Category Archives: Doing Theology

Stephen Day: The gift of martyrdom

Doing Theology, Music, The Mission, , ,

I wanted to have a nice long visit with Stephen, since his day fell on a Sunday this year. But then the snow moved in big and we cancelled the public meetings. So let me offer a variation on what I wanted to deliver this way, on the blog.

Good Carrie

If you read my blog, you know that I was mad at Carrie Underwood this week. She and I have a very rocky relationship. We were way in love, not too long ago, when she sang Jesus Take the Wheel

And the car came to a stop
She cried when she saw that baby in the backseat
Sleeping like a rock

And for the first time in a long time
She bowed her head to pray
She said I’m sorry for the way
I’ve been living my life

I know I’ve got to change
So from now on tonight

Jesus, take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can’t do this on my own

I’m letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I’m on

That was nice. And the video brings tears to my eyes, especially when the couple comes back together over their kitchen table after fighting about the bills.

Disneyfied Carrie

But then Carrie wrote a song herself for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader which was almost exactly the Disneyfied thing I was complaining about before Christmas in the PM. She sang that “we would all be kings and queens of anything if we just believe (in whatever). It is written in the stars. Faith and love will keep us strong. Exactly who we are is just enough.” No mention of Jesus this time.  No crying. No praying. No sorrow for the way she was living. No hint that she couldn’t do it on her own.

So Carrie and I are having a hard time. I hope we can work it out, because she seems very nice and I think she is one of  the best people to ever win American Idol.

I think I understand her a little bit. Because here we are celebrating St. Stephen’s Day right after Christmas. It just seems a little out of place to get all martyr-y right after Christmas when we got all those presents and ate all that food. I don’t know why they didn’t just get all the martyr days into Lent where they belong! Christmas is totally the feast of lights in the midst of dark; it is very hopeful. Europeans of yore really wanted to get hunkered into the family bunker and eat a lot of stuff with fat in it so they could survive the blistering cold winter in Germany. Americans want to take the kids to the mall to cash in gift cards on the 26th, not consider the life of the first Christian martyr, who cashed in his life after he saw God revealed in glory! — talk about letting Jesus take the wheel! People usually skip St. Stephen because he is a bit much. If his day wasn’t referenced in the song Good King Wenceslas, we probably would never hear about Stephen at all.

Begin the Twelve Days right

I don’t know if there was a big strategy for when St. Stephen’s day should be celebrated, but I would not be surprised if some theologian thought it was very important to get a notable martyr on the calendar right at the beginning of the twelve days of Christmas. While the historical account of the birth of Jesus is definitely important to repeat, I’m sure some theologian would suspect that people might get lost in the angels and babies and warm family feeling of Mary and Joseph camping out in a barn and miss the whole point, so he thought, “We’d better stick something else in here — I’ve got it! St. Stephen!” Some hard guy like Martin Luther probably thought these verses about the incarnation should go on the Christmas cards of all true believers, not some sweet picture of a holy family surrounded by air-brushed cattle or something worse. After all, this is the meaning of the incarnation:

Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
   did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
   by taking the very nature of a servant,
   being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
   he humbled himself
   by becoming obedient to death—
      even death on a cross! Philippians 2:5-8

St. Stephen’s Day would certainly help us to consider the true goal of incarnation, if we let it actually get into our calendar, much more our consciousness. Stephen is just a regular person, he is not even one of the first apostles. He is just a guy with the mindset of Christ Jesus who gets noticed for having it by people who oppose the influence of his faith. He is a regular person who one day is eating dinner with his family and the next day is making himself nothing — a true servant of Jesus with nothing to tell the authorities but the truth. He is, like Jesus, obedient to death, while Paul is watching it all happen — look at him in the back of this painting dressed in green.

You can read the whole story of Stephen in Acts 6 and 7 Here is the part about how his martyrdom got started:

     “Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.
     Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.”
     So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”
     All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. Acts 6:8-13

Stephen went through the whole history of Israel to prove that it was not he but his accusers who were detractors of Moses. He ends up telling it like it is:

     “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”
      When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
        At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
        While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.  Acts 7:51-60

Let’s do some Bible study on being like Stephen who is like Jesus. Some people, like Stephen have the gift of martyrdom. Some say this is the spiritual gift you only use once! But it is more of an attitude, a mindset, like Jesus had, which gives us the spiritual strength to face our false accusers and hold on to our faith. The gift of martyrdom is the spiritually-born courage to be who we are and to obey the heavenly vision we have seen, even if people would like to hurt us, mock us, or even kill us.

Iraqi Christians need this spiritual capacity right now. Many of them have cancelled much of their usual Christmas celebration this year because Islamic militants have been attacking their church buildings for the past six months, and it is getting worse. The Kurdish government in Northern Iraq has offered Christians sanctuary, but it’s not like everyone has the money to get up and move. Since October attacks have escalated and priests and worshippers have been killed. One militant group, the Islamic State of Iraq, has explicitly stated that their fighters will kill Christians “wherever we can find them.”

