A Fresh Perspective

Openness to a Larger Vision

2012-01-30T06:10:00.000-08:00

In The Last Battle, the final volume of The Chronicles of Narnia, there is a delightful scene toward the end of the story. A group of dwarfs sit huddled together in a tight little knot thinking they are in a pitch black, smelly hole of a stable when in reality they are out in the midst of an endless grassy green countryside with sun shining and blue sky overhead. Lucy, the most tenderhearted of the Narnian children, feels compassion for them. She tries to reason with them. Then frustrated, she cries, “It isn’t dark, you poor stupid Dwarfs. Can’t you see? Look up! Look round! Can’t you see the sky and the trees and the flowers!” But all they can see is pitch black darkness.

Aslan, the Christ figure, is there with them, but they can’t see him. When Aslan offers them the finest food, they think they are eating spoiled meat scraps and sour turnips. When he offers them the choicest wine, they mistake it for ditch water.

How did the Dwarfs become so blind? The dwarfs had refused to join the Narnians in their battle against evil. But they didn’t actually join the other side either. Their one constant refrain was: the Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs. They lived by that mantra.

That, I think, could pass for the philosophy of our age. We tend to live for “me” and “mine”—our group, our tribe, our party, our nation. This pervades our politics, our economics, our society at all levels, even our Christianity. Many politicians don’t even try to conceal their true motives these days. They just state openly that their number one goal is to defeat the other side. There is little interest in the common good and empowering the disadvantaged. This is true for many of our religious leaders as well. The highly popular Christian leaders in our nation talk mainly about self-fulfillment, keys to success (American style), living a happy life, or the afterlife. This is why it is so remarkable today when someone actually breaks away from party lines to say or do what he or she thinks is right for the common good and what is morally just and compassionate. It’s remarkable because it’s so rare. And it usually means vocational suicide.

In John 1, Philip tells Nathaniel he has discovered Israel’s Messiah—Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph. Nathaniel remarks, “Can anything good come out of a despised little town like Nazareth?” I’m sure this prejudice against Nazareth was part of Nathaniel’s upbringing and heritage. Philip does not argue, but says, “Come and see.” Take an honest look. Remarkably, Nathaniel is open, honest, and receptive enough to set aside his bias and discover the truth (see John 1:43–51).

I wonder how many of us are blind to truth and do not actually know God (though we may think we do), because we are unwilling to question our biases and assumptions. I wonder how often we miss what God is doing, because we keep chanting the mantra of our particular group or tribe, unwilling to consider how God may be at work in other communities and faith traditions.

Can we become humble, open, honest, and receptive enough to see God’s dream for the world and hear God’s voice in the present circumstances of our lives? Can we admit that God is much larger than our little creeds and confessions (as important as these may be to our own faith)? Can we acknowledge that God’s love is much greater than what we are capable of? Our capacity today to respond to God’s Spirit and participate in God’s work is vitally connected to our humility and openness to a larger vision of what God is doing in the world.

Three Characteristics of Transformational Christianity

2012-01-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

I believe there are three foundational characteristics of transformative Christianity. One is inclusiveness. Christianity that is unhealthy and toxic (and can be destructive and deadly) is always dualistic. It divides the world between “us” and “them.” Obviously, in order to explain one’s own faith or position some differentiation and categorization is necessary, but this is vastly different than saying that only members of one’s group or faith possess the truth or are accepted by God.

Inclusive Christianity does not believe that all roads lead to God or that all beliefs are equally valid. But it does contend that God will travel many different roads to get to us, and that truth is truth wherever it may be found.

The basic difference is this: Christians entrenched within exclusive Christianity insist that those outside their group must believe what they believe or relate to God the way they relate to God in order to become God’s children. Inclusive Christianity begins with the core belief that all people are already children of God. It’s all grace—radical, unconditional grace. It’s not that some are chosen and others are not. We are all chosen. For example, the best of the Hebrew tradition says that God chose Israel, not because God loved them more or they were more special than others, but in order to communicate that “chosenness” to the rest of the world. So that through the seed of Abraham all the peoples of the world would be blessed. This was at the heart of the Abrahamic covenant (see Gen. 12:1–3). And it is at the heart of inclusive Christian faith.

A second key characteristic of transformative Christianity is compassion. Compassion is both a feeling and a way of being that flows out of that feeling. In the English etymology, “passion” comes from the Latin word that means “to feel,” and the prefix “com-” means “with.” Compassion means, “to feel with.” To show compassion is to feel the hurt or pain of someone else and then, on the basis of that feeling, to act on that person’s behalf. It includes the twin capacity to participate in both the suffering and the healing of someone else. Transformative Christianity looks to Jesus as the embodiment of what it means to be compassionate.

The third characteristic is conversion. Transformative Christianity results in real life change. Salvation is not merely about the afterlife, nor is it about some cosmic, judicial transaction that occurs when one believes certain things about Jesus. (Why would God care so much about specific beliefs anyway? None of our beliefs can capture the whole reality of God.)

Conversion is about becoming who we already are (children of God) and learning how to live as God’s children in the world. It’s about becoming persons and communities that exude integrity, humility, forgiveness, and compassion. It’s about learning how to love—how to love one another in the church (the faith community) and those outside the church, accepting everyone as God’s child. In fact, the writer of 1 John argues that this is how we demonstrate our love for God, namely, by the way we love one another (see 1 John 3:11–20; 4:7–21).

Transformative Christianity is not about emotional worship services that leave everyone feeling good. It has nothing to do with how many religious activities the church offers, or how many people are attending, or how large the church budget is. It has nothing to do with the American trappings of success. It has everything to do with how well we love, care for, serve, and uplift one another. Christians learn how to love through their discipleship to Jesus. Therefore, discipleship to Christ (being an apprentice of Christ) is at the very heart of the Christian gospel.

Before-and-After: Christian Salvation Is about Transformation

2011-12-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

There are several passages in the New Testament that describe Christian salvation in terms of before-and-after. One such text, Titus 3:4–7, was featured in the Common Lectionary reading for Christmas Eve and Day. The contrasts in these texts are perhaps a bit overdrawn, but they are nevertheless real, and they highlight what the early Christians primarily meant when they spoke of God’s salvation.

Christian salvation means, according to these before-and-after texts, that in Christ and through Christ, we Christians are liberated from negative attitudes and behaviors that are destructive to relationships, communities, and our own souls, as we learn new ways of relating to one another in grace, kindness, and love patterned after Christ. This process of transformation is Christian salvation, not just the result of it.

Christian salvation is not something separate from Christian discipleship. It’s all one piece. Incorrectly, Christian discipleship has been understood by many American Christians as the consequence of salvation, or something in addition to salvation. This is usually expressed as: We are first saved, and then we are called to a live a Christian life. No. Such a distinction would have been inconceivable to the early Christians.

God calls us to a life of devotion and service in partnership with the Spirit of Christ, and God enables us to realize this calling by delivering us from all those destructive and alienating attitudes and behaviors that diminish and destroy relationships and community. Our living out this calling through the power of the Holy Spirit is what the New Testament calls salvation. When Christian preachers and teachers make salvation primarily about “going to heaven” they do the church a great disservice.

Christian salvation (this process of transformation) is a gift, but like any gift, to be of any use it must be appropriated. According to the text in Titus 3, it is appropriated through the renewing, regenerating, cleansing power of the Holy Spirit that has been generously given to disciples.

The experience of Christian salvation comes about, then, as we are able to surrender to the wooing, speaking, and leading of the Holy Spirit through courageous trust. It’s largely about letting go of control, and the courage to become what God wants us to be.

Author Sue Monk Kid tells about the time she volunteered at a shelter for abused children. One day she met Billy, a boy with spiky brown hair and pale eyebrows to match his pale face. The only life in him, says Kidd, was a thirsty look in the half-moons of his eyes. He’d been horribly wounded and was reluctant to go beyond the security he’d found in his room. The day of the Christmas party he shrank against the pillow on his bed and refused to leave the room. Kid pleaded, “Aren’t you coming to the party?” He shook his head.

But then the volunteer beside her spoke up: “Sure you are, Billy. All you need to do is put on your courage skin.” His pale eyebrows went up. The thirsty look in his eyes, says Kidd, seemed to drink in the possibility. “Okay,” he finally said. The volunteer helped him put on an imaginary suit of “courage skin” and off he went to the party, willing to trust and risk beyond his secure places.

Christian salvation is rooted in surrender to and trust in the Christ Spirit, who beckons us to join his party. Christ is the lure, calling us forward. We needed a witness. We needed to see the love of God embodied in flesh and blood. With the advent of Christ, “the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,” showing us the way.

Advent Reflection: Longing

2011-12-12T07:24:00.000-08:00

Gospel scholars tell us that Mary’s canticle of praise (the Magnificat) was most likely a song or prayer used in early Jewish Christian worship. It is a song or prayer of longing that envisions a dramatic reversal: “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (1:51–53). .

The overthrow of the wealthy does not come about through the rising up of the oppressed in revolution, but through the advent of a lowly, humble child, who is born in humility, if not poverty, and who, throughout his ministry, demonstrated what Gospel scholars call a preferential option for the poor. When he defined his ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth, he declared that his mission was to bring good news to the poor and set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18–19). When he said that he had come to declare “the acceptable year of the Lord,” he was referencing the year of Jubilee, which was Torah legislation that required, every fiftieth year, for all the land in Israel to revert back to its original owners. It was legislation that sought to curb the natural growing disparity between the rich and the poor that occurs in all economic systems. Jesus pronounced beatitudes or blessings on the poor, the hungry, and the persecuted, and he pronounced woes or judgments upon the wealthy and well-fed (Luke 6:20–26). He told stories like the rich man who finds himself in Hades and the poor beggar who is carried off to be with Abraham (Luke 16:19–31), and stories about banquets and dinners where the guests are “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (Luke 14:7–24). He embodied this gospel to the poor by healing the sick, casting out unclean spirits, touching lepers, welcoming sinners, sitting down at the table with outcasts, and dying on a cross rejected and cursed. Such is the gospel, the good news according to Luke.

Scripture scholar Richard Vinson observes that in Mary’s Magnificat the hard words are spoken to us: “We must face the truth: we are the bad guys in this story . . . If God chooses the poor, we are doomed. If God scatters the rich, the proud, and the powerful, we will be dust in the wind.”

Mary, herself, is an example of God’s compassion: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant . . . for the Mighty One has done great things for me” (Luke 1:46–49). Mary is the quintessential example of God saving the poor and lifting up the lowly.

How did Western Christianity miss this? And we certainly have missed it. Prominent Christian leaders on both the right and left speak of salvation in very private, narrow terms. Norman Vincent Peal and his legacy of positive thinking expressed God’s salvation in very individualistic language. Much Western spirituality today, both Christian and non-Christian, focuses on self-help and emotional fitness. Those on the right made salvation mainly about the afterlife, about going to heaven when we die. This is the legacy of the fiery evangelists like Billy Sunday and Billy Graham.

I believe that both of the above components, in their more sensible and balanced formulations, are part of God’s salvation. I believe that the spiritual life in God we nurture now continues after death, and I believe that God cares about our psychological and emotional wholeness. But neither of these components were primarily what Jesus had in view when he announced the good news of the kingdom of God. Jesus envisaged a new kind of world; a world that he embodied in his ministry to sinners, to the poor, to the marginalized, to the blind, broken, battered, and beaten down.

When our spirit becomes infused with the Divine Spirit, the Spirit of the living Christ, then we, too, long for a new world, a more equitable world, a more just world, a world of peace and nonviolence, where all (not just the 1 percent, or 20 percent, or even 80 percent, but 100 percent) have enough of this world’s resources and spiritual resources to live a flourishing life.

Maybe you have seen the cartoon that pictures God looking somewhat distraught, saying, “I think I have lost my copy of the divine plan.” When we look at the state of the world, I’m sure God will forgive us if we find ourselves wondering if God ever had a plan. We have seen the holocaust, and the genocides of Rwanda and Bosnia. We have seen the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the killing fields and purges of evil tyrants. Our own nation has amassed enough weapons of mass destruction to destroy the world several times over. Countless people have suffered untold misery as a result of war, injustice, oppression, and exploitation.

But that isn’t the whole story. There is a brighter side. We, who believe in resurrection, surely believe that evil will not have the last word. There are pockets of resistance. Not resistance, though, through fight or flight, which are the world’s methods. Resistance, rather, through courageous nonviolence, as incarnated in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. We have witnessed Gandhi, King, Romero, and Mandela, and there are millions of people on this planet living quiet lives of love and heroism in the pursuit of peace and justice. Bishop Tutu has said that these heroes are often among the poor and disenfranchised: “When you go into informal settlements and meet up with people in shacks who, living in such dehumanizing circumstances, it’s really always such an incredible experience. What you see is the humanity, the humanness, the dignity, the capacity to laugh, the capacity to love, to rear children, in circumstances that by right ought to make all of that impossible.”

This Christmas, we will spend time with our church family, with our friends and loved ones, and we will enjoy the food, fun, and fellowship that mark the season. We will be deeply grateful for the relationships that enrich us and for the material resources that sustain us, enabling us to live flourishing lives. I hope, that at some point, we will allow our hearts to cry out to God for all the people on our planet who do not have adequate material and spiritual resources. I hope that our gratitude for all that has been given to us (by luck of the draw, not by merit or worthiness) will be punctuated by moments where we allow ourselves to ach for all those who suffer from disease, malnutrition, oppression, and injustice.

May God, the All-Compassionate one, fill our hearts with empathy and move us to do what we can do, where we live, to bring us a little closer to a world put right and made whole.

Advent Reflection: Waiting

2011-12-06T06:51:00.001-08:00

Children longingly anticipate Christmas day when they can open their presents. They wait with excitement. Not all waiting is filled with excitement. Sometimes our waiting is punctuated with anxiety and fear. Such is often the case with those who are unemployed, waiting for meaningful work. Or with the one waiting for the results of a full body scan after enduring a grueling round of chemotherapy. Or the waiting of a childless couple who so much want to start a family.

When the prophet addresses the covenant people in Isaiah 40, there were those in Israel who had been waiting for the end of the Babylonian Captivity and the return of the glory of the Lord to the land of Israel. Many had died in exile, without seeing that hope realized, but they clung to the promise that one day their suffering would end.

All true waiting is a waiting with a sense of promise. For Christians, it’s a promise that we already, in part, have entered into. The Apostle Paul speaks of the Spirit as an earnest, a deposit, a promise and pledge of fullness of life to come, but a fullness that we have already partially experienced. What Paul calls eternal life is simply the continuation of life in the Spirit begun now. Henry Nouwen put it this way: “Waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more.”

The Word of God that comes through the prophet, announcing the end of the time of suffering and the manifestation of God’s glory, is nothing less than the active power and presence of God working for our good. It is the practical equivalent of the Spirit of God working within creation, within our communities, and our individual lives—wooing us to accept and return God’s love, luring us to choose what is compassionate, good, and right, nudging us to pursue peace and reconciliation, inspiring us to forgive those who have hurt us, prompting us to lift up and identify with the disenfranchised and marginalized, and empowering us to act justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.

True Christian waiting is a patient waiting for the fulfillment of a promise that we already experience through the Word and Spirit of God. In addition, all true waiting involves a waiting in humility. We know that the promise will not be realized through innate human ingenuity and problem-solving. God, most certainly, incorporates many human elements in its realization, but ultimately it is God working in and through human beings and the creation.

Episcopal priest, Martha Sterne, tells about being in her local county Domestic Court as part of the mission of the local Ecumenical Council to have a clergy presence there, and this was her day to serve. Mostly, she says, she just sits and prays. It’s so chaotic. Trials get set time and time again. Victims don’t show up, either because they don’t want to prosecute or are scarred to. People sit in little clumps scattered around the room, and after a while it becomes apparent which clumps are furious with the other ones. She says that it is a difficult place to gather a lot of hope for the human condition.

This particular morning, the head public defender approached the judge with some papers and said: “Your honor, I hate to bring this up, but Mrs. Smith called me and she said she was kind of wondering why she was still in jail after you said you’d let her out. And I checked around and it looks like you put the wrong case number on the discharge papers.” The judge looked at the paper and looked at the lawyer, and frowned a fierce kind of frown and said, “Well, now let me tell you that I am just mightily sick and tired of having my mistakes brought to my attention.”

That’s a great line isn’t it? It’s not easy facing all our failures and shortcomings. Some folks find it easier to live in denial. Some become intoxicated with feelings of superiority and look down on those who just happened to have lacked the kind of opportunities or privileges they have enjoyed. Other folks can’t seem to get past their insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and wallow around in self-pity and self-condemnation.

True humility restores to us a sense of balance. In one sense, we are all “nobodies.” Sometimes when I start to think that I am more important than what I am, I simply tell myself, “Chuck, all you are is a little shit.” It restores my balance. That’s all I really am.

And yet, on the other hand, I am also God’s beloved. I am loved by God, accepted by God, called by God, commissioned by God, indwelt by God, and an heir of God. We all are. One of the things I love about the passage in Isaiah 40 is the chord of universality that is struck. The prophet says, “And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.” All true prophetic vision includes the good, well-being, and redemption of all people. We are all God’s children. Now, of course, all do not know that yet. All have not claimed their relationship with God, which is why Christians need to function as the salt and light of the world.

When we come to experience God’s forgiveness and love, our waiting can be more open-ended. Spiritual waiting is not to be equated with wish fulfillment. When we put too much stock in our wishes, when we want the future to go in a particular direction, this almost always leads to disappointment. We get anxious about trying to manage and manipulate people and events to get the future to go our way. True Christian waiting is open to many possibilities, freeing us from the need to control people and circumstances.

As one great Christian mystic proclaimed: All will be well. I don’t know how to imagine the afterlife, but I think Paul was right when he said that what God has in store for God’s children is more than we can think or imagine.

When I pastored in Waldorf, Maryland, I had the opportunity to visit with Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie, who was then Chaplain of the Senate. I asked him what he thought was the greatest spiritual need in our country. He said, hardly without a pause: For religious people to know God. There are a lot of religious (Christian) people, who are exclusivistic, judgmental, bitter, self-righteous, who think they are the only ones who have the truth and who use the Bible as a weapon to label and condemn others not in their group. (We are all a little bit like that some of the time; but some people are like that most of the time.) Do you know what they need? It’s what we all need? To experience God. They may talk about God, but they haven’t experienced God.

When one experiences God, the heart grows, like the Grinch on that day when he realized what Christmas was really about. Once we experience how wide and deep and great is the love of God, then we know that it is all going to be good, and it makes us better. It inspires us to wait patiently, humbly, openly, knowing that the Word and glory of the Lord that appeared in Jesus of Nazareth is with us and for us.

Watch! An Advent Reflection

2011-11-28T10:21:00.001-08:00

The call to “Watch” is a common theme at the beginning of Advent. Many Christians interpret this mostly in futuristic terms. Some are caught up in the violent apocalyptic sensationalism reflected in the Left Behind series of books. But many who pay little attention to prophetic calendars still believe that this present age will end with some sort of spectacular intervention or return of Christ.

Many, if not most, of the early Christians believed the present age would end in their lifetime. The Apostle Paul, from what we can deduce from his letters, almost certainly believed this (see 1 Thess 4:13–18 and 1 Cor 7:28–31). Scholars debate about what Jesus may have believed about the “when” and the “how” of the realization of God’s kingdom on earth.

The semi-technical word that the early Christians used to refer to the future revelation of Christ that would end the present age and usher in an age of peace and righteousness was the Greek word parousia. It is usually translated “coming.” For example, in 1 Thessalonians Paul prays that the church will be blameless before God at the “coming” (parousia) of the Lord Jesus Christ (3:13). The root meaning of the word is actually “presence,” and could be so translated in some contexts.

While many Christians today still believe in some sort of miraculous second coming of Christ, there is a minority (but growing number) of Christians who imagine this differently. They imagine not a sudden invasion from outside the world, but a growing manifestation or unveiling of the presence of Christ from within the world.

Christ is, indeed, present in the world, according to all the New Testament witnesses. The living Christ is present with us in Spirit. The Holy Spirit is, for Christians, the presence of the living Christ.

Frankly, I’m not sure what I believe about a future coming of Christ, or even how to imagine it. But I certainly believe in the living presence of Christ in the world. Therefore, the call to “Watch” takes on present significance.

At the end of Mark’s Gospel, the women who enter the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus encounter a young man dressed in white. He says, “Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, has been raised. He is not here.” He instructs them to go tell Peter and the other disciples that the risen Christ will meet them in Galilee. Galilee is where it all started. It’s where they left their fishing nets, their occupations, even their families to follow Jesus. But when Jesus was arrested by the powers-that-be they fled. They denied and deserted him. Now the young man tells them that Jesus would meet them again in Galilee. And meet him they did. There they encountered a kind of “second coming.” There they experienced forgiveness. There they were given a new mission. There they encountered the unconditional love of the risen Christ.

Christ may or may not return in a cloud of glory. From one point of view, Christ doesn’t need to return, because Christ is already here. We can meet him. We can experience his forgiveness and unconditional love. We can participate with him in the work of the Spirit in the world. It’s possible for Christ to be born anew in our hearts this Christmas season. Christ is with us, among us, for us, and in us.

Therefore, let us watch, let us stay awake and alert, mindful and faithful to the way of Christ. In colonial New England, I am told, a meeting of state legislators was plunged into darkness by a sudden eclipse. Some panicked and wanted to adjourn. Some thought the world was coming to an end. But one calm gentleman spoke up: “Mr. Speaker, if it is not the end of the world and we adjourn, we shall appear to be fools. If it is the end of the world, I should choose to be found doing my duty. I move that candles be brought.”

I think the living Christ would say to us: “Keep lighting the candles. Keep watching, keep praying, keep serving, keep loving.”

Come, Lord Jesus, convict us, challenge us, comfort us, and compel us to love others as you love each one of us.

A Thanksgiving Reflection

2011-11-21T07:08:00.001-08:00

Our capacity to nurture an attitude of gratitude is greatly influenced by how we “see.” Luke says that the one who turned back to give Jesus thanks did so “when he saw he was healed” (17:15). The reference to “seeing” was obviously intended to imply more than physical sight. This man “saw” with a deeper wisdom; his insight sprang from a higher level of consciousness.

This is the challenge for all of us: Can we “see” beyond and through the chaotic circumstances that threaten to envelop us? Can we find some stability in God’s mercy and love, even when all hell breaks loose? Can we discover the underlying thread of God’s grace and presence beneath the rough, jagged texture of suffering and hardship?

I love the way Paul, in his letter to the Romans, describes God’s grace that enables us to overcome the failures and hardships of life: “where sin abounds, grace does much more abound” (Rom 5:20). God’s grace “out abounds” the consequences of sin—poor grammar, but excellent theology. Love will ultimately win. Redemption is God’s last word. God is large enough and great enough to absorb all the evil, tragedy, pain, and loss—reworking, reshaping, and redeeming it in due course.

An Irish priest on a walking tour of his rural parish observed an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road, praying. Impressed, the priest said to the man, “You must be very close to God.” The peasant looked up from his prayers, thought for a moment, and then smiled, “Yes, he’s very fond of me.” That is not arrogance; that is our birthright as human beings.

Whatever hardship or tragedy we experience, God’s attitude of love toward us is constant. To Catch an Angel, by Robert Russell, is the autobiography of a young blind man who lived alone on an island in the middle of a river. He went rowing on the river almost everyday by means of a fairly simple system. To the end of the dock, he attached a bell with a timer set to ring every thirty seconds. In this way he was able to row up and down the river, and every thirty seconds judge his distance by the sound of the bell. When he’d had enough, he found his way home by means of the bell. In the young man’s words, “The river lies before me, a constant invitation, a constant challenge, and my bell is the thread of sound along which I return to a quiet base.”

Life is like a continually flowing river. God calls us to venture out on it where there is frequent challenge, danger, and excitement. Our security, however, rests in God’s unconditional love, which enables us to find our way back home.

(The preceding reflections were from my book, Shimmers of Light, Spiritual Reflections for the Christmas Season; click on book to the right to learn more or order)

God's Unconditional Acceptance Does Not Mean Unconditional Approval

2011-11-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

Unconditional love means unconditional acceptance, but it does not mean unconditional approval. God loves us regardless, but God doesn’t approve of all we do. God doesn’t approve when are complicit in injustice. God doesn’t approve when we act in selfish ways that hurt others. God doesn’t approve of our expressions of pride and egotism. Such attitudes and actions contradict God’s love.

But God continues to love us, even though God may be saddened or angry by what we do. God never writes us off. God is patient and waits like a loving parent for the return of a lost child.

God’s judgment, however, is not incompatible with God’s love. We have no idea what this consists of really. It may be, mostly, God allowing us to reap the consequences of our actions. Or, maybe it will be more direct, more engaging. We have all heard the expression “tough love.” The expression implies that love can be painful, difficult, and hard to bear at times. Loving parents may have to enforce some rather strict measures of discipline. The wife of an alcoholic husband may have to get a restraining order or even press charges, in order to protect their children or get her husband the help he needs.

God’s judgment is always a form of love. It is nothing like the sentence or penalty of condemnation that may come from a non-feeling jury or judge. God is always partial toward our ultimate well-being. Judgment is never retributive or strictly punitive. It is always corrective, redemptive, and restorative. The ultimate intent of God’s judgment is to heal, redeem, reconcile, and transform. That may or may not be possible for all people, but it is God’s intent.

If judgment were anything else it would nullify the gospel of grace. One afternoon when Jordan, my son, was a toddler, he was with me as I picked up a few household items at K-Mart. I told him he could pick out something for himself within our tight budget. (In those days it was very tight.) Well, he wanted some kind of action figure that was more expensive than what we could afford. As I tried to explain this, that he would need to scale back, he threw a little fit in the store.

I looked him squarely in the eyes and informed him that if he didn’t settle down, he wouldn’t be getting anything. He didn’t settle down. So, I took it all off the table. Then he wanted to compromise. He picked something else out when he knew I was serious. I told him it was too late. As we made our way through the store, he was so sad and mad he couldn’t see straight.

Well, I began to have a change of heart. I thought this could be a teachable moment. So I went back, with Jordan unaware, and slipped into the cart the second item that he had picked out. When we returned to the car and after I put him in his car seat, I pulled out the toy and surprised him with it. I said, “Son, this is called grace. You don’t deserve it, but in my love for you, I decided to get it for you anyway.” I don’t think he was old enough to understand the Christian concept of grace, but he sure was delighted to get the toy. And his delight was my delight. The hug he gave me to seal the whole experience made my heart melt. It demonstrates, I think, the healing, transformative power of grace.

If God’s judgment is an expression of God’s grace, then there is nothing to fear. Whatever God’s judgment may involve, no matter how painful it may be at the time, it is for our ultimate good.

Discerning God's Word (Voice) Today

2011-10-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

In my final year of Seminary, I pastored a small rural church in a little Indiana farm community. This was a seminary pastorate; the church didn’t expect me to stay after graduation and I didn’t expect to stay. As graduation drew close, I was ready to go on to bigger and better things. The problem was that no one else seemed ready for me to go on to bigger and better things. I had sent out resumes. No response. Not even a nibble. Churches were not exactly knocking on my door wanting me to come. In fact, they were not even sending me any rejection letters. This went on for several months. I began to question my calling. At one point I was so filled with anxiety that I found it difficult to sit in class. I felt miserable and felt guilty for feeling so miserable. And the feelings of guilt for doubting my calling and questioning my faith compounded my anxiety.

I happened to be taking a pastoral counseling class at the time and the professor said something very simple that struck me as quite profound at the time. I heard it as a word from God. He said, “It’s okay to feel bad.” Pretty simple isn’t it? But that is what I needed to hear. And what a weight lifted when I appropriated that word. Some of the anxiety I was experiencing came from the sense that my stay in Hoover, Indiana could be for a longer time than I had wanted or anticipated. But the debilitating, oppressive anxiety I was experiencing sprang from the guilt over feeling bad and from questioning my calling. When I realized that it was okay to feel bad, to question, and to experience some anxiety, then the deep dread, guilt, and worry that hovered over me started to lift.

I share this story as an illustration of how the Divine Voice speaks to us. The Divine Voice speaks to humans through human words, images, ideas, and feelings. This is true in any gathering of disciples for study, fellowship, and worship, and it is true of the Bible itself that is used by these faith communities.

Paul tells the church in Corinth to “weigh carefully” what is said by the Christian prophets in their worship gatherings (1 Cor. 14:29). He tells the church at Thessalonica to “test everything” that is said by the prophets and teachers in their community, holding on to what is good and avoiding all that is evil (1 Thess. 5:19–22).

The Divine Voice often speaks healing and transforming words as Scripture is read, interpreted, discussed, taught, and proclaimed in Christian communities. But biblical words read and interpreted must be “weighed carefully.” The Bible can just as easily be used to justify our sexism, racism, classism, nationalism, and egotism as it can be used for redemption and transformation. There is no infallible word.

Here are questions I ask: Do the words reflect the compassion, love, forgiveness, and prophetic challenge of Christ? (In other words: Is the Spirit of Christ present in the words read or spoken?) Do the words inspire hearers to be more caring, empathetic, gracious, hospitable, and inclusive? Do the words call forth the best of the human spirit? Do they inspire us to pursue peace, reconciliation, and justice for all people, especially the disadvantaged and marginalized? Do the words bring healing in a holistic sense, calling forth humility, generosity, gratitude, and grace?

Paul writes to the church in Rome that “the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). When our lives are immersed and filled with the Spirit of Christ, it is not that difficult to discern the Divine Voice bearing witness to our human spirit. When our lives are not filled with the Spirit of Christ, we will often mishear the Voice, as I can testify through my own experience. Some Christians who mishear that Voice seek to justify their prejudices and sin by appealing to an infallible Bible.

Every voice in the Bible or in the church should be filtered through and weighed against the Divine Voice that has become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth (John 1:1–18).

The Bible as a Lens

2011-10-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

New Testament scholar Marcus Borg tells a wonderful story illustrating two different ways to approach Scripture. For many years Borg taught an introductory-level Bible course at Oregon State University. At the beginning of the class, he always informed the students that the course would be taught from the perspective of the academic discipline of biblical scholarship. Borg would tell them that they didn’t have to change their beliefs, but to do well in the class they would have to be willing to look at the Bible from that viewpoint.

He explained that the Bible is the product of two ancient communities. The Hebrew Bible is the product of ancient

Israel

, the Christian Testament is the product of the early Christian movement. As such, the Bible tells us not how God sees things, but how those two ancient communities saw their relationship with God.

