After a year of intentional planning, followed by resigning from my position as an executive pastor, followed by moving across the country, followed by another year of ground-work and living a free-lance lifestyle only to finally find a new career…we have, at long last, started a new missional community in North County San Diego.
Consequently, I’m moving all my blogging to pastoralia.org. Hope to hear from you over there. We
Today’s review of Frank Viola’s From Eternity to Here is a part of a blog tour with several great bloggers including my friend Chad Estes, with whom I go back a few years in the Vineyard Community of Churches. Be sure to check them out his Q & A with Frank as well.
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Frank Viola has been making some serious noise lately.
Early last year he crashed the proverbial party with Pagan Christianity. Co-authored with George Barna, this ruthless little book shredded the modern, Western institutional church for being, well…pagan. Frank followed that up a few months later with Reimagining Church, an attempt to offer a highly pragmatic framework for establishing churches in the West that are true to Christianity’s first-century roots.
In From Eternity to Here Frank expands his scope significantly. What he seeks to establish in his latest book is nothing short of a Trinitarian treatise of the missio dei. As he states in the preface,
“I had discovered the driving passion of God. And that passion gave birth to a divinely crafted purpose - a timeless purpose that had nothing to do with my individualistic efforts at being a good Christian or “going to heaven.”
This is big, bold stuff, and, make no mistake about it, Frank uses big, bold language to unpack his discovery. One of the things that is really effective about Frank’s writing is that he approaches his subject in narrative form, and in FETH he does so by outlining three biblically-inspired narratives.
The first is the narrative of a God who is an “ageless romantic,” dislodging Godself from the transcendent roost of eternity in order to pierce the veil of time and space just to be reconciled to His beloved. Frank does a masterful job of describing a God who is madly in love with the bride, and goes to great lengths not only to create her, but to redeem her from the muck and mire of sin in oder to place her beside Christ, the betrothed husband. This is part of God’s driving passion, a highly romantic passion for the Church. We are eternally tied to the passionate expression of the God who loves.
In the second narrative Frank shifts to the story of a “homeless” God. Again we find all the elements of a good drama; a sympathetic character on a quest through hardship and wilderness to finally find a home, a place to rest. That place is the church; the tabernacle, or house of God. We are the new temple made with living stones, in which God lives by His spirit. We are eternally tied to the vocation of the God who rests.
Finally, Frank tells the story of “a new species,” or a new family of God. God has entered into the realm of history in order to populate the earth with a brand new creation, and here Frank seeks to bring about a “titanic paradigm shift” in how we understand “church.” The church is not the institutional structure we often think of - ornate (or mundane!) buildings, professional clergy, rites of liturgy - rather, the Church is a new species of people - God’s physical body on earth. We are eternally tied to the manifestation of the God who incarnates.
There’s much about this book - and Frank’s writing in general - that I love. I agree completely with the spirit of each of these narratives, and am on very much the same journey of faith. In that way I’m drawn to Frank’s work.
However, I must admit, there’s much about this book that I struggled with. What’s interesting about Frank is that he tends to make his arguments from an absolute moral imperative. So, for example, in Reimagining Church, the reason we should be meeting in homes is not just because it’s the best practice for making disciples (as I would argue), but because, according to Frank, meeting in large corporate gatherings is flatly unbiblical. This lends tremendous rhetorical weight to his writing, but the the problem is that many of his claims (like the claim that the early church never met in large gatherings) are extra-biblical or simply false. In these instances Frank either hasn’t done his homework, or he’s simply ignoring the well-grounded scholarship that disagrees with him.
In FETH Frank’s tendency to boldly make extra-biblical claims goes to extremes. For example, early on Frank makes this foundational statement about Adam and Eve:
Now I would like to venture a question: From where did the woman acquire the capacity to passionately love? The answer: from Adam, for she came out of him. Did the woman force herself to love Adam? Not at all, her passion was simply the natural response to Adam’s passion for her. In fact, it was his own passion returning back to him.
Perhaps, but, frankly this is all nothing more than incredible speculation that bleeds way outside the boundaries of the creation narrative. We have absolutely no indication anywhere in scripture that the creation of Eve should be interpreted this way. In fact, there’s really nothing in Genesis that I can find that has anything whatsoever to do with Eve’s romantic passion for Adam. It’s all just Frank’s assumption and speculation. However, in spite of that, this one observation is foundational to the claims Frank will go on to make about the nature of the relationship between God and the church.
