photo

The Secret to Breakthrough

June 17, 2013 — 2 Comments

One night before bedtime, my three year old Gemma and I were talking and the subject of worrying came up. It was a teachable moment, so I put on my best dad-to-kid pontificating voice and explained the concept ever so wisely. I carefully conveyed that we all worry sometimes, and that’s OK. It was all going so well until Gemma interrupted:

Gemma: Do you worry sometimes?

Me: Yeah.

Gemma: Well, you just have to be patient, Daddy. You just have to wait.

Me: …

Teachable moment, indeed.

The secret to breakthrough isn’t hidden in a health and wealth sermon or the latest Christian self-help book. It’s found this simple, gentle rebuke from a three year old.

You just have to be patient.

You just have to wait.

Don’t worry.

Breakthrough will come.

In Life, Theology , , ,
permalink

Richard Rohr on Homosexuality & Fundamentalism

June 17, 2013 — 1 Comment

tycho16web2_905_905

The following is from Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation yesterday:

In recent years and elections one would have thought that homosexuality and abortion were the new litmus tests of authentic Christianity. Where did this come from? They never were the criteria of proper membership for the first 2000 years, but reflect very recent culture wars instead. And largely from people who think of themselves as “traditionalists”! (The fundamentals were already resolved in the early Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed. Note that none of the core beliefs are about morality at all. The Creeds are more mystical, cosmological, and about aligning our lives inside of a huge sacred story.) When you lose the great mystical level of religion, you always become moralistic about this or that as a cheap substitute. It gives you a false sense of being on higher spiritual ground than others.

Jesus is clearly much more concerned about issues of pride, injustice, hypocrisy, blindness, and what I have often called “The Three Ps” of power, prestige, and possessions, which are probably 95 percent of Jesus’ written teaching. We conveniently ignore this 95 percent to concentrate on a morality that usually has to do with human embodiment. That’s where people get righteous, judgmental, and upset, for some reason. The body seems to be where we carry our sense of shame and inferiority, and early-stage religion has never gotten much beyond these “pelvic” issues. As Jesus put it, “You ignore the weightier matters of the law—justice, mercy, and good faith . . . and instead you strain out gnats and swallow camels” (Matthew 23:23-24). We worry about what people are doing in bed much more than making sure everybody has a bed to begin with. There certainly is a need for a life-giving sexual morality, and true pro-life morality, but one could sincerely question whether Christian nations and people have found it yet.

Christianity will regain its moral authority when it starts emphasizing social sin in equal measure with individual (read “body-based”) sin and weave them both into a seamless garment of love and truth.

What do you think? Is Rohr providing some needed perspective here about social vs. individual sin? Is he affirming enough? Too much? Would love to hear your perspective!

In Church, Theology , , , , , , ,
permalink
Screen Shot 2013-06-14 at 3.29.23 PM

This is How a Real Leader Addresses Abuse

June 14, 2013 — 4 Comments

My friend Eric Olsen posted this video, and I could not help but think about the ongoing Sovereign Grace Ministries scandal and the weak, hedging responses by leaders of Together for the Gospel and The Gospel Coalition. Lately, I’ve been tweeting Tim Keller, the Vice President of TGC whose name was absent from their terrible statement, to speak out with clarity and common sense on this matter. How great would it be for a leader like TK to offer a statement like this general?

Indeed, it would only take a bit of “moral courage.”

C’mon, Tim. Prove that you can be better than all the rest.

In Church, Culture , , , , , , ,
permalink
IMG_3050

Smokin’ Hot Conversations: Elizabeth Morrow on Modesty

June 14, 2013 — 5 Comments

All summer long, I’ll be running a series of guest posts here on the blog called “Smokin’ Hot Conversations.” These will be posts about gender, relationships, power, and the church, meant to move us to deeper reflection and conversation about the often distracting or harmful messages in Christian culture. Elizabeth Morrow joins us this week with a post about modesty messages in the church, which often become harmful and may even perpetuate rape culture. She’s a style blogger from Tacoma, WA, and she also does graphic design and photography. Learn more about her here.

And if you’d like to contribute to this series, drop me a line.

—

A style blogger navigates the waters of modesty, rape culture, and responsibility. For real, you guys.

Elizabeth Morrow

Lately the concept of modesty has been on my mind. Between current events like the Stubenville rape case and pieces like Zach’s Smokin’ Hot Wives post, and the stories of countless women experiencing rape culture and objectification, modesty is a concept that seems to be subtly at the center of things.

