Sin, Love, & Association (Valentine's Day 2014)

Most Christians of most denominations know the answer to the question of whether we should continue sinning. We quote the Apostle Paul:

"Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?" (Romans 6:2, NLT)

The rub, however, is how to actually pull this off. I have yet to meet a sin-free Christian, and I don't expect I ever will. In saying this, I reveal my own bias about our born-again nature, about how I view us. Others, preachers I've heard, for example, more optimistically say we can achieve mastery over time, getting to the point where we no longer sin. Cleverly playing Switzerland, Lutheran theology says we're 100% saint and sinner at the same time, but this probably doesn't clarify what Paul means in Romans 6.  

My purpose is not exegetical; my purpose is to consider what "not continuing in our sin" already means to most of us in our own normal experience. We who, on a good day, might say that we are getting there or have even arrived. The alternatives being to admit that we have no idea what Paul is talking about, to concede that we are inferior to real Christians, or to conclude that we aren't really saved. So what do we mean if we think of ourselves as generally successful Christians? That we are no longer sinners? Or that we are advancing to the next levels of sin, from the obvious "biggies" to more subtle, more debatable "sins"? Like spending too much of the family budget on tracts last month, or listening to NPR. Perhaps we think we should get credit for graduating to the private sins, ones easier to hide, ones easier for our churches to overlook? Do we get to a point where we stop thinking that sin is a problem, once we're no longer smoking, going to movies, reading the Living Bible, and wishing we were married? Even worse, when we practice denominational carbon trading, offsetting our sins with being more right in political or doctrinal debates. 

These are more disturbing possibilities than just blatantly sinning, knowing we're wrong, and confessing it. There is real danger for spiritual blindness when we become proficient at camouflaging our sin from others' notice and are smugly relieved to have a higher holiness score. This is sin, based on hypocrisy, compounded by deception and pride, and used as justification for avoiding other Christians -- even entire other churches deemed too "unbiblical," perhaps, for our tastes and standards. By contrast if we humble ourselves and admit that we never overcome much of our own sin, then what really is the difference between someone with many and someone with a few less than many sins, or someone else's 27% obedience to Christ and my 34%? What cause for boasting or comparison is there?

The root problem may well be that we use sin rather than love as the Christian lens when we look at ourselves, the church, and the world. What is wrong is the first thing we think about and look for, distorting our view of God's creation and scarring our hearts. Moreover sin scoring helps me perpetuate the myth that I'm better than you -- or at least that we're better than them. Your sin helps me sleep better, knowing that I won't be the first one Jesus kicks out of heaven. We need a theology that doesn't assume or require sinlessness as a condition -- not only before conversion but always. If I know I'm always a sinner, in the lifelong process of being fully saved by grace, then I should not embrace my sin or justify it. BUT I might spend more time thinking through what real Christianity looks like in the context of my ongoing sin instead of in the context of my amazingly whitewashed life. I might stop all the pretending that my smaller list of sins is better than someone else's longer list. Or that sinful I, with my sins of pride, sloth, gluttony, and secret lust, am surely more pleasing to God, secure in my salvation, and deserving of God's blessing and answers to all my prayers than those other, less righteous Christians who listen to rock music, think homosexuality might be natural, are divorced, struggle with addictions, or vote wrong. 

Mmmmm. Soup!

The truth is that I and probably most Christians who have been at this awhile still think a lot about sin and sin-tidying. It is still too much of the focus of our spiritual lives instead of loving the unlovely or even the simple task of setting tables at a soup kitchen. Instead of actually doing something that God wants us to, actually being God's hands and feet in a dying world. I doubt we're really living in the kingdom of God when most of the time we're praying for ourselves, singing songs we enjoy, calculating our 10% tithes, and solidifying our opposition to the rest of the church. We spend a lot of time and energy arguing about and critiquing the sins (personal, political, or doctrinal) of other Christians when it doesn't change anything, does the needy no good, and establishes a terrible model for how our children should live out their own faith.

What if we gave ourselves one entire day per year to publicly proclaim the fact of our opposition to other Christians' cherished or unacknowledged sins and then agreed to live out lives of grace and love and forgiveness and service with those liberal / fundamentalist / other Christians for the rest of the year? The churches that care could get credit for saying they're not "being tolerant" of sin in the camp -- but without completely abandoning the great commandment. How different from what the world usually sees us doing! How will "They will know we are Christians by our love" ever happen when what we actually show the world most of the time is our hostility to each other's religious scorecards, styles of worship, and politics? If we can't stand the Body of Christ, why should anyone else listen to its "good news"?

We have to learn to show love in the midst of disagreement or we're no better than the pagans and tax collectors. And love means association, as Jesus' incarnation and social calendar demonstrated. We never get close to the point of showing love to the rest of the church as long as we stay separate, content to lob stones over our walls. We keep insisting on the condition of conformity with our view, our interpretation, our conviction, while refusing to worship or work together until they become like us. We need to start with love and hope for more-perfect agreement later, not the other way around. That's what "unconditional" requires. We can always wrestle with the details (what is immorality that precludes association, for example), but most of us still resist the very idea that agreement doesn't precede all else.

