Joel, that was one mean bait & switch.

Ok, great.  In principle, I agree with the following assertions:

1. Sexual temptation desire is part of our biological makeup


2. Rules won’t change what we are biologically


3. The church has screwed up the sex issue a lot

Perhaps I’m just entirely misunderstanding this, and I’m certain willing to learn.  But what does all of that look like practically when it comes to sexual temptation?  “Sorry, honey…Buffy was wearing that shirt again, and, after all, it’s just my biology” isn’t going to cut it. 

>very few people in the church have any …idea how to tell the difference between biology, sexual temptation, and sexual sin.

Amen. Totally on target.

(I will go to hell for even considering jumping on on this one.)

If you think the world is messed up when it comes to sexuality, well, you’re probably right. If you think that there’s anything in mainstream American evangelicalism that’s “a better approach to sexuality,” you’re an idiot.
One of the primary reasons why so many people in the church are messed up by sexuality, sexual temptation and sexual sin is that very, very few people in the church have any f******g idea (pun intended, as was the offense if you were, so thanks) how to tell the difference between biology, sexual temptation, and sexual sin. So let me give you some help:

1) Buffy is attractive. That is biology.
2) Josh likes breasts. That is biology.
3) Buffy’s breasts appear attractive to Josh. That is biology.
4) Josh begins to feels desire for sexual activity with Buffy when he sees Buffy’s cleavage. Guess what that is? That is biology.

If you said, “that’s sexual temptation” when I asked “guess what,” then you’re a victim of the church’s efforts to perpetuate misinformation about sexuality, sexual temptation and sexual sin. You need help. Unfortunately, there aren’t very many people in the church who have a good understanding of this sort of thing, so muddle about on your own and see how things work out. Don’t worry, if you mess up, that’s what grace is for. Unfortunately, there aren’t very many people in the church who have a good understanding of grace, either, but some of us are trying.

If you said, “that’s sexual sin” when I asked, “guess what”, then you are part of the problem. Go away, please.

If you think making #5 in the list “Buffy needs to change her shirt” is going to change Josh’s biology, forget it. Unless Josh and I get to watch her change. In that case, I’m willing to give it a try, for the sake of science.

In the words (perhaps not exact) of Thomas Merton, we need a definition of “purity” that allows us to still be human.

We spend so much energy trying to drive sexuality out of ourselves, our spouses and our kids. We hate sex, and we wish it would go away. But it doesn’t go away, and we only end up doing foolish, harmful things to people whose only sin (in this area) is that they are human beings with gender, hormones and a nervous system.

I must apologize to Josh and others who read my overly-defensive post earlier. I have been reading (almost non-stop) absolutely depressing and pathetic “research” papers for days now, and I was preparing to go flunk some people when I typed my response. I am appalled at the rhetorical and documentation skills of these students after a semester of detailed instruction in argument and MLA style, and I fear that disgust made me just cranky enough to take your (Josh’s) style personally. While I do find it a bit alienating at times (not necessarily to me, but in general), it doesn’t usually bother me, and I generally consider it a part of your (and I am NOT being sarcastic here) charm.

I believe it also made me lose track of my argumentation skills momentarily also (reading poorly-argued community college essays is like watching someone yawn, I guess), so the post you were responding to was not as coherent as I would have liked.

In short, I apologize for getting all offended. I still, however, think that none of us who feel strongly about this subject are ever going to see eye to eye, so I will, as I said, confine myself to observing the proceedings.

Me after grading paper 72:

A young boy who had a small dog was overheard by his father telling a playmate how this big dog was chasing his little dog with the obvious intent to grab him and bring some harm to him. The big dog was gaining on the little dog with every big, leaping step. The playmate was alarmed but the young boy assured his friend that the little dog escaped by climbing up a tree and perching on a limb safely out of harm’s way and the reach of the big mean dog below. The father rebuked the boy, reminding him, “You should not tell stories like that. You know that dogs can’t climb trees.” But the young boy replied, “But Daddy, he’s just got to!”

