Doubt is Good … Reflecting on Our “Religulous” Winter Retreat - Part 2

February 25, 2010 // No Comments »

Posted in Christianity, Reflective, Student Ministry

Doubt is Good For the Soul
The first time I showed Religulous to our youth leaders, some confessed that they felt guilty for laughing. Being a product of sacrilege, I didn’t think too much of it. I was more concerned about the doubt that would be created and reinforced - which was part of the reason I was showing the movie. Everyone I know doubts. Not just Christians - I mean everyone I know doubts something that they were at one point certain about.

It’s my opinion that we don’t doubt enough! If we did, I think many of us would have a stronger faith. For many the first time they truly examine their doubts is in the proverbial ancient literature class where they discover the idea of “Genre”. The Bible is a narrative with various genres - Historical, Law, Poetic, Apocalyptic,

I think a solid youth ministry discusses that first. For Bible-believing Christians, we don’t teach our students enough Bible. There are various reasons for that which I can’t get into here but we don’t teach enough Bible. Even more importantly, as Bible-believing Christians, we don’t teach our students enough the importance of walking in the Spirit. When we explore our doubts as we are seeking the Holy Spirit, a lot of beauty, truth, and the presence of God is found.

“Umm, God, Do You Really Exist. Can I ask that without getting smited?”
God is not afraid of our questions. I used to think He was. I used to think that my submitting any question in the direction of God would grieve God and I’d either get cursed with a broken television or worse get called into pastoring at a King James Version only church (I can the blog reader say it right now, “If the King James was good enough for St. Paul - it’s good enough for me!”.

Doubt is Two-Edged Sword
All that said, doubt is a two-edged sword. People give up the Christian faith for various reasons, but among them is because of a giving into their doubts. Bill Maher would say something like, “No, they grew up out of these idiot fantasies about space gods and virgins and started thinking for themselves!” But whenever I think of some of his statements, the CK Chesterton line comes to mind, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.”

The Line Between Great Doubt and Great Faith is Very Thin
I used to also think that the less you doubted the more your faith grew. Though I’m not a good linear thinker, if you could picture a line and on the far left, it was labeled, “Great Doubt” and the far right “Great Faith”, i would have assumed that they were polar opposites from each other. But I think it’s a pretty thin line. It’s when we believe in spite of the doubt, in spite of the pain, that our faith is growing.

I see Matthew 7:7-8 as a promise to the seeker of faith (”Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened”) and reminded our students as I have been reminded many times, great people of faith doubted before they obeyed - Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Thomas and you could even make the case that Jesus was tempted to fall into doubt. When He’s prays in the garden for the cup to pass over him, that is not just poetry. Luke 22 describes that he prayed so earnestly that drops of blood fell to the ground. Wether this is figurative language or the A rare physiological phenomenon “hematohidrosi“, he was certainly stressed. I dislike the idea that Jesus skipped his way to His crucifixion and gave a “thumbs up” before being nailed to the cross. In fact, it’s this Jesus in Gesthemane that encourages my faith. Indeed, Jesus knows what it’s like to at least be tempted to doubt … and to believe.

I’m not sure where I found this now but have loved it:

The Skeptic’s Prayer
Dear God,
sometimes I’m not altogether sure what I believe or why I believe it. But I do want to know you. I want to find you. I thank you that you’re walking with me on this journey, even though it often doesn’t feel like it. I invite you to plan an even bigger role. Guide me, lead me, help me, God. I want to rest in you. I want to work with you. I want to believe in you.

Selling Out the Sell-Outs - Part 3 - Looking For Something Better

January 30, 2010 // No Comments »

Posted in Christianity, Missional, Reflective, The Church

This is Part 3 in this series. If this is your first time on this site, don’t start here

Part 2 finished off with the idea that while everything can be said is marketed, we must examine the motivations.

In looking at motivations, we ought to consider the ministry of John the Baptist. It is widely understood that he did not actually “invent” the idea of baptism but was used as a means to be identified with God. Later Jesus-followers would use it to publicly proclaim their identification with the second person of the trinity, the Savior Himself. As we proceed, it is necessary to understand the distinction between human interaction/communication and tactics of marketing.

Second, as K&S point out, “Jesus and the apostles did not have a ‘marketing’ or ‘consumer orientation’ which is what they insist the contemporary church must not have if it to be effective. The reason why Jesus and the early church did not have this orientation is quite simple: As we have shown, the management theory that underwrites such an approach to marketing was developed during the middle part of the twentieth century under very historically specific circumstances” (p. 45).

It has become fashionable to insist that one be relevant to their cultural surroundings. It is also a form of credibility to demonstrate to an audience/demographic/individual the attempt to posture themselves in a way that convinces them of their care. There are clichés, “People don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care” that capture this. But Barna’s call for “systematic study of needs, wants, perceptions, preferences and satisfaction of its members and others whom it is trying to reach” (p. 47) sounds like the institutional form of stalking as opposed to an invitation to encounter the Almighty God. It’s reminiscent of an apocalyptic science fiction movies where there is a secret meeting of aliens preparing to take over the earth. The last thing Christians need today is to appear even stranger.

