Crypto-Religious Explained (Part 2)

Nathan

This episode is part two of the conversation on what in the world does it mean for something to be crypto religious. If you haven't listened to the first one, I would encourage you to go back and listen to that. This will be helpful as a new term arises kind of in the artistic and theological field and realm in which you might find yourself having these conversations. Continue to like, share and subscribe. And if you want to support the work that we're doing, you can do so by visiting www.toltogether.com.

Cameron

I was going say, you want me to tell you why I like it?

Why I think it's cool? Yeah, so I do. I like it. I think it's cool. Now, you should hear me carefully though. I'm not... Cameron, you don't... So you want people... Let's talk about a few people who might qualify for this right now and then consider its value. So Cameron, you don't want bold Christian witnesses? That's not what I'm saying. So I want artists...

who, and they are here. I mean, there are always powerful artists who are speaking in the prophetic mode. But in order to be heard, they don't have to kowtow or cater to the spirit of the age necessarily, but art changes depending on the circumstances of a particular culture. Somebody's not gonna write the Pilgrim's Progress today. The Pilgrim's Progress is immensely valuable and it has massive artistic merit as well, but it wouldn't work today, would it? Now that's not,

That's not a stroke against Paul Bunyan. That's an acknowledgement that the times necessarily are going to make a difference in how you give your message. So in a moment that's post-secular, and also in a moment where a lot of people see religion being put to many different cynical uses,

You know, this is also, we live in some decades, the defining moments of our generation happen to be, a lot of them happen to be religious violence. You know, the prime example being 9-11. And that led to a lot of very strong reactions to religion. So it's in that, those, you can't take those off the table. Those change the context. And again, I'm talking about artists. I'm not talking about ministers. I'm not talking about pastors. Okay. These are artists. So how does an artist

How can an artist be heard? So my example, everybody's going to roll their eyes and everybody. So by the way, first of all, somebody who says Jordan Peterson, Jordan Peterson wouldn't qualify because he's not an artist. Okay. He's, is he crypto religious? I don't, I mean, not according to Paul Eli's definition. No, he's, he's not an artist. The artist I'm going to say is David Foster Wallace. Shocker, right?

Nathan

⁓ yep. No,

it's good. No, you haven't quoted him or talked about him for like six months, so it's appropriate. Bring it on.

Cameron

Yeah,

I mean, I'm due to bring him in here. But David Foster Wallace also because behind, there's an ambiguity. What did he actually think? I'm going to give you two examples of of crypto-religious work from him. One is Infinite Jest. And one of the things that he said he wanted to do with Infinite Jest was find a way to talk about God with a straight face. That's his quote. That's a quote from him, talk about God with a straight face. The way he does it in Infinite Jest is he situates the heart of the novel

in a halfway house for recovering addicts led by a gentleman named Don Gately. Don Gately is a kind of, he's a mixed bag, he's a dark past, he's a spiritual kind of hero of the book. But some of the most spiritually vibrant and powerful conversations in that book take place at that, in that halfway house. And he had said behind the scenes, wanted to do

a little bit of, I wanted to do the same kind of thing as Dostoevsky is doing in his novels, but I can't do it in the same way that Dostoevsky did it because we're living in a post-secular culture. So how do I get this across in a way that people will take it seriously, people will actually hear it? And this is not, I hope you hear me carefully there, Nathan. He's not trying to make it palatable, he's not trying to dumb it down, he's trying to get it.

He's trying to render it ⁓ in a way that is comprehensible or that it will really land with spiritual force on his readers. That and then of course the this is water commencement address that he gave at Kenyon College, which is very spiritually resonant but also spiritually ambiguous. mean you can't really pin down precisely where he stands. And of course the question, there's a big huge question mark over David Foster Wallace's life. It ended tragically with him taking his own life.

it, you know, but the question remains, I mean, there was a deep spiritual yearning in his work. So is he or isn't he? I think he's a perfect example of what what Piela Paul, Paul Eli is talking about.

Nathan

I the... so I'm glad you've introduced this term to me. I think on the other hand that one of the ways in which... So I'm trying to run this backwards through a grid. I mean how many Christian apologists and preachers have quoted David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College address about we all worship something and the only thing you get to decide is what it is? Like so the degree... Cameron was...

Cameron

I was doing it before it was cool. I just want to say that right now. I did it before Dave before Tim Keller.

Nathan

The

I mean, where did Tim Keller get it from? Really, Cameron, who knows? ⁓ So I guess I've always looked at this from a from a Christian communicative communicating perspective of, look, these people are trying to grapple with reality and they're bumping into the truth and it's manifesting in these or like their their art is then bruised by this interaction with reality that bleeds in a spiritual.

Cameron

That's right, that's right.

Mm-hmm.

Nathan

tone or sense. so you yeah and so I think that to me does does that understanding of it fit with his definition here or is it is there something that's

Cameron

Yeah, it's a wrestling match. yeah, bruised and bleeding is good. Yeah.

Yes, yes,

because you're about the dynamic that it introduces. I think the tremendous value of crypto religiosity and art is that it forces the audience to really wrestle with it. What if this is actually true? What if this is real? Horror movies, there's another easy example to play. I often do this because a lot of horror movies involve supernatural realities.

And the best horror films make those supernatural realities real enough, but also a bit ambiguous and then force you, the audience, to wrestle with, I actually believe this? And I think that's a really valuable question to be asking in a post-secular age. What if this is, is this really true? Great art will do that.

Nathan

I guess.

Okay, think I'm

on board 50 % in that... We'll see. With the crypto part. Crypto-secularism. We're going to go there next. So I think maybe this is my intellectually sheltered or just the way that I'm wired. Yeah.

Cameron

Okay, hey, I consider that a modest success.

boy.

Wait, I have a question for you, Nathan. I have a question for

you, Nathan, though. Let me turn this around a little bit, because I think this will help us. ⁓

What about... So there is a good deal of art out there that is... Okay, well I'll call it art, that is explicitly Christian right now. So there's nothing crypto-religious about the Chosen, for instance. Is that going to do what... Now, I'm not talking in terms of artistic skill. Let's just talk in terms of reach.

Nathan

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (

Is that ultimately going to be able to do what Flannery O'Connor is able to? Sorry, no, I should pick a crypto-religious... Well, no, Flannery O'Connor is fine. Because Flannery O'Connor, she's behind the scenes. We know exactly where she stands. But if you read her fiction, no, you wouldn't. So which is going to have the better reach, The Chosen or Flannery O'Connor? Maybe it's not a fair question, but I think it's very clearly going to be Flannery O'Connor.

Nathan

Yeah, you wouldn't.

So here's, actually this is where I was going. So I'm gonna disqualify myself and you will think less of me for this answer. But I don't think that there's a sense in which my core religious beliefs are shaped or formed by.

Cameron

So we turn it around, maybe get some clarity.

Nathan

either. think like art is not the place that I go looking for existential challenges and wrestles. So

Cameron

No, you're not disqualifying yourself. You're not disqualifying yourself. You're distinguishing

yourself as a personality type. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

Nathan

Right. Yeah. So, so when, when I hear Leonard

Cohen's hallelujah, I was at, I was at an event that was supposed to be like a pastoral training and they played this as the opening song. And I thought, this is the dumbest. Like, what are we playing? So, so, so it's not like, it's like, this doesn't really make me think of like, do I really believe this? Like, no, it like, and, in the same sense, I think I have that.

Cameron

You

It's not going to work on Rittenhouse.

You are deaf

to its music, as they would say.

Nathan

So I can appreciate the chosen, but I also kind of want my kids to probably read the Gospels about 25 times before they see it. ⁓

Cameron

Okay. Confession

time for me when you're done.

Nathan

You haven't seen The Chosen.

Cameron

Not only have I not seen The Chosen, here's why this book has been so spiritually refreshing for me, really helpful. So I have for years struggled with really feeling guilty for what I like and what moves me spiritually. And it's not Hillsong, it's not Maverick City Church. I know that won't surprise you. And it's not The Chosen, it's just not. So the notion that because I'm a Christian, there's this certain Christian market that is there to cater to my Christian interests strikes me as alien, first of all.

