The Importance of Beauty - Chasing Francis Series

I am part of a group called the Eagles. Most of its members are hair-challenged, which is why some people, evidently unafraid of losing their jobs, think it’s funny to call us the Bald Eagles. Their impiety will not go unpunished, if not in this world then surely in the next.

For years, we have been reading books about economics, marketing, theology, and politics. We share our opinions about faith, culture and the great ideas in a spirit of...well.. brotherly love. (If you have ever seen brotherly love in action, you will know what I mean.)

A few weeks ago, one of the Eagles played a song by Leonard Cohen, called Come Healing. It begins with a sweet female voice, overdubbed and layered into three-part harmony. The first stanza is nothing spectacular but certainly interesting enough to keep your attention.

Then comes a shock. The rugged voice of an eighty-year man sings a lyric that mystifies and grips your imagination. His voice is hardly melodious.  It is, however, beautiful. An even better adjective is “haunting.” Come Healing is spooky, as beauty always is. Beauty haunts and unnerves the imagination and the emotions. It reminds us that our minds are too small and restrained.

When Cohen croaks, “Come healing of the altar; come healing of the name” your ears hurt.  Your heart aches. Something uncanny happens. All this because an old man sings a song and makes you believe he has something terribly important to say.

Leonard Cohen is a Jew; a Levite in fact. The lyrics of his song are influenced by Kabala.  And yet, at least as this one Charismatic Evangelical Christian heard Cohen’s song, he was pierced by what felt like a word from beyond time and space.

“The splinters that you carry; the cross you left behind
Come healing of the body; come healing of the mind.”

Sometimes a book is beautiful in this way. It’s not always beautiful because it is destined to become a literary classic. It can be beautiful simply because it opens the soul. It contains what Cohen calls the “solitude of longing where love has been confined.”

That’s why I thought Chasing Francis was beautiful. It opened me up to wonder and grace. It moved me to become a better person.

There is one part in the book where the troubled pastor discovers that Francis of Assisi invented the nativity set. Francis wanted to make the story of the Lord’s birth fresh for the people who came to hear him preach. Soon, everyone had to have one. Today, you can buy plastic nativity sets. Or, you can buy expensive sets made of mahogany and ebony. You can even walk into nativity scenes filled with real people, a live camel and a dog that urinates on the straw.

In their own way, each of these nativity sets is beautiful.  The all exist because one saintly person was compelled to create a means of opening the soul. The reason he felt compelled to do that was because he wanted to share his joy with others.

Francis did many things, but inventing the nativity set would have been pretty impressive. How many of us will leave behind something so delightful?

Last year, a plastic donkey in our family crèche caught my granddaughter’s attention. She wanted to know if baby Jesus liked the donkey. Then she wanted to see a baby donkey on my iPad. For weeks after that, she would shout “DONKEY” whenever she saw one on TV or in a book.

In her mind, donkeys must be special because Jesus liked donkeys. Anyway, she was delighted with the donkey and I was delighted because she was delighted. God was delighted because grandfathers and grandchildren ought to delight one another.

Francis did something that helps us show love and wonder. That is no small thing. Ian Cron helps us remember Francis. That is no small thing either.

Art affects people differently. However, it always calls people out of the familiar and into an encounter with some part of reality we have not noticed before.

Mozart’s Ave Verum does that for me. So does Rachmaninov’s Vespers. And Shirley Caesar’s rendition of Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down. And stained glass. And Salvador Dali’s The Sacrament of The Last Supper.

All of these particular pieces of art speak to theology and the spiritual life, although some theologians might not think so.

For years we have been separating theology from beauty, turning theology into an intellectual quest for geeks.  But Shirley Caesar has something to offer theology that Karl Barth missed.  The fact that she makes her contribution with a simple melody and lyric does not disqualify it. Otherwise, the tabernacle and temple would have nothing to say about the theological quest.

We cannot separate beauty from theology. More people experienced God by going into the tabernacle, smelling the incense and eating the lamb than by reading the Book of Leviticus. I received more from Chasing Francis than I have from most sermons. Actually, it is a very effective sermon.

Beauty can safely express ideas not to our liking. The Ave Maria always moves me, so I can enjoy hearing it with a Roman Catholic. That doesn’t mean that we will agree about what the lyric signifies for each of us. It does mean we agree there is something about it that is beautiful, irresistible, compelling and spiritually meaningful.

I think that is why Plato wanted to banish music from his Republic: beauty is uncontrollable.