In the United States, our people with the gift of martyrdom, must help us stand up against state-sponsored irreligiosity, against the Disneyfication of spirituality and much more. When I was in Costa Rica, my genial host, an American ex-pat, discovered I was a pastor and immediately said something like, “My family never talked about religion or politics at the table,” — giving me notice, in a very nice way, that I should watch what I say. It is a battle every day, just to be a faithful follower of Jesus. Even before you open your mouth, they tell you to shut up!

A self-giving lover and truth teller

So here is some encouragement from the Bible to let the movement of God’s Spirit in you make you like the self-giving lover and truth-teller Jesus and Stephen were, even if it costs you. And for those of you with the spiritual gift — I hope I encourage you to go ahead and get us ramped up to face what we have to face and not cave in to the pressure to dampen our flame or hide our faith altogether.

In some places in the Bible the idea of being gifted by the Spirit to act in ways the body of Christ needs  is plainly stated. Gifts are particular aspects of God’s life in believers that some of us have more than others. We’ve all got the Spirit of God at work in us through our connection to Jesus, but some of us have a calling to do one thing more than another. The distribution of these gifts is not a science, but it is clearly observable. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says, while he is in the middle of  a lengthy teaching on spiritual gifts that, “If I give all I possess to the poor, and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

Give over my body to hardship could also be translated, and is translated as, “give my body to be burned.” That’s a clear reference to being martyred. The root of the word of “martyr” is about giving witness. One is burned because he or she is expressing their faith. The Apostle Paul is certainly into this. He tells the Philippians after they have contacted him in Rome, while he is under house arrest: “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life — or by death.”  Philippians 1:20

To “deliver oneself up” is the gift of grace God gives members of the body of Christ by which they undergo suffering for the faith even to the point of death, while consistently being a witness of the truth and love in Christ. Jesus clearly taught that this would happen. He told us that all believers will suffer persecution at some level. (Merry Christmas!) — ” If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” John 15:18-20

Some believers burn with a fearless witness that often puts them in danger  Paul was like this. He told the church in Corinth” “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” 2 Cor. 1:8-11

The one with the gift of martyrdom will be forgiving , like we saw Stephen ask God not to hold his murderers sins against them. Peter counsels people to be patient when they are persecuted, trusting in God, not vengeful, even  joyful, full of praise: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.” 1 Peter 4:12-16

The gift encourages others to passionate mission and prayer. The gifted ones keep us out on the front lines of our purpose The Apostle Paul was chained up in his house for being a Christian when he went to Rome and this is what he said about it: “Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.” Philippians 1:12-14 When persecutions arise, there are those gifted to glorify God through them. This could be a gift given to meet the ongoing, daily persecution, or for the crisis situation.

We all need the Holy Spirit with us to face the inevitable opposition we will face because we follow Jesus. You who are gifted martyrs, please don’t hold back, even when you think we don’t want you around. We need your courage; we need you to keep us on the frontlines, lest we not be like Jesus at all —  Jesus, who is ready to be born into trouble and to die with it on his shoulders, Jesus, who is confident that resurrection is in his future.

Can We Do Without the House, the Body, the Incarnation?

Doing Theology, The Mission,

We have been looking all over the region and all over the country for the people God is nudging into the proactive peacemaking work of Shalom House. I’m not sure we are the best lookers, but we are manifestly not the most successful finders. The fact that we are not successful recruiters raises the question, “Can we do the work of Shalom House without the house? Do we need an intentional community to incarnate our hopes?”

It is work

We could probably do the work without the house. I, for one, will have to keep working even if we can’t sustain it. But the work would not be nearly as brilliant. Enough of us in the church would shine the light, but it would probably be a dimmer light. One of the great things about Shalom House is that it gathers the radicals in one place and calls them to live in peace, not just talk about it. They get practical about peacemaking every day, not just write blogs about it. They get up each morning and conflict stares them in the face in the dining room, not only because it is on their bulletin board but because it is on their to-do list and it is sometimes staring at them across the breakfast table! The church needs intentional communities at the heart of us to remind us that community is possible, much more, maybe, do we need a community devoted to peacemaking.

The body

Finding the next people to join in with Shalom House is a specific case of our larger everyday search. We are scouring the region looking for the people God is nudging into Circle of Hope.  Being “in” Circle of Hope is a relative concept, of course. A man who lives in Brooklyn most of the time was at the PM last night and considers himself a part of BW. People who aren’t part of a cell and who attend a PM randomly consider themselves part of “Circle.” Their slight attachment brings up the question, “Can we do the work of Jesus without all the trappings of church – all the meetings, common bank accounts and obligations?” Do we need an organization to be our organism?”

People certainly think they can do without the Church. On the one hand, it is good that they feel like they carry their faith in their heart on their own and don’t require a lot of handling or support. On the other hand, it is so common that people lose their faith by swimming alone in the sea of opposition that it is a wonder that jumping overboard is so popular. We Christians in the U.S. are kind of a strange species; our strongest swimmers are often the ones who jump ship. They are busy with a brilliant, individual life that is conceptually attached to the body of Christ, but practically, is not much of an incarnation. Sometimes they parachute into “missionary” places looking for more individuals, such as themselves, who will leave their community to live an individualistic Christian life and find themselves having a tough time being connected to their own neighborhood (unlike the people they meet), because they don’t connect — at least for very long.

