How Evangelical Are You?

When I was poking around Lark News today, this was one of the advertised links in the sidebar. Maybe WTS should put this on their website under the "employment opportunities" page?

The Burdens of The Giver

One of my favorite books to read is The Giver by Lois Lowry. Not to get all reader-response or anything but I love it because it means something specifically to me and reminds me of my role as a pastor/theologian. Let me explain:

In The Giver the protagonist is a young boy named Jonas who lives in a utopian society where there are no skinned knees and there is no experience of pain. In this society the time came, at the age of 12, when children became adults and were given what was to be there destiny, their place in the community, the role they were to perform for the good of the community. There were all kinds of jobs but only every great once in a while was there a replacement chosen for the most revered role of all, the role of the Giver. This lot befell Jonas.

The Giver was responsible for bearing all of the painful experiences and painful memories of the community so that the community didn't have to (Christ figure?). At the end of the day, Jonas decides that the joys that come with pain are worth the pain and so he releases the pain back into the community.

So where do I see the pastor/theologian? S/he is the Giver in the community. The weight of theological and biblical "pains" must be borne by them, they are the gatekeepers of the faith. Not everyone who claims Christ needs to master or even be aware of the myriad questions and theological problems the pastor/theologian is constantly confronted with. But the questions and problems must be dealt with by someone. 

With this position is the utmost responsibility - deciding in what scenarios and relationships it is best for the community to be exposed to a little "pain." Do you keep bearing all of the burden to shield those in your care? Or do you let them in on a little of your experience? But when will it do good instead of doing harm? This is increasingly the role I find myself in as a pastor and as a student of the Scriptures. 

As I tell most people who aspire to know more about the Bible...be very careful that you don't have false expectations about what this knowledge will bring. This knowledge is not primarily a gift but a burden. If we are interested in having our egos boosted by our knowledge then pick another field because the ethical weight of Scriptural knowledge can be a weight under which our pride and self-sufficiency are crushed.

Unity & Diversity

For my first post back after taking the summer off to be insane as a TA for summer hebrew I want to acknowledge something that has really hit me as a pastor.

We speak of unity in the midst of diversity in churches, but what we typically mean is one of two things:

1. We all think alike so that our diversity is really only make believe so that we can say we have "unity in diversity."

2. We all avoid the major issues that we disagree on so as to again pretend that we have unity where there is none.

Why isn't there unity between Democrat Christians and Republican Christians? Why no unity between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians? Why no unity between "conservative" Christians and "liberal" Christians?

Well, you'll say, because insert my position here is right and insert the "other" position here is wrong. If they would just see that they're wrong, then we'd have unity. What kind of unity is that? It's supposed to be unity in the midst of diversity. Why can't we see that the resurrection of Christ is so much more important than the other issues that divide us? That's like not speaking to your sister because she wears GAP and you wear Banana Republic. The thing that unites makes the thing that divides almost superficial. 

I know, we'll still say, "But my issue is different. I am defending biblical Christianity." And I'll say...point proven.

If there is one thing my heart is set on for this year it's to more fully understand the mess we've made by making mountains out of theological mole hills and by defending fringe doctrine over unity in the Body.

Son Lux

I very rarely listen to Christian music but when I was reading CT the other day they mentioned an artist that was obsessed with Radiohead and had won a contest and a chance to record with a label. Well, I took a chance and loved him. His name is Ryan Lott but his "alias" is Son Lux. Check out his myspace, though it only has songs from his old album, which is not nearly as good as the new one called at war with walls and mazes.

A Moral Statement?

Watching these videos back to back made my mind reel with thoughts of the ethical temperature of our society.

Liberty University in a nutshell

If you went to Liberty, this will most likely be hilarious. If you didn't, it might still be funny but only in the same way that sometimes you laugh at jokes that you think should be funny but then get really embarassed when someone asks you why you're laughing and you don't have a good answer.

Oprah & The New Age Jesus

I received a forward from my aunt a few days ago about Oprah and her New Age Jesus and how Christians should beware, boycott, the usual conservative response. Anyway, instead of just deleting it because I know it will make me upset, I actually read it and here was my response.