Maybe that's because I grew up in a secular, in Western Europe and largely secular environment and that doesn't make any sense to me. But on a deeper level, I've always felt kind of guilty about it because I've always had a lot of friends who get really frustrated with me because they say, mean, ⁓ this praise song, this praise band, this just moves me so much. And I'm like you with that Leonard Cohen with the Hallelujah rendition at that pastor's conference. Not only do I not like it, it actually annoys me.

But I can listen to Hallelujah and it can move me to tears. I can listen to I'm deeply stirred in my soul when Bono sings about still not finding what he's looking for. I am deeply moved by David Foster Wallace. I'm deeply moved by one of the films he mentions in the book is Wings of Desire, which is a German film by Wim Wenders about two angels who are in Berlin who desperately, desperately want to become human.

that resonates and stirs me deeply. Now part of that is just personality. That's just the way I'm made. But part of it is also, that's part of why I feel so liberated when I read a book like this because I think, okay, but there is something there. There's a real spiritual resonance and it has to do with... ⁓

Nathan

⁓ so our disagreement is this, is I think that's just religious.

I don't think it's crypto.

Cameron

I mean the religious, yeah, no, but what he means by crypto is just that you don't know where the author or the writer stands, you know, the artist. He doesn't mean that it's ambiguously religious. It might be ambiguously religious in the sense that you can't pin it down precisely as to what religion it is. There are elements of Buddhism here that he just means you don't know whether the artist is a believer, if they really believe. That's the crypto part. But that,

Nathan

Mm-hmm.

Cameron

ambiguity stirs in you a restlessness and a desire to know and ask of yourself to interrogate your own soul. Do I believe? Do I believe? Is this real? I think I recognize that as valuable spiritual introspection, especially for a culture that's largely sometimes can just be dulled to spiritual or religious questions especially, especially religion. Yeah, organized religion.

There's real prophetic force if Madonna is bringing in that imagery and doing so seriously. So it's a challenging book. I think a lot of people are with you, Nathan, in kind of saying, Paul, I think you're reaching a little bit here. And like I said, I'm halfway through it. He's got a lot of plates spinning. How it all comes together, I don't know that he's necessarily going to bring it all together or, to use another metaphor, land the plane.

There are so many powerful vignettes and interrogations into these artists that I think it's more than worth the price. And Paul Eli himself will say, I went for broke. It's an ambitious book. I'm trying to do a lot. I'm not sure I succeed, but I'm trying.

Nathan

Well, let's say, let me throw another thing on here just as we're kind of swirling in this stew of ideas, is that I think with ⁓ the value of the artist, historically, particularly the poet, but that's not as celebrated a thing in... Actually, we should talk about this sometime or get somebody to help us think about just the way in which poetry has been truncated into... Like it used to be a more mainstream modern... Like most people were more familiar with poetry.

But what the poets do is they hold open doors that materialism is trying to close. And good art does that. Of you think you live in a single story house and the artist is saying, yeah, but there's actually an upstairs you haven't seen. And so they give you the creaks and noises from upstairs that rattle your certainty of whether or not there is a higher order or level of things. And so that I see as a

a valuable way in which there can be a ⁓ jarring sense of uneasiness or contentment because we long for there to be that thing that the artist becomes a mediator between the course and sterleness of a naturalistic materialistic framework. Wow. We want to, or don't want there to be a bigger story and they keep singing or writing about a bigger story.

that will either haunt us or inspire us one way the other.

Cameron

That's really well said, Nathan. if we take, there is a conversation to be had about the total displacement of the poet. Poet used to be, I mean, major, if you look at ancient Greece, course, poets were of monumental significance, but even up to relatively modern times, were key public intellectuals. But if you think of poet in a more expansive sense, if you think of the artists as poets of the age, then that dynamic hasn't changed. You still have them and they're able in unique ways to

to sneak past the watchful dragons in interesting ways, with spiritual themes. there is a lot, yeah, there's a lot there. It's necessarily controversial what he's doing,

Nathan

Well, here's why I think it is. Let me put my finger on it and

then you answer this question. The question is, is somebody who isn't clear of their religious principles capable of producing something that does instantiate a legitimate religious belief and feeling in you? That's the question of how to distinguish, do we trust this guide?

