All posts by Rod White

Don’t let the loneliness organize you.

A life in the Spirit, , ,

Elie Wiesel Buchenwald Concentration Camp Holocaust Survivor

Take a look at the famous picture of Buchenwald concentration camp. Many of us have seen the picture. But you may not have known that the famous author Elie Wiesel is actually in the picture. He is circled in red.

Elie Wiesel’s Testament

In his 1981 novel, Testament, Wiesel creates a character who represents the Jewish intellectuals who were killed by Stalin in 1952. (Stalin’s mass murder outpaced Hitler’s by millions). In the novel, the character is encouraged by his prison guard to write an autobiography, since it might contain further confession of wrongdoing. Although it seems like a hopeless task that none of his loved ones will ever see, the man writes his story in the spirit of the ancient one about the Just Men who came to Sodom:

“Night and day [the Just Man] walked the streets and markets protesting against greed and theft, falsehood and indifference. In the beginning, people listened and smiled ironically. Then they stopped listening; he no longer even amused them. The killers went on killing, the wise kept silent, as if there were no Just Man in their midst.

One June a child, moved by compassion for the unfortunate teacher, approached him with these words: ‘Poor stranger, you shout, you scream, don’t you see that it is hopeless?’ ‘Yes, I see,’ answered the Just Man. ‘Then why do you go on?’  ‘I’ll tell you why. In the beginning, I thought I could change man. Today, I know I cannot. If I still shout today, if I still scream, it is to prevent man from ultimately changing me.’

solitude

This story has many applications for the many different people who read this blog. We have a lot we need to scream about, lest the madness have the last word. But the application that touches me the most, today, has to do with how lonely some of us are. Apply the story to that influence. We must keep talking back to our gnawing aches, our feelings about being unloved or trapped, our fears of always being isolated, our self-condemnation and devaluing. The loneliness must not be allowed to organize us, to change us into a reaction to it.

One fact and two suggestions about loneliness

Loneliness is a universal experience. I wish I had a universal solution. I just have one fact and two suggestions.

Fact: God is with you. You are not alone. Turn to God who is turning to you in Jesus, who is God-with-us. I know God is not the same as us, so he won’t offer skin and phone calls and someone who can respond to the look on our faces. I’m not going to say sticking with him will fulfill all the desires motivating us right now. But we can experience deep togetherness with God, and experiencing that togetherness often frees us to connect to others. “Be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.’” (Heb. 13:5-6)

Suggestion: Let God turn loneliness into solitude. This was Henri Nouwen’s advice. All of us are alone, since we are unique — no one feels, thinks or acts exactly like I do. So we have a lifelong issue about being alone to deal with. Our aloneness can turn to loneliness or solitude. Loneliness is painful. Solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling desperately to others and resent their absence. Solitude helps us respect the uniqueness of others and create community. Solitude, where we meet with God and discover ourselves, is a cleared-out space inside ourselves, and a quiet place we find outside our busy schedules, to pray, to listen for discernment and to experience grace. When we are lonely, we must turn to God and let loneliness become solitude.

Suggestion: Allow yourself to keep trying. We have to talk back to the loneliness or it gets the last word; it ultimately organizes us. Let’s hold on to the connections we actually have, whether they are what we truly want or need, at the moment. And let’s not denigrate the therapists, church leaders, pastors and other people who care about us, even if they don’t seem like the intimates we desire. Let’s keep working at being a member of the community. The church is a community that is often so diverse, so unique, so fluid, that it takes time to form and effort to keep. Even when it does not meet all our emotional needs, it is still a place where we belong and where we are likely to find some love. Keep building it, not just expecting from it. The world can be a lonely place; we must keep building a community that is lovely, or the world might change us into something it can organize in its own image.

I hope I have not been overly dramatic by using a concentration camp picture to lead into this topic. But I feel the sense of imprisonment some of my friends feel. They are being hemmed in by their loneliness and whatever they try does not seem to help them escape — even when they scream. Don’t give up! God is with you. You belong among God’s people. May you experience more solitude in your aloneness than loneliness.

[This post first appeared in June 2009 when very few people read my blog. I thought I’d give it another go since the issue was very real to me last week].

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Screen-delivered consumerism saps resistance

Doing Theology, Film/TV, , , , , , , ,

emperors-new-clothesIt is a rare talent to be able to sell nothing. I have always admired the weavers in the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Emperor’s New Clothes because they had the talent. Selling nothing might be the most-valued talent in U.S. society today. Our industries for manufacturing tangible goods may have all moved to Mexico or China, but we are still #1 in making things that don’t really exist. I know this for sure because I was just in Orlando. The Disney Corporation (#66 in the Forbes 500) must be the best at selling things that don’t and probably shouldn’t exist. If Disney decided to sell us new clothes that were invisible, we could get them with mouse ears and see them parading on their umteen TV channels; we would be invited to parade them ourselves in their five theme parks.

Our taste for nothingness is fed by the powers who seek to control us. The Bible is frank about this fact:

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12).

We know that these powers are “nothings.” But, like the emperor, we have a taste for nothing. We tend to believe that if we eat enough of it, we will get something. The powers use that faith to lobotomize our resistance.

Screen time pacifies

We were in a bungalow at one of the resorts surrounding Disneyworld (and they mean “world!”). On our TV I think the first ten channels were Disney channels, the next seven belonged to their daughter company ESPN. Priorities. TV is one of the ways the corporatocracy eases us into compliance and herds us down their vision of main street USA.

Disney symbolism
Disney symbolism

There is not an agreement on how much media children are consuming, but the NIH and Nielsen seem to agree that young children watch up to 4 hours of TV a day. When you add on other screen time, they are spending 5-7 hours locked into the machine. My grandchildren just got turned on to old Donald Duck cartoons on the Disney bus from the airport; they are probably watching them on YouTube right now. Teenagers spend close to 45 hours a week in front of the screen. The fact that the content they consume is controlled by an elite group of corporations is horrifying enough. But the mere act of watching TV—regardless of the programming—is the primary pacifying agent that teaches the next generation to comply. They don’t even think about whether to resist; they are zoned out on the screen. As evidence, note that private-enterprise prisons have recognized that providing inmates with cable television can be a more economical method to keep them quiet and subdued than it would be to hire more guards.

