All posts by Rod White

Are we visible enough?

Doing Theology, , , , , , , ,
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).

 

Daesh, Davos and the vulnerability of prayer

The Mission, , ,

Satellite images provided by DigitalGlobe, taken on 31 March 2011 and 28 September 2014 showing the site of St Elijah's Monastery, or Deir Mar Elia, on the outskirts of Mosul, Iraq

I have been around the world visiting the thin places where faith has been practiced over the centuries.  So I was especially moved last week when I learned that  Daesh (also known as ISIL/ISIS) blew up the oldest monastery in Iraq last year — aerial photographs finally discovered the fact.

Combined with a plea for prayer for Orisha last week, where one of the Brethren in Christ  church planters was killed, this further news of persecuted Christians was sobering.  It sent me to prayer. But not before it sent me searching for the justification Daesh undoubtedly has for erasing history.  I found it.

Daesh erases history for a reason

The caliphate builders justify the destruction of cultural heritage sites by following a stream of Islam called Salafism which places great importance on establishing tawhid (monotheism), and eliminating  shirk  (polytheism). The group’s actions are not mindless vandalism; there is an ideological underpinning to the destruction. Daesh views its actions in sites like Palmyra and Nimrud as being in accordance with Islamic tradition.

Beyond the ideological aspects of the destruction, there are other, practical reasons to destroy historic sites. Daesh likes to grab world attention, terrorizing people and so finding recruits. The destruction also wipes the territorial slate clean, leaving no traces of any previous culture or civilization so they can start fresh, forge their own identity and leave their own mark on history. Dealing in looted antiquities also helps finance their war.

No one writing news seems to be able to understand why these people blow up historical and holy  sites, even when the ideological and practical reasons are listed.

  1. The acts seem so extreme. But to one acquainted with the wars of the prophet Mohammed, these radical Islamists could also seem like Christians hearkening back to the early church. They want to be holy. They want to be as effective as Mohammed was.
  2. The acts seem barbaric. But to young men who have been colonized by Westerners, subject to authoritarian rulers, and bombed to bits by the United States, preserving the symbols of foreign influences could feel like curating their slavery.
  3. The acts seem like a gang is on a rampage. But they have a goal in mind and intend to accomplish it. They are much more organized than a gang, and have been surprisingly successful in the face of the enormous technical superiority of the forces against them.

Even when forced to admire them, I am sad about the people and places destroyed by their hate and merciless quest for power. Like the Khmer Rouge and the LRA, and many other armies in my lifetime, they are the scourge that comes when the world is flooded with weapons and the great powers practice the domination of unshared wealth and overwhelming force.

Preventing Future Shocks: Singer, Sorrell, Zhu, RogoffI’m not trying to justify them. Even though I can show plenty of examples when so-called Christians did the same thing they are doing. The fact that other people have been cruel does not justify cruelty. Seeking vengeance or some notion of equity by force perpetuates the endless cycle that has sent hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Syrians into refugee camps! Westerners shake their heads and wonder why Daesh is so intolerant. Meanwhile they ignore the powerful people who met in Davos last week to maintain the system that exploits the recruits who join jihadists.

The lessons and losses drive me to prayer

All these lessons give me some understanding for my fears and sadness. But they don’t comfort me too much when the darkness drives my Indian brothers and sisters into the jungle and Daesh blows up the history of the church where it is already so persecuted. I don’t know how Jesus is going to make a difference in the middle of it. But the lessons and the losses drive me to pray. One reason I wrote this short piece about what troubles me is to tell you about how they have inspired me to pray.

I realized not long ago that I shared a trait in prayer that mirrors a reaction other Americans have to their fears: build a wall and try to act normal inside it. Alternatively, I have been sensing God moving me to become more vulnerable in prayer and to welcome people into the safe place I share with God. The practice has expanded my love, I think. Daesh, the murderers of the Indian evangelist, the 1% feasting in Davos are also the beloved of God.

I have enough trouble just letting my loved ones “bother” my contemplation! Then I remember Jesus dying at the hands of evil doers, God submitting to the cruelty through which the world is saved. And I am drawn, even though it feels frightening, to open my heart and hope to embrace the troubles and the troublemakers. While they were yet sinners, Christ died for them. So far, that renewed prayer seems to soften my heart to embrace the troubles right in front of me too. I need to trust Jesus, the safe place maker rather than merely trust the safe place.

What prevents me from getting out of the bed I’m choosing?

