Church and Comedy Part 3

At this point, you could do a lot worse than read John chapter 9 and then come back and read the rest of the blog. Whether you go and read it or not, here's a summary of the chapter, which hopefully highlights the comedy. (But at this point, it's not my contention that John 9 is about comedy. No. It's about a whole lot of things. But it makes these points comically. And it's not just comic. It makes me laugh). So:

Jesus heals a blind man – who incidentally didn’t even ask to be healed. The disciples were asking Jesus about why the man was blind. And Jesus answers “So I could heal him.” And he does. And he also goes about it an unusual way. So far, so unexpected.

The blind man goes back to his neighbours and they say "Is that guy who was begging? can't be." They don’t recognise him. Suddenly they’re blind! What’s going on?

The Pharisees get involved. They are the most religious people in Palestine. Highly respected. Knew their Old Testaments off by heart. Jesus healed a blind man! What do they say. It was a Sabbath. Bad Jesus. Another group asked how a sinner could do a miracle at all. So there were divided amongst themselves. And both groups were wrong. Both groups of clever, learned religious people were wrong about Jesus.

They turn to the former blind-man. And decided it was a trick. So they send for his parents. “Is this your Son? And you say he was born blind.”
“Er, yes? This is our Son. And I think we’d know if he was born blind or not. Anyway, he has a mouth. And he’s old enough. Ask him.” [They were also comically shifting the blame onto their soon as they were afraid of these assinine religious people]

They ask him again, and the former blindman man says “I told you what happened. Oh, sorry, you want to become a follower of Jesus! You should have said.”

“No! We’re not followers of Jesus. You are.” Sophisticated argumentation, hey? Classic playground logic. (I don't smell. You do. etc) “We’re disciples of Moses. Heard of him? With the really big law book? That God gave him? Does Jesus have a law book? No.”

And the ex-blind man says “Wow. He cured me of blindness and you lot have no idea where he comes from. Anyway, I don’t know about you but I reckon he must come from God.”

And the Pharisees say “You don’t get to lecture us! We’re the clever ones. Get out.” (Again another carefully constructed argument 'Get out!')

Then Jesus finds the man and says ‘Do you believe in the one promised by the scriptures? You know. The scriptures that all the Pharisees have memorised.”
“Yes,” said the man.
“Well, it’s me,” says Jesus.
And some Pharisees overheard and said “Er, I think if you were the Messiah we’d have recognised you. We are the ones who are qualified to do so it would a bit strange if you were the messiah and we didn’t see that.”
“Yeah, that is odd, isn’t it,” says Jesus.
“Oh so you think we’re blind too?”
And Jesus says ‘It certainly looks that way.’

This chapter highlights the great reversal that we see all over the Bible. It highlights the ultimate subversion that is the Gospel. Sinners get blessing. The unrighteous get mercy. The bad get the good stuff. That’s exactly the opposite of what they all thought at the beginning of the chapter. Look at v1. This man is blind. Who sinned? Someone must have done. That’s why he’s blind. And so now he’s poor because he can’t get a job. He’s lowly. He’s a no-one. And he’s excluded from God’s presence. That’s what the blind man himself thinks. He says so in v31. God doesn’t listen to sinners! He listens to godly men who do his will. Religious people. Like the Pharisees.

Jesus says – wrong! You could not be more wrong. Jesus came to save sinners. He came to lift up the humble. To feed the poor. To make the lame dance. And the religious people, who know the scriptures? They hate the poor. They despise the humble. They sneer at the lame. And most of all they hate Jesus. The one that Old Testament speaks of. The one they should have expected. The one they refuse to recognise, even though he’s standing in front of them. He’s turned water into wine. He’s healed the sick. And cured the blind.

This passage shows these religious people for what they are. A joke. A blind man is healed, but they don’t see. They only see a sin against their Sabbath laws. They don’t see the one who gave us the Sabbath. They are blind. Later, after Jesus heals Lazarus, some Jews who saw what happened:

“went back to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."

They could only see their place. And their nation. Where they were in charge. So what do they plan to do with the one who demonstrates power over life and death itself. They plot to kill him. Hello? Kill the one who can raise the dead. You really haven’t thought this through.

Religion seems serious (as we thought in Part 1 of this series). And these Pharisees are as religious as you can get. And they’re a joke. And the joke is on them. And when you think of it this way, you realise how funny and accurate the Life of Brian religious characters are that take themselves so seriously. And they take their religious laws so seriously. They are more concerned about their laws than God! And they’re full of self-righteous and arrogance. And they miss out. (Also, religious people came out against the film Life of Brian in a very hateful and graceless way. The TV debate in which the religious people said "It's such a terrible film anyway that no-one will want to watch" is a horrid, toe-curling piece of footage to watch).

And not only that, they kill God. Priests, who know their Bibles, and work in the temple are the ones who kill God. Not the Romans. Not 'sinners'. Priests. In the grand scheme of comic reversals it’s about as big as it gets. It’s the blackest of black comedies. It's not funny haha. And I wouldn’t open with it at the Comedy Store, but it is certainly comic and ironic. Not least because in dying in weakness, the death of a common cursed criminal, Jesus brings salvation to the world. What’s the single best event in human history? The cross of Christ. The death of God on a cross. Through Jesus Christ, we see the poor, the humble, the despised, the outsiders, the thief on the cross and the hated centurion all wander into God’s Kingdom.

Meanwhile, religious people, like Jorge the Monk, the blind monk, tell us that Christ doesn’t laugh. And Jorge prepared to kill for his religious theology. And yet the cross of Christ brings the deepest of joys. And there may be no verse which says ‘Jesus laughed’ but when Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father, I think he had the last laugh. And his people get to say Psalm 126:2
“Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.”

There is clearly lots more to be said here. I still hope to write a book on this subject...

Church and Comedy Part 2

If we’re going to understand the Church and comedy, we need to understand what comedy is. Only then can we recognise comedy in the Bible. Then we'll know what we're looking for. In the last part we wondered why God laughs at kings who gather with other kings to take their stand against the Lord. And it’s the absurdity of it. And that’s because comedy is largely about the gap between how things and how things are meant to be. Kings are meant to derive their authority from God. And listen to him. But they don't. And from where God is standing, it's laughable.

Why is falling over funny? Because it’s not supposed to happen. People are meant to stand up, not sprawl on the ground. TV clip shows frequently show accidents and they’re funny because they were never meant to happen. The moment they seem staged, they’re less funny. The trick of comedy is to contrive things that aren’t supposed to happen and make them look real. So falling over is funny. And the all-time King of comic falling over is Norman Wisdom. The trick was that he never made it look intentional. It always looked like it wasn’t meant to happen. Even when he received an award from the Queen, he managed to just trip slightly. Now that was even funnier because receiving an award from the queen is meant to be very serious. And he made a joke.

This is why jokes about religion often seem more powerful and more serious (and obvious) – because religion seems serious - as we saw in Part 1. When you see someone dressed as a priest you know how they’re meant to behave. And when they behave differently, it’s funny. Look at Father Ted. You’ve got Catholic priests behaving like children most of the time. And it’s funny. If you’re a catholic, you may not find it funny it’s comic – even if you don’t laugh. And herein lies the problem with comedy, laughter and offence. Not everything that is comic - technically comic/incongruous - is funny. Or at least, not everything that is comic will make you laugh. It might make others laugh. But the structure is, at least, comic.

Comedy, then, is about that gap between how things are and how things are supposed to be. And that works for slapstick comedy; it works for puns as words are presented as if they’re meant to be used in one way and then used in another. Comedy is about surprising incongruity. Putting things that don’t belong together next to each other.

That’s why passages in the Bible in which God speaks directly to be people are often comic. Why? Because God is perfect, holy, omniscient and good – and we’re none of those things. And the incongruity is obvious. At my church last week, we looked at Acts 9. He is extreme absurdity engineered by God. Who does God pick to be his missionary to the Gentiles? The most ardent, violent anti-Christian Jew there is. Saul of Tarsus. That’s comic. And funny. Like Richard Dawkins joining the salvation Army and wearing the uniform. But there’s also a comic scene when God speaks to Ananias in v11:

11 The Lord told [Ananias], "Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. 12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight."
13"Lord," Ananias answered, "I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. 14And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name."

So God says, “There’s this chap called Saul. He’s from Tarsus. Place your hands on him, will you?” And Ananias is implying that God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, is somehow mistaken. Or confused. And he doesn’t want to get mashed by the arch-persecutor. And the fact it’s called the House of Judas doesn’t help. It’s a comic scene.

(There are plenty of them in Acts. There’s the scene when Peter is released from prison by angels, escapes, knocks on the door of his friends, and the servant girl is so amazed, she slams the door in his face and says that Peter’s outside. While he knocking on the door saying ‘Er, man on the run, here! Can I come in?’ It’s all wrong, isn’t it. Peter, Jesus rock on whom he will build his church, has been gloriously rescued from the evil Romans by angels. And then a girl on his side leaves him standing in the street.)

