Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Discipleship

  • Is Christianity the Best Deal in the Universe?

    So says Ann Coulter, paraphrasing an accusation made against Brit Hume when he suggested that Tiger Woods should become a Christian:

    With Christianity, your sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean and your eternal life is guaranteed through nothing you did yourself, even though you don’t deserve it. It’s the best deal in the universe.

    Now in fairness I must point out that this is the final paragraph of a substantial post and that two paragraphs earlier Coulter points out that Christianity is also the hardest religion in the world.

    But before I try to answer the question I asked in the title, let me point out that I have no problem with Brit Hume in his opinion show. By being a Christian myself, I make the obvious statement that in some way I prefer that religion over others. When I give specific testimony of what Christianity has done in my own life, I can certainly be heard as saying that other religions might not have done the same thing.

    I think it’s silly that we expect people not to express their opinions about religion in a political show on television. We allow opinions, some of them offensive, about almost anything else. I would point out to my fellow believers, however, that when we allow opinions about religion, that must include the opponents of religion. I regularly encounter Christians who are incensed that someone would say nasty things about their faith in the media. Blasphemy laws are becoming popular in some quarters.

    But just as I find it quite acceptable for Brit Hume to suggest that Tiger Woods change his religion (though as a Christian I don’t find it all that profitable), I also find it acceptable for atheists to suggest that my faith is silly or counterproductive. That doesn’t mean I agree with them in any way. I just believe it is right and proper that their viewpoint should be expressed.

    Having said all of that off topic, the problem I have here is with the reference to Christianity as a “deal.” I find Ann Coulter’s style pretty much useless. She’s trying to make this interesting and humorous, or at least that’s what I guess, but she fails miserably. All she does is make it seem wrong.

    Christianity is not a deal in which one utters some words and gets off for all that one has done. That’s an excessively simplistic reading of the situation. Following Jesus is a surrender of oneself, after which one may find oneself nonetheless facing the consequences of those actions. Of course, I hear risk conflating eternal salvation and forgiveness by God with one’s current life. But I think if one reads more than the few verses that Coulter has quoted, there is a good deal in Christian theology that conflates those ideas.

    One doesn’t accept Christ and get off free or even easy. One accepts Christ and has one’s life taken over. One invites redemption, change, recreation. Everything is new.

    Now if I didn’t so dislike the word “deal,” I might describe this as a good deal. But I think it is no more a “deal” that it is my thirst being quenched when I drink water a “deal” with the universe. It’s a gift, not a deal. Where we get off course is when we think the gift, which Coulter describes as a deal in her final paragraph, ever comes without the hard part, which she describes two paragraphs before.

    I’m not going to compare Christianity to Buddhism or any other faith. I have never found much value in comparison and contrast, especially by someone like me, who has practiced one but not the other. What I will say is that what Christianity demands of me is redemption, and it would demand the same of Tiger Woods.

    Having God’s forgiveness in the midst of all that is life-changing, indeed critical, in my view. But it still leaves the hard work of my forgiveness of myself, my gaining forgiveness from others, reconciliation, and recreation.

    It’s not a deal. Its’ a gift. And inside the gift package is some very hard work.

    PS: I find the title of her post–“If you can find a better deal, take it”–even less compatible with Christianity.

  • The Bad Name of Evangelism

    Via Shane Raynor on Twitter and the Wesley Report, I found this article on UMPortal about early Methodist evangelism. What struck me, was how many of the ideas there could be found in Acts.

    Here’s a key quote:

    She [Rev. Laceye Warner of Duke] defined evangelism as preaching the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ and “living it out.”

    I think we can trace the bad name of evangelism to two things:

    1. We have separated evangelism from discipleship, i.e., we equate evangelism with persuading people to say a particular prayer
    2. We think evangelism is about talking people into joining our particular church

    While the symptoms are varied, including much obnoxious behavior, I think at least most of the symptoms can be traced back to one of those two points.

    A return to the long term, often difficult work of making disciples would be rather valuable, I think.

  • Exceptional, Must-Read Article – Be Farmers, not Recruiters

    If you’ve been on a church nominating committee and experienced the task of persuading someone to take a job that just has to be filled, or if you’ve been on the other end of that phone call when you’re begged to take a job for which you know you are not gifted or called, or if you’ve wondered why these problems crop up, then you need to read an article I found today.

    Here’s a taste:

    Recruitment sucks! I used to think that recruitment was a strategy that only added ministry to the Kingdom and could never be a multiplying strategy. I have come to see that it is not even an addition strategy. Recruitment is actually a subtraction strategy. It doesn’t add anything to the kingdom. It simply takes from it. It is a strategy that uses the kingdom for its own good rather than contributing to the kingdom.

    When everyone is taking and no one is contributing, soon the pool sucks dry and we are all left with nothing. The vast majority of churches are sucking up what little resources are left in the kingdom and contributing nothing back. The results are that we are in a drought. Our pool is shrinking daily, and in the end all we have left to us is the muck at the bottom of the pond.

    This explains why so many churches are dying of thirst. Quality diminishes. Needs are left unfilled. Our thirst for more resources increases. Our churches are left weakened.

    There is a solution, however. There is an oasis available to all our churches with enough resources for everyone. We can learn this solution by a quick analysis of how leaders are found in the Book of Acts.

