An Anabaptist Vision for Economic Sharing: Pt 2 Deconstruction and a Frog

In this first section, I will attempt to deconstruct a bit of what we consider to be “normal” and “truthful” through a simple illustration.  Maybe it doesn’t work, but it helps bring clarity to some of my thinking.

    Along the lines established by the introduction, there’s an ancient story I have heard of…well…it’s ancient to me because there’s never been a time where I have not consciously known of this story, and the situation seems to be the same with my mother and father, and their parents as well.  And at least three generations makes the story ancient, doesn’t it?  The story has three elements (water, a pot, and a frog) and two different situations (in one the water is boiling, and in the other it slowly heats to boiling).  As the story goes, if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out again (it “knows better” than to stay there; its life is in danger!), but if you throw a frog into a pot of water, then slowly warm the water to boiling, the frog will stay in the water and cook to death (I thought it “knew better” than to stay there; its life was in danger!). 

As a child, I got some sort of sick delight out of hearing that story, and even consciously remember saying to myself, “What a dumb animal!  How could he stay in the midst of something that was killing him?!”  As I’ve grown older and reflected on that story, though, my triumphant description of the frog as “dumb” is much more muted, because in many ways I can now see much of myself and others in that frog. 

     If we expand the story of the frog into a much wider arena than a pithy proverb, it begins to reveal a deeply incisive truth. In the arena of human society, for example, every people group across the face of this world has a unique take on what is “reality,” “truth,” the “good life,” and what is “normal.” 

     As a concrete example, the latter half of the 20^th century was marked by a struggle of two economic systems (capitalism and communism) for global ascendancy.  This struggle became so tense that some people groups developed whole theories (one theory known by a parlor game of black rectangles with white dots) on how to stem the tide of the opposing ideology.  For communists, it was “obvious” that communism provided the best approach for the “good life,” and they had all kinds of reasons why it was “good.”  For capitalists, it was “obvious” that capitalism provided the best approach for the “good life,” and they had all kinds of reasons why it was “good.”  Both sides then proceeded to demonize the others’ systems to the point that they were willing to kill for the sake of what was “obvious” to them. 

     This simple illustration above shows a basic conundrum of life:  how do we know what is really “good” and “true” (what is “reality”)?  Both communists and capitalists seemed to come at their beliefs with integrity.  This illustration, I would suggest, suggests that our belief of what is really “good” and “true” is conditioned by a variety of factors and shaping influences.  Otherwise, how could two different groups of people arrive at radically different conclusions?  At the very least, we must confess that what we assume to be “true” is in fact a result of us being intimately shaped in various ways by our society to pursue certain things, to assume certain things, and to order our lives in various ways.  And the sum total of these beliefs is a life that we and others most like us call “normal” (which then enables us, if we’re lazy or naïve, to look at others not like “us” and call their different approach “abnormal,” because we “clearly” have a deeper perspective on what is objectively “normal”). 

The frog story then truly does have something to say to us here.  If we can imagine the various orderings of society in the story, the greater societal forces that have shaped us have a structure (the pot) and messages the forces disseminate on what is normal (the water); and from the moment we are more than a twinkle in our parents’ collective eye, we are educated, enculturated into a way of life that is “normal.”  These different influences stretch from the wider (global influences, theories on the ordering of goods) to the more specific (parental guidance, everyday experience).  Literally, we are so deeply enmeshed in our societies’ ways of seeing that we often don’t even know how deeply we have been shaped by them.

An Anabaptist Vision for Economic Sharing: Pt 1

This past semester in school, I worked on a project with a fellow student and great friend Dustin Miller.  Dustin and I have both been deeply impacted by what has come to be known as the New Monastic movement, and both found the book 12 Marks of a New Monasticism to be both practical and convicting as an excellent introduction to understanding the movement.  

    Essentially, New Monasticism is the result of a profound dissatisfaction persons have with the Christianity they have been presented with in our society; one that spends most of its time talking about life after death and virtually ignoring what kind of impact Christ has on life before death.  Persons dissatisfied with this brand of Christianity have been driven elsewhere; some to a place of cynicism, some to emptiness, some to despair, some to just knuckle under to the things are in Christianity…but a courageous few in their dissatisfaction have been driven back to the Scriptures that are supposedly the foundation of Christian faith, and have found a Bible shockingly different than the one portrayed most often in their “churches.”  A group of folks with this courage to keep struggling for truth got together in Durham, NC in 2004, discerned some of their common interests as disciples of Jesus, and called those interests the “12 Marks.”  