Michael, that relationship exists.

I’m trying to figure out how to use art in a non-artistic manner…other than warming a house in winter I’m clueless…

Agreed. Prudence and Wisdom are what you do. It’s not what I insist others do. Voicing the need for modesty, prudence and wisdom are important values in any setting where there are both sexes present.

I don’t follow this to the artistic use of art. That’s something else. If we are talking about non-artistic uses of art, it’s another matter.

Kent: I would never say anything to another person about their appearance unless I was in a clear relationship where that was expected (parent, intimate, supervisory, mentoring.) If I said, “Your cleavage makes it difficult for me to think about my accounting,” I better have a relationship where that isn’t inappropriate.

Michael (& Others) what are those things to say to a young Christian lady?  Does it need to come from an elder woman or may I say those words?

[Deleted first paragraph]

I wonder how the shoe would fit if it were on the other foot. Buffy tells Josh that his tight jeans and t-shirt are a distraction to her.

Is there really a church you would like to belong to that has “No cleavage” as a rule? An actual rule?

This idea that we need to treat all the horny single twenty year olds like big babies because they are so prone to be porn addicts is nothing but generational whining. I think 40 year old librarians are way hotter than belly button showing 20 year olds. Ever been in a nursing home? There’s no lack of lust around there, as anyone who works there can assure you. Saying that we can’t let Buffy just toss her breasts out there for all of us to stumble over is just another way of saying Buffy is the problem. Real breasts, internet breasts, Victoria’s Secret breasts, breasts under the 19th century dresses of Mennonite ladies in Clay Co, breasts in my perverse imagination, the unseen breasts of a woman I see in the park: Now where do I start to clean up my act?

Is there a text somewhere that tells me Jesus told the prostitutes he hung out with to be aware that the disciples hadn’t been with their wives in weeks? Where exactly is the place that Jesus tells me how to fight sin by helping Buffy be more modest?

Locating this problem with Buffy, or in the culture, or on the internet or at the beach or with having men and women together at all for any reason is all missing the point. Christians have tried it all, Josh: No sex, no contact, separate everything, burkas, convents, castration, flagellation, rules, dress codes, preaching, books. It’s not working and never will. Not anywhere. Thanks to the RCC for all those Catholic school uniforms and what they’ve done to cut back on male lust.

I’ll say it again: The only way to battle lust is a greater satisfaction and reordered thinking/choices. If Buffy bugs me, I need to change seats, give up the Bible study or (here’s a thought) learn how to laugh at how my fear of a sexual thought is driving me to distraction. “Man, I can’t quit thinking about Buffy” is only half a problem. God made us with all the sexual energy, and we can blame him for it. He is to blame that we like to look at her breasts and they bring a certain kind of emotional-chemical excitement. What I do with that fact is my business entirely.

[Now there are things to say to Buffy, if she is a Christian, and it’s important to say them…but nothing Buffy does is going to solve this problem. If you aren’t thinking about her breasts until she shows them to you, you’re a better man than me.

Josh: The issues you’re having with formatting might be a side effect of the Textile plugin that was recently installed. If enough people are having issues with it, we can make it go away. Unfortunately, it is not set up well for a multi-user blog and doesn’t support enabling on a per-user basis.

Kent: Glad ya like the favicon. It should annoy those who are already annoyed with us to begin with. ;)

I think it would be better (idealism coming – watch out) for these girls and women to learn from a young age that they don’t have to dress like hookers to be attractive, and they don’t have to look at pop culture for fashion advice.

Yes, I think that’s on the mark.  Buffy’s hanging her cleavage out ‘cause she buys Hollywood’s lies about what’s attractive and how to get a man.  (We men buy these lies too, and so we’re not helping any).  Just as we need to get to the heart of why men are lusting, we need to get to the heart of why women want to be lusted after.  (and vice versa, when appropriate).