God talking to people is often comic. Look at Abraham haggling God down in order to save Sodom and Gomorrah. Watch the calling of Moses, in which God reveals his name as I AM - and then Moses says "Thanks, but no thanks." Read God's dealings with Gideon who begs to be left alone, and puts God through a series of tests.

What seems amazing is that God seems to enjoy this interaction. Often, we overstep the mark with Him and he pulls us up short. But here we encounter something wonderful in God's character and nature. Being triune is a truly wonderful thing. The persons of the Godhead submit to one another. God embodies grace. He can deal with us, broken, sinful, fallen people, because of his gracious nature. Are we prepared to extend others the same courtesy? Or, like Jorge the monk, are we quick to take offence, find fault and complain? If so, we may be do so faster than God.

Being triune also means we can see God in action as a man. So in Part 3, we’re going to look at scene in John’s gospel that is undoubtedly comic and funny - and another that is less obviously so.

Church and Comedy Part 1

The Unhappy Relationship
The Church is not known for its sense of humour. If anything, the Church is known for having little or no sense of humour. And for being quick to take offence.

In Britain at least, Christians are not by nature placard-wavers but a little goes a long way – so the protests against Jerry Springer: the Opera contributed to the image that Christians can’t take a joke. Now, in that case, Christians would argue that they were complaining about blasphemy and an indecent portrayal of Christ. It’s understandable. But it doesn’t help the image of Christians not being laughers.

Anecdotally, my friends who are stand-up comedians report that Christian audiences laugh less than non-Christian ones. Not many of my Christian friends are stand-up comedians. The fact there are so few Christians who are comedians also tells us something. Christian humorists are rare. The only two that spring to my mind are GK Chesterton, who died over 70 years ago and wasn’t technically a comedian. And Erasmus. Who was an academic. And dies in 1536. (See pic of Erasmus. Smirking.)

The Church thinks mission is important, so they encourage Christians to become missionaries. The Church thinks preaching is important, so they encourage Christians to become preachers. There aren’t many churches encouraging Christians to become comedians.

In one sense, this is a shame. I don’t just say that because I am a comedy writer and therefore biassed, but because in Britain, at least, comedy and laughter is Important. Sitcom characters become national icons very quickly. I only need to say Del Boy, Vicky Pollard, Captain Mainwairing, Victor Melrew, David Brent, Basil Fawlty and you immediately know who I’m talking about. Comedies are important to us. We also expect our politicians and public figures to be able to laugh at themselves. And the language of public debate is often comic. Look at Prime Minister’s Questions. And our society’s prophets are often stand-up comedians.

So we need to get our thinking straight on comedy – and address this unhappy relationship the church has with it. Therefore, it’s worth asking:

Why the unhappy relationship between the Church & Comedy?
One reason is that religion seems serious. And in many ways it is. Religion is very personal. It’s often bound up with personal and national identity and so people take religion, even nominal faith, very seriously. And the Christian faith is no different. And there are plenty of verses in the Bible that convey the seriousness of the Christian religion. In the Old Testament, God commands his priests to wear special robes, do special ceremonies and make numerous sacrifices and sprinkle blood on altars. It is serious. He gave them the Ark of the Covenant to show his presence with them. But if anyone touched the ark, they died. As we read in 1 Chronicles 13:10 – “The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God.”

Religion seems serious, partly because God, especially as revealed in the Bible, seems serious. He is Holy. He is the Holy of Holies. And according to Deuteronomy 4:24 “The LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” This does not sounds like a God who laughs. At laughing at a God like this seems, at best, unwise.

Jesus laughed. Or did he?
As Christians, we believe that God revealed himself and his character supremely in Jesus Christ. When we look at Jesus, do we see someone who laughs? At first glance, we don’t. Firstly, we have two thousands years of Christian art, which tends to paint Jesus as serious, or intense, or even passive. Not someone who laughed. We also have several decades of film and television in which portrayals of Jesus as always measured, slow and reverent. And when we read the text of the gospels for ourselves, we find a Jesus who seems serious. We may think he was most wonderful man who ever lived, and lived a life without sin. Curiously, we have no problem with the idea of Jesus with a whip, clearing the temple. But we may have a problem imagining Jesus rolling around on the ground laughing.

Why? It may be that there are no references to Jesus laughing. There is one that says “Jesus wept”. There are others that say Jesus ate, drank and slept, like we do. But there is not one that says “Jesus laughed.”

To some, this is a licence for seriousness. Not least, the blind monk Jorge in Umberto Eco’s classic, The Name of the Rose.

[Jorge said] "Our Lord Jesus never told comedies or fables, but only clear parables which allegorically instruct us on how to win paradise, and so be it."
"I wonder," William said, "why you are so opposed to the idea that Jesus may have laughed…”
Jorge said "...Laughter shakes the body, distorts the features of the face, makes man similar to the monkey... He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither does he hate it. Therefore, laughter at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is self-propagating... The spirit is serene only when it contemplates the truth and takes delight in good achieved, and truth and good are not to be laughed at. This is why Christ did not laugh. Laughter foments doubt."

Here’s the question. Is Jorge right? After all, Phillippians 4:8 says “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Should Christians just be serious all the time?

Should Christians be serious all the time?
No. Even the most depressing of Biblical books, Ecclesiastes, says there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh.” (Ecc 3:4) Moreover, Christians are to be joyful. Is it possible to be joyful without laughing? Perhaps. (I’m reminded of the awful, cloying ending in Lord of the Rings where they’re all standing around Frodo’s bed just laughing. But they’re laughing because they’re happy.)

In a number of verses, laughter and joy are synonymous. Like Job 8:21 “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.” See also Psalm 126v2 “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’”
And in Psalm 2, we read about God laughing:

1 Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the LORD
and against his Anointed One
3 "Let us break their chains," they say,
"and throw off their fetters."
4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.

What is God laughing at? Us! He is laughing at earthly kings and queen wearing crowns sitting on thrones conspiring against the God who made them, their crowns and their thrones. It’s so foolish that it’s funny. A king’s rebellion against God is tantamount to your goldfish declaring war on you. The goldfish that you bought, living in your bowl, swimming in water that you put in the bowl that sits on your table. It’s a comic image. But that’s why God is laughing. It’s incongruous. It’s absurd. And that is comedy. And we’ll think more about the nature of comedy in Part 2.

Co-Mission Media Forum 2009: Content

A short while ago, I was thinking about an event I was planning. Well most of the details are finalised. Here it is.

Co-Mission Media Forum 2009: CONTENT
7th February 2009; 9.30am-5.30pm @ The Factory, 577 Kingston Road, Raynes Park, London SW20 8SA

A day of talks, seminars and stuff for workers in, and students of, Art, Film, TV, Radio, fashion, comedy, music, theatre and design – and their families. And given that anyone can write a poem, take a photo, use Garageband, or edit a film on iMovie and it on Youtube , we’re all creatives. So anyone is welcome - from within the Co-Mission churches or other evangelical churches.

Theme: Content
We were told the Medium is the Message. Now Content is King. How do Christians respond to the call to creativity – in film, literature, art and design? Given that we can create whatever we want, paint a picture of anything – real, imagined or abstract – write a story in which anything happens, or design a building that looks like a Gherkin, what are we, as Christians, going to do? What will we create? What stories do we tell? What themes do we represent? Is the limit purely our imagination? Does the Bible have anything to say about the content of our work?

Morning
Gavin McGrath will be leading two sessions on this subject. Gavin worked with L’Abri Fellowship and was a frequent speaker to university groups throughout the UK and Europe. He was vice-Principal of Trinity School for Ministry outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is the co-editor of The New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics (IVP 2006). He now leads a church in Earlsfield and is passionate about film, jazz, cooking, wine and triathlon. But not all at the same time. Gavin blogs here.

Afternoon
In the afternoon, we will break into smaller sessions more specific to different areas of art, media and design. There will be two different sessions on music (the nature of Music led by Matthew Mason; and song-writing led by Jez Carr); two sessions on writing (novels led by Matt Searles; and writing for children led by Ed Drew); a session on art (The Blank Canvas led by Aly Gordon); and a session on design (Being creative to the brief of another led by TBC). There will also be a session on the BBC and Public Service broadcasting led by Tim Plyming. We will endeavour to round off the day with a panel discussion.

Venue
All of the above will take place in the Factory, the new headquarters of the Co-Mission Initiative. We hope to provide a crèche and sufficiently broad programme that the event is suitable for families (since Saturdays are very precious!). Do let me know if you can volunteer someone for the creche/kids activities.