How about this: All parties agree that they are saved by Jesus, are still not free from all sin, are willing to be changed by God, and are willing to give up their own doctrinal idols if God should convince them. Shouldn't that be a good enough starting point for dishing up soup together? And you never know: Serve Jesus together today, maybe worship together someday.

"Reputation"

(Photo Link HT: Bearded Gospel Men)

Worship Signals

(HT: Theological Scribbles)

Follow the Dinosaur

Sad when true. (HT)

A common claim is that kids raised in church tend to fall away from their faith in college, and the inference for some is that most of the blame should fall on the hostile public school system in which the kids were educated. Despite the best efforts of the church and the parents, this argument goes, the impact of the sheer number of hours in which the little minds are being molded at school is too large to be overcome. While this is surely true in some cases, my guess is that most students reject their faith in college even when raised in Bible Belt communities whose public school teachers attend the same churches as their parents. 

Here are three key and interrelated reasons why church kids would walk away from religion after high school:

1) Because much of their "faith" through high school was little more than herd behavior or emotionalism.

I don't fault churches for trying to provide activities that will hold the attention of their kids. I don't fault them for wanting youth group to be a safe place to relax and have fun. I'm sure most of them are doing the best they know how. I just don't think that lock-ins, bowling, concerts, or Kumbaya around a campfire do much to prepare kids to take a stand for something controversial or to keep going against the flow when emotions run dry. Christianity is more than social events, but this is often the focus.

2) Because much of what kids heard in Sunday School and church about why they should agree with their religious elders was anti-intellectual groupthink if not downright error. 

College professors have their own blind spots and emotional weaknesses, of course, but they generally are much sharper when it comes to critical thinking. And, in the cases of religion, philosophy, science, history, and Bible-as-literature classes, these professors are far more educated then most people our kids ever meet in church. As a result, kids in college are, for the first time, maybe not exposed to but required to respond to philosophical, historical, scientific, religious, and textual ideas that are common knowledge in academia. These include arguments for non-literal interpretations of Jonah, the Flood, and Creation; the challenge of the problem of evil; debates about Biblical authorship; the non-Christian heritage of the United States and its Founding Fathers; support from multiple academic disciplines for evolution; blatant inconsistencies in how the Bible is interpreted by its adherents; and the fact that most beliefs held by one Christian denomination are disputed by other denominations—on topics as varied as heaven and hell, speaking in tongues, the role of women, the nature of baptism, the nature of Communion, whether or not we even have free will, what Old Testament sins are still sins today, what happens to people of other faiths when they die, how we are saved, etc.

If our kids are sheltered from or uneducated about almost any of these facts and intellectual debates, and taught to parrot their church's party line instead, it is almost child's play to send them into a mental and emotional tailspin. A couple brief arguments by someone with a little more knowledge, and suddenly the kids' parents and churches look ignorant or even foolish. Nice people, sure, but unqualified to speak authoritatively to these kids about what they should believe in the real world. Why would anyone believe someone who only understands—or even is aware of—one side of debates that have gone on for centuries if not millennia? As highly as I value catechism, being presented with a simple answer to a complex question rarely acknowledges the real worth of the question. And, too often, most of what passes for "Bible study" in a church class is on roughly this level. Churches and religious parents don't teach more than one side, typically, and that one side is often a lot weaker than it could be. In contrast critical thinking demands an understanding of opposing points of view. This is a huge difference between the church and the university—or even many schools before a kid goes off to college. I suspect the battle is already over before most kids finish high school; they don't need the university to put the final nail in the coffin.

When many churches do try to enter the intellectual arena, they often choose to champion topics like Creationism or a literal Noah's ark. As if this is the real battleground where our kids will struggle in their adult lives.... The arguments for these points of view might sound OK in Sunday School, but they don't fare well against educated critics. I fear giving our kids weak support, something that only sounds intellectual, more than providing them with no answers. When they think they have been given a strong defense, and then it gets blown out of the water at a university, they are likely to crumble. Few college students are going to stand alone and fly the Christian banner in front of their professors and classmates when the image on the banner is a dinosaur instead of a cross. It's just not worth dying for.

3) Because they didn't have an actual, Spirit-powered relationship with Jesus.

This is the primary reason, really. If you actually know God, you won't be thrown by atheist professors or classmates who say that they don't. It would be like visiting Plato's cave and listening to ravings about how there is no such thing as light. Not so convincing. I remember talking with someone like this once. His intellect and knowledge were quite intimidating, but when his arguments turned to "There can't be a god because I've never experienced him," I couldn't help but feel bad for him. I've never experienced skydiving, but that doesn't mean that other people are lying, crazy, or mistaken when they talk about jumping out of airplanes. If you know God, the worst an atheist can do is cause you to question your grip on reality ("Hmmm.... I thought I felt love, peace, and joy; I thought I was enjoying a relationship with God; I thought I was gaining wisdom and guidance from prayer—but maybe I'm just making it all up!").

