Being The Church: A 21st Century Creed For The Church

In a world darkened by cruelty and power,
We will walk in compassion, clothed with mercy and kindness.
Where hearts grow cold and violence reigns,
We will be peacemakers, bringing hope in the midst of strife.

In an age obsessed with image and outward appearances,
We will value righteousness and purity of heart.
Where hypocrisy and performance deceive,
We will live with authenticity and grace.

In a culture that rejects with unrighteous judgement,
We will move toward others in the name of Christ.
When others say, “We don’t want you here,”
We say, “Come to God’s table, there is room at the feast for all.”

In a generation that calls evil good and good evil,
We will hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Where injustice is ignored and the weak are crushed,
We will act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

When the world chases wealth and self-exaltation,
We will pursue contentment, generosity, and humility.
Where pride builds thrones and hoards treasure,
We will follow the crucified King who gave himself for all.

When people trade love for lust and covenant for convenience,
We will honor one another with boundaries and sacred trust.
Where others use and discard,
We will protect, cherish, and remain faithful.

When others stir up hatred and division,
We will walk by the Spirit with love, peace, and self-control.
In the midst of a crooked and confused generation,
We will shine like stars by following in the footsteps of Jesus.

When And How Should Christians Publicly Fight For Their Faith?

How should the church’s voice and presence in 21st century culture mirror how God’s messages to the world were revealed by the prophetic voices in the Bible?

I have been wrestling with this for a while. The Bible clearly calls Christians to be “salt” that adds spiritual savor, to be “light,” that casts the light of truth and hope into a sin-darkened world (Matthew 5:13-16).  How do we do this well? What does the proverbial “word fitly spoken” look like? What is within our power to do to make sure we do not lose the savoriness of our salty message? How do we use our freedoms in a democratic system to best represent Christ and spread the life of the Kingdom of God?

THE CULTURAL CREED OF THE UNHOMED

If I’m honest, I’m not sure where I fit in anymore.

When I look around to see who is my political neighbor, I realize I’m in a land triangulated between the liberal Left, conservative Right, and those chaotic Libertarians. I didn’t feel like the 2016 presidential candidates from any of those three parties represented my moral universe adequately enough to get my vote. I cringe at CNN and Fox in equal measure. I increasingly feel that it is important for me not to be beholden to a “side” culturally or politically.

I’m just not the kind of guy who can say, “This party or person, do or die.” 

So I increasingly find myself wandering uneasily in the topography of a world that seems intent on filling in all the Valleys full of Gray Uncertainty and leveling all the Hills of Important Nuance.  

Don’t get me wrong - I like the Plains of Certainty and the Fields of Truth. I just want to acknowledge that those mountains and valleys of Uncertainty and Nuance exist. And I don’t want to climb them with cable news talking heads, youtube faux philosophers, conspiratorial bloggers, tweeting politicians or blindly partisan Christian leaders. 

I want fellow explorers who don’t mind the hard work, who know when and how to pick a philosophical fight full of grace and truth, and who will join me at The Brew afterwards at a table full of the laughter and tears of friends because, in the end, we are determined to love each other well in a world that is broken enough already.  

If we can do that with mutual thoughtfulness and respectfulness, that table might just feel a bit like home no matter what land I inhabit.

Here we go, in no particular order: The Cultural Creed Of The Unhomed.

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Empires, Shires, And Incense To Ceasar

I have been reading The Benedict Option, a book by Rod Dreher that generated quite a bit of discussion after it was released just over a year ago. I'm trying to think clearly about the argument he is making, which is basically that "the culture war as we know it is over," and the church needs to focus on building strong communities that learn from and build on Benedict's monastic model.  

My goal here is not to support or critique his argument since I've not yet finished the book (or read a rebuttal). However, as I have been reading his chapter on Christians and Politics, and I have had a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head.

So, if you are up for (perhaps) being unsettled, here are some excerpts from this chapter that will hopefully bounce thoughts around in your head as well - thoughts which I would love to hear either in the comment section on this post or on social media. I seem to remember reading that there is much wisdom to be found in a multitude of counselors...

Moving Into The Neighborhood

When Christianity first started, the followers of Jesus lived in a world full of people in situations that were really at odds with Christ and his teaching.  What were they to do now that they were spiritually Christian while almost everybody around them was a culturally very Roman?