The incarnation

I suppose it comes down to the big question, “Could someone do the work of Jesus without Jesus?” No one reading this is likely to answer, “Sure!” But I am not so sure a lot of us aren’t trying it. The great challenge of turning from our godless way of life to a God-filled way of life is following the living Lord in the day to day, being an incarnation of Jesus as a member of his incarnation, the body of Christ, the church. The past 100 years of Christianity, in particular, seems to have allowed the faith to be one among many religions, a personal decision about meaning, a private experience that can’t be transferred, a “spiritual” matter, not a practical, legal, political, genetic or sociological matter, a collage of concepts, not a relationship with God.

Advent is the season when we are reminded that we can’t do the work of God without God-with-us. I suppose the fact that the season of Advent seems kind of weird to many Christians reflects our desertion of the doctrine of the incarnation —  so many of us are mainly concerned about right thinking or the heat of our personal feelings and less concerned with right living. But, as Paul says, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Gal 5:6) and “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision [or any other argument] means anything; what counts is a new creation.” (Gal. 6:15) Advent calls us to express our faith in God expressing his love — in a body, in time, in creation by birthing a new creation. We might prefer a more convenient “salvation,” one more personalized to our needs and desires. But we can’t do without the one we’ve been given.

Poetry in the Face of Power

Doing Theology, Poetry, The Mission,

poetry in the face of powerSeveral people asked me for a reprint of the poem I quoted last night, so I thought I’d offer it to everyone.

Creating is a sure way to reveal the Creator; the Creator is revealed in our creativity. By re-imagining the world for everyone whose imagination has been re-organized by the domination system, we help restore the broken image of God we carry.

The poem is a “targum” by Brian Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat from their book Colossians Remixed based on the following “poem” by the Apostle Paul (or one of his friends) included in his letter to the church in Colossae.

Apostle Paul

He is the image
of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
For by him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers
or rulers or authorities;
all things were created by him and for him.

He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head
of the body, the church;

he is the beginning
and the firstborn from among the dead,
so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Colossians 1:15-20

Walsh and Keesmaat

Here is the expansion on Paul’s poem, designed to help us re-imagine with him for our time. I’ve made a few edits.

In an image-saturated world,
a world of ubiquitous corporate logos
permeating our consciousness
a world of dehydrated and captive imaginations
in which we are too numbed, satiated and co-opted
to be able to dream of life otherwise
a world in which the empire of global economic affluence
has achieved the monopoly of our imaginations
in this world
Christ is the image of the invisible God
in this world
driven by images with a vengeance
Christ is the image par excellence
the image above all other images
the image the is not a facade
the image that is not trying to sell us anything
the image that refuses to co-opt us

Christ is the image of the invisible God
the image of God
a flesh-and-blood
here-and-now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
image of who God is
the image of God
a flesh-and-blood
here-and-now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
image of who we are called to be
image-bearers of this God.

He is the source of a liberated imagination
a subversion of the empire
because it all starts with him
and it all ends with him
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space, cyberspace
whether it is the Pentagon, Disneyland, Microsoft or Comcast
whether it be the institutionalized power structures
of the state, the academy or the market
all things have been created in him and through him
he is their source, their purpose, their goal
even in their rebellion
even in their idolatry
he is the sovereign one
their power and authority is derived at best
parasitic at worst

In the face of the empire
in the face of presumptuous claims to sovereignty
in the face of the imperial and idolatrous forces of our lives
Christ is before all things
he is sovereign in life
not pimped dreams of global market
not the idolatrous forces of nationalism
not the insatiable desires of consumerist culture

In the face of a disconnected world
where home is a domain in virtuality
where neighborhood is a common “like” on Facebook
where public space is a shopping mall
where information technology promises
a webbed-in, reconnected world
all things hold together in Christ
the creation is a deeply personal cosmos
all cohering and interconnected in Jesus.

And this sovereignty takes on cultural flesh
And this coherence of all things is socially embodied
in the church
against all odds
against most of the evidence
In a “show me” culture where words don’t cut it
the church is
the flesh-and-blood
here-and-now
in time and history
with joys and sorrows
embodiment of this Christ
as a body politic
around a common meal
in alternative economic practices
in radical service to the most vulnerable
in refusal of the empire
in love of this creation
the church re-imagines the world
in the image of the invisible God.

In the face of a disappointed world of betrayal
a world in which all fixed points have proven illusory
a world in which we are anchorless and adrift
Christ is the foundation
the origin
the way
the truth
the life
In the face of a culture of death
a world of killing fields
a world of the walking dead
Christ is the head of the resurrection parade
transforming our tears of betrayal into tears of joy
giving us dancing shoes for the resurrection party

And this glittering joker
who has danced in the dragon jaws of death
now dances with a dance that is full
of nothing less than the fullness of God
this is the dance of the new creation
this is the dance of life out of death
and in this dance all that was broken
all that was estranged
all that was alienated
all that was dislocated and disconnected
what once was hurt
what once was friction
is reconciled
comes home
is healed
and is made whole
because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space, cyberspace
every inch of creation
every dimension of our lives
all things are reconciled in him.

