Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1150: Sex, Violence, Profanity, and the Death of Christian Art: Josh Porter

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Joshua S. Porter is pastor of teaching and creative vision at Van City Church in Vancouver, Washington. He is also a former member of the experimental art-punk band, Showbread, and the author of the novel Punk Rock Vs. the Lizard People. His most recent book is With All Its Teeth: Sex, Violence, Profanity, and the Death of Christian Art, which examines a biblical theology of art. Find out more and connect with Joshua at joshuasporter.com. In this podcast conversation, we talk a lot about how Christians should think through offensive themes in movies and music. We discuss the genre of horror and why it's intrinsically spiritual. We talk about Christian themes in secular movies and music, the meaning of "Christian" music and film, whether sex and nudity in films should also be rejected, the theme of nudity in historic Christian art, and some problems with contemporary "Christian" worship music. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hey friends, I want to let you know that I have a book coming out in March of 2024. It's called Exiles, The Church in the Shadow of Empire. If you've been listening to me for more than like five seconds, you've probably heard me use the phrase exile or, you know, that we are exiles living in Babylon. And, you know, that's something I've said for many years. And so this book is kind of the culmination of my thinking through the question, what is a biblical theology of a Christian political identity? So this book does just that. It looks at how the people of God throughout scripture navigated the relationship with the various nations and empires that they were living under in order to cultivate a framework for how Christians today should view their relationship

with whatever state or empire that they are living under. So I invite you to check it out. It's available for pre-order now. Again, the name is Exiles, the Church in the Shadow of Empire. Check it out. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is my friend Josh Porter. Josh is a writer, a musician, and a pastor. And he recently released his book, With All Its Teeth, Sex, Violence, Profanity, and the Death of Christian Art. Josh is, he's not your conventional pastor, let's just say. He's an artist, a really provocative and profound thinker. I think he's a brilliant writer, and I just love talking to him. And this is a topic that he's thought passionately about for

a long, long time. He's incredibly theological, very artistic. And in this book, he combines both of those themes together. And that's what we talk about. We talk about all kinds of things related to watching movies, Christian music. What is offensive? Should Christians watch offensive themes and movies? And is there such thing as Christian art? Is there such thing as Christian music? What about worship music and so on and so forth? So we do get a little bit edgy in this conversation, but I think we do so in a mature, tasteful way. So without further ado, please welcome back to the show, the one and only Josh Porter. All right, Josh Porter, welcome back to Theology in a Row.

I don't know what number this is, two or three? I keep showing up, yeah. You keep tabs on this? So you have a new book out, which I usually don't just jump in and talk about people's books, but your books always have the best titles. With All Its Teeth, Sex, Violence, Profanity, and the Death of Christian Art. Can Christian art go too far? That's how I want to begin this conversation.

Can we begin there? I mean, you push the, well, let me know if you even like this phrase, push the envelope in artistic expression. That almost sounds negative. That almost sounds like a negative way of putting it, which I don't mean it to be, but okay. Yeah. So, why don't you start by giving us your, what is your theory or theology of art in general and Christian art in particular? Well, when I first sat down to write the book about what it means to be a Christian and to not just make art, but to receive art, I think that there are many people, as is my understanding, that kind of labor under this idea that to appreciate art or to even comprehend art you have to be some kind of creatively wired individual or to have this unique palette um a god-given palette if you like and uh not only is that not true theologically

it's just not true functionally you know everyone is inundated all day long with all kinds of things that people have made for better or for worse. You know, you'll look at screens and you'll sit on furniture and you'll eat food. And so to argue that art appreciation is unavoidable, or at least art consumption, receiving art is unavoidable. You have to come up with, you have to work out a definition of what art is. That was pretty difficult. I thought that that'd be the easier part of the book. And you spend, I don't know, a couple of years reading through art theory. And a lot of our great, you know, art theorists have been, figures throughout church history have been Christians. And there's all kinds of different, you know, there's the imitation theory and there's the moral, there's all these different theories of what art is and what

qualifies as art. So eventually I abandoned trying to get it from those, trying to get it from, you know, Immanuel Kant and Tolstoy and those people. And not, this sounds like such a pretentious thing to say, but I actually tried to just do a biblical theology of art and what qualifies as art in the Bible. What kind of art does God make? What kind of art does God commission and encourage? And the definition I use in the book is that when God or people make things that evoke ideas, emotions, or aesthetics, that's art. So that definition doesn't have anything to say about like any moral character to the art or any kind of qualitative definition. You know what I mean? It doesn't say anything about whether or not it's good. I find that when you ask people like what's art and what's not art, they tend to rush toward qualitative

definitions like, well, you know, I don't know, you know, a film by you fill in the blank prestige director, that's art, but you know, the animated, a Minions movie, that's not art. But under the definition I use in the book, they both are, because it doesn't say anything about whether or not you think it's good or what kind of aesthetic qualities it does or doesn't have. It's just when god or people make things um that communicate ideas emotions or aesthetics that's art so i think you know by that definition you open the doors to all kinds of like okay well but that doesn't say any kind of moral thing about art or whether or not art can or can't be offensive, and according to whom, and what qualifies as quote-unquote Christian art. And then, you know, I do that whole definition of art thing in like the first chapter of the book, and then the rest is arguing out all that other stuff.

But the short answer to the question you opened with is, in my personal opinion, I don't believe that art can, quote unquote, go too far in the broad, like kind of, you know, objective sense. I do think that art can go, quote unquote, too far for the individual sensibilities. individual sensibilities. And that's where I would argue that things like, you know, conviction, discernment, accountability, and community enter in. But, you know, historically, I guess I shouldn't use, historically is too long sounding a term, but in modern church history, there's been a tendency to, you know, kind of react and say, this is offensive to me, There's been a tendency to, you know, kind of react and say, this is offensive to me. Therefore, it should be offensive to everyone. Therefore, no one should be enjoying or receiving or even thinking critically about this art.

And, you know, that's why I put all those buzzwords in the title, because those are the things that tend to color our conversations, at least in contemporary Christian culture or Western contemporary Christian culture about like, well, is there sex in it? Is there violence in it? Are there swear words? And which has led to a kind of, you know, deficit in Christian art appreciation, at least in my personal opinion. Yeah. Would you say that like the whole idea of Christian art, I would love to explore. Well, I, yeah, I have another question, but it's kind of maybe we should answer that question first. Like what is Christian art? Because I've heard some people say, or even like Christian music, that some people say Christian is an identity that a human being has. The idea of Christian art doesn't even make sense. It's kind of a nonsensical or Christian music.

Music can be sang by Christians. Music can contain themes that are related to Christianity, but the very wording of Christian music is kind of nonsensical. I've heard people say that. Would you agree with that or would you? No, I agree. But I would at least extend the caveat that theologically I agree that that's true, that art belongs to God. He made it up.

