Here is yet another transcription of one of Derek Webb's podcasts (you
can find the first one here). This one comes from Derek Webb's
Podcast #3, which I'm going to break up into 2 or 3 parts, because it's
really long. Please take the time to read this; he says some really
excellent stuff that both Christians and non-Christians should think
about. I know it's long, but it's really an easy read. Let me know what
you think, and enjoy!“I was raised in the church. I was raised going to
church. But I think, like for a lot of people, it was more cultural. It
was just something that we did. My parents raised us in the church, so
I grew up knowing the language of it, which I think is maybe a little
unfortunate, because people get so concerned with and so wrapped up in
the words, knowing all the right words, using all the right words, that
we don’t really understand what we’re talking about. I think Christians
have a really hard time with a kind of exclusive language that we speak
– many words that we don’t even know ourselves what they mean. And the
language, the code only works when we’re talking to other Christians
who also know the words. Even in the academic church circles, so much
importance is put on learning all the right words and using all the
right words. So if you don’t, we’re kind of concerned whether or not,
you know, we should maybe pray for you, because you’re not using all
the words we’re familiar with. That’s the thing I love about people in
the church like Don Miller and folks like that who don’t use the words
we’re familiar with and so it makes us a little uncomfortable, because
they use plain language to say things that maybe we agree with, but in
a way that we’re not used to hearing. But that’s kind of our job, not
only as artists, but as people in the church, to say things in a
language that people can understand, to speak in plain language. You
know, there are so many words that are so confusing. I mean, the words
like “justification”, “sanctification”, “atonement”, “gospel”,
“witness”, “walk”. Many of us don’t even know what these words mean,
but we use them. And I feel like it just puts up more of a language
barrier between us and the people who we’re in this culture to love. We
barely know what these words mean.Our Christianity can’t be about
winning people to our particular set of words. It can’t be about
winning people to our particular way of thinking. It can’t be about
winning people to listening to our particular type of categorized music
or buying into our particular type of categorized politics. That’s not
what Christianity is. It’s about recklessly, radically loving people.
Just loving people. It’s about feeding people. It’s about putting
clothes on people. It’s about finding jobs for people. It’s about
putting houses around people who are homeless. It's about engaging with
people in the way Jesus might have engaged with them, as Christians are
supposed to be little Christs, ambassadors of Jesus. Jesus did not have
a particular party line he walked when it comes to politics. He did not
have a particular set of morals that he was hellbent against you
breaking down. If anything, His most harsh language was reserved for
arrogant church leadership, who was trying to put the weight of the law
on people, and he was trying to set people free. Not to say that we
don’t need the law, but our faith isn’t in the fact that we can live
right, that we can vote right, that we can do right. It’s that one has
done these things right on our behalf, and that liberates us to love
people, to engage with culture, to engage with art, to engage with
politics, all because we have a framework in scripture that liberates
us to do so.Jesus is Lord of all creation, and that liberates us to
engage with all creation. It puts nothing out of the bounds of our
creativity and out of our professional engagement. If you’re a
businessperson, you don’t have to work at a church. If you’re an
artist, you don’t have to go be in a praise band. You need to go engage
with culture, engage with creation, because it’s our job to go into
culture, into creation and redeem it for God’s glory, and I think that
takes more than just mocking secular marketing and secular music and
taking out all the things that makes it dangerous for us and risky,
making it sugar-free and guiltless and putting Jesus or morality (or
what’s the difference, as far as we’re concerned) into it for people…
that’s not our job. It’s to go in and say, “all of art has intrinsic
value, because we are artists made in the image of a God who is
creative.” The whole first chapter of Genesis is devoted to our
witnessing our creative God working in the world. It’s the first thing
we learn about. In the beginning, God created. And we are made in His
image, whether or not we are Christians or whatever faith we ascribe
to. I mean, we’re all created in God’s image and therefore creative
people. Even if it’s in the way that I can creatively lie to you, I’m a
creative person. Even in the way that I pervert the image I’ve been
made in, it’s still there. There still is something, even broken, that
I bear as one created in the image of God."

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Posted By Jill to Jill's Life Updates and Random Thoughts at 12/01/2006
08:15:00 PM