Meat and Vegetables - Genesis 1

This is what's wrong with the King James version of the Bible:

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." (Genesis 1:29)

I don't know a single carnivore that would call plants, trees, or seeds "meat."

To yield like air in matters of musical styles (specifically "praise music")

The topic of "praise music" vs. hymns came up in our Bible study this week. In fact, I was the one that brought it up. We're studying the book of James and were specifically talking about James 3:17 where it mentions not showing partiality and not being hypocritical. Our Bible study book had a great quote on this: 

He "will yield like air in matters of personal feeling or interest," but "will stand like rock in respect of moral principle." -- C. G. Moule

One of the gals in the study piped up, "But now-a-days everyone is expected to be tolerant" as if it were automatically a bad thing. So I replied, "Yes, there are definitely times when tolerance is important." Everyone seemed to look at me like I'd sprouted a third eye and one person asked, "What do you mean? Can you give an example?" I gave a few, but the one I finally landed on was the preference some people have for praise music and the alternate preference that others have for hymns sung with their traditional tunes. 

I was rather taken aback when this led to an immediate response about how bad praise music is (We do sing a fair bit of praise music in our congregation, by the way.) and how it often involves singing the same line over and over again, such as "God is awesome, God is awesome." I said (oh yes, I did), "you mean like when the angels sing 'Holy, Holy, Holy?"

I won't get into the rest of our conversation here. That's just hashing over a rather discordant and painful time. But I would like to take on the topic itself. I did a quick search of R.C. Sproul's thoughts on praise music (since he was referred to by the person who was so against it) and I found an article that wasn't actually written by R.C. but by a guy named Gene Edward Veith. I found a couple of debatable points in his essay, which you can read on the Ligonier website, but I'd like to zero in on one specific paragraph, just in the interests of trying to focus on the topic and not nitpick on the tangential particulars. He said;

The question is not whether or not we should make use of contemporary music in church, but whether we should make use of pop music. By its nature, pop music is catchy, entertaining, and thus “likeable.” It cannot have much content, much less complexity or depth. If it did, it would cease to be pop art. The art of the folk culture, with its traditions and communal experience, has such things, as does the consciously-crafted art of the high culture, with its challenging content.

I'm not sure how all praise music got condensed down into being pop music, or along the lines of pop music, but I'm going to roll with that. I also don't agree that all pop music is catchy and therefore "likeable" but again, I'll slide past that to get to the next two sentences. "It cannot have much content, much less complexity or depth. If it did, it would cease to be pop art." ... Really? Is that true? 

So I ask you, is pop art a veritable wasteland in the realm of art/music? Can you think of any pop music (or perhaps just a contemporary "praise song") that has any depth at all? And how would you evaluate depth anyway? Thoughts?

Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God

Rating:	★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Religion & Spirituality
Author:	David Platt

I decided to read the book, Radical Together by David Platt, at the suggestion of our pastor. Upon finishing it, I think I can best summarize my thoughts on the book by saying that Platt had a lot of good things to say, but he not only didn't say them very well (sometimes contradicting himself, many times overstating himself, and almost always showing only one piece of a much larger picture), but I think he overemphasized very extraverted traditional forms of evangelism and what it means to be "radical". I've read other reviews on this book and most readers seem to really, really like it. So obviously Platt is hitting cords with people and is able to motivate them in a way that just doesn't seem to connect with me. Different strokes for different folks and all that. (Could it be that Sensing individuals like the very clear, very physical forms of being "radical"? Both my mom and Pastor Don are S's and both like Platt's books. If you're an iNtuitive and you read this book, I'd love to hear your thoughts.) But this review is going to be about my response and thoughts on this book. So if you liked this book, that's great. But it really rubbed me the wrong way.

I could summarize Platt's six main points, but most other reviews already do that, so I won't spend the time. Rather, I'd like to focus on his underlying foundational premises and presuppositions. For the most part I agree with his stated points. We do need to be congregations who focus resources on more than just ourselves. We should have Bible-based preaching. We should encourage and equip congregants to build relationship with people in the community, helping people physically and spiritually. We should have a great concern for the poor and the orphans and the widow. I'm right on with all that. But Platt rests these "radical" (some might call them Biblical) behaviors on a foundation that I find at times to be shaky and at other times to be very one-sided. Platt clearly has a heart for evangelism and his book is primarily a focus on evangelism. And I don't have a problem with that. But I do have a problem with Platt's understanding of the church and her purpose and I do have a problem with Platt's statements that put evangelism at the pinnacle of all that is radical. It is one thing to focus on evangelism as an important part of what it means to be within a Christian community, it's another thing to make evangelism out to be all and (literally) end all.

Premises and Presuppositions
Platt makes several statements throughout the book that put in no uncertain terms his opinion of the purpose of the church:

"The only possible vision for the church of Jesus Christ is to make known the glory of God in all nations."

"God has called us to lock arms with one another in single-minded, death-defying obedience to one objective: the declaration of his gospel for the demonstration of his glory to all nations."

"If the ultimate goal of the church is to take the gospel to all people groups, then everything we do in the church must be aimed toward that end."

