My collected thoughts on "World Changer"

Warning: this post is excessively long.

Okay I warned you.

IWU's theme is "World Changers." According to their website, "The concept of being world changers and developing world changers permeates everything we do at IWU. Whether you are a student, an employee, an alumnus, or a guest at IWU, we are striving to bring out the world changer in you."

In the library, around the watery spinny globe, are strategically placed bronze busts of all the past recipients of the "World Changer" award. The award was first granted in 2003 "to recognize role models who have exemplified the concept of world changers and whose lives can serve as an inspiration to future generations." 

Again, according to the website, "The idea for the Society of World Changers sprang from a campus-wide conversation about the book Roaring Lambs, written by the Society’s first inductee, the late Robert Briner. The book challenged believers to live out their faith boldly in the hustle and bustle of their everyday world—and to engage head-on a culture that is often indifferent, if not antithetical, to the Christian worldview." 

So! With that prior knowledge in mind, let me name for you the recipients from 2003 until the present date of the "World Changers" award: 

• 2003 Robert Briner, "He Wrote the Book: awarding-winning TV producer, sports executive, and author"
• 2004 Frank Peretti, "A Publishing Phenomenon: bestselling... Christian suspense novelist"
• 2005 Dr. James Dobson, "A Family Man: founder and chairman-emeritus of Focus on the Family"
• 2007 Dr. Benjamin Carson, "The Doctor: director of pediatric neurosurgery and professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions"
• 2008 Tony Dungy, "An Uncommon Coach: he led the Indianapolis Colts to Super Bowl victory in 2007, the first such win for an African-American coach"
• 2009 Joni Eareckson Tada, "From Her Wheelchair, She Has Moved the World for Those with Disabilities: she was paralyzed at 17 in a diving accident, but since then has written 35 books, accepted a presidential appointment to the National Council on Disability, spoken in more than 45 countries, established a disability ministry that reaches around the world and produced paintings with a brush between her teeth"
• 2010 Bill and Gloria Gaither, "Changing the World One Song at a Time: the American Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers (ASCAP) named them 'Songwriters of the Century' - Unquestionably, Christian music falls into two categories: Before Gaithers (B.G.) and After Gaithers (A.G.)"
• 2011 S. Truett Cathy, "Founder and chief executive officer of Chick-fil-A, Inc."

And this year's recipient? Why, none other than Kirk Cameron, "an American actor best known for his role as Mike Seaver on the television situation comedy Growing Pains (1985–1992)," according to the all-knowing Wikipedia. 

And now, a word. I apologize if, in the remainder of this post I sound cynical, heretical, harsh, critical, unchristian, unpatriotic, or any other such negative-type adjective you would care to put there. I am not writing with the intent to be such. I will be discussing my opinions, and hopefully working through why I hold them. And, as always, if someone is under the impression that I've stepped out of line, I invite correction. Call me out.

The term "World Changer," though empowering, potentially carries with it a connotation of superiority or arrogance. Understood in its intended sense, I agree -- that wherever followers of Jesus Christ end up they should be leaving impressions that ultimately glorify Him. What changing one's world actually looks like, however, seems to be up for interpretation. Unfortunately, in the back of my mind the words "colonialism" and "crusade" pop up before I have the chance to brush them away. 

colonialism 

— n

Also called: imperialism - the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas

crusade

— n

any of the military expeditions undertaken by the Christians of Europe in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Muslims

If we march out into the world waving a banner and claiming to hold some kind of elitist superiority over people that we are appointed to "change," I just get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that we'll do more harm than help. 

Growing up out of the United States, I was exposed to a so-called "third world" country's attitude toward my "home" country. 

A lot of people don't like us. There is an opinion out there that we're a bunch of arrogant snobs who think we run the world and that no one else would ever be qualified to do so. I'm in the history class American Civ After 1865 this semester and, as I reflect on U.S. foreign policy over the years, I'm starting to see more and more clearly why the opinion exists. Going back even to The Women of Lockerbie, the play I'm in right now, the Scottish characters say to an American government official who claims to have their best interests in mind:

OLIVE: The Scottish people are quite capable

of looking out for our own welfare, Mr. Jones.

We don't need you or the American government

to do that for us.

HATTIE: This is why no one likes Americans, sir.

You think you know what's best for everyone.

WOMAN 1: Aye. This is Scotland!

WOMAN 2: The American government should have no say

about what happens over here!

And I wonder if American Christians, specifically, are brought up with this deep-seated superiority embedded into their framework. Take one of my recent posts on the persecution complex I've observed in evangelical Christians. Anytime our established superiority (hegemony) seems to be threatened, we have immediately snapped to the offensive, and we have often left wounds and scars that drive away the very people we say we want to help. I recognize that this is not always the case. That Americans and Christians both are responsible for a lot of good that has been done in this world. But I also can't overlook an opinion about our attitude that seems to ring so true. An attitude that I don't want to be guilty of perpetuating. 

If a "world changer" is one who leaves this place to go out and try to make other people look exactly like me and do things exactly the way I do things and think exactly the way I think, I don't want to be a part of it. Now, before I say anything else that might get me accused of being un-American, back to the award and to the recipient-to-be, Cameron.

