RELEVANT - Issue 83 - September/October 2016

SWITCHFOOT | RICHARD ROHR | ST. LUCIA | 2016 ELECTION GUIDE | THE NEW JESUS MOVEMENT | FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS FAITH, CULTURE & INTENTIONAL LIVING

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016, ISSUE 83 Eh, Ben-Hur, done that.

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first word

A LET TER FROM THE EDITOR

THE TIME IS NOW

BY CAMERON STR ANG

a Sunday morning in June, I woke up pre-dawn for an early flight and glanced at my phone. There was a local breaking news alert that a shooting was going on at a club not far from my house. It was still ongoing and details were scarce.

It was just a day after pop singer Christina Grimmie was murdered by a fan at her concert nearby.

What is going on in Orlando right now? was my immediate, groggy thought.

As I went to the airport, the local news started to trickle out more details about what was happening.

It’s a hostage situation. The gunman might have shot up to 12 people at the club. The SWAT team has taken out the shooter. Then, no, it’s not 12, it’s actually 49 innocent lives lost and countless more injured.

Like everyone, I was stunned at the sheer magnitude of it. And when it became clear this was no random violence, but an intentional terrorism act targeting the LGBT community, my heart broke.

In the days to come, my city mourned. And as we tried to make sense of what happened, I saw something hopeful: People rallied to help. Thousands donated blood and dropped off supplies for the volunteers. Churches held prayer vigils and ministered to those affected and served arm-in-arm with LGBT organizations. The actions of healing and unity far

ON

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outweighed the hate of one man, and forever altered the fabric of my city.

The national news attention on the Pulse nightclub shooting was fading a couple of weeks later, when something else grabbed the headlines: the unfathomable video of the murder of Alton Sterling by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Like the Orlando shootings, the story left the country in a state of stunned helplessness and rage. That rage manifested itself in countless demonstrations and marches, many peaceful but some erupting in violence—most tragically with the murder of police officers at a rally in Dallas the following week.

What is going on in America right now?

I know violence, bigotry and hate have always existed in America, but it seems like we are in a uniquely fragile place right now. Tensions are high,

and social media is fueling an awareness of deplorable acts that previously probably wouldn’t have made the national news.

To see just how divisive and contentious things are, look no further than the election season we’re in. Negative ads, fearmongering, accusations and insinuations are the norm. People are scared and angry.

Negativity, distrust and bigotry is par for the course now.

It feels helpless. Like this is how things are now, and inevitably they’re just going to get worse.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Though times are incredibly tough right now, our generation has the opportunity to tangibly and dramatically change things.

We don’t have to be OK with the erosion of unity, respect and equality. We do not have to be OK with hate speech, bigotry and violence.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Not “peacekeepers.” Peace makers.

It’s an active calling to chart a different course.

We can reach across the aisle for the common good. We can build bridges of relationship and understanding between races and communities. We can subvert the status quo.

We do not have to give in to fear and hate anymore. We can counter it with love, and show the world the hope of Jesus in how we live our lives.

We’re better than this. And this generation needs to take on the responsibility of changing things. That’s why this issue of RELEVANT has some very important articles dealing with racial unity and the election. We need to be informed, consider perspectives other than our own and actively engage a new narrative.

Whether it be through voting, how we serve others or how we use our voices, this generation has the power to make a huge difference.

No more waiting for one day to make a mark on culture and where it’s heading.

The time is now to stand up, be heard and be the change we want to see.

CAMERON STR ANG is the founder and publisher of RELEVANT. Connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @cameronstrang.

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ON ISSUE 82 JULY/AUG 2016

GETTING TO KNOW ANDRA I didn’t really know who Andra Day was other than the singer in the Apple commercial with Stevie Wonder and the person behind that powerful song “Rise Up.” It was so great to learn that she’s a devout Christian and that she’s made it through so much in her spiritual journey. Great cover choice!

Looking forward to more from her!

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WATCH OUT, MILLENNIALS ARE TAKING ON WASHINGTON NEXT FROM UBER TO NETFLIX, THIS GENERATION IS ALL ABOUT DISRUPTIVE CHANGE TO THE STATUS QUO. NOW THEIR SIGHTS ARE SET ON POLITICS. WHAT DIRECTION WILL THEY GO?

O

lympus might not be falling, but it’s definitely changing that they’re eschewing the entire political system and voting hands—probably in a dramatic way. more based on ideals for society than personal beliefs. An area That’s according to David Cahn, co-author of a new that illustrates this new direction, and one of particular imporbook, When Millennials Rule: The Reshaping of America. tance to Christians, is abortion.

“This generation disrupted things by replacing TVs with NetfSee, a majority of millennials, according to a survey by the Barlix, cabs with Uber and hotels with Airbnb,” he told RELEVANT. na Group earlier this year, think abortion is wrong. In all, about “I think this generation is next going to five out of six hold pro-life convictions in completely disrupt the way Washington some form. works and force the parties to reconsider But that doesn’t mean, says Cahn, that For pro-lifers, this generation how they win votes.” millennials vote pro-life. offers some hope. But, if the Last year, the U.S. Census Bureau found “It turns out millennials are the most that 30 percent of all eligible voters in the likely generation to be morally opposed Cahns are right, the new United States were born between 1981 and to abortion,” Cahn says. “On the flip side, pro-life is taking a decidedly 1997. That means millennials are the mamillennials are also the most likely to jority of potential voters in America. support legal abortions in their commuless political flavor.

For their book, David Cahn and his nities,” he says. brother Jack Cahn did a deep-dive analyFor pro-lifers, this generation offers sis of every poll and survey they could get some hope. But, if the Cahns are right, the their hands on, looking at every issue one at a time. Then, the two new pro-life is taking a decidedly less political flavor. And brings spoke with 10,000 millennials to find out why they believe what up a lot of questions. they do.

“Millennials are taking over,” he says. “It’s just a matter of A huge difference in millennials and previous generations is what happens when they rule.”

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M I S C.

[WELL, THIS IS EMBARRASSING]

THERE’S A GENERATION FAILING TO LAUNCH Apple was approved for a patent that would disable smartphone cameras during concerts. So now you might have to just listen to music and interact with other humans.

NOT SINCE THE 1940s have this

Treat yo’ self to some highminded comedy.

WE NOMINATE AZIZ ANSARI TO DO ALL THE TALKING Back in July, Kendrick Lamar released his second collaborative shoe with Reebok. Along with designer Ian Paley, Lamar deconstructed the classic sneaker— his goal was to promote gang neutrality.

A new study by the Entertainment Retail Association and the British Phonographic Industry shows that millennials listen to 75.1 percent more music than their parents.

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SURE, WE STILL HAVE MONTHS before this year is over. But we’re ready to go ahead and pronounce 2016 the year of Aziz Ansari. It all started when he released last year’s mold-breaking book, Modern Romance. Then, along came Master of None, Ansari’s funny-serious show exploring issues like racial inequality, millennial wanderlust and generational differences.

This year, he’s using his platform to become one of our most important social critics. While accepting a Peabody Award for his work on Master of None, Ansari addressed the lack of diversity in Hollywood. “[Diversity] is not, ‘Hey, let’s give this white protagonist a brown friend!’ No. It’s, ‘Let’s have a show “DIVERSITY IS NOT, where there’s a token white guy.’”

‘HEY, LET’S GIVE THIS Writing for The New York Times, Ansari also WHITE PROTAGONIST took on hostile rhetoric against Muslim famiA BROWN FRIEND!’ lies—like his.

NO. IT’S, ‘LET’S “Being Muslim American already carHAVE A SHOW WHERE ries a decent amount of baggage. In our culTHERE’S A TOKEN ture, when people think ‘Muslim,’ the picture in WHITE GUY.’” their heads is not usually of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or the kid who left the boy band One Direction.”

many young adults lived with their parents. New data from the Pew Research Center found that more than 36 percent of women and 43 percent of millennials are living at home.

Researchers pointed to several contributing factors: College attendance is more common; the economy is still “recovering” from the recession of the mid-2000s; and, millennials are waiting longer to get married and start families of their own.

KERRY WASHINGTON LOST A TV ROLE BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T SOUND ‘HOOD’ WE’VE KNOWN that Hollywood has a

diversity problem. And that problem extends to roles offered to minorities.

Actress Kerry Washington has been at the forefront of calling for more diversity—and her work on Scandal is credited with opening doors for more black actors challenging stereotypes on TV. But even Olivia Pope herself has dealt with racial typecasting. She told Variety that she was fired from two TV pilots because she wasn’t “hood” or “urban” enough.

She said, “For both [pilots], it was because they wanted me to sound more ‘girlfriend,’ more like ‘hood’ more ‘urban.’”

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MCCONAUGHEY ON THE CHRISTIAN ROOTS OF JUSTICE

[ M A K I N G I T O F F I C I A L? ]

COHABITATION IS THE NEW NORMAL BUT ARE PEOPLE GETTING WHAT THEY WANT FROM IT?

or most Americans, co- marriage prep as their reason for moving habitation is now the stan- in together. But if that’s what they’re after, dard compatibility test for they’ll probably be disappointed. ma r r iage.

Another new study from About twoUniversity of Utah profesTHE NUMBERS thirds (65 percent) of adults sor Nicholas Wolfinger are “OK with cohabitation analyzed the number of before marriage,” accordsexual partners a person The reasons for moving in together ing to a recent study by the had before marriage and are rarely economic: Barna Group. how that related to divorce And Christians are not a rates after five years. substantial exception.

What he found is striking. % Some 41 percent of pracThe group with the lowticing Christians—who, traest divorce rates had no ditionally, have almost unisexual partners prior to think it’s a good versally taught against sex marriage. marriage test outside marriage—either And while the research “strongly agree” or “somefound that more sexual what agree” that cohabipartners doesn’t necessar% tation is a good idea. This ily correlate to high divorce demonstrates a huge shift, rates, the data undermines at least in practice. the idea that cohabitation think it’s just A large majority cite prepares you for marriage. convenient

F

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MAR_APR 2016 SEP_OCT 2016

Not long after his summer blockbuster Free State of Jones came out, Matthew McConaughey explained to The Daily Beast that his character “had a moral code rooted in the Bible and the Declaration of Independence: Love thy neighbor as thyself, and all men are created equal.” He said: “The abolition of slavery in the Civil War at this time, [was] almost all led by religious movements—Christian movements—that were trumping the ideals that everyone else had. They said, ‘No, this is not right—because of the Bible.’”

FINALLY, NEW YORK GOT THAT BREAKFAST CEREAL CAFE NO ONE ASKED FOR About 40 percent of millennials surveyed by The New York Times earlier this year said that pouring a bowl of cereal is inconvenient.

But that won’t stop Kellogg’s.

To try to nab a generation that left cereal in its childhood, Kellogg’s just opened its first-ever restaurant in New York’s Times Square. The best/ worst part: A bowl will run from $6 to $8—at least double the price of an entire box, which makes total sense.

Of course, the cafe opened on July 4. Because America.

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M I S C.

Last summer, six men were arrested after they began to heckle Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen during a sermon.

Earlier this year, at a criminal trial in Texas, charges of trespassing were dismissed for four of the men and they were found not guilty of “disrupting a meeting or procession.”

They’re free to live their best lives now outside of a jail cell.

Go, go millennial nostalgia. Next year’s Power Rangers movie got an A-list boost recently when Lionsgate announced that Bryan Cranston will join the cast as Zordon.

Cool, sure. But it’s nothing new— way back when, Cranston lent his voice to two different Ranger foes: Twinman and Snizard.

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BY ROB FEE

T

he beginning of the college football and NFL seasons means pretty much every restaurant with a TV will be filled with guys wearing Cam Newton jerseys and cargo shorts that don’t mind sitting on a barstool for eight straight hours. But what do you do if you want to have an interest in football, but you’re a bit of a hipster? Could you really find enjoyment in such a mainstream form of entertainment when you lost all respect for Radiohead after OK Computer? Of course! Anything is possible! You convinced your parents to have a Wes Anderson movie marathon, so this will be easy. Here are some tips:

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Sports can drastically expand your vintage clothing shopping—because throwback jerseys are incredibly popular. Now you have to be careful, because getting one that’s just a few years old makes it look like you’re just a cheapskate that ponied up for a Ronde Barber jersey in 2010. You want someone that others may have forgotten about or that was beloved, because then you’ll look like a real fan and not just a bandwagoner.

A decade ago, no one cared about the Seattle Seahawks, and you’d have a better chance teaching your parents Snapchat than finding someone wearing their jersey. Now they’re everywhere. All you have to do is pick a mediocre team and wait. It’s like when your favorite band that you saw live in a basement with a dozen people in the crowd now has a song in a Toyota commercial.

YOU CAN STILL STAY ON YOUR

YOU GET TO CONSTANTLY BE

PHONE AND IGNORE EVERYONE

IRONIC AND SARCASTIC

AROUND YOU

Thanks to fantasy football you can still spend the entire day staring at your phone without carrying on a conversation. I mean, you invested a whole $10 in this league so you have to spend the majority of your time over the next four months keeping up with every stat. And when someone questions it, you can still judge them for “just not getting it.” It’s like the last few seasons of Louie.

You know how you roll your eyes when someone talks about getting coffee from a chain? Then you get into an argument over which is better? That’s pretty much every football argument that’s ever been had!

Wouldn’t it be nice to expand your pointless arguments into a whole new territory that’ll bring in friends and family members that never got heated before?

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IN C ASE YOU MISSED IT

ENTERTAINMENT ACTUALLY WORTH YOUR TIME

F IL M /T V AUDIO B O O KS

1 S T R ANGE R THINGS

The Netflix series is a thrilling ode to ‘80s Spielberg adventures, Lost-style mysteries and good ole fashion sci-fi.

2 THE MISFIT GENERATION EP

Social Club Misfits proves they’re one of the smartest outfits in hip-hop.

3 PRE S E NT OVER PE RFE CT

Shauna Niequist’s latest book is a refreshing reminder to slow down.

BREXIT CRISIS

WHATEVER BRITAIN’S BREAK FROM THE EU MEANS, IT WON’T BE GOOD FOR REFUGEES

E

arly this summer, citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU. The immediate political and economic effects were dramatic, with then-Prime Minister David Cameron stepping down and world markets dipping violently.

But moving forward, the “Brexit” may signal a more long-term effect on how developed countries view immigration.

According to Vox, in the two decades before Brexit, immigration and race

relations weren’t a central issue. But today, 45 percent of Britons say it’s “very important.” Actually, nearly 80 percent think immigration levels should be cut back. The attitudes that fueled the Brexit vote could have dangerous consequences for refugee communities.

Nearly 5 million Syrians are currently refugees, and more than 6 million are displaced in their own country.

And, with no end to the conflict in sight, those numbers could increase.

4 ALMOST HOLY

This acclaimed documentary follows a vigilante pastor who goes to extreme measures to save street children.

JESUS VR IS A REAL THING JESUS CHRIST IS COMING TO VR SCREENS. The creators

5 FINDING GOD IN THE WAVES

This memoir from “Science Mike” McHargue explores doubt, faith and science.

6 TRUE SADNESS

Despite the title, the latest effort from The Avett Brothers is a colorful collection of poppy anthems and ballads.

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SEP_OCT 2016

of Jesus VR – The Story of Christ will give viewers an entirely unique view of Jesus’ whole life and death—and new life.

The film was shot in October 2015 totally in 360-degree, 4K video on location in Matera, Italy, the ancient village that was also the setting for Passion of the Christ.

In a statement, executive producer Enzo Sisti—who also produced Passion of the Christ— said that the “production values will absolutely set a new benchmark for virtual reality.”

The film is set to release in time for this Christmas. And the 90-minute movie will be available on all major mobile and premium VR platforms including Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and the HTC Vive.

SLICES

Q +A

SCOTT HARRISON

10 QUESTIONS ABOUT 10 YEARS OF CHARITY: WATER WITH ITS FOUNDER

A

decade ago, a rare, world-changing charity was launched by a former club promoter. Founded on the values of transparency, compelling storytelling and the singular mission

to provide clean water where it’s needed, charity: water has since provided clean water for more than 6.3 million people. As the organization celebrates its 10-year anniversary in September, we asked Harrison to reflect on the journey.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY?

I wish we’d started building a monthly subscription program earlier. We never really encouraged monthly giving. Over one million generous people have now supported the organization, but most of them gave once.

HOW IS CHARITY: WATER DIFFERENT?

charity: water is different than most, in that 100 percent of all donations go directly to fund water projects—from day one. We also prove every project on Google Earth [by placing GPS trackers on wells] and highly value innovation.

WHAT MAKES CHARITY: WATER WHAT IT IS TODAY?

We love telling stories. I mean, we really love telling stories. Optimism and hope are such big parts of our culture and brand. We want to invite people into these incredible stories, invite them to bring the best parts of themselves to charity: water.

WAS THERE A POINT IN THE LAST 10 YEARS WHERE YOU THOUGHT YOUR WORK WOULDN’T LAST, IT WAS OVER?

A year and a half into charity: water back in 2008, we’d raised millions for clean drinking water as the 100 percent model was resonating so deeply with people, but we couldn’t raise the overhead money fast enough. At that moment, I had a meeting with a complete stranger who, after learning more about where we were at, went home and wired $1M into our overhead account. Since then, we never looked back.

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WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED OVER THE 10 YEARS THAT YOU WOULDN’T HAVE KNOWN OTHERWISE?

Getting people to care about issues that they don’t personally face is hard.

WHAT ASPECT OF CHARITY:WATER’S WORK ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?

Our vibrant, compassionate and generous community. charity: water is not about me, or our team, and it’s never been.

It’s about the incredible group of more than 1 million supporters around the world that have decided it’s not OK for 663 million people to drink dirty water.

WHAT PART DOES YOUR FAITH PLAY IN YOUR WORK?

I feel like I get to live

out my faith through my work every day.

James 1:27 has been a core verse for me for a decade. “To look after orphans and widows, and keep myself from being polluted by the world.”

Ten years ago, when I was running around getting drunk in nightclubs, I was zero for two. But after leaving that destructive lifestyle and starting charity: water, I get to do No. 1 through my work, and No. 2— well that’s something I strive for every day.

A LOT OF PEOPLE WANT TO DO THE KIND OF WORK YOU DO. ANY ADVICE FOR THEM?

First, find out if someone else is doing it, and if you can, work with them. But if you feel your vision is unique, then get ready for a struggle. It’s not easy, and I’ve found it only gets harder. But it also gets more rewarding as you’re able to make a greater and greater impact on people’s lives.

HOW HAVE YOU GROWN PERSONALLY DURING THESE 10 YEARS?

I’ve been stretched in so many ways over the past decade, both personally and professionally. Personally, as a husband and father (both happened in the last 10 years), and professionally, learning how to lead an organization and manage growth and change in uncertain times.

WHAT ABOUT THE NEXT 10 YEARS?

We want to make a much bigger impact. With 6.3 million people served and 663 million people still waiting, our ambition continues to exceed our ability to raise more awareness and money.

