This post was written by Randy Newman on February 27, 2009
I write a lot about “integration.” I try to say that we need to see the wholeness of life, the places where faith and thoughtfulness intertwine.
Pointing to examples of written works that model this is difficult. There aren’t enough displays of deep reflection about how the Christian frame of reference shines light on other topics.
When I find such examples, I want to point you to them. Jeremy Begbie’s recent book, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music, is a beautiful example of thoughtful integrative thinking.
This is not a book about so-called “Christian music,” or about using music in worship services, or about what kinds of music are worth listening to. Such topics, Begbie freely admits, are worthwhile. They are just not the subject of his research and writing.
Instead, he examines music in the most general sense and asks what it does, why it moves us, how it transforms us, and how we can better employ it in our sanctification.
For this blog, I’ll just offer a few examples from his many challenging insights.
First, good music has the effect of taking us away from home and bringing us back again. Many pieces of music (both classical and popular) state a home theme, then take us away from that theme through variations and contrasts, and finally return us back to the home theme. The noteworthy observation is that, when we return home, even though the notes, and in some cases the words, are the same, our appreciation of home is different. It’s as if we’re hearing things that certainly were there the first time but we didn’t notice them or appreciate them. Many hours of listening to music that does this can actually improve our appreciation of our current “home.” In other words, it can foster a sense of gratitude or help us savor God’s gifts.
Second, good music is composed of variations upon a theme. A good composer states a simple theme near the beginning of a piece (think of those first four notes of Beethoven’s fifth symphony) and then weaves variations of that theme throughout the song or symphony or concerto. The more you train your ear to listen for these motifs, the more your mind will be able to do the same with thoughts or ideas. In other words, music can actually train us to be more meditative and contemplative.
No wonder we’re commanded to sing so often in Scripture. It’s not just to have a fun experience. God’s gift of music isn’t just for entertainment - it’s for discipleship. Music transforms us.
There’s more…but I’ll save those discussions for future blogs.
Want a suggestion for hearing a masterful display of theme and variations? Find a recording of Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini. Listen to all of them! You’ll never be the same.
This post was written by Randy Newman on February 11, 2009
A recent book entitled I Once Was Lost may offer some helpful insight about evangelism in our day and age. Written by two InterVarsity staff members, this work reflects the fruit of years of outreach to an ever-changing audience. The basis for their suggestions for fruitful evangelism flows out of interviews with postmodern college students who actually did become Christians in the past few years. They say they interviewed “thousands” of new Christians. Even if that’s an exaggeration, their reporting of their findings is very insightful.
Specifically, they were able to detect a five-fold process that most of these people experienced. Despite variety in locations, cultures, and climates, new Christians said they progressed from “lost” to “found” through these five stages.
I’ll simply list the stages and then make my comments as I think they relate to the world of academia and other places where thoughtful disciples reach out:
From distrust to trust.
From complacent to curious.
From being closed to change to being open to change.
From meandering to seeking.
The final stage of crossing the threshold of the kingdom itself.
I think these stages are self-explanatory but I will try to expand a bit. Non-Christians, generally speaking, have a negative image of Christians. (If your heart can take it, you might read David Kinnaman’s and Gabe Lyons’ UnChristian to see just how poorly they think of us). Consequently, they do not trust us to be good spokespersons or incarnations of the Christian faith. This is often more image than substance, although sometimes tragic hypocrisy has tarnished the gospel in profound ways.
For the majority of people, this distrust might not be as difficult to overcome as we may assume. Sincerity, authenticity, friendship, and dialogue seem to be the common ingredients in testimonies of those who progressed through all five stages. Once the first barrier of distrust is crossed, the other stages flow with less resistance.
Here are some applications for students, faculty, and others called to arenas where thought and intellect are prominent:
**Primarily we build trust with interpersonal skills. But intellectual skills are not irrelevant. Thoughtful non-Christians don’t trust anti-intellectual or thoughtless Christians because, for them, a faith that fails to engage the mind isn’t worth believing.
**Curiosity may be stimulated in a variety of ways. Reflecting on (and speaking about) how our faith informs our values, ethics, and morality as well as our opinions about academic issues, may spark the kinds of conversations that lead people to the Savior.
**In many cases, conversion takes time - more time than it did decades ago.
**There are ways (there MUST be!) to offer challenging statements that propel people from being closed to change to being open to change or from meandering to seeking without being rude. A strong statement like, “It sounds like you’re considering some changes that might be scary or uncomfortable” does not need to be insulting, like, “C’mon. What’s holding you back. Don’t you realize your eternal destiny is on the line?”
**We need clear, precise communication when explaining what it means to become a follower of Jesus. Vague clichés abound (e.g. “asking Jesus into your heart,” “praying to receive Christ,” “crossing the line of faith,” etc.) We need deeper theological reflection about and clearer relevant articulation of the conversion step if we’re going to see lasting fruit. I hope to share more about this in future notes.
Does it help to think of non-Christians friends, coworkers, and relatives as people who probably don’t trust us and most certainly don’t understand us? I think it does. If those are our starting assumptions, what are our next steps in reaching out?
This post was written by Randy Newman on February 1, 2009
Recently, I mentioned John Piper’s book, The Pleasures of God. The final chapter, The Pleasure of God in Concealing Himself from the Wise and Revealing Himself to Infants, has some pertinent things to say about thinking, the life of the mind, intelligence, and related topics for thoughtful Christians to consider.
I don’t think I need to place this chapter in the larger context of our current evangelical climate. Suffice it to say that Christians vary in their levels of valuing the intellect. Part of the problem flows from a selective reading of the Scriptures. Part comes from recent history.
Piper addresses the issue well and allows the complexity of the problem to shape his depth of response. He recognizes that the Scriptures do not “uniformly portray mental productivity as praiseworthy.” Sometimes “knowledge puffs up” (1 Cor. 8:1). God often condemns the “wise of this world.” (Consider Jer. 9:23, James 3:15, or I Tim. 6:20). On the other hand, Scripture praises wisdom and exhorts us all to pursue it more than jewels. (See Proverbs 8 and many other places).
Piper raises many important questions, examining recent history (quoting Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in America), and lands on “the crucial question,” “How does the Word of God portray the life of the mind?” I won’t recreate his argument here. It deserves a thorough reading and much reflection. I do believe he is exactly right to see that being an “infant,” for both Jesus and Paul, is “not always viewed as praiseworthy.”
He wrestles with the tensions long enough to draw what I believe is an important distinction. “A fundamental difference between divine wisdom and human wisdom is that God’s wisdom exalts what the cross stands for, and human wisdom is offended by what the cross stands for. God’s wisdom has the supremacy of God’s glory as the beginning, middle, and end of it, but man’s wisdom delights in seeing himself as resourceful, self-sufficient, self-determining, and not utterly dependant on God’s free grace.”
If this is correct, then study, research, contemplation, the life of the mind, and other academic endeavors are not to be shunned or ridiculed, but pursued as appropriate responses to a God who reveals himself not only in Scripture, but also in general revelation of nature, other people, art, beauty, and the like.
He concludes, “If the gospel is to be preserved for the good of Christ’s church, and God is to be known for who he truly is, we will need to cultivate the life of the mind that prizes and reserves this kind of rigorous study.”
This chapter may be encouraging to you as you seek to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. I hope you’ll seek it out.
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