It was his idea, and he's the first and best artist. So art, even art that is, quote unquote, anti-God in its ideological content, they're still using a resource that God invented. So I don't think it makes a tremendous amount of sense to say, like, Christian art, because in a certain theological sense, all art is Christian, you know, and the idea that it belongs to God, God made it up. But I think, you know, functionally, there's a reason that we use that moniker, you know, and if people I don't mean to like, it's just kind of becomes a semantic conversation where someone's like a Christian band or a Christian movie. And I know what you mean by that. And it's almost like sub genres of music. You sound like a butthead when you're like, post hardcore indie, whatever. But to a certain person, that's helpful. You know what I mean? They're like, great. Now I know exactly what you're like post hardcore indie whatever but to a certain person that's helpful you know what i mean they're like great now i know exactly what you're talking about and there is you know like the chosen is a christian tv show you know what you fill in the blank big worship band is a

christian band in the sense that it explicitly and expressly communicates um christian ideas at a surface level and so in the kind of art and commerce world, you know what you're getting, if I say Christian band or Christian movie. But there are a lot of great artists that make movies or that make music that blur the usefulness of that moniker, if you what i mean and in that sense like if i say i'm trying to think of um something big enough to use that everyone would or a band like um switchfoot for example uh which has had a tremendous amount of mainstream success in the music industry um and i'm i'm guessing a tremendous amount of people enjoy without knowing that the musicians

in swish foot are christians or prophet you know because uh they they don't sing songs that explicitly fit the kind of cookie cutter mold of what christian quote-unquote industry christian music industry music music should sound like right um but as i don't know switch for personally but from what I understand that these guys are Christians and they've gone about their musical career a certain way that doesn't look like, you know, even a band like the band that I was in, which, you know, we sang about Jesus pretty explicitly all the time and used his name in our song lyrics. That was just an aesthetic decision on my part. It wasn't any kind of industry decision or ideological decision. So I think it's helpful in conversation to

identify certain things as Christian, even though theologically, I would push back on that paradigm. But I'm not trying to be a butthead if somebody's like, oh, Switchfoot's a Christian man. I get what you mean by that. You know what I mean? The whole concept is a little fuzzy to me because when you start exploring what constitutes... Let's just stick to music for a second. And I feel nervous because you're the musician. I'm everything. It's not a musician, but I love music and I love thinking about these things. Yeah. What constitutes... When does something become Christian music? Like if it sings explicitly about Jesus or what if it sings about true things in the world? What if it sing, does it have to correspond with biblical themes? Well, then we could talk,

we can sing about genocide. We could, we could lament the absence of God. I mean, if we sang some of the Psalms, like Psalm 88, where God, you would think the guy's, I think it's a guy, the author, right? Is it David? I don't remember. You would almost wonder if he's a believer or not. He's almost like deconstructing, you know, where God, where are you? And there's no resolution. There's a ton of violence in the Bible. Like if we sing about the conquest of Joshua and the slaughtering of human children to clear the land for the Israelites and express, you know, uh, bewilderment over this, you know, would that be a Christian song? Because, well, it's singing about a biblical event. Well, what if you sing, simply sing a song about breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend?

Do Christians not break up with boyfriends and girlfriends? Is that not an experience that Christianity, is that an anti-Christian thing to do, to have a boyfriend or to break up with a boyfriend? What if a boyfriend, what if it was pushes you towards Christ to break up with his boyfriend? You know, when does something, the line that I've sometimes said, and this may be totally wrong on Artificial Love to Hear Your Thoughts is, you know, is something promoting and celebrating a Christian view of things? Which again can constitute, God, where are you? I lost my spouse to cancer and I feel like you don't exist.

That can be a Christian expression that can promote a Christian worldview because the Bible does that. I'm sorry, I've been too long-winded. It's something promotes a Christian view of the world or promotes an anti-Christian view of the world celebrating vengeance. The Bible contains vengeance. It doesn't promote or celebrate vengeance. The Bible contains sin. It doesn't celebrate sin. So is that the line we're drawing? Anyway, I'm thinking out loud, but I'd love to- No, I agree. I agree with everything you said. That's why I argue that theologically, the idea of Christian art doesn't make a ton of sense, especially when you account for the individual's interpretation, the viewer's interpretation, the reader's interpretation,

the listener's interpretation. Because, and, you know, I don't mean to like beat up on, you know, the kind of quintessential Christian industry music or worship music or anything like that. I like a lot of it. In fact, someone made a joke with me the other day that how many times are you going to mention how awesome Amy Grant is in your art book like so i'm a i'm a fan of these things i'm not like uh it's not a night it's not a matter of like oh man we've done so bad we need to do better per se i think that that you know can be argued point to point on certain things. But I think that, you know, in my life personally, the art that has most inspired me, and not just like, you know, I was entertained, which is a valuable experience, but not just entertainment, and not just in the sense that,

you know, I read something that inspired me to write, but inspired me as a disciple of Jesus and enriched my discipleship to Jesus, has been art that has either not been made by Christians or art that in some cases, one could argue communicates something that is contrary to a Christian worldview. When my mom gave me a copy of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar when I was in junior high or something like that. That was the kind of book that I was like, oh, my God, I didn't know that a novel could read like this. And it made me want to be a writer. You know, when I was a kid, my dad played me Aerosmith records. And I was like, I want to be in it.

This is awesome. I want to be in a band. Those were the kinds of early experience that awaken whatever creativity that I would argue, you know, is God given. And, but even now, you know, in the, in the book, I kind of mentioned this experience of singing a song at church, which is, I like, you know, it's a worship song and I'm not going to bother with who sings it or whatever, but it was some kind of like a very basic, simple. And there's a value in this kind of lyricism. But I think the chorus was something like, be lifted up, be lifted higher. That's the chorus. And we sang it at church.

And, you know, it was a meaningful experience to me. Got in my car to drive home from church and started listening to a record that, you know, whatever was playing last on my phone. a record that, you know, whatever was playing last on my phone. This is a record by a musician who's an atheist and a nihilist and who uses biblical imagery satirically, you know, to kind of satirize certain themes in the Bible or because these quote-unquote archaic sounding ideas in the Bible are fun to use almost like, you know, like as word images. So I'm listening to something that was clearly meant to communicate something contrary to my worldview. And I was suddenly moved by the Spirit of God listening to this album and this song, not just because, oh, creatively, I like the musicianship.

And, you know, that's an important factor as well. But it was the lyrics. It was the lyrics in a way that the author did not intend that moved me in a profound way. the uh the horror film the witch dave eggers is um or robert eggers's horror film the witch which the only reason i use it is because there was this brief kerfuffle around the release which you know i think was in 2013 or um where the satanic temple officially endorsed this film called the witch which the satanic temple is you know what kind of evokes this idea in your mind but really it's kind of like not exactly what you think it's some people on twitter you know, that kind of evokes this idea in your mind, but really it's kind of like, not exactly what you think. It's some people on Twitter, you know? And they were, you know, heralding this film as this breakthrough against religious patriarchy. And I was like, oh my goodness, I had no idea. So I go to see this, you know, film. And to uh, to me, to me, the witch, uh, was honestly consistent with my worldview. You know, it was, uh, because in the worldview of the witch, which the filmmaker is not a Christian.

And I don't think that the filmmaker has a supernatural worldview. So, uh, he was playing it as a horror movie. You know, there's, Ooh, there's demons and there's the devil's real in the world of the witch. And, uh, and the things that demons and the devil's real in the world of the witch. And the things that demons and the devil do are bad. And a family comes to ruin because of it. So, you know, I thought it was actually kind of theologically astute and interesting. And aesthetically, it was really interesting to me. And I left wondering why in the world it was endorsed by the satanic temple. To me, one could make an argument for, you know, the witch

as a quote unquote Christian movie in as much as any other, you know, like reading a story in the gospels about demonic oppression and exorcism is a Christian reading experience. But at the same time, I would never then, you know, as a pastor, get on stage at my church and be like, everyone needs to go see The Witch, because I understand that people have different sensibilities. But the whole spirit of my book is trying to encourage, or even I might use the word push, Christians into a more robust palette that could possibly account for a film like The Witch or the album that I was listening to in my car without necessarily, you know, clutching their pearls and, oh, this can't possibly have any kind of spiritual value because A, B, and C, and learning to,

you know, interpret art thoughtfully i think you know because i think that when christians have a deficient spiritual discipline of art appreciation it contributes to all kinds of problems not just in like oh you're missing out on art it goes well beyond that you know it contributes to problems with biblical literacy, and it contributes to, I would argue personally, like a deficit in a relational experience of God himself. That sounds really dire, but all throughout the scriptures, you know, God uses art and aesthetics, I would argue primarily, almost mostly, to communicate to human beings to when, you know, like when the majority of God's speech in the Bible is poetry, that when God presents himself to individuals in the Bible, it's always with these insane visions of wild, incredible things that are highly symbolic and in some cases terrifying you know um when god communicates by the spirit to um individuals throughout the new testament you know instead of just being like hey peter

go to this guy's house and talk to him it's like a blanket came down and alligators and you know whatever like it's always wild symbolic and often kind of opaque and weird, offensive. Like, why doesn't God just say, go to the guy's house? You know, like it would erase the margin for error. And it seems to me that the answer is, well, God's an artist. He prefers, you know, and Jesus, why would you not just say, hey, there's going to be this thing called the Lord's Supper instead of like alienating an entire crowd of people by saying, you have to eat my flesh.

