THE MOST WANTED MAN IN CHINA | GROUPLOVE | PRISCILL A SHIRER | IS EDUCATION FIX ABLE?
GUNGOR N.T. WRIGHT 5 FILMMAKERS CHANGING HOLLY WOOD ANDY STANLEY
RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
FAITH, CULTURE & INTENTIONAL LIVING
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
FOREST WHITAKER
THE BIGGEST ROLE OF HIS CAREER ISN’T WHAT YOU THINK
LOUIE GIGLIO
SITTING DOWN WITH THE ‘HUNGER GAMES’ STAR
THE PURPOSE BEHIND HIS PASSION
ON FINDING FAITH
ISSUE 67 / JAN_FEB 2014 / $4.95
THE NEW ALBUM AND FILM FROM
ALBUM AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE JANUARY 14, 2014 FEATURING
“LOVE ALONE IS WORTH THE FIGHT” AND “WHO WE ARE”
and
Merchandise available at Family and Lifeway Stores
For tour dates and additional information visit:
www.switchfoot.com
Interested in bringing Fading West (the Film) to your church or organization? visit GetFadingWest.com
Available at your local Christian store. ©2013 ATLANTIC RECORDING CORPORATION, A WARNER MUSIC GROUP COMPANY
Gather at the
Intersection of dreamers and leaders, therapists and theologians, scholars and activists, pastors and artists
Study at the intersection of text, soul, & culture ...
路
路
路
路
theseattleschool.edu A member of the Association of Theological Schools
...
&
EXPONENTIAL EAST APRIL 28–MAY 1, 2014 ORLANDO, FL
EXPONENTIAL WEST OCTOBER 6–9, 2014 RESOURCING MOVEMENT MAKERS
LOS ANGELES, CA
Rethinking Evangelism For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
Bill Hybels, Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel, Louie Giglio, Tim Keller, Nicky Gumbel and 100+ speakers 125+ workshops 15+ tracks 7 pre-conference intensives thousands of other movement makers
REGISTER AT:
exponential.org/2014
LUKE 19:10
COME FOR THE NEXT 3 YEARS, PREPARE FOR THE NEXT 30.
THE MAGAZINE ON FAITH, CULTURE AND INTENTIONAL LIVING January/February 2014, Issue 67 Malcolm’s in the Middle. PUBLISHER & CEO | Cameron Strang > cameron@relevantmediagroup.com Associate Publisher | Jeff Rojas > jeff@relevantmediagroup.com Account Manager | Wayne Thompson > wayne@relevantmediagroup.com Managing Editor | Tyler Huckabee > tyler@relevantmediagroup.com Content Development Editor | Shauna Niequist Copy Editor | Dargan Thompson > dargan@relevantmediagroup.com Contributing Editor | Jesse Carey > jesse@relevantmediagroup.com Contributing Editor | Jon Acuff Guest Editor | Donald Miller CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: John Brandon, Matt Conner, Debra Fileta, Malcolm Gladwell, Emily McFarlan Miller, J. Ryan Parker, Matt and Laura Parker, Liz Riggs, David Roark, Priscilla Shirer, Kester Smith, Andy Stanley, Laura Studarus, John Taylor, N.T. Wright Designer | Evan Travelstead > evan@relevantmediagroup.com Designer | Lauren Harvill > lauren@relevantmediagroup.com Designer | Lindsey Weigley > lindsey@relevantmediagroup.com Director of Audio & Video | Chad Michael Snavely > chad@relevantmediagroup.com Photographer & Videographer | Mark Kammel > mark@relevantmediagroup.com CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Justin Broadbent, Danny Clinch, Brandon English, Will Morgan Holland, Curtis Millard, Jeremy Snell Project Manager | Ame Lynn Dunn > ame@relevantmediagroup.com Accounting and Operations Manager | Stacey Noll > stacey@relevantmediagroup.com Ad Traffic Coordinator | Sarah Heyl > sarah@relevantmediagroup.com Marketing Assistant | Caroline Cole > caroline@relevantmediagroup.com Marketing Assistant | Morgan Beck > morgan@relevantmediagroup.com Facilities Assistant | Max Epstein > facilities@relevantmediagroup.com Web Developer | Steven Linn > steven@relevantmediagroup.com Systems Administrator | Josh Strohm > joshs@relevantmediagroup.com ADVERTISING INQUIRIES: www.RELEVANTmagazine.com/advertise
IPAD EDITION
TO SUBSCRIBE
Your subscription includes access to
RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM/SUBSCRIBE
our iPad edition. Interact with the issue
Phone: (Toll-free) 866-402-4746
through music, videos and more from
Rates: 1 year (6 issues)
your device. Download the RELEVANT
U.S. $14.99
app from iTunes newsstand and connect
Canada $24.99
your subscription by logging into your
International $30.99
existing account or creating a new account at RELEVANTmagazine.com.
BULK DISCOUNTS Call 866-402-4746 for special bulk discounts for your event or organization.
MIDWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
SUBSCRIBER SERVICES RELEVANTmagazine.com/subservices Phone: (Toll-free) 866-402-4746
exists for the Church.
U.S. and Canada, 515-237-3657 International
mbts.edu 800-944-MBTS Kansas City, MO
From start to finish, Midwestern Seminary strives to dramatically transform students by renewing their minds with biblical truth, igniting their hearts with ministry passion, and enriching their souls with deepened Christ-likeness.
RELEVANT MEDIA GROUP
DISTRIBUTION
Like, three blocks from Starbucks.
If you are a retailer and would like
900 N. Orange Ave.,
to carry RELEVANT, please contact:
Winter Park, FL 32789
Michael Vitetta
We are growing the future leaders of the church who are whole-heartedly dedicated to fulfilling the Great Commission as they go forth into all the world.
Phone: 407-660-1411
Curtis Circulation Company
Fax: 407-401-9100
> mvitetta@curtiscirc.com
RELEVANTmediagroup.com
> 201-634-7424
Complete your degree online or on campus.
RELEVANT Issue #67 Jan/Feb 2014 (ISSN: 1543-317X) is published 6 times a year in January, March, May, July, September and November for $14.99 per year by RELEVANT Media Group, Inc., 900 N. Orange Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789. Periodicals postage paid at Orlando, FL, and at additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RELEVANT Magazine, P.O. Box 6286, Harlan, IA 51593-1786.
COURAGE
to think deeply to act justly to live fully
“
To be a Christian intellectual is to not be afraid ... is to be able to ask the hard questions— and to engage the questions and critically study things. Daniel Camacho ’13 philosophy major
You’re onto something, a new idea. For diabetes treatment, for education reform, for the way we build our cities, for ending poverty. The only way to make your idea a reality is to test it, change it, share it. It takes courage to do that, something you’ll build in every class, every late-night conversation—every moment you spend at Calvin. Explore what it means to think deeply, act justly and live fully at www.calvin.edu/go/courage.
www.calvin.edu Calvin College admits students of any race, color and national or ethnic origin.
FIR S T WORD
HIGHER EDUCATION BY DONALD MILLER
Since our publisher and CEO Cameron Strang is on a sabbatical, we asked Donald Miller to write this issue’s First Word. He graciously wrote this in response to our article “Grade Expectations” on page 40. never got a college degree, and sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if I would have. I say “different” because I don’t believe it would have been better. I entered school early and was a year younger than the other students in my class—a year younger and a year less mature. That sort of thing matters. Malcolm Gladwell himself broke the story about the oldest students in a given class having an advantage. The inverse, I can assure you, is also true. Something as small as a 10-month age gap means you are the last to figure out the unwritten social cues that, in my opinion, interconnect the entire learning process. I didn’t begin to spread my academic wings till I was about 20. I discovered G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, which gave me a spiritual foundation married to a love for literature (I always preferred theologians who knew how to tell a good story). I never made the kind of grades I needed to get into college, so I read for fun and to learn. My interest evolved from the study of theology to the study of psychology and then narrative structure, a mix of disciplines that has served me well. I became a ferocious student and even taught a class at a college for a while. As I got older and caught up to my peers with college
PEOPLE TEND TO ONLY LOOK FOR DATA THAT SUGGESTS THEIR PRECONCIEVED IDEAS WERE RIGHT.
I
10
FIRST WORD
JAN/FEB 2014
Donald Miller is the founder of Storyline, which helps people plan their lives using elements of story. He is the author of multiple New York Times best-sellers and is the founder of a nonprofit that helps provide mentors for children.
degrees, I began to notice something interesting: They all thought the same about various subjects. It was as though they had been “taught the truth” and could no longer think from an alternative perspective. In fact, an alternative perspective was often perceived as a threat rather than an exploration of how they might be wrong. Psychologists call this kind of thinking a “confirmation bias,” which means people tend to learn how something works and then only look for and notice data that suggests their pre-conceived ideas were right. Try to talk to certain theologians about the Bible and you’ll see what I mean. They have a grid, and anything outside that grid is suspect. While grids are often helpful, and learning “the truth” is certainly served by studying best practices, there is a consequence. What if best practices aren’t best? What if somebody discovers better? A couple years ago I was in the Bahamas and accidentally met Sir Ken Robinson, perhaps the leading reformer of the Western education system. We happened to seek shelter in the same hotel bar during a rain storm on a beach and spent the better part of three hours talking about how schools in the West tend to prepare students to become cogs in the wheel of the industrial revolution and, as such, spit out kids with alternative kinds of genius. If you can’t make a company money, they seem to be saying, you have little worth in a society. This perspective, is, of course, changing. Silicon Valley is full of college dropouts making a fortune. Contrast this with two very intelligent friends I have who went to school, got married, earned their master’s degrees together, began teaching careers and essentially live in near-poverty for not being able to pay off their college debt. I’m not saying college is a bad path to take. I’m just saying our chosen field isn’t half as important as our personality. Those who love to explore ideas and are hard-working and don’t fear failure may actually be inhibited by a college education. But then I’m a hypocrite. If one of my children tells me they don’t want to go to college, I suspect I’ll have a panic attack. I still wonder what I missed out on. I still wonder what life would have been like if my academic rut had been dug for me rather than me having dug it for myself. Interesting questions to explore. I love this issue of RELEVANT, though, because it’s about options and alternative positions and busting out of ruts. I’m sure we can all agree we have much to learn.
worldcompassion.tv/iamsyria worldcompassion.tv/iamsyria worldcompassion.tv/iamsyria worldcompassion.tv/iamsyria
“Which “Whichofofthese thesethree threedo doyou youthink thinkwas wasaaneighbor neighbortotothe theman manwho who fell fellinto intothe thehands handsofofrobbers?” robbers?”The Theexpert expertininthe thelaw lawreplied, replied,“The “The one onewho whohad hadmercy mercyon onhim.” him.”Jesus Jesustold toldhim, him,“Go “Goand anddo dolikewise.” likewise.”
am am ii your your neighbor? neighbor?
FEEDB ACK
[NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 20 13]
IT’S GOOD TO BE MINDY Great to see a woman on the cover of RELEVANT! I have always enjoyed Mindy’s mix of wit, humor, sass and confidence, and it was inspiring to read more about her and her tremendous work ethic. Thanks for featuring her!
— DANIELLE HARELL / Via email I feel like we’ve made some progress on not putting so much stock in virginity [“Virgin Territory,” Nov/Dec 2013], but I think we’ve got a long way to go. Let’s stop putting the weight of saving the world on the shoulders of teenage Christians. Their sexual purity shouldn’t be the Church’s sole testimony to the world. The responsibility needs to be on Christians of all ages to love others as they love themselves. Period. Maybe that’s what youth pastors should focus on—compassion, empathy, forgiveness. I think those have more power to lead people to Christ than one’s personal sexual record, or lack thereof. — SARA PITTOCK / Beaverton, Ore. Serious food for thought here [“Virgin Territory,” Nov/ Dec 2013]. I’m not looking forward to having “the talk” with my children someday, but I’m already laying a foundation by teaching them to be whole people in everything they do. — KYNDRA FERGUSON STEINMANN / Richmond, Va. Thank you for everything you do! I really enjoy the web and podcast content and find myself with a new passion to live life to the fullest and pursue Jesus every time I read an article. Thank you for your ministry. It has truly blessed me. — AUSTIN HANKINSON / via email
[T W EE T NE SS]
@Petewaugh24 Reading @RELEVANT before bed last night was a BIG mistake—I was way too inspired to sleep! Some awesome new articles— right where I’m at.
@AnissaNishira Listening to @elliegoulding & reading the @RELEVANT cover story on @mindykaling. I feel like my heart may explode from happiness.
Just read the article “Chasing the Dream” [Nov/Dec 2013]. Well done. Challenging and convicting. 11 a.m. Sunday is indeed a segregated hour in Atlanta. — BROOKE O / Atlanta, Georgia Thanks for the great article on the difference between pursuing God with head or heart [“Can We Know God?” Nov/Dec 2013]. True joy and life are found in knowing Him! — ABIGAIL CHRISTIAN / via RELEVANTmagazine.com
@Metalbrook 2 big rock fists way up for the new issue of @RELEVANT for finally writing on a journey of faith in the metal scene in “Life After Deth.”
@sarahjdarling
I loved your interview with Ellie Goulding. She is such an inspiration to me, but I was always worried I’d be disappointed if I ever got to meet her. I don’t think that would be the case anymore. — KARIN PARKER / San Diego, Calif. “Are We Really The Narcissistic Generation?” [Nov/Dec 2013] was a good read. Addressing common assumptions with research findings and a well-rounded perspective! — AMANDA ROSS / via Facebook
Dear @RELEVANT, how you write articles that perfectly relate to my life and continuously encourage my soul, I may never know. #bravo
@Beautiful_ Ashes @RELEVANT I just read “Chasing the Dream,” and it is extremely moving and inspiring. Thanks for bringing light to such an important issue.
[ TA LK TO US: FEEDB ACK@RELE VA N TM AG A ZINE.COM, FACEBOOK.COM/RELE VA N T OR T W I T T ER.COM/RELE VA N T.]
12
FEEDBACK
JAN/FEB 2014
students share
practical expressions of
God’s Love through
pro bono work Involvement with the street Law Program for Youth provides law students with the opportunity to impact at-risk youth. Students work with young people in the juvenile justice system, teaching them valuable lessons about public policy and the law. Last year, students worked with more than 40 at-risk youth at a local detention center and in group homes.
Additional pro bono work includes drafting legal documents for missionaries, preparing taxes for low income citizens, serving as community court advocates, and more.
If you are interested in a superior legal education that challenges you to change the world, please email LawAdmissions@liberty.edu, call (434) 592-5300, or visit LAw.Liberty.edu.
A BIMON T HLY LOOK AT LIFE, FA I T H + CULT UR E
American Horror Story’s Black Magic Women. Left to Right: Jessica Lange, Emma Roberts, Jamie Brewer and Taissa Farmiga
[ T H E
WITCHCRAFT:
HIPSTERS’ NEWEST THING? But the trend also goes against a bigger trend here’s a revival currently taking place among tastemak- of foregoing religion altogether. A 2012 Pew study ing twentysomethings: an found Millennials are one of the least religious occult revival. According to generations in American history. A 2011 Barna a recent Newsweek article, study found almost 60 percent of Christians over in hip Brooklyn neighborhoods, more and the age of 15 “disconnect either permanently or more Millennials are turning to witchcraft for an extended period of time from church life.” But, as Barna Group President David as their source of spiritual answers. In areas like Brooklyn’s Williamsburg district, séances, Kinnaman says in the study, the problem isn’t pagan ceremonies and tarot card readings have with a generation asking difficult questions. It’s become common occurrences at parties and with a Church unprepared to give answers. The world for Millennials is changing, he says, and social events. they have become more skeptical The trend is even making a retail toward external sources of authority, impact. At hip boutiques, tarot cards A 2012 PEW including Christianity. can be found alongside retro clothes, STUDY FOUND Kinnaman says in order to reach and at Urban Outfitters, the “prayer MILLENNIALS Millennials who are leaving the candles” are often on a month-long faith, the Church must be willing backorder. An NYU professor who ARE ONE OF THE helps organize occult conferences LEAST RELIGIOUS to address simplistic teachings and judgmental attitudes. Because if leadtold Newsweek that black magic has GENERATIONS ers within Christianity aren’t able a way of empowering the “disenfranto shed light on the truth, a genchised,” such as 18- to 30-year-olds IN AMERICAN eration may start looking in much facing a tough post-recession econ- HISTORY. darker places. omy and limited opportunities.
T
14
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
L I S T ]
TV’s Bewitching New Trend Witchcraft isn’t just catching on among twentysomethings—it’s also prime time’s latest trend. WITCHES OF EAST END Lifetime’s hit series follows a family of witches as they come to grips with their supernatural powers. AMERICAN HORROR STORY “Coven,” the third season of the dark miniseries, explores showdowns between black magic practitioners with its signature doses of unflinching shock and gore. SLEEPY HOLLOW Fox’s new adventure series features a character whose secret life as a witch is used to torment Ichabod Crane.
SLICES
[ M I S C ]
THE RETURN OF THE SPIN-OFF onsider it a sign that either Hollywood is out of new ideas, or their current ideas are so good, they’re multiplying. After the success of shows including Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and Modern Family, network executives have commissioned several new spin-offs to ensure audiences can stay connected to their favorite characters. In Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and actor Bob Odenkirk will revisit one of the series’ most popular characters—the sleazy, fast-talking lawyer, Saul Goodman. And because the new show will be a prequel,
C
audiences can expect cameos from familiar Albuquerque faces, including Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. AMC is also reportedly developing a spin-off of its breakout zombie action hit, The Walking Dead, teaming up with the comic book’s original creator, Robert Kirkman, to create a new show about a totally different group of apocalypse survivors. Fans of ABC’s Modern Family can also look forward to seeing more from Phil Dunphy’s real estate rival, Gil Thorpe. If formally greenlit, the sitcom, starring Rob Riggle, would debut in the fall.
Ukrainian scientists have discovered a 1,300-foot wide asteroid that could crash into the Earth in 2032. NASA says the giant rock of death has only a 1 in 48,000 chance of hitting Earth, but that’s still a lot higher than we’d like it to be ... When an Oklahoma woman chased down the man who had stolen her wallet, she chose to turn the other cheek and offered to buy his groceries ...
THE BEST APPS FOR YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS Want 2014 to be the year you actually keep your resolutions? Here are some apps to help
16
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
RESOLUTION: Grow spiritually APP: Our Daily Bread With this app from RBC Ministries— based on the best-selling Our Daily Bread devotional books—you get short, bite-sized pieces of spiritual wisdom right to your phone.
RESOLUTION: Get in shape APP: MapMyRun from MapMyFitness This award-winning app lets you easily map out local runs, find nearby trails and stay in touch with fellow runners.
RESOLUTION: Eat healthier APP: MyFitnessPal’s Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker With a massive database of foods, this app helps you follow your nutrition goals and track the calories in each of your meals. There’s even a bar code scanner for the grocery store!
RESOLUTION: Spend less money APP: Spendee The Spendee app helps you track your purchases and uses clear charts to show how your money is being spent each month, then gives you tools to help you stick to your budget.
SLICES
LATE-NIGHT TV IS
COOL AGAIN ith a shake-up at NBC, and younger faces like Jimmy Kimmel, Nikki Glaser, Sara Schaefer and Stephen Colbert making a splash after 11 p.m., the latest crop of late-night personalities are doing more than just injecting energy into TV’s traditional talk shows—they’re making them cool again.
W
THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON Jimmy Fallon may not be a stranger to NBC’s evening lineup (he’s hosted Late Night since 2009), but this February, the Saturday Night Live alum takes the reins of the most prestigious show in late night: The Tonight Show. After the Winter Olympics, Fallon will bring his Roots-aided musical parodies, laid-back interview style and “Thank You Notes” to their biggest audiences ever.
LATE-NIGHT’S BEST HITS: A CHRONICLE OF THE GENRE’S VIRAL SUCCESSES
1 JIMMY KIMMEL’S YOUTUBE CHALLENGES Is telling your kids you ate all their Halloween candy cruel? Well, it’s definitely funny.
LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS The “Weekend Update” host helped lead SNL into the digital age, serving as a head writer since 2006. This February, the funnyman will become the host of NBC’s Late Night at 12:35. Meyers is set for a bright future—the three former Late Night hosts have each graduated to earlier shows.
2 JIMMY FALLON’S “HASHTAG”Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake show what Twitter conversations might sound like in real life.
THE PETE HOLMES SHOW Though Pete Holmes got his start in stand-up (and later became the voice of the E-Trade baby), he rose to prominence online. His “You Made It Weird” podcast and CollegeHumor series made him a hot name in comedy, landing him the midnight slot after Conan on TBS.
3 ARCADE FIRE’S COLBERT PERFORMANCE The band’s great live performance included a giant paper mâché Colbert head.
JOHN OLIVER HEADS TO HBO After his interim hosting stint on The Daily Show, HBO came knocking on beloved Brit John Oliver’s door, offering him his own variety show. Oliver took the offer, saying he expects “free HBO.” He will be leaving The Daily Show next year.
18
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
4 LIE WITNESS NEWS Jimmy Kimmel sends reporters to ask passers-by their opinions on ridiculous fake news stories.
INFLUENTIAL CONTRIBUTOR No. 1 INFLUENTIAL CONTRIBUTOR No. 2
INFLUENTIAL CONTRIBUTOR No. 3
INFLUENTIAL CONTRIBUTOR No. 4
INFLUENTIAL CONTRIBUTOR No. 5
SLICES
SEMINARY IN PRISON?
