July 29, 2010 by cpiatt.

Very pleased to find a strong review in Publisher’s weekly for our new book, SPLIT TICKET, coming out next month. Publisher’s Weekly is one of the – if not the – most influential trades in the publishing biz. So a positive nod from them can go a long way.

To see the review on the PW site itself, click on this link.

To order SPLIT TICKET, click here.

Split Ticket: Independent Faith in a Time of Partisan Politics
Edited by Amy Gopp, Christian Piatt, Brandon Gilvin, Chalice (Ingram, dist.), $16.99 paper (224p) ISBN 978-0-8272-3474-1

At a time when partisan politics involves backbiting and cynicism, here is a collection of essays about politics aimed at unity and hope. In the spirit of a friendly roundtable, the essay writers, mostly 20- and 30-something pastors, each discuss the importance of Christians’ involvement in political activism. The writers represent areas from Los Angeles to Bosnia and take up a variety of causes both systemic and personal, including genocide and affordable housing. Their diversity proves that Christians “are not a monolith” and must wade through what are characterized as competing truths in discerning whether to advocate. Some urge Christians to fight the power of empire, citing the way Jesus challenged the status quo to effect change. Others retreat from activism, citing Jesus’s pacifism. Yet the authors all agree that Christians should work against injustice in some way and should employ peaceful debate to work toward unity. Using their own tales of injustice in a post-9/11 world, they force Christians to wake up and take a stand–even if they themselves cannot agree on exactly what that should be. (Aug.)

Posted in proposition 8, environment, current events, theology, WTF, books, economics, politics, faith, Blogroll, church, culture, young adult, church transformation, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

June 11, 2010 by cpiatt.

My good friend, Shannon Moore, and I got the chance to do a little concert at First Christian Church in Granbury, TX together in June, 2010. Here are some video highlights from that evening.

Posted in culture, theology, video, church, faith, Blogroll, Music, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

March 23, 2010 by cpiatt.

In a recent interview for a radio show about LOST, I was asked a lot about the coming end of the show, including who I thought the hero or heroes ultimately would be. Though I honestly hadn’t thought much about it, the person that we all tended to agree on surprised even me:

Hurley.

That’s right, the dude man. After I thought a little more about it, the long-shot idea began to make more sense. Thinking about the theme of redemption and transformation throughout the show, all the main characters have gone through major personal revelations, eschewing their spotty pasts for a second chance at a new life on the island. Some have done better than others with this second chance, but no one has been left unchanged.

Now, the most obvious choice for hero is Jack, who even has the Christlike name “Shephard” and is, by profession, a healer. But given the complexity of the show, I expect a curve-ball or two come the apocalyptic end. But the only one who has been good, more or less from start to finish is Hurley. And there’s one other key reason why I think he might be the one; he’s the only one who came to the island with thew apparent understanding that getting everything you think you want in life can actually be more of a curse than a blessing.

This theme of wish-fulfillment being a curse is getting stronger throughout the final season, partcularly with Smokey/Locke dangling carrots in front of folks like getting off the island or getting all the answers they ever wanted. Hell, he might as well have a forked tongue and slither on his belly.

But so far, he hasn’t tempted Hurley as I can recall, and neither has anyone else. He’s followed other people when he thinks it’s the right thing to do, but never out of persona self-interest.

So there it is. I’ve said it. It’s out there. tell me what a moron I am and why this can’t possibly be what’s coming. But my money, at least for now, is on Hurley.

Posted in current events, theology, books, culture, faith, Lost Book, Blogroll, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

March 2, 2010 by cpiatt.

I just posted a new podcast called “Time, Death and the Brain”

http://christianpiatt.podbean.com

Let me know what you think.

Peace,

Christian

Posted in parenting, children, current events, education, youth, young adult, Blogroll, technology, culture, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

February 24, 2010 by cpiatt.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of decades, the recent results of a study by the Pew Research Center should come as no real surprise. In fact, at the risk of being self-referential, it confirms much of what my wife and I wrote in our book, MySpace to Sacred Space: God for a New Generation, more than two years ago.The Study arrives at a few key points, which include the facts that younger people are as interested in making space for both God and prayer in their lives as the generations that precede them (in some ways more so), but they increasingly don’t see the church as the necessary mediator for that experience.

There are tons of reasons for this, including general mistrust of and disaffection with institutions as a whole. Since Vietnam and Watergate, our perceptions of institutions have been in precipitous decline; add to that daily news stories of corporate malfeasance and millions of layoffs and you have a villain in the making.

And let’s not revisit the scores of religious figureheads who have succumbed to temptation and corruption, and the institutions that too often have tried to justify, minimize or even cover up the problems. On top of all of this, our understanding of community has become more disparate and virtualized with the advent of social networking. Though some may see this as a poor substitute for “real” community, at least it’s something.