And everyone's like, what the heck is this guy on about? Jesus is an artist. He prefers symbolism, even offensive symbolism, even at the cost of the audience's understanding or comprehension of the metaphor. He even goes as far as to tell his disciples, I'm doing this on purpose because it's going to enrich, um, the experience for people who have ears to hear. And it's going to divide the crowd that, that doesn't want to understand that. That if that doesn't sound like an artist, I don't know what does,

you know what I mean? I've heard from friends of mine who are much more into like movie, uh, movie criticism and film as you know, the artistic expressions of film. I've heard a lot of them talk about, you know, horror, the genre of horror being some of the most, I don't know that they wouldn't say, well, maybe they would say Christian, the most, the genre that, um, is most conducive for exploring Christian themes. You mentioned in passing the witch. I mean, it's intrinsically anti-materialistic.

Or, you know, like it's by definition, horror needs some kind of spiritual realm. That's a pretty Christian thing, right? It acknowledges, again, it's intrinsically acknowledging the presence of profound evil, even in the realm of some kind of spiritual rally. These are rich biblical themes. Even if it didn't have an explicitly Christian theme, it does seem to open up Christian categories more than other genres. Would you agree with that? Is there something with the genre of horror that is

Christians should, again, if they can't tolerate or whatever, if they're offended, you know, my wife can't stand, she would, she would have nightmares if she watched. Totally. Yeah. You know, I'm on the, you know, I remember watching The Conjuring in a dark hotel room by myself and it didn't even, I don't know, I just went to sleep. Yeah. The Conj it didn't even i don't know i just went to sleep yeah conjuring didn't do it for you yeah i think so if that doesn't do it i don't know i think uh i agree you know horror um especially i mean i don't mean getting too far in the weeds of like movie history but harder has had um a rich history of kind of existing in two worlds and one is like you know popcorn horror or like a roller coaster horror it's for the thrill of um you know haunted house it's scary and it's fun

and you know universals like frankenstein's monster and that kind of all the way up to modern day like i don't know the saw movies or something like that you know you have a thrill and then you leave the theater, and you're okay. You know, so you get to, like, explore these ideas of what it would mean, like, to confront death or be terrified and survive. This is rollercoaster horror. But horror has also had this rich tradition of intellectualism all the way

back to, you know, the late 60s with roman palais you know rosemary's baby or the exorcist in the 70s um and um and on into a kind of horror renaissance with um 824 studios it's kind of a studio a movie house that puts out a lot of quote unquote indie or art house horror films um and then in between those two, there's an overlap of when those things come together in a meaningful way and you get something that appeals to a wide audience but also has something profound to say about the human condition or human depravity or tragedy or death.

So I'm not describing these two realms to say like one's good and one's bad. I think that there's a place for both in the Christian experience of, you know, what I call the spiritual discipline of art appreciation. If you have the palate to tolerate that kind of thing. And again, you know, I wouldn't tell your wife like, unless you go see this movie, you're not a Christian. But that said you know it's it's not that hard an argument to make because when i sat down to write the book i thought that you know it was going to i wanted to make an argument for art that people might find uh offensive and and for spiritual value in it and i ended up doing like having to do a lot more work to get that argument across.

I sat down to do a biblical theology of the way, like I said, the way that God does art, the kind of art God commissions. And it ended up being, not to, because obviously I didn't make it up, but not to sound like I've closed the book on it or anything, but it's kind of a slam dunk. From the very beginning to the very end of the, of the biblical story, the kind of art and aesthetics that God likes, of course you find beautiful, redemptive, like amazing, uplifting, encouraging all throughout the scriptures. And that's, that's fantastic. But you also find,

just like you were just saying, like all kinds of horrifying, depraved stories, intense language, sexual depravity, violence that would make most of our horror movies look like Disney movies, and wild, dark imagery and symbolism. It's not just the Bible's depiction of history, which you could argue there's an aesthetic value in that as a God, you know, he's the co-author, he's the divine author with his human author. So he, the Bible says that in my theology, what God wanted it to say. And so, and he's the one who said, yeah, put that bit about, you know, the death by gang rape and judges or whatever it is. But that's documenting history. Even if you get away from documenting history, you have these horrifying poems about smashing babies and you have Jesus' grotesque parables about eat my flesh and drink my blood, the servant cut into pieces.

you know, eat my flesh and drink my blood, or the servant cut into pieces, or you have, even throughout the, you know, the stories of ancient Israel, they're in rich symbolic sign acts that they enacted on a regular basis to tell the story of sin and salvation involve things like slaughtering animals and sprinkling blood inside, you know, like the tabernacle or the or the temple um and it's not like oh in the ancient world that was cool that was not gross you know what i mean like uh this was like a rich symbolic and somber um uh way that god it was god's idea asked for israel to remember the story of sin and salvation and death, or to keep these ideas of their own mortality and the consequences of sin ever before them. Like you said, if you read the Psalms, and these are poems, these are like creative, like artistic expressions of the human

soul. And yes, some of them are so incredible, so uplifting, and so amazing, but a ton of them are so incredible, so uplifting and so amazing, but a ton of them, um, almost sound nihilistic. They sound despairing. They sound, um, borderline blasphemous, you know, like they, they question the character of God or the presence of God. And, um, and, and, you know, some of them then end on an uplifting note and yet I will trust in you, that kind of thing. But some don't. Some kind of conclude on this unresolved, like, that's it. Where's God? I don't believe that he is who he says he is.

And those are designed for God's people to pray, you know what I mean, to enter into a meaningful relational experience with God himself. relational experience with God himself. So, you know, if you have a problem with art that depicts things that are depraved or horrifying or violent or blasphemous, then you run into all these problems with the scriptures themselves. And of course, you know, you can make, well, I'll take mine and the Bible. Thank you very much. But I think it's worth asking, why would God prefer it that way? You know what I mean? Like, he doesn't have to require these kind of sacrificial codes. He did not have to, by his spirit, inspire these kinds of psalms and say, yeah, put that one in the Bible. Jesus didn't have to teach the way that he did.

