truth is Jesus, God’s perfect pitch—His tuning fork to the eternal. Every tuning fork needs to be struck to be heard. The striking of the eternal, unchanging tuning fork took place on Good Friday with the pounding of six-inch nails. “This is the real reason I fear that Emergent may be losing its way,” Sweet continues. “It isn’t striking that tuning fork nearly enough. Jesus said, ‘If I be lifted up, I will draw all people to God.’ We sit at drawing boards, trying to design all sorts of blueprints and experiences to draw people to God, while Jesus Himself is the draw. It’s all about truth, which means it’s all about Jesus.” The overemphasis on how to do church, he claims, has taken the focus off Christ Himself. “And that brings me to a related issue: confusion between relevancy and recency,” Sweet says. “Some of the most relevant things

into the Church, and it’s forcing people to rethink how they approach God. Does this mean, however, that its critics are completely off base? Probably not. Sweet and McLaren agree that Emergent has overemphasized the communal church while underemphasizing individual faith. And Jones himself admits that fundraising has the potential to become disasterous. In the end, though, it is true to its claim to be a conversation. “The way forward is going to require something much bigger than any one group, including Emergent,” McLaren says. “I believe that in the postmodern world, truth and power are widely distributed. What I’m hoping to see is a network of collaborative networks—maybe like birds feeling the urge to migrate north at the same time because they all sense the same smell of springtime in the air. I am quite certain Emergent will be one little ﬂock in that migration. I hope all of us who are catching that scent can migrate together, guided by the True North of Jesus, the Gospel and grace.” Sweet hopes that his words are seen as those of accountability instead of attack. Despite his criticisms, he is a friend of many people in Emergent. “I’ll be anxious to see how this all comes out,” he says. “This is a lover’s quarrel, not a Carson critique. In fact, I would rather be wrong with Brian McLaren than right with D.A. Carson.” d PETER J. WALKER is a spiritual formations student at George Fox Seminary and a proud newlywed. TYLER CLARK is managing editor of RELEVANT.

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BLOC PARTY THEY DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK OF THEIR NEXT ALBUM. REALLY. BY JACKSON REED

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BLOC PARTY

LIFE OF THE PARTY: (L-R) Kele Okereke, Gordon Moakes, Matt Tong, Russell Lissack

5/30/06 1:12:09 PM

THE BRITISH MUSIC PRESS has a nasty habit. Every year or so, accompany fame-based relations, but he tries to keep it from making they discover the greatest band in the entire world. And every year him too jaded. they forget who they discovered the year before. In 2000, Travis was “It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff,” he says. “You never their golden band. By 2001, they were old news. The American press want to run the risk of upsetting someone genuine who admires what does it too, but not to such a notorious degree. It’s easy to see how you do. But you have to accept that there are fame slags. It’s weird, such a claim could mess with a band’s collective head. because we’re not really famous. It’s come to the point, especially “We’ve grown up in the U.K., and we know how it works in terms in England, where anything that’s on the pedestal is also under the of praising a band at the beginning of the career and then inevitably microscope.” shooting them down,” says Kele Okereke, the lead singer of Bloc Party. The band puts great efforts into not letting it all go to their heads. “It’s just the way it works, so we didn’t really prepare for it.” “You see some bands that get off on their own success,” Okereke He knows as well as anyone what the front half of the ride looks says. “We have real built-in [bull crap] detectors that stop us from like, and he knows that the back half could be coming soon. His behaving like idiots. If one of us were to start getting into coke and band is one of the most celebrated bands of the last two years. To groupies, it would be very much frowned upon. That stops us. That’s call it anything as trite as “overnight success” would be clichéd and all you need. Some bands haven’t really got that.” inaccurate. But that’s what it felt like. From the moment their debut Being around so many people who have, as Okereke says, “a vested album, Silent Alarm, released in early 2005, they were the band on interest in whether [we’re] successful or not” has forced the band every audiophile’s lips. to re-evaluate priorities and relationships. Okereke says that he’s Of course, it didn’t feel like that to the band. They’d toured the drawn closer to family and friends whom he knew prior to the band’s United States twice before Silent Alarm was released, and they say success. that “people just kind of stood around” during those tours. It wasn’t “It’s the people who will tell you that you’re being a [jerk] if you’re until they began playing for the “tastemakers” that word of the band being a [jerk],” he says. began to filter out. But when it exploded, Keeping that comfortable distance from it exploded indeed. On their fifth trip to the fame stuff is not only healthy, he says, the States, the crowd is anything but just it’s also who he really is. “My life isn’t standing around. about hanging out at a VIP bar of some Tonight, they’re playing a club in Fort club. I have a life and friends and family Lauderdale, Fla., and it’s their first time to at home, where my job has nothing to do the Sunshine State. with it. That’s something very important “Florida’s got a lot of old people,” to cherish.” —MATT TONG Okereke says. “I haven’t seen any young But they’re not the newest kids on the people since we got here except at the bloc(k) anymore. Although the band’s show.” forthcoming sophomore release is widely But those young people are everywhere. The show has been sold anticipated by critics and fans alike, the boys of Bloc Party know that out for a while, but a handful of hopeful fans still show up, asking their “best band ever” status may be vanishing already—and that’s not if anyone has extra tickets. One college-age girl is wearing a white a bad thing. They’ll keep playing music, but a breath of fame-free air T-shirt on which she wrote “You are the bluest light,” lyrics from the might be needed. band’s song “Blue Light.” It’s a long way from the days when they And what can fans expect from the new—and yet untitled—album? were playing shows for only 10 people in London clubs. “It’s going to be sexier, like your younger sister that gets all the Looking at the members of Bloc Party, you’d hardly peg them attention,” Okereke says. “As far as the collection of songs, it’s a better for rock stars—particularly not ones that make such tension-filled, collection than we had when we were recording Silent Alarm. As a spastic dance-rock. Dressed down and abnormally normal, the band band, we’ve changed. We’ve become better.” has already developed a bit of distaste—or at least skepticism—for He says that the band is much more confident than when they what success can bring. recorded Silent Alarm, and that confidence has made the new album “There are situations where you walk into a bar or club and a bit simpler, as they’re able “to capture the essence of a song instead everyone’s trying to meet you or speak to you,” Okereke says. “That’s of losing it in the crazy embellishment of a song.” not something I enjoy, really. Where some people get off on that aspect When the album does release—probably by the end of 2006—the of this job, it’s not for me. I haven’t really become more cynical. I just spotlight may be brighter on the band for a while again. The “fame keep people at arm’s length.” slags” may come back out of the woodwork. Or everyone may have At 24, Okereke has a bad stutter that may be a sign of pre-existing forgotten about them, as they will have found their new band of the social tension. Certainly knowing his newfound social pressures moment. But it won’t affect the four men of Bloc Party or the music doesn’t help. they make. “You meet all sorts of people when you become famous,” he says. “That’s something that affects you at the beginning of your career,” “You’ll meet all sorts of people who want to be photographed with Okereke says, “and we didn’t really take it seriously when it was first you or walk into a bar with you or whatever. It’s quite a dehumanizing occurring.” 0 situation to be a part of.” Drummer Matt Tong, who carries himself with a bit more confidence and humor, says he’s aware of the lack of authenticity that can

“IT’S HARD TO SEPARATE THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF.”