Roughly 20 percent of the students that took the course believed that the Bible was inerrant (literally the Word of God). Borg would, inevitably, spend the first two weeks in lively discussion with the more articulate and courageous of those students.

One semester, a very bright Muslim engineering student took the course. A senior, he did so because he needed another humanities course for graduation and the class fit his schedule. One day, after witnessing Borg’s interaction with the more conservative students, he said to him, “I think I understand what’s going on. You’re saying the Bible is like a lens through which we see God, and they’re (the inerrantists) saying that it’s important to believe in the lens.”

That is a good analogy. When I am asked if I believe the Bible my response is: As a Christian I believe (I trust in) in Jesus of Nazareth, the living Christ who is my Lord. I use the Bible as a means to nurture a transformative relationship with God, whom I know through Jesus. The Bible is a lens through which I see God and Jesus.

I try to approach the Bible in as unbiased a way as possible (we all, however, bring some bias to the text). I try to be open to both the diversity and the unity of faith that the various authors and faith communities express, and receptive to both the contradictions and the coherences found in the Bible’s many different kinds of sacred literature.

When the Bible becomes the object of faith (bibliolatry?), the Bible can easily become an instrument of oppression and death. In a general sense, the Bible gives us a description of the faith of the writers and communities struggling with what is real and what is unreal, not a set of infallible prescriptions or propositions.

Every reading of the Bible is an interpretation of the Bible. The reader inevitably brings his or her temperament, personality, culture, biases, and education into the process of understanding the text and discerning its meaning for today.

The Bible is not just about God, but about how people of faith have perceived and related to God. While it is not literally the Word of God, it can become the Word of God (the Divine Voice speaks through it) to those who read it critically, spiritually, and discerningly. We should employ the best methods at our disposal to make sense of it. This should include a balance between the best resources of historical-critical scholarship and other methods more spiritually oriented toward nurturing Christian disciples.

The Bible contains a plurality of voices. Sometimes these voices conflict with one another, sometimes they speak as one, using different language and words. The Bible includes voices of oppression (claiming to speak for God), and voices of protest against oppression (also claiming to speak for God). There are voices that endorse conventional wisdom, and voices that speak a subversive, alternative wisdom. But in, with, around, under, and over these voices is the Divine Voice, seeking to lead us into a transformative relationship with our Creator and Redeemer.

It's Time to Grow Up

2011-10-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

The world needs for the visible body of Christ (the church) to grow up. How does this happen? According to one biblical writer, “it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:16). What kind of love? The kind of love demonstrated through Jesus’ sacrificial life and death (Eph. 5:1–2).

We have to stop using the Bible to justify our sexism, bigotry, and hypocrisy. The Bible itself shows us how the people of God appealed to divine command to justify their greed, hate, and violence. For example, consider all those passages where it is claimed that God orders the Israelites to slaughter the Canaanites wholesale, even the women and children, in order to possess the land of promise (see Deut. 7:1–6). Under European colonization, we did the same thing to Native Americans. We claimed “manifest destiny” and sought God’s blessing on our plundering and killing. We claimed to be doing the will of God, portraying the Native Americans as hostile, uncivilized, and inhuman (the same thing Hitler did to the Jews).

We are still using the Bible to endorse violence, refusing to see the evil in our own hearts. (We are always finding evil somewhere else, projecting it onto “the other.”). One can find the worst and the best of humanity in the pages of the Bible. Since the Bible reflects our human sin and prejudices, as well as God’s vision of transformation, it is not hard to find Bible quotes that support our biases and injustices.

Jesus is the Bible’s own answer to its divine sanctions and endorsements of violence. Jesus shows us that God is not violent at all, but a God of forgiveness and love. Even God’s judgment, which can be painful, is for the purpose of salvation.

It takes us a long time to get there in Scripture; the process is always three steps forward and two steps back. But in the fullness of time God sends forth God’s Son. Jesus breaks down barriers, expands the boundaries of God’s grace (even to our enemies), and embodies and proclaims a nonviolent gospel. Yet, we have a difficult time believing that nonviolence is the answer. Even in the final book of the Bible, we take another step backwards, imagining that Jesus returns as a violent warrior slaying all his enemies.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus is called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin (singular) of the world. What is this sin? It is the sin of hate. It is the greed and animosity of the powers that be that put Jesus to death. Yet Jesus does not lash out in revenge. So how does Jesus take this sin away? He bears it in forgiveness all the way to the cross. This is why in John’s Gospel Jesus’ death is referred to as the glorification of the Son and the Father. The glory of God’s love shines through all the darkness of evil and hate. Instead of enmity and revenge, John says, “God so loved the world,” showing us “a more excellent way” (see 1 Cor. 13).

As Christians, we must stop worshiping our Bibles and quoting Bible verses to justify our sexism, classism, nationalism, and all manner of greed, prejudice, and love of violence. We must listen to Jesus, as the Voice at Jesus’ transfiguration tells us to do (Mark 9:7). We must read our Bibles through the lens of the nonviolent, peace-seeking, forgiving, compassionate, inclusive Christ, who is Lord (head) of his body in the world.

It is time to grow up. Our world desperately needs Christians to shed their infantile Christianity, and put on Christ, “the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24). We must stop worshipping a book and using that book to justify our sins; instead, we must start worshiping and serving a God, who in the “fullness of time” plans “to gather up all things in him (Christ), things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10), a God “from whom every family in heaven and earth takes its name” (Eph. 3:15), a God destined to be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).

Christian Salvation -- Is it about this life or the afterlife?

2011-09-20T06:41:00.001-07:00

Some Christians have a narrow understanding of salvation that makes it all about the afterlife (going to heaven). They think they know who has it and who doesn’t, who’s in and who’s out, and they consider the work of the church to be largely about converting others to their version of the truth of salvation. It’s hard for me to be too critical of these Christians, since at one time, I, also held to that exclusive version of salvation.

Progressive Christians (and more evangelical Christians are coming to this realization also) insist that there are multiple images and metaphors for salvation in the Scriptures and different contemporary ways for understanding salvation. Many Christians are surprised to learn that not a single reference to salvation in the Old Testament relates to the afterlife. And only a few references in the New Testament relate specifically to the afterlife.

One of the dominant images in both Testaments is salvation as liberation from bondage. In the OT this is Israel’s primal story: Israel’s liberation from the domination system of Egypt. In the NT this is understood primarily as liberation from entrapment, liberation from the anti-life pull toward alienation, disintegration, and addiction (what Paul called the “flesh” and “the law of sin and death”).

This image, as it is found in one Gospel story, is particularly illuminating. Just after Jesus predicts for the third time his suffering and death, James and John ask if they can sit by Jesus’ side in his kingdom and share Jesus’ rule (Mark 10:35–37) . This continues the bitter dispute the disciples had been having over who would be the greatest (see Mark 9:30–37).

Jesus says, “This is how the prominent people of the world function. They strive for places and positions of power in order to lord it over others. Not so with you. If you want to participate in God’s dream for the world, then you must become the servant of all” (my paraphrase of Mark 10:42–44). Then, Jesus offers his own life as an example, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

The word translated “ransom” could also be translated “redemption” or “liberation.” Jesus is not specifically speaking of his death, though his death is the culmination of the life he lived. This text is saying that the self-giving, sacrificial life of the Son of Man (Jesus) becomes a means of liberation for his disciples as they follow his way of life.

The afterlife is not in view at all. The liberation here, in this passage, is from a life of grasping power and position, from the need to lord it over others. The disciples wanted to turn the old pecking order, where they were on the bottom, into a new pecking order, where they would be on the top. Jesus wanted to liberate them from the pecking order all-together. Jesus wanted to ransom/redeem them from the whole game of competing with and comparing themselves to others, so they would be free to be “servants of all”—without regard or distinction for social status, without bias or prejudice, without favoritism toward any.

Some Christians like to think of salvation only in terms of the afterlife, because then they don’t have to struggle with the need to die to the ego-driven self and become a humble servant of all people, which is what Jesus requires. It’s much easier and more convenient to make salvation about going to heaven. One hardly has to change at all; just believe the right doctrines or obey the right Christian rituals.

Healthy Christianity is about personal, communal, and societal transformation. It’s about liberation from egotism, greed, and selfish ambition. It’s about reflecting the image of God in all our relationships, embodying the love and compassion of Christ in all that we do, and serving all people without discrimination.

A Key to Reading the Bible Transformatively

2011-09-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

One of the most important tasks we engage in as a Christian community is the task of interpreting and applying the Christian Scriptures to our personal and communal lives. But reading (understanding and interpreting) the Bible in ways that can be transformational can be challenging. One Bible passage says one thing, while another Bible passage seems to contradict it. How do we know what to take seriously as “God’s Word” to us and what should be taken with less seriousness, or perhaps even disregarded because of the flawed theology of the biblical writer? And how do we make the distinction?

The early Christ followers give us a key to reading and applying sacred Scripture. In Acts 2, Luke presents an account of early Christian preaching. Peter speaks to the Jewish community in Jerusalem in light of the outpouring of God’s Spirit on Jesus’ disciples on the day of Pentecost. Bible scholars point out that Luke tells the story Luke’s way, giving it his own theological twist and emphasis. But it is also generally conceded among New Testament scholars that Luke is passing on some of the core elements that constituted the earliest Christian proclamation.

One of the critical components in the early Christian proclamation of the gospel was the way they reread and reinterpreted the Hebrew Scriptures. In Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, he offers a radical rereading of Psalm 16:8–11 and Psalm 110:1, applying these texts to the resurrection of Christ. These Psalms, of course, in their original contexts meant something entirely different.

The early disciples did not conclude that Jesus was the Messiah in light of the promises in their Scriptures. They concluded that Jesus was the Messiah based on their conviction that God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead (Acts 2:36). Then, they worked their way backwards, radically reinterpreting the Old Testament to fit the paradigm of promise and fulfillment. They started with the conviction that Jesus brings to fulfillment God’s redemptive plan for Israel and all humanity, then they read the story of

Israel

in light of that conviction. This led them to read new meanings into Old Testament stories and texts that could not have possibly been intended by the original authors.

The Apostle Paul does this same thing in his use of the Old Testament in his letters to his churches. For example, in his letter to the Galatians, as part of an extended argument on the inclusion of Gentiles into the covenant community, Paul cites the promise given to Abraham and his offspring/seed in the book of Genesis. Then, he makes this huge, dramatic interpretative leap: “it does not say, ‘And to his offsprings,” as of many; but it says, ‘And to your offspring,’ that is one person, who is Christ” (Gal 3:16). This, of course, is a radical rereading/reinterpreting of the promise in light of the Christ Event.

If we follow this same principle, we can reinterpret Scripture through our experience of and personal/communal encounter with the living Christ. For example, I read the many passages in the Bible that speak of retributive judgment/justice through the lens of Jesus’ life, message, teaching, death, and resurrection, as I have encountered Christ in the Gospels. What Jesus says about loving our enemies and the character of God (see Luke 6:27–36), and the way in which Jesus absorbed the hate and violence of his enemies in his death through non-retaliation and forgiveness (the passion story in the Gospels), trumps (takes priority over) all those passages in the Bible that sanction divine violence and seem to support retributive justice.

I read the Bible through the lens of God’s more complete disclosure of God’s self through Jesus of Nazareth, whom God stamped with approval when God raised him up. The central Christian message of the first disciples was that Jesus, who was crucified by the powers that be, God raised up/vindicated, showing him (or appointing him) to be Messiah/Christ and Lord (see also Rom 1:3–4).

Again and again, I apply this basic principle of biblical interpretation to contradictory and incompatible passages of Scripture. It’s a much better system than simply ignoring, denying, or trying to explain away clear and obvious contradictions in the Bible. It is a system of interpretation that has a precedent in the interpretative work of the first Christians.

And it is a much better and more humble approach than the one taken by a number of conservative Christians and preachers, that while ignoring the Bible passages that contradict their message, pronounce condemnation on those who question their (church’s, group’s, denomination’s) absolutist teaching/preaching and their rendition of, “The Bible says . . .”

Toxic Christianity in The Shawshank Redemption

2011-09-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Shawshank Redemption is at the top of my all-time great movies list. It is pervaded with great lines and rich spiritual symbolism. The warden, Samuel Norton, is an icon of toxic Christianity. When Andy and the other prisoners make their first appearance before the warden, immediately the warden’s self-righteousness dominates the scene. He has one of the prisoners beaten for asking, “When do we eat?” Holding a Bible, he tells the prisoners, “Trust in the Lord, but your ass is mine.”

The warden presents himself as a socially respectable, church-going, Bible-quoting Christian. But it’s clear from the beginning of his appearance in the story that his Christianity is in name only. In one scene, the warden enters Andy’s cell. He takes Andy’s Bible as Andy and the warden quote Scripture verses back and forth. He does not open the Bible, which is good since the rock hammer Andy uses to tunnel through the cell wall is hidden inside. When he hands the Bible back to Andy he says, “Salvation lies within.”

The final verse that the warden quotes is John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” Of course, the warden does not have the foggiest notion what that verse really means. The warden walks in darkness and is about as blind and un-liberated a person as you would ever find. But he thinks he is a Christian.

Christianity (as well as toxic religion in general) can be as deadly and destructive as it can be redemptive and life-giving. I sense that for a number of people who wear the badge of Christian faith, their faith has become a cleverly disguised way of protecting the ego. I suppose we are all guilty of this to one degree or another.

Religion can become a clever way for us to feel secure, to feel superior (we are the ones chosen while the rest are passed over and excluded), and to be in control. Jesus, in the Gospels, saw right through this. Isn’t it interesting that Jesus found hospitable table fellowship, not with the moral majority, but with the immoral minority? Those who thought they could see were actually blind, while those who knew they were blind found spiritual sight (read John 9).

Authentic spirituality is not about being correct or citing Bible passages. It’s not about wearing the right badges or shouting the right pledges. It’s about being humble enough to admit that we are blind, so that the Divine Spirit can lead us to a place where we can see.

There is no magic formula: Believe this, do this, practice this. There are no four spiritual laws, five steps, six principles, or seven habits for highly spiritual people. But somehow our illusions must be exposed and we must face the many ways we parade and protect our egos. Somehow we must surrender to a greater Love and greater Story, instead of being so absorbed in our own little stories where we are so easily offended and hurt, and become bitter, jealous and resentful people. Somehow we must let go of our passion for power, prestige, and possessions that dominates Western life, and become more passionate about what Jesus called the kingdom of God.

I wish I could offer you a prescription, but there is none, other than following Jesus. Transformative spiritual persons are fairly easy to detect, though. You can see the Love and Compassion in their eyes, their face, their words and gestures. Their whole body radiates the light of Christ. They are gentle, understanding, humble, empathetic, and at the same time, they can be bold, courageous, and unafraid to challenge the powers that be.

Why are there so few transformed people today in Western/American Christianity? Or even better, why has my own (your own) spiritual growth been so slow and difficult? Interested in your response: cqueen@fewpb.net.

Who Are You? Saint or Sinner

2011-08-22T08:45:00.001-07:00

William Sloane Coffin, a few years before his death, wrote a wonderful book titled, Letters to a Young Doubter. At the beginning of the correspondence he asks his young friend a probing question, “Who tells you who you are?” As Chaplain at Yale for a number of years, he knew full well the power of higher education to tell students who they are.

There are powerful forces in our culture that impact and shape who we think we are. The Christian answer that I was given as a young person is that we are all sinners. Certainly that is true. I know that I am flawed and fail regularly to live up to the best ideals of humanity, or even my own best ideals. All of us are a mass of contradictions. But is that the first and foremost thing about us?

This is not what compassionate parents teach their children. Not at first. We tell them how special they are, how much they are loved and cared for, and what possibilities they have.

I find it interesting in Paul’s letter to the Romans that before Paul expounds on the human problem, he identifies his readers as those who are loved by God, who belong to Jesus Christ, and who are, by divine call, saints (1:6–7). Most of us tend to think that a saint is someone particularly holy, set apart from the rest of us, someone who has achieved something very special. But in Paul’s view, we are all saints.

One aspect to faith involves saying “yes” to our sainthood. Faith is our acceptance of God’s unconditional acceptance. We are first the daughters and sons of God before we are sinners. Toxic religion turns that around. Unhealthy religion teaches that we are first unworthy, under God’s wrath, and must be saved from our sin. Healthy religion says that we are first secure in God’s love, that we are saints already, called to live as God’s beloved children daily.

Once we accept that we are accepted and experience being loved by the One who sustains all existence, we then find the sacred space and inner courage to face the tensions and contradictions that our sin creates. When we know we are loved by the Divine Lover, we find the confidence and inner strength to confront our false self (our little ego-driven self with its propensity to grasp, grab, and cling to that which we think will bring ego satisfaction). Knowing that we are valued and have worth for simply being alive, we no longer feel the need to deny or repress our dark side. Our freedom to name our demons is the first step in overcoming them.

In the movie, The Stand (a classic tale of the conflict between good and evil based on Stephen King’s book), an African-American woman known as Mother Abigail functions as the Christ figure. One of her inner disciples is a deaf mute. He is a man of great compassion and integrity, but he doesn’t believe in God.

In one scene, Mother Abigail is talking about the role that this young man will play in accomplishing God’s will. His friend speaks up, “But he doesn’t believe in God.” Not the least bit surprised or shaken, Mother Abigail turns gently and communicates directly to the young deaf man, “That’s okay child, because God believes in you.”

It’s true. In spite of all our mishaps and foibles, all the ways we become entrapped and addicted that diminishes our lives and relationships, God still believes in us. If enough of us really believed that, our world could be transformed. We are first and foremost saints, before we are sinners.

How Can One Support the Tea Party and Be a Christian?

2011-08-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

I had not thought much about the wave of Tea Party members that swept into Congress until the recent debate over the deficit and the debt ceiling. The one thing that became crystal clear is that they share no concern for or feel any obligation to the most vulnerable in our country—the poor and marginalized.

Jesus, of course, defined his mission and ministry with particular focus on the most vulnerable. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me . . . to bring good news to the poor . . . to let the oppressed go free (Luke 4:18–19).

So my question is: How can one support the Tea Party agenda and be a Christian? I have no way of knowing, but I suspect a great many Christians voted to elect them to office. How is that possible?

My feeling is that many Christians have no real idea what Jesus’ mission and ministry was actually about. Jesus’ focus was on the kingdom of God (God’s new world of peace, equality, and reconciliation) coming into this world (“May your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”). The agenda of many Christians is focused on the afterlife, correct doctrinal beliefs, and personal success.

For Christians whose faith is oriented around a heaven-and-hell framework, Christian faith is all about believing the right things or doing the right things in order to go to heaven. This is often (though not always) connected to a very rigid set of doctrinal propositions that one has to believe, such as biblical inerrancy, substitutionary atonement, or the deity of Christ.

And then there are other Christians who equate the values of American democracy or American capitalism (it all gets thrown into the mix) with being a Christian, so that allegiance to God means allegiance to country (and vice-versa).

Similar to the above approach are those who endorse an American gospel of success, personal fulfillment, and prosperity. In this system the poor are not only neglected, they are pronounced as cursed for their lack of faith or capacity to make money. Jesus’ way of the cross is either ignored or convoluted somehow into the way of personal advancement and riches.

In a recent meeting, messengers (delegates) from the largest Christian denomination in the country (the Southern Baptist Convention), made it a point to affirm their belief in an eternal hell where unbelievers will dwell in conscious torment forever. They see their mission as one of rescuing people from hell by getting them to believe their version of Christian faith.

It seems to me that a far more beneficial and transformational mission would be to get Christians to actually take seriously Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and vindication by becoming his disciples.

I, myself, am a struggling disciple of Jesus. I fall short of embodying his life and living out his teachings in many ways. I know that I am complicit in the huge disparity between the rich and the poor that Jesus firmly judges. I often fail to love unconditionally, to give sacrificially, to serve compassionately, and to minister to others without any thought of personal reward.

But this I do know: The Gospels that proclaim the life, teachings, and mission of Jesus make clear what the life of discipleship to Jesus entails. I know the kind of person Jesus calls me to be, even though I often fail to be that kind of person.

The major problem with American Christianity today is that many Christians do not know what kind of persons and communities the living Christ expects them to be.

America's Dysfunctional Government Is Indicative of Dysfunctional Christianity

2011-08-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

Paradoxically, my shadow side found the recent debacle in Washington entertaining, but my spiritual side found it deeply disturbing. What many have called dysfunctional government, in my opinion, is indicative of dysfunctional religion, particularly dysfunctional Christianity. Let me explain.

The debate exposed a couple of extremely disconcerting realities. The wealthiest Americans pay less taxes by percentage than the rest of Americans who earn much less, and huge corporations that have made millions, even billions in profits, like oil companies, pay even less. This is not a debatable observation; it is simply the way it is.

Second, the spending cuts that will be enacted will hardly impact the wealthiest Americans at all. These cuts will, however, undoubtedly take away programs and resources that aid people who are struggling to survive. This will leave them more vulnerable to the diminishing forces of life and make the possibility for a flourishing life a wishful dream with minimal hope of attainment. This second observation is, I suppose, a more debatable point than my first, but hardly so. There are many debatable points when it comes to the ways the deficit can be reduced, but these two observations simply describe reality as it is and as it will be.

My question is: How can this “state of the union” exist, when there are so many Christian people in our country? I suspect it was a majority of Christians that elected the newcomers to Congress, who were willing to let the country drift over the edge of economic ruin if it meant compromising on their radically conservative agenda.

How can that be? It is because most American Christians adhere to a form of Christianity that is based on a heaven-and-hell framework, focusing their major attention and concern on the afterlife and on correct doctrinal beliefs, rather than the kingdom of God on earth as envisaged by Jesus. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Christian denomination in this country, recently made a big deal of and confirmed at their annual convention their insistence on the future reality of hell, where non-Christians will suffer eternal torment. This is unhealthy religion, and it represents a sizable chunk of American Christianity.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus explained his mission not in terms of heaven-and-hell, but in terms of Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18–19).

Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan is a good example of someone who, though considered to be a social outcast and religious heretic by the religious establishment, embodied the ethic taught by Jesus to love your neighbor as yourself (see Luke 10:25-37). The Samaritan gave generously and sacrificially in time and money and effort. Every disciple of Jesus is called to give generously and sacrificially for the good of those beaten-down and down-and-out.

Surely, at the very least, in a representative government known as a democracy, adherence to the gospel of Jesus means paying our fair share of taxes to help the disadvantaged, supplying them with opportunities to live a flourishing life.

One does not need to be spiritually astute to see this constant emphasis in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In fact, Jesus was quite radical regarding the need to empower the impoverished and close the disparity between the rich and the poor. Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled . . . But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry” (Luke 6:20–26).

Obviously, many American Christians have ignored, denied, or conveniently reinterpreted Jesus’ life and words to reflect their own obsession with the afterlife, doctrinal formulations, or personal success. (I include myself as one who is complicit in a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.)

According to the Gospels, Jesus proclaimed: “Repent (change the way you think and live), for the kingdom of God (God’s new world of peace and wholeness) has come near.” This message was directed to religious people—believers in God—who had become consumed with holiness codes and ritual purity. It is a message that American Christians need desperately to hear and heed.

What would happen if all the Christians who sent the Tea Party to Washington would join Jesus’ New World Party? Maybe then we would actually witness some signs and portents of God’s Dream for the world, breaking into our dysfunctional society with healing and grace.

If Christians really took Jesus’ mission and message seriously, it would be interesting to gauge how the uncommon gospel of Jesus would impact the common good of our partisan, polarized society. Would it make a difference? I don’t know, but wouldn’t it be great to find out!

Evaluating Spiritual Growth

2011-07-28T07:44:00.000-07:00

How would you chart the movement and direction of your spiritual life? How would you describe your spiritual maturity or immaturity?

The criteria that so many Western Christians use for spiritual measurement and evaluation, I believe, are non-issues with God. Many Christians in the West measure their level of spiritual maturity by looking at two components: All the religious, church-related activities they are engaged in, or the beliefs they have adopted. Neither component concerns God all that much.

Beliefs are important to the extent that they determine attitudes and lifestyle. Spiritually healthy beliefs are important for a healthy, transformative spirituality, but in- and-of themselves beliefs are not the measurement of spirituality.

Religious activities can be a mixed bag. They can be instrumental and vital in nurturing spiritual growth, or they can be stifling and spiritually diminishing. The prophets railed against the people of God and their religious leaders when they became engrossed and entrenched in religious activity and worship, and yet neglected to care for the poor and oppressed—the widows, orphans, and the most vulnerable in the land (read Isa. 1).

There is one overarching measurement that is true for Christians in all cultures, times, and places, though it has many different traits, qualities, and cultural expressions: LOVE. Our capacity to and expression of love is the ultimate measurement of our spirituality.

Are we growing in love? If we are growing in love, then as we age, we will be, like Jesus, growing in wisdom and grace—with God and our sisters and brothers in the human family (Luke 2:52). Are we becoming more patient, understanding, forgiving, self-giving, generous, compassionate, and inclusive?

This involves much more than being nice. Richard Rohr has commented: “One of the best covers for very narcissistic people is to be polite, smiling, and thoroughly civilized. Hitler loved animals and classical music.”

Healthy Christianity and churches will be continually looking for ways to help disciples of Jesus grow in love. Consider how much emphasis today is given to externals, doctrinal formulas, correct rituals, Bible quotes, flags and badges and pledges, personal success, and superficial emotions. It’s mostly sentiment and style, with very little spiritual substance.

To know God well is to love well—sacrificially, inclusively, graciously, and unconditionally. The question to ask regarding our spiritual growth: Am I loving others (all others, including the creation) today better than I did yesterday?

The Bible Is Not the Final Word

2011-07-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

Three times in the book of Acts, Paul’s experience of his encounter with the living Christ is told. In Acts 9, Luke reports the story. In Acts 22, Luke has Paul recount his experience to an unruly temple crowd. And in Acts 26, Paul retells his experience to Festus and King Agrippa. Paul’s own brief account of his encounter with Christ is found in Galatians 1:13–17.

Paul explains this experience as a revelation— “God was pleased . . . to reveal his Son to me”—and as a calling through grace “to proclaim Christ among the Gentiles.” Paul says that after this encounter he did not “confer with any human being,” nor did he go up to Jerusalem to get the endorsement of the Twelve (“those who were already apostles before me”), but went, at once, to Arabia, and then afterward to Damascus where he began proclaiming that Jesus was the Messiah. We don’t know how long he stayed in solitude in Arabia, where he was apparently sorting things out.

Paul underwent a major transformation as a result of this experience. Scholars of Paul, while noting that he was a very complex man and, like all transformational spiritual leaders, was marked by both contradictions and theological and spiritual growth as he served Christ and engaged in mission, nevertheless, remind us that he was forever changed by his dramatic experience of Christ on the Damascus Road. Paul based his authority as an apostle on this experience. Paul’s experience of the living Christ took preeminence over every external authority, including the Scriptures. In fact, Paul reinterpreted the Scriptures in light of his mystical experience of Christ.

Paul, however, still valued his religious tradition. He always considered himself to be a Jewish follower of the Messiah. He would never have claimed to be a Christian in the way that the word is used today by most Christians. We know that he valued the traditions of Jesus passed down orally, because he tells the Corinthians that he passed on to them the tradition regarding Jesus’ death and resurrection that he “had received” (see 1 Cor. 15:3-11). Yet, in that very passage, he grounds his own apostleship, not on the tradition he had received, but his own personal experience of the living Christ, who appeared to him as “last of all [the apostles], as to one untimely born.”

The lesson we can learn is this: Paul’s experience of the living Christ always took priority and precedence over his tradition and every external authority, even the Bible itself. Healthy and transformative spirituality will always value experience over tradition and the sacred texts. The tradition and the sacred texts are important, but our actual experience of the Divine is more important.

As Christians, our experience of the living Christ, who is able by his grace to transform our prejudices, jealousies, resentments, and hate into forgiveness, love, and reconciliation, is always more important than what the preachers and dogmatists tell us the Bible says.

Is Rob Bell Still an Evangelical?

2011-07-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

In a recent interview by Kim Lawton of PBS Religion and Ethics, author and columnist Lisa Miller, Pastor Rob Bell, author of Love Wins, and Mary Vanden Berg, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, raise some important issues about where Rob Bell stands in relation to evangelical Christianity.

Miller notes that what upset people most about Rob Bell was that he calls himself a conservative evangelical Christian. If he called himself an Episcopalian, she observes, nobody would have batted an eye.

Miller, of course, is right. This is what sent Bell’s book, Love Wins, ringing throughout the land (pun intended). As Miller comments, Bell’s position on heaven, hell, and the possible salvation of every person, “is a radical upheaval of that entire worldview.” This is why popular conservative pastor, John Piper, tweeted, “So long Bell,” when he first heard of Bell’s position (even before he read the book). He was talking about Bell’s departure from traditional/conservative Christianity.

One could argue that Bell has moved out of the camp of evangelicalism into the camp of progressive Christianity. One of the fundamental differences between progressive Christianity and evangelical Christianity is how each group understands and interprets the biblical teachings on judgment.

Most progressive Christians do not ignore or deny the reality of judgment. In fact, I myself, as a progressive Christian, believe that judgment can be quite painful and severe. But, I believe that it is always redemptive, restorative, and corrective in nature, not punitive, retributive, or intended for punishment equal to the offense.

Bell basically takes this position in his book. In the interview with Religion and Ethics he says that judgment flows out of love, that it is important to start with love: “God’s love is for us to flourish in God’s good world. For us to flourish in God’s good world, judgments have to be made . . . that puts judgment in its proper place.”

The problem for Bell in the evangelical Christian community is that the Bible doesn’t always take that position. Both restorative judgment and vindictive/retributive judgment can be found in the Bible. Because the New Testament emerged out of a milieu pervaded by apocalyptic perspectives and beliefs, retributive judgment is quite frequent in the New Testament. Progressive Christians rightfully acknowledge that an apocalyptic orientation greatly influenced the first followers of Jesus, and many progressives would contend, influenced Jesus himself. (See my book, A Faith Worth Living: The Dynamics of an Inclusive Gospel, pp. 97–117).

I share Bell’s belief on heaven, hell, and the possibility of universal salvation. His understanding of judgment in the context of divine love is how progressive Christians interpret it. But what Bell has failed to do, and what he must do, if he hopes to stay within the evangelical Christian fold, is provide an adequate biblical hermeneutic for his position that somehow manages to maintain the high (idolatrous?) view of biblical authority that evangelicals demand.

