A Conversion Of The Imagination

Why Obama?

2008-10-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

With only 3 weeks left before the election, here's how I would think theologically through this moment in history:

Before we start our political conversation, it would be helpful to explain where I’m coming from. We live in an era of full-disclosure—no need to keep the reader guessing! The ideas presented in this ‘guide’ represent a variety of communities popping up here and there in North American who are committed to radical discipleship to Christ, but have become both jaded with mainstream forms of Christian faith yet convinced that there must be another path to follow. A quick look at philosophy, history and our own social location will help. I’ll spare a lot of details. First of all, philosophically speaking, we are convinced that our dialogue should be post-Foundationalist. Foundationalism has been the quest for certainty and demand for a simple, black-and-white, dualistic worldview. Over the past century, Christian options labeled ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ have offered their own competing packages. We reject both packages, yearning for a more complex, nuanced, context-oriented [and, we think, more faithful] conversation about the world. In addition, we recognize that our culture is becoming more and more fragmented with a multitude of worldviews [or narratives] being pitched to us by family, friends, the media, various churches and organizations, political candidates, etc. These diverse perspectives, with their competing propaganda, make it extremely difficult to unearth the truth or view the worldly objectively. We are skeptical when sincere folks propose that ‘the Bible clearly teaches’ us about all sorts of issues, beliefs and practices. This does not mean that we’ve abandoned truth to ‘blowing in the wind’ [relativism], but we do think claims to absolute truth should be much more humble than they currently are. A post-Fragmentation Christianity will emphasize the Bible as a ‘script’ that Christian communities interpret in order to participate in our diverse locales, instead of as a manual of ‘universal principles’ or ‘self-evident truths’ that proclaim common sense no matter where one lives in the universe.

Second, we acknowledge the historical mistakes of Christendom, starting with Roman Emperor Constantine in 313, the grasping for power and privilege in order to make our world more ‘Christian.’ We are post-Constantinian—the only ‘Christian’ faith option presented in the New Testament is freely chosen discipleship, a radical decision to start with the teachings and life-model of Jesus the crucified one, not the various stories of success, ambition and triumph told by the world. This means the United States is not—and was never—a ‘Christian Nation,’ imposing a blend of highly selective ‘biblical morality’ and militaristic capitalism on its citizens and the world while trumpeting itself as the ‘last best hope.’ Our faithful Christian witness is not by electing leaders or passing laws [although we always advocate for peace, liberty and justice], but by living faithfully Jesus’ call to love our enemies, forgive each other, serve the marginalized, tell the truth and share our possessions. We seek to live like exiles in a foreign country, not as the ones whose responsibility is controlling the world for God. In addition, we desire to repent and resist the mistakes of the past committed by the American Body of Christ in their participation in overtaking land, resources and cultures of various people groups [Native Americans, African-Americans, Mexicans, Iraqis, etc] for our country’s gain. We recognize that these decisions, made by Christian leaders and advocated by Christian citizens of the not-too-distant-past continue to have systemic effects on marginalized people living inside and outside the US. We are post-Colonial—the reign of God extends beyond our borders into the backyards and slums of our brothers and sisters all over the Third World.

Lastly, following Jesus from nowheresville Nazareth, we prioritize a consistent ‘perspective of the periphery,’ giving voice to the groaning of those communities of poverty, injustice and death in the States and all over the world. An important aspect of the identity and vocation of God’s people is to have solidarity with these pockets of poverty inside and outside the US. Christians coming from privilege and power should seek to reform their own lifestyles [many of which benefit from unjust laws and practices] and to advocate for those on the outskirts of wealth. We are post-Suburban—creatively seeking to sacrifice our comfort, security and wealth in order to put the focus on the world’s marginalized.

By political definition, Christians are those who pledge allegiance, first and foremost, to God’s Reign [‘the kingdom of God’ in the Gospels]. This allegiance knows no borders and proclaims God’s inclusiveness and abundance. This ‘citizenship’ bonds us in solidarity with all of those, world-wide, who work for kingdom values and ultimately hope in the Lord Jesus’ return to make all things new. Living as a faithful witness to God’s Reign in the United States, a ‘democracy,’ means that we have an opportunity to campaign and vote for the candidate we think will both demand peace and justice and give space for every citizen of this world to live and believe freely. We want a candidate who will honor differences that God ordained at the Tower of Babel.

When both candidates talk brashly about what our military may have to do to Pakistani, Afghani, Iraqi, Iranian, Chinese or Russian people, these words should be abrasive to followers of the Prince of Peace. We should remind these candidates, and their political parties, through word, contributions and deed, what we think God means by ‘peace’ and ‘justice.’

The script for his citizens of God’s Reign, the Bible, overwhelmingly beckons his people to honor and care for the marginalized and oppressed in the world. These poverty and justice issues should be included under the banner of what, today, is called, ‘character’ or ‘family values’ or simply ‘morality.’ ‘Suburban Christians’—whose privileged position in society has led to a college education, job opportunities, health care, annual vacations, pension plans, savings, investment strategies—should seek out the perspective of the periphery, those on the underbelly of American society who do not have these taken-for-granted opportunities. We cannot succumb to the myth that everyone in the US has the opportunity to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps to make a better life for themselves. This is not true. Many need help from the government, the wealthiest in the history of world. We should take seriously ‘systems’ approach to wealth and poverty. There are pockets of poverty in the United States where people are educated in dilapidated schools and have limited choices of grocery stores and have little property tax and federal and state funding for infrastructure needs. This environment has paid unfortunate dues on families, resulting in many single-parent upbringings. In addition, a historical approach to understanding unjust systems should be taken seriously. We are only decades removed from overt segregation of whites and blacks in the Jim Crow South, but also over segregation of whites and Latinos in Orange County, CA. These policies, and many others, have had long-lasting psychological, economic and educational effects on African-Americans and immigrants.

‘What about the issues’ you ask? First of all, I grew up in a Christian tradition that prioritized social issues like abortion and homosexuality. In fact, it wasn’t until somewhat recently that I thought someone who labeled herself pro-choice could actually be a Christian. I would now characterize these two lightening rods as ‘in-house’ issues. What I mean by that is that each Christian community can most effectively bear witness to God’s Reign by practicing what they believe in regards to abortion and gay marriage. Our Christian community would do all that we can to decrease the number of abortions in the US annually—through education and adoption, as well as advocating for more just economic policies that demand a living wage and health care benefits for expectant mothers. Voting primarily for candidates that are ‘pro-life’ is a Constantinian strategy [advocating for controversial Christian policies in a pluralistic society]. This issue [along with gay marriage] has come to be the defining issue for the Evangelical movement. This is a shame, mostly because ‘pro-life’ has come to mean anti-abortion without consistently fiercely advocating for ‘life’ in regards to war and poverty issues. Followers of Jesus are ‘pro-life’ with the womb, the bomb and the slum. We shun enormous efforts to change legislation as the primary strategy because poll after poll continues to show that a majority of Americans do not believe that Roe v. Wade [1973] should be overturned. These polls reveal that Americans are either not convinced that life starts at conception [competing scientific finding and/or beliefs about life] or that they will simply go about aborting [for various reasons] anyway. This is a really complex and sad state of affairs, but it will not get better by overturning Roe against the will of a majority of Americans.

In regards to gay marriage, there are two key issues: what does the Bible say about homosexuality and what does that mean for the law in the United States? We must start with Christian communities as the eye of the interpretive hurricane. Many churches believe that homosexuality is always an affront to God’s way and that ‘marriage’ is clearly defined as ‘between a man and a woman’ in the Bible and this means that Christians must do everything possible in order to insure that state law protects ‘the sanctity of marriage.’ On the contrary, we would advocate for a non-Constantinian approach to gay marriage. Gays and lesbians should have the right to ‘marriage’ in California and the other 49 states because we live in a pluralist society with many different beliefs about what ‘marriage’ means. Churches will have the opportunity to decide, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, how to approach issues like ordination of gay pastors and whether to preside at gay/lesbian weddings. Many Christian churches will prayerfully say ‘yes’ to both of these volatile issues. Most evangelical churches will prayerfully say ‘no’ to both. Again, all of these churches interpret the same Bible differently. Who is right and who is wrong? We won’t know this side of the Kingdom.
For thought-provoking Biblical commentary on the homosexuality issue [that will probably be different than what you have been socialized into, check out Ched Myers and Walter Wink.

Issues that should compel us to choose one Presidential candidate over another are those that pertain to specific decisions that Presidents make that directly affect those on the periphery of society [both in the US and the world]. These include decisions on the War on Terror [Iraq? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Guantanamo?], tax and trade policies, Health Care reform, race/ethnicity relations and world diplomatic affairs. The executive branch in the United States has a lot of power with these issues. At this moment in time, we need a President who will reverse the disastrous decisions on the Iraq War, where thousands of poor Americans and Iraqis have died over the past 5 years for security and oil and has diverted billions of dollars away from domestic and international help for those living in systemic poverty and oppression. It’s what Martin Luther King sermonized about Vietnam four decades ago:

I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money, like some demonic, destructive suction tube.

Iraq has been ‘a demonic, destructive suction tube’ for mostly poor, minority young men and Obama had the wherewithal to call it a ‘dumb war’ way back in 2002 when it was unpopular to do so even as he was running a successful campaign for the Senate. Arguments about how much the ‘surge’ worked are besides the point and after the fact. We need a President who will remove the troops ASAP [the very thing Iraq’s own government wants] and take care of our wounded [emotionally and physically] veterans once they get home. Obama will do this. [for more on my own conversion on theological conversion on Iraq, click here.

In addition, we need a President who will talk with not down to other leaders of this world. American arrogance, through the actions of the Bush Administration, is well documented and quite appalling. Obama, not McCain, has repeatedly proposed to diplomatically work with the rest of the world [our allies and enemies] instead of shutting out or manipulating other countries to do what is in America’s best interest.

I trust the American people to understand that it’s not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies...
Barack Obama

Many Christians are skeptical of Obama’s faith. Some of this comes from comments made by Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright [For my thoughts on Jeremiah Wright click here], but some of it comes from a false belief that he is actually Muslim [which would not disqualify him from being a great President in my opinion] stemming from his middle name ‘Hussein’ and from a brief stint in Indonesia for a couple of years during his early elementary school years.

Of course, many Evangelicals simply find it unthinkable that a man could be ‘pro-choice’ and ‘Christian.’ These speculations can mostly be put to rest with a quick history lesson. Obama is part of an historical American Christian tradition of liberation. He is a Christian in the line of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, who read the Bible as a socio-political ‘script’ for God’s liberation of the oppressed of this world. Jesus’ call to care for the ‘least of these’ [Matthew 25] is a cherished passage in this tradition. This liberation theology leads to skepticism for many ‘white moderates’ [MLK’s name for white clergy who did not support his equating the Gospel with Civil Rights for blacks] who live with unacknowledged privilege, power and opportunity.

The McCain/Palin attacks on Obama’s character in recent weeks have been truly nauseating in their utter lack of truth. Claims about Obama’s association with domestic radicals [Palin: ‘he has been palling around with terrorists’] as well as pot-shots about Obama’s work in the intercity after receiving his degree at Columbia [Palin: "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities"], are just the tip of the iceberg concerning rhetoric used to incite fear. In addition, they cling to populist issues like ‘lower taxes’ and ‘country first’ and ‘drill, baby, drill’ in their efforts to rally undecided voters. These issues have their own ‘Christian’ critique, first of which is the continued nationalism and economic exploitation that has ‘worked’ for white America for so long. It is clear, even with very limited research, that ‘straight-talkers’ McCain/Palin care far more about being elected than being seekers of the truth [check out www.factcheck.org].

516 Quail Meadow

2008-10-04T17:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting the past few months, but I'm making a comeback! I'm moving the action to the blog-home of our little Wednesday Night Bible Study. If you want to be a part of the radical discipleship movement, join us on Wednesday nights at 6:30pm for a warm meal, intentional community and biblical scripting:

www.516quailmeadow.blogspot.com

What Do Ronald Reagan and John Howard Yoder Have in Common?

2008-07-20T14:21:00.001-07:00

I spent this past week writing a lot. It's basically for a class that I'm taking this summer at Fuller, but I have a little bit of a vision to carry the project a little further. It's not really a book...more like a short story that would be in 'pamphlet' form. It is a story about two guys about my age that dialogue about all matters God, faith, church, politics and whatever else there is. My goal is to communicate the thought of John Howard Yoder to conservative evangelicals. I had a lot of fun with the project and will continue to...but I need your help. If you are interested, read it and give me honest feedback. Where does it not make sense? Where are more questions warranted about Yoder's brand of Christian faith during the course of the story that I don't include? You can access the story at

www.theoriginalrevolution.blogspot.com

By the way, we just got back from some great time with Lindsay's Nana out in Canyon Lake and we got our annual dose of FOX News and they had a segment on Sean Hannity's program called 'What Would Reagan Do.' The image of Reagan above is a classic--it represents quite faithfully what Reagan would surely think of Yoder's socio-political Jesus!

Why Georgia Why?

2008-07-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

Some great questions from my friend JD Hydrick, Fuller alum, out in Georgia:

1. '...i don't have any real reasons to support obama...so i thought you could give me reasons. kinda like the way you summarize a book on your blog.

2. what do you say about the issue of abortion? mccain is against it, obama for it? but it's legal now anyways right? i come in contact with people that say, 'i can't vote for a person who supports abortion.'

1.b. i think i remember a blog that you basically said you were for gay rights, but what is the short answer to conservatives who are adamantly against it?

2. are you for universal health care?

3. what would be something that would raise flags against mccain, what would you tell someone he has or hasn't done? but is obama a better option?

This whole conversation has to start with the question: ‘What is the relationship of the Body of Christ to the state?’ I believe [following guys like Yoder, Hauerwas, Cavanaugh] that God has always intended for His People [Israel, Jesus, Church] to be a set-apart race who would be devoted to being a conscience and servant to wider society. With that said, America is not and was never a ‘Christian nation.’ I’m one of those Christians who believes that it should be the primary task of Christian communities, first, to be a faithful witness [of God’s reign] to America and the world AND, living in a democracy, to use our vote and advocacy to make our society more equal and free and just. Yoder says that the Body of Christ in any society should be about two things: evangelism [inviting people, though word and deed, to participate in his kingdom way] and ‘the leavening process’ [the slow, patient influence of the church through faithful obedience]. It seems to me that Evangelical communities, at least from the early 80s onward, have instead placed primary emphasis on legislating their version of 'family values,' most passionately abortion and homosexuality. This has equated to voting for the Republican package from Reagan to Bush I to Bush II, while demonizing Clinton [with his pants down] along the way!

One crucial issue, of course, with our conversations with sincere followers of Jesus in the OC [me] and the Bible Belt South [you and Herd] about politics is that both political theology and biblical interpretation are ‘contested concepts,’ meaning that good-hearted, well-meaning Christians of different stripes will disagree with these different notions. But I would press the issue with our very similar conversation partners on two things: (1) for them to admit that there isn’t [and never has been] one-absolute-way to be Christian and (2) for them to admit that most of what they believe about politics has been simply taken by default, passed on to them without ever thinking about why they think these things. Could it be that the Evangelical Body of Christ in America is in need for reform on how we think theologically about ‘American politics?’

Another question that we could start with to understand this whole conversation is simply this: ‘how, ultimately, do we want to be defined as the Christ-following people of God?’ Blog after blog after blog I think I’m trying to redefine what it means to be an ‘Evangelical’ Christian in the United States. I am an ‘Evangelical’ [on most days] and that must mean euangelion: the shocking and utterly astounding ‘good news’ that God raised a dead messiah-prophet from the dead and it has phenomenal implications for the entire world as Jesus reigns at the right hand of God [like a prime minister calling all the shots]--this means that He channels the sin of humanity into a mysterious ultimate good and that resurrection will have the final say in the end [just like it did in his life]. This means that faithfulness/obedience must take precedence over pragmatic effectiveness. This doesn’t mean that we are responsible to run the world [through laws and policies] for God. This does mean that judgment begins with the people of God and we’d better be pretty damn faithful to actually doing God’s will which has to mean that we should be putting a lot of energy and focus toward following Jesus’ training program for us ‘kingdom-dwellers’ which we find well laid out in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, Mark’s discipleship platform from second-chance blind-man healing [chap 8] to blind man Bartimaus healing [chap] 10 and John’s farewell address and Paul’s various calls to imitate [or ‘be clothed with,’ etc] Jesus’ service, humility, obedience, compassion, etc [just to mention a handful of building blocks]. With these priorities laid out,

I would advocate for a vote for Barack Obama for a variety of reasons:

• The people of God should be vigorously ‘pro-life.’ This pertains to the womb, but also to the slum and the bomb. The legalization of abortion in all 50 states since 1973 gives all women the choice to bring life into this world. Looking at it from another perspective, it gives Christian communities the power to decide what is ethical. Roe v. Wade actually challenges Christian communities to be ‘Christian’ and to work for the decrease of abortions in the US by being available to adopt ‘unwanted’ babies, but also by being available to support those mothers who need financial/emotional/spiritual sustenance. This brings us to other realms of ‘pro-life’ like urban pockets of poverty as well as the 80,000+ Iraqis and 4,000+ American soldiers who have died in the past five years due solely to Presidential and Congressional decisions. Obama, in the midst of his Senate race, called it a ‘dumb war’ when it was politically unpopular to do so way back in 2002. Obama will undoubtedly press for a legislative agenda that gives much needed relief to the urban poor.

• I’m quite disillusioned by what I would call white suburban Evangelicalism. This brand of Christianity seems overly concerned with sexual morality, immigration and living in comfortable/safe neighborhoods in the suburbs [needing Bush tax cuts to sustain it]. These priorities inevitably take away from real justice issues like the war, Guantanamo Bay torture chambers, the lack of health care for 40 million+ Americans and the lack of sustainable/affordable housing in the intercity. These white suburban Evangelical priorities are far more ‘American’ than ‘Christian.’ Again, reading the entire Bible through with a prophetic lens shows overwhelmingly God’s concern for the poor, oppressed and marginalized in our society. We live in the wealthiest country in the history of the world and millions of white suburban Evangelicals schelp off Obama, as ‘the most liberal member of the Senate,’ as being someone who is going to ruin their lifestyle with tax hikes and turn our health care system into ‘socialism.’ Frankly, I’ve heard these statements over and over again [and I don’t even watch Fox News] and I’m astonished by the hypocrisy.

• I’m quite impressed by Obama’s desire to listen to ‘the other,’ whether across the aisle in political debates in the United States, or the perceived enemy in foreign relations. Recently, he said, ‘it’s not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies...’ Many Americans are concerned that Obama won’t protect America in this age of Terror, but I think that these fear tactics are overdone and should not be an influence with how we vote. These fear tactics spill over into the email inboxes of millions of these Evangelicals who actually take seriously accusations that Obama is a Muslim [or used to be] or the Anti-Christ or that his wife will start some anti-white hate crusade. In addition, many white suburban Evangelicals fear the words of Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Wright speaks in the tradition [Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, etc] of the Christian black preacher-prophet. These prophets use exaggeration [just like Ezekiel and Isaiah and other biblical prophets] to point out the injustice and hypocrisy in the people of God. Obama has attended and been socially formed in this black church in Chicago for 20 years. This is phenomenal. He’ll be all about reducing the oppression and injustice created by American policies over the past decades. I’m far more concerned about our white brothers and sisters attending and being socially formed in white suburban Evangelical churches.

• I must say that it would be GREAT for America to have an African-American in the White House. It would be a phenomenal inspiration for all racial minorities to live in a country where someone who isn’t white can actually lead this nation of immigrants. Because of his upbringing, he has a deep understanding of the injustice that many in American and all over the world have experienced.

--> As far as McCain is concerned, I happen to respect his 'maverick' tendency of breaking with his party whether paving a road to amnesty for undocumented workers or banning torture at Guantanamo Bay or stopping farm subsidies that hurt Third World farmers. I do think that his military tough-guy talk and his commitment to stay in Iraq until the cows come home [that's for all you guys out in Georgia] are both unflattering qualities and a distasteful continuation of the Bush Administration. Bottom Line: Obama's platform of peace and justice [the real 'family values'] and leadership qualities [strong convictions with the ability to listen] are far more compelling in the end.

These guys can compete for our votes to be President of the US, but in the end, neither are the Messiah and they will inevitably fail us in regards to making decisions that honor life and dignity for Americans of all stripes. Our firm belief that God will triumph in the end actually gives me a lot of hope that there isn't the Christian candidate on the ballot. This doesn't mean that we should schlep off the whole American 'political' scene. The sanctity and dignity of the lives of millions in this world are at stake and we should be responsible to advocate for them.

--> As far as universal health care is concerned: yes. Again, we live in the wealthiest country since creation and millions of hard-working Americans [and some not-so-hard-working] do not have the ability to provide for basic medical needs. Countries like Japan and Taiwan and others have figured out how to provide these needs to EVERYONE without the 'socialist' hangover of long lines and poor quality. Our leaders should be able to figure that out too. NOTE: this coverage needs to extend to mental health care as well because, let's face it, veterans of the Iraq War aren't the only ones who have endured a culture that is messing with their minds.

Here’s what I think about the gay marriage issue:

• I’m not for 'gay rights' just like I’m not for 'heterosexual rights.' These are sound-bytes that give far too many people license to ‘sexual freedom’ which is quite destructive and dehumanizing. I’m quite sure that most sexual behavior [homo or hetero] in the world is ruinous. The one issue that I haven’t resolved is whether it is destructive or dishonoring to God for two members from the same-sex to be committed to love, forgiveness and service for life in marriage. Of course, Scripture doesn’t speak specifically about this issue [homosexuality as ‘sexual orientation’ and two consenting adults committing to marriage]. But, of course, there’s nothing ‘positive’ about any of the other kinds of homosexual behavior either!

What's our biblical script tell us? Richard Hays, in his Moral Vision of the New Testament writes that the key passage is Romans 1:18-32 where Paul uses language to describe homosexual relations as going against nature. Hays interprets the biblical witness as a call for the people of God to abstain from homosexual relations. I'm not so sure. Bottom line on this issue: even if you take a strict biblical stance against homosexual relations [as most evangelicals do], you still have to ask the very important question: should two members of the same sex who seek to commit to love, forgiveness and service to one another for life be banned from doing so by law in a country that has a Constitution that respects the rights of the minority? I think not.

How about the tradition of the church? The 2000-year tradition of the church is actually divided, during different eras and contexts on this issue. During much of the early Middle Ages when political laws started banning homosexual behavior, the clergy didn’t support the laws! Since about 1350, however, clergy in the West have pretty much consistently backed laws created by the state to limit homosexual activity.

What about the latest in science? Opponents on both sides of this debate cite all kinds of studies, pitting nature versus nurture and Christians talk about 3 out of every 8 homosexuals can be 'cured.' Yoder, in a paper he presented in 1982, said candidly 'that's bad news for the other 5.' The debate will continue through eternity.

How about my own experience? I hired a head coach 5 years ago who was gay and we had some great talks about his 'orientation'--about how, ever since he could remember, he's only had 'feelings' for guys. I read about this over and over and over again. Are some some converted to a homosexual lifesyle due to their own cultural experiences? No doubt about it. But that's not the discussion we're having. We're talking about two men or two women who have 'dated' or 'lived together' and they want to take the next step toward commitment. The Body of Christ should embrace this decision in the midst of the complex nature of biblical witness, science, tradition of the church and the actual personal testimony of gay and lesbians in our society.

• The white suburban Evangelical church, I think, shows itself the fool as it raises literally millions of dollars to save ‘the sanctity of marriage’ while all the studies show 50% of Evangelical adults have been divorced…and many remarried. The Bible, of course, is quite clear about the morality of this behavior. And, of course, I’ve never heard an Evangelical tell me that divorce should be against the law!

• I lay out this argument simply because I think white suburban Evangelicals have the wrong priorities. Sure, we should take sexuality very seriously, but we should speak about it with a lot more complexity and we should be a lot more humble about how clearly the Bible speaks to these issues and how unfaithful our lifestyles have been. Our priorities, in this unique moment in time, should be about being a radical witness to God’s reign in this world.

I'll end with this quote from Obama's The Audacity of Hope that a good friend recently sent me [Obama's own Christian faith actually leads him to take a more 'conservative' position on the issue of gay marriage]:

During his 2004 Senate campaign in Illinois, Obama received a pained phone message from one of his strongest supporters—a small-business owner, mother and all-around good person (as he characterizes her) who was a lesbian in a 10-yr monogamous relationship:

“Her phone message…had been prompted by a radio interview she had heard in which I had referenced my religious traditions in explaining my position on the issue [Obama opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions, although he opposes a federal constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman]. She told me that she had been hurt by my remarks; she felt that by bringing religion into the equation, I was suggesting that she, and others like her, were somehow bad people. I felt bad, and told her so in a return call. As I spoke to her I was reminded that no matter how much Christians who oppose homosexuality may claim that they hate the sin but love the sinner, such a judgment inflicts pain on good people—people who are made in the image of God, and who are often truer to Christ’s message than those who condemn them. And I was reminded that it is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided…that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history.”

*I addressed the gay marriage issue in a May 15, 2008 blog entitle 'Adam and Steve.'

A New Campaign Slogan?

2008-07-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is one of the latest forwarded emails that my dad has sent me in the anti-Obama campaign. Just a few things I wanted to point out:

Note the artistic contrast between the smiling African-American leader and the white woman's hand. Of course, it may very well be that, if elected, Obama will press a legislative agenda to tax the upper classes of our society [hundreds of thousands of white hands], but to say that they will have pennies left would be a gross over-exaggeration. The 'new campaign slogan' sent out this week [or was it last week and I'm way out of the loop?] by political conservatives, of course, wouldn't have a brown or black hand being short-changed because (a) those races are predominantly in lower economic classes that will, perhaps, benefit from Obama's much-needed policies and (b) these races aren't represented in the intended audience that genuinely gets a kick out of this new campaign slogan.

Note, also, the fear tactics used in the slogan. Throughout American history, there have been hideous and widespread fears about the black man raping the white woman. Now, it's the black President of the United States economically raping the white woman with his liberal policies. We can't have that now...can we?

Note, also, the simplicity of the slogan in regards to economic policy. As we head into this so-called recession, Obama's 'real campaign' has recently announced their intention to send rebate checks to all Americans to jumpstart the economy. Of course, economists will tell all of us that where we are now is the result of decisions made by Presidential and Congressional decisions made years [even decades] prior. If the white woman has nothing but change left in 2012, do we blame Obama or W? That will be a debate that will inevitably be divided by political agendas...or racial attitudes.

Creative campaign jokes like this simply steer white Christian America away from our biblical call to see things from the perspective of the periphery. Families that have become economically marginalized by the luck [or unluck] of their own birthplace, or by corporate and government policies that safeguard the lifestyles of our wealthiest and most powerful, desperately need a people who will be willing to sacrifice hard earned money and luxurious lifestyles in order, first, to empathize with the plight of the poor and, second, to share resources so that they can live with dignity. God yearns for His people, the Body of Christ, to make this a priority, first, in our own lifestyles and, second, in our vote.

Evangelism After Christendom

2008-06-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

Bryan Stone, the professor of evangelism at Boston University's School of Theology, has crafted a guide to thinking quite differently about spreading the good news in a society that, by-and-large, rejected the 'Christian' label. Conservative evangelicals, of course, are quite aware of this societal 'takeover' by secular forces, but the reader shouldn't expect Stone to continue that kind of conversation. Stone, drawing on a handful of Christian theologians like Yoder, Hauerwas and McClendon, actually thinks that the end of Christendom provides a tremendous opportunity for Christian communities to reignite their faithful witness. It allows for communities that follow Jesus to become unique again...and unique in all the right ways. For Stone, this uniqueness must be characterized by sharing possessions, non-violent living, conflict resolution and forgiveness, enemy loving and a humility-patience-courage that saturates everything we do.

Unfortunately, Evangelism After Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness takes 318 pages to get to its journey's end, but it needs most of it to clarify what concepts like salvation, gospel, the kingdom of God are exactly. What is evangelism? What are Christians inviting others to convert to? In short, what is Christianity? Stone passionately argues for a 'practical' version of Christian faith. Christianity is a set of practices performed in diverse communities that trust the God's story in Scripture hasn't ended. It is a faith journey that beckons others to join in what God is continuing to do in the world. For Stone, there is no such thing as people converting to Christian faith [as a set of things to believe in] and then participating in discipleship. Instead, evangelism is the task of actually living out these Christian practices 'before the watching world' and organically inviting others to join in!

The great achievement of Evangelism After Christendom is that is recognizes and communicates our incredibly challenging cultural state of affairs. We live in an era of competing stories and two of those stories--Constantinianism and Modernity--have overrun the Gospel Story itself. Christians have been formed by these two stories and intuitively believe that we need to run the world for God, with Christian leaders and Christian morality laws [Constantinianism] and that we need to win the world for Jesus one individual at a time, calculating the most effective way we can do that [Modernity]. Christian communities must take the time to detoxify from these two rival narratives.

Stone acknowledges that his thought is greatly indebted to John Howard Yoder:

It would not be an exaggeration to conclude that the whole of this book, in fact, has been an attempt to ask what difference it would make for evangelism if, as Yoder claims, ‘the relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of God’s cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection. [315]

Stone's book is a tremendous challenge to Christian communities to reconfigure what it means to witness to an ever-secularizing culture. It is a tour-de-force that gains a lot more credibility as the natural outgrowth of a small community that blends business professionals and the homeless that he serves and worships with in Boston: Common Cathedral [www.ecclesia-ministries.org].

Cougar of the Year

2008-06-23T11:47:00.001-07:00

You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.
Psalm 10:17-18

Working with mid-adolescents can be an abrasive experience. The pain and brokenness that saturate so many of the kids in my classes are manifested in many ways: apathy, indifference, defiance, cheating, lying, distrust, gross ignorance, entitlement, selfishness, greed. These dynamics are complex and confusing and can easily produce cynacism, skepticism and paranoia in any teacher. No doubt there are some students in every class period that are truly refreshing to be around. They are curious about our gigantic world. They have compassion. They want to achieve all on their own. They come to class on-time and they show respect to teachers and their peers.

But sometimes, rarely, teachers get to be know a student who brings refreshment to a world far beyond the classroom. This year, I got to spend Time with the 2007-08 Cougar of the Year, Greg Lamont. He's been the aide for my second period, my 'prep period' without a scheduled class. We talked, ate, went to the beach, played frisbee golf, drank coffee, worked out and, sometimes, we had our own homework to do. There are two aspects that I've observed in Greg that truly sets him apart from other high school students.