    As far as my context goes, Dustin has been a great friend for me because he’s been a safe place for my ventings and tentative explorations beyond Christianity-in-America-as-is (and hopefully I’ve been able to serve as a safe place and sounding board for him).  As we have sought to go deeper together, we ended up in a class together and Dustin floated the idea that we each pick a chapter in “12 Marks”and write about how our Anabaptist heritage speaks into the New Monastic movement.  I picked the chapter written by Shane Claiborne entitled “Sharing Economic Resources with Fellow Community Members and the Needy Among Us,” and brought some of Shane’s thoughts into conversation with Anabaptist Communal Economics (you’ll get familiar with it if you’re not yet).  I’d like to post my thoughts in a number of parts for the sake of others who may be interested, or just the chance to have some folks interact with something they aren’t familiar with right away.  Without further ado, this is the intro;

 

How often we hear Christians speak about “believers,” concerning themselves only with doctrine, dividing over theological differences, making “orthodoxy” the only criteria for discipleship.  Most activism revolves around “orthopraxy,” doing the right things.  I believe the power of monasticism is the fusion of these two into a movement that is both theologically grounded and offers practical alternatives to the world’s pattern of inequality.  Most people know what Christians believe, but if you ask them how Christians live they do not know.  We have not shown them.

                            -Shane Claiborne in 12 Marks of a New Monasticism, pg 31

    I’m convinced that any sound critique of the “way things are” (in whatever arena of life the critique is directed) should involve some time devoted not only to deconstructing the perceived error of the ”way things are” but also a good amount of energy and time invested in imaginatively reconstructing a hopeful alternative in its place. The ideal would be a hopeful reconstruction that is pursued in both word and deed, which is precisely why I chose Shane Claiborne’s quote to lead off my thoughts on the subject of economic sharing. 

    Shane and his “New Monastic” compatriots are doing some significant thinking and acting both in deconstructing and reimagining.  They have a God-given desire to seek creativity in what it might look like for followers of Jesus to find fresh, rooted ways to live more fully into Jesus’ prayer to his Father; “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  The more specific context for these thoughts will be a conversation of sorts on economic resources, what is “normal,” and how our Anabaptist forerunners speak into this situation.

On the resurrection of Jesus…

I was reading along on time.com today, and came upon this story that give me an initial shock, followed by a certain confidence on what is true that I may not have carried several years ago.  

The story, titled, “Was the resurrection of Jesus a Sequel?” (appropriately named for maximum shock value), describes the unearthing of a tablet that seems to date to the first century B.C.with an interesting smudged inscription on it.  The tablet, known as “Gabriel’s Revelation,” in one place predicts that “in three days you will know evil will be defeated by justice,” and in the most contentious place, is interpreted by scholar Israel Knohl to read “in three days, you shall live.  I Gabriel command you.”  Basically, this challenges one of the Christian arguments that has survived over the millenia since that the resurrection is literarily unique and therefore less likely to be fabricated.  But if the idea existed before, critics might say, then who’s to say those disciples of Jesus didn’t make up the resurrection as a way of honoring their failed leader’s memory, bringing some spiritualistic consolation that was completely out of touch with reality?

In a great little quip in the article that displays our obvious bias as we report, the Time reporter says,

“this, in turn undermines one of the strongest literary arguments employed by Christians over centuries to support the historicity of the Resurrection (in which they believe on faith): the specificity and novelty of the idea that the Messiah would die on a Friday and rise on a Sunday.”

Zing! Bah-dah-bow!  Those foolish, anti-intellectual Christians with their heads in the clouds, believing things “on faith” without “having facts” to support their “beliefs.”  And even if I’m reading into the parenthetical comment too much, the fellow’s still perpetuating the ol’ facts vs. faith dichotomy that the two can’t exist beside one another (or, for that matter, mesh together in a way that can’t be written simply in a textbook or argued).

