Category Archive: Books

Comments and observation about my Christian faith

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May 25, 2009

Christian Reading List

I often get asked, out of the many book I have read, which ones I would most recommend to other Christians to read. Now obviously we are all in different places in our journey with God, and so what books would be helpful to one individual might be different from those which would be helpful to someone else. Still there are certain books that I tend to turn to time and time again, and I have finally gotten around to organizing a formal list of highly recommended books.

To make this list, I looked through my shelf, my blog entries, and a log I have been keeping since November of books I have read. I initially started with 25 books I would recommend, wanted to get it down to a “top ten”, and finally compromised at 15 books. Here’s what I came up with:

“Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God” by Gregory A. Boyd
A great book that really gets to the root of how Christianity represents a fundamentally different world view, and how so much of what is called “Christianity” isn’t. If you want to read about a church that really applies these ideas, I’d suggest “No Perfect People Allowed” by John Burk.

“Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller
Christianity is about relationship, not religion. This book really captures that idea.

“Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith” by Rob Bell
A great explanation of Christianity which uses new metaphors and also reconnects it with its Jewish root.

“The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God” by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
A great “big picture” view of Christianity in the context of Eternity. Another book in this vein is “Epic”, also by Eldredge, and the DVD of Eldredge “performing” Epic is fantstic.

“Messy Spirituality” by Mike Yaconelli
A reminder that God has never been looking for perfect people (they don’t exist); but rather likes to collect around Himself spiritual misfits and losers who are willing to Follow Him.

“Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians” by Don Willliams
A great answer to the question “OK, I’m saved. Now what?” This would likely be review to older Christians; but a very useful review.

“How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth” by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
By far the best single book I have found about how to study the Bible. Raises all of the kinds of questions which should be asked when looking at any portion of the Bible.

“Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God” by Dallas Willard
God’s intent is to communicate with every Christian as a normal part of their lives. This is the best book I have found on that subject.

“The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel Has Worn You Out” by Dan Stone, David Gregory, and Sally Rackets
We were never meant to live our lives as Christians in our own strength. God’s intent was that we would live victorious lives by the power of Jesus living in and through us. This book explores exactly what that means.

“This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God” by Rick McKinley
A great teaching on what it means to demonstrate God’s Kingdom to a hurting world

“The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible” by Scot McKnight
Another great book on how to study the Bible with a different style than Fee and Stuart’s book above.

“The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church” by Gregory A. Boyd
A must-read for any American Christian. All about how Christians should view the relationship of Church and State.

“Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality” by Donald Miller
A very honest and open memoir of one Christian coming to understand the faith. I recommend this book both in terms of what the author learns and in his willingness to talk about his life, faults and all. He’s a great example of what Christia transparency should be.

“Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens” by Neil Cole
A great book on some alternative ways to “do church”. I recommend this highly to anyone who thinks that your typical Sunday church service is the only way to do things. I would also recommend (with some reservations) “Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity” by Frank Viola.

“Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile” by Rob Bell and Don Golden
A great Christian perspective on activism - how we are to serve in the world’s redemption, not through secular means by by the Kingdom of God.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 22, 2009

Understanding Lordship

Throughout the New Testament people are told that to join in this new movement they need to establish, through trust, Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Now the “savior” part of that formula remains fairly easy to understand. While what Jesus saves us from and the means by which He does it are unique, the idea of someone coming and rescuing others from a dire situation remains a central part of our culture and the stories we tell.

The concept of Lordship is however a bit harder on the modern American audience.

We live in a society where we are governed by elected officials who we can vote out of office (if not impeach or recall) if we don’t like them. We work at jobs voluntarily, and if we don’t like out current job we can look for another one. I do acknowledge that some people are in circumstances where that may in fact not be practical; but the principles of our society say that no one is a slave and therefore everyone should be free to change jobs if they want. The reality is that most Americans have no direct experience with any relationship which resembles what the people 2000 years ago would have understood to be the meaning of saying “Jesus is Lord”. What’s more, all of our understandings of such relationships in the past have negative connotations – slavery, absolute monarchies, etc. – so even when we understand those terms we have a bias against applying them to ourselves today.

I believe this lack of understanding of Lordship is one of the factors which cripples the church in America and leads to our powerlessness in our communities. We embrace Jesus as our Savior but not our Lord; and without Lordship, God kingdom is not manifest. After all, what is the Kingdom of God beyond that realm in which He is accepted as Lord? We cannot expect God’s presence and power to be manifest where He is not allowed to reign.

Instead we have supposed Christians who are focused only on “what’s in it for them.” What they want is the reassurance that things will be OK between them and God after they die (“salvation”) and that a minimum of demands will be placed on them before they die. They understand that some changes will be required; but at some level they are looking the church that will ask as little as possible of them while providing the maximum in benefits. They want a church with excellent music, a dynamic preacher, a comforting message, lots of social activities; and most of all, a church that “stays in its place” on Sundays so they can do what they want the rest of the week. This is Christianity without Lordship.

However, to call Jesus Lord (as required by all of the New Testament authors) means to submit yourselves completely and utterly to God’s will for your life, no matter how inconvenient that might be. Back 2000 years ago people would understand that. Someone who served a lord was owned by them. They had no time of their own, no possessions beyond what their lord granted them. They lived to serve their lord. God has promised that for those who will make Him their Lord, He will save them and transform them into His image. What we gain in this transaction is without price; but the cost is our whole lives.

And it is only through people who actually make Jesus Lord is God’s Kingdom established. Once God has people who are completely sold out to Him, He can use them to demonstrate His compassion and His power to the world. God cannot do that through people for whom God is one of many competing priorities, people for which God must work around their schedules to find time for them to serve Him. He cannot show His power to the world through people who are only interested in God’s power for themselves.

We as the church in America must repent of our tendency to seek Jesus as our Savior and not our Lord. Perhaps when we do, we will begin to transform our communities again by showing them the greatness of God’s Kingdom.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 20, 2009

Master/Teacher/Friend

My relationship with God is really three intertwined relationships:
- God is my master/lord and I am His servant
- God is my teacher and I am His student
- God is my friend/lover and I am His friend/lover
These are not different modalities where we operate as master/servant one moment and teacher/student the next. All three relationships are always a part of every one of our interactions.

The best picture of this kind of complex relationship I have seen is the one portrayed in the film “The Karate Kid” between Mr. Miyagi and young Daniel LaRusso. If you have never seen the film, I would recommend it (and not its sequels). In brief, Daniel is a teen who moves with his mother from New Jersey to Southern California after the death of his father. The maintenance man at the apartment complex they move into is the aging Mr. Miyagi from Okinawa. Daniel has the standard “new kid in the High School” problems and ends up incurring the wrath of a group of teens who study martial arts at a local dojo. On day while they are beating Daniel up, Mr. Miyagi shows up and utterly defeats the teens despite being outnumbered and several times their age. As a result, Daniel asks Mr. Miyagi to teach him martial arts. At first he refuses; but eventually agrees.

What follows is one of the classic sequences from the film. Mr. Miyagi takes Daniel to his house and proceed to have him spend days doing various chores: painting fences, waxing his antique car collection, etc. For each task there are some very specific instructions as to how it must be done (apply the wax counter-clockwise with his left hand, polish it off clockwise with his right hand). Eventually Daniel rebels, accusing Mr. Miyagi of not fulfilling their bargain, at which point the truth is revealed – all of the chores have actually been ways to build specific muscle groups (and muscle memory) that Daniel will need to defend himself. The two grow close and eventually compete against the teens in a tournament.

As I said, my relationship with God feels a lot like the kind of relationship shown between these two individuals in the film. I come to God to teach me how to live – how to be all I was meant to be. I go to God for this understanding because He designed me and because I know He loves me and wants the best for me. To learn what I must learn, God calls me to make him my Lord – to commit myself to be obedient to Him. God leads me to do things, and I try to follow His leading. Sometimes I do so grudgingly, sometimes I balk, sometimes I fail; but my intent is to be obedient to Him in all things. I often don’t understand why God asks me to do some things; but I try to obey regardless because I trust (have faith in) Him. What I often discover is that God has many reasons for asking me to do the things he asks me to do – they serve His kingdom but in the process they also serve to teach me to be a better person. There are times that I suddenly see God’s multiple purposes in something he asks me to do and it is very much like the “Show me: wax on, wax off” scenes in the movie. Through all this I have grown closer to God as my understanding and appreciation of His love for me grows and my love for Him grows as well.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 18, 2009

“Love the sinner...”

One of the stock aphorisms in Christianity these days is that Christians should “love the sinner but hate the sin”. At some level that sounds like good advice; but the problem I have observed is that the distinction is often too subtle for the “sinners” to tell the difference. Our attempt to love the person while hating their actions just look like us hating the individual to those on the receiving end.

Now looking at scriptures, the commandment to love all people (friends, enemies, sinners, etc.) is quite clear and unambiguous. In fact we are commanded to love them sacrificially – giving of ourselves to serve them all. Yet it is hard to find scriptures which command us to hate sin in other people. Yes, God certainly hates sins – there is no doubt about that; but people seemed to be cautioned by scripture against focusing in any way on other people’s sins. We are told to not judge each other. We are told to not concern ourselves with the splinter in someone else’s eye given that we have a log in our own. We are told to not talk about other people’s faults.

So what does it look like if we reduce that aphorism to just “love the sinner”? Does sin abound because we never challenge it? I don’t think so.

When I see someone whose life is spiraling downward because they bound up by an addiction, my love for them compels me to want to see them free of their addiction. This isn’t because their abuse is a “sin” (that categorization plays no role in my actions)– it is because their abuse is harming them and those close to them. I believe if we simply love people, we will want to see them free of habits and traits which harm them and others. There is no sense of hate directed towards anything, no concern over what is sin or not – only love towards the person.

But, one may ask, doesn’t all sin harm people? Shouldn’t we then seek to see all people free of all sins? I certainly agree that God’s commands are not arbitrary – that they are meant to serve as fences and guardrails to keep us all away from things which would harm us. Yet when we intellectualize this, when we begin with the premise “in theory this is harmful to them” we move away from the realm of a loving heart and into the realm of a judgmental mind. Unless we can perceive the harm some trait or habit is doing to the person, it is hard for us keep our actions motivated by sincere love. I think it is best to stay away from what we “think” someone should or should not be doing, and stay centered on the pain we feel when we see people bound up in destructive behavior.

So how then do the other sins – those for whom the harm is less obvious to human eyes – get addressed? I can say from my own life, they get addressed by God. Most of what God is working on in my life are those things for which the harm is not obvious to other people. Some things, like pride, might even be seen as advantages to others. While no fellow Christian might have their heart break seeing how these characteristics and behaviors harm me; God has a higher perspective, and His heart does break for the trouble I cause myself. So even these issues will get addressed if we all just stick with “loving the sinner” period.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 04, 2009

Settling on Church(es)

Anne and I seem to have settled on being a part of two church communities in San Francisco for the time being. This is actually a bit odd for me – usually God has directed me to a single community into which He wants me to pour all of my energies; but I do have a sense that God wants us involved in both of these groups for now. I’m still not sure how that is going to work out; but I’ll keep my spirit open to God showing us how to do this. We’ve had one schedule conflict we got stuck in this quarter; but should be able to work around that starting next month.

So one of the communities is The Journey, a plant from The Journey church in New York City. It is in many respects a fairly standard modern evangelical church. Big church service on Sunday led by the pastor, a variety of small groups through the week for those who are open to more. What I personally appreciate about The Journey is first its friendliness – Anne and I have quickly made connections with a number of people there; and second that while in many respects they are a “seeker friendly” church (one that structures themselves to be very welcoming to those who are outside of the faith), they in no way compromise the message of the gospel. In too many cases “seeker friendly” translates to “soft-sell God’s message”; but that isn’t the case at The Journey. The music is hip (sometime a bit too hip for me, but I cope), the Sunday service is short, with many breaks, etc. However the message is clear and uncompromising. I’m still not sure what our role is going to be with The Journey; but we are committed to being involved there until God tells us otherwise.

The other community is Eucharist, which is a bit more unique of a group. In many ways they are the embodiment of what I mean when I say “organic church” in that they seem to have set aside all assumptions about what it means to “do church” and are really focused on becoming a community that will attract and serve the people in our area (I say “our” because the community is centered in our neighborhood – Anne and I tend to walk to gatherings). The result is an interesting mix of meetings which continues to evolve as new needs and opportunities are identified. There is a set of meetings which conform to what would be called a simple/house church and Anne and are building some great relationships at that. There is a larger meeting on most Sundays which is focused on studying the book of Acts (so people understand how the first century church operated in their context). Then one Sunday a month there is a special forum (called “The Big Question”) where we talk about big societal questions, not necessarily from a Christian point of view (and invite people who have not been a part of the community to join us). The way I personally look at “The Big Question” is that we can’t always expect people to be willing to talk about the things that matter to us (God, Jesus, etc.) unless we are willing to talk about the things that matter to them (consumerism, ethics of torture, etc.). I think I have a clearer sense of why God wants us involved in Eucharist; but regardless of my understanding, we are also committed to being involved with them until God tells us otherwise.

By the way, both of these communities also have regular service projects as part of their schedule where we get together to help out the larger San Francisco community. I hadn’t realized until we moved up to San Francisco how much I miss that kind of service (at University, I was a brother in Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity, and was used to going on service projects multiple times a month).

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 22, 2009

Questions on The Atonement

The most central doctrine of Christianity is The Atonement – the answer to the question: “What did Jesus accomplish by dying on the cross and being raised from the dead a few days later?” How a person understands the answer to that question colors the whole rest of their faith and what they believe about who Jesus is. Without some understanding of The Atonement, Jesus was just an eccentric moral philosopher who died as an insurrectionist.

My whole Christian walk I have heard from the pulpit and classroom one and only one explanation of The Atonement (which goes by the name “penal substitution”). This indoctrination has been so complete that I can now see that I was actually exposed to other views at various times and did not realize it because I was blind to the distinctions being made (I filtered everything I heard through the lens of penal substitution). A few years back it finally sunk in that there are people I identify as Christians who interpreted things differently, and thus (as is my habit) I began to investigate for myself the various views of The Atonement.

There is actually a multitude of ways that The Atonement has been explained; but the vast majority of them can be fairly quickly dismissed as rather transparent attempts to force Christianity into someone’s preconceived world view. If you consider yourself a Christian and think humanity is essentially good and don’t want to have to deal with the sins in your own life, then you need a way to explain The Atonement in a way that does not talk about sin. A lot of the explanations I could find fell into this kind of convenient justification that could easily be dismissed by someone with a good understanding of what the Bible actually says.

There are however variations on two views which could not so easily be dismissed. One is the Penal Substitution model that I “grew up with” and dominates how The Atonement is explained in modern evangelical churches. The other is Ransom Theory (also known as “Christus Victor” or “Christ the Victor” model) which is what was taught by many Christian writers in the first few centuries of The Church and still is taught by Orthodox Christianity (as well as by modern writers like C. S. Lewis and Greg Boyd). I do note that there are variations on each of these views which exist, although most of these variations are just differences in language used and not in the substance of the explanation.

Having identified two plausible explanations (the one I was used to, and another) my next step is to try and understand if I actually have to make a choice between them. I have found that many of the doctrinal conflicts within Christianity are a matter of people forcing a choice between A or B when in fact the truth of Christianity is A and B. God is both just and merciful. Jesus is both God and man. Christians are both sons and servants. In the case of The Atonement, I found a lot of writers who acknowledged that the facts presented by the other view are accurate, but view them as less important than the facts presented by their view. If the distinction was just a matter of emphasis, then this is much debate about nothing.

Unfortunately, I am starting to see some places where there are real differences – that there may be no way to embrace both views logically (at least none that I see yet). So that leads to a second step – determine if the differences really matter. I have said here before, my view is that if you can’t see how you would do anything differently in your life over the next year based on some doctrinal point, then that point really doesn’t matter and there is no reason to take sides or invest further energy into determining who is right.

So this is where I am – trying to figure out what the practical (as opposed to theoretical) differences are between Penal Substitution, and Christus Victor, and therefore if I should care; which means that I really need to understand the Christus Victor model more that I do. So, more study is needed.

I know I didn’t explain what either view is in this post. I may do so in the future; but wanted to focus this essay on my personal process and not on the details of the debate. Frankly, while I could explain Penal Substitution with ease, I don’t know that I could do justice to Christus Victor yet and any presentation I gave here would be inherently biased.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 20, 2009

Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God

Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God

by Gregory A. Boyd

Wow.

And again I say: Wow.

The last couple of years, God has been working to improve my understanding of Sin – not the specific actions which we should and should not do; but the principle that is at the core of our broken relationship with God. Last December, I did a couple of posts on the subject but as I noted then: while I had an intuitive understanding of what God was showing me, I wasn’t yet able to articulate it.

Greg Boyd has no such difficultly.

This book is essentially what I had been thinking for the last year and couldn’t find the right words to express. Boyd in turn acknowledges that he is building on the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a German Theologian who was killed by the Nazis for his religious opposition to the state (probably the most famous 20th Century martyr) and his analysis of the metaphor of the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” whose fruit Adam and Eve ate, precipitating the fall of humanity.

While no summary can do justice to Greg Boyd’s analysis, the high points are:
- God made humanity to join in the loving union of the Trinity
- The right to judge each other was reserved for God because without complete understanding of a person’s situation (God’s omniscience), it is impossible to understand why people do the things they do
- Humanity’s job was then to love God unconditionally and sacrificially and love each other unconditionally and sacrificially. This was to be done without judgment, considering everyone to have equal and unsurpassable intrinsic value.
- The fall came about when humanity usurped God’s prerogative of judgment (eating of
“The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”). As we began to judge each other, we could no longer love each other unconditionally and sacrificially and our ability to participate in the loving union of the Trinity was broken.
- All sin then comes from our drive to assign and establish value for ourselves, others and God instead of trusting God’s judgments.
- Christianity then is a means to be set free from this judgmental worldview and from the sins which result from it.
- The Church then is meant to be a place of unconditional love and acceptance and not a place of judgment.

Greg Boyd takes these points (and other related ones) and examines them in great detail and with thoroughness. There were many points while reading that I found myself thinking “But what about…”; but every one of these questions was address by the end of the book, and with one exception I was completely satisfied with his answers (one I need to think about more). He spends time talking about specific verses that seem to contradict this view, including 1 Corinthians 5, which I have struggled with understanding.

I also found myself near tears at points reading the book, seeing how badly The Church has failed. While there is nothing in this book that I didn’t already believe, seeing it there in clear, unambiguous prose was depressing and drove me to repentance of my own judgmental nature.

This is now officially on my list of books that I think EVERY Christian should read.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

April 17, 2009

McLuhan and Church

This past week I read "Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith" by Shane Hipps this week. The book is essentially an application of Marshall McLuhan's ideas from "Understanding Media" and "Laws of Media" to Christianity, asking questions like: If "the medium is the message", can we use new media to communicate the gospel without changing the message?"

Overall I found the book interesting; but unfulfilling. The author brings up a lot of interesting ideas; but never explores them very deeply and I found myself wanting more. For instance he raises the theory that Christianity's focus on doctrinal correctness over the last few centuries can be attributed to the dominance of printed material as the primary media of the culture – that something like Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion." (a groundbreaking treatise on Christian Doctrine from the 16th century) would never exist in a culture that primarily used oral or handwritten media; but books lead people into rational, linear thinking which leads to an intellectual understanding of the faith. A good point; but there is so much more than could be explored here.

The best part of the book for me was when he raised this rather intriguing question: The "medium" through which God has chosen to communicate His message today is The Church – a community of imperfect people. If "the medium is the message", what message is God communicating by His decision to use our flawed lives as a community to communicate? A great question, but once again one the author only provides a cursory response. I however am going to be thinking about that a lot (expect to see a future blog post grown from that seed).

Another application of McLuhan's theories to Christianity that wasn't in the book but I thought of is related to the whole "Institutional Church" vs. "Home Church" question. Essentially you can view the structure of church meetings as medium and ask: regardless of what is actually said, what does your typical church service communicate by its structure? What about a house church meeting? I was in a conversation last night that at one point turned to the problem of pastors getting "put up on a pedestal" causing problems when they fail in some way, and the struggle of more humble pastors to stay off the pedestal.

Now here's my observation: your typical church service has a small group of people (including the pastor) up on a stage with everyone else in the audience. A large part of the meeting is taken up with the pastor speaking from that stage, explaining things related to the faith to the passive audience who quietly listen. So, if "the medium is the message" – what does that structure communicate? I think it naturally communicates that the person on the stage is more knowledgeable and in some way superior to those below them in the audience. Pastors have to struggle against being put on a pedestal because the structure of the church meetings conspires to put them there.

I will however note that to follow McLuhan's theories, one should not talk about a medium (church meeting style) being good or bad. There was a tendency in the 70's to misquote McLuhan and use his words to show how "bad" TV was; but that misses his point. Yes, TV is different from Print and the effect it has on society is different; but Print was different from Manuscripts and Manuscripts from Oral tradition. At each stage there is always something that is lost and it is easy to look at that loss as "bad"; but there is also always something gained in the transition. McLuhan encouraged people to understand these changes and to work with them.

So, here's what I am going to be thinking about: If the "medium" of the church meetings has changed over the centuries from "First Century Church" to "Liturgical Church" to what is now considered the "Traditional Protestant Church" to whatever comes next (perhaps House Churches), then what are the answers to McLuhan's four questions:

- What does the medium (form of church meeting) enhance?

- What does the medium (form of church meeting) cause us to lose?

- What does the medium (form of church meeting) bring back that was lost earlier?

- What does the medium (form of church meeting) do that's bad when it is pushed to extremes?

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

April 15, 2009

Economic Systems (Part 2)

In my previous post I considered what economic system would work best for a “Generation Ship” which was taking several generations to travel between stars. I argued that a communist planned economy that tried to implement the motto “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” will fail because of corruption and lack of motivation. I argued that free market capitalism would also fail because the later generations do not have a voice in the market and therefore the markets will not value goods correctly. I argued that socialism leads to the worst of both worlds – corruptions and a failed marketplace.

So what’s the solution?

The problem isn’t the economic system – it is human nature. Human beings are natural optimizers – we are constantly trying to get the “biggest bang for the buck”. If you limit what we get, then we strive to find ways to limit our investment to get the same benefit. If you limit our investment, we strive to find ways to maximize our benefits for that effort. This drive can accomplish great things – all of the marvelous innovations around us were a result of someone trying to optimize their environment in some way; but that same virtue is also a vice that leads to greed and sloth and eventually to failure of any economic system. I believe the bottom line is that no economic system will work unless you change human nature.

Fortunately, there is a way to do that – to change human nature.

It’s called Christianity.

Christianity is all about developing a relationship with God by which He can work in your life to change your nature – to change you into a better person. It isn’t (as many people believe) struggling under your own strength to follow a bunch of arbitrary rules. It’s about taking Jesus as your master and teacher, and letting him train you to be better than you used to be.

So what’s this have to do with economics?

Many people look at verses like Acts 2:44-45

All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

and believe that Christianity supports communism. Others look at verses like 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12

For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.

and believe Christianity supports capitalism. I believe neither is true.

I believe that true Christianity doesn’t care about the economic system, it cares about relationships. I believe the people described in the book of Acts who sold their belonging to give to others did so because they had compassion. There was no system to require them to give (see Acts 5:3-4 for confirmation of this). There was no economic model for the church. There were just people who cared enough about other people to voluntarily give of their wealth to support others. Likewise, Paul’s advice to the church in Thessaly was because people were hurting relationships (being “busybodies”) because they had too much free time. They needed to work so their energies would go into ways that built and support others rather than tearing them down.

I believe people who have been transformed by God can make communism work because they will be looking for how to help others rather than only looking after their own interests. I believe people who have been transformed by God can make the free market work because they will be thinking about those who cannot participate in the market and will act accordingly. I believe people who have been transformed by God can make socialism work because they will strive for excellence and honesty in all that they do.

The point is, if you are transformed by God, the economic system doesn’t matter; and without that transformation, any economic system is doomed to failure.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

April 13, 2009

Economic Systems (Part 1)

When I consider economics (or other aspects of philosophy), I often use thought experiments to test my ideas. The idea of a “generation ship” has proven to be one of the most useful mental laboratories. Physics tells us that we cannot build a spacecraft that travels faster than light, and in fact it is impractical to even get close to that speed. Therefore if mankind ever travels to the stars, it will be at speeds that will require at least decades if not centuries to get there. That leaves only two practical options for the crew: either they will need to be kept in some form of hibernation or suspended animation for the voyage; or the original crew doesn’t actually make it to the destination – their descendants do. This latter option involved what engineers call a “generation ship”. You build a very large spacecraft that can support a crew of several thousand indefinitely (complete with farms for food, etc.) and you send them out on the voyage with the understanding that they will live out the rest of their lives on board the ship, as will their children, and grandchildren, and so on for several generations until some later generation reaches the original goal.

What makes this interesting from an economics point of view is that in deep space between stars, there is no place to acquire additional resources (except, perhaps, hydrogen), and even when they reach some star it is not clear what supplies will be able to be replenished (certainly not wood, oil, or food; and even finding iron or silicon might be require significant effort). So, the question is: what form of government and economics would be most effective for such a voyage?

Most science fiction writers I have seen who have written about such craft have suggested that there would be a hierarchical crew would be responsible for assigning tasks to the people most skilled to accomplish them and distributing resources to keep everyone alive and healthy. I am certain that this approached is doomed to failure – yes, it might well work for the first generation of crew who chose to live on the ship for the rest of their lives; but their children will have other motivations. Some will see no value in making much effort to support the community since their own support is guaranteed. Others will work to rise through the ranks to gain power over others. Corruption will become rampant as people use their rank within the crew to distribute favors for personal gain. Why I am so confident of this failure? Because we have already seen it happen. The economic model here is essentially a communist command economy “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” It is a well meaning system; but one which tends to fail within 2-3 generations.

So then is free market capitalism the solution? I also claim the answer to that is “no.” The problem is that free markets are a very effective way of determining the optimal value of something; but only if everyone who has a stake in the market is able to make informed decisions. In the case of the generation ship, all future generations have a stake in the value of the limited resources on the ship; but they have no way to participate in the market. So, assume there is a limited supply of some resource on the ship which cannot be synthesized. The first generation might well come to some agreement in the marketplace on the value of that resource to them and use it accordingly. Let’s say there are 10,000 boxes of it and the market will pay $1/box for it. Now consider generations later when there are only 10 boxes left, what price will they go for in a free market? $1000/box? 1,000,000? More? And if that is the case, what was the true value of those first boxes that sold for only $1? The free market failed to determine the true value of the goods because not everyone who would value it was able to participate in the market. What’s more, those with money have a greater voice in the market and can manipulate it to their own interests which might not serve the interests of the voyage as a whole. So wealth becomes power (sometimes via corruption) which is used to gain wealth and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle which only by chance will leave the ship in a position to accomplish its mission at the end of the voyage.

How about socialism? Does it give the “best of both worlds” – allowing for a regulated market into which the government interjects the consideration of those who cannot directly participate and providing a safety net for those without money or power? Unfortunately, the result is often the worst, not the best, of both worlds. Socialism tends to invite the abuses found in both communisms and the free market. Those responsible for regulating the market are subject to corruption by those being regulated, and government involvement prevents the free market from developing optimal solutions.

So what is the answer? What economic system actually works? For my opinion on that you’ll have to wait for my next post.

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April 03, 2009

Community Identification

This is a point I have avoided writing on until now because it is too easy, too obvious, and too many people have already said this; but given yesterday's post, I think I see a new way to make a very old point.

Yesterday, I compared Christian communities (churches) with a living organism. Like a living organism, its form should be a result of the interplay between two forces – its DNA (the intent of God as expressed through the Bible and by the Holy Spirit) and its environment (the people involved). The DNA defines what species the organism is (the church is an expression of the Body of Christ) while the people have an influence on what form that expression takes.

Now consider nature again. We know a tree is a pine tree by the shape of its leaves (needles) and that it remains green all year around. While individual pine trees may have very different shapes because of their history and environments, they are unlikely to be confused with oak or elm trees because they retain certain key features which make them identifiable as pine.

So, if we accept that the form of the church may also vary as it grows in different environments, what are the distinguishing characteristics of a community by which people can use to recognize it as "Christian"?

Ask that question of most Christians, and the answer I suspect you would get would either be a list of programs "if the people in the community meet at a certain time and place and do certain things, then it is a Christian community" or a list of doctrines "if the people in the community believe these things, then it is a Christian community".

Now there may be some truths to those observations (my intent here is not to diminish the important of orthodoxy or key institutions of the church); but I do note that Jesus provided a very different way to recognize His people:

"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."(John 13:35)

Jesus clearly established in the Bible that one way to recognize that a community is a collection of Christians is by their love for one another.

Ouch

When's the last time you have heard anyone say "Those people care so much for each other, they must be Christians!" I can't think of any time I have heard anything say anything even close to that. I can however recall lots of conversations about how Christians are constantly fighting with each other and everyone else.

Perhaps for all of our evolved doctrines and programs, the church needs to get back to basics: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself"

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

April 01, 2009

Manufactured vs. Natural

If you see a collection of things (perhaps pieces of rock) which are all perfectly identical, it is usually safe to assume that they did not come about naturally; but rather were manufactured somehow. Nature tends to produce things which, while similar, are not identical. This is particularly true when it comes to living things – even "identical" twins tend to accumulate small differences (starting in the womb) because of the differences in their environment and experiences. Yet for all of the differences between, say, individual pine trees, they are still recognizable as pine trees and not oak or elm trees.

This is because the form of a living thing is a result of the interplay between two forces – first, the organism's DNA and second, its environment. The DNA drives those features which are similar and make it belong to its species, while the environment drives those features which make each organism different from others of its species. This interplay can be complex as the DNA can cause the organism to react to its environment in ways which then modify the environment – a plant may extend its roots when it is dry to seek new sources of water which in the process extend the environment the plant interacts with. These changes are not planned ahead; but made up of the accumulation of many small, local reactions to immediate conditions.

The church is meant to be a living thing as well – the Body of Christ – and I believe these same observations apply.

The form of any community of Christians should be a result of interplay between two forces – first, the intent of God as expressed through the Bible and by the Holy Spirit to the community and second, the people involved (both those in the Christian community and those in the surrounding neighborhood). The Bible and Holy Spirit drive those features of the community which are common to all Christian communities, while the people drive those features which make a given community of Christians unique. This interplay can be complex as Holy Spirit dynamically guides how the community responds to the people which in turn will introduce changes in the people themselves. Because people are constantly changing, both as individuals and as they come and go from the community and neighborhood, the form of a community of Christians who are truly expressing themselves as the Body of Christ can not be planned in advance; but rather results from the community constantly following the guidance of the Bible and Holy Spirit in how they interact with people.

This is really what I am looking for in an "Organic" Church – one which is allowed to grow naturally under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be the proper expression of the Body of Christ for the given neighborhood. While I clearly believe certain things are helpful to accomplishing this (such as making sure the environment is conducive to allowing everyone to minister, or eliminating unnecessary assumptions about how churches operate that may constrain how it can grow), none of those things are the goal. The goal is to become the form of Church God wants to express for the area.

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March 30, 2009

Church: House, Simple, Organic

For the past year I have been dragging around the phrase "Organic/House/Simple Church" (or some permutation thereof) like a ball and chain because the terms "Organic Church", "Simple Church" and "House Church" seem to be used almost interchangeably by many people.

Almost interchangeably.

The more I read books and blogs, the more I have started to see some slight trends in the use of these terms. Not that they are to the point of meaning different things ; but that different people seem to be attracted to different terms. This observation isn't reliable – I can come up with counter examples in each case; but I think it is worth noting.

There are some people who are attracted to this movement because of their desire for deeper relationships within the church. They want to stop being anonymous members of the audience and instead find a church where they can get into mutually supportive relationships with other Christians. For these people, the small size of the meetings is paramount (allowing for people to get to know one another), while the structure and leadership is less important. My observation is that people for whom this is important tend to use the term "House Church" more often than the other terms.

There are other people who are attracted to this movement because of their desire to get rid of the accumulated baggage of the institutional church. They don't want programs or pastors or pews or liturgy or any of that stuff – they want a church experience that gets back to basics. For these people, the structure of the meeting is paramount (eliminating anything that is not required by Christianity), while the size and leadership are less important. My observation is that people for whom this is important tend to use the term "Simple Church" more often than the other terms.

There are yet other people who are attracted to this movement because of their desire to see every member contributing as God leads them. They want to get rid of the artificial church/laity divide and instead have everyone invested in using their gifts in the church. For these people, the leadership model is paramount (God is the only leader, everyone else is equal before Him), while size and structure are less important. My observation is that people for whom this is important tend to use the term "Organic Church" more often than the other terms.

In all of these cases, I think the people are headed in the same general direction and that there is a common model for church which would satisfy them all. Yet because their motivations are all slightly different, I think each group would be willing to "settle" for something less than that ideal, and what they would settle for would probably not meet the needs of the others.

Of course, most people are some mix of these motivations and in fact tend to use multiple terms as they discuss how they view church. Considering my own interests and motivations, I would probably categorize myself as being 45% "Organic" (all-member functioning under God's leadership), 35% "Simple" (get rid of the accumulated baggage), and 20% "House" (looking for real relationships in The Body).

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March 16, 2009

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

by Rob Bell

Another “been waiting until I had a Kindle to buy it” book that has proven to be worth the wait.

Rob Bell is pastor of the Mars Hill church in Michigan, and is in my opinion one of the best poets in Christianity today – not that he writes poetry (that I know of); but he has a poet’s eye and heart for metaphor and uses that skill in his prose to explain Christianity in new terms that are both fresh and accurate. Where Christianity too often gets bogged down in traditional language which has lost its meaning because it has in fact acquired so many diverse meanings over the years, Bell comes up with new ways to explain the faith that are clear and compelling.

Bell also brings Christianity back to its roots - discussing how the Jews viewed scripture as an inspiration for how we Christians should view the Bible; or a long explanation of how rabbi’s operated in Roman occupied Palestine and how that illuminates certain aspects of Jesus’ ministry. I have often said that the starting point for understanding the Bible must be to understand what it would have meant to the original hearers/readers in their culture and language. Bell consistently follows that dictum while providing modern language to describe the same ideas for contemporary readers.

I have previously read his collaboration with Don Golden “Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile” which explores how the church in America has gone off track; and I certainly plan to look into his other works..

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February 27, 2009

Church Discipline

There are a lot of tough passages in the Bible that I struggle to understand, and even a few that I wish I could use my black highlighter on. One of those is the 5th chapter of 1 Corinthians.

Paul started the church at Corinth on one of his missionary journeys; but from the records we have it appears to have been one of his “problem children” – a dysfunctional church (at least for some period of time). What we know of as “1 Corinthians” is one of a series of letters Paul wrote to them to answer some of their questions and to provide some unsolicited admonitions. Chapter 5 is one of the latter. Now one of the problems we have interpreting this passage is that it doesn’t provide much of the background, so we are clearly missing some key details. What is clear is that there is someone in the congregation who is involved in a sexual relationship with “his father’s wife” which is taken to mean his step mother. What’s more, there seems to have been some element of “boasting” related to this man being in the congregation, although how and why is unclear. Regardless, Paul come down hard on them for their acceptance of this man, and orders them to expel him from the community. Later (in 2 Corinthians), it appears that the church followed Paul’s orders and as a result of being disfellowshipped the man repented and now Paul is saying they should welcome him back into the community.

Now I believe in church discipline. Even Jesus taught the principles on which it should work in Matthew 18:15-17. Over my years as a Christian I have been witness to these principles being applied on several occasions. There was the man (who clearly had some spiritual issues related to money) who kept trying to get other people in the congregation involved in his latest get-rich-quick schemes, resulting in some people (who were perhaps too trusting of a “brother in Christ”) losing money. Then there was the man whose actions towards some of the young women of the congregation were inappropriate. In each case there were approached privately, then by the church leadership ,and were finally asked to no longer participate in the church.

The key similarity in these examples, and in of all of the cases I have been aware of, was that the individual was considered a danger to others in the community. They were doing things that either directly harmed other people or were a direct temptation to others. It would have been irresponsible to have allowed them to continue being part of the fellowship when they failed to change their behavior.

And that’s why I struggle with 1 Cor 5 – because it is not clear from what it written that the man in Corinth posed any danger to anyone else. Paul goes on at length about how contemptible the man’s behavior is (even observing that not even the “pagans” would accept what he does), and it sure seems that from Paul’s’ point of view, the man is too much of a sinner to allow to be a part of the community.

But that goes against almost everything else I understand about The Church. As L. L. Nash says, “A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” Jesus himself freely hung around with notorious sinners who were not accepted by the culture at large, and it is clear from the gospels that his disciples were far from perfect. As I understand it, The Church is meant to be a community in which we can get mutual support as God works in us to clean up the mess that we are. I have written in this blog before about how I feel it is presumptuous for Christians to believe they know what issues in someone else’s lives need to be dealt with “now”, yet that seems to be exactly what Paul is doing. I still don’t know how to process this passage.

Of course, as I already noted, we don’t have the whole story. Perhaps the person was in leadership in the church. There are several places in the Bible that establish that people in leadership are held to a higher standard, although it would seem that notoriously sinful leaders should only be asked to give up their leadership position, not be asked to leave the community. Or perhaps the person was causing harm to other people; although given the behavior that is described, it is hard to see how. Perhaps his step-mother was also part of the congregation and there was a sense that she was willing to repent; but he was keeping the pressure on in the relationship. Another possibility is there was some reason why it was in fact obvious that his relationship to his step-mother was what God wanted to change next – perhaps there was a prophetic word to that effect, although I can’t see how that would have become general knowledge. I can certainly agree that the man’s presence in the community is not a cause for boasting; but that still leaves room for allowing him to work through this privately.

So the bottom line is that I don’t understand why God conspired to have that passage preserved for us to read and be instructed by when it seems to me that key parts of the story are missing. I take on faith that there is a reason it is there in the form it is in; but I don’t know what it is, and therefore my own understandings of church discipline (focus on people who are a danger to others, give room for all other kinds of sinners to grow in The Lord) is suspect.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 25, 2009

More on eternal value

There is another alternative to consider when pondering "What will still be of value after 1000 years of being in God's presence after I die?" What if you do not end up with a relationship with God that outlasts this life?

While we live this life, we experience the benefits of God's desire to establish a relationship with us. As Jesus is recorded saying in Matthew: "He makes his sun rise on people whether they are good or evil. He lets rain fall on them whether they are just or unjust". Yet my understanding is that when this life is over, we will have chosen whether we want a relationship with God (and all that implies) or not. For those who, for whatever reason, choose not to pursue a relationship with God in this life, God will give them what they desire – an existence completely without Him and His benevolence.

