Dale Fincher

Blog has closed!

2010-05-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

This blog has had a good run.... exploring a wide range of topics and idea on being a human who follows Jesus.

But the time has come to close down. This blog will remain here as a archive of ideas. The discussion will continue but no new posts will be made.

I'm working on another blog project at the moment, chronicling daily as a First Year Dad (www.firstyeardad.com). Many of the insights you've appreciated here are discussed on this new blog as well, just in a different context. You can subscribe by RSS or email when you visit: www.firstyeardad.com.

You can also access First Year Dad through the url that pointed to this blog, www.dalefincher.com.

See you there!

The pains of truth

2010-04-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

This is cross-posted for April 23 @ www.firstyeardad.com.

I've not been entranced by a film in the last few years as I was with today's.

The Lives of Others (2007) won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film and deserves it. I'd not heard of the film till Image Journal recommended it and Mom queued it on Netflix.

This is no easy post to write. Forgive my rambling controversy off the cuff. I'm feeling in the dark for something, moving through the dark air with words, hoping they land on something helpful.

In our movie, the time is 1984 in East Berlin before the Wall fell. A playwright is watched by the Stasi (the socialist secret police). One officer, a strict interrogator and party faithful, surveys the playwright day and night, searching to find conspiracy. The Stasi, whose goal is to "know everything," tortures and coerces anyone that even smells of a differing opinion. Even joking of the Stasi is off-limits.

This is the first movie I've watched that so eloquently captured the ethos of my college years in the south, before going to Talbot.

When I first attended Talbot, I had a roommate who defected from communist Czechoslovakia when he was 25. Fifteen years later, our paths crossed as first year graduate students of philosophy at Biola. We stayed up late at night, telling stories of his time in the military and athletic training. His secret ways of coping with the ideology he grew up in. He was, at one point, one of the country's top high jumpers. But traveling out of country was unallowed if that risked a defection. One day, with a crack in the system wedged open by an invisible Hand, he got a visa to leave. He returned only after the regime fell.

I would share with him stories of my college years. One night he sat up straight in his chair, shook his head and said through his thick Slavic accent, "That's just like communist country!"

The Lives of Others is filled with the suspicion of others, the fear of losing control, the leadership untouchable with criticism on pain of losing everything. The playwright's lover, a leading actress, lost everything.
And the strict Stasi agent watching the playwright daily, softened. Art touched him. Beauty and heart changed him. His change was nuanced and slow. Surrounded by radio equipment and donned with large headphones, a quiet tear fell down his cheek. My tears came too.

This is why I believe, contrary to postmodern thought, in the correspondence theory of truth. Beauty, truth, goodness is the good news that comes crashing into any worldview without raising a hand. These three face prisoners with an invitation for freedom. Nothing can match it. It is the stuff of the gospel. One must, however, open one's soul to hear it, see it. It dangerously transforms. It topples Walls.

These optimistic, unhappy thoughts lead me to other dark trends in our world. Scott Peck wrote an excellent chapter on "Group Evil" that is important for our time. What allows someone to challenge the status quo? Is the status quo to be challenged? What are we willing to risk?

Group evil flourishes with fear and laziness. Fear is a lack of courage, a concern that we'll lose too much: our homes, jobs, family, reputations, our lives.

Laziness is a lack of hard work. Hard work means openness to reality at all costs, searching, exploring, reading, conversing with opinions opposed to your own. It is peeking over the Berlin Wall and seeing freedom on the other side, though the freedom may cause fear. Laziness means we choose the "safe" thing and not the true thing.

Involvement in group evil is easy. Don't read or study outside what the "authority" gives you. Find your approval from the "authority" over you. Believe "authority" knows what's best and go with it.
Group evil is always among us. Do we recognize it? Why did it take so long for Christians to stand up to Hitler? Why did it take so long for white Christians to support Martin Luther King? Why do so many issues of the past look so obvious to us today when they were not obvious to the masses back then? What group evil is among us? It is here. But are we willing to name it in our midst?

We understand the courage it takes to stand up against it. But do we understand the work it takes to name it?
Twice in the last year, Mom and I have both been removed from book projects (one was very popular) by publishers because of our views on gender. The projects were not even about gender. With a swift sweep of the hand, we were done, like giving someone an "F" after he aced his math test because he likes the color blue. Why the prejudice against blue? What has that to do with math? And why be so prejudiced against our view of gender so much that it clouds all other contributions? Our view fits within orthodoxy. In fact, it fits in between the polar views that are currently battling in the church that we are hit with barrages from both sides.

That we as a church tolerate these behind-closed-doors decisions saddens me. But publishers know their constituents and how much money they would lose over the preposterous idea that men and women have equal value, not only before God, but before each other. Preposterous ideas worthy of political power plays, right?

But my expression here isn't about gender. It's about silencing people who express doubt about the status quo. Group evil happens because many will not study the subjects of controversy and often name-call the stranger. I remember when I was suspicious of the great theologian, Gordon Fee. He has such a brilliant, aged, scholarly mind. But I thought, "He can't be that bright, because he's missed a huge glaring problem in gender. He's egalitarian." I didn't pause to question that perhaps, Fee knew something I didn't. He was wrong because my subculture said so, because my elementary reading of Scripture said so. And my subculture read only my subculture's books. And we were quite convinced, after reading each others' books, that we were right.

We create propaganda for ourselves. Yes, we even silence ourselves for protection.

Our Stasi officer stepped out and saved a life. By saving a life, he lost everything. Then the Wall fell. The Group Evil, and the remaining Stasi officers, fell with it. And truth won.

You will have to take the blows when you stand against evil. It's always been like this, as Jesus taught us. It will always be like this until kingdom come. Yet we're not called to be faithful to the kingdoms of men or church organizations claiming to be the last preservers of truth. We're called to be faithful to the Messiah, following truth boldly. Knowing him, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings.

And, Finn (my son), you can count on Mom and me, as long as we have breath, to take the blows so we can preserve and unearth the precious gems of truth. And hold those gems dear for you. Those gems of truth that bring freedom. Those gems that makes room for love. The only gems worthy of our humanity.

Please comment. But do not leave comments on this blog. All comments and discussion go here.

The Theology of Spiritual Abuse in Christianity Today

2010-03-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

Spiritual abuse is an area of sensitivity for me. I've been abused and know what it's like. I can also smell it coming a long way off and cross paths with many who have been abused on the verge of giving up on Jesus in the name of giving up on unhealthy "church" leadership or toxic Christian sub-cultures.

A major quality of spiritual abuse is using God's name and God's Word to degrade humans out of reach of God's love. A telltale trademark is insisting humans are worthless creatures, how God had no reason to redeem us, how only Jesus on a cross gives us value (if we repent a certain kind of way and adapt to the sub-culture's rules). The line of reasoning follows that unless you follow the perceived "anointed" pastor or leader of your group and unless you "submit" regularly, even against your reason and emotions (both of which you are are told not to trust), then you are worthless to God.

And so abused grow more dependent on the abusers to be right with God and to be loved.

Most of the time this abuse is subtle. And unless you have your wits about you and have loving outside influence, you can be easily absorbed into the abuse.

When speaking on the road, this topic invariably comes up. Some of it emerges from the self-proclaimed "fundamentalists" as well as from neo-Reformed circles, using narrow and wooden definitions of the "gospel" and "holiness" and ready to pounce, call names, and excommunicate in the name of God those who disagree. This view that justifies degrading the value of humans is what I call "worm theology."

Worm theology is a twisting of the reformation doctrine of depravity. Depravity says we born corrupt, are capable of the most heinous evil, and cannot merit God's salvation by works of the law. Worm theology takes depravity another step and says that, not only are we not good, but we are also not valuable. Symptoms of worm theology turn concepts like confession and guilt into a need for groveling. In addition, human value is found in "Christ" alone and in no other way. In other words, only Christians have value. (They often like using "Christ" as a word, rather than Jesus or Messiah, for it evokes a more mysterious, less connected God, who is so other-worldly, it only distances God further from our ugliness so he doesn't have to look at it or touch it--for that would make him unclean. This comes out in interpretations of verses like "God cannot look on sin." Sin, on this view, is kryptonite to God. And when we sin, we do not just grow more evil, but we also grow less valuable.)

A few days ago, a prime-time example came to my inbox published by Christianity Today. It is supposed to be a piece on soul formation. It is supposed to show how great God's love is. It is supposed to show the good news of the gospel. However, this article rather lays the theological foundation of spiritual abuse.

Read the article first and then read below. Love Needs No Reason by Mark Galli.

I would be less bothered by this article if he came from a freelance writer. But Galli is managing editor of Christianity Today and carries his views of grace, love and human dignity into CT's pages regularly. I often disagree with Galli's articles, usually because he operates from the theological perspective shown here. For one writing on soul-formation in CT, this is deeply problematic in application.

From the start, Galli makes the reader suspicious of psychology with his opening line. Growing up conservative in a spiritually abusive environment, I was always taught that psychology was evil and that self-esteem today replaced the "Christ-esteem" of the past. But I've outgrown those views and find them papery thin defenses against facing reality at all costs. And I've never understood what "Christ-esteem" was supposed to be. I think this article gives us an idea. There is no intrinsic value in the self alone. Only "Christ" can give us value.

I understand therapeutic culture and psychology. Therapeutic culture is often nothing more than a salve to help us feel better by explaining away our ailment, not an intense look at our issues and how we can grow. Psychology, on the other hand, explores what human growth is about and helps us get honest with who we are, our past, and our relationships. After all, if there's one giant economy God is concerned about in Scripture it is how we relate to him and each other. A good example of modern-psychology giving us the tools to no longer put salve on our wounds but heal from them through love is Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled. There is nothing negatively therapeutic about this book. This kind of psychology penetrates the human soul much deeper than most of the works by those that denounce it.

I often suspect the Enemy has blinded many Jesus-followers into avoiding psychology because a good therapist will help deliver them to love and humility rather than doctrinal posturing. It is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom.

Galli writes:

But in his desire to proclaim the magnificent love of God, he inadvertently fell into language that actually proclaims bad news—all this talk of the intrinsic value in the object of love.

The writer is saying that modern-psychology, not God, claims intrinsic value for every human. This is contrary to a major historical tenant of Christian theology: that humans are intrinsically valuable.

I wonder if Galli is borrowing from the theological tradition of Duns Scotus who thought God's laws did not comply with nature but were arbitrary (a form of Divine Command theory). This was in contrast to Thomas Aquinas who said God made laws according to the nature of the universe he made. Duns has no problem with God doing things unreasonably. Thomas did. And this is why Thomas, not Duns, is considered the greatest intellectual in Christian history.

Here is the way Galli's argument goes:

For if we have some measure of intrinsic value to God, a number of things follow: First, it is our value, and not God's love, that forces God's hand. He looks at us and sees something of value, and being a reasonable fellow—one who knows and appreciates things of value—he pretty much has to redeem us. The love of God is not given freely in mercy to the undeserving, but instead to the deserving—because, after all, we are of infinite worth! God would be a poor judge of character if he did not choose to die for us.

Galli wants to pit our value against the love of God. His view of love is one that is motivated by nothing more than simply wanting something to be. God can choose to love whatever he wants and he needs no reasons to do so. Loving for a a reason, according to Galli, is no love at all. So if I love my son more than other children, I cannot call it "love" if I love him because I procreated him. I also cannot love my wife more than any other women because I find her a better fit for me. And when I appreciate her, show affection for her, give her flowers, the truest form of love is one that disregards her as a person and loves from some deep resources of sheer blind will-power within me. Loving her because she is she and I am I, as argued above, is not love. Love must be a sterile, ethereal, an abstract thing. This goes against the familial and relational terms God assigns to Israel, long before the time of Jesus. Maybe God meant Israel was his wife in a strictly platonic sense.

Starting to have a lesser view of God?

Galli also overstates the case about humans. Why does he think that only an infinite human can be a worthwhile human? If we were of infinite worth, we'd be of the same worth as God himself and that is incorrect. But we can be very worthwhile, even if not infinitely worthwhile, right?

Second, if we had intrinsic worth, then it is hard to imagine why Christ would have had to die for us. We are already people of "infinite worth"—what's there to die for? Instead, you'd think Christ would come to earth to pay us homage. You would think his mission might have been to tell us about our infinite worth, and to makes sure we not only get that point but also live it. The mission of Christ would be educational and moral, but it would hardly need to be salvific.

I'm unsure of Galli's reasoning here. Why does our having intrinsic worth automatically exempt us from penalty? This is a common confusion among many conservative who think that by saying someone is valuable, we're also condoning their sin. I hear many say they don't want to love people in a "condoning" way. But what's condoning about love? Love is to extend yourself for the growth of another. You cannot help someone grow if you excuse the thing that prevents the growth. So many bottle their love for others and expect people to repent before we can find them lovely.

But this is the very opposite of Jesus' example. He tells us to love our enemies, despite their repentance. Why would he say this? If they lack value without Jesus, then why love them? Could it be that Jesus bought into modern "therapeutic psychology" and believed even his enemies had intrinsic worth? As one friend remarked about this article, "This author would have us think it's no tragedy at all if a sinner dies without Christ, nothing of value will be lost." And Jesus argument cannot be that his death makes them worthwhile because Jesus has not yet died. Apparently we are to love the lost abstractly, simply because God loves them, though God, on Galli's view, has no reason to love them. We are to share the gospel with them, not because the gospel is the only idea on the planet worthy of the human soul, but by sheer, cold obedience.

Starting to feel dehumanized by this view?

Third, it would be hard to know what it means when the Bible talks about—and it talks about this stuff a lot—our being God's enemies, in rebellion against him, deserving of death. The ideas that swirl around our supposed infinite worth, of course, emphasize that we're mostly victims, trapped in a nexus of sin and death. God sees people of great value chained by circumstances beyond their control and comes to the rescue. God becomes a big brother helping the innocent but infinitely valuable lost, and not a merciful savior of the very people who are his enemies.

This is where Galli begins to equivocate his concepts. I'm surprised no editor caught this. It is not a contradiction to say an enemy, a rebellious person, who is deserving of death is also a valuable creature. There is no logical contradiction here. Most certainly a valuable creature can be tarnished and flawed, even by his own doing. To be valuable doesn't mean God becomes a big brother nor that we are inculpable victims. You can be valuable and be an enemy. You can be valuable and be damned. Value does not absolve you of any crime and dismisses no punishment. A valuable man can accrue debts to be paid (a common motif in New Testament language "wages of sin is death"). I want Galli to explain why he thinks if a creature has value it is also a creature that us automatically moral. Valuable things can be broken. Wedding bands get tarnished. Children steal cookies. Ferraris need tune-ups. Even capital punishment should not be cruel nor unusual for the simple reason that even the most evil among us has dignity, even if the perpetrator himself doesn't believe it.

The real truth of the matter is that we are no longer worthy. We are not mere victims but rebels. We're not the innocent lost but God's enemies. We're not people hard on our luck, deserving of another chance, but people who deserve death. People who deserve death are not people of infinite worth.

Here Galli makes the turn of phrase more clear. He confuses having "worth" with being "worthy." Worth is ontological. It means that something has value by the sheer fact that it exists. To be "worthy" is a relational term of meriting a favor or to have a character for a position. Anyone can have worth and be unworthy. Our judicial system shows us this distinction in everyday life all the time. God does too. Israel was often unfaithful (just like the "church" today) but their sin did not erase their worth. God's mercy saved them from their own devices. God's mercy did not make them more valuable.

And here's the fatal flaw in Galli's assumptions:

But Christ did not die for us because we are valuable; we are valuable because Christ died for us. It is not for us to say to one another, "Worthy are you!"—which is the mantra of a great deal of modern psychology. Instead, we turn to God and say, "Worthy are you, O Lord our God!" (Rev. 4:11).

Based on the discussion above, do you see how he equates having value with having merit? "We are valuable because Christ died for us." In this article, Galli's theological history goes back only to the the end of the gospels at crucifixion of Jesus. But if he could look further back, he'd see a different assumption running through Scripture. We are valuable in Genesis 1.

God made humans in his image. Humans did not give themselves value. God gave humans value in the very act of creating them. The work of grace on the part of God is from beginning to end. He created us, loves us, sustains us. He made us valuable, though we soiled ourselves.

Galli's theology ignores us as image bearers of God, denounces our value, and claims that only through redemption, not creation, are we given true worth. In his quest to make God's love abstract and unreasonable, he demeans God as creator and his act of creating humans. God's redeeming love DOES have reasons. God only redeems things valuable enough to redeem. To do otherwise is arbitrary and arbitrariness is shallow and unworthy of worship. As I wrote in my comment on Galli's article, why did God, then choose humans to redeem? Why not hippos or squirrels? And if the answer is God chose us because he makes the best beauty from the darkest ashes, then I would say, that is a REASON. And there are creatures more fallen than we that he chose not to redeem.

In fact, God will redeem all of creation, including hippos and squirrels because all of creation is his.

In short, God redeems humans in a special way because he made them valuable in his image. God created the reason for redeeming us the very day he made us. We did not move God's hand to redeem us because we are valuable. He moved his own hand by making us valuable to begin with. This is the link Galli is missing by drawing his theology merely through a certain kind of redemption lens and not through a much larger lens that includes creation and consummation.

Galli continues his abstract view of unreasonable love by applying it to others:

...anyone who has lived and worked with people for more than a few seconds knows that people are stinkers. It's not a matter of finding something valuable in them—some treasure, some gift, something worthy and deserving of our love. Many days, we just won't be able to see anything worthy at all! But that's no reason to stop loving. No, the people we live and work with are just as undeserving of love as are we—which is the only reason we love them. We love just as God first loved us.

I scratch my head at this and wonder if Galli has only served people for a few seconds. Hasn't he sat in the meaning of human suffering? Hasn't he weept by seeing the image of God in decay? Again he's equivocating between value and merit. And I pity the person this author tries to help on the street who is destitute, if the author brings this view above to the soup-kitchen.

Notice the suble way Galli cashes out what makes someone valuable: "something valuable in them--some treasure, some gift, something worthy and deserving of our love." Stop. Read it again. He says something "in them." Intrinsic value doesn't come from something IN someone, but intrinsic value IS someone. Galli adds that if we're to find someone valuable, they must posses a gift. This is functional language, saying that if someone has something to offer, like a gift, then they are useful and, if useful, then valuable. This is classic spiritual abusive language (and wickedly subtle). Jesus' demonstration of reaching out was that the benefactors of his grace were intinsically valuable people. It had nothing to do with what they could do for him.

We love people, not because of what they have, but because of who they are: immortal souls that bear God's image. If we have not yet matured into seeing them as valuable, we may have to practice the discipline of helping people that we see as lacking value with hopes we learn to see them a fellow humans who bear God's image. Anything short of that insults what God has made, diminishing him as creator.

What then are we to make of the dignity of humans held as slaves or making laws to protect the minority? On what grounds do we save the unborn and offer help to those mothers? Why rebuild governments after dictators thrash a nation? Why help the lost who suffer genocide? Do we help them because Christ died for them? A strict Calvist would say no for Christ only died for Christians. Or do we help them because of something in them that God breathed on that sixth day of creation? What are the arguments of the great religious and social reformers in history? We help people because they are souls who bear God's image. This was a battle cry of the reformation: to be made in God's image means we show dignity to one another, even when we disagree, even to those who spit on Jesus. All are equal before God because of this image, whether clergy or laity. .

Never does the Bible say that God loves us because we were created in his image, because he believes we have intrinsic worth. Indeed, a few verses speak of our value to God (like Matthew 6:26), but the dominant message is not that our value prompts God's love, but that God's love establishes our value.

Here Galli tries to make up some lost ground by preempting his critics. I am guessing he believes that the Scripture must be overt, chapter and verse, stating that God is motivated to redeem us because of our value. The necessity to cite chapters and verses is a common requirement of fundamentalist and the neo-reformed followers But theology doesn't work like that. The Scripture is filled with assumptions we have to unpack that float freely around chapters and whole books. And I think Galli would be served well with some work in philosophical theology (by the way, fundamentalists and neo-reformers often shy away from philosophy too... this is another concern I have, like the man complaining he's hungry but won't eat the bread you gave him because it came from the wrong market).

Galli has told us that "Christ" makes us valuable in redemption. He failed to say that God makes us valuable prior to redemption, in creation. I repeat, God made us valuable in creation. We didn't make ourselves valuable. God created in us the motivation to redeem us when we go bad.

What we discover in God is that love is not love in the deepest sense if it is motivated by anything intrinsic in the beloved—another's worth, value, gifts, or potential. If our actions are motivated by such things, it is not love. We are merely giving people their due, obligated by some value in them to honor and respect them. Love is not love unless freely given, given for no reason at all but merely out of that "great love."

At the end of the day, we have to raise our hand and wonder where Galli is getting his definition of love. It's an abstract peculiar one. On is definition, no child truly loved a parent. And humans cannot love God, truly, because God deserves the love. Jesus command then becomes unreachable, for real love means loving things that have no worth. So either Galli's view of love is wrong, or Galli believes God has no worth. Galli returns to a previous idea here at the end of the article saying that if someone is valuable than loving them is not loving. And he continues to believe that value means merit.

As an apologist, I see Galli's answer that God loves for no reason may as a helpful hint as to why God created, but not why God redeemed. In eternity past, before creation existed at all, what came into God's mind that he would make such a world? What motivated him? It must have been the pleasure of his will coupled with what a world would look like that he loved enough to make intrinsically valuable.

Once God creates, everything he creates has intrinsic worth.

Be on the lookout for this kind of worm theology. It has led many to spiritual abuses and has left many leaving the church disillusioned by a God that creates worthless things. This insults not only God's creation and God's gospel, but God himself.

And if you struggle with knowing God's love and why he would love you, seek out someone who knows God's love who has solid therapy training and credentials (that wasn't developed by fundamentalists and neo-reformed folks). As my previous therapist, who is not a Christian, told me: "If the church was doing it's job 100 years ago, psychotherapy would never have arisen." I quite agree with her. And this article solidifies the point.

A new name for Birdie Boy

2010-03-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

See Jonalyn's post on this theme.

The day’s vital details

Born this countdown day… 3210 or 3-2-10 or March 2, 2010 @ 2:41pm. A warm, sunny day in Steamboat, Birdie Boy delivered naturally (without any medication) under seven hours. Five days past due, he rang in his birthday celebration at a whopping nine pounds twelve ounces. Jonalyn is well and recovering peacefully.

The first song he heard was Rich Mullins, "The Color Green."

Now to name him.

From Wales to the New World

My great-great-grandfather stepped off a boat from Wales on his way to the new world. At the immigration station on the American shore, the processing agent asked his name.

“David Davies,” he said with a thick accent. In England and Wales, “Davies” is pronounced “Davis.”

“Right,” said the American agent. And wrote “Davis” on the paperwork.

My maternal surname on that day shifted to “Davis.”

The historic Welsh tradition was to name a child your last name first, like my great-great grandfather, David Davies. “David” is another form of “Davies” and “Davis.” If you meet a Robert Roberts, you’ve met someone influenced by Welsh tradition. Or a William Williams. My grandfather was “David D. Davis.” His middle name was “Dale.” My grandmother called him “Dave.”

I bear the middle name of my grandfather, D. D. Davis. D. D. Davis helped people, their bodies and their souls. With only a high school degree and naval service in the construction battalion in WW2, his active imagination and culture taste appreciated good food, good art, and good company. He took pains to help the unnoticed: workers who needed work, homeless who needed shelter. He passed our bibles, quietly, on university campuses. He was one of the first to employ African-Americans on his building projects in Ohio. He cared about high culture, restored museums, toured the major galleries of the world, tasted the finest restaurants on the planet. He traveled the world, looking for opportunities to help local economies before micro-loans were popular. He loved Jerusalem and sang songs about that city. He supported a little known Indian man whose voice is now all over the world. That voice belonged to Ravi Zacharias and Ravi’s first book was dedicated to my grandfather. My most recent book is too: His “ordinary life with Jesus looks extraordinary in the world.”

Girls vs. boys names

Naming children is difficult business. Some people, stumped by the overload of options, wait till the day of birth. The child could be named after the doctor or nurse or, as one story I heard, the brand of the clock on the wall in the delivery room.

No wonder the Welsh took the easier way of moving the last name and to the front.

Today, I’ve noticed that girls get the advantage of the exotic, unusual names. Girl names are cute and creative, even invented. Boy names not so much. To name a boy “Apple” as Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter would be a little odd in our culture (though I like the idea). Nicole Richie named her new son, “Sparrow,” pushing the edge of popular trends. I’m unsure if it works. If you look around the web, you’ll discover that girl names have a lower statistic of repetition, unlike boy names.

We had “invented” a girl name not long after we discovered the pregnancy. Piece of cake. But a boy name…few evoked both good poetry and meaning at the same time. Names work like wine to a meal. The challenge was pairing a first name with such an earthy sounding last as “Fincher.”

A “fincher” is one who buys, sells, and distributes finch birds. My parents, I’m sure, rolled the sound over and over again to make three family names piece together in “Charles Dale Fincher.” With names like that there is no mistaking my heritage from the British Isles.

Making names fit

We wanted our son’s name to at least sound right, even if it had no meaning. Tirian sounded good by itself, but not with Fincher. The royal name of the last king of Narnia felt blunt against the outdoorsy Fincher. Same with Crispan. Maxen, Brac, Pascal, Elis all sounded good on their own. But the surname dulled it. And “Francis,” the name of the first Quaker who settled in the new world on my paternal side, just won’t do.