A life in the Spirit, ,

I am thinking today about the wonder of being with God. I am pondering the pleasant problem of choosing to love God and to express my love. Jesus found me and here I am longing for God’s “courts.” That’s amazing! — and requires some meditation.

I have a commentary/translation on the Psalms sitting by my prayer chair at home. I often turn to it when I am spending time with God in the morning: The Book of Psalms by Robert Alter. I like his de-Europeanized translation and how he helps me understand how to sing the songs. This morning he got me thinking about a famous verse we sometimes sing in a song:

Better is one day in your courts,
better is one day in your house,
better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

To be honest, I don’t know what we are supposed to be thinking when we sing that song. I usually just wait until it is over. (To keep being honest, I sit through a lot of songs my leaders present to me with no explanation). Is it about the courts of heaven and I am a courtier? Is it about the “temple courts” and I am supposed to think this worship time in “God’s house” is the best thing ever? Is it just a metaphor for being with God, like I am being hosted in His beautiful courtyard?

In most versions Psalm 84:11 is translated something like: “One day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” The focus seems to be on duration: I’d rather spend one day with God than a thousand days somewhere else. I can sing that.

The original context is about being a pilgrim to Jerusalem.  It is all about feeling excitement over being at the end point of a pilgrimage to a holy place — “I am actually going to spend the day in the Temple! This is the best!” Even more specific, it is being like King David going to the Temple, and feeling what he feels about that.

Robert Alter translates the line from the song we sing more specifically and brings up a small nuance that translators argue about. His translation is,

“For better one day in your courts than a thousand I have chosen.”

Alter’s is probably the most literal translation. Other translators who try to translate strictly  have gone with an emendation to some of the Hebrew texts that allows the English to read,

“Better one day in your courts than a thousand in my bedchamber.”

Both these more specific translations make more sense to me than a simple “a thousand elsewhere.” And I think they make sense for us, too, for two reasons:

For one thing, many of my friends prefer their bedchamber to God. Either their laziness or their sexual immorality is keeping them there. So they don’t get to the courts of God too often, privately or publicly. I think Alter’s preferred translation hits the nail on the head when it comes to these people: “Better is the one day I have turned my attention — mind, body and soul, to God than the thousand I have chosen to be free of the Lord. Better is the one day I got up out of bed, or got out of bed with the person or thing controlling me, than the thousand I spent avoiding the soul-choice I need to make.

The main thing is brought up by Alter’s translation: “Better one day in your courts than a thousand I have chosen.” Our problem is in the choosing. Normally, most of us think choosing is “freedom.” We think we can’t even help what we choose, that it is genetically determined. We want the right to choose above all things. I think many of us would automatically think that being in God’s courts is like having to “show up in court” to account for something we have done wrong, to be threatened with “lock-up” and deprived of the choice that makes us who we are. We spend our days “on the lam” when it comes to God!

How tragic it would be to miss the joy of this psalm because we are afraid our choice would be stolen! — the appreciation of God’s splendor, the anticipation of intimately experiencing his favor, the ennobling confidence of standing in God’s presence and feeling welcomed, even called, and the promise of life forever, freely given to a being who can freely love it. I can’t get my heart to stop feeling for people who never get there and just long for their bed. What prevents us from getting out of the bed we have chosen?

I am not the best example. But I am glad God got me out of bed, somehow, so I could spend some time meditating today about the wonder of being with God and the difficulties I face in choosing to be there. I am pondering the pleasant bondage, the frightening but comforting inevitability, the alarming but invigorating, overpowering draw that I can’t deny when it comes to knowing God.  Jesus has come and found me and here I am longing for God’s “courts.” How amazing to have journeyed this far!

Knowing God is better than all the things I found for myself (and often continue to think I ought to find). I was telling my friend yesterday that being real is all I want. In the “one day” I know God, I know me. Better is that one day. One moment of knowing God is better than the rest of what I could choose, and certainly beats the mess I have often chosen.

[A few of you may recognize this from a few years ago — I reconsidered it]

The Golden Globes stoke my hope

Film/TV, The Mission, , ,

The embarrassing Ricky Gervais usually convinces me to skip the Golden Globes award show that aired last night. This time, Viola Davis looked so spectacular she was a good reason to tune in. As it turns out, there was another reason, as well. Did you notice a theme running through the nominated dramas?

CAROL
1950s married women find unexpected love and complications.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
Furiosa frees sex slaves.

THE REVENANT
Vengeance in the frozen north. Hugh Glass frees a native sex slave.

ROOM
Sex slave and her son escape.