First of all, his commitment and loyalty is par excellence. We had lunch together almost exactly a year ago and one of my questions to him was what he wanted to accomplish during his senior year. He was adamant that he would fulfill the duties of ASB President for the entire duration of the year [from that day until the day of his graduation]. This was truly a respectable desire. ASB Presidents at Capistrano Valley HS have routinely and predictably been committed through Homecoming and then rapidly and expontentially checked out from their formal ASB job description to use their 'leadership skills' to plan 'Senior Ditch Days' and less formal trips off campus to buy A's Burgers and whatever else it takes to get out of working on behalf of the rest of the school. Greg has been tremendously committed throughout the year, coming early and staying late for pep rallies and dances. He does things most high school students wouldn't be caught dead doing.

Secondly, the way he showers love and respect and honor on anyone and everyone, regardless of their social standing [popular or not]. I've observed him many a time taking sincere interest in a variety of students who are magnetically attracted to him. His rather hectic schedule never seems to keep him from caring for others. His life is a re-enactment of the love, compassion, humility, service and faithfulness of Jesus Christ.

Greg's capacity to actually care for others, to genuinely seek out the interests of others, is rare indeed for a 18-year-old. This is supposed to be a season of life where, traditionally, the entire universe revolves around him. College acceptances, parties, accolades and gifts come flowing in as a series of entitlements. Greg seems thankful but uncomfortable with all the attention. I will truly miss my brother next year as he moves on to the Torrey Honors program at Biola.

Fear Factor

2008-06-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

A recent LA Times article had plenty to say about how fearful we should all be about a variety of global issues:

1. Environmental catastrophe!

According to a study by NASA’s chief climatologist James Hansen submitted a paper to Science Magazine, our globe is in big trouble. Everything’s connected in our global economy and there is far too much CO2 in the atmosphere. India’s new $2500 cars and America’s windshield-sized TVs and China’s expanding economy, as well as $4 gasoline [$5?] that is here to stay.

2. The Elderly!

Social Security and Medicare funding is being depleted quickly as Baby Boomers retire. Who will pay/care for our seniors in the decades to come? We lost our chance during a similar era of FEAR: the Cold War period when our nation rejected public pension and universal health care because it smacked of Soviet style collectivism.

3. The Middle East!

Israel is threatened by a web of enemies: Palestinian/Hezbollah/Iran/Syria. Suicide bombers and guerilla warfare are here to stay and escalating. There has been plenty of talk over the possible Iranian destruction of Israel and nuclear capabilities. Palestinian birthrates are skyrocketing. Democrat Barack Obama, meanwhile, has uncertain Middle East stances.

4. China!

A direct quote from the Times: ‘Why…does the US Dept of Defense, in the midst of two wars and a ‘generational struggle’ with radical Islamist terrorism, want to spend $92 billion to buy 30 Virginia-class attach submarines, $65 billion for 184 advanced F-22 fighter jets and $29 billion for seven behemoth DDG-1000 destroyers? To fight China, of course.’

This is just a small sampling of mostly foreign fears in our globalized world. We must ask during these 'heightened' times: where is our HOPE? If we believe that God inaugurated his kingdom through the life, teaching, service, death and resurrection of his anointed king Jesus, then we believe that 'he's got the whole world in his hands.' This is the gospel we proclaim as we act responsibly as stewards of his creation without selling out other 'ideologies' that refuse to recognize God's alternative Empire [ie, the suburban American Dream that beckons us to spend more and more on ourselves].

We cannot let our economic spending, our voting and our other life decisions to be spoiled by the fear that so easily creaps in. These decisions must be invigorated with the gushing hope of Jesus' reappearing in our world. The New Testament documents that serve as an interpretation of and a witness to Jesus' resurrection continue to motivate us to radical faithfulness and an alternative politics that call us to nonviolent solutions, sharing of our possessions, loving of our enemies and telling of the truth [which means listening to and weighing what those who are different are saying]. In the end, America is not the last best hope of the world. The multinational empire of God lives faithfully as it waits for God to act in unprecedented ways again. The entire story of Scripture testifies to the fact that God will never give up on his creation and the meaning of history, today, is about participating in what God is doing in this world and inviting others to join us.

Taking the 'Fun' out of Fundamentalism, Part II [or Energizing A Progressively Faithful Evangelicalism]

2008-06-06T13:20:00.000-07:00

Christians who are willing to take the courageous step of going 'Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism' might be labeled 'Postmodern' or 'Progressive Evangelicals' or if you are into philosophy 'Postfoundationalist' [referring to the avenue of coming to the truth without an unchallengeable 'foundation' like an error-free Bible]. This is not an 'in-between' position, but a 'Third Way' approach to faith that rejects the forced 'either-or' options of modernity.

Let's take a quick look at some important 'issues' to illuminate where this different, 'progressive' approach might take off:

(1) Biblical Interpretation [Authority]
No doubt, the Bible is the Word of God. But it must be engaged both critically and communally. The Spirit of God works mightily in and through a group of disciples who bring everything they've got--mind, body, heart, emotion--to the complex task of interpreting the Bible for faithful living. This 'biblical reading strategy' critiques the fundamentalist emphasis on individualistic 'self-evident' readings, as well as interpretations that claim absolute truth without the humble acknowledgment that their are 'other' interpretations by individuals/communities for each passage.

(2) Gospel
The original 'good news' was that God has finally sent his 'anointed king' who suffered at the hands of the Powers because of his radical obedience to God's way. God vindicated his faithfulness by raising him from the dead, forming a new society Jews and Gentiles, gathered around the Spirit of the risen Jesus. Salvation, for Jesus and Paul, was definitely tied to active participation with the people of God. This 'news' critiques the fundamentalist over-emphasis on individual salvation and a personal relationship with Jesus.

(3) Church
The church is simply the local gathering of disciples of Jesus who assemble together under the power of the Spirit to work out what it means to worship and serve God in their unique context[s]. These communities participate in the kingdom of God in constructive and subversive ways with the world. This notion of church critiques the fundamentalist portrayal of church as a support group or place where the expert[s] give us all the right answers.

(4) Political Participation
Since the church as gathered community is an alternative 'polis' of God's Kingdom, it is the primary playing field for an alternative politics. This, however, is not a 'ghetto,' nor should it ever attempt to coerce or manipulate its power on governments. However, the 'politics of Jesus' should still be active in calling government leaders to justice and peace in all areas of society. This view of Christian politics critiques the fundamentalist extremes of both 'anti-politics' [playing the 'spiritual' kingdom of God against the 'political' kingdoms of the world] or efforts to make the USA a 'Christian Nation' again by enforcing socially conservative legislation.

(5) Knowing Truth
Our truth claims must be specific yet humble. We do read Scripture as a guide to who God is and what it means to be a part of what He is doing in the world. However, we don't claim that this truth can be 'proven' by a text that is somehow error-free [in matters of faith, history, science, philosophy]. Instead, we our hope is strongly placed in a God who is mysteriously present, redeeming the world in the power of the resurrection. A community who commits to enemy love, compassion and service, forgiveness and truth-telling will be a compelling witness to the God of the universe. Any claims to truth outside of radical participation are questionable.

(6) 'The Other'
Jesus' demand for his followers to love those who persecute them and who believed differently is simply a call to reflect who God is [the one who brings sunshine and rain on both the righteous and the wicked]. In addition to loving 'the other,' we should listen and weigh the perspectives and convictions of those from different religions, ethnicities and philosophical worldviews. Listening and loving is a critique to fundamentalist passion to convert 'the other' through convincing logic and argument.

(7) The End Times
God's reign was inaugurated in the life, ministry, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. His Spirit presides in communities who continue his legacy as a sign and foretaste of the coming 'reappearing' of Christ when he will set up his eternal kingdom on earth, redeeming the whole world. Our task is to implement his kingdom now, participating with God in his mysterious work as we patiently yet expectantly wait for that Day. This 'rootedness in the world' is a critique of the fundamentalist escapist point of view that God will remove his people from this rotting planet to set up a kingdom in heaven.

(8) The Cross of Christ
There are many different metaphors in the New Testament for what the cross meant for followers of Jesus after his dramatic resurrection. It was like a military victory, a triumph over sin, death and the Powers [Col 2:13-15]. It was like buying someone out of slavery, a ransom payment, liberating us from the enslaving lifestyles of sin [Col 1:13-14]. And the lifestyle of discipleship to Christ was itself like signing on to a scandalous death penalty: 'take up your cross and follow me.' This critiques the fundamentalist obsession with the lawcourt metaphors that replaces the sinner's guilt with Christ' blood on the cross.

Taking the 'Fun' out of Fundamentalism, Part I [or Criticizing a Militant Brand of Christianity]

2008-06-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

British Old Testament scholar John Goldingay says that one of the most important tasks for American Evangelicals is breaking out of the fundamentalism that has saturated our movement for the past century. At the turn of the 20th century, Christians in America became more and more jaded by what they were observing in their culture: Darwin's theory about the origins of the world that seemed to counter God's Word; Freud's explanation of humanity's natural longing for religion; liberal theology that explained the Bible and historical events with human reasoning rather than divine intervention; and newer forms of biblical criticism that seemed to lead to a questioning of traditional Christianity's vital beliefs: the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ, salvation by grace alone, the inerrancy of Scripture and the reality of sin.

In the the 1920s, the fundamentalists responded with a publication of a series of articles called The Fundamentals. These Christians believed the very heart and soul of Christian faith was at stake as they militantly battled both 'liberal' Christians and the secular humanists who formed a godless religion of their own. What is so vitally important about this old conversation is that 20th century America produced two [and only two] extreme options of Christian faith: either Liberal or Fundamentalist. We are still living in a culture with this liberal-versus-fundamenalist hangover.

The liberals basically believed that only fools would believe that the Bible contains historical or scientific truth. They aggresively knocked the Fundamenalists for their 'anti-intellectual' stances. Instead, the resurrection of Christ must have been a 'spiritual' event and the virgin birth is supernatural nonsense from a bygone era. Christianity should be all about social morality, fighting for justice and peace in our society [the 'social gospel'].

It would be unfair to simply label the Fundamentalists 'anti-intellectuals.' They were vigorous in defending a science that perfectly mirrored the Bible. They were convinced that Evolution was a 'theory' that threatened Christian society. They aggressively fought it tooth and nail with their own logical arguments. They simply had a different paradigm for reasoning through the difficult issues of life. They viewed God and the world through a different set of lenses called Common Sense Rationalism, claiming objective facts to defend the truth of the Bible.

The Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the man. It is his store-house of facts…
Charles Hodge

Here's what the Fundamentalists were all about:

Proclaiming the Gospel: We are on this earth to save as many souls as possible.

Key Doctrines:
Inerrancy--believing that the Bible does not contain errors and that is is a guide for timeless truths and principles

what need we of further proof that ‘all Scripture is God breathed'…
This was the conclusion when, in 1922, Moody Monthly published an argument correlating the seven days of creation with the seven notes in the octave, relating these to the seven sayings of Christ and the seven parts of Psalm 23

Supernatural events happened as they were recorded in Scripture: virgin birth—miracles of Christ—bodily resurrection of Christ

Penal-Substitutionary Atonement--the cross of Christ was primarily about being an atoning sacrifice to cleanse humanity of their sin and guilt and shame

Premillenial Dispensationalism--Jesus will return to rescue believers from this world and then reign for 1000 years

Personal piety:
Faith was individualized: people are either saved or not. Fundamentalists approached politics in one of two ways: shun it altogether [Christ's kingdom is in the heart--spiritual] or embrace conservative policies that ensure America's status as a Christian nation.

I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a lifeboat and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can.
Dwight L. Moody

Militant Opposition to liberal theology and to secularizing culture [evolution, secular humanism, Biblical criticism, abortion, homosexuality]

Fundamentalism is still a very powerful force that is attractive to many because of its claims of certainty [absolute truth], shunning ambiguity. It has a dualistic worldview that pits good versus evil and has very clear notions about who is who.

So What?

Today,living in a postmodern era, we believe that Christians have another option--one that transcends both right and left. The title of Nancey Murphy's book says it all: Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism. Another option is available. It is an option that takes the New Testament seriously as both a divinely-inspired and human-constructed product, written by men with passion faith in the resurrected Jesus who wrote history differently than we do today and were formed by their cultural contexts. The postmodern option is 'political,' but in different ways than the modern options. The politics of the Lamb who was slain is a way of life that serves as a bridge to the wider culture. It is an embodied witness to both political parties and the leaders who wield so much power in our government and society. The cross of Jesus is certainly of 'fundamental' importance, but all the other metaphors of meaning for Jesus' scandalous crucifixion at the hands of Roman and Jewish leaders must have their say: a 'ransom' buying us out of the slavery of sin [individual and corporate]; a victorious triumph over the Powers-that-be that order our lives but are fallen; a sacrifice that reconciles us to God and others; and a symbol of a life of social nonconformity to the way of Jesus ['take up your cross and follow me']. The fraternal twin options of liberalism and fundamentalism are neither appropriate to our current context nor faithful to what the New Testament calls us to. But humbly critiquing the absolute truth claims of fundamentalism does not mean embracing the anything-goes-relativism of liberalism. Like the liberal and fundamentalist options of modernity, postmodern faith utilizes a different paradigm...the complexity of our culture demands it.

Lars and the Real Girl [2007]

2008-06-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak...
Ezekiel 34:16

Ever feel like you are way out of place? Like you don't fit in? Like all your issues are unprecedented? Lars and the Real Girl is just the medicine for the weak underdog in all of us. It features the silent, awkward, highly introverted Lars who lives in a converted garage, works the boring desk job and doesn't have a clue how to communicate. Of course, his sister-in-law is determined to fix him by doing anything and everything to invite him to join them for dinner [Lars' brother Gus has long since given up on him]. One night, Lars does come over to announce that his international, uber-religious, wheelchair-bound girlfriend, Bianca, has come to town. The excitement sours quickly as they come to find out Bianca is a blow-up doll ordered on the internet. With the cat-out-of-the-bag, one of the things I find so pleasant about the film is that it is bereft of any sexual innuendos. Of course, Gus and Karen and their friends joke about the situation, mostly to hide how painful it is to not only observe but have to participate in it. And that's what makes this story so redemptive: the willingness for the entire Midwest town to go along with Lars' adult imaginary friend, adopting Bianca to volunteer at various projects all over town. She becomes just as real to them as she is to him. The entire town seriously 'plays along' with Gus and Karen, caring for Bianca, the one who slowly, mysteriously heals Lars' painful wounds oozing from a childhood without a mother and a distant father and an older brother who leaves the house early.

The story strings us along as we yearn for Lars to go for the 'real girl,' Margo, who works at his office and sings in the choir at his church--the one who clearly has a crush on him despite his gross inability to carry on a conversation with her, let alone look her in the eye. They take a big step in that direction when Lars saves the day by performing CPR on her teddy bear after Lars' office mate hangs a noose around it. His fear of intimacy begins to be repaired on their bowling night together with their hand shake good night. The whole film is saturated with the theme of each character's maturation process, growing out of all the childish issues that still hold them in bondage.

The innocence and goodness of these these characters have a powerful impact on the audience. Our culture desperately needs a timeout from the strong, good-looking, flawless starlets whose lives we obsessively follow on and off the screen. Lars' prolonged blinking and Margo's dorky, yet well-timed laugh may be the scenes so many of us are yearning to watch: they give us the real strength to be ourselves no matter how awkward it is for others to be around. Lars and the Real Girl provides a small remedy for some of what is wrong with so much of our movie-watching experiences. At the end of the story, when Bianca's death is final and Lars is given new life, we are left to contemplate how both of Lars' girls are 'real' in their own unique ways.

The Vitality of Communities

2008-06-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

There is no hope for society without an awareness of transcendence. Transcendence is kept alive not on the grounds of logical proof to the effect that there is a cosmos with a hereafter, but by the vitality of communities in which a different way of being keeps breaking in here and now.
John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom

John Howard Yoder [1927-1997] was committed to the task of witness by challenging the faithfulness of local assemblies of Jesus-followers throughout North America. He believed that society at large desperately needed the hope infused by Christian faith. But this hope of transcendence could only come by little communities here and there that actually loved and forgave and served each other, as well as outsiders to the faith. These communities would live here and now as citizens of a whole new world, as if the kingdom of God had fully arrived. The kingdom had been inaugurated in Jesus both 'now' and 'not yet.' Jesus' kingdom-dwellers would be a foretaste of what life will be like when Jesus ‘reappears’ in our broken world of sin and shame and guilt and rebellion, piecing it all back together someday soon. For Yoder, the Christian’s hope lay not in a disembodied heaven, nor a logical defense of the faith, nor in an error-free Bible, a store-house of absolutely timeless truths. Instead, our hope is in what God will do to this world...starting now. Yoder beckoned the American Body of Christ to live faithfully in each unique context, looking for where the Spirit of God was at work in many creative ways. Yoder offered some sample kingdom practices in his Body Politics [1992]. As communities imitated the life of Jesus and his obedience to social nonconformity all the way to the cross, ‘others’ could join in on these strange and refreshing practices:

(1) sharing possessions [not storing away wealth nor keeping up with the Joneses],
(2) gently and honestly confronting in conflict resolution [not gossip nor ‘I’m over it’],
(3) being baptized into a brand new identity called ‘the messianic people’ [not nationalism nor patriotism],
(4) cultivating an open floor and weighing the perspectives of others [not the rule of the expert nor the chaos of ‘anything goes’] and
(5) utilizing the unique gifts and talents of everyone on the team [not overvaluing roles nor undervaluing diversity].

These practices [as a start and as a focus] are distinctly ‘Christian.’ They are quite different from how most American ‘communities’ [families, teams, shopping malls, conferences, businesses, political parties, classrooms, small groups, churches] operate. This kind of vitality is what worship and praise and ministry and celebration are all about. When a community pledges to following Christ through these Jesus-imitating practices, they will be taken seriously in wider society [but not always] because they have the sweet smell of transcendence, the only hope for our culture.

Philemon: An Introduction to a Short Letter

2008-06-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

Philemon
The first in a series on Paul's letter to Philemon

1 Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,
To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, 2to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in your house:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God 5because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith towards the Lord Jesus. 6I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. 7I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.
8For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, 9yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. 10I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. 11Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. 12I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. 13I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; 14but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. 15Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever, 16no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
17 So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. 19I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. 20Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. 21Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.
22 One thing more—prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you.
Final Greetings and Benediction23 Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, 24and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow-workers.
25 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

In the climax of perhaps his greatest parable, Jesus tells of the father who ‘saw [his son] and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him’ [Luke 15:20]. This would have been a shocking response to a son’s homecoming—a son who scandalously asked his father for the will money and left the family for a distant country. Jesus lifted up the model of this father’s compassion in response to his own behavior which was critiqued by the ‘religious’ folks of his day:
‘This man receives sinners and eats with them’ [Luke 15:2].

‘Compassion’ went far beyond mere feelings of sympathy. In the ancient world this word 'splachna' meant a ‘burning in the bowels,’ when one person literally felt a physical burning for the distress and brokenness and pain of someone else. Jesus’ story of the running father [also called the ‘parable of the prodigal son’] touches something deep in all of us because of the father’s response. It is a response that goes against the grain of our concepts of justice. Most fathers wouldn’t dream of acting this way towards their wayward sons.

This story comes alive in Paul’s letter to Philemon. When we do our best to piece together the missing story behind the letter, we sense that the non-Christian slave Onesimus has run away from his master Philemon. On the run, he somehow runs into Paul who takes him in and eventually Onesimus embraces the gospel story as his own. Paul pens this letter while he is in prison [Ephesus? Rome?] and sends Onesimus and Paul’s good friend Tychicus on a mission back to Philemon and his house church [probably in Colosse or Laodicea]. What will the gospel really mean to these two ‘beloved brothers’ [verse 16]? How will Onesimus’ fear and Philemon’s pride be transformed in light of the work of Christ?

We actually don’t know the answers to these questions, but we can put hope into a successful outcome because the letter has been preserved. Paul is beckoning both Onesimus and Philemon, brothers in Christ, to embrace each other and allow their relationship to be transformed by Christian identity and mission. He is seeking an enacted parable, a real life story that powerfully embodies what it means to follow Jesus into the messiness of our world. In the Roman world, many historians would suggest, runaway slaves, if caught, would get the death penalty. Paul, as a citizenship of God’s new kingdom, seems to set aside this form of ‘justice’ for the more difficult way of compassion and reconciliation.

God's Rescue Operation

2008-05-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 1:13-14

Here's how I would have interpreted this passage five years ago:
God has rescued us sinners from the dominion of hell and we've been given, in Christ, a free pass to the kingdom of heaven. This future promise is what redemption and forgiveness is all about. Sure, our life here and now is important, but our salvation lies in the future, the hope of heaven, either after death or when Christ returns. The work of Jesus Christ, in his life and on the cross, was and is primarily about saving souls. The gospel went out from Paul and continues today, inviting everyone to have their sins cleansed in the blood of Christ, so that they can have access to God and live eternally in heaven.

Our conversion of the imagination has rendered a new reading:
The whole passage should be read with the Hebrew Scriptures as a backdrop. The formative experience for the people of God, Israel, was God's redemption [liberating them from oppressive slavery] of His people from Egypt, the dominion of darkness. The new dominion of darkness for God's people in 1st century Palestine was the Roman Empire, ruling by intimidation, force and wealth. Paul was proclaiming a new redemption for the new 'messianic' communities, the renewed people of God, from the whole Roman way-of-life and the sin that held the entire world in bondage.

The dominion of darkness [exousia in Greek...also translated 'powers' or 'authorities'] is a present reality in the world today. The Powers have been ordained by God to organize the world, but have fallen and we are enslaved by the illusion that these Powers are 'god.' This is a view of evil that is more social and corporate and political than a sole emphasis on individuals who are sinful. Sociology strongly supports the notion that the power of evil is not just the individually sinful acts added up in society. It takes on a much more powerful force for evil than that. The whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. We American Christians should be quite sensitive to this in our often unquestioned and uncritical allegiance to America and its 'dream' of unparalleled success, comfort, convenience and power by whatever means possible [can our country, too, be a dominion of darkness in ways that we are either blind to or simply refuse to acknowledge].

Likewise, we've been transplanted into the kingdom of the Son now. Paul is using this Greek word basilea which was a very important concept for Jews: their God would invade the world and soon reign in Jerusalem in an unprecedented way and non-Jews all over the world would flock to Israel to worship Him [see Is 49:8 and 61:1-2]. For Paul, this day had come...but in a mysteriously shocking way. No one would have ever imagined that the anointed Jewish king, the Messiah, would reign from a scandalous cross! The gospel news about what God had done in the messiah Jesus went out to the gentile world, all over the Roman Empire and beyond inviting everyone to experience the presence of God [the Holy Spirit] right where they lived. 'The kingdom of the Son' is also a subversive reference to the 'kingdom' that ruled the world in the 1st century: The Roman Empire. Caesar was referred to as 'the Son of the Divine' back in his prime. Paul was beckoning these Colossian followers of the real Caesar, Jesus the messiah, to live out their redemption, releasing them from the bonds of slavery to Empire with its addiction to violence and domination and the worship of false gods and Caesar.

Paul was convinced that in the life, teaching, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, God inaugurated His Kingdom. This kingdom is present NOW and NOT YET. Citizens of God's Kingdom measure success by how faithful we are to bearing the cross, observing evidence of the kingdom here and there, a 'leavening process' [Mt 13:33] of slow growth. Through the work of God's Spirit, we are a sign and a foretaste of what God's Kingdom will be when Christ reappears [parousia]. We live out our alternative 'kingdom politics' in small communities all over the world in 'churches' that proclaim, in word and deed, God's kingdom in the midst of a sin-dominated world.

We read the Bible through a new lens magnified by fresh scholarship [NT Wright says we have learned more about 1st century Palestine in the last 50 years than the first 1900 years of Christian scholarship combined] and dialogue and prayer and experience. It has had HUGE implications for what we think about God and the world and how we live out our faith.

A Conversion of My Imagination on IRAQ

2008-05-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

At right, women in the Balkans who unveil the illusion that reigned in Jesus' day and ours: 'It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.'

Just over 5 years ago, I debated with Dr. Jim Corbett during lunch in the Capistrano Valley HS gynasium over the question of whether the United States should go to War with Iraq. I, of course, took the affirmative, and to be honest, I held my own in the debate. I wish I hadn't. I now believe that I was quite wrong about the Iraq question. I don't flip-flop because of the devastating loss of life in Iraq and the ongoing civil war that stalemates it. I've been converted to a new way of thinking theologically.

I believe that the primary importance for God sending his Son Jesus to live, teach, serve, die and rise from the grave was to form a community, a renewed Israel, to reenact his life in a radical way. To be Christian is not simply to ‘believe’ or to receive grace so that our sins are washed away. God’s purpose in Christ was not simply to save souls so they could go to heaven when they died or so that people could have a ‘personal’ relationship with Christ [this unfortunately has led to many Christians refusing to emphasize or even demand a unique socio-political lifestyle because it will lead to ‘works righteousness,’ attempting to work one’s way to heaven]. Jesus’ way was socio-political. It was the formation of a new kind of people who lived just like him [I Peter 2:9-11 calls Christians a ‘race’ and a ‘nation’] and it had an alternative ‘constitution’ or shall we say 'manifesto' [the demanding teachings of Jesus]. Jesus, in the Gospels, announced ‘the kingdom of God.’ This was not a ‘spiritual’ kingdom in the individual's heart, but instead a world-wide 'movement' of God, fleshed out in a way-of-life that reflected the Sermon on the Mount and the rest of Jesus’ life [as contrasted with the ‘kingdoms’ of the world with their emphasis on domination, fame, money and popularity, etc]. ‘Repentance’ [metanoia in the Greek] originally meant ‘to turn your mind around’—we change our whole logic about how to live faithfully in this world [today we might say 'change your allegiance' or 'switch your team'].

To simplify, he called his disciples to ‘take up the cross,’ which basically was a call to live out a socially nonconforming life of loving enemies, sharing possessions, serving others, forgiveness, truth-telling and deep compassion for the world [see I Cor 1:18-25 for Paul’s ‘message of the cross’]. We are called to imitate his life in our present context, with all its unique challenges. My wife and I come from a 500-year Christian tradition called ‘Anabaptism,’ which seeks to follow this original pattern of discipleship. This tradition puts a HUGE emphasis on peaceful living, sharing our possesions and suffering obedience [because this was Jesus' way]. We believe that the ‘original revolution’ [in the 1st century Roman Empire] that Jesus brought was the formation of a community of both Jews and Gentiles who, despite their significant cultural differences, claimed to be a part of the same family: the messianic people. The messianic people defied established labels and patterns of identity: neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female [Gal 3:27-28]. We would say neither American nor Iraqi. Actually, we have a dual citizenship: both Christian and American. Yet when these two identities conflict, we are primarily, first and foremost, ‘Christians’ [‘christ’ is simply the Greek word for ‘messiah’].

The biblical text most used to justify the Christians’ use of violence [at times], in order to defend the country from outsiders who are intent on destroying the country is Romans 13:1-7 [‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities’], but Paul, no doubt, would call us, as he called the community in Rome, to follow his prior words in Romans 12: ‘Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them…Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all…Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is min, I will repay, says the Lord’…overcome evil with good.’ In the historical context of Romans, the Christian community was enduring a certain amount of persecution from their own government, the most powerful empire of the world at the time. Some, in the community, understandably, were rebelling and resisting government authorities because of the suffering it brought on. Paul was calling them to a higher way of suffering obedience in the name of Jesus, not rebellion.

Our situation is much different. We live in a country that is called an ‘empire’ by most intelligent citizens of this world and we have a Christian as our ‘emperor.’ We are certainly engaged in a battle today between radical Islamic militants who hate the American way of life and believe that the actions of the United States in the past century have caused grief and devastation to millions of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere. Many of these radical Islamists are hell-bent on destroying the United States and killing innocent people. It is more than necessary for the US government to establish a ‘police force’ of a large magnitude to stop these insurgents. It is more than necessary for the US to train covert operations specialists to seek out and bring the ‘bad guys’ to justice. But I do believe that the war in Iraq has been unjust from the get-go [5 year ago]. The US government declared war on Iraq for two reasons: (1) suspicions that the Iraqi government was secretly building a nuclear weapon; and (2) suspicions that there was a secret link between the Iraqi government and al Qaeda, the organization responsible for 9/11. After five years of war and investigations, neither of these suspicions has turned out to have any validity. I personally believe from my own research that the war in Iraq was and is mostly about ‘geopolitics’ [a strategic move for America’s political and economic well-being: oil and proximity to Israel and other interests]. None of the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were from Iraq. Sadaam Hussein was a secular Sunni Muslim who despised religious fanatical groups like al Qaeda.

I take a really hard line on issues of peace and violence because, for the first 300 years of Christianity, followers of Jesus refused to take up the sword. In 313, Constantine the Great became the first ‘Christian’ Roman Emperor and he made decisions that led to an enforced Christianity on the entire empire. Everybody got baptized and saved [it was mandatory]! This is the context of Augustine’s ‘just war’ theory. Christians had to come up with a theory to enforce when their government could use war to protect the people of the empire [basically to defend the common good and protect the innocent]. This has led to a modern just war theory that accepts criteria for the ‘just’ practice of war like the following: there must be just cause and right intent and war may be waged only by a legitimate authority as a move of last resort, and there must be probability of success and the means of waging war must be proportional to the ends and war must distinguish combatants from noncombatants. These are all laid out to keep countries out of warfare unless they absolutely must in order to protect innocent civilians. With these criteria on the table, Iraq is clearly not a 'just' war.

Here’s what I believe: I think that the Body of Christ makes an unfaithful and devastating move when they think that they need to take responsibility to move history in a certain direction. My favorite theologian [John Howard Yoder] calls the Christianizing of the Roman Empire ‘the Constantinian Concubinage’ [the Body of Christ prostituted itself to the power of the State!]. This is the key turning point in the history of Christian faith…one that we must recognize in order to reverse course. It quickly led to an extremely unauthentic, watered-down form of Christian faith. There is no doubt in my mind that the authentically ‘Christian’ response to 9/11 was the voice of a few minority American Christian communities who begged the US government to forgive the enemies and refuse to take revenge.