In popular culture, this is known as "hell".

Now there are a whole lot of ideas that have accumulated in the culture about the fate of those who do not choose God, and it is actually quite hard to justify a lot of them by looking at the Bible. Even many of those ideas that do have some Biblical foundation, it is hard to know if the passages are meant to be read literally or as metaphorically. It is clear that it will be a life of suffering and despair; but it is less clear how much of that that suffering will be physical (the traditional flames, etc.) or emotional and spiritual.

I do however believe it will be an existence completely without God.

The question them becomes – what would life be like if God completely withdrew himself from the situation? The world we live in today is hard and painful, and there are atrocities that occur around the world on a fairly constant basis. Yet as I read scriptures I get the sense that for all the evil that does exists in the world, God is still holding back the worst of it. Neither The Enemy nor mankind's own worst impulse have free reign because God wants to give people an opportunity to turn to Him. As Paul wrote in Romans "Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?" Perhaps the despair of trying to eek out an existence completely without God's may be all the suffering that is needed to constitute "hell". I don't know; but I certainly don't want to find out first hand.

So what things in this life would still be thought of as valuable after 1000 years of existence completely without God? What in this world is possibly so valuable that it is worth doing without God's love for the rest of eternity?

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February 23, 2009

So what IS of value?

Last week I asked the question "What will still be of value after 1000 years of being in God's presence after I die?" I think this is actually a key question that Christians should be asking themselves constantly – it is the right way to determine what really matters in this life (and I say that as someone whose life is not clearly aligned with the answer I am about to give).

I believe the answer to that question is fairly simple: relationships. What we will still value after 1000 years with God will be are our relationships with God, with each other, and with ourselves. Nothing else will last that long. Material goods will be left behind, and will any status and positions we accumulated in this life. Yet people will still exist and therefore our relationships with them will continue to exist. I claim that after 1000 years, those relationship will be the only things from this life that we will possibly still care about.

And I think Jesus said the same thing, although he phrased it differently.

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV). But when you really love someone, your actions build your relationship with them in a positive way. So the effect of following these two commands, that Jesus said encompassed everything that God had ever said to us, is to build good relationships with God and with each other. I believe the reason these commands are so important is that following them is the only way to establish value that is going to outlast this life.

For all the other issues I have with the LDS (the "Mormons"), this is something I think they got right. Their whole faith is centered on the idea that the family is eternal as long as it is united in God, and therefore family relationships and the relationships of family members to God are the most valuable things in the world. Because of this, they put a lot of energy into those relationships. There are many Christians who could learn from their example.

So perhaps a better way for Christians to determine what is of value in this life is to ask "What effect does this have on my relationships?" Does it help build my relationship with God? Does it enable me to build more and better relationships with other people? Does it help me view myself in a more honest and accurate way (and therefore build a better relationship with myself)? Then it has at least some eternal value, and the more it does these things, the more valuable it is. Conversely, things which harm your relationship with God, with others, or give you a distorted relationship with yourself are of negative eternal value.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 20, 2009

Good Comment, Roland

This post is actually a reply of sorts to Roland's comment on Wednesday's post. It got rather lengthy so I decided to make a post of it.

I would certainly agree that I am unlikely to care about what games I played in this life when I have been in God presence for 1000 years, although even from an eternal perspective there is a value to games I will get to in a moment.

I do however think it is inconsistent (or at least biased) to say TV and movies will be of little value but I would still care about the books I have read after 1000 years with God. What is it about books that make them such a superior medium that I will value the insights I gain from them and not from other sources? Or is it the thought that fiction (whether books, TV, or movies) will not be valued, and that most of the books I read are non-fiction and therefore will retain value while most of the TV and movies I watch are non-fiction and therefore won't? If that is the point, I would encourage reading (or see the DVD of) "Epic" which I have praised on this blog before. Fiction can often give insights that are hard to describe in direct prose.

As to the value of writing things vs. doing more reading, I agree that the value does depend some on how many people are exposed to what I write, and I do certainly desire to get more widely published than this blog. Still, if all of my writings help only one person improve their relationship with God, I'd like to think I would value that more in 1000 years than any amount of stuffing more information into my already full head. I do value reading – if nothing else it might provide some inspiration of new ways to express an idea in my own writing, or better yet point out some flaw in my thinking before I commit it to prose; but I think I have reached a point in my life where my focus needs to be on giving what I have gained so far and less on what more I can get. This is true in both a material sense and in an intellectual and spiritual sense.

As to the value of games (as well as TV and movies), while I enjoy computer games for my own pleasure, I believe they also serve a Kingdom purpose. Part of my commission as a Christian is to share my faith with others. That is best done with people I have relationships with. Those relationships often begin with common interests like games, books, television, and movies. I have seen Christians who cloister themselves reading only Christian books and watching only Christian media who are then unable to connect with people outside the faith. They tend to be failures in sharing their faith because they have no common ground with those who do not believe. On the other hand, I have often run into people who are willing to hear me out about my relationship with Jesus because I have already establish that I am a "normal person" by my enjoyment of popular media, including games. There are specific examples I can think of where this was true. Many people are afraid of Christianity because they think they need to give up everything that is fun if they become a Christian. It is important that my life demonstrates at least some counterexamples to that, and for me games and TV serve that purpose (as well as being fun).

As Christians we are commanded to be “in the world, but not of it”. My investment in entertainment serves a double purpose – my personal enjoyment, but also as a means to stay “in the world.” The challenge then becomes to not cross the line between “being in the world” and “being of the world”. I have been learning over the past few years how to disciple myself in that regard – to have television, movies and games in my life without allowing them to rule it. Sometimes I still fail at that; but I am getting much better than I once was.

A bit of a rambling reply; but you raised so many interesting points in your comment. Thanks, Ro.

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February 11, 2009

"Come with me if you want to live"

(Please bear with this post – it does make a point to two by the end.)

The title of this post is one of the catch phrases of the "Terminator" series of movies and TV show. In is first spoken by Kyle Reese to Sarah Connor in "The Terminator" as he offers to save her from the robot assassin from the future. In the second movie it is spoken by the "good" terminator twice – once to John Connor and then to Sarah Connor. In the pilot episode of the TV series, it is spoken by "Cameron" (another "good" terminator) to John Connor.

What's I want to explore for a moment is just how much is packed into that eight-word offer.

* The offer implies that there is a danger. What's more, at least in the first film, it is a danger that that the person being spoken to does not understand. In fact it is a danger that no rational person would believe – time traveling robots sent from the future to kill a person before they can do something that brings about the salvation of humanity. Preposterous.

* The offer is also fundamentally a request for trust spoken by a party who has not yet earned that trust. The person speaking the phrase is essentially saying "You don't know me; but I need you to trust me when I say that you are in danger and trust that I know how to rescue you". In fact in "Terminator 2", there is a reason to not trust the individual (they look just like someone who wanted to cause harm previously).

* The offer is an offer of an ongoing relationship (in which that trust that was given is now earned). While phrased as a single action, "come with me", what was required was much more than following the person for a couple of hours. The real nature of the offer is "If you want to live, you need to start doing what I say when I say it, my first order being to come with me". In each case, the result of the accepted offer is a relationship (an intimate one in the case of Kyle and Sarah) where one person commits to protect the other in exchange for the other doing what the first says.

* The offer is not a promise of an easy life. In each case, what follows is actually a constant struggle. In fact one of the key themes of the TV series is John Connor struggling with the fact that he can never have a "normal life." Yet for all its travails, the result of the offer is better than the alternative (being assassinated).

So what's the point of all this analysis of a line from a science fiction show?

I was struck the other day reading Dietrich Bonheoffer's "The Cost of Discipleship" as he talked about all that was implied when Jesus said to His disciples-to-be "Come, follow me." In many ways, what Jesus is saying to humanity is "Come with me if you want to LIVE" with all of the same implications as above.

* Jesus warns us that there is danger in this life and in the life to come. This danger is something that people really don't understand and many people consider irrational to believe in (heaven? the devil? preposterous!)

* Jesus fundamentally is asking us to trust Him before He has had a chance to prove He is worthy of that trust. Christians call that faith. In fact, many people's preconceived ideas of God make trusting Him difficult (think of the Connors' challenge to trust in Terminator 2).

* Jesus is not looking for a one time action; but an ongoing relationship (in which He earns the trust we have given to Him). He needs us to do what He says when He says it so that we can be protected from the dangers that are out there. That relationship is however intended to be more than just a protector/protectee relationship – Jesus is looking for something more intimate than that.

* Jesus does not promise that the resulting life will be easy, and in fact He promises all sorts of challenges if we follow Him. He does however promise that the results will be better than the alternative.

So, Jesus us saying to us all "Come with me if you really want to live". Who is willing to take Him up on that offer?

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 06, 2009

Ted Haggard

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of "church discipline" of late, and I will eventually have a post or two on the subject; but there was an article last week in Slate magazine on disgraced pastor Ted Haggard which has generated a lot of buzz on the web and I find myself compelled to comment as well.

The article is written by a friend an associate of Haggard and it raises some very good questions about how effective "the church" has been at forgiving and restoring the man while acknowledging that Haggard has also done some thing which have hurt his cause (not telling the whole story, sending out fund raising letters, appearing on talk shows). The article is quite good on its own and I recommend people read it.

My own personal reaction to the article seems to be a bit different from most of the posts and comments I have seen. Most people either seem to react by saying that what Haggard did was unforgivable (and therefore he should stay "un-restored") or that the church's treatment of him has been unforgivable (and therefore that he should be acceptable back into ministry now that he has repented).

Personally, I think everyone is missing the real problem here because they bring to the debate some key assumptions about the church as an institution. The author of the article actually makes the point without realizing it when he writes:

"New Life Church needed to protect itself and had to shun one of its own in order not to expose itself to financial ruin in the form of fleeing members."

and notes

"A year later, after Haggard caused a stir by sending a fundraising e-mail, his former church rebuked him publicly. . ."

In short, money makes forgiveness and restoration much more complicated (if not practically impossible). If you assume that churches are institutions with property and expenses, then you should not be surprised when their actions are driven by financial concerns and not by Christian virtues. Likewise if you assume that churches have staff that depend on the church for their income, then you should not be surprised when the staff's actions are driven by financial concerns, hiding issues which could effect their employment and rushing to return to ministry to re-establish their income.

The problem is not with Ted Haggard or his former church – they are just doing what comes naturally given the structure we have created around the faith. The problem is that structure which leads people to serve two masters – both God and Money.

The solution, as I have written before, is that The Church is a community of people who support each other in their faith. It has no property or fixed expenses so it has no financial stake to be at risk. It might take up collections for specific projects (such as the special collection for the poor in Jerusalem described in the Bible); but those projects are of limited scope and time. It has no paid staff, so no one's livelihood is at risk if they find themselves in trouble. The only people who earn their living from the faith are those who are sent out of the community (what we would probably call missionaries today, but used to be called apostles), and in their case finances are the least of the risks they are taking. Even then, the model of "short term missions" where people are sent out for a few weeks or months at a time and then return home to their normal jobs is better (even Paul's "missionary Journeys" described in Acts could be viewed this way). As much as possible, the church should avoid "open ended" commitments to support someone.

In an environment like that The Church, and the individual who are a part of it, can focus entirely on what God requires of a situation (honesty, openness, forgiveness, restoration) without concern over money. Wouldn't that be better?

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 02, 2009

Location or Trajectory

I’ve written about this before; but God has been working in my life to transform these beliefs into practice so I thought it was time to revisit them in the blog. The point is that many Christians (including myself in years past) define what it means to be a “good Christian” as a bounded set – A good Christian is someone who believes certain things, does certain things, avoids certain things. There is a well defined boundary, and you are either on one side of the line or the other.

The problem with that is that Jesus never seems to operate that way. He was far more pleased with thoroughly messed up people who were at least trying to get closer to God than with people who may have technically been closer to what God wanted but had become satisfied with their level of closeness. His idea of a “good Christian” seems more to be a “centered set” focused on God where what mattered was not where you were but what direction you were moving.

While I have believed this was true for a while, there is often a distance between what we believe and how we react, and God has been working in my life to make this not just a belief but a part of my character.

This all was brought to home recently as I read some of Anne Lamott’s books (“Traveling Merices”, “Plan B”, etc). Anne is a successful Christian author from the San Francisco Bay area (she grew up and lives across the Golden Gate Bridge from the city). Her books are quite popular these days with the new generation of Christians (even though she is actually of the same generation as my wife (also Anne) and I).

And here’s the thing – 20 years ago I would probably have not considered her a Christian at all, and certainly not a “good” one. In her books she refers to God as “He or She” (or sometimes even just “She”), She practices Buddhist meditation, and does other assorted things that I would have said “Christians, at least good ones, don’t do”.

But not now. Now, I can now read her books and see myself in them – a struggling, humble Christian seeking to get closer to God. I can look past the doctrinal issues and can see in her words someone who has experienced God’s hand in her life just the way I experience it in mine – gentle, firm pressure to “get past myself” and focused on God and others. The occasional nudge here, a word there, an experience that highlights the need for Him. The kinds of things Anne talks about are so familiar from my own life that I have no doubt that God is working in her just as He is working in me. So if God is willing to invest in her life, who am I to judge her otherwise?

Now Anne started her journey towards God from a very different place than I did (a place which she documents in frightening detail in “Traveling Mercies”); and being a different person from me, she has resisted God in her journey in different ways that I have, but we have both struggled with things God has demanded of us. As a result, we are today in two very different places relative to where God wants us to be. There are perhaps things I have “gotten right” which is still ahead of her on her path; but there are also things which God has managed to teach her which I am still working through. What matters though is that we are both struggling to allow God to bring us closer to Him.

That’s not to say the things she has wrong don’t matter – I believe they do, just as the things I still have wrong matter. What I am however learning is to give room for God to work in other people’s lives according to His plan, not mine. It is not for me to decide what issues any other Christian needs to focus on now. It isn’t even for me to decide what issues I should be working on in my own life (to claim otherwise is to usurp God’s lordship in my life). We all stand before God and submit to His will for us, and are judged by Him (and not each other) based on how well we follow the path that God has set before us, not how well we follow someone else’s path.

I suspect, living in San Francisco, it is going to be very important to not just believe this is true; but for it to be second nature to me to act based on it being true, so God is driving the point home in my life. Thank you Anne Lamott.

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January 26, 2009

Reconsidering McLaren

Brian D. McLaren is one of the most influential (and in many circles, the most polarizing) Christian authors around these days. He is one of the original leaders of the “emergent church” movement and his statements are why other people have distanced themselves from that cause (or at least that name). Everyone seemed to have an opinion on him, and those opinions vary greatly.

With that as background, last year I decided to make up my own mind, and so read McLaren’s trilogy of novels “A New Kind of Christian”, “The Story We Find Ourselves In”, and “The Last Word and the Word after That”. These “novels” are essentially a collection of dialogs between fictional characters about the real meaning of Christianity with just enough plot thrown in to keep it interesting. The main character is a pastor who is going through a bit of a crisis who meets a High School teacher with some very different views on the faith.

Having read the books, I could see what all of the fuss was about. The books raise questions about almost every aspect of Christianity. While McLaren was clearly trying to present a kind of post-modern deconstruction of the faith, there is a line between “deconstruction” and “destruction” and it was not always obvious to me which side McLaren was walking on. While some of the questions he raised struck me as appropriate and necessary (I’m revisiting a couple of ideas in my own theology after reading the books); as a total package I came away thinking that McLaren went too far and that people could be left adrift after having their firm anchors cut by his “deconstruction”.

Yet, I kept running into people I respect who said good things about McLaren. People who would not agree that some of the things I saw questioned in his novels were up for debate.

So I decided to give McLaren another shot, and read this past weekend his “A Generous Orthodoxy”, which gives a fairly clear outline of what he actually believes (as opposed to what he questions). Based on that book, I can at least see why people like him; and in fact there are only a few things he says that I disagree with. Most of the book is an analysis of various Christian traditions (the subtitle of the book is “Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished”). For each tradition, he comments on the good things he has learned from each while making brief acknowledgement of their failings. The net effect is a kind of piecemeal Christianity made up of the best aspects of all traditions.

And for all except a couple of chapters, the resulting picture is not unlike what I believe. Even when I disagree, I acknowledge that it might just be that I disagree with the way he describes what he believes, and not actually with what he believes (or perhaps not). The only place that seriously concerned me was the couple of pages he spent explaining why he will not explain what he believes in one point of doctrine. I came away from that section thinking “he doth protest too much”.

So, what’s my view of McLaren now? I would still not recommend to novels to anyone; but I certainly would recommend “A Generous Orthodoxy” to any mature Christian, and I will likely read more of his non-fiction books myself.

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January 19, 2009

What went wrong?

I've made it a point on my blog to minimize quotes from other people; but now and then I read an essay on someone else's blog and it so resonates with me that I just have to pass it on. The recent post "Gratefully Disillusioned" on Free Believers Network (a site for people who have become disillusioned with the institutional church) falls into that category. Quoth:

I have spent countless hours pondering what went wrong with Christianity in our generation. What happened to our religion to make everything so crazy and off track? How could something centered around authentic relationship with God become so dangerous and hurtful to its participants? More than anything, I've asked myself; why wasn't it working for most people?

I've found that the pattern of growth for those who seem to truly know Him has been pretty much the same. The common thread I see over and over is that every person in relationship with Him must go through a shedding period where all that they have been told and all that they have believed is gently taken from them until they are left with nothing but what is. Each person discovers a contentment in knowing they were wrong all along and the stresses of what they had been told all their lives, whether good or bad, trickle away, leaving their spirit relaxed and satisfied.
. . .

I've come to the conclusion that somewhere in the last 200 years, we felt that we needed to market our relationship as a religion. At some point in time, someone decided that Christianity needed to be packaged and presented in a way that would appeal to the masses. In other words, we purposefully marketed our faith to unbelievers. I am convinced that this is where the dominoes began to tumble.

. . .

Generations later, people are holding onto the promises the sales agent gave them, in spite of the fact that they've never seen the results manifested in their own life. Others finally leave the "faith," drained and disheartened. They didn't get what they wanted from Christianity so they continue searching for a religion that will give it to them. Then we have the people who would have given their heart to God without any marketing at all. It was already in their heart. They came to Him because they wanted Him and nothing else. They would have come without the fancy marketing and boastful claims.

. . .

These are the people who will eventually become Free Believers.

These are the people who will still stick around once the good and the bad of their religion has been stripped away. They never needed promises of power and prosperity to pique their interest. They didn't go into it looking for an escape from normalcy. It was never about avoiding life's hardships or obtaining magical powers. It was relationship that drew them. It was the Spirit of relationship that they first heard and listened to.

The process of stripping the good and the bad of religion is a long and painful one, but I've found that Free Believers love every minute of it. Their faith doesn't shudder for even a second during the process. When the embellished things of God disappear, they find themselves becoming more pleased and pleasured by what they find behind it than most of their institutional friends would ever have been. In fact, they would willingly give up everything they had ever been promised, if it meant they could be one step closer to the heart of the one they love. This stripping away of religion's boasts and promises is truly what separates the sheep from the goats in our generation. The goats become angry and faithless and the sheep become "Gratefully Disillusioned."

Amen!

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December 25, 2008

Christmas Haiku

The Transcendent God
Incarnate as a Child
Joining God and Man

Omnipotent God
Come as a Servant to All
Leading to Freedom

Holy, Sinless God
Dies as a Man on a Cross
Bears our Sins Far Away

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December 22, 2008

Sin: Seeds, Roots, Fruits

Last Friday’s post was my first attempt at a synthesis of two ideas I have been working through as to the nature of Sin. I need to work more on how best to explain it; but I think I have the basic idea right.

For a very long time, I viewed the seed from which Sin grows to be a lack of trust in God. There is good Biblical basis to claim that. First a short linguistic digression – the term “faith” as is it used in the Bible is probably more accurately translated “entrust”. In fact the Hebrew word often translated “faith” in the Old Testament is used to describe things as varied as how pillars support a roof (you entrust the weight of the roof to the pillars) and the act of handing over your child to the care of a nurse (you entrust the child to the nurse). It is an action word that describes not mental assent (belief) but action taken because of what you believe. Belief becomes Faith when you act in such a way that depends on what you believe being true. The book of James in the New Testament tried to make this point to those who spoke Greek when it says “Faith without works is dead”.

Sin then starts when you fail to entrust God with your life. The Bible says “Without Faith (Trust) it is impossible to please ” (Hebrews 11:6) and “Whatever is not of Faith (Trust) is sin” (Romans 14:23). I have always taken the latter passage to be a definition of Sin – unless you do something out of a trust in God, it is Sin.

The problem with that definition is that while it may be true, it is not actionable for most people. Very few people think in terms of trusting God or not (in fact very few think about God at all, even those that believe He exists).

Over the past few years I have been exposed to another way to look at Sin – that the root of Sin is our struggle to compete with each other. That all of the bad things we do are a result of our desire to “get ahead” relative to each other. What’s interesting is that I have seen both secular and religious people who have come to this conclusion. What’s more, it is a very actionable definition – you don’t have to understand much theology to see how your actions to assert own agenda have a negative effect on other people.

So I have been working through these two ideas in my mind to see if they can be reconciled, and have come to the conclusion that they can, although I may not yet have right way to explain it. The process goes something like this: We were meant to get our identity from God – He knows who we are and what He created us for. If however we do not trust God for our identity (whether because we do not believe He exists, or because we believe he is too distant to be relevant, or we outright distrust him), then we must seek out our identity someplace else, and the only other option is each other. Without God’s absolute statement of our identity, we can only be better or worse than each other. Thus we end up competing with each other, and we struggle to find ways to move ourselves “up” without pushing others “down.” The things we do to raise ourselves up at others expense are sins; but the root of those actions is the principle of Sin which is the struggle to establish our identity without God.

So a failure to trust God is the seed from which Sin grows; but the plant that grows from that seed (like an Oak from an Acorn) is our competition to establish our identities, and the fruit of that plant are the sins we inflict on each other.

Holiness then is accepting that we are who God says we are; and looking at everyone else, not as our competition but as equal fellow travelers in this life. More on this in a later post (after the holidays, perhaps).

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December 19, 2008

So what is Sin?

I’ve said “Sin” is that thing which infected humanity and interfered with our ability to form the relationships with God and with each other that we were originally created to have. But what exactly is it? And how did it cause so much trouble? The following is my understanding as of today. I should note that I have been rethinking the concept of Sin over the last couple of years, and the description here may not be as polished as I’d like.

To understand Sin, you first need to understand the kind of relationships we were originally designed for. God’s plan was for a clear division of responsibilities within the new fellowship that included humanity (just as there were divisions of responsibilities between the three persons of the Trinity). There were things that were God’s responsibility and there were things that were humanity’s responsibility. Among God’s responsibilities was establishing the values of things – what was of value and what was not, what was worthwhile, what was worthless, what was "good" and what was "bad" (I’ll get back to this in a bit).

Humanity’s responsibility was to use the skills God gave us to do our part of a much greater work. You could think of it as constructing a giant mosaic or painting, where each of us was to be responsible for small sections. The picture would turn out beautiful and worthwhile because God would know each of us well enough to give us pieces to develop that we were perfectly suited for; and we would be full of joy doing it because our responsibilities would perfectly match our abilities and so we would both be challenged by the work and yet be able to succeed.

What’s more, since each of us had a small part of the whole, the picture would not be complete without all of our work. As I said, God was responsible for establishing the values of things and since each of us was necessary to complete God’s plan, each of us was determined by Him to be of equal value. What’s more, since God was solely responsible for determining the value of things, His declaration that we were all equally of value to Him meant that we were all equally of value to each other. We might all be different and do different things for God; but God said we were all of equal value, and therefore we were.

At least that was God’s intent for the fellowship of God and humanity.

If you read the story of The Fall in Genesis 3, you can see (to use my previous parable) the soul-virus the hacker used to infect and corrupt humanity. To set things up, God puts humanity into a place where all their needs would be met. But (as I said above) God says there was one thing they were not to take upon themselves – the right to judge the value of things. That right was reserved for God alone (in the story it is described as “The Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”). So the bitter hacker (described as a serpent) comes in and plants a simple but corrupting idea into the minds of the people – that if humanity would take on the right to judge the values of things (eat the fruit) they would then be like God! They wouldn’t need God to tell them that they are valued; they could determine their own value for themselves!

And with that idea a seed of doubt was planted in humanity. What if we weren’t actually all equal (as God said)? What if some of us were better, more valuable? What if God is cheating us by treating us all as equals? Why should we trust God to determine our value? Why not take on that right as our own and determine our own value?

And from there things went downhill quickly.

Humanity decided to determine its own value, and in doing so rejected God's standards of value. What standard then remained to base their value on? Only one possible standard existed – each other. So people began to look for their value by comparing themselves to each other. There was no absolute sense of value (as God had provided) – only value relative to each other. One could only be "better" than that person but "not as good" as another.
Chaos ensued.

Instead of simply doing what God said, each human started to try to influence what they did and what others did to position themselves better. Sometimes individuals competed against each other. Other times groups formed that cooperated with each other to better compete with other groups. Hierarchies formed and competed against each other hierarchies for dominance. Since every individual, every group, and every hierarchy was trying to create something in which their own contribution was most important, the picture God had wanted to create with us became fragmented with multiple images constantly overwriting each other.

Even God began to be viewed as a way to establish superior value. People began to think in terms of "I am more godly than that person" or "My denomination is better than those other denominations" or "My religion is better than that other religion". Sometimes the idea of value even got inverted in strange ways with people competing to show who is more "lowly" or who was a "worse sinner" before God straightened them out. I think God weeps over how we have used Him to subvert His plan for us.

Individual sins then are a reflection of things we do to establish our own value without God. Consider the Ten Commandments:

-We worship things other than God in hope that our association with them will raise our value.

-We dishonor God's name by using it to establish our value apart from His will

-We work ourselves to death to find value in our accomplishments

-We dishonor others (including our parents) to put ourselves above them

-We hate and kill those who threaten our value

-We seek pleasure in others to make ourselves feel more valuable

-We take things from others (legally or otherwise) to use them to establish our own value.

-We lie, gossip and slander each other to raise our own perceived value

-We desire things that belong to others because we think having them will increase our value.

Yet in all this, God is standing by simply saying "You are all of value because I have said it. Abandon your struggle and come back to do the work I have created you for".

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December 17, 2008

What went wrong? (geek version)

Following on from my previous post, God (who by His Trinitarian nature embodies perfect relationship) created humanity capable of perfect relationship with God and with each other. God purpose was to join humanity into His fellowship that previously was only experienced by the Trinity.

Then something went wrong. Humanity's ability to engage in perfect relationships became broken, and in the process our relationships with God and with each other became flawed. This was a problem for God since He could no longer bring humanity into His fellowship without our making a mess of things.

So what exactly went wrong?

There is a theological explanation, which I will get to in later posts. However I note that Jesus often spoke in parables and allegories using things that were familiar to his audience. As a software engineer, I often find myself thinking in terms of computers as analogies. So consider the following a geek-parable of The Fall.

God created humanity with an operating system that was able to interface with God and others to accomplish great things as a unified community (to follow the computer analogy – like a distributed computing network where God was the control hub). But a vindictive hacker with a grudge against God didn’t want that to work, so the hacker created a virus that corrupted mankind’s operating system, breaking our ability to cooperate with God and each other. The “Sin” virus (as it became known) caused people to do things (which became known as "sins") which messed up their relationships with each other. What's more, the virus also corrupted their data files so that even if the virus was removed, they would still not operate properly.

A nice story (for the few who can appreciate it); but all it really does is give the problem a label. What exactly is “Sin” and how did it interfere with our ability to form perfect relationships?

That’s the next (more serious) post.

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December 15, 2008

A Relational God

I wrote previously about my understanding of God being “A Transcendent God” and “A Triune God”. The resulting picture is of God being completely “other” – unlike anything we have experience with. Even God himself acknowledges that the way He sees things is alien to us:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa 55:8-10, NIV)

So what hope do we have of ever understanding Him?

There is hope, and it is hidden in one of the things that makes God so alien to us – the Trinity.

If you step back for a moment and consider what the Trinity means to God’s nature, there is one clear conclusion – God is fundamentally relational. Before God created anything, he embodied relationship: Father, Son, Spirit. Three minds in constant and harmonious relationship with each other within one being. Yes, God has power and knowledge and wisdom; but God IS relationship – it is fundamental to His nature, His identity.

I believe relationship is what has driven God’s actions from before creation. It is not possible to understand what God has done or what the Bible says about Him unless you look at it from the perspective of a being who’s most fundamental characteristic is relationship.

Consider the short version of God’s creation of humanity found in Genesis 1:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, . . ." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26a, 27 NIV)

A couple of things I want to note here: First, every English translation I have ever seen correctly translates the Hebrew here as “Let US make/create” – using the plural pronoun. God refers to Himself in the plural because He is both plural and singular – He is Trinity. However, almost as important as that is the fact that this is the only place in Genesis 1 where the plural is used – elsewhere God is only quoted as saying “Let the light/water/land/etc.” do something. So why is it important to emphasis God’s relational nature here? Because He is talking about creating another relational being – humanity. We are made in the “image” of God, male and female. Does that mean God is male and female? I don’t think so. I think the message is that humanity was designed by an inherently relational God to be inherently relational as well – that we would be drawn into relationship with each other and with God (more on this in a moment).

The longer Genesis 2 version of the story reinforces the point by a little “street theatre” God employs. First a single human was created, and God allowed that one human to interact with all of the other creatures that God has created; but the one human discovers that there are no other creatures that they can have a relationship with. Once the human understands that, once they see their own need for relationship, God splits the one human into two – a male and a female – so they can have a relationship with each other.

But their relationship is not just with each other; but with God as well. While the events described in Genesis 3:8 are horrific (humanity’s first interactions with God after Sin), there is a hint there as to what things were like before the fall. It talk about God “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” looking for Adam and Eve. You get the sense that this was a common occurrence - that God would show up regularly and interact with humanity. God had a relationship with them.

How could this be? How could a transcendent God have a relationship with simple humans? Because God created us with the purpose of having a relationship with Him. Perhaps not an equal relationship (and Theologians still debate whether there is equality between the persons of the Trinity); but a relationship nonetheless. We may not be able to understand God fully (at least for now); but we were made to understand Him enough to have a relationship with Him.

You could almost look at God having created a new Trinity – God, Adam and Eve; and just as God had a perfect relationship within Himself, He was looking to establish a new perfect relationship with mankind.

Unfortunately, things ended up a bit more complex than that – there was sin, betrayal, broken relationships and a whole lot of mess for many generations; but for now, I want to jump ahead to the descriptions of how this all will end. I’ll started by noting that the ultimate expression of relationship between humans is marriage; where, as the Bible says “the two become one flesh”. Think of that phrase in the context of the Trinity where you have three people who are one being, “of one substance” as the Nicene Creed says. The marriage union is supposed to give us some small, flawed insight into what God has always experienced in its perfected form – multiple persons in perfect unity.

Then in the Christian scriptures, it talks about the Church as a whole as “the Bride of Christ” and how, after this world is transformed into the next one, there will be “the marriage feast of The Lamb (Jesus)”. One way to look at this is that we (the church) are to be made “one flesh” with God. God’s purpose in creating humanity is to create new persons to join Him in his perfect relationship; and while our journey to that goal has not been a direct one, it remains God’s ultimate plan for us.

So, God is by nature the embodiment of Relationship.
God Created humanity with the purpose and ability to join Him in that Relationship.
Our present detour on that process will be a subject of later posts.

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December 10, 2008

Jesus and us losers

This post is in large part a reaction to reading Yaconelli’s “Messy Spirituality” – a short, must-read book which managed to get me crying on several occasions. But rather than do a book review, I thought I’d do my own short exploration of the same theme.

Christianity has in too many ways embraced the drive for excellence from the surrounding culture. Church has become a place where seemingly perfect people come into seemingly perfect buildings and hear seemingly perfect musical performances and seemingly perfect lectures on seemingly perfect doctrine. God is perfect and holy, and so we should all be perfect and holy when we come unto His presence. Those who aren’t perfect (or at least can’t fake it well enough) should wait outside until they get their act together.

I remember being admonished at one church to think about how I would dress and behave if I was ushered into the presence of President of the United States or the Queen of England, and that I should look at coming to church like that because I was coming into God’s presence. In theory it sounds rational.

The good news is that Christianity, at least Real Christianity, is messy. We should know that from looking as Jesus’ life. He was a devout Jew who hung out with Roman collaborators, prostitutes and notorious sinners. When it came to picking the “inner circle” of those who followed him he picked salty fishermen, terrorists, and shady businessmen – most of whom never really understood what Jesus was saying until after He died. What a bunch of losers – but that’s who Jesus liked to surround Himself with.

The people who “had their act together” never cared much for the Jesus, and Jesus only paid attention to them when they got in between God and the messed up people God loved.

It was the messed up people who understood their need, and in that understanding were interested what Jesus was saying about getting closer to God. Their trajectories then became towards God. Some had quite a distance to go; but that never seemed to bother Jesus as long as they were headed in the right direction. Those who “had their act together” were quite content to orbit God, going in circles – perhaps close circles - but never ever getting any closer to Him.

That is much of what is wrong with the church these days. It has become a place for people to pretend to be good, while it should be a place for messed up people to draw closer to God and to each other. That’s why I liked Yaconelli’s book – it is largely a collection of stories about losers who understood that what matters is showing God’s love to the world in whatever imperfect way they can manage. Like I said, I cried though parts of it.

I read another “messy” book recently, Rick McKinley’s “This Beautiful Mess”. In it he talked about how Christianity in its quest for “right doctrine” has dissected our faith, putting all of the pieces in nicely labeled jars of formaldehyde. The only problem is that dissected bodies are dead. Real living bodies are messy and move around too much to understand in that way. He argues in part that we need to learn to be a little less concerned about getting all our doctrines right and more about bringing people into relationship with God. The result is a rather “messy” form of Christianity; but it is one that is alive.

Let’s hear it for God’s losers!
Let’s get messy for Jesus!

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December 03, 2008

A Triune God

I am a Trinitarian Christian – I believe in a triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. I do however understand that the trinity is a difficult doctrine to wrap one’s head around. There’s just not a good way to describe a triune God that people can relate to.

Actually, that’s not quite true.

There is a perfectly good analogy; but it is one that most Christians would shy away from using.

There are folk stories in Europe of heroes encountering two-headed giants (or trolls, or ogres, depending on the variation on the story). The creature is a single being; but it has two (or more) heads, each of which has its own brain and personality. The stories usually involve the hero somehow tricking the heads of the giant to start arguing with each other (demonstrating that they are separate persons with separate personalities) and while the heads are occupied with each other, the hero is allowed to steal the giant’s treasure and slip away.

Not a very pleasant model to use for an analogy (the fact that in these stories the two headed giants are almost always depicted as being fairly stupid doesn’t help); but in abstract it fits the concept of the Trinity fairly well. God is a single being; but He has three distinct persons with distinctive personalities. Now given that God is transcendent (see my previous post), He doesn’t actually have three “heads” since he doesn’t have an actual “body” in the sense we think of it; but if you need a way to visualize the Trinity, thinking of God as a single being with three minds is a good place to start. The biggest difference is that unlike the giants in the stories, God’s three persons are always in perfect cooperation with each other. Theirs is a relationship of perfect intimacy and synchronicity. They may be three persons; but they work together as one.

So who are these three persons in the trinity? Well, describing a fellow human in a few words can never do them justice – we are all too complicated to be neatly summarized. Trying to do that for God is impossible; but here’s my feeble attempt.

One of the persons of the Godhead is a “big picture” person, concerned mostly with things like “How things should be” and “What needs to be done”. Another of the persons of the Godhead is more of “hands on” type who is focused on doing the things that need to be done. His joy is in implementing the plans the first person comes up with. Historically, we know the first person as “The Father” and the second as “The Son”. In the ancient cultures where life spans where short and businesses tended to be hereditary, this made a lot of sense since people were used to seeing the sons doing most of the work in a business while the father (who would be “old” by the standards of the day) would provide the big picture direction from the back of the shop.

The third person of the Trinity tends not to talk about themselves much and so is harder to describe. I tend to think of the third person as a teacher/mentor at heart – one who loves training other people and who has the patience and compassion necessary to keep working with someone until they get it right (but is not hesitant to tell them when they get it wrong). We know this third person as “The Holy Spirit” – a rather nebulous term, which perhaps is appropriate since He doesn’t disclose much of himself (just as many teachers show little of themselves in class).

Not pretty, and a flawed description I am sure; but as a short summary, it's how I think of God.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 01, 2008

A Transcendent God

There are a lot of terms used to described God – many of them being “omni-“ words: omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. To that add words like merciful, just, loving, holy, generous, and the like.

One characteristic of God that doesn’t seem to get talked about a lot is His transcendence. God is not “in” the universe. If anything, the universe is “in” Him. Consider: God created the universe; therefore He had to exist before the universe; therefore His existence transcends that of the universe. Also since (according to relativity) time and space are intertwined and are a part of the fabric of the universe, God exists outside of space and time.

So while the ancients worshiped “gods” of mountains and oceans and human characteristics (love, war, etc.) – all small parts of the universe, the One True God is so much bigger than that.

And this is a good thing.

Science tells us that this universe is going to end, or at least be obliterated. They don’t know whether it will end in fire or ice (the Bible seems to indicate fire); but it will end. If our hope is in anything within this universe, then that hope is in vain. But our hope is in fact in someone who transcends this universe.

Still, transcendence is a difficult thing to wrap one’s head around. I have a way of looking at it that is helpful for me, although I don’t know for how many others this would be useful.

I am a software engineer, and have spent a lot of time developing computer simulations of various kinds (for the non-geeks out there, think of things that range from games like “SimCity” – a traffic and real estate simulation, to the complex simulations that meteorologists use to predict the weather). Some simulation I have developed for my employers, many I have developed for myself at home. In fact there was a long period of time where I didn’t feel I really understood a subject unless I could write a simulation of it on my computer that gave realistic results.

So when I studied macroeconomics, I might develop a macroeconomic simulator that showed the behavior of production, prices, trade, etc. I would set up an initial scenario and let the simulation run and see if the behaviors I saw in the simulation were the kinds of things you would see in real life. If they were, then the simulation was successful and it was clear I understood the subject. If not, I would keep working at it.

