Blue Like Jazz – A Review

Posted on December 28, 2010 by Joel

Vacations are one of the few opportunities I have to get serious reading done… and this Christmas break is no exception. After a number of recommendations by friends, I decided to make Donald Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz” my number one priority, and I must admit, I walk away from the book with mixed reactions.

Blue Like Jazz is self-described as a collection of “Nonreligious Thoughts on Chrisian Spirituality”. I’m not entirely sure this is an accurate title; Donald does talk quite a bit about faith and religion… and its often hard to discuss those topics without taking a religious ‘angle’… but I suppose its not really worth nitpicking the description, I’m reviewing the book as a whole after all.
To be clear, this book undoubtedly contains some gems…. pieces and ideas that spoke to me quite clearly… but just as with the real thing, it took a lot of digging to get there. Perhaps it is the writing style that distracted me: the loose collection of unconnected experiences from the author’s past… the silo’d chapters with no clear cohesion from one to the next. Maybe it was the author’s almost obnoxious fascination with how great hippies are… or maybe it was just the re-telling of the author’s lifelong confusion about God and spirituality that made finding resolution and answers rather difficult.

Whatever it was, I’d hesitate to recommend the book, but would like to share the few portions that moved me in new directions:

First, some dating advice for the guys: It turns out women love seeing romantic plays. But be careful; don’t finish the night like this guy:

later in the play they accidentally kill themselves. It was not very believable but that is what happened. My date was crying. I was thinking they got what they deserved… When we were walking out my date clasped my hand, and even though I wasn’t feeling very mushy, I smiled at her and ascended the aisle and made our way out through the crowded lobby onto the steps of the playhouse… Two girls in front of us were talking to each other. One of them threw her arms in the air and cried out loud: I wish I could know live like Romeo and Juliet”

- I couldn’t take it anymore. I whispered under my breath : “They’re Dead”.

You can imagine how the rest of the date went…

The second concept that rang true with me was one I had heard before: That one of the most powerful things a Christian can do is apologize for the sins of the Church… for the sins of other Christians. Miller shared an interesting story about how such an apology for the hurt experienced by an acquaintance by the hands of a fellow Christian made a huge impact in that persons’s life. I think it bears repeating that in terms of the overall impact, the Church and Christianity has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the world. But while true, that fact itself does not absolve the church of its sins and mistakes – of which there are many. The Church is far from perfect because it is made up of imperfect people… and we should never hesitate to apologize for when we are hypocrites… or worse… even if we did not participate in the wrong.

Perhaps part of the reason the Church does hurt people is because it is caught in a paradox: We are called to love the world… but we are not called to endorse the sin in the world… or support its participation. We are called to take on the often confusing task of rejecting sin but loving sinners. And I’m not sure there is a solution to this paradox that all would find acceptable. Donald expresses this paradox thusly:

The problem in the Christian community was that we had ethics, we had rules and laws and principles to judge each other against. There was love in Christian community, but it was conditional love. Sure, we called it unconditional, but it wasn’t… I wanted to love everybody… I wanted people to love each other…

On the other hand… I felt by loving people… I mean really endorcing their existence, I was betraying the truth of God because I was encouraging them in their lives apart from God…

This was, at the time, my primary problem with Christian faith. With all its talk about pure love, in the end it shook down to conditional love.

If I remember Donald’s point, I think he would say that it is not our responsibility to change a person’s heart; Which is true. But at the same time, I feel there is still a fine line between non-endorcement and endorsement… a problem to which I still do not know the answer. (this would be a great topic to discuss in the comments if you feel so inclined). I never felt like Donald reached a satisfactory conclusion on this point, but perhaps his greater goal was to stimulate the reader’s thoughts… a goal he has certainly achieved with me.

Lastly, Donald tells the story of a guy named Bill, who ran a bed-in-breakfast for people who were doing ministry in San Fransisco. Donald was astonished at the level of service Bill offered to each person… the extent to which Donald sacrificed his time and energy for his guests. When Donald asked Bill about this, bill replied: “If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus”.

