Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Religion

All posts relating to religion, including those on the relationship of religion to other fields, such as science and politics

  • Yes! Spend Less on Buildings

    … or use them more effectively.

    From The Assembling of the Church:

    … Instead, the church decided that they wanted to spend more money serving people and less money of a meeting place.

    Go read Alan’s post for the full context. Messiah Baptist Church is to be congratulated, and hopefully their example will be followed elsewhere.

    There are two approaches to buildings that would be better than what happens most often. First is to get lower cost buildings, and the second is to make more efficient use of buildings in service. A dedicated church sanctuary, used for nothing else, doesn’t strike me as a good use of God’s money.

    Buildings filled with Sunday School classrooms that are used only on Sunday doesn’t strike me as a good use of God’s money. Surely something better can be done.

    (HT: Dave Black Online.)

  • It Was All God – Pride or Humility?

    The gentleman came to me with a sheaf of papers after a meeting at which I was speaking. “I’d like you to read this,” he said, holding them out to me.

    Now this was before I had started publishing, not that I haven’t had related experiences since. But even so, this gentleman wanted me to tell him whether he should seek a publisher. In our conversation, it actually became clear that what he wanted to hear was that his manuscript was great and he should urgently seek a publisher. He wanted affirmation, not discernment.

    He looked right at me and said: “God gave me all of this. These aren’t my words. I couldn’t have written them. It was all God.”

    There are at least two ways to take a statement like that. The first is that the man believed that what he was holding in his hand was something good. (For the record, it wasn’t. I can’t tell you it was wrong; it was simply too incoherent for me to be certain.) He might then be humbly saying that he could not do this on our own. It is good for us to remember that without God, we are not. Period!

    But there is another sense in which such a statement might be made, and I have sensed it in many cases, and this is to try to force someone to pay more attention. It might be that the writer is concerned about the quality and wants to catch the reader’s intention. It might be that the writer lacks credentials and believes that the claim that God did it is the only thing that will give the contents weight.

    When People Speak for God front cover

    I commit an entire chapter of my book When People Speak for God to this topic in a chapter titled Practical Considerations of Hearing. The problem is that we are all too willing to make the claim to be speaking for God in the church today without realizing how serious such a claim is.

    In charismatic communities this often comes out very directly, with people claiming to speak prophetic words frequently. Now I want to be clear that I believe God can and does speak. If I could summarize the thesis of my book in the size of a tweet, it would be, “God always speaks; we rarely listen.” (That line doesn’t occur in the book itself, but it does summarize the thought.) But in Old Testament times the claim to be a prophet was serious. The penalty for being a false prophet was death.

    When discussing someone’s claim to be a prophet, I have been told a number of times over the last few years that one cannot always throw strikes. Now when we’re praying for one another, advising one another, sharing what we believe we heard from God in our devotional time, that’s quite true. The key in each of those cases is that we’re talking about what we have understood and not claiming that we are directly passing on a message from God for the hearer. But the attitude that dismisses claims of false prophecy as unimportant cannot, in my view, be reconciled with any scriptural view of prophecy.

    Those who don’t believe in modern prophecy shouldn’t feel left out, however. A preacher in the pulpit, proclaiming God’s word needs to take that point very seriously. If I pridefully proclaim my own view as God’s view, not acknowledging that I am a broken vessel pouring out God’s word as I best understands it, and inviting you to search for yourself and hear God for yourself, I am in danger of the same fault. I could be said to “speak presumptuously” (Deut. 18:17-22) and one need not read far to find the penalty for that.

    I think that this is another of those Christian paradoxes, however, like the incarnation. It is clearly impossible for Jesus to be 100% God and 100% human at the same time, yet that is precisely what I believe. It is (humanly) impossible to proclaim God’s word with full conviction and complete humility, yet I see that as the call to those who preach and teach.

    The canon of scripture as we have it consists of materials that were read many times over the centuries by God’s people with the resulting conviction that this is God speaking. Sometimes the prophets said specifically “this is what God says.” At other times we have extended writing that doesn’t make that announcement. In discussing canonization, we often fail to emphasize the fact that the body of believers that made the canon a formal canon was already using roughly those books. Why? I believe it is because they heard God speaking in them.

    Whatever the format by which I present God’s word, whether in a blog post, in writing, in teaching, in a sermon or a private conversation, the key issue will be this: Do people hear God through me? When I make the claim, I am in danger of pride. I don’t deny that God may call on a prophet to say “This is what God has to say.” He certainly has. I don’t deny that God may call on a preacher to say, “This is the word of the Lord” when he preaches.