The simulations I tended to write had a lot of common characteristics. First, they all had some about of randomness in them – there were always minor factors in any simulation that might have an effect on the outcome but would take too much effort to simulate in details. Adding a few “rolls of the dice” in the right places is often the way to represent these factors. Second, I always had a way to save and play back a given run (repeating the same random choices in the process, so the results were the same). This was critical to getting the simulation right since it allowed me, whenever something happened that I didn’t expect, to go back and look in detail as to why it happened. Sometimes I convinced myself that it was in fact a “realistic” result. Other times it was a bug in my simulation. Still other times the behavior pointed to some way in which I didn’t understand the subject well enough (which was the whole point of doing the simulations). Finally, I always had a special interface for manipulating the data in the simulation directly. So I might do a run, and then go back and half way through change some details to see how the change I made affected the outcome.

So where I am going with this?

I tend to think of God’s relationship to our universe to be very similar to my relationship to one of the runs of one of my simulations. God is outside (and much greater than) our universe, just as I was outside (and greater than) one of my simulation runs. That transcendence includes the ability to see and understand the whole of history from His vantage point, just as I could run my simulation backwards and forwards and see each step in detail and understand what (and why) everything happens. While some digital entity (if such existed) within one of my simulations would only understand the passage of time as steps in my simulation, I could understand the whole thing because of my transcendent point of view. What’s more, God created the universe with the ability to intervene, just as I created by simulations with the ability to directly manipulate the data. On the other hand, just as I ended up using a bit of randomness in my simulations (behaviors that were not completely determined by the program), I believe (although some Christians would disagree) that God gave mankind free will so our behavior is not fully determined by God in advance.

The one thing God did that I never had the skill, time or computer power to accomplish was that God put Himself into the universe in the person of Jesus. I might be able to name a “person” in one of my simulations “Steve”; but they would never actually “be” me – I have no skill to write a simulation of myself or the time to create a virtual reality interface that would allow me to walk around inside of one of my simulations. Yet God was able to put himself fully into our universe and experience it from our point of view.

Why He would do that I will get to in a later post.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

November 12, 2008

Thinking

There's a bunch of ideas for blog posts that have been rolling around in my mind, unfortunately none of them have come to fruition for me to post today. A bunch of them are likely to end up as a long series that will run several months (not unlike the church series I did last year), occasionally interrupted by interesting life events.

While it may change form by the time I start posting it, the basic theme of the series is: "the first ten lessons I would teach if I were starting a new church". Essentially what are the core concepts I would want everyone to be on the same page on if I was starting something new.

Now I have a fairly clear idea of several of the later lessons and could write them now; but the first few are proving to be more challenging that I had expected. Part of the issue is that I am less certain these days of how to explain exactly what Jesus did on The Cross than I once was.

For almost all my Christian walk, I have been part of churches that taught "substitutionary atonement" – essentially that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins when he died on the cross; and I can explain the whole of the Bible based on that theological perspective. In fact, I wasn't even aware that there were other non-heretical points of view.

However, this past year I have come to appreciate that people like C. S. Lewis and the whole of the Eastern/Orthodox church have a different way to explain Jesus' work on The Cross (referred to by some as "Christus Victor" theology). The effect is the same; but the emphasis is different, sometimes in subtle but perhaps important ways.

I am therefore loath to write up a description of the meaning of The Cross (which strikes me to be something I would want to establish early) until I either resolve this or have some way to explain things that provides a bridge between "substitutionary atonement" and "Christus Victor" (which is what I'd really like to do).

Anyway, since I had no post today, I thought I'd at least explain why I have no post today, and thus create a post.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

October 29, 2008

Looking at their faces

Living in the suburbs, it is often far too easy to ignore those that are different from yourself.

You can travel from your safe, middle-class home to your safe, middle-class job to a safe, middle-class shopping mall or restaurant (or safe middle-class church on Sundays) and finally back to your safe, middle-class home; all the while zipping on the expressway or freeway past those neighborhoods where other kinds of people live.

That's not to say you don't know that there are people who are different from yourself, or that you don't care about those among them who are in need. Perhaps you donate used clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, or donate to charitable organizations that serve those in need. Yet in the suburbs it is very easy to take on an out-of-sight, out-of-mind perspective and to get comfortable only interacting with people similar to yourself.

Living in the city, that is much harder. Riding the subway or public bus, you come face to face with a broad range of humanity – all ethnic groups, assorted subcultures, almost all socioeconomic strata ("the rich" being excluded since even in the city they find ways to zip past everyone else). People different from you are no longer "out of sight" and therefore are much harder to keep "out of mind" (not that many people don't try).

But even in the city where you are constantly exposed to people who are different, it is easy to begin to objectify and collectivize them. There are "the poor", "the punks" the "ethnic minorities" (pick one) as if those categories define who they are. It is easy to fall into the subtle trap of thinking about the individuals who are like you are the groups who are not.

As I have been riding public transportation these past weeks, I have been taking the time to look at the faces of the other people, and I keep seeing people who really are "like me". Some may belong to different ethic groups or subcultures. Some may belong to different economic strata. Some may be drunk or on drugs. Yet looking at their faces I keep seeing people with hopes and fears are not so different from mine – people who at some level want the same things out of their lives as I do.

I keep thinking about the observation that as different as humans and chimpanzees look, 95% of their DNA is the same. I think an equivalent statement can be made about the hearts and minds people of different cultures and backgrounds – for as different as we might act and appear, deep down we are all far more the same than we are different.

I had several reasons I wanted to move to the city – access to culture, exercise (I am already losing girth), etc. I also had a sense that God had several reasons for wanting me up here (my experience is that God rarely does things for just one reason, although we may be limited to only understanding a limited number of those reasons).

I am starting to see that one of those reasons is to get me to be more comfortable interacting with people who are different from me. Put me in a room with other college educated professionals, and I do fine; but I'm never sure what to say when faced with people's whose backgrounds are very different. My sense is that this is one of the things God wants to work on in me while we live in SF, and that my rides on the subway are the beginning of those lessons.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

October 22, 2008

What is a Pastor?

I was involved in a discussion about church leadership in another blog, and there was a point I wanted to expand on here.

In most of the (protestant) churches I have been a part of over the years, the person in charge of the church was referred to as the “pastor”. In the larger churches, there main leader was known as the “Senior Pastor” and there were one or more “Associate Pastors”. Sometimes the additional “Pastors” were assigned very specific areas of responsibility, so you’d have the “Youth Pastor” and the “Men’s Pastor” and so on. Sometimes the Senior Pastor didn’t have complete control – there was a committee of laymen who had oversight over at least the finances and who had the ability to hire and fire pastors. The committee was known by names like “Board of Deacons” and the like.

All of this fairly transparently mimicked the corporate world. Pastors today are primarily managers, or better yet Presidents and Vice Presidents of the local church. So you have the President (Senior Pastor) and various Associate Vice Presidents (Associate Pastors) and the Vice President of the Youth Department (Youth Pastor). Then in some churches they all were held accountable to the Board of Directors (Board of Deacons). How corporate can you get?

Now I’m going to set aside the whole Board of Deacons question for now (that’s yet another post someday), and simply ask – is this corporate model of Pastor as Manager/President a Biblical one? The short answer is that while Pastors are mentioned a number of times in the Bible, I see nothing to indicate that their job was to manage or direct the people in the church. There isn’t even evidence of people being appointed as pastors. There are three titles used for people being appointed in the Bible: elder, overseer, and sent-one (apostle). Some have argued that “overseer” is the same office as “pastor” yet Paul uses both words in his writings and consistently uses them in very different ways.

So if the Pastor was not the appointed manager of the church, what is he? Unfortunately the Bible provides few clues. The first clue is the name itself – the word is actually a synonym for Shepherd. So whatever Pastors were meant to do, the role of a shepherd was intended to be an inspiration for it. What did Shepherds do? They ensured that the sheep were safe, well fed, healthy, and that they did not wander off (which would likely result in their being neither safe nor well fed and eventually unhealthy). The other clue is Ephesians 4:11 which couples Pastor together with Teacher in a way that indicates that the roles are related.

On that foundation, I will add my own personal observations.

There have been a few occasions in my walk with The Lord when I have been a part of a group of Christians that did not have structure imposed on it from outside; but rather was allowed to create its own structure organically, naturally. When this was allowed to happen I have noticed that there were always a few individuals in the group who were very focused on how everyone else was doing. If someone didn’t show up for a few weeks, they would be the first ones to become concerned, and would likely be the people to start phoning and making sure the missing people were OK. Those same people tended to be the ones to invest a lot of time with new people, nurturing them, answering their questions, making sure they were comfortable within the group. Those same people would also be among the first to come to someone’s defense when there was a problem and would be the first to speak up when “troublemakers” would disrupt the meetings. Their focus was on the well-being of all of the individual members of the group, and their energies were directed toward keeping people included, safe, and growing in their faith.

I claim those people were the shepherds, the pastors of those groups. They did not manage people. They did not lead. In fact I would go so far as to say the people who I have thought of as being “pastors” were poor candidates to be leaders. Their energies were focused on the (spiritual) health and wellbeing of the individuals in the group – making sure they were in condition to contribute to the group and that they did not get lost or stray away. But as a result, they were focused on trees and not the forest. They tended to lack a sense of the “big picture” of where the group was moving as a whole and so would fail to lead it anywhere.

In military language, they were the medics – keeping the troops healthy and ready to fight while someone else decided where to go and who to fight. I can’t think of an equivalent role in the corporate world (perhaps Humans Resources, although few corporate Humans Resources departments really invest much more that lip service in those kinds of activities). And therein lay the problem – by modeling the pastoral role on the corporate manager as opposed to the Biblical model of shepherd, we have effectively eliminated from the church people who do what pastors are supposed to be doing. The “pastors” are too busy managing the church, and too often there is no one actually guarding, nourishing, and encouraging individual people in the community. No wonder so many people leave!

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

October 15, 2008

Open Source Christianity

A short explanation of geekdom followed by what I hope is a relevant observation.

Most companies that produce software carefully guard the source code for their applications from prying eyes. This however has a downside that relatively few people get to look for bugs in the code. The engineer who writes the software obvious tries to write bug-free code, and often the company requires a “code review” where a handful of the engineer’s peers formally review the code looking for problems. Occasionally someone within the company might spot a problem when they are looking at the code for other reasons. The bottom line is that very few eyes ever have a change to look at the code, and the result is often very buggy software getting released to customers.

In the last couple of decades an alternative approach has started to gain ground – the “Open Source” movement. The idea is that the engineers publish their source code on the web for everyone to see (or at least anyone who wants to look), and provides some means for people to suggest improvements to the code. The result is that for the larger Open Source projects, hundreds of engineers are looking at each line of code trying to improve it.

Of course with hundreds of people trying to make changes, the threat of chaos is always present, not to mention that every idea someone has to improve a piece of code is equally valuable. So most Open Source projects have a small number of “Gatekeepers” who decide which changes make it into the product and which are set aside.

More recently, the Open Source approach is being used for things other than software. Wikipedia, for instance, is an encyclopedia whose “source” is open for anyone to edit. Of course some people make changes as jokes or deliberate misrepresentation, but there is a cadre of people who monitor Wikipedia for such changes and remove them.

So where am I going with all this?

I’ve been chatting with some “emergent/emerging church” people lately and I realized part of what they are looking for is a more “Open Source” model of Christianity. Too many institutional churches have a small group of “professionals” (pastors, priests, etc.) who maintain control over all aspects of the faith. What the emergent/emerging folks are looking for is an open model where every believer has a say in what the church is.

What’s more, I believe there is a core of truth in what they are looking for. I have written many times here that I believe that it was God’s intent that every Christian be responsible for “doing the work of the ministry” and that those who “lead” are really there to serve everyone else and enable them to be successful in their ministries. Even in the context of meetings of the church, I believe God meant for everyone to have a chance to share what they feel God placed on their hearts as opposed to the usual model where most of the people watch a few professional Christians perform on a stage.

I even think that part of God’s reason for this is much the same reason behind Open Source Software – more people individually listening to God make it less likely that there will be errors. Individuals fail, and when that individual is the Pastor of your typical institutional church, many people can be led astray. However if everyone is encouraged to listen to God and share, then people can raise questions when they see something that seems wrong.

Or Not.

The problem I see with many (but not all) segments of the emergent/emerging church movements is that in their desire to hear all voices, they tend to create a Christianity of Consensus, which is not always God’s Christianity. It is the Christianity that the majority of people want it to be, with all of the sharp edges rounded off and hard surfaces padded. What I have learned from my walk with Jesus is that real Christianity has some real challenges that are uncomfortable – things I certainly would prefer were not true about my faith. There are things God asks His followers to do that are hard, that demand we change, that put us at odds with the surrounding culture. If we allow the majority to define our faith, too many people would prefer to have a version of Christianity that is much easier than God intended. As a result, it will lose its identity, its benefits, and its impact.

What the emergent/emerging church movement lacks is some mechanism equivalent to the Gatekeepers used by Open Source software, or the diligent editors of Wikipedia. People who are trusted to say “I know you’d all like Christianity to be like that; but here’s what it says in the Bible. . .” Unfortunately that kind of role is exactly the kind of authority they are trying to avoid; and they are not entirely wrong in fearing it. I don't have all of the answers on this. I'm not sure how to avoid a Christianity of Consensus without swinging too far the other direction; but some balanced answer is needed.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 10, 2008

Online Bible Study

A while back I mentioned the idea of doing a blog that was an online interactive bible study – allowing people to post their thoughts on passages of scriptures. Well Barry, a friend of mine in Wales, has decided to make a go of this, and I will be both posting and commenting on it.

For those who are interested, take a look at http://openbibleblog.blogspot.com/

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whither Church

One of the still-open issues with regard to our move to San Francisco is what will Anne and I be doing to be a part of a community to fellow believers in the city. This is slightly complicated by the fact that we have an outstanding commitment to support our old church at least until the end of the sabbatical in February (including continuing to serve on the leadership team). Our compromise on this is to go to our old church every 2-3 weeks (about a 45 minute drive on Sundays) and investigate other options in the city in between.

Before we signed the lease at the new place we did identify at least one church we thought we would be comfortable at in the city; but that is a long way from having peace that God wants us to get involved there (and in fact our "comfort" is not always what He is interested in). I've since been back to that church a couple of times and continue to like what I see; but have yet to sense anything in my spirit that would indicate we are supposed to go there.

Last week we tried out yet another church, and very quickly both of us got a strong sense that it was not the place for us. Not that there was anything obviously "wrong" with the place (although the message was a bit more political than we like – I'd be interested in visiting again after the election). In some respects it was actually quite nice; but both of us sensed that it wasn't what God had planned for us.

The other question is if God wants us to be involved in an institutional church at all. I have written a lot in this blog about how I believe in the Simple Church movement; but until now God has kept me involved in fairly traditional churches. This move might be when God has us switch to something more house-church-like. Then the question becomes, do we find an existing network of house churches to be a part of, or do we start one on our own.

So far, I am comfortable that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing in the transition; but I have no clear sense yet of what God has planned for us beyond that.

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August 22, 2008

Being Post Charismatic

I read McAlpine's "Post Charismatic?" this week – specific comments on the book will be covered in Monday's post; but there's a larger point that I think he missed.

As background, modern church historians tend to talk about three broad movements in the Christian Church last century: Pentecostalism, the Charismatic Renewal, and the "Third Wave" churches (of which the Vineyard Movement that I have been involved in is a part). A common focus to all of these movements has been the belief that God is still very much active in the word today – providing signs, wonders, miracles, etc. – and more important that God has a definite plan for His church that we are expected to follow. As a result there has been a great deal of focus in the churches associated with these movements on knowing "what God is doing now" and getting involved in whatever that is. This in turn leads to a willingness to change and move quickly as God's actions are discerned – avoiding being left behind as God moves on to do the next thing in His plan.

This is in contrast to the behavior of most of the old, mainstream denominations that are much slower to adopt (or adapt to) change. Officially they too believe that God is still active today; but they tend to behave as if Jesus set up His church 2000 years ago and our job is to just keep doing the same things. Those who are involved in Pentecostal/Charismatic/Third-Wave churches tend to dismiss the older denominations as being mired in traditions of men and unable to keep up with God's plans.

There is however a flips side of this.

In their quest to keep up with what "God is doing now", Pentecostal/Charismatic/Third-Wave churches have tended to become faddish – always looking for the latest teaching and jumping on whatever bandwagon seems to be "hot" at the moment. Likewise, they tend to gravitate quickly to spectacular events – healing crusades and the like. After all, if miracles are taking place, that must be what "God is doing now". These churches are always looking for the next spectacular revival to demonstrate God's presence. Because of this, the old mainstream denominations tend to view these upstart churches as flighty and unstable, and there is a degree of truth in it.

The problem is that these newer churches are so earnest in their desire to keep up with God that they often set aside discernment and wisdom. While they would object to my saying so (and keep in mind I am currently a part of one of these churches, although one of the more conservative ones), their actions indicate that they would rather follow falsehood than be found having failed to follow God. As a result they are easily led astray.

What is needed is a more balanced approach. I believe the key is to recognize that God is actually a good leader. That may sound doctrinally obvious; but many Christians and Churches do not act like He is. Any leader who moves faster that his followers can keep up, who does not actually make an effort to bring his followers along with him, who makes it hard to discern what direction he is leading people is not a good leader; but too many Christians act as if that is exactly what God does.

I do believe that God is active today and has a plan for what He wants His church doing, and there is some sense of there being a center to what God is trying to accomplish in our society today. However, I also believe that God knows our limitations and how quickly we are able to change. With perfect foreknowledge He developed His plan in a form that we can keep up with, as long as we are willing to follow. What's more, I believe that God is a great teacher and has the skill to make clear what He wants done if we are willing to listen. There is no need to strain ourselves and to be fearful that we will miss God's direction.

So, if we are open to listening to God and are willing to do what He says, we do not need to go looking for what God is doing – He will tell us what He needs us to do at just the right time. We don't need to travel to some other city because God seems to be working there. God is working everywhere, even in our own cities. We just need to open to what he wants us as individuals to do. We don't need to look for the hot new teaching – the uncovering of some new principle of the gospel. We just need to be in fellowship with God and do what He says.

The attitude expressed above is largely what McAlpine calls being "Post Charismatic". I don't care about the name; but the idea is certainly correct.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 08, 2008

Demonstrating the Love of God

Once again, my working definition of the mission of the church is

“To enable everyone to make an informed decision as to whether they want to be a part of The Kingdom of God, or The Kingdom of the World”

So just how do we as Christians inform people so they can make a decision? Simply telling them is insufficient, since the nature of the Kingdom of God is so different from the Kingdom of the World that they may not be able to picture it. No, the only way we can truly enable anyone to make an informed decision is to demonstrate the Kingdom of God to them.

I believe there are two aspects of this – demonstrating how God's Love is the foundational principle of His Kingdom and demonstrating the reality and involvement of God by providing means by which His power is evident. Essentially we need to enable people to see that God loves them and is willing to act on their behalf. Simply believing that God loves them, but that He is some distant entity that has no involvement in this world leaves them alone, struggling to do the best they can without help. Likewise believing that God is involved in this world but does not love them leaves them with just one more struggle to add to all of the burdens that The Kingdom of The World places on them. Neither partial picture is complete or compelling as a reason to join God's Kingdom.

So first, in order to demonstrate the Kingdom of God, we must demonstrate God’s love. God’s kingdom is built on the principle of everyone looking out for everyone else (not just “me and mine”), manifesting God’s love through how we care for each other. For people to understand this we must live it out in our lives – showing love and compassion for everyone. This isn’t a matter of something we go and do; but rather how we must live our lives as we serve as God’s ambassadors in this world.

This past week I read “Conspiracy of Kindness” by Sjogren, which is essentially a presentation of this idea as a church program. I have no problems with the theory Sjogren presents; but I am concerned that people reading his books (or participating in the ministries that they inspire) will have a tendency to turn this into is yet another church activity – go to church Sunday morning, hand out coffee Monday evening, mow lawns for strangers next Saturday. He makes it sound like something you can do one Saturday a month and be done with it, while I view this as something that should color every encounter we have in our lives. I'm sure Sjogren agrees, but I fear that this may not be the effect of his teaching.

I think it is the responsibility of every Christian to be out in the world interacting with people, some of whom will be in need, and showing God’s love to them. My challenge in this is getting out and interacting with people. I have become quite a hermit in my late-middle age, and beyond work and church, and really don’t interact with people much. I think part of what God is working in me is to start doing things where I meet more people, because the more people I interact with the more opportunities I will have to show God’s love. I don’t need to travel to a foreign country or have a plan that on the every other Saturday I go look for people in need; but I think I am being called to get out there and get involved in activities where I meet more people. My wife, Anne, is a knitter and interacts with a lot of people at knitting meetings, stores, and the like. I need thinks like that in my life.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 06, 2008

My own words

I’ve been struggling writing the next essay in my “The Mission of the Church” series. I intend it to be an explanation of the differences between The Kingdom of This World and the Kingdom of God. The problem isn’t actually producing an essay – I can generate pages of text on the subject with ease. The problem is that whenever I step back and look at what I have written I realize that I am just repeating things that I have heard or read from other people. I’m not explaining the ideas; I am repeating how other people have explained the ideas.

Now this might not seem like a problem – it would not be unusual for a blogger to simply repeat explanations heard elsewhere – but I have some deep-seated issue with doing that. Sure, I might quote a phrase that I think is particularly well turned; but it is psychologically important to me that my explanations of things be my own. I get very unsettled when I am put into a position of using someone else’s verbiage to explain something.

Having realized the source of my blockage, I started to look into myself to figure out where that little personality quirk came from, and quickly found the answer.

When I was 13, my mother took me to Bill Gothard’s “Institute for Basic Youth Conflicts” (now call the “Institute in Basic Life Principles”) – a week-long seminar on the practical application of Christian principles to real-world situations. That week had a far more profound influence on who I am than any other single week of my life. I’ve even returned to the seminar twice (one of the perquisites of having graduated from the seminar is that you are allowed to attend again for free as many times as you want.)

Not that I agreed with everything Gothard taught. Even at the age of 13, having only been a Christian for 3 years, there were points he made that I didn’t quite buy. Now, with many more years of growing in Christ, the list of issues I have with the specifics of Gothard’s teaching has grown substantially. However, underneath the specific applications which he presents in the seminar, there is a foundational layer of attitudes about things like authority, responsibility, respect, honor, and the like which remain true and very central to my identity.

Which leads me to some of what Gothard said on the last day of the seminar the first time I attended (I noticed this was not repeated when I returned to the seminar as an alumnus years later). There was no book we were given as part of the course – just a binder with pages to takes notes on. Gothard explained that what he was teaching was based on a “life notebook” he kept – his notes on all the things he had learned about life and Christianity; edited and re-edited as his understandings of things changed and grew. He told the crowd that he did not publish it in book form (which, by the way, he does now) because it was just his understanding of things, and that it was important that everyone develop their own understanding. He said that we would be tempted to immediately go tell other people about what we learned; but that we should resist doing that. He said we should all take the time to apply what we learned to our own lives, and only after we had seen these principles at work for ourselves, should we go and find our own way to express them to others – not repeating information second hand; but communicating our own first-hand experience.

Like I said – that week had more influence on who I am than any other week of my life. Even now, the idea that I should not teach something unless I have processed it through my own life first and found my own way to express it drives how I blog.

Of course, what this means is that someplace deep down I know that I really haven’t put my intellectual understanding of what it means to spread the Good News of the Kingdom of God into practice, and therefore have no way of my own to express what it means. That is perhaps the point God has been trying to get through to me. I need to go out and start doing what I know before I start to tell other people about it.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

August 01, 2008

Organic Church

I wrote a somewhat long comment on someone else’s blog, and realized that with a little bit of effort it would make a good post for here, so excuse this little digression from my mission/missionality posts.

There is a sub discipline within Biology called Evolutionary Development (Evo-Devo), which looks at how a complex organism forms starting with a single cell. In other words – how does a muscle cell in a finger know it is a muscle cell in a finger and not an insulin producing cell in the pancreas? Not many Christians tend to explore this field because it was originally motivated as a mean to support the Theory of Evolution – one challenge to evolution was the appearance of radical changes to species in short periods of time. Many people though that such changes would require large numbers of mutations which could not be explained by gradual evolution, so scientists started to take a closer look at just how genes produced bodies, to better understand just how many mutations would be needed.

Now people like to talk about how DNA is a blueprint that describes how to build a body – that someplace in the DNA there’s a description the whole body and how it all fits together; but it doesn't quite work like that – there is no "master plan" that describes the big picture. How it actually works is actually quite chaotic and fundamentally relational – things become body parts because of the relationships they find themselves in with other cells. In many cases cells send out chemical signals that are picked up by other cells, and what each cell becomes depends on a mix of signals they happen to be receiveing.

A cell becomes a muscle cell because it find itself just the right distance away from certain other cells that end up causing the bone to form. It doesn't know if it is in a finger or elsewhere – it just knows “I’m going to be next to a bone, so I should be a muscle”. Other relational factors (distances and orientation from other kinds of cells) control how long the bone becomes, which controls the shape of the muscles. Blood vessels form because cells put out chemicals that say "I need more nutrients". When cells in existing blood vessels detect those chemicals, they split in ways to create new branches heading in the direction of increased concentrations of those chemicals (I'm simplifying a bit here). Nerve cells randomly spread from the brain throughout the body. When they find something to attach to (a muscle cell, for instance), they do. Nerves that never find anything to attach to (which turns out to be a quite common) die off, leaving only "useful" connections.

The point is that creatures (including human bodies) take their shape because of very local, relational decision, not any top-down control. Nothing says "I need a nerve connection between here and here", but yet that connection naturally forms because each part of the body does its part in relationship to the other cells near it.

When I hear people talk about "organic" churches, this is what I think about – churches built based on individual relationships – each person doing what they are able to do given the relationships they have formed with other people in the church. There is no top-down command for how it is structured; the structure comes about based on the people and their relationships with each other. Given that we are all following our DNA (the Bible), certain patterns tend to appear; but no two churches that are allowed for form organically will ever look alike. Sometimes it is chaotic, and may even appear to be wasteful; but those redundancies are there for a reason – to ensure connections are made.

It’s too bad most Christians stay away from this kind of science (because it's connection with evolution) – I believe there is a lot were are meant to learn Christ’s Body, The Church here.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

July 30, 2008

The Mission of the Church (Part 3)

In my previous post, I stated that my working definition of the mission to The Church was:

“To enable everyone to make an informed decision as to whether they want to be a part of The Kingdom of God, or The Kingdom of the World”

Now many people, including many Christians, would find the language of “Kingdom” and “Citizenship” quite odd and might even question my theology. While I am open to improving this definition over time, I am quite comfortable with those aspects of the statement. If you read what we have recorded of what Jesus actually said, He talked more about “The Kingdom of God” than any other topic. Many of his parables began with the phrase “The Kingdom of God is like. . .” Jesus was very concerned that people understood what the Kingdom of God was – it was central to His mission.

Likewise, Paul had a lot to say about the citizenship of Christians: “But our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20), “you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household” (Eph 2:19) “I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world” (1 Peter 2:11), “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors” (2 Cor 5:20)

This language particularly appeals to me for two reasons.

The first is that it is easier to describe the full truth of Christianity in this context. People generally understand that being a citizen of some nation involves both rights and responsibilities. As a citizen of the United State, I enjoy a large number of rights; but those rights come with certain responsibilities – to pay taxes, to serve jury duty, and at some points in our history to serve in the military. Likewise citizenship in God’s kingdom comes with many rights (including direct access to the creator of the universe Himself); but it also comes with responsibilities – to serve God while living in this foreign land. By rephrasing the mission of the church away from “getting people saved” to “making citizens of them”, we are less at risk to soft-sell the transaction.

The second reason I like this language is that it inherently gives Christians a correct perspective on our lives here on Earth. In one of my sermons I have used the analogy that we are Christians are on a business trip for God to this world. Now business trips are something I understand well, having done a fair about of travel for my employers over the years. I’ve been to London, Paris, Jerusalem, Sydney, and all across the United States on business. When I travel for my employer, my work comes first. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy myself – I can usually find some free time on each trip to see the sights, do some shopping, try out the local cuisine, etc. Yet I always do those things in the time I have available after I get my business done. There is also a limited degree to which I get settled in to the hotel room. I might unpack my suitcase, hanging up my clothes or putting them into the drawers; but I don’t buy new furniture or start to redecorate.

That’s the attitude Christians should have with respect to their lives in this world – it is only a business trip. It’s OK if you enjoy yourself, do some shopping, try out the local cuisine – as long as you tend to your mission here first. It’s also OK if you get settled in enough in your temporary housing here to be comfortable during your stay; but realize that you are going to have to leave it all behind at some point, so there’s a limit to how much you should invest in things here.

So that’s why I like talking about Christianity as a matter of what Kingdom do you want to be citizens of.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 25, 2008

The Mission of the Church (Part 2)

In my previous post I asked the question “what is the mission of The Church?” And I analyzed the most commonly given answer to that question – the “Great Commission” – to show that it is not as obvious of an answer as some might think.

So what do I think the mission of the church is? Here’s my definition, although I will say up front that this is a synthesis of my understanding of many scriptures, and so I can’t point to any specific verses that phrases it this way. With that disclaimer, I believe the mission of the church is:

“To enable everyone in the world to make an informed decision as to whether they want to be a part of The Kingdom of God, or The Kingdom of the World”

In order to do that, we need to make clear to people:
- That there are two kingdoms
- The nature of The Kingdom of The World (sin, bondage, etc.)
- The nature of The Kingdom of God (love, power, etc.)
- The good news that people have a choice as to which one they are citizens of
- That a time will come when it will be too late to switch citizenship

The "good news" (gospel) of the Kingdom of God is that because of what Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection, people who are in The Kingdom of The World have the option to change their citizenship into The Kingdom of God. The Church then is the official embassy of The Kingdom of God operating within The Kingdom of The World with the mission to offer citizenship to everyone. We will not somehow transform the world into God's Kingdom, but we will translate as many people as want to into citizens of The Kingdom of God (adding them to our ambassadorial ranks in the process).

In my previous post I noted that if you go back to the original Greek, the "great commission" talks about people being "heralds" of this good news. Consider again the definitions of herald I provided:

-"A person who carries or proclaims important news; a messenger." All Christians carry an important news message from God that citizenship in His Kingdom is open to all who would apply, and we are all charged to share that message with anyone who will hear it.

-"One that gives a sign or indication of something to come; a harbinger." All Christians are harbingers of the end of this age; giving notice that God's offer of citizenship is open for a limited time (although we have no idea how long that time is, having already lasted nearly 2000 years).

-"(formerly) a royal or official messenger, esp. one representing a monarch in an ambassadorial capacity during wartime" God's Kingdom is in conflict with The Kingdom of The World and all Christians are official, royal, representatives of God Himself.

Unfortunately, (if I may borrow a phrasing from the movie The Matrix), no one can be told what The Kingdom of God is - they have to see it for themselves. People are so used to "how the world works" that they feed any description of God's Kingdom though that filter and end up with a distorted picture. The only way we Christians, as ambassadors of God, can successfully inform people as to what The Kingdom of God is like (and therefore why they might want to change citizenship) is by demonstrating it to them.

The church then, as part of its mission, is responsible for demonstrating what The Kingdom of God is like in how we operate and interact with others. We are to demonstrate what it means to really live in a culture based on love, equality, and the power of God. A culture where everyone cares for each other's needs. A culture where no one is above (or below) another. A culture where God intervenes to address specific needs that are beyond human resolution.

And here is where the church has failed Jesus horribly. In far too many cases we have allowed the World's Kingdom to infect the church – instead of demonstrating a difference, we demonstrate that we are no different from the world and that there is no reason to switch citizenship. In too many cases the church demonstrates hatred and bigotry, wagging out fingers when we should be showing compassion to those in bondage. In too many cases the church demonstrates some people are better, higher, or more important than others instead of valuing all people (including ourselves) equally. In too many cases the church demonstrates that the only solutions to problems are human ones (psychology, politics, etc.) rather than looking to God for action.

But none of that changes what our mission is – to serve as ambassadors of God, demonstrating the advantages of His Kingdom, and offering people the opportunity to become a part of it.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 23, 2008

The Mission of the Church (Part 1)

The Mission of the Church (Part 1)

Before one can talk about what it means for an individual Christian to be “missional”, you need to be clear on what it means for the church as a whole to be missional, which means you need to be clear on exactly what the mission of the church is. Now for many Christians, this is obvious – they simply point at Mark 16:15:

And He (Jesus) said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

This verse is what is known among church people as the “great commission” and based on it they believe the mission of the church is to travel around the world speaking to crowds about on how Jesus died for their sins (or at least enabling others to do so).

I don't think the meaning of that verse is as obvious as people think, nor am I sure it was meant to serve as a mission statement for The Church.

First, as can be seen in verse 14 just before this, Jesus is talking to the eleven remaining disciples (with Judas out of the picture after the betrayal). So is Jesus really giving this command to all Christians? To the church as a whole? Or is He just telling the eleven what He expects of them as individuals? Certainly even in the first century that the vast majority of Christians did not “go” anywhere – only a few were called to travel as part of their service to God. So is “going” central to the mission of the church? Or is it only certain individuals in the church that are called to “go”? And if we assuming the command to "go" in this verse is of more limited scope, then what about the rest of it?

Second, there is that word “preach.” Now ask most Christians what it means to “preach” and they are likely to describe someone standing in front of a group giving a speech of some kind. The problem is that the Greek language has a couple perfectly good words that describe that kind of oratory and those are not the words used here. The word used in this verse in the Greek is “kerruso” which means to serve as a herald. So what is a herald? Here are a few definitions I found:

-A person who carries or proclaims important news; a messenger
-One that gives a sign or indication of something to come; a harbinger
-(formerly) a royal or official messenger, esp. one representing a monarch in an ambassadorial capacity during wartime

While those definitions do not exclude the use of speeches, one can certainly serve as a herald without grand oratory. Furthermore, I can point to numerous other verses in the Bible that agree that all Christians are to act like God’s ambassadors in this world, delivering God’s message and giving notice that this present age is coming to an end, so those definitions of a herald do very much sound like what the church is supposed to be doing.

Finally, there is that word “gospel” (“good news” in the Greek). This has unfortunately become a very religious term whose definition has become culturally established; but we need to be asking ourselves if our cultural definition of “the gospel” is what Jesus meant by the word. Many Christians would say that the essence of the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins (which He certainly did); but is that the “good news” we are to herald? An interesting thing to note is that half the time that Jesus is recorded as using the term “gospel” he qualifies it as “the gospel of the kingdom” or “the gospel of the kingdom of God.” So where is the “kingdom” in the message that Jesus died for our sins? Or is the gospel something larger of which only a piece is what Jesus did on the cross?

Now I don’t actually have a problem with the great commission; but I do think we need to take a very close look at the verse before we take it as an “obvious” statement of what the mission of the church is supposed to be.

I’ll continue in my next post with my own working definition of the mission of The Church.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

July 18, 2008

Under conviction

So God has been working to make me aware of what a poor Christian I have been. Yes, I am doctrinally orthodox; and yes, I haven’t committed what most folks would consider big sins. So from the point of view of most churches in America I have been a great Christian. Unfortunately they tend to grade on a curve.

What God has been talking to me about is how many people in the world are hurting, hurting badly – people who need to see in a tangible ways that God loves them and has not abandoned them. In that context God has been showing me how little I am doing to show God’s love to the world. Sure, I donate money to a lot of good causes (both Christian and secular); but money can’t communicate love – only people can, and only in person. Sure, I teach and encourage fellow Christians; but God’s way is always to teach by example, and I can’t honestly tell people they should model themselves on my life.

The buzzword for this in the church today is "being missional"; although there isn't a lot of clarity at to what that means (another blog I follow recently collected 50 very different definitions of what it means for The Church to be "missional"). The sense is that both individual Christians and the church as a whole and need to get more other-focused in how they operate – not in terms of preaching; but in terms of service and love. There are some clear examples of Christian communities that are doing this very successfully; but they are all doing it in very different ways, so defining the term has proven to be a challenge.

Of course my immediate focus is to understand what God wants of me personally. I suspect that around this bend in the road I will be spending more time working with people in need, although how, when, and with whom isn’t clear. I also suspect I will have a better understanding of what God expects from His church in this regard; and I will then be able to teach on this and honestly say “and this is how God led me to live this lesson out”.

As I come to understand things better I will blog on them; but from past experience, it may be a while before I have a clear picture on this.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

July 11, 2008

The Myth of a Christian Nation

The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church

by Gregory A. Boyd

I seem to have reached a rich strata in my to-be-read bookshelf. There have been an unusual number of books in the last couple of month that have been added to my "keeper" list (and in some cases prompted me to buy a second copy to lend out) – Books like: "Blue Like Jazz", "The Rest of the Gospel", "Looking for God Knows What", and now "The Myth of a Christian Nation"

I have long been a believer in the separation of church and politics. I have blogged before about my concern about how some segments of the church in America are trying to use the United States government as a means to achieve religious goals. I believe these attempts are at best a waste of resources and at worst harmful to The Church. Last August I saw a piece on CNN about a pastor (Gregory Boyd) who had a significant part of his congregation leave when he expressed the same views from the pulpit. Needless to say I was interested, and bought Boyd's book on the subject.

"The Myth of a Christian Nation" is a well written and argued presentation of the scriptural, theological, and historical reasons why The Church as an institution should stay completely separate from politics, whether "liberal" or "conservative". Boyd makes the case that "kingdoms of the world" and "the kingdom of God" are fundamentally different things and that trying to connect them will always and inevitably do harm to God's cause. He argues that while God supports the existence human governments to keep the peace, protect their citizens, and punish wrong-doers (and acknowledges that some human governments do that better than others), the means by which all human government do their job is by exercising "power over" people – using force or the threat of force (the metaphorical "sword") to compel submission.

Boyd then argues that the Kingdom of God which Christianity is meant to promote is based on a very different mechanism – the application of what he calls exercising "power under" people, expressed through sacrificial love as represented by the cross. It is therefore never possible to succeed in achieving success for God's Kingdom by using human governments because the means of "power over" via the sword can never accomplish that which can only be done by "power under" via the cross. Boyd further argues that whenever we attempt to so this we corrupt God's church, making it no longer a holy thing.

Fundamentally, God is not interested in seeing better governments; he is interested in seeing people be transformed by a relationship with Him regardless of what government exists. The best possible human government that we could create still does nothing to change the human heart. Given that, Boyd says that while Christians should certainly vote as individuals in whatever way they feel will yield a "better government", The Church as an institution should not invest any of it energies in trying to promote laws (conservative or liberal) that they feel are "Christian" since doing so represents a fundamental contradiction of The Church's charter. I agree completely with this stance.

