Alex DeMarco

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis challenged Hip Hop’s fashion status quo with the radically popular song “Thrift Shop.” They chimed in on the hot button issue of homosexuality and marriage equality with “Same Love.” And their highly thoughtful social commentary doesn’t end there. Also off their recent album “The Heist,” this song titled “Wing$” powerfully, and one might even say prophetically, highlights the bankruptcy of American Consumer Religion, using sneaker culture (something I knew practically nothing about) as an example. Check it out.

Macklemore- Wings ft. Ryan Lewis from Shane Harmon on Vimeo.

The Consumer Catechism has taught us that our identities are constructed by the possessions that we acquire. “We are what we wear, we wear what we are.” The products we do not yet have are to be seen as essential pieces of ourselves that are missing, and it is our incompleteness without them that constitutes our depravity. Our inevitable awareness of our own dependence, finitude, corruption, and fragmentation has thus been hijacked by advertising as an exploitable resource. We are told that our fulfillment, completion, perfection (i.e. our salvation) will come with the next Air Jordans, or the next iPhone, or the next car, or the next house, or the next (fill in the blank). “This would be my parachute, so much more than just a pair of shoes…this is what I am.” This is the consumer theory of atonement.

The particular object in which we are to seek our salvation is always changing from moment to moment, but it is always an object, and it is always the next object. As soon we have a particular pair of Nikes or live in a particular house we realize that we are still unfulfilled, and so we look in faithful longing to the next thing. And so the cycle continues. When will we realize that all that awaits us every time  is “just another pair of shoes”?

Failure is built into the system. The consumer gospel can never make good on its promises, for if it did consumption would all but grind to a halt. Unfulfillment is the fuel which keeps the wheels of the capitalist machine turning. Insatiable desire for consumption requires perpetual dissatisfaction.

In one way or another we have all “listened to what that swoosh said.” To some extent we have all bought into this false gospel. We have tried to construct our identities piece by piece with material possessions. We have sought our salvation in having the right stuff. From a Christian perspective, this might very well be the most radical affront to the Lordship of Christ in individuals and in our world today.  Our identity and our salvation are to be found in Christ. In him we are the adopted sons and daughters of God. “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

But we have not taken this truth to heart. We have sought our life elsewhere. We have turned our goods into our god. We have looked to these idols for our identity and our salvation. We have knocked and knocked and knocked; “but there was no voice, no answer, and no response” (1 Kings 18:26). We have “bought these dreams” and they “all fall down.”

Macklemore says that “these Nikes help me define me, and I’m trying to take mine off.” Whatever our Nikes might be, whatever material possessions we might be trying to define ourselves with, it’s time for us to take them off.

I just came across a little online tit for tat between Peter Enns and Ken Ham. If you care to read it all, it begins with Enns’ post titled “Reading Genesis: Let’s be Adult about this, Shall We.”, which Ham responded to with “Peter Enns Wants Children to Reject Genesis.”, which Enns responded to with “‘Ken Ham Clubs Baby Seals’ (or, it may be time for him to rethink his ministry strategy)”. The titles themselves tell quite a bit of the story.

Enns wants to challenge American Evangelical leaders to finally step up and deal with modern critical biblical scholarship, and to give their followers ways of reading the Bible which may turn out to be more faithful, and will not set them up for a crisis of faith when what they know of the Bible inevitably meets the facts of the modern world. This will mean that some of the Old Testament stories can no longer be read as literal history, but we should not feel that we are losing something when this happens.

Ham, in response, affirms that Enns is compromising on the Bible. According to Ham, Genesis cannot be a mythical account. “If that were the case, Christians would not be able to trust any of God’s Word because God would be a liar.” He doesn’t like the way Enns refers to the literal reading as childish, and claims that he’s engaging in mudslinging.

Enns retorts by calling out Ham on his general strategy for “settling differences with Christians [which] seems to be: attack first, and ask questions, well, never.”

Ok, so you have the idea of what’s going on here.

First of all, as far as how to read the Bible is concerned, I line up more with Enns. I think he put it really well when he said: “Because of a failure in leadership to help their people process the kinds of data Gunkel is talking about, a lot of Christians over the last century or so have struggled in needless and unhealthy ways with their faith.” This is a problem we need to deal with and I’m glad he is calling people to rise to the occasion. Better late than never.

Ham’s understanding of the Bible does strike me as rather naive. His claim that if Genesis was not literal history God would be a liar is silly. If someone were to come along and tell you that there never was an actual race between a tortoise and a hare, you  probably wouldn’t conclude that Aesop was a deceiving scoundrel. And I don’t feel like it is important for there to have been a particular Adam and a particular Eve in a literal garden with a snake and fruit and so on for Genesis 3 to be true. In fact, Reinhold Niebuhr noted that ”the docrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.” You can see that it is true every day in the news. Genesis 3 is no lie. Nor is this a slippery slope to denying Jesus. Recognizing the genre of one text tells you nothing about how you ought to read the other 65 (depending on how you count) documents which were gradually collected and eventually bound together some time around the fourth century to form our Bible.

