What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,
I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.—Psalm 116:12-15 (ESV)I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.—1 Corinthians 15:50-57 (ESV)It’s been a long couple days. Sunday I had a meeting after church and places to be all afternoon, and then yesterday was my first funeral here in Indiana, as we buried one of the lovely old saints of this congregation, someone who’d been a part of the church here for 44 years. On the one hand, it was a real celebration of a woman who’d lived a remarkable life and blessed a great many people; we did not grieve as those who have no hope, nor did we weep for her, because no one had any doubt at all that she died in Christ. On the other hand, that doesn’t make our loss right now any less real, and it was a very emotional service.Still, I would have loved to have been able to bear witness to the Resurrection the way Sir Winston Churchill did at his state funeral in St. Paul’s Cathedral. For most of the service, it was a very traditional Anglican funeral, but after the benediction, a bugler positioned high in the dome of St. Paul’s began to play Taps: “Day is done, gone the sun from the hills, from the earth, from the sky. Go to sleep, rest in peace, God is nigh.” Not typical procedure at an Anglican funeral, but normal for a military funeral, and so certainly fitting for Churchill. But no sooner had the last note faded to echoes than another bugler, positioned across the dome from the first, began to play Reveille—“It’s time to get up, it’s time to get up, it’s time to get up in the morning!” It was Churchill’s final testimony, that at the end of history, the last note will not be Taps, it will be Reveille—a Reveille to wake the very dead, as the trumpet will sound not an end but a beginning, not death but resurrection, and the end of all death. That is the promise of Easter; that is our hope in Christ.
Category Archives: Religion and theology
The embarrassment of Christian credulity
Jared Wilson has a terrific post up on that. Since, even aside from the current political ill-making, this is a particular peeve of mine, I greatly appreciate what he has to say.
The Jesus heresy, take 2
I wrote, back in January, about what I called “a sort of Jesus-only Unitarianism” that characterizes much of our popular evangelical piety in this country, as reflected in the songs the American church sings, and the dangers of that. Now, along comes Collin Hansen, in a web-only review for Christianity Today of Stephen J. Nichols’ book Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to the Passion of the Christ, to point out, inter alia, some of the reason why:
Jesus is easier to conform to our culturally-comfortable faith than either his Father or his Spirit.[Nichols] admires the evident devotion to Jesus in much contemporary Christian music. But he shows how lyrics “safe for the whole family” begin with sub-Christian notions of romantic love and neglect the biblical record, not to mention the rich descriptions in the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds.”Like a good boyfriend, Jesus shows up at the right moment, says the right thing and knows how to hug,” Nichols writes after surveying popular Christian radio hits. . . .”How ironic it would be if American evangelicalism reduces its message to such a saccharin-sweet package, not to keep up with religious pluralism or because of some philosophical or theological shift but merely because it falls victim to its own commercial success,” Nichols muses.Focused for so long on the enemy outside, evangelicals may now face a far more dangerous foe: themselves.
Candle Room
On a completely different note, this is a short documentary about a young Orthodox candlemaker, Peter Kavanaugh, and his work; it was directed by his younger brother David, currently a film student in Santa Fe. (In the interests of full disclosure: their father, Dr. Patrick Kavanaugh, is the music minister and worship leader at our church, and I think very highly of both Peter and David.)
The attractional church: a paradigm for abusive ministry?
(Note: this was originally posted on August 28—and then had the misfortune to be swamped by political commentary. I’ve bumped it up in hopes that folks who might be interested who might have missed it before will catch it.)
I want, if I can, to start a conversation here. Over the past year or so, I’ve gotten acquainted to one degree or another, starting through Hap, with a lot of people who’ve left the church, either temporarily or for good, after being hurt by churches with a bad approach to ministry—people like Erin, Barry, Tyler Dawn, Barb, and Katherine Gunn—along with others like Kathy Escobar and Heather who had reason to leave but didn’t. (This is not by any means an exhaustive list.) I’ve also continued to chew on what it means for the church to be missional; along those lines, I’ve appreciated Jared Wilson‘s ongoing work contrasting the missional paradigm with what he calls the attractional-church paradigm. For those of you who haven’t followed that, you can find his overview here, and his ongoing overview at SearchWarp in Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
Now, up until recently, I thought of these as just two separate phenomena. On the one hand, you have bad churches. On the other, you have a bad ministry paradigm. I’m starting to wonder, though, if there might be a connection.