BLOC PARTY

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5/30/06 1:12:50 PM

N W O S I H F O R ASTE

DESTINY

AY BY JOHN HOLLID

Y E N R A E MAT K

MAT KEARNEY CITES JOHNNY CASH as one of his biggest inﬂuences. If Walk the Line is an accurate portrayal of Cash’s character, Kearney may be more like his hero than he thinks. There’s a scene a little way into the ﬁlm in which June Carter tells Cash that she’s on to him.

“You wear black ’cause you can’t ﬁnd anything else to wear?” she says. “You found your sound ’cause you can’t play no better? You just tried to kiss me because ‘it just happened’? You should try taking credit for something every once in a while, John.” The same is true of Kearney. He didn’t start writing songs

MAT KEARNEY

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until his junior year of college. He didn’t really decide to be a songwriter—it just happened. He went to Nashville, Tenn., “to help a buddy move” and ended up staying there and becoming one of its most promising new stars. How? It just happened. He then ended up getting his album picked up by a label and becoming one of the most talked-about artists in the college music scene. Again, it just happened. “None of this was planned,” he says. “It’s kind of been a surprise to me.” Now that Kearney is signed to Aware/Columbia Records, maybe it’s time that he—like Cash before him—start taking credit for something every once in a while. While he speaks of his life and success as though it all happened quite serendipitously, he allows for cracks in the façade, showing that, while he may not take the credit, he has certainly taken control. Growing up in Portland, Ore., Kearney spent most of his life more focused on poetry —MAT KEARNEY and literature than anything musical. “I was a writer,” he says of his adolescence. “I was the kid who would sit in the back of the room and write down my thoughts.” In high school, he took frequent road trips with friends, driving just for the sake of driving. After graduating from high school, he went to California State University to study literature. His junior-year roommate had an acoustic guitar, and Kearney decided to give it a try. “I’d pick it up and start playing really simple songs,” he says. “I didn’t know any, so I had to write my own in order to play. It just seemed to click with all of my years of writing and my sense of melody. Songwriting just seemed like a glove that fit very well.” The summer after his junior year, he went to Nashville to help a friend, producer Robert Marvin, move. Kearney and Marvin began working on some demos, and buzz began to build. “[The demos] started to turn some heads in Nashville,” Kearney says. “People were way into it, and they started showing up in our little ghetto studio wanting to listen to them—people in the music industry. My passion for songwriting and for being a musician had started to grow, so it just made sense. All I really wanted to do was write and make songs, so I stuck around Nashville and haven’t left yet.” Offers started to come in from record labels hoping to get the new songwriter on their rosters. But Kearney felt that he was too fresh to music to dive in headfirst. After all, he’d only been playing and writing music for about a year. “When I moved to Nashville, I knew I wasn’t ready to make a record,” he says. “I knew I hadn’t gotten to the space I’d wanted to. I’d always been a fan of music, so I’d been comparing myself to the people I loved—Johnny Cash, early U2, Bob Dylan. I just felt like such a newbie that I needed time to mature. That was part of the reason I didn’t sign with anybody during that first year.” His self-recorded album, Bullet, was eventually picked up for distribution by Inpop Records, a Nashville-based Christian label, and it made Kearney one of the most promising young stars in the Christian music circuit. Becoming a Christian rock star, he claims, was quite unintentional. Bullet doesn’t have overtly “Christian” lyrics, and Kearney has only played a very minimal number of shows in Christian venues. The rest are in neutral locations like theaters, bars and clubs. “I’ve had a lot of success in the Christian market, but none of that was planned,” he says. “There have been pockets of genres and niches that have been into my music that I never thought would. I’ve been very deliberate and clear about what I feel I’m supposed to do and where I’m supposed to be. That’s what I’m doing now and what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. I’ve just stuck to it.” And what exactly does that mean? Kearney remains vague. “I think my actions speak for what that is,” he says. “I play the venues that I play, and I write the kind of music that I write.” This is where his “it just happened” rhetoric slips aside and shows that he may be more in control than he usually admits. Even his decision to record his debut album without a label

“THIS TH THIS HISS ISS WHY WHY I WAS AS P PUT ON THIS TH S EARTH.” THI TH

may have been slyer than he leads on. After all, it came in handy when he signed with Aware/Columbia. “The cool thing about [recording Bullet] independently is that creatively I was the master of my own destiny,” he says. “There was no A&R involved. It was just a good friend and I producing it. It earned a lot of trust with Aware and Columbia because they realize that I can make a record on my own. So they’ve given me a lot of freedom, and they’ve tried not to mess it up. They trust me enough that they gave me a budget and didn’t even show up in the studio. I turned in songs when I was done.” Being signed simultaneously to a Christian and a mainstream label hasn’t changed the content of his music. “Songs sometimes write themselves,” he says. “There are certain things that are appropriate and certain things that aren’t—certain things that need to be expressed or stories that come out. I try not to make anything feel forced but stay very real to who I am and to what the song needs.” His mainstream debut on Aware/Columbia, Nothing Left to Lose, released in April, and Kearney feels it’s opened all of the right doors for him. “This is why I was put on this earth— to do what I’m doing now in the avenues and with the relationships that I’m having now,” he says. For the moment, at least, Mat Kearney has achieved exactly what he wanted to—whether he takes credit for it or not. 0

WHAT’S MAT KEARNEY LISTENING TO? 1. EMMYLOU HARRIS Wrecking Ball 2. SUFJAN STEVENS Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State

