The Institute (協会)

Most Reformed folks would probably say that the conference is attractive because legalism is attractive, but I think that's overly simplistic. Legalism may be attractive, but so is God's law, and it should be! The psalmist delights in God's law and meditates on it all day. Also, if "Christ, transformer of culture" is our preferred view, as reformed folks, then we still are faced with finding out the standards by which Christ wants us to transform the world. And so that brings us back to the wisdom of God's law. In short, legitimate concern over soteriological legalism has hampered our ability to have the kind of world-transforming vision that the prophets had (and Jesus has). I don't hear this boy saying that he is saved by eschewing the Beatles or damned by listening to them, only that he recognizes the effect that the Beatles has upon him and is now more aware of this.

Does 128,000 determine influence? I suppose it shows influence but not necessarily "good influence." As my basketball coach used to say, "practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect." to respond to your question...Is Christ against culture all bad? Of course not, I am sure there are fantastic things about the ministry but to say that Christianity is simply against culture fails to take into consideration that the world was created good, that there are good things about culture, and as Christians we ought to counter that which has been twisted. the problem with when people talk about culture they seem to limit it to film, music, literature, etc.

it seems to me that the church ought not get angry at our culture, be surprised by our culture (as all cultures have known depravity), or retreat from culture, rather we should engage often should weep over it and serve it for the sake of Christ and his gospel.

As much as I hate to admit it, I've been to an Acquire the Fire rally (in St Louis about 9 years ago) and I came away with one thought: Wouldn't it be better to teach our youth to be discerning Christians who can engage the cultural questions and problems the way Christ did? Wouldn't it be better to teach them to apply God's word to everything they read, listen to and watch?

I once knew a couple that raised their daughter with the belief that "cultural disengagement" was the Christian's calling. All throughout her school years, she was forbidden to dance, see movies and listen to "that rock-n-roll music." Then she went off to a Christian college where this teaching was continued. Finally, when she was out on her own in the real world where one has to engage non-Christians to live, she didn’t know how to act. She didn’t know what to say or what to do. She was completely lost. She eventually moved back home at 25 where she lives to this day. I don’t think that’s how Christ intended us to reach the nations.

Sorry for the long post. This is a pet topic of mine.

Forgot to say, anyone really interested in this topic must see the movie Jesus Camp.

I don't get why "reaching" 128,000 people is impressive or desirable. The power of God is not even needed to "reach" people by getting conferences together, it can be done by using the effective methods and be devoid of the Gospel (though I'm not saying these conferences are devoid of the Gospel).

Some of the most faithful Gospel ministry I've seen has taken place in very small groups, and then I've seen the people in those small groups go on to reach/influence/love many more through their work and lives. They have had a much greater impact that way than an event has on a large group of people.

I think the Christ-against-culture model IS "all bad," because it severely weakens one's view of God as a good Creator and Jesus as Redeemer, and discourages Christians from seeing that the human heart is sufficiently sinful and polluted in and of itself.

All that said, I do long for my own heart to grieve more over the wickedness in our culture, even as I engage with it. It is so easy for me to use the Christ-Transforming-Culture view as an excuse to not actually transform, but conform.

Great discussion, Anthony.

The Reformed tradition is one of significant nuance that doesn't tend to appeal to a broad spectrum of society. Saying that popular culture is bad is a much easier position to espouse than attempting to ride the line of engaging culture without being swamped by it, just like saying that being a good person makes you a Christian is intellectual easier than the beliefs that go with a true understanding of the gospel.

But I'd draw your attention to some counter-examples, namely artists like Sufjan Stevens and Paul Schrader, both from the Reformed tradition (though neither would probably identify with it today). Stevens attended Hope College in Grand Rapids, and Schrader studied theology at Calvin before going on to Columbia. These people aren't staging ghettoized rallies for disaffected Baptists, they're actually making good art.