I don’t think about modesty on a daily basis these days, as modesty isn’t something I strive for when I’m getting dressed, but the idea of modest dressing seems to be brought up whenever the topic of rape is brought up. How much cleavage was showing? Was her skirt long enough? Were here heels too high?

Continue Reading…

In Church, Culture , , , , , , , , ,
permalink
salt n pepa 510f00199631f

Prodigal Sex (or, Will the Real Anabaptists Please Stand Up?)

June 13, 2013 — 8 Comments

This is my contribution to Signpost 8: Prodigal Relationships in the Prodigal Christianity Blog Tour. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of my full review of the book. And here are the other entries in the Tour:

Signpost 1: Post-Christendom
Signpost 2: Missio Dei
Signpost 3: Incarnation
Signpost 4: Witness
Signpost 5: Scripture
Signpost 6: Gospel
Signpost 7: Church

Without further ado, let’s get to Signpost 8.

—

Yeah, this chapter in David Fitch and Geoff Holsclaw’s book is called “Prodigal Relationships,” but I used the admittedly more clickable Prodigal Sex as the title for this post.

And that’s because Signpost 8 talks about sex.

Specifically, this chapter deals with the “sexual issues” and “sexual brokenness” that define our post-Christendom context in North America, the far country that God is calling the church to enter into in a prodigal way in order to redeem that which is lost. And let’s be honest, there is no hotter hot-button topic, culturally speaking, than the topic of sexuality and, specifically, non-traditional sexuality – prodigal sex. Though I’ve expressed gripes with a couple of the ways the authors approached their argument on this topic, I find myself cheering at the big proposal they are making here.

Namely, Dave and Geoff are urging the church to adopt a “welcoming and mutually transforming” posture toward people who express a range of opinion, orientation, or brokenness in the area of sex:

We need to open these spaces in the midst of our lives for sexual redemption. Such a space will invite everyone together with whatever sexual issues he or she carries. We will not consider sexual issues from a distance as if we could make a pronouncement on a single issue and have that somehow solve everything. Instead we will come together locally and commit to love one another, listen to one another, and submit to one another through the work of the Spirit and the word of the Scriptures. We will seek the presence of Christ so that his rule might break in and become visible in our lives. His authority will be made clear through mutually submitting to the gifts of the Spirit. We will ask what is going on in the depths of our lives, our sexual histories, our hurts, our pains. Then we will ask, What is God saying to us? What is God doing? What is God calling us to in these things?… We call these kinds of communities “welcoming and mutually transforming” rather than “welcoming and not affirming” or “welcoming and affirming.”

It is probably apparent that the main “issue” in view is the question of gay relationships and gay marriage. And the spirit behind the welcoming and mutually transforming proposal is a removal of the ideologies (affirming OR not affirming) that tend to close the door to LGBT folks or divide/define the church over opinion on these issues. To remove any visible labels to either effect is to essentially release the work of Jesus the Head in the midst of the community by the Spirit, so that all of these matters may be discerned as people submit to Jesus, the scriptures, the gifts of the Spirit, and each other. Good examples of this kind of discernment/transformation practice are given in the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s approach to polygamy in foreign missions, and in the way the authors’ own congregation, Life on the Vine, has discerned issues like women in pastoral leadership.

At the same time, Dave and Geoff are clear that in their church there’s a general consensus that gay practice is not “normative” for Christians. There is an underlying traditional view of sexuality, and there is thus a gravitational pull toward that center in the life of the community. Yet, despite the claims of some reviewers, the authors are clear that transformation goes both directions, as we are all sexually broken and all in need of wholeness that may come from submitting to each other. Thus, we may have a great deal to learn about intimacy, love, care, and friendship within the sexes from our gay neighbors in the church as we listen in mutually submitted friendship.

The Spirit will bring change and healing to all of us when there is a safe place of acceptance, and that’s a beautiful thing.

But I want to add a further challenge to this welcoming and mutually transforming proposal.

In order to really, truly do away with the ideologies that exclude and divide, and to provide actual safety and acceptance, I believe the church must get its hands out of the legal fight against gay marriage.

This is how my former church plant, Dwell, discerned that issue here in Vermont (the first state to legalize gay marriage through the legislative process). We realized that associating our church’s identity or mission with a legal position that excluded a large number of our friends and neighbors from the civil rights that are granted to those in committed, permanent, straight relationships was contrary to the gospel call of equality, fairness, and welcome at the table. We discerned that gay folks coming into our church community or simply observing from the outside would know, right off the bat, that we were against them if we were literally taking this legal position against them. Moreover, in a positive sense, we knew that the gospel was calling us to be for them and to stand with them as they pursue their civil rights.