In my own college experience, I was introduced to tons of new ideas and new challenges to my Christian faith, but I wasn't completely thrown by it because I actually knew God. This bought me some time while I worked to educate myself on the new views I was hearing in my classes and from my new friends. Some of these new views I quickly rejected as flawed once I understood them. Others I have gradually come to accept, enriching my faith and life even if requiring me to replace simpler answers to big questions with more nuanced or complicated ones. And a few I expect to wrestle with until the day I die. Through it all, I have known Jesus, however. And, for me, relationship trumps argument every time.

Heretics

Great pair of quotes here at Richard Beck's site:

We muzzle dogs; shall we leave men free to open their mouths and say what they please?...God makes it plain that the false prophet is to be stoned without mercy. We are to crush beneath our heels all natural affections when his honour is at stake. The father should not spare his child, nor the husband his wife, nor the friend that friend who is dearer to him than life.

--John Calvin, Protestant Reformer and Father of Calvinism (1509-1564)

Calvin says that he is certain, and [other sects] say that they are; Calvin says that they are wrong and wishes to judge them, and so do they. Who shall be judge? What made Calvin the arbiter of all the sects, that he alone should kill? He has the Word of God and so have they. If the matter is certain, to who is it so? To Calvin? But then why does he write so many books about manifest truth?...In view of the uncertainty we must define the heretic simply as one with whom we disagree. And if then we are going to kill heretics, the logical outcome will be a war of extermination, since each is sure of himself.

--Sebastian Castellio, French theologian (1515-1563)

Obviously, the Bible doesn't encourage relativism. Coffee with Jesus cuts to the chase:

However, we do need to figure out what is really worth dying for ... or killing for. I don't want to hear Jesus tell me someday that I, like Saul, was really persecuting him. That those I thought were so wrong and treated so badly were actually closest to getting it right. So, humility in our disagreements is crucial. And a weighing of the consequences of being wrong before I say or do something "discerning," as they say. And the development of genuine respect for those with whom I disagree. Not a "respect" that pretends to agree with everyone, but one which says that everyone is valuable, and loved by God, and worthy of grace and kindness. No matter how badly we disagree. Something that won't have burned the bridges if one of us changes our mind later. Tough to do, but much better that than making enemies of those who may prove to be our own family.

Perspicuity?

HT: Exploring Our Matrix

Nostalgia for White Protestant America

What is our American religious foundation, and do we really want to go back? I have been thinking about this again recently, and share these reflections after reading John Armstrong's recent series [one, two, three] about religion in American public life.

1. America wasn't Judeo-Christian, historically. When it was religious, it was white Protestant, and anti- most everybody else. And this is what we see, for example, all the way back in the original state constitutions that required office holders to be (white Protestant male) Christians. These, and not the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution, are the actually-religious political documents from our early years. The huddled masses, Catholic, Jewish, or otherwise, were welcome to come and assimilate, or come and help build the economy, but not to share power or change the culture.
   
2. This was the same white Protestant heritage that allowed centuries of slavery,  denied women equal rights (the vote, property ownership, college education, political office, equal wages, etc.), and nurtured the Ku Klux Klan. This was the reality if not totality of America's religious culture, though it was more obvious in the South, where political power wasn't shared with non-white-Protestants.
   
3. Increases in Catholic and Jewish immigration (mostly in the North) in the early 20th century led eventually to a shift away from total dominance by white Protestants and forced us to take seriously our unrealized constitutional promises about religious freedom, equality, and fair treatment under the law—first for Jews and Catholics, and then for racial minorities. More recent rights movements for other minorities, such as homosexuals, the handicapped, and the mentally ill, are the legacy of the earlier movements.
4. The Civil Rights movement, thus, was a revolution against white Protestant America's lock on power—though white Protestants did take part on both sides of the movement, of course. Perhaps more of them on the anti-Rights side, sadly, considering where the Bible Belt is located.
5. Nostalgia for or a return to our actual religious past, then, would be problematic, to say the least.
   

What I think we should want instead is the establishment of what our country never had—actual freedom, equality, and fair treatment for people of all religions, something only hinted at in some of the documents of the 1700s but never realized in American history. This, ultimately, will not only benefit people of other faiths, but also be for Christians' own protection and good. If our country becomes less and less moral, or Christian values become less and less popular, then we may need safeguards against "the tyranny of the majority" who disagree with us. Democracy could result in unpopular Christian decisions of conscience being declared illegal unless minority religious rights are guarded. While I agree that many or most people believe in God or want there to be a god, I still think that we Christians should view ourselves as a minority in America instead of pretending that our ways will someday (or again) become the cultural norm. Unless revival changes our nation, we may find ourselves needing strong legal protections for our minority rights, and grateful for the work that civil rights activists have done to ensure freedom for all points of view and all ways of life, even those with which we may disagree. 

White male Protestants in Thomas Jefferson's day may not have needed such protections, but all Christians should lament the fact that only that group had such privilege and opportunity. Rather than wishing to see America return to the dubious morality of that era, we should take seriously the fact that neither the church nor America either is or was white, male, and Protestant.