It would become extremely beneficial for a church to analyze if it has been consumed in the “exchange process” (48-49). K&S made an excellent use of Scripture by using Acts 17:24-25, whereby reminding the reader that God does not need an exchange from the believers but rather the worship is an expression of gratitude and love. Worshippers would enter sanctuaries differently if they adopted that understanding and pastors would preach differently if they did. It will be an interesting to see what needs to happen first for our churches to function this way.
This is precisely one of the failures of the contemporary church. Many ministries have been set up as service centers. “Give us an hour and we’ll give you the truth – God’s truth!”, “Give us your kids and we’ll convert him to well-behaved Christian toddlers”, “Give us your tithe and we’ll give you the soundtrack to sing to Jesus” and so forth. Such a mentality is so arrogant that it nears blasphemy for it implies we are able to place God “under obligation” (p. 53). This Barthian quote ought to appear in our church as often as the times of service, “It is impossible to lay hold of God. Men cannot bind Him, or put him under an obligation, or enter into some reciprocal relationship with Him” (p. 53).

The “user-friendly” church mocks the work of Christ. Such a church builds egos not hope, builds monuments of pride not a servant-like humility and leads to a spirit of competition between other churches rather than asking the Spirit to move and work throughout the Body. To be the bride of Christ, to be the body of Christ is to love Christ first, not one’s own self.

The church board dialogue that occurs in the opening pages of Chapter 5 is all too familiar scene. The church board must decide their “evangelism strategy” It gets ugly. We want certain people over other people. We need money to pay the bills. We don’t want anymore problems than wha twe already have. And it’s among the many reasons why everyone has a terrible church board story.

The moral to most of this particular caricature of meetings is that clearly the pursuit of the Kingdom of God is third priority at best following high attendance and paying the bills. It has always been my observation that despite how serious evangelicals take the Bible, we are extremely slow in taking care of the poor, fighting for the oppressed and comforting the suffering. It is almost as if Jesus said, “Hear O’ Israel, the greatest command is build as big of a church structure as you can. And the second is imitate the world.” Jesus would find no fault with us had He said that.

In fairness, our numerous denominations, endless evangelism schemes and involvement with church marketing has been due to a perverted exaltation of how we have interpreted the Great Commission. We have strived to pursue as an efficient means as possible to mass produce and export the gospel. Our inspirations have not been Paul and Peter and the stories contained in The Acts but rather McDonalds, Coca Cola and Microsoft. By doing so we have domesticated and have sold out the Gospel.

What does one do once they realized they have ruined the family farm? Protect what little self-interest is left, liquidate and quit or start over? As much as I enjoyed reading K&S, I was secretly hoping they would transition from the accurate, critical and prophetic words of demise and conclude with a series of bold exhortations to abandon the marketing mentality, teach our churches to resist the consumer mentality and to pursue the Church that God has called us to. After all it is a book about the Church. And so, I was glad they did in the final chapters 6-8 were joys to read for their calls to courage such as this quote taken from Robert Lupton:

The Church is the only institution which , without irresponsibility, can expend all its resources on great and lavish outbursts of compassion. It is ordained to give itself away, yet without loss. The Church, above all earthly symbols, bears the responsibility of declaring in the outpouring of resources, the utter dependability of God. To preserve its life to lose it (p. 118).

Amen and Amen to Selling Out the Church. While it seems appropriate for K&S to publish a follow up to evaluate the current evangelical landscape (since it was published over 10 years ago, this text offers much to consider and reinforces a great deal of suspicion of how “we do church”. Indeed it is time to sell out the selling out the church and the first to go are my books on church marketing. It is my confident prayer that the Gospel will be enough and May the Lord lead those that persevere against the consumerism, pride and the spiritual forces at war with the Kingdom of God.

“SELLING OUT THE SELL-OUTS” - PART 2 - Everything is Marketed but …

January 29, 2010 // No Comments »

Posted in Christianity, Missional, Reflective

Post 1 finished off with the “over-marketing” of some churches. By that I do not only mean that they market a lot but that they rely heavily on marketing. Perhaps you have seen a place that has relied more on its “techniques and schemes” than on God Himself. Terrible people. I know because I have been guilty of that as well.

