Our Newest Substack Story: Believing in Babylon
At the end of June, we launched Salt and Light Stories, examples of modern-day “saints” who have shaped our perspective of seeking the welfare of the city in the form of illustrated short stories or “mini-comics.” We chose comic-style storytelling because it is becoming a familiar genre for Gen Z and Alpha, for whom graphic novels are now fully mainstream.
We started with a comic adaptation of an essay (“The Story of Solid Rock”) by the pioneer rock and roll artist Larry Norman from the liner notes on his album In Another Land, his best-selling album and also the one best-received by mainstream Christian culture at the time (1976). We released one page a week, and the adaptation is now complete. You can see all of the pages in sequential order here.
Larry Norman, Illustrated by Wade McComas
We then shifted to the comics about our namesake, the Clapham Sect, a group of social reformers in late 18th-century England. The two-part series will introduce us to the stories of William Wilberforce and Hannah More. Spearheaded by Wilberforce, a politician who worked to abolish the slave trade, and More, a poet who wrote plays and poems for cultural reform, the historical Clapham Sect leveraged both political and cultural influence. The first of the two parts is now complete and you can read it in order here; the second part will be released one-page a week next year.
Hannah More and William Wilberforce, Illustrated by Wade McComas
This week we launch our third Salt and Light story, that of the prophet Daniel, who was one of the captives taken from Judah into Babylon in 606 BCE. Most of us have heard the story of Daniel in the lions’ den, and maybe the dreams that he interpreted as well as the story of his colleagues who were thrown into the fiery furnace. But few of us have contemplated the ways in which Daniel flourished in the land to which he was exiled, while making it his “permanent home.” In other words, how he was able to be “in the world but not of the world.”
Salt and Light’s new mini-comic series: Believing in Babylon, illustrated by Matthew Vincent
As we write in our intro essay on Substack, Daniel is a story of standing for your faith at all costs, but it is also a story of how to accommodate the culture without assimilating. And, as the prophet Jeremiah urged the exiles, it is a story of seeking the welfare of the city while not making it your permanent home.
“Daniel in the Lions’ Den,” Rubens 1615
In many ways, the story of Jews living in exile in a foreign land is much closer to the New Testament language of followers of Jesus being sojourners in this world. I’ve always bristled a bit at songs we sing in church that claim “this world is not my home.” I worry it can affirm a lack of attention to the redemptive work God has called us to here and now. But, in contrast with the desire of the Jews to make Israel as a nation fully obedient to God’s law, there is a truth that any nation and culture we as Christians find ourselves in is transitory. As a Christian, I believe I am a sojourner in this world, and won’t be finally home until Jesus establishes the New Earth.
When Christians pursue living faithfully in exile, we call it living as salt and light. However, when Christians try to define our nation in Christian terms and believe that the government should actively keep it Christian in name we call it Christian Nationalism, or when we advocate applying Old Testament civil law we call theonomy. Neither is what Jesus calls us to when He urged His followers to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” (Mathew 22:21).
Roman coin of Caesar Augustus
When we live in a “foreign land” we are inevitably required to work with, not primarily resist, the people and institutions that we live amongst, whether or not they share our faith and convictions. This will produce tension, and require discernment. We are called to live in this “now but not yet” tension balancing truth with love.
The project is being guided by Emily Mitchell, in partnership with illustrator Wade McComas. For the story of Daniel, we have recruited a new illustrator, Matthew Vincent, who has done excellent work visually interpreting the story. Earlier this year, we posted a blog “In Defense of In-Group Moderates” that references Daniel that you might enjoy perusing.
If you subscribe, a new comic page and an accompanying essay will be delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. On Fridays, we will also send an additional short essay to share more about Salt and Light Stories, our mission, vision, and hopes for this project. We invite you to follow us on Instagram @saltlightstories for exciting announcements, sneak peeks at new content, and more.
As we said when we launched this project, it is a grand experiment – please join us and subscribe to our substack page here for free. We are excited to share these stories that have profoundly shaped us.