Platt apparently believes that the ultimate and overarching goal of the church of Jesus Christ is evangelism. He doesn't say it's a part of the church's calling, but that it IS the church's calling. Sure, we're supposed to go forth to all nations. God definitely wants to get the word out and he wants us to do some of the footwork on that. But evangelism is only one of several things that glorify God. (Of course, evangelism can also be done in a way that very much does not glorify God and makes him out to be something he's not. But that's a different topic of discussion.) There are other things, according to the scriptures, that also glorify God: our worship (John 4:24), our love for one another (Romans 15:7), our sanctification as we become more like Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18), and our service to others with the gifts God has given us (2 Corinthians 8:19). To imply that one of those things is more important than any other distorts the picture of what the church has been called to be and to do. If Platt had written from a premise that evangelism is one of the actions of the church, I'd feel much more comfortable with that. Writing that it's the "only possible vision for the church" minimizes the importance of other gifts within the church such as discipleship, hospitality, teaching, preaching, encouraging, showing mercy, etc.

I believe Platt also sensationalizes what it means to be "radical." He never defines the term, but the impression you get from reading the book is that in order to be radical, you must do something that can be measured, and when it is measured, it will big. Quitting your job and moving to a third world country to tell people about Jesus is clearly visible to the undiscerning eye. It is big. Going through the church budget and giving more away to overseas missions, or giving substantial amounts to programs that help orphans and widows, is measurable. And big. Platt may not have meant to imply this, but from reading the book it's fairly clear that if you can't see the action from a mile away, it's not radical. The Bible makes clear, though, that sometimes it's the little things that are radical. When there's another person in the congregation who gets on your very last nerve and who almost makes you want to just leave the church altogether, and yet through Christ's love and forgiveness you learn to love and forgive that individual in turn, that is radical. It's not easy to measure. It might not even be visible to those who didn't realize the animosity that was previously in the relationship. But that doesn't mean it's not entirely radical, especially in the midst of our self-protectionist, cut bait and run kind of culture. Or sticking with a congregation through thick and thin because we recognize that God has put us in the family, not to run away from it or to despise it, but to learn, within that context, how to hope, how to forgive, how to be patient, how to be kind, how to forbear and above all how to love well. That is radical. Sure, staying put might not look radical. And to be honest, sometimes it isn't radical. But staying put and learning to faithfully follow Jesus in a day to day setting as an imperfect person surrounded by imperfect people -- that is truly radical. If we're going to talk about being radical, we should be using the Bible's standard (forgiving 70x7 times or turning the other cheek) rather than using an outdated, Americanized view of what the term means.

Maybe it's not a contradiction, but it sure isn't very clear
Platt also seems to contradict himself a few times. The first time I think might actually have been intentional. In fact, the title of the chapter, "The gospel that saves us from work saves us to work" shows the problem. Though I understand what Platt was trying to get at (I think) -- that we are not saved by our works, so we should quit trying. Rather we are saved by Christ and the overflow of that is radical obedience to Jesus (shown in our actions/works) - I don't feel like he made that very clear in the chapter. I finished the section thinking, "OK, so we're supposed to stop working our butts off to the point of exhaustion so we can work our butts off to the point of exhaustion... for Jesus. How are those two things different again?" It simply wasn't clear and the chapter seemed like one big unresolved contradiction. But I also felt like Platt contradicted himself when talking about programs. In chapter one, Platt made very clear that sometimes we're so focused on programs that we're not actually following God's word. I agree to some extent with that. Sometimes a church that is focused on its programs is a church that's lost focus of itself as a body, the body of Christ. So what I got from chapter one was that programs should be demoted or done away with altogether in an effort to better align with the word of God. But then he proceeds in chapter four, in the section entitled "People, Not Programs," to suggest an alternative to big programs that take place in the church building. The alternative? Little programs taking place in people's homes. He doesn't change the what so much as the size and the where. So programs are OK as long as they're broken into little bits? As an introvert, I certainly have nothing against smaller group sizes. But if we're going to talk radical, shouldn't the difference be more than just quantity and location? Shouldn't there be a fundamental difference in how we relate to one another, not as co-participants in a program but as co-participants in the Kingdom?

What also wasn't clear was what Platt meant by certain words. I've already pointed out that he didn't define "radical" except through big, measurable examples. But he also never explained what he meant by "the gospel." He talked about the gospel quite a bit. But if I had never heard the term before, and I only knew about it through Platt, this is what I would discern from this book: 1) The gospel has been chained. (Implied on pages 45-46.) 2) The gospel needs to be unchained so that it will unleash God's people/the church. (Pages 25, 30, 34, and 46. Although on page 41 it's leaders who do the unleashing.) 3) The gospel gets people to do stuff that they wouldn't otherwise do (I didn't get page numbers for this. It was frequently stated, though.) and 4) sometimes the gospel is "of grace" and that gets people to do even more than they would have done. (Not as frequently stated. Seemed like a special case scenario.) I also felt like evangelism was never defined. Again, if I were an outsider looking in, I would assume from this book that evangelism consisted in convincing people (preferably in far away countries) to turn around and start convincing other people to turn around and convince yet other people about... something. ... probably about this "gospel" and Jesus and about how important evangelism is. Remember back in the days before the postmodern area when people could talk about Christianey stuff and assume that everyone else knew exactly what they were talking about? This book would have fit in really well back then. Even if Platt is directing his book toward a wholly Christian audience, I still think that some background, such as what he means when he says things, would help round out his message and make his meanings far more clear. As it is, he could very well mean that we just need to make people pray a prayer. And that's it. It's over. Check that person off and move on to the next one. I find that neither "radical", nor indicative of being "together."

