The Day Metallica Came to Church: Searching for the Everywhere God in Everything

by John Van Sloten

What do the music of Metallica and Bach, the film Crash, and stories about Batman have in common? According to author and pastor John Van Sloten, God can speak through all of them if we're listening. Out of his own often startling and sometimes wrenching journey of discovery, Van Sloten shows how God can speak to us through anything and everything heavy metal music, R-rated films, sports, and even the latest fashions. This book might just change the way you hear God's voice and how you live in today's world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Christianity, Religion, Music

250 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2010

About the author

John Van Sloten is a pastor, teacher and writer who lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. For the past 20 years he's been exploring a worldview that seeks to discern God's voice in all things: the Bible, the arts, sport, science, film, music, literature, history, mathematics, nature and human nature. John's first book, The Day Metallica Came to Church: Seeing the Everywhere God in Everything (Square Inch, August 2010), listened for God's whispers in pop culture. John's second book, Every Job a Parable; What Walmart Greeters, Nurses and Astronauts tell us about God (Navpress/Tyndale, June 2017), listens for God's words at work. John has been the recipient of two John Templeton Foundation grants, exploring the intersection of faith and science in the context of preaching, and currently writing his third book on God's revelation through the human body.

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, and it’s theological worldview, offers an approach that completely re-chants our world with the magic and glory of God. Charles Taylor writes about how secularity disenchants the world, it shrinks reality to nothing but matter and logic. Books like this one winsomely foster an expansion of our visions once more, and in a very accessible way. Readers learn about co-illumination; what it means to experience the Spirit in and through art, nature, science, and even heavy metal. The book helped my cynical heart find a little more wonder and provided me with “icon eyes” to see God in all things. Oh, and it validated my Coldplay obsession.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up in a thrift store because of the title, which is I suppose the point of stating that Metallica came to church. I had never heard of John van Sloten or New Hope Church in Calgary, but I soon found myself captivated by his journey not only through Metallica but in navigating how to reconcile Christ with the creation and culture around him. van Sloten's stories of preaching about the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, the music of Bach, or contemporary films such as Crash, No Country for Old Men, or The Dark Knight are nothing new for churches - in fact it almost seems cliché after the past fifteen years - but the way he presents and discusses his methodology in working through these various media does present something new.

The main idea that I appreciated was the idea that Christ and creation/culture (ie. the world and what is in it) work together in a relationship of co-illumination and counterbalance - they actually help us to understand the other and cannot exist on their own. It's a provocative idea, but one that resonates deeply with me, and van Sloten presents it as clearly as I've ever heard it told. This is a must-read for anyone who is wondering how to reconcile Christ and culture, particularly the idea of how Christ transforms culture (to use Niebuhr's designation), and what it means to encounter Christ through anything in our world.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pop culture 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 Calvinism

3.5 stars. Lots of things made me think, and some of it made me uncomfortable. Still trying to figure out if it’s because of tradition or theology. Either way, a unique way of considering the gospel and evangelism

[Vincent Perillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a sucker/nerd like me and love looking for Christian principles and values in media that is not Christian and sometimes explicitly non-Christian (See "the God that Failed"); this a great quick read. Of course you need to be familiar with Metallica in some capacity. Van Sloten, a pastor, does a good deal of research into the band and the band members which I was surprised at. He composed the book with tact and respect for each of their stories and does so without judgement.

[Andy Littleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of book you read to rekindle your imagination and open your eyes to the ways God is present and at work in the world, even the world of music, film, fashion and art.

[James Boyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book written with a focus on common grace and seeing God through many good things in the world, churchy or not.

[Matt LeFevers · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If all truth is God's truth, and all beauty is God's beauty, then certainly all great guitar riffs are God's great guitar riffs, and all great scientific truths are God's truths."

(My favorite quote from this very quotable book.)

I won this book from my friend's blog so it's hard to say if I ever would have heard of it otherwise, but it was easily the best book on religion that I have read in years (that was written by someone not named Rob Bell). Van Sloten's thesis is pretty much spelled out in the subtitle: that if God is everywhere, and all truth belongs to God, then it's not crazy to go combing through Metallica lyrics or The Dark Knight looking for glimpses of the divine. I don't think any Christian would disagree that all true or perfect things have their source in something outside ourselves, but this book explores what exactly that means when a graphic, R-rated movie speaks to you or you are moved by a rock song.

I grew up much more in secular culture than in religion so in my case John Van Sloten is sort of preaching to the choir -- I imagine that someone raised in a weird evangelical culture bubble would find these ideas a lot more paradigm-shattering. That said, his is a refreshing worldview, and while I have thought things like this before, it was empowering to see these ideas fully developed and explored outside of my own head, and much more competently than I would have.

Also, I really want to throw on some Metallica now.

[Blake Chenoweth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ever since IDS class in college, I have striven to see things that are in the world we live through a biblical worldview, and this book just brings that into reality. It is written very easily and encourages us to take every thought captive to Christ. Even if it is something like Metallica music or a Van Gogh painting or while watching movies like The Dark Knight.

From a preaching perspective though, I don't believe we should base our sermons on Metallica songs and put in a little bit of the Bible to back up what the song talked about, but to do it the opposite way. Preach the Bible first and let culture bring some illustration to it. I am not planning on putting 4 Metallica songs in my messages, and probably will never do that, but it is a good call to look at things through a biblical worldview.

A good little book that brings our culture and our God together.

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. I was a little put off early on when he described co-illumination, how the Bible illuminates things in culture and culture illuminates the Bible--it seemed he was downplaying the place of the Bible. But the farther I got, I realized he just didn't explain it well.

This book is a great reminder that God gave us creativity as another way of drawing us to Him. And the journey of discovery was good to the end.

[CCCfaithathome]

In this book, Pastor John Van Sloten challenges us to have eyes, ears, minds and hearts open to seeing God at work in the world around us. All truth is God's truth, no matter the source. In it, Van Sloten demonstrates the ways that God's beautiful imagination speaks to his people in movies, art, music, our fellow human beings, architecture and so much more.

After reading this book, you'll be listening and watching in a whole new way.

[Rob Tiedemann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty awesome book. I can't say I was given any sort of epiphany ( I sorta viewed God's hand in all things the way this book describes it anyway) but it was great to hear someone else put my thoughts into words. Definitely something that should be read by all, though I do believe having an understanding of Christianity aids in understanding some of what he says.

[Mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Basically, Van Sloten makes a chapter out of a sermon series he ran...one on metallica, one on art, a few on movies etc. Good to be reminded that God works in all creation via both special and general revelation and common grace; however, I think I would have benefitted more from the sermons themselves rather than summaries of them in a book.

[Doug Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! Very much the way I see the world around me now. Not a book about Metallica! Should have been called "Searching for the Everywhere God in Everything" (also includes a chapter about Metallica)...

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is quite literally a "down to earth" book calling us to develop "parable ears and icon eyes" in order to see that both creation and culture contain the vestiges of the Triune God.