After all, where were all these people when front porches were replaced by attached garages? Or when nuclear families gave way to professional upward mobility? Or when more than half of our parents got divorced and moved hundreds or thousands of miles apart? to blame social networking for the dissolution of physical community is to focus on the finger, ignoring the thing it’s pointing to.

But I digress…

A changing/evolving sense of community aside, there are some other interesting differences between younger people today and those older than them, summed up well by this paragraph in the Pew Study:

In their social and political views, young adults are clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life and less prone to see Hollywood as threatening their moral values. At the same time, Millennials are no less convinced than their elders that there are absolute standards of right and wrong. And they are slightly more supportive than their elders of government efforts to protect morality, as well as somewhat more comfortable with involvement in politics by churches and other houses of worship.

Though some may read these more “progressive” social values as an indicator of younger people straying from the moral values imparted by traditional church, we in mainline and more moderate to progressive independent congregations should see this as a tremendous opportunity for relevance. But be careful not to read this as an opportunity to pack your pews with youth and young adults. It’s more about a chance to connect over shared values of social justice and change, and in so much as we can be an agent or facilitator of that change younger people seek in their communities, they may find a great ally in the church.

But they still may never come to worship. So what’s it going to be, church? Real, relevant, gospel-inspired change, or survival of the institution of church as we know it/ There’s a real possibility we may not be able to have both.

When I speak and lead workshops for congregations and denominations, I often pose this question: if you could fully live in to you church’s mission today, but if the cost would be shutting your doors forever, would you do it? Of course this is a hypothetical posed in extreme language on purpose, to push people within the church to consider what’s really most important to them.

Consider Jesus (I know, a radical concept). He never had a church building, no budget and no salary. He walked around, noticed needs before him and went about meeting them, then he called others to do likewise. He shared wisdom through story and didn’t worry about retirement packages, balance sheets or mortgages. He focused instead on living out what he believed every day, and left the rest up to God.

Now, I’m not one to leave myself out of the group that this challenges. Though I don’t get paid by my church, my wife does, and the prospect of giving that up and simply walking the earth and meeting needs – especially with two kids – seems nuts. And I’m not saying this is necessarily what we’re all called to as church leaders, but it’s a question worth asking.

If, like the rich man in the Gospels, we’re coming to Christ and asking what is required of us, what will be our reaction if the answer is “leave everything behind and follow me”? What if the trend of younger people walking away from church is the kind of necessary pruning back that scripture calls for, rather than the cultural crisis of faith that many churches label it as?

Yes, there is still a need for communities of people offering one another love, wisdom, support and mutual accountability, to challenge people to put their faith into transformational action and to give them the tools to do so. And insomuch as institutional church can facilitate that, I believe there is a place for it in today’s culture. But the degree to which the existing buildings, paid staff, boards of directors and bylaws will – or even should – be a part of that, I’m not so sure.

Posted in youth, young adult, social networking, current events, church growth, theology, church transformation, emerging church, faith, Blogroll, church, technology, culture, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

February 23, 2010 by cpiatt.

Smells Like Spirit
Is faith hiding in the closet?
By Christian Piatt
(Originally published in PULP)

For a long time in American history, it’s been relatively taboo to admit you’re an atheist, or even an agnostic. In some ways, the bias favoring people of faith still holds. Imagine an atheist candidate for president trying to get nominated, much less elected, and the storm of controversy that would surround it.

Though some positions of political power may be out of reach for those who claim no faith, it has become more acceptable in recent years to admit agnosticism or even atheism. In fact, there’s even a bit of counter-culture hipness to confessing it.

While the relaxation of social strictures that allow people to speak freely about their faith – or lack of it – has opened up public dialogue in arguably healthy ways, the pendulum also has swung the other way, at least a bit. In a recent article on Salon.com, Ada Calhoun writes about an experience where a friend of hers caught her dressed up on the street on a Sunday morning, joking with her that she must be headed to church. She laughed it off and sheepishly continued on her way to Catholic Mass, too embarrassed to admit it to her friend.

“I’m not cheating on my husband, committing crimes or doing drugs,” says Calhoun. “But those are battles my cosmopolitan, progressive friends would understand. To them, my situation is far more sinister: I am the bane of their youth, the boogeyman of their politics, the very thing they left their small towns to escape. I am a Christian.”

Part of this is likely a normal social cycle, back and forth along the spectrum of the sacred and secular. However, Christianity in particular carries sufficient weight for the embarrassment these reticent faithful exhibit.

“Who wants to be lumped in with all the other Christians,” asks Calhoun, “especially the ones you see on TV protesting gay marriage, giving money to charlatans, and letting priests molest children? Andy Warhol went to Mass every Sunday, but not even his closest friends knew he was a devout Catholic until his death. I get that.”

