{"id":242,"date":"2014-04-12T18:30:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T18:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/the-big-picture\/?p=242"},"modified":"2014-04-08T18:45:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T18:45:23","slug":"everything-really-is-awesome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/the-big-picture\/2014\/04\/everything-really-is-awesome\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything really is awesome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By Jordan Ballor<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s much for lovers of faith and freedom to appreciate in\u00a0the new LEGO movie<\/a>. The film aptly captures the playfulness and creativity that have been so closely identified with the little plastic bricks for decades. One of the more memorable lines from the film is the chorus to a little ditty that recurs throughout:\u00a0\u201cEverything is awesome!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

When we are first introduced to the song, we encounter it as a stultifying earworm designed to keep the masses of LEGO minifigures content with their workaday lives. Combined with lowbrow cultural programming, such as the hit (and only) TV show\u00a0\u201cWhere Are My Pants?,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cawesome\u201d theme song acts as an opiate of the oppressed proletariat.\u00a0Emmet<\/a>, the unlikely hero of the LEGO movie, buys in completely: Everything really is awesome, he thinks.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

President Business: \u201cAll I\u2019m asking for is total perfection.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Quickly we viewers see what Emmet, at least at first, does not. Everything is not awesome.\u00a0Lord (or President) Business<\/a>\u00a0is in fact using songs like \u201cEverything is Awesome\u201d and TV shows like \u201cWhere Are My Pants?\u201d to keep the LEGO people in a highly-controlled and maximally-pleasurable form of servitude. President Business is the ultimate expression of Adam Smith\u2019s \u201cman of system,\u201d one who thinks only in terms of linear plans, pragmatic execution, and control of all variables\u2013including most significantly the dynamism of other moral agents. As Smith put it, the \u201cman of system\u201d is \u201capt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his ideal plan of government that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.\u201d This is the reason for President Business\u2019 fascination with the power of the \u201cKragle,\u201d an artifact capable of bringing the LEGO world to a halt.<\/p>\n

In the Acton Institute\u2019s latest film release,\u00a0\u201cFor the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(hereafter FLOW) we find a protagonist named Evan who, like Emmet in the LEGO movie, is seeking to find the meaning and significance of his place in the world. At a critical point in the initial episode, Evan asks the fundamental question of the series: \u201cWhat is our salvation for?\u201d The answer, we find, is that our salvation is\u2013in the church as the body of Christ\u2013\u201cfor the life of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what does this really mean for how we approach something as mundane as our work? Early on in \u201cFor the Life of the World\u201d we are introduced to the idea that everything we have, everything we are, everything in the world, is gift. It\u2019s all gift. It is all the gratuitous and overflowing gift of God. Our created task, which we lose sight of because of the reality of sin, is to take those gifts and, in the context of our callings as stewards, offer them back to God.<\/p>\n

The connection here between the LEGO movie and \u201cFor the Life of the World\u201d lies in the free, dynamic creativity that God calls us to exercise in our service of others.\u00a0God calls us to offer these gifts back to him in large part through our work, our creative service of others.<\/a>\u00a0At one point in FLOW,\u00a0\u00a0Stephen Grabill<\/a>\u00a0points out that this vision of moral enterprise requires a context of freedom for responsible and responsive creativity: \u201cIf you try to control the process, it\u2019s like we\u2019re trying to control how people offer their gifts to other people. And what we really need to do is to allow people to offer their gifts to one another in free and open exchange so that others can flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n

The great conflict in the LEGO movie is precisely over the shape of the larger social system. If President Business \u2013 the consummate man of system \u2013 prevails, then the space for creative service will be crushed and everyone will be locked into place according to his central plan. But if Emmet and the other master builders prevail, everyone will be free to explore their place of creative service.<\/p>\n

Like Emmet and Evan we are all seeking our place in God\u2019s great work from creation to consummation. Some, like\u00a0Blue Classic Spaceman<\/a>, have discovered what we can do to productively serve others (Spaceship! Spaceship!\u00a0Spaceship!<\/em>), and all we need are the time and resources to turn our vision into reality. All of us, however, need space and freedom to experiment, and experience what God has designed us for. A key step in coming to understand our calling to creative service is to realize that everything really is awesome, not in the trite sense that it is simply cool or nice, but rather that the entire created order is awe-inspiring in its scale and scope. It is awesome in its complexity. It is awesome in its diversity. It is awesome in its expression of God\u2019s grace. It\u2019s all grace; \u201cit\u2019s all gift,\u201d as we learn in\u00a0\u201cFor the Life of the World.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Everything really is awesome.<\/p>\n

From the Acton Institute.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A key step in coming to understand our calling to creative service is to realize that everything really is awesome, not in the trite sense that it is simply cool or nice, but rather that the entire created order is awe-inspiring in its scale and scope. It is awesome in its complexity. It is awesome in its diversity. 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