RELEVANT 53 | September / October 2011

OWL CITY | IS FAIR TRADE FAIR? | ZEE AVI | THE NON-ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO FALL

GOD. LIFE. PROGRESSIVE CULTURE.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE THE SECRET

SEXUAL REVOLUTION A NEW STUDY REVEALS MOST SINGLE CHRISTIANS ARE HAVING SEX—WE UNDRESS WHY

REMEMBERING

9/11

SWITCHFOOT’S NEW SOUND

REL EVANTMAGAZINE.COM

THE

GENEROF ATION * CON

TRAST

AN EYE-OPENING LOOK AT FAITH, POLITICS AND WHAT MAKES OUR GENERATION UNLIKE ANY OTHER

JIMMY FALLON

PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER

*

PASSIONATE BUT CYNICAL, VISIONARY BUT STRUGGLING, CONNECTED YET MORE DISTANT THAN EVER. WHO WILL WE BECOME?

ISSUE 53 / SEPT_OCT 2011 / $4.95

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GOD. LIFE. PROGRESSIVE CULTURE. RELEVANT magazine September/October 2011, Issue 53 Now with 100% more windows.

PUBLISHER & CEO Cameron Strang > cameron@relevantmediagroup.com Editorial Director | Roxanne Wieman > roxanne@relevantmediagroup.com Managing Editor | Ryan Hamm > ryan@relevantmediagroup.com Copy Editor | Ashley Emert > ashley@relevantmediagroup.com Associate Editor | Alyce Gilligan > alyce@relevantmediagroup.com Editorial Assistant | Heather Meikle > heather@relevantmediagroup.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Jon Acuff, Jesse Carey, Tyler Charles, Shane Claiborne, Richard Dahlstrom, Benjamin Dolson, Makoto Fujimura, Aly Hawkins, Susan Isaacs, David Johnson, David Kinnaman, Carl Kozlowski, David Lamb, Brett McCracken, John Pattison, Kevin Selders, Karen Spears Zacharias, Sara Sterley, Laura Studarus, Shannon Sutherland Smith, Jon Tyson, Darren Whitehead, Mike and Danae Yankoski Senior Designer | Chaz Russo > chaz@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Marketing Designer | Jesse Penico > jesse@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Web Designer | Tanya Elshahawi > tanya@relevantmediagroup.com Audio/Video Producer | Chad Michael Snavely > chad@relevantmediagroup.com Video/Photography Intern | Jeremy Snell > jeremys@relevantmediagroup.com CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Andy Barron, Shawn Brackbill, Danny Clinch, Andrew Eccles, David Garvin, Jordan Jaquess, May Ondeng, Pamela Littky, Alan Silfen, Chris Taylor, Jeff Vespa, Hilary Walsh Web Developer | David Barratt > david@relevantmediagroup.com Web Production Coordinator | Lin Jackson > lin@relevantmediagroup.com Chief Revenue Officer | Josh Babyar > josh@relevantmediagroup.com Account Director | Michael Romero > michael@relevantmediagroup.com Account Director | Philip Self > philip@relevantmediagroup.com Marketing Manager | Calvin Cearley > calvin@relevantmediagroup.com Promotions Manager | Sarahbeth Wesley > sarahbeth@relevantmediagroup.com Customer Service Coordinator | Sarah Heyl > sarah@relevantmediagroup.com Circulation and Fulfillment Manager | Stephanie Fry > stephanie@relevantmediagroup.com Fulfillment Coordinator | Tyler Legacy > tyler@relevantmediagroup.com Chief Operations Officer | Chris Miyata > chris@relevantmediagroup.com Communications Manager| Theresa Dobritch > theresa@relevantmediagroup.com Project Manager | Austin Sailsbury > austin@relevantmediagroup.com Finance Manager | Maya Strang > mstrang@relevantmediagroup.com Systems Administrator | Josh Strohm > joshs@relevantmediagroup.com ADVERTISING INQUIRIES: CONTACT Michael Romero or Philip Self at (407) 660-1411

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om

yle er,

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WE NEED MORE MEETINGS ABOUT MEETINGS

Almost 70% of Americans believe we are suffering from a crisis of leadership, but rather than asking why leaders are failing, we need to ask, “Why aren’t we choosing better leaders?”

Authors Jeffrey Cohn and Jay Moran offer an unique, expert perspective on understanding leadership and how to find, create and recognize great leaders.

W W W. J O S S E Y B A S S . C O M

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who we Are ... Not who we’ll becoMe

BY CaMeRON sTRaNG

i

relevantmagazine.com

t seems like every decade or so, a label gets applied to a generation that’s fairly permanent. In the late ’60s and ’70s, dirty hippies ushered in an era of protests and social change. In the ’80s, everyone started looking like Ferris Bueller or Alex P. Keaton, and a Reaganomics-fueled booming economy turned things pretty materialistic and me-focused. In the ’90s, Gen X rebuffed those values and everyone became flannel-wearing slackers that listened to Pearl Jam. Not to stereotype, of course.

Spiritually, things kind of followed a similar pattern. In the ’70s, some of those dirty hippies got saved and started a Jesus Movement, which gave birth to a new sound of music and worship.

The ’80s saw the rise of televangelists,

which ushered in the prosperity gos- we are is still taking shape.

Some of the stats about our generapel era and, with it, a me-centered version of Christianity. In the ’90s, we tion are exciting. Some are discouragsaw a generation looking for a deeper, ing. But until we honestly look at who tangible experience with God, which we are and what made us this way, we sparked a worship explosion and can’t intentionally move forward.

Self-realization is starting to haprevivals around the world.

Our generation today? That’s a little pen, though, which is why we’re tougher to pin down. On one hand, already seeing a deliberate pendulum this generation is passionate and swing happen. There is a movement wants to change the world. On the brewing that eschews easy, suburban other, they’re jaded and leaving the living for lives and relationships that slow down and are more intentional.

Church like never before.

Riding bikes instead of cars, the Our generation wants to fight injustice and stand up for those who can’t slow food movement, volunteerism, stand up for themselves. But for many, urban gardening and even the return that means buying a T-shirt, “caring” of vinyl are all symptoms of a generation saying we don’t really like what and little else.

This generation is always con- we see happening around us. We need nected, has information overload things that are real, sometimes difand instant access everything. ficult, aren’t handed to us and help Unfortunately, that’s led to many us represent the values Christ talked deriving more self-worth from the size about—living outwardly, intentionof their virtual networks than actual, ally and sacrificially.

While our cover story this issue tangible relationships.

This generation has gotten pretty holds up a mirror to our generation, accustomed to getting whatever it it doesn’t tell us who we’re going to wants, whenever it wants it. We don’t become. That’s up to us.

The access, technology and knowlhear the word “no,” which actually edge we have can either make us may be our biggest challenge.

If you want to see a movie, in two superficial, spread thin and lazy, or clicks, it can be playing on your phone. we can use it for greater intentional You can customize any idea or desire impact than any other generation. The to be exactly how you want it. Shoot, if world is shrinking. We know more you want to go to space, and you have about our fellow man than ever before, enough money or are friends with and we can do more for them.

Through inexpensive, accessible Richard Branson, you can. We never have to wait for anything, which is why media and technology, an individual so many of us crash pretty hard when today can have far more impact than other generations could imagine. We we hit even a small bump in the road.

Our generation is more quickly can make a difference in lives, not just changing—and splintering—than any in our cities, but around the world. before us. So, trying to slap an accurate One person can change worldviews, raise awareness and make a difference. label on us is virtually impossible.

When people look back at our genThat’s why with our cover story this issue, we take a deeper look at our- eration in the ’00s-’10s (by the way, can someone please come selves. Who are we? What up with a name for this made us the way we are? decade?), what will they Where are we going—and say? What will define us; who are we going to be? what will the end of our It’s easy to point out story be? More imporwhat’s wrong with sometantly, what role will you thing. We can look back at CAmERON play in it?

STRANG is the previous generations and founder and CEO The future hasn’t clearly see where they got it of RELEVanT. been mapped out for us. right and got it wrong.

Connect with him on Google+, Who we are doesn’t have It’s a lot harder to hold up Twitter.com/ to determine who we the mirror to ourselves and cameronstrang will be. That’s an excithonestly see those same or Facebook.com/ cestrang. ing future. things, especially since who

[first word]

FIrsT WOrd

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[letters]

feedbAck Comments, Concerns, Smart Remarks [W ri t e U S] F eeDB a c K@rel e va n t m a g a z ine .c om or Fa c eB ooK .c om / rel e va n t

JULY/aUGUST 2011

THE CIVIl Wars Just when I thought The Civil Wars couldn’t be more enchanting, the July/August cover story gave a glimpse into the friendship between Joy Williams and John Paul White that made the duo even more wonderful. The jokes the pair shared were such a stark—and sweet—contrast to the haunting harmonies of their music.

—CLAIRE DAY / Greenville, SC

It’s so easy to jump into a relationship without really thinking of the logistics, or seeing whether you can both get over each other’s deficiencies [“Is Falling in Love a Myth?” July/Aug 2011]. Time and patience is a beautiful thing.

Kyle Idleman’s article troubled me [“All or Nothing,” July/Aug 2011]. While I deny the notion you shouldn’t be extreme with Christianity, I would add you should be extreme, but in and at the right time.

so convinced I’m right that I don’t listen to anyone I disagree with, even other Christians. I hope articles like this one will bring some discussion, healing and clarity of thought to those who struggle to find the fine line as well.

—WILL mEYERS / Yorkshire, England —STEFFAN BARD / Salem, OR

—BECCA NELSON / Chicago, IL

Thank you for the dc Talk reference I enjoyed reading an article [“10 [“Is Falling in Love a Myth?”]! I Keys for Navigating Life,” July/ was waiting for it!

Aug 2011] that seems to be basic and sticking to the principles and —mICAH JORDAN / Palatine, IL yet is practical in its delivery. I proWe won’t Sugarcoat It—Day by Day cess through decisions similarly,

by Day we Wanna Be Loved. It’s although I still fight the old stigma that if I make the wrong decision I Socially acceptable. “shall be smote by the mighty hand Brian McLaren is not being of God.” However, loving God first branded as a heretic because he and living life from that source proasked questions or proposed anom- duces a lot of freedom. alies as Don Miller’s article might —ADAm HARPER / Cleveland, OH be suggesting [“The Enemy of ‘Truth,’ ” July/Aug 2011]. McLaren At times in my life, I’ve been that is being branded as a heretic for the legalist who just tries to trick peoanswers he gives. His book rejects ple into “accepting Jesus” instead the doctrine of original sin [and] of having an actual conversation the inerrancy and inspiration of with that person [“Nobody Talks the Bible. These words are not only About Sin Anymore,” July/Aug controversial but dangerous as well. 2011]. I’ve been that person who is

Ironically, Scot McKnight’s article is akin to an infusion of sweet oxygen into a hot and stuffy room.

Desperately needed and long past overdue. I’m all for grace trumping sin—which it does, in spades—but much of the stuff that’s taught and communicated through pulpit, print, podcast and tweet overlooks or neglects sin.

—TYLER HuRST / Los Angeles, CA

—ED ROTZ / Topeka, KS

I appreciate the inclusion of poetry [“RELEVANT’s 2011 Summer Reading Guide,” July/Aug 2011], but Billy Collins is always the go-to—I guess because it’s for “people who do not read poetry,” but sadly most people do not and will continue not [to read it] with that banner.

And that’s partially because no one except ol’ BC ever gets mentioned.

—SAm THOmAS / San Marcos, TX Be grateful—we thought about including “Footprints.”

msdanilions: So many happy tears while reading articles in @RELEVanTmag’s new magazine @Rejectapathy. So many amazing organizations changing the world.

JakeCTaylor: Checking the new @RELEVanTmag article on agrarianism and food ethics. Really good.

Really ... relevant.

Jakey121: The Sleigh Bells feature was a wonderful surprise. Well done! matthiasroberts: Jeremy Cowart, Sons and Daughters, Reject/ apathy, The Civil Wars?!?! I feel like this issue of @RELEVanTmag was made just for me!!! hanntron: #stoked just like every other time I get my @RELEVanTmag! #bestmagazine ever simwaves1: awesome piece in @RELEVanTmag by Scot McKnight! “Let us not forget we are summoned

by God to make our pursuit in life ... after holiness.” themattGregory: Is it silly that I may prefer the real magazine over the digital one because I love the smell of your paper? lol You can follow our daily nonsense at Twitter. com/RELEVanTmag.

relevantmagazine.com

Having struggled with perfectionist tendencies and several brushes with legalism in the church,

NICE TO TWEET YOU

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[slices]

SLICES

A BIMONTHLY LOOK AT LIFE, FAITH & CULTURE

will the cloud MeAN the eNd of

BUYING MUSIC? r TECHNOLOGY RADICALLY CHANGED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY A DECADE AGO. IT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN AGAIN.

THE BEST CLOUD SERVICES (SO FAR) There are plenty of options for insane amounts of on-the-go music. Here are some of the best:

• Spotify

Free and paid tiers mean you choose how much you want to listen to each month. Plus, the connection through Facebook is awesome.

• iCloud

You already have iTunes. So for $25/year, you can carry around your entire iTunes library (even if you didn’t buy it there) on all your iOS devices.

• Amazon Cloud Drive

Only available for non-iPhone phones at the moment, a 20 GB “cloud drive” is free for a year with any purchase from the Amazon MP3 store.

relevantmagazine.com

emember CDs? You’d spend 10 minutes just now becoming feasible alternatives to a pertrying to figure out how to unwrap the sonal music library, as smartphone apps make thing and peel that stupid sticker off the streaming music on the go possible in ways it top … then the next few hours poring never has been before.

Smartphones are also the impetus behind the over the minute details of the album and its booklet. Those days are all but gone—now you new cloud options offered by Amazon.com (the download an album and you’re lucky if you even Amazon Cloud Drive) and Apple (iCloud). These know what the art looks like. But even that may be services mean your music library can travel with changing, thanks to a host of new services that let you anywhere. You’ll still download digital veryou listen to millions of songs without physically sions and store them on a home computer or hard drive, but it means you don’t need to take up any (or even digitally) owning them at all.

Some services, like Rhapsody, allow you to precious space on your phone in order to have full access to your music library. stream an unlimited number of songs So what does all this mean? It means from their extensive library for a fee each you won’t need to actually purchase any month. Spotify, already wildly popular music at all—or, if you do, it’ll be on a in Europe, is currently conquering the localized hard drive you might rarely use.

U.S. market, making its millions of songs And it means you can have your entire available to stream for free, with some music library (or a library of millions of limitations (including ads). Another LISTEN: songs) on hand all the time. There will program called Rdio does pretty much the same thing. Of course, services We made the best always be arguments for owning physical Spotify Playlist albums, but, for now, convenience may like these—paid or unpaid—have been of all time. very well trump your inner audiophile. around for years, but they’re really only

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LIFE [ 2 CENTS ]

how to cArVe A

bArAck-o’-

lANterN

It’s almost time for Halloween. Meaning you’ll probably be carving a pumpkin. This year, express your political allegiance with one of these carving ideas. But remember: Just because your neighbor has a Jacko’-Biden and you’re rocking a Pumpkin-o’Palin doesn’t mean you get to kick in their carving (and vice versa).

THE BACHmANN SPECIAL This will look very similar to the Palin pumpkin but will do better at debates. It should also be looking to the left constantly, away from any camera.

THE BARACK-O’LANTERN Fortunately, Obama’s killer grin will make for a killer pumpkin.

Though the “hope” slogan you used in ‘08 should be replaced by “grim reality.”

THE JACK-O’ROmNEY This attractive, presidential pumpkin will cause your household to have free health care—and then regret it did so four years later.

THE RON PAuLKIN This is the pumpkin you can do pretty much whatever you want to, because Ron Paul would never tell you how to carve something. That’s your right as an american.

how to further your educAtioN without the pressure (or cost) of A deGree

By now, you’ve realized learning doesn’t have to stop just because you’ve “finished” school—in fact, it probably shouldn’t stop.

Whether you’ve earned your high school diploma or your master’s degree, upgrading your work skills and knowledge can not only keep you on the cutting edge of your field but can also be kind of, well … enjoyable.

Continuing education doesn’t have to mean pursuing a degree. Most colleges have auditing policies that allow you to sit in on classes of your choosing without having to take the tests or do the homework (basically, the way you wish college was in the first place). Look into community colleges, as they often offer significant tuition reductions if you live in the area.

Deciding to continue education also offers a chance to beef up your résumé. Taking

classes in your field lets your current or prospective employer know you’re serious about your chosen profession. Consider taking business, management or computer courses.

And don’t forget language classes—even if a position doesn’t require more than one language, candidates who are bilingual are coveted in the ever-growing global economy.

After-graduation learning doesn’t have to be about the corporate ladder, though.

Don’t feel like reliving four years of ramen and peanut butter? Invest in a cooking class with a group of friends at your local YMCA or community center. Break the monotony of winter with a ballroom dance class or a rock-climbing certification course. Local classes are offered on almost everything, and often for very reasonable prices. See, it’s like your mom always said—learning can be fun.

NAtioNAl food dAy: october 24 Though almost everyone associates October with the holiday that falls on the 31st, a different day is garnering attention this year: On Oct. 24, the United States will observe national Food Day. Essentially, the day is centered around education on healthy living habits, sustainable farming

practices, environmental protection, the lack of access to food for many people and the marketing of so-called “junk foods” to children. Events will take place all over the country— you can visit FoodDay.org to find out more information, including how to host your own event.

Sounds like a tasty party.

relevantmagazine.com

GET THE TEmPLATES: Click the QR code to download even more ridiculous templates

the New school

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GIVE:

[slices]

RumoRs of God ExpERiEncE thE Kind of faith You’vE onlY hEaRd about Forward by Bill Hybels The world is a great sculptor’s shop and we are statues. But there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.

– C.S. Lewis

with

Reimagining The Way you RelaTe To god

Skye’s book will challenge the way that you think about God and faith, digging deep into our motivations and heart issues. You can’t read this book and not see yourself and others differently!

– Margaret Feinberg, author of Scouting the Divine and Hungry for God relevantmagazine.com issue53-v1.indb 25

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[slices]

CULTURE

it’s All fuN & GAMes (uNtil they turN those GAMes iNto reAlly bAd MoVies)

r

emember a few years ago when Hollywood seemed to be making a movie out of every old TV show they could think of? There was Bewitched, Dukes of Hazzard and Get Smart (seriously, they can remake Yogi Bear but can’t figure out how to make Arrested Development into a movie? C’mon!). And a lot of even worse fare like I Spy, which coincided with the death throes of Eddie Murphy’s career.

Apparently, Tinseltown has run out of TV shows to ruin, er, honor, so they’ve turned their attention to games. More specifically, board games. This fall’s Real Steel purports to be based on a short story called “Steel,” but really, one glance at the preview shows the true inspiration for the film is obviously Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em Robots. It just has 100 percent more Hugh Jackman than the childhood game ever did.

That’s just the beginning. Universal Pictures is planning a film version of Monopoly with Ridley Scott (Gladiator) at the helm, and the screenwriters of the Candyland movie recently made news for saying they wanted their boArd GAMes films to be as epic as Lord of the Rings. And Battleship is set to become a film starring Liam Neeson and, um, Rihanna. with MoVie While it remains to be seen if any of these movies will be poteNtiAl: any good (spoiler: probably not), it at least opens the door for a gritty reinterpretation of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

The Game of Life

jiMi heNdriX

3000?

IN WHAT MIGHT BE the most inspired casting decision since Jamie Foxx became Ray Charles in Ray, Outkast’s iconic rapper-turned-music innovator Andre 3000 has been rumored to play Jimi Hendrix in an upcoming biopic. According to a new Esquire interview, Captain America star Hayley Atwell says her next project is the biopic. It means Jimi Hendrix will suddenly have as much swagger and funk as a single movie reel can handle.

WATCH: a live video of Hendrix playing “all along the Watchtower.”

Reality is random Risk Don’t mock Ukraine Settlers of Catan Still too many sheep mouse Trap a PG version of Saw

the best worst MuseuM iN the world

relevantmagazine.com

IF YOU HaPPEn TO BE in Kingsand, Cornwall, England, anytime soon, you’ll want to swing by The Old Boatstore Café. This restaurant is home to the Museum of Celebrity Leftovers, a small set of shelves housing tiny bits of food discarded by famous people, including Mia Wasikowska, Judi Dench and Ian McKellen. The best part is the “artifacts” are for sale (for charity)—for a mere £300, you can be the proud owner of a bit of bread and butter pudding gnawed on by Prince Charles.

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[slices]

TOday, mOre Than half Of americans say gay and lesBian cOuPles shOuld have The righT TO marry.

LifE

fOr The firsT Time,

GAY MARRIAGE is suPPOrTed By The maJOriTy Of america

53 44

%

24

%

sTrOngly favOr

suPPOrT

the legalization of gay marriage

T

he legalization of gay marriage has long been a hot-button issue in American religious and political circles. For years, it’s been a talking point for politicians of both parties, and has led to a confusing array of responses from Christians. But new studies show the landscape may be shifting with regards to legalizing gay marriage—period. Here’s what they found:

OPPOse

%

25

%

sTrOngly OPPOse

By faiTh

40 74

whiTe % evangelical

%

of Americans over 50 support legalization

23%

By age

While most Americans now favor legalizing gay marriage, evangelical Christians are still strongly opposed

By POliTical ParTy mainline 39% whiTe 55% PrOTesTanT

60

%

of Americans under 50 support legalization

60

%

OF DEMOCRATS SUPPORT

36%

rOman caThOlic

56% %

Oppose Support

57%

minOriTy chrisTian

37%

OF REPUBLICANS SUPPORT

50

%

OF INDEPENDENTS SUPPORT

rElEvanTmagazinE.COm

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Millions of young Christians disconnect from church as they transition into adulthood.

Now David Kinnaman, bestselling coauthor of unChristian, reveals the long-awaited results of a new nationwide study of 18-29 year-old Christians.

• Discover why so many are disengaging from the faith community.

• Renew your hope for how God is at work among your generation.

• Find out how you can join in.

• Free downloads at www.youlostmebook.com

David Kinnaman, coauthor of bestselling unChristian; president of Barna Group

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[slices]

[ 2 CENTS ]

tECh

whaT The new

TOM 2.0

MYSPACE SHOULD Be I

wii u

nO, iT’s nOT a cOnfusing insulT

the Wii U may allow you to take games with you when you leave the TV. Many people, however, are confused by Nintendo’s presentation. On the one hand, the Big N promised graphical horsepower to rival its top two competitors; on the other, it debuted games for the Wii U that looked very similar to current generation Wii games (i.e., blocky and kind of ugly in HD). But Nintendo has an ace up its sleeve: a plump, Italian plumber named Mario.

rElEvanTmagazinE.COm

At the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo, expectations were buzzing about Nintendo’s impending unveiling of its successor to the Wii. And observers weren’t disappointed.

Dubbed the “Wii U,” the console is a full HD version of the Wii with graphics that rival the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, along with support for the Wii controller. The most notable part of the new system is the new controller, which looks like an iPad and a Wii remote had a baby. It acts as an HD touchscreen, and many industry insiders speculate

n 2008, MySpace hit a dubious landmark: It was taken over by Facebook in overall Internet ranking. That led to multiple shakeups, redesigns and adjustments in corporate strategy. In the last quarter of 2010, the site lost more than $150 million, which was the last straw for owners News Corp.

The site has become the black sheep of social networking.

Well, that may be changing (with a heavy emphasis on “may”). This summer, a group of investors, including Justin Timberlake, purchased MySpace for a reported $35 million (which sounds like a lot, until you realize the previous owners paid $580 million in 2005. Ouch.). While there’s no indication what the new owners have planned for the site, we’d like to humbly offer up a few suggestions: Make it a portal for mid-‘90s TV. What if you had a website that brought back TGIF? You would bookmark that site immediately. That could be the new MySpace, home to Step by Step, Family Matters and Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper.

Fill the Chatroulette void.

Create a site called “MyFace” where your webcam automatically switches on and captures you, whatever your mood or how bad your face looks. Make it even better (and avoid nudity issues) by putting everyone’s face in a cutout of Dolph Lundgren’s face from Universal Soldier.

Make Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake post videos all the time.

This would be amazing.

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CULTURE

Fall tv’S

best bets e

very fall, a bunch of new network TV shows start, and you have to figure out what’s worth your time and what you can ignore immediately. The sad fact remains that for every Modern Family, there are two Running Wildes, three FlashForwards and at least 34 $h*! My Dad Says. Well, this year, you’re in luck. Because we watched hours of TV—and trust us when we say it wasn’t always good. Below are four of our picks for this fall season.

NEW GIRL (FOX) Remember when you thought Zooey Deschanel couldn’t possibly be any more endearing? You can’t get five minutes into FOX’s New Girl (working title) without realizing how wrong you were. Jessica Day (Deschanel, (500) Days of Summer) goes through a bad breakup and subsequently moves in with three single guys: Schmidt (Max Greenfield, Ugly Betty), nick (Jake Johnson, No Strings Attached) and Coach (Damon Wayans Jr., The Underground).

Jess is socially awkward, goofy, dorky—and totally adorable. New Girl is fast—really fast. as in, don’t get up outside of commercials to take a bathroom break or you’ll completely lose track of the plot. But considering the alternatives, New Girl is charming— and worth the watch.

PAN Am (ABC)

SuBuRGATORY (ABC) Imagine being dropped in the middle of Desperate Housewives as a normal, new York City 16-yearold, and you have the general idea of Suburgatory. Tessa (Jane Levy, Shameless) is being raised by her single father, George (Jeremy Sisto, Law & Order), who is worried about her circle of influence in new York City—so he packs up and moves the small family to the suburbs. The plot here could easily flounder, but it doesn’t.

Suburgatory is witty, understated and a complete breath of fresh air.

GRImm (NBC) Creepy thriller/dramas seem to be a theme this fall season—beginning with nBC’s Grimm.. The pilot follows Detective nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli, Road Rules)) who discovers his legacy: He’s a descendant of the brothers Grimm and is bestowed with a rather uncomfortable gift—seeing “beasts” for what they really are.

Proving its “The stories were real” tagline, Grimm blends fairytale fiction with reality into a concoction that sci-fi fans will adore, and while it is fairly cheesy at times (think, big-bad wolf goes after a young, pretty, blonde jogger wearing—you guessed it—a red sweatshirt) the promise for an interesting show is definitely here. The dark aspects to the plot are certainly more in keeping with the original stories.

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Vintage worked its way onto television in 2007 with aMC’s hit Mad Men and climbs to 30,000 feet with the aBC premiere of Pan Am. The aptly titled show follows the crew (Jonah Lotan, Christina Ricci, Karine Vanasse, Kelli Garner and Margot Robbie) of the ever-so-stylish Pan am airline in all of its 1960s glory. There’s mystery, intrigue and

even espionage—one stewardess turns out to be a covert spy. Fans of Mad Men will be delighted to know the mile-high series is different enough to be original, and similar enough to be just as deliciously nostalgic.

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briNG bAck

FAITH

teleVANGelists (or, At leAst, their hAir) Lost amidst all the important things

our generation has contributed to the future of Christianity (laser light shows during worship, coffee bars in church lobbies, edgy service names), is one thing we shouldn't have thrown out from the televangelist era: glorious, sculpted hair. Imagine for a moment how much more effective Francis Chan, Louie Giglio or Rob Bell would be sporting one of these righteous do's:

The Benny Hinn Swoop: For hair that says, “I like to comb, but I also like Gumby.”

The Jimmy Swaggart Thin and Sweep:

5 ideAs thAt MiGht MAke you wANt to Get

iNVolVed At church

I

t’s difficult to actually volunteer or get involved in a church, particularly if you don’t know anyone in the area where you’re volunteering or if little kids aren’t really your thing. So here are a few unexpected ways you can serve your home church that might be a little more up your alley: Breakfast with the brew. At this point, every church has coffee (or, at least, they should). But not all churches have something to go with coffee. Volunteer to bake some muffins or banana/zucchini/pumpkin bread to go with the caffeine.