We also nuanced the difference between legal marriage and sacramental marriage in our evangelical context, and decided that we would cast a traditional vision of marriage as a sacramental practice of our church, even as we affirmed the right to legal marriage for our gay friends.

And so, in my excitement and fervor for the welcoming and mutually transforming proposal put forward by Dave and Geoff in Prodigal Christianity, I ask:

Will the real anabaptists please stand up?

Will the real destroyers of idolatrous ideology please stand up?

Will the real subverters of the state’s marriage to the church’s politic please stand up?

Will the real holistic gospelers who affirm justice and equality and true personhood as part of the good news please stand up?

Because we can stand up and yet remain rooted in our evangelical commitment and passion.

And if we do, we just might see Jesus create a prodigal church that welcomes and mutually transforms, even as it accepts all people with the unconditional love of the Prodigal God.

—

What do you think about Dave and Geoff’s “welcoming and mutually transforming” proposal? And what do you think about my challenge? Weigh in!

In Church, Culture, Reviews
permalink

Patton Oswalt & Prodigal Sam – A Love Story

June 12, 2013 — 19 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-06-11 at 12.57.04 PM

Have you heard about that thing that happened with that comedian Patton Oswalt and that dude on Twitter who does funny tweets called @prodigalsam?

How Sam supposedly, like, stole a bunch of jokes from other Twitter comedians and so somebody made a Tumblr about it and then Patton Oswalt started calling Sam a “thieving hack” and stuff? And then this giant controversy broke out on Twitter and in the media and even Salon did an interview with Sam to get his side of the story? And then Sam quit Twitter?

It was crazy.

Anyway, it got me thinking about this Synchroblog we’re doing in The Despised Ones blogging collective on the topic of leadership, celebrity, and power in the church. Actually, it got me thinking about the book of Philippians. And how we might learn from Sam, a PCA campus minister from South Carolina, and his recent experience, about what it means for followers of Jesus to practice the same kind of kenosis the Messiah modeled in his life and death when faced with matters of fame, celebrity, and power.

But first, it got me thinking about how Patton Oswalt is a lot like the apostle Paul in Philippians. Now, I know PO probably doesn’t want dudes like me dragging him into religious illustrations on God-blogs, but seriously, the similarity is kinda striking. Writing from prison, Paul says in chapter 1:

There are some, I should say, who are proclaiming the king because of envy and rivalry; but there are others who are doing it out of good will. These last are acting from love, since they know that I’m in prison because of defending the gospel; but the others are announcing the king out of selfishness and jealousy. They are not acting from pure motives; they imagine that they will make more trouble for me in my captivity.

Patton called out dubious motives and actions in Sam’s self-promoting online presence. (And from that Tumblr, it seems legit.) He saw Sam as trying to steal a piece of other comedians’ pies, much like Paul had these leaders running around in the churches trying to steal some of his celebrity, too. And Paul wasn’t exactly unaffected by it all – he was in prison, suffering, and people were trying to take advantage, to ruin his reputation, to “dethrone” him, as it were, so that when and if he got out he would find an unwelcoming church and a leader-ship that had sailed (see what I did there?). It was unjust and unfair because Paul had earned his place of influence through faithful work. It was hurtful and wrong.

Which is why Paul’s next statement is so incredible:

So what? Only this: the king is being announced, whether people mean it or not! I’m happy to celebrate that!

Really? In the midst of the very real pain Paul was probably feeling, and his clarity about the injustice of it all, he manages to arrive at a point of release – So what! As long as some people are being helped toward Jesus, then whatever. I can celebrate that, at least! Paul was not giving up his point here, but he was giving up his pride and power. And in the process, he was subversively taking power away from the people who wanted to hurt him, opening up better possibilities.

Now, my goal here is not to moralize about the outcome of this controversy, as if Patton should have consciously been following the example of the apostle Paul. I’m sure that’s not really on his agenda. In fact, given this situation, I completely understand Patton’s response; as my friend Kevin said, “PO is generous w/ other comedians: he mentors, produces, etc. That’s why he feels a responsibility to defend the industry: he has a leadership role.” Makes so much sense.

But perhaps the real lesson happens on the side of Sam, who is, in fact, a Christian leader with a degree of celebrity, power, and influence (even if it is less than Patton Oswalt’s). That is, Sam is following Jesus, and people are watching how he follows him. And when other prominent leaders are publicly caught in the wrong, or questioned in their theology or behavior, people are watching how they follow Jesus, too. Will the defenses go up? Will things be explained away? Will there just be a stronger counterattack or a bunch of PR spin or whatever?