Oprah is successful and people listen to her because she is willing to give and love. People listen to her message because she seems to really care about them as people, providing for their material needs.

Conservative Christians on the other hand, typically are always on the defensive, willing to boycott and throw their hands up (and send forwards saying I am not a good Christian if I don’t send it on) at anything that challenges their “traditional values or beliefs.” What if we quit all that and started going on the offensive. We should start meeting people’s needs and caring for them (with our time and money as well as our prayers) instead of sitting around all day waiting for someone like Oprah to say one wrong word about Jesus and then condemning her for it. Maybe then people would start listening to OUR message of love and acceptance?

Maybe I would listen to people more if they were doing half of the good in this world that Oprah does. Now, she probably does have wacky views and I probably wouldn’t consider her a Christian, to be honest I don’t think I have ever even watched an entire show of hers, but I can’t help but applaud her for doing the work many Christians in this world SHOULD be doing (such as the school she started in South Africa for girls)…If we weren’t so busy talking so much about what we DON’T believe in.

Important P.S. What the heck does Oprah’s bad theology have to do with voting for Barack Obama?

This post will probably only make sense to those who received the forward, which is probably a lot of people since I got 2 in 2 days from 2 different folks. Anyway, just my thought on forwards that ask me to boycott/beware of things.

Jim Wallis On the Poor

Yesterday I went downtown to the Free Library of Philadelphia to hear Jim Wallis speak about his new book called The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. To be honest, I actually wasn't looking forward to it all that much. I didn't know anything about Wallis or the books he'd written. But after hearing him, an evangelical Christian who teaches on faith and politics at Harvard on occasion, speak in politically neutral but passionately religious language about how it is up to us to bring revolution in the areas of poverty and other social justice issues, I was hooked.

He told a story about he a conversation he had had with Bono of U2 about the text of Luke 4:18, the first public appearance of Jesus in the synagogue. The text says this:

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Wallis didn't mention this but it is interesting that where Matthew has in his Beatitudes "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," Luke simply has, "Blessed are the poor."

Wallis's point? If it's not good news to the poor (the oppressed, the forgotten), then it's not the good news of Jesus Christ. I think evangelicals are finally grasping the significance of that statement. It seems like "those liberals" were onto something after all.

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience

In Ron Sider's great book entitled Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? there are some incredible statistics. The two most telling (for me at least) are those related to divorce and those related to tithing.

According to the sources Sider cites, only around 6% of Christians tithe (give 10% of their income to the church). If you are saying to yourself, "But the New Testament doesn't command us to give 10%, that's an Old Testament law," then you're missing the point. As Christians, we should give liberally and cheerfully. Personally, I feel as though something around 10% should be a minimum, but that's another story. What does this point to according to Sider? Rampant materialism and self-centeredness. We care more about having stuff and about taking care of ourselves than we do about other people and about the spread of the gospel. And I know this is true because if you're like me, even as I type this, I am justifying in 100 different ways why I don't give more than 10% of my income to the church and other gospel-oriented organizations. No wonder people like Jesus but not the church. Our money is certainly not where our mouth is.

Secondly, the divorce rate is no different among Christians than among non-Christians. In fact, of those Christians who divorced 90% were believers when they divorced (the other 10% got divorced before becoming a Christian). Why? As Sider's subtitle suggests, Christians are more interested in living just like the rest of the world, with perhaps a little more security and ticket to heaven thrown in for good measure. We aren't interested in "turning the other cheek." We think Christianity should make us happy and when it doesn't we get to take matters into our own hands.

Of course, many people suggest that statistics are unreliable, but I don't think anyone is surprised by these statistics. They aren't saying anything that we haven't already seen over the years. But the question remains, what do we do about? Or more directly, what do I do about it?

Jesus Wasn't The Messiah?

What? I saw this book in a local Christian bookstore the other day and I am actually really tempted to buy it. If there is anything I think that the Bible tries to make a case for it is Jesus's Messianic claim. I would interested to see how exactly Hagee argues for this. Without having read the book, this ad seems to say that Jesus himself never claimed to be the Messiah, was not therefore the Messiah, and therefore all of our Jewish hatred in Christian history has been unfounded and we should support Israel because Scripture clearly says we should do that.