I have no doubt that Kirk Cameron is a wonderful human being. I value and appreciate him as such, and I am happy for him in the successes that he has had in his life. I appreciate that he has a relationship with God.

Do I agree with the way he has purportedly "changed the world"? No, no not really.

As he came into adulthood, Cameron became an outspoken evangelist. He partnered with evangelist Ray Comfort, apparently subscribing to and promoting Comfort's messages and means. They founded their ministry The Way of the Master together, and have undertaken many evangelistic projects together. 

I object strongly to Ray Comfort and to the way he goes about doing things.

His book titles say it all for me: You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think, How to Know God Exists, God Doesn't Believe in Atheists, and Evolution: The Fairy Tale for Grownups. Those titles scream arrogance and elitism. They seem to say, "I am enlightened and you are ignorant." And if I'm not mistaken, that's not the kind of attitude we should be shooting for.

Comfort and Cameron participated in a debate, pieces of which aired on Nightline, along with atheists Brian Sapient and Kelly O'Conner, which centered on the existence of God. According to Wikipedia, again, "Comfort stated he could prove [the existence of God] scientifically, without relying on faith or the Bible." You don't believe me? Please watch Cameron's opening statement of the debate (approximately 0:07 to 0:50). 

I have a huge problem with that statement. It undermines the entire concept of "Christian faith." A friend of mine who wrote an award-winning opinion article about his objection to the choice of Cameron for the "World Changers" award put it this way: "I’m sure I’m not the only person of faith who takes issue with that claim."

And if you go on to watch the whole video, you will see that the atheists do not come off as ignorant, but, unfortunately, Cameron and Comfort seem to. 

In 2009, on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Cameron helped distribute altered versions of the book at one hundred universities in the United States. The altered version had four important chapters omitted, and a 50-page introduction written by Ray Comfort. Wikipedia: "According to Comfort's website, 'Nothing has been removed from Darwin's original work,' but Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, noted that Comfort deleted four chapters by Darwin that described the evidence for evolution, adding that two of the omitted chapters, Chapters 11 and 12, showcase biogeography, some of Darwin's strongest evidence for evolution. She wrote that Comfort's foreword is 'a hopeless mess of long-ago-refuted creationist arguments, teeming with misinformation about the science of evolution, populated by legions of strawmen, and exhibiting what can be charitably described as muddled thinking.'" 

If you have the time, here is the video featuring Kirk promoting it. And, if you have even more time, here is a blog post by Rachel Held Evans, an author, speaker, and blogger, responding to the video. She starts her post by saying, "You know that feeling you get when your sweet, 90-year-old grandmother makes a blatantly racist comment at Thanksgiving dinner or your creepy uncle starts rambling about how the moon landing was staged? You are no doubt familiar with the spontaneous full-body wince that inevitably follows an interview with Al Sharpton in which he claims to represent all African Americans, Michael Moore in which he claims to represent all liberals, or Ann Coulter in which she claims to represent all Christians. Whether it’s a politically incorrect relative or a cartoonish pundit, there are just some people who make you want to stand up and shout, 'Shut up before people start to think that we’re all like you!'" 

I must admit, that has become the exact sentiment I have when it comes to the IWU-World-Changer-to-be.

She goes on to name six stereotypes of evangelical Christians that Cameron seems to perpetuate within the six minutes of the promotional video: 1) Evangelicals suffer from the delusion that they face religious persecution in the U.S. (Did I hear an echo?), 2) Evangelicals are unable to make a distinction between atheism and evolution, 3) Evangelicals love drawing fallacious cause and effect conclusions regarding other belief systems, but have a selective memory when it comes to their own beliefs and history, 4) Evangelicals have little respect for science, 5) Evangelicals always have an agenda, and 6) Evangelicals use fear and patriotism as tools for manipulation to call their people to action.

I also object to some things Cameron has done in his acting career. Again, according to Wikipedia, "Cameron was an atheist in his early teens, but when he was 17, during the height of his career on Growing Pains, he developed a belief in God, and became a born-again Christian. After converting to Christianity, he began to insist that story lines be stripped of anything he thought too adult or racy in Growing Pains."

As an aspiring actor who also has faith in God, this is unsettling to me. Should our faith mean that we also have standards? Yes. But I also said that if a "world changer" is someone who goes out and tries to make other people look exactly like me and do things exactly the way I do things and think exactly the way I think, I don't want to be a part of it. This is what Cameron tried to do. He tried to impose his own standards on others who had no reason to adhere to them. It, again, conveys that sense of superiority. Looking down on people for not making moral choices. And now this goes straight back to my art and faith tension again.

Some of the names on the list of people who have received the award, in my mind, would be rather better described as "evangelical-Christian-subculture-changers." They have had a great following of Christians, but they do not fare so well with the rest of the world that they happen to live in. That's not to say that there's not a place for ministry to fellow Christians and that we shouldn't edify each other. I'm not saying that at all. Of course there's a place for it. But why are we giving such people "World Changer" awards? Dr. James Dobson seems to fall in this category, as well as Bill and Gloria Gaither, and definitely Kirk Cameron. 

Near the beginning of this post, I said that what changing one's world actually looks like seems to be up for interpretation. I think it's becoming crystal clear that IWU and I have different ideas indeed.