Or will it look more like this from chapter 2:

This is how you should think…because you belong to the Messiah, Jesus:

Who, though in God’s form, did not
Regard his equality with God
As something to exploit.

Instead, he emptied himself,
And received the form of a slave,
Being born in the likeness of humans.
And then, having human appearance,

He humbled himself, and became
Obedient even to death,
Yes, even the death of the cross.

This self-emptying (kenosis) posture is the opposite of that dodgy defensiveness that rises up all too often when leaders have influence, power, or fame. This cruciform attitude is one that yields, releases, hears disagreements, engages people with openness, admits failure, and, in the words of my friend Stephanie, says “yeah, woops, sorry.” It is not a total abandonment of opinion or conviction or passion, and never an abandonment of the truth, but a sense that conversation is good and honesty is best and even if there are bad motives coming from the other side, it’s good to say sorry. It is a powerless kind of power, and a leadership that leads without dominating.

In fact, going back to chapter 1, I think both Patton Oswalt and Prodigal Sam would benefit from Paul’s humble confidence in the midst of opposition:

Yes, and I really am going to celebrate: because I know that this will result in my rescue, through your prayer and the support of the spirit of King Jesus. I’m waiting eagerly and full of hope, because nothing is going to put me to shame. I am going to be bold and outspoken, now as always, and the king is going to gain a great reputation through my body, whether in life or in death.

On one hand, a person like Sam can be open and humble and admit wrongdoing without giving up confidence in themselves and in their calling. And on the other hand, a person like Patton can be truthful and hurt and angry about suffering wrongdoing without spiraling into meanness and nastiness. So there is encouragement for both Sam and Patton here, and any of us who may find ourselves with a degree of influence or fame: release pride and power – and, be confident.

Be bold.

Be outspoken.

Continue to lead.

For followers of Jesus, this is the cruciform way to approach all of these things, the self-emptying kenosis way, the way that honors the one we are following by subverting the politics and power plays that are usually behind these situations, even as we continue to lead faithfully, opening up surprising possibilities.

You know, I’d like to think that if there was a little more humility to stop things from escalating, and the ability to quickly admit fault and failure, this story could have ended up being a love story.

And maybe there’s still hope.

For real, you guys.

photo

—

This is my entry in The Despised Ones Synchroblog this week on “Leadership, Celebrity, and Power in Light of Philippians 2.” Check out the other entries on the Facebook Page. Also, I’d love to  hear your thoughts on the post!

In Culture, Theology , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink

One Hell of a Motivator

June 11, 2013 — 24 Comments

e40d9d7240ff2f8ef1f5a0a75a808bfb
graphic: sebastien cuypers

Let’s be honest: blogging about hell just isn’t that hot anymore.

Love Wins is now well over two years old. The battle lines over North American (mainly, neo-reformed) evangelical orthodoxy have been drawn in bold print and ALL CAPS. Universalism, however “hopeful” it may be, has been roundly condemned, if not dismissed, as a heterodox innovation for wussy coward Christians who just don’t have the spine for preaching a Jesus who doubles as a concentration camp warden in the world to come.

But listen. I just watched Kevin Miller’s Hellbound? documentary, and all the fiery debate came rushing back to memory. Along with some fresh insight and inspiration regarding the goodness of God and the gospel.

So here’s another blog post about hell, even if it’s totally two thousand and late.

The insight and inspiration have to do with motivation. Because that’s the role that hell serves in our modern evangelical framework, right? Hell is the ultimate motivator – it (literally) lights a fire under our asses and gets us believing, obeying, serving, and tithing. My old Baptist pastor used to warn the congregation that the only real proof of salvation and election – and getting out of hell – was “love of the brethren,” serving and giving to the church. See, hell motivates.

And really, hell gets us salvation. Hell gets us heaven. We can’t even fathom the latter without the former, and the latter is defined almost entirely as the negation of the former. As one popular evangelical radio host said in the documentary, the whole panoply of scripture is pointing us to one thing: hell and the way of avoiding it.

So what would happen if we lost it?

What, then, would motivate us – why would we believe or obey or anything else?

And how on earth would we begin to understand salvation and heaven and gospel and all that stuff?

First off, it should immediately strike us as problematic that this one card brings the evangelical house down. But if that’s not enough, something else should trouble us: context. Specifically, the fact that not one famous conservative evangelical leader (like, say, Mark Driscoll) who promotes eternal conscious torment (ECT) can seem to respond to the strongest first-century contextual points made by the very best New Testament scholars, to the tune that the Gospels are primarily concerned with the judgment and destruction immediately approaching the Judean community in 70 A.D. Instead, they simply keep beating the same systematic drum: everyone who fails to come to faith in Christ is a sinner who will be tortured for all eternity in hell, and Jesus talked about it all the time. Full stop.