What to do… what to do…

My Favorite Play

In college a mentor discovered my knack for acting. My favorite play in college was the second play I performed. It wasn’t on the large “main stage” nor was it “high art” like my later Shakespearian dramas. But I still have the straw hat my mentor stole from the prop closet (partly because I had mangled it so much through use), a gift from my part in The Adventure of Tom Sawyer.

I loved playing Tom. If he didn’t have adventure, he invented it. He was a better con than I could ever be. Yet his side-kick intrigued me. Huckleberry didn’t invent adventure; he lived it often against his will. Considering his unasked-for background, he dun had to make his own way on the Mississip.

I can relate to Huck more than Tom. Huck Finn had to do what he had to do, even when the grown-ups threatened him with hell, them being so particular and decent in all their ways.
And Huck, in Twain’s sequel to Tom, finds an unexpected companion on the big river. Jim was running from the law that enslaved him; Huck from the law that forced him to live with his abusive father. Both had to run into what was “wrong” to find what was right, though what was right warn’t “right” to the people of the time. Two friends was living what was good, the best they could, even when they didn’t know it was good, even when all the world was a-huntin’ ‘em down.

A new name

I like what Huck Finn means, his courage, his friendship.

I also like the Welsh heritage of double-naming. Maybe the poetry of Wales led my grandparents to name my mother, Lois Davis. I’m unsure. But we’re following suit.

Finn. That works.

I sat on the name “Lewis” for a long time for a middle name. It has a ring to it, meaning “lionlike,” resembling the Great Lion, and reflected my hero Clive Staples. Yet my boy needs to find his own way, not be named after someone that he may not come to appreciate. For a long time I wanted to name my son after my grandfather, “Davis.” Would it work for Finn? What if we took the older use of that name? “Davies” is the name borne on that ship to the New World. And we’re reviving it for the future: Davies (like “Davis”).

A name from a man of virtue and faithfulness to the God of Israel—the legacy of Finn’s great-grandfather, D. D. Davis, whose quiet influence is felt throughout the world today.

Our boy can choose to be called all sorts of things: Finn, Dave, Davie, Davies, and even “Finch” if he likes. For now, we’ll call him “Finn.”

Finn Davies Fincher.

You are named, son. Wear it well.

Falling Through Ice

2010-02-07T12:26:00.000-08:00

I’ve caught a couple hundred trout in Fetcher Pond these four summers I’ve lived in Steamboat. It’s my stocked go-to pond for casual practice of new flies and teaching beginners who visit us. I once tube-floated it, but bikers and hikers shouted out one-liners and laughed at me for my professional approach in amateur water. I’ve never seen another do it.

Fetcher sits beside the Yampa River. If I’ve brought my waders I can hop from a beginner pond to intermediate river, where the trout turn wild and expand to Browns and Cutthroat. Sizes can double too.

This morning, after some reading at a coffee shop, I took a walk along the Yampa for reflection, to see what I could see. A narrow inlet flowed between the ice-pack and boulders covered in marshmallow. At Fetcher I noticed tracks on the pond and a small snow sculpture in the middle.

Walking on ice is walking on water. I pondered the novelty and shuffled out on previous tracks, toward the sculpture. Have people been ice fishing on the pond? I wondered.

A small section on the edge had been brushed of snow and I edged toward it, hearing water flow down the outlet, pouring under the thick sheet of ice. I surveyed the shore, standing where my fly has floated a thousand times.

Gravity tugged.

You know the warning they give you in the movies when the ice is thin? The protagonist walks across the frozen water, the ice cracks, and the camera zooms in and follows the ice shattering like a web on a windshield? This wasn’t like that. One moment I pictured myself on shore back in summertime, the next I was waist-deep in water, no transition, no warning, no slow-motion. My arms caught the rim of ice my body had made, my shoes and socks immersed, the water seeping through my pants.

What now? The water felt more wet than cold.

I pushed myself up. Expecting the edges to peel under pressure, I crab-crawled backwards, likely dragged by Jesus on whose name I called. Did my lack of faith draw me down? I stood up again on the ice.

Shuffling briskly to another part of shore, I scaled the snowy bank and glanced at the open mouth that tried to eat me. I looked at the Yampa River. I wanted a longer walk. But wanted to avoid writing a silly headline on the free local newspaper: Man Hospitalized from a Winter Stroll After Falling into Pond.

I drove home wet, feeling the fiery cocktail of caffeine and adrenaline in my blood. That jittery mix shook my hands while I hung my dripping socks. Time to stoke the fire.

My annoyance with the telephone (and vote for better letters!)

2010-02-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

Does the ring of the telephone fill you with anticipation or does it evoke dread? Does it tell you,

Hey, pick me up, I’m a surprise, like a birthday present… under the wrapping of this ringtone is something that could change your life!

Or does it tell you,

Hey you, stop what you’re doing and pay attention to me, NOW… don’t glance up and then look away!... put your pen down, Mister, slam on the brakes and notice me!!

If someone was waiting for a romantic call or for a word that grandpa survived surgery or that our client is ready to make a deal, we’re grateful for the phone on these special occasions. We can relax knowing the news, when available, will be immediate. Soon enough, we’ll see what path lies ahead for us and those we love.

Yet most of the time we are not hanging in mid-air waiting for a call to help us land. We are doing life somewhere. Without so much as a warning from the window of our guest walking up the garden path to knock on our door, the phone blurts out, slicing the silence of the room, shouting that we are wanted… now!

I read that the philosopher, H. L. Mencken, once said that the ring of a distracting telephone made him “wishing heartily that Alexander Graham Bell had been run over by an ice wagon at the age of 4.” Sometimes I do too. Not that I wish the demise of the brilliant Bell, but there’s something peculiar about the phone that requires instant attention.

Would Bell have dared his invention had he known of the future cell phone? The cell, that ubiquitous tether to the world, that device in our hands that reminds us again and again (after we pony up a large monthly bill) that we are wanted, needed at the mall, the ice cream shop, while commuting the kids to school, writing our memoir, strolling in the park. The cell pretends we are celebrities, making our personal narrative available to the public without so much as dodging a paparazzi-like ambush of call, texts, and the other tools of smartness on our phones.

At home, I screen my calls. My answering machine says so. People ask why we don’t use Caller ID. We do. But Caller ID is inconsistently useless.

“Out of area” doesn’t help.

“Michigan” tells me little.

And “blocked” numbers? “Blocked” numbers tell people in a warm cheery ringtone, “Pick me up, don’t worry, I value transparency and respect your time!” Uh huh.

People comment on our boldness to screen our calls with our answering machine.

How about that? “Boldness.”

I know some people have a different affection for the phone than I. Their response to our “boldness” tells me something about them… Are these the people who feel ignored and need the ambush-effect of a phone call? Or do they think it social rudeness to not pick up the invisible visitor? Is it more rude to interrupt a quiet, hard-working day of another? Or more rude to ignore the interrupter? Cannot a call diverted to the answering machine say,

You’re valuable, truly. Doing what I’m doing in my space with the gifts I’ve been given is more important in this moment than talking to you… is that okay?

The telephone, for me, is a convenience for the most urgent communications; yet not much of a social device. I have several reasons for this and they are all personal.

First, verbal communication is a limited thing. We are told that most communication comes through body language, eye-contact and tone, even more than the words we use. In the performing arts, we learn that the eyes are the most important communicator on the stage. If the eyes are unbelieving or disengaged, then communication is lost no matter the words we use.

I’ve caught hints of people on social calls more interested in being “on” the phone than in having a conversation. I picture their eyes wondering who knows where, pretending to be a good multi-tasker.

Now my second point: different kinds of discourse.

With the added work to translate information through the telephone, two different, but related kinds of discourse are required to navigate a conversation. One is rational discourse. If someone is good at thinking through ideas, then this is not an issue. However, if you are not good at thinking on your feet, this creates a disadvantage which does not allow the other modes of communicating, like a face-to-face encounter, may give: pausing, glancing, grabbing salt and pepper shakers on the lunchroom table and making a schemata. The immediacy of the technology subtly miscommunicates the immediacy of a conversation, give an instant answer. Since I’m quick on my feet with rational discourse, this isn’t as much of an issue if people want to talk ideas or give an update.

However, most of the time, the telephone also includes the other kind of thinking: relational discourse.

Relational discourse means navigating the relationship happening on the phone, reading what the other person is “really” saying and how they are connecting with you personally. For me to engage relational discourse, I need what the phone doesn’t give: the body language and eye contact (and, no, skype doesn’t give eye-contact either because you look into the eyes of the video image, not the person). Some are better wired for relational discourse on the phone, like our dog-sitter, Ben. He tells me he prefers the phone because he over-thinks the other signals so much that he can’t hear what another is saying. “Why did they raise their eyebrow?” he asks. Better to talk without all the bodily distractions.

Here’s a practical example: how do you interrupt on the phone? To know when someone is finished with a point so they can be adequately interrupted without offense is something I need in conversation. I often end up misjudging their point’s conclusion and interrupting repeatedly, talking over them, pausing, frustrated. People do this to me too. It bugs. I’d like to lift a hand, like a crossing-guard, or nod like I’m already getting the point so please stop rambling, or a glance at the wrist watch to indicate I’m bored and have other valuable things to do or find a distraction nearby to change the subject, “Oh, did you see that clown go into the pizza shop?!!”

Or when I’m monologuing, how do I know if the other person is really interested? They could just be the typically defeated suburban husband, like Mr. Incredible,

Uh huh, good, good…

No, Bob, not good! shouts back Elastigirl.

Third, you have people who master telephone conversation, working words and silences to get what they want. Some passive aggressive, I bet, love the phone, poking their heads into distant lives via 10,000 miles of phone wire, people that we try to limit our time with if they’re to have any relationship with us at all. Do they know they are passive aggressive? Do they even know this is a problem? They move like salesmen, motioning you to agree or say something before you know what you’ve said. They play with the silences to get you to talk. “Well, I am amazed that they said that to you!”

Inner-monologue: No, I’m not! Why did I just say that?

Likewise, I have the dilemma of telling people I don’t like their inquiry: it’s too personal, it’s none of their business, it’s boring. Body language, eye contact can speak volumes in this, leaving your disagreement in the conversation ambiguous. Ambiguity is good: it gives the other a chance to reflect on what they are doing without being call on the carpet. However, on the phone you’ve gotta say it outright: “Um, I don’t want to talk about that.” Awkward silence. Leaving no doubt as to where you stand, deadening a relationship that could have been resuscitated had it not been the telephones damned demand for bluntness.

Talk on the phone is for me like climbing a tree with one hand. Awkward, risky, and I walk away with scratches.

Maybe this is a guy thing, at least in American culture. I know more women prefer the phone than men, though I know some men who would rather phone than write an email and women who prefer email to the phone. Yet, in general, women tend to do their socializing on the phone more than men, having, perhaps, that sensitive awareness to understand tone and words, to skillfully climb a tree with one hand.

Now, for those who prefer the phone over email, let’s make a case for the written word. I prefer email to the phone. If my phone represented half of the emails I receive, I’d get nothing done. I’ve heard many say that the phone is more personal and "old-fashioned" and email impersonal. But is this so? Telephones "old fashioned"? Maybe for an older living generation but not in history. Emails are newer, but at least these are things I can save. I wish I had more personal notes from my grandfather and mother, who have migrated to another country from where no phone lines are long enough to preserve a talking relationship. Phone conversations easily slip into small talk which are, in my opinion, relational but not often that personal, like the chatter in the foyer after a Sunday church service.

Before electronic technology, nobody had telephones or email. Communication was personal meetings and letters. Telephoning is like a personal meeting on a diet, reducing eye-contact and body language. Emails are still letter writing. While we often write emails too hastily and lose the art of crafting words, let’s not blame the technology for that. Let’s blame a hurried society instead. Emails are the same as letter sent on the pony express; now the pony is the web. As long as the recipient doesn’t demand an immediate reply, I’ll take an email, usually, as much as a mailed letter.

Letters allow tone and words. A good metaphor can move the imagination as easily as body language, if not more. Written words also add complete thoughts, uninterrupted. When someone gets to monologuing in a letter, you step away and re-engage their manta after tea. And as one crafts his ability to write, he can also add in details not otherwise afforded by telephone conversations. Writing requires you say what you mean (if you are not hasty), mull over ideas, and protects us from inappropriate word choices. Writing requires the reader to sit and ponder the carefully chosen phrases, the reading between the lines. Email, if done well, can be catalogued next to the fine art of letter writing, minus the personal marks of handwriting. Telephoning has no tradition prior the Bell’s technology (unless praying to saints counts) and was not an art on which civilization was built. Letters, however, were.

So take your pick or choose them all. You may feel about the written word as I do the telephone. So be it. Writing doesn’t come easily for me simply because I’m a writer. I started writing and became a writer, though I was raised in a family of telephoners. I’ll stick to personal meetings and crafting letters. And when the local college offers a course in “creative telephoning” I’ll sign up. Until then, I’ll screen my calls.

May Bell rest in peace, having died from pernicious anemia at age 80 instead of that ice wagon at age four. I’m thankful for his technology and for the choice to disdain it too.

Living with Questions - best price for Christmas (book and audio version!)

2009-12-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

I thought you'd like to know this!

Yesterday I discovered that Amazon has my book on sale at a bargain price of $1.86 (and it qualifies for free shipping if you have Prime or a $25 order). Get a copy for the students in your life or for people wanting to grow deeper in their faith but don't know how. These make great stocking stuffers, an extra present under the tree, an easy thing to mail as a gift (media rate mailing is cheap!), or to buy a stack of them to give away or start a small group discussion.

I don't know why the bargain price, but take advantage while you can!!

If you haven't discovered or read Living with Questions, it's one of the best intro to apologetics books you'll find, easy, accessible, conversational (not the typical abstract stuff that apologetics has become associated with).

And it's a one-of-a-kind book for students (high school and college) on having the tools to answer today's hard questions, the kind that keep you awake at night. Gathered from thousands of questions from students across the nation, I put together the seven hottest questions, framed them with stories and a personal conversational style, to equip readers to carry their faith with confidence in the 21st century.

See the comments section for Living with Questions on Amazon too.

Also, if you like audio books, Living with Questions was released as an audio book last month. I narrate the book and bring my own reading style (not your average dead-pan book reading--which usually puts me to sleep). Oh, yes, over 6 hours of fun!

Story of Surgery - Skin Cancer

2009-12-08T10:17:00.000-08:00

In September I went to the dermatologist for a bump under my eyebrow. The visit was as ordinary as the one I made the year before over a similar bump in the same place. That year they blasted it with liquid nitrogen and I was done. A tiny bit grew back. So that was the purpose of this visit--to take off the tiny bump that had grown a little.

Only this time the doctor took a biopsy. Small shot and a cut. As is my usual custom, I had a vasovagal episode: cold sweats, low blood pressure, pale face. The biopsy lasted two minutes. My response lasted another 20.

I was confident the biopsy was just procedural and of no concern. I was convinced of that before I went to the doctor that morning. I was told the results would be available in a week.

Ten days later I got a voicemail that the results were in. I called the doctor but had to leave a message. Two days pass, so I tried calling again. I found out this is the "nurses" line and they are not always available. So I called several times until someone picked up the one.

In a very candid voice, "Oh, yes, your biopsy returned. You have cancer."

That word "cancer" is like saying AIDS. Everything stood still for me at that word. Yet the word, I've learned, is more nuanced than AIDS, applies to different kinds. I asked a couple of questions. I was told I'd undergo a MOHS procedure in early November and that literature was being dropped in the mail for me.

I called back two more times with questions that day. Processing. The kind of skin cancer I had can spread to other organs, I was told, could cause the removal of my eye, could spread to the lungs.

My mother died of breast cancer that went to her lungs. But breast cancer is a different kind of cancer than skin cancer. Yet, still, I started to think about what I was leaving behind should this cancer spread: wife, baby boy, Soulation, too many unwritten words.

One thing that kept coming to mind was my story with fundamentalism... how it had to be written. I didn't want to die without writing that. People need to know, I thought. People need to know how its poison effects most evangelical churches in various forms. People need to know. Just like people needed to know about the Gulag. If I had a year to live, would I write that?

Funny the things that come to mind if you think you've not much time left to live. Reassurance flooded me that human life was good, appropriate human life intended by our Maker, though it's funny how hard you have to wrestle with humans sometimes to remember and believe it.

I debated finding a doctor that would put me under general anesthetic. I didn't want a HUGE vasovagal episode during a longer surgery. As I explored, I decided to just do the MOHS and the local anesthetic and listen to the knife and scissors and feel the needles and the cuts. This would be the most dramatic physical manipulation I've consciously had. [I was knocked out for my wisdom teeth procedure when I was 21.]

I shared all these fears (confessing of sins?) with my house church. They encouraged and prayed for me. Our Soulation prayer team did the same. Many of my readers knew I was going in for surgery of some kind, though without specifics.

The day came. The waiting room was filled with others getting the same procedure that day. All of them older than I. The doctor said I'm young to have this procedure, but all this Welsch skin in Florida and California sun does not a friendship make. I'll have regular examinations the rest of my life, the surgeon said, and 50% chance another procedure in the future. We caught it early and the chance of spreading is slim.

That day in the doctor's chair was miraculous. I don't use that special word very often. But with prayers and Jonalyn's sticking with me through the whole procedure, I had no vasovagal response. I was even talking to the doctors as they sewed me up (15 stitches, maybe more). Jonalyn even had to sit down for the sight of my eyebrow flayed open. I kept squeezing her hand through my fears and uneasiness and inviting Jesus to be my peace. The God of Israel held me.

A week later the stitches were removed. Those were a monument of a time God met me and I went through the waters unharmed. I wore them proudly. The scar continues to fade (the doctor said there likely won't be one when it fully heals). But the memory lives on. Now I have to wear hats in the sunshine... another monument, though less rugged as a scar above the eye. You'll see more hats in future pictures on our facebook fan page, I'm sure...

That's the story.

Pondering Streets of Gold (and an opportunity)

2009-11-03T07:47:00.000-08:00

This is today's fledge (going out later this morning)... I wanted to give you a sneak peak at pondering beauty in sacred space as well as sharing with you an opporutunity.

Pondering Streets of Gold

[All photos, but the golden driveway, copyright Jeff LeFever]

We rounded the corner of our driveway and caught a rare a glimpse of heaven: a street of gold. Aspen covered the drive, leaving a sheet of yellow. Sunset seemed to emit light from the road as well as from the sky.

We drove slowly over the carpet of leaves, windows down, catching our breath, watching the extravagant show of God littering a world preparing for winter.

These little moments are sacred. They feel set apart, remembered. While some moments call us in whispers to pay attention these extraordinary sights may be missed only by the blind. Yet even the blind may smell it in the air.

The God of Israel described his city as having streets of gold. The shimmer, the opulence, the purity all come to mind. God may be giving us a picture of what sacred space looks like, moments where we have to pause to catch our breath, to relish the visual pleasure, to let the smile freely curl upon our faces.

Beauty does this to us. And while beauty cannot be described as easily as many of our theological doctrines and apologetic arguments, it is as important to our souls as daily bread. It draws us in, slows us down, reminds us that more is going on than meets the eye, and points us in transcendent directions.

Sometimes we merely look at beauty, sometimes we are in it. Sometimes we look at the aspen, like a postcard. Sometimes we are in a forest of them on a hike. Most man-made sacred spaces are created for such an experience. Cathedral domes. Steeples. Gold leaf. Paintings by the masters. Hard stone floors cut from mountains. Light perfectly positioned through impenetrable architecture, depending on the time of day. A place to pray. To kneel. To remember. Outside, the “world.” Inside, something special, deliberate, set apart, beautiful like a street of gold.

Our friend and Soulation teammate, Jeff Lefever, has embodied this to us more than anyone in our lives. He's concerned we remember sacred space, not only in our churches but in our surrounding culture. He hears the whispers in the beauty of brokenness as he captures people sitting on a curb, a child playing with ice cream, a woman in full Muslim dress walking the beach. He notes graffiti and the ways we express ourselves through retail shop windows. He captures the bones of an abandoned bridge. He reveals the pictures rainbowed in stained-glass. And he brings these things home.

Jeff is currently working on capturing the sacred spaces in many well-known cities. Last winter, he spent several weeks in Prague, which was the third city for his body of work (United States and France were previous). He posted an ongoing blog of his photos and reflections, the disappointment with closed churches, the architecture of people at prayer, the snow falling on once-noticed statues around the city.

We now have four prints from his last trip. One sits above our mantle, reminiscent of the dutch landscape painters, large sky, village below, cathedral dominating the horizon, a farmer harvesting food in the foreground like a biblical parable. Another captures the entry way to the side door of a Jewish synagogue, the edge of the building meeting a leafless tree stretching to the sky as a metaphor of life. While our cathedrals and sacred spaces are decaying and in disrepair, Jeff has brought them home, bottled them in print for us, our generation, for the world. And we're reminded daily of the God of Israel who comes near to us in beauty, architecture, and the in weighty privilege of prayer.

As our personal photographer, Jeff believes in the work of Soulation like few others. And it is my honor to present his work to you and an opportunity to join in a community of voices that says "Beauty matters! I will relish and defend it for the world!"

You get participate in sending Jeff to Israel this December. As you know, Israel is the hotbed of sacred space, the epicenter of religion and cultural upheaval. Jeff is, in many ways, going behind enemy lines find the sacred among all the violence and show the peace that the God of Israel promised to his people.

We'll be giving to this project too. This project benefits us by sharing the awareness and experience of sacred space. The more we share them, the more we learn to "see" beauty, the more it helps us and our community to be appropriately human.

The added benefit is choosing a professional print from Jeff that I can put on my walls, to share that story, to draw others into this food for hungry souls. In many ways, Jeff's photography is an apologetic: showing the world what God is like with pictures, light, and space. Your gift would be a simple way to see a profound thing happen.

People often ask where are the artists today speaking into our culture? They ask, where are the fresh voices our world needs to hear? Jeff Lefever is among those unsung fresh voices. In a world of high-tech fundraising, mega-marketing, and media-hype, where the most “popular” voice gets to be heard over many of the other worthwhile voices, I'm glad to call Jeff a friend. He's uninterested in collecting money to serve him. He wants a community to help serve the work. He's interested in taking you along, to find meaning in the mundane and beauty in the brokenness. See his work at www.lefever.com.

Jeff has many other benefits for those who give. Check out his Kickstarter page at www.kickstarter.com and help him reach beyond his goal. And if you want a tax-deductible receipt, you can send your check to Jeff and ask him for one as his work is under a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. Write him for more info if you'd like to give that way (lefever@lefever.com).

As we all learn to "see" beauty better in this world, our Streets of Gold moments will grow more numerous and the meaning God has poured into this world more blessed. Our souls will grow sturdier and our commission to shine light into the world more creative.

What do typical Halloweeners celebrate this time of year?

2009-10-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

This was my question on my facebook wall a couple of days ago. Many responded and one added I should blog on it (Jodi, you know who you are!).

I'm rather perplexed by this "holiday" and have some ideas of my own. But, first, questions for you:

Is Halloween a "satanic" holiday? It its purpose to celebrate death, evil and suffering?
Does the origin of a holiday mean we celebrate it the same way today? Does it matter?
Is Halloween just an excuse to costume ourselves? Is there something wrong with this? Why this holiday?
What's with all the candy?
What has our culture turned Halloween into that it's become the second most lucrative holiday of the year? Is this holiday really just a marketing ploy by large corporations?
Do Americans "celebrate" Halloween? Or are we "celebrating" something else that we just happen to call "Halloween"?

Take any or all questions or add your own question... give me your thoughtful ideas as to what's going on here.

"Church"? ...A Way Forward!

2009-10-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

Part 1 of this discussion.
Part 2 of this discussion.

As we continue to discuss “church," many believe the organized structure we call “church” is lacking. Often, it causes people to feel disenfranchised, floating, and maybe even an outcast. Even people who love Jesus may struggle with the tension between being faithful to Jesus and being faithful to an organized “church” that constantly identifies itself as THE way the people of God commune.

Add to this the further complications of denominations and distinctions of various organizations. Also, the drive to be relevant to a demographic, to market and brand, to be friendly to outsiders, to tailor to families, to hit the general audience of infotainment who are not habituated toward stimulating cultural conversation and intellectual stretching. The mix becomes more complicated and the way forward less clear.

We cannot just wipe the slate clean and start over. The 19^th century proved that becomes a hotbed of cults and strange new “organizations,” usually creating more faction than unity.

However, we can step back and get a bigger picture, allow for the various expressions of the “church” and then give ourselves the freedom to be responsible for ourselves without decrying that some people don’t like “church.” We have to be okay with their leaving the “church” is not a bad thing. If denominations dwindle their influence and power, if fewer “churches” are being planted, we have to be okay with that not being a bad thing. If our friends, family, or children do not want to be affiliated with “church,” we have to be okay with that not being a bad thing.

Where do we step back? Some have spoken for the need to be Scriptural and not just cater to our frustrations. Duly noted. The way forward must coincide with God’s larger story as revealed through Scripture. Some have spoken that we need to be relevant to today’s needs. Also duly noted. The Scripture gives plenty of space for cultural context, not requiring we all wear togas, eat kosher, and quote Plato before we can engage healthy spirituality.