What is more, putting aside the political issues discussed in the book, I like the vision of Christianity Boyd presents. The Church is meant to be the Body of Christ – Jesus' incarnation in the world today. Therefore as a group we are to act like Jesus did – helping those in need, caring for the unloved and outcasts, befriending people regardless of their sins, sacrificing ourselves to help others. He gives a few examples in the book of how real people have responded to issues like gay marriage, abortion, etc. in ways that reflect the Kingdom of God and not an attempt to use a Kingdom of Man to make a country more "godly". The book is well worth reading for its presentation of the faith even if you are uninterested in the church/state issues which are its focus.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

July 09, 2008

Should church be easy?

The biggest trend in Christian churches in America over the last 20 years has been the desire to create “seeker friendly” church services to attract the “unchurched.” The idea is to create an environment that is comfortable and entertaining so that people who normally wouldn’t go to church would be willing to attend and thus be exposed to the gospel.

The technique has worked – to a point. There are churches in America that have over 20,000 people attending services every weekend. The question is: how many of those people ever move beyond showing up to be entertained? Studies have shown that very few of those people become anything other than passive member of the audience, and many simply stop coming if the church starts to expect more of them. It seems to me that these “seeker friendly” meetings tend to serve as inoculations against Christianity – giving people a small, weakened version of the faith; just enough to make them feel good about themselves and thus make them resistant to the “real thing”.

It doesn’t take being a “Seeker friendly” church to see the effect. I’ve been a part of churches that had Sunday morning services, Sunday evening praise service, Wednesday night prayer meeting, and home groups. We’d see the biggest crowd on Sunday Morning, about half that number on Sunday evening, half again on Wednesday, and perhaps 10% of the Sunday morning crowd going to a home group. This is considered normal, and I have even read books that advocate this as a good thing since it “supports people with a wide variety of commitment levels.”

I have however started to wonder recently if “supporting people with a wide variety of commitment levels” is really part of the mission statement for The Church. Becoming a Christian is a matter of making Jesus your Lord; and is there really a place for people who only want to make Jesus slightly their Lord?

To be clear, I am not talking about Christian maturity here. After nearly 40 years I am still learning new ways I need to submit myself to God – I am still learning what it means for Jesus to be my Lord. The question is a matter of commitment to do whatever God leads them to do at whatever stage of growth and transformation they are at. As an example, a Christian should be spending regular time in prayer and studying their Bible. A new Christian may not yet understand how to pray well or understand everything they read in the Bible, while a mature Christian may accomplish much more in their prayer and studies; but both should be equally committed to doing it. Yet most churches I have been a part of understand and accept that most of the people who show up at Sunday services never study their Bible outside of official church meetings and never pray unless someone in their family is in desperate need.

Nor am I saying that church should not be welcoming to people who are not (yet?) willing to make that kind of commitment. People should be allowed to come, watch, and participate if they want to without anything more being expected of them. My point is that what people should see when they come and watch and participate should make it clear that if they want to become a Christian that it is going to take a real commitment on their part – not to the church; but to Jesus. I think the church needs to do a better job of communicating that becoming a Christian is costly (with benefits that far outweigh those costs); while at the same time welcoming people in our midst who are not yet ready to pay that price. Yet too often we downplay the costs to keep people coming, hoping that eventually they will be willing to make a greater commitment. The problem is that in most churches the people who only show up on Sunday never see examples of what it means to be a committed Christian other than in the person of the "professionals" (pastors, staff, etc) that are paid for their "commitment".

I don’t know what the answer is. The solution for much of the first few centuries of church history was that people had to spend months if not years proving their commitment to Jesus before the church would baptize them and thus formally accept them as part of the church; and this started at a time when people could have their property taken away from them for being a Christian – talk about a costly faith! Yet despite those high barriers, the church grew exponentially though those times. I suspect there is some middle way on this, some way to show "seekers" all of what it means to be a Christian without them feeling they have to make that commitment to stay involved. Certainly promoting Christianity using the soft-sell had just given us a bunch of soft "Christians" with no sense of what it means to make Jesus their Lord.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 04, 2008

How I Study the Bible, Part 3 - context

How I Study the Bible, Part 3 - Audience

I’m finally getting back to this series. In the first post, I explored the issues of translation. In the second, I explored the need to understand the culture in which the events of the Bible took place. There may be one more post after this; but I am having trouble writing it clearly.

So, if you understand what the words mean and the culture they were written in, can you then say you understand what the original readers of the text would have understood upon reading it? Close, but not quite. To fully understand what they would have heard you have to put yourself into their shoes (or sandals, as the case may be). Who was the author? What was the relationship between the author and the original readers? What were the circumstances under which it was written? I believe that God guided the writing and preservation of the Bible so it would provide value both to the original audience and to us; but the original meaning to the original audience should always guide our present interpretation.

As examples, in Matthew 21:2 Jesus said to his disciples on what would become known as Palm Sunday “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.” Yet I have yet to attend a Palm Sunday service at which the congregation brought a donkey colt to the meeting. Why not? Obviously that passage is taken as specific instruction for a specific time, not a general commandment to everyone. On the other hand in Luke 22:19, talking about Jesus it says “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." Almost all Christian traditions continue to practice the ritual breaking of break to remember Jesus’ sacrifice. So why do we believe one of these was a specific command and the other a general one? It is important to ask these kinds of questions as you study the Bible.

This kind of question gets even trickier when you look at Paul’s letters. With the two letters to the Corinthian church, how much of what Paul wrote was specific instructions to a troubled congregation that was having specific problems and how much is advice he would have given to otherwise healthy congregations? Or Paul’s letters to Timothy – what parts are specific instructions to Timothy in the context of his ministry in Ephesus, and how much can be taken as general instruction to all Christians at all times?

Note, I am not saying any parts of the Bible that involve specific instructions can or should be ignored; but they way you apply it to the present day may be different. All scripture is based on fundamental principles which are unchanging. It is important to understand and apply those principles to situations today and not blindly apply the specific advice that was given to someone else may have been in very different circumstances. So studying the Bible is often an exercise in understanding not only what someone said but why they said it, and then applying “the why” and not “the what” to our lives today.

As an example, in 1 Tim 5:23, Paul writes to Timothy: “Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.” So first, from a translation and cultural context point of view (my previous posts in this series), it is clear that they really are talking about fermented wine here and not “grape juice” as some Christians would like. However, Paul is specifically talking about drinking diluted wine – essentially suggesting that Timothy add some wine to the water he was drinking. Why? The practice of drinking diluted wine was fairly common as a means to purify the water - what we would understand now as using the alcohol to kill the germs and parasites. So the real story here is that Timothy was drinking too much of the local water straight and was having intestinal problems because of it, so Paul was suggesting he mix in some wine with it to stay healthy.

So how do we apply this today? Should we all be drinking wine for our health? Perhaps – some studies have found other beneficial effects of wine. However, I think the deeper understanding that can be gained here is that those who are in ministry need to watch their health. I have seen many pastors, missionaries, etc. who have been so focused on their service to God that they neglected taking care of their bodies as they should. Paul was telling Timothy to take the time and effort to eat and drink right so he would stay healthy, which is good advice for all Christians.

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July 02, 2008

The problem of ordination

No, I am not talking about the process of making someone a member of the clergy (although there may be applications to that as well). I am instead going back to the original meaning of the word – putting things in order. The word “ordination” comes from the same root as the mathematical term “ordinal”, meaning something’s place within a list, and it where we get words like “subordinate” (someone placed below someone else in a hierarchy).

A while back I read “The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History”, a secular-humanist book looking at why bad things happen around the world. It is essentially a non-religious study on the question of evil. It was a very interesting book and I made several attempts to write a full blog post on it; but it never quite came together. A key part of the author’s thesis was the concept of a “pecking order”.

The idea of a “pecking order” comes from studies done of chickens where it was noticed that every group of chickens ate in a very specific order – there was always one chicken who was the top chicken, then one below them, and so on until you got to the bottom chicken. If you introduced a new chicken into the group they would all fight with each other until it was determined where the new chicken fit into the sequence and then when everyone knew where they belonged things would calm down again until someone saw a new opportunity to change their position.

Speaking in secular terms, the idea of the pecking order can be seen as an accelerant to evolution – by giving reproductive advantage to those who rate higher based on some criteria, you more quickly select for that criterion in the subsequent generations. Faster evolution is itself an advantage, so social creatures would likely evolve such behaviors naturally.

Howard Bloom, who wrote “The Lucifer Principle”, pointed out that chickens are not the only creatures who exhibit this behavior, and that (he claimed) many of the evils of society and history can be blamed on humanity’s drive to put everyone in order and to move themselves as close to the top of the list as they could.

I return to this now because Donald Miller (whose Christian books I have praised recently) also used the analogy of the pecking order to describe the problems of the world, although he attributes it to a different source. In “Looking for God Knows What” he describes how God created humanity to be in relationship with God and to derive our validation from Him. When we became separated from God by Sin, we ended up having to look for our validation elsewhere – in each other; and by doing so we began to position ourselves with respect to each other.

We all needed to know we were valuable, and the only way to get that sense of personal worth was to know we were better than other people. So we began to put each other into an order with some people on top and some at the bottom, and we all began to strive to position ourselves as close to the top as we could get. This is essentially Miller’s picture of the fallen world after Sin – people climbing over each other to reach the top. We have become more civilized in how we do it; but the sense of the pecking order remains central to human interactions.

So two very different authors with different approaches, both came to the same conclusion as to the root of mankind’s problems.

Miller, however, takes it a step farther and provides a solution. Real Christianity (and there are many fakes) reestablishes our relationship with God and thus puts us back into a position where we can get our validation from God as it we were meant to get it. And having received that validation, we can abandon looking at ourselves and others in terms of who is higher and lower on “the list”.

Miller points out that many of Jesus’ actions can be explained by the fact that he did not participate in the pecking order. While most people hesitate associating with those who are lower on the list out of fear that people will lower their estimation of them; Jesus was content to associate with “prostitutes and sinners” because He did not look at the world through the lens of a pecking order. It was not (as some might suppose) that He knew, as God, he was at the top of the list; but that He did not care about the list to begin with.

The challenge then to us as Christians is to allow God to work in our lives to get rid of our pecking-order thinking. I have to admit that thinking about this for the last week I have realized how much I still look for validation from other people and how much I care about being viewed as higher in the social order. There’s still a lot of work God needs to do in me on this.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 30, 2008

Of Points and Lines

I remember when I was a kid and did connect-a-dot drawings. For anyone unfamiliar with them, you are presented with an incomplete picture that contains a bunch of dots that are sequentially numbered from 1 up to the number of dots. If you connect all of the dots in order, you complete the drawing and see it what is. I admit that since these are often done for very young children, what the drawing would be was often evident without any of the connections; but I have seen a few over the years where the user's contribution was in fact necessary to understand the drawing.

One of the paradoxes of these later diagrams is that you need to draw the lines to see what the picture is; but you don't know how best to draw the lines without knowing what you are drawing. If you simply connect the dots with perfectly straight lines, you end up with a rather angular diagram that looks like a cubist painting and not something real. If you know what the picture is in advance you can connect the dots with smooth, curved lines and end up with something that looks nice.

Why all this musing on a child's art form? Because I think there are lessons there for Christianity.

Many churches present Christianity as a set of formulas. Believe this, do this, don't do that. The things they teach are absolutely true – there are things we are expected to believe, to do, to avoid. But those things are not Christianity. They are like the dots in a connect-a-dot drawing. The original drawing that contains only the dots and numbers is not a picture of a fish, or a tree, or whatever. Only when you make the connections does it become that. In the same way, these Christian formulas are not Christianity. Only when you add the connections – the organic, dynamic relationships with God and each other - does it become that.

This is not to minimize the important of correct doctrines to Christianity. Just as the lines on a connect-a-dot picture must go through the numbered dots (in the correct order, even). In the same way, a real Christian experience will include certain correct doctrines. My point is that those doctrines by themselves are not Christianity – there is much more to being a Christian that a list of things to do and believe; and just like a connect-a-dot picture, we each need to add our individual contributions to complete the picture.

Some people have approached this by doing the equivalent of drawing straight lines between the dots. They are so afraid of getting it wrong that they rigidly constrain their faith to what they are absolutely certain of based on correct doctrine. Unfortunately, their decision to not take chances itself ruins the drawing. To live a life of faith is to take risks, knowing that sometimes you will fail. Real Christianity means looking at the dots (the doctrines) and understanding what the “big picture” is and then using your life to draw a smooth, organic series of connections that creates a beautiful drawing.

As I said above the “connections” we make as Christians to complete the picture are the relationships we have with God and with each other. I firmly believe that “Christianity is made manifest in relationships”. People should be able to look at how Christians interact with each other and with people outside the faith and see the image of God reflected in our connections. They will not see God in what we believe or what formulas we follow; but in our interactions with each other.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 27, 2008

What’s happening with me spiritually

So the Tuesday Bible study which I had been leading went on hiatus a month ago as part of the church’s sabbatical. This is significant for me because that study was both my primary ministry, and it was also my primary community for talking about what’s happing in my life spiritually. Lacking those two elements in my life has forced me into even more prayer about what I should be doing until the church comes out of sabbatical.

Four weeks ago, Anne and I stayed home from church (well, from our temporary host church). I used to that time to pray and read my Bible and found the experience quite refreshing. We are doing the same thing again last Sunday, and may continue to do it on a once a month basis for the rest of the year. Two specific things came have come out of that time of being focused alone with God.

First, I sensed that God wanted me to keep studying the Bible as if I was preparing to teach a study. So I have started to do my own study in 1st Timothy. I have no sense that I will ever teach the material I am preparing (when we restart the study we are likely to do Colossians); but I do believe God wanted me to continue to prepare as if I was. Timothy is an interesting choice (it is what God led me to) because it is a book I am unlikely to have chosen for a group study. It is a personal letter from one preacher to another, and as such there is a lot in there that is specific to people who serve the church in certain ways. Not that there isn’t value in the book for all Christians; but its main focus is on advice to those in church leadership. Certainly a good book for me to be reading.

Second, I sensed God wanted me to pay more attention to what I do on Sundays. Not in a religious or legalistic sense of “keeping the Sabbath”; but I believe that He wants me to be more aware of how I spend my time in general and is starting with my Sundays. So I have been especially prayerful on Sundays, allowing God to guide me away from some activities and towards others. What I have ended up doing is not necessarily more “spiritual” (so far God hasn’t objected to my watching TV shows I have recorded for myself), nor do I think the things God has steered me away from are somehow “bad” (some of the things I felt God wanted me to stay away from in the first weeks He has not had a problem with in later ones). The point is not for me to develop lists of things I can and cannot do on Sundays; but rather focus more on following God’s lead on a continuous basis in how I invest my time.

Finally, I have decided that in the absence of my regular community to talk about what God is doing in my life I will start to share more of that in this blog (hence this post). I believe it is a critical part of being the church to talk about both the hills and valleys of our walk along The Way, and will be doing more of that on the web for those fellow travelers who are reading this blog.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 25, 2008

Wordle me

I've always loved word-clouds (tag-clouds, whatever) – the diagrams that some web sites use that display the common tags/words used on the site where the more common the word is, the larger it appears in the diagram. By providing a quick visual gestalt, they sometimes can provide real insight in what going on beyond what the author is trying to say.

I used wordle.net to produce a couple of these diagrams for the larger subsets of this blog. Wordle provide some nice options for how to format the diagram (although I am not thrilled with the choices of color palettes).

Here's what you get when you feed all of my "faith" posts into Wordle. Click though to get a full sized version (so you can read some of the smaller words).

I'm reasonably pleased with that – a big GOD in the middle with people being second, followed by words like church, Christian, relationship. The only odd thing is how small Jesus comes out. For a Christian I actually don't seem to talk about Jesus by name much. Hmmm.

Here's all of my "Life" posts. Again, click through to get the full-sized version.

Time, People, and Blog seem to be the big words. I also note that time related words like week, day, year also come in strong, which I guess makes sense since I am often talking about what happened last month, next year, etc. The word "interesting" also comes out strong. Interesting.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

June 23, 2008

In Praise of Donald Miller

There are a lot of one-hit wonders in every field of endeavor. People who have one bright idea but never manage to repeat their success. Donald Miller is most definitely not one of those. I have now read two books by him ("Blue Like Jazz" and now "Searching for God Knows What") and both were brilliant expressions Christianity. Not only does his description of Christianity match what I have learned over the last 38 years, but he is also an excellent writer that communicates those ideas with beauty, clarity and humor.

There are many things I like about how he writes: the lack of pretense (he talks about epiphanies he had about God while drinking beer and watching basketball on TV), the honesty (he describes in embarrassing detail his failures and misunderstandings along his journey to know God), the beauty (some passages compare well with Steinbeck's novels). He doesn't talk about doctrines, lists, rules, programs. He simply talks about getting to know God, and that is what Christianity is all about. The author is also clearly well read, mentioning books on physics, evolutionary biology, philosophy, and poetry along the way. Too many Christian authors keep their head buried in the Christian book store, and have no idea what it happening in the rest of the world.

What’s more, as I mentioned above, it is very clear that the Christianity he had learned is the same as the Christianity I have come to know, which is quite different from the Christianity that is practiced in most churches in America. It is a Christianity of relationships and not rules. It is a Christianity of compassion and not politics. It is a Christianity of honesty and humility and not self centered pride. It is, I believe, the Christianity of Jesus.

Most of all, his books are perfect examples of the kinds of conversations I long to engage in when I get together with other Christians. Not talking about doctrines, sins, etc; but simply talking about what we have experienced along The Way.

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that Christians, non-Christians, and those who are not sure what camp they belong in read his books.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 20, 2008

Three Tests of a Ministry, Part 2

This is the second in my series of posts on things that should signal that you should pray if some ministry really is God working and not just some man.

Test Two – is the ministry being motivated by love?

God's primary motivation is love. In fact, John writes that God IS love. So it naturally follows that any real "move of God" will be an expression of love. The problem is that "love" is one of those words whose meaning has been blurred by over-use. Even abusive parents often believe that what they are doing is for the child's good and is therefore an expression of love. So I will step back and comment on how real love will manifest itself.

I claim that real love will be an expression of respect for another individual. Love views others as being of equal worth, dignity, and inherent value. People are precious to God and He views all people as equally precious – "saint" and "sinner" alike. God is no respecter of persons. A real move of God will express these values. A real move of God will express God's love.

Alternatively, if a ministry treats some group of people as inferior, that's a good signal that something other than God may be at work. Whether it is 19th century European missionaries who viewed themselves as superior to the "savages" they went to teach, or modern preachers who view themselves as superior to certain kinds of "sinners", a sense of superiority does not mix well with true love.

Nor will God's love hold individuals up for ridicule or embarrassment. In several places the Bible teaches that issues with individuals should be dealt with privately if at all possible. Castigating people publicly is not an expression of love (which is one reason I am hesitant to render a public verdict on any particular ministry). God even loves the bigot, the prideful, the heretic and the charlatan.

Test Three – is the ministry working out of faith in God?

I have said many times in this blog: trusting God is central to Christianity. I have also noted how easy it is to slip into trusting things other than God - ourselves, pastors, programs, techniques. Too many ministries have become focused on "reaching people" instead of on what God wants to do. They then slip into the trap of using techniques developed by secular marketing and advertising to accomplish those ends. They put on a "good show" with engaging music, multi-media presentations, and visitor friendly messages.

The problem is that this often "works" – drawing in multitudes to create "mega churches". They succeed in "reaching people"; but have those people been reached for God or for Madison Avenue? After months in such a church, are people any closer to God? Or have they simply been entertained? My observation is that it often depends on where the leadership's trust is. If the leadership is trusting the techniques to bring people in, then that is all they get – people who come for the techniques. If the leadership is however trusting God to draw people in and they are simply being obedient in creating the environment God has led them to create, then they will get people who are there for God.

The same can be said of "healing crusades" and "miracle ministries". Many people go to such meetings either because they are in need of God's supernatural work or because they want to see "the show". Would people still go to them if no one got healed? If not, then there is always a temptation to begin to trust in (apparent) miracles to get people to show up and not in God to draw people to Himself. If your trust is in a steady stream of "miracles" to draw people, your trust isn't in God; and that can quickly lead to various kinds of error. Like celebrity who is "famous for being famous" it becomes necessary to keep doing more and more extreme things to maintain the spotlight. When I start to hear about bizarre phenomena at these kinds of meetings, I start to wonder if this is really God doing something or if it is showmanship to keep the crowds coming.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 18, 2008

Three Tests of a Ministry, Part 1

As I mentioned in my last post, there are a series of meetings in Lakeland Florida that many Christians are getting animated over. Some are excited because they believe a powerful move of God is underway. Others are agitated because they believe that many people are being deceived by a charlatan and a heretic.

This is a first of a series of posts on things I have learned to look at when people start talking about some new ministry or "move of God". In the end, I trust the Holy Spirit to let me know what He is doing and what is simply being done in His name. These tests are just signals to remind me that I should be cautious and seek God when presented with something new. I will also note that these tests are not only useful when encountering someone else's ministry – they are also useful when taking a look at our own service to God.

Test One – to whose glory?

Real moves of God will be done to God's glory, not man's. When people who have been involved in some movement spend more time talking about the minister than they do about God, that quickly raises a caution flag for me. As I have said many times on this blog, trusting God and God alone is central to what it means to be a Christian. Real Christianity therefore turns people's eyes towards God. Ministries that draw attention to their leader, preacher, minister, whatever are inherently at odds with God's purposes.

A quick test when people claim miracles have been done is simply listening to whom they attribute those miracles. Do they say "Pastor Bob healed someone" or do they say "Pastor Bob prayed and God healed someone." When I hear the former, I start asking God "Is this really you?"

To be fair, human nature will always tend to attribute phenomena to what is visible (the minister) as opposed to what is invisible (God). So many people will tend to talk about what the preacher did even when God really is working. That's why it is critical for anyone in ministry to make an effort to direct people's eyes away from themselves and towards God. If your service to God is in a form that will naturally draw attention to yourself, it is important that you deliberately do things to counteract that and get people away from focusing on you and instead get them to focus on God.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 16, 2008

Signs, Wonders and the Imitation Thereof

Something interesting is happening in Lakeland Florida. It doesn't seem to have made it into the national news media yet; but I suspect that is just a matter of time. There are a series of meetings where miracles are being reported – people healed, even raised from the dead - all under the leadership of a Canadian preacher named Todd Bentley.

The Christian blogosphere is full of posts with various people taking sides on whether this is a move of God or the work of a charlatan. I haven't been to these meetings and while videos are available on the web, they aren't enough for me to form a conclusive option. They do however provide enough information for me to be skeptical. I may post on those reasons at some point in the future; but today I want to talk about something that is not the reason I am skeptical – the claim of supernatural, miraculous events.

I do believe that God is supernaturally active today. He heals people. He does other signs and wonders. There is no doubt in my mind that God is at work today because I have been witness to His hand on a few occasions.

However, having said that, I also believe that the vast majority of supernatural events attributed to God are neither supernatural nor divine in origin. It is easy to establish an environment where people are expecting certain outcomes and their minds get into a mode where they ignore contradictory evidence. All stage magic is built on this phenomenon. What's more, it doesn't even need to involve deliberate deception. A culture can create an environment where the leader is as open to self deception as the audience.

Unfortunately, church cultures often fall into this category. Because many churches equate "faith" with "blind acceptance" and "questioning" with "disbelief", they often create environments where people will tend to see what they want to see, or are expected to see. In some cases there is even an element of "The Emperor's New Clothes" in this – if everyone else around you is "feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit", then you don't want to be the only person who isn't being "moved by God". So, often subconsciously, you find some small hint that God might be doing something and magnify it in your mind to the point that you can say "me too". The question however is – how many other people in the room are doing the same thing?

HOWEVER.

None of this means that the genuine article – real moves of God, real miracles – do not exist. Only that they are hard to find because of all of the people who allow themselves to be convinced that God is working when He isn't. Finding the real thing amid all of the noise can be quite a challenge; but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I am working on some posts on "the real thing" that I hope to put up at some point in the future, although my next few posts will be on yet another facet of this.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

May 30, 2008

Sanctification, gradual

Continuing on with the series I had been doing on grace and sanctification, here are some specific observations on the process of sanctification.

As I have said previously in this series, humanity is flawed in our natures. We naturally do things that are harmful to ourselves, to each other, and to our relationship with God. God has provided a means to re-establish our relationship to Him through the Cross. One of God’s goals in re-establishing that relationship is so that He can work in our lives to change our nature. This process of God’s transformation of us is known by the theological term “sanctification”. So while we are not “saved” by somehow being “good enough” for God, the result of our being “saved” should be that we become “good”, or at least better than we were.

The key point I want to make is that this is a gradual process. It is true that by virtue of what Jesus did on the cross, God can interact with us as if we were already perfected. So in some legal/theological sense, we become pure and holy the instant we commit to taking Jesus as our Lord and Savior. However, one does not have to hang around Christians for very long before it becomes evident that this is a legal fiction (in the technical sense of that phrase) – that in reality we are all start our Christian walk just as messed up as we ever were and that it takes time for us to be changed by God into His image.

My observation is that the reason this takes time is that God only works in us when we let him. Some say this is because God has given us free will and will not take it back. Others have developed other theological explanations for this. Regardless, it appears God will not make a change in our nature unless we are willing to let him make such a change.

So why would someone not be willing to allow God to change them into a better person? As it turns out there are many reasons.

Sometimes a person doesn’t believe that something needs to change. They believe that a given aspect of their personality is just fine as it is, even though God knows they would be better with it different. In such cases God needs to wait until they become aware of the consequences of keeping that part of themselves before He can act. I personally believe God will, at the right time, provide circumstances in that person’s life that will highlight the need for change, so they will become more receptive to God’s work.

Sometimes a person wants to hold on to some aspect of themselves even when they recognize that it is harmful. They do this because the flaw and its consequences have become a familiar part of their identity and they no longer know who they would be if they let it go. I most often see this in people who have been wronged by someone else who have gone on to build some aspect of their life around that injury. Having become used to the bitterness, they are afraid to let it go even though they know it hurts them. I have also seen this with grief and other forms of suffering. In such cases God needs to comfort them and help them to see who they could be if they let go of their injury.

Sometimes a person is convinced that they can make the change themselves without God’s help and so does not give God permission to work in their lives. They might look for God’s help with “big things”; but believe they can handle the little stuff on their own. With such people God merely waits until they have grown tired of trying to do this on their own.

So, for each change God needs to work in us, He first needs to bring us to the point that we acknowledge the need, are willing to change, and have given up trying to fix it ourselves. Then, when we finally come to Him fully ready, He works to replace that part of our old faulty nature with a piece of Himself. It is not unlike transforming an old, broken-down car into a new model piece by piece. God gives us new, flawless pieces of ourselves as we are ready to receive them from Him.

The Christian life is then is a constant process where God is working to bring us to places in our lives where He can change us bit by bit into people who will be blessings to ourselves and others. This is often not a comfortable process – becoming a Christian doesn’t promise a trouble-free life. What it does promise is a relationship with God who will work to help you become all that you can be. At times this can be exhilarating as you see what God is accomplishing in and through you. Other times it can be a real struggle. However, I can honestly say 38+ years on, it has always been worth it.

I also want to note that all of this happens according to God’s plan, who knows best what needs to be changed when to minimize the total harm we all do to each other. This may not always mean that God deals with issues in ourselves and others in the order we want. Sometimes he may even plan on fixing some problem in someone else a bit later because their flaw is useful in bringing us to a place where we are ready to change something else in ourselves. We should not then be looking at each other as God works on us – comparing progress – we should always remain focused on Him and what He is doing with us as individuals.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 28, 2008

A Manifesto for Church

We interrupt the series of blog posts I have been doing because I’ve once again been tagged with a blog meme. This time I really can’t complain since I was the one who instigated the meme by a comment I made on Barry’s blog “Honest Faith”.

Rules:
1. Post to your blog on the subject "A Manifesto for Church", outlining your thoughts on what an ideal church would/should be like. Posts can be as detailed or as short as you like.
2. Include a copy of these rules.
4. Put a link to your post in the comments to this post.
5. Tag at least 4 other people.
6. What happened to rule 3?
3. Ah, here it is.

(as usual, I will skip the rules about tagging others)

Steven’s Manifesto for Church

Membership

* A church is a collection of people who have individually established Jesus as their Lord and Savior and who God has called together to form a community.
* Everyone who feels called to participate in a given community should be welcomed, even if they are not believers or are uncertain about their belief.
* The diversity within a given church community should usually be expected reflect the diversity of the town and culture in which it meets.

Leadership

* Jesus is the head of the church. He alone, through the working of the Holy Spirit leads and directs His church.
* There will however be a plurality of individuals raised from among the membership who serve as facilitators and moderators within the community.
* They will not necessarily be the primary teachers nor the people providing direction to the community – it should be expected that God may use anyone within the church to provide ideas, direction, words, teachings, prophesies, etc.
* They will, as part of their role, keep watch for occasions when teaching or activities get “off track” from what the Holy Spirit is leading the community to do. Therefore the primary requirement for this role is a reliable sensitivity to what the Holy Spirit is doing.
* They will however in all other respects just be members of the community who are growing and being transformed along with everyone else. They will have faults, and should be open and honest about their own progress in The Lord along with everyone else.
* As a community of Christians is led by God to gather, there will be individual who, as they follow the Spirit’s leadership in their own life, start to fulfill this role. As the community becomes comfortable with those individual’s discernment of what the Spirit is doing, they should be publicly recognized as trusted facilitators and moderators. This should be done by acclamation since it should be evident to all that this is how the individual is being used. If there is dissent, then that should be addressed first within the community before any proposal is made.
* Likewise, if someone is no longer seen as serving in this role (for wherever reason), it should be acknowledged by the community, although care should be taken to do this in a loving way.
* These are not paid or “full time” positions – they are merely recognized roles within the community.

The Church Gathered

When the people of the church gather…

* They should meet in groups small enough that everyone can actively participate. Occasional larger gatherings may be useful; but should not be the focus of the community.
* When the church gathers, there should be regular opportunities for everyone to share things they believe God has led them to share. This can include teachings, prophesies, questions, testimonies, confessions, songs, praise, prayer requests, prayers, project ideas, etc.
* The facilitators and moderators should make sure that everything is done decently and in order and that everyone who has something they feel God wants them to share has a chance.
* All of the congregation are responsible for weighing and discerning in their own hearts if what is shared is really of God or not; but the facilitators and moderators should take public action (in a loving way) when something is done that is potentially harmful to the community. Most of the time all that is needed is to remind everyone that they are all in the process of learning to listen to God and that none of them have perfected this yet, so discernment should be applied whenever anyone speaks (including the facilitators/moderators).
* When the church gathers, there should be regular opportunities for people to simply talk about what God is doing in their lives. Hearing about real world struggles and victories from someone else going though the same things as you is the best kind of lesson to get.
* When the church gathers, time should also be regularly spent studying the Bible. This should be done chapter by chapter, book by book, to ensure that the full context of the passages are understood and to ensure that nothing is missed.
* While those who have been gifted as teachers will likely have more to contribute in this, everyone should be given the opportunity to contribute (a discussion format is useful in this regard).
* While studying the Bible, the focus should always remain on the practical real-world applications of what it says and not on esoteric doctrines. If no one can see how some point will affect their behavior in the coming year, it is not worth spending much time on.
* Room should be given for those with doubts or differing views to allow time for God to correct whoever is in error (remember Philippians 3:15).
* The church should also regularly gather for purely social interaction. This can be a part of a more general meeting or special meetings that are purely social.

The Church Scattered

* The church should do more than meet as a community – it should also express God’s Kingdom to the town and culture in which it meets.
* It should endeavor to care for the sick, help the needy, and set free those who are in bondage. It should do all of these things not as an opportunity to preach; but just as an opportunity to demonstrate God’s love with no strings attached.
* It should also communicate to the town and culture in which it meets the good news of Jesus and the Kingdom of God.
* Both of these (caring for people and communicating the gospel) should be done individually by people as they are led by God in specific situations and as a community.
* Ideas for community projects may be proposed by anyone (via the prompting of the Holy Spirit) and ratified by the whole community if they agree that this is God’s calling for them.
* Collections may be taken to support specific needs within and without the community and to support specific projects.

Discipline

* If an individual within the community engages in behavior which is harmful to themselves, others in the church (who feel God’s leading to do this as coordinated with the facilitators/moderators) should meet with them privately and try to address the issue in love. If the individual is not receptive, prayer and time should be given to allow God to work on them.
*If an individual within the community engages in behavior that is disruptive or harmful to the community as a whole or is interfering with other individuals’ abilities to continue to grow in The Lord, the facilitators and moderators should speak with them privately to address the issue. The goal should be to find some means for the individual to continue within the community without their being disruptive to others.
* If no such accommodation can be found, then the matter should be brought before the community as a whole and if there is a consensus, they should be asked to find a different community to participate in.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

May 23, 2008

Grace, amazing

I have written (twice) on the interplay and balance between the principles of grace and sanctification. I also want to delve into each of these concepts individually, starting with the principle of grace. As I have already written, grace is that principle by which God has unilaterally established a means for flawed humanity to have a relationship with Him, despite none of us being worthy or qualified in our own rights to enter into such a relationship. This relationship is a free gift from God, available to any who want it, which is in no way dependant on our actions (beyond possibly seeking such a relationship).

What most Christians miss here (and I include myself in this for most of my Christian walk), is that since a Christian’s relationship with God is based on grace, there is nothing they can do to alter that relationship. A Christian cannot improve their relationship with God by their actions because God has already done everything that is needed to have a complete relationship with Him. Nor can a Christian harm their relationship with God by their actions because, again, the relationship was established by God despite our flawed nature. Now God may be pleased when we allow Him to transform us and therefore we become more like Him in our actions, and He may be disappointed when we stubbornly cling to our old ways and old nature; but neither of those states effect the essential nature of the relationship – that God loves us and wants to continue working in our lives to improve us and in the process, use us to help others.

Instead of believing this, most Christians believe that when they fail, when they “sin”, that God goes away for a while, like a petulant lover who has been offended. They believe that when they have sinned God isn’t interested in talking to them, or working in (or through) their lives for some period of time (certainly until they have confessed their sins, and perhaps for a while thereafter). But that then implies that our relationship with God and His ability to work in our lives is somehow dependant on our actions – that we need to be “good enough” for God to work in and through us. Yet to say so is to imply that Jesus’ work on the cross was not sufficient that we have to add some of our own works to complete the process and allow God’s relationship to be complete. Yet God established the relationship before we had been transformed at all – when we were at our worst – so what could we possibly do afterwards to detract from it?

I unfortunately can bear personal witness to the falsity of this view. There has been more than one occasion when I totally blew it, sin wise (sorry – not details in a public forum), but discovered that God was able to work in and through me in a powerful way despite what I had done. If anything, the events left me sufficiently humble before Him that he seemed to be able to work with more freely (I’ll touch on this again at a moment). The Bible is also full of stories of people God worked through who were far from paragon’s of virtue. If anything, the Bible goes out of its way to make clear how flawed all of the people are.

To be clear here, I’m not saying that someone who stubbornly refuses to allow God to change them will see the benefits of a full relationship with Him. As I have said previously, a key purpose God had in establishing the relationship is to help us become the best possible people we can be. So if we refuse that transformation, the relationship will not produce the desired fruit – but not because God is somehow offended by our actions or because the relationship itself has been weakened; but rather because we do not partake of the benefits of the relationship.

I also want to note here that the converse to all of this is also true – when Christians are especially “good” (have avoided “sinning”, etc.) God is not able to work in (and through) their lives more or better. Again, that would imply that we can somehow add something to Jesus’ complete work on the cross. We can’t. My own observation is that often the opposite is true because when we are good is when we are most tempted by pride; and I personally believe that pride is the most problematical sin to God. Consider: the essence of pride is a belief in our own abilities – that we are able to do something in our own strength. Pride then is a form of idolatry – the worship of the false god of “self” (and I say this as someone who has had a live-long struggle with pride). Once we engage our pride, we cease to look for what God is doing because we are focused on what we ourselves can do. In pride, we implicitly refuse God’s work in our lives because we think we can do it without Him. When we are humble, we seek God because we know we need Him. In our humility, God has greater freedom to act in our lives because we are more open and accepting of His work. I’ll get into this more when I write on sanctification in a later post.

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May 21, 2008

Grace and Sanctification, Take 2

I’m going to try this again.

Humanity is flawed. We, by our natures, do things which are harmful to ourselves, to each other, and more critically, to our relationship with God. But the things we do are merely a result of our flawed natures – our nature is the real impediment to our relationships with God, and our actions are merely evidence of that nature.

This is the first place that many people (including many Christians) get it wrong – by focusing on what we do and not what we are. They think that by, on average, doing more good things than bad things they can be acceptable to God. But that’s like inviting someone to eat a piece of meat because only, on average, less than half of it is rotten. Few of us would find that prospect appetizing. In the Bible it says that to God, “all our righteousness is as filthy rags” (and the more literal translation of that passage is even stronger).

A key point here is that because it is our nature that is flawed there was nothing we could do from our side to establish a right relationship with God. Anything we did would be a product of our nature, and would as a result be flawed itself. A bridge built with rotten timbers could not support itself across the chasm that needs to be crossed.

So what’s God to do? He wants to have a close relationship with us; but our natures make us so corrupted that this is a problem. God has the ability to work with us to change our natures; but that requires having a relationship with us first. He needed some means to establish a relationship with us so that He could then establish a relationship with us. It seems like a “Catch-22”.

God’s answer was the cross.

There are a lot of different ways to explain the significance of what Jesus did on the cross – how exactly it provided a means to establish a relationship where none was possible. In my reading of the whole Bible I prefer to think in terms of the doctrine of “substitutionary atonement” – that Jesus took on himself all of the consequences of our flawed natures, like someone else going to jail in our place to pay for a crime we committed. I do however acknowledge that others who prefer to explain the cross in different terms. The bottom line however in all of the variations of doctrines is that when you get past the theological/legal details, what Jesus did on the cross was to open up a means by which God could establish a relationship with us; and by that relationship begin to help us work on our flawed natures.

So, there is now a means for God to establish a relationship with humanity – for those who are interesting in such a relationship. It is however the nature of the solution that it is optional on humanity’s part. A path to God exists; but people must travel it. We all have the right to continue our lives without a relationship with God and without His transforming power in our lives. We all have the right to stay just the way we are, flawed and broken, hurting ourselves and others as we live our lives.

Yet in this all, our contribution to establishing a relationship between us and God is at most our willingness to submit to such a relationship through the cross. All of the rest of the work is God’s. There is nothing we can do to earn such a relationship, it is something God did for us out of His love for us. It is a free gift, available for taking for those who are willing. It is grace.