Screen time is a dream come true for an authoritarian society. For one thing, those with the most money own most of what people see. But more, fear-based television programming makes people more afraid and distrustful of one another, which is good for the ruling elite who depend on a “divide and conquer” strategy; and TV isolates people so they are not joining together to create resistance to authorities. Maybe most of all, regardless of the programming, TV viewers’ brainwaves slow down, moving them closer to a hypnotic state that makes it difficult to think critically. While playing a video game is not as zombifying as passively viewing TV, such games have become for many boys and young men their only experience of potency, and this “virtual potency” is certainly no threat to the ruling elite.

We need to keep an ear open to the call of the scripture, which demands that we not cave in to the relentless pressure of the world to conform to what is passing away, to its illusions of reality. When we resist,

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 grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ (Ephesians 4:14-16).

The screens deliver the invisible goods.

The fundamentalist religion Marx named the “opium of the people” was long ago superseded by fundamentalist consumerism. Fundamentalist consumerism pacifies young Americans in a variety of ways. George Bush was famously accused of telling the country to “go shopping” after 9/11. Maybe he did not exactly say that, but he did tell us to go to Disneyworld: He said, “Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.” Getting back to normal means consuming and doing more of it.

A belief in consumerism destroys self-reliance, creating people who feel completely dependent on others and who are thus more likely to turn over decision-making power to authorities, the precise mind-set that the ruling elite loves to see. A consumer culture legitimizes advertising, propaganda, and all kinds of manipulation, including lies; and when a society gives legitimacy to lies and manipulation, it destroys the capacity of people to trust one another and form alternatives. Belief in consumerism also promotes self-absorption, which makes it difficult to ever get a taste for solidarity.

The TV delivers the messages that create the consumer society, along with, forWall-E instance, an epidemic of childhood obesity, depression, and passivity. It helps create the prisoners of tomorrow — the few who get out of line (after watching Wall-E, no doubt), who will be eagerly received by the prison-industrial complex. Can we stop the process represented by the Pennsylvania judges who took $2.6 million from private-industry prisons to ensure that juveniles were incarcerated?

My hope is that our message, and even more compelling, our demonstration of the message being lived out, will give the Holy Spirit many opportunities to expose how powers of the world are naked. There are seeds of resistance everywhere. They need to be watered. Without Jesus, many small acts of wisdom may do quite a bit to procure freedom and dignity. With their proper connection to eternity, they can offer transformation. Our mindset needs to match what Paul reveals:

What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir (Galatians 4:1-7).

We are not slaves to the spiritual forces of the world. In Christ, we are children of God who should act accordingly. In Paul’s language, we are all as good as adopted sons in a Roman household, men or women, slave or free, Jew or Gentile. We should exercise our dignity.

My negative view of society was echoed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1844 when he observed: “All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.” That was why he was a reformer. I hope to be more than that kind of realist. My hope is in the spiritual reality made incarnate in Jesus Christ. The fact that the powers that rule us are fallen and need redemption is a basic reason why I am a Jesus follower. The society, coming at us through all screens that have nothing more to promote than the economy, gives us Disney and its “magical” embrace, gives us Harry Potter escapism, gives our children these “entry drugs” for the vacuous Game of Thrones. But God has come in the Son, born under those very forces that seek to subjugate us, that we might receive our true selves in relationship with God and no longer be slaves, but the heirs of reality.

One final thanks to Bruce E. Levine published in alternet.org

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Education Is the Bane of Resistance among Jesus-followers, Too.

Doing Theology, , , , , ,

Let’s talk about how the educators or, better, how the “education industry” have created indoctrination camps that have subdued young Americans and broken any spirit of resistance to domination they might normally have. I’m talking about the mandatory sentences handed out to young people from age five to twenty-two. I’m talking about having some dialogue in the spirit of James, who wrote to the people of his time:

Who in your community is understanding and wise? Let his example, which is marked by wisdom and gentleness, blaze a trail for others. If your heart is one that bleeds dark streams of jealousy and selfishness, do not be so proud that you ignore your depraved state. The wisdom of this world should never be mistaken for heavenly wisdom; it originates below in the earthly realms, with the demons. Any place where you find jealousy and selfish ambition, you will discover chaos and evil thriving under its rule. Heavenly wisdom centers on purity, peace, gentleness, deference, mercy, and other good fruits untainted by hypocrisy. The seed that flowers into righteousness will always be planted in peace by those who embrace peace (James 3:13-18 – The Voice).

Somehow, the educators have convinced the young of this era that they can dispense with wisdom and becomes tools of the economy, that they can ignore their best instincts and submit to training that makes them little more than a part of a machine — and that includes a giant war machine to boot, that competition and ambition designed by the invisible hand and the national interest is their true destiny.

Education, as presently dominated, is the bane of resistance. And there is much to resist.

Schools Educate for Compliance.

Upon accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award in 1990, John Taylor Gatto upset many in attendance and has been quoted ever since, to no avail: “The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.” Past generations discussed the problems of compulsory schooling that could make it a vehicle for an authoritarian society. But as the problems have gotten worse, the discussion has become more rare.

The nature of most classrooms, regardless of the subject matter, socializes students to be passive and directed by others, to follow orders, to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities, to pretend to care about things they don’t care about, and to believe they are impotent to affect their situation. The essence of school—its demand for compliance—teaches us not to act in a friction-causing manner.

The essence of most Christian teaching is boiled down into the same kind of goal: compliant behavior. This is epitomized by Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten ( 7 million copies sold and counting) which starts with: Share everything, Play fair, Don’t hit people, Put things back where you found them, Clean up your own mess. That ends up being the extent of most people’s Christianity — nice behavior! Obviously there is some goodness there, but it is a far cry from the Apostle Paul claiming that the disciple’s goal is to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and…take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5). That’s not too compliant and would probably get Paul kicked out of kindergarten.