    
The early followers of Christ often took an approach to spreading the Good News of the gospel that was not only counter-cultural to the Roman and Greek way of life, but was countercultural to how the church today often handles the uneasy tension between the church and society. The early church wanted to reach their cities – they cared about them, after all -  but they lived in places where they were surrounded by a lot of really bad stuff. 

Psychosexual Obesity And The Dating Apocalypse

Vanity Fair's "Tinder and the Dawn of the 'Dating Apocalypse'" is a must-read for those who are wondering where our culture is heading in terms of dating, sex and marriage. It's not an easy read, and it's R-rated graphic. I recommend it only because it is brutally honest about trending sexual behavior in the United States.

It's also helpful that it's not from, say, the Family Research Council. I have nothing against them, but we expect conservative or Christian groups to write about the ripple effect of unboundaried sex. It's not often a source such as Vanity Fair writes a story that, while not taking a stance about what people should do, clearly shows why so many people who are conservative or traditional in areas involving sex have legitimate reasons for being concerned about certain social trends.

I'm just going to highlight some excerpts. You can click on the link to go to the full article (which, once again, I recommend with great caution).

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It’s a balmy night in Manhattan’s financial district, and at a sports bar called Stout, everyone is Tindering… At a booth in the back, three handsome twentysomething guys in button-downs are having beers. They are Dan, Alex, and Marty… 

“Guys view everything as a competition,” he elaborates with his deep, reassuring voice. “Who’s slept with the best, hottest girls?” With these dating apps, he says, “you’re always sort of prowling. You could talk to two or three girls at a bar and pick the best one, or you can swipe a couple hundred people a day—the sample size is so much larger. It’s setting up two or three Tinder dates a week and, chances are, sleeping with all of them, so you could rack up 100 girls you’ve slept with in a year.” He says that he himself has slept with five different women he met on Tinder—“Tinderellas,” the guys call them—in the last eight days. 

And yet a lack of an intimate knowledge of his potential sex partners never presents him with an obstacle to physical intimacy, Alex says. Alex, his friends agree, is a Tinder King, a young man of such deft “text game”—“That’s the ability to actually convince someone to do something over text,” Marty explains—that he is able to entice young women into his bed on the basis of a few text exchanges, while letting them know up front he is not interested in having a relationship.

Six Flawed Claims in Buzzfeed's "I’m Christian But I’m Not…”

Plenty has been written about Buzzfeed's viral video featuring a number of people who address all the ways they believe Christians have been unfairly stereotyped. As much as I appreciate the spirit behind their attempt, I'm not thrilled with the attempt itself.  First, the fact that Christ is not mentioned in a discussion is a significant oversight. Second, though there are  some decent observations (you can read the whole text here), there are also a number of claims that reveal a fair amount of confusion about what it means to be a follower of the person and teaching of Jesus.

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"I’m Christian but I’m not close-minded."

Let’s not kid ourselves: everyone is close-minded about something. I am close-minded about torturing babies or driving drunk. I have friends who are close-minded about global warming, eating meat, and whether or not Christianity is a good idea. On the other hand, I am open-minded, if by that you mean I listen to competing voices on religion, politics, and current events, try to weigh them fairly, and seek to be honest about whether or not what I believe to be true actually is true.

It’s a virtue to keep an open mind – until it’s time to close it. Being close-minded isn’t automatically a bad thing – though it can be. It’s not always easy to identify when that moment arrives, but we all do it. In this case, I would hope that identifying as a Christian means someone has made an informed decision between the claims of Jesus and the claims of other world religions. Choosing to follow Jesus on biblical terms requires an agreement that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one has access to God except through Jesus (John 14:6). Even if followers of Christ entertain questions and doubts (as I suspect we all do in some fashion), if we claim to follow, obey and worship Jesus and not other gods, we have closed our minds around something.

It's Not Just Entertainment

As the Traverse City Film Festival approaches, anyone going to downtown Traverse City will inevitably see one or twenty posters with this year’s slogan: “One Great Movie Can Change You.” I completely agree. This is not a new insight, of course. People have recognized the power of entertainment for thousands of years. However, the slogan has encouraged me to revisit how the arts and entertainment both reflect and shape us.

Obviously, the arts reflect us as they respond constantly to the environment in which they occur. Read any Western Civilization textbook and you will see the ebb and flow over thousands of years. If a good story, song or image doesn’t resonate with something in a person’s life, no one is going to care, and the out-of-touch artist, author, musician, or filmmaker will lose his or her audience.