Program design. Are you a great designer who wants to use your talents for your church? Fire up InDesign and offer to

For a less-stern Donald Trump air of authority.

create your church’s weekly programs. It’s a task that often gets overlooked.

Presentation. Lyrics, readings, outlines—all likely part of a carefully designed presentation. If you’re good at staying on schedule and creating presentations, this might be a great place for you to serve.

Newsletter/communication. Chances are your church communicates with its congregation via email or social media. If you’re a good writer, you might be the perfect person to drive the efforts to get your church’s message out in creative ways.

Start something new. This might be the most daunting, but it’s also perhaps the most exciting. Offer up your talents and see how you can best serve your church.

The Joel Osteen million-Dollar mullet: Church service in the front, praise party in the back.

The Paul Crouch: “Oh, this old thing?

I just rolled out of bed into this gorgeous ‘stache.”

The Jim Bakker Doo-Wop ‘Do: Like Elvis, but skinnier and older and a bit less lush.

the New NiV coMes uNder fire the care with which the independent Committee on Bible Translation has approached the new edition.

Much of the criticism has stemmed from the Southern Baptist Convention, which has expressed concern with some of the gender-neutral wording in the new nIV. The denomination passed a resolution barring the use of the translation by member

congregations. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood also found 2,766 gender-related problems with the translation. Defenders of the nIV say the so-called inaccuracies are better translations of the original language or context, when the writer was likely addressing men and women but used the culturally understood male pronoun to refer to both.

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The updated edition of the new International Version (nIV) Bible, currently the most popular Bible translation in the world, is being criticized for its inclusion of genderneutral language.

Conservative scholar Dr. Darrell Bock, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, tells The Christian Post he feels the criticism is unfair and that it underestimates

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[slices]

We are The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology We Therapists Teachers Artists Three-Year Degrees Beginning New Careers

are & Pastors & Learners & Leaders & Weekend Workshops & Answering a Calling

We Readers of the Old Story Believers Being Many Conversations

are & Writers of a New One & Doubters & Becoming & One Table

We Listeners Enacting Justice A School of Thought We are Serving God We are Text, Soul

are & Advocates & Creating Beauty & A School of Action & Serving Neighbor & Culture

We are…

MA in Counseling Psychology · Master of Divinity MA in Christian Studies with tracks in Creative Arts and Theology · Global and Social Partnership · Interdisciplinary Studies

theseattleschool.edu FORMERLY MARS HILL GRADUATE SCHOOL relevantmagazine.com issue53-v1.indb 35

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[slices]

REJECt aPathY [ THE NUMBERS ]

1 in 5 african yOuTh Plan TO

sTarT a Business MAY ONDENG

THE ANATOMY OF A FAMINE THE CHallEngES FaCing SOmalia arE a maTTEr OF liFE anD DEaTH

A severe drought would wreak havoc any- 30 percent in children under 5 years old. where. But in the Horn of Africa—a land now By May and June, these two statistics were trademarked by high food prices and armed already evidenced in the region, but it’s not conflict—the dry months have reached a the lack of food that determines a famine new level of destructive power. First, the title; it’s the loss of people. The mortalcrops and livestock began to die off; now, ity rate in Somalia has now exceeded two the people are following suit. The nations of deaths per 10,000 people per day—four Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti have times the average death rate in groups with been affected, but by far, the suffering has food security.

Despite opposition from Islamic extremist been felt most deeply in Somalia. In late July, the United Nations made the call—for the group Al-Shabaab, organizations have risked first time in more than 20 years, Somalia was security to bring aid to rebel-run areas—and they can’t afford not to. According to U.N. experiencing a famine. humanitarian coordinator What makes a famine?

TAKE ACTION Mark Bowden, “Every day of According to UNICEF, an delay in assistance is literally a emergency reaches famine levHelp the efforts in Somalia by donating to: matter of life or death for chilels when 20 percent of families WorldVision.org dren and their families in the face extreme food shortages SalvationArmyUSA.org famine-affected areas.” and wasting rates rise above

It has been proven over the years, and supported by the results of various new social enterprise organizations, that starting a business is one of the best, most sustainable ways to help people rise above poverty.

Now, a recent Gallup poll has found the majority of youths in Africa are embracing that challenge. The study found one in five African youth plan to start a business—and young women are generally as likely as men to have entrepreneurial aspirations.

Here’s the breakdown of the African youth surveyed:

25–35 years

20 %

15–24 years

29 % male

20 % 29 % female

19 % 26 %

The u.s.’s firsT ZerO-Packaging grOcery sTOre This helps reduce waste not only because of the reusable containers but also by encouraging shoppers to buy only as much as they need.

Though In.gredients would be the first zeropackaging store in the U.S., a similar store, called Unpackaged, opened in London last year. These stores hope to show the community how easy it is to support local businesses,

while also reducing impact on the Earth. When grocery stores are even going green, what could Austin “green-ify” next? Perhaps an all-Segway transportation system ...

rElEvanTmagazinE.COm

Austin might just be the “Emerald City” of the South, what with all of the city’s green initiatives. The newest green effort in the city is a zero-packaging grocery store, which is set to open by the end of the year, if their funding comes through.

In.gredients will sell organic and all-natural foods, and encourages consumers to bring their own containers.

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“Attach yourself to a guide…”

—MARCY HINTZ ´08 // M.A. Christian Formation & Ministry

W H E ATO N G RAD . C O M

The M.A. in Christian Ministry & Formation from Wheaton College Graduate School can prepare you for: // Outdoor Adventure Ministry* relevantmagazine.com

// Student Development // Inner City Ministry …and so much more

issue53-v1.indb 37

*HoneyRock, the Northwoods campus of Wheaton College, has been a member of CCCA since 1960.

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crochetiNG for chANGe How one organization is giving women in Uganda the materials, skills and ability to crochet their way into a better future BY asHLeY eMeRT

rocheting isn’t the typical hobby you expect from high school boys, but that’s the skill Kohl Crecelius’ older brother taught him and a few of his friends when they were seniors. Living in the northwest United States, they started making hats to wear while skiing and snowboarding, and then sold the extras they made. Their first big purchase made from the sales was a hot air balloon ride for their prom dates, but now they’re setting their sights even higher—empowering women in Northern Uganda to rise above poverty.

The idea came to them after a trip one of Crecelius’ friends took to

c

Uganda, where he met people who were tired of relying on others to help them. “We saw the opportunity that something as simple as crocheting could create products, which could create jobs, which are the very first steps toward someone taking control of their own life,” Crecelius says.

Officially receiving their nonprofit status in 2007, Krochet Kids Intl. (KKi) now runs a three- to five-year program in which they teach Ugandan women how to crochet, as well as provide them with training and mentorship through personal budgeting, savings, loans and business management topics. The products the women crochet

DaVID GaRVIN

Visit Krochet Kids’ website to check out their wares and find out more about how they’re helping women in Uganda improve their circumstances.

Twitter: @krochetkids Web: KrochetKids.org

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tAke ActioN

are sold from the KKi site and in Nordstrom stores, and proceeds from their sales go to the women and back into the program.

KKi works with locals to decide who to include—currently there are almost 90 women in the program. “We rely closely on our Ugandan staff, which is made up of five mentors and two operational or program staff directors,” Crecelius says. “They work with local churches [and] local aid organizations to identify a pool of applicants who are in the most need. There are a variety of factors that go into seeing who’s in need, but we gather that information from the local organizations, and then we go and do home visits and assess the assets they have, and get a better understanding.”

Akot Beatrice is one graduate who has now started her own business—she buys materials in bulk and then re-sells them to her community. “If given the tools, the resources and the opportunity, they will follow their dreams,” Crecelius says. “That’s the thing that’s truly inspiring—what they come up with outside of what we even thought.”

KKi sets themselves apart by helping establish a connection between consumer and producer: Every product is hand-signed by the woman who made it. “With that signature, customers who have a hat can go on our website and read that lady’s specific profile, see a picture of her, see what her hopes and dreams are for her future,” Crecelius says. “They can even write a thank-you note to that person, or a note of encouragement.”

Up next for KKi is a partnership with national designer Volcom. They’ve created a line of co-branded hats crocheted by the women in Uganda as well as T-shirts, which are set to launch this fall. KKi is also launching a program in Peru. While they must ship most of the materials to their Ugandan program because the area is land-locked, they will be able to source local materials in Peru.

Crecelius says KKi hopes to show that, really, we are all the same. “The biggest thing we try and communicate is that people are people; we have so much in common with our brothers and sisters around the globe. We’re trying to tell people: ‘This is a person just like you are. They have hopes and dreams, and it’s not about giving them anything—it’s about helping provide the opportunity for them to fully realize their capabilities.’ ”

[spotliGht]

reject ApAthy

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iN their words Innovators Making a Difference

filMMAker

dEVoN frANkliN As a VP at Columbia Pictures, 32-year-old DeVon Franklin is one of the top—and youngest—black executives in Hollywood. Here, he discusses his latest film, Jumping the Broom, his new book and balancing faith in Hollywood.

HOW I WENT FrOm INTErN TO VICE prEsIdENT

“I started as an intern. I was from San Francisco Bay, went to USC, and started as an intern for the management firm that handles Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Babyface, Puffy and J.Lo. Then my junior year I started interning at Overbrook [Entertainment] with Will Smith and his producing partner, James Lassiter.

That was really my foot in the door.”

WHY I WrOTE PRODUCED

BY FAITH

“Hollywood is just the vehicle to articulate these universal things: not to compromise your faith, and to be OK and vocal with who you are. If you’re to be a doctor, lawyer or [work on] Wall Street, it will be timely, relevant and helpful. The most important principle is that you don’t have to compromise your beliefs to find success—I say it’s not true you have to compromise.

If we focus on what God wants for our life, then we’ll arrive where He wants us to be. Don’t chase position—chase purpose. God is far more interested in developing us as a person than He is in getting us into a position.”

HOllYWOOd aNd CHrIsTIaNITY arE NOT mUTUallY EXClUsIVE aLaN sILfeN

fAith ANd filM Produced by Faith: Enjoy Real Success Without Losing Your True Self

HOW JUMPING THE BROOM TraNsCENds FaITH aNd raCE

“The movie was designed to reach the world regardless of color, so the goal of the film is to ‘cross over.’ There has been a very narrow definition of what faith-based film is, and we’re trying to expand it. There’s many different kinds of comedy, action and thrillers, and with faith-based we’re allowing people to define for themselves what that means. I believe it’s a new type of faith-based film that has tremendous virtue in it but doesn’t pander, so that by the end of the movie you feel, understand and relate to the emotion, and the movie feels like an experience.

I want the film to inspire people to take a new look at their life and make a plan to figure out what stage of life and career they’re in. We’re not going through development in life because God’s upset with us, but to be ready to maintain and sustain the success He wants to bring us. I want people to see God in their lives in a way they never have before and sustain that.”

From his book covering business, faith and Hollywood, to films espousing realistic family dynamics, Franklin’s work shows faith and filmmaking don’t have to be separate.

Jumping the Broom Worlds collide when two black families from vastly different backgrounds converge in Martha’s Vineyard for a wedding.

The Pursuit of Happyness Follows the true story of a single father who went from living on the streets to owning his own brokerage firm.

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Franklin offers wisdom from his years balancing his faith with the un-faithed Hollywood in this book. available in stores now.

“We have to always go back to gauging our intentions. I ask: ‘What’s the

big idea for your life? Why are you pursuing what you’re doing?’ Be OK with why you’re doing this—that God is calling you to do it—and then feeling confident in pursuing that calling.

Some would say faith is not an obstacle, but it’s the path to achieve and live our dreams.”

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why settle for less?

BY JON TYsON aND DaRReN WHITeHeaD

N

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ot long ago I (Darren) took two of my daughters apple picking. At ages 3 and 1, they had never seen apples growing on trees before, let alone handpicked them. It was a perfect autumn day, and the trees were bursting with fruit. As we walked toward them, one of my daughters ran ahead of us. She picked a rotten apple off the ground and started eating it.

“Don’t eat that!” I shouted, grabbing the apple and throwing it away.

Through her tears she whimpered, “That was my apple, Daddy.”

“We don’t eat apples from the ground.

Look at these trees,” I said as she lifted her eyes to the thousands of apples surrounding her on the branches. I led her over to a tree with apples right at her height. “Here, try one of these.”

She reached out and grabbed a ripe Red Delicious bursting with color. She

snapped it off the tree, and I showed if He gives us what we want. But Jesus calls us to a better way. Another dream. her how to shine it on her shirt.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus highThen, she opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the red fruit. With lighted the importance of getting a mouth full of apple, juice dripping things in order. When Jesus taught His from her chin, she chimed, “It’s good!” followers how to pray, He said: “May I said: “Yeah, it’s good. Dad knows your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Then, best, right?” give us this day our daily bread.” Most She smiled and nodded.

All too often we turn down the of us want to reverse this order. Our infinitely valuable in exchange for instinctive prayer is, “Give us our daily the trivial. C. S. Lewis put it like this: bread and hopefully that will be your “We are … like an ignorant child who will on earth.” Jesus communicated wants to go on making mud pies in a the idea here to ask God to transform slum because he cannot imagine what our desires and our hearts. “May it be is meant by the offer of a holiday at the as heaven wants.”

When our hearts align with what sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Why aren’t more of us asking, seek- heaven wants, then we’re ready to ask ing and knocking? Or the better ques- and then God will supply our needs. tion may be, why aren’t more of us The prayer says, “Teach us what to ask receiving, finding and opening? James, for.” When we learn what to ask God the half-brother of Jesus, answered for, then our minds and hearts will not that question in two ways. First he be focused on what the world offers said, “You do not have, because you do but on the things above. It’s the things above that set our imaginations free. not ask God.” The movement of Jesus is supLife is busy. We live like slaves to our fast-paced, suffocating schedules. posed to be defined by dreamers and There’s so much more God wants to visionaries. As Peter said on the day give, tell and show us, but we simply the church began in Jerusalem: “In don’t ask. We spend our energy and the last days, God says, I will pour my time in triviality, splashing in the shal- Spirit out on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young low end of our souls.

In the very next verse, James men will see visions, your old men will pointed to a second reason: “When dream dreams.”

To those who will listen, God wants you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that to reveal creative new ways to live. you may spend what you get on your This breathes new possibility into the pleasures.” James powerfully exposes Church. Cynical and jaded young peothe tendency of the human heart to ple will receive a vision for their future. try to coerce and manipulate God to Disappointed and disillusioned older people will recover their dreams. upgrade the comfort of our lives.

If we’re not careful, the current of Don’t you want that—the Kingdom of the world will carry us along. Without God coming to rupture our present knowing it, we will close off our lives to reality? With the Spirit in our midst, the radical movement of God’s Spirit the Church should literally be the and Kingdom. You might tweak your most creative place on earth.

Jesus said, “May your will be done life a little, you might upgrade a bit, but, for the most part, you’re going to on earth as it is in heaven.” It’s the call keep living as you’re living right now for us to bring the Kingdom of God to our lives and comfor the rest of your life. We JON TYSON munities. It’s pulling map out the way we want AND DARREN WHITEHEAD the future into the presthings to go and manage are the authors ent. Why wouldn’t God our lives to make sure they of Rumors of do this? These dreamget there. Instead of being God: Experience The Kind of Faith ers and visionaries who open to the promptings of You’ve Only seek after God often the Spirit, God stepping Heard About shape human history. into our lives seems more (2011, Thomas nelson), from You are invited to like an interruption than which this is ask for the Kingdom to an intervention. We really adapted. Used with permission. come. only want God to step in

[stAteMeNts]

dEEpEr Walk Words for the Soul

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in defense of slow bY brEtt MCCrACKEn

i

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n our drive-thru, instant, t h e re’s - a n - app - f or- t h at culture of fast everything, where our iDevice mobile amusements see to it that no time is dead time, the concept of slowing down seems strange to us. When any news of the world can be known in a real-time Twitter stream, when any question or dilemma can be solved with a quick Google search and when any song or book or niche product can be purchased from anywhere with a few clicks and a credit card, it seems archaic to settle for, let alone value, a slower process of consumption.

Which is why boredom seems to be, more than ever, the great bogeyman of our time. On account of the glut of amusements, communications and distractions—made increasingly easier to aggregate and personally immerse

oneself in—we are being condi- and goodness out there worth exerttioned to think of a constant stream ing much energy in unpacking. We’ve of mediation and interactivity as nor- become satisfied with lesser pleasures mal. If we’re not doing something on and dubious about the merits of that a device, reading an article, emailing which we don’t immediately know or someone or “checking in” on our vari- connect with. Pride, then, has a tenous feeds, time seems to crawl. All of dency to constantly reinforce a sort of this can have a tendency to aggravate self-satisfied status quo, where we preour already inflated Western senses fer what we’ve discovered and distrust of entitlement and impatience. We that which others insist is a masterlike to feel in control of our time and piece (especially when we don’t—or resources, molding our worlds to our can’t—quite see it).

But it is exactly this point—that it own schedules and preferences.

Therefore, we see boredom as a is an affront to our pride—that makes position of weakness, where for a engaging in the “slow and boring” so spell we must cede our control and essential. Taking the time to put the just … let the world happen to us. We brakes on, curtail our plans a little and avoid things that are too slow or too open ourselves up to learning somecomplicated, because they destroy thing new, something complicated our rhythm, slow down our pace and enlightening, is utterly valuable. and sometimes dare to suggest how Instead of relentlessly racing forward small we are and how illusory are our in our maelstrom of success-seeking notions of plate-spinning sovereignty. and amusement-curating, we would I’d like to suggest, however, that do well to pause and turn our eyes and boredom is actually a position of ears to the world around us and truly strength, and that embracing “slow,” listen (which takes time). Not only will difficult things is an important dis- this grow us in that it checks our pride cipline in the pursuit of human and reminds us to pay attention to the glorious otherness all around us, but flourishing.

Earlier this year, a number of prom- more often than not it will reward us inent film critics engaged in a blog by providing pleasures greater than debate about “slow and boring” cin- what we might otherwise satisfy ourema. It started with a piece in New York selves with.

Recent films like Tree of Life or Magazine in which Dan Kois said he was sick of suffering through boring, Meek’s Cutoff may seem slow, boring artsy films, even though he knew they or pointlessly esoteric, but they conwere good for him. New York Times tain profound insights and beautiful critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis observations about life. They are films then fired back “in defense of slow that reward the curious, patient, attenand boring,” followed by dozens of tive filmgoer. The same could be said other critics and bloggers who chimed for a book that doesn’t grab you on the in. Those in the debate tended to pit first page, or a dinner menu that conartistic, difficult films like The Tree of tains a combination of fig, pistachios Life and Meek’s Cutoff against more and mozzarella that sounds unimpopular (but critically dismissed) fare pressive (or even disgusting) on paper. like The Hangover Part II, challenging There are immense pleasures to expethe moviegoing public to think more rience, grand beauties to discover, if broadly of cinema’s potential to be only we expand our horizons, slow both entertaining and intellectually down and approach consumption not merely in terms of satiating desires stimulating.

Often, the tendency is to call some- and getting what we want but in terms thing “boring” and “slow” when we of discovering the fullness and mysdon’t understand it or lack the energy tery of creation and our place within it. But the best pleato make a stab at compreBRETT sures don’t come easily. hension. But I think someMCCRACKEN They require work, the times there are other forces is the author of Hipster cultivation of taste and at work as well: cynicism Christianity perhaps a higher tolerand pride. Cynicism makes (Baker) and writes ance—and appreciaus skeptical that there is regularly on film and culture. tion—of boredom. meaning, truth, beauty

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so es?

pUlsE Examining Culture and Faith

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beyond fourth grade

bY MiKE AnD DAnAE YAnKoSKi

o

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f the more than 800 million illiterate adults in our world today, approximately 70 percent live in some of the world’s most impoverished areas—namely, sub-Saharan Africa and East and South Asia. If you live in America or Western Europe, you are likely to receive five or six more years of formal schooling than the typical person in sub-Saharan Africa.

Studies have shown that for every year of schooling someone has, there is a 10 percent increase in that person’s wages.

In East Africa, a person with at least some secondary schooling is significantly less likely to contract HIV than someone with no formal education.

On the other hand, a lack of education keeps people entrenched in poverty. If we want to combat poverty—or we hope

to see long-term, sustainable develop- on time, if at all. More than two-thirds ment improving the lives of those in of those in the U.S. prison system need—then we must note the lack of do not have a high school diploma.

Even in developed countries, there is education in our world.

We had the chance to connect with much work to be done in the area of some missionary friends in Uganda education. A quality education dranot long ago. Over a meal one evening, matically alters a person’s life. Literacy they shared how they connect evange- empowers people not only to read the lism and development. “One without Scriptures but to gain access to a world the other doesn’t really make sense,” of knowledge that includes everything they explained. It’s like trying to clap from nutrition, to poetry, to entrepreneurial insights and cultural expreswith one hand.

Vocational training is part of this sion. In addition, educated parents couple’s ministry, along with Bible are more likely to educate their chiltraining, worship services and church dren, thereby helping to create a better planting. In other words, they are future for the next generation.

The education of women is espeempowering people with the knowledge to start their own businesses and cially important. A study done by improve their quality of life. One of Oxfam showed that in Pakistani homes the vocational endeavors is a baking where the mother had no education, school, where men and women learn the infant mortality rate was 60 perhow to make simple, nutritious bread cent higher than in homes where the mother had at least some education. without industrial ovens.

One day during a baking class, the When a woman becomes educated, flour began to run low. The students even at a basic level, it improves her were instructed to cut the recipe in entire household’s ability to function.

Despite the proven long-term half. Unfortunately, none of the students, despite being secondary school impact of educating women, they still graduates (roughly the equivalent of a remain at a greater risk of illiteracy high school diploma in the U.S.) knew than men. Worldwide, there are just how. Dumbfounded, the missionar- 88 literate women for every 100 literies inquired further. While everyone ate men. In some countries, the disin the class knew “four divided by parity is much worse—62 women for two is two,” when it came to putting every 100 men in Bangladesh, while in that knowledge into practice, nobody Pakistan the ratio is 57 to 100.

Despite the numbers, good things knew what to do with four cups of flour. A UNESCO report describes are happening. The number of chilthis situation as a failure to “master dren not attending primary school has a minimum set of cognitive skills.” It dropped from 115 million in 2002 to has everything to do with the environ- roughly 93 million in 2006. Although ment in which a person is educated. the responsibility of educating people Factors beyond a child’s control—such falls largely on the shoulders of governas nutrition, the teacher’s ability and ments, we can help bring important the teacher-to-pupil ratio—determine changes. As citizens of countries with the resources to provide aid to develthe outcome of the child’s education.

Imagine you had only received a oping countries, advocacy plays a vital fourth-grade education—or worse role in addressing the global need for yet, you couldn’t read or write at all. education. Additionally, many smaller Where might you go for dependable organizations work to provide alterinformation? How would you learn native and supplemental educational about improving your child’s health? opportunities for students. From after-school tutoring What job prospects would MIKE AND programs in the U.S., you have? How would DANAE to providing donoryou improve your family’s yANKOSKI are the executive funded scholarships in situation? editors of Zealous developing countries, This is not just a problem Love, from which this is adapted. we can love others by in developing countries.

Copyright © 2009 working to provide a Nearly a quarter of students

by Mike and Danae quality education for in the United States do not Yankoski. Used by permission. the next generation. graduate from high school

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about their situation. Then they began writing shifted the foundation of the LaRue family, it’s their presence that has stabilized them once more. songs. Then, gradually, they began healing.

“In writing a song, half of it is conversation,” Us & Our Daughters is the banner of their musical Phillip says. “Then you start trying to put all those endeavors, as well as their daily life.

“They strip you of your selfishness, they strip feelings down to three to four minutes. It is so you of your pride and of all the things therapeutic to do that, because you and all the places you would write really have to talk through a lot to comfrom that might be fake,” Lia says. press all you’re feeling into a song.”

As their writing has come from a Eventually, the couple decided to real place, the couple has also noticed turn these deeply personal songs into their relationship and love deepening. a public testimony, and released the EP WEBsITE: “What I tell Lia is that when I met her, Songs About Us under the apt moniker, myspace.com/ I fell in love with her, and now it’s a difUs & Our Daughters. usandourdaughters ferent kind of love. … It feels so much “The message is just that love is so FOr FaNs OF: deeper,” Phillip says. beautiful, and romantic, and amazThe Civil Wars, The Lia agrees. “If you imagine planting ing—and it’s hard. And yet, with the Weepies two seeds next to each other and then drive and passion after each other, and lIsTEN: their roots begin to intertwine and they having God be the center of that, it is go down deep in the soil, it changes from so possible,” Lia says. “It is so possible what it was in the beginning to a new to fight through your trials as a couple.” kind of fragrance from that blossom.”

While it was the arrival of their —ALYCE GILLIGAN daughters, Kalina and Jubilee, that

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Everyone has a good “breakup song” they clung to in dark romantic days. But Phillip and Lia LaRue have a new appreciation for the “stay together song.”

“We were blessed we were able to be married five years before having kids, but we had the kids so close, 13 months apart,” says Phillip, a singer-songwriter and former member of the brothersister Christian band LaRue. The subsequent births of their two daughters sent Lia into postpartum depression, and sent their happy marriage into turmoil.

But the LaRues began talking

t o S t re a m F Ul l a l B Um S B Y a r t i S t S l iK e t He S e , c Hec K o U t t He Dr oP at rel e va n t m a g a z ine .c om

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the drop Emerging Artists You Should Know

JORDAN JAQUESS

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Master of Divinity

Dual degrees

> Music (MDiv/MM) Concentrations in: > Biblical Studies and Theology > Social Work (MDiv/MSW) > Christian Education Master of Theological Studies > Ministry Leadership Doctor of Ministry > Missions and World Christianity > Worship Leadership > Youth, Family and Student Ministry

FALL PREVIEW NOVEMBER 10-11, 2011 SPRING PREVIEW MARCH 22-23, 2012 relevantmagazine.com

REGISTER ONLINE baylor.edu/truett/preview OR BY PHONE 254-710-3756 or 1-800-BAYLOR-U, option 5

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into the world and succeed,” says Josiah Johnson, church, Johnson says, but the songs don’t necessarsinger and guitarist. “The weirdest part is knowing ily reflect that upbringing.

“Charity and i went up until into our 20s, but it’s how other great local music isn’t getting as much not at the forefront of our minds at this point,” he attention outside of Seattle. But it’s an honor.”

The band features Johnson and Jonathan Russell says. “whether or not you believe in God, those are things that are important at a deep level on vocals, guitar and percussion; to pretty much everyone, and we defiCharity Rose Thielen on vocals, violin nitely talk about those things. i hope we and percussion; Chris Zasche on bass; do them justice.”

Kenny hensley on piano and Tyler with their open-mic days still freshly williams on drums. in mind, each member is committed to Listening to their self-titled debut WEBsITE: seeing how far they can take the band— album (Sub Pop) for the first time, theheadandtheheart. but first they need to figure out how to it’s easy to find yourself singing along com write songs together. before you even know all the words.

FOr FaNs OF: “everything has happened so fast, while its folk harmonies and collecFleet Foxes, Mumford & and we’re still honing our songwrittive “woo-hoos” encourage listeners to Sons, The Beatles ing as a six-piece democratic band,” join in, common themes of family, leavlIsTEN: Johnson says. “Long term, we’d all just ing home and creating a new life allow like to keep making music for as long people to make the songs their own. as we’re afforded the opportunity and Themes of forgiveness, hope and we’d like to grow and change doing it.” redemption are also woven in. all but two of the band members grew up in KEVIN SELDERS

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The beginning of indie folk-pop buzz band The head and the heart can be traced back to an open-mic night two years ago in Seattle. none of the members were acquainted before that night, but their admiration for each other’s displayed talents led them to perform together in living rooms and tiny bars.

