Tag Archives: dialogue

The Difference between Acceptance and Agreement

Building community, Leadership, Psychological growth, , , , ,

What I want is what I have always wanted: to live in a community of trusted partners and to act for redemption in every way we can think to act.

  • I hope we can be Bible-lovers — like many so-called “conservatives,”
  • I hope we can be welcoming and justice-seeking — like many so-called “liberals.”

I hope we will never stop calling people to follow Jesus as their Lord and to discern the movement of the Spirit for their direction. And I hope we will never stop trying to create an environment in which people can come to Christ in different ways, at different paces and according to their ability. I want Circle of Hope to be a safe place to explore and express God’s grace where truth does not kill and love does not lie.

Orientation is a starting point not our end point

I think that spirit makes Circle of Hope welcoming, not just to people naming various sexual identities, but also to people of various political convictions and spiritual backgrounds. We don’t believe that people need to change their ordinary orientation, sexual or otherwise, in order to follow Jesus. Instead, we invite everyone to change their spiritual orientation toward God and their fellow human beings. When people adopt that orientation, they submit their humanness, in all its wonder and flaws, to God as revealed in the way of Jesus. That reorientation makes all the difference.

The New Testament repeatedly says, we are all wonderful image-bearers of God as far as the Lord is concerned because of Jesus, no matter how the world defines each of us. We can rest assured that God knows, as well as we do, that we bear that image in imperfect, broken, and often hurtful ways. But our ongoing relationship with Jesus as Lord and our movement toward expressing our true selves is much more important than our imperfect behavior. Hoping to keep us moving and not stuck in condemnation, I think Circle of Hope has been doing a good job to embrace and challenge people in all the broken and glorious conditions they come to us just like we accept God’s embrace.

Even with that urge to embrace people as they are, it is almost impossible not to compare and contrast one another. But, the truth is, when it comes to “us” and “them,” there is no “them.” There is only “us.” We are all beautiful and precious people valued by God. We are also broken people, to one degree or another, needing the healing of the Holy Spirit and the experience of authentic community to live as Jesus calls us to live. To be human is, among other things, to be in some wonderful and weird way, dysfunctional. We are all broken people, as well as glorious people (Romans 3:23-24).

We need to get to “us” not just define “me”

As a result of our brokenness, we are prone to conflict and usually scared to death of “them.” I encourage Christians who invest too much time in defining their opponents to apply the difference between acceptance and agreement. When we confuse acceptance and agreement we do not love as we should.

In our Cell Plan we note that it’s a common mistake for people to assume that they should not accept someone fully until they have repented and changed. Some Christians think that a person is not evangelized until they behave properly! Some believers think they are condoning sin if they disagree with someone’s choices  but, at the same time, respect, honor, and accept them — even though the Bible calls us to be that generous! (see Titus 3:1-2; 1 Peter 3:15-16). If we applied acceptance and agreement as two different concepts, we might stop withholding acceptance as a form of disagreement and learn to better love those outside our boundaries of agreement.

Christ-followers ought to declare their love through their actions. Many Christians have the well-earned reputation of putting a lot of energy into their messages of disapproval — that’s their main activity! But disapproval is not the Lord’s main activity or His message! I hope people get the impression among Circle of Hope that, “We love you just like Jesus does.” For instance, we have been talking a lot about the protection of sexual minorities this week. I think it is an “of course” that people oriented toward Jesus and toward serving others would be among the first to look out for the human rights of any oppressed group, always showing them the utmost respect as image-bearers of God. The first time I ever got in “trouble” for moderating the Dialogue List was when I confronted a person who was sounding “anti-gay.” He was honing a message of disapproval and he wanted affirmation for it. I respected him, but I had to do my job, as pastor, to keep the community knit together in love, so I confronted him.

We want to be that unique Kingdom society within our secular culture that blesses those with whom we do not agree and who may not agree with us. Within that context of active, energetically-demonstrated love, we may then also make our differences clear. If we are loving as radically as we are given to love, this should only make the love we offer all the more meaningful and transformative. I don’t think I, or Circle of Hope, have always loved in transformative ways — but we mostly have! Even so, I am sorry for all the times people felt judgment, not love. People will outgrow us, get sick of us, or never understand us, but I always hope they never leave us because they bounced off our indifference or rejection.

We can’t make others accept before they agree. It takes faith.

I don’t think we are prone to judgment, but people feel judged nonetheless. It might be because they also need to learn the lesson we need to apply: the difference between acceptance and agreement. For instance, how someone sees sexual morality is the strange new litmus test for mutuality these days. Many people have liked us Christians but hated our morality. They have even felt “set up” when we were nice and then we did not agree with them; they felt welcomed to speak their minds and then felt betrayed when they were asked to listen. When it comes to unbelievers, in particular, they probably should restrain themselves from demanding that Jesus-followers sign up for the latest versions of the world’s philosophy, just like they don’t think Christians should tell them how to live. I felt like the church was demanding and a bit uncaring this week, too; so I also know something about how hard it can be to turn around and stay with love when I don’t feel the love coming my way. I still want to invite people into that process of staying with love in honor of Jesus, however.