I read Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock this summer, and it's really amazing how the author reacted to his encounter with the Reformed tradition. His knowledge of the distinctions between denominations is sketchy at best, but when he attends a conference at a Reformed college, his reaction was along the lines of "I am totally unprepared for this. This is completely unlike anything the rest of the Christian community is doing, both in its concern for making good art and its reaction to the relationship between faith and culture."

Reformed theology isn't easily crammed into a soundbite that you can absorb with 128,000 people at a rally. It requires contemplation and careful thought.

But wait -- saying that there are specific aspects of specific things in popular culture that are potentially or demonstrably harmful is not a "Christ against culture" attitude. Jared doesn't say that nobody should ever listen to anything that sounds like the Beatles; he says that he's personally aware that listening to the Beatles had a specific negative effect *on him* and that therefore he had to eschew that. What is "against culture" or "legalistic" about that? Is that really any more "legalistic" than saying "I had to give up my daily Twinkie because I was gaining too much weight?"

It sounds like Jared is an example of a kid that was reached in a good way. I echo Anthony's question (or what I take to be the gist of his question) -- shouldn't the Reformed community be doing a better job of reaching people this way?

Maybe I'm just saying what Barlow said, but I'm a little puzzled at what others are seeing in this post about legalism and eschewing culture.

Pentamom, read Darden's comments. comments aren't about Jared, and neither is the post, but about the "Acquire the Fire" rallies.

I think that there is a healthy balance to be sought: Christians ought to be discerning perusers of culture, they ought to influence culture by being in it; yet, they should be careful of culture "owning" them. Our hearts are bought by Christ, not our culture. I think that moving to either side of the spectrum (total acceptance of the culture without batting an eye or total separation from culture as evil) is inherently unhealthy. This is not to say that for certain individuals at certain times, certain items or parts of culture don't need to be eschewed; it is merely to say that a blanket policy cannot be made. Dogmatically decrying all culture or products of culture as "worldly" things from which we need to be separated ignores that fact that all beauty and truth, all true creativity, flows from God and can be used to point back toward Him.

"Saying that popular culture is bad is a much easier position to espouse than attempting to ride the line of engaging culture without being swamped by it"
Absolutely! Well stated.

That is what I have found to be true in circles that espouse "total separation." (in quotations since that isn't really possible or the actual lifestyle) It is difficult, nuanced, and freeing to train disciples to apply thought and analysis to biblically engage culture. "Just make some across-the-board rules and everybody's happy and spiritual," seems to be the prevalent idea.

Okay, I don't mean to be obtuse and I'm not criticizing, but then I'm just really confused. What purpose do Jared's comments serve in the post, then? IS Jared not reflective of Acquire the Fire? Or is he reflective of it? Evidently I'm missing something. I'm not disputing Darden's analysis of his own experience, but I'm just having a hard time getting a handle on what's being said here, and the place Jared's comments in the context.

What I have seen in the reformed circle is that we do not have rallies but engage daily with culture. I believe well as of last summer that Sufjan was going to a PCA church in Brooklyn. I have meet painters who are in the modern art movement but are reformed. I meet this woman in New Orleans http://www.byfaithonline.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID323422|CHID664020|CIID2354466,00.html

She use to work for Vera Wang and I believe like her second hand woman. Attending RUF I have meet Composers, Painters and other Culture makers in the church. To be honest I believe the Reformed church is the most engaged in culture of the conservative churches.

So maybe what we need is more of these Rallies with reformed influence. Not just say we do not like them but help the people who run them teaching the kids the hard path of engaging culture on Christ's terms not running to the ghetto.

That is the main problem of the Rallies is they are selling the ghetto, not teaching the long hard road of cultural redemption.
This is the problem when you have Christian Music, Christian Plumbing, Christian Sports or whatever else you can put Christian in front of. Instead of doing it like Sufjan Stevens where you see his Christian worldview all through his music and it engages the whole of culture not just the ghetto.