So what is “church”? I raise the question this way because unless we know what we are, we cannot proceed forward. And I think this is part of the identity that has been lost, like the guy who wanted to start a company to make chocolate and got so involved in accounting and marketing he forgot his love for chocolate.

It is important when we look up the meaning of “church” in the Scripture, we don’t just see how Strong’s defines “ekklesia” in Greek. We have to note how this word is used in different contexts. For example, “church” cannot mean the building on the corner when mentioned in Matthew 18 as a place for discipline. There was no “church” of that kind. So we have to wonder at what Jesus is referring to and if the same meaning can be brought forward. Or take Acts 7 when Stephen talks about the people of Israel at Sinai. The KJV actually translates them as the “church” of Israel. Other translations call it the “assembly” of Israel. This also is not the building on the corner as we know it.

“Assembly” is the plain definition of “church.” And, throughout the Scripture, it seems to refer to either a local gathering or the identity of a larger group of people. You might say you have an assembly in Ephesus or an assembly on the earth. The assembly of Ephesus is part of the assembly on earth. When we say “church” it has these different meanings depending on where you stand, though they are tightly connected as a concept for people under the same banner.

Another thing to note about “ekklesia” in the New Testament is how it is used in the Greek Old Testament. In the Old Testament it refers to the “Assembly of Israel.” In fact, the Hebrew word behind “ekklesia” is the word “kahal” which is the “House or Commonwealth of Israel.”

The important link for us to consider (and this is the part that many people refuse to entertain) is that the New Testament was written by Jews who wrote with Hebrew concepts behind their word choices. So when they say “ekklesia,” they are thinking of the same way they use “ekklesia” as Jews. They aren’t creating a new concept. To the New Testament writers, “Ekklesia” is the “House of Israel.” As one Jewish scholar notes, “There is no ‘church’ in the Scripture!” He, of course, means no “church” as we usually define it. The identity of believers of the God of Israel are part of the House of Israel. Read Romans 9-11 and see how Gentiles are grafted into the Jewish story. If we really want to be organic and “big picture” we have to cast our identity in with Israel for there is no other identity for the people of God but through them and their Messiah, Jesus.

Okay, that’s big picture. The “church” wasn’t invented 2000 years ago. It was created and chosen by God. Beginning with Abraham, the nations are being reconciled to God through Abraham’s people and all who will be part of that story.

That big picture, if we really sit in it, will affect everything else we think about theology, our identity, and our purpose. The Catholic Church believed (and still does) that the Jews are replaced by Christians, hence all the Jewish temple imagery imported into cathedrals. The Temple has been rebuilt, complete with sacrifice on the alter at every Mass. The Reformers also carried this idea forward, believing they replaced the Jews. Notice how many reformed theologians and preachers (some of whom are a household name for church-folk) will quote the Old Testament and replace “Israel” with their own view of “church” as inheritors of promise. A variety of Protestant churches still call the front of their church the “alter” and have “alter calls” as the “mercy seat.” This is all Temple talk as if something in our church and our gathering has replaced God’s real Temple and the Jewish people.

I do not believe the Gentile church has replaced the Jews. I think we're part of them as younger siblings. This is how we are very different from the Abrahamic faith of Islam which continues the replacement tradition, replacing the Jews, then the Christians. Rather, the Christian story is the Jewish story. It's one story.

If I had one guess why today’s “churches” are covered in criticism, it is because God is moving among us. He’s gently pointing out that our idea of church has missed the larger picture of his work in the world. Until we see Israel as the center people of the story, we will miss what is going on. While this may raise just as many questions as it answers, we have to press forward. The fragmentation of “church” as we know it, may not be a bad thing.

So what about that building on the corner? This has been the larger puzzle for me. I can’t say that I’m totally confident in my view on this yet. I haven’t heard others talk about it, so that always leaves me cautious. However, this won’t be the first time I’ve stumbled on some ideas and found out later that it was a clearer path.

The building on the corner we affectionately call “church” is actually a community center. Just as my little town of Steamboat has a community center, so the “church” in Steamboat has a variety of community centers. These centers have names like “Baptist,” “Methodist,” “Christian” in the titles. But they are not the church. The church is believers in the Messiah of Israel who are part of the House of Israel.

These believers create all sorts of community benefits: community centers (formerly called “churches”), hospitals, universities, shelters, pregnancy care clinics, non-profits, etc. When believers want to create a building in which to meet, that is their choice. The sad part is when people feel guilted into going to the community center every week to be part of “church.”

This is where I differ from many church critics. I do not want us to abolish community centers (formerly called “churches”). If people want to run them as a place to meet others, for non-believers to investigate biblical questions, for weddings and funerals, for therapy, then that is their prerogative. I don’t see any Biblical reason why this should not be so.

Many may agree with this and find this a normal way to think about the building organization. But I invite you to watch your language and see how you speak about the community center. Do you call it the “Lord’s house?” Do you call it the place of worship? Do you speak of going to the center as “going to church”? Are you frustrated when the numbers and down which triggers a feeling that fewer people love God today? These are all evidence that we really have identified the church as the organization on the corner.

I find it interesting when Paul speaks of the church in Ephesus. Think of the House of Israel in Ephesus, the gentiles included. Think of the people assembling together, in homes, or however they gathered to worship and share. While people together will organize, this does not mean people together automatically become an “organization” as we see it today. This wasn’t an organization with large offerings for the local community centers. This wasn’t an organization complete with pastors, elders, deacons in every gathering running the show. Each assembly may well not have had their own elders, as each assembly may not be that large or may have people coming and going to different gatherings around the town.

This may be why many people feeling more connected through their coworkers are their work, through coffee shop conversations, through informal get-togethers with friends. It may be that we are being a community by living in community. The community center called “church” moves away from the center of our attention to the periphery. Just like there is more to Steamboat than our community center, so most of our identity as God’s community needs to take place outside of any community center, indeed, even without one.

So where to the people God gifts with being pastor/teachers, elders, deacons, etc, fit in? I’m still unsure if these are “offices” as we use the term today. They may just be recognized gifted people just as the Jews saw their elders, teachers, and servants (the same titles of appointment are used for those who assisted Moses). They assist the larger church, sitting at the gates with the other Jewish elders, likely going to differing gatherings and participating in a larger community. I believe elders were over the whole city of people, not just over one street corner as we have it today. Notice when Paul commissions the elders of Ephesus in Acts; he doesn’t commission them to their local gatherings but over the “church of God,” the House of Israel in the area. Imagine that being the case today, where elders weren’t limited to a board of directors in a community center, were not “professional” ministers, but were considered watchdogs against abuse and harmful ideas in the larger body.

I can really see how positions of leadership in this kind of setting safeguards against the narcissism we see in many leaders today. They would be recognized by the people rather than appointed by a few. And if people didn’t see them as elders without the qualifications Paul lists in Timothy, then their authority would be unrecognized. It would be the people of the House of Israel who would recognize them, not the institution that put them on payroll.

What about membership? Membership means you’re part of the House of Israel. You can make a membership at the community center, just like you can if you started a Christian Golf Club. But the Scripture doesn’t speak of membership in those terms. It is always being a “member” of the organic body of Israel with the Jewish Messiah as the Head. Many members, one Body, with Jesus as the Head.

What about the disenfranchised people who struggle over leaving their community center and painfully believe they are leaving the “church”? We pray for them. We get involved in their lives. We do not pretend the community center is what unites us. We might even join them as they seek to implement the faith in fresh ways. And we start taking responsibility for ourselves with a bigger picture of who we are as the people of God.

Perhaps this could well answer Christian Smith’s call to adjust “church” for emerging adults, as he talked about in a recent interview.

"Lost in Translation" interview with Christian Smith,

Many churches are set up to cater to married couples with children. This is a well-known fact. And they may try to do something for teens and emerging adults. But trying to be more conscious and intentional about the language they use, the programs they offer, so those who are not married and don't have children are not sidelined—that's a start. But it probably will require more creative thinking about context—I don't even want to say programs—but ways to form communities and places where people can connect and work out common interests beyond the standard worship service and Sunday school.

I like his reference to "context." Yes, on my view, we need to place our whole paradigm within a different context.

I could be way off. I need to be convinced that I'm not. If this larger vision is what God is up to, reminding his people that they are not disconnected from the House of Israel, preparing the world for Messiah’s return, are we willing to step away from our religious loyalty to the community center and consider the wilder following of the Spirit in the broader House of God? Are we willing to gathering however the Spirit leads us in unity, engaging in spiritual growth, intelligent conversation, prayer, sharing, song, and teaching one another?

"Church"? ... unraveling the crisis

2009-09-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

Continuing the theme of the previous post, I’ve appreciated several observations that I want to summarize.

1) Many Christians are discouraged with “church,” not just any "church," but “church” in general, not only as irrelevant but unbiblical.

2) Pastors and elders tend to blame the lazy and complaining people in the congregation for many of these problems. These problems would be sorted out if people were hard-working, more submissive to leadership, and knew the Bible.
3) Some of these complaints are surface issues, symptoms of a deeper problem. These symptoms include, but are not limited to,

a general unfriendliness of fellow Christians in large group settings,
passivity, the masses listening to the few,
content control,
church is an entertainment production to attract a larger attendance,
the church mimics popular culture with appeal to instant gratification,
and an authoritarian approach where those at the top tell those under them what to think and believe without equipping them with good reasons or practice.

3) Some of the complaints are systematic, including, but not limited to,

a strict hierarchy (senior pastor at top, etc) of the church creates a more passive approach from the people,
the institution tends to focus on abstract beliefs and programs rather than relationships,
denomination create an environment unwilling to identity with other “churches,”
church services, pastoral “vision” and programs tend to leave out how the Spirit moves among a people with the Messiah as the real head,
leadership caters more to the masses than to individuals,
our evangelical churches overemphasis on Paul’s letters to the exclusion of the gospels and Old Testament.

What I want us to consider in this post as we search for the root of this issue (and I do believe some of the root is clearly knowable and that changes can be made) is to consider that many people EXPECT more out of the “church” (as we know it) than it seems able to give. Likewise, the “church” (as we know it), may be promising more than it can deliver. I feel these assumptions are themselves indicators of something deeper that needs definition.

We may find some helpful perspective in identifying what the “church” IS in general. The previous comments have made a distinction made between the people and the institution. This is an important distinction if we're to unravel the larger crisis we see today.

Is the church both of them?
Is the organizing of a people an automatic institution as we know it?
Have we historically been thinking of the “offices” “format,” “government,” “membership” qualities of the institution in the right way (do we automatically use the verses to justify the positions and formats we have at our “church”?),
Do we identify ourselves more closely with the people or the institution?
Do we identify ourselves along denominational lines and part of a pastor’s flock OR do we more automatically identify ourselves with all Jesus followers in our town?
Does the "way we've always done it" cloud our reading of Scripture for what it really says?
Is there a new way to think about this distinction between people and institution we haven’t thought of before?

And, most importantly, are we in a posture of humility, willing to change should we need to?

Continued on next post.

What Exactly is "Church"?

2009-09-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

We've all witnessed the onslaught of recent publishing. We've read the articles that speak to so many people leaving church. We've seen the books by people disillusioned with church. We're heard the statistics decrying that most students won't even attend church by the time they are out of college. Many leaders are fretting over the dropped attendance as an indication of the spiritual maturity of the Christian population.

What exactly is going on here? Why are people discouraged with church? What is church that it isn't meeting people's needs? What is it about church that seems to be missing the point?

Many surface features come to mind: music, preaching, shifting more liberal or more conservative, trendy, laziness, etc. But there must be something more. Is there something intrinsic to today's church that repels so many people who follow Jesus (and those who don't!)?

I really want to know some what you're observing where you are? What are you feeling about church that troubles you? What are people talking about? Have you heard some important insights? What is "church" and what should we do about it? Throw them into the comment section and let's discuss!

Continued on next post.

Beyond the Border: The Mystery of Mystery

2009-09-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

When I began to take my faith serious in my late teens, few things made me feel more alone among God’s so-called people than when my Christian community discouraged me from testing and pressing into my faith. They would say, “Don’t think too much!” or in more disguised positive ways like, “You just have to take it by faith,” or in ways that made me feel like I had a disease like, “Man, you’re deep!” Pressing into the so-called “deeper” things with thoughtful reflection was my life’s blood. If life itself was a meaningful as I sensed that it was, I couldn’t settle for pat answers, party-lines, and the insistent simpleness of the mob who fail to risk their reputation for freedom.

That was how I felt then, needing to push aside systems and people, including the church, in order to find light and truth. My quest continues. But the irresistible gnawing at my soul in those early years was unbearable, a real darkness, a kind of hell. A recent Christianity Today article moved this theme in me, “Reveling in the Mystery.” D.H. Williams, professor at Baylor College, explores the mystery of God. He writes, “As a result, Christianity has struggled since the 3rd century to avoid what theologian Jaroslav Pelikan called a "tyranny of epistemology" in its understanding of God and God's revelation to us. Simply put, this tyranny occurs when Christians think of God as a great field of investigation, a problem to be solved.” I can affirm that some have treated God as a problem to be solved. Wrap God up in a pretty box with a bow on top and call it “Christianity.” In reality, these are seeking merely propositions about God, in part, because the more you know the more you can control. It is a tyranny both of the knower and for those around him. I find that people in this position are often insecure and afraid and need our patience.

Many in the Emergent movement have decried the tyranny of epistemology, sometimes overstating exactly what the tyranny is out of their own insecurity, but still bearing at the heart of it an insistence that when we act as though we have the special corner on truth, all parsed and dissected, we are actually farther than God in our arrogance than we ever were without our knowledge. In dissecting our theology too much, we something gets lost. The patient dies. I know some groups that denounced the Emergent church as heretical, yet I suspect that denouncement can only come from those who have both misunderstood as well as become tyrants themselves with a wooden view of God and the universe. Yet, the other spectrum is equally dangerous, that we can know very little and must revel in nebulous mystery if we’re going anywhere. Reveling in mystery can become wallowing in mystery. Some of the people of my growing up years were like this, taking “faith” to mean contentment in not knowing even basic ideas revealed to us by God—things that God seems very keen on us knowing.

Williams then takes the reader through several stages in the mystical journey of the Christian journey, drawn from Gregory of Nyssa who draws these ideas from Moses. The reading is very interesting, so I recommend going through the article (one of the better ones by CT). While I’m unsure of Gregory’s hermeneutic that Moses life is an outline for our own, I do think many of the mystical experiences in this article are common to those who press into God, bringing all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

In reading the article, I wondered how we can explain mystery more clearly, at least to me. What exactly is mystery? Where does mystery begin?

Paul often talks about the "mystery of time," by which he means things we did not know and now do know. Jesus the Messiah being one such example of a revealed mystery. We did not know God would send THIS kind of Messiah! This is one of the pleasures of surprise in education: every day new knowledge comes to us. More mysteries revealed. With this kind of mystery, we go into the darkness of knowing that we don’t know. And, once illuminated, we now know.

Many of our questions in life are like this. We come to learn many things, just as the questioners Nicodemus and Thomas came to learn by simply asking their questions. And we continue to know as we grow. Like a child must have pureed vegetables, an adult gets to indulge in all the crispy pleasure of a ripened broccoli. We get to grow up in our knowledge too, taking in all that we are capable of. “When I became a man, I put away childish things.”

But there is another kind of mystery, one that is more interesting to me and more at the heart of this post. It is the "mystery of relationship." Mike Mason wrote the only marriage book I recommend for anyone serious about getting married called, “The Mystery of Marriage.” Marriage is a mystery, because marriage is relational. Unlike the mystery of education, where we grow to know more as we study, the mystery of relationships involves mysteries we may never know as we have no capacity to get into the mind of the other. As much as we can show courtesy to see things from another’s perspective, we can never get inside their skin.

This is true with God as well. He reveals things to us, but we only know him as we get to know him. Because he is Creator and we are creaturely, many things about him I may never know, but can only experience. I’ve heard the verse abused, “His ways are higher than our ways,” to mean that that God is indescribable, past understanding. But that’s not the context of Isaiah (55:8). God is referring to his love, that quality so broad and deep, that we hardly approach understanding how much he cares about his creation and to what ends he goes to be with humans and redeem them. Who knows what he will do next? Who knows what his full feelings are for me? Who knows how far he is inviting me up his mountain? That is mysterious indeed.

Paul was getting at this kind of mystery in Ephesians, when he wrote, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:17-19). Love is a mystery. It is only known, not through propositions, but through experience. Like a rainbow, you can see love, but you cannot bottle it.

This morning I listened to the bull elks bugling in the forest around our cabin. The bulls are collecting harems, their mistresses of the rut. Their trumpeting bugle echoes off the canyon walls, inciting fights from other bulls and inviting cow elks to their bedroom chambers.

I hike into the 100 acres of aspen, pine, and gamble oak that we affectionately call the “White Woods”. I see the sign, the scraped trees, the scat on the ground. I smell the musk in the air. I even walked up on a bull last week. Within my boundaries, I can explore what the elk are doing, see the spike following the bull, see the cow a hundred yards to the south making her approach.

I think of the boundaries as the knowledge we grow into. And while there is still much to know, knowledge is available to me. Yet what goes on outside my boundaries? I can still hear bugling. But I cannot explore it. I cannot see the clashing of antlers between two mature bulls. I cannot count the number of heads in the herds. My boundaries are not limitless. Beyond my borders, mystery comes to me in sounds and hints, enough for my imagination to marvel at what lies beyond.

Most of each person lies beyond our borders: My wife, my friends, God, and even myself. I am closer to myself than anyone else in existence, yet I have depths I do not understand. My self-knowledge is limited. I gain some tools through therapy, unpacking my past, letting the Spirit search me, knowing myself and my desires, but I see a deep, dark well within me, one that I will never fully know. I explore what I can until I hit the border when I can go no further. I can grow in virtue, but it will require more than willpower to change myself. If I’m mysterious to me, if I have parts inaccessible by my own faculties, then all I can do is hear the faintest hints of who I am and what lies beneath and let my imagination marvel. “I am fearfully made.”

The mystery of mystery is that God’s generosity puts us in a world too big for us, inviting us to know all we can and marvel in what is beyond. We do this generosity a disservice when we use “mystery” to be lazy, as an excuse from pushing into love because our souls are weak and undisciplined. Only a mind awake takes the greatest pleasures in what is unknowable because it it knows its own limits, seeing mystery not as a hindrance nor as fearful, but a place filled with God’s love unfolding colors I can only dare to dream about.

One day we will see God’s face and I pray that we recognize it. Perhaps the only way forward is to take what God has revealed, press into its meaning as much as we can, and then allow the mysteries that lie beyond the border continue to sound off.

When America was Humble

2009-09-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

My cousin sent me this article today: High-Five Nation. The writer, David Brooks, reflects back on an earlier page in American culture--the day WW2 ended. Americans were sober, grateful, humble. I was encouraged to see a better time in American sentiment, when we didn't think we were the best, when we just did what we could to get the right things done within our legitimate power.

This article invigorated me again that when we are humble, we are great. In light of the last post on our fear-mongering politics, this is a more positive attitude forward than insisting our status quo is the "right" and only way, using humility rather than majority power and slippery rhetoric to move forward.

Thoughts on 9/11 - Are we free?

2009-09-11T04:23:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in the kitchen of my soon-to-be fiance's house in California... strangely enough I was living there, but that's another story. (Eleven days later I would propose.) It was around 7am.

At the kitchen table on September 11, 2001, I was eating cereal (maybe with some toast), when Jonalyn's grandmother stepped in from next door. "You won't have heard about this yet, but the World Trade Center has been attacked." She elaborated on what happened.

Any dramatic moment in our lives makes time slow, puts our sense on alert, our imagination spinning, "What does this mean?" We didn't know. Two wars later, we may still not know.

We went to class. Jonalyn and I had the same class that morning on epistemology. How do you know what you know? Do you know what you know? What if we're deceived and think we know but we only grasp to something false and hence do not know what we thought we knew? That's the weird mind-bending stuff of epistemology. That was our first class that day. Fitting.

Our professor paused and asked the class what they thought of the events of the morning in NY. Many wanted to attack the perpetrators immediately (most of the students in the class were male, interestingly). Though the criminals were all dead and bound to no sovereign nation of origin, my fellow students were ready to shoot into the dark. I wasn't ready to attack. I didn't know what to do.

I had lunch with that same professor that day. Chinese food, I think. He took an interest in me. Normal guy behind all that brain. That's when I caught the first images of what happened in NY. The television at the entrance of the restaurant replayed footage of the towers disintegrating like sand.

Just 21 months after the new millennium was SUPPOSED to be defined by Y2K, the world was redefined by primitive sabotage.

The world fixed its attention in this new era on hostiles. We allowed ourselves to be defined, not by what we love, but by what we fear.

And perhaps that is what has changed the American landscape most dramatically. It wasn't being struck on native turf, but by how we responded and continue to respond as people who insist we have our fate in our hands and must manipulate to a predefined "American way" at all costs. All costs.

Most of history learns to live with such tragedy and are deepened by it. Nobody likes it, but then the better way to live is to not fear being afraid of it.

I'm reminded of this "American way" every time I air travel. Every time I go through security, wearing shoes to wear that slip on and off easily, pants that don't require a belt, the pack that slides a laptop in and out in a flash, the empty water bottle to fill up in the terminal, the to be without toiletries should a plane be delayed, the misfortune of packing a week of clothing into a carry-on.

Every security point, every TSA worker that looks like they've been on shift with grumpy people one hour too long, every report in the terminals that the security alert that day is "orange" (it is always ORANGE!... it is so typically orange that the meaning of orange has worn on... why not just tell people to be alert instead of watering down the coloring system, giving us evidence that even when we're under the scary color orange, life is normal?). All of this because we fear our enemies, all enforced by politicians who do not bear such inconveniences, making laws for the unsafe little people in our land, because we know our lawmakers are always safe, right?

And so the fear continues. Terrorists yesterday. Environment and health care today. We continue to be motivated, not by what we love, but by what we fear. We are afraid life will be dramatically altered if we don't cash in our clunkers (a 'rescue' with a very misleading name), not wanting to preserve the earth because we love it, but because we fear our lifestyle will be changed.

Nobody is talking about reducing urban centers that choke out nature and community. I continue to see fancy commercials about reducing waste and saving the earth, only to see images and messages for these campaigns coming from urban centers where the earth has been demolished and people lack knowledge of farming, forest, fresh air, where "conveniences" rule the day, and anonymity is an option. We crave the sophistication of the city, women in their vulnerable high heals, men in their ties, none of which is very suitable to actually living in nature, all the dress code of a location where we pretend we are safe, where our ties won't get caught on trees, where our heals will not require we know how to run. We've created a false world and now we want to preserve it.

The same can be said for the economy... for all we see in the media, we're willing to sell our souls to let the government bail us out so our economy can grow. We're willing to pick on minorities (our politicians appeal to the majority by using derogatory words for the minority, like "the rich" or "wealthy") to ease our lives--much like we did with the minority in the years of slavery. Is that all we are, economic animals, scroungers? We need the economy to grow because we fear our enemies will outpace us, grow stronger than us, demolish us. A legitimate fear? Perhaps. But does it steal our freedom to fight it?

And then health care, with a myriad of voices all wanting reform (yes, let's reform it! Let's stop suing doctors for not being shamans and not raising the dead so that their insurance premiums can go down so we can pay decent prices!)... but nobody can agree with what reform we want or need. One hundred years ago, nobody had health care. We had less a problem with death because we knew life was more than the body. Today's technology promises we can alleviate our fears of sickness so that we can.... wait, what exactly do we plan to do with all our health and life? Oh, yes, continue to live in fear over the environment, economy, and some rogues.

Or we can be free. As William Stuntz has pointed out, "Some might wish for an American future free of culture wars. I don't. I think these battles are worth fighting, but I do wish for good wars, the kind [Martin Luther] King fought, the kind in which we love our enemies and fight for the chance to embrace them." May the things we live for today be things worthy of our humanity, free of fear, reaching forward into what is hearty and good.

Edit 9/15: this article I think speaks into our present situation... allowing fear to rob of us freedom, wanting immediate "change" to overhaul our evils, surrendering our thoughtfulness to "experts," and our resources to a few at the top.

Is Apologetics Relevant? (+ free book!)

2009-08-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

Some of you know Jonalyn and I contributed essays to Apologetics for a New Generation, edited by Sean McDowell. Sean wanted to give a justification for apologetics in a postmodern world as well as stave off detractors who think of apologetics as merely a one-dimensional answering machine.

Today (Aug 25), Sean will be on ConversantLife.com with Brett Kunkle (another essay contributor in the book) discussing the role of apologetics today. This live conversation will also include live questions, which you can submit while you listen.

Airtime will be from 10-11am Pacific time. So you can listen while you study, listen at your computer while you work, or later download it for podcast. Those who listen will get the opportunity to download the full book, Apologetics for a New Generation, for free. Our essays alone are worth the download! :)

Here's the link: http://www.conversantlife.com/theaword (The "A" Word)

How Honest Are You? A reflection-review on Scott Peck's _People of the Lie_

2009-06-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

Going to a therapist takes great courage, says M. Scott Peck. He adds that exploring our souls through therapy is deeply human, a unique quality among creatures. But therapy fails to work for everyone; it only works for those who want to get better.

