Brett McCracken
17 min read ⭑
“Art and pop culture are actually one of the most vibrant spaces for secular artists to ask spiritual questions and wrestle with questions of meaning, purpose and identity. As Christians, it’s so important that we don’t run from those conversations but instead lean into them in a deep, thoughtful way.”
The following is a transcript of a live interview. Responses have been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
The first meal that came to my mind was one I had just once at a particular restaurant called Bluestem in Kansas City. Kansas City is where I grew up, but I haven’t lived there for 20 years. My parents and my sister and her family still live there, though. It’s a great city, and I love going back there.
I took my now-wife, Kira, to Bluestem while we were in Kansas City so she could meet my family. It was her first time in Kansas City. We’re foodies and we bonded in our dating years over really good food, so I took her to Bluestem, which at the time, was Kansas City’s best fine-dining restaurant.
Sadly, it has since closed — possibly as a pandemic casualty like so many other restaurants. But that actually makes this a sweeter memory because it underscores how you can never really replicate your best dining experiences. I’ve tried to replicate some really amazing meals before, but it’s always been disappointing. So I’ve learned to let a high-point meal just be that and not try to repeat it. And in this case, I can’t repeat it because Bluestem is closed.
The meal itself was a six- or seven-course meal with wine pairings, and it was just amazing. There was one course we still talk about to this day. It was a candied molasses pork with Rancho Gordo beans from the Central Valley of California. These beans were insanely good. We still talk about them to this day — almost 12 years after that meal!
Annie Spratt; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
Well, talking about beans 12 years after you eat them is probably one of my quirky habits. In addition to that, something that I think is really quirky that I love doing is planning trips and itineraries — not just for myself, but also for other people. In another life, I probably would’ve been a travel agent or worked in the industry as a travel writer or something because I love traveling.
I also love helping other people experience the world and the best there is to see all over. On any given week, I may give out travel tips and advice to someone at least once about restaurants they should try in this city or things that they should do in that part of the world. A friend of mine is planning to take his family to Italy, and a few days ago, I sent him a long email with 10 restaurants in Florence they should try, 10 restaurants in Rome and several half-day walking tours of Rome so they can focus on Christian history and early church history.
I geek out on that stuff, especially whenever I plan my own family trip. My wife and I have three little kids, and we’re in the stage of life where we do big road trips. We’re going to Colorado this summer for three weeks, and I’m already working four months in advance on the day-by-day itinerary for that trip. My wife thinks it’s over the top, but she also benefits from it because, in her own words, “I love our trips because all I have to do is wake up. Brett has organized an amazing day and experience for us.”
Another reason I love it is that we’ve all been on big vacations where the ephemeral nature of it crushes our souls. The minute you’re starting to unwind and relax, you realize, Oh, there’s only a few days left and then it’s over. So being able to anticipate a vacation months in advance kind of elongates the joy of it in a cool way. I think that’s part of why I enjoy it so much.
That’s a quirky thing I do, and honestly, when I need to get my mind off of work and heavy things, it’s my go-to activity. I start thinking about an upcoming trip or I think about a trip that my parents are taking and how can I help make the most of their trip for them. As I said, I need to make this a side hustle and get paid for it. Maybe I should start charging people for road trip itineraries! But seriously, I do enjoy it.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
I’m prone to hold things within too much and for too long. I’m an introvert, a Five on the Enneagram (Investigator). I’m an interior processor and tend to be guarded in that I only let a few people in to see what’s really going on inside. And even with the people I do let in, I think I’m hesitant sometimes to excavate the layers as deeply as they probably should go. That’s always been a weakness for me. I’ve seen some growth in that area since marrying my wife, Kira. She really draws things out and helps me process what’s inside and what’s going on in my heart and soul.
I’m also a pretty cerebral person. I’m a writer. I’m a critic. I think about things deeply, but thinking about things deeply isn’t the same as feeling things. So I would say that’s been a weakness for me — being able to talk about feelings, processing them with other people and being vulnerable in those areas. It’s still a process, and I’m learning and trying to improve.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
I’m an editor for the Gospel Coalition, which is one of the world’s largest Christian online resource hubs. Particularly, I’m an editor focused on arts and culture content — that’s a passion area for me. I’ve always been interested in the arts, beauty and movies. That’s where I got my start as a journalist — writing film reviews for my college newspaper at Wheaton College back in the early 2000s. Ever since, that’s been my vocational purpose — writing and editing content at the intersection of Christianity and the arts, including music, movies, TV, visual arts and all of that.