But entertainment shapes our culture as well. This was clearly the case even before ubiquitous media has burrowed into our 21st century psyche. Andrew Fletcher, a Scottish writer and politician, wrote of a wise friend who believed that “if a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation…most of the ancient legislators thought that they could not well reform the manners of any city without the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet.”

Finding The 'Hallow' in Halloween

As a child, I was raised in a Mennonite community that did not observe Halloween. From its roots to its current form, we saw nothing compelling or good about it. We gave treats to oddly arrayed children on our doorstep, but we never dressed up, never went out, and did our best not to support the holiday financially or emotionally. I didn't really care; my mom didn't let us kids eat much candy anyway.

I later moved out of that community and for the first time came in contact with a lot of sincere Christians who viewed Halloween as just another holiday. They experienced it as an exercise of imagination, a sort of exorcism of the spirits of fear from which we Christians have been freed. God had not redeemed us so that we would cringe in the face of evil, so they boldly subverted Halloween with a freedom foreign to my upbringing.

These very different experiences have given me plenty to ponder over the years. Though I have more to understand, I have several observations that I hope contain wisdom.

The Day Miley Couldn't Stop

As always, significant cultural events reveal significant things about our culture. MTV's recent Video Music Awards were no exception.  In the midst of MTV’s glittery ode to itself, Miley Cyrus hijacked twitter for a while, and for good reason: her performance was incredibly inappropriate. In an industry that prides itself on pushing the envelope, she managed to shock almost everyone. 

When I saw the footage the next day, I felt embarrassed for Miley. The desperation and emptiness in her performance was heart-breaking.  On the one hand, I am encouraged that so many people were bothered by what she did. On the other hand, I am puzzled by the duplicity of the uproar, specifically from those in the entertainment industry. After all, she just did what her song said she wanted to do. 

Here is what the VMA’s celebrated and Miley brought to life in "We Can't Stop":

Superpowers and Sins

 Question: When is it acceptable for a young man to pretend to respect authority but not actually do so; get revenge on people who embarrass him; break promises just because he doesn't like them; believe himself to be smarter than everyone else; act as a vigilante instead of working within the system; sneak his girlfriend out against her parents' wishes; and steal from other people so he can get what he wants.

Answer: When he is the new version of the Amazing Spider-Man.  Being a superhero, it seems, covers a multitude of sins.

    

There was a time in which superheroes put their true personality on display.  Who they were when they put the mask on matched who they were when they took the mask off.  The recent movie Chronicle did a great job showing how power magnifies who we already are, and for that reason must be used with caution. The ordinary moments matter.  Not so with the new and improved Amazing Spider-Man.

Here's the thing about Peter Parker in all the other tellings of his of origin:  Peter is a really good guy. He is smart, hard working and devoted to his aunt and uncle.  He usually makes the right choice.  His defining moment is when he dosen't stop the thief who eventually kills Uncle Ben.  Peter realizes that a lifetime of good choices can be wiped out by one lapse of judgement, and he spends the rest of his life making up for it. Whereas Batman was driven by vengance, Spiderman was driven by guilt.  In the Ultimate Spiderman arc, Peter is killed while saving everyone on his block.  As he dies he tells his aunt May, "It's ok, I couldn't save uncle Ben, but I could save you."

The Peter Parker in this movie gets his powers by breaking the rules. He takes no personal responsibility. The famous "With great power comes great responsibility" does not even make an appearance.  He goes after his uncle's killer for vengance.  He breaks a promise to Captain Stacey - who the comic book arc shows to be prescient about the danger Spidey poses to his daughter. This Peter is a mix of Twilight's Edward and Bruce Wayne.  He is brooding, mean-spirited, and full of anger.  Even his quips feel angry.

The first Spiderman ended with Peter saying it was his curse to be alone.  This Spiderman ends with Peter saying that he doesn't care about promises or the risk that Gwen is taking.  He just cares about himself. The new breed of superhero can apparently be self-absorbed, arrogant and dishonest when the mask is off, then transform into someone awesome when the mask is on.