I hope I am not wrong, but I think people can form mutually respectful friendships without demanding absolute agreement on all issues (most marriages seem to work this way!). There is a difference between acceptance and agreement. If there is acceptance, then any necessary agreement can be formed. Mutually respectful diversity, in the end, provides us with the most opportunity for growing, loving, and learning. What’s more, it allows Jesus to heal our wounds and make us one, just as the Healer and the Father are one, which is much more satisfying than anything the-powers-that-be promise.

Relationship pain for the Jesus-follower — new birth through conflict

Building community, Leadership, , , ,

Since the 1980’s there has been even more fighting in the church than ever! As postmodern thinking takes over the philosophical playing field and becomes more and more codified into law, conflict about the old, modern way of doing things happens all the time. The other day I was in a dialogue about what Circle of Hope is all about and someone kind of accosted me because they assumed I would be a proponent of some old-school church idea. A woman who was listening in to this impending conflict said, “Rod’s pretty much postmodern, if anyone is. I don’t think you’ll have to worry.” I did not think it showed.

The truth is (and you’ll have to decide, I’m afraid, what that means) is that I am not postmodern or modern. I am a Jesus follower.

  • I could easily be postmodern, since my life is “made” every day in relationship with the resurrected Jesus; grace is new every morning to experience and I experience it in a community based on that common experience.
  • But I could easily be modern too, since the source of my life is transhistorical and my call to live it is built right into my essence as a human being; before I was, Jesus is.
I am not going to let oppressive, totalitarian, anti-Christian forces in this country diminish and denigrate the holiday and the celebration. I am not going to let it happen. I'm gonna use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that. -- Bill O'Reilly
I am not going to let oppressive, totalitarian, anti-Christian forces in this country diminish and denigrate the holiday and the celebration. I am not going to let it happen. I’m gonna use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that. — Bill O’Reilly

Saying things like that about the truth can get one into a conflict almost every day. That is, you can have a fight if you hang out with people who have not just shut down in the face of the barrage of input beaming at them and attempting to reform them according to the latest new-improved paradigm. For instance, I included the term “postmodern” in my speech at Broad and Dauphin a few weeks ago and was schooled in both meetings about what I meant. I did not shut down; but I did think “Boy! If you are a leader you are asking for trouble.” Since Christians generally hate conflict — it feels so unloving and probably unholy, they certainly would not want to get into trouble! Our cell leaders face the pain of real or prospective conflict all the time and wonder how they ever got into the mess they are in!

But Jesus is not afraid to cause conflict. To read the scripture it would appear that his main mission was a conflict. Likewise, the Apostle Paul exemplifies how a Jesus-follower inevitably fights. He teaches about it so much that I could hardly summarize it in a blog post. But I do want to reflect on four of his teachings for the sake of people who have not shut down, but are still speaking the truth in love. There are new things being born in this era; there is no sense trying to keep the baby from being born, even if it hurts. Here are four paraphrases of significant examples of Paul having conflict and the basic things he hangs on to when he is in a fight.

Trust God to be at work

Philippians 3:14-16 – Let’s walk by the same rule and mind the same thing: our call to follow Jesus with our all into His all. If you have another mindset, God will be revealing that to you.

We get all ramped up when we don’t agree. We are tempted to cut people off as a result, or to flee to like-minded people and create a faction. Paul is confident that God is at work. People pursuing maturity in Christ will figure things out with God’s help. Our anxiety (and judgment) about how immature they are or how right they aren’t won’t help. Hang on to trust.

Accept one another

Romans 15:1-7 – We should be like-minded toward one another with the mindset of Christ. He has received us in love through great suffering in all our weakness. With one mind and mouth, let’s praise God.

Even if I think my loved one or acquaintance is flat-out wrong, or even being wicked, my discernment about how to respond is based on my ultimate goal that we should be one in Christ. I don’t write them off, even if they seem unholy or dangerous. I don’t write them off by relativizing them, either. “Freedom” for postmoderns is being left alone to get what I deserve according to what I can achieve. “Acceptance” has become keeping an appropriate distance, not spiritual intimacy or even agreement. I don’t let me or mine get reduced to that. Hang on to longsuffering.

Resist oppression

Galatians 5:7-15 – There are always law-keepers and law-givers who tempt us to re-enslave ourselves. They don’t walk in the Spirit and their goal is not love like Christ’s, demonstrated on the cross. It is our liberty in Christ that allows us to serve. We don’t demonstrate our love by following rules that don’t come from Jesus.