Find a map here.
It's in Raynes Park (Nr Wimbledon) 577 Kingston Road SW20 8SA
The Factory is about 10 minutes walk from Raynes Park main line station.

Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and coffee will be provided – since talking over food and drink and sharing experiences is a key part of the day. But there will have to be a small charge to cover these costs (as well as offering money for use of the venue and paying travel costs for speakers). Costs, then, might be around the £5-£7. Small beer for a whole day of talks designed specifically for those in the creative arts, media and design world.

Interested? Email: jamesedwardcary@yahoo.co.uk

If it works, spend tax-payers money on it...

Some of us may be open-mouthed at the amount of money the Americans are about to spend bailing out monstrous stupidity in the banking sector. Sadly, British politicians are even faster to throw taxpayers money to 'sure up' holes in the market. The reason? Pragmatism. The excuse can always be thrown up that 'It's better spend tax-payers money now on bailing out the bank than risk even more expensive consequences that will hurt the tax-payers even more.' Politicians are always happy to spend other people's money in vast quantities before telling us how courageous they've been. No. Courage is doing something difficult for the sake of a principle. This is no principle in British politics, as Matthew Parris pointed out on Saturday in The Times. He writes:

It was Tony Blair who popularised the language of “what works”, and in his premiership and in the shambles that has followed will be found many striking examples of the new anti-ideology ideology. But Mr Blair did not invent the tendency. I'm far from suggesting that the retreat from absolutes whenever things get hot is a feature of our age or of new Labour alone. “Needs must when the Devil drives” is an ancient proverb, and in the face of immediate pressure it's a natural human tendency to set theory aside. Central to the aims of the Cameron Conservatives' detoxification strategy has been to stop looking ideological - or, as the phrase goes, “obsessive about”, anything you could call a dominating political idea.

Except, of course, what works.

Read the rest of the article here. He talks a lot of sense.

How to Watch Television Part 3

There’s nothing inherently wrong with television. In fact, television is a good thing. It’s a clever use of technology that enables us to enjoy stories and receive information in our own homes at an affordable price. Brilliant.

In the same way, there’s nothing wrong with aviation. But naturally, when you invent a plane, someone will strap some guns to it and use it drop bombs on people.

So television is misused of course. Just as storytelling is misused as we’ve seen. But combine the two and you get something that’s fairly complex. So let me make two general points.

1. Television is Visual
It’s an obvious point to make but the fact that telling stories on television requires pictures makes a big difference. Our eyes and our brains work very fast – and we process information so quickly, our eyes get bored. In fact, the eye gets bored faster than the brain. People sitting around talking for half an hour is incredibly boring to watch. But hours and hours of radio is exactly that. People sitting around talking but we don’t have to sit and watch it so it’s okay. Reading a novel is even less stimulating for the eye. It’s processing words on a page. But as soon as you have pictures on a screen, you see them, process them and then want to move on. So a subject that requires sitting around and talking has to be dealt with in a visual way. This is a theme picked up in an excellent but rather gloomy book called Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. It’s a key text that I thoroughly recommend.

As a result of these need for visual stimulation, all TV has to constantly stimulate the eye, which is why it’s so hard even to watch the news. No footage, no story. But if they are no other stories, they’ll use library footage to pad things out (eg. A story about job cuts will feature ‘library footage’ of people in an office, in case you’ve forgotten what work looks like. And for many people it doesn’t look like that anyway.) So you have library footage, and endless amounts of information on the screen to keep your eye entertained and distract you from the fact that you’re just watching someone sitting at a desk and talking. So The Onion parodies this really well in by going completely over the top with graphics and jingles to cover an election story that they’ve obviously. As did Chris Morris before the Onion. (In fact Chris Morris' Day Today is essentially TV prophecy. Amazing.)

Power of Pictures
But when the news programmes have pictures worth seeing the visual element is incredibly powerful and great moments in the world’s recent history are, by and large, TV moments. Footage of the Moon landing, the second plane going into the World Trade Centre, the student in front of a tank at Tiannamen Square. It’s exciting and I don’t want to be negative about TV because it require visuals for everything. TV can be powerful if it’s done properly. One of the best war dramas of all time was not a film but a TV show called Band of Brothers and it was brilliantly shot and took you through the journey of 101st Airborne across France and into Germany. And it did it in a way that worked well on television and used the fact that they had 10 hour-long programmes to do it in.

Speed of Sight
Also the visual element can just speed up story telling so that the author doesn’t have to describe the room. It can take you quite some time to get into a book. But TV can grab you instantly.
I write a lot of radio sitcom – and it can be hard work explaining where the characters are so you can visualise them in your mind. This can be done with a sound effect, but it’s not always easy.
The other thing is you get body language on television – so you can have an actor say a line of bravery, but his body language screams cowardice. The use of body language and tone and people saying one thing and meaning another was used brilliantly by The Office. And it really looked like a believable normal office. And the characters spoke as people really speak and the way it was blended together and people covered up their fears and their disillusionment was really interesting and funny.

So pictures in storytelling put a lot of tools in your armoury, but you can also misuse these weapons. Or find that they’re being used on you as the viewer.

Voyeurism
You can keep someone watching for the wrong reasons – hoping forget that the show isn’t very interesting because the person on screen is in tight trousers or a low cut dress. Or the violence on screen isn’t to move the story along or create intensity – but to give the viewer a voyeuristic thrill. And that something that we need to be on the look out for as Christians. We need to ask ourselves why we’re watching something. Are we watching a story unfold, or waiting for some gratuitous nudity or violence? Only you know the answer to that question.

Or are we watching something that contains nothing that seems offensive or titillating on the surface, but the entire message of the piece is something that subtley distorts and twists reality in a way that we find satisfying. But is actually unhelpful. Maybe we find ourselves hoping that the lady in the TV show will leave her husband for someone else because she owes it to herself. That still isn’t to say that you shouldn’t watch it. Only you know what’s doing you good and what’s doing you harm; What’s making you think and reconsider your views and what’s just feeding you prejudices or sinful desires.

Expense
The need for pictures also has another side effect – it makes TV expensive. Filming isn’t cheap. You need cameras, lights, people, copyright, writers, lawyes, editors, commissioners, accountants and people to make coffee for all of the above. How are you going to pay for all these people? And the coffee?

2. Television is Commercial
Entertaining
TV has to attract advertising so the programmes need to be in some way entertaining so that people will want to watch them. It’s free country – no one has to watch your channel. And there are hundreds of channels to chose from. And these days you’re competing with the Internet and the Xbox. So there is a commercial need for television to be in some way entertaining. Anything that will keep you looking at the screen. The BBC face this as much as commercial television because in order to justify the licence fee, their programmes must have viewers. So they have to be accessible – which is a TV word for ‘entertaining’.

And so news has to have jingles. Storylines for dramas have to be exciting and outrageous. The real problem comes in so-called reality television which also have to be entertaining. A TV producer has to find a ‘real’ story and structure it in an entertaining way. In some ways, that’s just good story telling. Being bland or including irrelevant facts is not a virtue in itself. But equally, if you’re making a documentary about the workings of London Transport Police, you need to construct an entertaining story narrative out of someone or a day in the life of a Traffic Cop. The problem is that real life is messy. Or isn’t as sweet as you want it to be. So that’s when people are tempted to re-edit stuff to make it look like the Queen has stormed out of a photoshoot when she hasn’t.

And in some ways, I’ve edited that story, because this was actually a promotional trailer for the show, not the show itself, but the point stands. You can make something more entertaining by editing it, changing the order and ultimately misrepresenting what actually happened. And that’s called lying. And it rightly became a national scandal. And the head of BBC1, Peter Fincham, eventually resigned. But don’t worry. He’s head of ITV now, so don't worry. He’s fine.

Addictive
Because TV is commercial, they need you to watch commercials so stories have to be structured with cliff hangers that get you coming back for more. Again in reality TV, if you’re making a show in four parts, you need to somehow construct three cliff hangers and a satisfactory resolution out of what you’ve filmed. So you have to be very careful about which Transport Policemen or Traffic cop you’re going to film – and you’ll gravitate towards one who’s loud, outrageous, camp or whatever. In one sense, this person is in no way representative of the Transport Police so it’s not really ‘reality’ but you’ve got your TV show. You’ve got your human story and cliff-hangers.

Comprehensible
And audience won’t laugh, enjoy themselves and keep watching if they’re confused. They have a remote control. They can switch over at any time. So you need to keep it comprehensible – which means simple and understandable.
If you’re doing a science documentary, you have to explain the science in layman’s terms, which can look like, and sometimes is, dumbing down.
If you’re doing a popular sitcom, the characters need to be big and easy to get a handle on, because if you’re don’t recognise the character as a type, you won’t be able to get any jokes about them – because comedy relies upon shared information. It’s why sitcoms with people in uniforms often work very well – because you know instantly who they are.
If you’re covering a political debate, you’ll get people of vastly differing opinions who have no chance of agreement because it’s good telly and it’s easy to understand. He’s left wing. He’s right wing. I get it.

“Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.” Kurt Vonnegut

None of this is to say that any television which is entertaining, addictive and comprehensible is bad. Far from it. Almost all good TV is all three of those things. Look at West Wing, ER, 24, 30 Rock, Planet Earth and Harry Hill's TV Burp which are all of them – they are hard to understand but they give you enough and give you recaps between episodes so you don’t get lost.

I hope we’ve seen how television works – or has to work because of the medium that it is and therefore the industry that has grown around it to support it.

Tomorrow, some practical tips on how to watch TV (other than facing it with the sound on, etc... (unless it's Big Brother))

How to Watch Television Part 2

To understand television, we need to look at the nature of storytelling. Most of television is telling a story of some kind – with the possible exception of party political broadcasts and infomercials (which amount to the same thing). And then we can apply all of the above to bear on considering the nature of television.

The Nature of Storytelling
I don’t have a dictionary definition of what a story is, but here’s a one that I’ve made up. “A story is stuff that happens to people, either real or imagined.” What stuff happens to people? Good stuff and bad stuff. How do they respond? What decisions do they make? Good ones and bad ones. What do they do as they act on those decisions? Good things and bad things. It sounds obvious – but one wonders what we’re expecting of stories if they don’t involve in some way morally bad people do sinful things.

If you were to describe to me what you did today, it would be a mixed bag. Good things and bad things happened it. Stories in some way describe and represent life as it is. And if we’re Christians, we know that we live in a world made by God, spoilt by our sin, cursed by God and saved by Christ. And we, as Christ, are being regenerated by His spirit, but we keep doing things we’re ashamed off. Our world is a mixed bag.

And this is reflected in God’s word, The Bible. Most of it is story. There is some poetry, some law, some letters of instruction, but mostly it’s story, history, biography and narrative. Characters are show to be a mixed bag. Take Moses – the great leader of God’s people who was also killed a man in anger. And he rejected God’s commission at the burning bush until he was given no choice. Take Abraham – an Old Testament megastar. He doubted God’s promise of blessing and children by Sarah, disobeyed and had a child with a servant-girl. Peter, the rock on whom Christ build his church, denied Christ three times and at one point was called Satan by Jesus. King David, King Solomon, the Apostle Paul all had serious skeletons in the cupboard. The Bible represents the people warts and all.

The only one that doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of is Jesus Christ himself. He did nothing wrong. Quite the opposite. He did everything right. So what sort of stories did he tell? “Once upon a time there was a man. And he lived happily ever after?” No! He told stories that were about flawed people, making bad decisions.

Look at the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It’s a story of violence and hypocrisy. A man is robbed blind, beaten up and left for dead. What a senseless act of violence. And a priest and Levite completely ignore him. They pass by on the other side of the road so they’re not made unclean. And it’s a Samaritan – an outsider – who does the right thing. And heaps more guilt on the levite and priest by going far beyond what’s required of him, bandaging his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, putting the man on his own donkey, andgiving two silver coins as a down payment on the man’s recovery at an inn.

Is this story about violence and hypocrisy?
Yes! It depicts them. But it doesn’t glorify them. And they are integral to the story. And if the man who was beaten up had just bumped his head or comically fallen over, there wouldn’t be a story to tell. He was beaten and left for dead.

Is this story offensive?
Yes! It doesn’t describe graphic violence or contain bad language – but some would have been very offended by the story. The story implies that Levites and Priests miss the point of the law and behave in a self-righteous way, without compassion. And that a Samaritan, a hated outsider, has a better grasp of the right thing to do than a levite. For some listeners, you’re in all kinds of areas of offense. This is satire.

Is this story simplistic?
Yes! It’s a short story. Lots of things aren’t described. Like the man who is robbed, what they stole, how many robbers there were. Or even why both the Priest and Levite walked on by. Is Jesus saying that all Priests and Levites misunderstand and that every Samaritan would have done the same? I don’t think so. (Look at the beginning of Luke, Simeon, who is some sort of priest, recognises Jesus as the Messiah). So why the story compression? Why not tell a more balanced story?

Because all storytelling is edited. It’s compressed depending on a number of factors – audience, time available, what the main point is… Just as the story of Jesus is told four different ways in four different gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The main events are the same. But they’re retold and put together differently. Details are left out or compressed – but that doesn’t make any one gospel untrue, necessarily.

Now, Jesus could have avoided all of this controversy, and avoided telling a depressing, offensive story of violence and hypocrisy by just saying ‘You religious people think you’re okay, but even the Samaritans are ahead of you.’ Why did Jesus tell this story rather than just teach the point we’re meant to take away from it?

1. Stories say stuff that statements can’t
Stories address the fact we’re complex beings who interact with other complex beings in a complex world – and therefore, partly through simplicity, they can highlight an issue or create a feeling that statements can’t.

You could replace the book of Jonah with a bunch of statements like ‘Don’t be prejudiced against outsiders’ and ‘God is far more inclusive than you think’. But you wouldn’t have the nuances of the story of Jonah. And it wouldn’t be as powerful, funny or memorable.

You could make a statement like ‘Suburban oneupmanship is corrosive and self-destructive’. Or you could watch it in action in Desperate Housewives, which is at heart, a show about sub-urban respectability. Or at least the first series is.

Stories are about people. And we like stories because we are people. And we are relational – because we’re made in God’s image. God is personal and relational by nature. We relate better to stories about people than abstract teaching. We know this from our own experience in learning.

2. Stories can’t say stuff that statements can
Because of the complexity of stories, they are ambiguous and sometimes confusing. And they take some time to understand. That’s their attraction but also their problem. They send out mixed messages because it’s not always obvious who’s side we’re meant to be on. Sometimes it is – like Robin Hood. He’s a good guy. He fights for the poor against the evil sheriff. It’s very simple, which is why stories of this kind are so popular with children. There’s not much room for confusion and ambiguity there. But even there, there is some. Tales of Robin Hood may appear to be saying that good always triumphs over evil in this life. Which of course it doesn’t. These days, we prefer anti-heroes like Batman who are good, mostly, but also dark and brooding with mixed motives adding an extra layer of complexity and ambiguity.

Another example, is Yes Prime Minister. Who’s in the right? Hacker, the Prime Minister – who always wants to be popular. Or Sir Humphrey, the Civil Servant who doesn’t want change. The sitcom explains the wonderfully complex area of government – but it’s a mixed message.

So there is a time and a place for stories. And a time and a place for statements. So we read the Bible and find stories – like the book of Daniel or Jonah. And statements. Like Romans or the Law in Leviticus. Preachers help us understand the stories with statements and point and propositions. And sometimes illustrate the statements in the Bible with stories. If a preacher just retells a Bible story or tells us another similar one with a similar point, we’ll start to get frustrated. So we need stories. But we also need essays, commentaries, factual presentations and the like. But we shouldn’t expect a story to function in the same way as those other forms of media.

Christians run aground on this area frequently. We get confused between genres and criticise characters in TV shows as if they are real. And criticise scenes as if they are being presented positive. Take the torture scenes in 24 – which are quite common over a number of series. Is 24 condoning torture? Yes and no. It’s grapping with the issue of torture and what happens when the good guys do it. It’s not making a clear statement on torture because it’s a story. But the story acknowledging why good people think it should torture should be acceptable since it could saves lives. But 24 also notes that it could be considered wrong in and of itself – and that people don’t always tell the truth under torture so you don’t even achieve anything. But just saying that 24 depicts torture so it must be a morally defective programme just won’t do. We have to appreciate the genre of the medium and realise that statements and stories are different.


3. Our stories are created by people
The stories we tell each other are written by people. Even if they’re based on facts, they’re told and retold by people. People are flawed and sinful. So the stories we tell are susceptible to distortion. If I ask you to tell the story of your day, you will be tempted to give me a version that just makes you look good. You may leave out key facts or include things that never happened. It all depends on how honest you’re being.

Stories can be told that include lies to make a particular point. That was the charge against the TV Documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. In telling the story of how the world became obsessed with global warming, the programme makers used scientific research that they must have known had been subsequently disproved. And in the end, the programme was found guilty of misleading the scientists who took part in interviews and quoting them out of context.

But basing programmes on lies is not just the preserve of so-called factual entertainment. The sitcom My Name is Earl is based on the theory that Karma is real. Earl Hickey, the lead character, is trying to make up for all the bad things he’s done wrong so that good things will happen to him. It’s refreshing to have a sitcom in which the hero is trying to be a better person. But karma’s not real. It’s a lie. The whole sitcom is based on a lie.