These are artistic, aesthetic decisions. have to teach the way that he did. These are artistic, aesthetic decisions. And they tell us a lot about the kind of art that God, the kind of artist God is, and the kind of art that God prefers, what God thinks is meaningful, what God thinks is communicative and powerful. So I think that that alone should tell us that there's a place for horror, you know, in literature, in film, horror, you know, in literature and film, in art, you know, and not even in visual art, if you look at like the art of someone like Francis Bacon, and these kind of like nightmare visuals that hang on a museum wall, there should be a place for that kind of thing in the Christian experience of art. Do you know any Christian that like, is there a such thing as a Christian movie that's horror? Is that a, and why not? Like we have Christian films sort of, I guess, but they're all very, I don't know, mostly

predictable or just, I don't know. We can, we can talk about that. But I mean, the genre of horror is just not, I don't know. And they're heard of a Christian film producing a horror film. Yeah. Although there's plenty of biblical material that they can use. The draw have been these instances of and this is going to sound like i'm trying to beat these guys up i'm really not but in the same way that we have films like fireproof or um yeah um you know yeah like that kind of christian like explicitly christian christian

we have that kind of thing uh at least i haven't seen them personally but you know i follow the movie industry and i'll see these kind of things pop up every now and then and it could be the case that some of our more known horror directors or filmmakers or writers are christian i just don't know about it but if you look back again like the second time i brought up the exorcist in this conversation but um the exorcorcist was overseen by a team of consulting Catholic priests. The Catholic priests, other than Father Karras and Father Marin, who are the two kind of protagonist priests in the film, are actual priests who consulted on the film and who show up in the film and do a decent job acting as well. And so there's a precedent for filmmakers. William Fridkin, who died last year and directed The Exorcist, he wasn't a Christian that we know of. But there's a precedent for filmmakers who

understand like, okay, so the worldview of the film I'm making is, in the case of The Exorcist, deeply Catholic. It's a story about a Catholic priest and his experience of, you know, a demonic oppression of a little girl and a family. And so he was like, I want this to be authentic. And, you know, so he calls in Catholic priests to be like, would this be accurate? Is this accurate and in that sense didn't want to depict anything that you know a christian would watching the movie would be like oh man that's not how that actually works you know what i mean um so in that sense there is there is a case for people trying to or filmmakers and artists trying to anchor themselves

in the worldview of the the story that they're telling. I have a feeling every now and then I could be way off, but sometimes you see a thing that I think is so spiritually astute that I'm like, I wonder if that filmmaker was a Christian. You know what I mean? Or you read a novel and I'm rereading Blood Meridian right now by Cormac McCarthy. And I'm like, is Cormac McCarthy a Christian? You know what I mean? Like, sometimes it's unclear. But in the very least, there's a kind of spiritual intelligence. And in my worldview, it doesn't ultimately matter if Cormac McCarthy was a Christian for me to have this profound spiritual experience of blood meridian. You know what I mean? Well, he's created in God's image.

There's general revelation. There's a spark of the divine in every image bearer on some level right so that's another question i have when you have a a movie that is produced and directed and written by somebody who's just not a believer but it's just such a profound christian worldview being extra express the classic one for me is uh grand torino i don't know if you said yeah clint eastwood i mean dude it's got the most beautiful theme of read of redemption even to where i mean it's been out for two decades so spoiler alert obviously um the redemptive moment at the end is is him absorbing violence and falling dead in the shape of almost like a cross and he's just like it's like this feels like it was Kirk Cameron that produced it

because it was just seems so explicit and moving a racist and not being racist anymore. I mean, on so many levels, it's just so many amazing Christian themes without, but most people wouldn't even pick that up, I don't think, unless you're kind of looking for it. But how do we explain that? Just that we do have this kind of looking for it, but how do we explain that? Just that the, the, we do have this kind of longing for Christ.

There's an, there's an attractiveness to a Christian worldview of redemption and restoration and the acknowledgement of sin and, and that just humans are just going to be naturally attracted to you on some level. Is that? Yeah. And not only that, but you and I are, are Christians. So we, we understand everything that we receive on the silver screen as Christians. And so you and I can't help but watch Gran Torino and think, like, we're processing it through our understanding of the world as disciples of Jesus, which we should do.

And so we can't help but see the cross shape in the film's third act or to imbibe from it this powerful message about nonviolence and the redemption, the redemptive work of nonviolence, absorbing violence, all those things. And, you know, so whether or not Clint Eastwood had those things in mind or in some kind of like, I believe personally that it could be entirely possible that, I don't know this guy, so maybe he is, maybe he isn't, whatever. But it could be entirely possible that he's not a Christian whatsoever. And yet the Spirit of God, which, you know, we know through the scriptures, sees fit to communicate to people who aren't Christians, is communicating to him in some way and steering him to some end. Um, and that comes through in the film, you know, uh, and that's not to say that like, Oh, anytime you see anything that could possibly be interpreted through a Christian lens, that was the Holy spirit or anything like that. But that doesn't, even if that's not the case,

it doesn't make it any less meaningful or any less powerful. And we should be, you know, you and I should be able to watch a film like that and ask ourselves questions about what it says about the human story and the world. And to have a room to discuss this in Christian community with other disciples of Jesus without the first, you know, flag going up being like, well, what's it rated? You know what I mean? Right. So I've always wondered this, and I have some thoughts, but they're not very thoughtful. When does, and how do I word it?

When do offensive themes become good art or bad art? For instance, violence. I mean, Grant Turner has some, some violence, a ton of swearing, racial slurs. Um, racism is bad. Uh, I mean, swearing is a different category, you know, violence is not good, but real life contains all these things. And so, or, or the big one that I get asked a lot is, is sex and nudity. Like, is it ever okay for a Christian to watch a movie that contains sex and or nudity? Is there any kind of redemptive value there? Is it just simply if it's gratuitous?

Like there's, like in Gran Torino, keep going back to that, like the swearing and racial slurs that are in there, they were so essential for the true story to be told. You know, a couple old dudes living outside of what Detroit, um, that aren't Christians. And then the barber shop, of course, they're in that day and age, they're going to be telling racial slurs. They're going to be ripping on each other. You know, they're going to be swearing all the time. The scenes with some of the gang, you know, uh,

gang members, they're going to be swearing. So it'd be dishonest to you know have them you know say oh shoot or whatever you know they're not gonna that's just not real life that's dishonest with sex and nudity is that a different cat like that one gets tough for me um is there ever like a place to say objectively for all people all christians you should not be watching i'm not talking like porn but i'm talking like porn, but I'm talking like, you know, maybe like a rated R Oppenheimer. People have asked me, you know, I haven't seen it, but apparently it's got some nudity sex scene. And they're like, should I watch it? Cause the rest of the movie is really good. And anyway, how do you categorize

things that when does violence become good art or bad art, swearing, good art, bad art, especially something like sex. Yeah. Well, I'll start from the outset by saying i don't think that like blanket terms are ever that helpful meaning like well this one piece goes too far and is thus off the off the table for any moral christian and i realized that that you know like opens up the gates for what about this one or that one or that one? Yeah. career that I was arguing it felt like almost unilaterally at the kind of conservative evangelical culture was an artistic depiction of a thing is not necessarily an endorsement of a thing. And now I feel as if that is the conversation I'm having with the more progressive bubble of culture. An artistic depiction of a thing is not necessarily an endorsement of a thing. We can keep, Gran Torino is a great example because it depicts racism, but it does so to

condemn racism. And you can't condemn racism without depicting it artistically. The, you know, the analogy I make in the book is like of a parent who wants to explain to a child not to use a swear word and then has to say the swear word to say this is a bad word don't use it those are fun yeah and they're like oh okay you know what i mean like this is the conversation i've had with my kids or they hear a word and they're like what they are they're saying it kind of wrong you're like okay well the word's actually this don't say say it. You know what I mean? I'm depicting it in order to denounce it. I'm saying, this is the word. You're not going to hear me say it. You don't use it. You know what I mean? And I think the same goes in art. It's a conversation

that I had early on when I started writing novels or even in the music that my band would make. It was like, why do you depict these things, even fictitiously or even aesthetically in your music? And you're like, the easy one is violence. You know, some of my novels have violent scenes in them. Like, I thought you were a pacifist. I'm like, I am. And so I write about violence. You know, like I feel very strongly about this topic.

