Category Archives: Doing Theology

The sacrifice I did not ask to receive

Doing Theology, Music, , , , , , , , , , ,

On the long ride to the Poconos, the only thing on NPR was the Prairie Home Companion. Normally I can only get so far with the redundancy of Garrison Keillor, but he hooked me with his broadcast for Memorial Day. He was at the Wolftrap in Virginia, near Manassas, the site for two great Civil War battles—and he referenced Antietam, the deadliest one-day battle in U.S. history (on the U.S. side, at least). The show was sprinkled with songs from the American war-song book, but Keillor was singing for peace. He was in sync with President Obama, who remembered Memorial Day by visiting Hiroshima and calling for a “moral revolution” to make a world free from nuclear weapons.

One of the songs the cast sang was a soulful rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Keillor led the crowd to join in. Everyone seemed to know it, since this very–religious song is still taught in school. It was, quite appropriately, sung at Ronald Reagan’s funeral, who I lately accused of misleading the public to think that the United States military power was God’s instrument of policing the world, right down to calling new missiles “peacekeepers

This hymn, written by a staunch abolitionist, saw the Union Army as God’s instrument of bringing about His judgment on the evil of slavery (as even Thomas Jefferson concluded was inevitable). Julia Howe’s allusions are all to Isaiah 63 and the book of Revelation, which promise that the day of the Lord will not be pretty for the disobedient. Her song assured the army that the Civil War was a foretaste of the wrath to come.

My problem is not with God’s judgment. I rely on the fact that evildoers will receive what they have been committed to achieving. My great problem is with the rest of the theology she promoted. I think if you ask a random Christian, they will, most likely (and unfortunately), still be headed in the wrong direction she was leading the troops. The problems are in every verse. For instance:

Verse 1: He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

The leaders of armies have been telling soldiers that God is on their side for as long as I can remember. Right now, Daesh is the evil. It was added on to drugs, terror etc. The Union army was told it was God’s sword.

Verse 2: I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damp

Very few soldiers saw their camp fire as one before an altar I am sure. But the allusion reminds us that Christians reinstituted an altar worship when Constantine installed Jesus at the center of every town in the Roman Empire, right where the altar to the false gods once stood, often in the same building. But, in truth, Jesus made the body of Christ the temple; altar worship is obsolete – not merely the Jewish altar, but the very idea of needing a place of mediation where men make sacrifices to please God.

Verse 3: I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.

I gave you the whole verse. By now, you get it. The song assumes the gospel uses violence for its ends. It teaches that violence redeems. Regardless of the Lord’s own example of nonviolence, the powers that rule the world convince noble-minded women that 13,000 men should die, be wounded or go missing in one day at the battle of Sharpsburg/Antietam and those losses should be considered holy, and even the fulfillment of the spirit of prophecy.

Verse 4 — He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;

In the song, the “sifting” is about the latest war. It is not about being in God’s kingdom or another’s; it is about being on the right side of the nation’s history. As you notice from the most recent era of polarization in the U.S., people are still sifting and are still ready to condemn those who align on another side. But unlike what Howe teaches, in truth, Jesus is not presiding over the animosities which run the United States and which threaten to loop us all into an endless cycle of judgment. Jesus died and rose to end that cycle.

Verse 5 — As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free

This is where most versions of the song stop (even though Howe included a last verse). It is an appropriate climax for the song, and it is the apex of its wrong theology. The “sacrifice” the soldiers are preparing around the “altar fires” of their encampment is supposedly like the sacrifice of Jesus. The thought is the 10,000 casualties at Manassas will be worth it because the cause is one with the Lord’s.

The problem is that Jesus died and rose so that we would no longer be sacrificing animals or one another to save the world. The old is gone, the new has come. The very thing she is exalting is exactly what He brought down. Yet in the name of Jesus, Howe is celebrating the sacrifice soldiers make to His “truth” that is marching on – they are to believe that this war is for that truth.

World War I poster

Every war song since has said the same thing—dying for country, dying to preserve freedom, dying to protect your brother soldiers, dying to protect American interests, making the world safe for democracy, protecting the homeland from communism, extremism, from people who would destroy our way of life. It is always justified with the most serious, even majestic tones. I have often been told that I could not do things like write this blog unless the sacrifice of brave men had made my freedom possible. Yet I am not free from their sacrifice. I honor their courage and devotion, and I don’t think every choice we need to make is as easy as writing a blog post. But I don’t worship at their altar. They are the saviors I never asked to receive. I don’t believe my true Savior asked them for their sacrifice on the altar of preserving His rivals who continue the way of sin and death—and put it to music.

[I found out that Garrison Keillor wrote the song that moved me most in the show. It is called Argonne. Here are the lyrics.]

“Unalienable rights” should be normal but not necessary

Doing Theology,

The Declaration of Independence must be one of the most influential things ever written. It might be the “sacred literature” that influences Americans, including the Christians, the most. I think we need to do better than that, even though the Declaration has changed the world.

You may have memorized the beginning at some point:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

circle of hope, collingswood, non-denominational, rights, Jesus, church, philadelphia, churches in philadelphia, south jerseyHaving just returned from Zimbabwe, I have to say how much I enjoy those lines. My rights in Zimbabwe were subject to the searching gaze of a young soldier, often part of a team with machine guns, stopping our van (at least twenty times) over the 280 miles from Bulawayo to Livingstone. The people of Zimbabwe are so used to looking over their shoulders to see who is listening that they are reticent to say anything meaningful to their friends! It is nice to have rights.