But what does it mean to market something? Is George Barna right when he says, everything is “marketed”? Is he wrong when he argues that churches need to do a better job in marketing or “taking on a marketing orientation” (p. 23)? To be fair, everything is “marketed” to some extent, including K&S’ book! The book has a cover that conveys “modest but serious” with an excellent picture of a broken down billboard announcing the book’s title. The text is clean, efficient with sub-headings to help guide the reader and the chapter pages are styled suggesting the smart people at Cascade Books did not merely say, “We’re going to be as simple as possible.”
Further, the book is only 164 pages which attracts readers who do not want to be bogged down in an endless abyss of rhetoric like other books for sale next to it in the “Theology” section. The publishing industry refers to these types of books as an “airplane book” because they are just short enough to read and finish on a plane. Ironically, most of the books by church marketing guru, George Barna are about this length. And finally, the foreword was written by the highly esteemed theologian Stanely Hauerwas and advertises his name on the bottom of the cover. That recommendation alone is a fantastic piece of marketing and as a consumer, I readily confess that I would be most interested in reading a book like this.

While the authors offer that they “are not trying to paint marketing as an evil enterprise …” or (accuse those that do) “are somehow sub-Christian” (p. 34), they do believe it is a serious mistake to place at the center of the church’s self-understanding what the church marketers so innocuously call a marketing orientation (ibid).”

For the sake of clarification, Barna defines further that marketing is “the process by which you seek to apply your product to the desires of the target population” (Barna. p. 23). An initial thought is that at some basic level, everything is “marketed”. If we practiced the same form of deconstruction as a collegiate lunch table after a Philosophy 101 class, George Barna and his marketing friends would have a case. Church signage, service bulletins, the worship experience, the pastor’s attire, websites, the Powerpoint background of the worship songs all apply a value (or desire) targeting a particular audience at some basic level.

Further, I concede that it can be interpreted that Jesus, Paul, and the writers of Scripture exercised some basic form of “marketing”. Evidence would be the decision to write in Greek as opposed to Aramaic or Hebrew. However, the value of K&S’ argument is in how much of a factor should marketing play in the role of the Church? This changes everything. In this light, certain questions are begged like, “What language would you have preferred the New Testament be written in?” The issue is that any language creates a targeted audience. At this basic, almost trivial level, there is no such thing as a language that is not “marketable”.

On a practical level, a naïve application of Barna’s definition would drive one mad. How does one dress? Can one imagine the sheer existential magnitude of determining which outfit to wear in the morning in order to avoid the accusation that “one is marketing him/herself”? How does one decorate their home? The logical answer is that at some point we are not continually marketing ourselves but are wearing clothes and outfitting our living spaces based on our preferences and expressions that the thought of pleasing a target audience is dismissed as “It’s no one’s business but we hope you accept our dinner invitation.”

Thus marketing becomes then an issue of motive. How much will the idea of marketing influence the church? Returning to the examples of Jesus, Paul and the N.T. writers, it would serve us well to question their motivation. When Jesus proclaimed the words that He knew would create enough enemies that would lead to his execution, it’s hard to take seriously He did so because this was the “soteriological product” he needed to promote and sell. It seems more likely that He proclaimed these words out of mission, calling, and a genuine love for people. The vehicles He employs (sermons, miracles, rhetoric, disciple-making) are not rooted in marketing but rather human interaction.

So I conclude this part by dismissing that while everything can be accused of marketed to a targeted audience on some basic level, I am more concerned with the our motivations for why we do what we do, especially as it pertains to the church.

Christmas Reflections Part 3 - Have Yourself a Snobby Little Christmas

December 30, 2009 // 4 Comments »

Posted in Christianity, Reflective

Warning  - if you don’t get sarcasm - Stop reading

I was done talking about this but from various conversations and looking at facebook status updates, I guess I’m not ready to drop this.  What is it about Christian holidays that gets everyone so angry? Is it all the talk of peace? Is it the joy to the world blessings? Is it the adorable personalities like Santa, Rudolph, and Buddy the Elf?

I know that people have a lot emotionally invested in the Christmas holiday. I realize that for most people, it’s an important part of their childhood. And for many there is a longing to return to the way things were - whatever that means. Further, as a Christian, I certainly understand its significance. But because I do, I find myself restraining my frustration from those that get angry this time of year. It seems obvious that our responses should be joyful and grateful.

The other day while standing in line at Barnes and Noble, I heard a couple of people venting about how terrible all the tacky lights on people’s trees inside and outside.   One noticed the book I was holding was spiritual and a conversation began. Wouldn’t you know it - they were fellow Christians. “What has happened to this holiday?” the one asked me.  I tried consoling them by saying, “Well, what do you expect when you borrow from pagan traditions?” but that only seemed to upset them further. Really, what do you say? “Yeah, you know what Leviticus says about that mixing colors on trees.” or “That’s why I stopped celebrating the coming of Jesus.”. To fit in, I guess I should have said, “That’s why this country is going straight to hell. Why when I was growing up, everyone celebrated Christmas and only used red and green lights, like Mary and Joseph did.  And then we’d all go and build a church, and then an orphanage, and then a Christian ice cream parlor.  After we were done, we’d drink some hot chocolate (at the ice cream parlor) then go caroling in the nursing homes in Antarctica. Those were the days.”