Two scenes stood out to me. In one scene, Spider-Man stands framed in front of the American flag.  It was a great movie shot, but I wonder: what did Spider-Man stand for that mirrors the American Dream?  Arrogance?  Self-aggrandizing? Dishonesty?  Revenge? In the second scene, Aunt May says, "If there's one thing you are, it's good."  Really?  Good how? And at what, exactly?  In order for that statement to even make sense, I had to draw from the older version of Spider-Man, a hero who was kind, honest, empathetic, and sincere.

Being a superhero is a burden and a privilege. Since it magnifies sins, weaknesses and failures along with strengths, the truly heroic seek to become better people in the ordinary moments of life.  There is no better marker for learning who you will be when the great moments arise.

The Wolves of Mercy Falls

In an attempt to enter into and better understand the stories, worldviews, and messages shaping my kids and the rest of today's youth, I submit the latest review of trending books, films, and TV shows effecting a primarily YA audience. My goal is not to critique the art form as much as look at how the story reflects and shapes  the readers' worldview.

There will be spoilers.
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THE BOOK
     
Maggie Stiefvater has written a a trilogy entitled The Wolves of Mercy Falls.  While her latest, The Scorpio Races, has her on the front pages of literary news, this trilogy has excelled as well. 

THE PLOT

Grace lives in Mercy Falls.  As a child, she was bitten by what she now knows to be werewolves.  She never turned, but the connection between herself and one wolf in particular is undeniable.  That wolf saved her from the rest of the pack’s ferocity, and now he lingers at the periphery of Boundary Woods, watching and protecting her still.

 
When her guardian werewolf reverts to human form and introduces himself, the unobtainable becomes real.  Sam and Grace can finally love each other.  Unfortunately, Sam has this bad habit of reverting to the wolf, and Grace can feel the inevitable rise of the animal within her as well. 

  
Can two people so badly damaged find true love?  Can Sam and Grace find a way to put the monster behind them and become fully human? And will they live long enough to find out? 

  
Based on interviews, Mrs. Stiefvater wanted to capture (among other things) the war inside between the human and animal parts of our nature, and as such the story starkly addresses moral dilemmas and murky lines between truth and lies. She noted in an interview with Teen Ink, “I wish teens would step outside themselves and see how their actions are really affecting themselves and others — and then do their best to be heroes in their own lives.” 

  
That’s not a bad goal. The question is whether or not she achieved it.

Lapsing into Chaos

     German social philosopher Arnold Gehlen talked about two parts of society: the foreground and the background. The foreground is the area of life in which people willingly and freely make choices.  The background is the area in which people automatically fulfill certain societal or communal expectations.

• When Kobe Bryant shoots, his form is background – he’s practiced that shot release ten thousand times, so he doesn’t have to figure out each time where his elbow should be.  His decision when to shoot, however, is foreground.
• When I leave my house, I wear clothes (background), but I choose to wear Ohio State colors (foreground).
• I buy presents at Christmas (background), but choose gifts to match the recipients (foreground).
• At a blinking red light, I stop (background), and I choose to go when there is an appropriate break in traffic (foreground).  

Modernity moves the background to the foreground.  In other words, it takes what we accept as normative and makes it subjective. Before, people went about their daily routine without too much reflection (self-aware choice) on particular issues, as the background institutions in society brought predictability and normalized structure to their lives. Not any more.

Modernity has given the power and heightened the desire of choice.  People have increasingly rejected the power of tradition and institutions and have begun to find their own way through life.

Since modernity has brought about an increasing amount of foreground reflection, we increasingly reject the power of institutions and embrace what Gehlen called secondary institutions, which “offer entire packages of beliefs, norms, and identities to individuals.”

If this is true, it would explain the rise of radical environmentalist and animal rights movements, the increasing polarization in politics, the increased belief in the sacredness of artistic expression, and the monomaniacal fixation on sports among middle and high school families (ever spent a weekend at a travel league soccer tournament?).

All of these things have their place, of course, but not as replacement background institutions which guide and shape every area of life. Based on my past 15 years of working with youth as a pastor and teacher, I believe there are three huge background shifts effecting American culture.

Bitterblue: Fighting for Truth in a Kingdom of Lies

In an attempt to enter into and better understand the stories, worldviews, and messages shaping my kids and the rest of today's youth, I submit the latest review of trending books, films, and TV shows effecting a primarily YA audience. My goal is not to critique the art form as much as look at how the story reflects and shapes  the readers' worldview.