I Haven't Read The Shack, But Apparently It's Better Than a Tract

I still haven't read The Shack and don't plan to at any point soon. It has never piqued my interest, really. I did read a criticism of it the other day, however. Which made me feel a lot more favorable about the book. 

My brief response to the four problem areas of Tim Challies' "charitable but critical" critique of The Shack, using his own headings:

• Subversion: Apparently this guy has no awareness of how shallow many people's experience of God and the church has been. No obvious sense of humor, either.
• Revelation: More of the usual criticism leveled against Blackaby's Experiencing God: The Bible is the only way God speaks. Anything else is rank mysticism. Be suspicious of people who say that God ever replies when prayed to.
• Salvation: It's Calvinism or the highway. And Universal Redemption is a heresy.
  
• Trinity: This guy doesn't want to read a novel; he wants a mimeographed copy of his favorite Bible verses. He may also approve of some Taliban policies. They take the "no graven image" command more seriously.

Based on reading this critique, this Berean watchdog "exercise in discernment and critical thinking," questions that I would want answered before I started criticizing this novel would include several along these lines:

1. What was the author trying to communicate?
2. Who was the author's intended audience?
3. Was the author trying to write a "4 Spiritual Laws" tract to evangelize his audience?
4. Was the author trying to make an argument for the Bible being superior to face-to-face conversation with God?

Challies acknowledges that the book is a novel, yet reacts as though he has missed this crucial point -- that The Shack is fiction, written to his own children and for a specific reason. It is not a textbook of systematic theology or a sermon for the hell-bent. It is not a seminary thesis or a litmus test of his credentials for the ministry. The choice of fiction allows the author to speculate about details on which the Bible is either silent or unclear. Details about what God might say -- in a dialog and in understandable language -- in response to honest questions and complaints. Like the book of Job, but in the context of pseudo-Christian America, and fleshing out other aspects of God's character. Fiction allows an author to wonder out loud some of the thoughts that a Christian might have when considering how to reconcile loyalty to the loving and just God with the classic problem of suffering and the natural feelings of disappointment, confusion, or anger that the problem leads to. 

It would be ridiculous to criticize C.S. Lewis for using a talking animal as the savior and lord of Narnia. Or for having that lion let children stroke his mane. Because Lewis wasn't trying to suggest that the real Jesus is a talking animal. Or has fur. Or wants us to stroke it. Similarly, it is ridiculous to take a work of fiction about being invited to a face-to-face conversation with God, and the insights about evil and pain (theodicy, really) that would be possible in that context, and then criticize that book for not containing a suitable number of declarations that the character should leave God alone and go read his Bible for the answers to his questions, instead. Those answers that have generally left cold the people who are in real pain unless they have a loving and personal relationship with God in addition to a Bible. And maybe even then are not completely satisfying. You know, those answers about God's ways being too high to understand, for example. Or about some of us being created as objects of wrath. And what we might logically conclude about God's view of us if our miserable lives appear to be evidence that we are not among the elect.

If I read it, I would not be surprised to discover that this novel was actually an apologia on another level, arguing that belief in God's love and power is reasonable despite the reality of the fallen world we live in. Imagination in the service of worship. "Faith seeking understanding," even, in Anselm's words. Hmmm.... Maybe I will read it after all.

The Evangelical Reject List

The Pangea Blog (HT Jesus Creed) has the You Might Be an Evangelical Reject If... list.

My 10 favorites (bold and italics are in the original):

• You’re uncomfortable calling other branches of Christianity “apostate.”
• You have significant questions about controversial theological “hot button” issues of the day and are some-what comfortable with the subsequent cognitive dissonance.
• You’ve been asked to leave a church leadership position for philosophical / theological reasons.
• You read theologians from all across the spectrum.
• You think that science and scripture both reveal God’s truth in complementary ways.
• You know that living the truth is more important than defending it logically.
• You don’t use the word inerrancy to describe biblical authority because its too rigid a definition and a modernist categorical imposition on the Holy Spirit inspired Scriptures.
• You think that postmodern philosophy helps theology more than it hurts it.
• You believe social justice is central to the gospel of the Kingdom.
• You throw up a little in your mouth every time someone says that “the rapture is coming soon, so what’s the fuss with taking care of the planet?  Lets save souls!”

The Low Guilt Christian Checklist

Here's an excerpt from Chaplain Mike's refreshing essay in defense of Christians who are "just Christians." Thanks InternetMonk!

It’s OK to say, “I don’t know.” Doesn’t make you less of a Christian.

Baptized as an infant? OK. Dunked in the creek as a young teen? OK.

Love to receive communion because you meet Jesus there, but have no idea how to explain it? In my opinion, that’s OK.

Because you trust in Jesus.

You know in your heart that you’re broken and need fixing.

[...] 

That’s what you know, and that’s who you are.

You’re just a Christian.

And that’s OK.