One would think Christians would be educated to be anything but compliant — peacemaking, yes, nonresistant in a strategic way, yes, but never merely compliant. But they let the schools dictate what passes for wisdom.

Already authoritarian schools have been legislated into even more tyranny

With “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top” the corporatocracy instituted the fear-inducing standardized-testing-and-perpetual-competition tyranny that torpedoes any free thinking. Fear forces students and teachers to constantly focus on the demands of the test creators that judge the process and the grantors that fund the budget; it crushes curiosity, critical thinking, questioning authority, and certainly challenging and resisting illegitimate authority.

I have been instructed by many well-meaning elementary children to not have my aberrant, irreverent thinking on display because I will “get in trouble.” They are all business. The other day I was telling one of them why I did not fear death because the Lord would raise me up. That somehow sparked a thought in his mind about the boiled-down theory of evolution he had just been learning on the computer. He gave me the party line he’d been taught in response to my irreverent thinking. He will get to the top, but of what?

Meanwhile Paul continues to offer revelation that most Christian parents have totally forgotten, obsessed, as they are, with protecting their children’s capability to make it in the domination system.

For people who are stumbling toward ruin, the message of the cross is nothing but a tall tale for fools by a fool. But for those of us who are already experiencing the reality of being rescued and made right, it is nothing short of God’s power. This is why the Scripture says:
          I will put an end to the wisdom of the so-called wise,
          and I will invalidate the insight of your so-called experts.
So now, where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the skilled debater, the best of your time? Step up, if you dare. Hasn’t God made fools out of those who count on the wisdom of this rebellious, broken world?  For in God’s deep wisdom, He made it so that the world could not even begin to comprehend Him through its own style of wisdom; in fact, God took immense pleasure in rescuing people of faith through the foolishness of the message we preach (1 Corinthians 1:18-21 – The Voice).

Any alternative to the education gulag is shamed

In 2006 a survey in the United States found that 40 percent of children between first and third grade read every day, but by fourth grade, that rate declined to 29 percent. Despite the anti-educational impact of standard schools, children and their parents are increasingly propagandized to believe that disliking school means disliking learning. That was not always the case in the United States. Mark Twain famously did not say, “I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.” Toward the end of Twain’s life in 1900, only 6 percent of Americans graduated high school. Today, approximately 85 percent of Americans graduate high school, but that is not good enough for Barack Obama who told us in 2009, “Dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country.”

The more schooling Americans get, however, the more politically ignorant they seem to be of America’s ongoing class war, and the more incapable they are of challenging the ruling class. I know no one is nostalgic for the Populist Movement of the 1880s and 90s. But American farmers with little or no schooling organized America’s largest-scale working people’s cooperative and formed a People’s Party that received 8 percent of the vote in 1892. Regular, uneducated people made a difference. In the 1970’s the Jesus movement upended much of the church. It was a young person’s movement, not a gift from their leaders. Where are those kind of people now, fully indoctrinated?

The high priests of the educational system eerily resemble the religious leaders who threatened the common people for feeling warmed by the new, real teaching of Jesus.

         No one was willing to speak openly about Jesus for fear of the religious leaders.
 In the middle of the festival, Jesus marched directly into the temple and started to teach. Some of the Jews who heard Him were amazed at Jesus’ ability, and people questioned repeatedly:
        Jews: How can this man be so wise about the Hebrew Scriptures? He has never had a formal education.
        Jesus:  I do not claim ownership of My words; they are a gift from the One who sent Me. If anyone is willing to act according to His purposes and is open to hearing truth, he will know the source of My teaching. Does it come from God or from Me? If a man speaks his own words, constantly quoting himself, he is after adulation. But I chase only after glory for the One who sent Me. My intention is authentic and true. You’ll find no wrong motives in Me (John 7:13-18, The Voice).

I think our education has made us afraid to speak lest we offend the new lawgivers who run it (quite poorly, in Philadelphia). It is time the Jesus-followers, at least, follow Jesus in his bold assertion that He has wisdom from God to give as it has been given him. Standing on that foundation could help us resist the domination of children by self-interested powers, and would give those blessed warriors who serve children as teachers the courage to keep up their struggle to give what they have been given in the Spirit and not just as abused lackeys of the system.

Thanks again to Bruce E. Levine and his article republished in alternet.org

Further links not necessarily recommendations, just further voices.

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Debt Has Broken the Spirit of Resistance among Jesus-followers, Too

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Let’s talk about how the ruling elite have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken any spirit of resistance to domination they might normally have. I’m talking about having some dialogue in the spirit of James who wrote to the ruling elites of his time:

“Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.  You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you” (James 5:3-5).

Somehow, the elites have convinced the latest generation that whatever corroded gold they have will be taken away if they don’t conform; their only hope is to hoard whatever little wages they are paid in hope of having a retirement of limited self-indulgence!

money = speechBruce E. Levine writes, in a very telling article, that young Americans “appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans ‘Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?’ Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. Yet despite their lack of confidence in the availability of Social Security for them, few have demanded it be shored up by more fairly payroll-taxing the wealthy; most appear resigned to having more money deducted from their paychecks for Social Security, even though they don’t believe it will be around to benefit them” (Bruce E. Levine, republished in alternet.org).

How exactly has American society subdued young Americans – and young American Christians? This might take a few weeks to answer. But let’s talk again about one big reason we have been considering for years now: student-loan debt.

Large debt—and the fear it creates—is a pacifying force. When I went to UC Riverside in the 70’s my tuition went up to $215 a quarter and I was upset. At that time tuition at many U.S. public universities was so affordable that it was easy to get a B.A. and even a graduate degree without accruing any student-loan debt. Those days are gone in the United States, but public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many other countries. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives depose Mubarak in Egypt, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War back in the day all had one thing, at least, in common: the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt.

obama teacherToday in the United States, two-thirds of graduating seniors at four-year colleges have student-loan debt, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. And, like President Obama says, a high school degree is not enough:

Whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma….We have one of the highest high-school dropout rates of any industrialized nation, and half of the students who begin college never finish…This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.

