Daniel Darling's Blog, page 58

Should Christian Writers Try to Be Popular?

Recent controversies in the evangelical world have caused many people to rethink the idea of “platform-building” and “celebrity”, two buzzwords that are often misunderstood. I had the chance to discuss this with two friends of mine, Justin Taylor, popular blogger at Between Two Worlds, vice-president of book publishing at Crossway and Collin Hansen, editorial director at The Gospel Coalition. This was a fun and insightful conversation.

 

My Favorite Podcasts

I’ve got about a 20 minute (sometimes 30 during school season) commute to work. I like to redeem my commute by listening to podcasts. I generally subscribe to about ten or twelve of them so I have a wide range of options when I get in the car. My moods change and my needs change and my interests change, so I like to have some variety. Currently this are the podcasts on my iPhone:

Fresh Air (NPR). Yes, I’m a conservative who loves NPR. I love Fresh Air because there is such a variety of interesting content. Terri Gross interviews a wide range of guests, from historians to jazz musicians to athletes. I don’t listen to all of them and I don’t always agree, but I find that I learn much. For instance, there was a recent episode with a journalist who just returned from Iraq and Syria and gave a detailed account of ISIS. Another one returned from Nigeria and reported on Boko Haram.

Morning Joe Podcast. I’m a huge fan of Morning Joe, but I don’t always have time, in fact, I rarely have time to catch the show in the mornings. I find their podcasts, which condense all of the content, commercial free, into 40 minutes or so, is well worth my time. I get an update on the latest news with some incisive commentary. And no, I don’t watch the video while I’m driving, in case you were wondering!

The B.S. Report with Bill Simmons. I’m a huge sports fan and, for me, there is no better sports columnist/interviewer/fan than Bill Simmons, founder of the terrific site, Grantland. I don’t listen to all the podcasts, because sometimes he gets into niche pop culture stuff that I have no interest in. But during the NBA free agency period this summer, there was no better listening than this.

Canon and Culture Podcast. A little shout-out here to one of our new ERLC podcasts. This is based from our DC office and always has informative and good guests. The latest one about North Korea is really good. Check it out.

Family Life Today. This is always on my podcast. Like the others, I can’t catch everyone, but as a father of four children, I need this podcast. Bob Lepine and Dennis Rainey interview parenting and family experts and offer their own sage, Bible wisdom. Highly recommended.

Brook Hills Church. I love the preaching of David Platt. His rich, biblical exegesis and passion for Christ helps me grow as a Christian.

First Baptist Mount Juliet. My pastor, Andy Hale, is a terrific preacher. I podcast this for the weekends that I’m speaking or traveling so I don’t miss what God is teaching us as a body of believers.

City Church. This is my buddy, Dean Inserra, a terrific preacher in Tallahassee. Highly recommended.

Mere Fidelity. Matt Anderson, Derrick Rishmaway and others host a podcast on theological philosophical ideas. This is a new podcast that I really, really enjoy. Helps me understand some hard-to-understand concepts.

The Rich Eisen Podcast. Rich is a host on the NFL Network. This is for football junkies. During NFL season, this is a must-listen. Rich is engaging and witty and features great guests from the pop culture and sporting world.

Rainer on Leadership. My friend, Jonathan Howe hosts this with the CEO of Lifeway, Thom Rainer. This always has great insights on leadership and good interviews.

Job Opening at ERLC

Know someone interested in joining the ERLC team in Nashville? We are hiring a new Interactive Media Manager to join our communications team. This is creative role specializing in video and audio production, technical and logistical support for ERLC events, and social media engagement. This is a great opportunity to join a fun and dynamic environment, helping to shape the conversation on Christianity and culture.

Anyone that is interested can contact me directly at ddarling [at] erlc.com. A job description is available with more details about the position. The window to express interest in the role is limited so applicants should contact me soon.

 

Some recent interviews

I had the privilege of interviewing a few church leaders on a variety of issues:

Here I interview pastor David Platt of Brook Hills Church in Birmingham, Alabama and author of Radical and Multiply on the need for Christians in the West to speak up about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere: 

Here I interviewed Dr. David Uth of First Baptist Church Orlando on ethnic diversity in the local church:

Here is a print interview with Jen Pollack Michel on her new book, Teach Me to Want about the reorienting of our desires. It’s a fascinating book. One the questions I asked was this: 

I remember growing up hearing a lot of messages bashing desire–they implied that what we love and like should not be important. Obedience is better. But you are saying this is an unbiblical dichotomy.