    But the most important thing is that the preacher or teacher actually gets out of the way and lets the Holy Spirit work. If I get out of the way, people will recognize what God is saying to them, often when I have said it very poorly. As a friend of mine said in a recent sermon, it’s a miracle that people ever hear God’s word when he’s standing in the pulpit. And he’s a pretty good preacher!

    When I am weak, then I am strong! – 2 Corinthians 12:10

  • 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.

  • Incredibly Irresponsible YouTube Video

    … and given the quality of some YouTube videos, that’s saying something. In this case the WorldNetDaily is also pushing the idea, though they give some weak lip service to responsibility by noting that there are other ideas out there, and being sure to credit it all to the anonymous producer. If you want to watch the video, you can go to their site–I’m not going to embed it here.

    Basically, by loosely translating some Greek words from Luke 10:18 into Hebrew, mixing them with a bit of really poor exegesis (I shudder to even use the word to describe this), pretending that all this relates to Jesus speaking Aramaic, and then comparing their sounds with yet another language, the producer of the video suggests that Jesus gave us a clue to who the antichrist is, and he is–drum roll please–President Barack Obama. He covers this by reciting some data about these ancient languages that is largely not relevant to his point, but makes him sound like he knows what he’s talking about, always assuming the listener does not.

    Amongst the myriad problems are:

    • The “heights” interpretation of “from heaven” in Luke 10:18 is by no means established, and actually unlikely.
    • Back translating is always dangerous
    • Even if all translations are allowed as valid, there is no form of this statement in which Jesus would have uttered something that sounded like “Barack Obama.” In order to get that combination of sounds the speaker had to use “lightning and a high place” which would be something like “baraq ubamah” with the ‘u’ being “oo” and not “oh.”
    • Even if the speaker was not completely off base at that point (though he is), there is no contextual indication suggesting that a set of unrelated sounds in here should be taken as a name. Outside of context, many relationships can be found between sounds of different languages, none of which mean anything except that some sounds are similar to other sounds.
    • The claim that a Rabbi endorses the video is not supported by the banner on which it is printed, since the Rabbi only confirms the translations of two phrases, and the second of those phrases is incorrect. I suspect miswording/misunderstanding on the part of those who created the video, assuming they contacted the Rabbi mentioned at all, because no Rabbi would make the error in question.

    I’ve already given this guy too much time, but I did one more thing just for fun. Since he emphasized the Aramaic relationship, I looked to see how some folks who used a similar language–Syriac–actually translated the verse. Recall the dangers of back translation. The Peshitta reads “shemaya”, a reasonably close equivalent and cognate of the Hebrew “shamayim,” the very word the video produce rejects in favor of “bamah.”

    I suspect some Christians are spreading this as a joke, but it’s not a good joke. It is improper use of scripture from start to finish. It constitutes innuendo and gossip, as people are disturbed by the implications. I wish I could say that the Christian community is well enough educated Biblically to simply reject this out of hand, but I’m afraid that’s not the case.

    There’s a disclaimer saying that the video is not intended to suggest that Barack Obama is the antichrist. That’s much like the church gossip who says, “I saw our pastor out with X from the choir. I’m not suggesting there’s an inappropriate relationship, but …”

    The producer says he’s remaining anonymous but he’s “not ashamed of what he put there.” He should be.

    (A secondary hat tip goes to Dispatches, though a friend pointed this video out to me last night.)

  • Scot McKnight on Walton on Genesis 1

    Scot McKnight has started an 18 part discussion of John Walton’s book The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Even though I have not yet read Dr. Walton’s book, I can tell you that this is a very important discussion for Christians and that I expect much value just from reading online discussions.

    This first installment, referring to chapter one of the book, examines the claim that Genesis 1 is ancient cosmology and that God spoke to the Israelites using their knowledge of cosmology. Incidentally I have been arguing this since I was in college, and it is hardly original with me. It takes a long time for this sort of thing to penetrate from theological schools to popular level books.

    To summarize:

    “God communicated his revelation to his immediate audience terms they understood” (17). … [page # refers to book page #-HN]

    Just so. That sentence could be considered the critical and central point of my own view of inspiration. That is why I can see something in scripture that is clearly wrong–according to our understanding of the data–and yet not say it’s wrong. It was right at the time and it is right for us now, because God intends us to read as a community that continues in time, and thus we are asked to understand both the human audience (both prophet and people) and the Divine Speaker.