One has to go to college to get a ticket into the economy. And that mandatory ticket will cost you. The median undergraduate debt is close to $25,000. Add on consumer debt and the typical twentysomething debt is close to $45,000 according to a study from last year. Increasingly, it is easy to find college graduates with $100,000 in student-loan debt. During the time in one’s life when it should be easiest to resist authority because one does not yet have family responsibilities, many young people worry about the cost of bucking authority, losing their job, and being unable to pay an ever-increasing debt. In a vicious cycle, student debt has a subduing effect on activism, and political passivity makes it more likely that students will accept such debt as a natural part of life.

The Bible has a lot to say about debt

But most Christians can’t listen to the Bible because their creditors might garnish their bank account if they did what the Bible says. Nevertheless, Romans 13 says:

Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law (Romans 13:7-8).

If you read this in an individualistic way, then whatever debt a person incurs is their lot. The debt industry would love to have us all feel that morality. It is ironic that the government and the corporations that own it (who are increasingly seen as individuals!), are not held to the same standard of individual responsibility. In fact they have special rights like limited  liability and, the big one, they can live forever.

When Jesus tells Simon a parable about the woman washing his feet with her tears, he at least suggests an outlook other than someone being endlessly responsible for their debt.

 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. (see Luke 7:40-49). 

In the Lord’s story, the money lender forgives debts when someone can’t pay. That’s one thing. But the big thing, as in Romans,  is that love is owed. Love is the goal. Forgiveness is the prize. In contrast, the faithlessness of our society is enslaving people. We’re taught that we will ruin someone if we disturb their supposed self-reliance. Being taken care of by society is considered wicked. But the corporations are very well cared for! Even if there was a vestige of Christian morality as part of the conversation, we would be better off.

And let’s not forget what Jesus teaches us to pray in the Lord’s prayer

Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Smack dab in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, obscured by old translations and otherworldly assumptions, is a radical cry for Jubilee justice. In this most stripped down form of Jesus’ teaching — the bare essentials of what a disciple should bring before God in prayer — is freedom from economic debt for all of God’s children. The prayer is not just about sins like “My mother-in-law said something mean about me, so I should forgive her ‘debt of sin’ against me.” The prayer is about real debtors — people who are enslaved by the rich and their deceptive systems. It is bigger than that, but not less.

How do Christians “fight back?”

Among the Circle of Hope we say, “We are birthing a new generation of the church to resist and restore with those moved by the Holy Spirit.” That means at least four things in relation to the debt that is breaking the spirits of twentysomethings, especially:

1) We prophesy. Even if you think the truth will get you in trouble, you “go James” at the proper time.

2) We do not conform. Even if love is illegal, we practice it.

3) We create the alternative. In our community we are all about forgiveness and sharing.

4) We demonstrate the alternative. We get people out of debt. Our debt annihilation team is an extremely practical example of this. Our compassion fund distributions are usually gifts and always no-interest loans. Our cell members take care of each other. We have thrift stores full of low-cost items. We hold baby-goods exchanges. We support relief and development and advocacy through MCC. And we sure don’t follow every lie the domination system dishes out – instead, we live simply in the freedom of the Spirit. We find a new way through the wilderness of the present age.

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Lowest Common Denominator Assumptions

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I still remember the time, a few years ago, when fifty people came to our meeting about making a covenant.

Joshua Grace and I led most of it. Nate Hulfish got in there, too, even though he came with a fever and could barely talk! It was January, and everyone had to venture out over treacherously icy roads to a church basement in Camden. One intrepid person even found a way to get there by public transpo from Philly — he apologized for being late because he had to wait twenty minutes for one tardy bus in 28 degree weather!

It was heartening. It was encouraging to find out that we were still meeting people who would do unusual things as if they were usual. Ten of our cell leaders were there, bringing cell mates with them – they’d been to the meeting before and they were going to lead other meetings that week, so you might have thought it was “beyond the call of duty” to show up.  One of them said, “The church is not in the meetings, it is a 24/7 reality.” One of them was upstairs caring for her cell mates’ children so they could enjoy the meeting! Like I said, it was pretty amazing.

Lowest Common Denominator -- Jaako Mattila
Lowest Common Denominator — Jaako Mattila

Peacemakers should be normal Christians

The meeting was even more amazing to me because I compared what my friends were actually like to what some denomination leaders thought they were probably like.  I had just come back from a conference in which I discerned some attitudes in “higher up” church leaders about what people could tolerate when it came to living out a commitment to Jesus. They didn’t expect much. I probably shot my mouth off a bit too much (as I am wont to do), but they were talking about the BIC doctrine about peacemaking, which is so close to my heart. They didn’t expect people to make peace much.

The Brethren in Christ list peacemaking among their collection of ten “core values.” We say we are all about:

Pursuing Peace: We value all human life and promote forgiveness, understanding, reconciliation, and non-violent resolution of conflict.

 That is not a radical statement. But it is right there among our top ten values!

In the Articles of Faith and Doctrine we say:

Christ loved His enemies and He calls us as His disciples to love our enemies. We follow our Lord in being people of peace and reconciliation, called to suffer and not to fight. While respecting those who hold other interpretations, we believe that preparation for or participation in war is inconsistent with the teachings of Christ. Similarly, we reject all other acts of violence which devalue human life. Rather, we affirm active peacemaking, sacrificial service to others, as well as the pursuit of justice for the poor and the oppressed in the name of Christ.