Unfortunately, that rarity among the people of the world is seen as the apex of goodness among Americans. If you have the rights the government should honor, that’s it. After that it is up to you and you should be happy. Of course, as you have noticed, so-called minority people who are given rights don’t automatically enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is much more to life than the government acquiescing and allowing one to exist legally, even when that government thinks it is God’s tool for righteousness, as it seems to think in the U.S.

At least that is what I think Paul teaches. There is much more – so much more that talk of rights seems kind of like spiritual baby talk. The Apostle Paul has some extensive teaching about rights and freedom in his letters. He is talking to people who are generally denied rights under Roman autocracy, and he is talking more specifically to religious people who think following the law of Moses gives them special rights. What he teaches is that we have rights granted by God that don’t depend on anyone. But even more, we have the capacity, just like Jesus, to give up our rights for love. Our right to love is the highest privilege of all.

Listen to him in 1 Corinthians 9

     Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?  Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

     This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. Don’t we have the right to food and drink? Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living?

     Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?

This is like his declaration of independence. He declares his unalienable rights, doesn’t he? (Maybe you thought Thomas Jefferson invented these things!) But he goes way beyond clinging to his rights as he continues.

     But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.

     Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar?  In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

     But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me, for I would rather die than allow anyone to deprive me of this boast. For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!  If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel.

Perhaps we look askance at his boasting. But what he is saying is that he likes the reward he gets from not exercising his rights. He wants to be deeper than what is normal. He does not want to be tied up with begging and fighting for his rights, even though he deserves them on human and spiritual authority. Jesus did not die and rise to achieve normal. Paul likes relying on the Lord and having Jesus as the guarantor of rights that go far beyond the rights of which humans can deprive him. He explains what that means.

      Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.  I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

All the rights claimed by various tribes of people are fine with Paul. He has those too, on several counts: he is a Jew and a Roman citizen; he is under the law and a notorious lawbreaker; some see him as strong others as weak. But for Jesus’ cause and because of the love that’s been poured out on him and through him, he does not need to get stuck in any of those sub-Christian categories.

circle of hope, collingswood, non-denominational, rights, Jesus, church, philadelphia, churches in philadelphia, south jerseyWhen he writes to the Galatians about similar things, he warns them about getting stuck.

 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.  For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

When we talk about the politics of the U.S. these days we can almost immediately get stuck in whatever someone’s “unalienable rights” means to them about “freedom.” Mostly, it appears to mean we are all free to bite and devour one another, and the leaders are the prime examples of that freedom! In the church, people often think that protecting the rights of minorities is the apex of morality when it is just the beginning. Whole denominations divide up over power struggles about individual identity and rights. Many unbelievers think it is characteristically Christian to bite and devour people — mainly because they fight for power all day! I don’t think the Bible writers taught them to do that. There is so much more than that! Paul is not waiting to get his rights straight in the eyes of others before he loves them and reveals Jesus to them. That former preoccupation has passed away.

I am glad I have, as an American, the basic political rights that all people should have. As a white male, I have privilege that gives me special, if unauthorized, “rights” that are backed up by the domination system for whom the Declaration of Independence was intended to begin with. I think that Zimbabweans and all people who are oppressed and denied their identity as free individuals should be liberated politically. But, even more, I am glad I know that none of us will be free until we quit fighting for our rights and start receiving them from Jesus. Jesus is the true liberator. There is more life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness available in the Kingdom of God, whether I have governmental rights or not, than any gun-toting soldier can give me or take away.

Do you agree that there is another way? It begins with seeing things with a new lens. When we look at the group in the picture at the top, do we automatically see them from the perspective of who has rights and who doesn’t? Who is up and who is down? Who is labeled this and who that? Or are we determined to serve one another in love as a people who are one in Christ?

Maybe a good way to explore another way would be to consider who you think is biting you or devouring you. Maybe it stung to hear the sexist language in the declaration. Maybe it is irritating to hear talk about rights from a so-called white man. Maybe this theology doesn’t match what you grew up with in your Pentecostal church. Maybe someone did something bad to you and now you don’t feel you can trust Circle of Hope. Maybe you will need to assert your rights. But once you win that battle, what will you do to follow Christ into what is next? Maybe you could just skip the battle and go straight to love and service (and even boasting in it), like Paul.

We have no king but Bernie?

Doing Theology, ,

[Originally published on Circle of Hope’s blog before the primary]

Last week the Bernie machine rolled into town and thrilled a lot of people at the Liacouras Center. Jonny and Madi were out there getting people to tell them their stories and making friends — good for them!

Bernie was making a lot of friends with his unlikely social-democrat “revolution” — which Hillary Clinton says sounds like snake oil in the present political environment, even though she’s been working for the same kind of things as Bernie since she was an undergrad. Meanwhile her husband, Bill, was arguing against Black Lives Matter spokespeople that he was not the author of our present incarceration nightmare and the hyper-poverty at the heart of Philadelphia (like next door to the Liacouras Center!). Meanwhile, pundits were crowing over the weakening of Donald Trump’s candidacy and somehow missing that Ted Cruz is probably even more dangerous to their sense of propriety. Fun week for Philly, big week for Bernie fans.

I like Bernie, but I don’t have another king but Jesus.

The way our infotainment system works, one would think that the election of the U.S. president was the most important thing happening in the universe. We even love looking at ourselves perversely being interested in looking at Trump. The newscasters make news themselves by having tiffs with the Donald! The young people who are flocking to Bernie make news because they are supposedly making history by supporting a 74-year-old man who sounds more like Lyndon Johnson than some revolutionary. I sent in my absentee ballot, but, I have to admit, I did not even pray about it.