3. NEIL YOUNG Prairie Wind 4. SIGUR RÓS Takk 5. KATIE HERZIG Weightless

MAT KEARNEY

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until his junior year of college. He didn’t really decide to be a songwriter—it just happened. He went to Nashville, Tenn., “to help a buddy move” and ended up staying there and becoming one of its most promising new stars. How? It just happened. He then ended up getting his album picked up by a label and becoming one of the most talked-about artists in the college music scene. Again, it just happened. “None of this was planned,” he says. “It’s kind of been a surprise to me.” Now that Kearney is signed to Aware/Columbia Records, maybe it’s time that he—like Cash before him—start taking credit for something every once in a while. While he speaks of his life and success as though it all happened quite serendipitously, he allows for cracks in the façade, showing that, while he may not take the credit, he has certainly taken control. Growing up in Portland, Ore., Kearney spent most of his life more focused on poetry —MAT KEARNEY and literature than anything musical. “I was a writer,” he says of his adolescence. “I was the kid who would sit in the back of the room and write down my thoughts.” In high school, he took frequent road trips with friends, driving just for the sake of driving. After graduating from high school, he went to California State University to study literature. His junior-year roommate had an acoustic guitar, and Kearney decided to give it a try. “I’d pick it up and start playing really simple songs,” he says. “I didn’t know any, so I had to write my own in order to play. It just seemed to click with all of my years of writing and my sense of melody. Songwriting just seemed like a glove that fit very well.” The summer after his junior year, he went to Nashville, Tenn., to help a friend, producer Robert Marvin, move. Kearney and Marvin began working on some demos, and buzz began to build. “[The demos] started to turn some heads in Nashville,” Kearney says. “People were way into it, and they started showing up in our little ghetto studio wanting to listen to them—people in the music industry. My passion for songwriting and for being a musician had started to grow, so it just made sense. All I really wanted to do was write and make songs, so I stuck around Nashville and haven’t left yet.” Offers started to come in from record labels hoping to get the new songwriter on their rosters. But Kearney felt that he was too fresh to music to dive in headfirst. After all, he’d only been playing and writing music for about a year. “When I moved to Nashville, I knew I wasn’t ready to make a record,” he says. “I knew I hadn’t gotten to the space I’d wanted to. I’d always been a fan of music, so I’d been comparing myself to the people I loved—Johnny Cash, early U2, Bob Dylan. I just felt like such a newbie that I needed time to mature. That was part of the reason I didn’t sign with anybody during that first year.” His self-recorded album, Bullet, was eventually picked up for distribution by Inpop Records, a Nashville-based Christian label, and it made Kearney one of the most promising young stars in the Christian music circuit. Becoming a Christian rock star, he claims, was quite unintentional. Bullet doesn’t have overtly “Christian” lyrics, and Kearney has only played a very minimal number of shows in Christian venues. The rest are in neutral locations like theaters, bars and clubs. “I’ve had a lot of success in the Christian market, but none of that was planned,” he says. “There have been pockets of genres and niches that have been into my music that I never thought would. I’ve been very deliberate and clear about what I feel I’m supposed to do and where I’m supposed to be. That’s what I’m doing now and what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. I’ve just stuck to it.” And what exactly does that mean? Kearney remains vague. “I think my actions speak for what that is,” he says. “I play the venues that I play, and I write the kind of music that I write.” This is where his “it just happened” rhetoric slips aside and shows that he may be more

“THIS TH THIS HISS ISS WHY WHY I WAS AS P PUT ON THIS TH S EARTH.” THI TH

in control than he usually admits. Even his decision to record his debut album without a label may have been slyer than he leads on. After all, it came in handy when he signed with Aware/Columbia. “The cool thing about [recording Bullet] independently is that creatively I was the master of my own destiny,” he says. “There was no A&R involved. It was just a good friend and I producing it. It earned a lot of trust with Aware and Columbia because they realize that I can make a record on my own. So they’ve given me a lot of freedom, and they’ve tried not to mess it up. They trust me enough that they gave me a budget and didn’t even show up in the studio. I turned in songs when I was done.” Being signed simultaneously to a Christian and a mainstream label hasn’t changed the content of his music. “Songs sometimes write themselves,” he says. “There are certain things that are appropriate and certain things that aren’t—certain things that need to be expressed or stories that come out. I try not to make anything feel forced but stay very real to who I am and to what the song needs.” His mainstream debut on Aware/ Columbia, Nothing Left to Lose, released in April, and Kearney feels it’s opened all of the right doors for him. “This is why I was put on this earth—to do what I’m doing now in the avenues and with the relationships that I’m having now,” he says. For the moment, at least, Mat Kearney has achieved exactly what he wanted to—whether he takes credit for it or not. 0

WHAT’S MAT KEARNEY LISTENING TO? 1. EMMYLOU HARRIS Wrecking Ball 2. SUFJAN STEVENS Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State

3. NEIL YOUNG Prairie Wind 4. SIGUR RÓS Takk 5. KATIE HERZIG Weightless

MAT KEARNEY

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RELEVANT SUMMER READING GUIDE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THOSE LONG SUMMER AFTERNOONS, GRAB A BOOK AND SIT ON THE PORCH. HERE ARE YOUR SUMMER READING ESSENTIALS FOR 2006 … BY CARA DAVIS

SUMMER READING GUIDE

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The Brief History of the Dead

Translation Nation

By Kevin Brockmeier (Pantheon)

Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States

Fiction

By Héctor Tobar (Riverhead)

The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show By Ariel Gore (HarperSanFrancisco) Fiction

Sociology

This novel takes place in the “City,” which is a place

With all the media attention immigration reform

Catholicism meets the circus in this first novel

where the recently deceased reside while they’re

has received the past few months, this book is well

by Ariel Gore. An orphaned child raised by a

still remembered by the living. We meet Coleman,

timed and serves as a good primer for the subject. A

scatterbrained Catholic grandmother learns she

a dead vagrant who speaks like a prophet of God,

former Los Angeles Times reporter draws a portrait

can make her palms bleed on command when she’s

and Laura, who’s trapped on earth in Antarctica and

of the Hispanic community across America, outlines

hungry. She hits the road at age 28 with the circus

quickly running out of supplies. The author weaves

their importance to the U.S. economy and redefines

until her story attracts fanatical crowds. She retreats

together stories from the living and the dead for a

what it means to be an American.

to the mountains and meets a Catholic spiritual

spellbinding tale about human connections and

mentor. It’s a story of religious reawakening that’s at

crossing boundaries.

times irreverent, yet accepting of tradition and faith.

BIBLE HUMORIST SHOWDOWN! JASON BOYETT AND PARMINDER SUMMON BOTH WROTE QUICK-HUMORED BOOKS OF BIBLICAL TRIVIA. THEY NOW GO TOE-TO-TOE, AND ONLY ONE WILL COME OUT ALIVE ...

JB: First things first. “Parminder Summon” is a pretty foppish name, even for a Brit. Is it real? PS: I had to check what foppish meant. Is that how young people speak today? Actually, it’s an Anglicised form—I’d better not tell you the real one. Anyway, “Jason Boyett” sounds French in origin to me. Your ancestors weren’t cheeseeating surrender monkeys, were they? JB: Never mind my dairy-loving simian ancestry (or, for that matter, semiobscure Simpsons references). What we should focus on at this point is that I used a word you had to look up, thus establishing me as your intellectual superior, despite your intimidating, fancy-pants name. Point: Boyett. Let’s move on to your books. Doubleday released Summon’s Christian Miscellany [February 2006], Summon’s Miscellany of Saints & Sinners [June 2006] and ________Continued next page