There are other examples that are too numerous to recount. On page 33 Frank says, “Interestingly, an artist always makes his masterpiece last,” and uses this seemingly benign cultural observation to reinforce another foundational point, namely, that Eve - and by extension the Church - is God’s “Magnum Opus” of creation. The only problem is that his observation about a masterpiece isn’t true. Elsewhere Frank claims - based again on his idea of romantic love - that the entire motivation for creating humanity in the first place was that “God the Son was alone” and had no object for his own passion. This claim is a stretch, to say the least.
In fact, Frank’s theology in the entire first “narrative” of FETH is really far more influenced by romanticism than any careful exegesis of scripture. Frank has anachronistically read the plot of a thousand Hollywood romance films into the creation story, and he continues this pattern of making extra-biblical assumptions throughout the entire book constantly making untenable claims about God’s feelings along the way. Picking out the many fallacies became an incredible distraction to actually reading the book.
The problem is that I love and whole-heartedly agree with the basic points Frank is trying to make; God’s purpose for church is far more grand than to be the purveyor of individualistic religious goods and services. But in his fervor to write colorful narratives Frank fails to write good missiology, and I’m very sorry to say that was, for me, a disappointment.
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OTHER BLOGS PARTICIPATING IN THE “FROM ETERNITY TO HERE” BLOG CIRCUIT
Today (June 9th), the following blogs are discussing Frank Viola’s new bestselling book “From Eternity to Here” (David C. Cook, 2009). The book just hit the May CBA Bestseller List. Some are posting Q & A with Frank; others are posting full reviews of the book. To read more reviews and order a copy at a 33% discount, go to Amazon.com:
For more resources, such as downloadable audios, the free Discussion Guide, the Facebook Group page, etc. go to the official website:http://www.FromEternitytoHere.org
Enjoy the reviews and the Q and A:
I recently started working for the audiobook publisher Christian Audio. One of my really fun roles there is to conduct author interviews in order to provide another dimension of insight into the authors and their work. The interviews are absolutely free to download - although you do have to sign up for an account (don’t worry, we don’t ask for any sensitive info).
Last week I was fortunate enough the chat with author, organic church leader, and fellow Missional Tribe member Frank Viola. As you know he’s written some provocative titles recently, including Pagan Christianity and Reimagining Church. His most recent book is From Eternity to Here, and deals directly with the subject of what it means to be missional, among other themes. Frank talked with us about his motive for writing the book and how he came to see God’s eternal purpose for the church differently. I think you’ll really enjoy hearing from him.
Go to the interview download page by clicking here.
Post Script: My next two interviews are with Leonard Sweet & Dallas Willard. Stay tuned!
Michael Spencer over at iMonk wrote a very nice - and very transparent - little piece yesterday on forgiving oneself. I thought it was insightful and probably rather helpful for folks who struggle with forgiveness.
However, I have a confession to make: I’ve never really had a problem with forgiveness. I forgive others pretty easily, and I forgive myself very easily. I know I’m a louse, and everyone else is too (yes, that includes you). Honestly, that makes it pretty easy to forgive.
Consequently, I don’t really have a problem with guilt. I do bad things. So what? Everyone does. Some more than others, sure. But most people are surprisingly decent folk. My biggest problem with this was that my essentially fundamentalist upbringing had virtually nothing to offer a sociopath like me by way of the gospel. Jesus forgives me? Great. The blood covers all my sins? Thanks. I don’t feel particularly guilty, but I’ll take it.
Now what?
Here’s the rub: It’s not that hard to hide from a gospel of forgiveness. All you need is to be either monumentally arrogant or tremendously humble, and the world is full of these people.
Consequently, the gospel of forgiveness only appeals to some. Not everyone struggles with guilt for what they’ve done, or anger for what others have done to them. Some people are genuinely afflicted in life, and not by their consciences (being afflicted by your conscience is a wealthy luxury). Some people live hopeless, pointless lives and it has nothing to do with a lack of piety. These folks have much more urgent needs than forgiveness.
I guess what I’m saying is, the gospel is bigger than the cross.