I have many strong opinions about the Bible and Christianity -- and shelves of theological books. I also believe that, in the end, most of our knowledge won't have mattered much, and less will matter anymore. Means to an end, merely. Lenses by which we try to make better sense of our lives. The real issue is who we know, and who knows us. 

Stories from Prison

Richard Beck shares an amusing anecdote from his first night attending a Bible study at a prison:

One of the teachers was talking about the boyhood of Jesus and was commenting on how the bible says very little about the early years of Jesus. Reflecting on this, he asked the class "Why do you think the bible doesn't share much about the childhood of Jesus?"

No one answered until one man raised his hand and said, "I think it's because in the Coptic gospels Jesus appears to be a mean little boy."

Silence and a lot of confused looks followed.

I just smiled to myself and thought, "I might really like this class!"

State of the Soapbox

Well, dear readers, I now have 65 posts in "draft" stage, and it has been several moons since my last published post.

"What is going on?!" you may be asking.

Basically, I have fallen out of the pattern of sitting down to write on a regular basis. As a result, the muse still strikes, but my daily habits aren't helping me to get it down fast enough and finish -- or to begin something that I suspect may take too long to finish properly. What to do? In an effort to jump start the more serious writing again, I will attempt to start sharing with y'all more of what catches my eye in my own reading.

Eventually, and sooner than later if all goes well, I will return to some topics left on the back burner, including the final installment of my series on salvation, part 2 on prayer, and a lot more on the Bible, the church, and certainty. I've also been percolating on Christian universalism, how we know what we know, and thoughts from recent discussions at church on books by Watchman Nee, Richard Blackaby, and Andrew Murray. Finally, I may share snippets or swaths of some fun e-mail exchanges and discussion threads from recent months on topics theological. So stay tuned.

Killing the Postmodernism Boogeyman

John Armstrong has an excellent trio of posts [here and here and here] on the postmodernism issue and the inappropriate reaction from Christians that the word "postmodern" often triggers. He begins by responding to the common misconception that a postmodern Christian must be apostate or deluded, discarding the premise that such a Christian must "reject truth claims and moral absolutes and embrace relativism." The real misunderstanding, he continues, is that much of the American church has been co-opted by the modernist methodology for discovering and knowing truth:

Conservative Christians . . . reasoned that if you used the Bible correctly, studying the text of Holy Writ with a proper (scientific) method, then you would get the very mind of God about every thing that you could discover in this treasure house of divine (inerrant) revelation.

The problem with this approach to knowing the real truth that Christianity indeed does profess and testify to is that,

a Christian knowledge of God rests not on precise understanding or biblical equations but on personal knowing. We come to God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, based upon a personal relationship with the risen and reigning Christ. . . .

Modernity gave us confidence in our method. It told us that we could have precise understanding about every mystery that we encountered in the revelation of God. But the gospel calls us to place our total confidence in Christ, not in a system. . . . In modernity we figure something out and get hold of it. In the gospel someone gets hold of us and reveals himself to us.

Wrapping up the second post, Armstrong acknowledges the benefit that a postmodern stance can yield, and reiterates the key difference between the relationships with absolute truth that secular and Christian postmodernists can have:

The developing postmodern critique has helped more and more Christians become aware of a simple fact: God knows the truth in a way that we humans do not. The right use of postmodern suspicion is to employ it to combat the notion that we have easy access to the truth. When conservative pastors tell their people that solid exposition and Bible study will make them into mature disciples then they get very close to this danger! (This is not an attack on study and Bible exposition so read the statement carefully.)

A secular postmodernist deduces that there is no absolute truth. The reason for this is that the person has not yet met the one who is the truth in Jesus Christ. But no postmodern Christian, who knows the one who is the truth, will ever claim that there is no absolute truth since they have a personal relationship with the one who incarnates the absolute truth.

This difference is crucial. Knowing God is not the same thing as knowing about God. Our knowledge about an eternal, transcendent, and spiritual being is necessarily incomplete and likely flawed, particularly when much of it is obtained and limited by our human ability to read and interpret written text; but if this God adopts us into his family, we have access to an entirely different way of knowing him: relationship!

Cutting and Pasting the Gospel

I was at a wake recently and read through a plan of salvation tract that I found there. I was amazed—not by the standard sin/hell/Jesus presentation—but by

1. how broadly this tract's author had to reach within the scriptures to patch together this supposedly simple gospel, and 
2. how little each passage contributed to the final product, sometimes as few as two words from a particular verse.  

Something like fifteen different books of the Bible were needed to craft this little 500-word tract, and the reader has to flip back and forth between the Old Testament and New Testament to follow it. Now, I guess that I could have felt reassured that the whole Bible points to the gospel message, or something like that, but what I found myself thinking was more troubling: If my students turned in a research paper that used source material the way this tract did, I would seriously doubt that they had gotten the correct sense or the intended context of the many, many quotation fragments they had stitched together.