Since then, their playful melodies and the clap-and-stompalong energy of their live shows have led many from Seattle to dub the band its next big thing. “it’s great that Seattle is proud of us and wants to see us go out

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SHAWN BRACKBILL

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Callahan says he tackles such deeply felt and better phrase, [the] spiritual nature. I hate to use that word, and I think that is part of the whole profound topics because “they are human—I’m thing I am searching through. Why do I dispar- drawn to them because everyone is drawn to age the word ‘spiritual’ while still acknowledging them,” he says. “To be drawn to them is what it there is something—some way to relate these feel- means to be alive.

“I’d guess what I write mostly about ings? I hold the knowledge and I can is humans, and they are the most feel it, which is good enough for me, unnatural thing in the universe,” he but I also desire to share it—to split remarks. “And the nature around us it open and let it spill over everyone. plays out like a movie or a painting Maybe the answer is only in work and or a musical piece. We hear birds like more work.” music, but it isn’t music to birds. We Such twisting, complicated answers WEBsITE: see skies like paintings, but they aren’t are par for the course for Callahan. An DragCity.com/Artists/ Bill-Callahan paintings to horses.” excellent lyricist who often explores Callahan says these human pursuits themes of nature, love, death, politics FOr FaNs OF: Leonard Cohen, Will of art are spiritual and they connect us. and identity in a deep baritone over Oldham, Wilco “These are the things we use to sparse instrumentation, Callahan lIsTEN: communicate and bring us together is also known for his wry humor. because we are sort of alienated by “[Humor] just sneaks in,” he says. “Like nature. The mountains make us human it sneaks into daily life. You never know because we are not mountains.” when you’re going to see a humorous angle to what is going on before you.” RYAN HAMM

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One of the most interesting aspects of music is the way it can express spirituality, even for people who don’t adhere to any particular belief. Such is the case with singer-songwriter Bill Callahan—even if he can’t quite explain why he’s so compelled to tap into the spiritual realm.

“Music and other creations are the other world that can come pouring out of us,” muses Callahan, whose new album, Apocalypse, explores just such themes. “The past couple albums have been a setup for further explorations into, for lack of a

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CHRIS TAYLOR

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is FAir trAde FAir?

a look aT The movemenT’s aCTual impaCT on Farmers’ lives

By SHANNON SUTHERLAND SMITH

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s the truck bumps and groans to a stop in front of a modest, 200-squarefoot, painted cement house at the edge of the dusty Dominican village, everyone’s eyes are immediately drawn away from the drab, white-ish dwelling to the brilliant blooms on the pink Shaving Brush tree in the foreground.

Lush greenery and exotic blooms are hardly an uncommon sight, but this tree is different. The large, leafless tree would have looked as dead as an oak tree in the midst of a Midwest winter if it weren’t for hot pink flowers blooming sporadically along the bare branches. What at first seemed to be dead was actually producing unspeakably beautiful life.

It’s an apt metaphor for the home of Mercedes Del Rosario Sosa—a bright spot in an economically barren land.

Sosa pulls out some white plastic lawn chairs for us to sit in and proudly gestures to the one-and-ahalf-hectare (3.7 acre) cocoa plantation to the east of her home and tells us it sustains her, her husband, her mother, her five children and her two grandchildren. “For the first time, my children have opportunities and four of my children are going to college,” she says, as her 2-year-old granddaughter climbs into her lap, nearly tipping Grandma into the dirt in the process. “One is studying animal production, another accounting and another law.”

Though the Dominican Republic is often considered Haiti’s wealthier and more fortunate neighbor, it remains largely underdeveloped, and the Central Intelligence Agency reports that in 2010, about 42 percent of the residents in the Dominican lived below the poverty line. In rat-infested slums in Santo Domingo, raw sewage flows freely and people live in overt poverty. Additionally, in the abandoned “sugar towns,” known as “bateys,” undocumented Haitian immigrants have been left behind to scavenge and survive in isolation and indifference.

But in this moment, the future looks promising to Sosa and she is fiercely proud of the plantation, which has been in the family three generations but has never before provided for them. Sosa says her children and grandchildren have grown up beside the adults in the cocoa field, but obviously, with three kids in college, she believes education is not to be sacrificed. She credits the rise of the local fair trade cocoa cooperative for this. “We were never able to get a fair price for our cocoa until CONACADO came along,” she explains.

a

The National Confederation of Dominican Cocoa Producers (CONACADO) helps about 10,000 of the country’s 40,000 small-scale cocoa producers earn a livable wage through fair trade certification.

Fair trade certification guarantees a price, but not a sale, which means it does not operate independently of the market to create an artificial demand.

Fair trade supports equitable treatment for vulnerable farmers in underdeveloped countries, ensuring economic and environmental sustainability. And it also prevents the abuse of labor standards, including the use of child labor in the cocoa industry.

ChoColaTe, JusTiCe and Child labor

Child slavery on cocoa farms is a problem worldwide. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana provide more than 60 percent of the world’s cocoa, and according to a recent United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report, there are nearly 300,000 children working in Ivorian cocoa farms, many of whom are unpaid, receive no schooling, engage in hazardous work and are not free to leave. “Child labor is a huge issue in Ghana,” says Amos Safo, program communications manager with Compassion International’s Ghana field office. “Currently, Compassion Ghana provides advocacy training to parents and church leaders in order to create awareness about child protection.”

Economics frequently trumps ethics when low cocoa prices and a need for lower labor costs motivate farmers to employ children who often work long, punishing hours and use dangerous tools and pesticides, according to the Washington-based International Labor Rights Forum.

It is critical that inappropriate child labor is clearly defined, says Stacy Geagan Wagner, marketing and public relations director for Fair Trade USA, which audits and certifies transactions between U.S. companies and their international suppliers to guarantee fair trade-certified standards are met. “We prohibit the worst forms of child labor where children use machetes in the harvest and the children are kept home from school to work,” Wagner says.

“We understand, though, that farmers have to teach children the business because that’s the future of the livelihood, but during school hours, the children must be in school, and that is certainly a requirement to maintaining a fair trade certification.”

However, she also says it can be easy to rush to judgment in these situations without considering the cultural, social and economic context. “If we do

find children working on a farm all day when they should be in school, we don’t walk in there and say: ‘You’re bad. You’re decertified,’ and walk away,” Wagner says. “We try to get to the root of the problem. Maybe the children aren’t in school because the family can’t afford the fees or the school is too far away and the family has no way to transport the child to school. These are things we can possibly help with, so our goal isn’t to catch them doing something wrong but rather to get them back in good standing.”

When Fair Trade helps

In the Dominican, CONACADO stands against unfair labor practices, including child labor, and returns profits to its members.

At the end of the harvest season, growers receive more than 90 percent of the global market

FaIr TradE prINCIplEs Fair prices and credit: Democratically organized farming groups receive a guaranteed minimum floor price and an additional premium for certified organic products.

Fair labor conditions: Workers enjoy freedom of association, safe working conditions and sustainable wages. Forced child and slave labor are prohibited.

Direct trade: Importers purchase from fair trade producer groups as directly as possible to eliminate middlemen.

Transparent organizations: Fair trade farmers and workers decide democratically how to invest fair trade premiums in community development projects such as scholarships, quality improvement, leadership training and organic certification.

Environmental sustainability: Harmful agrochemicals and GMOs are prohibited in favor of environmentally sustainable farming methods that protect farmers’ health and preserve valuable ecosystems.

Source: Fair Trade USA

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price. The cooperative also makes significant community investments, which is a requirement of certification. “We ask for a minimum of $1,600 a metric ton from our buyers, and about 10 percent of that goes back into the community,” says Hector Romero, a tour coordinator with CONACADO in the Dominican.

“In this community, for example, we have built a school, a medical center, a water utility, streets and sports facilities.”

Across the street from the CONACADO office where

“for the first tiMe, My childreN hAVe opportuNities ANd four of My childreN Are GoiNG to colleGe.” —Mercedes del rosArio sosA

Romero stands is a brand-new school, and if it weren’t for the formidable gates and barbed wire fence surrounding the school, the facility would look like a pretty decent small-town America community rec center with some basketball courts and a freshly painted exterior. It stands as a symbol of success in the community.

The CONACADO cooperative is obviously a hub of activity in the area, and families like the Sosas come and go, bringing in their beans for fermenting, drying, processing and quality testing. They share equipment they could never hope to purchase on their own, such as a large electric dryer housed in a shed that is used when the sun isn’t quite as hot as it needs to be for drying naturally in the greenhouses.

do that than oppress hundreds,” says Maureen Colledge, a suburban wife, mother and registered nurse who is a supporter of fair trade-certified products. “I believe we are called to care about the wellbeing of all of those around us, [and] that doesn’t stop at the North American border. Love is explained in 1 John 3:17 as an action. We need to take physical steps to love those who are being oppressed, and that includes the farmers and laborers in the developing world who are being crushed.”

Just as growers in underdeveloped countries are coming together to demand fair trade, so are developed communities. Fair Trade USA reports there are now almost 1,000 “Fair Trade Towns” throughout the world including London, Rome, Barcelona, Boston and Chicago. There are specific criteria that must be met to be recognized as a Fair Trade Town, such as showcasing fair trade products available in local stores, developing an active citizen HOW CONaCadO support network, collaboratassIsTs FarmErs ing with community institutions, engaging media and Joint commercialization: formalizing support from the Instead of delivering to exportlocal government. ers, its associated producers

And in the parking area, farmers informally congregate to talk about the weather, the year’s crop or how their kids played in the last baseball game.

Just a mile or so down the road is the Sosas’ farm, and Sosa says two of the things she finds comforting, even on the difficult days, are the music that comes from the newly built church next door to their farm and knowing CONACADO is just down the road.

“It didn’t just change life for our family,” she says leaning back to throw her arms wide to gesture to the community to the west of her farm. “It changed life for our neighbors, our friends and everyone in the community. It changed the lives even of our family members who live in other towns, because now we can help them, too.”

The FaraWay impaCT oF Fair Trade sales

The success of these cooperatives largely lies in the hands of people thousands of miles away where school isn’t an optional luxury and where most farmers store hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment in sheds that could easily house 20 typical Dominican homes. The survival of these cooperatives hinges on the acceptance of fair trade by the consumer—specifically, the Global North consumer. And many contend that followers of Christ need to be at the forefront.

“In Isaiah 65, there is a passage that says, ‘Behold I am making new heavens and a new earth.’ This talks about how it is important that people enjoy the fruits of their labors. People should have a share in what they harvest, not merely to labor for the benefit of others,” says Jeff Williams, national secretary in Wales for Christian Aid, a Christian organization leading the fair trade movement.

Western consumers may have the ability to drive up demand for fairly traded goods, but Williams concedes there will always be consumers who are not prepared to pay a small premium and who feel loyalty to other brands.

Many people, though, are becoming increasingly faithful to a fair trade label. “If I can help only one farmer through my purchases, I would rather

deliver their products directly to a COnaCaDO, which pays a fair price for the products.

When the sale is finalized, the producer receives additional revenue since all members share the profits.

Developing infrastructure: Each group is able to make investments to building infrastructure to improve the quality of the cocoa.

Technical assistance: Their national technical committee works with producers to ensure the quality of the cocoa.

Credit for blocks of producers: They provide harvest loans to its group members, and they in turn invest these funds toward the purchase of cocoa at the price established upon delivery in order to prevent the high financial costs of dealing with commercial banks.

Credit for the growers: COnaCaDO extends credit loans for the growers to prepare their harvest and maintain their property or their private investments. This helps avoid debt for growers while promoting growth of their properties’ production.

Contributing to the development of communities: Groups contribute to community development by investing fair trade premiums to undertake projects such as the construction of schools and medical centers.

Source: CONACADO

The (CoCoa) empire sTrikes baCk

Even with the fast growth of the fair trade movement, major players in the cocoa industry were not about to stand idly by and watch their market share wane and their reputation take a beating.

After the widespread media exposure of children working in the cocoa fields of West Africa in 2000, major cocoa corporations made a voluntary commitment in 2001 to certify their cocoa “child labor-free” by July 2005. But many anti-slavery advocacy groups report that deadline passed with little real change.

The deadline was then extended to certify half of farms as “child labor-free”

by July 2008, and major cocoa companies rolled out a few pilot programs, but advocacy groups were still largely dissatisfied with what they called lackluster efforts.

Since January 2010, however, chocolate giant Nestlé has announced its popular Kit Kat would be fairly traded,

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It’s not a perfect system, and scandals certainly pop up from time to time, but consumers seem to trust the system. Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) surveyed thousands of Farm machinery and motor people in 15 countries in 2009 vehicles are not designed for and found that among those children. These are the most common sources of accidents. familiar with the fair trade symbol, nine out of 10 said Children are more vulnerable they trusted it. The survey also to heat-related illnesses and injuries than adults. revealed almost one-third of participants said they believed Cutting tools designed for adults fair trade had strict standards, are especially dangerous for children. and almost three-quarters said independent certification was Children are more susceptible to fatigue than adults, putting the best way to verify a prodthem at further risk of accidents. uct’s ethical claims.

While an effective soluChildren’s immature physiological systems make the risks of extion in some regards, the fair posure to pesticides, fertilizers, trade movement alone is inadcrop dust, toxic chemicals and equate to address slavery. So exhaust fumes even more acute than for adults. says Haley Wrinkle, the senior researcher at Free2Work at Heavy lifting, awkward postures (stooping, kneeling, reaching) Not For Sale, an anti-slavery and repetitive work can damage organization that equips and growing spines and limbs. organizes modern-day aboChildren risk injury, illness or litionists. “Fair trade is cureven death from biological rently the most effective way hazards associated with farm for a company to source child animals, wild animals, reptiles, insects and certain plants. labor-free cocoa from West Africa,” she says. “However, Poor housing and sanitation in migrant labor camps in many the problem of child labor is The limiTs oF eFFeCTive parts of the world adds an complex, and fair trade alone Fair Trade another health risk. cannot possibly solve it. Root Aside from the fact that many causes include extreme poverty believe not enough is being Source: International Labor Organization: International Programme on the and weak or corrupt governdone to ensure the major chocElimination of Child Labor (IPEC) ments—these factors enable olate companies are using fairly traffickers and farm owners to traded cocoa in their products, exploit children. So in other other criticisms have surfaced, attacking the fair trade movement itself. Some sug- words, while fair trade is handling this problem well gest the certification costs too much for the poor- where its certified farms are concerned, a more comest farmers. And other commentators contend the prehensive solution will require the engagement of certification bodies simply have no teeth, and not many other factors.”

In the Dominican, for example, only one-quarter much in the way of eyes and ears either.

Fair trade defenders are quick to debunk these of cocoa farmers are fair trade-certified and many criticisms. “There has been some negative press in uncertified cocoa farmers struggle to scratch out a the U.K., partly because the fair trade association living—and they often only continue to do so simdoes not have the resources to adequately police ply because there are no other options. Wagner says every small group that it supports,” Williams says. a lack of education about the benefits of fair trade “But once an issue is brought to light, it is quickly along with fears—that are often based on political and robustly dealt with. So far, there is no better sys- or even religious beliefs—continue to be barriers to tem for ensuring that producers in the developing certification for some farmers. Getting information to people living in remote rural areas, for instance, world enjoy a fair price for their produce.”

Wagner says annual audits and scheduled and can be very difficult.

And on the mostly Haitian-run bateys, illegal unscheduled visits conducted by FLO-CERT, an independent international certification company, are and undocumented Haitian families understand effective. She says when producers become certified little about the possibilities of fair trade cocoa production. There is also a language barrier between they are also trained to report breaches they witness. and after the nonprofit organization Stop the Traffik’s “March on Mars” campaign, Mars committed to certifying its entire cocoa supply by 2020. Cadbury also recently rolled out a fair trade Dairy Milk chocolate bar.

This is hardly spectacular, however, considering there are about 300 varieties of chocolate bars on the shelves today, as well as countless other markets for raw and value-added cocoa. But it’s something, says Miki Mistrati, the director and investigator behind the awardwinning documentary The Dark Side of Chocolate. “The consumers have to demand fair trade for sure, but they also have to put pressure on the companies by writing to the companies to complain,” he says, adding that fair trade has had little impact on Côte d’Ivoire where the worst child labor is occurring. “The international chocolate companies have to spend much more money on projects in Ivory Coast. They have to build schools and hospitals.”

WHY agrICUlTUral WOrk Is HazardOUs FOr CHIldrEN

Spanish-speaking Dominicans and the Creole-speaking Haitians.

On one batey, less than 60 miles from the Sosas’ farm, a family of seven spends a good part of their mornings walking the country roads scavenging for grain and cocoa beans that have

WaTCH

Our short film “Fair Change”—a look at how fair trade looks in real life.

fallen off passing trucks and from the backs of motorcycles. “The Lord provides for us each day,” says the aging father of four girls and one son. “We are thankful for that. We do not know what the future holds.”

Although they are surrounded by once-productive land, without anyone to share knowledge or information about opportunities, the fields grow out of control with wild sugarcane. The families try to subsist on the cane even though it rots their teeth and wreaks havoc on their stomachs after years of consumption.

It’s strange to think that, on the same island, vibrant farming communities (like the Sosas’) exist and reveal possibilities to so many people. And perhaps fair trade certification is one of the steps to solving problems like the bateys. Regardless, although the Sosa family is enjoying the fruits of their labors, only time will tell if any of the children return to the plantation that sustained them. The futures of each member of the Sosa family remain as potentially beautiful—and vulnerable—as each bloom on the barren Shaving Brush tree. releVANtMAGAZiNe.coM / 59

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The snl star-turned-late night host talks rough beginnings, why he loves his writers and how he got The roots to be his band

By CARL KOZLOWSKI

immy Fallon is one showbiz figure who truly is living his wildest dreams.

As a boy, he grew up wishing he could be on Saturday Night Live—a wish that paid off against incredible odds when in 1998, at the age of just 23, he became one of the youngest cast members in the show’s illustrious history.

After six years on the show, during which he went from small roles to the showcase position as “Weekend Update” anchor alongside Tina Fey, Fallon was afraid of wearing out his welcome and tried his hand at starring in movies. But after doing mediocre business with the romantic comedy Fever Pitch opposite Drew Barrymore and bombing alongside Queen Latifah in the unwatchable Taxi, he seemed washed up at barely over 30.

Then, in 2004, SNL producer Lorne Michaels saved the day when he made Fallon the offer

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of a lifetime. Jay Leno had just announced he would leave The Tonight Show in five years, with Late Night host Conan O’Brien filling his shoes. Michaels secretly offered Fallon the job of replacing O’Brien, if he could just hang in there for five years, and Fallon wound up in the position of receiving $1 million a year by NBC to put all other long-term offers on hold.

The arrangement paid off when, in 2009, Fallon began his tenure as Late Night host.

He’s proven many doubters wrong with a quirky show that has quickly built him a loyal fan base and established his niche in latenight shows.

He can sing, rap, dance and do spot-on celebrity impressions, but most of all, Fallon has shown his boyish enthusiasm and genuine affection for people is a magnetic draw for his guests and audiences alike. He is widely regarded as one of the nicest guys in show business, with a happy marriage and an overt joy that made Rolling Stone wonder whether anyone could really be that nice. While he doesn’t discuss it publicly, Fallon has been a lifelong Catholic who loves to visit churches to admire their stained-glass windows and even went back to his Catholic alma mater, the College of Saint Rose, to finish his bachelor’s degree in 2009, after launching his show.

So how did Fallon stumble into such a dream life? Here’s the story behind one of the happiest people in television.

they’d feed you, so I could tell my mom I was eating something good. Saturday nights at the Improv was big time—we were paid $10 instead of $7. But Jerry Seinfeld walks in one night and I was in awe because it was at the height of Seinfeld mania. He goes onstage and destroys with classic material. He comes off the stage and says, “Who’s next?” and I’m hearing my name. Do you know how hard it is as a young comic to follow a star? The room is completely gassed and exhausted, and then they’re like, “And here’s a new kid.”

hoW did you make iT onTo snl?

I wanted to be the next Dana Carvey, doing impressions for Saturday Night Live. And that’s what got me in the door for an audition, but I didn’t make it the first time. I went back the next year. You’re on the actual stage where Steve Martin and Robin Williams did monologues, and everyone tells you, “Lorne doesn’t laugh.” So then you get up there terrified. [I was] doing different voices and I did an Adam Sandler impression at the finish. That made everyone laugh, thankfully, including him.

Conan Was on For 16 years, so hoW did you FolloW him? hoW did you puT The shoW TogeTher?

I put together a crew of people who I felt if even the show didn’t work out, I [would go] out and have fun every night. I got a producer from SNL, and we put together great writers though my agency and my managers helped me out. The writing staff we hired from talent, not just résumés. Some people have a

“[Lorne michaeLs] said i was in [SNL]. it was the cooLest moment ever. it was Like a WoNder YearS moment. ”

did you Find ouT righT aFTer ThaT, hoW did you geT sTarTed in This like “sign here!”? business?

No, I had to wait six months. I went back to I started in high school, doing impressions, and won an impression contest on local radio. I did a two-minute contest doing different celebrities making commercials, like Bill Cosby or Seinfeld. I won $700 and I thought: “Wow, I can make $700 in two minutes. I gotta keep doing this.” I went to [the] College of Saint Rose, and I worked at a newspaper and was a receptionist. I gave my tape and résumé and picture, an awful headshot, to a manager. She asked what I wanted to do and I said, “I want to be on SNL.” She said, “Seriously?” And I said, “Yes.” She had me move to L.A. and I joined [legendary sketch comedy troupe] Groundlings and went onstage at the Improv [comedy club].

This was 1996. Ross Martin, who now books the Tonight Show, saw me onstage. I did 25 minutes of material, [and] maybe seven minutes of it was funny. But you’d get paid $7 and

what she thought and she said, “Letterman did it, Conan did it, and now you can, too.”

And so here we are, two years into the run.

Groundlings and Lorne called me into his office at Paramount Pictures—it was a white room, like close to heaven. He asked me, “Jimmy, will you wear wigs?” And I was baffled, but I said, “Yeah!” And he said I was in.

That was the coolest moment ever. It was like a Wonder Years moment.

I came on first as the opening impressionist guy, then I did original characters, and then I did “Weekend Update” with Tina Fey. It’s so surreal and nerve-racking that you’re on the same stage as Robin Williams and Steve Martin. It felt like slow motion.

I was leaving SNL, it was the end of a sixyear contract and I thought I’d had the greatest time and I didn’t want to overstay. Lorne told me, “Conan’s going to take on the Tonight Show in five years, and I think you can do [the Late Show] if you want.” I thought, “I’m Irish, I like talking to everyone.” So I asked my wife

giant résumé saying, “He wrote for this, he wrote for that”—but why isn’t he writing for them now? We got somebody from [satirical newspaper] The Onion, some people from the standup circuit—just a cool, diverse group of people, men and women. We have the most women of any late-night writing staff.

We went on the web and Lorne Michaels wanted us to start there with three-minute shows to have a taste of quick, solid writing.

We shot them on the 11th floor, just doing these little shows that helped build interest in the audience. I remember Twitter had helped us, too. I remember having just 300 followers, and now we have 3.5 million of them. We’ll have bands come on the show and play the song they’re trying to sell, and then ask them to play more just for me and make those web extras—it’s almost like having two shows.

We get the best stories out of our guests, [and] try to have really inventive cooking when we have chefs on—that really helped us being on the web with these quick hits. It’s fun to see what things hit and what things don’t.

You can tell with a joke if it works—instant gratification with a laugh. But that’s a way that people can get back to you about things like the Charlie Sheen impersonation. releVANtMAGAZiNe.coM / 61

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can take the train to your homes all the time in Philly.” ?uestlove [The Roots’ drummer and leader] said, “OK, but one question: If Herbie Hancock’s in town, can he play with the band?” I’m like, “Dude, if you get Herbie Hancock, I’ll give him my apartment!” I knew I’d love this dude. We have a great relationship, and he tweets more than anyone, which helps the show.

a large parT oF your sTandup Was musiC, so you’re a huge musiC Fan.

We have so many creative, brilliant people on the show. They were on it the second Charlie Sheen broke out on the Internet, and I had no idea that people would think we’d have the same face. Very odd.

monologue jokes and pick 10 for the show.

We do a lot of games in the show. Then we do the show and we’re done, unless we’re pretaping something. I’m usually there till 9 or 10 o’clock.

[with his words].“Tiger blood”? “Winning”?

My writers love to spoof real shows, and so we also did Real Housewives, Jersey Shore, Lost, obviously. Or we put somebody hanging in a tree just outside a window, [as] a Twilight spoof and had them act like Robert Pattinson in a tree. Or we’ll have me do Justin Bieber when I look nothing like Justin Bieber.

You can’t be sick because hundreds of people are depending on you for their living. You have so much fun doing the show, and we have so much free rein to do it that we barely get notes from the execs. Having the little clips that get up on YouTube helps us have segments that we can just tweet out very simply to people.

I come to work around 10 o’clock, talk to my assistants about what phone calls to make.

Then at 11:30 [I have] a creative meeting with producers about how to fit the time segments into the show and what gags to do with guests, then a monologue meeting and we go over all the jokes they wrote that day and figure out monologue. Then I go to a second room meeting with producers figuring what to talk about with guests and what games to play. We do rehearsals, and NBC tour participants get to come watch during that. We don’t have dress rehearsals, I just read through

Neal Brennan, a great writer-director who worked for Dave Chappelle, asked if I thought of asking The Roots about house bands. I said, “Do you think they’d do it?” and he said, “No, of course not, but they might tell you who would.” So I asked The Roots about it, figuring, “Why not?” And they were totally game, it turns out.

We had the meeting in Lorne Michaels’ office because I was too embarrassed in my cubby hole. I said: “You can play with Tony Bennett or Jay-Z, play with whomever you want or we have. And you guys

did you Work on sheen For a While? do you sTill Feel aFTer TWo years or did iT JusT Come naTurally?

ThaT you’re alWays on your game— He was just writing his own comedy piece or else?

WhaT is your day like? do you have everyone WanTs To knoW—hoW in any ConCepT oF hoW The shoW The World did you geT The rooTs played The nighT beFore?

To be your band?

I do love music, but the credit still goes to the writers. But my favorite moment with music had to be doing Neil Young singing “Whip My Hair.” And we told Springsteen to come out with a beard and a big floppy hat and shades and a jacket like he wore in the ’70s. We had him come out completely unannounced. But while we were getting ready, he ran into his manager since the ’70s and they just stared at each other for, like, 30 seconds.

It was like they were back in 1978. We had to pull them apart to get him on the set. I think all comics wanna be rock stars, and all rock stars wanna be comics.

hoW did all The games WiTh guesTs Come abouT?

My first guest was Robert DeNiro, and I was sweating so bad. We’re starting the show— don’t know if we’re gonna do well or flop— but we had DeNiro, Timberlake and Van Morrison on the first show. Not bad! And I’m tempted to do my impression in front of him. I also forgot he doesn’t really like to talk, and that’s not a good thing for the first guest ever on a talk show. So I’m already wondering if I have a future when I’ve barely begun.

It’s ice-cold in the studio, which is something Letterman started, but I’m still sweating. So we came up with doing crazy games with the guests to help me distract from the tension.

I also decided I wanted an American Bandstand-style seating in the studio, where you get special seating in the last two rows, and during commercial break before bands play, the last two rows come down and you can stand behind the band onstage and have the special ticket as a souvenir.

What it all comes down to is, we’re just trying to spread smiles in a world that could use some. And we do it in a way that isn’t meanspirited to anyone.

WATCH Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake perform “The History of Rap Part 2.” It is as awesome as you'd expect.

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a s urp ris in g n e w st u dy sh o w s C h r i st i a n s are h av ing p re ma r i ta l se x a n d a b o r t i o n s a s mu Ch (or mo r e ) t h a n n o n - C h r i st i a n s

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surveyed who self-identify as “evangelical,” 80 percent say they have had sex. Eighty percent.

So much for true love waits.