And so how else to condemn it other than to depict it or to satirize it in a satire. You know what I mean? Like, or to, again, a book like a writer like Cormac McCarthy writes about the horrors of violence in a way that not only doesn't glamorize violence, it becomes exhausting. You're, you're just like gross, man. The human, humans are awful. You know, that's the experience of reading something like The Road or Blood Meridian. So an artistic depiction of a thing is not necessarily an

endorsement of a thing. And I think that that goes with sex and nudity as well. And I think that, you know, the argument that I would make is that, of course, you could present any number of exhibits in order to say art and entertainment has dealt with sexuality in such a way as to provoke titillation from the audience it's there to um for you to you know in in our kind of vocabulary to evoke lust from the audience. It's, you know what I mean? Of course, of course that happens. I'm not saying it never does. And that every kind of depiction of sex and nudity is like solely artistic. Of course, that stuff can be in a movie or in a book or whatever for the sole purpose of provoking the audience to lust. of um provoking the audience to lust that said um to say then that like any kind of film that contains sex or nudity or any novel that contains sexual or whatever it might be a painting

um is is inappropriate for the christian to appreciate or to admire or to just watch gets you into all kinds of trouble. If you ask someone like Tim Mackey at the Bible Project about what the heck is the Song of Psalms, why is that in there, he'll tell you, and I think this is in the language of one of the Bible Project's videos, that the consensus on, or like a lot of Bible scholars agree, that it's a collection of erotic poems that is meant to be, I think, in their language, read and enjoyed. And so it seems as if you read Song of Songs, of course, there's like, you know, there's some anachronistic stuff that's like, well, I wouldn't use these terms if I was trying to be erotic. But it's clear that it's over thetop sexualized and gratuitous and very explicit.

And even the metaphors are very thinly veiled. It's like, yeah, I know what that means. You know what I mean? Right. And God is the co-author. God was like, and put it in the Bible. You know what I mean? And there's a rich tradition throughout not just art history but church history of art that engages sexuality in a

meaningful way, because that's part of the human experience and not in a way that's meant to like dehumanize people or to objectify people at all. You know, I tell this funny story in the book about how often throughout history the Sistine Chapel has been the source of division amongst, you know, kind of sensitive Christian art critics. It was then, it is now, there's this kind of, and I don't mean this to pick on the guy, but I found this hilarious to me story about John Piper visiting the Sistine Chapel and not appreciating, he didn't like the nudity, you know, and I think there's some quote where he says like, is God mooning us, you know, or some kind of thing like that where, so I, but you know, like I don't know of many people, they must be out there that would visit the Sistine Chapel for the purposes of provoking their own carnal desire.

I think today, even those of us who don't consider ourselves art enthusiasts would probably look up and be like, man, that's crazy. This guy painted all this? Wow. You know what I mean? And admire it in some meaningful way. Or painting the venus de milo or michelangelo's david um that in their own times were um questioned for their uh lack of restraint really you have to put this right in the front of the painting um a film like oppenheimer you I saw Oppenheimer, and I understand that kind of... If someone were to say to me, I was told that Oppenheimer has this scene in it, and I don't know if that's great for me, I would say, I admire your self-awareness. You should. As with anything, the disciple of Jesus is to exercise the kind of discernment that's like, I'm going for holiness.

I want to be completely within the will of God and obedience to King Jesus. I think personally that that won't necessarily always exclude works of art that other people might find offensive or problematic. find offensive or problematic. So the older I get, the more challenging it's become to take care of my health. And this is why I've been consistently taking AG1 for over a year and a half now. AG1 is a foundational nutrition supplement that supports your body's universal needs like gut health, stress management, and immune support. Since 2010, AG1 has led the future of foundational nutrition by constantly refining their formula to create a smarter, better way to elevate your baseline health. And I could personally, I could

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with your first purchase. Just go to drinkag1.com forward slash T-I-T-R. That's drinkag1.com forward slash T-I-T-R. Check it out. I do wonder about like, yeah, all the nudity in historic Christian art, which most of it was like nudity. It seems like like back then, was that seen as provocative when Michelangelo carved the statue of David?

Was that seen as where people like, gosh, he's really pushing the envelope. Yeah, I was surprised by that. You know, this is not a big deal. I'm curious. Yeah, it seems as if if you go back through art history, and I think I approached it with this, because a lot of this I learned researching the book. It's not like, you know, I have some kind of degree in art history or anything. But I kind of assumed that something like the work of Michelangelo would have been regarded in its time as par for the course, you know, like, oh, that's

the way we depicted things back then, and people were sensitive right uh but not so you know there's been a long history of people being offended by something like the sistine chapel or michelangelo's david and for the same reasons that people today might be offended by the depiction of nudity and art you know and i think that you know i have a whole chapter about it in the book it's called sex porn and radiology technicians uh because you like my titles that's why i told you of course um it's interesting to me and this is something that i came to you know upon the course of writing my book that in other vocations we allow for you know um allow for the Christian to enter into certain environments in which they might have to engage the human body nude in a way that could possibly put them at some kind of sin risk, if you like. The analogy I make or the hypothetical I make is of a radiology technician that does mammograms and attractive. Some woman that comes in, he's attracted to her.

He's going to see her naked. It's part of his job. I don't know that his church community would necessarily be like, quit your job. You should not be in the medical field. You know what I mean? We would probably instead encourage him into a kind of accountability and discernment um that could uh steward him toward righteous behavior and that that kind of thing and yet with the arts we treat them as if they're entirely expendable so if there's any risk whatsoever just cut out the art there's no inherent necessary value in it anyway so i think that like we we need more thoughtful discernment

not anything goes by any means but more thoughtful discernment. Not anything goes by any means, but more thoughtful discernment about how we approach even something like the depiction of sexuality in art. I didn't even think about the relationship between certain professions that cause you to see explicit nudity that we typically don't. I mean, some people do raise, you you know when do the gynecologist the heterosexual male gynecologist decide this is a career path i want to go in you know like if he said as a 15 year old i want to be a guy people probably yeah exactly nevertheless there you are you know but like could that be a case to where christians in certain contexts I'm assuming, because of the context can see and come very close to

nudity in a way that's not sexualized, that's not a stumbling block, you know? And could that transfer over to the depiction of nudity or a sex scene in a movie? The problem is though, like, like you said, I mean, in almost every instance, especially a sex scene, the creator is present, is embedding this scene in the narrative to produce less. Not in every case. I'm trying to think of one where there wouldn't be simply gratuitous or to titillate. Is that the right word? It does. But you know, I think that the easiest way to find those examples is that the right word that just sounds it does but you know i think that the easy the easiest way to find those examples is in the depiction of sexuality that is not romantic and is intended to disturb rather than um you know like you know incite some kind of lust or like or even

like it's not even romantic you know know, is there what we would call, a tasteful is a strange word to use, but like a PG-13 love scene is not going to have nudity in it per se, or even a PG-13 love scene that does have nudity, like in James Cameron's Titanic or something like that, that kind of brought up this big argument about like, well, I mean, he's painting.

So what is it? Is that sexualized is it not sexualized but if you think about a film like deliverance which has this kind of infamous um rape scene in it uh of men um with a male victim um it's a hyper sexualized moment in the film and it is absolutely not meant to communicate anything that would provoke the audience to lust or even you know um the novel and subsequent film adaptations of something like the girl with the dragon tattoo which deal with sexual violence in a in a pretty explicit way especially david fincher's film adaptation of that novel in such

a way that you know when i saw people were leaving the theater it was so over the top clearly not meant to incite arousal in in anyone in fact it's the to the same end that i would argue like why put this in your movie to condemn sexual violence you know to to put the viewer in such a position where they're like it's almost unbearable and and it incites they're turned off by this yeah it incites kind of a rage response as opposed to a lust response and it opens you know and david fencher's argument the director of the the american version of the girl with the dragon tattoo his argument was that he felt as if it was a cop out to depict you, a woman who's being overpowered by a male aggressor and then cut, you know, that's not, that's not accurate. And it does an injustice to the reality of sexual violence to not force the audience into some kind of experience of the shared with the victim.

