Religious Conformity

I spotted this video over at Progression of Faith. I have stated before on this Blog that I am concerned about being able to raise my children with a knowledge of Faith, without indoctrinating them with it. One acquaintance of mine, when she heard me state my concern, said "What is wrong with indoctrinating your children when you know you are right?"

Whew! I could go on for two pages just on that statement. Watching this video should give us all pause about our spiritual practices. There is a lot of emphasis in faith circles about community, but even that can have its downside. The need to be affirmed and included is a powerful thing.

Mark Driscoll = Robert Conrad?

Here I date myself. Yes, I remember Robert Conrad. He was a 70's tough guy actor. He did a battery commercial where he called all the other batteries wimps, then dared you to knock a battery off his shoulder... while he glared at you through the screen.

I don't know Mark Driscoll's preaching very well, but every time I do hear him I get Conrad flashbacks. He seems to glory in a tough guy preacher attitude and has made it his call to dare everyone to knock theology off his shoulder. I think this is behavior he will be embarrassed by when he gets older.

Doug Pagitt has offered a good response to personal attacks from Mark.... smile, wink, and walk away.

Here is your wink Mark (and here are a few others), I wish you well. I hope your heart changes soon; both to prevent your own scars and those you inflict on others.

I confess to having inflicted many scars. Even as I glance over most of my posts, I see that they are critiques... how to change?

I wrote this in response to something else on another blog, but it kinda fits here:

I have been a follower of Christ for about 24 years. My upbringing in the faith was within a church that was very focused on personal righteousness and drawing clear lines between, not only us and non-Christians, but also Christians who did not measure up. Due to years of bible quizzing, I had a lot of scripture at my command and did not hesitate to use it to point out the failings and shortcomings of others.

A friend of mind was heading off to a Christian college, as were a number of us, so we had a last get together. When he was leaving he shook my hand and held my gaze for a moment.

“Andy... You wound people”, he said.

“What?” I said defensively.

He smiled and left. There was no malice. He said it with complete compassion. He probably had wanted to say it for a long time.

It took years for what he said that night to sink in, but by the grace of God, it did. I have learned since then that Jesus didn’t just love people. He liked them. He really, really likes them.

I do not doubt my Christianity back then. I had been born-again. I had turned from a life of rebellion to a life of surrender. But like Paul said...without love, I was nothing but an irritation and pain to those around me. I was a modern day Pharisee. I was passionate for the things of God. But somehow, my contempt for non-Christians (and Christians who did not measure up) did not seem inconsistent to me. In fact, I used scripture to justify my attitude.

It is not enough to love God and be passionate for him. That was the mistake of the Pharisees. Over time you become jaundiced. Jesus said that loving your neighbor was like loving God. He was not willing to separate the two. They work in tandem. Jesus' love for people confounded the Pharisees. His love for people kept them from seeing who he really is.

A Pharisee is someone who loves God, but has contempt for people. I believe they are all over the church and I believe they are still God’s people. God just wants them to start over flowing with love for everyone like he does.

PLEASE stop using THAT word THAT way!

Survivor: China premiered last night and one of the castaways is Leslie Nease, a Christian talk show host (New Life 91.9 in Charlotte, NC).

After refusing to partake in a Buddhist ceremony she explained:

"I’m not a religious person, but I have a relationship with Jesus Christ"

Oh does that give me flashbacks! I still hear that ridiculous statement occasionally, but when I was growing up it was practically a part of our "non-liturgical" liturgy. The statement makes NO sense and sounds completely mental to anyone not raised in right-wing church environments. Some people feel that they get spiritual brownie points for making such statements in the public square.

But if you take it apart, besides being nonsensical, it is completely arrogant (not a Christian value). It has the same humility that Lucy has when she talks to Charlie Brown.

Also, it makes the term "religious" sound negative, something that the Bible certainly does not do.

It is a demonstration of the "Us vs. Them" language that has been allowed (and encouraged) to flourish within the western church. I don't believe it pleases the heart of God at all.

And statements like hers make me want to run screaming from the room! :)

The Truth Project? Part 1

I learned an important lesson recently. Never sign up to teach a curriculum that you have not reviewed. I know, that sounds self evident. What can I say?

The curriculum I signed up to teach is called "The Truth Project". It is a 12 part series produced by Focus on the Family and it is designed to teach the Christian worldview.

I do not think that "Christianity" can have a worldview; people have worldviews. Since Christianity is made up of people, and since people have various perspectives of worldview, then worldviews within the community of Christianity will vary. If you were to probe the various views within my church alone you would get a cacophony of perspectives. If one were to take into account Catholic, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, Charismatic, conservative, liberal, traditional, progressive, liturgical, emergent, etc.; you would have to conclude that one voice alone may not speak for the Christian community. Many voices must be heard.

The Truth Project is a response to a decline in basic knowledge of scripture and doctrine amongst evangelical Christians. A Christian pollster concluded in 2005:

"Although most people own a Bible and know some of its content, our research found that most [professed evangelicals] have little idea how to integrate core biblical principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities of life."