The problem with pragmatism and functionalism is that we have needs much more crucial than just sitting in a comfortable pew or listening to a balanced sound system. Beauty is one of those needs. We must have things in our lives that wound our soul and awaken it to eternity. If we don’t have them, our soul will grow numb. We may keep on making a living but may lose our reason to live.

That seems to be the problem Chasing Francis wants to address.

The book is important because Leonard Cohen is right. We desperately need “the healing of the altar.” The question is, how can the altar get healed if our minds remain preoccupied with small things? Beauty shatters the boxes in which we think and converse. It forces us to invent new words, new thoughts and new concepts.

As Ian Cron puts it in Chasing Francis,

“Beauty can break a heart and make it think about something more spiritual than the mindless routine we go through day after day to get by. Francis was a singer, a poet, an actor. He knew that the imagination was a stealth way into people's souls, a way to get all of us to think about God. For him, beauty was its own apologetic. That's why a church should care about the arts. They inspire all of us to think about the eternal.”

There was a day when Francis of Assisi leapt beyond pragmatism. He took off his clothes. He walked out of his father’s house. He started preaching in a cathedral not made with hands. The Sun became his chandelier. He formed his pews from knolls of grass. He praised the glory of roses. He sang about the divine origin of nature.

People still ask whether he was entirely sane.

I do not know if he was sane or not. I only know he was beautiful; beautiful like the croaking old voice of a octogenarian Levite, struggling to sing a lyric that can break our hearts. The voice is stained and weathered. It cracks and groans under the weight of glory that opens souls and saves the world.

Are We Still Passing the Peace? - Chasing Francis Series

An important part of every Christian worship service is what we call “passing the peace.”

You may think your church doesn’t do this. That is unlikely. In your church the worship leader may say something like, “please shake hands with the person beside you” or, “lets take a moment to greet the folks around us.” These are remnants of a vital part of ancient Christian worship.

“Pax vobiscum.”

“Et con spiritu tuo.”

Christians have used these Latin phrases for nearly two thousand years. Greek-speaking believers have used other words, as ancient, or even more so. Both the Latin and Greek phrases are based on one Hebrew word: Shalom.

That’s what the Lord first said to His disciples after he resurrected, “peace be unto you.”

“Shalom.”

Shalom does indeed mean peace. But it means much more.  To English speakers, peace is the absence of conflict. It is the state of calm or serenity. Shalom however is “well being,” “health,” or “flourishing.” It is much more active than the English word, 'peace', implies.

In Chasing Francis, the pastor’s Franciscan friends tell him that God calls us not only to pursue personal righteousness but to pursue justice for our communities. Justice is righteousness applied to a group. In political terms it means that a Christian believes it is wrong for individuals to commit adultery but also believes it is wrong for communities to ignore the poverty and suffering of the people on' the bottom'. Christians may differ about how to deal with large-scale issues that affect the health and finances of individuals within our communities. However, none of us are free to ignore them.

I live in a Bible-soaked part of the country. Our barns are covered with scripture. Our radio stations are filled with preachers huffing their way through warnings about ungodly living and the mark of the beast. We have been hearing Bible stories in camp meetings and tent revivals for over two hundred years. Meanwhile, our education levels are abysmal. Crystal meth controls entire counties.  Violence is not only excused; it is largely ignored.

Where is the shalom?

Some are doing very well. Some are barely surviving. The people of this area increasingly live in two different realities. They view the world through two different sets of lenses. This division is as evident in the churches as among the unbelievers. That is because the wealthy and the poor go to different churches. And, as George Barna warns us, our poor are quickly becoming unchurched. They no longer believe there is anything in church for them.

Few of our churches seem to think the gospel has much to say about the social infrastructure that used to give people a common platform upon which to interact with one another. Our streetcars are long gone. So, without a car, you can’t get to work. If you have a car though, you must have insurance. You must also pass emissions control. You must also be able to afford gas. If you have a child you must also pay for childcare. If your company does not provide health insurance, you may have to do without health coverage. If you get sick you will have to go to work anyway because you can’t afford to get off the hamster wheel.

Is this shalom?


Yes, eternal issues are more important than temporal ones. However, shouldn’t the gospel affect our hunger to learn, beautify our surroundings and help others out of poverty and despair?

Millions of our fellow citizens are becoming little more than indentured servants. Others are giving up altogether. In the past, this situation created an environment for spiritual renewal and societal reform.

We need that. Our ‘gospel’ is basically a type of fire insurance, get-out-of-Hell-free card; if indeed it is still even that serious. Our churches are defenders of the status quo. We shout about it not being the government’s place to care for the poor while ignoring the fact that our churches rarely dedicate any significant part of their budgets to care for even their own poor, much less for the poor of society.  So in the end, we are saying that the poor are on their own. The government is not responsible. The churches are not responsible. No one is responsible. 