The war in Iraq has produced more than 80,000 Iraqi deaths, many of them civilians, as well as more than 4,000 American soldier deaths. This does not mean that Christian communities should advocate for the US government to just ‘lay down and die.’ It means that we should call the US government to protect US civilians around the globe in just ways. And most importantly, it means that we have a deep trust that Jesus is Lord over our whole world, calling his people to reign in his way: suffering obedience [loving enemies, forgiveness, service] to the point of the cross [remember, Jesus’ life was not effective until after God vindicated his radical way in the Resurrection]. The Gospel writers portray Jesus’ way beautifully at the cross: Jesus loving and forgiving and serving to the very end [Luke 23:32-34]. Jesus confronted the powers-that-be [Jewish religious leaders and Roman government leaders] and they were threatened by his truly-human-way-of-life. We ‘messianic people’ are called to this way-of-life, no matter how hard it gets. This is what Martin Luther King was getting at 40 years ago, fighting for racial reconciliation with the radically nonviolent resistance of Jesus:

The cross we bear precedes the crown we wear. To be a Christian one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tension-packed content and carry it until that very cross leaves its marks upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering.

Again, these insights are driven by a reading of the New Testament that takes into account Jesus’ constant temptation as a ‘messiah,’ an anointed king of a small group of Jews, a people living as colonized second-class citizens in the 1st century Roman Empire: violence. The Jewish people were consistently tempted to take up the sword against the Roman Empire and this led to the wretched destruction of their temple and most of Jerusalem in 70AD [40 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus]. It was a program that did not work and was not faithful to God’s call for them to be ‘a blessing to the world’ [Genesis 12:3]. Sure, we can read the OT ‘holy war’ passages [I Sam 15:3 and Dt 20:10-15] and claim a possibility that God would call his people to take up war to fulfill His promises. But how can we reconcile these with Matthew 5:38-48, where Jesus clearly calls his disciples to the mountain [just like Moses] to teach them a fulfillment of the Law, one that they should obey at all costs: ‘You have heard that it was said…But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.’ To be God’s children, to be followers of Jesus, is to resist the ever-present post-9/11 temptation: revenge.

Nash's Dad

2008-05-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

...but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’
Matthew 19:14

Nash's dad has always been a guy who 'let the little children come' to him. A dozen years ago, in a conversation that we had on a road trip to see Sarah Sanders in Arkansas we were talking about goals, what we wanted to do with our lives. I think I said I wanted to be a high school basketball coach [little did I know that I wouldn't have a clue how to teach X's and O's]. K-Was said he wanted to have a bunch of kids and be a great dad to them. I was 22 years old and I didn't know what to do with that answer [little did I know that Kevin was a kid magnet]. Since then, Kevin married Sarah [they weren't even dating back in 1996] and they have produced 3 children. The Three-Peat was complete yesterday with the birth of son Nash Sanders. I'm convinced K-Was is an amazing dad because the guy is just determined to follow through with what he says about anything and eveything. He's also a committed follower of Jesus who knows that this is an aspect of being a participating citizen in God's Kingdom.

Nash's dad, like Jesus, beckons the little children to come to him. He's a man who has given his life to discipleship, to what Matthew's Gospel calls 'the little ones' of Jesus, probably due to their inherent meekness and humility--their lower status in the Roman Empire. We have reason to celebrate new life in the American Empire today as two 'little ones' are rejoicing over the birth of their third little one.

Why We Fight [2005]

2008-05-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

I have two sons and I will allow none of my children to serve in the United States Military. If you join the military now you are not defending the United States of America, you are helping certain policy makers pursue an imperial agenda.
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski [Retired]

We have this idea that we have lots of information available. There's so much that's not available and so much of the truth, quote, unquote, is obscured by political actors who don't want the world to see what they're doing.
Charles Lewis, Founder of the Center for Public Integrity: Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest.

After showing this film to my World History class, one of my best students, a freshman and a Christian, was disturbed by this film's obvious liberal agenda. It would be utter folly, he said, for us to pull-out of Iraq now, equating it with an American decision to dig our own graves.

Unfortunately, he's been socially formed to think this way. Jesus could not have been a pacifist, he said, because then he would be disagreeing with God Himself, who commanded Israel to destroy the foreign armies in their conquest for the promised land in the Old Testament. It is our duty, he said, to protect Christian America from the bad guys.

Why We Fight certainly has its liberal agenda. It makes the Bush Adminstration with its connection to Halliburton and prior relationship with Sadaam Hussein look foolish. It features a variety of interviews with McCain, the now 'presumptive' Republican candidate, making him out to be somewhat fair-minded, but ultimately a part of the 'military-industrial complex' and its conspiracy to overtake America with its agenda [his final interview in the documentary is interrupted by a phone call from Dick Cheney].

The message of Why We Fight, however, is one that every follower of the crucified and resurrected Lord must consider: that the 'Powers that be' in our country have an overwhelming agenda to, in fact, go to war. The defense industry with its contracts to build more and more weapons. The current Administration with its use of fear to remain in power. Our leaders in Congress who cannot afford to lose any more defense jobs in their own districts. And the 'think tanks' that support the whole enterprise, pitching their case to various media outlets.

Why connects the lives of ordinary Americans that work for the defense industry or have children who died on 9/11 or are just enjoying a picnic on a summer day in Main Street USA with the powerbrokers in Washington DC and the death and destruction that have come as a result of their decisions. It reveals how much the Powers have hidden from the public and how we go along with our everyday lives, not really knowing why our military fights a war in Iraq today. Aside from the spin, it should call the Body of Christ to consider how we may be implicated in this death and destruction and what it would mean to repent [to turn around and chart a different course]. To stand by and support [or remain indifferent to] the continued war-making is counter to the scandalous factors of Jesus: enemy love [instead of blind patriotism], service [instead of domination] and forgiveness [instead of revenge].

We need subversively Christian think tanks to unveil what it may mean for Christian communities all over the United States to be faithful, to follow Jesus into the scandalous social nonconformity of the crucifixion. God has vindicated the nonviolent way of Jesus with the shocking resurrection of the humble, obedient messiah. Will we be seized by that power and wisdom of the cross [I Cor 1:18-25] that continues to summon those of us who primarily pledge allegiance to the Lamb who was slain?

‘We call a nonviolent man ‘Lord’ and in his name rekindle the arms race. We call a poor man ‘Lord’ and with his name on our lips deepen the ditch between rich and poor. We call ‘Lord’ a man who told us to love our enemies and we polarize the globe in the name of Christian values…’
John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom

*Note on 'spin' and 'agenda':
Every media venture, from movies to documentaries to TV news shows to the blogosphere has its hidden agendas, its unique perspectives. Ironically, it is far more difficult for those of in positions of privilege to pick out the spin from those media outlets who have it in their best interests to keep the status quo.

Food and the Powers-That-Be

2008-05-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

Below is a Press Release from Bread for the World: A Christian Voice for Ending Hunger
The 2008 Farm Bill represents half a loaf. Congress has increased funding for vital domestic nutrition programs but has failed to substantially reform the U.S. agricultural system.

We rejoice that additional funding has been given to nutrition programs especially in light of the growing global hunger crisis that is hindering the efforts of struggling parents to feed their children. We celebrate the increases to the Food Stamp Program and funding for food banks. We are happy that the bill authorizes the Hunger Free Communities grant program, which will enable community-based organizations to work together to plan and implement local strategies to end hunger. We are also encouraged that it contains a pilot program that allows for the local purchase of food aid from sources closer to the countries in need.

But we are missing the other half of the loaf – substantial reform of the commodity programs. Congress has failed to make our commodity programs fairer and more equitable. The bill does little to target subsidies to where they are most needed, but continues to concentrate payments to the largest and wealthiest landowners.

This missing half has long-term and pernicious effects on global agriculture and trade. Current policies have helped stymie agricultural development in poor countries, leaving millions of people mired in poverty and helping to create the current hunger crisis worldwide. Rather than respond to the new reality of global agriculture, the 2008 Farm Bill locks the United States into another five-year protectionist system that hampers the desperate efforts of small farmers to feed their families.

Both houses of Congress have overwhelmingly approved the 5-year renewable Farm Bill. The bill is a $307 Billion venture that pays out subsidies to the top 1% of wealthy farmers in the United States. It is a bill designed to protect the farmers, who tend to be quite vulnerable. Unfortunately, it has apparently become an entitlement that makes the wealthiest of farmers even wealthier, leaving the world's poorest farmers [mostly in the Third World] unable to compete with the low prices and high output of the American Empire. Many believe that this current bill will lead to higher food prices and more hunger for Africa.

Interestingly, Barack Obama signed on, but John McCain did not. In a speech yesterday, McCain said:

It would be hard to find any single bill that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it.

This issue appears to be one that highlights how sold-out our leaders really are to 'special interests' and 'lobbyists.' The farm lobby is very, very powerful and politicians get quite fearful when their consciences seem to go against the power and wealth of this group of Americans. Usually 'the Powers,' with all their money, win. When leaders like McCain courageously unmask and battle these 'Powers,' the citizens of God's Kingdom should applaud.

Of course, this is a call for Christians [individually and communally], to creatively confont these injustices in the world. Perhaps that means buying 'fair trade' certified so that these poor farmers in the Third World can be ensured a living wage. Perhaps that means prioritizing this issue more and more in the realm of Presidential and Congressional politics. Perhaps that means giving financially to organizations that lobby for more just farm laws and more just farm coops.

God is calling us to live redemptively in so many ways. This 'half a loaf' bill calls us to eat even more radically.

Adam and Steve

2008-05-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
Romans 1:18-27

Today, the California Supreme Court announced that it is unconstitutional to ban gay and lesbian marriages in the state. Surveys estimate more than 100,000 gay/lesbian couples seek marriage in California, and law experts are saying they'll get just that within the next 60 days. Evangelicals should strongly consider supporting this high court ruling. Here's why:

1. There is very little in the Bible concerning homosexuality. The Gospels do not record anything Jesus may have said or done about the issue. Paul's references in Romans [above] and I Corinthians are obviously negative. This can be attributed to the fact that gay and lesbian relationships in that culture were, by and large, non-consensual. These activities would be better categorized as 'rape,' 'child molestation,' 'prostitution' and 'temple idol worship.' These, of course, are all banned in the United States and should be. However, there simply was not a brand of homosexuality in that culture that equates to what we have here in the Western world today where same-sex couples have a desire to commit to each other--to unconditionally love and serve each other--for life. The authors of Scripture did not have a category for this in the 1st century AD [nor in the Old Testament period]. Those of us who believe passionately in Biblical authority should take this into account, instead of beginning all discussion of homosexuality with 'the Bible clearly teaches.'

2. With that said, there are many forms of homosexuality that dehumanize us. The gay and lesbian lifestyle of promiscuous sexuality, along with its gay baths and bars, is incredibly destructive [just like single heterosexual promiscuous lifestyles, including bars, raves, and fraternity and sorority college parties]. Because the Church has marginalized gays and lesbians and taken a firm stance on the wrongfulness of any sort of homosexual feelings or behavior, those with 'alternative' sexual orientations have sought community and identity in these social networks. Evangelical communities should consider reversing course and reaching out to these broken and hurting people [somewhere between 5-10% of the general population is gay/lesbian], inviting them to join us into radical discipleship to Jesus. Evangelical communities should also consider the shocking possibility that Adam and Steve, newly married, could follow Jesus even more radically together.

3. Science continues to come out with intriguing studies about the possibility of being born with same-gender sexual desires. Ask anyone who is gay and they will tell you with candor what it was like 'ever since they can remember.' What must this be like to grow up with these feelings and desires in a culture that is overwhelmingly negative or indifferent towards you?

4. Even if Evangelical communities take the side of 500 years of Christian tradition in the Western world and pledge themselves to their conviction that the Bible clearly rejects same-sex marriage, they should consider, with humility, that the United States has a Constitution that guarantees rights and freedoms that should be extended to this group. Much of Evangelical concern over same-sex marriage falls under the category 'the sanctity of marriage' as found in Scripture. We should prioritize, at this moment of time, what the Bible actually commissions married couples to do: husbands loving and serving their wives as Christ loved and served the Church, remaining sexually pure and rejecting divorce. When Christian communities prioritize these practices through word and deed, they can be a faithful witness to the sanctity of marriage [which should remind us that divorce is legal in every state of America, and rightfully so, even though it is clearly and adamantly countered throughout the Old and New Testaments].

5. On top of all of this, Evangelical communities should consider pledging themselves to campaign, advocate, lobby and faithfully live out what the Sermon on the Mount [and the rest of the Bible] calls us to in regards to sharing possessions, rejecting violent solutions and caring/serving the marginalized and oppressed in our world. At center stage of the long narrative in Scripture is a God who overwhelmingly loves humanity and longs for us all to live the way he intended. Sure, sexuality is vitally important. Spending time condemning homosexual activity in simplistic terms is a highly overrated way to shower others with God's love. Taking time to dialogue [which inherently means listening to sincere Christians who may disagree with us and weighing/discerning their passionately and biblically reasoned arguments] and to pray about this extremely complex issue is underrated and not undertaken nearly enough.

6. Gay and lesbian marriage is not a slippery-slope to an anything goes [relativistic] attitude about love, sex and the rest of life. It will not lead to serious considerations about legalizing human-animal marriages or anything else like it. These types of arguments are based in fear and actually take us away from dialoging the real issues. Same-sex marriages in California will offer millions of gays and lesbians the very real alternative to degrading, dehumanizing lifestyles with the challenge and adventure of committing to faithfully loving, forgiving, and serving one person for their entire lives.

Whatever happens in law and practice, let us pray for justice and righteousness, wisdom and discernment in these days ahead.

O send out your light and your truth, let them lead me. [Psalm 43:3]

A 'Christian' Approach to Foreign Policy

2008-05-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

Back in September, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to the United Nations in New York and was invited by Columbia University to speak to students and community. He was not received well and the President of Columbia said some humiliating things when he introduced Ahmadinejad. This event was all over the American media. Another event, however, that was hardly covered [if at all] was a meeting of Ahmadinejad with a group of Christian leaders for humble, listening dialogue. Below is a statement sent to from Fuller Seminary's Glen Stassen who was invited to participate with the American Christian group that sponsored the meeting:

Catholic Statement on Meeting with President Ahmadinejad
[edited according to suggestions of one present]

We are a group of Roman Catholics who met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on Sept. 26, 2007 in New York City at an Interfaith Encounter between North American Christian Leaders [that was initiated and organized by the Mennonite Central Committee. Mennonites are a historic peace church, and here again they have led us in a specifically peace action, in accord with Jesus’ call for faithful action in peacemaking.]

We met with President Ahmadinejad in part because we are deeply concerned about a potential American military attack on Iran. We fear that the prospect of war with Iran is increasingly likely. The unsavory reception that the President of Iran received in New York City demonized not only him personally but also the people of Iran. We issue an urgent call to tone down the rhetoric concerning Iran and to engage in a positive campaign of understanding, communication, and common action based on common interests.

Our meeting with President Ahmadinejad was respectful and courteous. We listened to him and he to us; we engaged in a frank exchange of topics that both unite us and divide us. Neither side engaged in rancorous or inflammatory rhetoric. We pledged to continue our frank but polite conversations and President Ahmadinejad invited us to visit his country as often as we wish. Meetings such as ours with President Ahmadinejad cannot possibly resolve important differences between peoples but they are a beginning. They set us on the road to peace and honesty. They challenge us to stay the course to peace and we pledge to do precisely that.

As Catholic Christians we follow the call of the prophet Isaiah to beat “swords into plowshares” and “spears into pruning hooks.” We accept the challenge of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” But love for others involves neither passivity nor the acceptance of the status quo. An active love for others resists their evil deeds in a nonviolent manner and this alone can result in justice and reconciliation. During these troubled times in which war between the United States and Iran could break out at any moment, we are inspired by our Pope and the Bishops of the United States in their constant call to negotiations and dialogue rather than war as the only secure path to peace in our world. We recall the words of Blessed Pope John XXIII in his encyclical Peace on Earth, “There is reason to hope…that by meeting and negotiating, [people] may come to discover better the bonds that unite them…”

[We oppose efforts to demonize the Iranians and discourage the communication between Iran and Americans, both in civil society and by the American government.]

We call on all Catholics to urge the United States government to pursue every path possible short of war to resolve the differences between Iran and the United States. [For six years, the United States government responded to a report that North Korea might be enriching uranium by cutting off the oil promised them for generating electricity, and by refusing direct talks with North Korea. North Korea then restarted their nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, generating electricity but also producing enough uranium for eight to twelve nuclear bombs, one of which they tested ten months ago. Then the United States reversed course and did sit down for two days of direct talks. The result was that the Yongbyon reactor has been closed down, is being monitored by inspectors by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the delivery of oil for generating electricity is being resumed. We urge the United States government to follow its own example in North Korea by agreeing to sit down with Iran for direct talks without preconditions.]

We urge reliance on the United Nations; the use of mediation and arbitration; increased trade, intellectual, artistic, and athletic exchanges; formal and informal communication between religious leaders; and citizen and student exchanges as the only authentic peace between our two great nations. Peace is possible. Indeed it is the only way.

This Christian community is a model for Jesus' design of love, forgiveness, humility and reconcilation. Our world desperately needs this vision of what it means to be Christian participants in foreign policy. This dialogue is a vital practice for communities that pledge allegiance to and participate in the Kingdom of God today in a broken and violent world. It unmasks the illusion that only governments participate in foreign policy. We can model 'the new in Christ' to both American and foreign governments who insist on tough talk and violent threats.

Do Evangelicals Really Need a 'Manifesto?'

2008-05-11T16:15:00.000-07:00

*An Evangelical Manifesto was published on May 7th. It has been signed by some 70 Evangelical leaders in the United States, classically advocating for a third way alternative to liberal and fundamentalist Christian options. It is a call for Evangelical Christians to be politically engaged, but not identified and aligned with one political party--a response to the 'culture wars' and subsequent negative publicity that Evangelicalism has received in the media and scholarship. The 'manifesto' can be accessed at www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com. Here are a few [too many] of my initial thoughts:

• I'll be far more interested to listen to Evangelicals [and others] and their responses to the document than I was actually reading it. Who do you know that has read it? I’d love to hear what Christians and non-Christians think about it. What do they think is controversial? What do you think is controversial?

• In my opinion, the Evangelical Movement needs to offer an apology, rather than a manifesto. With the political power that Evangelicals gained in the 80s and with the ultimate Evangelical [George W. Bush] serving for the past 8 years, we should unveil all the ways that we have misused and abused our clout. We should be very specific with this because I think others [non-Christians and non-Evangelicals] are ready and eager to listen to these: ie, our marriage to the Republican Party, our vengeful response to 9/11, our politico-religious practices like watching Fox News Nightly ‘religiously.’ Honest question: where does the gospel of Bill O’Reilly [not to leave out Lou Dobbs and Tim Russert] butt heads with the gospel of Jesus? What Evangelicalism needs is not a ‘manifesto’ [revolution! triumph!], but a ‘jeremiad’ [confession…repentance…humility]—we should start by highlighting [lowlighting?] all of our unfaithful tendencies: consumerism, materialism, nationalism, violent solutions, inability to sacrifice and share possessions, anti-intellectualism…Far more focus, resources and effort need to be put into our own failure as a movement.

• Because of our unique context in this moment of time [pluralistic/fragmented 21st century America, struggling with our own arrogance], the jeremiad should start out by beckoning Evangelicals [individually and collectively] to sign on to Jim McClendon and atheist James Smith’s ‘principle of fallibility’:

even one’s most cherished and tenaciously held convictions might be false and are in principle always subject to rejection, reformulation, improvement, or reformation.

This is essential because, by and large, we Evangelicals are those American Christians who are convinced we possess the Truth [note capital ‘T’]…about everything.

-Here are the manifesto's '7 beliefs that Evangelicals consider to be at the heart of the message of Jesus':

1. Jesus Christ is fully God become fully human
2. The only ground for our acceptance by God is what Jesus Christ did on the cross and what he is now doing through his risen life [we receive his redemption solely by grace through faith]
3. New life, given supernaturally through spiritual regeneration, is a necessity as well as a gift [power of the HS]
4. The total truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible [the inspired Word of God]
5. Being disciples of Jesus means serving him as Lord in every sphere of our lives, secular as well as spiritual, public as well as private, in deeds as well as words, and in every moment of our days on earth
6. The personal return of Jesus provides both strength and substance to what we are doing [a consummation of history and the fulfillment of an undying kingdom that comes only by the power of God]
7. Called to know and love Christ through worship, love Christ’s family through fellowship, grow like Christ through discipleship, serve Christ by ministering to the needs of others in his name, and share Christ with those who do not yet know him

• Here are a couple of questions for the drafters of the Evangelical Manifesto [and everyone else signing on] from Lindsay and I who, by the way, are pretty comfortable with signing on to the ‘7 beliefs that we consider to be at the heart of the message of Jesus’ [to be honest, I struggle with the wording of #2 but that's for another blog]…but:

o Can we advocate for committed Christian homosexual marriages and still be Evangelicals?
o Can we advocate for equality in ministry, boosting women to pastoral/leadership positions in Church communities and still be Evangelicals?

• These two questions [and certainly others that will continue to arise in our cultural context] directly relate to biblical reading strategies: obviously, the document strays away from words beginning with ‘in’ [inerrancy, infallibility, etc]. This is welcome, but what does ‘authority’ really mean? How would Evangelicals respond to NT Wright’s ‘story authority’ or Richard Hays’ ‘metaphor-making’ or Walter Brueggemann’s ‘text as drama’ or Brian Blount’s cultural interpretation through the lens of the African-American experience? The work of these men and others need to have a say in order for us to come out of the naïve/simple reading strategies that have dominated the movement in recent decades.

• With this diversity of reading strategies in mind, it’s great that they addressed ‘the other’ in the document, reaching out to other faith and non-faith groups. This need to ‘talk to strangers’ [Wayne Meeks] is vital today because God does indeed talk through ‘outsiders and loners’ [John Howard Yoder]—-we don’t have a monopoly on the truth so we need to learn how to listen.

• DIALOGUE? How then can we learn from both outsiders to Evangelicalism and diverse others within the umbrella? The Evangelical Movement MUST create rules/principles/vision for space/priority to dialogue controversial issues [an Acts 15 model where everyone has a voice and everyone else listens/weighs—a space where we can come to a consensus and say together ‘it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us’]—is this possible with the modern epistemological sensibilities currently on offer?

• One of the best paragraphs in the entire manifesto, in my opinion:

we all believe that Jesus’ Good News of justice for the whole world was promoted, not by a conqueror’s power and sword, but by a suffering servant emptied of power and ready to die for the ends he came to achieve. Unlike some other religious believers, we do not see insults and attacks on our faith as offensive and blasphemous in a manner to be defended by law, but as part of the cost of our discipleship that we are to bear without complaint or victim-playing.

o Almost immediately after this paragraph, however, the manifesto displays a martyr-complex, calling scholars, journalists and public policy makers to abandon stereotypes and to adopt different definitions/categories:

We urge those who report and analyze public affairs, such as scholars, journalists, and public policy makers, to abandon stereotypes and adopt definitions and categories in describing us and other believers in terms that are both accurate and fair, and with a tone that you in turn would like to be applied to yourselves.

To be honest, this just comes across as whiny, especially from a group of Christians who have possessed so much political power and probably deserve a lot of the critique.

• The manifesto should empower the local far more than it does. It is seeking a unified coalition of some 70 million odd varieties of American Christians coming from urban/rural, coasts/middle-america, college educated/high school dropouts, ethnicities, etc—-there are far more diverse ways that Jesus’ Body needs to be a witness than an umbrella coalition can offer.

Today, I would actually consider myself an ‘Evangelical’ because I believe that the gospel is great news for the world and I’ve committed my life to living it [albeit quite imperfectly] and inviting others to join God’s people in the adventure of redemption. I also seek to live under the authority of God’s script for faithful living, the Bible. There are a handful of competing claims to the identity and mission of Evangelicalism and I have a lot of convictions about what it would mean for Evangelicals to be faithful in our current cultural climate. There has got to be a space for humble dialogue as we compete, through word and deed, for what this movement is all about. The beauty is that I’m convinced that we Evangelicals don’t have to agree on anything and everything in order to be faithful to the legacy of Jesus and the gospel of the Kingdom.

*For more on Evangelicalism, see our blog on February 27, 2008.

Engaging the Political Powers

2008-05-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

...for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. [Colossians 1:16]

...who is the head of every ruler and authority. [Colossians 2:10b]

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. [Colossians 2:15]

Two films that should find their way onto everyone's Netflix queue are Street Fight [2005] and Can Mr. Smith Get To Washington Anymore? [2006]. They are both campaign documentaries that would not be believable if they were fictional scripts. I'm convinced that anyone--regardless of where they find themselves on the political spectrum and regardless of how much they are even interested in politics--will be touched by these two films. Perhaps there aren't any two movies that portray the viciousness of Paul's 'principalities and powers' better than these. Those in power cling to power through name-recognition, lies, wealth, intimidation and whatever else it takes and 'the system' seems virtually impenetrable. In these films, the two main characters, one a black baptist and the other a secular progressive, unmask the powers-that-be, exposing the vile corruption and injustice that characterize the God-ordained authorities that systematize our world. The work of these candidates exemplify task that we have to redeem these governmental powers, restoring them to their proper use: protecting, liberating and empowering people to live the kind of lives that God intended.

These films captivate the audience with boyish, smart, idealistic and determined Davids who won't back down from the Goliaths that have controlled the political operations where they live. These underdogs get all sorts of emotions charged up in the audience: laughter, tears and anger, but what is most compelling is their ability to erase the apathy that seems to saturate most of the ordinary American political scene. These films will not leave you with a shrug of the shoulders, asking 'Does my vote even matter?' Instead, it will inspire you to want to join the campaign of the local underdog and dig in your heals, fighting the machine with everything you've got.

Street Fight tells the story of Cory Booker, a Stanford football player and Yale Rhodes Scholar, who lives in the projects of Newark, New Jersey and has thrown his hat in the ring to de-throne Sharpe James, the mayor for 16 years and running. Booker runs on a simple platform: to help people, to rid the streets of drugs and gangs and to sweep away the corruption of government [James makes $200,000 a year]. Booker is 30-something, single, ambitious, and believable. In one scene, Booker slaps the hands of elementary school children on his nightly campaign rounds and the 10-year-old girl brags that her hands smell like Cory Booker. When the voice behind the camera asks, 'What does that smell like?' she responds after a brief pause, 'Like the future!' Moments like this will be ingrained in our pysche for a long time, mostly because we know intuitively that spontaneous sincerity, through the mouth of babes, is the only thing that can trump good fictional story-telling.

In Mr. Smith, Jeff Smith, a young, somewhat frail, white guy with a bit of a lisp, runs for Congress in St. Louis, MO against yet another Carnahan, a family that has dominated Missouri politics for generations. Smith is a teacher at a local college and has spent a lot of time, money and energy on the African-American community in St. Louis. Smith bleeds sincerity and hope. He is so easy to root for it is frightening. But the greatest gift of this film is the team that works for Smith. This community is perhaps the best picture of church I've seen in a long time. They put in countless hours and their mission/identity, using their different gifts in unique ways, is fully wrapped into this campaign, looking to pull-off the unthinkable. They are 'believers' and their sweat and tears run wild throughout the exhausting months of ups and downs.

*For more on a theology of 'the Powers,' see January 12, 2008.

Join the Team

2008-05-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

With Barack Obama's landslide victory in North Carolina and almost-upset in Indiana last night, expect a wave of 'superdelegates' to flood the Obama column in the coming days. This things over. So we should start talking seriously about Obama-McCain for the big election in November. Let this be just an initial commentary on how gospel people engage with the candidates.

In his final volume of Systematic Theology, Jim McClendon cast a vision for what it means for Christian communities to be a 'witness' in the midst of American culture. McClendon offered a 3-fold paradigm for an engagement of culture through the gospel story: how we work our jobs, love our spouses, know our neighbors, watch movies, eat meals, labor for justice, read the newspaper, vote for President and everything else we do.

HOPE--sifting through wider culture looking for ways and means that reflect the gospel

WARNING--exposing the lies and illusions of wider culture that counterfeit our lives

DEMAND--calling upon communities that pledge allegiance to the lordship of Christ in counterculture ways

This trifecta is a wonderful way to critically analyze our surroundings, knowing that our world is more complex than it has been made out to be. With this offering, let's look at Obama's candidacy with HOPE, WARNING and DEMAND, because, as he said in his victory speech to his supporters last night in North Carolina:

We will end it this time [politics as usual in Washington] not because I’m perfect – I think by now this campaign has reminded all of us of that.

Or as McClendon wrote:

...the gospel is not a simple no or yes to [Barack Obama] but declares a simultaneous yes and no. [Witness, 72-73]

This is a proposal of looking at one candidate [that Lindsay and I humbly endorse] from a authentic Christian point-of-view [I am under no illusions that my own perspective of what is decisively 'Christian' will not be countered by other 'Christian' perspectives].

HOPE [not to be confused with one of Obama's over-used words...along with 'change' and 'yes we can']

-As evidenced by his speech last night, Obama looks out for the downcast, the brokenhearted, the marginalized and oppressed and believes that government has got to be a part of the solution [especially when it is the wealthiest in the history of the world]. Of course, we believe that the Body of Christ will be judged by God on how we clothe, feed and care for 'the least of these' [Matthew 25]:

The woman I met in Indiana who just lost her job...The college student I met in Iowa who works the night shift after a full day of class and still can’t pay the medical bills for a sister who’s ill...The mother in Wisconsin who gave me a bracelet inscribed with the name of the son she lost in Iraq...The man I met in Pennsylvania who lost his job but can’t even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one...

...we do need a government that stands up for families who are being tricked out of their homes by Wall Street predators; a government that stands up for the middle-class by giving them a tax break; a government that ensures that no American will ever lose their life savings just because their child gets sick.

-Obama actually does care about 'life.' Christians believe in a God who cares deeply about the 'sanctity of life' from conception through adolescence into adulthood and seniority all the way to the grave [both in America all the way to the Third World]. He invites his people to do the same. Of course, this banner of life should extend to such issues as war, health care, farm bills, jobs, housing, and giving dignity to 'the other' [immigration, sexual orientation, religious differences, etc]. Obama emphasizes these often forgotten life issues including calling Iraq a 'dumb war' way back in late-2002 when it was not politically expedient to do so. [For the abortion issue, see below]

-Also evidenced by his speech last night, it seems Obama takes Jesus' Sermon on the Mount at face-value--listening to our enemies must be the start of loving them. This would be a major difference between the tough-talk of the Republicans [and Clinton]:

I trust the American people to understand that it’s not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies...

-Obama, time and time again, has veered away from quick gimmicks, such as the 18-cent gas tax holiday proposed by both McCain and Clinton last week. As gas prices soared, Obama refused to buy into 'popular' ideas that do nothing to solve the real issues.