The Women of Lockerbie

As I've said previously, I will have the privilege of playing the role of Hattie in my friend Emily's senior project, The Women of Lockerbie by Deborah Brevoort this April 12-14.

I read the script for the first time last fall. It's written in the style of a Greek tragedy and full of very poetic, symbolic, and flowing language. The more I read the script, the more I find in it. I hope you're planning to come see the show, because I think it's going to be fantastic. As a preview, however, I wanted to share a little bit about why I'm glad I'm involved with this production.


“When evil comes into the world
it is the job of the witness
to turn it to love.”

“If the sun never set
we would find no beauty in the sunrise.”

“And if hatred never pierced our hearts
we would not know the power of love.”

“Trust in the rising sun
and in the stars that shine at night.”

“And believe
that behind the suffering of the world,
there is a purpose
to everything.”

“My faith is hanging by a thread
again
ready to break.
How easily my faith is broken...”

“It breaks often, my faith.”

"But in the morning
when the first rays of sun hit my window...
it is restored."

“The world won’t let you keep your faith
but it won’t let you lose it, either.”

GEORGE: You are very strong.
I wouldn’t have been able to do that.
OLIVE: Sure you would have.
You find the strength to do what you have to, Mr. Jones.

“Hatred is love that’s been injured.
If you have hatred in your heart
it means you have love in it also.”

“We are going to wash the clothes, Mrs. Livingston.
To make our hearts pure again.”

“’Hatred will not have the last word in Lockerbie.’”

These lines are why I want to be a part of telling this story. My character does not deliver any of these lines, but I also know that the play would not be complete without the piece that Hattie brings to it. Hattie is like the rays of sunshine coming in through the window in the morning, but she’s also brave, willing to sacrifice, and very strong. I hope I learn some lessons from Hattie before we’re through.

Currently

I've seen some other people write these kinds of posts so I thought I'd give it a go.

Currently, I am:

Reading


So many different things right now.

Just recently I finished Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt for my Shakespeare class. It was an intriguing read, and for someone who has never studied Shakespeare in depth before it was a... memorable... introduction. That's a good way to put it. Apparently my professor has worked it out to where our class will have the privilege of meeting and talking with Stephen Greenblatt himself via Skype on April 19. It should be an educational experience!

I am also currently in the middle of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer by Phyllis Bennis. Up until just recently, I have been a complete novice when it comes to the history, current events, and controversy surrounding the conflict and violence in Israel and Palestine. This book has been an excellent introduction for a beginner. I do not feel that I would not be able to tell Rachel Corrie's story well unless I had some knowledge of what she stood for and why she chose to do what she did. I'm treating it as character research. This particular book has been extremely informative and helpful, but it's clear that the author has a strong pro-Palestinian bias. To try to have some balance, the next book I read, then, will be:

The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. I've only just glanced through the introduction, but it's clear that the author has taken it upon himself to explain the pro-Israeli perspective and I will be able to read a perspective on the other side of this conflict.

The other book on this topic that I am particularly looking forward to is called Palestinian Memories: The Story of a Palestinian Mother and Her People by Alex Awad, kindly lent to me by my friend Phil, who spent some time the summer before last in Israel. It is the story of Huda Elias Awad, told by her son, and tells the story of a brave mother living in the middle of the Palestinian-Israeli violence.

For my history class I just finished the classic autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody. Anne chronicles her life in Mississippi and Louisiana in the 1950s from her childhood and early school days to her graduation from college and involvement with the civil rights movement. Anne's courage, passion, strength, and stubbornness were inspiring.

Next on the list for my history class is Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam by David Farber.

And, finally, the book that I would like to be reading for pleasure but I haven't been able to make much progress on, thanks to the above, is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, whom I am coming to have a great fondness for. She writes about writing and the process thereof, but better still, she writes about life, and she does so in a way that would make anyone smile.

And, over spring break, I finally read Hamlet and Freud's Last Session, which I already wrote a little bit about.

Listening

Just at the end of the week a package came for me with the CD Simunye -- a collaboration effort of I Fagiolini (a choir founded at Oxford) and the SDASA chorale from Soweto in South Africa, which combines traditional Zulu chants with sacred and traditional music. "Bistylism," to quote Jeremy Begbie.

Watching


Over Spring Break last week I got the chance to watch Midnight in Paris, which made me want to go spend an evening in the 1920s.

I also got the chance to see The Artist, which I instantly adored. Fabulous.

On Thursday night, I got to see Singin' in the Rain for the first time ever! Warm fuzzies and smiles. And very interesting to watch for the first time after having just seen The Artist. 

Last night I watched the new Three Musketeers that just came out (which was visually appealing but rather ridiculous and laughable in many places -- I don't necessarily recommend it), and Immortals, which wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but slightly off-putting. The title is "Immortals," and yet most of the gods die bloodily at the end. I was confused.

And then, tonight, I watched Hugo. Lovely and charming. I liked it very much, even if it was a bit long.

I will finally get to see War Horse next weekend! I've wanted to see it since it came out.

Playing


Unless Words with Friends and Text Twist count, I haven't played any good new games lately. Any suggestions?