Churches have gotten dangerously close to preaching what the apostle James said some were preaching in his day: saying to the poor “go on your way; be clothed and fed.” This is the gospel of Ayn Rand and not the gospel of Jesus.

I happen to be a Republican.  I have always believed that private structures, formed by concerned citizens, are more effective ways to lift people out of poverty than government programs. I still believe that. But what happens if we all buy into a form of social Darwinism that teaches us to no longer care about those who suffer?

If we accept that doctrine, we will be committing a form of apostasy more repulsive to our Lord than any of the liberal theologies we have been rightly opposing.

Replacing the passing of the peace with a hearty handshake may be an acceptable modern equivalent for worship. However, if we are replacing our Lord’s charge to establish shalom in the world around us with the empty advice to “be clothed and be fed,” then we have replaced what used to be meaningful deeds with meaningless words.

Chasing Francis poses all sorts of questions. It doesn’t answer them, though.  Perhaps it is enough that the questions bite and awaken us. The state of denial that churches have been in have encouraged us to praise Jesus while ignoring the plight of those for whom he died. That can’t continue. It is a false peace, a cheap serenity we maintain by withdrawing ourselves from the struggle to establish shalom for all of God’s children.

May God’s Peace Be With You.

Now please pass his peace on to all those in your world.

Escape From Purgatory - Chasing Francis Series

There is no biblical support for the concept of purgatory, that is if by “purgatory” we mean some sort of halfway house between heaven and hell.

I am going to defend it nonetheless.  Dante was right; it is an undeniable spiritual reality.

In C. S. Lewis’s book The Great Divorce, dead people get on a bus and are given a tour of heaven, hell and purgatory. They are told to choose where they want to live after looking over the options. As it turns out, few of them end up choosing heaven. Most of them find purgatory, or even hell, more to their liking.

Lewis, a Protestant, wasn’t describing purgatory as a geographical reality. He was describing it as a spiritual state. Purgatory is the in-between place.  It is the not-quite-evil but not-yet-good place. It is the place where most of us prefer to live.

Lewis’s story, as he tells us in the preface, is not about the afterlife. He doesn’t know anything more about the afterlife than we do. What Lewis is taking about is this life. We are all on Lewis’s bus. We are constantly avoiding either sainthood or evil. We don’t want to enter the darkness, certainly, but we are not quite willing to abandon it either. 

We keep choosing the in-between place – purgatory.

People like purgatory.

So do churches.

We want our churches to be places of healing, grace, and redemption. We want them to be open to everyone, especially to those who are weary and lost.  But we also want them to be cool.
And prosperous.
And well connected.
And safe.
And ours.

We want our churches to stay in purgatory. Not too much grace. Not too much holiness. Not too much of too much. Just enough goodness to feel good. Just enough light to see, but not enough to see too much.

In Chasing Francis, the pastor, who has taken his church from nothing to great success, makes a turn one day, after which purgatory is no longer possible. Time has run out and he is thrust out of the gray place. He must choose from the other two opinions: from now on it must be either holiness or working a gig; either making a living or living a life. He must either become a conscious fake to keep the noses and nickels rolling in or risk the loss of nickels and noses to do what he believes is right.

Which will it be?

Italy! If there is any place to go when one is running from purgatory it is Italy.

But it is in Italy that he encounters Francis, a fellow preacher from long ago.  Francis knows the way from purgatory to heaven. But how steep his path seems to be!

Everyone loves Francis but who wants to be Francis?

He looks back and forth at his two opinions.

One on hand he sees Francis and his friends. They are teaching, serving, laughing but also suffering, hardly noticed by the powers of the world or the Church but not resenting the indifference of either, singing, painting, dancing, praying, and loving.

On the other he sees Elmer Gantry, Gregory Rasputin, Cardinal Richelieu, and all the other powerful and well-connected clerics of history who have made religion into a power base and a source of personal wealth.

Like so many church leaders, this pastor is uncertain, not quite ready, not yet able to leave the gray place to make a real choice.

Jesus told us once that there is a pearl in a field that is so precious that it is beyond all imagination. It can be ours when we are ready to go get it. But it will require us to sell all we possess to make it ours. We must become saints, in other words.

Of course, we Protestants are usually as nervous about saints as we are about purgatory.

“WE ARE ALL SAINTS!!!” we protest. Francis is no better than Uncle Bob.

Right. Surely we are all called to be saints. The king's little brats are all called to become nobles. But someone must still wipe their little royal behinds and teach them the alphabet. There is some distance between what they are called to be and what they are at the moment. What they are by blood and what they are by character can be quite different.

For now, the little characters can play and enjoy themselves. But time is ticking. There are choices ahead that will soon determine their destiny.  Some will become truly noble and enlighten the world with their acts of wisdom and courage. Most of them will play their entire lives, rolling around in purgatory. Others will become utter fakes, waving at the subjects from the balcony, speaking about glory and beauty. Then they will go into the palace and sit on golden chairs, thinking about whether it might be good to change the décor, even if they must use the part of the royal budget dedicated to schools and pensions.

Ever so often however, someone breaks out of purgatory and runs toward the light.

He is usually declared insane, naïve, idealistic and unstable.

After he dies, we call him a saint.

We make all sorts of stories, books and statues of him here in purgatory.

And every so often, another fool breaks ranks and runs for his life, clutching the most beautiful pearl.

Why Should I Chase Francis? - Chasing Francis Series

A few days ago, I finished Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron.
It was about time. When our minister of music, Christopher Phillips, told me I should read it over a year ago, I ordered it. Then I put it on the shelf. Since that time, it has been patiently waiting for my attention. Fortunately, books are good-natured and will wait years until the reader is ready for them.
Chasing Francis opens with a church explosion. A successful evangelical mega-church pastor has been asking himself if he and his church are really on the right path. Then, one Sunday morning, he asks the question in a sermon. A congregational crisis follows. Board meetings, emails and gatherings of various sorts churn the pastor’s words until everyone in the church feels forced to make a choice about the pastor’s sanity and holiness.

The pastor decides it’s a good time to go to Italy. He has an uncle there, whose decision years before to become a Franciscan had terribly upset his family. He decides to spend a few weeks with this uncle and sort things out.

Meanwhile, things keep churning back home. Pastors start lining up with resumes. Committees meet. Studies are conducted. Opinions harden.

The story brings up several issues within American Christianity; our different definitions of church and faith, piety, poverty and wealth, nationalism and faith, holiness, what we believe is the role of a pastor, the spirituality of beauty, and other things for which we seem to have no common ground.

This morning, I decided this book is an opportunity for me to explore some of these themes. So, I am beginning a series of blogs.

The reasons are probably obvious.

Like the hero (or villain, perhaps) in Chasing Francis, I am a pastor of a large church. I love our church. I am called to lead it. However, I too have misgivings about the path we have been walking. I too wonder sometimes if this path really leads to Christ. For the most part, the ways we have been doing church has helped us adjust to our culture rather than taught us to challenge it. We have become good at helping individuals survive and thrive; we have become poor at calling for the transformation of the self or of the communities in which we live.

Whether or not any of that is true, our younger generations are increasingly disenchanted with what we have done with Christianity. As a result, they are either giving it up or leaving our churches to start over.That leads a pastor to ask what we can do to prepare the churches we lead to remain effective in the days ahead. Most of us realize that getting cooler music and a new lighting platform sure won’t do it.

So, there are days when I think that the solution might indeed be to move to Italy. Of course I don’t have a Franciscan uncle there to live with, so there is the matter of supporting myself …
Ok. Back to the book.
The pastor ends up in Assisi, where he encounters the life and words of Europe’s most beloved saint. He wrestles with Francis, who, like him, ministered in an age of great societal change. He ponders what St. Francis might have to say to a contemporary mega-church like his. He decides Francis would not condemn or scold the people. He would, however, offer an alternative. He would show us through his life that a preoccupation with big, powerful, luxurious and cool is gradually eroding our soul. He would offer beauty, simplicity, joy, and service to others by asking us to follow him.

Like Francis, this author does not yell at us. He woos us toward something many of us have wanted for a long time: to disconnect our faith from technique, manipulation, control, and fear. He encourages us to listen to the words of Jesus. He asks us to consider how to actually live by those words.

He doesn’t seem to care much if our church structures survive. He seems to care about the state of our soul.

Nonetheless, the book is not one of those “lets bash the church and call ourselves cool for being so edgy.” Not at all. This book is as much a rejection of something as it is an awakening to something far better.

I want to write about that for a few weeks.

If you are interested, I invite you to pick up the book and read.

Then we can talk.

And, perhaps with God’s help, we can do more than that.
Perhaps we can take a step toward becoming saints.
For if we catch up to Francis, we will soon see that he is chasing someone else – the one who has been plotting and scheming to make us into saints all along.