In the interview with Religion and Ethics, Professor Vanden Berg, a representative of the majority evangelical position, says that “the Bible’s pretty clear that when the end comes that’s the end. You don’t have a second chance.” She concedes that it is possible that God could offer a second chance if God wanted, but for her the bottom line is: “What does the Bible say? The biblical text doesn’t say that at all.” This is the bottom line for most evangelicals: What does the Bible actually say?

The question is: Can Rob Bell offer a sufficient enough biblical hermeneutic to justify his beliefs that will hold water within the evangelical community. I seriously doubt it. I predict that Rob Bell will become a fresh, new spokesperson for progressive Christianity. Much the way Brian McLaren started out within the evangelical tradition, but clearly is now a champion of progressive Christian beliefs and practices, I predict Rob Bell will, also, cross over. It’s inevitable.

An Authentic Christian Reading of the Bible

2011-07-06T13:20:00.000-07:00

It takes spiritual eyes to read the Bible in a healthy, transformative way. The Bible can be (and has been) employed as an instrument of oppression and evil, as well as an instrument of change and transformation. All Christians who debate public and faith issues among each other or in a public forum use Scripture to support their arguments. Whether the issues relate to sexual orientation, women pastors or deacons, the role of government, the right to wage war, the role of the military, divorce, the nature of Jesus, or the nature of judgment and salvation, Scripture is quoted and interpreted by all Christians engaged in the debate. The critical question concerns how we use Scripture, how we interpret the Bible, what framework and guiding principles we use to make sense of Scripture and apply it to our lives and communities.

Some years ago, I, along with three other pastors, tried to change the policy regarding women’s participation in an Eastern Kentucky Baptist Association of the Southern Baptist Convention. As the policy stood, women could not speak publicly to any issue up for a vote at the annual meeting. I spoke for the proposed amendment. I appealed to passages in the Gospels revealing how Jesus was egalitarian in his ministry and mission, calling women disciples. I talked about the social vision of God’s new creation expounded by Paul in Galatians—how “in Christ” all social, sexual, and racial barriers are abolished. I pointed to Scriptures demonstrating that women served as coworkers and partners with Paul in preaching and teaching the gospel.

Do you know what happened? Those who opposed the change quoted Scripture, too. They quoted 1 Cor. 14:34 that says women should be silent and subordinate in the church, and if they have anything to say they should ask their husbands at home. Someone asked, “What if they don’t have husbands?” They said, “They need to get husbands.” Then they quoted that troublesome text in 1 Timothy 2 that says women should be submissive and not teach in the presence of men, because Adam was created first and the woman was the one who was deceived by the serpent. It’s in the Bible, they said. And they were right. It’s in the Bible.

And what the Bible says, God says, right? I don’t know of any thing that has done more harm in and to the church than this simple equation: What the Bible says is equal to what God says. The direct identification of God’s Voice with what the Bible says has been used to justify all sorts of destructive biases and oppressive practices. Think of all the preachers who raise their voices declaring, “The Bible says . . .” assuming that this is what God says. The damage this has done is immense.

In the story of Jesus’ transfiguration in the Gospels, Moses and Elijah (representatives of the Law and the Prophets) appear with Jesus (see Luke 9:28-36). But it is Jesus who alone is affirmed by the Divine Voice: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.” The Law and the Prophets find fulfillment in Jesus. Listen to Jesus, the Voice declares.

Here is the key to a holistic, healthy, and transformative Christian reading of the Bible. Jesus is the lens through which Christians see. A truly constructive, redemptive, and transformative Christian reading of Scripture filters our understanding of the biblical stories and writings through the ultimate story, the story of Jesus. This means that an authentic Christian reading of the Bible will always be tilted and biased toward the things that Jesus stood for—the love, forgiveness, compassion, and grace embodied in Jesus’ life, death, and vindication.

It's Not the Answers, but the Questions that Matter

2011-06-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

In the little book of Habakkuk, the prophet faces a crisis of faith. It was a common belief among Habakkuk’s people that plagues and invasions from other nations were indicative of God’s displeasure or judgment. Undoubtedly, Habakkuk shares this belief to some degree. Most of us share the beliefs we are socialized into through family and culture.

The Babylonians are coming. They are a ruthless and violent people who worship might and power. They will sweep down and set their hooks and nets into the land and gather the people of Israel in like a fisherman gathers in his catch, to be used and disposed of at will (1:5–17).

The prophet cries to God, “We cry for help but you do not listen. We cry out for deliverance but you do not save. The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted” (1:2–4).

It’s a question of justice. How can it be, cries the prophet, that God would use a more wicked people to punish a less wicked people? Israel wasn’t innocent, but they were not as vicious and ruthless as the Chaldeans. This baffles the prophet and sends him into a quandary. The old theology, the standard answer no longer works.

I heard about a man traveling on a dinner flight who found an enormous roach on his salad. Back home he wrote a harsh letter to the president of the airline. A few days later he received a letter from the president explaining how that particular airplane had been fumigated and all the seats and upholstery stripped. There was even the suggestion that the aircraft would be taken out of service. The man was very impressed until he noticed that quite by accident the letter he had written had stuck to the president’s letter. On his letter there was a note that said, “Reply with the regular roach letter.”

For more and more Christians today, especially critically-thinking Christians, the old answers, the generic responses are no longer sufficient.

Unfortunately, there are still many Christian communities that try to smother the questions. Questions arise that either you are not encouraged to ask or perhaps not even allowed to ask. And when you do ask them, you are given short, simplistic explanations or the questions are dismissed or ignored as insignificant. Or even worse, you are condemned for your lack of faith or treated as a heretic for asking the questions.

For many Christians in faith communities across the country there are teachings that dare not be challenged and questions that dare not be asked. The old answers are supposed to be true because someone in authority says they are true. The answers usually are given as: “This is what the Bible says” or “God says . . .”

If the answers come from people we love and care about, like our parents, family members, faith community and friends in our social network, we may live with those answers for a long time, until they no longer work or make sense to us anymore.

Sometimes it takes an experience of unusual suffering or loss to jar us awake—the death of a love one, the breakup of a marriage, the loss of employment, a debilitating disease. Or it may come about, as it did in my faith journey, through a growing feeling or gnawing sense that the old answers are simply not true; that the “old time religion” is not spiritually healthy or personally transforming.

At some point in our faith journey it is necessary to find our beliefs/theology lacking. Otherwise, we would never question and grow. Healthy, holistic, and transformative spirituality is not about having the right answers; it’s about asking the right questions—better questions.

The Spirituality of Mindfulness

2011-06-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

On the night of his arrest, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him into the garden to pray. Jesus wants their support, but this is also to prepare them for the trial to come. Jesus tells them to stay awake. It was important that they see his struggle and participate in it. But they could not. They went to sleep.

Jesus calls Peter out especially, because he had been the most outspoken and boastful, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour?” Then he says, “Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial,” that is, “that you may not be overcome when you enter the trial coming upon you.” “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak,” he says (see Mark 14:32–42). Jesus knows that they need to nurture the spiritual fortitude, strength, courage, and endurance that comes from being discerning of God’s will and awake to God’s presence.

When Jesus tells them to stay awake and pray, he is telling them to be reflective and discerning. If they are to ask God for anything, they are to ask God for discernment and understanding, for inner strength and courage.

To be awake is to be mindful of God’s mind, and part of this involves developing the capacity to think. One of the great challenges in American Christianity is to get Christians to think.

I read somewhere that in the third century, the one known as Julian the Apostate was determined to blot out every trace of Christianity. What he discovered, however, was the principle of spiritual thermodynamics; the more he applied the heat of persecution, the more the church seemed to expand and multiply. Frustrated with his efforts to wipe out the Christian movement he made this assessment. He said, “Christianity provokes too much thinking. Even the slaves are thinking.”

But once Christianity stopped being persecuted by the establishment and became part of the establishment, thinking was not as necessary. Once Christianity gained favor and cuddled up to the powers that be many Christians simply stopped thinking. It was too risky.

Biblical scholar and theologian Walter Wink has done some rather extensive research and study on the concept of the “principalities and powers” as it is found in Scripture and manifested in society. In the mythical world of biblical times the reference is often to demons, but it could also refer to the domination system of the world. Wink concludes from his study that all the outer, visible organizations, institutions, systems, and structures of the world have an invisible, inner, spiritual reality. He says that while we may not be accustomed to thinking of the Pentagon, or the Chrysler Corporation, or the Mafia as having a spirituality, they actually do. He contends that what people in the world of the Bible called “principalities and powers” was actually the spirituality at the center of the political, economic, and cultural institutions of their day.

The capacity to resist conformity to the Domination System, to the powers that be, is difficult and must be nurtured. If we are spiritually sleepwalking there is no way we will have the inner strength and courage to resist conformity to the will of the powers that be, let alone be able discern what is good and right and just and loving.

Prayer is not intended to be our way of getting what we want; it’s our way of staying awake and being open to the Divine Spirit. It’s our way being present to the Presence of God. It’s our way of drawing upon the discernment, wisdom, compassion, grace, and inner strength of Christ to resist conformity to the Domination System and to work towards transforming it.

In prayer we discover our mission as collaborators with God and as agents of the Spirit. We discover how to be peacemakers and advocates of restorative justice and to work for the renewal of the earth. In prayer we learn to be humble servants and we learn how to see through the veneer of lies and deceptions that coats so many of our religious and political and social institutions. In prayer we open up our minds to what is good and true, so that we can be transformed, rather than be conformed to the mold of the world.

Finding Our True Vocation

2011-06-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

In the Gospels, Jesus’ sense of vocation—his conviction about what he was called to do—emerged from a clear sense of who he was.

Before Jesus began his public ministry he may have been a follower of John the Baptist. He was baptized by John in the desert. In the context of his baptismal experience Jesus was given a vision, a revelation of his true self. The Gospels employ symbolical language to describe Jesus’ spiritual encounter: The heavens opened, the Spirit descended in the appearance of a dove, and the Divine Voice pronounced, “This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Immediately after this experience Jesus faced Satan in the desert, that is, Jesus faced the temptations of his calling (temptations he would encounter throughout his ministry). And then, in the power of the Spirit, Jesus began proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, welcoming all manner of sinners into his fellowship and manifesting healing power.

Jesus becomes the Messianic agent of God’s new world after he hears the still, small Voice of the Spirit affirming him as God’s Son. Jesus provides for us a pattern for coming to realize our true vocation.

Dennis Lynn is an author and spiritual retreat leader. Having been brought up in a very strict religious environment, his primary goal in life as an adolescent was to avoid hell. He tried to avoid the long list of sins that he had been taught would lead to his eternal banishment. He grew up hating himself and not liking anyone else much either.

A major change took place in his life when he joined the Jesuits. His novice master had instructed him to make a general confession of his sins. He wrote twelve pages of all the things he didn’t like about himself. At his confession, Dennis started with page one and talked non-stop for thirty minutes.

At the end of his confession his novice master said nothing. Instead, he came over and gave him a big hug. It was then that the heavens opened, the Spirit descended, and he heard the Voice of God affirming him that he was God’s son, that God loved him no matter what.

Dennis’ experience of being loved unconditionally as God’s child led to his conviction about his true vocation. From then on Dennis felt he could be a brother to all people, that he could love a lot because he had been forgiven a lot—at least twelve pages worth.

I have often contended that doubts and questions are essential and necessary for our spiritual growth. My doubts and questions certainly spurred me to dig deeper and to come to a deeper faith and more compassionate life.

However, there is one truth that I hope I never doubt: the truth that God loves us as we are. We belong to God and are God’s daughters and sons, no matter how many faults and failures mark our path, no matter how destructive our addictions and problems.

Regardless of how much we achieve, how many accolades or honors or awards we earn, God will not love us any more than God loves us right now. And no matter how badly we mess up or how many sins characterize our lives, God will not love us any less than God loves us right now.

As we claim our identity as God’s beloved children, our vocation (calling) begins to take shape. Knowing who we are, we are awakened to a clearer sense of what we are to be about.

Technorati Tags: vocation, God, love, mission, ministry, work, spirituality

Belief Is Not the Same Thing as a Living Faith

2011-05-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

Abraham Maslow contended that any adequate understanding of religious faith must take into consideration “peak experiences.” By peak experiences Maslow was referring to experiences of existential communion with an Ultimate Reality that transcends the limited self.

Mystics who have had such experiences have reported that they felt a deep, expansive sense of belonging to every other person and to all creation, where they could see the beauty and goodness of all things. The mystics of various religious traditions call this Reality different names: God, the Really Real, the Presence, Cosmic Christ, Spirit, Source of Life, Ultimate Reality, Ground of Being, etc.

The beliefs we use to describe this experience and Reality will always be inadequate. A living faith is the means by which we connect, commune, and cooperate with the Divine Spirit that is within every human being (we are all made in God’s image). Our beliefs are merely pointers, our human way of trying to grasp and explain it.

All genuine mystical encounter seems to move the individual or community toward a more inclusive worldview and acceptance. The mystics tell us that whenever we respond in love, whenever we share our resources and forgive and show mercy and stand with the downtrodden we step into the flow of the Divine Life.

I can’t think of anything more urgently needed today than this sense of mutual belonging with all humankind and with all creation. There are many religions and many belief systems, because the Unfathomable Mystery at the heart of life itself is beyond our grasp and understanding. Beliefs tend to divide us; but a living faith that enables us to experience the Unconditional Love that is gently guiding the universe in a non-coercive way has the power to unite us.

We might think of it this way: We are all in the River in a boat, the River being the Divine Spirit “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). There are many different kinds of boats with which to navigate the River and we are all in some kind of boat. The boat represents our belief system, our worldview, the way we see God and the world and our relationship to both. We all (even atheists) have some sort of belief system.

Some of us are navigating the river well. Others of us are bouncing off rocks, stuck in the mud, or running aground. Still others are fighting the river, trying to go against the flow. And then there are many who are asleep in their boats; they are not consciously aware that they are in a boat in the River.

At the heart of an inclusive Christian gospel is the deep conviction that all creation is God’s household and we are all God’s children. The Divine Spirit (the living, cosmic Christ) resides in each one of us. We are all in the River.

When our belief system is healthy, we are able to flow with the River. Our beliefs will help inspire, sustain, and grow a living faith (a dynamic trust) that keeps us in conscious communion and cooperation with God’s redemptive presence. I say “conscious” because we all are connected, we all are in the River, though many of us are not aware or awake to God’s redemptive presence.

When our belief system is unhealthy and toxic—fear-based, arrogant, and rooted in hate or prejudice—it will stifle, hinder, and impede a living faith. It will keep us spiritually stagnant, and perhaps make us spiritually repugnant to fair-minded people.

I long for the day when more Christians will embrace an inclusive gospel. For when that happens we will spend less time attempting to convert people to our way of thinking/believing and trying to get them to join our “chosen” group. And we will spend more time seeking peace, pursuing justice for the most vulnerable, practicing forgiveness, taking care of creation, and humbly serving one another. (For a more complete discussion of the dynamics of an inclusive gospel see my book, A Faith Worth Living.)

Salvation Is Now, Not Later

2011-05-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

One of the ways many traditional Christians have avoided real change/conversion has been to make the gospel of Jesus primarily about going to heaven and avoiding hell. I think this is particularly true for many of us who have made “heaven” the reward for believing the right things. We use all sorts of language for this: accepting Christ into one’s heart, making a decision for Christ, having a born again experience, trusting Christ as personal Savior, etc. (all these expressions mean different things to different people).

The problem is that many Christians who feel they have made this “decision” think that they are guaranteed heaven and see no real need to change now. With the promise of heaven secured, one’s ego can easily pad and protect itself in ways that avoid dealing with the pride, negativity, and greed that resides there. When whole groups of people (evangelical Christians?) are committed to ego protection and defense, real personal or communal transformation rarely happens. Being a Christian, then, becomes nothing more than believing the correct doctrine, observing the proper rites and rituals, or saying the appropriate words. The ego is not touched and the heart is not changed.

But when we understand “heaven” and “hell” primarily as spiritual symbols of our spiritual state in the present, we are more likely to assume some responsibility for how we live. Authentic spirituality is always about “today.” It’s about seeing, doing, waiting, trusting, loving, caring, sharing, and serving now, rather than something we are given in the future as the result of believing the right things or being a part of the “in” group. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Following Jesus daily, being led by the Spirit of the living Christ daily, living daily in and for the kingdom of God, is not optional. It is at the very heart and core of the good news Jesus proclaimed and embodied.

Jesus certainly believed in a future resurrection, as did his early followers (whose writings make up our New Testament). But that was never at the center of the gospel he proclaimed. Jesus called his disciples into a mindset, lifestyle, and lifetime of change. And I have no doubt that whatever constitutes life in a resurrected state (which is all speculation from our side of it) continuing change will be part of it.

Salvation is a continual process, never a completed state. When one stage is complete, we simply enter another. One who is being saved, one who is spiritual, is one who invites and welcomes the indwelling Spirit to teach her/him how to love. This involves breaking old habits of ego protection, negative reactions, and selfish behavior and attitudes, and allowing the Spirit, whose very nature is Love and Grace, access to our innermost being. The Spirit inspires and empowers new patterns of reaction and interaction with others in ways that are pervaded by forgiveness and compassion. We learn to die daily to the old, false self as we learn to put on the new, Christ self (read Eph 4-5 and Col 3).

When we do church right, this is what we are teaching one another—how to “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us” (Eph 5:2).

Must Christians Believe in the Second Coming of Christ?

2011-05-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

I am currently teaching the Gospel of Luke on Wednesday evenings and this week’s text raises issues that those of us who preach and teach an inclusive gospel must deal with. The text is Luke 17:20–37 where the kingdom of God is presented as both a present and future reality. My focus here is on the part that deals with the kingdom as future.

In response to a question raised by some Pharisees as to when the kingdom will come, Jesus tells them that the kingdom of God is in their midst (could be translated “within” them). Either way, the emphasis is on its present reality.

But does this mean that there will be no future realization/fulfillment of the kingdom? Jesus seems to be responding to this implied question in his teaching to his disciples in Luke 17:22–37.

The kingdom formula seems to be: Already here, but not yet in any complete sense; in our midst, but still to come; has come and will come; now and in the future. Many of us have a hard time keeping this balance.

Paul seems to be dealing with an imbalance in his first letter to the Corinthians. His whole discussion of Jesus’ resurrection and the future resurrection of the body in 1 Cor. 15 apparently was needed in view of the overemphasis some in the congregation were placing on the spiritual resurrection disciples experience in the present. Evidently, there was too much “realized eschatology” in Corinth and not enough “future eschatology.”

In my youth, I erred in just the opposite direction. When I was in high school I carried around for a year or so Hal Lindsay’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, along with my New Scofield Reference Bible, looking for Jesus to come back just any day.

I think Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, is, in one way, a reaction to too much “futurizing” by evangelical Christians to the neglect of collaborating and partnering with the Spirit of the living Christ and others to help see God’s kingdom realized now. Many evangelical Christians have certainly invested too much time in the interest of heaven and hell and not enough time helping bring heaven to earth.

In these verses in Luke, Jesus appears to be saying that the future version of the kingdom will come very suddenly and decisively. There will be no mistaking its arrival. For “on the day the Son of Man is revealed” it will be like lightning flashing across the sky from one end to the other.

Also, people will be doing what they normally do. They will be engaged in all their normal activities: “eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage . . . buying and selling, planting and building.” But then, as suddenly as disaster fell upon the victims of the flood and the city of Sodom, so will judgment fall and the kingdom come.

There is a fairly rigorous debate among Jesus scholars concerning what Jesus may have actually believed regarding the when and how of the kingdom’s future coming. There seems to be a growing number of scholars (represented by the likes of Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, whom I like very much, but not so much their position here) that Jesus didn’t really believe and teach that the future kingdom was imminent and would come suddenly and decisively. They would contend that Luke 17:22–37 reflects what the early church believed (in this case the Lukan community), but not what Jesus believed. This is appealing, but I do not find it very likely. And though I am not a scholar, it does seem to me that most New Testament scholars do not regard it very likely either. (An excellent resource here is Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet.)

At any rate, there's not much debate at all among the scholars on what the early church believed as reflected in the New Testament. They believed in a rather sudden and decisive coming of the Son of Man to usher in the future aspect of the kingdom. And most of these passages (for example: Mark 13, Luke 21, Matt 24, 1 Thess 4–5, 2 Thess 2) are very apocalyptic and dualistic. (For an excellent description and explanation of apocalyptic for the educated lay Christian see Craig C. Hill, In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future.) One exception to this is the position of N. T. Wright, former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. His writings have become quite popular here in America, and he takes the position that texts like Luke 17:22ff that speak of the glory and revelation of the Son of Man are actually about his resurrection/vindication, not his Second Coming and the future arrival of the kingdom. I am not aware, however, of any serious New Testament or Jesus scholar who follows his approach.

These apocalyptic, dualistic texts seem to clearly suggest that judgment precedes the arrival of the future kingdom and as a result, some are “in” and some are “out,” some are included while others are excluded. Here in Luke 17:34 “two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left” (“I wish we’d all been ready” as I use to sing).

Does this pose a problem for those of us who believe in an inclusive gospel and universal restoration/reconciliation of all creation? That all depends. In the Bible there are both dualistic and inclusive texts, and it can probably be demonstrated that there are more dualistic ones than inclusive ones. One of my critiques of Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, is that he makes no serious mention of the dualistic texts and offers no adequate hermeneutic for interpreting them. And there are a bunch of them in the New Testament, because the New Testament was written in a milieu where an apocalyptic orientation/worldview was dominant.

I interpret the apocalyptic texts this way: The apocalyptic vision of judgment in its different forms and expressions serves as a very colorful and poignant way of saying that there will be vindication. The prophetic cry for justice for the victims of injustice and the oppressed will not go unheeded. God will put things right. But we need to tread carefully here with much grace, because all of us, to one degree or another, are both victim/the oppressed and the victimizer/the oppressor. (For example, most Americans are complicit in the poverty and impoverishment of the “have nots” in our world, simply by being Americans. The world could not sustain our standard of living.)

I spiritualize and de-apocalypticise passages like Luke 17:22–37 that drip with an apocalyptic over coating. Did the early disciples believe in a literal Second Coming? In all likelihood they did. Must we believe in a literal Second Coming? Often the answer is: If you believe the Bible you do! Well, I don’t believe in a literal Second Coming and it doesn’t mean that I don’t believe the Bible. One can take the Bible seriously (which I obviously do or I wouldn’t be conducting a verse-by-verse study through the Gospel of Luke with my church), without having to take it literally.

Here in this apocalyptic, dualistic text are spiritual lessons for all disciples of Jesus. Jesus’ warning against complacency is applicable in all contexts. We always need to be awake to the present moment. The living Christ is present in the here and now. Jesus told his home town folks in the synagogue in Nazareth, just after he read his job description from Isaiah 61, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Today, the living Christ is present and at work, both in our midst and within us, looking for partners, friends, collaborators, sisters and brothers to live in communion with him and in cooperation with his will to bring heaven to earth.

Eternity is now and now is all we have, so let’s live in tune with God’s dream for a new world of peace and righteousness, striving to help create God’s Beloved Community, awake to the Divine Spirit who is with us, in us, and for us, now and forever.

Jesus' Death and Resurrection: Review of Rob Bell (Part 4)

2011-05-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

In chapter 5, "Dying" to Live," Bell writes about the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is important in any serious discussion and exposition of the good news to expound the significance of the death and resurrection of Christ. The first disciples very early in the development of the Jesus movement interpreted the death and resurrection of Jesus in a redemptive way. Even though the powers that be crucified Jesus, the early disciples believed that God was at work in and through the cross, using it as a means of redemption. But the crucial question: In what sense is Jesus’ death redemptive? How does Jesus’ death have saving efficacy? How does it work? I was disappointed that Bell did not offer an explanation.

Bell rightly acknowledges that there are different metaphors and images employed in the New Testament to speak of Christ’s death. Bells writes: “Is the cross about the end of the sacrificial system or a broken relationship that’s been reconciled or a guilty defendant who’s been set free or a battle that’s been won or the redeeming of something that was lost?” (p. 127). Bell says that the cross is about all of these things. And in one sense he’s right; all of these images are employed by the biblical writers. But what is desperately missing is an adequate atonement narrative that can bring these images together, so that there is some unity in the diversity. There is no attempt by Bell to connect his commentary on the cross with his understanding of heaven and hell and God’s desire to redeem the whole creation. This chapter, then, is somewhat disjointed, interrupting the flow of the narrative.

In the Gospels the death and resurrection of Jesus are presented as the culmination of his life, so that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus form one piece that has redemptive significance. The contextual and particular historical situations that occasioned the New Testament epistles were not as conducive to a narrative exposition of the death and resurrection of Jesus as the Gospels, but there are hints in them that the death of Jesus should not be segregated from his life, that the theological significance of the death of Jesus must include the life he lived that led to his death. In other words, it is the entire Christ Event (life, death, resurrection/vindication, and reality of the living Christ) that has saving power and significance.

In my book, A Faith Worth Living: The Dynamics of an Inclusive Gospel, I attempt to show how the redeeming significance of Jesus’ nonviolent atonement fits hand-in-glove with Jesus’ nonviolent life and his proclamation and embodiment of the kingdom of God. I also offer a short explanation and critique of the substitutionary atonement model that continues to prevail in evangelical Christianity, but is now being more frequently challenged. My approach is pastoral and practical, as well as theological and biblical. For a more scholarly presentation I recommend J. Denny Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement, and for an approach that combines scholarly and pastoral considerations I suggest Recovering the Scandal of the Cross by Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker.

Bell does a better job connecting the significance of the resurrection to the good news of God’s intent to reconcile all things to God’s self. He writes: “The resurrection of Jesus inaugurates a new creation, one free from death, and it is bursting forth in Jesus himself right here in the midst of the first creation” (p. 133). Bell argues that God “inaugurated a movement in Jesus’ resurrection to renew, restore, and reconcile everything ‘on earth or in heaven.’ (Col. 1), just as God originally intended it” (p. 134).

I certainly concur, though I would say it a little differently. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus constitute one movement. Jesus’ resurrection by God (a key point in the early Christian preaching) constituted God’s vindication of Jesus’ life and death (his message and ministry, his nonviolent, humble, compassionate way of life that culminated in death.) It was the Christ Event in it’s entirety that inaugurated the new creation, though Jesus’ resurrection was the crowning, confirming, validating aspect.

Bell concludes the chapter with an important commentary on how the process and pattern of death and resurrection constitute the process and pattern of Christian discipleship and authentic spirituality. This is a theme emphasized over and over in one way or another in the teachings of Jesus and powerfully exemplified through his own life, death, and resurrection.

Technorati Tags: death, resurrection, Jesus, gospel, substitution, atonement, love, Christianity

Does God Get What God Wants?: Review of and Reflections on "Love Wins" (Part 3)

2011-04-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

Bell begins Chapter 4 by demonstrating the inconsistency of believing in a God of love and in a judgment of eternal torment. He contends that God wants all people to be saved and come to the truth, and then he asks the question, “Does God get what God wants?” He argues that the writers of Scripture consistently affirm that we’re all part of the same family and that what we have in common outweighs our differences. He compares God’s love to that of a parent for a child, “the kind of love that pursues, searches, creates, connects, and bonds. The kind of love that moves toward, embraces, and always works to be reconciled with, regardless of the cost” (p. 99). Bell then references several texts that reflect an inclusive, universal perspective. Bell writes, “This insistence that God will be united and reconciled with all people is a theme the writers and prophets return to again and again” (p. 100).

This, of course, is true; there are a number of biblical passages that reflect a universal, inclusive emphasis. A central component in an inclusive gospel that I affirm again and again in my book, A Living Faith: The Dynamics of an Inclusive Gospel, is that we are all children of God and God’s steadfast love toward all people is that of a Parent for a child. The way I like to put it: We are all the daughters and sons of God, but not all of us have claimed our identity or are living in light of that reality.

However, it is important to acknowledge the dualistic, exclusivistic passages as well. And given the apocalyptic milieu in which the Jesus movement was born, there are many such passages in the New Testament. What is needed (which Bell does not offer) is an adequate hermeneutic to account for and deal with the contradictions. John Dominic Crossan, in his book God and Empire observes that in the biblical tradition, sometimes in the same book, are two very different versions of how God will cleanup the world and usher in God’s kingdom (see pp. 78-95). The Bible has many dualistic, retributive, vengeful texts, as well as inclusive, gracious texts with a universal trajectory. On what basis will we choose which vision is best reflective of God’s will/plan for the world?

Bell rightly raises the question of human freedom in connection with God’s desire to save all. He writes, “God has to respect our freedom to choose to the very end, even at risk of the relationship itself. If at any point God overrides, co-opts, or hijacks the human heart, robbing us of our freedom to choose, then God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is” (pp. 103-04). He points out that at the heart of the universal perspective “is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence” (p. 107).

That is my position, and as Bell points out, I am not alone; “there is a long tradition” of Christians who hold to this view. In interview after interview Bell denies that he is a universalist, because he cannot argue conclusively that all will eventually repent and turn to God, given the reality of human freedom. And that, of course, is true. However, his denial does not tell the rest of the story. He asks, “Which is stronger and more powerful, the hardness of the human heart or God’s unrelenting, infinite, expansive love?” (p. 109). And he says that the story of God’s love reaching everyone “is a better story . . . bigger, more loving, more expansive, more extraordinary, beautiful, and inspiring than any other story about the ultimate course history takes” (p. 111).

We who are hopeful universalists have to allow for human freedom and the possibility that some may become so hardened and pervaded by evil that they would never choose the good, though we believe that God’s love will eventually bring everyone to repentance. And it seems that this is Bell’s hope too, if not his belief.

One of the reasons I believe that all persons will eventually be changed relates to the way numerous factors influence human freedom. Bell does not address this, but a multitude of biological, temporal, cultural, and social factors impact and restrict human freedom. My daughter who has Downs Syndrome has her freedom severely limited by genetics. The child subjected to acute neglect and abuse will be greatly restricted in his or her freedom to live an emotionally, spiritually, and relationally healthy life. The person who has made many evil choices and whose conscience is numb may be difficult to influence. But given enough time and different contexts and influences, it is reasonable to believe that even the most distorted, twisted, sadistic psyches can be redeemed and transformed by God’s love.

Toward the end of the chapter Bell turns the question around and asks, “Do we get what we want?” He answers yes. If we want evil, then we can have evil along with its consequences. If we want love, we can have that too, says Bell. The problem with this is that we do not always know what we want. Given the ways the Domination System can beat us down and the ways our freedom can be impeded, we can easily become deceived, deluded, and confused. God is always trying to lure us away from the evil into the good, even if evil is what we think we want.

So I cannot agree with Bell’s conclusion: “That’s how love works. It can’t be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins” (p. 119).

