RELEVANT - Issue 85 - January/February 2017 by RELEVANT Media Group

R E L E VA N T M A G A Z IN E .C O M

RELEVANT U I S GOING BACK TO S CHOOL WORTH IT?

B E H I N D T H E C O M P L E X FA I T H OF ‘THIS AMERICAN LIFE’ WHY THE LEGENDARY BROADCASTER INSISTS ON TA L K I N G A B O U T CHRISTIANITY SO A U T H E N T I C A L LY

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TIRED OF THE NOISE?

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T H E M A G A Z I N E O N FA I T H , C U LT U R E & I N T E N T I O N A L L I V I N G

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2017, ISSUE 85 The issue where Ira goes through the looking Glass

Publisher & CEO | CAMERON STRANG Editorial Director | AARON CLINE HANBURY Executive Editor and Director of Digital Media | JESSE CAREY Managing Editor | REBECCA MARIE-JO FLORES Copy Editor | KATHY PIERRE Content Producer | CHELSEA STEELE Content Coordinator | JESSICA COLLINS Contributing Writers: Matt Conner, Rob Fee, Kara Bettis, Kristen Howerton, Adam Jeske, Josh Hayes, Ann Swindell, Ashley Abramson, Matt Chandler, Shane Claiborne Director of Business Development | AME LYNN FUHLBRUCK Senior Account Manager | RACHEL DOUGLASS Account Manager | RACHEL WHITTON Advertising & Distribution Coordinator | CAROLINE COLE Senior Art Director | JOHN DAVID HARRIS Graphic Designer | RENEE TOOLEY Contributing Designer | LAUREN HARVILL Development Director | BRAD TAYLOR Audio Producer | CHANDLER STRANG Contributing Photographers: Darren Lau, Wolf James, Yasi, Juliana Bernstein, Brantley Guiterrez, Centricity Music Operations & Project Manager | NIKKI GRAHAM Finance Manager | MERCEDES LANGDON Operations Support Coordinator | JENNA RICCI Systems Administrator | JOSH STROHM

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Issue #85 January/February 2017 (ISSN: 1543-317X). RELEVANT is published 6 times a year in January, March, May, July, September and November for $14.99 per year by RELEVANT Media Group, Inc., 900 N. Orange Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789. Periodicals postage paid at Orlando, FL, and at additional mailing offices.

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A LET TER FROM THE EDITOR

NEW YEARS, DREAMS & PLATFORMS BY CAMERON STR ANG

funny thing happened this past year. RELEVANT had been experiencing three straight years of significant audience growth. And I mean significant—like tripling, quintupling type numbers, going from hundreds of thousands of readers each month to multiple millions all with the same team and resources. It was staggering to see. It was a miracle—the fruit of a lot of hard work and God’s grace. But earlier this year, we were in a weekly content planning meeting and I could sense a shift. The plans seemed ... familiar. It seemed like the hustle, hunger and “gut” that had driven so much of the content had subtly shifted into an unintended formula. I don’t mean this with any hubris, but it felt like we knew what we were doing. If we wanted to have an article get 100,000 shares, we knew what kind of topic and headline to give it. We knew which articles would break out and which wouldn’t. We cracked the pattern. And all of a sudden, I stopped being interested. One of the things I’ve learned about my personality in recent years is the moment something becomes familiar, easy or

JAN_FEB 2017

predictable, I don’t want to do it anymore. I feel like as soon as our plans (or lives) become safe, then we’re no longer having to rely on God. We can rely on our own ability. And what’s the fun in that? So, here’s this website where so many good things are happening ... what if we blew it up? I started thinking, what’s a goal so audacious it could only happen because God was in it? Like, what if we were reaching 20 million people a month? What would we be doing then that we’re not doing now? OK, let’s do that. So, for the last nine months the team and I have been working to completely dismantle our digital platforms. The very driver of so much

missional success is getting thrown out. We’re starting over. Launching in January will be an all-new RELEVANTmagazine.com. We’ve been working on the new site for the better part of a year, and we can’t wait to show it to you. It’s a beautiful reading experience, removing so much of the typical web clutter and giving you just the content you want. But it’s more than just a new look. We’re fundamentally changing every aspect of our web platform, how it’s hosted and how you’ll be able to interact with it from all your devices. We’ve pruned off sections we weren’t excited about. We’re introducing new ones we are. We’re doubling the amount of unique article content we produce every day, and we’re laying the foundation for some exciting new ventures in audio and video content that we will begin rolling out this spring. RELEVANT is an indie company—a small team with big dreams. Just look at our masthead: There are about 20 of us producing this magazine, the podcasts, website and social media. The team is passionate, works incredibly hard and isn’t afraid to bite off more than we can chew. That’s what I love about them. The plan was to launch our new site back in September, but since when does Plan A ever happen? And I’m glad we didn’t, because during that time we had a rethink: What if the site we launch isn’t actually finished? What if it’s just the beginning? Fundamentally, RELEVANT’s new digital platforms will be ever-evolving. We’ve built it to stay nimble, smart, experimental and compelling. With content that’s always new, tailored to you and the moment. With interface and content, you’re not going to find things safe and too-familiar again. I’m excited seeing this next era launch because honestly I have no idea where it will go. Oh, and what about the print magazine? Why is the website getting all the attention; aren’t we just as excited to reimagine the future of the print experience as well? Stay tuned.

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

feedback

ON ISSUE 84 NOV/DEC 2016

CAPTURING CONVICTION I’ve been a fan of Andrew Garfield since The Other Boleyn Girl years ago, and it’s great to see the recognition he’s getting. Even though he’s not a Christian, he was able to understand the meaning and the root of Desmond Doss’ convictions in Hacksaw Ridge and was able to personally take something away from the experience. PAUL CARSON / Via email

T W E E T N E S S

@ JAYBANANAS09

Finally an article that fleshes out what the millennial migration from Christianity is really about. Thanks @RELEVANT. @ E R IK AWILE S

Andrew Garfield and Mel Gibson were an unlikely combination to me, but it was magic on-screen. @ JAME E L AHK 9

Taking notes from @RELEVANT and thinking hard before I quit my day job. Timing and cost are huge for me right now. @ THOMASL E E MON

@RELEVANT: read by everyone in the family:

I really appreciate how honest RELEVANT is willing to be on topics that matter. I’ve been thinking about leaving my corporate job for months now, but after reading the article and giving myself a “check up from the neck up” I realized I just hate my job. That’s completely different from being called by God to start my own business. REGINA H. / Via Facebook

I finally subscribed and got my first copy of RELEVANT and it’s worth it. Appreciate the introduction to Sir the Baptist. JARED H. / Via Facebook

I really liked the story on Mars in the latest issue. Often Christians neglect science and scientific exploration issues, but I’ve always believed that they mattered too. I definitely side more with Neil deGrasse Tyson in asking “Should we?” MARQUIS K. / Via email

JAN_FEB 2017

Loving the design for this @timkellernyc article in this edition of @RELEVANT. VIKKI L. / Via Twitter

@ BAR B WALSH

The story of Brighton in this month’s @RELEVANT brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful. @ HOL LIE FLAX SE E D

Possibly purchasing too many things for myself from @RELEVANT’s Christmas gift guide.

I love the magazine. It’s blessed me more than I would’ve ever thought. My partner only speaks Spanish, and I take the time to translate it for him because it’s worth it. ARIANE WASHINGTON / Via Facebook

@ NAD IN E V T

@RELEVANT’s interview with @brianmclaren challenged my thoughts on the Gospel & God’s Kingdom come. Great perspective to investigate. @ THE C Z AR

I probably wouldn’t have seen Hacksaw Ridge without this cover story @RELEVANT. @SEANLOCKET T / Via Twitter

You know there’s hope when your atheist mother finds herself relating to that Judah Smith article in @RELEVANT

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT.

When the w hol e worl d s e ems to b e going the s ame way, the church ne e ds p e opl e w ho are w i l ling to stand out . Tr u ett McC onnel l i s equipping students with the truth about Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s word, transforming lives, and preparing world changers to be radical about sharing the gospel.

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[GENER ATION BREAK]

A GENERATION FINDING FAITH ON ITS OWN WHAT DOES THE RISE OF ‘MIXED-FAITH’ HOMES MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH?

n the United States, it’s a founding principle that each person has the freedom to follow the faith of his or her choosing. But over the generations, a person usually adopts the faith of their parents. A new study by Pew Research suggests that those in the millennial generation increasingly come from “mixedfaith” homes—and that could have major implications for the Church. In these mixed-faith homes, a huge portion of Americans don’t have the option of merely adopting the faith of their parents. It’s not that simple. Only a quarter of millennials (24 percent) say they were raised by two Protestant parents. That’s half as many as those

JAN_FEB 2017

THE NUMBERS

of millennials were raised by two Protestant parents

of millennials were raised in religiously mixed homes

in Gen. X (48 percent). The number of Americans raised in interfaith homes is growing, especially when it comes to millennials. Across the board, roughly onein-five U.S. adults were raised within a mixed religious background, according to the study. And more than one-quarter of millennials (27 percent) say they were raised in a “religiously mixed family.” The effects of this trend are playing out in interesting ways. When it comes to marriage, fully a quarter of married adults now say their spouses don’t share their religious beliefs. And even among the 75 percent who do share the same beliefs, only 44 percent think shared religious beliefs is “very important” for a successful marriage. In fact, a considerably larger percentage of people think a satisfying sexual relationship and an equitable division of household chores are crucial for a successful marriage. When it comes to getting married at all, more than half (51 percent) say their spouse’s religion was “not too” or “not at all” important in deciding whether to get married. This reality raises important questions for the Church. Is the Church compelling enough to thrive in a culture where faith is less a familial decision and more an individual one? And what are the best ways for Christians to talk about and live their faith in a culture that thinks sex and chores are more important to family life than religion?

ACCREDITED UNDERGRADUATE GRADUATE ON-CAMPUS ONLINE

discover.tku.edu

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RESEARCH:

70 PERCENT OF MILLENNIALS WORK TO TRAVEL, NOT TO BUY STUFF The horror author of every ‘90s kid’s nightmares is writing a comic book. R.L. Stine recently let it slip that he’s working with Marvel to release his first comic book series. Chances are he’s sticking to the horror genre.

Radiohead finally sold out— to Spotify. Back in November, the group loaded their entire catalog to the streaming service. Guess you don’t need that vinyl anymore.

The next installment in the J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield franchise has been announced. It’s built around the idea of the elusive “god particle.” The sci-fi movie takes place in space and stars David Oyelowo.

JAN_FEB 2017

Kid Cudi

MENTAL HEALTH’S POP CULTURE MOMENT

When millennials roll up their sleeves and head into work, they’re likely thinking less about building a dream home and more about taking a dream vacation. A recent survey cited by Forbes found that for 70 percent of millennials the primary motivation to work, other than basic necessities, is funding travel. Because, if you haven’t figured this out yet, those exotic-location Instagram pictures just don’t fund themselves.

op culture is getting real. In the past couple of months, three big name artists—Kanye West, Kid Cudi and Selena Gomez—publicly faced mental health crises. Their responses have brought to light the often taboo reality that more than a quarter of Americans struggle with mental health every day. Back in October, hip-hop artist Kid Cudi checked himself into rehab for suicidal thoughts and depression, writing that he felt “ashamed.” In an emotional Facebook post, he wrote: “My anxiety and depression have ruled my life for as long as I can remember,” adding that he felt like he’d “let a lot of people down” and that it was “time I fix me.” Cudi’s moment of vulnerability went viral. In late November, West’s emotional health became national conversation when he checked himself into the hospital for psychological evaluation after some erratic behavior and the abrupt cancellation of his national tour. Then that same week, Gomez took home the prize for best female rock/pop artist at the American Music Awards and used the opportunity to address fans struggling with brokenness. It was the first time she appeared publicly since canceling her 2016 world tour after she was diagnosed with lupus and suffered physical and emotional side effects from it. “I had to stop,” she said during the emotional acceptance speech. “I had everything, and I was absolutely broken inside. I kept it all together enough to where I would never let you down, but I kept it too much together to where I let myself down.”

HAVE ARCHEOLOGISTS UNCOVERED JESUS’ BURIAL SLAB? YOU KNOW THE STORY:

Jesus’ body was laid on a stone slab in a borrowed tomb. While doing restorations at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a team removed a large structure that hid the surface of the supposed slab. More study is under way and will take some time, but experts are optimistic they’ll finally start learning more about this iconic piece of history.

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7 LEADERS TO FOLLOW IN 2017 F

rom the fight for equal pay to “locker room talk,” there was a deliberate affront to women in 2016, which means the Church needs the prophetic voices of women leaders now more than ever. Here are seven you need to know (and follow) this year:

JO SAXTON

@josaxton

M I S C.

During a speech at the University of Oxford, worldfamous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking suggested humans only have 999 years left on Earth before extinction. His solution? Colonize Mars by 3016.

Saxton is the author of several books. Her writings on relationships, race and the Christian life are must-reads. JENNY YANG

@JennyYangWR She’s a VP at World Relief, author and perhaps the sharpest activist in the Church today.

SHAUNA

KATELYN BEATY

NIEQUIST

@KatelynBeaty

@sniequist

She’s an up-and-coming voice in evangelicalism, with bylines in ton of major publications and a new book, A Woman’s Place. She’s quickly becoming an essential voice on and for women in the Church.

A spiritual growthfocused memoirist, Niequist’s writing provides the kind of spiritual health check we need.

CHRISTINE CAINE

LISA SHARON HARPER

KIRSTEN POWERS

@ChristineCaine

@lisasharper

@KirstenPowers

She’s a leader’s leader— the founder of the A21 Campaign and Propel— and her books have impacted millions.

An executive for a nonprofit and columnist, Harper brings a deeply biblical perspective on race and equality.

The USA Today columnist, CNN political analyst and author is a strong voice in the world of politics and policy.

JAN_FEB 2017

Along with the release of Bon Iver’s new album 22, A Million, the singer-songwriter also put out a new piece of merchandise: a flannel buttondown shirt. Yep. It looks like Bon Iver has out-Bon Iver’d himself.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Who are the writers helping you think through and grow this year? Let us know at feedback@ relevantmediagroup.com

A town in Australia wants to become the world’s first porn-free city. In efforts to combat violence against women, city leaders and Christian ministries in Toowoomba, are working together to eliminate porn entirely.

N E W A L B UM

AVA I L A B L E F E B R UA RY 3 F E AT U R E S T H E C A U S E O F C H R I S T & H E A L O U R L A N D

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THE H T LIST BIMONTHLY CULTURE POWER RANKINGS

OLD SCHOOL HIP-HOP [HOT TEST] Tribe Called Quest’s We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service is a reminder that we all need more old-school hiphop in our lives.

SPACE EPICS [HOT TER] Blockbusters like Rogue One, God Particle and Passengers provide us with proof: We’re all geeks at heart.

L ATE NIGHT T V [HOT] Corden, Bee, Fallon, a really good season of Saturday Night Live: Late-night may just be in its prime.

A GAME CHANGER FOR REFUGEE HOMES

here are now some 65 million refugees in the world, which means refugee camps often present some of the least humane living conditions in the world. There now may be a solution for tens of thousands of refugees, specifically those in Jordan’s Alzaatari Camp: The Oculus. The design concept is the work of the group Architects For Society, along with design students in Sweden. These futuristic units are designed to

endure harsh outdoor elements and can be assembled by people with little to no construction background. They are also designed with the needs of families in mind: They can be easily connected into different arrangements to create a structure with multiple rooms. Though the Oculus is currently just a prototype, a robotic arm that can cut blocks of durable foam to actually make the units is currently being designed at the school.

VINE [COLD] RIP. We’re watching a sixsecond loop of a candle burning in the wind in your memory.

FAKE NEWS [COLDER] “SHOCK! Post-Truth Headlines Prove Your Paranoid Uncle’s Debunked Conspiracy Theories Just Won’t Die”

MANNEQUIN CHALLENGES [COLDEST] Just what we need, more incentive to sit motionless around a tiny screen.

JAN_FEB 2017

MORE MILLENNIALS LINE UP WITH MARX MORE THAN THE BIBLE LISTEN UP, COMRADES: Statements by Karl Marx receive more

support among Americans aged 18 to 35 than related statments in the Bible. A poll by YouGov found that 64 percent agreed with Marx’s, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need.” Contrast that to 53 percent saying they agree with 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “If any would not work, neither should he eat.”

64%

of millennials agree with statements from Karl Marx.

LIFE IS EITHER A DARING ADVENTURE OR NOTHING. H E L E N K E L L E R

THEOLOGY AND MINISTRY TRAINING FOR THE DARING ADVENTURER IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Now Enrolling FAITH. ADVENTURE. ARTS.

B O Z E M A N , M O N TA N A 4 0 6 - 4 0 4 -16 0 0 Y E L L O W S T O N E T H E O L O G Y.O R G

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Childish Lanido

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Oxford Dictionaries chose for its Word of the Year, “post-truth”: “Denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

DONALD GLOVER IS THE NEW LANDO

The base of Germany’s Ulm Minster, the world’s tallest church building, is eroding. And officials blame urine. So, they’ve doubled fines for anyone caught peeing on the building—a crime called “wildpinkler.”

onald Glover is on top of his game these days. The Grammy-nominated artist (Childish Gambino), former writer for 30 Rock and creator (and star) of last year’s breakout show, Atlanta is about to become a sci-fi legend. Lucasfilm announced that Glover will portray a young Lando Calrissian in

JOEL MCHALE

GILLIAN JACOBS

DANNY PUDI

as the Grinch. WARNING: Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

is basically Lucille Ball, right? She must be in an I Love Lucy reboot ASAP.

as Back to the Future’s Doc Brown. Because no one else could be so neurotically lovable.

CHURCH, MD Tim Miller, the Deadpool director who broke with the franchise over “creative differences” with actor Ryan Reynolds, signed on to work with another fan favorite: Sonic the Hedgehog. Go ahead and dust off that old SEGA Genesis in your parent’s attic.