First Problem:

Even if Jesus never claimed to be Messiah, that doesn't mean he wasn't. At least, that's what Peter and Paul think. If Jesus didn't intend to be the Messiah, we have some major doctrine of Scripture issues to work out because apparently none of the disciples got the memo.

Just doing a 5 second "biblegateway" search of the term "Christ" got me 467 times in the NT in which that term is used. Does Hagee think that was Jesus's last name or something? Any Greek-speaking Jew during the 1st century would have known "christos" to be the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew משיח or "anointed one," transliterated as Mashiach or Messiah. For more proof that this was how Paul took the term "Christ" see N.T. Wright's great book The Climax of the Covenant.

All 467 times aside though, is it true that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah?

24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."

25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

26 Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you—I am he."

John 4:24-26

Without the myriad of other texts in which Jesus implicitly (as well as explicitly) shows himself to be Messiah, I think this one should be given a second thought.

But, to be fair to Hagee, I have not yet read his book. He may have some good answers to these questions, but my guess is, if he wanted to overturn all of Church History's understanding of Scripture, his book might want to be a little longer.

Oh yeah, and if I can apply Ockham's Razor to this situation, we probably shouldn't hate Jews because Jesus says we shouldn't hate anyone and should love everyone, even our enemy. Something tells me Hagee made it more complicated than it needed to be.

Holy Ghost Enema...Interesting Metaphor

Communal Sex Lives?

About a month ago I read an amazing book called Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity, and it was a real eye-opener. There are many things to admire about this non-traditional approach to sex, but one thing in particular has really caused me to question a lot of my assumptions about the community's role in our sex lives. There is even a chapter called Communal Sex: Or, Why Your Neighbor Has Any Business Asking You What You Did Last Night. Here is an exerpt from that chapter:

"...the Bible tells us to intrude - or rather, the Bible tells us that talking to one another about what is really going on in our lives is in fact not an intrusion at all, because what's going on in my life is already your concern; by dint of the baptism that made me your sister, my joys are your joys and my crises are your crises. We are called to speak to one another lovingly, to be sure, and with edifying, rather than gossipy or hurtful, goals. But we are called nonetheless to transform seemingly private matters into communal matters...[Sociologist Wendell] Berry claims that "the disintegration of community" began when we started treating marital sex as a wholly private matter, when we severed the connections that link marriages to households and neighborhoods and communities" (56-7).

It is curious the many things we take for granted and assume in the ways we think. For most of history, even up until the 20th century, marital sex wasn't just between a husband and wife. How could it be when the majority of the populations lived (and still do in 3rd world countries) in one-room houses or huts? Your kids knew when you had sex. Your kids heard when you had sex...Scary thought?

In any case, my point is that we are to live in community because we are the body of Christ. What affects one part of the body affects the whole, whether we confess it or not. And our sex life is just one of those areas that we should be able to share about if need be, it just happens to be one of the hardest. But in the end we are free. We are free to be open and free to share because our worth isn't based on what we can hide from people about our sin and our humanity, but is based on a love by a God who already knows it and loves us anyway. Yet sometimes I think we value people's opinion but not God's. It's okay if God knows, but not so and so. Hmmm, interesting. But, as always, I am open for correction, rebuke, wagging fingers, etc.

"The best thing that could ever happen to any one of us is that all our sins would be broadcast on the 5 o' clock news." - Derek Webb

Religion & The Democratic Party

There was a very interesting article in the Time this week about Democratic leaders now being willing to talk about their faith in the public arena. To read the article, click here. Some may see this as only a contrived effort to get more religious votes, others a sincere step forward. In any case, the article was a breath of fresh air for me, that this complete bifurcation and assumption that all Christians are Republicans is starting to break down. Here is a taste of the article:

