A couple of years ago, I was in an airport and I saw a book by Anne Rice about Jesus. I assumed that it was just another gnostic take on the life of Christ, considering that she had written all of those vampire novels. Later, I found out that she actually had become a Christian and had developed a sincere relationship with Jesus.
Today, I have learned that Anne Rice has rejected Christianity. She maintains that she has not rejected Christ, but she is leaving the church behind because she refuses to be "anti-gay ... anti-feminist," and "anti-artificial birth birth control."
She also said that "In the name of ... Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen." You can read the article here.
Dr. Russell Moore from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has some great things to say about this. He says that even though Anne Rice is rejecting the church, the church should not reject her. He says that she might just be going through a dark night of the soul and that she needs our love and compassion as she wrestles with the complexities of her faith. I agree with what he says 100% and I recommend his perspective.
What Anne Rice is going through is a common thing. It is very difficult to look at the beauty of Christ and then turn and look at the failures and hypocrisy of the church and want to be involved with the church for very long. People keep looking for the perfect church and they become disappointed when they can't find it. It isn't there. The church is so messy. It is full of people who sin, fall short of God's glory, become judgmental, and wrap their own insecurities in a form of self-righteousness that is repulsive. But, the church is real because the church is us. It reflects our own very human struggle with self-righteousness, judgmentalism, hypocrisy, jealousy, and vindictiveness. I am not saying that any of that is right, but it is what it is. And, it is in that place that God chooses to reveal Himself through the suffering Savior.
The church, on its best day, is a group of people who are trying seriously to follow the commands of Christ and be the people that He wants us to be. You can't divorce the person and teachings of Jesus from the church. You can't say that you want to follow Jesus but have nothing to do with the church. The church is a mess. I get that. I am not defending its problems. But, unless we see the problems of the church as our own problems - yours and mine, then we will never understand what it is that God is doing in the world. He is taking a bunch of messed up, sinful, judgmental, broken people, and He is showing them grace and mercy and redemption and is forming them into a community of people who reflect His character and love in a broken world - falling down and getting back up again.
There are days when I want to be done with the church. I get frustrated and critical and wish that everyone would do what they are supposed to do. But, then I look at my own heart and see that in those moments, I am being judgmental and harsh. I am not reflecting the love of Christ. To denounce the Church, the ones that Christ died for, does not make you loving to homosexuals, or women, or the oppressed. It is to divorce yourself from the heart of God because the religious need a Savior just as much as the irreligious do and to judge them is to do the same as what you are denouncing.
I have a lot of compassion for Anne Rice. She is me, so to speak. I am just as capable of throwing up my hands and walking away from the whole thing because the church does not fit my view of what it should be. But, if God is sticking with His people, warts and all, who am I to set myself up as judge over the very people that Christ died for. Maybe this mess of people trying to follow God and live life together, maybe this is exactly what we need to meet with Jesus and grow in Him. Eugene Peterson says that and I have come to think that he is right.
I get what Anne Rice is saying. I really do. It is not just the homosexual that needs to change. We all do. We are all sinful and in desperate need of a Savior. When the people who make up the church realizes that and runs to Jesus, it is what it is supposed to be. But, we must remember that God is merciful enough to love the church, and because of that, so should we.
In 1997, my wife and I had just arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area for me to attend Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. We moved onto campus in Mill Valley (North Bay) and I quickly got a job and started attending classes. I was pretty busy, but knew that I wanted to do ministry in the City during my time in seminary. In March, I was invited to a church planting party at a home near Golden Gate Park. It was a really interesting night where Erika and I met people that would challenge us and shape us for the years to come. One of those people was Andrew Jones (TallSkinnyKiwi) whose storefront church on Haight Street we would start attending a few months later. But, the party was hosted by Linda Bergquist and her husband Eric. Linda was the church planter strategist for Baptists in the Bay Area and Eric ran the Page Street Baptist Center near the Haight-Ashbury District. This couple would eventually have a profound influence on the way that I thought about church and people who were far away from God.
I worked with Linda and Eric on many different occasions while I was in SF and have continued to keep in touch with them over the years. My daughter, Ashtyn, and I even stayed in their home for 5 days this past March while we enjoyed a Daddy-Daughter visit to the city of her birth. They are wonderful people. So, I am really excited to begin reviewing Linda's first book that she has co-authored with Allan Karr, the associate professor of missional/church planting at Golden Gate. The book is entitled The Church Turned Inside Out. I am still reading it and plan to start reviewing it in full next week, but until then, here is the description from the back cover to get started:
There are no sacred models of church, no specific molds into which God pours blessings, and no special leadership styles that are holier than others. Too often, though, church leaders attempt to pattern their ministries after either tradition or the successes of a few prominent trendsetting congregations.
In Church Turned Inside Out, Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr push back on the one-size-fits-all approach. They invite leaders of all kinds of churches—new and existing, megachurches and microchurches—to walk through an inside-out design process. Instead of starting with models and methods, they insist that every sphere of church life resonates with and communicates what you really believe.
As the book unfolds, it moves from abstract concepts toward concrete suggestions. It considers the uniqueness of individual leaders, their teams, and their particular communities, cultures, and contexts while taking seriously both spiritual and practical dimensions. This process results in more potent and effectively organized churches. Perhaps more important, it helps church leaders discover ways to live and work more wholly and faithfully, according to how God created them. It really is possible for a church to be so beautifully designed that every structure, program, and relationship reflects what it intends. Sometimes this requires a whole new design, and other times it only takes re-aligning or refining what already exists. This thoughtful and systemic approach opens a wider array of possible church paradigms than most people ever imagine, but the real goal is not innovation but transformation.
Using a blend of theology, biblical imagery, and metaphors from culture and creation, Church Turned Inside Out provides respectful ways to consider adaptation and change. It offers a hopeful vision of what the church can and must become. It not only positions the church for its future mission to the twenty-first century but offers timeless principles for the church of today.
Linda is absolutely brilliant, by the way, and thinks on more levels than I can keep up with. One of my favorite parts about my trip to SF back in the Spring was sitting at Linda and Eric's kitchen table at night and talking with them until we could not keep our eyes open anymore. Like a fascinating kitchen table conversation, this book is opening me up to her (and Allan's) experiences and insight. It is especially helpful for church leaders in the South who have not yet experienced the full weight of the cultural change that is coming, but will very soon. More on that later . . .