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Surviving the Suburbs DAVID L. GOETZ is a religious writer and author of Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul (HarperSanFrancisco). Although the superficial daily life and strife of the suburb grind at the soul day in and day out, it is quite possible to be spiritually alive, Goetz says. In his book, Goetz shares eight practices that will help your soul survive the numbness of an ordinary, privileged life. Is it possible to have a healthy spiritual life and live in the suburbs? Definitely. That’s the assumption of the book. The myth is that God is better found in the rural or a more contemplative environment. Essentially, your suburb is your monastery. Living deeper requires the practices of the monastics to stay awake to God and God’s work in this world. What advice would you give to a young couple who are living in the city and are thinking of a move to the ’burbs to start a family because it’s easier and “safer”? “Safer” is a myth. God can protect (or not protect) you and your family just as well in the city as in the suburbs. Buying into the “easier and safer” myth causes you to do stupid things like sending your kids to Christian schools when you can’t afford it, buying large homes with interest-only mortgages just so you can live in the right neighborhood and buying SUVs for emotional security. You are never in control of your life. That’s Spirituality 101. A client recently told me that she and her husband were moving to the suburbs, and she said she had a lot of fear about “becoming one of them”— a boring suburban mom whose main job is to be the personal assistant for her two kids. That’s definitely where the culture pulls you, but you can swim upstream. It’s not inevitable. You recommend eight spiritual disciplines in your book as a way to

Summon’s Bible Miscellany [due in August 2006]. All are highly readable, witty little volumes packed full of interesting information. I guess you weren’t aware that here in the United States, I’m sort of the authority on that kind of thing. PS: You know, it’s that shy and retiring attitude that is so appealing about you! What do you mean you’re “the authority”? You’ve only just published your book. And, for your information, “that kind of thing” is the Bible, THE WORD OF GOD, inspired by the Holy Spirit, written by scores of holy people, fought over, cherished and the basis of Western (including American) civilisation. Anyway, now that you’ve claimed the high ground, tell me: Why would anyone want to pick up your book?

practice being spiritually awake in an environment that fights to keep you asleep. Is one of these more essential than another? Two are absolutely critical. The first is solitude—creating space in your life so that you can discover where God is at work. Only in solitude do some of the deeper issues of your life begin to surface. For example, why is it so important that when I mention my kids, I always have to say how smart my son is? Why am I willing to travel three states over just to make sure my son stays on the travel hockey team? Why don’t I invest that time in my marriage? The second is building relationships with those who have less than you. We tend to build friendships, unintentionally, with those who have just a little more than we do. We keep a sharp eye to those who have more and a blind eye to those who have less. Spirituality without social justice is narcissism. And do you think we need more narcissists in the ’burbs whose sole mission in life is to get their “talented and gifted” kids into an Ivy League school and to live in the biggest house on the block? I don’t. What does corporate worship need to look like in our lives? I once heard Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, say that corporate worship is worshipping God in harness with other believers. I think for ’burbanites the temptation is to put too high a value on the experience of Sunday morning and too little value on the relationships that are automatically created by church. That sets you up for being chronically disappointed with church. Truth be told, we often don’t know what we need spiritually. We think we do, but too often we’re simply feeding our ego. My advice is to find a church, stick with it and learn to manage your anxiety about Sunday morning.

JB: Mr. Summon, don’t be getting all pious. When I say “that kind of thing,” I’m referring to smallish, fun, info-packed books about the Bible. You’ve got one; I’ve got one. Both of us take the big, scary, unwieldy Holy Bible and break it down into manageable parts. You do it with cute little lists of, for example, biblical weights and measures. I do it via a scriptural Cast of Characters, with snarky biographies of everyone from Adam to Zacchaeus. As for what makes my biblish book the “authority,” well, I think the fact that it’s a continuation of the wildly successful Pocket Guide brand is proof enough. People loved Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse, my first book under the Pocket Guide moniker. Loved it for the humor. Loved it for

the irreverence. Loved it for the long timeline of failed “Jesus-is-coming-soon” prophecies. Loved it because, by golly, Jason is my grandson and anything he does is unique and special. (Though, to be honest, that last perspective is shared pretty much only by my grandparents.) Anyway, this new book—Pocket Guide to the Bible— continues where the last one left off. Glossaries of biblical themes! Character lists! Biblical timelines! An endorsement by Jerry Jenkins! It’s bursting with goodness, and not just because it’s about the Bible. PS: Speaking of the Bible, did you know that Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding authors of your Constitution, wrote his own version of the Scriptures

SUMMER READING GUIDE

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Living the Resurrection

An Ordinary Man

Generation Me

The Risen Christ in Everyday Life

By Paul Rusesabagina with Tom Zoellner (Viking)

By Eugene H. Peterson (NavPress)

Autobiography

Why Today’s Young Americans Are ... More Miserable Than Ever Before

Christian Living

By Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D. (Free Press) Sociology

You know him from The Message, his paraphrase

Read the Hotel Rwanda story from the man whose

While the differences between this generation

of the Bible. Eugene Peterson takes us back

life story inspired the film. In this beautiful and

and that of our parents are obvious, the resulting

to the day of Christ’s resurrection and why

haunting book, Paul Rusesabagina not only recounts

problems and solutions aren’t. Generation Me uses

it should be fresh, new and full of wonder

the horrors and miracles that happened in his

the largest generational study (1.3 million surveyed)

for us each day. Christ’s friends were utterly

country and in his hotel in the 100 days of the ’94

to talk about some overarching issues we must learn

transformed by His resurrection. Their

genocide, he offers historical background into the

to deal with. The study shows that this generation

friendship, their work and even their meals

conflict and the problems that still exist today.

has more depression, anxiety, cynicism and loneliness and has much more liberal views on sex.

together took on new meaning and purpose.

Hopefully, solutions to these problems will follow this

He says the same can and should happen to us

extensive look at who we’ve become.

today.

because he didn’t believe in the miracles of Jesus? How sad is that? Jesus without the miracles is like pencil without lead—pointless!

entire idea are a blatant knockoff of the excellent 2003 book Schott’s Original Miscellany? Just wondering.

why Jesus could have been a Californian (He never cut his hair, He walked around barefoot, and He invented a new religion). I could go on.

JB: Wow. Nice pun there. God bless that quirky British humor. Of course I know about Jefferson and his version of the Bible. In fact, I’ll take it a step further—his Bible was a cut-and-paste version with the Greek, Latin, French and English arranged side by side. Which must have taken a loooong time to assemble, pre-Microsoft Word.

PS: I’m far too modest to analyse why people would want to read Summon’s Christian Miscellany (and yes, I did get the idea from Schott’s Original Miscellany, which is English, by the way). But I guess it’s because they come across things they didn’t know they didn’t know, like the Bible in just 50 words, Woody Allen quotations (“If only God would give me some clear sign, like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank”), the 12 rules of Puritan behaviour, the origins of the “Adulterers Bible,” what the 12 Days of Christmas mean, how to remember the 10 Commandments by rhyme or three reasons

JB: That won’t be necessary.

But enough about Jefferson. I’ll return the big question to you. Why would anyone want to read your book? And, while we’re at it, answer me this: Are you aware that your title and cover art and, well,

PS: Anyway, it’s clear every item is a gem, and many readers tell me my book is ideal for bathroom reading. (What do you Yanks do in there?!) JB: Um … PS: Your Cast of Characters idea sounds good, but how did you decide whom to include and whom to leave out? Don’t tell me you have a focus group ________Continued next page

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The Early Bird Gets the Buffet

Early Bird A Memoir of Premature Retirement By Rodney Rothman (Simon & Schuster)

RODNEY ROTHMAN had a dream job when he was 24: head writer for the Late Show with David Letterman. His writing was also being seen in The New York Times, The New Yorker and McSweeney’s. After Letterman, Rothman went to work on the show Undeclared, from the maker of Freaks and Geeks. It ran for 17 episodes before getting canned. After that show was canceled, Rothman “retired”—moving to a retirement community in South Florida. Early Bird is the memoir of his experiences. Many people in their late 20s and early 30s are working feverishly to gain early retirement. What was it about retirement that you wanted now? Judging from the way we’re blowing through our Social Security funds, I was thinking that it might be good to take a little advance on my retirement since there will probably be no such thing when I’m 65.