Honesty is necessary for anyone serious with soul formation, Jesus changing us with his love and truth. Therapy assists us in that. If you believe you have the honesty but not yet the courage to visit a therapist or do not believe plopping down a decent sum for an hour of their time each week, then I have a book for you.

People of the Lie, by psychotherapist M. Scott Peck, has joined my top ten list. Every page pushed me, carried me forward, probed me with self-examining questions (do I really want truth?), helped me understand others and notice excuses and scapegoating ("the genesis of human evil" - 74). I better understand what sin looks like and why the modern church struggles to see transformation beyond moral behavior happening in the pews.

Be warned. If you’re not willing to explore your soul, this book can make you a worse person, a better hider. I agree with C. S. Lewis when he says (I paraphrase), truth will either make you better or worse; of all bad men religious bad men are the worst; of all creatures, the most demonic is the one who stood in the immediate presence of God (from Reflections on the Psalms). I know people who need this book for their own recovery; but I wouldn’t recommend it to them if I do not perceive a willingness to let light shine in. For "the pretense of the evil [person] is designed at least as much to deceive themselves as others." (106) This book will be a real hope, when they are ready. But not before.

For those who are ready, expect morsels on every page. Peck formats his book in conversations, followed by analysis. Both captivate the reader as Peck writes satisfyingly well. His conversations peek into the psychotherapist’s room, talking with patients, asking questions, giving evaluations. Through the candid dialog, you see the patient’s hang-ups, hear how Peck sees or feels befuddled by an issue, how the patients deliberately make excuses, hide, ignore, protest, put up defenses in their words or their posture. Through the book, the author grows as he weighs problems and soberly estimates his own abilities.

Though complex stories of hiding human evil form the backbone of the book, Peck starts with a couple of simpler one to give the reader eyes to see evil. For example: parents give their son a gun for Christmas and don’t understand why he’s depressed. On evaluation, Peck discovers the older brother committed suicide with this same gun. When Peck questions the parents, they thought it odd the gift would cause a problem and protested that with their lack of money, the gun was a perfect, coveted gift for a boy his age. But it is very likely, Peck replies, they are sending their son a message that they’d like him to use the gun on himself, just as his brother did. They continue the scapegoating that they are uneducated, blue-collar, cannot be expected to know these kinds of nuances...

That story is a clear sign of something evil in the parents, a deliberate ignorance, though they seem typical friendly people when you meet them.

Peck believes more evil people live outside of prison than in prison. In fact, most in jail are not truly evil people. They acted out of neurosis or tough times. But evil people are deliberate hiders, long-term, masquerading in law firms, churches, politics, and local supermarkets.

Evil often stems from parenting. Children become victims that have an opportunity to break out or remain in the web of deceit. One story unfolded of a woman and her very co-dependent, passive-aggressive mother. The mother craftily shaped her own identity with her daughter's. The mother resented the father and had frequent sexual liaisons. The daughter learned to do the same and even compared notes with her mother. They both stood against her father. As the years passed, the daughter discovered her father wasn’t such a bad guy as she was brought up to believe. And whenever she tried to separate from her mother, her mother would mischievously find a way to suck her back in (you have to read the dialogue to see how these things play out in real life).

A fascinating part of the story is this woman’s phobia spiders. She transferred her fear of her mother to spiders, never wanting to be honest about her mother, refusing to blame her for being evil, insisting other reasons explain why she sits in the therapists chair. The spiders represented the feeling of being trapped, stuck, a victim sucked of blood. As she grew toward heath, she admitted that her fear of spiders was her emotional response to her feelings toward her mother.

That related to my own life as I've worked to unpack the story. I have a phobia, not of spiders, but of needles. I’m the worst case I know of. I don’t pass out: I go into panic attacks, low blood pressure, heavy sweats. This happens at movies, doctor's waiting rooms, dentists chairs. I’ve even had a dentist poised to call the ambulance (I know, crazy, huh?). I pondered the cause of my transference to this irrational phobia. I think I found it. I’m still experimenting. I’ve shared my theory with my own therapist and she affirmed it. But time will tell as I heal from evil done to my soul, evil that I blamed myself for as a child instead of blaming the perpetrator. Children are prone to self-blame, I’m learning, and that goes very deep.

"Whenever there is evil, there's a lie around." (135) Lies that cover up, paint a rosier picture, create pretense, refuse to disclose certain truths. While all lies are evil, not all liars are evil people. They slowly grow evil as they continue to lie. It is possible to have a vice and then become your vice. The question for us is not whether or not Satan, the Father of Lies, has a finger in our lives. The question is how much and what we are doing about it? The older we get the more calcified we can become, the further we grow away from truth, light, and love when we are unwilling to face our problems, the lies we insulate around us to protect us from having to face our spouses, our children, our parents, our belief systems, ourselves.

Peck gradually leads the reader to the most severe kinds of evil: the demonic. As the book begins, he disbelieves in the devil. But through analysis, he bumped into two particular cases of demon possession, where Satan took residence in a person.

The demonic is not another form of schizophrenia, for schizophrenia is a disorder where the multiple personalities do not know one another. For the demonically possessed, the patient does know this other personality that traps the patient, suffocating them within.

Peck describes pieces of two different exorcisms in which he participated. He notes consistencies these demonic personalities had and the lies they spewed (interestingly , some of the lies are ones that we often hear praised in spiritual conversations). I read part of this section before sleep one evening and I dreamed bizarre pictures filled with fear. I don’t recommend reading that section at night. But for all that, I came out the other side of that chapter very encouraged, not only with the limitations of Satan’s power in the physical world, but also with the power of humans individuals who love. We are made in the image of God, after all.

Peck includes a perspective-shifting chapter on “group evil” where he describes how institutions can make us all culpable of certain crimes. This chapter validated thoughts I've about huge institutions, the craftiness of power-brokering in the name of virtue, the rhetoric to disguise real intentions. The larger the institution, the easier evil can hide and wreak havoc, including governments and churches.

For example, we follow orders and few know who is ultimately responsible. Even our tax money goes toward evil things, making everyone guilty of some kinds of evil at some level. The ones at the top, generals, presidents, and CEOs, are not the ones who pull the trigger on the ground. Foot soldiers and employees do that. Citizens foot the bill. Everyone does as they are told, blind to the consequences up and down the chain.

The last chapter of the book, on love, is worth the price of the book. The impact of the final section means more when you read the book all the way through.

I disagree with some aspects of Peck’s theological views, like his view that Satan will have a chance at the end of history to make a choice of redemption. But despite theological disagreements, his view of love and evil are not easily dismissed and are well worth your attention.

The way out of evil? Love, which begins with noting the evil within yourself and facing it, which sometimes means therapy. Love is a light that will change the direction of evil. Only the love of individuals can sacrificially absorb evil and set others free. This is the love modeled by Jesus, the love he gives us, the love his Spirit empowers in us. "People can deliberately allow themselves to be pierced by evil of others...to even be killed in some sense and yet still survive and not succumb. Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world." (269). Facing evil, though painful, is liberating, cleansing, a relief for everyone who wants to be whole.

Peck is a huge proponent of appropriate humanness. I wish he were alive so I could thank him for shining the light of love and truth and letting me know just how far the love of God goes.

A Very Serious Look at Reductive Science

2009-04-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

Science is usually defined as the study of material things.

Reductive science is the study of material things that add on the assumption that material things can explain everything else in the universe. Simple examples: our search for God is merely a problem with our parents; love is just a chemical in the brain; beauty is merely a pleasurable experience; free will is only an illusion--in reality it is the result of randomly bouncing atoms making decisions for you; the meaning of relationships is only the drive to procreate; and so on...

What happens when someone challenges that reductive conclusions are also reductive? Here John Cleese gives us a look.

Have a look and let me know your insights!

Jesus as a Jew?

2009-04-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

When you hear the name, "Jesus" what image comes into your mind? I'm not talking about the image you conjure up after you think what the right answer would be. I'm talking about the immediate image that floats on the screen of your mind. Let me know and let's talk about it.

Theological historian, Oskar Skarsaune puts it like this,

We may like to think that nowadays Christians in general and Bible scholars in particular have repudiated and surrendered [an] anti-Jewish and unhistorical "unJewing" of Jesus. But it gives us food for thought to hear a rabbi say, "I have seen pictures and sculptures of Jesus in all kinds of dress and color of skin: as a blond Scandinavian, as a Latin American, as a black African, even as a Chinese. I believe there is only one version of Jesus I have never seen: I have never seen him dressed as a Jew, prayer-shawl, phylacteries and all." When you come to think of it...

Government Soul: Taxing Generosity - 3

2009-03-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

The last two days, I've been discussing some of the tax hikes the Obama administration is planning, particularly those aimed at donations to non-profits (and I run a non-profit). What has concerned me most, however is the rhetoric that is geared to gain support from people unfamiliar with the real issues. This not only hurts the soul of our culture but the souls of those playing word games.

Apparently Washington has been reading my blog.... :) ... because this article was found on page 3 of the Wall Street Journal, "White House Rethinks Tax Hikes."

Even congressional members of the Democratic Party are giving resistence, including the top tax writer who is chairman of the Finance Committee. You can read the article for the questions being raised.

Two comments stood out to me. One was by Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner when he said the tax proposals "affects only about 1.2% of taxpayers." Yet, that's not the point at all. This is still stuck in political spin. It's not about how many taxpayers are affected, it's about how many non-profits are affected. That 1.2% represent a large part of giving, which Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy, said would have been hit over the last two years with nearly $4B in losses to non-profits. You have to compare apples to apples to see real impacts.

Geithner also said that the tax proposal would only have a "modest negative impact." How does he know? Nobody knows until the taxes are enacted, when government grows and charities shrink.

The other thing that stood out to me represented the real kind of change America has been wanting. It came from Democratic Senator, Maria Cantwell. "Why not look at a broader approach to tax policy, [rather] than coming in with this proposed change to marginal rates?"

Tell it like it is, sister!

THAT is the CHANGE America needs right now. Creativity and real reform, cleaning up the 66,000 pages of tax law we currently have! We do not need some easy slap on tax rate hike that doesn't clean up Washington nor help anyone else. That'll help a lot of souls, including Washington's.

Government Soul: Taxing Generosity - 2

2009-03-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I mentioned the new tax proposals of the Obama administration, targeting particularly those who make over $200k. I want to reflect today on a comment made by Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget that appears to be as intentionally deceptive in this article. Excerpt:

Thursday, the White House defended Mr. Obama's proposal, saying that the wealthy people it would affect would still have significant deductions from charitable contributions.
On a $10,000 donation, a family in the 15% tax bracket would save $1,500 in taxes, but wealthier taxpayers would save more. If philanthropist Bill Gates makes that same contribution -- without the proposed limits -- he would save $3,500 in his taxes, said Peter Orszag, director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

"All we're saying is we think Bill Gates should get a $2,800 tax break -- still a lot larger than a middle-income family -- rather than the $3,500 one," Mr. Orszag said.

This is intetionally deceptive for two main reasons. 1) The average reader will see these numbers and get the impression that the "wealthy" already get an unfair larger tax break over the "middle-income family." 2) What Orszag calls a "tax break," isn't a "tax break."

The idea behind tax-deductions through generosity is so that if you decide to forgoe income in order to help an IRS approved non-profit organization, then you are not taxed for that income. It makes sense: why be taxed for monies you don't keep or use for yourself? Why tax money you voluntarily do not claim as your own?

Because you are not taxed on money you give away, this is not a "tax break" at all. You don't get any special tax advantage for giving away money. It's as if you didn't have the money to begin with, it doesn't go into your savings. You get no personal benefit from it whatsoever. When you donate money, the money is gone, period. You simply are not taxed for money you hand out to IRS approved organizations.

Let's suppose two people made $100k each. Using the illustration of Orszag, one is in the 15% tax bracket and another in the 35% tax bracket. If neither of them gave money away, the first would be left with $85k after taxes. The second with $65k after taxes. You can clearly see who is left with the most money. The middle-income earner, dollar for dollar, takes more money home.

Orszag said that the 35% tax bracket gets a bigger "tax break" than the 15% tax bracket. But that's he's basing his "tax break" language on a higher tax bracket which pays more taxes already. Then he shows two people donating the same amount of money (which is unfair comparson, because people who make more, donate a higher percentage of their income). Then, he converts the percentages into real numbers (which is a misleading apples/orange comparison). These numbers are all corelated to the tax bracket, not to real number tax breaks. Any one would rather be in the 15% tax bracket than the 35% tax bracket and take the lesser "tax break." Calling it a "tax break" is intentionally deceiving to get people to ignorantly favor his point of view.

If the "wealthy" automatically got a $3500 tax break and the middle-income family a $1,500 tax break, that would be an unjust oucry. Everyone should get the same real number tax breaks. But the system isn't based on real numbers, but on percentages. The percentages are always higher on the "wealthy." When converted to real numbers, the "wealthy" always have higher numbers when it comes to paying taxes as well as their "tax breaks" because that's what percentages do!

I hope you're still tracking with me. Many people don't see the deception in the rhetoric because many people get confused with number-talk. But I believe you can get this... just review it (or ask a question) if it seems unclear or difficult.

But let's move to the next level. Obama's admin wants to reduce the amount of tax deduction a "wealthy" person can make from 35% to 28%. Currently, if someone is generous, he doesn't have to pay taxes for being generous. But on Obama's new plan, he does have to pay taxes for being generous.

Let's look at our scenario again. Two people have $100k each. One in the 15% tax bracket, the other in the 35% tax bracket. For the sake of discussion, let's say they both contributed all their money to a charity in 2009. On this scenario, both would walk away not paying any taxes. Why should they? They voluntarily gave up their income and have nothing for themelves.

But let's fastforward to Obama's plan. Both give all their income away. The person in the 15% tax bracket would walk away paying no taxes because he made no income. The person in the 35% tax bracket DOES pay taxes, even though he made no income! Why? Because Obama's new plan is even taxing the income that is given away to an IRS approved non-profit. This person in the 35% tax bracket, on Obama's plan, has to pay $7,000 in taxes on this $100k, even though he shows making no income (because he gave it all away). So now this person can only donate, roughly, $93,500 because he has to save the balance to pay the tax.

On this scenario, non-profits are shortchanged 7% and the generous person in the 35% tax bracket is required to pay taxes on money he doesn't show as income and does not keep for himself. Local non-profits who do not receive federal aid are hit hardest... theoretically, the federal government is removing resources from these non-profits (which is why many non-profits say this is the wrong tax-deduction to remove, especially in a hard economy... there are plenty of other loopholes that the mega-rich have setup to avoid high taxes that the $200k income earner cannot get.... but I digress).

But wait! When Obama raises the 35% tax bracket to 39.6% (as I understand the propsal), then non-profits are not shortchanged 7%, but nearly 12%! That they are comparing the 'tax break' to today's tax brackets and not to the tax brackets that are tied up with this 'tax break,' is also misleading.

Now go back and read Orszag's comments in light of this and how he confuses the reader with his numbers about a so-called "tax break." Does this sound odd to you? Why not just say it like it is? It's not reducing a tax break, as you don't get any benefit from the money you generously give. It's rather a program that says generous money must come from taxed money. Plain as that. It is a taxing on generosity.

The government is free to do this. And I must admit that over this past year, we probably donated more taxed money than non-taxed money (because many local needs are not related to an IRS-approved tax-deductible organization... like the hungry neighbor down the street or the teenager that needs counseling.)... we do our best to donate to needs, not based on whether we can write it off.

But while the government is free to do this, at least call it what it is. It is not reducing a huge "tax-break" for the wealthy. It isn't a tax-break at all. It is taxing donated money. Calling it a "tax-break" is, from my perspective, about as laughable as reducing the sentence on an innocent man and calling it "compassion."

For the sake of clarity, it isn't the taxing of generosity that bugs me most (though I run a non-profit and am not thrilled by the news). What bugs me is the deception and injustice and preying on people who don't understand the system, creating a happy populist or happy majority who march to the beat of the drum without understanding what is going on. If this is the best way forward, then be clear and plain. When deceptive words come into play (think Wormtongue), we should be suspicious that something more is going on.

As I do work for Soulation, I am aware that damaging the soul and being inappropriately human can happen at any level of life: rich or poor, healthy or sick, ivy-league or high-school dropout. We have a choices to be transparent and truthful; and choices to cloak our langauge to persuade people less informed (called, "lying").

When any public official misleads the public, this damages his own soul. And we should be concerned, at the end of the day, not only with the economy and poverty, with national security and public museums, with creation-care and energy independence, but also that those who lead and those who follow are not become people of the lie. Our politicians (and those who work for them) have souls too. And when they twist their souls to aid their money-goals, it is not creating the "change" for a better life for any of us.

Government Soul: Taxing Generosity

2009-03-03T07:28:00.000-08:00

I'm concerned for non-profits as we go into the Obama era. I understand the economic fix the USA is in right now: we all feel it. And I understand the need to remedy it. HOW we remedy it is up to the particular hired "experts" who have the power to push buttons.

While government is concerned about the needs of the poor (education, health), I've seen an unprecedented rise in justice work from religious groups, especially evangelicals. The poor are receiving aid and attention from every direction, including from the generous "wealthy" person. I'm very encouraged to see so much work by private citizens on the local level. This, to me, is the heartbeat of repairing many social evils in our world.

What does not receive attention so much from the government is soul-care and an answer to appropriate humanness from a religious (Christian) perspective. One one level we might say that a secular government may not find enough "experts" on their side to justify that a soul even exists...so why care for it? On another level if they did do this kind of work, they'd likely do it poorly. One reason I'm not in favor of public prayer in public schools is that it is likely children will learn horrible ideas about legitimate prayer. Better off letting students "feel" the secular vacuum than allow them to be misled that civil prayer fills it.

Obama's adminstration has some new tax strategies to help repair the deficit and "economy," all directed at people who make a little over $200k a year. It doesn't matter if $200k earners have a large or small family, living in high or low cost-of-living areas, or are already generous with their income to help people on the local level. It doesn't matter if they were responsible during this economic crisis and had practiced saving money rather than consumerism. Either way, the new tax strategy is to move money into the federal level to help with federal needs with the tools the feds have to decipher who needs help and who doesn't (after FEMA and Iraq, you can just for yourself how good these services will be), shouldered by hard working Americans who found success with their hands.

Regardless of how the government wants to tax, that isn't as much of the moral issue that concerns this post. What concerns this post is the rhetoric I'm reading, including disingenuous (intentionally misleading) comments. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal, page 4, has this article, "Charities Say Tax Changes Add to Pain."

Tomorrow, I will explain... but for now, share your own opinion...

Is authenticity enough? : on celebrity and failure

2009-02-15T14:31:00.000-08:00

Deep down, don't we all believe that a bit of wild behavior--drinking, smoking, padding the expense account, skimming your taxes--has a salutary effect on human personality development? Isn't sowing one's wild oats a revered rite of passage for American youth?

Um.... Who says these attitudes should be normalized? In this instance it is Joe Queenan writing the cover article for the Weekend Journal in the Wall Street Journal, "In Praise of Transgressions."

I understand that Queenan is a satirist. In this article, it's thin. I actually think he believes what he's saying.

So do many today who believe experimentation that is harmful to one's self and to others should be a valid opportunity to explore. We "expect" teens to be reckless. We expect them to be uncultivated in virtue and class. And we expect our public servants to skim taxes. Apparently, one is never required to grow up.

In speaking to a high school classroom last Spring, the students raised the issue of swearing. Why were certain words considered off limits? Many of the kids in the class loved to razz authority, snigger, glance at each other with knowing looks that they were somehow superior to all this nonsense. What was the morality behind swear words?

I touched on what mattered to them: their social status. Many of these students came from wealthy families. I told them that swearing, regardless of it's morality, is a sign of a lack of control, a lack of manners, and a lack of class. Suddenly, the classroom silenced. They all regarded themselves as upper class economically. I called them out that they were not demonstrating an upper class virtue and upper class concern for others. Swearing is often an assault of language (as it is uncreative) and an assault on manners (it tells others in earshot that crudeness owns the audible space). In short, swearing is often self-conscious and proud. It's unworthy of people who claim to be educated and leaders.

So it goes. To be a virtuous leader is not the same as making money, having power, having celebrity. It is a good time to understand this on a large scale.

People proficient at sports may be committed to swimming or baseball. That means if there's one quality they surely have it is tenacity. But that doesn't mean they are virtuous or well-rounded enough to be leaders. Yet we treat them as "heroes" because they did something physically incredible. A hero used to be someone who sacrificed themselves to help others. Today it means someone we marvel at, like a giant crane perched on a skyscrapper. Celebrities are skycrapers, but hardly "heroes." The fact that we keep staring at them and throw money at them says a lot about us.

We've developed a habit of thinking that doing something physically incredible is a passport to being someone worth listening to. Why we take the political opinion of so many Hollywood celebrities is irrational to me. They didn't become popular because of political opinion, and therefore, should be less considered than, say, some obscure professors who spend an lifetime studying the principles of good government and the corruption in Washington. Yet when we consider celebrity endorsements of candidates as weighty, they says a lot about us.

We just elected a President that appears to get votes because of celebrity 'coolness.' From my perceptions, he falls into a similar category, and may be the kind of president we've become socially conditioned to accept without question. Many pundits wondered what qualified Obama to be a messiah for the US government. Many are still asking this question as politicians vote to spend almost $800B on a stimulous package that the majority of those they represent do not want or are unsure if it will help.

When I read the headline that Phelps was caught doing illegal substances, I wasn't surprised. When he publically apologized, I wasn't suprised. That's what your PR agent will tell you to do, otherwise you will lose money and so will your PR agent. What surprised me was that Kelloggs, a large sponsor of Phelps, dropped him!

In today's world, I thought Kelloggs courageous (a virtue) to let Phelps go when the American public has much the same attitude as the quote at the top of this post. I think Phelps deserved it. Not because it's a bad influence in our children. Not becaue he was stupid. Not because he was callous. He deserved it because he was flagrantly wrong. This wasn't a mistake or an oversight. It was deliberate. What kind of behavior is over the line in sowing one's wild oats? What is enough to keep a celebrity from public endorsement and millions of easy money. Is our national pride and identity really wrapped up in the Olympics and gold medals? Who are we anyway?

Phelps won some gold medals for swimming. Great! But is that leverage enough to say we should celebrate him no matter what other feats he makes, including bong-smoking with frat boys? If he had been heroic, he would have taken a stand against the drugs. That's what heroes do, even if nobody celebrates the act.

A friend of mine spoke to his co-worker recently about this. The co-worker thought it unjust of Kelloggs to drop Phelps because at least Phelps confessed and was honest.

Here's another major assumption of today's postmodern culture: transparency equals virtue. For all the talk that postomderns give about authenticity, that's only a half-virtue. The other half is working toward change.

A.A. will tell you that confession and authenticity are only the first of twelve steps: confess your life has become unmanagble. That's transparency. But that doesn't mean you are well, should be in the spotlight, or are worthy of being celebrated. It just means you're starting to work the program. Time to move to step 2. When you reach step 12, then you may have something to say to the world that we all need to hear. Until then, work in your private world on being an appropriately human person.

There is no "revered rite of passage" called "sowing wild oats." We've smuggled that in as a smutty excuse to be less than human. We are to learn from history so we don't repeat it. That's one of many reasons so many acts are illegal (like drug use or skimming taxes... should we "rever" this? Is this a wild oat?). If we cannot respect this when it comes to the laws of our land, how will we fend against corruption when the laws crumble? Is virtue no higher than the laws? Seems not in the way we elect officials and pander to celebrities.

We will likely wake up one morning wondering what happened. We will no longer be laughing at what we got away with but sad that we got away with it. Should we expect more out of ourselves and from each other?

We need to understand the frailty and glory of human nature so we can harness it for good and be open to our own foibles. If we faile, sometimes "I'm sorry" isn't good enough. Sometimes we have to end the endorsements, step down from our offices, leave the spotlight. It's okay. We'll live. We recorver. We work the program. Our humanity is not wrapped up in who recognizes us or how well we succeed or fail. But by all means, let people who need to leave the spotlight be out of it. Authenticity isn't enough for a soul's recovery.

And all the while, we can work at not revering famous people for being famous, but look for local heroes. It's the unsung heroes that have a smaller chance of falling, in part, because they are heroes through their virtue rather than heroes of fame.

Apologetics for a New Generation

2009-01-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

As you know, I'm a member of the "new apologetics" fan club. Nobody has coined that term yet, from what I can tell, but I'm a card-carrying member anyway. And while my view may go in directions not yet popularized by evangelical apologetic celebrities, I am excited about a new volume released this winter, edited by my friend Sean McDowell:

Apologetics for a New Generation.

This is a compilation of different voices all getting at the same thing: apologetics is bigger and broader than we've practiced it for a loooong time. While my view is that there are many apologists in this world who don't know it and many apologetic mediums that are never called such, finally a few evangelicals are paying attention.

It's a sign that the popular conversation can be advanced: you don't have to be "emergent" to be missional, relevant, and touch the postmodern soul in healthy ways.

Then again, maybe we're all emergent anyway and can't help it.

Jonalyn and I each have chapter contributions in this book (though Amazon's site doesn't say so). Hers is on an apologetic of gender, something many conservative evangelicals haven't yet noticed the need for without a fear of losing funding. My chapter is on apologetics as soul formation: a human apologetic.