It should be noted that engaging culture can be to reject it; no less than Francis Schaeffer rejected all kinds of culture/music that are frankly revered by most today, if not listened to. So IMO, Jared finds good company in at least one Reformed thinker!

And why worry about 128,000 people? I never heard of this, and some guy named "Jesus" did his best work around about a dozen guys. Another guy named "Schaeffer" did his best work not in writing books, but rather in engaging a generation of thinkers (Reformed and other) at L'Abri. Worrying about numbers weds a man to the spirit of this age, which soon finds him widowed.

Just saw Sufjan on Austin City Limits. Talented guy.

i think we are all missing the point here. since when do the beatles make someone irritable and angry? I mean, if it were metallica or marilyn manson he was referring to i could understand, but the beatles? I dont walk away from "all you need is love", "we all live in a yellow submarine", or "lucy in the sky" thinking, "ya know, that stuff makes me feel irritable." Sorry, that was a bit of a joke, i know that its a narrow view of the discography of the aforementioned band, but its fun nonetheless.

"all you need is love" makes me want to shoot myself and since "happiness is a warm gun" I think I might. I can see how listening to early Beatles would make someone want to end their life, but I think the later stuff would make them want to drop acid and chill out. Maybe Jared was listening to the wrong beatles songs. And I think the reformed tradition should be supportive of more liberal evangelical events and churches because that's were we get all out converts from! We should be waiting at the doors of these things with a copy of the Institutes. We're like the Designated Driver that's there when your drunk enough to be happy but unable to drive the car. The only reason I can make this joke is because I have been to aquire the fire and many other such events.

I have a genetic dislike for bandwagons and prefer to understand real people. Youth rallies always seemed like large bandwagons-maybe to the point of keeping me from understanding the real people who attend them. Thanks for pointing that out.

I guess how I took Anthony's point was: Would you want 128,000 kids fed this stuff, or good stuff preparing them to live as godly people in the the real world- as missionaries?

I've never attended Acquire the Fire but I have been to two Dare2Share conferences, which I would imagine are quite similar to AtF. I think one thing that should be said is it's a bit naive to think that all 128,000 kids are there by choice. Having grown up in a fundamentalist church, attended a fundamentalist school, and been home-schooled for several years, I can assure you that there are plenty of kids who go to events like AtF or D2S because that's what's expected of them.

Personally, I think conferences are overhyped, I mean, it's cool that 128,000 people got together to think about the gospel, but such large atmospheres are prone to clumsy exegesis and it is virtually impossible to have any sort of meaningful relational connection in such a setting.

That said, I do think the Reformed community needs to be careful to not become proud or arrogant as we see the rest of the Christian community attempting to engage the culture. The heart behind AtF and D2S is commendable. Further, the organizers are brothers and sisters who we all called to love and unite with for the sake of the gospel.

Furthermore, I'm all for the idea of engaging the culture on a daily basis in our day-to-day lives, but there is still some degree of intentionality that is needed, I think. It's very easy to say, "I just believe in engaging the culture as I go about my day-to-day routine." In fact, I think that's more what the Great Commission is getting at because the original Greek is, "As you are going, make disciples...." But, as Lewis once said, "Loving everyone in a general way is often a good excuse for loving no one in particular." Likewise, engaging the culture simply as we go about our day-to-day routine might quickly become a good excuse for not engaging the culture at all.

What really worries me about Jared Hutchins is that he reminds me of John Lennon's murderer, Mark David Chapman (who was "born-again" in the late Sixities) and Michael Abrams, who tried to murder George Harrison. The Beatles have had a profound impact on millions of people, including myself, but some of those people become dangerously obsessed, and anyone whose personality runs toward fundamentalist Christianity and who declares that "The Beatles' world view" made him "angry," has evidently crossed over into disturbing territory. I do not think I am overstating the case when I say that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr's security people need to be aware that this Hutchins kid is out there, and evidently seething over their music.