Yes, I’m absolutely pushing back on this idea that obedience has to be difficult and undesirable. The New Covenant actually reconciles desire and obedience. God’s Law, written on our hearts, affects a new unity between our beliefs and behaviors and desires. What we get as a result isn’t just obedience—but obedient desire.

One example of this in the New Testament is the “cheerful giver” in 2 Corinthians 9. Why does God love the cheerful giver? Shouldn’t he just celebrate our financial gifts, no matter our attitude in giving them? Isn’t the point our obedience? Not entirely! God wants us to want to give.

Read the rest of the interview here: 

Some Recent Articles

Here are some links to my latest articles:

“Applying our Pro-Life Convictions to the Border Crisis” at Huffington Post:

Well-meaning Americans will continue to disagree on the exact policy prescriptions for the border. But hopefully we can all agree to see each in each undocumented child, the image of the Creator. My hope is that followers of Jesus begin to see immigrants as less of a threat to their way of life and more of an opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission and be a part of God’s sovereign plan to gather a people from every nation, tribe, and tongue (Rev 7:9; Rev 5:9).

“You are Not Speaking to the Room” – Leadership Journal

Today we live in a world where pastors of churches large and small post their content online almost immediately. Many live-stream and some churches even offer sophisticated viewing experiences allowing viewers to provide feedback. What’s more, the advent of smart phones and social media has made Sunday sermons an interactive experience. Social media on Sunday is filled with comments and quotes drawn from the church service. Christian conferences are chronicled live on Twitter with special hash tags, Instagram pictures, and commentary.

Some lament this new reality. They say we are eroding the value of the incarnational experience of hearing a message. This is a valid concern, but pastors and church leaders must deal with the world that is: a digital conversation that is here to stay. So preachers must reckon with reality: when you walk up to the pulpit or lectern, you are not merely speaking to the room. You are speaking the outside world as well.

“Former All-Pro Wide Receiver Tim Brown on Leadership and Determination” – Parse

Quite simply, he saw something in me I didn’t see in myself. Maybe it was because I was not trying to see it. I was so content on getting my degree, going back home, marrying my high school sweetheart, and having six kids, that football was not high on my list. I wanted to play well, but being the best player in the country was not something I even dreamed about. What was unique about the transformation is when it sunk in, I saw it so clearly. Not winning the Heisman, but being a real player and leader. I was the best player on my high school team, but I didn’t see myself as a leader. For the first time in my life, I saw I had the ability to lead guys.

“Do Blue Collar Workers Fit our Theology of Vocation?” – Christianity.com

I hope our faith and work theology works for Uncle Jim, not just for the artists and painters and poets. I pray that the postman of the next generation might deliver mail with a bit more bounce in their step, because they know that despite the cultural fascination with white collar work, those who labor in the trenches of our less flashy professions do work as important as anyone else.

“LeBron James and Our Longing for Home” – Christianity.com

I think this longing for home is innate, something God wired in us. Ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, we’ve been displaced, a bit uncomfortable wherever we are.

 

 

 

Barnabas Piper on Life in the Fishbowl

There are a lot of pastor’s kids out there, but few who grew up like my friend Barnabas Piper, the son of popular pastor and author, John Piper. That’s why I’m excited about Barnabas’ new book, The Pastor’s Kid. What is refreshing about this book, unlike so many other books in this genre, is that its not another angst-ridden, ex-evangelical memoir that hates on the Church. Barnabas writes this book from an honest, but honoring position. He loves the Church and wants to help pastors kids work through their unique struggles. I have a feeling this book will help a lot of pastor’s kids.

I had the chance to interview Barnabas for Leadership Journal. Here is one of the questions I asked:

We’ve seen more than a few angst-ridden memoirs by pastor’s kids and others who have grown up in evangelicalism. You’ve chosen not to do this, but still present an honest, realistic portrait of growing up in a pastor’s home. Why?

Angst offers little that is constructive or productive, no matter how justified it is. In fact, it usually isn’t all that justified. Not when you take the profound power of God’s grace into account. I have plenty of things about the church at large and about being a PK that annoy and anger me, but holding on to that eats me up and only makes me resent the very entity God gave us to represent him. I love the church. I need the church. Sometimes I want to choke the church. But I believe the church is God’s institution, so my responsibility is to figure out how to serve and help it.

On the personal side, I love my parents. They were good parents with flaws. Sometimes they fell into the traps so many pastors and their spouses do, but they loved my siblings and me and provided a godly, stable, generally happy upbringing. I wrote The Pastor’s Kid with the phrase “honor your father and mother” echoing in my mind. No, I didn’t pander to them, but neither did I want to disrespect or hurt them. That would be sinful and stupid.