And the big motivator keeps firing away, and the institutions keep humming along, and the faithful remain obedient and committed.

But see, I think there’s a better motivator that will lead us to a better church.

And it requires that we lose hell, at least as we’ve known it. It requires that we rescue Jesus from the concentration camp gig that he never signed up for in the first place. It requires that we counter Dante and Augustine and Edwards with a truly human, world-and-life-affirming, divinely perfect justice – one that does not confuse the oppressed with the oppressors and does not sentence unbelieving Jewish Holocaust victims to a far worse and forever holocaust shortly after death in hell’s darkness and fire. One that doesn’t jump through ideological hoops and lean on intellectual formulae to justify inhumane injustice that contradicts even the most basic valuing of human life. This madness simply does not square with what we know of God through Jesus the Liberating King.

Because honestly, that hellish motivator often mechanizes a diabolical culture of abuse in the church as we know it. It elicits action from us by striking fear into us. It inaugurates leaders among us who hold the keys to our elect escape hatch and who may just see fit to bar the door in order to get the submission they want from us. (It at least gives them unthinkable power.) It creates a culture of us vs. them and in vs. out, and legitimates the demonizing of regular, beautiful people because of ideological differences. It paints a fundamentally angry God who only loves the lucky.

And it beats a false, guilty gratitude into us using the age-old hammer of shame.

Yes, we need better motivation.

And I propose that the better way is new creation.

The motivator of new creation just might replace the old culture of shame and abuse with the goodness of God and the gospel. It just might pull the church forward into her flourishing for these next 500 years of her history by making salvation so much bigger than the negation of torment, and so much better than the avoidance of punishment. Instead, new creation casts a vision for healing in the world and in ourselves that is rooted in the singular life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus the Liberating King and therefore guaranteed to come to fullness and fruition in the restoration and reconciliation of all things. It is a way of seeing the world that changes the world not through threat of torment but the audacity of hope (to borrow a phrase).

New creation draws us into a story whereby those who come to faith in Messiah and are baptized into his church repent of the ways in which we contribute to the hell, to the destruction, that is already underway in ourselves and the world around us, and instead seek healing and peace. It transforms us precisely by removing the fear of meaninglessness and death that seems to plague our darkest experiences in a broken world. But conversion in this paradigm does not suddenly make us better than others, nor even ideologically superior, but rather uniquely called to humbly extend this hope of guaranteed healing of all that is broken through the decisive and subversive victory of Jesus over sin and death. And this, not because every Tom, Dick, and Mary deserves to burn forever in hell and only Christians have the keys to the escape hatch, but rather because the whole world and every person in it, just like us, is engulfed in some hell or another right now, leading to death, and there is still true, ultimate hope in the midst of it all, through Jesus and Jesus alone.

Thus, the motivation of new creation is not avoidance but invitation. Not shame but ongoing, unfolding freedom. Not fear but love and grace, plain and simple.

The documentary that inspired me to bring hell back in this post argued for an evangelical kind of universalism – and I so appreciated the cogent and convincing way in which that view was put forward. But technical universalism (where everyone is saved for eternal life in the end) is not even a necessity if new creation is guiding us. Rather, God’s perfect justice becomes the sure and certain truth to hang our hat on – he will judge with justice, in accordance with the nature of the deeds actually committed. That abusers and oppressors and those who wreak havoc and destruction will not enter the fullness of new creation in the end is not a bane but a comfort, as exclusion is necessary for true embrace. It’s a safety; God is not soft on these things, and his love requires anger toward injustice.

Yet, we do not know the extent of God’s inclusion, either. The goodness of God and the gospel inspire us to believe that while assurance of entrance into the fully redeemed world to come rests in trusting and following Jesus now, while there is still breath in our lungs, the covenant-maker is Jesus and he decides the terms on who gets grafted in. This is at least a hopeful inclusion; and it makes room for hopeful universalism too.

The point is, none of this entails the motivation of a cruel concentration camp with a torturous warden. 

Because a better church is one that worships a fundamentally loving God who has begun to make all the broken things new already, and will set all things right in the end, and gives us a hope unlike anything else available in all the world.

A church on fire with a passion for new creation.

Which is, of course, one hell of a motivator.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! /2Cor.5

–

So, what do you think? Have I fully abandoned the waters of orthodoxy for the desert of heresy? Or am I onto something here? Would love to hear your thoughts/pushback!

In Culture, Design, Theology , , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink