Faith in Context

A Comic Book Version of the Bible

Charles Crumb has published a comic book version of Genesis and seems to be working toward publishing the entire Bible in this format. It is notable because, unlike other products that have been out for some time, this is an adult publication that includes the entire text of Genesis with a drawn frame for each phrase or verse where the action changes. This is serious comic book art, not those little 8-page handout versions that some SS and VBS publishers provide.

"R. Crumb," as he signs his work, is the last person one would think of to initiate this project. He has a long history of producing cynical, profane and even X-rated comics for Mad magazine, etc. He is an institution of sorts in popular culture. He is an agnostic, not a believer, and the reviewer in The New York Times Book Reviewnoted some ways in which this may have influenced his treatment of Genesis. The text follows the King James Version, but relies more heavily on the English translation of Genesis done by Robert Alter.

What does this mean?

There is good and bad news for Jesus followers. On the one hand, the Bible is becoming available in more and more genre's of popular culture, including those more accessible to some of the segments least connected with conventional means of conveying the gospel, such as the church and Christian broadcasting and publishing. (You will not find R. Crumb's version of Genesis for sale in most Christian bookstores.) On the other hand, the Bible is open to manipulation by producers who are not "people of the book" and will use it for their own purposes. The precedent has been set by Americans' long insistence on the primacy of the King James Version. It is a cultural icon as well as word from God.

What Do You Make of The Shack?

It is at about 40 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. It has sold more than five million copies. It is a novel entitled The Shack by a first-time author, originally self-published with the help of two pastors that raised just $300 for a marketing budget.

Summary by Jenn Cavanaugh, reviewer for Youth Worker Journal: "God sets aside a weekend to lead Mack, a man overwhelmed by a family tragedy, into a more trusting relationship with Herself. Yes, Herself. All three persons of the Trinity take turns reconstructing Mack's notions of God. His image of God as a white man is among the first challenged. Discourses on freewill and theodicy transpire over meals and yard work. Putting words in God's mouth is a risky business, and the lapses into trite Sunday School formulas are precariously balanced by more winsome moments. The result is an extremely human rendition of God but a generally orthodox and thought-provoking one. [It] serves as a rendezvous point for any whose pain has obscured a sense of the presence, or goodness, of God-with-us."

It is important to keep this phenomena in perspective. The circulation of this volume is still way below that of The Da Vinci Code, although, in fairness, that book had an established author and a major publisher behind it. And there are evidently no published demographics on who is purchasing The Shack. Nonetheless, Why do you think this book has become so popular? Is it being read by people outside of church circles?

Revised Blackaby Classic is Coming

Experiencing God  by Henry Blackaby is a late 20th century classic in Evangelical spirituality. There are seven million copies in circulation and it has been translated into 45 languages. Soon the publisher will release a revised edition with both Blackaby and his son as co-authors. Largeparts have been re-written (the publisher says about 70 percent) and there are seven new chapters. Many of the stories and illustrations have been replaced by more recent events to make it a more contemporary. The original was published in 1991, but actually included a lot of material from earlier years because it represented a compilation of decades of teaching and preaching by Blackaby, a Canadian Baptist pastor and seminary president.

As I read the new revision, I found the familiar outline and the basic, sensible, clearly organized material. Many of Blackaby's original, personal stories are retained. There is a reason why this is a classic. It is a very straight-forward textbook on what it means to live as an ordinary, middle class Christian in today's world. It is a clearly-stated journey into contemporary Evangelical spirituality. It knows nothing about social justice or environmental stewardship. It makes no attempt to deal with the complexities of a the postmodern mind. It includes many small indicators that assume a certain kind of middle class lifestyle. But, it is not hostile to new generations of Christians who see social action as an essential ingredient in faithful living. It is foundational to those concerns. Used with other resources, it still provide an essential piece in the development of discipleship with both new Christians and those who may have never built a spiritual foundation for their lives.

New Biography: A Woman Activist, Missionary

A biography of Hannah Moore has recently been published. Who is she? Why is that important? Hannah Moore was a Christian antislavery activist and missionary who gave her life to helping the poor and downtrodden, and eventually joined the Adventist Church. "The case of Hannah More" (sic) appears in Testimonies for the Church by Ellen White and plays a role in one of White's many pleas for the church to engage more fully "our duty to the poor." (See Volume 1 of Testimonies, pages 666-680, which also reproduces some of the correspondence between Moore and White.)