The journalist quotes Knohl that a “dying and rising Messiah appears in some Jewish texts, but until now, everyone thought that was the impact of Christianity on Judaism…but for the first time, we have proof that it was the other way around…this should shake our basic view of Christianity…what happens in the New Testament [could have been] adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

By itself, the concept is intriguing, whether the tablet is authentic or not.  If we really want to grapple with the possibility this is legitimate, it may build a small bridge for understanding between Christians and Jews (the journalist suggests this at the end of the piece); that the concept of the resurrection of a Messiah was something that predated Jesus.  But this isn’t entirely new anyways, it seems.  Speaking generally, the book of Acts shows some of the inner workings of the disagreements between Pharisees (who believed in a resurrection of the faithful), and Saducees (who denied the possibility of resurrection).  The apostle Paul (himself formerly a Pharisee) plays the groups off each other in Acts 23 on this very issue.

What gave me the initial shock at first, though, is the small thought that passed through my head, “What if this was all made up and the resurrection was a farce?  A pipe dream?”  There are plenty of folks out there today (the Jesus Seminar comes to mind) who, while calling themselves Christians, reject the actual physical resurrection of Jesus as either a made-up event or something the early disciples “obviously” never believed was literal (I’ve heard John Dominic Crossan confidently say this before).  The Jesus Seminar folks in particular suggest that while Jesus clearly never physically resurrected, we can still speak of resurrection as a metaphor; that God can redeem or raise from the ashes anything that is neglected, broken, or destroyed in our world.  The meaning of the resurrection then, they say, is that we are to live courageously and confidently to live for the purpose of why the world was created no matter what happens to us.

I have to say there’s some that’s attractive in this kind of approach.  Though the apostle Paul did say to the persons in Corinth,

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others.”

and later quoted Isaiah when he said,

If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’

I’ve become and more convinced that that was just a rhetorical point for Paul and not something he really held fast to. I find it hard to believe that Paul, one of the most courageous and forceful disciples in in the early church, if upon finding that Jesus was not resurrected, would have thrown up his hands and said, “Oh well, let’s just do what we want and get through life as comfortable as possible.”  For starters, he wasn’t living that way before he knew Jesus as Lord.  

It’s because of this belief that I find much courage in folks who refuse to believe in a literal resurrection yet give their lives for the good of the world that surrounds them.  This is why I am astonished even further at Mohandas Gandhi or committed followers of Mahayana Buddhism who have such a deep-rooted commitment to bringing hope and healing and restoration to the world. Their ends are different than Christian discipleship, so their lives and goals only carry that depth of meaning to a point, but they still astonish me.

The reason my fears took a quick spike as I read was the rearing up of the lazy, hopeless side of me that doesn’t believe that any substantive change can take place in this world.  The one that thinks this all is a cycle and we’re doomed to destroy each other anyways because of our hatred, so who cares anyways?  There’s on one level a naive belief in the resurrection where I see Jesus as some kind of Superman who conquered death but yet the event has nothing to do with me, and on another level there’s a side of me that says, “Hey, if there’s no resurrection, who really cares anyways?  I’ll just do what I want.”

The fear spike lasted just for a second, though, as I settled into this deeper place inside of me that I’ll call “trust.”  And that trust (which is, after all, the deepest meaning of “faith”) is rooted in the truth I see in the ministry of Jesus, the truth I hear in the teaching of Jesus, the trust I have in his earliest disciples who believed in his literal resurrection and their lives were virtuous, courageous, and transformative for the world around them, and the trust I have in the early church that assembled what we call the “New Testament” today into its form, including the present pieces and excluding those they did not find to be trustworthy.  

I trust all of these elements more than John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg sitting back 2,000 years later, pontificating on what “really” Jesus said or didn’t say, or what “really” happened.  I trust all of these elements more than my pagan friends who demand “facts” from 2,000 years ago, as if we owe them some kind of concrete wine basin or Shroud of Turin or whatever that prove the existence of Jesus.

When I look at Jesus, I see the hope of the world.  I see teaching and a lifestyle that can break cycles of violence in our world today, bringing redemption and healing and justice to our fragmented reality.  And I see the hope of the resurrection from the dead that tells me there is nothing anyone can do that stands in the way of the church representing the truth, working for reconciliation, and living for God’s glory.  Because what can they do to us, after all?  Kill us?  Our God will just raise us again anyways.