The gospel encompasses more than the atonement. “The word became flesh and dwelt among us,” is, in itself, a brilliant facet of the gospel. Among other things it means God became a man and sprained his ankles and got splinters in his fingers. It means he enjoyed a bit of wine and the buzz it brought along. It means he suffered and loved and did so with such art and grace that we can now hope to fill our own days with big bright meaning. Yes, that’s part of the gospel. Living well is good news. If not, then even Christianity becomes just another miserable existentialist lament, in which case Sartre was right: suicide is the only reasonable option.
(Of course, in the end not even Sartre believed that).
And the gospel must include the super-incarnation as well. As big and bright as was his life, and as radical and pivotal as was his death, it’s really Jesus’ smack-down of death by resurrection that is the epitome of human hope. Therein we find leverage for present freedom and hope for a holistic future. Therein we find healing, and gifting, and power for perseverance. Therein we find our true selves - or as Bono put it, “The face I had before the world was made.” - already waiting for us, Spirit-filled, a foretaste of the coming Kingdom.
This massive gospel finds everyone, accuses everyone, forgives everyone, wounds everyone, heals everyone, liberates everyone, fulfills everyone, and feeds everyone. It would be easier to escape the reach of the sun than to hide from this gospel.
While the cross may be the locus of the gospel, it is not the definition of our good news as Christians. That distinction belongs to Jesus. Only he, in all his pre-incarnational, incarnational, and super-incarnational glory can fill those impressive shoes. Only he is the “King of Kings,” the proclamation of which we call preaching whenever we say to one another, “Jesus is King” or as I prefer, “There’s a new sheriff in town.” That’s good news and it’s bigger than the atonement.
The gospel is bigger than the cross because Jesus is bigger than the cross.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have several mentors in my life, and I count Dave Schori among them. Dave taught me some important lessons; the kind that have made me a better man.
He taught me how to fish - off the shore or off a boat - at lake Perris, lake Powell, Lilly lake, Strawberry Reservoir, and countless other puddles and streams between Utah and California. He taught me to enjoy a glass of wine and a good smoke. He taught me how to make a Margarita. He taught me how to knife-fight underwater. He taught me that truly great cooking requires only three things: tasty ingredients, sharp knives, and good friends. He taught me that you can enjoy the finer things in life without being pretentious about it.
Dave taught me to be a better father. I remember meeting him when I was just fifteen, and watching him wrestle and laugh with his two little girls, Kim and Christy, on their living room floor. I remember thinking to myself, “this is how I want to be with my girls someday.” On my very best days I think I am.
Dave taught me to be more honest with myself and others. If you knew Dave then you know he could smell BS a mile away. You really couldn’t pull anything over on him. He knew when you were speaking the truth from a place of experience, and he respected that. But he also knew when you were shoveling it deep. I think that’s why so many Pastor’s and Missionaries were drawn to him, because - as those of us who are professional ministers know - pastors can shovel some serious BS if you let them. But Dave would just roll his eyes and laugh at us when he knew we were piling it on. He never let us get away with it. I think we liked that. I know I did.
In that respect, Dave is also one of the people who taught me the difference between faith and religion. One of his favorite passages of scripture is Matthew 11:28 from “The Message” version of the Bible. It goes like this:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Jesus spoke those words, and I think Dave Schori lived them. The truth is some of us who are pastors liked to hang out with Dave because he gave us real rest from the steamy pile of religiosity we often found ourselves shoveling throughout the week.
There’s one final thing I learned and it’s perhaps the most important. What I say about Dave today wouldn’t even pass his smell test if I didn’t point out that he wasn’t always a pocket full of sunshine. Nobody is, of course, but Dave could be downright ornery and irascible at times, and he wielded sarcasm with the proficiency of a contentious poet. Sometimes he liked to pick a fight and he could argue with the best of them. It was a beautiful thing.
Sometimes it was like he was daring you to accept him for who he really was, faults and all.
And those of us who loved him did accept him for who he really was. We were compelled to, because Dave led the way in unconditionally accepting others. In the 23 years I’ve known Dave and Janet Schori I’ve seen literally hundreds of guests walk through their door, and it didn’t matter where they came from. It didn’t matter if they were rich or poor, religious or irreligious, joyful or depressed, lovable or unlovable, broken-hearted or arrogant; they were all welcome at Dave’s table.
I’m still trying to learn that lesson from him.
I’m glad he found faith in Christ, because I can’t imagine wanting to go to a heaven that didn’t have Dave Schori in it. I’m looking forward to seeing him there.
I remember exactly when I first realized our fun little experiment had swerved completely out of my control: it was the day I learned someone had given away a grandmother.
People had been giving each other lamps and toasters and other sundry items for months. That alone was amazing to me, because for years I’d been fascinated with Acts 2:44-45:
“The believers had everything in common and gave to each other as they had need.”
Really? Everything in common?
As a young fired-up Christian that bit about “everything in common” clobbered me like a two-by-four. That’s not how we live, I often thought. Our church was full of people who acquired as much as possible, while others scraped-by. Moreover, those who built wealth and lived comfortably tended to be ushered into the seats of power at church. Even worse, I wanted to be one of those people.
But Acts 2, and 2 Cor 8, and especially Exodus 16 kept bludgeoning my conscience. There was something at work in these bits of scripture, something altogether different than market-capitalism. It seemed that when the Spirit of God was in charge the outcome looked more like equality for all than prosperity for some. And when there was prosperity it was prosperity with the responsibility for creating justice.
Still, this is not what I observed in church. Why didn’t the Bible literally revolutionize our lives in every way? I asked pastors and elders point-blank, but was generally met with condescending smiles and tousles of the hair.
Then, not long ago I was reading Luke 3 and stumbled across these words:
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
There it was again. Sharing. Giving. Was it really that simple? A heretical thought began to creep into my mind. Maybe the solution to poverty isn’t found in making everyone on the planet more self-sufficient, maybe it’s found by inviting everyone into interdependence.
So, we did what everyone in a globalized world does when they think they have a cool idea: we started a website. We encouraged (pleaded, cajoled, threatened, and blackmailed) everyone we knew to join Twoshirts.org and post their extra things so others could freely take what they needed.
The next thing I knew people were showing up at church carrying lamps and toasters and giving them away to each other. That was pretty cool. Mission accomplished, I thought. But then people outside the church started joining and that’s when everything went all pear-shaped. We started bumping into non-Christians and poor people and rich people and witches and buddhists and Methodists. You know, the sort of people we normally would have avoided at all costs, except they wanted our toasters - and we wanted their lamps.
In the process something entirely new was birthed between us, something which hadn’t previously existed for the most part: gratitude. That gratitude usually sprouted kindness and kindness sometimes blossomed into friendship and somewhere in the midst of it all the Kingdom showed up.
I couldn’t believe my luck. All I’d wanted was to promote a little communitarianism in the midst of isolated individualism. Maybe counterfoil mindless consumption and make people think a little about the insane pursuit of happiness through product gluttony. I wanted people to experiment with a life of gifts, rather than a life of greed. All that seemed to be happening somewhat, plus friendship.
But then came the “grandmother incident.”
On that day a woman named Kelli logged into Twoshirts.org and posted a need for a “surrogate grandmother.” A surrogate grandmother! She and her husband, it seems, had moved into the area and didn’t really know anyone. She’d recently given birth to twins, whose early delivery had complicated their health. Without a network of support the couple was simply overwhelmed:
HI! As the mother of twin girls with medical issues, I need a surrogate grandma or just a good friend [...] Is there someone out there with a kind and patient heart who has a few hours a week during the day that they would like to spend playing with 2 little darlings or helping me tackle a few big projects???
Within days Donna responded. Herself the mother of three grown boys who’d all moved out of state, Donna felt drawn to this woman’s needs and ready to help. Now she babysits, and helps with hospital visits and offers advice. They laugh together. And to my utter amazement something far deeper than mere gratitude or friendship has grown between them - they’ve formed a family.
That’s when I realized a life of gifts is about more than lamps and toasters, it’s about love and trust. In a culture where people are defined by conspicuous accumulation ordinary stuff tends to dead-end in someone’s closet or garage. Like Manna that has been hoarded it eventually rots, becoming the symbol of our stubborn, self-sufficient isolation. Yet true gifts never rest. They move freely from one to another shifting from shape to shape to become the stuff that enriches, nourishes, and sustains the community through an economy of grace and mercy. Sometimes it’s lamps and toasters. Sometimes it’s grandmothers.
