GRAY MATTERS (2013) - by Brett McCracken (book review, Part II)

Let us begin this second part of exploring the ideas in Brett McCracken’s interesting book, Gray Matters, with the qualification that there is much in his book that ought to be deeply appreciated and affirmed.  For this reason, I discussed how much I heartily agreed with many of Mr. McCracken’s viewpoints in Part One of this book review.  Those of us who are strongly committed to articulating how our faith ought to rightly exist in life and culture can count him as among our number.  Thus, I consider the questions and disagreements that I pose further in this review as those of the kind that can be asked and held between like-minded friends.

In another sense, my disagreements with Mr. McCracken are those related to what could be described as tactical or rhetorical decisions ultimately directed towards the same ends.  In discussing culture, art or politics, Christians and conservatives have to make proper distinctions.  They also recently seem to have been neglecting tactical thinking regarding such subjects as “pop culture”, consumerism, church subculture, the relation of morality to culture, entertainment, the difference between high and low culture, and other closely related corollaries such as the doctrine of general revelation.

It is rhetorical and tactical thinking here that I am interested in.  How we choose to formulate our position requires that we use our language carefully.  We must keep both history and our immediate audience in mind.  Persuasion is an art form.  Some forms of persuasion work more effectively than others.  Other forms of persuasion work less effectively and yet are perhaps demanded by an adherence to the moral order in which we live.

“It has been well established,” McCracken writes early in his book, “that Christians can find value in exploring secular pop culture.” (pg. 14)

Here’s the problem.  I understand where McCracken is coming from because, like him, I was raised in an evangelical world that taught against “the culture” and “the world.”  It makes sense that McCracken would want to argue that there is value in culture.  But McCracken doesn’t use the term culture.  Instead he uses the phrase “pop culture.”

POP CULTURE

If Christians in our generation mean to be serious about reversing the withdrawal from culture that we have experienced in both the fundamentalist and evangelical movements, then we must first be aware of what culture is and the intellectual history behind the idea.  In order to be aware of what culture is, it is important that we do not ignore the philosophical debate that has shaped the meaning of the word over the last three centuries.  This debate grows apparent first by glancing at the two different primary definitions of “culture” in our dictionaries.

Worded slightly differently in different dictionaries, if you were peruse the different definitions of “culture,” you would find two main themes.

First, you would find culture defined as “the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic” or “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group” (Merriam-Webster online, 2013).

Secondly, you would also find culture defined as “the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education” or “enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training” (Merriam-Webster online, 2013).

Now, if you were to look closer at the history of the word, you would find that the second definition is far older than the first.  The older definition views culture, by definition, as something of value to be attained.  It is not limited to any class or social group.  It is accessible to anyone who makes the effort to cultivate it.  It implies universal values in both the moral and aesthetic spheres.  In contrast, the newer definition of culture does not presuppose any universal values at all.  Instead, it regulates culture to the characteristics of one social group or class as distinguished from another.

As we will discuss further, McCracken relies upon the theologian, Kevin Vanhoozer, to explain some of his ideas.  But Vanhoozer seems to prefer the newer definition to the old.  In fact, in the book, Everyday Theology, Vanhoozer even claims that the newer definition of culture is the older one:

“One of the oldest and most influential definitions of culture is that of the first professor of anthropology, Edward Tylor, given in his 1871 work Primitive Culture.  According to Tylor, culture is ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capacities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.’  Thus from anthropology we learn that culture is a way of life ...” (Everyday Theology, pg. 24.)

However, Dr. Samuel Johnson defined culture in his 1755 A Dictionary of the English Language as “The act of cultivation; tillage; the art of improvement and melioration.”  Noah Webster defined culture in his 1828 Dictionary as “The application of labor or other means to improve good qualities in, or growth; as the culture of the mind; the culture of virtue ... Any labor or means employed for improvement, correction or growth.”

Vanhoozer has Tylor’s “oldest and most influential” definition in 1871, more than an entire century after Dr. Johnson.  And then, we must not neglect the very respectable Century Unabridged Dictionary from 1889.  Its section on “culture” reads as follows:

“The systematic improvement and refinement of the mind, especially of one’s own. [Not common before the nineteenth century, except with strong consciousness of the metaphor involved, though used in Latin by Cicero.] ... The result of mental cultivation, or the state of being cultivated; refinement or enlightenment; learning and taste; in a broad sense, civilization: as, a man of culture. (‘Rather to the pomp and ostentacion of their wit, then to the culture and profit of theyr mindes.’ - Sir Thomas More, Works, p. 14. ‘The culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible (though unseen) operation as hardly any length of time or contention of labour can countervail it afterwards.’ - Sir Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning (Original [English ed.], Works, III. 415. ‘O Lord, if thou suffer not thy servant, that we may pray before thee, and thou give us seed unto our heart, and culture to our understanding, that there may come fruit of it, how shall each man live that is corrupt, who beareth the place of a man?’ - 2 Esd. viii. 6. ‘Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.’ - M. Arnold, Literature and Dogma, Pref.)”

In the history of the word, it was philosophers who criticized this old definition as elitist.  Johann Gottfried Herder and Georg W.F. Hegel both did not like how the word implied universal values, so they argued that culture, instead of being something that is the striving for a higher standard, should just be what people already have.  Both Herder and Hegel ended up consciously arguing to use the word “culture” differently so as to only mean a specific collection of characteristics belonging to a distinct social group.  In one sense, they succeeded.  Other philosophers began using the word in this way and now it is the sense in which we use it most.  Now really only our adjective “cultured” still first reminds us of the older sense of the word.

Now, what is important here is that in order to use a phrase like “pop culture,” you have to use the newer definition of the word.  And that is exactly what Kevin Vanhoozer does:

“Let us therefore define popular culture as ‘the shared environment, practices, and resources of everyday life,’ that is, the texts and trends that fill and frame our days and nights.” (pg. 28)

All this is a preliminary to thinking coherently about what culture means.  Over time the phrase “high culture” has been used in order to distinguish the older definition from the more recent definition.  And yet, another way that culture can possess great value, and a legitimate way in which the newer definition was useful to us, is to speak of “folk culture.”  Folk culture has also been called “common culture” or even “low culture.”  It is what is more popular to everyone, uneducated or educated.  But it is specific to a particular community and place.  Folk or common culture includes the local traditions, customs, conventions, legends and history of a distinct and local community.  It can be agricultural, rural, regional or even national.  Great works of art and great beauty has been produced, created and valued within folk culture.  But the problem is this.  Today, folk cultures are dying.  What used to be called folk culture, as local communities have progressively disintegrated, is now being replaced by what we call “pop culture.”

In other words, the phenomenon that we call “pop culture” is uniquely shaped by mass media and mass entertainment.  It is the replacing of traditional folk songs uniquely belonging to the customs and ceremonies of a local community with mass commercially produced pop songs that everyone in every local community learns and listens to instead.  It is the replacing of local forms of entertainment with electronic media entertainment, uniformly the same for all.  It is the replacing of local styles of uniquely crafted cuisine with mass-produced artificially preserved and processed foods.  Instead of locally  run bakeries, breweries, restaurants, cafes, diners and pubs, it is the emergence of mass corporately run food-chains, where the food that is offered can be the same in every city or every country that you should happen to visit.  There is a uniformity to “pop culture” that did not exist in “folk culture.”  It makes more and more of us the same in our “personal” tastes, activities and consumption.