What got me thinking about that was Jared’s post “Mega(church)lomania”, in which he linked to and quoted a post by a Dr. Jim West called “Speaking Of The Outrage That Is The Mega-Church…” that I found very interesting. First, let me note one of Jared’s comments on Dr. West’s post:
When I agree with folks who are harshing on the megachurch vibe, it is typically because what I see them criticizing is the attractional model of church, and while I’ve gone on record several times acknowledging that there are certainly aspects of our ecclesiology and methodology that can be attractional, I think the attractional mode of “doing church” is counterproductive to discipleship. (Because it doesn’t work.)
Now, with that in mind, here are some of Dr. West’s comments on the megachurch, which as Jared says apply not to the size of the church but to its approach, and are really a critique of the attractional model in all sizes of congregation:
Mega churches exist for one simple reason—the accumulation of wealth. Churches, you see, once upon a time would grow, flourish, and in order to extend their ministry establish mission churches in areas where no church work existed. Their goal in the establishment of such churches was to realize the goal of local churches sprouting up everywhere. Neighborhood churches, though, over time, became too small and offered too little to the consumeristic American who wanted more and more.
So, in order to quench the unending thirst of American Christians, Churches ended their missionary outreach and instead of planting small churches in local neighborhoods they began drawing people from miles and miles away. This allowed them to offer more glitzy programs for the thirsting public (a public which thirsts not for righteousness but for entertainment). It also allowed them to collect larger offerings and once that pandora’s box was opened, it became a free for all for as many members as possible concentrated in the fewest churches possible.
Churches turned inward rather than outward . . .
Born then was the mega church and at her helm, the millionaire (or close to it) mega church pastor. Said pastor now had a vested interest not in missions and church planting but in making sure that 1) no one left (so that money wouldn’t seep out) and 2) no one found out how much they actually earned as chairman of the board of the local church corporation (in the most demonic sense of the word).
The mega church is, in other words, the church turned in on itself. It is the logical conclusion of a christianity that has lost its way and which instead of doing the work of the ministry now becomes itself the sole recipient of any and all ministerial efforts.
Now, I know full well that everyone’s story is different. If you go to Barb’s blog and read her posts on why she and her husband left their church, you’ll find elements of charismatic/Pentecostal thinking that figure strongly in the story. For Erin, there was the”Better Christian Woman” box into which her church tried to squeeze her. No one’s experience exactly conforms to the experimental model. That said, I do think there’s a common theme that runs through a lot of them, anyway, and it’s the attractional church paradigm. It’s the church that has turned in on itself and exists for the accumulation of resources (not just wealth, but also people, prestige, and influence) and the building up of the glory of its leaders—because in that mindset, the people of the church are there for the sake of those leaders, to serve their purposes, and over time, tend to come to be treated accordingly.
Along with that, since the numerical success of such churches depends on quick attraction, there’s a need to preach a sort of quick-fix instant-oatmeal version of Christianity; my wife today called it a form of spiritual crash dieting, the sort of thing that in the short term helps you look good for the people you want to impress but in the end just screws up your metabolism. Not only is this kind of thing not the gospel preaching of Jesus that gives real life, but it sets up unreasonable expectations—see how easy this is? Follow these 27 simple steps and you too can have your best life now!—and if you can’t live up to those expectations and look just as good as everyone else, well, there must be something wrong with you and you must not be much of a Christian.