That’s mainly because I remember the crowd Pilate drew to his rally during the Passover feast in Jerusalem when the powers that be infiltrated an audience that would normally have gone for Jesus (and had just a week before) and got people to use the system to get Barabbas off and Jesus crucified. When Pilate asked them, “Do you want me to crucify your king?” they shouted, “We have no other king but Caesar.” Sometimes crowds get it right; but I am not trusting the vote to fulfill my hopes. They might not recognize the Son of God if he were standing right in front of them!

We are going to do some theology about elections on May 2 because even radical Christians react to U.S. elections like they are crucial to justice and world peace. Many feel, even if they don’t act, like the president (and whoever those other elected officials are) is even important to their faith. There are a lot of good historical reasons for that attitude, which has almost no relation to anything happening in the Bible, certainly not in the life of Jesus. The feeling of importance is hard to shake off when you live in the most recent preeminent empire, which loves to call itself the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth (see Bernie’s website, linked above). Living in it makes you think, that even if the 1% effectively own the government, your vote is going to start a revolution, you are just that special.

I am sorry I missed the rally. But I think I get the idea. It’s not like someone doesn’t promise a revolution every four years. I thought the last one was interesting. But since we elected Obama, the worldwide cabal that hides our wealth in Panama, or wherever, increased its power dramatically. These things are interesting, but not surprising. They make me glad I follow Jesus.

It would have been even more interesting if the church of Philadelphia (that could be like a million people), had given a clear message to the Clinton and Sanders road shows: “We have no other king but Jesus. Work that into your revolution!” Like Jesus said to Pilate we might have said to them, “Any power you have is derived from God and to God you will be responsible.” It is not the Constitution, not your vague spirituality and even vaguer morality to which you must answer, not even to the people or your own conscience or the invisible hand — all the real snake oil you are trying to sell us — it’s the King.

A confusing world: War is a good practice topic for finding a third way

Doing Theology, , , , , ,

We’ve got to do better than Disney thinking in a disintegrating world. I know, I’ve been to Disney World.

Disney World is such a theological place! It recently set my head spinning again when I visited. Simba, Aladdin, Pooh, Peter Pan, etc. were all trying to teach me lessons — and everywhere, it was “Have a magical day!” which is like a liturgical response to everything for people from the Magic Kingdom. With Disney, the basic message is relentlessly, “Find the dream in you and follow it” and there is always a choir to tunefully follow up the message, like the famous song from Cinderella (below) that sums it up:

After the song, we all go ride the rides that give a little jolt of experience that proves the magic is real. A little magic, a large group of fellow-worshipers, a promise of more (if you buy a ticket) sounds like religion to a lot of people. It is, in a way. But it is religion that resembles what N.T. Wright calls present-day “gnosticism” more than it resembles the way of Jesus, as he warns:

Gnostic-like thinking says, “Whatever you need is in you, you just need to find it and unleash it.”

  • Some people go for that with gusto: “I believe I can fly!”
  • Many more wither under the responsibility of self-creation in an uncaring world.

We need the third way that is following Jesus, risen among us.

The world is confusing right now.

There is a lot to say about what is happening to the world and how people are making sense of it, and I hope we will say a lot, because Jesus is the ultimate meaning maker. It is an opportune time to see what is going on right now, since it is an election year and the beliefs of the masses get up to the surface and we get a chance to see them again — and  we get a chance to make sense of them (if the pundits don’t steer us completely). How do we keep discerning the way when there is so much shouting from either pole? A lot of people I’m talking to are quite confused, how about you?

I think we can keep our heads on and our love intact if we stay somewhere in the middle and keep moving toward Jesus. There is a third way. Jesus is not a stance or a platform, but he is the way and a destination. I often find myself trying to steer a middle course among the people of the world, and, unsurprisingly, between the poles I often see in the church. It is something like what Paul teaches when he says I must not be, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14).

  • On the one extreme we have people who preach that “your dreams are a wish your heart makes,” just keep believing — and for many a traumatized person in Philadelphia, to do that would be a brave step out of the disaster they have experienced their whole life.
  • And then on the opposite extreme, we have people who can’t say the word “Disney” without an ironic inflection, who think a material “reality” is all there is so make the most of this mess and spend your efforts getting yours and loving your friends — for many people moving in to Philadelphia, to say such a thing might be an honest step away from the delusions in which they can no longer believe.

It is surprising how often the church seems unconscious that they have another way, a third way, that is not for or against, with or without the present age.

Is there a way to relate to people in the middle of the turmoil?

Here we are in the middle of the polarization: Spirit-indwelled people, living in a tangible community, persistently telling the story of our resurrection with Jesus and our future as world-redeemers by his side. We have our work cut out for us if we want to have any conversation at all.

Let me try to demonstrate how to think in a way that isn’t at one of the poles or merely disagreeing with them, a third way Take one subject that makes Christians at odds with most structures: WAR.

  • The one side might just let people decide whether being a pacifist is “right for them.”
  • The other side might use all the power at hand to keep what is theirs, as long as they are safe and don’t have to do anything too dangerous.

What does a Jesus-follower do? I don’t think Christian peacemaking is the same thing as political pacifism, but since they always get lumped together, let’s just use the word. What is the third way in thinking about war? – and I mean what is thinking as a Spirit-indwelled person, not just a spirit trying to escape a body or a spiritless body trying to prolong life as long as possible?

To begin with: pacifist is not passive. Not being pacifist is being pacified.

That sums it up. Proactive peacemaking is a lifestyle, not a leisure-time activity. Loving others, including enemies, is a character trait, not an application of theory. I say (and I think Jesus does too) that if you are not “pacifist” you are pacified. You may think you have love in your heart and that’s enough, or you might think you are not required to address the subject of loving people at all, but those are just more ways to be under the sway of the powers Jesus came to upend. Being disembodied is not an option.

jesus in the middle is the third way

If you want life coursing through your body as you proactively make peace on earth with Jesus,  I think there are at least three important reasons to think about forging a third way that is moving toward Jesus rather than getting stuck bouncing between the prevailing poles of arguments looking to make you an adherent.