I couldn’t help but think they were snobby. To retaliate, I didn’t invite them to our Christmas Eve services (Yeah, what’s up? Who’s snobbier now?

Someone else had made passing comment to me regarding the title of a message that I was going to preach, “Incarnation and Imagination: What Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and the Gospel of Luke can Teach Us About Christmas”.  (See all I gained from Pete Enns.  I know this reference only works for a few people). Anyway, it was for our Second Mile service which is a monthly Saturday night service geared for those in their 20’s and 30’s. Unfortunately we had to cancel the service because of the snow but it was probably going to me my best message ever. Now we’ll never know. Anyway, I am sure this person was just making conversation with me and it was not an attempt to critique the title but the comment implied that it wasn’t suitable for a holiday so sacred. I was like, “What’s wrong with the Gospel of Luke?”.

Again, I thought that was a bit snobby. To be spiteful, I think next year I will add National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to the title. (That’s how we roll in Montvale. Shove that in your stocking.

Although I give a lot of evidence to the contrary, I can be a pretty serious and reflective person. I love Christmas. I love its meaning. I love its beauty and I love much of what surrounds it, including the cheesy decorations, odd characters, and some really hard to sing carols. What I despise is when we take the peripherals of it too seriously.  I suppose I am sensitive to that because that used to accurately describe me.

There was a time where anything that did not scream “holy, Holy, HOLY!” seemed like an attempt to cheapen Christmas to me.  I really felt I was honoring God more by “guarding” the sanctity of the holiday if I condemned the non-sacred elements of it.  All I could talk about was the commercialization of the holiday and how it had lost its high place in the American landscape.  And while I was always annoyed of when someone would call Santa, Satan, it bothered me that kids wrote letters to the fat man as opposed to offering prayers to the Almighty One.

I am not sure what exactly the turning point for me was but it had a lot to do with observing the time of Advent.  I know this now - taking the time to prepare my heart for Christmas allowed me to take in more of the joy of the holiday.  It allowed me to look at the rich and beautiful meaning of Jesus’ coming and it offered me a healthier way of celebrating it.  It even opened my eyes to enjoying our feeble attempts of demonstrating our happiness.  I found myself not taking everything about it so seriously, yet still loving God more for the purpose of His coming.  It’s probably not a coincidence that I stared loving the movie Elf.  To me, Elf is not just a hilarious character played by Will Ferrell but also the child-like response of the innocent in love with the amazing.  (And yes, Ferrell is hilarious).

We shouldn’t take every treat every aspect of our spirituality so seriously. Indeed, humor can degrade important matters but it’s also used in celebration. For example, a birthday party. Because we cannot always hire carolers to sing on our front lawns all day (although that would help unemployment), we hang up lights. Because the human heart cannot literally talk about Jesus all day, we create characters like Santa (based off a Saint that provided for orphans), Rudolph (based off a children’s story of acceptance) and Buddy (who I think is based off a monk in the 4th century who was raised by … ok, I’m making that one up) but to help remind us to keep the “holiday spirit”. Because the lighting and relighting of the advent wreath at some point loses its beauty (and becomes a potential fire hazard), we watch the Christmas Story and Miracle on 34th Street. And yes, a twenty foot blow-up Homer Simpson is now part of Christmas and according to some neighborhoods, he was a part of the Magi.

No one will have any trouble convincing me that some have removed Jesus totally from Christmas, but a few things are worth mentioning here. One is that Jesus would not respond with anger and frustration but instead with grace and love. Two, we Christians remove Jesus from His own holiday when we fight over Christmas rather then just celebrate and graciously share it.  And lastly, Christmas can never be taken away. Its redemptive meaning are for all those who dare to come from wherever they are and celebrate.

Christmas (Eve) Reflections - Part 2 - Fighting with a llama and worshipping baby Jesus

December 24, 2009 // No Comments »

Posted in Christianity, Reflective

The night was Christmas Eve a few years ago and I was standing outside fighting with the llama. As I recall, the dispute was over the agreement we made with his owner. We needed him to lead the purple king of the Magi entourage down the center aisle for our Christmas Eve service but he was one of those animal actors who didn’t want to work because we had overlooked certain details of his rider (he required Avian drinking water and we used Dasani). Being Egyptian, it’s in my blood to win such battles with the camels and llamas (the camel’s western hemisphere cousin) but my parents immigrated so their sons would never have to deal with these humped stubborn beasts!

As a child this was of course how I always dreamed I would spend my birthday. As a pastor, this was of course, how I always dreamed of being part of the Christmas Eve service. Eventually, I threatened to call his agent the diva came to reason and fulfilled his duty. This was just one episode of an entire Christmas drama production my church would put on to celebrate the birth of Jesus. For the record, those productions were done pretty well. In fact, for the size of our church, it was pretty amazing. We had a few retired men who would build these elaborate sets to convert the sanctuary into a starry Bethlehem. Almost the whole church got involved which sounds nice but when church people are involved, they usually bring their problems. Each year, there was something, who would play Mary, it’s a singing role you know, who would play Jesus, we need more choir members, more instrumentalists, “so and so” was going to be out of town and the classic, “this looks like last year”.