It is true that love cannot be manipulated or forced, and it always allows for human freedom. But if we want evil and get evil, then love does not win, because it is not what love wants. God’s love wants/wills our good, our healing and transformation, and God’s love will do whatever God can do without violating human freedom to accomplish this. (This raises questions about whether God voluntarily or involuntarily self-limits in regard to human freedom or whether, as in process theology, God is not omnipotent; but these questions are beyond the scope of this review.)

God’s love does not win if God is not able to eventually, working with human freedom and all the ways that human freedom is impacted, limited, and influenced, bring all God’s children home safely. Only then does God get what God wants and only then is God’s love fully satisfied.

Theologian Jurgen Moltmann in his book, Jesus Christ for Today’s World, has a good word: “In this Spirit of the resurrection I can here and now wholly live, wholly love and wholly die, for I know with certainty that I shall wholly rise again. In this hope I can love all created things, for I know that none of them will be lost” (p. 87). When love gathers all in and none is lost, love wins.

Technorati Tags: univeralism, salvation, judgment, freedom, Jesus, Christ, Christianity, destiny, future, hope, love

Technorati Tags: Spirituality, Religion, Christianity, Faith, Rob Bell, hell, inclusiveness, universal salvation, disicpleship

Christ is Risen. Alleluia!

2011-04-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

In religious language “life” and “death” are poignant, theologically packed religious symbols. This is particularly apparent in the Gospel of John. In my book, A Faith Worth Living, I express it this way:

“Death represents the absence of spiritual life. In a contemporary spiritual sense, it may be symbolic of the darkness of depression; or the enmity, estrangement, and alienation that separates individuals from one another and from their true selves; or a felt absence of love, meaning, and significance.

Life, the antithesis of death, is what one experiences in relationship with God. In a contemporary existential sense, it may stand as a symbol for relationships and experiences that are healthy, vibrant, holistic, and transformative. Life involves freedom from the debilitating power of anxiety, worry, and fear. Life reflects the love, joy, and peace experienced by an individual or faith community when that person or community is delivered from the oppressive power of hate, guilt, and shame.

Life is what happens to us when we open our hearts to the love of God and decide to share and express God’s love to others. Death is what happens to us when we close our hearts to God’s love and decide instead to harbor resentment and animosity” (p. 127).

“Life and death” is a common expression that puts the accent on death as the climax of the story. The gospel of Jesus reverses it. Jesus told his followers that in Jerusalem he would be rejected, suffer, and be killed, but then “raised to life.” Life is the pinnacle of the story.

There’s a lot of death in our world: Rwanda, Darfur, the Gulags, Katrina, Haiti, Japan, war, murders, rape, sex trafficking, genocide, crack houses, spousal and child abuse—death that makes no sense. Like the tragic torture and suffering of an innocent victim. Like the cross.

But death is not the end of the story. In John 20, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb and finds it empty. Thinking that someone stole the body, she is at the brink of despair. She feels overwhelmed by death. But then something happens. Mary leaves the tomb a witness to life.

(Note: None of the Gospel accounts tell the Easter story the same way. There is little agreement in the details. The one thing they concur on, however, is that the disciples, because of some mysterious encounter/s and experience/s with the living Christ become convinced that he is alive.)

On a mission trip to Haiti in 2010 with undergraduates, Will Willimon reported in The Christian Century that there was widespread agreement that the most disarming thing about the country was the laughter of the children, along with their raucous singing. How could they sing in the midst of all that death?

As darkness fell upon Port-au-Prince ten weeks after the earth shook and collapsed, people danced in the streets and sang hymns. Anderson Cooper on CNN was somewhat incredulous: “Don’t they know what they are saying about how bad it really is?”

It seems to astound us in our American, consumerist, ego-driven culture that people who seem to be so trapped in tragedy can be so full of life. Could they be experiencing the power of life over death ahead of time? The Christian gospel proclaims that life with all its possibilities has broken into our world.

So even when we should be weeping and crying out in despair, we sing: “Christ the Lord is Risen Today, Alleluia!”

Rob Bell on "Hell": Review and Reflections (Part 2)

2011-04-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Bell begins his discussion by noting that there is no “hell” in the Old Testament. There is a sheol—“a dark, mysterious, murky place people go when they die” (p. 65)—but nothing equivalent to hell. Beliefs about the afterlife in Hebrew culture were not “very articulated or defined” (p. 67).

Bell notes that the word translated “hell” in the New Testament is actually gehenna, referring originally to an actual valley on the west side of Jerusalem used as a garbage dumb; a place where the fire was burning constantly to consume the trash.

Bell emphasizes the metaphorical use of this word in the sayings of Jesus. The “volatile mixture of images, pictures, and metaphors” that Jesus uses “describe the very real experiences and consequences of rejecting our God-given goodness and humanity” (p.73).

I agree with Bell that Jesus employed the term in hyperbole and symbol. What Bell does not tell the reader, however, is that one metaphorical meaning of “hell” during the time of Jesus was that of an actual place of fiery judgment. This belief in a fiery judgment where the wicked would be consumed emerged in the intertestamental period as an apocalyptic worldview began to develop. Oppressed Israel started dreaming of vindication and some of them imagined a place where the wicked would be destroyed by fire. A smaller number imagined it as a place of eternal torment. As the ABD notes: “By at least the 1st century C.E. there emerged a metaphorical understanding of Gehenna as the place of judgment by fire for all the wicked everywhere.”

It’s also interesting that most of the references to gehenna are found in Matthew’s Gospel and Matthew tends to embellish the judgment texts with a severity, harshness, and vindictiveness not found in Mark or Luke. Theologian and Bible scholar Walter Wink, in his book, The Human Being, expresses it this way: “Matthew’s use of the judgment theme is particularly vindictive . . . The unconditional loving Abba of the Sermon of the Mount (5:45) now wants to settle some scores. Matthew’s heart will not be happy until ‘all evildoers’ have been thrown ‘into the furnace of fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” (p. 177). Apparently, Matthew or some in his community had an ax to grind. This also better explains the phrase, “eternal punishment” in Matthew 25:30 as a Matthean embellishment. Bell’s attempt to make that phrase say something else is a real stretch (see pp. 91-93).

Bell does a good job with the story in Luke 16 about Lazarus and the rich man. It is a “brilliant, surreal, poignant, subversive, loaded story” proclaiming “the social revolution” that is part of the kingdom of God. The reversal theme that is so prevalent in Luke shows up here “calling all people to human solidarity” (p. 75). Bell contends that the story was particularly aimed at the religious leaders as a warning that “there would be serious consequences for ignoring the Lazaruses outside their gates” (p. 76). Bell points out that even in his agony the rich man wants Lazarus to serve him and go warn his brothers, treating him as his servant. In an insightful application Bell points out that the gospel of Jesus is about a death that leads to life; a pattern of dying to the ego, status, and pride, so one can live in God’s kingdom. Bell notes, “He’s in Hades, but he still hasn’t died the kind of death that actually brings life” (p. 77).

Bell’s interpretation is perceptive and transformative, though the story needed more introduction and context. It would probably be improper to call this story a parable. Most parables have a true-to-life sense about them; this is pure allegorical fiction. A similar story appears in other literature and cultures, probably originating in Egypt. There were several versions of it in Palestine during the time of Jesus. Jesus is adapting a common story line to proclaim God’s eschatological reversal and in the Lukan context, he is critiquing the Pharisees misuse of the law, particularly the way they interpreted the law to justify their love of money. The word for “hell” does not appear in the text; instead, the word hades is employed, referring to the abode of the dead. Literalizing the details of the story robs it of its power and reduces it to the ridiculous. (For a more complete discussion of this see my book, The Good News According to Jesus, pp. 185-198).

Bell acknowledges that there are a number of passages in the Bible that speak about judgment and punishment that says nothing about “hell.” With regard to Jesus’ announcements of judgment Bell says two things. First, sometimes Jesus is referring to the coming wrath of the Romans against Israel (though he doesn’t cite any passages here). Second, Jesus is addressing very religious people who thought they were the “in” group, warning them “about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God’s love” (p. 82). (Again, it is unusual that he does not cite any specific passages here either.)

Bell makes a very important point about the criterion of judgment, pointing out that in all the passages of Jesus’ sayings on “hell” Jesus is not talking about beliefs. Rather, he is talking about “anger and lust and indifference. He’s talking about the state of the listeners’ hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world” (p. 82). This is true, by the way, of all the judgment texts in Scripture. Even in the Gospel of John, where belief is so prominent, the eschatological judgment is determined on the basis of conduct and actions, namely, on the grounds of “those who have done good” and “those who have done evil” (John 5:29).

The most important point Bell makes in this chapter is about the nature of judgment. Bell, like myself and a growing number of progressive Christians, sees judgment as restorative and redemptive. The movement of judgment is a movement “from judgment to restoration, from punishment to new life” (p. 85). Though his attempt to find this movement in Jesus’ pronouncement of judgment in Matthew 10 is the result of eisegesis, not exegesis; it’s simply not there. But it is in the prophets, and Bell cites a bunch of them. He writes, “According to the prophets, God crushes, refines, tests, corrects, chastens, and rebukes—but always with a purpose” (pp. 85-86). That purpose is restoration: “Failure, we see again and again, isn’t final, judgment has a point, and consequences are for correction” (p. 88). Bell appeals to the judgment renderings of Paul in First Timothy and 1 Corinthians 5 to support this movement. (Note: It is not likely that Paul was the author of First Timothy).

This is the point about judgment that I develop in The Good News According to Jesus and A Faith Worth Living. In the latter book I begin the discussion by putting it this way: “Rather than perpetuate the duality of “us” and “them” (the saved and unsaved, the righteous and wicked), each group being assigned separate destinies as is common in apocalyptic and dualistic versions of Christianity, it is more reasonable and true to the God of Jesus of Nazareth to bring judgment and salvation together as part of the total providential, redemptive, restorative, transformative work of God to reconcile all things to God’s self” (p. 100).

Later in the discussion: “An inclusive gospel inverts our images of judgment and invests them with new meaning. The “furnace of fire” becomes a furnace that burns off all the dross, leaving the precious metal; it consumes all the selfishness and sin, so that the one who has been through the flames comes forth purged and pure. Perhaps the journey through “outer darkness” is necessary to dispel the inner darkness and illumine our minds and hearts to the mystery, wonder, and power of God’s goodness and grace. Maybe the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is a necessary prelude to the joy and celebration that results from the experience of grace and real gratitude” (p. 107).

This is the theological grounding for a rethinking of traditional ideas and beliefs about hell, namely: God’s judgment (however we may conceive of this) is for the purpose of ultimate transformation. This theological construct is a key component in an inclusive gospel.

I think judgment in the form of consequences is good as far as it can go, but in my estimation it simply can’t go far enough. For one thing, there are some people who seem to be able to elude the natural consequences of their evil actions and conduct. And for another, simply facing the consequences of our evil actions may not be adequate to turn us around. I believe it will take more direct engagement from God. How God can or might do this, I am not imaginative enough to guess. How might God get the attention of and bring about the repentance of sadists, torturers, “natural born killers”?—I don’t know. I feel rather strongly that their judgment will be more severe, intense, painful, and prolonged. The refining fire may need to burn hotter and longer, especially with those whose conscience has been completely numbed.

This view of judgment allows me to pray the psalms, at least the ones that go beyond the little self (the false, ego self). I can love my enemies while simultaneously praying for their judgment, knowing that the judgment rendered will ultimately be for the good of all. But I have to be careful that my prayers do not express repressed or underlying currents of anger that come out in thoughts of vengeance and retribution.

If judgment begins in my own household (the whole earth is God’s household and all are God’s offspring—see Acts 17) then I can pray for my own judgment, knowing that the fire is a purifying, refining, purging fire designed to bring out my true self, my true humanity.

I agree with Bell that we need the language of “hell,” that we need “a loaded, volatile, adequately violent, dramatic, serious word to describe the very real consequences [for me that includes God’s part in the process] we experience when we reject the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us” (p. 93). We may have to endure many “hells” before we reach “heaven,” whatever heaven may mean in terms of personal, communal, and global transformation.

I have one Absolute that orients my belief system, my spirituality, and my daily life. I believe that at the heart and core of all Reality, that which is Really Real, the Mystery that holds it all together, “in whom we live and move and have our being,” the One taking the universe or universes somewhere is pure, undefiled, unconditional Love. Of course, I am a Christian with Christian beliefs, but if all my Christian beliefs prove to be false and yet, the one Absolute holds true, then “all will be well.”

Technorati Tags: Spirituality, Religion, Christianity, Faith, Rob Bell, hell, inclusiveness, universal salvation, disicpleship

Rob Bell, "Love Wins": Review and Reflections (Part 1)

2011-04-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

This is the first installment of my review of and reflection on the views articulated in Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. My plan is to review one or two chapters in each blog entry over the next several weeks. This week I am discussing chapter 2, “Here Is the New There,” which is his discussion of heaven.

Bell begins by calling into question “the fundamental story” of heaven that pervades evangelical Christianity, namely, that it is somewhere else, some other-worldly place. Bell points out that in the Gospels “eternal life” is more about quality of life than duration of life, and that it primarily relates to the kingdom of God that is both now and later, both present and future.

Much of Bell’s discussion about heaven occurs around his exposition of a conversation Jesus has with a rich man who asks Jesus about what he must do to inherit eternal life (Matt 19:16–30; Mark 10:17–31; Luke 18:18–30). My intention here is not to critique Bell’s interpretation of all the angles and aspects of that story, but to reflect on what Bell says about heaven.

Bell is careful to point out that the promises of the Hebrew prophets anticipated a time when this world “would be restored, renewed, and redeemed and there would be peace on earth” (p. 40). Bell rightly emphasizes that “Jesus’ first century Jewish world” understood these promises of a new world to be connected to this world, not a future life somewhere else.

Bell also rightly points out that in Matthew’s Gospel, “the kingdom of heaven” is the equivalent to the phrase “kingdom of God.” Matthew substitutes the word “heaven” for “God” in keeping with the Jewish custom of avoiding the common use of God’s name. But Matthew is speaking of the same earthly reality, not some other world.

In other words, Jesus’ message about the kingdom of God, which by the way, was the central theme of his preaching and teaching, is about the transformation of this world, not some other world. And this process of transformation began with Jesus. Bell makes clear in a way and style that is unique to Bell that it’s all about transformation—personal, communal, and global— now and in the age to come.

This is all good stuff, but I would like to have seen a more nuanced discussion on the subject of the kingdom of God, which subject is central and critical to Jesus’ ministry. In chapter 2 of my book, A Faith Worth Living, titled “God’s Dream for the World,” I develop this in more detail.

While Jesus announced the kingdom of God against the backdrop of the promises of the Hebrew prophets, he infused the concept with a more expansive, flexible, and dynamic meaning. In some passages the phrase “kingdom of God” functions as an intensive symbol for the healing, transforming power of God. There are deep inner, spiritual, and personal dimensions to the good news of God reigning in the world, which is why Jesus spoke of dying to the ego, being born again, being pure in heart, hungering and thirsting after righteousness/justice, loving one’s enemies, and the necessity of repentance.

Bell gets at this toward the end of the chapter. He says that the kingdom of God relates to “an all pervasive dimension of being, a bit like oxygen for us or water for a fish.” He writes, “Jesus lived and spoke as if the whole world was a thin place for him, with endless dimensions of the divine infinitesimally close, with every moment and every location simply another experience of the divine reality that is all around us, through us, under and above us all the time” (p. 60-61). This is excellent, but there could have been more clarity and it could have been all tied together better. For those interested in exploring what it means to live in this divine reality I recommend the writings of Richard Rohr, especially Everything Belongs and The Naked Now.

Bell emphasizes that our calling/task is to partner with God to make this world “a new and better world.” Bell may be at his best when his writing reflects his pastoral concerns. He writes, “Jesus calls disciples in order to teach us how to be and what to be; his intention is for us to be growing progressively in generosity, forgiveness, honesty, courage, truth telling, and responsibility, so that as these take over our lives we are taking part more and more and more in life in the age to come, now” (p. 51).

Bell offers some discussion of the intermediate state—between the time when we die and the time of resurrection, when heaven and earth becomes one. Referencing Jesus’ words to the dying thief about the promise of Paradise and Paul’s words to the Philippians that dying meant being with Christ, Bell acknowledges that there are those “in heaven” with God now, but without a body. Bell argues that "Jesus blurs the lines, inviting the rich man, and us, into the merging of heaven and earth, the future and present, here and now" (p. 59).

I felt that Bell needed a more carefully nuanced articulation of this aspect of heaven. Of course, it is difficult to be clear on a subject that Scripture is somewhat unclear about. My discussion of this in A Faith Worth Living may be helpful here:

“Heaven has a rather diverse and ambiguous history of interpretation among the Jews. In a number of texts in the Hebrew Bible, heaven (or heavens, in Hebrew it is always plural) refers to the canopy covering the earth. In other texts it encompasses all that is above the earth. An ancient worldview that is sometimes reflected in the Scriptures imagined heaven as a dimension of reality corresponding to earthly reality . . . During the time of Jesus, many Jews believed in a plurality of heavens or levels of heavenly reality, equating the last level (the third level in some systems, the seventh in others) with Paradise, a holding place for the righteous dead. In Paul’s correspondence with the church in Corinth, he refers to a visionary experience or revelation he had, where he was caught up to “the third heaven,” which he calls “Paradise,” where he heard things that he was not permitted to repeat (2 Cor 12:1–4). This is undoubtedly the meaning of Jesus’ words in Luke’s Gospel to the dying thief who was crucified beside him. The thief asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom, and Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:42–43). “Paradise” is not to be equated with the kingdom, but it is one aspect or dimension of it. This may be what John’s Gospel is referring to when Jesus says, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places . . . I will come again and will take you to myself” (John 14:1–3). This reality—referred to as the “third heaven,” “paradise,” and the “Father’s house”—was not the hope or destiny imagined by Jesus when he announced that the kingdom of God/heaven had come near. Yet this seems to be the dominant expectation of most Christians” (pp. 29-30).

While this aspect of heaven is not completely clear, what is clear, as Bell points out, is that the redemptive goal anticipated by the prophets, proclaimed and embodied by Jesus, claimed and expected by Jesus’ early followers, and should be our dream, hope, and calling today, is a world of restorative justice and peace, renewed, redeemed, and made whole.

I am grateful that a pastor of a mega-church in the evangelical tradition is finally calling evangelicals to pay attention to the gospel that Jesus proclaimed, taught, embodied, and died for.

Rob Bell, Martin Bashir, and the Question of Suffering

2011-04-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

When Rob Bell was interviewed by Martin Bashir of MSNBC, before Bashir asked about his book, Love Wins, he asked Bell to respond to the disaster in Japan. Bashir phrased the question this way, “Which do you believe: That God is all powerful, but doesn’t care about the people in Japan and their suffering, or that God cares about their suffering, but is not all powerful?” He framed the question as if these were the only two options.

Bell responded by saying that he begins with the belief that when we shed a tear God sheds a tear, that God is a Divine Being who is profoundly empathetic, compassionate, and stands in solidarity with us. Of course, that didn’t fit Bashir’s binary, dualistic way of thinking, so he kept pressing him. Finally, Bell responded, “It’s a paradox at the heart of the Divine and it’s best left at that.”

It was a horribly conducted interview that revealed more about Martin Bashir than it did Rob Bell. Bashir framed the questions in a way that required an either/or, yes/no, true/false response. And yet the questions dealt with truth that defied such simplistic answers. (Jesus, by the way, never offered simplistic answers; he spoke in stories, short, witty aphorisms, and shocking, hyperbolic sayings filled with paradox, irony, and mystery.) Healthy Christianity (or any religion for that matter) does not need or invite simple, trite, all-encompassing answers to the universal questions of human suffering and meaning.

Christianity does not have easy answers, but it does have the cross, where God in Christ enters into the tragedy of the human condition and bears it, endures it, owns it, and absorbs it.

In his novel Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry observes that Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave, and that God is present “only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of God’s creatures.” Berry cuts against the grain of our privatized, compartmentalized way of seeing life, reflecting a more universal and inclusive worldview. He writes, “We are all involved in all and any good, and in all and any evil. For any sin, we all suffer. That is why our suffering is endless. It is why God grieves and Christ’s wounds still are bleeding.”

It is in Christ’s once-upon-a-cross humiliation and in his ever-present bleeding wounds that we find a brother. In his cry of abandonment upon the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we have a comrade and friend. For he descended into our “hell” and suffered it, in order to empty it of its malevolent power, so that we who follow Christ through our own “hells” can find healing and redemption through his suffering and death.

Our disappointments and discouragements, our losses and defeats, our feelings of rejection and forsakenness do not separate us from God, but draw us into fellowship with God and one another through the sufferings of Christ. As theologian Jurgen Moltmann says, “Good Friday is the most comprehensive and most profound expression of Christ’s fellowship with every human being.”

Paul, in one place, said that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to God’s self, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19). He is saying that Christ bore the hate, evil, and animosity of the world without returning it, and stands in union and solidarity with every suffering soul.

In Mark's (also followed by Matthew) passion narrative Jesus is totally passive, bearing it all, but God is active, suffering with our suffering world. And God is active still in the Spirit of the living Christ, sharing our sorrow, feeling our pain, and participating in every loss.

Rob Bell, Rick Warren, and the Future of Evangelicalism

2011-03-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

Rob Bell has made a huge splash in the Christian world with his book, Love Wins. I have not yet read the book, but from what I can discern from the interviews I’ve heard is that he expounds a vision of Christianity that is very similar to the one I have been advocating in my blog and books. He apparently argues against the traditional idea of hell and the possibility of redemption after death. One can read my vision of an inclusive Christian gospel in A Faith Worth Living: The Dynamics of an Inclusive Gospel, published earlier this month. (Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers; click on picture at right to order)

What Rev. Bell is proposing is, of course, nothing new. But it is the first time, as far as I know, a mega-church pastor, educated in and emerging from an evangelical tradition, has had the courage to publicly proclaim a more inclusive, holistic vision. A few other popular, influential Christian leaders are moving in that direction, but have not quite arrived there yet.

A case in point: Rick Warren, mega-church pastor and author of The Purpose-Driven Life. On one occasion Rev. Warren was on a panel with the Rev. Peter Gomes, minister of Harvard University’s Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals (recently deceased). The question was asked about whether one could be saved who was not a born-again Christian. The response of Rev. Gomes was that he could not imagine that the God who created everything would have no other plan of salvation for the billions of other people in the world, or even beyond our galaxy, except the New Testament one. Rev. Warren, as reported by Rev. Gomes in his book, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, was as generous as his theology would allow, but could not concede the possibility that others might find salvation outside of Christ on the basis of John 14:6.

This did not particularly strike me as noteworthy until I discovered in a book I purchased by Rabbi David J. Wolpe, titled Why Faith Matters, that Rev. Warren wrote the Foreword. He speaks highly of Rabbi Wolpe as a man of faith and personal experience of God. He says, “I’m certain that the profound insights in this book will stimulate your thinking and even touch your soul about the reality of God in fresh and surprising ways.”

The reason I find this all so intriguing is that, according to Rev. Warren’s evangelical theology, Rabbi Wolpe has not been saved by Jesus Christ (in the way that Warren interprets John 14:6) and is, therefore, destined for hell. Yet he commends Rabbi Wolpe as a man who knows and speaks about “the reality of God in fresh and surprising ways.”

Here is an example of a highly popular evangelical leader who evidently does not yet see the contradiction he embraces, or else chooses to ignore it. In my estimation, it is an example of an evangelical leader who has emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically outgrown his dualistic, exclusivistic theology, but who does not yet have the courage to admit it, either to himself or his immense fan base.

Rob Bell gives me hope for the evangelical church. It is slow in coming, but there is an evolving spiritual consciousness that is touching all areas of religious life. Let us hope that it will one day lead to the kingdom of God on earth as envisioned by Jesus.

Technorati Tags: inclusiveness, salvation, Christianity, universalism, gospel, hell

Faith Is a Way of Life

2011-03-08T14:23:00.000-08:00

Biblical scholar Marcus Borg writes about sitting next to a passenger on a plane who told him, “I’m much more interested in Buddhism and Sufism that I am in Christianity.” When he asked why, she said, “Because they’re about a way of life, and Christianity is all about believing.”

Unfortunately, this is the way Christianity is often perceived. Ask a friend what he or she thinks is meant by the phrase “true believer” and most likely your friend will say something about having the correct beliefs. What one believes about God, Jesus, and other teachings of Christian faith, however, is only one aspect of Christian faith.

Borg suggests that this is a rather odd notion when you think about it—that God would care that much about the beliefs we have in our heads, as if believing the right things is what God is after. It seems much more likely that God would be vastly more interested in the life we actually live—how we love and care for one another and our planet—than the limited, flawed, inaccurate beliefs we cling to in our minds.

It is not just progressive Christians who make this point. Evangelical philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard, in his book, The Divine Conspiracy, speaks disparagingly of what he calls “bar code faith.”

Think of the bar codes on products we purchase. The scanner responds only to the bar code. It makes no difference what is actually in the package, bottle, or container. The calculator reads the bar code through its electronic eye and then assigns a value.

Many Christians conceive of salvation very similarly. They think that by believing certain things about Jesus—that he is Divine, that he died for our sins and was raised from the dead, etc. (for some Christians it is a fairly long list)—God saves the believer (understood primarily as being forgiven and fit for heaven) and that is what constitutes a Christian.

Willard asks the questions: “Can we seriously believe that God would establish a plan for us that essentially bypasses the awesome needs of present human life and leaves human character untouched? . . . Can we believe that the essense of Christian faith and salvation covers nothing but death and after? Can we believe that being saved really has nothing whatever to do with the kinds of persons we are?”

There are reasons, some simple and some complex, why this understanding of Christian salvation developed, but it certainly did not originate with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus both taught and embodied a way of life that he envisioned for his own people, Israel, and the rest of the world. He called this the kingdom of God. According to Jesus, living in the kingdom involves a lifestyle of nonviolence, forgiveness, compassion, peace, reconciliation, and distributive justice (where everyone has enough of this world’s resources to live a flourishing life).

This is why, in the book of Acts, the most common designation used for Christians is “people who belong to the way.” Not the way to heaven. Jesus hardly even spoke of heaven. Jesus manifested and spoke primarily about the kingdom of God and told his followers to pray for its realization on earth.

What one believes about Jesus is not nearly important as the daily commitment to be like Jesus. A belief in the head is useless, unless it is able to transform the heart, so that “the believer” exudes the faith, hope, and love of Jesus, and aspires to pursue his compassionate, nonviolent, self-giving way of life.

The Human Jesus Is My Savior

2011-02-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

I believe that the living Christ (the one I call “Lord”) is more interested in our commitment to God’s covenant, than our veneration—a covenant that calls us to love God with the totality of our being and to love our neighbor (that includes the “enemy”) as ourselves. Jesus never encouraged his disciples to exalt him; he called them to follow him, to be his apprentices, to learn from him how to live in and for God’s kingdom, to trust “Abba” (the loving Father/Mother), and to embrace his cause and passion for justice and mercy, while living in humility.

At one time, I had such an exalted view of Jesus and his divine status that it did me no earthly good. I could not touch or reach Jesus, because Jesus was so high and lifted up. (Sounds like a praise song doesn’t it?) I imagined Jesus as sinless, having never demonstrated a cultural bias, or acted in a selfish way, or entertained a single, lustful thought. He commanded the elements of nature, even walking on water. Well, I knew I couldn’t walk on water. So I worshiped and venerated Jesus, but I couldn’t imagine being like Jesus.

That started to change when I read two books that were part of a Doctoral Seminar at Southern Baptist Seminary (this was in 1991, before the fundamentalist “takeover”; I doubt one could find these books in their library today). One was by a Liberation Theologian from Brazil, Leonardo Boff, titled, Jesus Christ, Liberator. The other was by James Charlesworth, a New Testament scholar specializing in Christian origins, titled Jesus Within Judaism. Then a few years later, I read a book by Marcus Borg titled, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.

I was drawn to and captivated by the Jewish Jesus; Jesus as “the Son of Man”—the human one. And as I began to understand Jesus in his culture, as a sage, a teacher of nonconventional wisdom, a prophet, a Spirit-immersed person, driven by a vision of God’s new world and moved by a deep compassion, especially for the poor, impoverished, and marginalized, the one I regarded (and still regard) as the light of the world began to shimmer with new meaning.

I began to look at Jesus differently, not as one who was perfect, but as one who was completely given to the good and well-being of others. Not as one who was sinless, but as one full of compassion and forgiveness. Not as one who could walk on water, but as one devoted to healing the sick, loving the unlovable, caring for the diseased and demonized, challenging and confronting the injustice of the religious establishment, and exuding a contagious faith, hope, and love. I began to cultivate an understanding and vision of Jesus that I found compelling, calling forth the best that was in me and transformative virtues that I had yet to nurture and develop.

As I studied the Gospels, it startled me that Jesus was never concerned about or centered on his own veneration or exaltation. In fact, when the persons he healed wanted to proclaim him as the Messiah, he told them not to tell anyone. He told his disciples that the people of the world seek positions of power, authority, and veneration, but it was not to be so with them. He instructed them to be servants of all, for “the Son of Man” did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life for the liberation of many.

It is Jesus’ human vision of God’s kingdom, the dream of a world made right, of distributive justice (where all have a fair share of the planet), of forgiveness and reconciliation, and of radical sharing and grace that convicts me, humbles me, and is slowly changing me. Slowly, because old habits and ways of being in the world do not die easily, at least not in me, and I have a long way to go.

Reflections on Wendell Berry's Reflections on the Afterlife

2011-02-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

Wendell Berry’s novel, “A World Lost,” is the story about a family coping with the death of one of their own. In the final chapter, Berry reflects on the manner of man he was. This meditation gives way to a reflection on death as a pathway into the light of a more advanced spiritual realm.

Berry writes, “I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment.” “And yet,” says Berry, “in suffering that light’s awful clarity, in seeing themselves within it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, so are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be.”

How I wish more Christians would apply Berry’s good reasoning, common sense, imagination, insight into human experience, and his healthy image of the Divine to their interpretations of the judgment texts in Scripture.

Berry says that “light can come into the world only as love” and that “not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows,” and yet “it has never been entirely absent.”

When Divine Love finally reaches us and has its final say, “All will be well.”

If we could grasp Berry’s vision, then our biblical images of judgment would not be terrifying, tormenting images to be feared, but purifying images to be welcomed, invested with new meaning.