I picked up Eugene Peterson's, The Contemplative Pastor the other day and ran across his chapter on "The Subversive Pastor." He says, "I am undermining the kingdom of self and establishing the kingdom of God. I am being subversive." He says that he does not often engage in a frontal assault on the kingdom of self, but he works around the edges, so to speak. I am often a frontal assault kind of guy and it tends to be less effective than I hope for, just arousing people's defenses. Petereson's words here are encouraging and wise:
As a pastor, I don't like being viewed as nice but insignificant. I bristle when a high-energy executive leaves the place of worship with the comment, "This was wonderful, Pastor, but now we have to get back to the real world, don't we?" I had thougt we were in the most-real world, the world revealed as God's, a world believed to be invaded by God's grace and turning on the pivot of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. The executive's comment brings me up short: he isn't taking this seriously. Worshiping God is marginal to making money. Prayer is marginal to the bottom line. Christian salvation is a brand preference.
I bristle and want to assert my importance. I want to force the recognition of the key position I hold in the economy of God and in his economy if only he knew it.
Then I remember that I am a subversive. My long-term effectiveness depends on my not being recognized for who I really am. If he realized that I actually believe the American way of life is doomed to destruction, and that another kingdom is right now being formed in secret to take its place, he would be at all pleased. If he knew what I was really doing and the difference it was making, he would fire me.
"Good. Busy, but good . . . Actually, I am soooo busy."
"I know. Me too. I'm really busy."
This is a normal exchange between two Americans in 2009. Whether they are in high school, college, single and working, newly married, have children, or are retired, the constant refrain from most people is . . .
I'm busy.
I said it myself in a tweet earlier today without even thinking about it. It just rolls off the tongue (or the fingers on the keyboard) so easily. I'm busy. It is the explanation for everything. Saying that today reminded me that that is not how I want to see life. When I say, "I'm busy," I'm saying that I'm doing stuff that I don't want to be doing and I'm running around like crazy trying to get stuff done because I have to. I am describing a state of physical, emotional, and spiritual unrest that leaves me worn out and depleted. It is not healthy and it is usually unnecessary, for the most part. So, I'm speaking to myself here.
Over the past year or so, I have become convinced that the greatest enemy to the Christian faith and biblical Christianity in the West, and especially America, is the philosophy of consumerism, which basically states that personal happiness can be attained through the acquisition of goods, experiences, or a particular lifestyle. Bombarded by goods, services, brands, commercials, and incessant advertising, we believe ignorance like "you are what you wear," "clothes make the man," that there is a "right" side of the tracks, and that our identity can be purchased by acquiring items of status based on a particular brand name or celebrity endorsement. This philosophy has crept into every area of life as we have succumbed to the idea of commodification of relationships and even religious experiences in that we use people and even God to satisfy our personal desires. When we no longer find immediate gratification, we move on to something else that promises to satisfy. Everything in our life (even God) becomes a means to an end of our own personal pursuit of happiness and self-fulfillment). Of course, these views have always been present in the human condition (i.e., selfishness and sin), but only recently have we built an entire economy and way of life on the proliferation of consumption. Only recently have Evangelical churches grown based on the whims of the consumer class and their preference and choice for religious goods and services that meet their "felt needs."
What do you think about when you hear the word, holiness? Obviously, it means to be separate; to be set apart. But, when I think about holiness, invariably, I think about it from a religious perspective. In other words, I think about holiness as the characteristic that I am to achieve if God is going to be pleased with me. I think about what I need to put on if I am to enter into God’s presence, since God is holy. My religious upbringing has taught me to think about what I am to abstain from and what my life is supposed to look like. The whole, “don’t drink, chew, or go with girls that do,” perspective creeps in.Often, when I hear about holiness, I look for a rock to crawl under because my first thoughts, if I am honest, point out how I am not holy.The word itself condemns me and I am undone. Attempts at holiness, however successful I might be in overcoming sin, putting off old behavior, or acting a certain way, always fall short because there is always a new definition of holiness that I am not living up to. I am always falling short of what someone proclaims as “holy.”
I think that we have done the word a great disservice, however. We know that God is holy and we declare Him as such. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty” we sing along with the angels and the multitude from Revelation. God is holy. We know that much. But, what does it mean?Then, you add in that we are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:47) and without holiness no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14), and we are all undone.
So, what do we do to reconcile all of this?How are we to be holy?Some, have retreated to the monastery.They have built walls around themselves and have completely withdrawn from the world. Their view of holiness is shown by what they are against and by what they disagree with. They focus on the “putting off” of Ephesians 4:22-24 and show their holiness through outward things. Others, focus on justification and God’s grace and the imputed righteousness that comes from faith in Christ.They often do not make it around to actually living like Christ, but that is okay. They aren’t perfect, just forgiven. Both of these views miss the bigger picture of what God’s holiness really is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship tells Martin Luther’s journey to true holiness, and I think that it is a story that bears repeating.He says,
When the Reformation came, the providence of God raised Martin Luther to restore the gospel of pure, costly grace. Luther passed through the cloister; he was a monk, and all this was part of the divine plan. Luther had left all to follow Christ on the path of absolute obedience. He had renounced the world in order to live the Christian life. He had learnt obedience to Christ and to his Church, because only he who is obedient can believe. The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life. But God shattered all his hopes. He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction. Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the “religious.”The world had crept into the very heart of the monastic life, and was once more making havoc. The monk’s attempt to flee from the world turned out to be a subtle form of love for the world. The bottom having thus been knocked out of the religious life, Luther laid hold upon grace. Just as the whole world of monasticism was crashing about him in ruins, he saw God in Christ stretching forth his hand to save. He grasped that hand in faith, believing that “after all, nothing we can do is of any avail, however good a life we live.” The grace which gave itself to him was a costly grace, and it shattered his whole existence. Once more he must leave his nets and follow. The first time was when he entered the monastery, when he had left everything behind except his pious self. This time even that was taken from him. He obeyed the call, not through any merit of his own, but simply through the grace of God. Luther did not hear the word: “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.” No, Luther had to leave the cloister and go back to the world, not because the world in itself was good and holy, but because even the cloister was only a part of the world.