Malala talks with Obama during a visit to the White House in October.
MALALA: EDUCATION FINDS A VOICE hen word got out in October of 2012 that then 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai had been shot by the Taliban, it was the first time most of the world had ever heard of her. It seemed strange. What about this girl had so outraged the Taliban that they wanted her dead? We chalked it up to the ongoing senseless brutality of a cruel terrorist organization and wished Malala the best. That was that. Since then, Malala has been making it clear just what it was about her that frightened the Taliban: she’s fearless. Since making a full recovery, she has become the story and the face of the push for women’s rights in the Middle East.
W
She’s done it all without becoming an empty figurehead or poster child. Whether she’s dropping Jon Stewart’s jaw or politely chastising President Obama for America’s reliance on drone strikes, she’s done it with great eloquence and grace. She was the people’s favorite to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, it went to The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a group attempting to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile. She remained undeterred, however, telling the U.N.,“I’m here to speak up for the right of education for every child. “They thought the bullet would silence us, but they failed,” she said. “Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, fervor and courage was born.”
After state officials pulled funding from college education programs in Illinois’ prison system, private donors have decided to provide the inmates with a new type of higher learning: a seminary. The Divine Hope Reformed Bible Seminary opened last year behind the walls of the Danville Correctional Center, which is home to some of the state’s convicted murders, drug dealers and violent offenders. The accredited seminary offers inmates the opportunity to earn bachelor’s degrees in divinity, theological studies and Christian studies, so once they are released, they can help others find the path to redemption. Nathan Brummel, a pastor who serves as the seminary’s only full-time professor, told The Chicago Tribune, “Their joy has grown. Now I’m seeing some of those men have a dramatic change-around. They’re peacemakers.”
JESUS WALKS WITH YE A look at Kanye’s stormy relationship with the Savior
MAY 2004 Kanye West releases his first major breakout hit, “Jesus Walks.” The single about a complicated relationship with Christ went on to win a Grammy.
20
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
FEBRUARY 2006 West appears on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing a crown of thorns. The hip-hop star said, “My misery is your pleasure.” Subtle.
FEBRUARY 2013 West and producer Rick Rubin create the artist’s most dark and lyrically controversial album to date, featuring a persona he calls “Yeezus.”
AUGUST 2013 On the talk show of future mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, West proclaims he’s a Christian and wants to raise his family with Christian values.
OCTOBER 2013 As part of the Yeezus tour, an actor portraying Jesus joins West on stage in an in-show skit, telling him, “I came here to make dead people alive.”
SLICES
THE HOT LIST What you need to know about what’s going on. 10
The Monuments Men
Come for George Clooney and Matt Damon rescuing art from Nazis during WWII. Stay for Bill Murray and John Goodman. WATCH the trailer for The Monuments Men 9
Sherlock
Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s portrayal of the famous detective and his disapproving sidekick finally returns for its third season Jan. 19.
MARRIAGE CLASS you’re looking for a ring in addition to a college degree, you may want to consider a Christian university. Researchers at Facebook recently analyzed how many of their users who classify as alumni of individual colleges later married a spouse who also went to that school. Their research confirmed what many former Christian college students suspected: Christian universities are the best places to find a spouse. Out of the top 25 American universities where men were most likely to find a spouse, 24 were religious colleges (most either Bible or Christian liberal arts
IF
8
National Hugging Day
It’s recognized Jan. 21. Make sure you explain that to everyone you hug, and don’t go overboard. 7
The Grammys
Office pool tip: the most boring nominee wins. See for yourself on Jan. 26.
22
schools). For women, 15 of the 25 schools where they were most likely to meet their future husbands were private, religious-affiliated schools. Monte Cox, dean of Harding University’s College of Bible & Ministry—a school that had the distinction of being featured on both lists—told The Christian Post, “The perception on the outside looking in is that we are a marriage factory, but it’s not because Harding University is trying to be a Match. com kind of place and push marriage on people.” But they can now say that along with M.Div. (Masters of Divinity), the Mrs. is currently one of their most attractive post-graduate offerings.
Chinese New Year
Time to get that Chinese dragon costume out of storage to celebrate the year of the horse on Jan. 31. 6
Christian colleges are the best places for finding Mr. or Mrs. Right
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
THE CHURCH’S ADOPTION DILEMMA According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are currently more than 400,000 children living within the American foster care system. Davion Navar Henry Only was one of those kids. The 15-year-old wanted to be adopted so badly, he decided to take matters into his own hands. The teen took the pulpit at a church in Florida and asked if anyone in the congregation would consider adopting him. He told the church, “My name is Davion, and I’ve been in foster care since I was born ... I know God hasn’t given up on me, so I’m not giving up either.” Though no one offered to take him in that
Sunday morning, after a news report about Davion’s courageous act in the Tampa Bay Times went viral, his adoption agency received more than 100,000 inquiries, and they have let Davion help them pick a family. Davion’s story is only a single case of the need for adoption from foster care, and campaigns such as Focus on the Family’s Wait No More initiative and organizations including The Christian Alliance for Orphans have made it their focus to equip Christians and local congregations with the resources they need to make the adoption of children in foster care a priority for the Church.
SPAIN
WITH A PURPOSE
LIVE THE LANGUAGE: • Stay with a host family • Native Spanish professors • Gain more fluency • Seville and beyond is your classroom
www.semesterinspain.org/rm spain@trnty.edu or call us 800.748.0087
SLICES
THE HOT LIST 5
[ M I S C ]
A megachurch in Las Vegas found two stolen laptops returned in its parking lot with a note that read “forgive me”...
Her
Spike Jonze’s latest, out Jan. 10, features Joaquin Phoenix as a man who falls in love with his computer’s Siri-like operating system. Seems plausible. WATCH the trailer for Her
4
New Year’s Day
Follow up by celebrating Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day sometime around Jan. 17. 3
Super Bowl XLVIII
On Feb. 2, Bruno Mars will host what just might be the most bathroom break-able halftime show in Super Bowl history.
2
Valentine’s Day
Remember: the only thing worse than Valentine’s Day is people who incessantly complain about Valentine’s Day.
1
The Winter Olympics
A tribute to what can be accomplished when the world’s greatest athletes join forces with the world’s richest television advertisers.
24
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
SHOULD YOU SIGN OFF TWITTER?
Twitter may be a good place to disseminate your best one-liners, post pictures from a night on the town and follow your favorite taste-makers, but the micro-blogging site can also have a dark side. Here are four ways to know when it’s time to step away (either for a short time or for good), as shown by celebrity Twitter users. LOUIS C.K.
In a must-watch Conan interview, C.K. ranted against our distracted mobile culture, saying social media is ruining our ability to experience stillness. “You need to build the ability to just be yourself and not be doing something,” he said. “That’s being a person, right?” If you find yourself developing a dependency on the distraction from day-to-day life Twitter offers, it may be time to log off for a while.
MEGAN FOX
Last January, the Hollywood superstar decided to finally start tweeting. It lasted less than a week. Just a few days after launching her account and accumulating nearly 1 million followers, she sent her final tweet: “5 days on Twitter and I have yet to discern its purpose. #WhatIsThePoint???” Moral of the story: Twitter isn’t for everyone. If it’s more of a burden than an outlet, don’t feel pressure to keep it going.
NICK OFFERMAN
In April, Parks and Recreation star and mustache expert Offerman abruptly tweeted, “Twitter was a mistake. I’m leaving it behind and going outside to look at nature, then use my hands to make something. Join me. Goodbye.” If you feel like Twitter is taking up too much of your time that could be spent doing something better, don’t be afraid to give it up.
DAMON LINDELOF
The Lost cocreator signed off the site after negativity began taking a toll on him. In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, he said, “I’m not looking for empathy. I’m just looking for a way to stop. Alcoholics are smart enough to not walk into a bar. My bar is Twitter.” If you’re getting addicted to responding to your own critics, take Lindelof ’s advice and just stop listening to the haters.
For just $220 per scoop, you can taste the world’s first glowin-the-dark ice cream. When asked if the dessert was safe, the creator responded, “Well I tried some and I don’t seem to be glowing anywhere, so we’ll go with a yes for now.” It’s your life, ice cream fans ... Ignoring the warnings of numerous sci-fi movies, MIT engineers have created robots that can assemble themselves using magnets and tiny motors ... After a waitress found a racial slur on her receipt instead of a tip, a group of Internet users donated more than $10,000 to send her ...
SLICES
[ M I S C ]
Director Steve McQueen on the set of 12 Years a Slave
5 FILMMAKERS WHO ARE CHANGING THE GAME His film 12 Years a Slave became an Oscar favorite with its mix of emotional intensity and deeper messages, and now director Steve McQueen may be Hollywood’s next big thing. But he isn’t the only young filmmaker shaking up Tinseltown. STEVE HOOVER
In his debut documentary, Blood Brother, Hoover tells the story of an American who moves to an orphanage in India to help children infected with HIV. The film won the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
THE DUPLASS BROTHERS
Jay and Mark Duplass, the brothers behind indie features including Cyrus, Jeff Who Lives at Home and The Do-DecaPentathlon, have developed a style resulting in films that tell small stories but pack a big heart.
It’s time to dust off that old Nintendo. A German research team recently discovered playing 30 minutes of video games a day actually makes you smarter ...
J & D’s Foods has developed something called “Power Bacon” deodorant. Has our national obsession with all things bacon finally gone too far? Or has it not gone far enough? ...
BENH ZEITLIN
The 31-year-old director’s first film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, became a sleeper hit, taking home the Caméra d’Or prize at Cannes and garnering a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars.
GABRIELA COWPERTHWAITE
She recently shot into national prominence for her film Blackfish, depicting the conditions of killer whales at Seaworld, but Cowperthwaite has several films under her belt, including documentaries for networks such as ESPN, Animal Planet and Discovery.
NEILL BLOMKAMP
After Peter Jackson saw a reel of Blomkamp’s work, he offered to produce his first feature film, District 9. The now 34-yearold has developed a reputation for making unique sci-fi epics with deep messages of social consciousness. 26
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
According to a study from the Journal of Consumer Psychology, taking a picture of your food before you eat it actually makes you enjoy it less ...
THE RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN FEMINIST In November, Christian author Rachel Held Evans posted a tweet about The Nines, a Christian leadership conference. Evans noted that of the event’s 100-plus speakers, only four were women. “This is not what the Church looks like,” she declared. The event’s producer, Todd Rhoades, defended himself, and the ensuing conversation—most everyone seemed to agree—did not go very well. But it started a much larger discussion in Christianity, with numerous authors and platforms chiming in. Most agreed that, yes, women are underrepresented in Christian leadership. It also served to highlight an important trend in American Christianity: Feminism is coming back. As Laura Turner pointed out in a recent op-ed for Christianity Today, the label “feminist” still has negative connotations for some within the American Church, with the ideas of feminism often seen as being at odds with Christianity. But now, many Christians are reclaiming the label, saying that it doesn’t have to be radical, anger-fueled or in any way at odds with Christianity. Writers such as Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist, are calling Christians to revisit and re-examine the Bible’s view of women and their place in the Church and the Kingdom. The tenor of the conversation about The Nines may not have been a hopeful sign, but it demonstrates a shift. While feminism may not be embraced in every corner of the Christian community—or conference circuit—this is a conversation that can’t be ignored any longer.
SUBSCRIBE TO
SAVE
73 % OFF
THE CO PRIC VER E
GET A YEAR OF RELEVANT—PLUS EXCLUSIVE MUSIC, VIDEOS AND FREE ACCESS TO OUR IPAD APP—FOR JUST $14.99
RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM/SUBSCRIBE
T HE NUMBER S
GLOBAL SLAVERY IS GROWING New research shows the number of people living in slavery, forced into bonded servanthood, subjected to unfair work practices and even subjected to child labor is growing, and our buying habits
are contributing to the demand for cheap labor. Here’s a look at the expanding problem, what products from around the world contribute to it and what we can do to help.
THERE ARE 29,800,000 SLAVES WORLDWIDE WHERE THEY LIVE
[P RODUC T S OF SL AV ERY]
CLOTHING
72%
4%
In countries including China, India, Malaysia and Thailand, the garment industry frequently uses slave labor.
19%
ELECTRONICS
THE AMERICAS
AFRICA
ASIA
Forced labor is prevalent on produce farms across South and Central America.
In parts of Africa, kids are often born into slavery and have little hope for freedom.
In India and China, slavery is prevalent in industries that export goods to the West.
TOP 5 SLAVERY COUNTRIES 1 2 3 4 5
INDIA CHINA PAKISTAN NIGERIA ETHIOPIA
14,000,000 2,900,000
SOURCES: dosomething.org, National Geographic, productsofslavery.org
REJECT APATHY: HOW TO HELP Here are a few websites to help you learn more about human trafficking, how to stop contributing to the demand for slave labor and how to join in the fight for freedom.
SHOP RESPONSIBLY
SUPPORT THE FIGHT
WATCH MORE
>
Slaveryfootprint.org Productsofslavery.org > Free2Work.org
>
Endslaverynow.com Polarisproject.org > IJM.org
>
>
>
28
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
COFFEE Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico all were on the Department of Labor’s list of countries that use forced labor in the production of coffee beans.
FRUITS
2,100,000 701,000 651,000
In China, there have been reports of governmentrun labor camps, where prisoners are forced to aid in the production of electronics and gadgets sold around the world.
The Freedom Film at 268generation. com
Fruits such as grapes, strawberries, tomatoes, pineapples, bananas and melons have been linked to slavery in South and Central America.
20–50 percent of tantalum— a mineral used in smartphone processors—is produced in conflict mines in Congo.
86 percent of indigenous children in Mexico work six days a week, primarily producing agricultural items such as chili peppers.
The East African nation of Mauritania has the highest ratio of slaves in the world. 20 percent of the population lives in slavery.
CHOCOLATE According to the Food Empowerment Project, the West African nations of Ghana and Ivory Coast produce 75 percent of the world’s chocolate—often using child labor.
Human trafficking generates more than $32 billion a year. The average international cost of a slave is $90.
Bridging the Word and the World
Develop both/and at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
www.pts.edu/Relevant 1-800-451-4194
—both your mind and your spirit for ministry, whatever form it takes. Our faculty are leaders both in the academy and the church. They embody both scholarship and passion for ministry—both in and out of the classroom. Our students serve Christ in both traditional churches and innovative ministries. They both deepen their theological views and learn from other traditions.
Our graduates become both mission-minded pastor-theologians and creative leaders—both church planters and counselors, both lawyers and educators. They do both evangelism and social justice. They minister both nationally and globally, both at home and cross-culturally. For both program options and information about financial aid follow the link or the QR code.
SLICES: WORLDV IE W
CAN YOU ASK TOO MUCH FROM GOD? BY PRISCILL A SHIRER
mong the boxes we tend to build for God—the various extents to which we believe or predict He will act—is the box that confines Him to responding to us the same way others do. We often limit our expectations of Him to what we’ve experienced within our human interactions. We’ve learned, for example, that not everybody who says we should get together for lunch sometime has the slightest intention of putting it on their calendar. Not everybody who says they’ll be praying for us will remember to do it. Some people hope we never find out whether or not they meant it when they told us, “If there’s anything I can do, just ask.” We think God is like that, too. But as the Bible says, “God is not a man, that He should lie” (Numbers 23:19). When He tells us to ask—as He does on multiple occasions in Scripture—He’s not just trying to sound neighborly. He’s trying to involve us in His blessing. He’s wanting us to experience the fullness of our inheritance in Christ. He’s using a prayer transaction to build trust and relationship. Now let me be clear: I’m not suggesting we need to seek God’s will about what we should wear before we can get dressed in the morning. I’m saying that when we have a concern, when something is causing us apprehension or uneasiness, we should never shy away from bring it to our heavenly Father just because
BY INVITING US TO ASK, GOD IS CONTINUALLY CONNECTING HIS LIFE WITH OURS.
A
30
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
Priscilla Shirer is a Bible teacher, co-founder of Going Beyond Ministries and author of several books including God is Able, from which this article is adapted. (Copyright 2013 B&H Publishing Group)
we feel He doesn’t have time for something so minor. He has invited us to do that. And His desire for relationship with us is, at least in part, why I think He’s done it. Asking of God doesn’t make us pushy, not according to the Bible. Nor, of course, does it mean He’ll give us whatever we want. But when we take Him up on His invitation to ask for what we need—both the big things and the small things—one of the greatest things He gives us is the opportunity to recognize exactly where our help is coming from. When we request and He answers, we are enabled to know beyond any doubt that He was the One working in our experience. When we truly ask of the Lord, we’re not just hoping in general; we’re relating with our Father. We’re asking and seeking and knocking, just as His Word instructs us to do (Matthew 7:7). And when He gives, when we find, when the door is opened to us, we don’t sit there wondering how in the world that happened. By inviting us to ask, He is continually connecting His life with ours. Every blessing becomes another noticeable expression of His loving care. He is able to do “all that we ask.” Beyond it, actually. But even that’s not all. (And this part gets me so excited, I can barely stand it.) Since we can’t often pinpoint the exact reason for the ache in our heart that needs healing or the worry that’s keeping us from sleeping, God doesn’t need for us to find the right words before He responds. He is willing to do beyond what we ask, yes, but He’ll even do beyond what we can think. The things we don’t know how to pray, as well as the things we don’t even know to be praying for at all, are still under His control. He can do all that we can “ask or think.” Beyond what we could think to ask are things that only God knows. And out there, in here, wherever our words come up short, His Spirit fills in the blanks, not allowing anything to touch our lives that cannot be co-opted to conform to His will. You and I are completely covered. Totally. Because God is able.
SLICES: WORLDV IE W
THERE’S MORE TO TITHING THAN 10% B Y A N D Y S TA N L E Y
was taught from an early age to give God 10 percent of everything. That meant if I got a dollar, I put 10 cents in the offering plate. If I got 10 dollars, one of them went to the work of the Church. And so on. But that routine by itself doesn’t engender a mindset of giving. Even if you give 10 percent faithfully, it doesn’t mean you’ll come away with the right perspective about the other 90 percent. It was always easy for me to give God 10 cents out of a dollar or 10 dollars out of a hundred. I also remember getting a check for a thousand dollars and having no hesitation about giving God His hundred. But when it got much bigger than that, a little alarm would start to go off inside. If you get $10,000, are you really going to write a check for a thousand dollars? You can almost feel irresponsible about giving away that much money. Whenever we sense that hesitation, it’s because we have started to view our money as our money. In those moments, we’re not completely in touch with the fact that everything belongs to God, comes from Him and is dispensed by Him. In a way, we’re buying into the myth that we own it and we’re giving it to God.
WE ARE TO HONOR GOD NOT WITH A PERCENTAGE, BUT WITH ALL THAT WE POSSESS.
I
32
SLICES
JAN/FEB 2014
Andy Stanley is a pastor, communicator, author and the founder of North Point Ministries. Andy’s books include Deep & Wide, Enemies of the Heart and How to Be Rich, from which this article is adapted with permission.
But God owns it all. So I’m really just “giving” Him what already belongs to Him. The idea that we ever “give” God anything is really just a myth. We are to honor God not with a percentage, but with all we possess. It’s not 10 percent. It’s 100 percent. This applies not just to money, but also to things like honor, strength and opportunity. Everything that’s “yours” belongs to God, comes from God and is dispensed by God. So what would it look like for you to honor God with all of your stuff? Does that question give you butterflies in your stomach? Are you getting images of being called to the mission field, taking a vow of poverty and living in squalor the rest of your life? If the thought of turning everything over to God makes you a little nervous, you’re not alone. But here’s what I want you to remember: God doesn’t want to take your money; He just doesn’t want your money to take you. First of all, He doesn’t need your permission to take your stuff. It’s already His. And second, God is a giver, not a taker. He didn’t send His Son, Jesus, to collect from everyone who owed Him. He sent Jesus to give His life for you. And by calling you to acknowledge Him as the owner of your stuff, He wants to give you something yet again. He wants to give you the freedom and peace that come with letting go. Did you know that the more you hold on to what you possess, the less peace you have? So let me ask you again: What would it look like for you to honor God with all of your stuff? Do you need to take it up a notch in the area of giving? Or perhaps honoring God would mean stepping up in the area of providing for your family. For some people, honoring God means saving more, spending less or liquidating that cabinet full of collectibles. I don’t know where this will land for you. But if you ask God, He will show you how to honor Him with everything you have. Not just with a percentage of it, but with all of it.
