Metro Youth Network

Most of you don’t know who Nick Hornby is, but I’d just like to take this opportunity to publicly thank him to introducing me, in earnest, to the mythology and music of the great Johnny Cash. You see, when I was in high school I saw a movie called High Fidelity and read the novel of the same name which the movie was based off of. The book and film each center around the life of a world weary record store owner who can’t stop reliving the pain of his past heartbreaks. In one portion of the movie (I can’t remember if it’s in the novel or not) the protagonist is defending himself, explaining that he understands the complex male-female relationship because he’s read classic literature… and he even understood it! He then states, for the record, that his all-time favorite book is Cash by Johnny Cash.

That joke intrigued me. Mostly because I thought it was a funny idea–that a person’s favorite book could be an autobiography. I went to the library and checked out a copy and was so moved by his life story. To come from such humble means and through much struggle to become a huge star, only to be followed by his demons and see them take on new forms (drug addiction, marital problems). Yet along the entire path of his life, no matter how far he strayed (even to the point of attempted suicide), God wrestled with Johnny and never relented his love. It’s easy to see why he was always standing up for something besides himself, because he was so often unsure of who he was or what he was really worth. But the one constant through it all, and his eventual redemption, was Jesus Christ. If you’re not familiar with Johnny Cash’s story, I recommend reading his autobiography!

This all happened circa 2002, which also happened to be the moment in history that Johnny Cash was proving his worth to a new generation. He was already two albums into his American Recording series, which found him partnered with producer Rick Rubin (Beastie Boys, Slayer). The two had been busy crafting sparsely instrumented, layered albums which mixed Johnny Cash’s signature country and gospel sound with a more modern flavor. Rubin also had a big hand in song selection for the albums, taking Cash’s original songs and traditional country & western covers and enlisting him for covers of modern, decidedly not country songs: “Thirteen” by Danzig, “One” by U2, numerous songs by Tom Petty, and his huge hit, “Hurt” (originally by the nu-metal forefathers Nine Inch Nails).

Released this past month, Ain’t No Grave is the sixth (and supposedly the final) installment in the series. It’s composed of material that was recorded during the sessions for American V: A Hundred Highways but was yet unreleased. The arrangements are typical of the series, with Cash’s aged and sometimes cracking voice prominently featured atop his acoustic strummings, light piano and organ work, sparse guitar overdub, and little percussion. Much of the material was recorded shortly after the death of Cash’s wife, June Carter Cash, and not long before his own passing. The theme of mortality runs through each of the records in the American series and is especially present on Ain’t No Grave.

That’s not to say that the record is morbid; the view of death on this album is one of beginnings rather than ends. Over the slide guitar and rustling chains of the title track, Cash sings the old Spiritual, “There ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down /  When you hear that trumpet sound / Gonna’ get up out of the ground / There ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down.” “1 Corinthians 15:55” is the only Cash original, and also another of the stand out tracks. “O Death, where is thy sting? / O Grief, where is thy victory?” He sings, “O Life, you are a shining path / And hope springs eternal, just over the rise / When I see my redeemer beckoning me.” Another song that I really enjoyed right from the first spin (even after finding out it was a Sheryl Crow original) was, “Redemption Day”.

There are a few slumps, which are understandable considering the material was left over from an earlier session, but as a whole the album is an incredible reminder of the man and the music that have left such an indelible mark on American culture. Johnny Cash is an icon not only because he produced unforgettable music for practically half a century, but because his life was, and will continue to be a testament to the grace of God and the transforming power of the cross. If you have the means and the opportunity, check out Ain’t No Grave and the other albums in the American Recording series (they’re a great entry into the immense catalog of Johnny Cash’s work) and read Cash. You’ll be moved and hopefully inspired to remember God’s love for you and to rely on him to take you over each hurdle, through each valley and eventually to Glory!

Media remains to be such a predominant influence in our culture.  As young people, we have no choice but to be immersed in this media influence, especially when it comes to MOVIES! It seems to me that finding the balance between upholding moral Christian standards and engaging in modern cinema is becoming more and more difficult.  The only real options are to cut off this part of culture (almost) entirely, or (lets face it, the more probable option) is to engage in cinema. I am not saying there are no dangers to this, there are plenty. Nor am I commanding people to watch movies.  I am simply saying that it is part of our culture and movies may not always be a negative thing to indulge in.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with a friend about the movie The Da Vinci Code.  I asked her if she thought that this movie, and movies like it, are dangerous.  She replied, “I don’t really find the movie dangerous other than the pseudo-facts it presents.”  Pseudo-facts of Christianity exist everywhere in media, and movies are no different.  Pseudo-facts are ideas presented in movies that are perceived as true when in reality they are false. In fact, the word pseudo literally means “false.”  Seems to be an ironic phrase to use (“false-facts”). Take The Da Vinci code for example. In this movie the characters are on the quest to find the “Holy Grail” only to find out that the it was the lineage of Jesus, claiming that Jesus had children with Mary Magdalene.  Of course as Christians we know that this is not true, but by presenting a story with this “Holy Grail” being found by clues left through out history, one may perceive it as true.  The danger comes when the perception of the viewer assumes these pseudo-facts as truth.