Strict Calvinists would go so far as to say that even our decisions to submit to that relationship, to take the gift of grace, is God’s work; while Arminians would say that receiving a free gift is not work. Regardless, the key is that our relationship with God is not a result of “being good”. It is completely a result of God’s actions to clear the way for such a relationship despite our still “being bad”. As the Bible says in Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”

Yet all of that is not to say that what we do is irrelevant. Remember – the whole point of God wanting to establish a relationship was so that He would work in our lives to transform our natures. We do not become “good people” to get into a relationship with God – instead we get into a relationship with God so we could become “good people”. As the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works , which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We are not saved by good works; but we are saved to do good works.

God’s plan then is to use His relationship with those who desire such a relationship to change our natures into ones that are not flawed – to transform us into His image, and thereby change us into people who do not hurt each other and ourselves. This is not however and immediate transformation. It is a process that takes time, and all Christians are somewhere in the process. The speed of the process is in part influences by our willingness to be transformed, and God often has to work long and hard to get us to see ways in which we need to change; but once we are willing to change in some area, God is able to make the transformation; and as He does we all become better and better people.

The problem is that this is not what most Christian churches teach. Yes, they may quote the same scriptures and give lip service to these doctrines; but the real message they teach by their actions and attitudes that is you have to be good to have a relationship with God, or for that matter to have a relationship with the church. The idea that our relationship with God is based on what God did, not on what we do and the idea that our transformation into “good people” is a process which we are all in the middle of (and therefore we are all therefore at least partially un-transformed) – those ideas get lost in the spirit of self-righteousness that prevails.

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May 16, 2008

Grace and Sanctification

A child puts their hand on a hot stove and burns themselves. There are two problems to address – treating the direct consequences of the action (the burns) and teaching the child not to do that. It is hard to address the behavioral aspects without dealing with the direct consequences first.

A young boy breaks a shop window. There are two problems to address – the direct legal/financial consequences of the action (the angry show owner and the broken window) and finding out why the boy did it and changing the underlying causes of the behavior. Again, it may be necessary to address the direct consequences first and then the root causes over time. Perhaps the boy's father offers to pay to replace the windows if the shop owner doesn't go to the police and then takes the boy home for a very long talk.

People sin (we act selfishly, self-centeredly) – it is our nature. Because of that there are two problems to address - the direct consequences of our sin (estrangement from God, from others, from ourselves) and there is the root cause, our flawed nature. Since the direct consequence of our sin interferes with God's ability to interact with us, He needed to address that issue first before he can deal with the second. So, like the father of the boy, he paid the price for our misdeeds. Having dealt with that, God is now in a position to work on the root causes of our problems – our flawed nature which God wants to transform into His image.

The first of these acts by God is the foundation of the principle of "grace" – that God restored our perfect relationship with Him entirely by His doing. Christians can neither add nor detract from the quality of our relationship to God because the existence of that relationship is completely God's doing. The second is the process of "sanctification" – God transforming us into holy creatures. While grace has cleared the way for God to have a relationship with us, sin still very much matters to Him and God wants to set us free not just from the consequences of sin but from sin itself.

It is important that every presentation of the God's good news (the term "gospel" translates to "good news") talk about both problems and both solutions. Both sinning and sin nature. Both grace and sanctification.

Churches that talk mostly about grace tends to be like parents who bail their children out of every problem they get into without expecting them to change; and the result is much the same – spoiled children. Churches that talk mostly about sanctification are like parents who don't treat their child's burns and cuts to "teach them a lesson"; and the result is much the same – angry, fearful, and estranged children. Churches that teach both in a balanced way produce Christians who know they are loved by God but are at the same time striving to allow God to transform them into His image – abandoning their old sinful, selfish ways and adopting the new nature God offers to them.

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April 10, 2008

Christianity is rehab not parole

Phil was sentenced to prison. Bill was sentenced to 5 years on parole. George was given a suspended sentence pending his completing an approved treatment program. These are all fairly standard outcomes for criminals who have been caught, depending on the nature of their crimes and the individual's acknowledgement and regret for their actions.

The Bible says that we are all guilty of the crime of not being Holy "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". For that crime we disserve a life sentence "The wages of sin is death." However God is offering an alternative sentence "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ His son."

Most Christians seem to act as if Christianity is a form of parole. They need to meet weekly with their parole officer (they go to church every Sunday). They have a list of things they are not allowed to do while on parole (don't cuss, don't drink, don't, don't don't, don't …); and they have this fear that if they do too many of those don'ts that their parole will be revoked and God will send them to prison (Hell) anyway. However, other than meeting their weekly meeting and avoiding breaking their parole, they are free to do what they want with the rest of their time.

That's not Christianity as I have come to understand it.

The Christianity that I have come to experience is a more like going into court-ordered rehab in exchange for charges being dropped. In the same way that a human court might realize that someone committed a crime because of their addictions and that they are unable to get free of that addiction without help; God demands holiness of us, but he knows we are incapable of it on our own. So He wants us to join a program to help us become Holy – a program called Christianity.

In that program this issue is not whether we are going to Hell or not - Jesus took care of that question a couple millennia ago. The issue is will we allow God to help set us free from our addiction to selfishness and self-centeredness and self-dependency and begin to trust God instead. And in that process of letting go of self and trusting God, will we allow God to transform us into His image so that we become Holy in the same way that God is Holy.

Looking at Christianity in this way creates a new perspective. You realize that all of the other Christians are just as messed up as you are, and the ones that pretend they have it all together are the ones who are actually fighting God’s work in their lives by not admitting they need to change. Instead of “having to” attend church, you look for opportunities to get together with other Christians who will support you and help you understand what God is doing in your life (staying away from those who are stalled in their transformation – they will have nothing useful for you). The focus of your life is not “will I get to heaven?” but rather “am I more like Jesus today than I was a year ago?”

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April 09, 2008

The Fellowship of Transformation

I talked yesterday about how I have come to realize that the Christian Life is a process of submitting to God to allow Him to transform us into His image. God puts us into circumstances and asks us to do things in those circumstances that He knows will have the side effect of making us more like Him. As long as we are obedient in the things He asks us to do, God will work continuously to transform us into His image. The only times this stops are when we are in rebellion, refusing to allow Him to work on us.

Now in my many years as Christian, I have been a part of many churches. Most of those churches had small home groups (like the Tuesday Bible Study I am leading these days), and many have had “Men’s Ministries” – meetings for the men of the church to get together. I am however sorry to report that most of these home groups and men’s meetings were fairly useless, and I tended to drop out of them fairly quickly. It was not however until a few years ago that I came to understand why I found so many of these gatherings a waste of time while I found a few to be so valuable.

In most of these groups, before the meeting would start the men would gather in one corner and talk about sports and the women would gather in another corner and talk about families or shopping. Then the leader would call the meeting to order and everyone would open their Bibles and do what the leader told them to do. When the meeting broke, everyone would go back to talking about sports, families, shopping, etc. In other word – no one talked any more about God than they had to at the meeting, usually when they were prompted by the leader.

I realized at the meetings I enjoyed, people wanted to talk about God so much that they did it at every opportunity – before the meeting, during the meeting, after the meeting. Now the conversations were never exclusively about God – there was still a lot of talk about sports, families, shopping, whatever; but in any given meeting there was always someone who had something to say about what God was doing in their life; and when I had something to say, there was always someone interesting in listening.

Then I came to realize – the real difference was not the conversation itself; but that the people in the meeting actually HAD things to say about what God was doing in their life. The meetings I enjoyed were those where people were in fact in the process of being transformed. I could look back when I had been a part of one of those meetings for a while and see changes in people’s lives. They were not the same as they had been when I first met them – they were more like God in at least some small way.

I believe then that the converse also tended to be true. When I looked back at the people at the meetings I got nothing out of, I could rarely see any change in the people from year to year. They seemed to be stalled in their transformation. No wonder they never talked about God – they had nothing to say! Theirs was a Christianity of “going through the motions” without being moved.

Oh what a difference to fellowship with Christians who are in the process of being transformed. To hear their stories about what God is doing in their lives. To see how God is transforming them week by week. Even hearing of their failures is encouraging because I know there are times I have pulled back and interfered with what God was trying to do in me. To know that you are not alone in the process is a wonderful gift – one that I pray for all Christians.

And for those Christians who are stalled in their transformation I pray they would find their way back into submission to God’s plan for them. I would caution any person who believes themselves to be a Christian – if you cannot point to ways that God has worked to change you into His image over the last year, seek God and figure out what is going on. I do not believe it is God’s nature or plan to stop His work in our lives unless we have stopped Him.

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April 08, 2008

The Christian Life as Transformation

When I came to know The Lord long ago, my first understanding of the Christian Life was that you “got saved” and sometime later you died and went to heaven. In between the two you tried to “be good”. The problem was (initially at least) that I was no more successful at “being good” after I was saved than before (not that I was ever that bad; but those things I struggle with before I “got saved” were just as much of a problem afterwards). Yet it was also pretty clear to me from reading the Bible that more was expected of me now that I was a Christian.

Eventually I came to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian, and by allowing God's Spirit to work in my life I started to see changes and improvements. Thirty years on, I have come to understand that the Christian Life is all about a process of transformation into God’s image. As Paul wrote to the Corinthian church: “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness”; or as Paul wrote to the Romans: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

This transformation is not something I do under my own strength of will. I fixed those things I was strong enough to fix on my own long ago, and eventually reached the point that every time I worked to improve myself in one way I started to fail in some other way in the process. When everything else seemed to go well, I realized that I succumb to pride.

No, the real transformation came about when I submitted myself to God’s hand and allowed Him to work in my life. I became a trainee and God was my master, teaching me to become like Him. These lessons came in the form of instruction, life circumstances, and examples in other people’s lives.

Michelangelo is quoted as saying that he created his sculptures by taking a block of stone and chipping away everything that was not the statue. As a Christian I feel like that bock of stone sometime, with God slowly chipping away all parts of me that are not Like Him. One day He might be working on my eyes, another day on my hands; but God always seems to be working on something.

This is important – in hindsight I realize the only times God was not working to transform me into His image was when I was in rebellion, refusing to allow him to work on me. Sometimes God’s work is evident in the moment, while other times it isn’t obvious until later; but while I am submitted, God always seems to be working on some part of me.

My role then is just to submit to the process and obey when he tells me what to do. Obedience here is not in the form of “stop doing that” – God knows I can’t transform myself on my own. No, what God asks me to do are things like “go help that person”, knowing that in the process of helping them some attitude in my heart will change. So God keeps putting me in circumstances and asking me to do things that have the side effect of making me more like Him. That’s what it means to live a Christian Life.

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April 02, 2008

Thoughts on John

We are very near the end of our Tuesday study on the Gospel of John (and I have finished my own preparation through the ned of teh book). Given that, I thought I’d write up some of my thoughts on what I have learned.

Classically, people usually talk about how each of the Gospels presents a different facet of Jesus – each contains the whole picture but each tends to focus on one aspect of Jesus’ nature. Matthew presents Jesus as King, Luke as Man, Mark as Servant, and John (any first year seminary student will tell you) presents Jesus as God. Each of the Gospels includes indications of Jesus’ divinity; but John has the clearest and most unambiguous presentation of that fact (just read the first chapter if you have any doubt).

What I found interesting in preparing for this study was that while it is true that John makes it quite clear that Jesus was God, that was not the primary message I got out of the book. If you look at what Jesus actually says most often in the book, you get a very different picture.

John 5:19: I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

John 5:30 By myself I can do nothing

John 8:26 I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.

John 8:28 I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.

These are just a few of the places where Jesus makes clear that while He was in fact God (established in Chapter 1, and confirmed many times thereafter by Jesus own words), during the time He was working on earth as man he was completely dependent on and submitted to The Father. He did nothing on his own – only what The Father told Him to do. He said nothing on His own (although as 8:26 indicates there is much he could have said) – only what The Father told Him to say. What’s more, he couldn’t do anything without The Father if He had tried.

So in many respects, John presents Jesus as a servant even more clearly than Mark does.

Where this takes an interesting turn is when we get to Jesus final teaching (what he said on the last day before being arrested) as recorded in John 13-17. There Jesus turns the table and says quite literally – the relationship you have seen between me and The Father, you will now all have with me. The same way you have seen me be dependent on and submit to The Father, you are be dependent on and submit to me. As Jesus says “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5); but “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these” (John 14:12)

The point is that Jesus life on earth was meant to be an example to us. As Paul writes in Philipians 2:6-7 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Jesus lived for 30+ years as a human being without all of the advantages of His divinity so as to show us how we are supposed to live as normal human beings – be being completely dependent on and submitted to God. Then He provided us with His Spirit (another key piece of the final teaching in chapters 13-17), so we could have access to Him in the same way He had access to The Father when He was living as a human.

While there were certainly other things I learned while doing this study, that was the main theme I understood from the book as a whole.

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March 27, 2008

An Interactive Bible Study Blog

I had an idea the other day which I was sure someone must have already done by now; but after some time looking with Google, I sure couldn’t find it.

The idea is to essentially duplicate on the web the experience of the Bible Study I have been moderating on Tuesday nights. My thought is – each day post a short passage of the Bible (2-3 verses), and then allow people to comment on what they think it means and how they think it can and should be applied to everyday life. The post itself would only be the verses (perhaps reproduced from several translations), and all commentary (including the author’s) would be in the comments.

I was able to find several blogs where people posted their own studies of the Bible – essentially composing their own online commentary; but none of them seems to be built around comments by the community (and in fact many allowed no comments at all).

Now having seen how poorly some “Christians” have behaved posting comments to other Christian blogs (there are times I am grateful that my site is not more popular), I can understand why this may not have been done. Moderating such a group to allow for alternative views while not getting into flame wars would be very tricky and it would be impossible to please everyone; but it seems that there would be value in doing this.

I’m even thinking of taking the plunge myself, although not in the near future.

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March 26, 2008

Reasons to Believe

A couple weeks ago someone refered me to an interesting site "Reasons to Believe", which describes itself as an "International and Interdenominational Science-Faith Think Tank" dedicated to providing reasons from science to believe in Jesus.

Now there are a lot of these sites, and frankly most of them engage in fairly shoddy science. They tend to be too blinded by their own faith that they accept almost anything as "proof" without much in the way of skepticism. This happens often enough that I have a short list of things I look for whenever I and directed to one of these sites. If they do things like use the laws of thermodynamics to disprove evolution or if they quote the urban legend about NASA "discovering" Joshua's missing day, I don't waste my time with anything else they talk about as their methodology is immediately suspect.

So far "Reasons to Believe" has passed my tests. I haven't looked at all of the articles (there is a lot of content on the site); but at least they don't trip over any of the obvious claims that so many other sites seems to swollow. They even have an article amount the "missing day" which explains how it is an urban legend - bonus points in my book.

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March 25, 2008

Predestined for Free Will

A few years back I taught a 90 minute class for church on predestination (Calvinist theology) vs. Free Will (Arminian theology). At the end, I asked the class which view they all thought I held, and I was pleased that the class was divided 50-50 between those who thought I was a Calvinist vs. those who thought I was an Arminian (it means I gave a fair presentation).

It wasn’t however very hard to do.

There are numerous scriptures in the Bible which if taken individually or as a group seem to indicate that God has chosen in advance who will become His followers and who will not. Likewise there are numerous scriptures in the Bible which if taken individually or as a group seem to indicate that each of us is free to choose on our own if we will follow God or not. Any Christian who gives a fair hearing to both sides has to acknowledge that each side of this debate can make a fairly good case and that each side also has certain verses that they have trouble explaining (although those indoctrinated on either side see the explanations of those verses as “obvious”).

All of which is why I began to wonder – does it matter? If God left the question so unclear, do we really need to understand it?

If we accept that salvation comes from by God’s generous favor as we trust Him and Him alone (forsaking trust in any other form of salvation, particularly our own works). If we accept that all who truly trust God will do what He says (since any other behavior would imply that God’s wisdom is not trustworthy). If we accept that at the end of the day, some people will have followed Jesus and some will not. If we accept these things, then what difference does it make if those who trusted, obeyed and followed did so because they were pre-selected by God or because they chose to do so? As individuals, should we all not strive to trust, strive to obey, strive to follow? If some of us fail, does it matter if we failed because God designed us to do so or because we chose to put our trust elsewhere?

Arminians who I have talked to have generally accepted this proposition, although Calvinists often object on one basis: the sovereignty of God. This is in fact the central tenant of Calvinism – the point on which all of the rest of the theology rests – that God’s Sovereignty is absolute and therefore any theology is heretical that says that there is some decision in the universe that God does not make (such the Arminian idea that a believer chooses to follow God).

While I appreciate (and am persuaded by) many of the scriptural arguments made by Calvinists for election (God’s pre-selection of those who will believe), this one (which is so cherished by them) does nothing for me. I accept that God is absolutely sovereign – that he could choose to see the universe play out in any way He desires; but all I see the Arminians saying is that God has chosen to not use his sovereign authority in some cases. The ability, right, and authority to do something do not imply that one has to use that ability, right, or authority.

A king might be an absolute monarch, but still might ask the queen what music she would like played at a banquet. That the king asked this does not diminish his own authority by the question – he could in theory still ignore the queen’s suggestion – but even if he supports the queen’s choice it does not change the fact that it was the kings choice to ask the queen, so all authority continues to originate with the king.

My understanding of the Arminian position is that they believe that God has stepped back and allowed mankind to make certain decisions for themselves. These are decisions that God certainly had the sovereign authority have made for us; but it was his sovereign choice to not use that authority and allow us to choose. I do not see this as diminishing God’s authority in any way since we are only free to make those decisions that God has granted us the freedom to make by His authority. So for me, neither Calvinism nor Arminianism violate the sovereignty of God.

Now there are those who play games with these ideas – suggesting that they do not believe because God has predestined them to not believe. This is a disingenuous position since one must in fact believe in the sovereign authority of God to actually believe that He has selected you for disbelief. Or there are those who do not share their faith with others because those who God has elected for salvation will find their way to Him regardless. To me, these are both excuses people use to cover up some deeper issue between them and God.

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March 20, 2008

It’s all about trust

We have a problem today when talking about faith – the word has lost almost all of its original meaning. It has become a “religious” word, and has therefore become colored by centuries of tradition as various groups have pushed and pulled to define the word to confirm to their doctrines. In the modern world, it has become almost synonymous with “belief” – a mental acknowledgement of the truth of something.

The word faith however used to mean something closer to “entrust”. In Hebrew, the word is closely related to how a parent gives their child into the care of a nurse, or how builders rely on pillars to support a ceiling. The bottom line is that mere belief does not rise to the level of “faith” unless you start to take actions that depend on the thing you believe in being true. Because of this I have started to just read all of the instances of the word “faith” in the Bible as trust/entrust.

Hebrews 1:1 Now trusting God means we can be sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 1:6 Without trusting God it is impossible to please Him, because anyone who comes to Him must act out of a trust that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Gal 2:16 Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by trust in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our trust in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by our trust and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified

Rom 14:22-23 But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from a position of trusting God; and everything that does not come from a trust in God is sin.

I’ve written about the last passage before – that the essence of sin is not about do’s and don’ts (the Bible has another terms for lists of do’s and don’ts – The Law – and Paul has much to say in Romans about how ineffective The Law is). The essence of sin is not trusting God. We can “do good”; but if that good comes from a place of not trusting God, it is sin. But if we really trusted God, why would we not do what He tells us to do?

The central truth of being a Christian must be our trust in God – not mere belief; but trust that risks nothing isn’t really trust. Entrusting ourselves to God will compel action. That’s what James is getting at when he says “Belief without works is dead”. The problem for James is that there is only one word in Greek for both “belief” and “faith”, so he has to spend a whole letter explaining the difference between having faith and merely believing.

Note also in Hebrews 11 (the “Faith Hall of Fame” chapter) how often faith/trust is linked to action:

- By his trust in God Abel . . . offered . . .
- By his trust in God Enoch . . . pleased . . .
- By his trust in God Noah . . . built . . .
- By his trust in God Abraham . . . obeyed and went . . .
- By his trust in God he . . . made his home . . .
- By his trust in God Abraham . . . offered Isaac . . .
- By his trust in God Isaac . . . blessed . . .
- By his trust in God Jacob . . . blessed . . .
- By his trust in God Joseph . . . spoke . . .
- By his trust in God Moses' parents . . . hid . . .
- By his trust in God Moses . . . refused
- By his trust in God he . . . left . . .
- By his trust in God he . . . kept the Passover . . .
- By their trust in God the people . . . passed through the Red Sea . . .
- By her trust in God the prostitute Rahab . . . welcomed . . .
And so on.

Unfortunately, too much of what passes for Christianity these days is too safe – nothing is risked. People believe in Jesus; but they do not really trust Him. Remember what James says in James 2:19: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.” We need more Christians who don’t just believe in God; but actually trusting him enough to act on their faith.

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March 18, 2008

Who is Lonnie Frisbee?

Lonnie was the archetypical “Hippie Preacher” back in the 60’s and was a man anointed by God in a powerful way. I never met him or was present when he ministered (just slightly before my time); but I have several close friends who did know Lonnie personally and who have talked to me about their experiences when he preached. Amazing stuff.

What’s more, Lonnie was a key player in the formation of two successful movements within Christianity. First, his connections with the counter-culture helped Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa grow from 30 members to over 5000 in the early 70’s. That growth then provided the springboard from which the Calvary Chapel movement has now grown to over a thousand churches with more than 25 million members. Lonnie then went to work with John Wimber and the demonstrations of God’s power as Lonnie ministered was a key factor in the birth of the Vineyard Movement that now has more than 1500 churches and 15 million members.

Yet if you ask most Christians, even ones who are part of Calvary Chapel or Vineyard, “Who is Lonnie Frisbee?” they would be unable to answer.

Why? Because of one rather inconvenient truth – Lonnie was a sinner.

He freely admitted that there was an issue in his life that he struggled with; and it was known within the leadership of the churches that this was a struggle that he often lost. There were times he would be out Saturday night engaged in behavior that “good Christians” just didn’t do; but he would show up on Sunday morning and minister in great power and people’s lives would be changed. This was a paradox that the church leadership didn’t know how to deal with, so he was ostracized and practically written out of history.

Now I’m not sure what the right way to deal with someone like Lonnie is. It was clear by all accounts that God didn’t have any problem using Lonnie, despite what he did the night before. On the other hand, would he have been able to deal with his issues better if he wasn’t so busy with ministry? Was there a way to give him time and support to work though things without driving him away? I don’t know; but from what others have told me, it seems like the church failed Lonnie.

What really bothers me in all this is how selective the church tends to be in how it deals with people’s sins. Too often we tolerate people who are guilty of the sin of pride, the sin of greed - in many cases we even promote them as great leaders. Yet there are other sins which simply aren’t tolerated. If we are all sinners, does it really matter what sins we are struggling with? If we take someone like Lonnie out of ministry because of his issues, shouldn’t we do likewise with those whose sins are more “acceptable”? Either that or we need to find a way to use people regardless of what issues they are dealing with in their lives, as long as their heart is towards God.

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March 10, 2008

Dan on Church and Clergy

As is often the case, Dan of Cerulean Sanctum says things far better than I do (follow the link).

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February 28, 2008

Games, God, and I

Playing games has always been an important part of my life. At one point I had a collection of over 350 board games and I have no idea how many computer games. For a while it even became a source of stress in my marriage – I was spending too much time playing computer games and not enough with my wife, but that was addressed a while back. Anne also doesn’t approve of some of the game I play; but that’s a different matter.

This past fall, The Lord started to deal with me on my choice of games to play (although, not exactly in ways that Anne would have wanted). I sensed that He was asking me questions as I played various games. What do I like about that game? How do I feel after having played it? Why did I pick that game to play tonight and not another? What did I get out of playing that game? God was working to help me be more conscious of my relationship to the games I played. A similar thing happened a couple years ago when God led me to re-think my TV watching.

The bottom line is that God helped me become aware of what games were beneficial for me to play and which were not. What’s interesting is that despite the amount of hot air generated by pundits on the subject, the issue was rarely a moral one. It was far more about how the games made me feel as I played them. Did they make me think? Did they allow me to be creative? Did they get me interacting with people (board game obviously have a big advantage here)? Or did I tend to get frustrated and stressed as I played them? Did they lead me to isolate myself?

Now a lot of these ideas are obvious; but the fact is I had rarely used principles like this to guide my game purchase decisions. I was more interested in what was “hot” and what had cool new technology than what benefit I derived from the experience (other than a few hours of distraction from life). Which leads me to the other thing I realized – how much I used computer games as a means of escape when I got stressed at work. Now there is value in that to a point; but only to a point; and there are dangers if I use games to avoid dealing with things that need to be dealt with.

So I am in the process of formulating some rules for myself for how I will decide what games to buy and play in the future. I don’t have a sense that I will necessarily be spending less time playing games; but the kinds of games and the venue in which I play them may change significantly.

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February 26, 2008

An Apprenticeship in Holiness

In the old days, if a young boy (or sometimes girl) wanted to learn a trade, they would find a master at that trade who was willing to train them as an apprentice. The apprenticeship agreement had two sides. On the one hand, the master would commit to train the apprentice to be as good as they could become in the trade. On the other hand, the apprentice would promise to be the master's servant until their training was done – not just to obey their master in their training; but also to obey them in other menial tasks as well. (The famous "wax-on, wax-off" sequence in the movie "The Karate Kid" is a perfect picture of apprenticeship). The Master would also take the apprentice into his household, proving food, clothing a shelter to the student as the trained. In extreme cases, where the master had no children of his own available to take over his shop, he would often adopt a promising apprentice with the intent that they would assume the family business.

I find this all a useful metaphor for the Christian life. We all start out acknowledging that we are sinners – that we lack the skills of the trade of "holiness"; and we discover that we need those skills to come into the presence of God. So as Christians, we have sought out a Master in Holiness (God's son, Jesus) and have arranged to become His apprentices in the skills of holiness. As part of that apprenticeship, Jesus has committed to us to train us in how to be holy – to transform us into His (the master's) image. He has also taken us not only into His house (providing all of our needs); but has arranged for us to be adopted into His family as we are trained. In exchange, we must commit to be His servants as he works with us to teach us what it means to be Holy. We serve him not just in matters of holiness (guarding ourselves from sin); but in all things He commands us to do.

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February 21, 2008

Old Earth, New Earth

I wrote yesterday regarding Bishop Ussher's chronology for when Adam was created; but I intentionally skipped the first five days of creation described in Genesis 1 and therefore did not speak to the broader question of the age of the earth. There are three answers supported by different groups of Christians on that.

First, there are Christians who believe that Genesis 1 must be taken absolutely literally – that creation was accomplished in 144 hours and therefore that the whole of the earth is around 6000 years old. I believe this position is very difficult to reconcile with scientific evidence unless you assume God is malicious and created misleading evidence for us to find. I know the Young Earth advocates have some science to support their view, and there are certainly questions that remain unanswered by both sides; but the last time I looked at this closely, the list of things the Young Earth advocates had to find explanations for is larger and appeared to me to be more difficult to resolve. Note I do not say that these people are wrong, only that I see no way to reconcile this position with collected evidence. Such a methodology may in fact exist; I just have never seen it. I certainly believe God is well able to create the entire world in 144 hours if He wanted to, so I don't need an alternative solution. What I need is an understanding of why God would have left behind the evidence that He did if this was the case.

Second, there are Christians who view Genesis 1 as a poem that provides a metaphorical account of the sequence of creation. It describes what order God did things and His pleasure with the original form; but not the exact timeline. Each of the six steps in the sequence could in fact be a description of million or billion years of time. This approach is trivially reconciled with science.

Third, there are Christians who view Genesis 1:3 and onward as a description of the re-creation of the world after some great cataclysm. They point to the ambiguity in the verb used in 1:2. While normally translated "and the earth WAS without form and void", it could also be translated "and the earth BECAME without form and void". The idea is that God took billions or millions of years to create the world and then something happened to make a mess of it, so God spent 144 hours putting things back in order. While this does allow for an arbitrarily old earth, it also implies some great cataclysm 6000 years ago which (evidently) God cleaned up without leaving a sign. While there are some cataclysms in the geological record, it is difficult to line them up with the timeline required for this. As with the first group, new evidence and new scholarship may eventually clear up the issues; but today this is un-reconciled with the data.

So, what do I believe? I have actually been in all three camps at various points in my life, so I am sympathetic to them all. Currently I view Genesis 1 as metaphorical; but do not rule out coming to a different conclusion in the future. I haven't spent more time on this recently because I believe I have been called to focus on other aspects of the faith.

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February 20, 2008

Bishop Ussher and Adam's Birthday

There was a comment thread a while back (starting with another post suggestion from Melissa) on Bishop Ussher's estimate that creation began at nightfall October 23, 4004 B.C. It was evident from the comments that Melissa's real curiosity was on my thoughts on the age of the earth. Since these are actually separable issues, I will take them in turn.

But first, I want to state that this is not one of those issues that is critical to my faith. To me, the critical fact is that the earth and the diversity of life in it exist according to God's plan and design. The means and timetable by which this was accomplished is completely secondary. Should incontrovertible proof exist that the world is only 6000 years old, it would not affect me. Should incontrovertible proof exist that the world is billions of years old, it would also not affect me or my faith.

With that as a starting point, I'll begin with Bishop Ussher. There is a great deal of excellent scholarship in his chronology. There are also a number of assumptions – the largest is that Genesis 1 is to be taken literally. Genesis 1 is written in a very different style than the rest of Genesis, and is clearly structured as a poem. A key question is – should it be taken as a literal description of creation taking 144 hours or as a poetic metaphor for the process of creation. I am aware of no other scriptures that provide guidance on that decision, and so each Christian must decide for themselves where they stand.

I do not however think (as some argue) that assuming Genesis 1 is poetry and not narrative leads inevitably to taking the rest of the Bible as metaphorical. The vast majority of the Bible is clearly written as descriptive narrative and therefore to be taken at face value. Only those portions which are written as poetry or similar metaphorical styles (Revelations for instance) allow for less literal interpretation.

So, let's strip away the first six days of Ussher's chronology. What are we left with? Ussher says that Adam's came into being October 29, 4004. The date (and time of creation as "nightfall") are based purely on the Semitic calendar and the assumption that the Jewish traditional start of the day (nightfall) and start of the year (the autumnal equinox) were aligned with God's own creation. This is another assumption for which I can see no clear Biblical evidence. That leaves us with just the year – Adam, the male progenitor of all humans, came into being in the year 4004 B.C. Here, finally, Ussher's scholarship shines through. While there are questions on some minor points of his calculations, they result in differences of only a few years. It should be noted that many other scholars have taken upon themselves to create a chronology based on the Bible and the have all come to the conclusion that the Bible says that Adam showed up around 4000 B.C. (Isaac Newton calculated it as 4000B.C. exactly).

So how does the idea that the human race descends from one man who lived 6000 years ago match up with science? The answer to that has changed a great deal over the years. Science generally agrees that there were hominids indistinguishable from humans around for much longer than 6000 years; but DNA variation evidence indicates that we shared a common ancestor much more recently. The "Recent Africa Origin" theory (which is one of two options being considered by science today) says that a small group of hominids (perhaps as few as 150) in Africa in the Late Pleistocene era spread out around the world and replaced all other strains of hominids. The idea that this small tribe might have has a single common patriarch is not unreasonable. The only problem is that the Late Pleistocene era ends 10,000 years ago and supporters of Recent Africa Origin generally believes this migration started in the middle of the Late Pleistocene – around 60,000 B.C.

So where does that leave Christians? Well if you are willing to accept the idea that God might have used evolution as a means to create humanity (and therefore that Adam was merely the first hominid that met God's specifications for "mankind"); and if you are willing to accept that Science may be a bit off on the dates for the migration out of Africa (or that there was a later migration/replacement wave that science has not yet discovered), then the Biblical chronology can in fact be reconciled with current science. Otherwise one must wait for either future scientific discoveries or new Biblical scholarship for some other form or reconciliation. I personally am in the latter category – I am unwilling to either compromise my faith or my science to make them fit together. Instead, I assume that there is some fact that remains missing (in either science or faith) that will allow these two sets of data to fit together seamlessly.

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February 13, 2008

In the Cubicle Next Door

Here’s a great post by Brant Hansen on his “Letters from Kamp Krusty” blog. A true story that is a mix of wonder and tragedy. It says more about the differences between the institutional church and people simply being The Church than I could say in a week of posts.

I strongly encourage everyone to read the whole post. I cried the first time I read it. But here’s an excerpt to give you the flavor:

Each Sunday morning, Kumar sits in a folding chair, waiting for the rock band to start up, and the preacher to give a seeker-sensitve sermon. The chairs are partly filled, in a school gymnasium, just outside Washington, D.C.

He's a small man, from Chennai, India, and here, in the rows for the audience, he's part of someone's Big Vision. Like many others, the church start-up has a visionary, who hopes it becomes the next Willow Creek, even hoping to buy 40 acres in suburban D.C. (Anyone got a half-bil for that?)

And Kumar, who's 36, drives each day to his office job at Sun Microsystems, where he spends a lot of time checking urgent email from very far away.

…

A few years later, he went back to India. Kumar took his vacation from Sun, and headed over with no plan. He just went door-to-door, and told people about Jesus.

The first day, 45 people decided to become Jesus-followers. How'd THAT happen?

"I don't know. I just went door to door, and neighbors would introduce me to others, and I was amazed."

…

Kumar still takes his vacations, two weeks a year, and heads to India. But things have grown. From those first 45, and from his trips over the past seven years...

More than 100,000 conversions. 139 communities. More than 100 pastors. Model orphanages for children suffering from AIDS, Schools for Dalit children, the lowest-of-the-low in India. Shelters for little girls, now rescued from prostitution. Food. Medicine. Jesus.

…

If you're reading this on a weekday, Kumar is sitting in a little room at Sun and doing his job, and answering far-flung emails while he prays. And on Sundays, he sits on a folding chair in a high school gym, and hears about the church's big plans. It will be costly, but just think what could happen, with a new building! He admits he wonders sometimes...

"They have now added us to their missions’ budget. They give $1,000 per year. I guess I am happy for that, but..." and his voice trails.

But... the church has other priorities, and a Big Vision for another affluent suburb that, need we remind, needs Jesus, too.

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February 12, 2008

Unchallenged Thought

Liam Kinnon had a wonderful post on his blog. I love the first paragraph:

Thinking is only thinking if it’s challenged, only then is it a verb. Unchallenged thinking is only a thought and that, left unchallenged, is prejudice. If you enter a conversation and there is no chance of anyone changing their perspectives it is a pointless exercise.

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post:

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February 07, 2008

How I Study the Bible, Part 2 - Customs

In part 1 of this series I talked about language issues in studying the Bible. So, let’s say you take my advice and are reading multiple translations of the Bible (that employed different translation philosophies) and also follow along in an interlinear Bible and use Greek/Hebrew lexicons to better understand key words. Can you then say you understand what the text would have meant to the original audience? Well, not quite.

The problem is that even though you may understand the words, without understanding the culture in which they were spoken you may still not grasp the original meaning. There are many passages that are open to misinterpretation (or at least not full understanding) without having some appreciation of Roman adoption law, Hebrew wedding customs, Greek educational system, ancient forms of slavery, Roman colonization policies, and the like.

As an example, today we tend to think of the heart as the seat of emotions (at least metaphorically) – we “feel” with our heart and we “think” with our brains. This is however a relatively recent invention. In fact many ancient cultures attributed decision making with the heart (not quite “thought”; but certainly not “feeling”) and associated emotions with the “gut” (bowels, kidneys, etc.). This puts a very different spin on a number of verses in the Bible (although some translations confuse things even more – translating “kidneys” as “heart” for modern audiences, so the careful reader needs to be sure what word was used in the original text).

Another example of the value of cultural understanding in Bible study can be seen in the Gospel of John. More so than the other gospel authors, John tends to record the time and place Jesus said things. I used to think that this was random details with no significance; but as I have studied John in detail over this past year I have come to understand that in many cases Jesus carefully chose when and where he said things to maximize impact. His “I am the light of the world” speech was given in a room that in that particular week was filled with candles. His “come to me all who are thirsty speech” was given on an occasion when the Jews memorialized when God provided springs of water for the Israelites as the wandered in the desert. Essentially Jesus was doing what we would call today “street theatre” – leveraging time and place to enhance the power of His words.

So what’s the solution to knowing the cultural context of the Bible? Good reference books (preferably more than one by different authors). I try to use books that are actually organized to follow book, chapter and verse in Bible so it is easy to find the information that is relevant to a passage. For New Testament, I tend to use “Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary” and the “IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament”. For Old Testament, I use “IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament” and am still looking for a second source that I like.

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January 30, 2008

A Pragmatic Orthodoxy

I wrote a couple essays on the need for balanced view of orthodoxy (getting all your doctrines right) within Christianity; but never felt that I got across the point I wanted to make. So here I am trying again.

While I think it is important to have a correct understanding of Christianity, I am skeptical of the need to understand it beyond what is needed to succeed at the practical aspects of living as a Jesus follower. My belief if that if we limit ourselves to talking about those aspects of Christianity that have immediate practical applications, that many (but by no means all) of the issues that have divided Christians become moot. By focusing on what we actually can apply, we develop a pragmatic form of orthodoxy that is useful without being divisive.

I think this is a fruitful direction to pursue for two reasons. First, Christianity must be a faith that can be followed by all people, even those with limited intellect or education, so complex, abstract, esoteric or theoretical concerns cannot be necessary to the faith. Second, while I trust that God will have made clear those issues that we need to understand for our everyday lives, there is no reason to believe He would have made clear things we would have no use for. So there is no basis to assume that the answers for some of these less practical concerns can in fact be discerned correctly from scripture.

As examples: The “last straw” that led to the split between the Eastern/Orthodox and Roman/Catholic churches was whether the Spirit “proceeds from The Father” or “proceeds from The Father and The Son”. Yet I have never found a case in my whole life where how I have acted as a Christian would have changed based on which is correct. Again, if you assume that as Christians we are commanded to obey God, then whether we as individuals obey because we choose to or we obey because we were predestined to is moot – we should all still try to obey. Or to even move into the realm of heresy: I have never had a situation in my life where I would have acted differently depending on whether The Son was co-eternal with The Father or not.

Now this still leaves legitimate doctrinal issues that need to be agreed upon. Cessationist vs. Charismatic still maters because it affects what you pray for and what you expect from God on a day to day basis. Infant or “believers” baptism matters. Questions of obedience and holiness are frequently practical. There are doctrinal issues that must be settled. My desire is that we focus only on those issues that we can use in our lives and ignore those that are more abstract.

That’s not to say we should completely ignore these other points. There is value in understanding what different people believe and why. In the Bible study I lead I often talk about how different groups use certain verse to justify their position. What I don’t do is focus on making sure everyone agrees with a particular position. I think if we keep our focus on practical doctrines and keep theoretical issues as a matter of intellectual curiosity, then we would find ourselves in a friendlier and more productive Christianity.