SPOTLIGHT
Sexual abuse in the Catholic church is finally exposed.

I am not sure what is going on. But if the movies reflect our reality at all, we appear to be very angry and sex is not working out for us. We have been abused and our imaginations run to the most heinous of situations. Our master movie makers are creating stories that focus on the horrible. We are desperate for connection, but not that hopeful.

Continue reading The Golden Globes stoke my hope →

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/

Subscribe to Development! Hit the “follow” button after you type in your email. Thanks for reading!

Psalm in the morning fog

Poetry, , ,

The fog was so deep the other day I could not even see the lake out my back window. As I prayed, I remembered another morning I shared with God as an elementary school boy. I wrote a psalm about it and decided to share it with you. I am thankful for all the ways God has been near to me from an early age until now. I look forward to new revelations in the new year.

I ran across the familiar playground
in the fog
until I reached the backstop in the far corner
and waited.
Others would soon have the same idea.
But for now I was all alone
feeling the warm, silencing muffle of the cloud,
the mystery of aloneness in Creation’s embrace,
the surprise of finding a unknown door.

I need muffling
but I am longing for sunshine.
I need silencing
but I am waiting for others to arrive.
I need waiting
and here is my psalm:

I will trust in this small wait,
this little silence,
this brief appreciation of the fog,
of you in the fog, of me in the mystery
because you are trustworthy —

certainly not because I expect great vistas again soon
when the pesky fog lifts,
and not because I will keep anxieties from crowding out your embrace
in the silence,
or because I won’t fill my life with people before it is too late
as I wait;
it is because you are trustworthy.

And even as a child in the fog
my moments with you taught me your presence
and all about my ultimate safety,
no matter what happens next.

Aren’t people lying to you about Christianity?

The Mission, , , , , , , , ,

The pollsters are finding more people than ever who no longer feel connected to Christianity, even in the nominal way they used to. My Twitter feed introduced me to an interesting explanation of the trend in the Huffington Post: “Four Reasons for Decline of Religion.” It is another attempt to interpret the startling news from the latest Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Forum. That report says that Americans are still VERY religious, but it also shows that the percentage of Americans who believe in God, attend religious services and pray daily has declined significantly during the last eight years, especially among adolescents.

The blogger gives four reasons for this. They are all about how the “secular” environment is meeting needs better than religion, which may be true if all people do is follow their personal values around, as he purports. But I think there may be something else, too: the nominal Christians who no longer identify with Christianity may have made choices based on the lies people are telling about Jesus and the church. Every reason the blogger submits for the perceived decline is accompanied by a corresponding lie that seems to be helping people make new choices.

See if you think people believe these popular lies and so end up connected to a growing Jesus-free part of the population.

Lie one: “Spirituality” is the replacement for organized religion.

The lie is: If you join up with Jesus-followers you are joining up with a cult. Doing such a thing is infantile, undignified, abnormal and maybe unhealthy psychologically. These days faith is all about “spirituality,” which leaves believing up to your values and turns spirituality into an individual  collection of experiences, a commodity or an affinity group. That is the new normal and what the Christians try to get you to believe is abnormal.

The blogger said that “William James, whom some consider the ‘Father of American psychology,’ and psychiatrist Carl Jung, who developed the idea of the extrovert and introvert, were among those who embraced mysticism, or a sense of the Absolute, but had little use for organized religion.” They had good cause to desert the institutional church of their time as they looked for authentic encounter with God. Now their desertion is popular. More Americans than ever are saying that they are “spiritual, but not religious.”

But are they right about Christianity? I think authentic Christians are deeply connected to God within. They have a lot more going than a “sense of the Absolute” (or yes, Hillary, “the Force be with you,” too). They are not just into themselves, but they have a deep inner life built on all sorts of well-tested spiritual disciplines. Even the Christmas story can’t get far without: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

Lie two: We’re all one human family and tribalism is anti-humanitarian.

The lie is that once you break the tribal taboos of the church (get divorced, have sex with the wrong person, break the Ten Commandments, get on the wrong side of the priest or of some conflict) you are out. Yes, some expressions of the church totally resemble that lie, but Jesus doesn’t. People think if you are one with Jesus you must hate everyone who is not!