This book can be read alongside Living with Questions as an example of apologetics being done in a fresh way, for students and adults alike.

You can pre-order the book now. You'll want to have it when it comes out to keep abreast with the creative ways you can shine your light to the world.

Dorothy Rabinowitz takes on Deepak Chopra

2008-12-13T19:21:00.000-08:00

Watch this video first. Then read the article at the end of this post.

Pulitzer prize winner, Ms. Rabinowitz, nails the present journalistic discourse on the head. The senseless pity on perpetrators of crimes rather than on victims is something that has been called out again and again as a problem in media discourse. The endless blame on causes unrelated to ideas and religion is classic secular diagnosis. The pandering to celebrities who know less than experts (though treated as experts) is far more embarrassing to American popular culture than any war on terrorism.

Now read, Ms. Rabinowitz article. She's clear and punches to the point. This kind of dialog needs to happen more. And you get to be a "Culturally Savvy Christian," as Dick Staub puts it, and be alert to the language the 'sophisticated' world is talking. Awareness of the problem is half the battle.

Deepak Blames America

A New Kind of Apologetics

2008-12-10T15:41:00.000-08:00

At the NYWC in Sacramento, I gave a seminar on "A New Kind of Apologetics: Emerging Questions of Today's Youth."

First, I'm encoraged that YS is bold enough to get outside the box and let me give a seminar on this.

Second, I've was very encouraged by the response as I was unsure how some of my ideas would be received by the average youth worker (which we all know are not 'average'!). There's a real hunger to take apologetics in a more "human" direction. We're delighted Soulation is helping lead the way with that.

Gospel.com highlighted my talk on their blog today. You can check it and download the talk as an mp3 to listen to while you're about the house, at work, or going for a drive. I think you'll find it encouraging, funny, and expanding your own vision of reaching, not only youth, but leaders and neighbors as well.

Here's the post.

Celebrating 100 years... Chesterton and Grahame

2008-11-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

Halfway through this year, I remembered this was the year of a marked centenary. G. K. Chesterton penned Orthodoxy (he wrote The Man Who was Thursday the same year as a story illustrating the same theme).

I had heard of Chesterton prior to college, but I did not read him until then. Little did I know how influenced I was by Chesterton long before I knew the name.

In my struggle of feeling homesick at home, God curiously led me to three different men on my journey that spoke the very thing I thirsted to hear; ironically, none of them are clergy, but public speaker, author, and musician. They were men who "got it," or at any rate, they got me. They were those Professor Kirk talks about in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; that once you've been to Narnia, you don't need to talk about asking others if they've been there too. You'll see it in their looks.

It was in their looks, their words, their poetical suspicion of the world being at once beautiful and monstrous at the same time. They were men who saw the glory of earth in ruins, waiting to be re-united with heaven. Those men were C. S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, and Rich Mullins.

I've heard it said that Lewis has a Chesterton book opened next to him as he wrote a lot of his works. One glorious passage in Mere Christianity said, "God is like the sun; you cannot look at it, but without it you cannot look at anything else." I thought that was brilliant Lewis. Lo, it was in fact brilliant Chesterton. Actually, as I got more deeply into the classics, I discovered, that fine piece of prose was an alteration from Plato.

The humanities, lost in today's evangelical church (though cherished in some evangelical universities) and largely devalued in our modern and postmodern world, has been my source of strength and courage to pursue humanness as good. That's why they are called the humanities after all. Chesterton drew heavily on them.

Without imaginative, metaphorical, storied visions as these, deeply influenced by the Scripture, I would find life, at least my own life, dull. I would hardly know why I should follow Christ. I would find him, as many modern apologetics proclaim, as true. But without these prophetic visionaries who have beheld the beatific vision and shared it with the passion of a star, I would be left finding the good news of the kingdom at hand as a wasteland, devoid of the beauty that touches on the longing of my human heart.

One of my favorite talks by Ravi Zacharias is on the meaning of life, which he later put into Can Man Live Without God? Buried in the heart of his argument is a discussion of fairy tales and how the lessons they teach are completely consistent with the way life is lived today, and consistent with the gospels. This was borrowed from Chesterton. Once, sitting in Ravi's living room, petting his border collie named, "G.K.", I asked him about Chesterton's influence and he said he thought the "Ethics of Elfland" was one of the finest chapters of the 20th century. You'll find that chapter in Orthodoxy.

Rich Mullins also borrowed inspiration from Chesterton. His popular song, "Creed," resounds in the chorus with this pithy phrase,

I did not make it,
no, it is making me,
it is the very truth of God not the invention of any man.

This is Chesterton's Orthodoxy: "God and humanity made [orthodoxy], and it made me." Another poetic paradox of Chesterton shows up in Mullins song, "Growing Young."

We are children no more,
we have sinned and grown old
and our father still waits
and watches down the road
for those crying boys to come running back to his arms
and we're growing young.

Chesterton put it this way, "We have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we." This is from Orthodoxy. Mullins called it his favorite book.

Whether we know the name or understand the words of Chesterton, today's church is deeply indebted to this rotund man of mirth who is still as relevant today as he was 100 years ago. He "got it." And the philosophical battles he faced then are the same ones still strongly lingering now. One of my favorite ideas in Chesterton is the very last paragraph in Orthodoxy. But I will not give it away. Let it be your tasty dessert as you read the book.

Christianity Today just did an interview about Chesterton with Inkling scholar, Lyle Dorsett. It's a short interview but he puts it in a nutshell.

Dorsett mentions Malcolm Muggeridge at the end of the article as one of the only apologists since Chesterton to use humor. But Muggeridge, who I did my graduate work on, wasn't very influenced by Chesterton. He does retell the story as a young boy seeing this towering figure. But it was the recollection as young boy and that was about it. Muggeridge had his own journey to take, one more treacherous of a search than even Chesterton's who discovered his heresy was orthodoxy. Muggeridge was 5 years old when Orthodoxy was printed. Lewis was 10.

For your pleasure, I've recorded part of chapter 1 from Orthodoxy. Listen to Chesterton's paradoxes, how he holds our experiences in tension--like "romance." His definition of "romance" is not like ours today, but is the more historical, Western idea that we are losing daily in the age of unreason. Let his metaphor about the yachtsman discovering England work into your meditation today.

Orthodoxy, Introduction in Defense of Everything Else (mp3, 8 min)

But there's another book celebrating 100 years, another book important to the Christian imagination. This book is in the same tradition as the deeply human Chesterton. Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows is a celebration of human experience personified in the animals: the intelligent Rat, the faithful Mole, the impetuous Toad, the wise Badger, the chatty Otter, and many others. Disney stripped Toad's "wild ride" from the book, leaving children with a paltry imaginative glimpse into a deeply imaginative tale.

Jonalyn and I are reading the Wind in the Willows before bed these nights. Well, I've been doing the reading aloud; she's doing the listening. It's a cleansing of the soul after a long day of work. Wind in the Willows as a title holds a deeper meaning than a mere discription of nature brushing against river plants.

As a taste, I've recorded a section from the book where they meet Someone. They hear flute playing in the distance as they are looking about for Otter's son. Sunrise is nearly upon them. And they follow the music... Let the words and desciptions play in your soul. And I think you'll also note a similar "feel" and description here that I'm sure Lewis borrowed for Aslan. Grahame is subtle in his storytelling; a real master.

Wind in the Willows, excerpt from chapter 7 (mp3, 15 min)

I'm glad there is a God to be thankful to (a Chesterton idea) for my gratitude pours out that these two works were made for the generations to help us see ourselves and our world for what it is--frail yet good, with a Master of Ceremonies always busy behind the scenes.

What are the biblical roles of husbands and wives?

2008-11-09T20:08:00.000-08:00

Here is a classic complementarian position of the roles of husbands and wives. Understand it well.

Notice how emphatic he is at the beginning that this issue is 'clear.'

Notice how he automatically connotes the meaning of the metaphor, 'head.'

Notice the emphasis of the husband to be a tie-breaking vote (when Paul's point to the husbands is on love). You will frequently hear the 'tie-breaking vote' argument used by complementarians. I think there's another way to break ties, but this argument often persuades people into a complementarian model.

Notice how he says men shy away from leadership (is this the nature of men historically or a 21st century construction?)

Notice how he calls his relationship with his wife a 'team,' but then limits her voice to mere 'input' (is there teamwork in the final decision or only teamwork in consultation?).

Notice how he misquotes Eph 5:22 later in the video by attaching 'submission' to the husband is like the church's 'submission' to Christ. The verse doesn't say that.

Notice how, at the end, it is the husband's duty to sanctify his wife.

What are your thoughts?

For my thoughts on Ephesians 5, see "The Mystery of Submission" in the August archive.

What exactly is this "Living with Questions"?

2008-11-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

I'm glad you asked. I've been getting this question in a variety of ways so I thought I'd lay it out for the record.

When you spend a long time writing a book, you'd hate to see people who are looking for a book like yours miss the opportunity to read it because they just didn't know. There is so much in Living with Questions that covers a wide array of other books on the Christian book shelf. Give this one a look. You may find yourself getting a lot more than you paid for (and save yourself some money too!).

Living with Questions is not your typical apologetics book.

If you like Lee Strobel's "The Case for..." books, you'll like Living with Questions. Strobel's books give you interviews on various topics on the book cover. Living with Questions gives you tools so you can be an apologist too and not just find yourself quoting other people. So if you've read Strobel, consider Living with Questions next. Plus you get more topics in less pages. Strobel is not the only Christian writer who was set against the church and found themselves landing squarely on Jesus. As someone who grew up in the church, I knew many reasons to reject Christianity and, if not for intellectually sane and emotionally healthy reasons to follow Jesus, I could have easily walked away. Living with Questions is born out of that kind of journey.

Living with Questions is not just for teens. The marketing is toward students. So are some of the interior graphics. But it was written for everyone, especially those who want to share their faith with smart people and find 'apologetics' just too 'deep' or 'academic' or 'heady.' Living with Questions is gentle entry point into the world of understanding your faith more deeply, how it stands up to reason, and how you can confidently share your faith with others. Though the book is built around student questions, we'd be dishonest to say those same questions are also not adult questions. The reviews on Amazon for Living with Questions are from college graduates. In fact, Living with Questions should be found in the youth section of the book store (because they have so few books that really address their earnest questions) as well as the adult section beside all the other popular apologetics books of the day. It has that kind of cuturally savvy insights you don't find in many other apologetics books.

Living with Questions is doing what postmoderns say can't be done: doing apologetics for a postmodern audience. Yes, contrary to emerging beliefs, postmoderns still value reason, many just don't know it. They value truth, but not for its own sake, but for the sake Jesus gave us: to make us free. Today's kids are a mix of modernism and postmodernism, and neither one is deeply helpful for having a rounded view of the world. C. S. Lewis showed us that. In an era where the most vocal forms of apologetics are more academic and heady, Living with Questions draws more on the imaginative tradition of C. S. Lewis while still using the academic in the background. Living with Questions takes not just the mind and emotions into account, but the whole person, validating every square inch of being human, the ways God equipped us to reach out to him and to each other. I would use any of the arguments in this book on a university campus. In fact, I have. These are test and helpful and not just more "Christianese."

Living with Questions is reflective. It's full of stories and perspectives to chew and mediate on. The last three chapters are my favorite, painting a picture of life, love, and goodness, of the restoring of beauty in the universe as God intended. Hint: it's not what you typically hear in church but is deeply Biblical.

Living with Questions helps students own their faith so they are ready for college and the challenges ahead. It works great for the student who is seeking as well as the student who doesn't realize he/she should be seeking (because they don't quite know they are alive, human, and purposed in this world yet). Many have already used Living with Questions and found it effective. (See study guide drawn up by a youth leader along the right side of my blog.)

Living with Questions helps the reader get out of 'religious' talk and into real life, a need many express when it comes to "Christian" literature.

Living with Questions answers a lot more questions than the chapters indicate. Inside every chapter are aspects of every question like "Why does a good God send people to hell?" and "Can I be a Christian and an evolutionist?" and "Am I loved?" and "How do I know I can trust the Bible?" and "How do I know which religion is right?" and "CAN religion be 'right or wrong'?" and "What is faith?" The book also mentions diversions and addictions many face, including busyness, music, and cutting. Not only are interesting questions embedded in each chapter, but each chapter gives you tools on how to think about questions. So you don't just get my explanation. You get to go exploring and come up with your own. This is very important if we are to OWN our faith.

The only way to adequately OWN our faith is to have the freedom to DISOWN our faith. Living with Questions gives that freedom.

Living with Questions is also for those who are not Christians. I get emails from secular college students who say they've really enjoyed the book and gave them good things to think about. Many "Christian" books are not written for the non-Christians. If you've been looking for a book to give to a non-believing friend, Living with Questions is also for them.

Living with Questions is not a dogmatic, in your face approach to truth-telling. The title of the book says it all. We live with questions so we can live into answers. Many questions and answers are understood a little now and understood more later. Some questions just need perspective. Some questions need encouragement. Some questions need information. Some questions need to be reframed. Living with Questions offers all of these.

So if you're looking for a book to discuss in your youth group, a book to hand out to college students, a book to assign to your classroom, a book to read on the airplane, a book to understand our world a little better and how today's generation approaches life, if you're looking for tools to navigate life better rather than having to quote someone else, then Living with Questions is the book you're looking for.

Soon available on audio too.

Calling all Questions!

2008-10-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

Next week, I'm heading to the National Youth Workers Convention in Sacramento. I'm doing a seminar on "a new kind of apologetics: emerging questions from today's youth."

I want to pepper my talk with popular questions students are asking today. I've got a bunch but I want to hear from you before I go!

This is your chance to have an influence on the next generation!

What I want from you: Send popular questions you are hearing from students, teens or college students. Just add your comment to this blog. No long explanations necessary.

Now enough reading, start writing!

Atheism, Superstition, and the American Present

2008-09-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

Not all atheists are superstitious.... the very thoughtful die-hard, hang-on-till-we-go-extinct ones don't tend to be. But Ms. Hemingway has her finger on a pulse that I find as a growing trend in American culture among the masses.

There is a curiously finger-pointing at religion in our culture, but not just any religion. It's the "Christian" religion that keeps getting put into the boxing ring, stuffed with straw, sans boxing gloves. And when it falls down it gets propped up again for another round. So Jesus is rejected as irrelevant, not because good evidence to follow him is lacking, but because he can be labeled as 'religious' (which connotes 'private' and 'irrelevant'). Then all sorts of strange things follow.

This article, "Look Who's Irrational Now," which I found this afternoon in my weekend edition of the WSJ, speaks to a wide-ranging, growing disease of American unreason.

Jonalyn and I find as we engage with media, in our travels, in our speaking and writing, that G. K. Chesterton was right: Those who say they believe in nothing are very susceptible to believing in anything.

I am wondering if being superstitious will one day be widely accepted as 'normal' and not as an insult. If thoughtfulness and evidence will become the strange thing; if science will one day be ignored as it gets in the way of what we want and what we fear.

For all scientific and technological age we boast, modern humans have become a peculiar breed. We use technology to suit our passions but find irrelevant the very things technology stands on: a 'real world.'

Today, we see superstition poking out its head in phrases like 'spiritual, but not religious,' which usually amounts to an amalgamation of Eastern thought mixed in with Western productivity. Many are prone to believe the universe actually gives you things if you just desire them (like "The Secret") or that God is an impersonal force and we need to reach toward an enlightened consciousness (like in "The New Earth"). And if you hang around this boutique religion long enough, you'll also find out they hi-jack Jesus into a Buddhist-believer, offering us a 'Christ-consciousness' so you can achieve your full potential. Your material prayer flags of various colors will be caught in the wind and blow spiritual prayers across the countryside (and you won't have to do the hard work of encountering a real God and bringing your petitions)....

All that to say, you should read this article. It is the most succinct explanation I have found of this issue that we are seeing daily of irrational superstition replacing a rational look at the supernatural.

And these superstitious attitudes are very much in the church too. We are secularists about faith and superstitions about prayer. We think Jesus is about heaven and his making life easier and we rarely get a larger picture of the heavenly invasion of the Kingdom of God into the kingdoms of men to set things right-side-up. We forget that gratitude is not first a feeling in the Bible, as it is in "The Secret," but an action toward a larger Person who alone has the ability to give all good gifts. We fear radical love (it might make people feel validated in their sin) and we fear radical unity (it might make people feel validated in their doctrine)....

Jonalyn and I are working on a forthcoming book on this topic of making the most of spiritual small-talk in today's world by helping the church weed through superstitious ideas in our own lives, and engaging one another with a robust view of a Jesus who is spiritual on one hand and deeply human on the other. And that's, to me, is the only rational way forward... even rational enough for atheists to consider.

Palin, Religion, and how Secularism is out of touch

2008-09-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Jonalyn sent me this article she found on Salon.com: "What's the Difference between Palin and a Muslim Fundamentalist? Lipstick"

Listing abortion, God, creationism, and every other thing secularists hate about religious ideas, the author saves his worst grievance for last with this remark, the one that makes us all gasp with horror at the audacity of Palin's views:

The most noxious belief that Palin shares with Muslim fundamentalists is her conviction that faith is not a private affair of individuals but rather a moral imperative that believers should import into statecraft wherever they have the opportunity to do so.

There it is - a private faith is the highest virtue and must not be touched at all costs. Making faith public is worse that even stopping science and abortions. Quite an assertion.

I recommend you read this article, not because it is helpful, but because it is an example of how unreasonable secular 'reason' has become. Not only does this author equivocate between Palin's views and fundamentalist Islam, but he also blows it out of proportion. What is even worse is that this author believes what he is saying.

Teaching creationism alongside evolution (and other views) in the public school classroom is not the same as banning it (which is what his Islamic examples did). And there are people who are non-religious who also think abortion should be radically limited from it's abuses today.

But as for private vs. public faith, the author of this story has certainly made his faith public. He's pushes it on the reader. It's amazing how easy it is to play the hypocrite. Every single politician that has ever taken office has used his faith in something (be it God, the human spirit, or whatever) to push through laws and regulate the people. The Founding Fathers did the same (even the Declaration of Independence makes the audacious claim that the "Creator" endowed humans with rights).

For an intelligent discussion on religion in the public square, I recommend this dialog between two preeminent philospohers, Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff: Religion in the Public Square.

Palin thinks everyone needs to have a heart right with God. This is different than the comparison that the author makes that Khamenei, only replacing "God" with "Islam." At least in American you have the freedom to say which God you believe in. When Palin says such things, it is speaking the language of her audience but is also a call to weed out corruption. For Khamenei, he's speaking from a context outside of freedom of conscience and refers to a specific religion. What is more, if God does exist, I would think he would want us to use our resources wisely and make us less dependent on those who don't. Is the author against that virtue as well? On this accounts (as well as his several other points), the parallel just cannot be made. Some people may not like Palin's remarks, but to equate them with fundamentalist Islam (which is just shy of using the word 'terrorist') shows he's out of touch and stretching concepts to fit his prejudice.

Makes me also wonder what the author thinks of Obama's "faith."

Would this author enjoy being called a fundamentalist Christian because he shares the idea that caring for the poor is important? Or would he like it if he agreed with Christains that humans should be treated fairly and with dignity? We can all find things we have in common and wedge in assumptions that do not fit. Just because serial killers breath oxygen doesn't mean everyone who breathes oxygen is a serial killer.

A thoughtful reader will get this. And articles like this are written to stir up the religiously uneducated and fearful. One encouraging thing to me is that while much of the secular media says evangelicals are out of touch, well, the statement can be volleyed as a return of favor. Wow, how's that for two movements with something in common!

It should be required reading every year for those in journalism to read the Society of Professional Jouralists' Code of Ethics, including "Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context."

Feminism... and beyond

2008-09-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

The range of definitions of feminism are broad. First wave (1800s) and second wave feminism (1960s) both promoted women as oppressed by men and overlooked for their full human, though unique, status. Third wave feminism responded to the second wave by deconstructing the feminine into postmodern cultural construction.

They each have their own merits and research. And it would be a shame to overlook the pre-first wave feminism brewed among the Quakers that secularist history fails to recognize. God forbid, followers of Jesus may again get something right.

What is most unfortunate is how this word "feminism" has been dragged, drugged, shunned, celebrated with rage, and used to an excuse to push a woman's weight around. In working to humanize women, many have used it to dehumanize everyone else.

Sexism is degrading genders other than your own. Racism is degrading ethnicities other than your own. If I said I was a 'masculinist,' I would likely be labeled a 'chauvinist.'

If we follow those same lines, a 'feminist' means someone who degrades genders other than the feminine. The victim becomes obvious. And this is why I believe many who believe women are fully human shy away from using the word "feminist." We automatically connote, just by how words are used, that a feminist is an elitist even if others have stretched the word and it's various studies in different ways.

Some feminists are elitists. I hate entitlement rhetoric, the clanging voices that claim discriminiation because they are female (when those listening may be saying, no, it's because they are clanging).

For me, a feminist is one who thinks women are fully human and should be promoted as such. They have a mind, will, and emotions, just as the classicists described the faculties of the human soul. Because of this, they are capable, according to their qualities and character, of doing anything a mind, will, and emotion can do. If that means, scrubbing floors or running White Houses, then there's nothing philosophically (logically) out of bounds.

I think men are fully human too. And I dislike the idea that men should step aside and allow women to run the show. That's out of balance, dehumanizing. And that's how women have felt for a long time.

Where I see women abused, trampled, demeaned, mocked, I want to stand in the gap. This is feminist behavior.

Where theology makes dogmatic statements against women being fully human (often couched in terms of what women should and shouldn't do) from spurious interpretations of the Scripture, I want to stand in the gap. This is feminist behavior.

When women are boxed into categories that do not fit all women, I want to stand in the gap. Plenty of women feel like outsiders because they don't wear pink, refuse to demean themselves with ostentatious flirting, and hate heels. It is feminist to ask for sanity in the discussion and allow each woman to flourish as she was made.

Many men think they stand in the gap for women, yet fail to take that stand when they deprive women of human functions by calling them "male functions" without qualification. We would do well to rethink Paul and his view of a healthy marriage and leadership in the church. Can we bear the logical contradiction? Should we claim either the Scripture is illogical or that we are unallowed to renew our minds? This is the tension that stretches me in engaging my community and the Scripture with honesty and compassion and every human faculty God endowed me to use in this pursuit.

Instead of worrying about labels, I think we need to refresh this one. Both in the church and out of it, women need to be lifted up, not torn down, by men. This includes the way we joke, the expectations we have of each other, the roles we assign as 'masculine' and 'feminine,' and the way we cut down other men with feminine language. Most recognize the moral taboo of using the "N" word. Maybe we need to recheck our desensitivity when using "girly" or "sissy" or "womanly" when referring to men who may not like Ultimate Fighting and may prefer, like older forms of masculinity, poetry to blood.

Yet, I'm also a masculinist. I don't like to see men put into boxes that don't fit them. Just as much damage is done to men in this area as is being done to women. We need to stand in the gap and let the Messiah be the model that defines us all. We need to promote a healthy masculinity without slapping on end-of-argument adjectives, like "Biblical." That's like just another way of saying, "I'm right and you can't read." When our arguing gets to that point, we should pause and wonder if we've been engaging in an ungodly monologue.

I find it typical, yet odd, how many people, when they hear that women should be given full equal status to men, not just in the workplace, but everywhere else (including our own consciousness), assume this is degrading to men. Or, on the other hand, they think it's degrading to those women who have suffered under the hand of masculinity and have lived to tell about it? Were their scars in vain? Let's not hold onto a false martydom (sometimes called 'tradition') in the name of enslaving future people.

I believe neither women should be above men nor men above women. We must stop the reactionary tendency to make one gender better than another. And in that, maybe we need a new word, an idea that even those 'in the know' have failed to promote as a natural way forward. Perhaps we need a concept that allows for men and women to stand shoulder to shoulder, each bringing their various gifts.

Eden painted a picture of it, a picture the Messiah redeemed. And once again, the Scripture could be the cultural torch-bearer in the unfolding of this century. The 21st century may be touted the "century for women." But we can do better than to wait for the 22nd century to figure out that was a bad idea. We'd be better off jumping beyond the cutting edge and claim the 21st century for both genders working together. That's our future hope; a creedo to start in our homes and communities and let it trickle into the world.

But we need a word for it....

America is Babylon--a brief review of Rob Bell and Don Golden's new book

2008-08-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

This morning I finished an advanced copy of Rob Bell and Don Golden's new book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile.

You can read it in a couple of ours. It's quick and simple. The cover is the box-game we played in elementary school. Based on the retro-hip cover, I had no idea what to expect inside.

Let me say up front that I know Bell has helped a lot of people. He has many, many fans, largely emergent culture folks and new believers. He inspires. His Nooma videos are ubiquitous. And while I see his bio lists him as founding pastor of Mars Hill (is that past tense? Or is he still a pastor?), he's well connected with the mega-church. For my own part, I've seen probably two Nooma videos, listened to three sermons and only now have read one book. He's a peer and I am not his target audience. So while the people we influence overlap, we don't spend much time influencing each other (yet).

I don't know Don Golden. Maybe one day.

I read this book because I know many I converse with will be asking me questions about it. Better get a head-start. I still need to read The Shack for the same reason (see my wife's review of The Shack).