Paul is so frustrated by interlopers who are trying to make the Galatians follow Jewish laws, especially circumcision, that he wishes they would emasculate themselves in the same way they are trying to cut people off from the Spirit. The aggressive new laws associated with social construction philosophy, such as campus “hate speech” codes, find their way into the church and cause conflict similar to Paul’s these days. Any number of people will think they are not accepted and loved (like Christians are supposed to do!) if their “laws” are not followed. I think the “laws” have some good intentions behind them (as did the Judaizers in Galatia!), but they need to come from God to be in everyone’s best interests – somewhere from which postmodern laws consciously have not come. Hang on to the Holy Spirit.

Humbly receive

1 Corinthians 4:1-7 – We have what we have received. If we don’t think this, our comparisons make us judges when only God is the judge. Any light we bring was generated by God. Any hidden thing revealed will find its final meaning in Christ.

The conviction that “we only have what God gives us” makes Jesus-followers prone to conflicted situations, which makes a lot of them want to stay hidden. The new regime marching under the colors of postmodern thought says things like: “Irrespective of what one might assume, in the sciences, problems do not arise by themselves. It is, precisely, because all problems are posed that they embody the scientific spirit. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed.” — Gaston Blanchard. There is truth in what he says if God is not with us, but he’s basically opposed to what Christians know.

Our faith leads us to know that goodness can be experienced; grace is imminent. Our questions do not call reality into being; and our lack of questions do not protect us from our built-in yearning to connect with our Creator. The fact that humans still make meaning of life still implies that there is meaning. Jesus is the truth of God. The Holy Spirit keeps affirming that. We’re going to have conflict. Hang on to your receptivity.

girlsgateConflict is not intrinsically bad. But it is likely to be painful – just like Jesus experienced. The world keeps trying to make laws against the violence being engendered by requiring people to endlessly compete for their rights in the social landscape. The most marginalized are supposedly protected enough to fight as hard as the dominators who protect them. Jesus-followers have another way.

But we will be in a fight too, just like Paul demonstrates. Some of us will opt out and just try to be as inconspicuous as possible. Some of us will not control our tongues too well and be conspicuous in a bad way. But let’s try to stay with Jesus and one another and meet the new era with joy, not just with dread about the next conflict. God is at work. We have been accepted by Jesus. No one can enslave us anymore. We have received wonderful things. There is a mystery that is unfolding to each person about their relationship with God.

A doula told me the other day that no matter how many mothers she accompanies, each birth she attends is like a brand-new miracle. Each rebirth is similarly amazing. If, as in the birth of a baby, there is suffering, why should we not attend the birth of faith in Jesus with the same understanding? People are fighting for their lives. Hang on to your amazement.

Other thoughts on conflict:

The intrinsic affront built into believing
http://rodwhitesblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/why-people-might-not-care-to-be-radical-christians-part-2/

Conflict with the world: Disentangling from addiction
http://rodwhitesblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/disentagling-from-addiction/

Why is being part of Circle of Hope so demanding?
http://rodwhitesblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/why-is-being-part-of-circle-of-hope-so-demanding/

Lessons on leading learned and re-learned at the BIC General Conference.

Building community, ,

I loved being with the Brethren in Christ at the recent, brief conference in Ontario, CA. We are full of creativity, wisdom and energy for mission! Stories from the congregations in the United States and Canada, as well as stories from around the world from Brethren in Christ World Missions and the Mennonite Central Committee were inspiring!

I am always inspired to go home and do the best I can to serve Jesus after the conference. That alone is worth the airfare. This time I also learned a lot about leading in two ways: 1) I got to meet many new, young leaders who are hungry to do well and to do well as the BIC. They are inventive and eager. Good traits. 2) The other way I learned about leading came from being led by my General Church Leaders and Board. They were having an instructive time of it, trying to navigate their way through the mess we are in as a denomination. I will have plenty more to think and say about the actual issues at hand. For now, I have a list of things I need to reaffirm for myself, and for others who are listening, about leading the church (or your cell, family, workgroup, community garden, etc.).

Respect people. — We are all members of one body and we all count. Leaders need to act like that. No, I take that back. Leaders need to believe that we are all members of one body and we all count and then act on that from their heart. The BIC, and most local church bodies, like Circle of Hope, have mutual respect built into their structures. We shouldn’t give that fact a high five and then do what we want. For instance, the BIC General Conference is made up of pastors and delegates. The people at the meeting were most of the best players on the bi-national team. A leader should assume that experienced players can run plays with even slight facilitation. We need to demonstrate respect, not just talk about it.