The “furnace of fire” would be a furnace that burns up all the dross, leaving the precious metal. The fire would consume our sin and selfishness, bringing us through the flames purged and pure.

The journey through “outer darkness” would serve to dispel the inner darkness and illumine our minds and hearts to the mystery, wonder, and power of God’s goodness and grace.

The “weeping and gnashing of teeth” would be a necessary prelude to the joy and celebration that results from the experience of grace and real gratitude.

We need the darkness as preparation for the light. At first, the light may feel like a condemning light. But it is a condemnation that leads to salvation, and passing through “hell” we reach “heaven.”

The journey of personal redemption is a journey from the selfish ways of childhood to the adulthood of self-giving love. It is a journey from the partial to the complete, from immaturity to maturity, from brokenness to wholeness, from the false self to the true self, from egoism to compassion, from our own suffering to solidarity with the suffering creation, especially our disadvantaged sisters and brothers within the human family.

Each journey is unique. Each has its own twists and turns, defeats and victories, setbacks and advances. None of the “hells” we each pass through are exactly alike. But I am convinced that the God who has come to us in Jesus, who knows the number of hairs on our heads, who calls us “dearly beloved,” will bring us, each one, to final redemption.

Conversion Is Possible for All of Us

2011-01-25T07:58:00.001-08:00

The British atheist Malcom Muggeridge joined the Catholic Church at the age of 79. When he was asked to explain his conversion, he said that all the books and sermons he had read had little, if any, persuasive influence upon him. But when he saw Mother Teresa in Calcutta with the poor, he said, “If this is it, I’ve got to have it.”

On the other hand, Swiss physician Paul Tournier tells about going back to his medical school to visit his favorite professor just after he had written his first book. As they sat in the gathering gloom of a Swiss winter afternoon, Tournier read from his new book. When he finished his reading, he looked up and there were tears in the old man’s eyes. “Oh Paul,” he said, “that’s a wonderful book. Everyone of us Christians should read that.” Tournier was surprised and exclaimed, “I didn’t know you were a Christian, professor. When did you become one?” “Just now,” he responded, “as you read your book.”

I’m sure people of other religious traditions could tell diverse stories of how they were converted into their faith. I have Christian stories because that’s my tradition. My argument here is not to push Christianity over other religious faiths, but to point out how God may get our attention and speak to us in various ways and means, and that we all have the capacity to change.

For Muggeridge it was a life lived; for Tournier it was a book read. Somehow God broke through their defenses and they were able to hear the voice of the Spirit calling them to embrace a new way of thinking and living.

Of course, authentic conversion/change does not just happen when we initially embrace a new faith. It happens throughout our lives. I was both nurtured and indoctrinated into my faith as a child. There were positive elements to the “nurturing,” but there were negative components in my dogmatic assimilation into an exclusive version of Christianity.

Brian McLaren tells a story about an African friend who was converted into a type of Christianity that preached a prosperity gospel. Later, he began to have questions, which the leaders in the church stifled. Then he started to doubt the very existence of God.

He decided to read the book, “The God Delusion,” by atheist Richard Dawkins. He reasoned, “If Dawkins convinces me that there is no God, I will abandon my Christian faith.” After he read the book, he told McLaren that one evening when he was in the shower the Holy Spirit spoke to him. The voice of God said, “That man, Richard Dawkins, he speaks the truth.” (Think of the incongruity of that statement).

He told McLaren that before the Christian missionaries came they had their own tribal, African understanding of the Divine. The missionaries took all that away and gave them a white, European God. What McLaren’s friend lost was not his faith in the Divine (God), but his faith in the white, European God.

I have lost most of the fundamentalist Christian doctrines I was taught in my younger days in order to find a more inclusive, compassionate, and transformational Christian faith. “Losing” unhealthy beliefs so more life-enhancing ones can emerge is part of the conversion process.

God is still speaking in a variety of ways, and we can change. We can change our beliefs, as well as our negative, destructive attitudes, reactions, and lifestyles. Our whole lives should be about conversion—our becoming daily more loving, caring, humble, and gracious persons and communities.

Bob Dylan rang out, “Times they are a changin’.” His words are as relevant today as when he first sang them. The times constantly change. We can too!

Is God's Future Kingdom a Real Possibility?

2011-01-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

How will God’s dream for the world (kingdom) be realized in the future? Will it come about by means of a dramatic, divine intervention? Most Christian interpreters assume that the early church believed Christ would return visibly and personally to judge evil and finally fulfill the promise of the future kingdom. It is difficult, however, to actually know how literally they understood the expectation of Christ’s “coming” (parousia).

The basic meaning of the word is “presence.” Of course, if someone is absent and later becomes present, then that person has “come back” or “returned.” But in one sense Jesus never left. In the New Testament the Spirit functions as the equivalent to the living presence of Christ in the church and in the world. Understood in this light, Jesus’ “coming” is not an invasion from the outside, but an unveiling, manifesting, appearing from within as the central agent in the realization of God’s new world.

New Testament scholar N. T. Wright has argued that the language of the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, found in several contexts in the Gospels, “denotes exaltation, not return. It is apocalyptic metaphor, signifying the vindication of God’s people after their suffering.” Wright’s interpretation, however, may require more of an exegetical stretch than most interpreters are willing to make.

But I do agree with his following assessment: “It is misleading to see this in terms of Jesus “returning” to our world as a kind of space invader coming to sort out a rebel planet. Rather, when God finally ushers in his new creation Jesus will be, in person, both the standard and the instrument of that just and deeply welcome judgment and restoration.”

Even if the early Christians (oriented as they were around a cosmology of a flat earth under a heavenly dome) understood Jesus’ “coming” literally, there is no reason why the church today need maintain the belief that Jesus will descend from another world to earth to usher in the kingdom supernaturally. It seems more likely that God’s reign will be implemented through the power of the Spirit working in conjunction and collaboration with Christ’s agents and emissaries of justice and peace in the world.

The more likely scenario for the realization of God’s new world is to be found in the dynamic process of the Spirit, empowering and energizing disciples of Christ (the church) and others, regardless of religious tradition or belief, to confront the powers that be and to engage the world through suffering love, compassionate justice, and nonviolent peacemaking.

It is, however, a legitimate question to ask whether or not the realization of God’s new world as envisaged by Jesus and his early followers is actually possible. There is no doubt that humanity has evolved in its cumulative spiritual consciousness, inspiring visions of a more compassionate, inclusive, just, and egalitarian world. And yet there are powerfully destructive and evil forces set against the fulfillment of God’s new world. Is the vision of God’s new world on earth a real possibility? Or is it just a “wish upon a star” with little real hope of actuality?

There are moments when I experience this hope as a genuine possibility; other times, though, it seems more like a vain wish. I am convinced, however, that nothing we do for the healing and transformation of our world—no kindness, no act of forgiveness, no loving word or deed—will be lost; that God’s vindication/resurrection of Jesus, who embodied God’s new world, is God’s pledge that life will overcome the malignant powers of death.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of this world, disciples of Jesus are called to devote spirit, mind, and body to the kingdom’s fulfillment, engaging imagination, emotions, and physical activity in the service of God’s kingdom on earth.

The church, as the body of Christ, is called to bear witness to the redemptive hope engendered through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and to function as the salt of the earth and the light of the world by preserving what is just, good, and right, and by illuminating for all to see what a community of love looks like.

"God With Us" Is Not Just for Christmastime

2010-12-27T07:16:00.000-08:00

In Matthew’s Gospel the joy of the birth of Jesus is overshadowed and sent fleeing with the holy family’s flight into Egypt and the loud cries of lamentation from the parents of the children slaughtered in Bethlehem (Matt 2:16–18).

Life is filled with interruptions of tragedy and tumult. The abundant life made available to us in Christ does not provide immunity against the discomfort and distresses of life. Any version of Christian faith that downplays suffering or attributes it to God’s displeasure needs to reinvent itself.

The intricacies of the interplay between divine power, divine goodness, and human freedom will always be a mystery. Jesus believed that God loves the creation and is creatively engaged in its healing and redemption. Jesus taught that God knows the number of hairs on our heads, which is to say that God takes special interest in each one of us. Even the minor players of creation, according to Jesus, do not escape God’s attention, for God observes a little sparrow when it falls to the ground. Jesus’ faith was firmly grounded in the goodness of God. He was convinced that God is “with” and “for” the creation.

God’s care for the creation, however, does not prevent bad things from happening that are the opposite of God’s good will. We live in an open universe. God has bestowed upon and built into creation the element of freedom. This freedom is essential to the biological, evolutionary processes of life. God does not (or perhaps cannot given the nature of reality) intervene to stop hurricanes and floods, nor does God alter the processes of life so that children are born free of mental disabilities and physical handicaps. This holds true in the moral life as well. We are granted the freedom to do good or evil, to harm or heal, to destroy or save life. The Herods of the world exercise their freedom to dispose of any person or group that threatens their position and power.

Freedom, then, is at the core of evolutionary life and moral existence. It is, of course, influenced and limited by many factors: genetics, time and place, circumstances of birth, education, the entire socialization process, and numerous factors beyond our control. Cancer strikes randomly, as do terrorists exercising their God–given freedom.

God does not (or cannot) override this freedom. God does not intervene to stop holocausts, genocides, tragic accidents, and random natural disasters. There are powerful forces of evil at work against God’s will: egotism, classism, racism, nationalism, militarism, and narcissism. The powers of greed, hate, and selfish ambition are strong in our world and they reside in some degree in every human soul.

Does this adequately explain why God does not or cannot intervene to stop monstrous evil in the world? Not really. The biblical writers offer no solutions, and the great thinkers—the theologians and philosophers—continue to debate issues of theodicy.

For some people of faith it is enough to know that God absorbs into God’s self the world’s anguish; that God participates in and is influenced by our misery and travail. God is “Emmanuel,”—God with us. God cannot stop tragedies from happening and people from dying, but God walks with us, sharing our struggles and pain.

God is not a spectator in our suffering, but rather, an active participant in the ebb and flow of both the good and bad in our lives. Our experience, rapturously joyful or horrendously painful, or anywhere in between, becomes part of God’s experience.

An artist was painting a bleak picture of a winter storm sweeping across the countryside. Over in the corner was a cabin that looked dead and hopeless. But with one small stroke, the painter dramatically changed the mood of the picture. He took the tip of his brush, dipped it in gold paint, touched one window of the cabin, and the golden glow from that cabin transformed the picture from one of coldness and gloom to one of warmth and welcome.

No matter how dark the night or how fierce the storm, the warm glow of “God with us” shimmers in our hearts. And that is sufficient, that is enough to get us through.

(The following reflections were adapted from my book, Shimmers of Light, published by Wifp and Stock Publishers. Click on picture to order.)

Shimmers of Love

2010-12-13T07:33:00.000-08:00

Willa Cather's Christmas story, The Burglar's Christmas, portrays a young man named William, who had moved away from his family back east and was now in Chicago. Impoverished, he breaks into a house on Christmas Eve to steal some food. He discovers that he has burglarized the house of his parents who had moved to Chicago. His mother catches him while stealing, and he confesses everything.

In so many words she begs him to stay, “Tonight you have come back to me, just as you always did after you ran away to swim in the river that was forbidden you, the river you loved because it was forbidden . . . I never asked you where you had been then, nor will I now. You have come back to me, that’s all in all to me.”

He looks up at her questioningly and says, “I wonder if you know how much you pardon?” She responds, “O, my poor boy, much or little, what does it matter? Have you wandered so far and paid such a bitter price for knowledge and not yet learned that love has nothing to do with pardon or forgiveness, that it only loves, and loves—and loves?”

The God who has come to us in Christ, “only loves, and loves—and loves.” God is continually at work in non-coercive, creative ways, revealing to us the width and depth of unconditional divine love.

Jesus, empowered by divine love, challenged the powers that be and stood in solidarity with the poor, oppressed, marginalized, and excluded, confronting the gatekeepers of conventional religion and the powerbrokers of the social order. Courageously, he preached, taught, and lived the kingdom of God, and the kingdoms of the world were offended and outraged. In our discipleship to Jesus we are called to love like him.

God’s love is the energy of the universe. When this energy pulsates through our thoughts, attitudes, and actions, and vibrates through our conversation and conduct, then our spirits are electrified with the joy, mystery, wonder, and sheer gift of life. As we become conductors through whom God’s love flows, we become God’s gift to others who need fresh experiences of God’s grace and goodness. As the current of divine love arcs outward into the lives of the people we touch, we serve as mediators of the light and radiance of the divine presence.

I read somewhere that during the filming of The Misfits, Arthur Miller, who was married to Marilyn Monroe, watched his wife descend into the depths of depression and despair. He feared for her life as he observed their growing estrangement, her paranoia, and her dependence on barbiturates. One evening while she was sleeping, after a doctor had been persuaded to give her yet another shot, Miller stood over her. Commenting on that moment he said, “I found myself straining to imagine miracles. What if she was to wake and I was able to say, ‘God loves you, darling,’ and she was able to believe it! How I wished I still had my religion and she hers.”

Can we really believe this? Can we believe that God loves us each one with an unconditional love that drives out all fear; a love that will never give up on us and never let us go? What a difference it would make if we could. When we are confident that we are forever God’s beloved children, then we are empowered to love God’s creation and one another with the unconditional love of God.

(The preceding reflections were adapted from my book, Shimmers of Light: Spiritual Reflections for the Christmas Season, available at wipfandstock.com. Click on picture at right for more information or to order).

The Way of Peace

2010-12-03T11:16:00.000-08:00

What are your first thoughts when asked to reflect on the word “peace”? You might think of a feeling of ease or comfort. The popular country rock group, the Eagles, had a hit song that echoed the heart’s longing for a “peaceful, easy feeling.” As you anticipate family gatherings this season one of your Christmas wishes may be: “I hope we have a peaceful time with family this year.” Invariably, there is always someone in the family who knows what hot buttons to push to get uncle or aunt so-and-so on his or her soapbox. Or you might think of a pastoral scene, like the one reflected in Psalm 23, “He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters.” You might think in negative terms, such as the absence of strife or conflict. The biblical meaning is much broader and deeper.

In the Greek world, “peace” was often employed to describe an inner state of well-being, whereas in the Hebrew tradition, the word was used primarily for interpersonal or social relations, coming very close to meaning “justice.” Both of these perspectives are found in the New Testament, and though a particular context may emphasize one or the other, neither meaning should exclude the other.

In a Peanuts cartoon Lucy says to Charlie Brown, “I hate everything. I hate everybody. I hate the whole wide world.” Charlie Brown responds, “But I thought you had inner peace.” Lucy replies, “I do have peace. But I still have outer obnoxiousness.” Whatever Lucy may have, it is not spiritual peace. In the biblical tradition, inner peace goes hand-in-hand with relational and communal wholeness.

In the birth narrative of Luke’s Gospel, an angel announces the birth to lowly shepherds who were caring for their flock by night, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:10–12). Then suddenly a multitude of the heavenly host joins in, “Glory to God on high, and on earth peace among all humankind, on whom God’s favor rests!” (Luke 2:14, my translation)

In the Roman Empire, it was customary for poets and orators to proclaim peace and prosperity at the birth of one who was destined to become emperor. Following that familiar pattern, the angelic messenger announces the birth of Christ, the Lord, who is destined to be the Savior of Israel and the world. The irony is that Israel’s Messiah is Rome’s Savior as well.

Luke begins the actual birth story by setting it in the historical context of Emperor Augustus. Caesar Augustus was heralded as the greatest of the emperors. He was born Octavian and was the adopted son of Julius Caesar. Following his father’s assassination a great civil war tore Rome asunder, wrecking havoc on the empire until Octavian defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BCE at the Battle of Actium. He then assumed the position of emperor and became known as Augustus, the Divine (the imperial myth had him being conceived by the gods). Augustus ushered Rome into a great era of peace and stability. He was proclaimed throughout the land—on coins, inscriptions, and temples—as “Son of God,” “Savior of the world,” “Lord of the whole world,” and “God made manifest,” among other titles.

Undoubtedly, Luke is drawing a contrast between the one he believed would occupy the throne of David (1:32), and the one who brought peace to Rome. The peace ushered in by Augustus was a temporary peace, enforced and supported by imperial might that violently subdued all opposition. It was a kingdom maintained by violent power, exercised by the powerful.

How different is the kingdom of the Christ child! He was born, not in pomp and pageantry, but in a humble peasant’s house among the animals. He did not walk among royalty in palace halls, but among the poor, oppressed, diseased, and demonized in the towns and villages of Galilee and Judea. Lowly Jewish shepherds, often despised among their own people, came to honor him, for to them and their kind he had come, bringing hope of a new world where the power of love would take the place of violent force. He did not wield sword or spear and he admonished his followers to love and pray for their enemies. He taught his disciples a nonviolent strategy for asserting their humanity and dignity as children of God under the crushing hands of imperial force. He pronounced blessing on peacemakers, judgment on warmongers, and he challenged all security systems rooted in wealth and control. He is a different kind of king, the viceroy of God’s peaceable kingdom, and he manifested in his life, words, and deeds the character of a forgiven, healed, and restored world.

Many contemporary Christians seem to favor the kingdom of Augustus over the kingdom of the Christ they profess to follow, by supporting a war policy that responds to violence with violence. Jesus told his disciples to put their swords away and when he stood before Pilate, the representative of imperial might, Jesus said that his kingdom was of a different nature altogether. Jesus and those who would follow him dance to the beat of a different drummer—Pa rum pum pum pum.

(The preceding reflections were adapted from my book, Shimmers of Light: Spiritual Reflections for the Christmas Season, published by Wipf and Stock Publishers (wipfandstock.com). Click on book picture at right for more information.)

Advent is Now!

2010-11-29T08:34:00.000-08:00

Jesus’ life in this world began in a small, one-room peasant house that would have been divided between living quarters and space for the animals. It was most likely damp and dirty, not the kind of warm, cozy place often pictured in our manger scenes.

Many of us know Jesus in his redeeming role as “Son of God,” but the title he used of himself was “Son of Man,” a phrase employed most often in the Hebrew Bible meaning simply, “the human one.” Jesus was a teacher of wisdom, a sage, a healer and prophet, who challenged the status quo, turning conventional wisdom on its head. We meet Jesus among “the least.” Of course, “the least” are only “the least” from the point of view of a world gone awry, a world that elevates wealth and status over humility and compassion, a world that rewards the winners and the successful. Jesus turned this sort of world upside down.

Mary’s Song of Praise (the Magnificat) anticipates the scattering and deposing of the proud and powerful, and the uplifting and strengthening of the weak and humble. The rich are stripped of their wealth and the hungry are filled with good things (Luke 1:51-53). A change of fortunes is anticipated in the Messianic age.

God’s choice of a humble peasant girl to give birth to the Messiah signals that the great eschatological reversal has already commenced. God’s values and the world’s values often clash in a collision of opposites. To partner with Christ in the work of the kingdom is to side with the poor, weak, powerless, and humble, for to them belongs God’s new world. Unless we find ourselves among them, we will not likely encounter Christ’s presence or experience Christ’s redemption.

The gospel of God’s new world that Jesus proclaimed and incarnated has been altered and distorted by many modern versions of Christianity, which attempt to make the message more marketable to a culture obsessed with solace and security. Whether the focus is on health and wealth in this life or the afterlife, some folks want a Jesus who can solve all their problems, answer all their questions, and be an endless source of comfort and happiness. Jesus, however, who was born in humility and died in humiliation, bid his followers to take up their cross and pursue his same path of surrender, service, and sacrifice for the good of others.

Christ’s coming in humility and service is not only tough to market, it is difficult to comprehend. Any rendering of Christianity that reduces the mystery of the incarnation to a propositional statement, a creed, or doctrinal formula diminishes its truth. Any attempt to explain it will inevitably miss the mark and stifle spiritual understanding.

The coming of God in Christ invites us to bow in wonder and entertain the mystery in a spirit of humility and awe. “Advent” is derived from a Latin word meaning “arrival” or “coming.” It marks something momentous: Christ’s coming into our midst.

The invitation to celebrate Advent includes both remembrance of the past (the life of Jesus of Nazareth) and anticipation of the future (God’s new world), though the light that was and will be is now, shimmering against the backdrop of our lives. The presence of Christ is for the present.

The invitation of Advent is the invitation—right now, this very moment—to open our ordinary lives, common experiences, and everyday relationships, as well as our deepest selves, to the Spirit of the living Christ. Today is the day the Lord has made. Let us gladly give ourselves to it, to live in it as one fully alive, with eyes wide open. Advent is now!

(The preceding reflections were adapted from my book, Shimmers of Light: Spiritual Reflections for the Christmas Season available form Wipf and Stock Publishers (wipfandstock.com). For more information click on the book cover)

Nurturing an Attitude of Gratitude

2010-11-16T13:45:00.000-08:00

Our capacity to be thankful is greatly influenced by how we “see.” The great challenge for all of us (though for some it is greater): Can we “see” beyond and through the chaotic circumstances that threaten to envelop us? Can we find some stability in God’s mercy and love, even when all hell breaks loose? Can we discover the underlying thread of God’s grace and presence beneath the rough, jagged texture of suffering and hardship?

One thing that helps is to remember that whatever tragedy or tumult we experience, God’s attitude toward us is one of acceptance and love. Even when God is upset with us, God loves us and will never banish us from her presence.

To Catch an Angel, by Robert Russell, is the autobiography of a young blind man who lived alone on an island in the middle of a river. He went rowing on the river almost everyday by means of a fairly simple system. To the end of the dock, he attached a bell with a timer set to ring every thirty seconds. In this way he was able to row up and down the river, and every thirty seconds judge his distance by the sound of the bell. When he’d had enough, he found his way home by means of the bell. In the young man’s words, “The river lies before me, a constant invitation, a constant challenge, and my bell is the thread of sound along which I return to a quiet base.”

Life is like a continually flowing river. God calls us to venture out on it where there is frequent danger and challenge. Unexpected storms arise. Our security, however, rests in God’s unconditional love, which enables us to find our way back home.

We can find reasons for being either grateful or bitter. We have to determine the attitude that will permeate our spirit. The late Henry Nouwen spent the last years of his life working with developmentally disabled adults who had every reason to be bitter. They experience loneliness, rejection from family members, the unfulfilled desire to have a partner in life, and the constant frustration of needing assistance. And yet, observed Nouwen, most do not choose to be bitter, but grateful for the many small gifts of their lives—an invitation to dinner, a birthday celebration, a few days of retreat, and most of all, for their daily community with people who offer friendship and support. The more we decide to be grateful, the easier it becomes to live a grateful life.

Even when our problems are unsolvable and mountains unclimbable, God is with us. As we cultivate an attitude of gratitude for God’s sustaining grace amid all the tensions and pressures of life, and as we learn to live through our disappointments and let go of our frustrations, then we will become more aware and alive, more whole and complete—more fully human. Our hard places may become “thin places” where we can catch a glimpse of God’s glory and grace.

The preceding reflections were adapted from the first chapter of my book, Shimmers of Light: Spiritual Reflections for the Christmas Season. It is just off the press and available on line at wipfandstock.com. Click on picture to order.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

2010-11-03T06:35:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” Jesus is talking about those who have given themselves to the difficult and challenging work of making peace between individuals, amilies, groups, and nations.

An excellent contemporary example is Nelson Mandela. When he assumed the reins of power in South Africa he refused to be bitter toward his enemies. After twenty-seven years of imprisonment, he refrained from any form of vindictiveness and called on all races to work together to heal the nation.

At the core of all peacemaking is a basic commitment to nonviolence. Only nonviolence can break the cycle of violence and open a door for peace. Violence can never stop violence because its very success leads others to imitate it. It’s ironic, but violence can be the most dangerous when it succeeds.

However successful we are in Afghanistan it will not put an end to terrorism. Governments face hard decisions, but whenever violence is met with violence it causes hate and animosity to escalate. Every terrorist we kill, and particularly every civilian that gets caught or killed in the crossfire, becomes a cause for recruitment to the terrorist agenda and increases their hatred.

Peacemakers committed to nonviolence always look for creative alternatives. There may be times in self-defense that we have to resort to force, but disciples of Jesus should always be looking for creative ways to diffuse violence and make peace, even when it involves bearing the hate without returning it—the way Jesus did on the cross.

Our society is so saturated and prone toward violence that people find it hard to believe in anything else. Many people tend to trust violence. And one has no trouble in marshaling biblical support. One can find any number of divinely sanctioned expressions of violence in the Old Testament, even divinely commissioned genocide. Jesus, however, while he certainly held his Scriptures and traditions in great respect, did not blindly accept everything in the Bible hook, line, and sinker.

Jesus exposed the lie and the deception of so-called “redemptive violence” by embodying a life of nonviolence in what he taught, how he lived, and especially in the way he died. This is why the cross becomes a symbol of the gospel of peace. Jesus bore the violence of the powers that be without returning it upon them.

Peacemaking through nonviolence, however, does not involve being a “doormat.” In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus offered examples of how his followers could take nonviolent direct action against the oppressive powers. To so act involved great moral and spiritual strength and courage.

Peacemaking through nonviolence does not mean conflict avoidance. There were numerous times in the Gospels where Jesus acted in defiance of the religious authorities, thus provoking conflict (for example, see the Sabbath controversy stories such as those found in Mark 2:23–3:6).

It’s ironic today that so few Christians even aspire to be peacemakers, and yet, according to Jesus, these are the ones who are living up to their title. These are the ones, says Jesus, who are truly living like children of God.

To Will One Thing

2010-10-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

One of Soren Kierkegaard’s famous lines (also the title of the book) is: “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” A person who is “pure in heart” is undivided in his or her intention. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt 5:8).

In a wonderful scene in the movie “City Slickers,” Curly (Jack Parlance), the tough-as-nails, wise-to-the-ways-of-the-world, trail boss, asks Mitch (Billy Crystal) if he wants to know the secret of life. Curly says, “It’s this,” holding up his index finger. Mitch retorts, “The secret of life is your finger.” Curly, never batting an eye says, “It’s one thing. The secret of life is pursuing one thing.”

According to Jesus, the one thing his disciples are called to pursue is the kingdom of God. In a context where Jesus tells his disciples not to be anxious about how they appear to others, nor about their daily needs (what they will eat, drink, and wear), he says, “Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s justice, and all these other things will be given to you as well” (Matt 6:33). In other words, everything else in life will find its place around life’s central priority—the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God as embodied and proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospels relates to this world, not a different heavenly world. Unfortunately, a lot of popular Christian preaching and teaching emphasize that the world is not our home and that we are just passing through. That’s partly true. Christians are a pilgrim people. And certainly we are going to die and enter a new stage of existence. While Jesus believed in an afterlife, he taught that the kingdom of God has to do with God’s good, gracious, just, and peaceable will being done “on earth” as it is in that dimension of reality called heaven.

I’m convinced that we will always be a pilgrim people, a people on the move. Whatever may ultimately be involved in the realization of God’s kingdom on earth, this will not be the end of our spiritual journeys.

As children of God, I believe that we will always be growing, developing, and becoming in God’s unfolding plan. (I can’t imagine living forever in some heavenly mansion singing endless praise songs; well, maybe if Bob Dylan is the writer/singer). Perhaps there are new worlds, creatures, and universes yet to evolve in which we will have some part.

My point is that, for now, this earth is our home and we are charged to be good stewards of it. (Some Christians are so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good). Here, on this planet, is where Jesus envisioned a flourishing world of justice, peace, and abundance for all people.

Eternity is right now; it is what we are living at this moment. God expects us to learn how to love one another and take care of one another right now. What else does it mean to be the body of Christ—the presence, the hands and feet of Christ—in the world? Disciples of Jesus are called to be collaborators and partners with God in God’s project to heal and redeem the world, right now!

Jesus promised that those committed to this cause “will see God.” Throughout the Gospels “seeing” is a way of talking about understanding, perceiving, and grasping the truth in a transformative way. It’s the capacity to see through our many deceptions, illusions, and subtle lies, and recognize what is real, true, and good. No one will ever see the essence of God, but we can see the beauty and goodness of God in one another, in life’s experiences, and in creation.

As we give ourselves to the healing, wholeness, and well-being of others, we will find our own redemption. We most certainly will become “more” and “better” than what we are now when we truly “see” God in ourselves, others, and the world.

Let justice roll

2010-10-11T06:45:00.000-07:00

Some years ago popular speaker and author Tony Campolo helped initiate a master’s program at Eastern College that trains students to enter Third World countries, as well as impoverished sections of American cites, with the express purpose of starting small businesses and cottage industries with the poor. Campolo was once part of such a micro enterprise in the Dominican Republic that produced durable footwear out of discarded automobile tires.

Campolo says, “When we talk about Jesus, we make it clear that he is not just interested in our well-being in the afterlife. He is a Savior who is at work in the world today trying to save the world from what it is, and make it into a place where people can live together with dignity.” This, I believe, is what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (or justice), for they will be filled” (Matt 5:6).

The word translated “righteousness” can also be translated “justice.” Justice in the Hebrew/Christian tradition differs significantly from what many folks today mean when they use the term. Justice, as employed by the prophets and by Jesus, does not mean “getting what one deserves.” According to Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, the meaning of “justice/righteousness” is principally about actions that sustain and improve community well-being, particularly those that show special attentiveness to the poor and needy. The Hebrew prophets railed against religious and political leaders who spurned justice, but yet were very pious and religious (see Amos 5:21–24).

Author Robert Pirsig refers to a clever method used to capture monkeys in southern India. A hole is drilled into a coconut, then the insides are hollowed out and filled with rice. The coconut is chained to a stake driven in the ground. The hole is just large enough for a monkey to insert its paw, but too small for it to remove its paw once it is filled with rice. The monkey, unwilling to let go of the rice, becomes effectively trapped. The irony, of course, is that it is trapped by the very thing it believed would sustain its life.

Our religion, which is intended to enhance and sustain life, becomes a snare when we are motivated by selfish ambition, or use it for personal advancement and self-aggrandizement. Our Christianity becomes a snare when we make it primarily about the afterlife or personal success in this life. When our faith becomes nothing more than a way to eternal bliss or a way to achieve personal happiness or self-fulfillment, then we too come under the indictment of the prophets and Jesus in particular.

Our faith becomes a snare when it entraps us in personal and group idolatries. When we arrogantly assume that God’s blessing is limited to our faith, our group, our people, our church, or our nation, then our Christian practice stands under the judgment of God.

Restorative justice is not about what is legal; rather it concerns what is good, fair, and just. It’s committed to the dignity of all people and to eliminating the causes of oppression, poverty, and injustice. Its focus is the common good, not private interest. It’s centered on God’s kingdom on earth, not the afterlife. (We need not worry about or concern ourselves with the afterlife, because our gracious heavenly Father/Mother will take good care of all of us).

