{"id":40433,"date":"2016-08-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/musician-father-john-misty-on-his-christian-upbringing\/"},"modified":"2016-08-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T00:00:00","slug":"musician-father-john-misty-on-his-christian-upbringing","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/musician-father-john-misty-on-his-christian-upbringing\/","title":{"rendered":"Musician Father John Misty on His Christian Upbringing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an interview with <em class=\"citation\">Rolling Stone<\/em>, singer-songwriter-guitarist J. Tillman (now known as &quot;Father John Misty&quot;) was asked: &quot;You were raised in an evangelical Christian household. How did that affect you?&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Misty responded, &quot;I remember asking my Sunday-school teacher who made God. It was the first time I ever saw someone&#39;s eyes glaze over and robotically recite something. She said, &#39;God&#39;s always been.&#39; For the Western world, enlightenment is having an airtight answer to a question. That to me is the quickest way to make yourself absurd. I think certainty is completely grotesque.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Misty was then asked: Was there anything valuable about your evangelical upbringing? Misty replied, &quot;I was promised redemption and forgiveness and salvation over and over, but it never manifested in any meaningful way. It was like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football. There&#39;s something about my writing that keeps looking to that problem.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409,411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3450,3499,3552,3569,3726,3729,3762,3766,3786,3861,3918,3960,3968,3971,4160,4167,4168,4233,4245,4386,4394,4442,4496,4497,4528,4596,4597,4637,4643,4708,4722,4723,4992,5041,5059,5062,5202],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-40433","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-atheism","tax_ctp_tags-bitterness","tax_ctp_tags-celebrities","tax_ctp_tags-children","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-cynicism","tax_ctp_tags-depravity","tax_ctp_tags-despair","tax_ctp_tags-disappointment","tax_ctp_tags-emptiness","tax_ctp_tags-expectation","tax_ctp_tags-family","tax_ctp_tags-fatherhood","tax_ctp_tags-fathers","tax_ctp_tags-home","tax_ctp_tags-hope","tax_ctp_tags-hopelessness","tax_ctp_tags-inconsistency","tax_ctp_tags-influence","tax_ctp_tags-longing","tax_ctp_tags-lostness","tax_ctp_tags-meaning-of-life","tax_ctp_tags-motherhood","tax_ctp_tags-mothers","tax_ctp_tags-need","tax_ctp_tags-parenting","tax_ctp_tags-parents","tax_ctp_tags-pessimism","tax_ctp_tags-philosophy","tax_ctp_tags-priorities","tax_ctp_tags-promise","tax_ctp_tags-promises","tax_ctp_tags-skepticism","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-desire","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-poverty","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-thirst","tax_ctp_tags-unbelief"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Musician Father John Misty on His Christian Upbringing - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/musician-father-john-misty-on-his-christian-upbringing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Musician Father John Misty on His Christian Upbringing - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In an interview with Rolling Stone, singer-songwriter-guitarist J. 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