That is a straightforward statement.  It is worthy of people who will get out in 28 degree weather to investigate how to form an authentic church! Yet when I called on my leader to promote a “prophetic” expression of our stated doctrine, he publicly worried that others would not take too kindly to such aggressive behavior (whoever these “others” are, I don’t know). It seemed to me that he was managing for the lowest common denominator, or working on a non-violent resolution to conflict by avoiding conflict altogether!

Put me in coach!

So it was encouraging to meet up with the next set of Circle of Hope (BIC) covenant-makers who are, basically, brave enough to do something that other people might assume is just too much to ask. I will always wonder, I guess, about what the big deal is about following Jesus. If you’re going to do it, do it! Why doctor up his clear teachings and example to fit into the lowest common denominator that can pass for Christianity?

It is such an honor to be sought and called by Jesus! It is not like he is “asking too much of me” when he gives me life and assumes I’d like to live it! I have rarely been disappointed when I was “presumptuous” enough to assume that Jesus has impressed others in exactly the same way. We’re glad to follow Jesus! Put me in coach!

I expect to keep finding those kind of people and doing what I can to form a covenant community with them. After all, thirty more people than one might expect could pile into the basement at any moment.

How NOT to outgrow your faith in your thirties

A life in the Spirit, Leadership, , , , , ,

You’re not a twentysomething anymore. Now what? Are you outgrowing your faith like the fashions of your youth? It happens.

In their thirties, a lot of people consolidate a circle of friends that still feel right (and hope they don’t move away), get married, find a halfway decent job to which they commit for one reason or another, and save their money for fun. Jesus gets squeezed out of their limited time. He was one of their many twentysomething activities. But he never became the friend, the partner, the vocation, the fun.

If any of that is even halfway true of you or someone you care about, is there any hope for having faith when one grows up? I think so. Here are six ways to keep or restart your faith if you find it lacking in your adulthood.

1) Start over, even in the church you’ve got.

The other day a friend said she wanted to do something…finally. She was over the trauma of moving to town. She had the new job. She had found her favorite restaurants. She even had a boyfriend. Then she realized she had to get started! She now needed her life and she was sure that life had to do with Jesus.

If you are inspired like she is, it means changing; and change is hard. The need for change uncovers how lazy we all are — it is like the original sin. M. Scott Peck’s famous quote says that evil is laziness carried to its ultimate, extraordinary extreme.

Truly evil people … actively rather than passively avoid extending themselves.  They will take any action in their power to protect their own laziness, to preserve the integrity of their sick self. Rather than nurturing others, they will actually destroy others in this cause. If necessary, they will even kill to escape the pain of their own spiritual growth. As the integrity of their sick self is threatened by the spiritual health of those around them, they will seek by all manner of means to crush and demolish the spiritual health that may exist near them (The Road Less Travelled, 1978).

My friend has the insight to know she needs to start over and has the guts to do something. She is also kind of scared not to! You don’t have to move to a new state, new church or new friendship circle to start over. You have to not be lazy.

thirties2) Learn to pray. Now is the time for contemplative prayer.

Many twentysomethings love the church because their friends do. Any number of people in Circle of Hope like to be a part of our community even though they don’t like the founder of it: Jesus! But they get to a point where the relationships change, there is conflict, or people just grow up. Then they need a relationship with God, not just nice people. It is time to learn to pray. We need to learn a method for connecting with our natural aptitude for “the inner life, that simplicity of our childhood once our adult minds have become overly complex and busy.”

That’s what Cynthia Bourgeault says in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening (2004). Some people have never read her book or any book about spiritual disciplines. They have never personally learned to pray and rely on others to do it for them. They come to a church meeting and let a leader make them pray. That’s not adult enough.

3) Get a spiritual direction

Repent. Turn a new, Jesus-following direction – not like you used to think about spirituality, but in ways your heart and mind tell you to move now. Think and feel about how you think and feel spiritually. Enough said, for now.

4) Get some spiritual directors.

Adult faith is not singular. Maybe in your twenties you needed to assert your own identity. Adulthood requires community and help. Therapy might be a good place to start. Retreat centers often have someone who wishes someone would come by so they could listen to them and help them listen to God. Our Pastors, Cell Leader Coordinators, and Cell Leaders can listen or help you find someone who can. Your cell or another group you form will help. Having a good friend in Christ will help, too, but we cannot always rely on people who are attached to us to be detached enough to see and tell the truth we need. Your spouse can be helpful, but not enough. Make a life-giving connection somewhere.

5) Get some buy in.

Like I said, adult faith requires community. The biggest reason people back-burner their faith, and often lose it altogether, is because they have to fight for it — and they are sleeping with the person with whom they are fighting!  Any number of spouses have decided Jesus is the lover with whom they are in competition and they say, “Jesus or me!”

So have an honest talk about your desire to be a Christian with your intimates and get their support. Even if they are unbelievers, they probably love you enough to help you. If your faith is secret or private, it will probably end up strangled.

6) Serve. Give. Commit.

The thirties are sort of a proving ground. It is time for integrity. Do you count? Does what you say matter? Do you know for what God has laid hold of you?

Time is short. The assignment of transformation takes a long time. We need to do something. (If you are a twentysomething reading this, it is not too early. If you are past forty, it is not too late). Plus, our resources are limited. We need to make the most of them. When we are up against sickness, addiction, relationship problems, or failure, it is hard to have faith. And who is not up against one or more of those things on a given day? We need to make the most of our time and limited resources to live in a way that matters.

The easiest way to look at doing this is to “give what you are given.” Sometimes we want to wait until we have what we should have or we are who we should be before we give. That’s a long wait. Serve where you are stationed. Waiting for the ideal situation or job could be a long wait. Make indefinite commitments now. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. Engage your heart in the present, not in the idealized future.

The thirties are often a very difficult era. But they don’t need to be a time to endure with gritted teeth. For the Jesus-follower, they are often the beginning of their richest era of spiritual development. But you’ll have to grow into it, not just outgrow your previous faith.