Luther’s return from the cloister to the world was the worst blow the world had suffered since the days of early Christianity. The renunciation he made when he became a monk was child’s play compared with that which he had to make when he returned to the world. Now came the frontal assault. The only way to follow Jesus was by living in the world. Hitherto the Christian life had been the achievement of a few choice spirits under the exceptionally favourable conditions of monasticism; now it is a duty laid on every Christian living in the world. The commandment of Jesus must be accorded perfect obedience in one’s daily vocation of life. The conflict between the life of the Christian and the life of the world was thus thrown into the sharpest possible relief. It was a hand-to-hand conflict between the Christian and the world.
Because the monastery was a place that Luther had retreated to justify himself and protect himself from the contaminating evils of the world, it actually became a part of the world system. Everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God is a part of the world system, even if it looks really good on the outside. Luther could only be justified through faith in what Christ had already done for him and he only came to a point of faith in Christ when he quit believing in himself.
But, here is what really strikes me about all of this:For Luther, and for us as well, holiness was not found in the monastery. It was found in engaging the world as an emissary of Christ. When he tried to separate himself from the world through withdrawing, he just demonstrated the world’s ways of self-justification. But, when he died to himself, renounced the world’s ways, and engaged the world for the sake of Christ, he was acting in accordance with holiness. It is all upside down from what we thought, isn’t it?The reason for this is because Christ is holy.Only Christ makes us holy and we are declared righteous only by faith in Jesus. But, that righteousness plays out in and transforms our lives when we are conformed to the image of Christ in our thinking and our behavior. We reflect the image of Christ when we become like Him.What did Jesus do?How did he act?Who did he care about? What moved him with compassion?Holiness is not just a state of declared righteousness that comes from faith, but the outworking of that holiness involves doing what Jesus did.Caring for the sick, the leper, the persecuted, and the downtrodden is holy. Rescuing the sinner is holy. Proclaiming justice to the nations is holy. Dining with tax collectors and prostitutes to show them the Kingdom of God is holy. Forgiving others is holy. Loving your enemies is holy.Everything that looks like Jesus is holy.Holiness is not just putting off certain behaviors.It is that, depending on what those behaviors are, but more than that, it is thinking about things differently and putting on the character of Christ. Humbling yourself before others and serving them is a holy act. We could go on and on. Holiness is not just a state of denial of certain things, it is action that demonstrates the in-breaking Kingdom of God. Holiness means that we live according to the "Otherness" of God apart and separate from this world system. It is a positive action, not just a negative renunciation.
We need more holiness in our churches.We need to put off the old life and see the world differently.Correspondingly, we need to put on the new life, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:22-24).Our evangelicalism became destructive when it promoted a life that affirmed withdrawal from the world for the sake of its truncated conception of holiness. Jesus did not withdraw from the world. He engaged the world and brought healing and redemption as He did the will of the Father in all respects. THAT is holiness and that is what God wants from us.
Instead of feeling condemned by the concept of holiness because I know that I do not measure up to someone’s artificial standard, I now see holiness as being the outworking of God’s character and life in every area.To see the beauty of holiness in a primarily negative (i.e. what we put off) sense is surely an abomination and it is entirely incomplete.But, to see holiness the way that Jesus demonstrates and to know that we have been called to be like Him is amazing, creative, beautiful, and life affirming!It is something that causes me to want to be holy and to violently pursue Christ and lose myself in obedience to Him as He brings restoration to the world!
In my last post, I asked readers what they thought a missiology for the South might look like. I appreciate the comments, Mike, Bob, Les, and Rick. I was hoping for a little more discussion, but, let's face it, I'm not talking about the latest political brouhaha amongst Southern Baptists or anything exciting like that. I'm just talking about the future of the church in the South over the next generation. Relatively meaningless, I know. :)
At any rate, as I have been researching the theological weaknesses behind the evils of racism and segregation in the Southern Baptist South of the 1950's and 60's and how those weaknesses continue to affect us today (all for a book that I am trying to write), I have stumbled across an unexpected culprit that has caused me to raise my eyebrows a bit. In my reading, interviewing, studying, and praying, I have come to believe that a major reason that people could fill churches all across the South on Sunday and then treat others horribly just because of the color of their skin without feeling conviction was because of the gospel that was preached and believed. If your view of the "gospel" is that it is mostly a set of propositions that you agree with so that you can go to heaven when you die (i.e., eternal life) and salvation cannot be lost no matter what you do, then the commands of Scripture about loving others will be ignored when they bump up against a culture that ultimately gives you your identity, especially when that culture tells you that the "other" is inferior to you. What is there to fear? You're going to heaven. Of course, fear came in when you committed really bad sins like drinking alcohol, dancing, or broke any sexual taboos. So, belief and lifestyle were connected on some issues but not others, even though those other issues were just as biblical, if not moreso in some cases. This hypocrisy became a major theological problem and it is still embedded in the "gospel" we preach and the theology that we believe. We've never dealt with it adequately. We still face a theological separation between belief and behavior because we desire and offer heaven without the cross. Unfortunately, this separation has weakened our churches to the point of impotence when it comes to standing against the world. This weak, cheap gospel of personal, individualistic salvation without discipleship is what allowed Southerners to be racists while they filled Southern Baptist churches. It is what allowed the Lutheran church in Germany to turn away from the Nazi brutalities toward the Jews and even accept them as necessary. It is also what allows us today to say that we believe one thing and live a completely different way and feel no shame or conviction. Isn't hypocrisy a great part of what the baby boomers rebelled against in the 60's? Didn't the church have a stake in that regarding how we treated others while claiming to follow Christ?
In our doctrine of salvation then, evangelicals must avoid commoditizing salvation into an individualist consumerist transaction, something we have been prone to. There is a reason why it sounds intrusive to ask a stranger the question "Do you know Jesus as personal savior?" We have privatized the relationship with Jesus so as to make him into a gnosticized faith that seems isolated from everyday life. We must un-privatize our faith in Christ and reconnect our relationship with God through Christ to a way of life that we can invite people into and a movement of God in history. Then we can ask, "Do you have a place where you can ask questions about life?" "Do you know a story that can make sense of your life?" When we do this, we focus away from scaring people out of hell to inviting people into a compelling way of life. We realize that making salvation about being saved from hell irrespective of being saved to new life cheapens it into a piece of individualist knowledge, bordering on Gnositicism, that does not take root in embodied lives.
In postmodernity, truth is about character. Religious truth can no longer be relegated to the realm of private feeling or preference. This is because modern science, which pushed it there originally, no longer reigns supreme. Truth is in the living. Any evangelism therefore that separates one's renewed legal status before God from the new life we have in Christ strips the gospel of its power for a postmodern evangelism. For the postmodern world, justification cannot be separated from sanctification and sanctification cannot be separated from a living people of God. The basis for a compelling Christian account of salvation in postmodernity is a changed life among a living community of Christ. (58-59).
