I Cry Language Revolution!

There is a very significant, but often overlooked difference between the message and the method of communication. I struggle to come to grips with why, in main stream Christianity, more soap-box time is given to condemning the voice than the sentence. Why are certain communication methods condemned outright? Because of their content? If that were so, then why isn’t the content itself condemned? My fear is that we are throwing away the very tools that could revolutionize tomorrow’s church.

Let’s be careful here, I am not talking about fraternizing with the world system. The methods of communication that we are throwing away have become almost entirely secularized– novels, movies, video, music, and the internet—but who do you think invented music? It wasn’t the Rolling Stones.

Music is not evil, debauchery is.
Movies are not wicked, violence is.
The Internet is not deviant and personally destructive, pornography is.

These things, just like everything in the world, has been perverted by a sinful and debased mankind that cannot help but destroy or damage anything that it touches. Why are we surprised that sinful people use these things to communicate sinful messages? Instead of counteracting or even preempting with a message of hope, grace, forgiveness and love from righteous God who created the Universe, we murmur about how wicked those music videos are. We must recognize the difference between the method of communication and the worldview. They are not the same thing.

I regularly bemoan the sad state of our Christian culture, which has become sadly secluded from the lost world around it. One of the distinctives of American Christianity as a society is that the few people who are communicating effectively, don’t say anything worth listening to.

I firmly believe that uncompromised truth can be communicated in effective ways. In his book, Can Man Live Without God, Ravi Zacharias puts forth the idea that there are three stages of Philosophy.

- The first, and most obvious, is the Instruction Stage – The classroom, where college professors and scholars argue the finer points of thought.

- The second is the Illustration Stage — The artist demonstrating what he believes, or what he thinks his culture believes

- Finally, the Application Stage – Around the dinning room table, how a philosophy is actually put into practice.

As Ministers of the Gospel of Peace, we try to go from stage one to stage three without realizing that the arts of music, drama, video, and even architecture are communicative of philosophy too. America pieces together its worldview from Yellowcard, Carrie Underwood, Mel Gibson and the Wachowski Brothers, and we think that we can change all that by telling them to change their mind.

What are you Saying, Ray?

I am not saying that we, as Christians, should try compete with the secular arts industries – that is not our calling. We are called to make disciples. I am not a proponent of creating a Christian version of every discernible element of American society. We are commanded to be imitators of Christ, not the culture.

I am saying that if we believe it enough to teach it, and to live it, then we should also believe it enough to demonstrate it in our art.

I am saying that we harness pick up the tools that we have at our fingertips, and, instead of critiquing those tools, get to work!

My point is this: Culture is not evil. Culture is a vessel, and what content you deliver in our cultural vessel is entirely up to you.

Some examples::

- http://www.wol.org/gp/easter/

- www.Teddekker.com

- http://www.fpatheatre.com/

- http://www.tobymac.com/

- http://www.wol.org/gp/alivinghope/

How do you use the culture that you live in to communicate uncompromised truth?