(ALMOSt)

E V ERYO N E’S

D OI N G IT

By TyLER CHARLES

e

ighty percent of young, unmarried Christians have had sex.

Two-thirds have been sexually active in the last year. Even though, according to a recent Gallup poll, 76 percent of evangelicals believe sex outside of marriage is morally wrong.

Like other believers she knew growing up, Maria Kearn* planned to save sex for marriage. She made it through high school with her virginity intact, but when she was 20 she started having sex with her college boyfriend.

“I was so enamored with my first boyfriend,” Kearn says. “He was the first guy I really fell in love with, and suddenly all the barriers came down and I was way too vulnerable.”

Kearn believes better role models may have helped her abstain, but even her Christian friends were having sex.

“It seemed everyone in my life, older and younger, had ‘done it,’ ” Kearn says. “In fact, I waited longer than most people I knew and longer than both of my sisters, even though we were all Christians and came from a good home.”

WhaTever happened To absTinenCe?

Apparently, the concept still exists even if few are following it.

Dr. Jenell Williams Paris, an anthropologist and the author of The End of Sexual Identity: Why Sex Is Too Important to Define Who We Are, says the high rates of premarital sex are a call to the Church to live in reality.

“We need to talk to people as they really live in the world they really live in,” Paris says. “If rates of premarital sex are really that high, but we continue to talk as if the vast majority of people are virgins when they get married, we’re out of touch. We need to address reality.”

And the reality is the numbers aren’t going down. Of those 80 percent of Christians in the 18-29 age range who have had sex before marriage, 64 percent have done so within the last year and 42 percent are in a current sexual relationship.

In addition to having premarital sex, an alarming number of unmarried Christians are getting pregnant. Among unmarried evangelical women between

“co u l d it b e t h at i f go d thi sati ng oedvreevryeatlhs ihni gm sge lood, f t hr o u gh th e P r o fo u n d ly b r eath ta K i n g act of se X , to o ? ” —carissa WoodWyK Kearn continued to have sex with her college boyfriend for years as they maintained an on-again/off-again relationship.

“I was so hooked on him that it took me too long to finally break up with him,” Kearn says. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was that I came down with HPV, highlighting the fact that even though I was only with him, he [had been with] other people.”

Stories like this aren’t often heard in church, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t common.

In fact, a recent study reveals that 88 percent of unmarried young adults (ages 18-29) are having sex. The same study, conducted by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, reveals the number doesn’t drop much among Christians. Of those

the ages of 18 and 29, 30 percent have experienced a pregnancy (a number that’s actually 1 percent higher than among those who don’t claim to be evangelical).

According to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly half of all pregnancies in America are unintended. And of those, 40 percent end in abortion. More than 1 million abortions occur in the United States each year. But

*names have been changed

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perhaps the most disturbing statistic for the Church: 65 percent of the women obtaining abortions identify themselves as either Protestant or Catholic (37 percent Protestant and 28 percent Catholic). That’s 650,000 abortions obtained by Christians every year.

The pregnancy stats are shocking to many—and the abortion stats horrifying— but the root problem is the willingness to have sex before marriage. Without sex, pregnancies and abortions don’t happen.

If abstinence messages were actually working—and this generation of Christians was genuinely committed to saving sex for marriage—then the other issues would dwindle considerably.

If this generation wants to reverse the trend and reduce the number of Christians having premarital sex, the first step is trying to figure out why so few are waiting.

s e X a n d s i n g l e chri s t i a n s

A LOOK At RELAtIONSHIP StAtUS AMONG UNMARRIED YOUNG ADULtS (AGE 18-29)

42 % ARE IN A CURRENt SEXUAL RELAtIONSHIP

22 % ARE NOt IN A CURRENt SEXUAL R% EL AtIONSHIP, BUt HAVE HAD SEX IN tHE PASt YEAR

23

53 %

10 % HAVE HAD SEX, BUt NOt IN tHE PASt YEAR

23 %

6%

20 % HAVE NEVER HAD SEX

12 %

Why WaiTing is so hard

The media’s marketing of sex, the cultural endorsement of the “do what feels good” mentality, the prevalence of pornography and the widespread misunderstanding of sex that prompts people to chase after love and acceptance in unhealthy physical relationships are all factors that make it difficult to practice chastity. The reality is chastity is not the norm. And such a discipline is certainly not easy.

Carissa Woodwyk is an author and a licensed counselor with years of experience doing premarital and marriage counseling. She says most of the couples she counsels know they should save sex for marriage because it’s what God wants.

“I believe most couples understand the meaning of ‘not having sex,’ but it doesn’t seem that many have a personal understanding of why it’s important or how that will ultimately impact them personally or in other relationships or in their marriage,” Woodwyk says. “Some of them have waited, but most have not.”

Woodwyk longs for Christians to “go back to the beginning” and focus on the origins of masculinity and femininity—and to stop viewing sex as such a shameful topic.

“What would [happen] if we actually knew that talking about sex wasn’t a bad thing, that it’s not ‘naughty’ and that we don’t have to be embarrassed when we say the word ‘sex’?”

Woodwyk asks.

“What would happen if Christians talked really openly and honestly about sex and about God’s intention and design and purposes [for sex]?”

Woodwyk argues that the “do whatever

= EVANGELICALS

= NON-EVANGELICALS

*NAtIONAL SURVEY OF REPRODUCtIVE AND CONtRACEPtIVE KNOWLEDGE CONDUCtED BY tHE NAtIONAL CAMPAIGN tO PREVENt tEEN AND UNPLANNED PREGNANCY, DEC. 2009

feels good” philosophy places all the emphasis on the needs of the individual—tarnishing the true (and biblical) vision of sex.

“For a woman, it often becomes about the man: I need to please him; I need to make him happy; I need to satisfy his sexual appetite,” Woodwyk says. “For a man, it often becomes about himself. He feels empowered, strong, invigorated, worthwhile and alive. [Sex] makes him feel like a man.”

But sex is supposed to be about both individuals. And God. It’s a picture of sex, Woodwyk says, that the Church is uniquely capable of helping people see.

“Our image of God and His heart for men and women and couples needs to be revisited and corrected. God didn’t create this beautiful and sacred and amazing act called ‘sex’ to tempt us with it and then make it a bad thing,” Woodwyk says. “Could it be that if God is in everything good, that God reveals Himself through the profoundly breathtaking act of sex, too—that God reveals Himself specifically through men and specifically through women?”

God’s picture of sex and marriage is certainly a beautiful one, but it’s also … old. Biblical times were a lot different than current times. Is such a picture still relevant?

Scot McKnight, author of One.Life and professor in religious studies at North Park University in Chicago, is aware of the difficulties facing unmarried Christians and the shifts in the “reality” of living chastely.

“Sociologically speaking, the one big difference—and it’s monstrous—between the biblical teaching and our culture is the arranged marriages of very young people. If you get married when you’re 13,

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you don’t have 15 years of temptation.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average age for first marriages for both men and women has been increasing for the last 45 years. In 1965, the average man first married at age 22.8; the average woman, 20.6. In 2010, the average age was 28.1 for men and 26.1 for women.

Abstinence messages have often been geared toward teenagers, but as the average marrying age creeps closer to 30, the time period when Christians are called to be chaste can easily extend a decade beyond their high school graduation—or much longer. So what does abstinence look like as Christians “grow up” and enter the real world but are still single?

“It’s absolutely not realistic,” McKnight continues. “But it’s also not realistic not to do a lot of things, and that doesn’t mean the Bible doesn’t tell us the ideal and design of God is to not have premarital sex.”

As young Christians mature into their 20s, it’s natural for them to reevaluate their beliefs as they strive to figure out how faith fits into their expanding worldview. If they determine they can drink responsibly and watch movies and listen to music with a discerning spirit, is it possible the “don’t do it because it’s wrong” message gets tossed aside along with all those other “legalistic” messages of youth? That

they start to believe they can also have sex “with discernment”?

“We have to recognize that people are not married during the years when their hormones are hardest to control,” McKnight says. “So we’re dealing with a very serious issue that needs to be treated from a variety of angles and not simply the moral angle that it’s wrong outside of marriage.”

McKnight also wonders if part of the problem is a devaluing of marriage. If young Christians no longer deem marriage a worthwhile endeavor—or see it as a temporary thing (proven to them by the brevity of their parents’ marriages and the prevalence of divorce in Western culture), then sex within marriage certainly loses some of its profundity— and sacredness.

“I think churches need to value marriage so highly that they teach the meaning of love and marriage on a regular basis,” McKnight says. “The Church needs to encourage and prepare people for marriage, but they

need to do this without offending people who choose to remain single and people who are single who don’t want to be single. I don’t think the reason to get married earlier is to avoid temptation for sex or to avoid abortions, but simply because it’s a good thing. If we valued marriage higher, I think we would have more people getting married earlier.”

iT’s WorTh iT

Joanna Hyatt, the director of Reality Check (Los Angeles), a sexual and relational health education program that promotes sexual integrity, says it’s critical to consider and address the messages people are receiving from culture.

“Our culture wants to convince us sex is really just about two bodies coming together for a great time, for an activity that has no more meaning than any other form of exercise,” Hyatt says. “The reason more people pick sex than, say, tennis is it may be a bit more exciting, feels more pleasurable and you can pick it up with any partner.

“Yet if sex is really just physical, and not emotional, mental or spiritual, why are we seeing higher rates of depression among those who are sexually active? Sex is not just about two bodies coming together for a rollicking good time. Sex is about an entire person—their past, their insecurities, their expectations, their hopes, their mind, their soul—coming together with another complete person and becoming physically and emotionally vulnerable.”

Few would argue sexual experiences don’t impact individuals on an emotional level. But scientific research into the hormone oxytocin is reinforcing this belief. Oxytocin functions as a bonding agent, and it is released in the brain during intimate moments—and in especially high levels during sexual intercourse.

“Both men and women release oxytocin. In the right context, this chemical is going to help create a strong bond between two people, to cause them to want each

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other more than anyone else,” Hyatt says. “If you’re married, that’s definitely a good thing! But this chemical doesn’t distinguish if the sex is within marriage or a one-night stand, so if you’re having sex outside of marriage, you’re still forming that bond.”

For those having sex with more than one partner, these chemical bonds can have a lasting and detrimental effect.

“Studies have shown if you have multiple physical relationships that then break up, you damage your ability to form a long-term commitment. You train your brain to only do short-term,” Hyatt says. “Those people who are having sex outside of marriage, but still want to have a solid, successful marriage someday, are making it that much harder for themselves.”

iT’s possible (no, really)

If the statistics are correct and 80 percent of unmarried evangelicals between the ages of 18-29 have already had sex, then what does this mean for the majority of Christians in their 20s? If chastity is understood as “one strike and you’re out,” what hope is there for the large percentage of Christians who have essentially “failed” by having sex outside of marriage?

“I absolutely think we should encourage ‘renewed abstinence,’ ” Hyatt says. “You cannot talk about sex within the Christian community without also [mentioning] God’s grace.

If we’re serious about people growing in their faith, we have to help them see this issue will stand in the way of their relationship with God, but it doesn’t have to keep them from God. “Renewed abstinence is a way to make a stand, to commit again to living a life of purity in body, heart and mind. There may be consequences you’ll have to deal with from past decisions, but those decisions do not define who you will be going forward or the nature of your relationships.”

In spite of the discouraging statistics, Hyatt knows it’s possible to wait for marriage.

“Having lived through it myself, I can actually say it can

WA I tI NG F OR MA RRI AGE tHE AVERAGE AGE OF MARRYING HAS INCREASED CONSIDERABLY IN tHE PASt 45 YEARS.

28.1 years

26.1

22.8

years

years

20.6 years

= WOMEN

= MEN

*U.S. CENSUS BUREAU

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be done, but it will take work,” Hyatt says. “[Abstinence] is incredibly difficult—and it’s a decision you have to proactively make every day. For couples in serious relationships, it means not letting down your guard, remembering that temptation gets stronger and being smart about how you handle your relationship. No one, and I mean no one, is exempt from sexual temptation once they’re in a relationship, which is why it is so important to have clear physical boundaries, to have accountability with people you’ll actually be honest with and to regularly remind yourselves why it is you’ve chosen to wait.”

As Hyatt can attest, in spite of the perception that everyone is doing it, there are Christians who are successfully reserving sex for marriage. Dave Jones* and his wife married in their mid-20s and they both waited until after their wedding vows to have sex for the first time.

“There is a freedom and intimacy in knowing your spouse hasn’t been with anyone but you, and you haven’t been with anyone but them,” Jones says. “We both brought less baggage into the marriage because we waited, and we shared a sense that we were beginning our marriage on the right foot—the way God intended.”

Neither Jones nor his wife dated seriously before they met each other, so chastity hadn’t been a real struggle for either of them until they started dating. And then waiting became very difficult.

“We kept pushing boundaries, and sometimes went too far,” Jones says. “The conversations that followed were some of the hardest we’ve ever had—the guilt, regret and recognition that we didn’t submit to God’s best for us was painful but necessary to talk about.”

Having people in his life to hold him accountable made it easier for Jones.

“Knowing someone was going to ask made a huge difference. For me it wasn’t just a ‘good idea’—it was a necessity.”

In addition to accountability, Jones and his wife had to establish extra boundaries to help them resist the temptation to have sex.

“We were both prone to going too far, especially toward the end of our engagement,” Jones says. “As crazy as it sounds, we eventually felt led to avoid spending time alone together. Having her over at my apartment late at night was just too much of a setup. So we tried to take walks together or hang out around family or with friends.”

giving The absTinenCe message a makeover

Everyone knows we live in a hyper-sexualized

A BORtED I N A MERI CA

MORE tHAN 1,000,000 ABORtIONS ARE PERFORMED IN AMERICA EACH YEAR (22% OF ALL PREGNANCIES)

*GUttMACHER INStItUtE

society where sex is constantly available—online if not in person—but the idea of chastity has become even more complicated by a shifting definition of what sex is.

“I’ve heard people say oral sex is sex, but it doesn’t breach virginity,” Paris says. “Even the terms seem to be shifting. And that’s not just people trying to get away with sin. I think it’s [the result of] honest questioning: What does my sexuality mean? What exactly is sex? And as a Christian, what is holiness? Where is that line?”

So, where is the line? What young adult hoping to honor God through a chaste relationship hasn’t asked this question at some point?

But when the focus is on “the line,” it becomes easy to lose sight of what it means to be abstinent, to be chaste, to “wait.” Abstinence shouldn’t be about what’s OK to do or how far it’s possible to go without sinning, but rather it should be about honoring God in all things.

Paris believes Christians need to do more to help people understand the reasons for chastity.

“Many people say avoiding premarital sex made sense until they got into a relationship where it became a viable option,” Paris says. “We know premarital sex is wrong, but the only reason we know that is because of our parents’ reasons. When you’re in a situation of sexual opportunity, you are going to need your own reasons to draw on.”

Paris contends that in order to be obedient to God, Christians need more than just rules; what’s lacking, she says, is a compelling story.

“A rule simply ties a person to an authority figure in a relationship of obedience. A story provides context, meaning, history and hope, and also orients a person’s ethical choices to a bigger web of meaning,” Paris says.

“The biblical story of God’s creation and God’s people living in the world—found in Scripture and human history—is a powerful story that contains ethical guidance for sexuality but does not reduce the wonder of Christianity to mere rules.”

Paris compares the abstinence message (as it is typically presented) to a parent cautioning a child about looking both ways before crossing the street.

“A young child may follow this rule solely because of the power of her parents’ authority, which is appropriate,” Paris says. “As she grows, the child [continues to look both ways] but for a deeper reason that she owns for herself.

She sees the broader context of traffic, understands the benefits and dangers and makes choices accordingly. Rules are external and authority-bound: Maturity requires knowledge of why to do the right thing, not just what the right thing is.”

Even though most Christians believe abstinence is the right thing, something needs to change for believers to truly live out their faith and pursue holiness in every area of life—including one’s sexuality.

“Holiness, in its fullness, means living a life centered in our love of God,” Paris says. “It means living out our sexuality in the love of God—instead of [through] sexual feelings.”

TYLER CHARLES is a freelance writer and a campus minister with the CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach).

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OWL CITY

By ALyCE GILLIGAN

PAMELA LittKY

In

2009, Owl City’s hit single, “Fireflies,” was all over the radio, but no one seemed to know where the band’s sole member, Adam Young, had come from— or how he’d made a platinumselling album. The answer was a small town in Minnesota, and Young’s music was the result of insomnia and a lot of time in his parents’ basement. He’s also a vocal and committed Christian.

His new album, All Things Bright and Beautiful, released in June, and we recently spoke with Young about the new record, his dream collaboration, his faith and if he ever has a bad day.

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Q

your las t album, Ocean e yes, was a platinum-selling success, and it earned you quite a fan following. how do you think All Things Bright and Beautiful is a new and different direc tion for owl city?

A

I think aesthetically, I think tonally it feels a little bit more conclusive, or a little bit more resolved than Ocean Eyes. Mainly just because I spent a lot of time polishing my craft. Everything I do comes out of my basement, and I always forget how much work it takes to make a record when you’re just one guy in a basement. I spent a long time working with gear, and with lyric variations, and all around I think this new record sounds a little bit older and wiser.

Q A

All Things Bright and Beautiful refer s to a hymn of the same name. why did that resonate with you?

It was kind of an idea I had floating around for a while. I was definitely familiar with the hymn, and also the James Herriot book [All Things Bright and Beautiful]. The way I arrive at an album title differs depending on what’s going on and what strikes me on a given day. So for this record, I actually had this mile-long text file on my laptop [with] all these different titles. Basically, I just kind of let these different record titles sit there, and I would open up this file throughout the process of writing this album and kind of survey what was there. Time and again this title, All Things Bright and Beautiful, kind of jumped out at me, and so at the eleventh hour I was like, “Well, I’ve got to choose one now,” and that was it. I think it sums up the whole message, more or less, of the record.

Q A

why do you think it’s impor tant to es tablish you’re a chris tian f ir s t, and an ar tis t second?

My prayer has always been that the Lord would use my music to whatever end. I’ve always kind of just asked the Lord that this music be useful more than anything else, and really beyond that my job is just to remain steadfast in my relationship with Him, and just kind of let these songs write themselves more or less, and ultimately never be ashamed of my faith, and of my personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And really, I feel like if I were to water down or try to hide that part of me it would be like hiding that huge percent of who I am and who God has created me to be in all of this. It’s never been my intention to really over-think—“Well, am I going to write up tons of Christian songs, or am I going to try and skirt away from it a lot?” I’ve always just kind of prayed, “God just send me the songs that you want me to write, because once they’re written and recorded, I’m going to send them all back to you and point all fingers back up to you.” It’s almost none of my business in a funny way. Once these songs are done, I just want the Lord to use them however He chooses.

Q

the f ir s t single from the album, “Alligator sky,” features rapper shawn chrystopher. do you think collaborations like this will become more common in your music?

A

I think so, yeah. It was a really fun experience all around, and I think that song in particular was just kind of a fun flavor, a fun experiment to do. I think there’s something about coming up with a given song and then going out and finding somebody else who might add some wonderful texture or some beautiful flavor to what’s already there. I think that’s really inspiring to me in and of itself, just to see how someone else will kind of take what’s there and mold it, turn it into something else. I love being there to witness that. It’s always great; it’s always fun.

Q

you got your s tar t through social media. in the las t few year s, how have you seen the internet change the music industry?

A

The Internet, for me, was certainly the biggest piece of the puzzle in terms of marketing, in terms of movement, all things business and all things aesthetic. The way this whole thing started was just me simply writing five to seven songs and putting them on MySpace to say, “Check this out,” and kids discovered this stuff and spread it around. Suddenly labels are calling and people are asking me if I want to fly out to New York or L.A. to take label meetings, and I’d never been on a plane before. That was just so out of the blue and at once, and I definitely spent a lot of time in prayer before I signed any dotted lines. Looking back—and certainly now still—the Internet and social networking have always been the biggest gears

in the machine, always grinding away in a way I’d never expected to happen. I’m just a shy kid from the Midwest, and suddenly this whole storybook thing is opening and unfolding, and I’m just hanging on for dear life, saying: “God, what do you want me to do? I just want to follow You, and really stay strong no matter where this crazy roller coaster goose chase takes me.”

Q A

why do you think you gravitate toward an imaginative s tyle of songwriting?

For me, a lot of it has to do with the way I was raised, and really where I was raised. I’m from a very small town in southern Minnesota, basically Iowa.

I’m an only child, so no siblings around.

None of my friends were really that into music; my parents aren’t music connoisseurs, per se. I always wrote music from my imagination more than anything else because I’d never been anywhere. We never really did the whole family vacation thing, and I was very much tied down to the Midwest—kind of the farthest thing from any of the oceans, so Ocean Eyes kind of stemmed from that.

It all started in my parents’ basement, and I would just kind of imagine and daydream, just kind of block everything out. I was always working jobs I didn’t particularly love in high school, so daydreaming and my imagination was always my escape, in that respect. Writing about things I’d never experienced was suddenly so inspiring in and of itself because suddenly I could go anywhere, and I could do anything, and I could be anyone and kind of craft this whole reality through this music.

Q A

your music is always so optimis tic and hopeful. does owl city ever have a bad day?

Yeah, for sure. And it’s a funny way for me to escape from those bad days by writing, and by imagining and by creating these very optimistic songs.

That’s always been my way to deal with the average bad day or if I’m frustrated about something. Music has always been my way to forget about that, so that’s my way of dealing with a lot of things.

WATCH Owl City performs “Deer in the Headlights” on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

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The

NON-ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO

FALL

By JESSE CAREy

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Ah,

fall. Those few golden months between summer swelter and a long winter, when college kids head off to school, new shows break the drudgery of prime-time reruns, and we finally have more wardrobe options than “what’s the least amount of clothing I can wear while still being workappropriate.” This year we’ve compiled a guide to our favorite season. From autumnal fashion tips, to secrets for winning your fantasy football league, to new ideas for enjoying the great outdoors—we’ve got it all.

your guide To Fall sTyle

There’s nothing like walking outside on a crisp autumn morning to remind you summer has ended—and with the harvest equinox comes a drop in mercury.

This is why it’s important to own a bunch of rad retro sweaters.

Fall gives everyone from hipsters to lumberjacks an excuse to bust out a flannel, grow some burly facial hair and add to the scarf collection. Here’s a quick rundown of autumn looks that work for everything from raking leaves, to riding a fixie, to attending your first semester humanities lecture. These styles will keep you fresh all season long:

The Ron Swanson

To get the look of Parks & Recreation’s fearless leader, all you’ll need is a couple of burgundy flannel shirts and a trusty pair of extra-blue blue jeans or pleated slacks.

Accessories: Rolled-up sleeves (working man-style), a beard, a tool/utility belt, a grin that says, “I may look like a grisly old carpenter, but I’ve got a heart of gold” As seen on: Zach Galifianakis, Al Borland, ’90s rock stars out on ukulele tours, the Brawny Man

The Bohemian Grandma

For this look, you can literally wear whatever you want, in as many layers as you want, as long as it’s accompanied by at least three scarves—and you must constantly clutch a Starbucks cup tightly with both hands.

Accessories: Dark glasses, long/unwashed hair, a blanket worn as a shirt As seen on: The Olsen twins, the dude from Twilight, Ashton Kutcher, your grandmother

The Sweater Collector

Want to look both cozy and cosmopolitan?

Then bust out the argyle, because nothing says “fall” like some killer sweaters. Whether it’s a thick, woolen retro classic, a knitted night-out number or the ever-itchy oversized turtleneck, you’ll want to fully stock up your closet so you can get your Cliff Huxtable on all season long.

Accessories: A pipe, a leather briefcase/ smart handbag, loafers, a golden retriever As seen on: Mr. Rogers, Kanye West, your first-grade teacher

The Bear Grylls

Are you often called to mountaineering expeditions with zero notice? Can your wristwatch calculate complex atmospheric conditions, and does it cost more than some of your friends’ cars? Are you deathly afraid of dehydration? Then the Bear Grylls look may be for you. Just head on down to your local sporting goods store and stock up on Patagonia vests, a set of carabiners, some quick-drying pants and a collection of indestructible water bottles to carry with you at all times.

Accessories: A pocket utility tool, toe shoes, Dave Matthews Band stickers (preferably on your Nalgene), a Jeep Wrangler As seen on: Jack Johnson, the lady trying granola samples at Whole Foods, the bass player in your church’s band

your guide To FanTasy FooTball

Like most American males, I take fantasy football very seriously. And because of my propensity to make “fantasy” as real as possible (I’ve been kicked out of Disney World several times), I’ve pretty much become an expert at fantasy football. Here are a few can’t-miss tips for fantasy football success:

Establish the stakes: Fortunately, in the last few years, fantasy sports have generally

eschewed gambling and money pools. But it’s always fun to have a reward for the league’s true, ultimate champion, even if a cash prize isn’t involved. Here are some ideas for trophies and prizes: a set of Shake Weights; a pair of size-12 Heelys; anything from Hammacher Schlemmer; one of those remote-controlled helicopters they sell at mall kiosks (these ideas also mirror my Christmas list).

Set up a war room: Usually, sometime in

mid-August, I take over an area in my house and set up a pre-draft war room to prepare for the upcoming season. This usually involves 1) putting up maps all over the walls with lots of yarn strung between push-pins in various exotic international locations, 2) installing at least eight rotary dial telephones for late-night calls from team owners and potential prospects and 3) mounting several flat-screen TVs that play Any Given Sunday and Necessary Roughness on a continuous loop. I’ve yet to actually use the maps or any of the telephones for fantasy football purposes, but I have spent many an afternoon reading sports magazines in an oversized leather chair that cost about $400.

Learn some good smack talk: Now that you’ve had weeks to prepare an unstoppable team in your diabolically decorated war room, it’s time to start the mind games with your fellow team owners. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about fantasy football, it’s this: The game is 10 percent mental, 20 percent physical, 5 percent luck and 65 percent raw emotion resulting from insult-hurling. And the great thing about talking smack in fantasy football is it completely supersedes any preexisting relational boundaries. It doesn’t matter if you’re composing a deeply hurtful, insult-laced message board post to your best friend, significant other, father-in-law or even your boss. If it happens within the confines of the fantasy league, it’s all in good fun!

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razor-sharp wit and willingness to cross any line to demean their team.

tears in the middle of the night and refused to leave until they accepted my trade.

garbage sitting around long enough and you might at least get to be on Hoarders.

Orchestrate a mid-season, blockbuster trade: Most seasons, around the halfway

your guide To Fall Tv

Sell your stuff—sort of: Rent a storage unit and fill it with the most interesting assortment of collectable goods from as many different eras of American history as you can find. Then, don’t pay your storage unit fee and allow it to go into foreclosure. You probably won’t end up getting on TV, but there’s a good chance your old unit will be auctioned off on Storage Wars, which is basically the Almost Famous scenario of reality television.

point, I’ve realized my high-risk, highly experimental draft strategy has backfired, and my team is terrible. This is when I spend about 12 consecutive hours engineering a complicated multi-team trade in a desperate attempt to win a game. Here are some tips for organizing such a trade: Take all of your bad players and offer them together for another team’s best player. This almost always works.

Here’s another surefire tip: Call one of the other owners (preferably while they’re at

Each fall, the nation’s evenings are reinvigorated as networks premiere their latest batch of new shows and bring old favorites back for new seasons. But let’s face it, anyone can sit on their couch all fall long and become absorbed in the fictional worlds of new TV shows. This fall, instead of merely watching Hollywood’s newest offerings of alien invasion dramas, romantic sitcoms and crime scene investigative mysteries, I’ve decided not to waste my time. Let’s just say I’ve been burned in the past. [SPOILER ALERT: I still don’t know what happened when Jack walked through those doors at that church. The whole thing was just Hurley’s weird dream, right?] No longer will I dedicate six years’ worth of

fall Thursday nights trying to figure out J.J. Abrams’ sick mind games, or watching attractive detectives solve murders while spewing awesome one-liners. No! This fall, I’m training to become a TV star—and you can, too.