Last night, I couldn't get to sleep. My mind was racing. Finally, I drifted off, but not before I ran through a dozen different subjects. I've been told by friends that I have adult ADD. Maybe so. It would explain a lot. Normally, I write essays for this blog because it is really rewarding for me to lock in on one topic and explore it and I use it as a teaching platform for my church. Today, I'll take you on a random tour of what I'm thinking about in classic, stream-of-consciousness form. Each of these thoughts could be a blogpost all their own and they have been building up in my head. So, I think I'll clean out my brain a little so that I can think more clearly and start over.
I'm going back to India at the end of next month. Around midnight last night, I called Thom Wolf in India and talked with him for awhile. It was almost noon there. He was my professor and intellectual mentor in school back when I lived in San Francisco and he lives in New Delhi. We will go north to the Himalayas and do our normal thing with the ministries there, and then possibly travel with him for a couple of days to the south of India to meet some people doing very interesting things.
I am working through Paul's letter to the Philippians right now in my Bible study and my preaching. I am also writing essays to go along with each topic. Philippians is a great letter to address the "God as a means to an end" syndrome that plagues contemporary Christianity. I am thinking of releasing the essays after I am through with this. It has been really interesting. Today, I am working on one called "Chains" about how Paul volunteered to put himself in less than ideal situations so that the gospel would be spread to others through his life and suffering. Check out Philippians 1:7-14. Am I willing to do the same?
"According to some estimates, Christians in developed Western countries now represent only 37 percent of believers worldwide. As I travel and also read chruch history, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God 'moving' geographically from place to place: from the Middle East to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where He's wanted." ~ Philip Yancey, Finding God in Unexpected Places.
I ran across a fascinating article today on urban development in post-Katrina New Orleans on Newgeography.com by Andres Duany. Duany, of Cuban descent, says that "New Orleans is not among the most haphazard, poorest or misgoverned American cities, but rather the most organized, wealthiest, cleanest, and competently governed of the Caribbean cities." He says that New Orleans is not really an American city at all. Rather, it is a Caribbean city. Jimmy Buffett, after Katrina hit, said that the northern Gulf of Mexico is actually the northern part of the Caribbean, not the Southern part of the U.S. I agree. Being from there, it is different that the rest of the country, and I love it. Totally different way of thinking, worldview, and lifestyle. Maybe this is why Baptists have had so much trouble reaching the Gulf Coast? Hmmm.
My two favorite songs on my ipod right now are "Rocket Man" by Angie Aparo and "A Change is Gonna Come" by Ben Sollee. They are both cover songs, but the music and vocals are really intriguing. If you haven't heard either of these guys, check them out. Here's a live version of "Rocket Man." I think about this when I am travelling too much.
And, Ben Sollee on the cello. Yes, the cello. This is amazing.
This week marks the 3 year anniversary of us finding a lump on Caelan's chest that was a cancerous tumor. It has been a hard three years, but I praise God everyday for His faithfulness. Last night, Erika told me that the little 3 year old girl that my family has been praying for since we saw her at Caelan's last scans died last week. Her name was Cassie. My heart was broken over that. Maybe that is why I keep singing "A Change is Gonna Come." Ben Sollee, covering Sam Cooke, says he doesn't know what's beyond the sky. I do, and more and more each day I pray that God's Kingdom come.
"As heretical as it sounds today, it is probably worth telling Americans that you don't need Jesus to have better families, finances, health, or even morality. Coming to the cross means repentance - not adding Jesus as a supporting character for an otherwise decent script but throwing away the script in order to be written into God's drama. It is death and resurrection, not coaching and makovers." Michael Horton, Christless Christianity.
Baseball season is about to start. I really don't like baseball. Too slow for my taste. During the dead of summer, it is almost like there are no sports going on. I'm just waiting for football. Although, our church has formed THREE softball teams with about 50 players and they'll be playing mostly on Monday nights, so I am glad for the fact that a lot of people from our church will be hanging out together and building relationships. Being blind in my right eye caused me to never play baseball because I have no depth perception, so maybe that is why I don't like it. I do plan to play summer league basketball, though.
The groundbreaking for our church's new building is April 5, right before we have a huge neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. We've been reaching a lot of teenagers in our community lately, and God really moved in their lives at a youth retreat that we had this past weekend. Several came to Christ and many more opened their hearts to Jesus. We have also started tutoring, GED classes, and are helping with job placement. God is doing some amazing things. The building is just a tool to help us with this, and it should be finished by October. I'll be very happy.
I keep watching Jon & Kate plus Eight. I don't know why. Erika keeps asking why I stop there when we are watching TV and I have the remote and I told her that I really can't believe how mean Kate is to Jon and I can't fathom how they manage eight kids like that. Wow. It's like a car wreck. I have four kids of my own. Do I really need to watch someone else's stress? Strangely, I'm drawn to it. That, and Clean House, which is about people who live in an unfathomable mess. I guess that it is cathartic to see other people's stress and mess instead of my own. Normally, these shows come on right after we put the kids to bed. Hmmm.
I turned in my taxes yesterday and I'm trying to get some insurance stuff taken care of. It's a pain and seems to be taking forever. Car tags have to be paid on Monday and I'm doing a TV interview tomorrow for a local religious broadcasting station about our work in India. I lump all of that together because it all feels about the same to me - stuff I have to do that I don't like doing. I'm not just trying to be humble about the TV thing either. I HATE stuff like that. Communication should be two-way and interactive with feedback, not captured on a television for people to pick over and misinterpret as they wish. Maybe I'm just insecure.
Books I'm reading right now (they happen to all be "Christian" books, which is not good - I need to vary things up a bit and learn from some other disciplines):
Finding God in Unexpected Places by Philip Yancey - picked it up in the airport last week. Yancey writes essays about where he sees God working in the world. Excellent.
Christless Christianity by Michael Horton - states that the American church has given itself over to an alternative gospel that he calls, therapuetic moralistic deism.
No Place for Truth - Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology by David Wells. This came out about 15 years ago, but it was recommended to me by a friend of mine. It is pretty dense, but a good read. Makes some of the same claims as Horton, but from a historical perspective.