And it all happens on a cross
it all happens at a state execution
where the governor did not commute the sentence
it all happens at the hands of an empire
that has captured our imagination
it all happens through blood
not through a power grab by the sovereign one
it all happens in embraced pain
for the sake of others
it all happens on a cross
arms outstretched in embrace
and this is the image of the invisible God
this is the body of Christ

The afterlife: False Comfort from the Capuchins

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Spiritual direction, , , ,

My uniform is pretty simple. In summer it tends to be shorts and indestructible Chacos. In winter I put on long pants and black sneakers. Perhaps I picked up the simplicity from Christians I admire. The Amish have a uniform from the late 1800s which continues to turn heads in Lancaster Co. And I love the Franciscans, especially the Capuchins (after whom cappuccino and cute monkeys are named), who returned to the brown (hooded) robe of St. Francis in the 1500’s, including the rope belt with three knots to remind them of their vows.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus - Today's CatholicBut the Capuchins sent me the worst tract in the mail the other day! (We are on innumerable religious mailing lists). I don’t really want you to see it because you might believe it. I just want to complain. Complete with a picture like the one at the right, they intended to “comfort those who mourn” with a prayer from the “Roman Ritual.”

Almighty and most merciful Father, who knows the weakness of our nature, bow down Your ear in pity to your servants, upon whom You have laid the heavy burden of sorrow. Take away out of their hearts the spirit of rebellion, and teach them to see Your good and gracious purpose working in all the trials which you send upon them. Grant that they may not languish in fruitless and unavailing grief, nor sorrow as those who have no hope, but through their tears look meekly up to You, the God of all consolation. Through Christ Jesus Our Lord.

Prayer that might drive you out of faith

Since we don’t know how to pray, and since the Spirit of God is praying for us, we can say a lot of dumb things when we talk to God and it will be fine. So I am sure many people have prayed that prayer with no great adverse impact. But I want to object to two things in the tract that I think have driven many people right out of their faith, instead of comforting them.

1) As you saw in the prayer, their logic is: God laid the burden of sorrow on you, so you should stop rebelling against that and see your grief as something good.

God does do great things for us when we are grieving. Our losses are primary places where we change and grow and learn to trust God. But our sorrows are hardly God’s plan, like we should spend our days meekly looking up to God though our tears, waiting for him to send a trial! So many people I know have understood this logic and see themselves as the perpetual rebel and God as the perpetual sender of trials to keep them on the track of meekness. It is not a good relationship. If the Lord wanted to send me burdens it was kind of odd for Jesus to become like me to bear them with me and on my behalf.

2) Their conviction is: Dead people are watching us from heaven

In a part of the tract I don’t even want you to see, the friars tried to comfort those who have lost a loved one by convincing us that when people die we have not lost them, they are watching us from heaven and waiting until we join them. Considering that they are watching us from bliss should encourage us to live a good life so we can join them. They are praying for us, even if they are in purgatory.

I can only complain so much, since I know very little about the structure of the afterlife. But I don’t think my dead loved ones leave their bodies and become like angels in heaven (or whatever they are in purgatory) to pray for me to leave this life of tears and join them in happiness as soon as possible. My hope is in a restored creation, not a disembodied eternity. It is OK with me if God works this out any way he chooses (I’m sure she’s glad I’m OK with that!), but I don’t think he is populating  heaven with the ghosts of my loved ones to haunt me.  The friars want me to find comfort in the “real and continual presence of our loved ones.” No, I think they died. When the Lord says the word, they will rise to eternal life if he chooses. How the timing and physics of that works out is not my concern (at least not my prerogative).

I wouldn’t bring all this up, except that a lot of my friends have a secret: they don’t believe a lot of the stuff their religion teachers crank out, especially when it comes to heaven and hell. The Catholic Church, in particular, has accrued so much nonsense in their theology over the years that you have to shut off your brain to go with it; it’s like Mormonism. Just rebelling against the nonsense is kind of a cheap way out. So I thought I’d validate the process of trying to think things through a bit rather than just closing our hearts completely. So what if the Franciscans sent me a dumb tract? – they were trying to comfort me. They’ve got a lot of other things going for them, like St. Francis. Let’s keep talking.

Gen-Y: Do Not Become Slaves of Human Masters

Doing Theology, The Mission, , , ,

I get confused about the arbitrary labels assigned to “generations” in the marketing worldview that dominates us. But, for today, let’s go along with Cindy Krischer Goodman and call them Gen-Y, the 18-30 year olds I love so much. The Inquirer picked up one of Mrs. Krischer Goodman’s pieces (and may have edited it to death it is so choppy) about how the recession has smacked the age-group with reality. “About 37% of 18-29 year-olds have been underemployed or out of work during the recession, the highest share among the age group in more than three decades.”

Gen-Y Singapore

I love talking about reality. The reality Krischer Goodman is talking about is that Gen-Y’s prized work-life balance is no longer a viable goal. They must swallow “humble pie,” adopt a “new attitude” and make themselves “more valuable.” They must face up to being “coddled” and stop demanding raises, promotions, time off, training and the hottest technology or they will just be raising their unemployment rate even beyond its present 15.3%. They need to return to being the slaves they were bred to be.

One of the most intriguing things about Gen-Y is that they have a very quiet rebellion going on. I think it is their best attribute, even when I wish it were more vocal and aggressively subversive. In a book about how they work, Stan Smith writes, “They are compliant for now. Yet if you dig beneath the surface, their underlying values are still there…They want flexibility. They want work-life balance. But for now, they are just not as vocal about how they want it served up.” They are compliant….FOR NOW.

You’d think they were an army of zombies ready to enter the village and eat Mom. It is amazing that the ominous demands laying in wait are:

  1. not to be treated like they are machines or pack animals and
  2. wanting a forty-hour (or just not seventy hour) workweek and more than two-weeks of vacation a year!

Cesar Alvarez says the recession is a wake-up call that will change the generation’s behavior. “I think their concept of the ultimate safety net has shattered. I’m seeing them much more engaged. I think this was a tipping point that helped the new generation suit up for the game.“ He reminds me of my football coaches in high school who used “galley slave” as their model for training.

I couldn’t decide which scripture best responded to this article. So I chose two. They kind of go together:

“Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters.” (1 Corinthians 7:21-3)…”For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them.” (2 Peter 2:18-19)

The Inquirer highlighted the article: “For the coddled, tech-savvy young, the recession has brutalized their income, savings, career plans.” Next thing you know they will be forced to rely on Jesus and others for life itself! They might discover that the freedom they are offered is slavery, and the slavery they think is conforming to Christ is freedom. My hope does not waver.

“Best Practices” Aren’t, Necessarily

Doing Theology, Film/TV, The Mission, , ,

I suppose today’s thoughts could go in the category “things Americans never tire of doing.” The newest business preoccupation to creep into the mainstream (like into your poor child’s school) is “best practices.” Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about “best practices” because my wife, the professor, and my son, the teacher, have been invaded by the fear of not performing according to these practices by their colleagues.

early best practices

A world of efficiency experts

The whole discussion reminds me of the 1950 movie (even more the book that spawned it) called Cheaper by the Dozen. It is a humorous look at the family of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy) who are time/motion study and efficiency experts. The comedy comes from watching them try to run their children according to their theories, and the drama comes when father’s body proves to be all-too inefficient. The title comes from one of Dad’s favorite jokes. In the movie, the family is out in the car, stopped at a red light. A pedestrian asks, “Hey, Mister! How come you got so many kids?” Dad pretends to ponder the question carefully, and then, just as the light turns green, he says, “Well, they come cheaper by the dozen, you know.”

Now they want to produce our children cheaper by the dozen. What was most useful in developing software has leaked into developing people and we are just foolish enough to go with that as if it makes sense. “Best practices” are techniques that are believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer complications. For years we have been tormented with “outcome-based” everything. God save us from the people who believe that data is law and then decide the outcomes accordingly!

Slaves to the data

It seems to me that Americans (maybe humans) repeatedly have the same arguments. I don’t want to use the most hysterical example just for show, but it comes to mind that slaveowners made the argument in the 1850s that the most efficient way of farming for them included slavery. It had shown itself to be the most profitable way of accomplishing the production of cotton, in particular, with repeatable procedures that had proven effective for a large number of planters over generations. It took brave Christians, in particular, to demand an end to that “best practice.”

But Christians don’t seem to be as vocal as they used to be. They seem to be as subject as anybody else to the tyranny of “best practices.” The Bible repeatedly says (in the face of former outbreaks of human-reliance) that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” But these days we seem to be in step with everyone else in fear of the taliban of “scientists” overwhelming us with inscrutable data about the best way to do everything (until they change their mind again). “Best practices” should be suggestions from well-meaning people. Instead they become rules from “science” ayatollahs who make it plain that not following the practices is, essentially, immoral if they can’t make it illegal. And many Christians go with that.

Courage to cure the headache

For educators, therapists and social workers (for many of my family and friends!) this outcomes-based mentality is a real headache. The data is not so bad if it is suggestive (since figures lie and liars figure); but life becomes untenable when you end up “teaching to the test” and lobbyists get regulations passed that force you to conform to their interpretation of the “best practices.” For a Christian, who has little faith in hyper-rational world views, it is a particularly oppressive moment when fellow believers have bent the knee to the baal of “best practices” and one’s tenuous grip on viability within the system is stretched to a breaking point. For instance,  CACREP (the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs) has a line in their core values statement  that says the board of directors believes in “creating and strengthening standards that … encourage program improvement and best practices.” So when these wannabe accreditors get your legislature to adopt their standards of accreditation, pretty soon you’re subject to their idea of “best practices” for your counseling. It is a surprisingly small degree of separation between efficiently producing mother boards and thinking one could mother children with mothering “best practices.”

I hope in that by 2050 (when I will only be 96, after all) I will get to see the fruit of brave Christians showing up the ludicrous nature of wisdom that does not begin with the fear of the Lord. One does not need to be anti-science to see its limitations. One does not need to be very loving to see that people are often driven by fear, not wisdom. One does not need to be very observant to notice that movies keep prophesying the horrendous effects of the rational-extension machines. But one does need to be faithful and courageous to work, plot and persevere in the institutions that can be devoured by the latest version of the same old arguments. Even more, one must be downright creative to live in an alternative to the latest attempt to enslave us to what the antichrist powers deem best.