 

Alternative views…

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Jesus and scorn — the Savior and RBF

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I pause to be excited with Taylor Orsi, an aspiring comedienne, who came up with a little video. Now she is a youtube star. She and her boyfriend, Jared, invented a “syndrome” and created a fake PSA (public service announcement) for it. It has more than three million hits so far; it got them featured on the Today Show; and, finally, it was misquoted in my cell meeting last week.taylor orsi

In my cell their fake syndrome was named “accidental bitch face.” One of our members was tagged with it by her boyfriend, because when she is not smiling, her face has a natural downward turn to it and she looks sad, or even like she might be scowling. Taylor Orsi calls that “resting bitchy face” and made a video about it. The video included the male counterpart: “resting asshole face.” For those of you still interested in the culture being formed here in America, here is their video: http://youtu.be/3v98CPXNiSk

Appropriate scorn

It is always hard to respond to these things, since it is so tempting to give Taylor and Jared exactly what they dish out: mockery. We have all been repeatedly taught to do that, by the last 25 years of comedy. I don’t want to play that game, but I do want to scorn a movement that invaded my cell with shame (in the name of fun, of course) and sent three million people fanning out into the population to look for certain faces to mock. And I do want to be amazed (and deliberately not accepting) that we can appeal to the now-built-in narcissism of American youth who have been told to “say cheese” so much that they are rebel against it by pointing out people who get tagged for not doing it all day.

taylor oris todayThe Today Show people treated their joke as an actual syndrome and Taylor treated her appearance as an actual star turn. For those of you still able to watch the Today Show, here is the segment: http://youtu.be/Xf-zXyfO7X8.

It is always hard to take these things seriously, because it is very hard to figure out whether the media is making fun of itself and secretly mocking their “reality” guests. The way I see it, Taylor Orsi found a group of people to exploit; then the Today Show found her and exploited her hope of fame to use her wit for a few minutes. The producers brought in their plastic surgeon expert to talk about how faces work. The staff lifestyle coach said that if you have the condition you can help yourself out by remembering to smile. She really said that. They filmed it.

What is the media teaching us?

Lessons from the culture:

  1. Smile all the time, it will keep you safe.
  2. Exploit people (even if it shames unsuspecting victims) to get well-known.
  3. Make fun of yourself or act like everything is “no worries” to keep yourself unaccountable.
  4. Women, especially, are expected to be smiley all the time like Today Show hosts, even when making real news into fake news [Erin Burnett].

It is hard to move with Jesus into these things. But where else would he be but with the bitches and assholes? And who else would he be instructing but the new Pharisees, judging people with their powerful media and rules of behavior, replete with experts to back up their claims?

Can Jesus save us?

I think this whole situation needs a Savior, even if I will be mocked for getting serious about something that was just a joke to begin with.

Jesus might start off by affirming Taylor who implied that her whole bit could be summed up with a moral to the story: “we should give each other a break.”

But I think he might go deeper than that to suggest that rather than just being accepted, everyone needs to be forgiven. Leaving people alone is not quite the same as loving them with a self-giving love. How about looking at yourself in the mirror and considering whether you can even see yourself the way God sees you: the forgiven, the beloved who is destined for your unique fullness?

And I don’t think Jesus would shy away from showing a little fury toward the powers that be (like the Today Show). Through Isaiah he says:

The Lord enters into judgment
against the elders and leaders of his people:
“It is you who have ruined my vineyard;
the plunder from the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people
and grinding the faces of the poor?”
declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty. (Isaiah 3:14-15)

What do you mean when you mock and exploit people? Or don’t you know you are supposed to mean something?

When you get a momentary boost at someone else’s expense, what does that mean? Or don’t you know that what you do makes a difference?

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Blessings and Curses from Perky Christian Radio

A life in the Spirit, Music, , , , , , ,

I was driving somewhere in the Poconos in that other world beyond the Philadelphia city limits during our vacation. I decided to turn on the radio which was set to the usually-blue-state NPR. However, the frequency beaming in from Honesdale was not NPR, it was WZZH coming at us with The Word FM. I don’t listen to “Christian” radio very often, so it is usually rather enlightening for me to dip into the subculture. This dip was unusually so.

Overcomer

mandisa and janeWhen I first heard Mandisa singing Overcomer I was a little taken aback because she reminded me of Jane Fonda’s workout song from the 80’s. But then I decided, “No, this is a very encouraging song and you need to go with the positive flow of this perky radio station.”  Immediately, I could imagine one of my most positive friends doing her signature wedding-reception dance moves to Mandisa.

Take a breath.
Don’t forget.
Hang on to his promises.
He wants you to know
you’re an overcomer!”

Good sermon, and it has a beat.

Good to Be Alive

But Mandisa is not all that is happening out there. I was less impressed by Jason Gray’s Good to Be Alive. Not only is the video terrible, but the catchy chorus is laced with that strange “holiness” theology that makes me kind of crazy.

jason grayI want to live like there’s no tomorrow,
Like I’m on borrowed time.
It’s good to be alive.
Yeah.
I won’t take it for granted.
I won’t waste another second.
All I want is to give you a life
Well lived to say, “Thank you.”

Now before I sound critical, I think there are some good reasons to sing Jason’s song:

1) I  won’t take it  for  granted. You realize how entitled you think you are and you want to live like you recognize that whatever you have is given to you (1 Cor. 4:7).
2) I want to live. You are tired of being low-level depressed, are changing your focus, and allowing yourself to live your life (John 10:9-11).
3) I won’t waste another second. Your have decided to work with Jesus on his redemption project and you understand how brief the time is to do that before he returns or you die (Romans 13:10-12).
4) Say, “Thank you.” You want to be mature enough to base your life on gratitude and receive each moment with praise (1 Thess. 5:17-19).

It is good to be alive and God has showed his goodness by making us and redeeming us!

The curse of bad thinking

There are blessings on the radio to be received from good-hearted people with good singing voices. But there are a couple of viewpoints in Jason’s catchy lyric that I don’t want stuck in my head. They are kind of cursing me.