Thankfully, with the popularity of reality TV and game shows, anyone has the potential to become a prime-time star, and not just by marrying an NBA player or being a completely terrible (though rich) person. Here are some tips for achieving fall TV stardom:

work or late at night) and literally beg them to accept your trade offer. I can’t count the number of times I’ve shown up at the house of one of my fellow fantasy football owners in

Create a DIY Minute to Win It: Don’t throw away any empty two-liter bottles, cardboard paper towel rolls, disposable plastic cups, tissue boxes or aluminum cans. You will need all of these items to practice deceptively hard Minute to Win It games if you want a real shot at being on the show. If that doesn’t work out, just leave all those piles of

Become a swamp person: Shows like

The History Channel’s Swamp People and Discovery’s Swamp Brothers, which (as you may have guessed from their titles) document the swamp-dwelling escapades of real-life alligator hunters, are huge hits. The late Steve Irwin made a career out of nabbing crocodiles on TV. It seems hunting alligators is as proven of a winning television formula as six friends in a coffee shop. Just get yourself a couple of nets, a tin jon boat, some raw chicken, head down to Florida and let the camera roll!

Bonus: If you get busted for hunting illegally, you could also end up on Police Women of Broward County.

your guide To Fall aCTiviTies

Mild temperatures, back-to-school friends, Friday night sporting events … how many more excuses do you need to get outside and enjoy some fall outings? The following ideas should help you kick-start your fall schedule:

Go to a high school football game:

Nothing brings back memories of falls-goneby like attending a high school football game.

Whether you are a former gridiron warrior sadly realizing your best athletic days are behind you, or a well-adjusted young adult who can actually enjoy high school sporting events without all the crushing social anxiety, attending a high school football game with some friends is a fall must.

There are two primary ways to enjoy these Friday night rites of autumn: 1) Go as a fan of your local school, cheering on the players as if you know them personally, or 2) sit in

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the stands alone, blasting Explosions in the Sky on your iPod while imagining all the dramatic sub-plots going on in the lives of the students around you. Either way, it’s not a bad way to spend a Friday night.

Bonus tip: To really get into the spirit of the event, be sure to storm the field after the final play, wildly congratulating players on the victorious team, followed by a symbolic hoisting of the winning quarterback onto your shoulders. Sure, this may result in you being involuntarily removed from school grounds, but it will definitely help you and your friends get into the spirit of the season.

Go camping: Another great American fall

tradition involves packing up your sleeping bag and fishing gear, and driving out to a secluded patch of woods to sleep under the stars and take in all of nature’s beauty.

Unfortunately, if you’re anything like me, you hate camping.

I mean, I have an Xbox, Call of Duty: Black Ops and season 4 of Smallville on DVD— why would I ever want to leave home? But I’m not one to be antisocial, so when invited to go on a camping trip with friends, I bring the comforts of the great indoors with me into the cold, dangerous forest. Inspired by the industrious Tom Haverford of Parks & Rec, who adorned his camping abode with gadgets from the Sky Mall catalog, I’ve turned to my favorite store to supply all my

a grill into a blow torch and makes any campsite cooker into a delicious barbecue smoke pit, but really, the actual product description says it best: “Holy smokes, this thing is fast.”

CoolWare Personal Cooling System:

Even on a crisp fall night, it gets pretty stifling sitting in a poorly ventilated tent with several other people. That’s why all your companions will be jealous of your personal air conditioner. How do they look, you ask?

Remember those cool glasses LeVar Burton used to wear on Star Trek? They look like them except you wear them on the back of your neck. So, yeah, they look pretty good.

Comfort Massage Chair: Just because

you are deep in rugged mountain country, miles from the nearest five-star hotel or spa, doesn’t mean you should have to suffer from poor circulation or a sore lumbar region.

That’s why every time I go camping, I bring my $1,500 leather Comfort Massage Chair with me.

Make a bonfire: As summer heat gives way

to chilly autumn nights, you can solidify absolute “social deity” status by sending out a Facebook invite to all of your friends and hosting a bonfire party. The best part? All you need is some open space and a big pile of wood.

But don’t be fooled by a bonfire’s folksy appeal. Trust me on this one—there are still several safety tips and things you need to remember when hosting the perfect bonfire.

Here are several bonfire lessons I learned the hard way: 1. No matter how small the fire, it’s never a good idea to prove your impressive vertical leap by trying to jump over said fire.

2. If your bonfire is also serving as a good old-fashioned heavy-metal album burning, remember, as it turns out, those plastic CD cases put off some pretty toxic fumes when tossed into a massive flaming pit. Nothing ends a party faster than plumes of poisoned smoke from burning Pantera CDs. 3. Haphazardly tossing gasoline onto the fire may look cool and be relatively harmless the first couple times, but as my lack of eyebrows demonstrates, you are dancing a dangerous tango, my friend.

camping/entertainment needs: Sharper Image. Let’s just say my friends always invite me now.

Here are a few Sharper Image items to look into for your next camping trip:

Reversible Three Wheel Cruiser: Who

TurboQue BBQ Smoker: I could write a

That should give you plenty to do this fall—at least until winter ruins the fun.

long defense for this handy $30 fan that turns

needs mountain biking when you have the recumbent luxury of a laid-back pleasure cruiser just waiting to help you leisurely own the trails?

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ON GROWING UP, LIGHTENING UP AND LOGGING OFF

BY LAuRA STuDARuS

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eath Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard isn’t shy.

His wry, class-clown persona onstage is by no means a put-on.

One on one, he still exudes that same c h a r i sm a— e xc e pt that he’s also the boy next door who just happened to have his nose in a book and sky-high ambition. Even when approached with questions of faith—which Gibbard admits he doesn’t have all the answers to—his confidence and charm remain unshaken. “[Faith’s] something I always find myself meditating on,” he admits. “I don’t want to falsely believe in something solely so I can jump to the front of the line for whatever this awesome place is [where] we go after we die. I kind of feel like if there was a God, [He] would appreciate the fact that I just don’t know. The vastness of that idea is so beyond my comprehension that I feel like if there was a God, then that God would accept me saying I’m not able to believe because it’s so outside of my ability to understand it.

I understand that’s where faith comes into play.”

A lapsed Catholic, Gibbard suggests his doubts stem from a tradition-seeped, works-based salvation upbringing. “It’s not like I can decide one day to rid

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myself of the emotional shackles of that religion,” he says, voice free from the bitterness one would usually associate with such an incriminating statement. “In Catholicism, it’s so drilled into you that your actions will determine if you go to a place where you burn for eternity, or you will go to the most wonderful place in the world. And of course in Catholicism there’s the notion of purgatory, which is the absence of God—it’s just like a waiting room, basically. There’s no fun, but there’s no fire either.”

While Gibbard is content to question, and admits the search is still ongoing, he doubts his answers will be handed to him by organized religion. “Faith in Catholicism is based so much in fear that I can’t live with faith, if faith is fear,” he says, simply.

Instead, Gibbard chooses to lay his faith in the goodness of humanity, or rather the idea of a built-in moral compass. “I believe people for the most part have a built-in sense of right and wrong,” he says. “Some of that comes from being brought up Catholic, but I think even more so, as I’ve become an adult, you just kind of know when you’re doing something wrong. It’s very rare when you find yourself in a situation and either a) you don’t realize what you’re doing is wrong, or b) upon reflection you can’t come to that same conclusion.” relevantmagaZine.com / 77

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The happiesT sad musiC

It’s the same ability to see both sides of the equation that Gibbard applies to his craft.

Alongside Nick Harmer (bass) and Jason McGerr (drums), and multi-instrumentalist Chris Walla (with whom he shares songwriting duties), Gibbard creates songs under the inscrutable, Magical Mystery Tourreferencing name, Death Cab for Cutie.

Theirs is a world of melancholy-tinged optimism, a place where love exists (even if it might not exist for you), and everything from glove compartments, to photo booths, to Styrofoam plates are milked for maximum heartbreak potential.

Since their 1998 debut, Something About Airplanes, the band’s mellow rock and rainyday optimism has become synonymous with the Pacific Northwest. Now on their seventh full-length album, and entering their second decade as friends and bandmasters, the rain shows no sign of stopping, but for the first time there are a few rays of light poking through the clouds—even if Gibbard warns there aren’t exactly any rainbows. “There’s sunlight peering through the windows of [Codes and Keys, which released in May]—I think people are going to naturally see this as a happy record from start to finish,” he says, preempting the idea it was written in response to their significantly darker previous effort, Narrow Stairs. “I honestly don’t really see it that way. I definitely think there are songs like ‘Stay Young, Go Dancing’ that are obviously very

is another man’s happiness,” Gibbard continues, paraphrasing Dostoevsky with a laugh. “I think we have dissected sadness in so many ways. Sadness is something that arrives to us in many different forms. It’s a much more easily expressible emotion. I think elation or happiness, they overwhelm you with warmth.”

The result? Lighter, more accessible pop.

“Moments like ‘Stay Young, Go Dancing’ are the most obvious example—instead of finding a flowery way to express love in its purist form in a pop song, I wanted to use this very direct, simple language,” Gibbard explains.

“I didn’t want to overly analyze the emotion of that song. I saw this old-fashioned sign in a book. It was a dancehall photograph that said, ‘Stay young, go dancing.’ I just love that phrase. It’s a beautiful metaphor. I just wanted to hang the entire song on that expression.

Something I’ve usually done in the past, which I wanted to avoid or get away from.” He laughs again, aware of his convoluted, rabbittrail train of thought.

a touring musician and traveling a lot is part of who I am, it’s not the whole of who I am— and it shouldn’t be,” he says. “Wives and girlfriends and kids come on tour. It’s not like it used to be where it’s all dudes in the van. This is our world—we’re in a different point from that. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s just that now we’re all in our mid-30s, there are things of equal or greater importance.”

Although firmly rooted in his new role in life as established rock star and full-fledged adult, Gibbard admits he sometimes gives in to the temptation to reflect fondly on the early days of the band. “I look back at it with some nostalgia when I see younger bands living like that, but I wouldn’t want to go back,” he says matter-of-factly. “I look back at it with nostalgia because I remember it as a lot more rosy than it really was. I don’t remember having to track down money for a phone bill or figuring out how we’re going to get enough money to get to the next city. It’s romantic to look back at it and have it in our rearview mirror.”

neW home, neW WiFe, neW perspeCTive

“i Can’T google my WiFe”

Perhaps part of that optimism stems from Gibbard’s new location—Los Angeles—or his new life partner—wife Zooey Deschanel.

Gibbard dismisses both as sole deciding influences, particularly when it comes to his new hometown. “I was trying to cheer with everybody, but I felt nothing in my heart,” he jokes of seeing a game played by local baseball team the Dodgers. Perhaps his baseball love, at least, still resides in the Northwest.

W h i l e quick to admit many will see the new record as a “marriage album,” Gibbard isn’t so flippant in dismissing the impact his recent change in status has had on both his life and art. “If [listeners] want to see this as a marriage record, that’s fine. In marriage there are moments of extreme happiness. There are moments of melancholy just like there ever was,” he says, his voice curling into an audible smile. “But I think marriage has brought me to a more balanced place in my life, and it’s reflected in the music.”

Even more than matrimony or maps, Gibbard credits the passage of time for the ever-evolving emotional content of his music, granting him perhaps the most un-rock ’n’ roll quality of all: perspective. “While being

“i thiNk MArriAGe hAs brouGht Me to A More bAlANced plAce iN My life, ANd it’s reflected iN the Music.”

—beN GibbArd light pop songs. There are a couple of those moments on the record. But I see the record as being a very balanced record emotionally.

And that’s something I’m kind of proud of.”

To hear Gibbard tell it, the band has been heading for a tonal shift for a while now, particularly after Narrow Stairs. Although capturing those moments of happiness wasn’t without its challenges. “Sadness is heavy, and it can be attacked from so many different angles because it’s such an overwhelming emotion,” he says. “Expressing happiness is something that’s a little bit less cerebral than expressing sadness.

“The last thing anyone wants to hear about

Part of determining what is of value in life for Gibbard has come from figuring out what isn’t worth his time. As hinted by the dismissal of technology in Codes and Keys track “Portable Television,” he recently discovered a little bit of pop culture can go a long way. “Four or five years ago I started to be so overwhelmed with certain outlets of music journalism that were really negative, really bringing me down,” he says. “Every morning I would read really horrible things written about people I know.

Really dismissive things. And I’d get so angry.

It would really affect my day! If something I loved was dismissed, I would take it personally. I woke up one morning and realized there’s no law that says I have to turn on my computer every day and go to these websites and read this stuff. Nobody’s forcing me to watch three hours of reality TV every week.

Nobody’s forcing me to even have television in the first place.”

This revelation may feel like a conflict of interest, coming from someone whose art is playing an increasingly larger part in mainstream media, but Gibbard doesn’t see it as such. “We have the ability to shut that stuff off if we want to,” he says. “We’ve created this perception within ourselves that we have F.O.M.O.—the fear of missing out. We have this fear that if we don’t go to work every day and we haven’t seen these same videos on YouTube, or we’re not up to date on indie rock, or what celebrity did what to who, that somehow we’re missing out on something valuable in life.”

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The Many Sides of Death Cab POSTAL SERVICE Give Up, 2003 The most famous of the side projects, this album paired Gibbard with Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel. Surprisingly, the warm bleeps and bloops supplied

by Tamborello provided Gibbard with a perfect backdrop for more heartbreaking and adorable songs about love. now, if they’d only make a follow-up ...

CHRIS WALLA Field Manual, 2008 Slightly rockier than the average Death Cab outing, this album also shows the guitarist/ producer has a voice similar to Gibbard’s. In fact, the whole affair sounds similar to Walla’s day job. The main difference? Instead of heartbreak, Walla wants to sing about politics.

TEGAN AND SARA The Con, 2007 Co-produced by Walla (who also played multiple instruments) and featuring the drums of Death Cab drummer Jason McGerr, The Con is a dark turn for identical-twin rockers Tegan and Sara.

It might actually be sadder than most of Death Cab’s output.

JAY FARRAR & BEN GIBBARD One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur, 2009 Put the plaintive stylings of Gibbard with the altcountry of Son Volt’s Jay Farrar and you get this homage to Jack Kerouac’s novel Big Sur.

While strong words, Gibbard admits they can be difficult to put into practice when your spouse is a notable actress, your previous album debuted at No. 1 and your current album fought Lady Gaga for the top spot on the charts. “I can’t read gossip sites. I can’t Google my wife,” Gibbard exclaims, exasperated at the thought. “These aren’t things I should be doing. I think one of the ways I’ve been able to maintain some kind of normalcy in my life is that I’m not always gawking at the gawkers. I’m not interacting with the gawkers.

You have to let people say what they’re going

to say. It’s a little bit [like] if a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, it doesn’t make a sound. If you just tell yourself, ‘I’m going to maintain normalcy in my life to the greatest extent I possibly can, given who I am and who my wife is,’ then you can do that.”

So when one has reached the success Death Cab for Cutie has in recent years—graduating to a major label, soundtracking sparkly vampires, creating a live, scripted music video— how does one maintain momentum? Doesn’t it get, well, boring? “Being a songwriter is like being a magician—there’s nothing there and

then there’s something there,” Gibbard says.

“It defies the law of physics. So as long as that is still exciting to me, and there’s still something to discover within myself as a songwriter, as long as there’s something to enjoy in the process of making records and going out as a band, I’ll do it forever.”

WATCH Death Cab for Cutie perform “Title Track” from We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

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tHE

GENERAtION HOW TWENTY- AND THIRTYSOMETHINGS ARE CHANGING THE

BY DAVID KINNAmAN

H

opeful but cynical. Passionate but distracted.

Ready to change the world but a little numb.

Hyper-connected but lonely. Our generation is defined by contradiction and contrast.

The pivotal challenge for twenty- and thirtysomethings coming of age in today’s culture is learning to navigate these contradictions, live intentionally and change the world in the right ways. Because our generation will alter how faith is both practiced and perceived—for better or for worse—figuring out what kind of people we are and what kind we will be is essential to our best efforts.

One paradigm that is especially challenging for believers in this generation is being “in-but-not-of ”—a phrase that comes from Jesus’ prayer for His followers found in John 17. He asks God not to take His followers out of the world but to help Christians live faithfully in the world.

At first glance, a contradiction.

The black-and-white lines drawn by previous generations have been blurred by the lives and experiences of Christians in their 20s and 30s—lines between truth and error, between “us” and “them” aren’t as clear-cut anymore. And the lines in daily life can be just as blurry. We’re not always sure where the boundary is between personal and professional, work and play, Church and “the world,” between consuming and creating, tradition and reform.

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OF

CONTRAST SHAPE OF CHRISTIANITY—FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE AND ALY HAWKINS

Our generation’s increasing alienation from institutions and traditions that once epitomized the American way of life, and our skepticism of all kinds of authority—the seismic cultural shifts that define our times—have created questions that binary answers just can’t solve. And that’s why this generation of Christians appears to contradict itself: We choose both-and over either-or.

We wanted to know: What is it that makes our generation tick? So, through reliable research and nationwide surveys, we took an in-depth look at twenty- and thirtysomething Christians in five key areas: family, politics, faith, media and technology, and society.

As we analyzed the results of these surveys, we saw patterns in the data that can help us understand the cultural factors and personal perceptions at play in the lives of our generation.

It became clear twenty- and thirtysomethings are reshaping the world we live in. What’s not so clear is how.

In what ways will we join forces—among ourselves and with older generations—to change the world? What will be the substance of those changes? Will they last? What role will faith play in our lives and endeavors? Who will influence us along the way? Who will we influence, and why? And to what end?

Here is our best effort at some answers.

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Family

IT

might be obvious but worth mentioning: Our generation of American adults is “doing family” in a different cultural context than the generations who came before us. Since 1960, when the baby boomers came of age, an entirely new family landscape has unfolded … with us in it. Here are two examples: Back then, 5 percent of babies were born to unwed moms— today, that number is 41 percent. In 1970, just 17 percent of adults in their late 20s had resisted the allure of marriage—today, more than half of 25- to 29-year-olds (56 percent) have never tied the knot.

Think about those changes for just a minute. Today’s youngest kids are eight times more likely to have biological parents who are unmarried. And what used to be the norm—married no later than 30—is now atypical. Just these two factors have made a huge impact on how we view and relate to marriage and family. These huge social changes have—perhaps irreversibly—affected family life.

Like our peers, those of us in the Christian community are waiting longer than our parents did to get married and pop out a couple kids. And in one big way, this delay is for the good: Divorce rates among 18- to 34-year-old Christians have edged down since 20 years ago. Many of us have experienced the fallout of our parents’ divorces and are determined not to repeat their mistakes.

Even though many twenty- and thirtysomething Christians are increasingly influenced by and raised in non-traditional homes, we remain optimistic about the importance of marriage. Holding out for a partner who is grown-up enough to make and keep a lifelong commitment amps up the staying power of those promises.

On the other hand, not everyone in our generation is waiting on marriage simply to find “the one”: We are a strange brew of idealism (hold out for the best) and pragmatism (do what works). On the practical side, there’s the pressure of increased expectations. Most of us who are in our 20s and 30s want to complete a degree (or two), travel the world, try out the job market, work for a cause we care about—and tying the knot can delay those aspirations, or even put them out of reach.

In fact, only 12 percent of young Christians expect to be married by age 25; just 9 percent expect to have children by then. In contrast, we are nearly five times more likely to expect to finish college and twice as likely to expect to travel the world and have either a great-paying job or one where we can make a difference (or both).

Money is a factor as well. The job market just isn’t what it used to be.

Young workers, even college grads, are finding it harder than ever to make a living that might

support a family. This is partly a result of high unemployment levels among young adults. But our proclivity to spend money we don’t have—why many of us have such crippling debt—is also a problem. Our modern consumer culture has asked us to trade on the future to fund the short term—and many of us have said yes without a second thought.

This generation seems to have a “failure to launch”—at least that’s what society calls it. Many of us are not getting on in life quite fast enough for their taste.

And there is some truth behind their concerns. Sociologists look at factors like completion of education, financial independence, marriage and parenthood, and see that three-quarters of young women in 1970 had passed these milestones by age 30, while less than half of young women today have done so. Two out of three

4 1 % o f b a b i e s t o D ay a r e born to unweD mothers—a n u m b e r t h at wa s 5 % i n 1 9 6 0

MORE CONSERVATIVE ... AND MORE

35 38 %

%

49

%

27

%

ALL U.S. YOUNG ADULTS ( 18-29)

24 27 %

%

YOUNG PROTESTANTS (18-29)

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young men in 1970 had completed these transitions by age 30, while just one-third have done so today. People talk about this as “emerging adulthood” when they’re being nice and “adultolescence” when they’re not.

Whatever you call it, our generation’s meandering path to adulthood is drastically affecting our connections with churches and with each other.

On the faith front, most churches work best with couples who are married with children and are less capable of connecting with young singles. While that might not be fair (and let’s be honest: it’s not), it’s the paradigm to which most churches are accustomed, and it’s going to take some time for that to effectively change.

In the realm of relationships, twenty- and thirtysomething Christians put such a high premium on grace and acceptance partly because the “new normal” family is all shapes and sizes, gets started at many different stages and looks much different than in previous generations. While a majority of older Christians believe spiritual maturity is best measured by the rules of the Bible, only about one-third of us do. Instead, many of us realize that, to be agents of Gospel-centered restoration in people’s lives, we have to accept others as they are. Our blend of pragmatism (it is what it is) and biblical idealism (finding God’s best for our lives) is another mark of the tension facing this generation and the families we hope to have.

LIBERAL?

LIBERAL

33 29 38 %

POLITICS ecause younger generations have engaged politically with increasing intensity over the last three presidential races, everybody wants to know how the college-to-30s Christian audience will vote in next year’s national election.

In 2008, the media watched with wide eyes as this generation engaged politics with more gusto than ever. Much of that was likely due to the use of social media and small-dollar fundraising, but it meant we were suddenly a powerful voting bloc worthy of engaging. Plus, the size and influence of the “Christian vote”—which, depending on your point of view, is just one-tenth of all voters or a majority of the electorate—is hotly debated. Christians have had a significant impact on recent political outcomes, including in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, so it’s not surprising to see Christianity as a key demographic of interest to the political media.

Despite all this attention, or maybe because of it, most stories about young evangelicals have missed important details about our politics. It’s almost impossible to paint an accurate picture of young, politically engaged Christians with a wide brush, yet that is what many in the media attempt to do.

The modern pundit class is obsessed with corralling people into voting blocs and defining them by sound byte in order to make prognostications.

But younger believers don’t make predictions easy. While there are big-picture trends to identify,

B

MODERATE

%

%

YOUNG CATHOLICS (18-29)

CONSERVATIVE

57

%

10 32 %

%

OLDER CHRISTIANS (30+)

an artist’s touch is needed to render a detailed portrait of our generation of Christian voters. The fact is, most of us are a complex mix of conservative loyalties and progressive ideals.

Among the frequently missed details: There’s far more that unites than divides the Christian generations, ideologically speaking. Young Christians, for instance, while more politically liberal than their parents and grandparents, are far more likely than their secular peers to self-describe as conservative (49 percent versus 27 percent).

Twentyand thirtysomething Christians have significant differences with older generations in some key areas, such as our prioritization of environmental protection, education and social justice. Meanwhile, older believers tend to put greater emphasis on health care, wars, religious liberty, new jobs and government debt as primary voting issues.

What may come as a surprise to pundits, however, are the shared priorities of Christians young and old.

Younger believers are just as likely as those over 30 to rate the economy, immigration, moral and spiritual issues, taxes, national security and terrorism as important factors in their choice of candidate. There is also little difference between the generations when it comes to views on abortion, though young Christians are less likely to call it a make-or-break issue at the polls.

When it comes to same-sex marriage, differences of opinion between our generation and older generations of believers are more common. But the disparities seem to be, generally speaking, less about whether twenty- and thirtysomething Christians believe same-sex relationships are morally acceptable and more about whether Christian beliefs should influence public policy.

This is a key tension for our generation: how (or if) to use the political process to achieve spiritual or moral results in society. We are more politically active than our non-Christian peers … but many of us are not as certain as previous generations that our Christ-centered priorities should be the law of a secular land. The tactics of the “Moral Majority” or the “Christian Right” do not sit so well with us.

Yet, while this generation of Christians is reluctant to be lumped in RELEVANTMAGAZINE.COM / 83

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with the Christian Right, neither are we comfortable being labeled “Christian Left.” Most of us don’t appreciate any person or group who claims to speak on our behalf. This echoes, again, the challenge for twentyand thirtysomething Christians to be in-but-not-of the culture around us. It’s not always obvious how to be in-politics-but-not-of-politics, but most of us are pretty passionate about engaging the question.

So how might all this play out come election day? In a hypothetical match-up between President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney, young Christians split the vote 50-50. In a theoretical race between Obama and former Gov. Sarah Palin, the incumbent would win 54 to 46. (Palin hasn’t entered the race—yet—but it’s still fun for researchers to see what might happen.)

Obama comes out ahead of both Romney (59-37) and Palin (66-34) among all 18- to 29-year-olds, but older Christians flip the outcome (63-37 in favor of Romney and 58-42 for Palin).

These striking differences reveal a key reason the media is keen to “decode” our generation of Christians: While we have much in common with older believers, we’ve also got a distinctive political fingerprint all our own.

POLITICAL PRIORITIES

DOES CHRISTIANITY MATTER? THE REAL IMPACT OF FAITH IN OUR GENERATION PRACTICING CHRISTIANS

ALL ADULTS

42

25

%

%

S T R O N G LY B E L I E V E T H A T J E S U S C H R I S T S P E A K S IN PERSONAL AND RELEVANT WAYS

29

%

49

%

OF CHRISTIANS 18-29

85 72% 67%

%

prioritize creating new jobs for Americans

S T R O N G LY A G R E E T H A T I T I S I M P O R T A N T TO SHARE YOUR FAITH WITH OTHERS

prioritize reducing the federal debt

prioritize addressing the moral condition of the United States

Source: Barna Group / January 2011; All young adults, ages 18-29, N=1,550 For more, visit: Barna.Org/Mosaics

WATCH: David Kinnaman describes his research on this generation of Christians.

28

%

16

%

BELIEVE THE BIBLE IS THE ACTUAL WORD OF GOD AND S H O U L D B E T A K E N L I T E R A L LY , W O R D F O R W O R D

FAITH he beliefs and practices of twenty- and thirtysomething Christians have, like most areas of our lives, grown increasingly complicated. In some ways, we understand and live out our faith in a similar fashion to previous generations. For instance, we don’t differ much from older Christians when it comes to the Bible—more than nine out of 10 in both groups agree

T

it’s the Word of God. But we’re also wrestling more than our parents and grandparents with the degree to which Christ, the Bible and the Church are authoritative for our lives. Does Jesus speak to us directly? Does Scripture lay claim to our obedience? Does being part of a church matter?

When it comes to individual faith, more than nine out of 10 believers in our generation claim

to have made a personal commitment to Jesus that’s important for our lives. Yet Christians in their 20s and 30s are less likely to believe He speaks to us in personal ways. We are also less likely to look for guidance from the Holy Spirit. We have no shortage

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of commitment, but when it comes to God personally speaking to us, we’re a little iffy on what that looks like.

That hesitation also spills over to Scripture. Fewer young Christians (64 percent) than older Christians (69 percent) agree the Bible is totally accurate in all of its teachings. Some of our generation’s doubt is due to the fact that we have access to more information about the Bible’s original manuscripts and the process of its writing and canonization than ever before. But we also see how the Bible has been used (and misused) for all sorts of un-Christian activities. We might believe the Bible is the Word of God—but we’re not sure what, exactly, that means for our lives.

Which brings us to our generation’s turbulent relationship with the Church. More than half of 18- to 29-yearolds with a Christian background say they are less active in church than they were at age 15. Dropping out of church has, for our generation, become the norm.