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EMBRACE THE FULL

SLICES

POKEMON GO [BACK TO CHURCH]

THE H T LIST BIMONTHLY CULTURE POWER RANKINGS

WITHIN DAYS OF ITS LAUNCH, the mobile app Pokemon

BIRTH OF A NATION [HOT TEST] The true story of Nat Turner, a preacher who led a slave rebellion, may be the most important movie of the year.

FUTBOL [HOT TER] Thanks to the popularity of MLS, Premier League and FIFA, the beautiful game is becoming more fun than the gridiron.

ATL ANTA [HOT] Not only is Hotlanta home to two hip-hop-focused fall TV shows (Atlanta and Stars), it will host the Music Midtown festival.

Go sent millions of smartphone-wielding pixel hunters into streets around the globe and officially became the most popular mobile game of all time.

Many of the game’s “Pokestops” and “Gyms,” which are essential to gameplay, are geotagged to churches­—meaning that since its launch, the game has set a regular flow of new visitors to churches around the country. Many churches are embracing their landmark status by offering free water and snacks to “trainers,” hoping to catch a few new members. It’s also inspired the church’s great modern poets—the people responsible for updating the outdoor marquee with new service times and mind-boggling puns—to rise to their finest hour and show these gamers what they’re missing if they just come for the Pokemon. Here’s a look at six, reallife, cringe-inducing Pokemon Go-inspired church signs:

JESUS DIED TO CATCH ’EM ALL POKEMON GO IS TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING. SUN. 9:30 AM WHAT YOU DO WITH THE GIFT OF LIFE DETERMINES WHO YOU ARE — MEWTWO LOOKING FOR POKEMON OR JESUS? BOTH FOUND HERE. SO YOU FIND A POKEMON! DO YOU KNOW THE JOY OF FINDING JESUS? HOW DID NOAH GET ANIMALS ON THE ARK? HE POKEMON!

CREDIT CARD CHIPS [COLD] We simply don’t have time for anything slower than swiping.

FACE SWAPPING [COLDER] This was fun at first, but somewhere along the line, seeing a feed full of distorted creepy face mashups just got unsettling.

ZUBATS [COLDEST] Hard to catch and lame in battle. Your Pokedex deserves better.

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THE WORLD NOW HAS MORE REFUGEES THAN EVER

65M That’s how many refugees are in the world right now.

AT THE END OF 2015, 65.3 MILLION PEOPLE around

the world were refugees—internally displaced or seeking asylum. That’s according to the United Nation’s refugee agency and is the largest number ever recorded. And 5 million of that growth was in 2015—the largest single-year increase since the second world war. To put 65 million into perspective, that’s about the same as the population of Texas, New York state and Florida—combined. It means that right now, 1 in 113 people around the world are displaced.

Shawn peruses the local fish market for dinner options for him and his family of five. He serves as part of a two-year outreach team on a tiny island off Madagascar.

A land where uncommon adventure rewards those who make unconventional choices.

Like a nurse who left the comforts of home to share Christ on a remote island unreached by the gospel.

It’s a daring move for anyone — a teacher, a nurse, an analyst, or whatever else you may be.

But the greatest risk is not considering it. Because you might leave life’s biggest questions unanswered and your most significant work undone.

Find your way to an unreached mission field.

AfricaIsUnexpected.com

Podcasts hit their tipping point (see what we did there?)

SLICES

M I S C.

IT’S OFFICIAL, MINORITIES ARE THE NEW MAJORITY THIS IS KIND OF CONFUSING, Back in June, at the Durham County jail in North Carolina, 39 inmates—some of whom are locked up for crimes including rape and murder— were baptized by ministers from seven local churches all in one weekend.

PODCAST UNIVERSITY DON’T WORRY, A NEW WAVE OF SHOWS WILL MAKE YOU SMARTER. PODCASTING IS GROWING UP. Sure, there are a gazillion pod-

casts on every topic imaginable, but a new wave has ambitions greater than just entertainment. They’re out to expand minds. Here’s a look at six prestige series that combine literary-style prose, in-depth reporting and old fashioned radio.

REVISIONIST HISTORY From author Malcolm Gladwell, each episode re-examines a big idea, historical event or social norm.

Daniel Radcliffe recently told the Radio Times that— though there’s nothing planned— he wouldn’t close the door to playing Harry Potter again.

really. But it appears that the new majority is actually a minority.

According to new Census Bureau population estimates, the majority of babies being born in the U.S. are now minorities. Now, pin-pointing the exact year when minorities outnumbered non-Hispanic whites newborns has been difficult for experts, but they estimate it was somewhere around 2013. Either way, now it’s a confirmed reality.

INVISIBILIA

THE NUMBERS

50.2 %

of U.S. babies younger than 1 year old were racial or ethnic minorities.

2002

2013

NPR’s mind-bending series is, you might have heard, “about the invisible forces that control human behavior.”

1,995,102

MORE PERFECT From RadioLab, this show looks at how individual Supreme Court cases are still shaping cultural values.

1,982,936

FREAKONOMICS Economists show how applying economic principles to almost anything reveals truths hiding in plain site.

This year’s Miss Teen USA pageant won’t feature contestants in swimsuits because the guys who line up women to compare their physiques still have some values.

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NON-HISPA NIC, W HIT E BIR T HS MINORIT Y BIR T HS

ARE WOMEN MORE RELIGIOUS THAN MEN? IT TURNS OUT, YES. DURING THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, Pew Research has

gathered a ton of data on gender and religion in six different faith groups—Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated.

On “all the standard measures of religious commitment” they looked at, Christian women are more religious than Christian men.

By and large, the trend holds for the other faiths, but one that doesn’t is Islam. Muslim women and Muslim men are equally devout based on Pew’s measures—all but one: frequency of worship services attendance.

60

%

More women in the U.S. say religion is “very important” than men.

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STATEMENT

BEING A PASTOR IS LONELY In a big church, everyone sees the pastor on Sunday, even fewer talk to them Monday through Saturday and still fewer really know them at all. They are surrounded by people, yet they are alone. We think we know them, but we only know what they show—and they don’t show everything. And how can they?

There is no room for pastors to be anything other than unattainably perfect.

Mega-churches aren’t designed to have a human in the pulpit; they’re bred to sustain a celebrity. And a celebrity is a two-dimensional figure who exists to serve the needs of everyone but themselves. It must be a lonely life.

BEING A PASTOR IS AN EGO-DRUG

WHEN CHURCH LEADERS FALL

ARE MEGACHURCHES OR MEGA-PASTORS TO BLAME?

BY EDDIE KAUFHOLZ

E

arlier this year, another church scandal hit the news. This time, Perry Noble, founding pastor of the 35,000-member Newspring Church in South Carolina, was fired for alcohol abuse. Sadly, Noble’s removal was just one in a line of similar high-profile pastor “falls” lately—think about the scandals surounding Tullian Tchividjian and Darrin Patrick just in the past year. But let’s be painfully honest: These kinds of falls don’t surprise any of us anymore, do they?

I mean, isn’t there kind of a pattern emerging here of big pastors with big platforms crashing and burning? Perhaps it’s becoming common enough that there’s a systemic failure right under our noses? The megachurch pastor is in real trouble.

BEING A PASTOR IS MORE PRESSURE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE What the average church-goer doesn’t understand about being a pastor can be summed up in a word: currency. You see, most people think the currency of a pastor is his or her Sunday sermon. It’s not. That’s the cherry on top.

The currency of being a pastor is the spiritual well-being of people. With every email they write, every meeting they lead and every budget they approve they are doing their very best to facilitate people knowing Jesus—though that’s really not their burden to bear (Hint: It’s yours).

So, knowing that the currency is us, it’s helpful to note that we are The. Worst.

If the children’s ministry isn’t quite right, if the music’s too loud or if our ohso-important voice isn’t being heard in leadership—we have a tantrum. And the person with the mic becomes the scapegoat—which is a mortal blow.

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SEP_OCT 2016

Everyone should have a touch of ego. Like any good thing, a bit of it is OK. Such is the case with the mega-church pulpit. When your pastor makes a joke, 10,000 people laugh—even if it’s not that funny.

What’s more, every single day people are telling your pastor how fantastic they are. But it’s a fantastic that really means, “Hey, you’re famous! This is a big moment for me!”

This existence is no sort of life. And while I believe there are some ways to guard against this celebrity worship, the truth is that it’s a constant onslaught of temptation that can wreck people from knowing their true, Godgiven human value.

So what do we do?

I don’t think there’s a silver bullet answer.

Yes, I wonder if the large church model isn’t doomed. And yes, I think that our Real Housewives culture is bleeding precariously into our sanctuaries.

No matter the case, we must allow our pastors to be human. We must do whatever it takes to not allow these men and women to be consumed by our expectations and worship of them. Because when we do this, we kill our pulpit and make humans out to be the gods they were never meant to be.

There is a personal responsibility to be taken by the fallen pastor and believe me, they suffer. But we must insist that our churches allow everyone to be fully known, fully human and fully under the headship of Christ.

EDDIE KAUFHOLZs a po is a counselor, speaker—and former pastor. He can be reached on Twitter @EdwardorEddie or at eddiekaufholz.com.

STATE OF EMERGENCY:

THE UNBELIEVABLE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS UNFOLDING IN VENEZUELA THE COUNTRY IS ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSING. CAN THE WORLD RESPOND IN TIME? enezuela is experiencing a societal collapse of Roman proportions, and the economic and civil turmoil is causing an unfathomable humanitarian crisis.

The driver of this crisis is plummeting global oil prices (oil is the primary source of income for the Venezuelan economy).

Basically, the only way for the country to balance its budget, according to calculations by the Heritage Foundation, is for oil to reach $200 a barrel. The current cost is about $41.

Political tensions are off the charts, prompting daily riots and protests. The government is cracking down on dissenters, and there are now more “political prisoners” in Venezuela than Cuba.

As dire as the political and economic situation in Venezuela is, those suffering the worst of it are the people.

The Washington Post reports that

V

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SUSTAINABLE CHANGE. INTENTIONAL LIVING.

Venezuela ended 2015 with a homicide rate of 90 per 100,000 people, surpassing the rates in Honduras and inching toward the world’s highest, which is in El Salvador.

The number of kidnappings in Venezuela is higher than Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Libya, Syria or Yemen. And because of mass food shortages, almost no medical supplies and commonplace blackouts, health emergencies are increasing and uncontainable.

Basically every facet of Venezuelan culture is unraveling.

What makes the situation all the more dire is that the socialist government is blocking foreign aid. Venezuela’s National Assembly has declared a national

humanitarian health crisis, trying to force the ruling government to accept foreign medicinal aid.

Private organizations like Programa de Ayuda Humanitaria para Venezuela accept donations of medical supplies and distribute them to those in desperate need, even without government permission. For now,

AS DIRE AS THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION IN VENEZUELA IS, THOSE SUFFERING THE WORST ARE THE PEOPLE. these efforts may be the only hope for people in Venezuela.

Already, Venezuela as the world has known it is gone. Will the world act in time to save what’s left?

REJECT APATHY

H O W A N E W VA C C I N AT I O N S T R AT E G Y C O U L D E L I M I N AT E S O M E O F T H E W O R L D ’ S M O S T D E A D LY D I S E A S E S

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IN a given year, more than 1.5 million children die from diseases. Another 19.3 million children around the world face infection.

That only accounts for children.

Malaria still kills more than 450,000 people annually. There are 2.7 million HIV cases each year and 13.7 million active tuberculosis cases to date.

Diseases actually kill three million people a year in total—not just any diseases, though. These all have something in common: They’re preventable.

The jaw-dropping reality: All of this death and sickness doesn’t have to happen.

A GLOBAL PROBLEM “Infectious disease is neither a community nor national challenge—it is a global challenge,” says Dan Irvine, the Global Health and Nutrition Director at World Vision.

“Infectious disease knows no borders. An outbreak or epidemic in one country has a high probability of affecting neighboring countries.

Infectious disease is a challenge for the global community.”

Disease is a common thread throughout history that humans have battled for centuries. Despite rampant disease outbreaks in the developing world and epidemics in many developed countries (notably colonial America), it

BY RUTHANNE IRVIN

wasn’t until 1967 that the World Health Organization (WHO) started its own “eradication efforts.”

The cure, Irvine says, is to work toward an improved society for all, not just treatment for the disease.

“Infectious disease disproportionately affects the poorest and most vulnerable populations,” he says.

“The complex deprivations of general poverty increase vulnerability to disease. Lack of basic water and sanitation facilities, malnutrition, pollution, poor shelter, lack of access to education and health services all contribute to disease prevalence.

“Further, co-infection of diseases like HIV and tuberculosis, or the intersection of disease with malnutrition, increases mortality. Vertical disease control is not sufficient for prevention. We must improve the general environmental condition for the most vulnerable.”

Irvine thinks disease control and cure is a global issue, one that all of humanity is both responsible for and accountable to aid in whatever ways possible.

DEFEATING DISEASE From the beginning, fighting disease primarily meant treating the infected, but now, using science, experts are flipping the model: They’re now focused on preventing infection rather than treating it. And it’s working.

A game changer in the fight against disease occurred when WHO started working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation initiated what they call the “Global Vaccine Action Plan” (GVAP). The plan outlines a strategy to provide access to vaccines to the whole world—yes, the world—by 2020. They think they can save more than 20 million lives.

So far, some 200 countries have gotten on board with the plan—known as the “Decade of Vaccines.”

The foundation partners with other organizations with the focus to protect children in the world’s poorest countries from preventable disease. They are working to implement vaccination strategies and educate people around the world about their importance.

Another aspect of their work is improving already existing vaccines—reducing the necessary doses required and introducing needle-free vaccines which do not require refrigeration.

A HOPEFUL FUTURE Already, this plan has led to the eradication of

GET INVOLVED YO U R T I M E VOLUNTEER: Use your skills to

serve with an organization like the One Campaign, which even provides an opportunity matching system.

YO U R VO I C E ADVOCATE: Tons of nonprofits and

relief organizations need people to help push initiatives through Congress. You can also contact your representative directly.

YO U R R E S O U R C E S DONATE: Organizations like

One Campaign and WHO do great work. Immunize.org has a comprehensive list of similar orgs.

Smallpox, a 74 percent reduction in childhood deaths from measles over the past decade and the near eradication of polio, according to the Gates Foundation.

Immunization coverage is at an all-time high. More than 100 million children are now immunized each year against diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B and more.

These vaccines save an estimated 2.5 million lives each year.

Recent years have shown signs of a bright future. In a world rife with bad news, the steady prevention of infectious disease offers hope.

But with 19.4 million people still unvaccinated, there’s plenty of work to do.

RUTHANNE IRVIN is a writer and editor.

She lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Follow her on Twitter at @ruthanneirvin.

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

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REJECT APATHY

THE NUMBERS

THE U.S. HAS A LEGAL DRUG PROBLEM A GRAPHICAL LOOK AT AMERICA’S PRESCRIPTION DRUG CRISIS he United States of America faces a deadly problem: A huge number of Americans are addicted to opioids and other prescriptions.

(In case you’re unfamiliar, opioids are a class of drugs that includes heroin as well as legal pain relievers like oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine, fentanyl.)

T

The problem is so profound that President Barack Obama is focusing one of his last initiatives in office on raising awareness of the issue. “A lot of time [addicts are hooked on] legal drugs prescribed by a doctor, so addiction doesn’t always start in a dark alley—it often starts in a medicine cabinet,” Obama said earlier this year.

1.9

95%

MILLION

of people surveyed during treatment for opioid addiction

HAD A SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER

USED HEROIN

259 MILLION

LETHAL DRUG OVERDOSES IN 2014

PRESCRIPTIONS WERE WRITTEN FOR OPIOIDS IN 2012

Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S.

18,893

10,574

168,000

PRESCRIPTION PAIN RELIEVERS

HEROIN

had an addiction to prescription pain relievers in 2014

overdose deaths were related to

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SUSTAINABLE CHANGE. INTENTIONAL LIVING.

overdose deaths were related to

ADOLESCENTS

S O U R C E S : G U N P O L I C Y. O R G , S M A L L A R M S S U R V E Y, U N O F F I C E O N D R U G S A N D C R I M E

because prescription opioids were “more expensive and harder to obtain.”

involving prescription pain relievers in 2014

47,055

He also has pointed out that drug overdoses kill more people each year than traffic accidents.

Obama even enlisted rapper Macklemore in an effort to call on the U.S. Congress to raise more than $1 million to fight what’s now a full-fledged epidemic.

Take a look how big the problem of opioid and prescription drug addiction is:

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT.

Wh en t h e w h ol e wor l d s e ems to b e goi ng t h e s am e w ay, t h e chu rch n e e d s p e opl e w h o are w i l l i ng to st an d out . Tr u e tt Mc C on n el l i s equipping students with the truth about God’s word, transforming lives, and preparing world changers to be radical about sharing the gospel.

CAN CHRISTIANS OVERCOME VIOLENCE? IT SEEMS TO BE EVERYWHERE WE LOOK.

BY LISA SHARON HARPER

IN

Ezekiel 37: 1-14, the priest is shown a valley. In that valley dry bones are scattered as far as the eye can see. God tells Ezekiel to walk back and forth among the rows of bones. Then God asks Ezekiel a heartstopping question: “Can these bones live?”

Anyone who’s seen a valley carpeted with cracked earth beneath cracked bones as far as the eye can see would say, “No. This story is over. We must move on.”

Ezekiel’s people were utterly devastated—torn apart by imperial domination, death and war—a people uprooted and cut off from land, culture and identity.

Families were broken, people of God enslaved and told for generations that they were created to be slaves. Decades of violence blanketed the nation of Judah, affecting the bodies, minds and souls of the people.

Now it seems like our current-day world is on fire with violence. Within one month the world witnessed the massacre of mostly LGBTQ people of color in Orlando, Florida; the xenophobic secession of Britain from the EU, the consecutive police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the targeting of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, the terrorist attack in Nice and the coup attempt in Turkey. Not to mention the other police deaths of black men, women and children that didn’t make it to hashtag status. And it’s not counting the ISIS attacks that killed hundreds throughout several African countries. Violence feels like it lurks in shadows everywhere and could grab anyone at any time.

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SUSTAINABLE CHANGE. INTENTIONAL LIVING.

The drumbeat of violent rhetoric, images and political warfare has ripped the fabric of American politics into shreds over the past year and a half. Both parties are guilty. Trumpettes called for the death of Hillary Clinton from the floor of the RNC Convention. Delegates and guests of the Convention bought T-shirts with a picture of Trump’s face superimposed on the body of African-American Muhammad Ali standing over a knocked out woman in pumps—Hillary Clinton. In one image, a white man acquires a black body to do violence against a woman. This is violence, and it is selling.