We would do two of them that night, and this was my fifth Christmas production at that point. I remembered my thoughts at the second service from previous years. By then it was after midnight, Christmas morning, and I would be standing in the back of the sanctuary. The drama portion had been finished, everything was quiet and we had moved into the candle lighting time before singing, “Joy to the World”. That moment used to always redeem the chaos for me but this particular year took a toll on me and I found myself wondering, “Would Jesus have celebrated His birthday (His coming) like this?” and further, “Would He want me to celebrate it this way too?”

As I recall us taking the Christmas offering in giant Christmas stockings (I kid you not), I feel confident saying that Jesus may have skipped His own party. He may have even preferred the pub across the street. I hope that doesn’t come across as offensive. While I do not deny that I am prone to exaggeration and at times feel the need to provoke and instigate, I actually thought and find little reason not to believe this. This goes beyond the fact that Jesus ate and drank with prostitutes and tax collectors (the worst of betrayers of His community), but rather I am more interested in what celebrating the coming of Jesus looks like.

I think Jesus would have us be with those we love and find ways to interact and bless those we don’t know. Celebrating Jesus’ coming is to imitate His ministry. To love, to serve, to live in humility, to pray without pretense, to intentionally sacrifice in hopes of bringing joy to the world and glory to the Father.

Tonight I won’t be fighting with a llama but I look forward in attending our Christmas Eve service tonight (it’s a different type of service at my current church). Tonight, tomorrow, and most days, I am (and hope to be) grateful for things like the season of Advent, projects like the Advent Conspiracy and with the leading of the Holy Spirit, trying to live a life that reflects Jesus’ coming. I wish the same for anyone reading this - May you be filled with the joy, hope and peace of Jesus’ coming. Merry Christmas friend.

Is Bono our Billy Graham? Thoughts on Today’s Evangelist - Part 2

December 7, 2009 // 3 Comments »

Posted in Bono, Christianity, Missional, Reflective

I am attempting to make the case that today, the musician (or artist) is today’s evangelist.  Now I can hear one of my friends mentally thinking right now, “Well, it depends what you mean by evangelist”.  Indeed  it does.  For years I have not been convinced that the motivation of every convert at a Billy Graham crusade was forgiveness of their sin and joining God’s narrative of redemption of all of creation.  It seems clear to me that each person comes to Jesus from a different context and a different part of the gospel appeals to them more.  Those that are in need of healing (physical, emotional) look to Jesus the Healer.  Those guilt-ridden from a list of sins that have haunted them for years seek Jesus the Forgiver.  The meaning-seeker sees Jesus as the mediator between her and God.  Some even identify with Jesus the lover of people and while they acknowledge their sin, they are even more moved by the inspiration of Jesus.  And then there are some who don’t care about Jesus at all but know they prefer heaven over hell.  That’s probably a very, very, very small percentage but let’s call them “Jesus the free ticket to heaven because I sure don’t wanna go to hell” believer.

Now it is not the purpose of this post to determine which motivations for conversion  and discipleship are authentic (although our sarcastic spirits can probably figure some of  that out), I do want to equal the playing field here when we question the motives of  those like Bono or Jars of Clay or some other musician.  But when these musicians’  activism brings clean water to a group of people, is that not true mission work?  To  some, mission work only happens if there is a “true gospel” presentation and while I certainly believe that we are to share about the crucifixion, resurrection and the way of Jesus, etc., I think too many evangelicals have largely missed the importance of things like clean water initiatives in places like Africa and addressing the needs here in our own communities.

I imagine a conversation with a missionary saying to a thirsty African: “You need Jesus, the Living Water!  See, it’s spiritual”.
Thirsty African: “I have no idea what you are talking about.  How is a name I never heard of going to give me spiritual water.”
Missionary: “You’re misunderstanding - Jesus has the water”.
Thirsty African: “Oh that’s great!  Where’s Jesus, because my family and I really thirsty”.
Missionary: “Well he’s not here he’s …
Thirsty African: “Oh. I got it the first time.  Well I wish Jesus would have come with your fancy spiritual water.  Listen, some guy from Ireland is providing water and digging wells. Frankly, he looks a bit odd but I’m headed over there.”

Sometimes I feel as an evangelical missions movement saying, “It’s too much trouble to help feed and clothe you, so you will probably die before we can do this efficiently.  But die with Jesus. We love him, so should you.  He has done so much for us and if you believe in this name that you have never heard of, you will thank us on the other side of eternity.”  This is what I am interpreting some saying.

I think that’s a very poor approach to missions, the gospel and the call to the Christian life and I hate to say it (I really do) but I think some of our artists are doing more for the Kingdom than some of our “missionaries”.