The more I think about that line… the more convicted I feel.

But perhaps I’ll open this up to my readers… did I miss something great about this book? Was there some theme that spoke to you? I’m happy to get another take on it.

Art & The Bible (a discussion)

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Joel

book cover

Francis Schaeffer has been, for most of my adult life, a person of considerable interest. As a curious teen, Schaeffer introduced me to the world of reformed theology and the provided reasonable explanations to the often challenging doctrines of predestination and grace. Even apart from his theological ideas, Schaeffer had a gift for communication; his writing is substantive yet very approachable and his various speeches are indicative of an Oxford education. One cannot help but be reminded of CS Lewis when reading Schaeffer — their style, intellectual capacity, and heart for the Lord seem to me very similar.

Each of these traits and impressions have left me with a certain fondness for his writing. On somewhat of a whim, I have decided to re-read through many of his books I rushed through as a high-school student and have long since forgotten.

The first of these books — or in this case a small pamphlet titled “Art & The Bible” — is an overview of Schaeffer’s understanding of Art and it’s place in the Christian worldview. The entire first half of the book is essentially a recitation of all the references to art in the Old Testament. Shaeffer systematically points out that much of the art God commanded of the Israelites was for purely asthetic purposes. Schaeffer references certain elements of the Temple in particular:

Then in verses 16 and 17 [of 2 Chron 3:7]we read, “And he made chains in the oracle, and put them on the tops of the pillar; and set the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.” Here are two free-standing collumns. They supported no architectural weight and had no utilitarian engineering significance. They were there only because God said they should be there as a thing of beauty.

I think Shaeffer’s point here is that even in the Old Testament, God was ‘sanctifying’ “Secular art”. Schaeffer is careful not equate “secular” art with”sacred” art, but he is very clear that art need not be sacred to have value.

After having established that secular art can be pleasing and acceptable to God (in fact, Shaeffer goes as far as to say that a work of art is “a doxology in itself”), Schaeffer then begins to establish a framework with which Christians should approach art. His first approach: Art as Art.

You see, for Schaeffer, art has a certain intrinsic value; its worth is in the fact that it is a product of creativity and that creative impulse mirrors the character of God:

As a Christian we know why a work of art has value. Why? First, because a work of art is a work of creativity, and creativity has value because God is the Creator. The first sentence in the Bible is the declaration that the Creator created… so too the first words of the prologue of the Gospel of John…

He continues:

…[I]t is part of the image of God to be creative, or to have creativity… All people are to some degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our manishness.

Schaeffer’s next framework has to do with art as worldview. He posits that a person’s ideas are inexorably linked to their worldview (although he seems to make a certain exception for purely abstract art). Schaeffer explains that all art uses a certain language or vocabulary that is universally understood… in many cases, the created world we In some cases this “subtext” or implicit communication is sometimes more powerful than the image itself:

When Giacometti pictures the awful alienation of man, he makes figures which are alienated, but he is still living in God’s world and is still using the common symbolic forms no matter how he distorts them. He plays with the vocabulary, but the vocabulary is still there. So there is a communication between Giacometti and me, a titanic communication. I can understand what he is saying and I cry.

One wonders if we all would have such strong reactions if we really understood the ‘language’ the artists are speaking. Music has certainly had this effect on me, and perhaps art could as well if I had the training. I suppose there is a reason we build massive monuments to house, display, and protect art… it is perhaps the purest form of communication — and therefore the most valuable.

Interestingly, Schaeffer is not at all hesitant to make astetic value judgments as to the quality and value of a particular work of art. In fact, he puts forth several criterion by which we should judge a work of art: 1) technical excellence, 2) validity, 3) intellectual content, and 4) the integration of content and vehicle.