The first, and smallest, group of dropouts have left the faith entirely. You probably know someone who fits this scenario—he was a passionate Christian coming into college. And then he heard facts that challenged his paradigm and made him question his faith. Or maybe he saw some of the harmful ways Christians have sometimes addressed

Dropping out of church has become the norm broken people. Either way, he came to the conclusion that his Christian faith was impossible to hold on to.

For most young Christians, however, walking away is more like going on walkabout. About four out of 10 twentysomething believers are not sure how important church is for their lives but are not ready to sever all ties with Christianity. This is the person who was active in church and youth group during high school but has kind of drifted away. She’s not anti-church—it’s just that it’s hard for her to see how it’s relevant to her daily life. Plus, she’s so busy doing work—good work—at her secular job, it’s difficult for her to understand where God is in all that.

A third group is struggling with church involvement for more nuanced reasons. This group is driven by passionate faith to question the priorities, assumptions and methods of the established Church. (It probably goes without saying that these questions, however well-intended, are not always appreciated by the Church.)

These people often feel stuck between the safe world of church and the broken world they feel called to change.

This is your friend who serves three times a week at the homeless shelter and has Matthew 5 memorized but doesn’t come with you to Sunday services because, in his words, “It makes me crazy.” He’s deeply invested in the redemptive mission of the Church, and can’t understand why so many other churchgoers don’t seem to share his drive to help.

shifting beLiefs

t h e v i e w s o f 1 8 - t o 3 4 -y e a r - o L D practicing christians

%

29

say people can lead a meaningful life without accepting Jesus Christ

%

23

say Christianity is no longer the faith that Americans automatically accept as their personal faith

18

%

say the Bible, Quran and Book of Mormon are all different expressions of same spiritual truths

Source: Barna Group, OMNI Poll Studies, conducted 2007-2011; Each study included a minimum of 1,000 interviews nationwide

Matters of orthodoxy and church are different for our generation in part because of our changing cultural context. Americans are simply not as receptive to Christian influence as they were several decades ago. NonChristians under 35 are significantly less likely to view the Bible as accurate (38 percent) than older non-Christians (50 percent), and are much more comfortable with religious pluralism and universalism.

This cultural reality puts pressure on twenty- and thirtysomething Christians. We know how our peers view Christianity, and it can make us reluctant to talk about faith. In the light of such skepticism, we have to find new and creative ways to share our faith that breach ideological and emotional barriers.

MEDIA & tEchnology

WE

all know the world is more plugged in than ever. We have unprecedented access to technologies that were mere science fiction just a few years ago. What sets our generation apart, though, is our obsession with mobility—we want to be constantly connected, constantly in the know,

constantly up to date. More than any other generation, we take the interwebs with us wherever we go. But how are we being shaped by this unparalleled access to anything and anyone at the tap of a touchpad or swipe of a finger?

You can Wikipedia “Woodstock” in less time than it takes to sit down with your crazy aunt and hear her story about mud-dancing with Wavy Gravy. You can stream a church service with less effort than it takes to show up for worship with everyone else. But opting in to convenience enabled by connectivity may mean opting out of deep relationships and deepening maturity. Are we letting our tech mania disconnect us from people and things that matter most? The sci-fi gadget in your pocket can be an access key to meaning and meaningful relationships … but not by accident.

Constant access offers endless entertainment—for good and bad. The movies, shows, songs, posts and tweets we consume can be a source of shared experiences and a release valve for the pressures of modern life. But the dark side of being “always on” is escapism, an unwillingness to deal with the real world and the messiness of real-world relationships. The explosive growth of the porn industry in the wake of widespread broadband access is testament to our generation’s infatuation with escapism.

Technology also gives this generation of Christians new domains of influence.

We are integrating new media into our spiritual pursuits: We are testing how faith can thrive in a digital culture. Techinclined social scientists have observed that technological activity reaches a tipping point once one-fifth of a population starts doing it, and research shows young Christians are approaching or have passed that point for many online spiritual activities. More than our nonChristian peers, we are using technology to encourage our friends (54 percent in the last month) and to educate others about causes (45 percent).

Technology is redefining how twentyand thirtysomething Christians relate to the Bible: 40 percent have viewed Scripture on a cell phone or the Internet in the last month.

Take YouVersion, for example.

Developed by LifeChurch.tv, this free app allows Bible reading on mobile devices— but it also allows users to read notes and studies from a huge community.

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Technology has democratized our ability to self-express; it doesn’t distinguish or discriminate between opinions.

Whether or not that wealth of subjectivity is a positive thing remains to be seen—if both good and bad theology are given equal playing time via technology, will this generation of Christians cease being able to tell the difference?

The way twenty- and thirtysomething believers interact with technology is also realigning access to churches (via websites and social networking), how we give financially (via online giving and mobile donations) and how we interact with sermons and teachings (26 percent have listened to a teaching podcast in the last month, and 27 percent have verified something a pastor said by fact-checking online). This generation of Christians is experimenting with various online forms of spiritual input and output, and it’s likely we’ll see continued growth in these activities as our friends share with their friends … who share with their friends …

What does the future of Christian engagement with technology and media look like? No one can know for certain where our generation’s affinity for technology will take us or where our appetite for access, mobility and escape will lead.

It’s likely Bible memorization and consulting church leaders face to face will become rarer. But even though information abounds in the digital space, it’s also likely human touch and insights grounded in deep relationship will become ever more valuable. And those needs are a huge opportunity for the faith community to incarnate the love of God.

o f u s h av e v e r i f i e D s o m e t h i n g a pa s t o r s a i D b y fa c tchecKing it onLine this month

27

soCieT y veryone knows life in today’s society is complex.

And one of the most complicated and pressing questions for any young adult is how to personally contribute to society. In other words, “What will I do when I grow up?” For Christians, the search for a fulfilling career that also pays the bills comes with an added desire for a job that’s spiritually meaningful.

But many of us have only a vague notion of how faith can and should affect our approach to culture-shaping, like the jobs we choose or the causes we support.

Our generation of Christians wants to follow Christ in the real world, rather than fencing ourselves off from it. In fact, 54 percent of next-generation Christians who are active in church say they want to connect faith with the world they live in. Though church dropouts are more likely to voice

E

WHY WE USE TECHNOLOGY INTERNET SITES

80%

SOCIAL MEDIA SITES MOBILE OR SMARTPHONE

76%

69% ENTERTAINMENT

81%

32% 70% INFORMATION

32%

%

6%

32% WORK

38

%

8%

22% SCHOOL

47% 78%

69% CONNECT WITH OTHERS

29%

9%

14%

FAITH & SPIRITUALITY

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criticisms of the faith community in cultural matters, so do many young adults actively involved in church. In whatever way it plays out, many of us feel overprotected by the Church. Fairly or not, many perceive the Church as unprepared to talk about real issues of cultural engagement or to offer a whole-life understanding of faith—one that could help us see how faith can shape professional pursuits. It’s why only 25 percent of 18- to 29-year-old Christians feel they've understood their purpose in life through church.

As a result, many next-generation believers feel a frustrating disconnect between faith and career. Only 16 percent of 18- to 29-year-old Christians feel the Bible applies to their fields or areas of interest. And a mere 26 percent of the same group say they grew up learning to view their gifts and passions as part of God’s calling. There’s a tendency to put the things we believe and our work in small, separate boxes, with no idea how to combine them.

This is a particularly potent dilemma for Christians in science-related careers—an area that has more often been a battleground than a mission field for the Church. It’s also difficult for young “creatives” who have gifts in music, filmmaking, writing and the other arts. Young artists are anxious to take their art outside the “Christian ghetto”— where they feel the faith community wants to limit them and the expression of their gifts—and join the broader conversation happening in the mainstream. Some, like Sufjan Stevens or The Civil Wars or Terrence Malick, are finding ways to navigate these tensions and to address faith in creative ways through their “secular” art. Others, like David Bazan, have found that a faith embraced in their youth doesn’t hold up under the harsh glare of realworld problems and struggles. Still others, like Katy Perry (formerly known as Katy Hudson, when she sang on a Christian music label), seem to simply ignore their faith and the impact it might have on their art.

To add to the vocational complexities, our generation has a hyper-awareness of social causes. It’s not enough to get and keep a good job—now we need to make a difference in the world. The Bible clearly tells Christians to do so—and so does the big business machine of socially conscious branding. Responding in various measures to the call of the Gospel and the call of the marketing guru, twenty- and thirtysomething Christians are more interested in justice issues, such as human trafficking and global poverty, than previous generations. Thirtyseven percent of 18- to 27-year-old Christians believe expressions of faith should include practical acts, not just words—versus only 25 percent of Christians over the age of 65 who believe that.

A number of believers, like Scott Harrison (founder of charity: water) or Jamie Tworkowski (founder of To Write Love on Her Arms) are turning awareness into action. And others, like the filmmakers/activists behind the Invisible Children film, have tapped into a deep stream of citizen advocacy, moving faster than more established systems are able to in order to serve the oppressed and effect real change.

Additionally, our generation is one that has the capacity to see most of the problems of the world at any given

A PEEK BEHIND THE RESEARCH CURTAIN FIRST, this research was conducted and analyzed by the Barna Group using the results of nationwide surveys.

SECOND, we defi ne “Christian” in terms of commitment and activity—people who attend a church or worship service at least monthly, and who say their faith is very important in their life.

THIRD, some people ask, “How can a thousand or so survey interviews represent the entire nation or a whole generation?”

It’s a fair question. Think of it like a sample of blood: Only a few drops can accurately represent your body’s well-being, as long as the sample is drawn and analyzed properly. Barna Group does this every day: draw a good sample, ask the right questions and analyze the answers using the science of statistics. When it’s done right, good research challenges us to reevaluate our assumptions and points us to new ways of thinking about the world.

time—but we also have the tools to meet many of the issues head-on. Organizations like Kiva, Kickstarter or any number of other microfinance efforts give us the ability to tangibly address the needs of a hurting world in a realistic way.

Yet there’s also the danger of merely paying lip service to service (because all the cool kids are into it) while rarely engaging in actual acts of service. This trend raises the question: Will next-generation Christians merely turn into cause consumers? Or, through our actions, will we be able to push the wider Christian community to be not only hearers of faith but also doers?

Whether we’re struggling to make vocational decisions or doing our best to practice mercy and justice, creating and transforming culture demands a level of discernment that takes time to cultivate. We need wisdom to connect faith to our causes and careers.

There’s not just one sweet spot between selling out to culture and cutting ourselves off from it. In order to find the right space for our time and circumstances, twenty- and

thirtysomething Christians must do the heavy lifting of cultural engagement in community with our sisters and brothers from other generations.

Our generation of believers has a lot of decisions to make—will technology bring us closer or isolate us from relationships?

Will we allow our faith to inform our careers? What issues will guide our politics, and how will we participate? Will we prioritize our marriages and families? How will we relate to and impact the Church?

But these decisions cannot be made in a generational vacuum.

Twenty- and thirtysomething Christians are products of a world created by those before us. The unique forces shaping our generation are important to recognize, but the larger issue is how we will translate our unique cultural and spiritual moment into lasting influence for the sake of the Gospel.

What would happen if we were to allow our Spirit-empowered love for other generations to guide our decision-making?

What if, rather than focusing only on our generation’s needs and interests, we also concern ourselves with sacrificing for those who will come after and serving those who have gone before? What if, instead of seeing ourselves as one generation or another, we understand ourselves as part of the unbroken communion of saints?

Because that is what we are.

DAVID KINNAMAN is the president of Barna Group (Ventura, CA) and co-author of UnChristian.

His new book, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church ... and Rethinking Faith, releases October 2011. Visit YouLostMeBook.com and follow him on Twitter @DavidKinnaman.

ALY HAWKINS collaborated with Kinnaman on You Lost Me. She is a freelance writer who lives and works in Muncie, IN.

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the

reinvention of

the multi-Platinum band returns With its eighth—and most uniQue—album

sWitchfoot

By KEVIN SELDERS AnDY bArron

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straightforward Switchfoot. That tension between keeping fans happy and being true to an artistic sensibility is merely the first of many contradictions that seem to define this multi-platinum-selling band. In fact, to truly understand the San Diego-based group, you have to start with the contradictions.

The collection of surfers (“switchfoot” is itself a surfing term) seems to exist in the friction created when two opposites collide. During their 15 years together, Switchfoot has teetered between the sacred and the secular worlds. They’ve received numerous accolades (most recently a Grammy for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album) only to claim they ultimately mean nothing.

Now, at the height of their career, with millions of albums sold and a still-growing international audience, the band is going against itself—more specifically, going against their signature sound that led them to this point.

Switchfoot—which includes Foreman (lead vocals, guitar), his brother Tim Foreman (bass), Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keyboards), Drew Shirley (guitar) and Chad Butler (drums)—haven’t abandoned any of their instruments; they’ve simply allowed the bass and drum to move the listener in ways electric guitars can’t.

“One thing we were intentional about was finding a different rhythmic motor for the music,” Tim Foreman says.

“We’re typically known for our crunchy guitars and being a guitar-driven band. I think for this record we tried to let the drums and bass drive the motor a lot more. It really has a different heartbeat because of that.”

Songs like “The War Inside” and “Selling the News” are even more of a creative jump for the band. The former could be found on an album by industrial rockers Filter. The latter, a mostly spoken-word track, sounds like Earthsuit reunited.

So, is Vice Verses their biggest sonic leap forward yet?

“I think typically, with most albums we make, you have that feeling of jumping off of a tall cliff with no net beneath you, and then a few years down the road you’re able to maybe see things more honestly,” Tim says. “With that disclaimer, I’d say absolutely. It really feels like we pushed ourselves to go to new places.” sounds incredibly selfish, but I write songs pretty much entirely for myself,” muses Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman. “I don’t try and second-guess anyone else’s opinion. I just simply say, ‘Do I love it? And if so, then let’s chase it down.’

“I’m not sure if [the new album is] a gamble—if people will like it or not. It’s not a gamble for us at all from a musical standpoint. The integrity of those tracks, I feel, stands alone.

Who knows whether people will like it? I love it. That’s where we’re coming from.”

Foreman’s words might be surprising coming from the frontman of a band that clearly loves its fans. But with their eighth album, Vice Verses, out Sept. 27, fans will be surprised to find a heavier, funkier and more

“It

This is The (neW) sound

While Vice Verses is a sonic departure for Switchfoot, their last album, Hello Hurricane, marked a turning point for the band. It was their first album after gaining major label independence. With that newfound freedom, they decided it was time to deconstruct and begin again. They wanted a new identity.

“The process for Hello Hurricane was a really difficult one,” Tim Foreman says. “We forced ourselves to go through a few identity crises in the studio, really challenging ourselves to find new territory, and when you’re on that journey trying to find new places, you ask yourself: ‘Is this me? Is this what I look like?’ That’s part of the process of pushing yourself and yet trying to remain true to what is honest for you as an artist.”

With Vice Verses, he adds, the band was able to write more from a place of strength. Their ability to discover new sonic ground came from the overflow of creative

liberty they experienced with Hello Hurricane. It also, frankly, came from the overabundance of that album’s writing sessions.

Switchfoot entered the studio with about 80 to choose from. In fact, many of Vice Verses’ standout tracks were written years ago.

“Within that there’s a lot of different colors and part of the challenge of a Switchfoot record is trying to pick which colors to paint with and which colors to show people,” Tim says. “I think for this record we chose to share some different colors than maybe we have in the past.”

Producer Neal Avron (New Found Glory, Anberlin, Yellowcard) and executive producer Mike Elizondo (P!nk, Eminem, Jay-Z) were both handpicked to brighten those colors and take the band to new places.

The two helped Switchfoot create a sonic world for each song to live in before it was recorded—a new process for them.

“We’ve never had that,” Jon says. “It’s always been, ‘Let’s record the song.’ It was a different experience for us all the way through. For me as a songwriter, it really pushed me as well. I think I was kind of unafraid to scrap things—to be even more ruthless with the editing mechanism and knowing a song is a song and they’ll keep coming. It was, ‘Let’s throw away the little fish and keep chasing the big ones.’ ” Having their own studio meant they weren’t spending extra money required by the pursuit of new territory. Releasing their albums independently meant they didn’t have a deadline.

The result, Foreman says, is Switchfoot’s most clearly defined and realized album yet.

“Instead of just sitting out in the rain with a bucket,” Jon says, “I think we actually went fishing for what we wanted to be for the next couple of years of our lives.”

a direCT line To The hearT

Jon Foreman, who comes across as a philosopher as much as a relevantmagaZine.com / 89

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singer and lyricist, is an open book when it comes to his observations of the world around him. But he reveals little about the challenges of his personal life.

“I love playing this music night after night, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it’s almost like I found that anything worth doing in this life is almost impossible to do,” he shares. “Marriage is absolutely worth the cost, but it’s really tough sometimes. There are many things I look back on and wish I’d done differently. I think that’s the same for all of us.

But yeah, that’s probably …”

He pauses.

“I don’t want to get too specific with personal elements.”

For clues of his life outside of the band, Foreman points to his lyrics, whether it’s those of Vice Verses, past Switchfoot albums, his work as half of the band Fiction Family or his solo EPs, Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer.

His written words say more about him than anything he’s able to verbalize.

“The funny thing is I get incredibly specific within the songs—the EPs and everything,”

where both are equally plausible is where the reality of each becomes clearer.

“There is no proof of one or the other, so we live our lives in the middle. In the same way, we’re breathing life and death at the same time. Who’s to say which is more true? That the glass is halfempty or the glass is half-full?

That we’re living or we’re dying?

As a thinker, I wrestle with these things in the songs.”

maT Ters oF FaiTh

While the American church seems to be entering a new phase of living out its faith by focusing on social justice, Switchfoot has been doing more than sing about their faith for years. The band has long supported organizations like the ONE Campaign, Habitat for Humanity and Invisible Children. Jon Foreman was one

“Justice can’t Just be lobbied for— it’s something you live.” —Jon foreman he says. “They’re almost like Yellow Pages to my heart. Those are probably a better guide map than anything I’m going to say.”

The album’s most delicate track, “Vice Verses,” is one Foreman describes as a personal question mark. It features little more than Foreman asking life’s biggest questions—as if he can’t move on until he receives an answer—while gently plucking his acoustic guitar near the high tide line of a hometown beach.

The early morning high tide line, Foreman says, reveals all the debris washed ashore from the night before.

“That’s how I feel every morning—some mornings more than others,” he says. “There’s a bunch of crap that the oceans of our minds leave up on the high tide line for us to figure out. That particular day I was wrestling with a bunch of stuff. There are so many things personally and in the news that are just really hard for me to deal with.”

Foreman’s questions float up, echoing into the song’s atmosphere—questions like, where is God in the global catastrophes of the day?

And where is He in the turmoil of our hearts?

Foreman confesses his faith and doubts are tested all the time. Again, the tension

of the first singers to wear a To Write Love on Her Arms T-shirt onstage.

If a member of the band expresses an interest in a particular organization or cause, they typically have the full band’s backing. Switchfoot doesn’t go through a democratic process to choose what causes to support.

“I don’t think there’s really a need to be exclusive with those sorts of things,” Tim says.

“There’s probably more room in our lives for activism and charity than we allow. Within the band, everyone’s generally excited to jump on board with something someone’s passionate about.”

A focus of Switchfoot’s since 2005 is the homeless youth on the streets of San Diego. This year, the band conducted the seventh annual Switchfoot Bro-Am—a benefit concert and surf contest on its hometown beaches that raises money for the Oceanside chapter of StandUp for Kids.

Since its inception, the Bro-Am has raised more than $500,000 for San Diego-based children’s charities. This year’s event—the most successful to date—attracted more than 8,000 attendees and ended up raising more than $130,000 for StandUp for Kids.

To Jon, the “underdogs” found in Vice Verses’ stadiumsized rocker, “Dark Horses,” are the children StandUp for Kids rescues.

“The challenges they face and the hope that still exists in their eyes are an incredible dichotomy. The concert is a celebration of the life they’re living, the obstacles they’re overcoming and the life they have ahead of them. In many ways, these kids are my heroes. They’re up against obstacles I’ve never had to face. I thought puberty was hard enough, let alone being homeless while you’re going through it. Those kids are near and dear to us.”

In terms of modern American Christianity, Foreman says he does see signs of the Church doing more to improve the world it finds itself in, but he still can’t grasp why it takes so much to get it moving.

“We are creatures of comfort, and we’re so quick to forget the pain of hunger once we have a meal in our stomach,” he says. “I’m throwing myself in this category, too.

It’s a travesty how quickly we forget these things.”

While Foreman acknowledges the need to lobby for the poor and the marginalized in society, he says, in many ways, the government is providing aid to the very people the Church has failed.

“The goal for the Western church should not be to get the government to do what the Church should be doing all along, but rather to be the Church and do what the Church is called to do, which is mainly give cups of water to Christ, give food to Christ,” he says. “It’s one of those things where, until we see the homeless lady on the corner and treat her like we treat Christ, then we’re just going to keep lobbying for some other form of justice, but justice can’t just be totally lobbied for—it’s something you live.”

Switchfoot, however, does see hints that the Church is getting its boots on and rolling up its sleeves.

“We spend far too much time talking about being Christians or what it means to be a Christian and not enough time actually being a Christian and showing people through action what being a Christian actually looks like, so I think this is very exciting,” Tim says.

“I feel like the next generation has a wide-open view of the world and is ready to try and actually change things and is stupid or bold enough to try,” Jon adds. “That gives me a lot of hope.”

WresTling WiTh The World and The greaT be yond

The goal while writing Vice Verses, Jon says, was to push the boundaries of what’s allowed in rock ’n’ roll.

“The biggest thing lyrically that people might be struck with is there are a lot of first-person songs wrestling with these issues,” he says. “I think we’ve done that in the past, but I feel this record pushes the limits of what you can talk about.”

One such song, “Selling the News,” Foreman considers his “venting song.” The funky track asks over a throbbing

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bass line if truth is still the goal—or even the result—of American news organizations when so much of the stories are sensationalized to drive up profits.

“With the current mechanism of how these news channels receive their money, it’s obvious that catastrophes, speculation, hatred and division are going to be the biggest fuel for revenue, so that is what we’re fed day to day.

“There are very few things we can trust,” he continues. “The truth has been tainted so many times. I’m incredibly suspicious of everything and everyone. I think it would stretch outside just the boundaries of FOX News.”

A more introspective song, the grooveheavy “The War Inside,” describes a call to arms to worship, Foreman says. It opens with an invocation, inviting the listener to enter into the song itself. Then it gets into the gritty reality that what keeps us from experiencing intimacy with God is not the world around us as much as it is the world within.

“When I’m attempting to enter into meditation or prayer or a lot of things, I’m struck by the idea that there are many warring forces within me,” Foreman says. “That’s what this song is about—and the concept that no lasting peace can be achieved while there’s still war raging within us.”

The album’s opening track, “Afterlife,” and its closer, “Where I Belong,” are both about eternity, acting as lyrical bookends for Vice Verses. Foreman says he’s baffled by the concept of time and how we’re temporal beings.

Music, he says, stands out as an art form to him precisely because it’s only available as a result of time. You can’t listen to music without having lived through it.

While the singer considers music something that’s worthy of a slice of our precious time on Earth, he cringes at how much we waste the “now” in our lives as we look to

eternity. A life spent only waiting for the hereafter is a sad one to Foreman. Eternity, he argues, is now.

“I’ve been guilty of wasting the present tense, and I don’t find that to be available to the believing soul,” he says. “In many ways, the Western church can get caught up in the idea that the hereafter is where our impetus lies, and for me there’s a lot of hope in the afterlife. I don’t doubt it, but to ignore the pain and suffering and volatile elements of the present tense as we look toward the future is hypocritical and anti-Christian.”

Just as each member of Switchfoot pushed themselves to bring more to the table musically, Tim Foreman says he believes the album’s lyrics are some of the best his older brother’s ever written. It’s a soulful album, he says, and reveals the singer’s heart.

“I think a song like ‘Restless,’ in particular, is one that really captures Jon as a songwriter and the drive he’s always contained as a songwriter,” he says. “He’s always pushing for something beyond what we can see and … beyond what we’re told is living.”

WhaT The FuTure holds

Although Vice Verses is just releasing, the members of Switchfoot know they’re on a different course as a band.

The future looks different now—and that’s exciting. Jon says the band is fortunate their fan base is still along for the ride. It’s been nearly a decade since their multi-platinum breakthrough album, The Beautiful Letdown, released.

“The people who come to our shows … I’m always struck by how ready for something new they are,” he says.

“A lot of these people have been with us for 10 years. So much has happened in the last 10 years of my life. Everyone changes. Everything changes. To think that people are still excited about the next phase of what Switchfoot looks like, that blows me away continually.”

When they look back on their career years from now,

BaNd aT WOrk

The band put in plenty of work on their latest album. This video looks at the band as they listen to Vice Verses for the first time.

WATCH Who knew they could give inspiring speeches?

they believe Vice Verses will surely be a bright spot—no matter where Switchfoot goes next with its sound.

“We’re excited about what the future holds,” Tim says. “I don’t think we’ve left much on the table. … It feels like we’ve fleshed out what we wanted to do. With every record we set goals for ourselves, and I think this record, probably more than any record, we accomplished those goals.

“We’re thankful for each album we make as it comes. We have no shortage of dreams. We have a lot of passion for what we do, but at the same time we don’t take for granted that every day is a gift, every album is a gift and whether we’re a band for another 20 years or another two months, we’re thankful for the time we have. You’ve got to enjoy it.” releVANtMAGAZiNe.coM / 91

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reFleCTions on The mosT signiFiCanT evenT oF This g e n e r aT i o n

COMPILED AND EDITED By JOHN PATTISON

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I

heard a story recently about a young man who was walking around the streets of New York not long after the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed. An old woman stopped him and said, “I feel sorry for you.” When he asked why, the old woman said, “Because it is your generation that will have to deal with this.”

And it’s true: Sept. 11, 2001, was a startling reminder of just how suddenly and completely our lives can change—how easy it is on a Tuesday morning, under a brilliantly blue summer sky, for a small group of strangers to alter the course of our stories—and how quickly we can veer from action to reaction, and from unbridled optimism to something else.

A decade later, people all around the world are still living in the shadows of the fallen towers and the smoke rising from the Pentagon and the remains of a plane in a southern Pennsylvania field.

Americans of a certain age mark time with it. On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we offer reflections from five writers on what that fateful day meant for them and what they’ve learned since.

—John Pattison

demanding JusTiCe

by Susan Isaacs In 2001, I was living in New York and dating a man who thought the God of the Bible was judgmental. I tried to explain God’s judgment wasn’t marred by sin.

But it didn’t matter; Jack didn’t like the idea of judgment, period.

Not long afterward, I heard Tim Keller preach that contemporary America didn’t really understand divine judgment because we hadn’t experienced evil. We lived in the comfort and calm of suburbia—why would we need divine judgment if we had no heinous evil to be made right? Keller contrasted that perspective to the experience of theologian Miroslav Volf. Volf was born in Croatia,

where people witnessed villages burned to the ground, their daughters raped and their sons’ throats slit. Try telling Croatians not to take revenge.

I thought: If Jack ever experienced evil, he would plead—even demand—that God make things right. Well, on the morning of Sept. 11, Jack was in an elevator, heading to the top floor of the World Trade Center. Jack made it out alive; all of his colleagues perished. He suffered trauma, survivor’s guilt and raged at anyone else who felt angry. Jack was in the building—only he had the right to want justice.

All of America rose up and demanded justice. And we were right to demand it. But how have our actions fared in the ensuing decade? I hear differing opinions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Were we freeing captives, or securing Iraqi oil fields for Halliburton? When bin Laden was killed, I smiled at a photo of New York firemen shouting in victory. I recoiled at images of drunken college students partying outside the White House. They were 8 years old on 9/11. Now they were using bin Laden’s death as an excuse to throw a kegger?

I went back to Tim Keller’s sermon. He had been citing Dr. Volf ’s book Exclusion and Embrace: The only means of prohibiting violence by us is to insist violence is only legitimate when it comes from God. … If God were not angry at injustice and deception

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and did not make a final end of violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship.