Shane Claiborne often uses different metaphors for the life of Jesus and the life of his followers.  I like the metaphor of a dance, that creation was the overflow of a God in community who couldn’t help but create and create, extending the dance into the heart of all He made; that rebellion is a refusal to dance, a refusal to live into our created purpose, and thus killing the music; and redemption being our progressively rising awareness of the chords of the music and the flow of the dance.  No one can interrupt that primal dance we’ve been created for except a continued rebellion.

As the great campfire song “Lord of the Dance” says from Jesus,

I danced in the morning when the world was begun
I danced in the Moon & the Stars & the Sun
I came down from Heaven & I danced on Earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth:

Dance then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be
And I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said He!
(…lead you all in the Dance, said He!)

I danced for the scribe & the pharisee
But they would not dance & they wouldn’t follow me
I danced for fishermen, for James & John
They came with me & the Dance went on:

I danced on the Sabbath & I cured the lame
The holy people said it was a shame!
They whipped & they stripped & they hung me high
And they left me there on a cross to die!

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body & they thought I’d gone
But I am the Dance & I still go on!

They cut me down and I leapt up high
I am the Life that’ll never, never die!
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in Me -
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!

If only Christians would grasp this picture and lose their invented “get out of hell free” twisted religion and follow the God of the Bible and life of Jesus…we might not have folks relentlessly seeking to subvert Christian truth claims. They would simply look at our lives and long for the dance.

But then again, I am an idealistic 27 year old. Nothing will ever change, right? All we can do is sit on our hands and wait for Jesus to come back.

For music lovers…

I love Derek Webb.  Not in the “I’m attracted to him” sense, but in the “this guy has some incredible ideas he’s living into” sense.

I love Derek for his lyrics and musical style which never cease to challenge me (even after I’ve listened to the song twenty times), I love Derek for his honesty about his relationship with his wife (beautiful, but tough…which means its a real relationship), I love Derek for the musicians he hangs out with (other musicians not co-opted by the Religious Right like Steven Delapoulos, Jars of Clay, etc)…

…but in specific for this post, I love Derek for his vision of connecting the artists with their current and potential fans.  His influence is very subversive both to the Music Industry Copyright Hounds and to folks who Illegally Pirate Music Because They Don’t Care About Copyrights (though this is immoral).  Derek and friends have launched a site called NoiseTrade.com where artists offer their CDs for free if you tell folks about their music or let you name a price you want to pay for the right to download the album.  This is amazing.  Some of the aforementioned Copyright Hounds may weep at this subversion, and some Pirates may take advantage of this gift to feed their habit and enable their arguments; yet I think the vision is wholesome and will foster relationships on a much deeper level between musicians and fans, and that’s a sweet thing.

The deeper you get in Derek’s circle of musical influences and folks he hangs out with, the more you find the depth of commitment to honesty and flat-out talent his fellow musicians carry (especially Matthew Perryman Jones).

Leadership and effecting change…

I think about leadership a lot, because I’m trying to figure it out.  And I think leadership thoughts are relevant for most anybody in society, whether you’re a factory worker, a cook, or a legislator, because nobody can stand in the way of a person with integrity and character ultimately.  Even if we’re in the lowliest of jobs and really never see any lifting of the darkness of loneliness and powerlessness, we can still lead and seek healthy, consistent change in our world.  Plus, I’m a terribly inconsistent leader who’s terribly dissatisfied with my terrible inconsistency, and I want more from myself so my character can impact the relationships I’m a part of.  So bear with me a bit as I think out loud.

Just a few days back on the tail end of our honeymoon, Bethany and I worshiped with Cedar Ridge Community Church up in Spencerville, MD.  Some of you may be familiar with this church as it is the people Brian McLaren formerly pastored.  He’s now made the transition to “regular” church member (which would be an interesting topic to look at in itself, as the transition was made over two years), but that’s a sidenote here.  I’ve had a couple thoughts that sprung up in my head (good worship should cause that to happen over the course of the week), and I wanted to dump some of those thoughts out to clarify them a bit for myself as well.

I wouldn’t say the worship gathering at Cedar Ridge was mindblowing, because it wasn’t, and anyways, which real worship gathering is on a regular basis?  We had a chance to step into Cedar Ridge’s story, which caused us to be unfamiliar with how things go for them, what their practices are, etc, but they were very gracious along the way and helped us to worship with them.  