The Da Vinci code is not the only movie that has this effect.  A more recent movie was just released in theaters about God wiping out humans by sending angels to destroy them because he had “lost faith in humanity.”  This does not seem to make much sense for God to condone this action since he sent Christ to be the hope for humanity.  I’m talking about the new movie Legion staring Denis Quaid.  Of course this movie is meant to entertain with stylized action.  To quote my roommate, “It was like Noah and the flood, but cooler.”  But the misconception still remains. Denis Quaid even said in an interview about the movie that, “It’s more Old Testament than New Testament with God’s wrath and all that” (foxnews.com).  Even this quote about the movie gives the misconception that God’s judgement/ justice is different from the Old testament and New Testament (as if God had somehow changed or that there is a different God from the Old and New Testament).  Another recent movie in the past couple of years would be There Will Be Blood in which the Church is seen as a capitalistic exploitation to gain money, not a new misconception (unfortunately) of the Church of God.  But we as Christians know that this is not what the Church is about!  Even the new movie, The Book of Eli, is getting a ton of attention for it themes of Christianity, but has the main character, a man of faith, slicing off his opponents heads. Not only that, but this character, Eli, is thought to be under the guidance of God yet engages in the work of God through violence.  It raises the pseudo-fact that it is ok to do the work of God through violence and murder.  Those are just a couple of examples of pseudo-facts seen on the screen.

So how, as Christians, do we handle the pseudo-facts presented in movies?  I prefer to take a more passive approach to this issue.  We have to understand that movies are pieces of literature and that these movies, unless they are a documentary or an absolutely honest movie “based on a true story,” are works of fiction. THEY ARE NOT TRUE!  It is the viewer who makes the assumption that the so-called “facts” are truth.  There will always be misconceptions about Christianity.  There has been ever since the beginning of the Church.  Our job as the viewer is to understand that this fiction is not truth and that our truth comes from the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God.

Are Christians then to judge movies as merely entertainment, a “waste of time?” As a connoisseur of movies, I would beg to differ.  Although some movies present pseudo-facts, this is not the case with every movie.  Some don’t even tell you the exact statements or facts and leave much of the film up for interpretation.  These movies raise questions and get us to ask questions about our beliefs. Cinema can even deal philosophical questions about faith in Christ.

Let’s bring it back to the previously mentioned movie The Book of Eli.  (Now I apologize for this, but I will include a few spoilers of the movie.)  The setting of is a post apocalyptic world in which war has destroyed civilization over 30 year ago.  Eli is a man heading west and carrying a book in which he is willing to do whatever it takes to protect it.  The villain, Carnegie, finds out about Eli’s possession of this book and wants the book for his own manipulative power.  Thus, the excitement begins.

Now if you haven’t guessed it, the book Eli is carrying is the Bible (all the Bibles were destroyed during the war in a massive book burning).  So Eli carries the one known written Word of God.  Through out the movie you see how the word of God affects the characters, especially those who are under the age of 30 and have never heard of the Bible, and how Eli’s guidance by faith helps him accomplish the task God has set out for him.  This movie raises questions about the power of the Bible, the extension of God’s Word, the place of prevenient grace and the need for faith to carry God’s will.  Although the pseudo-fact of violence (as mentioned earlier) remains, it allows the viewer to think and interpret these aspects subtly presented in the film.

Now in no way am I condoning any teenager to watch this movie.  It gets its well deserved rated R for strong violence and language.  So I am not suggesting that you young people go out to the theaters and watch The Book of Eli.  Movie restrictions on the teenager are based on the decision between the parents and the teenager. I only use it for its recent relevancy on the point I am trying to make.  There are plenty of movies that allow viewers to think about faith and Christianity that receive a PG-13 rating and under.  Some might include: Prince Caspian, Signs, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, We’re Back (Yeah I mention my childhood movie in this!) and dare I say it… Saved!

My hope in writing this is that we Christians can view movies that help us build our philosophy in God.  Not all movies bring this about, but they do exist out there.  It is also important to understand that movies are meant to entertain and not be a sermon.  They only present ideas and don’t preach or proclaim the direct Word of God.  But I do propose that we can watch certain movies that raise questions to help us build discussion of faith amongst each other, and maybe understand God a little more through the imaginative fictional literature that is cinema.

(By James Davisson) – “For Preservation is a Creation, and more, it is a continued Creation, and a Creation every moment.”

To be sure, a number of you have heard me talk about this book, and one or two may already be sick of my constant admonishments that you read it. If you have yet to do so, you would do well to pay attention to these few words. There’s not enough space to speak to even half of what makes this book so great, so I will poke about it a little and tell you what I think is most important, and hope that you will follow my advice and sit down with ‘Gilead’ for a few hours one day.

Gilead is a letter from a father to his son. The father, John Ames, lived his whole life in a small town in Iowa, spent most of it preaching and living alone there; when he was very old, a woman came to his church, and asked to be taught the faith and baptized, and told him to marry her, and he did. So John is very old, and has a young son, and decides to write him a letter telling him whatever he thinks his son should know about his life, and his father and grandfather’s life, and the world and the loveliness of it.

Friends, there is such beauty in this book I cannot tell you even the smallest part of it. To read this book is to see the world with an old man’s eyes, and the world he sees is achingly beautiful. John Ames talks about how Creation is really a great Preservation, the Lord’s continual re-creation everything as it is, holding it together in His mind, so to speak:

“There’s a mystery in the thought of the re-creation of an old man as an old man, with all the defects and injuries of what is called long life faithfully preserved in him, and all their claims and all their tendencies honored, too, as in the steady progress of arthritis in my left knee. I have thought sometime that the Lord must hold the whole of out lives in memory, so to speak. Of course He does . . . the finder I broke sliding into second base when I was twenty-two years old is crookeder than ever, and I can interpret that fact as an intimate attention.”

The great beauty of creation, the love for God’s world, even though it be but the shadow of what we will have in Heaven, is a big deal in this book. Whenever I read it, things like sitting and drinking tea in the dark, or walking in the night snow, or looking at the sky off the back porch, take on a lovely, sacred quality that hardly bears description. John Ames likes to think that in Heaven, the world as we know it and the events that happen here will be “the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.”

Since John Ames is trying to tell his son about himself, much of the book concerns his relationship with his own past, trying to tell a story about himself and his family so that his son will understand where he comes from, and what the world is really like. The other part of this book that speaks most directly has to do with memory. Ames wants to tell a story, but he wants his story to mean something to his son, and to us, and he understands that what that means is finding meaning in memory. He puts it like this:

“Perhaps that is the one thing I wish to tell you. Sometimes the visionary aspect of any particular day comes to you in the memory of it, or it opens to you over time. For example, whenever I take a child into my arms to be baptized, I am, so to speak, comprehended in the experience more fully, having seen more of life, knowing better what it means to affirm the sacredness of the human creature. I believe there are visions that come to us only in memory, in retrospect. That’s the pulpit speaking, but it’s telling the truth.”

For me, this is a powerful thing. I so rarely have any inkling of what any particular experience may really mean; I worry that I will never see the plan of my life, because I have no prophetic visions, just as John Ames never has any such thing. For him, and for me, and perhaps for you, too, the visionary aspects of life are meant to unfold in memories of things. Part of what this means, I think, is that understanding the way God works in our lives takes time, and we are often, if not always, unaware at any given moment what we are meant to understand from a particular experience.

I’ll leave you with some final words on the subject from John Ames:

“‘Strange are the uses of adversity.’ That’s a fact. When I’m up here in my study with the radio on and some old book in my hands and it’s nighttime and the wind blows and the house creaks, I forget where I am, and it’s as though I’m back in hard times for a minute or two, and there’s sweetness in the experience which I don’t understand. But that only enhances the value of it. My point here is that you never do know the actual nature even of your own experience. Or perhaps it has no fixed and certain nature. I remember my father down on his heels in the rain water dripping from his hat, feeding me a biscuit from his scorched hand . . . I mention it again because it seems to me much of my life was comprehended in that moment. Grief itself has often returned me to that morning, when I took communion from my father’s hand. I remember it as communion, and I believe that’s what it was.”

There you have it, folks. Please read this book. If you need to borrow a copy, I’ll have a few handy, and you can ask me for one next time you see me. The Lord bless you and keep you all.

James

(By Erica Johnson) – Each and every day, I’m greeted by several forms of media. The radio is on during breakfast, there are countless billboards and signs I pass by on the way to school, and there are always books to read, videos to watch, podcasts to listen to, and websites to visit. Sometimes it can be difficult knowing which ones are worth paying attention to. Here’s a hint: if you’re reading this article on metroyouthnetwork.com, you probably already know this is a great website with articles talking about God, culture, and the world around us (and where else are you going to find out about the next Prayer and Praise night?). Here’s another hint: let me introduce you to my friend, RELEVANT.

RELEVANT is a magazine that I’ve subscribed to for a while now that consistently delivers thought-provoking articles, news, and music and movie reviews from a Christian perspective. They have a website at relevantmagazine.com that explores God, life, and progressive culture. The articles in the God section urges readers to pursue a deeper walk with Christ. The life section explores politics, relationships, money, and news. The progressive culture section reviews music, movies, books, and poetry.

The multimedia section is probably my favorite on the website. Relevant.tv shows music videos on demand and showcases artists who believe in and profess faith in God (for the most part – be discerning here and check out what the bands are really saying with their music). The Drop is similar, only it highlights new and up-and-coming artists you may not have heard of yet. Also under multimedia is the podcast, which is a rowdy collection of RELEVANT editors who like to talk about random humorous topics.

Relevantmagazine.com is one website worth checking out – it’s put out by twentysomething Christians who want to break stereotypes, challenge status-quo and enact change through the media. They’re seeking God, living life and striving to impact the world around us.