JAN_FEB 2017

HARVARD RESEARCHERS SAY GOING TO CHURCH ACTUALLY MAKES YOU LIVE LONGER

YES, GOING TO CHURCH can save your life, in a

spiritual sense. Christians have known that for their whole existence. But the benefits may not stop in the spiritual realm. New research from THE NUMBERS Harvard University actually suggests that attending “religious services” at least once a week will significantly lower your risk of dying more years of life is over the next decade the average for weekly church attendees and a half—and these

the yet-to-be-titled Han Solo Star Wars origin story. Of course, the show that propelled Glover as an actor was the cult-classic show Community. And that got us thinking maybe some of the other crew deserve a chance at a Lando-like moment. Here are our suggestions for other Community actors in big-budget origin stories :

results have been replicated in enough studies and populations to be considered highly reliable. Why? A different study that looked at the lifestyles and health of nurses, found that social support—like that found in a church—is critical for physical and mental health. In addition, the Harvard research indicates those who attend church regularly are more optimistic and have lower rates of depression. Similarly, the research also suggests attendance protects against suicide. While a growing number of Americans chose no religion at all, something about communal nature of church remains critical.

SOUTHWESTERN

ANNOUNCING SOUTHWESTERNâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NEW

SCHOOL OF PREACHING HOW IS CHARITY: WATER DIFFERENT?

charity: water is different than most, in that 100 percent of all donations go directly to fund water

L E T T H E LO R D D R I V E YO U R C A L L . L E T T H E T E X T D R I V E YO U R P R E AC H I N G .

SWBTS.EDU/PREACH

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WHAT’S SO IMPORTANT ABOUT THE DAKOTA PIPELINE? YOU’VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT THIS CONTROVERSIAL PROJECT. HERE’S WHY IT MATTERS now, you’re familiar with the controversy between the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and Energy Transfer Partners. The conflict over the oil pipeline construction in North Dakota was under the radar for a while but isn’t anymore with recent celebrity and media attention. But many are still unclear about what’s really going on—or why it matters. We have your back. Here’s what you need to know:

JAN_FEB 2017

WHAT IS THE PIPELINE?

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,172-mile long underground oil pipeline project in the United States. It’s set to begin in the Bakken oil fields in Northwest North Dakota and end at the oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois. The pipeline is due for delivery on January 1, 2017.

As of this printing, those defending native land are nearing their crowdfunding goals for the Sacred Stone Legal Defense Fund. At the same time, North Dakota has plans to borrow $4 million to cover the costs of policing the protests. Neither side is backing down anytime soon.

WHY IS IT CONTROVERSIAL?

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

DAPL is controversial because of its potential for environmental harm. But, in addition, protests at the site (near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation) have attracted international attention both for the number of protestors and the treatment they receive from authorities.

Set aside debates of land rights—for Christians the DAPL controversy is fundamentally about creation care. The Bible clearly teaches that God loves the physical world, and He calls His people to care for it. That means issues like this one matter more than business profits.

CELEBRITIES SPEAKING OUT: SHAILENE WOODLEY

“Hear me loud and clear: If you are a human who requires water to survive, then this issue directly involves you.” —in Time CHRIS HEMSWORTH

“Standing with those who are fighting to protect their sacred land and water. #nodapl #waterislife #mniwiconi @taikawaititi.” —Instagram

I . C .Y. M . I . IN C ASE YOU MISSED IT

ENTERTAINMENT ACTUALLY WORTH YOUR TIME

FILM/TV AUDIO BOOKS

MARK RUFFALO

“Ultimately, a lot of the work I do has to do with protecting water and that’s what these people are doing there.” —on CNN

SUSAN SARANDON

“Not only is it an environmental, but it’s a problem in terms of social justice.” —at a rally in L.A.

1 13T H

This breakout Netflix documentary draws a startling connection between slavery (hence the title) and the current state of mass incarceration. 2 THE NARRATIVE

LEF T: Native Americans march to the site of a sacred burial ground disturbed by the Dakota Access Pipeline project, near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s encampment.

This album from Sho Baraka weaves an origin story of the black experience into a diverse mix of hip-hop.

3 T H E DAY T H E

DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE ROUTE MAP

Original Pipeline Route Dakota Access Pipeline Route

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R E VO LUT I O N BE G A N

N.T. Wright takes a deep look at Jesus’ crucifixion and its implications.

4 ARRIVAL

The critically acclaimed sci-fi film was a surprise hit in 2016. If you’ve not seen it yet, do it now.

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5 HOW’S YOUR SOUL?

UNCEDED SIOUX TERRITORY UNDER 1851 TREATY OF FT. LARAMIE

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Judah Smith asks deep questions about spiritual health, and shows readers the source of healing and hope.

er OCE TI SAKOWIN AND SACRED S TONE CAMPS

STANDING ROCK SIOUX RESERVATION

6 T H E C R OW N

This Netflix series about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II is filling the void left by Downton Abbey.

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KEILLOR INCORPORATED CHRISTIANITY

Rock ‘n’ roll’s Mandolin Hero

INTO THE SHOW WITH THINGS LIKE HYMNS AND STORIES ABOUT CHURCHGOERS. DO YOU STILL SEE THAT PLAYING A PART IN THE SHOW?

I do, because it feels like a part in American life. Garrison found a way to make that inclusive; he was constantly questioning religion, but it still factors heavily into American life. We all have a relationship with it in some form or another, whether we’re atheist or born again or Muslim or Jewish. Everyone has those questions. I think Prairie Home Companion itself has a church-like role to a certain extent. It comes on from 5 to 7 p.m. on Saturday evenings, it has always been geared toward families and there’s this communal aspect. THE SHOW ALWAYS HANDLED RELIGION WITH REVERENCE, DO YOU SEE THAT AS A KEY ASPECT MOVING FORWARD?

Ultimately Garrison, in my opinion, is a lover of things not a hater of things. And I think that was clear in the way that he would describe biting into a summer tomato or in the way that he would sing one of these hymns. Whatever he thought about the faith, he respected the idea of faith in general—of all faiths and all beliefs. If there’s anything I would like to continue doing, it’s that.

Q+A

CHRIS THILE: MEET THE NEW VOICE OF PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION THE ECLECTIC CHRIS THILE He’s only 35, but he’s already solidified himself as one of the most interesting creatives out there. Here’s a look:

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1989-2007

Fronted the Grammy-winning folk band Nickel Creek

He was only 15 when Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers frontman Chris Thile first performed on NPR’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” the iconic show created by host Garrison Keillor. Now, 20 years later and with Keillor retiring, Thile is taking over the hosting role permanently. We talked to him about making this historic move and changes he has in mind for the beloved show.

2007-PRESENT

Formed the “progressive blue grass” group Punch Brothers

2009

Performed a mandolin concerto entitled Ad astra per alas porci

2011

ARE THERE NEW ARTISTS YOU WANT TO INTRODUCE ‘PRAIRIE HOME’ FANS TO?

I love the two-way street aspect about that. Garrison was my age when he started the show. My parents introduced it to me, and I’ve continued to listen. But not everyone my age has ... If I can lure someone like Anderson .Paak onto the show, you can bet I’m going to do that. The great pianist, Emanuel Ax, would be so wonderful to have on the show.

Collaborated with accalimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma and two other musicians to record The Goat Rodeo Sessions

2011

Recorded “Sleep With One Eye Open” with guitarist Michael Daves

2016-?

Took over as host of the iconic, 40-year running radio show, A Praire Home Companion

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SLICES

2017 : THE YEAR IN PREVIEW 10 THINGS THAT ARE DEFINITELY, CERTAINLY HAPPENING IN 2017 BY ROB F E E

you keep an eye on cultural trends, it becomes pretty easy to predict what’s coming next. To prove it, here are 10 things that are absolutely going to happen in the year of our Lord two thousand and seventeen.

BED BATH AND BEYOND WILL ANNOUNCE THAT THEY CAN INSTALL A FOREHEAD CHIP TO SAVE 20%.

> Sure, it’s one of the scariest signs of the end times, but it’s also the end of getting those big cards in the mail every single day of your life.

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03 02 AFTER REMOVING THE HEADPHONE JACK FROM THE IPHONE 7, APPLE WILL REVEAL THE IPHONE 8 DOESN’T HAVE A SCREEN. Sticking to the “less is more” mentality, Apple will make a controversial announcement that the screen has been removed from the iPhone 8 so there’s more room for an improved camera. Turns out it’s just a disposable camera. They will sell 800 million units.

AFTER THE CREDITS OF EVERY SINGLE MOVIE, NICK FURY WILL SHOW UP AND RECRUIT SOMEONE FOR THE AVENGERS. > IF YOU THINK there are way too many superhero movies and TV shows now, just wait until Marvel announces their deal with literally every studio that’ll make way for the most convoluted Avengers movie of all time featuring Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Black Widow, Jack Sparrow, Vin Diesel (as himself), Luke Skywalker, Christian Grey, the Annabelle doll, Lightning McQueen and the cups from Anna Kendrick’s song in Pitch Perfect.

THE WORLD WILL FINALLY REALIZE THAT “FANTASY FOOTBALL EXPERTS” AREN’T EXPERTS AT ALL.

> Guess what? If I pick a dozen guys to do well each week, a few of them are going to do well. Plus you don’t have to be an expert to see that if a struggling quarterback is playing against a strong defense, I probably shouldn’t start that quarterback. Seriously, how is this a job?

THE WORLD WILL OFFICIALLY RUN OUT OF WAYS TO REIMAGINE DISNEY PRINCESSES. After an exhausting endeavor to reimagine Ariel, Belle and Pocahontas as everything from girls with short hair to cement mixers to hot dogs, the internet will finally announce that it is officially out of Disney Princess ideas. Instead they’ll move on to Disney Princess sidekicks and the whole process will start over again.

IN A TEARFUL INTERVIEW WITH DATELINE, PSALTY THE SONGBOOK WILL FINALLY ADMIT THAT HE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO READ.

> “Everyone assumes because I’m a songbook, you know, that I must be able to read. But …” A GoFundMe will launch to send him back to school, but it’s quickly removed after the only donations are $18 from Gerbert and a “You can do it!” from BibleMan.

J.J. ABRAMS WILL GO TO EVERYONE’S PARENT’S HOUSE AND REMAKE ALL OF THEIR OLD HOME MOVIES > IF YOU THOUGHT Abrams was done with Star Trek and Star Wars, think again. Abrams will spend all of 2017 remaking and rebooting all of the footage of you as a child. Your kindergarten graduation will be reshot and replaced with a sleek, new version that stars some child star as you. It’ll be three hours long and make no sense, but will gross $4 billion.

HUMAN EXPRESSION WILL BE REPLACED WITH ACTUAL EMOJIS THAT SPEW OUT OF OUR MOUTHS > INSTEAD OF LAUGHING, you’ll just open your mouth and dozens of emojis will tumble through your lips. On one hand, it’s like a horrifying episode of Black Mirror, but on the other hand, thousands of “emoji sweeping” jobs will be

CLICKBAIT HEADLINES WILL DEVOLVE INTO NOTHING BUT ADJECTIVES AND ABRUPT SOUNDS. Gone are the days of article headlines that actually tell what the article is about. In 2018 you’ll just be clicking on buzzwords and hoping it’s full of Emma Stone reaction gifs you haven’t seen before.

10 STARTING A TWITTER PARODY ACCOUNT WILL BECOME A FEDERAL OFFENSE. > AFTER HAVING TO ENDURE parody accounts based on every single pop culture event since 2009, a hero will rise and propose a law making the creation of a parody account an act of terrorism. It will be approved unanimously.

RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM

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STATEMENT

HOW THE CHURCH CAN REGAIN CREDIBILITY BY MATT CHANDLER

few hours after the election of Donald J. Trump in November, I was on Twitter and I kept seeing a specific theme on my timeline: People writing about the Church’s loss of credibility because swarms of white evangelicals evidently voted for a certain candidate. I’ve never really put a lot of weight into statistics, but I do want to put my ear to the ground when I see a great deal of people beginning to question the credibility of the Church. I am driven by wanting to see the name and renown of Jesus Christ loved and worshipped and understood, and as we watch a generation drift away from the Church and her teaching, I really want people to understand the good news of the Gospel. Yes, the Gospel is personal—it’s me being saved as an individual by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s the Gospel. But the Gospel is also bigger than that. The Gospel is the people of God pushing back darkness as they are salt and light to the world around them. When I see reactions to the direction of the United States from African Americans, Latinos, whites and those all over the theological spectrum about the Church’s loss of credibility, I wanted to say that the Church will have credibility when she lives out all the implications of the Gospel—when she cares and fights for diversity in her ranks, when she’s not happy in hegemony, but reflects

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what we’re going to see take place in the book of Revelation. We’re in the process to getting there now, so the Church needs to be serious about fighting for those things. These actions aren’t the Gospel, but they are an implication of the Gospel. The Church will have credibility when she really cares about the poor, when she uses her influence and uses her money and uses her man hours to dwell among and serve the least of these. The Bible is drenched with God’s commanding His people to be about the least of these. If you want to argue that the least of these is the unborn, I totally hear that and have a track record of supporting and preaching on that. But the least of these is not just the unborn. I’m zealous for this because if the Church is going to have credibility, then more than ever she cannot lose heart because of what is happening in the United States. She needs to be happy to come alongside the immigrant, the foreigner, the sojourner and give, welcome and walk alongside. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be responsible, I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be good laws in and around immigration, but to ignore the poverty and heartache in that realm of society again is to fly in the face of clear commands in the Scriptures of what it means to be the people of God. In this moment the Church has lost her credibility, I believe very much that is just going to be the case in certain sectors of our culture. But I think the Church has an opportunity now to step into spaces that the word of God calls and commands her to step into—and I think in that space, being the salt and light, will lead to the Church regaining credibility in the eyes of those who are its primary accusers. It becomes very difficult for someone who hates Jesus Christ to make the kind of accusations against the Church they tend to make when we’re actively involved in fighting for diversity, actively involved in caring for the poor and actively involved in walking alongside the immigrant.

MATT CHANDLER is pastor of The Villiage Church in Dallas and president of Acts29. He’s also the author of several books, inlcude Explicit Gospel.

A SPECIAL SECTION ON HIGHER LEARNING

THIS CAN BE THE YEAR YOU FINALLY TAKE THE LEAP

NEW YEAR IS A GREAT TIME FOR taking a look at how you’re doing. And, sure, physical health is an important part of that. But what about your career goals? If a lot of people are honest, the life they thought they’d have—or the one they once said they want— isn’t exactly how it’s turned out. A big part of that is because of education. Studies suggest only 46 percent of Americans complete college once they start—that gives the United States the worst college dropout rate of any developed country. Even among the people who earned a bachelor’s degree, you’re likely not following the same path you planned. That’s why experts estimate just 27

46%

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percent of graduates work in a field or industry related to their college major. But it’s not too late: 2017 can be the year you take the action steps to get the job you always wanted, advance in the career you have or develop aspects of your life that have nothing to do with work at all. If that’s what you want this year to be like, we made RELEVANT U for you. This section is a content extension of our higher education directory at RELEVANTU.com. The following pages answer some of your questions about undergrad studies, grad school, seminary and some of the isOF AMERICANS sues you’ll face. COMPLETE We want it to help you COLLEGE ONCE take informed next steps to THEY START make the next season of your calling a reality.

AT BAYLOR’S TRUETT SEMINARY, students are equipped with both knowledge and experience to pursue God’s call to ministry. Students work in mentoring relationships alongside pastors, international missionaries and leaders of faith-based entities to gain a unique understanding of life in ministry and insight into the day-to-day operations of churches and organizations. Truett graduates are academically prepared and spiritually equipped to lead and to serve the Church and a world in need.

We are students and ministers. We are Baylor’s Seminary.

Visit Truett Seminary: March 23-24, 2017

A SPECIAL SECTION

DEGREES OF DIFFERENCE HOW GRAD SCHOOL IS DIFFERENT FROM UNDERGRAD

MOST STUDENTS GOING INTO GRAD SCHOOL assume their experience will be more or less like their undergrad experience. Maybe it will be a little more challenging and there will be fewer dorm pranks, but it’s still just like a slightly more mature college experience, right? Guess again. Graduate school is actually a very different animal, and the sooner you’re clear on the differences, the more equipped you’ll be to succeed.

TO ACTUALLY GET A JOB, SWEAT THE ‘SMALL STUFF’ GETTING A JOB IS IMPORTANT,

and the first thing a lot of people think about when it comes to that is what kind of degree or certifications they have. But often, it turns out, employers are looking for something more: “soft skills.” The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Mercer conducted a survey to understand the skills that employers most commonly look for when seeking entry-level job candidates. The survey report provides insight into the skills that employers need so that schools can better prepare high school and college students for entry into the workforce. Here’s a look at the details:

THE NUMBERS

CLASSES

CAMPUS LIFE

UNDERGRADUATE

GRADUATE

You do a lot of work outside of class, but the classroom is the nucleus of your studies.

Your coursework is mostly there as a foundation for your own study beyond the classroom.

Your campus is your entire world. You may venture out, but you’re largely tethered to it.

You’re in the campus, but you’re not of it. One exception: the library.

of HR professionals indicated that reliability was one of the three most important skills

STRUCTURE

PROFESSORS

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Your education is more or less mapped out for you from your freshman year on.

You’ll have a structure to your grad school career—but you’ll determine what it looks like.

Your professor is basically your boss.

Your professor is more like a mentor who can affirm your independent study.

of entry-level job applicants possessed the desired level of critical-thinking skills

of HR professionals indicated integrity was one of the three most important skills

of entry-level job applicants possessed the desired level of respect

When it comes to getting a job, your education matters, but not at the expense of the “small stuff.”

DAWN KINNAMAN MASTER OF ARTS IN YOUTH, CHILDREN & FAMILY MINISTRY GRADUATE

BUDGET APPS

With apps like Level Money and LearnVest, making sure your bills are getting paid is as simple as looking at your phone.

DRAGON DICTATION

Dragon Dictation uses accurate voice recognition software to let you speak and instantly see your words in text.

TRANSFORMATIVE ONLINE EDUCATION Dawn Kinnaman understands the need to be culturally relevant in discipling today’s youth. Her Master of Arts degree from Northwest Nazarene University is complementing and deepening her work with students through Young Life. NNU’s flexible online Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Youth, Children & Family Ministry are both relevant to your ministry and convenient to your life.