  1. There is only so much time.

We should make the most of our time. So many of us like the election cycle because it is a big overdose of arguing that lets us off the hook from deciding. As long as we can find a reason not to choose, we feel a strange lack of responsibility that we like. I was just with five-year-olds for a few days. They were adept at pretending they never did anything they feared might be construed as wrong. Ever. No lie was too big to get me to swallow in that cause. We’re all like that a little, I think. If we can avoid it, we will. But our minutes matter. The clock is ticking and the life Jesus offers is being wasted if we are not telling the truth we know.

Donald Trump said: “In the Middle East, we have people chopping the heads off Christians, we have people chopping the heads off many other people. … I would bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” There is no time to wish that away and no time to lose by merely avoiding. We need to choose Jesus.

2. Faith is public.

The idea of a public faith is heresy to most Eurocentric people. They think faith is private. We are taught in any number of ways to be autonomous beings responsible for ourselves. And we believe the law protects our private beliefs (until those beliefs go against the powers that write the laws, of course). So we are furious at poor people for not getting richer and furious at rich people for taking all the poor people’s money — people should fulfill their potential and no one should take away the possibility of that. Even when it doesn’t happen, the prevailing authorities can’t think of anything else to do but blame individuals for not being good enough, since they are sure the world is an economy run by an invisible hand and people get to do whatever is  in their heart.

Nothing in the life of Jesus or anyone else in the Bible, for sure, would imply that faith is anything but a life one lives in public, in view, unashamed, assuming one’s life matters as part of the whole. “Privacy” is the luxury of being complicit with some power that protects one’s capacity to go unnoticed. Meanwhile, Jesus is enduring a public execution. He tells his executioner that he will not use his power to participate in a war that might save him from the acts of evil he came to share and overcome. That is about as public example of pacifism as possible. There is another way.

 

3. Meditation without action is self absorption.

Orthodox Christians tried to root out gnosticism in the 200’s and 300’s, but the spirit of it was well-preserved in the meditation teaching of my cherished monks, I have to admit. By the 20th century, they realized that Buddhism, Sufism and all sorts of other religious people long to leave the body for complete union with God. These days, mindfulness and irreligious yoga instructors teach the out-of-the-body mindfulness without any spirit at all.

I appreciate the reality and the feelings of contemplative prayer. But I am mindful to meet Jesus in prayer, not just my own capacity for contemplation. Just because I am doing spiritual things doesn’t mean I am connecting to the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. What saves me from the self-absorption so popular these days is remembering Jesus in history and meeting the risen Lord in my own history: spirit to Spirit, heart to heart, mind to mind, strength to strength. From the peace I experience in prayer, I make peace.

There are ways between the poles:

  • Keeping my eyes on my minutes rather than wasting hours on political redundancies and absurdities, as if they were as breathlessly important as the CNN would like us to believe.
  • Keeping my faith public rather than being driven into privacy or giving up on making a difference.
  • Keeping my spirituality looking to Jesus rather than just “spirituality” or just my own physical sensations.

Being actively on the way, connected to Jesus and his people, allows me to be a pacifist, to choose to love, to even risk the danger of brazenly escaping the clutches of the powers in their own backyard. They don’t have me pacified because I left reality for my dream and they don’t have me pacified because I gave up my need to be a personal alternative and to create an alternative society, the church. Jesus has me, right in the middle, making a peaceful way through, a third way.

Is Circle of Hope “soft on sin?”

Doing Theology, , , , , ,

I was having a very nice stuffed chicken breast out in the burbs with two of my oldest friends on Saturday night and the subject turned to sin. Specifically, it turned to the gossip my friend had heard that Circle of Hope is “soft on sin.” I think I said, “Are you serious? That is still going around? You heard that?”

One time, a long time ago I think, one of the pastors at one of the Presby plants (purportedly) warned his people that Circle of Hope was soft on sin. People have been warning others about us ever since. The word came full circle to me over a nice dinner and my dear friend knew the source.

So our church has two reputations going around. If you look us up on Google, we look like we are hard on sin, since a loosely-connected slanderer unjustly tried to take us down in the City Paper one time (before it folded under its own weight of spurious reporting) for being hard on certain sins which are popular targets for legalistic Christians. Wasn’t true. But if you run into us in the Christian gossip mill, we apparently look like we are soft on sin, since they know of many instances when we have embraced people before they believed and they know we include people before they are moral. We work things out, not cut things off; we travel with people along their way, and don’t tell them they can join us when they get on our correct path. They are right about what we do, but they are wrong about what it means.

So I want to say a few things about our reputation, particularly about being “soft on sin.”

1) For one huge thing, what does “soft on sin” even mean?

What Christian ever had a call from God to be “hard” on sin?  And what person is not already hard on themselves because of their sin, even before some Christian tells them they are bad? Donald Trump acts like he is hard on sin, even as he is sinning! — but he apparently has a personality disorder.

If there is a sin the Bible calls us to be “hard” on it is probably the sin of presuming we can judge the righteousness of others! Paul says he does not even judge himself; and Jesus says to leave judgment to God. I think we are hard on the sin of being hard on sinners, such as ourselves. So, in the minds of some, that might make us “soft.“

did sin cause the division?2) Do Christians really have to compare one another?