Good Questions about Jesus

Doing Theology, The Mission, ,

One of my friends put up the picture at the left on Facebook, so here I am forwarding it and expanding its pernicious reach. Go figure. If it brings you down, I apologize. No matter how painful the dialogue, it is better to have it than to hide, I think.

I couldn’t resist responding to my friend, so I almost got in to one of those email exchanges in which young men, usually, can argue a point for a few weeks and feel hurt when they don’t feel heard but act righteously self-reliant when confronted. I am not very adept at those, but I don’t mind blogging.

I have been suffering a little about this poster. It is painfully accurate. I wish it had shown a picture of Christians and not Jesus, but then it would not have been nearly as effective. I think most people leave faith in Jesus behind because of the Christians, not Jesus. They end up thinking that Christians are just as self-interested as unbelievers, only they have an overlay of religion in the way of being as real as unbelievers. I think a lot of former believers might admit they first thought Christians might be “full of shit” when their relationship with a believer could not fulfill their needs any better than the others who didn’t. Jesus, prayer, the Christians – everything was so disappointing!

My rather small response to the poster was, “Yes, people do pray like that. BUT — if Jesus’ prayer was doing jack shit, people would not STILL be tying to take him down.” That’s more of a confession than a recommendation. I got kind of personal with whoever made that pernicious and effective poster. I had to admit that my fellow-believers often use prayer as a retreat from living and an excuse for inaction. But I had to state the obvious, as well, that when Jesus prays, “Not my will but yours be done” in the garden, there are world-changing results that changed me, too!

I won’t repeat my whole reply, since friends need space to work with all the relational issues and understandings that probably need to get on the table along with the arguments. But there were two questions brought up in the exchange that I think I run into quite often. So I want to take a shot at speaking to everyone about them.

If Jesus is God, why is it that he struggles with humans taking him down? Why is God in a struggle with things he has all power over?

Are all cultures preoccupied with power, or is it mainly the empire-building Americans? The Christians seem to be zoomed in on God being “in control.” The more disempowered they are socially, the more dramatic the lust for power seems to be.

God is in a struggle with things he has power over because of his great love. He wants the relationship, not just the fruit of his power. God created beings with whom there could be a struggle in order to expand love in the universe. I think that is the usual and best response to the age-old question. God, in the person of Jesus (and alive in His Spirit, stumbling around in the body of Christ, the church) is the ultimate expression of this struggle. Jesus is so identified with humans, he is tempted to “take God down” by not fulfilling his destiny when he is praying in the garden. God has the same internal struggle we do – to not merely be “in control.”

Hasn’t humankind created God and all other gods, and that’s why ascendant cultures replace them over time?

My friend is “post-Christian” right now. I haven’t asked him if that’s his way of looking at it. But he is insightful, intelligent and can see that the culturally-subsumed Christianity of his childhood is breaking down and being replaced by a multicultural religion of tolerance and general unbelief in all “gods.” A new culture appears to be ascendant; it is certainly taught by all our schools and is the main propaganda of our media! If twentysomethings are not skeptical when someone thinks an old picture of a white Jesus antiseptically praying in the garden might mean something, I don’t know why they aren’t. I am skeptical, too!

My answer (for now): Humankind has created gods. Cultures often march into battle with the god-emblem of their society at the front of the troops. Supposedly-Christian Americans are in Afghanistan and Iraq to protect “our way of life,” often symbolized by the constitution which enshrines individual rights. So the point is well-taken. Jesus is God right in the middle of that mess offering a true way out of the redundant cycle of ascendancy and fall. Jesus is restoring our true image, lest we create another monster-god in our own.

People answer these questions much better, of course. They often take whole books to do it well. N.T. Wright is making a whole prophetic career on trying to speak to our era about all these things – and quite successfully. I am writing a blog-entry in my PJs. I just wanted to speak back to the poster. I have a lot of affection for the friend who posted it. I wish I could talk to the person who made it originally. I’d like to know if he’s making the implications about my friend, Jesus, that he or she appears to be making.

Stop Eating that Damned Apple (Please)

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I want you to know…that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any human, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:11-12

I have been talking to several cell leaders who feel like their cells are drowning in discussion fomented by people who would probably kick people out of their “Bible study” if they said something like Paul said to the Galatians, above. A lot of these dear complainees formerly attended rationalistic churches that started them down the road to seeing their faith as an exercise in thinking the right thoughts and organizing their lives around them.

Learning to listen

So what do they want to do in their cell, now that they have moved out of the church of their youth and are thinking their own thoughts in the big city? They come to the cell meeting, the discussion is left open to see what God has been revealing, and what do they do with the kind people who are leaning in to listen? They lead them to continually scratch their heads over some conundrum. They keep coming up against the imponderables that rationalistic Christianity leads to. They keep bumping up against atonement theories that they haven’t thought through. They want to re-discuss the trinity. They love the topic of predestination. If you bring out the Bible they’ll start channeling some professor debunking its historicity or consistency and they’ll want to compare it to the latest Buddhist tidbit their yoga teacher passed on.