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January 24, 2008

How I Study the Bible, Part 1 - translation

This is the first in what I hope is a series of essays on what I have learned about how to study the Bible. While I plan to hit the high points in this series, I very strongly recommend that people read “How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth” by Fee and Stuart, which contains pretty much everything I learned the hard way over the last 35 years.

The first issue you have to face when reading the Bible is that it wasn’t written in English. So unless you are a biblical Greek and Hebrew scholar (I’m not), you are going to end up reading a translation. The problem is that translation is never a perfect process and is subject to the translators’ biases. What’s more, there is a spectrum of approaches to doing a translation (some day I need to post on Hofstadter’s “Le Ton Beau De Marot” which is a great book on the process of translating anything). On one end of the spectrum you have word-for-word translation, and on the other you have thought-for-thought or phrase-for-phrase translation. The latter approaches are more susceptible to the translator’s bias (they end up translating what they think the passage means and not what it literally says); but word-for-word translation often misses idiom and structural factors that contribute to the meaning. Neither approach works.

So what’s the solution? Read more than one translation - and pick translations that use different methodologies. When I study the Bible, I use 2-4 different translation (actually 2-5 but I’ll get to the fifth in a moment). I read every passage in both the NIV (thought-for-thought) and NASB (fairly word-for-word) translations. Other folks suggest the combination of the NIV and NRSV is better. Then for key verses (those that I am depending on the meaning of) I also read them in Young’s Literal Translation (the ultimate in word-for-word) and The Message (an extreme thought-for-thought translation). Comparing those, I at least have a clear sense of what verses have translation issues. If they all read pretty much the same, I don’t worry; but if they are different (particularly between the NIV and NASB), then I know that the passage might be difficult to express in English. That’s the minimum effort I would recommend to any Christian with respect to translation.

I personally go farther. Twenty years ago I picked up my first Interlinear Bible and Greek/Hebrew Lexicon. An Interlinear Bible prints the English translation, and then right below each line it prints the original Greek/Hebrew text. While I have not (yet?) studied Greek, simply reading an Interlinear Bible for 20 years has helped me to recognize a lot of Greek words as I read (less so with Hebrew since I read the Old Testament less and have a harder time recognizing Hebrew characters on sight). When the meaning of a specific word is important (or where the comparison of the NIV/NASB text implies that there is a translation challenge), I look the word up in a Greek/Hebrew Lexicon (or two – multiple sources is important in every aspect of Bible study).

Now all of this sounds like a lot of work, and 20 years ago it was. Today however there exists software like BibleSoft’s “PC Study Bible” that has all of that information available at a mouse click. These days when I study the Bible (as opposed to just reading it), I use PC Study Bible (buggy though it may be); and I have 15 translations and 8 different lexicons available to me with a click of the mouse. BTW - I particular like “Thayer’s Complete Greek Lexicon” as it includes references to how the word is used in Greek literature outside of the Bible.

That’s all I have to say on the translation issues – I’ll address other aspects in later posts.

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January 17, 2008

Blogging as a spiritual discipline

Last week my friend Barry who writes Honest Faith tagged me to contribute to a meme started by Rob at The Spyglass.

The subject under consideration is this:

In what ways can you use blogging as a spiritual discipline?

where a spiritual discipline is defined (by Rob) as:

We could also say that spiritual disciplines are practices in which we engage in order "to cultivate our daily lives into fertile ground in which God can bring growth and change"; practicing the disciplines forms and shapes our lives much as the farmer forms and shapes the soil, clearing away unhelpful growth and carving the ground into furrows that will receive the seed and the rain, so that the crop will grow.

I’ve employed most of the classic spiritual disciplines (prayer, meditation, fasting, study, solitude, service, confession, worship, etc.), and I have a hard time thinking of blogging in that company. That is not to say that blogging cannot have spiritual benefits; but I believe that is true only in the sense that any activity dedicated to God can open us to His presence and work. As an example, when I was a pre-teen and both of my parents worked evenings I used to do most of the housework for the family and often met God while doing common chores (although, perhaps I was merely practicing the discipline of service).

For myself, one of the ways God has gifted me is as a writer – the times I most strongly sense the presence and power of God is when I am writing something I feel I have been lead to write. Now most of the posts on this blog do not fall into that category; but it remains the case that I always find myself opening up to God as I write anything. So there is a degree to which I experience any writing I do as something that “cultivates my daily life into fertile ground in which God can bring growth and change”.

Other contributors to this meme have noted the value of blogging to clarify one’s own thoughts. This is certainly true. It is one thing to believe something and quite another to figure out how to explain what you believe. I have had more than one post delayed or even discarded when I realized that my own thinking on a topic was flawed. So to use Rob’s metaphor of a farmer preparing the ground, blogging can certainly clear out weeds in my mind; but is that a spiritual discipline, or an intellectual one? Does thinking through topics for a blog post open me up to God’s work in my life or does it just work to bring my mind into conformance with what God is already doing in my heart? I’m not sure either way.

Finally, participating in the Christian blogosphere does bring me into contact with many other diverse believers. As such, it helps integrate my into the wider community of Christians and keeps me aware of the whole church and not just the small group I meet with regularly. But does that qualify it as a spiritual discipline? I am doubtful. There are times I can see patterns in what God is going in people’s lives around the world that confirms my understanding of what He is doing in my own life, and there may be times that this effect leaves me more open to what God is doing; but that seems like a rather weak and intermittent form of discipline.

So in the end I have to say that I am doubtful of the value of blogging as a spiritual discipline. That’s not to say it does not have value for myself and for the community of believers. I’m just not sure that value is primarily one that opens me up to God’s hand.

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January 09, 2008

On Prayer

I have come to realize that when I was a young Christian, I had a lot of bad examples around me of how to pray. First there were the many people who, when praying in public, would clearly speak more to those where were assembled and not to God. They would make grand speeches that drew attention to themselves, and actually said little of note to God in the process. Second, there were those whose prayers were full of logic and legal arguments as to why it was in God's best interest to do what the person wanted. They acted as if they understood what was required better than God and therefore they needed to set Him straight on the subject. Finally, there was the phrase which everyone used at the end of their prayers: "In the name of Jesus" as if it was a magic incantation which could be used to force God to do our bidding.

My own understanding of prayer has taken a long time to develop, and I confess to being guilty of these and many other failures in my prayer life over the years. There have been many lessons I have learned over the years, and often the lessons have been interdependent with each other so that having made process on one, I'd need to go back and learn to appreciate a previous lesson more deeply. I find this process has made writing a clear essay on the subject of prayer quite difficult; but I will do my best.

Let me start by saying, I believe prayer is supposed to be a conversation with God, not a speech delivered to him. Too often when I was young I would pray by rattling off numerous requests, and as soon as I ran out of things to say I would walk away, thinking my prayer was finished. Only later did I begin to understand that if I waited, if I stayed quiet in his presence, he would communicate to me.

As a conversation, prayer is not fundamentally about asking for things, it is about relationship building - you and God getting to know each other. As an analogy - most of the shops and restaurants I go to, my only conversations with the staff are focused on getting stuff – I ask them for things, and hopefully they try to deliver; but there is no relationship developed. There are however a few places where I go often enough that I am on a first-name basis with the staff. While I still place my order, the bulk of the conversations about other things – travel, hobbies, etc. As a result, I have a relationship with the people at these places. I believe God desperately wants people's prayer lives to be more like that – more conversation about life and less asking for things.

Nonetheless, requests are still a part of my prayer life; but even that aspect has changed over the years. I think every Christian eventually reaches the point where they ask: If God already knows not only what I want; but what I actually need, then why do I need to ask him for anything at all? Why doesn't he just give me what I need? The answer is that he wants us to understand that he is the one giving it. If things "just happen", then people might attribute them to anything or anyone – there's no reason to think God is responsible since he was never involved in the process. On the other hand, if you ask God for something and then he provides it, the connection between request and provider can be made.

That connection can be made if God reliably answers prayers; but most people's experience is that he doesn't. So why is that? The answer is in James 4:3 "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." Putting it more gently, there is often a difference between what we want and what we need; and God isn't interested in providing what we want when it isn't also what we need. So the question then becomes – how do we know what we need to ask God for it? Again, James has the answer: "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault." We need to ask God to tell us what we need, listen to what he says, and then ask for it in prayer. That simple statement is what has revolutionized my prayer life.

When I have a need, where I start is by telling God how I feel. I'm scared, I'm confused, I want something, I want out of something. Whatever I am feeling, I tell God without actually asking him to do anything. I know none of this is news to God (he already knows it); but my experience is that I can't calm down enough to listen to God until I get all that off of my chest. Then when I have finally finished expressing all of my issues, I ask God "How do you want me to pray about this?" Then I listen and wait and see what God says. Quite reliably, I come to understand how God wants me to pray in the situation, and I pray it. The way he directs me to pray is often not what I would have expected (and sometime isn't actually what I want); but I trust his judgment on what is best. So I pray what God wants me to pray, and I find that those prayers do get answered, reliably.

Which brings me to the magic phrase: "In the name of Jesus." The real meaning of that phrase in the original culture was that you were claiming to speak as a representative of Jesus with his full authority – that the words you were speaking were the ones Jesus would have spoken if he was there. But here's the catch – just adding those words at the end of a prayer doesn't make it so. You can only honestly claim to "ask in the name of Jesus" if you know in fact that what you are asking is in fact what he wants. So there's no point using that phrase unless you have first listened to Jesus and know what he wants. Again, prayer that does not include listening is pointless.

By the way - the same principle applies when I am asked to pray in a public situation. I always pause and ask God what he wants me to pray publicly, wait for an answer (with a few "thank you God's" to cover the silence), and then I pray what he directs me to pray. The results tend to be short, and often lack the flowery speech or rhetorical excellence of the prayers I heard in my youth; but that's OK – I know God will actually answer these prayers.

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January 03, 2008

Someone else “Doing It”

“Letters from Kamp Krusty” is a very real (i.e. “warts and all”) blog by a fellow Jesus Follower. Brant (the author) stopped “going to church” a year ago and posted last week on how that has worked out. Essentially he has been doing the kind of thing I have been talking about. The post can be found here; but here are a few excerpts follow for those too lazy to follow the link:

We started getting together with a couple other families, at least twice a week. They'd been meeting for some time, in different forms. We ate dinner together on, say, Wednesday, and we had a time devoted to praying and singing and listening and discussing on Sunday afternoon, followed by some more eating.

Another friend joined here, another family-just-met there, and now there's fifty-plus. Our Sunday thing grew so large, it made it daunting for everyone to be involved. We've birthed a couple other gathering opportunities in other homes, including ours. We also still get together for a big meal/party late Sunday afternoon.
And we stay in touch via a Yahoo group, plus many informal get-togethers and help-each-others.
. . .

There is no master plan, and no Giant Vision. We do not have 501c3 status, though there's nothing wrong with that, and we don't take up a collection, except when there's a need, and there have been several.
. . .

There are several leaders, to varying degrees. If any of them go on an ego trip, they will be rebuked...after everyone stops laughing. One of our leaders, Mike, says leaders shouldn't be viewed glamorously, as the "eyes" or the "head" of the church. Instead, the spleen or small intestine come to mind: Absolutely not glamorous. Often unseen. And completely, without question, unarguably, necessary.

Our gatherings are heavy on laughing. And -- get this -- teaching. No one "planned" this, but our back-porch conversations are invariably challenging and provocative. When you hang out and do things with Kingdom people, you will learn. You can't avoid it.

It's another odd thing this past year: I've sat through no sermons. I've learned more about Jesus, and more about the Bible, oddly enough, than ever before. I'm thinking in new ways; ways that have me seeing the forest, rather than mere trees. I know many in our group would second that.

Brant has 53 comments on the post last time I checked and they are also worth reading - even those that take the opposite side (one of the rare cases so far that people have managed to disagree without becoming obnoxious). Again, and excert from one of Brant's replies in the comments:

There IS, again, authoritative teaching in our church. You don't have to do it lecture-style, folks. In fact, it's arguably *more* authoritative, when the teaching comes from someone you know and respect, directed to you, in actual conversation.

(Wondering what's more authoritative to a man: A guy teaching, lecture-style, to a big group of men, women, and children, because he went to Bible College, or two or three men, sitting with you in your living room, saying, "Here's what needs to happen...")
. . .
You write: "I just think it's hard to make a case Biblically (I would love to hear one) for some kind of a teaching free for all. 'Anyone who has a word, come and bring it!'"

Not hard. It's in Paul's very explicit instructions for the Corinthians. He says "When you come together, everyone has a hymn, a word of instruction..." in I Cor 14.

We don't have a "free for all" in the least. Quite the opposite: If someone says something that's opposed to scripture, it's a sure thing someone will pipe up. This is in stark contrast to the churches I grew up in, where the instructor will go unchallenged, because it's lecture-format. I watch TV preachers, in front of thousands, misuse scriptures without a peep from the crowd. That's a free-for-all, though it meets someone's idea of the authority test.

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December 25, 2007

God so loved

God so loved

By Steven

God so loved, He created
Created the universe, with beauty and wonder

God so loved, He cried
Cried over man’s fall, and the evils it brought

God so loved, He promised
Promised salvation, for those who would trust

God so loved, He became
Became a child, weak and dependant

God so loved, He lived
Lived as a man, with all the pains and heartaches

God so loved, He died
Died to redeem us, freeing us from sin

God so loved, He rose
Rose to rule, with justice and mercy

God so loved, He dwells
Dwells within us, training us to be like Him

God so loved, He returns
Returns to end evil, restoring beauty and wonder

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December 21, 2007

Not New Ideas

I blogged yesterday about the conclusions I have come to about how to do church. The good news is that I am not alone in these views and that there are a significant number of people around the world who are doing variations on what I proposed. It is known as the "Simple Church" or "Organic Church" movement (and sometimes the "House Church" movement, although that term is used by several different groups so it can be misleading). What I propose clearly fits into their model (small, interactive groups; low overhead; minimal "clergy"; etc.), although I go into more specifics while the Simple/Organic Church movement tends to be more flexible (which may be the right thing overall). For those who are interested in knowing more, I would recommend the book "Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens" by Neil Cole

What's interesting is that according to Barna Research Group (Christian pollsters), the number of Christian whose sole experience of church is through groups like this is now larger than many traditional denominations. George Barna, who runs the group, wrote about this phenomenon in his book "Revolution". He is convinced that a fundamental change in Christianity is underway, being led by people who are taking church out of the big buildings and away from "professional" leadership, and focusing on what it means to being Christians together in a community.

I also want to note that there are two other models which have at least superficial similarity to what I suggest.

The first is the "home group" or "cell group" model which is used by the majority of evangelical churches these days (every church I have been a part of for the last 25 years has had a cell group program). In this model you have a traditional church service on Sunday; but smaller groups that meet in people's homes during the week (the Bible study I have been leading is technically a "cell group" of my church).

While this model looks great on paper, my experience is that it is in general a failure in practice. Ignoring the group I am now leading (which I feel unqualified to judge), I have only experienced one cell group in those 25 years that was actually effective at building a mutually supportive community of believers – and that group was disbanded by the parent church in part because the pastor was concerned that it was getting to be too much of a clique.

While I have seen many specific issues with how church have run cell groups, to me the fundamental issue that they are always viewed as secondary while the Sunday service is viewed as the main expression of the church. No matter what gets said from the pulpit, the subtext always seems to be that what is seen on Sunday is "really" church and so people's views on hierarchy, participation, mutual interdependence, and community never change, regardless of how many cell group meetings they attend.

The other variation is the "Cell and Celebration" model where weekly small groups are in fact the primary expression of the church – there is no "Sunday service" in the traditional sense. However, periodically (Monthly, Quarterly, etc.) there are larger gatherings where many small groups get together. The larger gatherings are considered optional, while the small groups are viewed as primary. I have never been a part of such a church, and so I can't comment on what the effect of the model is; but I am open to the idea. I don’t have a clear sense of what is missing from the small group experience that motivates the larger gathering; but accept that there may be something of value in this.

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December 20, 2007

A Model for doing Church

There is no “one right way” to do church; but given all that I have thought of over the last year, here is the direction I seem to be headed. Note, this is a work-in-progress and there are some things I am still thinking about.

Church is done in small communities. Between 10 and 30 adults is probably best. Individuals can belong to multiple communities as long as they are willing to commit to supporting all of the communities they are a part of. When a single community gets too big, they should split, as long as sufficient moderators (see below) are available for each new community.

They should meet wherever is convenient: people’s homes, restaurants, wherever there is suitable space and permission. Places that are free are preferred to those that require payments; but it is up to the group if they want to take on the burden paying for a space. The seating arrangement should be such that everyone is equal – no obvious “superior” seats. They should meet at least once a week at a time that is convenient to everyone (not necessarily Sunday). Additional meetings can be held as there is interest. Visitors are always welcome in meetings and can participate as much as they are comfortable.

Outside of the meetings people should get together informally on their own and should work to support each other as God leads them. Projects to serve those in need in the area can be planned in the meetings but carried out through the week.

Within each community there should be at least 2-3 people who are identified as having a good sense of how God is leading who will serve as moderators. They are entrusted with the responsibility making sure thing stay in order and on track. They do not teach or preach and they do not lead; but rather provide gentle boundaries, based on their sense of how God is leading, within which the rest of the group operates. The moderators are not paid for this service.

When the communities meet, they should do 4 things:

• Near the start of the meeting, time should be given for those who feel God is leading them to minister to group in some way. This should start with a period of silence and then one at a time people can share what they feel God has given them. The purpose here is two-fold: First, it is meant to affirm that this is God’s church and God’s meeting and He can do with it what He wants (which is why this is put near the start). All other activities are done in whatever time remains after this is finished. Second, this is meant to be a safe time and place for people to practice recognizing God’s leading in their lives.

• Within the meeting, time should be set aside for people to just talk about what God is doing in their lives and how their week is going. Stories about how God has blessed them, ways in which God has used them, and problems they are facing are all appropriate here. Notes should be taken on issues people want prayer on. Visitor with questions should be encouraged to ask them.

• After the “what is God doing and how it is going” time, there is a time of prayer where individuals in the group pray for those who have expressed need as God leads them. This continues until all of the needs have been prayed for.

• Within the meeting, time should be set aside for Bible Study. The community should go through books of the Bible verse by verse. Those who are gifted as teachers should prepare for this time; but the study itself should be run as a discussion with the teachers adding to the discussion those things they have prepared and correcting any factual errors that come up.

And that’s it.

You’ll note that there is no sermon. To the extent to which people feel they are led to give a talk on some subject on a given week, that can take place in the “being led by God” time; but there should be no expectation that this will happen or any expectation on the duration when it does.

There is also no regular offering. Unless the group is paying for their meeting place, such a community has no fixed expenses that need to be covered. Offerings can be taken up when there is a specific need (some service project within the area, sending someone to serve elsewhere, some personal need within the community, etc.).

Finally I have not identified a time for music. While I believe music has a place in such meeting, I am still not sure what role it is to serve. I have seen it done as part of the “being led by God” time where those who are gifted in music lead the rest in songs; but I am not sure that is right. My current thinking is to use music as a separator. Sing a couple of songs to start the meeting and then another between each section; but something doesn’t feel right about that either. Regardless, music should be led by a small number of people who are skilled in music from their seats within the group (having a big band on a stage adds a lot of overhead to the group).

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December 19, 2007

Summary

Over the last month I've blogged a lot of what I have been thinking about for the last year, and this seems to be a good point to put together a summary. Here are the main points I have been trying to get across:

• The church exists to serve as heralds of God's kingdom. We are to demonstrate what God's kingdom (and thereby God's character) is like and to invite people to become God's servants and family. This includes helping people understand their own personal need for redemption and the opportunities available to then because of what Jesus has done.

• God's plan is not for us to do this alone; but as part of a community of believers where each of us supports the others using the gifts and skills that God has given us. Creating distinct classes of laity and clergy within that community has a tendency to limit the flexibility of the body of believers and should be avoided.

• We accomplish this plan individually by being actively led by the Holy Sprit within us. This bidirectional communication allows us to have a real, active, current relationship with God, which is what distinguishes real Christianity from other mere religions. Recognizing how God leads us is a skill we learn as we mature as Christians, and the community needs to support people as they learn.

• However, since our ability to discern God's leading is imperfect, we must also have a thorough understanding of the character, nature, and plan of God as it is described in the whole Bible (not just selected parts); and evaluate any sense of God's leading that we get against that standard. Again, the community must support its members in studying the Bible.

• The best way to learn how to live a Christian life is to interact with and observe people doing it. We each should share with others in the community our own experiences as Christians, good and bad, successful and unsuccessful; and should listen to other people's experiences to better understand our own.

• Jesus is the head of the church and is the only one who provides leadership to it; our role is to discern that leadership as a community. We should acknowledge those within the community that have demonstrated a greater skill at discerning what God is doing and seek their confirmation that the actions of the community remain on track.

• The only doctrines that matter are those that come up in the process of trying to live out our lives as Christians in obedience to God's leading in our lives. Questions that have no such practical application only serve to divide the community. If an issue is moot if you simply focus on obeying God, then what matters is obedience and not the issue.

So given all that, the question becomes how do we structure a community of believers to best accomplish this? And related to that, what does the community do when it meets to support all this?
• How do we support people building a community?
• How do we support people sharing their practical experiences with each other?
• How do we support people learning to discern God's leading in their lives?
• How do we support people learning the nature of God as described in the Bible?
• How do we support people using their gifts to support each other?
• How do we support people doing this not just for a couple hours a week; but all day all week?

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December 18, 2007

It's not just me

As evidence that other people are headed the same direction I am, take a look at today's post on "Living Spiritually". It says, in part:

Our churches ought to first be true communities. People are the priority. Hospitality, love, and forgiveness are to stand out, and our communities should be places of alluring grace. Christian communities are not to be other-worldly, but to be this-worldly. We’re to be down-to-earth. We’re to share life together. We’re to be real people, living in the real world, and doing real things. And Christ is to be Lord of it all—of all life. Others are to come first—through washing feet, laying down lives, loving as Jesus has loved us. This extends to all we say and do as we live in this wild, wonderful, and broken world as broken people. Our actions will never be perfect, but nevertheless we are to continue to seek to demonstrate love in the midst of sin. This is living spirituality for the church, as it will result in further transformation into the image of Christ, empowering for mission, and diminishing spiritual impoverishment.

He then goes on to talk about the Bible as our "map"; but one that too many people don't know how to read:

Churches have failed in their obligation to teach relevant, interesting, and insightful map-reading skills. There are more and more Bibles and more and more translations, but we have little encouragement and direction as to how to read the map—this precious word, this Word of God. This is not just a pastor’s, a scholar’s, or seminary student’s task, but it is the responsibility of all Christians. We have, generally speaking, become unskilled and illiterate map readers, and this is bound to carry with it grave consequences for our spirituality and our churches.

Amen!

Posted by Steven at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Our Tuesday Bible Study

On Tuesday nights, I lead a Bible Study group for our church (this may be the one ministry that continues as the rest of the church goes on hiatus). This post is a short description of how it works – not because I hold it up as example of the "right way" to do things; but because I'd like to make some observations on the experience in later posts.

This is a book study, which is to say that we pick a book of the bible (currently John) and study it from first verse to last. I have already talked about why I think this is important.

To prepare for the study, I first break the next chapter into small pieces – usually 3-4 verses and make bookmarks for each that I can hand out. I then pray and start to make notes on each bookmark (as God leads me). This tends to include a lot of different things:
- reminders of context (connecting these verses to what went before)
- key themes (what the verses mean)
- practical applications (how to apply it in the real world)
- translation issues (places where the original Greek/Hebrew carries meaning that may not be evident in the English)
- cultural issues (places where writer was references something in their culture that would not be understood today)
- doctrinal history (where there are one or more "standard" interpretations of the passage)

On the evening of the meeting, we start with a couple of songs (led by someone on a guitar). Then, at around 7:30, we start the study proper. I hand out the bookmarks, and we take them in order. The person with the next bookmark reads the passage and then I open the floor to anyone who wants to comment on the verses and we begin to discuss the passage. I do not "teach" as much as I moderate the discussion, bringing up points from my notes only when the conversation lags. I try to avoid speaking first (unless there is some need to set the stage), and I try to avoid sharing two points in a row, so it is clear I am contributing as a member of the group and not as a teacher. I allow the discussion to wander as long as it remains related to Christianity. While folks are free to share whatever interpretation they have of the passage, where there is a consensus interpretation among most Christians, I try to reinforce those ideas while acknowledging those times when there is a disagreement between various Christian groups.

When we get to 8:30, we take a break for snacks, beverages and conversation. When we resume, there is a time for "Praise reports" – talking about things that God has done in our lives that week; and then prayer requests – issue we (or people we know) are struggling with. Finally we pray as a group. – people pray for each other as they feel led until all of the prayer requests are covered and then we break for the night.

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December 17, 2007

Who's In Charge?

One of the more common issues for Christians to argue about and divide themselves by is the question of church governance – who exactly is running things and making the big decisions. Is it the pope? Is it the ecumenical councils? Is it the bishops? Is it the senior Pastor? Is it a committee of elders? These questions have even enshrined themselves in what people call each other. Names like "Presbyterian" and "Episcopalian" are actually references to forms of church governance (led by elders vs. led by bishops).

So let me answer this quickly and simply – Jesus is in charge. No qualifications, caveats, or exceptions. Jesus is the head of the church. Any structure we build that gives that responsibility to human beings (whether they be one or many) is usurping control over the church from Jesus and will inevitably lead to error, confusion, and misdirection.

But how do we know what direction Jesus is leading His church? If all Christians are to be led by the God's Spirit within them, then Jesus leads His church by that same Spirit within us. The problem is, as I have said before, while my trust in God's leading is absolute, my trust in people's ability (even my own) to discern God's leading is always suspect.

So what's the solution? Reading the New Testament, I believe the biblical model is that each gathering of Christians identifies multiple individuals within the group who have demonstrated the ability to discern what God is doing and give then responsibility as a group to discern if some idea is God's or not. In the Bible, these people are referred to either as "elders" or "overseers". The idea is that while one person may be flawed in their discernment of what God is doing; by identifying a plurality of elders who must reach consensus, you establish checks and balances.

The most important thing is that everyone must keep in mind that these elders are not responsible for leading the church. Their responsibility is to confirm together how God is leading. It is not even the elder's job to receive direction – just to identify it when it comes. So a reasonable (and I believe common, if we allow God to work how He wants) pattern of events is for some non-elders within the community to say that they feel the community is being led to take some action and for the elders to pray and reach some consensus that this is in fact God's doing or not. It need not be done that formally (all that may be needed is quick glance at each other to make sure all of the elders are in sync); but that is the principle.

In some respects, I view the role of elder as "quality control" within the community. You start with the assumption that every Christian within the community is being led by the Holy Spirit within them; but you recognize that no one has the ability to discern that leading perfectly. So you look to several people in the community who have demonstrated greater ability in that regard to provide a double check on everyone (even each other) to minimize misunderstandings about how God is directing things.

Those who are given this responsibility should not be selected because of their education or some other external factor; but rather because they have already demonstrated that they know how to recognize God's leading. Nor are they necessarily paid for this service – it can just be part of how they serve God as part of their every day lives. They do not lead the meetings or give orders to other folks. Their role is just to confirm "Yes, this does seems to be what Jesus is doing".

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December 13, 2007

The Full Gospel

Looking back on my post on "The Gospel of the Kingdom of God" I can imagine some Christians objecting to my analysis because I didn’t express the need for the church to talk about sin and salvation (and perhaps other things as well); and they would have a fair point. While I wanted to make specific points about the Church's role with respect to the Kingdom of God, I had not meant to imply that this was entirety of the Gospel. I was already thinking of writing something to clarify this point when I read Wednesday's post on "The Gospel-Driven Church" (yet another blog I follow) entitled "The Gospel: d) All of the Above". Well said Jared.

So yes, I believe that among the things the church needs to communicate to people as we herald God's Kingdom is everyone's need for salvation and the opportunity for personal redemption open to them by joining into God's service and family.

There are two reasons I tend not to say this as much as perhaps I should.

First, I have been part of churches that were entirely focused on "Getting' 'em saved". They didn’t care much about folks before they were saved and frankly they didn’t care much about them after they were saved either as long as they didn’t cause trouble. Everything was geared around getting people to make a profession of faith and then whole church said "Next!" New believers were abandoned and while they understood how to call Jesus "savior", they had no sense of what it meant to call Him "Lord".

Second, I find that explaining Christianity in terms of salvation tends to produce lazy Christians who are only interested in "what's in it for them" and who have no interest in making Jesus their Lord. Theologically I'm not even sure such people are actually saved (the lordship of Jesus is affirmed in virtually every description of salvation in the Bible). Given my understanding of The Church being a community of people who are committed together to the leadership of Jesus, I'm not that interested in that type of "Christian".

So folks will need to bear with my weakness as I tend to not talk about that aspect of my faith and take my assurances that I do in fact believe in it. Certainly there are many others out there who are quite busy talking about salvation that I don’t think I have much to add to that discussion.

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December 12, 2007

Worship, reprise

My friend Barry over on Honest Faith (a blog that lives up to its name) found this. 'Nuf said.

Posted by Steven at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Against Flakiness

I have taken a stand on believing the Christians are meant to be "led by The Spirit" in their day to day lives. There have been other groups, movements and denominations that have taken a similar stance and over time most have degenerated into "flakey" (if not heretical) behaviors. While I am theologically a "Charismatic", I have seen too many churches that have descended into "Charismania" (as one well known Cessationist in the church has called it).

The root of these problems is that while God is trustworthy and will only lead people in ways that are consistent with His character; the ability for normal, flawed people to correctly discern how God is leading them must always be suspect. For all the experience I have listening to God and all of the stories I have where interesting things have happened as a result, I still accept that I can get it wrong.

I believe the scriptural and effective counter-balance to this is a solid understanding of the Bible. To me the Bible is the plumb-line, the draftsman's square, the standard against which all of my personal experiences of God must be measured. If my own experiences of God were to drift away from Biblical description of Him, then my experiences (and ability to discern God's leading) should be considered suspect.

So then, a thorough understanding of the Bible is a necessity for a Christian. Unfortunately, most Christians receive the bulk of their teaching through sermons and occasionally topical "Sunday School" classes or home groups - very few attend real Bible Studies. This is a problem for several reasons. First, with a few exceptions, preachers and teachers in such groups tend to refer to a small subset of the Bible in their lessons. Each has their favorite passages that they tend to use again and again to support their talks. Second, it is far too easy in such settings to take passages out of context. This may not even be deliberate. I confess, there have been times I have used an index of the Bible to find a passage to help me in a sermon and used it without really reading the whole context in which it was set. Third, there are some passages in the Bible that are hard to understand or inconvenient to deal with. Those parts of the Bible are almost never referred to when people are given a choice on what scriptures to use; but yet are part of a complete understanding of God.

I believe the only solution is for every Christian to participate in the study of the Bible going
verse-by-verse through books of the Bible. Each verse will be studied in context so everyone appreciate what the author was talking about, and no "inconvenient" passages will be skipped.

Even with that, the study of the Bible can be difficult. None of it was written in English, and the original readers belonged to a very different culture than our own. Without at least some appreciation for the original languages and without some appreciation for how phrases would have been understood "back then" there is plenty of room for misunderstanding. It is also useful to understand how various passages have been interpreted historically – particularly where there have been historical disagreements over a passage.

I believe such Bible Studies are then best done in groups where there is more than one person present who has made an effort to inform themselves about the language, customs, and historical interpretation of the Bible. Note, I am not saying that you need seminary graduates to teach such classes, just people who God has led to dig into the Bible and learn these things. I recommend multiple people to act as checks and balances against each other. (Because people are flawed, I never trust a situation where one person alone is trusted to be led by God for everyone else).

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

December 11, 2007

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God

If you ready the Gospels, Jesus spent a lot of time talking about the Kingdom of God. While Jesus was still training his disciples he sends them out to work on their own and given them this command:

“As you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”

Matt 10:7-8

What gets lost in translation here is that the word translated “preach” has nothing to do with delivering sermons. It is better translated “herald” in the old sense of that word - to serve as a messenger of the king. So perhaps a better translation is “As you go, deliver this message from The King: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is near’. Heal the sick, raise the dead, . . .”

The same word is used in what Christians call “The Great Commission”

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

Mark 16:15-18

It is also interesting to note that they were commanded to deliver the message not to all people; but to all creation (in this case the translation is actually fairly good). The message of good news is not just for mankind; but for the whole world.

So what’s that all about?

While there are some who would disagree, most Evangelical churches and many others would subscribe the following “big picture” version of history. God created the earth and mankind and delegated substantial authority over the earth to mankind. In The Fall, mankind yielded themselves to The Enemy and thereby yielded the authority God had given to mankind to The Enemy as well. So for a long period The Enemy ruled over the earth within the constraints that God had originally given to man. This is why the world is so messed up. Because of this, God sent Jesus and between the cross and the resurrection, Jesus redeemed (paid to regain ownership of) both mankind and the world. So the authority That God had given mankind and mankind had yielded to The Enemy was now regained by Jesus. That’s why in the Matthew version of the Great Commission, Jesus says:

“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations’ . . .”

Matt 28:18-19

The church then is meant to serve as heralds for God, and the message we are sent to deliver from The King - the good news we are supposed to share - is that The Enemy has been defeated and God’s reign is starting.

But only starting

It doesn’t take much of a look around to realize that this is still not the world that God meant it to be. It is best to think of the period in which we live like a country that has been conquered; but the conqueror has not yet set up the new government. The new king has won the right to rule; but has not yet been crowned. Jesus won the battle; but has gone away for a while. Yet he plans to return someday to take up the throne. In the mean time, he has lefts his heralds, his ambassadors, his church to tell the world about their new King and to invite people to become a part of the new world order.

Fundamentally, I believe the mission of the church is to proclaim and demonstrate what the Kingdom of God will be like and to invite people to join The King’s service (which also means they get to be adopted into the King's family). We tell people about what it will be like to have God in charge and we demonstrate what it will be like by our actions and the gifts God has given us. We care for the needy, we heal the sick, we bind up the broken hearted and we set those in bondage free, all to show what it will be like when God reigns.

And most of us are expected to do that in the context of our everyday lives. Proclaiming the kingdom is not a matter of standing on a street corner shouting or holding signs. It is a matter of giving a drink of water to a man who is thirsty and telling them that God loves them and doesn’t want to see them in need. It is praying for a co-worker who is sick. It is comforting a neighbor who is troubled and telling them about when God has comforted us. It is giving a chance to someone who is trying to kick a drug habit, while praying that God will give them freedom.

Some of the people we show God’s love to will reach a point at which they are ready to make a commitment back to God – accepting Him as Lord and Savior - and we need to be ready to help them with that too; but our proclaiming the kingdom is not to be conditional on their acceptance of it. Showing what it is like to live under God’s reign is an end in unto itself – something we do because God wants everyone to understand what He is like. We don’t give food to those in need so we have an opening to talk them into becoming Christians, we given them food because God loves them whether or not they will ever be ready to love God back. That’s not to say we don’t also tell people how to join God’s service, God’s family; but we care for people regardless of their current or future relationship with Him.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 10, 2007

The Church Gathered, The Church Scattered

A lot of what I have been talking about is what happens when the church gathers together to meet and I have much more to say on this subject. However, I want to step aside from that for a moment to acknowledge that what we do when we meet should be a small part of what church is/does. These days I spend 5-6 hours most weeks in church meetings, and I have previously been involved in churches that had a wider array of available meetings where I would spend 10 or more hours a week “at church”. That however still leaves many more waking hours when I am not involved in church meetings. So, what does “The Body of Christ” do when it is not meeting?

In most cases today, not much.

Too many feel they have done their part for God by going to church for a few hours (and giving something into the offering). They feel that having done that they are free to live the rest of their lives for themselves. Sure they try to “be good”, which is to say they avoid those activities that other folks in church would frown on (although there are many acceptable sins – pride, greed, gluttony, even hatred if you keep your tone down – which are not an issue); but they feel they have given God His due and so can pursue their own interests the rest of the week.

However as I understand Christianity, we are called to follow Jesus all day, all week. Those times we meet are not intended to be our service to God; but rather are meant to prepare us to serve God the rest of the week. The church as a community is meant to support the church as individuals as we do the work of the ministry in whatever ways God leads us as individuals though the week.

So for me, the bulk of what it means to “be the church” or to “do church” has nothing to do with meeting together in any form. Being the church is all about what we do when we each go our own ways after the meetings. That being said, if what we do when we meet does not enable or support us doing the work of the ministry when we are apart, then our meeting has failed its purpose. So again, we need to evaluate everything we do when the church gathers in light of how effective it is as preparing us to serve God the rest of the week.

Posted by Steven at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 07, 2007

On Worship vs. Singing

Eph 5:19 – "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord."

I start with that quote to make clear I have no issue with singing as part of Christian expression. I love to sing as part of church (even if others don't want to stand too close to me when I do). I do however have problems with trends I see in how music is becoming perceived within large parts of Christian community.

Certainly within most Evangelical churches, that portion of church meetings in which there is signing have become known as the "Praise and Worship" segment. The music minister is often called the "Worship Leader" who directs the "Worship Team". So if singing is all about worship, just what is being worshipped?

I have been to many meetings at many different churches, and often hear people comment on how great the "worship time" was, or hear others talk about how great the worship is at such-and-such church. But when I start asking questions, what they mean by "great worship" is often troubling. For many people a great worship experience is all about highly skilled musicians playing well written songs. So I have to ask – just what is being worshipped here? Certainly not God – it is the musicians and songwriters who are being praised.

The second more subtle pattern I see are people for whom a great a "worship" time is one where they feel moved and carried along by the music. Music does have the power to capture us emotionally – to make us feel elated, energized. I hear people talk about "feeling like they were brought into the presence of God" by the songs, and have had that experience myself. I have two problems with this: First, I have also had similar experience of being carried away by the music at rock concerts, and the sensations were no different. Good music can make us feel good, higher, whether it is secular or religious. Second, and perhaps more important, this seems to imply that good "worship" is about what we get out of it – how it makes us feel. If what we seek out of "worship" is a music-high, then aren't we worshiping our own sensations?

If the "worship" is "great", shouldn't that mean that we believe we have better expressed our individual awe and wonder at the absolute majesty of God? What should it matter how good the band is or how it makes us feel? I fear that in our search for "bigger and better" music in church, we have somehow lost the meaning of what we are doing. Does having a 5 (or 10, or 20) piece band supporting the music help us actually express our feelings towards God any better? Or is all that a distraction that tempts us to not focus on God at all? I wonder if we might not actually worship better if we stuck with simple songs supported by one person with a guitar or keyboard.