Radical Together
Which brings me to one last pet peeve. When I see the words "radical" and "together" placed side-by-side, my impression is that the topic being covered will have to do with being together, being a community, in a way that is only made possible through God (which would therefore mean that it's radical). So upon reading this book and finding that most of the sections were really about how to organize programs and budgets in a large church setting, I was pretty thrown. Where's the together? If we're doing something simultaneously does that make it a "together" thing?

Walk the Word
I think David Platt is overall trying to make a good point. If you're going to say that you're a follower of Jesus Christ, then you should be reading the word. If you're trying to build your spiritual life only through reading books about the Bible rather than reading the Bible itself, you're going to end up being either a weak or a nominal Christian. If you're going to call yourself a Christian, but you're going to immerse yourself in the wealthy, self-centered American mindset rather than in the self-sacrificing, giving Christian mindset, then is your faith coming through in your actions? Are you a follower of Jesus or a follower of comfort? Are you walking the walking and not just talking the talk? These are certainly things that self-satisfied American Christians should be reflecting on.

But the way that Platt challenges people to think these things through, and the specific examples he gives as answers to the problems he's addressing, can go a long way toward creating guilt and misdirection among the people of God. You don't have to be livin' it loud to be radical. If your gifts are compassion and hospitality, those are things that are sorely needed. If your gifts are discipleship or teaching, the church needs you. If your gifts are preaching or showing mercy, God has a purpose for you. Evangelism is not the only call that God has placed upon his people. If you do not have the gift of evangelism, or if you are an evangelist who perseveres quietly through trial rather than running for greener pastures, that does not make you any less radical in God's eyes. You know what makes Christians truly and completely radical? Jesus. It's only through him that we're anything at all. His gifts are many and plentiful and cover a variety of purposes within the church. And by using those gifts within the context of a congregation, we can bring glory to God through worship, love for one another, sanctification, the use of our God given gifts, and evangelism. Now that's radical together.

Pressuring Congress to pass laws --> Civil Religion

I'm on chapter four of Resident Aliens, which hits upon the topic of Christian ethics and therefore also upon the relationship of the church and the government. Hauerwas and Willimon hit the nail on the head when ti comes to Christians trying to legislate morality. It shows a misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of the church as well as a gross misunderstanding of the relationship between church and state. What follows are several quotes from the fourth chapter. (*sheepish grin* OK, so not just several but lots.)

"The way most of us have been conditioned to think about an issue like abortion is to wonder what laws, governmental coercions, and resources would be necessary to support a 'Christian' position on this issue. The first ethical work, from this point of view, is for Christians to devise a position on abortion and then to ask the government to support that position."

"The habit of Constantinian thinking is difficult to break. It leads Christians to judge their ethical positions, not on the basis of what is faithful to our peculiar tradition, but rather on the basis of how much Christian ethics Caesar can be induced to swallow without choking. The tendency therefore is to water down Christian ethics, filtering them through basically secular criteria like 'right to life' or 'freedom of choice,' pushing them on the whole world as universally applicable common sense, and calling them Christian."

"Here is an invitation to a way that strikes hard against what the world already knows, what the world defines as good behavior, what makes sense to everybody. The Sermon [on the Mount], by its announcement and its demands, makes necessary the formation of a colony, not because disciples are those who have a need to be different, but because the Sermon, if believed and lived, makes us different, shows us the world to be alien, an odd place where what makes sense to everybody else is revealed to be opposed to what God is doing among us. Jesus was not crucified for saying or doing what made sense to everyone." 

"Merging one's personal aspirations within the aspirations of the nation, falling into step behind the flag, has long been a popular means of overcoming doubts about the substance of one's own life." 

"Christian community, life in the colony, is not primarily about togetherness. It is about the way of Jesus Christ with those whom he calls to himself. It is about disciplining our wants and needs in congruence with a true story, which gives us the resources to lead truthful lives. In living out the story together, togetherness happens, but only as a by-product of the main project of trying to be faithful to Jesus."

"Yet most modern ethics begin from the Enlightenment presupposition of the isolated, heroic self, the allegedly rational individual who stands alone and decides and chooses. The goal of this ethic is to detach the individual from his or her tradition, parents, stories, community, and history, and thereby allow him or her to stand alone, to decide, to choose, and to act alone.  It is an ethic of great value in our type of society because the corporation needs workers who are suitably detached from communities other than their place of work, people who are willing to move at the beck and call of the corporation."

"The question is, What sort of community would be required to support an ethic of nonviolence, marital fidelity, forgiveness, and hope such as the one sketched by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount?"