The result of this? Burnout. Jared captures it well:
[Christine] Wicker surveys attractional church burnout, which I’ve witnessed numerous times personally. Committed Christians are used up and spit out in service to the Program, and if they ever so much as suggest something isn’t right, they are accused of being immature and told to go self-feed or whatever. Church isn’t “for them,” they are sometimes told, which is doubly hurtful when the volunteer is a believer who was a seeker or baby Christian when they first entered the church. The church itself makes it clear the volunteer has outgrown the church, and then it will act surprised or indignant when the volunteer realizes he has outgrown it and takes his service elsewhere. . . .
Conversion to disillusionment averages about 8 years. That’s not a very good track record and does not bode well for the attractional future.
As I say, I could be off base; but what folks like Kathy Escobar and Tyler Dawn are talking about, from one side, and what others like Dr. Jim West and Jared Wilson are talking about, from the other, sounds like pretty much the same lump of coal to me. And why shouldn’t it be? When you have congregations that have come to exist for the accumulation of resources, driven by the consumerist mindset, should we be surprised if they turn out to be organizations that burn out those who want to serve, and chew up and spit out those who dare to ask questions or challenge the leadership?
What I want to invite you to do, then, is to think about this, talk about it, and tell me if you think this makes sense. I’ll try to contact all the folks I’ve actually named in this post to see what each of you have to say, but I certainly want broader input as well—if you have a thought, pro or con, or if you have a question because I’ve been “clear like mud,” please fire away regardless. Leave a comment here or post about it on your own blog, whichever you prefer (though if you do the latter, please leave a link in the comments here so that I don’t miss what you have to say); I just want to get the conversation started.
“May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!”
I just realized, I hadn’t remembered to post this. It’s a powerful little clip, and truly, as Jared says, a vivid picture of gospel-driven living.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9yJ3dskobk
Persistent prayer and the faithfulness of God
Hap has a really good post up on prayer, as of yesterday, which I commend to your attention. I’ve written about some of this before, here and here; for some people, faith and belief and persistent prayer come easy, but I’m not one of them. I don’t know whether the man in Mark 9 meant the same thing when he cried out, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief” that I do—but it’s something I find myself praying a fair bit anyway, because trust comes hard, and I just have to believe that God’s answer to prayer is dependent on his faithfulness, not on my faith. And I do believe that, because prayer isn’t about us changing God, but God changing us, and his faithfulness is neither contingent nor in short supply: it is unending.
Jesus Brand Spirituality: Introduction
A number of weeks ago, I wrote a post highlighting an extremely positive review of a book called Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back. In response, I received a friendly communication from the author, Ken Wilson, the senior pastor of the Ann Arbor Vineyard, asking me if I wanted a copy. That was an easy one (of course I did), and in return for his generosity I promised to review the book once I’d finished it.
Unfortunately, various circumstances delayed me in starting the book, which I was only able to begin reading this past weekend, so I have not yet been able to redeem my word to the Rev. Wilson. I have, however, greatly appreciated the book so far, and am eager to do so. However, never having written a true review essay, I’m a bit dubious of my ability to do it justice by reading the whole book and writing on it all at once; what’s more, doing so properly would produce a very long piece which might not be well-suited to the medium of a blog. So, what I’ve decided to do is to comment on the book a chapter at a time, and then once I’ve finished, write a concluding post with final commentary. I realize that this has its drawbacks, but I think it’s probably the best way to do it. It’s also the quickest way to get started, which factors into my thinking as well.
I hope to get the post on the first chapter up in the next day or two—unfortunately, it isn’t finished yet, but those who follow this blog will be aware that I’ve had one or two other minor matters occupying a lot of my attention here. For now, I’ll close with one of Phyllis Tickle’s encomia from her foreword:
This . . . is a book that contains niches and corridors and apses of beauty that catch my thorax and make me feel the salt and burn of beauty rising.