So do I. As one who is seen both in our local community and in larger literary circles as a figurehead for postmodern Christianity, I spend as much time and energy responding to these negative connotations attached to my faith as I do speaking positively about what a community of faithful, committed to causes of service, compassion and social justice, can do to make the world a better place.

It’s important to understand how far and wide this disaffection for organized religion runs. There are huge groups of people who, though they study and practice the teachings of Jesus, choose not to call themselves Christians because of the baggage attached to the term. Instead, they prefer the term “Christ followers,” both because it is less encumbered with negativity, and also because it speaks of what they do, rather than define what group to which they belong.

There are lots of books on the subject too, such as “un-Christian,” by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, or “They Like Jesus but Not the Church,” by Dan Kimball. One common sentiment throughout these texts is that the image of God, or more specifically, Jesus, should not suffer because of the crap that humans do in their name.

Not surprisingly, there’s a healthy amount of blowback from the institution of church as well. While some faith communities see the writing on the wall and seek to learn from history’s lessons, others are building defenses still higher, lobbing verbal salvos from the other side.

Authors like Peter Rollins, who wrote “The Orthodox Heretic “and “How (Not) to Speak of God,” among others, have been labeled as brazen heretics, masquerading as Christ followers simply to further the mythical goal of reducing church to rubble.

Meanwhile, people like Ada Calhoun skulk in the shadows to practice their faith, worried that being associated with those with whom she strongly disagrees will be a social albatross around her neck. Though it will take much time and no small amount of effort, it’s my hope that Christians once again earn the respect and appreciation of the public, and that Calhoun and her peers can come out of the closet and be proud to openly call themselves “Christian.”

Posted in current events, young adult, pulp, theology, church growth, church transformation, emerging church, Blogroll, Columns, faith, church, culture, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

January 13, 2010 by cpiatt.

Admitting powerlessness
By Christian Piatt
(Originally published in PULP)

I travel sometimes for work. Every time I do, my wife, Amy, worries about me. Before a recent trip alone, she admonished me no less than four times to travel safely. Though I don’t have much control over that in flight, except for using my seat cushion as a flotation device in the event of a water landing, I told her I would.

What neither of us was thinking about was the safety of the family I left behind.

Amy joked that my little Prius was doomed for an apocalyptic fate, since she had cleaned it for me while I was out of town. An innocent joke, but it turned out to be eerily prophetic.

I got a call on Wednesday afternoon from Amy. She was crying.

“Everyone is all right,” she said between sobs, “but we got in a pretty bad wreck.”

With the kids in the back seat, Amy pulled out of a parking lot after being waved out by a driver in the right lane (what we’ve since learned is called the “death wave” by insurance folks), and was met by a full-sized pickup in the center lane whose massive grill guard lifted our little hybrid off the ground, shearing the front completely off.

She sent me a picture from her phone and my stomach sank. Even though I knew no one was hurt, just seeing the car so mangled and knowing my whole family had been so close to a similar fate, made me nearly sick.

Times like that make harshly real how tenuous our grasp is on anything in this life. I had no control over what happened, whether or not I had been there, or if I had spent more time worrying about what might – and this time, did – happen.

Strangely, this sense of powerlessness made me think of a friend of mine who has been working on his sobriety for some time, but who resists involvement in a 12-step group or any sort of faith community. The reason, as it’s been suggested to me by a couple of people, is because he has a hard time with the idea of handing over power to a higher authority.

Anyone in AA or the like can tell you that you don’t have to believe in God to have your recovery work. Your higher authority can be whatever you choose, but the idea is to admit your own powerlessness. After all, as one friend of his pointed out to him, he yielded to the higher authority of drugs and alcohol for long enough. Why not try something or someone else?

One of the scariest things about admitting powerlessness, whether we’re addicts or not, is that we’re conceding the reality of suffering in our lives. We can’t stop it, and that angers us. To me, a healthy faith is not one that leans on promises of wealth, comfort or a lack of hardship, but rather one that strives for peace amid an unavoidably hard life.

In the end, my own peace is the only thing over which in fact I have any control.

Posted in emerging church, pueblo, pulp, theology, culture, church, Columns, Blogroll, faith, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

December 22, 2009 by cpiatt.

I made a few T-shirts on Zazzle and thought I’d share:

See my shirts at Zazzle

Christian

Posted in politics, economics, WTF, men, humor, comedy, Blogroll, culture, young adult, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

December 14, 2009 by cpiatt.

Below is a link to a survey I’m conducting for my book on postmodern male identity and faith, tentatively called BE A MAN. Please take the 10-15 minute survey if you’re a guy, and pass it along to anyone else who might be willing to share their thoughts for this book.