This is how the economy of God operates; the Spirit is at work ceaselessly among the people of the world imparting gifts of grace and mercy that must be shared - or risk rotting. More than anything else, being missional means joining God in His work. That is exactly the kind of economy America needs now more than ever.
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(If you’d like to read an interview with Kelli & Donna, click here)
I’ve had a blast at Sundance with the Fuller folks, but I’m glad to be heading home to all my girls. I’ve been blogging about “suffering” as a theme in many of the films here, and this will be my last post on the subject.
So if some of the Sundance Films are suggesting that suffering can be good, and others are calling for a certain kind of suffering, exactly what kind is it?
When it came to depicting the complex nature of suffering through dramatic film this year, none was better than Cary Fukunaga, the writer and director of Sin Nombre. The journey of determined immigrants from Guatemala to the United States, becomes the vehicle for Fukunaga to explore the depths of human determination as he chronicles the explosive collision between a family seeking solace in the U.S. and a Mexican gang in violent transition.
Throughout this highly realistic and emotionally impacting film the journey atop a moving train becomes another powerful character in the story, bearing it’s passengers methodically across the Mexican landscape in spite of the terror and hardship occurring all around. Indeed, the dangers faced by immigrants seeking to reach the U.S. from Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico are frighteningly real, even before one reaches the American border. Once there, a whole new set of dangers await through the trip over the desert.
In fact, the brutality and grief experienced by the characters in Sin Nombre inevitably leads one to ask the obvious question: why? Why would anyone willingly suffer so and risk everything to make this journey? The only possible answer is that the suffering of the journey pales in comparison to the suffering of remaining behind.
Therefore, for many, though the journey is extremely difficult the choice itself is easy.
It’s the willingness to suffer in the short run that opens up new horizons of possibility for life in the long run. Wisdom teaches that life is not a choice between suffering and happiness, but rather a choice between one kind of suffering and another - one that progresses forever toward a terrible attrition unto death, and one that lingers temporarily in order to birth a new life.
The only way to spurn suffering is to embrace it. The only way to find safety is to chance danger.
Marine Corps Colonel Mike Strobl knows this lesson well. Based on a true story, the incredibly timely and powerful drama Taking Chance shows us how Strobl wrestles with the growing guilt of not having served as a combatant in the Iraq war. Every night in his comfortable and well-tailored home, he checks the Department of Defense website’s casualty list, hoping not to find the names of friends who chose to serve in combat while he remained behind to analyze stats.
When a soldier named Chance Phelps turns up on the list, Strobl volunteers to accompany the body home, hoping this service will gain him the relief from guilt he seeks.
But the trip only exacerbates his guilt.
The film itself is one long study in honor. What is honor? Who deserves it, and what does it take to earn it? Every step of the way Chance’s body is given intentional and incredible honor. There is literally no point on the transition from Iraq to Wyoming when Chance Phelps isn’t treated with loving, formal, and even ritualized respect in the highest possible form. This depiction of honor for the fallen contains practices never before seen on film, and constitute some of the most emotionally enduring images I have ever witnessed in my life. They make for a powerful (and ironic) statement about esteeming life, and how ritual can effectively carve out space for indelibly expressing our deepest held values.
For Mike Strobl, all this honor for Chance painfully reminds him of his own lack of honor. This internal suffering becomes worse when he begins traveling in public, using a commercial flight to take the body home. At every stop along the way someone gives Mike Strobl honor because they assume by his uniform that he has served in the war. People stop him and express their gratitude for his sacrifice. People cry and offer gifts. People salute.
Strobl politely demurs, but the tension mounts as Chance increasingly becomes Mike’s vicarious source of honor. Where Mike chose safety, Chance chose danger. Where Mike chose comfort, Chance chose sacrifice. Throughout the film, there are poignant images of comfortable people giving honor to Mike because they believe has made a sacrifice on their behalf.
Honor is for those who have given themselves sacrificially for others, and this is exactly the kind of suffering that is virtuous; suffering on behalf of others.
Because Mike Strobl never really suffered, he had no real honor - indeed, no real life. His life of ease and comfort was slowly destroying him. By giving himself sacrificially to Chance and the Phelps family - even for a short while - Mike Strobl hitched himself to Chance’s honor, and gained a measure of his own in the process.