Does that mean we shouldn’t watch it? Not necessarily. The use of Karma is a conceit and we, the audience, know that life isn’t really that way. But here’s the problem. On television, stories are pulled around and compressed and the consequences for certain deeds and actions are only included if they’re useful to plot or the overall point of the story. Take one of the most successful sitcom of recent times – Friends. Ross has been married and divorced three times before the age of thirty. That would have fairly serious psychological consequences if it were real – but they’re neatly pushed to one side because it’s not funny. The problem comes in whether you would call that a lie or not.

The issue of sex is constantly distorted in storytelling in film and television. The fact is that sleeping with someone is a big deal and has consequences. But you’d never guess that from a whole number of films and TV shows which lie about the reality of sex. But that’s because the stories are told by people. Like us. And we’re all liars.

But what’s interesting is that there are some rules to storytelling that seem to hold fast. There are rules stories have to abide by. And when the stories don’t obey those rules, we’re disappointed or annoyed. What do I mean? I mean that in stories the bad guys lose. The good guys win. The knight in shining armour rescues the girl. Rags go to riches. And if not riches then happiness. We are suckers for a happy ending. There seems to be a universality to stories that has stood the test of time, cultural conditioning and human lies. I think that’s because:

4. Storytellers are created by God
Storytellers are created by God, and live in His world. And so we should not be surprised when we keep telling stories about forgiveness, redemption and sacrifice again and again and again. The Story of the Bible is The Big Story of Life itself – creation, fall, promise, incarnation, substitution, sacrifice, forgiveness, judgement, redemption and renewal. Existentialism has no stories to tell. Because nothing has meaning. Events are random. There is no fate or destinty. Just blind chance. But Christians have access to the one true story and we, more than anyone, should the best storytellers of all.

How to Watch Television Part 1

“Ninety-eight percent of American homes have TV sets, which means the people in the other 2% have to generate their own sex and violence.“ Attributed to Gene Baylos

There is no doubt that television is a pervasive part of all our lives. And that we have a love-hate relationship with it. Most of us own a TV or have access to one. Most households have more than one. Most now have more than five channels. And many of us spend up to £40 a month on Sky or Cable – plus the £130+ on a licence fee. That’s over £600 a year on television. And yet many of us wish we watched less television, not more. Comedian Jason Love says “I could have been a doctor, but there were too many good shows on TV.” Some of us know that if we didn’t have to go work or sleep we’d watch television almost constantly. Being ill is an excuse to watch Countdown. Conversely, some of us feel morally or culturally superior for not watching much television.

But the reality is that television has massive cultural importance. Celebrity culture is caused, driven and fuelled by television. Our politicians govern our country through the medium of television. Politicians are in turn critiqued by people on television by people who owe their career to television. What was the most important thing about Armstrong’s walk on the moon? It was televised. They carted a camera millions of miles so we could all watch together.

How do we respond as consumers of television? And how do we respond to what television is doing to our society? How should we think about television?

Historically Christians have had a fairly uneasy relationship with television. We tend towards two extremes. Being over-critical and being under-critical. We’re masters of falling off the horse on one side and then the other. And sometimes, we over-criticise, but consume it anyway. I don’t have a horse metaphor for that. But I’m sure you can picture it. (Giving it sugar lumps then clubbing it to death?)

It’s very easy to build a case against television that on surface sounds irrefutable. What are the criticisms? (or over-criticisms) Here are the main six:
1. TV depicts, presents and glorifies sin and is turning us into ‘voyeurs’
We’ve all seen thousands of deaths, witnessed hours of adultery and heard plenty of blasphemy thanks to television. David Frost famously said “Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home.” On television, unsavoury characters do unspeakable things that we wouldn’t dream of doing. Eg. The Sopranos So why would you want those people in your house? Even worse, we find ourselves drawn to the salacious, the raunchy and the violent. We want to watch Simon Cowell venomously destroy a deluded young hopeful. What are we becoming?

2. TV is offensive and turning us into ‘angry people’
It hurts to watch people behave so badly. And if you’re a Christian, you’ll get an especially rough time of things, as the media seems to be systemically anti-Christian (as well as being annoyingly respectful of some religions, scared of others and actively pro-secularism). So why would you want Richard Dawkins in your house, screaming against your God and setting fire to straw religious men? Why should you put up with Jerry Springer the Opera humiliating Christ in your living room? It can just make you angry.

3. TV is a distraction from the business of life and turning us into timewasters.
Jim Urbanovich says “Television keeps the masses occupied. What if everyone decided they wanted to make something of their lives? Television keeps the competition down and keeps more criminals off the street. What if everyone decided to go to law school or medical school? It would sure make it tough on the rest of us.” If we’re Christians, we may well agree and add that it’s a distraction from talking to people and evangelising. Why spend hours and hours watching Neighbours, Eastenders, Hollyoaks – or for that matter entire series of 24 (crack cocaine of television)? Surely TV is, at best, a waste of time.

4. TV is bad art and turning us into Philistines
“Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done.” Fred Allen. TV is often culturally defective, badly put together, clunky, poorly devised, ill-conceived and just plain horrid. Especially in comparison to films/opera/books etc. TV revels in poor art. Certainly The Jeremy Kyle Show could hardly be described as artistic. And one could therefore argue that television is culturally corrosive.

5. TV is dumbed-down and turning us into idiots
This is the old argument of television ‘dumbing-down’ society. Whenever TV takes a subject, it over-simplifies it and ultimately tells you nothing. Even much-praised nature documentaries like Planet Earth – they look great but they don’t actually tell you anything. Groucho Marx said “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” It’s understandable. One could therefore argue that television is intellectually corrosive.

6. TV is deceptive/contrived and turning us into cynics
The latest scandals about phone-lines, quiz shows and dishonest editing of the queen lays TV open to the criticism of being deceptive and contrived. And television has pleaded guilty as charged. It can’t handle the truth. And because we know we can’t believe what we see, we are rapidly becoming cynical of everything.

There are other criticisms– such as the charge that TV exploits real people for the sake of entertainment; TV exploits those who work in it; TV gives us false, unobtainable aspirations; TV sacrifices truth for profit in a desperate hunt for ratings; TV encourages superficiality and ‘beautiful people’; and TV is generally depressing, as the news focus on bad news and science documentaries are often little more than freak shows.

It’s also worth noting that some people are just cultural snobs and television can do no right. Peter De Vries says “My father hated radio and could not wait for television to be invented so he could hate that too.” That’s just prejudice but some of us may well be in that position.

But just as we can be over-critical, sometimes we’re not critical enough. If we’re Christians, our justification for this can be theological. In order to be effective evangelists, like Paul in Athens, we need to immerse ourselves in the culture. Be like our colleagues so that we’re not perceived as fundamentalists, separatists or people who come across as morally superior. It’s good to have stuff to talk about at the water-cooler. And that stuff is television. So for good reasons we can rush to turn on the TV, buy a boxed set and watch things without our critical faculties switched on.

This isn’t good enough. TV is far too important to ignore and consume. Which is why need to think about it in more details and as we do so address those six charges. That's what I propose to do in the next two blog posts. Stay tunes. Keep watching. Don't go away...

We're Loving Angels

Evangelicals aren’t big on angels. We don’t talk about them an awful lot or tend to skate over references to them in the Bible. Perhaps we’re scared of the subject because the Biblical teaching on them seems rather hazy.

‘Angel’ means ‘messenger’ – but often angels are shown to be a great deal more than divine postmen. Sometimes they’re called ‘Holy Ones’ and ‘Watchers’ (Dan 4:13) and ‘Sons of God’ (Job 1:6), but these Sons are God are probably not the Nephilim in Genesis 6. And we’re already confused and possibly bored. Add to this that the word ‘Archangel’ only occurs twice in the entire Bible, both times in the New Testament. We’re pretty sure that Michael is an Archangel and we think Gabriel might be – but we can’t be sure. We just know Gabriel ‘stands in the presence of God’.

So there are archangels and angels, but also Cherubim and Seraphim much depicted in art and pop culture. Cherubim crop up now and then in scripture (eg in Genesis 3, guarding the way to tree of Knowledge) and yet Seraphim occur only once – in Isaiah 6. And these angelic beings have wings. So ‘normal’ angels don’t? They appear not to, despite a thousand years of Christian art to the contrary.

On top of this, angels seem to be doing the will of God, making moral choices as they serve him (more of that in a moment), but they are generally invisible to us as is the spiritual realm generally (Col 1:16) , unless God opens our eyes to see them for a limited period – as he did with Balaam, once the donkey has spotted the angel first (shame on you, Balaam). Frequently, angels just appear in scripture and say things but the way in which they manifest is not commented upon eg. Philip in Acts 8 giving him specific instructions. There is evidence that when you know you’re talking to an angel, you are terrified. But that sometimes we meet them unwittingly. And are not terrified. But feel weird afterwards. Some Christians bare witness to this.

What’s more, angels seem to be in some way eternal, since they appear not to die. But they are created beings, as we read in Nehemiah 9. But do they die? Yes and no. They do not appear to suffer mortality as we do – with a lifespan of three score years and ten. But they will be judged. By us! (1 Cor 6:3) Does this make us superior to the angels? Perhaps.

But here’s my reflection. Despite the ambiguities, we know that angels are created spiritual beings who exercise moral judgment. And that some decide to reject God – namely Satan. And God did not save them. Let’s reverse back over that. God did not save the angels who rebelled against him. And yet he sent Christ to die for us. Do we take the salvation of God for granted? We should not. He created a category beings distinct from us, some of whom rebelled. And for them, there is no hope of salvation. How much more, then, should we join with the angels in praising God for sending Christ to die for us?

Another Audio Recommendation

Below I recommend The Bugle. Here's another tip. Previously I have recommended This American Life. But one episode stands out and a suggest you make every effort to listen to it as it explains the current credit crunch with both overarching theory and personal anecdote. Another lesson in storytelling. It's brilliant and illuminating. And it's here.

At last, some genuine satire...

It seems extraordinary that in a time of thousands of radio stations and hundreds of TV channels, the best/funniest political satire available is a podcast produced by a Murdoch-owned newspaper. But that, my friends, is the reality. So feast your ears on The Bugle - a weekly podcast from John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. John is now a megastar on The Daily Show. (My claim to fame is that he was in a sitcom I wrote for Radio 4 called The Pits. It only ran for one series and Radio 4 didn't like it. But John was great in it. And I ran into him a few months ago and he remembered who I was and was thoroughly delightful.) Andy Zaltzman is a British comic partner in crime and every bit as able as John. He's sometimes on The Now Show, Charm Offensive and the like. Yes, they're hitting politics from the left which is the only angle it seems anyone is prepared to do it from there days. But their diagnosis of self-regarding politicians and vile political machines is spot on, especially during these days of election and turmoil. Plus they like sport, which is great. And the whole lot is delivered in a slightly shambling dialogue that it very engaging and has been making me smile a lot and laugh out loud several times a show. So go here, download it and start working your way through the back catalogue. I am.

Magimix Resolution

And they saw that the satin steel Magimix and said "This is very good."

A is for Alpha Romeo

My wife comes from a family that likes its cars. They are what you might call 'Petrolheads'. Through them, I have ended up watching Top Gear - one of the finest, brashest, daftest programmes on television. So my perception of Alpha Romeo's is derived almost entirely from that show. The impression I have is that the Alpha Romeo is a thing of beauty, a classic piece of Italian (originally French) design. Clarkson says that you cannot be considered a true petrolhead unless you have, at some point, owned an Alpha Romeo. So why aren't they more popular? Why aren't they two a penny in the streets of London? Because the price. The price isn't the price tag, although you do pay a premium for beauty. The price is the reliability. They have a reputation for being poor when it comes to moving along and working.

My interest here is not the Alpha itself. I'm sure brand new Alpha's are as reliable as people thing Volkswagon's are. The point is that you are buying beauty. And it comes at a price. So the question is whether Christians should buy Alpha Romeo. And if so, why? And if not, why not? What does this test-case tell us about ourselves, how relate to God and his world? The Alpha Spider is a stunning car. Who wouldn't want to zip around the place in one of those? I think the key here is the heart, not the car. The car itself is not bad or sinful. Quite the reverse. It's good! So why do I want it? Sadly our motives are always mixed and probably a blend of some of the following:

1. 'I think it's beautiful and beauty costs money'. I have increasing sympathy with this view as I have outlined in previous blogs about the Magimix. God is into beauty. Unnecessary beauty. The world does not need to look as God as it does. But it does. And we are made in God's image to be creative - and make beauty. And the Alpha Romeo is beautiful - and a classic car design. If you're buying it because you appreciate, and you have the money to spend, buy it. Or don't buy it. The choice is yours.

2. 'It is beautiful, but I'd feel bad about spending all this money on myself'. A noble attitude indeed, and a godly one. Not necessary more godly than reason (1), but godly nonetheless. But it's worth asking - why would you feel bad about spending that money on yourself? Is it because your kids need some new clothes and your wife needs a holiday? Then you are right to feel guilty about the money. Spend the money on your family!

Do you feel bad because you don't give enough to the poor and the church? Again, you're right to feel bad. Be generous towards God! Give to Him first. He expects our sacrifices to be the best animal in the herd, not the mangy scraps. So don't buy the Alpha. Give to God. And get a Ford Focus. Or are you feeling guilty because you think God doesn't want you to have nice things ever for any reason? Do you really think that God is only interested in your holiness if it comes coupled with misery?

3. 'It is beautiful, and I'm going to look great in it.' Oops. Self-aggrandisement. The car is no longer a thing of beauty but a status symbol to improve your image. That is a thing of ugliness. [imagine buzzers ringing] Repent. Repent.

4. 'It is beautiful because Jeremy Clarkson tells me so.' Again, abort. You're spending top dollar so you can 'fit in'. This implies that you're more interested in the opinion of your peers than God's. Or even your own. Get a life. And buy a car you actually like. And if that's a Ford Cortina, so be it.

Let's be honest. We only need a Ford Cortina. If everyone in Britain drove a Ford Cortina, we would still function as a country. There'd probably fewer road accidents. And the AA and RAC would have a field day. But I'm guessing we'd have a really decent Ford Cortina after all those years of making it. But we get a choice. We get to chose something beautiful - rather than an old banger that looks like an upturned bath. God gives us variety in creation. He creates in abundance and with beauty. So should we. And we should be free to chose those things if we appreciate them. If our hearts are pure. But they're not. And herein lies the struggle. It's not the car. It's us.

All of this said, my next car will be deeply dull in order to fit a family with luggage. But what about the engine size. Petrol or Diesel? And Aircon? Oh, choices choices...

Magimix Dilemma Enters Second Day...

Wow. What a mixed response to my Magimix dilemma. Advice ranges from 'Ask your wife' to 'Buy a Kitchenaid' with 'God doesn't care' and 'Spend it. What the hey!' in between. (Kitchenaid's mainly for baking. And yes, they are stunning.)

Some thoughts:
1. God does care. But that is not to say that there is a definitive right and wrong answer. I was pondering the other day how the Bible isn't a rule book, and we'd resent it if it were. But ultimately, we want a rule book. We want specifics. The main reason I can think of is that we're still very poor at applying scripture to our every day lives. We make choices and decisions all the time. And these choices are manifestations of our theology. Therefore the decision I make and the reason behind it is significant. And so God does care. (And to some extent we are the choices we make)

2. What would Jesus do? This, in the past, has always struck me as a redundant and often unhelpful question. But since reading 'Questioning Evangelism' by Randy Newman, I've become aware of the rabbinic tradition of questioning everything. And questioning questions. What would Jesus do? He might not do anything. It's what he would say that seems most significant. He would not say 'Treat yourself.' Or 'You deserve it.' Or 'Go. Sell you magimix and give it to the poor.' (I don't think). He would question my motivation for spending or not spending the extra. And then let me get on with it.

3. In this exercise, we really do work out how we rate beauty. And its importance. One comment said that beauty was useful - in terms of simplicity. But some beauty is complex. Does complexity make it ugly? God is complex. His world is complex. And it is beautiful. Likewise, is the sharing of the beautiful product a justification for its beauty. If I plan to share the food I make in it, does it make okay to spend the extra?

4. The blender itself makes food better. It combines, recreates, merges and gives life flavour. Does it seem odd that this object should be plain? (So one could argue - who needs a blender? God gave you teeth. Use them and be grateful.)

5. Do we really believe that God wants us to enjoy him and enjoy his world? Some would say that enjoying God means not needing to find enjoyment in material things. This may be true. But I note that the world, myself and the Lord Jesus are physical and material. Sure, vanity and materialism are a temptation, but sometimes, in our quest for spiritual purity, we despise the physical, avert our eyes from the beautiful and descend into Evangelical Gnosticism. Do we need possessions to enjoy God? No. Does God gives us good things to enjoy? Yes. Should we worship those things he gives us? No. Can we enjoy them? I hope so. I fear we often can't.

6. That £20. It's not much. Should I be giving it to the poor. Or to gospel work? Does the fact that it's only £20 make the decision less important. It shouldn't. What about cars? At some point, I'll need to get a bigger one for the family. Do I get a Kia? Or a Ford Focus? Or a Audi? When it starts costing money is where the rubber hits the road (sorry).

Everything is theological. Everthing matters. And everything we do says something about what we think about God. So I plan to continue this sort of discussion over the next few weeks and months. And A-Z of stuff. So, tomorrow. A is for Alpha Romeo.

Can I have the shiny one?