1) I’m not sure Jesus freed me from death so I would feel like I was living on “borrowed time” (that is, time after one would normally expect to be dead). I was dead in sin, true, but that’s the fact of my old life. Likewise, I don’t think Jesus wants me to live like “there’s no tomorrow,” as if today were all I have. Isn’t that the condition from which I was rescued? I think he wants me to ease right into eternity and fearlessly be eternal. Yeah.

Is there some reason we are supposed to think that we don’t deserve the grace we have been given? Isn’t it a bit insulting to God to think he would come for undeserving creatures who he says he loves but doesn’t really need or respect? Are we redeemed to keep acting like unredemption is a short step off our tight rope?

2) The more dangerous aspect of this song is the promise not to take life “for granted” or “waste” any of it, thereby proving that I am worthy of it. I’m not sure I am supposed to give myself a rubric for successfully operating the Jesus life. I think some people misconstrue the idea of living as an act of worship (Romans 12:1-3) to mean that they are giving their life back to God as a sacrifice – something like: Jesus gives me himself; I give myself back, and we’re even. This reminds me of an even more subversive song covered by Kurt Cobain – he got the problems with the theology.

Is there some reason we are supposed to be perpetually getting over the hump with the amount of thankfulness we are expressing for our salvation? Is Jesus so insecure that he will be offended if you don’t turn to him, as he is walking beside you all day, and say, “I’m walking beside you to give you a life that says ‘thank you?’”  I think he’d be more moved if we just lived with a thankful heart and didn’t think we were proving it by doing something that pointed to how we were doing it. When I hear another “asprirational” song that says “I want to” do something, I often want to yell at the radio, “So just do it! And quit talking about yourself!”

OK, let’s settle down. I just want to object enough so we don’t start thinking that our actions produce the worthiness we long for. We can’t say thanks enough. Let’s accept that, say thanks, and live like we have an endless amount of tomorrows to be our true selves.

Sing as you go, if you like. You’re an overcomer.

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Why I Love (but might not altogether like) Narcotics Anonymous

Building community, , , ,

In 2010 the Philadelphia Weekly gave a shout out to the NA group that meets in our building. The headline: Best Place to Embrace Punch-Drunk Love.

The shout out: “We can’t think of many Narcotics Anonymous meetings that are more enjoyable to hang out at on a Friday night than the neighborhood bar. The Eleventh Hour, however, which convenes at the South Philly Circle of Hope church, is just that. Every Friday at about 10:45 p.m., the same sort of tattooed and bike-obsessed hipsters you may have gotten drunk with congregate outside the church’s front door. The meeting itself happens in a wide-open gallery-like space that’s illuminated by dozens of flickering votive candles, and after most meetings a small group retires to the nearby Melrose Diner [now they can go to Broad St. which is run by the Melrose people]. The Eleventh Hour, by the way, is known in N.A. parlance as an “open meeting,” which means that even non-addicts are welcome to attend. It might be something to consider when you’re making your wild-night weekend plans.”

Impressed by the meeting, myself

I had no wild-night plans one Friday so I finally got to a meeting. I was impressed. I was moved. I want to be friends.

stop cheating
It seemed like a very large attendance for Friday night at 11pm: about seventy people! As soon as I walked in two of them hugged me. Many others entered to the same unfettered affection. The chairperson was orderly and friendly. All the basic Narcotics Anonymous statements were laminated and various people read the 12 Traditions, How it Works (the 12 steps) and other material. A woman made a rather long, articulate speech to tell her story. People were moved by what she said and responded enthusiastically with their own stories. There was lots of honesty and vulnerability. The love, generosity, affirmation and openness in the room was impressive. The fact that they have home groups, took an offering and called for commitment was also impressive. I was impressed that we were having church without Jesus! – at least Circle of Hopish church.

For some reason I thought the AA, NA, Al-Anon, OA, etc. groups were trying to not be too religious. I was not paying attention. While I was planting a church, they were planting a church, too. They were planting a spiritual movement! Not long ago a convict went to court to prove that NA was religious. A circuit court judge reversed a lower court ruling and said, “The state has impermissibly coerced inmates to participate in a religious program” by forcing drug addicts to attend NA meetings in prison. The court says they are religious — must be true, right?

Imperfection spirituality

I love how the Narcotics Anonymous people act and I love the results of their religious movement, but I am not sure I like what they think (at least what people say they think). I recently caught up on the development of AA spirituality by reading a book called The Spirituality of Imperfection. The good thing about this spirituality is that it faces up to everyone’s inability to live up to the societal image of the perfect person who is self-controlled, self-sufficient, and a paragon of physical and emotional health. They have unmasked the demand that everyone be a person who can rapidly accumulate material possessions while simultaneously increasing mastery of the world around him or her. They rightly say that such people try to “play God.” The authors say that “trying to be perfect is the most tragic human mistake.” That sounds like a sound bite from a few many of my speeches, doesn’t it? Maybe we should call the PM the “Seventh Hour.”

na convention
NA World Convention Aug 29-Sep 1, 2013, Philadelphia

Accepting imperfection is possibly the greatest truth behind NA spirituality. We need a “higher power.” But postmodern philosophy, like that behind AA and NA, often seems to unwittingly substitute something like “imperfection” and the philosophy of it as a new anti-coercive coercion. They put it down in twelve steps and convince you to “follow them or you’ll relapse!” (and they were just trying to get away from “don’t sin or you’ll go to hell!”). Their depersonalization of spirituality (“God” is a “higher power;” everything is in quotation marks waiting for you to decide what the words really mean to you) turns “spirituality” into another modernistic ideology without admitting it.

Basic Christianity

Besides, how did someone miss that accepting one’s imperfection was basic to Christianity? It’s not like this is a new spirituality. What’s more, Anabaptist groups from the 1500s could be considered early adopters of what NA calls the “spirituality of imperfection,” rejecting the proto-modernism of the reformation, living in what amounts to 12-step groups, and forming a theology complete with an emphasis on what amounts to steps three (We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him) , seven (We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings), and eight (We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all). It looks like NA finally caught up with the Anabaptist  reaction against European Christianity, which became as controlling as the empire it replaced. I’m not trying to do the book justice, but that’s some of why I can’t say I altogether like what’s going on.

