Tag Archives: creative Christians

The Unwired World and Victor Hugo

My husband and I accidentally became part of the unwired world. On a recent trip to my college reunion in Birmingham, Alabama, we discovered that we had left behind not only our laptop but our iPad. We gazed in horror at ten days ahead with no internet connection other than what we could snatch from those hotel lobby communal computers.

No access to instant maps, weather, and the news. And what about my blog posts? Overseeing a contest I was involved in?

Well, I wrote the blog hurriedly, but the Hampton Inn computer sufficed. I learned to dart through my email. No dawdling when another hotel visitor paces on the other side of the glass door waiting his turn.

But how would we exist without our internet fix? None of that early morning time shaping my latest work in progress, either.

My husband contented himself with the only print novel we had brought along. I jealously guarded my Kindle, on which I had recently downloaded our next book club selection, Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. I had thought its old-fashioned prose would turn me off, suitable only for releiving bordom on the cramped airplane ride. Instead, as I took the time to savor it, I relished the beginning chapters that set the atmosphere with its naration of the old Bishop’s care for the vulnerable ones. When Jean Valjean finally appeared on the scene, I eagerly turned the electronic page to savor the Bishop’s handling of Valjean when he was caught with the Bishop’s silver service.

I lost myself in the story when the Bishop told the authorities that not only had he given the silver to Valjean, but that he had meant to give him some silver candlesticks (which the thief had missed in his hurried departure from the Bishop’s residence) and handed these over as well. I’ve never seen a piece of fiction illustrate Jesus’ instructions to give to those who take from you. It exemplified the Christian ethic: giving instead of hoarding, forgiving instead of retribution, loving instead of despising those who have broken society’s rules.

I may have grasped the story reading it hurriedly between my time on the computer, but not with the delight that this leisurely read allowed me.

 

 

Not Your Grandmother’s Church


The Seattle Times recently posted an article in their weekly magazine, Pacific Northwest, titled “Artistic & Religious.” The article highlighted groups where “creative Christians are taking down the walls between faith and art.” Some gather in coffee houses and pubs, others in private houses.

We hear predictions that Christianity will be dead within a generation. Groups such as these in Seattle and other places indicate that Christians are finding new ways to express their faith, not dying away. This pattern has persisted since the first gentile Christian churches grew out of gatherings of Jewish Christian believers.

Christians are, as Jesus said, in the world but not of it. In other words, we are exiles, refugees of a sort (a theme of this blog). The constant task for our communities is to engage with the changing world, not stagnate within yesterday’s structures.

We all know that a world of Facebook and twitter requires us to incorporate new technology. Even more, we must relate to an America in which the fastest growing religious preference is “no preference.” By contrast, Christianity grows rapidly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Christianity is indeed a world religion, as it has never been before. We must learn the vocabulary of today’s world, of both America and the countries beyond our borders.