Christians seem to treat each other like rival fast food franchises, don’t they? — “our righteousness is better quality, unlike those other people!” I wish it were not so. Comparisons are odious. It is not always easy, but I try to stay positive about the Christians who are not in my “camp.” There is often a particular genius I can admire. Presbyterians are stuck in their cave-in to modernism, but they are often great Bible teachers. The Pope fronts some of the greatest heresies ever normalized, but Catholics have a great system to teach contemplative prayer. Even though Ted Cruz grew up in one of the scariest fringe groups ever, I hear he is a pretty great husband. Much of the time the Brethren in Christ don’t know what to do with us, but our denomination’s historical synthesis is still theologically and practically brilliant.

But do any of the growing number of unbelievers in the United States care about the boundaries between the many variations of Christians? The ones I’ve met who know about them largely cite the differences as a good reason not to get involved with us.

3) Actually, we are very adept at dealing with sin.

One of our proverbs warns us: “Everyone is recovering from the sin addiction; expect conflict.” We are not afraid we will be tainted by sin because someone is sinning; we accept that everyone is bringing their version of sinfulness with them. There will be problems. Like Jesus in the wilderness, we are all in our process, being tempted and coming to our fullness through the struggle. We are conflicted inside, and the whole church has a tendency to fight because sin is at work in us.

Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.But as the scripture goes on to say, the Spirit of God is also at work in us because Jesus has saved us. If some folks want to protect themselves from the “liberals” over at Circle of Hope, it will be a delusional task, since they are already infected with sin and their judgment demonstrates the fact. Likewise, if Circle of Hope people (like me) get super angry and self-righteous over the supposed attacks from people they have not met and sources they have not verified, then they will, likewise, be demonstrating how broken they really are. If any of us falls to following a new law or relying on our manuals of proper behavior, we will miss the freedom of forgiveness by which Paul goes on to say: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2). Some people thought Paul was “soft on sin” because he taught the truth of the gospel like that. Not so.

I hope I can get the same kind of criticism as Paul, now and then. It makes me feel like we are doing something worth noticing; so it is affirming in a back-handed way. This weekend, it was just rumors that I had heard before. I can hardly call a criticism based on hearsay an actual criticism, can I? It’s like an insult-once-removed. When I meet up with the slanderer in the age to come, we can work it all out with joy. Until then, I hope to be as “soft on sin” as the One who shared mine, died to undo it, and raised me to walk around consciously wounded by it but also transcendent.

Four blue words about making the most of your money

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Doing Theology, Life as the church, The Mission, , , , , , , ,

The death of Antonin Scalia has people talking about his legacy. Most of the comments start with “love him or hate him, he made an impact.” An oAntonin Sclaiap-ed in the New York Times says: Justice Scalia’s most important legacy will be his “originalism” and “textualism” theory. But it also says his attitude of calling opponents “idiotic” or worse may also be as memorable. He often made a point that recycled a 19th century slogan about Native Americans:  “The only good Constitution is a dead Constitution” — that may also be the kind of thing history recalls.

Scalia and ReaganWhen Ronald Reagan nominated Scalia in 1986 I was not thinking too clearly about my legacy. I was creating one, but I was a bit in denial about being actually responsible for it. I was the father of toddlers and in the throes of planting a church, so I had a lot to influence. But I consciously left the future in God’s hands and lived as radically as I could imagine. I am sure I also thought my opponents were idiotic at times. As a result, a lot of good happened and no small amount of bad. I think I could have used some more consciousness about what I was trying to build that others might live in.

I always say things like “We’re not building the pyramids here,” meaning that we know we are being shaped by God all the time; what we do is temporal and subject to development, like we as people are subject. But that can be taken too far, since we are made to influence one another and what we do also has eternal value, or at least long-lasting ill-affect. So I am glad we have a seminar coming up this weekend that will teach us about considering our legacy a little bit. It is called The Color of Money: Blue. Blue is the color of water, the season of the Way of Jesus devoted to people who are exploring the depths of being a Jesus follower. What do mature Christians do with their money? What legacy will they leave?

Last year the Capacity Core Team did some good thinking about money. Some of it will be worked in to the upcoming seminar. They came up with four words that I think we all have to ponder when we are making decisions about what to do with our money and what our money might do for others.

Four words to ponder when making money decisions

Character. How we use our money is a sure indicator of whether we are acting out of our true self in Christ, or not. Our goal is to become a sharer, like God. Most of the time, if we have a twenty in our hand, a choice is being made. That might be why our creditors love paperless, automated systems, so we never see that money at all and can’t figure out what is going on! We like not knowing, too, since it is hard to be responsible and the machine makes us think everything is taken care of.

Community. Having a common fund with the other believers is such tangible faithing that it is irreplaceable. It might shape us more than anything else; sharing like that quickens latent discipleship. Not sharing like that is also shaping everyone staying on the outside, right now. Being a sharer implies that we have a personal connection with someone. Bill Gates is a sharer too, but mostly with spreadsheets, with masses. We are sharers with each other, first. Our common fund is the basic tool of our love since it is built with love. Building one makes us something even as we are making it.

Resistance. We’re taught a lot about money in this society/economy that oppresses us. Basic money management rules never change: Spending less than you earn will always be beneficial. Investing your money will always be better than doing nothing with it. And planning for the future will always be better than blowing your paycheck as soon as you get it. But in the U.S. those management ideas are usually applied to becoming wealthy not pursuing God. Some of us resist the pursuit of wealth by refusing to seriously deal with finances. Some of us resist resisting and try to Christianize the pursuit of wealth, or at least avoid talking about our preoccupation with it. Alternatively, we want to have a godly resistance, not just resistance of some sort. We need to address the use of money (which is a subject often laden with taboo or fully enslaved to some godless philosophy) with love and in the presence of God.

