Philip Tallon & Jerry Walls examine the draw of C.S. Lewis.
Sarah Arthur looks inside The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Debating the old professor: C.S. Lewis and the advent of Aslan
Elizabeth V. Glass recounts the re-enactment of a timeless debate.
Hurricane survivors count blessings
Kathy L. Gilbert reports from Slidell, Louisiana.
Jackie Larson tells how one small Texas church is making a difference.
Liberian children offer gift of hope to Louisiana
Kathy L. Gilbert reveals an incredibly sacrificial gift.
Tammy Darling and Christine Pohl remind us of an ancient discipline.
RENEW Women’s Network
To question is not to attack
The Great Commission
Mission work is complete when...
From the Heart
Nothing...except
DEPARTMENTS
Letters to the editor
Straight Talk
News Analysis
News
Church women’s forum brings differences to surface
Confessing Movement issues statement on unity
Church must change world through witness, bishop says
Culture in View
One man’s fall
When rockers knock on heaven’s door
A Gen-Xer's confession: When I first learned about Chuck Colson in high school, I knew him as a Christian author. So I was a little surprised when soon after I learned that he was also a Watergate felon.
What possible good, I wondered then, could have come out of Watergate? Who would have thought thirty-one years ago that Colson's fall would lead to the redemption of many others? These thoughts filled my mind as I read his latest book, The Good Life.
I was not even a thought-except in God's mind-when Watergate went down in 1972. When everything came to a head in 1974, I was waiting to be born. My father, who was in the Air Force, met my mother, who is from Thailand, in an officer club after the Vietnam War.
Sadly, they divorced when I was three. My mother remarried when I was five to a man I came to know as Dad. They later divorced a year before I entered college. (My mother has since remarried.) In short, I was a statistic waiting to perpetuate more statistics- which I did.
Though attending a Christian school from an early age, and gleaning a solid moral education in the process, it wasn't enough to prevent indiscriminate decisions that led to my own fall in college. I was a successful student with a specific plan: Graduate early, go to grad school, live abroad, then settle in New York and consider pursuing a doctorate-all by age 30. Well, I have gone down a very different path. God had a different plan.
My poor decisions nevertheless led to God's amazing grace. Her name is Victoria. She is nine, a whiz at math and loves to draw. She definitely changed the course of my life. But upon initially learning I was going to be a mother, I thought, What about all my plans?
So when I read in The Good Life about Chuck's lowest point, I marveled at how one man's fall led many out of their own fallen states-not only those served by Prison Fellowship, but also those working inside the ministry, learning Christian worldview, in the spirit of Chuck's desire for truth. "The most shattering thing about prison," writes Chuck, "was the thought that I would never again do anything significant with my life..The story I had been living had come apart, and I couldn't find the ghost of a theme that might continue."
Many of us can relate to the inner churnings of his soul-even if you have never been to prison. But what matters is our next move after the fall. A scene at the end of Kevin Smith's film Jersey Girl reminded me of the new "theme" the story of my life is following. The movie is about a widowed single dad who finds his life turned upside down-and his priorities turned right-side up. The father was a successful publicity mogul. But he learned he couldn't both be married to his career and to fatherhood and be successful. He soon let go of his own ambitions, only to learn his daughter is "the one thing I'm good at."
Many of us are still running after the "good life," whether we're in our thirties, fifties, or seventies. One man's fall, redemption, and resulting vision has led many to consider their own paths and to pursue truth. But this isn't about one man's influence; rather it's about how God used this man-how He uses us all-to restore His creation.
Catherina Huriburt is the assistant editor of "Break Point" Radio and managing editor of BreakPoint WorldView.
Kanye West wowed everyone with his hit "Jesus Walks." "I ain't here to argue about his facial features / Or here to convert atheists into believers / I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers / The way Kathy Lee needed Regis, that's the way I need Jesus." Bling bling and all that, the smooth rapper can't help but give a nod to the Savior.
Surf-rockers Switchfoot continue to probe and prod on the big questions of life on their new album, Nothing is Sound. "Happy is a yuppie word / Blessed is the man who's lost it all / Looking for an orphanage / I'm looking for a bridge I can't burn down / I don't believe the emptiness / I'm looking for the kingdom coming down."
"Coolness might help in your negotiation with people through the world, maybe, but it is impossible to meet God with sunglasses on," confesses the lead singer of U2 in the recently published 323-page interview-format Bono in conversation with Michka Assayas. "It is impossible to meet God without abandon, without exposing yourself, being raw."
Are rock stars supposed to talk like that?
Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone last year that the last song he would like to hear before he dies is "Rock of Ages." Are you kidding me? That's a 230-year old hymn written by August M. Toplady. The eccentric man that Martin Scorsese recently immortalized on PBS and the hippies christened as the prophet for the 1960s still sings songs off his gospel albums.