Can we really not find the gospel presented succinctly in a single passage, by a single author? Isn't it odd that we can't find the typical salvation plan in the Bible without having to cut and paste it together ourselves? Peter's speech in Acts 2 is the closest thing I can think of, but I have never seen that used in salvation tracts, perhaps because it doesn't warn of hell. I'm not suggesting that Twitter and the gospel must go hand in hand. However, I would be more confident about my definition of gospel, my summary of the gospel, my interpretation of what the gospel really is if I could read it in a single passage, written by one author, and clearly in a context of summarizing the gospel. As opposed to the "I am the way" summary, which is Jesus's answer to a question NOT about what the gospel is or how the masses can be saved.

What do we imply about the scriptures and ourselves when we have to do so much cutting and pasting to create the gospel we want to share? That the gospels themselves aren't clear enough? That God needs our help with packaging his good news effectively? That we really don't think most people can "handle" the Bible itself? That we don't want to take the time to develop relationships with people and present the gospel in its full context? I know I'm generally prejudiced against a lot of the tracts I've encountered over the years, but would it really be so bad if, instead of a tract, we just handed someone the whole gospel of John. "Here. Read this and then let's discuss it together. I don't want to do the gospel a disservice by oversimplifying it," we might say. I suspect such caution might be warranted, and maybe even welcomed.

Joining the Perfect Church

This picture at the Jesus Creed blog reminded me of a joke I heard from a college roommate:

A man is stranded on a desert island for some time. When he is finally rescued, his rescuers tour the island and discover three small huts.

"This one is where I lived," the man replies when asked about the huts. "And that one is where I went to church."

"What about the third hut?" the rescuers ask.

"Oh," the man replies, shaking his head, "that's where I used to go to church."

Moving the Hand of God?

"Prayer moves the hand of God," I have often heard, but I wonder: "Really? Is that really how it works?" Now, maybe it is one thing to make this claim in the excitement of the moment while rejoicing at answered prayer, though I would hope that the tone is not self-congratulatory or even smug. It is quite another thing to seriously contemplate a cause-effect relationship between our prayers and God's actions given a view of God as all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving; and given a view of ourselves as none of the above.

What really happens when we pray? Do we think we can speed up the unfolding of God's will? Do we think we can change the cosmic calendar? If so, is his original will before we pray not quite as loving, or flawed in some other way? Or is his original timetable perfect, as befitting his character, but he lets us sway him from that plan to a less-perfect but more-accommodating one—perhaps because he is bound by the heavenly law about prayer moving his hand? Either way, it is disturbing to imagine that we are able to make God do what he wouldn't otherwise have done, perhaps even by means of prayers that aren't all that fervent, persevering, or even important to us. Really, if it boils down to God's judgment of what is best or my own, I'll vote for God, thank you very much.

What else might we infer about prayer, if it moves God to act? Does God wait to heal a sick child until someone prays for her? Or until a critical mass of prayers is finally reached? God forbid. What happens when equal numbers of people pray opposite prayers—for victory in sports or politics, for example? Do the prayers balance and cancel? Perhaps the prayers of some people carry more weight. Does God have his favorites? Children, maybe, or the clergy? If ten people pray, is an answer twice as likely as when only five people pray? Does God not know our needs, relying on us to fill him in on the situation down here? Does he pretend to wait until we "show him that we mean it" before answering us, like a rock band quickly filing off stage to trigger the big applause before returning immediately for their obligatory "encore."

When we frame the questions in these ways, some answers seem more clear:

1. God doesn't or shouldn't show favoritism; 
2. God will or should help people even if nobody, or nobody else, is praying for them; 
3. God doesn't or shouldn't dole out mercy in proportion to the math; the same prayer prayed repeatedly or by more people shouldn't make God care about it more; 
4. God already knows or should know what is best before anybody prays.

Despite such beliefs, however, both how we talk about prayer and how we pray are different stories: We ask for prayer. We take comfort in having multiple people praying for us. We thank people for their prayers, even claiming that we could really "feel" them. We make lists of prayer requests so we can pray repeatedly about the same thing, and so we don't lose track of these requests so trivial that they must be written down or else forgotten. We bring desperate prayers to God as though he hadn't been paying attention. We feel guilty if we forget to pray, assuming that our dropping the ball makes an answer nigh unto hopeless. We pray prayers of logical persuasion, as much to convince ourselves that God should want to answer them as to convince God to do so.

All of which suggest a theology of prayer as mechanical device, or magic box, or flowchart of proper if-then conditions. I'm not sure which is worst, but all of them share both an assumption that answered prayer is within our control and a requirement that we have to do the right thing for prayer to work: push the button, say the magic words, or jump through the hoops. If so, God does what we want; if not, it's our fault. Misinterpretation of favorite verses reinforces this error. There's the one about two or three gathering together to loose and bind in heaven and on earth, and the "blank check" classics about asking whatever we wish and  asking anything in his name. No wonder we are confused about how prayer really works and overestimate the extent of our power or influence to make God give us what we want.