MUSIC NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW
BRITNEY SPEARS: PIRATE DETERRENT
DANNY CLINCH
BORN (AGAIN) TO RUN
RUTGERS LAUNCHES A THEOLOGY CLASS BASED ON BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN ruce Springsteen has been The Boss from his 1973 debut to the presexperiencing a nice career ent. According to a course description, the resurgence lately, owing class will explore “Springsteen’s reinterlargely to a string of solid pretation of biblical motifs, the possibility releases and a generation of of redemption by earthly means (women, cars, music) and his intermusic fans for whom his earweaving of secular and nest bombast is a little easier GLORY DAYS sacred elements.” to swallow than for those of The Boss Gets Biblical In an interview with the irony-obsessed ’00s. But Rutgers Today, Yadin-Israel at least one professor believes “Adam Raised a Cain” explained, “the most domithere’s more to Springsteen Darkness on the nant motifs are redempthan blue collar anthems— Edge of Town tion and the sanctity of and he has put together a col“Jesus Was an Only Son” the everyday. In his later lege course to prove it. albums, he also writes very Professor Azzan YadinDevils & Dust openly about faith.” Israel at Rutgers University “Swallowed Up (In the The class filled up quickly, is launching a course on Belly of a Whale)” but don’t worry. Professor the theology of Bruce Wrecking Ball Yadin-Israel has a book on Springsteen, which will the way. trace the spiritual motifs of
B
34
THE DROP
JAN/FEB 2014
If you’re setting sail for troubled waters and you fear attacks by bands of miscreant scallywags, you should make sure you set sail with the right weapons. No, not cutlasses or muskets. Not ancient spells to subdue the dreaded Kraken. Be realistic. You have to start blasting Britney Spears, and you have to blast it loud. It’s crazy, but true. Somali pirates remain very real threats for sailors, but they’re no match for Britney. “These guys can’t stand western culture or music, making Britney’s hits perfect,” Rachel Owens, a merchant navy officer told the Mirror. “It’s so effective, the ship’s security rarely needs to resort to firing guns.” She went on to say “Hit Me Baby One More Time” and “Oops, I Did It Again” are the most effective of Naval Commander Spears’ sonic weapons, calling them “particularly painful” to pirates. Cruel? Perhaps. But the sea is a law unto itself. However, Steven Jones of the Security Association for the Maritime Industry made it clear that, even in war, there are limits. “I’d imagine using Justin Bieber would be against the Geneva Convention,” he told reporters. At just 31, Spears has been easing into her post-teen-sensation/postpublic meltdown phase well enough, with a new album, a Las Vegas show in the works and, of course, a musical that looks to retell the life of Christ using only her songs. That last one is owing to a theater producer from Columbia University, who is looking to bring Spears the Musical: The Gospel According to Britney to a New York run. Spears isn’t directly involved in the musical, which is just as well. Pirates take no holidays.
K Y E K Y E
J A N U A R Y 2 1 2 0 1 4
K Y E K Y E M U S I C . C O M
ARTIS T S TO WAT CH
[ON RO TAT ION]
CURTIS MILLARD
WHY WE LOVE THEM As folk music’s comeback enters its awkward adolescent phase, The Head and the Heart have gracefully sidestepped any sort of retread, instead choosing to evolve their sound in much the same way their folk predecessors of the ’60s did: with experimental sounds and gooey melodies. That sets this band ahead of the pack.
FOR FANS OF Blind Pilot Good Old War Givers Dr. Dog ONLINE theheadandtheheart.com
36
THE DROP
JAN/FEB 2014
hen The Head and the Heart’s first album released in 2011, you could be forgiven for grouping them in with the rest of those folk-pop bands that were becoming so popular at the time. It surely was jaunty, classic Americana, but there was something hiding in the corners: a sort of artful willingness to experiment and some fuzzy, washed out guitars that suggested this band spent as much time with White Album-era Beatles as they did with the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Those hints were probably what propelled the band past their legion of folksy colleagues and onto the late-night TV circuits, a tour with My Morning Jacket and a deal with Sub Pop, indie rock’s kingmakers. Now their second album has taken those hints of greatness and expanded them into a broad, fascinating sonic landscape. They don’t leave their rootsy foundation, but they have the good sense to expand it. And to hear violinist and songwriter Charity Rose Thielen tell it, that’s just the way they like it. “Now that the album’s made, it’s a natural progression of the band—how much we’ve grown and grown together and been apart and come back together,” she says. “There’s acoustic, so it’s not like we’ve abandoned our sound, per se, but we have also grown and added elements of the electric guitar, synth—just having fun and experimenting. We’re The Head and the Heart. But The Head and the Heart that has grown.”
W
Son Lux Lanterns Son Lux’s trippy melodies marry Sufjan-type folk with hip-hop.
Patty Griffin American Kid An American master turns out what might be her best yet.
[ M I S C ]
Arcade Fire has never been famous for their normality, but the antics surrounding the release of 2013’s Reflektor tested even their hyperdevoted fan base’s loyalty. They’re now asking that everyone who attends their summer tour wear a costume ... You can now own a children’s book version of Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis’ viral video, “The Fox,” courtesy of Simon & Schuster. Because lyrics like “Hateehatee-hateeho!” are just what kids are into these days ... Along with providing a new way to look at the world, Google Glass is attempting a new way to listen to it. A range of new apps will allow users to identify and listen to music ...
KOPECKY FAMILY BAND Kopecky Family Band is not actually a family. This group of friends, who got their start at Belmont University, make a brand of indie rock music that manages to be both fun and thoughtful, incorporating fans into their musical family. Music is family, because it goes through borders and bloodlines. Regardless of what language you speak, you’re moved by different types of music. I hope people are touched by authenticity and that they feel alive by what music does.
WHY WE LOVE THEM With singable boy/girl harmonies over layered instrumentation and catchy beats, many of the songs on Kids Raising Kids are creative and lively, but the band also doesn’t shy away from simpler, aching melody lines and genuine lyrics.
WILL MORGAN HOLLAND
FOR FANS OF Fleetwood Mac The Lumineers Of Monsters and Men Shovels & Rope ONLINE kopeckyfamilyband.com
SHAD Kenyan-born, Canadaian-based rapper Shad calls his music straight up, classic hip-hop, but with his fourth album, Flying Colours, he set out to push himself creatively in both sound and lyrical content. The conversation has always grown and pushed to new spaces quite naturally. There’s stuff on this album that’s new territory for me in terms of the conversations I have with my fans, but it has felt like the natural next place to go.
JUSTIN BROADBENT
WHY WE LOVE HIM Rap is all about the words, and Shad makes every one of his count. His lyrics are self-deprecating and socially conscious, featuring his sense of humor and smart wordplays as he talks about everything from race issues to failure to love.
FOR FANS OF K’naan Propaganda The Roots Lecrae ONLINE shadk.com
RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
37
PROFILE
Q: Does it ever become difficult to work in a team? A: The people I’m working with are
all friends. That counts for so much. Sometimes, you just have to make a decision to prefer someone else. Wisdom tells you that forcing your idea through is not the best idea. If you shoot down people’s best ideas, they won’t bring their best stuff. There has to be trust and vulnerability.
Q: From your vantage point, how is worship music changing? A: There’s definitely a lot of inten-
[ Q&A ]
MATT REDMAN THE WORSHIP LEADER ON TEAMWORK, DIGGING DEEPER IN SONGWRITING AND THE RHYTHM OF WORSHIP t seems appropriate that Matt Redman was born on Valentine’s Day. Redman’s life has been devoted to helping others express their love to God. He’s behind wellloved worship songs such as “Blessed Be Your Name” and “The Heart of Worship,” and he has also helped pioneer a breed of worship music that has less to do with a single leader than it does with a team committed to leading others into an environment of praise. He talked to us about teamwork, changes in worship music and accusations that praise choruses are shallow.
I
38
THE DROP
JAN/FEB 2014
Q: What makes your new album, Your Grace Finds Me, different? A: This one, from day one, was
a team effort. There’s a real recognition in me over the last five years that together, we’re better. Some of the songwriting partners are pulling the best out of me. Hopefully I’m doing the same for them. It’s interesting. In a way, why wouldn’t you work like that? The Kingdom of God seems designed to work like that. Jesus didn’t send the disciples out on their own. On this album, there’s a time where we have four nations in the room at once. It’s really powerful.
“AT THE END OF THE DAY, THE THING THAT’S GOING TO PERMEATE PEOPLE’S HEARTS IS TRUTH ABOUT GOD.”
WATCH Matt Redman’s live performance of “Your Grace Finds Me.”
tionality toward going deeper. When people are throwing stones at the sort of things we do, the criticism is always the same: There’s not enough depth, they’re not tackling enough theological themes. In one sense, you can’t take all of that on your shoulders. In the other sense, you have to take it seriously. There’s a responsibility when you start putting words into people’s mouths for how they’re going to talk to God. There’s always this question of “Can we dig deeper? Are we painting the best view of God that we can?” As thrilling as it might be musically, at the end of the day, the thing that’s going to permeate people’s hearts is truth about God.
Q: What do you say to people who are still going to church, but can’t quite feel the joy of worship the way they used to? A: One of the things I would say is
“breathe in.” In this new album, the title track says, “I’m breathing in your grace, I’m breathing out your praise.” That’s the rhythm of worship. You can’t breathe out till you’ve breathed in. People in that situation may need to breathe in again. Set your eyes on the glory of God. Call to mind the amazing glimpses of His faithfulness. Journey back to the Cross. Read about the Cross in the Gospels. For me, sometimes, it’s the breathing in again. The breathing out is a natural reaction. It’s a reflex. So many times in worship, we focus on the breathing out side. I’m learning more and more as a worship leader, one of the important things you can do is focus on the breathing in element. Then, you can’t stop people from breathing out.
In the heart of conflict, there is only one kind of love big enough to change a nation:
A L OV E TH AT S TRIK ES FIRS T. Preemptive Love: Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time invites you to walk along the front lines of the struggle for peace with Jeremy Courtney in a firsthand account of his team’s quest to mend hearts and save lives in the world’s most notorious war-torn country. “A beautiful, inspiring book!“ —Senator Joe Lieberman “A thoroughly gripping and moving tale…” —Alex Hannaford, GQ “…powerfully inspiring, touching, and…urgently relevant.” —Publishers Weekly
J E R E MY C OURT NE NEY Y is founder and executive director of the Preemptive Love Coalition—an international development organization that provides lifesaving surgeries to children and training to local doctors and nurses in an effort unmake violence and remake the world in war-torn countries. Visit www.preemptivelovebook.com to learn about the new book and the organization, and please – spread the word!
A SPECIAL SECTION
REJECT APATHY
BY LIZ RIGGS
THE
first time I met James, he was a ninth-grader who was reading on a third grade reading level. He struggled with basic spelling words and had yet to master his multiplication tables. At the end of the year, more or less at the same proficiency level, he was passed on to 10th grade. The following summer, we met at the public library to read together several times a week, working on rudimentary word fluency and practicing elementary spelling patterns. 40
REJECT APATHY
JAN/FEB 2014
Now James is a college freshman who is desperately trying to keep his head above water. He entered both high school and college years behind academically, and he is just one face of many who have graduated high school tragically unprepared for the demands of higher education and the work force. “The problems were so much bigger than me or my students,” says Joseph Williams, a former advanced placement history teacher at James’ school. “And what kept me up at night was not the students in my classroom and the high challenges they faced to breaking out of the cycle of poverty. It was my realization that they were a handful of examples of millions in broken systems that are failing them.”
The U.S. Education system is one of those broken systems—a system that continues to fail many of its students year after year. For those who grew up in a private school or in a zip code that had a blue ribbon public school, the idea that the U.S. education system is broken may seem like an absurd notion. And yet, this is a public institution that is producing test scores ranking the U.S. 25th out of 30 countries in math and 21st out of 30 in Science. This is a system in which
nearly two-thirds of third-graders are reading below their grade level. “I sometimes was blessed enough to shake things up and change some things in my classroom and maybe my school,” Williams says. “I was a lead teacher, so I had some impact at a district level, too. But the problems leading to these broken schools and broken families and shattered dreams are so much bigger and widespread than that.”
THE CYCLE OF POVERTY
Many of the problems in our education system lie in the gap between high-income students and their low-income peers, known colloquially as the achievement gap. This gap, despite measures in reform, has only widened over the years, according to many recent studies. Of over 15 million students living in poverty, only 8 percent of them will graduate college by the time they are 24 years old, and these students are half as likely to graduate high school as their high-income peers. “In a lot of ways, the education system in the U.S. is functioning in the way it was supposed to function—ensuring those of means and privilege continue to have the educational experiences needed to continue to have means and privilege,” says Ali Wilson, a former teacher who now trains and professionally develops younger teachers. “We see people pushing against this, but we need to continue to elevate
“GIVING PEOPLE THE TOOLS, OFTEN THROUGH EDUCATION, TO MAKE MEANINGFUL CHOICES IS PART OF TREATING ALL PEOPLE WITH RESPECT.” —SHAKA MITCHELL
the conversation and find ways to make the system more equitable.” The disadvantage starts before students even enter school. For many students, their zip code determines their future school, their teachers and, often, their opportunities. Frequently, low-income students are born and raised in communities that feed them into failing schools, and they don’t have the money or resources to have any other options. With this cycle prevailing, low-income students become six times more likely to drop out of high school. Nearly half did not meet any of the ACT’s standards for college readiness, based on their ACT scores. “It’s hard to fix poverty, but some of these things can be fixed,” says professor Richard Ingersoll, a researcher and educator at the University of Pennsylvania. Ingersoll taught for six years in both public and private schools before pursuing academia to research some of the major issues plaguing the American education system. Ingersoll is referring to many of the other factors that impact a school’s overall effectiveness, whether it’s the principal and administration team, the money going into the school or any other variety of factors. But one key component has emerged in the forefront of the education reform movement: the teacher.
15 MILLION AMERICAN STUDENTS LIVE IN
POVERTY IN
TEACHERS LEAVE THEIR POSTS EACH YEAR
THE AVERAGE STARTING SALARY FOR A TEACHER IN THE U.S. IS
TEACHER QUALITY, PERFORMANCE & RETENTION
A study published by RAND Education stated that a student’s teacher matters “more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling.” Over recent years, it has been a commonly held belief that teachers are the lynchpin in this monstrous reform effort; they are the piece holding together an otherwise slipshod puzzle. And yet, even with this knowledge, our country still struggles to bring the best and brightest teachers into the classroom. According to a report published in Education Week, countries such as Finland and Singapore bring in 100 percent of their teachers from the top third percent of their graduating class. The U.S.? Only 23 percent. And in low-income schools, that number drops to 14 percent. As many are quick to point out, if we want smarter students, we need to bring in stronger teachers. “Our students deserve the best teachers,” says Julia Duchon, who works for an educational nonprofit and spent several years in the classroom. “Some teachers who are lower performers in college can still be excellent teachers for our kids. Others, sadly, are not. Many high performers in college are deterred from the teaching profession because it is not seen as prestigious enough. The stigma around the teaching profession must change so the best teachers for our students—no matter where or how they performed in college—are attracted to the profession.” Not only that, but in low-income schools, teaching positions are particularly hard to fill. Many alternative licensure programs (programs that train teachers in ways other than a traditional four-year
IN
EIGHTH GRADERS CAN’T READ PROFICIENTLY SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau, Education Week, National Education Association, Bureau of Justice, National Center for Education Statistics
undergraduate program) have emerged in order to staff these hard-to-fill positions, but teacher turnover and low performance is still a concern. And these students are typically experiencing outside challenges as well that can affect their performance in the classroom. Whether it’s family life, parental support or trying to balance a part-time job with the workload of a typical high school student, low-income students must surmount an overwhelming number of challenges on a daily basis.
WHERE IS GOD IN EDUCATION?
As Christians, what is our role in an issue that is such a fundamental part of the public sphere? RELEVANT MAGAZINE
41
R E J E C T
A P A T H Y
A
1,100,000
[T HE LIS T]
What Is Being Done? Here are a few major efforts in place to tackle problems in America’s education system. COMMON CORE A rigorous curriculum that can be taught across the country. With more challenging standards than those of most states, Common Core aims to ensure actual college preparation. To date, 45 states have adopted the standards. CHARTER SCHOOLS Publicly (mostly) funded and privately run schools that typically serve lowincome and minority students. Charters have varying results, but their purpose is usually to provide more choice and opportunity for low-income students to see them to and through college. INCREASE TEACHER PAY AND RETENTION The idea of education reform as it applies to teachers is to increase the overall attractiveness of the profession to get the best people in our classrooms—and, in a lot of realms, this means increasing salaries and opportunities for teachers. Low salaries are at least one contributing factor to why teachers leave the classroom quickly. Finding and keeping great teachers is key to graduating great students.
AMERICAN STUDENTS DROP OUT OF SCHOOL EACH YEAR
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS GRADUATE READY FOR COLLEGE IN ALL FOUR CORE SUBJECTS
REJECT APATHY
JAN/FEB 2014
OF U.S. CONVICTS ARE HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS
“As people of faith, we are called to believe that everyone is a child of God,” says Shaka Mitchell, the director of external affairs for LEAD Public Schools, a charter network in the South. “That has some very practical implications—like the idea that all people ought to be treated with dignity. I believe giving people the tools, often through education, to make meaningful, non-coerced choices is part of treating all people with respect.” That sentiment is echoed in different ways among other Christians who are connected to education. Becky Wharton, a retired teacher who taught for nearly 30 years, sees education as her calling. “I think people want to be involved—in their careers— in something that is bigger than themselves. And that is educating kids and [creating] relationships with them. You’re doing something great for these people, and I think that’s why I love teaching, because I feel like it’s a wonderful ministry. To me it’s a ... way to serve God.” Wilson also says she views education as a work of service. “When Jesus talks about the poor, the widow, the orphans—that represents the majority of students and families in the public school district I work in. I can’t separate work and faith,” she says. Wilson worked with James on several occasions and has been a part of his journey through the public education system. Her unwillingness to separate her faith from her work has led her to be a part of this movement where she can impact thousands of lives every day. Teaching is perhaps one of many ways to serve God in this movement for educational equality, but it’s certainly not the only. And for those who are outside of the school system looking in, it’s probably easy to wonder what role those of us who aren’t teachers or principals or school counselors can play.
SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau, Education Week, National Education Association, Bureau of Justice, National Center for Education Statistics
42
S P E C I A L
S E C T I O N
107.6
BILLION AMOUNT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SPENT ON EDUCATION IN 2012
While it may not be easy to drop everything and become a teacher or start working for an education think tank, it is easy to support teachers and public schools. Go to the website for the public school district in your city and see what volunteer opportunities are available. Most school districts will have tutoring opportunities. Are there clubs you can host? Are there partnerships with local nonprofits or the public library that interest you? Can you donate money to a school, an education fundraiser or a tutoring center? No matter your interests, there are ways to get involved in education to help fuel the work our country’s teachers and students are doing. As a country, we have embarked on a journey for educational justice that cannot be taken lightly. And, as Wilson sees it, James’ story is just one of the stories we hear. “It is so important that we seek to understand the reality for all students—not just our children or the children in our neighborhood—and feel convicted to do something when we see injustice,” she says. Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, some of the names in this article may have been changed to protect the identity of those interviewed. LIZ RIGGS is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tenn. Follow her on Twitter at your own risk @riggser.
Your ministry is primary –you don’t have to make attending seminary secondary. Don’t leave your ministry to go to seminary. Unlike most traditional seminaries, Wesley Seminary’s innovative approach allows ministers to stay in their current ministry setting while attending seminary. Ministry and service are tied together, linking assignments to each student’s individual ministry context. Ours is a new – and highly integrated – approach where Bible, theology and church history are woven into every course, along with active,
Master of Divinity Master of Arts Master of Practical Theology Maestria en Divinidades en Español
866-498-4968
hands-on, practical ministry. Come to Wesley Seminary. Engage in the world. Change the world.
ONSITE OR ONLINE
IWUsuccess.com/seminary
R E J E C T
A P A T H Y
MEET THE MOST MAN IN CHINA HOW BOB FU, “GOD’S DOUBLE AGENT,” IS WORKING TOWARD RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN CHINA B Y E M I LY M C F A R L A N M I L L E R
hen Guangcheng had spent four years in prison and several more under house arrest after documenting more than 100,000 cases of forced abortions in China. The Washington Post called his dramatic escape and subsequent refuge in a U.S. Embassy “the most sensational human rights crisis in China in a decade.” And it was all engineered by a man named Xiqiu “Bob” Fu—a man who, as Rep. Chris Smith, chair of the Global Human Rights subcommittee within the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, told NBC News, “is one of the most credible people you’ll ever find about what is going on in China.” Fu, who is a pastor, the founder and president of ChinaAid and a Voice of the Martyrs China analyst, has witnessed and heard many stories of suffering, extreme poverty and the persecution of Christians in China. He has heard stories of forced abortions under the country’s one-child policy and of women raped by police while detained. Their crime? Their belief in Christ. He has seen scarred faces of Christians beaten for their faith.
C
44
REJECT APATHY
JAN/FEB 2014
BRANDON ENGLISH
And yet, he says, he has seen Christians praying for their persecutors and “tremendous, courageous signs in their smiles, in the miracles and wonders in their lives.” He has seen the Church in China grow from fewer than 1 million people to an estimated 50 to 130 million. “That’s the hope, I think, for China,” he says. “That’s certainly a Kingdom of God picture on the earth.”
VOICES OF MARTYRS
That growth in the Church in China comes amid “what may have been the harshest and most widespread persecution of the Church in all history,” according to Voice of the Martyrs. Voice of the Martyrs reports that more Christians have been
detained in China than in any other country. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which listed China in its top tier of “countries of concern” in its 2013 annual report, puts the number of Protestants detained in the past year at more than 1,000, even as the country loosens its control in other areas, relaxing some restrictions of its one-child policy and announcing in November plans to abolish its labor camps. But, Fu says, human rights and religious freedoms in the country have dramatically deteriorated in the past few years. Fu himself has been imprisoned in China for “illegal evangelization” and has had to run from authorities several times. He and his wife, Heidi, had to escape police officers stationed around their apartment in Beijing by
A
S P E C I A L
S E C T I O N
R E J E C T
A P A T H Y
leaping from a second-story window, he wrote in his autobiography, God’s Double Agent, published last fall. Heidi was pregnant with their first child at the time of the escape, and her pregnancy would have ended in forced abortion if it had been discovered. The couple didn’t have a permit granting them government
He excelled at school, despite his reputation as a “troublemaker,” he says. Twice, he intervened to help classmates stay in school when their parents threatened to bring them home because they no longer could afford it. This earned him the nickname “Heart Burden Man” from his mother.