Cameron

Mm-hmm. So, yep.

Nathan

Do we trust what they're

pointing to being a

Cameron

Yep. To go back to a less crypto guy, Walker Percy described him. So in the first book that Paul Eli wrote, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, that you save may be your own. That's a Flannery O'Connor short story, by the way. That's where the title comes from. What he said about himself, Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton, these four sometimes corresponded and knew one another. He said they shared a common predicament and their

predicament was they were Catholics in the modern world and specifically for two of them they were Catholic artists. And they were absolutely firmly committed. They were devout. So how do we transmute that devotion into faithful art that is nevertheless serious art? And you know the answers are not cookie-cutter or comfortable. And if you want to crash course in that, you

You can hear it from me. You've been warned. Take a look at Walker Percy's Lancelot. That is a, it's a truly shocking book. And I mean, I read it not too long ago. I had never read it as a novel and I'd always heard people say, Hey, this is, this is a darker one. Yeah. That's an understatement. And just to

Nathan

What's your rating on that for

our younger listeners?

Cameron

Okay, well, here's the rating. One person responded and said, you've written pornography. And I don't think it's pornography. Yeah, further than that. The charge, don't think was accurate, but it was understandable. I'll put it that way. It's a very profane book. But part of what he's trying to do is communicate through, it's largely told through a truly evil character.

Nathan

Okay, so PG-13+.

Okay.

Cameron

a very demonic character. And same with if you read Flannery O'Connor stories. It's not what would show up in a Christian bookstore. So I guess what I'm trying to say in a sort of roundabout way is even those who are, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Nathan

I know why. Can I say, can I say what you're saying? So the reason that

My sense is, just as being your friend for however many years has been, is that some of this art casts a wider angle than Christian art does. There are senses in which you feel that Christian art is too restricted and too narrow and is not really getting deep enough down under the core issues. So it's not that it's not true.

is that some of this more expansive grappling with evil and brokenness and mayhem that the gospel speaks to resonates at deeper foundational chords of chaos and redemption than maybe the overly, I think you would use the word perhaps, sanitized elements that come through some forms of Christian art where you're saying, that sounds nice, but you know what? The world does not look like a Christian bookstore.

The world is crazier and evil and viler than that. And the gospel speaks to all of the world, not just to a rendition of reality that we would like to be true. So you ⁓ find a deeper spiritual resonance in Lancelot because it describes the brutality and the vileness of the world as you biblically think exists and as you experience experientially see and acknowledge is there.

Cameron

One great... Yep.

Mm.

Nathan

And you're saying, what are the forms of art that take the concepts of the gospel to the depths of chaos in which the gospel was intended without sanitizing ⁓ reality unnecessarily?

Cameron

Yeah. No, that's well put. And thanks for saying that. At the risk of overgeneralizing a little bit, a great paradigm example here, another poem that could not be written today is of course Dante's Divine Comedy. But it's great to point to here. So interestingly enough, some of our key infernal hell and horror imagery, yes, that crops up in movies to this day comes from Dante's Inferno.

I mean, he really did. He gave us some key horror tropes in there. Of course, that's anachronistic to say that's not what he was trying to do. But on a deeper level, what's important about that is a lot of a lot of well-meaning Christians care so deeply about just getting the truth of the gospel across to people. But in the artistic realm, if you do that, you're going it's going to come.

But first of all, you have to be careful that you're not making propaganda instead of art, where it's just you're really just kind of dressing up Christian ideas in some cheap costumes and then trying to get the gospel in there as quickly as you can. But the other problem is it often comes at the cost of truth. Truth, goodness, and beauty, I think I see a lot of well-meaning Christians who just want goodness and maybe a little bit of beauty sprinkled in there. But the truth part...

You know, the dark, the hard edges of life in a fallen world is omitted. So Dante can't get to the paradiso, which is the final, I mean, probably the greatest work of unadulterated light. It's very hard to write about just pure goodness in literature and keep it interesting. It's just not easy to do that. But Dante doesn't do that immediately. You have to go through hell and purgatory before you get to heaven. And there's something instructive about that.