Personally, I’d rather not have to look at Buffy’s cleavage, etc. when I’m trying to worship, but more ignorable rules aren’t really going to help that. I think it would be better (idealism coming – watch out) for these girls and women to learn from a young age that they don’t have to dress like hookers to be attractive, and they don’t have to look at pop culture for fashion advice. Much of the problem comes down to a simple lack of taste/self respect.

As for me, I suppose if I have to spend most of my day looking at the floor/ceiling/my wife to keep my mind clean, I’ll take that on myself. Still, there must be a respectful/loving way to ask women to stop doing the mating dance for at least the time it takes to honor the One who gave her the bod in the first place. Perhaps that should be in the realm of the older women instructing the younger women?

Enough of us guys have chimed in. What do the ladies in the tavern think of all this?

Dear Mr Alienation Josh:

I am sorry my post was so upsetting that you felt the need to write things like “blah blah blah” to reduce my argument to nonsense, refer to me as “big guy” to condescend, and apply my reasoning to advertising, which I never mentioned.  I thought I was reasonably “speaking” (typing, whatever).  I suppose my tone did not come through.

At any rate, foreseeing a lot of talking past each other and time-consuming “I’m smarter than you” rhetorical bon mots from all around, I will respectfully bow out of this conversation for the time being.

Oh, and I have no idea what that last sentence meant, even though I read it several times.  I think maybe a word was missing.  I’m sure it was a zinger though.

I am not sulking or angry, by the way—I just prefer a different kind of debating style.

Peace.

I don’t know.  I agree that it’s each person’s job to deal with one’s addictions/lust, but I can’t see a problem with having a rule that Buffy not show her cleavage at church.  Sounds more like an act of grace extended to people with addictions (many of which are rooted in past abuse, etc.) than an act of legalism to me. 

Many people with these addictions need a gigantic wholistic approach, involving counseling and so on.  I just I think the church should be a safe place for people in the middle of that struggle.

Just a brief announcement that two of our patrons, Richard and Douglas, are having bad times with the WordPress install. I think it has something to do with firewalls that they have installed, blocking some of the info that WP uses for security. Hopefully we’ll be able to get them sorted out soon, but I wanted y’all to know that they’re not dead.

I am thinking that they should both give w.bloggar a try, to see if that provides an acceptable workaround.

How a person dresses is matter of personal conscience, family instruction (for minors), and perhaps (and this is a big perhaps) Christian community in extreme cases of offense to others.

Often, Christians sound like it is the responsibility of other people to keep them from lusting. I can’t see that. It may be a person’s responsibility to consider a weaker brother, but with normal adults we never lose our responsibility for dealing with our own flaws and temptations.

The assumption that other people are going to make it easier for me to live a godly life is flawed. Within the Christian community that may be an issue, but is Buffy’s visible cleavage really a reason for me to tell her I’m lusting after her at the Bible study?

Michael & Leif, I guess I’m left wondering how one dovetails your perspective(s) on nudity with modesty and modest dress. This is a real issue in our community as the definition of ‘modesty’ seems to vary greatly between individuals.

I’m pretty sure that if we ran the roll call of the BHT, we’d come up with quite a collection of addictions. I’d have a couple. It’s my responsibility to deal with them. Asking someone to not post a perfectly appropriate artisitic semi-nude figure because of my propensity to lust isn’t one of the helpful ways of dealing with the problem. Nothing on the outside makes me unclean. It comes from within; from the heart. Breaking an addiction is the power of a superior affection and a reordering of the rational and emotive processes that lead from encounter to action.

By the way, as one experienced with the temptation of lust, clothes have never slowed me down much. Nudity actually has the advantage of bluntly confronting me with the true nature of what is happening. Porn addiction is primarily an issue of immaturity and masculinity. I deal with dozens and dozens of boys using porn every year. Efforts to limit the “line of sight” temptation are going to be almost worthless in this culture. A man has to think rightly about sex, whether its looking at a fully clothed stranger or his unclothed wife.