Share the process. — Like Ronald Reagan getting away with secret, illegal arms deals, it is easy to think that what is done in secret will not eventually be shouted from the rooftops. But what some people think is better kept under wraps is crucial to building the body — the process is also elemental to the goal. Bad means can come to worse ends. During our conference we found out that the Canadian regional conference of our bi-national church had effectively “seceded from the union” long ago and we were asked to affirm that. They even changed their structure and nomenclature long before they were not part of the whole. Interesting process: the no-contest, no-communication divorce.

Offer a complete proposal; don’t just say “trust us.” – Obviously, detailed proposals cannot be engineered in a group of 500 (or five, in the case of some of our cell groups!). That’s why a proposal is detailed-out and dialogued-over long before it gets to the final decision-making. We got a proposal for major restructuring that had so many holes in it that I wonder if we can get through the next two years alive. We approved it because “they worked hard on it” and we “want to trust them.” But we have lots of structures that are designed for dialogue and for building consensus. The leaders should be masters at using them. We should have a good idea of how the Spirit is moving in the church before we test our discernment at a group meeting.

Get along for Jesus’ sake. – We still don’t know, for sure why the BIC leadership fell apart last year and why the top leaders are being sent packing. The word from the lectern was, “We messed up.” They wouldn’t really define what “messing up” means, which has been characteristic of the whole “mess up.” At one point, our Moderator spent fifteen minutes trying to waive the bylaws so two leaders could be considered in an election. The two leaders stood up and declined to be considered. That was just one instance of apparent infighting, or at least scant communication. Poor relating happens; in leaders it is even costlier.

Never isolate people by how you talk about them. — In the BIC, the leadership regularly talks about “new” people and “Spanish speaking people” as if they were not fully BIC yet. It reminds me of moving to Waynesboro PA and being told by my neighbor that I would never be a part of the town because I wasn’t born there. I’ve got a feeling that I am still “new” to the BIC, twenty-eight years after arriving! I have spent nearly twenty of those years trying to get the leaders to accept the people from South Florida and elsewhere who are not-of-the-BIC-cradle as bonafide members of the denomination. They are still singled out like they don’t yet belong at every conference. They still aren’t “us.” Back to a previous point — it appears  that being a delegate makes little difference anymore in the practical BIC process; it appears from what is often said that being a Spanish-first delegate makes even less difference.

Never ignore things that might cause conflict. — I never heard so much gratitude for being “Anabaptist” at a BIC General Conference as I heard last week! It was as if people did not get the memo that certain elements of the denomination have been fighting the oldest parts of our distinctives for a long time, so we keep them as distinctives but downplay them in practice. I think our Anabaptist stream makes us ever-more perfect for meeting the challenges of post-Christian America. Thus, we should act like we are MCC, since we are MCC (get them to change their name!). And we should practice our theology of peacemaking even if we have to dialogue with veterans.

Learning lessons is not a passive aggressive way of saying, “I want to criticize the leaders in a clever way.” I hope my criticisms are straightforward enough. I imagine most of the GC Leaders already agree with most of what I have said, anyway. I really do want to learn. I think leading is hard. Barack, Mitt and the Congress are regularly horrible, but ever-present examples of what leading is like these days — disrespecful, secretive, singular. I want to do better. I want us, as the BIC, to do better. In the next decade, as all those new leaders get their full footing in the new era that is forming, we need to help one another represent Jesus well.

I Still Want To Talk

The Mission,

Our dinner party turned uproarious for a little while the other night when we all realized we had something to say about our divided up country and churches.

We were having an easy time talking (and shouting), but, in general, it is hard to talk these days.

I have been struggling this past week over what to do about that situation. I am a talker. I am writing again right now. My message last night was all about dialogue. But I am increasingly puzzled about how to talk to anyone about anything substantial. For me, “substantial” is all about Jesus; I have a whole Bible that delineates what I am talking about. The place I live seems increasingly hostile to Jesus. While that is unnerving, I think I can handle it. But I am not sure how to talk about it. I keep encountering a strong set of assumptions with which I am at odds. But I’m not sure the “regular Joes and Janes” I talk to are aware of their underpinnings, they are just pinned. They don’t have a “bible” but they have some strong beliefs. We have substantial things to talk about.

So let me test my perceived differences out with you. In general (admitting that nobody is likely to be doctrinaire), the young people of our country are taught three basic things: 1) science is God, 2) profit rules, 3) meaning is all personal, individual. On the other hand, followers of Jesus say: 1) God is creator, 2) Jesus rules, 3) meaning is all related.

Now let’s talk.

At our dinner party we were testing out some of these differences. We agreed we were working out Ephesians 4, where Paul says:

“Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built upuntil we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, 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.Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

not actual dinner guest

We all felt we were getting blown all over the map by the strong winds of teaching from our postmodern and postChristian world and the deceitful scheming that is coming with it. We were all committed to speaking the truth in love and we all had some issues where that was a difficult thing to do.