There will be spoilers.
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Kristin Cashore's recently released Bitterblue, the sequel to Graceling, premiered at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller List. If early reviews and previous successes are any indication, the list of accolades will be impressive – and deservedly so. Ms. Kashore is a gifted writer who spends years honing her books, and it shows.

THE BASIC PREMISE


The story takes place approximately 10 years after Graceling ends. Bitterblue, once rescued from certain doom by Katsa and Po, now rules a kingdom still reeling from what Bitterlblue calls “the rape of her mind” by her maniacal father, the former king. He had subjected the realm to unspeakable cruelty with a Grace (a gift) that made people believe the lies he told to cover up his fixation with torture and murder. Many people disappeared when he was alive; many more still hide very dark secrets even though he is long gone.

Though the people are beginning to recover emotionally, physically, and economically, the new queen faces a daunting task. Overwhelmed by responsibilities and immersed in paperwork, Bitterblue passes her days isolated from not only her kingdom but also the servants in the castle. When she finally realizes that this isolation is orchestrated rather than incidental, and that her father’s legacy still rules from the grave, she determines to find out the truth of her father’s lingering influence for herself.

Bitterblue begins to leave the castle, slipping at night “ into a world of stories and lies.” A series of furtive campaigns into the city giver her an unfiltered view of the kingdom. The underground rebellion she finds slowly reveals what she must do to break the nation free from her father’s lingering horrors.

But her father was not the only one with a capacity for deceit, and Bitterblue has a lot to learn about what it means to rule – and live - with truth, justice, and integrity. Secretive advisors and lying friends may surround her, but some secrets are best kept hidden, and the deception of friends may sometimes be a gift. Bitterblue has no Graces, but she has heart, determination, and a longing for truth. Will that be enough?

Are You Not Entertained?

       Because of the nature of the entertainment industry, my friends and I consume entertainment produced primarily by non-Christians, which means it will contain chaff that needs to be separated from wheat.  Not surprisingly, the three of us disagree on what is chaff, and how much is acceptable. The Walking Dead of Modern Family? Breaking Bad or The Office?  Mad Men or Men of a Certain Age?   
     What follows in a discussion as "iron sharpens iron." It is not the end of the matter.  Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts.
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A. Weber: When it comes to entertainment, I like John Stonestreet's template:

• Is it true (does it show the world honestly)?
• Is it good (is it of high quality)?
• Is it noble (does it make us want to be better people)?

    There are some other questions that follow from those three questions: With whom/what does the story want us to identify? What is the source of redemption? Does the sin tempt us, distract us, or appall us?What are the assumed messages about the world? A couple examples:

• Though I am drawn to Game of Thrones, it doesn't fit this template.  The writing was good (high quality), and the story was true (actions have appropriate consequences), but even though I  wanted to be Ned Stark, I felt in some way dirtied by the amount of evil in the book, like I had wallowed in a world from which I emerged a little more hardened, a little more disillusioned, a little more broken than before. That's not noble.
•  The first two seasons of The Walking Dead mostly fit.  Though the quality of the writing has dropped, the series has been mostly good (especially Season 1), true (it shows how the evil and the good wrestle within all of us) and noble (I can clearly see good and bad characters and their actions, and I cheer or jeer appropriately).  Based on how Season Two ended, I'm not sure my opinion will hold.
• I'm almost done with Season Two of Men of Certain Age.  It is very good; it is largely true, but it's "hit and miss" handling sin in a way that always enobles me.  The characters played by Ray Ramano and Scott Bakula sleep around and gamble, but if I see real world consequences, and I'm not seduced into their weaknesses with them, I'm okay with those situations being portrayed.  As Season Two winds down, I would say the show overall contrasts the emptiness and pointlessness of sin with the reward of commitment, faithfulness, and character.

K. Meszaros: Those criteria are fine, but you are picking and choosing your examples.  Saw, Boogie Nights and Show Girls could be made to fit the above criteria depending on how you define your terms.  I suppose they were all done well to some degree; each one said something true about the world, and I don't think anybody walked away wanting to be a serial killer, porn star, or stripper. They even be more determined not to be any of those things than before.  I would go with some criteria like this:

• Does the writer intend for us to root for the bad guy or for evil to prevail?  (The Oceans movies, Pirates, or The Godfather)
• Are there consequences for evil actions?  (Ben on Lost)
• Is there a lot of nudity? (Basic Instinct, Show Girls, or Boogie Nights)
• What is the trajectory of the main characters? (Do they get worse or better?  See The Shield or Sopranos)
• Is redemption a key part of the show? (Lost or Star Wars)
• Is sin viewed as desirable? (The American Pie movies or any daytime soap)
• Is evil an unbeatable force? (Constantine or just about any slasher film vs. Stephen King's Desperation)
• Given that we have almost limitless entertainment choices, if something is iffy, can I find a cleaner substitute?  (Why watch Transformers when I could watch Thor?)