The exile Christians are in, says the book, is an exile to an empire. And the authors are calling those who follow Jesus to find a way out. Jesus wants to save us from it. This empire is America and Western cultural and the ease by which we get our fundamental needs and oppress others. The authors take 2/3 of the book to lead us to the doorstep of this thesis.

I don't know how much of this book is Bell and how much is Golden. I've seen marketing where a lesser-known will get some input from a well-known and then the book gets made with the well-known, who contributed less, as the lead name. It happens all the time in publishing (just to give you an insider's heads-up). This book could be an exception where both contributed equally.

The book targets conservative evangelicals who equate America with the Kingdom of God and have never challenged the inconsistency of that. Though this topic has grown quite common, Bell and Golden give it a fresh spin.

Tracing through the Old Testament, the authors show how empire wrecks people. It oppresses the poor. It becomes, in a sense, it's own god. From the Fall to Babel to Egypt to Sinai to Jerusalem to Babylon to Jerusalem again to Roman occupation. And in every place, God is calling his people to help the poor and refuse to be an empire. An empire, in essence, is 'anti-kingdom.'

Much of this book I agree with: the reason humans are made, the Jewish story, the exiling of the Jewish people, the point of the commandments, the demise of proud kings, the coming of Jesus, the end of the whole story in a New Earth, the problem of oppression, human conquest, our ugly pathway toward deity. Speaking on the road, I've had folks from time to time approach me informing me that some of the things I share sound like Bell. It's usually a compliment... and the coincidence I chalk up to the Holy Spirit who shines the light of truth from multiple voices for such a time as this.

The authors make tough concepts simpler. There are phrases in this book all along the way that are helpful and good for the uninformed believer to jump in and see the story of Scripture, particularly the Hebrew Scriptures which are easily neglected in conservative evangelicalism. That's not to say evangelicals do not grab truth from the Hebrew Scriptures; rather, they do so usually only to fit it into a disconnected apostolic (New Testament) paradigm.

I appreciate how the authors draw in Jewish thought in the majority of this book and how they spotlight what it means to help the oppressed and repair the world.

Several aspects of this book were nagging and there's no good writing a review that is all clouds and halos.

The writing style is simple (I can't remember reading words over three syllables) and the paragraph style choppy. If you are looking to improve your writing, a book like this one does not help. It relies on rhetorical devices rather than classic structure. From early pages, I thought I was reading Gene Edwards, who makes regular paragraphs out of single sentences, phrases, and even fragmented words. This is all visual effect. It holds the readers hand to aid him in how to pause in the reading.

I tried this writing style once in creative writing class in college. My teacher wrote on my paper: "Tell the story; don't rely on devices." Ouch.

Considering the era we live in, these devices may say more about the modern reader than it does about these authors.

The authors sometimes make too much of symbolism and metaphor, on occasions stretching it potentially beyond the reach of Scripture. One thing that makes me cautious is how neat and tidy all these symbols and metaphors are. If you don't have a knowledge of Scripture and other point of view, you'll find their approach tight and leading you to think only way on some of these things.

The authors follow New Exodus theology. From the best I can make of it, it is the way God is always calling his people out from empire into his kingdom, showing the world what he's like all along the way. The authors demonstrate this well, but once we get to the Messianic Scriptures (the New Testament), the authors hold the view that the Jews no longer have a special place in God's redemptive history. They don't say this explicitly. They just say Jews and Gentiles now form a 'new humanity.' I wanted to see what happened to the Jews in this paradigm.

I also wanted to see what kind of self-rule the authors would set up if we did follow the principle. It's not enough to leave Egypt. You must also establish a new society.

They mention how gentiles were excluded from the Temple, but I'm guessing this is the second temple (and they exclude Jewish history that built the second temple and how God helped the Jews through that time). Jesus criticized the Jews for not allowing all the nations into the temple. So some of the new covenant and the new humanity that the authors speak of was already available in the Hebrew Scriptures. Items like these continues to fertilize the popular idea that the New Testament replaces the Old rather than continues the same story along the same trajectory. I have a hard time saying Jesus reach was broader than Jehovah's... I mean, salvation has come through the Jews, and Jesus, just like Jehovah, called everyone in to reconcile the world to himself. Jesus came as an unfolding part of that story, spilling Jewish blood to save the world. I don't see a changed message but a more complete one.

Also, the authors' view of Revelation is not an end-times view held by many conservative evangelicals. They interpret it as an event that has already happened to Christians under Roman persecution. This may bother some. Not me.

One chapter in the book, which is the real point of the book, is how America is empire not too distant from Babylon. The book turns polemic with Bell's statistical tidal wave about how much America has to the rest of the world and how little we do to alleviate suffering. None of this is new. People have been researching and informing us of this for years and years. I get weary of the statistics, in part, because they can pure rhetoric when removed from their context. American's make more money but American's also spend more money on daily needs. We can help AIDS in Africa, but what do we do to help our own communities? What is more, Americans outgive the rest of the world in relief efforts, something few if any empires have done unless they owned the property themselves. I knew people who make, in world's standards, quite a bit of money, but are constantly living on the edge of feeding their family and giving them a good education, paying insurances, taxes, and on and on. One day our leaders may discover that many are not motivated by statistical rhetoric as much as we are motivated by example, watching needs be met and being invited to help those needs. This is where Shane Claiborne outshines most evangelical spokespeople on this issue.

If you're looking for an evangelical motivation to help the oppressed and how it is done, read Shane. If you want a theology of Scripture about how God reaches the oppressed and how quickly we fall when we lose dependence on him (and if you haven't read the Bible yourself and found this to be true), then grab Bell and Golden's book and give it a good run through. Then, be excited to read your Bible with fresh eyes.

And if you want to see how the church has done this through the centuries, even in the American empire, step outside of modern evangelicalism a bit and look around. The Quakers are a good start. Let's not make the mistake that evangelicalism is THE church, though many evangelicals have risen to the occassion from time to time (we can thank our fundamentalist roots for segregating us from culture and from relief efforts that align us too closely with those preaching the 'social gospel'). Bell and Golden are trying to uproot, in a good way, some of those roots.

I'm troubled when the authors oversimplify problems, like saying the only reason we are in the middle-east is for oil. Sometimes they sound like a political sound-byte in these pages (well, a manifesto is supposed to be political, so maybe that's why it sounds political! :)). It feels more emotional and uninformed than a real education into what is really going on. No one will doubt that America has empire-like attributes in recent years, but it has been unlike most empires in world history. This isn't noted much, if at all. And they don't separate out the American people from poor leadership (just like we shouldn't curse all the Jews because a few rotten Jewish leaders crucified Jesus). We need less head-wagging and finger-pointing. There seems to be two sides among evangelicals today: those who fly the American flag as they wave their Bible and those who are suspicious of America because, as a country, we've done some damage. I'd like to see more tension between the two as builders of God's Kingdom but also citizenry with a voice in a democratic republic.

Oversimplifying issues may cause us to oversimplify solutions and leave many enthusiastic but unempowered.

The footnotes are the place the authors get casual. This kind of casualness in writing is growing more popular but it feels like another modern device. Do these authors really want to be that close of a friend to me as a reader? If so, why not give an email address so we can do that lunch? I would have liked to see the writing style here offer an invitation for real connection.

A final point is that Bell and Golden say you cannot market or make a trend out of an authentic kingdom life. But it seems that this is what's happening. This will be a trend and that's probably something that cannot be avoided. That these men have a vehicle of a mega-church to sell books furthers the illustration (and publishers like mega-pastors writing books because the first 10,000 sales are a given... and then word spreads).

So while I want to believe the church can't be marketed, I would rather hear it more from those who aren't in the larger evangelical system. It's too convenient. I want to hear grass-roots creatives who do things in quiet places among quiet conversations and away from the dazzling lights.

That's why I recommend reading grass-roots creatives than evangelical superstars. And, I have a hunch that these authors would be glad a book like this motivated you to do the same (they do quote Anne Lamott!).

Now that I've finished the book, I still don't understand the cover...

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 16 of 16)

2008-08-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

Summary and Conclusion

We have looked with fresh eyes at this passage in Ephesians 5, conclusions I’m still learning to understand. Yet at this point in my journey, I notice the profound desire of God’s heart for all followers of the Messiah to submit one to another, even in marriage. I know it’s daring and often culturally unacceptable, especially my evangelical tradition. And I know it takes courage.

Yet Paul shows us what this mutual submission looks like. Using the metaphor of the head and body, Paul paints for us a picture that is easily overlooked with a dead metaphor. In that picture we see the Messiah as the Savior of life for the body of the church. The wife is to submit to that kind of life in vulnerability. The husband is also to offer his life, seen through vivid pictures of the Savior’s love to the church in love, washing our feet, laying down his life, submitting to the cross to bear our sin. The husband offers his life in the everyday things, even to the point of death, so that his wife may flourish. In so doing, both husband and wife ultimately receive life and guidance as one flesh from their spiritual authority and mediator, Jesus Christ.

The mystery of submission in marriage is one with continual deferment to one another, in humility and respect and honor and love. Neither the husband is independent of his wife nor the wife of her husband (1 Cor 11:11). The Messiah is their ultimate fountain of life and goodness. And as they draw on him, out of reverence for him, they submit to one another. I’m learning more every day how to press into this mystery and how broad love goes. This mystery is revealed in Jesus, and we are invited to walk into it.

Thanks for your patience in reading this series. All comments welcome!

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 15 of 16)

2008-08-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Love and Respect

The last verse in our section, verse 33, reads like this, However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Many popular marriage lecturers capitalize on this verse. They even say that a woman’s greatest need is “love” and a man’s greatest need is “respect.” And they quote this verse and call these gender “needs” a Biblical idea.

But look at the verse. Does it say this is a man’s need or a woman’s need? No, Paul is admonishing them to love and to respect. We ask, “Why does Paul say this?” It is an important question, but we must be careful our answer is consistent with Scripture. Some believe Paul says it because this is how men and women are wired. But the implications of that explanation are not justified in the context. [1]

I believe the context is telling us that this final verse on marriage is a summary verse. It includes both the wives and the husbands together. And the verses that follow go into instructions for children and parenting.

When a woman submits, it is respectful (but that doesn’t mean it lacks love). And when a man submits, it is loving (but that doesn’t mean it lacks respect). I think this verse, like those before it, shows us descriptions of submission, though not an exhaustive list.

Paul might even be highlighting the very struggle of Ephesian husbands and wives. When this letter was read, I can imagine the inner struggle and the gasps in the assembly as they saw how deeply sacrificial the life of God goes:

“Respect my husband?” the wives say. “I’m the spiritually astute one and the goddess Artemis says so! I can’t give that up! I’m good at going behind backs and manipulating to get my way! I might look submissive on the outside, but I’m stubborn on the inside.”

“Love my wife? Are you kidding?” the husbands say. “I own her! I can’t lay down my life. That degrades my status and undermines my authoritative position in the home. If I lay my life down, who will take care of her? Only a commander can; not a dying savior.”

Yet we cannot dance around Paul’s words. He’s clear and consistent with the gospel of Jesus our Messiah. We stand on equal footing in marriage, under one authority, in the Kingdom of God. And out of that we submit to one another with love and respect out of reference for Jesus, our Savior and King.

I will offer some concluding remarks in the final post, coming next.

[1] Love is a human need, not just a womanly need. One simple example will suffice: When Jesus said, “God so loved the world…” it wasn’t just women’s needs for love that he died for. All humans need connection to him and to each other. All humans need love. All humans are bankrupt without it and it is one of the grandest themes in Scripture (cf. 1 Cor 13 which is written for men and women) and is even included in Ephesians 5 prior to our section (see vs. 13-15.) To say “love” is only a womanly need grossly misses the point.

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 14 of 16)

2008-08-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Verse 32 reads, This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Regardless of how we interpret this, it must fit into the message of “submit to one another” that we’ve seen already. Some believe Paul refers to the purpose of marriage as being, from the beginning, a picture of Christ and the church. I am reluctant to accept that based on these reasons:

1) Marriage was given before the Fall where God’s initial intention was not to establish an assembly of people apart from the world. All the world loved him.

2) If church is an “assembly of believers” in an informal sense (which I believe it is with qualification) then even Adam and Eve were an assembly before the Fall. Their marriage wouldn’t be needed to represent their relationship with God, since they already had a relationship with God.

3) God did not say “man was alone” because he was thinking that Messiah needed more people in his church. “Man was alone” because man was actually alone and needed a companion. This parallel doesn’t work with the Messiah as he wasn’t alone and in need of a companion. The Holy Trinity is infinite companionship already.

4) Marriage is a good thing in itself. That it is a parallel picture of Christ and the church does not negate that marriage is intrinsically good and ordained by God for its own sake.

I think Paul is getting at something else here. I think he is getting at the mystery of marriage as well as the mystery of the church. Both are born in the heart and mind of a God who loves. That humans have a union of one flesh is a mystery that God revealed in Eve. That God loves rebel humans and unites them with himself through the Jewish people is also a mystery that God revealed in the Messiah. In Scripture, mystery doesn’t usually mean “something difficult to understand.” It usually carries a definition of “something we didn’t know about, but now we do.” If we said “revealed secret,” in place of “mystery,” we’ll be close to its meaning. Both the marriage of husband and wife and the marriage of Messiah and the church are mysteries or revealed secrets.

The way marriage points to Christ and the church, as far as I see it, is that humans were made for communion, just as God exists in communion within the Trinity. Community among humans is one way we are made in God’s image. Perhaps Paul highlights the mystery of Christ and the church, beyond the mystery of marriage, because God‘s purposes of pure love in marriage is being redeemed again through the Messiah, his work, and his resurrected life.

Notice, just like with the wives, no mention is given to the “roles” of the husband. He is to lay his life down (though elsewhere in Scripture the woman is to do the same, for the greatest love is to lay your life down for your friends—John 15:13). No mention of authority is given or protecting and providing roles. Only serving, deferment, and love. Based on what I read in this passage, it is quite unclear to me what a husband is “in charge of” in marriage. What I see is that he is to ensure his wife is treated supremely by him, even if it means losing his own head. When the wife submits to the husbands love, the mutual vulnerability paints the only portrait God gave us of what the Trinity is like. Yet in the church today, much energy is placed on the need for “authority” for a marriage to work. Paul, however, emphasizes without confusion or debate that the recipe for a well-ordered marriage is love. We would do well to explore joyfully all the implications of love, of which there is much evidence than to preclude that reward with a culturally-driven need to emphasize “authority” of which there is little evidence.

Next up: a look at the currently popular passage on "love and respect."

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 13 of 16)

2008-08-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Husband's Body

Verse 28-31, In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."

See how Paul does not mince words over what husbandly submission looks like! Messiah submitted himself to the mission, to the cross, to our sin, to our livelihood. He washed our feet. He calls us siblings and says that our Father is his Father. He came down to bring us up, to raise us to the very highest place of humanity.

Notice what Paul says next by playing on the word “body.” He said husbands are to love their wives as they love their own bodies, echoing the second commandment of loving neighbor as oneself. Again, this submission runs deep in the home. Paul speaks of the husband’s literal body, and then turns it into the larger metaphor of the church body, meaning the assembly of believers.

When talking to wives, Paul accentuated the “head.” Talking to husbands, he accentuates the “body.” But, again, this isn’t “authority” over the body, but giving life to the body. The husband gives life to his wife by loving her as his own body, serving her, not demanding sex to meet his own needs, not throwing his weight around, not belittling, not the boss. Rather, he is gentle, kind, loving, peaceful, looking out for her interests (read Gal 5:22-23—the fruit of the Spirit). This gives life. Christ does the same with the church, his “body.” While the parallel of the wife and the church are not “exact,” it is close enough. Metaphors can never be exact. Jesus is the vine means Jesus is our source of life, but if the metaphor were exact then Jesus would be green and twiggy, too.

Continuing the discussion, Paul turns to the very first marriage in Scripture: Adam and Eve. He quotes Genesis 2:24 and tells us that the man’s body and the woman’s body are seen as “one flesh.” [1] This ancient passage informs Paul’s idea that a husband is to love his wife as he loves his own body. It is grounded in the Garden of Eden before the Fall when the unbroken way was all perfect submission as “one flesh.” One flesh is one that cannot be divided. One flesh is harmonious. One flesh is a metaphor of not knowing where one ends and the other begins. One flesh is one entity, not two entities lording over the other, not one side of the flesh controlling the other. Jesus said that no one should put asunder what God has put together (Matt 19:5-6). Yet asunder is what happens when one spouse is rendered less important than the other.
The next phrase in this section seems a bit out of place at first.

In my next post, we'll look at the "profound mystery."

[1] Note that in the story of Creation and the Fall in Genesis 1-3 that there is no mention of the man being in “authority” over the women until God declares judgment on them. If “authority” over the woman was always part of the design for man, then it wouldn’t be declared a judgment. Is Paul noting that Messiah has undone this judgment like he has undone the judgment of death? Is he following Jesus tradition that we ought to look to the Garden of Eden for our model of marriage? (Mark 10:1-12)

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 12 of 16)

2008-08-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Work of Messiah

Verse 26-27, …To make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

This is the work of Jesus on the cross. Yet I’ve heard respected pastors use this section as a husband’s responsibility in marriage. Assuming “head” means “authority” they will say it is the husband’s job to sanctify or make his wife holy, almost as a priestly representative mediating between God and wife.

This explanation is very difficult to believe for this one reason alone: If the wife is part of the church, then she is already washed by Jesus. She doesn’t need to be washed by her husband too. Is Paul describing for the one and only time in Scripture that women particularly need a “double-washing”? If it is the husband’s job to purify his bride then

1) unmarried women are less pure because they have no husband to do this, or

2) unmarried women are more pure because Christ is their direct purifier and isn’t interrupted by a fallen human husband, and

3) it renders the atonement of Christ as suspiciously lacking in thorough effectiveness.

Take your pick. None of those options make any sense when compared to the rest of Scripture. We don’t want to twist our understanding of Redemption out of motivation to retain our cultural rules about marriage.

Some will note that marriage does sharpen us, help us overcome our defects of character. It has often been said that marriage is a great sanctifier! No doubt this is true, and even more true with children! But it goes both ways. A woman who walks with Jesus will sharpen her husband as much as a husband who walks with Jesus will sharpen his wife. And we must do away with any idea about a husband having a priestly office in the home. There is only one mediator between God and humans, Jesus the Messiah (1 Tim 2:5).

It is clearest to me to read this description of the Messiah’s work in verses 26-27 as showing how far he will go in his love for us. It is the preeminent example for husbands in loving their wives. It’s the deepest submission to constantly lay down one’s life.

The next verses continue this idea of submitting one’s life in love.

Free iPods at University

2008-08-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

The New York times published this piece yesterday: "Welcome, Freshman. Haven an iPod."

Apparently, student cell phones and laptop computers aren't enough of a distraction. They need iPods, too, to satiate the endless consumer appetite to be entertained. I still believe music is the drug of choice in the West. And in a place, like University, which traditionally is for soul-building and a retreat from life's distractions to gain knowledge and wisdom, this article is saddening. More souls in need of Soulation....

The article is worth your reflection. For instance, see this paragraph:

“When it gets a little boring, I might pull it out,” acknowledged Naomi J. Pugh, a first-year student at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., referring to her new iPod Touch, which can connect to the Internet over a campus wireless network. She speculated that professors might try harder to make classes interesting if they were competing with the devices.

I've been informed that Naomi's comment was made in jest and removed from it's original context for the sake of the author's rhetorically driving the point (a common problem of dishonest journalism akin to the vice he denounces). That Naimi sounds like many typical freshman is unfortunate. Many students have developed the habit of believing that information must be entertainment. Yet so often knowledge will not come in entertaining ways. Making a class more 'interesting' should not be a requirement for students to learn what it means to lead (not consume) in the 21st century. It would serve us to cultivate learning, even from boring professors, because this is what a virtuous, flourishing, appropriately human person does. These are the the kinds of students who grow up to make a difference.

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 11 of 16)

2008-08-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Masculine culture and love

Love and sacrifice give life. The metaphor stretches the text too much for me if “head” is “authority.” A true “authority” must always protect himself, seal up the vulnerable cracks, put up the best defenses, and refrain from showing any weakness. It would be foolish for the commander to spend his time serving the troops when he should be strategizing against the enemy. We don’t put the President on the front line in battle; instead we surround him with secret service. Paul is saying the honorable head must lay down his life, to offer life to his bride, just as Messiah offered his life for the church. He emphasizes more than anything else that love, not authority or leadership, is the recipe of a healthy marriage.

The Messiah could lay his life down because there was a Commander overseeing the whole affair, his Father. And this same freedom to lay our lives down is available to husbands, for this Commander is still at the helm of this world. Jesus’ work as “Savior,” not Lord, is the analogy for the husband.

As I’ve taken time to meditate on these passages, the pieces start coming together for me on what the Kingdom of God looks like when lived out.

Then suddenly in verse 26, Paul paints a portrait of what the Savior’s love looks like by explaining what the Messiah did for the church.

We'll start looking at what Messiah did and how this relates to the husband... coming next.

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 10 of 16)

2008-08-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Masculine culture

Men jab at each other, “Who wears the pants in your family?” Or “Get your wife under control?” Or they often think to themselves, “I don’t want to look weak in front of the other guys!” Once when I was renting a trailer, I stopped by the depot to pick it up. The gruff and greasy owner of the shop sent his dolled up girlfriend out to get my information. In her tight shirt and blonde hair, she played ditzy which was what her boyfriend wanted. Then back in the shop, the owner turned to his daughters (I presumed) in their late teens hanging around a mechanics shop, and asked them if they wanted to go with me. Trying to avoid conflict with an aggressive man, I simply said that I was traveling with my wife. He quipped back, “Well, some guys can handle two girls and some can only handle one.”

These are the games many men play, fronting a pagan view of masculinity, surrounding themselves with women who will also play the game, demeaning women and showing their prowess over other men. Be on the lookout. This view of manhood is everywhere today in varying degrees. I once had a Christian leader tell me I need to be a man by keeping my wife in line! If you knew my wife and our marriage, you would see how this man was threatened by a competent woman treated fully human. This attitude isn’t the kind that submits one’s life. This isn’t the kind that loves. This view sees the love of the Messiah as “weak,” “sissy,” or “feminine.” [1]

When Jonalyn and I married, our friend, Jerry Root, shared with us an idea that we recited for our marriage vows. He called it “the high courtesy of heaven.” The theme throughout Scripture of this high courtesy is “giving my life for yours.” More than a willingness to put my life on the line when someone threatens my wife, it is learning to die daily. It is putting your own will aside. It is turning down one more Jeep accessory so my wife can hire someone to help clean the house before guests arrive. Giving my life for hers is my finding ways to serve her, like doing dishes, making the bed, vacuuming the house, paying the bills, so she is freed to use her skills and enjoy her hobbies too. It is organizing the office when I would rather leave it a mess—because I know it is what makes life less stressful for her. It is not complaining about the meals or requiring the meals suit the husband. Holding doors and pulling out chairs for women was born out of giving your life for someone else, rendering them of greater importance, treating them like royalty. The one who brings home the bacon must also be willing to cook it.

Today men often serve women so it will keep the peace or so that the woman will serve them in return. But that’s not love. The perpetual theme in the Bible is esteeming others more important than self (Phil 2:3-4) and to be willing “servants” to one another (Gal 5:13). And this nature of love slices both ways throughout the Scripture, only in this passage it is especially highlighted for husbands. If we have a difficult time imagining husbands loving in this way, submitting in this way, perhaps we need to consider with the Ephesians how much of the culture is still in us when it comes to submitting to one another in the church.

In the next post, I'll finish with observations on verse 25, with masculinity, the Messiah, and the nature of love.

[1] I hate how we use the words “masculine” and “feminine” as insults on one hand and as adjectives for activities and objects on the other. When someone says, “That guy is feminine,” it insults both the guy and all women everywhere. The same goes for describing things as “masculine.” These are two words we should hold with honor. They describe how a male and female bear the image of God together and reveal His qualities.

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 9 of 16)

2008-08-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Details for Husbands

Paul turns from the wives and launches into details for husbands.

Verse 25 says, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...

Remember when I mentioned earlier that the culture was strongly patriarchal and that women were largely inferior to men across the Mediterranean world? Now imagine you are a man in that kind of culture. You have no problem with “submitting one to another,” especially if it is other men. But is Paul announcing here that you are supposed to submit to women in the church (v. 21)? That’s raises eyebrows in that culture and in his. [1] But this is what Paul is saying as he pushes the point to husbands. Even submit to the one you’re closest to, your wife—the one who knows your secrets and your vulnerabilities.

Only when I saw this passage as a whole did I begin to see that Paul’s admonition for husbands to love is also a form of submission. It’s what submission looks like in the Christian community. One of the struggles I had to overcome was to stop thinking Bible-versely and begin thinking Biblically. Bible verses are good but usually interrupt context and interfere with the meaning of the author. Thinking Biblically is stepping back and seeing the larger picture, seeing the writer’s words but only in light of his many sentences.

Don’t forget Paul’s thesis statement for this section, “Submit to one another out of reference for Christ.” He’s now going to tell the husbands what submission looks like for them in marriage. “Love your wives.” That’s the bombshell. Love your wives; will your wives’ good; seek to bring them life.