In fact, there is even another reason to distrust “pop culture” as distinguished from the older ideas of culture.  Where does this line of reasoning take us?  (1)  “Pop culture” is the product of mass media and mass entertainment.  (2)  It includes rejection of universal values of the philosophers who changed the meaning of the word.  (3) They changed the word to mean merely those collections of beliefs, tastes, customs, conventions and activities held by a group of people as distinguished from another group.  This cuts out any implication of higher value from the word’s older meaning.  Therefore, (4) “pop culture” is essentially that collection of beliefs, tastes, customs, conventions and activities that happen to be popular with the majority of massed consumers.  In other words, “pop culture” loses much of the good still left in the newer definition of the word.  Where culture could be understood to mean “folk culture” it was at least still tied to the traditions of local community.  “Pop culture” does not even have that.  In the world of pop culture, local community dissolves and melds into an indistinct and amorphous mass.  Local family customs, regional traditions and community activity is replaced by a mass popularity that cuts across local place, time and tradition.

As distinct from “high culture” or from “folk culture,” pop culture is increasingly engaged with what, at the present moment, attracts the most popular attention.  There are many ways to express the phenomenon.  Pop culture is the replacing of local musicians with the radio.  It is the replacing of local theater with the television.  It is currently the replacing of local communal interaction with online social media.

Pop culture reduces high culture to a small educated elite, who intentionally neglect mass media in order to spend the time necessary to do the thinking necessary to educate themselves.  Pop culture reduces folk culture to quaint marketing demographics and retro-fashions that have slowly grown more and more similar (and less and less tied to any local place) with each successive generation.

This is why, when McCracken says “it has been well established that Christians can find value in exploring secular pop culture” (pg. 14), his statement is, whether he has thought about it or not, set in the middle of philosophical debate.  I fear he is focusing rather single-mindedly upon the meaning of “can find value” rather than in the meaning of “pop culture.”

It is not that I mean to accuse him of the inability to make any distinctions.  For he does go to the trouble to distinguish.  For instance, he writes that our “pop music culture has seen it all and - in the name of free speech - tolerated most of it.” (pg. 95) And blind or all-embracing tolerance of pop culture is not what McCracken is advocating for.  He uses the content of some popular rap music to explain that there are moral grounds to occasionally object to the popular.

“Tyler and Odd Future regularly rap about rape, violence against women, drugs, and murder fantasies; they employ offensive language with nearly every lyric, using the f-word 204 times in the 73 minutes of Tyler’s 2011 album Goblin, for example.” (pgs. 95-96)  “On the positive journey toward a wider appreciation of culture, Christians shouldn’t forget that - as Odd Future reminds us - not everything that is artistic, ‘real,’ or forward thinking is good for us.  Discernment is necessary.” (pg. 97)

But allowing for the ability to make moral objections does not solve the problems caused by embracing pop culture.

Yes.  Discernment is necessary.  But we must not be too heavily influenced by the “capture the culture” rhetoric of the evangelical right.  This is the unfortunate type of rhetoric that is in love with militaristic flourishes.  Thus derives all the talk you’ll hear about “fighting the culture wars,” capturing the culture (as if it were an enemy citadel), or “engaging” the culture (as if one were firing broadsides at the enemy).  If you have heard this sort of talk all your life, as I have, then without thinking about it, you’ll find this language slipping into your speech almost surreptitiously.  This happens to McCracken and it is no surprise given that he’s been reading Kevin Vanhoozer.

McCracken writes:

“It is important for Christians to engage culture on its own terms and ‘go the extra hermeneutical mile to make sure they do not simply project their own interests onto cultural texts.’  But it’s also important for Christians not to be ‘helpless victims of popular culture’ but rather to ‘make their own cultural statements out of whatever the culture industries produce,’ something Kevin Vanhoozer eloquently champions ...Vanhoozer advocates an informed Christian cultural literacy in which Christians can locate within pop culture the elements that can be redeemed and taken captive for the cause of Christ.” (pg. 110, emphasis added.)

Now Mr. Vanhoozer is both a nice and very intelligent man.  I have profited by his thinking on multiple occasions.  Nevertheless, in reading his work, one still finds jarring juxtapositions between evangelical culture warfare rhetoric and lapses into academic jargon of the kind of which any postmodernist collegiate would be proud.

For instance, looking again at his essay published in Everyday Theology, one first reads that “Christians have increasingly become aware of the need to engage culture as part of Christian mission ...” (pg. 32) But then one finds Vanhoozer saying things like this: “Fortunately, a multilevel approach brings order into the plurality of possible methodological approaches by arranging hierarchically the various levels of complexity that characterize cultural reality.” (pg. 46) Or this: “In addition to the plurality of perspectives and levels, however, the Method is also multidimensional.  To be precise, it situates cultural texts and trends in two distinct three-dimensional frameworks.” (pg. 48)

This sort of thing makes me uneasy because I worry that Vanhoozer has influenced McCracken and other Christian believers a little too far.  McCracken tries his best to promote one of Vanhoozer’s more postmodernist streaks, but then as a consequence finds himself also being influenced by the French Jesuit cultural theorist, Michel de Certeau.  Certeau is a separate essay subject in and of himself, but he is a perfect example of a Christian who attempted to debate the deconstructionists and postmodernists on their own terms, adopting much of their language in order to do so.  The problem with adopting the language of the postmodernist is that you will inevitably find yourself in fatal epistemological quicksand.  (Certeau, poor fellow, soon found himself trying to argue that “heterologies” were what ultimately explained life as the strategies of structures of power engaged in a war with the tactics of the subjugated so that everyday living is the process of poaching the social territories and power constructs of others.  That way madness lies.)

McCracken explains that Vanhoozer “cites French cultural critic Michel de Certeau’s model of ‘poaching’ cultural texts - the idea that an audience can appropriate a text for its own purposes, transforming its meaning to better fit one’s own perspective or goal.” (pg. 110)

Now, the reader’s ability to “transform” the meaning of a text for his “own purposes” is a favorite trope of postmodern philosophy. In order to argue, as both McCracken and Vanhoozer seem to argue, that Christians can do it too, one has to first grant some epistemological ground.  There are different schools of thought within Epistemology, and Christianity will not survive in any but one.  The school of thought that argues that the meaning of a text can be “poached” or appropriated by a reader, viewer or consumer is to say something about the nature of meaning itself.  Later in his book, McCracken writes:

“Michael de Certeau’s essay ‘Reading as Poaching’ is the classic apologia for the empowered consumer.  In it, de Certeau suggests that consumers of culture should not think of themselves as doomed to passivity, beholden to whatever telos of meaning (or vision of the good life) the producer intends ... In de Certeau’s view, the reader of cultural texts ‘invents in texts something different from what [the author] ‘intended.’ ... He combines their fragments and creates something unknown in the space organized by their capacity for allowing an indefinite plurality of meanings.’” (pgs. 256-257)

To his credit, at least he also adds:

“There are limits to ‘poaching.’  But where it’s appropriate, sensible, and informed by more than just a desire for a convenient sermon illustration, the savvy Christian consumer should consider how a misdirected cultural liturgy might be redirected toward a Christian telos.” (pg. 257)

So ... while I admire the ends for which McCracken is aiming, but I would caution every thinking Christian to avoid the sort of postmodern epistemology that argues that the reader can make a text with one meaning mean whatever meaning he or she really wishes it meant.  A text does not change its meaning merely because the reader wants it to.  This is not something new.  Today’s postmodernists are making the same outworn arguments about language and meaning that the heretical Nominalists of the Medieval Ages made.  The nominalist/postmodernist epistemology, denying that words have the ability to mean things that exist objectively in reality (and therefore that the meaning of a text can change at a reader's whim), falls only before the solid ground of what, in philosophy, is called moderate realism.

Nominalist thinking withered under the cross-examination of Socrates in Plato’s Euthyphro.  It disintegrated when subjected to the works of Aristotle (read, for example, his Sophistical Refutations).  St. Thomas Aquinas found himself obligated to repeatedly deal it death blows as he found other Medieval theologians attracted to it.  But instead of turning this book review into an essay about meaning and universals, I'll just strongly recommend the book, Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times, in which Millard J. Erickson, Justin Taylor, D.A. Carson and others make the argument that adopting or “poaching” any of the epistemological ideas of postmodernism leaves any Christian claim to any objective truth groundless.
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“A perfect judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ.”