My Review of the Justice Project

December 1, 2009 // 2 Comments »

Posted in Book Reviews, Christianity

Shame on me for underestimating its potential but to put it simply, The Justice  Project exceeded my expectations.    In my defense, I simply could not believe that  one book that asked such wide array of minds to confine their words in only a few  pages each could be so powerful.  Looking back on it, I approached it the way I see  many compilation cd’s.  You know what I’m talking about - those albums created for  a particular cause but are so disjointed that their best feature is that they gave a tiny  percentage of the proceeds to the cause itself.

The Justice Project is nothing like that.  I figured I would like it, but I didn’t realize  how moved I would be by so many chapters.  I know this sounds overly dramatic, but  I am not sure I could figure out which chapter I liked the least.

Similar to the Coldplay effect on music where so many bands decided to incorporate more piano and less guitar, to some, justice is the new novelty of the Christian world.  What the JP does is open the eyes of the reader that justice has always been the mandate of God and part of the scope of the Scriptures but unfortunately, some of us have missed it.

Justice has gotten a bad reputation amongst evangelicals.  Scarred by the missteps of the social justice movement (where the pendulum swung too far), the mission of God became exclusively about winning souls to heaven (the pendulum swung back too far).  In some circles, the term “justice” has gotten a bad rap as it was often modified by the word “social”. And we all know that if you are interested in social justice that you can’t be interested in the resurrection of Jesus too.  Clearly one is completely alien to the other.   This book would help alter that perspective.

If I could read it over again, I would have used this book as a devotional.  I don’t normally use daily “devotionals” and not real crazy about the connotations associated with the term but using this as a daily reading would be beneficial.  There’s a lot to consider.  Like the Hebrew and Greek word for “justice” occur over 1000 times in the Bible.  However, how many sermons have you heard on the subject of justice? I bet you have heard more sermons about sex than you have about justice. Further, I bet that you have rolled your eyes more times at Bono talking about justice than the number of times your pastor has centered a sermon around this subject.

One of the best features of the book is that it includes voices from various ethnicities and from different corners of life.  While there were some very familiar names like Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Lynne Hybels, Samir Selmanovic, Peggy Campolo, the Samsons, about half the names were new to me and I found myself googling them after finishing their chapters.  I especially liked the author bio on the first page of the essay as opposed to the last page.  As you may have heard by now, everything is contextual and it was great to get a hint of where the writer was coming from.  I also liked the way the five parts the book was broken into: The God of Justice, The Book of Justice, Justice in the USA, A Just World, and A Just Church.

As most of the faithful readers of this blog know by now, I direct a lot of words to the conservative evangelicals because I consider myself to be one.  To put it bluntly, if  you can define justice as part of God’s righteousness, and if we as a Church can see and treat it the way we regard evangelism and discipleship in the Kingdom, then  I believe, we would be a more complete Church.  Pick up the Justice Project, it’s excellent.

Using Scripture Against Obama Is Not Christian

November 24, 2009 // 4 Comments »

Posted in Christianity, Politics, Reflective

A few times last week I received an email saying “Pray for Obama by using Psalm 109:8″.

It reads, “Let his days be few and let another take his office.”  If you watch the youtube clip, they’ll tell you the next verse.  I know people sent it as a joke but I’m no longer sure that people are joking anymore.

I saw this video with Franky Schaeffer on Brian McLaren’s site and thought to share it with my readers. Schaeffer’s book  “Addicted to Mediocrity” was very influential for me during my Liberty University years.  I’m sure he’d say he’s changed a lot since that publication and I have too.  Regardless, he says plenty for us believers to consider here:

When I saw the teddy bear, I actually began wondering if this was a joke.  But it’s not.  In fact, Cafe Press actually released this statement stating that this merchandise will no longer be available.  Now I should say that I do not agree totally with Schaeffer.  I do not identify myself as a member of the Religious Right but I do not actually see the Right as the “American version of the Taliban”.  That said, things like this make his case hard to disprove.  Whether you consider yourself on the Right, post-Right, moderate, whatever, if you are a Christian, you can not tolerate this.

Certainly I am in no position to actually determine whether this project  was actually started by a Christian but too many are certainly behind it.  (My theory is a clever businessman started this, offered his services to ultra right wing personalities and enough people thought it was funny so here we are but I could be very wrong). Anyway, this ridiculous campaign reminds me of that scene in the movie Saved! where Mandy Moore’s character throws a Bible at the back of her “sinful” friend Mary while screaming, “I am full of the love of Jesus!”.  Most would agree that was a bit contradictory and not Christian.