Century Village taught me the value of retiring more socially. It was genuinely fun to walk out of my condo every morning and see 50 people I knew.

Memoir

In your observations, what role does faith play among the retired set? It really varies. While researching the book, though, I learned that people who are religious, married and belong to clubs and social organizations tend to live longer than people who don’t. So I’m basically screwed. Now that you’ve come “out” of retirement, what’s next for you? I’m working so hard on a movie version of the book for Paramount Pictures that I’m ready to retire again. Does the film have a projected release date? I need to finish the script first!

How have your plans for retirement changed after your experience?

This hilarious memoir chronicles the misadventures of Rodney Rothman, who retires at age 28 and

The generation that retired in the 1970s and 1980s retired in a very social way—into mega-condominium buildings with people in smallish apartments. The trend now with baby boomers is to retire into more suburban-style communities where you have more square footage and more privacy. But my experience in

advising you, because that would be soooooo American, relying on a committee to do your hard work. JB: Please. No focus groups for me. I make my own decisions based on little more than gut instinct, my own personal whims and other clichés. I’m an unabashed individualist. Not so individualistic, however, that I’m gonna name my next book Boyett’s Pocket Guide to Whatever. Because that would be going too far. Right, Mr. I’m-Too-Modest-to-AnalyzeMy-Readership-but-Not-Too-Modest-to-Name-aBook-After-Myself? Not that the idea hasn’t occurred to me. Especially since a few months ago, another publisher released a book called Pocket Guide to the Bible. Crap.

moves to a retirement community in Boca Raton, Fla. Instead of tranquil afternoons by the pool and earlybird specials at the buffet, he finds that fitting into this community is just as awkward as it was in high school. He ultimately finds that old people are just as messed up as he is and that retirement is a lot more work than working.

PS: How do you tell them apart?

JB: Bingo.

JB: Mine’s funny. Zing!

PS: Also, I think Og was one of those kings killed by the Israelites en route to the Promised Land. My turn: Do you know the Litany of Four Last Things? Do you know why TULIP is so important to Calvinists?

PS: Indeed. Back to the character list … JB: Right. Here’s how I chose the people in my biblical Who’s Who: All the famous Bible men and women you’ve heard of made the cut. Then I selected a few obscure folks just for fun. These include Abishag and Og and a couple more whose names don’t end in a hard g. PS: As a Bible student (it goes with the job), I have heard of Abishag. She was the young woman who kept King David “warm” in his old age.

JB: I’m familiar with the Calvinism/TULIP connection, but haven’t heard of the Litany of Four Last Things. What is it? PS: The Litany of Four Last Things, you will find—if you care to look in Summon’s Christian Miscellany— refers to Death, Judgment, Hell and Heaven. You’ll also find out why numbers are important in the Bible, the countries where Christians suffer the

SUMMER READING GUIDE

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BATHROOM READS

Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You Wanted to Ask By New Scientist (Free Press) Trivia

New Scientist compiled its best readersubmitted questions (and hilarious answers) like: Why do dogs howl along with emergency sirens? and Do black pants really make your butt look smaller?

Revolution on Canvas, Vol. 1 Poetry from the Indie Music Scene Edited by Rich Balling (Warner Books) Poetry It’s rock ’n’ roll without the music. It’s poetry without the cheesy metaphors. It’s indie rock poetry. Some contributing artists include A Static Lullaby, NOFX, The Format and Finch.

Summon’s Christian Miscellany An Amusingly Informative Collection of Unexpected Facts, Curiosities, and Trivia By Parminder Summon (Doubleday) Trivia Although not nearly as funny as our very own

Book of Sketches

Jason Boyett’s Pocket Guide to the Bible, this

By Jack Kerouac (Penguin Group)

bite-sized work is the CliffsNotes version of

Art

Christianity, from primers on The Alpha Course to

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

This never-before-published book of poems by Jack Kerouac offers word “sketches” of meditations on art and life in the two years he spent moving across America and into Mexico before a key period in his literary career. The author weaves together stories from the living and the dead for a work about human connections and crossing boundaries.

ONLINE BONUS: Visit RELEVANTmagazine.com to download an excerpt of David Crowder’s forthcoming book, Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven but Nobody Wants to Die (RELEVANT Books).

greatest persecution (pray for Christians in North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, as it’s not easy to practice your faith in these nations) and how Archbishop Ussher calculated the beginning of creation as October 23, 4004 B.C. I doubt whether your “readers” could get that range, inspiration, illumination and entertainment.

and—like yours—a healthy dose of religious trivia.

JB: See, that’s where you’re wrong, tea-sipper. Important biblical numbers? They’re in Pocket Guide to the Bible. Archbishop Ussher and his calculations? They play a significant role in modern End-Times predictions, which means they get a shout-out in Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse. My readers finish my books having experienced all kinds of range, inspiration, entertainment

JB: Then answer me this, ye Great Defender of English “humour.” Which is better? The Office (U.S.) or The Office (U.K.)?

PS: Your ignorance is showing, sir. Miscellany is worlds apart from trivia. It’s like comparing English humour to American humour—a totally different order! Seinfeld was great, though.

PS: Obviously, I prefer the original U.K. version of The Office, but I thought your version transferred pretty well. (Am I sounding too patronising? Patronising: it means talking down to you.)

JB: I’m well aware of patronizing, even if you daintily refuse to spell it with a z. That said, Mr. Summon, I’m now forced to bring out the big gun. Are you aware that, according to GoogleFight.com, “Jason Boyett” beats out “Parminder Summon” by a grand total of 104,000 to 683? You should be embarrassed. I totally box your ears, or whatever pansy Europhrase you might use to describe a sound whuppin’. PS: You know, you really shouldn’t believe everything from the Internet (especially when you’ve faked the figures). I say, let the readers decide—buy both and vote! JB: Amen, Mr. Summon. Amen.