Yesterday I suggested that one theme at the Sundance Film Festival this year has been the depiction of suffering as a virtue. Perhaps some emerging films are expressing the mood of our times, or perhaps they’re like a cultural weathervane, pointing us toward the coming clouds.
But how can suffering be good?
In Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, Writer/Director John Krasinski (yes, from The Office) suggests that men are the new powerless minority, not because of traditionally conceived weakness, but because of their brute force. The screenplay is an adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s short story collection of the same name.
The film dares to suggest that the emergence of feminine power may lie partly in the historical victimization of the gender. In her abuse, a woman can discover the expanding landscape of her own power (i.e. “This thing can happen to me, it did happen to me, and I am bigger than it”). She literally finds strength in her weakness. This kind of transcendently liberated woman is an enigma for men, who often respond the only way they know how; by continuing to victimize in ways that are often subtle, yet still “hideous.” In doing so, men ironically ensure the empowerment of women and the simultaneous neutering of their own gender. Indeed, in Krasinski’s story it’s men who are to be saved by women who know firsthand the refinement afforded only by the crucible of suffering and powerlessness.
It’s a brilliant argument, and the story is cleverly told by Krasinski. A series of beautifully staged and shot vignettes communicate the story in an out of sequence chronology that keeps the viewer on their toes. The stage-inspired scenes offer novel perspectives on the stories themselves and create an atmosphere of timelessness.
Krasinski’s intelligence is on display - no doubt a product of his Ivy League education at Brown - but intelligence and wit are no substitute for dignity and honor. Krasinski may show us the incredible resiliency of the human spirit, but he doesn’t help us understand the difference between one kind of suffering and another. Is all suffering essentially the same? Is all violence essentially the same? If so, how can any act be condemned? One comes away with the sense that nobody really needs anyone else. After all, if you can’t really harm me, then neither can you heal me. If Krasinski gets his way all the characters in this film will eventually become incredibly strong, self-reliant, and tragically lonely creatures. In the end, Brief Interviews echoes like an impressively ornate, yet utterly empty vessel meant to contain something more substantive.
But there’s plenty of substance in the equally intelligent, yet more wise - and hysterically funny - Arlen Faber, written and directed by John Hindman.
Arlen Faber tells the story of a man who’s best-selling book, Me and God, redefined spirituality for a generation. Excellently played by Jeff Daniels, Arlen harbors a secret: in truth, he can’t hear from God at all. Being stuck in spiritual agony for two decades has driven him to a life of bitter isolation until finally his pain manifests in the form of a hopelessly wrenched back. This leads him to Elizabeth, a local Chiropractor, played by Lauren Graham, who heals his back and opens the door for the kind of human interaction Arlon needs in order to find God.
But relationships are painful and pain is exactly what Arlen has endeavored to escape for two decades, leading him to reject and alienate every person in his life. When another character asks Arlen if there really is a hell, Faber responds by quoting Sartre, “Hell is other people.”
Yet, Arlen begins to realize he needs other people.
A conflict ensues as we watch Arlen try to reconcile this tension, and in so doing we get a glimpse of the idea that there are different kinds of suffering. The images of the Elizabeth adjusting Arlon’s back make a perfect metaphor for teasing out this idea. Arlen is suffering because of his back, but he’ll have to be willing to suffer even more in order to be realigned. Medicine tastes bad and surgery cuts deep; human healing often requires the kind of human touch that brings pain before it brings relief. In the same way, Arlon learns to embrace the suffering of humility in order to gain to pleasure of love.
Unlike Brief Interviews, the characters in Arlen Faber become more broken, more vulnerable and more desperately in need of one another - which ironically, leads them to be more in love - a stronger condition by far than mere happiness or self-sufficiency.
If filmmakers are the prophetic poets of our culture, then our culture is tired of the shallow pursuit of happiness and hungry for steadier sustenance. The last time our country faced serious economic hardship we found our prophet in a three foot tall muppet named Yoda, who rasped in Buddhist fashion that the source of all evil was “suffering.” The nation - still reeling from Vietnam and the shattered idealism of the 60’s, followed by the Iranian hostage crisis and record unemployment - dove headlong into the waters of unchecked economic growth, personal prosperity, and individualized fulfillment through consumer gluttony.