Investment. This is a very “blue” word, since it implies that you have something to invest: a character that makes godly choices, a community that is worth your heart, a conviction that frees you from slavery to the world’s ways and an imagination about what might be growing. Investing money is about creating wealth for most people — that is the goal of capitalism, right? But investment should be about one’s spiritual legacy: What we are given to give to the world? What is our best shot at moving transformation along? Investment is about building something that is bigger than just our own wealth. Our church is our most immediate “something” that we build together. But that tool we have builds something bigger than itself, too. We can see what it builds when we explore what our investment in MCC does, or when we can dare to spend our savings to plant another congregation, or in how we invest in the lives of our leaders and staff and manage to maintain our properties.

Sharing money is where we answer two of the most important questions in life: “Where do I belong?” and “Am I important?” Sharing what we have expresses our unity within the body and in our common purpose. What we have matters because we each matter. We need each other. Without each other we wither.

Antonin Scalia spent his whole life trying to get the cap back on the societal bottle that blew its top in the 1970’s.  Most Christians have been doing the same thing, in vain, right alongside him — no doubt some with great motives. We, as Circle of Hope, have been trying to do something else. Like our song says, we like that “new wine.” It is not new like it is an innovation. It is new because the world is, like Scalia said, a bit “idiotic” and life with God seems new to us. Each generation needs its own taste of the new life Jesus is bringing to an ever-dying world. How we handle our money is a great test of the faith we bring to living in that world. How we share is one of the most tangible ways we get to demonstrate that something new in the world is not only possible, it is being built.

Are we visible enough?

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Mike Brown vigil

We are embodying something beautiful. It is sensible – one can sense us.

But are we “visible” enough? Are we a “contrast society” like we aspire to be? Perhaps the most visible we were last year was during our Mike Brown vigil outside the future police headquarters.  It made some of us feel like, “Finally! We made ourselves known in some way.” Others are still talking about the relational damage they experienced when we appeared to be anti-police and declared some extreme versions of a political stance.  Some of us are eager to be visible. Others seem opposed to it or experience being visible as being exposed, even shameful.

Visible as radicals

These are thoughts we considered when we did some theology last week around the question, “What is radical?” We had John Wesley for our example of someone who fits the criteria for being such a person. Part of what made him so radical was his willingness to be visible, and often in striking contrast to both church and society. For instance, Curtis Book quoted him saying, “Money never stays with me. It would burn me if it did. I throw it out of my hands as soon as possible, lest it should find its way to my heart.” That certainly contrasts with common sense in the U.S.!

Wesley’s sincere convictions made him notorious. But there is a much more common form of being visible that we want to avoid. A contrast society is not visible in the way the world vies to be more notorious than someone else.  Take Justin Bieber and Adele for example. They  have been competing for #1 on the charts with songs about being forgiven, of all things! We are all for forgiveness to get on someone’s screen, right? But we hardly want to make the forgiveness of Jesus visible like a pop artist gets famous, do we? There are certain kinds of visible we just don’t want to practice: publicity-seeking, or political theatrics, or “show,” in general

Matt 6:3-4: “When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,  so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

We think seeking notoriety or fame is a temptation, not an aspiration. A contrast society built by Jesus needs to rely on its radicality becoming visible, not rely on visibility to make it seem radical.

The little way

We agreed that the “little way” is better. It is the way of not trying to be visible. If you are trying to be visible, you probably have nothing from Jesus to show. The kind of contrast that makes us visible is: our palpable authenticity — you know it, you see it, there are no deceptive frills, it is frank. Our radicality says, “Do you want to? I do!” It is sincere. We need to let that smallness become visible, something like the widow’s worship became visible to one with eyes to see it.

Mark 12 :41-44:  “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.  Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.  They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.’”

We build the visible people of God. That's our lead.When we tried to figure out what, if any, balance there was in all of this, we decided that being visible is a matter of what we lead with. We could lead with techniques that make us visible. Or we could rely on the revelation to push us to make it known. Our lead is very rooted, practical and, by nature, visible. We build the people of God – that’s the lead. Other things might follow or coincide, but being “the together,” the anti-polarization – that’s contrast. This thought matches 1 Peter 4 10-11 in that it shows how the outward (people who yearn to be visible) and the inward (people who fear the attention is contaminating) connect:

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks [an outwardly visible act], they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves [a small way to be called], they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.

Some people will be, by nature and gifting, more “visible” (like Gandalf) and others will be, by nature and gifting, “smaller” (like Frodo).  We are all both, in that we share in one body and seek one end.

Visible and small together

Leading by building the church is always going to be radical, and so prone to temptation and danger. When it comes to building the church with new disciples, the “visible” people may be prone to wanting instant results in response to a speech, or an ad, or an action. The “small” people are more likely to be content with the more common reality that conversion is, more times than not, about “Chinese water torture” evangelism – drip by drip. We do not change quickly. We may have to drag many people along the way until they can walk. When it comes to keeping the church built, the “visible” people may want to show the sword and induce a miracle to solve problems. Sometimes they should. The  “smaller” might try to diminish our polarized environment, in which every problem becomes a me-centered social justice issue. Sometimes conflict should be avoided, too.

We did not come to every conclusion needed. But we were glad for our ability to do some theology. We are embodying something beautiful. It is sensible – one can sense us. So we were glad that we could conclude where Wesley did, even when he was content to work among the smallest and yet became so notorious. He was fond of quoting Paul in the middle of temptation and danger: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6).

 

Why should I make a covenant?

Building community, Doing Theology, ,

Last night the Pastors led us in a very interesting and engaged meeting about making a covenant. A couple of my friends asked the most important (but often unspoken) questions right out loud. There were many other good questions, too, but I woke up thinking about one, in particular. While I was praying this morning I gravitated toward a couple of answers for it from the Bible. So I thought I try to boil down a big subject in this post.