The blogger notes that “Historically, loyalty to the tribe and clan has motivated participation in organized religion.” Philosophy and capitalism undermine that. Freud and Durkheim, in particular, philosophized that religion is the glue of the tribe as they studied “lesser” people from their European towers — their thoughts about unenlightened people are influential wherever Eurocentrism rules. At the same time, the global economy has broken down the “historical” tribal membranes and weakened most cultural auto-immune systems. So there is a great economic sameness spreading over the world. I went to Cinemark in Fairbanks, Alaska last week and did not know I was not in my Stroudsburg, PA theatre. As a result, many people apply this sameness to religion and are less inclined to think of people as Christians, Muslims, Hindus or Jews, and more inclined toward thinking of “people of faith” as wearing a similar brand.

But are Christians really just a behind-the-times remnant of some tribalistic, exclusionary past? I think Jesus and Paul connected to people of all faiths and nonfaiths who were seeking or avoiding God. They were not setting up another tribe, although good Christians are as tribal as the best of them. They knew the Holy Spirit would empower individual seekers who would form a tribe from all nations with the same new spiritual DNA.  From the beginning of the life of Jesus he was known as  ultimately expansive: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel”  (Luke 2). He’s the epitome of being humanitarian; no one is left out of the Kingdom of God.

Lie three: Being part of a nontraditional family is the latest improvement in freedom.

It is ironic to think that the never-married, often family-disrespecting Jesus, from the unusual “family” of the Trinity could somehow become the advocate for conservative, male-dominated, “traditional” (read ‘obsolete”) family. It is not true. He assumes family is elemental to creation, but he is not traditional in the least.

Historically, organized religions have relied heavily on the family to raise religious children and recruit new church members. That no longer works so well. The blogger notes that today we have a major restructuring of the family, with fewer than half of U.S. kids living in a traditional family. This change in family structure may be responsible for less successful religious training and recruitment of young people.

That seems very true. Of course the earliest church did not have any of these families with traditional Christian values around, so maybe the church can find its way without relying on them for recruitment. Perhaps now people can all reconnect with the family of God rather than just avoid displeasing Mom by enduring church services. The way much of the church has been for many years, the children of divorced parents, people who never marry, and LGBTQ folks all feel uncomfortable with the over-emphasis on getting a happy home out of following Jesus and with the implicit condemnation that comes with being “other.”

But do people become Christians just because it is part of their “background?” It is possible that the researchers missed something that also creates what we desire: guilt, the need for forgiveness, and the hope for transformation. Being “untraditional,” like many TV shows teach, is the new normal, but it is not the road to happiness, either. Refusing to feel “other,” outside the truth, sinful or guilty is not a solution to actually being those things. Feeling guilty about who we are or where we come from is not necessarily bad; guilt is good for us if it lasts just long enough to get us forgiven and to produce change. Our lack of needing forgiveness is creating what some people are naming an age of psychopaths.  Meanwhile, the Christmas story is all about dealing with the possibility that a little, nontraditional, problem-ridden family facing disaster where Christianity first began is where it still thrives best.

Lie four: Institutions cannot be trusted.

The lie is that Christianity is just another institution, that it is “religion” which breaks down into franchises that have different brands but still sell basically the same product. Sure, some Christians have worked the system like any other business or government and have been corrupted by money and power. OK. But the heart of trusting Jesus is hardly “institutional.” Very few people would say “I want to be part of the institutional church.” Neither does Jesus, does he? He is God born in a stable and quickly forced into refugee status, after all. He might use institutions, but he was not born of one.

The blogger noted how the internet age gives us unprecedented access to information about our institutions but doesn’t help us have a conversation about the realities of their darker sides. Confidence in many of our institutions, from business to schools to government, is below historical norms. Confidence in religion, in particular, is at an all-time low, partly because of religious scandals in the Catholic Church and elsewhere.

I am hardly an advocate of blindly following institutions. Does anyone really think that is what Jesus has in mind for his followers? I think Jesus wants to build a church that can do what it should do. I think the church has blown it so bad in the past that it is no surprise that people deconstruct it and take the parts of it they like (like love, community, tolerance, spirituality, art) and cobble together a hypermodern improvement of it. They settle for faux Christianity. Nevertheless, Jesus shows up as real as ever during Advent every year.

He keeps speaking back to the lies, just like he talked back to people who doubted him to his face. “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to…the father of lies”(John 8). I am glad the present trends of our culture are bringing up some good lies to talk about. We need to talk back with respect, hope, love. The blogger du jour I am reacting to is right: a lot of people just don’t get Christianity anymore. But they are still looking for important things. It would be great if they could see that Jesus has always offered what they need.

Radical Wesley: New energy at 30,000 feet

Doing Theology, , ,

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.