My church is always heavy on my mind and my heart. I graduated from seminary over 9 years ago. I've been the lead pastor of our church for 3 1/2 years. I'm realizing more and more each day that I am not smart enough, talented enough, entertaining enough, or gifted enough to do what needs to be done, no matter how many books I read. God has to work through me. I need Him. I carry the weight of people's struggles pretty intensely. I greatly desire for people to walk with the Lord and to glorify Him and I want our church to hunger after Christ with their whole lives and to reach people who do not know Jesus. But, I am really having to pray about this and release it to the Lord. I can't make anyone do anything. I am completely powerless to make anything happen. God has to do it. I have always known that intellectually. I am learning that emotionally and spiritually and it isn't easy, believe it or not.
Ashtyn has started soccer.
I have great kids and an amazing wife who listens to me go on and on about everything that I am thinking about. She is really patient and she always gives me great feedback. I do not deserve her, and I'm not just saying that because it is what I am expected to say. She's really something. She texted me two days ago and said that we should go on the mission trip with the youth group this summer. I told her that I agreed. Not many mother's of four kids would do that.
My city, Montgomery, just elected a new mayor in a special election a couple of weeks ago. In his election night interview, he said that he hoped that he would "rule" well. Rule #1 in American politics: Never tell the people that you plan to "rule" them. It doesn't sit well in a democracy. Then, he said that he was pushing the inauguration back a week because he was taking his family to the beach. Rule #2: When we are in a severe recession, don't tell the people that just elected you that you would begin to rule, er, serve them, but first, you have to go to the beach. Go to the beach in a few months AFTER you have worked for them for a little while. Wow.
Look, a BUTTERFLY!!!! Sorry, had to get that out. Does anyone ever feel that way? Random as can be.
I've lost 10 pounds in the past two weeks and I don't know how. I guess that I haven't been eating as much. Duh. Stress? Busyness? I don't know, but I'll take it. I could stand to lose a lot more.
Well, that's about it. Not really, but I figure that no one is still reading at this point, so I might as well stop. Believe it or not, engaging in an exercise in complete randomness actually made me feel better. So, I leave you with a picture of my kids that I really love.
God is good, by the way. And, He's always working in every thing. Big, little, important, mundane. God is always at work.
I have been reading Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church by Paul Louis Metzger. It is a very provocative read. Metzger's premise is that white, middle-class, Evangelicals, especially in our pursuit of church growth, have capitulated to consumerism, individualism, and preference and have reinforced the divisions of racialization and classism that the Gospel seeks to tear down. In that, we are actually working against Jesus and the effects of His Gospel by perpetuating walls of division between believers. Instead of making things better, our systems actually make things worse. He takes a specific aim at the Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP), which states that churches grow fastest when they are focused on one specific subculture so that those who are targeted will not have to deal with any prejudice. They can come to church and be with people just like them, not upsetting any of their preconceived ideas. This view states that the gospel is the main thing and that we should not deal with social issues. Metzger says that the gospel does deal with social issues however (see Eph. 2:11-18), and that it tears down dividing walls between groups that have been historically divided for one reason or another.
Metzger addresses the preponderance of small groups among contemporary evangelical churches and says that these small groups only make things worse because they are almost solely focused on the personal preference of those attending:
Homogenous churches and care groups can easily - even though inadvertently - promote and preserve middle-class conservative values. Confronting race and class divisions lacks importance when this value and motivation is present implicitly or explicitly; and confronting the problems becomes counterproductive to the main goal of catering to a middle-or upper-middle-class target audience for Christ. Those targeted would quickly lose interest in Christ and that particular church if it were to suddenly gain interest in addressing these issues. However, while the church may gain that group in the short term, it may be found guilty of blaspheming God's name among the gentiles in the long term, as one lay leader said of his own successful church's homgenous ways when awakened to these issues.
I think that Metzger makes some good points and they are points that I have made before. I am much more hopeful than he is, though. I think that many Evangelicals really do want to follow God and to obey Him. Yes, we are selfish and stubborn. We want comfort and what we think is best for us. But, for a very long time, we have also been told that that is what Christianity is ultimately about - us following God to have a good life, a good marriage, a good family, a good job, prosperity, health, and inner peace. Who would not want all of that? The problem is that those things, while good, have replaced Jesus as our goal and source of life. I think that things are changing, however. I think that many Evangelicals are tired of just getting their needs met. They are seeing that there is more to the Christian life than their own satisfaction or spiritual success as it has been defined by the "teachers." At least I think that they are. I am seeing that transformation occur in our church.
The Gospel tears down dividing walls between believers. It does not just get us into heaven. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom and it announces the reign and rule of God. It is good news and it changes things - turning the world upside down. We have to begin to articulate the message that our salvation is not just about "me and Jesus," but rather, it is so much more. We are saved to be ambassadors for Christ - His representatives in a fallen world.
I like Metzger's book. It will shake you up on multiple levels. I hope to review more of it as time goes by. This call against consumerism, personal preference, and individualism in the church is getting louder and louder and it is one that we need to heed.
Andy Crouch says that Christians are to be involved in making culture instead of just consuming it or reacting against it. I think he's right. God is the Creator and we are made in His image, after all. I just started reading his book, Culture Making, because I am convinced that the missional role of the church is to equip and unleash its members to be salt and light in all of the world. God has gifted us in incredible ways and we should use those gifts to bless the nations. I also want to recommend Andy's website where he looks at the creation of culture from many different angles. It is pretty interesting.
We have a brilliant pastoral intern this summer named Micah. He will be a senior in college this year and he is praying about going into vocational ministry. So as a formative experience, we developed a learning internship for him this summer. He has shadowed me to meetings and events and he went with me to the Alan Hirsch conference this past weekend in New Orleans. We've spent a lot of time together, and even though Micah's been a part of our church since he was 13, my respect for his heart for God and intellect has grown exponentially in the few weeks that we have been doing this.
I've given Micah quite a few books to read as the internship has begun and have asked him to write a short reflection on each book. We sit down and talk through it together, exploring different issues that emerge. Initially, we are looking at issues that might frame his perspective on ministry in the 21st Century. Where and how can he most faithfully represent Christ to a dying world? He has posted his reviews online at http://collegerambling.blogspot.com/ . You seriously need to check out his reviews from writers like Eugene Peterson, Ron Sider, Bob Roberts, Alan Hirsch, George Grant, Watchmen Nee, and Marty Duren (Micah is going to spend some time at Marty's church in North Georgia this weekend). Micah will be interning with us through the summer and his experiences and learning have just begun. Keep him in your prayers, especially if you are a part of Gateway and you are reading this. If you have any advice or encouragement for a young man trying to discern whether or not to enter vocational ministry, I'm sure that it would be appreciated.