What is the price of beauty? That's a question that's been vexing me a fair amount in the last few weeks. If we're Biblical Christians, do we really think that it's important that something looks nice? A few days ago, I compared computer operating systems - and praised Apple Mac for making my lovely, shiny computer. (My favourite computer was my Titanium Powerbook. For me, nothing they've since them comes close.)

As Christians, I really think we often despite all beauty as vanity. We eschew good design as unnecessary. At least we do with our lips. In hearts, we desire beauty for good and bad reasons. God is beautiful and this is good. His creation is stunning beautiful, not just functional.

But beauty in human creation takes time, effort and money. And we could always use that time, money and effort to do something else? Like evangelism or helping the poor. So here is the dilemma. I need a Magimix. Seriously. Stop laughing. I do. And I'm going to buy one. (I was kindly given some John Lewis vouchers which will pay for over half of it).

The questions is whether I buy the white one (which is okay, I suppose) or the Satin Steel one (which I much prefer, reminds me of my Titanium Powerbook and goes better with everything else in the kitchen.) The Satin Steel one is identical otherwise. But it is £20 more. So, is this bit of beauty worth £20? Discuss.

The Magician's Nephew

Andy Mason offers a very insightful critique of The Magician's Nephew here.

Deus Ex Machina

Today, I posted a blog on the Hut 33 website. It ended up being a blogpost about the concept of Deus Ex Machina. And why it's good to avoid it when writing comedy. Have a look here.

Aged Elders

How old should elders be? It's a good question. In the churches I go to, there are plenty of elders in their thirties (including me). But some say, with good authority, that the Bible assumes older elders. Jim Jordan, biblical brain par excellence, argues that the Bible assumes elders should be 50+. You can read about that here. Certainly the Bible contains lots of warnings to young men who tend to be hot-headed and foolish at times. The Bible also contains plenty of warnings about the arrogant, pompous leader - who, one assumes, is an older man. Paul tells Timothy to stick to his guns. But equally, gives clear teaching that younger men need to shut up and listen more often than they might think.

In one sense, I have no problem with a 50+ eldership policy in any church. But there are a few immediate problems that we hit that seem obvious - but their solutions less obvious.

1. There are plenty of wonderful, godly young men around leading large churches. In fact, there are plenty of young men doing a great job leading small churches. So Marc Driscoll kicked off Mars Hill in his 20s. And ten years later, it's enormous. And he is senior pastor. I think Piper was only 34 when he took over as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. He'd also written dozens of books by the age of 50. Don Carson was born the same year as Piper. Dick Lucas was 36 when he became Rector of St Helen's Bishopsgate. Keller started Redeemer in New York aged 39. Do we regret these appointments? Presumably not. I note that pastors are not 100% the same as pastors - but pastors are elders! So what value, then, does this 50+ rule of thumb have?

2. Many of us are keen to plant churches. I was heavily involved in one small church that was planted four years ago. And that church has in turn planted. There are less than half a dozen men in either congregation who are 50+. Is it possible to plant new churches without government, qualified, sufficiently-aged elders? And does that mean we should not plant until bearded men can be found?

3. In ideal world, we would have plenty of churches with older elders. But Biblical Christian in Britain, at least, is primarily of and from the young.

So how do we address this if we want our churches to be Biblical in both mission and eldership? My suspicion if we are sometimes in danger of making everything missional. In one sense everything is missional. But sometimes the main point of a church can be simply to expand in size and plant new churches - rather than being a gathering of God's people on earth, and getting on with filling, subduing and exercising dominion in His Name.

So, here's my question - are we worshipping God in the way that he would like to be worshipped? Do we sometimes contravene Biblical wisdom in order to 'do God's will' (ie. plant new churches)? Is age of eldership one of those indications that we're going to far in one direction? I don't know. There is lots of wisdom out there on church planting. Plenty of it comes from Marc Driscoll, who says God told him to start a church - and I believe him. But Mark had little, or no, training, and, from what I can tell, not an awful lot in the way of accountability. But God blessed it anyway. I worry that 'Do it my way'-teaching is all that helpful. What if we don't hear God's clear command as he did? So consider that as you read Gordon Cheung's notes from a Marc Driscoll talk in Australia the other day - that you can find here.

Kingdom values and Windows Vista

Everything is theological. There is nothing in creation that does not relate in some way to its creator. And we make choices all the time which say something about who were and what sort of a world we want to live in. I wonder if we really grasp that or whether we just believe it in theory. The choices we make often affect other people. Every time we buy something, we boost the sales of that product at the expense of another - which, if that pattern were replicated, maybe withdrawn from sale. But even if they don't affect anyone else, they are seen by God, just as the work of the slave is seen when the Master is not looking. The way act now in all times matters to God. And our actions echo into the future and ultimately into eternity. (Sounds a bit Gladiator, I know. I can't help that.)

So here's a question that, on the surface, seems impossibly trivial but makes a difference. What operating system are you going to use? And what does it say about your view of the Kingdom of God? It sounds bonkers, but it's worth a modicum of consideration.

Microsoft Windows Vista - buggy, tricky but ubiquitous. The safe choice. No-one ever got fired for buying Microsoft (except a guy at Apple Mac Head Office, presumably). It's familiar and there's lots of help available. We live in a Microsoft world. But why would you choose Microsoft? You probably didn't. You've got a Dell computer, bought for £400 over the phone (which is a very cheap price for a lot of processing power) and Vista came preloaded. It's the default. Anyway, who's got time to get used to a new system? Linux may be free, but it's a big leap. And who's got £800 to spend on a Mac (plus getting Mac versions of Office, etc) and get locked into that format for ever more?

The reality is that the default choice is still a choice. These are made for us all the time and that doesn't make them okay. One could argue that the Vista Christian sees fitting in with culture as important. Why kick up a stink over an operating system, for goodness sake? Christians need to be fit in with the culture to win their friends for Christ. Among the Jews be a Jew - and a geek among the geek. Geeks like Vista (they tend to hate Macs). They also like Linux. But why make this a spiritual issue, you may argue? Doesn't that just make Christians seem weird dogmatic and unworldly.

Well, there is a danger of going with the flow. It makes a difference. Every time you buy pre-loaded vista, the tills ring out in Seattle and Bill Gates gets a little bit bigger. The Microsoft machine gets stronger - crushing all in its path. You could argue that Microsoft Windows just made computing easier for everyone and that they deserve their money. This is partly true - but their global dominance, which has led to prosecution in some cases - is bad for the IT sector. And Christians should have a concern for all areas of life. Besides, Vista is ugly unlike:

Mac OS X - hip, integrated and beautiful, but niche. And smug. I have to declare an interest here. This blog is being typed on a Mac. For me, the Mac is worth the extra money for two reason. Firstly, I believe that my machine and it's operating system are a thing of beauty and great skill. I enjoy owning my Macbook and using it is almost always a joy. Man was created by God to be fruitful, rule and subdue. Doing that well honours God. Making something beautiful reflects God's beauty. And so, in general, beauty is good thing. Of course it can lead to idolatry and materialism, but all sin is a distortion of a good thing. Now, one could say I could buy a cheaper computer and give the difference to the poor or gospel work. But you could say that about anything and theology because utilitarian at every point. Christians are not, or should not be, utilitarian. But we often are. As it happens, my second reason for the Mac is utility. As a freelancer, I am self-employed, so I have to fix all my own IT problems, and if my computer doesn't work, I can't work. The Mac seems to break down, freeze and throw up less that a Dell, for me it's a no brainer. And I get the best of both worlds - beauty and utility.

But it's worth noting that I have made a decision to spend more money on my IT than I might otherwise. And that I now have less money to give away as a result. I also am unable to run some software because a Mac version is not available. In a way, that's a good thing as there are few games for Mac (hey, we're all too hip making our own movies and webpages, blah blah barf). But a Mac is a choice. Just like a PC is a choice. And finally, the third choice:

Linux - The 'I'd like to teach the world to sing' operating system. It's free. It's wiki. Designed by volunteers, patched by other volunteers and given away free. Gratis. It's the utopian vision of helping one another - and a profoundly Christian one in some sense. I've never used Linux and frankly, it scares me. And I'm not prepared to put in the time to learn. That's a conscious decision (although a default one). And I acknowledge that many people, and some companies, make a living off the Linux system. But wouldn't it be great if more things in this world were like Linux. Like cars. (Imagine an open-source car. Not sure how that would work). The temptation is to think that ultimately everything should be free, and that corporation are, by definition, evil. This is not the case. It's good to work. And it's good to make good goods. And so corporations that provide work and make good goods that work is good, surely? But the best things in life are free - and since an operating system is almost as basic as the air we breathe (given to us by God, for free), it's a system worth consider and even buying into. For free.

What a garbled mess. But hopefully, an interesting start.

Content?

