Unpop Culture

During one of his travels, a seminary professor visited a famous cathedral. Upon entering, he was surprised to find a call girl crumpled on the floor, weeping loudly. He quickly moved past her so he could take in the beauty of the cathedral. Miffed as he was that the call-girl’s sobs were distracting him from the beautiful surroundings, he was inspired to pray thus: “God, thank you that I have the capacity to truly appreciate and understand all this architecture and artwork. Thank you for giving me a sense of decorum in such a place...” (Here he spared half a thought for the girl in the back, whose sobs rose briefly in volume). “I write articles for reputable publications, and I contribute to your work through charitable giving. Thank you that I am not like so many other people who come in here: half-drunk, half-awake, half-crazy.” On his way out of the cathedral, the professor could hear the call girl, who was still on the floor, mumbling the words, “Have mercy, I’m such a rotten sinn...

When you take your wife out to dinner to celebrate your wedding anniversary, you don’t necessarily plan on misspelling her name on her to-go box, taking a leisurely drive through a local cemetery, or filling up your tank at a seedy gas station. All those things did recently happen, and yet Shannon and I still enjoyed the evening. (She also forgave me for the spelling mistake—which is a big deal, coming from an English major.) Yes, this past weekend Shannon and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. The time has both taken forever and flown by. (Not quite sure how that happens.) In this short period, a lot has transpired. I won’t bore you with the details, but I did want to share three things I have learned—or, rather, am still learning—at the outset of this lovely journey called marriage. 1. You can’t rightly love if you can’t rightly see love The more I grow in the Christian faith, the more I see how much of a difference there is between knowing something and belie...

It’s not a pleasant discovery to make when you’re late for work. My heart experienced that sick, sinking feeling as I realized that our car was stuck in the garage with no way to get it out. For some inexplicable reason, I had left the keys in the ignition the night before. Not content with that level of carelessness, my psyche had also decided to leave the keys turned so the battery was engaged—all night long. Our car’s precious energy slowly drained out while Shannon and I slept blissfully unaware. To make matters worse, I had driven forward into the garage the night before, making it impossible for another car to reach our engine with standard length jumper cables. (In my defense, it takes me 20 minutes to safely back the car into the garage without busting through a wall, so I was just saving time and repair costs.) Throughout the day, I was painfully aware of the inconvenience of not having a car. It was, I think, a good illustration of the old adage, “You don’t know...

Elliot Sudal’s favorite thing to do is wrestle wild sharks. As of a couple months ago, the 24-year-old claims to have caught and released over one hundred of the deadly fish. The first encounter lasted 45 minutes in the water, finally ending when Sudal dragged the live shark onto the beach. He photographed the animal and then let it go. Each time, he says, the scariest moment comes when he first jumps in the water and grabs the shark with his hands. Because there’s a lot of thrashing about, it’s hard to tell what is what, and the shark’s mouth could easily find its way to his body. Why hasn’t he been bitten yet? Sure, Sudal is a strong guy, but there has to be more to it than that. Sudal has his own theory, but think of what your answer is first. What would be the most logical explanation for why a young man who has wrestled with over a hundred hungry sharks hasn’t been killed—or even bitten? Have your answer? Don’t keep reading until you do. Here’s Sudal’s summary, g...

Inquoris “Inky” Johnson used to play football for the University of Tennessee. But on September 9, 2006, his lifelong plans for the NFL were shattered. During a game against the Air Force, Inky experienced a life-threatening and, ultimately, debilitating injury on the field. He was left with the inability to pursue an athletic career of any kind. Weaker men would have shaken their fist at God and wallowed in the mire of bitterness. But that’s not how Inky responded to his injury. Even though he wakes up each morning with constant pain and a paralyzed right arm, he smiles and embraces life. That’s the response, not of a weak man, but a meek man. 1 In contrast, I’m the kind of guy who becomes agitated if I get behind a slow driver on the freeway. I can respond poorly when my plans—even my minor plans—aren’t fulfilled. That’s why I asked Inky, whom I have come to call my friend, to share a little with me, and the readers here at Happier Far , about what it looks like to trust ...

A “prodigal daughter” rebelled against her parents and ran away from home. Alone and in a different city, she turned to drugs and prostitution. Even after seeing a missing persons report with her face on it, she refused to contact her family. After a couple years, she found herself thrown out on the streets with no one to turn to—except her family. She called her parents and let them know she was taking a bus back home. Rand Alcorn relays this story (originally told by Philip Yancey ) in his book The Grace and Truth Paradox . I’ll let him finish: As she steps off the bus, she finds herself greeted by forty brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, and her parents, all wearing party hats, with a huge banner stretched out saying, “Welcome home.” Before she can finish saying “I’m sorry,” her father murmurs, “Hush, sweetheart, we’ll talk later. We’ve got to get you home to the party; there’s a banquet waiting for you!” This is just one of many stories told ...

I have a confession to make: I’m not a loving person. Actually, that’s probably putting it a bit too nicely. Sure, I can be agreeable and diplomatic. I’m not quick to butt heads or pick a fight. But the truth is, when it comes to displaying compassion, I am naturally as soft and snuggly as a slab of granite. To a certain degree, I think men in general can struggle with a tendency toward being harsh and unloving. Colossians 3:19 seems to indicate so: “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them” (ESV). Personal experience has shown me the power of this temptation toward harshness. Several months ago, on one particularly emotional evening, I isolated myself in the bedroom with my Bible, desperate for God’s help. I was angry and I knew I needed to demonstrate more tenderness and love to Shannon. ( Sound familiar ?) God showed up and rocked my world, displaying His tender love for me by drawing my attention to a short, three-letter Hebrew word: leb . It appears in ...