Here is the question: “Why should I make a covenant? I am doing good things, I am involved. Aren’t I already doing the covenant?”

Great question.

It is definitely true that one can keep the spirit of the covenant without the “sign” of it. That is Paul’s whole argument in several of his letters. Circumcision of males was the main distinction that visibly made one a Jew and, by heritage, part of a special relationship (a covenant) with God. In Romans he says:

[Abraham] received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. (Romans 4:11)

In Galatians he makes the point again, twice!

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:6)

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. (Galatians 6:13)

If an argument for making a covenant with other Jesus followers was about fulfilling an obligation or keeping a law, I think Paul would be against it.

We are into the new covenant

This doesn’t mean that God is any less a covenant-making God. Not only is God fulfilling the covenant with Abraham in Jesus, the Lord is making a new covenant with everyone who will eat the bread of life and drink the cup of salvation. Paul reminds the non-Jews to whom he is writing:

Remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:11-13)

He obviously thinks this new covenant God is making has the same visible signs as in the past, only moreso – deeper and universal.

The reason we make a covenant with one another is not about law, it is about incarnation. Christ in us and Christ in all of us reveals the glory of God.

As Paul teaches:

He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:6)

Can Jesus be practically incarnate if we do not have a visible body in which the Spirit lives? Paul spends much of his letters telling us how to form that body based on this new covenant.

Individualism is devolutionary

In this era the philosophical movement that began in the 60’s in the United States has about convinced everyone that everything meaningful or spiritual is happening in an individual. If we connect too much to someone else, we might not be true to ourselves, which is all we have (or so it is taught). The military teaches this new outlook the best, I think. Here’s the Army from a couple of years ago.

https://youtu.be/dN8aOLvKoM8

Here’s the Air Force. I saw this commercial so many times at the theater during the holidays I can about recite it.

The good point the video makes is that you can’t have an effective force without effective individuals. In Paul’s universe that translates into: there is one body but the same Spirit who is working in everyone. The bad point that I think is more relevant is that “It’s all about what is happening in me.”

Without the work of the Spirit in each of us making us one, there is no body of Christ. No amount of formalized covenant-making will make us live in love. But we need a form: our own bodies and the Body of Christ, to make that love relevant and transformational. God became empty of the prerogatives of God to become one of us and calls us to a similar love by that example. Jesus entered into our sin and suffered for his bloody love; then he left the communion symbol as the center of an ongoing community based on that same kind of love. It has formed the church ever since.

I want to be part of that church and I want people to know it, not just because I am individually an army of one but because they see me as part of the people who once were not a people but now are the people of God. I want others in the body to know I mean it and I want to know from others that they really mean it, not just because they looked inside and found some faith, but because they also looked outside and joined the team, they said it, they wore our connectedness like an honor.

I did a little word search and saw that I have said quite a bit about this subject. Here you go:

https://www.circleofhope.net/rodwhite/tenderness-is-the-heart-of-the-covenant/

https://www.circleofhope.net/rodwhite/12-basics-for-covenant-keeping-in-conflict/

https://www.circleofhope.net/rodwhite/koinonitis-and-the-bubble-diagnosis/

https://www.circleofhope.net/rodwhite/12-basics-for-covenant-keeping-in-conflict/

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Radical Wesley: New energy at 30,000 feet

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There was not a lot to do on the 11-hour flight to Alaska but look out at the big sky, big world and consider the radicals at home that so well-represent the radical in the book I am reading: the Radical Wesley: The Patterns and Practices of a Movement Maker.

In January we are going to emphasize the book in our Doing Theology meeting and in Circle of Hope Daily Prayer – Water (a new resource for people in it for the long haul). I was so excited about the nice summary the author, Howard a Snyder, made of radical Christian distinctives that I thought I’d pass them along to you. They reflect our proverbs and our practices as Circle of Hope – so that’s nice. But more profoundly, they clear away some confusion and reiterate just what we are trying to do in this crazy world. It is hard to remember what it is basic to faith, especially when so many despise it and when even the Christians act undermine it all the time (I won’t even get started with what Christmas has become!).

Shere is a little gift of Snyder’s seven elements that make up the radical protestant model of being a missional community in Christ

  1. Voluntary adult membership based on a covenant commitment to Jesus Christ , emphasizing obedience to Jesus as necessary evidence of faith in him. Believers baptism has usually been the sign of this commitment, but not always. The point is not, fundamentally, the form of joining the covenant community, but the fact and meaning of conscious committed membership in it.

Thus we stopped considering anyone “inactive” covenant members this fall. There is no such thing.

  1. A community of discipline, edification, correction and mutual aid, in conscious separation from the world, as the primary visible expression of the church.

The wonders of the Debt Annihilation Team are a good example of this spirit, but there are so many more.

  1. A life of good works service and witness as an expression of Christian love and obedience expected of all believers. Thus an emphasis on the ministry of the laity (all God’s people) rather then of a special ministerial class. The church – the entire believing community – is viewed as a “missionary minority.”

Therefore we are organized a cells where our main work is done, rather than in programs or meetings lead by professionals.

  1. The Spirit and the word as comprising the sole basis of authority, implying a de-emphasis or rejection of church tradition and creeds.

Thus we see ourselves a transhistorical, not only in an active dialogue with the Jesus followers of the past, but with everyone else, primarily ourselves in a face to face dialogue that results in our direction and sense of unity in the Spirit.

  1. Primitivism and restitutionism. The early church is the model, and the goal is to restore the essential elements of early church life and practice. This usually implies some view of the fall of the church as well.