S. Smith:  I'm not sure how you conclude that movies that entertain with torture, porn, and stripping can be in any way noble.  Do you really think people walked away better people for having seen it? Sure, they can claim they do, but I think simply viewing the subject matter undermines whatever decision they make to not be like that or treat people that way. I think Stonestreet's criteria does exactly what you want it to.

KM: Okay, take the question, "Does it make me want to be a better person?"  In Saw, the killer is torturing people because he is dying of cancer and they are taking life for granted.  It’s actually a pretty in-depth story, just with bloody torture.  One could easily say, “Saw makes me appreciate the blessings God has given me - including life.” Sure, the presentation is pretty awful, but doesn't AW's  criteria of nobility only ask about the end result?  And I don't think his view automatically excludes nudity.  That would, for example, exclude Schindler's List.

SS:  Is it possible that some people could take something positive from Saw?  Maybe, as long as Saw doesn't provide a justification or create sympathy for torture and violence.  But what about just the idea that it uses torture as entertainment?  Perhaps "nobility" should not be measured just what you do when you leave (the end result), but by what's happening to you while you watch (the process).
    Same for Showgirls and Boogie Nights.  There might be a story arc with a form of redemption, but let's be honest: they make us want to see more naked women. This does not promote truth or nobility, no matter how good I may think it is, or how hard the filmmaker is trying to send a positive message.

AW:  Here's a different example (and a little less extreme).  I don't like Pretty Woman because it does not make me want to be a better person. It makes me want to find a stunning hooker in need of rescuing and rescue her, and I don't mean with the help of Jesus.  I don't think the movie is true on two key points: assuming all I have read is true, prostitues are not as happy as Julia Roberts; and relationships that start like theirs do not work in the real world.   Pretty Woman may have been "good," but it was not true or noble.

KM: So what do you do with sitcoms?  As much as Joey should come down with HIV on "Friends," he can’t because it ruins the situation which makes the sitcom work.  And in order to be funny, the characters have to warped.  You’re not going to find many role models on sitcoms, because by nature they are not trying to be real people; they are creating stereotypes to satirize both good and bad things. This may bother you, but it doesn’t me because I know they are not trying to show real life.  So, it's not "true" at all, but can't it still be good and noble?

AW:  The fact the sitcoms reset is one thingI dislike about them. People start to think they can live episodic lives, and their real world lives are becoming disastrously fragmented as a result.  This does not mean individual episodes do not contain good things, but the medium sends a message.  When life is broken down into unconnected episodes, that is part of a worldview that people absorb. Sure, they can be noble and good, but it's tough for them to be true (though that's probably the case for everything on television simply because of the medium).
    My bigger concern with today's comedies is that they make me laugh at things I shouldn't. The Office is funny, but should I really be laughing at Oscar and Dwight?  Good, true, noble entertainment should make my emotions match the real world. I want to laugh or cry at the right things, otherwise life gets very confusing.

KM: So what funny things can Christians watch?   Tommy Boy makes fun of drug addicted gluttons.  Planes, Trains, and Automobiles makes fun of another overweight dude.  Jim Carrey spends Dumb and Dumber trying to get laid.  Every comedy purposely distorts the world and makes fun of sin.  I don’t know how you get around it.  Sometimes, laughing at serious issues helps to change our perspective in a good way while our guard is down - it's the spoonful of sugar.  Isn't that why God gave us a sense of humor?

AW:  If the Bible were a long-running TV show, would it be acomedy, tragedy, or both? Perhaps you are right about comedies; I can see  Ecclesiastes working great as an Old Testament version of Men of a Certain Age.  On the other hand, I'm pretty certain King Saul would star in an early version of Breaking Bad. Either way, the genres would have to capture how honest, deep, whimsical, dark, light, beautiful, true, noble, good, and hopeful the Bible.  I'm trying not to settle for less from my TV.