Technical excellence is an objective inquiry and I will not elaborate on it here. Validity, on the other hand, is worth explaining. To Schaeffer, a work is valid if the work in question is a natural outflow of an artists own creative ideas and philosophy. In other words, it is valid if it is representative of an artist’s OWN creative impulse. According to Schaeffer, “commercial art would” would be an example of art lacking in validity. Unlike ‘pure’ art, commercial art does not require an artists’ worldview to be incorporated in the work and therefore, the work lacks the same ‘power’ it otherwise might have. Now, I must say I’m not entirely sure I agree with Schaeffer on this point: Whether or not the artist’s own ideas come through does not mean that there is not the communication of a worldview. I would at least argue that a work of commercial art could communicate any philosophy to any viewer with as much effect as the artists may himself be capable of. These creative impulses and their relation to the message is certainly an interesting aspect of the creative process, but I am not convinced on the basis of Schaeffer’s argument that there is an objective difference between the communication in each instance.

Next, Schaeffer explains how a work’s intellectual content is to be addressed:

If we stand as Christians before a man’s canvas and recognize that he is a great artist in technical excellence and validity — if in fact he is — … then we can say that his worldview is wrong. We can judge this view on the same basis we judge the views of anybody else…

The ability to objectively assess art is pivotal for Schaeffer because he recognizes the communicative power of art – especially art meeting the aforementioned criteria. Schaeffer recognizes that when art communicates moral principles contrary to those of scripture, these principles must be addressed from a Christian worldview:

We should realize that if something untrue or immoral is stated in great art it can be far more destructive and devastating than if it is expressed in poor art or prosaic statement. Much of the crude art, the common product of hippie communities and the underground press, is laden with destructive messages, but the art is so poor that it does not have much force. But the greater the artistic expression, the more important it is to consciously bring it and its worldview under the judgment of Christ and the Bible.

Finally, Schaeffer distinguishes technical excellence and message from style. To Schaeffer, “there is no such thing as a godly syle or an ungodly style”. In fact, he sees the use of modern style as an imperative for the Christian artist. He is very explicit on this point:

Christian art today should be twentieth-ctentury art. Art changes, Language changes… [I]f a Christian’s art is not twentieth-century art, it is an obstacle to his being heard. It makes him different in a way in which there is no necessity for difference.

But Schaeffer is careful to provide one important guideline:

“we must use twentieth-century styles [but] must not use them in such a way as to be donimated by the world views out of which they have arisen.

This is a really interesting thought, but I cannot help but to read it without some degree of criticism. Is a piece of art valueable only because of its message? Schaeffer himself says that art has value as aesthetic expression alone… would it then be inappropriate for a Christian to paint a still-life with techniques popularized in the 1800′s? — styles which are still displayed in museums to this very day? Perhaps Schaeffer means to imply that art created with the purpose of communicating a christian worldview should be expressed in a manner designed to be as clear as possible to its audience… and purely aesthetic art need not meet the same criteria.

Schaeffer presents an interesting and helpful introduction to art from a Christian perspective. Short enough to be finished in a day, it is certainly worth your time should you want to broaden your framework on Christ and the arts.

Poisonous Quotes: a Review

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Joel

There isn’t alot to say about Jarman’s “Book of Poisonous Quotes”… other than it is a great resource to guarantee you have a witty remark for almost any occasion. Fortunately, I’ve been keeping track of my favorites and wanted to share them all with you:

On Critics:

I love criticism just so long as it’s unqualified praise. – Noel Coward
Any fool can criticize, and many of them do. – C. Garbett
Critics are probably more prone to cliches than fiction writers who pluck things out of the air. – Penelope Gilliatt
Criticism is prejudice made plausible – H.L. Mencken

On the Creative Arts / Fashion:

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. – Bill Vaughan
On Miniskirts – Never in the history of fashion has so little material been raised so high to reveal so much that needs to be covered so badly. – Sir Cecil Beaton
A Dress has no purpose unless it makes a man want to take it off. – Francoise Sagan
If you have to talk about fashion, then you are not in it – Michaele Vollbracht.
There will be little change in men’s pockets this year. – Wall Street Journal (1948)

On Modern Art:

Modern art is when you buy a picture to cover a hole in the wall and then decide the hole looks much better.
the more minimal the art the more maximum the explanation.
How vain painting is — we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don’t admire at all – Blaise Pascal
Everyone wants to understand painting. Why don’t they try to understand the singing of the birds? People love the night, a flower, everything which surrounds them without trying to understand them. But painting — that they must understand. – Pablo Picasso
This is either a forgery or a damn clever original – Frank Sullivan

On Literature:

There is one good kind of writer — a dead one. – James T. Farrell.
Literature is mostly about having sex, and not much about having babies; life is the other way round. - David Lodge
An optimist is one who believes everything he reads on the jacket of a new book.