“I HAVE FELT THE PERSECUTION PHYSICALLY. PHYSICAL PERSECUTION REALLY IS NOT A REAL BIG DEAL COMPARED TO THE JOY YOU EXPERIENCED.” permission to have the child. They slipped out of the country in 1996 as part of a tour group going to Bangkok, then Hong Kong. The U.S. finally intervened to bring them to the States days before control of Hong Kong was turned over from Britain to China. Since then, Fu says, “We have been receiving almost on a daily or weekly basis all of these persecution stories from our brothers and sisters in different parts of China, and we have been always praying.” Those stories led him to found ChinaAid Association, an international Christian human rights organization committed to promoting religious freedom and the rule of law in China. Since 2002, ChinaAid has worked to expose abuses in China, encourage the abused and equip leaders spiritually and legally to defend their faith and freedom. “I see the tremendous cultural transformation ... and I want to contribute, want to be part of this exciting time and movement,” Fu says. That excitement and the joy of Christ is worth more to him than his physical comfort. “I felt the persecution physically. Physical persecution really is not a real big deal compared to the joy you experienced.”
THE FIGHT FOR EQUAL TREATMENT
That desire to contribute was planted in Fu from a young age as he was growing up in poverty in the Shandong province of China, an area where many students could barely afford an education. “I had been always thinking how to change that situation,” he says. “I always felt in the beginning it was a financial problem.”
46
REJECT APATHY
JAN/FEB 2014
For his senior thesis in high school, he investigated how things worked in the villages, talking to doctors, farmers and other workers. After learning government officials were demanding bribes to keep the electricity on in his own village, he declared to his class he wanted to become prime minister. “I observed in China, the best way to change your social and economic status is to become a big potato, you know? The bigger, the better,” he says. “Basically, I just felt, ‘well, I want to use my own effort to fight for equal treatment.’”
GOD’S DOUBLE AGENT
Instead, Fu was accepted to Liaocheng Teachers’ College to study to become an English teacher. That’s where he was when the student movement started in 1989 in Beijing, according to his autobiography. He led a group of students from Liaocheng to peacefully protest government corruption in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, leaving just before the massacre there in June of the same year. The teachers’ college was also where police forced him to write confession after confession, and where many of his friends abandoned him in the subsequent government crackdown. And it’s where he became a follower of Christ, finding hope in the story of another Chinese Christian from a biography his English teacher shared. “That was the start of my understanding of my faith, and then gradually [I came] to realize the value of religious freedom,” he says. “Of course, then after I became a
Christian, then I started to involve the Chinese underground church movement and [know] more stories of their suffering, their torture, their cries and tears and yearnings for freedom.” “Heart Burden Man” became “God’s double agent,” teaching English to future Communist Party leaders by day and the Bible to future house church leaders by night in Beijing. At first, he attended a Three-Self Patriotic Movement Church, the one government-sanctioned Protestant church in China and, he says, basically a “political organization with a religious uniform.” After Fu’s beloved pastor was removed from his church by the Communist Party, Fu helped lead a house church. House churches, free from government control, gained popularity in the 1980s, he says. But they also are “illegal religious gatherings” in China, and he and his wife were imprisoned after government officials discovered the Bible school. “Ironically, or humorously by God, the house church—despite of 60 years non-stop persecution and discrimination in the society—has been the most revival spiritual movement in the history of Christianity,” he says.
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN CHINA
That kind of religious persecution continues in China today. In December 2010, Chinese authorities launched a crackdown on unregistered house churches, Voice of the Martyrs reported. Since then, the government has forcibly closed independent Protestant and Catholic churches and detained and arrested church leaders, according to the USCIRF 2013 Annual Report. It also has selected Catholic bishops without the approval of the Vatican. One weekend in July, 31 members of Shouwang Church, one of the largest house churches in Beijing, were arrested, Fu says. Some were locked in an iron cage in the police station. One man was beaten so badly, one of his teeth was knocked out. Anywhere from 30 to 100 members of the church are arrested almost every week, Fu says. All the church elders and pastors have been under house arrest, and landlords have been
A
S P E C I A L
S E C T I O N
forbidden to rent members a space for the church, forcing them to worship outdoors. Still, Shouwang Church has grown to more than 1,000 members, Fu says. “All of these cries from those persecuted brothers and sisters and the continuing deteriorating of human rights in China make us feel we should do something,” he says. “We can’t really rest until we see true freedom in our motherland, over there.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Fu says he can’t imagine any significant progress toward freedom in China without “the support of the American people and the free world.” And while not everyone is called to coordinate daring escapes for Chinese dissidents or to testify in Congressional hearings, the difference can be made by an act as simple as writing a letter, he says. ChinaAid posts imprisoned Christians’ addresses on its website. In 2002, a house church leader named Li Ying received more than 4,000 letters from all over the world while serving a sentence at a labor camp in China, Fu says. That sentence was reduced nearly three years, and Fu received a phone call from Ying telling him what a difference those prayers and letters made. Americans also can write their elected officials to support religious freedom, which is not a Democratic or Republican issue, but an “American fundamental interest,” Fu says. And Voice of the Martyrs requests prayers on its website for spiritual and physical strength for the thousands of Chinese Christians in prison, for boldness for those sharing the Gospel despite the dangers they face. It praises God for the significant growth of the Church in China. “I think that is the hope. I feel the freedom—the day for China’s freedom is much, much closer than any time of the Communist Party’s ruling history now,” Fu says. “I think I’m looking forward to that day, and I’m more optimistic now.”
EMILY MCFARLAN MILLER is an awardswinning education reporter, an adventurer and a Chicagoan. Mostly, she writes. Connect with her at emmillerwrites.com
RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
47
R E J E C T
A P A T H Y
RESCUING SOMEONE FROM HUMAN TRAFFICKING IS HARDER THAN IT SEEMS
B Y M AT T A N D L A U R A P A R K E R
S
JEREMY SNELL
arah sat nervously fiddling with the napkin in her hands. Lights flashed and music blared all around us. Next to Sarah, the brothel owner bartered her price. He offered my partner, an undercover national investigator, sex with Sarah at a premium because she was still considered “fresh.” We were in a Southeast Asian brothel commonly known as a “fishbowl”—a bar where women are lined up on stools or couches behind a large wall of glass windows. Sarah, a native of a neighboring country, was 15 years old. Her mother had recently sold her to pay off a family debt. Sarah’s virginity had brought her trafficker $600 just three days earlier. As you might imagine, I felt rage. The only hope I had in that moment was knowing our interaction
48
REJECT APATHY
JAN/FEB 2014
with Sarah’s pimp was being captured by the covert cameras my partner and I were carrying. I knew when we recorded the sale of Sarah, when we gathered enough evidence to prove money changed hands with the intent of sex with a minor, we could spark a raid with the local police on her behalf. And while I knew this was the right course of action to work within the local legal system, it was a brutal thing to walk away from the brothel later that night, leaving Sarah still inside.
Rescue from the sex trade sounds glamorous. On the outside looking in, rescue looks a lot like Jason Bourne in a fist fight or Liam Neeson breaking down doors to find his daughter in Taken. It sounds like the stuff of Hollywood. But real rescue can’t be depicted in a two-hour movie on the big screen. My experience as a former undercover investigator and now the leader of The Exodus Road, a coalition of more than 20 investigative organizations responsible for nearly 200 victim rescues in the past year, has given me a more realistic point of view. The rescue of a sex slave actually requires a huge investment of time, resources, strategy and grit. When we look at Sarah’s
A
S P E C I A L
S E C T I O N
case, and when we think in terms of what it really takes to rescue a sex slave, we see that effective rescue is much broader and more complex than the simple kicking in of a door or grabbing a young girl from a brothel. There are essentially four main steps to rescuing a sex slave:
INVESTIGATIONS: BUILD A TARGET PACKAGE
The first step in freeing a sex slave is, of course, finding them. At a practical level, this means sending trained, government-sanctioned undercover investigators into the darkest corners of the world to look for victims. In Sarah’s case, the national investigator I was with had been working undercover for about a year, building relationships with the brothel owners involved. It was this long-term trust-building process that led the pimp to immediately call when he had a “fresh” girl. Investigators then build what we call target packages—case files of evidence proving criminal activity of trafficking. They visit the bar or brothel in question and pose as customers. Often, they wear covert camera equipment to document both still shots and video surveillance evidence. When investigators visit a scene, they look specifically for signs of duress, in an effort to distinguish between prostitutes over 18 years old and there by choice, and victims of human trafficking working against their wills. Marks on the body, fearful movements, young age and downcast eyes are all red flags to investigators that the person before them is trapped. A completed target package, including reports and surveillance evidence, is then delivered to local police. This initial process can take anywhere from one week to a year or more, depending on the scope of the operation. A quality target package represents hundreds of dollars and many nights of hard, depressing work for any investigator. But, unfortunately, sometimes even the best target package isn’t enough.
GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIPS: EASIER SAID THAN DONE
As much as I wanted to grab Sarah and run that night in the brothel, to do so—to take a minor against her will, even in an effort to “rescue” her—would be considered kidnapping. A nongovernmental organization (NGO) or foreign charity does not have the authority to pull a victim out of a brothel. Instead, NGOs must spend time in a country developing relationships with key government officials. Without strong government partnerships, groups will continue to hit walls that no amount of money can break through. This can be challenging. When I lived in Southeast Asia, it took a great investment of my time and resources to gain the trust of the local
EFFECTIVE RESCUE IS MUCH BROADER AND MORE COMPLEX THAN THE SIMPLE KICKING IN OF A DOOR OR GRABBING A YOUNG GIRL FROM A BROTHEL. authority in charge of countertrafficking. It was more than a year before we actually worked a case together, but today, he remains one of our greatest partners. Once relationships with trusted officials are in place, investigators deliver the target package of evidence to those officials with both the desire and capability to act on the case. At that point, the NGO should begin to play a supporting role, offering accountability and resources for the government lead on the case. This is an essential piece of the process because longterm change in trafficking will best be brought about by those within their own home countries. Ideally, a multi-disciplinary task force would circle around the specific case detailed in the target package. At the “table” would be the police partners, the investigators, a national social worker, a local lawyer versed in victim rights and a translator or medical doctor, as needed. The group would then make a plan for the sting operation or raid, set a date and gather resources.
Thankfully for Sarah, the national investigator had strong relationships with the federal government, and through working in partnership with both a local NGO and a nationally run anti-trafficking task force, a plan for a holistic, victim-centered rescue operation began to take shape.
RAID: TO KICK DOWN A DOOR
The actual kicking down of the door is the part most susceptible to corruption and tipoffs. In fact, in Sarah’s case, someone leaked key information minutes before the rescue operation began. As a result, the first raid failed because Sarah’s pimps pulled her and all other underage victims from the brothel and placed them in an apartment off the grid for a month. In developing countries especially, it’s very difficult to execute a successful raid where the victims are cared for through social and translation services and all the perpetrators are arrested. Sometimes, pimps sneak out hidden doors. Sometimes victims are placed in the same police car as their broker. These are obviously tactical errors for countries with sound police methodology in place, but they are the ground-level realities for government forces in the developing world with little resources, training or support. RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
49
R E J E C T
A P A T H Y
A
1 3 TEENS IN
2,000,000 ADVOCACY AND PROSECUTION: THAT WHICH CANNOT FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS
After a successful raid, both advocacy for the victim and prosecution for the criminal are crucial. To wash our hands of the justice process after the door is kicked down would be a failure—both to the victims themselves and to the larger strategy of slowing the human trafficking machine. Depending on the resources available, victims are either transferred to a government facility or to a private safe house immediately after a raid. The ultimate hope is that they would receive holistic care and eventually testify against their traffickers in court. But the reality is this rarely happens. Many times, especially if strong social services are not in place, victims will run away and try to escape the government’s control. This puts the vulnerable back on the streets. Again, government and NGO partnerships are crucial here. For the criminals, any arrest or prosecution is disruptive. Legal fees, jail time and loss of business make the sale of humans a less lucrative trade. Regardless of the verdicts, raids and arrests send a message to the local community that sexual slavery is not acceptable. When we apply pressure to the trafficking mechanisms from a legal standpoint, we slowly force modern-day slavery into the category of higher risk and lower reward.
S P E C I A L
S E C T I O N
ON THE STREETS WILL BE LURED INTO PROSTITUTION WITHIN 48 HOURS OF LEAVING HOME
CHILDREN ARE SUBJECTED TO PROSTITUTION IN THE GLOBAL COMMERCIAL SEX TRADE YEARLY
This is potentially one of the greatest steps we can make as a community fighting this injustice. It took two long months after that night I first saw Sarah for her to be rescued. It required the planning of two raids and a small army of people, more funding than we imagined and the tenacity of the national investigator who pushed the case through both legal roadblocks and corruption. But, finally, Sarah was pulled from her brothel, along with seven other underage victims who had also been trafficked from a neighboring country. While her trafficker underwent a legal trial, Sarah was transferred to a government facility with less than ideal conditions. Even though there were no quality after-care centers in the immediate area, the authorities would not release her to travel under NGO custody and care, despite our advocacy efforts.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
So suppose you are doing mission work in a red-light district in Cambodia and you see a 13-year-old girl sitting at a bar with a 60-year-old white man. She doesn’t speak your language, but you suspect she’ll be forced to have sex with someone later that night if you don’t intervene. What do you do? Do you force her into your car and drive her to safety? That definitely is the natural instinct.
AN AVERAGE VICTIM MAY BE FORCED TO HAVE SEX
20 TO 48 TIMES A DAY
But that is not the best path to rescue for the girl in front of you, for the one who will take her place the following night or for the local culture that needs to rise up and stand against the sale of its children. One option: give that information to trusted authorities or an anti-trafficking NGO in the area. Find a local trafficking hotline to call in an effort to provide a tip for local investigative teams or police. Seek ways to build a relationship with the young girl across the bar, as well. And please pray—pray for the Sarahs of the world and for the brave few who are engaged in the gritty work of finding, freeing and restoring them. Consider investing in freedom efforts financially or by volunteering your skills, time or influence to the fight. Every day, I find myself wishing that rescuing a sex slave was a simple, inexpensive, quick process. But it isn’t. It might take a village to raise a child, but it takes an entire army to free one. MATT PARKER is the founder and president of The Exodus Road, a coalition of organizations that work together to fuel investigation and rescue from sexual slavery in India and Southeast Asia. His wife, Laura Parker, is the senior vice president of communications.
SOURCES: UNICEF, National Runaway Hotline, Polaris Project
50
REJECT APATHY
JAN/FEB 2014
Shape Your Culture You believe that redemptive, positive-value stories are worth telling. At Regent University, we will teach you to craft your stories in ways that are both compelling and meaningful. Let Regent teach you how to move your audience and leave a lasting impression.
888.777.7729 | regent.edu/communication Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral Degrees • Cinema-Television • Communication Studies • Journalism • Theatre
Regent University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award associates, baccalaureate, masters, and doctorate degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404.679.4500 for questions about the accreditation of Regent University. Regent University admits students without discrimination on the basis of race, color, disability, gender, religion or national or ethnic origin. Regent University is certified by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to operate campuses within the Commonwealth of Virginia. COM131281
RISING FROM OBSCURITY. BREAKING THE SUPERSTAR MOLD. MEET JENNIFER LAWRENCE—THE GIRL WHO SET THE WORLD ON FIRE.
Jennifer Lawrence is just “Jen.” She seems like she would be a great pal and a fun date. And, by being great onscreen and being herself offscreen, she has become our hero, too. Our “girl on fire,” if you will.
CASTING FIRE BY L AURA STUDARUS
like, ‘OK, that’s going about 30 miles per hour,’” Jennifer Lawrence recalls. She’s talking about a scene in the latest Hunger Games movie, Catching Fire, where she and co-star Jena Melone had to hang on to a spinning island. She ranks it as the most difficult stunt she had to pull off. “And Jena and I both had our morning sickness bracelets on because it’s ...“ At this, her co-star Josh Hutcherson interrupts, barely suppressing his laughter. “Morning sickness or motion sickness?” he asks. Lawrence rolls her eyes, immediately recognizing the gaffe. “My publicist is going to be dealing with that for the next 24 hours,” she cracks, immediately squashing potential pregnancy rumors. “Motion sickness! That was hardest when I’m trying to keep the cookies down during that scene.” She laughs. It’s another classic Lawrence moment, a mistake that somehow adds to her appeal. Her career is built on her talent, no two ways about it, but her public persona comes from her authentic, accidentprone charm. She’s a new kind of movie star. Angelina Jolie, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn—all had the air of goddesses descended from Olympus to mingle with the commoners.
“ I’ M
With over 26 million books in print (a number that is likely growing even as you read this) The Hunger Games has established an indelible place in the literary cannon. Set in the not-sodistant future, the books tell the story of a North America taken over by the nation of Panem. A society of malevolent dictators, once a year, Panem forces each of its 12 districts to send one boy and one girl to The Hunger Games—a nationally televised piece of propaganda where the “tributes” fight to the death until there is one survivor. In outlying District 12, Primrose Everdeen is chosen for the “honor”—saved only by the sacrificial love of her older sister, Katniss, who volunteers to go in her place. Katniss’ unlikely survival, and even more unlikely status as the symbol of a revolution, changes the course of her nation’s history. When it came to the film version, it didn’t take much prognostication to realize the odds were ever in the favor of
cinematic success. But, despite coming with a ready-made audience, the movie’s emotional gravity could have easily been derailed by the story’s more outlandish elements—the list of which reads like the most over-the-top of reality shows. (Exotic fashions! Kids killing kids! Overbearing talk show hosts!) Producer Nina Jacobson acknowledges the difficulty that came with casting The Hunger Games’ leading lady. It was a hunt that had them considering some of Hollywood’s finest young actresses—Chloë Grace Moretz, Hailee Steinfeld and Emma Roberts among them. “I think the heart of these movies is Katniss’ point of view, and as long as you remain firmly in her shoes, I think that’s what will always give you the consistency through,” Jacobson muses. “Because, as a character, she is a complex character. She changes, but she sort of grounds us, I think, throughout the series.” In short: much like the citizens of Panem, the franchise’s saving grace would lie in the form of an extraordinary young woman who could believably feed a family with her illicit hunting skills, act as the object of affection for two men and bring down a dictatorship with a handful of berries. Enter Jennifer Lawrence. Initially, critics deemed the actress too old, too busty and too glam to play the role of the scrappy 16-year-old who survives against all odds. It’s a stance that, in hindsight, seems shortsighted, particularly in light of the actress’ previous work. At 20, Lawrence was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Winter’s Bone, the story of a teenager fighting to keep her family together in the poverty-stricken Ozarks. Although her resume was light on
RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
53
Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in Catching Fire.
“I THINK THAT IT’S A WONDERFUL MESSAGE TO SHOW HOW POWERFUL ONE VOICE CAN BE.” other potential award bait (most notably, Lawrence played a precocious teen in the thriller House at the End of the Street), she charmed the producers with her preternatural pluck. Even Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins calling it a stroke of ideal casting— praising Lawrence as an actress who can transition from vulnerable to tough without ever once losing her girlnext-door charm. It’s a sentiment shared by Lawrence’s co-star, Elizabeth Banks, who plays the tightly wound and elaborately dressed guardian/publicist Effie Trinket. “Jennifer is an amazing actress who gets amazing roles, and I wish that she gets them always and forever for the rest of her life,” Banks says effusively. “I’ve been doing it a little longer, and I know there are ... a lot of supporting
54
JAN/FEB 2014
roles that are less interesting than Katniss. I hope for her that she gets to play Katniss-level roles forever and ever. They’re rare, and I think this movie grabbed me. I’m so excited to be seeing such amazing strong female role models in the movies for the 50 percent of the moviegoers who are ladies.”
RELAYING THE MESSAGE
Lawrence jokes about the joys of becoming a “bada** female protagonist.” But even before landing the role of Katniss, she admits admiring the larger thematic scope of The Hunger Games’ narrative. “I was personally very excited when I first started reading these books just that there was
such a big series that young adults would be reading and something that was actually very important,” she says. “I think that it’s a wonderful message to show how powerful one voice can be. It’s very easy as a society for us to just kind of follow the feet in front of us, and history does kind of repeat itself. It’s an important message for our younger generation to see how important they are in shaping our society in the future. “I think we have a society that we, unfortunately, experience in our lives where people feel entitled to certain things,” she continues. “I think that we’ve been completely desensitized in our shock factor, and the media continues to feed you what you want. And this is kind of an example of what happens when you keep allowing that to happen.” Despite the high entertainment value of The Hunger Games, actors and crew alike say their main concern was the message behind each of the film’s moving parts.
Jacobson says the actors and producers have been inspired by trying to imagine the events of the books taking place in real life. “Even though it is the future and even though it is a popcorn movie based on a book that a lot of people love, we try to ask ourselves, ‘Really, how would you be affected by these events if they happened to you?’” she says. “Not if they happened to you in a book, not if they happened to you in a movie, but if they actually happened to you. And I think all of these actors, in the subsequent movie, you see the effects on them as human beings, the way that humans are affected by violence and by war.” In theaters now, The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire picks up a few months after Katniss and cohort Peeta Mellark have won their Hunger Games. Setting out on a victory tour of the restless districts, Katniss is given a clear directive from President Snow (Donald Sutherland): convince the nation she’s a giddy girl in love, or face the consequences. Concerned only with her survival, and more in love with her hunting partner Gale (Liam Hemsworth) than her Games cohort, Katniss fails to impress. One by one, the districts begin to rebel against their oppressive overlords. Through a series of political maneuvering between Snow and head gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), both she and Peeta end up back in the ring for the elaborate “Quarter Quell” edition of The Hunger Games. Lawrence calls it a joy to pick up her character’s bow and arrows for a second round. “You get to play a character who’s
obviously the same character, but who’s changing and growing,” she says.