Their faith is an argument, not a relationship. And most of the time they didn’t really understand the argument to begin with and never really bought it. I, for one, love all these discussions — when they are open-hearted and part of a real struggle for faith they can be beautiful. But they can be hard on a cell leader. Because when they are just the dark side of someone resisting Jesus, they are tiresome, even dangerous. When they are merely an unconscious, stuck person floundering around in the mire that bad teaching created for them, they can be pitiful and sad.

Paul is speaking out of his experience with God (and I am too), THEN he makes an argument. He is worried that the Galatians will begin with the Spirit and then return to the teachings of mere people. He is afraid that Jesus has not really been born in them and so they are easily duped into returning to mere religion. The cell leaders to which I am referring feel his pain. The prison doors have been opened and certain friends won’t walk out — they rebel against being imprisoned, but they are still discussing the terms of their sentence, post-parole.

The original argument over the apple

Ironically, while pondering the theories of Bible interpretation, many Christians we meet have missed main messages of the Bible. For instance, they eat the apple every day:

Rembrandt Adam and Eve

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
            When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked… Genesis 3:4-7

When the goal of faith has been reduced to knowing stuff, when faith is about feeling the security and power of knowing the secrets and explaining everything perfectly; it is easy to feel naked all day. People come to our cells from parts of the kingdom of God where folks are trying to stay covered up all day and the main pursuit of fellowship is all about collecting another piece of data to add to their wardrobe. They are always trying to look right. They only trust people who seem to know it all. And they tend to try to be know-it-alls themselves, even though everyone can see that the data is not covering their human parts. Did God tell them they didn’t know enough? I don’t think so.

The Bible repeatedly says that knowing anything begins with knowing God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Eat Jesus, not the apple again. Then we can talk about faith.

Principle Christianity Is Too Easy to Choke On

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , , , ,

But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. Luke 8:15

The Lord’s parable of the sower is a hopeful story. But no more hopeful than creation itself, in which a single seed actually does result in many more seeds, even hundreds of seeds.

But the parable is also a starkly truthful story, and that can feel very discouraging. Because some seeds don’t take root, some are eaten by birds, and some, even when they take root, can die from lack of water or by being choked out by weeds.

I’m thinking about seeds that are getting nowhere this morning. I’m the kind of farmer to whom every seed counts.

Parable of the Sower Lisa Snow Lady Acrylic on canvas 2010

People in the weeds

I am especially thinking of the much-loved friends I have who have been effectively choked out by weeds, or, by now, have faith that has been so ill-watered for so long that it is about dried up. Even more specifically, I am thinking about my friends who have what I call a “principle faith”. They received “the seed” of the word of the kingdom of God as a set of thoughts, a system of belief, even as oral tradition from their parents. When they took their faith on the road, when it encountered a world hungry for their allegiance, when it was surrounded by the jungle of desire and demand, it did not have the stuff to withstand the weeds of opposition.

A faith based on principle alone has a hard time standing up against other forces demanding allegiance on a more visceral level. But many people were persuaded to rely on principles at an early age. I’m not sure why Christian parents and teachers did this, but they sat their children in classes to get their training for a life of faith. I know, I went through some of these. Among the first things a child learns from such classes is that Christianity is about learning things in a class! In our classes, we were taught stories from the Bible which all had morals — sometimes more like Aesop’s fables than the Bible. We learned principles of faith, which were extracted from scripture. For instance, from the parable of the sower the following principle might be derived, “It is God’s will that I should be good, productive soil and bear a very fruitful crop for the storehouses of the kingdom.”  Advanced students might argue that they had a more accurate principle to propose. And so it started. Every paragraph, even every clause, in the Bible had a secret meaning that correlated with all the other meanings in a rather intricate system of right thinking that one needed to master to be a good Christian.

Do we really need to be better students?

As most children in school do, a lot of the students of Christianity didn’t listen too well. They were like most of the of the students of 11th grade math who never mastered higher math skills and certainly never used them after 11th grade! Hopefully, they aren’t all like me, but I became much more adept at cheating than at higher math skills as a result of trigonometry. If the principles of math are hard to convey, the “principles” of life in Christ are much harder! Math can be reduced to some principles, perhaps. But life in Christ needs to grow among weeds. The inorganic approach to teaching about Jesus needs a classroom to live in, not real life. So there are many problems with the teaching that a lot of my friends received. They ended up with a smattering of good thinking (or disputable theology) and that’s about all they have of the word when they are facing the weighty issues of their lives.

Does everything happen for a reason?

The friends I am praying for this morning have a “principle faith” that took them quite a distance on the pilgrimage of faith, but eventually it got them lost. For instance, a couple of these friends had very disheartening break-ups with people with whom they had been having sex for a year or so (and so the break-up was a no-marriage divorce and felt like one). The only faith they could apply to the situation was the common, unshakeable assurance a mother or teacher had taught them that, “Everything happens for a reason,“ which is an application of a faulty principle based on an interpretation of Romans 8:28 among other things. It wasn’t enough. Their faith started to wither.