Josh:  I’m not exactly sure which “certain people” you mean (I’m not trying to be snarky—I really don’t know whom you mean); but I think it would be hard to write off everyone who likes nude art as a pervert in disguise.  I know that’s not what you are doing, but it’s what I have seen happen too often.  My wife is an exceptional photographer, and she occasionally will do a nude photo.  Her work is certainly not pornographic, but neither is it of shapeless, amorphic people that no one would ever be attracted to.  She just finds the human body beautiful (especially the female form, although not in an erotic sense for her); in fact, all of her art (paintings, drawings, and photographs alike) feature people, either clothed or unclothed.

The thing that frustrates me is attitudes like those of the people who went in the school library where I used to work and placed contact paper over classic art that featured even partial nudity.  What the heck are people afraid of?  That some sixth-grader will check out that old dusty tome and discover that women have breasts?  They know, people.  And do we have to do away with any nudity at all ever in art, simply because some people are immature or lascivious in response to it?  Why cater to their debaseness?

Michael:  Clay is such a good writer; I love reading his stuff.  Maybe he will grow up to corrupt as many people as you!(jn)  Seriously, when I look back at some of the crap I wrote in high school (why do I feel like I’m singing a Paul Simon song now?), and compare it to your high schooler…well, to quote this guy, “I am depressed.”

On the whole assurance/victory thingy: I am struck by something common to this worry and the apologetical drive that runs so strongly in reformedom. It is this: both are instances of faith trying to turn itself into sight. There is the desire, either experiential or rational, to take hold of and possess as much as possible the mysterium intrinsic to faith. What offends us so that we must mount a defense against moving from faith to faith (Rom 1:17)? It isn’t the offense of Jesus as just another human being who comes into collision with some established order, as a reincarnation of Socrates as it were. And it isn’t the offense of Jesus in his loftiness, that is, declaring himself to be God through his speaking and acting. Rather, it is the offense at Jesus’s lowliness, that “the one who passes himself off as God proves to be the lowly, poor, suffering, and finally powerless human being” (Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, 102). This is the same offense that concerns the disciples after the Transfiguration, wherein Jesus, who is revealed in his loftiness, proceeds to teach of his impending death and resurrection. So Peter, who had the clearest evidence of Jesus’s divinity (and which he had already confessed before the Transfiguration), who it could be said had, above anyone else in history, in this experience, his faith replaced with sight, nevertheless was warned of the third offense yet to come. Would he move “from faith to faith,” from the offense of loftiness to the offense of lowliness, from the foretaste of the glorified Jesus to the crucified One? It was not a given that he would. Nor is it a given that we do or will.

This is where apologetics comes on the scene: to move us from a theology of glory to a complete faith. But this is not the ordained path of security. Apologetics is trying to make the faith that could come as a response to the third offense a matter of sight. This is why Kierkegaard has Anti-Climacus say: “He who defends [Christianity] has never believed it.” We try to deal with the offense of lowliness by trying to ponder its paradox (apologetics) or by eliminating the possibility of taking up our cross (theology of glory/victory) and avoiding what Bonhoeffer summarized as the call of discipleship: that when Jesus calls us he bids us come and die. Both apologetics and “victory” are manifestations of “wretched contentment” that averts its gaze from the lowly, suffering, powerless God-man, and substitutions for following Him on the way of the cross. After all, who has time to ponder?

To enjoy the son I’ve raised, first go to his Xanga and read the comments on the original post. And then read the current rant. It sounds like what I should have sounded like at 18, but I got my head stuck up…..church culture. For a while there I thought he got all his DNA from his mother. This clears that up. Blog on, Daddy-o.

S.M. Hutchens describes exactly why I am not comfortable in much of what is called pastoral ministry: trivia and triviality.

U2 Eucharist? I’d try it once.

Yesterday at Calvary Baptist Church in Corbin was fun. They liked my messages on Jesus. 108 in the morning. 85 in the evening. A profession of faith by an older woman. The church is real Bible belt SBC, very traditional KJV, hymns only, pleading extended invitations, etc. All the stuff I’ve been running from for years, but I can get right back to it pretty easily. I told the pastor he would do the invitations, which he is glad to do. The people are very loving, positive and encouraging. I felt like I could do this a lot if that’s what God wants me to do. Three more messages…and dinner every night. I’ll think of you guys while I’m eating catfish at Cracker Barrel.

We’re all exhausted around here, but there is no let up. Denise is in her busiest time of the year and it just about wears her out. Clay has something senior/end of the year/graduation oriented all of the time. Somehow I believe that when we get Noel married off it will all calm down. I don’t know where those crazy ideas come from.

Somewhere in there I want to get in the first meal/fellowship of those who might be interested in forming a house worship experience. Right now it’s the “Meet, talk, listen, pray” stage of things. There is a lot of interest building in where the former MPC gang is going to church in the future. The Baptists want some of us :-) This will be an interesting process, no matter where it goes.

Clay’s hot dog Sager notebook arrives today, and I get a week to get it souped up to suit me before his birthday May 1.

I had an interesting conversation with my daughter yesterday, and it is kind of relevant to some recent discussions here, and I wanted to see if anyone would like to comment.

We were discussing Jonah, and she said, “Daddy, how could a man live in the belly of a fish?  Wouldn’t he drown or be digested?  Also, how did he get water to drink?  Wasn’t it in the ocean?  So all of the water the fish drank would be salt water, right?”  So I answered that there are three possibilities: 1) God made it happen because He’s God and He can do whatever He wants (something she’s always reminding me, actually), including defying the laws of nature or physics; 2) the fish was a kind that we don’t know about, which could accomodate a grown human being without killing or crippling him with stomach acids and the like, and which, perhaps, secretes fresh water or something, which Jonah could drink (?? obviously I am no zoologist or scientist!) (I also explained that he could technically have lived three days with no water, but he would have been very weak and unhealthy—and coupling that with the trauma and lack of food, I have my suspicions about him lasting that long); or 3) the story is merely a lesson, not based on actual events, told to teach us something (a la metaphor or parable).

So what does the bar think?  Was my reasoning sound?  (My prediction: I will be corrected on my didgy science in point 2, and someone will thrash me for disrespecting the Bible in point 3.

Looking for assurance all the time seems to me one more way to go around being miserable.  If Christ dying for me isn’t assurance enough, I have no assurance, and what’s the point?  As my daughter pointed out to me the other day, Jesus died for me.  I truly believe that, hence my assurance.  Anything else could be just smoke and mirrors.

On grading papers and judging their length:  in 101, I refuse to specify a length, telling students that if I set a length, they will write to that length and quit—whether they should have added material, or they had to inject “fluff” to make it meet the requirement.  Occasionally a student will try to be lazy and turn in a two-paragraph essay and hope I won’t notice.  I do.  In 102, which is argument and research, I have to specifiy a length (8-10) because if I don’t, they won’t realize the significance of that one essay.  But as we get closer to the end, and I have seen their Background and Argument section drafts, I let the cat out of the bag: I am far less concerned about length than I am quality.  That works for me: usually the laziest have already dropped in the face of (what they consider to be) so lengthy an assignment; and those serious (serious enough to strive for quality work no matter the page requirement) are left to finish up (along with a few who were too lazy to actually withdraw and somehow cling on till the end and leave individual conferences dazed and glossy-eyed after I tell them their semester average is a 42.6).

Returned from the Midwest regional meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers Saturday evening. Thanks to my fellow grad student Brad for accompanying me on this trip and springing for the gas. Brad is another Asbury alumnus (the college) and is frighteningly informed in the discussions that occur on the BHT. He helped make about 12 hours of driving go by quickly, although I think he was talking in order to distract himself from my driving.