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SNOW PATROL • JASON MORANT • THE RACONTEURS • UNDEROATH

GNARLS BARKLEY IS GOING CRAZY THANKS TO A MASSIVE HIT IN THE U.K., Gnarls Barkley went from mysterious Internet buzz act to modern-day legends in less than six months. They broke records, wooed critics and won hearts all before releasing an album in their very own United States. But their first single, the stratosphere-smashing “Crazy,” is a tough act to follow. It would be like if Led Zeppelin’s first single had been “Stairway to Heaven.” Is there any way to go but down? St. Elsewhere, the duo’s U.S. debut, is a beautiful work of quirky aural bliss. With Cee-Lo’s Southern-gospel stylings slicked on top of producer Danger Mouse’s genius beats—think Sister Act meets the Gorillaz—this is a gem of a record. The album begins with “Go-Go Gadget Gospel” and the sound of a projector whirring to life, followed by what could pass as the victory march when Mario defeats Bowser and finally saves Princess Toadstool. This spastic thump-along serves as the intro to the history-making “Crazy” as it swaggers in with cool upright bass and Cee-Lo crooning about the pleasant days when he lost his mind. It’s the “Hey Ya” of 2006. The title track follows with a melancholy, near-nostalgic intro that sets the pace for a somber tune about leaving troubles and longing for love. The juiced-up cover of Violent Femmes’ “Gone Daddy Gone” is almost identical to the original, sans awkward ’80s guitar solos. The jubilant music mixed with morose lyrics succinctly sums up the worldview of Gnarls Barkley. “Smiley Faces” concludes the first 15 minutes of the album with that

too-cool upright bass covered with swanning future computer effects and enough church-choir backing vocals to make your brain explode. While songs like “Feng Shui” lift the spirit, the second half of St. Elsewhere loses a bit of momentum. It would be easy to say that St. Elsewhere is an unbelievably great album that everyone should listen to. But that would be incorrect. It is inaccessible at times. Although “Crazy” and a few of the other tracks are ridiculously catchy and charming, “The Boogie Monster” and “Necromancing” may come off as a little odd with their ghoulish lyrics and eerie tone. Time will tell if the mass market embraces the album in its entirety or if it’s a bit too quirky and eccentric to be everyone’s cup of tea. But if it appeals to your palate, you’ll want to savor it again and again. —CHRIS TROUTMAN

GNARLS BARKLEY ST. ELSEWHERE (DOWNTOWN) GENRE:

HIP-HOP/FUNK :LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

MUSIC REVIEWS

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SNOW PATROL • JASON MORANT • THE RACONTEURS • UNDEROATH

too-cool upright bass covered with swanning future computer effects and enough church-choir backing vocals to make your brain explode. While songs like “Feng Shui” lift the spirit, the second half of St. Elsewhere loses a bit of momentum. It would be easy to say that St. Elsewhere is an unbelievably great album that everyone should listen to. But that would be incorrect. It is inaccessible at times. Although “Crazy” and a few of the other tracks are ridiculously catchy and charming, “The Boogie Monster” and “Necromancing” may come off as a little odd with their ghoulish lyrics and eerie tone. Time will tell if the mass market embraces the album in its entirety or if it’s bit too quirky and eccentric to be everyone’s cup of tea. But if it appeals to your palate, you’ll want to savor it again and again. —CHRIS TROUTMAN

GNARLS BARKLEY ST. ELSEWHERE (DOWNTOWN) GENRE:

HIP-HOP/FUNK :LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

MUSIC REVIEWS

~reviews_issue21.indd 086

5/31/06 3:10:49 PM

7K=KIJ '. '/ IA? HEKD:JEF B;M?I8;HHO" F7

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SNOW PATROL EYES OPEN (A&M) LYRICS:

MUSIC:

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

GENRE:

BRIT-ROCK

With Eyes Open, Snow Patrol ﬂexes its recently acquired muscles by way of a larger budget and extra studio time. The result is a bigger, better-arranged collection of pop-rock anthems, but one that sounds misguidedly calculated and neat. It’s an album of promising moments that don’t always connect to make the stronger, cohesive whole it could be. It’s most apparent in vocalist Gary Lightbody’s lyrics, which are best when wafting in and out of indiscriminating ears. The mix of plain and abstract references to relationship problems comes off as mostly disjointed, clichéd and rarely anything to sink your teeth into. But there’s potential there, and with a little more effort, Snow Patrol could do more than get their melodic claws in you: They could have something to say. —CAMERON LAWRENCE

JASON MORANT OPEN (VERTICAL) LYRICS:

MUSIC:

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

GENRE:

WORSHIP

If the brilliant Nashville songwriter Josh Rouse wrote a worship album, it might sound like Jason Morant’s Open. This highly personal sophomore release, with light acoustic trimmings and smooth radio-rock production, nudges you with spiritual overtures but never pushes. The lyrics fuse Chris Tomlin praise with Coldplay oblique imagery. The worship on “Holy” has an ephemeral quality, while “You’re in Love” could be a Keane stand-in. “Make Us One” escalates slowly through a series of orchestral epiphanies. The closer, “Hosanna,” unfolds with poetic majesty. Some songs are a bit too complex for church on Sunday morning, but they’re just perfect for listening to on Sunday night.—JOHN BRANDON

So lay down the sword And put away the doctrine Love a little more, love a little more ‘Cause everybody’s broken ÜÜÜ° V i À`i > °V

~reviews_issue21.indd 088

5/30/06 2:45:50 PM

THE RACONTEURS BROKEN BOY SOLDIERS (V2) LYRICS:

MUSIC:

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

GENRE:

ROCK ’N’ ROLL

Yes, Jack White is in this band. But so are criminally under-recognized singer/songwriter Brendan Benson and members of the hard-rockin’ band The Greenhornes. Sufﬁ ce it to say, this band oozes indie cred. But will they be able to rise above the marginalizing label “Jack White’s other band”? Broken Boy Soldiers is a collection of songs rather than an album, abruptly shifting from trash rock to acoustic folk without warning. It’s like a mix tape that provides a summation of the evolution of classic rock. Everyone from Cream to Lynyrd Skynyrd to David Bowie to The Ramones get obvious nods here, but the songs are good enough that they don’t sound like rip-offs. We’ve all wondered what White could do with a kickin’ rhythm section. Now we know. —BENJAMIN ESPOSITO

UNDEROATH DEFINE THE GREAT LINE (TOOTH & NAIL) LYRICS:

MUSIC:

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

GENRE:

HARD ROCK

Let’s ignore for a minute that Underoath is a staple at such under-21 hotbeds as MySpace, Hot Topic and emo parties. For the follow-up to their 2004 breakthrough, They’re Only Chasing Safety, the Florida sextet has sidestepped the tortured affectations of their past and their peers, creating an album with more testosterone, verve and intricacy than any album in post-genre rock in recent memory. Whereas previously the band played by the numbers, screaming and pounding away with limited sense of self, Deﬁne the Great Line is a whole other animal—with multi-cadenced pacing, wailing guitar walls and versatile growls that actually say something. It’s a beast that’s stronger in sound, substance and subtlety, its ferocity a testament that Underoath are ﬁnally men, not guys barely out of their teens. —ANDREE FARIAS

Tired of me-first faith? Craig Borlase redefines spiritual maturity for a new generation of Christians, pointing them toward the radical servanthood of Jesus. It’s a book that will shake your life, if you’re ready.

