Month: November 2017

What Andy Kaufman, Jim Carrey, John Coltrane and CS Lewis Have in Common

Published on by nickcady10 Comments

I’ve been watching the Netflix documentary about Andy Kaufman through the eyes of Jim Carrey, which shows behind the scenes footage filmed during the filming of Man on the Moon. As Carrey says in the documentary: the behind the scenes stuff is the actual movie, because the entire time they were filming the movie, he insisted to stay completely in character, even to the point of having tearful and heartfelt conversations with Andy Kaufman’s relatives, who truly acted and felt as if they were talking to Andy himself.

But I thought the best part of the documentary was whenever Jim Carrey would talk to the camera. He seemed very vulnerable, honest and melancholy. He talked about how his whole life he was playing a part: that “Jim Carrey” was a persona he created, and now he’s done trying to be that person, and he’s ready to just be himself. That is what he learned by “being” Andy Kaufman – because Andy Kaufman was a unique individual. He wasn’t a comedian – he rejected that label, pointing out that he never actually told a single joke. Instead, he considered himself…well: himself. He would just do whatever he wanted and thought would entertain people, whether that was singing a song or wrestling a woman, or staging a fight. He was completely out of the box, and totally comfortable in his own skin. Realizing this while playing this role, Carrey says, changed his life.

About half-way through the documentary, Jim Carrey says:

At some point when you create yourself to make it, you’re going to have to either let that creation go and take a chance on being loved or hated for who you really are, or you’re going to have to kill who you really are, and fall into your grave grasping onto a character who you never were.

This reminds me of a quote from CS Lewis in Mere Christianity:

You will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self.

Jazz musician John Coltrane wrote about a similar experience he had in his life. He had spent his life, like many people, believing that if he could get really good and become successful, people would love and appreciate him and then he would have a sense of value, worth and meaning in his life. But in the notes of his album “A Love Supreme” he wrote about a change that had taken place in his life:

During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music…to inspire them to realize more and more of their capacities for living meaningful lives. Because there certainly is meaning to life. I feel this has been granted through His grace. ALL PRAISE TO GOD. This album is a humble offering to Him. An attempt to say “THANK YOU GOD” through our work, even as we do in our hearts and with our tongues.

John Coltrane had stopped making music out of a desire to be praised and accepted. Now he did it for the sake of music, for the benefit of the listener, and to unto God. And in doing so, he experienced freedom.

There is a wonderful freedom in self-forgetfulness, the act of taking our eyes off of ourselves. But if we stop there, we haven’t gone far enough. We need to take the final step, as John Coltrane did, of not only taking our eyes off of ourselves, but fixing our eyes on Jesus and what He has done for us. If you do, then His beauty, love, power and strength will be what motivates you in a labor of love and response.

The Role of Doubt in Faith

Published on by nickcady1 Comment

“For most people who reject Christianity, their reasons for doing so are not usually intellectual, they’re personal.”

The book of the Bible called “The Letter to the Hebrews” was written to people who were discouraged, to the point of giving up. The reason? Because they didn’t see anything happening. They had put their faith in a God who loved them and cared about them, in a God whom they had been assured would hear their prayers when they called out to him, and yet their lives were characterized by frustration and difficulty.

Probably they knew that the promised salvation didn’t guarantee them a problem-free life – but they wondered: If God is good and loves me, then why are these bad things happening to me? They were struggling with doubt. They were weary and discouraged. And because of this, some of them were thinking of backing off of Christianity, or even turning their backs on it completely.

I’ve heard it said before that for most people who reject Christianity, their reasons for doing so are not intellectual (like not believing in the supernatural), they are personal. Something happened in their life which deeply hurt them or which they are frustrated with and can’t understand, and they wonder: Why? If there’s a supposedly a God who loves and cares about me, then why doesn’t he do more to make my life better?