During the gathering, the current pastor, Matthew Dyer, stood up and shared about a hard topic; fundraising.  It seems the historic barn on Cedar Ridge’s property isn’t considered up to code, and they want to keep using it for youth meetings and the like, so they need to somehow raise $150,000 to get it back into shape.  Matthew didn’t say a whole lot that really gathered my attention, but the way he carried himself and the language he used while speaking really struck me.  Matthew seems to be very aware of how language the leader uses shapes the people they lead, and he really was masterful at how he used language to serve his purposes.

I noticed two main commitments in his talking, the first being community and the second sustainability. Over the course of his talk on money, Matthew continually grounded folks listening in the fact that Cedar Ridge is simply not just a building; time after time he called us back to the fact that the church is centrally acommunity, and that folks should feel empowered to know that they have a voice and that the church grounds are theirs rather than the sole possession of a steering board.  I don’t hear that emphasis much in independent churches where the pastor and/or elder board often function as deities that folks are expected to passively obey or leave.  

When it came to talking about how they would raise money together as a community, Matthew very straightforwardly told folks not to do a frenzy of fundraising things by themselves; where one person was selling mugs and another T-shirts and each trying to convince the other to buy their product for the good of the church.  Matthew emphasized strongly that this kind of activity was not sustainable, both in terms of that kind of effort being individualistic and that in a society obsessed with consuming, Cedar Ridge needs to be an alternative to that frenzy of consumption. I really think those were two vitally important things he emphasized, and as he spoke, I scanned the room to see much nodding and affirmation.  On the whole, I walked away from his talk greatly encouraged that church communities do exist that handle this well.  And this sort of shaping plays an important role in molding a people to be different than those around them.

I mulled over the worship gathering as Bethany and I drove to the Orioles game afterwards, and I thought to myself about how strong, wise leaders maintain this sort of consistent influence in shaping the communities they lead.  I say this because the response in my local church family to the thoughts I offered at our worship the day before Memorial Day was painful; persons were wounded that I would say such a thing and I was stung by their responses.  I tried to be even-handed and deeply rooted Scripturally as I wrestled with what to say, and I’m convinced that Biblically, what I said was nearly beyond question.  Yet folks pushed back hard.  On one level, I’m glad that I’m kept accountable, yet on another level, I was frustrated that the consistent Biblical message of God’s global kingdom that bleeds through nearly everything that comes out of my mouth seemed to have not broken through into the place where our folks really were wrestling with it. “Have they not been listening, or am I not communicating well?” I thought to myself. Some of my response was rooted in the culturally-shaped mentality that all change needs to happen quickly, or it’s not worth working for.

Since Bethany and I worshipped with Cedar Ridge in the aftermath of our situation, it caused me to think a bit about Matthew’s as a leader.  He carries this deeply Biblical commitment of community and sustainability and has served Cedar Ridge for two years; yet I wonder how often he runs into folks who still see Cedar Ridge as fundamentally an institution and Christian discipleship as tshirts and mugs and what God can do for them; a consumptive institution of disconnected religious piety.   If that is true (and I would assume it is, though that’s a little dangerous), it would strike me that the mark of a wise leader (since it’s good that folks aren’t blindly obeying us), is a consistent commitment to weaving their central convictions into nearly everything they are; and to do that in multiple different ways so folks don’t hear the same thing a hundred times and tune them out.  And as long as that commitment is faithful (we should always step back and take account of that), then good, solid change will come over the long-term as the leader speaks of and models the life of faithfulness in a way that leaves a mark on the people they are with.  This applies just as much to a nursery worker or janitor in the church family as it does the pastor I think.  Because we all will leave a mark, but those who are intentional leave a more lasting one, I think.

Honeymoons are for reflecting…along with other things…

…now immediately disregard the innuendo there.  

As I sit in our cabin here in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee with my wife (my wife!) taking a nap in the bed, a great thunderstorm going on overhead, and the lasagna cooking in the oven, my thoughts have drifted a bit to the wedding ceremony the other day.