The Democratic primary trafficked in eviolence as Bernie Bros beat down anyone and everyone who voiced a question or hint of dissent on social media. Half-truths about the “other” candidate masqueraded as absolute unquestionable truth. This is violence against the truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth…” Violence against the truth is violence against Jesus—violence against God. Political elections are not exempt.

Perhaps the most dastardly form of violence this election cycle will come on November 8th.

On that day images of God across the nation will try to vote in the first presidential election without full protection of voting rights since 1965. Low-income people, ethnic minorities, the elderly and students will try to exercise the most basic form of Genesis 1:26 “dominion” (agency, stewardship of the world)—the vote—and they will be blocked. Voter suppression laws have been passed in 36 states. Thirty -three states will enforce those laws in 2016, according to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice. This is violence.

In this culture of violence, I hear God challenging me with a question that halts my heartbeat: “Can these bones live?”

There is no way I can say, “No.” I know too much. I know that after 70 years the people of Judah exited Babylon. I know that the priests who penned Genesis 1 painted the picture of a world full of desolation, darkness, despair and chaos. I know that in that world, God brooded over the violence as a hen broods over her eggs. Then God said “Let there be light!” and light cut the darkness!

These dry bones can live.

LISA SHARON HARPER a po is chief church engagement officer for Sojourners and author of The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right.

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IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO FOLLOW YOUR CALLING MAYBE YOU’RE ALREADY DOING EXACTLY A 2013 study by the Federal Reserve Bank found WHAT YOU PLANNED WITH YOUR LIFE. just 27 percent of college grads had a job that was If you are, awesome. But if you’re like most of closely related to their major. Of course, people us, chasing your dreams hasn’t exactly been change their minds and God calls his followers to easy. Maybe you tried the college route and life new places. That’s not the case here: 60 percent got in the way. Or maybe the degree you got of college graduates can’t find work in their field, hasn’t led to the life you want to have. according to job placement firm Adecco.

Believe it or not, the United States has the If either of those are you, it’s not too late. New worst college dropout rate of any developed clarity can breathe new life into your educationcountry. Just 56 percent of students finish al journey. within six years, according to a 2011 Harvard We made RELEVANT U for you. This special study. And a similar report section is an extensays only 46 percent of sion of our interAmericans complete college active directory at Only 46 percent of once they start.

RELEVANTu.com, But even if you’re in the and we want it to Americans complete college 46 percent who earned a help you take inonce they start. bachelor’s degree, you’re formed next steps likely not following the to make your callsame path you started. ing a reality.

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5 BACKPACKS THAT GIVE BACK BACK-TO-SCHOOL TIME isn’t just for

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HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT GRAD SCHOOL

YOU THINK YOU NEED MORE EDUCATION. NOW WHAT?

FOR BETTER OR WORSE, most people now think a four-year degree isn’t enough to get them where they want to go professionally. That’s why threefourths of college freshman already plan to pursue a master’s degree. If you’re one of them or you’re thinking about going back to school, you’ve got a big choice ahead of you. Choosing the right graduate school is a very big deal—a decision that will have dramatic importance on your career. Here are a few things you can do to help you pick which grad school is right for you.

GIVE YOURSELF TIME

If possible, you should apply months or even a year before the deadline to allow yourself plenty of time to do your research, talk to the faculty and make sure that you’re both a good fit for each other.

STUDY YOUR CAREER

Different grad schools provide very different educations, and if you know what you want your finish line to look like, you’ll know how to run the race.

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SEP_OCT 2016

TALK TO THE FACULTY

Once you’ve narrowed down the pool a little, don’t be afraid to send a few emails to your potential instructors. Any resulting conversations will tell you more about the school than any campus visit ever could.

VISIT THE CAMPUS

Wherever you end up, you’ll be there almost every day for the next couple years, and deciding to go there sight unseen is like buying a house before scheduling a walk-through.

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COLLEGE IS WORTH IT, SAYS ECONOMISTS COLLEGE ISN’T CHEAP. On aver-

age, you’re looking at about $23,000 per year for school. That price tag is a major barrier for a lot of people—it just seems like it’s not worth it, right?

Wrong.

According to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a college education is still worth the money. In their research, economists Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz determined that an individual who had a college degree could expect to make $1.2 million more from ages 22 to 64 than their peers who have just a high school diploma.

The report also notes an increase in career earnings for people who had associate degrees compared to those who stopped after high school.

HOW TO FIND A SCHOLARSHIP OUTSIDE OF FINANCIAL AID if going back to college wasn’t intimidating enough intellectually, it often costs a lot of money, too.

That’s why—you may not believe this—as of 2016, Americans hold a staggering $1.26 trillion in total student loan debt. On average, these 43 million Americans are paying $351 a month on their debt. Let’s be honest: That can be debilitating.

Thankfully, there are people and programs that love to provide scholarships for both undergrads and grad students.

We’ve done a little research and put together a list of some of the best websites for finding scholarships. You can search criteria such as “religious scholarships” to find a program for people like you. These aren’t exhaustive, but they’re a great starting point:

RESOURCES

AS

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MAR_APR 2016 SEP_OCT 2016

ARE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS THE BEST SCHOOLS? A PRETTY COMMON ASSUMPTION

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is that when it comes to Christian schools, you have to sacrifice some academic rigor.

According to the 2016 Forbes list of top 25 colleges, that doesn’t hold up. For the most part, schools that started faith-based, like Harvard and Yale—departed from their roots about a century ago. But what about the schools that didn’t?

“Hundreds of other colleges and universities have not left the Bible behind, often to great success,” reports Forbes. They specifically named Notre Dame, Georgetown University, Boston College and Davidson College, all of which appear in Forbes’ top 25.

Actually, of the best-ranked 130 schools in the U.S., 25 are Christian.

That’s almost 20 percent.

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Fall 2017

“No other school in the country is producing students prepared for local church ministry like Liberty University.

There is an atmosphere of excellence in the classroom, and professors are practitioners in their fields. Students trained in Liberty’s programs are spiritually developed and leave fully equipped for future ministry.”

Jarrett Stephens, Teaching Pastor Prestonwood Baptist Church “I’ve had the blessing to serve in ministry for over a decade as a pastor, missionary, church planter, and author. In each of these roles I have found that my training at Liberty, with its biblical foundations, hands-on ministry training, and sage advice from my professors, continues to give me the knowledge, skills, and wisdom I need to serve wherever God sends me.”

Doug Bender ’05, Co-Author “I Am Second” Trainer with e3 PARTNERS Missions Organization

Training Champions for Christ since 1971

LEARN MORE AT LIBERTY.EDU/DIVINITY

A SPECIAL SECTION

WHAT A MASTER’S DEGREE WON’T GET YOU

BY CURTIS JAMES

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Y CHOOSING TO GO T O G R A D U AT E SCHOOL IS A PR ET T Y BIG DECISION. IT’S I M P O R TA N T T O T HI N K T HROUGH ALL THE Q U E S T I O N S T H AT A N A DMISSIONS W EBSI T E WON’ T A S K Y O U.

ou wake up in your swanky downtown apartment, get dressed in your favorite business-casual attire and speed off to work in your trendy new coupe.

At your new job, you no longer have to perform the menial tasks that bogged down your previous “desk job.” Now, you command respect. Whether you’re delivering high-power orders in the boardroom or traveling overseas to monitor the status of your organization’s latest startup, you have the authority to make real change.

When you drive home after eight fulfilling hours of work, you cannot help but smile in eager anticipation of the next day. You have finally attained your dream.

Fact: Graduate school is not a golden ticket to this reality.

While most of us know great accomplishments require hard work over long periods of time, many are tempted to believe graduate school can automatically launch eager students into dream careers where passions and skills relentlessly thrive.

Unfortunately, an extra line on your resume will never possess miraculous power, even if it costs six figures and has numerous “MBAs,” “M.Div.’s” or “M.S.W.’s” attached to it. Many ambitious students complete graduate school and find themselves stuck in heaps of debt with few job prospects.

With that said, there are many legitimate professional and personal advantages to having a master’s or doctorate degree under your belt, and depending on your ambitions, those could be worth the sacrifice of a lot of time and money.

These contradictory perspectives show that before deciding whether to commit a few years of your life to reading obscure journals full of six-syllable words, the question has to be asked: Is grad school worth it?

I want to outline a number of pros and cons an admissions counselor likely won’t tell you. I’m no education expert, but I’ve jumped through enough higher-education hoops to know the practical advantages and disadvantages of graduate school that are often left out of university welcome brochures.

Consider this Grad School 101.

MOTIVATIONS MATTER Plain and simple: If you’re coming in with the wrong motivations, graduate school could be a whopping mistake.

Dissatisfaction with your current circumstances, feeling obligated to continue school, lack of direction or a desire to spend a few more years after undergrad on a college campus playing Xbox until 4 a.m. every day are all dangerous reasons to consider going back to school.

So before devoting any more time to exploring prestigious-looking university websites with smiling models on their homepages, ask yourself this fundamental question: Are you considering graduate school because you have a vision for your career or because you lack one?

I once knew someone who spent weeks applying to 11 different grad programs in separate fields, ranging from politics and business to entertainment and technology.

While some people may enjoy shelling out hundreds of dollars to write lengthy existential essays on the convergence of experience and intellect, the application process is typically grueling and frustratingly expensive.

Therefore, before you apply—and more importantly, before you decide whether to attend—prayerfully define your career goals and how you believe a particular graduate program could help or hinder you in achieving them.

More than likely, if you’re not sure what you want to do but attend grad school for lack of a better option, you could be pigeonholed in a field you do not like with debt you don’t want to pay.

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A SPECIAL SECTION

For help solidifying your ambitions, consider asking some professionals for “informational interviews” (a fancy phrase for boosting people’s egos by buying them coffee and asking them about their jobs).

But if you know what you want to do and feel highly motivated to become an expert in that field, grad school could certainly be worth it.

A WORD TO THE WISE Obtaining a graduate degree can be a great way to stand out from the crowd. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only about 10 percent of Americans hold master’s degrees while more than 30 percent hold bachelor’s degrees.

However, before you assume an extra degree will boost your chances of landing a great job, do your homework and figure out what types of degrees the people who get hired in your field actually hold.

For example, if you want to work for an international relief agency, you may be better suited acquiring a tangible skill such as nursing, urban planning or business

tips for free, therefore, master’s degrees and Ph.D.s are only worth the effort if you know you want to make a given subject area your profession.

THE REAL BENEFIT Let’s talk about the real perks. Graduate school can increase your mental stamina, boost your professional credibility and enable you to dominate one category of Trivial Pursuit, but its greatest benefit can be summarized in one word: access.

Giant corporations and professional organizations rarely open their inner doors to random strangers, but graduate students have the opportunity to apply for internships, fellowships and various other “-ships” with these entities. Moreover, the same professors who might have seen you as one name on a long class roster during your undergrad will begin treating you as a peer, inviting you to take part in their cutting-edge research.

By enrolling in a respected graduate program, you are grafted into a network of intellectuals and thought leaders who

IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO AND FEEL HIGHLY MOTIVATED TO BECOME AN EXPERT IN THAT FIELD, GRAD SCHOOL COULD CERTAINLY BE WORTH IT. administration than obtaining a master’s degree in international development (of course, this varies depending on the organization).

Some organizations hire most of their employees for entry-level positions, so you could actually educate yourself out of a job by obtaining a master’s degree. On the other hand, if you have a strong passion for a less-tangible subject, such as anthropology or global health, you should not allow a competitive job market to kill your dreams of becoming an expert in that niche.

Although this seems obvious, it is important to remember that you do not have to go to graduate school to study a subject in-depth. Half of grad school consists of reading academic journals, and chances are, you have internet access and therefore have the ability to type phrases like “historical verisimilitude” or “technological disintermediation” into Google Scholar.

Unlimited knowledge is at your finger-

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can connect you with bosses and bigwigs in the real world. It’s therefore essential to consider where a school is and to whom it’s connected before applying.

When I arrived in Washington, D.C. in 2012, I knew no one and had no job prospects. Over the course of my studies, however, one professor connected me to one journalist who connected me to my current boss. The access has been priceless.

THE DREADED QUESTION If you’re still seriously considering graduate school, you have to answer the final dreaded question: How will you pay for it?

There are many biblical debates as to whether or not debt is OK. When I began considering taking out loans to help pay for classes, multiple friends called me and quoted Proverbs, saying, “Dude, don’t you know?

‘The borrower is the slave of the lender.’”

Since I did not go to graduate school for theology, I will have to defer to my semi-

narian brethren to define the circumstances in which debt is OK. Certainly, grad school is not worth financial ruin, but with a combination of scholarships, loans and a lot of frugal living, I believe an advanced degree is worth taking on some debt if it enables you to take a significant jump forward in your career.

Of course, debt can be an unbearable burden if you do not have a plan in place to pay it off. Before signing the dotted line to receive $40,000 in federal loans, for example, ask yourself if the kind of job you will get once you have your degree will give you a salary large enough to repay this amount.

If you plan to work in the nonprofit field, you may qualify for federal “public service loan forgiveness,” where your remaining federal debts are wiped away after 10 years of making payments while working at a nonprofit.

The main point is this: Debt is not an issue to take lightly. It should only be used if no other options exist after you have sought out grants or scholarships and prayerfully sought the advice of individuals with financial wisdom.

SO, IS IT WORTH IT? Before I officially decided to go to graduate school, I remember thinking, “Why won’t God simply tell me what to do?” Although I know some people have received very specific direction from God on graduate school, more than likely, you will have to rely on limited wisdom and knowledge to decide whether graduate school is worth it for you.

This may seem risky, but just as Abraham obeyed God and followed Him “not knowing where he was going,” you can take a leap of faith even if you don’t know exactly where you will land on the other side.

Once you have prayerfully weighed the pros and cons, you should feel the freedom to decide what is best. Graduate school may not be a golden ticket to your dream job, but it can be one valuable step toward it, and if you’re a nerd like me, it’s a great excuse to spend countless hours reading 10-pound books while connecting with professionals who can give you a leg up.

So now I will ask you: Is grad school worth it for you?

CURTIS JAMES lives in Washington, D.C. And, yes, he’s got a master’s degree.

Luke Edwards So you’ve said yes to God’s call to ministry?

Kentucky • Orlando • Memphis • Online

pastor, king street church, boone, n.c.

forming christian community through fresh expressions of church. asbury seminary master of divinity graduate. go to asbury.to/voices to hear luke’s story

Download your FREE ebook Yes, from Asbury Seminary Visit: asbury.to/RE

THE BAND MAY HAVE STARTED ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS, BUT THE CHEMISTRY NEVER SUFFERED. osh Burgess and Charlie Ryder didn’t set out to form a band. After the friends moved away from Christchurch, New Zealand, they started collaborating on music via email as a way to keep in touch. Soon, Christie Simpson and Sam Perry joined the process from New Zealand. And Yumi Zouma was born.

A few years later, the four friends have released two extended plays, toured with the likes of Chet Faker and Lorde, and headlined their own tour in Europe. This summer, they released Yoncalla, their first full-length album.

To hear Burgess tell it, the lack of intention may have been the key to the band’s success.

“It’s kind of a weird cliché that when you stop trying, you end up creating something you’re happy with,” he says. “We never were a band that thought we’d be a band. It was just a totally blank canvas. We didn’t think anyone would ever hear

J

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the songs. There was no grand plan to be signed.”

With the band members on three different continents, Yumi Zouma’s initial songs traveled back and forth via email, slowly gaining layers—driving beats, Simpson’s soft vocals, synth riffs. The recording process for Yoncalla marked the first time all the band members had written and recorded together in the same place.

Burgess calls Yumi Zouma’s music “delicate,” and the process can be delicate, as well. Push too hard, and it stops being fun. And if the process isn’t fun, the music suffers.

“One thing we’ve always maintained in our process is there’s no pressure,” Burgess says. “Yumi Zouma could stop making music and we wouldn’t feel the pressure until the inspiration sparks again.

There have been periods of three or four months where we haven’t worked on anything. We’re doing this because we enjoy it, so we’re just trying to keep it enjoyable with the process.”

W H Y W E L OV E T HEM:

Yumi Zouma’s delicate, dreamy pop music gives us all the escape we’re looking for. Yumi Zouma has music to fit every mood from dancing to relaxing and thinking, and everything in between.

F OR FA N S OF:

Empress Of, Dog in the Snow, Petite Noir

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THE DROP

ARTISTS TO WATCH

THE ONLY THING THAT’S CHANGED FOR SOCIAL CLUB MISFITS IS THE NAME. ERN (Fernando Miranda) and Marty Mar (Martin Santiago) are self-proclaimed “misfits.” The Miami rappers met just after FERN got out of prison for drug possession. Marty Mar was working at Nordstrom and fighting disillusionment as a youth pastor watching his church leadership fall apart.

They started making music together, adopting the moniker “Social Club.” The pair drew on their experiences and their faith to create insightful hip-hop aimed at other “misfits.”

“Life happens to everybody,” Marty Mar

F

They just want to let listeners know they’re not alone—even if they don’t fit in.

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MUSIC THAT MATTERS

explains. “At the end of the day, who are you putting your trust in? Who’s the center of your joy?

That’s where our message comes together. We make music for … we say ‘misfits.’ But the truth is everyone could be a misfit. There’s always going to be a situation where you don’t fit in.”

Unapologetically Christian and dedicated to making high-quality, creative hip-hop—the duo released their first four albums independently and even gave the first two away for free. Even with their unconventional approach, the duo started gaining a following. Their albums Misfits 2 and Us landed on the Billboard 200 and other charts. Earlier this year, they signed with Capitol Christian Music Group and officially added “Misfits” to their name.

FERN and Marty Mar aren’t too worried about how they’re labeled or where they play. They just want to let listeners know they’re not alone— even if they don’t fit in.

W H Y W E L OV E T HEM:

With catchy beats and hooks, the duo’s latest EP, The Misfit Generation, is a fun listen. But the lyrics go deep, covering everything from marriage to living courageously to finding purpose.

F OR FA N S OF:

Derek Minor, JGivens, Canon

SKYES

T HE DROP

Stream these albums (& tons more) on The Drop at RELEVANTmagazine.com

BEFORE FORMING SKYES, Dallin Knightly and Dan

Tirer played in a long lineup of bands with names such as “Funky Butter” and “Dragons Just Happened.” But listening to SKYES, it’s hard to imagine the band as anything else.

Knightly, Tirer and bassist Artie Fleischmann spent a few years as part of the backing band for rocker Ryan Star, and that sense of adventure and wonder shows in SKYES’ sweeping, experimental electro-pop. They have a habit of “endlessly recording all the noises” they make and often loop their favorites into the final mix. With influences from across every genre, the group isn’t too focused on fitting into a genre or sounding perfect, but on finding original sounds.

S L E E P I N G AT L A S T

Joy

W H Y W E L OV E T HEM:

SKYES’ debut EP, Quarks, mixes glitchy synths with powerful vocals for approachable and unique music.