And a lot of artists have looked to that. I Walker Percy was reading the Purgatorio when he wrote Lancelot, for instance. You know, so I think it's bearing in mind that we don't live in an ideal world, as you said, Nathan. And you can go too far with that, of course. There are works of great excess and indulgence that are just needlessly vile and dark and hideous.

Nathan

And there's a lot

of seduction into the celebration of the evil and chaos. And so there, I think there are real reasons to have real boundaries and guardrails there.

Cameron

Yeah.

Of Yes. I mean, it's a careful journey of discernment. That's a phrase I keep using over and over again. But yeah, we've talked a long time. This has been a bit of a longer one. One interesting, hey, one person I have to throw out, this was a comment on YouTube when Russell Moore was asking Paul Eli about current crypto figures. he said, I worked so hard on this book, studied so carefully here, I'm kind of not paying attention to what's going on now. One person said, what about Kanye West?

Nathan

Yeah.

Cameron

I thought, ⁓ that's actually a really interesting example to give. But another really clever reviewer of the book, Phil Christman, and actually, again, it's a testament to Paul Eli's humility. This was a pretty critical review in the Chronicle of Higher Education from Phil Christman of the book. Paul Eli has brought it up in several interviews and said there was a really smart reading of my book by Phil Christman. But Christman thought a

good place to look for a new generation of crypto-religious artists would be ex-vangelicals. He named a few, which was really interesting. They were mainly musicians. Julian Baker, she has beautiful voice. She's a singer, of playing folk country music. think actually, mean, dare I say it, I think you probably like her music. Grew up in a pretty strict evangelical household. Came out as gay when she was in her early 20s, I think.

was not, interestingly enough, was not disowned by her family. Her dad responded really well. he, you know, there's, they're obviously, they have serious differences and she's now with a, you know, she's, she's with a woman, but she writes a lot about Christianity and her own childhood. And it's, and it's not all disparaging. So she would definitely fit. It seems like she's a good candidate for that kind of, and she's not, mean, Sophia and Stevens is another one who also came out as gay in recent years. That was kind of an open secret for, for a while.

but continues to release very spiritually rich music, drawing on the Christianity of his childhood. Anyway, I thought I'd put that out there just to be thinking about it a little bit.

Nathan

I think here.

maybe

do this if you're thinking like this parentally ⁓ or even personally is that the challenge here Cameron is that so many well-known artists become role models for younger people. They want to be like that person. And so I think one of the distinctions that you would make that we would both make here is to say, just because this person is well-known does not mean that this is a life that you want to follow. And just because they're singing about religiously themed stuff, it's a sign perhaps of their confusion.

or a sign of their longing and bumping into the truth.

Cameron

Or

if you're a loser like me, if this person is what you would deem to be a successful artist that is making really great art that doesn't necessarily legitimize their whole way of living. That was a big one for me, especially when I was a young guy. That was big because I thought, but they're a great artist. And so their stuff would carry more sway for me for that reason. Yeah.

Nathan

Right. So I think maybe.

You can artistically

describe disgusting stuff that as a Christian, your mind has no business trying to process. So just because it's good art doesn't mean that it's good for you. I think is what Cameron's saying there. But let's, think if we can separate the idolatry of the success of artists from the content of what there's, that that might be just as a Christian, way to think about why do, why am I okay with some artists and not okay with some artists? And what, is the pause that I have here?

Cameron

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Nathan

You could look at somebody and say, this person's life is an absolute train wreck. And yet they are grappling with ⁓ dependency issues or substance abuse or whatever in ⁓ very pointed ways that resonate with the way that I see the world.

Cameron

said. Yeah. All right. I'm sure we've given you a lot to worry about in this particular episode. I hope, I mean, I think that the goal here is also just to break, it's a good topic of discussion. And this is a book that some of you might be inclined to read it. Some of you, maybe you've heard all you need to hear. And now you know, you don't need to hear anymore. But some of you may enjoy this book. Paul Eli is also

along with being a very incisive thinker is also a wonderful writer. He's a terrific writer. And that is just not true of everybody writing. These days, a lot of books are published. He truly, he stands out as just a wonderfully gifted writer. So, highly recommend him to you, very thought provoking. But you've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian.