Here is a fascinating account of the attempt to canonize the late Pope John Paul II, that is, to declare him a saint: Charting a Path to Sainthood. Catholic scholars are looking for a medical miracle caused by praying to him–and have apparently found at least one–but must work through the counter-arguments by the devil’s advocates, which amount to mainly that he was too conservative. But the process shows that the old Catholicism challenged by the Reformation still remains.

Here is an interesting historic account, occasioned by the current conflict in the Democratic party between advocates of the first black president vs. advocates of the first woman president: When Disadvantages Collide. It seems that the early suffragettes opposed giving black men the right to vote before white women had that right. I won’t even repeat what feminist icon Elizabeth Cady Stanton said on the subject.

You know that “Footprints in the Sand” inspirational tidbit, about walking with the Lord, seeing only one set of footprints, and getting the revelation that “I carried you”? Of course you do. It’s everywhere, on posters, coffee mugs, greeting cards, and quoted in countless sermons. Now three people are suing each other, claiming to be the author, with rights to the gazillions of dollars worth of merchandising the little story can earn. For the rather sad but also rather humorous account of this dispute and these claims, see Search to Divine Authorship Leads ‘Footprints’ to Court.

Here is my analysis: One of the litigators claim that his mother wrote it decades ago. He found a manuscript in her handwriting that dates from long ago. But the key bit of information is the scholar who traced the story to a sermon preached in the 1880’s. I doubt that even that was original. Sermons promulgate more urban legends, unattributed quotations, and oral traditions than any other art form. I suspect the mother heard the story somewhere, maybe from her preacher, and wrote it down.

Trying to copyright that story after the fact and after its wide publication is surely futile, and no court should allow it. It’s like trying to copyright jokes, sermon illustrations, and internet forwards. If you write something, copyright it BEFORE sending it out on the internet; otherwise, consider it a gift to humanity.

My student Nathan Martin, at Patrol Magazine, launches off after an account of hearing John Piper contrast Tyndale and Erasmus, relating it to contemporary Christian music and other expressions:

The incredibly truncated quote:

…”I linger over this difference between Erasmus and Tyndale because of how amazing it sounds to me like today. Tyndale wrote his books and translated the New Testament and there was a thundering effect, Erasmus wrote his and there was an entertaining effect a, high brow, elitist, layered, nuanceing of church tradition. They satirized the monasteries so they had a ring of radical nature about them, clerical abuses they criticized, but the gospel wasn’t at the center. I’m not going to name any names but there are elitist cool avant-garde, marginally evangelical writers and scholars today who…(feel) as if to be robust and strong and full about what Christ has achieved feels rather distasteful…it is ironic and sad that today supposedly avant-garde writers strike a cool, evasive, imprecise, artistic superficially reformist pose of Erasmus and call it post-modern when in fact it is totally pre-modern, because it is totally permanent.”

Whether it’s in Relevant, Blue like Jazz, or in the Black Cat, it’s hard to find Christians who will explicitly admit that they are Christians, or what exactly being a Christian means. Now, I know why many of these artists and writers have trouble identifying themselves with the particularities of doctrine and teaching; too many of them have been burned by the church in the past and too many of them are still trying to figure out what being a Christian truly means. What I’ve struggled with is when any type of doctrinal or philosophical certainty is greeted with skepticism and condescension, when the gospel is reduced to little more than well-meaning, philosophically vague platitudes that carry no true implications for belief or non-belief.

It’s a difficult thing to get labeled as a Christian in the mainstream or independent art world today, and inspires no end of questions and incessant, sniping prattle. Ask Sufjan Stevens what it’s like to never make it through an interview without his faith being mentioned, ask Dan Layus of Augustana what it’s like to make music with the weight of the faith of his family, church and college hanging over his head. I’ve talked to, and hung out with a number of other artists who face that problem on a day to day basis; what does it mean to be a Christian artist? Or perhaps more precisely, “How much of my faith can I admit to, without being completely labeled as a conservative fundamentalist freak-out?”

I have no great all-encompassing solution to this problem, but I think there are some things you can’t get away from. I’d argue, along with Piper, that Christianity is comprised in the gospel and the gospel is a message that necessarily excludes many other philosophical standpoints from legitimacy. I’m trying so delicately to not make this be a discussion about all these specific points of theology, but at some point and time, Christians have to be willing to be dogmatic about their “theology” because the implications of that theology provides the entire basis for their faith.

The implications of that faith should extend outside of doctrine and into vocation, as another speaker said, the purest theology should produce the most beautiful and excellent art.

Notice how Nathan gets the connection between the gospel and vocation.