Real virtue is bound to the pursuit of justice—the well-being and life enhancement of the community. Without this quality our religion fails and falls under the judgment of God.

The modern prophet William Sloan Coffin reminds us that the church “doesn’t so much have a social ethic as it is a social ethic.” Without a hunger and thirst for justice, the church is not the church. For the church to be what Jesus envisioned—an outpost for God’s kingdom on earth—the church must cultivate a hunger and thirst for justice.

Meekness is not Weakness

2010-10-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). According to Jesus, “the earth” (referring here to the “kingdom of God”) is the possession of the meek. Meekness is not weakness. Jesus challenged the powers that be when he intentionally pushed the edges of religious respectability through his practice of an open table (inclusivity), identification with the marginalized, healing on the Sabbath, and intentional disregard for the holiness laws of clean and unclean.

Jesus did not, however, use his charismatic, spiritual power to control or coerce others to do his bidding. He emptied himself of all selfish ambition, and both embodied and taught forgiveness, non-violence, and peacemaking.

The word translated “meek” in Jesus’ beatitude could just as easily be translated “humble.” Humility, as expressed by Jesus, did not in any way resemble timidity. It took great courage, restraint, and spiritual strength for Jesus to confront the injustice and exclusivity of the powers that be, knowing full well that his challenging of the status quo would evoke the hate and animosity of the religious and political establishment, eventually bringing about his death.

What is authentic humility? Rolling Stone Magazine interviewed Scott Weiland of the band, “The Stone Temple Pilots,” after he had been released from prison, having served a term for drug possession. (Not that I know Scott Weiland; I’m still listening to Bob Dylan and James Taylor.) In the interview he kept using the word “humility.” The reporter asked him to define the term. Scott Weiland said, “It’s not me thinking less of myself. It’s me thinking of myself less.”

In my opinion, too many Christians have overemphasized the biblical story of the fall at the expense of the story of creation. Certainly we are all flawed and broken. We have a selfish bent and a strong propensity to seek and misuse worldly power. But that doesn’t mean that we are “no good” or “no account.” Humility is not someone saying, “I am a wretch; I am a worm.” It is not debasement, self-contempt, or self-hate.

We are created in God’s image. The biblical story of redemption is rooted in our worth and value. Every person is a child of God, no matter how flawed or sinful. We are each worth redeeming, and I believe, in God’s time (it will take much longer with some than others) every one will be redeemed. I believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus serves as the ultimate demonstration that divine love will one day triumph, transforming the most evil persons into persons who will finally learn how to be good, merciful, and just.

Humility is not thinking less of myself, but thinking of myself less, so I can think of others and serve others. It is being less self-absorbed, so I can be more other-centered. It is being less preoccupied with my ego desires, so I can seek first the kingdom of God, nurture caring relationships, and work for the good of the planet.

Meekness is not weakness, humility is not timidity, and Jesus’ relinquishment of worldly power is not powerlessness. In God’s upside-down kingdom, the powerbrokers of the world will find themselves last, and the meek will inherit the earth.

(This is Part 3 in the series, “Blogging on the Beatitudes.")

"Honoring Sacred Texts"

2010-09-20T08:52:00.001-07:00

I attended a service at Highland Baptist Church on September 11 called “Honoring Sacred Texts.” The service included representatives from the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikhs, and Baha’i communities, each reading a selection from their sacred texts. According to Rev. Joe Phelps, senior pastor of Highland, it was intended “to be a word of witness against . . . divisive hate-filled ideology, found in every nation and religion, by reading what we believe is fundamental and common from our various sacred texts: love, humility, peace, reverence before the Creator.”

Undoubtedly Rev. Phelps and the good folks at Highland Baptist Church will take plenty of heat from this courageous action. Dr. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Seminary, called their “interfaith” service a “denial” of the faith. This, of course, is the exclusivist position that will continue to foster ill will between people of different religious traditions and ultimately do more harm than good.

Rev. Phelps wrote on his blog that that their intent was not in any way “to deny or dilute the role of Jesus, who is central to the message and mission of Highland.” He then observed that the way of Jesus was “one of reconciling love rather than polarizing division,” and that the only ones Jesus excluded were “driven by a spirit of division.”

Rev. Phelps noted that “while there are passages that say he [Jesus] is the only way to God . . . other Bible passages are clear that God’s bigness and love extend to all the earth, to all peoples, to all nations who come in reverence before God.” See, for example, passages like Acts 10:34-35, Eph. 1:9-10, Col. 1:19-20, and 1 Cor. 15:22. Rev. Phelps wrote, “Every sacred text–including the Bible–has passages that extol violence, which can be misunderstood and misapplied by outsiders (and by insiders).”

The Bible, Christians’ sacred text, argues with itself in numerous places. In an internet conversation with a Christian who refused to identify himself, I pointed out several passages of Scripture where there were clear contradictions and asked him to explain or defend his inerrant position on the Bible in light of these contradictions. That ended the conversation. He would not because he could not, at least not in any reasonable, logical way. It seems to me that the Christians who are most in denial of the faith are those who, like Dr. Mohler, are actually incapable of offering a legitimate, credible defense of the inconsistencies and contradictions in our sacred text. Claiming the Bible’s infallibility possibly turns more thinking young people away from Christianity than any other of the fundamentalist Christian doctrines.

I love our (Christians’) sacred text, but I do not worship it. I probably spend more time and effort studying it and teaching it than most do who claim it to be the literal word of God. And while I consider it inspired of God, it is clear to me that it is not without human flaws and errors. Rev. Phelps observed that our sacred text (the Bible) is a diverse “collection of inspirations and understandings which must be allowed to interact and inform each other.”

I am convinced that a healthy, transformative, compassion–filled Christianity is directly connected to an interpretation of Scripture that is rooted and grounded in the inclusive gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank goodness I am not alone. There are a number of other Christian leaders and churches like Rev. Phelps and Highland Baptist Church (and more are emerging) who are committed to preaching, teaching, and sharing God’s unconditional love as expressed in the inclusive gospel of Jesus, whom we claim as our Lord.

God's Upside Down Kingdom

2010-09-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

A pilot practicing maneuvers in a jet fighter turned the controls for what he thought was a steep ascent and flew straight into the ground. He was unaware that he had been flying upside down.

Maybe that is true for many of us. We have been so conditioned by our culture that we don’t know what is up or down. So when Jesus flips our world upside down in the Beatitudes he is really turning it right side up.

The second beatitude in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount reads: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). Jesus is not giving his disciples timeless truths about the way the world is, for the world is not this way at all. In the world mourners often go uncomforted, but not in the kingdom of God.

This beatitude is based on Isaiah 61 where, in its broader context, the prophet is lamenting the desolation of the holy city and the spiritual and social condition of the people of God. Jesus reflects this spirit when he looks out over Jerusalem and cries, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were not willing” (Matt. 23:37).

Jesus mourned the spiritual and social state of his people, and yet he exuded an abundance of joy and peace. He, through God’s Spirit, was able to hold the contradiction together. He was in great agony in Gethsemane, not only as he contemplated his own death, but perhaps more significantly, as he mourned the state of the covenant people whose leadership was mired in legalistic stipulations, aristocratic pride, and religious manipulation. And yet, in the shadow of the cross, he said to his disciples, “My peace I give to you . . . these things I have shared with you so that you may share my joy” (John 14:27; 15:11).

Clarence Jordan is a more contemporary example of a disciple of Jesus living with this contradiction. He and his interracial farm community in Americus, Georgia felt the prejudice, hate, and wrath of the powers that be. Their farm was boycotted and their people shot at. Their roadside market was destroyed by dynamite. In the middle of the violence against them their very lives were in danger daily. And yet Jordan was known for his laughter, his clever wit, and his love for life. When the local and state powers boycotted their farm, this little community relied on friends throughout the country to get their pecans to market. Their slogan was: “Help us get the nuts out of Georgia.”

This is the paradox: Even when we feel life diminished by the losses, suffering, and injustice of the human condition, we also discover that life is enhanced by the Spirit of Christ, immersing our lives in God’s goodness and in God’s dream for the world. Even as we mourn the poverty, oppression, and tragedies of life, as well as our own personal losses, we are sustained and strengthened by a deeper peace and joy.

Often, in our experience, either sadness or joy has the upper hand. We sometimes journey through grief into joy, where the Psalmist says that our mourning is turned into dancing. Our grief through our own personal loss and our ache at the evil and injustice in the world invites us to place our grief and hurt in larger hands. In one sense, there is no healing without woundedness, no growth without suffering, and no resurrection without death.

And yet, in Christ, we are able somehow to experience both grief and joy simultaneously and live with the tension this creates. The living Christ enables us to hold these incongruities together. The living Christ invites us to share in both his suffering and joy. (This is Part 2 of the “The Beatitudes”)

Less Is More

2010-09-07T11:21:00.001-07:00

Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel with the Beatitudes. (The teachings in Matthew 5–7 were no doubt given by Jesus in many different contexts and the biblical writer gathered them into this form.) The first beatitude is: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” “Blessed” means something like “spiritually well-off,” (the translation “happy” doesn’t do it justice).

Luke’s version simply reads: “Blessed are the poor . . .” Was Jesus referring to the material poor or to a poverty of spirit before God? The Hebrew word that is behind the concept of “poor” conveys both of these meanings and both would have been intended.

In Luke’s version there is a corresponding judgment: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation” (Luke 6:24). How many sermons have you heard on this text? In Luke’s Gospel Jesus often speaks about the dangers of wealth. In one place he tells his disciples, “Sell your possessions, and give alms” (Luke 12:33). (I don’t know of one biblical inerrantist who takes that literally.) Jesus instructs one would–be disciple who was very wealthy to give away all his possessions, and when he is unable Jesus responds: “How hard it is for those who have wealth (this would include most of us who are reading this) to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:24). In numerous contexts Jesus announces that the first now will later be last (when the kingdom comes), and the last now will later be first.

If we take Jesus’ words and actions in the Gospels seriously it is clear that Jesus championed the cause of the poor (see Luke 4:17-19). There is no question that he exercised a preferential, perhaps even a prejudicial, compassion for the poor and the oppressed. Proponents of a health and wealth gospel find no support in the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth.

Now, I don’t plan to give away all my possessions anytime soon. (If I attempted it, my wife and kids would probably do me in to get the insurance money—maybe not.) But the fact is: I may not be wealthy judged by American standards, but from a global perspective I am one of the “rich” (the haves) of the world. That means that I am complicit to some degree in the disproportion and inequity of the world, and therefore, come under the indictment of Jesus. And simply cultivating a spirit of humility, generosity, and gratitude does not remove the indictment.

American disciples of Jesus who take Jesus’ life and words seriously must live with this tension, and “spiritualizing” all Jesus’ teaching on the subject is no solution. In the upside down kingdom of God the poor have the advantage, says Jesus.

If it is the role of the prophet “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” then Jesus is surely being the prophet in his teachings regarding possessions (afflicting us preachers as much as anyone). Keep in mind too, that the call to relinquish possessions involves the relinquishment of the power, prestige, and honor that goes with them. It’s hardly ever just about money; it’s what accompanies it.

When the rich man walked away sad, the disciples exclaimed: “Who then can be saved?” (Meaning: Who can be spiritually well-off/whole/blessed?) Most of us would like Jesus to pat them on the back and say, “It will be okay.” Instead Jesus says, “Well, it is impossible for human beings, but it is possible with God” (Luke 18:26-27).

There is a spiritual principle at work here: The less we are possessed by our possessions, the more God is able to possess us. The less hold (attachment) we have on our possessions, the more we are able to lay hold of the kingdom of God, and find our joy in being the companions of Christ and collaborators in helping bring in God’s new world.

Ancient/Future Christianity

2010-08-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

In the book of Acts Luke says that Paul, who then was “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,” went into Damascus looking for those “who belonged to the Way” (Acts 9:1-2). This is how the first Christians were known: They were “disciples” of Jesus committed to his “way” of life, the way of God’s kingdom that Jesus himself embodied (Luke 17:20-21).

The early Christians understood that to be a disciple of Jesus meant commitment to a process of learning how to walk in the way of Jesus, a way of simplicity of life, humility, inclusivity, forgiveness, compassion, and surrender to a greater good—the kingdom of God.

Do you realize that there are many versions of Christianity today that hardly resemble this anymore? They have made doctrinal and creedal conformity central to their faith (some would even denounce as false teachers anyone who would preach or teach a different version than their own) and have put most of the emphasis on the afterlife.

I remember in my youth being part of a revival effort, wearing a button that had a picture of a hand and finger pointing upward with the caption, “Jesus is the way.” But if you had asked me then what that meant I would have said either of two things. I would have told you that Jesus is the way to heaven if we will only accept him as our personal Savior, or I would have said that Jesus is the way to a happy and meaningful life (meaning—a self–fulfilling life). I had no idea then what I know now about the actual way of Jesus in the world—his commitment to the poor and marginalized, his insistence on non-violence, his charge to love our enemies, his focus on forgiveness, his readiness to challenge the injustice of the political and religious powers that be, etc.

No one ever told me. We have skewed the faith. We’ve told people to believe in Jesus and then we’ve given them doctrines, dogmas, and creeds, and incorporated them into church systems that have been more about control, management, and growing the institution than it has been about living the life of Jesus in the world. But then, we didn’t know any better either. No one ever told us. We were only passing on the Christian faith as we had been taught.

I am hopeful, though, because it seems to me that we are starting to witness in Western Christianity a growing emergence (this emergence has been happening for some time in other places like the Global South) of the faith “of” Jesus. There seems to be a slowly expanding minority of Christians who are taking seriously Jesus’ vision of a transformed world, who are attempting to put into practice the attitudes and actions, the life and vision of Jesus. Time will tell what impact this will have.

In the days ahead, if we Christians and our churches are to have any credibility and authenticity with spiritual seekers who are peace-loving, clear-thinking, and who care about creation, equality, and issues of justice for the poor and marginalized, then it will be to the extent that we actually pursue and practice the “way” of Jesus.

I am hopeful that as a species created to bear the image of God that in the future we will more visibly and clearly reflect that image. I am hopeful that we are evolving past the days of the Crusades, Inquisitions, witch hunts, and heresy trials. Christians can be a major force for good on this planet if we can move past exclusive, belief centered, condemnatory Christianity and embrace a more grace-filled, inclusive vision of the cosmic Christ who is ever present in the world and who resides with and in each person (John 1:9).

The Challenge of Jesus

2010-08-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

We could make progress toward a more healthy, holistic, and inclusive Christianity if we spent less time talking about the need for faith in Jesus and more time emphasizing the faith of Jesus. The faith of Jesus centered on God’s kingdom.

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) make clear that the heartbeat and passion of Jesus’ life and ministry was “the kingdom of God.” For example, in Luke’s Gospel when the people of Capernaum tried to get Jesus to extend his stay Jesus responded: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:43).

What did Jesus mean when he proclaimed this good news? The “kingdom of God” is a rather dynamic and fluid symbol that has earthly, social, relational, spiritual, and political implications. Certainly, Jesus was talking about a transformation related to this world, not some heavenly or other-worldly reality. He taught his disciples to pray: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Matthew’s Gospel employs the phrase “kingdom of heaven,” which has unfortunately been a source of much confusion and misunderstanding for many Christians. Matthew was following the common Jewish practice of substituting “heaven” for God in order to avoid the common use of God’s name. Matthew substituted “heaven” for “God” out of reverence for God’s name; he was not suggesting that God’s kingdom resided in some other realm.

Jesus, like the Hebrew prophets before him, envisaged a time when the domination systems of the world would no longer run things. The prophets looked forward to a time when the will of God will be written on the minds and hearts of all people. This utopian vision anticipated the end of all injustice, violence, and poverty (see the poetic vision of Isaiah 65:19-25).

Recently, our church sent a mission team to visit Zambia. We help support the work of CBF missionaries Lonnie and Fran Turner through their Partners in Development. Last year we raised money to build a maternity clinic there (see the video on my Links). A key component in their work is providing fresh water to villages by digging wells. Upon our team’s return, a member noted that Zambia did not have a water problem. The water table was high and they did not have to dig very deep to find water. Their problem was not a resource problem, but a distribution problem. And that, of course, is a problem all over the world.

When the kingdom of God is realized on earth there will be no distribution problem. All will have enough. Some of us who have more now may have less, but all will have plenty for an abundance of life.

Obviously, there is a deep inner, spiritual, and personal dimension to this. In order to have transformed systems, institutions, and communities, we have to have transformed individuals. This is why Jesus talked about dying to the ego, about being born again, about being pure in heart, and about hungering and thirsting after righteousness/justice.

Jesus called people to repentance (Mark 1:14-15): To stop living for self-glory, self-honor, and self-fulfillment, and live for the good of all humankind and all creation.

Jesus embodied this new world in such a way that the kingdom of God was realized in his life, teachings, death, and resurrection. Jesus rejected the security systems of wealth and power, and lived a very simple life. He believed in a God of compassion and told his followers to be compassionate to all people because God is compassionate to all people. He championed the cause of the poor and marginalized. He ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners, extending God’s grace to all. He called women disciples, treating them as equals. He broke down barriers of race, extending God’s grace to Gentiles. He healed the diseased and demonized. He touched lepers and made them whole. He modeled and taught his followers how to act in direct, non-violent ways, protesting oppression by the powers that be. He forgave his tormentors and required his followers to do the same. He refused to be controlled by fear and anxiety, and believed God was with him every moment. He absorbed the jealousy, hate, and evil of the world in the hope and prospect of redeeming the world.

For Jesus, faith had nothing at all to do with believing doctrines, dogmas, and creeds. It had everything to do with a vision of a world healed, transformed, and made whole.

Jesus did not proclaim himself; he proclaimed the good news of God’s kingdom. After God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead, it was a short step for the early followers of Jesus to go from proclaiming the kingdom to proclaiming Christ, since Christ was believed to be the embodiment of the way of the kingdom.

The first disciples were known as “people who belonged to the way” (Acts 9:2). The early Christians did not mean what many Christians mean today when they say: Jesus is the way. Christians today think: “Way to heaven,” or “way to a happy and meaningful life.” The early followers of Jesus meant that Jesus incarnated the way of God’s kingdom and to be a disciple of Jesus meant learning from Jesus how to live that way of life.

When the Gospel of John talks about “believing in Jesus” it is not talking about believing doctrines about Jesus in order to go to heaven. It is talking about trusting in Jesus as the way into the truth and life of God’s kingdom. It means trusting in what Jesus stood for, believed in, fleshed out in word and deed, and ultimately what he gave his life for. Jesus told his disciples: “Strive first (pursue above everything) the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness/justice” (Matt. 6:33).

The primary meaning of “eternal life” in John’s Gospel is not life in heaven, but “life of the age to come,” fullness of life in God’s kingdom. We enter into such life now by trusting, following, living in the way of Jesus.

We don’t need more faith in Jesus; that is, faith as understood as belief. We don’t need any more creedal formulations and doctrinal statements about what to believe about Jesus. These have been an endless source of divisiveness and contention. We need more of the faith of Jesus; more faithfulness to the way of Jesus, faithfulness to the love, compassion, inclusivity, simplicity, courage, and hope of Jesus for a world healed and transformed.

Ann Rice and the Challenge Facing the Church

2010-08-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

Author Ann Rice, opened her heart to God in 1998, returning to her faith after years of describing herself as an atheist. She explained her journey away from faith and back again in her 2008 memoir, Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession.

Now she has decided to leave Christianity, renouncing her claim to be “Christian,” though she has not renounced her claim to Christ. She wrote on her “Facebook” page: “For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

As a pastor working in an institutional church I cannot advocate for or agree with Ann Rice’s decision, but I certainly understand it. In a lot of institutional Christianity (both traditional and non-traditional, both conservative and liberal) there can be very little of “Christ” in it; that is, little of the Christ we know in the Gospels as a friend of sinners, welcoming of all—especially the rejected and marginalized, challenger of the status quo (meticulously maintained by the powers that be), and champion of the poor and the oppressed.

The church in all its denominational and institutional forms and expressions desperately need pastors who are not afraid to engage in the work of a prophet, calling the church to actually follow in the way of Jesus. For only when Christians begin to take seriously the life Jesus lived and the teachings he imparted will there be real renewal and authentic transformation.

I do not for one minute doubt Ann Rice’s experience with the church as a “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.” I, too, have experienced some of this contentiousness and animosity. Maybe I’m too hopeful, but I believe the church is capable of changing. But change will not come easy. Pastors must be willing to risk their jobs, good standing, reputation, even friendships in order to engage in the prophetic work of deconstruction and reconstruction. This work is not for the timid and fainthearted; it will require a boldness of Spirit.

Many Christians in our Western culture have no intention of changing and they want their pastor or priest to confirm what they have come to believe and the particular manner in which they have come to practice their faith. They are not interested in “living the questions.” They do not wish to face their doubts. They have no intention of confronting the Great Mystery. They want certitudes and assurances that reality is just the way they have been socialized to see it and believe it.

The problem is that there seems to be just as many pastors and priests who like it that way, for this makes the Christian faith and the church manageable. They are like the big shots in the movie, The Truman Show, whose financial well being and social prominence depended on keeping Truman’s world circumscribed and confined.

Jesus believed that the kingdom of God would come on earth and he instructed his disciples to pray, serve, love, and give of themselves that God’s good, just, and righteous will might take root and grow. (Think of all the parables involving seed growing.)

The question which those of us in Christian leadership must ask: Do we still believe this is possible? If not, we should find some other line of work. If change is to occur we leaders must first and foremost seek to embody and express God’s unconditional, inclusive love through our words, deeds, and kindness to others (all others, especially the “quarrelsome, hostile, and disputatious”). And then we must not shun the prophetic task of confronting the status quo, preaching, teaching, and manifesting an inclusive gospel. We have chaplains galore, but prophets few.

I still believe that we need the church. Not the “infamous group” that refuses to change, but the church that serves as an outpost for the kingdom of God on earth. And it falls on all of us who exercise leadership in the church to give our very lives for this cause.

When the church functions as an inclusive, healing, being transformed and transforming community then the church can be a vital instrument in bringing peace, hope, justice, and redemption to our world.

Harvard professor Harvey Cox argues in his book, The Future of Faith, that before Christianity entered into an Age of Belief with its insistence on creedal conformity and doctrinal correctness, the earliest expressions and communities of the Jesus movement were known for their commitment to “the way” (way of life) of Jesus in the world.

The need is great for courageous pastors, priests, and church leaders to call the church out of a theology of “hell evasion” and a lifestyle of ego avoidance and personal security into a “new and living way,” the way of Jesus of Nazareth.

It is possible! For the Jesus who lived, taught, and modeled “the way” is the church’s living Lord and Redeemer, “God with us,” whose Spirit is at work shattering illusions, opening minds and hearts, inspiring suffering love, and ever wooing and drawing us into a new stage of Christ consciousness and compassionate community.

Two Kinds of Christianity

2010-08-09T10:25:00.001-07:00

There are some major differences between belief-centered Christianity that focuses on creeds and doctrine, and the kind that puts a priority on following in the way of Jesus. Some Christians mistakenly think that in the beginning of the Jesus movement there was uniformity of belief and all differences emerged later. But that is simply not true. The Jesus movement that later became known as Christianity was diverse from its inception, as any careful study of the New Testament demonstrates (and is confirmed by other early Christian writings that didn’t make it into the New Testament, like the Gospel of Thomas). What the early expressions of the Jesus movement had in common was their focus on following in “the way” of Jesus (his way of life).

How did Christianity come to this? How did the main thing—loving God and loving neighbor—get lost amidst a quagmire of detailed doctrines and beliefs?

It is much easier, you see, to have a battle for the Bible and be against some belief or group, than it is to love and serve one another in the way of Jesus. It’s much simpler to be correct and self-affirming (or group-affirming) than it is to live with mystery and be committed to this messy business of forgiveness and reconciliation.

It is much more ego-satisfying to be right and convinced that one’s mission is to convert the world to a particular version of truth than it is to admit that one does not have all the answers, and learn how to live with those of different beliefs in mutual acceptance and respect.

It is much more convenient to acquire a claim to heaven by believing the right things than it is to follow the radical Jesus who loved the unlovable, welcomed all to table fellowship, and called his followers to join him in suffering with the marginalized, caring for the downtrodden, announcing good news to the poor, and liberating the oppressed (see Luke 4:14-21).

The Christian mystics are a great source for helping Christians today realize what is important. Trappist monk Thomas Merton, well known for his spiritual writings, wrote about an experience he had in 1958 that had a transformative impact upon his life. He had just been to Louisville to see a doctor. Then, standing on a busy intersection at the corner of Fourth and Walnut Street in the center of the shopping district, Merton had something of an epiphany. He wrote, “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.”

Merton was at that moment experiencing the Divine Love of God for the world. Mystics never attempt to define God by a string of words or concepts, but they do stretch the boundaries of language when talking about the wide, large, expansive, and inclusive Mercy that pervades all reality.

Mystics challenge the rest of us to move beyond either/or thinking and the kind of group thinking that divides the world into “us” and “them.” They encourage us to let go of our silly comparisons and petty judgments and see God in every person.

A living faith is not a script of beliefs to be memorized and mastered, but a landscape to be walked, where there are fresh experiences of God around every twist and turn.

Simply confessing Jesus as Savior or believing doctrines about Jesus will not change us; walking in the way of Jesus will. Loving the way Jesus loved is what transforms individuals, relationships, and communities; it is the truth that sets us free.

A Living Faith

2010-07-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

There can be a vast difference between a living faith and adherence to a system of religious beliefs. In the Gospels faith has nothing to do with doctrinal beliefs about Jesus, and everything to do with trust in Jesus as a mediator of God’s grace and love.

For example, a woman suffering with a chronic bleeding condition that rendered her unclean according to Jewish law believed that if she could just touch Jesus’ clothing she would be healed. She obviously held to a popular cultural myth that claimed that the healing powers of a healer (there were other healers in the ancient world besides Jesus) extended to the healer’s clothes.

When she touched the garment of Jesus healing power went out to her, without Jesus intending it. Jesus told the woman, “Your faith has made you whole” (see Mark 5:25-34). There is no suggestion at all in the biblical account that she believed Jesus to be the Messiah or anything like what later Christians meant when they ascribed to Jesus the title, “Son of God.”

In this story faith constituted a simple, humble, and risky (the woman risked the hostility of the religious authorities because everyone she touched in the crowd she rendered unclean) act of trust in Jesus as the mediator of the healing power of God.

A living faith enables us to be sensitive to God’s presence and connects us to the renewing, healing grace, forgiveness, and mercy of God. It is not some doctrinal or dogmatic belief about Jesus; it is, rather, a child-like trust and vulnerability that opens the disciple up to the dynamic presence of the living Christ.

Years ago, early on in my spiritual journey, I thought that what one believed about Jesus was what changed a person. I was wrong. The evidence is fairly conclusive. Some of the most doctrinally certain Christians can be the most difficult to get along with. Confident in their beliefs “about” Jesus, they lack the love, grace, and humility “of” Jesus.

A Christian belief is what we think and endorse about some aspect of Christian teaching (God, Jesus, the Bible, etc.) at a particular stage in our faith journey. As we grow in love and grace our beliefs change. If our beliefs never change this is probably a good indication that we are stagnant and are not growing spiritually. I have discarded many of the beliefs I once held, but my faith is stronger today than it ever was.

I am not suggesting that faith is devoid of all belief or intellectual content. There is something to be said for a reasonable faith, as opposed to a blind faith or one that lacks intellectual credibility. But faith does not deal in certainties and reason alone does not open us up to God. Certitude is usually rooted in fear, which explains why some people become so defensive about their beliefs.

“We see through a glass dimly,” says Paul in his great exposition of love in 1 Corinthians 13. There’s no infallible experience of God: no inerrant Bible or infallible tradition or perfect anything. But we can and do experience love and love is foundational and essential to the nature of Divine Reality.

A living faith exposes us and makes us receptive to the Divine Love that pervades the universe—a Love that Christians believe became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.

Intellectual assent or doctrinal belief in God, Jesus, the Bible, heaven, or anything else does little in and of itself to change us. It is our experience of love that frees us from our ego, opens us up to the Mystery, and is transformative in our lives and relationships.

Doing What Is Right May Mean Being Ineffective

2010-07-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

Charlie Pearl, Staff Writer for the Frankfort State Journal, recently interviewed Wendell Berry in the aftermath of Berry’s decision to move many of his personal papers (which measure 60 cubic feet in volume) from the University of Kentucky archives. Berry, who is known for his passion for the land and for environmental issues, made the decision after the university accepted a $7 million dollar donation from the coal industry for a new basketball dormitory, agreeing to name it Wildcat Coal Lodge.

Berry said that he was willing to live with the university’s “manifest lack of concern about surface mining in Eastern Kentucky and its ecological implications, its implications for the forests, for the survival of the wild creatures and maybe preeminently for the rural people there that a land grant university is mandated to look after and help,” noting that this form of mining “is literally hell for the people who live near those mine sites.” Berry said that he was willing to live with their lack of interest in these things, but when they accepted the coal money and agreed to name the dormitory after the coal industry the university “passed over from indifference to manifest alliance with the coal industry.”

When asked if he had “any hope that mountaintop removal mining will stop before all the mountains are gone” Berry said: “Of course I hope it will stop . . . and I have publicly stated my willingness to do what’s necessary to stop it (including) doing nonviolent resistance.” After remarking that there wasn’t much room to be optimistic that this would happen, Berry says something quite profound and important: “I don’t think a person has a right to protest or work for change on the assumption that the effort will be effective. This is whether it’s right or not.”

The real issue, the heart of the matter, says Berry, is whether or not it is right. It’s not about effectiveness; it’s about integrity and doing what is good, just, and right.

I have sometimes wondered why I am doing what I am doing—challenging dualistic, exclusivistic, heaven and hell oriented Christianity in the context of presenting a more holistic, inclusive, and gracious understanding, rooted in the unconditional love of God.

In a Bible Belt town, where there is a church on every corner, I have certainly made more enemies than friends. (I don’t consider them enemies, but they consider me an enemy, or a messenger of Satan, as someone recently called me).

I have little chance of being effective. Many of those who sympathize with this message will not dare stand up to their family and friends; the pressure to conform to traditional beliefs and practices is too great.

I guess I’m doing what I’m doing because if I didn’t I couldn’t live with myself. Preaching, teaching, advocating, and writing about an inclusive gospel is the just, good, and right thing to do.