ODDS EVER IN HER FAVOR
On set, Lawrence was met with new faces—including Jeffrey Wright (electronics expert Beetee), Jena Malone (hardnosed tribute Johanna Mason), and Sam Claflin (the flirty seafarer turned ally Finnick Odair). However, one of the biggest changes to the working environment, says Lawrence, was her best actress Oscar win for her work in Silver Linings Playbook. “I brought it to the set, put it up on video village and I was like, ‘Things are going to be very different,’” she laughs. “No, it actually made me a target. Every time I mess up my lines, Woody [Harrelson] is like, ‘Oh, I better give that Oscar back.’ I wish everybody in this cast didn’t know about it. That would make my life a lot easier.” Lawrence openly smirks at the implication that the win would entitle her to extra privileges on the set—as though a fairytale night (complete with an introduction to super-fan Jack Nicholson that left her breathless) wasn’t enough. “I saw everybody the next day and everybody was just kind of
like, “Hey, good going,’” she says with mock indignation. But, like with many of Lawrence’s answers, there’s also a flip side, one that seemingly percolates the longer the actress mulls over the experience, and she doesn’t playdown her surprise and thankfulness for winning the award. “Winning the Oscar—something like that is a wonderful gift that I’m so grateful for, and I’m confused by slightly, but I’m okay with that,” she continues. “But it’s a huge honor, and I’m still pinching myself. I think that I still haven’t really fully digested it. And I think maybe I shouldn’t. It’s a tremendous honor.”
MODEL BEHAVIOR
In addition to job security, The Hunger Games has provided Lawrence with an opportunity that’s perhaps more unique than seeing her face on an action figure— the chance to positively influence and affect the world around her. Lawrence admits she doesn’t have a pet cause or charity yet. But her daily job, she says, has a way of reminding her just how potent her new ability to influence and affect others can be. “I don’t ever think, ‘My job is very important,’” she says. “I remember being on the first movie and there was a girl who was an extra, and she was covered in scars. She had been burned, and I remember her coming up to me and saying that she was self-conscious to go to school when she was younger and then when she read The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, she felt proud of her scars, and her friends called her “The Girl on Fire.” And I remember just crying on and on, and I still can’t really tell that story without choking up. I remember calling my mom and being like, ‘I kind of get it.’” Lawrence pauses, visibly choked up at the memory. “Sometimes it can seem so pointless because you’re so filled with, like, hair and makeup and clothes—and then sometimes just the lives that you can touch without even meaning to,” she continues. “There are so many elements,
RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
55
[T HE LIS T]
J-Law’s Best Moments With her down-to-earth attitude and goofy antics, you can’t help but love Jennifer Lawrence. Here are a few of her best moments.
TRIPPING AT THE OSCARS On her way to accept the award for best actress, Lawrence tripped on her gown and took a graceful tumble on the stairs. She recovered (right as Hugh Jackman rushed to help her up) and received a standing ovation when she made it to the podium. COMFORTING A CRYING FAN When Lawrence noticed a little girl in a wheelchair crying behind the security barrier at the London premiere of Catching Fire, she stepped off the red carpet and knelt down to talk and take some pictures with her.
GETTING STARSTRUCK As big of a star as she is, Lawrence still lost her cool when she met Jeff Bridges at Comic-Con. She ran away, then came back and took the mic from a camera crew to conduct a mini interview.
56
JAN/FEB 2014
“I LOVE THIS CHARACTER, AND I’M PROUD OF HER. I WOULD BE PROUD TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS MOVIE AND THIS CHARACTER FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.” so many wonderful things that can come from this, from when you have a voice, saying the right things. And it’s so easy for us to assemble support; it’s so easy to raise money for charity. It takes me 10 minutes to sign 100 posters that can raise thousands of dollars for charity, and that’s so simple.” Currently, Lawrence is filming parts one and two of Mockingjay, the final installment of The Hunger Games series. (The films are slated for release in 2014 and 2015.) She has also teamed up with her with her Silver Linings Playbook director, David O. Russell, for the gangster drama American Hustle. However, Lawrence is aware that even after Katniss takes her explosive final bow, her career will always be interwoven with the franchise. She says after watching other book series such as Harry Potter and Twilight make the jump to the big screen—launching their young stars
into fame—she had somewhat of an idea of what to expect. But being identified with her character is not a connection she’s eager to simply shrug off. “If I was going to be identified for a character for the rest of my life, that’s a hard thing to think about, but I love this character, and I’m proud of her. I would be proud to be associated with this movie and this character for the rest of my life.” Lawrence may be getting used to the volume of productions such as The Hunger Games, But she says after it is over, she will most likely go back to making smaller films. “I do think it’s important—it has been important to get the little thing—and not even really for audiences, obviously, some for audiences to see that I can also do this and these are big and overwhelming,” she says. “But for me, I like going back. I started in the indies and I’ll end in the indies. I enjoy doing it. Sometimes when you find a really great character like Rosalyn in David’s movie [American Hustle], it’s better than vacation.” Lawrence pauses for a moment, laughing, as she transforms from poised actress to perky twentysomething. “It is better than vacation, sometimes,” she corrects herself. “As long as the catering is good.”
LAURA STUDARUS is a writer living in Los Angeles. She’s a regular contributor to Under the Radar, Filter, eMusic and RELEVANT.
CAN WE SEPARATE OUR SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL REALITIES?
by N.T. Wright
T
he Psalms celebrate the transformation of time; they stand at the intersection of space—God’s space and ours—and they do something very similar with what we may call “matter.” The Psalms celebrate—in fact, they positively relish—the sheer physicality of creation: its stuff and substance, its seedtimes and harvests, the winds and the rocks, the nights and the days. “Matter” may not be the best word to use for all of this, but our modern trio of time, space and matter enables us to get the picture and now to focus attention on the third of them. We have been heavily influenced on the one hand by Epicureanism, in which God or “the gods” are separated from the world we know by a great and unbridgeable gulf. And we have been shaped on the other hand by a residual Platonism, in which the material world is a shabby, corrupt place to be endured while we have to and escaped when we can. That is a fairly devastating combination, which has led many Christians to imagine that “this world is not my home; I’m just a-passing through.” People quote Jesus saying to Pilate—in the words of the King James Version—that His Kingdom was “not of this world” (John 18:36), as though Jesus was endorsing that Platonic vision of leaving the present world altogether and going off to a different one, a world (perhaps) of pure spirit, not only away from the “material” world but outside time and space as we know it.
What Jesus said and meant was, in fact, that His Kingdom was not from this world. The kingdoms that grow up from within the world make their way by fighting, but Jesus’ Kingdom proceeds on a different basis. His Kingdom was and is most emphatically for this world. Our modern Western worldviews have made it difficult for us to hear Psalm 19:1–2 as anything but a pretty fantasy. The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. To think of this as mere dreaming, a kind of poetic license, is to miss the point, which is that all creation does, in fact, praise its maker. Our problem is that we have allowed the ears of our hearts to be closed to what is going on. But what looks to the flattenedout imagination of late Western modernity like “lifeless” matter is, in fact, a world throbbing with God-given life. That life is constantly praising its maker by being, particularly and peculiarly, what it is. Only humans, it seems, have the capacity to live as something other than what they are (God reflectors, image bearers). Trees behave as trees; rocks as rocks; the sea is and does what the sea is and does. And the psalmists look out on it all and see it as a great shout of praise to the God who has made it to be and to flourish: By your strength you established the mountains; you are girded with might ... Those who live at Earth’s farthest bounds are awed
by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy (65:6, 8). That last line means, I think, that the psalmist saw, as we mostly do, something special and evocative in the quality of light at either end of the day. But he heard, as we mostly do not, something else going on: a shout of joy at this moment of strange, transient glory. And the joy is increased as, with every passing harvest, what we have come to see as “the natural order” is understood as the work of God Himself, making the earth fertile and fruitful: You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness. The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy (65:9–13). The whole countryside, in fact, is putting on its fine clothes as if getting ready for a party: God’s party, the harvest season that humans facilitate but do not create. Why should we not look out on the fruitful earth around us, whether it be mountains and lakes or simply a plant on a windowsill, and celebrate the fact that it is all singing praise to its maker? Unless our worship is joined—more or less consciously—with the praises of all creation, there should be a question mark as to whether it really is genuine Christian worship. This brings us back to a point we noticed before: in various passages in the Old Testament, we are told God’s glory either already fills the whole earth, as in the angelic hymn of Isaiah 6, or that it will do so one day. Psalm 72 expresses this as clearly as anywhere else. It begins with the king being endowed by God with the ability to do justice among the people, summoning the natural landscape to contribute, as well. RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
59
“MATTER” ITSELF, THE MATERIAL WORLD, IS DESIGNED TO BE FLOODED WITH GOD’S GLORY. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor (72:2–4). The central blessings of creation will then function both as a simile for the way in which the rule of the true king will bring justice and peace to the world, and also as a marker of time, praying that this righteous rule will last as long as the sun and moon: May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations. May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more (72:5–7). There then follows the prayer for the worldwide rule of the coming king, which is to be welcomed on the basis that he will deliver 60
JAN/FEB 2014
the needy, rescue the poor and have pity on the weak and helpless (72:8–14). This leads into a prayer that combines the blessings of royal rule with the blessings of creation, taking the poem naturally into the prayer for the divine glory to fill the whole world. Reading the passage in reverse order, in fact, we see what this idea of the earth being filled with divine glory actually means. It means, on the one hand, the glorious combination of creation being fully alive, fully itself and, on the other hand, human society being properly ordered through justice and prosperity. Long may he live! May gold of Sheba be given to him! May prayer be made for him continually, and blessings invoked for him all day long. May there be abundance of grain in the land; may it wave on the tops of the mountains; may its fruit be like Lebanon; and may people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field. May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun. May all nations be blessed in him; may they pronounce him happy. Blessed
be YHWH, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be His glorious name forever; may His glory fill the whole earth. Amen and Amen (72:15–19). The ultimate goal of the whole earth being filled with God’s glory is spoken of elsewhere in the Old Testament. What some had experienced, or might hope to experience, in the tabernacle or Temple (the tent or house being filled with the glory of YHWH) was now to be hoped for in terms of the whole creation. That, we may assume, is part, at least, of what Jesus taught His followers to pray for when they were to say, “Thy Kingdom come, on earth as in heaven.” But if this is the ultimate goal, there are steps on the road toward it—steps by which the material world can be seen as already taken up within that divine purpose, not simply waiting in a state of sorry decay for something new to happen. These stages on the way are already marked in those great psalms of creation, 103 and 104. Psalm 103 praises God for all the blessings of human life and especially for the compassion and gentleness with which God treats His frail and weak human children. All of human life is set within the larger vision of God’s Kingdom, His sovereignty over heaven and earth (103:19). The psalmist can therefore summon all of God’s works to praise Him, wherever they are, “in all places of His dominion” (103:22). This is then translated into a different mode in Psalm 104. First, instead of describing what God has done and is doing and summoning His creation to praise Him, Psalm 104 speaks to God Himself, so that the word “you” occurs 20 or more times: O YHWH my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty ... You stretch out the heavens like
a tent, you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers. You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. You cover it with the deep as with a garment (104:1–6). And so on, and so on, celebrating the mountains and hills, the streams and valleys, the animals and birds that live on what grows and flows (as we say) “by itself” but, in fact, as the objects of God’s care and provision: By the streams, the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. (104:12–13) Humans are at last allowed on the scene, making their appearance, as in Genesis 1, when the stage is fully set: You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine and bread to strengthen the human heart (104:14–15). Then comes the moment, at the heart of the psalm, that I regard as one of the great lines in all of Scripture, a moment that draws together Genesis and Proverbs and looks on to the poetry of Saint Paul. God has created the world in such a way that the great lights of the sky—the sun and the moon—bring order to the life of animals and humans alike. Observing this, the psalmist celebrates the amazing multiplicity of God’s creation and the fact that it is done “in wisdom,” wisely: You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening. O YHWH, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures (104:19-24). “In wisdom”: the Hebrew is behokmah. Proverbs 8:22 says “YHWH created me at the beginning of his work”; and this, in turn, looks back to bereshith, “in the beginning,” the first word of Scripture. This is the line of thought Paul picks up in the glorious poem of Colossians 1:15–20, in which he sets out, after the fashion of a Hebrew psalm, the balanced account of all things being created in, through and for the Messiah, and then all things being redeemed in, through and for Him. Paul leaves us in no doubt that he is picking up this tradition of “creation through wisdom,” joining Genesis 1 and Proverbs 8. The Messiah, he says, “is the place where you’ll find all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2–3); and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead—He, through whom all things were made: He is the image of God, the invisible one, The firstborn of all creation. For in Him all things were created, in the heavens and here on the earth. Things we can see and things we cannot—thrones and lordships and rulers and powers—all things were created both through Him and for Him. And He is ahead, prior to all else, and in Him all things hold together. And He Himself is supreme, the
[GO DEEPER]
Surprised by Hope In this book, Wright takes on the loftiest subject of all—Heaven—and shows where we got it wrong.
The New Testament “For Everyone” Series This guide to all the books of the New Testament with Wright’s own translation of the entire text is invaluable.
After You Believe Wright tackles the question of purpose and expands
head over the Body, the Church. He is the start of it all, firstborn from realms of the dead; so in all things He might be the chief. For in Him all the fullness was glad to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all to Himself, making peace through the blood of His Cross, through Him—yes, things on the earth, and also the things in the heavens (Colossians 1:15–20). Everything Israel’s Scriptures said about “beginning” and “wisdom” has come rushing together in Jesus Himself. The resurrection has gloriously reaffirmed the goodness and God-givenness of the creation (over against any suggestion of Platonic dualism) and has restated God’s intention to fill it all to overflowing with His own love and life and glory. Thus, though creation as it now stands must go through the valley of the shadow of death, God will bring it to new life by His Spirit, and this will lead to the great prayer that the glory of YHWH may last forever, that YHWH may rejoice in His works. “Matter” matters because it is God’s “matter,” made not as a temporary ornament for a world doomed to decay and death but as the raw material for the new world full of glory. May the glory of YHWH endure forever; may YHWH rejoice in His works—who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to YHWH as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to Him, for I rejoice in YHWH (Psalm 104:27–34). When we put this together with the testimony of the New Testament—which is not difficult—then we find a remarkable vista before us. The “wisdom” by which the one true God made the world and all its creatures is to be identified with and as the one we now know in and as Jesus the Messiah. This is the God who placed His glory in the Jerusalem Temple but who now wants His glory to last forever in the creation that, renewed by the Spirit, will be freed from all evil (Psalm 104:35) and become the wonderful vessel of that same glory. Once we learn to understand the overlap of time in the Psalms (past and future both coloring the present), once we learn to understand the overlap of space in the Psalms (God’s glory now in the Temple, now in the Torah, now in the whole of creation), it is not too great a stretch to see that “matter” itself, the material world, is designed to be flooded with God’s glory. And if this is so for the whole creation—trees and seas and birds and animals—it is so above all for human beings. N.T. WRIGHT is the former Bishop of Durham and one of the world’s leading Bible scholars. He now serves as the Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at University of St. Andrew’s School of Divinity.
the idea of faith to be much bigger and grander than a list of rules.
Adapted from The Case for the Psalms. Copyright © 2013 by N.T. Wright. Reprinted with permission from HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers.
RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
61
BY TYLER HUCKABEE
17 YEARS AGO, HE STARTED A MOVEMENT. TODAY, HE’S THE ONE WHO HAS BEEN MOVED. hen Louie Giglio talks to you, he uses your name a lot. It’s a small thing, but it’s powerful. Even if he just met you, he will sprinkle your name throughout sentences, as if you have been friends for years. He’s a global leader, a man whose mark on modern Christianity can’t be overstated, a man whose name is nearly synonymous with the movement to bring praise and worship to the forefront of the Church. He introduced people like Chris Tomlin, David Crowder and Charlie Hall to the rest of the world. His Passion conferences are nearly unparalleled in their reach. By his estimation, he has spoken to nearly a million college students. But when he’s talking to you, he makes sure you know you have his full attention. He doesn’t have the dismissive tone many people have toward massive success—he just attributes all of it to a divine plan. It has been 17 years since the first Passion conference, and in that time, Giglio has come to accept that there’s not much of a ceiling on where it could end up. He’s candid about it, and he’s obviously affectionate, too. He talks about it the way a parent might about a child. “I think it is one of the great joys of life, honestly,” he says. “Some visions need to come and go—and Passion will probably come and go at some point—but I think sometimes you have a vision and that vision starts going through the tunnel of ‘what if we did this,’ or ‘what if we added that’ or ‘what
W
if we think about going down this way?’ Somehow with Passion, the vision was very clear, and it was that we wanted to inspire university-age young people to live their lives for the fame of Jesus, and we’re still there.” Maintaining a singular purpose over the course of nearly two explosive decades is no mean feat, but to Giglio, it’s important to Passion’s continuing relevance. “The world’s different than it was in 1997 in a lot of ways, but the message, the purpose, the intent, the heartbeat, the passion is the same.”
we showed up in Memphis, Tenn. on May 20 and 40,000 some odd people showed up from around the country,” Giglio recalls. That awakening—the size and influence of it—is now familiar to just about everyone in the Christian community. Walk into just about any church on Sunday and the songs you hear are liable to be either directly from Passion’s lineup, or directly influenced by it. And that makes the next chapter in Passion’s journey all the more surprising. “It was all of those things we had hoped for, but we didn’t know what to do after that,” Giglio says, “so we just took a hiatus for a year. We didn’t do anything. We waited on the Lord. We weren’t sure if we ever were going to do anything again.”
PRE-PASSION
WAITING AND LISTENING
Although the mission of Passion may have stayed the same, the scope has certainly shifted. The first Passion conference took place in 1997 in Austin, Texas. “When we set out in 1997, we were really set on seeing awakening come,” he says. “We didn’t set out to do events We didn’t set out to do conferences. We didn’t start out, certainly, to do a 17-year journey. We just wanted to see awakening come, and we didn’t know how to do that. We didn’t have a road map. We just gathered students and cast that vision. We went from 2,000 to 5,000 to 11,500 in the first three years.” In terms of numbers, it was a huge success. In terms of achieving the goal: awakening every last one of America’s then 17 million university students to the glory of God—it was a little shy. So they decided to throw a Hail Mary: a campus-hopping tour leading to another gathering called One Day. “We kept thinking, ‘Man, it’s going to take us a long time to get to 17 million.’” Giglio says. “So that’s when we took the big jump to One Day in the fourth year and said, ‘We just are going to call for a solemn assembly, a fast and a day of prayer, and that’s all we know to do.’ We thought when that ended, Passion would end. That was our plan.” The plan went well. “We visited 120 campuses on the way to One Day. We did eight regional events across the nation, and then
Waiting on God comes up a lot with Giglio. He takes great care in ensuring Passion is running on God’s time, but, at the same time, he’s aware of the complexity of discerning that divine timing. “As much as we all say we ‘heard from God,’ ‘God’s leading us,’ ‘This is what God wants us to do,’ we’re all humans, so there’s a factor in every one of those statements—unless we’re talking about something super clear in Scripture that we know God wants us to do,” he says, with refreshing candor. “But something like an endeavor, a mission, it’s hard to say 1,000 percent, ‘I know God wants me to do this.’ You follow the best you can the voice of God in the company of the community of people He has put you in, and you walk into your future with God.” That voice has come through loud and clear many times throughout Giglio’s career. He can think of a few stories—one gets the impression he could go on for days—but one seems to stand out in particular. “Passion ’99,” he reminisces, like an old sailor recalling an oft-told sea legend. “The last night at Fort Worth Convention Center. Charlie Hall was leading, and it was just one of those moments that if you asked anybody who was there, people still talk about it to this day. Friends of mine bring it up almost every time we talk, and it’s one of those special times where the presence of God settled on us and ... it wasn’t something we had scripted. God’s presence just settled, and the script ended. Programming broke down.” Most of what happened has been pieced together over time. In a moment of silence following one of Hall’s big numbers, a young woman near the top balcony of the convention center started singing the simple, lovely chorus to Laurie Klein’s 1978 worship chorus, “I Love You, Lord.” A girl next to her joined in. Soon, the entire auditorium was singing. “It wasn’t one of those moments like the church retreat where a song ends and a kid starts another song and that one ends and the kid starts another song and before long, you’re like, ‘Please don’t start RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
63
“WE WANTED TO INSPIRE UNIVERSITY-AGE YOUNG PEOPLE TO LIVE THEIR LIVES FOR THE FAME OF JESUS, AND WE’RE STILL THERE.” anymore songs,’” Giglio chuckles. “It came out of her heart, and it came out of everybody’s heart. It was a very defining moment. Some people I know would say it was one of the top two or three or four moments of God’s presence in their lifetime.”