~reviews_issue21.indd 089

5/30/06 2:46:27 PM

ANGELS AND AIRWAVES WE DON’T NEED TO WHISPER (GEFFEN)

REGINA SPEKTOR BEGIN TO HOPE (SIRE)

GENRE:

ROCK

ALT-POP

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Former Blink-182’s Tom Delonge has decided to end his reign as the jester in the high court of top-40 pop-punk and wants to change the world instead—or at least give it his best shot. AAA uses cinematic intros and U2-esque guitar delays to create anthems. Though it’s not greatness, the album’s ambition proves to be a worthy listen. —JC

The latest from this Moscow-born anti-folkie ﬁnds her supplementing her theatrical vocalizing and adept piano playing with a palette of electric guitars, ambient strings and electronic beats. She hasn’t lost that odd combination of sophistication and little-girl naiveté, but on Begin to Hope, it seems like less of a revelation. —BE

RED UMBRELLA

PETE PHILLY AND PERQUISITE

WISHING FOR BOARDWALK (7SPIN)

GENRE:

ALT-ROCK

HIP-HOP

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Delicious melodies permeate throughout Red Umbrella’s Wishing for Boardwalk, the stellar debut from these Canadian transplants. Contagious crooning on “Storm Warning” and “Already Won” gives way to brilliant multi-part harmonies on “Slide.” The quirky alt-rock arrangements have a post-Smiths Morrissey feel. —JB

~reviews_issue21.indd 090

MINDSTATE (ANTI)

GENRE:

The Netherlands’ MC Pete Philly and producer Perquisite offer a complex album based on a simple concept. Mindstate consists of 17 tracks, each one dedicated to a single emotion or feeling. The songs capture each emotion with style, intellect and ﬂow. Mindstate has something for everyone, regardless of how they feel. —TC

5/30/06 2:46:58 PM

THE STREETS

THE HARDEST WAY TO MAKE AN EASY LIVING (VICE)

RILEY ARMSTRONG LA LOOP (7SPIN)

GENRE:

BRITISH RAP

POP-ROCK

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

On The Streets’ third effort, Brit rapper Mike Skinner’s novelty has worn off, but the cockney MC is as entertaining as ever. Hardest assembles a fascinating track list driven by grimy two-step beats and electro-riffs, with reﬂective songs about life as a post-working-class top-shelf superstar. Watch out for his lyrics, though; they’re as explicit as ever. —BM

Although Riley Armstrong’s songwriting is sophisticated and intelligent, he sounds a bit too much like Jack Johnson at times. Whether that’s a good thing depends on how much you like spiritual surf rock. Not all of the songs work well, but “Cassette Decks” has such whispery vocals you can almost feel the California sand. —JB

SHAPES AND SIZES

HOUSE OF HEROES

SHAPES AND SIZES (ASTHMATIC KITTY)

GENRE:

INDIE POP

ROCK

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Shapes and Sizes is another bizarre treat from Asthmatic Kitty Records. Like other Asthmatic artists—most notably Sufjan Stevens and Castanets—this Canadian quartet writes lo-ﬁ indie-folk quirk that is as lovable as it is weird. Every song is a new adventure. Some fun, some thoughtful, all bizarre. —TC

~reviews_issue21.indd 091

SAY NO MORE (MONO VS STEREO)

GENRE:

Just one year after House of Heroes’ debut album was released, it’s being released again with a new title, new artwork and a few new tunes. Say No More packs a ﬁerce punch that shocks a played-out genre back to life. Rock fans have been given a second chance to get on board. Don’t make the same mistake twice. —TC

5/30/06 2:47:43 PM

FAIR

THE BEST WORST-CASE SCENARIO (TOOTH & NAIL)

THE BLACK ANGELS PASSOVER (LIGHT IN THE ATTIC)

GENRE:

MELODIC ROCK

PSYCHEDELIC ROCK

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Formerly of the legendary Poor Old Lu and Rose Blossom Punch, Aaron Sprinkle is back behind the microphone. His new band, Fair, is Sprinkle at his near-best. His signature smooth vocals provide the counterbalance to his fuzzy guitar pop. Even with guest appearances by John Davis and Eisley, the highlight of Fair is Sprinkle himself. —TC

Apparently no one told The Black Angels that ’60s psychedelic rock is supposed to be over and dead. These Austin, Texas natives are rocking out the fuzzed guitars and droning vocals like there’s no tomorrow. With songs that deal with Vietnam and one that name-checks Pink Floyd, the band doesn’t seem to grasp what decade it is. —JH

GLEN PHILLIPS

DUDLEY PERKINS

MR. LEMONS (HIGH WIRE)

GENRE:

FOLK POP

NEO-SOUL

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

This album is paradoxical in nature. The title, Mr. Lemons, creates a mental picture of a cynic who will put the worst spin on everything. Yet the overwhelming message is hopeful. Blessed with one of the best voices in intelligent pop, Glen Phillips writes songs as therapy, although it’s uncertain if said therapy is for himself or for us. —BS

~reviews_issue21.indd 092

EXPRESSIONS (2012 A.U.) (STONES THROW)

GENRE:

There is a lot done right on Dudley Perkins’ sophomore album, which was produced by Madlib. But there is more done wrong. Perkins parades as a soul singer with a sense of humor. The problems are that he can’t sing and he isn’t very funny. Don’t be fooled by the deceptively titled “Dear God.” You don’t want to know what it’s really about. —TC

5/30/06 2:49:00 PM

ANDREW OSENGA THE MORNING (SQUARE PEG ALLIANCE)

GRANDADDY

JUST LIKE THE FAMBLY CAT (V2 ADA)

GENRE:

ALT-ROCK/FOLK

ELECTRIC FOLK

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

With his new solo record, The Morning, Andrew Osenga cements his place as one of the best storytellers and songwriters to emerge out of the Christian music industry. The Caedmonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Call guitarist showcases his poetic, personal lyrics with a blend of musical styles, from guitardriven rock to delicately layered acoustic folk. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;JB

If this album really is the swan song for Grandaddy, the California progfolk band could not be leaving on a happier note. While their previous efforts to fuse rural acoustic nostalgia and space-age psychedelia may have seemed a tad gimmicky, here it just feels natural. Grandaddy has never felt more organic. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;BM

CONTROLLING THE FAMOUS

MARS ILL

AUTOMATIC CITY (MILITIA GROUP)

PRO PAIN (GOTEE)

GENRE:

POST PUNK

HIP-HOP

:LYRICS

:MUSIC

:SPIRITUAL CONTENT

Jangling guitar melodies and staccato drumbeats permeate the bleak landscape of Automatic City. Johnny Collins and Max Hellmannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vocals lead the band from ďŹ st-pumping sing-alongs to mellow ruminations on the shallow promises of contemporary society. It creates a distinct atmosphere but lacks enough variety to create a lasting impression. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;AM

Pro Pain is a long time coming. Originally slated for a fall 2004 campaign, the album was delayed for legal reasons. The good news is that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more than worth the wait. To put it simply, Pro Pain is angry, intelligent and goodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;surprisingly good. Tracks like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dog Eared Pageâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Stand Back and Watchâ&#x20AC;? are hot with hooks for days. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;TC