Today I am going to tackle Chapter 4: Who Is Really Well Off - The Beatitudes. This was a powerful chapter and I worked through it for about a week. Of all the chapters that I have read so far, it might be the easiest to summarize and it might have made the most impact on me. Willard is saying that we have gotten the Beatitudes listed at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 all wrong. He says that we have used the Beatitudes as a checklist of spiritual attainment. In other words, we have tried to become spiritually poor so that we would in turn, inherit the Kingdom of God. Trying to create a spiritual condition within ourselves so that we will be rewarded by God is not the point, Willard says. He is saying that Jesus is describing the actual position of those who are blessed by God. If you find yourself in spiritual destitution, do not worry, because God is coming to you. Jesus was speaking to the crowd and was describing what he saw. He saw a lot of spiritually poor people. He saw the misfits and outcasts. He saw those who did not have it together. They were blessed because God had come to THEM right in that moment. Basically, Willard is saying that Jesus was turning everyone's expectations upside down. They had thought that if they were rich or did everything right, then that was the sign that God was blessing them. But, Jesus said no to that. Our state of blessedness is not dependent upon what we do but upon who God is. The facts are, He has come to all of us, even the spiritually destitute - even those who mourn.
Since last August, we have been going through a spiritual formation study on Wednesday nights at our church. We spent several months talking about loving God. Then, we explored what it meant to love people. Now, we are talking about how we do that "to the ends of the earth." We have taken a pretty different approach on each area and I have really grown through it. One of the books that we are using for this last movement is The Micah Mandate: Balancing the Christian Life by George Grant. He deals with Micah 6:8, which says: "But he has showed you, O Man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." His premise is that if we do those three things, then our lives will be in balance and we will be salt and light to the world. Jesus appealed to Micah's mandate in Matthew 23:23 when he said to the Pharisees, "But you have neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy, and faithfulness."
Thom Wolf says that when interacting with the larger culture, we start with justice issues, we the show mercy to people that we connect with, and then we share our faith with them. He calls it "Weeds, Deeds, and Seeds." When we live in a culture that is ignorant or hostile to the gospel, we should seek to come alongside them and set right what has gone wrong by bringing the Kingdom of God. We should pull the weeds that have grown up around them (Justice). Then, we should do good deeds (Matt. 5:16) among them (Mercy). Finally, after their hearts have been made receptive, we should plant the seeds of faith through the gospel (Walking humbly with God). Of course, it does not have to necessarily go in this order, but caring about justice issues and doing good amongst unbelievers surely does open their hearts to ask, "Why are you doing this?" I experienced that directly as we went down to help right after Katrina. Dr. Wolf goes on to say that the Micah/Jesus Mandate is the same as what Paul is saying when he calls us to "faith, love, and hope." It's just that amongst believers, Paul starts with the heart and our relationship with God and works his way out to our effect on the world.
FAITH = Walking Humbly with God = Planting Seeds (faith comes from hearing the gospel)
LOVE = Mercy = Good Deeds (sacrificially laying our lives down for others)
HOPE = Justice = Pulling Weeds (our hope in in the salvation that is to be granted to us fully one day)
So, basically, the Christian life is a balance of all three of these components as they continue to mix and work in our lives. Unfortunately, we often get out of balance and focus more heavily on one area over the other. Throughout my life, I have seen this imbalance in Christians who were totally focused on trying to change America through politics and social action. I have always felt that wrong. On the other hand, I have met Christians who only wanted to pray and try and do 2 Chronicles 7:14 as though it was some magic formula to restore us to the 1950's. Also, wrong. George Grant says,
I just finished chapter 3 of The Divine Conspiracy called, What Jesus Knew: Our God Bathed World. It took me days to read because I had to keep reading paragraphs again and again. I have almost the whole chapter underlined (which doesn't help much, admittedly), and I have notes scrawled all over the margins. It was probably one of the most amazing 30 pages or so that I have ever read by an author. There is no way that I can even begin to do it justice in a blog post, so I will just give a short synopsis in this installment of my review.
Reading this chapter, I realized why straight moralism (do this, don't do that - because the Bible says so) is so insufficient in a world where we are bombarded by messages from a secular culture constantly. That culture is in the "advanced stages of what Max Picard described as the 'flight from God'" (90). There is a whole intellectual framework that supports rebelling against authority and doing what seems right in our own eyes. This past weekend, my wife and I were given tickets to the off-Broadway production of Evita. While watching it, it occurred to me that Eva Peron was being celebrated as a woman who destroyed all the taboos, slept her way to the top, and became a heroine to the people. The other play that I saw at this theatre was Fiddler on the Roof. It was much better than Evita, but it had the same basic message: tradition is stifling, follow your heart, do what makes you happy. A few years ago, the movie Pleasantville came out with the same message. Actually, almost every movie, TV show, or play has the message that true happiness is found in following your heart and breaking the status quo. Of course, this can be helpful if the status quo is evil, but we are given no guidance by our culture to know the difference between good and evil, so how do we know what to rebel against? We have all become rebels without a cause. This is why just telling people who are immersed in secular thought to do right because God, the Bible, and the Church says so, is insufficient. We need a deeper understanding of what God is doing in the world. In short, we need to be aware of God's presence all around us. We live in His world.
A part of the pursuit of pleasure that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, are our desperate attempts at transcendence. Deep down, we know that we were created for more than what we are currently experiencing. We know that we are missing out on something that we were intended for, so we struggle to break the bonds of this dull earth and escape into a sense of victory, beauty, uniqueness, and something lasting and permanent.Eternity is written on our hearts. The Imago Dei upon our souls is still there, even though it is marred. We silently long to be reconnected to what was lost, but because of sin, we take our legitimate desire and sacrifice it at the altar of diversion. The only antidote for this tendency is to become truly “spiritual” through the work of Christ so that we can live in union with the world that God created us for.Here are Willard’s thoughts:
Because we are spiritual beings, as just explained, it is for our good, individually and collectively, to live our lives in interactive dependence upon God and under his kingdom rule. Every kind of life, from the cabbage to the water buffalo, lives from a certain world that is suited to it. It is called to that world by what it is. There alone is where its well-being lies. Cut off from its special world it languishes and eventually dies.