Moore lived during the mid-19th century, a time when single women rarely had careers, yet she served as a Congregational missionary among the Cherokee in Oklahoma and the Mende in West Africa. For a period of time she ran a mission station by herself at Kaw Mendi. She had disputes with her superiors and became acquainted with the survivors of the Amistad slave mutiny in Africa. The biography resulted from finding a large supply of her correspondence.

Toward the end of her life, in her late 50s, Moore became an Adventist, her employment with the Congregational mission board came to an end and she traveled to Battle Creek, hoping to find a job with the Adventist Church. Despite pleas on her behalf by a pastor's wife who arrived on the same train with her, also moving to Battle Creek, and at least one church leader at the request of James White, no position was opened for her. She ran out of money and when to live with relatives in northern Michigan. The Whites found out about her discouragement and offered to pay for her to travel back to Battle Creek and live in their home. Before details could be worked out and the journey made, she fell sick and died in the winter of 1868. The Whites were greatly distressed by this. "Sister Hannah More ... died a martyr to the selfishness of a people who profess to be seeking for ... eternal life," she wrote. (Testimonies, Volume 2, page 332) And states, "I was shown [in vision] that the neglect of her was the neglect of Jesus in her person. Had the Son of God come in the humble, unpretending manner in which He journeyed from place to place when He was on earth, He would have met with no better reception." (Ibid, page 140)

There are some interesting hints in the White material as to the precise nature of the lack of enthusiastic reception in the Adventist community. She describes Moore as an "intellectual" (Pamphlet 123, page 3) and wrote that Moore had "resources of knowledge" that "exceeded those of anyone residing at [Battle Creek]." (Testimonies, Volume 2, page 141) In her review of the new biography, Camille Forman says, "Moore was a feisty woman in a time when women were expected to be pious and submissive." (International Bulletin of Missionary Research, July 2008) Is it possible that "the brethren" at Battle Creek were not interested in another talented woman with decided views?

Ellen White pointed out that this kind of covert bigotry is demonic. "Nothing is more treacherous than the deceitfulness of sin. It is the god of this world that deludes, and blinds, and leads to destruction. Satan ... disguises these temptations with a semblance of good." She makes the specific application, "Had the church emerged from darkness and deception into the clear light, their hearts would have been drawn" to Moore. (Ibid, page 142) "The hypocritical Pharisees prayed and fasted, and observed the forms of godliness, while they were corrupt at heart." (Page 143) White could not let the topic go, returning to it several times. "Not one in twenty of those who have a good standing with Seventh-day Adventists is living out the self-sacrificing principles of the word of God," she observed at one point. She connected the Moore tragedy with a wider problem. "We see outcasts, widows, orphans, worthy poor and ministers in want." (Testimonies, Volume 1, page 632, 678)

Maybe the Battle Creek Adventist community learned the lesson. When Mrs. S.M.I. Henry, a minister with the interfaith Women's Christian Temperance Union, joined the Adventist Church some years later, she was welcomed and given employment. But let's not miss another historic reality going on here: Hannah Moore and Sereptima Henry and Sojourner Truth are examples of how Christian activists of the 19th century were attracted to the Adventist movement. There was something about the Advent hope and the wholistic mission that resonated with these people, especially women, despite the fact that a prophetic voice had to be raised from time to time to herd it in the right direction.

The book is available from Amazon: Hannah Moore: A Biography of a Nineteenth-Century Missionary and Teacherby Isabel Weigold (2007, iUniverse, New York). It is available both as a paperback and at half the price as an Adobe eBook.

Neighbors and Sabbath

Alex Boraine is a South African clergyman and lawyer who was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to be deputy chair of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, serving under Chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He served for many years in the Republic of South Africa parliament and taught for a few years at NYU law school. He published an autobiography recently, A Life in Transition.