LOVE YOUR EDUCATION. LOVE YOUR CAREER. nnu.edu/relevant • 877-NNU-4YOU

A SPECIAL SECTION

5 APPS EVERY STUDENT NEEDS WHETHER YOU’RE GOING BACK to

finish your bachelor’s degree or venturing into grad school, college can be one of the busiest times of your life, but here are a few things that can make your student life a lot easier: EVERNOTE

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT LOANS AND STUDENT DEBT

Evernote is a multidevice app that lets you organize and share your research and lecture notes across all your digital platforms.

ITH A WEAK ECONOMY and ballooning education costs, going to college requires more students to take out loans than ever. It’s a daunting prospect, and the whole process can be pretty confusing, but never fear. Here are a few tips to get you started. EXHAUST ALL OTHER OPTIONS

Chances are, you’ll have to take out some college loans—around two-thirds of college students do. Look into grants and scholarships, and make sure you’re using all resources at your disposal.

rough idea of what you’d like to do, and that should be taken into account. Often, you’ll have to start paying off your loans after you have been out of school for a year, and you want to make sure you are going to have enough to live off while beginning to pay off your debts.

RESEARCH DIFFERENT TYPES OF LOANS

Odds are, you qualify for several different types of loans, and you should have a good understanding of them. Know the characteristics of different loans, and pick the one that works best for you. KNOW WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO MAKE ONCE YOU GRADUATE

You might not have a major yet, and that’s fine, but you probably have a

SET A LIMIT AND STICK TO IT

Taking out college loans may be unavoidable, but you don’t have to be excessive. Determine how much debt you’re willing to take on, and then find alternative means to cover the rest. Take on a part-time job, or maybe even consider a brief stint in the military. It feels like a huge sacrifice now, but the payoff will last your entire life.

College debt is rough. Prices have only grown higher over the past decade, making college often financially intimidating. Here are a few stats you should know:

$26,600 32

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average amount owed per borrower

of US college students take out loans to help pay for school

10YEARS

The average time it takes to pay off your loans

BUDGET APPS

With apps like Level Money and LearnVest, making sure your bills are getting paid is as simple as looking at your phone. THE “THINGS” APP

This app lets you schedule tasks, make checklists, sync calendars and pretty much accomplish any organizational task. AN ONLINE BACK UP

Few things are more devastating than a computer crash. For a few bucks a month, services like CrashPlan and Mozy keep your hard work safe. DRAGON DICTATION

Dragon Dictation uses accurate voice recognition software to let you speak and instantly see your words in text.

COLLEGE ISN’T CHEAP. On average,

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

A SPECIAL SECTION

HOW FURTHERING YOUR EDUCATION CAN MAKE YOU, AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU, BETTER

Q+A

BY A ARON CLINE HANBURY

HERE’S A LIE FLOATING AROUND. You’ve probably heard it. It’s that furthering your education is just about getting a better job. But pursuing higher education—whether it be a bachelor’s degree, master’s or doctorate—is about far more. Education isn’t just about making you employable— it’s about making you better. But even then it’s not just for you. The educated person makes everyone around them better, too. Greg Thornbury is president of The King’s College in Manhattan. We recently caught up to discuss this idea of going to (or back to) school for a greater purpose than a job or even personal fulfillment: education for the common good.

DOES THE IDEA OF GOING TO COLLEGE EXCLUSIVELY FOR “GETTING A JOB” OR “USING YOUR DEGREE” FIT WITH YOUR IDEA OF EDUCATION? That’s not a new idea. Previously it was called “vocational school” and it trained people to master certain techniques, whether that was TVVCR repair, plumbing or those kinds of things. But this isn’t just a problem about education, it extends to how marriage is viewed, it extends to how government is viewed, it’s extended to how we see the law and crime and punishment. Everything in society is now viewed through that very instrumentalized lens and unlike a lot of other people who hold the kind of job that I do, it’s totally understandable that Greg Thornbury is president that would be the orientation, of The King’s College.

because higher education has done a spectacularly poor job of delivering on its promises: It has racked up over $1.4 trillion in student loan debt, putting an immense burden upon the next generation, not only financially, but dampening their ability to innovate and create. Many students are forced by the cosmic sandwich of parents and advisors to choose a major before you have any idea what you have an ability to do and you pursue that goal and you limit your options of what you can do down to a very narrow range of things and then you graduate and even if you realize that you now hate this thing that you’ve chosen, you’re locked in. I actually wouldn’t be the president of anything but King’s right now because I actually am very sympathetic with the reasons, not the philosophy or the worldview behind, but the reasons why it’s gotten to this point. IF COLLEGE AND GRAD SCHOOL ISN’T JUST TO HELP YOU GET A JOB, WHAT IS IT FOR?

You have to understand that if you go down that instrumentalized route that so many

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A SPECIAL SECTION

don’t pick up those things and read with comprehension, you have people who are very susceptible to demagoguery and I think that’s what you see right now: If someone doesn’t agree with you, you demonize them and your basic attitude is “You should be in jail.”

[Liberal arts] are those disciplines, they are those bodies of knowledge that keep a society free. They are liberal in the sense that they liberate. people are tempted by and want to do, you actually become what one professor recently called “excellent sheep”— students just become a cog in the wheel of the means of production. You can be brilliant, you can be effective, but you actually won’t change anything. ... What the new economy is going to need is people who are highly creative innovating new community problem-solving initiatives. CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE BROADER SOCIAL BENEFIT OF SOMEONE GOING BACK AND FINISHING A DEGREE OR PURSUING GRAD WORK?

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I think the average person, and I don’t mean to use that derogatorily, is not going to devote themselves to sitting down and reading the curriculum that has kept western civilization relatively stable for hundreds of years. But I think wisdom is the thing that’s in shortest supply, not information or techniques. And that’s where most modern, kind of deliverymethod type education gets it wrong. A LOT OF PEOPLE SEEM CONVINCED THAT MORE JOB-SPECIFIC EDUCATION WILL HELP THE ECONOMY. BUT YOU SEEM TO BE SAYING THAT ACTUALLY LIMITING. We have to remember what the “liberal arts” are. They are those disciplines, they are those bodies of knowledge that keep a society free. They are liberal in the sense that they liberate. And when you have a republic that is not aware of the things that liberate a society from tyranny—economic ideas, political ideas, religious ideas, mythological ideas—you can actually sever the republic from what keeps it free. The danger that you run is when people

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL SOMEONE WHO IS, SAY 27 YEARS OLD, ABOUT WHY IT’S VALUABLE TO PURSUE THEIR EDUCATION? For one thing, depending upon what their background is, they just need it. I mean we do not have as educated a K-12 system as we once did. Those are facts. If they graduate from high school today, that’s like barely out of grade school education compared to previous generations. That’s a broad brush, but I think in general that’s right. From the biblical point of view, I would simply say this: When we read the Bible and if we care at all about our witness to the world, if we care at all about reaching the world “for Christ” we have to ask ourselves who did that in the past. St. Paul read the philosophers, he read the poets of his day. So if we don’t do it, if we don’t send our kids to schools we believe in, we deserve everything we’ve got coming to us if we don’t like the way the world’s going. WOULD YOU APPLY THE IDEA OF GETTING BACK INTO EDUCATION THE SAME WAY TO A 30-YEAR-OLD WHO NEVER GOT AROUND TO COLLEGE OR NEVER FINISHED? Absolutely. I think the 30-year-old ought to study the same stuff if they didn’t get it before. It’s a scandal if you’ve never read Plato’s Republic cover-to-cover. It’s a scandal if you don’t know the basic forms of argumentation and logic. It’s a scandal if you don’t know the basic narrative and literary shape of the Bible. AARON CLINE HANBURY is the editorial director for RELEVANT. He’s on Twitter at @achanbury.

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2016

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2016: A HOT TOPIC his fall, a Ph.D. student at UC Irvine tweeted a graph of data collected by the National Snow and Ice Data Center that sparked a firestorm of debate. The image showed that the amount of sea ice around the poles is dramatically lower than scientists would have predicted. And as researchers debated whether the chart represented a trend or an outlier, many agreed on a single fact: It’s time to be alarmed by global warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released new data revealing that 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded. The previous record holder? 2015. In fact, 14 out of the 15 most abnormally warm months ever recorded came in the last year and a half. The data arrives at a critical time politically. After his election, Donald J. Trump promised to “cancel the Paris Climate

SUSTAINABLE CHANGE. INTENTIONAL LIVING.

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WITH LAST YEAR BEING THE HOTTEST EVER RECORDED, GLOBAL WARMING HAS OFFICIALLY ARRIVED. NOW WHAT?

Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.” The president-elect also appointed climate change-denier Myron Ebell as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency for

GET INVOLVED YO U R T I M E VOLUNTEER: Nonprofits like 350.

Fourteen out of the 15 most abnormally warm months

org need volunteers to organize outreach and campaign. 350.org is active globally.

ever recorded came in the last year and a half. the transition team. For many around the world, the stakes couldn’t be higher. A recent study by the University of East Anglia further confirmed that the world’s poorest are the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming which includes both floods and droughts, and a sharp increase in severe weather.

YO U R VO I C E ADVOCATE: Join organizations like

Greenpeace in lobbying Congress, raising money and educating communities about the realities of global warming. YO U R R E S O U R C E S DONATE: Organizations like the

National Resources Defense Council works to protect natural resources in the United States and globally.

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HOW ONE BLOGGER USED HER VOICE TO HELP IRAQI REFUGEES BY ASHLEY ABR AMSON

W What’s the best way to deal with suffering in the world? According to Ann Voskamp, author of the best-selling book One Thousand Gifts, get close to it. And don’t be surprised if you somehow convert your fan base into passionate activists. It started with a blog post. Just after ISIS seized the key Iraqi city of Ramadi in May 2015, Voskamp published a poignant story about her intimate experience in Iraq visiting with women displaced by ISIS. Laced with vibrant, close-up images of Iraqi women and children alongside her familiar emotional and poetic voice, Voskamp’s blog post went viral. She wrote, “I sit with 4 Yezidi mothers in a shipping container where they sleep. They need someone to have enough courage to not turn away. That is us. We aren’t where we are to just peripherally care about the people on the margins as some superfluous gesture or token nicety.” She wrote intimately of her time in Iraq with the Yezidi people—time spent praying with those who needed prayer, weeping with those who wept, asking questions and, most importantly, listening humbly on her trip with Preemptive Love Coalition. “I think she had quietly been writing and processing the pain behind the scenes when the city of Ramadi fell,” Preemptive Love founder Jeremy Courtney says. “She took one of those pieces that she had been working on and she pushed ‘publish’ when the international [coverage] was at its height. And it hit her readers at just the right time.” In just three days, Voskamp’s blog post raised over $500,000 for the nonprofit dedicated to humanitarian work in Iraq. “Don’t turn away, Church,” she challenged. “Blessed are those who mourn and weep with those who weep and in the face of evil, how will we make our hands and feet into Cross-Shaped love?” Much of the money raised—now a sum well over $1 million dollars—has micro-financed loans for uneducated women, empowering them to run their own businesses so they can provide for their now-broken families. Other portions provided educational opportunities for their children,

developed emergency response plans for those fleeing the city of Ramadi, provided agricultural investments and developed the Sisterhood Collection products (a fund raising effort). When it comes to pinning down the number of donors and exact amount donated as a direct result of Voskamp’s post, Courtney doesn’t know where to begin quantifying it. “In some ways, it’s impossible because so many of Ann’s readers have become our donors,” Courtney says. “We would’ve never known them without Ann, and now they’re so fully on board that they’ve given far and above the numbers that we were able to report to Ann on week one after her post went viral.

I DON’T KNOW IF CHRISTIANS ARE REALLY CALLED TO BUILD PLATFORMS AS MUCH AS WE’RE CALLED TO COME AND DIE AT ALTARS.

“I’d say the reach of it is hundreds of thousands of people plus, easily.” One simple act harnessed the generosity of thousands, profoundly affecting the landscape of a nation torn by war and hate. For some, catalyzing a change of that scale seems like a once-in-a-lifetime feat reserved for an elite breed of Christians. But Voskamp would argue it’s just the everyday work of genuinely following Jesus—and really, the only appropriate response to grace.

PLATFORMS AND ALTARS

With more than 150,000 Twitter followers and nearly 400,000 on Facebook, Voskamp has a unique avenue for converting fans into activists. But she says her work has never been about the platform; instead,

she has focused on honing her energies on what God has placed right in front of her, right now. “It’s about writing for an audience of one,” she says. “I don’t know if Christians are really called to build platforms as much as we’re called to come and die at altars.” She continutes: “If you have been moved by grace, grace starts movements,” Voskamp says. “Grace makes you an activist.” According to Voskamp, we must notice and respond to the suffering right where we are. “Everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to change the next load of laundry,” she says. “We are called to start exactly where we are. You are where you are for such a time as now.” Changing the political and cultural landscape in the world begins with a willingness to look suffering in the face, right in our own backyard. It might be counter-intuitive, but Voskamp says to walk through suffering is the only way to actually transcend it. “Suffering is a meaningful way to process our lives, not something we need to escape,” she says. When we refuse to hide from the brokenness around us, we actually can respond to the needs we see with God’s love. “We transcend the suffering by moving into the suffering toward compassion,” she says. If we are brave enough to face the suffering we see, we may also find our purpose along the way. “If I press into suffering, I will step into the most deeply meaningful way to live my life,” Voskamp says. “Where does my passion meet compassion? That’s where I will find purpose.” In the end, it’s facing and giving from our brokenness that makes way to the abundant life Jesus offers us in John 10:10. “When we live a cross-shaped life, we encounter intimacy with Christ and the brokenness in the world. With all the abundant brokenness, He creates the wholeness we are profoundly aching for,” she says. “What will you do with your one broken heart? What will you do with suffering in the world? That’s the broken way.” ASHLE Y ABR AMSON is a freelance writer living in Redding, CA. Find her on Twitter @ashleyabrmsn.

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ho Baraka is one of the most interesting people out there. He’s an Atlanta-based rapper with a brand new album (The Narrative) but that’s only half of his public presence. He is also a bona fide public intellectual and co-founder of the AND Campaign, a nonpartisan group that tries to influence the political sphere. Going into a year that will need authentic, bold Christian voices more than ever, Baraka might be one of 2017’s most important people. We talked with him about Christians using their voices for social change.

LAST YEAR, YOU CO-FOUNDED A NONPROFIT CALLED THE AND CAMPAIGN. TELL US ABOUT THAT.

Q+A

SHO BARAKA HAS IT ALL FIGURED OUT HOW THE HIP-HOP ARTIST IS USING HIS TALENTS TO AMPLIFY HIS VOICE IN THE CHURCH

BY A ARON CLINE HANBURY

SUSTAINABLE CHANGE. INTENTIONAL LIVING.

There’s a lot of people who are like me, who have strong convictions that come from a biblical or faith background, but also struggle as individuals somewhat diverse in their upbringing. I don’t necessarily feel like I align wholeheartedly with a political party. There are things about the left that I think are wonderful, traditional speaking. There are things about the right, traditional speaking, that I think are excellent, as well. But to subscribe to one political party and give all of myself to the party without any kind of castigation I think is somewhat dangerous. There’s a group of people who feel like they are left out of the political landscape, because the right doesn’t necessarily speak for them and the left doesn’t necessarily speak for them. So we wanted to create a coalition, called the AND campaign, that removes the false choice and the false binaries that politics tend to create for people. We wanted to say we transcend the parties and we

want to be able to engage both sides in a way that will perpetuate our values.

WHAT DO YOU THINK CHRISTIANS NEED TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT SPECIFICALLY IN 2017?

HOW DOES PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT CONNECT WITH YOUR WORK AS AN ARTIST?

It’s all who I am. One of the things I’ve tried to figure out is how to consolidate all of who I am, rather than feeling like I’m compartmentalizing myself, and so this aspect of being what some people would call a social-thought leader or a public figure is an asset of who I am as an artist. I try to make sure that there’s intersectionality in all that I do because my faith

What we’re trying to create is a coalition that has yet to have a legitimate platform. And if we can do that, I think we can make some significant changes. Policy and politics follow culture. It’s not the other way: Politics don’t shape culture. It’s those people who have a great influence and what they want. When you galvanize people for a cause and they really speak up loudly then they make strong decisions. The same thing with the religious right,

GET TO KNOW SHO If you’re not yet familiar with Sho Baraka, here’s a little guide to remedy your Sho shortage. & CAMPAIGN

Baraka’s social advocacy group. Check it out at theandcampaign. com

THE

MY FAITH INFORMS MY ART, WHICH ALSO INFORMS MY PUBLIC THINKING, WHICH ALSO FORMS MY FRIENDSHIPS AND THE WORK I DO.

NARRATIVE

His newest and most creative album yet.

TA LENTED 10TH

informs my art, which also informs my public thinking, which also informs my friendships and the work I do as a leadership developer. YOU’VE BEEN PARTICULARLY VOCAL ABOUT ISSUES RELATED TO RACE LATELY. WHY?

The things I won’t address are the things that I feel like I’m ignorant on, or the things that I feel like I don’t have great authority to speak to. But it just seems to be that this particular climate we’re living in leans heavily on race, things of identity, things of faith. Before I was ever “qualified” to speak on those things, I was processing through this as a young black man growing up with an identity complex. … And so once I became more academically savvy, once I became an individual who knew how to put terms, theories and philosophies to these thoughts that I was wrestling with, then it gave me the qualification to be able to speak to it on a more recognized platform.

the Moral Majority in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I think that’s part of the problem with what it is today in all these groups—whether it be the Tea Party, LGBTQ groups, the religious right, the Moral Majority—we bullied policy through no matter if it was right or wrong. What the AND campaign is trying to say is that at some point we have got to have legitimate, real conversations about how we can come together and create legislation and policy as it benefits to everybody and not bully stuff through and not just intimidate people with believing and forcing policies that fit our own people group. How do we have those conversations? I think if we can galvanize enough people, if we can get enough people that think like us to say, “Let’s start having these conversations in a public space.” I think that would be most beneficial.

A hard-hitting, social commentary-laiden record.

A ARON CLINE H ANBURY is the editorial

director for RELEVANT. He’s on Twitter at @achanbury.