"Whenever Christians think that we can support our ethic by simply pressuring Congress to pass laws or to spend tax money, we fail to do justice to the radically communal quality of Christian ethics. In fact, much of what passes for Christian social concern today, of the left or of the right, is the social concern of a church that seems to have despaired of being the church. Unable through our preaching, baptism, and witness to form a visible community of faith, we content ourselves with ersatz Christian ethical activity--lobbying congress to support progressive strategies, asking the culture at large to be a little less racist, a little less promiscuous, a little less violent. Falwall's Moral Majority is little different from any mainline Protestant church that opposes him. Both groups imply that one can practice Christian ethics without being in the Christian community. Both begin with the Constantian assumption that there is no way for the gospel to be present in our world without asking the world to support our convictions through its own social and political institutionalization. The result is the gospel transformed into civil religion." 

"The Sermon on the Mount cares nothing for the European Enlightenment's infatuation with the individual self as the most significant ethical unit. For Christians, the church is the most significant ethical unit."

"We ask ourselves what sort of church we would need to be to enable an ordinary person like her [a pregnant teenager] to be the sort of disciple Jesus calls her to be. More important, her presence in our community offers the church the wonderful opportunity to be the church.... ...we are graciously given the eyes to see her as a gift of God sent to help ordinary people like us to discover the church as the Body of Christ."

"Our ethics do involve individual transformation, not as a subjective, inner, personal experience, but rather as the work of a transformed people who have adopted us, supported us, disciplined us, and enabled us to be transformed. The most interesting, creative, political solutions we Christians have to offer our troubled society are not new laws, advice to Congress, or increased funding for social programs--although we may find ourselves supporting such national efforts. The most creative social strategy we have to offer is the church. Here we show the world a manner of life the world can never achieve through social coercion or governmental action. We serve the world by showing it something that it is not, namely, a place where God is forming a family out of strangers.

"The Christian faith recognizes that we are violent, fearful, frightened creatures who cannot reason our will our way out of our mortality. So the gospel begins, not with the assertion that we are violent, fearful, frightened creatures, but with the pledge that, if we offer ourselves to a truthful story and the community formed by listening to and enacting that story in the church, we will be transformed into people more significant than we could ever have been on our own.

"As Barth says, '[The Church] exists... to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to [the world's] own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise' (Church Dogmatics, 4.3.2)" [Brackets in this quote are from the authors.]

"Ethically speaking, it should interest us that, in beginning the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, Jesus does not ask disciplines [sic] to do anything. The Beatitudes are in the indicative, not the imperative, mood. First we are told what God has done before anything is suggested about what we are to do." [emphasis theirs]

The Sermon on the Mount "is morality pushed to the limits, not so much in the immediate service of morality, but rather to help us see something so new, so against what we have always heard said, that we cannot rely on our older images of what is and what is not."

"We are forever getting confused into thinking that scripture is mainly about what we are supposed to do rather than a picture of who God is." [emphasis theirs]

Turning the other cheek "is not a stratagem for getting what we want but the only manner of life available, now that, in Jesus, we have seen what God wants. We seek reconciliation with the neighbor, not because we will feel so much better afterward, but because reconciliation is what God is doing in the world in the Christ."

"Therefore, Christians begin our ethics, not with anxious, self-serving questions of what we ought to do as individuals to make history come out right, because, in Christ, God has already made history come out right. The Sermon is the inauguration manifesto of how the world looks now that God in Christ has taken matters in hand. And essential to the way that God has taken matters in hand is an invitation to all people to become citizens of a new Kingdom, a messianic community where the world God is creating takes visible, practical form."

Whew! I still have a few pages of the chapter to go, but I thought these quotes were all so meaty that I wanted to share them here. 

Would you chain yourself to a tree to save it? Here, have a cheap bracelet.

In the world of religiosity, there are levels, or perhaps they're Dantéan spheres, of holiness. Those within each sphere look very similar to each other no matter which god they've chosen to follow: the Omnipotent God, the Mother Earth, or the Perfect Man. Among the grandest sphere you'll find mystics, monks and priests. Beneath them the religious -- they attend the right meetings, read the right books, and make decisions based on their beliefs. In the level below that fall those who are really more nominal about their beliefs, talking the talk now and then, but walking the walk only when it suits their needs. The bulk of people fall here. They may follow one system of beliefs while paying lip service to an entirely different religion. The worst of these we call hypocrites. The rest are just how people are, we might say with a shrug. There is no sphere for those who are against a set of beliefs, because the very act of being against something gives this group of people a distinct set of beliefs of their own, and therefore would relegate them to one of the spheres already mentioned. The goal of the leadership of any movement is to draw people from that outer sphere to one of the inner ones. But I wonder, sometimes, whether their tactics don't really just draw people from one part of the outer circle to a different part of the outer circle, all the while lining the pockets, or stroking the egos, of those in the center -- opiating the masses for the self-gratification of the greedy shepherds.

