Christian Music: Not Safe and Fun for the Whole Family

I haven't listened to a lot of Christian music in a long time, certainly not on the radio, for reasons I'm sure many of you can guess. But music is a particularly powerful influencer. Good music often carries a lyric into the subconscious and a song can stick in your head for days. For me (and I suspect for most folks) music is an important habit of my mind, whether intentional or unintentional.

For this reason, I've recently been more intentional about the role of music in my need to to "take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Cor 10) and to think on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable" (Phil 4).

Since the stuff on Christian radio isn't my style, among other things, it doesn't have much power to help me in this endeavor. (It does help many, many Christians "set [their] minds on things above" (Col 3:1), so I won't judge it too harshly, and I chide myself for doing so so disdainfully in the past.)

Fortunately, there is a good amount of "inde" music out there these days that reaches out to me and others like me (and others not like me!). Thanks to sites like Amazon and Noisetrade with their automatic, you-may-also-like suggestion boxes, out-of-the-mainstream music gets easier and easier to find.

Here are some of my recent finds.

The Vespers

As you can plainly see from the cover of their album, The Fourth Wall, The Vespers belie my bias for folk and bluegrass. They could be described as inde folk, or neo-folk, rockin' out their pickin-n-strumin' instruments in their vintage clothing. What you can't see are their at times haunting, at times playful vocals and lyrics. You can sample those here.

The Vespers don't only help us rejoice with those who rejoice, they also help us weep with those who weep, a holistic truth telling.

Gungor

Note the cover art on Beautiful Things: this is not your typical Christian music scene. Paradox is a significant part of the Christian understanding of truth, and Gungor reminds us of one of the most crucial paradoxes: 

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us

Psalm-like, "Beautiful Things" opens with doubts and a sense of being overwhelmed and beat down by the ugly things in this world and in our hearts, but it is the refrain that remains in the mind---the reminder, the affirmation, the hope.

Wilder Adkins

Wilder Adkins's Oak & Apple presents new, acoustic remakes of old, beloved hymns. This choice exposes my preference for hymns over other kinds of Christian music. I'm not the only one, apparently, because there have been several projects in this vein of late. I prefer acoustic, folk-oriented albums like this one, but there are a significant number of neo-hymn albums with more pop-rock flavor.

One reason I appreciate these kinds of albums is because, along with familiar favorites, I'm always introduced to hymns I didn't grow up with. I love learning new hymns; the hymn is such a rich heritage, and learning the hymns from outside my own tradition links me to the wide, deep heritage of the faith.

You can find her latest album here.

Christine Hand

You might recognize that name. It just so happens that one of my very favorite musicians is our very own Christine Hand. Christine's music appeals to me pretty much for all the same reasons the above albums and artists do: the woman and her band can play their instruments! roots in folk, folk-rock, and blues; soulful, holistic vocals and lyrics. Her song, "The Face of All the World", is one of my long-time favorites, and I often turn to it when I feel overwhelmed by the world and am in need of encouragement and a reminder that God is everywhere and in everything:

You're every sweet sound

You are the cold rain

And every tear that from my eyes will fall for joy or pain

You are the best thing that I have found

And this world is wide and round

I haven't given up "secular" music---as we often like to say, all truth is God's truth. There are many, many songs of all stripes that remind me of Christ or the absence of him, of the glory and the horror of this life; and many songs of many stripes that are just plain fun! But as music is a powerful influencer, it's something we should at times be intentional about. The above albums and artists disciple my mind and nurture my soul. 

Your turn. I'm always on the lookout for good music. Share with us in the comments: What have been some of your favorite finds? What music gives you courage and hope? 

ru’mi-nate: to chew the cud; to muse; to meditate; to think again; to ponder

Here at Thinking through Christianity, we try to be a place that points to good art at the intersection of faith. We do this because imagination is crucial to Christianity and because art speaks to us about the world and ourselves, telling the Truth better than exposition.

Since 2006, our friends at Ruminate Magazine have been a beacon in the darkness that can all too often be Christianity and the Arts---both the fear of and subsequent disdain for contemporary "secular" art and the muck of mediocre "christian" art.

Allow me to let them tell you a little about themselves:

Ruminate is a quarterly magazine of short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, and visual art that resonate with the complexity and truth of the Christian faith. Each issue is a themed forum for literature and art that speaks to the existence of our daily lives while nudging us toward a greater hope. Because of this, we strive to publish quality work accounting for the grappling pleas, as well as the quiet assurances of an authentic faith. Ruminate Magazine... was created by a group of fellow writers, artists, and believers who wanted a space for the thoughtful expressions of those who are nudged forward, backward, and sideways by faith in God.

Speak. Grapple. Nudge. This is art---life.