BROADENING WORSHIP
Those sort of emotional moments have become Passion’s signature—something that has earned them some skepticism from certain corners of the Church who feel Passion is prioritizing feelings over intellect. It’s a charge Giglio is familiar with, but one he rejects. “What binds the human experience together, more often than not, when there is a common gathering, is that something great is celebrated,” he says. “In the normal span of life, it’s usually celebrated enthusiastically, not introspectively. It’s usually celebrated with somebody hugging somebody, somebody smiling at somebody, somebody saying, ‘I love this’ and somebody else saying, ‘Me too.’ I don’t think we can discount that corporate celebration of greatness, because it’s in the human psyche. It’s in the human story. It’s in us.” But Giglio and his team realize there are more elements to worship than just corporate gatherings and music—which is partially how Passion developed its new initiative: social justice. 64
JAN/FEB 2014
“We had been rallying our hearts around the fullness of worship,” Giglio explains. “It’s not just music, but it’s also reaching to the last and least of these, and it’s combining those things together.” The decision to focus on human trafficking was another example of Giglio’s plans being redirected or overhauled. “We were having a meeting for Passion 2012 at the Dome [in Atlanta]. We were going to kind of lay out our strategy for what causes we were going to push forward. I think when we walked into the meeting, there were about 10 people in the meeting, and you could sense that everybody had some hopes.” The meeting started out scattered. Some people wanted to dig wells. Some wanted to invest in education. Others thought Passion needed to be more concerned about poverty. Giglio was prepared to tackle any and all subjects his team wanted on the table but, he says, something changed in the air.
“Unlike anything I’ve ever seen happen in a meeting, there was a common melding and melting of hearts,” he says. “The statement somehow came out, ‘What if we just lean one way? What if we just say it’s just one thing?’ And I knew there were 10 different opinions in the room, but something gently came through the room and the next breath was ‘Yeah, and it needs to be human trafficking.’ And in two minutes, it was done. There wasn’t any give and take. There wasn’t any pushback. There wasn’t any, ‘Yeah, but...’ It was just like, ‘Yup, that’s it. We’re done. Let’s move on.’” Talking about it, he still sounds shocked. “As a leader, that doesn’t happen,” he explains. “It was such a strong consensus, everyone in the room kind of sat there for a minute and went, ‘What just happened?’” What happened was the birth of Passion’s END IT campaign, which ended up raising over $3 million for organizations that seek to end global slavery. It’s all part of Passion’s next phase, in which Giglio is hoping to broaden the whole definition of worship. “We’ve sort of gotten locked into worship as music, and most all of the conversation about worship centers around music. I think that has not served the Church well, and it hasn’t served us as people well, as a Kingdom.” It’s a shift in what Passion will bring, but, to Giglio, it’s not a big one. If you took a snapshot of Passion ’97 in Austin, Texas and a snapshot of Passion today, he says, you would have two very similar pictures. “No one would have told you in 1997 that we would still be doing Passion gatherings at this stage of the game. I would be very remised to say whether or not we will be doing them 17 years from now,” he says, laughing heartily at the thought. “Only God knows that.” TYLER HUCKABEE is the managing editor of RELEVANT magazine. Follow him on Twitter @tylerhuckabee.
WHAT QUALITIES SHOULD YOU LOOK FOR IN A SPOUSE? B Y D E B R A K . F I L E TA
en, let’s be real men.” I saw an ad this weekend that started with that phrase. It proceeded to promote a new testosterone pill. If consumed, this pill promised to boost “manliness”—to increase sex drive, muscles and masculinity. The most frightening thing about this ad is that it speaks some distorted truth—in the sense that our society has managed to reduce manhood to sex drive and muscles. This latent message is everywhere. Real men hunt. Real men have beards. Real men don’t cry. The heartbreaking reality is that manhood is often reduced to so little. Of course, if society has put such limits on what a desirable man might be like, it has completely monopolized the discussion on what a desirable woman ought to be like. An arbitrary weight, height and personality (or lack thereof) is used to label the ideal woman, with not much of a place for those who don’t fit the mold. Sadly, many women believe those bullying lies and try to measure up to a standard they were never meant to follow. But what if we as the Church were to revolt against this mentality? We could cause a ripple effect of change in a culture that has become so far removed from the deep-seated qualities of true masculinity and femininity. What it comes down to is this: In my career as a professional counselor and through my interaction with this generation, I have observed that women are looking for so much more in a man than muscles and libido, and men are looking for so much more in a woman than supermodel status. I have met a new generation of men rising up, who understand that bikinis and sex appeal have little value in the equation of a healthy and meaningful relationship. I have met women who are aware that society’s definition of a man rooted in muscles and athletic ability is cheap and laughable. When it comes to finding a life partner, there exists a
“M
group of men and women who are choosing to redefine their perspective on what marriage material is. And, appropriately, these are the sort of people who are most worth marrying. Healthy people attract healthy relationships. Biceps and thigh gaps have no room in the equation of what makes for a healthy person. When it comes to creating a healthy relationship, we ought to be honing in on some of the things that ref lect the character of God instead of simply fixating on the superficial. While we need to be careful about simply shifting men and women from one “cultureapproved” stereotype to one “Christian culture-approved” stereotype, there are a few traits that can be applied as being praiseworthy marks of someone of real character. There is plenty of overlap between what men and women are looking for in each other, but as our culture has downplayed the importance in some of these engendered traits, it’s fitting to make two lists: one for men and one for women. Don’t think of these things as a checklist—nobody is perfect, and we don’t want to turn anyone into a list. Instead, we ought to be looking at this as a guide. Nobody will be all of these things all the time, just like an extrovert doesn’t spend every waking moment at a party. Instead, these are valuable traits that you and the person you’re interested in ought to value and strive for.
SOME TRAITS WOMEN LOOK FOR IN A MAN HONESTY
More than any other trait, women are looking for a man who is open and honest. The beautiful thing about honesty is that it’s a sign of security (Luke 16:10). What you see is what you get, and there is absolutely nothing to hide. It’s so
HEALTHY PEOPLE ATTRACT HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS. BICEPS AND THIGH GAPS HAVE NO ROOM IN THE EQUATION OF WHAT MAKES FOR A HEALTHY PERSON. much less about perfection and so much more about being real. Being real with your strengths, your weaknesses and your struggles. Being real with your hopes, your dreams and your fears. It’s not just about not lying, it’s about being open and honest about who you actually are; not who you want to be A man who has nothing to hide becomes the safe place in which a woman can hide her heart. PURITY
We live in a society that has fooled us into thinking that women have no control over their emotions and men have no control over their eyes. I’m a firm believer that this is a lie straight from the pit of hell. It grieves me to interact with women who expect their boyfriends or husbands to fall prey to lust, cheating and adultery, as if that’s just part of being a man. There is no doubt that we live in a world full of sexual temptation and struggles. We all have our weaknesses, our pasts and our areas of temptation. It’s true of you, whether you want to admit it or not, and it will certainly be true of whomever you marry, too. But it is also true that we serve a God who gives us victory over our entire being—our minds, hearts and bodies—a God who can create in us something clean and something new (Psalm 51:10). True masculinity is found in a man who says no to the expectations of this world and lives for a higher calling. STRENGTH
There is something attractive about a man who exudes strength. Not the musclerippling kind of strength, but strength of mind, heart and spirit that is clearly rooted in the strength of His God (Psalm 28:8). RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
67
This strength is displayed in a man who knows what he believes and stands firm for what’s right. It’s the strength of recognizing right from wrong and confessing when he has given into the latter. It’s a strength that is confident enough to do right, choose right and live right—even though it might leave him standing alone (Joshua 24:15). Women are looking for a man who is strong enough to stand his ground, holding on to his values, his beliefs and, most importantly, his God.
who pretends to be into sports, cars, sex or anything else she thinks her man wants. They are looking for a woman to know herself, and then fully be her true self: personality, quirks, talents, deficits and all. Ladies, you have been crafted by a brilliant God (Psalm 139:14). These are the things
TRUE FEMININITY AND MASCULINITY ARE ONLY FOUND AS WE BEGIN REFLECTING TO ONE ANOTHER THE HEART OF A LOVING GOD. COMPASSION
Does his heart move for the things that move God’s heart? Is he grieved by the sins he’s working to overcome? Does his heart break for the pain and injustices of those around him (Romans 12:15)? A real man allows his heart to be moved, and then allows his actions to follow his heart. He strives for healing, restoration and resolution. He seeks to right the wrongs around him—and the wrongs within him. Look for men of compassion, tenderness and love. Therein you will find the heart of Jesus. HUMILITY
What elevates a man more than any other earthly thing is his ability to humble himself (James 4:10). He doesn’t need to talk up who he is, because his life does that for him. He can put away the talk, because he is focused so much more on his walk. He is quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. He has put away his “rights” for the right to be self less, loving and full of grace (James 1:19). The greatest example of humility is found in Jesus: a man who laid down his rights and made himself nothing in order to be an example of undying love and affection to the bride who won His heart (Philippians 2:1-8). Women should seek a man who will do the same.
SOME TRAITS MEN LOOK FOR IN A WOMAN REALNESS
It’s sometimes hard to believe that being “real” is attractive to a man, but I hear it from men time and time again: There is something about the beauty of a real woman that far exceeds the over-hyped ideal. But even more significant than a realness in appearance is a woman’s realness regarding who she is. Women sometimes feel the need to put on a front to impress men, but when it comes to attracting a real man, there is no need to pretend. They’re not looking for a woman 68
JAN/FEB 2014
that make you unique and set you apart from every other woman. Embrace your real self, and let it shine. CONFIDENCE
There is something about a confident woman that exudes beauty and attraction to a man. A woman who is confident knows who she is and what she believes, and holds on to that in her interactions with others (Ephesians 6:14.) She believes in herself, and knows she is valuable standing alone. She’s not defined by her relationship status, her physical appearance or her sex appeal. She doesn’t buy into the lies that her value is dependent on what she does, but rather, who she is. A woman of confidence is aware that her value is rooted in nothing else but who she is in Christ, so there is no need to flirt around or flaunt her stuff. Flirting and flaunting will definitely attract a certain type of man to your side, but you’ll have to keep flirting and flaunting your entire life in order to keep his interest. That kind of relationship dynamic takes a lot of work and comes with a lot of emotional baggage and constant insecurity. A real man will be attracted to you because of who you are, not what you wear or how flirtatious you act.
PASSION
Being a passionate woman means allowing your heart and life to be guided by things that are meaningful and invested in things that are good and purposeful. It means being a woman whose life is not defined by Gossip Girl marathons and clothing boutiques, but one who lives for so much more. It means having goals, believing in dreams and holding on to your values. Living a life of passion is important for both men and women, because that passion will seep into every part of your life—relationships included. BEAUTY
Most men will tell you that it’s important for them to be attracted to their significant other. The problem with this is sometimes women misinterpret this and think the way to a man’s heart is by achieving supermodel status. Men are looking for a woman who displays true beauty, a beauty that cannot be enhanced (1 Peter 3:3-4). They are looking for a woman who resonates with the beauty of kindness, compassion, humor, strength, love, joy and gentleness. Believe it or not, men are more interested in the size of a woman’s heart and mind than the size of her waist. It’s ironic then, that our society pressures women into keeping their focus on the external—the things that matter very little at the end of every relationship. It’s time to redefine the qualities that make for “marriage material” by saying no to the mediocre standards society has set. It’s time to begin believing that true admiration for one another begins only when we can start to respect and value ourselves. It’s time to snuff the lies that fool us into believing we’re too picky or idealistic when we strive for godliness in our lives and in the pursuit of a life partner. True femininity and masculinity are only found as we begin ref lecting to one another the heart of a loving God. May God give us the courage to become, and then wait for, a godly mate. DEBRA K. FILETA is a licensed professional counselor specializing in relationship and marital issues. She is the author of True Love Dates (Zondervan, 2013). Visit truelovedates. com and follow her on Twitter @DebFileta to get your dating questions answered and to learn more.
BY MALCOLM GLADWELL
hen I was writing my book David and Goliath, I went to see a woman in Winnipeg by the name of Wilma Derksen. Thirty years before, her teenage daughter, Candace, had disappeared on her way home from school. The city had launched the largest manhunt in its history, and after a week, Candace’s body was found in a hut a quarter of a mile from the Derksen’s house. Her hands and feet had been bound. Wilma and her husband Cliff were called in to the local police station and told the news. Candace’s funeral was the next day, followed by a news conference. Virtually every news outlet in the province was there because Candace’s disappearance had gripped the city. “How do you feel about whoever did this to Candace?” a reporter asked the Derksens. “We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives,” Cliff said. Wilma went next. “Our main concern was to find Candace. We’ve found her.” She went on: “I can’t say at this point I forgive this person,” but the stress was on the phrase at this point. “We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to.”
W
VULNERABILITY AND POWER
I wanted to know where the Derksens found the strength to say those things. A sexual predator had kidnapped and murdered their daughter, and Cliff Derksen could talk
about sharing his love with the killer and Wilma could stand up and say, “We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to.” Where do two people find the power to forgive in a moment like that? That seemed like a relevant question to ask in a book called David and Goliath. The moral of the Biblical account of the duel between David and Goliath, after all, is that our preconceptions about where power and strength reside are false. Goliath seemed formidable. But there are all kinds of hints in the biblical text that he was, in fact, not everything he seemed. Why did he need to be escorted to the valley floor by an attendant? Why did it take him so long to clue into the fact that David was clearly not intending to fight him with swords? There is even speculation among medical experts that Goliath may have been suffering from a condition called acromegaly— a disease that causes abnormal growth but also often has the side effect of restricted sight. What if Goliath had to be led to the valley floor and took so long to respond to David because he could only see a few feet in front of him? What if the very thing that made him appear so large and formidable, in other words, was also the cause of his greatest vulnerability? For the first year of my research, I collected examples of these kinds of paradoxes— where our intuitions about what an advantage or a disadvantage are turn out to be upside down. Why are so many successful entrepreneurs dyslexic? Why did so many American presidents and British prime ministers lose a parent in childhood? Is it possible that some of the things we hold dear in education—like
small classes and prestigious schools—can do as much harm as good? I read studies and talked to social scientists and buried myself in the library and thought I knew the kind of book I wanted to write. Then I met Wilma Derksen.
WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT
The Derksens live in a small bungalow in a modest neighborhood not far from downtown Winnipeg. Wilma Derksen and I sat in her backyard. I think some part of me expected her to be saintly or heroic. She was neither. She spoke simply and quietly. She was a Mennonite, she explained. Her family, like many Mennonites, had come from Russia, where those of their faith had suffered terrible persecution before fleeing to Canada. And the Mennonite response to persecution was to take Jesus’ instructions on forgiveness seriously. “The whole Mennonite philosophy is that we forgive and we move on,” she said. It had not always been easy. It took more than 20 years for the police in Winnipeg to track down Candace’s killer. In the beginning, Wilma’s husband, Cliff, had been considered by some in the police force as a suspect. The weight of that suspicion fell heavily on the Derksens. Wilma told me she had wrestled with her anger and desire for retribution. They weren’t heroes or saints. But something in their tradition and faith made it possible for the Derksens to do something heroic and saintly. I never plan out my books in advance. I start in the middle and try and muddle my way from there. When I met Wilma Derksen, I finally understood what I was really getting at, in all the social science I had been reading and in the stories I was telling of dyslexia and entrepreneurs and education. I was interested—to borrow that marvelous phrase from Pierre Sauvage—in the “weapons of the
RELEVANT MAGAZINE
71
[T HE LIS T]
Good Reads Malcolm Gladwell is a rare breed of writer. He thinks on a subject, rigorously tests the soundness of his thoughts and then delivers them in entertaining, interesting ways. Every one of his books has landed on The New York Times best seller list, and for good reason. Just take a look at some of his work.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Gladwell’s first book tackled sociological changes. He says the spread of trends and behaviors can be compared to epidemics, with people working as different types of carriers. The Guardian and The Times listed it among their best books of the decade.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking In 2005, this book woke us up to the idea of “thin-slicing,” Gladwell’s term for the way most of us use a narrow field of experience to make critical judgement calls. It sold 2 million copies, making the “Best of 2005” lists for Fast Company, Amazon and The Christian Science Monitor.
72 JAN/FEB 2014
spirit”—the peculiar and inexplicable power that comes from within. When I told a friend of mine about my visit to the Derksens, he sent me a quotation from 1 Samuel 16:7. It so perfectly captured what I realized David and Goliath was about that it is now on the first page of the book: “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
LE CHAMBON
The final chapter of David and Goliath is about what happened in the small town of Le Chambon during the Second World War. Final chapters are crucial: they frame the experience of reading the book. I put the Le Chambon story at the end because it deals with the great puzzle of the weapons of the spirit—which is why we find it so hard to see them. Le Chambon is in an area of France called the Vivarais Plateau—a remote and mountainous region near the Italian and Swiss borders. For many centuries, the area has been home to dissident Protestant groups, principally the Huguenots, and during the Nazi occupation of France, Le Chambon became a very open and central pocket of resistance. The local Huguenot pastor was a man named André Trocmé. On the Sunday after France fell to the Germans, Trocmé preached a sermon in which he said that if the Germans made the townsfolk of Le Chambon do anything they considered contrary to the Gospel, the town wasn’t going to go along. So the schoolchildren of Le Chambon refused to give the fascist salute each morning, as the new government had decreed they must. The occupation rulers required teachers to sign an oath of loyalty to the state, but Trocmé ran the school in Le Chambon and instructed his staff not to do it. Before long, Jewish refugees—on the run from the Nazis—heard of Le Chambon and began to show up looking for help. Trocmé and the townsfolk took them in, fed them, hid them and spirited them across borders—in open defiance of Nazi law. Once, when a high government official came to town, a group of students actually presented him with a letter that stated plainly and honestly the town’s opposition to the anti-Jewish policies of the occupation. “We feel obliged to tell you that there are among us a certain number of Jews,” the letter stated. “But, we make no distinction between Jews and non-Jews. It is contrary to the Gospel
I WAS INTERESTED IN THE “WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT”—THE PECULIAR AND INEXPLICABLE POWER THAT COMES FROM WITHIN. teaching. If our comrades, whose only fault is to be born in another religion, received the order to let themselves be deported or even examined, they would disobey the order received, and we would try to hide them as best we could.”
“NOBODY THOUGHT OF THAT”
Where did the people of Le Chambon find the strength to defy the Nazis? The same place the Derksens found the strength to forgive. They were armed with the weapons of the spirit. For over 100 years, in the 17th and
18th centuries, they had been ruthlessly persecuted by the state. Huguenot pastors had been hanged and tortured, their wives sent to prison and their children taken from them. They had learned how to hide in the forests and escape to Switzerland and conduct their services in secrecy. They had learned how to stick together. They saw just about the worst kind of persecution that anyone can see. And what did they discover? That the strength granted to them by their faith in God gave them the power to stand up to the soldiers and guns and laws of the state. In one of the many books written about Le Chambon, there is an extraordinary line from André Trocmé’s wife, Magda. When the first refugee
appeared at her door, in the bleakest part of the war during the long winter of 1941, Magda Trocmé said it never occurred to her to say no: “I did not know that it would be dangerous. Nobody thought of that.” Nobody thought of that. It never occurred to her or anyone else in Le Chambon that they were at any disadvantage in a battle with the Nazi Army. But here is the puzzle: The
Huguenots of Le Chambon were not the only committed Christians in France in 1941. There were millions of committed believers in France in those years. They believed in God just as the people of Le Chambon did. So why did so few Christians follow the lead of the people in Le Chambon? The way that story is often told, the people of Le Chambon are made out to be heroic figures. But they were no more heroic than the Derksens. They were simply people whose experience had taught them where true power lies. RELEVANT MAGAZINE
73
I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN GOD. I HAVE GRASPED THE LOGIC OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. WHAT I HAVE HAD A HARD TIME SEEING IS GOD’S POWER. The other Christians of France were not so fortunate. They made the mistake that so many of us make. They estimated the dangers of action by looking on outward appearances—when they needed to look on the heart. If they had, how many other French Jews might have been saved from the Holocaust?
SEEING GOD’S POWER
I was raised in a Christian home in Southwestern Ontario. My parents took time each morning to read the Bible and pray. Both my brothers are devout. My sister-in-law is a Mennonite pastor. I have had a different experience from the rest of my family. I was the only one to move away from Canada. And I have been the only one to move away from the Church. I attended Washington Community 74 JAN/FEB 2014
Fellowship when I lived in Washington D.C. But once I moved to New York, I stopped attending any kind of religious fellowship. I have often wondered why it happened that way: Why had I wandered off the path taken by the rest of my family? What I understand now is that I was one of those people who did not appreciate the weapons of the spirit. I have always been someone attracted to the quantifiable and the physical. I hate to admit it. But I don’t think I would have been able to do what the Huguenots did in Le Chambon. I would have counted up the number of soldiers and guns on each side and concluded
it was too dangerous. I have always believed in God. I have grasped the logic of Christian faith. What I have had a hard time seeing is God’s power. I put that sentence in the past tense because something happened to me when I sat in Wilma Derksen’s garden. It is one thing to read in a history book about people empowered by their faith. But it is quite another to meet an otherwise very ordinary person, in the backyard of a very ordinary house, who has managed to do something utterly extraordinary. Their daughter was murdered. And the first thing the Derksens did was to stand up at the press conference and talk about the path to forgiveness. “We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.” Maybe we have difficulty seeing the weapons of the spirit because we don’t know where to look, or because we are distracted by the louder claims of material advantage. But I’ve seen them now, and I will never be the same. MALCOLM GLADWELL has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996. Prior to that, he was a reporter at the Washington Post. Gladwell was born in England and grew up in rural Ontario. He lives in New York. He is the bestselling author of five books, including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw.