K AY E

Honey

F OR FA N S OF:

Chvrches, Phantogram, Warpaint

FRESHI LIFE WORSHIP

The Heartbeat

K . G AU T I E R

The Prevailing

DAY WAVE LEELAND

Invisible

TAY L O R J A M E S

The Days After

JACKSON PHILLIPS HAS GONE THROUGH several musical transformations over the

W H Y W E L OV E HIM :

years. He grew up listening to hip-hop and reggae, studied jazz drums in college and fronted an electro-pop duo. But with the ’80s-inspired, laid-back indie rock of Day Wave, Phillips seems to have hit his stride. He’s gotten noticed by the likes of Beats 1 Radio DJ Zane Lowe and Blink 182 bassist Mark Hoppus.

Phillips records directly to tape and handles all Day Wave’s mixing and mastering, but he works hard to make the music sound easy.

“It doesn’t sound good to me to add too much or to have something that’s too sterile-sounding,” he says. “I like it to be a little lo-fi or interesting sounding.”

Day Wave makes the kind of music you listen to on a drive to the beach. It’s dreamy and carefree but also personal and honest.

F OR FA N S OF:

Real Estate, Wild Nothing, Cloud Nothings

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THE DROP

CONVERSATION

Q +A

AUDREY ASSAD udrey Assad grew up in the Plymouth Brethren tradition, where she learned to sing hymns in four-part harmony, without instruments.

Assad has since converted to Catholicism, but with her latest album, Inheritance, she revisits many of the classic hymns of her childhood. We talked with Assad about this new project. We also talk about her background as the child of a Syrian refugee being one of the motivations for the work she does to bring awareness, among other things, to the Syrian Refugee Crisis.

A

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO DO THIS ALBUM OF HYMNS, INHERITANCE?

The things you grow up reciting and singing shape your thoughts about the divine and about being human. For me, [this project] was a return to the things I grew up with in an effort to seek out greater faith.

On a musical level, I felt it would be a really fun challenge to take on songs that are already beloved. I decided not to add any choruses or anything, but I treated it sort of with a film score approach, trying to build soundscapes that highlight the inherent drama of the songs.

HOW DID YOU CHOOSE WHICH HYMNS TO INCLUDE?

Well, I did a PledgeMusic campaign, and I had people vote. I picked 30 that I’d be willing to do and had people choose their favorites. I didn’t totally go by that, but I factored that into it. A lot of them were really obvious. I knew “Be Thou My Vision” would be a favorite. I knew “Come Thou Fount” would be a favorite, but I didn’t end up doing it because it just didn’t fit.

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO CROWDFUND THE ALBUM?

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MUSIC THAT MATTERS

“Every time I’ve done a crowdfunding thing, I felt like I’ve gotten to know my fans a lot better. It was fun. There’s a really cool partnership that develops.”

To me, the idea of a corporate hymns record felt even better if a crowd of people were putting their heads together and saying, “This is what I want to hear.” Every time I’ve done a crowdfunding thing, I felt like I’ve gotten to know my fans a lot better. It was fun. There’s a really cool partnership that develops.

YOUR FATHER IS FROM SYRIA. WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE WATCHING THE ONGOING CIVIL WAR THERE?

I’ve never actually been to the Middle East because my dad was not a citizen of the U.S. until 10 years ago and it would have been hard to go. And now it’s a war zone.

It’s very surreal at times to walk around and have this personal connection to this massive event in the history of the world. This is not a small thing. I think in 50 years, we’re going to say, “How did we let that happen?” I have days where it’s a really heavy burden and days where I don’t think about it very much. But overall, I’d say it has changed my life because I’ve started to look at Christianity as being “biased toward the bottom.” So the refugees, the poor, the oppressed, the people who are victims of civil war, really should be the kings and queens among us. I’m trying to use my platform and my personal life to assist people in seeing refugees as a priority.

The King’s University offers a unique learning environment that integrates accredited higher education with practical ministry experience in the local church. This complete educational experience will prepare you to serve in the church, the marketplace and around the world.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

www.tku.edu or call 817.722.1700

#IAMTKU

Banning Liebscher, pastor of Jesus Culture Sacramento

A D E C A D E A G O, C H R I S T I A N S I N O U R G E N E R AT I O N W E R E P R E T T Y C Y N I C A L A B O U T C H U R C H . B U T T O DAY, A N O P P O S I T E T R E N D I S H A P P E N I N G — A N D AT T R A C T I N G M A N Y B A C K T O FA I T H .

W H AT ’ S T H E D I F F E R E N C E ?

BY ALEX DUKE

et’s say one Sunday soon you’re traveling through Seattle or Sacramento or New York City, and you decide to pop into a church your friends have been telling you about.

If you get there early enough to hear the energetic worship and squint your eyes through the stage lights and fog, you might wonder if you accidentally ended up at a huge concert. And it’s a fair question because you’d also be surrounded—not by hundreds, but thousands of people.

If you stay for the message—and you should—you’ll notice the preacher’s skinny-jeaned swagger, his expertly coiffed hair, his earnest breathlessness as he sermonizes and story-tells, almost like a Spirit-filled John Mulaney.

And if you keep listening—and, again, you should—you’ll hear something familiar, maybe obvious, but revolutionary: These pastors are talking a lot about Jesus, grace, the Gospel, God and His love for you.

These churches represent one of the largest movements in Christianity today; they’re positive, energetic, communityfocused, Jesus-loving and, honestly, cool.

And it’s an entirely different vibe from the in-crowd faith of the previous decade.

Rather than focusing on everything wrong with the Church and Christians, this new movement focuses on the one thing: Jesus.

L

IS JESUS NEW TO CHURCH? Not long after postmodernism settled in as the West’s de facto worldview, Christians of

a particular age started questioning things.

They became cynical about Church, skeptical of institutions. This movement—decentralized and difficult to define as it was— took several forms, the most famous was a trend called the emerging church movement. And whatever it was or wasn’t, it carried an ethos of skepticism and cynicism.

Every generation has its movements, of course. A generation prior popularized what’s since been labeled the “Jesus movement,” a stripped-down version of Christianity typified by an ascetic lifestyle, an emphasis on evangelism and communal living—and, as its label implies, an unswerving focus on the person of Jesus.

In the tumult of the 1960s and 70s, this youth-led movement simultaneously borrowed from and stood in stark opposition to American culture’s prevailing emphases on community and “love.”

2016 is a very different moment. But if you’re paying attention, you can’t help but notice a movement of Christians reclaiming an exclusive focus on Jesus and His teaching.

A NEW JESUS MOVEMENT? After a long pause, he finally answers the two questions with a single word, straight out of Sunday school: “Jesus.”

We’re talking about the purpose of church, and Banning Liebscher seems practically giddy to respond.

“Ultimately, we want people to encounter God, fall madly in love with Jesus, grow within community and in their relationship with the Lord, and then go impact the world,” he says.

He’s talking about Jesus Culture, the

ministry he founded as the youth pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California. Jesus Culture is probably best known for its prolific worship music—they’ve released more than 30 albums—but in 2013 the ministry relocated to nearby Sacramento, where Liebscher became the pastor of a new church launch.

Liebscher is clear about his hopes for the new Jesus Culture church, and they are far from extravagant.

“I want to be known for what I’m for, not for what I’m against,” he says. “Now, I have a theology. There are biblical truths we should not deter from, but all some people want to know is what you’re against… I’m for Jesus, that’s what I’m for. I’m not antistuff. I’m for Jesus, and it’s because I’m for Jesus that I care deeply about the things I believe are trying to steal from you and not for your best.”

In less than three years, due to space constraints, the church already has to gather three separate times on Sundays.

There are just too many people for their facility to accommodate.

Judah Smith knows what that’s like.

He’s been the pastor of The City Church since 2009, when he took over for his parents, who founded the church in 1992.

Smith was barely 30 years old when he took the helm at The City Church—and immediately, he knew he needed help.

“I’m not smart enough or organized enough to plan out my own future, much less direct a church,” he says. “So when I was given the lead pastor role, I couldn’t lean on my experience, wisdom or gifting.”

Yet at the same time, Smith knew he already had everything he needed.

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Carl Lentz, lead pastor at Hillsong New York

“I had to lean on Jesus,” he says. “[So] I read about Jesus, I thought about Jesus, I preached Jesus and I pointed people to Jesus.”

When asked about his hopes and intentions for his ministry, Smith echoes Liebscher’s Sunday-school simplicity.

“I’m just trying to help people see Jesus,” Smith says. “I hope that doesn’t sound overly simplistic—it’s truly my goal … That mindset affects everything I do.”

How? Smith first mentions the ways his

Jesus Culture Sacramento

WE WANT TO DO ALL WE CAN TO CREATE ROOM, KEEP THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING AND REMAIN AWARE OF HOW FOREIGN AND ODD OUR CHRISTIAN WORLD IS. show-them-Jesus approach “filters down” into his sermons. He wants to remove as many barriers as possible—in his language, in the church’s music, whatever contributes to that pang of discomfort people often feel at church.

At this point, some might label this pragmatism, giving in to church growth wisdom du jour. Yet Smith says none of this is “in an effort to be cool.” Instead—and unsurprisingly—he looks to Jesus, who in love put Himself in the world of those who needed Him. Or Paul, who became all things to all people with the goal of showing them Jesus.

“I want people to encounter Jesus for

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themselves. I think that’s the goal of everything we do,” he says. “Specifically, I want them to leave built up and not beat up. I want them to know and believe God’s love for them. And I want them to feel like they have a place they belong. Ultimately, all those things are part of a true Jesus experience.”

Across the nation, on America’s other coast, another pastor in another big city offers a similar refrain.

“The way we do church is really, really, really simple and unspectacular,” says Carl Lentz. “And there is a beauty to that. There is power in that. Our culture is oversaturated with complexity, so if we can clear

out space for the Gospel to be preached and the power of God to be seen, we should see it impact our cities.”

Since 2010, Lentz has served as the lead pastor of Hillsong New York. Similar to Liebscher’s congregation in Sacramento, Lentz’s church was planted out of a popular church also known for its prolific worship: Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia, known around the world through the music of Hillsong United.

If he’s being totally honest, Lentz will tell you the Church has failed in its Godgiven mission. That anyone would bristle at a stripped-down, Jesus-focused approach to church is beyond him. To Lentz, a “Jesus-centered church” is redundant, a truism. Why? Because God designed Christianity to be only and always about Jesus. Without him, Christianity is impossible.

“Our goal is to create a service where people can know Jesus better,” he says.

Judah Smith, pastor of Seattle’s City Church

“From top to bottom. From the non-believer to the old believer. We want to do all we can to create room, create space, keep the main thing the main thing and remain aware of how foreign and odd our Christian world is.”

It’s the same goal author and activist Christine Caine has for the broader Church world she inhabits. She came from a Greek Orthodox background, so what she saw in a Jesus-focused church was a break from her strict, liturgical experiences.

“I remember the minute I walked in … I found home,” she said.

In the nearly three decades since, Caine moved to the States, where she works tirelessly as an activist and international speaker. Her most well-known work is through The A21 Campaign, which seeks to combat the blight of human trafficking.

The simple message of Jesus changed her life—and that’s why it’s her exclusive focus.

CELEBRATING THE MAIN THING Fundamentally, Liebscher, Smith, Lentz and Caine’s ministries all hover around the same truth: Only Jesus can function as the center of the local church and the universal Church.

Lentz is sure to apply these truths liberally. A pastor enamored with coming across as “cool” undermines Jesus as the center of the church. He’s getting in the way. Yet so, too, is the doctrinaire pastor, the one who dresses his sermons in theological garb in an effort to tick the right boxes or please the right constituents.

“There’s a danger when anybody tries to have any kind of ‘brand’ of Christianity,” Lentz says. “This isn’t limited to the ‘cool Christianity’ stuff. There is also a danger to the ‘intellectual’ brand or the ‘reformed’ brand or whatever people want to label.

“We never take for granted that people know what’s happening, we try to explain as many things as we can, and [in

this setting] the gospel remains the one and only attraction.”

These leaders are as in-crowd as they come—and they’re thrilled to contest for the faith, for Jesus. And leave everything else where it was.

“I believe the local church is where believers gather, encounter one another [and] find healing and wholeness,” Liebscher says. “[We should be] sent into society to make an impact for Jesus. … We’ve not redefined ministry; we’ve better defined it for what it is.”

Lentz recognizes the inherent challenge for churches who are so eager to connect non-believers to Jesus without sacrificing truth.

“We have to fight for truth, while not destroying the discussion and the doubters and dissidents,” he says. “We have to hold fast to conviction, without stopping the conversation when it makes us uncomfortable.

“Can we as Christians, still be known by our love? That’s our challenge. I think we are up for it.”

Smith agrees—and they again echo one another.

“Jesus has always been the answer for humanity,” he says. “And as we follow him, the road ahead is exciting and exhilarating.

I truly believe the best days of the Church are ahead.”

ALEX DUKE is a writer and editor in Louisville, Kentucky.

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BY ALEX DUKE

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ou could say it was born on the beach, late at night, in Jon Foreman’s head.

“I was going through some stuff and I wanted to get clarity,” he says. “So I ended up devoting 30 minutes a day to sitting on this one rock beside the ocean. ... Every day, I’d go down to that rock ... and just sit there, pray, meditate and think.”

Foreman’s creative ritual could be likened to our last glimpse of Don Draper on Mad Men: legs crossed, eyes closed, the whiff of a smile set against the buzzing backdrop of ommms and the calming whir of nearby waves. In a way, so, too, could the final product: Switchfoot’s newest record doubles as both artistic artifact and

evidence of personal growth.

“This feels like the album Jon has been writing in the back of his head his whole career,” says Drew Shirley, Switchfoot’s lead guitarist and backup vocalist. “He’s finally gathered up all the experience and enough honesty and bravery. It feels like a culmination of all of our albums ... where the songs are backed up by the experience of our whole career.”

For two decades now, Switchfoot has toured the world, playing on both sides of the secular–sacred aisle. They’ve toured with Christian mainstays like Newsboys and, more recently, Relient K. They’ve also toured with Blink-182 and shared a

B Y N OW, S W I T C H F O O T K N OW S E X AC T LY W H AT T HE Y’R E DOING — B E C AU S E T H E Y ’ V E B E E N D O I N G I T F O R T WO D E C A D E S . BU T T H AT DOESN’T ME A N IT’S THE SA ME OLD M U S I C . W E TA L K E D TO FRON T M A N JON F O R E M A N A B O U T H OW T H E I R 10 T H A L BU M C A M E FROM A W HOL E N E W P L AC E — A N D C R E AT E D A W H O L E N E W S O U N D.

stage in Madison Square Garden with Destiny’s Child. They’re a Grammy-winning rock outfit that’s sold millions of albums, including the double-platinum Beautiful Letdown. And with this year’s Where the Light Shines Through, Switchfoot has now released their 10th album.

“We’ve done some touring as a band and been around the world a couple times,” Foreman says. “And now we’re coming out with our 10th album as Switchfoot, which is”—there’s a quick, thought-collecting pause—“yeah, it’s unreal.”

He can’t get that last word out—unreal—without a hearty, almost incredulous laugh.

FROM DARK TO HOPEFUL Yet it’s safe to say the creative process behind Where the Light Shines Through wasn’t always so laugh-inducing. Both Foreman and Shirley think about how, from its inception, the album felt much darker than their previous work.

“We were coming out of a dark season,” Shirley says. “But there was this breakthrough that happened—I can’t explain it.”

He summarized the breakthrough this way: “It’s in the hard times that you really see hope, where you find what your hope is made of.”

Foreman, as Switchfoot’s preeminent lyricist, felt the record’s unexpected

WHERE THE LIGHT SHINES THROUGH

Switchfoot’s 10th studio album debuted at No. 3 on the Alternative Albums chart.

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L to R: Jon Foreman, Jerome Fontamillas, Drew Shirley, Chad Butler, Tim Foreman

transition from hopeless to hopeful, from darkness to light, even more intensely.

“When we started, I thought we were making a dark, introspective record,” he says. “And then all of the sudden, somehow, out of that experience hope began to emanate, and it became a surprisingly hopeful album for me.”

In fact, Foreman contends this process offered a necessary season of growth for both Switchfoot and himself in particular.

“While wrestling through those darker things ... light began to break through,” he says. “In our wounded places, that’s actually where the light finds us. The wound is where the light shines through.”

With that last bit of reflection, Foreman is channeling both his inner poet and his inner pitchman. After all, “the wound is where the light shines through” comes straight from the title track’s chorus.

After more than a year of producing the album, its words are always on his lips even when there is no music.

WHAT’S A “CHRISTIAN SONG” ANYWAY? Where the Light Shines Through isn’t comprised of “Christian songs”—at least not in the sense the moniker is often employed, with all its pronoun paranoia of listeners scouring the album insert for the “yous” that might be “Yous” or, in this case, the “lights” that might be “Lights.”

Yet at the same time, what’s a “Christian song” if not a song written by a Christian?

Foreman himself bristles at any hard-andfast distinction between the Christian and the non-Christian, the sacred and the secular, especially when it comes to music.

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More than conforming to a certain demographic—not Christian enough for the Hillsong crowd; way too Christian for the Muse crowd—Foreman hopes Switchfoot upends the temptation to simply “fit in” for the sake of easy categorization or better market prowess.

“Fitting in is not a high enough goal to make of your life or your art,” Foreman says. “Your goal should be much higher than to blend in.”

You might hear this and roll your eyes, unfazed. But Foreman, Shirley and the rest of the band hold this conviction for a specific reason—one they don’t share with too many in the music industry.

Foreman says, “For us as a band, [we have] a much bigger goal, which is: How do we express timeless, transcendent truth that will open the windows and the doors of the soul, so people will look at a bigger horizon than what the mirror has to offer?”

Given this framework, asking Foreman the question everyone asks—“Is your music Christian?”—is not only simplistic; it’s unhelpful, distracting and potentially demeaning. It’s far better to ask, “Is your music really yours?” Or, put another way: “Is your music true?”

“I had one of my heroes tell me one time, ‘God doesn’t need a lawyer; your job is to be honest,’” Foreman says.

Foreman is clear that his approach doesn’t originate with him. In fact, it’s something he’s borrowed from the best musical minds of a former generation—the psalmists of ancient Israel.

“The psalmists told their story,” he says.

“There’s a ton of stuff in Scripture that is

awkward and uncomfortable. ... If you’re trying to make God’s people look good, then you did a horrible job editing Scripture. But if you’re trying to tell the truth, then that’s something else. And I feel like that’s what I’m trying to do.”

This is why Foreman finds the presupposed sacred-secular divide in art so frustrating—why the question “Do you make Christian music?” lands with a thud. In a critic’s hurry get to a song’s underlying meaning, the identity of the artist is obscured and, over time, forgotten.

“When I’m listening to someone else’s music, even if they have a different viewpoint than I do—you could be Buddhist, Muslim, agnostic, whatever it is—if you’re telling me your true experience, your honest expression, I want to hear it.”