There is a powerful statement found in the short New Testament letter of Jude:

“Have mercy on those who doubt.” – Jude 1:22

You can see that this is how God treats people who doubt as well. Think of Gideon, whom God called to do something, but then Gideon asked for a sign. Once he got the sign, he still wasn’t satisfied, so he asked for another sign! Rather than being a good practice that we should follow, Gideon’s requests for signs was essentially a lack of faith in God and his word, and yet – God was merciful towards Gideon.

Doubt is an inherent part of faith. If we could see everything, there would be no need for faith, but because we don’t see, we must have faith, and implicit to faith is doubt. Doubt is not necessarily the enemy of faith, it can actually be something that strengthens faith – but, there are different kinds of doubt: there is an honest form of doubt, which wants to believe but honestly struggles with some questions, and there is a cynical kind of doubt which says, “Don’t bother me with the facts, I’ve already made up my mind not to believe.”

In Timothy Keller’s book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, he writes:

A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts—not only their own, but their friends’ and neighbors’.

But even as believers should learn to look for reasons behind their faith, skeptics must learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their reasoning. All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternative beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A from a position of faith in Belief B. For example, if you doubt Christianity because ‘There can’t be just one true religion,’ you must recognize that this statement is itself an act of faith. No one can prove it empirically, and it is not a universal truth that everyone accepts. If you went to the Middle East and said, ‘There can’t be just one true religion,’ nearly everyone would say, ‘Why not?’ The reason you doubt Christianity’s Belief A is because you hold unprovable Belief B. Every doubt, therefore, is based on a leap of faith.

So, not only is doubt normal and even healthy (if handled properly), but all forms of doubt are based on faith and belief in something. May we be those who not only wrestle with questions and come to a stronger, more robust faith – but may we be those who doubt our doubts, and help others to do the same!

The Empty Soul

Published on by nickcady2 Comments

This past Sunday we finished the 5 Solas series at White Fields with our study of Soli Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone) – click here to listen to that message. Something I learned through preparing for this study, is that for the Reformers, Soli Deo Gloria referred specifically to their view of work: that everything a person does, not just work in and for the Church, can be service to God. They rightly elevated the place of work – and all God-honoring, people-benefiting work – to its biblical place of significance and importance. This doctrine went hand in hand with the teaching of “the priesthood of all believers.”

Here is an excerpt from Luther’s article “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation” on this topic:

It is pure fiction that Pope, bishops, priests, and monks are called the “spiritual estate” while princes, lords, artisans, and farmers are called the “temporal estate.” This is indeed a piece of deceit and hypocrisy. Yet no one need be intimidated by it, and that for this reason: all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them except that of office. . . . We are all consecrated priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: “You are a royal priesthood and a priestly realm” (1 Pet. 2: 9). The Apocalypse says: “Thou hast made us to be kings and priests by thy blood” (Rev. 5: 9– 10).

As I was preparing for this message last week, I came across something interesting written by Dorothy Sayers, who has written a lot on the topic of the integration of faith and work.

While the biblical view of work is that it is good and part of God’s good design for us as human beings, there are certainly some pitfalls that we can fall into in regard to how we see our work. If we look to our work to “make a name for ourselves” – rather than looking to God to receive our “name” (identity, status, value) from him, then we will inevitably have an unhealthy, and destructive, relationship with our work.

Dorothy Sayers, in Creed or Chaos?, points out that there is a common misunderstanding about the meaning of “sloth” or “slothfulness” – one of the traditional seven deadly sins. Usually, we tend to think of sloth as laziness, but the Greek word Acedia means more of a life which is consumed only with cares about oneself.

Acedia is the sin which believes in nothing, cares for nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and only remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die. We have known it far too well for many years, the only thing perhaps we have not known about it is it is a mortal sin.

She goes on to say that because a person characterized by acedia only cares about their own needs, interests and comforts, they might not necessarily be lazy at all. They might seem quite driven, in fact. She says though that acedia is “the sin of the empty soul.”