You have the passion
TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
We’ll prepare you to lead the way. At Bethel University, we’re committed to equipping ministry leaders. But here, leadership means something more. It’s about living our beliefs and bringing theology to life. It’s about becoming thoughtful scholars and faithful servants. It’s about developing our God-given talents while gaining the biblical foundation we need to think critically, discern faithfully, and act wisely. It’s about using everything we’ve learned and everything we believe to make a real difference in our communities and our world.
seminary.bethel.edu St. Paul | San Diego | Online
RELEVANT MAGAZINE
75
WHY THIS GENERATION’S MOST INNOVATIVE WORSHIP LEADER DECIDED TO ABANDON HIS FAITH IN AN EFFORT TO FIND IT AGAIN B Y M AT T C O NNE R
spa near his home in Denver, Colo. Near the end of 2012, after another year of recording and touring, the songwriter was trying to create some mental and spiritual space in a quiet room at the spa when something unexpected happened. “I’m sitting there and I find myself on my knees in this spa in my bathrobe, not knowing if anyone’s going to walk in,” he laughs. “Because I was just so desperate ... I was like, ‘OK, if there is a God, and He’s good, then He should be able to handle this. I shouldn’t be the one who has to put all of this together.’ So, for the first time, I just let go. It was like I was hanging onto a bridge in a rushing river and my knuckles had just been crushed for years, and I just let go, trusting, ‘I’m going to hope that this river is good.’” he spotlight generally implies a degree of certainty. When a person grabs the microphone or stands behind the lectern, she or he is expected to speak with credibility about something substantive. Michael Gungor isn’t quite sure he has much of that to offer anymore. At least, not in the way you might expect. In the two and a half years since Ghosts Upon The Earth released, the man behind the band Gungor has grown increasingly leery of the guarantees so often postulated from Christian stages. While congregations around the world sing popular songs like “Beautiful Things,” the songwriter has been, in his own words, “plagued by doubt.” One result of this season is a radical shift between Ghosts Upon The Earth and Gungor’s latest, I Am Mountain. “It has been an interesting journey over the last couple years,” Gungor says. “I’m a person who easily gets trapped inside of my own brain, having lots of paradoxical thoughts. I’m a person who has been plagued by doubt, and my faith has never been an easy thing for me to think about.” Rather than consider it a faith crisis, Gungor says his recent spiritual path has brought freedom. He found his moment of awakening in an unlikely place: a local
A STRANGE JOURNEY
Since that pivotal day in the spa, Gungor has been on a journey he describes as “weird.” He wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but for him to honestly follow his heart, he had to “get out of his own head” for a season. He says he had to abandon his beliefs in order to find them again. “I didn’t really have any beliefs all of a sudden,” he explains, “but I found that in my heart I still desired good. I still desired faith. It wasn’t a rebellious thing. “I don’t know how to describe it,” he continues. “My relationship with God has changed in its nature, but I still would say that I love God. I’m still a Christian and still part of a Christian community, but what’s happening in my head has drastically changed.” Michael’s wife, Lisa, agrees that letting go together opened them up to a newfound freedom. “For me, there was a great fear that came with the opening of hands,” she explains. “I held tightly to the truths I thought to be certain, growing up with the thought that if you doubt, struggle or lose certainty, you must be falling away from God. Seeing our faith taking a drastic turn, I had no idea what our future held.
“I remember looking down at my hands,” she continues. “They were clenched tight with worry, uncertainty, doctrine, faith, doubt and fear. I was afraid if I opened them that I would lose ground and never find anything to stand on. That we would be ‘deceived’ and just keep slipping. “It felt a lot like jumping off a cliff, like leaping over an edge that doesn’t necessarily have a landing point. As I opened up my hands, letting go of all that was holding me, the ground shifted and became solid. The air became breath. The world became mystery and goodness. My soul felt an unimaginable freedom, and the doubt I thought was in opposition to my faith actually took on a different face—one that leads me into truth.” One of the most confusing aspects of this newfound freedom was what to tell their church community. “I went right to my church,” Gungor says. “I was supposed to speak a couple weeks after that experience. I thought, ‘Well, what do I do now? Should I step out and tell them I can’t do it?’ And I said, ‘No. This is a Christian community. If you can’t be honest with them then what do you really have?’” Gungor’s instinct was right, and he found his own openness brought a greater sense of community and unity in his church. “I just got up and told them, ‘I don’t know what I believe right now. I don’t know that I believe anything right now. But I’m here, and there’s something in my heart that still loves God even though there’s not really a concept of what that even means or who God is. I don’t have a mental construct of that anymore. But I’m here, so will you be with me right now?’ It was a beautiful experience how they embraced me, and we’re still part of the Christian community.”
ASKING THE TOUGH QUESTIONS
For those who have stayed closely tuned into the recent writings of Michael Gungor, his journey and his honesty about it will not surprise in the least. Whether writing about the state of modern worship music, church leadership or the debate of sacred vs. secular art, Gungor has not shied away from sharing cultural observations and spiritual insights. While his outspoken nature has brought some detractors, it has also positioned Gungor as a representative voice for many Christians silently asking the same questions. After all, Gungor knows the Christian cultural landscape inside and out from his experience over the last decade as a worship leader and recording artist. It was a decade ago that Integrity Music picked up Michael Gungor’s Bigger Than My Imagination, an album originally recorded for his local church that featured the popular song “Friend of God.” Two critically acclaimed albums from The Michael Gungor Band followed in All I Need Is Here and Ancient Skies. RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM
77
“IN MY HEART I STILL WANT JESUS ... EVEN ON THE DAYS WHEN I DON’T HAVE THE ABILITY TO BELIEVE BEYOND WHAT I SEE.” While the music was celebrated for its inventive approach, it was a track called “White Man” on Ancient Skies that showed Gungor was willing to speak—or sing—his mind. “White Man” included striking lines decrying images of a God who is white, Republican or even male. It should be no surprise, then, that Gungor’s honesty regarding his latest album isn’t primarily a cathartic act. Instead, Gungor’s journey is intended to aid his listeners to potentially travel the same path, ask the same questions and find the same freedom. “It has been fascinating to me how open people are,” he says. “I think the tendency is everywhere in our culture to need to be the person that has everything together and figured out. So I’ve had atheists and all kinds of other people tell me, ‘Thank you for being honest with where you’re at.’ It’s actually like this common ground of wrestling, struggle and pain that unites all of us.” Gungor blames the worship of certainty for the lack of openness in Church culture. Instead of promoting vulnerability and authentic sharing of struggles and sins, the Church is quick to push such messy 78
JAN/FEB 2014
topics aside for the sake of a sanitized approach. “I think there have been a lot of people in the Christian Church who have felt afraid to tell others about their inner life and their struggles and doubts. Because in certain circles of the Christian Church, certainty is important, you know?” he explains. “They don’t want you to come out as struggling or doubting, but because we all have this on some level, it’s like we also don’t want to acknowledge it. “But in being honest, there’s something whole and healing about how you are who you are and you’re honest about it. Whether you’re a person of faith or not, I think people feel that and relate to that, and if someone comes out about something in an honest way, it makes others want to be honest, as well.”
MOVING MOUNTAINS
To record I am Mountain, Gungor headed to a studio in El Paso, Texas along the Mexican border. Not only is the album representative of Gungor’s new spiritual perspective, but it’s also an important first chapter of independence for the band. “This album is the first album as Gungor that we’ve owned,” Gungor says. “We’re starting
our own label and took on our own publishing and everything. So with this album, we’ve really tried to be intentional with everything because we’re responsible for every part of it.” After making such a heavy concept record, retelling the entire biblical narrative of fall and redemption on Ghosts Upon The Earth, Gungor was ready for some thematic freedom. “The music we’re making on this new album is some of the most fun and free music,” he explains. “There are also themes that can go pretty angsty and dark, but they still find hope at the bottom. Right now, the album ends with this total chaos. You kind of feel the ground pulled out from beneath you, musically, which is what I felt.” Throughout the album, Gungor offers his listeners what he calls a “ground floor” to help provide a base level of spiritual hope even in the confusion of doubt and searching. “The ground floor is based on ‘at least or even if,’ he explains. “For instance, if God is at least the natural force that created and sustains the universe and has experienced all kinds of social and neurological issues of humans—even if that’s all God is—the pursuit of that experience has been shown to lead to peace, empathy and goodness, so it’s worth the pursuit. “Even on the dark days when I don’t have the ability to believe that there’s much metaphysical truth to the mysteries we utter, it’s still worth staying faithful,” he continues. “That’s why I call it a ground floor, because in my heart I still want Jesus. I love Jesus. I love the teachings of Jesus. I love the practices that I’ve learned and I want to continue to practice them even on the days when I don’t have the ability to believe beyond what I see.” MATT CONNER is senior editor at SB Nation and writes about all aspects of pop culture for the Indy Star and other places he says don’t matter.
HE’S KNOWN FOR HIS OSCARNOMINATED TALENT, BUT FOREST WHITAKER’S MOST IMPORTANT ROLE IS HIS PASSION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. B Y J . R YA N PA R K E R B Y J . R YA N P A R K E R
A
mid the chaotic atmosphere of a press tour, with time-obsessed PR reps bustling about, Forest Whitaker exudes a cheerful calm. He is as engaging and warm in person as he is talented on screen. Over the past two years, as a producer and actor, Whitaker has taken on a series of projects that all have a strong social justice component. He produced this year’s critically-acclaimed Fruitvale Station along with two documentaries, Rising from Ashes and I Am You. Rising from Ashes chronicles the rise of the Rwandan Olympic cycling team, and I Am You focuses on the relationship between animal and human rights. As an actor, Whitaker also has an impressive resume from the past few years. Known for his intensive character study work, he won an Academy Award in 2006 after his harrowing portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. In August, he starred in Lee Daniels’ The Butler. In November, he gave another impressive performance in Black Nativity, an adaptation of the Langston Hughes musical, and
he has more films and projects coming up in early 2014. In Black Nativity, Whitaker portrays the Rev. Cornell Cobbs, a minister in Harlem whose broken relationship with his own daughter also threatens the well-being of his grandson. We talked with him about his latest film, the social justice consciousness behind many of his recent projects and his own efforts to work for peace and reconciliation around the world.
was this one preacher named Rev. Williams, who was my grandmother’s preacher, who I use as a model for [Cobbs]. My father’s preacher, who’s in Longview, Texas, was a little bit of a model. I worked with him on meter as a preacher: which words you emphasize ... if it’s words you think should be emphasized or if it’s the smaller words in-between. Then I met with—because I wanted to understand the legacy issue with the oldest church in Harlem—a preacher there named Rev. Butts, and he talked to me about his congregation and what it means to raise a family as a minister and the details of that.
Q
Q
It seems like there’s something historically important about Black Nativity as a film. In a way, it mixes the entertaining, musical genre with grounded social consciousness. Was that something that attracted you to this project?
A
I think so. The issue of family and forgiveness was a big one, even though it’s in the larger social context of a young man who doesn’t have a father figure in his life. Ultimately, because of [the family’s] love and forgiveness, [they were] able to come together, but that doesn’t always happen. I think [director Kasi Lemmons] was able to do that and give it a rawness and a feeling that you wouldn’t expect. It’s about reconciliation of not just the family, but of the community and the Church being a central space where people can come in and be as one.
Q
Were there experiences of religion and/ or communities of faith in your life that shaped your preparation or performance in the film?
A
Definitely. I did some contemporary research, too. There were a number of preachers that I remember as a youth that I fashioned [my performance] around because I wanted it to have a sense of the old-school preacher. There
There seems to be a strong thread of social justice running through a lot of your recent projects. Where does that come from?
A
I think that I’m starting to align my own personal beliefs into some of my films. I think The Butler did that too in dealing with human rights and civil rights. Fruitvale Station does it by putting a human face on a social injustice for us to feel and care about. [Rising From Ashes] deals with genocide through the Rwandan bicyclists. The films I have coming out do this, too. I did a film called Zulu that deals with post-apartheid and what’s going on in South Africa today because of the apartheid era and being haunted by that. I did another film on profiling, which is called Enemy Way, which is about a man who converts to Islam and returns to the border state of New Mexico. I think those stories are about humanizing and us understanding. These social issues started to enter into a lot of my films. The social consciousness of what I do is trying to get to the place in every character where I recognize his connection with myself and everyone. That’s my journey as an artist. It has always been going on with me, but maybe it’s becoming more evident.
Q
You are heavily involved in work to promote peace and reconciliation around the world through the International Institute for Peace. Can you say more about that?
A
I have an initiative called The Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative. I just got back from South Sudan where we’re working [to train] youth in every state of that country in conf lict transformation, life skills and ICT skills (information and
RELEVANT MAGAZINE
81
[T HE LIS T]
Featuring Forest Whitaker’s acting career spans more than 30 years and almost 100 roles. Here are a few highlights: The Butler Whitaker plays White House butler Cecil Gaines. The Last King of Scotland His portrayal of Idi Amin won Whitaker an Academy Award. Ghost Dog A surreal crime drama about a hit man and self-taught samurai. Bird Whitaker stars as a troubled jazz musician in the Clint Eastwood film.
82
JAN/FEB 2014
Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett in a scene from Black Nativity.
communication technology), as well as directing them toward development in their communities. We started a program in Mexico that will be up in January in Tijuana. We have a program in Uganda. In the U.S., we’re developing a tween program on conf lict transformation and we’re going to enter into the school system. I’m working on that with the California State University, Dominguez Hills. We’re just beginning the research, but we’re going to be doing some work with police officers on empathy training for communities. The institute you were talking about is the International Institute for Peace, which I founded with the State Department, UNESCO and Rutgers University. We have our first class of five [students] that just started. They have a BA and MA program, and the graduates will be working in my programs in the field.
Q A
And you’re also undertaking your own research into these issues, as well?
I’m working on that. I have been working on—at the University of the Western Cape [in South Africa]—a development degree using the Sudan as a model for development and conflict resolution across that continent and hopefully across other continents.
Q
Where can readers learn more about this work?
A
The Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative site will be up in about a month, and at the beginning of next year, visitors can go online and take classes.
Q
In terms of Black Nativity, what is your hope for the film in relation to these larger, important themes? I think it contributes [to the discussion] because it deals with forgiveness. First of all, [it shows] acknowledgement—acknowledging what happens and then hopefully moving to some form of understanding, which can hopefully move us to some form of forgiveness, which I think is the message of much of the work I’m doing. Also recognizing that we come from pasts [and have] mistakes ... that we can work through. We can address them and look at them and keep our hearts open.
A
J. RYAN PARKER is the creator, main contributor and editor of Pop Theology (www.poptheology.com). He holds a Ph.D. in film and religion and is the author of Cinema as Pulpit.
AS YOU WISH New author Mercy Lokulutu brings a dynamic message, uncovering the secret to unleashing the full power and strength of God in your life and relying on Him to accomplish more than you ever thought possible.
I WILL BE FOUND BY YOU Francis Fangipane provides the solution for gaining a more meaningful life and a closer connection to God. This book is a key to unlocking a heart after God.
STATIC JEDI Life is a dangerous place when you can’t hear God. First-time author, Eric Timm will teach you to master the noise and distractions that keep us from Him by following the examples of Jesus.
AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE www.passiofaith.com facebook.com/passiofaith twitter.com/passiofaith 12332
B Y J O H N TAY L O R
ourscore and several million YouTube hits ago—before their Billboard-climbing smash “Tongue Tied” was written, and way before it was featured in an Apple commercial and paid tribute to in an episode of Glee—the Los Angeles-based quintet Grouplove was holed up in a garage. More specifically, they were in a garage belonging to drummer Ryan Rabin’s parents, where they were making noise with no intentions of being heard. Rabin and the other four members of Grouplove— Christian Zucconi on vocals and guitar, Hannah Hooper on vocals and keys, Sean Gadd on vocals and bass and Andrew Wessen on vocals and guitar—had yet to settle on a band name. In fact, they had yet to settle on whether they would form a band at all. The only 84
JAN/FEB 2014
thing on the agenda that afternoon, Rabin says, was to play music. “I thought it would be just one day,” Rabin says. “Two months later, everyone [in the band] had been living at my parents’ house, and we recorded our first EP. By that point, we decided, ‘Something special’s going on. Let’s actually call ourselves a band.’” Steadily, Grouplove got their name out. Upon hearing the band’s songs, some childhood friends immediately offered to handle the business end of things—“I played it to my buddy Ben, who played it his buddy Nicky, and within a week they had proclaimed themselves our managers.” Soon, Florence Welch (of Florence and the Machine fame) invited them to tour the West Coast with her. It wasn’t long before Atlantic Records heard the noise that began in Rabin’s parents’ garage. The label signed the band and sent them zig-zagging across America as the opening act for pop darling Foster the People.
“WE LET THE MUSIC TAKE US WHEREVER IT’S GOING TO GO.”
Performances at Lollapalooza and the late-night talk show circuit soon followed, and suddenly, the songs that the members of Grouplove were once singing in a garage had become anthems for fans around the world.
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
There’s a childlike magic in the way Grouplove writes their songs, and it all ties back to the band’s philosophy of communal fun. Even when the lyrics don’t make sense (see: “Itchin on a Photograph”), the emotions do—a stark contrast to the self-seriousness of their peers. Offstage, the members of Grouplove are slow to dive into industry politics and swift to crack jokes. “It’s okay,” Rabin says in response to the belated scheduling of our conversation, “I get stood up all the time.” Grouplove’s debut full-length, Never Trust a Happy Song, helped turn the band into a household name. “Colours,” a song from their eponymous 2010 EP, had set alternative radio ablaze months prior, but it wasn’t until
the release of “Tongue Tied” in 2011 that Grouplove made it to the big leagues. The song, which charted on the radio for 26 weeks, was certified Platinum by the RIAA and sold over a million singles. Anyone who has seen the iPod Touch commercial, watched Glee or turned on a radio in the past two years recognizes that “Tongue Tied” is a triumph, and with good reason. Rather than grappling with the weighty realities of school shootings (Foster the People, “Pumped Up Kicks”) or lamenting the loss of youth (fun., “We Are Young”), “Tongue Tied” is a no-holds-barred celebration of adolescence, turning thematic focus toward awkward first loves and slumber parties. It’s a joy. Rabin, who has produced every Grouplove record to date, is hardly tongue-tied when it comes to explaining the band’s success. “I think a lot of it is that it just wasn’t planned,” he says. “It was open-minded and natural because we had no expectations or big notions about what it was supposed to be, or what someone wanted.” Rabin emphasizes that their latest release, Spreading Rumors, reflects Grouplove’s original goal: to make music for one another rather than appeasing the masses. Repeatedly, he stresses the importance of making genuine music over recording a collection of radiofriendly singles. “We didn’t really set out to duplicate anything,” he says. “To some extent, we took the vibe we had explored on the EP and took it a little further. Maybe some of the songs that had more of an electronic songwriting, we went down that tangent. And some of the songs that were more
traditional rock and roll songs, we made them even heavier. “I think this ended up being even more of a diverse album between songs,” he continues. “At the end of the day, the sound still reflects the five of us, whatever that may be. You can’t make or write music based on what you hope people will respond to. That would kind of go against this whole trip in the first place.”
PARTY OF FIVE
Since they met in 2009, the members of Grouplove have operated as one large family unit, Atlantic Records included. For them, the idea of being signed to a major label is one of freedom rather than constraint. “It’s really great [at Atlantic],” Rabin says. “What’s attractive from their perspective is that we’re on our own,” he continues. “I was doing the production, Hannah was doing the art ... everyone in the band was writing the music. Once we start to get going, the vision and the lyrics start to mean something for us and take on a life of their own.” Even now, as Grouplove continues to sell out larger and larger stages, Rabin and the rest of the band remain committed to what brought them together initially. “We were really just doing it because we enjoyed each other’s company,” Rabin says. “We enjoyed each other’s music. There was just something special about that chemistry in our lives at the time, and that made it special.” Even though he understands the pressure to follow up a hit as momentous as “Tongue Tied,” Rabin affirms the greater need for the band to stay true to its roots. “Planning everything without a specific message or vision going in, I think that it would be impossible to try and agree on something, because the five of us are so different in our musical taste, and our influences, that that kind of part or essence of this particular band is that we just let everything...” Rabin pauses. “We let the music take us wherever it’s going to go.” And as Grouplove lets their music carry them away, we as listeners are enjoying the journey, too. JOHN TAYLOR wears glasses and is a writer living in Chicago. Follow him on Twitter @johntaylortweet.
RELEVANT MAGAZINE
85
01 14 TRENDS TO BE LOOKING OUT FOR IN 2014 BY JESSE CAREY
easy to reflect on the trends that made a year memorable— anyone with interesting “cultural insights” can do that. But predicting what’s ahead takes a team with the willingness to risk their own reputation and journalistic credibility. In years past, our “Year in Preview” articles predicted coming trends, pop-culture happenings and news events with nearperfect accuracy. In other words, there is a 100 percent chance all the following predictions will come to fruition.
IT’S
86
JAN/FEB 2014
SOUL PATCHES WILL BECOME THE NEW BEARDS AS A REALITY SHOW ABOUT YOUTH PASTORS PROVES A BREAKOUT HIT Following the success of Duck Dynasty—a show about the heavily bearded, Bible-quoting owners of a family duck hunting business—TV executives will launch a new hit reality TV show and a new facial hair trend. Dude Dynasty will follow a family of youth pastors as they navigate schedules filled with Wednesday night sermon duties, middle school retreat hijinks and pizza ordering snafus. After the breakout success of the show, soul patches will become a national craze.