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REJECT APATHY

STATEMENT

WHAT WOULD JESUS SHOOT? THE PRINCE OF PEACE ON THE GUN DEBATE. BY SHANE CLAIBORNE

grew up shooting guns. We went squirrel hunting, dove hunting, deer hunting, fishing and frog gigging. And my home state of Tennessee is the home of country music, which has given the world lyrics like this one: “Our houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun. / And you might meet ‘em both if you show up here not welcome, son” (Josh Thompson’s “The Way Out of Here”). Growing up in the South didn’t just teach me how to make squirrel gravy. I also learned about Jesus. And Jesus is the source of my dubious relationship with guns. I still go hunting and am at best a mediocre vegetarian. But as much as I want to sometimes—I cannot reconcile violence with my faith in Jesus. Believe it or not, the Jesus I worship did not carry a gun. He carried a cross. You see, He did not tell us to kill our enemies. He told us to love them. He said blessed are the peacemakers and the merciful. He told us we are not to return evil with evil but to wear evil down with love. Jesus modeled that enemy-love on the cross as he said “Father, forgive them”—crying out in mercy even for the terrorists nailing him onto the cross. I see in Jesus a God of scandalous grace, who loves evildoers so much he died for them—for us. In addition to the Jesus I love, there are people I love—like the 19-year old who was killed on my front steps. I knew all the statistics. In the U.S. we have less than 5 percent of the world’s population but almost

SUSTAINABLE CHANGE. INTENTIONAL LIVING.

half the civilian-owned guns. Over 10,000 people die from gun-related homicides each year—and that number triples if you include self-inflicted gunshot wounds. According to The Washington Post, as of 2014, there are nearly 90 guns for every 100 people—we hold the world record (No. 2 is Yemen with 55 guns for every 100 people). There are more than 58,000 licensed gun dealers (and 37,000 grocery stores). Guns that can shoot 100 rounds a minute—and are only designed to kill—are still legal. And other than auto accidents, gun violence is the leading cause of death of people under 20. But the statistics became a name and a face the day I heard the gunshots ring out at 1 a.m. His name was Papito. I held his hand as he died. It is Jesus who scolds His own disciple Peter who instinctively stands his ground when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus. Peter defensively picked up a sword to protect Jesus. And, really, he stood up for Jesus. He had the ultimate case for self-defense. But what does Jesus do? He scolds Peter, telling him to put His sword away. Only to be arrested and led to his own execution. Early Christians understood that act as the final deathblow to weapons, saying when Jesus disarmed Peter He disarmed every Christian. No longer could any Christian legitimately justify violence, even violence toward enemies. In the centuries after, Christians were known for their love and their willingness to die for Christ. There is not one single Christian in the first 300 years of the faith who justifies violence or makes a case for self-defense. Just the opposite, the early Christians insisted that for Christ they could die, but they could not kill. We can die on behalf of others, but we cannot kill for them—for Christ has abolished the sword, once and for all.

SHANE CLAIBORNE is a speaker, podcaster, blogger and author of several books including Erasing Hell.

Allen Hood

president, international house of prayer university. promoting prayer and worship in every tribe, tongue and nation. asbury seminary m.div. graduate. go to asbury.to/voices to read allen’s story

So you’ve said yes to God’s call to ministry? Kentucky • Orlando • Memphis • Online

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

D D aa uu gg hh tt ee rr A CELESTIALLY SUBDUED SOUND ISN'T THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES DAUGHTER CONNECT SO DEEPLY t’s been three years since British indie-folk band Daughter first entranced listeners with their debut album, If You Leave. This year, the dreamy, melancholy vocals of Elena Tonra and bandmembers Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella return with their 10-track album, Not To Disappear. This time, the trio departs from the poetic hallmarks that achored their debut in favor of a more experimental sound. “We wanted to contrast with Elena’s human side and make it a little bit more like a city," Haefeli says. “In a

"We wanted to contrast Elena’s human side and make [the album sound] a little bit like a city." 46

MUSIC THAT MATTERS

city, you feel very lonely, you don’t really relate to these huge buildings and the people around you. This record is about those emotions.” The band has long been known for the depth of emotion in their lyrics. “Youth” and “Smother,” their two most popular singles to date, deal with broken relationships, the weight of coming of age in an uncertain world and a longing to return to innocence. But part of Daughter’s success is how they protect their mystery. Singer-songwriter Elena Tonra keeps the inspiration for her lyrics to herself and doesn’t share their deeper truths even with her bandmates. “What we found as we started recording those songs was that people were relating to quite a deep level,” Haefeli says. “[Even if ] those stories were the same as the ones Elena lived or not. She keeps the meanings of those songs secret so people don’t lose their personal interpretations.”

WHY WE’RE FANS:

The true indie sound in Not To Disappear lets you sink into a multifaceted emotional experience while remaining accessible enough for mass audiences.

F OR FA N S OF:

Ben Howard, Keaton Henson, The xx

arryd James seeps emotion. Popping with the rich, soaring falsetto that initially captured fans’ attention, the Australian pop singer-songwriter’s new EP, High, is an electroR&B influenced journey of love. But don’t just think relationships. Along the way, you’ll hear shimmery synths, soul-driven piano ballads and even some organlaced gospel rhythms. Though, High takes you deeper than just melodies and hooks; the EP leads with emotion over agenda. He’s one of those singers who is more artist than activist. “To me, that’s a poetic thing,” James says. “I don’t like trying to write songs about a theme, for me personally I find that really cheesy. I try to make emotional music, and there’s no agenda in that. I find that sometimes people need to have a release of emotions, whether they understand it or not, because that can be liberating.” Nowhere is this more apparent on High than on the title track. “High” represents a recovery

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ARTISTS TO WATCH

THE AUSTRALIAN INDIE POP ARTIST'S HIGHLY ANTICIPATED EP CARRIES SURPRISING DEPTH arryd James seeps emotion. Popping with the rich, soaring falsetto that initially captured fans’ attention, the Australian pop singer-songwriter’s new EP, High, is an electro-R&B influenced journey of love. But don’t just think relationships. Along the way, you’ll hear shimmery synths, souldriven piano ballads and even some organ-laced gospel rhythms. But High takes you deeper than just melodies and hooks; the EP leads with emotion over agenda. James is one of those singers who is more artist than activist. “To me, that’s a poetic thing,” James says. “I don’t like trying to write songs about a theme. For me personally I find that really cheesy. I try to make emotional music, and there’s no agenda in that. I find that sometimes people need to have a release of emotions, whether they understand it or not, because that can be liberating.”

MUSIC THAT MATTERS

Nowhere is this more apparent on High than on the title track. “High” represents a recovery of, and within, James’ career. He says that at one point in his decade-long journey, he gave up. “I had no money left; I had no drive left; I didn’t know what to do,” he says. “I had been signed to a deal, and it didn’t work and all that sort of stuff. I had been through all these experiences, so I just stopped making music altogether.” James stayed in that place for nearly two years. But the reason he walked away became the same reason for his struggles. James left his first love. “When I realized the reason is because I eliminated this thing from my life, which was one of the reasons that I know I was born: to make music. The first song I wrote when I started back was ‘High.’” The same thing that drove James away is the same thing that pulled him back into the journey. And that injects High—in contrast to most emotional pop— with the sense not of despair or cynicism, but hope.

W H Y W E L OV E HIM:

High's stream of falsetto depth brings something unique to an often shallow genre, but you won't give up the experience of intricate, glittering synths and pop hooks that won't let you go. F OR FA N S OF:

Chet Faker, Vera Blue, Daniel Johns

SWEATER BEATS

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

WITH HIS EUPHORIC MIX of electro hip-hop beats,

DJ-Producer and Maryland native Antonio Cuna, otherwise known as Sweater Beats, has been making waves on the music scene since his days on SoundCloud. His mixes and collaborations blend dream-soaked pop and R&B with a lush new sound all his own. Sweater Beats began gaining prominence playing underground shows in Brooklyn while he was in college and has since toured with Chance the Rapper, Diplo, Chet Faker and other industry veterans. This year, he’s headlining his own "For The Cold" tour in 31 cities throughout the country.

B E N W O LV E R T O N

Eden

W H Y W E’R E FA N S:

He makes the kind of music that energizes you while still letting you sink into a wave of chill. It’s that good.

CITIZENS & SAINTS

A Mirror Dimly

F OR FA N S OF:

Chet Faker, Kastle, Disclosure

SLEEPING AT LAST

Atlas: Emotions

LAPEER

When Lands Are Golden

CAMERON CHARLES

LUCY DACUS

High Hope

HER RAPID RISE SHOULDN'T SURPRISE ANYONE who has heard Lucy Dacus.

J O N AT H A N DAV I D & MELISSA HELSER

Beautiful Surrender

She’s a traditional lyrics-first songwriter with an almost mournful, vocalsforward style who weaves her soothing tones through restrained alt-rock melodies and beats. And her gentle but concrete alto drives straightforward lyrics. But don't take her straightforwardness to mean simplistic. Her debut No Burden tackles the “biggest riddles or the heaviest things on [her] mind.” This allows her to explore a bleak world with a refreshingly hopeful outlook. And it's that braid of the mournful, real-world tones and understated optimism that makes No Burden so intriguing.

W H Y W E L OV E HER :

No Burden is a welcome analog in a year of electronic, synth albums. Dacus' alto floats through tracks laden with mystery. F OR FA N S OF:

Mothers, Carseat Headrest Margaret Glaspy

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CONVERSATION

Q+A

LAUREN DAIGLE THE GRAMMY-NOMINATED ARTIST TALKS ABOUT THE WORK OF LEADING PEOPLE TO GOD he's been busy. About a year ago, when Lauren Daigle released How Can It Be, she burst onto the worship scene, garnering a Grammy nomination for her debut album. Since then, Daigle has been a regular on Christian radio and at massive worship concerts. A couple of months ago, she released a Christmas album, Behold, infused with her New Orleans jazz roots. But don’t mistake her emergence in the worship space as less than intentional. We talked with Daigle about her breakout year and how she approaches her new role.

OBVIOUSLY, YOU WANT TO INNOVATE AND BE CREATIVE. BUT AS A WORSHIP ARTIST, YOU'RE ALSO ABOUT SOMETHING MUCH DEEPER. HOW DO YOU APPROACH THAT TENSION?

A lot of times when we want to take on the role of “artist,” we want to project our sense of creativity for the world to enjoy and love. And in that, sometimes, God can use anything, God will use anything. But a lot of times it makes us become the focal point versus what we’re actually singing about. Living in that tension is really difficult, and there’s moments when I step on stage and I’m like, “OK, I want these people to like me.” It’s keeping your spirit open and existing in this relationship with Him that allows us to pour forth the creativity that He has designed for His audience to listen to. Keep yourself as an open conduit so that you can relay the message that He is wanting to tell His people. IT’D BE “EASIER” JUST TO BE A DIFFERENT KIND OF ARTIST. WHY GET INTO WORSHIP MUSIC?

When I was 16, I was diagnosed with an illness, and I ended up kind of going through this season of loneliness and depression. But in that process,

MUSIC THAT MATTERS

Sometimes, God can use anything, God will use anything. But a lot of times [wanting to project our sense of creativity] makes us become the focal point versus what we're actually singing about.

I knew God had something on the other side. Then at 17, I try out for American Idol. I make it to Hollywood, the whole bit. And I just remember breathing into the microphone at the time and thinking, “God, if you don’t meet me here the same way that you meet me at church when I’m leading worship, then all this is null and void.” I was cut the next round, and I think that was God’s way to show me that my heart was molded for worship. WHEN YOU APPROACH WORSHIP, ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD, OR ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT YOUR LISTENERS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH GOD?

A lot of times it goes to the listeners. When I’m on stage, I’m thinking about, “OK God, what’s going on in this person’s life? Can you just give me some insight so that I know where to pour in?” I want to be God’s advocate at all times. My desire is that He would just use me to let them have His presence in their lives. But there are moments where God is like, “Your best reflection of me is when you’re in communication with me.” So that’s the other tension I have to stay in.

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FROM T V TO TR AVEL, MILLENNIAL S HAVE SHAKEN THINGS UP IN A MA JOR WAY. IS THE CHURCH NEX T?

JAN_FEB 2017

B Y A DA M J E S K E

ILLENNIALS ARE UNAVOIDABLE. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t miss the cultural fascination this generation attracts. For proof, you needn’t look further than the 2016 election cycle: Leading up to November, millennials dominated headlines, with all manner of prognostication on voting preferences and habits. Days after the election, maps of how millennials voted aimed to predict what future elections might look like. But these predictions aren’t only about the future of voting—but the future of our culture. Millennials, for better or worse, are changing everything. And Christians have to wonder if the Church is next. Looking at the ways millennials are already disrupting the world might shed light on the future of the Church as millennials take the lead.

THE DISRUPTION GENERATION Perhaps it was inevitable, given the rise of the internet and mobile technology, but this generation appears to have wielded more influence more quickly than any other. A recent study by Pew Research shows that millennials now make up the largest portion of the workforce—over 53 million people. And as the means of production have become increasingly digital and older generations are slower to pick them up, millennials dive in, learn and start to lead. This means industries that have been stable for years are now being completely flipped upside down. You used to have to stand on a sidewalk and attempt to hail a cab. Then Uber came along. Not only did Uber change the way people could get a ride, but people with cars and extra time could easily make money on the side. Twenty years ago, no one could conceive of a way to connect with a stranger in Uzbekistan and then stay in their home a few weeks later. With over 2 million listings in 191 countries, Airbnb has totally

upended the way many people—overwhelmingly millennials—travel. Additionally, online streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have totally changed how we consume films and television. Having access to on-demand entertainment for less money than cable has led the majority of millennials to permanently cut the cord and send Front L-R:broadcasters Eric Cannata, traditional Payam Doostzadeh, Sameer scrambling. Gadhia Back L-R: Jacob Tilley, François People have always had good ideas, but they haven’t always had access to the funds to make those ideas happen—until Kickstarter. In the past six years, 115,000 projects have been funded with $2.7 billion from 12 million people. In 2016, brothers David and Jack Cahn traveled across the U.S. and talked to 10,000 millennials about how this generation wants to lead for their book, When Millennials Rule: The Reshaping of America. They found that there is divergence from what millennials think and how they ultimately vote (or don’t vote). “Just like our generation has disrupted things like replacing TVs with Netflix and replaced cabs with Uber ... we revolutionized all these industries, I think the next industry that is going to get disrupted is this Washington industry,” David Cahn says. “I think we’re going to see a lot more change than people expect.” The term the Cahn brothers use is “radical realists.” This captures millennials’ tendency to

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NETFLIX

IT’S CHEAP. IT’S FAST. THERE’S A REASON ALMOST 87 MILLION PEOPLE STREAMED 43 BILLION HOURS OF T V LAST YEAR. TRADITIONAL CABLE DOESN’T COME CLOSE.

“unify around centrist compromises on a lot of public policy questions,” Cahn says. Specifically, they point to gun control, immigration and job creation—topics about which millennials appear far more interested in finding solutions than sticking to idealism. In that way, millennials are fundamentally changing what it means to act on beliefs in public. And that directly affects the Church, raising important questions about the future of the Church in a world where millennials rule.

A HOLY DISRUPTION? The question can no longer be “if,” but only “how”: How will this generation disrupt the status quo of the Church? Answering that question isn’t easy, but there are some clues. Cahn points out that this generation is optimistic, tolerant of diversity, anti-establishment and eager for real connection. And these characteristics will form—and are forming—some of the contours of the American Church in the coming decades.

A COMPLEX NEW WORLD Millennials know intuitively that not everyone is going to share their worldview. It is no longer possible to be as isolated as their predecessors. What’s become the social media generation stays connected with everyone they meet and feels at home in the homes of strangers. Over the past few decades, as the pervasive, de facto influence of Christianity in the United States has faded along with the number of people who identify as Christians, some have assumed that this generation of believers represent a weaker Church. But Dave Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, doesn’t think so. “The good news about the millennial generation is that those who are staying are more involved in

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evangelism, more involved in justice issues, they take their faith super serious because it’s not the norm now,” he says. “There’s no halo effect anymore in American culture to be Christian.” With no illusion of a Christian-majority society, millennial Christians appear more eager to work with others—even those with whom they disagree— toward shared goals for the common good. “The majority of Americans think it is still a Christian nation, but a nation in transition spiritually,” Kinnaman says. “But the older you are, the more likely you are to have that belief, and the younger you are the more likely you are to say America is a post-Christian nation or a nation in transition spiritually.” And according to Kinnaman, finding that balance between blazing a new trail and continuing to be “in the world, but not of the world” is one of the toughest tensions millennials are facing. “Like Daniel did, there’s a tough thing of being faithful in a new context,” he says. “I don’t think that a previous generation gets that.” Kinnaman’s sentiment matches the Cahns’ observations that millennials are more open and adroit at the complexity of pluralism than their elders—millennials are more aware of how overwhelmingly nuanced many problems are. “We’re living in a very polarized, contentious world where everything is hard to talk about,”

UBER

EVER SINCE HORSEDRAWN CARRIAGES, THE TA XI SYSTEM HAS BEEN PRETT Y MUCH THE SAME. THEN UBER CAME ALONG WITH ITS AWKWARD-FREE DIGITAL EXPERIENCE AND NOW GIVES AROUND 2 MILLION RIDE PER DAY.

Kinnaman says. “And we actually think that those difficult conversations matter. You shouldn’t have them every day, all the time, on Twitter. But when they come up, it’s worth having a conversation about why we think these things matter.”

BEYOND CHURCH, INC. Millennials recognize complexity and nuance, but that doesn’t mean they’re content perpetually analyzing questions. It appears to be just the opposite. “[Millennials] are thinking, ‘How do we solve this?’ It’s much less ideological,” Cahn says. “It’s much less partisan. It’s much more about solutions.” One of the major realities facing this generation, according to the Barna study, is a deep-seated skepticism of traditional leadership structures and models, and an almost innate awareness that leaders are as flawed as everyone else. Scandals and failings amongst leaders in government, pop culture and the Church are familiar, and sadly, almost expected. And, like Cahn says, millennials seem to be about solving this problem. With Uber, Airbnb and any number of digital-world services, users inform each other about safety, quality and related feedback with ratings. In the same way, the future of the Church could very well be more of a bottom-up structure. Just like Netflix put curation control in the hands of viewers (rather than network executives and advertisers), a millennial-ruled church experience could be something of a Netflix version of church, where “users” curate what they find useful rather than being told what to consume. This kind of disruption won’t stop at leadership structure, though. Another area is formulaic spiritual life—those filled with acronyms and “steps” that can seem disconnected from real life.