I have little hope of being effective. The church I pastor will probably lose more members than it gains. I probably will not see much difference in the community. Traditional, dualistic beliefs are deeply entrenched here. No matter. There is a kind of peace that comes when you do what you believe in your heart is right.

The Church and Patriarchy

2010-07-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

Spiritual writer Richard Rohr has observed that in recent centuries most churches have been on the wrong side of most human reformations and revolutions, until after these reformations succeeded. Consider the issue of civil rights: Many churches in America remained silent, while many others either overtly or covertly worked against just legislation and practice. There were, of course, Christians like Martin Luther King, Jr. who led the charge, but these constituted a minority.

Western Christianity has evolved largely into a matter of the head. This took the form of highly academic theology in Europe, and in America it was expressed through a narrow, dogmatic fundamentalism. In both forms Western Christians seemed to show little interest in the things that Jesus of Nazareth was passionate about.

Any version of Christian faith that shows little interest in issues such as human suffering, inclusivity, poverty, political and spiritual oppression, planet care, and care for the outsider lacks credibility and authenticity.

Today, churches seem to be the most formidable institutional structures resistant to egalitarian roles for women. In the early 1990’s I pastored a church in Eastern Kentucky where our female choir director was not permitted to lead congregational singing because to do so, the deacons argued, would usurp male authority. Still today few evangelical churches ordain women into pastoral ministry, or for that matter, even elect or appoint female deacons or elders.

Sara VanScoy is a medical doctor and psychiatrist who served 11 years in the Air Force. She earned a master’s degree in divinity (summa cum laude) at Bethel Seminary in Jonesboro, Arkansas in May 2009. Though praised by her professors for her gifted preaching and teaching, she can’t even get in the door of a church to be considered for a pastoral position. In a recent article by religious professor Anne Eggebroten in “Sojourners,” Sara told Anne: “It’s sad, really, that the only place in my entire life that I have experienced gender discrimination is the church.”

Even in some mega-churches, like Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California where John MacArthur is pastor, you will find only male pastors, deacons, and elders, along with specific teaching that women are to live in submission to men. In 1987 the “Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” was formed to counter the influence of the Evangelical Women’s Caucus and the newly-founded Christians for Biblical Equality.

Isn’t it sad that Christians have to fight these battles? The solution, I believe, is not to abandon Christianity, but to reform it.

We must allow the fresh wind of the Spirit of the living Christ to blow away these patriarchal structures, as well as all oppressive, exclusivistic, and dualistic beliefs and practices that have become encased in many forms of institutional Christianity.

The God Movement, proclaimed, embodied, and expressed through the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, is among us. It is even within us (Luke 17:21). We need eyes to see and a will to respond.

God needs women and men today who will have the courage to challenge the religious powers that be and become selfless instruments of peace and ready conduits through which God’s unconditional love can flow out to the world.

Who Are the "Lost"?

2010-06-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

At the recent Southern Baptist Convention which met in Orlando, a theme reiterated throughout the meeting was the “lostness” of the world. Consider the following quotes, taken from an article in the Western Recorder by Editor Todd Deaton titled: SBC takes ‘fresh look’ at nation’s lostness:

Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Seminary, declared: “We need to be looking forward with an aggressive agenda to penetrate lostness around the world and in North America.”

Ken Whitten, a Great Commission task force member, said: “Every pastor has to walk away from this convention asking, ‘What can I do . . . to make a difference by penetrating lostness?’”

Roger Spradlin, the newly elected Executive Committee chairperson, proclaimed: “I think God has put in the forefront in all our minds the tremendous lostness not only of the world . . . but also of North America. We are a nation of lostness.”

Until the theology, God-image, and basic worldview that undergird all this talk of lostness changes, I can’t see how Southern Baptists will offer any hope or wield any positive influence in our world.

As membership within the majority of churches within the SBC declines (both membership and baptisms are on a plummet within all branches of American Christianity) their solution is to engender louder rhetoric (shout louder) and more aggressive strategies (work harder) to proselytize those who don’t share their faith (“the lost”).

At one time I believed this way—that I was one of God’s elect, God’s chosen, and everyone else who didn’t share my faith in Jesus was “lost,” “unsaved,” or “under the wrath of God.” And though it pains me now to admit this, I even used words and phrases like “doomed” and “condemned” and “children of the Devil” to describe all those who did not fit my definition of a Christian.

Jesus’ parable of the Father and his two sons (Luke 15:11-32) may serve as a corrective here. Both sons, the wayward prodigal and the resentful elder brother, are in some sense “lost.” But in their “lostness’ they never cease being the beloved sons of the Father. There is no “us” who are saved and “them” who are lost.

Whether we are “lost” like the younger son, through greed and rejection of the Father’s way of life, or “lost” like the elder son, through resentment and failure to share the Father’s heart, we are still, in our “lostness,” God’s daughters and sons, loved with an unconditional love by the ever seeking God.

The beautiful words the father speaks to the angry, bitter elder son are reflective of the all inclusive gospel Jesus embodied and represents: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found” (Luke 15:31-32).

I have a notion that wherever this inclusive gospel is rejected and a dualistic version of Christianity prevails, Christianity will increasingly become irrelevant, and may become more of a hindrance than a help in healing and bettering our world. Dualistic religion tends to polarize and divide, establishing the “in” group (the chosen, the ones who alone possess the truth, etc.) as superior.

This trend toward irrelevance and decreasing influence will become more evident in major urban centers, than in small, conservative towns, but eventually, even the most Christian-entrenched areas will feel the impact. This diminished interest in Christianity is now widespread in Europe, and America is not far behind.

According to recent surveys and studies, only about 10 to 20 percent of America’s younger generation is finding a connection to Christian faith. Most church growth comes at the expense of membership loss from other churches. Mega churches are in some sense both the result of and cause of this loss in smaller churches. All signs point toward decreased interest in Christianity, even among those who claim to be Christians. From the perspective of dualistic Christianity, it is more difficult these days to get “lost” people “saved,” and more of the “saved” are rejecting the faith once embraced.

I am convinced that traditional Christianity has to change (in both its conservative and liberal forms) in order to be a positive, redemptive influence in the world. Our basic understanding of God and God’s relationship to the world must become more inclusive, holistic, compassionate, ecological, and reconciliatory or Christianity will increasingly be regarded with both indifference and disdan.

The sad and ironic thing about all of this is that the good news of Jesus—the inclusive message he proclaimed and the compassionate life he lived—is often lost to the very ones who herald him as their Savior.

Some Thoughts on Religious Freedom

2010-06-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

Dr. Fred Craddock tells about the time he was teaching Homiletics and New Testament at a small school in Oklahoma. They were hanging on by their financial fingernails. The president of the school said to Fred, “I’m in touch with a man who is concerned about improving the quality of preaching in Oklahoma. He has a lot of money and I believe he’s going to give a sizable gift to our preaching program. Will you go with me to talk to him?”

Fred was delighted to go, so Fred and the president went to visit the man at his office. He was ready for them; he had the gift ready. He said, “Before we finish this I think we ought to pray.” Neither Fred nor the president prayed. The man prayed. He had the money and he had the prayer. Amen.

He took his pen and was about to sign the check. His lawyer had everything prepared. This was a large donation. But before he signed he looked up and said, “Now, this all goes for the preaching program?” They said, “Yes sir, that’s what it goes for.” He started to write, but paused again and said, “Now, you do understand, none of this goes for women or for blacks.”

The president stood up. Fred stood up. The president said, “I’m sorry, we cannot accept your money under those conditions.” They started to leave. Then the man said, “Well, there are plenty of schools that will.”

And he was right. That man had given to schools and churches over sixty million dollars, but not a penny to women or African-Americans.

In the same way that this wealthy Christian wanted to restrict the preaching ministry to white males, there are many Christians today who would like to restrict religious freedom to Christians.

There are those who get all worked up over the prohibition of public prayer in educational institutions (there is no prohibition on personal prayer; those who pray, however, cannot require others to pray with them). Yet many of the same Christian people who are pushing for prayer over the loud speakers in public schools would get worked up to a frenzy if a Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist led in public prayer.

They want public prayer in school, but only a particular kind of prayer: Christian prayer. But that’s not religious freedom. Being an American is not to be equated with being a Christian and vice versa.

This is why patriotic services make me nervous. Waving the American flag and singing “God Bless America” in the house of worship comes close to idolatry. The Christian view is that “God so loved the world” that he sent Jesus to show us the way into truth and life.

I am glad to be an American and in many ways I’m very patriotic, but authentic Christianity calls for God to bless the world, not just America.

Even if I want to argue that my Christian faith is superior to all other religions and philosophies of life, religious freedom means that I also allow others to believe and argue that their faith or philosophy is superior to mine. Religious freedom means that the freedom I want for myself I concede for everyone else.

When Christians gather as a community of faith for worship, they are there not to pay allegiance to their country (however appropriate that may be in other contexts), but to offer allegiance to the Christ whose kingdom transcends all national, political, and territorial boundaries.

Christians in worship kneel, not before the American flag, but before the cross, the Christian symbol for true spiritual freedom, representing the wisdom and redemptive power of God.

Living the Radical Gospel

2010-06-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

In his autobiography, Brother to a Dragonfly, Will Campbell recounts the experience that confronted him with the radical implications of the gospel of reconciliation. His friend, civil rights worker Jonathan Daniels, had just been gunned down in cold blood by volunteer Deputy Sheriff Thomas Coleman. Will was livid with grief and rage over Jonathan’s murder.

In the aftermath Will’s agnostic friend P.D. East reminded Will of a conversation they had years earlier. P.D. had challenged Will to give him a definition of the Christian faith in ten words or less. Will defined it this way: “We are all bastards, but God loves us anyway.” P.D. now challenged Will’s succinct definition of the gospel.

P.D. tore into Will: “Was Jonathan a bastard?” Will commented on how Jonathan was one of the sweetest, most gentle guys he had ever known. P.D. pressed: “But was he a bastard?” His tone almost a scream. Will knew P.D. had him cornered. Will finally conceded, “Yes.” P.D. came firing back: “All right. Is Thomas Coleman a bastard.” That was easy. “Yes, Thomas Coleman is a bastard.”

P.D. said: “Okay, let me get this straight . . . Jonathan Daniels was a bastard. Thomas Colman is a
bastard. . . . Which of these two bastards do you think God loves the most? Does God love that little dead bastard Jonathan the most? Or does he love the living bastard Thomas the most?”

The truth of the gospel hit Will with such force that Will describes the encounter as something of a conversion experience. Will was overcome with emotion. He found himself weeping and laughing simultaneously. He told P.D.: “Damn, Brother, if you haven’t gone and made a Christian out of me.”

The gospel of reconciliation is a radical gospel; it is offensive to conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike. To think that God loves the Thomas Colemans of the world as much as the Jonathan Daniels’ is hard to take, isn’t it?

I have no doubt this is why so many liberals have equated the gospel with a social cause and so many conservatives have reduced the gospel to going to heaven when we die. Institutional Christianity on both the right and left has a tough time with this radical gospel of unconditional love and grace.

Paul says in his correspondence with the church in Corinth that God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self, not counting their transgressions against them (2 Cor. 5:19). All are loved and forgiven. Thomas Coleman and Jonathan Daniel; Hitler and Mother Teresa. All are God’s children.

How do we live this scandalous gospel? It’s not easy. I know I cannot do it on my own. It’s easy to identify with the victim, but to love the perpetrator of abuse or violence takes more love than I am capable of. I need grace. I need to “know” at the deep, core level of my being, beyond my intellect, the love of God that passes all understanding.

Only through fresh encounters with the Divine Love that pervades and sustains all reality—that we Christians believe became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth—can we find the faith, strength, courage, and hope to love the Thomas Colemans of the world.

A Grand Visison: Universal Reonciliation

2010-05-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

A number of interpreters believe that a disciple of Paul or someone in the Pauline tradition wrote Ephesians and Colossians. This is primarily due to Greek stylistic and language differences, as well as shifts in theological emphases from what is found in Paul’s undisputed letters. When I taught a class on Paul a few years ago I basically held to this position, but have now changed my mind. The language differences are not all that significant and the shifts in theological perspective can be attributed to Paul’s theological development; after all, he was working out his theology on the road.

In both Ephesians and Colossians a dominant theme is reconciliation, and Paul’s teaching on the subject is drawn from the perspective of the cosmic Christ and God’s overarching plan to reconcile all things to God’s self. In Ephesians he says, “With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:8b-10). In Colossians he writes, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20). Echoes of this hope can be found in passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians, where, in Paul’s representative theological perspective, all are justified and made alive in Christ (Rom. 5:12-21) and God becomes all in all (1 Cor. 15:20-28).

In Ephesians, the language of election and destiny is employed to emphasize Paul’s view that this is God’s overarching project/plan for the universe, namely, that all reality, visible and invisible, will be brought together, unified, made whole, reconciled to God and each other through and in Christ. In both letters Paul emphasizes the agency and instrumentality of Christ in this process.

The cosmic Christ is at work in our world in various ways, employing diverse means, engaging in this reconciling work. Like the yeast that leavens the dough, Christ often works anonymously, in hidden ways. The cosmic Christ works through many different religious traditions, mediators, and through non-religious organizations and persons to effect reconciliation. We who are disciples of Christ, especially, are called to engage in the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:16-20).

I am convinced that in time all living reality (which has been given the gift and capacity for immortality) will be reconciled to God and to each other. There are some folks who have been so beaten down in life, so neglected and abused, that their hearts have become hardened and resistant. And unless we have walked in their shoes we have no right to judge them. There are others, who, driven by pride or lust or greed, have become entrenched in evil and seem to have no conscience. But no matter how strenuously they have suppressed the light of God that is within them, it is still there; no matter how deep the traces of God have been buried, the residue of God still abides.

I believe that in time God will be able to draw out the flicker of love and goodness that has been buried beneath all the rubble of hate, violence, evil, and injustice. I have hope that, even those who appear to be entrenched and enslaved to evil, will be saved from the terrible mess they have made of their lives and the lives of others, having opportunity to repent, change, and rectify all the evil they have done.

Philip Gulley and James Mulholland, in their book, If Grace is True, tells about a conservative Christian friend, Harry, who is one of the most compassionate people they know. Harry takes every opportunity to tell of God’s goodness and love, and he creates opportunities by caring for people in whatever ways he can. He’s a good, caring person.

Harry befriended a man who later died of cancer. He did work around his house when his friend was no longer able, and Harry had witnessed to his friend up until his death with no apparent success (that is from his conservative Christian point of view; his friend never made any sort of decision for Christ). At the funeral the deceased man’s wife asked Harry if he thought her husband is in heaven.

Harry said: “I told her that when her husband was lying in that hospital bed unconscious and hooked up to all those machines, I prayed for him. The doctors are always saying people can hear more than we think, so I took his hand and asked him to repent of his sins and accept Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. I told his wife that I believe Jesus was with her husband in those final moments before he died, and I have every reason to hope that he accepted the Lord.”

I don’t know why he would tell her that he had “every reason” to hope that he accepted Christ, since his friend had never indicated any desire to accept his Christian faith before. But Harry gave the widow the very best reply his theology would allow; in fact, he even pushed the limits. Whether it was any comfort to her or not, it was the very best he could do. Harry was more gracious than his theology. He gave her a little thread of hope.

Surly “the riches of God’s grace” that has been “freely bestowed” and “lavished on us” (Eph 1:5-7) offers more than a little thread of hope, thrown to a dying man with the meager prospect that somehow he will latch hold of it. Gulley and Mulholland make this assessment: “Harry’s God was willing to redeem a person even if that redemption came with the very last breath. But sadly, Harry’s God is powerless in the face of death. Those who resist until their dying breath are forever doomed. Death always has the final word.” I don’t believe death has the final word. In light of the death and resurrection of Christ, grace, hope, and life have the final word.

Someone is likely to point out the passage in Hebrews that says that it is appointed for humans to die once, and after that, face the judgment (9:27). But that is only a bad thing if judgment is a bad thing. Judgment, I believe, is that process all of us undergo that refines, purifies, and purges us, making us, like Jesus, more fully human.

Judgment is only something to be feared if the judge is a hanging judge. But according to Jesus the judge is Abba, the compassionate, caring Parent who will go to any extent to save God’s children. In our judicial system it would be a conflict of interest for a judge to be a parent, but not in God’s court. The judge is the one who loves and loves and keeps on loving.

I think the church that practices an open table (Communion), inviting all to participate, reflects the reconciling nature of God. God is constantly beckoning, wooing, and drawing us to God’s self.

In the parable of Luke 15, the father went out and entreated the older son to join the party. You know he left the door open. I don’t buy the apocalyptic version that says there is only a limited time and if one doesn’t change in the time allotted on this earth then one’s case is hopeless.

Our freedom to choose in this life is limited by any number of factors: our family of origin; the time, place, and circumstances of our existence, and the opportunities or lack thereof that affords; our mental and physical abilities; the socialization process, and the total impact of our culture on our thinking. Someone who has suffered an abusive childhood and encountered little love in this world is not as free to respond to the good as someone who has been well loved and cared for. If God’s love is unconditional, then there can be no time limits or constraints on the invitation to embrace the welcome and hospitality of God.

No one, of course, is ever force, manipulated, or coerced; it has to be one’s free decision. Anyone who remains outside the party, like the elder brother in Luke 15, remains so on one’s own accord. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that hell, whatever it may be or represent, is locked from the inside. But if it is locked from the inside, it can be opened anytime one chooses. My hope in universal reconciliation does not deny the need for or reality of judgment, but sees judgment as a restorative, redemptive process, not a punitive, retributive act that separates and excludes one forever.

If, as Paul says, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19), then Jesus’ death is the ultimate demonstration of how far God is willing to go and how much God is willing to bear, to reconcile us to God’s self. God is patient, not wanting anyone to parish, and will bear with us as long as it may take.

Western Christianity Must Change or Remain Irrelevant

2010-05-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

One of the indisputable findings of Jesus scholarship is that Jesus was planted deeply in the soil of first century Judaism; in other words, Jesus was a good Jew. The New Testament as a whole and the Synoptic Gospels, in particular, show the emergence of the Jesus movement within the milieu of Jesus’ Jewish heritage and the connection between Israel’s story and Jesus’ first followers. But Jesus did not adopt hook, line, and sinker every aspect of his Jewish faith and culture.

In many ways Jesus was a deconstructionist, but not simply for the sake of deconstruction. Jesus’ critique of his own religion was motivated by a passion for God (who, he believed, had entered into covenant with the Jewish people for the sake of humanity) and for the good of Israel and all humankind. Jesus deconstructed the faith for the purpose of reconstruction.

Jesus offered new readings and fresh interpretations of the Torah, particularly in regard to divorce, Sabbath law, and the nature of holiness.

Jesus confronted the popular Deuteronomist claim that wealth was a sign of special favor and a reward for obedience. He undermined such teaching by proclaiming that the kingdom of God belongs to the poor, while announcing judgment upon the rich. Jesus clearly exercised a preferential, prejudicial compassion and regard for the poor and oppressed.

Jesus disturbed the Jewish religious establishment, refusing to concede to their authority and claim to be gatekeepers of the tradition, which they employed for the purpose of determining and distinguishing between the “insiders” and the “outsiders.” Jesus interpreted the tradition in ways that were more inclusive and universal. His practice of table fellowship with all kinds of people—tax collectors, prostitutes, and “sinners” (those who did not keep the Jewish law for whatever reason)—and his healings and acts of mercy toward Gentiles subverted traditional Jewish exclusiveness.

Though first century Jewish culture was pervasively patriarchal Jesus was refreshingly egalitarian in his view and treatment of women, calling women disciples, violating cultural taboos, and elevating women to a level of gender equality and mutuality.

While Jesus acknowledged God as a “transcendent Other” familiar to traditional Judaism, Jesus most frequently spoke of and related to God as an intimate “Abba” (loving Father, merciful Parent), who was dynamically engaged in the world, caring immensely about the creation, especially God’s children.

Jesus, in contrast to most traditional Jewish teaching, considered all people to be children of God gathered within the embrace of God’s unconditional love. Jesus pushed the limits of forgiveness and love, instructing his disciples to love their enemies, because in reality, they are their sisters and brothers.

So while Jesus was clearly a first century Jew, living and ministering within that tradition, he refused to accept all the popular and traditional teachings of his Jewish faith. Instead, he charted new territory, broke down barriers, overstepped boundaries, offered courageous interpretations of Israel’s sacred Scriptures, lived a contagious faith, and in significant ways re-imagined God.

I believe that the current state of traditional western Christianity may be comparable to the state of first century Judaism (as it is depicted in the Gospels). And now, as then, critique, deconstruction, and renovation are needed. Jesus’ continuity and discontinuity within his faith tradition, his deconstruction for the purpose of reconstruction, are paradigmatic for emerging, progressive Christianity. There are today a number of elements in traditional, western Christianity that must be deconstructed for the purpose of reconstruction.

Bibliolatry—elevating the Bible to the status of infallibility—a form of idolatry, needs to be deconstructed for the purpose of developing healthier, more holistic and transformative readings and interpretations.

The dualisms of separate identities (“children of God” standing juxtaposed to the “lost,” “unsaved,” the “children of the Devil,” etc.) and separate destinies (heaven and hell) must give way to more inclusive, universal theologies that restore the dignity, worth, and authenticity of persons of other religious faiths or those of no faith at all.

Evangelism that is bent on converting others to traditional Christian beliefs (to one’s own group or way of believing) must give way to acceptance (not just tolerance), welcome, inclusion, partnership, and genuine Christian hospitality patterned after Jesus’ open table fellowship and acceptance of all people.

Apocalyptic ideas of the end (destruction) of the world and the dissolution of the creation must yield to dynamic approaches that affirm the value of and anticipate the renovation of the creation; approaches that emphasize our vocation of being good stewards and collaborators with Christ in the care of the planet and the advancement of universal justice and peace.

In these and numerous other ways traditional Christianity must change if it is to play any significant role in the work of God’s kingdom on earth and the spiritual, moral, and social transformation of this world into God’s new world.

The Rhythm of Discipleship

2010-05-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

The life of Jesus, as presented in the Gospels, demonstrates a rhythm of prayer/spiritual retreat and worldly engagement that, I think, is a key to a healthy, holistic, transformational spiritual life. The pattern of discipleship that Jesus modeled was a pattern of solitude and service. Throughout his ministry Jesus moves back and forth between spiritual retreat and active ministry.

All the Gospels call attention to this movement, but Luke’s Gospel, in particular, places special emphasis on this pattern. It seems that Jesus regularly withdrew from an active, full ministry of healing and teaching to be alone with God.

There are a number of personal, inner disciplines that nurture the spiritual life and many of these overlap: study, spiritual reading, theological reflection, confession, self-examination, silence, solitude, meditation, and of course, the many forms and expressions of prayer.

It is largely through these personal, spiritual disciplines that we find strength to endure the pain of life, the wisdom to guide and sustain us along the way, the courage to cope, and the hope that inspires us not to give up. Through these disciplines of the spirit, we open our lives to the Holy Spirit, to the grace and transforming love of God, and we find the power, motivation, passion, and courage to engage our world as servants and ministers of the living Christ.

Our corporate life together as the body of Christ involves us in this rhythm of retreat and active service. Some of what we do as a church partakes of the nature of retreat; other activities engage us in ministry and compassionate care for others.

I like what was told the stranger who happened to attend a Quaker meeting by mistake. He waited patiently in the Quaker silence for things to get started. Five minutes turned into ten; then when he could bear it no longer he asked the person seated next to him, “When does the service begin?” The Quaker responded, “When the worship ends.” Whatever form our “worship” takes it should connect us with the Divine Love in a way that empowers us to live a compassionate life of kindness and service to others.

Dr. Fred Craddock tells about the time he was a freshman at Johnson Bible College and Rear Admiral Miller spoke in chapel. He was the highest ranking chaplain in the military at the time. He had been at Normandy in June on the day of the slaughter, and he described that experience that evening in the dorm to Fred and some of the others. He explained how he went from soldier to soldier, many screaming, crying, dying, bombs exploding all around, praying for them and speaking words of comfort.

Someone asked him, “With shells going off up and down the beach, everywhere, why did you do that?” He answered, “I am a minister.”

In the course of the conversation someone asked him, “But didn’t you ask them if they were Catholic or Protestant or Jew? I mean if you are a minister . . .” Rear Admiral Miller said, “If you are a minister, the only question you ask is, ‘Can I help you?’”

All Christians are ministers and the most important question ministers ask is not, “What do you believe?” but rather, “How can I help you?” When Mother Teresa ministered to the homeless, dying people of Calcutta she did not ask them what they believed. She knew they were children of God. She helped them to experience God’s love through her kindness and attentiveness. She asked, “How can I help you?” And even when they felt they were beyond help, beaten down so much by life that they did not feel worthy of help, she helped them all the more. And for many under the crushing burden of worthlessness, she helped them feel loved for the first time in their lives, making it possible for them to die with dignity.

It seems to me, that whatever spiritual disciplines we practice, either in personal solitude or corporately with others, we should be compelled to ask, “How can I help you?”

The Bible Is Not an Answer Book

2010-04-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

Just today I received an email from Paula (not really her name; I want to protect the guilty) with SONday Distributors. They had a special deal “for churches only” on “a great Bible.” For just ten dollars each (regular $40 value) we could get a shipment of ANSWER Bibles. That’s right—the ANSWER Bible. Their goal, she said, was “to plant a Bible (I presume she meant an ANSWER Bible) in 10,000 homes, organizations, and establishments in communities across America.” She wanted churches to make a commitment to give them away to “lost” people. Isn’t this typical of dualistic Christianity; it’s always the other who is “lost.” I’m the answer man or woman. I’ve got the truth, brother. Isn’t that what the Southern Baptist Convention is promoting right now with: Find it here! Find what? The ANSWERS, of course. We have the answers, glory be! That implies that we have the questions too. We have the questions and we have the answers. Amen!

Normally I click “delete” not giving this sort of thing a second glance, but for some reason I couldn’t resist the temptation to be a bit sarcastic. This was not one of my best days. So I emailed her back and said: “No thanks, Paula, I’ve heard enough ANSWERS in my day, but if you ever get a Bible that probes people to ask the hard QUESTIONS let me know.” Well, she emailed me back. She wasn’t happy with my response. If she happened to project any of her anger at me onto her husband or boyfriend, I bet he found himself in the doghouse (I can imagine the dazed look on his face; Lord knows, I’ve spent enough time there). She reprimanded me pretty good. And then she ended it with: I say this with the love of Jesus in me. (For some reason I get showered with the love of Jesus a lot). Well, having not been able to resist the temptation initially, I couldn’t resist the second time either; I had to respond. Of course, I did it with the love of Jesus in me.

Personally, I think if we are going to just pass out Bibles willy-nilly we should put a warning label on them: This could be hazardous to your health. What I have discovered is that people looking for answers in the Bible tend to find the answers they are looking for. (You may need to read that again). We all have a tendency to project the answers we want to find into the biblical text.

When we approach a biblical text we bring our biases with us; it’s unavoidable. The biblical authors and communities were no different than us; they too were children of their culture and their faith encounters with the divine were interpreted within the framework of their presuppositions, biases, and worldview.

There are many inspirational and transformative texts in the sacred Scriptures, but there are also not a few demeaning and oppressive texts, and often these can be found in the same biblical book (compare 1 Cor. 13 with 1 Cor. 14:34-35). I know that someone is likely to point out the text that says “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching . . . and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). Keep in mind, though, that the author who said that all Scripture is inspired and useful for training in righteousness is the same author who restricts women from teaching men and instructs women to learn in silence because it was the man who was created first and the woman who was deceived and became a transgressor (1 Tim. 2:11-14).

I can accept the idea that all Scripture is useful for training in righteousness if that means, at times, preaching against the text. The key question that I believe every disciple of Jesus must bring to the text is: Does the text bear witness to the gospel? Does the Scripture bear witness to the unconditional love of God and the universal call to justice embodied in the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Christ? We who proclaim this gospel are called to proclaim the gospel, not the text, and sometimes proclaiming the gospel means preaching against the text.

The Bible is not an answer book, but it can prompt us to ask the right questions, if we approach it honestly, openly, and humbly, grounded in the unconditional love and justice of Christ. The biblical authors, as well as all of us interpreters of the Bible, have biases; it’s part of the human condition. And while we cannot eliminate our biases, if we are honest enough to acknowledge that we have them, the Bible is more likely to become a tool for transformation than an instrument of oppression.

Converting Christians to the Way of Jesus

2010-04-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

Samir Selmanovic, in his book, It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Athiest Jewish Christian, tells about an experience he had on the morning of September 11, 2002. One of the Christian family radio networks had lined him up for an interview. He was mentally prepared to tell about the many ways they had learned to love the city and its people in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks over the previous twelve months.

But while he was waiting to go on the air, he heard the two co-hosts boasting about Christianity, literally patronizing the world. A bit disoriented by what he heard, he realized that he was not ready for the interview at all. He had to quickly rethink what he was going to say; because he knew what they were going to ask. And it came right on schedule: “Pastor, tell us, don’t you find people in New York more ready to receive the gospel after the tragedy? Aren’t they more receptive than ever to the message? Can we take this city for Jesus?”

Selmanovic paused and said, “No. New York is a great opportunity for us Christians to learn. Most of the people here feel that to see the world our way would be a step backward, morally. They see Christians as people not dedicated to following Jesus on earth, but obsessed with their religion. They see us as people who are really not interested in the sufferings on earth like Jesus was but driven with the need to increase the number of those worshiping this Grand Jesus in heaven. They wonder why, of all people, we are the first to rush to solve the world’s problems with weapons instead of patience and humility. I learned,” he told his radio hosts, “that it is we who need to be converted after September 11 to the ways of Jesus.”

The radio personalities didn’t ask for clarification. They quickly changed the subject and cut the interview short, not even halfway through the time allotted. They obviously had no intention of even considering the possibility that their viewpoint could be wrong. “It is we Christians who need to be converted to the ways of Jesus.” says Selmanovic. That offers us a different perspective and opportunity for Christian mission doesn’t it?

In reflecting on his experience Selmanovic says: “I realized that it is our Christian superiority complex that makes us an inferior force in making the world a better place.” It’s true isn’t it? We will not experience the transforming grace and love and beauty of God’s new creation unless we Christians become converted to the ways of Jesus.

The Jesus movement began as a Jewish reform movement outside of institutional Judaism. The Jewish establishment rejected Jesus, especially his practice of open table fellowship with “sinners” and his acceptance of people the establishment found unacceptable. The few within the religious establishment that were attracted to Jesus and his message were mostly too afraid of losing their place and power to publicly identify with Jesus and his disciples.