To be Christian is to be a praying people.  Very quickly someone will say, “Yes, Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies and Paul reminds us too …”.  Certainly this is true but to be Christian, we should be extremely careful in even regarding someone as an enemy.   Frankly, I am not convinced that Obama can even be called an enemy but everyone is entitled to their own conviction.  Jesus told us to love all.  Among the most loving, the most Christian thing to do is to care for those we passionately disagree with, to serve the persecutor and to truly pray in a manner that brings glory to God.   Otherwise, we are not worthy of the blood of the cross, we are nothing but spoiled brats who arrogantly speak of a god who is not just, nor compassionate, nor anything that resembles the triune One of Scripture.  That is an idea created by those  who wish to create a god that loves and hates the same things they do - that’s an idol, not the true and living God.

An Encouragement to Particpate in the Advent Conspiracy

November 22, 2009 // No Comments »

Posted in Christianity, Reflective

I’m one of those no Christmas music til after Thanksgiving people. I have made a few exceptions like Bob Dylan’s new Christmas album and the amazing Sufjan boxset but what I am really thinking about is Advent. Really, I am. For many years, I’ve always felt unprepared for this season but not this one, friends. I even considered writing a pre-advent devotional book entitled “Get Ready to Get Ready” but I got pretty discouraged that the material pretty much was the Christian life. You know stuff like, “As we prepare our hearts to prepare our hearts, let us reflect on what it means to have the presence of Jesus with us now.” Currently, I’ve retitled the project to “Just Another Devotional in Distribution”. My imaginary editor told me that acronyms are sellers in the Christian retail world so “JADID”.)

Well as you can tell from the deep outpourings of my heart that I am ready for Advent. Similar to last year, I’ll focus on certain parts of Scripture, use a particular devotional, and am considering a couple other practices that I do not know how to communicate properly. But among them will be the Advent Conspiracy.

As a youth group, we have set a goal and I am hoping the Second Mile community will participate in some way too. I keep sharing our experience from last year, hopefully not out of a sense of self-righteousness but last year was one of my favorite Christmases. The short story and to keep it specific to AC was that Susan and I simply bought bags of fair trade coffee (from One Village) for most people, a few books (ask my sr. pastor which Tony Jones book he got), a restaurant gift certifcate and donated the money we saved. We bought a couple “normal” gifts for Nathan and each other (Susan got a macbook …. in October and I bought books that I would have bought anyway but this time … even more guilt-free. But they were great answers to people who measure your goodness by what you purchase for loved ones at Christmastime Anyway, I think I went to the mall twice: once we took Nathan to see Santa (which he didn’t enjoy) and once to buy something for a non-coffee drinking person - fruitcake of course. This year I plan on giving coffee, subscriptions to magazines like Generate and some Invisible Children items.

Everyone I know, and I think I mean literally everyone, has lamented to me at one time or another the absolute frustration of Christmas shopping and has complained of its commercialization. I am sure they have complained to you too.  So everyone we know feels this way. The Conspiracy helps counter that. I know some will think, “You don’t understand, I have a family that expects Christmas gifts - nice ones!” – yes that makes you American, welcome. Or more common, “I just don’t have anything left to give” – seriously, that’s what the Advent Conspiracy is about. Spending less, so you can give more and spend that time that you would have thinking what to get for the person that doesn’t want anything, shopping anyway and wrapping the stupid thing so at the end of it all, you can be closer to Jesus. You now get to redeem that time and hopefully do something constructive with it - you may even choose to worship (and I don’t mean just on Sundays and I don’t mean just in “quiet times”) but imagine worshipping during the Christmas season and spending time with people you love and maybe even showing love to those you don’t know.

Know that I and others like me are not trying to create a new legalism here. It would be easy to do that and may the Lord guard our hearts from that. If your Christmas is fine the way it is, disregard the advice and worship the way you would normally. But if you curse every time you hear “So This Is Christmas”, it may be time for a change.

Hopegiving versus Thanksgiving

November 19, 2009 // No Comments »

Posted in Christianity, Reflective

These were some of the thoughts I tried to share from our Second Mile service this past weekend.

It was entitled a “Thankless, Guilt-Ridden yet Hopeful:  A reflection on the believer’s posture towards the holiday and topic of Thanksgivingl”

In the facebook invitations, I asked those coming to participate in some fill in the blank type statements like, “When I think of Thanksgiving I think of …”,”My least favorite part of Thanksgiving is …” and “I wish the church would consider … in relation to Thanksgiving”.  I got some good answers.  Regarding what they liked, most enjoyed spending time with family, reflected on the year and shared about certain family traditions.   The responses for “Least favorite …” was more interesting.  Among them was spending time with family, the bloated feeling after the big meal, and bad football games.  There were also some good answers regarding what the church could learn from this time of year.  My favorite answer mentioned was “humility”.  Indeed, indeed, but that would lead to a different post.

For me, Thanksgiving has always been an interesting time.  Certainly there are many positive things to enjoy about this holiday.  However, over the years, I have found this time to carry a sense of personal frustration as well.  Years ago, I remember sitting in a Thanksgiving Eve service where there was a time of sharing on what we were grateful for and the ways we’ve seen God work this past year.  At the risk of sounding ungrateful and judgmental, I remember thinking, “Wow is that all God is to you?”