A few weeks back I received an invitation from the Sierra Club in the mail. For anyone unfamiliar with the Sierra Club, they are (according to their website) "the largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States." One of the leaflets in the invitation asked me, "Would you chain yourself to a tree to save it?" In other words, what they were saying was, "Would you be willing to move to the in-most circle -- the realm of mystics, monks and priests -- to show your total dedication to the cause?" It was an evangelical call, one that was crafted to stir my blood and give me hope that I, too, could be radical and cool in my religion of environmentalism. It was designed to strike a cord within me that I could be great. I could be radical. Or, if I would just join the Sierra Club, I could at least be associated with such greatness. I could wear a backpack and bracelet that would mark me as a fanatic who's willing to go all out for the cause -- nevermind the fact that the backpack and bracelet are really tools of evangelism that ultimately undermine the cause. (The bracelet is shown on the right in the photo and the offer for the backpack is in the lower left. The bracelet is the tease, the backpack is the hook.) 

I would think that an environmental organization would, as one of its standard modes of operation, reduce, reuse and recycle, and encourage others to do the same. And yet here they've not only wasted some trees to generate the paper the evangelical call was printed on, but they've included a ridiculously cheap bracelet in the letter that, if tossed into the recycling bin without first being removed from the envelope, could muck up an entire load of paper recycling. I can't imagine anyone over the age of 5 or 6 being thrilled with such a bracelet, so for those that caught the fact it was in the envelope before they tossed the paper into recycling are now left with the choice of throwing it away (Rather than reducing their trash, the Sierra Club has just helped them to increase it.) or donating it to charity (where it'll most likely get thrown out as too cheap to sell). 

And that's just the bracelet. If you join now at the low introductory rate of $15, you'll receive an official Sierra Club 1892 Rucksack in the same style as the one used so long ago by John Muir, the founder of the club. It might be in the same style, but I'd bet money that not only is it made of very different material (something petroleum based?) but it was also probably made in China. There's no way they could make anything even remotely the same quality as John Muir's original rucksack for under $15, so not only are you contributing to environmental problems by procuring this petroleum based product that had to travel half way around the world to get to you and that was most likely made under lax environmental regulations, thereby contributing to the pollution of another nation, but it's not going to last long and will soon be yet another item you can add to the land fill. 

Why would the Sierra Club so brashly invalidate its own message by marketing in this way? Well, it takes a lot of work to become the "largest and most influential" environmental organization in the United States. Sometimes you have to do things that don't quite fit your message in order to further spread your message. In fact, sometimes you have to do things that argue directly against your message... in order to further spread your message. 

It's a philosophy that I see used not just by organizations like the Sierra Club, but within church circles as well. If the message is only spread through numerical growth, the argument goes, then numerical growth is of key importance. So services, programs, style and focus all need to be such that they will create the largest numerical growth possible within the congregation. And what draws people to an organization? A sense that perhaps they can be, if not the fanatic in the center circle, at least closely associated with the inner circle through being a part of a church that: (choose all that apply) is cool, is happening, is growing, is "authentic" (whatever that means), is exciting, is deep, that makes me feel good, that makes me feel like I get it and the rest of the world doesn't, that makes me feel special.

There's a common belief in many Christian circles that bigger is better. Quick growth is better. Younger is better. Newer is better. And if your congregation isn't young, energetic and growing by leaps and bounds numerically, then the opposite must be true. The converse of the belief is that if an organization is not growing, then it is ineffective at accomplishing its goal. Such congregations are just old and dried up and outdated. But what is most egregious, I find, is that the mentality, then, is to grow at all costs. Can you truly convey a message by contradicting it? And why do we buy that when it's a lie. It's a lie that we're quick to believe no matter which congregation we're in, the large or small, the energetic or the faithfully plodding along.

I'm not saying that growth is bad and stagnation is good. Far from it. What I'm saying is that the church has a message. It has been called not only to share the message, but to live it. When we decide that sharing the message is so important that we can stop living it in order to share it better, then "we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." (ripped from 1 John 1:8) Part of the message is perseverance. Part of the message is faithfulness. When we criticize those who have faithfully persevered even through difficult times we are criticizing them for taking the message of the gospel to heart and living it out. We are undermining our own ability to share the message by condemning our own brethren for holding true to the message. We may look or sound very incredibly cool. We may get people in that outer circle to stop and think, "I want to be in that inner circle. I want to be radical for Jesus." But what kind of radicality do we call them to? If they buy the t-shirts and raise their hands at the meetings and go our for a beer with their small group, have they really moved from the outer circle to an inner circle? If their choice to follow God depends primarily upon their own need to feel like they're a part of something or they like the energized feeling they get after a service or they need to be "fed," are they really following God, or are they submitting to a message of consumerism, or me-ism, or coolness? If you follow God for the buzz, are you following God or the buzz?

Are we calling people to Jesus? Or are we just encouraging them to move around in the nominal circle they were already a part of in order to make ourselves look more important?

Shallow Small Group

Gotta admit, this is pretty funny.

The South is Christ-haunted

"I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted." -- Flannery O'Connor, in her article The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South

(Just saw this quote in a Tom Cannon post and thought it was so well said that it needed to be reposted.)

This makes Jesus facepalm (times inifinity)

I can honestly say that this is just as good as the original....



Don't miss these money quotes:

"God is my friend."

"Worshippin' Worshippin' Yeah!"

"Church can be fun. You know that it is."

"So excited. We so excited. We knowin' Jesus is alive today."

Oh, and please don't miss the cafe shot.

Not only did they entirely capture the simplistic, contrived feeling of the original, but they managed to map it directly onto the church. What's most frightening of all is the number of people who will watch this and think this is what church and Christianity are all about.