    I would note one thing here, which is that simply seeing Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology doesn’t settle all issues in the origins debate. I’ll be interested to see what transpires in further chapters. What I have found most tricky is dealing with the fall and redemption.

    I’m very eager to see the rest of this discussion and to get my hands on Walton’s book.

  • Somewhat of a Calvinist?

    Having located a Peter Kirk approved quiz, Testing Your C-Factor, I decided I really must take it. The results?

    I’m “somewhat of a Calvinist.” Really? I do like the part about being “slightly hedonistic.”

    Test your C-Factor: 53%
    You are somewhat of a Calvinist.

    Some of your points of view make you look like a Calvinist. However, you live your life in a lighter way than Calvinists do, which allows you to enjoy it more.

    ID Category Score Comment
    52 Work 71% You sure have a Calvinistic working ethos. You never work hard enough; work for you is your bounden duty. You are the type of employee any company desires, but the balance between your work and private life may get disturbed.
    55 Strictness 20% You know how to enjoy life. You don't always spend your time in a useful way. Mind the balance!
    57 Sobriety 50% You were not born to be a Calvinist. Catholicism suits you better – slightly hedonistic, loose and emotional.
    56 Relationships 33% In your relationships you are not very reserved. One might say: uncalvinistic. You let yourself go too easily to be a Calvinist.
    53 Beliefs 40% You are an unconcerned believer, who doesn't worry too much.

    It seems to me, however, that often Calvinists would object to the way in which they are described in this quiz. Further, while including “digital” (perhaps better “binary”) thinking as a trait of Calvinists, the quiz authors write a binary quiz. But that is the nature of quizzes such as this. They are either so complex that nobody wants to complete them, or so simplistic that the results are of little value.

    In my opinion, of course …

  • 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.

  • A Bowdlerized Lectionary Passage

    There are a number of lectionary selections that skip part of a passage. Sometimes this is for time. Sometimes it relates to topic, but sometimes it is simply used to remove material that might offend.

    I like lectionary preaching and teaching. I think it forces pastors to get out of their comfort zones and expound on passages they might otherwise not read. I don’t think it’s the only way to go. I think preaching through the Bible has a place, as does topical preaching. But topical preaching is especially subject to the limitations of a pastor’s particular interests.

    Further, I like a worship service that includes all four passages of the lectionary. As Christians we have remarkably little patience for hearing the scripture. I sometimes get the feeling that people prefer the sermon because it has less Bible in it. I have encountered very few services that do include all the passages, but I have truly been blessed by those that do.

    But having said all of that, the Revised Common Lectionary can get no my nerves, and this week was a case in point. The Old Testament passage is from 2 Samuel 6. The story, as told in 2 Samuel, brings out many aspects of worship as seen then in Israel.

    We start with the ark of the covenant in exile, away from the center of Israelite life. David wants to bring the ark to Jerusalem, so he proceeds to do so joyfully. But joy is turned to sorrow when Uzzah tries to steady the ark and is struck dead.

    Now I know that’s a difficult passage in the Old Testament, but you might as well not try to understand the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures at all if you don’t want to recognize that the writers viewed contact with the holy as a very dangerous thing. (This is one of the difficult passages that my friend Alden Thompson discusses in his book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?.

    After the ark is kept in a home for a time, David again comes to move it to Jerusalem with better preparation. The story ends with David dancing before the Lord, and his wife Michal despises him for it.

    Besides the inherent danger of approaching that which is holy, this story also illustrates the combination of fear and joy. We want to separate the fear of the Lord from the joy of the Lord these days. We don’t understand how these things can co-exist. But the Bible writers had no such problem.

    Now what about the lectionary passage? Proper 10B gives us 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19. This splits the story as all the people are making merry and before Uzzah touches the ark in 6:6, then resumes it when David starts taking the ark on from the house of Obed-Edom. It skips 6:12a which tells us how David is motivated to do so when he sees that Obed-Edom is blessed while the ark is present.

    We now continue the joyful procession, with our scripture reading skipping a funeral and three months of time, heading on into Jerusalem. Presumably, the congregation is not supposed to ask just why the ark is in Obed-Edom’s house.

    Finally, the story ends with verse 19 as everyone goes home happy, and skips Michal’s story, which provides the other counterpoint. Worship can be destroyed by disobedience to God, but it can also be destroyed by those who despise the joy.