WARNING [Exposing some lies and illusions]

-First of all, Obama isn't the Lord and Messiah--certainly, his powerfully skilled rhetoric has the tendency to whip us all into a frenzy, as if this were the 3rd Great Awakening. Our final hope will always be in God's determination through Christ [not Obama] to 'make all things new.'

-Second, much has been made of Obama's 'anti-life' stance by many Christian leaders. They are right that the abortion issue is very important and has led to the very irresponsible behavior of many. I would want to press him on the issue of a woman's right to choose [and I do believe that the gospel should not inhibit women to have the right to choose under certain circumstances].

-Third, Obama was against the war in Iraq, but the gospel should push him even further to embrace peace in a world of terror.

DEMAND [Christian communities living counter-culturally as a witness to the God who raises the dead]

Again, some words from last night:

This is our time to answer the call that so many generations of Americans have answered before – by insisting that by hard work, and by sacrifice, the American Dream will endure. Thank you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

The American Body of Christ should never forget that the American Dream does not guarantee the identity and mission we have in loving, serving and modelling for the world what life under God's Reign looks like--a foretaste and sign of what is to come in the eternal earthly reign of Jesus. This 'Dream' has been sustained by unjust wars and an advertising culture that beckons us to shop for a lot of stuff that we don't need and stuff that limits our faithfulness to God. In other words, the Gospel Story and the Amerian Dream do compete in important ways. What story are we ultimately living in?

In addition, the 'God Bless' closing [in speeches made by ALL the Presidents and Presidential candidates since Reagan] has become mundane and meaningless, probably only adding to this strange notion that America should be blessed because we are 'under God' or even 'Christian.' It plays to the uber-religious sensibilities of American voters, but really doesn't even mean anything. The only New Testament instructions about 'blessing' was directed to the disciples of Jesus who were boldly called to bless [and pray for]their enemies [Matthew 5/Romans 12].

*For more on McClendon's ideas on Christian faith and witness see www.thebaptistvision.blogspot.com.

The Nation Whose God is the Lord

2008-05-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

Psalm 33:12-11
Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.
The Lord looks down from heaven;
he sees all humankind.
From where he sits enthroned he watches
all the inhabitants of the earth—
he who fashions the hearts of them all,
and observes all their deeds.
A king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
and by its great might it cannot save.
Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
to deliver their life from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.
Our life waits for the Lord;
he is our help and shield.
Our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.

The 'nation whose God is Lord' in the Israelite song book, probably first compiled while they were in exile in Babylon, referred to Israel, the people of God commissioned to be a light to the nations. They were a people devoted to worshipping, following the God who created the universe and everything in it [33:1-11] and who 'fashions the hearts' of all people and 'observes all their deeds.' Throughtout their history, these Israelites had a lot of enemies on all sides of their borders, living in captivity sometimes, living as second-class citizens within their own borders sometimes [when Empires ruled them]. They were a people, no matter what was happening economically or politically, that were committed to being a witness to their covenant God.

Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. [Exodus 19:5-6]

They feared God...they hoped in his steadfast love...they waited for him, hoped for his deliverance. God, who was on the real throne, controlled history. Not Pharoah in Egypt, not the Babylonian King, not Caesar and his Empire, with its weapons of homeland security.

It would be wrong to read this Psalm supposing that America is or should be the 'nation whose God is Lord.' Sure, our currency advocates for a trust in God and, sure, we place our hand on the Bible, and, sure, our president is a sincerely devout Christian. America should not be equated with Old Testament Israel. It is a land of freedom and religious choice, not a theocracy. We, therefore, are part of God's Empire, while living in an American Empire. Our faitfulness is fully reliant on how we interpret and follow the Script. The early followers of Jesus believed that they, Jews and Gentiles, were another plant in God's garden, another tribe of God's children:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. [I Peter 2:9]

I propose that it is most helpful and faithful for American Christians to read this Script, as God's Word to his people living in exile. Sure, we American Christians are Americans, citizens of the most powerful Empire in the history of the world. But we are primarily citizens of God's Empire, pledging allegiance to God, who sits on the throne, far higher than the White House [and no matter how 'Christian' the President is, we must boldly criticize and energize his/her policies to embrace God's justice, peace and steadfast love].

The world-wide, multinational Body of Christ is the 'nation whose God is the Lord.' We take a stand against the necessity for war and intimidation and big weapons to give us safety in this War on Terror. We have nothing to fear, but God. We hope in his deliverance. This may sound naive or idealistic or just plain psychotic, but more than 80,000 Iraqis and some 4,000 Americans have been killed [www.iraqbodycount.org] in a war that has defied God's policies of enemy love, forgiveness and service to the world. But God's people must continue to be a witness of what it means to live without fear, trusting that 'God's got the whole world in his hands.' Did you ever think this childrens song would be so 'political?'

Jesus: Is He History?

2008-05-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

Today, a friend of mine passed along a book called The Jesus Puzzle [1999] by Earl Doherty. Not a professing Christian, he was fascinated by Doherty's claim that Jesus wasn't a historical person at all, but instead a myth. Doherty's writing appears to be a response to the conservative evangelical project of 'proving' Jesus' life, teachings, death and resurrection. Many of these authors include Craig Blomberg [Denver Seminary], J.P. Moreland [Biola], and Lee Strobel [Saddleback Church].

I'm interested in who is buying these books. I have a hunch that these works are preaching to the crowd [to say the least]. In other words, conservative evangelicals who continue the Enlightenment project of 'certainty' buy books published by Christian scholars to understand arguments for the validity of the historical Jesus. Atheists and agnostics, on the other hand, buy books by Doherty and UNC Chapel Hill's Bart Ehrman and the Jesus Seminar to pad their own resumes. My hunch is also that these voices talk past each other, no one listening, everyone proofing.

Is it ok that I'm not interested in the conversation at all? Postmodern Cbristain faith certainly claims a historical Jesus, but much more humbly and 'faithfully' [meaning proof is blowing in the wind]. Don't let me take away from either side of the ongoing historical Jesus battles. Their arguments are stellar...both sides. But we postmoderns are suspicious. We know that none of the authors come to the New Testament with a 'blank slate' or with anything resembling 'neutrality.' We know that they start with their own history of religious experiences [good or bad...or horrific], institutional expectations and agendas [most are paid nicely by universities and/or churches for their work] and egos [their all men with a lot of people hanging on every word].

I'd like to read a work by an atheist who 'proves' the historicity of Jesus or by an evangelical Christian who doubts it all. That's why I'm drawn to Yale's Wayne Meeks' Christ is the Question [2006], which takes these postmodern matters [and much more] into consideration when addressing who Jesus was 2000 years ago and is in the American 21st century. Meeks is ok with abandoning the front cover of Time Magazine to what he calls the 'naive antireligionists' and 'religious fundamentalists' in order come to the Bible with more integrity, faithfulness and honor [let's be honest, a more nuanced/complex conversation about Jesus isn't going to sell a lot of magazines in a dualistic culture at war!].

I know that some of the abrasiveness of these historical Jesus writings is that SO MUCH is written on it. It's overwhelming. How can one keep up with it all? How can one really know who's perspective to trust if one were really up to the task of reading it all [this would take a lot of time, energy and money]?

Again, the postmodern sensibilities that guide our faith drive us to ponder the challenge of offering the most compelling of all 'answers' in this great debate: a community humbly devoted to the way of Jesus [we 'believe' he's historical and that belief drives us to continue his legacy]--the risk of loving enemies, serving anyone and everyone and forgiving others, while pleading forgiveness for our own meager failures and weaknesses. For this life-project, we'll need to read and re-read the Gospels as a Script for living out the truth.

*For more on our definition of 'postmodern' Christian faith and our yearning to be a part of this kid of community, see our blog on January 18, 2008.

The Big Picture

2008-05-01T12:06:00.000-07:00

Delivered by Stephen Ransom at the Celebration of Life service for his father Ray Ransom on April 26, 2008.

Well Dad, it must be awesome to see the Big Picture now.

When I was a little guy living in Tucson Dad was this huge, tough guy that looked like Paul Bunyan. He could be loud when he got excited and might even use a few curse words while he was at it. Much of my young time with Dad revolved around sports. He was very competitive. I know where my sister and I get our competitiveness from. He coached all my soccer and baseball teams. I will always treasure my Dad’s involvement because he and I were doing something together.

When we moved to Mission Viejo in 1985, I started to recognize how hard my Dad worked to provide for the family. I remember feeling bad that Dad would have these long commutes to Riverside and Long Beach so that we could live in a good community. He worked so hard. During high school he never missed a basketball game in four years, although sometimes I wished he had because of his booming voice in the strands. He became involved in the basketball booster club, catering many basketball functions. Dad became known as the “food guy” or the “Costco man” to many of my friends.

Dad was morphing from this Paul Bunyan guy with high striped socks and tight, two button shorts with belt loops to this clean shaven cool guy with a permed mullet. My friends started saying to me, “your Dad is awesome”, or “your Dad is hilarious”, or “your Dad is cool”. Our house became the place where my friend would hangout and it was largely because of Dad. You never knew when Ray was going to make an appearance in his tight-whiteys, or let out a fart, or use a couple of curse words. Despite testing Dad patience at the house he still loved providing a place for us to hang out. Dad really wanted me to have a great high school and college experience. I’ll never forget my Dad’s first tears at the airport when he hugged me goodbye after my first Christmas break for college in Kansas.

After college, Dad began to morph once again from this cool guy with a mullet to this gentle, sensitive guy that I could talk to about life. Dad began a new life in Sacramento, this time as an empty nester. This change came with the consistent challenges that my sister and I threw at him from far away—changing relationships, car problems, and constantly changing residences and jobs. Dad became this guy I could call up at any time with a problem and he would make time for me. And I could always count on an hour long conversation with him and mom on a Saturday morning and there was a good chance he would say “Man it doesn’t get any better than this”. And whenever sister and I would come home we’d all have these long intimate conversations. Friends that visited would say your family is so open and so close. We loved hanging out together.

It was great to see Dad and Mom get plugged into a great community here at Bayside. They made some great friends through Bible studies. I remember Dad struggling in the beginning because he and mom were the bible rookies. Dad quickly made an impression with his honest questions. One of my favorites was when Dad was asked what he thought of a reading from a passage in the bible and he responded, “Ah...I’m not sure if I buy that”. He developed a reputation for asking the questions that others were afraid to ask. And as he became more comfortable he would start asking personal questions at the end which would become known as Hot Seat. My favorite hot seat question that I heard about was when some of their friends in the group brought their daughter and he asked her, “Who do you like better your Mom or your Dad?”

It was really great at this time to see Dad trying to discover his gifts and how he could help others. He really started seeking how God could use him. He wanted to give back, even more than he realized he already was. He would always tell us how he had such a charmed life, especially when others went through tragedy or tough times. He truly felt like a blessed man.

About a year after his original cancer diagnosis, I was visiting Dad and we were driving to San Francisco for one of his cancer check-ups. It was a crazy time. His life was completely changing. His company had been sold, the job was becoming a real burden, and his retirement became unsure. During the car ride I asked him if he wished he could change the results of his diagnosis. He pondered a moment and said “You know, I don’t think I would change a thing because of how this has put things in perspective, and how I appreciate life so much more now”.

When his cancer came back the thing that sticks out the most to me was his appreciation of Mom. Dad would tell me many, many times what an amazing woman your Mom is, every time getting emotional. He and mom really, really bonded during the weekly trips to San Francisco that went on for over a year.

Thank you Dad for giving me a great childhood.
Thank you Dad for all the time and effort you contributed to my activities and my friends.
Thank you for supporting my decisions and having the patience to let me learn my way, even when you didn’t understand or it was hard to accept.
Thank you for modeling generosity, vulnerability, integrity, honesty, loyalty, and forgiveness.
Thank you for all the great questions and for listening to me, making me feel valued and important.
Thanks for being a great Dad and a Godly-man.

It must be awesome to see the Big Picture Now!

Being Consumed

2008-04-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

William T. Cavanaugh, a Catholic theology professor at the University of St. Thomas [Minnesota], has written a clear, easy-to-understand-100-page-book for radical disciples who have wondered [maybe even verbally lamented] what Jesus would call his disciples to do with money in a free-market economy in the 21st century. Cavanaugh, in Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire, explains that all the choices that our malls and the internet give us today, even without government intervention, actually do not make us 'free.' This is a mirage. Our purchases, in order to liberate us from consumerism [which he defines: a restless spirit that is never content with any particular material thing], desperately needs a goal, what he calls a telos. This telos, for Christians, is that our purchases go to serve and love God and our neighbors. We can only be free by being liberated from counterfeit desires [created by corporate marketing] and then being moved to desire rightly [learned in community with fellow Christian disciples].

The key to true freedom is not just following whatever desires we happen to have, but cultivating the right desires. [11]

Living in a market-driven, consumer culture like we do is, according to Cavanaugh, like playing poker with an opponent who has already seen your hand. These marketing giants know [and play to] our purchasing patterns, births, deaths, political views, educational levels, credit histories, pet ownership, hobbies, illnesses, which are all harvested from credit-card records, bank statements, hospital records, websites visited, answers to surveys, frequent-buyer cards, etc.

In addition, we don't really know what we are buying:

Today's beef cattle in the US go from 80 to 1200 pounds in just fourteen months on a crash diet of corn, protein supplements, and drugs. They are given hormone implants [banned in Europe] to promote growth. Their calories come from corn, which is cheap and convenient but depends on the use of lots of petroleum products, and wreaks havoc on their ruminant digestive system which is designed for grass. The only way to keep cattle from dying of bloating, acidosis, or abscessed livers as they fatten up on a grain diet is to give them steady doses of antibiotics. Still, many strains of bacteria, raised in a cow's neutral-pH digestive tract, would be killed off by the acids in the human stomach. But now that the cow's digestive tract has been acidified by a corn diet, acid-tolerant strains such as E.coli have developed; when those are found in our food, they can kill us.

Cavanaugh's Christian 'answer' to this consumer havoc is not to attempt an overthrow of market capitalism and replace it with socialism, nor to protest and lobby for new laws, but instead for communities to embody what he calls free economic practices like buying beef from Zweber Farm in Elko, Minnesota, a family-run business that raises grass-fed cattle without using hormones or antibiotics. As he writes in his preface:

There is simply no alternative to the actual creation of cooperatives, businesses, and other organisms that behave according to the logic of the gospel.

Just a few reasons why Cavanaugh's work is extremely important for us:
-It is a powerful bridge between theology and economics, between faith in Jesus and my wallet--a compelling voice that clarifies that the Gospel is not simply spiritual, but socio-political-economic.
-It is an alternative concept of how radical disciples can seek to redeem our world--not primarily through local, state and federal laws, but by creative practices performed by small faith communities.
-It puts the face of Jesus on ideas that have the ring of peace and justice: 'fair trade'...'local'...'organic'...etc--these aren't the 'icing' on the gospel cake...they are just some of the ingredients to that very cake.

I certainly think that Christian communities should be engaged with the American 'political' process and should advocate for fair and just economic laws. But often times, I think, radical disciples focus on this too much and sacrifice in faithfulness with our own 'purchasing power.' These small economic practices are a sign and foretaste of God's Kingdom, and a witness of what God intends.

Are We Listening?

2008-04-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to read the transcript of the speech that Jeremiah Wright gave to the NAACP crowd yesterday in Detroit. Unfortunately, some of his comments will be quoted extensively by media outlets throughout the week and it probably will hurt Obama's chances of winning any sort of rural white vote in Indiana in next Tuesday's primary. Here is a soundbyte we probably won't hear this week, but there is intense truth here that white Christians desperately need to listen to:

I come from a religious tradition that did not hold slaves, but preached against slavery and worked to end slavery...The black religious tradition is different. We do it a different way. 40 years ago, the Kerner report stated that they were two different Americas. And for 40 years one of those Americas has acted as if they were the only America.

I'm doing some research for an American Church History class at Fuller Seminary right now on the widely diverse biblical reading strategies utilized by black and white Christians throughout the past 200 years. I've selected white [some scholars would prefer 'Euro-American'] Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, who's vast writings heavily influenced the 'inerrant' reading strategy popular with North American Evangelicals, with it's absolute and timeless truth with one meaning for every passage. On the other hand, escaped slave and social activist Frederick Douglass represents another type of reading, where the black Christian has uses the language of the biblical text, and its inherent quest for liberation, to decribe their world of oppression. For them, God is always on the side of the weak, oppressed and marginalized. He is a God who yearns for the oppressed to be liberated and African-Americans find themselves in the same [on-going] story as Moses and Jesus.

I will argue [in my paper] that Hodge's socio-economic status and privileged position allowed for him to take a 'soft' position on the slavery issue of his day [doing most of his writing while slavery was still legal in the United States]. Here's a sample from his commentary on Ephesians 6 ['slaves obey your masters']:

The Bible method of dealing with this and similar institutions is to enforce, on all concerned, the great principles of moral obligation—assured that those principles, if allowed free scope, will put an end to all evils both in the political and social relations of men. The apostle, therefore, without either denouncing or commending slavery, simply inculcates on master and slave their appropriate duty.

For Hodge, the Word of God did not speak against the institution of slavery, but instead, against ill treatment of slaves. Put simply, according to the way Hodge read the Bible [and most whites since] Christians couldn't use the Bible to speak against the issue of slavery in the United States in the 19th century, because Paul and other New Testament writers didn't condemn it.

For Douglass, on the other hand, this reading strategy was unacceptable in the face of actually living the black experience of oppression [quoting Acts 17 and I John 4]:

You profess to believe "that, of one blood, God made all nations of men, to dwell on the face of all the earth," and hath commanded all men, everywhere, to love one another; yet you notoriously hate (and glory in your hatred) all men whose skins are not colored like your own...The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie.

Douglass' tone and language 150 years ago, like Jeremiah Wright's today, were very abrasive to white Christians who mostly read the Bible with a different method, from a different experience and, I will argue, for a different agenda than their black brothers in Christ. As my nephew Dale Fredrickson's mentor [Vincent Wimbush] would say, Hodge interprets the text 'from above' to find the once-and-for-all meaning, while Douglass interprets the text 'from below' as a script for divine-ordained liberation [mostly, white Christians like me don't have the foggiest clue how much privilege we have and how much subtle racism and black oppression still exists in America today]. Ironically, the white Christian community [along with the rest of America] today looks back to Douglass as a hero of liberation and progressive ideas and looks forward to Wright as some wacko. Shouldn't we take note of Wright's words and his powerful biblical reading strategy, joining him in a call for liberation, peace, justice and racial reconciliation? American Christians, black and white, who listen to Wright [not just his soundbytes] and seek to understand him are, in my opinion, way ahead of history.

Who is Reinhold Niebuhr [and why should we care]?

2008-04-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

Reinhold Niebuhr [1902-1971] was a ‘professional theologian’ who taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He got himself on the cover of Time Magazine in 1948 because of his powerful influence on political leaders in the United States. His thought has indirectly shaped the minds of millions of American Christians for the past 75 years in regards to how we understand discipleship and politics. Niebuhr was intensely realistic about the capability of people obeying God’s Word. The Sermon on the Mount was an ‘impossible ideal’ that God surely wouldn’t have expected for us to fully obey. Loving enemies? Praying for those who persecute us? Squelching lust? In addition, Niebuhr believed that the New Testament was written for individuals, not for socio-political engagement. God’s Kingdom, as exemplified in the hard teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, would be ‘beyond history,’—it was an overview of what life will be like when Christ comes again to set up his eternal reign. Governments, therefore, must be utilized by Christians to ensure the least amount of wrongdoing and destruction towards others. Niebuhr presumed that American Christians now, unlike the original followers of Jesus in Palestine, actually held the reins of leadership and power. It was their duty therefore to guide the state into the most loving and just outcomes.

For many of us, this theological rationale makes sense because we’ve been taught that responsibility and practicality are revered in questions of politics and social ethics. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were permissible because they spared hundreds-of-thousands of American and Japanese lives. Wars against communism, and now terrorism, are vital to ensure safety and protection and freedom and rights for millions of Americans and others all over the world.

Since John Howard Yoder’s Politics of Jesus in 1972 [the year after Niebuhr died], there has been a steadily growing group of theologians, biblical scholars, pastors and leaders who are voicing discontent over Niebuhr’s ideas. To put it simply, they are primarily calling the American Body of Christ to be faithful, not responsible. The church is called to live out God’s peculiar politics as they engage with culture. Today, a few Christian communities throughout the United States are living as a witness against other forms of Christian faith that cling to political power and tend to carry out policies that are counter to taking the Sermon on the Mount at face value. I like to call this political engagement ‘the Minority Report’ [more on this in later posts] because they are carrying on a 2000 year living tradition of Christianity that rejects the power of the State. Yoder calls this ‘the Constantinian Concubinage’ [Constantinian—in 313AD became the first ‘Christian’ Roman Emperor; ‘concubinage’—prostitution]—the Church, by and large, has prostituted itself out to the State for 1700 years! This doesn’t mean that these communities ghettoize themselves into irrelevancy, speaking a completely different language of either the dominant brand of Christianity or the secular establishment. Here are some key concepts that mark an important departure from Niebuhr:

For Niebuhr, Christian ethics boils down to the individual, whose ethical choices/decisions can certainly shape the socio-political landscape. Thinkers like Yoder have proposed that the gospel doesn’t simply ‘save’ individuals from sin and motivate personal relationships with Jesus. The gospel proclaims that the systems and powers of this world are being redeemed by the cross of Jesus [Col 1:15-20; 2:13-15]. The ‘principalities and powers’ of Pauline literature are not angels and demons of a spiritual realm, but instead socio-political powers [family, education, government, economics, etc] that God has ordained to organize our world, but are ‘fallen’ and in need of redemption—reconciling them back to their original intent. This socio-political reconciliation movement is a big part of Christian mission [for more on 'the Powers,' see post from January 12].

Niebuhr also communicates a Kingdom of God that is ‘beyond history.’ Our hope is in a full redemption at the end of time, where there will be peace and justice. Niebuhr’s critics, instead, advocate for what’s called an ‘inaugurated kingdom.’ Jesus ushered God’s Kingdom into our broken and sinful world partially. Christians live faithfully by implementing radical initiatives like those in the Sermon on the Mount in communities that pledge ultimate allegiance to God’s Kingdom. This ‘now and not yet’ Kingdom will be fully realized at the end of time, but NOW we work hard offering a foretaste to the world of what God’s Kingdom is all about.

The Niebuhr critics are rescuing the Church. They propose that, from the get-go, it has always been intended to be a ‘political body’ where citizenship entails certain practices. The real ‘politics’ are performed as a church community: loving enemies, sharing possessions, forgiving and serving the poor, marginalized, brokenhearted [to mention a few such practices]. Again, this doesn’t mean that ‘American politics’ and decisions made by our government leaders are not important. But the Body of Christ in America is called to be witness, in word and deed, to what God intended for our world. This mostly certainly will mean saying ‘no’ to violence BOTH in our intimate relationships AND in how our government responds to terrorism.

Niebuhr’s ‘realism’ is an important voice in how our communities participate in God’s Reign because it takes seriously the wounded, broken, rebellious, imperfect human condition. However, it has a far-too-pessimistic view of God’s ability and desire to transform [redeem] humanity, individually, socially, communally, politically, economically, etc.

Niebuhr’s ideas have held court in how the Body of Christ engages in the political arena. It is due time for critical voices like Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Jim McClendon, Richard Hays and many others to be heard, weighed, discerned and, yes, radically implemented by Christian ‘political’ leaders today.

Ray's Release

2008-04-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

15 months ago, Ray Ransom--husband, father, friend, boss, hero, servant of Christ--got the word that the invader was back. The cancer that had been previously removed from his kidney was on the prowl, ravaging his body, spreading to the lymphnodes and beyond. 7 weeks ago, Ray's wife, Debbie, got the news from the oncologist that it was 'terminal'--it could be as little as 14 days left to live. Ray battled this thing with everything he had. The drugs continued to compromise his lifestyle: his early morning workouts, his long walks with Debbie, his late-night reading sessions, travel plans, work. As we all know, Ray's heart, his deep love for people and life, was never compromised. Somehow, through the pain and exhaustion and restless, sweaty sleeps, Ray experienced Good Friday and Easter and endured all the way through March Madness and Mario and the Miracle. And like the Jayhawks, he kept enduring, beating the odds of the experts, to get this far.

Today, Ray was released from the captivity of cancer. He went home at 11:30am. Debbie, Nicole and Steve were all there with him at the end. Tonight, we grieve...and we hope. We'll mourn for as long as we need to. We'll weep just like Jesus at the tomb of his friend Lazarus in John 11.

Our grief is held in tension with resurrection hope. Paul reflected on the tension of his own impending death in his letter to the little faithful community in Philippi, on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. Paul was in jail, awaiting his fate, living off of the prayers of fellow saints far and wide:

'for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ...' [1:19]

When cancer unexpectedly took Ray hostage, the prayers of those who loved him and the ever-present Spirit of Jesus was what sustained him. And Ray, like Paul, knew that through the weakness of the body, the Messiah would have first place:

'with all boldness, the Messiah will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.' [1:20b]

Which one was better for Ray? To go on living through the pain and the unwanted weight loss, stripped of appetite and energy? Or to be with the Messiah?

'But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better...' [1:23]

Tonight, Ray has followed Paul, and all the other Christian saints through the centuries...he is in the presence of the Messiah. His life bore astonishing fruit in all of our lives. There are many people in this world, from Sacramento to South Carolina, who will miss him and mourn him and memorialize him in the days, weeks and years to come. His model of service and generosity and humor and worship will never be forgotten. His legacy is just beginning...

Jim Corbett: Friend and Conversation Partner

2008-04-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

Two weeks before Christmas '07, my former teacher and current colleague, Jim Corbett, was sued by a student in his AP European History course. The parents never filed a complaint with Corbett or school administrators. They literally showed up with their lawyers in the principal's office with an ultimatum: either you fire Corbett...or we sue. Here are a couple of the things that the student recorded Corbett saying during a lecture:

How do you get the peasants to oppose something that is in their best interest? Religion. You have to have something that is irrational to counter that rational approach. When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth.

Conservatives don't want women to avoid pregnancies. That's interfering with God's work. You've got to stay pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen and have babies until your body collapses.

Here's the letter to the editor that I wrote after news story broke. I really wanted to respond to this issue because (1) it is just a little too close to home [about 25 yards from my colleague's classroom] and (2) it is a powerful issue to illustrate the 'contested' nature of how Christian faith relates to culture. I've added a few explanations below.

Dear Editor,
As a former student in his journalism class [CVHS ‘92] and now one of his fellow colleagues who happens to wear ‘Jesus glasses,’ Jim Corbett has been a valued ‘conversation partner’ of mine over the past 15 years. I acknowledge, as we all must, that my perspective on the world is tainted by my own beliefs concerning the crucified and risen Lord. And, as Corbett would admit, I might add that every person in the world sees through tainted lenses of one sort or another [atheist, Muslim, Catholic, etc]. The ‘myth of objectivity’ has long been exposed. We live in a ‘postmodern’ world where our differing perspectives should be acknowledged and where dialogue should be valued at all costs. And we ‘Christians’ must admit that, justified by rather insane interpretations of the Bible, we have historically wielded our power by oppressing women and minority groups and have somehow condoned war in the name of peace.

Corbett has been a powerful reminder to me that we ‘Christians’ do not have the monopoly on truth. For instance, he has recently reminded me that the Amish who forgave the murderers of their children have been the best example of following Jesus in America in the past year and he has continuously discerned where and when the policies of the current administration have failed in their ‘Christian’ witness. Corbett, like King Neco to the king of Israel [2 Chronicles 35:21], is living proof that God still speaks through our non-theological conversation partners. Sure, Corbett would readily admit that he talks too much [like most high school teachers] and is, at times, a bit too brash, and we disagree with each other quite a bit [different ‘glasses’]. But, I contend, it is never at the expense of open, critical inquiry. The number of ‘Christian’ students who have benefited from Corbett’s unique style and perspective is legion. In an age where there is probably too much emphasis on teaching to the standards and getting ‘the facts’ right, Corbett is training young students to think critically. And that, peering through my ‘Jesus glasses,’ is the truth.

Sincerely,
Tom Airey
Teacher, CVHS

Explaining Myself:

'Jesus glasses'--here's how the OC Weekly describes the context of Corbettt's phrase:

...the effect the Catholic Church had on peasants during the reign of Joseph II of Austria, who attempted to redistribute land belonging to the monasteries to the poor. The poor were turned against Joseph II by the Church, says Corbett, and rejected what was in their best interests. “In effect, the Church put Jesus glasses on the peasants, and the peasants couldn’t see their own best interests.

Like Corbett [but with different experiences], I am deeply skeptical about Christian leaders having the best interests of their flock in mind. I am also troubled by the 'fundamentalist' strand of Christian faith which places 'Jesus glasses' that make it very difficult to humbly see other points of view ['Christian' or otherwise]. Everyone in this world ['Christian' or otherwise] has different 'lenses' that distort truth in one way or another. I've been recently challenged to read the biblical text from the 'perspective of the periphery' [from the point of view of those who are oppressed and marginalized, whether from the Third World or inner-city American ghetto]--these alternative points-of-view balance and clear-up my vision of the truth--they criticize and energize.