The goal for me has been to help Christians see the value in that genre and to recognize the importance of beauty in the Christian life. I want to help people see how beauty and art can cultivate worship and reverence for God as the ultimate Creator as well as the fruitful possibilities that come from engaging with pop culture, even secular pop culture.
As Christians, we may historically have had a combative relationship with that aspect of the world, whether with Hollywood movies or pop music. But I’ve seen that art and pop culture are actually one of the most vibrant spaces for secular artists to ask spiritual questions and wrestle with questions of meaning, purpose and identity. As Christians, it’s so important that we don’t run from those conversations but instead lean into them in a deep, thoughtful way.
That’s what I try to model in my own writing and what I do for the Gospel Coalition as a curator and a critic. Sometimes I write films as a film critic. Sometimes I put together a playlist of music that I think is really excellent. For instance, today, I was working on a playlist for Holy Week. So that’s something I’m doing now and what I’ve been doing for most of my career. I love it and hope that it’s beneficial to people out there.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
Two areas come to mind in terms of regular sources of inspiration for me and when I feel the Holy Spirit speaking to me. One is a really powerful, in-person relational encounter. It could be a long conversation over coffee with a friend, fellowshipping with people at church or meeting someone for the first time because they reached out after reading an article that I wrote and we end up having an amazing, interesting conversation.
I’m an elder at a local church, so I meet up with people in my church a lot to try to go deeper with them and talk about their lives, their struggles or simply interesting things going on in the world, movies, the news and whatnot. I find a lot of inspiration in that physical space between two or more human beings. And maybe that’s because I spend a lot of time in my job looking at a screen as an editor for a website. Our team works remotely, which means I don’t have an in-person office community. That can be isolating, so maybe that’s why I seek out in-person moments of connection and find a lot of life and nourishment there.
Being out in nature is another place where I find inspiration and where God speaks to me. That can simply be walking in my neighborhood, which I try to do a lot or sitting in the backyard under my avocado tree. Trying to unplug without a device nearby is helpful.
I went on a walk this past weekend. We were able to get babysitters to watch our kids and I was able to get some self-care time alone. When you’re a parent of three children — mine are 4 and under — work full time, and are busy and involved in your local church, you just crave that quiet space where you’re unmediated, there’s no one asking for anything, and you’re able to think. That’s an underrated value in our culture today — unmediated space where you’re literally doing nothing but staring at a tree or the ocean or just sitting with your thoughts for an extended period of time. I’m grateful I got to do that for an hour or so. I went to the Back Bay in Newport here in Southern California. It was a beautiful day and the wildflowers were exploding because of all the rain. It was so enriching for my soul to actually have space to think and to open myself up to the Holy Spirit speaking to me.
I think it’s amazing how he wants to speak to us when we make space for that. I often find that if I’m disciplined enough to make space for him and I pray and ask him to speak to me, he actually will. So I ended that time on Saturday with all these thoughts, inspiration for future articles and even a book idea that I might pursue. I know that’s a long-winded response, but to sum up, an in-person connection and time out in God’s creation are how I hear from God best.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So spill it, which spiritual practice is workin’ best for you right now?
A couple of years ago, I wrote my most recent book called “The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World,” which is all about habits of wisdom to cultivate in your life in a digital age of distraction when we spend so much time aimlessly scrolling on our devices and when there are so many other life-nourishing sources of wisdom that could be keeping our soul. While I was writing that book, I decided I needed to practice what I was preaching. I knew I needed to institute some new rhythms in my life so that I was doing the things I was arguing we should all be doing. One tweak I made to my habits is I stopped having my phone in my room at night, which was actually pretty game-changing for me spiritually. A lot of us use our smartphones as alarm clocks, and so it’s right by our bedside. That also means that it tends to be the last thing we look at before we go to bed and the first thing we look at when we wake up. We immediately set the tone for our day by scrolling and checking our notifications.