In his brilliant essay, The Efficacy of Prayer, C.S. Lewis rejects such a causal relationship between who we are or what we do and God's response to our prayer. Reflecting on Jesus in the garden, where his request to his father was rejected, Lewis writes:

When God becomes man, that Man, of all others, is least comforted by God, at His greatest need. There is a mystery here which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to explore. Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.

 How then might we better understand prayer? Look for Part 2.

What Jesus Never Said about Hell

I grew up in the church tradition where "narrow is the way" to heaven and "few there be that find it." To put it more accurately, I grew up in church circles dominated by a view that the vast majority of human beings, perhaps more than 99% of the world, will wind up in hell for not "responding to the gospel." This view is presented as Biblical, seen as a significant part of any sermon about the gospel, and used as a key motivation for missions and evangelism. Though Jesus supposedly said more about hell than about heaven, most references to hell are contained in a rather meager handful of "red letter" verses from the mouth of Jesus himself. And despite what he does say about hell, there are some very interesting statements that he does not make—if hell was as important to Jesus as we make it out to be today.

Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, for example, has lots of useful information about how to pray, give to the needy, and fast, along with admonitions not to worry and not to store up treasure on earth. All of which is fascinating and good, but completely irrelevant if the audience is going to wind up in hell. However, he does not couch these useful tidbits with a preface like, "Most of y'all are going to hell, but until you do, here's some advice about your personal finances for your days here on earth," or, "We both know you're going to hell, but let's talk about something else today." If this passage is one of Jesus' most significant messages, as many people believe, then why does Jesus say nothing about eternal punishment for most—to the multitude sitting right there at his feet? Or was he only addressing the few who would wind up in heaven and ignoring the lost causes?

We have no record of Jesus warning the woman at the well about hell, despite her string of relationship misadventures. We have no record of Jesus souring his friendships with tax collectors and winebibbers at all those dinner parties by insisting on changing the topic to God's dissatisfaction with their sinful lives and their pending damnation. No warnings about hell to the other thief on the cross. No intimate pleading with Mary and Martha, or with his own family members, for that matter, about their need to wait until after his death and resurrection and then to be "washed in the blood," lest they burn in eternal fire. Sinners, friends, strangers, or family members; all appear to be spared hearing from the lips of the savior himself the gospel message of salvation from hell.

Now, arguments from silence are problematic. Perhaps Jesus constantly hammered people about hell but the gospel writers glossed over that fact, choosing instead to share with us Jesus' many parables of the kingdom and assorted comments on other topics. But it is curious that we find no Jesus theme of "Repent, ye sinners, or I'll throw ye into hell for rejecting me!" anywhere in the gospels. Very curious, indeed. In Matthew 4:17, we read that Jesus began preaching "Repent," but nothing about hell. In a few other verses, he does warn about hell—or warn about two different words that in some translations of the Bible are sometimes translated "hell" but that maybe don't mean the "hell" that we assume today, to be more technically accurate. But these warnings are sometimes in parables, where literal, factual truth may be neither required nor assumed; mainly concern punishment for sins rather than for not being born again; and are primarily directed at religious leaders and others who thought they were already saved. The fact of the unwashed masses going to hell doesn't seem to matter so much, though God so loved the world.

 If hell is the overriding concern, and the reason he came to die on a cross, then why didn't Jesus say that? Why substitute temporal trivia, really, for crucial warnings about the paramount disaster of eternal damnation for billions of souls? Why so many, very inclusive "your father in heaven" statements to the crowds he addressed, as though the audience was already in the family of God? Was Jesus just sharing facts about a precious few other somebodies with the throngs of hell bound listeners, or did he mean that they were the blessed, and destined for heaven?

Now, maybe hell wasn't the point that the gospel writers wanted to stress in their portrayal of Jesus' message. That is possible. But maybe someone else created the "fear of hell" bandwagon, and Jesus never intended for anyone to ride on it. Maybe he never desired the gospel to be shrouded in "Turn or burn" rhetoric. Maybe, just maybe, he had other, more hopeful plans for the billions of people he came to die for, those who we preach are eternally trapped in the fires of hell.

More on this later.

Gracious Disagreement

Here's a lovely little video clip of Dr. Greg Boyd on historic diversity within the church on the "negotiables." This is one of several intriguing video tidbits from the BioLogos Foundation, a site well worth exploring for a scientific Christian perspective on science, the Bible, and Christianity.

"Having to wrestle with diverse opinions and perspectives is hardly a new thing in the church. Unfortunately, we've lost some of that: the ability to be gracious with disagreements, especially among conservative Protestants throughout the twentieth century."

I'm not convinced this is unique to 20th century Protestants, but I like the use of "gracious" in this context and agree that its absence makes us look "ugly." Can we disagree but remain gracious in our disagreements?

Loved by God, But No Billy Graham

I have no problem with opinions, as a concept. No surprise, coming from someone with the word "Soapbox" in the title of their blog, eh? I believe that those with a large following, those who influence many, or those whose followers lack, shall we say, sophistication and critical thinking should be particularly careful about what opinions they express publicly, however. If you watch this video, you'll probably agree with me that some of those in the crowd appear to be easily swayed by a fancy blue suit, a little background organ, a little choral repetition, and a little bravado when criticizing their brothers and sisters in Christ. I suspect that these are some of the little sheep, dear to Jesus, whose deception and abuse will lead to some serious judgment on the wolves among us.