- Alexander Pope

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Kevin Vanhoozer is more intelligent than I.  He’s a theologian who knows his stuff and I’m just a layman.  I have found his warnings against “reducing theology into mere cultural anthropology” both important and informative.  But whenever he starts trying to appropriate or poach the ideas of a philosopher like Paul Ricoeur, he loses solid ground to stand on.

At one point, Vanhoozer explains that discourse “happens when someone uses some medium to say or show something.  Ricoeur analyzes discourse further in terms of ‘a hierarchy of subordinate acts distributed on three levels’ (1) ‘locution,’ or act of saying something, (2) ‘illocution,’ or act of doing something in saying something, and (3) ‘perlocutation,’ or what we do by saying something ...” (44-45) And then: “Understanding cultural discourse demands a thick description of what has been wrought, and this is best accomplished with the aid of those speech act categories (viz., locution, illocution, perlocution) that enable a thick description of the act of discourse.” (Everyday Theology, pg. 46.)

The problem arises because one of the reasons Ricoeur made up all these new definitions in the first place is so that he can have them contradict each other.  Eventually you get the sort of thing where Smith the Academic performs the act of lucuting A, in order to illocute B in lucuting A, while also simultaneously perlocutating not A.

One suspects that academics may have a use for that sort of thing.  But if you spend too much of your time reading it, something in the brain starts gumming up your ability to express straightforward ideas and then you’ll start writing sentences like “To be precise, it situates cultural texts and trends in two distinct three-dimensional frameworks.”

The argument for trying to make the best of a bad job out of “pop culture” lost me with Herder and Hegel’s arguments against the old definition of culture.  From a tactical point of view, perhaps our objectives for working in culture would be best served instead by reviving the old sense of the word and standing on the more traditional ground of Dr. Johnson, Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot’s arguments about the value of culture.  When we can still do that, why go to the trouble of “poaching” nonsense and then trying to make it Christian?  This is exactly what McCracken warns against in other places in his book.

PROBLEM: Should conservatives or Christians simply advocate for the good that can be found in “pop culture” without addressing what it is, as distinguished from “culture” or “folk culture”?  No.  There is no need to give ground on this merely because some “folk” or “high” culture can be found mixed inside the mass of “pop” culture.  Neither is there a need to begin adopting postmodernist cultural interpretation.  For anyone interested in restoring the strength of local community or in debunking postmodernist assumptions, these are distinctions worth making.

Joseph Devlin, apparently with a Screwtapian smile, wrote that “For instance, you may not want to call a spade a spade. You may prefer to call it a spatulous device for abrading the surface of the soil.”  Plutarch thought otherwise.  Ten skafen skafen legontas.

This brings us next to the distinction between high and low culture.

HIGH CULTURE AND LOW CULTURE

There is another importance difference between the older and newer senses of the word culture.

McCracken writes:

“In his book Art Needs No Justification, Hans Rookmaaker suggests that the division between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art ultimately causes all art to suffer:
     ‘High art has shunned all practical demands, such as decoration, entertainment or in fact any role that might smack of involvement in real life.  Yet this type of art inevitably attracts almost everybody who has some talent ... But inevitably the ‘low’ arts have suffered also.  They become the ‘popular’ arts, sometimes called ‘commercial.’  It is art in the service of Mammon.  As all genuinely talented people tend to shun this field, its quality has deteriorated, and too often what is produced lacks all imagination or quality.’
     I agree with Rookmaaker that this division has unfortunately produced a needlessly simplistic binary, pitting the ‘commercial’ against the ‘artistic,’ as if something cannot ever be both.” (pg. 173)

But McCracken doesn’t explain how he imagines this division between “high” and “low” to have occurred.  Even his Rookmaaker quote does not really criticize the distinction itself.  Instead, it explains one reason why “high” art attracts those who are interested in producing quality and why “low” arts do not.  After reading McCracken, I cannot imagine how the act of distinguishing between “high art” and “low art” is supposed to have caused this.  Instead, they just seem to be the names we use to label them.  Pitting the commercial against the artistic is useful for the very reason that serious artists often avoid careers devoted to making, oh say, commercials.  One doubts they avoid doing so because someone somewhere one day decided to label commercials as “low art.”

No.  It’s not that something can never be both commercialized and artistic at the same time.  The point is what being commercialized can often do to a work of art.  Commercialization is something that really happens to art, and it rarely ever helps improve quality.  Taking McCracken’s music example, the list of highly talented and innovative musical artists who have had their careers wasted by commercialization is long and tragic.  Even Elvis Presley was convinced later in his life that he had sold out by allowing his career to be controlled by movie roles and songs written for him by other people.  Commercialization, far too often, means the loss of quality or musical integrity for the sake of mass production and catering to popular demand.

You can see this in popular bands whose music, according to many serious music critics, deteriorated in direct corrolation to their commercialization.  (See Genesis, Jefferson Airplane, Kings of Leon, Kiss, Metallica and Nickelback.)  Most recently, I’d argue that you can also see this in Rap and Hip Hop.  Unlike American blues and jazz, which kept much of its integrity without its best artists changing their style for the sake of marketing statistics, American Hip Hop may be one of the musical genres that has suffered the most from mass commercialization.  The Black Eyed Peas, Lil Wayne, OutKast, Puff Daddy, Run-D.M.C. and Snoop Dog are all gifted artists with real talent.  Arguably, all of their music at the beginning of their careers is so much better than their music now because they allowed commercialization to change their music.  (The same phenomenon has also happened, even more recently, to Indie Rock.)  That commercialization has really affected the quality of music is not even really in question.

This doesn’t always happen with everyone.  Jermaine Cole (J. Cole), Lauryn Hill, Nasir Jones (Nas) and Kanye West have all conspicuously refused to change their music so that it would sell better.  Others like Bobby McFerrin have refused multiple product endorsements.  The Doors refused to allow their music to be used for commercial advertising.  Pearl Jam refused to make music videos and set a ceiling for their ticket prices.  Mark Hollis and his English rock band, Talk Talk, kept the sound they wanted when pressured to change and probably threw away commercial success because of it.  Other musicians like Barbara Dane and Christy Paige have rejected different forms of commercialized success in order to try to preserve their freedom to create quality music outside of popular demand.

Generally, we use the phrase, high culture, to refer to the older ideas of culture and the phrase, low culture, to refer to that which is based on popularity rather than quality.

McCracken offers what he argues is a different way of thinking about this distinction:

   “I’d like to reimagine ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture not in terms of their old stereotypes ... but in terms of how high or low something takes us in the upward path toward sublime epiphany.  In this way, high and low would look more like this:
   High culture: That which reaches for greater heights of transcendence and truth, seeking to reveal - often in pleasurable and entertaining fashion - beauty and goodness honestly and with excellence.  Pays attention to craft, believes in meaning, and exudes humility.
   Low culture: That which hovers closer to the base or surface, incurious and uninterested in truly wrestling with truth or achieving the sublime/transcendent.  It is indulgent and undisciplined, more interested in esoteric obfuscation than true discovery.
   In this new understanding, a work of art could be considered high culture even if viewed by millions on YouTube each week.” (pg. 174)

What is unclear is why McCracken thinks that this way of putting it is new.  Anything that is a part of old “high” culture - Mozart, Rembrandt, Dostoevsky, Bernini, Tarkovsky - would not cease to be what it is if it were viewed on YouTube by millions.  That’s not the problem.  The problem is that sort of thing is simply not viewed on YouTube by millions.  Prioritizing high quality and that which is of high value is already commonly advocated for by those who have argued for high culture (Arnold, Eliot, Scruton).  Prioritizing self-indulgence and gratification is what has already been referred to as “low culture.”  No respectable critic or student of aesthetics really argues to popularity is a standard of value.  On the contrary, in order to advocate for the unpopular against the popular, one has to reject mere popularity as a measuring standard.  And once one does that, one could never argue against something merely because it was popular.  Turning the logical fallacy, argumentum ad populum, upside down does not make it cease to be a fallacy.