Thinking About


Oh so many things. Where to start?
Hugo, and all of the wonderful symbolism that the movie was dripping with. I'm a sucker for symbolism.
Summer plans. I emailed one of the directors at Great River Shakespeare Festival today, hoping to hear back from him about their apprenticeship program. Also heard back from the American Shakespeare Center with what I'm fairly certain was a positive for a production management internship if I'd like it.
Future - what are my goals? Where do I want to be in five years? How do I go about getting there?
Israel and Palestine. And Rachel Corrie. Of course. Friday was the ninth anniversary of her death, so she was on my mind most of the day. There will be a post soon about how research is going and some of the things I've been learning.
I'm also going back to my church tomorrow. So it's also on my mind in a different way.
Two research papers that I need to write for my Shakespeare class. One will be on Hamlet and I'm not sure what the other one will be about yet. I'm thinking The Merchant of Venice and Shylock. We shall see.
My character analysis and costume design for costume and makeup class. Hoping I don't completely screw up the costume I'm going to try to make.
The observation that, when the weather gets warm, IWU on the weekends takes on an atmosphere akin to that of summer camp. Strange.

As close to a devotional as I get (Part II)

I left off in my last post in the middle of a chapel sermon by one of our student body chaplains. Cognitive dissonance and all that. Things I don't understand. Right.

So after all this, that still wasn't what actually stuck out to me the most about her sermon. Because at that point, she started talking about persecution. She went on to say that we as Christian brothers and sisters need to call each other out on things even in the face of persecution and in the face of the possibility of persecution. "We are still called to stand fast as a bold Christian witness." And she went on to mention a pastor in Pakistan who was put in jail for standing up for what he believed in and then sentenced to death for not converting to Islam.

This next part is a transcription of most of the last part of her sermon (brace yourself, it's a little long):

"Being a disciple of Christ means that you will be persecuted, and that you might possibly die. And intrinsic to this idea of discipleship is persecution because in the book of Mark we see Christ is our example of what it means to be a disciple. And Jesus was persecuted, he was arrested, he was beaten, and he was killed. And nobody in the room says, 'Sign me up for that.' But that is what it means to be a disciple of Christ, to live that bold Christian witness in the knowledge that we might be persecuted, and we might get arrested, and we might get hurt and we might get killed. But that is how we inherit the Kingdom of God -- by standing fast. And that's the call to this church of Thyatira is to hold on to what you have, hold on to your faith, stand firm in being a Christian living in a context in that pagan culture where it is hard to be a Christian and where you might lose. Stand fast, stand firm. Christ is calling us to be set apart.
And, no doubt, the church in Thyatira would have been persecuted. No doubt that those people who lived there would have been persecuted for their faith, they would have been ostracized. They probably wouldn't have been able to do very well financially. But the God who created the universe is able to handle our financial needs. And he is able to protect us in the face of persecution. And he will protect your heart and he will protect you and he will protect your family. Our God is bigger than this world and he is able to protect us in the face of persecution and that is why we don't need to fear. We don't need to fear living out that bold Christian witness because we know that our God is bigger and that he is on our side and he is fighting for us. And we may still get hurt, and that doesn't mean that our God isn't bigger. But God uses persecution -- look at Christ -- God uses persecution and execution in order for his Kingdom to come. And one of my favorite things about this idea of being a bold Christian witness is that we're not doing it alone... Because isn't it so much easier when it's not just you? When it's you against the entire world and you're just feeling the persecution and people coming against you for being a Christian -- life just gets a whole lot better when there's another person next to you. When we live out our faith, when we stand fast as a disciple of Christ, enduring persecution, others know that there is a God who is great."

I left chapel wondering, "When it's you against the entire world and you're just feeling the persecution and people coming against you for being a Christian?" Does this happen to people here often? This is not the first time that I've gotten the overwhelming sense that some people walk around with a persecution complex.

Persecution complex: I found a wiki entry that sums it up pretty well -

"A persecution complex is a term given to an array of psychologically complex behaviours, that specifically deals with the perception of being persecuted, for various possible reasons, imagined or real.
It is also commonly displayed by people or groups whose beliefs actually are comparatively widespread, such as fundamentalist Christians.
Christian fundamentalists in the Bible Belt feel persecuted or oppressed whenever they find someone that doesn't share their particular worldview (such as creationism...). On closer examination of such claims it's more commonly the case that claims of persecution are better explained as annoyance at the removal of privilege or the curtailment of their ability to force their views on to others. The controversy over classroom prayer is raised as a case of persecution to prevent Christians from observing their religious beliefs, when in reality the rulings made in the 1960s and 1970s forbade state schools from sponsoring religious observances. Students are perfectly free to pray on their initiative and in their own time, yet it's easier for conspiracy nuts to bond if they can describe these rulings as being an attack on freedom of religion for Christians."

I'm sorry if "conspiracy nuts" offended you - I didn't write the entry, just posted it. I'm not making a blanket statement that no one around here has ever experienced legitimate persecution for their faith, but odds are, most people haven't. And yet some walk around feeling like they have or like they will the second they graduate and leave here.

Not long ago I also heard a vaguely similar sermon preached in which the pastor talked about a bill that might be on the national table in the not-too-distant future which might mean that churches would have to start paying taxes and that giving tithes would no longer count as a tax deduction. He used the word "persecution" to describe this. I can't even tell you how many sermons or talks or conversations I've heard where the term "persecution" has been applied to any minuscule pressure or discomfort that an individual Christian has felt in a situation in which they were a minority.