I suspect that if Jesus could somehow come into the midst of the Christian establishment today the institutional church would mostly reject him the way the Jewish religious establishment rejected him. Institutional Christianity has basically abandoned the way of Jesus reflected so poignantly in the Synoptic Gospels and settled for establishment versions that came into their own under Constantine when Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Renewing the institutional church that has settled for some lesser version of Christianity shaped by our Western/American sense of comfort and security, governed by rewards and punishments, fixated on getting beliefs correct, and oriented around feel-good, self-glorifying, God wants you to be happy and prosperous teaching, is a very difficult and slow process. Trying to get the institutional church to embrace a new vision and change even slightly is like trying to turn around an aircraft carrier. Do not expect any sudden shifts.

Those of us who are committed to the institutional church can easily lose hope, especially those who see the potential in all those resources, if only, as Selmanovic says, we could be converted to the ways of Jesus—the ways of humility, nonviolence, inclusion, simplicity, unconditional acceptance and love, and the difficult path of forgiveness, peacemaking, and reconciliation.

Maybe we institutional church pastors push too hard. The Quaker mystic Thomas Kelley has said that we do not have to save the world; God gives us our portion. I think it was Dallas Willard in his book, The Divine Conspiracy, who suggested starting with the few who are open, teachable, and looking for the opportunity to invest their lives in that which is truly commendable.

We who are institutional church pastors must continue to care for the institution. We will marry and bury the young and the old. We will offer our insights on committee selections and budget planning. We will visit the sick and offer our prayers before surgeries. It’s all part of our day job. It’s not a bad job. We get paid for this; some of us even get paid more than we are worth. But let us, who have caught Jesus’ vision of an inclusive gospel, who have a vision of God’s peaceable kingdom, preach and teach and write with passion. We can seek out the teachable and teach them. Maybe the virus will spread; maybe others will get infected. But that’s not our worry. The seed will grow in its own time.

What Is the Redemptive Meaning of Jesus' Death?

2010-03-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Jesus became a scapegoat to put an end to all scapegoating; he became a sacrifice to put an end to that whole system of offering up the innocent victim. Spiritually, socially, and psychologically humans have always needed to find some way to deal with sin and guilt. Historically, humanity has employed sacrificial systems to that end. In ancient systems of religion human sacrifices were offered to placate the deity (such as the firstborn, the virgin, the only child, etc., but never the adult man; these were mostly, if not all, patriarchal cultures). In the evolution of religious consciousness animals took the place of humans.

It doesn’t seem that our spiritual consciousness has evolved a great deal over the last several millenniums. In this past century the educationally advanced Germans made scapegoats of the Jews and consider all the horrendous scapegoating that took place in the genocides of the past several decades.

We have incorporated the scapegoat mechanism into Christianity by adopting a theory of the atonement that makes Jesus a victim of a stern, punitive divine Magistrate who requires redemptive violence. This is more or less primitive religion Christianized.

This type of infant religion is by its very nature dualistic and inevitably leads to exclusion and violence, because adherents of this type of Christianity think they have to destroy the evil element. Rarely do they see the evil in their own hearts; it is generally projected onto the other. This makes the God of Christians appear violent, vindictive, and petty.

What does Jesus do on the cross? He forgives. He bears the wrath and the hostility of the worldly powers—without lashing out, without vengeance, without returning evil for evil, without projecting fear or hate or evil back onto his persecutors and killers. Jesus exposed the folly and evil of scapegoat religion. As the quintessential “Son of Man,” the archetype of authentic humanity, he publicly exposed the great illusion of evil disguised as “holiness” by the religious gatekeepers and as “securing the peace” by the imperial powers represented by Pilot and the Roman soldiers. Jesus unmasked the true nature of egotistical religious and political power much the way the civil rights marchers who crossed the bridge in Selma, Alabama unmasked the illusion of white supremacy. (And yet consider how many Christians, especially Southern Baptists, bought into the illusion).

And still today we have deceptive versions of Christianity that permit, even encourage, Christians to buy into the illusion that might makes right. Control and manipulative power are legitimate means to an end in such systems. These versions of Christianity are primarily about spreading doctrinal beliefs and influencing the other to conform to their system, or else face God’s wrath; and in their exclusionary system, assuming themselves as the sole possessors of the truth, they have no problem being instruments of divine wrath on the other who does not conform.

In these unhealthy versions of Christianity (such as the kind reflected in the “Left Behind” novels) Jesus’ death is nothing more than a solution to some cosmic judicial problem. In these versions God requires the violent sacrifice of his Son in order to procure forgiveness. This is what evangelical philosopher and theologian Dallas Willard calls a “sin management” system that does nothing to effect real change in an individual or society.

If the life and teachings of Jesus tell us anything about the nature of God it is surely that God has no need for some cosmic, judicial retribution. If God can forgive, then God can forgive. There is no need for a divine payoff, or satisfaction of divine honor, or appeasement of divine wrath. (Ideas normally associated with the theory of substitutionary atonement).

Sin has never been a problem for God; it has been the problem for humanity, preventing us from reaching our potential, fueling greed, the lust for power, and the hoarding of wealth in an alienated and alienating ethos. Jesus did not come to change the mind or heart of God about humanity, but to change the mind and heart of humanity about God, each other, and our world.

Jesus’ death was not demanded by God; it was the logical culmination of a life that challenged the coercive, controlling powers that be with the power of an inclusive, unconditional, humble compassion. In a healthy Christianity it is not Jesus who needs to die, but our ego. We must die to our selfish ambitions, our need to be right and in control, and to all our projections of guilt, hate, and evil onto the other, whoever the other may be.

Jesus’ death becomes the means of our redemption when we follow Jesus to the cross and die there with him; when we refuse to return evil for evil and bear, with Jesus, the evil and hate of the powers that be. Jesus, through forgiveness and non-violence, offers us a way through the darkness, a way to break the cycle of hate and violence, and bring healing and transformation to our personal lives, families, communities, societies, and our planet.

Jesus’ death is not the solution to a problem residing in God; it’s the solution to the problem of evil residing in us. It is the ultimate, prototypical symbol of the nature and reality of God. Its salvific significance is primarily that of a “lure,” inviting us into the mystery and miracle of forgiveness, reconciling grace, and redemptive love.

The Church in Western Culture

2010-03-25T12:54:00.000-07:00

Walter Wink, in The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium writes: “American culture is presently in the first stages of a spiritual renaissance. To the degree that this renaissance is Christian at all, it will be the human figure of Jesus that galvanizes hearts to belief and action, not the Christ of the creeds . . . An in the teaching of Jesus, the sayings on nonviolence and love of enemies will hold a central place. Not because they are more true than any others, but because they are crucial in the struggle to overcome domination without creating new forms of domination.”

It’s interesting how Wink frames his hope in a spiritual renaissance: “to the degree that this renaissance is Christian at all . . .” He doesn’t seem very optimistic that Christians will be leading the way in helping to create God’s beloved community on earth; to help bring in God’s peaceable kingdom. The teachings of Jesus on non-violence and love of enemies will surely serve as a divine lure, a catalyst for change, but will Christians be the ones taking Jesus’ life and teachings seriously?

I believe Christians will be in the forefront of this renaissance; but I doubt if the church will be there. Let me clarify. The church as an institution, that is. Look around at the average church in western culture. What do you see? A force for change? Welcoming, accepting, grace-filled communities? Communities working for justice and peace? Communities that invite questions and dialogue? Communities that cooperate and collaborate with all groups of people, people of other faiths or no faith at all, working for the good of others and our planet? Some churches are, thank God, but these are the exceptions.

Most churches are closed systems; little corporations that exist for their own benefit. Fortresses of dogma; they have their doctrine, policies, and institutional life all carefully regulated and controlled, and they don’t need the help from anyone outside the system. Oh, they will accept people—on their terms; as long as they conform to their beliefs and practices. And this is why most churches have become completely useless and ineffective in partnering with Christ in the realization of God’s peaceable kingdom on earth. Longing for an afterlife, they have given up on this life. Preaching a gospel of escape to heaven, they are quite content in letting the earth go to hell.

When Christ called out a group of disciples, who would later reproduce and organize into churches, he called these disciples to walk in his way (the first disciples were known as followers of “the way”). The way is not the way to heaven. The way is the way to a transformed world pervaded by goodness and grace; it is the way to communities of love, to redeemed and reconciled relationships, to careful stewardship and care for the planet. The way of Jesus is the way of humility, forgiveness, inclusion, and unconditional love.

In some ways the average church has become one of the greatest obstacles to transformation, caught up in its own petty squabbles over doctrine and policy. Mission projects are simply that—mission projects. They ease the conscience without having to take seriously Jesus’ call to take up our cross, die to our egocentricity, and live self-giving, missional lives. Most churches would rather hunker down and protect what they have, than dare to live the risky adventure of breaking boundaries, extending forgiveness, and reaching out to people very different than themselves to help redeem and transform this world. If the church is the bride of Christ, then she has failed to keep her vows over and over and over again.

I believe that the human Jesus, who is also the living Christ, will indeed, galvanize hearts and empower feet and hands in the service of a great cause, creating a spiritual renaissance. But I agree with Wink; it will not be the Christ of the creeds, the Christ of the institutional church, the Christ of western Christians, either conservative or liberal.

Leaving Jesus in order to find Jesus

2010-03-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

Philip Gulley tells about speaking at a church where afterward they had a question-and-answer period. He was asked whether or not he believed in the virgin birth. He knew the motive behind the question, but nevertheless, he had to answer honestly. He chose his words carefully, but explained why he did not accept the orthodox doctrine of the virginal conception of Mary.

Later that day, he received a call from a woman who had been at church that morning. She asked if she could speak to him. Gulley invited her to his house. When she arrived, she was visibly agitated and said that she hadn’t slept the night before for thinking about her response. She said to Gulley, “Now I don’t know what to believe. If I can’t believe the virgin birth, I can’t believe anything.” Gulley pointed out that while he didn’t believe in the virgin birth, she was not required to agree, that many people in the church still believed it, and she was free to affirm it if she wished.”

She then asked why he questioned it in the first place, saying that ministers should not cast doubt on the church’s teachings. Gulley obviously disagreed. He explained, “The purpose of a spiritual teacher isn’t to be a propagandist. It’s my responsibility to discern the truth. Sometimes, I agree with the church’s historic conclusions; sometimes I don’t. When I do agree, I will say so. When I don’t, I will say so, and say why. But my goal will always be the discernment of truth.”

Then he returned to her original statement: “You said if you didn’t believe the virgin birth, you can’t believe anything. But I know many people who don’t believe that doctrine who have rich spiritual lives, who have a profound respect for Jesus, and follow his teachings with real devotion. In fact, I would like to consider myself one of them.”

As she began to share her spiritual journey she confessed that disagreement with the church’s doctrines was an option she had never thought possible. The church she was in discouraged any kind of theological inquiry that deviated from its traditional teachings. As she talked about her faith journey an image came into Gulley’s mind which he shared with her. It was the image of a rose that had never been told it could blossom. The potential was there, the flower had budded, but always stopped just short of blooming.

The woman left her church, stopped going altogether for a while, and then eventually discovered a church whose leadership encouraged spiritual exploration. There she blossomed. When Gulley ran into her again, a new joy infused her life. She said, “It’s funny. My friends in my old church have told me I’ve left Jesus. But it feels like I’ve finally found him.” (If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus)

Is it any wonder why people who have legitimate questions and doubts about the traditional teachings of the church have left the church altogether? How many churches do you know that are safe places, welcoming all kinds of people and all kinds of questions?

Here is a wonderful quote from Rainer Maria Rilke in his book, Letters to a Young Poet: “I beg you . . . to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into an answer.”

Why has the church been so ineffective in helping her members live transformational lives given to the well-being of all people? And why are more and more deep thinking and truth seeking individuals avoiding church altogether? Could it be that the average church has become more interested in proclaiming platitudes and defending certitudes, than loving and living the questions into a dynamic, growing, risky faith?

Adult Religion

2010-03-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

The Talmud tells of a rabbi who hosted a great celebration in his home, inviting all of his friends, family, and followers. A friend inquired about all the singing and dancing when there had been no new birth or marriage. The rabbi explained: “Yesterday, I was going about my business with the elders of the village when a woman approached and asked me to come to her home because her daughter was ill. I could not interrupt my appointment with the village elders, so I told her to go home and wait. When I finally arrived at her home later that evening, the girl had died. Later that night in my home I woke up and prayed: ‘Please let me resurrect the girl tomorrow! If she lives, may my name be taken out of the Book.’ And God accepted my offer. This morning, I went to the girl’s house and resurrected her. And now I am celebrating with my disciples and all of my family and friends.”

“What are you celebrating?” his friend asked.

His face beaming, the rabbi responded, “I am celebrating my freedom. For the first time in my life, I can serve God not for the sake of my rewards but for the sake of my love for God.”

Religion at an infant stage is religion grounded in a system of meritocracy, governed by a modus operandi of rewards and punishments. Religion that requires fear and guilt as motivation for doing what is good and right is not at all attractive or compelling. Religion at this stage of development is dualistic, exclusive, and often judgmental, having very little moral worth or value. The God imagined tends to be vindictive and arbitrary. This kind of religion rarely advances issues of justice for the disadvantaged, peace, and good stewardship and care of the planet. Religion at this level usually focuses on heaven and hell, and is primarily about escaping this world. It is characterized by a clear cut division between the insiders (the saved, those going to heaven, those who possess the truth, etc.) and the outsiders (the unsaved, etc.). As a society grows spiritually the power of this type of religion over the people gradually looses its influence.

Religion that is more life enhancing, affirming, and morally compelling advocates doing what is right and good, because it is the right thing to do. But still, we can go one step further.

The highest form of religion empowers a person or community to do what is right and good, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because the person or community is permeated and immersed in a divine, magnanimous, unconditional love. Mature religion is self-validating; it is egalitarian, holistic, inclusive, transformational, and filled with compassion and grace.

As a Christian I believe that mature Christianity can be a global force for good, greatly contributing to a flourishing life on earth. Unfortunately, a lot of Christianity is stuck at the infant level. Mature religion can transform the world; infant religion can destroy it.

It's Time to Grow Up

2010-02-24T13:22:00.000-08:00

Samir Selmanovic has written a wonderful book titled: “It’s Really All About God.” He shares how his devastated parents tried everything within their power to turn him away from Christianity when he embraced the Christian faith. They recruited one of Europe’s best psychiatrists and over fifty relatives to take their best shot in helping their son get over his infatuation with God. While his parents were not religious, their background was Muslim, and on one occasion they invited Imam Muhammad, a man respected in the Muslim community of their city, to their house to talk with Samir. His parents figured Islam was the lesser of two evils.

Samir says that Muhammad “was the most environmentally progressive and socially conscious person” he had ever met. He was a vegan who walked to his house from the other side of the city, avoiding transportation on principle in order to protect the environment. He was a small gray-haired man with a large smile emanating peace and playfulness.

Samir was expecting some sort of talk on the evils of Christianity and the superiority of Islam and the Quran. Instead, after some initial small talk, Imam Muhammad let time pass in silence. When he could tell that Samir was ready Muhammad stood quietly, walked over to Samir, sat down, and lightly touched his shoulder for a moment. Then he said calmly, “I am glad you are a believer.” And nothing more.

After sitting in peace for a little longer they stood up, and Muhammad opened his arms to invite an embrace. Samir opened his. Samir writes, “He smelled like wooden furniture and soap—old but fresh. Hugging him, I thanked God for giving me this break in life.”

Samir had been converted into a conservative version of Christianity, so neither he nor his parents knew how to interpret what had just happened. Samir’s parents nicknamed the imam “Crazy Muhammad” and word of his foolishness spread in the family. Reflecting on that experience Samir writes, “The grace and truth I had first met at the cross were embodied in this man, who was willing to be taken for a fool in order to make me whole.”

While Muhammad undoubtedly held certain beliefs central to Islam, he also knew that God was much greater than his religion, so he was able to embrace the Christian Samir as his brother. Muhammad personally knew a God who was much larger than any particular way of imagining God. He knew that if he helped foster an image of God who withholds God’s self from people outside one’s own religion, he would not only make God less than Divine, he would make God less than human.

Too many Christians imagine a God who is less than human. Isn’t it time we grow up? Isn’t it time to let go of this divisive notion that we must convert people of other religious faiths to our way of knowing and serving God? Surely the time has come for Christians to let go of images of God that contribute to a polarized and conflicted world.

Making Good Use of the Bible

2010-02-01T10:52:00.000-08:00

Most Christians look to the Bible, especially the New Testament, as their major source for determining what is relevant for a life of faith. This process of discovering God’s will from the Scriptures is not simply a matter of understanding what the biblical writers were saying. We inevitably bring our presuppositions, beliefs, ideas, and biases to the text. Always. Our interpretations of the intended meanings of the biblical writers/communities and our applications of these texts to our contemporary lives are always shaped by our worldview, that is, the theological, social, political, and other cultural perspectives with which we approach the text. Hopefully we are open, honest, and humble enough to acknowledge this and allow two thousand years of Christian tradition, modern science, psychology, and other branches of knowledge, as well as reason and good common sense to guide us in our interaction with Scripture.

Interpreting the Bible as a means of discerning God’s redemptive will is an extremely subjective process. Beware of any preacher who introduces his or her interpretation of the text with an absolute: “God says . . .” I certainly believe that God speaks and communicates through the Scriptures, but determining what God is saying involves a highly tentative and imperfect process of spiritual discernment. On a number of issues of theological, social, and practical relevance the Bible argues with itself, even within the same biblical books. This, of course, makes the Bible easily adaptable as a tool of oppression used to legitimate unhealthy, even destructive and deadly, religious, political, and social practices such as slavery, racism, the subordination of women, gay bashing, capital punishment, etc.. On the other hand, there are passages in the Bible that give witness to the very best of humanity, empowering people of faith to stand up against injustice, to practice peacemaking, forgiveness, and reconciliation, to stand in solidarity with the suffering world, and to give themselves selflessly and sacrificially for the good of others.

A story within the biblical text itself illustrates these two very different uses of the Bible. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus, after his baptism by John, is led by the Spirit into the desert to be tested by the Devil. (Whether one interprets the Devil as a mythological/ symbolical/representational figure or as an actual, non-human, personal power depends largely on beliefs and presuppositions one brings to the text—the point I make above.) Matthew and Luke mention three specific temptations. In response to each one Jesus quotes Scripture. The Devil also quotes Scripture in support of his appeal.

The Devil does not tempt Jesus with evil, but with the good. If Jesus were to turn stones into bread he could eliminate hunger. If Jesus were to dazzle the world with his showmanship and exercise power over the kingdoms of the world then think of all the good he could do. The issue here concerns the means by which a good end is attained. The main issue being: How will Jesus go about God’s business?

When preachers claim that they preach nothing but the Word of God, they do not realize how subjective and biased their own approach is. Quite often those who make such claims are the very ones who proclaim and argue for interpretations and positions that make God look small, narrow, mean, and sometimes just plain silly.

At the risk of being deemed “simple minded” let me offer a simple, common sense rule of thumb. We can hardly go wrong by seeking the most gracious, redemptive, healing, and loving understanding of the text. (Well, our interpretation may be wrong, but at least it will not be destructive. One might ask: Is any interpretation that grows the soul, inspires love, and seeks what is good wrong?) Sometimes this will mean rejecting the text or demythologizing the text or contemporizing the text.

Just because the Bible has been hurtfully employed to validate oppressive policies and practices that control, subjugate, exclude and condemn “the other,” is no reason for tossing this great book aside. Our sacred Scriptures, when interpreted wisely and compassionately offer rich resources for personal, communal, and even global transformation.

Reflections on the Question of Suffering

2010-01-26T07:30:00.000-08:00

In my sermon last Sunday, drawing from James 1:1-8, I talked about how God can use suffering to grow our souls. My theme was that God is in the business of soul making and God uses our sufferings in the process of soul growth and development. What James says about the redemptive value of “trials of diverse kinds,” however, does not cover all forms and expressions of suffering.

There are sufferings of such tragic proportions that it is difficult to see any redemptive value at all. The atrocities committed against “the other” as we have witnessed in Nazi Germany and more recently in Rwanda and Darfur cannot be described in a redemptive way. Even the suffering that follows natures' upheaval such as we are witnessing now in Haiti seem to make no sense whatsoever.

Last night one of the “world news” programs did a piece on the humanitarian efforts of a 78 year old doctor, who is in Haiti now doing all he can to assist and comfort the wounded and hurting. The coverage showed a traumatized boy, 13 or 14, maybe older, who lost his entire family. He had nothing or no one left, except his life. He was so traumatized that he couldn’t speak. The doctor mentioned that the best treatment for him was to have someone with him at all times, someone to make human contact.

It would be hard to find any redemptive value in such pain. There is no clear answer to the suffering caused by such calamities as the earthquake in Haiti and the horrendous evil human beings can do to one another.

No one will ever be able to figure out how God’s power, God’s love, and human freedom all interact and connect. I sometimes wonder with the process theologians if God is not in a process of growth and development like the creation. The idea of an absolute infinite and all powerful God is derived more from Greek philosophy than the Hebrew Bible. The God of Israel is a God who sometimes changes his mind, regrets actions, alters course, etc.(You don’t have to take my word for it, read those stories for yourself—like Exodus 32; you might be amazed at some of the things you find in the Bible if you take the time to read it)

Do I question the goodness of God in light of such suffering? I question a lot of things, but the basic nature of God’s goodness is a non-negotiable for me. I believe God suffers with the creation.

Eli Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz, writes in his book Night: “The SS hung two Jewish men and a boy before the assembled inhabitants of the camp. The men died quickly but the death struggle of the boy lasted half an hour. “Where is God? Where is he?” a man behind me asked. As the boy, after a long time, was still in agony on the rope, I heard the man cry again, “Where is God now?” and I heard a voice within me answer, “Here he is—he is hanging here on the gallows . . .”

God is not a spectator in our suffering; God is a full participant. I believe that we have in the Christian tradition, in the suffering and death of Jesus, the resources to live and cope with suffering. On the cross we have God incarnationally present in the life of Jesus, bearing the hate and cruelty and suffering of the world.

Somehow God is large enough to know both suffering and joy simultaneously. God is able to hold these opposites together—the horrible suffering of the world and the immense beauty and goodness of the world—in ways that we cannot due to our creaturely limitations. We can rarely hold such tensions together, though I have had experiences of joy in times of trial and hardship that I cannot explain other than the Spirit of God.

I sometimes question the extent of God’s power, but I do not question God’s goodness.

Two Kinds of Evangelism

2010-01-25T07:25:00.000-08:00

There are two vastly different Christian approaches to evangelism being practiced today. One can be described as inclusive and invitational; the other is dualistic and confrontational.

The one that is inclusive and invitational is based on the theology that all people are children of God, regardless of their religious faith or lack thereof. All human beings share a common humanity and a common identity as God’s beloved children.

Practitioners of this type do not claim to be in sole possession of the truth or that their way of knowing and serving God is the only way available to human beings. All they know is that it is the best way for them. They are growing in God’s love and becoming more compassionate, responsible, and forgiving persons by following Jesus. They are learning through their discipleship to Christ how to love well, and they are acquiring a larger view of life. They are so grateful for the abundance of life they have discovered they want to invite others to join them on the journey.

Adherents of this approach are characterized by humility and sensitivity to where other people are in their spiritual development. They have no reason to be defensive and they are willing to turn the questions others have onto themselves and their own faith system. Doubt is treated as an ally in the spiritual life, not an enemy. They see no need to push anyone who has no interest. They are able to find some trace of God in all persons.

Practitioners of evangelism that is dualistic and confrontational see themselves as the guardians and emissaries of the one, true way to God. They usually quote Bible passages like John 14:5 and Acts 4:12 in an exclusive way. They believe that their view of Christianity is the only way to find acceptance/salvation with God. So they feel they must convert others to their system of faith.

Christians who take this approach rarely agree among themselves exactly what it is that one must believe about Jesus in order to be saved. Some versions of this approach are extremely restrictive even to the point of labeling other Christians as unsaved because they do not conform to their view about the Bible, Jesus’ divinity, Jesus’ atoning death, etc.

This approach to evangelism is not doing Christianity any good. It is by its very nature exclusivistic and reductionistic. At its very best it pigeonholes God into a narrow belief system, and at its worst it is arrogant, condescending, and judgmental.

God must be larger, greater, more understanding, loving, and compassionate than these narrow versions of Christianity which see their mission as one of rescuing people from hell.

Isn’t it time we grow up spiritually? It is true that we can only see a reflection of God and know God in part, and all our attempts to grasp God and God’s ways fall short, but at the very least we can adopt an adult version of Christian faith. We can put away childish ways and embrace a Christianity that is kind, generous, humble, gracious, hospitable, and good.

The Way Forward

2010-01-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

If our Christianity does not move us beyond our particular Christian group or church or denomination, or our faith system or doctrine, to accept those who believe and practice a different faith than ours, then our faith will most likely be more detrimental than helpful to the work of the kingdom of God on earth. If we cannot embrace others as God’s children without requiring them to adhere to our faith system then we become obstacles, obstructions, barriers to the creation of God’s beloved community.

Our Christian faith should be a resource that compels us to hold our beliefs in humility, to work for peace, to listen to and treat others of different faith traditions with respect, and look for common ground on which we can stand together as children of God. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” said Jesus. “Blessed are those who hunger after justice” (the kind that attends to the inequities of the disadvantaged).

Isn’t it ironic and sad that so many versions of Christianity today have the opposite impact and effect, causing division and promoting inequity? Instead of breaking down walls, creating mutual trust, and building friendships, some Christians who press others to conform and convert to their faith system condemn and dismiss those who refuse to adopt their Christian interpretations. Until we all put on the mind of Christ and value others as much as we value ourselves, until we stop preaching at those who are different and accept and affirm them as children of God, there will be no peace and we who claim to be in the kingdom of God will prevent its arrival.

I received an email once from someone who identified himself or herself as “O1T”—meaning “only one truth.” I’m sure this person not only believed that there was only one truth, but that he or she alone (along with his or her group, church, etc.) possessed the one truth. Everyone else, of course, who differed from their version, would need to align themselves with the one truth. This approach to faith is what makes religion destructive and deadly.

There can be no peace, their can be no beloved community, the kingdom of God will not be realized on earth until we are all convinced that every person, whatever one’s faith or religious affiliation, whatever one’s ethnic origin, culture, or social state, whatever one’s mental or physical abilities or disabilities, is a child of God, precious and loved, and that every person—wherever they live, or whatever they believe—has access to God.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was imprisoned by the military dictatorship of Argentina and spent eighteen months in solitary confinement. As we would expect he went through periods of depression and experienced feelings of outrage, but he ultimately decided that if he were set free he would not seek revenge but work to bring in a new order, where people could live in peace and dignity and where life would be deemed sacred.

In the months after his release he struggled to live up to this vision. The words of Jesus from the cross kept haunting him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” These words made no sense to him; surely, he reasoned, they new exactly what they were doing. But then it dawned on him. What did his torturers and oppressors not know? They did not realize that they had imprisoned and were mistreating a brother, not an enemy. There were all children of God and the only way he could communicate this truth would be to forgive them and pursue a course for peace.

Until we accept this basic theology that transcends all religion, nationality, and culture and seek constructive ways to embody it, it is not likely that we will make progress creating a world where there is mutual dialogue, trust, friendship, justice, and peace.

The Need for an Inclusive Faith

2009-12-28T09:15:00.000-08:00

I believe that the more inclusive one’s Christian faith becomes (or for that matter any religious tradition) the more transformative and real and spiritually healthy it becomes.

The more dualistic a faith is the more its adherents concern themselves with who is “in” and who is “out,” who is “saved” and “unsaved,” and in the more fundamentalist versions of Christianity this means separating those who are going to heaven from those who are going to hell.

Dualistic believing Christians employ different methods and criteria in determining who is in and who is out. The criteria may include church membership, baptism, believing certain doctrines, adopting certain formulas like saying the sinner’s prayer, etc. For example, I have a Christian friend who was labeled “unsaved” by some of his more conservative Christian friends because he doesn’t believe in the virgin birth.

Certainly I believe that church membership, baptism, Christian doctrine, etc, have their place, but I am convinced that a strong dualistic orientation toward life and God will only continue to kindle animosity and division. Dualistic religion is killing us—literally.

I don’t mean to suggest that our differences have no significance; they do and there is a place in religious dialogue to talk about them and even debate them in a context of mutual respect and friendship. The more inclusive I become, however, the less importance I attach to specific doctrines and the more I look for what I have in common with other Christians and persons of other religious faiths.

Priorities and emphases differ significantly between dualistic/exclusivistic Christians and those with a more inclusive orientation. For example, for many dualistic oriented Christians evangelism basically means getting other people to believe what they believe (which of course for many is the “only” way to believe) and converting them to their faith system, which is often connected to the afterlife—saving them from God’s wrath, hell, etc. and promising heaven.

For more inclusive oriented Christians evangelism means sharing God’s unconditional love and forgiveness, and inviting persons to become disciples/followers of Christ as the way to discover, experience, embody, and live God’s love and grace.

I certainly believe in life after death, but I also believe that God will never give up on a person. This gives a much different slant to God’s judgment, imagining it as more restorative and redemptive, and less punitive and condemnatory.

When I was more dualistic in my faith the key question was: Are my beliefs correct and how do I get others to believe the right things? Now that I am more inclusive in my thinking the key question is: How can I fall in love with an unconditionally loving God and share this love with others?

If our primary interest in Christianity is to secure our own fate (make sure we are going to heaven when we die), then our commitment to God is grounded and pervaded by our passion for self-preservation. Such self-interest is a far cry from the kind of self-giving love manifested through the life and death of Jesus Christ. Many dualistic versions of Christianity are simply Christianized versions of “the survival of the fittest,” prompting believers to embrace the faith out of self-interest or group solidarity (it’s important not to break the family/tribal circle).

When we impose our either-or mentality onto God, then God ends us looking awfully petty and needy. When we make “our” way God’s way, and then claim that it is the “only” way, we are not only trying to manipulate and force God into our way of thinking, we make God look as narcissistic and manipulative as we are. Richard Rohr observes that our tendency is “not to see things as they are, but to see things as we are.” We constantly project our fears and egoism onto God. Dualistic religion is more apt to fashion God in our image than more inclusive approaches.

Because religion is such a potent force in the world I think that the future of our planet hinges upon humankind’s capacity to grow up spiritually, to recognize the divisiveness and destructiveness of dualistic religion, and embrace a more inclusive gospel that really is “good news.”