On Drama / Plays:

I don’t like propaganda in the theater unless it is disguised so brilliantly that the audience mistakes it for entertainment. - Noel Coward
Opening night is the night before the play is ready to open – George Jean Nathan
A playwright is a lay preacher peddling the ideas of his time in popular form – August Strindberg.

On Film / Acting:

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. – Alfred Hitchcock
The words “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” which I saw on an Italian movie poster, are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of the movies. – Pauline Kael
Hollywood – a town that has to be seen to be disbelieved – Walter Winchell
A celebrity is a person whose name is in everything except the phone directory
A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well-known, and then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized. - Fred Allen

On the Media:

Newspaper strikes are a relief – Princess Anne
Journalism is the only job that requires no degrees, no diplomas, and no specialized knowledge of any kind. – Patrick Campbell
People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with the news. – A.J. Liebling
Freedom of the press is guaranteed to those who own one. - A.J. Liebling
If you read alot of books, you’re considered well read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you’re not considered well viewed.

On Politics:

Politics is the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
If God had been a Liberal, we wouldn’t have the Ten Commandments — We’d have the Ten Suggestions – Malcom Bradbury
What the liberal really wants is to bring about change which will not in any way endanger his position. – Stokely Carmichael.
Fascism is Capitalism in decay – Nikolai Lenin
Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens — and then everybody disagrees. – Boris Marshalov

On the Sexes:

What men desire is a virgin who is a whore - Edward Dahlberg
A woman reading ‘Playboy’ feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual – Gloria Steinem

Cosmic Justice – book review

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Joel

cosmic justice One of the major benefits of being done with lawschool and the bar exam is that I finally get to read — not what I HAVE to read — but what I WANT to read. This disconnect has been going on for so long now that I have (literally) 10 books in a stack just waiting for me to read.

The first of these books is called “The Quest for Cosmic Justice” by Thomas Sowell. Described by David Mammet (screenwriter, playright, director) as “Our greatest living philosopher”, Sowell certainly challenges all who read him and is exacerbates those who don’t. His book explores the causes of (and failures that result from) a vision of justice held by many on the left — a vision dominated by what Sowell refers to as a pursuit “cosmic” (as opposed to traditional) justice. Cosmic, in this instance, refers to a desire to rectify inherent or “natural” inequalities. Sowell puts it this way:

Traditional justice can be mass-produced by impersonal prospective rules governing the interactions of flesh-and-blood human beings, but cosmic injustice must be hand-made by holders of power who impose their own decisions on how these flesh-and-blood individuals should be categorized into abstractions and how these abstractions should then be forcibly configured.

For Sowell, these inequalities are not necessarily desirable, but are realities caused by far more complicated circumstances than any politician can fully understand — or fully prepare for. Sowell points to scores of examples including welfare, poverty, usually made worse by the policies of the self-appointed elite.

We must begin with the universe that we are born into and weigh the costs of making any specific change in it to achieve a specific end. We cannot simply “do something” whenever we are morally indignant, while distaining to consider the costs entailed…

What, after all, is an injustice but the arbitrary imposition of a cost– whether economic, psychic, or other–on an innocent person? And if correcting this injustice imposes another arbitrary cost on another innocent person, is that not also an injustice?