    It’s at SmallGroups.com. Read it! Practice it!

  • Reflections on Church and The Jesus Paradigm

    As a publisher I have the joy of spending a great deal of time with a book as it goes through the process of publication. I don’t expect you to read my thoughts on The Jesus Paradigm as anything like a review, but there are some special things about this book and the way it has influenced me as I worked on it.

    I like to think of my business as a ministry, which is “churchese” for “service.” It is my intent to serve both the church and the community with materials that challenge and educate. Now don’t get me wrong here. For a small publisher, signing an author who has written nearly as many books as the company has published is a sound business decision. I didn’t decide to sacrifice myself in service and publish this book contrary to my better judgment. It’s a good book; it’s a book that is likely to sell quite well; it’s also a book that is kingdom building.

    Now as I frequently must, let me warn you that I’m going to be writing quite a few words. I’ve been thinking about the concept “church” for a long time and struggling with many things. This is also largely addressed to a Christian audience, so it may well bore others. Read on at your own risk!

    What happened with this book was that a number of things I’ve been thinking about, things that have challenged me over the years, came into sharper focus while I was editing and preparing it for the printer.

    I traditionally point out about now that I disagree with some things in a book I’ve published, and that this is a good thing rather than a bad thing. That’s part of developing brand identity since in a company founded by one person, it’s easy to confuse the person with the company.

    But in this case I think anyone who looks at the header of this blog and reads a few essays, and then does the same thing on Dave Black Online will be in no danger of confusing the two of us.

    What I think I need to emphasize instead is just how much I agree with in this book, and the tremendous value I find even in the things about which I have reservations (ecclesiology) or differences in emphasis (hermeneutics-maybe).

    In my personal testimony I note how I left church after my seminary training (MA, not MDiv) because I then regarded Christianity as a total “one-way street” surrender. I note that at the time:

    Some Christians argued with me that such a total surrender as I described was not required, but I could not see a partial surrender to God at the time, and I still can’t do so.

    Despite believing that, I have struggled with how to put that into practice, particularly in church life. The extent to which “church” doesn’t work, or perhaps doesn’t appear to be what it seems the Bible points to, has continued to bother me.

    Let me list some of the threads of thinking that have bothered me.

    (1) Again as I note in my testimony, I felt God’s call to ministry as I was registering for the second year of a pre-law program. I switched to Biblical languages. Unfortunately I found that while many people would talk about a lack of Biblical knowledge in the pews, the church had no place for a teacher who was not also ready to pastor a church. I observed that pastors got overloaded and rarely had a chance to actually teach.

    (2) If you look at most pastors and then write up a job description as you might for a business, you will see a job that nobody can actually perform. Our pastors cannot lead, teach, and equip, because they are so busy doing, and not necessarily doing the things that truly go with their calling.

    (3) I grew up with missionary parents who were truly dedicated to their work. By this I mean being willing to go out to serve God at risk of life and limb and at times depending on God for their next meal. I spent four years in southern Mexico, and then three in Guyana (South America) and while we were in the United States, they worked in underserved areas.

    In this process I experienced a number of things:

    • I experienced mission trips as loading up mules and backpacks and hiking to a village, or in Guyana getting in a boat and heading up river. This gave me a different view of “discomfort” than I have encountered in various short term missions in which I have been involved.
    • I experienced worship and teaching in circumstances that varied from outdoors under trees to small, simple churches that were no more than walls and a roof. I have felt the presence of God in places most Americans would regard as unusable.
    • I learned that “mission” was not necessarily something you did in somebody else’s country

    (4) By contrast, I have sat in American churches that would be inconceivably luxurious while people debated the color of the carpet for hours. Somehow I just couldn’t get into it. We’re replacing chandeliers that don’t look just right; Christians somewhere else are trying to do the minimum necessary to keep out the rain.

    (4) I have wondered just how we could create a church that would carry out the work of the gospel as its primary mission. I don’t like evaluating ministry purely on a numbers basis, but I believe that you can often calculate what real priorities are by looking at where the money goes and secondarily by looking at how time is used. By this measure the priority of American churches in general is neither social service nor gospel preaching but rather self-maintenance.

    Enter The Jesus Paradigm. In a sense it is almost fitting that the author, Dave Black, contracted Malaria while in Ethiopia and the book was released while he was in the hospital. As I have noted recently in writing about 2 Corinthians, the person can be inextricably linked with the written message. Paul didn’t want to boast, but he had to, while at the same time defending himself from the charge of weakness by claiming that he was weak.

    In some of the reviews and in comments brought to me personally there have been questions about a number of things that are either lacking in the book or that people question. I’m not going to try to defend this book by saying that every word is absolutely correct and will stand the test of time. I’m not trying to make Dave Black into a prophet or incorporate his book into the canon of scripture.

    These questions relate to ecclesiology and the lack of extended practical directions, both of which I will address, and the political commentary, which I will not.

    One major question has been the lack of detailed practical advice on how to put the message of this book into practice. I don’t like to criticize reviewers as a publisher, but I think that criticism misses the point.