I can't emphasize it enough:

Just. Because. You. Are. Not. In. The. Majority. Does. Not. Mean. That. You. Are. Persecuted.

Based on just the number of chapel messages about or relating to this topic, I get this sense that lots of IWU grads might be going out into the world with a chip on their shoulder assuming that everyone they meet who does not agree with them one hundred percent is going to persecute them. Or that every time that someone disagrees with them in the realm of personal belief it means they are being persecuted.

I just don't get it. How dare we compare our pampered, privileged selves to that Pakistani pastor on death row? How dare we?

As close to a devotional as I get (Part I)

As I started writing this, I realized that this one was going to have to be a two-parter. I downloaded the Shane Claiborne chapel from our chapel archives and, while I was there, I saw a chapel message from earlier in February that I remembered reacting to at the time. I downloaded it and listened through it again, and wanted to share my thoughts on it.

The speaker was one of our student body chaplains. She started off by talking about her favorite movie: The Little Rascals. (If you want to listen to the whole message for yourself, you can get it here.)

She gave a synopsis of the movie, talking about the boys that make up the He-Man Woman-Hater Club, and how one of them, Alfalfa, is in love with a girl named Darla. Of course, his buddies are none too pleased with this violation of their woman-hating standards, so they set out to sabotage Alfalfa and Darla's relationship, which they do quite effectively. Alfalfa ends up with Darla mad at him, his He-Man Woman-Haters Club man at him, and their Clubhouse burnt to the ground.

After giving the synopsis, she posed the question:

How can Alfalfa live in this context (the context of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club) and still be who he is (in love with Darla)?

And that was her question for us: How do we, as Christians, live in the context we're in and still be who we are?

She turned to Revelation chapter 2 and talked a little bit about the church of Thyatira, which had a Jewish and pagan mix of a culture.

Then I tuned out for a bit, but I know she was hating on guilds. No seriously. I tweeted: "'Guilds lead to idolatry.' Dear IWU chapel, you're not helping us out a whole lot." When you're a part of the IWU Theatre Guild, well, you get the picture.

Okay, okay, jokes. But as she went on, I began to have some real misgivings about what she said.

She related the church of Thyatira to Alfalfa. To make your living in Thyatira, you had to belong to a guild. If you belonged to a guild, chances are you had to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, thus participating in idolatry, according to their definition. How were they to live in their context and yet still live out their faith? They were living in the middle of a difficult tension: a tension of Christ and culture.

She then said, and this is a direct transcribed quote: "There was a false teacher who came in and started saying -- I know, this is so nice, isn't it? -- 'Oh yeah, everything that you're doing -- being part of those guilds, eating that food -- totally cool. You can do all of that and still be a Christian. Isn't that so great?' Wasn't that so timely for a nice person to just come in and 'massage' the gospel a little bit and make it seem like what the culture is saying is okay is okay?"

So... I'm listening. And confused. Because (mentally) I immediately flip to Romans where Paul, talking about eating meat that has been sacrificed to idols, says:

"One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.

"And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand."

"Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God."

"I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean."

"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit..."

Okay, you caught me -- that wasn't from memory -- I piece-mealed it from Romans 14 on BibleGateway. But I think you get the picture. The Romans 14 passage has increasingly come to mean a lot to me in the Christ-culture dynamic I engage with almost daily. And so, you can imagine, there was some interesting cognitive dissonance going on in my head. I still haven't figured out how to reconcile the two, because John in Revelation 2 certainly does seem to condemn the eating of food sacrificed to idols, but, on the other hand, here's Paul saying almost the exact opposite. Which is it? Somebody a little more familiar than me with Biblical literature will probably have to help me out on that one.

Anyway, in Revelation 2, it says that this false prophet Jezebel who is leading people astray has been given time to repent but still hasn't, and that the church has tolerated her and her teaching. The chaplain went on to say: "Sometimes I think we get this idea that toleration is love. That, if my friend is sinning (and I know that she's sinning), I shouldn't say anything because that would just be mean and rude and I don't want to make her feel uncomfortable or hurt her in any way."

She went on, "We like to rationalize it and say, 'Well, Jesus never condemned anybody and he tolerated their lives.' But that's just not quite biblical. Let's look at the passage in John chapter 8 which is where a lot of people go to when they say 'Jesus never condemned anybody.' So there's this woman who's living in adultery, and all these teachers of the law are dragging her to Jesus, and they start berating [sic] Jesus with questions of 'We should follow the law of Moses! This woman's living in adultery! We need to stone her! That's what the law says! Isn't that what the law says? Isn't that right? Shouldn't we do that? We should stone her now 'cause she's living in sin!' And so, Jesus, what he does -- he just draws a line in the dirt [sic], and he says, 'Let him who is without sin be the first to cast the first stone.' And one by one, each person, each teacher of the law and each Pharisee who was with this woman left, till it's just Jesus and this woman. And, no doubt, she has tears running down her face and she's panic-stricken in the face of death. And Jesus says to her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' She says, 'No one, sir.' Jesus replies, 'Then neither do I condemn you.'
And at that point, shouldn't we be like, 'See? He didn't condemn her either. Point proven -- we should just be able to tolerate sin. Jesus didn't condemn anybody. We're fine.' But we then miss the last part of his sentence. And it says, 'Neither do I condemn you. Now go, and leave your life of sin.' See? Jesus called her out on her adulterous life to her face. How mean. But that's love. That's love, that Jesus actually cared about her eternal life enough to tell her that she wasn't living in a way that she would inherit the Kingdom of God."