A few years ago, Alice Cooper stunned The London Sunday Times by stating: "Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's rebellion." That's an especially interesting perspective coming from a man who works with a guillotine every night.
There appears to be a new openness for artists to express what used to be left unsaid. While there is a paranoia about being associated with the contemporary Christian music industry, there also seems to be a new wave of public acknowledgement of faith among rockers.
Heavy metal superstar Dave Mustaine of Megadeth has spoken about the turnaround in his life. "I've tried everything in my life," he told CanWest News. "I was baptized Lutheran and brought up as a Jehovah's Witness. My mom was Jewish. I experimented with black magic and witchcraft and read the satanic bible. But I became a Christian about three years ago and that's a positive thing."
Blues guitar prodigy Jonny Lang went to the crossroads and came out a Christian on the other side. "Aspects of the entertainment industry not really related to music began to sidetrack me," he confessed to The Lexington Herald Leader. "For a while, I was headed down not such a good path. But God brought me out of that. He totally saved me."
Los Lonely Boys shot to the top of the charts with a song called "Heaven" with memorable guitar licks and a prayer-quite literally. "I got on my knees and started praying," Henry Garza told Rolling Stone. "And the good Lord told me to start writing it down, dude."
Coldplay included the gospel-oriented "Kingdom Come" as a hidden track on X & Y. "I went through a weird patch, starting when I was about sixteen to twenty-two, of getting God and religion and superstition and judgment all confused," singer Chris Martin told Rolling Stone. "I think a lot of our music comes out of that. I definitely believe in God. How can you look at anything and not be overwhelmed by the miraculousness of it?"
There are no hidden tracks on Howl, the new roots-oriented album from the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. "I will walk with Jesus till I can't walk anymore / And I will stay with Jesus till I can't go another mile," sings Robert Levron. Howl is a sweaty, tambourine-thumping, foot-stomping tribute to Americana-blues, country, and hanky-waving honky-tonk gospel. "I grew up in a God-fearing family, so that's always been in the back of my head, for better or worse," guitarist Peter Hayes told Boston's Weekly Dig. "It was fun letting go and writing music like that. There's kind of this fear that you are going to be labeled Christian rock or it's going to be taken the wrong way. But not worrying about that, just letting it go, it's just a better feeling."
The life of Bizzy Bone, former rapper with Bone Thugs, certainly has been different since he turned it over to God. According to MTV News, Bizzy was speaking in tongues on a radio show a few months ago. The ecstatically divine activity of speaking in a language unknown to the speaker is commonplace in Pentecostal and charismatic churches, but not yet widespread among rappers-that is, until Bizzy hit the airwaves in Houston.
"You hit them with that, they be like, 'This mutha----a is kinda crazy but he keeps on talking about Jesus! He keeps on talking about the Lord!'" Bizzy recalled about the experience on KPFT-FM. He said he was being antagonized during the interview and went into defense mode.
"There was such an abundance [of animosity], I wouldn't let them sneak in," he said. "By them not being able to infiltrate, they said, 'He's crazy.' I know who I am, I'm the Lord's baby. That's just real. It's good to be the Lord's child."
Renegotiations with his former bandmates fell through and forced Bizzy to release an aptly titled solo record entitled Speaking in Tongues.
"It's a spiritual thing," he said of the title. "Like when you read a certain verse [in the Bible]. For example, Corinthians. When I read Corinthians on a certain day I'll see this in it. Then I put it down and pick it up, and I see something different, but it's the same words. That's how I feel about the album. You'll always get something new out of it."
Earlier this year, guitarist Brian "Head" Welch left the hardcore band Korn because of his new found faith. "Korn has parted ways with guitarist Brian 'Head' Welch, who has chosen Jesus Christ as his savior, and will be dedicating his musical pursuits to that end," read a statement from the band. "Korn respects Brian's wishes, and hopes he finds the happiness he's searching for."
In February, Welch shared his story with the congregation of Valley Bible Fellowship in Bakersfield, California. "I thought I had it all, everything I thought was important when I was a kid-money, fame, pretty women-but I came to a point where I didn't want to live," he testified. He told the congregation-filled with kids wearing Korn shirts-that he had come to the church in hopes of kicking a furious addiction to methamphetamines.
"With Korn, I got the money, all kinds of drugs of choice, everything, but this is my life now," he told MTV. "I'm never gonna change. That drug [meth] is known for making people crazy, but I'm in my right mind."
Writing in a different era, G.K. Chesterton once said: "I don't deny.that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say.it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet." While it's safe to say that Chesterton would be appalled at most aspects of the rock 'n' roll world, he would be gratified that so many of the unkempt troubadours are now giving the Prince of Darkness one devil of a time.
Steve Beard is the editor of Good News and the creator of www.thunderstruck.org-website devoted to faith and pop culture.
Click here to send your response plus the title of this article to us at Good News.