CRN.Info and Analysis

The last two days I’ve been off enjoying a piece of God’s creation, and it gave me the opportunity for conversation about a person who has been spoken of in the past tense for quite a while now: Rich Mullins.

One of the few things I share in common with Rich is Cincinnati Christian University. We both attended that institution, albeit roughly 30 years apart. He was unceremoniously told to never come back, while I graduated. But something odd had happened in those thirty years: Rich had gone from a failed student, to an ignored musician to a celebrated figure by the administration of CCU, even going so far as to host a benefit concert in his name. So what happened?

It does seem odd doesn’t it? When you look back at his career and you see all the music he wrote for other artists, and all the work he put out himself, you’d think that any school that could have any claim to him at all would be putting his name on their website, putting it in their pamphlets, maybe naming a wing of a building after him to try to capitalize on one of their products. Well, here’s the bit that doesn’t show up on University websites (or even wikipedia articles from which it was posted at one point) Mullins was known for showing up to concerts and other events looking rather scruffy, was known to smoke, drink, and even say the odd naughty word from time to time. As a result CCU would rather ignore him and put as much distance as possible between them and him.

So, here we are, nearly 10 years after Mullins’ death. His legacy has been cemented by his work, and his overall philosophy of ministry rather than by his virtues, vices, and his sense of personal style. And so CCU, seeing the change in the winds has emerged from the Rich Mullins Witness Protection Program to officially embrace the life of Rich Mullins. Now that he’s dead, he’s not a problem. He can’t embarrass them by lighting up on their non-smoking campus. He can’t show up for a benefit concert attended by prominent alumni with 5 days of stubble, and a wardrobe from Goodwill, and he won’t be spotted having a beer at the Golden Fleece Lounge afterwards. In other words, now that he’s dead he’s been sterilized, nothing icky, dangerous, wrong or passionate about him.

Sadly, I think many Christians do exactly the same thing with the past. Maybe it’s dead theologians or preachers, or eras that have long been passed by, but whatever it is they’ve sterilized the giants of the past. They don’t have to worry about a wrong word, or moment of weakness embarrassing them, they can allow the years and the legacies of their heroes to emphasize the strengths and the bits of their lives they agree with while completely ignoring the parts of their lives and theology they disagree with.

This may not seem like such a bad thing (other than that whole truth thing of course), after all it brings to our mind the best of the past. The problem is that it sours the present. The present never stacks up to the past, today’s preachers and writers are all heretical, fallen, and adolescent, and everything, generally, is just plain crappy compared to yesteryear. In other words, because of an aggrandized view of the past, the life, church, and fellow Christians that God has blessed them with to be enjoyed and useful has become a constant source of disappointment and bitterness. And that’s a tragedy.