LET’S GO THERE To say Where the Light Shines Through is an album that communicates hope in the middle of suffering is simply a depersonalized way of saying it’s an album that reflects life as a human in this world. Foreman’s lyrics strike a pitch-perfect balance between the conditional and the assertive, giving confident answers to the exasperated ifthens—and in so doing, he captures what Shirley called “the thread throughout the whole record ... that the darker things are, the brighter the light is.”

“I’ve found the things that I want to run from are often the things that make us human: pain, tension, chaos, uncomfortable situations,” Foreman says. “For me, the danger ... is to try and run away from pain, to minimize pain, but I’m old enough to know now that’s an unhealthy pursuit. I want to know what it means to live, not to avoid pain, but to actually live life abundantly.”

Foreman isn’t a pitchman; he’s not hawking the latest trendy wares that promise your best life now. He’s a poet, searching his soul for something to say.

He isn’t a preacher in a pulpit either.

He’s more like a psalmist at his prayer bench—or just a guy sitting out on a rock somewhere, within earshot of the Pacific Ocean—wringing his past to get words for the future, a future whose ending he already knows.

ALEX DUKE is a writer and editor living in Louisville, Kentucky.

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D

uring the third night of the Republican National Convention in July, Senator Ted Cruz, the runnerup in the Republican primary race, stood behind the lectern and refused to endorse Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee.

“Vote your conscience,” he urged the crowd, ignoring the boos and shouts of “We want Trump!”

It was a defiant move for a speaker at an event designed to unite the Republican party behind Trump, but in what has largely been considered one of the most contentious election seasons in recent memory, it wasn’t entirely surprising.

At the Democratic National Convention the following week, Hillary Clinton faced similar problems as hundreds of Bernie Sanders supporters protested her nomination.

Both incidents were symptomatic of just how conflicted Americans feel about the upcoming election. Faced with the choice between a reality TV star-businessman known for his fear-mongering rhetoric and a former first lady with a track record of not telling the truth, Americans aren’t thrilled with their choices.

A Barna study of registered American voters showed that 60 percent had an unfavorable view of Clinton and 69 had an unfavorable view of Trump, making them two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in history.

Christians are especially conflicted. While Donald Trump won the “evangelical” vote in the primaries and has been endorsed by faith leaders

such as Jerry Falwell Jr. and James Dobson, he earned criticism from other prominent Christian leaders such as Russell Moore and Max Lucado.

Clinton hasn’t fared any better. In a recent Reuters poll, almost 30 percent of “born-again” Christians said they wouldn’t vote for either of the major party candidates. Eleven percent of Christians between the ages of 18 and 29 said they wouldn’t vote at all.

TO VOTE OR NOT TO VOTE Suzii Paynter, the executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, argues that Christians are called to engage in politics, even when it’s messy.

“The way to combat disillusionment is engagement,” she says. “Sometimes we think ‘We’re disillusioned, we’re going to walk away.’ But what if Jesus had said that about us? Engagement isn’t necessarily always the most desirable thing, but I think it’s what we’re called to.”

Besides, she says, voting is about far more than our personal interests.

“Voting is one of the few things we do as a nation that is explicitly beyond ourselves,” she says.

“On one day of the year, we’re all doing something that isn’t just about our bank account, our job, our family. We’re doing something that is about the whole community. God’s asking us to be included in that voice.”

And, Paynter points out, voting is not just about who will become the next president. Along with electing leaders who will represent the country, Americans also choose leaders in their states, counties and cities. God cares about every level of leadership, she says, so voters should pause and prayerfully consider each candidate.

“How I vote when I’m considering my city may

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2016 VOTERS’ GUIDE Here’s where the two major candidates stand on issues that matter to you: HILLARY CLINTON DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE

DONALD TRUMP REPUBLICAN NOMINEE

ABORTION DO YOU SUPPORT LEGAL ABORTION? CLINTON: YES; TRUMP: UNCLE AR

C

“I believe we need to protect access to safe and legal abortion, not just in principle but in practice.”

T

“Friends of mine years ago were going to have a child, and it was going to be aborted. And it wasn’t aborted. And that child today is a total superstar, a great, great child.

And I saw that. And I saw other instances.”

EMPLOYMENT AND JOBS DO YOU SUPPORT RAISING THE NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE? CLINTON: YES; TRUMP: NO “Throughout this campaign, I’ve said that creating good-paying jobs and raising incomes is the defining economic challenge of our time, and that in order to get where I want us to go, we need growth that is strong, fair and long-term.”

C

T

“I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that.”

HEALTHCARE SHOULD OBAMACARE BE REPEALED? CLINTON: NO; TRUMP: YES

C

“Affordable health care is a basic human right.”

T

“We are going to repeal Obamacare.

We are going to replace Obamacare with something so much better.”

ISIS “A more effective air campaign is necessary but not sufficient. We should be honest that to be successful, airstrikes will have to be combined with ground forces.”

C

T

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“I would knock the hell out of ISIS in some form. I would rather not do it with our troops, you understand that.”

SEP_OCT 2016

be different than how I vote when I’m considering my state or the whole world,” she says. “How does my life intersect, how does my faith intersect my city? What are the ministries in my church that are affected in my city?

What’s my primary calling at this moment in my city? I might vote for different candidates when those questions are in my mind.”

Paynter says informed, nuanced voting that digs deeper than party labels can be part of a Christian’s witness. And sometimes, just being willing to engage with politics at all shows the world that Christians truly care about others.

“One of the reasons I vote is because I believe that God has called me to minister to human beings,” she says, “and love it or leave it, politics is the only organizing system that we have.”

THE ANTI-VOTE

Christian witness.

“When you, as the Bible would put it in Romans 1, give ‘hearty approval’ to things that are wicked, it does something to you,” he says. “I think it enables rightfully the charge that we are hypocrites, that we’re concerned about issues of moral clarity only when those issues tend to line up with our side, whatever side that is and then we’re silent about other things. It takes a lot to recover from that.”

THINKING DEEPER For Moore, the “voting against” attitude is symptomatic of a larger problem in American politics. Elections have become less about which party has a vision for the future that people find more compelling, he says, and more about beating the other party.

SOMETIMES WE THINK ‘WE’RE DISILLUSIONED, WE’RE GOING TO WALK AWAY.’ BUT WHAT IF JESUS HAD SAID THAT ABOUT US?

“Since many Americans can’t bring themselves to vote for a candidate, this year I say we should change the system so on election day you can vote against the candidate you don’t want,” Stephen Colbert joked on a Late Show episode after the Democratic National Convention.

It seems many voters have taken that attitude to heart. A Reuters poll found that nearly half of each candidate’s supporters said their primary reason for voting was that they didn’t want the other candidate to win.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, views this “lesser of two evils” voting as morally problematic. Christians, he says, are accountable for who they vote for, not just for who they vote against.

“When it comes to your vote, what you’re doing is you’re authorizing someone to act on your behalf,” he says. “With that level of responsibility, there comes accountability.”

Of course, Moore says, no candidate will be perfect, but backing a morally questionable candidate can hurt

“It’s become a way of vicariously participating in winning and losing,” Moore explains. “It’s kind of the experience someone has when his college football team wins a bowl championship. The reason he’s dancing around his living room is not because he feels happy for the players, it’s because he’s a winner. It’s his team and he’s won.

I think we’ve done that with politics where it’s, ‘These are the good people and those are the bad people.’”

Shane Claiborne, a Christian activist and author of books including Jesus for President, also sees this year’s political climate as a result of misplaced priorities.

“Donald Trump, I think, has shown us what happens to a society that has lost beatitudes of Jesus—blessed are the poor, the meek, the merciful,” he says.

“Those things that Jesus is blessing are the antithesis of many of the things that we’ve come to bless as a society.

“We can see what happens when we

make idols out of fame and wealth and power,” he continues. “I think it’s less about a person and more about a society. If we aren’t listening to Jesus, and if we aren’t trying to love our neighbor as ourself—the most fundamental summation of all of Scripture—then we really begin to unravel as a society.”

VOTING YOUR CONSCIENCE So, when the political choices aren’t clear, how can Christians vote their conscience?

One filter, Paynter says, is to consider how voting choices affect human flourishing and dignity.

“Imago Dei, the fact that every single person is a creation of God, loved

by God, is a filter that can be applied to a lot of different areas,” she says.

Moore agrees, but points out that while the Bible is clear about how this plays out in some areas, it often comes down to issues of conscience and agreeing to disagree.

“I have a clear word from God when I’m standing up and I’m speaking about how we deal with vulnerable people,” he says. “Do we abort unborn people? Do we harass people for the color of their skin? Do we want a state that is coming in and using the power

complicated than just picking a party platform, Paynter says.

“It would be a lot easier to vote based on my own personal, selfish little life, what was simply good for me,” she says. “It gives us some deliberations that make it difficult to look at different issues. But I do think priorities that come from the basic character of God do help us prioritize things on platforms. Because there are plenty of things that get put into platforms that really don’t rise to the level of a spiritual mandate, that’s for sure.

“If we love our neighbor, if we love our country, if we are compelled to love the world, then we are also being called to think deeper,” she continues.

Paynter admits that this deeper level of engagement takes a lot of work, but it’s worth our time.

“Whichever candidate you want for president, don’t vote based on bumper stickers or ads or tweets,” she says.

“Make that decision based on deliberate study of their positions and things like that so that you find a level place, a place you can invest in. It’s the ethic of consideration.”

Ultimately, Claiborne says, Christians have to remember that the end goal is not to get a certain candidate elected or back the winning party.

“As Christians, our ultimate allegiance is to Jesus,” he says. “Jesus says, ‘When you welcome the stranger, you welcome me. If you don’t welcome the stranger, you don’t welcome me.’

And Jesus says ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of God.’ We’ve got to carry those things with us. When we vote, ultimately, we’re trying to seek first the Kingdom of God. What’s going to bring God’s dream on Earth?”

WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR VOTE, YOU’RE AUTHORIZING SOMEONE TO ACT ON YOUR BEHALF. WITH THAT LEVEL OF RESPONSIBILITY, THERE COMES ACCOUNTABILITY. of the sword to coerce people in religious matters? Do we demonize refugees? We’ve got a word from God on those sorts of things.

“Then there are going to be other issues where we speak in terms of general principles,” he continues. “We talk about what it means to do justice toward the poor, but I may have people in my congregation who disagree about whether or not we ought to raise the minimum wage.”

This makes voting much more

DARGAN THOMPSON is a writer and editor based in Orlando, Florida. Find her on Twitter at @darganthompson.

COLLEGE DEBT DO YOU SUPPORT FORGIVING FEDERAL STUDENT LOANS? CLINTON: YES; TRUMP: UNCLE AR

C

“Let’s liberate the millions of Americans who already have student debt by making it easier to refinance, just like a mortgage. Let’s make it easier to have debt forgiven by doing national service.”

T

“[Federal loans are] probably one of the only things the government shouldn’t make money off.”

IMMIGRATION

SHOULD ‘DREAMERS’ HAVE A CLEAR PATH TO CITIZENSHIP? CLINTON: YES; TRUMP: NO

C

“If Congress refuses to act, as president I would do everything possible under the law to go even further [than President Obama at creating paths to citizenship].”

T

“We’re going to do a wall. We’re going to have a big, fat, beautiful door on the wall. We’re going to have people come in, but they’re going to come in legally. … Mexico’s going to pay for the wall.”

GUN CONTROL

DO YOU SUPPORT INCREASED BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR GUN PURCHASERS? CLINTON: YES; TRUMP: NO

C

“33,000 Americans a year die [from guns]. It is time for us to say we are going to have comprehensive background checks, we are going to close the gun-show loopholes.”

T

“The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed-carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do, too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states.”

CLIMATE CHANGE

SHOULD THE U.S. STAY IN THE PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD? CLINTON: YES; TRUMP: NO

C

“I won’t let anyone take us backward, deny our economy the benefits of harnessing a clean energy future or force our children to endure the catastrophe that would result from unchecked climate change.”

T

“This very expensive global warming bull****has to stop.”

The majority of this data comes from research by the Washington Post.

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BY A ARON CLINE HANBURY

CROLL THROUGH TWITTER OR INSTAGRAM FEEDS, and odds are you’ll see Christians of the millennial variety posting quotes from or about Richard Rohr. You’re just as likely to see a faith leader or celebrity talking about him.

Rohr’s influence is wide already, and it’s expanding. Some 30 years ago, Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation. Today, he trains people from all kinds of backgrounds and traditions—Rohr explains that of these students “a third of them are evangelical, a third are mainline Protestant, several are unbelievers and the rest are Catholic”—in his unique brand of spirituality and prayer.

He’s a widely read author and an increasingly popular conference speaker. But he's not about pop-faith. Rohr is a man of deep tradition—he’s a friar within the Franciscan tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. And since the 1970s, he’s written and taught about prayer and mystic spirituality. He’s popular in some circles and controversial in others (on a spectrum from left to right, Rohr happily sits on the far left).

We sat down with Rohr to learn about the vision of prayer that is creating all this buzz.

YOU ARE A FRANCISCAN FRIAR—CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT THAT MEANS?

Francis of Assisi lived in the 13th century and his big attempt to reform the church at that point was for us to get more identified with the poor. Instead of the clergy being those who are seeking a career or class position, he wanted to aim us in the exact opposite direction.

So in our 800-year history, we’ve been much more identified with those on the bottom. That’s our spirituality.

And “friar” was a term that became popular under St. Francis in order to disassociate ourselves with the monastic orders (who you would call “monks”).

WHAT’S YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH?

We’ve always been accepted, ironically, as a minority position within the church. We were never considered heretics or kicked

out. To be perfectly honest, I think the church always needed us because we were always more popular with the ordinary people.

WHAT MAKES YOU A MINORITY GROUP?

Identifying with minorities. We weren’t trying to be bishops or be in positions of power. That’s why it was so extraordinary when Pope Francis took the name “Francis.” You almost have to be an insider to the Catholic Church to realize what a shock that was. Because for a Catholic, Francis is a non-establishment saint.

That’s the big thing: the realignment with the powerless instead of the powerful and that often put us at odds with the hierarchy.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR DIFFERENCES WITH PROTESTANT CHRISTIANS?

In terms of humanity’s relation to God, [Protestants teach] some kind of necessary transaction of blood sacrifice that was needed by God to forgive or to love or to accept humanity. The Franciscan school never accepted that. Our Christology is much more of a nonviolent theory of atonement.

To put it in two sentences: Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity, it didn’t need changing. Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. PRACTICALLY SPEAKING, WHAT DOES THE FRANCISCAN EXPERIENCE LOOK LIKE?

If you would have come to church this morning, I would have been dressed up in all the usual robes. Now maybe the preaching I did would have had a little different character to it, but I celebrate a

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parish Mass like any other priest would.

I hope it's not in a ritualistic, legalistic or triumphalistic style.

We teach contemplative prayer at the center. Our whole practice is: We come in silence, we sit together in silence for 20 minutes and we train people what to do with their minds during that silence. So our personal style is very different than the parish style.

AS YOU REFERENCED, A HUGE PART OF YOUR TEACHING CENTERS AROUND CONTEMPLATION AND CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN BY “CONTEMPLATION”?

contemplative prayer goes. It’s the divine therapy, I’m convinced.

THE NAME OF YOUR ORGANIZATION ITSELF—THE CENTER FOR ACTION AND CONTEMPLATION—COMBINES CONTEMPLATION WITH, OF ALL THINGS, ACTION. THAT SEEMS CONTRADICTORY.

They really are the classic polarity in the history of spirituality, and the pendulum is always swinging to one side or the other.

I deliberately put the word “action” first because I don’t think you have much to contemplate until you’ve been out on the field and made some mistakes and loved and sinned and did it wrong a few times.

They really aren’t contradictory; they’re complementary. If you send people into active ministry without any inner life,

TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN IN YOUR VIEW?

First of all, let me tell you what is not.

I do not think that the New Testament is talking about Jesus taking people to Heaven. This is so corrupt, the whole notion of the freedom, enlightenment and eternal life—I’m not denying eternal life. By pushing this whole thing into the future and making salvation a rewardpunishment system where a few win and most lose, I think that’s destroyed the transformative power of the Gospel.

So for me, salvation is a present experience of living in loving union with God and your neighbor and the freedom to love God and the freedom to love your neighbor—which is a lot of surrendering of your own agenda and anger and things that we’ve been talking about.

Contemplative prayer is largely a practice of disidentification with your own compulsive thoughts and obsessive feelings. I always say when I teach contemplation, “Most people do not YOU’VE WRITTEN A LOT ABOUT see things as they are; most people MYSTICISM AND THE ‘DEEPER WH E R E YO U R see things as they are.” They see it SELF’—YOU TALK ABOUT THE WO U N DS AND H U RT through their own agendas, and it ‘TRUE SELF’ AND THE ‘FALSE doesn't lead to very broad seeing.

SELF.’ WHAT IS YOUR DEEPER R E A L LY L I E I S I N In religious language, we’re SELF? handing over to God all the Your true self is who you are in God TH E U NCO NS C I O U S , negative, fearful, angry thoughts from all eternity. As Ephesians A N D TH AT ' S W H ER E that try to grab hold of us. Now, would say “chosen in Christ from when that stream of consciousness before the world began.” Your CO N T EM PL AT I V E clears out—and it does with some true self has nothing to do with regularity—it’s always a wonderful your temperament, Myers-Briggs P R AY E R G O E S . sense of openness to the divine, type, nationality, race or religious to whatever God wants to say. denomination—those are all your Because, basically, you’re not in the way. they’re usually going to become ideologues false self. or rigid. But if you send people into all Now when I use “false” I’m not saying TO WHAT EXTENT ARE THOSE WHO ARE kinds of inner prayer experiences and they it’s bad. I’m simply saying that it’s window PRACTICING CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER never serve the poor or serve the world, dressing. The phrase I use often is from HEARING FROM GOD IN YOUR VIEW? IS IT then you’ve got another set of problems.

Colossians where Paul says, “We are LITERAL? hidden with Christ in God.” That’s your No, quite the opposite. I’d say what IS THE GOAL TO STRIKE A BALANCE true self, and that doesn’t go up and down. characterizes God speaking is very often BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM? You can’t lose or gain it. All you can do is a sense of gratuity, a sense of vitality. A balance that converts you. When you allow it, rest in it and draw from it.

It’s not dogmatic words. Probably the face your own shadow, you have to look The one, always-valid function of word that would cover most bases is it’s a at your own biases and limitations. But religion is to awaken people to their true descendance of presence. So it’s not that then hopefully whatever wholeness you’ve selves. That’s our job, and what we do so you come out of prayer with a big message, achieved you’re able to bring it into your much is simply stir the false self: Try to but I hope after years of practice you do ministry and represent it in the world. make the person more Catholic or more speak with a greater clarity, compassion, You’re also calling people on one side or evangelical or more law-abiding. freedom and grace. It’s cumulative in the other to some kind of balance between That naked, foundational identity is terms of how you hear God and it’s always contemplation and action. what you come to rest in the longer you can a sense of gratuity. live in contemplative prayer—you let go of Where your wounds and hurt really lie ‘CONVERTS’ AS IN SALVATION? WHAT all these passing identities and learn to rest is in the unconscious, and that’s where ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR SOMEONE in the one that never dies.