I've actually started to back up and question what the role of music is supposed to be in the church. While it is clear (see the verse at the top of this post) that there is supposed to be music within the Christian community, is it supposed to be used for "worship" or it is supposed to serve some other role? I'm not as sure as I once was. The Greek word used in the New Testament that is commonly translated "worship" in English actually has the meaning "service". The real Christian way to "worship" God – to express our adoration of Him – is to serve Him. Singing, if it is part of that at all, is a small part. So I find myself asking – if we worship by serving, why then do we sing?

I don't have answers – this post is a work-in-progress as I consider these questions. I'm fairly certain that most Evangelical churches have gotten it wrong; but I don't think I understand yet how to get it right.

Posted by Steven at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

December 06, 2007

Listening to God in church

Two years ago the congregation of which I am a part felt led by God to "do church differently". As we prayed on what that meant, it became clear that at least a part of what we were supposed to change was to re-center ourselves on the idea that Jesus, not us, and not the pastor, was the head of the church. One way this was manifest was that we started to make time within our meetings for everyone to listen to God and share anything they felt God gave them to share. In some respects this was like what the original Quakers did in their "silent services", although we only did it for a small part of the service (after we sang, before the sermon).

Very quickly it became clear that God was doing something. I think the second or third time we did this, a series of people felt led to read specific verses from the Bible. Those verses turned out to be the exact passages the pastor had felt led to prepare for his sermon; but no one else knew it. Needless to say, we really paid attention to the sermon that day. These kinds of "coincidences" kept happening. Sometimes people would be led to share stories or short lessons that were perfect examples of the sermon message. Not everything that was shared was connected to the sermon; but enough each week appeared to be related that it was clear that something was happening.

I am, by the way, confident that this is not because the information was intentionally or accidentally leaked to people or can be explained by the theme being obvious (or at least I discount those occasions that have such explanations). I personally have been among those who shared things that matched the sermon, and I have always considered if there was some way I could have been influenced (occasionally there was, and I disregard those times). Likewise, after we started doing this I started to be very careful to not tell anyone what I was preaching on those times I gave the sermon so as to not influence the sharing time, yet I am still regularly pre-empted in the sharing time.

One side effect of this process was that many people in our group started to gain confidence in their ability to perceive God's leading in their lives. Having a chance to practice following God and seeing some degree of confirmation that they were on track helped a lot of people realize that God was communicating with them as well. In many respects the sharing time in our meetings served as a kind of "training wheels" for learning to follow Jesus – a safe place to try it out and see if it works.

So, has our gathering found "the solution" to teaching people to listen to God? Well, no. While our sharing time has been effective in encouraging people in this, and has provided valuable confirmation to many people, it has not been effective at discouraging people who are not following God. As we do it today, the only feedback anyone gets is if some synchronicity appears between what they share and later events, so there is no negative feedback (only the absence of feedback). There have been many times where, after the meeting, I have talked with other folks in leadership and we all agreed that what someone shared was way off base and probably an invention of their own minds; but the person who shared never gets that feedback. As far as they know, they were following God's lead as well as anyone. I don't know the right way to address this – how to provide feedback that something did not seem right without having the effect of discouraging everyone form trying. Some balance need to be found to really make this a useful process.

Posted by Steven at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

December 05, 2007

Listening to God

There is a subtext to much of what I believe about Christianity that I really need to say explicitly. The problem is that what I need to say can be so easily misunderstood that when I have tried to blog on the subject, I have ended up adding so many clarifications and qualifications that the resulting post has tended to grow to be five to ten times larger than a normal post. In the end I have always given up and posted something else. However, not explaining my views can equally lead to misunderstandings, so I am just going to jump in and state my position and deal with any elaboration and clarification in later posts.

First and foremost, my theology is distinctly Non-Cessationist (specifically, Charismatic). What that means is that I believe that all the stuff that God is reported to do in the Bible, He still does today – there has been no cessation in God's willingness to perform miracles and the like. Now believing that God still does supernatural things is a long way from believing that everything that people claim is a miracle really is. In fact I will go so far as to say that most of the miracles reported today are either willful trickery or wishful spiritualization of things that have perfectly natural explanations. That doesn't however exclude the "real thing" from existing as well – only that one must be extraordinarily careful in how you evaluate claims. While I don't know that I could provide sufficient objective proof to convince anyone else, I for one have seen enough to believe that God is still active today.

While speaking of God's continued involvement in this world, there is one aspect of His involvement that I believe is critical to understanding Christianity – my understanding is that it is God's desire and intent to actively communicate with His followers. This is central to what mean when I talk about Christianity being a "relationship" instead of a "religion". Christianity is not about hollow rituals meant to please (or appease) a distant God or following a bunch of rules in a book written thousands of years ago; but rather it is an ongoing conversation with one's creator where He works with you to teach you how to be the person He intended you, as an individual, to be. Christianity without that ongoing communication is just another religion. Instead, real Christianity is all about following Jesus here and now - not just following what He said 2000 years ago.

A corollary to this is that I believe God communicates with me. I know saying that is a scary concept to many people; and why it is not a cause for concern would (will?) take many pages to explain. How I reconcile this with my claim to be a skeptic is also a fair question, and one I do hope to address in some later post. Much of how God leads me is rather mundane and, to be fair, subject to alternative explanations. However, I have enough experiences that are difficult to explain by other means that I am comfortable attributing them to God. Here's an example:

A few years ago I was praying, and I got a clear sense that I was supposed to go for a walk along a specific route in the city. I "knew" that when I got to a specific intersection, I would meet someone who needed my help. So I got on my jacket and went for a walk along the route I had sensed. As I approached the indicated intersection, I saw someone I knew approaching the intersection from another direction. The timing was such that we would get to the corner at the same time. I could see that they upset. As it turned out they had had an argument with a family member over the phone and went for a walk to try and clear their head; but couldn't get some of the things that were said out of their mind. So we walked together and I was able to help them calm down and provided some counsel on how they might handle the situation.

So, I did meet a person in need. I was able to help. We met at the exact intersection I had sensed. The route I took to get there ensured that the timing was right for us to get there at the same time. I can come up with no "natural" explanation of how I could have known all that in advance. What's more, this is not a unique event – I have other similar stories. Some do allow for alternative explanations; but many do not. Nor is this one rare occasion that worked out in the midst of many that failed (so that chance would be a viable explanation). So far there has only been one occasion in 38 years where I thought I got a sense of something from God; but it did not pan out (in theory it still could; but I count it as improbable at this point – more likely I misunderstood something). Again, most of my experience with God is less dramatic than the story above; but it is multiple experiences like that which convince me that Christianity is real.

Posted by Steven at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

December 02, 2007

Interesting Times at Church

So the news of today is that the church congregation of which I am a part is going on hiatus for a year. We are suspending most aspects of ministry (including Sunday services). The organization will continue to exist and we will stay connected to each other; but we are stopping operations for what we expect will be a period of a year. To ensure that everyone continues to be supported, we will all be visiting another local church (not associated with our denomination) for the year. The expectation is that over the year we will all come to a greater understanding of what God wants from our little band of believers and will re-start our church with a new and clearer mission at the end of the year. The plan is to meet again as a group every quarter to reevaluate where we are and what we discern of God’s plan.

As part of the church’s leadership team, I’ve known this was coming for a while; but it was formally announced this week with the public announcement this morning (hence this blog post now). I’ll note that the leadership team is unified behind this move. We all believe it is part of God’s plan. The reasons for this a manifold, and I suspect each member of the leadership team (including the pastors) has a different sense of what the “main” reason is. The fact that our pastors are somewhat burnt out is clearly a key factor; but that alone does not justify the rest of us taking a break.

Speaking for myself, I believe there are two specific things that God intends for us in this time. A couple years ago our gathering got the sense that God was calling us to “do church differently”. We have made several changes in how we “did church”; but several of us have sensed that we have not gone far enough. I believe part of God’s purpose in having us suspending operations is to take away the inertia of how we have always done things, so that when we re-start in a year we can really do church as “differently” as God intended. This is in part why I have been putting so much energy into re-thinking the nature of the Christian Church over the last year as is evidenced by my recent blog posts.

The other factor which I believe is part of God’s plan is that our group needs to learn how to be a community better (hence the other common theme to my posts). I believe community is God’s imperative for His church; but that there is a tendency for people to think that having been part of the audience on Sunday morning, that they have “done church” and there is no responsibility to the rest of the congregation for the remainder of the week. For our gathering of believers, without Sunday meetings to bind us together, the only way we will continue to exist as an entity at the end of this year is if we learn how to be a community outside of formal meetings.

This then is the challenge that God is putting before us – learn how to be a community over the coming year (and as a community discern how God wants us to restart things in a year), or over the year dissolve into other area churches and disband.

It will be an interesting year.

Posted by Steven at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

December 01, 2007

The folly of preaching

One of the ways I serve my local congregation is as an occasional preacher on Sundays. When the pastor is out and sometimes when he is in, I get to do the sermon. So I say the following from the perspective of a preacher – I do not think that preaching is an effective way for people to learn how to be a Christian.

To some extent this relates to the same point as my previous message. Listening to a sermon is a lot like attending a lecture in college – there are a lot of things you just can't learn by listening to someone else talk about them, you have to learn by seeing it done. Actually I think sermons are less effective than college lectures. In college, you at least know you will need to apply the knowledge in the lecture on the homework and tests. In far too many cases it is not easy for people to appreciate in advance how the information in a sermon will be useful in their everyday lives.

Even ignoring that, studies in educational theory show that people who only listen to someone talk retain only a small part of what is said. Those who listen and take notes retain more. Those that listen and engage in a conversation on the subject retain a lot more. Those that listen and engage in a conversation on the subject knowing that they will apply that knowledge in the immediate future retain the most.

Which brings me back to how to do church.

Having someone stand up in front of the group and give a lecture on Christianity is just not an effective way to teach people. Those that listen to such a sermon and take notes will do better; but the whole mechanism is inherently limited. On the other hand, creating a setting where people can engage in a conversation with other people on the same subject is far more effective; and if you can have the same group plan to subsequently engage in activities that put the lesson into practice, even better, although that is not easy in most cases.

Of course, again, doing that assumes that church gatherings are small.

Posted by Steven at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 30, 2007

Learning by Watching and Listening

I earn my living as a Software Architect (the high end of working as a Software Engineer), so I spend a lot of my time doing the complex, big-picture design of computer software, and then working with a team of other Software Engineers to implement and test that design.

In my 27 years in the industry I have grown to appreciate how little gets taught in universities about how to actually do software. Sure, the typical college grad comes out of school knowing a lot about the theory of Computer Science – data structures, algorithms, programming languages – but there’s a lot more that you need to know to apply that theory to real-world problems. Lectures can never give you what you need.

That is even more true when you get to doing what I do. A lot of Software Architecture is knowing what questions to ask. Knowing what is important in a design and what isn’t. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that the only real way to learn how to become a good software architect is to watch it being done.

Now that’s a problem because most companies want to do Software Architecture by sticking 1-2 really smart people in a room to do the design and when it is done, having them then present the competed design to the rest of the team. The problem I have with that is that the rest of the team learns nothing about how to do Software Architecture.

Instead, what I always fight for is to get all of the team in the room and do to the Software Architecture as a group. Now it tends to be the case that the same 1-2 people end up doing most of the hard work on the design (although everyone tends to get a few points in, and the more senior engineers on the team tend have some significant contributions). The difference however is that everyone gets to see how Software Architecture gets done and they all tend to learn something in the process.

Software is not unique in this characteristic. There are lots of trades and professions that are best learned by looking over the shoulder of someone else who already knows it.

I have already learned is that Christianity also falls into this group.

I have come to the conclusion that the best way to learn how to be a Christian is not to listen to sermons on the theory of Christianity; but to spend time talking with people who are actually doing it. Sermons have some value – just as university lectures on Computer Science do – but they can only take you so far. Once you have the fundamentals of the theory, the best way to learn “nuts and bolts”, “rubber meats the road” aspects of the Christian life is to get deeply involved we people who are living it and to learn from them.

Early in my Christian walk I went to churches that were long on theory; but very short on relationships and practical advice. Things were happening to me that I just didn’t understand because I didn’t know how God worked within individual lives. Much later I got involved in a group where everyone talked about what was happening in their lives as they tried to follow Jesus and suddenly think started to make sense. I didn’t feel so lost, so alone, so unusual. Other people were having the same experience, the same challenges, the same questions, the same doubts. Having that visibility into other Christians' lives made such a difference in my growth and maturity as a Christian.

So another thing I have come to believe about church is that when it gathers, there needs to be time for people to just talk to each other about what God is doing in their lives. Not just “testimonies” and “praise reports”; but also about failures and struggles. Whenever I am together with other Christians I try to model this by talking about what is happening in my life; and it seems to make a difference.

Posted by Steven at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 29, 2007

How to get more than a few involved

In response my post "On Clergy", the question was asked – "So how do we get more people to take up the reins?" Frankly, we are so far from doing the right things in most churches today that even secular sociology has answers that will improve things without having to resort to the deeper spiritual issues.

As an example – think of the seating arrangement that most people experience when they go to a church meeting: You have a very small number of people (sometimes only one) on an elevated platform facing one direction and everyone else on a lower level facing the few on the platform. What does that seating arrangement communicate? What expectations does that set up without any words being spoken? You can say what you want from that pulpit about the "priesthood of every believer"; but if the room contradicts what you are saying, you are fighting an uphill battle. Now consider instead what would be communicated if your experience of church meetings was everyone sitting in a circle (I'll address the size issue in a moment)? It doesn't take deep theology to make improvements from what exists today in most places.

The bottom line for me is that whenever Christians meet, there are three things that they need to be focused on:
• drawing people into the group
• drawing people closer to God
• drawing people closer to each other

Everything in how we "do church" should be understood and evaluated in the context of those goals. I expect I'll have a lot to say on each of these over the next few weeks; but I'll focus on "drawing people closer to each other" for the moment as a response to "So how do we get more people to take up the reins?"

I have said it several ways since I started this blog; I believe that community is a key characteristic of what God intended for His church. In the New Testament there are dozens of "one another" commands: "love one another", "submit to one another", "encourage one another", etc. In addition God has promised that he has given specifics gifts to individuals within the church so that together (with mutual interdependence on each other) they form the "Body of Christ". There simply can be no doubt that Christianity is something that is meant to be experienced mutually as part of a group.

Now something I learned from a management theory book is that sociologists have done studies and determined that there is a limit on the number of people an individual can feel responsible towards. You can build a small group and have them all work hard because they don't want to let the others in the group down. There is a sense of responsibility that can develop towards the other members of the group. However, as the group grows, there is a point at which a person stops feeling responsible towards the other individuals in the group and instead switches to feeling responsible to the group as a whole as an abstract entity. And here's the key – that sense of responsibility towards the group as an abstract entity is significantly weaker than the sense they have when they feel responsibility towards each individual. Multiple studies have been done on this, and while the transition point varies from individual to individual, it is generally between 30 and 50. Military organizations understand this principle too - there are things that people will do for the eleven other people in their squad (which they have only spent six weeks with) that they will not do for “their brigade” or “their division”.

So applying that to church - if we are serious about the church being a community, then we need to keep individual churches smaller than 30 people (I can hear it now: How un-American! Isn't having the largest church the ultimate sign of success? No!). With small churches we at least have a chance for people to bind together in a way that they will feel responsible for pitching in and "doing the work of the ministry". This also makes my earlier suggestion of "seat everyone in a circle" practical.

So there are two concrete suggestions for getting more people involved in actually doing church (as opposed to just going to it) driven only from sociology. I have a lot more to come.

Posted by Steven at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 27, 2007

Being Church 24/7

I am not in the habit of reposting other people's work and I always try to keep my posts to around a page; but there is an essay by Molong Nacua from the Philipines that is making the rounds on the net that says so many of the things I believe so eloquently that I am compelled to pass it on. The whole essay can be found here; but the following are some excerpts:

Jesus never intended for Christianity to become a religious sect. He did however want His followers to follow His footsteps in how He lived life, as designed by God, on this earth. Watching what His Father does and hearing what His Father says is what He does. That's how He's obedient to His Father's will. It's not a matter of rules or of even choosing between right and wrong but of just being obedient to His Father. In like manner, the same Father calls us. He wants us, as His children, to each become an obey-er, just like Jesus.

Being church is living Christianity 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And every child of God can do just that because the Holy Spirit is not just here to stay in a believer's life on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings but every minute of the day, even if one is just sitting down or lying in bed. We are the temple of God, and wherever we go, we stay the same the church of Jesus Christ.

Being church is neither going to church nor doing church activities. It is not a full time or part time Christian, and most of all; it is not a Sunday going believer. It is not defining worship as attending worship services in church buildings. Also, it is not having a specialized ministry
…

Wherever I go, I meet tens if not hundreds of Christians who don't care about going to church anymore. It's not that they have lost their faith, but rather that they have kept it until now. And they're afraid of losing it if they were to join a church! Most of these folks are not just pew sitters but have ministries in their local churches. Amazingly, I've also learned some have backslidden not because they were made to stumble by someone outside church, but by someone inside it!
…

Are these people looking for a different kind of Christianity? Are they tired of being religious? Could it be attending church Sunday after Sunday, week after week, month after month, and year after year, both now and forever, amen doesn't make you a good Christian?
…

Jesus' life was never structured; He simply obeyed His Father. Singing for 30 minutes may not be worship at all. Worship is obedience to what He called us to be. That is the highest form of worship. It is the expression of our redeemed lives, our way of life. We cannot just put our Lord or His ways into a system.

Churches today are like spiritual machines. Programs are their survival kits. People love to pour their money into the machine to keep it running. But in reality, church life is like a wind: you don't know where it goes. It is a journey, a daily journey. It cannot be sewn up in the intellect; it must be uncovered during the journey.
…

Have you wondered why we are to be led by and walk in the Spirit? Because a disciple is a follower, a follower of Jesus' footsteps, we are on a journey. No wonder the measurement of our maturity is to be like Christ and the end of it is when we see Him face to face (1 John 3:2). So it's not joining Discipleship Class 101 or working our way through a curriculum but it is a lifelong day to day commitment. A "take up your cross daily and follow Me" subject. The fruit of the Spirit are not there as proof of maturity but is part of the progress of your journey toward Christ. It is not the sign of your qualification as a mature person but a quality of the life you live before everybody. It is not the end of your journey; it is your endless journey until you meet met Him.
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You are religious, not spiritual - making Sunday a holy day just because you've gone to church, then considering Monday through Saturday unholy because you go to work. You are separating the sacred from the secular. You are not righteous, you are religious! And the danger of being religious is that it prevents you from obtaining the real thing.

The best word we have for this is "hypocrite." One man entered a church on Sunday morning and wondered why the people there ignored and avoided him. "Ah, I see," he realized. "They don't like smoking. Church people don't like smoking." So he threw away his cigarette butts. People started to welcome him, believing he was touched by God's presence in church. After church he went home, opened the cabinet and lit a piece of cigar. Next Sunday members thought he stopped smoking because of a touch from God's presence. No. It was their legalism and their religiosity. What did this man learn? He learned to play the game of hypocrisy. Where? In the church. And often pastors are the biggest hypocrites there.
…

Posted by Steven at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

November 26, 2007

On Clergy

I have written here before on my concern about the Christian churches focus on Orthodoxy at the expense of Orthopraxy. Another consequence of that imbalance is the creation of a distinct clergy class within the church. In my study of the Bible and Church History, I believe God intended a different pattern.

My understanding is that The Church was meant to be a community of believers, all of whom were expected to contribute equally to each other given the skills and gifts God has given them. Those who can sing should sing. Those who can teach should teach. Those who can heal should heal. Within that community then, there will be those who are recognized as having greater experience and maturity in the things of God. These individuals will be expected to mentor those with less maturity, teaching and counseling them as God leads. These individuals assume this greater degree of responsibility simply because it is what God calls them to do. Because of the trust being placed in them to train others, they are held to a higher standard within the community; but they remain part of the community and are understood to still be growing in their own relationship with God while at the same time helping others.

Unfortunately, sometime in the second century of Christianity, the desire to enforce correct teaching brought about the need to have individuals trained in the minutia of Christian doctrine. As the hairs of doctrine began to be split ever more finely, the time and effort it took to train someone to teach in the church grew, as did the gulf between those who were trained and those who were not. Those who had not received extensive training were less and less welcome to contribute within the church. Given the scarcity of trained people, it became important to maximize the benefit of those who were trained, so they assumed full-time positions, paid by the church. Now most other religions of the time had full time priests in the employ of the church, so people naturally started to think of these Christian leaders in the same terms as the priests of other religions. They were raised on metaphorical pedestals and transformed in people’s minds into something different from the rest of the congregation.

I want to be clear her: I am not opposed to supporting individuals who are so busy with their ministries that they have no time to work - providing support for those who travel for their faith, or for a small number of individuals whose contributions are time consuming. I also believe in sharing “all good things” (Galatians 6:6) with anyone from whose ministry I benefit – whether they are in the employ of the church or not. I take people out to dinner, buy them gifts, and otherwise find ways to show my appreciation.

What I am concerned about is two things.

First, I believe that serving God is a key means of Christian growth. One does not really learn how to trust God until you are ministering to others under His command. My concern is that too many “clergy” fill up their full-time status by doing the work that God intended the rest of the congregation to do, and as such they are actually blocking their flock from achieving maturity. The usual counter to this is that people claim if the clergy don’t do it, no one will. However, Ephesians 4:11-12 clearly says that the role of pastors, teachers, etc. is to prepare the rest of the church to do the work of the ministry. When they start to do the work themselves, they are acting contrary to God’s intent; and if there is no one willing to do the work, then the likely cause is that the pastors, teachers, etc. haven’t been doing their job of preparing everyone else.

Second, I believe the establishment of separation between laity and clergy makes it difficult for church leaders to get the help they need for their own issues. I think the scriptures are clear that no one has “made it”. Even Paul, who God used to write most of the New Testament, did not consider himself to have “arrived”. The problem is, if someone’s income is dependent on their role as a church leader, how comfortable will they be to admit they are struggling with something in their lives? If instead, they were just “elders” whose income came from normal jobs, then it would be easier to step aside from their role as mentor for a time to work on personal issues, while staying part of the congregation and getting support from those that they had supported in the past. I have to wonder if we would have such a steady stream of high profile church scandals if the leaders in the church were not treated as clergy; but instead were just experienced/mature members of the laity.

Posted by Steven at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

November 24, 2007

A lesson in translation

In the ancient Greek states (particularly Athens; but other city-states as well), there existed the concept of a “Summoned Assembly” where all citizens were called together to conduct the city’s business. Key issues were debated, magistrates and other officials were elected, laws were approved. While many aspects of Greek society were limited to land owners, the Summoned Assembly was open to all citizens of all classes. Everyone had an equal voice within the Summoned Assembly. As such, within the Greek world, the Summoned Assembly was considered the ultimate expression of the community. It was the one place where everyone came together, regardless of class and wealth, to support and define what their community meant. Perhaps the closest modern equivalents are those few small New England towns that are still governed by Town Hall Meetings.

The Greeks had a word for these assemblies which in the first century carried with it that strong sense of both community and egalitarianism. The problem is that the word has become co-opted and come to mean something quite different today. The Greek word for these Summoned Assemblies is “ecclesia”, from which we get works like “ecclesiastical”. When “ecclesia” appears in the original (Greek) text of the New Testament, it is most commonly translated into English as “church”. Yet when we read the Bible and see the word “church” we get none of the emotional impact, none of the sense of community or egalitarianism that the original readers would have had when they saw the word “ecclesia”.

For us, “church” is a religious institution – one in which few have the right to speak, and the rest of us listen. While there remain a few places where “the church” is the center of the community, the sense that the church is a community in its own right has nearly disappeared. And with those changes, we have nearly lost the original meaning of “the ecclesia” as the authors and original readers of the New Testament would have understood it.

I believe the idea that collection of believers in a given area would constitute an egalitarian community, “summoned” by God to “assemble” is central to understanding what Christianity was meant to be. That’s why the other metaphors that the New Testament writers used for the church are so often hard to embrace. It is hard to think of a congregation as a body with every part working together for the whole if you don’t even understand it as a community to begin with. It is hard to think of a congregation as collection of living stones being built together into a single building without believing it is an “ecclesia” first.

Posted by Steven at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 21, 2007

I was a teen-age heretic

My journey of following Jesus started when I was ten years old. In that first year of faith I devoured every source I had to understand the gospel. I read the Bible through in under a year; I listened to audio tapes of sermons; I went to every church service I could get to (thanks, mom). By the end of the year, I had a fairly clear understanding of what Christianity was all about.

Only, a lot of that understanding has later proved to be incorrect or at least incomplete.

As an example, later in my life I discovered that a key part of my understanding of the Trinity was incorrect. There were in fact passages in the Bible that didn’t quite make sense if my understanding of God’s nature was accurate, but I had always glossed over those inconsistencies. When I realized my error, I did some research and corrected my thinking. In the process, I discovered that my error was declared a heresy by the church in the 3rd century. What’s more, the chief proponent of the view was kicked out of the church for his teaching.

I’m not going to go into detail on the doctrine of the trinity here or the nature of my error – that’s not the point I want to make. Quite the opposite – the observation I want to focus on is that for several years of my walk with Christ, I believed a heresy. What’s more, I almost certainly talked to other people about what I believed, so I event taught a heresy. Yet, I am hard pressed to find any way in which my relationship with God or His ability to work in and through me was affected by this error.

During that time I was a “heretic”, I still had a close relationship with God. He was active in my life, performing His slow work of transformation. He was able to guide me and use me to minister to others. That’s not to say there were no benefits to correcting my understanding. There are things I never quite understood that suddenly became clearer once I corrected my misunderstanding; but the quality and effectiveness of my walk was never affected as far as I can recall.

I have spoken before how God’s work of transforming us into His image is a gradual one, and that the course of that transformation follows His path, not one of our choosing. I said this in reference to our faults and sin, and how God deals with the issues in our lives according to His schedule, not ours nor the schedule dictated by others in the Church. I believe the same applies to points of doctrine.

Just as we have many ways in which we do not act as God desires, so we also have many misunderstandings about Him and the nature of the world around us. Just as God has a plan to work with each of us to correct our actions according to His own priorities, I believe He also has a plan to work with each of us to correct our doctrines according to those same priorities. Just as holiness is an absolute standard which can never be compromised, yet we must all find a way to be compassionate and patient with those who have not achieved it, understanding that we ourselves have not reached that goal yet. In the same way, orthodoxy is an absolute standard which can never be compromised, yet we must find a way to be compassionate and patient with those with whom we disagree, understanding that our own doctrines may too have some errors remaining.

Good doctrine remains a goal; but the path to reach it must be paved with humility.

Posted by Steven at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 17, 2007

Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

There is a revolution underway win the Christian church. Some have been so bold as to call it a "second reformation", although that may be a mischaracterization – this revolution may be even more significant. It has been growing for a many years; but has reached the point that even the Barna Research Group (the premier Christian polling organization) has recognized and written about it.

For the last two years, I have been doing my own research into what is going on, and have started to come to my own conclusion. One of several factors in my relative silence on this blog was that I have been busy trying to come to my own conclusions on what is really happening (and most important, what parts of this are God's doing and what parts are man's), and didn't have much to say until I started to come to some conclusions.

While the various groups involved in this revolution have their own ways to describe what is going on (restoration, postmodernism, simplification, etc.), here is my take on the nature of the revolution. But first a couple definitions: Orthodoxy literally means "right teaching", and within Christianity it has come to mean having the right doctrines and beliefs. Orthopraxy is "right practice", having the right actions, doing the right things.

The Protestant Reformation was all about right doctrine. In fact the earliest protestant churches initially had only cosmetic changes in how church was conducted – the major changes were in what was taught within the church and what people were expected to believe. What’s more, because orthodoxy was paramount, the sermon/teaching/lesson quickly became the centerpiece of the church meetings – the important thing was to teach everyone what they should believe.

The problem was that while orthodoxy reigned supreme, orthopraxy played the junior role. In fact, Christian orthopraxy became reduced in most cases to a synonym for holiness – living without sin. A Christian was considered to have "right practice" if they avoided sin. The problem is, that is a negative definition. It limits orthopraxy to what people shouldn’t do; but says nothing about what they should do.

The result is that most Christian churches (in at least the English-speaking world - I can't say much myself about what is happening elsewhere) are full of people who have a meticulous understanding of Christian Doctrine (or at least think they do); but have very little understanding of what it means to follow Jesus on a day to day basis. They know that what they believe is right (and often "know" that what everyone else believes is wrong); but beyond not acting like "those sinners", Christianity has very little impact on their daily lives.

The conclusion I have come to is that the essence of the revolution that is underway in the church is a new focus on orthopraxy. Just as the protestant reformation brought about a correction in Christian doctrine, this new revolution is focused on bringing about a correction in Christian practice. Those who are caught up in this revolution are coming to understand not just what a Christian believes; but also what a Christian does – what it means to be a Christian.

Now in every revolution, there are those who allow the pendulum to swing too far the other way. In this case, there are also groups who have begun to deemphasize sound doctrine in the same way that sound practice has been deemphasize in the past. That is a dangerous road. If God exists (and I assume all Christians will agree on that point), then there is some absolute truth which is God’s own understanding of things.

What is needed is a middle way – one that involves both sound doctrine and sound practice, while providing room for everyone to grow into each. We need to strive to understand what God already knows as the truth; but we need to maintain some humility that our understanding (and everyone else’s) may be incomplete – remembering that God can (and wants to) use us and everyone else wherever we are in our understanding of Him. Likewise we need to strive to live our lives in ways that demonstrate Jesus to the world. Not just His sinlessness; but also His compassion, His power, His unity. We are called to be the Body of Christ; but that requires a degree of integration and interdependence rarely found in traditional churches – but not in the churches of the new revolution.

As should be evident, I have started to come to some conclusion about what is happening within Christianity; and my intent is to start writing on these things in the coming months. There are also other things related to this going on in the background that I hope to write about soon.

Posted by Steven at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 06, 2007

Three tales of "freedoms"

This is not the first post I had intended to make; but current events have intruded on my plans.

When I was in High School, I was one of a group of students that fought our school district for the right to voluntarily get together to pray before school. All we wanted was an established time and place so that any students that wanted to pray together could do so. The district originally said that we would have to meet off of school property as the use of school facilities would be a violation of the separation of church and state. Fortunately, we eventually were able to work out a compromise and the unsupervised "student prayer club" was allowed to meet every morning on school grounds.

The experience has had a significant effect on my views on "freedom of religion". Too often principles like "religious freedom" and "separation of church and state" have been used to remove religion from public discourse; but "freedom of religion" need not be the same thing as "freedom from religion" where we all must be careful to not expose our religious faith to others. A true multi-cultural society is not one in which everyone keeps their own beliefs out of sight lest they offend someone else; but rather one in which everyone is free to express their own faith publicly as long as it does not impinge on other people's ability to practice what they believe.

That line can however get rather hard to draw at times.

Consider cases in Sweden and Canada which have passed strong hate crime law meant to stop people advocating attacks based on the target's race, nationality, religion and sexual identity. Now on principle, I support such laws. No one should be allowed to stir up hatred for groups and be immune from prosecution when those who listen to such rants take violent action. However, in both Sweden and Canada, those laws have been used to prosecute pastors who simply said from the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin. The pastors did not advocate hatred (I'll get to those kinds of preachers in a moment), and in one case clearly talked about how God loves all sinners, regardless of what sins they committed. Yet they spent up to 30 months in jail for expressing their opinions.

We must, in a multi-cultural society, find ways to allow people to hold and express their own opinions, even when those opinions are not popular. True freedom allows one person to say "I believe you are wrong" while allowing you to say "I believe I am right" as long as no harm is encouraged. Society should be careful to only step in when such a conversation crosses the line into "I believe you are wrong and someone should do something about it". Freedom of speech is so necessary to a free society that we should declare talk a "hate crime" only when it is clear that criminal actions are being advocated.

Which bring me to the recent 2.9 million dollar court settlement against Westboro Baptist Church. The pastor of this church believes that the death of so many US soldiers in Iraq is a judgment from God on the USA for our acceptance of homosexuality. To express that opinion his church hold protests against homosexuality at the funerals of soldiers, complete with signs that read "God hates fags" and "Thank God for dead soldiers".

Personally, I am offended by what this church is doing – it is groups like this that tempt me to join some of my friends who have stopped calling themselves "Christians" and instead refer to themselves as "Jesus followers" so as to distance themselves from what the modern Christian church has become. I am offended that they would talk about God hating anyone. I am offended by their willingness to intrude on the grief of people to make their point. I am offended by the hatred they stir up against fellow human beings.

Now some people are saying that this is an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of religion in America. I disagree. Neither of those freedoms are intended to be a license to be obnoxious. Furthermore, once you start to say "God hates those people", you are only a small step away from someone thinking that if God doesn't like them, then perhaps it is OK to attack them. In my understanding, while true Christianity does establish a clear moral code for those who choose to be Christians, it never advocates hatred of people. Instead we are encouraged to love all people, regardless of their faults. Supporting groups like Westboro Baptist Church only confuses that message.

Posted by Steven at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

May 21, 2007

Modernism, Postmodernism and the Christian Church

I've been reading a lot of books lately from the Emergent/Emerging Church movement. While that "movement" seems more to be a convenient label applied to a variety of disparate views and not what I would consider a cohesive movement, there is one aspect that everyone under that umbrella seems to agree upon – that they all are reacting to our culture's transition from being a "modern" society to a "postmodern" one. I agree that such a transition is taking place and that Christians need to take a look at what parts what they think of as "Christianity" are in fact central to that faith and which are cultural artifacts accumulated in the Modern Age (or before).

Modernism really started with the Enlightenment in the 18th Century, and there are many good definitions for it out there (check out Wikipedia for an example). To me the central concept of modernism is that everything in life can be taken apart like a mechanical clock - its parts classified, placed into a hierarchy of subassemblies – and then with the understanding of how it all works, can be put back together better, stronger, faster. It is an optimistic view that everything can be understood by breaking it down into smaller pieces and everything can be improved with that understanding.

Modernism loves the quest for "fundamental" truths – those that all other truths are built upon – that are found by breaking down everyday concepts into their constituent parts. Modernism loves categories and hierarchies – it values knowing that the common house cat is Animalia Chordata Mammalia Carnivora Felidae Felis Catus (F. Catus for short).

Postmodernism is however a bit harder to define (again, the Wikipedia entry on Postmodernism spends a lot of time talking about how unclear the definition is). It is acknowledged that it is in some way a reaction to the failings of modernism; but that often leads to definitions of what Postmodernism isn't as opposed to what it is. This is perhaps inevitable since we are just at the start of the transition from Modern to Postmodern society. If you asked someone back in the 1700's what kind of world-view the Enlightenment would lead to, they might be hard pressed to come up with answers other than how it wouldn't be like Medieval society.

To me, Postmodernism has a few key points. First, it recognizes that "the whole is greater than the sum if its parts" - that something is often lost when you break things down into their constituent pieces. This is not a matter of having missed some part in the analysis; but that there are things which are by nature holistic and therefore can not be broken down. Second, it recognizes that not everything can be neatly categorized into hierarchies and not all things have "fundamental" concepts on which they are built – that the relationships between things are far more complex than modern-style taxonomies can handle. The process of "deconstruction" that many associate with Postmodernism is really just looking for places where "fundamental" concepts identified by Modernism are in fact built on top of cultural artifacts that are less fundamental – in other words Modernism's neat hierarchies actually have loops within them.

If the disassembled clock with all its pieces neatly arranged is the metaphor for modernisms, then the world wide web may prove to be the ultimate metaphor for Postmodernism – everything is related to everything else with no clear hierarchies. In fact, the original Yahoo web site that tried to organize the web into a well-ordered directory is a great demonstration of the failure of Modernism while Google demonstrates the triumph of Postmodernism, defining things only by their relationships to each other.

So how does this relate to the Christian Church?

Modern Christianity takes Christian Theology and breaks it down into categories and doctrines and eventually down to "fundamental" truths with the expectation that understanding and believing in those fundamental truths is what makes you a Christian. In many respects, "Christian Fundamentalism" is the Christian counterpart to Modernism's disassembled clock. It provides a neat hierarchy of doctrines which must be accepted and has discarded any doctrines that do not fit cleanly into the hierarchy. However, as with many Modern artifacts, there is often something lost in the process – the whole of Christianity is greater than the sum of its doctrines, and a version of Christianity that has been built bottom-up from its "fundamental" doctrines is often just hollow religion.

To be very clear (before someone cries "heretic") I am not saying that the fundamental doctrines of Modern Christianity are somehow wrong. My own beliefs are actually fairly orthodox. The issue is not that the whole does not include all of the identified parts; but that it is more than the combination of those parts – that there are aspects of Christianity that can not be decomposed into simple doctrines that can be easily taught and believed.

Modern Christianity also tends to rely on clear categorizations – sinner/saint, clergy/laity, etc. – and on hierarchies – pew-warmers report to lay ministers, lay ministers report to pastors/priests, pastors/priests report to overseers and so on up until you (we all hope) get to God at the top of the hierarchy. But are these categorizations and hierarchies really intrinsic to Christianity or are they cultural artifacts we have accumulated in the church – perhaps from as far back as medieval days? I am a Christian (and therefore by Modern Protestant Theology, I am a Saint); but I also sin, and am therefore a Sinner. If all Christians are called to "do the work of the ministry" (Ephesians 4:11-12), then where does the distinction between clergy and laity come from?

A Postmodern Christianity would then find a more holistic representation of the faith that recognizes the truth of central doctrines while understanding that Christianity is more than believing those doctrines. A Postmodern Christianity would discard strict categorizations of people in favor of more relational definitions. An example of this is the distinction between a bounded set and a centered set. A bounded set draws a clear line and defines things as either in the set or out. A centered set defines a clear center and then identifies thing by how they are related to that center – are they moving towards it or farther away. Modern Christianity categorizes people based on whether they are "in the church" or not; but often abandons them once they cross that boundary. A Postmodern Christianity might well be more focused on if someone is moving closer to Jesus or father away, regardless of whether they are "in the church" or not.

So how do we start finding what Christianity may become in a Postmodern world? First we must begin with the process of deconstruction – asking ourselves what aspects of Christianity as it is practiced today are merely cultural artifacts picked up in the Modern (or even Medieval) world, and which things are central and unchanging about Christianity. That is a scary question for many Christians who might find that things they hold dear are in fact not "Christian" at all; but rather merely "Modern". Then we must go looking for those aspects of Christianity which have been abandoned by the Modern Church because they either did not fit into the neat hierarchy of doctrines or could not be categorized to begin with.