    The way you put this into practice is by prayerful, constant surrender to Jesus. Read John 6:28-29. The problem is that we want a checklist, a program, or at least a detailed guide. The fact is that we have one–scripture brought to the moment by the power of the Holy Spirit.

    I recall from my experience here in Pensacola with the Brownsville Revival. Now please lay aside your issues with what was being done in that revival. I’m not pointing to Brownsville as an example. Pastors and church leaders would come from far away and they would want whatever it as they perceived that Brownsville had. So they would go back home and try to apply what they had seen at Brownsville.

    They would use the same music, not just the same style but the same songs. They would organize their services in the same way. They would try to style their preaching after the revival preacher Steve Hill. Then they would wonder why it didn’t work.

    It didn’t work because kingdom service is not a program, nor is it a checklist, nor is it an organizational manual. It’s a surrender.

    If you don’t know how to do this, dig into Acts and the Epistles, though only after you’ve thoroughly dug into the gospels. Spend your time in prayer and study and in listening to what God has to say to you. You will find ways to put the Jesus paradigm into action.

    Another issue is with ecclesiology. How can this material be applied to a different structure of church than just Baptist? Here we may certainly have many disagreements as to details. These are good to discuss with the proper spirit.

    I can look at this from my Seventh-day Adventist background and now as a United Methodist, and I think that the most critical thing here s the way church leadership thinks of themselves and behaves. I believe a Methodist church pastor could spread the Jesus paradigm through the committees of teams of his church structure just as boards of elders can do so in other church structures.

    But the bottom line, in my view, has to be more revolutionary, but again I think it applies to all different structures. The issue is this: Where do our resources go? Do they serve our desires or do they serve others? As I have looked at the church budgets of the churches I have attended over the last few years, the vast majority of the budget goes to buildings and staff salaries, and the staff is largely charged with maintaining the members that are already there.

    As long as we’re spending the majority of our money on maintenance, we’re not going to be reaching people as we should either in social services or in proclamation of the Christian message.

    This is why I’m so delighted to have the opportunity to publish The Jesus Paradigm, and yes, to have the opportunity to market it as well. It will challenge us to apply this “downward path of Jesus” (also a phrase from the book) to our circumstances wherever we are. It will direct us to Jesus himself and the early church to find ways of doing that.

    I don’t think this will necessarily be simple, but I think it’s time for us to be praying, thinking, and listening for the Holy Spirit in regard to how we can accomplish it. Otherwise, our churches are just an extremely expensive and annoying form of social club.

  • Do We Live What We Believe

    When one edits a book, one has an extraordinary opportunity to think multiple times about some of the statements. In the case of a revolutionary book such as The Jesus Paradigm, which is in the final stages before release, there are quite a number of such sentences.

    One of these impressed me enough that I quoted it on Twitter, and also used it in an ad for another book on discipleship. It reads:

    The key to church renewal is very simple: every follower of Jesus is to live what is believed.

    Now on the face of it, it’s a fairly straightforward statement. I have very often said myself that the one tool of evangelism I would prefer above all others is a church congregation living the message of Jesus. Now please don’t bother with comments about legalism and about how we are not perfect. Certainly none of us are perfect. I’m not even close to a candidate for that adjective.

    But “I’m not perfect” quickly becomes an excuse for any level of inaction. Jesus does give commands, such as “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). One suspects that Jesus anticipated some sort of response to this command.

    So I think this little sentence expresses a critical principle of renewal in the church.

    But then I started thinking of it the other way around. This reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who is an atheist. Somehow the misbehavior of a televangelist came up in conversation and after we discussed a particular incident, she said, “You know, Henry, if I believed in God I would be terrified to do something like that.”

    I carried that sentence in my head, and even used it in a sermon that I titled “Practical Atheism.” (It was on a Sunday night, and was one of the best attended services, if I remember correctly! Perhaps many Christians would like to know how to be atheists.) I told this story and then quoted Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in his heart: ‘There is no God.’” I suggested that in the modern world, an atheist observing our church services–and our reactions to them–might not be a fool to say “There is no God.” He might simply be observant.

    This keeps coming back to me as I study through Leviticus again. It isn’t a popular book, to a great extent because very few people understand it. It takes lots of work to understand, and even then there is much that is very difficult.

    But there are a few themes that are very clear. First, approaching the holy is both desirable, even essential. Second, approaching the holy is dangerous. Third, God’s presence is powerful and active. Things change when God gets involved. I’m not going to develop or support these themes; I’ll leave that for another time. Suffice it to say that they seem quite clear to me.

    These days, however, I hear frequently about the presence of God. “Wow! God was really present in our worship service this morning. I could feel it!” Now don’t take me as deriding the idea that one can feel the presence of God, though I prefer to say that God is present everywhere and everywhen, and we should discuss how aware we are of his presence.

    What I do question is how God can be especially present at so many worship services with so little impact. People go back again and again to experience the presence of God and then leave and go on living in the same way.

    Either we are not experiencing the presence of God as much as we say we are, or that presence is having much less impact on us than it should.

    I’m afraid it may come back to belief. We need to practice what we believe. That’s true. But is there another dirty secret in many of our churches–that we don’t actually believe the stuff we claim. I’m not talking here about doctrinal statements or theological propositions. I’m talking about belief that there is a God and that he does have expectations, that he might get involved in our lives in some way.