The SCP meeting was also the occasion of a BHT3D between myself and Alex. I have nothing but the highest opinion of Alex because (1) he bought my beer and fish & chips and (2) he could kick the crap out of me. Now that I am a safe distance away, however, I will inform the bar that he is a mostly unapologetic Platonist and constantly bumps his head on abstract objects. He seemed unmoved by my boy’s plenary talk; nevertheless, he seemed resigned to the possibility (fact?) that philosophizing on the subject of mystery requires a bigger toolkit than the method of deductive logical analysis that dominates our colleagues in the SCP. Let us all pray that he recovers from his platonism in due time.

I also attended the paper by another blogging colleague, Cynthia Nielsen. You can read her reflections on the conference here. I dutifully asked an obnoxious question after her paper to which she responded, not in kind, but gracefully and thoughtfully.

Speaking of asking obnoxious questions, I should have known better to attend a paper on reconciling postmodern philosophy and inerrancy, but my curiosity got the better of me. Fortunately, I had a couple rolls of extra-strength duct tape on hand and no permanent harm occurred.

Before leaving the beautiful Notre Dame campus, we visitied the Sacred Heart Basilica. The first impression was one of sound: a student (I think) was practicing the 54-rank Holtkamp organ. She was playing a Bach work (I think). But then she spent almost the remainder of our time in the church on an arrangement of All Creatures of Our God and King. The second impression was one of smell: the sanctuary was filled with easter lilies. There were a few statuary worth spending some time with, especially a modern Pieta by the Croatian artist Ivan Mestrovic, and the Prodigal Son by the same artist. The reliquary chapel includes some bones of the 3rd-century martyr St. Severa. I must confess that even if I were open to the veneration of such items, I don’t think I could get past the creepy wax figure of Severa that they had occupying the bulk of the glass case. ::shudder::

Time to catch up with some unfinished business.

Most people use the verse “the Spirit bears witness with our spirit” to look for proof of salvation.  Something akin the the Mormon’s burning bosom experience, I guess.  Here’s how it caches out for me:  I have no idea what the “Spirit” feels like.  So the best source of assurance or confirmation that I know of is from Spirit inspired scripture.  Romans 10 “assures” me that I am saved.  That’s good enough for me.  The fact that I am inclined to do (works) some things I would have been unlikely to do if not a Christian is a bonus, but since my works are inconsistent then my assurance (if based on works) would be inconsistent also.

Besides, I’ve never read NT Wright, so that provides me some assurance as well. (JN)

Michael: The puritans wrote quite a lot about works and assurance, and I, for one, find their writing and actions (in terms of laws and such) to be… confusing. I completely understand the desire to seek assurance. We systematize theology to the point of introducing several new points for doubt! We have faith in Christ and His work on the cross, right? That should be all the assurance we need (Lutheran-style). But then, like Luther, we begin to wonder if we really have faith, or are we kidding ourselves. And so we seek some indications that the Holy Spirit is at work within us, but of course if we can’t trust our minds to tell us whether or not we have faith, how can we trust those same minds to tell us that behavior X (or the lack of behavior Y) is an indication of the work of the Holy Spirit?

The puritans wrestled with this issue intensely, railing against hypocrites and carnal men on the one hand, who had the outward signs of sanctification but lacked inward regeneration, and desperately seeking assurance on the other hand.

I’ll just say this: James describes faith without works as dead. Clearly someone who claims to believe in Christ but whose behaviour over the long-term is unchanged in any way is fooling himself. (I personally think we tend to be too soft on this issue due to cultural influences here in the U.S., but that’s neither here nor there.) The flip side of that warning is that it’s pretty easy to mimic the sorts of external behavior that makes Christians happy without—as the puritans noted—any actual regeneration or true sanctification going on. So examining our lives on a constant basis as a basis for assurance, well, I don’t see that as consistent with the picture painted in the New Testament. But striving to do the good works God has laid out for us, that’s clearly called for. It’s the emphasis as you’ve described it that seems wrong to me.

Our assurance should be based on Christ and His work, not our works.

BTW, much of my rethinking on the assurance issue was helped by a question I asked here a few weeks ago.