McCracken attempts to apply another distinction in pop culture’s favor with the help of Hans Urs von Balthasar.  He writes: “One of the tensions that has long informed Christian critique of culture is that of God’s immanence vs. transcendence.  Is God present here, in all things, infusing even culture with his goodness (‘God in all’)?  Or is he distant from the fallen things below, a ‘wholly other’ Being whose character does not manifest in the cultural works of sinful, estranged humanity (‘God above all’)?” (pgs. 97-98)

But are there really respectable Christian theologians who have argued that God is “wholly other” and completely outside of culture?  McCracken suggests that “Protestant theologian Paul Tillich, for example, favored the ‘transcendent’ view and thus rejected most popular culture as being a thoroughly secular impediment to spiritual growth.” (pg. 98)

Yet it is difficult to understand how Tillich’s writing could be described as “rejection” of culture.  After all, he is the theologian who wrote: “Religion as ultimate concern is the meaning-giving substance of culture, and culture is the totality of forms in which the basic concern of religion expresses itself.  In abbreviation: religion is the substance of culture, culture is the form of religion.  Such a consideration definitely prevents the establishment of a dualism of religion and culture.”  (Theology of Culture, pg. 42.)  Speaking of how the church influenced education in the past, Tillich also wrote: “The reality into which generation after generation were inducted was the Christian Church, or more precisely, the ‘corpus Christianum,’ the ‘body Christian,’ which embraced religion, politics, and culture.  The soul of this body, namely, the spirit of medieval Christianity, was present and exercised educational functions on every level of man’s individual and social life.” (Theology of Culture, pg. 148)  This is the same theologian who argued against being unaware of other culture outside one’s own immediate experience, something that he attacked as “intellectual and spiritual provincialism.”  (Theology of Culture, pgs. 159-176.)

At the same time, McCracken contrasts Tillich with the rich theology of Balthasar, claiming that on “the ‘immanent’ side, an example might be Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who had a more positive view of human creativity and culture and felt that it could stir up a yearning in humans for God.” (pg. 98) Whether this contradicts Tillich is doubtful.  I still need to read more of Balthasar myself, but from what I have read of Balthasar’s writing on culture, there has never been any reason to equate what he meant by “culture” with what is, today, now called Pop.

GRAY MATTERS (2013) - by Brett McCracken (book review, Part I)

“Cultured Christians don’t rush to judgment.  They don’t look at something fancy on a menu and say, ‘No thanks.  I’ll go with what I know!’  They don’t walk out of a difficult, complex film saying, ‘I didn’t get it.  What a waste of my time.’  They understand that good things in culture rarely lend themselves to immediate and easy understanding.  It takes time, effort, the development of taste, and a patient sensibility to get the most out of culture.”
- Brett McCracken, pgs. 18-19

“The evidence of scripture, tradition, and experience all suggest that art can sometimes mediate not only a sense of life but also a sense of grace and of the mystery that we call God.  And since art cannot mediate without the aid of aesthetic imagination, response, and judgment - without taste, in short - we must consider the perhaps surprising possibility that taste at its most encompassing is no less crucial to religious life and faith than is intellectual understanding and moral commitment.”
- Frank Burch Brown, pg. 125
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The most striking thing that makes Brett McCracken’s second book, Gray Matters: Navigating The Space Between Legalism & Liberty, so interesting is his refreshingly creative approach to the question of legalism.  The Modern Church doesn’t so much have a problem with legalism anymore (except in fringe corners).  On the contrary, the Church now seems to have a much more serious problem of overreacting against it.  No one likes the old positions of the legalist in our now unabashedly open and tolerant society.  It is currently purely a matter of course for younger believers to despise, and marshal their arguments against, the close-minded and out-of-touch fundamentalist.  Legalism just has all these rules, you see, and, well, they're unduly restrictive of liberty.  Christianity isn’t, after all, about rules anymore; it’s all (so they tell us) about ... relationship.

Much rarer is the theologically grounded member of the Church who can still, with both a healthy confidence in the inerrancy of Scripture and a competent proficiency in the elementary rules of hermeneutics, demonstrate how erroneous are the Scriptural interpretations of the legalist.  Such articulate advocates do exist.  And, unless you happen to be anti-intellectual, conservatism does not equal legalism.  After rudimentary study and consideration, any half-competent first-year Bible college student can show the obvious arguments against the basic prejudices of legalism.  Scripture does not forbid the drinking of wine, beer or even of hard liquor.  Scripture does not forbid the speaking of “uncouth” words.  Scripture does not forbid listening to particular genres of musical notation.  Scripture does not forbid the activity of dancing.  Scripture does not forbid walking into a movie theater.  Scripture does not forbid critical thinking.  Etc. etc. etc.

That these arguments even have had to be made is informative, if not of the doctrines of Christianity itself, at least of a particular historically limited bias or waywardness in applied Scriptural interpretation.  But Mr. McCracken has not here really marshaled the Scriptural evidence against the more embarrassing errors American fundamentalist legalism.  Others have already done this before.  This is not the book in which to find those ever so exhaustive lists of Scripture passages in favor of drinking or giving examples of the cussing habits of King David, the prophet Elijah or the apostle Paul.  To our benefit, McCracken has taken an entirely different and rather more provocative approach.

His approach is, I think, superior to those who merely argue against the common fundamentalist misinterpretations of Scripture.  It is, instead, a focus upon the question of culture - a healthy focus that many in the modern church still avoid (even if they reject legalism).  Ultimately, the legalist/libertine debates are really about culture, and McCracken understands this.  The consequence is that Gray Matters is a uniquely curious book in that it could only have been written by one who was raised within American Evangelicalism.  Yet that itself is not a criticism.  I also was raised in the world of American Evangelicalism.  I understand that it is not easy to divest oneself of naturally resulting overreactions. “Will we,” asks McCracken, “be apathetic separatists who cede appreciation of culture to ‘the world’?  Will we, as another extreme, be uncritical and careless in our accepting of any and every bit of culture at our disposal?” (pg. 129)

Many in our generation completely reject Evangelicalism and live a lifestyle single-mindedly devoted to not being Evangelical.  And then there are still others I know who accept the bubble-like strictures of their historically limited upbringing.  The former way reacts against how we’ve been taught.  The latter reacts against those who react against how we’ve been taught.  McCracken’s book offers something different.  “Christians have for too long been motivated by reactions to the errors and excesses of the generations before ... Let’s grow up.  Let’s stop compensating for the wrong-headed approaches to culture that our Christian forebears might have had.” (pg. 240)
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1 - ON SEPARATION FROM CULTURE

The most obvious wrong-headedness still to be found in many American churches today is the dismissal of culture altogether.  According to this form of church teaching, which is by its nature at the very root of legalism, the “culture” is merely something for Christians to engage, to capture, to avoid, to separate from, to evangelize, to make their own or to fight against.  “The” culture is considered something that is always changing (in contrast, of course, to the unchanging Bible).  It is the lifestyle of the world - the products of which are considered to be in opposition to the Gospel.

Indeed, I have personally heard so many sermons contrasting “the gospel” as something inherently distinct from “the culture” or “the world” that I now could, mindlessly and without any preparation whatsoever, get up and preach this sermon, simply listing and repeating all the clichés and warnings against culture with which Evangelical and Post-Evangelical churches are now so familiar.  (Some churchgoers have speculated as to whether it is actually possible for a pastor to preach a sermon and to take a nap simultaneously.  If it is possible, the sermon that distinguishes the gospel from the culture and the world is probably the perfect naptime sermon.)   The result, as McCracken discusses while using jazz and rock music as examples, is rather embarrassing.