    Perhaps if we become certain that this is important we can get on with discussing those particular beliefs more effectively. I don’t know, but I’d like to try.

    So let me ask one question, of myself as well as of my readers:

    Do we really believe what we say we believe?

    I think that if we do, we’re going to live it, or to express it better, let Jesus live it through us.

  • Interpreting the Bible VIII: Biblical Literalism, Attitude, and Avoidance

    This is a continuation of my series on interpreting the Bible. The first post in the series is Interpreting the Bible I: Obvious Exegesis, while the most recent one was Interpreting the Bible VII: Christians Contribute to Confusion.

    As a reminder, my starting point was a number of comments that suggested that those who take the Bible less literally are thereby less serious Christians. These suggestions were not coming from conservative Christians, but from non-Christians. In some cases, I question the motivation of such suggestions. I believe that Richard Dawkins, for example, prefers to debate hard-line fundamentalists, and so would like to dismiss the rest of us from the Christian faith.

    What I believe I have done so far is to show that interpreting the Bible, broadly called hermeneutics, is a bit more complex than these folks would like, and that just taking the Bible literally, as best as I can understand what they mean by “literally,” is not the way Christians have read the Bible historically. I have further noted that even basic exegesis, which I define as looking for the text as it was intended to be understood by the original audience, is more complex than these folks let on.

    Those who are eagerly waiting for me to solve issues such as the violent passages in the Bible or gay and lesbian marriage will still have to wait. While I will discuss those issues, my primary purpose here is to look at the method. I believe that our discussions of the Bible would be much more profitable if we would simply think and talk more about how we come to our understanding, rather than simply trying to defend that understanding. Two people may mean very different things by saying that a concept is “Biblical.”

    Let me reiterate here, as I believe has been demonstrated previously with the help of commenters, that the issues I’m discussing do not hinge on belief in inerrancy. Belief that the Bible is inerrant does not limit one with reference to determining what type of literature a particular passage is.

    I want to clarify this further by using a couple of examples. Two controversial books amongst conservatives are Jonah and Job. There are quite a number of people, even conservatives, who will claim that these books are fiction. To make that claim doesn’t mean that the books contain error. Rather, it means that they intentionally present whatever it is they present in fictional form. Now there are those who regard fiction itself as evil, but that is a different argument.

    Let’s say you have a historical novel, written with the intent of accurately portraying a certain place and time in history, but doing so using fictional characters in a fictional narrative. What would constitute an error? Well, if one introduced an historical event connecting to the story, and placed this event at the wrong time, it might be an error. Suppose one had an historical building, and it didn’t exist at the time in question. That might be an error as well.

    The key in all of these points would be the author’s intent. Such an author might well introduce a house or a small street that was not historical, but wouldn’t presumably introduce a new city hall. There are things that the historical novel wishes to convey that are facts, and there is a story to be enjoyed along the way. Similarly, C. S. Lewis is not in error in the Screwtape Letters if there is no demon named Screwtape, nor is he in error in the Chronicles of Narnia if there is no Narnia.

    I find this comparison to be of interest in the books of Jonah and Job, because I think we often get to argument about little houses and back streets in the story, while missing the big things.

    In Jonah, I frequently hear discussions of two major issues: First, was Jonah really swallowed by a “great fish” or a “whale”? Second, was Nineveh really so big it would take three days to walk across it. (Those who know some Hebrew may laugh a bit at the particular rendering there–I’m using the form in which I normally hear the question.) But are those really the questions?

    I would suggest several themes in the book of Jonah:

    1. God can call you to uncomfortable places and missions on which you would rather not go.
    2. Even when you’re going the other direction, God is likely to take note.
    3. Intervention may be uncomfortable–note how Jonah ends up on shore.
    4. God offers repentance even to people I may hate.
    5. God is gracious and merciful, even to the worst of sinners.

    … and a few more, none of which are really impacted by whether the story is fictional. All of these points have annoyed someone at some time, and indeed according to the story, they annoyed Jonah, and presumably were controversial amongst the readers of the book. I am not here trying to argue these points. I’m simply saying that finding fiction in the Bible is not the same thing as finding error.

    I consider Job even more interesting. If the book is historical, then we have an individual who suffered because God allowed him to be attacked and tormented. This may, of course, be extended by analogy or in principle to others. On the other hand, if the story is fictional, then one would have to assume that Job is presented as a type of sufferer, and that it is quite possible that God might call on me–or you–to suffer to make a demonstration for him. Are you concerned that bad things seem to happen to good and bad people alike? Here are some bad things that happen specifically to good people.

    Now you can get that second idea while reading Job as historical, though I have heard some folks argue that this is something that happened only once (they forget about Jesus, apparently), but I think that if you read it as a fictional account, you are forced to the conclusion that it applies broadly in principle–God’s servants may be called to suffer in the fight against evil, and they may never know just why. Note that Job never receives an explanation of his suffering.

    So you note here that the issue is not whether the text is in error or not, or whether one takes it literally or not, but rather just what are the literary characteristics, what is meant by them, and just how that might apply. If I could delete one statement from the vocabulary of Christian conservatives it would be: “I take the Bible literally.” If I could delete one statement from the vocabulary of liberal Christians: “I don’t take the Bible that literally.” Both are misleading. (As I note in my review of his book How to Study the Bible for Yourself, Tim LaHaye makes this his first rule of hermeneutics. Needless to say, I disagree; in fact, I regard it as one of the worst rules.)

    If I might pound this point into the ground a bit, some interpreters, including LaHaye, have applied this to the book of Revelation. But just what should one take “literally” in the book of Revelation? Personally, I tend to take the introduction quite literally when it uses a variety of literary indicators to show that John saw a vision. Once we’re in a vision, I take things as a vision, which may have varying degrees of attachment to physical things, and I believe that is the correct way to take them. Even where there are likely literal connections, such as with the churches, or with a number of symbols, the vision context warns us to look for more than meets the eye. Revelation 12 & 13, for example, while containing symbols that may be attached to specifics, also provide a very good general appreciation of the battle between good and evil, and numerous principles for living in the midst of such a battle. The literal/non-literal dichotomy is terribly inadequate to the task of understanding such a passage.

    Some may be wondering how one would take the vision framework non-literally. There are many commentators who would treat the “vision” as a literary device used to present a set of symbols. It is quite possible to understand it in that way, though I disagree. In fact, I think assuming an ecstatic state, in vision, for some of the writing of Revelation will explain some literary and linguistic peculiarities, but that is a completely different topic.

    Now I would maintain that conservatives, liberals, and those between are all susceptible to coming up with ad hoc interpretations that allow one to avoid the impact of a text, or to make a text have an inappropriate impact. Let me start with a controversial one.

    Leviticus 18:22 is commonly presented as a text demonstrating that homosexuality is sin and unacceptable. (Note that “I don’t take it that literally” doesn’t seem to work here. It’s pretty literal.) I like to present people with Leviticus 19:33-34, which says to treat an alien living among you as one of your own citizen. Now I’m not arguing what applies here and what doesn’t. Both are literal commands given in the same general body of law. A valid approach would be to ask just how commands given to Israel in Leviticus apply to others.

    But avoiding all of those issues, it’s very interesting to watch people’s responses to this connection. First, it is almost universally assumed that simply because I present Leviticus 19:33-34 I believe that Leviticus 18:22 is not applicable. Liberal audiences often assume that because they want to; conservative audiences assume that because they can’t imagine why I would present them with such an alternative text if it isn’t to undermine the impact of the first text.

    But the real question here is why and how either text should apply. I would suggest that there are similar tasks of interpretation and application that need to be used in both cases. In actuality, however, with most lay audiences I find that these two texts apply according to cultural inclinations. Those who favor gay and lesbian inclusion exclude 18:22 and very often the same people are delighted to include 19:33-34. Those who oppose homosexuality accept 18:22 as applicable, but will explain that 19:33-34 was for a different time and place.

    I would suggest that the processes of interpretation and application for both are complex, and that in neither case is the best approach simply trying to interpret the individual text. If your question is how should our nation treat aliens residing in the country, I doubt you will find clear direction as to what the law should be. If the question is how you, as an individual Christian, should treat aliens, I think you will find many scriptures that you can group together in finding the proper principles to guide your behavior. Similarly with homosexuality, I think the approach that says, essentially, “How many texts are there that forbid homosexual acts, and how can I (or can I not) explain them,” is precisely the wrong approach. A better approach to any question is to try to discover God’s ideal, and then look at how we might approach that.

    To continue with my examples, however, let me look at another passage:

    32Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. 33With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. 35They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. — Acts 4:32-35

    Here again you have a verse that can split interpreters right in the middle! Out of the characteristics of the early church just what are we supposed to apply today. Many of my more liberal brethren are pretty happy with the common ownership thing, and there being nobody in need in the church. They will take various attitudes toward the rest, such as whether this should be done entirely by the church, testimony to the resurrection, and so forth. There are many who would make Christianity a matter of the distribution of wealth, without any regard for the testimony to the resurrection.

    On the other hand, I can cite my own uncle, Don F. Neufeld, an interpreter in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, associate editor of the SDA Bible Commentary and editor of the SDA Bible Dictionary. In a personal conversation he was quick to point out to me that this practice was quickly abandoned by the church and didn’t appear to be the norm in Paul’s congregations, for example. This strikes me as an example of finding trajectories in scripture, something I think is quite appropriate, yet is often criticized as too subjective.

    I have heard many other explanations for common ownership, most aimed at keeping the early church from being too socialist. So here we have otherwise conservative interpreters finding the exit ramp in the middle of this verse. But liberals need not crow, because Christian unity, power, and mutual support is inextricably linked to the testimony of Jesus risen from the dead, and I think it would be difficult to build a case that the author of Luke-Acts would think it possible for it to be any other way.

    (I am aware that liberals do not necessarily deny the resurrection, though many do deny a physical resurrection. I am called liberal, and I personally accept a physcial–or bodily–resurrection. Nonetheless I believe that it is a liberal weakness to attempt to separate good works from the incarnation, and that is a weakness I see as ultimately fatal to Christianity.)

    The issue, I think, is our attitude in approaching scripture. There can be quite a variety of approaches to understanding scripture, and none of them are necessarily related to whether we take scripture seriously. What I would say characterizes a distinctly Christian approach to (Christian) scripture is the attitude of openness to correction. Each approach to interpretation can be used as a means of avoiding things I don’t like, i.e. of making scripture simply the excuse for what I wanted to do anyway.

