re:RQ
Captain Crunch and a Good Filet
Joseph L. Maxwell III
July 1, 1997
Like most other ventures, rq has a goal. Ours is to reach a rising generation—often called Generation X—and those surrounding this generation, with a level of thought surpassing the societal soma that pervades America, 1997. How, then, do we speak of a culture and to a culture without somehow reflecting it and, ultimately, absorbing it? Henri Nouwen, in his 1974 book Out of Solitude, synthesized the tension that RQ, like so many other Christian endeavors, experiences: "To live a Christian life," wrote Nouwen, "means to live in the world without being of it" [bold emphasis original]. We at rq almost adopted this now-ubiquitous mantra as our new motto, but then realized that, while originally packed with atomic power to encapsulate the Christian vocation, this phrase has today lost much of its descriptive punch. It has, in short, become a cliche, quoted as an addendum or period at the end of a million Christian sentences.
And yet, "In the world but not of the world," still packs power upon real reflection. Interestingly, Nouwen's statement was penned as the opening line of a chapter he wrote on—of all things—the life of solitude. Nouwen was setting the context for his explanation of substantive Christianity. He continued with this statement: "A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life."
And that brings me to this issue of rq. In a Captain Crunch culture where ideas often melt in your mouth in ...
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