It doesn't create empathy. It doesn't create the kind of appropriate disgust over sexual violence. At the same time, there were and are people who would see something like David Venture's adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and think it's completely inappropriate to depict rape in a mainstream movie or a movie in general. And don't we have enough of that kind of thing? And on both sides like conservative pearl clutchers and progressive moral police you know like you can't put that in a movie in the same way that they would argue for you know like banning books you know that they're they're kind of in cahoots the conservative progressive circles on these things like if it's got this word in it it's got to get out of the libraries if it's got this scene in it it shouldn't be in the film so that obviously that doesn't do away with or that doesn't resolve the issue of a movie like

oppenheimer which has a love scene that kind of um borders on both things because in the case of oppenheimer it's an adulterous love scene that that sets up a tragedy that comes in the third act of the film so it's necessary for the story, would you say? Maybe they didn't need to reveal it. I think, you know, saying something that's necessary for the film, it's like who can say, cause you know what I mean? Like, uh, the, the creative act isn't entirely objective. It's so subjective to say to christopher nolan apparently it was necessary to depict and

i've you know seen enough i'm not like a christopher nolan fanboy or anything but i like some of his movies as much as the next guy it seems to me that he's a very thoughtful artist um and maybe one of our most thoughtful living filmmakers at the currently you know um who is uh who makes he's one of our only him and denise villeneuve you know has made dune the dune films uh most recently um they're and paul thomas anderson they're probably three of our uh only living directors who make big budget spectacle movies that are also kind of like art house movies. He seemed to think it was necessary to include this love scene between Oppenheimer's lover that becomes an indiscretion against his wife later on in the film. You could obviously argue like, oh, well, they could have just described it or they could have depicted it

in a less gratuitous way. But I leave those discernments to the artist, and I reserve my own discernments as the viewer, and whether or not it's appropriate for me to watch. I've heard from people that argue, and I understand why, and I understand that many times it's motivated by a desire for holiness, that's like, well, it's motivated by a desire for holiness that that's like well you know it's it's just impossible it's impossible for um someone to see these things and not be titillated or not lust um but then that becomes again the whole like so can our doctors you know we we usually understand that doctors can enter into a mature position, even if they're heterosexual, even if they're prone to a kind of carnal mentality, that they should be able to exist and operate in their vocation without objectifying the people that they see as doctors, even if they see them naked, even if they see them in a way to them as sexualized

to some degree. I've got to assume that art, because it's so valuable to God, and because God is not afraid to depict sexuality in art, there's got to be a way for artists to work with the idea of sexuality and the human physicality, the body, in a way that was not lustful for them, not necessarily lustful for the viewer. But again, you know, I think that like, Holy Spirit conviction, discernment have to enter into that conversation. It's the blanket statements that become, for me anyway, a bit problematic to say no one should, you know what I mean? Yeah. And so much of it, it's not just subjective on an individual level, but also on a cultural level.

Certain things are highly sexual and certain cultures just aren't in other cultures. I mean, I had a cousin of mine who was a missionary in Papua New Guinea. And, you know, she said, I could walk down the street bare chested with a dress on knowing about an eye. But if I walked around fully clothed wearing blue jeans, I would be, you know, but all the eyes of every man in that crowd would be groping me up and down, you know, like, um, and, or like in, uh, you know, we, my wife's from France. And so we've gone to France quite a bit and dude, those beaches are crazy, dude. Like they, I mean, not only do you have every single male wearing a Speedo, which the, that, that to, to my, it's all right. But, but like, like it's not

uncommon to have, you know, a third of the women, you know, not wearing a, you know, not wearing a top, you know? And it's like, but the thing in that culture, people, you don't, and I didn't know I'm on the beach. It's like, golly, you know, like I'm looking at my kids, like, all right, let me go find them, you know? Um, but I'm looking around at the other guys and they're not like, they're not even noticing. It's like, it's not even, you know, but it's like, wait a minute. Isn't that, that is, isn't the, I don't know. That's not, that's not universally, uh, this, it's not the same. Like if that happened to California, it would be like every, you looked around at the guys on the beach and every single guy would be just, you you know but even i'm sure there's other

um the differences between a place like california and like oregon you know what i mean california has a culture if you go to southern california um and to the coast it's not uncommon for the dudes and the women to all be in their bathing suits like at a juice bar or you know what i mean and and no one's like oh my god i can't believe this place but uh it's just not part of our everyday life in a place in a cold place like oregon so if everyone was walking around and you know it'd be like oh my god the indiscretion of these individuals um so yeah and not only does it vary culture to culture, the threshold of danger for the individual, for the disciple of Jesus, varies from person to person. You know, I've had people say, other well-meaning, intelligent pastors who would be like, well, you can't use Song of Songs because it's poetry. That's not the same as a movie.

it's, it's poetry. That's not the same as a movie. And then, you know, this is a true story. Later that same day is the actual conversation I have with the pastor where we're, you know, I was in the middle of writing this book and we were talking about it. I go and meet with another pastor who was a friend of mine. She is a pastor of women and who was telling me, she was like, yeah, I'm working with this woman um, woman through a brutal sex addiction. Um, and her, uh, drug of choice, if you like, was, uh, the written word. She read romance novels, short stories she found online that were erotic, erotic fiction was what, um,

she used erotica. And she, according to this pastor friend of mine, she's like, oh, she would probably be grossed out by something like internet porn, uh, you know, watching videos or something like that. But she's, uh, has a crippling addiction to this other kind of erotica, which is totally pornographic. Um, because that's what incites that lust response in her and not this other thing. So the idea that, you know, and throughout not just church culture, but pop culture, we've kind of fallen into these stereotypes that like, oh, men are visual and women are, you know, idea based or whatever it is. And I've just not found it to be statistically or experientially true. It turns out that, especially if you're a pastor and you work with all kinds of different people and they're telling you like, this is the thing that, the sin that I feel as if I can't conquer, they're just so different. People's sensibilities are so different. I know a lot of people that would have gone to see Oppenheimer,

and not just because they're so mature, but just because of their wiring and disposition, they probably would have been like, yeah, gross. This is awkward and tacky to have this sex scene in here. And I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it and wouldn't have thought twice about it. But something else, something, you know what I mean? Something else would really provoke them. So the idea that, oh, we all have the same exact kind of fragilities isn't really helpful. And then it contributes to more blanket statements

why this is never good for anyone this is good for anyone and it takes certain meaningful works of art off the table um that could enrich the spirit you know for example if someone would have told you oh that that movie uh this clint eastwood movie sucks man they it's got slurs in it that's never cool. That's never okay. Don't watch this thing. Then you could have been robbed of a meaningful spiritual experience that, you know, I'm not trying to like make it more than it was, but for some people like in myself included,

I've had meaningful like landmarks in my discipleship and in my life that have happened in the course of reading a book or watching a movie or hearing some album um that changed the kind of person i was or changed my perspective on the world in in conjunction with like my relation you know like i'm experiencing them with god in a meaningful way um and it seems like i mean just read telling you read the read that bible man if you go in there with scissors and you cut out every art art installation and weird symbolic ritual and parable and poem and um insane sign act like an offensive uh metaphor

you'll have some genealogies even the genealogalogies have like, I hesitate to use a word like code, but yeah, there's an aesthetic value to the placement and the numerical values and who is in there and who isn't in there. Even the genealogies, there's so much aesthetic concern for even the construction of the Bible itself. You'll just have, you won't have any Bible left. You know what I mean? Yeah. There's a, made me think, I don't know why this came to my head is something you said like 30 seconds ago, but, um, I forgot what you said anyway. I don't think I've ever said this before, but the band that has inspired my Christian faith more than, more than any other band is the band Rush. You might appreciate it. Okay. All right. I'm ready for this. Okay. Not so much.