The magazine's most recent issue, "In Search of Song," includes a short story from my friend and colleague LaToya Watkins titled, "The Mother." As a means of giving props to LaToya and enticing you to check out the magazine for yourself, here's an excerpt:

The visits done died down a little bit now. Some still come. The rustlers like this on sitting in front of me. They still asking bout Hawk. Bout how he come to call hisself the Messiah. Bout who his daddy is, but I ain't got nothing for them.

I look out the window I keep my chair pulled up next to. Ain't no sun, just cold and still. Banjo lift his head up when he see my eyes on him, but it don't take him long to let it fall back on his paws. He done got his rope a little tangled up. Can't move too much with it like that, but he can breathe and lay down. He alright. I'll go out and work out the knot when I can--when this gal leave.

...

I move my eyes away from the window and put them on the girl. She got a long bird face and her teeth stick out a little too far for her tiny mouth. I can tell by the way the sides of her mouth drooping down, she ain't used to being in a place like mine. I don't want to make her feel more uncomfortable, so I don't say nothing bout the pregnant looking roach crawling slow up the wood-paneled wall behind her head.

"I reckon peoples be just like them trees, you see?" Her face blank. I can tell she don't see. "Everybody got a season to go through being ugly and naked." I laugh a little bit. 

"Yes, ma'am," she say. Then she sigh and let her eyes roll halfway round in the sockets. "We all have problems, but can we--"

"That enough heat on you?" I ask. "Can't never keep this old lean-to warm. That enough heat on you--" I stop myself from calling her "miss". I want to spank the back of my own hand. She younger than me. Probably bout by twenty years or more. Still, I want to make sure that the old electric heater sitting on the cracked and splintered floor near her feet humming is doing what it's supposed to do. Sometimes it blow cold air instead heat like it's supposed to. I want to make sure it ain't freezing her.

She look confused bout my question. Them lines in her head get deeper, and she start shaking her foot a little. She want her story for the paper. Want to find out if I think my son was God like them folks what was following behind him in Abilene. 

Are you hooked yet? Order your copy here.

Thinking Through Fall Fashion

It’s officially autumn, so in addition to Pumpkin Spice Lattes and new pens and notebooks, I am currently obsessed with fall fashion. Now, you may well wonder, “Why is this person writing about fashion on a website called ‘Thinking Through Christianity?’ Isn’t that a little shallow? And anyway, what does fashion have to do with Christianity?" These are good questions, and some that have been at the forefront of my mind this fashion season. Here are a few of my own musings in response:

1. Christianity is a worldview, and fashion is part of the world; there must be a Christian view of fashion.

For the Christian, there’s no part of life that is not affected by Christianity. This includes something as “shallow” as fashion -- especially since everyone wears clothes. Even if you think you are not fashionable, you probably care about how you look at a job interview or on a first date; even if you despise fashion and say you don’t care about it, your decision to eschew fashion norms is still a decision about how you present yourself to the world -- which leads me to my next point:

2. Fashion has an ethos

I teach Freshman rhetoric classes, and when I teach about the rhetorical appeal of “ethos,” I tell my students that “ethos” is self presentation. Fashion is one of the ways we distinguish our identities from others’ and present those identities to the world. In presenting ourselves to the world, fashion can be a kindness or a disservice to those around us, depending on aesthetic appeal and on how much of our bodies we choose to reveal or conceal. Consider the classic example of a father’s shock at his teen-aged daughter’s date night attire. Fashion, in such a case, is not neutral, nor is it mere decoration -- fashion says something about the wearer and about the society that produces it. If the notion of fashion as a reflection of society is starting to sound familiar, it should; TTC’s Renea MacKenzie wrote about this very quality in her post on a Christian view of art. This, of course, leads to my next point:

3. Fashion can be art

If fashion is art, then it has great potential as one of the ways we reflect God’s image as Creator by making our own beautiful creations. (Just because these creations are made from the stuff we accumulate in our closets doesn’t make them less worthy to be called art). Even better, the beauty that we make through fashion may enhance our lives and the lives of our friends, neighbors, and colleagues on a daily basis. If art is a mirror of society, we may also want to consider how the daily artwork of our fashion choices both contributes to and reflects our culture -- fashion is one area in which we each have the potential to be culture makers; to not be merely swayed by society’s whims, but to set the new fashion standards through our shopping and styling choices. This is especially true in a world of fashion blogging, where anyone with a camera, a computer, and a good eye can play an influential role in setting trends. (By the way, check out this blog that I just found in my latest bout of fashion blog stalking -- I mean reading -- for some interesting and modest fashion choices.)

These are only the beginnings of my thoughts on this subject, but the big take-away is this: if Christ is Lord of a Christian’s life, He is Lord of all of it, including that person’s fashion life. Monks and nuns understand this when they wear a habit -- a garment that almost literally clothes them in praise.

Readers, what do you think? Am I overthinking this? Is fashion truly a valuable consideration for the Christian? If so, what is a Christan approach to fashion? A few elements I might consider include stewardship, economy, modesty, and beauty. What other elements might you include in a Christian view of fashion?