This past decade has made two things very clear: humans need to seek justice, and we are incapable of achieving it. True justice will only come when God finally judges the actions of all. And He is a good God to do so.

Susan Isaacs is a writer, actor and comedienne with many credits in TV, film, stage and radio.

Her literary debut, Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir (FaithWords), was named a top-10 religion book by Publisher’s Weekly in 2009.

WhaT Time is iT, lord?

by Richard Dahlstrom Sept. 11, 2001, was our scheduled annual meeting at the church I lead in Seattle. We gathered, ditched the agenda and spent most of the evening in prayer. I’ll never forget someone crying out with pathos: “God, you said in Ecclesiastes that there’s a time for everything …” He stopped and the room waited in a pregnant silence for him to continue. In a broken voice he finally cried out: “What time is it, Lord? What. Time. Is. It?” Ten years later, it’s still a question that needs asking.

Is it time to argue about whether the emergent church is superior to the neo-Calvinist movement, giving voice to the same kind of polarization found in our politics? If the answer is yes, we’ll fill the blogosphere with debates about who’s headed for hell and who’s not, who’s pure and who are sons of Satan.

The world will shake their head and say, ironically, “Jesus, save me … from Your followers.”

No. It’s not the time for these things.

In a world where dictators and extremists continue to oppress, torture, rape and indiscriminately kill, what time is it? Time to fight?

Time for vengeance? Time for moving to the

Cold river oF sorroW desert? Time for fear and banning mosques? It’s not time for these things either.

In the midst of human trafficking, rising food prices in the poorest parts of the world, homelessness and 25,000 children dying of treatable diseases every day, what time is it? In a world of rising populations and food shortages, peak oil and polluted water, what time is it? In a world where democracy seems immobilized by a lack of political will, while totalitarianism and terror wait for their moment to seize power, what time is it?

The good news is this: God’s given us the answer. “God has shown you what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.” This is the clarion call ringing out above the white noise that, for many, Christianity has become.

Work at giving a voice to those who don’t have one because they’re stuck in the margins. Pursue healthy relationships, which will include extending forgiveness to those who wrong you and confessing your own wrongs.

Walk closely with God as friend, guide, lover, so that little by little you’ll start to look like Jesus.

Nurturing these qualities won’t make headlines, but it will cause the light of Christ to shine with just a little more clarity. Ten years after 9/11, I think we all agree what time it is: It’s time for His light to shine brighter.

Richard Dahlstrom’s most recent book is Colors of Hope (Baker).

He is Senior Pastor of Bethany Community Church in Seattle, WA and a Conference and Bible School teacher with Torchbearers Missionary Fellowship. Find Richard at RichardDahlstrom.com.

by Karen Spears Zacharias On Monday, Sept. 10, 2001, my daughters and I sat beneath a banyan tree at Punchbowl National Cemetery in Hawaii and watched an aged vet buried.

Gray-haired men with bent backs lifted the flag off the casket.

My daughters, raised in Oregon, and far from military installations, had never seen a military funeral. For me, the daughter of a soldier killed in action, that folded flag was entirely too familiar.

Tuesday we woke early to catch the sunrise over Diamond Head. We were due to fly out that morning. As the girls posed for photos, clusters of people gathered on the jetty.

A big-boned woman sat on the rocks, elbows resting on her knees. We stood near her, unaware that death clouds had exploded over New York City, D.C. and Pennsylvania.

“Have you heard?” the lady asked. She had a Brooklyn accent.

“Heard what?” I asked.

“Somebody bombed the World Trade Center.”

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I didn’t flinch. I was a reporter and used to headline news. Besides, the World Trade Center had been bombed before.

“Do they know who did it?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “But they bombed the Pentagon, too.”

I sucked air, as if she’d socked me in the gut. Every Army brat knows the Pentagon is Holy Ground.

“All planes have been grounded, nationwide. There are no flights in or out,” she told me.

Looking up, I noticed the lavender sky was as still as a dead father laid out for the viewing.

Ten years hence, it feels like I’ve been sitting in Oregon’s Umatilla River while spring runoff cuts a sharp course for the Columbia. I’ve been immersed in a cold river of sorrow.

There’s the 21-year-old war widow in North Carolina who spends sleepless nights peeking out from behind blinds, listening for intruders who never come.

There was the Vietnam veteran in Tennessee who, even on his deathbed, railed against demons who’d resurfaced in the infrared midnight of new wars. There’s the Oregon mother at the end of the dirt drive, remembering when the UPS driver carried her mischievous son home after the tyke took off down the blacktop. The last time her boy came home it was in a flag-draped coffin.

Lillian learned of her daughter’s death by watching the Today Show. “I knew when they showed where the plane hit that it was Marjorie’s office,” Lillian says. The 87-year-old lives alone back beyond the pecan grove; alone except for the memories of the daughter she grieves more with each passing day.

And there are the not-yet-etched names of the dead and maimed servicemen and women who turned their faces bravely toward the fight, because for them, honor and love is about sacrifice.

You’d think such weeping would rust an old soul, roughen a heart and make it coarse. But it hasn’t. Instead it has freed me to live life more fully, aware that if such

things as 9/11 and countries at war in the name of a God abused aren’t worth crying over, somebody, pray tell me, what is?

Karen Spears Zacharias is the author of the memoir After the Flag Has Been Folded (William Morrow), among other books. She blogs at Patheos.com.

rising Through The ashes

by Makoto Fujimura In my studio, I use ground minerals such as malachite and azurite, layering them to create prismatic refractions, or “visual jazz.” Via my art, I hope to create a mediated reality of beauty, hope and reconciled relationships and cultures. I have found mediation of any kind is never black-and-white but prismatic and complex, too. In order to find home, even in the midst of the broken and torn fragments of relationships, in order to begin to journey releVANtMAGAZiNe.coM / 95

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into the heart of the divide, we must first wrestle with the deeper issues of faith. We must be willing to be broken into prismatic shards by the Master Artist, God, so Christ’s light can be refracted in us.

Three months prior to Sept.

11, 2001, I wrote the following for a Santa Fe art exhibit called “Beauty Without Regret”: Art cannot be divorced from faith, for to do so is to literally close our eyes to that beauty of the dying sun setting all around us. Every beauty also suffers.

Death spreads all over our lives and therefore faith must be given to see through the darkness, to see through the beauty of “the valley of the shadow of death.”

Prayers are given, too, in the layers of the broken, pulverized pigments. Beauty is in the brokenness, not in what we can conceive as the perfections, not in the “finished” images, but in the incomplete gestures. Now, I await for my paintings to reveal themselves.

Perhaps I will find myself rising through the ashes, through the beauty of such broken limitations.

Outside my window I see the young sycamores, once covered in the ashes of Sept. 11, now turning to autumn hues casting their golden shadows on those passing by. Those who walk beneath the sycamore trees are of diverse cultures and backgrounds. Similarly,

the culture at large is neither “Christian” nor “secular” but fantastically pluralistic, defying conventional categorizations. In each culture we will no doubt find evidences of trauma, like the ashes of Ground Zero, as we all find ourselves building upon our pulverized and fragmented past. We can choose to disengage from such intractable reality, as our hearts will struggle to find rest in such exilic ground as Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Darfur, Afghanistan and so on. Or we can accept the splintered condition of culture as a kaleidoscope of common struggles, a reality that only the golden rays of God can restore and recreate via broken humanity.

Makoto Fujimura is an artist, writer, speaker and the founder of the International Arts Movement. The above essay is excerpted from Fujimura’s second book, Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art and Culture, which is available at NavPress.com. Used with permission.

dreams oF a beT Ter World

by Shane Claiborne On Sept. 12, 2001, I was talking with one of the kids in my neighborhood, a 10-year-old named Steven who has grown up in the inner city, has seen some hard stuff and is well acquainted with violence. So when I asked him, “What do you think we should do?” he thought pensively and said, “Well, those people did something very evil.”

I nodded.

He went on. “But I always say, ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right.’ It doesn’t make sense for us to hurt them back.

That’s not what Jesus wants. Besides, we are all one big family.”

Then his face brightened, and he looked at me wideeyed and said, “Shane, that means you and me are brothers!”

We laughed, and I thought to myself, Steven, tell that to the world.

There was so much ugliness after Sept. 11. I saw a banner that read, “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.” A bumper sticker read, “God will judge evildoers; we just have to get them to Him.” It was obvious to me Jesus did not smile down on that hatred. But I wasn’t sure what Jesus would do. Then I began to encounter other voices. One is a group of 9/11 victims that has become known as Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Initially, these folks who had lost their closest loved ones got together to grieve and to support one other. But as they saw the retaliation begin in the form of more violence, their campaign became: “Our grief is not a cry for war.”

I heard about their pilgrimages to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the stories of reconciliation and grace they brought home—as Afghan and Iraqi families showered them with love and compassion.

I got to follow in their footsteps.

My trips to Iraq and the Middle East over the past 10 years have changed my life, deepened my faith, messed with my politics and challenged my theology. More than anything, I have new friends, and these new friends have given me new eyes to see the world.

Here’s one of the images that will never leave me: As one Iraqi doctor held the bloody body of a child in his arms, he watched the bombs falling from the sky and said: “This violence is for a world that has lost its imagination. Has your country lost its imagination?”

That doctor is right. The world is desperately in need of imagination today. The Christian life is all about having a new imagination. As Romans 12 says, “Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It is time for a new Christian imagination in a post-Sept. 11 world.

May we continue to choose the folly of the cross in a world of smart bombs. Jesus, give us the courage to follow Your cross in a world that continues to pick up the sword and die by the sword. Help us love those who hurt us— and may our love wear down their hatred.

May our grace dull the sharpest sword.

And may we become people who do not conform to the patterns of this world but are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

God give us imagination that we might refuse to accept the world as it is and insist on dreaming of the world as it could be.

Shane Claiborne is the best-selling author of The Irresistible Revolution and co-author of Jesus for President and Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers. He is a founding member of The Simple Way, a community in inner-city Philadelphia.

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How the Oscar-nominated actress actually pulled off a balanced movie about Christians

By CARL KOZLOWSKI

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JEFF VESPA

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saying] goes, requires making a leap into a world of uncertainty.

How did you manage to find the right balance in the tone of the film, so it could reach out to non-believers effectively while also keeping believers intrigued?

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t’s rare for an actor to successfully make the transition into directing, but for an actor to create a debut film that’s not only a powerful work of art but also a meaningful Christian piece, and score a screening at America’s most acclaimed film festival, Sundance, is a string of breaks one might only be able to define as miraculous. Yet Vera Farmiga, a rising character actress who received an Oscar nomination for her compelling turn as George Clooney’s love interest in the 2009 flick Up in the Air, has pulled off all that and more with her film Higher Ground, which came out in late August through Sony Pictures Classics. The film, which Farmiga both directed and starred in, is based on the memoir This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost, by Carolyn Briggs.

Farmiga plays Corinne, a woman who dove into fundamentalist Christianity in her early 20s after surviving a near-fatal accident with her boyfriend and newborn baby. Corinne’s illusions of the small-faith community are shattered when she faces a drastically patriarchal congregation, and her faith begins to fray.

Higher Ground shows Christianity in both an honest and respectful manner.

How were you able to convey that?

I’m getting surprised reactions a lot. I think the surprise initially is the subject matter, though I don’t know why a lot of people find it surprising. A big reference film for me, and one of my top five favorites, is The Apostle, by Robert Duvall. [The Apostle] is a story about someone trying hard to master the spiritual life, and it necessitates making arduous—and at times very painful—journeys within ourselves and our all-too-human souls.

Carolyn Briggs’ memoir, This Dark World, [is] about loss of faith, written at a very dark time in her life after the breakup of her marriage. [When] we rewrote the script, she saw it as a way to tell her story again with some perspective. Our story became a story of loss, of impoverished faith. She’s searching for an authentic faith, and that, as [the

I think there are two kinds of films: the antireligion film and the pro-religion film. The films that proselytize [are] made for that community or to convert others to that community. That’s not the film I was making.

The story was a very tricky one. People have very, very personal projections on the topic, and it took an extraordinary amount of courage to say, “Let’s set up a dialogue through the film.” That’s what I think the audience is asking: What does God mean to me? In my experience, the crossroads of doubt and faith is very common and I wanted to make a movie that didn’t judge it. It’s not a bad thing—a reflective person thinks deeply and questions often.

Did you have trouble acquiring financing for Higher Ground because of its content matter?

I did this outside the system. It’s easier because the less money you have, the [fewer] cooks in the kitchen. The investors found me through my manager, and they were an upstart company run by a cardiologist and chemist who live six miles from my house in upstate New York. They turned a 70,000-square-foot rustic horse barn into a studio facility.

One producer read a New York Times article on how in these times, this modern world, things are moving fast and we’re losing balance and are out of control. People are searching and questioning, often within themselves, but are so frustrated with organized religion, and that’s why there are so many branches of denominations.

There’s real subject matter here to explore.

They agreed to finance the script [with] a minimal budget—it happened really fast. I had a condition: that I’d shoot with cinematographer Michael McDonough, who shot Winter’s Bone. As soon as John Hawkes signed on to do it, so many actors followed suit, so I was blessed to have him and his talent.

How has the reaction been from Christians and, conversely, Sundance?

I’ve spoken with many pastors. There was a theme of exploring faith at Sundance this year—I think it’s natural in times of crisis like we’re going through now in the nation and

the world. I’ve had a lot of pastors come after screenings at Sundance and thank me for a film that can be used as a teaching tool.

How did your own faith background have an impact on Higher Ground?

I grew up in a Catholic and Christian home, with my mother and father as a woman and man of God. That was my example. Watching them in their faith, I always grew up with a strong emphasis on faith in my own life. I always hate to give away too much about myself because then people stop seeing the film for its own terms.

I’m afraid of having people feel pointed to what they should be thinking and what audiences grasp on to. Audiences have reactions based on their own journeys. Anything I reveal about myself will make them think I’m biased because of it. There’s so many bits and pieces of me in it, though.

Yes, I feel there is something at play, and I fall on my knees more at times of need than in times of victory. Biblically, I have taken most parts of the religion I was raised in and I keep it with gratitude.

I do need God in a one-on-one way, but I can worship in all sanctuaries, and I’ve sat in all kinds of sanctuaries. I was raised Ukrainian Catholic, but my parents moved away from the Catholic church. I spent my childhood visiting every kind of church and denomination there is to visit.

What moved me was that this was a human being yearning for insight and perspective, for the qualities of a spiritual warrior. It’s asking questions, and I’ve always yearned to understand my father, who is an extremely peaceful, serene, joyful, enlightened, generous, selfless man. I’ve always yearned and craved to experience what he’s tapping into in the way he’s tapping into it. And I’ve struggled to achieve that. But that’s my path, and it’s going to be a lifelong path.

For me, [it is] a story about embracing the gray and admitting to it and the struggle of it, examining how porous and murky a spiritual path can be at times. It’s a full-dimensional portrayal of faith that believers and non- all struggle with, because we all do worship at the altar of something, whether it’s a concrete deity or career path.

WATCH The trailer for Higher Ground, which released in August and is based on Carolyn Briggs’ memoir, This Dark World.

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hOW tO chAse YOur dreAM JOb

WithOut QuittinG YOur dAY JOb (Yet)

By JON ACUFF

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got fired from the carnival.

A traveling carnival had come to my small Massachusetts hometown.

Someone told my mom they were hiring college kids to help put the rides together (which doesn’t sound like a brilliant idea when you stop and think about it), and she told me I should go work for them for a few days as a way to earn some extra money. So that afternoon I drove to the field where the carnival was being built, found a friend of a friend of a friend who was already hammering together a ride and got to work.

An hour later, as I struggled to fit the arm of an octopus ride undoubtedly named something like “8 Arms o’ Vomit,” a man started yelling at me. Apparently, my tender, callus-free writer hands were not cut out for the hard-knock life of a carny. He kept screaming at me and saying: “Who are you? Who are you?”

An hour later, as I drove home in shame, I realized I should have responded, “Isn’t that the question we’re all trying to answer deep down, my friend?” But at the moment I’m pretty sure I just stammered, “My mom said I should come work here.”

Surprisingly enough, that didn’t fix the situation and I was quickly bounced out of the carnival.

It was an embarrassing moment to be sure, but it’s not my worst employment moment—not by a long shot.

My employment history is a bit

I

of a train wreck. At one point, I had eight different jobs in eight years—and that’s not counting the carnival. These were office jobs, with me in a cubicle and pleated pants. Why so many jobs? Well, I kept thinking the next job would be the job that made me happy, that the next job would save my woeful employment record, but the same thing kept happening over and over again.

I’d get a new job. I’d have a six-month honeymoon when everything was great. But eventually I’d start to get bitter again. The same issues that were at my first job would unexpectedly show up at my sixth job. What are the chances, right? And then I’d start to say things like: “This place doesn’t get me.”

“They’re underutilizing me.”

“They don’t appreciate me. There’s so much I could be doing right now.”

Then I would demonize my job and my boss until I finally started planning my exit from the job. I’d get a new job, jump to that one without really looking at where I was going to land and the whole cycle would start all over again.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever hated your job? Have you ever had to divorce yourself in the parking lot at work on a Monday morning or leave your personality outside? In the car you say to yourself: “I love you. You’ve got a great personality. You’re interesting and talented, but they don’t want you in that building. Believe me, I’ve asked around. You are not welcome in there. I’m going to go die inside for eight hours. You stay in the car and read a magazine—I’ll see you when the day is over.”

Or maybe for you, the tension of working at a job you don’t love starts even earlier than Monday morning. My wife used to call me a “Sunday jerk” because every Sunday I got incredibly frustrated about Monday coming again. The closer I got to Sunday night and the end of the weekend, the more bitter I got.

At first I thought I was the only one who felt this way, but when I started to talk to people, I realized we’re becoming the “I’m, but” generation.

Whenever I asked someone what they did, they’d tell me the same thing: “I’m a teacher, but I want to be an artist.” Or, “I’m a call center rep, but I want to work in missions.” Over and over again, I heard, “I’m a _______, but I want to be a _______.”

That was my story, too. Mine was, “I’m in IT, but I want to write books.” And in 2009, when I got the chance to write my first book, I started to feel crushed in the gap between my day job and my dream job. I’d write an hour on a book or a blog idea and feel alive. And then I’d return to a job that had nothing to do with that dream. I liked the job.

I loved the people I worked with, but I knew deep down it wasn’t what God was calling me to.

What do you do if you’re in that place? How do you close that gap? Where do you even start when it comes to chasing a dream? I wrestled with those

questions for 12 years in my cubicle jobs until I finally landed my dream job in 2010.

Here are three things I learned along the way about dreaming and living the life you’re called to.

you Won’T Feel ready

We all want to get to the “Land of Ready.”

It is one of the most popular destinations on the map we draw in our heads when we dream.

We want to feel ready to chase our passion. Or ready to write our books. Or ready to step out and really believe that thing we’ve always loved doing could be bigger than just a hobby we’ve never shared with the world.

At least I do. That’s what I wanted most one Saturday night last May. I was flying to New York City. Less than 10 hours after I got off the plane, I’d be on FOX & Friends, a national television program millions of people watch each week. They invited me on to talk about my book Quitter. It was a tremendous opportunity that I was incredibly grateful for, but here’s a secret: I didn’t feel ready.

I knew my book inside and out. I had practiced media interviews. I had a sense of the questions they’d ask. I even practiced ways to sit on couches. I literally worked out how to sit the right way on my couch at home. But the truth is, I didn’t feel ready.

What did I know about being on television? I didn’t know how to do that. To respond to questions with clear and concise answers that are not too long but are long enough to be funny—but not too funny—and that are also inspiring. I’m just some snarky writer who started a blog in his kitchen. I’d been on the radio a few times, but television was uncharted territory I didn’t feel ready for. But here’s a big secret: Ready is a myth.

There’s no such thing.

You’ll never be ready to write your book.

You’ll never be ready to be a musician.

You’ll never be ready to become a teacher.

The goal of the ready myth is to make you believe the Land of Ready exists and then get you to wait for it. To sit on your hands, waiting to start, waiting to dream, waiting to make a move until you’re “ready enough.”

You won’t be. Just like no one is ever perfectly ready to become a mom or a dad. You don’t hit the age of 28 and think: “There, I’ve got it all figured out.

Bring on the kids!”

You’ve got to start somewhere. You’ve got to begin. To get on your laptop and finally open that Etsy store. Or get out a piece of paper and battle your business plan. Or get on a couch with more cameras than you’ve ever seen in your life and tell the country why your book matters.

You’re not ready.

I’m not ready either. And that’s OK, because ready is a myth. releVANtMAGAZiNe.coM / 101

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you Will be aFraid To Fail

When you start to dream, when you start to really believe maybe God has crafted you for something bigger than you are right now, there will be two primary fears you deal with. The first is the fear of failure. The second is the fear of success. That’s why fear is so brilliant: It argues both sides and doesn’t give you any room to breathe.

It’s a pretty phenomenal one-two punch. I just want to unpack the first one right now, though, because the fear of failure convinces you to stop whatever it is you’ve been called to.

I worried a lot about failure when I decided to host the first “Quitter Conference.” A few weeks after my book came out, we decided to put on a one-day intensive conference to discuss what it really looks like to close the gap between a day job and a dream job. I was excited, but also terrified.

What if no one came? What if I blogged about this big event and told all my friends and then we ended up having to cancel because of poor attendance? What if it bombed and Dave Ramsey thought to himself, “Why did I hire this guy?”

Those questions rattled around my head the weeks leading up to the event. I felt like a seventhgrader throwing a birthday party. I sent out a ton of invitations and was standing by the window looking out to see if anyone would show, thinking: “Will this work? Will this fail? What if no one shows up?”

And you’ll feel that way when you start to work on your dream. You’ll stand on the edge of a decision and be afraid whatever it is you’re thinking about doing will not work. In that moment, fear will try to convince you you’re the only one who has ever doubted. That’s one of the greatest tricks fear plays. It isolates you.

You look at an author you love or a band you can’t get enough of or a friend who has a job just like the one you wish you had, and you assume those people were never afraid. You’re the weird one. Those other people sweat confidence like

AXE body spray. They never doubt. They never feel afraid. But that’s just not true.

Anyone who tries something new, something big and beautiful, feels afraid. Everyone has that seventh-grade birthday moment. You’re not alone.

And the reality is the only way to avoid moments like that is to never have a birthday party. To stay common and ordinary and average and never risk sending an invitation that is unanswered. But who wants to live a life without any birthday parties?

You will be afraid sometimes, and that’s OK.

you Will hear voiCes

Al Andrews is a counselor who runs Porter’s Call, a nonprofit counseling center in Franklin, Tenn., that offers help to recording artists and their families—because Nashville chews those people up. He went to college with my dad, though, and was willing to meet with me despite the fact I’ve never written a song in my life and don’t play a Mumford & Sons-inspired old-timey instrument.

In our first conversation he asked me, “What do your voices tell you?” I initially answered his question from a creative writing point of view, because that’s kind of a weird question. But the more I thought about it, the more it haunted me.

Over a period of weeks, I started to work through what my inner dialogue was telling me.

And Al told me he’d never met someone who had a positive inner dialogue. He’d never met someone whose voices said: “You’re really pretty. You’re so talented. You’re the best person to pursue that dream. You know what? You are skinny enough.”

After talking with Al, I started to take note of the voices in my head. I started to share them with friends who were pursuing dreams, and in the process I realized there are a few common ones we all hear. Whenever you begin working on a dream, here are a few voices you’ll hear in your head: “Who are you to do that?”

“Someone smarter than you has already done

that. The world doesn’t need another dream like that.”

“You’re a fraud. You’re a poser, and once people realize that, they’ll take off.”

There are a million other voices of doubt and fear.

Don’t listen.

Don’t assume that’s God or the Holy Spirit or Jesus.

God will never call you on a mission and then condemn you as you act on it.

That’s the enemy talking.

The enemy loves dreamers.

Dreamers are a dime a dozen.

He’s terrified of doers, though.

People who work and hustle and finish actually change the world. So the second you start working, don’t be surprised when the voices get loud and distracting.

I’m not sure what your dream job is. I’m not sure what your day job is, but on the road to closing that gap, don’t wait to learn the lessons that took me 12 years to figure out. Start today. If you’re afraid to fail, try anyway. And don’t listen to the voices.

Unless that voice is firing you from the carnival. That guy had forearms like The Rock. Always listen to that voice.

JON ACuFF is the author of Quitter and Stuff Christians Like, and a member of the Dave Ramsey team. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Nashville, TN.

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hiLArY WALSh

the eclectic, soulful artist believes happy songs are her calling

By ALyCE GILLIGAN

t wouldn’t be a stretch to liken Zee Avi to a hummingbird. The petite, energetic musician’s life is a cycle of flitting from place to place, punctuated by cheerful, creative pauses. But Avi herself would offer another comparison.

“I think I would most likely relate to the owl,” Avi states. The 25-year-old singer-songwriter was so taken with the creature, she named her sophomore album Ghostbird, a translation of the

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“projectiNG A little liGht froM yourself doesN’t hurt.”

Indonesian term for “owl.” She even buried owl calls throughout its songs. Why the obsession?

“They symbolize wisdom, they symbolize mystique, they symbolize mystery, they symbolize a lot of things. They’re nocturnal creatures—but most of all they’re observers,” Avi says. “I kind of see myself as that, where you sit back and not say much, but you just take everything in.”

Perhaps Avi is observant, maybe even wise, but one thing is certain: She has never done much “sitting back.” Once upon a time, the Malaysian native bounced from Kuala Lumpur to London, studying fashion and art while penning poetry on the side. But her free spirit was still restless.

“I thought to myself, why don’t I just turn my poems into songs?”

Avi says.

Something clicked.

The nomadic twentysomething settled into her songs in a way she hadn’t anywhere else.

Avi began developing the style she is now known for: equal parts eclectic and classic. Despite her youth, Avi has an uncanny way of blending the wispy indie-pop of today with the robust sounds of 1920s jazz or the raw fervor of 1960s folk.

It’s a precious musical concoction that could please a wide range of ages and ears. If Billie Holiday, Mama Cass, Cat Power and Feist all joined hands in a circle, you’d likely find Avi spinning around in the middle.

“I think music is a universal language,” Avi says. “It has a sort

of power over people that visual stimulants can’t. It just touches people in a certain way.”

From here, Avi practically skipped into a musical career.

Her instant success was the kind of modern magic musicians can only hope for. Patrick Keeler of The Raconteurs found a video of Avi performing on YouTube and liked what he saw. The link was passed along until it ended up in the hands of Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Records. Within weeks, Avi made her first trip to the U.S. to meet and sign with the label, who released her 2009 debut album.

“It was surreal, I would say,” Avi laughs. “And I still say that all the time because it still feels pretty dreamy.

I prayed hard for my calling. I wouldn’t say I’m lucky—I would say I’m blessed to have my passion as my career.”

Her self-titled debut earned gold status in four countries, airtime on prime-time TV and an adoring fan base.

Avi serenely embraced the waves of her newfound success.

But even someone as laid-back as Avi needs to get away.

“Everyone who knows me knows I always need ‘Zee time,’ quiet time to myself to process, time to just be still and calm in my mind,” Avi admits, jokingly referring to herself as a “free spirit with anxiety issues.” “Most of the time it’s like a spider graph in my mind.”

To write her follow-up album, Avi spent a week in the Florida Everglades, parked on a friend’s boat in the swampy waters—and says she was surprised to find herself at home.

“I was in New York for about a year and a half, just wondering: ‘Why have I been here so long? What is it about New York that’s just drawing me in?’ It was during winter time in New York and I came to Florida. I never knew that weather so close to where I’m from actually existed in America. That just recharged me, and it was really eyeopening,” Avi says. “If it wasn’t for that, I don’t think I’d have a batch of songs I hold dearly on to.”