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To whom it may concern

We We are are not not interested interested in in finding finding the the“qualified.” “qualified.”This Thisisisaasearch searchfor forthe thebrave brave few who find value in serving others and showing mercy. few who find value in serving others and showing mercy.

This This is is not not aa program program to to participate participatein inbut butaanew newway wayof ofbeing, being,aalife lifededicated dedicated to intentional community, humble service, and the stewardship of grace. to intentional community, humble service, and the stewardship of grace.

The The requirement requirement is is caring. caring. The The measurement measurementisisempathy. empathy.

Only Only apply apply if if you you are are poor poor in in spirit. spirit. You Youmourn. mourn.You’re You’remeek. meek.You’re You’reaa peacemaker, persecuted and insulted, but also blessed, made peacemaker, persecuted and insulted, but also blessed, maderighteous righteous and and redeemed. redeemed.

Only Only apply apply if if you you believe believe in in giving, giving, not nottaking. taking.When Whenthe theworld worldtells tellsyou youto to consume, collect, gain, and prove—you choose to share, help, heal, and consume, collect, gain, and prove—you choose to share, help, heal, andlove. love.

Christ Christ bids bids you you come come and and die, die, to to be bepart partof ofaageneration generationof ofhealers, healers,not notthose those who who harm; harm; of of those those who who are are here here to toserve servenot notto tobe beserved. served.

JOIN JOIN US. US. SERVE SERVE SEATTLE. SEATTLE.

Sincerely The brokenhearted, The brokenhearted, The bruised, The bruised, The weary, The weary, The redeemed.

The redeemed.

A ministry of A ministry of

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JACK H USTON IS TAKI N G H IS PL ACE I N H ISTORY B Y E R I C VA N VA L I N PHOTOS BY BRIAN BOW EN SMITH

H E ’ S TA K I N G O N T H E R O L E O F A L IF E T I M E BY R E-I M AGI N I NG B E N - H U R ’ S J U DA H . W I L L T H I S B R E A KO U T A C T O R R I S E T O T H E OCCASION?

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talians are used to major film studios descending on their country’s ancient cities and picturesque countrysides in pursuit of the next blockbuster.

As massive film productions fill historic locations with trucks, crews and extras for months on end, the locals have a tongue-in-cheek question: “What are you filming, Ben-Hur?” The rhetorical question dates back to the 1959 film version of Ben-Hur, a production that built 300 sets in Rome, employed more than 15,000 extras in one scene alone and filmed for nine months for the then-most expensive film ever made. At three hours and 44 minutes long, directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston, the picture is defined by its Herculean efforts.

Fifty-seven years later, the answer to the Italian locals’ question is, “Yes.” MGM and Paramount have teamed with faith-driven producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey (Survivor, The Voice, and The Bible), to re-imagine this historical epic. It’s an audacious move, taking on the most awarded movie ever—and no less so for the man filling Heston’s sandals in the lead role, Jack Huston.

THE THEMES THEMSELVES IN THE BOOK AND MOVIE ARE UNIVERSAL .

THEMES OF REDEMPTION, OF FORGIVENESS, OF LOVE .

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The elder was a Canadian vaudevillian actor who moved to New York to perform on Broadway in the early 1920s. Once “talkies” became popular, Walter Huston headed to Hollywood in search of work in the new film medium. Today, Jack Huston credits the actions of his great-grandfather as the impetus for his family’s lineage in cinema.

“He got on a train when he was 14 from Canada with a buddy and worked in these horrible conditions. He went to New York and started in theater and was working in the worst conditions year after year just because he loved it. It’s got to come Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman bring new from a place of love.” life to Judah Ben-Hur and Ilderim in this The Huston patriarch reboot of Ben-Hur. eventually gained fame as an actor later in his career, winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as the Old Prospector in The Treasure for Sierra *** Madre—a film directed by his son, John Huston is 33, and in person he looks a Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The African little more J. Crew model than epic hero.

Queen), who is a cornerstone director of He’s best known for his masked characAmerican cinema. ter, Richard Harrow, in the HBO series So for the youngest Huston, the deBoardwalk Empire. Ben-Hur will be his cision to join the family business was first leading role in a major feature film. instinctual.

But to say he was born to be a leading “I fell in love with acting before I reman would be putting it literally: Jack alized it could be a profession,” Huston represents a fourth generation of Hussays. “I was lucky enough to have a family tons who have played prominent roles in who loved film—the whole process of film American cinema. They’re Hollywood and acting. I have a family who for many royalty. generations, it’s what they do. It comes Huston’s earliest film memories are from a place of love and it happened very visiting sets with his aunt, Oscar winner organically.”

Anjelica Huston (The Royal Tenenbaums, Now, as the lead in a mega-budget film, NBC’s Smash). His father Tony Huston he’s stepping into his place in the family and uncle Danny Huston (Children of history—and in film history, too.

Men, 21 Grams) have also enjoyed prolific film careers. *** The younger Huston was raised in England. After being trained in theater, The 1959 Ben-Hur garnered 11 Academy he left his home country for the U.S., folAwards. The film’s famous chariot race— lowing a path laid out by his great-granda sequence that alone took five months to father, Walter Huston. shoot—remains one of the most famous

scenes in film history. But the story goes back far beyond the ‘50s.

The very first iteration of Ben-Hur on film was the 1925 epic directed by Fred Niblo and starring Ramon Navarro as Judah Ben-Hur. It, too, was the most expensive film of its day and remains a classic “silent” film—one that still earns regular screenings in revival theaters around the U.S. Both the 1925 and 1959 versions of BenHur were their era’s preeminent showcases of studio grandiosity. Their public reception paralleled that of their source material: the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace, a Union General in the Civil War who later became the governor of the New Mexico territory.

Wallace wrote Ben-Hur in his free time partly as an exploration into his own faith.

The novel would go on to be called “the most influential Christian book of the century” and would continue to pop up on bestseller lists a century after its release.

Now, 136 years later, the next in line to portray the Jewish prince is also the heir of a Hollywood legacy.

*** Huston recognizes the significance of being asked to inhabit one of film’s most legendary characters, Judah Ben-Hur. “As an actor,” Huston says, “you spend your life looking for those roles. And you don’t really get any better than Judah Ben-Hur. I mean, that journey is second to none.”

Judah’s journey in this film stays close to the structure of the original novel, where he is betrayed by his closest friend, Messala (Toby Kebbell), and convicted of a crime he did not commit. Judah’s family is sent to prison and he is sentenced to a life of slave labor in the galleys of a Roman warship. He eventually escapes in the midst of a naval battle and Judah is able to find refuge with Ilderim (Morgan Freeman), a wealthy merchant who sponsors Judah in the chariot races, giving him the chance to avenge his family and gain his freedom.

Throughout the journey, Judah meets opportunities of either vengeance or forgiveness, and he remains conflicted at every turn.

“I always say the great thing about Judah is that he’s a hero, but he’s a

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Above: The cast films one of the movie’s many action scenes.

Below: Jack Huston as Judah Ben-Hur

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flawed hero,” Huston says. “When I say ‘flawed,’ that’s the greatest type of character, because it’s human. When you meet Judah at the beginning of the movie, he’s this young, rather naive prince. Through circumstance and through the choices he makes he gets sent on a very different path—to the gut of one of these ships.

“When you meet him again five years later, he’s hardened, his voice has changed, his body, mannerism, his stare,” he says. “As an actor, I revel in this stuff because I really got to play and I really got to discover this character.”

As in all previous versions of Ben-Hur, this film revolves around two major action sequences—a naval battle at sea and a climactic chariot race.

Director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer), who is known for CGI-heavy films, wanted to place the audience in the middle of the Ben-Hur action without relying on excessive special effects.

Huston explains, “The way Timur uses CGI is visceral—but he is very aware that’s what he’s known for. He said when we first sat down, that he wanted it to be very immersive for the audience. When you think Ben-Hur, you think chariots.

“Timur said, ‘I want the audience to experience what it is like to be on the chariot. Which means you have to be on the chariot, experiencing everything.’”

Huston continues, “Which means we did everything. Every time you see our faces going around on those

chariots—that’s us doing it.”

Performing his own stunts meant Huston would go through intense training as he learned to drive and maneuver a fourhorse chariot for all of the shots in the precisely choreographed action sequence in the Circus Maximus.

“When do you get on a chariot?” he asks. “Especially with four horses? It’s mental really. And when you first do it, you’re convinced you are going to die.

“We were doing fight training, a lot with horse training and also a personal training, working out twice a day. You sometimes have a 14-16 hour day. It was brutal.”

To prepare for the naval battle scene where Judah is enslaved in the galleys, Huston slimmed down 30 pounds from the rest of the film, which wasn’t easy.

“I’m in the greatest city in the world for food, Rome. And I can’t have any of it,” he bemoans. “I had a chef who is having to make me very bland, protein heavy food. But it was good because it kind of put me in a certain head space. The clarity I had when I was there—I’ve never felt more clear creatively, emotionally.”

*** The production filmed the chariot sequence in Rome’s Cinecitta Studios, a historic location for the Ben-Hur franchise and for Huston, too.

Not only was the 1959 version filmed in the same location, but Huston’s grandfather (John Huston) filmed there as well.

“He shot The Bible there where he played Noah and the voice of God,” Huston adds. “A lot of the people working on this film had parents who worked on the ‘59 version. My makeup artist’s father worked on the original. It felt like a good omen.”

In addition to Rome, the production filmed in the ancient southern Italian city of Matera, a perfect backdrop to recreate Jerusalem, the center of Jewish life in the first century.

“It’s one of the oldest known cities in the world,” Huston explains. “And it’s basically caves; all the houses basically turn into caves carved out of the rock face. It’s just beautiful. You’d look over it and you’d be transformed. That stuff really helps put you in the right head space

of Old Jerusalem. It felt very immersive at all times.”

But not everything is the same.

*** A major difference in the new Ben-Hur is the way Jesus Christ is depicted in the film. Ben-Hur is the rare fictional first century story that isn’t based on a story directly from the Bible.

When writing the original novel, Wallace wanted to incorporate Christ into the story, but knew the largely Christian audience of 1880 would consider a fictional Jesus story blasphemous. So instead, he placed what he considered an historically accurate Jesus in the heart of Judah’s story. Wallace imagined a world where the two men’s lives intersect at significant moments.

In both the 1925 and 1959 film versions, this reverence is maintained as Christ’s face never appears directly. In the ‘59 version, Wyler only showed the back of Christ and any words that came from Jesus’ mouth were pulled directly from the red letters of the King James Bible.

In the newest film, Christ, played by Rodrigo Santoro, is presented like other

AS AN ACTOR, I REVEL IN THIS STUFF BECAUSE I REALLY GOT TO PLAY AND I REALLY GOT TO DISCOVER THIS CHARACTER. characters in the film, as a Jerusalem local who offers Judah words of wisdom throughout the story.

“In this film you actually get to experience Jesus,” Huston says. “In the Wyler version you only get to see Jesus from the back. I’m very happy Timur did it the way he did. Judah sees Jesus as a man, as a carpenter. And in moments of need, Jesus shows him such kindness during need—a lesson of how you treat your fellow man.”

He adds, “Even in Jesus’ crucifixion, it’s a moment because he’s been such an important part of Judah’s moment, and

witnessing Jesus forgive allows Judah to do that, too, as a man.”

Huston thinks his character’s journey toward redemption is epitomized in a scene where Judah picks up a rock to defend the Christ as he carries his cross.

In an improvised moment on set, Huston describes what came to be a defining moment for his character: Just as Judah is about to defend Jesus with a rock inhand, “[Jesus] says, ‘I give up my life by my own free will.’

“Initially, I was meant to just let go of the rock. I told Timur, ‘I don’t feel like I should let go of the rock.’ And I went up and followed Him to the crucifixion, and I witness this act of forgiveness he goes through. And when he does that, I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s where I let go of the rock.’ And when I let go, I let go of all of this baggage, all of this anger, all of this hatred. That was amazing for me because that very organically came about in this movie.”

Ultimately for Huston, this retelling offers the chance to convey to a modern audience the same message and grand scale of the previous versions.

“The themes themselves in the book and movie are universal,” he says.

“Themes of redemption, of forgiveness, of love. We are human, we are flawed, and it’s coming to terms with those flaws.

How do we drop our baggage and look into the future rather than looking into the past?”

Because as much as Ben-Hur is historical, it’s also timeless.

ERIC VANVALIN is a writer and filmmaker living in LA. Find more on his blog, pickingupshells.com.

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7 PROV EN WA Y S T O DE-STR ESS YOUR LIFE

BY K AR A BETTIS

M

ILLENNIALS HEAR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN: We’re the most connected generation, the busiest generation. Some call us lazy, but if we’re slackers, why do we constantly feel stressed out?

Most Americans say that stress interferes substantially in their lives, and diagnosable anxiety disorders affect 40 million American adults, about 18 percent of the population, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Although they are treatable, only a third of people with diagnosable disorders actually receive some type of treatment. But chronic stress can actually affect our health, from headaches to sleep loss.

So, is it possible to get rid of that stressed out feeling? What does it take? We talked to multiple professional Christian counselors, and they outlined ways we can untangle the factors that cause us to feel worried and overstimulated in our day-to-day lives. Here are seven of them:

1. BE INTENTIONAL Actively working toward reducing stress cuts down on the physical and mental damage from chronic stress. The definition of de-stress seems simple: “to relax your body or mind; to stop feeling the effects of stress.” Sounds easy, right?

Multiple counselors emphasized that the process of unloading the stressful factors in our lives is not an overnight solution. Similar to the process after becoming a Christian; changing habits and patterns takes effort and intentionality—even with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. When we seek to lose weight or get in shape, we must be intentional with changing our habits and making the effort to achieve our worthwhile goal.

“You didn’t get stressed overnight so you aren’t going to get unstressed overnight,” says Nancy Nichols, founder of a counseling practice called the Nehemiah Project. “There are immediate steps you can take, but in order to take control over your life it’s going to take more than a quick pill or quick fix.

Take the time to sit down and look at your life, declutter your mind from the stress.”

2. IDENTIFY THE UNHELPFUL (OR SINFUL) STRESSES IN YOUR LIFE Part of the intentionality and process of sorting through the roots of stress is deciphering which stresses are negative influences in our lives. After all, some stress is helpful—we all know someone who works best under a tight deadline.

“Like many of our internal experiences, stress is a reaction to our environment that has a function in our lives. Short-term, mild stress can function as a motivational tool that helps people accomplish goals or make changes in their environment (for example, changing how we communicate with a significant other),” says Christopher Cook, a counseling instructor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. “However, the chronic stress that many people experience as a result of a fast-paced lifestyle can have a negative effect on mental and physical health.”

Counseling professor Heather Davediuk Gingrich adds that really, there is no way to get away from stress. She pointed to Hans Selye, a Canadian physiologist who paved the way in studying stress.

“Selye talked about the optimum level of stress being one at which we are accomplishing things and enjoying life without feeling ‘distress,’ the negative aspects of stress. He made a great analogy using a guitar. If a guitar’s strings are not tight enough, it won’t make music i.e., some stress needs to be placed on them. However, if the guitar strings are wound too tightly, they’ll break i.e., distress.

It’s the same with us.”

3. TAKE CARE OF YOUR PHYSICAL SELF Just as chronic stress can reveal itself through physical symptoms, taking care of ourselves can reduce anxiety. Although it’s tempting to attempt to solve our stressful situation by sleeping less, eating too little or too much or skipping the gym, that will actually make us feel worse.

“Taking care of our physical bodies has been proven to help with stress,” Davediuk Gingrich adds. “Getting enough sleep, eating properly and exercising can impact our body’s biochemical makeup, including decreasing stress hormones.”

David Dixon, director of the Carmel Counseling

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Center, gets even more specific: “Regular exercise is a must—cardiovascular and light weights. This should be done three to four times a week to de-stress one’s life,” he says. “Eat healthily—fruits, vegetables, low-carbs, protein, almonds and walnuts to snack on during the day, avoid a lot of carbohydrates and sugars.”

4. SET BOUNDARIES Depending on individual personalities, setting boundaries might look different for each person. It’s difficult to say no and leave margin in our lives for life’s twists and turns, but it’s a key life skill to learn.

“You need to be self-aware enough to know when you are nearing your ‘distress’ limit and learn to say

OU R INTER ACTIONS W ITH O T H E R S C A N O F T E N H AV E T H E MOST SIGN I FIC A NT I M PA C T O N O U R F E E L I N G S OF A N X I E T Y. ‘no’ when necessary,” Davediuk Gingrich says. “In her research, Brene Brown has found that people sometimes say “yes” because they want to be nice, but it actually backfires. Setting boundaries allows us to be more loving than doing things for people motivated by what they will think of us.”

Andi J. Thacker, an assistant professor of counseling at Dallas Theological Seminary, is a big proponent of unplugging. “One thing that can be very helpful is to set and maintain appropriate boundaries, especially with technology. Many stresses come from our constant tether to our phones, emails, social media, etc. So actively deciding on when to ‘unplug’ is crucial.”

5. IDENTIFY “LIFE-GIVING” ACTIVITIES, AND PRIORITIZE THEM If your job is stressful, is it fitting your gifts and talents? Are you leaving time for hobbies? That’s important, says Davediuk Gingrich.

“Individuals can spend a lot of hours working, but if that work uses their strengths, it will not be experienced as nearly as stressful than if someone is constantly working with limitations,” she says.

“Also, finding activities that rejuvenate is important. For me, involvement in music and time outdoors and in nature are essential. Even if these activities take time, I feel more refreshed emotionally

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and spiritually when I engage in these activities.

Each person needs to find what works for them.”

6. CHECK ON YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE Most Christians believe that mental health is related to the health of our soul. Are we prioritizing our relationship with the Lord?

More importantly, it can also hinder our effectiveness for Kingdom work, Thacker adds.

“The Lord instructs us to cast our burdens on Him,” she says. “Sometimes this is a very active process of turning to him and also making wise decisions with the time He has given us to steward.”

Dixon adds: “I have found in talking with people through the years that one’s walk with God has become just another task in their busy world.

“This often causes stress and people begin to avoid the very object which is life-giving: their relationship with God in Christ. When this happens something that might be helpful is to set time with God having no agenda—no devotional book, no Bible, no verses to memorize, no music, etc. Only you and God with the assignment of listening. Without fail when I give this assignment people begin to share their need to re-organize their life—prioritizing it to become less stressful and more available to pursue the better way of living for God, others and self.”

7. PURSUE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS Our interactions with others can often have the most significant impact on our feelings of anxiety.