Did anyone see a fun link from one of our Rule 40 friends to a web site looking at the religion of comic book characters? I’m sure it will irritate them to know that Emerging preachers love stuff like that. 8-)

Michael, I’ve heard this line of reasoning quite a bit myself. My probably-too-simple thoughts on works==assurance is:

works=assurance: not really
works=evidence of assurance: partially

My thought is that if we want to try to see though our eye planks at someone else’s fruit, we’re better off looking at things like, I don’t know, love – joy – peace – patience – kindness – goodness – faithfulness – gentleness – self control.

I guess you can look at works in the James sense, but if you want to get into the whole assurance thing, I’d have to say ultimately our assurance comes from the death and resurrection of Jesus, and not from whether or not we’re able to obey perfectly in our brokenness. I think God grants us those things over time, but when we try to act like we have it all together now instead of letting God do it in/through us, it just becomes legalism. More and more I’m convinced that the only thing I can actually do is hear the Word, pray, and ask God to change me, then let Him be in charge of the result. Whenever I try to force the good, I end up making a mess.

I’m in a discussion with a guy that says we should look to our works for assurance that we are Christians. This makes no sense to me at all. Am I wrong to not want to be like the guy who prayed, “Lord, I thank you that I am not like other people because of the following stuff I do…?”

Bill: But my contention is that if I can say in 12 pages what it takes others 15 to say, should I be penalized for that?

Any prof worth his salt is looking for content, not words. My students used to ask, “how many pages?” I’d say, “You tell me! You paid $2k for this class, what do you want to get out of it? Are you going to run around the rest of your life asking, ‘what’s the minimum I can do to get by?’”

Nasty, I know, but effective!

I just sent off my final paper for the term.  The prof said it should be 15 pages, and mine was exactly 15 pages.  Now, some have suggested that when a prof says 15 pages, they mean 15 pages of content, excluding title page and bibliography, thus making my paper only 12 pages.  But my contention is that if I can say in 12 pages what it takes others 15 to say, should I be penalized for that?

Provocative article on a Christian view of art from the Rutherford Institute. Here’s the end:

Therefore, in the hope of a renewed Christian aesthetic, I would argue for three crucial elements in our art. First, we must produce art that is both theologically orthodox and Biblically offensive—that respects the historical boundaries of Christian belief, while authentically interacting with the text, and not veering away from the difficult parts of Scripture. An example is Barry Moser’s illustrations of the King James Bible, which includes portraits of the aftermath of the rape of Tamar, a detailed study of the Angel of Death, and a portrait of the graphic death of Absalom. This is not to discount Psalm 23 depictions of the good shepherd. The “gentle� parts of scripture must not be neglected, but rather balanced—for the Bible is not a Disney cartoon, and it is both deeply unbiblical, and theologically dangerous, to treat it as though it were. Second, Christian art should be aesthetically excellent. There seems to be an unwritten rule that if a Christian paints a picture of Jesus, we should not criticize it, no matter how awfully it is done. This is shameful—Christ has redeemed all spheres of life, and Christian artwork should be held to higher artistic standards, not lower. As in all of life, the quality of Christian art is significant, because its quality glorifies its ultimate Creator. Finally, Christian artwork should be radically unsentimental. We must paint new paintings, find new metaphors (or, as Steinberg shows, rediscover old ones) to reflect the symphony of the Christian story. Indeed, the main act of Christian art must be to hold our hands to the flame, to reveal again, as if for the first time, the wonder and strangeness of the scriptural narrative as it sings the beautiful, and terrible, tale of the reckless love of God. For when we delight in the story—as we plumb its mysterious depths, laugh at its jokes, sigh at its tragedies, and celebrate its triumphs—we bring glory to the ultimate Storyteller. This, in the end, is the work of Christian art—to faithfully and excellently tell the story of God’s continuing work, in order to better glorify Him. And Steinberg’s naked Christs, along with Serrano’s “Piss Christ,� though imperfect and perhaps unwitting examples, help show us the way.