This is how the call to spirituality comes to us. We ought to be spiritual in every aspect of our lives because our world is the spiritual one.It is what we are suited to. Thus Paul, from his profound grasp of human existence, counsels us, “To fill your mind with the visible, the ‘flesh,’ is death, but to fill your mind with the spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).
As we increasingly integrate our life into the spiritual world of God, our life increasingly takes on the substance of the eternal. We are destined for a time when our life will be entirely sustained from spiritual realities and no longer dependent in any way upon the physical. Our dying, or “mortal” condition, will have been exchanged for an undying one and death absorbed in victory.
Of course that flatly contradicts the usual human outlook, or what “everyone knows” to be the case. I take this to be a considerable point in its favor. Our “lives of quiet desperation,” in the familiar words of Thoreau, are imposed by hopelessness. We find our world to be one where we hardly count at all, where what we do makes little difference, and where what we really love is unattainable, or certainly is not secure. We become frantic or despairing.
(NOTE: This is a long post - actually, inappropriately long for a blog. But, I feel that the subject matter here is so important that a full treatment is necessary. I hope that you will take the time to read and reflect on what is presented here. It is of grave importance and it deals with our own relationship with God as well as the way that we experience and share the Gospel with others.)
I am continuing my trek through The Divine Conspiracy and today I take a look at Chapter 2: The Gospels of Sin Management. Yesterday's post was so popular (zero comments) that I thought I would dive right into another post on spiritual formation and how we follow Christ with our whole lives! :)
Willard says that we have gotten the gospel wrong (or incomplete) on both the right and the left sides of the theological spectrum. He says that on the right, there is primarily a gospel of forgiveness of sin. Getting saved means getting your sins forgiven so that you can make it to heaven. On the left, salvation relates to overcoming oppression and rooting evil out of our world systems. He calls these gospels the Gospels of Sin Management and claims that they both, along with other gospel messages, miss the point of what Jesus was trying to do in bringing us to God. I'll focus primarily on the gospel that is preached on the right side of the spectrum (where I find myself and where most of my readers probably are). I'll give you Willard's thoughts and then provide my own commentary:
Back on February 19, I started a series reviewing the thoughts of Dallas Willard in his classic, The Divine Conspiracy. I was interrupted by our trial with Caelan, but I wanted to continue that series with a look at some ideas from Chapter 1, "Entering the Eternal Kind of Life Now." In this opening chapter, Willard considers what it means for the Kingdom of God to have come in the person of Jesus Christ and for Jesus to live inside of us. He declares that God's Kingdom is where He effectively reigns and rules. "Now God's own 'kingdom,' or 'rule,' is the range of his effective will, where what he wants done is done. The person of God himself and the action of his will are the organizing principles of his kingdom, but everything that obeys those principles, whether by nature or by choice, is within his kingdom" (p. 25).
Regarding humans and their relationship to God's Kingdom, Willard says,
The human job description (the "creation covenant," we might call it) found in chapter 1 of Genesis indicates that God assigned to us collectively the rule over all living things on earth, animal and plant. We are responsible before God for life on the earth (vv. 28-30).
However unlikely it may seem from our current viewpoint, God equipped us for this task by framing our nature to function in a conscious, personal relationship of interactive responsibility with him. We are menat to exercise our "rule" only in union with God, as he acts with us. He intended to be our constant companion of co-worker in the creative enterprise of life on earth. That is what his love for us means in practical terms.
Peterson, in his classic, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction makes some powerful observations about the tendency to take short cuts to spiritual growth. We tend to think that we can microwave change, but we cannot. We must become disciples and pilgrims with God. We must take time to learn from Him and not just expect our growth in the Lord to be easy. It is through many trials and much suffering the we come to see God and understand His ways, which are infinitely higher than ours. It is impossible to reduce God or the movement of His Spirit to a 20 minute sermon once a week and some religious niceties. After what we have been through with Caelan over the past few weeks, I am grateful for how God revealed Himself to us and showed great mercy, but I am also aware of how shallow my faith can be at times. It seems that God is using every event in our lives, even the very painful and scary ones, to conform us to the image of Christ. How we reject that and want an easier way! Here are Peterson's thoughts:
One aspect of world that I have been able to identify as harmful to Christians is the assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once. We assume that if something can be done at all, it can be done quickly and efficiently. Our attention spans have been conditioned by thirty-second commercials. Our sense of reality has been flattened by thirty-page abridgments.
A few years ago, I picked up The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. I had heard about the book for years, but had never bought it. After buying it, I didn't read it. It was one of those books that I was glad to have on my shelf and thought that I would eventually get around to reading it one day. Plus, if anyone mentioned it, I could say, "I've got that book!" That way, people would think I was spiritual and what not.
Well, I finally decided to pick it up and start reading through it. I made it through the introduction this morning and was left deeply impacted by several statements that Willard made. I'll reproduce them here with some commentary, for your reading pleasure:
My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. In his case, quite frankly, presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance.
Here, Willard has exactly described the situation among cultural Christians in America, especially in the South. People here have had just enough Jesus to think they know all about Him. They have heard some Bible stories and maybe attended church a little. But, they don't really know Him. You have to get into the quiet place to really meet Jesus, but we don't do that and we know just enough of Him to immunize us against the real thing. If we ever do truly face His claims upon our lives, we tend to think that they are too radical and unrealistic. In short, we have watered down the teachings of Jesus to almost nothing, and we wonder why He is not changing people. Perhaps we have not given Him a chance.
More Willard,
It is the failure to understand Jesus and his words as reality and vital information about life that explains why, today, we do not routinely teach those who profess allegiance to him how to do what he said was best. We lead them to profess allegiance to him, or we expect them to, and leave them there, devoting our remaining efforts to "attracting" them to this or that.
Whatever the ultimate explanation of it, the most telling thing about the contemporary Christian is that he or she simply has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to his or her life, and certainly not that it is in any way essential . . . More than any other single thing, in any case, the practical irrelevance of actual obedience to Christ accounts for the weakened effect of Christianity in the world today, with its increasing tendency to emphasize political and social action as the primary way to serve God. It also accounts for the practical irrelevance of Christian faith to individual character development and overall personal sanity and well-being.