For instance, one of us was particularly interested in the area of sexuality, where science is God. An argument about so-called homosexuality uses debatable science to form the basis of a political movement, so one friend said. This led us further into the teaching of evolutionary psychology that influences people to understand humans as, essentially, very adaptable animals whose choices are all about what helps them survive.

Then another friend brought up the school system, where, increasingly, profit rules. Children are supposed to be motivated by a competition with the Chinese for economic hegemony. Poor people are shamed and told they should learn how to profit and not be a drain on society. For-profit corporations are being invited into the school system to exploit the failing situation of inner city education. Huge corporations have invented the “teach for the test” approach that has sapped the creativity of many good teachers.

Then came the Brethren in Christ, where meaning seems inexplicably personal, individual. This was my main topic. I have been talking, a little, about the practical theology of being a denomination. I even wrote a piece for the BIC List commenting on an explanation a leader wrote about what has been going on. What struck me in the replies to my post was that they were mainly individual anecdotes about how people took care of the issues themselves. I was reminded that DIY is now also a communal activity; we are that completely atomized. The deepest response I have received from my leaders about what is happening in our community has been a carefully worded, noncommittal, cable-newslike, two-sided rendition of what individuals might possibly be thinking.

It is very difficult to talk.

Today I am trying to shore up my hope for speaking the truth in love. When it comes to shouting into the big wind coming from the world, I think I want to get better at insisting that people voice their assumptions about how the world works, rather than just resisting the fruit of their unacknowleged/unknown assumptions or just avoiding the dialogue altogether. If science is the fountain of truth, then admit that and defend it; don’t just assume it. If profit is the goal, if that means the invisible hand is guiding our choices, then say that; at least when you are talking to me, don’t assume I believe that. If you believe that the only thing you can really know comes from your own experience, that even when you are listening to me you can only respond with your own experience of the topic, then admit that up front. We can meet in our love.

On my side of the dialogue I will be revealing God as the beginning and end of reality as we know it. That is God who is made fully known in Jesus, who demonstrates how to choose and makes us able to follow him. I will be assuming that we not only all relate to God, we are designed to work out our meaning together in love, speaking the truth in love and growing up into our full maturity. We may not immediately understand each other. But I still want to talk, no matter how hard it is.

A Little Tweet of a Defense of Twitter

The Mission,

Not too long ago, one of the staff decided we needed to be on Twitter, as Circle of Hope, to talk to Tweeters. About 20 million Americans access Twitter about once a month. A lot of them are in the age group we like to influence. A lot of them influence the age group we like to influence.

So the staff got excited about this initiative and put the word out on the Dialogue List. We are @CircleofHopeNet. They even put a tweety on the announcement! They didn’t mean it to be a major use of their time; just more fun ways to get the word out.

Not too long afterward a person wrote in to the Dialogue List and said, “This is sad.” Not too long after that another person wrote in and said, “Unsubscribe!” We had a micro-protest about Twitter! No doubt there are many other people who would have protested or unsubscribed had they checked their email!

I would like to make a gentle defense of Twitter-using. In the interest of full disclosure, I am @rodofcircle. I use it mainly for fun. The fact that I wrote this blog will also be made known to my few “followers.”

My main defense is this: Twitter is a tool. You don’t have to be a tool of Twitter. It is like
anything else.

Using a tool implies that you are making something. In this case Twitter could be building some community with people who use Twitter.

Not using Twitter is fine. Just because the staff is communicating that way doesn’t mean we have all succumbed to virtuality or that Joshua will be on a jumbotron next week at the PM. If you know of someone who is addicted to Twitter and not making relationships face-to-face, please do what you can do to help them. But not using Twitter out of some prejudice or knee-jerk reaction to anything faddish seems kind of ungenerous, maybe even fearful.

One the other hand, just going along with every social-networking thing the world produces isn’t necessarily action, either. Being tossed by every whim of technology could corrupt your soul. We are being assaulted on every side by some new invasion of our humanity by communication devices. Resisting is important.

I am not sure the Apostle Paul would have used Twitter; but it wouldn’t surprise me if he loved it. When Paul is working on how believers relate to the world, he has a lot to say (just do a little search of “world” in the internet Bible program). To the Corinthians he said, “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.“ He finds it kind of obvious that we would lose our purpose if we left the world, somehow. He’s all about the mission.

I suppose the Twitter-objectors might be judging the Twitter-users of the church and deciding not to associate with such immoral people. I doubt it. (But I am checking.) I  suspect they are more concerned that we are becoming like the foolish people of the world, sucked into our devices and calling it relating. If that is their point, I think they have a good point. I think Paul’s point is that we don’t need to leave the world before our time. We’ll be associating until the time for associating is up. I think I am agreeing with Paul when I say that we don’t need to be “of” the world, but we do need to transform it. If God can be a baby and end up a slave to the world, I can hold my nose and use Twitter to communicate with the Twitterians.