In Paul’s day, men were not expected to love their wives. They married them, viewed them as property, and used them for pleasure and procreation. Demosthenes of Greece put it this way, “Mistresses we keep for pleasure, concubines for daily attendance upon our person, wives to bear us legitimate children and be our faithful housekeepers.” [2] Women were not equal to men in the Greco-Roman world. Even Aristotle put them as opposite to man as darkness is to light. But what kind of love is this that Jesus the Messiah brings to his followers in marriage? Romantic love? Flowers and candy? Holidays at the beach? No, he uses the deepest metaphor for love that Paul has in his tool bag, “…just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

What did the Son of God do for the church? Read Philippians 2. It started when he submitted freely of himself (there’s that idea again!) and became a servant in human form as the Messiah. And He vulnerably let himself be misunderstood everyday and ultimately destroyed by evil men. This is love.

Paul conjures up this image in the minds of husbands in Ephesus. Give your lives up. Submit freely of yourself. Be willing to be misunderstood and even wrongly treated. Give up your life for her, your reputation for her, your control of her. Think of the Messiah. Give her space to choose, to grow, to flourish. This is all included in giving up your life. It ran against the grain of the way these men were brought up from boyhood—strength, domination, control, power. [3]

We'll continue our look at verse 25 in the next post....

[1] I find it humorous when people say that today’s culture doesn’t like the idea of “submission” (as in obedience) and so they resist what Paul is saying. The irony is that yesterday’s culture did like submission (as in obedience) and Paul is working at dragging them out of it. If it was otherwise, Paul would say, “I commend you, church in Ephesians, for your expertly work on wifely submission (as in obedience), I see I don’t have to articulate it to you!”

[2] Demosthenes, “Against Neaera,” in The Orations, p. 9.

[3] As I analyze some men’s movements today (what I call the “new masculinity”) it sometimes reminds me—often in subtle ways—of those pagan cultures now resurfacing in the name of Jesus.

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 8 of 16)

2008-08-18T08:00:00.001-07:00

What is not here

Let me make a special observation about what is not in this Ephesians 5 instruction to women.

There is no mention of “roles” of wives nor reference to how wives are “wired.” Nothing about staying home with children or keeping house. No mention of a need for spiritual guidance for wives. No mention of decisions that women cannot handle or make. Not even a mention of weakness like we find mentioned elsewhere.[1]

We only find an attitude of humble submission to a life-giving head. If “head” could possibly mean “authority,” I find no notion of what that means in Paul’s view of marriage of a husband with authority. What are women prohibited from doing that would require a husband to keep her in check? Does the husband trump everything? Is the woman to stay at home? Or work out of the home? What about overseeing finances? Does care-giving the children fall more on the mother than the father? Is she unable to share truth from Scripture? What if there is disagreement? What prevails? The husband? Or their best individual understandings based on Scripture and the Spirit? What exactly are the wives not permitted to do or oversee in this text? There are no specifics; specifics show up when theologians and writers try to make these simple verses practical. The mystery of submission goes deep. We would do well to stay our focus. We step out of bounds, import our modern cultural lenses when put things in the Scripture that are not being said. [2]

For much of my life, I was told the Bible is the authority and the Bible assigns “roles” to men and women. Yet many today uphold the Bible as the authority but tack on what Jesus referred to as “traditions.” We must re-examine ourselves, our intentions, our thoughts. We may find sociological studies supporting our views, but let's not overlay them on God's word. Modern studies, unlike the Bible, usually come with expiration dates.

In summary of the details to wives, it is clear to me that to read “head” as “authority” is to read too much into the text, especially with Paul’s understanding of “submission to one another” and his understanding of “savior.” The section on what submission looks like for a wife in marriage is short, filled with metaphors of life and gives us pictures consistent with the meanings of Paul’s original thesis: “submit to one another.”

[1] 1 Peter 3:7: Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. For more, see Jonalyn Grace Fincher’s, Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home, page 109-113.

[2] Though some will find these examples bizarre, try generating some of your own examples and what you have seen imposed on women that are in the name of “submission” but are not in the text. I will not mention any titles, but there are numerous popular books today that bring in pop-psychology at this point, read into the text, share some anecdotal stories, interview statistics that are culturally laden, and then say this is what Scripture is teaching. As an apologist defending the faith, one of the pitfalls I try to be careful of—though am never immune—is importing assumptions in the text that have their origin in other places.

What do you think? Leading the new evangelical voter...

2008-08-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

The headlines today are of McCain and Obama with Rick Warren at Saddleback in Orange County. I'm looking for opinion on the statement made below that jumped off the page at me.

The quotation below comes from this article.

'Rick Warren is at the forefront of a kind of younger generation of evangelical Protestant leaders who want to have a Christian public presence in the culture, but who are less tied to the Republican politics of their predecessors,' said Andrew Walsh, the associate director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, in Hartford. 'They're values-oriented guys, but less convinced that either their own principles or the best politics lies in a total commitment to the Republican Party.'

No doubt that younger evangelical voter is less Republican and more 'values-oriented.' I am (registered Independent). And I find this to be the general pulse of my generation and younger.

But is Rick Warren at the 'forefront'? Does my generation and younger look to him as a leader in this? Or is he more akin to our parents' generation?

What do you think?

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 7 of 16)

2008-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

A Look at the Head (cont.)

Now apart from the meaning of “head,” Paul is comparing marriage to that of Messiah and the church. This is why wives should submit. Let’s look at this verse through the comparison Paul is making. How does the church submit to the Messiah, her head? When we understand this, we will have a better picture of what submission for a wife looks like.

Paul highlighting a certain relationship. Just saying “Christ is the head of the church” leaves the word “head” unclear. But Paul doesn’t leave us hanging. He adds one of the titles of the Messiah on the end of the phrase. He doesn’t say, “Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the mediator.” Nor does he say, “Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the master.” He calls the Messiah those titles in other places, so the concepts are available to him.

Rather, Paul says, “Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.”[1] Savior is not an “authority” position. It is the position of the deliverer, the one who rescues, the one who gives his life as a ransom for many. A savior may be a soldier in the field who comes to rescue you, but he isn’t your superior.[2] It is the Savior who gives life by giving his life. Because Christ is the “Savior,” this informs more accurately the honor of the “head.” “Submit to one another” and then “wives to husbands” does not carry the idea of under authority, but under humility.[3]

This meaning is further allowed since Paul never commands wives to “obey” their husbands. In the context that follows, children “obey” (Eph 6:1) and slaves “obey” (Eph 6:5) but wives are neither to be treated like children nor like slaves. Practically speaking, when a husband views his wife as inferior, as someone to do chores, wear certain clothes, and stay out of financial control, he’s treating her as a child. When he demands obedience, that’s parental behavior, not husbandly behavior.

Or when he expects her to wait on him, to care for all his needs, to exist to serve him, to do the menial jobs as he does the important ones, that is treating her as a slave. When he believes cooking or cleaning or work around the house is beneath him, that’s masterly behavior, not husbandly behavior.

Paul is saying wives are to submit to the vulnerability of the husband, the life symbolically poured out for her in Adam (when God took from his side to make Woman) as well as the vulnerability of giving himself in the day to day. This isn’t a matter of obedience to authority. It isn’t a matter of creating “order” in the home. No, it is a receiving of life and goodness, not to be trampled, gossiped about over tea, or nagged. Without submission, wives cannot receive their husband’s vulnerability.

This is exactly how each person comes to the Savior, receiving his life in humility and submitting to his vulnerable atonement. The Messiah doesn’t demand we be atoned.[4] We just lose it if we fail to take it as the fountain of life itself. People who do not understand the texture of love will miss the beauty of this dance.

Notice the word-play of “savior” with “submission” and “head.” Let the text inform the meaning. This is not a passage on who is in charge. This is a passage on who is in love.

If we live in the metaphor we find that husbands are to create a life-giving environment for the woman to thrive. As the Savior gives live to the church, his body, so a husband ought to give life to his bride. In this environment, a woman freely submits of herself in everything. [5]

This use of “Savior” foreshadows what Paul will illustrate to husbands.

The next post will highlight what is NOT in these verses on submission that are often inserted.

[1] Even strong subordinationists will divide the characteristics of Jesus and assign them to the gender: they say women should be like Jesus in their submission and men should be like Jesus in their lordship. While I disagree with these distinctions, I only put this out to show that everyone agrees it is far to separate out the characteristics of the Messiah.

[2] I’m not saying Jesus is not superior to the church. What I am saying is that Paul is not highlighting here that aspect of the Messiah. He’s highlighting the aspect that is an analogy to husbands and wives.

[3] Note that Paul is using the same phrase as he used with another church in Colossians in 1:17-18—which also does not mean “authority.” Paul is telling the same thing to the Ephesians. To say “head” means “authority” here is to swim upstream against the context and Paul’s use of this phrase elsewhere.

[4] Some theological positions on “election” say he does demand certain persons to be atoned. I find this view inconsistent with the whole of Scripture and supplanting “election” from the Jewish people.

[5] Because the question inevitably comes up, I don’t think Paul is teaching here that a woman submits to abuses. If “head” carries the meanings of honor, we can see that a woman can only submit when a husband is acting honorably, as the life-giving lover that he is designed to be.

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 6)

2008-08-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Continued from here.

A Look at the Head

Verse 23-24 reads, For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Paul is expanding his reasons on what “submission” looks like and why it is good. The common knee-jerk interpretation is that this verse teaches husbands are leaders of their wives. But a few observations are in order.

“Head” is a metaphor. And, sadly, it’s a dead metaphor today. What is a dead metaphor? It is a word that no longer conjures up an image. We assign meanings to it because we’ve heard it so often. If I said, “I’m hitting the road,” that dead metaphor would only mean, “I’m driving away.” But if the metaphor were alive, we would think up a picture of someone going out to pound the asphalt. [1]

Live metaphors create pictures for us. “The Lord is my rock,” is a live Biblical metaphor as we think of a rock and its qualities that are similar to God. So when we see that the husband is the “head” of the wife, we need to first think about the metaphorical picture before we jump to conclusions. The picture here would be of a head on a body. And if the head is removed from the body three things happen: the head dies and the body dies and the union dies. The picture shows us that the body needs the head and the head needs the body. They cannot exist if the two were not dependent on each other. This is living in the metaphor.

It is overwhelmingly agreed upon by theologians on every side of the debate that “head” in Greek does not carry the same meaning as “head” in English. If we cram our English meanings into the text, we will miss the point. In English, “head” most commonly connotes “authority” and that’s how we often use the word. When we think of “head of state,” we think of the one in charge of the country. Yet in English, we have another meaning for the metaphor “head.” My father-in-law once took a canoe expedition down from the headwaters of the Missouri river. Here we see a lesser used meaning of the metaphor “head” in English: headwaters. When we talk about the “head” of the waters, we aren’t talking about the “authority” of one part of the river over another. We talk about the “source” or “origin” or “beginning” or “first” of the river. Another use is when a situation has reversed, when something on top gets put on the bottom; we say it was “turned on its head.”

What if the Greek word for “head” also carried additional meanings we don’t use in English? Many scholars note that “authority” and “source” are actually rare interpretations of “head” in Greek literature. While there is still much research to be done, it is likely, “head” for Paul carries the meaning of “honor,” more than anything else. [2]

[1] I borrow this idea from an excellent discussion on live and dead metaphors in How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Mark L. Strauss.
[2] Look at 1 Corinthians 11 and see how intertwined honor is with the word “head.” For a survey of the last 30 years of scholarship on this, see “A Meta-Study of the Debate Over the Meaning of "Head" (Kephale) in Paul's Writings” by Alan Johnson in Pricilla Papers, Autumn 2006.

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 5 of 16)

2008-08-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Continued from here.

Cultural Background

Let’s get a little historical background before we move forward. The goddess Artemis reined in Ephesus. Her followers built one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, located within 30 miles the city. This temple was a key part of their geography and culture.[1] If you had visited Ephesus in those days, you would have identified right away the religion of the region, much the same way you see the minarets in Istanbul and know immediately Islam is a major presence.

Artemis was born first and delivered her twin brother Apollo; she saved women in child-bearing[2]; and she taught that women were spiritually superior to men. This created tension between the men and women of the culture. Where the women flaunted their prowess before men, like Artemis did before the gods, imagine how dramatic Paul’s words would have been. “Submit of yourselves as you do to the Lord.” Do it freely. Do it willingly. Go against the cultural grain. You belong to the Messiah now and his kingdom and his way of abundant life.

Some argue women are wired to submit to a man and they will use verse 22 to support it. Interview women and you might hear sardonic laughter and an insistence of the opposite! Even so, Paul rarely instructs believers to do anything that comes naturally. Saying he instructs them to do something naturally is about as redundant as someone commanding you to breathe. Breathing comes naturally. Submission doesn’t come naturally to any fallen human.

Now the Greek world was also patriarchal. Men were generally 10-15 years older than their wives and were providers for them in that society. Men owned private property, including their wives, were viewed as physically, intellectually, financially superior, and were the strength and glory of the family heritage.

Coming up... what does it mean to be the "head"...

[1] Acts 19 illustrates how entrenched Artemis was in the cultural imagination in Ephesians.
[2] Paul admonished believers in Ephesus that Messiah, not Artemis, was superior to saving women in childbearing (1 Tim 2:15).

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 4 of 16)

2008-08-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Continued from here.

Details for Wives

So why does Paul continue writing details for wives after telling the church that submission is part of living in the Spirit? If it is obvious we are to submit to one another, why not just stop writing in verse 21? Why the specific instruction to wives? Well, as I read it, I think he’s showing how verse 21 is applied in marriage, in case some believe Kingdom living only happens when we gather. We will see how it applies to wives now, and then how it applies to husbands later.

Verse 22 says, Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

Wives are to “order under” their husbands. It is a posture of humility to defer to him, be associated with him. What is interesting is that “submit” is in the middle-voice, a voice not in English. We have passive voice in English, “The ball was hit.” We have active voice, “I hit the ball.” But middle voice is different. It is what is done to oneself, “The ball hit itself.” Wives are to take it upon themselves to submit; the submission is not to be enacted upon them, forcing them to comply. So while a commander of an army is to make his subordinates submit, this is not the case in marriage. Because God is our commander, we submit to one another, we choose to order ourselves under those we love, including wives to husbands.

I like that Paul adds the little word “own.” Wives are to submit to their own husbands. It may be easier to submit to other men in the assembly, men who you don’t have to live with, who don’t hurt you with their tone or disrespect. It’s always easier to be kind to people less intimate. So Paul adds a nice little detail. Submit of yourselves to the one who is closest to you, the one who is likely the most difficult to submit to: your own husband.[1]

I think it also reasonable to say Paul adds "own husband" here because he's moving from the plural "wives" to the singular. It could be confusing to say "wives submit to your husbands," allowing people to suggest that married women should submit to all married men. Instead, Paul clarifies, "own," and we are left with the picture of the matrimonial "one flesh" in tact.

The rest of the phrase carries a simile, or a comparative phrase, “as you do to the Lord.” This could be read several ways:

1) Submit to your husband in the same way you obey the Lord,

2) Submit to your husband for the reputation of the Lord (cf. Eph 6: 1, 7), or

3) Submit unto the Lord through submitting to your husband (like verse 21, out of “reverence for Christ”).

I think choice (1) goes against the character of the rest of the passage. Not only does it lean against the paradox of verse 21 where we are informed to “submit to one another,” but it curiously leaves out ideas of “obedience” to the husband as we have to the Lord, an obedience we find in the later context of children and slaves in Ephesians 6. Choice (2) and (3) work in relation to the rest of the passage, a throwback to our “reverence for Christ,” and also works with what we understand about God’s sovereignty and protective hand. When we submit to one another it is always a risk. And if people are found untrustworthy, then we make stricter boundaries for them, including husbands and wives. But in general, submission is scary because it makes us vulnerable. Yet this is the kind of vulnerability that Jesus the Messiah demonstrated to his Father as well as to his disciples (entrusting them with his message, washing their feet) and asks us to do the same. This is the kingdom life of love, trust, authenticity.

In the next post, I'll talk briefly about some cultural background...

[1] I’ve heard many teachers say Paul says “own husband” to specialize the submission Paul is talking about here. Yet in light of the discussion on verse 21, I cannot justify this as a specialized submission. I don’t even know what that would mean, “Submit even more”? But Paul doesn’t say that even though he could easily do so. Also, in light of Paul’s other writings about humility and respect for one another, I am most convinced by the view that says Paul is making a practical admonition that, yes, as a follower of Jesus, humility and kindness is also needed to be applied to your husband (even if he isn’t perfect).

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 3 of 16)

2008-08-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Continued from here.

Locating submission
In Bibles with topical headings before each passage, this verse is often excluded from the context that follows. We must note two things: 1) topical headings in Bibles are put there by translators to help the average reader—not part of the inspired text, and 2) the author of the letter (Paul) expected the reader to read the whole letter, top to bottom, in one sitting as one large context, 3) it is important to note that the Greek word “submit” is only found once in the entire passage: verse 21.

Glancing down to verse 22, the word “submit” is in our translations to aid us in our reading. But in the Greek, the word “submit” is not there. Rather, verse 22 borrows the word “submit” from verse 21. It literally reads, “Wives, to your own husbands…” “Submit” is borrowed from the previous verse and is understood in verse 22. That’s why translators rightly include it in verse 22. The New American Standard Bible, which attempts to translate word for word, italicizes the understood words added to the verse. For instance, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands…” The Darby Translation, which is even more literal, uses brackets for the implied meaning, “Wives, [submit yourselves] to your own husbands…”

This isn’t weird sentence structure. We do this too. Imagine you are working in the yard and say to your sons, “Joey, use the shovel; Jon, the spade.” Jon knows what you are asking him to do. The word “use” in the second phrase is implied and clear. This is the same thing Paul does with verse 21 and 22. “Submit” is implied and clear.

This observation should give us pause. Whatever the word “submit” means for the wife is no more than what it means for “one another” in verse 21. This is like our example of Jon and the spade: Jon is not asked to do anything more with the spade than what Joey is to do with the shovel—use it. Paul’s idea of submission for a wife isn’t a special submission otherwise he would have said it another way. He could have said, “Wives, especially you submit to your husband” or “Wives, let your husbands rule.” But he doesn’t say “especially you” or “rule” he only implies “submit” from verse 21.

Paul expects all followers of Jesus to submit to one another, wives included, no matter where you are—church, home, school, marketplace, soccer field, funeral, wedding, picnic, or at the movies.
But what does it mean to “submit”? It means “to order under.” When we think of “ordering under” today we think of military commanders and their ranks. We think of CEOs and the employees under them. Paul often thinks of this too when he talks about being subject to powers. But in non-military uses, it generally means, “giving in, placing oneself in cooperation, and even carrying a burden”[1] or even to “associate oneself with.”[2] But Paul uses an ironic context with “submit” in verse 21. We are to “order under,” yes. But Paul says we are to “order under one another.” I once heard a respected and seasoned theologian argue that “submit” only means “to order under” and concluded a wife is to be “ordered under” her husband. But for all the respect I have for this theologian, I was surprised he missed the paradox. When I read the verse for what it is, it seems straightforward. The paradox is that Paul says to “submit one to another.” I order under you. You order under me. This is what associating with one another looks like, mutual burden bearing, willing to cooperate. It fits Paul’s other writings telling us to consider others more important than ourselves and warnings that the last shall be first (verses that involve both genders). This is humility and love in the lives of Kingdom citizenry.

In the next post, we will continue into details for wives...

[1] Studylight.org offers handy resources to see what words mean. Of course, words only have their real meanings in context with other words and phrases. But it’s a start. Look up Ephesians 5:21 and see how “submit” is used. It will also note how it is used in military and non-military contexts.
[2] Discovery of extra-Biblical Greek sources suggest this.

The Mystery of Submission - Ephesians 5 (part 2 of 16)

2008-08-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

Continued from here.

"Submit to One Another"

Paul begins this section of discussion on marriage with a summary thesis statement which he will illustrate as the passage unfolds. The thesis is found in verse 21, which says,

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

The admonishing is clear: submit to one another. This applies to men and women, boys and girls, aunts and uncles, grandparents, friends, cousins, and everyone else who is rooted in the life of Jesus. Paul says our motivation is reverence for Jesus the Messiah.

Who is “one another”?

At the start of this passage some have argued that “one another” is selective and doesn’t mean what it appears to mean. In some instances this word refers to some betraying (Matt 24:10) or killing “one another” (Rev 6:4) If one is betrayed, the argument goes, another cannot betray back again. If one is killed, the fallen one cannot get up and kill the other. Those who hold this view believe verse 21 is referring to men submitting to other men and women submitting to men. But they say it cannot mean men submitting to women.

The problems with this argument are several.

1) “One another” is about the general attitude or behavior of the group as a whole, not about each individual.

2) In the 100 instances of this word in the New Testament, the overwhelming majority is that this is a reciprocated word referring to loving (1 Thess 3:12), burden-bearing (Gal 6:2), discussing (Mark 8:16), reasoning (Luke 2:15), grumbling (John 6:43), confessing (James 5:16), humility (Phil 2:3) forgiving (Eph 4:32), foot-washing (John 13:14), sending gifts (Rev 11:10) making peace (Mark 9:50) and other admonitions. The only exceptions are those based on logic, not instruction, like in instances of betrayal or killing.

3) In no instance of “one another” are exceptions made based on gender, age, ethnicity, or class.

4) Submitting "one another" is a quality of being “filled” with the Spirit, starting in Ephesians 5:18, which also includes singing, speaking psalms, giving thanks. There are no gender-specific spirit-fillings in Paul’s letters nor a reason to say "hymns" are just for men, "giving thanks" just for people who have straight teeth, "speaking psalms" for people with good memories, and "submission" just for women. Those would be arbitrary assignments. The text assumes that everyone filled will make melody, give thanks, and submit to everyone else. Submission for everyone is also consistent with the rest of Scripture (see Mark 10:42-44, Phil 2:3).

To be continued...

The Mystery of Submisson - Ephesians 5 (part 1 of 16)

2008-08-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

Introduction

The relationships between men and women, husbands and wives, is a deeply needed cultural conversation with great import into apologetics. Not only does the Scripture tell us to give an answer for our faith, but even more often it tells us to live out that answer, even in marriage. How we relate to one another in love is a tall signpost. Today, more than ever, the doors are swung wide to explore this mystery of marriage; it is prudent for anyone who claims to follow Jesus as the Messiah to do so.

Ephesians 5 holds the most detailed passage on the relationship between husband and wife in the New Testament. In other passages of Peter and Paul, we find short reminders of marriage using the same language as Ephesians. So we turn to here for the clearest idea of what Paul means. This is not to preclude the many passages that speak to all humans to love, be neighborly, admonish, exhort, and stand firm in the Messiah.

The “roles” of marriage evoke a roller-coaster of images and emotion. Everyone has an opinion. Some welcome new insights and ideas from others. And more often, many avoid honestly entertaining other models outside the flavor of the day. Some want to be progressive and grab some egalitarian model. Others want to be traditional and choose a tradition of the past even though traditions change depending on the era. Yet among those who take the Bible literally and without error there lies a broad spectrum of views, each claiming to be the “Biblical” way.

With a renewal of scholars talking about “equality” in marriage countered by others who hold to a “subordination” view of marriage (commonly termed “complementarian,” husband is leader of wife),[1] let’s look at this passage with fresh eyes. Let’s get some perspective on Paul’s words. Perhaps Paul is saying things we often overlook. Or he is not saying things we often assume out of habit. Or perhaps we need our ideas reinforced. When we consider the text for ourselves and all its beautiful nuances, it prevents us from merely mimicking one or the other side of the party-line.

I hope you have read the Ephesians passage. It is important that you do. Take it in. Let it inform your view. Any person thoughtful about this passage will be an influential leader in his or her sphere to the freedom that truth brings.

These posts will reflect my own honest inquiry and understanding of this passage today. I am open to changing my mind as evidence presents itself. I grew up under Christian teaching adamant about a certain view of marriage, a view that many subordinationists and egalitarians would consider more cultural than Biblical. Yet as I’ve studied this text over the last few years, I’ve noticed things I’d never seen before and have read various scholars with views that agreed with my heritage and views that did not. My motivation as a married man is to see what God thinks about roles and submission in marriage. And you’ll see that, apart from some cultural notes, my explanations are found in the text when we let the text speak. Biblical scholars, who love God and scripture, land in different areas of the debate, so this essay will not appeal to “scholarly authority” in a quotation-fest. For issues that stir up as much heat as this one, anyone can find a scholar that agrees with his own point of view.

Some have made teachings on marriage as essential as our hope in the resurrection. It is not. While I believe our view of marriage will have deep implications traced all the way to our view of the Trinity, I believe there is room to disagree on this issue in love without demonizing anyone. We would do well to pray for ourselves and others to be nudged by God's gentle Spirit into the light.

I approach the text as a student of Jesus and Paul. I have Jesus' view that the Bible is inspired and telling the truth without compromise. I also realize that all language, even my own, is found in context—a literary and a cultural one. And that makes a study like this one all the more adventurous.

Stay tuned.

[1] Both subordinationists and egalitarians believe the sexes “complement” one another. So I’m choosing words that best describe the view they hold rather than allowing either camp play rhetorical games to sound more appealing.

Another great light out--Alexander Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Alexander Solzhenitsyn became a household name in 20th century Cold War politics and an important figure in modern world history.