So I decided to do away with my phone and actually not look at it or touch it for the first hour of the day, every day if I can at all help it. Some days I can’t. Some days there’s an urgent work thing that I have to jump into, but most days, I try to abide by this rule of not looking at a device for the first hour of the day. Instead, I use that time to have breakfast, enjoy my coffee, sit down, have some Bible reading time, and pray for a few minutes. I have this little chair in the corner of my living room where during that first hour of the day, I try to get at least 15 to 30 minutes in my reading chair. This time is such a gift because it sets the tone for the day and is such a better register than scrolling on a device.
Some days, I only get two minutes of prayer time because my kids are going crazy and they need to get dressed for school or there’s something else happening. But on a good day, I’ll have a solid half-hour to read the Bible, read a little bit of a devotional book, pray and have some time with God. It’s been a huge blessing in my life and is something I’ve started talking about and recommending to others. Whether it’s the first hour of your day or an hour over lunch or an hour in the evening, or even just 30 minutes — whatever you can do to put away your device, open up your heart and free up your soul for some kind of spiritual rhythm. That’s just so important.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources — lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are three resources that have impacted you?
This is a pretty hard question because when you’re a curator for a living, there are nearly a million different ways to answer! But I do have one movie, one kind of book and then one piece of music to share here.
The movie is “The Thin Red Line.” It’s a World War II movie that came out in 1998, written and directed by Terrence Malick, my favorite filmmaker. I think he’s probably the most significant working Christian artist in any genre. He directed “The Tree of Life” a couple of years ago, which I’ve called the greatest Christian film ever made. But it was “TheThin Red Line” back in the ’90s that really made a difference in my life. I was in high school at the time in Kansas City, and I was like a lot of Christians who grew up in the church. I was wrestling with connecting my faith to other passions and interests beyond just a Sunday experience. I wondered how my faith was relevant to, in this case, my interest in movies and my passion for that aspect of culture.
I went to see “The Thin Red Line,” thinking it was going to be like “Saving Private Ryan,” a really well-made World War II epic, but it blew my mind. Yes, it’s a war film and it’s a historical period film, but it’s a deeply spiritual kind of meditative, artistic experience. It gave me a vision for the intersection of theology, art, and movies. It made me want to be a film critic coming from a Christian perspective because I left that movie thinking, Wow, there are so many possibilities in terms of movies that get people thinking about God and questions about sin, death, and eternity. The whole movie is one long voiceover with probing questions about where sin came from, why the world is the way that it is, and how we get out of this mess. So “The Thin Red Line” was a game-changing movie for me.
“The Weight of Glory” is one essay within “The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis. I’ve been a fan of C.S. Lewis for decades, going back to high school and college. It was in 2005 when I first encountered “The Weight of Glory” while I was in Oxford, England, which is where Lewis lived and worked. I attended a conference put on by the C.S. Lewis Foundation in Oxford and one of the events during that conference was a recreation of C.S. Lewis delivering “The Weight of Glory.”
Before it was an essay, it was actually a sermon that he delivered at the University Church of St. Mary in Oxford. In the very church where he had delivered that sermon himself in 1941, there was a well-known British actor who sat in the pulpit and pretended to be C.S. Lewis delivering “The Weight of Glory.” It was one of those goosebump moments. The words and the substance of it and the whole experience of being in the church where this sermon was delivered for the first time before becoming a significant essay. To this day, I look back on that experience as a really pivotal moment for me because of the substance of the essay. I could go back to it again and again in terms of articulating my vision for beauty and the arts from a theological standpoint.
In the essay, Lewis talks about how when we encounter something beautiful, we’re tempted to make an idol of it and see the beautiful thing as the endpoint. But really, when we encounter beauty, we’re encountering a messenger of something that is out of reach or feels out of reach, and that something is God — the source of beauty. So we can enjoy all the beautiful things in the world, whether a movie like “The Thin Red Line” or amazing beans at Bluestem. We can enjoy it all because we see it as a gift and as the signpost of an abundant, extravagant creator who provided this framework for me to engage the arts in a worshipful way. This had real value in terms of helping my non-Christian friends who also care about beauty and the arts. It gave me the vocabulary to have theological conversations with them about this.
The third thing I want to share is a little esoteric, but it’s a fairly recent album called “Every Power Wide Awake” by a guy named John Van Deusen. He’s a Christian indie singer-songwriter, but not in the Christian music industry. His music isn’t overtly Christian in most cases. But this album that he made a couple of years ago called “Every Power Wide Awake” is explicitly Christian, and it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of devotional music in the contemporary music scene that I’ve ever heard. It’s musically interesting, lyrically beautiful and profound, and an example of what’s possible when Christian musicians break out of formulas, push boundaries artistically and are super honest lyrically yet with a very worshipful kind of lens. There’s such potential there. The album is pretty remarkable, and he continues to churn out music that impresses me. I would put him among the top five Christians making music these days.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season — and tell us what it’s done for you.
What comes to mind is a book that I read recently called “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard, a pretty well-known, prolific Christian. I would describe her as a Christian mystic, but she also writes about nature from a Christian theological worldview.
I tend to read a lot of books about nature. It probably goes back to the same reason I spend time in nature as I work in the digital world and I’m on the internet a lot more than I’d like to be. Social media, by and large, is such a dumpster fire, and it crushes my soul. So anytime I can just connect my soul to creation and really dwell on it, it does me good. So I’ve been reading a lot of books this year about rivers, and this book, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” is one of those. In it, Annie Dillard goes through a whole year of all the seasons — winter, spring, summer and fall — and writes in very vivid detail about her observations about the ecosystem and the animals and the weather in this creek that runs by her house. It’s somewhere on the East Coast.
It’s a beautiful piece of writing and she uses nature and her observations about nature to make some pretty remarkable theological observations, including the nature of suffering and the biggest questions about why suffering exists in the world. It’s a pretty mind-blowing book. It ministered to me in this season because I’ve been feeling the weight of the vision in our culture, largely driven by online behavior and social media mobs. When you spend a lot of time online, you lose sight of the unchanging things about the world and the rhythmic kind of predictable rhythms of nature. Spring will come and summer will come because God designed this world to carry on despite the foolishness we encounter in the news. And with whatever is going on with politics or whatever we’re freaking out about on Twitter on any given day, the birds are still doing their thing and the salmon are still doing their cycle of swimming to the ocean and back up the stream to spawn. Nature is a beautiful, grounding, objective kind of gift in a world of confusion, post-truth and instability. In that sense, I find nature really helpful, and that book stands out in highlighting that theme.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
This isn’t going to be too surprising given the themes that have come out in this interview so far, but I’ve been thinking about writing a book along the lines of Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” It wouldn’t be exactly like that, but it would be a theological engagement with nature or some aspect of nature. It’s a topic that we don’t write about enough in Christian publishing.
I think God’s creation is a form of revelation. There’s the special revelation of the Bible, which is our most important revelation from God. But the same God who authored the Bible also designed creation. There’s this tradition of the two books — the book of the Bible and the book of Creation — and there’s a lot to learn by reading both of those books. The book of Creation should supplement the book of Scripture. And so I’m feeling a stirring to do some sort of project that looks at nature from a biblical point of view and a theological point of view. I think it would be super fun to do that because, when writing a book like that, I would probably be able to justify spending a lot of time sitting by a river or sitting by the ocean with my little notepad and computer as I write.
I don’t know what shape that will take as I’m still in the earliest stages. When you write books, they start as kernels of ideas and then you start fleshing them out. I’m at the point with this project where I’m beginning to take some notes down on paper and I’ve recorded some voice memos. I love that feature of the iPhone.
Although I often knock technology, I still like some of its features, like voice memos. When I was walking in the Back Bay doing my solo time, I had some ideas about this particular topic that I’m describing, so I got on my iPhone and created a voice memo. Those are helpful because, instead of forgetting the great ideas you get, you can record them and come back to them later.
All that to say, that’s where I am with that particular project, and I’m in no rush. I have a full life and am very busy, so I’m not chomping at the bit to jump into writing a new book. But if God wants me to write it and things fall into place, then it will happen. And if not, then they won’t — and that’ll be fine, too.
Some of the greatest Christian thinkers, songwriters and theologians have had their most impactful encounters with God in nature. Take King David, for example. Growing up, he took care of his father’s sheep, so it’s no wonder he saw glimpses of God in nature as he wrote Psalm 23:
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:1-3, ESV).
Next time you step outside, ask yourself: “What can I see of God — his creativity, his character, or his love for this world — in the nature around me?”
Brett McCracken is a senior editor and the director of communications for The Gospel Coalition. He’s also the author of The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World, Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community, Hipster Christianity: When Church & Cool Collide and Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism & Liberty. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN.com, Christianity Today and many other publications. Subscribe to Brett’s blog here or follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