    Liberal and conservative Christians don’t differ so much on the basic desire to avoid certain passages as on which passages they avoid and how they go about avoiding them.

    (I will continue next time by trying to look faithfully at some of the violent passages in the Old Testament. Don’t get impatient–this series will go on for a long time. Apologies to those who want a quick answer; I don’t believe in quick answers.)

  • Boldness to be Fools

    Sometimes even when I’m way to busy to be blogging, at least on my personal blog, I just see so many things that point the same direction that I just have to write. This post didn’t start with this quote, but it says something I like to read:

    If our denomination has lost the boldness to be fools, then we do not need new initiatives or new advertising campaigns. We need to recapture our lost zeal.

    That’s from John Meunier, a United Methodist local church pastor and blogger.

    This follows on some discussion of radical discipleship over on GenXRising, who says:

    If we, as Christians, are really worried about declining numbers of the faithful in this land, we should practice a more robust form of discipleship.

    Ouch! You mean we have to mean what we say? Say it ain’t so!

    This all relates closely to a book I’m publishing, The Jesus Paradigm by Dr. David Alan Black, a professor of Greek and New Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Indeed, it does appear that there are things on which Methodists and Baptists can agree. [Cue the shock and amazement.]

    To go back to the question, however, here’s what I wrote on my company’s blog right after contracting to publish Dave Black’s book, my third of three points:

    Finally, this book hit the spot because I’m frustrated with the professional church. Practically every pastor I know is frustrated as well. They are wondering why church members don’t get to work, why they don’t serve one another, why they don’t share their faith, and why they fill pews (occasionally, even!) rather than getting involved.

    I like to call myself a passionate moderate–just look at the blog header. I’ve discussed before what I mean by combining those two terms. I never mean that we don’t need to really be who we are called to be. That’s going to take some willingness to get radical on at least one point–faithfulness to what we know is right.

  • What Can We Christians be Thinking?

    There were two posts that really drew my attention while running through my Google Reader account over the last couple of days. The first was from Hannity and Colmes, with hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars, via WorldNetDaily. I went and found the actual transcript:

    COLMES: What about — what does it say for all those people who do not accept Christ as their personal savior?

    WARREN: I’m saying that this is the perfect time to open their life, to give it a chance. I’d say give him a 60-day trial.

    (CROSSTALK)

    COLMES: Like the Book of the Month Club.

    WARREN: Give him a trial. See if he’ll change your life. I dare you to try trusting Jesus for 60 days. Or your money guaranteed back.

    COLMES: Really? You’re going to give me the money back?

    WARREN: Absolutely. Direct to me, Sean Hannity, FOX News Channel.

    I know lots of presentations of the gospel message, liberal, moderate, conservative, but I don’t know just how that works in with any possible description. I don’t care how you slice it, the gospel works out to a tough, long term commitment. It doesn’t necessarily make you feel better, look better, or acquire you more friends. If those things are happening in your life, be thankful. But becoming a Christian isn’t going to guarantee them.

    I could cite scripture after scripture, but I will simply cite what must be the most important example of Jesus. He certainly “tried God” for much more than 60 days, and his life deteriorated as it went. For him, God wasn’t the path to wealth and fame.

    I can only hope that Rick Warren had his tongue firmly embedded in his cheek when he made those comments, but even if he did, it is a dangerous misrepresentation of what the gospel is all about. Something about “taking up one’s cross,” which doesn’t mean a nice little gold one to hang around your neck. There is value in presenting the gospel in terms that are comprehensible in the culture, to as large an extent as possible, but when you change the message–try it for 60 days is a prominent feature of our instant gratification, materialist culture–that’s another matter.

    If this sort of thing results in ridicule, the ridicule is well-deserved.

    And speaking of ridicule, I dropped by P. Z. Myers’ blog Pharyngula, where he is, unsurprisingly, ridiculing Christians. Myers was the person who asked people to score him some Catholic communion wafers so he could desecrate them.

    Now it would be nice to point out Dr. Myers’ errors, or criticize his methods, or point out something unbalanced about his ridicule. Unfortunately, he is ridiculing this list of Christian bashers, supposedly the top ten bashers of 2008.

    Let’s see what made the list:

    #10 is a musical video. It does ridicule certain Christians, though others would be less annoyed. OK, it’s only #10. Perhaps it was a bad year for Christian bashers.

    #9 is Bill Maher gratuitously (?) attacking the Pope, in this case over the sexual abuse scandal. I’d have to say that, while Bill Maher can be over the top–he’s a comedian after all–there would be much more to complain about if the church had not covered up the scandal for years and moved abusing priests from congregation to congregation. It’s probably a little unfair that he didn’t include protestant clergy, who are not immune from such charges, though they lack a single central organization to scandalously cover up for them. They have to cover up the hard way.

    #8 I won’t repeat, but it’s a case of gratuitous bad taste. I’m doubting that any Christians were actually injured.

    #7 is the desecration of the wafer by the aforementioned P.Z. Myers. While that action was pretty tasteless, stupid, and rude, in my view, I’m pretty sure Jesus was able to handle it quite well and his followers ought to do likewise.