People are more compelling than principles

Another main thing that I’ve seen choking out the weak little seedlings of principle faith in many people is the demand for allegiance from an unbelieving mate (usually one they are prospectively marrying). That demand is a virulent weed. Once you have sex with someone, it is hard to have what is always an intimate discussion about faith based merely on a set of morals or principles and not on a relationship with God that is as intimate as a sexual one with your lover. But in the cases of the dear people I am remembering, their relationship with God never got that intimate — it was all on paper, it was all in their head, it was all a theory they were applying and not a life growing in their redeemed heart.

They were never good soil. “Good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” One can’t hear the word of Jesus like it is more classroom material to be boiled down to the couple of things one can remember — not if it is supposed to withstand robust competition. Noble hearts hear the word from the Word in an ongoing, well-developed, Spirit to spirit relationship that is rooted in eternity — deeper than any human relationship. One has to retain the word of the kingdom of God like good soil retains water – much more than one strains to maintain a relationship with a mate, even. One must hear the word like a call from a master to direct one’s energy to the task of the day – it can’t be the background philosophy that lightly colors what one is really doing.

What does God think?

My friends did not have the faith they needed to stand up to their circumstances. They still have the same thoughts their mother or a well-meaning teacher taught them, but whatever they needed to hear in their heart got choked out by whoever they finally hooked up with. That connection was probably the noblest aim they could come up with, since their faith was merely theoretical and their love/sex relationship quite real. If they were married to the job, instead, as so many are, the job likely parched their scrawny thoughts about God, and the world at large rewarded them with something tangible for that. They may end up great parents and co-workers. But they are not going to be Jesus-followers unless something drastically changes.

Well, they may think they are Jesus followers. But if they don’t open their heart to hear with their heart, if they don’t retain what the Spirit of God implants, and if they don’t doggedly produce the crop of faith, hope and love that their master bought the farm to produce, will God think they are Jesus followers? What would make Jesus think that?

Being a WE as the BIC

Doing Theology, The Mission, ,

Saturday, Scot McKnight spoke to the Atlantic Conference of the Brethren in Christ. It was a good, engaging couple of speeches based on The Jesus Creed. I was glad to meet one of my FB friends face to face.

Here’s the “Jesus creed” from Mark 12:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of  all  the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: `Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ` Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Love God, love others. Simple. Scot had a good word. I was happy to be there. But he should not have spoken at our Regional Conference. The conference should have been about the voices of the conferees.

We need our own voice

First, I’ve got a feeling that the bishop might have been able to buy us all a copy of the Jesus Creed for the cost of the speeches. I did not check to see what Scot costs. But on Amazon, the book costs about $10 — I guess about 200 of us were there – that’s about $2000. I found Scott engaging, humorous, inspiring; but couldn’t we have received that without losing our regional conference time? — he has DVDs, study guides, the whole thing. Warren Hoffman is not as famous, but his speech was much more relevant and much more worthy of my trip from Philadelphia. Even more, I was happy to hear from the three or so people who had the temerity to squeeze themselves into the brief time allowed for any dialogue our conference might need to have.

There may be more strategy behind the meeting than I understand. I just have a small point: the conference should be about conferring. It seems to me that when I go to a conference of my fellow churches, or when the local church has a meeting to discern and approve our mission, the people I need to hear from are my leaders and they need to hear from me. If we do not have any business to conduct or if the wisdom of the delegates is too irrelevant to consider, we don’t need to have the meeting at all. At the meeting of the Atlantic Conference on Saturday, we ceremoniously seated our Moderator as a member (though not his wife). We did not seat Scot McKnight and he took up all the time! I wonder.

There was no WE in the speech

Perhaps my problems stem from the general interpretative place Scott was coming from as he taught us. He had a good Baptist viewpoint, it seems to me. It was all about how God and I relate and then how I relate to others. The problem is that the speech was happening in a conference of a people (among a “brethren”) who are a WE, not merely an aggregate of “I’s.” I’m sure Scott could have extrapolated the point, but the point about how WE love the Lord and others wasn’t the point because WE has become a non-point.

One of the geniuses of the Brethren in Christ is to be such a WE that we keep “brethren” in our name. In a day when virtuality keeps teenagers holed up in their rooms and violence keeps kids in my neighborhood locked in their houses, in which young soldiers are taught to kill people in Afghanistan by operating drones thousands of miles away, we can offer the radical alternative of being a real-time community. I speak up because I think we are allowing one of the most important things we, as the BIC, are given to offer to be eroded and conformed to the godless practices that are diminishing the impact of Christ on this generation. The regional conference is a symbol of our community, a discipline of dialogue, a practice of mutual respect and togetherness. At best it helps form what Owen Alderfer called the “brethren mindset.” If we can nurture that WE-ness it can help us bring the gospel to our time.

Tonight, we of the Circle of Hope, will be listening to Jesus teach his creed in the Temple as he enters his last week. He will be doing it in the midst of the disciples he has gathered, as a WE. And he will be doing it with US, who have become part of the community of disciples he continues to form. We’ll be having a meeting with him, and elemental to what we do will be speaking the truth in love so we can be it and others can see it happen in us.