Divergent

In an effort to keep up with an increasingly influential entertainment culture, I recently walked into Horizon Bookstore in Traverse City and asked the manager, “What’s the next Hunger Games?” Though the HG trilogy was not ideal, there was a lot to like, especially in comparison to other recent series (I'm talking to you, Twilight).
   
The answer? Divergent.

This is the beginning of what I hope will be a long list of reviews of trending YA books.  It is my attempt to enter into and better understand the stories, worldviews, and messages shaping today's youth.  I hope you find the reviews helpful.
 
Oh, and one other thing: There will be spoilers.
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 Divergent is the first book in a trilogy (the second book, Insurgent, has been released) for which the movie rights have already been optioned. 

THE BASIC PREMISE

The story is set in a dystopian future where a decision has been made to separate people into five key factions, each representing a key virtue needed to make society work. 

“Decades ago our ancestors realized that it is not political ideology, religious belief, race, or nationalism that is to blame for a warring world.  Rather, they determined that it was the fault of human personality – of mankind’s inclination toward evil, in whatever form that is.  They divided into factions that sought to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world’s disarray….     

Those who blamed aggression formed Amity (peace). Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite (knowledge). Those who blamed duplicity created Candor (truth). Those who blamed selfishness became Abnegation (selflessness). Those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless (fearless)."

In this world, faction is everything. “Without a faction,” we read more than once, “we have no purpose and reason to live.”  In some ways, the story reads like a commentary on the polarization of political, economic and religious factions within America. As far as introducing a YA audience to the dangers of this disconnection, Divergent does a great job.  There’s even a study guide at the back with questions to help readers (and book groups) wrestle with some of the deeper issues raised.

Bumper Sticker Logic

 While driving through town today, I pulled up behind a car sporting the following bumper sticker: "My sh**** attitude is none of your f****** business."  Except there were no asterisks, and now it was my business.  In fact, it was the business of everybody who pulled up behind that particular car.  It immediately became my business because it's the kind of publicly displayed message that makes my 12-year-old look away with embarrassment as he reads it, and makes me hope my 6-year-old in the back seat doesn't use that sentence to work on his phonics.

 My initial annoyance at the lack of social grace was momentary, but I became increasingly bothered by the bad thinking.  The bumper sticker makes no sense. The slogan is just a condensed way of saying, "I am going to make you pay attention to something that is none of your business, and then get angry and swear at you because you don't ignore my passive aggressive obnoxiousness."

I am convinced we have become a society that ponders serious issues without much more than bumper sticker depth. Unfortunately, the supporting evidence is everywhere.
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"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."  This one tops my list, because so many other equally foolish statements find confirmation here.  Does this mean the expense tabs, the debt, the compromises of morality, the memories, and the hotel towels all actually, truly stay there?  The Hangover was a morally bankrupt movie, but even Hollywood had the decency to show a little bit of a ripple effect.

 The Vegas slogan is a brilliant ad campaign - who wouldn't want a free pass on anything they do for a couple days?  The problem is, it's just not true.  What would happen if a plaintiff said to the judge, "You know, what happened in my car while I was driving drunk should stay in the car."  Or if a skydiver kept muttering, "What happens in the air stays in the air."  Uh, no.  What happens anywhere happens in real life; it matters. There are no free passes.
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"What happens in the privacy of my bedroom is nobody's business," and its close cousin, "Keep the government out of my bedroom." 
  
Let's be honest. What we are really saying is this: "I want to live in a nation where everybody agrees that any sexual action in which we (specifically 'I') engage in privately is okay, and won't have any effect outside of the moment."  But that's not true.

Deeper Hungers and Darker Games

 I'm a big fan of honesty in fiction. 

 I don't want cookie-cutter personalities, saccharine love, or shallow stereotypes.  I want the author to convince me to cheer for heroes and against villains - and I want to know why the heroes and villains are worthy of the label.  I want grit and beauty, despair and hope, love and loss. If a story tells me what the world is like, I don't mind if it’s happy or grim.  I want actions to have real consequences, and I want to feel like I ought to feel if the same situation were happening in real life.
   
I want to believe that some things are worth fighting for and some things are not, and I want to be reminded that people can be redeemed though not all will be.

This is why I like The Hunger Games series. There have been some really good posts about these books (Holly Ordway's comes to mind, as does J.W Wartick's); since I would be both redundant and boring if I covered the same ground, I will address an issue I have not heard discussed much elsewhere.