Now, I'm not saying that I disagree completely with everything that she says here. I'm not saying that we should never confront people or call people out on things. I've called several people out on different things before and it has often turned out very well. And I've had many people call me out on things. It has even created a stronger bond between me and the other person occasionally in addition to fixing the bigger issues.

But here is another cognitive dissonance problem that I've always run into: He was Jesus. He was God. I am not. The student body chaplains are not. We look to that chapter because Jesus was God walking around on earth, and therefore he had every right to condemn her. And didn't. True, he told her to go and sin no more. But he was God. The human people all left, remember? They didn't have the right to cast stones, so they dropped them on the ground and left. And yes, we are to become like Jesus, but at some point, I wonder, where should we start watching where we tread, lest we start trying to do his job for him? Where is that line? It's something I've wrestled with for a while.

That's all for the first part. It wasn't originally what I started out wanting to write about -- I'm saving that for Part II, so stay tuned.

Sound Mixing: Living in the Difference

So far, my two favorite chapel speakers at Indiana Wesleyan this year have been:

Shane Claiborne, who spoke on February 8, and Jeremy Begbie, who spoke today. 

I didn't take down the title of his talk, but I'm pretty sure it was "Sound Mixing: Living in the Difference." He talked about our understanding of the triune God in terms of sound. He said that visual artists can get only so close, but there are limitations. We can't perceive two colors at once. Either the red covers the yellow or the yellow covers the red or they mix and we have a different something altogether - orange - but that color is only one color. With sound, the notes sound through each other, build onto each other, edify each other, and complement each other all at once. When we play a chord we hear three distinct sounds that equally fill the room and yet are one sound. In the physical realm, two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time, but when it comes to sound, two notes can, in essence, occupy the same space at the same time.

Mind = blown.

Then he went on to extend his metaphor using bitonality, and then also using a term that he may have come up with himself: bistylism; which indicates two different styles of music in harmony with each other. As an example he let us listen to a snippet of a track from an album called Simunye which combines the voices of I Fagiolini, a British choir founded in 1986 at Oxford, and the SDASA Chorale of Soweto in South Africa. According to the website for I Fagiolini, "Simunye is a Zulu word meaning ‘we are one’ and seemed a suitable name for this project developed by I Fagiolini and the SDASA Chorale of Soweto." I loved what I heard - a combination of sacred music "sounding through" and building upon traditional Zulu chants. So cool.

Here are some quotes:

"Music is alive with difference."

"What we hear doesn't occupy a bounded space."

"Notes can sound through each other. They can, in fact, occupy the same place at the same time."

"God frees us to be fully human."

"A sonic metaphor of a triune God."

Regarding our term "World Changers": "In Britain you would never use that kind of language. They'd all get worried about optimism and that sort of thing."

"We should strive for a world where cultures do not crush, overpower, or hide each other or merge into one, but sound through each other."

"We must leave room for the different, for the eccentric, for the wild card."

If the recording goes up on IWU's website I'll try to input the link.

After chapel ended I went up to the front and got the opportunity to meet him, shake his hand, and talk very briefly with him. He discovered that I'm an aspiring Shakespearean scholar and asked if I had ever been to Stratford. I told him sadly, no, but I had been to the Globe, though I hadn't seen a performance in either place. Then he asked about my ambitions after undergrad and I told him about my plans for a summer of graduate study at Oxford right after I graduate and he shook his head and said, "Ah. Excellent for you, I'm sure, but you see, I'm a Cambridge man." :)

Spring Break, Clive, and Sigmund

I've nearly gotten to the bottom of my list of things I wanted to do over Spring Break. I love it when that happens. Although, my last two things aren't exactly fifteen-minute assignments that I'll be able to just check off my list:

• Read Hamlet
• Get some Rachel Corrie research done

I finished everything that's due next week--I even read back through Macbeth for next week in my Shakespeare class. I've had a really hard time actually re-reading plays for my Shakespeare class that I've already read (which is all of them except for Henry IV Part 1, The Tempest, and--yes--Hamlet.)

The Rachel Corrie research will be ongoing and really doesn't need to be started now, but I checked out all of these books and I'm just kind of excited to get started I guess. Or maybe just nuts. I also spent almost two hours going through the script, putting boxes around things I was clueless about, looking up Wikipedia articles about them, and sending the links to myself. This is going to take me hours. Well. Probably more like days. I'm such a geek. And I'm sure, as I trek through the research, many more hours than probably necessary will go into journaling (in my case, blogging) about it.