That’s why we are Bible people and see ourselves as doers of the word. This often brings us into uneasy relationship with the institutional church, be it Catholic or BIC.

  1. A pragmatic, functional approach to church order and structure.

We continue to reinvent ourselves as our character and opportunity change. That’s how we got to the whole “second act” sea-change we are experiencing.

  1. A belief in the universal church as the body of Christ, of which the particular visible believing community is but a part.

That’s why the pastors have been actively working on a better description of how we are allies with all sorts of Christians and good-deed doers, why we are so involved with MCC as a world-wide expression of us, and why we explore the term “multidenominational” to help people figure out how we fit within their labels.

Other themes might be mentioned such as suffering , the eschatological vision, pacifism, consensus in decision making, ecumenism and separation from the state. These have been important themes among some, but not all.

We represent most of these things, but, honestly, they are not themes that we drive a sledgehammer into to preserve our stake in the truth.

So there is my little gift for you. Happy Advent – the advent of possibilities that come with people who are radical Jesus followers. As I looked down on the big world from my plane window, I was again glad that among all the many people inhabiting it, God keeps raising up people who listen to his voice, feel his love and act out his passion, like you.

Our evangelism nightmare: Hypermodern voices take over the airwaves

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I heard Dwight Schrute, I mean, Rainn Wilson, on NPR as I was driving around somewhere. What he said is stuck in my head. He is known for being an outspoken follower of the Ba’hai faith — it is the “outspoken” part that is stuck. At one point he said that people “threw up in their mouth a little” when he started talking about his life with God at parties. So it is not easy for him to talk about what he believes. He does it, but it is not easy.

Wilson’s claim to fame, The Office, began in 2005, about when we moved into our South Broad location. It makes me wonder if that TV show was riding the zeitgeist of dodging people who make you “throw up in your mouth a little” — like White Goodman (above) and Dwight Schrute. Christians (and I guess the followers of the Bab) started getting on the list of people who make you vurp — at least the ones who talk about their faith as if they actually believe it.

Old evangelism stories are out of date

I was telling old stories to Aaron the other day about talking to people as if you actually believe that Jesus will raise you from the dead, and such things of faith. At one point he looked a little uncomfortable. I don’t think he was vurping, but he reminded me that things have changed a bit since I was his age. Some of my stories seem out of date when I start talking about the Jesus movement, which might as well be the French Revolution as far as twentysomethings remember it. We are experiencing more of an evangelistic nightmare than easygoing chats about Jesus.

Twentysomethings were born into a profound philosophical discussion. Their churches, for the most part, were holding on to a Christianity that was conformed to philosophical paradigms from modernity like rationality and hierarchy. In the late twentieth century, postmodern thinkers came to the fore and staged a short-lived rebellion. They taught everyone to consider their “values” and argued that values have the meaning we assign them, but no meanings that last; we cannot discern truth but we can play with the nonsense. They wanted to emerge from modernity with its faith in progress and empowering the individual. We had “emerging churches” for a hot minute to match that movement.

The dialogue out there is all hypermodern

You can Google all this, of course. But you might not bother because you have become what many call “hypermodern.” Modernity and postmodernity are both the the past for you. They are, essentially, irrelevant because you believe that what took place in the past took place under “lesser” circumstances than now, and is irretrievably different. You think artifacts from the past (like the Bible or “faiths”) that clutter the cultural landscape are to be reused to generate something better.

Wikipedia quote: Hypermodernity has even more commitment to reason and to an ability to improve individual choice and freedom. Modernity merely held out the hope of reasonable change while continuing to deal with a historical set of issues and concerns; hypermodernity posits that things are changing so quickly that history is not a reliable guide. The positive changes of hypermodernity are supposedly witnessed through rapidly expanding wealth, better living standards, medical advances, and so forth. Individuals and cultures that benefit directly from these things can feel that they are pulling away from natural limits that have always constrained life on Earth. But the negative effects also can be seen as leading to a soulless homogeneity as well as to accelerated discrepancies between different classes and groups.

So if you feel like people will consider you a Dwight Schrute at a party if you talk about Jesus, you might be right. You are acting like an historical artifact (Jesus) has meaning. You seem to be fighting the inevitability of change. You are saying that life on Earth has meaning and we don’t have to fight its constraints as if we should have power over it. You are standing out against the backdrop of gigantic institutions enforcing soulless homogeneity on us in the name of progress. And so much more.

It is an evangelism nightmare. Hypermodernity assumes everyone is an idiot if they are not hypermodern, like the cartoonist from Charlie Hebdo who responded to people praying for Paris after the recent attacks (above). For him, religion is modern, the past. Paris is freedom and joy, the future. Religion (a modern umbrella under which all “faiths” belong) is the seedbed of terrorism = faithful people are in bed with terrorists = You make me sick you Christians!

Jesus does not need to make people vurp

What to do? I’d hate to terrorize a party! I hardly want to stand in the way of progress. I don’t even understand all this philosophy.

Four suggestions, for now.

  1. Talk this over. Things ARE changing fast. We need to keep talking about what is happening, like I am talking right now about how Aaron was schooling me.
  2. Remember that Jesus is present, even if people try to make him an historical artifact. Even if people have repeatedly subjected him to the latest philosophy, the Lord rises in each era and has been incarnate in them all. You don’t have to argue the Lord into existence.
  3. Have a story and tell it. Jesus is going to be found in a loving relationship of trust in which God can be spoken of as the lover God is rather than a mere philosophical argument, a value, or political statement.
  4. Pray. Like right now. Jesus will be revealed and you will be inspired to live a life of creativity, free of shame and free to share.