I mean, their lyrics are incredibly thoughtful. Neil Peart, who wrote most of their songs, all of their songs, most of their songs, was a genius. I mean, he read several books a week, big philosophical tomes. The guy was just a brilliant, brilliant guy. Kind of a recluse. He was not known as being a very social person. After they'd play a concert, he'd go back to his hotel room

and read Ayn Rand or something. That's just the way he was wired. So the lyrics, especially the older stuff, were just incredibly intelligent. But they were, obviously they made it big, sort of, but they were always very countercultural. They never played into what the audience wanted. They would produce and do music that they just really wanted to do.

And they weren't controlled by what the audience wanted. And some of their albums just took off, 2112, Moving Pictures and others. Others didn't, they kind of fell flat. And they really didn't care. Like they were like, this is what we want to produce. They broke all the rules on, you know, and again, I don't know enough about music to know, but even, you know, the whole prog rock, I think.

Yeah. You helped me out here. Like prog rock i think yeah he helped me out here like essential progress was kind of like what wasn't it kind of breaking kind of rules of music theory if that maybe there are any rules of music but they were just doing something that was just really different um i mean they 2112 is a 20-minute song with what like five or six parts singing about some mythological world. It's just crazy. It's like ingenious. And they're like, you can't do a 20 minute song. You can't write a 5,000 word blog with tons of footnotes. Blogs must be 800 words. You can't, you can't write on this.

You can't say that. And I just, I, from, from, from the beginning of my kind of Christian journey is like, I don't, don't tell me what I can or can't do or believe, you know, like I've had that kind of just, I don't know that, like, no, I want to push the envelope. I want to help people think. I want to cross lines. I want to take risks. I don't want to play into what the masses want. And I just don't care.

So I feel like they've almost inspired me in how I approach Christianity, even though none of them were even, as far as I know, even religious at all. But are you a fan? Do you know Russia? I would imagine. Yeah. Yeah. You would appreciate. I actually just recently revisited. Is it, is it 2112? The, the. Yeah. Yeah. Because they use Tom Sawyer in the soundtrack to the iron claw, that film about the wrestler that just came out and as soon as you know when

the uh the opening to tom sawyer uh even just in those first seconds and there's like a the sound of a mini moog a mini mo go santa's like you know and that drum beat starts i was like oh shoot but yeah that that kind of uh hyper literary prog rock i think even as just a someone who appreciates music history sounds pretentious but like i like to go and find like oh why was this a big deal and listen to it i revisited that record and was like man so it's amazing to me that we have these kind of icons of now it's appreciated for its thing but i had i have to assume that even amongst russian enthusiasts there was a sense of like well all right now we're getting a little getting a little weird but that's one of my thesis statements in the books

in the book is that you know there's this quote that i I use from one of my favorite novelists who was asked in an interview, like, how often do you consider the reader as you're writing? And in a moment, reflexively, the novelist said, I don't, this is the, I think, verbatim quote. I don't think about the reader ever. And I don't care. The reader is me. And to me, I was like, freaking A. My publisher would go for that. Well, you know, there's different rules for, I would argue personally, something like Christian nonfiction, because it's not a purely creative endeavor. It's a semi-creative endeavor. We have

to go for some level of comprehension or we're wasting our time. But in writing a novel or writing an album or painting a picture, I would argue that one of the most important values for any artist, especially Christian artists, is to set aside concern for the audience. Concern for the audience inevitably creates even subconscious pandering to an audience. And you end up with these concerns about, well, will they get it? Will it offend them? And I just don't see that concern demonstrated by God throughout the scriptures at all in fact some of god's wackiest art uh installations or things that are you know think about like uh ezekiel and the weird street theater stuff that he does with the burning of the poop and like the binding tying himself up um this that was god's idea so god's like go do this street theater and we're explicitly told that like people aren't into

it they don't like it um it's supposed to communicate something powerful about israel's sin and injustice and before it's over god tells ezekiel was like no one's gonna get it and they're not gonna change so to me that was like a revelation because it was like so god already knows it's not going to quote unquote work. Um, and, but he commissioned the, the street theater anyway. It's like a, what it's, what we would describe now as performance art. Um, and it's, and it's purely aesthetic. There's like the simple, you know, he ties himself up, he lays on his side, he burns, God wanted human poop. He settles for animal poop, all that kind of stuff. so it's offensive it's like

gross and it's meant to be and god knows that it's not going to turn israel around but he's like do it anyway there's a value in the art for the art's sake even though it's not going to be understood by the audience received by the audience and not have the desired effect on the audience. And you get that kind of stuff all throughout the scriptures, especially, you know, again, with Jesus with the whole, why do you teach like this? And he's like, it's on purpose. Or why do you say this is a hard teaching? Who can accept it? You know what I mean? So I think that when the great Christian artists enter into a given work of art compelled by art for art's sake, even if it is ideological in nature, even if it has a profound ideological purpose,

but they do so, it's just like, this is the way I feel like it should be, then those are the pieces that have the most profound lasting effect on the audience. It seems to me that, like you said, Rush must have not cared very much or at all about the approval of the industry, about the record label, about the audience. That was just kind of like, I don't know, I read this sci-fi, you know what I mean? He's like, I want to do a sci-fi concept record. And um what was selling at the time would have been kind of like sexualized glam rock um or when that was the new genre that was breaking through and and prog was you know uh the prog that peter gabriel and genesis had kind of coined was already on its way out at a popular level it's like they're like i don't care you know what i mean this the songs are gonna get longer uh and because of that that that's why they

have the kind of iconic status that they have um i think that the the more the artist exercises their freedom you know for of expression the more powerful the piece becomes and the more that they laid along you know the audience's expectations the more they dilute the work of art it doesn't mean that it won't be any good it just means that there's a reason that we can sometimes tell certain pop music or mainstream cinema that could still have great artistic value but it's like something designed by committee it's like you, clearly they wanted this to go over. They wanted to hit these action points and selling items. They want to move units and you end up with something entirely different. So I think when, when Christian artists allow themselves that kind of freedom,

we get some of our best stuff. I do. One more question. I know we're a little over an hour. Um, I do fear and I don't I know we're a little over an hour. I do fear, and I don't know enough to know if it's a legitimate fear, but when it comes to like, quote unquote, Christian worship music, has it lost its creative countercultural edge? Is mainstream Christian music basically doing all of the opposite things that we're talking about. Writing music that's primarily thinking of what will please the crowds. The whole, the way money, the money factor in specifically Christian music, I've heard

people say, I mean, it can be, man, you land a hit worship song, you make millions. You know, I don't know if that's true, but I know there's a money factor there that could be a dangerous incentive. That's with everything, I guess. I mean, everything has that money incentive that could go south, you know. Or, you know, infamously, Christian music is not known for being super creative. Is that fair? I mean, they're the musician. It just doesn't, it's just like, but maybe that's,

you know, I've heard all people kind of push back and say, well, if it's going to be sung by the masses, you can't sing 2112 by the masses, you know, or, or why is,

yeah, my argument would, why is Christian music a genre? Well, like you don't have it like showbread could never be sung on Sunday mornings. I don't think maybe you do uh reggae is everybody loves reggae who doesn't like reggae uh but if if we sing a reggae song they'd be like hey when are we gonna sing a christian worship song totally like it like what how does christian

worship be kind of its own genre that's kind of this like white middle class contemporary rock kind of feel and it doesn't go beyond that. Is that the way it has to be? Or is that part of the market we've created? We've created the market, unfortunately. We've created the palette. Or we've allowed a handful of megachurch worship conglomerates to create a palette that we refuse,

from which we refuse to deviate. And it's not even necessarily that the palette is in and of itself bad. No, no. which we refuse to deviate and it's not even necessarily the palette is in of itself bad you know uh and no no i yeah like i i have these critical sounding things to say about it but it's really not about the aesthetic of you fill in the blank you know mega church worship band that we all sing songs by in our various churches because some of it you know i might like a lot some of it might not be my personal taste but that's fine it's more about the fact that we uh don't allow ourselves to stray as communities from this the rigidity of this rule book um you know you the pushback that you're citing i've heard it too and i I get it, that you want to accommodate a congregation to the degree that they can enter into a meaningful worship experience.

And if you push too hard or go too far and you lose them, then it ostracizes the majority. And, wow, the minority is like, hooray, we're finally getting artsy. I get that. the minority is like, hooray, we're finally getting artsy. I get that. And as an act of self-sacrificial love, you want to incorporate all kinds of sensibilities into the collective worship experience. But my argument would be that the reason that that sensibility often feels restrictive is because we are not teaching our people to go beyond that palette at all. We are not teaching them, you know, yeah, you can't sing something like Tom Sawyer by Rush at church. But why? Because we have not taught our people what it means to do

something like that, you know, and if you enter into different kinds of, you know, like worship expressions and other traditions you know obviously the the kind of worship experience at an eastern orthodox church is going to look a lot different than a protestant a lot different than a catholic um you know you walk into an eastern orthodox worship gathering and see people kissing icons and you're gonna be what the heck is going on but to them this is this meaningful aesthetic aesthetic gesture of the worship experience in the same way that they might think. Like, what's up with all the delay pedals and, you know, like, sing songs? Why does everything sound like U2?

You know, or why does everything sound like Coldplay? Historically, unfortunately, mainstream Christian worship music music and i'm using broad strokes obviously i'm kind of being reductive but um we've always been about 10 years behind so our worship music is still on the heels of indie rock from the early 2000s and kind of and we and we borrow from the standards the standards handed down to us by whatever is popular at the time, whatever big worship band or bands are kind of setting the standard for this is the kind of stuff you sing in church. We sing their songs and we might adapt them slightly different, you know, differently from congregation to congregation. But for the most part, those are the songs we're

singing and we're not teaching our people what it means to have a more robust understanding of what kind of aesthetic things can happen in a worship gathering. And this goes for my church as well. Like if you came to my church on a Sunday night, it would honestly look a lot like other mainstream non-denominational churches. And sing songs by the big you know the the known worship and we sing other stuff too but it's not like all of a sudden it would feel like some kind of subversive uh wow this is so different but we are in the process and this book is part of it you know i'm teaching a series at my church now about art and the bible and and um and god and i want to give people, my community a sense of what

it means to like, have a wider palette, even if we can only push it open a little bit at a time, you know what I mean? And for us, that looks like, what does it look to look like to, you know, have long instrumental meditations for lament, you know, something that to a lot of other churches they'd be like sure yeah we do that all the time it's like well my people that's new to my people so we're we're trying to you know expand our horizons what does it look like to reflect on a visual during worship you know like um this is a painting that was meaningful to christians throughout history um while we play music that kind of thing which in the moment to our people is like, well, it's a little weird.

We're looking at a painting in church, but okay, sure. You know, I'll go with it for now. And I think it's also part of – we shouldn't depend on, you know, the mainstream Christian worship music machine to set the aesthetic standard for church in America. Yeah. Yeah. And you're singing lament.

I've been thinking about that for the last few months. I just, it's hard for me to worship sometimes when it's all nothing but celebratory and victorious when you look around at the world. I've been doing a ton of reading and listening on the whole Israel-Palestine issue, which is just heart-wrenching on so many levels. And it's like, I just, to be honest, I just haven't been able to worship a church because I'll, you know, wake up, I'll, you know, be reading a book or, you know,

look at the news and just really kind of trying to follow what's going on there. You know, I mean, how many 10,000 dead kids, kids getting every day, 10 kids get at least one leg amputated with no anesthetics. Like, can you imagine taking a chainsaw to your daughter's leg? Cause there's no anesthetic, like, cause it's she'll die. Cause there's gangrene or whatever the case, like this is what some of whom are our brothers and sisters in christ are going through like right now and so then i go to church go to church and sing songs and everything's perfect god's god's victorious always and and he delivers us always always delivers us and he's always there and things always work out he's so good

it's just i just it's hard for me to like i don't know like i and i don't want to be the jerk in the bag arm folded no it's not good for everybody like i i really die i used to be more like that i really don't i try to just go with it you know but it's just sometimes it's just hard like i i i wish that christian the christ Christian worship experience as it's typically played in church would, would respect the complex rhythms of life more honestly is maybe how I would put it. And I don't know what that looks like. Much like the, much like the Psalms. Lament would be one, like there's Bibles, Bibles filled with lament and there's many things to lament over.

And not that, even if that's 10 or 15% of what we sing about, at least,'t know just the full-on like everything's peaches and cream all the you know i look around the room and like statistically 25 of the women at least in the church have been sexually abused by usually somebody really close to them father um husband brother sister cousin most of the time they haven't worked through that i'm looking around and they're just like, God's so good. And, and he is good. Like I can believe God's good, but like, are you being odd? Like, yeah. When do we express our pain or frustration? And when do we sing Psalm 88? You know, God, I don't, it doesn't feel like you're here. Where were you?

And my father was sexually abusing me, you know, like have we lamented that? And I don't know. mother was sexually abusing me. You know, like, have we lamented that? And I don't know. No, I think that honestly has a lot to do with our limited palette, our limited aesthetic palette, because it's not just a question of philosophical approaches. It's an aesthetic approach of, well, I mean, it's a bummer and our people are, they want to worship, you know what I mean? mean it's a bummer and our people are they want to worship you know what i mean i i honestly feel like and you know i have a different kind of sensibility my church jokes with me all the time it's like you don't have to remind us we're going to die every single week you know like but that's you know and my so my mind goes to um dark place or is prone to kind of like reflect on the tragedy more than it is celebration.

But I do find that framing celebratory worship with the profound evil that is such a common reality of our world makes our celebratory worship more subversive. And, and there's a, there's a way to enter into, um, you know, a reflection on evil. And we spend every year in Advent, uh, it's become a profound time for our community. But the first time that, you know, I do my most upsetting, darkest teachings throughout Advent and tell some like horrible, horrible uh leading i shouldn't be laughing i love it this is yeah i think that like a time to to like appreciate how incredible the christmas story is you have to frame it in like everything is so awful um and that's the world into which god is like i'm i'm here and I'm coming to rescue it.

I thought that no one would go with me the first time. I was like, hear me out, elders. This is what I'm thinking for Advent. But they're like, all right, let's try it. People were telling me, geez, these Advent talks are so heavy. This is really hard. But then the Christmas Eve gathering is like incredible. There's this sweeping, like we kind of hold back on how much, you know, celebration we do. I mean, we sing some Christmas hymns and things like that, but we save some of our most celebratory moments for Christmas Eve. And then it's like after time for four weeks or longer talking about death and despair and darkness and the long winter of the human experience.

It's like god came to save us and suddenly it's like this profound and even like on a sunday to sunday basis to you know like it's not uncommon for us to especially when something heinous evil is unfolding under the world lens you know what i mean to stand up and be like we understand that this horrible thing horrible things are happening in the world every day, but we all see this one. And we see it in a, like, because of the 24-hour news cycle, we see it in an explicit kind of way. And we should think about that and reflect on that, and we'll read a psalm together, and we'll have time for meditation and prayer. But then if you enter into that kind of God god is good song it becomes an act of defiance

against the evil in in the world and not just like an act of ignorance to try to like cover our eyes to the evil in the world but instead being like in spite of the heinous state of affairs that is life uh in the world like he is who he says he is. And then it becomes this like incredible mom. And, but all that only happens if we have a wider, as like a appreciation for the kind of, um, artistic reflection, aesthetic reflection that we can do in a worship gathering, you know? Hey man, I got to run. Uh, but man, this has been so good. Love talking with you and, and, uh, yeah, love your honesty, man. I really appreciate you and excited to dig into your book. Oh man, I'm glad you had me again.

Thanks for coming out with The All-General again. Yeah, of course. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.