Bethany and I, with all of our hearts, wanted the ceremony to be something that was both a public profession of our lifetime covenant with one another and a much bigger thing, a gathering of public worship that pointed far beyond us to the God we serve.  The gears for this intent started moving as we began talking about getting married about a year ago and kicked into high gear in a conversation with my good friend Dustin around the same time.  Dustin told me, “Our wedding was a great day, but I wish we had done more to make our ceremony more worshipful, more distinct, than we did.”  (I’m paraphrasing here, so Dustin, correct me when you read this).  And since a major part of wisdom is submitting to the words and experience of others surrounding us, I listened to Dustin and considered his words.

I’ve been a part of multiple “Christian” weddings, even ones where couples went out of their way to seek to make the ceremony worshipful, but I’ve often left thinking the ceremony said more about the couple than about the living God we serve and the life He has called us to.  Because marriage always takes place in a context, right?  And when we celebrate this public profession of a lifetime covenant, when we are united by God in a bond that no human should dare shatter or take for granted, when the wedding ceremony has Scriptural language and song, all of these things are meant to say to the world, “If we have all this “God” language in our formal marriage rites, then this marriage ceremony and marriage itself shouldn’t be inwardly-focused or couple-focused, but God-focused, and by extension, God’s community-focused.”  The integrity of a Christian marriage (or lack thereof) speaks to the integrity of God’s church (or lack thereof).  And when God’s church builds in integrity, God’s name is glorified in a way that transforms the world in a very small, yet transcendent way.  It draws us out of our cultural understandings of marriage and into a deeper, more abiding purpose and meaning for marriage.  This is a tall order to live into, but I intend to step back and take account of myself at important points along the way and ask some hard questions about how I’m doing as a husband and a man.

As I consider how the ceremony pointed beyond us, I’d like to post a couple of the elements of the worship gathering from Saturday over the next several days.  As always, I welcome feedback.  I think a worthy element to kick off the ceremony thoughts is one of the songs we chose to sing, In Christ Alone.  Not only is the song beautiful in sound, but it is powerful in lyrics as well; a great foundational song for consideration of where our focus should be directed as his disciples.  Because it is powerful in this way, Bethany and I wrote a blurb on the back of the sheet explaining why we chose the song.  The following is what we wrote;

Why did we choose In Christ Alone?

That’s an interesting question, and a good one.  Nate’s mom used to tell him of the GIGO principle with music and books and other things.  GIGO stands for “Garbage-in, garbage-out;” the basic understanding being that what we spend our time listening to, reading, or talking about takes root somewhere deep inside us and eventually comes out.  Very simply, what we surround ourselves with and pursue after becomes us.  To be specific and honest, much of what passes for “Christian music” today has little to no Scriptural rooting. The lyrics often reflect an understanding of faith where faithfulness is expressed through the “good” things God can give us in life; good feelings from certain songs, lack of disease, a stable home life, a good job, etc.  We think this is a terrible mistake.

One of the central confessions of the Scriptures is that God really doesn’t owe us anything.  The ones in the positions of owing a deep debt?  That’s us.  The Scriptures speak of the initial disobedience of Adam and Eve, with the rest of the Bible as a testament to the patience of our Creator who continually, patiently, calls people out of their pagan societies and into a life of joyful obedience.  The problem there, of course, is our deep selfishness and lack of desire to seek that life God extends; even though we were created for it.  So we keep turning back to the ways that seem to come natural to us, yet they only seem natural to us because we have this deep-rooted desire to make life what we want; we show it in our relationships, and our society displays it in a million different ways every day.  In a weird plot twist, those called “Christians” buy into that message and let our goals and lives be defined by that self-centered approach.  And as is said above, even what people call “Christian” music has varying elements of this self-centered desire within it.

What is the image that this song portrays though?  It is the image of a God who rescues us in Jesus, who humbled himself by entering the world as a child, who taught a way of life that seemed unnatural to the “faithful people” of his day (there’s that selfishness rearing its head again!), and who allowed himself to be crushed by all that stood in opposition to Him.  And a terrible time of darkness followed.  Is this all that truth can offer?  A way of life that ultimately is crushed by everything standing against it?  Can we just settle for loving people to a point or seeking truth until it threatens our comfort?  Then the lyrics come that give us chills and hope; ‘Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave He rose again! And as He stands in victory, sin’s curse has lost its grip on me… No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand.’This is good news!!!  Though the truth seems strange, though the way of life Jesus taught us seems foolish, though light seems to be swallowed immediately in the darkness of this world, we have been set free to live this way no matter what happens to us in this life.  Why?  What can anyone do to us?  The same God who conquered the grave has set us free from the fear of death.  They may oppose us, but we the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted…God will vindicate our way of life.  So we trust In Christ Alone.