Christians especially might feel obligated to care for others at the cost of their own self-care. This could look like cutting out unhealthy relationships, but also replacing them with life-giving relationships.

“Develop relationships where proper care for each other is reciprocated i.e., avoid ‘one-way’ relationships where one is continually pouring in but receives nothing in return,” Dixon says. “This does not mean one never ‘bears the burdens of others’ (Galatians 6), but proper practice of daily boundaries will equip you for those special times of helping a friend through a difficult time.”

“Foster community and relationship and demonstrate what true intimacy (in relationships) looks like,” Nichols advises. “Who are the life suckers in your life? Limit your exposure to those people.

Find the life-givers and put yourself in their lives: people who build you up, encourage you, give you direction, cast vision and hope. Every one of us needs godly counselors.”

K AR A BET TIS is a Boston area reporter and freelancer on topics of faith, politics and culture. She tweets @karabettis.

Alex Aguas, M.Div. ’12 Matthew Veling, M.Div. ’11 Co-pastors Restoration Abbey

Finding God in a Pizza Restaurant

While students at Azusa Pacific Seminary, Alex and Matthew often wondered about how they could “do church” in a way that tore down walls and passed on the gift of Christian faith to other generations.

After graduating, they founded Restoration Abbey— a church in a pizza restaurant.

Watch Alex and Matthew’s story at apu.edu/stories/restoration-abbey/.

Visit apu.edu/seminary to learn more about how the seminary can help you transform the world with Christ through one of its five degree programs in Azusa, Los Angeles, or San Diego: Doctor of Ministry Master of Divinity Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies Master of Arts (Theological Studies) Master of Arts in Transformational Urban RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM Leadership

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you find yourself putting “Elevate” on repeat or spinning When the Night again and again—like so many other St. Lucia fans—you’re doing it right. That’s what JeanPhilip Grobler intends when writing and recording a new St. Lucia album. It’s beyond simple listening; Grobler hopes you inhabit the music.

For the last four years, Grobler’s aim has proved true. St. Lucia’s self-titled extended play dropped in 2012 and catapulted the South African to semi-stardom fairly quickly. Grobler’s infectious, layered musical compositions are dressed and ready for a late-‘80s night on the town, but dated dance pop it is not. Instead, St. Lucia takes such references and reinvents them into global hits like “Elevate,” “Dancing on Glass” and “All Eyes on You,” all of which have led to global tours, marquee slots on major festivals, numerous commercial placements and a label deal with Columbia Records.

Perhaps St. Lucia holds such musical sway because Grobler’s inspiration comes not so much from other artists as architecture.

As upbeat, jubilant and even whimsical as some of St. Lucia’s songs can feel, they also come at a price. Grobler admits the insular nature of his creative process in his earliest days became very unhealthy. The pressure of his own expectations and the resulting fear of not having things perfect nearly proved too much. “I nearly lost my mind in the process,” he says.

“When the Night was the first full-length album I’d ever made, and all of the latent energy and ideas from my teens and twenties went into making it. I’d been involved in a bunch of different musical things up until that point, but making an album and being my own musical ‘artist’ was what I always wanted to do, so I took it very seriously and labored over it endlessly almost all by myself in my own studio until it was done.

“Matter was made in a lot of different places— in vans, buses, hotel rooms, in South Africa, Australia, the U.S. and Europe. I was distracted by a lot of outside things while making Matter because we were touring a lot and promoting When the Night, but I think that distraction was good.

“I started writing for Matter way before When the Night was even released because I take a long time to form a coherent idea of an album. I knew I needed to really put the time in to do it. I’d also overcome some of my insecurities in terms of being a performer and showing my voice, and was more open to writing with other people.

Ultimately, I feel like Matter is kind of like me opening my doors to the world.”

IF A FEW YEARS A G O, T H E S E I N D I E DA R L I N G S G O T A TON OF BUZZ .

WITH THEIR N E W A L BU M, IS S T. L U C I A R E A D Y FOR THE NEX T L E V EL?

MATTER

The band’s second album hit No. 22 on the Spotify Viral 50 chart.

L to R: Patti Beranek, Dustin Kaufman, Jean-Philip Grobler, Ross Clark, Nick Paul

Because the songwriting for his latest album began so early, it’s not surprising to hear Grobler admit many of the early ideas for Matter sounded similar to When the Night. “I pushed them aside in favor of the songs that felt fresh to me,” he says.

“For a song to make it onto an album, something needs to feel new or fresh about it,” he says. “I write so many songs for every album—I don’t even know how many—but there are normally groupings of about three or four songs that all come from a similar place and explore a similar sound, world or idea. Only one of those songs actually ends up making it onto the album because that song is the one that communicates that idea or feeling most elegantly or truly.”

Grobler credits his love for older pop/rock influences to his artistic parents, who allowed for more interactions with popular culture than what most conservative South African households might have allowed. He described it as a “guarded musical landscape” but is thankful for parents who came from “artistically progressive places.”

Behind the celebratory sheen of his music, St. Lucia’s songs are often about more somber subjects—from relational concerns to complex issues. “I’m basically leading my dream life, but still, not everything is perfect ... Without saying too much, the lyrics detail all of these inner struggles and demons that I’m dealing with and my otherwise ‘perfect’ life.”

That said, the feel—the aesthetic—is unlikely to change anytime soon. If St. Lucia’s songs feel warm, it’s due to Grobler’s artistic intent.

In response to cultural minimalism and a trend toward art that is “quite cold,” Grobler believes it’s important to craft songs that respond to the beauty and vibrancy of life.

“Romance is almost a completely dead idea in music, whether it’s romance thematically or romance in terms of the nature of the music,” says Grobler. “We live in a time in the world where the idea of opulence or romance seems completely ludicrous and at odds with the supposed reality of the world. Most popular or ‘cool’ music is minimal and, in my opinion, quite cold.

“I like music like that, just like I like simplicity in certain parts of my life,” he continues. “But I also really like thinking of life and reality as this completely limitless, beautiful, romantic thing, and I think it’s important to keep those ideals alive, as unrealistic or uncool as that may seem at the time.”

MAT T CONNER is a freelance writer and editor living in Nashville, Tennessee.

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T HE CH U RCH C A N NO LONGER A FFOR D T O I G N O R E T H E WAY R A C I A L I N J U S T I C E EXISTS IN A MER ICA .

B

ack in 2012, in a northern suburb of Orlando, it began anew. An unarmed, 17-yearold black teen was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, and Trayvon Martin’s death re-awakened deep racial tensions in

the United States.

A couple of years later, the shooting of another unarmed black teen, Michael Brown, sparked protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Since then, the news has seemingly featured a constant stream of headlines about black men and women killed unjustly. Those protests in Missouri, in a sense, continue. They birthed what we now know as the Black Lives Matter movement.

Of course, race problems in America started long before 2012. It’s an issue Christians not only can’t ignore, but also need to take a proactive role in changing. Below is a conversation with three black, Christian influencers on how we can find a new way forward.

ARE RACIAL TENSIONS HIGHER THAN BEFORE, OR ARE WE SIMPLY MORE AWARE OF THEM BECAUSE OF SOCIAL MEDIA? There is a reality that people of color have known, that racism has existed pretty much since we’ve touched down in America.

That reality hasn’t necessarily disappeared, but it changes shape. I think the argument that types of policing you find with people of color has replaced the brutality of Jim Crow is just something we live with.

That’s not to say that every black man in jail is Nelson Mandela. Because they are not.

But the reality of the trauma we’ve faced as a

whole—some populations more than others—is now more known.

Having said that, I think white awareness is a wonderful thing. At the end of the day, when white men get involved, things change. That’s just how our country works. When white men got involved in the Civil Rights movement, things changed.

Emmett Till was 14 years old when he was brutally murdered in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The images of his mangled and barely discernible face, in his open casket funeral, are haunting. His killers were set free. The Equal Justice Initiative has gathered documentation of over 4,000 lynchings throughout the Jim Crow era (which lasted much longer than any of us wants to believe).

And those are only the ones they found record of.

The war against black bodies is ongoing—I believe we just have more exposure at the moment.

I also believe there is a heightening level of comfort with being openly disgusted and vengeful with blackness—which in part was escalated with both elections of our first African-American president. This open vengefulness is paired with smartphones and social media and we have quite the scene on our hands.

Z A K I YA J AC K S O N:

P R O PAG A N DA :

Still, I can’t cite three cases from the ’70s that were as brutal as the Alton Sterling case.

P R O PA G A N DA :

WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND WHEN YOU SEE POLICE SHOOTINGS LIKE THOSE INVOLVING ALTON STERLING? P R O PA G A N DA :

To be real, it felt like trauma.

PEOPLE TALKING IN THE ARTICLE Three black influencers talk to us about their experiences with race in America.

PROPAGANDA

LECRAE

ZAKIYA JACKSON

Poet, rapper

Rapper

Author, activist

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A TIMELINE OF NATIONAL TRAGEDY TRAYVON MARTIN Here’s a look at some of the black men and women who lost their lives in very public killings since 2012.

Sanford, Florida February 2012

JONATHAN FERRELL

RENISHA MCBRIDE

Charlotte, North Carolina September 2013

Dearborn Heights, Michigan November 2013

Studies show that the psychological experience of being a young black man in the inner-city is PTSD. And these shootings felt like a trigger. I realized this when I found myself becoming exhausted and having zero desire to help people process or do any sort of blogs or interviews such as this one. It made me realize, man, I was suffering from trauma and I did not have time to mourn or process just another dead body. I really felt helpless after a while.

J A C K S O N:

In general when I watch them, my mind

AND CONTRARY TO SOME CURRENT BELIEFS, THERE ARE MANY CHRISTIANS INVOLVED IN THE #BLACKLIVESMATTER MOVEMENT TODAY. freezes or races—with the same loops. My life, my baby nephew who is now almost 8, my brothers—black men who are confident and strong and a threat just because they walk around like free men, like Jesse Williams said in his amazing speech recently.

I think about how scared I am to drive alone outside of any major city. How I don’t want to drive much at night. How these fears don’t make me neurotic, they just make me Sandra Bland.

At some point it has to pass and that is painful. I’m grateful for brothers and sisters in and outside my own family, the Christian faith and my particular heritage that will sit with me while the pain passes.

IS THIS ONLY A RACE IN AMERICA ISSUE—OR IS IT A CHRISTIAN ISSUE, TOO? We shouldn’t try to extract our race issues from our faith issues. It was Dutch and British J A C K S O N:

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MICHAEL BROWN

TAMIR RICE

Ferguson, Missouri August 2014

Cleveland, Ohio November 2014

Christians who brought many of my ancestors to the Americas as slaves. It was Christian slave owners who raped our grandmothers’ grandmothers.

Donald Trump claims Christian faith today and James Dobson, who many of us listened to growing up, has now endorsed him. Sadly, I believe that many Christians have a harder time accepting racial justice, white privilege and the pursuit of racial healing than those that are unaffiliated with the Church.

But let us not forget that it was Christian abolitionist Quakers who refused to accept a version of the Gospel that allowed them to own other humans because of their skin. It was a Christian Sojourner Truth and Booker T. Washington who wouldn’t accept that kind of Christ. It was a Christian Dr. King and Marian Anderson and Rosa Parks who strategized and rose up for change.

And contrary to some current beliefs, there are many Christians involved in the Black Lives Matter movement today. Some of them are formal leaders in their cities and others are trying to awaken their churches and others are pushed out of communities of faith because of how they identify themselves. They and we are embracing resistance as part of our inheritance in Christ.

The bigger tragedy is the fact that it’s a Christian issue at all. The church’s participation in the slave trade, in the blocking of desegregation, in its current propagation of the narrative that “all lives matter” is somehow more Christian than being concerned about the uniqueness of each of those lives and their experiences is a great tragedy.

P R O PA G A N DA :

WHAT DO WHITE CHRISTIANS NOT UNDERSTAND ABOUT HOW THESE EVENTS AFFECT THE BROADER BLACK COMMUNITY? I think ethnicity—specifically black-white relationships in America—is this big unresolved LECR AE:

FREDDIE GRAY

WALTER SCOTT

ERIC GARNER

SANDRA BLAND

ALTON STERLING

Baltimore, Maryland April 2015

North Charleston, South Carolina April 2015

New York City July 2015

Waller County, Texas July 2015

Baton Rouge, Louisiana July 2016

issue that white people don’t want to deal with.

Especially in Christian circles, we love bringing up history. It’s so important in Christian circles. But not all of it.

Like George Whitfield. People are like, ‘Yeah, George Whitfield! He went around the world sharing the Gospel and spurred the Great Awakening.’

And I’m like, ‘He was one of the leading voices to advocate slavery.’ We have to deal with that reality as well, and not just be like, ‘It’s all good.’ People prefer to float around in these generalities.”

It’s sometimes overwhelming to see the generalities. It’s just like, ‘What are you talking about?’

I feel like it’s a responsibility to cut through these generalities: It’s not red or blue, bro. It’s purple. It doesn’t fit in that box like you want it to.

I think there are two really important things for White Christians to understand that will help them understand the broader implications.

First, the evolution of slavery to mass incarceration is not widely understood. This understanding would help Christians in general better understand police brutality and how that embeds fear into the larger black community. It would also help break down misnomers associated with respectability politics. Sometimes Christians ignorant of the complexity of the race issues think the solution can be reduced to black people just needing more Jesus or just needing to get their lives together. That’s an unfair characterization of my people and it is a phony escape route.

And second, I truly believe that we are a beloved community—and that white Christians need to see themselves as connected to this beloved community. My white friends who stay close to the heart of these issues seem to have embraced that understanding.

J A C K S O N:

Nationalism or patriotism is not synonymous with Christianity.

P R O PA G A N DA :

PHILANDO CASTILE Falcon Heights, Minnesota July 2016

WHAT DOES HEALING LOOK LIKE? It’s as easy as not making someone give an apology for their mourning.

So sympathy is step one.

Then the core message of the cross says justice comes before reconciliation. Unity comes after restitution. So acknowledge the reality, sympathize with us, this shows you see us as humans and equals. Get involved in causes that affect communities you ain’t a part of. Get involved!

P R O PA G A N DA :

Healing requires honestly evaluating our self-identity and increasing our own capacity for constructive criticism. If you can’t handle it when someone points out that you’ve done something racist, then you are not trying to heal. You need to work on understanding the evolution of slavery and how that has impacted white, black, brown and other psyches.

You need to lament corporately and in solitude.

You need to take up revering the Imago Dei in every human. And you need to commit to vulnerability while allowing people who are more marginalized than you to disciple you. This type of healing is involved, hard, rewarding and joyful! If you skip some of the steps, then you likely offer shallow solutions to deeply ingrained wounds. You won’t actually heal.

J A C K S O N:

I think race issues are a festering wound in America. It’s a condition that we have to live with—there’s not really a ‘fix.’ It’s not really that there’s a fix as much as the acknowledgment that you have a condition. And how do we live in light of this condition?

My knees are bad. I wake up every morning knowing my knees are bad. There’s nothing that can be done about that—you can’t give me 20-year old knees again. So now I have to live understanding that I can’t do what I used to; the way I function changes.

LECR AE:

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

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AND THE

B Y M AT T C O N N E R

R I D I N G T H E WAV E O F A B R E A KO U T A L B U M C A N B E E X H I L A R AT I N G F O R A N A R T I S T, B U T W H E N I T S T O P S , C R E AT I N G A G A I N C A N BE H A R DER T H A N YOU’D T H I N K . J UST A S K T H I S N E O S O U L S E X T E T.

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FOR TWO HOURS A DAY, MICHAEL FITZPATRICK LIVES HIS DREAM.

FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS

The self-titled album anchors their summer tour.

As the namesake and frontman of Fitz and the Tantrums, Fitzpatrick describes being on the road as an “amazing journey.” He should know.

For most of the last three years, the neosoul sextet has toured on the back of one hit single after another — from “Moneygrabber” and “Out of My League” to “The Walker” or, their latest, “HandClap.”

Night after night, across multiple continents, Fitz and the Tantrums play sold-out shows for thousands of fans. For those two hours, the L.A. native experiences what most musicians can only dream of. It’s those other 22 hours that can prove somewhat difficult.

“The experience of touring itself is marked by very high highs and very low lows within a two-hour period,” Fitzpatrick says.

“You can be standing on stage in front of thousands of people singing every word to every song, then two hours later, you’re in an empty parking lot with a bunch of empty plastic cups laying everywhere, trying to make a call back home to talk to your wife.

You’ve got 30 minutes before the bus leaves to drive to the next city, and you look across this big empty parking lot, and every other band member is on the phone trying to find a little connection back to home. Then you get back on the bus and you do it all again.”

Fitzpatrick isn’t one to complain about his place in life. In fact, he’s excited to do it all over again as the band releases their new self-titled album. But he is appreciative of a moment to develop some “normalcy,” as he describes it—a rarity for a band known for their electric live show.

“In a way, the perpetual motion of it all is an amazing thing, where you’re in a different

city every 20 hours,” Fitzpatrick says. “You get to experience towns in America that you might have never been to otherwise, but it definitely takes a toll after a while. You are living in this sort of microcosm, a weird little bubble where everything else changes every day. The only thing that is constant is you, your bandmates and your instruments.”

Coming off of the overwhelming success of their sophomore album, More Than Just a Dream, Fitzpatrick says he found himself more exhausted than he realized. He was excited to rest enough to get back to writing songs, but found himself unable to even find his equilibrium.

“The last record was so successful for us that we were just on the road forever—for almost three years,” he says. “You come home from it and, obviously, you’re exhausted physically and mentally from the endurance it takes to do that. Then you find yourself a day or two into being home, not really being able to sit still because you are so used to being in this forward motion. It takes a good segment to let your body slow down to the pace of being in one place for more than a day at a time. Then you start to try to gain a sense of normalcy, a routine with your family.”

Fitzpatrick and his wife have a son, and he says it took a while to rebuild the routine with them. “It’s a real adjustment. It’s sort of like this major mind bend—like a rubber band snapping back into place, and it can be a shock to the system. You go from having something to do every second of the day to having hours of free time and not knowing how to fill yourself up. We were so ready to come home and eager to start working on music, but I found that I was so depleted that I didn’t have a lot of juice left in the tank to actually start writing. I found myself in this moment of real writer’s block.”

Even after finding some sense of routine, Fitzpatrick couldn’t express anything substantive. Even when he carved out the space and time to write, the well was empty.

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WHAT I LOVE ABOUT MAKING MUSIC IS YOU WRITE A SONG WITH AN EMOTION OR IDEA BEHIND IT, AND THOSE THINGS TRANSLATE.

“I was not expecting that because the last record was a very different experience,” Fitzpatrick says. “We got off the road after a couple years of touring and went right into writing the day after coming home. We wrote 35 songs in 40 days and the record was done! Since that had been my experience, I thought it would be like that again this time. Then I sat down and really struggled to find a connection.