I think when you hit this point you stop facepalming and you just walk right over to the wall and start banging your head against it.

Christian Ghetto Slang, Amen.

We visited a church in the Texas hill country this past Sunday, that's right. The people were just... very friendly and welcoming and just... came up and just... talked to us and they had donuts and coffee available even in the middle of the service, amen. The sermon was good, that's right. They (husband and wife) talked about how we can just... choose to take offense in a situation. Or we can just... choose to forgive. And when we choose to take offense, it's not the other person who gets trapped in the offense, it's ourselves, that's right. It was a good lesson and one that we even had cause to refer to later during lunch when one of our party wanted to take offense with another.

But the language, O Lord. The language was the holy language, Lord, of the Christian Ghetto, thank you Jesus. It was the language, where when you pray to God, dear Lord, you must repeat his name, sweet Jesus, as frequently as possible. Thank you Lord. It's the language in which we refer not to "today" but to "this day," yes Lord. It's the language where we just,... we can just pour our hearts out and just... say what's on our hearts to our dear Lord, thank you Jesus. So while the people were friendly and the sermon was helpful, I just found myself just thinking about language, oh yes. And I was wondering if it was just a good thing, Jesus. Or just a bad thing. Or if perhaps, oh yes, maybe it's just a container, that just... it just holds our good words within its own sweet silliness, yes Lord.

Yes, brother. Yes, sister. Such is the blessed vernacular of the Christian ghetto, thank you Jesus. Amen.

Texas makes Jesus Facepalm - Yom Chechecheche

I'm laughing so hard I think I'm going to choke. I'm not kidding, this is hilarious.

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Christian Culture and Raising Kids

Richard, Michael, Jerid and I have been having an interesting discussion on the intersection of public schools and Christianity in America. (That discussion should be viewable by all, but when I tried to get to it while signed out, FB asked me to sign in. So I'd be curious to know of non-FB-contacts of mine can see/comment on that thread.) I just started rereading Resident Aliens (by Hauerwas and Willimon). I hit two passages in the short section I've read so far that seemed to hit on this topic, so I thought I'd share them here.

The second paragraph touches on raising children, but the first paragraph explains the context of the term "colony":

The image that evokes this adventure for us is, again, found in Philippians 3:20 -- "our commonwealth is in heaven." Moffatt more vividly translates this politeuma as "We are a colony of heaven." The Jews in Dispersion were well acquainted with what it meant to live as strangers in a strange land, aliens trying to stake out a living on someone else's turf. Jewish Christians had already learned, in their day-to-day life in the synagogue, how important it was for resident aliens to gather to name the name, to tell the story, to sing Zion's songs in a land that didn't know Zion's God.

A colony is a beachhead, an outpost, an island of one culture in the middle of another, a place where the values of home are reiterated and passed on to the young, a place where the distinctive language and life-style of the resident aliens are lovingly nurtured and reinforced.

The context of this second quote was the change in American culture between the days when everything was shut down on Sundays and "The church was the only show in town," to our present situation where there are many alternatives on a Sunday morning and people no longer feel obligated to attend a religious service of any sort on a Sunday. This change, by the way, is a repeating theme in our Sunday school classes and gals Bible study in our congregation and therefore one that is frequently at the forefront of my mind.

The demise of the Constantinian world view, the gradual decline of the notion that the church needs some sort of surrounding "Christian" culture to prop it up and mold its young, is not a death to lament. It is an opportunity to celebrate. The decline of the old, Constantianian synthesis between the church and the world means that we American Christians are at last free to be faithful in a way that makes being a Christian today an exciting adventure.

There has definitely been a change in American culture over the past decades. It's a change that we are probably still right in the middle of. But to the extent that it has freed people to follow through on their beliefs, whether Christian, atheist, humanist, or some other system of belief, I think that's a good thing. I'm all for integrity and I see no integrity in a culture that encourages people to go through the motions of going to church and calling oneself a Christian if that doesn't match either your beliefs or the way you live your life outside of the obligatory Sunday morning service. I also think it's an important change in how kids grow up today. Rather than being raised in the heart of a culture that often said one thing and did another, the children of Christians are hopefully being confronted with the Scriptures in a way that makes it clear what encompasses Christianity and what has been tacked on by people and worldly culture.

In a sense, what we are living in the midst of is the fruition of the Reformation. In America, we have finally come to a point where we can separate "church" from "country" or "culture" and see it for what God has said it should be and not what we have said it should be. Of course you can't separate church from culture. But you can recognize a culture that is of the church and a culture that is not of the church and see that those are two distinct things, just as the culture of the colony will be different than the culture of the host country where the colony is located.

So what does that look like as we raise our children? Jerid's original post that got me traipsing down the education discussion road was this:

‎"Over the next ten years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education that goes beyond a high school degree." -President Obama

This is little because the knowledge required has increased. It is mostly because schools, especially public schools, are spending more time teaching social agendas and less time demanding excellence in knowledge and ability.