02
THE NSA WILL ADMIT TO HACKING PRIVATE FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS TO STEAL CANDY CRUSH LIVES
In 2014, as part of a shocking new disclosure from documents leaked by former National Security Administration contractor Edward Snowden, it will be revealed that the NSA has been hacking the personal Facebook accounts of American citizens in an ongoing effort to get past level 70 on Candy Crush Saga.
03 A ROVING BAND OF TIME TRAVELERS FROM THE 1890S WILL RETURN TO TAKE MUMFORD & SONS, THE LUMINEERS AND THE AVETT BROTHERS HOME In the coming months, the eclectic team of dandy-ish 19th century time travelers that dropped off members of their group around 2009 will return to take their banjo-pickin’, suspender-wearing, kick drum-playing brethren back to the turn-of-the century London street market they came from. The 21st century will bid farewell to Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers, The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, American Idol winner Phillip Phillips and Rend Collective Experiment as they board their H.G. Wells-era time machine, chanting one final song that starts out softly, slowly becomes a banjo-fueled jamout and features a catchy chorus punctuated with collective “Heys.”
Where the gentlemen of the road are going, they won’t need roads.
04 POPE FRANCIS WILL WIN “WORLD’S GREATEST GUY” AWARD AND THEN GIVE THE TROPHY TO CHARITY In 2013, Pope Francis’ reforms to the Vatican and emphasis on giving to the poor led to a resurgence in popularity of the Catholic Church. In 2014, the Global Council on Rewarding Awesomeness will honor the pontiff with the esteemed “World’s Greatest Guy” award. Along with the prestigious title, the Pope will be presented with a large trophy commemorating the honor. He will promptly auction off the trophy, giving the proceeds to charity.
BACON CRAZE THING 05 THE WILL OFFICIALLY GO TOO FAR Next year, people will finally realize that literally everyone loves bacon, so we can just stop making a big deal about it. We get it—bacon tastes really good. There is no need for further Internet posts on the matter. Now, sausage, on the other hand ...
06 GRAVITY 2 WILL FEATURE TWO UNINTERRUPTED HOURS OF GEORGE CLOONEY JUST FLOATING THROUGH SPACE During a critical scene in the 2013 hit Gravity (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the film Gravity, which has, in fairness, been out for like three months now), George Clooney’s character allows himself to drift off into space to save Sandra Bullock’s character. In the thrilling sequel, we find out what happened to the brave astronaut. The film will essentially just be 120 uninterrupted minutes of George Clooney drifting off into space with a charming smirk, not even really saying that much. It will be a massive success.
08 NICOLAS CAGE-HELMED LEFT BEHIND FILM WILL TRIGGER THE ACTUAL APOCALYPSE
07
SUBSCRIPTION-BASED, HIPSTER Q-TIPS WILL BECOME THE NEXT BIG THING
Following the breakout success of subscription-based hygiene items marketed to fashion-forward twenty- and thirtysomething men—Harry’s Razors and Dollar Shave Club Wipes, for example—a new gentlemen’s product will become a best-seller: subscriptionbased, hipster Q-tips. For a small monthly fee, you will be able to receive refills of fashionable, simply designed, ethically produced Q-tips. Because what’s the point of even listening to rare Smiths B-sides if you don’t have clean ears? And for every Q-tip you purchase, one will be donated to someone with dirty ears. 88
JAN/FEB 2014
The pure epicness of a Left Behind film starring Nicolas Cage will prove to be simply too much for humanity to handle. Already left in a fragile state following two solid decades of Nic Cage film releases, the combination of end times action and the heretofore unexplored depths of our generation’s finest actor on the big screen will plummet the delicate balance of modern civilization into an actual global apocalypse. After the film’s release, worldwide hysteria over the intensity of Cage’s performance will cause global economic markets to crash, uprisings to flourish and the very foundations of society to crumble under the crushing weight of Rayford Steele’s unrelenting screen presence.
WILL DISCOVER 09 MANKIND NETFLIX IS ACTUALLY A PLOT BY COMPUTERS TO ENSLAVE THE MINDS OF HUMANITY
Next year, mankind will realize that The Terminator’s “Judgment Day” actually happened when Netflix changed from a snail-mail DVD delivery subscription to a video streaming service. The computer’s nefarious plot has successfully led to humans sitting motionless for days on end while binge-watching shows. By the time mankind finds out evil machines bent on enslavement are behind the sinister red screen, we will rise up to overthrow our digital overlords ... after just one more episode.
10 A DESPERATE AMC WILL LAUNCH ITS NEW SPINOFF SERIES, THE WALKING WALT After the last series finale of Breaking Bad left cable network AMC desperate for another hit, the channel behind hit shows including The Walking Dead and the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul will release a new spin-off “super-show”: The Walking Walt. Combining its two most successful franchises, The Walking Walt will follow the dramatic rise (from the dead) and fall of zombie Walter White.
11
SOMEONE WILL USE A 3-D PRINTER TO PRINT ANOTHER 3-D PRINTER, OPENING UP A WORMHOLE IN THE FABRIC OF TIME AND SPACE
Unaware of the Inception-like implications of using a 3-D printer to 3-D print another 3-D printer, an unsuspecting early adopter will inadvertently rip open the fabric of space and time as the dimensions of known reality collapse in on themselves, triggering a universeeating black hole, which will cause #EpicFail to be Twitter’s final trending hashtag.
12
THE INTERNET WILL FINALLY JUST BECOME ONE MASSIVE CAT GIF
2013 was the year long-form news articles—the medium responsible for communicating society’s most important stories—slowly made their full transformation into lists composed mostly of pictures of funny pets and snarky one-sentence blurbs. In 2014, the Internet will make its final evolution, becoming one massive cat GIF. Internet users will be a little upset at first, but upon reflection, it’s a pretty cute cat after all and, well, maybe we’re all better off this way. We’ll go outside. Maybe meet the neighbors.
13 WE WILL FINALLY FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FOX SAYS Despite what we were led to believe by the Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis and their viral video that cryptically asks, “What does the fox say?” and ventures some outlandish guesses, in 2014 we will anticlimactically find out the furry woodland creature just kind of barks like a small dog. Huge letdown.
14
FORMER CHILD POP STARS WILL BECOME HIGH-CLASS, WELL-MANNERED DEBUTANTES AND GENTLEMEN
Last year may have been when young pop-stars—once known for their squeaky clean images and kid-friendly tunes—made headlines for misbehaving, but 2014 will be when they grow up, with class. The once risqué Miley Cyrus, the rowdy Justin Bieber and other formerly innocent teeny boppers will be transformed into sophisticated, wellmannered high society types, capturing hearts with their grand acts of nobility. Bieber will even leave his Tiger Beat past behind him by releasing a hit single called “Suit and Tie.”
Bielieb us on this one. This is guy is going to be huge.
RELE VAN T RECOMMENDS: MUSIC
WATCH The video for “Who We Are.” relm.ag/1d2O1Ls
SWITCHFOOT FADING WEST [AT L AN TIC RECORDS]
> “Is it fear you are afraid of?” sings Jon Foreman on “Love Alone is Worth the Fight,” the lead track on the ninth Switchfoot album, Fading West. The album, which came with an accompanying documentary of the same name, proves a throwback to the band’s early days. That initial question looms over themes of rampant social apathy and broken promises. Songs are spacious, anthemic and more explosive than the subtle textures of Vice Verses. On “When We Come Alive,” the whole band chants away in the background. Guitars ring with bar-band grit on “Say It Like You Mean It.” Yet, Foreman is still pointing the way and showing us uncomfortable truths about ourselves. “You start to look like what you believe,” he sings on “The World You Want.” Nailed it.
ARCADE FIRE REFLEKTOR [MERGE RECORDS]
I BREAK HORSES CHIAROSCURO [BELLA UNION]
The new Arcade Fire is split into two parts: a few dance rock songs followed by several longer and more operatic anthems, some running over six minutes. On “Here Comes The Night Time,” the band switches tempos like someone changing lanes on a highway. “Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)” is beautifully derivative of late era Beatles filtered through heavily sampled drum slaps and droning synths. As always, it’s the expert musical craftsmanship that keeps you hooked.
The sophomore release from the Swedish synthrock duo is atmospheric and raw, like a forgotten dream you suddenly remember. Songs have a minimalistic feel thanks to the drum programming and unexpected synth fill-ins. On “Ascension,” there’s a cheerful dreamscape sentiment. “Denial” hints at some sort of 70s-era spaceage mash-up (think NASA meets MGMT). The pop aspirations are fully realized on “Disclosure,” easily the best song on the album.
>
>
FAITH
+
ACTION COLLIDE Sustainable short-term mission trips | Paid internships | College-aged Urban Intensive csm.org | 267-928-2620 | registration@csm.org
POLIÇA SHULAMITH [MOM + POP MUSIC]
KYE KYE FANTASIZE [SELF PRODUCED]
WARPAINT WARPAINT [ROUGH TRADE]
AUGUSTINES AUGUSTINES [OXCART RECORDS]
> This Minneapolis indie rock band will make you reach for the volume button every time. The song “Matty” starts with a pulverizing drum intro, births a slithering bass line, then uncorks itself in a frantic synth breakdown. Justin Vernon, of Bon Iver fame, shows up on the song “Tiff,” adding a counterpoint to Channy Leaneagh’s sultry vocals. What works so well? Brilliant and surprising bass lines, unusual drum patterns, and a laconic vibe that commands you to calm down.
> Estonia’s Kye Kye moved to the States a few years ago, wallowed in indie obscurity and played a few Christian rock festivals. Now, their amazing sophomore release has a house rock aesthetic: shimmering drums, echoing synth trills and Olga Yagolnikov’s hushed vocals. The music hints at the pause-resume trick of a nightclub DJ trying to stir up a crowd. “Softly” starts with a murmur and ends like TLC went on date with Afrojack. The vocals and synth find their bearings in the bass drone.
> Most
>
likely a sly reference to the term women use to describe their makeup, Warpaint is made up of childhood friends Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman, who both play guitar and sing, plus Jenny Lee Lindberg on bass and Stella Mozgawa on drums. The shoegazer sidetrips complement a bouncy undercurrent that could pass for the sister act Haim after a long nap. Closing songs “Son” and “Drive” are both ideal for your next Saturday afternoon yoga party.
Can a band really mature by their second album? Augustines is proof. Vocals are loud and loose in a good way. On “Cruel City,” there’s an African “huh” that suggests a departure from low indie status. “Nothing To Lose But Yourself” should help the band fall in line right where The Gaslight Anthem left off. The songs, mostly about leaving the past behind, build to emotive, multi-layered choruses. Our hope: The Boss will discover the band, make them famous, and they’ll go on tour with him.
ARTISTS GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY. Musicians, artists and other creative types are pulled in many directions by society’s conflicted vision for the arts. Douglas Mann offers guidance for staying true to an artistic vision while remaining connected to the world’s needs. Douglas Mann is a published songwriter, and a former music business and book-publishing executive. He is an accomplished
“Douglas Mann has the hands of an artist and the heart of a pastor. This book will show you how there really is no difference. The artist is the new pastor.” —Ben Arment, creator of Dream Year and the STORY Conference
visual artist whose art can be found in collections throughout the world.
L E A R N M O R E AT
IVPRESS.COM/TAOHO 1.8 0 0.8 4 3.94 87
RELE VAN T RECOMMENDS: DV DS
GRAVITY ALFONSO CUARÓN [WA R NER BROS. P I C T U R E S , P G -1 3]
THE WORLD’S END EDGAR WRIGHT [FOCUS FEATURES, R]
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS PAUL GREENGRASS [SONY PICTURES, PG-13]
The World’s End not only reunites the brilliant comedy team of director Edgar Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, it also marks the most realized work of the trio. The plot first appears to be a predictable friendship story, as a group of longtime friends gather to revisit a string of favorite bars. Yet, when things go sci-fi with a robot invasion, the film morphs into a hilarious and heartfelt meditation on growing up.
> If you thought Tom Hanks’ career was over, think again. Captain Phillips features one of the veteran actor’s strongest performances ever. Based on real events from 2009, the film centers on Hanks as the title character—the captain of an American cargo ship boarded by pirates in the Horn of Africa. As these criminals take the crew hostage and demand a ransom, Phillips establishes itself as a tense, fast-paced thriller with as much as sentiment as suspense.
>
> Though a sure best picture candidate at this year’s Oscars,
Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity isn’t without its detractors. Many have recognized the film’s style, namely its revolutionary visual effects, but snubbed it for a lack of substance. Yet, with Gravity, the style is the substance. This is true not only in the miracle that is every shot of Cuarón’s space odyssey, which is a visual phenomenon, but also in the ideas embodied in the stunning, mesmerizing images of the cosmos. Through the simple story of a woman literally lost in space, Cuaron explores grief and isolation. He takes a “dead” woman and gives her “life.” Anchored by a believable and elusive Sandra Bullock, Gravity thus becomes a spiritual experience, with the physical signifying the metaphysical, a tale of rebirth and conversion, of a lost woman being found.
A SEVEN-WEEK EXPLORATION OF THE BIBLE WITH SEVEN LEADING CHRISTIAN VOICES. fEATuRING: RACHEL HELD EVANS NADIA BOLz-WEBER jAy BAKKER PHyLLIS TICKLE WILL WILLImON jOSé mORALES ERIC ELNES
Visit wearesparkhouse.org to learn more.
PRISONERS DENIS VILLENEUVE [WARNER BROS. PICTURES, R] Perhaps the most surprising movie of 2013, Prisoners gives new life to the kidnapping thriller. Denis Villeneuve, who made the underrated war drama Incendies in 2010, infuses his film with all the usual jolts of the genre but complements it with moral depth and compelling performances. In the story of an everyman’s search for his missing daughter, the director explores imprisonment on physical and spiritual level. >
SHORT TERM 12 DESTIN CRETTON [CINEDIGM, R]
12 YEARS A SLAVE STEVE MCQUEEN [FOX SEARCHLIGHT, R]
> The grand jury prize winner at South by Southwest, this small romantic drama finds a faultless balance between subtlety and melodrama. The story itself, about a longtime boyfriend and girlfriend who struggle romantically while working as guardians at a facility for troubled teens, is unique and often very funny. But it’s director Destin Cretton’s shrewd dialogue and Brie Larson’s sincere lead that make the film so compelling.
>
In 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen does more for issues of race and slavery in one scene than Quentin Tarantino did in a whole movie. While not a perfect take on this dark history, McQueen’s vision marks one unlike anything ever to make it to the big screen. Beautifully shot and well acted, yet brutal in its depiction of violence, this story of a free black man who is abducted and sold into slavery transcends white guilt to dig deeper into human depravity.
TEN WORDS FOR ALL THAT AILS US Originally hailing from Norwich, England, Sean Gladding has made his home in the United States for the last two decades, where he has served in pastoral ministry, church plants and new monastic communities. He is the author of The Story of God, the Story of Us. Sean Gladding invites you to gather around as coffee and opinions flow over the Ten Commandments— words from God to people just freed
from slavery. What might they mean for us today—the most “free” people who ever lived? “Sean Gladding reveals to us a grand biblical narrative refracted through ordinary people’s stories. . . . You’ve never heard the Ten Commandments taught quite like this.” —Michael Frost, author, The Shaping of Things to Come and Exiles
watch video at ivpress.com/ten
800.843.9487
THE GRANDMASTER KAR WAI WONG [THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY, PG-13] > Don’t expect a coherent story
or developed characters in The Grandmaster. Renowned writerdirector Kar Wai Wong isn’t as concerned with narrative as he is with gorgeous, filmnoir-ish cinematography and meticulously crafted action sequences. Set in 1936, this kungfu showdown between Japan and China marks the auteur’s best effort in a long time, showcasing the real grandmaster in all his cinematic glory and style.
RELE VAN T RECOMMENDS: BOOK S
HOW BEST TO AVOID DYING OWEN EGERTON [ D A LT O N P U B L I S H I N G]
> Whether he is performing stand-up comedy or a one-man
play, writing screenplays or sharing his talent in book form; Owen Egerton is consistently funny and touching as well as surprisingly deep. Egerton’s writing is ironic and irreverent, but also heart-wrenching and heart-warming. Reading his work can be an emotional experience: You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, etc. His collection of short stories, How Best To Avoid Dying, will certainly have you doing all those things. Whether telling the tale of a dystopian spelling bee or a darkly comic twist on Christian camp conversion, Egerton invites his readers into an exploration of life’s end. The collection combines scathing wit with compassionate insight. Egerton’s stories might seem mean if his love and affection for his characters were not so apparent; his often casual and sometimes caustic treatment of death is balanced by his obvious obsession with the wonder of life.
DUST YVONNE ADHIAMBO OWUOR [KNOPF]
DAVID AND GOLIATH MALCOLM GLADWELL [LITTLE, BROWN AND CO.]
> Yvonne Owuor worked as the director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival and won the Caine Prize for African fiction in 2003. Yet, her work goes largely unrecognized in the U.S. Her debut novel is bound to change that. Set in Kenya in the 1950s and ’60s, Dust focuses on the murder of Odidi Oganda and the painful memories it reawakens in his family. Set against the backdrop of British rule and the Mau Mau uprisings, the novel is inspired and moving.
> Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book challenges how we think about obstacles and celebrates the greatness and beauty of the underdog. Gladwell asserts that the sorts of difficulties underdogs face help foster qualities great leaders need; particularly faith, courage and determination. His thesis is simple, yet profound: disadvantages are often advantageous, and adversity plays a key role in the development of character.
Bridging difference Listening generously Tell i n g Good News
Lanie Smart, MDiv Student Westerville, Ohio
800.264.1839 | lpts.edu
Explore these degrees | Master of Divinity, MA Marriage & Family Therapy, MA (Religion), Doctor of Ministry
RESTLESS JENNIE ALLEN [THOMAS NELSON]
SATISFIED JEFF MANION [ZONDERVAN]
THE FREE WILLY VLAUTIN [HARPER PERENNIAL]
ONE SUMMER BILL BRYSON [DOUBLEDAY]
> “You have made us for yourself,
> We are a people consumed by the things we consume. We are encouraged to accumulate as a means to happiness, but that happiness never comes. Jeff Manion’s Satisfied offers a critique of our consumptive habits and a challenge toward a way out. Exploring six passages of Scripture, Manion helps readers alter their view of wealth and their understanding of contentment. Satisfied is a much-needed antidote for our need to consume.
> Whether writing songs or novels, Willy Vlautin has a gift for capturing the sweetness and sadness of everyday existence. His newest novel, The Free, is both hopeful and heartbreaking, focusing on the experiences of three memorable main characters as they face crises of finances, family and faith. Vlautin’s prose is simple and direct, but his characters are rich and complex. Fans of hope in the face of despair will find much to love in Vlautin’s work.
> In his latest book, One Summer,
O Lord,” goes the classic quote from St. Augustine, “and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Jennie Allen’s newest book, Restless: Because You Were Made For More, challenges readers to discern and then do the things God is calling them to. Her assertion is that our restlessness is born of being less than who we are called and created to be. Her book offers a tool to help readers uncover the gifts God has given them and how to use them for His glory.
Bill Bryson uses the events of a particular American summer in 1927—including Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, the Great Mississippi Flood and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti—as touchstones for an era and American life as a whole. Readers will be stunned by all America was experiencing in such a short period and drawn in by the drama of the Roaring Twenties that never saw a Great Depression coming.
g BECAUSE AN EDUCATION SHOULD
Have Value With over 60 academic programs, NCAA DIII Athletics, and a strong commitment to the Arts, Cairn offers a dynamic university experience centered on Christ and His Word.
Half pg hor.indd 1
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Learn more at cairn.edu
11/11/13 2:51 PM
CON T EN T S
MALCOLM GLADWELL 70 The best-selling author came back to his faith while researching his newest book, David and Goliath. Here, he writes about what drew him back.
10
First Word
12 Feedback 14 Slices
48 What it Takes to Free a Sex Slave Freeing someone from human trafficking is harder than you think. A look at the four steps to freedom.
66 Marriage Material What should we really be looking for in a spouse?
The rise of witchcraft among Millennials, the return of latenight TV, apps for your New Year’s resolutions and more.
34 The Drop Interviews with The Head and the Heart, Shad, Matt Redman and plenty more.
76 Gungor 52 Jennifer Lawrence: Game Changer America’s best friend on Catching Fire, her Oscar win and becoming a role model.
40 Grade Expectations The American education system is failing students. How do we fix it?
44 Meet the Most Wanted Man in China ChinaAid’s Bob Fu tells tales of the persecuted church and shares his own story.
96
CONTENTS JAN/FEB 2014
58 Living in the Material World N.T. Wright examines what the Psalms show us about why matter matters to faith.
62 Louie Giglio’s Passion The man behind the Passion conferences talks about waiting on God, Passion’s unlikely journey and what’s next.
The outspoken worship artists on refinding faith.
80 Forest Whitaker The Oscar winner talks about his new penchant for social justice.
84 Grouplove On unlikely beginnings and new motivations.
86 2014: The Year in Preview A few guarantees for a year full of surprises.
90 RELEVANT Recommends
DELIVERED FRESH DAILY Devotionals and Scripture sent to your phone. Every single day.
www.odb.org
@ourdailybread
facebook.com/ourdailybread