SOMEONE has got to love their enemies

Building community, , , , , , , ,

Today is Pearl Harbor Day. I have always celebrated it as a day to remember the absurdity of war and how much humankind needs a Savior. I usually get in trouble with someone when I do that – or even say it (like I just did again). I have not so totally hidden myself in the margins that someone in the mainstream will not find an opportunity to remind me that “brave soldiers saved me so I can have my naïve faith in the land of the free.”

The first time I got into trouble for being a peacemaker was when we were teaching The Cost of Discipleship to the high school kids.(Gwen and I have never lacked for ambition). Bonhoeffer was making plain sense of the Sermon on the Mount, which clearly says “Love your enemies.” If you only love those who love you, you are not a follower of Jesus, who is God-with-us gracing the righteous and unrighteous.

NOT what really happened

As it turns out, I found out I was teaching the daughter of one of the men who had been part of “the great escape” from a Nazi prison camp in World War 2. He did not take kindly to a whippersnapper casting doubt on his heroism. His daughter went home and told him I had said, “I can’t imagine Jesus wearing army fatigues” – and she was not lying.

Not long after, I was summoned to an investigation by parent who had plotted bomb targets from the belly of a giant B52 when he was in Vietnam. He comforted himself with the story that he had not directly killed anyone, just directed bombs. I tried to be diplomatic when I did not understand his ability to excuse himself, but, to be honest, I was somewhat diplomatically-challenged at the time. I thought I was complicit and I was not even in the plane!

Fear, domination and avoidance. Unfortunately, not much has changed and the rhetoric on whatever commemoration is held today will probably be the same. You watched Obama last night. (But there is this).

Now we are hearing arguments about how more concealed weapons carried by good people (who are Christians) would have been a good way to stop the senseless and cruel killing in San Bernardino. Jerry Falwell’s son told the students at Liberty to get a permit to carry in case the school was attacked by “those Muslims.”  Then I hear hate speech from “peacemaking” Christians who think Fallwell’s son should have something terrible happen to him. So much for  loving our enemies even among the people who supposedly already love you! (But check out these videos of an Iraq War vet from MCC)

Loving: Pope Francis visited some of the thousands internally displaced families who have been forced the leave their homes with their families following unrest in the CAR
Francis and displaced people in the CAR

From my first conflicts over not having conflict until now, I still say that Bonhoeffer was right. Jesus says love your enemies; He demonstrated that fully and still means it. It doesn’t matter if you are an oppressed minority like the first followers of Jesus were, or if you are the president of a university trying to figure out how to exercise power. It doesn’t matter if the Pope is visiting you in the Central African Republic, where armed gangs shoot at UN peacekeepers, or you are visited in Philly where armed-to-the-teeth police patrol the streets. Love your enemies.

The best demonstration of the gospel, which everyone can practically express, is to be in a community of Christians who stick together no matter how many conflicts they face, between themselves or from without. SOMEONE has to love their enemies and love each other like Christ loves them or the gospel is a joke, a sad relic of a day before everyone was trained from birth to carry a concealed weapon in order to keep the peace – a fearful, dominated, avoidant “peace.”

Six reasons to be part of the Sunday Meeting

The Mission, , , ,

A lot of our church is not in the meetings on Sundays. It is good that there is more to us than what is happening in the meeting. But…what’s with that? I am not sure what. You may be able to tell me.

I was talking to Rachel the other day and we realized how many people never meet with us on Sunday nights — at the wonder-filled meeting when the church makes itself visible to the world (and to the unseen world, as well). A lot DO come, of course. I took a video last night and managed to upload 15 seconds of it to youtube — this was before everyone got there!

The nice meeting last night notwithstanding, there are a lot of people in the church who have NEVER been to a Sunday meeting yet. For instance, we have teens meeting in the afternoons and they never come to the meeting (this happens in NJ, too!), We have a cell based at UArts and most of the students have never been to a Sunday meeting. Rachel’s cell is full of people who are devoted to their AA meetings but not to our Sunday meetings. Play groups, game night, Circle Thrift friends – the list goes on of vital places that don’t connect with Sunday night much, or at all. With about 40-50 more people we think we’d be ready to multiply the congregation – and I just located more than fifty in these various other meetings! What do you make of that? If people are not part of the weekly meeting are they a part of the church yet? We have an expansive group that never gets into the group! What’s with that?

There are more Pew-identified unaffiliated people than ever. Maybe that’s what’s up.