In early February, I hope to run a day-long conference for Christians who work in the media, arts and design industries. More details will appear soon, but it's shaping up nicely. I'm currently considering a theme for the day and so here I go thinking allowed - and inviting comments on these thoughts.

First, here are few comments that this conference acknowledges.
1. Evangelical Christians are more aware than ever for the need for cultural engagement. The idea that we can simply retreat into our ghetto and live a parallel life, or stock up on canned goods, withdraw to the desert and wait for the rapture, just aren't options any more. (The Essenes tried that last one. They left us some good scrolls, but I note they're all dead now. And were pretty weird). There are now lots of groups, organisations and federations that are encouraging Christians to engage with culture, media and art - LICC, Damaris, Hollywood Jesus, etc, and numerous books. But responding to culture of non-Christians is one thing - creating culture as a Christian is another. Culture-watching is an exercise in listening, understanding and responding. Culture-making is, arguably, trickier. Or at least there is not so much out there on the subject, especially not from a Reformed/Evangelical point of view.

2. Culture-making is how many of us make our living - depending on how one defines culture. One could argue that lawyers, civil servants and teachers create just as much of this nebulous 'culture' as artists, writers and designers. In fact, I would argue that. But definitions can sometimes to so broad they encompass everything and help no-one. So for the purposes of this blog-post and the conference, I'm sticking to defining culture as making music, books, computer games, facebook applications, paintings, buildings and comedy and so on.

3. Many Christians make music and paint on an amateur level and mainly for pleasure. It has never been easier, cheaper and more convenient. With one laptop, and an internet connection you can rip clips off the web, re-edit them and post them on Youtube and create a global culture phenomenon that gets a million hits. They say everyone has a book in them. Whether it's a good book or not is another matter. But most of us create culture at some point, even if it's only painting the garden fence. So the issues for non-professional culture-making Christians are, and should be, the same.

4. So, the theme for the conference is going to be something like 'Content'. We keep being told that 'Content is King'. But Marshall McLuhan said 'The Medium is the Message'. If we believe that the gospel affects every area of our lives - and that nothing is 'neutral' - what should Christian artists and designers be aiming to do with the art? Should we be focussing on painting pictures of Jesus? And telling stories about Him? After all, He is our king. We instinctively know that we don't need to make everything about Jesus explicitly - but why? And what sort of stories do we tell? Do our novels have to have happy endings? Should our songs make people feel good? Or do we innovate and push boundaries in a way that our churches and faith communities may not understand?

Theologian Hans Rookmaker said that "Art needs no justification". Does that mean anything goes for the Christian artist? And their churches should support them whatever they do? What are the rules of the game? And are we artists content with our content?

The Edinburgh Behemoth

At some point in the 1980s, or perhaps in 1990s, the Edinburgh International Festival was outgrown by it's fringe. The International Festival has always a handful of well-produced, highly acclaimed pieces of theatre, opera, music and dance. These take place in large air-conditioned venues around the city in August. In addition, the Edinburgh Tattoo has faithfully fired off its cannon every night for a few weeks in the same month. And now, like every town with a vaguely posh part, or at least aspiritaion, it holds its own literary festival which, of course, runs in August.

But now the entire affair is dwarfed by the behemoth that is The Edinburgh Fringe. In fact when people talk about the Edinburgh Festival, they're usually referring to the Fringe. At the latest count, it consists of about 2100 shows, many of which run for three and a half weeks (which is a week too long - and everyone knows it, but no-one can do anything about it). About of the third of the shows are theatrical, a third musical and the other third, which tends to get most of the press, comedy. At least it's categorised as comedy in the brochure. Audiences, and critics, often beg to differ.

I have run shows at the Edinburgh Fringe on five occasions - '96 & '97 (as the Durham Revue), '99, '00 & '01 (as Infinite Number of Monkeys). And then I was involved in a show called Innocent Bystanders in 2002. In 1999, we were nominated for Perrier Best Newcomer award, which was gratifying - but it was in the days before the Perrier was a big as it became when the likes of Al Murray won it - but it was nice to have a little time in the sun. Since changing its name to the 'If' awards (lending it's name to a ceremony called the Iffies, which is in itself, funny) these awards have receded in importance one more according to some - perhaps by people who aren't eligible to win. It's hard to tell.

Why am I blogging on this? It's a combination of reasons. The main reason is that I'm thinking of running a show at the Edinburgh Fringe next year in 2009. But the festival seems and feels to different to my latest visit which was in 2002. I think I went up to have a look around in 2003 or 2004 - but the festival grows in size every year and rules have changed. So this is me trying to understand the festival as it is now. And my question is whether having a really good show (which I arrogantly think I can produce without too much of a prblem) is enough to get noticed, get audiences and do well. Is it possible to break even - or even make money - on a show when you're not a regular panellist on Mock the Week.

And herein is one of the problems that seems to have arisen in the last few years. Ticket prices and getting audiences. Shows are expensive to stage, not least because many of the performance spaces are temporary theatres and have to be rigged with seats, lights and sound at great expense. Plus venue managers, stewards and ticket-systems need to be paid for. So shows by the lowliest of the low end up costing £7.50 at the very least. Sometimes prices are hiked at weekends to £8/£9. Would you pay £9 to see a comedian you'd never heard of? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Faced with the choice of Jimmy Barely-Nobody at £8.50 or Harry Panel-Game at £10, it's a no-brainer, isn't it? (And let's face it - Harry Panel-Game is hardly a household name so we can think we're being a little bit fringey by seeing him) At least it is for all but the most determined to see the new, the innovative and the avant-garde.

There are also 'compilation' shows that have three or four comedians on the bill playing in large venues costing £15. These shows hoover up hundreds of fringe-goers and take audiences away from the more fringe-y stuff. Who can blame the punter for opting for safety? Especially when, as was the case this year, his budget is limited because of rising fuel costs, food costs and the mortgage costs. For the first time in eight years, the number of tickets sold at the fringe went down, not up.

So what next? Will the festival contract because there aren't enough punters to go round? The good thing about the festival is that it's not a state-controlled, arts-grant-funded thing. Anyone can come and have a go without asking the government's permission. That's one reason for it's vitality and strength. But what that inevitably means is that only those with the means to bankroll a loss-making show can be part of it.

What this means is that Edinburgh is a wiki-Festival. Anyone can add their own bit onto it, making it slightly more unwieldy than it was before the last performer turned up. Because there is no central control or filter - just the Fringe office who facilitate anyone, literally anyone, in getting their show up and in the brochure - there is no way of paring it back. Unless the venues themselves start closing performances spaces. Places like The Pleasance and The Underbelly have numerous performance spaces, creating a theatrical multiplex. They limit their losses by charging performers a guaranteed minimum for the space. So they take 40% of the box office or a set fee (depending on the venue and the time of day) - whichever is greater. Obviously many shows simply pay the minimum, but the minimum can't be a lot. Given this, who can blame the venues for reserving large venues for well-known acts who will sell-out and make all concerned plenty of cash? Not me.

It's fashionable to blame the venues. It's also fashionable to blame to sponsors. Or the Fringe office; or the fickle audiences who go to see the people they recognise of the telly. So here goes my heartfelt, but perverse, finger of accusation. Here's who I blame: the performers.

Performers like to complain that they have to charge £10 for their tickets to break even - when they don't feel the show is worth £10. Here's a thought. Why not write a show that is worth £10? Have a good idea for a show - several months in advance. then write it. Re-write. Try it out. Re-write - and then decide whether it's good enough to take to Edinburgh. If it isn't worth £7 or whatever you're going to charge, or £9 on the bank holiday weekend, stay at home. It'll be better for you, the audience and the venues. Keep writing, and rewriting and maybe go next year. It's okay. They'll manage without you - and there will be opportunities next year.

I'm a big fan of the 'have-a-go' spirit, but large parts of the Edinburgh fringe involve high stakes and lots of money. Your 'having-a-go' is cost other people lots of money - not least the audience and the venue. To charge people money to watch you perform is not a birth-right but is one that has been sadly cultivated by our self-regarding, reality-tv generation. The beauty of Edinburgh is that anyone can put on a show. That's great. Lulu.com has enable anyone to publish a novel. This doesn't mean that your novel is worth £6.99. It just means you've written a novel that people can pay for it they want to. Likewise, in Edinburgh, being on stage for an hour and talking - or writing dialogue for other people to memorise and say in the right order - does not mean that it's worth £8. And it's the height of arrogance to think you can take money off an audience simply because you are a performer.

Like many fringe-goers I have paid £9.50 to sit through a badly written comedy show (sometimes with flashes of inspiration) that has been put on to show the 'range' of an actor or comedian. It is essentially an audition for a nameless producer or commissioner who may or may not be in that night. Annoyingly, it sometimes works. But I think this has to stop. And the only people who can make the performers stop assuming they are worthy of an hour's attention and £9 is the performers themselves.