But! Before I get to all that, the third-to-last item on my To-Do-Over-Spring-Break list was "Read Freud's Last Session by Mark St. Germain." It's been on my "To Read" list for over a year and I've just never gotten the chance to actually sit down and read it (or, more accurately, I just kept putting it off--it's really a short script and a fast read). The play is a lively conversation between a young C.S. Lewis and an aged Sigmund Freud in his last days, dying of oral cancer. Anyway, I liked it (I knew I probably would), and if I get the chance to see it will most certainly do so. But, in the meantime, here are my favorite quotes and pieces from the script:

FREUD: I have spent my life in "institutions." Religious or secular, they are ruled by autocrats who insist their vision of reality is superior to all they command. I state the truth no matter who it outrages.

LEWIS: Do you enjoy it? Their outrage?

FREUD: I enjoy provoking discussion, such as ours.

LEWIS: The good man serves God as his loving son, the evil man serves God as his tool.

LEWIS: (Smiles.) Yes. We were discussing myths. I told Tolkien I enjoyed them artistically, but basically I regarded them as fiction, as lies, as you do. Tolkien stopped me. He said, "You're wrong. They're far from lies. They're man's way of expressing truths that would otherwise go unspoken.

LEWIS: And that's your choice, [Tolkien] told me: to believe or disbelieve.

LEWIS: ...Man is suffering for the fault of man.

FREUD: Is that your excuse for pain and suffering? Did I bring about my own cancer ? Or is killing me God's revenge? (Lewis, for the first time, is hesitant. This is an issue he will grapple with all his life.) 

LEWIS: I don't know.

FREUD: You don't know?

LEWIS: And I don't pretend to. It's the most difficult question of all, isn't it? If God is good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy. But we aren't. So God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.

FREUD: We are making progress.

LEWIS: I can't justify your pain. Yet I can't imagine God desires it.

FREUD: You like music.

LEWIS: Very much so.

FREUD: Sacred music, no doubt?

LEWIS: Actually, I hate hymns.

FREUD: Really?

LEWIS: They're like dipping a chocolate bar in sugar. Unbearably cloying. Hymns drive me out of church early every Sunday. I leave after communion and head across the street for a pint. There, I'm happy to listen to any music playing... My objection to church music is that it trivializes emotions I already feel.

LEWIS: My idea of God; it constantly changes. He shatters it, time and time again. Still, I feel the world is crowded with Him. He is everywhere. Incognito. And His incognito--it's so hard to penetrate. The real struggle is to keep trying. To come awake. Then stay awake.

Art and Faith: The Second

I have a sticky note on my desktop with a list of the topics I want (sometimes need) to write posts about. I reached a new record today - my sticky note currently holds seven unstarted topics. Six now!

As I said in a prior post, faith and art has become the [false] dichotomy that has begun to invade my life. Never yet, though, has it been as pronounced as it is right now, in the midst of my struggle with what I plan to be my senior project. Although, it's not really a struggle between me and the script; it's more of a struggle between me and one or two others (so far) as I defend the script and my choice to present it.

Sparked by a conversation I had (described in my prior post), I suddenly had an epiphany and the desire to write something more than a few blog posts was born. I've started working on what I am [for now] calling a manifesto. Although with all the thoughts and research I'd like to pour into it, I'm thinking it will end up more of a small book.

The only thing I know for sure, at the moment, is the title, which I'm hoping will help to guide whatever I end up writing: Why I Will Swear On Stage: Confessions of a Missionary Kid Turned Theatre Artist. I'm guessing the subtitle looks a little familiar.

The title really should say it all. I'm hoping it will be something of a defense for why I do what I do. I know a number of people will probably take issue with it, and I fully understand that I'll probably offend plenty of people. I have a lot of work to do, though, before I get there, and with the way I usually feel while school is in session, let's just say it would take quite a few Spring Breaks for me to make much headway on it. The topics I'm hoping to cover include: some linguistics - definitions and etymologies of some words, an informed discussion of Ephesians 4:29, an exploration of "boundaries and standards" and what that means in relation to the call to live a "holy life" (1 Thessalonians 4:7), and, most certainly, a discussion of the differences between character and actor.

I worked on it some today, so it's on my mind (along with about 3 dozen other things). I feel like my brain is in overdrive and going about 500 miles per hour. Could it be all this sleep I've been getting because it's Spring Break? Is this how my brain would normally function if I wasn't so exhausted all the time? Sheesh.

Auditions and dreams. Welcome to my life.

Here's an article I wrote for our Division about the auditions that Cody, Emily, and I went to in St. Louis and New York City:


"Talk about a whirlwind weekend. On Thursday, February 16, three Theatre majors set out from the IWU campus, journeying into the great unknown of professional theatre auditions. Emily Tritle (sr), Cody Konschak (sr), and Kendra Emmett (jr) had planned this trip since the previous semester. They had submitted headshots, resumes, applications, and application fees to Midwest Theatre Auditions (which take place in St. Louis, Missouri at Webster University each year) and to Strawhat Auditions (which take place in New York City at Pace University). It is never guaranteed that applicants will get an audition slot even when applying early. Applicants’ headshots and resumes are reviewed, and then they might be contacted and asked to audition. All three were asked to audition at both locations—in the same weekend.


Both auditions were similar in nature. Representatives from up to twenty-five or thirty theatre companies attended the audition days. Each audition was to be no more than ninety seconds. Applicants could either sing and perform a monologue, or perform two contrasting monologues. Understanding that their chances of being called back might increase if they sang (well), Tritle, Konschak, and Emmett signed up for singing auditions. All singing auditions were required to begin with the song and conclude with the monologue.

After the auditions came the waiting. They waited anywhere from a few hours (in St. Louis) to only part of an hour (in New York City) to find out whether or not they were called back. In St. Louis, each of them received one callback. After meeting with the theatre representatives in the callbacks (some involved further singing or acting and some were mostly informational meetings), the three hit the road and headed for New York City. At Strawhat auditions, the process was very much the same. This time, Emmett and Tritle each received one callback while Konschak discovered that he had four. Tritle and Konschaks’ callbacks required both of them to attend a dance call that they both said that they enjoyed even though it took both of them out of their comfort zones.

After a full and exhausting weekend of auditions, they headed back to Marion, Indiana into the midst of catching up on school work and work hours, as well as diving right into the thick of production week for The Glass Menagerie. After further application processes for some of the theatres they received callbacks for, they now have to wait to hear from the theatres to see what the next step will be and whether or not they will be hired or possibly taken into apprenticeship programs. All in all, they all three felt it was a successful venture. They were glad for the experience, and are seriously considering returning again next year to do it all over again."

It was a pretty crazy weekend and I had plenty of moments when I felt intimidated and untalented, but it was a great learning experience and I'm glad that I did it. 

Probably the thought that was most recurring for me through the weekend was, "I wish I was a dancer." At Strawhat auditions, there was a dance call specifically for dancers. "Dancers who sing" - or those that audition specifically for dancing chorus parts. And then there are the triple threats. The ones that go out on stage, sing an opera piece, deliver a fascinating monologue, and then go back and change into dance clothes and shoes and start stretching to do both choreography and tap dance calls. Believe me, I felt untalented more than once. 

I think it would be cool to move to, I don't know, Indianapolis or Chicago, get an apartment and a decently paying job, and take dance intensives in ballet, tap, and jazz for a year. That's probably not a realistic goal, but I bet it would be pretty awesome. 

I don't know. We'll see what happens. The callbacks I received from my auditions were to Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, Minnesota (that was at Midwest auditions) and then also one to Missoula Children's Theater in Missoula, Montana (at Strawhats). Missoula pays pretty well and sounds like a fantastic time. A partner and I would be touring the country in a Ford F-150 for the summer, working with kids and putting on shows. I submitted an application for them and am waiting to hear back. But I've actually received more encouragement to shoot for the Great River Shakespeare Festival. In the callback I learned that it wasn't precisely a job offering - it was a callback inviting me to apply for their apprenticeship program. The drawback? They wouldn't pay me, I would have to pay them for a 12 week program. It was actually a surprisingly affordable price, though, and there are up-sides. During the 12 week period I would have the opportunity to understudy roles in each of their productions, take classes and workshops with their professional actors during the day, do a bit of theatre management work, and then at the end of the summer the apprentices would get to put on the last show of the season - guaranteed nine performances at a professional Shakespeare company. AND not to mention all the networking I'd be able to do. 

Anyway, I sent in my applications to both Great River and Missoula, and also applied for internships at Goodman and Lookingglass Theatres in Chicago, and to the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia. Throwing out lots of fishing lines and seeing if any of them gets a bite. My first choice will be Great River, if I get accepted there. (It would mean I would need to come with some money before this summer but I can work on that.) My second choice would probably be either Missoula (even if it doesn't help my professional career necessarily, it would pay), or the American Shakespeare Center. Lookingglass is my next choice, and Goodman would be my last choice. 

So far, these are my tentative plans, God willing:

I have a year of school left. My senior project will be the biggest part of my final year. I'm going to try to present Rachel Corrie off campus (I might have a venue in Chicago to do so), and if I can't present it while I'm a student at IWU I will probably try to take it up right after I graduate. Then, that summer, I'm applying for a study abroad program to go to Oxford for a few weeks to take a graduate intensive course in Shakespeare. In February of my senior year I will attend URTAs (University and Regional Theatre Auditions) where I will audition for grad school acting programs. If I somehow am accepted to a grad school through that (the chances are usually pretty steep), I will give that serious consideration. I am also very interested, however, in applying to Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. They have a partnership with the American Shakespeare Center and offer a Shakespeare and Performance Degree that I very much like the sound of. In the first year, students get a Master of Letters degree which emphasizes both Shakespearean scholarship as well as stagecraft. After receiving the MLitt, students are then permitted to apply for the terminal Master of Fine Arts degree in the second year, and specialize in acting, directing, or dramaturgy. All in all it sounds like something I would really love and (I think) do well in. 

With that plan in view, it's easy to see how an apprenticeship at the Great River Shakespeare Festival would benefit me. I would love to be a member of a Shakespeare company. Really, all I want out of life is to get paid to act before I die. And if I'm to be a Shakespearean actor, then all the better. Hopefully these plans put me on the right track. 

Someday, when I'm older and wiser, I would really love to teach theatre at the college level. But that's quite a few years off yet, I think, and I would like to get some professional experience and live some life before diving back into the world of higher ed from the other side. 

Dreaming gets me excited, but I know that anything could change at any time. That's the funny thing about life. So! We'll see what happens, I suppose.