AND PERCENT FROM !CCORDING TO DATA ABOUT OF THE ESTIMATED MU PERCENT OF THE VICTIMS WERE MALES AND PERCENT WERE PERSONS YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER &ORTY FOUR ACCOUNTED FOR THE REMAINDER )N ACCORDING TO SUPPLEMENTAL DATA REPORTED FOR OFFENDERS OF THE OFFENDERS FOR WHOM SEX AGE AND RACE WERE REPORTED WERE MALE AND PERCENT WERE PERSONS AND OLDER 3EVENTY PERCENT WERE AGES /F OFFENDERS FOR WHOM RACE WAS KNOWN PERCENT WERE PERCENT WERE WHITE AND THE REMAINDER WERE PERSONS OF OTHER RACES $ATA INDICATE THAT MURDER IS MOST INTRA RACIAL AMONG VICTIMS AND OFFENDERS )N DATA BASED ON INCIDENTS INVOLVING ONE VICTIM AND ONE SHOW THAT PERCENT OF THE BLACK MURDER VICTIMS WERE SLAIN BY BLACK OFFENDERS AND PERCENT OF WHITE VICTIMS WERE KILLED BY WHITE OFFENDERS !CCORDING TO THE "UREAU OF *USTICE 3TATISTICS HOMICIDE RATES DECLINED TO LEVELS LAST SEEN BEFORE 4HE HOMICIDE RATE DOUBLED FROM THE MID gS TO THE LATE IT PEAKED AT PER POPULATION AND SUBSEQUENTLY FELL OFF TO PER IN )T RO IN THE LATE gS AND EARLY gS TO A PEAK OF PER IN 3INCE THEN THE RATE HAS DECLIN PER BY !LSO FROM THE "*3 (OMICIDES ARE MORE LIKELY TO INVOLVE MULTIPLE OFFENDERS THAN MULTIPLE VICTIMS 4HE PERCENTAGE OF HOMICIDES INVOLVING MULTIPLE OFFENDERS INCREASED DRAMATICALLY IN THE gS AND EARLY gS INCREASING FROM IN TO IN 4HE PERCENTAGE OF HOMICIDES INVOLV THE LAST DECADE HAS RISEN MULTIPLE VICTIMS INCREASED GRADUALLY DURING THE LAST TWO DECADES FROM JUST UNDE MILLION CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE ADEQU MILLION CHILDREN HAVE NO ACCESS TO MILLION CHILDREN LACK ACCESS TO INFO MILLION CHILDREN HAVE NO ACCESS TO MILLION CHILDREN HAVE NEVER BEEN TO S MILLION CHILDREN ARE SEVERELY FOOD DEP 4OTAL NUMBER OF !)$3 DEATHS BETWEEN THE END OF MILLION .UMBER OF y w a m c o l o r a d o . o r g ORPHANED BY !)$3 LIVING IN 3UB 3AHARAN AT THE END OF MILLION "Y $ECEM MILLION CHILDREN ARE SEVERELY FOOD DEP WOMEN ACCOUNTED FOR OF AL 1.800.for.ywam LIVING WITH ()6 WORLDWIDE AND MILLION IN SUB 3AHARAN !FRICA )N YOUNG PEOPLE YEARS OLD ACCOUNTED FOR HALF OF ALL NEW ()6 INFECTIONS WORLDWIDE MORE THAN BECAME INFECTED WITH ()6 EVERY DAY !N ESTIMATED FIVE MILLION PEOPLE IN LOW AND MIDDLE INCOME COUNTRIES DO NOT HAVE THE !)$3 DRUGS WHICH COULD SAVE THEIR LIVES !S OF .OVEMBER 4HE #$# HAS REPORTED CONFIRMED CASES SUSPECTED CASES AND A T KILLED BY !NTHRAX IN THE FIRST CONFIRMED DEATHS IN MORE THAN DECADES 4HE FIRST VICTIM &LORIDA BAS EDITOR 2OBERT 3TEVENS WORKED AT TABLOID NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER !MERICAN -EDIA )NC IN "OCA 2ATON &LORIDA OTHER MEN WORKED AS DISTRIBUTION CLERKS IN THE "RENTWOOD POSTAL FACILITY IN 7ASHINGTON *OSEPH 0 #URSEE DIED AT THE 3OUTHERN -ARYLAND (OSPITAL #ENTER IN #LINTON -ARYLAND AND 4HOMAS , -ORRIS *R DIED A .EW 9ORK HOSPITAL WORKER WHO CONTRACTED INHALATION ANTHRAX 4HE LATEST VICTIM /TTILIE ,UNDGREN DIED .OVEMBER AT 'RIFFIN (OSPITAL IN $ERBY #ONNECTICUT -S ,UNDGREN WAS YEARS OLD !S OF .OVEMBER 4HE #$# HAS REPORTED CONFIRMED CASES SUSPECTED CASES AND A TOT KILLED BY !NTHRAX IN THE FIRST CONFIRMED DEATHS IN MORE THAN DECADES 4HE FIRST VICTIM &LORIDA BASED EDITOR 2OBERT 3TEVENS WORKED AT TABLOID NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER !MERICAN -EDIA )NC IN "OCA 2ATON &LORIDA OTHER MEN WORKED AS DISTRIBUTION CLERKS IN THE "RENTWOOD POSTAL FACILITY IN 7ASHINGTON *OSEPH 0 #URSEEN DIED AT THE 3OUTHERN -ARYLAND (OSPITAL #ENTER IN #LINTON -ARYLAND AND 4HOMAS , -ORRIS *R DIED AT THE 'REATER 3OUTHEAST #OMMUNITY (OSPITAL IN 7ASHINGTON $ # +ATHY .GUYEN DIED /CTOBER 3HE A .EW 9ORK HOSPITAL WORKER WHO CONTRACTED INHALATION ANTHRAX 4HE LATEST VICTIM /TTILIE ,UNDGREN DIED .OVEMBER AT 'RIFFIN (OSPITAL IN $ERBY #ONNECTICUT -S ,UNDGREN WAS YEARS OLD MILLION CHILDREN ARE SEVERELY F What am I going to say? Father, get me out of this? OOD DEP!S OF .OVEMBER KILLED BY !NTHRAX IN No, this is why I came in the first place. EDITOR 2OBERT 3TEVENS D j o i n u s - Y o u t h W i t h A M i s s i o n : S t r a t e g i c F r o n t i e r s

ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

~reviews_issue21.indd 093

5/30/06 3:35:26 PM

KINGDOM BOUND Western New York’s Premier Christian Festival!

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www.kingdombound.org 1.800.461.4485 • (716) 633.1117

IN CONJUNCTION WITH THESE MINISTRY PARTNERS

Do you

have it in you?

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One South Boulevard â&#x20AC;˘ Nyack, NY 10960-3698 1-800-33-NYACK â&#x20AC;˘ www.nyack.edu admissions@nyack.edu

LAST WORD

LAST WORD_21.indd 096

5/30/06 6:44:17 PM

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