 

Gettin’ married…

to this fine (and by fine, I mean both senses of the word;  like, she’s fine as in a really amazing person, and fine as in “dude, that girl is fiiiiiiiiiiine!) young lady.

After tomorrow, it’s Nathan Douglas Myers and Bethany Kriegshauser Myers (and yes, it is ironic that I, a non-resistant disciple of Jesus, am marrying a young woman whose maiden name literally means “house of war” in German).  Ha ha!

The different sides of George W. Bush, and the call to wisdom…

I opened up Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope today because I was reminded of a very insightful observation he made in his chapter “Values” in the book. It is focused on George W. Bush, and helps to provide some understanding, I think, of George Bush the man vs. George Bush the leader. So here are the words of Obama;

“As I munched on hors d’oeuvres and engaged in small talk with a handful of House members, I recalled my previous two encounters with the President, the first a brief congratulatory call after the election, the second a small White House breakfast with me and the other incoming senators. Both times I had found the President to be a likable man, shrewd and disciplined but with the same straightforward manner that had helped him win two elections; you could easily imagine him owning the local car dealership down the street, coaching Little League, and grilling in his backyard- the kind of guy who would make for good company so long as the conversation revolved around sports and the kids.

There had been a brief moment during the breakfast meeting, though, after the backslapping and the small talk and when all of us were seated, with Vice President Cheney eating his eggs Benedict impassively and Karl Rove at the far end of the table discreetly checking his Blackberry, that I witnessed a different side of the man. The President had begun to discuss his second-term agenda, mostly a reiteration of his campaign talking points- the importance of staying the course in Iraq and renewing the Patriot Act, the need to reform Social Security and overhaul the tax system, his determination to get an up-or-down vote on his judicial appointees- when suddenly it felt as if somebody in the back room had flipped a switch. The President’s eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the Founders’ wisdom in designing a system to keep power in check.” (45-46)

I don’t quote Obama here because of some hidden agenda or to enhance the already ridiculous partisan conservative vs. liberal divide. Instead, I find Obama’s observation wise and reasonable, as I have carried a significant discomfort for years now in observing the leadership of George Bush. I simple have not been able to figure the man out, especially as he has assumed that “almost messianic certainty” on issues and situations and has essentially called anyone who dared to disagree with his position unpatriotic and dead wrong. There’s something very dangerous about that kind of approach, especially the unwillingness to welcome the accountability of others.

All of us need to surround ourselves with folks who will keep us honest; who will encourage us when they believe we are making good decisions and will challenge us when they believe we are being unwise and self-centered. We are limited in our understanding as people, and we need to welcome criticism and accountability as we seek to lead in various ways. We certainly should not crumble under that accountability to lose the contribution of our distinctive voice (otherwise we will simply become a mishmash of others’ perspectives and hopelessly confused), but we were not created to be alone. I guess what I’m saying is that we are called to cultivate wisdom; to walk the tough line in this case between our perspectives and the perspectives of others around us. This is not easy, but that’s part of the definition of wisdom.

I just happen to think George W. Bush is not a man who seeks wisdom; he surrounds himself with like-minded persons who either rubber-stamp his perspective or continue to whisper their shared belief on reality consistently in ways that make him averse to hearing anything different. That’s not the trait of a leader, but of a despot, and therefore makes Obama’s words that much more important, “As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring.”

What caused me to think deeper about this issue was seeing Scott McClellan (former press secretary for Bush) appearing on the Daily Show and giving the reasons behind why he wrote his scathingly honest insider book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.” His deepest reason was not to undermine the credibility of Bush (though his account certainly does so), but to expose the terrible blend of partisan politics that resides in the Capital today of conservative vs. liberal sniping and close-mindedness and outright hatred. McClellan cared enough at how Bush was contributing to this us vs. them mentality (through labelling those who disagreed with him unpatriotic) that he was willing to rise above personal and party loyalty to present another way that seeks to ultimately shape a different kind of approach in Washington, and because Washington is influential in shaping political discussions across the land, a way that will hold the potential for a deeper political conversation in America. I think that’s a worthy goal. It’s a tough row to hoe, but it’s definitely the kind of leadership America needs. I see some of that same vision in Obama’s Audacity of Hope. Does that mean I’ll vote for him? Not necessarily. But it certainly contributes to my thought as I consider my vote this upcoming fall.