That being quibbled, the point about imperfection remains a good one and seemed useful to the participants. They could tell stories about how releasing control was a daily, good struggle. The meeting I attended reflected much of the best of what NA spirituality is all about. It was emotional, relational and openly spiritual without being oppressive. There was a recognition, it seemed, that there would be no “magic,” but that there was the potential for “miracle.” There was potential, as Jung wrote to Bill W. that “Spirit could overcome spirits” (that is, alcohol). The miracle was happening in all those stories they told. The Narcotics Anonymous meeting focuses on “story” just like our cells do (and just like the Bible does!). The storytelling creates community, builds mentalizing and gives a context for experiencing recovery, just like it makes a place for us to grow up in Christ. Our transformation point is coming to know Jesus, theirs is entering a commitment to sobriety. But we are all talking about what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.

I love that, as the authors of the book say, “the language of recovery that is storytelling involves not dogma, or commandment, not things to be done or truths to be believed, not theory, conjecture, argument, analysis, or explanation, but a way of conversation shared by those who identify with their own imperfection.” That is very Christian. And it is very Circle of Hope. We are always bent on conveying an experience rather than merely teaching concepts. I think the risen Lord is very interested in filling us with the Spirit so we are experiencing the grace of God expressed to us in Jesus. Lots of people in our NA group seem to be right there, too. I love that. I am not sure I like the movement’s attempts to muddy that up and leave Jesus out. But let’s be friends.

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Trayvon and Jesus Lost in the Verbiage Grinder

Doing Theology, Film/TV, , , ,

My friends had a good response to the verdict regarding the man who killed Trayvon Martin so they put it on Facebook: 

jesus abstractWife: Whether Trayvon Martin was a neighbor or enemy of George Zimmerman, Jesus’ instruction would be for George to have loved Trayvon regardless of who he was in George’s eyes. Whether George Zimmerman is a neighbor or enemy, Jesus’ instruction is to love him regardless of who he is in my eyes. 

I believe Jesus doesn’t allow for loop holes like self-defense. There are no exceptions to who we are to love and care for. This is the radical, turn everything upside down, seemingly nonsensical, nonviolent love that we Christians are called to live out. God help us to figure how to do it.                                           

FB friend 1: Easy to say when it isn’t your head being bashed against the sidewalk.
I don’t know what happened none of us do. But if I am assaulted I will defend myself. 

Husband: What would Jesus do FB1? And what would Jesus expect us to do? I think that is the point my wife is making. 

FB friend 1: Jesus would have most likely died that evening. Turning the other cheek is a difficult thing is what I am saying. If Zimmerman was attacked he had every right to defend himself. 

FB friend 2: It seems to me, FB1, that Zimmerman provoked the ensuing contact with Trayvon Martin when he got out of his car in pursuit of Trayvon against the instructions given to him. 

FB friend 1: I don’t agree at all with Zimmerman pursuing the young man. But that doesn’t change that all the forensic evidence says it was Zimmerman who was attacked.

This dialogue went on. I wanted to replay it at this point to observe how people think these days. We Jesus-followers keep trying to make points that support Jesus in a system that has nothing to do with him. FB1 above shows this very clearly. I think we should make the points, but I don’t think we should be surprised if we don’t win the argument.

1) The wife makes a very obvious, irrefutable point about Jesus and prays. She typifies her statement as “radical,” which it has unfortunately become.

2) FB1’s first response is mainly personal, displaying a belief that violence is the solution to violence. His personal view has nothing to do with promoting the common good or with listening to a power beyond himself from whom to receive direction. He is well-trained by almost every movie that came out this summer (again) to believe that a good fight makes right. Even the Man of Steel, who has many other ways to be violent, ends up in a giant fist fight at the end of the movie.

The husband objects to FB1’s response by mildly suggesting that a person should consider what Jesus wants them to do, regardless of the situation.

3) FB1’s second response is mainly practical. If it is too difficult to turn the other cheek, then don’t do it, certainly not if it might result in your death. I can honor this, since without the risen Christ with us and without hope of eternal life, one’s existence would be a logical thing to protect at all costs, including someone else’s death.

What Christians don’t seem to understand, especially when they are arguing with Christians, is that there are many people who do not think following Jesus is practical. They do not trust him to save them and have no real hope apart from their own power to protect themselves. They do not believe they have eternal life.

FB2 wades in and tries to interpret the “evidence” to argue that Zimmerman made the fateful decision about his actions early on. That kind of arguing can go on forever and possibly result in a “stand your ground” law. That kind of arguing is all CNN usually has to offer.

csi4) FB1’s third response is legal and scientific. He says that he doesn’t think Zimmerman should have followed the boy, so he understands that the killer had some kind of moral decision to make. However, moral decisions mean nothing compared to the trump card of the 21st century: what does the law say and what did CSI prove? The younger one is, the more one seems to be subject to the “facts,” especially facts that deliver “evidence” that proves a hypothesis. Every argument, such as the one above, is turning on loop holes in the law, procedures, and factoids. There is a constant societal din of verbiage being ground up into tiny bits and reformed into “scientific” conclusions, which are always supposedly “true.” This grinder rarely turns out justice and often creates strange things out of its own churning (like corporations accruing the rights of persons, and so on).

The tragic thing is, the Christians believe in the verbiage, too, and operate the grinder! They do their theology the very same way and their pastors deliver factoids every week while missing what the wife did to begin with: telling the simple truth. They don’t do what the husband did: clarify that we’re really trying to follow Jesus, not engage in the world’s endless, self-protective and other-destructive, perpetual loop.

Related posts:

Why people might not care to be radical Christians

Why people might not care to be radical Christians: Part 2

Drew Hart: Pain Medicine

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