What followed was a quarter-century of debauchery, in which everyone could be a .com millionaire, a real estate tycoon, or a reality show celebrity. Combined with a simultaneous explosion in pharmaceuticals, we embraced a new American dream: the elimination of suffering. It turns out we weren’t cured, merely inebriated.
Frankly, the hangover sucks.
But like all epic parties, a few sensible people seem to have woken up and suggested we consider something new - sobriety - and at Sundance this call to sobriety has manifested in a new willingness to embrace suffering as a virtue.
In Cold Souls, directed by Sophie Barthes, Paul Giamatti plays himself in a dazzling performance full of comedy and drama, displaying his breathtaking range of talent, including an uncanny ability to play a convincingly unconvincing actor when the absence of his soul handicaps his artistic gift.
Giamatti, you see, has decided to have his soul extracted and placed in cold storage; an attempt to unburden the accumulated concerns of a lifetime. Early in the film Giamatti debates with his doctor about the benefits of soul extraction, and in doing so utters the definitive line of the film, and perhaps the festival itself: “I don’t need to be happy, I just don’t want to suffer.”
And there Giamatti/Barthes has articulated the liminality of an entire American society. We’ve realized happiness is capricious, but are we ready to suffer? In the film Giamatti discovers that to be human is to suffer, and furthermore, that out of suffering is birthed the exquisite hope and perseverance depicted in the best of all human expression. The film cleverly parallels this unfolding discovery with the great Russian artists. Perhaps what we all need is to become more Russian.
Perhaps Giamatti is the new Yoda.
I’m three days into my time here at The Sundance Film Festival and it’s been amazing. I’ve seen 10 movies so far - 4 shorts and 6 features, plus Q&A sessions with directors and cast members after every film - and I’ve noticed a few surprising things about the culture of film on display here.
There are some amazing artists who are asking important questions about life, and telling incredibly compelling stories of suffering, loss, hardship, redemption, love, joy, and spirituality. Again and again, the common ground that exists between the filmmaker’s values and the values of the biblical narrative have taken me by surprise. There is very little ambiguity in the depictions I’ve seen of yearning for love and security, or the necessity of risking one’s life in order to find it, or the desperate need for justice in situations of appalling human suffering and depravity.
Through cinema, the world is shouting for the things of God. Sadly, as far as the church is concerned, they’re using the wrong language.
Most of these directors and producers are completely secular. I don’t necessarily mean they’re ireligious - many aren’t - but their worldview, and the vernacular utilized to convey their art is utterly unfamiliar to the Christian subculture. I think this makes for a distance between these two groups that is more perceived than actual.
Tonight after the screening of Sin Nombre (an intensely powerful and disturbing film about illegal immigration) an audience member from our group asked the director whether he’d intended to depict contrasting images of “conditional vs. unconditional love” in his portrayal of two specific relationships, one involving mercy, the other betrayal.
It was a good question. The story delved deeply into the complexities of acceptance, rejection, trust, loyalty, and faithfulness between the characters.
Still, the director balked. In a very polite way he basically said he didn’t know what to do with the phrase “unconditional love,” and preferred to think of those character dynamics in terms of “families in flux,” forming on the one hand, and dissolving on the other.
In other words, his answer was “yes.” He absolutely intended (among other things) to depict broken covenant loyalties on the one hand, and faithful covenant loyalties on the other.
The problem, I think, is language itself. “Unconditional love” is conservative evangelical church vernacular for the kind of love that is most valuable or virtuous (and only comes from God). It’s a staple teaching point in most evangelical youth groups. But in my experience secular people rarely ever use that phrase, even if they might be talking about the same spirit.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen or heard this sort of thing in the last few days, either in the films themselves or the Q&A sessions. God is profoundly at work through many of these films, but he’s usually disguised in a culture and a language that is entirely foreign (and often frightening) to prevailing Christianity.
If we’re want to be conversant with the culture we find ourselves in we’re going to have to go out of our way to learn the language by listening deeply, patiently, and charitably. Once we do, we may indeed find that these powerful cultural prophets only want the things of God, but not God himself. However, we may discover that, at least for some, they were never rejecting God, only what we said and what they heard.
Jason Coker