We think that if we are busily rushing about and doing things we cannot be suffering from Sloth. Gluttony offers a world of dancing, dining, sports, and dashing very fast from place to place to gape at beauty spots. Covetousness rakes us out of the bed at an early hour in order that we may put pep and hustle into our business; Envy sets us to gossip and scandals, to writing cantankerous letters to the paper, and to the unearthing of secrets and scavenging of desk bins; Wrath provides the argument that the only fitting activity in a world so full of evil doers and evil demons is to curse loudly and incessantly, while Lust provides that round of dreary promiscuity that passes for bodily vigor. But these are all disguises for the empty heart and the empty brain and the empty soul of Acedia. In the world it calls itself Tolerance but in hell it is called Despair.

Timothy Keller, referring to Sayers’ writings on Acedia in his book Every Good Endeavor, points out that Acedia is really misdirected passion. It is passion that only cares about oneself, but true passion – like the Jesus’ Passion – is passion for the good and well-being of others.

Jesus said: For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:35)

To live for yourself, caring for your own needs, interests and comforts, will leave you with an empty soul – but to give your life in service to God and others in response to the gospel will leave you with a soul that is full to overflowing. Jesus emptied Himself for you, but in doing so, His heart was full! May He empower us to live that way as well!

Martin Luther on Music and Song Writing

Published on by nickcady3 Comments

One of Luther’s great contributions to Christianity was that he pointed out that much of the common thinking about Christian living and attitudes comes from Plato and Aristotle, rather than from the Bible.

Plato, for example, was a dualist – who viewed the physical world as inherently bad, and the unseen spiritual world as inherently good. Therefore, Plato taught that physical pleasure should be avoided; it was better to live a life of suffering and eschew pleasure in order to be more spiritual. This thinking worked its way into Christianity, to the point where things intended by God to be blessings for our enjoyment were rejected and forbidden. One such area was music.

Augustine of Hippo had written about music in the 5th century, stating that he was “troubled in conscience whenever he caught himself delighting in music.” Luther, who greatly looked up to Augustine, responded by saying: “I have no use for cranks who despise music, because it is a gift of God.” He went on to say, “Next after theology I give to music the highest place and the greatest honor,” and “next to the Word of God only music deserves to be extolled as the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart.”

“Next after theology I give to music the highest place and the greatest honor.”

“Next to the Word of God only music deserves to be extolled as the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart.”

Luther is the one who introduced, or at least re-introduced congregational singing to the church. It may be hard to imagine, but until Luther brought singing to the church, there had been no such thing for at least several hundred years, if not more. Furthermore, the fact that there is congregational singing in Catholic churches today is directly because of Luther, and most hymns sung in the Roman Catholic Church today were written by Protestants.

Luther also believed that music was a great tool for teaching spiritual truths. He wanted to put good doctrine into congregational songs to reinforce the teaching that was coming from the pulpit. Luther wrote many hymns himself, but he also reached out to others for help. In a letter to his friend Georg Spalatin in 1523, Luther wrote:

Our plan is to follow the example of the prophets and the ancient fathers of the church and to compose songs for the people in the vernacular, that is: spiritual songs so the Word of God may be among the people also in the form of music. Therefore we are searching everywhere for poets. Since you are endowed with a wealth of knowledge and elegance in the German language, and since you have polished it through much use, I ask you to work with us in this project.

I would like you to avoid any new words or the language used at court. In order to be understood by the people, only the simplest and most common words should be used for singing; at the same time, however, they should be pure and apt; and further, the sense should be clear and as close as possible to the [Bible]. You need a free hand here; maintain the sense, but don’t cling to the words; [rather] translate them with other appropriate words.

Furthermore, unlike Zwingli in Zürich, who forbade the use of musical instruments, Luther encouraged the use of musical instruments in church.

Martin Luther not only introduced music back into the church, but he defined the parameters of what makes for good Christian church music.