“That was the thing. Because of the nature of touring, I felt very detached from my core, from my real self. I actually had to find other people to help me hold a mirror up to myself and ask, ‘You’ve had so many changes with your career, and now you’re a father and you’re married. What are you feeling?’ It took a real second to find that center and find out what I wanted to say.”

Noelle Scaggs, the band’s co-lead vocalist and Fitzpatrick’s fellow songwriter, says she experienced the same barren season.

“I was a bit burned out,” she admits.

“We’d been hitting the concrete hard with touring for More Than Just A Dream, and it finally caught up with me. Fitz and I, as usual, took what we thought to be a long break. I basically left L.A. and hid in a cave in Nashville for a month and then went back to L.A. to start working again.

“Fitz and I went hard at writing for

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several weeks only to discover we weren’t getting what we felt we needed out of the songs we were creating,” she says. “I think I used whatever remaining creative energy I had, so we took another break and then opened the doors to start working with other outside songwriters to help us get to the place we needed, and it worked for us.”

Once Fitzpatrick, Scaggs and the rest of the Tantrums—James King (saxophone, flute), Jeremy Ruzumna (keyboards), Joseph Karnes (bass), and John Wicks (drums, percussion)—allowed others into their creative process, the floodgates began to open up. What Fitzpatrick found in the process was a strong sense of desire— for community, for love, for belonging.

“This record is the most emotional one of the band’s career,” he says. “There is a song called ‘A Place for Us’ that is really about this desire for connection and a sense of belonging. That feeling is so universal for everybody, but for a touring musician, that feeling becomes amplified times a hundred. You have nothing grounding you. You have no connections. You are just a transient element in people’s lives. You are the thing that is always moving in and moving out. You are not the constant. That song for me really speaks of wanting to have a sense of belonging and connection—to find

L-R: Joseph Karnes, John Wicks, Michael Fitzpatrick, Noelle Scaggs, Jeremy Ruzumna, James King

a place for yourself.”

Even more personal is “Burn It Down,” a song Fitzpatrick calls a love letter to his wife. Within the struggle to communicate something meaningful in his own songs, he found a deeper struggle happening between himself and those closest to him.

Singing about such vulnerable topics might seem uncomfortable, but Fitz’s ability to place them within an infectious and compelling musical vehicle allows others to connect at a deeper level. It’s neosoul pop music as a Trojan horse.

“What I love about making music is you write a song with an emotion or idea behind it, and those things translate. I love the moment when the listener makes it their own, and they weave their story into the context of the song. Then the song becomes 3-D in terms of meaning. It has its meaning for me and hopefully that resonates with people and helps them connect or relate in a certain way, but then it also leaves room for people to make it their own.

“That is always the goal: to make a connection with people.”

MAT T CONNER is a freelance writer and editor living in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Our 2016

GUIDE TO PRIMETIME T W O T R E N D S T H AT H AV E U S E XC I T E D A B O U T T V T H I S FA L L . . .

A N D O N E T H AT F R E A K S U S O U T.

BY JESSE CAREY

AN INTERESTING TIME IN THE NEW GOLDEN AGE OF TELEVISION. For years, prestige shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Louie, Friday Night Lights, The Wire, 30 Rock and dozens of others have pushed stylistic boundaries and made viewers rethink what TV could be.

Not only has the quality of television shows continued to improve, but the programs have also gotten more important.

Media consumers are now watching television shows that are making real commentary about the times we live in and the culture we’ve created.

It’s not uncommon to hear discussions about racial injustice in a primetime family comedy, as we deal with issues like police violence and immigration reform. Dark, supernatural-themed plotlines are common in some of TV’s most popular shows at the same time that new data shows Americans are increasingly wary of organized religion. Even the gritty, unseen side of celebrity culture, musical trendsetting and the creative process itself are being explored in thoughtful new ways.

Unpacking trends on TV is one of the most interesting ways to explore the deeper message of culture and the direction it’s heading. Here’s a look at three important—including one creepy—trends on TV this fall.

IT’S

LEFT: Donald Glover, Keith Stanfield and Brian Tyree Henry star in Atlanta on FX. BELOW: Luke Wilson and Carla Gugino star in Roadies.

Behind the Music

IN

a culture where social media is breaking down the walls between pop star and fandom, and streaming services are redefining how we consume music, it’s not that surprising that there’s an influx of shows that focus on the business of the music industry.

But instead of just turning the lens on the glamorous side of super-stardom, the latest primetime offerings hone in on the gritty roots of future chart-toppers, the dark side of fame and the actual people behind the personas.

FX’s super-stylized Atlanta is created by and stars Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) and tells the story of two cousins attempting to break out in the Atlanta rap scene.

In Fox’s Star, Atlanta hip-hop culture also takes center stage. The drama centers on three sisters who rise out of the foster care system to try to become pop stars.

And, like Empire, the show brings in real artists and features original songs.

Netflix’s The Get Down, which dropped in August, is one of the most ambitious music-based shows in TV history: Helmed by visionary filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, the musical series is set in late-1970s New York City, as a generation of young artists brought hip-hop, punk rock and disco to the world.

On the rock end of the spectrum, Cameron Crowe’s late summer Showtime series Roadies—which is co-executive produced by J.J. Abrams—stars Luke Wilson as an arena rock roadie in a surprisingly funny and heartfelt look at life on the open road.

In 2016, even kids have a music-based show that forgoes nursery rhymes and sing-alongs for indie rock. Netflix’s animated Beat Bugs features artists like Regina Spektor, James Bay, Sia, The Shins, Of Monsters and Men, Birdy and others covering Beatles songs in a show about a group of bugs—with great taste in music— exploring an overgrown backyard.

THE QUICK LIST FX, Sept 2016 Fox, Midseason 2016 • THE GET DOWN Netflix, Aug 2016 • ROADIES Showtime, June 2016 • BEAT BUGS Netflix, Nov 2016 • ATLANTA • STAR

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The Darkside of the Supernatural

T Real About Race

W

hile news headlines are populated by stories of racial tension, serious concerns related to justice and the need for social reforms, primetime isn’t offering escapism from real-world issues— it’s tackling them head on.

Along with the return of sitcoms like black-ish, Fresh Off the Boat and The Carmichael Show—which all combine sharp comedy with blunt commentary about racism, prejudice and what it’s like being a minority in America—a handful of new shows are also getting serious about race.

Fox’s Shots Fired combines the tension of the police procedural and a legal drama as it tackles a police shooting that sparks racial divides in a North Carolina town—and eventually the entire nation. And though the concept sounds like a ripped-from-theheadlines Law & Order plot, the series is more concerned with making interesting social commentary than exploiting reallife tragedy. Created by award-winning filmmakers Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood, the show is nuanced and morally complex.

Though they aren’t as overtly racially charged, two other series are tackling problems within the criminal justice system.

ABC’s Conviction is set within a Conviction Integrity Unit that focuses on overturning sentences for the wrongly convicted, and HBO’s late summer miniseries The Night Of, created by The Wire’s Richard Price, examines the case of a young PakistaniAmerican wrongly convicted of murder.

Even Netflix’s latest Marvel offering, Luke Cage, has roots in racial commentary: The comic character was originally a Blaxploitation hero.

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ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat

THE QUICK LIST Fox, Midseason 2016 • CONVICTION ABC, Oct 2016 • THE NIGHT OF Netflix, July 2016 • LUKE CAGE Netflix, Sept 2016 • SHOTS FIRED

he horror genre is one of the best barometers for examining social anxieties in a culture because great horror movies, books and shows aren’t really about ghosts and boogiemen. They are stand-ins for real-life terrors that are even scarier than the stuff of fiction.

A new crop of shows that explore supernatural darkness are popping up on almost every network and many deal with the powers of darkness itself.

AMC’s Preacher features a demon-possessed former minister, fighting battles of good vs. evil. Fox’s new series, The Exorcist, tells the story of a priest whose life is centered on horrific encounters with individuals plagued with demonic possession. In Cinemax’s summer series, Outcast, another minister battles forces of darkness that possesses unsuspecting souls in often shocking, terrifying battles.

Even on the “lighter” side of the supernatural spectrum, there are still dark

PREACHER

THE QUICK LIST • PREACHER

AMC, May 2016 Fox,

• THE EXORCIST

Sept 2016 • OUTCAST

Cinemax,

June 2016 • THE GOOD PLACE

Sept 2016

undertones to TV’s new obsession with possession and Christian notions of spirituality. NBC’s sitcom The Good Place, starring Kristen Bell, has darker undercurrents: Bell plays an immoral jerk who dies in a freak accident and gets sent to heaven in a mix-up. The joke is that Bell has to fake fitting in so she’s not sent to eternal torment. LOL?

NBC, JESSE CARE Y is a senior editor at RELEVANT. He lives in Virginia Beach with his wife and two kids.

invest with us, you invest in ministry.

When you

Your investment provides a great return for you and your family and also funds ministry loans to Assemblies of God churches.

Contact us to learn more!

800-821-1112

cepnet.com/relevant916 Investments consist of Promissory Notes and are not bank deposits or checking accounts and are not FDIC insured. This is not an offer to sell our securities to you and we are not soliciting you to buy our securities. We offer our securities only in states where authorized. This offering is made solely by our Offering Circular. Š 2016 Church Extension Plan

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The guys in NEEDTOBREATHE weathered some serious storms during the making of their last album. And their new project, H A R D L O V E, faces that dark period head on. The record is honest and earnest, like we’re used to from them. But H A R D L O V E is sonically different, with much more synth added to the their familiar gospel, blues and soul sound—a refreshing evolution.

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Hillsong United’s latest project takes you back to “the land”—literally. This visual album displays the songs from Empires performed live in locations throughout Israel.

It’s an organic and implicit reestablishment of the purpose of worship music.

After two well-received albums in the indie-rock scene, this is easily Young the Giant’s most anticipated album yet.

And with an evolution into a darker, more organic sound, Home of the Strange may just be the album that finally puts this group of college friends over the top.

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In his debut EP under the name “Banners,” Mike Nelson offers a bright, optimistic collection of anthemic pop. But his pop isn’t just fluff; he takes on heady topics—like entropy, riots and ghosts—that add a welcome complexity to his music.

Nelson’s soulful voice draws on his time with a cathedral choir.

Wildflower is The Avalanches’ first release since 2000—and even after a decade and half wait, it doesn’t disappoint.

Like their previous work, it features a combination of borrowed sounds and samples, but doesn’t forsake the deeper story and the feeling listeners will get when listening to it.

The California-based indie rock outfit is known for dreamy soundscapes, big choruses and frontman Taylor Rice’s haunting vocals. Sunlit Youth sees the band experimenting with new sounds for the band’s most sonically ambitious release to date with the same great songwriting.

Australian crooner Jarryd James crafts romantic ballads that combine thoughtful, singer/ songwriter-style narratives with R&B-inspired soul. High shows off James’ ability to use interesting arrangements, beat-making and danceable choruses to create atmospheric backdrops for his one-of-a-kind voice.

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MOVIES

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

SING STREET

THE YOUNG MESSIAH

LIFE, ANIMATED

JOHN CARNEY

CYRUS NOWRASTEH

ROGER ROSS WILLIAMS

RUSSO BROTHERS

[COSMO FILMS]

[1492 PICTURES]

[A&E INDIEFILMS]

Set in Ireland in the mid-’80s, this is a feel-good, comingof-age story about a teen who starts a band so he can impress the mysterious girl he likes. The band also gives him the chance to escape from the strain of all of his troubles at home.

This aptly titled movie follows 7-year-old Jesus traveling with Mary and Joseph from Egypt to Nazareth. When King Herod discovers who He is, the family must avoid Herod’s men to keep young Jesus alive. Along the way, He learns more about the world and His powers.

Based on the bestselling novel, this documentary follows Owen Suskind, a young autistic man who was unable to speak until he began to understand social cues and communicate with his family through the world of classic animated Disney films.

[WALT DISNEY STUDIOS MOTION PICTURES]

The Avengers are back, but this time, political interference from the world’s governments causes a rift between Captain America and Iron Man forcing Avengers to choose sides in the war between them.

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BOOKS

COMMONWEALTH: A NOVEL ANN PATCHETT [HARPER BOOKS]

The latest book from novelist Ann Patchett traces the tangled history of a family over five decades. Beginning with two divorces that lead to a marriage, the novel is the story of the family’s struggle to maintain an identity, and a commentary on the fragility of family.

THE DAY THE REVOLUTION BEGAN: RECONSIDERING THE MEANING OF JESUS’ CRUCIFIXION

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BORN TO RUN BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN [SIMON & SCHUSTER]

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Wright challenges the notion that the primary purpose for Jesus’s crucifixion was atonement. Instead, Wright invites us to explore the crucifixion within the broader story of what God is doing in creation.

Pershey interweaves the story her own experiences of love, sex and marriage with keen reflections on the significance of marriage in the 21st century. This isn’t just for married couples, it will be helpful for anyone who yearns to someday be married.

“A beautiful piece of art.

I'm already obsessed.”

The noted rocker has reportedly been working on this autobiography for seven years.

Born to Run reflects many of the themes that have endeared Springsteen’s songs to millions of fans for the last 30 years: a blunt and gritty look at life, the spark of hopeful imagination and a dash of humor.

“I’m really disgusted with Gungor.”

“I've been waiting a long time for music like this.”

“Gungor eats baby seals.”

“The best music Gungor has made.”

“Gungor is a danger to Christianity.”

DECIDE FOR YOURSELF.

THE NEW ALBUM “ONE WILD LIFE: BODY” AVAILABLE NOW.

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relevant podcast SOME NOTABLE RECENT EPISODES OF THE WEEKLY RELEVANT PODCAST

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EPISODE 500 This week, Orlando-area pastors Cole NeSmith, Josh Turner and Justin Johnson joined us to talk about the tragic shooting that happened at a local gay nightclub, Pulse, how we should be responding and how we can all help those who were affected. Hillsong Young & Free stops by to talk about the deeper meanings on their latest album, Youth Revival.

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NEEDTOBREATHE frontman Bear Rinehart talks about the five songs that changed his life and how they influenced the way he writes songs and thinks about music now. This episode also sees the return of the epic game “Indie Rock Band or Firework,” which is our Fourth ofJuly tradition, and the editors took us behind the scenes of the last issue of RELEVANT.

The 500th episode was recorded 100 percent live and uncut in front of a studio audience. charity: water founder Scott Harrson joined us to talk about the incredible work that the philanthropy is doing in developing countries.

Jesse also starts getting pumped for the Trapped in the Cage endurance challenge.

Culture critic and author Chuck Klosterman discusses his new book on the nature of truth itself, But What If We’re Wrong. The conversation is fascinating, especially for Christians. Activist and author Lisa Sharon Harper also joins to talk about the way we should begin to understand justice from a Biblical perspective.

relevant.tv SOME OF THE CURATED VIDEOS AND SHORT FILMS PLAYING NOW ON RELEVANT.TV

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HEY!

JOHN BALL: CHARCOAL

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JOHN BALL

BAILEY

This is the visual component to the single “Be Thou My Vision” from Audrey Assad’s critically acclaimed album, Inheritance. The video depicts a return to nature and appreciating the world in its simplicity. It’s fitting because Assad’s album is made up of reimagined worship hymns, along with some original songs.

The New Respects is a group made up of three siblings and a cousin, and they were recently signed to Capitol CMG Label Group. Their debut single, “Hey!” showcases their unique style– rock ‘n’ roll mixed with acoustic sounds. The group toured this summer on The Heartland Tour that featured Lecrae and Switchfoot.

In his latest work, John Ball turns the story of Peter denying Jesus three times into an equally heart-wrenching and emotional song. “The Bible says that both of these events occurred around a charcoal fire–an image that surely Peter remembered for the rest of his life,” Ball says.

The video is incredibly moving.

As the first single off of his debut album, Gold, the British singer b a i l e y sings about the way he feels with God. The video is very simplistic and easy-going, he lives his life always knowing that he’s safe and sound. His music aims to bring faith back into the forefront of culture and to try to make listeners think.

“Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.”

2 Timothy 2:7 NIV

Register today for our FREE course on How to Study the Bible christianuniversity.org/relevant

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contents

SEP T/OCT 2016 ISSUE 83

FEATURES

50

IS THIS A NEW JESUS MOVEMENT? A decade ago, in-crowd Christianity tended to be cynical. But a new generation is reclaiming the heart of the faith.

58

66

WHAT WOULD JESUS DO (IN AN ELECTION YEAR)?

With endless issues, foreign and domestic, what should Christians do at the polls?

62

JACK HUSTON IS JUDAH BEN-HUR

THE MYSTICISM OF PRAYER The teachings of Richard Rohr are famous.

So what exactly is he saying?

72

7 WAYS TO DE-STRESS YOUR LIFE Just when you thought your life couldn't handle one more list ... consider these strategies to up your chill.

The most Academy Awardwinning movie of all time is being reimagined. And in the lead is a breakout actor poised to take his place in history.

76

ST. LUCIA'S MAKE-OR-BREAK MOMENT The super cool indie artists are trying to take their sophmore LP to a new level.

78

54 SWITCHFOOT

Lecrae and Propaganda weigh in on one of the most pressing issues in culture.

86

FIR ST WOR D

6

FEEDBACK

45

THE DROP

Yumi Zouma, Social Club Misfits, SKYES, Day Wave, Audrey Assad

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8

SLICES

When church leaders fall; Pokemon Go; World refugees; Scott Harrison of charity: water; Brexit; Jesus VR; Hipster's guide to football; Cohabitation is the new normal; Aziz Ansari on diversity; Millennials take on politics; Minorities as the new majority and more

OUR GUIDE TO THE NEW PRIMETIME TV isn't what it used to be. And we're excited about it.

82 FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS

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WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT RACE

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R E J E C T A PAT H Y

Immunization for disease prevention, prescription drug abuse, humanitarian crisis in Venezuela 90

R E L E VA N T R E C O M M E N D S

The music, movies, videos and books we’re excited about.

Your Home Loan.

Your Way. Get your Home Faster with Us! You’ve waited, planned, and saved for this day. Now you’re ready to buy a home of your own or refi the one you have. We can help!

24/7 online mortgage application at myCCCU.com Save money with low-rate home loans Fixed and adjustable-rate mortgages to fit your budget

APPLY FOR YOUR HOME LOAN TODAY! Visit myCCCU.com/mortgage Call 800.347.CCCU (2228), ext. 551 Membership eligibility requirements apply. Visit myCCCU.com/canijoin.

Visit myCCCU.com/mortgage for current mortgage rates and terms. Mortgage Loan rates and terms are subject to change without notice. Nothing herein is or should be interpreted as a commitment to lend. Loans are subject to credit, income, and property appraisal. Other conditions and restrictions may apply.

NLMS ID Number is 504297.

Christian Community Credit Union is privately insured by American Share Insurance up to $250,000 per account. By members’ choice the Credit Union is not federally insured or insured by any state government.

My greatest adventure

Watch Bear's story Alpha.org