As soon as one starts asking whether the costs to one segment of society outweigh the costs to another segment, the process of creating “cosmic justice” becomes nothing more than a crude balancing of the equities, a fight for federal dollars — a corrupting process that almost never provides real relief. In fact, the pursuit of social justice is not necessarily even an appropriate term:

In pursuit of justice for a segment of society, in disregard for society as a whole, what is called “social justice” might more accurately be called anti-social justice, since what consistently gets ignored or dismissed are precisely the costs to society.

The Quest for Cosmic Justice is not a learned treatice by any stretch of the imagination, it is in many ways a series of simple explanations about why social justice fails… and how we should approach issues of inequity instead of an analysis OF inequity. Even so, I think what is so important about the book is the categorical framework Sowell suggests: Social justice is really anti-social justice, cosmic justice has nothing to do with “justice” at all but is instead the re-distribution of wealth to fix natural inequalities. Conservative need to start approaching the world through the filter of these concepts… and hopefully we will convince others to do the same.

A cogent liberal…

Posted on May 22, 2008 by Joel

As I was researching a previous post, I came across a number of interesting blog posts and interviews I found quite interesting. In particular, I wanted to bring your attention to a great interview with my favorite liberal feminist, Naomi Wolf, author of the infamous “a room of ones own” (and the subject of possibly the best television prank in the last year). She is promoting her new book “The End of America” –a book that lays out the ‘Ten Steps to Closing Down an Open Society’ and “exposes” the ways in which America is mirroring the closed societies of history.

Allow me to begin this discussion by first complimenting Ms. Wolf. First, she just looked great during that interview. I was all about that red thing she was wearing (but I digress!). In all seriousness, I think this book is a valuable addition to the discussion and brings an important (albeit selective) historical context to modern politics. At the risk of cliche, I would remind you that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. By reminding us of the evils of history Ms Wolf is, shockingly enough, being helpful… and I wish to encourage this kind of behavior.

This being said, I think it is fair to say that Ms Wolf’s conclusions are lacking… in any number of ways. It isn’t that she is always wrong, but that her foundational history is in many cases only loosely connected with modern practice. She begins with an assumption of guilt (primarily with the Bush administration… many times implying he is a ‘wannabe’ despot), finds similar parallels to dictators with completely different motivations and purposes, and then imputes those motives to Bush because factual circumstances were the same. Although a stretch, in some cases I found myself thinking that if two people washed their laundry, that would be enough for her to draw a comparison. I am, of course, exaggerating; but I do so to point out that to end one’s analysis at factual similarities without further analysis can lead to very irrational conclusions.

Continue reading →

1 book down… 6932 more to go…

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Joel

I just finished a book by Dinesh D’souza titled “What’s so great about Christianity”. I do not exaggerate when I say that D’souza is in the “Buckley” mold–his grasp of philosophy, history, and the sciences firmly establish him as a “renaissance man” (my kind of guy). Throughout the pages of his book, he challenges and (in many cases ‘destroys’) the arguments and accusations Athiests such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have made against the belief in Christ.

The book’s basic outline is well constructed. First, D’souza systematically questions many of the “new Athiesm’s” presuppositions about Christianity. He points out that Christianity, far from causing the moral tragedies of the modern world… has, in fact, been the changing force that helped overcome these very moral travesties. For example, Christianity lifted women out of the second-class status Roman society had imposed upon them; it was the impetus for the great artists of our time: Michalengelo, Da Vinchi, Mozart, Bach, Handel… etc… ; it helped create the concept of western government — a concept based around the Christian principle that society must fight against the inherent sinful nature of man and must keep leader’s actions in check. These are but a few of Christianity’s contributions to world history…

D’souza then calls Athiesm out — asking it to provide the same answers it chides Christianity for failing to answer. When tragedy happens, Where is Atheism? Atheism cannot console the victims of tradgey… nor can it condemn the aggressor. When Athiest rulers murder millions of their subjects… where is Athiesm’s defense (or apology?). When Athiesm claims rationality as their trump card… on what basis can they claim that rationality alone provides all answers? For all it’s proponents, Athiesm still has much to account for.

What’s So Great About Christianity may be the best piece of Christian apologetics in the past decade; don’t pass it up!