Actually, I think Twitter is kind of fun. But I don’t recommend it to people who don’t want to use it to communicate for some eternal purpose. I don’t really do much, consciously at least, that doesn’t have some connection to Jesus, so Twitter is just one more thing. If you aren’t able to use it for mission, reject what you like. If I am trying to make an eternal difference, just pray for me if you think I am using questionable means. For me, Twitter is just another chance to give some news, be vulnerable, share a small touch of love or joy. It is like a tweet, but it is still music.

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.

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.

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.

The Heart of Good Dialogue

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“Let the peace that Christ gives control your thinking. You were all called together in one body to have peace. Always be thankful.” Colossians 3:15 (International Children’s Bible)

After something like fifteen hours of intense dialogue this past weekend during the Discerning Retreat, I felt like I needed a silence transfusion. But that need did not diminish my joy over the radical thing I got to do. We were definitely called together in one body – for real, not just in theory. And we had remarkable peace.

Commission launches the dialogue with European social partners on a review of the EU sectoral social dialogue - Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion - European Commission

The art of dialogue

Dialogue is not easy. It is easy to talk (or at least think of what you would talk about if you dared to talk); it is harder to listen. It is easier to speak inauthentically– playing a part, following a line of thinking; it is harder to take oneself and others seriously as expressions of God’s Spirit. In this day, it is hard not to succumb to the prevailing thought that “everyone has a right to their own opinion” and merely “agree to disagree,” as if that thought and action were somehow supremely moral.

In Paul’s thinking, I think he would say, “The good news is that everyone has a restored right to God’s word of truth.” And, “For the sake of living in the peace Christ gives I would gladly give up all my so-called rights.”

A partner came up to me after the retreat was over and was so happy that we managed not to fight. It was the first time she had been involved in our discerning process directly. She had never seen a group of believers talk about difficult things with mutual understanding, patience and hope like we did. Another person said a similar thing. She was amazed that we could disagree so well.

I hope they didn’t think we just had a remarkable affection for each other. That is true. But we have to agree on some basics things in order to disagree well — like the scripture that heads this post. We can’t accept what we discern as practical application of our faith unless we do agree on some foundational realities of that faith. As in the words Paul wrote to the Colossians above, we have to agree that the peace of Christ is more important than our latest brainstorm or our latest desire to rise to the surface. We have to agree that we have been called together in one body and that our fears won’t protect that or our brilliance create it. We do need to be alert for what can destroy us, and we do need to passionately exercise our gifts to be the body, but, at the bottom of it, being called together and lead by God is the basis of any discernment we might have.

Basic thankfulness

I have to admit that when I entered the retreat time, I was at peace, but I was not very thankful, yet. I was more anxious about what was going to happen. The pastors ran out of planning time and wished there had been more; we didn’t get our logistics right and ran into last-minute glitches; significant partners were absent or indisposed – there is always something. But during the prayer walk in the neighborhood, about when I was buying old china from a neighbor’s yard sale (which Gwen actually liked, even though it did not match what she already had, as I’d hoped), I was moved with a great feeling of gratitude. It hit me.

I managed to let Jesus rule the situation. I let my joy over being called into the body and having a real one to live in rise to the top. I listened to the hearts of my prayerwalking buddies as they prayed. I admired the burgeoning neighborhood into which God has plopped us. I realized I was astounded.

Maybe always be thankful is even more the essence of discerning dialogue. Conversation with someone who is grateful for what they have been given and grateful for who they have been given to be is a pleasure. Their receptivity to God’s grace makes them the most able discerners. I long to be one of those kind of followers of Jesus.

What Holds this Church Together?

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I’ve come to love the “how” questions. But for whole segments of the population, I answer them rather poorly. The other night at “rabbi time” one of my favorite people (Jeff not only thinks and sings well, he plays the accordion!) asked one of my favorite questions about the church. “How does it hold together?” I didn’t get all of the back story, but I think he’s seen a few places fall apart. It took him a while to join in, since he was skeptical about Circle of Hope’s staying power! It does not seem to have enough mechanisms for survival; it just kind of is.

My answer received a funny response that I have been pondering since. “Every time you talk about this, you use the words relational, love, incarnational, but I end up not knowing a lot more.” (I felt a bit like Jimmy Carter being humored by Ronald Reagan). That reply echoed a much more incoherent protest by a blogger who objected to the chart I was explaining on the Circle of Hope blog a week ago. (Just how did you come across that blog, Courtney?).

So I thought I would try again.

Most of what I think is better summed up by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: “[Jesus] gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, 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. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

What holds us together? Here are five applications of the scripture we are trying to make, with just one example each that demonstrate how we are trying. (Want to comment with more?)

1) We assume people are not infants

(Or at least are not destined to be so). They are gifted and relevant. Jesus is in them to bring fullness and unity.