 The Hunger Games is entirely a world without God.

Suzanne Collins does not give even the slightest nod to God or religion. As a result, she has done a stellar job introducing a YA audience to a dystopian, godless future that reveals the horrors of unbridled human nature.  As a Christian, I don't mind that God is absent from the story.  If an author is going to write about a world without God, then show a world without God.  I just want the story to be honest about how awful that world would be - and it is.

•   There is no Higher Power to give objective standard for justice. Neitzsche said that when everybody understands that God is dead, they will know they are beyond such petty labels as "good" and "evil" and will simply exercise power.  In The Hunger Games, what happens when one corrupt regime is replaced?  The next regime moves in with the seeds of corruption already sown. The State kills people without benefit of trial or proof; so does President Snow.  So do the rebels.  Gale might just be the ideal Neitzschean Superman, finally able to move beyond attachments and emotions and wield his power on behalf of a regime that is new, but not that different.

•   There is no Higher Standard for morality.  Malcolm Muggeridge once wrote: “If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner.”  Neil Postman noted, "Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."  Collins’ world without God captures both these possibilities. Those in the Capital who are not abusing or being abused by power are consumed with ease and pleasure.  The rebels “fight the system,” but what can they offer to replace it?  They are already intoxicated with the power they have. The distorted pleasure will follow, as we see foreshadowed in the agreement to have yet another Game.  

• There is no Source of Hope outside ourselves.  Where does one find hope in the midst of the brutality and pain?  The only thing the book offers is relationships with others.  While I believe in the meaningfulness of community and companionship, that is the only hope in the story. Justice is either brutal, corrupted, or vigilante, and no ultimate justice will one day make things right.  There are no miracles, no unblemished saviors, no trustworthy authority figures.  There is only others - and even the hope found in them is broken. (The last chapter in the series is simultaneously hopeful and tragic - a measure of peace has been found, but it's a broken hallelujah). 

•  There is no Purpose to history.  In Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited, White, the nihilistic atheist, says: “The darker picture is always the correct one. When you read the history of the world you are reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore. And yet we imagine that the future will somehow be different.” What will happen in Katniss’s world?  No way to tell, really, but White appears to be correct.  If there were a Book Four, I suspect we would see the new government looking more and more like the old regime.  Even the best of the rebels seemed to lose their soul by the time the revolution was complete.  The Mockingjay can only repeat what it knows; just like the iconic bird, the individual characters appear to be only echoes of the people and events that have formed them.  Why should governments be exempt?

This list might leave the impression the series is not worth reading, but that is not the case at all. The series has a lot to offer in a world awash in worldview battles. Collins did not shy away from the reality of the world she created. There were no false moments.  If one can learn truth equally well through a story that shows compelling good as well as disgusting evil, The Hunger Games has done a lot in the service of truth, even if the story is disturbing and grim.
 

 Contrast this approach with another recent YA phenomenon: Twilight. The series is full of bizarre distortions of reality - it never does the story, the characters or the reader the honor of allowing something real to happen.
 
Young, impressionable teenage girls absorb the message that putting all one’s self-worth in one boy is okay; that stalking is romantic; that ordinary, boring friends are losers; that a love triangle involving a teenage girl and two really dangerous men (one who is much older than she) is really cool; and that rough sex is okay if he loves you (you only bruise the ones you love!) No, thank you.  I am not entertained.

Let's not kid ourselves; today’s youth know that life is grim. They already know that parents die, friends can turn on them, power can corrupt, and even the best relationships are full of tension and pain.  For many, life looks so overwhelming at times that the only thing they can do is hide for a while and wonder how they can possibly be made whole.  Maybe they are drawn to this story because it does them the honor of giving them truth.

I'd much rather they read a story that takes life seriously than one that insults them with beautiful twilight lies. At least now we are in the realm of truth, and the truth of Christ has the ability to bring hope, life, and light into very dark lives indeed.

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Recommended Reviews of The Hunger Games:
Christian Reflection on the Hunger Games Trilogy - very thorough post from J.W. Wartick
The Hunger Games, Ethics and Christianity - another post about the role of luck
Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy - good overview and perspective of the series as literature
Blood-Stained Ink has a three-part series worth reading
From Emily Torres' Dystopia Ministries - a series of short articles on how our culture is intersecting with the Capital.
A series based on The Hunger Games and Philosophy begins here.