“Anti-jazz magazine articles popped up with titles like ‘The Jazz Problem’ or ‘Unspeakable Jazz Must Go,’ the latter being a 1921 critique in Ladies’ Home Journal in which clergy and everyday citizens decried the perils of this popular new music form.  Jazz is ‘worse than the saloon,’ one person remarked.  It is ‘simply rotten.  It belongs in the underworld.’  The instruments’ broken, jerky rhythms have a ‘sensual appeal’ that ‘call[s] out the low and rowdy instinct,’ making youth act ‘in a restless and rowdy manner.’” (pgs. 76-77)

“One of the charges against rock that got a lot of traction during the Cold War was the notion that rock ‘n’ roll was a communist weapon to undermine the character of America’s youth.  Leading this charge was David A. Noebel, longtime Christian crusader against pop culture who kicked off a rather illustrious career with the 1965 pamphlet ‘Communism, Hypnotism and The Beatles,’ followed by the 1966 tome Rhythm, Riots and Revolution, a sizeable book in which dubious experts and ‘scientists’ (with names like ‘Dr. Freedom’) support the thesis that Communists used rock music to destroy the mental and emotional stability of America’s youth.” (pg. 78)

It is therefore a pleasure to read McCracken’s healthy opposition to this mindset in the church.  For those of us uninterested in following legalistic forms of thought, “the” culture is not something to avoid or to be afraid of.  It is not something opposed to the gospel.  It is not something that ought to be removed from the order of Christian life and being.  On the contrary, we ought ourselves to be “cultured.”  Culture is a pursuit and endeavor worthy of the believer.  It is a part of civilization, a necessary institution deriving from the nature of man, and therefore ultimately a part of general revelation.  Thinking in this older and more traditional way results in a different kind of living. “Cultured Christians,” McCracken admonishes the reader, “don’t pit their Christianity in oppositions to culture or understand their faith as being uninformed or uninfluenced by culture.  They avoid looking at things in terms of sacred/secular dichotomies, recognizing that common grace lends dignity to all manner of cultural activity ... Cultured Christians are not pendulum people.  They aren’t always reacting against some bad iteration of the faith by going too far in the other direction.” (pg. 19)

Because McCracken is a film reviewer, he is uniquely suited to using cinema as an example in this discussion.  In his experience within Evangelicalism, he has seen Christians reject films based upon their rejection of “the” culture.  He argues, and I heartily agree with him, that intentional cultural illiteracy is a poor witness for Christianity.  It’s not that we cannot reject things in our society.  There is an appropriate time to reject particular films or popular trends, fashions or fads.  But to do so based upon a rejection of the culture itself is merely ignorance.  “One can be thoughtful, quiet, well-informed, and - if asked - articulate in their reasoning to not see a film.  Or one can be legalistic, loud, defensive, and simpleminded in their abstinence.  In the latter case - a Christian refusing to see Harry Potter because it ‘promotes witchcraft,’ perhaps - the witness is a bad one for Christianity.” (pg. 166)  Such a lack of perspective presents a Christian faith unworthy of any nonbeliever’s consideration - a Christian faith that is, moreover, outside the bounds of traditional and historical Christian orthodoxy.

That these things are even necessary to explain is unfortunate.  But in the context of much of modern church teaching, they are preliminaries required in order to pursue the topics of legalism and freedom with further depth.
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2 - ON REFUSING TO THINK

But there is another kind of wrong-headedness here, and that is the refusal of many Christians to actually think.  If you've spent any time attending the church, you'll know what I mean.  Many Christians actually resist thought.  The hard work and challenge that it takes to think difficult questions through is rejected in favor of the trite, the easy and the sloganeering.

“How many times have you heard something say, ‘Oh no, is this one of those thinking movies?’ I wince every time I hear it.  Is having to think during a movie really such a bad thing?  It doesn’t have to feel like going to the dentist.  On the contrary, being able to think critically while watching a film can enhance rather than detract from the pleasures of the experience.” (pg. 177)

Thus, a second preliminary that it is refreshing to find a member of my generation actually articulate is the theologically grounded refutation of the anti-intellectual bias when it comes to Christians’ relation to culture.  Again, film is an instructive example.  Evangelicals’ abandonment of culture has, effectually, meant the abandonment of the Arts and Humanities.  Regardless of what anyone else is doing, we ought not to be living shallow and mostly thoughtless lives.  At very the heart of the Arts and Humanities is the idea that works of art and literature can reflect truths about our condition and, by showing us such truths, change us as persons for the better.

“So often we blaze through life, moving from temporary enjoyment to temporary enjoyment, haphazardly consuming things so that none of it ever grows us in any significant way.  But I know we can be better.  And I know that if we take the time to really dig in and do the work of being the best consumers of culture we can be, it will not only enhance our faith and witness but also glorify God.  He’s the source of everything good, after all, and he makes everything good taste, sound, look, and feel all the more magnificent.” (pg. 23)

A proper Christian view of general revelation will include the necessary insight that the sacred and the divine can speak to us through art forms like film.  Generally, it is far too easy even to attend church without being changed or genuinely spoken to.  In church itself, we are subjected to floods of clichés and sentimentality.  Many of us can count the times we were intellectually challenged in church on the fingers of one hand.  This is not how we ought to live.  Neither is it how we ought to approach the experience of church, cinema or anything else.  “Like church, an experience in the movie theater can be as shallow or as meaningful as you make it,” argues McCracken.  “Movies are sometimes (perhaps most of the time) merely an easy diversionary amusement.  We leave the theater unchanged.” (pg. 172)  But it doesn’t have to be this way.  The problem is that when artists try to do something different with film, they are resisted and unpopular.  Their films are often not given wide release.  Their films are not noticed by a church preoccupied with either entertainment or evangelization.

“‘Film as art’ is an idea resisted by many, in part because from its inception film has been a ‘popular’ or ‘mass’ amusement - cheap and accessible to wider swaths of humanity than, say, the opera.  In its relatively young history (barely a century old), cinema has been quite commercially lucrative and more associated with ‘fun’ diversions like amusement park rides ... than ‘serious’ activities like reading or visiting an art museum ...

“[A]udiences tend not to expect to be intellectually challenged by an experience in the movie theater.  ‘It’s only a movie.  Why should I have to think?’ is a fairly common sentiment.  People go into a theater with a different frame of mind from the way they might go into a museum.  In the latter case, they’re looking to be educated or challenged; in the former, to be entertained.” (pgs. 173-174)

But perhaps looking to be entertained is unhealthy.  Maybe we shouldn’t be looking to be entertained.  It could be that sitting back and being entertained is the opposite of thinking.  It is a surrender to sensation, impulse and distraction.  It crowds out the ability to view anyone or anything with depth or contemplation.

“People tend to want a film’s points made quickly and its pleasures immediate, observes [Justin] Chang.  ‘The idea that you might sit in a movie and have a meditative or spiritual experience is seen as a little weird ...’” (pg. 176)

I sometimes fear that this desire for trivial entertainment may even be more common in the church than out of it.  What if Christians, of all people, are even more prone to accepting formulas and clichés?  What if they, more easily than others, are more willing to just accept whatever they are fed as long as it fits the comfort and strictures of what they have been taught to expect?

“Like myself, my friend Eugene Suen - a filmmaker of faith and former co-director of the Reel Spirituality Institute at Fuller Seminary - bristles at the unwillingness of Christian audiences to experience films that are challenging or slow ... ‘It’s a shame when anything that even remotely deviates from traditional narrative (‘acceptable’) cinema is seen as alienating, boring, and pretentious,’ notes Suan.  He sees this as symptomatic of a fundamental lack of openness, ‘an openness that we need as human beings - indeed, as Christians - in order to enlarge ourselves and arrive at a genuine understanding of others.’” (pg. 177)

“Cinema,” wrote film director Andrei Tarkovsky, “should be a means of exploring the most complex problems of our time, as vital as those which for centuries have been the subject of literature, music and painting.”  Isn’t this how a person, who accepts the claims of Christianity to be true, ought to view film-making?  If films really can enlarge our point of view and strengthen our ability to love others, then why are we not seeking out such films?