We expect our Cell Leaders to work out our agreements and follow our very general plan. We do not tell them what to do each week; they are not given a curriculum.

2)  The pastors and other leaders are relentless about contrasting the deceitfulness of the philosophies of the age with Jesus.

We know we are a “ship of fools” as far as the deluded world is concerned.

You may have noticed that we are not an “emerging church,” we are not “postmodern.” We tend to rail against modernism, too, and a couple of weeks ago I took a swipe at Facebook and the immortality of the soul in the space of a few minutes.

3) Dialogue is practiced.

Speaking the truth in love is an organizing discipline; not just a personal aspiration.

Our yearly Map-making is an extravagant exercise in taking what people say seriously and encouraging them to say it.

4) We think of ourselves as a body with Jesus as the head,

Not a mechanism with a set of instructions for “how it works.”

The hardest think to understand is being an organism. Right now we have planted the seeds of another congregation and we are watching to see if it will grow. We also have a congregation in Camden that is stretching out roots. We have methods, but they won’t replace Jesus causing the growth.

5) We assume that we will fall apart if people do not love each other, and promote such dissolution.

Some astute historian told me that such an idea is so 70’s — well, 90’s, too. I think it is central to what Jesus is giving us. As Paul says elsewhere, “Nothing matters but faith working itself out through love.” People come to the leaders quite often with a great idea for mission (and I mean often and great). We send them back to create a mission team. If you can’t team, your idea can’t matter. Sometimes teams don’t have the devotion and want the “church” to take over their idea, we let them die.

My dear friend was in wonder that we do not fall apart. Now that I have sketched out why we don’t, so am I. Jesus must be behind it. On a human level, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

About “Losing My Religion”

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I have been pondering the de-evangelization of a few of my friends, lately. So it struck me when a blog kept popping up on the WordPress “hits list” about “Losing My Religion.” I have one friend whose new buddy is a Moslem. I have another who has “these Buddhist friends.” And I know all sorts of ex-evangelicals who are struggling to overcome years of trying and failing to “get it right.” They are losing their faith, too — or, at least, it is being undermined. There are a lot of attacks on faith in Jesus being waged, some with good targets in bogus Christianity and others attacking the truth. It is not an easy day to be a follower of Jesus.

So this person’s top-twenty reasons for losing faith kind of stung me. He seems to be losing what I call “crap Christianity” not any real faith. I think most people should lose what he is losing in order to form an actual relationship with God! So I feel compelled to try brief answers to his brief statements, just to get my two-cents worth in – and maybe to dissuade someone from thinking they are losing their faith when they are just asking the right questions.

His thoughts are in italics, my replies are not. I hope you’ll add to my thoughts, as well.

[This post is so long, you may as well take more time and go here, too, before we get started]

“I began to question why the god of the Bible is more believable than all other gods worshiped on earth. With the mountain of evidence staring me in the face, my faith began to die.”

Trading faith in God for an assessment of evidence is a definite change of world view. My faith is evidence of things unseen. Jesus is revelation, not another fact among many with me at the center living a life of endless sorting.

I finally moved past guilt and admitted to myself that I no longer believe in Jesus or the god of the Bible. Surprisingly it was a relief. Not because I wanted to run wild and sin freely, but because I no longer felt the weight a Christian carries. The weight of guilt, unworthiness and fear of god’s judgment.

This seems like a true sign that a person has only met religion, not God. The whole point of the work of Jesus is to free us from the weight one feels, not induce it! We may sense a weight of glory, but hardly of judgment.

His top twenty reasons for losing his faith.

1. God is wrathful, jealous, hateful, and kills nations of people like it is a bodily function. He is certainly not just or “holy” in nature.

The formation of the chosen people of Israel is not the last thing God did. Postmodern people parse Bible data as if what one did when he was twelve is equal to what one did when he was fifty. Humankind has been growing and God has been very creative in working out how to redeem us. We relate to God, not assess his immutable character, as we see it.

2. The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.

Which is why I don’t believe that. People who follow Jesus rise from the dead to everlasting life and those who don’t follow don’t have the life. There will be a painful recognition of this lack for those who don’t, but no eternal torture.

3. The statements, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “It will all make sense in heaven,” are little more than irrational cop outs. This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.

I mostly agree; those are cop-outs. I don’t throw God out for inept or wrong-headed followers.

4. Bloody animal and human sacrifices are illogical demands by a divine god as payment for petty wrong doings. These actions are no different than the rituals of archaic pagan religions. Not to mention the bizarre ritual of symbolically drinking human blood and eating human flesh.

Archaic pagan religions may be smarter than sanitized, atomized, OCD, postmodern religions of no religion. Regardless, a bloody, bodily, connective God who connects with us in Jesus is beautiful.