Art as Mirror & Bridge

Art is extremely helpful to us as Christians. I see that look of incredulity on your faces. Hear me out. Learning how to understand and engage with art should be important to us because art serves as both a mirror of society and a bridge to the other. As a mirror, art serves as a finger on the pulse of our particular culture or subculture: What do we (as a society) believe? What do we value? What’s happening historically, and how is that affecting what we believe and value? Often, art can even answer the question: Where are we heading? Christians are regularly interested in these questions, but we generally ignore art even though art is a major informer of the answers Christians are looking for in these regards.

Art as a bridge serves several purposes. As a bridge to other people, art helps us understand and empathize with individuals and people groups we don’t understand, whether because of long distances of time and space or because of long distances between their ideology and ours. This is huge. What we don’t understand we fear. When we act out of fear, we fail to live by faith and to act out of love. Conversely, understanding brings connection and the ability to empathize. Empathy, or compassion, or love-induced understanding, is a pillar of our faith. How can we show Christ’s love to people we choose not to connect to and empathize with (whether by willful choice or lazy neglect)?

Finally, art serves as a bridge to the Other, to God. We need imagination to envision the Kingdom of God, a world which Jesus said was here but not yet fully here. We need our God-given imaginations to pray, Father, make it on Earth as it is in heaven. Art helps us go there, helps us engage our imaginations. It can take us to otherworldly places like Narnia and Hogwarts and Middle Earth. In a painting, lovers can float happily above the world of cares and woes, as if in heaven. When art depicts light and life and love through colors and lines and shapes (and cinematography and dialogue and chord progressions), art is, whether we realize it or not, whether the artist intended it or not, pointing us to the Source of light and life and love, to Light and Life and Love himself!

Even when art shows us the shadows, when we’re forced to face all that is dark and dead and ugly in the world (and in our hearts), this too points to God and to Christ. Like the negative of a photograph shows us what should be fully there but isn’t, this kind of art shows us our fallen condition, often pointing to the reality that begins to take shape when God is taken out of the picture, when sin has pushed him out of the framework of our lives.

With these concepts in mind—art as mirror and bridge—let’s practice engaging with art with one of my favorite painters. The paintings of Marc Chagall are characterized by his use of rich, vibrant colors; floating, elongated figures; and life-bearing imagery and symbols: such as fruit, flowers, streams, trees, chickens, bulls, lovers... In 1914, Chagall was in his hometown Vitebsk, Russia with his fiancee Bella Rosenfeld, with whom Chagall intended to return to Paris, but was prevented from doing so when the Great War broke out. This war-affected stint in Russia resulted in a major shift in Chagallʼs paintings. Gone are the vibrant colors. Gone are much of the influences of cubism and the life-bearing images and symbols. All these are replaced with browns and greys, downcast figures, and a thematic and stylistic shift toward realism — Paris is exchanged for Russia, peacetime for wartime.

We can see this shift notably by comparing Chagallʼs Paris through the Window of 1913 to his work titled, Father, from 1914. Note in Paris through the Window the rainbow-like reds, greens, yellows, blues, and oranges. Note the fanciful and strange (but wondrous-strange) figures and goings-on: the upside-down train, the man floating down from the Eiffel Tower, the couple floating horizontally in head-to-head conversation, the colorful cat with the human face, the cheerful bouquet of flowers, and finally, the two-faced figure looking out the window into the city (and looking back, presumably to Vitebsk).


Paris through the Window, oil on canvas

All this vibrancy and fancy and glorification of the realm of imagination is abandoned as the weight of war forces Chagall, even Chagall who was so resilient against his contemporaries’ compulsions toward total abstraction, to morph from a bridge between reality and imagination—a soul connecting body and spirit—into a mirror of the reality of Chagallʼs war-burdened world, bringing the everyday and the ordinary into perspective.

Father, tempura on paper

In Father, three somber figures—man, woman, and cat—sit at a flower-less table, their backs to the closed window. Fanciful happenings aren’t happening. Laundry is. The cat and the woman, whose face is rather like the cat’s, look to the larger, principal figure of the father, leading our eyes to the father's own despairing and downcast eyes. Instead of wistful wildflowers, there is a nondescript, white cylinder which might be a plain, ordinary cup, perhaps even an empty cup. Grittiness of tempera on paper replaces the smoothness of the oil on the canvas of Paris through the Window.

When we look at Chagallʼs Father with 21st century eyes, the piece serves as a bridge: the gap is bridged between 21st-century America and early 20th-century Russia as we understand WWI Russia a bit better, as we understand Chagall a bit better (the painting is of his father and grandmother), and most significantly, as we empathize with the double burden of war and poverty. For many it no doubt also serves as mirror: we can see our own present economic struggles in the slumped shoulders, downcast eyes, and barren table. Contextual specifics do not cloud universal translation—that’s good art. Father is the two-faced figure from Paris through the Window looking back to itʼs own wartime context and looking out into our present one.