I do think that schools teach social agendas, for good and for ill. I like the overall social agenda at our kids' school - one that encourages Independence, open-mindedness, integrity, caring, and community involvement. (Granted, how that plays out isn't always what I'd wish for. There's a curriculum, and then there's staff, and sometimes the attitudes of the latter overrides some of the positive aspects of the former.) Our kids perform well on standardized tests, so their knowledge seems to be proficient despite the social agenda. And I think that more often than not, the social attitudes and teaching of the staff mirrors our own beliefs, even though the teachers' spiritual beliefs might not align with our own. The difference doesn't lie in the what, but the why, and our children learn that through their interaction with our Christian colony.

(Completely tangential: Though we raise our kids in our colony, whether they choose to remain in our colony is a decision that we leave up to them. But that's a topic for another day.)

There's of course an implied "agree/disagree" question in this post, but I'd also be curious to hear of examples of social agendas in the school that hinder the ability of a colony (of any sort - Christian, Muslim, environmental, gay, Mexican, etc.) to raise their children according to their own colony's values. I don't think that being challenged on your beliefs is a hindrance. Harassment is. 

Familiarity is not Proof

Just because something is familiar does not mean that it is true.

The thing might very well be true, but you cannot prove that it is true simply by saying that it is so because it is a concept you are comfortable with or have known for as long as you can remember.

You may be able to make a statement of veracity based on experience or study or logic, which may or may not be accurate. But to fall back upon a thing being true simply because you've grown up thinking it is so and the idea is familiar and comfortable is just plain silly, and you shouldn't be surprised if you are ridiculed for your ideas.

... because for some people, this is what it's all about.

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Unwholesome Talk

"When Paul says, 'Forbid any unwholesome talk from entering your conversation,' [Ephesians 4] he is not just talking about cursing, swearing, or vulgar, four-letter words. In fact, to think of the passage in this way grossly minimizes its intent. Paul has something much more redemptively revolutionary in mind. For Paul, unwholesome talk is me-centered talk that has no higher purpose than my own wants, desires, dreams, and demands. Unwholesome words flow from a heart that is controlled by present, personal, earthly desire. They are spoken because they please me and accomplish my goals. They are an attempt to get me what I want, without reference to the lordship of Christ or my call to speak as his ambassador." -- Paul David Tripp, in his book War of Words

I like the phrase he uses here, "grossly minimizes its intent." I think Christians often grossly minimize the intent of a Scripture passage or Biblical directive. And they frequently proceed to take the grossly minimized understanding and magnify it in such a way that minor offenses become major offenses while major offenses are ignored. 

Culture Shock - Life in the Christian Ghetto

Even though I've been attending "Evangelical" churches for the past 28 years, there are still times when I almost feel like I'm walking in a foreign country. I think this tends to happen more when I'm with a group of people who have grown up in the evangelical church and very likely their parents grew up in the evangelical/protestant church and so on. So there's a "church culture" there that these people have been raised in that's tied very closely with their understanding of Christianity (whether or not it actually is a part of Christianity as described by the Bible). 

I was raised as a Catholic through a long line of Catholics (both Roman and Byzantine) and I suppose that's why these things sometimes come as a culture shock. Despite having been immersed in the Evangelical culture on and off for 28 years, my roots are different enough, and my study of the Bible has been compared to an alternate set of cultural understandings, that it's a bit jarring when I run into something from another culture that's called "Christian" but that's rather different than my own understanding of what the Bible says.

It feels like running into a wall. When I try to point out the difference between the Biblical statements regarding the topic and the cultural ones, that pretty much feels like backing up and running into the wall again and again. That's when it finally dawns on me that we're not talking about the Bible or what God has said, we're talking about the way people were raised and what they were told to believe growing up. It may very well have next to nothing to do with what the Bible says, but because it's a part of what they've always thought of as Christianity, it therefore is in their minds intimately related to Christianity. It's not really up for debate. 

My head hurts. 

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer

Bwa ha ha! This is a great find by Scott (whose FB account I would link to, but that would reveal his last name, which points to yet another of the "Privacy? What's that?" policies of Facebook). 

If you don't think it's funny, then I'm guessing you've either never been to a church that's like this, or you're currently a happy attender of a church like this. ;-)

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Death by Chocolate

I found this on the What Christians Like website today. The chocolate cake is iced with the words, "The wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23" and the vanilla cake is iced with the words, "The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

They ran a caption contest along with the photo. My favorite so far was, "Sean got his wish for a chocolate groom's cake, but couldn't escape the foreboding feeling that his bride would always have the upper hand in this relationship." 

Jesus Died for Myspace in Heaven

Nathan and I heard this advertised on the radio this morning.  I laughed so hard I nearly choked.

The Magnificent Ability Christians Have of Munging Things

As both church treasurer and the office admin for a non-profit (soon to be a private foundation, which I don't think can be called a non-profit anymore, can it?), I end up with the occasional oddball letter in my mailbox. One that I received recently is, in my opinion, a classic example of how Christians munge things together without, apparently realizing that they're doing it (or that doing so lacks integrity). Here's a copy of the letter (with all formatting as shown in the original):

SOLDIERS OF CHRIST ARISE

This is a wake up call to God's people! In America, God and His son, Jesus, are cursed in the media, in the public arena and in the market place, all with little overt negative reaction or correction by believers in His Son.  Muslims on the other hand, are willing to die for Allah and Mohammed.  They will not permit criticism of their religion in any way, even using violence if necessary. Muslims stress morals, daily prayers and clean living.
What happened to our morals in this land once established on faith? What happened to the faith of our fathers? What happened to morality throughout this land? We sit back and hope things will change for the better while they deteriorate. Regardless of what the "Word" demands on homosexuality, many large businesses support same sex marriage with funds and personnel. Lobbyists have been able to push their agenda in the schools whereas the Bible is deemphasized or forbidden.
The Word urges Believers to unify to build up the body of Christ to maturity. In every church or religion, there is a lack of will to work in concert to reach a common goal.  Our different interpretations of God's Word keep us from focusing together for Biblical morality. Emphasis on teaching morals is a major need in our pulpits. Scripture teaches that the body will grow to maturity in unity, and only then will there be positive outcomes.  Each denomination is individually ruled, yet all can work as ONE for the morality of this nation. We are losing the battle in families, especially with our young people who are drawn to the dark side of computer technology, television, movies, drugs and a downward lifestyle all because WE failed early on to monitor and express our outrage as worldliness crept in. It is not too late to be assertive.
God generously sent His only Son Jesus because He saw man incapable of directing his steps.  However, with this gift comes the responsibility for our ministries to be proactive in counteracting errant behavior.  You may feel you, and others, have done this.  God is the judge.  If moral standards are emphasized throughout the nation, there will be positive improvement and a reduction in sinful practices.  Why aren't we standing and being counted to bring this nation to the morality about which the apostle Paul spoke? Ponder this message and pass it on to every one you meet.  One person can make a difference.  YOU can make a difference! Will you stand up?

A Pilgrim

What interests me is the confusion about who "we" are. Granted, there are several other interesting pieces to this letter like thinking that terrorists have a lot to teach the church, that the goal of church unity should be for the "morality of this nation", and the strongly stated but completely unsourced statement that emphasizing moral standards will reduce sinful practices. But I think most of those oddball things can be chalked up to the mad ravings of an eccentric outlier.  That confusion about "us" though, that's something that I hear in Bible studies, Sunday school and other Christian gatherings, and it's from some pretty un-eccentric people.

The very first sentence of the letter states that it's to "God's people." Granted, that doesn't necessarily mean Christians, but I think it's safe to assume that that's who the "Pilgrim" had in mind. The second sentence makes clear that an outside group (the media, the public and businesses) is cursing God. After a short digression in which terrorist Muslims are praised before being munged together with non-terrorist Muslims) there's suddenly a switch to a concern about "our morals in this land." Who's morals? The Christians? The Muslims? The general populous of the nation? The media, the public and businesses? The munging has begun.

Throughout the letter it's difficult to tell whether "Pilgrim" is upset about the lack of morality in the church, or in the nation as a whole. It appears to be the latter, but the premise that's made is that the church's morals should be the nation's morals because "this land [was] established on faith." (I could swear that this nation (the U.S.A) was founded upon the declaration of Independence, which is a political document, not a religious one.) In other words, "Pilgrim" seems to be tying the church and the nation so tightly together, that they appear to be one entity with the same regulations, responsibilities, etc.

At what point did the church receive instructions from God to rule the nation (and is it just for one nation, or should the church be ruling all nations)? At what point did those in the nation, who are not Christians, come under the jurisdiction of the church? Jesus was not sent to make us all moral. Nor did he come to make disciples whose chief goal would be to make others moral. Jesus came to bring life, something that had been lost to us specifically because we couldn't keep the laws (morals) that had been given.

To expect those who have not chosen to be one of "God's people" to follow God's laws is inappropriate and a severe misunderstanding of the gospel. The good news is not that we need to be moral people. The good news is that even though we can't be truly moral people, no matter how hard we try, God has provided a means of forgiveness and acceptance anyway.

Eccentrics happen (not just in Christian circles but within every subset of the populous). You generally can't convince them of anything accept that you don't agree with them. But munging is a wider problem and one that I believe is inappropriate and leads to confusion and hurt. Yes, Christians should be exhorted to be loving and kind and gentle and pure and all the other things that are directed in the Bible. But our attitude toward non-Christians should not be one of forcing our morals upon them.  Rather Jesus tells those he sends out to "proclaim the good news," to "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." (Mt 10:7,8)

Jesus tells his followers to "first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye." Claiming that someone else's eye is your own, and then attacking the other eye with a vengeance is a serious misinterpretation of that directive. As Christians, as "God's people," it behooves us to be clear about who we are talking to, who we are talking about, and what we have been directed to say to those individuals. Munging just muddies God's name.  

Safe Ground

[A dorky poem by yours truly.]

As long as we continue to pedal
   through the same ideas and concepts
     every Sunday
As long as "they" are always wrong
   and "we" are always right
Then we are on safe ground.

Some days we seem to veer near the edge.
We come close to an interesting or new idea.
We consider that there might be more to consider.
And then we get back on task.

If we really believe what we believe
Then aren't we already on safe ground?
Shouldn't we feel safe then,
   pedaling outside our comfort zone?

*Sigh*

Another Sunday spent
   remaining on safe ground.