Posted by Steven at 07:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

May 13, 2007

Is X a sin?

As someone who doesn't hide my Christian faith, I periodically have people ask me "So, do you think X is a sin?" where X is usually some cultural hot-button issue. Their tone and body language tend to communicate that this is some kind of litmus test – if I answer "yes", then I am some kind of religious fascist to be discounted and avoided, while if I answer "no", then there is hope that I might be a reasonable human being.

The problem is, as I understand Christianity those are completely the wrong questions to be asking, so in fact my answer (whatever it may be) is not a good means to understand what I believe. Despite the loud proclamations of many well-intentioned people, Christianity isn't about "sins", lists of things we must do or not do – it is about relationships. This is why I can provide my own answer to the question "Is X a sin" without actually bothering to say what X is.

First, for the non-Christian, whether any specific X is a sin is irrelevant.

The only thing God asks for non-Christians to understand about sin is that we all do it. We have all done things (or taken up attitudes) that have (or have the potential to) hurt ourselves and others. We have all done things which are not the best for us. Someone might disagree whether a particular activity falls into that category, that's OK as long as they acknowledge that some of the things that they do are (potentially) harmful, not the best. If they don't, I would claim that they have proven themselves to be guilty of the sin of pride (which leaves you open to all sorts of harm).

As a Christian then, the sins of those who have not made a commitment to Jesus are a non-issue. It is what is expected. Nowhere in the Bible do I see Christians called to respond to the sins of those outside the faith. The fact that people sin is often acknowledged, and Christians are encouraged to behave differently; but there is no call to try and change the behavior of non-believers. I only care about the sins of non-Christians to the extent that they hurt people – I do believe that Christians are called, out of compassion, to treat the hurts caused by sin. Otherwise, non-believers are just doing what comes naturally.

So, what then about Christians? Does it matter to them if X is a sin or not? Well, yes and no. As Christians, we are called to be obedient to God. To become a Christian one must "accept Jesus as Lord and Savior" (as the Baptists used to say). The "accepting Jesus as Lord" part of that means that you commit yourself to obey Him. I claim that a proper understanding of obedience means that Christians don't need to keep lists of do's and don'ts.

As an example: John Wimber (the key leader in the early days of the Vineyard movement – he's on my mind since I just got back from an Association of Vineyard Churches conference) was a quite successful musician before he came to know Jesus. Soon after he committed his life to Jesus, God led him to give up music. So he packed up all of his instruments, notebooks, etc. and drove them to the local dump and left them there. So, is doing music a sin? No! Many Christians are involved in both secular and Christian music. But would it have been a sin if John Wimber had continued to do music after sensing that God wanted him to stop? Yes! It would have been disobedience. I can speak from my own life that there are many thing that God has led me to give up either temporarily or indefinitely that aren't "sins" in the sense that no Christian should do them. They may not be harmful for everyone; but I trust (because God told me to stop) that they would have risked harm to me (or to someone else through me).

So when a Christian comes to me and asks "Is X a sin?" my reply is to ask "Whether it is a generic sin for everyone or not, would you be open to God asking you to stop doing it?"

If their answer is "no", then I claim X is in fact a sin for them (regardless of whether it is for anyone else); because it is something they value more than their relationship with God. The Bible has a word for that – idolatry, and idolatry is most definitely a sin.

If on the other hand, they search their heart and are honest with themselves and come to the conclusion that if God asked them to stop they would in fact do so, then my response is that they shouldn't ask me if X is a sin; but rather ask God. Only God knows the future and understands the possible harm or benefit of an activity or attitude.

But (you may ask) aren't there things which are "obviously" sins (murder, theft, etc.) for which I should simply respond "yes, that's a sin"? Well certainly there are many activities and attitudes that the Bible unambiguously describes as sin. What I can not answer so clearly is: what sins in a person's life are most important for them to address?

To make this point clear, I'll share a story of a friend of mine. Before he came into a relationship with Jesus, he was what pretty much everyone would consider a "bad man". He was a violent drug dealer, slept with a gun under his pillow, etc. Then he came to know Jesus. One of the first things God led him to do was to start tithing (giving 10% of his income to his local church). Now I don't want to get into the question of whether tithing is a requirement for Christians or not, that's not the point. What matters is that my friend was called to start tithing, and he did so – on the income he earned dealing drugs.

Yes, my friend was still dealing drugs as he started tithing as a Christian!

Now many people would have said that the first thing he should do was stop dealing; but that wasn't how God worked with him. As my friend explained to me in hindsight, what God understood was that the root of many of my friend's problems was greed. It was why he dealt drugs. It was why he was violent (to protect his wealth), etc. Until God could deal with my friend's greed, progress would be slow on the other issues (and he would likely just trade one bad behavior for another – perhaps becoming a dishonest sales person). So God's first step was to get my friend to loosen his grip on his money. Once that was done, God was able to get him to change the other things as well.

The lesson I take from that is that we can never know which of someone else's problems are the most important for them to work on – only God can. We may look at someone's obvious, visible sins and say they should work on them first; but God, who sees what is going on inside of them, may know better. So yes, there are things I can confidently say "X is a sin"; but as long as the Christian is open to God's work in their life, I am comfortable leaving it up to God when to address that issue. Only when someone is resistant to what God wants them to do, does it become an issue for other Christians to address - address with both love and humility as we all have our issues.

Posted by Steven at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 09, 2007

Cargo Cult Christianity

There is an interesting (and well documented) phenomenon that has occurred many times on various Pacific islands – the formation of “cargo cults”. While these have been documented as far back as 1885 (as a result of the British Navy), the classic cargo cults come from the U.S. Navy’s “island hoping” campaigns in World War II. A typical example goes something like this – the American Military shows up at a remote island and sets up a temporary base. They build an airfield and a pier at which ships can dock. Soldiers show up to guard the base and are led in marching drills to keep them ready for action. While the military is there, lots of “goods” flood into the island – food, clothing equipment, etc. some of which make it into the hands of the people who lived on the island before the military showed up.

Eventually the military abandons the base and moves on to the next strategic island; and here’s where things get interesting. In many cases, the local people who are left on the island pick up where the soldiers left off. They maintain the airfield; they create mockups of rifles and uniforms. They do marching drills, shouting orders at each other, and generally act like they saw the soldiers act while they were there. Why? To get goods to come to the island again. To the islanders, all of the soldiers activities seemed like religious rituals designed to appeal to the cargo gods. The thought is that if they could only do the same things, perhaps airplanes full of goods would show up for them as well.

What I find interesting is that this was not an isolated occurrence – some unique curiosity that happened one time on one island. There are instead dozens of documented examples of cargo cults. Nor are they necessarily transient in nature – something done by those who observed the soldiers that quickly passes from memory when the next generation comes to ascendance. The John Frum cult has been going strong for 50 years now, being led now by the grandchildren of the original founders. There is something in human nature that makes us susceptible to doing this.

Enlightened westerners often shake their heads at how foolish these cargo-cult islanders are. “Obviously” simply doing the same things they saw the soldiers do will not bring planes and boats to the islands. Yet these same people often go to church on Sunday and participate in cargo cult Christianity.

Go back into the history of almost any denomination or Christian movement and you’ll find that it started with some powerful move of God. Something happened that shook people up and convinced them that God was doing something special in that time and place. However, what you most often find today are churches that are frozen monuments to those times long passed. They sing the same songs as they did when God originally showed up. Meetings are structured the same way. Sermons are preached on the same topics. Why? Because people want to see God move just like He did 50, 100, 200, 400 years ago. The thinking is that if they would only act exactly like they did back when God first moved in their midst, perhaps He would return and move again. The truth however is that God didn’t show up because of the songs that were sung or any of the other forms or rituals, any more that the ships and planes showed up on the Pacific islands because of the forms and “rituals” of the soldiers. What many Christians practice is cargo-cult Christianity.

Of course, the converse approach is equally flawed. Repeating the forms of the past will not get God to show up; but neither will doing things in gratuitously new ways. Singing new “modern” songs, using multi-media presentations and new ways of structuring church services may attract more people; but will in themselves do nothing to attract God’s attention. Making Christianity gratuitously new might help create huge churches; but they will be as devoid of God’s active presence as churches that insist on sticking with the old ways.

The truth is, God shows up when he finds people who are humble and willing to do what He wants to do at that time and place - people who are not interested in getting God to do anything; but rather are interested in getting themselves to do what God wants. That’s why so many movements fail so quickly – as soon as God shows up in power, the people start to think it’s about them and not God. They become proud and start asking God to “do it again” or “do it some more” as if it was their position to command God. Then God departs to find some other group that is humble and contrite. Meanwhile the original group continues practicing the forms that used to work in hope that God will show up again, someday.

Posted by Steven at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 04, 2006

What the Church Can Learn From Fandom

My apologies in advance for the rather long prologue to this essay. There's a lot I need to explain to get set up the points I want to make, although I suspect many of my points will become apparent quite early.

A couple weeks ago I attended the 64th Annual World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon). Whenever I tell people I am going to a WorldCon, I find the need to explain that it is probably unlike what comes to their mind when someone says "Science Fiction Convention" (or "Con'" in the lingo).

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of "Science Fiction Conventions". The first are Conventions which are put on by businesses, often on a for-profit basis. These Con's are all about putting on a show which will draw the largest audience possible. In order to bring the maximum number of people in, they often hire celebrities from mass media SciFi entertainment – usually actors from TV shows – to headline the show. To maximize the perceived value of the experience, they promote these stars and the opportunity to see them, raising them up on pedestals (and distancing them from the audience - after all who would pay to see someone "just like them").

Many of these conventions are focused on a single TV show or movie ("Star Trek Conventions", "Star Wars Conventions"), and attract people who are very focused on that one subject, resulting in a very homogeneous audience.

Some companies who run SciFi Con's are quite mercenary, trying to make as much money as they can from not only those who attend; but anyone else involved as well (celebrities, vendors, etc.) Others are run by individuals who are fans of SciFi and simply want to put on the best show they can to entertain everyone; but the nature of the convention itself is pretty much the same.

I went to a few of these kinds of conventions when I was young, and was so turned off that it took some persuading to get me to attend my first WorldCon when it was held just down the street.

The other kind of Con's are those which are run by the fans themselves on a non-profit basis. WorldCon is the classic (and oldest) example. To understand this phenomenon you have to go back to the 1920s when Hugo Gernsback was publishing Amazing Stories (the magazine credited with creating the modern genre of Science Fiction). Subscribers would often write letters to the magazine commenting about individual stories, and Hugo would publish the letters complete with the address of the sender. The result was that not only did Amazing Stories establish the category SciFi; but it also served as a clearing house for fans of the genre getting in touch with each other. Soon (in the 1930's) fans were producing their own amateur fan magazines ("fanzines") to talk about their favorite books and stories and to publish their own attempts at writing. Thus a community was born.

In 1939, a group of fans decided that it would be great if they could meet face to face as oppose to just exchanging mail and thus WorldCon (and the fan run Con's in general) came into existence. The purpose of these Con's was not to put on a good show; but to give a chance for the Science Fiction Fan community ("Fandom") to meet with each other and share their interests and experiences. Authors and illustrators (and later publishers, editors, and agents) also came, not as heroes or stars (paid for their participation); but as fans themselves. At these conventions the distance between the fans and the professionals was very small. A common observation is that the only difference between a fan and a pro is that the fan hasn't been published yet, and having talked to many established SciFi writers I can attest that most of them started attending WorldCons as fans long before they published their first story. These Cons are all about the fans, giving them a chance to meet and talk to other like minded people. Furthermore, these Con's are run by fans who volunteer their time to make them possible.

Now not all fans are alike, there are a lot of subgroups within Fandom – those that like to dress up in costumes, those who don't, those like Star Wars, those that don't, etc. One of the principles of going to these Con's is to be tolerant of everyone else's eccentricities while they are tolerant of yours. So while you'll never see me in a Star Fleet uniform, I don't react when I encounter someone who does.

So what does any of this have to do with Christianity and the Church?

My understanding of "church" as I believe God intended it to be is all about the community of believers getting together to share their experiences getting to know God – much like fan run Con's. Unfortunately, too often those institutions which call themselves churches bear a closer resemblance to the company run conventions putting on a good (if well meaning) show. To make this easier to explain I will use the term "churches" (lower case) when talking about " those institutions which call themselves churches" and "The Church" (capitalized) when I talk about what I believe God wants from his people.

Most churches are organized to put on some number of regularly scheduled shows (meetings) each week, and to provide services to the members. I believe The Church is about enabling Christians to meet with each other (regularly or not) so that they can provide services to each other.

Most churches make a strong distinction between the professionals (the Pastors, Ministers. etc.) and the members. Some even promote their leaders, making celebrities of them and putting them on pedestals (from which they often fall). I believe The Church considers all Christians as equal, just with different roles in the body.

Most churches expect the professionals to do most of the work so they can sit back and enjoy the show. I believe The Church expects everyone to participate and contribute.

Most churches expect a great deal of conformity from their members, expecting them to all look alike and believe exactly the same things. I believe The Church has a small list of core beliefs, and beyond that expects tolerance as each Christian grows in their understanding of God.

Some churches are quite mercenary, looking to get money from their members. Others are run by well meaning Christians who just want to be able to provide a good show and good services to the members; but since that takes a lot of money, in both cases they end up focused on finances. I believe The Church is about individual Christians helping each other (as well as others in need) which doesn't take a large central budget.

I think one reason I feel so comfortable at WorldCon is that I can see people who are looking for the kind of community which The Church is meant to be; but too often isn't.

Posted by Steven at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 06, 2006

My Christianity

While I haven't been writing much on this blog for the last few months, that doesn't mean I haven't been writing anything. In that time I composed a few essays that I sent out on my church mailing list. Which leads to the question – why not just post them here as well? To remain true to my goal that this blog should reflect what I am thinking about, I suppose I should (and perhaps I will, eventually); but these recent essays always felt more like private "family" conversations – reflecting what I see that God is doing within my own congregation - than something to share with everyone. There have been some duplicate posts over the last year – essays I posted here as well as to the mailing list; but there have also always been ones I chose not to share because I felt they were meant for a specific time and audience. My most recent writings always seem to have belonged to the later category because of what God has been doing in our little gathering in Fremont.

Thinking on that got me to look back at which I have chosen to post here; and in hindsight I see somewhat of a common theme. There is a point which I think I have felt compelled to make on this blog – that while I declare myself to be a Christian, my faith is not what many Americans would think of when they hear that word.

My faith is not a matter of institutions, buildings, meetings, and leaders. It is about a community of people who know God and support each other in knowing Him better.

My faith is not loud, calling attention to itself. It is a matter of quietly speaking in ways that call attention to God.

My faith is not a matter of imposed rules which I must follow, "or else". It is the process of allowing God to transform me into someone that lives productively and peaceably with myself, others, and most of all with God himself.

My faith is not political – concerned with the policies of the government. It is personal, concerned with individuals' relationships with God and with each other and no more.

My faith is not a memorial of the past, honoring a distant God who departed long ago. It is a current and active relationship with Him.

My faith is not a matter of blind acceptance of things other people told me. It is something whose reality God wants to (and does) prove to me regularly.

Yet it seems what most people in America think of when they think of "Christians" (even those who think of themselves as Christians) are large denominations and institutions (and their leaders) who loudly proclaim the rules by which everyone else must live, trying to use the political process to make the US government enforce those rules as law; but whose only basis to claim that they are correct is something which happened a couple millennia ago.

I hope you understand why I feel compelled to distance myself from that.

And I am not alone in my thinking. Every where I go I meet other people whose understanding of God is the same as my own. People for whom God is current and real and whose only desire is to know Him more intimately and by that relationship to be transformed into His image. People who are conducting a quiet revolution within "the church", behind the great edifices of old, to get back to the simple truths of the Gospel: Love, Grace, Faith, Hope, and Transformation and to abandon the "religion" which has been built by men on top of those truths.

If by my writing here you get some sense that what I have experienced is somehow "different", then I have succeeded.

Posted by Steven at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

May 21, 2006

The Da Vinci Code

I'll start by saying that as a work of entertaining fiction, I really enjoyed Dan Brown's book, "The Da Vinci Code". It reminded me in a lot of ways of one of my favorite films: "Raiders of the Lost Ark". A professor chasing clues to find some relic of the past, being chased in turn by murderous enemies who want the same relic for different reasons. It was a quite enjoyable story. The movie likewise was good, although not great. The story requires a great deal to be explained to make sense, and while you can hide that amount of exposition in a several hundred page novel, it tends to take some of the wind out of a movie. Ron Howard did an excellent job, probably as good as could be done with the material; but there have been many better movies made (some even by Howard).

So as a work of fiction, there is much to praise in this story. Unfortunately, it is having an effect on society beyond mere entertainment. Poll after poll by diverse groups have indicated that significant numbers of people are actually taking this story seriously. Answering "yes" to question like "Has 'The Da Vinci Code' influenced your religious beliefs" or even more directly "Do you now believe that Jesus was married?" To me, this quite astounding. If someone came out of watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and seriously said that they now believed that the Nazi's has recovered the Ark of the Covenant and that it was now held in a US Government warehouse, people would give them a wide birth; but there are people who accept the fictional premise of "The Da Vinci Code" as true and other people are treating this as normal.

Perhaps it is because I have in fact studied Christian Church history that I find this so strange. The claims of the story make no sense if you know a bit of history. I'll not expound here the many ways that the evidence presented in the book is flawed (but entertaining) - there are wonderful sources out there for anyone who is interested. Let me merely state three points which, for me personally, killed the believability of the premise long before needing to do the kind of serious textual or artistic analysis which can be found elsewhere.

First, a large percentage of the people who attended the council of Nicaea (where the book's conspiracy was supposed to originate) were the same leaders of the church world-wide who had survived the persecution under Emperor Diocletian which had ended only thirteen years earlier. Many had been imprisoned for their beliefs and had seen close friends and family killed for their faith. These were not people who would go along with any "change" to Christianity, and if the decisions at Nicaea did not represent what they understood to be true, they would have fought against it with the same energy with which they fought against Diocletian's persecution. A conspiracy to somehow change Christianity at Nicaea from what was a true consensus belief would have failed. No, what was made official at Nicaea was in fact what was the consensus belief of most (but I'll acknowledge, not all) Christians from long before 325AD.

Second, the Christian tradition (at least until 380AD) was to exclude "heretics" from the church; but otherwise to let them be. The idea was that people were given a choice by God. Those who followed The Way were a part of The Body. Those who weren't were lost and would pay the cost for their decision in due time. The result was that almost every doctrinal debate within the Church would result in some group of dissenters who would head off and "do their own thing." From the church's point of view, they were abandoned to their folly. The idea of trying to suppress these alternative ideas and otherwise persecute those who followed them did not become church policy until 380-381. The result is that there is a rich literature of alternative views of Christianity from the first three centuries which exists until today. Many of these ideas are far more problematic then the ideas presented in "The Da Vinci Code". This was actually one of largest surprises for me as I began to research church history on my own – how easy it was to find information about the "loosing side" on various doctrinal debates. The existence of all of this "heretical writing" (some quite divergent) leaves me disbelieving that any conspiracy to suppress any single doctrine would have occurred and left all of these other views out there.

Third, while the whole "Jesus was married and had a kid" part of the story is flashy, a key part of the book (which the movie dances around – using the words but never really explaining what they mean) is that "original" Christianity embraced the "sacred feminine". According to the book, suppressing the existence of Jesus' family was only a means to suppress the role of "sacred feminine" in the church. And what exactly is the recognition of the "sacred feminine"? Well, it essentially boils down to worshiping "the goddess", including having ritual sex. For those who have only seen the movie, this aspect is played down; but recall in detail what Sophie saw her "grandfather" doing which led to their estrangement (its only on screen a moment; but its there). If this is what first-century Christianity was about, I would first suspect that Rome would have had a lot less problem with the religion, and second, there would have been records – not just church records (which might have been suppressed); but personally letters, historical documents, etc. There were several sects within the Roman pantheon which included traditions like this, and those practices left echoes in the larger community which can be found by historians in places which would be difficult to eliminate perfectly. Yet there is no such record for Christianity anyplace in the world. Instead there are records of complaints about Christian's unwillingness to participate in such activities. The idea that the "sacred feminine" was ever a part of the early church is just not believable.

I have more to say about "The Da Vinci Code"; but that will have to wait for another day.

Posted by Steven at 06:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

May 06, 2006

Dungeons and Dragons and Christianity

I've had some private conversations related to my playing DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online), raising the question "should a Christian be playing Dungeons and Dragons?" Since this question is out there, I thought I'd outline my perspective (which I'll get to after placing a few stakes in the ground).

The first stake is Matthew 5:21-29. The essence of this passage is that from God's point of view, imagining yourself attacking someone is the same as (as bad as) attacking them; and imagining yourself having intercourse with someone else's wife is the same as (as bad as) actually doing it. It is also clear from the passage that this is a general principle, so it would be fair to say that imagining yourself practicing witchcraft (which God abhors) is the same (as bad as) actually doing it. So engaging in an activity which includes imagining yourself as a "wizard" or a "sorcerer" raises legitimate questions. It is therefore clear to me that there is a line someplace with respect to "role playing games" which should not be crossed.

For my second stake. Consider a computer game where you control a squad of American soldiers in WWII, fighting the Nazis. A couple of the soldiers in the squad are riflemen. If you press the right keys on the keyboard and click the mouse in the right way, they will shoot at the Nazi soldiers and damage them. In addition to the riflemen, you also have some specialists in your squad. One is a medic, and if you press the right keys on the keyboard and click the mouse in the right way you can make the medic try to remove to reduce the effects of damage that people on your squad have received. Another is a commando who is an expert on sneaking up on people and dispatching them silently. The commando is also good with traps, locks, etc. Another soldier on your squad is a "heavy weapons expert" who can use weapons like flamethrowers, mortars, etc. If you press the right keys on the keyboard and click the mouse in the right way the heavy weapons expert can shoot fire at enemy soldiers or make explosions occur at great distance. Now, I appreciate that there are Christians who believe that violence is never justified, even in a "just war" like WWII; but most Christians would not have fundamental problems with this kind of game.

Now consider another game where you control a group of characters with different skills. Some of those characters, when you press the right keys on the keyboard and click the mouse in the right way, cause damage to the enemy. Others when you press the right keys on the keyboard and click the mouse in the right way try to remove to reduce the effects of damage that people in your group have received. Others are skilled at sneaking up on enemies and dealing with traps and locks. Others when you press the right keys on the keyboard and click the mouse in the right way can shoot fire at the enemy or create explosions at a distance. In fact, this game is played in exactly the same way with the same effects as the WWII game with just one difference – instead of calling some of the squad members riflemen, they are referred to as fighters; instead of a medic, you have a cleric; instead of a commando, you have a rogue, and instead of a heavy weapons expert, the character who can shoot fire at the enemy (who are called monsters instead of Nazis) is called a wizard. In brief, it is a computerized version of Dungeons and Dragons. So the question is – if the games are essentially identical except for the names used for things – is the game any different morally? Do the words used to describe something change its moral character?

OK, now for my point view.

I believe in the message of Matthew 5:21-29; but I do not believe it applies to how I used to play D&D when I had time and certainly does not apply to DDO. When I play DDO, at no point do I imagine myself to be doing the things my character is doing. I imagine myself sitting at my desk playing a game, controlling a character in a story. That character and that story may involve things which may raise moral issues (as all good stories do); but I don't picture myself ever doing those things. Likewise when I played D&D in person eons ago, I was never into the role-playing aspects that other people enjoyed. To me, D&D was an exercise in collaborative story telling – I described the actions of my character in a way which I felt told an interesting story when combined with the stories all of the other players were telling. The character was not me, and I did not imagine myself to be my character. I did think about what a character like that might do in a given circumstance; but there was always a separation of myself and my character. Based on that, I believe then and now I have stayed on the safe side of the Matthew 5 line.

Now having said that, I understand that for some Christians, the distinction I make is too subtle. I respect those who disagree and would not encourage anyone whose conscience is bothered by this to play such games. Furthermore, in terms of D&D itself, I have seen other groups play the game in ways which involve a lot more role-playing then I am used to (it is after all a "role playing game", so how I played it was perhaps unusual). There are groups I have observed which I would have trouble joining because they edge too close to the line my conscience informs me of. So, while I am comfortable with my own position, I respect that playing these games might well be a bad idea for other people in other circumstances. While my own conscience is clear, I would not want to cause someone else to stumble by my freedom (see First Corinthians, chapter 8 for this principle in action). Finally, in all this I am open to the possibility that I may be wrong. At some point in the future, God may well correct me on these points; but until then I can only follow my present understanding.

Posted by Steven at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

April 26, 2006

A Complete Christianity

I've been contemplating the vast cultural divide which is growing in America (red states vs. blue states if you like, although the divisions are more complex than that). An interesting thing to note is that there are people on both sides who consider themselves to be good Christians and that Christianity supports their point of view.

The problem in my opinion is that most people find it too hard to get their minds wrapped around the complete gospel, and as such only focus on the small parts of the faith they can understand. Depending on what parts you focus on, you can end up with quite different views of the world. The reason this is true is that there are some great dichotomies embedded in Christianity which temp we mortals to look at things as either/or when God views them as both.

The clearest example to me is the concept that God loves people but God hates what they do (sin). That is not a distinction that most people are able to make in practice (even if they know how to say the words). Human love is far too often conditional – we love someone as long as they don't do anything that offends us too much. Simultaneously grasping how much God loves us and how much he despises sin is not something we are able to do naturally.

The result is that faced with this conflict, most people subconsciously soften one side of the equation. They may say they believe both to be true; but their actions prove otherwise.

Some approach this and act on the assumption that God really doesn't love people who sin that much (after all – they wouldn't love someone who had offended them in that way). They focus on how much God hates sin and act accordingly – taking every opportunity to condemn those who do not obey God's laws, showing not the slightest hint of compassion to anyone who does not meet their standards.

Some approach this and act on the assumption that God loves everyone, and therefore sin must not be that big of an issue to Him (after all – they are still able to love people who only annoy them in small ways, so sin much only be a small thing to God). They focus on God's love and act accordingly – taking every opportunity to be kind and compassionate, not showing the least bit of concern for issues of holiness and sin.

I however believe real Christianity is both. God demands holiness. Sin, ALL sin (not just the "big stuff"; but also things like pride, anger, fear) is an abomination to God. God also loves people – completely, passionately, unconditionally. God longed to be intimate with us; but was not able to because we are contaminated with sin. Christianity then was God's plan to reconcile the two side of the conflict – to provide a means to express His love without compromising on sin. Christianity did two things – it provided a means by which God could be intimate with us even though we were still sinful, while at the same and (in fact by the means of that same intimacy) provide a means to transform us over time into His (holy, sinless) image. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, too few Christians get that and therefore they express only half the faith. They show God's love, but never expect people to allow God to transform them, or they insist people be transformed without expecting them to establish the intimate relationship with God which makes that transformation possible. No wonder non-Christians get confused by our behavior.

Posted by Steven at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 15, 2006

Azusa

As I have commented before, the history of the Christian Church is a topic I have a great interest in. It is easy to be led stray by the latest doctrinal fad unless you understand the long road that has led where we are now. As a side note, it is sad how many people are influenced by things like "The Da Vinci Code" because they don't know enough church history to realize how preposterous it is; but that's perhaps a topic for some future blog.

Today's topic is the Azusa Street Revival, which (depending on exactly what event you use to mark its beginning) started 100 years ago today. This is worth noting because it would be hard to identify any other single event in the 20th century which had a greater effect on the church world-wide. The Roman/Catholic church's 2nd Vatican council and the start of the Billy Graham Crusades are the only event which I can think of which are even in contention. Hundreds of millions of Christians world wide attend churches which are either a direct consequence of Azusa Street, or whose mode of worship has been influenced by what occurred there.

So what was Azusa Street?

William Seymour, the half-blind, African-American son of freed slaves, attended Charles Fox Parham's church in Kansas City (and later Huston) where Parham was teaching the doctrines which would become the foundation of the Pentecostal movement. I don't want to dwell on the specifics of the doctrines as only some groups still maintain adherence to the pure form of what Parham taught (and I personally do not). The core principle was that if a Christian was willing to yield their life to God's Spirit within them, then God can and would work through them in power – manifesting "gifts of the Spirit".

Parham's church was segregated, and so Seymour was forced to attend classes there by sitting in hallway outside of meetings; but eventually the church "consecrated him for ministry" (their version of ordination). I'll note that Parham's racism (which grew more vocal in later years) as well as several personal scandals are why his role is omitted from many accounts – he is viewed as a rather embarrassing figure by the church today.

Seymour was then invited to a church in Los Angeles by some people who had heard him teach in Topeka. He spoke at that church once, but the pastor rejected his teachings and he was not invited back. However several members of that congregation were interested in hearing more, so they started a series of meetings at one of their homes. That small meeting quickly grew and it became necessary to find a larger, more permanent location. What they found was an old church building which had suffered a fire many years back and had been rebuilt as a stable. The pews were planks laid across apple crates, and the pulpit was 2 boxes stacked end to end. The address was 312 Azusa Street.

Within weeks, Azusa Street Mission was holding services nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Within months, Azusa Street was the largest congregation of any kind in the city of Los Angeles. On a typical weekday, there was a "morning service", which typically lasted 6 hours, followed (after a short break) by an "evening service", which lasted 8-10 hours. In between (even in the wee hours of the morning) the church was full of people praying. The church attracted people of all races and all economic backgrounds. It promoted women and people of all races into positions of ministry (a fact which drew the ire of many other "Christians" as well as local politicians and the press). Many of those diverse leader eventually left Azusa Street to start ministries in other cities, some founding new denominations in the process (Seymour was never interested in creating an organization).

Now I am enough of a skeptic that I recognize at least some of the stories which have grown up around Azusa Street are likely to be exaggerations; but enough are documented by disinterested parties (or better yet, antagonistic parties) that it is hard to discount them all. It is interesting to read coverage of Azusa in the press. The local papers were generally hostile to the mission (the paper's owners opposed the "disgraceful intermingling of the races"); but as the movement grew papers from around the world began to send people to cover the emerging story. Many of these reporters were skeptical; but came to the conclusion that the miracles reported there were for real.

But the real legacy of what happened at Azusa Street in 1906 is not the revival itself; but the people it sent out to the world with the belief that Christianity was not just a moral philosophy, or an eventual defense against going to hell; but something which was active, dynamic, powerful, and current. People who believed that God still worked today the way He is described as working in the New Testament. The growth of "Pentecostal" churches of various forms eventually drew the interest of people in more traditional denominations who wanted to see the power of God without having to change churches. Thus the Charismatic Renewal was born. Pentecostals and Charismatics have since given birth to yet more movements and denominations, all of which owe a debt to those who began meeting on Azusa Street 100 years ago.

Posted by Steven at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 09, 2006

Church History, Part 1 – the worst month

I would have loved to title this essay "the worst day in the history of the Christian Church"; but the unfortunate truth is that in all of my research I have only been able to identify the month – October, 324 – on which the worst possible thing happened to Christianity. Somewhere in that month the Emperor Constantine, having assumed control of the entirety of the Roman Empire, issued a series of edicts which effectively made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire – making Christian leaders officials in the empire and allowing them to employ the empire's gold to spread the faith. On face value, that might seem like good news, but hidden within those edicts were the seeds that would produce a most dangerous crop.

To understand the consequences of this act, consider for a moment the first 300 years of Church History. For most of that time, Christians were a persecuted minority within the Roman Empire. There were a few emperors who were tolerant of Christianity; but most viewed the new faith as a threat and acted accordingly. From Nero (54-68) to Diocletian (284-305) most of the Roman emperors tried to wipe out Christianity – issuing edicts to seize property belonging to Christians and imprison torture, and even kill those who took a stand for their faith. While Nero's excesses are well known by most people Diocletian was actually the most horrific in his treatment of Christians.

The effect of this is that no one became a Christian in those days who was not absolutely serious about their faith; and in particular no one became a leader in the church unless they were willing to die. Of the 30 people who served as overseer of the Christians in the city of Rome prior to 305 (when Diocletian abdicated), half were executed. Likewise, of the church leaders who attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325, over half has spent time in prison for their faith.

Then Constantine changed everything.

Suddenly, if you wanted to get ahead in the Empire, you needed to be a Christian (or at least claim to be one), and a new route to power and influence within the empire was to become a leader in the Christian Church. Suddenly the church found itself overwhelmed with people who professed Christianity but whose actual interests and motivations were unclear. I'm not saying everyone who became a Christian in those days was a fake – as an example, one of Christianity's greatest theologians, Augustine of Hippo, converted to Christianity in the 300's. I am just saying that any objective examination of history would conclude that the percent of people claiming to be Christians who really had a relationship with God declined precipitously from 325 to 400, and remained low thereafter.

There were attempts to counteract that – tests were developed which people had to pass to become a Christian, and long waiting periods were established so that church officials had time to observe people before they were officially accepted into the church. But as anyone who has worked in industry knows, it is hard to maintain quality control when "management" is pushing for greater volume.

This was not the last of the indignities which Constantine inflicted on the church.

The Emperor Constantine by all accounts was someone who believed there was one right way to do everything and that everything had to be done the right way. Apparently after he became a Christian he was unhappy to discover there was no single agreed upon definition of Christian doctrine. In order to survive the various persecutions, the church in its first three centuries was very decentralized, with significant autonomy given to local leaders. When doctrinal disputes arose, they were debated (often by mail); but it was not unusual for leaders in different cities to believe and preach slightly different things.

In 324, the big issue which kept the letters flying was the "Arian Controversy". Now I'll not take the time here to explain what the issue was with Arius's ideas except to say that in 35 years of being a Christian, I have yet to see a situation where the distinction being debated mattered in any practical way. I believe strongly that Christianity could have gone along quite well without agreement on this topic. I'll also note that the debate was not about whether there was a "trinity" (as some who opposed Arius spun the debate); but about a very subtle detail of the nature of the trinity. Regardless, that subtle distinction was not something that Constantine could abide. So he ordered the church to convene a meeting to settle the Arian Controversy (note – this is the state ordering the church), with the promise that the empire would "support" (i.e. help enforce) whatever decision was made (thus allowing the church to define state actions).

The result of this was the First Council of Nicaea, and the Nicene Creed. Now I want to be clear here – I consider myself a Nicene Christian – I completely accept the decisions of that council and stand by the Nicene Creed as the most basic definition of what someone has to believe to be called "a Christian". The fact that most of the leaders who assembled in Nicaea were survivors of the Diocletian persecutions gives me assurance of their genuine faith. My issue is with how and why this council was called – that it represented an integration of church and state over an issue for which, in my opinion, tolerance would have been a better approach. The process continued for the next 56 years until after the First Council of Constantinople in 381 (also ordered by the emperor to resolve a debate about a variation on the Arian Controversy – so much for Nicaea settling anything). After that council, the empire not only made all religions other than Christianity illegal, they also outlawed any variations on Christian teaching other than those approved by the central church – those who persisted in following "heresy" were subject to state persecution of a kind that would have made Diocletian smile.

Finally, in November 324, Constantine laid the foundation for a new city of be built on the site of the old town of Byzantium which would become the new capitol of the empire. He called this new city "New Rome"; but it eventually became known as Constantinople – the City of Constantine. Now as one might imagine, moving the capitol from Rome to Constantinople was not popular with the citizens of Rome, and so Constantine's decree made certain assurances to the citizens of Rome, including the acknowledgement that Rome would remain the headquarters for the Christian Church. The wording of that decree by a secular emperor would have reverberations on church history for the next seven hundred years.

Bottom line – within a period of less than 60 days in 324, I believe the "Christian" Emperor Constantine did more harm to Christianity than all of the pagan emperors that preceded him. Oh, and for those people who dislike "organized religion", October 324 can fairly be considered the point when Christianity became such. The interesting thing is to look at what Christianity was like before 324.

Posted by Steven at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 07, 2006

Church History (Part 0?)

I must admit for many years after I made my decision to be a Christian, I had a rather typically Protestant view of Church History. Something like this: in the beginning, there was the Roman Catholic Church presided over by The Pope, who gradually made a mess of things until Martin Luther came along and the Protestants started cleaning things up. There were also those strange guys in Egypt, Greece, Russia, etc.; but they didn't matter – they were some kinds of Catholics, right?

Wrong.

I discovered how wrong I was after I met one of those "strange guys". I was working at a company that allowed an employee "bible study" club. We had a rather interesting mix of Christians from different backgrounds, including one guy who was Eastern/Orthodox. Now two things became clear to me very quickly – one was that this guy was definitely what I would consider a Christian. His love of God, and the common Spirit we shared was clearly evident. The other point that became clear quickly was that he knew Church History way better that I did. I'd bring up some point, and he would chime in "Oh yes, that issue was debated as such-and-such a council and they decided that…" Now a lot of the time I agreed with him; but in those times we disagreed, I had a hard time arguing my point because he knew who said what on the subject (both pro and con) throughout history. I might quote a Bible verse; but he'd come back with "Yes, but Clement of Alexandria said that that verse applied to…." and I'd be stuck – I had no idea if I should care what "Clement of Alexandria" said, or not.

So I started to research Church History on my own, trying to understand where various doctrines come from. I looked at sources from various backgrounds, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, etc. to make sure I got "all sides" of an issue. What I learned is that real Church History was a lot more interesting and complex than I had believed. I also discovered that for all of the Roman/Catholic doctrines that Protestants disagreed with, most Protestants continued to accept the Roman/Catholic version of history, not realizing that there were other ways to look at historical events. This in turn marginalized the role of the Eastern/Orthodox (as well as Assyrian, Coptic, and Oriental Orthodox) Churches in the minds of most Protestants - doing them a great disservice. I also discovered that there were "Protestants" (even successful ones) long before Martin Luther came on the scene.

Probably the most interesting thing I discovered was how little sense there is in various "conspiracy theories" one hears (things like the background of the DaVinci Code).

Early in church history, there were plenty of doctrines that were declared to be "heresy"; but those who disagreed simply went off and started their own independent churches – the central church simply did not have the power to force unwilling people to stay in the fold – the best they could do is excommunicate them and prevent them from teaching in "Christian" churches. I'll acknowledge that some groups (like the Arians) were persecuted for their beliefs by the early church; but my point is that we still have a very clear idea of who Arius was and what he believed – for as much as "the church" vehemently opposed Arianism, they did not manage to suppress the idea.

It was only fairly late in church history, and only in geographically limited areas that "the church" had sufficient power to try and eliminate ideas they viewed as dangerous; and by then independent churches in other parts of the world were too well established to have some kind of global conspiracy to suppress dangerous ideas or to modify scriptures as some people suggest occurred. As a result, there are actually fairly good records from the first century onward of the various doctrinal debates that occurred and the arguments m