Civil Rights and the Gospel

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. To commemorate this landmark event and to discuss the Church’s role in working toward racial reconciliation, I had the opportunity to engage in a discussion with my ERLC colleague, Trillia Newbell, author of the new book, United. 

We filmed this in the Civil Rights Room at the historic Nashville Library, built on the spot of one of the key demonstrations of the Civil Rights movement. I’m grateful to my incredibly gifted team, led by Thomas Willis, who produced this special video:

 

Potshots Are Not a Spiritual Gift

It’s a bit morose and probably an exercise in ego-massaging to consider what one would wanted inscribed on his tombstone (if indeed one has left his family enough money to buy a tombstone). But indulge me for a moment. This can be a good exercise for us in that it requires us to think through just what our lives are made of–what will the one or two sentences in the first lines of our obituaries say when we pass? I’m not sure what that would be for me, but I can tell you what I wouldn’t want it to be.

I don’t want to be known as the guy who takes potshots at other people.

This sounds like a no-brainer, but in our social media age, it’s not a given. In fact, I think if more people considered their reputations, the weight of their words, the impact they are having on the people who follow their activity, they’d reconsider what they type or tap into the blank spaces on Twitter.

Twitter makes taking potshots pretty easy. It’s not that it’s Twitter’s fault. It’s that this medium–instant, fast, and rewarding of sharp wit–dredges up from the heart the worst kinds of things. What’s more, the safe distance it gives you from keyboard to flesh-and-blood gives the illusion of courage behind a veil of insecurity.

I say all that to say this: a lifetime of worthy work can be erased in a short amount of time if you’re someone who uses Twitter to continually sound off, take potshots, and be the self-appointed watchdog for the masses you think have made you their leader. This is especially true and sadly prevalent in the evangelical world. You can easily take potshots–that have all of your tribe saying comatose amens–pretty easily. You can skewer the theological tribes with whom you disagree and make a living pointing out their blind spots, hash tagging their crimes, and gathering a willing lynch mob. You can create narratives, half-true, half-false, about movements you despise and be successful, even drawing in the news media and other organizations interested mainly in eyeballs on their web ads. You can be an online bully, going after people with relentlessness and fake courage because you don’t have to see them in person, shake their hand, and realize they are humans and not avatars. You can do all of this and do it well.

But again, is this what you want said about you at your funeral? Is this what you want inscribed on your tombstone? Is the thing, the one thing, you want your children to say is your most significant contribution during the years you were given, as a stewardship, by God?

This is the conversation we have to have with ourselves almost daily as we fight the carnal tendencies to react and overreact. I certainly haven’t always gotten it right. I’ve made mistakes, said things, tweeted things, blogged things that I regret. But lately it’s been this long view of life that has held me back. Because when I look at the list of spiritual gifts in the Bible, I see a lot of things, but I don’t see a ministry of potshots as one of them.

Jim Daly on Fatherhood

One of my favorite Christian leaders is Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family. If you’ve not read Jim’s powerful story of brokeness and redemption, you should really read Finding Home. Jim is the most unlikely candidate to lead a pro-family organization like Focus because his upbringing was unstable, chaotic, and broken. And yet it is out of this experience and God’s amazing work in his life that has not only led him to this place as a well-respected Christian leader, but as a father to his own children.

I had the chance to interview him for Christianity Today about fatherhood and his new book, The Good Dad, Becoming the Father You Were Meant to Be. One of the questions I asked him was this:

Many men will find solace in knowing that someone who grew up in your circumstances can become not only be an effective parent, but also the leader of a pro-family organization. Was that part of your motivation in writing the book?

Absolutely. I believe with all my heart that to be in Christ is to be a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). Among other things, this suggests that followers of Jesus are not defined by their past. They don’t have to be locked into or held down by the sins of their fathers. Christ has set them free from slavery to the “same old same old” of previous generations. I’m convinced that, in God, all things are possible. This has huge implications for marriage, parenting, and family life.

I find it encouraging that God can use us, where we are, to be good dads to our kids. You can read the rest of the interview with Jim Daly here.

What The Church Needs

This week I had the privilege of interviewing the new President of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, Ronnie Floyd, the Senior Pastor of Cross Church in Northwest Arkansas. I’ve had the chance to meet Dr. Floyd and am inspired by his heart for evangelism and his desire to the Church awakened with revival and prayer. One of the questions I asked him was: What is your vision for the next two years of Southern Baptist life. In the first part of his answer, he said this:

I will call upon us to cry out to God in extraordinary prayer for the next great spiritual awakening in America. No great movement of God ever occurs without being preceded by the extraordinary prayer of God’s people.

You can read the rest of his interview here.