Here are a couple quotes from this video that I found interesting and/or especially troubling:

1. Criticizing seeker-sensitive pastors, Hinn declares that, "The seeker-sensitive move in America is destroying America, people. [...] Those seeker-friendly churches are not of God." I wonder: Are these churches worse than, say, the real-and-of-God church in Corinth? The church in Sardis? How sure should one be about making a statement like this? I thought it was the devil's job to accuse the brethren.

2. Continuing with his attack, Hinn adds, "They worry more about crowds than getting souls into heaven." What I find interesting here is Hinn's likely assumption about these human pastors' ability to get souls into heaven. We can get souls into heaven? Really? More interesting, what if we mere mortals don't perform some work of evangelism, of preaching the true gospel? A gospel that Hinn actually articulates fairly well toward the end of this clip, by the way. Are we responsible for people who don't go to heaven? Is it our fault? More on this later.

3. "Any pastor who is ashamed to say 'Jesus' is because [sic] he is demon-possessed, that's why. [...] If you are afraid to say 'Jesus," there's a devil inside of you." Really? Hmmmm. Can anyone say, "filter"?

And is it just me, or does the blue suit remind anyone else of Captain Kangaroo?

Ah, Benny, my opinionated brother.... May you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we all.

Hearing and Teaching the Real Bible

Here's a great quote by Frederick Buechner, from the opening lines of "The Magnificent Defeat" in Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons:

When a minister reads out of the Bible, I am sure that at least nine times out of ten the people who happen to be listening at all hear not what is really being said but only what they expect to hear read. And I think that what most people expect to hear read from the Bible is an edifying story, an uplifting thought, a moral lesson—something elevating, obvious, and boring. So that is exactly what very often they do hear. Only that is too bad because if you really listen—and maybe you have to forget that it is the Bible being read and a minister who is reading it—there is no telling what you might hear.

What do we expect to hear in the Bible? Tales of moral heroes? Seven Keys to a successful spiritual life? Or passages that say only what we already think they say? More than that, I hope.

More troubling is the question of what to do when we can't make sense of the Bible, or when a "plain reading" of the text contradicts what we expected to find. Move on to something else? Ignore the differences? Harmonize everything into a nonsensical porridge? Run to the footnotes, as we would the solution to a crossword puzzle beyond our ability, and rest in the arms of whoever wrote the opinions commentary we find there?

Our experiences with the Bible from earliest childhood shape our response to both these questions. If Bible "training" in Sunday School consists of Quiz Bowl drills and fill-in-the-blank responses, then confusion when we try to read the Bible for ourselves should be a too-familiar occurrence, a sort of purgatory in which we must patiently wait until someone more spiritually gifted delivers the unintuitive-but-correct-somehow explanation; and a view of the Scriptures as an unappealing blend of Dick and Jane stories, fortune cookie wisdom, and esoteric riddles would be the natural result of our experience. And if Bible study for adults resembles the kiddie version.... No wonder we sound like the Israelites when they insisted they would much prefer God speak only to Moses. Why try to read the Bible when the pastor is so much better at it? Why bother raising your hand when you're probably wrong? Spiritual pablum goes down easier when it's all we've ever had.

At what age are children in most churches told that parts of the Bible are actually ambiguous, even to the "initiate," or that it doesn't provide satisfactory answers to some very serious questions, or that equally-saved Christians interpret some of the same passages in very different ways—and what those differences are, and how this could happen if we all read the same Bible and have the same Spirit? At what age are they told that the Bible has any purpose beyond "right answers" and that they are allowed to question? I suspect that the age is somewhere between "after finishing Sunday School" and "never." 

But why? What do we gain by creating the illusion of a uniform and perfect interpretation for every verse in the Bible, and suggesting that only our people have it figured out, and ignoring the reality of normal and even healthy diversity within the church, and treating the Bible like a magical dictionary or cookbook to be consulted from time to time? Other than a convenient script and a Quiz Bowl answer key for the harried volunteer in the classroom, that is.

I know what we lose when we engage in this perhaps unintentional mythologizing, when the children figure out that their church is sending them off to college or the workplace "equipped" with a grab bag of Bible trivia, Chick tract theology, straw man scientific arguments, and prejudice against those who don't believe exactly as we do: credibility. We appear gullible and ignorant, if not dishonest and biased. We lose the right to be heard when they have real questions about faith, or when they discover the rest of the Body of Christ. And as a result, and even if we do manage to keep them until they finish high school, the church loses most of its next generation.

We need to do better. We need to be honest about the Bible, the church, and our faith. Messy and complex though they may be, that is what the Lord has given and left for us. Do we doubt that he knew what he was doing? Do we really think he needed us to tidy up his mess and package things better for the little ones? O we of little faith.... Suffer the children. Let them come!