Solzhenitsyn was also a hero in understanding what it means to be human, both with a backdrop of prosperity as well as revolutionary suffering. He became famous for his Gulag Archipelago. Malcolm Muggeridge reported home in the early 1930s about the Russian atrocities under Stalin and predicted someone would rise up one day and write about it. Solzhenitsyn was only 14 at the time...

Short BBC Announcement

Was Jesus' Sacrifice a Sacrifice for Him? Part 2

2008-07-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Some great comments came from Part 1 of this question. See earlier entry here.

As you know, when a question is posted to you, there are a myriad of ways to take it. What assumptions are behind the question? What is the questioner really getting at? What does he or she want to know? This is one of the challenges of an apologist these days: questions are not always as they appear. We can often lose the questioner by taking their question so literally that we miss it's meaning or elaborating too long and lose the audience. Sometimes we can only guess and ask for follow-up...

Below is the response I gave to the original email to the question... feel free to comment...

On your question, it all depends on what he was sacrificing… it may not have been a big sacrifice if it was merely death, for he rose again from the dead. But one could argue that for the first and only time in reality, the Father had to turn his back on the Son while the Son took the sin of the world on his shoulders. If we understood the purity of Jesus and awefulness of sin, if we understood the deep love within the Trinity, it would be boggling to think that God would even consider such an act for puny human creatures.
And it seems from Scripture, the scars are permanent.
The second person of the Trinity who has always existed from before time now has scars? What are humans that God is willing to do such a thing? There is more to him than we realize. There is more to us than we realize.

On writing for the Trends

2008-07-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

I finished Strunk and White's Elements of Style this morning. As you may know E. B. White is a master writer, most famous for Charlotte's Web. White concluded my reading lighting up a dark temptation. His reminder is to writers specifically and, I add, to saints in general:

It is now necessary to warn the writer that his concern for the reader must be pure: he must sympathize with the reader's plight... but never seek to know his wants. The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one. Let him start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine, and he is as good as dead, although he may make a nice living.

Was Jesus' Sacrifice a Sacrifice for Him?

2008-07-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

I received this question last week:

Would you say that Jesus dying on the cross was not a huge sacrifice for Him?

How would you answer this? If Jesus knew he'd get his life back, does that lessen the sacrifice?

I'll give you how I responded in the next post. What are your thoughts?

What is a "Christian"?

2008-07-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

My friend, Rachel Wolf, a Jew with a storied history in the Messianic movement, wrote the following piece for the Messianic Times (reprinted here with her permission).

Read this, press into it, what does it do to your understanding of "Christian"?

What if God was calling the non-Jewish human world into some form of Jewishness?

What if we believed that Jesus was in fact a Jew and we're called to be like him?

How would you see things differently? Or does it matter?

Coffee and the Meaning of the Life
by Rachel Wolf

A few weeks ago, I bumped into an old friend at Starbucks. We had spent many memorable hours together in English Lit. She had moved out of the country shortly after college, and had recently come back to town. Never one to mince words, after some initial catch-ups, she said, “You’re an intelligent person. I understand that you had a religious experience, but how can you believe that goyishe nonsense?”

I was dumbfounded. Not because I was offended. (Hey, after various confrontations with professional anti-missionaries this was a raving compliment.) Nor because I was shocked by the question. (C’mon, I had asked myself the same question plenty of times over the years!)

I was speechless because I wanted to give her a meaningful answer. How could I even begin to compress 30+ years of painful, in fact, gut-wrenching, personal, spiritual and intellectual searching into a brief chat over latte with Stevie Wonder singing in the background?

For a moment I must have looked like I was about to be sick. “Are you okay?” was the next question.

I jolted headlong over my jumbled thoughts and tripped down a verbal staircase: “But it’s not goyishe. It’s really Jewish. Well, no, the nonsense isn’t Jewish. I mean it’s not nonsense. I mean there are some Gentile believers who really understand that it’s Jewish. And maybe I shouldn’t call Christianity nonsense. And I certainly don’t think of myself as a Christian, not that all Christians are bad or anything. But I can understand why you feel that way -- I mean about goyishe nonsense, not that all Christians are bad.”

She was now the one who looked pale. To make matters worse, I noticed that some of my coffee had managed to jump out of that little sipping hole onto my sweater as I was desperately gesturing, in hopes of whipping my airborne thoughts into some semblance of order.

“What?”

I took a breath, my eyes welling up with tears, as I searched again into the galaxies of my past.

“It’s like Alice Through the Looking Glass and I’m Alice.” My heart was bursting with the pain of the years as if it were all fresh. Please don’t cry, I pleaded with myself.

“It’s like, I know exactly how things look to you. I know how the world looks from your eyes. It’s me. You’re me. Look, I wear Jewish history like a mantle. The expulsions, the blood libels, the Protocols, the traditions, the ya ba by by bys, the Holocaust, all of it. It’s me, it’s where I come from; it’s who I am.

“But I’ve been through the looking glass, and now I see the same world, the same history, the same Bible, all the same stuff, but all turned around and inside out. And even when I want to, I can’t go back. The strange thing is, the looking glass world is the real thing, and we have all been trapped in the two-dimensional looking glass thinking it was real.”

“So, you mean you think Christianity is true and Judaism is backwards?”

My mouth opened, lips poised to speak, and closed again. Was the distance was too vast to span? How in the world do I communicate an alternate reality that is as different as that of another universe -- yet, at the same time, the very same thing I grew up believing and yearning for? Mere words seemed inadequate.

“No, no, not at all. (Nervous laugh.) We’ve all been trapped in the looking glass: the Jews, the Christians, even the Marxists and secularlists. I know it sounds ridiculous to say this, but all of Western religious thought has been skewed; it's been operating from an erroneous 'cosmology.'”

“I thought we were talking about religion?”

“Okay. As I see it, there are two basic aspects of this that seem like mishegas to us modern American Jews, or I guess to modern secularized Jews in general-- the goyishe nonsense you’re talking about. Tell me if this kind of summarizes what you mean:

"First, there’s the God idea: ‘How can you believe in a real personal God who can actually speak to you/communicate with you? Don’t you have to be either some sort of naive, uneducated Southern Christian, someone from the Middle Ages, or schizophrenic to believe that?’

"And. second, there’s the Christian/Jesus thing: ‘How can you believe that this one historical person is the key to salvation (whatever that is)?’”

“Yeehh...” said my friend thoughtfully. “There are lots of other issues, but I guess those two things summarize the main things pretty well.”

“Yeah. And, by the way, taking that step into ‘being a believer’ does not always make all the questions and wierdness go away. In some cases it temporarily enhances the wierdness. Does that make sense?

“Well, no, but go on.”

“Well, it’s taken me over thirty years of struggling and studying to find answers that satisfy me-- in science, history, Christian-Jewish relations, apparent anti-semitism in the New Testament, the ongoing importance of Jewish survival, etc. etc. But what I understand now is this:

“God is really real. God’s not a concept. Abraham didn’t invent monotheism. God is the author of reality. Life is a personal story, not a bizarre accident. The Bible is a story. As Heschel put it, it’s the story about God in search of man [humans]. God is the source of all life, and he desires for the life he created to be reconciled to him.

“And the central characters in this story are the Jews. We Jews -- even today -- we Jews have a particular, even a crucial, role to play in this story. We truly have an assignment, a job to do, and it’s about tikkun olam, but lasting eternally effective tikkun olam.”

“But hasn’t science proved that the universe is random?”

“There is no compelling reason why the universe has to be random and impersonal like we grew up being told it is. Nothing in science makes that a necessary conclusion. I’ve looked at it really hard. Materialism, the belief that matter is all there is and life is a random accident, is merely a philosophical choice.”

“Okay, okay so what about Jesus?”

“He’s the hope of Israel. He's called the ‘glory of my people Israel’ in the book of Luke.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. I thought he was the Christ-child in the manger and all that. The Bethlehem star and the wise men.”

"We speak of Tikkun Olam, our obligation to do whatever we can to repair the world. Yet with all of our amazing and important gifts to the world, we have failed to see that we cannot overcome the vast evil in the world solely by our natural gifts and generosity. We have to work in partnership with the one who destroyed the power of death itself -- Yeshua the Messiah. We have a real assignment to accomplish true tikkun olam through the power of the spirit of God.

"What did Yeshua tell his Jewish disciples? He told them, 'Tell them that the kingdom of heaven is near, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with malignant diseases, drive out evil spirits.' Yeshua also explained his ministry like this (from Isa. 61): To preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to comfort all who mourn...

"So the Christians are caught in the glass thinking that the New Testament and Jesus and all that stuff is Christian. And we are stuck thinking the same thing -- ‘Christian’ having a different connotation in each case. But the reality is that you can’t really understand who Jesus -- Yeshua -- was/is unless you let go of the whole Christianity thing and understand that it is all Jewish -- but open to all who want to join in, Jew or not. This world is in terrible shape. It’s going to take more than human ingenuity and compassion to fix it. There’s really life -- reality -- in this thing -- in him. I don't know -- I can't explain it any better right now."

"Well," said my friend (who is a dear rebel in her own right) "maybe there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in my philosophies." She laughed and retrieved a "Stain Stick" out of her purse.

Living with Questions in 4th printing

2008-06-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

Just a little news update that I received the first copy of the fourth printing of Living with Questions last week. Keep spreading the word.

This book isn't just good for teens and college students (though that is the intended audience). It is also good for adults, especially those who

1) are new to apologetics and want something accessible but also see how it pertains to real life and

2) want to better understands assumptions of our culture (yes, even better understanding today's youth) about God, spirituality, and a healthy soul.

If you've read Living with Questions and have an honest opinion of how it has helped you or someone you care about, do write a review over at Amazon.com!

And if you are ready to teach on it, follow the study guide links in the right margin.

Pagans, Wall•E, Religion & Atheism, gender...

2008-06-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

When I have time to blog about these individually, they may be older news... so a few brief comments on some links to check out.

C. S. Lewis said that if monotheism wasn't true, he thinks the best explanation of the world is some sort of paganism. The universe so filled with wonder, the ancients peopled the sky and the rivers and the elements with gods.

Check out Krista Tippett's NPR show, "Speaking of Faith," on this topic. Paganism is growing in the world (which is not new news) but our understanding it, how to get into the shoes of those who believe it, and how to gently navigate those ideas with others may be new to some of us. Here's the link:

Pagans Ancient and Modern

In other news, CT published a beautiful interview with Andrew Stanton, director of the new Pixar release, Wall•E. Stanton also produced the animated cinematic wonder, Finding Nemo. I appreciate Stanton's perspective. And I think his interview is one many evagelicals need to read to understand how art & imagination is approached by artists. Being an stage artist, people have often viewed me as 'drama guy' and want me to be involved in their church drama programs, which usually means a 5-minute spiritualesqe SNL-style sketch that leads to a sermon.

Well, when I use drama these days it is storytelling or monologue. And contrary to many evangelical church's use of drama, I think the story IS the sermon... not just a fun entertaining bit to help illustrate the sermon. Stanton's interview shows that, hitting theatres soon, is a sermon, Jesus-style, designed to draw us in and look at ourselves without being "preachy." It's worth your reflection.

The Little Robot that Could

And, finally, many of you may have already read that a Pew survey shows 92% of Americans believe in God while many of them think any sincerely chosen spiritual path is equally valid. This shouldn't be new news either, at least not among those paying attention to people on the street. With so much spirituality talk today, we should expect this.

What I do think is noteworthy is that the New Atheism isn't making much, if any, ground. Of all of philosophical naturalisms claims that God cannot be part of the human equation, they aren't convincing many people. Or, if they are, people hold that belief alongside their private spirituality. When reason dies, so do all our human treasures.

The survey also noted that many are cutting ties with organized religion. I'm still trying to figure out what this means... "organized" as in "going to the building on Sunday" or "not following a coherent set of beliefs of any spiritual leader" or are "both" included?

Here's the LA Times take on it.

Update: Okay, so one more thing you need to see since I posted the above. CT published a couple of articles on the gender debate between complementarians and egalitarians. Each is written by someone within each camp, criticizing their own camp.

Wounds of a Friend: Complementarian by John Koessler
Wounds of a Friend: Egalitarian by Sarah Sumner

Feel free to comment on any of the above topics... I would love some discussion.

Science is happy to be wrong

2008-06-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

Last month I read a well-written, intriguing article by Michael Hanlon called "Science is Golden." He writes that if we're going to preserve knowledge of the natural world, preserve our achievements, we must continue to endeavor in honest scientific practice.

He decrys so much of scientific inquiry has turned to the practical when he writes:

There is the growing belief in some countries, including Britain, that the purpose of science should be primarily utilitarian. This is a dangerous argument because it is so superficially seductive. Forget all that ivory-tower, blue-sky nonsense: go away to your labs and make us a new iPod or better toaster or more drugs. Poll after poll shows that the public demands that science be more “relevant”.

Consumerism affects more than an assault on the soul with noise and gimmickry. Money is often a deterrant to truth, both in religion as well as in science.

Hanlon's article is worth reading, though he is anti-religious. He thinks the purpose of humans "is probably closer to 'eat, reproduce and die' than anything glorious concerning God’s purpose or some grand design."

And he assumes religion gets in the way:

Science says, “we don’t know, but maybe we can find out”. It is the ultimate deterrent against ignorance, and the antidote to intellectual fatalism: “it’s a mystery”, “it’s God’s will”, “it’s magic”.

Yet I have found we sensible Westerners who have learned the integration of the disciplines finds no problem with scientific inquiry as long as it isn't fueled by dogma, including naturalistic philosophy. Religion and science have never been at odds in my mind. They serve as a check and balance of motivation and conclusion. That the world isn't an illusion, Christianity and science are bedfellows, much more than say Buddhism, which says it is. Even astute readers of the Bible will not be dogmatic about a certain interpretation unless it also lines up with reason and experience. I've seen plenty of people abusing the Bible by takign out of context, Christians and atheists alike. And this has less to do with the Bible and more to do with the people reading it.

The same can be true of science. Reading it with certain interpretations not checked by reason and experience and other sources of knowledge can lead to a vacuum. This is a common complaint about the university these days: each department becomes so specialized they no longer talk to people in other fields of study. Thus psychologists and neuroscientists do not talk about the soul. Neuroscience pulls the 'science' card and claims it has figured out the human mind based on electric corrolations in the brain (usually exploited as fact in popular magazines and newspapers). Meanwhile psychologists discovered complications with the human psyche that is not explained by neuroscience. If the two would talk, check and balance one another, then the world would be better off. And while they are at it, invite different views of philosophy of mind to the table who add even more issues about the mystery of consciousness. The historian would help as would the priest.

All that to say, science is a wonderful tool to be celebrated as an achievement. Science should not be held in suspicion by religion and vice versa. However, science is never done with pure objectivity. Once people enter the fray, just like in every discipline, it is prone to error, poor motivation, and philosophical agenda. Thus, Hanlon is overstating the case when he says Science "is the only belief system we have found that says it is happy to be proved wrong: science’s greatest strength." I would give that designation to any field of inquiry, religion included, explored with humility. We want truth, not our pre-consceived ideas of truth.

Science may like to be proved wrong, but not as much an be said for scientists.
Bloomberg published an article yesterday showing that very problem. Science can easily be abused and much "research" is actually fabricated for money and recognition.

Elizabeth Lopatto, "Scientific Fraud May Be More Widespread Than Thought, Poll Says".

These issues are good to be aware of, they serve as an apologetic when someone gets on a high-horse tirade about the evils of religion and the purity of science. It helps level the discussion when we can all acknowledge that humans are prone to corruption and error, if not held in check, and that even our most promising intellectual adventures may be lured, not by knowledge, but by a pot of gold.

We may work in science for a better world. Let us also pray for it too. And above all, let us examine like Socrates our own lives and careers to see if, indeed, we seek to be appropriately human.

Too Much Faith in Faith - more for the new atheism

2008-06-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

When I see an article by Alan Jacobs, I always pause. He's another one of those voices out there that 'gets it' more than many do, both in the larger cultural arena as well as in the church.'

His recent article in the Wall Street Journal called, "Too Much Faith in Faith," is an uncommon challenge at the major voices of the "New Atheism" movement. Jacobs says that calling "religion" the problem, when it is often used as a thin veneer over deeper, darker motivations, is an anti-intellectual approach of many intelligentsia on these matters. Here's sampling paragraph:

Most of today's leading critics of religion are remarkably trusting in these matters. Card-carrying members of the intelligentsia like Mr. Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris would surely be doubtful, even incredulous, if a politician who had illegally seized power claimed that his motives for doing so were purely patriotic; or if a CEO of a drug company explained a sudden drop in prices by professing her undying compassion for those unable to afford her company's products. Discerning a difference between people's professed aims and their real aims is just what intellectuals do.

I would add that it should be strangely suspicious to the thinking-class that the New Atheism is fueled by other motivations besides reason, virtue, and doing Westerners a favor. They are doing less to enlighten the public as they are to propagate a certain point of view with evangelistic fervor. Philosopher and atheist, Thomas Nagel, pinpointed the motivation when he wrote, "I do not WANT God to exist!" (The Last Word, 1997, emphasis mine).

Alan Jacobs article points beyond the religious veneer into darker places of the human heart. His new book on Original Sin is on my summer reading list!

The "Millenials" are Coming.... speak out!

2008-06-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

CBS News republished an updated edition of their assessment of the new generation entering the workforce. It's called "The 'Millenials' are Coming," a sound similar to the alarming cry of Paul Revere.

This is a risk on my part to see who will comment on an article like this. But I'd love to hear from those age 15-28 (and those who work with them) and throw your ideas about this generation into the mix.

In many ways, some of the aspects of this article are welcoming to me. That modernity has treated the workplace like a dehumanizing machine, I like these ideas of putting a human touch back into resourcefulness. The financial bottom-line may not be the only bottom-line necessary to call it 'productivity.'

I understand the concern as well (the delayed moving out on one's own, the demand for easy-going work, the lack of urgency to find work, etc) and the comparison to the Greatest Generation. After WW2, America emerged as a world-power and we've used it to develop technology and consumerism. So the habits of consumerism are all over the Millenials, whether they know it or not. Plus, I think the problem is deeper and involves more than a Mr. Rogers approach (as the article points out).

I work with teens all the time all over the country (and my book is an engagement into their questions, written in ways they understand). They talk to me and my wife, when we are at speaking events, and many write us emails about their daily struggles and questions. We've seen a wide-spectrum of the Millenials in high school and college, but I want to hear your take on it.

Is the "Coming" of the Millenials a good thing, bad thing, something we should be worried about, something we should celebrate? If you are a Millenial, are you frustrated with your peers, find the concern no big deal, think you are ready for the wider world (and why)?

I know the article is a little long. But read what you can and post some comments. You can even make it anonymous, if you don't want anybody to attach you with your opinion! :)

Human Monologues

2008-06-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

Anna Deavere Smith has interviewed a couple thousand people and then turns some of them into monologues. This is a proper example of using theatre to create awareness. No propaganda here. Just insight into the everyday world of the quirkiness and despair the human soul finds itself. Well performed.

Four monologues fill this 23 minute recording. The second monologue is hard to swallow but the best of the four. Sit in it. Notice the thought process of Paulette Jenkins, the convict, and how quickly things go dark--a victim who becomes a perpetrator.

I like the use of 'human touch' in the first monologue and turning perceptions of racism around in the third monologue. An honest cowboy in the last....

God designed the soul of a MAN for adventure?

2008-06-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

My wife received an advanced review copy of Rich Wagner's new book, The Expeditionary Man: The Adventure a Man Wants, the Leader His Family Needs. There are some helpful insights in this book that is broader than the typical "new masculinity" resources available.

Yet still packaged and assuming too much about males--and this is partly to win an audience--is the overstated idea that men are made for adventure. Adventure is well and good. It's the exclusivity that only males are made for this that is irksome and reinforces the sexist idea that this is built only into a male soul.

Today's Zondervan inspiration draws from Wagner's book. See here.

A paragraph is not enough to develop a point, I'll grant that. But the title ("God designed the soul of a man for adventure") unnecessarily reinforces the already stagnant assumption in men's literature that a woman's soul was not.

Of the verses used in the inspiration to point out this adventure, only one refers to MALES and that pertains to how men are to love in marriage. This kind of loving, however, is also assigned to FEMALES in the Scripture as members of the body of Christ rendering others more important then oneself.

Adventure is not a gendered category. It is not a male category. It is a HUMAN category. Though other books, like Wild at Heart, signify that a man is made for adventure (and a woman, in Captivating, are designed to "join a man" in adventure) that is unjustifiable. Women like adventure too (google "women adventure," here's a sample site). Living in CO, it doesn't take any effort to see women as well as men climbing mountains, kayaking rivers (see picture at top...yes, a woman), running marathons, fishing (see picture at left), and offroading--not because they want to be men but because they want to enjoy the habitat God created for humans. If you take up traveling, you'll find women backpacking, staying in hostiles, and exploring the world. You'll also find them on relief missions, bringing life to the needy.

Adventuring of a wide sort is a well versed concept in the female mind (on Wagner's model, a woman adventures by being faithful to her husband and kids, making disciples of Jesus, etc) but among those who have been told it is not 'feminine' or have some unhealthy fears. Wagner is trying to make responsibility respectable again.

He must be careful butting up against the "new masculinity" movement, for many of qualities he lists are part of the diagnosis of why the church is "feminine" in the first place. Uh oh!

When you hear people say that men were made for adventure, as a man, I ask you to kindly mention that women were made for adventure too. All this adventure talk is actually less inspiring to men as it is harmful to women and many of our smuggled in false-perceptions of women.

All that said, I do think many men need a reminder that practicing virtue is a wholly human activity and that re-deconstructing our idea of "masculinity" needs to be done (as Wagner is partly attempting to do). Loving family, taking care of kids, standing for the oppressed are all adventurous and strenuous things, often more so than scaling a Colorado 14er.

I'd like to see the church lead the way in the culture to unite both men and women under the banner of 'adventurer,' rather robbing a healthy word and tainting it with exclusive maleness. Wasn't it a joint-call to adventure when God originally told both humans to "be fruiltful and multiply and have dominion over the earth"?

An Evangelical Primer on Culture

2008-05-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

Certain slices of the church have been engaged in cultural awareness and culture making for a long time. Evangelicals, only in the last few decades, became aware that culture was something to be engaged (breaking from their isolationist, fundamentalist past), primarily to bring the gospel in relevant ways.

An artist friend, Jeff LeFever, of mine asked when evangelicals were going to stop merely engaging culture and start creating it. Many evangelicals have already been involved deliberately in that mission, while still many more have been involved in making it badly. John Mark Reynolds of Biola Univ says that making culture is not an option. The only option is making it well or making it poorly.

Andy Crouch has entered the fray to educate and encourage evangelicals to think more about culture, what forms it, what questions to ask of cultural artifacts, and to take responsibility to create culture beyond our consumerism and our evangelistic techniques.

IVP is publishing his book, Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling. And you can read the first couple of chapters right away!

For those of you involved in a broader cultural conversation, you will not find anything new here.
But if you're looking for a very easy to read, accessible approach to understanding what culture is and how to think about it, this is a good book for you (or to recommend to your friends that you want to bring up to speed). The rest of the book will be released in a couple of months.

I think one of the reasons the mega-church model is beginning to fail is that a whole sub-culture has grown up within it that has cut itself off from the relevance of the mundane, everyday life. It's like walking into a concert, framed with certain rules, overwhelming our senses, pretending to be more important than any other place. And this becomes disillusioning after a while. Here's an article on recent statistics.

Some of us may wince that 'culture making' will be a new fad and so evangelicals will exploit it. That's the risk. But hopefully a few brave hearts will catch the vision while many others just try to be "cool" with their new sloganeering. I can already see the church marquees that used to say, "Real, Relavant," will now say "Culture Making." And it will only be a slogan and not a description of what's happening inside. This too, will be is part of creating culture gone bad. But we can't blame Andy Crouch for that!

And while you're at it, jump over to Amazon.com and pick up Dick Staub's The Culturally Savvy Christian. Staub "gets it" and has for a long time.

And, hey, since I'm making recommendations, subscribe to Mars Hill Audio Journal with Ken Myers. It is well worth the annual subscription and will fill your mind and hearts with solid ideas during your commute.

Make sure you check out yesterday's blog entry too.

Does Modern Education Kill Creativity?

2008-05-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe I haven't seen this before. It was posted online nearly 2 years ago.

Sir Ken Robinson says things here we need to all consider. Of the many things that resonated with me, one was that creativity can only flourish if we are willing to be wrong.

His thesis here fits squarely into our vision of what it means to be "appropriately human." And for my philosophy friends, I hope this is nourishing to your soul as you broaden imagination beyond the analytic.

Here's the video below. It's worth 20 minutes.

Prince Caspian Disappointed.

2008-05-16T20:43:00.001-07:00

We watched the movie this morning. It failed in many ways, including its execution of story, characters, reworked plot, and the meaning of things.

I've got a rough draft of a review. In the meanwhile, read Jonalyn's well-written blog entry on our thoughts of the movie.... also, I'm encouraged that Christianity Today also found the movie wanting. Finally, the evangelical media outlets are making noise. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was bad. Prince Caspian is worse.

How about we get the word out to not pay to watch this movie so they stop deconstructing Narnia for us! Evangelicals decry postmodernism but we pay for it to be done to our best stories. Brilliant!