"The most conservative white Protestants, he says, are all but
off-limits to the Democrats. But then there are more than 22 million voters he
calls "freestyle Evangelicals," worried about not only their eternal souls but
also their kids' schools, their car's fuel efficiency and the crisis in Darfur.
In the past, those voters may have leaned Republican in part because the GOP has
been far smarter about presenting itself as friendly to people of faith while
painting the Democrats as a bunch of sneering, secular coastal élites. But
the Republican lock on Evangelicals may be breaking. The percentage of white
Evangelicals who self-identify as Republicans has declined from roughly 50% in
2004 to about 44% this past February, according to Green. Now the number is
closer to 40% as more Evangelicals choose to label themselves independents.
"There is a loosening of the Republican coalition, particularly among people
under 30," Green says, "but it is not yet a movement toward the Democrats. It is
a small but real change.""

Tired of the Bible?

This week I have been thinking about the Bible. For whatever reason I grew up in a tradition that emphasized reading my Bible and going to Church. What Christian tradition doesn't? But as I look back and I look around even today, I see a bibliolatry and a misplaced emphasis. First, we worship and serve a Person, not a book. This I think has many implications for how we look at and read Scripture, but my thoughts this week have really centered around the idea of a "misplaced emphasis." How often does Scripture talk about the importance of reading Scripture? Don't get me wrong, it's there. Most of the NT presupposes a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew Bible. How often does Scripture talk about the importance of "going to church" in order to be a "good Christian?" Now this one is actually harder for me to find reference for, besides of course the old Hebrews passage every pastor uses, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing..."

My point is not to say these are bad things or that we shouldn't be doing them on a regular basis, only that we've made them ends in themselves when they are only a means to an end. Scripture doesn't give nearly the emphasis on these things that we do in American Christian sub-cultures. Meditating on the Scriptures and meeting regularly with believers are necessary conditions for spiritual growth but they are not sufficient conditions. What does this end up looking like? Well, to the world, it looks like we are smug in our traditionalism, we couldn't care less what happens to the world as long as we are "saved" by reading our Bibles and going to Church.

It's like me proclaiming myself to be an amazing cook, since of course, I have read all the best cookbooks. This is silly. No one will hire a chef because they have "studied and memorized the best cookbooks." No, they have to have actually cooked before. For me, I am tired of "studying the Scriptures" as though that is an end in itself. I realize I know more recipes (read: Scriptural "understanding") than most people but I haven't even really began to cook. I know perfectly the recipe for an amazing dinner, lamb racks in garlic sauce, etc, but all I ever make is a PB&J sandwich.

As students of Scripture it's easy to think that our knowledge of Scripture qua knowledge actually means something, but it is only meaningful in so far as it is the impetus to action.

Hebrews was written by nobody

This just in, the book of Hebrews was written by nobody. I love it. Click to read the article "Study suggests book of Hebrews wasn't written by anybody."

Global Warming & the Anti-Christ

"I am strongly against Christians embracing the environmental movement. It’s easy to relate to a desire to save the earth. Unfortunately, the designers of this movement have a political agenda that few true Christians would find compatible with the Bible.

The true goal of the environmental movement is to draw the world into a central body that would set the rules. This plan is part of the devil’s master scheme to recreate the type of control he had during the time of the Babylonian Empire. The only way to get back to Babylon is to push for world unity.

The environmental movement is a perfect disguise because it asks nations to surrender their sovereignty for a cause seemingly beneficial to all nations. Recently, a group of well-known evangelical leaders fell for this ploy by deciding to back an initiative to fight global warming."

By Todd Strandberg - Raptureready.com

I have heard a lot of good and bad arguments for why we should or shouldn't take care of creation, but this is a new one for me. Wow.

Courtesy of Raptureready.com (Thanks Art for the link).

