NPR did some religion reporting recently to fit the mood of a holiday season that left Jewish believers awkwardly behind in early Advent (for the liturgically gifted). One story was about the Mark Driscoll of the mainline Protestant world, Nadio Nadia Bolz-Weber, the woman who started out Church of Christ and is currently “orthodox Lutheran” by NPR’s reporter’s account:
The congregation here resembles the crowd at a downtown bookshop — hipsters and college professors, gay couples and Democratic grandmas. But even in this crowd, the congregation’s pastor, with her short, moussed hair and armloads of religious tattoos, stands out as she launches into a sermon about Jesus on the cross.
“In our win-lose way of understanding things, it would have made a lot more sense for Jesus to have come and been a superhero — kicking ass and taking names, showing everyone how strong God is by winning at our game,” she tells the congregation.
Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber is a bit of a Lutheran rock star at the moment, although the term makes her cringe. Her new book, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint, recently hit the New York Times best-seller list.
What she and her church are trying to do, she says, is simple and radical: create an authentic Christian experience without the pretension that can come with church.
“I think people’s tolerance for bullshit is at an all-time low,” she says.
I was glad to see that the story irked even one of the bloggers who writes for the CRC-RCA blog, The 12 (though challenges from readers prompted the irked one to take it back).
The story on Jane (why call her Nadia or pastor since we want to be transgressive and draw outside the lines), came the day before Christmas. The day after NPR featured a Christian musician who according to Wikipedia is part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He is Josh Garrells. And one of the story‘s sources said this about Garrells’ music:
“There are movements within postmodern Christianity that are saying these lines between sacred and secular are false constructs,” says Christian Piatt, a blogger and author in Portland who writes about faith and pop culture. “They don’t really exist. And, therefore, we don’t have to choose whether or not we’re going to listen to U2 or Amy Grant, or Josh Garrels or The Avett Brothers. I can have them all on the same rotation in my music and not consider myself an apostate or a heretic or anything like that.”
Amy Grant!!??
Christian Piatt needs to say hello to two-kingdom theology, which may be post-postmodern or popomo. 2k keeps the lines. The sacred is different from the secular. Nadia is different from Jane. Church is different from coffee house. Baroque is different from punk. Sunday is not Monday. Lines matter, as any wearer of tattoos should know.
Christians may and do walk on both sides of the line. But they know what is appropriate on each side. What Piatt and Bolz-Weber don’t seem to understand — along with the rest of the world dominated by boomers who still don’t want to color inside the lines — is that if you remove the lines, everything is the same and nothing is special (or set apart or sacred). Finding a place that is unique, where truth abides no matter whether Amy Grant or Bono or Vaughn Williams or Josh Garrells flourishes, is the source of real comfort and genuine liberty.
How long? How long, O Lord, will it take for the line-transgressors to see how liberating the lines are?
Old Life 