    #6–horror of horrors! Somebody made a movie bashing religion. Whatever will we do?

    #5–chaplains were fired, according to this report, for praying in Jesus’ name. I say “according to this report” because some such stories turn out to be quite different than reported. Chaplains praying in the public square, so to speak, on government time, need to be prepared to be asked to make their prayers generic. Personally I think that the idea of asking someone to pray, i.e. talk to God, and then telling them what to say, obnoxious at best. I think if you invite a Muslim to pray you should expect a Muslim prayer, a Hindu to pray a Hindu prayer, and a Christian to pray a Christian prayer according to his particular tradition. This one, if true, comes the closest to a mild sort of persecution–losing a government job.

    #4–Colorado law criminalizes the Bible. Interesting interpretation, that. How many Christian book store owners or Christian publishers have been arrested, and what did the courts say? Hmm. That’s what I thought.

    #3–Barack Obama defames Christianity. Say what? This is number #??!! The claim here is that Obama really isn’t a Christian, by their standards of course, and thus his claim to be a devout Christian is defamatory. Ah the pain and the agony that someone should claim to be something their not! How will the faith ever survive?

    #2–VP candidate Sarah Palin is attacked. Again, how shall Christianity possibly survive this? A charismatic Christian is made the vice-presidential candidate of a major party, and people, horror of horrors, criticize her. What did she expect? (Also refer to #3. Can Obama claim similar persecution?)

    #1, and we finally get to some actual action. If true, vandalizing property and threatening people’s lives will qualify as persecution. At the same time, I would note that unlike in some places in the world, perpetrators who can be caught will be prosecuted. Does it really qualify as persecution when you can call the police and have the perpetrators arrested? Oh, and what about all those cases where good Christians threaten the lives of those who disagree with them, such as in the Dover trial (see here)?

    What can we Christians be thinking? We expect Christianity to be easy (try it for 60 days). We expect to be prosperous, and for some reason, certainly not derived from experience, tradition, scripture, or even from any reasonable thought process, we think we shouldn’t be attacked, criticized, or ridiculed.

    Are we cry-babies and whiners, willing to dish it out, such as in attacks on gays and lesbians, but not to take it. Obviously acts of violence should be dealt with appropriately by the legal system, but otherwise, this is very simply opposition. People disagree with us. People don’t like us.

    Two things:

    1. Think about places like Orissa and Darfur
    2. Get over it!

    PS: As a bonus, they note that Senator Chuck Grassley investigated their finances! The gall of the man to expect tax exempt organizations to engage in tax exempt activities!

  • Fulfilling Needs or Catering to Wants

    The Internet Monk recommends a couple of books in a post titled Recommended: Wicker and Duin on The End of Evangelicalism, and I’m not going to gainsay his recommendation, considering I have read neither. But one comment he made caught my attention:

    Despite being an interesting read and passing along many good pieces of information and research, Duin’s own point of view is jumbled. One moment she longs for communal simplicity, another for the seminary atmosphere of intense theology and the next for the erudition and authenticity of L’Abri. . . .

    Duin in this quote is Julie Duin, author of Quitting Church. Now please understand that I’m not responding to her viewpoint, which I know only from a very brief second-hand reference. It’s the attitude that the Internet Monk seems to have found in the book, and which I have heard time and time again. Many people seem to be on a wandering quest, looking for whatever is not there in a particular church.

    Further, please don’t read anything I’m writing here as a suggestion that church leaders should be sloppy, or should not care about fulfilling the needs of their congregation. Too often when church leaders tell people to suck it in and live with the church, they are really simply not that interested in reaching those particular people. On the other hand, there are large numbers of pastors and other church leaders who are working themselves to death trying to reach people who may be searching for something that does not, and will not, exist.

    I recall preaching on a Sunday night once, in a church in which that service was attended by the most dedicated folks. I commented that I believed one should join a church not because of the needs it fulfilled, but rather because of how one could serve in and through that church congregation. A gentleman in the congregation objected strenuously. He thought the church needed to do a better job of serving him and of providing the kind of worship service he needed.

    He was not entirely wrong. We do have spiritual needs that must be fulfilled through worship, but ironically, I think, those real needs will never be served while our wants are being catered to.

    Hold that thought for a moment. While I was thinking about some of this, I read 8 in 10 Don’t Want Sunday School on John Meunier’s blog. The study from which he cited these numbers goes on to show that very few people are interested in spiritual formation beyond the occasional church service, and few want a small group experience.

    As a teacher and small group leader, this bothers me quite a bit. But I’m not sure that we’re generally going the right way in response in many churches. You see, we try to find out what people want to have happen on Sunday morning, and then we try to do that. But I believe that when Jesus gets hold of you, you’re going to go places and do things that you might not want to do.

    Worship is about God. Now I’ve argued before that leaders still have to pay attention to the people worshiping. You can’t just do anything you want and expect your congregation to encounter God in worship. But ultimately worship is going to involve loving God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves, and that can get uncomfortable.

    Our neighbors? How about the neighbors down the pew? You see, worship is a giving exercise, and it might mean that I need to go and be part of Christ’s body when something is happening that I really don’t care for. If I’m the Bach lover, perhaps I need to be there for the teenagers with their praise band. If I want drums, perhaps I need to be there when the choir is singing an anthem.