The first chapter is about his childhood. He remembers that among his neighbors, "There were also the Browns, who were Seventh-day Adventists. I hadn't the slightest idea what that meant, except that we could never play with Roy, their son, on Saturday, which was regarded as a holy day." (page 9)

He says nothing more about his perceptions, but his comments raise some interesting questions: When Sabbath-keepers keep their children from their friends in the neighborhood on Sabbath, what does that teach the neighbors about the Sabbath? Why did nothing get through to the children other than a kind of default message? Does the fear of going too far end up in a lack of proactive friendship that causes the Sabbath-keeper to come across as simply "strange" instead of principled and in possession of a valued concept--resting from the stress of life, the struggle to get ahead, in a weekly retreat for spiritual, physical and emotional healing of themselves and all creation? How could the Browns have handled this in a more creative, proactive way?

Reading Like a Loser: Key to the Apocalyptic

Malcolm Bull, the Oxford historian and coauthor of Seeking a Sanctuary (see books listed in sidebar) has a new book coming out early next year from Verso, a London publisher. Entitled Anti-Nietzche, the catalog says:

• Nietzche, the philosopher seemingly opposed to everyone, has met with too little opposition himself. He has dominated contemporary thought, becoming the touchstone for Freud, Heidegger, Deleuze, Lyotard, Bataille, Foucault, Derrida, Adorno and Weber. In this provocative, sometimes disturbing book, Bull argues that merely to reject Nietzche is not to escape his lure. He seduces us by appealing to our desire for victory, and inviting the reader to identify with the will-to-power of the superman. Only by "reading like a loser" and failing to live up to his ideals can we move beyond Nietzche to a different form of nihilism, capable of a still more radical revaluation of all values.

The catalog goes on to hint at a more devious, perhaps even profoundly tongue-in-cheek ending to this book, but I want to stop right here and make a point that I think is important to anyone who takes seriously the apocalyptic parts of the Bible. If God seems cruel and bloody in parts of Revelation, for example, try reading it like a loser. This is what liberation theology does. If you identify with the downtrodden in society, then God appears as a liberator, the one who frees you from your suffering at the hands of oppressive systems. It all depends on the perspective from which you approach the text.

Bull is not unfamiliar with the apocalyptic. He edited Apocalypse Theory and the Ends of the World (1995, Blackwell) and wrote Seeing Things Hidden: Apocalypse, Vision and Totality (2000, Verso).

Franky Schaeffer: A Look Behind the Scenes in the Religious Right

It was published last year, but I did not notice it until last week. It is a memoir by Franky Schaeffer, the son of the famous Evangelical philosopher, Francis Schaeffer who founded L'Abri. It is entitled Crazy for God and it is an important book on many levels. If you're looking it up, he is actually using the mature version of his name now, Frank Schaeffer and the publisher is Carroll & Graf, New York.

In 1955, L'Abri began as a retreat center in Switzerland. The elder Schaeffer had gone as a missionary to Europe in 1947 from a small, conservative Presbyterian denomination. He started by organizing youth ministries in many European cities and then split with the ultra-fundamentalist leader of his denomination. In the 1960s, L'Abri became a destination for activist students and hippies who wanted to explore the spiritual possibilities in traditional Protestantism. By 1970 some of the elder Schaeffer's dialogs with young adults were turned into books that pioneered a new approach (for conservative Protestants) to apologetics and evangelism. His mix of theology, philosophy and culture in the format of conversations rather than preaching or teaching became a major turning point for Evangelicals.

Franky was born and raised in this environment. His three sisters are all several years older; the last got married when he was 12. He was home-schooled in a very informal way and at a young age became a serious artist, producing paintings that were given serious showings and for which people paid real money. Although an American citizen, he was really raised as a European.

As a young activist Franky popularized the anti-abortion cause among Evangelicals. (Believe it or not, when Roe v Wade was decided in the early 1970s, the Southern Baptist Convention actually endorsed it.) As his dad got older, he became more and more concerned about the degenerating morality of Western civilization and Franky introduced to Evangelicals the concept of a video seminar, creating a medium for his father's preaching to be distributed far and wide. When his father returned to the U.S. about 1980, he was greeted with great reverence by Jerry Falwell, Jim Dobson, etc., and became the prophet of what was later to be named "the Religious Right." Franky played a key role in all of this because the elder Schaeffer actually came home for cancer treatment, a battle he lost in 1984 at age 72, and needed a young, vigorous son to cover speaking appointments, help him travel, etc. When his father died, Franky was already used to be surrogate and continued to keep the Schaeffer name in the cause.