It is possible that we just haven’t reminded ourselves lately why we have a Sunday meeting at all. After all, the church has met on Sunday for a couple of thousand years — it’s a habit, and a lot of people stopped thinking about why about a 1000 years ago. The meeting can and does go on without any particular need to have an explanation because it is just what Christians do. Some weeks I am finished with the meeting and I say to myself, “What was that about?” No one told me, no one apparently needed to even care why it happened. It seemed like people thought the meeting had a right to be served rather than the meeting having an obligation to serve the purposes of the people who showed up.

So why do it at all? Why imply that these 50 otherwise-connected people ought to show up? I’ll give you six reasons and you can give the rest. I say this old, wonderful Sunday meeting we perpetuate is irreplaceable for a number of reasons:

1) It is a coming out. LGBTQ friends use the phrase “coming out of the closet” for becoming who they are. The idea is important on a variety of levels. At one level it means admitting who one is to oneself. It is also about choosing who to tell about who you are. Most commonly, I think people think it is about making a political statement by being public about one’s identity. Christians don’t have the history of stigma and oppression as gay people do (at least in the United States), but there is a distinct similarity on all three of the levels mentioned when one comes to a Sunday meeting where Christians are being Christians and doing what Christians are and do. It is on the first day of the week because Jesus came out of the tomb as the risen Lord on that day — we’ve been identifying with Him ever since. If you don’t come to the meeting, you are likely to become a closeted Christian.

2) It makes us a citizen. Paul says our citizenship is in heaven. When a Christian takes on that allegiance in the world, it makes a difference. In the United States, this unique citizenship is often in question, since the state has often sponsored and coopted Christianity, so many people think a US citizen and citizen of heaven are the same thing. But the visible body of Christ, meeting boldly in public is a statement of differentiation and often defiance.  If you are not a visible ally, to whom do you belong?

Notice I have not said anything about getting some great thing by coming to the meeting, yet. There are great things that happen every week and great people there who will love you. But I don’t think the meeting will ever be a good enough “product” to justify getting off our butts every week and going to it. In a way, it is redundant, and you can consume similar things elsewhere.  But there are certain things that we just can’t be and do unless we have that public meeting

3) It makes us effectively public. People prefer to think that they can have everything privately, these days. Maybe Amazon’s business model is built on that premise. They can deliver what you want to you door; you never even have to go outside!  — the ultimate in privacy.

  • Being a Christian is public. We claim Jesus before people and Jesus claims us before the Father.
  • The meeting is a main way we are an “us” as God’s people is an “us.” People can come and see it.
  • It  is a main way we accept the liability for being one of God’s people with these other people.

I love the risk and the trust of that!

4) It makes us an incarnation. We need to be incarnate and to actively incarnate our life in the Spirit or our faith is subject to being all in our heads and it won’t last. People need to be able to see us and touch us, experience us, or Jesus in us is hard to find. Likewise, we need to see each other and become part of a people, or we are too autonomous to receive the juice that comes with being together.

5) It makes our love bigger than a preference or a choice. There are pilates meetings to attend, NA meetings, book clubs, classes, political meetings, service groups and, primarily, our demanding workplace. A lot is going on. We can get with people like us and do what people like us do. My family, in itself, is the size of a small village. There is plenty there to keep me busy for a long time. I don’t need a lot more people in my life…UNLESS there is God making me bigger than what I already am or what I prefer. The Sunday meeting is a living example of and a laboratory for being more than what I already am and loving more than I need to love. If you only love those who love you, what makes you a Christian? Obviously not all our loving is happening in the Sunday meeting, far from it, but it is square one for starting down the road to being bigger.

6) Without worship you shrink. Here is a key issue. Worshiping, praying, discerning the truth in what is taught is an acquired skill that one can lose.  A log burning alone soon loses heat. You can come to the meeting, of course, and not worship there, too. But we are more likely to go with Jesus if we do the kind of things that mean we are going with Jesus. I still love to hear Richard Burton talking about it.

The institution of the church has been so bad, so irrelevant, so into its own authority, so led by the “B” team that it deserves much of its inattention, in my opinion. Even though I lead the church, I don’t always think the Sunday meeting, in its particulars, makes that much sense. Sometimes the people who put on the weekly meeting can’t remember why they do it, they just do it. They may not think they have any new believers around, so it just becomes habit, not strategy. Is that the issue? What do you think?

Right now, we are changing in many ways. The Sunday meeting is developing along with the rest of us. No matter what it becomes, I will have six good reasons, at least, to be there with you. Maybe some day the meeting will get us all into trouble together, it will have become so odd to have one. That’s OK with me, too.