Pro-life ministry in an oversexed society
One of the biggest things I miss about living in Canada is the newspapers. I miss having the Vancouver Sun and the National Post show up on the step every morning; I miss the caliber of the reporting, the vigor and sense of responsibility of the political coverage, the wit and keen eye of the columnists . . . it’s a long list, which absolutely must not omit the consistently superb movie reviews of Katherine Monk. (She writes great good reviews, and even better bad ones.)I was reminded today just how much I miss them when RealClearPolitics tossed up a link to a piece by George Jonas on Sarah Palin. I’d forgotten about George Jonas, which is too bad; it’s a typically good piece on the feminist reaction to the Palin nomination. Still, I was more interested in a link in the sidebar to an article by David Frum. The article is titled “Sarah and Todd Palin and the quiet success of the pro-life movement,” but that’s not really what the article is about; the true subject of the article is, as Frum puts it, “the transformation of the pro-life movement from an unambiguously conservative force into something more complex.” It’s about the way in which the evolution of the pro-life movement and the law of unintended consequences have significantly reshaped evangelical attitudes and social conservative politics. To quote Frum’s conclusion,
The experience of the Palin family symbolizes the effect of the pro-life movement on American culture: Abortion has been made more rare; unwed motherhood has been normalized. However you feel about that outcome, it is not well-described as either left-wing or right-wing.
In saying this, Frum has captured and crystallized something of which I was aware—in my own attitudes and approach to ministry, no less than in the lives of others—but which I hadn’t consciously thought about. Put simply, when pro-life concerns cross with the concern for other issues, the tie goes to the baby. We have learned, as Frum puts it earlier in his article, that
So long as unwed parenthood is considered disgraceful, many unwed mothers will choose abortion to escape disgrace. And so, step by step, the pro-life movement has evolved to an accepting—even welcoming—attitude toward pregnancy outside marriage.
Now, that “even welcoming” bit is wrong; but otherwise, he’s right. We came face to face with the law of unintended consequences and realized that the stigma on unwed motherhood was driving abortions, and so we set it aside for the greater good; what else are crisis pregnancy centers all about?Of course, that has unintended consequences of its own; as conservatives understand, subsidizing behavior encourages that behavior, and supporting unwed mothers certainly qualifies as a subsidy, if a private-sector one, on unwed motherhood. Thus, according to Frum’s statistics, some 37% of all babies born in the US are born out of wedlock. Whether this contributes to the ongoing decline of the institution of marriage in this country, I’m really not sure—I actually tend to think not, judging from my own experience (and here, the example of the Palin family would be a bit of anecdotal support for that as well), but I could easily be wrong—but it certainly contributes to the ongoing weakening of the sense that marriage and children are supposed to go together. Which isn’t a good thing . . . but is clearly a lesser evil than abortion.But still, it isn’t a good thing, and it needs to be resisted, and counterbalanced—but without providing incentives for abortion. What I think the interplay between rates of abortion and unwed motherhood demonstrates is that promoting abstinence by “going negative” doesn’t work (a point also made, from a different angle, by Lauren Winner in her superb book Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity). We need to articulate the positive case for chastity—which, you will note, is a positive word, where “abstinence” is a negative one—and we need to do so holistically, weaving together emotional, social scientific, biological, relational, and, yes, theological arguments into a single cohesive and coherent position; we need to respond to the “elemental powers” view of sex with a greater and a higher vision, one which compellingly presents the idea that chastity is not self-deprivation, but is in fact a valuable self-discipline which leads to blessing. As churches, we need to contribute to that by moving away from the simplistic approaches to sexuality which we too often take and toward a fully-developed, fully-considered, fully biblical theology of sexuality and pleasure. “Just say no” doesn’t work, and especially not in our sex-saturated society; if we’re going to tell people they need to say “no” to something, we also have to help them understand what God is calling them to say “yes” to in its place. To do otherwise isn’t just bad theology—it’s bad ministry, and it doesn’t work.Update: Janice Shaw Crouse has an excellent column on reducing teen pregnancies and abortions.
A prayer for you for the Labor Day weekend
Whatever your faith commitments, whether religious or not, whatever your political beliefs, whatever your skin color, culture, background, or language, this is my prayer for you today: May you live this day and tomorrow in the peaceful rest of the grace of God.