Eventually he saw through the moral pretension of the Religious Right, used his success with Evangelical films to get a movie director job in Hollywood and left the faith. He quickly burned out on Hollywood and credits the rock-solid faith and undying love of his wife for bringing him back to God. He has become a very successful, secular novelist and returned to his first love--painting.

This is a highly readable volume. The earthy, loving behind-the-scenes descriptions of his parents, his siblings and their husbands (all key figures in L'Abri and Evangelicalism), as well as the famous are enjoyable as well as edifying. This is the raw stuff of history prepared by a great writer. But it is important for more than the insights into how Christianity got off in the culture wars. It is also the story of a the spiritual journey of a now middle-aged son of the first generation of Evangelical aristocracy. It is a fascinating journey in which Christ wins out, but you can never be certain until the last page. It describes so well the more mature, yet fully Evangelical faith that so many Baby Boomers need now that they are burned out on both the secular and self-righteous.

PS: Preachers, it is full of great quotes and well-crafted descriptions!

Something New in Religious Publishing

The new book The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg will be made available on line for a few days beginning March 5. This is a part of a new marketing approach by the publisher, HarperCollins (what used to be Harper & Row, San Francisco) which will allow people to look at a new book on line for a few days when it is first released. If you want to participate, go to www.HarperCollins.com. It will be available through Easter. Of course, Harper still wants to sell you the hard-copy book and there will be a link to your favorite bookseller if you want to order. Let see when other publishers pick up on this. It does provide a way for people to keep up on new books without approaching bankruptcy or divorce, or both.

"Mission in Metropolis" Manuscript Finished

This week I completed the manuscript for Mission in Metropolis, a book that reflects the research on urban ministry that I have been doing for the last ten years. It will be off the press in late July; nearly 300 pages, paperback, from the Center for Creative Ministry. If you are on their Innovation newsletter mailing list, you will get an early announcement when copies are available. If are not on that list, it is an Email newsletter and it is free. Click on the center to the left, below and sign up.

An Important Book on Adventist Faith

"Seventh-day Adventism has long been one of the best-kept secrets of American religion--a vast global faith growing silently and unnoticed in the shadow of American empire. As the United States has risen to global hegemony, Adventism has traveled with it, using the spread of American power both as the means through which to proclaim its message and as proof that American empire heralds an American apocalypse." This quote (page 363) captures some of the breathtaking scope and careful cultural analysis of Seeking a Sanctuary by Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart. A completely revised Second Edition just came from Indiana University Press on Friday. The authors confirmed with me by Email that their initial copies have not reached them in London as yet.

Since it was first published by Harper & Row in 1989, this volume has caught the attention of many scholars, but seems to have skimmed below the radar of both Adventist leaders and the media. It is a truly unique volume: the only serious book that applies the large toolbox of cultural studies to the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church which now has 25 million adherents and by the end of the 21st Century, even allowing for slowing growth rates, could be over one billion. Much new information has surfaced since the book was first published so chapters have been added and new analysis applied.

I would put it on your "must read" list. Start with the Epilogue, pages 363-364. The introduction is discusses the public image of the Adventist movement from the early newspaper accounts of William Miller, to the reflections of such literary giants as Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Greenleaf Whittier, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edgar Allen Poe; and on to more modern writers, media coverage of the Chamberlain case in Australia and the Waco Davidian tragedy, as well as public polls from the 1970s through 2003. The development of Adventist theology is analyzed in the first six chapters ... Adventist church growth in Chapter 8 ... issues of Gender and Race in Chapters 14 and 15 ... and the dropout factor in a concluding chapter entitled, "The Revolving Door." The Bibliographical Note in the appendix is worth the price of the entire book all by itself, especially with the accompanying Web Guide.

I will admit a bias in that I have become acquainted with one of the co-authors, Keith Lockhart, in helping them access information for the book. He is a journalist based in London. The other author, Malcolm Bull, teaches at Oxford University. Both are sympathetic to Adventist faith and grew up in the Adventist Church. Yet, they are part of the secular world today and bring fresh eyes to familiar material.