A SIMPLER FAITH This rejection of the programmatic, however, doesn’t necessarily mean a rejection of tradition. In fact, the Barna study suggests it reflects a desire for deeper tradition. This generation is also poised to return in new ways to mysticism and ritual of our ancient church, a return en masse to the cathedral after several decades in the shopping mall. The study showed different images of altars to millennials, and members of this generation showed a general preference for high church—the more traditional the altar, the more they liked it. The authors say this reveals millennials’ “overall

preference for a straightforward, overly Christian style of imagery.” This desire for a more overt Christianity matches a different trend: Some of the most popular pastors and teachers among millennial Christians lead denominationally unaffiliated churches (like the Hillsong family of churches) that focus almost exclusively on the message of Jesus and pay little attention to traditional church distinctions. The forms differ, but millennials appear to be attracted to churches you couldn’t mistake for anything else.

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HOTELS WERE HOTELS, AND HOUSES WERE HOUSES. THAT WAS AWAY-FROM-HOME LAW. AIRBNB BLURRED THE LINES, AND NOW 100 MILLION USERS RENT OUT THEIR HOUSES AND ROOMS AND RENT FROM OTHERS TO THE TUNE OF $30 BILLION PER YEAR.

WHEN MILLENNIALS RULE The myriad of ways millennials will change the Church will unfold in the coming decades. Will the Church helpfully employ underutilized value to make people’s lives better, like Uber? Will they help fellow worshippers find the cream of the Church crop, similar to Netflix? Will the Church create new, beautiful things that otherwise would not have existed, like Kickstarter? And will the American Church embrace the complexity of the 21st century world? Exactly the form of a Church in which millennials rule isn’t clear yet. But one thing is: As Cahn put it, “there is a radical change coming.” ADAM JESKE keeps busy by working with Urbana. Find him on Twitter @adamjeske.

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THEY’RE A H U S B A N D -A N D -W I F E DUO W I T H IN DIE FOLK CR ED A ND A SOU ND A LL THEIR O W N . B U T T H AT ’ S N O T W H AT M A K E S THEM ONE OF THE M O S T E XC I T I N G B A N D S A R O U N D.

BY REBECCA MARIE JO

When you meet Abner and Amanda Sudano Ramirez, the couple known as the folky duo JOHNNYSWIM, you can’t help but think you’ve finally found it—that elusive idea of the perfect couple realized. Their chemistry is totally palpable. It’s not uncommon for fans to look on dreamily as Amanda fixes Abner’s tie in the middle of a set or notice Abner cheering on Amanda during her powerful solos. Generally speaking, the duo largely filled the folk-soul void left when The Civil Wars broke up. But following JOHNNYSWIM’s

JAN_FEB 2017

2014 full-length debut, Diamonds, it’s clear these artists are creating a sound and following entirely their own. Their highly anticipated follow-up, Georgica Pond, exceeded critical expectations, propelling them into a new status as musicians— complete with a first-time performance in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Georgica Pond takes its name from the pond where Sudano’s mother, five-time Grammy Award-winner Donna Summer, planned to build a lake house before she suddenly died in 2012. The theme of deep love appreciated and

then in Nashville, there weren’t too many people my complexion. So, he stood out for that reason, and as my curiosity piqued, he stood up with all of these beautiful girls who went to church with fake eyelashes on. I figured if he likes those girls he’s not gonna like me because this is my general look, like sweatshirt and shorts. From that moment on, he made me super nervous. ABNER: Meanwhile, I went to church that day with a girl that I was kind of seeing. The only reason I went to church was because she said we wouldn’t be able to keep dating unless I went to church with her. And I was like, alright cool I grew up in church, let’s go. At the end of the service, Amanda stands up, I see her and I think to myself, “That’s the girl I’m gonna marry,” but I also said it out loud. The dating relationship I was in ended right then. So I stood up to say something to Amanda because literally, this was the girl of my dreams. Like nothing I’d ever seen. YOU DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HER, ABNER?

Nothing about her. I just saw her. And her hair was super curly that day, she had this knit sweatshirt on that I loved. I stood up to say something to her and as she got close enough to say something, she looked at me, Front L-R:and Eric ICannata, Payam Doostzadeh, rolled her eyes shriveled back into my Sameer Gadhia Back L-R: Jacob Tilley, seat. Four years would pass until I saw her in François Comtois person again. AMANDA: But I wasn’t really rolling my eyes. I was just thinking he’s probably trouble because again, if he likes these girls he’s not going to like me so I’m just going to back off. That’s why I rolled my eyes. ABNER: I’m thankful we didn’t meet that day. AMANDA: He needed those four years. ABNER: I needed those four years, for sure. My roommate at the time, a guy named Matt Kearney, an artist as well, knew Amanda and re-introduced us at a coffee shop. AMANDA: And then that was it. A couple months later, we made friends over MySpace— because this was a billion years ago. I was living in New York at the time so we would kind of communicate over social media and then he invited me to a show in Nashville. I had no idea that he was in any way musical, and that’s what I was in New York working on. So I went to the show. And as soon as he opened his mouth, I didn’t know if I wanted to be him or marry him or something, but I knew something had ABNER:

lost sets the tone for the entire album. Each track is rich with emotion, even when light and hopeful. RELEVANT recently caught up with Abner and Amanda to talk about the new project and just what makes their sound so special. GEORGICA POND

JOHNNYSWIM’s second full-length album landed on six Billboard charts.

HOW DID THIS CHEMISTRY THAT MAKES JOHNNYSWIM SO UNIQUE COME TO BE? AMANDA: We both went to college in Nashville. Around that time, we saw each other at church, it was a really packed church service, he stood up and I thought “Oh, he’s cute.” Back

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to happen with this guy so I tracked him down, and I was like, “Can we please write together?” And I think he heard, “Can we please just be alone together?” ABNER: [LAUGHS] Yes, exactly. We got together to write and I couldn’t have cared less if any of the songs were good but as soon as we started singing together, I realized we had something.

It was so natural to combine them. I think it was because it didn’t come from pressure to write an awesome song, the creativity just came from us having fun. ABNER: I think we have more to work through now than we ever have because there are deadlines. We have to balance between the spontaneous, our schedule and structure, and that’s so necessary. I always AMANDA:

thought I just needed to be spontaneously creative. But I realized that’s not really how I work best. And I learned that by working with Amanda because Amanda works really great under structure. I work in controlled chaos so just give me a window, a parameter of time I’m free to absolutely go nuts. We could write something, we could not write something, we could just sit here and drink, we could do whatever, but I know

THIS SOUNDS TOO CLASSIC. DID YOU GUYS FIND ANY OPPOSITION TO DATING OR MAKING MUSIC TOGETHER?

The music wouldn’t have survived if we weren’t madly in love because everyone told us it wouldn’t work. AMANDA: This was before The Civil Wars, before duos became a thing. At that point, Abner had signed a bad record deal when he was super young, and I had kind of been in the industry long enough to know that I didn’t want to just sell out. I was part of this duo because I loved it. We realized early on we didn’t mind developing ourselves. In music, there are people who say, “Oh, we’ll take you and develop you” but every time we kind of dipped our toe in that, we felt like we were kind of becoming something we weren’t. It wasn’t bad but it was just kind of uncomfortable. We were kind of fine being broke and taking our time. I worked at Starbucks, he worked at P.F. Chang’s. We were having the time of our lives. We would play whatever show, anywhere. ABNER: There’s always a path of least resistance in any arena of life, and in music those get made obvious really soon. The hungry, thirsty folks who don’t have a sense of who they are musically or creatively automatically look at the person with the highest status, the strongest opinion, and follow whatever they say. After a couple of years, you never hear from that person again. Amanda grew up in a musical household, and I had already been sued by a record label at 18 or 19. The idea that “somebody’s going to make me famous” was gone, just absolutely evaporated. So, when we had opposition—and we had tons of it—it gave us a stronger sense of determination. ABNER:

DID YOU FIND THAT YOUR CREATIVE PROCESSES WORK BEST INDEPENDENTLY OR WAS IT NATURAL TO COMBINE THEM?

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T H ESE SONGS ON GEORGICA PON D W E R E W R I T T E N BEC AUSE W E H A D TO. T H E Y A R E L I K E M E DIC I N E TO U S , T H E Y ’ R E T H E R A P Y.

I HAD KIND OF BEEN I N T H E I N DUST RY E NOUGH TO K NOW T H AT I D I D N ’ T WA N T T O S E L L O U T. I WA S D O I N G T H I S DUO BEC AUSE I L OV E D D O I N G I T. – A M A N DA SU DA NO RAMIREZ I have that time to accomplish something. THAT’S DISCIPLINE FOR A CREATIVE.

Inspiration can come any time and you want to be open to it but often, you’re also caught up. We have so many voice memos. I think most of our songs actually come about that way where one of us will just write down a line or an idea, or sing a small melody or something. It just sits in our phone for however long and then when we’re like, “Let’s write today,” we’ll get together and go through all of them. AMANDA:

TALK TO ME ABOUT MY FAVORITE SONG ON THE NEW ALBUM, “TOUCHING HEAVEN.” WHAT’S THE STORY ON THAT ONE? AMANDA: We were in Nashville and we had

a writing session with a guy named Chris

DeStefano. We’re getting ready for him to come over and going through our ideas. You want to stay true to those because it’s for your record. You want it to be real. The song itself is about recognizing when God gives you little bits of heaven here. It almost feels like a portal to see more of Him in those moments if you notice them. But it’s funny because when we were writing that, we thought about how we could say this in a way that doesn’t sound blasphemous. Because obviously we’re not trying to be blasphemous. ABNER: It’s the opposite of blasphemous. The concept of heaven that I believe in is so beautiful and so powerful that it rips through the fabric of our reality and supernatural reality to give us actual glimpses of heaven right here and now. I was sitting at the piano, just toying

around on the black keys and I looked over to my right. Amanda and Joaquin are sitting on the floor playing, Joaquin’s laughing and slobbering everywhere and Amanda’s just so happy and kissing him. I didn’t process the lyrics, I just sang, “all I see are angels/all the streets are gold/ that lead to You.” I’m sitting at the piano, my job is to write songs, and my beautiful dream of a wife and child that I love with a capacity I never knew I had are just enjoying one another. If that’s not heaven, I don’t know what is. WHAT IS THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIAMONDS AND GEORGICA

POND? WHAT CAN FANS LOOK FORWARD TO IN THIS NEW PROJECT?

Georgica Pond was much more deliberate than Diamonds. The songs were written more deliberately. I was excited going into Georgica Pond to make the album, but I think there was a sense of determination, one because of deadlines but also, we had gone through so much between the process in our personal lives: losing parents, losing grandparents, losing some friends, relationships changing. These songs on Georgica Pond were written because they had to be. They are like medicine to us, they’re therapy. The recording of the song “Georgica Pond” and the song “Say Goodnight Instead,” I will never forget because it was so magical, it felt like we were in a movie. It was so beautiful. There is a sense of purpose in Georgica Pond that I’ve never felt in our music before, it’s just at another level. So I’m excited to see people connect with it and feel that sense of purpose in the songs we needed to write because they helped us heal. ABNER:

REBECCA MARIE-JO FLORES is the managing editor of RELEVANT.

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WA N T S TO S AV E C H R I S T I A N I T Y, K I N D A

BY JESSE CAREY

group of theologians gathered on a spring day in 2004. They faced an ominous job: Like some medieval trial, these men would decide whether or not one of their fellow pastors and church leaders was a heretic. Before that hearing, Carlton Pearson was one of the most influential young, black pastors in America. He founded the 5,000 member Higher Dimensions church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was a mentee of legendary evangelist Oral Roberts. But something changed for Pearson that would eventually lead to that formal ceremony in March of 2004. Months before, Pearson says he received a personal revelation from God: That everyone on Earth was going to go to heaven. He started to preach what he called “the

Gospel of Inclusion,” denouncing a belief in a literal hell and rebutting commonly held Christian theology. After he refused to recant, the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops found him guilty of heresy and Ted Haggard, then the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, called his teachings “counterproductive to the cause of Christ.” The episode 13 years ago resulted in the dismantling of the ministry and personal life of one of America’s rising Christian leaders. It’s something Ira Glass still thinks about a lot. “A guy preaches hell all of his life, and then he thinks God revealed to him, like, ‘Nah, you don’t have to believe in Jesus and you still go to heaven.’ He turns his back on everything he’s ever believed,” Glass says. “And all his friends tell him like, ‘Brother, don’t do that—you’re going to go to hell! ... And he still goes with what he thinks

God told him. And then suffers the consequences and takes a downfall and loses his church and loses his family.” Glass can’t shake it: “That’s just an amazing story.” Glass understands what it is to tell amazing stories. He’s the creator and chief creative force behind This American Life, a radio show and podcast heard by more than 4 million people every month. In 2005, Glass and his team did an episode about Pearson called “Heretics.” It was one of many the team has produced centering on the stories of Christians. You wouldn’t say they talk about Christianity often, but they don’t avoid it, either. Glass and his team at This American Life aren’t out to push an agenda or perpetuate a stereotype. They’re out to tell real and really great stories and document American lives often ignored, misrepresented or misunderstood by cable news, mainstream outlets and Hollywood.

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AN D I WA S AWA R E T H AT T H E WAY C H R I S T I A N S W E R E PO RTRAY E D IN T H E M E D I A , I N T HE N E W S A N D I N F I C T I O N . . . S E E M E D TO TA LLY D I S C O N N E C T E D F R O M T H E A C TU A L C H R I S T I A NS IN M Y LIFE .

ACT 1: SOMETHING NEW IN THE AIR Before podcasting broke out, This American Life was doing something antiquated but innovative. Back in 1995, at a time when TV dominated the media landscape and the internet was blossoming as a new, exciting source of information, the show reinvented a form mostly forgotten by serious writers, journalist and entertainers. Ira Glass was creating the most important longform radio show in modern times. Unlike morning shock jock radio or public radio news shows, This American Life wasn’t drive-time fluff or distilled newspaper-style reporting. It was a hybrid of documentary storytelling, radio drama and commentary, thoughtfully woven together by theme. Their goal was simple: Tell interesting stories of American life that you can’t hear anywhere else—like one about a pastor facing a modern heresy trial. Early on, Glass realized there was something missing in the way a large portion of mainstream culture perceives Christians. And he saw the opportunity to tell a unique kind of story. “The radio station we were at, WBEZ, it’s Chicago, so a lot of people are really devout and mostly evangelical,” he explains. “And there were a few people on staff who were really Christian—they were out with

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their Christianity in a way that was really lovely. And they were people who I really adored and just seemed like model people and model Christians in every way—and who I really loved talking to in general, and also about religion. And I was aware that the way Christians were portrayed in the media, in the news, and in fiction— in the movies and on TV—seemed totally disconnected from the actual Christians in my life.” Glass’ fascination with Christianity came at a moment of revelation. And in 1999, Glass had his own revelation that would change the course of his career. But, unlike Pearson, Glass wasn’t hearing what he believed to be the voice of God; his was a more secular voice of inspiration. Glass saw David O. Russell’s breakout film Three Kings and realized that the disconnect he observed could actually make for really interesting stories that, for the most part, weren’t being told. “In the movie, one of the characters at some point, something’s going to happen and he just goes off and prays about it,” he recalls. “And it wasn’t even a plot point in the movie. It was just this is a character with faith and he went off and prayed on it and then the next thing happened.” The moment surprised Glass—not because of how strange the prayer seemed; but

because how normal it actually appeared on camera. If that’s how actual Christians regularly behaved, why did it seem so surprising to see it depicted on screen? “I realized I have never seen that before in a movie—of like the normal thing that millions of people do everyday in this country,” he says. “I was like, ‘How is it that I’m this old, and I have literally never seen that in the movie?’ That the point wasn’t like, ‘OMG, he’s going to pray on it, and now he’s goning to get something from it, and everything’s going to change in this story.’ “‘It was, he’s a normal person and he prays,” Glass says. “So this is sort of all out of an impulse that came from that.” The moment in Three Kings was a catalyst for Glass. In the months and years that followed, Glass and his team produced stories about teens going on missions trips, megachurches leading prayer rallies, Christians confronting daily realities. They weren’t always cut and dry, black and white stories. Like the story of Carlton Pearson, sometimes Glass’ didn’t have traditionally “happy endings.” But they were tapping into that thing he thinks secular culture misses about Christians. Sure, the portrayals weren’t always completely flattering, but they weren’t ever cynical, overtly biased, mean-spirited or hostile. They were truthful and compassionate. They were intimate and authentic. Some were even funny. Most of all, they were true. Because those were the kinds of stories of Christianity Glass thinks are missing. “I feel like among a lot of the secular press the word ‘Christian’ is kind of a weird word,” says Glass. “Whereas I feel like all the Christians I know are really wonderful, and it seems like a really great thing to be. “In the media, it just seemed like whenever there was a Christian character, it was like the most doctrinaire, stiff-necked,

Ira Glass is the founder and host of the long-running podcast and radio show, This American Life.

doesn’t-listen-to-anybody, kind of corny version of an intolerant person,” he explains. “And every Christian I knew was exactly the opposite of that: great listeners, super concerned about people, utterly compassionate.” So the stories from Glass and his team were real stories of real Christians dealing with real life. And in that way, This American Life, led by an openly atheist host simply looking for great, human stories, was doing something no one else in American media could (or would) do: Talk about Christians honestly. For the next decade, Glass continued to find and tell stories that broke new ground in journalism. In many ways, “Heretics” represented a formula that could be replicated to communicate bigger cultural truths: “The plot has to be surprising,” Glass says. “It has to drive at some idea about the world that you haven’t heard before.” In the plot of This American Life’s own story, the next chapter offered a surprise twist that no one saw coming.

ACT 2: THE REVOLUTION WON’T BE TELEVISED When This American Life started, listeners

FOR SO M E B O D Y MA K IN G STO RIE S, I A C TU A LLY TH IN K IT ’ S A N I N C RE D IB LY PO W E RFUL TO O L TH AT TH E A UD IE N C E DO E SN ’ T SE E WH AT T H E PE O PLE LO O K L IK E .

heard the show the same way they heard almost anything on the radio: By tuning in on a dial at an appointed time. But in 2004—10 years after they first started making shows that were broadcast on public radio stations—Apple introduced a technology that would change the media landscape. As an updated feature to the iTunes software, users could easily manage digital audio files that would be known as podcasts. A new form of digital broadcasting was born. Podcasts—essentially downloadable audio shows—allowed This American Life to reach new audiences and listeners hungry for on-demand programming to provide a backdrop for their commutes and workouts. Their show became one of the medium’s most popular, and the amount of people who hear it online now rivals the amount who actually tune in on the radio. In the fall of 2014, the This American Life team enraptured listeners around the world with a true crime podcast called Serial—which recounted a 14-year-old murder case and became an international phenomenon. The podcast (which is produced by Ira Glass and the team behind This American Life), went on to become the most popular podcast in history and actually led to the subject’s murder conviction being vacated. The prominence of Serial signaled an even greater trend: Podcasting had arrived as a new, major form of mass media. Downloadable audio programming was now not only being produced by scores of independent media outlets and dormroom talking heads, but also by the biggest media companies in the world, all vying for a piece of mass media’s new millennial-friendly market. Glass’ revelation—of finding interesting stories with surprising twists, unexpected messages and unlikely heroes (like Carlton Pearson)—sparked a movement. “It’s funny because the shows that are like ours that are proliferating now, I feel like, a lot of why people like them is very old fashioned, sort of like—it’s like fun to hear a nice story—kind of feeling,” Glass says.

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THE BEST OF TH IS AM ERICAN LI FE ON FAITH Here are some of our favorite This American Life episodes about faith and Christianity:

EPISODE 77 “PRAY”

Pastor Ted Haggard helps This American Life explore the question, Can the secular world and the religious world understand each other?

EPISODE 202 “FAITH”

This American Life collected stories of losing, talking about, constructing and working within faith.

EPISODE 304 “HERETICS”

The story of pastor Carlton Pearson, who dropped the doctrine of hell and lost basically everything else because of it (this was Rob Bell’s Love Wins, just much earlier).

EPISODE 432 “KNOW WHEN TO FOLD ‘EM” (ACT 1)

The story of author David Dickerson returning home after six years away, having rejected the faith of his family. He was “prepared for war, armed with new beliefs”—but that’s not what he got.

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“One of the things that’s interesting is I feel like we are constantly being told that we have short attention spans because of the internet, and I feel like it’s so obviously untrue.” he explains. “People will stick around if something is interesting and good. And I do think we hunger for nuance in the same way that we hunger for goodness. We’re all complicated enough. You want fast food, and you want a nice meal that somebody cooked.” By now, you probably notice intuitively that sound bite-driven cable news attempts to grab ratings by giving the most polarizing opinions the most airtime. Internet headlines beg you to click. Network TV shows deliver quick punchlines. In a way, it’s not surprising that people misrepresent Christians. Many forms of media are built to polarize. There’s no time for nuance. Things are black and white, and if you’re religious and have complicated opinions, you may not find too many outlets comfortable allowing you to explore shades of gray. Yes, in the era of prestige television and Netflix, Glass says “we’ll spend 26 hours watching all the seasons of any given show,” but there’s still something uniquely powerful about the longform effect of a purely audio podcast to help you reshape how you think about the world. “Not seeing heightens intimacy,” Glass explains. “For somebody making stories, I actually think it’s an incredibly powerful tool that the audience doesn’t see what the people look like. I think especially when you’re asking people to jump across cultures from their own. “For a lot of non-Christians, they see the way people dress. They see the nice haircuts or the short haircuts on the men,” Glass says, essentially describing a Ned Flanders version of a pop-culture Christian stereotype. “A lot of people would look at them and say, ‘That’s not me; that’s not me.’ But then you just hear somebody’s voice, and if it’s somebody talking from the heart, you can’t help yourself but relate to it. You bypass a lot of cultural signals that tell you not to listen. I feel like that’s one of the things about radio that makes it so powerful.”

This American Life started a media revolution. It changed the way people view news, culture and, yes, even Christianity. But even Glass will admit, his storytelling method dates back—way back—to a somewhat unexpected source: Jesus, Himself.

ACT 3: JESUS CHRIST, PODCAST STAR Glass has developed his storytelling over more than two decades, and he’s landed on something powerful: Find an interesting entry point (a preacher questioning hell, for example), grab ahold of an idea (how willing are you to stick to your convictions?), find a plot twist (the celebrity preacher becomes an outcast) and bring home the message (holding fast to beliefs isn’t always easy). Along the way to developing the formula, Glass found some unexpected inspiration: “Our story is structured exactly like a sermon, consciously so,” he explains. “There’s a little anecdote and then you make some idea about it and then there’s another little anecdote and you make some idea,” he says, recounting the process of structuring a story. “I kind of thought I invented that. And then a friend of mine, who was in seminary was like, ‘No you didn’t invent that, that’s what we do when we tell a sermon.’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no. I made this up.’ And he’s like, ‘No, you did not. This is thousands of years old!’” It was the same style used by Jesus 2,000 years ago: “I remember him saying if you look at Jesus’ sermons in the Bible, this is their structure,” he says. “And sure enough, you look up the New Testament, He totally, when He tells the parable of the prodigal son, He tells the little story, it’s a great story and, then He tells you what He means. He tells you the anecdote and then He gives you the idea.” Sure, This American Life has benefited from having the tools of great journalists and being on the forefront of an emerging media technology, but Glass realizes that modern advances are really just vehicles for timeless storytelling. “If you think about also the technology that Jesus is using to get the word out—He doesn’t have a church,” Glass explains.

“He’s just wandering around talking to people. The technology He is using, like the internet, is He’s got these 12 guys. That’s it. He’s got these 12 guys—and three of them are pretty unreliable, or two depending on how you count it—and that’s what He’s got. Obviously He knew what He was doing; it worked. But the kinds of stories He’s telling, that’s the structure He uses, it’s built into us. That structure will get into us.”

ACT 4: RAISING HELL Any given week, if you tune into This American Life, it’s hard to predict what kind of stories you’ll hear: There could be reports from the frontlines of the refugee crisis; there could be investigations into failing education systems; there could be lighthearted, human interest stories about an average person who’s found themselves in over their heads. Stories of faith, and not exclusively Christianity, are still a regular part of the mix though. During the run-up to the 2016 election, there was no shortage of interesting stories of Christians passionately divided on Donald Trump. But even as the radio show is constantly finding new things to get obsessed with, Glass’ fascination with Christianity will soon take on a new form of storytelling: He’s bringing one of the show’s early, faithcentric episodes to the big screen. The story that helped launched a movement is becoming a movie. The movie version of “Heretics,” called Come Sunday, is set to star Chiwetel Ejiofor as Carlton Pearson and Robert Redford as his mentor, famed evangelist Oral Roberts. In the era of Love Wins, when an author and pastor can go from being hailed as the next Billy Graham (which Rob Bell was by Time magazine), to becoming a Christian culture pariah for asking questions about the afterlife, the story seems to be more relevant than ever. “There’s a part of my week, where it’s just thinking about Carlton Pearson,” Glass says. Glass still isn’t overly concerned about what side of the theological line you fall on. He wants to tell an interesting story— one that just happens to forgo easy, black and white ideas about religion, common

OUR ST O RY IS ST RUC T URE D E XA C TLY LIK E A SE RM O N , C O N SC IO U SLY SO . . .. T H E K IN D S O F STO RIE S [JE SUS WA S] T E LLIN G, TH AT ’ S T H E STRU C TU RE H E USE S, IT ’ S B UILT IN T O U S. TH AT STRU C TU RE W ILL GE T IN TO US.

stereotypes about Christian leaders and perceptions of narrow-mindedness. He wants to tell a story that doesn’t paint Christians in a bad light; but one that’s complicated, intimate and true. “The reason I think people are with it is partly the nuance, and partly because it takes you into a world—that if you’re not going to a megachurch and you don’t know that kind of world—it takes you into that world in a very intimate way,” he explains. “But partly, this is a classic story of somebody standing up for what they believe in— right or wrong—and then they suffer the consequences.” Like many stories on This American Life, particularly ones about people of faith, Come Sunday likely won’t have a lot of easy answers or even simple resolutions. There is no underlying agenda. There’s just a great story. And the thing about great stories is that even though they may not always change the way listeners think about other types of people, if they’re told right, they will change the way they feel about them. “It’s not our job to enact change,” Glass says. “I’m somebody who got into journalism in my 20s wanting to change the world, but I learned within the first few years that it’s really rare for journalism to ever really change anything.” Whether it’s Christians, refugees, political candidates, victims of injustice or

just someone who’s lived through an interesting experience, after two decades of changing the way people consume stories, Glass and his team don’t feel the need to try and spark the listener to take some sort of action. No, in a way, their job is much harder than getting people to sign a petition, to cast a ballot or to make a donation. Their job is to humanize people who the world loves to stereotype: “We just need to say that these people, who you’re talking about, are people too, whoever they are,” Glass explains. “Sometimes, we have a very mission-y sense of like, somebody’s got to say this.” he says. “But saying we have a mission-y sense of somebody’s got to say this, that’s very different than thinking it will cause any change. It’s more nihilistic than that: It’s like we’re going to say it even if it doesn’t do any good.” Will This American Life change the way those within the broader culture see an issue—like, for example, the reality of what Christians are really like? Maybe. “It’s fun making radio stories, and we like meeting the people and maybe somewhere somebody is going to get a different idea.” JESSE CARE Y is the director of digital media for RELEVANT. He lives in Virginia Beach with his wife and two kids.

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17 WAY S T O M A K E 2017

Y O U R B E S T Y E A R E V E R 66

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BY REBECCA MARIE JO

E’LL JUST GUESS, BUT IF you’re anything like 92 percent of Americans, you didn’t complete your New Year’s Resolutions last year. You probably don’t even remember them. And now here we are, staring at another new year. But each year brings the opportunity for a new start—another chance to form good habits, invest in relationships and take the next step at work. And thankfully, there’s more you can do than just say, “This time is going to be different” over and over. Here are 17 surefire ways you can make 2017 your best year yet (the resolutions are up to you).

SITES LIKE LYNDA , Coursera and

Udacity help you learn something new without ever leaving your couch. Whether it’s app development, data analysis or a new language, there’s no shortage of courses to meet your interests.

4. CROS S SK YDIVING OFF YOUR B U C K E T L I S T.

1. PLAN A TRIP OVERSEAS ON A BUDGET. ou know you want to ‘gram some exotic adventures. But who can afford it? Actually there are some things you can do to cut costs (and keep your year Ista-epic). Sites like WWOOF.net and Couchsurfing. com make traveling abroad on a budget easy if you’re into alternative lodging. But if sleeping on a stranger’s couch in Berlin isn’t your thing, you can sign up for a newsletter at scottscheapflights.com that gives you the cheapest international flight of the day, like a $400 roundtrip to Rome. Ciao, America.

3. BECOME AN EXPERT (IN SOMETHING YOU DON’ T KNOW ).

PERSONAL RISK-TAKING increases

emotional intelligence and builds connections. Run a marathon, sky-dive, get a diving certification or participate in your local polar plunge. What are you going to do in 2017 that you’ve never done?

2. USE TECH TO GET HEALTHY. STUDIES SHOW people don’t reach their health goals because they don’t track their progress. From Fitbit to Apple Watch to Garmin, there’s no shortage of tech to track everything from the quality of your sleep, heart rate and physical activity. Amazon offers a selection from $20 to $200.

5. BECOME A MORNING PERSON. WAKING UP EARLY IMPROVES your

quality of sleep (somehow). Some of the most successful people wake up before the rest of the world, and many creatives swear they’re most productive in the morning, from Stephen King to Haruki Murakami.

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6. JOIN A CLIQUE (LIKE, T HE GOOD K IND). YOUR FRIENDS AREN’T INTO

playing ultimate frisbee or discussing politics? These days, you can easily search on Facebook for a group to join in your area or create a Meetup. com account and get involved in volunteering, a coed sports team or even a Pokemon Go league. It’s true, they exist.

9. START A DINNER CLUB. ating with other people promotes good health and community. Seriously, it’s science. And we all know it’s probably time to learn that cooking means more than opening the oven to put your frozen meal in. Apps like BigOven let you save recipes, keep track of your grocery list and even plan your menu for the week. With 350,000 recipes to try, you don’t have any excuses.

7. M A N A G E Y O U R $ L I K E A N A D U LT. REALLY, CASH IN PAPER

envelopes? Now there are tons of 21st-century options for handling your cash. Acorns is an automated investment app that helps you save and invests your leftover change. Mint.com also connects to your account to do all your budget tracking for you.

8. S TA R T USING YELP TO DISCOVER NEW RE S TAUR A N T S. FOODIE OR NOT, IT’S TIME to break

out of your Chili’s habit. Finding local restaurants is a great way to invest in your community and support small business owners. Plus, with Yelp’s bookmarking system you can make a note of restaurants you want to check out.

JAN_FEB 2017

10. SET A GENEROSITY GOAL. REMEMBER THAT BUDGETING app we mentioned? Add “giving” to your budget planning. Whether it’s finally giving 10 percent to your church, supporting a cause you care about or buying groceries to donate to your local food shelter once a month, it’s time.

11. CREATE A RHYTHM OF SELF-CARE. SET ASIDE A NIGHT OUT OF THE WEEK to do something that restores you like going for a walk, treating yourself to a good meal or decluttering your desk. Self-care is any intentional act that takes care of your physical, mental or emotional health. And when we’re stressed, it’s usually the first thing to go from our schedules. Getting into a rhythm helps keep you balanced.

12. BECOME A MENTOR TO K I D S I N Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y. 25 PERCENT OF KIDS IN THE U.S. ARE RAISED in single-

parent homes. Organizations like The Mentoring Project or Big Brothers Big Sisters let you make a difference in their lives. By volunteering an hour of your week, you don’t realize the difference you’re making in someone else’s life.

14. READ THE WHOLE BIBLE. OK, THIS ONE’S

obvious, but when’s the last time you were consistent about it? We’re not talking about legalism here, but you’ve got to read it if you believe it. Reading four chapters a day gets you through the Word in a year. But honestly, your pastor will be happy if you just crack it open once a day.

15. BUY A NEST THERMOSTAT. TRUST US. ON AVERAGE, RELEVANT staffers who own a Nest saved over $200 a month in their power bills. Thermostats like Nest efficiently regulate the temperature in your home and turn off when no one’s home. It saves energy and all your money.

16. CREATE A PERSONAL MISSION FOR THE YEAR.

13. SIGN UP FOR THE BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB. eriously, spend time reading more than some BuzzFeed quiz results this year. With all the content out there, it’s hard to keep track of new books and authors you should read. Let a Book of the Month subscription do all the work for you. For $10 a month, you can choose a new book each month based on your interests. (Plus, you’ll look so smart.)

YOU KNOW THE VERSE —“without vision, my people fail.” It’s true for our individual lives, too. So this year, write down your big goal and use resources like Michael Hyatt’s Living Forward to break your goal into steps and make them, you know, actually happen.

1 7. A N S W E R Y O U R O W N R E A L L Y DEEP QUESTIONS. HAVE YOU BEEN WONDERING WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES about an issue?

This is the year figure it out. With the Logos and Accordance Bible software, it’s become easier than ever to take a deep dive in Scripture. Not only do these programs include Bible search tools, they also include just about any commentary or reference tool ever published.

REBECCA MARIE JO is the managing editor of RELEVANT. She’s on Twitter at @rebeccamariejo.

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B Y J O S H H AY E S

T H E Y C R E AT E S O M E O F T H E M O S T T H O U G H T F U L , LY R I C A L LY R O B U S T M U S I C O U T T H E R E . B U T T W O Y E A R S A G O, T HIS HUSBA N D A N D W IFE DUO W ER E C O M P L E T E LY B R O K E N .

ou could say things have come full circle for the music collective known as Gungor. In late September 2016, the husband and wife duo released their latest studio album, One Wild Life: Body. It concludes a trilogy of albums that Michael and Lisa Gungor put together over the last year or so. The first in the trilogy, One Wild Life: Soul, became available in August 2015 and was followed by One Wild Life: Spirit in March 2016. Each installment features a variation of the same concept on the cover: A full circle. Intentionally or not, the image is a metaphor for the duo, who have gone from the darlings of the worship music genre to outsiders over the course of two years—only to find an entirely new audience of fans hungry for big truths about God expressed through music. In 2014, Lisa and Michael went through one of the most challenging periods of their lives. “We just found suffering often, for us, produces a lot of the way we cope and deal with it,” Michael says. “A big part of it for us is art and writing. So we had all this stuff coming out as a result of all the suffering we had experienced in 2014.” In the span of six months, the couple experienced the death of a friend, the birth of a special needs child and a public shaming at the hands of some Christians with a theological ax to grind. “We had a very dear friend pass away tragically, and we didn’t have a place to live for a little while,” Lisa says. “We had a social media blowup. And we also had a beautiful baby girl who is amazing, but we didn’t know when I was pregnant with her that she would be born with Down syndrome and with two heart defects.” With the birth of their daughter, the Gungors suddenly faced the reality of a kind of parenting they never expected, much less prepared for. And it rocked their world. On top of that, early on, their daughter required surgeries for her heart that not every child survives. The Gungors don’t say their daughter’s birth brought a crisis of faith, but it certainly forced them to learn to “brave the rise and fall” of the human experience. “We were floored and devastated,” Lisa says.

“It felt like the whole world just flipped upside down.” And this was just part of their story of the year that changed everything.

*** Back in 2013, Michael gave a winding interview to the Oakland Press in which he talked about a recent “existential crisis,” adding, “I just lost my metaphysic” after becoming “paralyzed” by big questions about faith. Later, in a 2,602-word blog post about faith, belief in the Bible and God, Michael made an anecdotal point about holding a non-literal interpretation of the creation account. Then, in 2014, WORLD magazine published an article online that referenced quotes from both pieces, without providing the full context for either. The headline read: “Gungor drifts from biblical orthodoxy.” The article—along with countless related blogs and social media posts—went viral. The blowback from some fans was instant and devastating: A portion went so far as to discourage their fellow Christians from buying or listening to Gungor’s music, practicing something akin

I R E A LIZE D O N A V E RY D E E P A N D P RO FO U N D LE V E L H OW W RO N G I WA S A B O U T H OW I WA S V I E WI N G LI FE . — LI S A G U N G O R

to subcultural excommunication. Churches across the country even refused to book them any more. “It was painful to go through,” Michael says. “By shattering some of those hard lines of what people thought we were, it kind of allowed us to be seen a little bit.” The whole episode gave rise to The Liturgists, a podcast Michael co-hosts with “Science Mike” McHargue. On the show, which boasts a cult following, Michael tries to create a “space for openness, vulnerability and honesty about doubts and letting people be who they are without all these hard lines to define them.” In fact, The Liturgists podcast gives platform to many of the topics and issues explored in the One Wild Life trilogy. Along with producing podcast episodes, The Liturgists hold gatherings known as “Belong”

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shifting perspective grew beyond the capacity of one album, thus giving way to the idea of a trilogy: “To put all of that on one album felt like it might be kind of a startling listening experience, maybe not in a great way.” Their story was too full, too complex for one album.

***

to serve those who find themselves in a similar place as the Gungors were, places of spiritual expression, struggle or angst. The people they reach connect with the idea that someone else is with them. “There have been so many people who are on the verge of suicide because what their faith [community or tradition] has told them is they have to believe A, B, C

actually say they’re now thankful for these hardships. “From all of the stuff we had been through the past few years and wrestling deeply within ourselves with what do we believe now and where are we at, I just felt this beautiful release and kind of finish [that] we said what we wanted to say,” Lisa says.

ONE WILD LIFE

is a trilogy of albums that ride Gungor’s characteristic popfolk texture, while bleeding the pain they’ve faced.

SOUL

or D or they’re not in, and they don’t know what to do with the questions they have,” Lisa notes. The Liturgists isn’t just a side project for the Gungors. It’s an extension of their wrestling with the experiences of life, just like their music.

*** The Gungors’ art reflects their life and, in turn, their life reflects their art as they struggled their way through to a new perspective on reality. While two years ago the world felt upside down for Michael and Lisa, they

JAN_FEB 2017

SPIRIT

BODY

“I’m so glad that we have an opportunity to say these things, and I don’t say that lightly at all. I feel it’s possible to not have an audience at all, and I love that people are listening to these lyrics. People are connecting in a deeper way.” This period taught them to embrace the fullness of life, thus bringing things full circle for them, so to speak. They came to see the unity that is existence—a recognizable theme played out across the One Wild Life trilogy, perhaps even latent in its title. In fact, Michael explains how communicating their experience and their

The Gungor family’s suffering and isolation helped Michael and Lisa to realize they had been for most of their lives “walking with their eyes closed.” The process of changing their outlook on life and faith revealed to them the process of what it means to be and to live in the moment— prevalent themes in tracks like “Already Here” and “To Live in Love.” “We process life through writing songs and also through everything we were walking through,” Lisa says. “We quickly began to realize we were the blind people going through life looking for sight and grasping it here and there. But then we realized how we so compartmentalize what a good, happy and full life is with people. I realized on a very deep and profound level how wrong I was about how I was viewing life.” One Wild Life: Body, like the other two volumes in the trilogy, has its own distinct sound and tells its own story. The album opens, quite naturally, with a song titled “Birth,” which gives something of a warm but eerie existential tour of what it might feel like to process one’s first moments outside the womb. The album brings not only itself but the trilogy to a close with the aptly titled “The End,” a song that harkens quite lucidly back to “Lion of Rock,” the opening song from One Wild Life: Soul. (Try listening to the trilogy on a playlist loop; it’s hard to tell when Body ends and Soul begins over again when listening straight through the three albums.) “Welcome home” are the final words heard on Body. These words fittingly consummate this season of the Gungor’s journey, as Michael and Lisa look at what is next in this one wild life. JOSH HAYES is a writer, and an editor for The Gospel Project. He’s on Twitter at @perpetual_hayes.

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C A PI TA L ISM A ND SOCI A L ISM BY K AR A BETTIS

JAN_FEB 2017

e really started something. Now that the dust has settled surrounding one of the most contentious and polarizing presidential elections in recent history, it’s tempting to sweep its memory under the rug of time past. But some elements of the election have permanently pushed the United States in a new direction—like the campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Famously promising to break up big banks, double the minimum wage and make public colleges tuition-free, the self-described Democratic Socialist’s passionate and loyal supporters revealed trends that Americans would be foolish to ignore. His policy proposals influenced Hillary Clinton’s approach on the campaign trail. They brought to the surface the rumblings of an entire generation on both sides of the political spectrum—one discontented with unemployment, student debt and unequal pay. Sanders’ campaign showed that socialism—at least in some form—is back in fashion. A YouGov poll in January 2016 found that 43 percent of respondents under the age of 30 had a “very” or “somewhat” favorable view of socialism. Only 32 percent of the same demographic had a favorable view of capitalism. The ideas that arose from Sanders’ campaign also revealed that many Americans feel that it’s the government’s job to forgive debt, create jobs

and level out the economic playing field. That’s not all. This awakening of at least core elements of socialism raised all kinds of new questions for American society. But what about the Christians? Is the political-economic structure of a country a Christian concern? Does the Bible offer an opinion on capitalism and socialism? When it comes to Christians and economics, they’re often uneducated but certainly split on the issue. Christian conservatives often argue that a just government is a body limited in scope that allows its citizens to flourish, while Christian liberals emphasize that true justice comes in the form of a government that restrains oppression and eradicates abusive systems. Although evangelical Christianity in the United States has long been associated with free-market capitalism, the Sanders campaign showed that a healthy portion of American millennials are attracted to a Sandersstyle socialism—often because of perceived ties to Jesus. Pollsters at the Barna Group asked Americans whether Jesus’ teachings were more closely aligned with capitalism or socialism, finding that 14 percent said capitalism and 24 percent of those surveyed said socialism. The rest answered “neither” or “not sure.” The same poll found that more than onefifth (21 percent) of Americans—most of them millennials—believed Sanders had policies that most closely compared to Jesus’ teachings (far more than any other candidate).

ON THE BIBLE AND SOCIALISM In their book, Left, Right and Christ, Lisa Sharon Harper and D.C. Innes lay out why as Christians, they believe in a more liberal and conservative approach to economics, respectively. In her approach to capitalism and poverty, Harper points to principles she finds in the Year of Jubilee. In the Bible, Leviticus 25 lays out instructions that every seven years, Israelites should observe a Sabbatical year where

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A GUIDE FOR THE CONFUSED: CAPITALISM BIG IDEA:

Individuals and their rights are most important part of society. P R A C T I C A L LY S A I D :

Ownership (property rights) rests with individual people, and the government exists to ensure this equal opportunity to ownership. TA K E AWAY:

A country will have lower taxes and governmental economic restrictions so individuals can pursue the life they want.

debt was forgiven, slaves were set free and land was allowed to rest. Harper, who is chief church engagement officer at Sojourners, views these instructions as regulations “on the business sector that prevent their growth from reaching the point of empire.” “In God’s economy, the well-being of workers and the land matters,” she writes. Neo-liberal, free-market capitalism—which Harper defines as transferring control of the economy from the public to the private sector—cannot be redeemed in her view. “In that system, the market takes the place of God,” she writes. “The market rules and, as

ON THE BIBLE AND CAPITALISM Innes argues differently. Poverty and death are evil results of a broken world, but God has mercifully provided relief through human creativity. Wealth isn’t just sitting around, waiting to be scooped up, says Innes, who teaches at The King’s College in New York City. It’s the result of creative human work. Alleviating poverty occurs through giving and growing. “Thus, overcoming the evil of poverty is not a matter of justly distributing fixed wealth, but of justly protecting people’s Godgiven abilities to fulfill the creation mandate by creating wealth of every sort and enjoying

JAN_FEB 2017

SPECIFIC BIBLE PASSAGES Two key passages in Scripture are often debated as to whether they support more socialistic or capitalistic principles of economics: the Year of Jubilee and the early church in Acts. Those who agree with Harper view the Year of Jubilee as representing pro-regulation and debt forgiveness. On the other side, Art Lindsley argues that the Jubilee year is not quite as

RELIGIOUS, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC FREEDOM ARE ALL TIED TOGETHER. WHEN WE LOOK AT FREEDOM AS A BELIEVER, WE DON’T SEE IT AS FREEDOM TO DO WHATEVER W E WA N T. – H U G H W H E L C H E L

an accepted consequence, millions of images of God are crushed.” Rather, justice looks like the prioritization of people over revenue.

the fruit of their labors in godliness,” Innes says. “In that understanding, justice pertains to preserving and expanding opportunity, not redistributing booty.”

it seems. Israelites in the Year of Jubilee were given the land they had essentially leased during a six-year time frame. So while this passage is often used to defend debt forgiveness, some scholars believe it is more likely describing a lease of land that has been paid off. Lindsley, a vice president at the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics, adds that this also applies as a counter-argument to property redistribution, and that this principle of Jubilee only applied to Israelites, not any outsiders, so it’s difficult to translate this passage into modern-day application. The other passage that is commonly discussed is Acts 2-5, where some argue that the early church is a model for government and could vouch for socialist or even communist practice. The early church is described in those passages as having “all things in common,” while “selling their possessions and

belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” Lindsley argues that these are qualified statements—the early believers met in their own homes and retained private property. Such selling and generous charitable giving was occasional, not a total lifestyle shift. In addition, it was a temporary and voluntary measure. Institute for Faith, Work and Economics Executive Director Hugh Whelchel adds that the use of the passage in Acts to tout more liberal policies is a recent line of reasoning (during the past 40 or 50 years). He says: “I think that it’s been popularized by a few groups that have had a fairly large [influence] in colleges and places like that.”

GENERAL BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES Economist Brian Brenberg believes that a key principle in approaching a Christian view of economics includes the idea of inherent human creativity. “In place of broad instructions, [God] made us creative. We’re made creative beings. We have capacity to imagine, create, experiment, capacity for trial and error,” says Brenberg, who also teaches at King’s. And with that in mind, “the economic system leaves a lot of room for experimentation and creativity and even failure.” This creativity also goes back to the founding of the United States. Our nation’s forefathers “had some basic fundamental views of humanity that baked into the structure of our government. Men aren’t angels. They built a government structure that has those basic rights of life and property,” Brenberg says. “They also had a very optimistic view of man’s potential, so also created the space to see what man can do.” In addition to human creativity, Whelchel also added several general principles that all Christians should allow to shape their economic beliefs. “The first principle is that from our perspective as evangelical Christians we believe that the Scripture is our guide to faith and practice,” Whelchel says. “I believe the Bible is full of sound principles. The more we apply those … the more flourishing we bring to God’s creation.” With the goal of human flourishing and the

respect of the authority of Scripture in mind, the three principles Whelchel draws from Scripture include freedom, interdependence in community and property rights. “Religious, political and economic freedom are all tied together,” Whelchel says. But that’s not a libertarian freedom. “When we look at freedom as a believer, we don’t see it as freedom to do whatever we want. God has made the world in a very particular way.” Looking at the story of the world’s creation, Whelchel observes that the principle of interdependence of man on other humans is inherent to our nature—starting with Adam’s need for Eve. “We can do more together than we can do apart. That’s the glue that holds economic systems together. God made things this way,” he says. Whelchel also believes that the Bible teaches property rights, which makes him wary of socialist view of government’s increasing ownership. And, he says, “a lot of young people haven’t seen how these principles work in the real world. Historically, it doesn’t hold up.”

WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? As religion writer Brandon Ambrosino described in a 2015 article, “Jesus’ radical politics” are “disruptive to all kingdoms, to all earthly powers, without respect to any specific political affiliation or agenda.” And New York City pastor and author Tim Keller added on the same theme in the same year: “We do not fit into Western relativistic individualism, we don’t fit into traditional hierarchical legalism, we don’t fit. We don’t fit conservative, we don’t fit liberal. We’ve always been aliens. There’s never been a culture that fit. Whenever Christians pick up the values of the Gospel and begin living them out, we’re foreigners.” Of one thing Christians entering this discussion can be certain—not all Christians will unite around best economic practices in this lifetime or the next. But that’s OK, because while economic policies can fulfill the creation mandate to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28), they are not an ultimate savior.

A GUIDE FOR THE CONFUSED: SOCIALISM BIG IDEA:

The collective good is the most important part of society. P R A C T I C A L LY S A I D :

Ownership (mainly property and rights) is collectively shared by the society, and the government exists to ensure this ownership is equal. TA K E AWAY:

A country will have higher taxes and governmental economic control to ensure that each citizen is provided for.

KARA BETTIS is a Boston-based reporter on topics of faith, politics and culture. Follow her on Twitter @karabettis.

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B Y M AT T C O N N E R

T H E Y A L R E A DY OW N ON E OF T H E MOST DIST I NC T S O U N D S I N R O C K . N O W T H E Y ’ R E TA K I N G T H E I R M USIC TO A N E W A N D DEEPER PL ACE .

uitars, meet gloss. Bastille catapulted from burgeoning British band to global faves on the back of a single album in 2013. Bad Blood debuted on best-selling album charts on multiple continents, including a top slot in their native U.K. Hit singles like “Pompeii” showcased the band’s polished

synth-pop anthems, ready-made for the stadium-sized crowds for which they’d eventually play. The complete support cycle for Bad Blood took a few years as the quartet — Dan Smith, Will Farquarson, Kyle Simmons and Chris “Woody” Wood—joined heavyweights like Muse on the road before headlining on their own. They were nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards,

played Saturday Night Live and performed at festivals like Glastonbury. Suffice it to say, their pop sheen served them well. But don’t be fooled into thinking Bastille is an overnight success. They’ve been simmering for years—a process for which the band is cognizant and grateful. At first, the band’s core made music after working “regular jobs,” Wood, the band’s drummer, says. “We’d end up rehearsing

from 10 p.m. until 2 in the morning in some industrial space in West London.” “It wasn’t terribly glamorous, but it was really fun. We literally started out from the very bottom rung of the ladder, playing little tiny pubs and then gradually worked our way up to clubs and kind of built a bit of a following on the way,” he says. From there, a deal with Virgin Records came near the end of 2011, a Christmas present that allowed the band to test the market with three “soft releases.” Rather than landing on a label that tests a single song for its hit potential, Virgin provided a label plat-

We really wanted to push things forward a bit. We were just playing live, and we started messing around with guitar a little bit. For most other bands, that’s the go-to instrument, but there wasn’t a single note of guitar on Bad Blood. For us it was quite fun messing around with that.” “We wanted the record to be eclectic and fun despite some of the things we were looking at in the lyrics,” Smith, the band’s frontman and principal songwriter, adds. “When we decided the album would play out like a mixtape or a film soundtrack, it was kind of liberating.” Early response to Wild World has

W E WA N T E D T H E RECO RD TO B E EC LEC T I C A N D FU N D ES PI T E SOME O F T H E T H I N GS W E W E RE LOO K I N G AT I N T H E LY RI CS. –DAN SMITH

WILD WORLD

Bastille’s second studio album landed at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top 200.

form while encouraging the same slow, steady build for another two years. Then “Pompeii” erupted. “That was what pushed the whole thing over the top, really,” Wood says. But despite the success and mileage logged after that first release, the band felt it was time for a change. Bad Blood failed to feature a single guitar part, but their new album, Wild World, features plenty of guitar work— along with other sonic changes and flourishes that the band hopes their fans will appreciate. Wood says the band was “hungry for change” after playing the same songs night after night for years on end. “Our intention was never to make Bad Blood 2,” Wood says. “Some of the songs on that album are six years old. After you’ve been around the world and seen a bit, hopefully you’ve matured slightly.

been strong as the album, once again, hit No. 1 on the U.K. charts along with a No. 4 spot on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. It’s likely that the band will be headlining at a local arena near you in the next few years as they turn the corner toward ubiquity. But that’s what makes it interesting, then, that such a spotlight was never what the band ever expected or even wanted. “For me personally, I’d never imagined being in a band,” Smith says. “It took loads of encouragement for me to play live. I’d always just made songs for fun. Obviously I feel massively lucky now that we get to do it all the time, but it wasn’t something I’d ever really thought about.” As the band explores more with each new release, some of Smith’s more eclectic influences will shine through. He says his favorites from Bastille’s

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L-R: Dan Smith, Chris Wood, Kyle Simmons, Will Farquarson

W E’D E N D U P RE H E A RS I N G FROM 10 P. M . U N T I L 2 [A . M .] I N SOME I N DUS T RI A L S PAC E I N W ES T LO N D O N. I T WAS N ’ T T E RRI B LY G L A MO ROUS, BU T I T WAS RE A LLY FU N. — CHRIS WOOD earliest days included Brooklyn bands like Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend alongside various hip-hop flavors like Lauryn Hill and Kanye West. “I also loved a lot of the melodic artists that my parents listened to, like The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel as well as artists like [David] Bowie,” Smith says. Wood says the band is well aware of the need for balance with each new release and admits they’re “not trying to alienate anyone.” “We realized that Dan’s voice on any

JAN_FEB 2017

song makes it pretty distinctive, yet it will obviously sound like a Bastille song,” Wood says. “That meant stylistically we could maybe take a few more liberties. We could go further into electronic stuff. We could go further into guitar-heavy stuff. Obviously we want to push things forward, but we’re still staying respectful to the fan base that came along with us the first time around. We very much want them to come with us.” The music is not the only aspect of their craft that has matured. Smith’s songs have taken on deeper meanings, even if the band

is reticent to fill those in. “The first album was about growing up,” Wood says. “The new album is about dealing with the world around you and, at some points, thinking ‘What is going on?’ when you turn the news on. “It’s about all this grim news and how you deal with it, yet it’s also recognizing that you can find solace in other people and relationships—that life has to go on. You can’t just lock yourself in a little bunker being terrified. You need to get on with your life.” For Smith, making an album that reflected life as it is now was most important. “It’s about how confusing it can be to watch the news and see what’s happening around you,” he says. “Although that stuff can be almost incomprehensible, it was also about having to get on with your life, how to find solace in the people around you and the things we all have to do every day.” MAT T CONNER is a writer and editor living in Indianapolis, Indiana.

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T HE N U M BER OF PEOPL E ST RUG GL I NG W I T H B O D Y I M A G E I S AT A N A L L -T I M E H I G H . B U T N O T H I N G C A N R E W R I T E W H AT G O D A L R E A D Y S AY S A B O U T Y O U.

JAN_FEB 2017

BY ANN SWINDELL

A CULTURE OBSESSED WITH SEX, YOUTH and the idea of a perfect body, perhaps it’s unsurprising that many of us are unsatisfied with the bodies we currently have—no matter what they’re like. On top of personal dissatisfaction, most of us are constantly comparing ourselves to others on social media. Selfies and perfectly filtered photos fill our feeds, and now research supports what most of us understand inherently: The more time we spend on social media, the worse we feel about ourselves. “Younger adults spend more time per day on [Facebook] and experience more negative body image because of Facebook than do older adults,” according to a recent study conducted by Hayes, van Stolk-Cooke and Muench. Another survey found that nearly half of 18- to 34-year-olds users feel “ugly or unattractive” because of what they see on their social media. Add the daily bombardment of advertisements that tell us we should try to look younger, weigh less and enjoy incredible sex, and you’ve got a recipe for body image disaster.

Christians, however, don’t have to use the same measuring stick that culture does when it comes to evaluating our image. Christian teaching affirms that we can confidently assert that while our bodies are valuable, they aren’t the primary determinant of our worth or even beauty. God alone gets the final word on body image since He is our creator, and because we have been made in His image, we also know that our bodies are good (Genesis 1:27). This truth changes everything. 1. BEING MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE MEANS YOUR BODY’S MAIN PURPOSE IS NOT TO ATTRACT OTHERS.

Look around and you’ll notice more than enough images of bodies to make you believe they exist simply to attract others. Magazines, music videos and commercials teach us—a thousand times a day—that our bodies were created to draw attention and attraction to themselves over and above

any other purpose they might have. But as people made in the image of God, our bodies were not ultimately created to attract other people. More than anything else, our bodies are created to attract the presence of God. How? Through worship. We can worship God in our bodies through service, love and acts of praise and mercy. The apostle Paul exhorts his readers in the book of Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). Understanding that our bodies are primarily meant to be vehicles for worship can help us turn the cultural obsession with attraction on its head. As a caveat, it’s important to note that there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to appear attractive to other people—unless our motives are corrupt. If we take care of our bodies and present

ourselves appropriately through our clothing choices because we value ourselves and our interactions with others, aiming for attractiveness can be a good thing. But if we want to induce jealousy or lust in others because of how we look, we’ve veered from biblical standards for how to carry ourselves in the world, and we need to change our ways. Ultimately, attracting the presence of God through the lives we live in our bodies is much more important than attracting the passing attention of others. Worshipping God is what our bodies are made for. 2. BEING MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MEANS YOUR BODY IS IMMENSELY MORE IMPORTANT THAN A NUMBER ON A SCALE.

Within a culture of excess and extremes, it can be difficult to know how to find balance when it comes to caring for our bodies. Nearly two-thirds of the population struggles with being overweight, and 3 to 4 percent struggle with serious eating disorders. Most people worry about their weight at some point in their lives. That number on the scale—or the size of our jeans—can become a point of obsession and frustration. Alisa Keeton is the founder of Revelation Wellness, a nonprofit that uses fitness as a tool to spread the Gospel message. When the question of weight comes up, “I always

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W E’ V E G OT IT A LL W RONG I N O U R C U LT U R E ; W E ’ R E S O F O C U S E D O N W H AT W E S E E A S A M E A S U R E M E N T O F O U R H E A LT H R AT H E R T H A N W H AT ’ S G O I N G O N I NSI DE OF US.

first go to motives,” Keeton says, because true fitness isn’t based on weight. “True fitness has always been measured by the inside factors,” she says. “How is your blood pressure, can you climb a flight of stairs without being winded—how are our systems working? We’ve got it all wrong in our culture; we’re so focused on what we see as a measurement of our health rather than what’s going on inside of us.” Keeton believes that the unique way God has made each one of us, spiritually as well as physically, is much more important than a number on the scale: “The world does not need another lookalike of Heidi Klum, it needs you—your voice, your message, your unique battle for which you were born. And it can’t hide in the shadows of someone else’s form or figure.” Ultimately, your weight is a number that does not define or even identify you. It has nothing to do with your eternal value or earthly import. But we will live in these bodies for the rest of our lives, and being people made in God’s image means that our bodies have immense value and should be treated with respect and care. As Jesus modeled for us during his time

JAN_FEB 2017

on Earth, we are called to live in these bodies with faith and self-control, neither ignoring the needs of the body nor obsessing over them. 3. BEING MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MEANS THAT SEX IS WONDERFUL BUT IT ISN’T THE PINNACLE OF EXISTENCE.

Part of the angst about attractiveness and weight that many of us experience stems from a culture that is obsessed with sex because it inherently understands just how powerful sex is. Thankfully, the Bible has a lot to say about this. Most pertinent here is that sex is reserved for the “marriage bed” (Hebrews 13:4). But the Bible doesn’t stop there; Paul tells us that sex is actually a picture of the intimacy between Jesus and His church— something he calls a “profound mystery.” Sex is supernatural; it’s not just for the purpose of pleasure. It’s meant to point us to something bigger—it’s meant to point us to God. Being made in the image of God means that we can be deeply thankful for the power and pleasure of sex, but it also enables us to acknowledge that sex is not the

pinnacle of existence; knowing and being known by God is the only thing that can hold that place in our lives. This mindset flies in the face of cultural beliefs, and it frees us to do two things: First, we can place the correct emphasis on sex without letting it become a marker of our identity. Sex is something important and transformative, but whether or not we are having sex doesn’t change our worth. Our identity is in Christ alone. Second, being made in the image of God also frees us to enjoy and appreciate sex in bodies that don’t measure up to the cultural ideal. Sex has become perverted in our world, and when the act of sex is at the center of a culture’s focus, then bodies become hyper-sexualized, and assumptions are made about what types of bodies are the most exciting sexually. It can make us feel ashamed when our bodies don’t measure up to that ideal. The reality, though, is that sexual satisfaction is a culmination of many aspects, not just the physical. God made us that way—He intertwined our bodies with our emotions and our spirits, something that even scientific studies support.

A 2009 study reported that seven out of the eight components of “great sex” were relational aspects such as “connection,” “authenticity,” “being present” and “extraordinary communication.” Body shape and size didn’t even make the list. It’s not the shape or size of a body that makes sex wonderful—it’s the context of sex within a godly marriage to a loving and thoughtful spouse that gives sex its power and delight. The emotional, spiritual and relational aspects are what make sex deeply satisfying, over and over again, with the same person. Having bodies made in the image of God allows us to enjoy the gift of sex in its proper place without making it out to be an idol that we unintentionally worship through unrealistic standards or by connecting it too closely to our identity. 4. BEING MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MEANS THAT EVEN WHILE YOUR BODY IS DECAYING, YOU DON’T HAVE TO FEAR.

As teenagers and young adults, many of us imagined that our bodies were endlessly malleable and unceasingly able. If we wanted to run, we went for a run. If we wanted

to stay up late, we stayed up. But the older we get, the more we experience the truth of bodies that are already starting to break down: We tire easily. Our bones harden and become more brittle. Our immune systems weaken and our metabolism slows. In ways large and small, we start to feel the effects of where we are all heading: death. Externally, all of us are wasting away. Daniel Doriani, a professor at Covenant Theological Seminary, points out that being a “realist” about our bodies is important. “Vitality is a fleeting gift,” he says. But the fleeting nature of our strength can point us toward gratitude for what we do have: “I try to view every day where I can run or play tennis or climb a mountain as a gift, a bonus,” Doriani says. The Scriptures teach that though human bodies are breaking down, still, “we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). The struggles we have in our bodies can also help us to remember that there is a day coming for Christians when these bodies will be made new (see Philippians 3:20-21). “The aches and failures of my body

always point me to the day of Christ’s return,” Doriani says, because our bodies aren’t only made in the image of God for our years on earth. “The physicality of Jesus’ resurrection body is our destiny, too,” Doriani says. “We will have renewed bodies. Praise God.” Eventually, our bodies will fail, and every one of us will die. But we don’t need to be afraid. Jesus has already died the death we deserve on the cross by having his body beaten, bruised and ultimately killed for our sakes. And Jesus’ resurrected body gives us the hope of what we will be like when He returns—because we are made in His image, and we will be like Him, both spiritually and physically, in this world and in the next (1 John 3:2). Being made in God’s image allows you to live in the body you have with great hope, knowing that He delights in you. This new year, don’t let unrealistic advertising or body shamers get to you—the only one who matters already had the final word. ANN SWINDELL is a writer and teacher of writing at writingwithgrace.com. She’s on Twitter at @annswindell.

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The Lost Art of

Creati

BY KRISTEN HOW ERTON

NOV_DEC 2016

S C A N C R E AT E M O R E I N T E N T I O N A L S PA C E T H I S Y E A R .

B I B L E ’ S T E A C H I N G S A B O U T R E S T ? H E R E A R E 7 WAY S Y O U

N O O N E H A S E N O U G H T I M E . W H AT D O E S T H AT M E A N F O R T H E

omehow, rest is hard work. The difficulty in finding rest and creating space for self-care is a frequent conversation in many social circles because the pressure to be productive is intense, regardless of age, gender or occupational status. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last year that 20 percent of the total workforce is working at least 49 hours a week. In the U.S., 85 percent of men and 66 percent of women work more than 40 hours per week. The productivity for the average American worker has increased 400 percent since 1950. But it’s not just those in the workplace who are stressed. If you’re not there yet, be warned: Parenting has become a competitive sport in which success is often defined as volunteering in the classroom, creating elaborate lunches, crafts and home decor, in addition to running children to and from multiple practices after school. And this doesn’t even include people with older kids supervising the excessive homework that seems to be the new norm. Both career and family life leave many of us feeling exhausted. This is an age and a society in which busyness is seen as a virtue. And just about everyone struggles with the urge to find meaning in producing external results instead of focusing on our inner life. Because, really, who wants to brag about a lifestyle of rest in their next Christmas letter? Rattling off a list of achievements is what Americans do. It’s easier to give a nod to the importance of rest than it is to actually participate in rest. On weekends, it’s

so tempting to pull out your laptop and just knock a few things off of a to-do list under the guise of checking “a couple things online.” And the next thing you know, the weekend is over. It’s hard to turn off the need to “get things done.” And because most people can access work emails from home, the temptation to check in over the weekend is always there. I had the chance to travel to Israel a few times in the past couple of years, and I was struck by the emphasis on Sabbath in Jewish culture and religion. A full day of Sabbath rest promoted family harmony and community connection. At the same time, aspects of this practice, taken a certain way, seemed to veer into legalism—like having a special elevator to avoid pushing a button, rules against tearing toilet paper, hiring someone to turn on light switches. Some of the Jewish Sabbath rules felt more like fundamental edicts than a journey to rest. But surely there is a balance, right? And don’t Christians have a responsibility to practice Sabbath? In the Old Testament, keeping the Sabbath was not merely a suggestion but a requirement—which is why Jewish people today take it so seriously. We see the importance of Sabbath from the very beginning, as God rested in the creation story, and it is commanded throughout the Old Testament. Exodus 20 commands that the Sabbath be set apart on the seventh day, and that no work is done—even by servants or livestock. At its most fundamental, Sabbath is ceasing to work. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann describes Sabbath as a decisive, concrete, visible way of aligning with the God of rest: “In

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2. Plan a weekly meal with family or friends. Alternate who prepares the meal each week so everyone gets a break from cooking. Laugh, connect and linger. Enjoying a meal together is a wonderful way to rest with your loved ones. 3. Say yes to something different from your normal routine. Go on a hike. Attend a play. Take a yoga class. Engage in activities that are outside of your work rhythm. 4. Get out in nature. Engaging in the beauty of God’s creation is always a reset button for our harried world. Find an outdoor spot in your community (a beach, park or path) that fuels your soul and make it a point to spend time there every week. 5. Rest from commerce. Shopping may not feel like work, but it’s not rest either. Avoid using Sabbath time for grocery runs, online shopping or other tasks. 6. Allow yourself to be unproductive. Resist the urge to get something accomplished and sit in the feeling of rest. Give yourself permission to do nothing. 7. Schedule rest. Sabbath won’t happen without purpose and planning. Put it on the to-do list, and make it a priority with the same level of import as your other tasks. Busyness is not a virtue. And building regular rhythms of rest in your life can help reset life to the way God intended.

K R I S T E N H O W E R T O N is the director

of spiritual formation at The Hatchery LA and the author of the blog Rage Against the Minivan.

JAN_FEB 2017

producing external results instead of focusing on our inner life.

1. Shut off your computer. For many of us, this simple practice is an act of resistance to work and mindless tasks. Have a day, or a portion of your day, that is free from email and other online

distractions. Better yet, leave the laptop at work for the weekend.

And just about ever yone struggles with the urge to find meaning in

our own contemporary context of the rat race of anxiety, the celebration of Sabbath is an act of both resistance and alternative,” he writes. “It is resistance because it is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods.” We see the significance of Sabbath in the New Testament as well. While Christians tend to see observing Sabbath as a suggested ritual rather than a required law (as in the Old Testament), it is still very much a spiritual practice that Jesus and the disciples participated in. There are numerous references to the disciples keeping the Sabbath. And Jesus’ own life exemplified a rhythm of work and rest. Practical theologian Kelley Nikondeha describes Sabbath as an act of faith and trust for Christians: “Our participation in Sabbath exemplifies our trust that the world does not run on our participation in the rat race,” she says. “That we are aware that God is the sustainer. And that Christians should want to participate in the rhythm of rest that God Himself modeled. God modeled Sabbath during creation. If we refuse to rest, we are not participating in the fullness of being created in God’s image.” God created humans to rest, yet many people find this practice elusive. The modern pace and sense of self-importance drives many people to prioritize doing over being. Creating space for Sabbath requires intentionality. Here are some practical ways to keep Sabbath in the modern world:

This is an age and a societ y in which busyness is seen as a vir tue.

Z Z Z

Tamala Kelly ’09, M.Div. ’14 Tamala Kelly ’09, M.Div. ’14 Pastor and Founder of Pastor and Founder of Empower 2 Purpose Empower 2 Purpose

Empowering Empowering to to Find Find Purpose Purpose

“How did you get here?” Such a short and seemingly simple “How didbut youthere get here?” a short and seemingly simpleFor question, can beSuch so much involved in the answer. question, butSeminary there can graduate be so much involved in “here” the answer. For Azusa Pacific Tamala Kelly, involves Azusa Pacific Seminary graduate Tamala Kelly, “here” involves co-pastoring a church with her husband, running a women’s

co-pastoring a church with her husband, running a women’s ministry, and being a mother of four. It also involves asking ministry, and being a mother of four. It also involves asking that same question of others—people who are hurting, broken, that same question of others—people who are hurting, broken, lost, or otherwise in need of what only Jesus can provide—and lost, or otherwise in need of what only Jesus can provide—and helping them discover their purpose. helping them discover their purpose. Watch Tamala’s story at Watch Tamala’s story at

apu.edu/stories/tamala-kelly/. apu.edu/stories/tamala-kelly/.

Visit apu.edu/seminary to learn more about how the seminary Visit apu.edu/seminary to learn more about how the seminary can help you transform the world with Christ through one of its can help you transform the world with Christ through one of its five degree programs in Azusa, Los Angeles, or San Diego: five degree programs in Azusa, Los Angeles, or San Diego: Doctor of Ministry Doctor of Ministry Master of Divinity Master of Divinity Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies Master of Arts (Theological Studies) Master of Arts (Theological Studies) Master of Arts in Transformational Urban Leadership 89 Master of Arts in Transformational UrbanRELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM Leadership

20154 20154

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For Bethel’s newest album, they returned to a format they haven’t used since 2012: live recording. Recording during weekend services at Bethel Church really captures the full feeling of what it means to gather for worship. The overarching theme is surrendering everything to the Lord.

Jessica Rabbit was a labor of love for veteran band Sleigh Bells. Pieced together over the course of three years, the band’s fourth studio album finds the perfect mindpoint between musical abilities and showmanship. This album also shows off Alexis Krauss’ vocal range as a lead singer.

Following the success of their lead single “You & I,” indie-pop band Colony House’s newest album Only the Lonely has found the perfect blend of pop music mixed with a retro ‘60s sound. The band’s lyrics continue to be meaningful and spiritual as they explore loneliness, strength and legacies.

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The inspiring movie set in Uganda and based on a true story chronicles the story of a young girl, Phiona, and the Christian missionary who helps change her life through chess. She becomes a highly competitive player and begins to see options for her future that she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know existed.

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This collection of stories broadly depicts the experience of women today, not shying away from the brokenness of objectification, abuse, mental illness and more. The characters may be “difficult women,” but they are also familiar, which reminds us that society routinely treats women as less than human.

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contents

JAN/FEB 2017 ISSUE 85

FEATURES 52

HOW WILL MILLENNIALS CHANGE THE CHURCH? This generation has already disrupted every industry in its path. Is the Church next?

JOHNNYSWIM This singer-songwriter duo has it all together. We ask them about their secret.

YOUR BEST 2017 NOW New Year's resolutions may not work. So here are 17 tips for an incredible 2017.

60 WHAT IS IRA GLASS SAYING ABOUT FAITH?

With his show This American Life, Ira Glass built a career telling under-the-radar stories in a way no one else can. So why do stories about Christianity keep coming up?

GUNGOR'S HEAD-SPINNING TWO YEARS Everything has come full circle, but two years ago, the Gungors were broken.

GOD'S ECONOMY? Capitalism versus socialism. Is there a biblical perspective?

78 BASTILLE

ONLY SKIN DEEP In a world of constant comparison and body shaming, what God says about your body matters most.

56 JOHNNYSWIM

FIR ST WOR D

FEEDBACK

R E L E VA N T U

THE DROP

Daughter, Jarryd James, Sweater Beats, Lucy Dacus, Lauren Daigle

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SLICES

Pop culture's mental health moment; New roles for the Community cast; Chris Thile; Going to church makes you healthy; Matt Chandler on regaining credibility in the Church; bold New Year predictions and more

THE ART OF CREATING MARGIN You know you should rest and decompress more. Here's how you actually can.

R E J E C T A PAT H Y

Climate debates are back; Ann Voskamp and refugees of ISIS; Sho Baraka's cultural engagement; and Shane Claiborne on guns 90

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When the people you most want to help are out of reach.

You can Unlock Hope for refugees today. worldrelief.org/hope