From a netfriend:

"Vincent van Gogh: the failed evangelical" ... or Why Bob Dylan doesn't go to church

I'm reading a book about evangelicals... who they are, where they came from, why they might be important, what they believe. The book by evangelical scholar, Stan Grenz a Canadian baby boomer:

"Renewing the Centre"

I heard him speak at the Baptist college here last year. Intelligent, articulate, warm, uses current story telling techniques and film clips...Engaging stuff.

So why a book on "evangelical theology in a post-theological era."?

Non-negotiables are essential. What doesn't move in the tide of life is often [but not always] life saving.

Sound theology [once quaintly called the "queen of the sciences"] tries to nail down non-negotiable biblical themes of salvation for evangelicals, catholics, anglicans etc. [In fact, every religion has its own "theology"]. Grenz is one theologian trying to find the life saving non-negotiables for millions of people at least in Western evangelicalism... to throw some life rafts. Theology always dictates life, behaviour and ethics. And so he is a gift if he does well.

But who reads this heaviness?

I do for some reason. But not millions. So colleges and preachers are the message bearers. And evangelicalism not being a denomination but a movement [his idea] is about unifying common life saving non-negotiables. Awesome load to carry. Yet to be seen [I am one third through] how convincing he is.

But marketting ideas is a tough call. It's a gift . It's about timing. It's about connection. It's about communication. It's about image. It's about money. It's about teams of people.

Music and art market themselves to groups of people. You like art I don't and vice versa.The same with music. Never been so evident at least in my lifetime... Just read local papers, see entertainment ads, search art sites on the net and go to a few art galleries, visit people's homes, check out their books and magazines and CD collections.

What has this to do with an evangelical baby boomer theologian?

The ear lopping impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh was once an evangelical pastor.

He devoured 19th Century London Baptist C H Spurgeon's devotional writings and was a Methodist pastor in England. But when some heavy weight theologians in his native Holland decided that his radical approach to mission did not fit with their bounded theological sets, his devastation knew no bounds. He saw his call to be with the least of the least, to be truly "incarnational" . He wanted to do mission and not talk a theology of mission.

And so for 11 short years before his untimely suicide he painted and communicated beauty, heart, soul and story out of his devastation onto canvas that speaks still. [My visit to the van Gough museum of art in Amsterdam was a moment in time and space I will never forget.]

Grenz is appealing to reason, to the articulate rational mind. He will influence. And theologians and pastors will be reinforced or otherwise in their own theologies.

But what if some evangelical boards and college committees under Grenz's influence must process a van Gogh? What do we do with the unusual and different? Why is is hard to recognise a van Gogh? Why is our theology so tight and less than life saving? Why do our theologies become an iceberg to our HMAS Christian Titanic?

And Dylan? At the moment, I think he is another van Gogh. That's what I think after reading a Zadok paper on van Gogh,[Vincent van Gogh: the Failed Evangelical by Lindsay Farrell] and hearing Bob last week.

So my conlcusion?

Bob might not go to church or do the things that evangelicals say ought to be done [ not necesarily anything to do with theology!] but like van Gogh's canvas and paint he proclaims his life and spiritual journey with honesty in lyrics and music.

Is he a Christian? Was van Gogh?

That depends on who? ...Stan Grenz?

It just might be that after the good ship HMAS Christian Titanic hits the icebergs of its own creation that it is van Gogh and Dylan that saves some distressed swimmers in the sea of shattered ideas and the out of reach theological safety rafts.