This, McCracken hints, could be a powerful way to witness.  If we pursue the very best in quality - that which is capable of moving and changing us for the better - then we will begin to cultivate those things that attract others.  This is just one example of how we could pursue the things of God in how we live every day.

“For Christians, approaching film in a thinking way also shows the world that we care: not just to be amused and entertained, but to glean all the value out of a film that we can.  It shows that we care to explore all that a filmmaker wants to show us and that we respect the creator of the work enough to do a little interpretive work.”  (pg. 177)
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3 - ON THE WORK AND EFFORT THAT CULTURE REQUIRES

There are two other preliminaries here that McCracken establishes well.  The next one is the idea that pursuing “culture” is not going to be easy.  It requires hard work, effort and energy.  It’s one thing to merely agree that “culture” is worth pursuing when one has the energy to do it.  It’s another thing altogether to actually do it.  “It’s not enough to just affirm the value of ‘engaging culture.’  That’s black-and-white thinking.  We must do the work of engaging it well.” (pg. 14)  But, the idea that being “cultured” is hard work is a little misleading.  It is not “work” in the usual sense that we think of it.  Yes, it does require effort.  However, it can lead be refreshing, relaxing and invigorating at the same time.

This isn’t a job that one has to grit one’s teeth over and finish.  “The pursuit of a more discerning, well-rounded taste is never finished.  It’s a process.” (pg. 128)  It’s not just forcing oneself to eat one’s vegetables.  It’s not just a chore.  McCracken argues that it is a way of living that does not have to end at some utilitarian goal of “getting” the gospel or reaching some sort of security level with God.  Real truth, goodness and beauty are not necessarily going to feel safe or comfortable.  They can hurt us and shake us and shape us.  It takes effort to seek them out.

“It’s very tempting to ignore difficult truth, or at least to hide from any of the truths that don’t line up in the comfortable, familiar ways we want them to.  But art has the ability to shake us out of our comfort zones and show us the realities of existence - both beautiful and ugly - we might otherwise look past or ignore.” (pg. 162)

But some things, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable, are greatly to be desired and valued.  These are, in fact, often just the very things that can give life meaning and make each day worth living through.  If we don’t put in the work and the effort, then these are things that will always be lost to us.  We will never be able to experience them.

“The value we derive from something is directly proportional to the effort we put forth to engage it.  Whether we’re talking about relationships, jobs, cooking, painting, or parenting, we derive the most pleasure from that which we work the hardest at.” (pg. 178)

Making the effort equals increased value and worth.  The more thought and feeling and work you place into your experience, the more your pleasure in it can surprisingly be deepened.  Pursuing the challenging and the stimulating is an active pursuit.  You can’t just sit back and hope that it comes to you.  You can’t just let life happen to you.  That is subjecting yourself to the manipulation of others and it is not giving the things of God that are embedded in culture the attention that they deserve.

“A passive consumer, who sits back and takes something in without much thought or interpretive effort, is not going to have as full or invested an experience as the consumer who takes a more active interpretative role.” (pg. 178)

“This goes for other aspects of culture too: if you do the work of learning the nuances of wine varietals, you’ll likely enjoy wine tasting more; if you do the work of researching the historical and aesthetic context of painting, your experience of a gallery will be more satisfying.” (pg. 178)

I worry that McCracken’s point is another one lost on the average American church.  Far too often Christians avoid the culture as somehow being something separate from the gospel.  They don’t pursue depth of thought about the world because they assume everything has already been laid out and explained to them.  In order to experience the “gospel-centered” life, we somehow are supposed to avoid culture in the world as not part of the gospel-centered life.  But McCracken argues that “knowledge rarely detracts from our experience of culture; it enhances it.” (pg. 178)

Why wouldn’t you enhance and deepen your experience of precisely that part of Christendom in which so many of the things of God can be found?

There are only two answers: either fear or utter laziness.

What does this kind of work and effort look like?  It means the investment of time.  It means refusing to prejudge something you have yet to gain much knowledge of.  It means being willing to work your way through first impressions.  It means pursuing that which may resist attainment after a firs try.  McCracken gives an example:

“Some of my favorite films only became my favorites after I revisited them for a second or third viewing, giving myself time and distance to consider them more fully.  The same principle goes for other cultural experiences, like music.  The richness and beauty of an album rarely reveals itself on the first listen; it takes multiple listens to learn to appreciate it.  Coffee doesn’t taste beautiful the first time one tries it.  Nor does wine.  The best things in life require more than just a passing assessment to be truly appreciated.” (pg. 184)

There is no good reason to just lazily or casually dismiss that which you have not truly tried - especially if others have already testified to the good that can be found within it.

Ridding our selves of our habitual passing assessments of things we do not understand is one of the preliminaries to deepening our lives.
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4 - ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TASTE

One of the most aggravating parts of going to church these days, or walking into almost any event organized by American evangelicals, is having to suffer through the incredibly bad taste that they have in just about any one of the arts.  It is far too easy to get the impression that Christians today have really really bad taste in music, in films, in architecture, in decor, in art and in culture.  It was not always so.

Far far too often, Christians define their experience of culture by what they avoid.  Music is an obvious example.  Some of the best music out there has been avoided by Christians - some of the worst music you’ll ever hear is made and produced by Christians.  Christian contemporary music (CCM) is arguably some of the most cringe-worthy stuff on the radio.  It’s not purchased by consumers looking for quality.  Christians have developed a reputation for appreciating things like music for its message, for its use as a tool, for its popular appeal, for its almost anything other than technical craft or artistry.  But, “Music appreciation,” McCracken argues “is also about community, artists, critics, tradition, and the development of taste.  It’s not just about avoiding the bad and the unhealthy; it’s about energetically educating ourselves to better pursue the good.” (pg. 116)

This is a thought too easily dismissed.  Everyone has their own personal preferences.  We are told that we shouldn’t criticize other people for having different tastes than we have.  Except, this isn’t true.  Some people have better taste in some things than I have, and such critics and connoisseurs should be able to criticize and thereby improve my own uneducated taste.  My personal preferences are often the result of lack of experience and education.  My personal tastes are often the consequence of my own enclosed and limited life.

“Preferences are one thing, notes Christian art theorist Hans Rookmaaker, but ‘even if our preferences cannot be discussed, our choices can, since quality and content are not just a matter of taste, but a matter of norms.  If we talk about portraits, some are more, some are less beautiful, of a higher or a lower artistic quality.’” (pg. 123)  “Developing taste is important because it allows us to enter into a positive critical discourse that has as its goal the discovery and enjoyment of the best that is out there.” (pg. 124)

McCracken elaborates what I will call the fourth preliminary to thinking about legalism and liberty - the idea of developing improved taste:

“At this point we must talk about the notion of ‘having good taste.’  Is it even sensible to talk in objective terms about such a thing?  Many people would say no.  ‘Good quality’ is subjectively defined from culture to culture, class to class, they would say; there’s no such thing as objective good taste.” (pg. 123)

Is personal taste merely subjective?  It does take a bit for McCracken to warm up on this one.  “I’m not sure an ironclad, universal formula for ‘good’ art or ‘proper’ taste exists,” he writes.  That’s fine, although no one arguing for objective standards in art would ever call what they were advocating for a “universal formula.”  But he keeps going - “But I do think that within a given culture - and especially within a given style or genre - objective assessments of quality are valid.” (pg. 123)  In other words, within the proper context, objective value judgments about quality can be made.

In fact, this necessarily follows if you claim to hold to the truths claimed by Christianity.  If objective truth really does exist, then it will have some bearing on beauty.  It is no coincidence that the “philosophy of aesthetics” (explored since Ancient Greece) presupposes and explores higher standards by which we can lift ourselves and our own limited understands up to something higher.

“When I asked my friend Laura, a music critic who writes for publications like Under the Radar and Filter, what constitutes ‘objective good’ in music, she said that it existed in different forms within each genre, but that one ‘universal’ marker of good was whether an artist believes in the story they are telling.  ‘I need to feel some emotional truth they are exploring, some honesty,’ she said.  ‘You can be authentic in any genre, but it’s all about whether an artist is attempting to tell a story that is true.’

“Laura noted that the ‘easy to swallow’ music that tends to appeal the masses often is created with mass appeal in mind as opposed to authentic truth-telling.  Music that is authentic and true is often more difficult and requires more work, she said.  ‘The best stuff isn’t always the easiest.  We need to ask ourselves, ‘Are we feeding ourselves McDonald’s or are we going to a four-star restaurant?’’” (pg. 124)

The easy is very often not the best.  What is easy to see and understand is often not that of the greatest worth.  If you always just go for what is easy, then you are very likely cheating yourself.

“Christians should recognize that taste has both subjective and objective elements; it includes both our individual resonances with a work and also the larger community of interpretation and evaluation.”  If this is true, then we can learn from the larger community and improve the subjective elements of our own taste.  We can seek out the critics and connoisseurs who know more than we do and who have more experience than we do.  We can pursue the hard and the difficult that we have never tried before.  “Good taste is not simply pointing to one’s record collection and declaring it tasteful; good taste is being willing to expand one’s horizons, hear what others have to say, and seek a more thorough understanding of how a work of art can be better perceived, enjoyed, and evaluated.” (pg. 126)  It almost follows from this that we possess a duty.

McCracken’s book then takes the reader through four different topics in order to use them as illustrations - Eating, Drinking, Music and Film.
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ON EATING

“The fact that food is more delicious than it needs to be and that God was generous and went over the top in creating both taste buds and tasty food means, to Tim Chester, that ‘the quality of food should matter to us.  We’re to treat food as a gift, not merely as fuel.’” (pg. 38)  “... the types of things we eat more of are worse for us: fats, oils, sugars, sweeteners.  The average American eats fifteen more pounds of sugar a year today than in 1970, for example.  For one of three Americans, this often spells high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, or cancer.” (pg. 55) “If we give no thought to the health of the food we eat and frequently indulge in gluttonous displays of junk food eating, what does that say about our appreciation of God’s gifts (including the gift our own body)?” (pg. 250)

I can admit that when I, with my limited perspective as a bachelor, think of culture, I most often do not think of food.  I put very little thought into what I eat.  McCracken makes the argument that we ought to make the effort to pay attention to what and how we eat.  I was struck by his quoting Robert Farrar Capon: “The world is no disposable ladder to heaven.  Earth is not convenient, it is good; it is, by God’s design, our lawful love.” (pg. 39) I have never really been taught this before, or if I have, I was never paying attention.  Food is not fuel and neither is it a mere convenience.

The most utilitarian part of my life may actually be my diet.  But this is unhealthy.  For the Christian, it is really bad theology not to care what you eat.  What a difference it could make if we were to eat for pleasure rather than utility and for health rather than only for energy.  But, at the same time, McCracken warns against snobbery.  Yes, we may enjoy using “Whole Foods” or “Trader Joe’s” or “Farmer’s Markets,” but the opportunities for healthy or organic produce are still often limited to a higher price level.  There are those in our society how cannot financially afford to eat healthy.  If this is true, then there is still something fundamentally wrong with the way we live.

“It can be easy for those with expendable time and money to talk about the healthier, environmentally friendlier superiority of ‘slow food’ and more natural, unprocessed food, but when you’re a single mom struggling to pay rent and feed young children, fast food can be a lifesaver.  Some fast-food chains are getting better about offering healthy options, but the fact is, most healthy food is not all that affordable or convenient for the majority of eaters around the world ... What can we do to make healthier good more accessible to all people?  Until we address these issues, none of us should look down our noses at those who eat at McDonald’s or shop at discount grocery stores.  For many people, it’s the best they can do.” (pg. 63)

But there’s more.

Eating is not just a pleasure.  It’s not just a good and healthy necessity that can be improved by intentional work.  It can be spiritually healthy too.  How we eat can affect how we relate to others. “For Jesus, the table was a prime opportunity to live out his generous gospel of grace - a symbolic activity that underscores the social significance of dining in community.” (pg. 40) Some of the best meals I have ever had were in the company of family and friends - or, when I was all alone in a strange place, being included at the table of a generous family I didn’t know.

We now too often neglect the communal part of eating.  Hosting guests at your table was traditionally considered, in ages past, of more than mere material significance.  Fellowship and conversation were meant to go together with dining.  There is something perhaps even mystical about having a group of friends or family around your table and sharing in the pleasure of eating lovingly prepared and carefully crafted meals.  It creates a bond.  It is a form of love.

It is therefore, McCracken argues, no coincidence that one of the Christian sacraments is the act of participating in the Lord’s Supper, Communion or the Eucharist:

“Why is the Eucharist such a big deal?  Well, for one thing it is the central symbolic action of the Christian life.  In this meal, as we take the bread and the cup, we remember and give thanks for the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus for us, we join in communion with our fellow believers, and we look forward to the second coming of Christ and the messianic feast to come ... Peter Leithart says the Lord’s Supper is ‘the world in miniature; it has cosmic significance.’” (pg. 41)

“... the Eucharist - rebuffs the isolationist mode of consumption.  It’s a sacred means of connection and solidarity.  In it we identify with the suffering of Christ.  We connect with our Savior and his body: our fellow believers throughout the ages.” (pg. 54)

And it isn’t just that a Christian can participate in the meaning of the Eucharist during a church service.  It’s a form of participation in meaning during a hearty meal in fellowship with others.  Therefore, part of being “cultured” ought to mean a significant amount of sharing.  Something as simple as hosting others for dinner around your table is imbued with a tradition of communing - of community and love and friendship - that deepens the experience of eating.  What we eat can obviously be good and pleasurable - and it will be if one makes the effort to pay attention.  How we eat with others can strengthen who we are as social beings and members of a fellowship.
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ON DRINKING

McCracken also spends a chapter exploring the issue of drinking alcohol.  As a demonstration of the current state of the American church, this discussion is a good illustration of one of our major problems.  He starts the chapter out by explaining: “The fourth and final area of culture to be explored in this book is easily the most controversial: alcohol.” (pg. 189)  Is it though?  Drinking alcohol is still one of the most controversial issues in the American Church?  Why?  If it is, doesn’t that demonstrate a profound disconnect with the entirety of church history?  “It’s a dicey, dangerous topic, one that has long divided Christians and is fiercely debated even today.” (pg. 189)  But that's just it, drinking alcohol is not that big of a deal in church history.  It is not an issue that has long divided Christians.  It’s an issue that apparently still divides Christians now, but I would argue that this is still, in the context of church history, a recent phenomenon.

The fact that McCracken even has to discuss this is a clue to the problem.  This problem in the American Church is twofold: (a) an almost total ignorance of the elementary rules for interpreting Scripture and (b) a vast ignorance of church history.

No, wine in Scripture is not grape juice. (pgs. 194-195)  Instead, the Bible merely teaches that it is drunkenness, not drinking itself, that is a sin. (pgs. 195-196)  But this teaching is one-sided unless we also take into account that alcohol is considered to be a joy and a blessing by Scripture, even in both a material and eschatological sense. (pgs. 196-198)  Abstinence is not commanded by the Bible.  While it does have its uses, it is not common.  (pg. 198-199)  Moderation is the answer - abusus non tollit usum - and this “goes without saying ...” (pg. 232)
   
The chapter on drinking makes for good reading because McCracken also takes us through some church history on the subject.  In doing this, he is soon forced to admit: “Have Christians always been so divided about it?  (Short answer: no.)  Is it significant that followers of Christ were the first people to invent sophisticated wine-and-beer-making techniques (in medieval monasteries) but also the people who led the charge to make alcohol illegal in America?” (pgs. 205-206)

Thus the history of church theology and alcohol arguably begins in the second century with St. Clement of Alexandria -

“In his Pedagogia - perhaps the earliest Christian ethic of alcohol consumption - St. Clement of Alexandria discusses the Christian’s obligation to drink wine as part of the Eucharist while also being careful to avoid drunkenness.  Clement urged ... ‘In what manner do you think the Lord drank when He became man for our sakes? ... For rest assured, He Himself also partook wine; for He, too, was man.  And He blessed the wine, saying, Take drink: this is my blood - the blood of the vine ... And he who drinks ought to observe moderation ...’ (pg. 206)

And don’t forget the Irish missionaries like St. Patrick -

“In the medieval period, as Christians spread the gospel throughout pagan lands, beer played a positive role.  As St. Patrick introduced the gospel to the wild pagan land of Ireland, he ‘captured many an Irish tribal chieftain with his tasty beer before he won the man for God.’  In the Holy Roman Empire, beer lover Charlemagne promoted improvements in brewing at monasteries throughout the empire ...” (pg. 207)

It was churches who first began improving techniques for cultivating the production of high quality wines.  (pg. 207)  It was Christians in monasteries who built the foundations for modern beer brewing, once again focusing on quality.  In fact, there are still some “brews today - such as Weihenstephan (founded in AD 1040) and Leffe (AD 1240) - [that] originated in medieval monasteries.” (pg. 210)  “Nuns also joined in the beer-making business. Hildegard von Bingen was a brewer and is sometimes credited with the discovery that hops added preservative qualities to ale.” (pg. 210)  Martin Luther was an enthusiastic beer drinker.  He taught some of his classes in taverns with beer and his wife also brewed her own beer.  (pg. 211)

It is almost comical when we realize that, if the American church had only listened to Martin Luther, we could have avoided all the misguided nonsensical teaching we’ve been given on the subject.  “You should be moderate and sober,” Luther instructed, “this means that we should not be drunken, though we may be exhilarated ... The mind will tolerate a certain degree of elevation, but this most be moderate, not indecent.”  Luther even responded to potential prohibitionists of his day.  “Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused.  Men can go wrong with wine and women.  Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?” (pg. 211)

Add to this the beginnings of American history.  When the Pilgrims first landed on Plymouth Rock, the very first building they built was a brewery.  (pg. 212)  The ship that brought John Winthrop and the Puritans to the New World carried “more than 10,000 gallons of wine and three times as much beer as water.” (pg. 208) And “Post-Reformation Christians such as George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards, for example, were known to enjoy rum and hard cider, respectively.” (pg. 211)  Let’s also not forget Arthur Guinness over in Ireland.

McCracken contrasts this history with what we have now:

“... folks like Stephen Reynolds (author of The Biblical Approach to Alcohol), who argues that the Bible teaches ‘an absolute prohibition against the beverage use of alcohol,’ and John MacArthur, who in a 2011 blog post on alcohol and Christianity said, ‘It is puerile and irresponsible for any pastor to encourage the recreational use of intoxicants.’” (pg. 193)

John MacArthur’s article “Beer, Bohemianism, and True Christian Liberty” is both strident and one-sided.  He argues that the “image of beer-drinking Bohemianism does nothing to advance the cause of Christ’s kingdom.” (pg. 214) After reading it, I still find it unclear exactly how MacArthur distinguishes “beer-drinking Bohemianism” from “beer-drinking.” Many other believers like G.K. Chesterton would heartily disagree.  (But, of course, Chesterton would have disagreed with a large amount of what the Calvinist MacArthur currently has to say.)

McCracken’s summary of the rest of the story is sharp and informative.  It’s worth the read.  He takes us through the fundamentalist and evangelical rhetoric that led to the American Prohibition.  He explains how Welch’s pasteurized non-fermented grape juice replaced wine at church communion around 1869.  (Stop and think about where that date stands in the middle of all of church history for a moment.)  And McCracken also admits that the critiques of drinking do rely on some hard, real-world facts about the consequences of abusing alcohol.

The destruction on human lives that abuse of alcohol wrecks is real.  It’s a problem in our modern culture that we cannot ignore.  Thus, while drinking with friends and family is a form of communion and fellowship, McCracken cautions us that we ought to be careful about dismissing those who try to bring attention to the existence of abuse.

Alcoholism is not to be scoffed at.  There are some critics of the church (and I’m one of them) who are very dismissive of the modern American church’s teaching on subjects like alcohol.  “American evangelicalism is unique in its fear and avoidance of alcohol, they say.  And there is some truth in this.” (pg. 225)  But this doesn’t let us off from responsibility or from giving the other side a fair hearing either.

“But let’s be real here.  Whether they like it or not, American Christians live within a culture in which alcohol is viewed in a particular way and where certain habits of consumption prevail.  Ours is a culture of college binge drinking, keggers, underage drinking as rebellion, and Bud Light commercials.” (pg. 225)

So the question turns to what has caused these sort of modern cultural habits of excess and disregard.  Perhaps it has something to do with mass market consumption, an evil that craft brewing may help provide an antidote for.  (pg. 234) Perhaps, like almost everything else in our culture, it has something to do with the loss of thinking of wine or beer as the art form that the monks and nuns of history used to think of it.  “We are artisans, not industry,” McCracken quotes a Spanish winemaker as explaining.  Perhaps it is because, like so many other things, we view alcohol for what it can do for us rather than enjoying it for the thing that it is.

McCracken’s conclusion is refreshing: Don’t use alcohol.  Enjoy it.

“When we use it,” he writes, “we diminish it to nothing more than a tool in service of disordered desires.  We lose sight of the fact that alcohol can be as complex and aesthetically rich as a painting or ballet.” (pg. 234)  “As a corollary to the ‘receive, don’t use’ approach to alcohol is this advice: love it for how it tastes more than for how it makes you feel.  This isn’t to say that the ‘buzz’ of alcohol is always a bad thing - it is surely one of its manifold blessings, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.  But when the buzz is the main reason we drink alcohol, it becomes far easier to abuse it.  Plus, it turns the activity of drinking into a me-centered activity of ‘what this drink does to me’ rather than ‘how this drink communicates beauty.’  This is why people who drink primarily for the buzz - college kids, partiers, ‘bros,’ soccer hooligans, and so on - don’t mind drinking swill like Coors, Bud Light, Heineken, and Shock Top.  It’s not about the taste for them.  If it’s a cold beverage and gives them a buzz, it’s enough.” (pgs. 235-236)

“In my life, some of the most profound moments of connection and deepest occasions of feeling known have occurred over fermented beverages: discussing the mysteries of God’s grace over pints under the stars in Oxford; gathering at a pub with friends to laugh and share stories together long into the night; toasting to my best friend on the night before his wedding; sipping wine at an oceanside restaurant with the girl I love.  These moments can be transcendent.” (pg. 227)

I cannot begin to describe the joy and fellowship that can result from the view towards alcohol that McCracken ultimately advocates for.  It is the traditional Christian view, the loss of which has, perhaps not coincidentally, precisely coincided with what I can only describe as mass-produced watery horribly-tasting gag-inducing-smelling alcoholic versions of heavily carbonated soda-water - abominations produced with no sense of art that are drunk for no other reason than to experience their alcoholic effects.  There is nothing manly about drinking for unrestrained appetite and oblivion rather than for pleasure and merriment.
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