Jesus & the Elephant

I am here in TX and truly cringing at the amount of broad generalizations I have run into. I recently had "the conversation" as my wife and I like to call it (both of us being from the South) with my mom about how it really is possible to be a democrat AND a Christian. Needless to say, I wasn't too convincing. But the claims I have heard all week are somewhat depressing, a lot of polarization going on. "Those liberals" all they want to do is take God out of the government. We were founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and our country is going down the tubes because of "those liberals." Global warming? Oh Jared, that's just a political agenda. We can't destroy this earth. What was interesting was some of the broader generalizations that were even about Baptists, "you know, they only teach the basics, but at some point you have to grow out of being a baptist." Anyway, I was amazed at it all and I am know rethinking my coming out of the closet with my democratic and 'liberal' stances, from fear of being forever excommunicated from the family. But, as Kimball says in his new book (which I am ironically reading in TX):

"Today, Christians are known as scary, angry, judgmental, right-wing finger-pointers with political agendas."

His (and my) conclusion about outsiders and their views on Christianity: "I can't blame them - I wouldn't like Christianity either"

The Language We Use - Part 2

1. A lack of concern for our spirituality outside of the buildings we go to

This actually goes back to a post I put up a few months ago where I discussed our compartmentalization in our spiritual lives and I find that our language of "going to church" emphasizes that even more. In a sense we oftentimes believe that the place we go to worship has a more "spiritual" aspect to it, that it is more "holy" than other places.

I worked at a very small church in Virginia while I was finishing up college as the worship pastor/college pastor and it was a very sweet time. But Sarah and I were the youngest people by 10 years and that was only one other couple. Everyone else was at least 2-3 decades older than us. In any case, I was often reprimanded for hurdling the altar railing to get to the stage or for wearing my hat in the sanctuary (it was okay downstairs, but not "the sanctuary"). I was not allowed to wear shorts or t-shirts, etc. Of course I complied respectfully but I just didn't understand at all where they were coming from.

This is what I want to warn against. When we begin to exalt a space, we forget that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, not any building. Working with the youth group I often hear the term "you can't do that in church!" But by saying such things, we are saying that there are things that are okay outside the church but not okay inside, as though the building somehow is where God dwells, instead of seeing that it's within us that God dwells. We can't get away from "the sacred space", it is always with us because it is us. If our conscience says not to wear a hat inside a church because it's somehow "sacred" we should never wear a hat because we ourselves are a sort of "sacred space". Is this not what Paul means when he says (albeit in response to sexual immorality but applies here), "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body (1 Cor 6:19-20)?Of course there are many issues that offshoot from this but my main point is that instead of bringing our idea of "church" down to the level of our daily lives, we should exalt our daily lives to the level of "church", since that is who we are.

The Language We Use - Part 1

This is from a post I did on my church's blog, I thought it might be thought provoking:

We have all heard it said, "The church isn't the building but the people". As much as we "know" that, we still have the "building" concept still embedded in our thinking. Just look at the words we use on a weekly basis.

I am going to church tomorrow.

What did you learn at church today?

Do you go to church?

What seemingly amounts to harmless semantics I think actually affects how we view our spirituality in general. By using such phrases (which shows how we really still think about things, even if on the surface we deny it) we are making it harder and harder on ourselves to not compartmentalize things. My thought is that such language breeds two things (although there is probably more):

1. A lack of concern for our spirituality outside of the buildings we go to

2. A passivity in our engaging in spirituality and our worship, especially when we gather on the weekends at our gatherings.

Secular Space (continued thoughts)

I have done more thinking on what the emerging principle, transforming secular space, includes. As I thought, I remembered the oft-quoted saying by Abraham Kuyper, "there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: mine!" This truth is at the heart of what it means to transform secular space. It is the recognition that God does not just rule at church and among church folk but that he is active in all of creation and has invited us to join. We are so self-absorbed in our own "getting saved" that we miss the whole point of redemption. The good news is not that we "get a ticket to heaven" for when we die but that we are given invaluable insight into what it means to truly live and that life involves bringing heaven to earth, transforming the secular space.

This concept of "bringing heaven to earth" is key to understanding the believer's role in the realized eschatology of the Kingdom of God. It is not just a future, hope-oriented reality but has broken into this age in the death and resurrection of Christ. We, as those united to Christ, are called to bring this new age, this renewed creation, to our worlds.

But this isn't the type of thing that people like to hear because it consumes everything you are. Like CS Lewis said in his book, The Weight of Glory "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." This goes for Christians too (if not especially).