From the Florida heat emerged the warm songs of Ghostbird, which Avi took to the studio for just two short weeks of recording.

“It’s the best when it’s fresh out of the oven and everything just feels right,” Avi says. “My songs are like my children: You kind of want to sharpen their personalities but not change anything about them.”

The resulting 11 tracks are certainly sharp, but softened

by Avi’s heartfelt style. Her mellow melodies are both startling and refreshing, like running through a sprinkler on a hot summer day. As the melancholy tunes swell into jazz cadences, Avi’s effortless voice floats easily over ukuleles and trombones.

For those who think good art is a product of pain, it might be tempting to lump Avi in with happy-go-lucky beach artists—the cheerful music you put on in the background and never delve into. It’s a valid thought—one of her new choruses consists solely of the repetitive phrase, “Thank you, sun.” But Avi believes happiness should be

taken more seriously, and offers a defense of her optimism.

“It’s about life, it’s about hope, but it’s also about celebrating yourself. A lot of people are scared to do that. I know people who are scared of sounding too happy. Why? Smiling doesn’t hurt. Projecting a little light from yourself doesn’t hurt, and you know it’s in there. I hope some of my songs would be a catalyst to people to not be afraid; if you’re a ball of sunshine, just be a ball of sunshine. You don’t have to be jaded.”

This open mind allows Avi to pull inspiration from a variety of mediums, both classic and quirky.

“I like Wes Anderson, I like The Red Shoes.

I like a lot of different things,” Avi says. “[But] there are two songs that started me songwriting, and that’s Velvet Underground’s ‘Who Loves the Sun’ and Gilbert O’Sullivan’s ‘Alone Again (Naturally).’ That was the first time I discovered you can have lyrics that contrast the melody. I’d say my songs would be [like] whimsical anger, whimsical sadness. Just people. People’s stories and everyday things.”

It’s clear Avi’s “anxiety issues” and “spider graph” thinking have fueled her resourceful songwriting. Take Ghostbird’s lead track “Swell Window,” which provides an accurate description of the musician’s life.

In surfing terms, Avi explains, “swell window” refers to an area with the best waves.

Here, a surfer encounters the perfect, curling tides that inspired them to pick up a board in the first place, the ones that bring purpose to the surrounding storms and disturbances.

“You just have to live out all the plots, you have to live out all the lines, you have to live out every single word,” Avi says. “[It’s] just grabbing every single drop, every single wave that is available to you on that day, and you just try to ride it out.”

It makes sense Avi would see herself in everything from ocean waters to forest creatures. Floating or flying, she’s never in one place for long—but when she is, it’s happiness she brings with her.

WATCH Zee avi performs “Bitter Heart” live on Last Call with Carson Daly.

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By DAVID LAMB

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Often Christians are too quick to downplay biblical problems like these and make people who ask questions feel like they’re not taken seriously or even belittled, as if it were wrong, disrespectful or irreverent to ask about God’s behavior.

Personally, I think the Canaanite conquest raises not only a valid question but an important one. As someone who loves the Old Testament and the God it portrays, I find the Canaanite problem deeply troubling. While I may go to my grave still struggling over this issue, there are some good arguments that can help people understand why a loving God would command the destruction of the Canaanites.

M

y wife, Shannon, and I were on a date recently, and we ended up chatting with our server. He finally turned to me and asked, “So, what do you do?”

I told him, “I teach the Bible, mainly the Old Testament.”

“The Old Testament—isn’t that where God smites people and destroys cities?” he asked.

“Not exactly, but I get that question a lot because the God of the Old Testament has a bad reputation,” I said.

Everyone loves the New Testament God. He’s the one who sends His son to die on a cross for humanity’s sin. But do Christians really love the God of the Old Testament? Perhaps no part of the Bible gives God a worse reputation than His command to utterly wipe out the Canaanite residents of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 20:16-18; Joshua 10:40; 11:10-15). How do we reconcile a loving God with a God who seems to command genocide?

It’s not just atheists or agnostics who ask these types of questions, but even committed Christians wonder what God was thinking when He commanded His people to wipe out another nation. (And if we aren’t wondering, we should be.) Adolf Hitler attempted to do something similar with the Jews during WWII with his “Final Solution” and he’s in the running for the Worst Person of All Time award. So … is God Hitler-esque?

TWo argumenTs ThaT don’T help

I’ll start with two arguments that are often used to explain the Canaanite conquest but don’t help since they don’t actually address the problem. One argument may be more attractive to liberals, the other to conservatives, but neither takes the biblical text very seriously.

The fictional argument. The Canaanite conquest as described in Joshua is fiction. If God’s behavior in the Old Testament is not consistent with the behavior of Jesus in the New Testament, then one can discount or ignore the Old Testament account.

Even if the Canaanite slaughter occurred, it wasn’t commanded by God. While this argument is attractive since the problematic divine mandate for genocide conveniently disappears, it establishes a dangerous precedent that many Christians (myself included) won’t be comfortable with—specifically, throwing out parts of Scripture that don’t make sense to us. (Though many Christian leaders do essentially the same thing by never teaching on troublesome texts.) If we get rid of the Canaanite conquest, why not get rid of the stories of Noah’s flood, Uzzah’s smiting or Elisha’s bear-mauling? History is full of people who attempted to edit out the uncomfortable bits of Scripture (Marcion, Thomas Jefferson), but fortunately their abridged Bibles never succeeded, and this argument doesn’t either.

The whirlwind argument. From the whirlwind, God speaks to Job with a barrage of questions (Job 38-41), putting Job in his place for questioning God’s behavior. Who are we to question God? We can never fully understand what God is doing in the world, and the Canaanite conquest is just another mystery we cannot comprehend.

I call this argument the “trump card,” because it tends to end the game. While it’s an attractive card to play, and a favorite of many Christians, it won’t convince a true skeptic, and may infuriate them. Of course we can never fully understand God’s behavior, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even try.

My biggest problem with this argument is it

goes against so much of what we find in Scripture.

The Bible is full of people who ask questions about God’s behavior (Abraham, Moses, the psalmists).

Surprisingly, at the end of the book of Job, God rebukes the three friends and affirms the speech of Job: “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:8, NIV). Apparently, God viewed Job’s questions and laments as speaking rightly, so we shouldn’t conclude that God’s speech from the whirlwind is meant to shut down this type of interaction.

Even Jesus on the cross questioned God’s behavior: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

If Jesus can question God’s behavior, shouldn’t it be OK for us? People need to be encouraged to ask tough questions about the Bible, particularly where God does things we don’t understand, like commanding the destruction of the Canaanites.

Five argumenTs ThaT do help

And now for five helpful arguments that address the problem directly, explain the context accurately and take the text seriously.

The context argument. In the context of the ancient Near East, it was not unusual for victorious nations to slaughter defeated foes, so the brutality of Canaanite conquest was not unusual. In their inscriptions, ancient rulers (Ashurnasirpal of Assyria and Mesha of Moab) even bragged about wiping out cities and killing women and children, so what seems wrong to us was normal back then.

Don’t take modern presuppositions about what warfare should look like and import them into a very different ancient context.

While I normally find understanding the ancient context helpful in understanding a difficult passage, this argument so far doesn’t help much in understanding the conquest, since it sounds like what a teen would say to a parent: “All the other nations are committing genocide. Why can’t I(srael) do it, too?”

But it’s not what is similar between Israel’s conquest and that of their neighbors that is most relevant to this problem, but what is different. Unlike nations like Assyria and Moab who were expanding their borders to enrich their own kingdoms, Israel was simply trying to gain a homeland. They were refugees who had experienced hundreds of years of oppression in a foreign land; they needed a place to live and the Canaanites weren’t going to give it to them voluntarily. Since the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) had lived in Canaan previously, one could argue Israel had a legitimate right to be reestablished in the land of their ancestors. The context argument is an important one that needs to be used alongside the following four arguments.

The hyperbole argument. The descriptions of the Canaanite slaughter are hyperbolic. The killing

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was probably limited as only a few texts speak of widespread destruction (Joshua 10-11), while more texts speak of numerous Canaanites still living in the land (Joshua 13:1, 13; 15:63; 17:12; Judges 1). To harmonize the texts that describe a complete slaughter with those that say many Canaanites remained in the land, one can conclude there is an element of exaggeration.

fact remains that God commanded it. And the fact the Israelites didn’t complete it was a problem.

However, even though God commanded it, the primary image used to describe the Canaanite conquest is not slaughter. While the texts that describe Israel’s violent obedience get our attention (Joshua 10:40; 11:12), the textual image used far more frequently for the conquest is “driving out” the people of the land (Exodus 23:28-31; 34:11; Numbers 32:21; 33:52-55; Deuteronomy 4:38; 7:1; 9:3-6; 11:23; 18:12; 33:27; Joshua 3:10; 14:12; 17:18; 23:5). God even tells the Israelites He’ll drive out the people of

PEOPLE NEED TO BE ENCOURAGED TO ASK TOUGH QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BIBLE.

This argument not only takes the text seriously but also attempts to make sense of the biblical tension between a complete slaughter and a localized one. But even if the actual Canaanite slaughter wasn’t as bad as it appears in Joshua 10-11, the

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the land before they arrive, using hornets and angels (Exodus 23:28; 33:2); we can assume their numbers were reduced before the conquest battles began.

Although the hyperbole argument may not convince a skeptic, it’s a step in the right direction since it acknowledges other texts make a contribution to the complete picture of what happened with the Canaanite conquest, and it reminds us to not focus

exclusively on the most problematic texts.

The punishment argument. The Canaanites were being punished for wicked behavior, which included idolatry (Exodus 23:32-33; Deuteronomy 12:2931), child sacrifice and sorcery (Deuteronomy 18:914) and unwarranted attacks on defenseless Israel (Exodus 17:8-13; Numbers 21:1, 21-26, 33-35). The Canaanites were guilty of many crimes, but it is hard not to conclude the severity of the judgment against them was due in no small part to a lack of hospitality and an abundance of hostility.

The strength of this familiar argument is that it receives a lot of support from Scripture. You might reasonably ask, “Isn’t it harsh and even ironic to violently wipe out an entire nation for being too violent?” Perhaps, but elsewhere in the Old Testament God punished evil nations with death and exile (Amos 1:5, 15; 5:5; Jeremiah 48:7). God even sent His own people, first Israel and then Judah, into exile for their evil behavior (2 Kings 17; 24-25).

While we may not be comfortable with the severity of the punishment, part of our problem with the conquest narratives comes from our discomfort with judgment more generally. But since punishment is found throughout Scripture, we need to continue to work to understand it and see how it fits in with God’s mission to bless the nations, which is directly related to the final two arguments

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explaining the Canaanite slaughter.

The slow-to-anger argument. God was slow to anger with the Canaanites since He waited literally hundreds of years before punishing them.

While establishing the covenant with him, God informs Abraham that his descendants will be slaves in a foreign land for 400 years and that judgment will come upon the idolatrous people who live in Canaan (Genesis 15:12-21).

What was God doing while He waited? This text doesn’t make it clear, but God is often described elsewhere as being “slow to anger.” God Himself says He has “no pleasure in the death of anyone” and He wants people to repent and live (Ezekiel 18:32). So during this extended period of waiting, besides creating a people He would call His own, He was giving the Canaanites a long time to repent, and God’s own people paid the price for God’s delay. Because God is slow to anger, His people were not only homeless but also slaves and victims of oppression for centuries. I find this argument shockingly compelling, since it speaks both of God’s willingness to allow His people to suffer for others, and His desire to be merciful to sinners, a trait we see even more clearly in the final argument.

The remnant argument. From among the Canaanites, a righteous remnant was saved.

Every person or nation who showed hospitality to Israel was delivered: Rahab and her entire family (Joshua 6:22, 25); the Gibeonites (Joshua 9); a man from Bethel (Judges 1:24-25); the Kenites (1 Samuel 15:6).

I find this argument the most helpful. In some ways it’s the story of Scripture—even though we all deserve death, God shows mercy. The fact these people are shown grace supports the slowto-anger argument because it provides further evidence God wanted to give the Canaanites opportunities to repent. God didn’t hate the Canaanites, but He hated their crimes, and He showed mercy to Canaanites who welcomed foreigners. God repeatedly commanded His own people to practice hospitality toward foreigners.

In each of these situations there are extenuating circumstances that could make it difficult to discern God’s attitude toward the deliverance (e.g., Rahab was a prostitute, the Gibeonites used deception). God’s voice may be absent as an initiator of these rescues, but He never condemns these acts of mercy toward Canaanites, and the New Testament’s perspective on Rahab is highly positive. This Canaanite prostitute is praised for her faith and hospitality and is given a place of high honor at the very beginning of the New Testament in the genealogy of Jesus.

Three Words oF adviCe

If you’re looking for an argument that “solves” the problem of the Canaanite conquest, keep looking.

No article can provide that. But hopefully, this has illustrated why some arguments are helpful and others aren’t.

Three final words of advice. First, keep asking questions about the text.

But as you do, keep going back to God’s word. The process will deepen your relationship with God. Second, discuss these problems with your friends. We all have a lot to learn from others, and we all desire the depth of friendship that comes from talking about things that matter.

Third, remember the mercy shown to a Canaanite woman more than 1,000 years before God’s ultimate act of love—sending Rahab’s descendant, Jesus, to the cross for the sins of the whole world.

DAVID LAMB is a professor of Old Testament at Biblical Seminary and the author of God Behaving Badly (InterVarsity Press).

As a Messiah student, you work to better the lives of others and discover that they better your life in return.

When you find opportunities for human connection in unlikely places, you become a force for Christian community in a fractured world.

Messiah College. See anew.

sharpening intellect deepening christian faith inspiring action

messiah.edu 800.233.4220

admiss@messiah.edu Grantham, Pa.

Come see us at a Fall 2011 open house Monday, Oct. 10; Saturday; Oct. 29 or Friday, Nov. 11

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Undergraduate students: 2,808 • Student/Faculty ratio: 13:1 • Percentage of students receiving financial aid: 99 • Athletics: 22 NCAA Division III sports • Majors: 55+ • Study abroad: 40+ locations

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RECOMMENDS

mUsIC/// wilco

LISTEN The first single off The Whole Love, “I Might.”

tHe WHole love (DBPm recorDS)

> Dubstep fuzz opens the latest Wilco release, then it erupts into a garage-rock takedown. The band had moved dangerously close to Van Morrison territory on their last two releases, but now, frequent pops and squiggles blend into an organ meltdown and brutally honest lyrics about long-lost love. “art of almost” clocks in at more than seven minutes long, and it’s one of their best songs ever. “Born alone” is another stunner, blending good-timey rhythms, genius drumming and intelligent wordplay. I am the driver at the wheel of the horror, Tweedy sings. Wait for the closing 12-minute dirge, which is an apt commentary on what happens after we die. I fell in love with the burden holding me down, he sings, lamenting his apparent disbelief but wondering if a friend may have been right all along.

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

GuNGOR GHOSTS UPON THE EARTH (BRaSH MUSIC)

ACTIVE CHILD YOU ARE ALL I SEE (VaGRanT)

> What if Michael Gungor spent a month studying a long-forgotten book by St. Francis of assisi?

He might have written Handel’s Messiah. as it stands, Ghosts Upon the Earth is an early pick for album of the year. Themes about creation and God’s intervention in the world came after a weeklong meditation in assisi. It’s astoundingly well-composed with brilliant harmonies, cascading glockenspiels and even a touch of Daft Punk (on the song “Wake Up Sleeper”) that rises from a melodically primordial ooze.

Somehow, it all works. Sufjan Stevens, watch your back!

> In his younger days, active Child synth-whiz Pat Grossi was a choir boy who belted out sustained notes in uncomfortable pitches. now, sounding like his vocal cords are still wrapped in cellophane, he sings with mesmerizing clarity— something like Bon Iver at a higher range. Musically, his debut rests comfortably on slight piano trills and airy orchestrations.

“Hanging On” is one part James Blake and one part new-age symbolism—every note seems to float away on a cloud. Is he the next best thing since Joanna newsom? Depends on how much you like whispery harp interludes.

WITH

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FOSTER THE PEOPLE TORCHES (STARTIME)

THE COOL KIDS WHEN FISH RIDE BICYCLES (GREEN LABEL SOUND)

BURLAP TO CASHMERE SELF-TITLED (JIVE/ESSENTIAL)

ST. VINCENT STRANGE MERCY (4AD RECORDS)

> Foster the People makes you

> The first surprise with The

> It took Nehemiah just 52 days

> On her previous two albums,

want to spell “party” in all caps.

They have a too-cool dancehall vibe a la LCD Soundsystem (minus the wicked-fun lyrics) that’s both pop-charm serious and a bit sarcastic. The song “Houdini” is infectiously joyous with its hammering piano and background “doo-wops.” “Pumped Up Kicks” is destined for iTunes greatness— eventually, the swirling synth is replaced by real people whistling.

(Maybe the chorus will become an Internet meme—who knows?) And on “Don’t Stop,” the band uses a gurgling baby loop to great effect.

Cool Kids is that they are on a label started by Mountain Dew. Just as perplexing: Their music is minimalistic and subdued, sometimes hardly even there, with various hip-hop luminaries (Ghostface Killah, Bun B) interjecting witty asides while a drum machine pounds away. That might sound cagey, but The Cool Kids is hop-hop for people who pay attention to subtlety. Talk to me, dawg, please don’t talk at me, raps Evan “Chuck Inglish” Ingersoll and Antoine “Sir Michael Rocks” Reed on the opening track. How true!

to build a wall around Jerusalem.

Burlap to Cashmere’s new sophomore album took them 10 long years. They write about Nehemiah (on “Build a Wall”), allude to theological poet Thomas Merton and shake the dust off their acoustic guitars with vigor.

With a slightly Mediterranean-folkby-way-of-Fleet Foxes approach, this self-titled album grows on you like an Egyptian plague—in a good way. And they’ve added a touch of Sun Kil Moon (on “Closer to the Edge”) with heavy doses of Paul Simon-style arrangements.

Annie Clark (better known as St. Vincent) revealed her slightly damaged pop sensibility.

On Strange Mercy, the multiinstrumentalist adds a few dancetechno touches interspersed with PlayStation-happy loops for texture. Like Metric’s Emily Haines, she belts out the same word or phrase over and over again (say, on the song “Cruel”) with swagger and grit. Yet she is no stranger to tender moments, as on the title track when she sings about a Hemingway jawline and the cruel vices of evil people.

TE

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RECOMMEnDS

dVds/// mEEk’s CUTOFF (oScilloScoPe laBoratorieS, Pg-13) > In Meek’s Cutoff, director Kelly Reichardt takes the classic Western and spins it on its head. She gives us no blissful caravans, no campfire songs, no heroic cowboys and no savage Indians. Her modern interpretation instead results in a raw, realistic drama about pioneer women and the harsh realities they face. The story, written by Jon Raymond, follows three families traveling the Oregon Trail, including an ever-so-convincing Michelle Williams as Emily Tetherow. Led by the uncertain Stephen Meek, the settlers find themselves lost in the desert with limited supplies and no end in sight. Reichardt captures this tone carefully—the slow, long shots of the lifeless landscape personify the travelers’ feelings and, at moments, their lack of hope.

Despite the bleak moments, though, these God-fearing souls never entirely give up. As the situation worsens, with lives lost along the way, they must rely on their true Guide more and more. It’s a beautiful picture of faith in the midst of suffering, and one that ultimately leads to life.

THE BEAVER (SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT, PG-13) > The Beaver is a powerful story

about empathy and redemption.

Plus, the comedic drama features one of Mel Gibson’s finest performances. Directed

by Jodie Foster, who also stars as a central character, the film centers on Gibson as Walter Black, a depressed family man who finds support in a beaver hand puppet. The premise leads to some hilarious moments but also makes a good point about Gibson himself, as well as those in similar circumstances. It challenges us to see them with compassion rather than judgment.

TROLL HUNTER (MAGNET RELEASING, PG-13) > This Norwegian mockumentary offers up a riveting story that’s both entertaining and intellectual.

The plot follows three student filmmakers who go to the forests of Western Norway. There, they wind up documenting a crazy troll hunter, Hans, as he goes on a quest to take down ugly, gigantic trolls.

On the surface, this makes for a suspenseful yet comical experience.

The film refuses to take itself seriously and boasts a brilliantly dry sense of humor. Below the surface, though, lie thoughtful ideas regarding mysticism and government, particularly surrounding Norwegian culture.

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WIN WIN (FOX SEaRCHLIGHT, R)

HANNA (FOCUS FEaTURES, PG-13)

> In his latest film, Win Win, writerdirector Tom McCarthy mixes a handful of plots and genres to create an amusing but moving work. Paul Giamatti carries it as Mike Flaherty, a struggling businessman. Mike tries to get out of a financial bind by breaking the rules but finds his plan compromised when he agrees to let a client’s grandson, Kyle, move in with his family. Kyle and Mike’s relationship proves to be just what both individuals need. as the two begin to make each other better people, the film transforms into a refreshing story of hope and friendship.

> In short, Hanna could be

described as Kick-A-- with a brain and soul. The similar premise centers on a young girl (Saoirse Ronan) who’s been trained by her father as a lethal assassin. She ends up on a dangerous mission to take revenge and kill—specifically, to kill a corrupt CIa agent (Cate Blanchett). But whereas KA merely existed for entertainment’s sake, Hanna seeks to make a point.

Within the thrilling plot, strong performances and screwy action sequences, a moral dilemma lies at the core. Ultimately, director Joe Wright asks if we should really be celebrating violence and mayhem.

THOR (PaRaMOUnT PICTURES, PG-13) > The superhero Thor is probably

the weirdest character in Marvel’s pantheon of superheroes. Son of norse god Odin, Thor occupies the strange stream of comics lore where gods dwell with humans and magic coexists with more “normal” superhero powers. Fortunately, the movie, directed by Kenneth Branagh, wrings plenty of fun out of the weirdness. The scenes in the mythical kingdom of Valhalla are awe-inspiring, but it’s Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) hilarious crash course in 21st-century america that gives Thor its heart.

JANE EYRE (FOCUS FEaTURES, PG-13) > Director Cary Joji Fokunaga’s new Jane Eyre does everything a good remake should: It respects the original while bringing something new to it. The film not only stays true to Charlotte Brontë’s novel and the morality of Jane’s character, but it also gives the story a new sense of relevance. This can be mainly credited to Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. Wasikowska reminds us of a time when we could actually respect our heroes and heroines. Even more, her romance with Fassbender recalls a time when love in the movies didn’t always end so hopelessly.

As Christ welcomes all, we welcome you.

We welcome your compassion.

We welcome your debate.

We welcome your theological journey.

Amber Brown | Indianapolis, IN Master of Arts (Religion) Student

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

800.264.1839 | www.lpts.edu

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RECOMMEnDS

BOOks/// gOd IN a BrOTHEl daniel walker (ivP BooKS) > Daniel Walker spent many years covertly battling human slavery in brothels around the globe. In God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue, Walker recounts these forays. Each chapter centers on a different country and individual victims, as Walker creates a vivid picture of the people involved in modern-day slavery, from the young children enslaved, to the “everyman” types who frequent the brothels, to the pimps who ruin young men and women’s lives for profit. God in a Brothel is different from other books that cover similar territory because of Walker’s unique perspective from his years battling the sex trade. His sacrifices for the cause are an important reminder for those who feel called to join the fight against slavery. Despite his deep wounds, which he shares in the book, he calls the reader to “come alive with a passion for justice and a hatred of evil” and dreams the Church would rise up to thwart impediments to freedom and justice wherever they exist.

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THE CURFEW JESSE BALL (VINTAGE)

STATE OF WONDER ANN PATCHETT (HARPER)

> Jesse Ball’s second novel, The Curfew, takes place in the dystopic city of C—“a series of objects whose relationship cannot be told with any certainty.” At the center of this tale is William, a famous violinist who, when music was banned, took up writing epitaphs for deceased citizens of C. When he ventures out past curfew and his fate becomes unclear, a parallel story told with marionettes and dictated by his young daughter begins. Ball’s poetic roots are on display as he distills his story with grace and beauty.

> Many readers will be familiar with Ann Patchett’s popular novel Bel Canto. She has done it again with State of Wonder, a story set in the Amazon rainforest. In Patchett’s telling, Dr. Marina Singh is a pharmaceutical researcher sent to the jungle to find Dr. Annick Swenson, who has spent decades studying a tribe whose women can conceive into old age. Patchett’s characters are complicated and memorable (particularly Dr. Swenson), and her richly imagined landscape allows the reader to inhabit the world of this beautifully written tale.

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FLIES MICHAEL DICKMAN (COPPER CANYON PRESS) > Michael Dickman’s second book, Flies, is an unexpected page-turner.

Why unexpected? Because it’s a collection of poetry, and when was the last time you read a book of poems you couldn’t put down?

Dickman’s poems are alive on the page, where he uses blank space, short, unexpected lines and expertly placed punctuation to drive the reader forward. The death of an older brother gives many of these poems a dark urgency, but Dickman also wrestles with hope, and within this work there is an innocence that, while lost, keeps looking for home.

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FOOD AND FAITH NORMAN WIRZBA (CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS) > As evidenced by the interest in where our food comes from, more Americans are saying no to the industrialization that alienates us from it. Norman Wirzba’s new book makes an important contribution to that conversation by developing a theological framework for assessing eating’s “immediate and ultimate significance.” Food is wrapped up in life, death, Creator and creation.

Thus, he writes, eating is “a summons to commune with divine Life that is presupposed and made manifest in every bite.”

DOWN WE GO KATHY ESCOBAR (CIVITAS PRESS) > Kathy Escobar had dedicated herself to climbing the ladder of success—until Jesus threw a wrench into the works. Now co-pastor of The Refuge in North Denver, Escobar reminds us that only by embracing a theology of brokenness (our own and others’) can we develop a culture of healing. Down We Go takes us to that vulnerable place where the rubber meets the road. But, as Escobar writes: “A life of comfort, predictability and self-protection was never the idea. Jesus embodied downward mobility and calls us to the same.”

THE INFLUENCING MACHINE BROOKE GLADSTONE (W.W. NORTON & COMPANY) > The media is a subject about which many have strong feelings but few stop to contemplate.

Brooke Gladstone helps a million people do that every week on NPR’s On the Media. Now she and artist Josh Neufeld have created a comic book “media manifesto.”

Her thesis is that mass media is a superabundance of mirrors reflecting and refracting our attitudes and priorities. Though you may disagree with some points, The Influencing Machine is a useful primer on a vital but under-considered topic.

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CONTENTS ISSUE 53 SEPT_OCT 2011

18

First Word

20

Letters

22

Slices

38

SPOTLIGHT: Krochet Kids

40

IN THEIR WORDS: DeVon Franklin

42

DEEPER WALK: Why Settle for Less?

44

THE PULSE: In Defense of Slow

46

REJECT APATHY: Beyond Fourth Grade

50

The Drop

60 FALLON

JIMM Y

Us & Our Daughters, The Head and the Heart, Bill Callahan

56

Is Fair Trade Fair?

64

(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It Why are most single Christians having sex?

70

Owl City

72

The Non-Essential Guide to Fall Fashion, fun and football (of the fantasy variety)

76

Death Cab for Cutie The band is finally happy—but not too happy

80

The Generation of Contrast

88

The Reinvention of Switchfoot

92

9/11 10 Years Later

98

Vera Farmiga

100

Don’t Quit Your Day Job ... Yet

104

Zee Avi

106

Reconciling the God of Love with the God of Genocide

114

Recommends

An in-depth look at what makes our generation tick

Practical ways to chase your dreams in the real world

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CARLOS CAMPO GALEN CAREY LISA SHARON HARPER SHANE CLAIBORNE RICHARD LAND ALEJANDRO MANDES EVE NUNEZ JASON L. RILEY MATTHEW SOERENS JIM WALLIS JENNY HWANG-YANG AND MORE

OCTOBER 20-22, 2011 . CEDARVILLE UNIVERSITY . CEDARVILLE, OHIO . CEDARVILLE.EDU/G92

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