Stephen Prothero in his book, Religious Literacy, says:

"Ironically,the United States became a nation of forgetters at the same time it became a nation of evangelicals. Believing in Christ became more important than knowing about Christ. To evangelicalism, therefore, we owe both the vitality of religion in contemporary America and our impoverished understanding of it."

Having only watched the first hour teaching, it seems the Truth Project is attempting to GIVE the answers to Christians so they can have "a response". The presenter states that there is no area where God has not given the answers; and that these answers will be presented so the Christian will know what is "True" and what is "False".

What first came to my mind was that this premise was in contradiction to Paul who said that we only know and prophesy "in part". Paul seemed to feel there were aspects of our story that we would only know after death. (1 Corinthians 13:9-12).

In addition, the approach of the video may have unintended consequences. If the Christian community lacks education about its own theology, the solution is not to "give" them the answers. Teach them to study. I have taught for 16 years and each year I have students whose only interest is the right answer. They have no interest in understanding, comprehension, or application. They just want to know if they got it right, so they can be done. Christians need an education, not a list of answers.
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I am going to list some of my disagreements in the order that they occurred in the video.

One of the first things the presenter does, and continues to do throughout the video, is refer to culture in a negative light. Culture is portrayed as "anti-God". I do not tend to agree with Mark Driscoll, but I think this quote by him is apropos:

"Fundamentalism is really losing the war, and I think it is in part responsible for the rise of what we know as the more liberal end of the emerging church. Because a lot of what is fueling the left end of the emerging church is fatigue with hardcore fundamentalism that throws rocks at culture. But culture is the house that people live in, and it just seems really mean to keep throwing rocks at somebody's house."

In addition, I think culture needs to be critiqued and looked at objectively, but it is neither good nor bad on its own. A demonizing of culture leads to an unhealthy view of those outside of the Christian subculture. This creates a fear response and often paranoia amongst many of the Christian populace. Yoda said:

"Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering".

A fictional character, but I think the quote is valid. It could be argued that the Christian fear of people outside their subculture has often led to hate. This is never a Christian response.

At the beginning the presenter poses the question "Why did Jesus come into the World?" His "class" gave varied answers, many of which could be justified scripturally, but he stated that they were wrong (he might argue that they were wrong in reference to his particular scripture reference, but he never made that clear). He uses Jesus' statement in John to build his case.

"In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." John 18:37b

The video seeks to prove to the listener that Truth is the point of everything God ever did and that one is either for or against it. Much of his argument throughout the video relies on proof-texting. Henry Neufeld gives a good definition of proof-texting:

"By proof-texting I mean the use of individual scripture texts to produce apparent support for a doctrinal position without adequate regard for the contexts of the individual texts which may indicate differences and nuances."

To discuss the scriptural reasons of why Jesus came would not have helped his argument. He wanted to divide everything into black and white terms. Therefore, other reasons were not mentioned and the answers of his class were dismissed.

Here are a couple of other reasons Jesus came: (these are just a few of the more blunt ones; inferred would be much longer)

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:17

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst." 1 Timothy 1:15

"Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Hebrew 10:9-10

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10

"For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me."John 6:38

These scriptures, and others like them, do not lend themselves to drawing a line in the sand. As I will get into in my next post on this topic, the purpose of this video was to bifurcate (his word) humanity to those who follow the Truth (by his definition) and those who do not.

I simply do not believe that is the way of Jesus. More later....
Read Part 2

Brian Mclaren -Everything Must Change Part 2

Sorry for the spread between comments on the book. My school year has started, so for the past couple of weeks the only reading I have done involved curriculum.

I was peeking at another blogger's review and he captured the tone of this book for me so far. Brian's previous books, in many ways, dealt with ideas and I would sit back and say, "That is what I have been thinking (but he articulates it so much better)". This book has many ideas as well, but there is also a strong sense of, "Now what are you going to do about it?!"

In the section I am reading right now, Brian is laying out a comparison between the conventional and emergent views of various aspects of Jesus and Christianity. I appreciate that he does not try to shred conventional views, rather he points out that they tend to deliver unintended consequences. I like this approach because it allows someone with a conventional view to ask, "What does my belief say about God?"

I wrote a lot of thoughts and highlighted a fair amount in this section, but for brevity's sake I will just comment on one quote.

"...the emerging view sees Jesus as a medicinal cure to a lethal infection that plagues humanity (diagnosing and treating individual and societal sickness called sin), the conventional view sees Jesus primarily as the legal solution to a capital infraction against God (legally resolving the capital offense of imperfection and the eternal punishment it demands). By framing Jesus in this way, the conventional view relegates Jesus to practical irrelevance in relation to human social problems in history; his message is about the soul, its guilt before God, and its afterlife, not about our world and its crises."

I have to confess that I have a certain level of ambivalence toward the poor. I work in an inner city school and I have compassion, but it is very easy for me to relegate everything to theory and do little practicum. The conventional view Brian describes would make it easy for me to distance myself from this active part of Christ's mission. By framing everything about Christ in legal terms, the burden on me is simply to fine tune my theory and be on the correct side of the law. This reminds me of my students who ask me "what they HAVE to do" in order to "be DONE". They miss the point of the learning.

The emerging view forces one to join the work team. God calls for an active cure - so I can no longer remain on the sidelines content to hold the right beliefs.

Another point Brian brings up that hits home for me is his reminder that God blessed certain people groups so that they could be a blessing to others. However, it usually played out that those who were blessed lorded it over others. People have a tendency to grab a blessing and use it as a dividing line for "us" and "them".

I live in Utah, where the dividing line between "us" and "them" can be more easily distinguished than in other areas. "Gentile" is a word Mormons can use to describe anyone who isn't Mormon. I don't think it is used as much as in the past, but still, I hear it occasionally and it is not a compliment. Bad behavior is "gentile" behavior.

On the other end, the word "cult" gets thrown at Mormons. I never realized how demeaning that word is until I moved here. I promised myself that I would not let that word cross my lips again.

I think the emergent view wants to shine the light on all the times in Scripture that Jesus broke down the walls of "us" and "them". He repeatedly talked to people he shouldn't have, encouraged and accepted those that others condemned, touched those who should not be touched. In the Kingdom Jesus is building, there is no "them"; he accepts all of us. If we are to be Christ followers, there can be no dividing lines.

More to come....

Have trouble getting your kids to bed?

If you have a child who will NOT go to bed... if you are feeling overwhelmed by the constant tuggings and whinings..... this song is for you.

Breathed gets it...

Click to see the full toon....

God's ways are not our ways....

French existentialist playwright Jean Anouilh proposed a scenario for the last judgment:

The good are densely clustered at the gate of heaven, eager to march in, sure of their reserved seats, keyed up and bursting with impatience.

All at once, a rumor starts spreading: “It seems He’s going to forgive those others, too!”

For a minute, everybody’s dumbfounded. They look at one another in disbelief, gasping and sputtering, “After all the trouble I went through!” “If only I’d known this…” “I just cannot get over it!”

Exasperated, they work themselves into a fury and start cursing God; and at that very instant they’re damned. That was the final judgment.

(cited in Louis Evely, That Man is You)

Brian McLaren - Everything Must Change Part 1

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be commentating on Brian McLaren's new book Everything Must Change. I was sent an advance copy under the premise that I would do a book review. That would be hard for me. I rarely read a theological book straight through. I read some, leave it for a week or two while I dig through another book, come back to it, etc. (However, I did read the latest Harry Potter straight through in less than 36 hours).

In addition, I don't think I could read a full theological book through in a few weeks time, and then write a review on the totality. I think I would need to read it through multiple times to write a review like that.

So instead, I will write in spurts as I work through the book.

In the first few chapters, Brian focuses on a trip he took to Burundi to meet with some of the local pastors. Burundi is a country like Rwanda in terms of the violence and ethnic unrest that is there.

One of the pastors who got up at the meeting said that he had grown up hearing basically only one message from his pastor father. It was the message that had been given to his father by foreign missionaries which was, "You are a sinner and you are going to hell. You need to repent and believe in Jesus. Jesus might come back today, and if he does and you are not ready, you will burn forever in hell." Brian states that almost everyone in the room laughed when they heard that. Not because they thought it was funny, but because it was what they had heard all their lives too. I laughed when I read it. When I read it out loud to my wife, she laughed too. All around the world, that cliche' message has been delivered.

What interests me, when I consider that message in the context of someone from Burundi, is that they would have lived that message as different warlords and rebel groups came to power. When a new faction took over, the message was "Submit to this regime or face terrible punishment". In their context, how would the gospel presented in the way stated above be good news? Jesus is just another warlord.

The pastor finished his talk by asking, "How many of you from Burundi and Rwanda have ever heard even one sermon telling Tutsi people to love and reconcile with Hutu people, or Hutu people to love and reconcile with Tutsi - or telling both Tutsi and Hutu to love the Twa as their neighbors and brothers and sisters?" Hardly anyone raised their hand.

So far, the book seems to be pointing out how lopsided our presentation of the Gospel has become. In a talk, McLaren said "What you focus on determines what you miss." We have perhaps become so heaven and afterlife focused, that we are missing that God wants his will carried out on earth too.

I will try to give an objective commentary on this book, but I have to say straight up that I am a fan of McLaren. I felt a little isolated by how unorthodox my theology was becoming years ago until I read A Generous Orthodoxy. Whew! It was a breath of fresh air.

Brian McLaren - Everything Must Change Part 2

Drive Free, Retire Rich

Everyone should watch this lesson in economics. It is less than 5 minutes and at the end you will be saying "Wow!"

I wish I had known this when I was starting my first job.

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