So there I was, surrounded by church members, my pants wet, my blood boiling. This wasn’t what I needed—at least, that’s what I told myself. The morning had started innocently enough. Shannon and I arrived at our church building later than normal. Because of the pouring rain and the packed parking lot, I said I would drop Shannon off at the front and then go park and bring our Bibles and notebooks in. (After all, with an umbrella and a raincoat at my disposal, my trek across the parking lot wouldn’t be too bad.) Shannon didn’t want me lugging the books in the rain, so she grabbed them before heading into the building. I then parked near the back of the lot and reached for the umbrella. It wasn’t there. Not in the back seat…not in the front seat. Not anywhere. Shannon must have taken it inside with her. Okay. No big deal. I still had my raincoat, and thanks to my memory of a once-watched YouTube video , I had learned the trick to staying relatively dry while traveling ...

I confess, I’m something of a Trekkie. I’ve been looking forward to the release of Star Trek Into Darkness more than any other movie this year. While reading a few content reviews, though, I came across a snag. The film contains a scene in which a woman changes clothes after asking her male companion to turn his back to her—obviously for the sake of decency. After feigning compliance, the man sneaks a peek. So does the camera, giving the audience an unobstructed view of this woman in a state of undress. Here’s what I have decided: I cannot financially support this movie. Why? Because I want to grow in my ability to honor God and love that actress. In James 1:27, which I recently wrote about , we are told, “ Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James gives the two distinctive fruits that grow from the root of genuine Christianity: love and holiness. F...

When it comes to the Christian life, our minds can be filled with a myriad of “I need to” thoughts: “I need to pray more,” “I need to spend more quality time with the Lord,” “I need to grow in loving my neighbor as myself,” and so on. In many cases, this tendency can be a sign of something Scripture warns us against: thinking that we are saved by works and not faith. Saving faith isn’t anything we do . It is accepting God’s work on our behalf. Saving faith is a gift from God so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9). We may say we believe that saving faith is not a work, and that we are not saved by our works, but our inner monologue—filled with “I need to” statements—may reveal a heart that easily turns the walk of faith into a work of human effort. When we treat Christianity as moralism, we reduce it to a means by which we feel good—or bad—about ourselves based on our performance. The good works performed by the Christian reveal the fruit of Christianity—not the root of C...

Over three years ago, I began a blog series on the most neglected entry in the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (see Exod. 20:8-11). Seven months and forty posts later, the series still hadn’t covered all the Scriptural material dealing with the Sabbath. Nevertheless, I had been duly affected by my study, and our family’s Sunday habits evolved into something more refreshing, restful, and relaxing than we could have ever dreamed. Imagine a poor landowner accidentally breaking open an oil reserve on his property. That is how we felt in our pursuit of the Sabbath—like God had a main conduit of blessing just beneath the surface and we found ourselves positioned to receive from its abundance. Our relationships with God and each other experienced an increase in joy and affection. Of course, it can be easy for our souls to turn habits and practices—even divinely ordained ones—into rote and bland traditions. Three years after my blog series, it can sometim...

I hate to interrupt our Paradise Lost series right as it gets started, but I wanted to touch on a current event in national news. Just over a week ago, nationally recognized LGBT leader Shane L. Windmeyer wrote a stunning piece for Huffington Post , entitled,  “ Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A . ” As a champion for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights, Mr. Windmeyer has led protests against Chick-fil-A and what he saw as the bigotry of the Christian-owned company. All that started to change on August 10 of last year, when he got a personal call from Chick-fil-A founder Dan Cathy. Windmeyer writes, “ He was going to tear me apart, right? Give me a piece of his mind? Turn his lawyers on me?” Instead, what he found was a man filled with love and compassion. Their first conversation lasted over an hour, and they continued to interact over the phone. Then they started meeting privately for more dialogue. In the process, som...

You may have noticed some changes taking place around here lately. Several weeks ago, I updated the layout and design of the blog. It is slightly more modern, but without completely abandoning the ancient, historical feel I intended at the beginning. Now the big revisions have taken place: switching the URL from 4scores.blogspot.com to capstewart.com, and replacing the original blog title, Four Scores and Seven Films Ago , with a new title, Happier Far . When I first created this blog in January of 2006, I decided on a title that incorporated my love of American history and my affinity for instrumental motion picture scores. The lengthy subtitle of the blog gave me practically unlimited freedom to write about whatever I wanted: Art. Life. Joy. All find their greatest expression in and through one Source: the Creator of the universe, the Savior of the spiritually dead, the Fountain of lasting pleasure. Apart from Christ, art is a mere distraction, life a mere triviality, ...

I recently read through Genesis 15, where God reassures Abram, who is currently childless, that he will have numerous descendants (which God had initially promised in Genesis 12:1-3). Abram’s response leads to something amazing: “And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Commenting on this verse, Martin Luther says, “Righteousness is nothing else than believing God when He makes a promise.” The anti-intuitive nature of this statement struck me forcefully. You see, I am unconsciously inclined to think that my striving hard to do well is the kind of righteousness that pleases God. When I obey a particular law, do a good deed, or reject a temptation, then I have earned at least a small degree of God’s favor. But that is not how it works. God definitely blesses our faith-inspired efforts, but such efforts are…well, based on faith—that is, confidence in God’s promise to pardon and accept me through Christ’s atoning work. If I attempt ...