    Or the problem might be in sermons. I might be longing for a message filled with intellectual stimulation, but the body, the whole congregation, needs to hear a message of conviction, or one of encouragement. Going to worship together will involve commitment, and horror of horrors, giving up some of what I want in order to be with that body. I want to be made happy. I need to serve and to surrender to God.

    The idea of being spiritual without a social aspect bothers me. The more I study, the more I see the command to love God and to love one’s neighbor as almost identical. This week’s lectionary text, Matthew 25:31-46 (The Sheep and the Goats), brings that more to the fore. Jesus is appearing in the form of people who need my help, and my love for Him is manifested in what I do for them.

    I think quite often when we drop out of church, what we are saying is that we can’t be bothered to spend an hour or two a week doing things that have to do with other people. It all has to be the way I want it to be or I’m not going to go.

    Now we can try to cater to that kind of folks if we want to, but I don’t think they will ever make a congregation. Our problem may not be so much that we lack enough entertaining music, adequate or excellent audio-visual material, or an engaging enough pastor. Our problem may be that we–myself included–lack enough commitment. If such folks are to become truly part of the body of Christ, they’re going to need to be converted, not catered to.

    It may be that rather than a change of church programs we need a change of heart.

  • Book Notes: Live to Tell

    Kallenberg, Brad J. Live to Tell: Evangelism for a Postmodern Age. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2002. ISBN 1-58743-050-9. 138 pages.

    One of our pastors handed this book to my wife because of her interest particularly in discipleship. You may ask why one should give a book on evangelism to someone primarily concerned with discipleship, but in this case the choice was good. This book combines discipleship with evangelism so that they are practically one topic.

    Kallenberg has a certain amount of courage just writing a book right now with the word “evangelism” in the subtitle, and perhaps it becomes even more of an act of courage when the word “postmodern” is also included. That combination can be a bit intimidating.

    My wife found the postmodern vocabulary and the style of the book in general just too much to plow through. She’s practical, writes and speaks briefly, and likes to get down to the point where the rubber meets the road. Kallenberg doesn’t write that way at all. Since she also wanted to honor her pastor’s request to read the book, that made things a bit difficult.

    But a solution was lurking right around the corner, in the person of her husband who will read practically anything–me! We try to get together at least once a week to do some kind of joint study, generally studying from a book one of us has chosen, which we then discuss. In this case I read the book, summarized the chapter and then read selections, after which we discussed the content.

    The content of the book is really quite good, though the presentation and also some of the examples remind me of much that I don’t like postmodernism, especially as popularly conceived. That’s another concept, but I would simply note that it seems very easy for postmodernists to get mired in a slough without map or compass, without any idea of where to go.

    That very miring seems to provide Kallenberg with his “hook” to reach a postmodern generation. He is by no means rejecting postmodernism–the whole miring thing is my comment. Rather, if I may use my own metaphor, he aims at leading people out of the mire they’re in by example, rather than teaching them all about how to get out of mires, where the edges are, where the dangers are, and so forth.

    If we find someone in the postmodern age who doesn’t know where to go, he suggests we avoid the “teach them what is right” approach and try a “show them how to live right” method. I know I am summarizing a great deal here, but that is the essence of the subject as I read it. And since Kallenberg (and I) believe that Christianity has a story that is truly efficacious, that approach is best. If people are looking for stories, bring them a good story. Even better, show them a good story.

    Of course, this story idea isn’t anything new to Christianity. When God needed to tell us about himself, he didn’t send a systematic theologian. He sent his Son, who showed us in person and in story form just what God was getting at. As I read it, Kallenberg is simply grabbing a page from God’s play book and applying it to the life of the church today.

    Kallenberg presents this in the vocabulary of postmodern philosophy. Even where I find that postmodernism correctly criticizes modern thought, I find that vocabulary annoying at best. But the book isn’t really aimed at making me like the vocabulary. If I’m to communicate with people steeped in that very vocabulary, I’ll need to learn to understand it. In fact, Kallenberg uses this very metaphor of language learning for the process of conversion and discipleship.

    At the same time, he manages to erase the gap between the concepts of conversion and discipleship. Most of the people he uses as examples do not become Christians at some instant in time. The modern conception of conversion is that people becomes convinced that Christianity is true, that they are sinners, that Jesus is the one way to salvation, and then at some instant they pray a prayer and surrender their lives to Jesus. At that moment, discipleship begins, or at least should begin.

    In Kallenberg’s examples, it is much more likely that one will go to church and even participate in the life of the church before any specific “conversion” experience. What brings the person to Christ is their becoming a participant in the life of the church. In one case what convinces someone that God is personal is not theological argument but observing the congregation worshiping a personal God.

    I could wish that the many good points that are made in this book were divorced from some of the philosophical vocabulary. Perhaps there should be a Reader’s Digest version for practical people, but I’m not sure how one would write such a thing. There are so many elements of what Kallenberg is teaching that are simply good, practical ideas on being a good neighbor.

    But we have what we have, and for anyone who can make it through the first chapter, and occasional detours along the way, this will be a book well worth reading.