    You may tell me that people can read these additional passages for themselves, and that the extra reading will not contribute to the service. I don’t think one can be certain of these things. For many church people these days, the scripture reading is pretty much all the scripture they get.

    In this case, I think the story is made to say something completely different than it does in its full context. It’s like a different story all together.

  • Not Hating Sarah Palin

    Mary Fairchild has a post today titled Sarah Palin: Why Some Love Her and Others Hate Her.

    Along with some other discussion, she writes:

    …Personally, I think it might have something to do with her allegiance to another kingdom, her ‘higher calling.’ As a follower of Jesus Christ, could it be that Sarah Palin knows her mission? If she recognizes her membership in God’s heavenly kingdom, that charge would come before any duties of this earthly realm. If she is committed to the call of God on her life, a sense of divine purpose would give her boldness and uncompromising courage to do the Lord’s will, no matter what this world expects—just like John the Baptist.

    Now let me be clear. I think a complete commitment to Jesus Christ, in fact, even a complete commitment to being an ethical person, will bring one into conflict with the culture. One may be despised or hated for doing what is right.

    Further, the gospel does offend our selfish human nature. It offends our sense of fairness. Grace, after all, is not fair. It’s wonderful to receive, but doesn’t follow our rules concerning what one deserves.

    But it is dangerous to reverse those propositions. Just because a follower of Jesus Christ will offend doesn’t mean that everyone who offends is a follower of Jesus Christ. Nor does it mean that when a follower of Jesus Christ does offend, it is the gospel, or their discipleship that is offending.

    I have seen this repeatedly in evangelism. I hear it regularly from people who report on evangelism. Someone talks about Jesus and then reports that people were offended. Yet very often, if one listens to the details, there are many things that are offensive that are not part of the gospel. It might be pride, a desire to be acknowledged as “right,” an unwillingness to listen, or hurtful remarks. We must be careful to make sure that if anything in our lives and work offends, it is the gospel that is doing the offending, and not our own offensiveness.

    But all of this might not be relevant to the discussion of Sarah Palin. Is her commitment to Jesus Christ what distinguishes her from all other politicians? Is she the “greater” disciple who draws more hate?

    I do not want to judge her discipleship, but I certainly see many other politicians who also make the claim that they are followers of Jesus. There are other Republicans who share her political philosophy and profess to be disciples, yet they do not draw the same reaction. There are others all across the spectrum who make the same claim and again, they do not draw the same reaction.

    There are many things on which I would disagree with Sarah Palin. I don’t find her or her political philosophy all that attractive. At the same time, I was amazed at the strength of the antagonism that she drummed up. So while I don’t think it is her discipleship that is her distinguishing problem, I do think there is a phenomenon here that needs some explanation.

    I’m going to suggest the word “frustration.” There are several other factors that contribute to the result, but I think the thing that brings people’s blood to a boil about Palin is that it is so hard to explain her attraction to someone who doesn’t agree or see it.

    This frustration would be fairly ordinary, but there are some factors that feed into it. First, the media gets fascinated by fascinating figures. Palin was a surprise nomination, and there was some bungling in how she was handled. That’s like blood in the water to the media sharks. So, second, they attack.

    The attacks fuel responses and help set these feelings in concrete. If the left had really wanted to see Palin diminish as an issue, they should have stayed away from exaggerated attacks and rumors. But the right should have done the same thing with Barack Obama. Despite huge differences in personalities, stories, and political views, I think very similar frustration has fueled hysterical anti-Obama rhetoric on the right. Those on the right simply could not and cannot understand Obama’s personal popularity.

    But frustration alone doesn’t explain it. The frustration and fascination fueled frenzy has turned Sarah Palin into a symbol. She is now, like it or not, something beyond herself. To argue details of her intelligence or character will generally miss the point. She is a symbol of the Republican right, and the right and the left along with the media share the credit–and the blame–for putting her in that position.

    If I might illustrate with the story of Joe the Plumber, who is really a rather ordinary man. He asked a fortuitous question and was rocketed to fame–as a symbol. Again, those who want to argue that Joe the Plumber is not all that bright (or that he is), or who looked for deficiencies in his tax returns and licensing during the campaign completely missed the point.

    Knowing that his business isn’t going to make a particular amount of money or that he didn’t have a plumbing license was again quite irrelevant and only served to harden and brighten the symbol. Liberals could laugh about “Name the profession“, but there were thousands of people who identified with the symbol.