An interesting quiz…

I took a little quiz today in some downtime that I found courtesy of Andrew Martin, and though I was uncomfortable with how slanted some of the questions were, it’s interesting to see which groups I was slotted into. As an aside, I should mention that the description of “who I am” according to this quiz isn’t entirely accurate, since the Emergent/Postmodern element of me tied with the Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan element of me, not to mention that there’s zero mention of Anabaptism (the often forgotten radical stream of the Reformation). So take the results of my answers with a strong grain of salt;

What’s your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 75% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 75% Neo orthodox 68% Charismatic/Pentecostal 46% Roman Catholic 39% Reformed Evangelical 39% Modern Liberal 21% Fundamentalist 21% Classical Liberal 18%

Memorial Day thoughts…

In the words of Mark Driscoll, “I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this.”  I shared these thoughts this past Sunday at the beginning of our worship gathering.  I wrestled and wrestled with it for days before, but I decided to go ahead and be courageous for the sake of God’s kingdom.  I may post the (rough) audio here in the next couple days so you can hear how I spoke these words.  I welcome feedback.

 

We will not be focusing on the cultural holiday of Memorial Day in worship today, and I want to tell you why.

The kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God are not the same.  The kingdom of the United States is a kingdom of the world with different purposes than the kingdom of God, and it is not the center of what God is doing in the world.  Now I’m not isolating the United States as being the only nation that is not the center of what God is doing in the world, because every kingdom of this world, all around the world, is not equal to the kingdom of God.  If we are willing to look beyond our cultural and national boundaries to the world as God sees it, we come to an understanding very quickly that the people group God is most concerned about in the world are His faithful people.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, he wrote, (11-13, 19-22)

“Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ… Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

We are fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.  If we are fellow citizens as disciples of Jesus, what are we citizens of?  (Israel, not the modern kind, but the faithful people of God; God’s kingdom).  We are centrally citizens of God’s kingdom.  And when we read today Paul writing to Gentiles who are no longer foreigners and strangers, but united as citizens of one kingdom, who is he writing to?  (those all over the world who have become disciples of Jesus, people who now are fellow citizens of the same nation, the same people).

What that means practically is that Christians in South Africa are not South African Christians, but just Christians living in South Africa, those in Britain are not British Christians, but Christians living in Britain, those in the United States are not American Christians, but Christians living in the United States, and those living in China are not Chinese Christians, but Christians living in China.  In all of these places, their primary citizenship is not the country they live in, but the kingdom of God’s people.

This is not something we can argue over.  It is not an opinion, it is fact.  And everyone here should know how careful I am when I speak to say most of what I say is my perspective on the truth.  But this is not my perspective.  It is the truth.  If we are Christians, we are primarily citizens of God’s global kingdom.

And all of these countries have their own cultural holidays, and all of the Christians living in those countries have to be able to separate between which holidays to focus on and which not to.   In regards to Memorial Day, if we’re asking whether God has ever used the United States in military action to accomplish his purposes, the answer is yes.  But the same answer would be given to all the other countries across the world as well.  If we’re asking, has the United States in military action ever committed evil acts? The answer is yes.  And the same answer would be given to all the other countries across the world as well.

What should be troubling to us is the blank check that many Christians in America give to military action.  We are all over the board in this room on whether military action is ever justified to accomplish God’s purposes, and when we wrestle with this question, our perspectives must be rooted in the Scriptures.  But one thing we all can agree on is that military action is not justified in all circumstances at all times. If it is true that the unjust loss of life has taken place at the military’s hands, which it is, the military has acted in opposition then to the kingdom of God.

As we discern which cultural holidays to focus on a bit and which not, this is a consideration that should guide our worship.  We are members of a global kingdom that does not see boundaries the way other persons do; we do not fragment the world into little pieces like other people do.  We are different.  We are Christians.

This is why Memorial Day is not appropriate for Christian worship because it focuses on America at the exclusion of the rest of the world.  Because America is not the center of God’s world, it is not appropriate for it to be the focus of our worship.