'myth of objectivity'--there is NO SUCH THING as the ability to have a neutral perspective on life, history, politics, biblical interpretation, etc. We live in the era of 'full disclosure,' making it clear that we all have agendas and expectations formed through powerful vested interests, faith, socio-economic location, family influence, peer pressure, etc. Here's what historian Howard Zinn has to say about his craft:

‘By the time I began teaching and writing, I had no illusions about ‘objectivity,’ if that meant avoiding a point of view. I knew that a historian [or journalist, or anyone telling a story] was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit. And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interest of the historian.’ [A People's History of the United States, 683]

‘…there is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent or interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world—by a teacher, a writer, anyone—is a judgment. The judgment that has been made is that this fact is important, and that other facts, omitted, are not important.’ [684]

rather insane interpretations of the Bible--go to Barnes and Noble and pick up any book on Christian History...this is fun reading and it should make us extremely humble about our own ideas about 'absolute truth' of any and every Bible passage...many conservative brands of Christianity today are quite convinced about the 'truthfulness' about their pet interpretations about the role of women, the status of gays and lesbians and the need for 'shock and awe' military action to make Americans safe from racical Islamic terrorism [not to mention the wrongheaded interpretations in recent centuries about the crusades, witches and slavery]. Here's what bible scholar Walter Brueggemann has to say about absolute interpretations:

‘Those who want absolutes tend to accept authority only if it speaks the absolute claim to which they are already disposed before anything has been said...the threat of unbridled relativism is not, in my judgment, much of a threat. In reality, the dispute boils down to a few competing claims on any issue, and this is not the same as ‘anything goes.' [Texts Under Negotiation, 10]

we ‘Christians’ do not have the monopoly on truth--right there in the Old Testament: God speaking through the evil foreign ruler King Neco [2 Chronicles 35:21]--couldn't God speak through an atheist teacher, understandably skeptical over the baggage of Christian history. Here's what John Howard Yoder wrote about a decade ago concerning how God speaks to the Body of Christ during times of distinct unfaithfulness:

‘When the empirical community becomes disobedient, other people can hear the Bible’s witness too. It is after all a public document. Loners and outsiders can hear it speaking, especially if the insiders have ceased to listen. It was thanks to the loner Tolstoy and the outsider Gandhi that the churchman Martin Luther King Jr. with his Boston personalist education was able to bring Jesus’ word on violence back into the churches. It was partly the outsider Marx who has enabled liberation theologians to restate what the Law and the Prophets had been saying for centuries, largely unheard, about God’s partisanship for the poor.’ [For the Nations, 93]

God still speaks through our non-theological conversation partners--the Body of Christ definitely needs more critically-thinking dialogue partners like Jim Corbett--we don't need to agree on everything, but we do need to listen with wisdom and discernment, gentleness and compassion...you never know who God will speak through next!

The Politics of Jesus: A Gift to American Evangelicalism

2008-04-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus was written and published at the height of Vietnam controversy, just a year before I was born. Yoder was a scholarly Mennonite, but worked so well across 'party lines,' a professor for 20 years at Notre Dame, consistently being asked to speak at Evangelical conferences throughout his life [d.1997]. His work has powerful things to say to the American Body of Christ in 2008. Here are what I would consider the Top 5 Proposals for the people of God in Christ that I think Yoder argues quite convincingly in The Politics:

1. The ‘Kingdom of God’ is NOT a spiritual reign of Christ in our hearts, nor a future rule of God in heaven, but a present 'empire' of God on earth[distinct from any state or federal government] where those who pledge allegiance to Jesus seek to follow his manifesto [i.e., loving enemies, truth telling, deep compassionate service for the lost and broken, leadership defined by serving rather than dominating, forgiving rather than taking revenge] in the unique social contexts of their lives.

2. This Kingdom is what God inaugurated in the life, teaching, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Kingdom [or ‘rule’ or ‘reign’ or ‘regime’ or ‘empire’ or ‘new reality’ or ‘movement’] is actively present today…indeed it is what the legacy of Jesus is all about. Time and time again, Jesus’ radical obedience and challenging teachings have been swept aside by the notion that he ‘came to die’ and that God allows this present world to continue as is in order to ‘get more people saved’ for eternity. However, for Yoder, evangelism is not about telling individuals what they need to do with their sins so they can live eternally in heaven after they die; it is, instead, an invitation into a socio-political movement in this life right now, made up of communities of people who have joined God who is determined to redeem the world through his own peculiar politics.

3. Jesus’ message, his ‘gospel,’ was always received and understood, in his day and the few decades following, as a socio-political challenge to the rule of the Roman Empire and the Jewish Religious Establishment. He was the alternative king who somehow threatened the existing powers-that-be. So-called ‘messiahs’ had one destination: the cross.

4. Jesus’ disciples are called to imitate Jesus, throughout the Gospels and letters of the NT, in one-way: the ultimate price of social non-conformity…faithfulness to the point of scandalous death on the cross! This surely meant refusing violent solutions, humble service and sharing possessions [a few examples of important 'Christian' distinctives], as they engaged with the present institutional powers, both criticizing and energizing.

5. Jesus was consistently presented with 3 powerful temptations that were rejected time and time again: [1] the crusade: fighting violence with violence by calling his disciples ‘to take up the sword and follow him’ [fighting fire with fire]; [2] the ghetto: withdrawing his small community from Palestinian society to purify themselves and wait for God to come and destroy the ‘bad guys’ [the world is going to hell in a hand-basket]; and [3] the establishment: joining the current ‘political parties’ on offer and working within the framework of their own current ideas about life [also known as ‘selling-out to the System’].

Yoder’s ideas are NOT new. He is not claiming anything fresh or original, but instead is attempting to recover these from the very essence of the ‘original revolution’ of Jesus and his imperfect, but faithful disciples. These five ways of interpreting the Jesus of the Gospels, indeed the entire New Testament, were normative for about 300 years until Christian faith became the ‘religion’ of the Roman Empire--a 'spirituality' that didn't really affect the rest of life. A big part of what it means to be ‘Christian’ today, for Yoder, is emptying it of the baggage that tradition has overburdened it with.

Yoder’s work, perhaps more than any other conversation partner, has portrayed a Jesus that is more radical to follow than any I’ve come across. Discipleship to this ‘political Jesus’ means that we are all confronted with how the Body of Christ in America can and should remain faithful in the messiness of our world.

What does radical discipleship look like in the midst of these counterfeit concepts in our culture today [dealt with in future posts!].

Acculturated Christianity
Advertising
American Dream
Anxiety
Civil Religion
Competition
Consumerism
Cult of Celebrity
Domination
Ecological Degradation
Ethnocentrism
Gossip
Greed
Hierarchy
Homelessness
Image
Insecurity
Materialism
Militarism
Nationalism
Patriarchy
Patriotism
Redemptive Violence
Revenge
Scarcity Mentality
Self-Absorption
Sexism
Suburban Insulation
Triumphalism
War

The Kingdom of God is like Mario and the Miracle

2008-04-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

Imagine Jesus sitting with his disciples at the Alamodome in San Antonio, participating in the one of the greatest finals of NCAA Tourney history. The game would have provided many teaching points to illustrate what it means to be a part of God's Reign in this world.

For starters, the Jayhawks are a team. None of their players will be 'lottery picks,' and most NBA scouts probably doubt that any of them will have lengthy NBA careers. 7 of them have held the label as 'top scorer' in their games this season. They all have their distinct roles and they fulfilled them masterfully throughout their 37-win-season, culminating in a masterpiece last night. The worldwide people of God is a 'kingdom of priests' [Ex 19:6; Revelation 1:6; I Peter 2:8-9] not a 'kingdom with priests.' Sure there have been and continue to be saints who have performed heroically over the centuries of Christian faith, but these are renowned for their humility and controversially radical willingness to die for their faith [not triumphant superstars].

Jesus would also point out the beautiful picture of death and resurrection. With 2 minutes remaining, the 'Hawks were down 9, 'dead in the water.' Missed Memphis free throws, tough Jayhawk defense, a steal from Chalmers and three from Collins, more missed Memphis free throws and a Super-Mario Miracle to end regulation: we all knew it was over...Kansas had ALL the momentum in the overtime period and dominated--RESURRECTION! Let's face it, this morning, we should all be lamenting the 2-for-10 3-point shooting, the 17 turnovers, the risky box-and-one defensive adjustments that led to a Memphis lead down the stretch. But like that first Easter Sunday, we have awaken to newness of life, a triumph far more exhilarating than any blow-out win. As Martin Luther King proclaimed more than 40 years ago: 'The cross we bear precedes the crown we wear'--no doubt, this is the pattern of those who are citizens of God's Kingdom.

The Jayhawks were 'marginalized' from the outset of the Tourney [how many people, that didn't go to KU, do you know actually picked them to win this thing?]. It is not a stretch to say that Jesus would compare this team from the middle-of-nowhere-Lawrence-Kansas with his own roots ['Can anything good come out of Nazareth?'--John 1:46] and the folks that he recruited for his kingdom-team ['a friend of tax collectors and sinners'--Lk 7:34].

'I do believe; help my unbelief.' [Mk 9:24] Jesus' disciples, in Mark's Gospel, are like devout Jayhawk fans--stumbling, bumbling, skeptically faithful--seeing these games with the blurry vision of the blind man that Jesus had to heal twice, seeing 'men like trees, walking around' [Mk 8:24]. We've been through painful losses in the Tournament over the past decade that has wavered this faith, doubting that the Jayhawks would ever reclaim what Danny Manning and the Miracles brought back to Lawrence in 1988. Arizona...Syracuse...Bucknell?... Bradley?...UCLA. When we were down and out at the 2-minute warning in San Antonio, our faith wavered yet again. Another tough ending...

But no. Something happened last night that touched the heart of what faith in our world is all about.

Will God really redeem our world through humble, Spirit-filled communities from Lawrence to Long Beach to Lagos?

Will God really rescue the broken-hearted, the oppressed, the down-trodden, the hope-less?

Will God really reconcile the universe back to Himself through the highly underrated weapons of love, service, forgiveness and compassion?

Help my unbelief and invigorate my heart for God's Justice in this messy world with the kind of stammering, pacing, shouting, crying, pleading passion of an NCAA Championship thriller. Jesus is dying [or rather, he already died] for communities of people who will never give up, with poise and patience and passion, waiting for Jesus to show up [just like Mario] at the last second, breathing resurrection momentum into an overtime when death, oppression, injustice, sin and suffering are all shut down forever. As Coach Self reminded his team and the viewing audience last night, participating on a championship team like this will be something that neither we nor anyone else will ever forget!

Jesus for President?

2008-04-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

This is NOT an April Fool's Joke. It's the title of Shane Claiborne's new book [with Chris Haw] about what 'politics' means for those who are committed to radical discipleship. It's actually a manifesto on the church, on what it means to be God's people living in the American Empire. For Claiborne and Haw, and many other radical disciples--whether pastors or professional Bible scholars and theologians or just normal guys like me and you--following Jesus means being a part of different race of human beings who are committed to living [not just believing or thinking about] the truth in our own unique contexts. America is not the last best hope on this planet [something that he gently and correctly critiques my man Obama over].

Question: What, then, is the hope of the world?
Answer: The peculiar people who have taken up the banner of Jesus the Messiah's scandalous mission of compassion, humility, enemy love, truth-telling and enemy love. These Jesus people defy national borders or ethnic pride or socio-economic status or religious tags.

Question: Do we then barricade ourselves in little Christian ghettos in order to purify ourselves from the dirty, rotten Empire?
Answer: By no means! The Body of Christ is radically for the world.

Throughout Jesus for President, Claiborne convincingly unveils [for most of us] a new vision of what is means to follow Jesus. Actually, though, Claiborne is opening up our eyes to what Christianity originally was all about for its first 300 years. Politics, for the first minority Christians, was always about having their own radical practices that looked quite odd in the Empire. They were exile people and they didn't need to keep the Empire, and its own strange virtues and practices, moving along successfully [and now, the Pax Romana has become the Pax Americana].

Claiborne is a well-tuned spokesman for this brand of Christianity at this moment in time because, quite frankly, he lives it. He co-founded an intentional community in a Philadelphia ghetto called 'The Simple Way' and he has travelled to Iraq to protest the American invasion, building solidarity with Iraqis. He is not only well-travelled, but extremely well-read. His brilliance is how he powerfully communicates this rich biblical scholarship in words easy to understand, but also gently and positively.

I recognize that I have much to learn from how Claiborne uses the ideas from great thinkers [and livers] like John Howard Yoder, Walter Wink, N.T. Wright, Stanley Hauerwas and Ched Myers. He doesn't involve himself in debates between conservative and liberal 'politics,' but instead transcends our national political conversation by proposing a Christian 'politics' as represented in the New Testament, not CNN nor Fox nor MSNBC. He also doesn't involve himself in debates about biblical interpretation, but instead models a reading strategy that has deep implications for our Christian identity and mission in the United States today, providing a much needed alternative to both conservative and liberal options.

Radical disciples should immediately drop everything and go get this book and dialogue it for the rest of the year, praying and asking: 'what might this mean for how we define [and live out] 'politics' in this Presidential year?' Of course, it humbles me to think about all the energy that I've put into lamenting and debating the differences between Democrats and Republicans, let alone between Hillary and Barack [not to say these conversations aren't important...they are]. Jesus for President has an artistic style that surprisingly matches its deep, deep substance. Here are some excerpts:

'it may take only a few days to get out of the empire, but it takes an entire lifetime to get the empire out of us.' [34]

'While we are taught mostly through the lives of kings and presidents, God tells history through the lives of the prophets.' [40]

'God would save the world through fascination, by setting up an alternative society on the margins of empire for the world to come and see what a society of love looks like.' [60]

'[Peter] couldn't imagine a president who dies on a cross. He would have rather had a Savior who glides into Jerusalem in a polished limousine than one who chooses to ride a lowly donkey. He still had in mind the things of kings, of Pharoah, of Herod. He wanted to save the world through militaries and markets and foreign policies rather than through sacrificial love and grace.' [87]

'If we don't understand that Jesus' politics are rooted in that overarching historical biblical theme, his teachings will remain ambiguous to us. They will seem like a set of wise abstract truths that we can 'apply' to America or any given empire. But his worldview is for the small people.' [101]

'Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful.' [165]

Claiborne and Haw include this quote from Fredrick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass [wow!]:

Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference possible difference--so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked...I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.

And perhaps the boldest proposal:

'The call to 'Make poverty history' needs a partner: 'Make affluence history.'' [189]

Will You Be My Neighbor?

2008-03-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 26He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ 27He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ 28And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’
29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ 30Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two denarii,* gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’ Luke 10:25-37

Like every parable Jesus ever told, the ‘Good Samaritan’ confronts us just like it did in the first century Roman Empire. It certainly isn't just 'an earthly story that has a simple heavently meaning.' It all starts with a question from an expert on the law of Moses [Torah]: ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus answers the question with a question: ‘What’s your opinion?’ In Luke's version of the story, the Torah expert answers with the double love commandment, drawing from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19: Love God with everything you’ve got and love your neighbor as you would love yourself. There is nothing particularly controversial here in this rather tense dialogue between a Hebrew rabbi and his political rival [I’m picturing a press conference with Democrat Barack Obama and Fox News Hero Bill O’Reilly].

What comes next is totally unique to Luke's gospel. The mission to loving one's neighbor is wrapped into a story. In Luke's story, O’Reilly the Torah expert takes it one step further: ‘Who, then, is my neighbor?’ He’s looking to define some important boundaries, set some limits to how far love needs to be extended—it can’t be lavished on just anyone…can it? Here’s where the press conference turns into movie clip with an ending that no one expected. The rated-R scene shows a man laid-out on the side of the road, buck-naked, beat-to-a-bloody-pulp. The first professional religionist comes along, examines the horror scene and passes by on the other side of the road. The second professional religionist follows, examines the horror scene and passes by on the other side of road. Who will be the third and final character? No one in the original audience, listening to this parable, would have ever guessed that it would be a dirty rotten Samaritan. Today, it would be ‘the good Islamic radical’ or ‘the good Bush cabinet member.’ The Samaritan examines the horror scene…and approaches the victim and has a deep burning compassion for him. His actions start with his feelings, but don’t end there. He gives abundantly out of his possessions and insures his provision and sustenance.

The story is told, but the punch-line is still coming: ‘Which of the three proved to be a neighbor to the man who got the beat-down from the bad guys?’ The multiple choice answer is provided correctly, but reluctantly, by O’Reilly: he can’t even say the word ‘Samaritan’ [instead ‘the one who had mercy’]. Instead of answering his original question by drawing clear-cut boundaries of who’s ‘neighbor’ and who isn’t, Jesus commissions him to be that neighbor with compassion and abundant generosity, no matter who it is in need: ‘Go and do the same.’

The story is told to invite us to participate in an alternative way-of-thinking-and-being. We listen for the story, not for a principle or timeless truth to apply to our lives, but to identify the character [the Good Samaritan] and to mimic his life, with the same risky compassion that commits to being the neighbor to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The story defies rules and moral principles. When read critically and imaginatively, we can live it out in all of our diverse circumstances.

A Town Hall Meeting

2008-03-26T11:11:00.001-07:00

In our culture, 'church' largely refers to the place ‘Christians’ attend on Sundays [or Saturday nights] and perhaps a night during the week. It is a place we attend, where we are a ‘member,’ where we ‘worship’ through song and ‘get fed’ through the sermon. Church is the place we go for the ‘spiritual’ nourishment that we so badly need to get us through the week. It has a menu of ‘ministries’ to choose from, where we can ‘use our gifts’ or be served. Church has pastors or priests that work full-time for the business of the congregation and it has ‘laity,’ the people who work ‘secular’ jobs to earn a living and live out their Christian witness.

However, God’s original revolution, the church, the community that proclaimed the risen Christ through words and deeds, was not ‘a gathering for worship,’ nor was it ‘the group of people who come together to worship’…and then have little to do with each other outside of those two hours on Sunday. Nor was it the building in which these ‘religious’ [or ‘spiritual’] activities took place.

Ekklesia is the original Greek word for ‘church’ that we are confronted with in the New Testament. It was the term that the original Christians used for this new community or assembly of people who were committed to following the crucified-and-risen Messiah and Lord. The ekklesia was more like a town hall meeting, a city council, an infiltration team, a strategic brainstorming session or an underground movement. It gathered for action, mutual participation. It was a team on a mission. The ekklesia was a political body with its own identity and vocation continuing the legacy of Jesus, who was an embodied rebuke to the ‘powers that be’ in first century Palestine. By following the long tradition of the script of the Hebrew prophets, he called out that system with all of its ingrained values, beliefs, politics and offered a new reality oriented around the scandal factors: forgiveness [not revenge], enemy love [not exclusivity] and service [not domination]. These humble and disciplined factors resisted triumphalism and arrogance. They beckoned those bold enough to claim the messianic way-of-life into practices of listening, pursuit and loving anyone who was different from them. This prophetic script, as it had concluded in the heroic lives in the previous centuries before him, ended in tragic death at the hands of the powers.

The ekklesia had its very own culture and language, and its own brand of politics and economics—the way they organized, made decisions, spent money and interacted with each other. The ekklesia emphasized equality, diplomacy, negotiation, cooperation, respect, sharing and empowering. This body was the Spirit-driven-guided-energized-comforted playing field of the messianic lifestyle. It was the very space where followers of Jesus creatively lived out the ‘new reality’ that was God’s in-breaking reign. This multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-national corporation [‘small business?’] transcended all other allegiances. These strange 'Christians' were the ones who had committed to the price of social non-conformity in the wider world: obedience to the point of bearing the cross [the chosen instrument of Roman death penalty]. And as they committed to radical discipleship to Jesus, they constantly engaged in reflection, discernment, discipline and action together, all voices heard, none more than any other. The ekklesia used gospel logic together, gaining from the multiplicity of voices whose arguments are prayerfully weighed by everyone else in the community. Followers of Jesus aren’t supposed to get information from their community of faith so that they can bring it home and apply it to their own situations. They should instead bring their own situations to the ekklesia so as to reason these complex and burdening life issues with those who share a common life-story with them. These are the brothers and sisters who have boldly dared to walk alongside of each other despite their weaknesses, imperfections and burdens.

The ekklesia was committed to the gospel, its embodied proclamation to the world. In the ancient world of Rome and Palestine, a 'gospel' was a message of great news that had implications for the hearer. If the Roman army won a major military battle, it meant peace and wealth for the Empire. If Caesar made plans to give money for a new project in your community, it was announced and you were overjoyed. The ‘gospel’ of the early Christians, including the authors of the New Testament, was that God had ushered in his long-awaited reign through the anointed one Jesus, whose shocking death on a cross was vindicated three days later in a bodily resurrection. This news implicated everyone because God was now openly inviting everyone in the world to be a part of his people, a new brand of humanity, driven by the very Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. This people would continue Jesus’ mission, re-enacting his love, humility, obedience, compassion, service and forgiveness. The citizens of God’s ekklesia made the radical decision to be defined by their connection to the messianic ‘kingdom of God,’ instead of any other identity marker. They were citizens of something far bigger than Roman Empire, Jewish religion or Greek culture. Their gospel was that God acted shockingly and decisively in the life, teaching, service, death and resurrection of Jesus and it was possible, indeed invigorating, to participate with what God is doing to redeem the world from all of its brokenness, hurt, shame, injustice and pain.

The ekklesia continued to experience the presence of Jesus through reading the Hebrew Scriptures together [and eventually letters of some of the Apostles, gospel stories about Jesus...what eventually became the New Testament], through their kingdom work [‘whenever you have done it to the very least of these, my brothers, you’ve done it unto me’], through their witness to the world [‘and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age’] and through their common worship together [‘whenever two or more of you gather in my name I am with you in your midst’]. In short, the ekklesia finds Jesus powerfully present in the Word, Work, Worship and Witness.

Each of these communities in the days and decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, from Jerusalem to Corinth to Philippi to Rome, had different perspectives and priorities. They had unique jargon, styles and emphases because they participated in ‘kingdom politics’ in different locales. They were living out a new episode of God’s master story together, with all the challenges and obstacles that their setting threw at them. God loves variety. God needs a variety of communities to serve and be a conscience to the wide variety of people that he is redeeming.

Unpopular Words

2008-03-24T10:44:00.001-07:00

What a great political cartoon from Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News published this week, playing off the controversy of harsh words delivered over the past few years by Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright. Of course, Jesus' words, recorded more than 1900 years ago for small communities that pledged to follow him, were so scandalous that they put him on the cross [this, of course, doesn't make all of Wright's scandalous words faithful to the call of Jesus]. If we are pursuing radical discipleship, taking Jesus' words at face value and thinking imaginatively about them for our world in 2008, what are some things that the Body of Christ should be advocating for and challenging our current representatives with?

-We would not only be 'pro-life' in regards to rapidly reducing the number of abortions in the United States, but also in regards to the loss of Iraqi civilian and military lives, as well as the more than 4000 American soldiers who have died in the past 5 years.

-We would share our possessions, not only with family and friends, but also with 'the other,' those whose racial and class differences usually divide us geographically or ideologically.

-We would embrace suffering service, not only in our faith communities, but in our jobs and families and in our nation's stance toward the world.

-We would actively seek out the underdogs in our world--who are the modern day tax collectors, sinners, lepers and paralytics?

Ransom

2008-03-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.'
Mark 10:42-45

When your leader--the one who's has been there for you over and over--gets the death penalty, it's more than reasonable to ask why. Good Friday is a day 'celebrated' by millions of Christians throughout the world. A unique gathering of small communities to remember the cross, that scandalous tool of the Roman Empire used against anyone so bold and courageous to pose a threat to its power. Jesus did boldly and courageously invite others to be a part of an alternative movement that offered a different source of power altogether: suffering service. In Mark's gospel, Jesus' brutal death on the cross is described as a 'ransom,' a payment to liberate those enslaved by the powers of this world. It is in the midst of this act of suffering service where the Roman soldier identifies Jesus as the 'son of God'[Mk15:39] and it is where Jesus calls us to 'take up the cross' [Mk 8:34] in our setting today. He liberated us from the counterfeit ideals of domination, revenge and competitive greatness to embody this service.

One who literally bears this name is himself suffering on this Good Friday. Ray Ransom has been a tremendous model of service in my own life, defying the competitive leadership models on offer, giving his life to his wife, kids, friends and co-workers, in addition to those down and out. Ransom has been a 'solidarity' guy for as long as I've known him. Always bearing the burdens of others. Ransom suffers on this day we remember the ultimate 'ransom' that our Lord paid to liberate us from all the counterfeit ways of being human.

It is more than appropriate to ask 'why' God would allow this suffering to happen to someone like Ransom, who has touched our lives in so many precious ways. One thing we do know is that God suffers with him. Jesus was the Messiah who obediently chose the way of suffering service, not triumphant domination. The cross is the pattern of what it really means to be human...and to be God. Somehow, someway, God is the One who embraces the brokenhearted, the underdog, the oppressed, the bruised, the left out and left behind, the suffering. Today, he beckons us to remember the One who came and embodied this solidarity with the world...and he calls us to embrace this identity and vocation for ourselves.

Obama's Pastor

2008-03-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

Barack knows what it means to be a black man to be living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a nigger.

This is the moment I've been waiting for. In some of the circles we run with, Obama has been labelled a Muslim, mostly because of his middle name [Hussein] and because of rumors about him attending a madrasa when he was younger and because of photos taken of Obama with ceremonial Muslim dress during his trip to Kenya a few years back. It seems that, now, there is some consensus that he is, in fact, a Christian. This time, however, the Obama faith controversy surrounds what kind of Christian he is...or rather, what kind of Christian his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is. Or are these one in the same?

These statements are utterly shocking to most white Christians. But, although harsh and blunt, they echo two important notions that suburban white Christians should learn from. First of all, the gospel of Jesus was a message that started from the periphery of culture. This was a proclamation for and by the oppressed and marginalized of the Roman Empire. It was a message that God was [and always had been] for those who were consistently rejected by the establishment [the 'sinners,' the tax collectors, women, hardly educated blue-collar Jewish men, the diseased, the paralyzed, the blind]. Those of us who are privileged economically and socially by being born into the right family need to prioritize the practice of listening to voices from the periphery. Jeremiah Wright is one such voice. Wright's ideas about God and what it means to be faithful to Him has been labelled as 'liberation theology.' This is a form of thought that is common among African-American and Latin American Christian communities. It takes seriously the thrust of liberation throughout Scripture. God is on the side of the oppressed. As Wright's former seminary professor, James Cone, has written in his Black Theology of Liberation [1970]:

...theology ceases to be a theology of the gospel when it fails to arise out of the community of the oppressed.

Whiteness characterizes the activity of deranged individuals intrigued by their own image of themselves, and thus unable to see that they are what is wrong with the world.

The sin of American theology is that it has spoken without passion. It has failed miserably in relating its work to the oppressed in society by refusing to confront the structures of this nations with the evils of racism.

Their [the white man's] Jesus is a mild, easy-going white American who can afford to mouth the luxuries of ‘love,’ ‘mercy’, ‘longsuffering’, and other white irrelevancies, because he has a multi-billion dollar military force to protect him from the encroachments of the ghetto and the ‘communist conspiracy.'

Persons who live in the real world have to encounter the concreteness of suffering without suburbs as places of retreat. To be oppressed is to encounter the overwhelming presence of human evil without any place to escape. Either we submit or we rebel, knowing that our physical lives are at stake.

Some of this 'theologizing' will rub you the wrong way. However, it is a really important voice 'from below' in the United States. We need to listen intently to this 'other' voice.

Second, an important question that we must all ask ourselves is 'what exactly do we disagree with our pastor about?' Unfortunately, our Christian culture has made it so that each church usually has one 'senior' or 'lead' pastor that has a voice that overwhelmingly guides the church community. These are usually very talented, passionate men who people find comfort and energy in following. This notion needs critiquing. With that said, every church should have the open door to disagree and dialogue our differences [whether theological or political or other] with our pastors in community. We should look for consensus, where the Spirit speaks through the community...not one man. Many Evangelical churches have given their pastor[s] too strong a voice--where disagreement, let alone dialogue, is impossible, if even desired. If we are pointing the finger at Barack Obama's pastor, should we not follow suit with our own pastor, whom we listen to week after week tell us the most important things about life?

The recent outcry against Obama's pastor has been an important development for the Body of Christ. When weighed critically, with wisdom, discernment and love, it allows the mostly white and wealthy Evangelical church to listen to the voice of the other and it challenges us to point our fingers back at our own church practices, especially pertaining to the over-emphasis on the voice of the religious professional, aka, 'the pastor.'

Here is the heart of what Obama said about his pastor today in a 37 minute speech in Philly:

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

Tiny Ripples of HOPE

2008-03-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

This is a speech I delivered tonight at the Capistrano Valley HS Young Scholars Banquet:

It has been 20 years since I walked through those very doors for my freshmen year at Capistrano Valley. Over the course of these 20 years, according to our best social psychologists and sociologists, being a teenager has become intensely more difficult. Freshmen, ALL the adults in this place had it easier than you!

According to Dr. Chap Clark in his book on high school students called Hurt, American teenagers have been systemically abandoned by the adults in their world—from the home to the school house and everywhere in between. Clark proposes that this all started back in the 60s when the US was mired in a war 10s of thousands of miles away, and a cultural upheaval at home resulting in chaos and confusion. Adults and children alike began an all-out search for safety, comfort and self-fulfillment—taking care of themselves because they had to…because no one else would. One of America’s best young leaders emerged 40 years ago to run for President of the US. His name was Robert Kennedy and in a book he wrote he called for young leaders to rise up against oppression and injustice:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Tiny ripples of hope.

In today’s world, our abandoned students live in an insanely competitive era also marked by chaos and confusion—a War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan 5 years and running…50 million Americans w/o health care…pockets of poverty in America and 1.2 billion in the world who live on less than a dollar a day…On top of this, Americans inhale an average of 9.6 hours of media a day: TV, radio, movies, IPODS, MySpace…According to Berkeley Sociologist Robert Bellah, we are inundated with information, but starving for meaning…and looking in all the wrong places!

In our world we are looking for young people who are willing to step up and face these challenges and many more…we are yearning for tiny…ripples…of…hope.

Tonight, Capistrano Valley HS honors the Freshmen Scholars…you are tiny ripples of hope who have performed admirably in your first semester of high school. We need you. We adults desperately want to see these ripples become strong currents that tackle the toughest challenges of our world. Tonight represents a celebration and a message loud and clear: we know you can do it.

In his final days on this planet, in a fierce Presidential race 40 years ago, before he was gunned down by an assassin’s bullet, Robert F. Kennedy called for a new vision:

There are those who look at things the way they are and ask why…I dream of things that never were and ask why not.

Tonight, Capistrano Valley HS honors the Freshmen Scholars…you tiny ripples of hope who dare to ask why not.

[p]RAY

2008-02-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again, as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted to us through the prayers of many.
II Corinthians 1:8-11

Two quick notes on reading the letters of Paul:
1. We are opening the mail of people who have been dead for more than 1900 years, and we read this letter trusting that the same Jesus who was present in the original audience is present with us as we read today.
2. We are engaged in an activity similiar to listening in on one end of a cell phone conversation, always trying to piece together what is being said on the other end and the whole context of the conversation.

Paul, in his missionary journey across the Empire, almost died in Asia. He thought he received the 'sentence of death,' his afflictions hampering his entire lifestyle. He suffered so intensely that he could only hope in one thing: God who raises the dead. Paul's faith was always in something far greater than his devout beliefs, religion, philosophy, common sense, his deep knowledge about Jewish and Hellenistic cultures...it was in the mysterious, awesome ways of a God who raises the dead. The greek verb is present tense: 'raises.' God continues his mighty work in the men and women who continue to have their entire identity and mission in this world totally wrapped up in his ways.

One of my favorite people ever is struggling through some powerful afflictions. He is a man who has committed his life to following Jesus, serving his family, friends and the entire world in his unique ways. When we were teenagers, about 10 of us, guys and girls, were watching a movie late one night in my best friend's living room, and Ray Ransom walked out in his tighty-whitey underwear to turn the volume down. What a legendary man! This is a man of courage and boldness who has had a profound influence on my life. He is, perhaps, the most generous man I've ever known and he barely has the energy to give. He is one of the most honest in expressing his emotions and his emotions are all over the map. I've probably never met a man who loves food more than Ray and he doesn't even have an appetite.

Over the past decade, Ray and his wife Debbie have rediscovered a growing faith in Jesus the Messiah and Lord of the world, the same Jesus who changed Paul's life forever, commissioning him to subversively beckon the entire Roman Empire to be a part of a different regime, God's Kingdom. Like Paul, Ray is a man who has profoundly impacted the lives of everyone he has been connected with. He has been a model to me of how to find the presence of Jesus in others [Matthew 25]:

'for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'

One of the greatest men I've ever known is sick. He has kidney cancer that has spread to his lymphnodes. The symptoms have greatly affected his quality of life.

Let's pray...

...that Ray expriences the overwhelming presence and comfort of Christ.
...that Ray gets his legendary appetite back.
...that Ray is energized physically, mentally and emotionally.
...that Ray can make a smooth transition with the next cancer treatment strategy.
...that 'the peace that transcends all understanding' will guard Ray's heart/mind.
...that Debbie will be strengthened to care for Ray.
...that Debbie will get rest and a relief from anxiety.
...that Ray and Debbie will get to laugh together.
...that Steve and Nicole will have safety in travel.
...that the entire family will get unhindered Time together to cherish each other.
...that they will experience the power and peace of worshipping the God who raises the dead...

What is an Evangelical?

2008-02-28T07:19:00.000-08:00

“Our task is to be critical because not all ways of seeing things are equally sustainable.”
John Howard Yoder
Preface to Theology

Evangelicals in the US and Britain have a long legacy since the days of early 19th century British abolitionist William Wilberforce [right]. Church historian David Bebbington in Evangelicalism in Modern Britain [1992] offers the classic, four-fold definition of what it means to be 'Evangelical':

“There are four qualities that have been the special marks of Evangelical religion:
CONVERSIONISM, the belief that lives need to be changed;
ACTIVISM, the expression of the gospel in effort;
BIBLICISM, a particular regard for the Bible;
And what may be called
CRUCICENTRISM, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism.”

By this standard, I believe that Lindsay and I are 'Evangelicals' with a twist. We do believe in conversion, that lives need to be changed. Our understanding of this conversion is that God invites everyone in the world to participate in Jesus' way-of-life, being transformed by the Spirit of God from self-absorption and greed into an alternative lifestyle characterized by loving enemies, service and forgiveness. We also believe that those converted to be citizens of God's regime [kingdom] should be activists, expressing the gospel in effort. Evangelism is primarily expressed in the practices of radical discipleship: ie, sharing our possessions, giving voice to the underdogs and oppressed in the communities where we live and throughout the Third World, advocating for the use of everyone's gifts and talents in our faith community, especially those not usually noticed or prioritized. We also believe in the Bible, that it is an authoritative script for those communities who pledge allegiance to God's regime. The Bible is an indispensible resource that inspires and guides us into faithful performance in our unique life settings. Lastly, we, too, believe that the cross of Jesus was a unique once-and-for-all sacrifice for the world. It is much more. Primarily, it is the paradigm for faithful living, the culmination of love, sacrifice, obedience, humility that communities continue to re-enact in the 21st century. Christianity is not triumphalistic. In the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, Jesus-followers model the cross in their counter-cultural lifestyles, advocating for the least of these.

We want to be a part of this growing movement of Evangelicals who yearn for a different twist on the usual beliefs and practices. We want to be hopeful for a different vision of what it means to be Christian. Recently, due to the Presidential primaries, this new dialogue has taken the form of how Evangelicals are engaged in the American Political scene.

Here are some excerpts from this last week's National Public Radio interview with Richard Land, President of Religion and Ethics Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention, a leading spokesmen for 'old school' Evangelicals and their politics:

Land says he's working to convince evangelicals that they should not abandon "the prioritization of the sanctity of human life and ... the sanctity of marriage."

"It seems to me that when you say to someone, 'Well, you're too narrowly focused on abortion and same-sex marriage.' That's like telling [the Rev. Martin Luther] King he was too narrowly focused on racial reconciliation and racial justice,"

"If you have a pro-life candidate running for the Republicans ... and he's running against someone who is pro-choice and who is running on a party platform that has never met an abortion they couldn't at least live with — if they didn't like — you're not going to see a lot of movement among evangelicals when it comes to presidential elections,"

This is a classic example of a leading Evangelical who proposes the same old formula for theologically driven voting. I disagree with his stance:

-Land equates Evangelicals' prioritization of abortion and same-sex marriage at the ballot box with MLK's focus on racial reconciliation and racial justice. I agree with his line of thought--this really is all about what we prioritize. I believe that Evangelicals in the United States must put a focus on giving dignity to groups that have been marginalized for far too long: African-Americans living in the squalor of cities, immigrants who work 2-3 jobs for very low pay and contribute greatly to our economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have been fought by Americans largely living in low socio-economic settings and have been waged by politicians who use fear to justify them.

-Land's rhetoric is not fair--describing the Democratic Party as having 'a party platform that has never met an abortion they couldn't at least live with — if they didn't like.' A new kind of Evangelicalism is calling this type of argument out. Many Pro-Choice Democrats are working hard to reduce the numbers of abortion in the United States. I'm convinced that Pro-Choice Democrats do not 'like' any abortions. They just prioritize giving every American woman that choice.

Luckily, Christian communities in America have an opportunity to prioritize all of these issues in the politics of their own communities. We do not have to rely on the Federal government to do the hard work of justice for us. However, we should be a part of the conversation, advocating for a government that can change to become more and more fair and justice, giving rights and freedoms and privileges to those on the underbelly of our society.

Richard Land and I are both Evangelicals. But we have different bible reading strategies and we have different priorities when it comes to what it means to be activists and what it means to evangelize others. We probably stress different things when it comes to understanding the signficance of Jesus' cross for us today. The defining characteristics of Evangelicalism are contested. It is a contest worth participating in. If we don't participate, we abandon the movement to strands that are harmful and unfaithful to what it means to follow Jesus in our complex world. I hope we win the contest.

A 'Postmodern' Christian?

2008-02-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

Throughout the Modern period in the United States [from 1650 to the present], Christian faith has been characterized as rooted in two opposing camps labeled 'liberal' and 'conservative.' Both options are rooted in the philosophical belief of 'foundationalism': establishing foundational truths/principles to ensure certainty. For liberals, this foundation is in universal religious experience. For conservatives, this foundation is an 'inerrant' Bible.

Both options, of course, 'believe in the Bible,' but liberals prefer to understand it as a resource for moral teachings that aren't historically 'true.' The bodily resurrection may or may not have happened...its the faith of the Christian community that counts for new life. Liberals have tended to demand a firm boundary between faith and politics, the legacy of Thomas Jefferson's 'wall of separation' between church and state.

Conservatives, on the other hand, rely heavily on an error-free, perfectly inspired Bible to give them the timeless truths and principles for life. Conservative Christians [called 'evangelicals' or more radically 'fundamentalists'] believe that America, founded as a Christian country, should translate conservative interpretations of the Bible directly into national law, resulting in a conservative social agenda denouncing gay rights and seeking to overturn abortion laws.

Into this cultural/philosophical battle over Christian brands, emerges Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama who doesn't fit neatly into either package. Obama clings to a form of separation of church and state [like liberals, but not exactly]:

Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religion, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

AND liberates Americans to claim and speak openly and boldly about their diverse faith traditions in the public realm [like conservatives, but not exactly]:

But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King -indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity.

Obama speaks plainly about the fact that America, although influenced heavily by different strands of Christian faith, is NOT a 'Christian nation' and every faith tradition should be respected and given a platform to share ideas and worship freely. And if it were the case that America somehow was a Christian nation, Obama asks, which 'Christian' would it be?

…even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?

Some Christians [conservatives] in the United States will be put off by Obama's openness and posturing. They will say that he is not standing up for the truth in Christ and that he is being too loose with beliefs/doctrines. Other Christians [liberals] will be put off by Obama's boldness to speak from the Christian tradition, not some neutral, enlightenment 'common ground.' Sure Obama, as a politician, believes in compromise and finding common ground, but not at the sacrifice of open religious dialogue.

Obama, unlike many political leaders, is openly humble about the nature of different Christian outlooks. He is not interested in using Absolute Truth claims to rally support. This doesn't mean that he is a 'relativist' who has an 'anything goes' attitude toward life. Instead, it seems as though Obama adheres to what Christian theologian James McClendon and atheist philosopher James Smith, together, postulated three decades ago: the 'principle of fallibility' which states that 'even one’s most cherished and tenaciously held convictions might be false and are in principle always subject to rejection, reformulation, improvement, or reformation.'

McClendon and Smith, writing about religious convictions in dialogue in the mid-70s, were pioneers in the postmodern theological conversation which rejected the modern foundationalism of conservative and liberal options. This emerging philosophy takes on life holistically, taking note of the interconnectedness of philosophy-theology-politics-sociology-economics-etc and taking seriously the differing perspectives that lead to diverse interpretations of life.

In the end [by November!], Obama will get the most heat from the conservative side of the evangelical spectrum because most will construe his Christian religious views as too open-minded and his biblical reading strategy as not certain enough. As he recently confessed in an interview:

"There are aspects of Christian tradition that I'm comfortable with and aspects that I'm not. There are passages of the Bible that make perfect sense to me and others that I go, 'Ya know, I'm not sure about that.'"

For 'postmodern' or 'progressive' Evangelicals [most of whom were born after we landed on the moon], this blend of humility and honesty mixed together with boldness and faithfulness is a breath of fresh air, an energizing force in religious dialogue.

*Quotes taken from a 'Call to Renewal' speech Obama gave June 28, 2006 [full text in our 'Great Articles' link to the left] and from an interview from January 2007 in the Chicago Sun-Times.

God Bless America?

2008-02-21T10:48:00.000-08:00

‘All the language of transcendence is but rhetoric unless there be a visible body of people who are able to escape conformity to the world while continuing to function in the midst of the world.’
John Howard Yoder, 'Civil Religion in America' in
The Priestly Kingdom

What exactly do we mean when we utter 'God bless America?' We've heard presidential candidates use this phrase to conclude speeches over the past few months and it became a mantra in the days, months, years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Most surveys reveal that about 95% of Americans believe in 'God,' but what exactly is this 'God' that we believe in. Of course, there are many diverse descriptions of who or what this god is and what he/she/it is like.

A blessed America must mean a prosperous America and a safe America and a healthy America, an America successful in its pursuit of happiness. Many leaders will surely say that America is blessed in proportion to its morality or obedience to this so-called God.

One critical question should be asked in reference to God's blessing of our country: what if this blessing comes as a result of the curse of other countries? What if the 'overall' blessing of America comes as a curse to certain groups of people within America?

Yoder again:
‘The God-language of the bible does not point inward to the renewed heart alone, nor upward to the higher power,’ nor forward to the hereafter,’ but backward to the salvation story, outward to the claims of the rest of the world, the enemies to love and the slaves to free, and forward to a city not of our own making…The transcendence that counts is not a power from beyond that is now leashed to favor us, but the affirmation of values beyond our control to which we are committed, calling us to be ministers of peace and of justice above, beyond, and maybe even against our own interest. Ask not what God can do for America; ask what America owes humankind.’

Yoder shifts God's action for America away from being the recipient of blessing to being the bestower of blessing. Echoing [and transforming] the words of American President John F. Kennedy, he calls Christians to their vocation in the world. Followers of Jesus are called uniquely to be advocates and agents for peace and justice [blessing] for the entire world and this may go against the self-interest of America.

We live on the other side of a vast, overflow of material blessing for our country. This has come on the backs of those who live on the periphery, those who work for extremely low [not living] wages and those who live in countries abroad where the War on Terror creates a 'for-or-against' situation, including those poor and marginalized American teenagers who only have an opportunity for college by joining the military to pay for tuition and living expenses.

God's blessing comes to this entire world through communities committed to his redemptive causes. These communities re-enact the humility, compassion, service, giving & forgiveness of Jesus the Lord and Messiah. Life, for Christians, does not have anything to do with yearning for our country of citizenship to be lavished with blessing. We are not sado-masichists either. Of course, we are deeply thankful for the provisions that we have and the unique ways that Americans get to experience God's creation. However, we are citizens of a different empire: the kingdom of God. Our King chose suffering service over triumphant domination. Shouldn't we also?

The Gospel of LUKE...not Payton or Jackson

2008-02-20T09:16:00.000-08:00

In Celebration of the birth of Luke Kevin, the two-month old son of our good friends in Dallas, Tim and Kelly Wasemiller.

LUKE 1:5-19
5 In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. 7But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.
8 Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, 9he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. 10Now at the time of the incense-offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. 11Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. 13But the angel said to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. 14You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. 16He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’ 18Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.’ 19The angel replied, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. [euangelion]

We wanted to share a special reading from Luke’s gospel with you during this Time of celebration, adoration and excitement. We’ve been recently challenged to read the New Testament like actors reading a script—-participating in the continuing story of what God is doing in the world. Christians join God’s people as characters in this real-life story, reading, re-reading and memorizing the script in our own diverse life contexts, in Dallas and in Southern California and everywhere else, figuring out where we fit in the big picture.

Luke was probably the third gospel written and the author seems to be saying, in the first few lines of this story, that he wants to improve on what others [Mark and Matthew?] had written about what God had done in the life, teachings, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus the Lord and Messiah.

This gospel starts out with Zechariah and Elizabeth, the Jewish couple without kids who were ‘getting on in years,’ an extremely shameful situation in the Palestinian culture of the first century, especially for the woman since she was the one who seemed to be always blamed for ‘barrenness’ [v.7]. Luke dedicates this introduction to an older couple who have been shamed because they cannot have kids. Of course, like many events in Luke, the script is flipped and the bad news is transformed into good news: the Greek word euangelion translated as ‘gospel’ or ‘good news’ in our English Bibles. In the first century of the Roman Empire, this euangelion was a word that referred to a royal announcement: a battle that Caesar won, a celebration of Caesar’s birthday, news about exciting developments in the Empire. In the decades after Jesus died and rose again, as the Christian movement began, Paul used euangelion throughout his letters to refer to a new sort of royal announcement: that God continued the story of Israel by raising a shamefully crucified man from the dead and that this Jesus was now Lord of the world [and Caesar actually wasn’t!]. The ‘gospel’ became a powerfully subversive word for the Christian communities who worshipped God in pluralistic cities all over the Empire.

With all this said, Luke first uses this euangelion in his story about Jesus to refer to the amazing news that an old [much older than you, Kelly!], barren woman would soon be pregnant…and that this son would be the forerunner to the long-awaited anointed king [messiah] of the world. The gospel, for Luke and the earliest Christians, wasn’t what someone needed to do in order to ‘get saved’ and go to heaven. Instead, it referred to the shocking news of what God did and was doing presently in the world. Amazing to think that God used an old barren couple to kick-start that greatest story ever told! And he still does. What a tremendous story that God is starting with your son.

The news of Kelly's pregnancy was gospel to our ears. We can’t wait to see what God does with him and your whole family in the decades to come. The news of the birth of your son is nothing less that euangelion: the gospel proclamation that God is still doing amazing things in the lives of couples who are ‘righteous before God, living blamelessly’ as he beckons everyone to be a part of what he is doing to redeem the entire world.

The Triumph of Narrative

2008-02-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

Some excerpts from today's article in The American Prospect by Paul Waldman

...Obama has been telling a story perfectly keyed to the current moment in history.

As Obama tells it, the country is held hostage by a political class that sows partisan and cultural division, making solving problems ever more difficult, while the country yearns for a new day of unity. As the youngest candidate, the only post-boomer candidate, the only bi-racial candidate, and the one candidate with a preternatural ability to obtain the good will of those who disagree with him, he can bring all Americans together and lead us to a future built on hope...

When you read a really good story, you sometimes reach the point where you almost forget that you're reading at all. When that happens, you experience the story in a fundamentally different way, as though you have entered it, and instead of taking place outside you, it proceeds around you, and you feel everything the story evokes more deeply and profoundly. Scholars who study narrative call this transportation. While as readers we are affected differently by different stories because of our own experiences and values, a more skillfully crafted story—one told with beautiful language, compelling characters, and emotions that resonate in ourselves—will be able to transport many more readers than a poorly told tale.

This is a tremendous analysis of the power of story and how it captivates people and has authority over their lives as they participate in it. Many Americans [including Lindsay and I] are entering Obama's story of hope and unity. It is a story far bigger than ourselves. But what I find most intriguing about the article is that it comes very close to how we understand the authority of another political story, slightly different perspectives of the anointed king named Jesus found in the four Gospels. These are powerfully subversive to the political situation in the 1st century Roman Empire as their narratives beckon readers [hearers] to commit their lives to live faithfully in counter-communities who pledge allegiance to God's reign. These are not primarily historical or spiritual or religious [although these descriptors matter]. The gospel narratives are 'political' because they advocate and solicit an alternative way-of-life to the ones being offered. These communities practice politics in fundamentally different ways and they learn this politics by listening to the story and identifying themselves as 'disciples' and identifying the Jesus portrayed in the narrative as the same Jesus in their midst ['I will be with you until the very end of the age'--Matthew 28:20].

Followers of Jesus in the 21st century continue to effectively read the Gospel as scripts for living. We are characters in the ongoing story of God and the world. We are transported into the narrative and faithfully live it out in our unique contexts. Obama's story is so compelling partly because people are so starved to enter a narrative that they can believe in--that will offer them a new sustainable adventure to be a part of. I want to learn to tell God's Story more creatively and energetically so as to be faithful to the commission handed on to us. We are given the exciting task of being a part of what God is doing in the world. Why should anyone be left out of that adventure?

‘Prophetic faith cares about ethics and politics, righteousness in history, poverty, power, justice, which it refuses to leave to the politicians by making the ‘religious’ another plane.’
John Howard Yoder
The Priestly Kingdom

There Will Be Blood

2008-02-18T20:34:00.000-08:00

‘…there will be blood.’
Exodus 7:19

Do big oil and Jesus mix? Both of these ‘industries’ have an investment in atonement, salvation, sin, and the power of a community working together. Unfortunately, both industries have a very difficult time cleansing themselves from the self-interest that guides them just as much [if not more] than any sort of ‘spirit’ of altruism. When the oil boom meets Christian revivalism, something has got to give.

There Will Be Blood baptizes the American man into capitalism and Christianity, two odd bed-fellows when considered one at a time. But unfortunately, the history of America has been a strong marriage of the two, producing children who can’t hear arguments for why they cannot be mixed. The child in this narrative is H.W., the bastard used by oil man Daniel Plainview [Daniel Day-Lewis] to put a good family values face on his gushing ambition. When Daniel finally hits the ‘gusher’ that he’d worked so hard to find, his son is violently knocked from the derrick, losing his hearing for life.

Daniel finds the land flowing with oil only when Paul Sunday [Paul Dano] treks to find him in order to fund his Church of the Third Revelation. Paul is actually Eli. Or is he? The audience never knows if Paul, in fact, is another brother who sold his family out for a small sum and then vanishes, or if Paul is Eli, a schizophrenic alter-ego. Eli/Paul represents the two-faced world of American Christian revivalism, commissioned to save the sinful world, but also to fund its sinful enterprise. The two industries critique and counteract each other, but they desperately need each other to survive, ultimately blessing each other in various ways.

In the end, Eli has found fame as the Hollywood preacher with a radio show and Daniel has found enormous wealth by slurping up the oil from neighboring lands with a gigantic milkshake straw. Eli, searching for money, finds Daniel drunk in his mansion. Daniel suckers Eli into a confession: ‘I am a false prophet and God is a superstition.’ Daniel rages against Eli and kills him with a bowling pin, blood gushing on the floor.

The film’s last line is Daniel’s exhausted statement to his butler after killing Eli: ‘I’m finished.’ Is this an echo of Jesus’ last word from the cross: ‘It is finished?’ If so, this gospel concludes with a counterfeit atonement: nothing but the blood of false prophet Eli, saving no one. The narrative reveals the hypocrisy of the American gospel: how can our society so easily embrace the combination of the greed, ambition and celebrity of both oil and [false] evangelicalism?

Interesting to point out, all the characters have biblical names except for H.W., representing a certain oil man who relied heavily upon the evangelical vote to become President of the United States. This poor child has been used and brainwashed by these false prophets who leave him silently groping for something better in this world. Will he, or the rest of America, ever find it?

Christ is the Question: A Critical Review

2008-02-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

‘The crucial question for Christians in our time—-the crucial question for strong believers in every ongoing interpretive community—-is how we can be faithful to those dimensions of our own lifeworld that our history has led us to deem irreplaceable, while at the same time opening our minds and our imaginations to the things we may need to discover—-the things God may be trying to teach us, if you will—-in those other traditions and lifeworlds that are now our unavoidable neighbors in this small planet.’

Warning: if you are a Jesus-follower who prioritizes logical arguments on the validity [Absolute, inerrant Truth] of the Bible or is convinced that we cannot learn from other faith [or non-faith] traditions, then Wayne Meeks' Christ is the Question will be a hard read indeed! Meeks' project on Jesus is written for those who are boldly asking different questions and willing to live faithfully without every [or any] question being answered.

Meeks cuts through very difficult issues, dealing with Jesus' identity among world religions as well as the 'battle for the Bible': what exactly is this book and how then shall we go about interpreting it? A complex rule book? A treasure of obligatory beliefs? In the end, he says it is an indispensible resource that powerfully guides the faithfulness of specific communities who pledge allegiance to Jesus. Meeks proposes that we can learn from the Bible if we stand in a certain tradition that guides our interpretations and lifestyles. Each Christian tradition goes about the task of Bible reading in nuanced ways. The irony is that EVERY Christian reads the Bible within a certain tradition. We've all been taught to construe [what exactly is this thing we are reading?] and interpret [what does this word mean for us?] the Bible in a certain way. We have to be honest that the way we've learned is different than how others have learned. This is why dialogue within the worldwide Body of Christ is so important. As we listen, we learn what God is speaking to other communities living in other contexts and standing in other traditions. [NOTE: this reminds me of the many Christians who have told me how much they like their pastor because 'he teaches straight from the Word.' Even these pastors read from a tradition, asking questions from a unique social location [In short, NO teaching is 'straight from the Word'].

Whatever we do, Meeks exhorts us to never use the phrase 'the Bible clearly teaches.' The interpretations of the Bible are contested and each Christian tradition has their own cherished passages interpreted their own way. This is NOT to say that everyone can just come to the biblical text making it say whatever we want it to say. We interpret it carefully, sincerely, prayerfully and honestly. We cannot claim that the Bible is easy to read with self-evident interpretations revealing God's Word to us. Instead, it is a complex process:

'we need to admit to them that for the Bible to teach you anything you must be willing to submit to a rigorous discipline that entails, among other things, learning to be comfortable with ambiguity and a willingness to admit that there are things we do not know.’

Does this lead to 'radical relativism,' the collective shrugging of shoulders, abandoning the Bible to an 'anything goes' mentality? By no means!!! The Bible cannot be abandoned to the 'absolutism' that has dominated much of North American Evangelical Christianity which dogmatically claims to know the meaning of each each and every passage of the Bible. This is the real threat to what God's Word is saying to communities all over our great country...and the utter most parts of the world.

The NEW in Christ: A Whole New Order of Things

2008-02-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
II Corinthians 5:14-17

Paul’s Jewish worldview was tinted with the belief that God would one day restore the present age with a ‘new age’ to come:

For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice for ever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
Isaiah 65:17-19

On his way to Damascus to persecute the people of ‘the Way’ [Jews for Jesus], Paul was commissioned by Jesus himself to be a messenger to the Gentiles: the ‘new age’ has come in the life, teaching, service, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and there is an invitation for all the nations to be a part of God’s work in the world. God has invaded this world in a shocking and unprecedented manner, creating a new society of Jew and Gentiles committed to re-enact the compassion, humility, obedience, service and love of Jesus. This ‘new age’ of transformation and liberation overlaps with the ‘old age’ of sin and death, creating a tension for God’s people as they live as a conscience and servant to the world.

This ‘new creation’ jargon used in his letter to the small Corinthian messianic community does not refer to individuals converted and being renewed in Christ [this does, indeed, happen, but only in light of the larger issue of a whole new world]. Instead, Paul is here referring to a bigger, more dramatic scenario: the death and resurrection of Jesus was a world-shattering event. People who are ‘in Christ’ are a sign of a new age, where God’s Spirit has been placed as a ‘down payment’ [2 Cor 5:5], guiding and energizing the community until the last Day. There is a whole new order of things, God's inaugurated regime of enemy love, forgiveness and service, a confederacy of Jews and Gentiles who pledge allegiance to an alternative lifestyle in the midst of the old ways of domination and revenge.

Voting as Christian Practice

2008-02-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

Why vote? Why be ‘into politics’ when we’ve got more important [eternal] things to do with our precious time? This is a timely question in California, given our huge population which equate to huge electoral votes in November, but also given, in many Evangelical Christian circles, a tendency to shove ‘politics’ to the sidelines of our lives.

Christianity as a ‘set of beliefs,’ is highly overrated. Following Jesus certainly entails many ‘beliefs’ that we acknowledge to be true. But more importantly, it is a way-of-life that combines a variety of ‘practices’ that are truly countercultural to the society we are living in. John Howard Yoder highlights five such practices that give us a unique identity and mission in a world radically altered by the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Citing the New Testament, Yoder claims that Christians are those who commit to an alternative polis: we share our possessions [Acts 4:34], we listen and serve and enjoy people who come from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds [Gal 3:28-29], we gently and honestly confront those who have offended or hurt us [Matthew 18:15-20], we give everyone the floor who has a desire to share [I Cor 14:26-33]and we empower everyone in the community to be able to use their diverse gifts and talents in a variety of ways [I Cor 12]. Yoder adds that there are other radical practices that these communities can be committed to, loving enemies being one of them [Matthew 5].

These practices may be radical but they aren’t meant to be worked out in a holy huddle removed from society. These gospel practices are performed in real life, as Yoder writes, ‘before the watching world.’ And ‘spiritual disciplines’ enhance and empower these actions: prayer, spiritual direction/counseling, meditation, bible reading and fasting. ‘Politics,’ therefore, for followers of Jesus is an alternative citizenship to his empire, an allegiance to a community of people who commit their lives to being wrapped up into a different economy.

I propose that ‘voting’ for the President of the United States is one of these, a practice that we can be committed to doing in an alternative way than the rest of society. Our very logic and reasoning, conformed to the gospel of Jesus, the true narrative about our world, will counter the many different attributes that people look for in the leader of the free world.

Voting as Team Effort
The practice begins in community. Unlike the usual brush-offs that we experience in our culture where ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ should be personal decisions kept to oneself— usually so that people can all get along—our actions in the voting booth begin by gospel-oriented dialogue in the Body of Christ. The unique voices and gifts that our brothers and sisters bring to the table will enhance how we view candidates: where they stand on issues, what issues are prioritized, how each will govern and the character of each. We don’t have to agree with each other on the ‘correct’ candidate, but our dialogue can hone how we view the American political scene in light of the gospel.

Voting as Redemptive Witness
The practice gives opportunity to be a part of our national dialogue. It gives us a forum for sharing an alternative narrative with its unique practices. It allows us to build bridges with people with counter-narratives and lifestyles and an organic environment to participate with them. When nonviolence is prioritized in the campaigning and voting of messianic communities, we will rub shoulders with ‘free-thinkers,’ ‘atheists,’ ‘green-peacers,’ and those who take this strand seriously in other religious traditions [by the way, we have much to learn about the truth from these 'other' traditions].

Voting as Periphery Advocacy
The practice gives us an opportunity to vote for prioritizing the needs of the marginalized and oppressed in and out of the United States. Our booming national budget should give dignity to groups who are in need and suffering to survive. In a democracy, followers of Jesus can theoretically have a voice in advocating where hard-earned money is placed.

Voting as Dual Citizenship
Ultimately, the practice reflects that American Christians are primarily citizens of God’s Kingdom, with an allegiance that profoundly affects our secondary status as Americans. Our voting must always be cautious of being overly patriotic and self-interested. Can can cast our vote boldly, knowing that God’s redemptive work, done in mysterious ways, will have the last say in our complex world, no matter who wins the election.

God is sovereign in our world whether the 'right' candidate is elected or not. God will work in, through and counter to whoever is in the White House in order to accomplish his unique justice. More than two decades ago, Yoder made a list of American men, deeply involved in the American political scene, who were far 'more interested in being right than being president.' This incomplete list includes Roger Williams, William Penn, William Jennings Bryan and Martin Luther King. The beautifully faithful lives of these men remind us that God calls people to all sorts of redemptive 'political' activity. When we cherish our Kingdom citizenship over our American nationalism, anything can happen.

The NEW in Christ: Faith as Remembering

2008-02-07T08:40:00.000-08:00

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they [some of the women disciples] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living one among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them nonsense, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.Luke 24:1-12

Luke’s gospel was written some 40-50 years after these strange events unfolded in and around Jerusalem. The narrative is written for a community who ‘believed’ that Jesus’ life, service, and teaching continued in their presence, through their words and actions. They continued his legacy through their trust in him. In Luke’s resurrection account, the women are the heroic believers: ‘they remembered his words.’ The male disciples, however, not only did not believe the women’s report, but it was nonsense [leros…where the English word ‘delirious’ comes from] to them. Of course, the men would eventually come to ‘believe’ the delirious reports and would stake their lives on it.

In the first century, communities of believers would read Luke’s gospel together. This was a form of solidarity as they ‘remembered his words.’ Luke’s narrative, like the other gospels, was an ‘identity document.’ It was a story that hearers [only about 10% could read in that era] would identify Jesus as the reigning Lord [and not Caesar] and would identify the inaugurated ‘empire’ of Jesus was the common setting for Luke’s gospel. Most importantly, however, they would identify themselves with the disciples—those who follow Jesus through all the mystery, joy, depression and surprises of life.

As these communities eagerly listened to the conclusion of Luke’s story, after Jesus’ brutal death on a cross, they would hear the words of the two men as a powerful reminder that we continue to seek out the ‘living one among the dead.’ He continues to bring life to many in a multitude of ways. During Lent, messianic communities get an opportunity to read the narrative afresh, again. We are reminded by these men of Jesus’ words spoken previously to the disciples—that he would indeed be handed over, crucified and rise up from the grave. We are identified as believers, with the women, according to Luke’s conclusion when we ‘remember his words.’ We are not only listeners of the story, but also characters, participating in the ongoing, alternative reign of Jesus.

Lent 2008: The NEW in Christ

2008-02-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

The 40-day celebration called ‘Lent’ starts today. This year on theaireys.blogspot.com, we will have a series of occasional reflections on the legacy of Jesus’ death and resurrection for communities that boldly follow Him today. Throughout the New Testament, these authors grapple with what the ‘New in Christ’ meant for his disciples. The love of the messiah is high and wide and long and deep [Eph 3:20] and the meaning of his death for the world continues to have astoundingly complex and rich meaning for us today [just like it did for those shocked by the resurrection sometime around AD30]. The New Testament borrows images from the Hebrew Bible and from the Greek, Roman and Jewish heritage of the context of these first messianic events to attempt to communicate these strange happenings—to connect what happened at the end of Jesus’ earthly life to their faithfulness after the resurrection.

Consider this passage from Paul:

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
[Colossians 1:13-14]

The new that Jesus brings to the world is communicated here in a series of images that would certainly speak to the context of first-century Christian communities with a Jewish background, Greek culture and Roman political influences. This kingdom of God’s Son would be an alternative to the kingdom of Caesar who was referred to as the ‘son of the divine.’ It is also a beautiful echo of God’s historic ‘rescue’ of Israel from the power of darkness, Egypt, in the Exodus. This was the formative beginning of God’s people. The ‘redemption’ language reflected an image of a slave being bought in order to be given freedom—liberation! The people of God, Israel, had waited a long time for their God to show up in a new, shocking, radical way. They believed that when this happened , it would be an unprecedented ‘release’ [a word more close to the original language than ‘forgiveness’] of sins.

All of these metaphors and images that Paul [and the rest of the NT writers] uses are different windows into the same reality: the radically New in Christ, ushered forth on a Sunday morning almost 2000 years ago. Paul is using language to communicate the most powerful event that has ever happened in the history of God’s relationship to the world. The challenge of this language is to convey how the Jesus event is significant for his messianic followers today. We will take that challenge as we listen to the words of the New Testament afresh in the coming weeks leading up to Easter!

The God of the Underdog

2008-02-05T10:09:00.000-08:00

What is it about the compulsive pull we have to root for the underdog? We get inspired when we watch movies like Rudy and Rocky and Remember the Titans. It is why we rooted for the New York Giants on Superbowl Sunday. True, we often are drawn to the side of the dominating force, the unconquerable leader or team or company or organization. Perhaps this is because power and winning is intoxicating. Or perhaps it is because we tend to be hope-less, not believing that the underdog can really pull off the unthinkable. But there is nothing like rooting for the underdog and watching her win.

Is this because we all think that we are, in some way, underdogs longing to become top-dogs? Or is it because it reflects the very nature of the gospel of God? Throughout Scripture God is portrayed as the One who is adamantly for the weak and oppressed and marginalized in society. He is for the forgotten younger and the run-down elder, as well as the fatherless child and the husbandless wife. God implores his people to root for these real life underdogs. Indeed, the people of Israel were the ultimate underdogs, an identity woven into the very fabric of their mission to the world.

‘Not because you were more numerous…but because you were littler than all nations.’
Deuteronomy 7:7-8

'You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.'
Exodus 23:9

Jesus himself, on the night before he was crucified, commissioned his followers to a different kind of identity and mission. He pressed his disciples into the work of the underdog:

A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.
Luke 22:24-27

Where is the underdog in our midst and do we believe that God can and will empower them through our cheers, our words, our deeds? Can we resist the intoxicating feeling that power and domination bring? We Americans are far more interested in what beautiful celebrities and power-hungry politicians say and do than in what those living on the periphery of our society are groaning for. Will we, the people of Jesus, have the courage and determination and trust to embrace the underdog and allow this charge to determine our identity and mission in the world?

Matthew as Sherpa

2008-02-04T11:55:00.000-08:00

'the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour.'
Matthew 3:8

'When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.'
Matthew 5:1

'Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ 'Matthew 28:16-20

At key moments during his narrative, Matthew leads his readers [mostly 'hearers' in the first century since only about 10% of population were literate] up the mountain. After Jesus' baptism, Jesus is lead into the desert to be 'tested' for 40 days without food [Israel was tested in the desert for 40 years with food]. At the climax of the Matthew desert narrative [it is different than in Luke and Mark], Jesus is lead up to a high mountain where his kingship is tested: will he be the kind of king who dominates and demands allegiance, or a humble 'Servant-King' [see Ps 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1--both quoted at the baptism] one who serves and worships God? On the mountain, Jesus defines his gentle, yet powerful worldwide reign as one that is loyal to the God of the Universe. This is not a kingdom that oppressively constrains the nations of the world, but instead gives freedom to choose to be a part of God's Reign.

Jesus, then ascends the mountain to begin teaching his disciples [the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 5 is the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6]. This mountain-top teaching echoes Moses' receiving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Jesus retains this Torah teaching but intensifies it: 'You have heard that it was said...but I say to you...' There are five teaching episodes in Matthew's narrative paralleling the five books of the Torah of Israel. He goes up the mountain to be a 'new Moses,' leading the People of God to a new kind of liberation for a new era.

Lastly, Jesus ascends the mountain again, post-resurrection, to commission his small band of followers to participate in this new way. He lays out the vocation of the community: extend the invitation for others to become Jesus-disciples by baptizing them and teaching them all of the ways of Jesus. Matthew is extending this commission, through his narrative, to the first audience [in AD80?] who listened intently to his story about Jesus. These disciples, living some 50 years after the Jesus-event, were inspired to participate in this on-going narrative by living out the words and actions of Jesus...and inviting others to be a part of the team with them. This commission [and the entire Gospel] is concluded with the rather bold ascertion that Jesus would continue to be in the midst of the community on mission.

Matthew, like a loyal sherpa, leads his audience up the mountain. As we read the narrative afresh, we too are invited to climb the mountain to be challenged to resist the temptation to make Jesus' reign anything other than one that is gentle, humble, serving and compassionate. We, too, are invited to climb up the mountain to listen to Jesus' radical call: 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you' [5:44]. And we, too, are invited to climb up the mountain to continue the narrative in the United States in 2008, inviting others to be a part of this enemy loving, forgiving and serving movement.

The Truth According to Matthew

2008-02-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

'God with us'

'In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men* from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?'

'And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved,* with whom I am well pleased.’'

What is the author of Matthew doing? What is he trying to say to a community living faithfully some five decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus the prophet and messiah and Lord? It seems to me that the 'truth' that Matthew is conveying is not unlike the 'truth' that Denzel Washington is communicating in The Great Debaters. Let me explain.

When Lindsay and I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago, we were astonished and emotionally floored by the narrative. It invited us into the African-American plight. It revealed the racism of America's past, but also pin-pointed the question to our present condition--where does racism continue to wreak havoc in our on-going story? And where do small communities of those marginalized peoples continue to be resilient and triumphant? This story embodied the Truth of America's past and present. It encouraged and challenged the audience to a better, more redemptive life of triumph through adversity. It beckoned those of us in positions of privilege and power to take hold of the responsibility of listening to the perspective of the periphery and advocating for them--to be in solidarity with them.

A few days after we saw the movie, I did some research and found out that the actual story of these collegiate debaters from the small black college in Texas was a little bit different than what Washington portrayed in the film. The 'real' team actually debated an all-white team from USC, not Harvard! Washington switched the script to intensify the historical ramifications of this breaking of the color barrier. Was this creative license a break from 'truth?' I think not. The story itself, mostly historically accurate, communicates a truth that transcends historical accuracy.

This begs the question for serious Bible readers: Are the events portrayed in Matthew's Gospel historically accurate? Did these strange events all happen exactly as reported in this narrative? I think not. But I do not think it affects the outcome of 'truth' in the slightest.

Matthew was a narrative written by a disciple of Jesus--one who was convinced that Jesus was killed by the establishment, but vindicated by God, raising him to new life. In addition, it was written by a 'believer' who held the rather dramatic conviction that Jesus' presence continued in the life of the community [Mt 28:20]. Matthew crafted this narrative for Christian communities to read together, in one reading! This would have taken a couple of hours [about the length of a feature film like, say, The Great Debaters]. Matthew was the movie that communities were being entertained by and invited into in the 1st century. It was a story of a God who acted astoundingly in the life and death of Jesus. Was there a man named Jesus who lived and taught and served and healed and loved and commissioned a new kind of community for the world? Yes! But not everything in the narrative happened exactly as we read it.

Truth for the writer of Matthew, as well as the rest of the Bible, was contained in the big picture of the narrative. What does the whole story mean and what does it mean for the hearer of the story? It invites hearers to become participants in these astonishing things that God continues to do in the world through communities that continue to experience Jesus' presence.

This 'reading strategy' is a scandal to those who subscribe to an inerrant or infallible interpretation of the Bible...and it is foolishness to those who believe that the Bible is a book of myths and fables for a foregone superstitious era. The Bible is neither. It is living and active and continues to beckon us to take part is something far bigger than ourselves...for the world. The Spirit of God inspired Matthew to write a narrative for Christian communities who would be inspired by that same Spirit to re-enact the story in their own unique contexts.

The Shortcomings of Anabaptism

2008-01-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

In 2000, Richard B. Hays, a bible professor at Duke Divinity School, wrote an essay in the Mennonite Quarterly about his experience in the Radical Reformation tradition [a 'third way' of the Protestant Reformation...not Lutheran, not Calvinist]. Hays has great respect for Anabaptism and has participated in Anabaptist intentional communities and is also hugely influenced by John Howard Yoder's theology. Hays includes some of his thoughts about the 'limitations' of Anabaptism for those of us who are positioning ourselves in this 'brand' of Christian faith.

Hays describes these under the heading 'Dangers and Temptations':

--> We have a tendency towards flat-footed literalism and hermeneutical naivete

Many Anabaptist communities have a strong 'rule' to neither add nor take away anything from God's Word. When these communities interpret the bible together, there tends to be a lack of imagination for how these words become a word for the community with its unique challenges and opportunities.

--> We have a tendency to divide life into spiritual and physical realms [or 'sacred' and 'secular']

Baptism is a political act that pledges allegiance of our entire lives [minds, bodies, work, play] under the Lordship of Christ.

--> We tend to have a too naively optimistic anthropology

We think it all too easy for individuals and communities to obey and follow the radical way of Jesus. Hays proposes that we need constant reminders of 'the dark complexity of our own motives and the weakness and limitations of our obedience'

--> We have a constant temptation to be judgmental towards outsiders and harshly perfectionistic in our dealings with one another within our own little community

This is the biggest challenge for Lindsay and I in our journey in and among Orange County Evangelicalism. Our passion and commitment to learning spills over into arrogance and condemnation toward other 'brands' of Christian faith. Because we participate in an intensely minority voice in the world of suburban Christianity, we have been driven to use labels like 'fundamentalists' or 'white moderates.' Of course, all the while, we too are indicted under these labels, having been shaped by these forms of faith for a long time and in many ways. In addition to repenting and resisting the harmful tendencies of suburban Christianity, we confess that our ferver is equated with smugness and judgmentalism.

Like the tax collector in Luke 18, I beat my breast and look to God:
'Have mercy on me, a sinner.'

A Compelling Candidate...

2008-01-29T08:40:00.000-08:00

'...in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.'
Toni Morrison, from her letter of endorsement to Barack Obama

Yesterday, Toni Morrison, the 1993 Nobel Laureate, endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States. It was the first public endorsement that she's ever made. She'll be 77 this year...she's seen a lot in her life. One aspect of the significance of this endorsement is that she's credited with calling Bill Clinton 'the first black President,' referring to the former President's powerful support of the African-American community during his 8 years in office. In a piece for the New Yorker in 1998, she wrote, 'this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime.'

For Morrison, the rare blend that Obama possesses, creative imagination and brilliance, is what makes him such a unique candidate. Are these words of Morrison's hybole or right-on-the-mark?

'this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril'
[from the opening paragraph of her endorsement letter]

I appreciate Morrison's words. They mean a lot because she has lived an incredible life. She is an accomplished voice from the periphery--the first African-American woman to win the Nobel in Literature. She teaches at Yale. During a lecture she gave at Princeton, a student asked who she wrote for. On the spot she answered:

"I want to write for people like me, which is to say black people, curious people, demanding people -- people who can't be faked, people who don't need to be patronized, people who have very, very high criteria."

She helps me put into words why Lindsay and I are captivated by Obama.

When we watched the Democratic Debate from South Carolina last night [Mike and Nancy TiVO'd it!] Obama said something interesting about what it means to be 'Christian' and be a leader in the Democratic Party. It rang home for me, growing up in an era [and geographic location] when 'Christian' has been been synonomous with 'Republican.' Being 'Christian' is a 'contested concept' and Obama sincerely understands what is at stake for followers of the crucified and risen messiah who so desperately want discipleship to mean something much different than it is associated with in the realm of 'American Politics.'

'there have been times where our Democratic Party did not reach out as aggressively as we could to evangelicals, for example, because the assumption was, well, they don't agree with us on choice, or they don't agree with us on gay rights, and so we just shouldn't show up. And when you don't show up, if you're not going to church, then you're not talking to church folk. And that means that people have a very right-wing perspective in terms of what faith means and of defining our faith...And as somebody who believes deeply in the precepts of Jesus Christ, particularly treating the least of these in a way that he would, that it is important for us to not concede that ground. Because I think we can go after those folks and get them...'
Obama, during the South Carolina Democratic Debate, January 21, 2008

Groaning for Kibera

2008-01-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8:19-23

Kibera [Kenya] is one of the largest slums in the world. I got to visit in the summer of 2001 with our FCA student-leadership team, which included my future sister-in-law, Kristen Orr! I'll never forget the people of Kibera--the quick smiles and hospitality--living in what seemed dire conditions. I lost myself in Kibera for an hour--a dream for introverts like me. I walked along the train tracks into the market place, garbage dumps on either side of me. Last year, Lindsay and I saw the Constant Gardener, a story about two Westerners who fight for justice in Africa. There are a couple of great scenes shot in Kibera. I cried.

Kibera has exploded into protests and riots since the election on December 27. The rival tribes, Kikuyus and Kalenjins, have vengeful killing sprees. The mostly poor majority have contested the results of the presidential election which was given to the incumbent Kibaki, a Kikuyu. Of course, Africa is known for its corruption in government and rigged elections, but this is a bit of a surprise to many who follow Africa because Kenya is known as a 'progressive nation.' The killing sprees have taken on a life of its own, not only a post-rigged-election revenge, but continuing a brutal, decades-long competition over land, resources and jobs.

As followers of the crucified and risen Jesus, we cling to the 'narrative of the cross,' which reminds us that God is for the underdogs, the foolish and weak ones who live on and struggle on the periphery of every society in the world. An underdog biblical reading strategy reminds us that, in Genesis 4 [at the beginning of the story] God favored Abel [hevel in Hebrew means 'worthless'] over Cain and continues to be on the side of the little, weak ones, choosing Israel: Not because you were more numerous…but because you were littler than all nations’ [Deuteronomy 7:7-8]. The pattern continues through the prophets, the psalms and through Jesus, the anointed 'servant-king' who embodies God's scandalous plight on the side of the marginalized ones. At the end of the Christian story, in Revelation, Jesus' persecuted followers continue to follow 'the Lamb who was slain,' finding triumph as minorities in the Empire in their confident prayer: 'Come, Lord Jesus.' As always, the People of God wear 'the scandal factors' like a badge of foolish honor: forgiveness, enemy love and service.

Pray for the people of Kibera. For justice. For food to fill their empty bellies. For forgiveness and reconciliation to explode all across this amazing country. For Jesus' followers to embody the scandal factors, no matter how foolish.

The Apostle Paul: Conversion or Commission

2008-01-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

11 For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 12for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 14I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. 15But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.
18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days; 19but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. 20In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! 21Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; 23they only heard it said, ‘The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.’ 24And they glorified God because of me.
Galatians 1:11-24

On the Episcopal and Catholic church calendars, January 25 marks the celebration of ‘The Conversion of Paul,’ the great Apostle to the Gentiles throughout the Roman Empire. The persecutor of Christians became the persecuted Christian and wrote a third of the material that would become the New Testament, letters to Christian communities dotted all around the Mediterranean. Throughout the history of the Christian faith, this episode has been referred to as Paul’s ‘conversion.’ A lot of biblical scholarship in the past four decades is calling this into question, preferring, instead, the descriptive label ‘Paul’s commission.’

The issue at question is whether Paul converted from one ‘religious’ faith to another: the Jew becoming a Christian…OR did Paul remain Jewish, captivated and transformed by the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth was, indeed, the long-awaited crucified and risen ‘anointed one’ [messiah] of Israel? I’m compelled by the latter explanation—that Paul was a Jew for Jesus who was commissioned, like the Hebrew prophets of old, for the task of inviting everyone [Jew and Gentile] to participate in the reign of God in small communities called ekklesia [churches]. Paul spent a lot of time, post-commission, in dialogue with fellow Jews, some of whom refused to recognize Jesus as messiah [who could blame them for questioning a crucified, ‘cursed’ Jew—Deuteronomy 21:23] and some who did acknowledge Jesus’ messianity, but who refused to allow Gentiles to participate without partaking in the standard Jewish identity markers: circumcision, dietary regulations and Temple sacrifice.

For Paul, the long-awaited ‘age to come’ had arrived in the life, teaching, service, death and resurrection of Jesus. He had ushered in this new age, a new world order where God’s Spirit was poured out on those who pledged allegiance to God’s rule and where the way of sacrifice, equality, loving dialogue, empathy, humility and compassion was experienced in communities of Jews and Gentiles.

This ‘commissioned’ Paul, a Jew for Jesus, advocated for believing Gentiles [like me] to be full citizens of God’s Kingdom because they were ‘in Christ,’ not because they followed the prescriptions of the Law [Torah—first five books of the Old Testament]. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwelled in these communities, guiding, comforting, empowering and energizing Jews and Gentiles alike [Romans 8:11]. The mentality of these communities was modeled after the messiah Jesus, who ‘emptied’ and ‘humbled’ himself in faithful ‘obedience’…even to the point of a scandalous death Phil 2:5-11]. For Paul, this cross represented the paradigm for the life of Christian community, where enemy love, forgiveness and service flourished—an alternative lifestyle!

Why does this 'new perspective' on Paul really matter?

-Jews and Christians don't represent two 'religious' options. They are cousins in the worldwide 'People of God' who have signed up to participate in God's redemption of the world. Christians, then, value Jesus' life [and death] as their interpretation of the Hebrew Bible--of who God is and what it means to be his people in this world. They believe that Jesus carried on the 'prophetic strand' of the Old Testament, calling God's people to justice, mercy, compassion and obedience in the wider world.

-Paul believed people were 'saved' by transferring allegiance from ethnic/nationalist/religious identities into lives baptized into the 'narrative of the cross' [I Cor 1:18-21].

-Paul would never say that the Old Testament was 'Law' and the New Testament is 'Grace.' He still believed fervently in the Torah of Israel, as fulfilled in Jesus the anointed one. And he would have believed that the God of Israel as represented in the Old Testament was, through and through, a God of tremendous mercy and grace. This was the 'gospel': God's began to redeem the broken world by choosing one humble family called Israel to bless the world [Genesis 15].

-Paul didn't suffer from a conscience guilty and shamed by 'sin.' He didn't think he needed Jesus to die a brutal death to assuage the wrath of God or be found pure and holy in his sight: 'If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more...as to righteousness under the law, blameless' [Phil 3:4-6]. 'Justification' for Paul [contrasting Luther] was the justification of Gentiles to be included on God's team of justice, holiness and mercy. The 'gospel,' then, has a lot to do with grace AND works.

What Does All this EMERGING talk mean?

2008-01-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my thoughts on some key differences between Emergent theology [According to McLaren] and some of the more mainstream evangelicalism in the United States:

*NOTE: I don't feel very comfortable wearing the 'emerging' label because I think it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. A lot of 'emerging churches' don't have a different kind of theological lens...they simply have a different style of worship/sermon and they prioritize 'social justice' issues [which is certainly not a bad thing!].

I. ‘Justification’ [greek word dikaiosune] does not mean ‘just-if-I’d-never-sinned’ in the sense of Jesus’ death wiping my personal sins clean so that I can have relationship with God and have eternal life in Heaven. Instead, it is a rich biblical word [throughout the Hebrew Bible into the New Testament] that has more to do with being a part of God’s covenant people who participate in the redemption of the world [Israel in the Hebrew Bible and messianic ‘church’ in New Testament]. Basically, every time Paul uses ‘justification’ [or justified] in his letters, he is referring to the Gentiles having an identity and mission with the new Jew+Gentile people of God in Christ. They qualify for membership by being ‘in Christ,’ not by being circumcised, following certain dietary laws [kosher] or obeying Temple rites, including the sacrificial system. This is called ‘the New Perspective on Paul’ in the world of biblical studies. McLaren is utiliziling a lot of this.

II. The ‘meaning’ of the cross of Jesus for the first few generations of his followers is a fascinating study. The authors of the New Testament use all sorts of metaphors and descriptions for what the death penalty of Jesus meant for their individual and communal lives. Most of Western Christianity has been dominated by an Augustinian, and then Lutheran and Reformed perspective, of Jesus taking on the sin and guilt and shame of each individual sinner. The Anabaptist tradition [16th century on] has, instead, always emphasized the communal, social and political ramifications of the cross. The cross [and its ‘salvation’] has always meant discipleship and a subversive critique on the Roman Empire and Jewish religious institutions of the 1st century. For Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, the cross ‘is the price of social non-conformity.’ The cross is a symbol of what it means to follow Jesus into enemy love, forgiveness and service.

III. McLaren seems to be using a lot of scholarship [Walter Wink, Hendrikus Berkof, Ched Myers, JH Yoder] on ‘the Powers that be.’ Wink calls these powers ‘the Domination System’ and claims that this is what Jesus’ life, teaching, ministry, death and resurrection was all about. It was a critique of the dominating, patriarchal, greedy, competitive, controlling socio-political powers of the world we continue to live in. Since the Middle Ages, usually Paul’s ‘principalities and powers’ have been interpreted as angels and demons in the air in a constant ‘spiritual battle.’ Instead, the ‘powers’ are the institutions that order our world. They were created and ordained by God [Col 1:16-17], but have fallen and are in the need of redemption. Followers of Jesus continue to live in this tension, using Spirit-led discernment to live as a standing rebuke to the powers. Jesus’ death ultimately unmasks the illusion that powers have the last say and, instead, we proclaim the Lordship of Christ, modeling the ‘Reign of God’ [counter to the Domination System] in creative ways.

IV. Anabaptist theology is the continuation of what Ched Myers calls the ‘script of biblical radicalism.’ This is an interpretation of Jesus’ life as following the script of Hebrew prophets who, through word and deed, modeled God’s subversive way to Israel and the world, mostly leading to the death of the prophet at the hands of Israel/world. Jesus continued this legacy and the early church embraced Jesus’ original revolution of enemy love, forgiveness and service in societies called the ‘ekklesia.’ These assemblies were more like political parties or underground movements that strategized how they would embody God’s Reign in the world of the Domination System.

V. Ultimately, McLaren’s sensitivity towards the varieties of Christian faith is a great strength. He is saying that there are many ‘versions’ of Christianity on offer today and that he is proposing ‘a new kind of Christian.’ [I think he should really be clear that what he is proposing is actually a really old form of Christianity called Anabaptism] This kind or ‘brand’ of Christianity a more nuanced blend of creative theology [theology in every cultural context must be creative] and biblical interpretation. This is really important. James McClendon calls these matters ‘essentially contested concepts.’ What does the New Testament mean by ‘gospel,’ ‘sin,’ ‘salvation,’ ‘church,’etc? ‘Gospel,’ for instance, is a continuation of its use in the Hebrew Bible [and in Roman society at large with Caesar]—the ‘good news’ is that God acted in a shocking way in sending his Son Jesus to usher in a movement of Jews+Gentiles to participate in the on-going redemption of the world in small societies guided by the continuing presence of Jesus [Spirit]. I’m convinced, and so is McLaren, that Jesus and Paul would have never imagined that his life and death [the cross/resurrection] would be interpreted as saving souls from eternal punishment. In the first century, Jesus was Lord and this meant Caesar was not. Citizens of God’s Empire, therefore had a different allegiance…a radically different way-of-life.

What McLaren, and the Anabaptist, means by ‘evangelism’ would be an invitation to be a part of a community who is committed to radical discipleship: individually, communally, socially, cultural, politically and economically. They would follow Paul in calling messianic communities to ‘work out your salvation with fear and trembling’ [Phil 2:12] and it would be a ‘process of salvation’ with those committed to the ‘narrative [message] of the cross’ [what McLaren calls a framing story: “a story that gives people direction, values, vision, and inspiration by providing a framework for their lives”] as ‘being saved’ in I Cor 1:18-21.

Here’s an excerpt of a well-written review of McLaren’s latest book from a Reformed perspective, but he's missing the point that there are fundamental differences in all corners of the Evangelical church. His point of view is one of MANY [notice the ‘contested concepts’: he takes for granted the 'contested' nature of concepts like 'gospel,' how to read the Bible, and what the early church believed]:

The Emerging Church excels at asking good and difficult questions but has been widely critiqued because the answers are too often wildly inconsistent with Scripture. Everything Must Change is no exception. With this book McLaren further draws a line in the sand. He declares, increasingly unequivocally, that this Emerging Church bears little resemblance to the church as we know it from the Bible. The doctrine of the Emerging Church is moving farther and farther away from the doctrine of the Bible, at least as it has been understood from the Scriptures since the days of the early church. It will stop at nothing and will call into question and trample under foot even the most fundamental doctrines. McLaren will bring thousands of sincere people with him in his quest to see how Jesus addresses the world’s most serious problems. I hope these people count the cost. I hope they know what they must reject in order to be a new kind of Christian; they must reject the very heart of the gospel. After reading this book it is my hope and prayer that this marks the time when the Emerging Church realizes that if it is to maintain anything even remotely resembling biblical orthodoxy, it must stop now and it must abandon Brian McLaren. They must say “enough is enough” and turn back.
[From www.challies.com]

What McLaren, and the Anabaptist, means by ‘evangelism’ would be an invitation to be a part of a community who is committed to radical discipleship: individually, communally, socially, cultural, politically and economically. They would follow Paul in calling messianic communities to ‘work out your salvation with fear and trembling’ [Phil 2:12] and it would be a ‘process of salvation’ with those committed to the ‘narrative [message] of the cross’ [what McLaren calls a framing story: “a story that gives people direction, values, vision, and inspiration by providing a framework for their lives”] as ‘being saved’ in I Cor 1:18-21.

Living in the Narrative of The Great Debaters...for 2 Hours

2008-01-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

The state is currently spending five times more for the education for a white child than it is fitting to educate a colored child. That means better textbooks for that child than for that child. I say that's a shame, but my opponent says today is not the day for whites and coloreds to go to the same college. To share the same campus. To walk into the same classroom. Well, would you kindly tell me when that day is gonna come? Is it going to come tomorrow? Is it going to come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No, the time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always right now! Samantha Booke

Last night we splurged for our 3-Year Anniversary and went to see The Great Debaters, a movie directed by Denzel Washington. We watched the 1930s era film about a debate team at a 'Negro College' in Texas who beats the odds by beating everyone [almost] to get the chance to debate national champion Harvard. We watched the film in Long Beach with an audience that was about half black/half white. Lindsay commented that the movie's narrative draws you into living in the shoes of African-Americans, the abuse and oppression that they felt [and still experience] during the Jim Crow South. But when the lights go back on in the theater, after the film credits have rolled, we find ourselves white again, feeling the shame of what our forebears have wrought. Our conversation on the drive home lamented the many ways that black Americans continue to be systemically oppressed in inner-cities and culture at large. Of course, America is far more racist today than anyone would really believe or let on to. Movies like The Great Debaters are a huge gift for those of us in the Suburbs especially blinded to the 'perspective of the periphery.'

MLK and the White Moderate

2008-01-20T18:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not a conspiracy theory guy, but I do find it interesting that two of the latest states to ratify a paid holiday to memorialize Martin Luther King have had far too much influence in our current Presdential nominating process: New Hampshire [finally ratified in 1999] and South Carolina [2000]. Of course, some political pundits even dared to call out New Hampshire's racism in light of Hillary's strange last minute comeback. But enough about other white people's issues. I'd like to take a few moments, in celebrating one of the greatest Americans of all time, to examine what it may mean to be a white Christian 'moderate' in 2008.

Here are some excerpts from King's legendary Letter to the white Christian clergy from his Birmingham jail cell [04.16.1963].

…I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured…

… I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "Any Christian knows that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this 'hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity…

… But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that an men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will e be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime---the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jeans Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I must ask myself, as we approach the 45th anniversary of King’s prison letter: am I a ‘white moderate’ or an ‘extremist?’ Sure, we aren't sitting idly by as policemen douse civil rights workers with firehouses and batons. We live in 2008 progressive Southern California! However, suburban Southern California living breeds a more subtle brand of white moderation. We are hidden from the deep ‘tension’ that ‘the other’ lives out in many parts of the US and throughout the Third World. 50 million do not have health insurance in the wealthiest economy in the history of the world. Housing costs too much. The white suburban moderate cries out for strong borders, calling those who contribute heavily to our economy [at little cost] ‘aliens,’ ‘foreigners,’ ‘Mexicans’ [no matter what country to the south they originate from]. My own childhood hometown of Mission Viejo, CA, became the first city in the nation to make it mandatory for employers to hire documented residents of the United States [w/ the threat of jail-time and fines].

The white Christian moderate finds comfort in biblical truth and the American dream, while sipping on Starbucks in clothes bought at H&M while millions live in the American inner-city with few grocery stores and without the means to buy premium coffee or designer threads. The moderate's Christian life is individualistic and spiritual because the white Christian moderate's gospel is about a personal relationship with Jesus and individual eternal salvation in sweet heaven by-and-by. The white Christian ‘moderate’ has divided the world into ‘Christian’ activities and secular life. Moderates organize themselves into small groups [Bible Study, prayer, accountability], attend worship services on the weekend, listen to Christian music, and have quiet times of reading/prayer. But the rest of their lives are formed by work, school and leisure time activities. The outgrowth of this divided world is that (1) our discipleship is defined by and consumed by 'Christian activities,' instead of living in solidarity with the deep tension of injustice and oppression that many experience in our midst; and (2) there is little [no] time or need to even see or experience how the rest of the world—-the inner-city and the Third World—-survives and suffers. Politics, for the white Christian ‘moderate,’ is voting for the Presidential candidate who shares their same values/beliefs, attempting to rule and manage our society with biblical principles and truths. The moderate can ease the ‘tension’ of other perspectives by claiming God’s voice with their own interpretation of His Word.

Of course, this letter from the deep South USA was written by a Christian ‘extremist’ from jail, embracing the nonviolent enemy love, forgiveness and service of Jesus, to Christian white moderates who called for ‘order.’ What would it take to be a follower of Jesus who ‘brings to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive’? What would it take for us white moderates to convert to ‘extremism’ as modeled in the lives of Jesus, Paul, Luther, Bunyan, as well as Gandhi and King? What kind of injustice would we commit our lives to crying out against? What steps would we suburban dwellers need to take in order to open our eyes to the plight of ‘the other?' What will it take to be converted from white moderation to being the kind of 'creative extremists' that King called for?

45 years after MLK wrote this stirring letter to his fellow Christian white brothers, we 21st century suburban followers of Jesus must choose which path we want to take: do we settle for the road of moderation or do we boldly embrace the way of extreme discipleship to Jesus. Ched Myers, in his subversive commentary on Mark’s Gospel [Binding the Strong Man, 1988], calls for suburban Christians

to repent

‘not…as strictly personal angst or guilt, but in the Hebrew sense, as the admission of our solidarity with historical injustice’

and to resist:

‘shaking off the powerful sedation of a society that rewards ignorance and trivializes everything political, in order to discern and take concrete stands in our historical moment, and to find meaningful ways to impede imperial progress.’

Suburbia is ‘sedated’ by wealth, comfort, and convenience. Christians, like me, easily get sucked into this enticing way-of-life. Let us memorialize King by repenting and resisting the white moderation that rebukes anything ‘extreme.’

Desperately Seeking: A Community Following Jesus

2008-01-18T11:51:00.000-08:00

We can be a bit too idealitistic or smug about our desire to be a part of a small community that follows Jesus in Orange County. But our readings, conversations, experiences and prayers are pointing us to dream for a community that is deep, transparent and passionate about doing it a lot different than we are used to. Here's what we are longing for:

A community that commits to Anabaptism, Postmodernism & Narrative Thought/Practice

What is an ‘Anabaptist?’

This strange 500 year old label came from the enemies of the movement called taufer: a German word meaning ‘baptist.’ Basically, it refers to the taufer’s adamant focus on choice: each and every Christian commits to discipleship to Jesus. This is different than popular notions of being ‘born a Christian’ and it is different from ‘being saved.’ For the Anabaptist [‘twice baptized’], a Christian isn’t one who is saved from eternal damnation by being baptized as a child or by ‘accepting Christ in your heart’ as a once-in-a-lifetime decision. Salvation is instead an alternative way-of-life that demands allegiance to a New Order: the Kingdom of God.

As a part of this allegiance, this brand of Christianity claims that bearing the cross of Christ [every disciple’s burden] is a scandalous social non-conformity. The Anabaptist is a social misfit because she embraces forgiveness, enemy love and service in every relationship both in and out of her small community of fellowship [koinonia]. In addition, the taufer is baptized into a simple lifestyle [sharing resources], shunning the consumerism and materialism that our Western society offers. The challenge for Anabaptist communities is to take faith in Christ from the individual spirituality that American Christianity has made it and transform it into a communal socio-political lifestyle that seeks to be a foretaste of what God has in mind for the redemption of the entire universe.

What is ‘Postmodern?’

Defining this often misinterpreted philosophical term continues to be a difficult task because so many have different ideas of what it means. I use ‘post-modern’ to mean that many people living in Western culture have sensibilities that are reacting to the 300-year way-of-thinking-and-living called MODERNITY. Modern cultures are characterized by a quest for certainty [absolute truth], universalism [truths are the same everywhere] and objectivity [no agendas or biases—complete neutrality]. Modern Christianity has made the claim that the Bible can be read to uncover self-evident truths and principles that are true for all times and peoples. It has also emphasized a reading strategy that construes the Bible as a sort of Absolute Truth encyclopedia that doesn’t contain any errors because of its Spirit inspired qualities. In addition, the individual reader of the Bible can, with the proper tools, read objectively, without agenda or bias.

The postmodern Christian has serious critiques of this analysis. First of all, we must all claim absolute truth with a lot of humility. With more than 500 different Christian denominations alone, we must understand that there are a lot of different interpretations of what authentic Christian faith is all about, let alone all the other faith traditions on offer. In addition, our social location [context] gives us all different lenses with which to read the Bible. These greatly determine the kinds of questions we bring to the text. The reader in Mission Viejo, CA is going to read differently than the one in South Los Angeles, no matter how ‘scholarly’ each reader [or community] really is. The Postmodern values the ‘other’ interpretation by critical listening and learning.

Embracing postmodern thinking does not mean that we shrug our shoulders and accept any claim to truth [relativism]. It means that we acknowledge our unique perspectives and humbly admit our biases and agendas [whether we can really see the effects] will guide the way we read the Bible and live our faith. Also, in a modern culture, life is divided into two separate camps, forcing an ‘either-or’ choice, without an ‘in-between’:
Thought or Practice [Thinking or Doing]…Religion or The Rest of Life [Sacred or Secular]…Conservative or Liberal [Republican or Democrat]…Reason or Emotion [Head or Heart]. Of course, this type of thinking spilled over into Bible Reading: Error-free or Fiction [Inerrant Answer Book or Fairy Tales]. Post-moderns worship and serve Jesus the Lord with a ‘both-and’ [neither-nor?] nuanced/complex approach to life. Times like these demand open, yet critical minds.

What is a ‘narrative’ approach and why this option?

The turn to narrative is a key aspect of how a postmodern thinks and lives. In short, we are ‘story-formed.’ Our life is coherent because we are living as characters in an on-going story about God, the world, evil, truth, etc. This is a reaction to the modern world which attempted to describe truth as ‘principles’ and ‘attributes of God.’ However, simply saying that ‘God is love’ lacks the meaning that the stories of the Bible convey about God’s overwhelming and shocking love for Israel and the world. The stories, in all their diversity, form an overarching Story about the origins of the world, God’s People Israel, and God’s choice to reveal himself fully to the world through a Jewish carpenter from Nowheresville [Nazareth]. The point is that story gives us all the meaning we need—they resist being packaged and stocked as principles or timeless truths to apply to any and every situation. We are energized and guided by the Spirit of God by ‘entering the Story’ and living faithfully as characters who identify with and re-enact the love, compassion, service, obedience and humility of Jesus. We follow his story by living it out as disciples. This takes creativity, courage and a community of characters who are willing to join us in participating with what God continues to do in this world.

A Biblical Reading Strategy

2008-01-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

God’s voice, then, is like an inaudible whisper whose breathings, gentle and fierce, jangle the nerves of the human spirit until, tensed and alert, it attends to what it is that God wants to ‘say.’ And what God says will be different according to the variable conditions in which the human spirit who encounters it finds itself. When that spiritual whisper becomes an incarnate word, gripping human spirits where they live, it takes up the causes of the people who encounter it in the situations of that encounter. It is in this way that God’s eternal voice for all becomes a living word exclusively for them. The whisper takes on flesh.
Brian Blount, Then The Whisper Put On Flesh, 14

We’ve been on a journey of change when it comes to what it really means to read the Bible. Throughout much of our Christian lives, Lindsay and I were socialized into reading the Bible as an ‘inerrant’ or ‘infallible’ textbook, finding in it all of God’s self-evident answers for life. But we’re now quite skeptical when anyone says ‘the Word says’ or ‘the Bible clearly teaches’ because all biblical interpretation is shot through with diversity. Richard B. Hays summarizes well:

‘appeals to Scripture are suspect for at least two reasons:
the Bible itself contains diverse points of view,
and diverse interpretive methods can yield diverse readings of any given text.’
[The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 1]

Those who disagree with Hays’ assessment usually have a rebuttal: the original meaning of every passage of the Bible can be uncovered with the application of the correct method. To which I reply, what method is, indeed, the correct, God-ordained formula to bring us to the promised land of Truth? There are [and have been over the centuries] many different ways of interpreting Scripture in all of the different cultures and traditions where communities are committed to following Jesus together. This is what James McClendon calls an ‘essentially contested concept.’ There many competing biblical reading strategies. It is important for us to remember that every follower of Jesus has been trained by a community [communities] that have their own cherished passages, their own theological priorities and their own emphases. And every community, from every denomination and tradition, quotes from the same Bible [interpreted differently] to debate their well-rehearsed points. This is a complex and confusing situation, but McClendon points out that it is a posibive thing: 'God loves variety.'

Here is my latest attempt to come up with a game-plan, drawing on biblical scholars and theologians, to interpret the Bible faithfully. This is not, by any means, an orderly, step-by-step method to come up with the Absolute Truth. Instead, each community will come to the Bible with these types of questions in order to find guidance, discernment, energy and vision for living the faith. The first three questions summarize what the modern project of the past 350 years has been after: one true meaning, getting ‘behind the text’ at what was ‘really going on.’ These are important questions to ask, but they are limited and incomplete. Instead, I believe that there is a range of meaning in each Bible passage, as each contextual community carefully, prayerfully and humbly interprets the text together. This represents what some label ‘postmodern.’

1. Genre
What kind of writing is this? What should we be looking for?

2. Micro-Story
What is going on behind the scenes? Who was this written to? Who wrote it? Why? What was the original ‘point’ of the passage?

3. Socio-History
w/humility, making historical guesses about what is going on [Palestine, Roman Empire, Near East]? A HUGE gap between the culture 'back there' and what our world is like today!

______________
4. Literary
Key words? How is the original language translated? Repetition? Structure? How does it fit in the larger narrative/letter/etc? setting/plot/characters?

5. Episode
Where does this passage fit in the grand scheme of God’s Story? Does our interpretation honor thematic consistency w/other parts of the Story? Is it inconsistent w/any other parts of the story?

6. Space
What community is interpreting/practicing this reading? What city/county/state/nation/culture/society are we reading from? Do we have an agenda? What are our unique concerns/fears/angers/longings [transparency/sharing/what might lead you or y’all to read it in a certain way—economic privilege, past hurts, specific tradition—this is what Walter Brueggmann calls ‘the zone of imagination’]?

7. Periphery
How are oppressed/marginalized communities of faith reading this text? Does the perspective of the ‘other’ [from the Third World or inner-city USA] help us see the way of Christ more clearly/humbly?

8. Praxis
How then shall we live? What will we do about it? How does this passage inform our practices/sacraments? This is what N.T. Wright calls ‘Story Authority’: We are characters in the on-going narrative of God and his People in the World. We aren’t reading an ‘answer book,’ but instead a ‘SCRIPT.’

This reading strategy does not guarantee perfect interpretation of any one passage. I'm not sure if the one correct meaning of any one passage actually exists with all the factors that play into reading the Bible.

Christian denomination/sub-tradition
Socio-Economic Status
Hurts/Wounds from the past
Other Experiences
Scientific Studies/Findings
Philosophical Differences
Gender/Ethnic/Racial Differences
Cultural Factors

So then, is there any accountability to critique both legitimate and not-so-faithful readings? Hays proposes that three focal images emerge from all New Testament documents that form a sequence or narrative:

COMMUNITY [the People of God who participate in his redemption of the world]
CROSS [the paradigm for self-giving love and radical obedience]
NEW CREATION [the long-awaited age of the Spirit of God in the midst of sin/death]

Hays writes:

'we must ask whether any given interpretation is consonant with the fundamental plot of the biblical story as identified by the focal images of community, cross and new creation.' [304]

Hays' images are helpful, as long as we are humble and admit that even these images are being interpreted/defined through the filter of Hays' Anabaptist leanings [of which I'm a big fan] and his home in the North American biblical academy. Other well-intentioned followers of Jesus from other Christian traditions, living in other parts of the world, with very different experiences, will have their own unique twist on what cross, community and new creation mean for their discipleship.

The Theology of David Wilcox

2008-01-14T10:11:00.000-08:00

I've always been struck by how deeply singer-songwriter David Wilcox thinks about life without using overtly religious language. He played in the living room of a house in Agoura Hills yesterday and we were a couple of the 75 people that crammed in to listen to his theology. Here are some samples:

How Did You Find Me Here?

I couldn't reach for rescue
I hid myself from you
I couldn't stand to see me
From your point of view

I knew I'd disappoint you
If I showed to you this child
Who is crying out inside me
Lost in the wild

Now inches from the water
About to disappear
I feel you behind me
How did you find me here?

God finds us even on the edge of life, longing for anything to give us relief from the despair and heart-wrenching longing that consume our lives. For those with ears to hear and eyes to see, he finds us, as he has throughout the Story, in our hardest times. If we are bold enough to see ourselves from God's point of view, we will find something utterly shocking: far more beautiful, with all of our weakness and error still in tact, than anything we ever expected. For perfectionists like me, Wilcox's music is sweet liturgy, realizing God's powerful presence when I constantly feel like I disappoint him.

Show the Way

It is Love who makes the mortar
And it's love who stacked these stones
And it's love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we're alone
In this scene set in shadows
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it's love that wrote the play...
For in this darkness love can show the way

Perhaps one of Wilcox's greatest works. Lindsay and I danced to this ballad on our wedding night. It is a reminder that Love wins the day even though we question the evil that pervades this planet. If Love died on a cross to find renewed life a few days later, what else can we expect from this ongoing Story that we participate in?

Three Brothers

All three brothers loved their father, but he's brought them here today
To see these papers and these lawyers, and divide the old estate
All three feel that they're the favorite, he loves each of them the bes
But these documents he gave them, will now put them to the test

So they open all the writings, that will prove the rightful heir
To this home that they remember, and the right to settle there
Their own sister is a prisoner, they don't see her face to face
They've not heard her song of beauty, or felt the movement of her grace

She lives live behind those bars of steel and waits for her release
Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

Each one looks at what he's given, and he studies what he's shown
They hold their maps that show possession, of this place they've called their home
At first they sigh with satisfaction, when they see what's on their maps
Each one's given all he wanted, but the boundaries overlap
So do you wish us to be brothers? Father help us understand
Or will we each kill off the others? to claim this same piece of land
Do You mean there to be hatred? In this place you built to last
And will faith just die a prisoner? In the dungeon of the past

She lives behind those bars of steel and waits for her release
Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

She lives behind those bars of steel and waits for her release
Will she die or will we see
Jerusalem In Peace

Jerusalem is sending her voice from inside the prison of disbelief
Stand up you people of the one God to bring about her release

Wilcox played this new song yesterday early in his set. I had pictures of three rich, competitive sons in expensive suits gathered around the lawyers after their father's funeral to listen to a reading of the will. Those three sons represent the three monotheistic faiths [Judaism, Christianity, Islam] that recklessly dominate our world. The myopic views of each have wreaked havoc from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the utter ends of the world. Wilcox beckons us to read our competing wills [scriptures] with a clear view of 'the other' brothers...or else Jerusalem will always be in prison.

Another Look at 'The Powers'

2008-01-12T17:42:00.000-08:00

Followers of Jesus have had a long history of interpreting Paul's 'principalities and powers' [Col 1:16; 2:9, 15] as angels and demons that are in a constant 'spiritual battle' in the air. However, over the course of the past 50 years a fresh and very practical interpretation has been brewing in biblical scholarship. Authors like John Howard Yoder, James McClendon and Walter Wink have argued, quite effectively, that these 'powers' are what God has created to order our universe. Without them, we would live in chaos. These powers are institutions like government, family, the economy, schools, the workplace, relationships, restaurants, corporate culture, etc. These powers were created but have fallen and are constantly in a state of vying for the allegiance of humanity. They can function to bring life, but also can counterfeit our existence, sucking the life out of us. Wink proposes that these powers have both an outer manifestation [what we see and experience], but also an inner spirituality. So, in essence, the 'spiritual battle' between good and evil takes place, not in the air, but in these very institutions that dominate our lives. And 'dominate' is the very word that Wink uses. He translates the Greek word 'kosmos' in tne New Testament as 'The Domination System' instead of 'world' that most English translations use. He says that Jesus came to usher in a 'New Reality' [God's Reign] that would be a living critique and transformation of the 'Domination System.' The System, indeed, was so threatened by Jesus' counter-reality that it had no choice but to kill him! As Wink writes:

'They had to kill him, for Jesus represented the most intolerable threat ever placed against the spirituality, values, and arrangements of the Domination System.' [110]

Jesus and his followers flipped the script of power and wealth, and how these were being played out in...

the family
the Law
the sacrificial system
the Temple
kosher food regulations
the distinction between clean and unclean
patriarchy
role expectations for women and children
the class system
the use of violence
racial and ethnic divisions
the distinction between insider and outsider
...'indeed, every conceivable prop of domination, division and supremacy.'

McClendon writes that the Gospels portray the entire course of Jesus' obedient life as a fundamental critique of the Powers that be. What Paul writes, the Gospel writers show. Jesus heals the sick and lame, eats with sinners and outcasts, teaches the disciples and crowds and, finally, dies between two criminals. His very life is a standing question mark to the Powers. This legacy is what the first Christians continued in the days, weeks and years after his resurrection. The Domination System continued, but Jesus offered a 'new reality,' an invitation for anyone and everyone to be a part of what God continued to do through Spirit-led messianic communities committed to transforming the System with the citizen values and spirituality of God's Kingdom: gender equality, nonviolent resistence, prayer, love of neighbor/enemy, forgiveness, service, cooperation, respect, and justice.

If this interpretation of 'the powers' is carried out in communities throughout North America, it will fund more radical lifestyles wherever it is attempted and prayed over. These communities, of course, will look at 'spirituality,' 'the cross,'
'sin,' 'the Kingdom of God,' 'the problem of evil' and 'the gospel' much differently. These communities will take on the ominous, but adventurous task of engaging the powers wherever they are confronted by them...including their own community! As McClendon writes, this 'will require an almost infinite number of adjustments, distinctions and gradations.' The community that prayerfully discerns where the Powers have fallen can follow the Spirit's lead into redemptive and creative practices [McClendon calls these 'powerful practices'] which, if we follow the example of Jesus' own obedient life, may invoke these threatened powers into doing something nasty about it...aimed at the redemptive community!

This is where Yoder's critique of contemporary Christian ideas of 'bearing the cross' are so important. For Yoder, the command to pick up the cross and follow Jesus is nothing less than the price of social nonconformity of communities who dare to follow the way of Jesus. The way of the Kingdom is the cross where Jesus continued to love his enemies, forgive them and serve the world. The cross is the sure result for those of who dare to confront the powers...in all the places where Christian communities have been disillusioned in our past.

Kay Warren's Dangerous Surrender: A Critical Review

2008-01-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

Kay Warren’s autobiographical Dangerous Surrender is rooted in the mostly white, suburban, 70 million-and-growing American Evangelical movement. It is a book that will be read by many women [and some men] in that movement— an audience of the wealthiest followers of Jesus in the history of Christianity. What it does to the reader, who has an ounce of desire to be transformed by the message, will be powerful indeed! In addition, it is written for ‘seekers, those who do not know faith or have a marginalized faith and are open to hearing more about it—a group that Warren’s church has been committed to communicate with since day one. It is a much needed call for everyone to notice and to participate in what God is doing with the broken ones of this world.

Warren’s story is worth telling. She’s sacrificed a lot by being the ‘woman behind the man’ who pastors the largest church in North America who doesn’t look like Joel Osteen. She has been on a three-decade whirlwind being a mother and grandmother and recent cancer survivor, while her husband has become one of the leading voices in American Evangelicalism. Her honesty throughout is a trademark of the kind of transparency that church leaders need in this era. The cornerstone of this particular angle of her story, of course, is her pilgrimage in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. Here is a woman who heard God’s voice through a non-Christian news magazine and was actually compelled to research the issue all on her own. She has done exactly what a woman with her resources should do—she’s committed countless hours studying and traveling and serving the world of AIDS and is now pleading with wealthy American followers of Jesus to be a part of it—and she has had the daring courage to follow through with it.

Her descriptions of the actual people she met in Mozambique, Malawi, South Africa and Rwanda are horrifying and real. But unlike other rich and famous people who continue to visit Africa and tells us about it [Bono, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie, etc], Warren is challenging us with a changed paradigm for our lives. It is an uncomfortably radical message of ‘surrender,’ ‘getting disturbed’ and ‘becoming gloriously ruined.’ This subverts the consumerist, convenient, entertained and instantly gratified American life-as-usual.

What I wrestle with in Warren’s work is the individual and personal piety which make Evangelicalism so darn-right American. The entire work, no doubt, is about caring for ‘the other’: the sick, the orphan, the oppressed, the marginalized. But it gets there only through the Evangelical obsession of finding God’s will for your life. I love her three-fold schema of solidarity with the suffering ones: (1) surrender your life to God; (2) get disturbed by the oppression, evil and pain in the world; and (3) become gloriously ruined by participating in the solution. However, what this formula lacks is a ‘bigger story’ about God’s will—his vulnerable pursuit, through his people [Israel and the Church], of the world that desperately needs redeeming. When we surrender to Jesus, a whole back-story about the Kingdom he ushered in is desperately so that we find God’s will simply by having our entire identiy and vocation wrapped up in being a member of his people. Evangelicals and seekers need to hear the socio-econo-political story of God’s call to care for the strangers and broken ones of this world—and how we can find purpose and meaning by becoming active characters in that story. In a fragmented world like ours, surrendering our ‘spiritual lives’ to Jesus usually misses much of God’s socio-political plan for the world.

In addition, Warren paints a classically segmented world that needs relief by becoming more holistic. From her perspective, the world is divided into three-worlds: her own world of routine in Orange County, the Third World of suffering and oppression and the spiritual world of Bible Study, worship music, fellowship and quiet times. Warren is actually describing, quite honestly, the worldview of Evangelicalism, which has created a counter-culture that can be experienced at any of the Christian bookstores blossoming throughout suburbia. Our lives have counterfeit borders: we live our lives [family, work, entertainment, mundane obligations], we live our Christian lives [church, small group, personal study, Christian music during down times] and then we are called to become involved with the Third World, thousands of miles away [or just about 100 miles away if you live in Orange County: Tijuana]. The problem with this is that it is not how the biblical writers would have ever viewed our world. For them, everything was ‘spiritual’ and our devotion to God and neighbor [‘worship’] extended to every second of our lives. In addition, for them, everything was 'political': all of our practices stemmed from our allegiance to God's Empire, subverting and critiquing the Empire [Roman then, American now]. These man-made divisions need to be eradicated for us to recapture a faithfulness that treats our mundane obligations as truly epic opportunities for worship [aka, ‘surrendering,’ ‘getting disturbed’ and ‘becoming gloriously ruined’]. Evangelicals should put far more effort and resources into redeeming the world in front of our faces instead of continuing to build ‘spiritual’ industries.

What I desire in a sequel to Dangerous Surrender is a game-plan for communities who desire to be a part of what God is doing in the world. What specific resources would Warren offer for worthy sacrifice for the American Christian living out our faith in the wealthy suburbs? What are some of the things that we should give up? How can we become political advocates for the oppressed, not only in the Third World, but in our own country as well [orphans, drug addicts, those 50 million lacking health insurance, the gay population stripped of dignity, the immigrant population working dirty jobs for minimum wage and lower]? My hunch is that Warren and many Evangelicals are becoming jaded with the polarized politics playing out in America, but couldn’t we shift our priorities towards these types of issues when voting for the leaders of our country? How can we more adequately place ourselves in a position to ‘get disturbed’ by the evils of this world and stay focused on one of those issues to become an active participant in [one of the struggles that my wife and I have is an over-exposure to the plight of the world through film, TV, NPR radio, and internet websites]? The solidarity that we can experience by reading about the oppressed and marginalized in this world is a transforming spiritual experience. Children of God groan with the groaning world [Romans 8:12-25] and that seems to be exactly what Warren is beckoning us to.

Reading Warren’s book was an uneasy experience for me because she represents ‘the voice of the other’ that so much of my theological reading critiques. She represents a brand of Christianity, that I spent two decades immersed in, that is far too focused on the individual [no matter how many times we repeat the open line of her husband’s Purpose Driven Life: ‘It’s not about you.’]. This individualism is represented by the classic invitation to ‘invite Jesus into your heart’ in order to earn personal, eternal salvation in heaven. The ‘gospel’ for this brand of Christianity is about individual souls getting saved [eternal life] and following Jesus in this life before we die and go to heaven. This is where Warren’s voice has my head spinning. She is clearly advocating for a far more radical ‘gospel’ that beckons individuals to sacrifice [surrender—disturbed—ruined] their lifestyles. Her book should be read, by Evangelicals and others, as a critique of the mainstream American Evangelicalism that she and her husband have a well-respected voice in—a call for radical and passionate reform from within the movement. If the movement does read Warren’s Surrender with a desire for needed transformation it will be ‘good news’ [indeed, ‘great’] for the world.

The Story We Find Ourselves In

2008-01-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

I believe that the best explanation for the brokenness of our culture is that we suffer from severe 'fragmentation': we live off fragments of different stories that are offered to us. Most Christians are inspired and motivated by more that the Gospel story: like the American dream that is characterized by competition, redemptive violence and materialism. I've been challenged, through reading and conversations, to write out my version of the Christian story. The way we tell the biblical story is influenced by different lenses: our social location [where we live], our experiences, our specific Christian tradition, how we view the Bible. How you tell the story determines how you live in the story. As Barack Obama reminded the US this past weekend during the debate: "Words do matter. They can inspire." Here's what I wrote out a few days ago:

God created everything including humanity, whom God created as his spitting ‘image.’ Humanity has the overwhelming capability to be ‘God-like’ as they embrace each other and the rest of creation with compassion, love, empathy, humility, loyalty and grace. However, humanity’s ‘fall’ has had dire consequences on individuals, but also on the structures of society [institutions, governments, families, organizations, etc] and on mother nature and all her manifestations. These ‘powers that be’ [self, society and nature] were all created ‘good,’ but have ‘fallen’ and await the ongoing redemption that God is bringing to the entire universe.

God’s first redemptive move was the creation of Israel, the covenant people of God, chosen and commissioned to be obedient to the task of being a conscience and servant to this broken, rebelling and counterfeited world. This family is ‘special,’ not because of status, but because it has been charged with a vocation to be the model of what God intended humanity to look like: gender equality, refusal to use violence to solve problems, loving and caring for the stranger, the orphan, the widow, the oppressed and the marginalized, sharing possessions and property and placing God on the throne of their communal and personal lives to be worshipped and served. Throughout the story of Israel, there was a tradition, or strand, that was faithful to this charge, but much of their history is riddled with violence, patriarchy, competition, worshipping other gods. Into this complex situation of covenant unfaithfulness entered prophets who vociferously and poetically reminded them of their unique task in this world. Eventually Israel became exiled to the enemy Babylonians and lived out a ‘dispersed’ existence for centuries while the Persians, Greeks and Romans each took their share of ruling over the minority [in size and power] Israelites. It was in this situation, the diaspora, where Israel became a thriving force of obedient light in a dark empire.

God’s shocking climax to the ongoing story of Israel was in the life, service, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus, the ‘anointed servant-king’ [his rendition of ‘messiah’] who carried on God’s prophetic script with full faithfulness. It was clear that Jesus did not meet the expectations of the people who were waiting for a warrior-king to rise up the nation and fight off the evil Romans, nor those who were looking to accommodate with this power nor those looking to remove themselves from society to purify religion. Jesus, instead, called the people, during the height of the Roman Empire, to a new reality, the reign of God in this world, where enemy love [not ethnocentricity], forgiveness [not revenge], humility [not arrogance] and service [not domination] became the radical program that critiqued the ‘system’ with its life together. Jesus’ critique of the Jewish and Roman ‘powers that be’ led him to the death penalty, despite his innocence. God allowed for the cross to happen in order to unmask the illusion that these powers conveyed—the death they brought could not keep him in the grave, vindicating the way of Jesus. In the years after Jesus’ brutal death at the hands of the ‘powers that be’ and the subsequent resurrection three days later, his first followers formed local communities of Jews and Gentiles, in cities all around the Mediterranean…and eventually the world. God’s desire, for these communities, was to follow Jesus’ radical way-of-life no matter what others thought or threatened. The goal was not to manage the world for God, but instead, guided by the living spirit of Jesus, they were to be the conscience to the ‘powers that be’ by the love, compassion, service and humility that they had for each other and the rest of the world. They were called [and still are] to be now what the world will be ultimately when God enacts his full redemption.

God’s redemptive story continues, as messianic communities, in all their unique contexts throughout the world, continue to live out the God-ordained diaspora existence, concretely embodying the new reality while they actively engage the ‘powers that be’ with spirit-led discernment. Those bold enough to pledge allegiance to Jesus’ way-of-life will encounter resistance as they carry on the task of healing, counseling, giving, discerning, forgiving, loving, listening and liberating individuals and institutions in the settings where they work, worship, witness and read the word. The identity and vocation of these communities is in process, making this story a radical ‘script’ for communities who risk everything by diving into the story with their entire lives.

Juno [2007]: A Review

2008-01-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

This movie isn't for everyone. If you are looking for a film void of bad language, family dysfnction and obnoxious teens, then go see Alvin. This movie was for us, not because we really enjoy any of those aforementioned and far-too-familiar movie motifs, but because it infused redemption into the reality of teen-life. The world of Juno MacGruff is filled with abandonment and complexity...then she gets pregnant. She briefly dabbles with the idea of ending the pregnancy, but she becomes inspired to follow through with having the child and giving it up for adoption to a couple found in the pennysaver! Juno's sincerity, innocence and commitment to truthfulness and loyalty are incredibly attractive, as all the adults in the movie seem to desperately need her to rescue them out of their pitiful weaknesses and utter selfishness. Like other postmodern indie films [see Little Miss Sunshine, 2006], every character has their obvious flaws and, when mixed together, form a dysfunctional stew that is comical and all-too-realistic. The line between hero and villian seems to pierce every heart, but in the end, the tirumphant protagonists are Juno and her skinny boyfriend with short-shorts and headband [who get each other] and the dorky, yuppy, barren wife [who finally gets the baby she's always longed for].

This movie makes me [tom] see my students in a more compassionate light. They are all looking for a loving adult in their world of abandonment and fragmentation. I can only pray that I provide that with a little less dysfunction than these characters. Thanks, Collin Pursley, for this great movie recommendation!