My seminary professor, Thom Wolf, has said that most Christians are so subnormal in their walk that whenever we see a normal Christian, we tend to think that they are abnormal. He has also said that we teach people far beyond their desire to obey. If believers will not obey what they already know, then we should not keep teaching them new things hoping this will unlock something. Because of this, they end up thinking that obedience is optional. We think that we will change people if we give them enough information, when what they really need is to start obeying what they already know. What if we all started obeying what we already knew to be the commands of God? The world would change. We don't need more teaching - we need more relationship with God and more obedience to what we already know.
He also said that the vast majority of the psychological and emotional ailments in our lives were because of some unconfessed and unrepented sin. Much of our depression and anxiety actually comes from some way that we are trying to be in control of our lives or because of some sin that we are engaging in. Colossians 1:17 says that in Christ "all things hold together." If we are not walking with Christ, then our lives fall apart. When people hear the truth, they might lie to us, but they never lie to themselves. They acknowledge the truth internally, even if they don't acknowledge it to others. Then, they decide whether they will obey it or not. When they decide not to obey, this is when they walk away from the Church, time spent with God, fellowship with the Saints, ministry, etc. They want to be away from convicting influences. So, the lack of discipleship and follow-ship of Jesus in the Church today, is at least partly, because people would rather stay in their sin and selfishness than follow God. I'm not trying to be harsh, but that is really what it is when you get right down to it.
One more Willard excerpt:
Actual discipleship or apprenticeship to Jesus is, in our day, no longer thought of as in any way essential to faith in him. It is regarded as a costly option, a spiritual luxury, or possibly even an evasion . . . Discipleship to Jesus [is] the very heart of the gospel. The really good news for humanity is that Jesus is now taking students in the master class of life. The eternal life that begins with confidence in Jesus is a life in his present kingdom, now on earth and available to all. So the message of and about him is specifically a gospel for our life now, not just for dying. It is about living now as his apprentice in kingdom living, not just as a consumer of his merits. Our future, however far we look, is a natural extension of the faith by which we live now and the life in which we now participate. Eternity is now in flight and we with it, like it or not.
God is renewing me in some incredible ways lately. I am asking Him to search my heart and show me where I have been living for myself and He is being faithful to show me. I am asking Him to make me His disciple and He is being faithful to bring me under discipline. I am realizing that I have been living from my own strength far more than I thought. I am realizing that I have argued away many of the hard commands of Jesus and I have reconciled them with a comfortable American lifestyle, baptized in a Christian veneer. Back at the beginning of January I started praying specifically for God to take all of me, that I would live crucified with Him. I see it happening slowly and I am beginning to live in more freedom, peace, and joy than I have experienced in some time. I praise God for His faithfulness to conform me to His image when I begin to submit to the hard road of discipleship. Maybe God saved this book for me to read at just the right time? At any rate, I want my faith to be living enough to produce obedience to God and conformity to His will. In that, there is true life.
A friend of mine gave me a book before Christmas that I didn't think that I would read, but I opened it up and started skimming it and was hooked pretty quickly. It made me angry. I wanted to throw it across the room. I completely disagreed with parts of it. I thought that the writer was out of his mind. And, I couldn't put it down. It has caused me to rethink quite a bit, especially considering Jesus' very tough words in the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe I should start taking those words seriously? The book is The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and I highly caution you against reading it. As a matter of fact, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. It will cause a great deal of emotional distress concerning your current practice of Christianity. Claiborne is a radical Jesus follower on the evangelical left (think Tony Campolo but much younger), so everything that he says should be thrown away and disregarded. He's a loon. He asks questions like: Is Christianity political? Should the ethic of Jesus affect how we see the poor, our enemies, and the forgotten? What should we do about injustice? What does it mean for the Kingdom of God to come? Claiborne shows how he has addressed these issues. I have not recovered.
Here is a quote in the book on page 294 from Danish pastor Kaj Munk, who was killed by the Gestapo in January 1944:
What is, therefore, our task today? Shall I answer: "Faith, hope, and love"? That sounds beautiful. But I would say - courage. No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth. Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature . . . we lack a holy rage - the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth . . . a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God's earth, and the destruction of God's world. To rage when little children must die of hunger, when the tables of the rich are sagging with food. To rage at the senseless killing of so many, and against the madness of militaries. To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction peace. To rage against complaceny. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God. And remember the signs of the Christian Church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish . . . but never the chameleon.
Those words hit me firmly. Why am I not angered by the suffering, death, and lostness that I see around me? Why do I not work with every bit of effort within me to see God's Kingdom come? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus in a land where Christianity is well known, but the Kingdom of God is often absent? What does it mean to live out and proclaim the scandal of the Cross when it has been encrusted with gold and diamonds and made the scepter of those in power?
I don't know, but I would like to find out . . . I think. Nevermind. Claiborne's a loon. Ignore him. Sorry for the interruption. Carry on.
I am reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together, which is truly one of the most amazing little books I have ever partaken of on the nature of Christian community. He views the community of Christ (the church) very realisitically and through the lens of the Cross. Since I am teaching on spiritual formation on Wednesday nights and we are starting with the Cross in our first movement and will look at community and relationships in our second movement (about 2 months from now), I thought that this book would be fitting. Our third movement, which we will get into next spring will involve our spiritual growth and health always leads us out to engage a lost world - because that is what Jesus did. Bonhoeffer, at the beginning of Life Together points us in this direction, I suppose so that no one would think that he is advocating a cloistered, disengaged life. Here is an excerpt containing a quote by Martin Luther that should make the our hair stand on end:
It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. (Luther quote following - me) "The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?"
What do you think of Bonhoeffer's words? Of course, Jesus had his twelve disciples, but he also knew what was in a man and he did the will of the Father. At the end, they all betrayed him because he did not do what they thought he was here to do. I am a huge believer in community, relationships, teams, and fellowship. I believe that Jesus died and rose for the dead to establish the Church. At the same time, we must all we willing to be persecuted and outcast and go into the world to represent Christ, even if no one follows.
What about Luther's words? They are very strong and definitely speak to our desire to withdraw into the Christian ghetto of our own making where we only have good influences and things are safe. Ultimately, I think that he is right and I am convicted. I have spent far too much time dealing exclusively with Christians, my church, the SBC, and those who are of "my tribe." Of course, the Christian community is paramount, and as a pastor I am to be a shepherd to our body first and foremost. But, my main job is to get us to join with Christ where He is working. Perhaps God's intent is that we be a mobile, sent community, loving God and loving others as we go to the ends of the earth.
