Sears, Camera Phones, and How We Talk About God

some thoughts on the language we use to talk about the good news

It’s 1996 and you’re at the mall with your family. Everyone is wearing blue jeans and a similar looking polo. It’s family picture day, and everyone is ecstatic.

The photographer makes you stand next to the number 3 that is as tall as you, and you smile at the duck while she takes your picture.

A few weeks later, the pictures arrive. Some are put into wallets. Others are displayed in frames. And there may even be a book in a drawer somewhere that still has that old photo of you standing there next to the giant three.

And then phones ended up in our pockets.

They were innocent enough at first. People could call you after 7pm so as to not affect your minutes, and you could send maybe 250 texts a month. But the most advanced thing you could do is create annoying beeping ringtones that sort of sounded like real songs and play snake.

And then these phones in our pockets had cameras.

They became a little more breakable, and updates became more frequent as the technology got better and the battery life got worse.

Eventually, we got to a place where these cameras became very good, and with a little bit of luck, you can take a high quality photo with just your phone.

And people stopped going to Sears to stand next to giant numbers in matching polos and blue jeans.

Yet, we still hire professional photographers.

Why?

Because there is more to taking a good photo than having a phone with three cameras on the back. There’s a lot of skill involved that includes lighting, depth perception, and framing.

When your Great Aunt Shelby takes the family photo at Thanksgiving, it’s a bit off center, dad’s head is clipped off at the top, and she didn’t think to rearrange everyone so Tommy could be seen.

Framing matters.

At one point in time, it took a lot of money and time to produce a copy of the Bible. So the people who had the money and the education and the power were in charge of framing the story of the gospel. And this framing shifted and developed as the world changed.

And now that virtually every Christian has access to the Bible in their own language, anyone can tell the story from their own perspective.

So we have tens of thousands of denominations.

But that’s not the point.

This access to Scripture has done a lot of good. People are free to read and study for themselves .

But it has also done a lot of bad because people are free to read and study for themselves.

And anyone with a smartphone can film themselves talking about the Bible, write posts online about the Bible, and put their unfiltered views out into the world.

And just like Aunt Shelby, all of these different voices and different perspectives sometimes chop off part of the story, forget to move someone into view, or forget to turn on the flash.

Their framing is all off.

And some of these people are in charge of teaching dozens or hundreds or thousands of people.

We hire professional photographers because framing matters, and I do what I do in writing and speaking and creating because framing matters.

And that’s not to say that I have it figured out or am even close to figuring it out, but it is to say that being aware of the problem, staying humble, and attempting to be open to correction and the Sprit’s lead is something that I aspire to do, even if I miss the mark a lot.

What is God like? What does it mean for God to be Love? What is God’s wrath? What do we mean when we talk about hell, sin, and judgment? What happened at the cross? What is Revelation about or what is it doing?

We can answer questions like these using some of the same language and passages, but how we frame these ideas can drastically change our picture of God, our view of humanity (our anthropology), and how we view the future of the world.

So while I’m all about grace, Love, and unity, that doesn’t mean that the way we talk about these things suddenly doesn’t matter. It just means we don’t have to excommunicate each other every time we disagree. But we do need to have these sort of tough conversations in a loving way because the stories we tell about God shape the way we view everything else.

That phone in your pocket that has a camera and hundreds of different translations of the Bible is an amazing thing. You have so much information at the tips of your fingers. Definitely take advantage of it. But there are so many factors in your life that impact your framing of these stories. Admitting that is the first step to moving towards a more Christlike framing.

So as you study and think, just remember that none of us have it all figured out, and if we are to move forward together, then we need to study and think and reason together. Not only will this keep us accountable, but it will also build the kind of community the world needs right now.

Here’s a sermon I did two years ago on how we frame the gospel.