November 8, 2005
Expletive Undeleted: Dropping the F-bomb in Church
Leadership associate editor Skye Jethani tells the story Mike Sares shared with him at a conference earlier this year. Tell us what you would do if you were Mike.
A few days before Christmas, pastor Mike Sares got a call from his associate. “Mike,” he said, “Mary Kate Makkai has agreed to read one of her poems at the Christmas Eve service. It’s really, really good, but it’s got the F-bomb in it several times, and I just thought I should check with you about that.”
Sares first told me his unexpected “F-bomb story” last March at the FutureGen conference in Orlando. We’ve all heard the tales of pastors accidentally detonating a vulgar ordnance from the pulpit (everyone’s recent favorite being Blake Bergstrom’s infamous “pitch your tents” faux pas). But the dropping of multiple F-bombs during a Christmas Eve service with laser guided premeditation? That is nothing to laugh about.
Mike Sares pastors a congregation called “Scum of the Earth” in Denver, Colorado. No, Scum of the Earth is not your typical congregation. Scum calls itself “a church for the right brained and the left out.” They embrace authenticity, creativity, and those who are on the margins of society. That explains why Sares didn’t immediately take the nuclear option off the table. But he wasn’t quite ready to push the button either.
“My inclination on the phone was to say ‘go ahead and do it,’” says Sares. “I like to give artists a lot of freedom, but on this one I just wasn’t sure. I told my associate that I couldn’t give him an answer yet.”
Mary Kate Makkai, the poet under consideration, was a young woman Sares had known for years. She was on a long prodigal journey with her faith, and was just re-entering the church after years of living in the “far country.” Along with sensing the fragile state of her faith, Sares also recognized Makkai was an incredibly gifted poet.
Before coming to Scum, Makkai had been doing poetry therapy with juvenile delinquents. It was while working with those broken and angry young men that she recognized her own need for God. The poem she composed for Christmas Eve chronicled her own journey back to God. In it she quoted some of the raw language of the boys from her therapy group. Although sympathetic to Makkai, Sares sought advice before making a final decision.
“I called two pastor friends of mine, I called a seminary professor, and I called some of my supporters (pastors at Scum raise their own support). The two supporters were dead set against allowing the F-word. These were good people whose combined time in the faith had been seventy years. They simply thought it was inappropriate for that kind of word to ever be used in the context of a worship service. I got a big fat ‘no’ from them.
“However, the pastors were a bit more gray about it. They saw that Mary Kate was at a critical stage in her journey back to God, and they advised me to be careful not to squelch her. I felt that asking Mary Kate to clean this poem up before presenting it in church would be like asking the widow to wipe off her coins before dropping them in the offering plate.”
Beyond the pastoral implications of his decision, Sares also explored the theological and biblical issues with Dr. Craig Blomberg from Denver Seminary. “Dr. Blomberg said that the Bible is obviously a wonderful book, but if you take some parts out of the broader context you’re going to find some fairly dark things: incest, sodomy, murder—all sorts of terrible things. Mary Kate’s poem was about someone coming back to the Lord, which is a wonderful context. In the middle of that context, she quotes someone else who is very angry at life. Context became central to our discussion.
“The other consideration was the Ephesians 5 passage about foolish talk and coarse joking. Dr. Blomberg and I went over different ways to understand this passage, using the Greek, and we didn’t feel the poem fell under any of them. The poem was not a crude attempt at humor, and it was not immoral. In terms of obscenity, you’ve got to think of what might be considered obscene in your own congregation. In our setting, the F-bomb is just another noun/adjective/verb that expresses frustration for many people. It’s not cursing in terms of taking God’s name in vain, or asking God to damn someone to hell. This poem was being spoken as an honest hymn of redemption.”
Satisfied that there existed no scriptural prohibition against reading the poem, Sares finally considered the inevitable fallout the F-bomb would produce. “I knew it was going to offend people, and could really hurt my relationships with some of my supporters. Allowing Mary Kate to read that poem would probably hurt me in the pocketbook, too.”
What was he to do?
What would you do? Post your comments and come back soon for part two.
Posted by UrL at November 8, 2005 | Comments (89) | TrackBack
November 3, 2005
Marketing Narnia: Is the Church Being Used?
The following is by Abram Book, Leadership editorial resident, who reported the nationwide Narnia promotion campaign that rolled out last month in Wheaton, Illinois, now the home of C.S. Lewis's wardrobe. OK, one of several such wardrobes. This one has a solid wood back, we're told, behind the fur coats.
The marketing machine for the big C.S. Lewis Narnia movie is just getting cranked up, and they’re using all the tactics that made The Passion of the Christ a blockbuster. But as sample marketing materials for use in churches and as preacher’s magazines with Narnia covers arrive in our office mailbox, and as attenders at the Catalyst conference for church leaders were treated to Narnia previews and promo tools, we have to wonder, Is the church being used? Or more precisely, How crassly is the church being used?
After a promotional stop that brought C.S. Lewis’s stepson and a slew of marketers to the platform of a nearby church in October, I asked Quentin Schultze, professor of communication at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, whether the church’s cooperation with Hollywood in movie marketing is a trend.
“I don't think there is any particular trend toward religious movies or even toward Christian themes in movies,” Schultze responded. “Just take a look at the current lineup in most theaters. A couple of movies do not make a trend in an industry that cranks out hundreds of them annually. Moreover, both of these types of religious films (The Passion and Narnia) have been addressed before, although not necessarily with the same styles or budgets.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
Two movies may not make a trend, but the church’s teaming with the Walt Disney Company in promotion of Narnia certainly represents a shift in thinking, and a growing acceptance of Hollywood by church leaders. Until recently, Disney was the subject of a boycott by Southern Baptists and other conservative groups for their perceived perversion of family values. Now that the moguls and marketers have discovered the power of the Christian community to boost their box office, they will no doubt want to make the most of the alliance.
One recent example, related by colleagues in my office, was the promotion of Cinderella Man at a convention of Christian journalists this spring. The film had some religious elements (the trailers showed people praying for the boxing contender), but moviegoers reported Cinderella Man had a really foul mouth, objectionable to many Christians, and to say the movie had Christian themes was a stretch.
Church leaders and churchgoers alike must be discerning about such marketing alliances. Whether the film is overtly Christian, as in The Passion, has Christian themes, or merely upholds values Christians support, church leaders must be careful about endorsing Hollywood productions and the degree to which their support is expressed in their local congregations. There is, after all, considerable difference between referencing a current movie in a sermon and supplying the congregation with mass-produced study guides and small group materials. There is ponderable difference between supporting a movie about the Crucifixion that had input from a broad range of Christian scholars, and endorsing a film that will be seen by some as Christian allegory, or, eventually, nice movies that have vague Judeo-Christian underpinnings.
Christians may welcome a better relationship between our community and the dominant media of the day; we can appreciate the opportunity for the Church to influence the types of films that the machine produces; but such influence comes at a price.
Some Christian leaders tell me they are uncomfortable about the Narnia deal, not because of the promotion of this particular film within the church, but because of the next church-Hollywood collaboration this campaign may encourage. Where do you think this road will take us?
Posted by UrL at November 3, 2005 | Comments (21) | TrackBack