They were comments like:

I hate my job but at least I have one. (Yeah I can feel the praise shake the windows of heaven on that one)

My mom is crazy but at least I have one.  (See you tomorrow!)
My boyfriend is an idiot but at least he takes me out on the weekends (and he’s rich but I won’t say that out loud).
My wife is crazy but at least I’m not single. (Ok, I haven’t heard that one out loud at a Thanksgiving service but I have heard it peoples’ minds).
Single people who say, well, I’m glad that I’m not married to the wrong person. (And we all know how the church feels about singleness.  Better to be married 4 times and cheating on your spouse then to be single in some churches.  You might even get asked to be an elder … only if you are a man of course
I’m glad that I’m not among the percentage of people who don’t have clean water, and adequate clothes, medicine, and shelter (that should break our hearts not give us a reason to be thankful for our circumstances. In fact, how can we be thankful this time of year having knowledge of that?)

While I digress and exaggerate heavily, to me these are not reasons to be thankful.  Further they are not reasons to celebrate the goodness of God.  If anything that sounds like Darwinism to me.  “Well at least I didn’t get eaten by a lion today”.  Or the Christian version of that, “Well, at least I’m better off than Ananias and Sapphira”.

Now I am sure upon hearing some of these statements,  the person sitting in front of me was moved and felt God’s presence in a powerful, profound way; I am very willing to concede that this is my problem and not the sharer’s and certainly not the fault of the service itself.  Unfortunately for me, the negative feelings of this service and the way we as a Church talk about this time of year have continued to appear.  Since then, I have learned a few things and among them is I am not alone in these feelings and perhaps God is trying to tell us something.

Some of the text below is based on slides I had prepared and the text was from I Peter 3:8-18.
The challenges of well-intentioned holidays like Thanksgiving:
The personal pain in life sometimes make Thanksgiving sentiments feel trite.

The “sudden” spiritualization of the holiday to be thankful to God may lead to a forced thankfulness
and eventually guilt.

How can I be thankful in the midst of so much suffering?

Many have carried over this idea that we have attach a certain religious mentality to this holiday in order to be faithful to Jesus.  Unfortunately this has led many to self-righteousness, legalism, and hypocrisy.

It creates a caricature of God that is fickle, weak, unsympathetic and an ignorant old man.  And once a year we have to bring what we are thankful for to the altar … so that He will bring us Christmas gifts.  This reminds me of a favorite U2 line on No Line on the Horizon, “Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady.” - from “Stand Up Comedy”.

I think the above expresses a shallow view of life.  If you have ever been to a cancer ward, you may know what I mean. A few years ago, I visited with a cancer patient who was getting chemotherapy.  We talked, we laughed, we listened to each other’s stories, we even prayed.  Of course, I left thinking, “wow, I’m grateful for my healthy. Grateful that my wife is ok too” but I confess two things

It’s probably that’s it’s a matter of time before someone is visiting me with a life-threatening illness/disease.  Further, what about the person with the life-threatening illness?  How can I be grateful in a world that has cancer?

We reconcile these thoughts with:

“Well, it’s a fallen world and you can’t live in fear you know – true – sorta.

And the classic line, “Carpe Diem – Seize the moment!”.  But this motto carries an unknown expiration date.  Indeed we ought to live being self-aware with a sense of mortality but I usually hear this as a rallying call for “to live life to its fullest”.  That is another line that is misleading.  Not that I think we should live to its least or one that is mediocre. The issue is that these movie lines have the tendency to lead our hearts to being self entitled and inward seeking.  So the line we usually say is, “Seize the day (for myself)”

Which leads to the question, “Does this mean thanksgiving is a temporary season?”

And what about can one be thankful in the midst of cancer?

I think of my friend who has since, passed away. He told me though he may not have too much longer, the disease has brought out the best in life.  The best from his family, friends, church, and from himself.  It’s such a shame that you have to be dying to get this.

For me the problem with the idea of thankfulness is that it is bound by results. It’s on the opposite side of faith.  It tends to measure God and the blessings of life circumstantially as opposed to relationally.  Consider for a second that Jesus did not come to give us better circumstances or to keep us from experiencing pain but rather for redemption, to lead us in the abundant life and to allow us to live in His Kingdom.

Our question this time of year should not be, “What do I have to be thankful for?”. That may more like the second last question (but I think there are about 20 worth asking prior).  Among the many reasons, one is because the last question in the journey of the Christian faith should be “Can I still hope?”

This is why we can be thankful in the midst of the storms of life sure.  But I tell you what’s important is that we have hope in the midst of the storm.

This is why we can enjoy the blessings of life but we cannot stop there, but rather we must offer the hope to those that are suffering around us.

Because of the work of Christ, I have hope.

And so … (more slides)

Let us focus on the basis for our faith to begin with - Christ and His work.