That being said, I think Enns’ rhetoric is a bit more provocative than is helpful. I get that the childish reading thing comes from Gunkel and the title is based off of that, but as one who used to be a firm biblical literalist (I was even a subscriber to Answers in Genesis magazine), I know how this sounds from that side. “Let’s be adult about this, shall we,” certainly isn’t reassuring, and sounds kind of bluntly patronizing. He should be wary of playing into the fundamentalist expectation that liberals with horns and superiority complexes are eagerly laying in wait to tear down their faith around every corner of the web.

It would do more to tear down walls of hostility and prepare the way for fruitful and authentic dialogue in which Evangelical leaders could actually hear the valuable concerns and suggestions Enns has, if he were to began by acknowledging the deep concern for the Bible as sacred text, and for the faith of those who believe in it, which he shares in common with them. And to make it clear that it is this very passion which drives his insistence that Evangelicals deal seriously with critical scholarship, I think would go a long way. And although the beliefs that he is challenging may be unhelpful and even injurious to the health of the Church, a bit more compassion for the centrality of those beliefs in the worldviews of so many of those he is trying to appeal to would really strengthen his appeal.

And although it may be somewhat wanting in compassion, Enns says a number of things in his retort that Ham needs to listen to. Humility is key. Ham needs to realize that he does not speak for God. William Abraham said:

“‎We must recognize that it is one thing to be loyal to Christ but it is another thing to be loyal to someone’s interpretation of loyalty to Christ. We should resist coercion at the latter level. We must in turn be aware of harsh, judgmental criticism that would equate loyalty to our beliefs with loyalty to Christ. Evangelicals especially need to attend to this.”

As part of this humility Ham needs to have some respect for the fact that he has a bachelors degree in Applied Science and is passing judgement on top biblical scholars (Enns has an M.Div from Westminster Seminary and a Ph.D from Harvard in Ancient Near Eastern languages and civilizations), claiming them to have compromised in their readings of the Bible. He should bear in mind the words of Alexander Pope that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.”

I am concerned for our readings of the Bible, so I am glad to see these discussions taking place. But I am also concerned for the unity and witness of the Church in the world, and so I think we need to do better on the attitudes and tones we take with each other. The gravity of what is at stake warrents passion. Yet the gravity of what is at stake (our unity and witness) demands that we go about it with humility, compassion, patience, and love.

So I apparently have a way of fixating on the side-bar observations of authors who are generally spending most of their time and effort driving at other themes. For instance, if it was Neil Postman that I was reading tonight I would probably be inspired to write about social and economic justice. But, it just so happens that I am reading sermons by Martin Luther King Jr., and therefore it is only natural that I feel inclined to share a comment he made regarding Western civilization’s enslavement to technology. Ironically but truthfully,  as my iPhone was downloading ios 6, I read this quotation King gave by an unnamed “Oriental writer” speaking as if to us Westerners:

You call your thousand material devices “labor-saving machinery,” yet you are forever “busy.” With the multiplying of your machinery you become increasingly fatigued, anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more; and wherever you are you want to go somewhere else. You have a machine to dig the raw material for you…, a machine to manufacture [it]…, a machine to transport [it]…, a machine to sweep and dust, one to carry messages, one to write, one to talk, one to sing, one to play at the theater, one to vote, one to sew,…  and a hundred others to do a hundred other things for you, and you are the most nervously busy man in the world… your devices are neither time-saving nor soul-saving machinery. They are so many sharp spurs which urge you on to invent more machinery and to do more business.

The comments Dr. King goes on to make apply not only to our slavery to technology, but also to our broader problem of which it is a part, i.e. the relentless pursuit of material wealth. He says that “the means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live,” and “we have absorbed life in livelihood.” I frequently wonder about these issues, and what it would look like for the Church to be a prophetic voice in such a society. If you have any thoughts or suggestions feel free to share them. And now it’s time for me to go and put links to this post on Facebook and Twitter. Hmmm?

I heard this hymn for the first time last week, and it may now be one of my favorites. It was composed by the 19th century scholar Henry Francis Lyte, and titled “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken.”

Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave, and follow thee;
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shalt be:
Perish ev’ry fond ambition,
All I’ve sought, or hoped, or known;
Yet how rich is my condition,
God and heav’n are still my own.

Let the world despise and leave me,
They have left my Savior too;
Human hearts and looks deceive me;
Thou art not, like man, untrue;
And, while thou shalt smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate and friends may shun me;
Show thy face, and all is bright.

Man may trouble and distress me,
‘Twill but drive me to thy breast;
Life with trials hard may press me,
Heav’n will bring me sweeter rest:
O ’tis not in grief to harm me
While thy love is left to me;
O ’twere not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with thee.

Take, my soul, thy full salvation,
Rise o’er sin and fear and care;
Joy to find in ev’ry station
Something still to do or bear;
Think what spirit dwells within thee,
What a Father’s smile is thine,
What a Saviour died to win thee:
Child of heav’n, shouldst thou repine?

Hasten on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith, and winged by prayer;
Heav’n's eternal day’s before thee,
God’s own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission;
Swift shall pass thy pilgrim days;
Hope soon change to glad fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.

- Blaise Pascal, Pensees

I find it beautiful that in Christ we have new life here and now. We have the basis for a true contentment in the present. And yet that contentment does not preclude our hope, our longing, for the fulfillment of God’s promises in the future. The life we live today serves as a foretaste of the eternal life to come. By God’s grace our life here and now is a participation in, just as it is an anticipation of, the eternal life promised to us.