5. If God loves us and wants us to know and believe in him, why be so completely invisible? What is the purpose of being so illusive to those who believe and worship him?

For one thing, God is not us, so it takes some multi-dimensional capacities to have a relationship. More to the point, turning our backs makes him invisible. Nevertheless, Jesus is visible. The body of Christ is visible. The works of God’s Spirit are visible. The creator is visible in the creation.

6. God never manifests himself or performs miracles as he regularly did for the Israelites in Old Testament stories.

I’m not so sure about that. The OT is the condensed version of hundreds of years of history. If one condensed the last 2000 years into the same amount of written material, the miracles would be incredibly dense.

7. Prayers are never answered. Certainly not in the way Jesus described. Prayer has absolutely no affect on the world around us.

Nonsense. Even I have my own anecdotal evidence to refute that. God responded to my prayer last night.

8. Jesus did not fulfill major Old Testament prophesies or even fulfill his own promises and predictions.

So? Chances are he will. But I am not sure he was obligated to do anything but what he was sent to do, anyway. People do, however, make a big deal about how Jesus “proves” his validity as Savior by being the fulfillment of prophecies, so it is a worthy criticism. If Jesus were Nostradamus, maybe he would be untrustworthy.

9. The authors of much of the Bible are unknown. And of these unknown authors, the men who wrote the gospels likely never even met Jesus considering they were written 40-70 years after his death. A far cry from reliable testimony.

The man who wrote these questions does not even use his real name on his blog, so he is unknown as well – he has an ironic complaint. Regardless, hundreds of people validated the testimony of the gospel-writers. The whole community of believers has been assessing the testimony and validating it for centuries. It is hard to imagine a more reliable and tested revelation. But everyone writing the Bible thinks God will verify the testimony himself, anyway.

10. The Bible is repeatedly contradictory with itself, reality, and the laws of morality. Couldn’t God inspire a less poorly written book?

Of course the Bible contradicts itself if all one thinks it is is a moral lesson or systematic theology. The whole Bible is not meant to be morally exemplary. When King David has Uriah set up, that is hardly a suggestion to “have someone killed effectively.”

11. The Bible is open to interpretation. Everyone interprets it in the way that suits them best or serves their purposes.

Of course we interpret. We are humans, not robots. Hopefully, we discern, not just compare notes.

12. Throughout history, Christians have justified horrific actions by the Bible and its teaching.

So? They were wrong. They have also caused amazing transformation.

13. The Bible promotes hate and persecution against women, homosexuals and those who worship other gods or no god at all.

No, it actually promotes their wholeness. What’s more, the western world’s promotion of human rights is a direct expression of the Christian respect for human dignity and individual value. Democracy is basically Christianity without God, which is what makes it so attractive and dangerous.

14. According to the Bible, nearly 70% percent of the people in the world will burn in hell because they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God.

Another ironic complaint. If you don’t care about God, why would you care about being with God? Just go ahead and die. Again, I don’t think the scripture fully teaches that people burn in hell forever. They may go to ash; but all dead bodies, do.

15. The only reason I was a Christian was because I was indoctrinated into the religion as a child as a result of the culture and region of the world in which I was born.

That is too bad. A lot of people never gain faith because of that.

16. Christianity has no more rational or factual foundation than any other religion on earth that I openly reject.

These points are all just personal reactions, so it is hard to understand what is behind them. Maybe the writer has done some great thinking, but it does not appear so. Having done an awful lot of research, myself, I think religions are much more different than people have been lead to believe by postmodern, dumbed-down, pluralism promoters. The similarities are great; people come up with great stuff and long for love and life, but Jesus is a deeper foundation. Faith in Jesus is rich and very satisfying rationally, too.

17. The Christian church is disjointed and can’t even agree with one another.

That’s for sure. This is the best reason so far, that I can see, for not being a Christian. I’m often surprised that God keeps drawing people to himself by means of the church. But it happened last night after our 7pm meeting.

18. Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.

I think that is a good reason to become a Christian. We need to be saved. My morality does not prove Jesus, but my immorality proves my need for Him.

19. Today, powerful church leaders steal, lie and molest young children. The church repeatedly attempts to cover up these atrocities, only to reluctantly apologize as a last resort.

I think the author is mostly talking about the Roman Catholic church, which should either reform or disperse. The number one reform that needs to happen is ending the requirement that priests are celibate.

20. It is absolutely irrational to continue to believe archaic teaching with the amount of knowledge we’ve gained through science and technology. The Bible reads like a book of primitive folklore, not divinely inspired insight into our true reason for existence.

The Bible is hardly the only source of inspiration for Christians, as the Bible teaches. I agree that everything about God is not summed up in the Bible. But it seems crazy to think that knowledge is summed up in “science and technology,” which is what plenty of scientists say.

What do you think? Any faith out there? Having any stories about speaking back to the de-evangelizers?