    Those who don’t get the symbol, whether it’s Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, or Joe the Plumber will find the whole situation frustrating, because they see any character or policy flaws as disqualifying. But they do so because they don’t identify with that particular symbol.

    I don’t think we can explain hatred of Sarah Palin based on any single characteristic. I think it is dangerous to suggest that what distinguishes her is her commitment to the gospel. That tends to make the gospel an inextricable part of her political philosophy.

    Like it or not, Sarah Palin has become a symbol. Whether or not she can use that fact to carry her to national office remains to be seen. But people should not make the assumption that she can’t.

    Symbols are dangerous things, often much more powerful than he realities on whom they rest.

  • My Country, Right or Wrong?

    Back in 2007 I wrote a post about patriotism in which I said:

    I’m going to annoy quite a few people with this post, but I have noticed for a number of years that Christians in America often conflate Christianity and American patriotism. …

    I didn’t post on July 4th this year, but I did continue to think about this just a bit. What allegiance do I owe my country?

    I think it is clear that a disciple of Jesus owes his or her allegiance first to the kingdom of heaven, and only second to any earthly power. The question automatically comes up as to whether I am a reliable citizen of my own country if that country does not have my first allegiance.

    Some might think this was an accusation to be used by the anti-religious against Christians. But I think that suggestion is perhaps a bit too hasty.

    Let’s take my father as an example. He was a Seventh-day Adventist and objected to bearing arms in war. As a Canadian during the 2nd World War, he was denied a request to be given a medical role. Since he still refused to bear arms, he was given alternative service, so to speak, planting trees for he war. Many people despised young men such as that, thinking them cowards.

    This is a case here the laws of the land, in this case Canada, conflicted with someone’s understanding of the laws of God, and he chose to obey God rather than men. As such, he was certainly a less reliable citizen of the country–from one point of view–than those who were willing to do whatever their country demanded of them.

    Many were in a similar situation in the United States. In the churches I attend, most people make the assumption that the patriotic–and Christian–thing to do is to serve your country in time of war. To them, it’s just right.

    I served in the U. S. Air Force for 10 years and was honorably discharged. (I became a U. S. Citizen when my parents were naturalized when I was 12 years old.) For many people this is an indication that I am truly a patriot. (Well, some of my Marine friends think that service in the USAF is a substitute for real military service, which can only be performed in the Marines!)

    Now let me note that I am proud of my service to my country. I’m no hero. I just served honorably and moved on. But I am also very proud of my father’s service to his country.

    No, I’m not talking about the service of planting trees, though that is what was required of him. I’m talking about his service of obedience to his conscience.

    I don’t know if patriotism is the right word. It gets used in so many ways. But often love of one’s country is defined in terms solely of obedience. I think the most valuable citizen is one who gives country the value of his or her mind and conscience.

    You see, I don’t think this should just be a Christian issue. The greatest danger to a country, I think, is a citizenry that accepts “my country, right or wrong” as their approach to decision making. That is the road to tyranny.

    I have a hard time imagining the ethical atheist giving first allegiance to country either. If you give first allegiance to your country you abdicate your responsibility to make ethical decisions. Face it, sometimes an ethical decision is going to disagree with what the country orders.

    Let me bring up a more recent example. Supposing you have legal authorization to torture, as some people thought they did under the previous administration. Your superiors order you to do so. The relevant folks support their decision as lawful. What is your duty to your country?

    I think there is no doubt as to what the ethical person should do, on the assumption that you are opposed to torture. You would have to refuse to participate, and I personally would fell obligated to take measures to try to prevent such a policy from continuing. (While I do not find any convincing arguments in favor of permitting the use of torture, that is not my point here.)

    A country that wants ethical citizens should endeavor to make room for such ethical decisions and actions.

    Let me illustrate this from another ethical issue. Quite a number of physicians would consider it immoral to perform abortions. (My father, true to his principles, also rejected abortion absolutely.) Many Catholic physicians have objections to providing birth control services. Some believe that the law should require all doctors to provide all services, in other words, it would be illegal for a physician to decline to provide a service he or she found morally reprehensible.

    I believe such a law would tend on the one hand to create immoral and unethical citizens, while on the other forcing those who are ethical out of those professions.

    The best thing for the country is to make such ethical decisions possible. The best thing for each individual is never to abdicate such decision making to others.

    My country–when right. Otherwise I owe my country my best judgment.