You do not have to be practicing a particular religion or have any faith at all to take this survey. In fact, we want to hear from people inside and outside of organized religion, and those who believe in God, those who aren’t sure, and those who do not.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/beaman

Thanks for your help with this. And please do pass this on to as many men as you can!

Sincerely,
Christian Piatt

Posted in parenting, 2.0, social networking, theology, sex, men, books, youth, young adult, faith, Blogroll, church, culture, church transformation, emerging church, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

November 26, 2009 by cpiatt.

Prosperity vs. Abundance

By Christian Piatt

(Originally published in PULP)

It’s easy to turn a deaf ear to all the talk about “the economy,” at least until it hits you where it counts. Sure, we all notice when we have to pay more at the pump, or our health insurance costs jump for the 10th year in a row, but these are mere inconveniences compared to what some folks are dealing with.

I’ve been fortunate to work from home as a contract consultant to nonprofits for the past five-plus years. It allows me the flexible schedule I need to help out with the church, spend quality time with our kids and pursue my writing on the side. I’ve often carried more work during that time than we needed to get by, but my reasoning was that the work wouldn’t last forever.

Man, was I right.

This past summer, I lost all of my contracts in short succession. All of them said basically the same thing: it’s not about your work. We just have to cut back, and contractors are the first to go. Some were freaked out about city-county funding being cut, while others saw writing on the wall with their program-related contracts. One employer offered to keep me on part-time, provided that I move back to Texas to take the work.

Though things aren’t fully recovered for us, I’m grateful that a combination of side projects and a new part-time job with a graduate school in Tulsa have helped us keep the bills paid. We’ve undergone some fairly significant lifestyle adjustments, swallowed our pride and accepted help from family, and we have a plan to carry us at least through the holidays.

This whole experience, though, has caused me to reflect on a couple of things. First, though I’m not a fan of accepting help from anyone, it’s a blessing to have it available when we needed it. We realize that, no matter what happens, we’ll only fall so far. We won’t end up out on the street, and our kids will hardly know the difference.

I also am grateful to have a network of friends and professionals who have helped me dig up work from places I would have never found it by myself; I’m also thankful to have the opportunity to call people in positions of power and means to discuss ideas for employment.

Sure, I get work on my own merits, and I certainly wouldn’t keep it if I couldn’t perform. But this series of networks and safety nets is, without a doubt, the very definition of privilege. We Americans are fond of the idea that everyone, given a solid work ethic and enough ambition, can achieve anything. While there may be some anecdotal evidence to support this, it’s certainly a myth to suggest that this means that opportunity is an equally-distributed commodity.

It’s easy as a person of faith to fall back on guilt, and to assume that the “right” thing to do is deny myself those privileges that skew things in my favor. But, on reflection, I think the more just thing to do is both to recognize that privilege, and then to employ it to help raise others up whenever possible.

This may include giving what I can to charity, or returning the favor to those with less of a support system than I have. It might even be as simple as listening to others’ stories of hardship with a little more empathy and compassion. Most important, perhaps, is not to give myself too much credit for my own successes – or at least a minimalization of failures – and instead focus on gratitude.

The scaling back of our budget also has caused me to reflect on the difference between prosperity and abundance. Over the last three decades, organized religion has fallen over and again into the lucrative trap of preaching prosperity. All you have to do is turn on the television nearly any time of day, and you’re sure to find some preacher explaining to you why it is that Jesus wants you to be rich.

Funny, but I don’t recall Jesus or any of his followers racking up the bling. In fact, there’s more than one account of Jesus telling wealthy people that their prosperity could well be the stumbling block between them and a well-developed faith practice.

Jesus did, however, speak of abundance. Because of our consumer-centered worldview, we like to think that this is synonymous with “wealth.” But abundance is relatively independent of the physical world, and rather is a state of being. It is about believing that we have enough, here and now, rather than becoming willing slaves of want.

It’s ironic that having less has made me more grateful for what I do have. But sometimes it takes having the opportunity to stop and reflect forced upon you to gain a healthier perspective.

I go to bed at night with the peace of mind knowing there’s food on the shelves for breakfast, and that the heat will still be on when we wake up. I offer a quiet word of gratitude for the abundance in our lives, even in the face of slightly less material prosperity. I wonder what opportunities tomorrow may bring to pass that privilege and abundance along, and if I’ll have the compassion to act as I should.

Prosperity is often the perfect antidote to help us forget our hardship. Abundance, however, reminds us that there will be enough, especially if we’re willing to let a little bit go for someone else.

Posted in pueblo, parenting, current events, pulp, theology, economics, culture, Columns, Blogroll, faith, church, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »