Over the course of the last week or so, I have been following the news of the various "Occupy" protests. Not real closely, but I have been following. I have done some reading about what these protesters are upset about and have seen some pretty jarring statistics. All of this following has led to a mini-crisis in my mind.
To a great extent, I agree with the protesters. The growing gap between the haves and have nots in our country is untenable. That the United States is ranked 93rd in the world in income equality (behind China and Iran, among others); that CEO's make, on average, 350 times the salary of a regular employee; that 1% of the population owns 42% of the financial wealth of our nation while 80% share a meager 7% of that wealth; that the bottom 80% of the population control only 15% of our net worth, while the top 5% control 60% - all of these are signs that something is dreadfully wrong.
What makes it even worse in my mind is that so many of those top 5% would likely claim to be "Christian" in their religious views and practice.
But there is nothing Christian about greed, nothing Christian about profiteering, nothing Christian about refusing to pay employees a living wage. All of these things are, to put it bluntly, immoral. The Bible clearly speaks about paying men and women a wage that allows them to live. It also clearly speaks against those who would withhold from others the things necessary for life. There is even a portion of the Bible that says that the people of God cannot hold someone's cloak as a pledge for debt! Exodus 22:26-28:
If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
Everything takes second place to care of the neighbor. This is a consistent thread through Scripture.
So why do we feel that we can call ourselves Christians and knowingly take advantage of our neighbor? How can I continue to support a system that allows some people to go hungry while others are making BILLIONS of dollars?
The simple answer is that I can't. Which is why I support the protesters. Call this post my "Occupy Blogger" stand.
The thing is, even as I write those words - that I support the protesters - I realize how impotent and trite they sound. The poor don't need my words, they need food. They don't need symbolic stands, they need jobs. They don't need a blog post that they won't read, they need a living wage.
And in the face of all those needs, I feel helpless. What good will it do for me to say that the system is broken? I participate in that system every single day. Realistically, what can I accomplish?
I don't know...and it is frustrating. I keep praying that God would show me a way that I can get involved, that I can use my gifts to make a difference and have an impact. Until he does, I am left to do the only thing I can: offer words of warning and encouragement.
To those who are at the mercy of the system, who are jobless, homeless, hungry and (seemingly) powerless:
But now thus says the Lord,
He who created you, O Jacob,
He who formed you, O Israel,
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name;
You are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and through the rivers,
the waters shall not overwhelm you.
When you walk through the fire,
you shall not be burned,
the flame shall not consume you.
(Isaiah 43:1-2)
And for those who are a part of the system, who willingly tread on the backs of the poor to make their millions, who ignore the need, who pretend it is no big deal:
When the poor and needy seek water
and there is none;
when their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the LORD will answer them,
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
(Isaiah 41:17)
jB
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
My Son & Communion
One of the things that has become apparent in my transition into the United Methodist Church is that there are some areas of theology and church practice on which I will have to develop a new perspective. The service of Communion is one of those things.
The denomination in which I grew up placed a great deal of emphasis on being an appropriate age to receive communion - one needed to be fully aware of the symbolism of the event and what it all meant. Of course, I had adopted the same point of view. It made sense to me.
In the UMC, though, things are done a bit differently. Children of all ages are encouraged to receive communion...even down to Hannah (almost 6) and Ike (almost 4). At first, I wasn't sure I wanted my own kids to participate. I even went so far as to ask Melissa to stop them from receiving...but my wife replied by saying that she wasn't sure she could stop them without causing a scene.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when we served communion. My son and daughter were sitting in the back of the sanctuary with one of the older couples in the church. As the stewards were handing out the bread and juice, I just happened to glance back in time to see my son take the bread. This seems like an appropriate place to mention that on this particular Sunday we were all receiving the elements together - each was to hold on to the bread and juice until all had been served.
Ike was having none of that. He grabbed a piece of that bread and popped it straight into his mouth. In a flash, I went through two different reactions - frustration that he would do that and a realization from God that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what he did. Moreover, I have come to realize that I need to be more like my son. While I was somewhat impatiently waiting for the stewards to finish, Ike just couldn't wait to participate. Even though he doesn't know the symbolism and all the theology of Communion, he instinctively knew the most important part - "This is for me, and I want it...now."
What a difference in attitude! While we "grown-ups" often spend our time before communion looking around the sanctuary at our fellow worshipers or, if we are really holy, somberly meditating for a few minutes...the children just take what is given to them and cram it in their mouths as fast as they can. They don't need to think about it, they don't need to know all the details...they just want it.
My prayer is that God would help me to learn to take communion like my son - with less concern for theology and more of an attitude that I just want whatever it is that God is willing to give to me.
The denomination in which I grew up placed a great deal of emphasis on being an appropriate age to receive communion - one needed to be fully aware of the symbolism of the event and what it all meant. Of course, I had adopted the same point of view. It made sense to me.
In the UMC, though, things are done a bit differently. Children of all ages are encouraged to receive communion...even down to Hannah (almost 6) and Ike (almost 4). At first, I wasn't sure I wanted my own kids to participate. I even went so far as to ask Melissa to stop them from receiving...but my wife replied by saying that she wasn't sure she could stop them without causing a scene.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when we served communion. My son and daughter were sitting in the back of the sanctuary with one of the older couples in the church. As the stewards were handing out the bread and juice, I just happened to glance back in time to see my son take the bread. This seems like an appropriate place to mention that on this particular Sunday we were all receiving the elements together - each was to hold on to the bread and juice until all had been served.
Ike was having none of that. He grabbed a piece of that bread and popped it straight into his mouth. In a flash, I went through two different reactions - frustration that he would do that and a realization from God that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what he did. Moreover, I have come to realize that I need to be more like my son. While I was somewhat impatiently waiting for the stewards to finish, Ike just couldn't wait to participate. Even though he doesn't know the symbolism and all the theology of Communion, he instinctively knew the most important part - "This is for me, and I want it...now."
What a difference in attitude! While we "grown-ups" often spend our time before communion looking around the sanctuary at our fellow worshipers or, if we are really holy, somberly meditating for a few minutes...the children just take what is given to them and cram it in their mouths as fast as they can. They don't need to think about it, they don't need to know all the details...they just want it.
My prayer is that God would help me to learn to take communion like my son - with less concern for theology and more of an attitude that I just want whatever it is that God is willing to give to me.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
I Blame my Sister (or how Henri Nouwen saved my soul)
I realized recently that I write and talk a lot about Henri Nouwen and his books. I have read somewhere between 20 and 30 of his books, and there is no doubt that he has been one of the key influences on my development as a person and as a pastor.
But I've never told the story of how I came to discover this great man, this saint of the church. Here it is:
It's all my sister's fault. Well, sort of. The story begins a bit before that.
When I was in my first ministry class at Olivet Nazarene University, our professor - Dr. Ron Dalton - recommended that we all read a book called The Wounded Healer by a guy I'd never heard of, Henri Nouwen. Being a good student (and wanting a good grade), I got my hands on the book and read it. At the time, I thought it was a good read but didn't see it as anything special.
Fast forward a bit...to the part about my sister.
By the time I was midway through college, my sister and I had started to develop the kind of relationship where we could talk - really talk - about almost anything. We weren't where we are now, but we were on the way. Occasionally, she would tell me about some book she was reading and sometimes she would even ask what I thought, since she knows that I am a compulsive reader. I remember feeling so happy that someone thought my opinion on books was worth hearing.
I also recall one memorable conversation about Deepak Chopra and the things he had to say about faith. It was that conversation that, as a protective brother and future pastor, got me a bit concerned about my sis. After all, Chopra is not exactly an orthodox Christian by any stretch of the imagination. So I resolved - without telling my sister - to pay a bit more attention and devote more time to the books she mentioned to me.
Fast forward a bit again. Some time later, my sister started talking about this book Return of the Prodigal Son, by that guy Henri Nouwen. Wanting to be sure that I could converse with my sister about the book from a theological perspective, I bought it and read it. And I was a goner.
Soon I started reading everything I could get my hands on by Nouwen. I was obsessed with the message of this unassuming priest. I even remember feeling a bit deflated when I realized that Nouwen had died in 1996 and that I would never have the chance to write to him or see him, and even more deflated when I realized that this great man of God had spent years of his life in South Bend, IN - a scant 2 hour drive from my home.
One year for Christmas (or maybe it was my birthday), my wife let me order every book by Nouwen that Amazon had in stock. It was around 30 books. I have since donated many of those, but the best ones - Return of the Prodigal Son, A Cry for Mercy, The Inner Voice of Love and his Spiritual Journeys still sit on my shelf just a few feet from where I sit writing.
Why did I become so obsessed with Nouwen. The simplest way to put it is that, from that first reading of Return of the Prodigal Son, I found in Nouwen a voice that was missing in my life. Missing and much needed.
I spent (and still spend, unfortunately) way too much of my time beating myself up for my failures and telling myself that God and others would not, could not truly love me until I fixed my flaws, until all the faults and failures had been overcome and I achieved the unachievable - becoming perfect. I was locked in an unwinnable battle, but it was a battle that I thought I had to fight, a battle that everyone had to fight.
Nouwen was the first voice in my life that made clear to me that my wounds, faults and failures are just as much gifts from God as my victories and gifts. He was the first voice that I was able to hear that convinced me that God's love for me is not dependent on anything and that God is not waiting and watching for me to fail so that God can punish me. In particular, the following quote from The Inner Voice of Love sums up the message of Nouwen to me:
"Avoid all forms of self-rejection. Acknowledge your limitations, but claim your unique gifts and thereby live as an equal among equals."
Many times in my life, when I have been on the precipice of total despair in my calling and ministry, those words have been able to, by the grace of God, pull me back to my center, to the God who loves me and will continue to love me even if I fail at every church I ever pastor.
That's how Henri Nouwen saved my soul - even after he died.
And like I said, it's all my sister's fault.
Thanks, E.
But I've never told the story of how I came to discover this great man, this saint of the church. Here it is:
It's all my sister's fault. Well, sort of. The story begins a bit before that.
When I was in my first ministry class at Olivet Nazarene University, our professor - Dr. Ron Dalton - recommended that we all read a book called The Wounded Healer by a guy I'd never heard of, Henri Nouwen. Being a good student (and wanting a good grade), I got my hands on the book and read it. At the time, I thought it was a good read but didn't see it as anything special.
Fast forward a bit...to the part about my sister.
By the time I was midway through college, my sister and I had started to develop the kind of relationship where we could talk - really talk - about almost anything. We weren't where we are now, but we were on the way. Occasionally, she would tell me about some book she was reading and sometimes she would even ask what I thought, since she knows that I am a compulsive reader. I remember feeling so happy that someone thought my opinion on books was worth hearing.
I also recall one memorable conversation about Deepak Chopra and the things he had to say about faith. It was that conversation that, as a protective brother and future pastor, got me a bit concerned about my sis. After all, Chopra is not exactly an orthodox Christian by any stretch of the imagination. So I resolved - without telling my sister - to pay a bit more attention and devote more time to the books she mentioned to me.
Fast forward a bit again. Some time later, my sister started talking about this book Return of the Prodigal Son, by that guy Henri Nouwen. Wanting to be sure that I could converse with my sister about the book from a theological perspective, I bought it and read it. And I was a goner.
Soon I started reading everything I could get my hands on by Nouwen. I was obsessed with the message of this unassuming priest. I even remember feeling a bit deflated when I realized that Nouwen had died in 1996 and that I would never have the chance to write to him or see him, and even more deflated when I realized that this great man of God had spent years of his life in South Bend, IN - a scant 2 hour drive from my home.
One year for Christmas (or maybe it was my birthday), my wife let me order every book by Nouwen that Amazon had in stock. It was around 30 books. I have since donated many of those, but the best ones - Return of the Prodigal Son, A Cry for Mercy, The Inner Voice of Love and his Spiritual Journeys still sit on my shelf just a few feet from where I sit writing.
Why did I become so obsessed with Nouwen. The simplest way to put it is that, from that first reading of Return of the Prodigal Son, I found in Nouwen a voice that was missing in my life. Missing and much needed.
I spent (and still spend, unfortunately) way too much of my time beating myself up for my failures and telling myself that God and others would not, could not truly love me until I fixed my flaws, until all the faults and failures had been overcome and I achieved the unachievable - becoming perfect. I was locked in an unwinnable battle, but it was a battle that I thought I had to fight, a battle that everyone had to fight.
Nouwen was the first voice in my life that made clear to me that my wounds, faults and failures are just as much gifts from God as my victories and gifts. He was the first voice that I was able to hear that convinced me that God's love for me is not dependent on anything and that God is not waiting and watching for me to fail so that God can punish me. In particular, the following quote from The Inner Voice of Love sums up the message of Nouwen to me:
"Avoid all forms of self-rejection. Acknowledge your limitations, but claim your unique gifts and thereby live as an equal among equals."
Many times in my life, when I have been on the precipice of total despair in my calling and ministry, those words have been able to, by the grace of God, pull me back to my center, to the God who loves me and will continue to love me even if I fail at every church I ever pastor.
That's how Henri Nouwen saved my soul - even after he died.
And like I said, it's all my sister's fault.
Thanks, E.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Five Questions
Since my sister (who writes this blog) did this, and because I'm feeling somewhat less than theological today, I thought I'd tackle this five questions thing. The task is to answer five particular questions. So here goes.
What are you really good at? What are you really bad at?
I'd like to think that I am quite good at reading books and assimilating/integrating what I learn into my worldview.
I know that I am bad at paying attention to small details, especially in relationships. I can come across as insensitive and uncaring because I simply don't think of those little things most of the time.
Have you ever been in a car accident?
I once looked down for about 2 seconds to turn up the volume on the radio and, when I looked up, I didn't have enough time to stop before rear-ending a little old lady's car, which was stopped to turn left. No one was hurt, but I remember the bills for repairs...
Why did you attend your college?
Which one? Including grad school, I've attended five. Here goes.
Purdue University - because I wanted to major in Physics/Mathematics and Purdue was 1/3 the cost of Rose Hulman Institute of Technology.
Olivet Nazarene University - because I was going to major in religion...and there was this really pretty girl who was going to be there.
Nazarene Theological Seminary (grad school) - because everyone told me that's what Nazarene pastors did, go to NTS and get an M.Div.
Indiana Wesleyan University (grad school) - because their program was tremendously practical and close to home.
Northwest Nazarene University (grad school) - because the program was online.
How did your parents' relationship affect you?
The tough one. Fair warning, there might be some surprising stuff here.
First, I don't remember much of what life was like with my parents before they divorced when I was 8. Looking back, the fact that they divorced affected me in one key way: it made me absolutely determined - fanatically so - that the divorce trend in our family would end with me if it kille me.
Second, there was a time when I moved custody from my mom to my dad. It was a volatile situation for awhile, and I felt like I had somehow single handedly ruined the civil relationship my parents still had with each other. Let me say, to be clear, that neither of my parents ever did anything specific to make me feel that way - I just did. From that experience, it took me awhile to realize that I didn't have to choose sides. I didn't have to hate one parent to love the other.
Mostly, what I have learned from my parents' relationships - with each other and with their new significan others - is that I have to be true to who I am and trust that God will bring the right people into my life who will accept me for that person, not for some mask I put on or something I can do with them.
What are the three happiest moments of your life?
1. The day I found out Melissa loved me, too. I had sent her an e-mail after church and spent an hour listening to sappy love songs, worrying about whether I had blown it, and generally being very nervous...until I got a response. Then all was right in the world. Best day of my life.
2. Tie. 11/19/05 & 1/23/08 - I thought I knew was love really meant. Until Hannah and Ike were born. Life was irrevocably changed for the better on both of those days.
3. This one is somewhat abstract - when I discovered Henri Nouwen and his books. More than anyone else - living or dead - Nouwen taught me how to accept who I am and to learn to not just accept my woundedness but to use that woundedness as a base for life and ministry.
There.
What are you really good at? What are you really bad at?
I'd like to think that I am quite good at reading books and assimilating/integrating what I learn into my worldview.
I know that I am bad at paying attention to small details, especially in relationships. I can come across as insensitive and uncaring because I simply don't think of those little things most of the time.
Have you ever been in a car accident?
I once looked down for about 2 seconds to turn up the volume on the radio and, when I looked up, I didn't have enough time to stop before rear-ending a little old lady's car, which was stopped to turn left. No one was hurt, but I remember the bills for repairs...
Why did you attend your college?
Which one? Including grad school, I've attended five. Here goes.
Purdue University - because I wanted to major in Physics/Mathematics and Purdue was 1/3 the cost of Rose Hulman Institute of Technology.
Olivet Nazarene University - because I was going to major in religion...and there was this really pretty girl who was going to be there.
Nazarene Theological Seminary (grad school) - because everyone told me that's what Nazarene pastors did, go to NTS and get an M.Div.
Indiana Wesleyan University (grad school) - because their program was tremendously practical and close to home.
Northwest Nazarene University (grad school) - because the program was online.
How did your parents' relationship affect you?
The tough one. Fair warning, there might be some surprising stuff here.
First, I don't remember much of what life was like with my parents before they divorced when I was 8. Looking back, the fact that they divorced affected me in one key way: it made me absolutely determined - fanatically so - that the divorce trend in our family would end with me if it kille me.
Second, there was a time when I moved custody from my mom to my dad. It was a volatile situation for awhile, and I felt like I had somehow single handedly ruined the civil relationship my parents still had with each other. Let me say, to be clear, that neither of my parents ever did anything specific to make me feel that way - I just did. From that experience, it took me awhile to realize that I didn't have to choose sides. I didn't have to hate one parent to love the other.
Mostly, what I have learned from my parents' relationships - with each other and with their new significan others - is that I have to be true to who I am and trust that God will bring the right people into my life who will accept me for that person, not for some mask I put on or something I can do with them.
What are the three happiest moments of your life?
1. The day I found out Melissa loved me, too. I had sent her an e-mail after church and spent an hour listening to sappy love songs, worrying about whether I had blown it, and generally being very nervous...until I got a response. Then all was right in the world. Best day of my life.
2. Tie. 11/19/05 & 1/23/08 - I thought I knew was love really meant. Until Hannah and Ike were born. Life was irrevocably changed for the better on both of those days.
3. This one is somewhat abstract - when I discovered Henri Nouwen and his books. More than anyone else - living or dead - Nouwen taught me how to accept who I am and to learn to not just accept my woundedness but to use that woundedness as a base for life and ministry.
There.
Friday, August 12, 2011
The Call to Cognitive Dissonance
Several years ago, during a period of clinical depression in my life, I discovered the concept of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the psychological term for what happens in your mind when it is presented with two conflicting ideas or constructs. As an example, if I am convinced that people on welfare are only on welfare because they are too lazy to get a job, when I meet someone on welfare who is not lazy but who cannot find a job, I will experience cognitive dissonance. The dissonance only resolves when the tension between the conflicting ideals/constructs is resolved - I must either adjust my assumption about people on welfare or somehow convince myself that the person in question really is too lazy to get a job.
While I was talking with my therapist about some of the depression issues I had, the concept of cognitive dissonance came up. He suggested that many of my symptoms were a result of unresolved cognitive dissonance in my life - dissonance between what I had always believed to be true about the world and about God and what I was beginning to discover as I entered young adulthood. Since I had not been able to resolve the dissonance, it was growing stronger and causing problems.
The solution, then, was to systematically rid myself of the cognitive dissonance. So that is what I began to attempt to do - ruthlessly rooting out cognitive dissonance in order to make myself "healthy"...because cognitive dissonance is evil. Or so I thought.
What I have come to realize since is that the problem was not the existence of cognitive dissonance or even that cognitive dissonance itself was evil. Rather, the problem was that I was unprepared to deal with cognitive dissonance when it presented itself. The systems in which I grew up - at home, at school and at church - all tended to ignore cognitive dissonance by offering unsatisfying or simplistic answers to tough questions or by going to extreme lengths to mitigate or eliminate tension between ideas/constructs. So when I reached my twenties and was faced with real cognitive dissonance, I was caught off guard. My depression was not a direct result of the cognitive dissonance, but an indirect result - caused by my inability to accept the reality of cognitive dissonance and even befriend that dissonance.
So why is all of this important?
First, cognitive dissonance itself is not evil. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I come to realize that cognitive dissonance is the root of transformation and, therefore, the root of Christian faith. If it were not for the tension between what I say I believe and the reality of my actions, where would I find the impetus for change? If there is no dissonance between sin and grace, where do we find and how do we proclaim the gospel?
Second, we cannot hope to eliminate cognitive dissonance. This is quickly becoming a core truth for me - cognitive dissonance simply is. There is no avoiding it - unless we choose to live in a world completely detached from reality (which, unfortunately, many of us do). Cognitive dissonance, as I have already said, is the source of transformation.
Moreover, cognitive dissonance is found in the very core tenets of Christian faith. What is the cross but an exercise in cognitive dissonance? Love meets hate. Death meets life. Grace for life comes through the horror of the crucifixion. The resurrection is also a source of cognitive dissonance - we "know" that people do not come back from the dead...yet we are convinced and believe that Jesus did exactly that. This leads to my third, and most important, realization. The very idea of God creates cognitive dissonance - the God who is simultaneously distant from us and close to us.
Third, because cognitive dissonance is always around us and forms the source of transformation, the task of the church and of the Christian community is not to eliminate cognitive dissonance in faith by offering simplistic answers to resolve the tension(s) presented by life. Rather, our task is to model and teach what it looks like to live a life that is, if not comfortable with, at least accepting of cognitive dissonance. As Peter Rollins puts it, in a sentence that is simply profound:
That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking.
I spent way too much time following those therapy sessions trying to eliminate cognitive dissonance from my life only to discover that every time I get rid of one form of it, another pops up in its place. I am gradually coming to the place where I understand that, while I do not always like the cognitive dissonance in my life, it serves a purpose.
Ultimately, I believe that the call of Christ in the gospel is for people to embrace the call to cognitive dissonance.
While I was talking with my therapist about some of the depression issues I had, the concept of cognitive dissonance came up. He suggested that many of my symptoms were a result of unresolved cognitive dissonance in my life - dissonance between what I had always believed to be true about the world and about God and what I was beginning to discover as I entered young adulthood. Since I had not been able to resolve the dissonance, it was growing stronger and causing problems.
The solution, then, was to systematically rid myself of the cognitive dissonance. So that is what I began to attempt to do - ruthlessly rooting out cognitive dissonance in order to make myself "healthy"...because cognitive dissonance is evil. Or so I thought.
What I have come to realize since is that the problem was not the existence of cognitive dissonance or even that cognitive dissonance itself was evil. Rather, the problem was that I was unprepared to deal with cognitive dissonance when it presented itself. The systems in which I grew up - at home, at school and at church - all tended to ignore cognitive dissonance by offering unsatisfying or simplistic answers to tough questions or by going to extreme lengths to mitigate or eliminate tension between ideas/constructs. So when I reached my twenties and was faced with real cognitive dissonance, I was caught off guard. My depression was not a direct result of the cognitive dissonance, but an indirect result - caused by my inability to accept the reality of cognitive dissonance and even befriend that dissonance.
So why is all of this important?
First, cognitive dissonance itself is not evil. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I come to realize that cognitive dissonance is the root of transformation and, therefore, the root of Christian faith. If it were not for the tension between what I say I believe and the reality of my actions, where would I find the impetus for change? If there is no dissonance between sin and grace, where do we find and how do we proclaim the gospel?
Second, we cannot hope to eliminate cognitive dissonance. This is quickly becoming a core truth for me - cognitive dissonance simply is. There is no avoiding it - unless we choose to live in a world completely detached from reality (which, unfortunately, many of us do). Cognitive dissonance, as I have already said, is the source of transformation.
Moreover, cognitive dissonance is found in the very core tenets of Christian faith. What is the cross but an exercise in cognitive dissonance? Love meets hate. Death meets life. Grace for life comes through the horror of the crucifixion. The resurrection is also a source of cognitive dissonance - we "know" that people do not come back from the dead...yet we are convinced and believe that Jesus did exactly that. This leads to my third, and most important, realization. The very idea of God creates cognitive dissonance - the God who is simultaneously distant from us and close to us.
Third, because cognitive dissonance is always around us and forms the source of transformation, the task of the church and of the Christian community is not to eliminate cognitive dissonance in faith by offering simplistic answers to resolve the tension(s) presented by life. Rather, our task is to model and teach what it looks like to live a life that is, if not comfortable with, at least accepting of cognitive dissonance. As Peter Rollins puts it, in a sentence that is simply profound:
That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking.
I spent way too much time following those therapy sessions trying to eliminate cognitive dissonance from my life only to discover that every time I get rid of one form of it, another pops up in its place. I am gradually coming to the place where I understand that, while I do not always like the cognitive dissonance in my life, it serves a purpose.
Ultimately, I believe that the call of Christ in the gospel is for people to embrace the call to cognitive dissonance.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
A New Tribe
It's time for me to return from my summer blog sabbatical. Since I wasn't in class, I spent my summer reading, relaxing and, oh yeah, I found a new tribe.
Several months ago, I wrote about severing my relationship with the denominational family I had called home for my entire life (you can read it Here). It was a challenging time and I confess that I was both hurt and disconcerted by the experience.
So I embarked on a search for a new tribe - a new denominational family in which I could fulfill the call of God in my life. I didn't know where I would find one or even if I would find one. All I knew as I started the journey is that I could not go back, that the place that once was home was no longer.
So I embarked on a search for a new tribe - a new denominational family in which I could fulfill the call of God in my life. I didn't know where I would find one or even if I would find one. All I knew as I started the journey is that I could not go back, that the place that once was home was no longer.
Now, if I'm honest, I fully expected this search to take some time longer than it did. Because I sit here today writing about my new denominational home, the United Methodist Church.
I have been a long distance admirer of the UMC for some time now, and had even flirted with joining their tribe in the past. The fear of change, though, kept me where I was. It was not until I had no choice that I took the plunge. I began serving as the pastor of Bringhurst United Methodist Church in Bringhurst, Indiana on July 3 of this year.
And you know what? I find myself asking on a regular basis asking myself what took so long. The UMC appears to be exactly what I needed in worship and ministry. Whereas I felt in my old denominational family that I had to work hard just to be accepted and fit in, and I felt afraid to be myself in many circumstances, I have felt welcome from the first moment. It has been refreshing.
There are two key lessons I learned in my surprisingly brief sojourn in the wilderness of tribe-lessness.
The first is this: My old denomination family was not bad. I fear that I have given that impression in the way that I have spoken and written about the experience. It was different. I have good friends there and I still pray for the work of that denominational family to be blessed by God. It simply was not the place where I fit. And that's okay. One of the reasons different denominational families exist is so that God can place people where they will fit best.
The second lesson is this: no denominational family is perfect. When you spend 30 years in one denominational family, it is easy to unreasonably expect that it will be perfect. I fell into that trap, and no denominational family could live up to that. Consequently, I am bringing a new level of awareness to my joining with the UMC. I know that I will not like or agree with everything in the UMC. And that's okay. In fact, I told the district superintendent of the UMC that I did not want to make the ultimate decision about long term, career ministry in the UMC until after a year just so that I could take time to evaluate some of those areas. Imagine my shock when the response was, "That's a great idea."
The crazy thing is that I don't need a year. I know. This is the place I belong. I finally found a home where I don't have to pretend to be something less (or more) than I am.
The crazy thing is that I don't need a year. I know. This is the place I belong. I finally found a home where I don't have to pretend to be something less (or more) than I am.
I have found my new tribe.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Suffering as the Way to God
Last night I started, or restarted, a discipline I have done before and had let slide - the prayerful reading of Scripture (aka lectio divina).
I chose as my starting point the book of Hebrews. I'm not entirely sure why I chose Hebrews, but choose it I did and over the course of the last 24 hours or so, I've found myself wrestling with one verse in the second chapter:
"In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered." (Heb. 2:10)
Those two bold words are the ones that leapt off the page and lodged themselves in my brain, the ones I can't seem to dislodge. Fitting and suffered. What this verse is saying is that Jesus' suffering - the mocking, the beating, the scourging, the cross, the dying - was all appropriate, that it was the way it should be.
It is fitting that Jesus suffered? Really?
I have always had a bit of a hard time with the idea that Jesus "had" to die on a cross. Maybe it's just me, but I suspect I'm not the only Christian to be troubled in such a way. "Couldn't the God who is all-powerful have come up with another way?" That's the question that comes to mind.
If I'm honest, I've never been able to answer that question adequately. I have always had to resort to my confidence that God is greater than anything I can ever comprehend and that I am simply not meant to comprehend the necessity of the cross.
Until last night. As I prayed over this verse, God granted to me the beginnings of an insight into the cross and why it is indeed "fitting" that Jesus "suffered."
Suffering is, you see, the ultimate equalizer. It respects no one's power and no one's money. The powerful and wealthy can suffer just as much as the weak and the poor. That is why we have to say that Jesus's suffering was fitting. Because any other way would have left the old divides and structures still standing.
Sure, Jesus theoretically could have come to reign in a political way and overthrown Rome as so many of his disciples expected. In doing so, though, Jesus would have demonstrated a path to God available only to the powerful or those with influence. Surely the poor have no recourse or resource to overthrow governments.
But again, the poor can suffer. That they can do, it is often a daily occurrence in the life of the poor, of the oppressed, of the weak. Left without any ability to look out for themselves, they are forced to ride the wave of the strong and hope and pray for the best, for a break from their suffering.
By pioneering, by demonstrating a path to God through suffering, Jesus opens the path to all and flips the usual way of doing things on its head. Whereas in the everyday world of Rome strength and money and power prevail, in the Kingdom of God weakness and poverty prevail. Everything is upside down.
Instead of being at a loss, the poor lead the way. It is the rich and powerful who must face difficulty on the path to God described by the Jesus whose sufferings were "fitting" - difficulties raised by the very things that set them "above" the poor and the weak.
It has never made sense to me before and it still doesn't completely make sense, but I am beginning to see that the God who transcends everything I know and am is, shockingly, better at laying out the path of salvation than we are.
Jesus' sufferings may make us uncomfortable, and rightfully so - but there is no longer any doubt in my mind that they are indeed "fitting."
I chose as my starting point the book of Hebrews. I'm not entirely sure why I chose Hebrews, but choose it I did and over the course of the last 24 hours or so, I've found myself wrestling with one verse in the second chapter:
"In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered." (Heb. 2:10)
Those two bold words are the ones that leapt off the page and lodged themselves in my brain, the ones I can't seem to dislodge. Fitting and suffered. What this verse is saying is that Jesus' suffering - the mocking, the beating, the scourging, the cross, the dying - was all appropriate, that it was the way it should be.
It is fitting that Jesus suffered? Really?
I have always had a bit of a hard time with the idea that Jesus "had" to die on a cross. Maybe it's just me, but I suspect I'm not the only Christian to be troubled in such a way. "Couldn't the God who is all-powerful have come up with another way?" That's the question that comes to mind.
If I'm honest, I've never been able to answer that question adequately. I have always had to resort to my confidence that God is greater than anything I can ever comprehend and that I am simply not meant to comprehend the necessity of the cross.
Until last night. As I prayed over this verse, God granted to me the beginnings of an insight into the cross and why it is indeed "fitting" that Jesus "suffered."
Suffering is, you see, the ultimate equalizer. It respects no one's power and no one's money. The powerful and wealthy can suffer just as much as the weak and the poor. That is why we have to say that Jesus's suffering was fitting. Because any other way would have left the old divides and structures still standing.
Sure, Jesus theoretically could have come to reign in a political way and overthrown Rome as so many of his disciples expected. In doing so, though, Jesus would have demonstrated a path to God available only to the powerful or those with influence. Surely the poor have no recourse or resource to overthrow governments.
But again, the poor can suffer. That they can do, it is often a daily occurrence in the life of the poor, of the oppressed, of the weak. Left without any ability to look out for themselves, they are forced to ride the wave of the strong and hope and pray for the best, for a break from their suffering.
By pioneering, by demonstrating a path to God through suffering, Jesus opens the path to all and flips the usual way of doing things on its head. Whereas in the everyday world of Rome strength and money and power prevail, in the Kingdom of God weakness and poverty prevail. Everything is upside down.
Instead of being at a loss, the poor lead the way. It is the rich and powerful who must face difficulty on the path to God described by the Jesus whose sufferings were "fitting" - difficulties raised by the very things that set them "above" the poor and the weak.
It has never made sense to me before and it still doesn't completely make sense, but I am beginning to see that the God who transcends everything I know and am is, shockingly, better at laying out the path of salvation than we are.
Jesus' sufferings may make us uncomfortable, and rightfully so - but there is no longer any doubt in my mind that they are indeed "fitting."
Thursday, May 26, 2011
The Power of Confession
For a long time now I have been fascinated with the practice of confession - specifically the practice of confessing one's shortcomings and failures to a trusted friend or pastor. Some denominations consider confession to be a sacrament (such as Roman Catholics), while others ignore it altogether (such as Nazarenes, Wesleyans, and others). And of course, there is a spectrum of views in between.
Growing up in a non-confession church, I have always been told that confession to another person is unnecessary because I only need to confess to God. Since God is the one who forgives, the argument goes, God should be the one to whom I confess. If I desire to do so, I may confess to another friend, but it is by no means considered a sacramental act and is often not even encouraged.
As I've been reading about spiritual direction and guidance over the last several days, though, one particular thing has stood out to me. In more than one religious tradition, confession is seen as an integral part of spiritual direction. Sharing with a spiritual director the struggles that one has is seen as crucial to experiencing full awareness of God's presence in one's life.
Initially, that idea made me uncomfortable. After I thought about it, though, I began to wonder if my discomfort is rooted in a misunderstanding of the power and purpose of confession.
For many Christians, confession is seen as a punitive and preventative act. The shame associated with telling another person our sin becomes a driving force to keep us from doing it again and can even be used as a deterrent for others.
As a case in point, let me share a story. There is a young couple I am friends with who, before they got married, found themselves expecting their first child. The man attended a large baptist church and was quite involved in ministry. When the couple confessed their "sin" to the pastor of this large baptist church, the pastor insisted that the man needed to confess his sin in front of the entire 3000 person congregation. Without going into how wrong and offensive the pastor's actions were, it is clear that in this situation confession used as a tool for punishment.
No wonder so many Christians fail to practice the discipline of confession.
What if, though, confession was not a punitive thing? What if instead it should be seen as an act of healing? This is the view of confession that I ran across in my reading. In Gary Moon & David Benner's Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls, Father Gregory Rogers describes it like this:
Confession is seen as an indispensable means for making new the grace of forgiveness, providing an opportunity for the penitent to find direction in order to overcome the passions and sins that easily beset the believer. The emphasis is not on the legal aspects of sin but on the healing of the heart that has been damaged by sin.
We have all experienced the relief that comes from "getting something off our chest." There is something powerful about baring our souls to another that is apparent to all of us. It is why we seek out close friends and confidants when we are going through a tough period in our lives. We know - deep in the recesses of our soul - the value of talking to another.
Yet for too many of us there is a line in those conversations that we seem unwilling to cross even with our closest of friends. We would rather struggle alone with our sins and shortcomings than allow another to come alongside and offer us assistance on the road to healing.
I am absolutely convinced that the church needs to recapture the discipline, the sacrament of confession if it is to be effective in living out God's Kingdom in the world today. That will only happen, though, when we begin to recognize that the purpose and power of confession lie not in punishment but in healing.
Growing up in a non-confession church, I have always been told that confession to another person is unnecessary because I only need to confess to God. Since God is the one who forgives, the argument goes, God should be the one to whom I confess. If I desire to do so, I may confess to another friend, but it is by no means considered a sacramental act and is often not even encouraged.
As I've been reading about spiritual direction and guidance over the last several days, though, one particular thing has stood out to me. In more than one religious tradition, confession is seen as an integral part of spiritual direction. Sharing with a spiritual director the struggles that one has is seen as crucial to experiencing full awareness of God's presence in one's life.
Initially, that idea made me uncomfortable. After I thought about it, though, I began to wonder if my discomfort is rooted in a misunderstanding of the power and purpose of confession.
For many Christians, confession is seen as a punitive and preventative act. The shame associated with telling another person our sin becomes a driving force to keep us from doing it again and can even be used as a deterrent for others.
As a case in point, let me share a story. There is a young couple I am friends with who, before they got married, found themselves expecting their first child. The man attended a large baptist church and was quite involved in ministry. When the couple confessed their "sin" to the pastor of this large baptist church, the pastor insisted that the man needed to confess his sin in front of the entire 3000 person congregation. Without going into how wrong and offensive the pastor's actions were, it is clear that in this situation confession used as a tool for punishment.
No wonder so many Christians fail to practice the discipline of confession.
What if, though, confession was not a punitive thing? What if instead it should be seen as an act of healing? This is the view of confession that I ran across in my reading. In Gary Moon & David Benner's Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls, Father Gregory Rogers describes it like this:
Confession is seen as an indispensable means for making new the grace of forgiveness, providing an opportunity for the penitent to find direction in order to overcome the passions and sins that easily beset the believer. The emphasis is not on the legal aspects of sin but on the healing of the heart that has been damaged by sin.
We have all experienced the relief that comes from "getting something off our chest." There is something powerful about baring our souls to another that is apparent to all of us. It is why we seek out close friends and confidants when we are going through a tough period in our lives. We know - deep in the recesses of our soul - the value of talking to another.
Yet for too many of us there is a line in those conversations that we seem unwilling to cross even with our closest of friends. We would rather struggle alone with our sins and shortcomings than allow another to come alongside and offer us assistance on the road to healing.
I am absolutely convinced that the church needs to recapture the discipline, the sacrament of confession if it is to be effective in living out God's Kingdom in the world today. That will only happen, though, when we begin to recognize that the purpose and power of confession lie not in punishment but in healing.
Friday, May 13, 2011
My Life Has Become a Poem
One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. There is something poignant about the image of standing at a fork in the path and having to choose which direction to take. That image is probably why The Road Not Taken has achieved the status as an iconic American poem.
These days, I feel as though my life has reached the point of mirroring the poem - or at least its first lines:
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood..."
Right at this moment I see myself standing in that yellow wood; listening to the breeze blow through the trees; considering the two paths that lay ahead of me and wondering what lies down each; wishing that I could see just a little bit farther down each, just around the next bend or over the next hill.
But alas, I can't. I have not the time to travel down one a ways and then return to take the other. I must choose one or the other.
Which is why I say that my life has become a poem.
The parallel is not exact, though, because the two roads I face do not mirror those described by Frost. He describes a road well traveled and a road not so well traveled. By contrast, I see two paths that appear equally worn.
On the left is a path that looks for all intents and purposes like it ends in a dead end about 100 yards down the road. But there might be a narrow path at the cul-de-sac at the end of the path. It's a little foggy and I think I see something, but can I risk choosing a path without knowing that it actually leads somewhere?
On the right, though, is a path that bends sharply at about 100 yards. It clearly goes somewhere, I just have no idea where.
And so here I stand.
The frustrating part is that this time I can't fall back on the "God wants one and not the other" position. Because of what I believe about God and the future and free will, I am forced to admit that both are viable options. To be sure, one path may be God's "best" for me, but that does not mean that God will not bless me on the other path. There is no "right" answer in terms of one path leading to happiness and one leading to destruction.
It would help if the two paths were a bit more like Frost's, if there were some obvious distinguishing characteristic that makes one clearly preferable over the other. But again, there is no such mark - they both look equally worn and equally attractive. There are pros and cons associated with each.
None of which helps make the decision easier.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..."
And I have have no idea which one I'm taking.
These days, I feel as though my life has reached the point of mirroring the poem - or at least its first lines:
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood..."
Right at this moment I see myself standing in that yellow wood; listening to the breeze blow through the trees; considering the two paths that lay ahead of me and wondering what lies down each; wishing that I could see just a little bit farther down each, just around the next bend or over the next hill.
But alas, I can't. I have not the time to travel down one a ways and then return to take the other. I must choose one or the other.
Which is why I say that my life has become a poem.
The parallel is not exact, though, because the two roads I face do not mirror those described by Frost. He describes a road well traveled and a road not so well traveled. By contrast, I see two paths that appear equally worn.
On the left is a path that looks for all intents and purposes like it ends in a dead end about 100 yards down the road. But there might be a narrow path at the cul-de-sac at the end of the path. It's a little foggy and I think I see something, but can I risk choosing a path without knowing that it actually leads somewhere?
On the right, though, is a path that bends sharply at about 100 yards. It clearly goes somewhere, I just have no idea where.
And so here I stand.
The frustrating part is that this time I can't fall back on the "God wants one and not the other" position. Because of what I believe about God and the future and free will, I am forced to admit that both are viable options. To be sure, one path may be God's "best" for me, but that does not mean that God will not bless me on the other path. There is no "right" answer in terms of one path leading to happiness and one leading to destruction.
It would help if the two paths were a bit more like Frost's, if there were some obvious distinguishing characteristic that makes one clearly preferable over the other. But again, there is no such mark - they both look equally worn and equally attractive. There are pros and cons associated with each.
None of which helps make the decision easier.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..."
And I have have no idea which one I'm taking.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Models of Love: A Tribute to the Mothers in My Life
I am privileged to have four significant mothers in my life: my wife, my mother, my grandmother and my mother-in-law.
Each of these wonderful women has been an example and an inspiration to me over the course of the 30 years of my life. And each of them has demonstrated many facets of love to me during that time.
Specifically, though, I find as I reflect on them and the impact that they have had on my life, that each of them - though providing a full-orbed love - has demonstrated quite strongly a particular facet of love. This is not to say that particular facet of love took the place of the others or that other facets were not there in all of them - only that each of them has taught me a great deal about a particular type of love.
Patient Love - My Wife
I know this will come as a shock to anyone who knows me, but I am not the easiest person to get along with or to live with. I am moody, tense, irritable and forgetful. I like to have things my own way and am often far too quick to resort to whining and pouting like a 2 year old if I don't get them that way. Moreover, though I am improving, I am lousy at housework - just plain lousy.
Yet through all of this, my wife has shown a patient love that never seems to get tired of my stupidity and idiotic behavior. I know that I must annoy the crap out of her sometimes, but she is always patient and kind with me, whether I deserve it or not.
She is also a patient mother (for the most part) - dealing with the stressors of kids yelling and playing far better than I do in most cases. She patiently works with Ike and Hannah to teach them words and games, not throwing up her hands in frustration when they don't "get it" right away.
She is my model of God's patient love.
Steadfast Love - My Mother
The one thing I value most about my mother is her constancy. She is rock steady and steadfast. At times when everything else seems to be going to hell around me, I know that I can call my mother and she will be there with words that I need to hear.
They may be words of encouragement and they may be words of admonishment, but my mother has never been afraid to speak to me the words I need to hear whether I like them or not.
Even when, as a teenager, I said hurtful and evil things to her and treated her cruelly, she did not waver in her love for me. Looking back now on the times when I thought she "hated" me, I realize that many of her actions were done out of steadfast love for me - even if they were excruciatingly painful to her.
In my eyes (though I know that no person is truly like this), her faith has not wavered since I was a child, and I draw strength from knowing that she is steadfastly there.
She is my model of God's steadfast love.
Limitless Love - My Grandmother
While I have lived a relatively easy life in comparison to many others, there have been moments and seasons of that life that were difficult to endure. In each of those cases, my grandmother showed me the meaning of limitless love.
During my first weeks at military school, when I was unsure whether I could survive, I would call her on a regular basis and beg her, crying, to come and get me and bring me home. She never scolded me or told me to "man up" or said "I can't take this anymore." She encouraged constantly and never stopped being there to answer the phone.
I have lived - my whole family has lived - with my grandmother on two separate occasions. When the need arose, she was willing to allow us to do so without reservation. Though it was certainly less than ideal at times, she never complained and never said "enough is enough, you have to go."
She is my model of God's limitless love.
Self-Giving Love - My Mother-in-Law
Though I have only been married to her daughter for nine years this Wednesday, I have had the benefit of knowing my mother-in-law my entire life. As a child growing up, I watched her serve the church as the Missions president - teaching about missionaries and ministry around the world. Constantly. It seemed like the two constants in my young church life were that my mother would be the church treasurer and my (future) mother-in-law would be the Missions President. And even from a young age, it was easy to tell that she poured herself completely into the work of supporting the church's missionaries.
It wasn't until I got older and fell in love with her daughter, though, that I really began to understand how deeply my mother-in-law gives of herself in loving the church, her family and others. I have never known someone so willing to quietly do whatever needs to be done regardless of the sacrifice she might have to make.
Every time Melissa and I have moved, she (and my father-in-law) have taken vacation time to come and help us pack and load. She was there when both of our children were born, coaching Melissa far better than I could ever have hoped to. She has been there for her family and her children in ways too numerous to tell.
I deeply admire her, and she is my model of God's self-giving love.
Four amazing women - all of whom are mothers in my life. Each of them has taught me something about what it means to be loved and to love others. Each of them has shown all of the characteristics of love in one way or another, but from each I have learned specifically about the type of love mentioned.
I am who I am because of these four mothers. I am beholden to each of them for the gift(s) of love they have given me, and I hope that I will someday learn to live up to the model of each kind of love in my own life.
I thank God that I have mothers like these.
jB
Each of these wonderful women has been an example and an inspiration to me over the course of the 30 years of my life. And each of them has demonstrated many facets of love to me during that time.
Specifically, though, I find as I reflect on them and the impact that they have had on my life, that each of them - though providing a full-orbed love - has demonstrated quite strongly a particular facet of love. This is not to say that particular facet of love took the place of the others or that other facets were not there in all of them - only that each of them has taught me a great deal about a particular type of love.
Patient Love - My Wife
I know this will come as a shock to anyone who knows me, but I am not the easiest person to get along with or to live with. I am moody, tense, irritable and forgetful. I like to have things my own way and am often far too quick to resort to whining and pouting like a 2 year old if I don't get them that way. Moreover, though I am improving, I am lousy at housework - just plain lousy.
Yet through all of this, my wife has shown a patient love that never seems to get tired of my stupidity and idiotic behavior. I know that I must annoy the crap out of her sometimes, but she is always patient and kind with me, whether I deserve it or not.
She is also a patient mother (for the most part) - dealing with the stressors of kids yelling and playing far better than I do in most cases. She patiently works with Ike and Hannah to teach them words and games, not throwing up her hands in frustration when they don't "get it" right away.
She is my model of God's patient love.
Steadfast Love - My Mother
The one thing I value most about my mother is her constancy. She is rock steady and steadfast. At times when everything else seems to be going to hell around me, I know that I can call my mother and she will be there with words that I need to hear.
They may be words of encouragement and they may be words of admonishment, but my mother has never been afraid to speak to me the words I need to hear whether I like them or not.
Even when, as a teenager, I said hurtful and evil things to her and treated her cruelly, she did not waver in her love for me. Looking back now on the times when I thought she "hated" me, I realize that many of her actions were done out of steadfast love for me - even if they were excruciatingly painful to her.
In my eyes (though I know that no person is truly like this), her faith has not wavered since I was a child, and I draw strength from knowing that she is steadfastly there.
She is my model of God's steadfast love.
Limitless Love - My Grandmother
While I have lived a relatively easy life in comparison to many others, there have been moments and seasons of that life that were difficult to endure. In each of those cases, my grandmother showed me the meaning of limitless love.
During my first weeks at military school, when I was unsure whether I could survive, I would call her on a regular basis and beg her, crying, to come and get me and bring me home. She never scolded me or told me to "man up" or said "I can't take this anymore." She encouraged constantly and never stopped being there to answer the phone.
I have lived - my whole family has lived - with my grandmother on two separate occasions. When the need arose, she was willing to allow us to do so without reservation. Though it was certainly less than ideal at times, she never complained and never said "enough is enough, you have to go."
She is my model of God's limitless love.
Self-Giving Love - My Mother-in-Law
Though I have only been married to her daughter for nine years this Wednesday, I have had the benefit of knowing my mother-in-law my entire life. As a child growing up, I watched her serve the church as the Missions president - teaching about missionaries and ministry around the world. Constantly. It seemed like the two constants in my young church life were that my mother would be the church treasurer and my (future) mother-in-law would be the Missions President. And even from a young age, it was easy to tell that she poured herself completely into the work of supporting the church's missionaries.
It wasn't until I got older and fell in love with her daughter, though, that I really began to understand how deeply my mother-in-law gives of herself in loving the church, her family and others. I have never known someone so willing to quietly do whatever needs to be done regardless of the sacrifice she might have to make.
Every time Melissa and I have moved, she (and my father-in-law) have taken vacation time to come and help us pack and load. She was there when both of our children were born, coaching Melissa far better than I could ever have hoped to. She has been there for her family and her children in ways too numerous to tell.
I deeply admire her, and she is my model of God's self-giving love.
Four amazing women - all of whom are mothers in my life. Each of them has taught me something about what it means to be loved and to love others. Each of them has shown all of the characteristics of love in one way or another, but from each I have learned specifically about the type of love mentioned.
I am who I am because of these four mothers. I am beholden to each of them for the gift(s) of love they have given me, and I hope that I will someday learn to live up to the model of each kind of love in my own life.
I thank God that I have mothers like these.
jB
Friday, May 6, 2011
God and GLEE
My wife and I love the show GLEE. Love it. I'm not even sure the word "Gleek" is strong enough to describe it. We look forward to every episode, we buy the songs, we discuss the plot lines. Really, it's rather pathetic, isn't it?
There's a reason, though, that I love GLEE. I love it because it is a tremendously hopeful and joyful show. No matter the dramatic circumstances the characters face, virtually every episode ends on an uplifting note. Take the most recent episode: the club discovers that one of their members is living in a hotel because his dad lost his job. A devastating - and all too common - reality. The response of the GLEE club is to sing - with this member and his little siblings - Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop," an anthem of hope about looking forward to a better future.
Cheesy? Yes. But also joyful and hopeful.
Like I said, every episode seems to have an uplifting note. I was mystified, then, when some time ago a pastor friend of mine made a comment on Facebook about how terrible GLEE is as a show. When I questioned him as to why, his response was something along the lines of "It promotes homosexual relationships." I didn't know how to respond at the time.
I think I might now.
Here's the thing - my pastor friend is wrong. GLEE - as I see it, at least - does not promote homosexual relationships so much as it refuses to exclude homosexuals and refuses to participate in the stereotypes that many people want to hold up about homosexuals and other outcasts.
A lot of people, many of whom would call themselves Christians, are bound and determined to exclude members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities - and this desired exclusion goes beyond wanting to keep them out of the church. This is not enough for them - LGBT individuals must be excluded from society as a whole. They must not be allowed to adopt children, or share benefits like heterosexual couples. They must be kept away from children so that their "perversion" won't rub off. It is sad but true that a group of people that think this way still exists.
And as much as I respect my pastor friend, I believe he falls into that category. Moreover, I believe that is why he has such a problem with GLEE.
Because in order to exclude an entire group of people, you first have to set them apart as needing to be excluded. You cannot treat a person you want to exclude as a person. You have to symbolically exclude them - in language and in thought - in order to proceed to physical exclusion. So homosexuals become "fags," lesbians become "dykes," and so on. All LGBT individuals are portrayed as freaks and deviants who are promiscuous, diseased and who prey on children. In this way it becomes permissible - even admirable - to deny such people the rights and privileges associated with "normal" people.
The only problem is that if this kind of exclusion is to succeed, it must be complete. The symbolic and stereotypical caricatures cannot be challenged. If the "other" - in this case, members of the LGBT community, is humanized it becomes more difficult to convince people to hate them, to exclude them, to deny their humanity.
So when a show like GLEE comes on - with characters like the flamboyant and self-assured Kurt and the conflicted, tormented Dave and Santana who struggles with denial and Brittany who simply doesn't know - and paints such people in normal terms as just like other students, such a show must be resisted. Gays cannot be kind or loving or compassionate because if they are then what grounds are left for exclusion. Hence the outcry among certain segments of the so-called "Christian" community against a show that consistently sends a message of hope.
It is for this reason - the steadfast message of hope and love and acceptance - that I think GLEE sometimes preaches the message of God better than I have ever done, even in the best of my sermons. The message of God is a message of embrace and inclusion, not of exclusion. It is a message of love, not hate. It is a message of hope that doesn't dehumanize any individual or group.
In short, what I'm saying is that Jesus might well be a "Gleek" - or at least Jesus would be more interested in its message of inclusion than too many Christians' message of exclusion.
There's a reason, though, that I love GLEE. I love it because it is a tremendously hopeful and joyful show. No matter the dramatic circumstances the characters face, virtually every episode ends on an uplifting note. Take the most recent episode: the club discovers that one of their members is living in a hotel because his dad lost his job. A devastating - and all too common - reality. The response of the GLEE club is to sing - with this member and his little siblings - Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop," an anthem of hope about looking forward to a better future.
Cheesy? Yes. But also joyful and hopeful.
Like I said, every episode seems to have an uplifting note. I was mystified, then, when some time ago a pastor friend of mine made a comment on Facebook about how terrible GLEE is as a show. When I questioned him as to why, his response was something along the lines of "It promotes homosexual relationships." I didn't know how to respond at the time.
I think I might now.
Here's the thing - my pastor friend is wrong. GLEE - as I see it, at least - does not promote homosexual relationships so much as it refuses to exclude homosexuals and refuses to participate in the stereotypes that many people want to hold up about homosexuals and other outcasts.
A lot of people, many of whom would call themselves Christians, are bound and determined to exclude members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities - and this desired exclusion goes beyond wanting to keep them out of the church. This is not enough for them - LGBT individuals must be excluded from society as a whole. They must not be allowed to adopt children, or share benefits like heterosexual couples. They must be kept away from children so that their "perversion" won't rub off. It is sad but true that a group of people that think this way still exists.
And as much as I respect my pastor friend, I believe he falls into that category. Moreover, I believe that is why he has such a problem with GLEE.
Because in order to exclude an entire group of people, you first have to set them apart as needing to be excluded. You cannot treat a person you want to exclude as a person. You have to symbolically exclude them - in language and in thought - in order to proceed to physical exclusion. So homosexuals become "fags," lesbians become "dykes," and so on. All LGBT individuals are portrayed as freaks and deviants who are promiscuous, diseased and who prey on children. In this way it becomes permissible - even admirable - to deny such people the rights and privileges associated with "normal" people.
The only problem is that if this kind of exclusion is to succeed, it must be complete. The symbolic and stereotypical caricatures cannot be challenged. If the "other" - in this case, members of the LGBT community, is humanized it becomes more difficult to convince people to hate them, to exclude them, to deny their humanity.
So when a show like GLEE comes on - with characters like the flamboyant and self-assured Kurt and the conflicted, tormented Dave and Santana who struggles with denial and Brittany who simply doesn't know - and paints such people in normal terms as just like other students, such a show must be resisted. Gays cannot be kind or loving or compassionate because if they are then what grounds are left for exclusion. Hence the outcry among certain segments of the so-called "Christian" community against a show that consistently sends a message of hope.
It is for this reason - the steadfast message of hope and love and acceptance - that I think GLEE sometimes preaches the message of God better than I have ever done, even in the best of my sermons. The message of God is a message of embrace and inclusion, not of exclusion. It is a message of love, not hate. It is a message of hope that doesn't dehumanize any individual or group.
In short, what I'm saying is that Jesus might well be a "Gleek" - or at least Jesus would be more interested in its message of inclusion than too many Christians' message of exclusion.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
An Important Realization
I am often amused at the times and places in which God reveals things to me about myself and calls me to greater levels of obedience.
This week I had one of those moments in the car on the way back from taking the kids to visit my grandmother.
Before I get to the insight itself, let me set the circumstances. Earlier this week I had been reading Randy Maddox's Responsible Grace - a book on the theology of John Wesley which emphasized the importance that love plays - or at least should play - in the life of Christians. Moreover, in my class we had been discussing the theology of love. Ultimately, I had been spending significant amounts of time contemplating love and what it means to be a loving person.
At this point I should confess that I have long considered myself to be, at my core, a loving person. This is not to say - not even a little bit - that my actions are consistently loving or that I have perfected love. But I believed that, in most of my interactions, I was motivated at the deepest level by concern for the other.
That is, until that car ride when, in a moment of clarity that could only have come from God, I realized that all this time I thought I was loving people, I wasn't. I was loving knowledge and information. More accurately, I was loving knowledge and information more than people. It wasn't that I didn't care about people. Rather, I cared more about knowledge and information and forcing that knowledge onto other people.
This is why I struggled so much with one of the things my district board said when I was pastoring in Oklahoma City - namely, they said that I wasn't coming across to the congregation as someone who loved them. I fought that, thinking the problem was in the way I was trying to communicate my obvious love for them or in their perception. Never did it occur to me that I genuinely wasn't loving them!
Far from being interested in them - and indeed others in my life - for their own sake; far from allowing them space to be themselves; far from listening to their stories and allowing them to invade my own - far from all of that, I was more interested in convincing them to change their views or their behaviors or something else. I approached relationships from the perspective that I had knowledge that they needed and that if I could just impart that knowledge to them, we would all be better off.
The remarkable thing is that it never occurred to me that this was supreme arrogance on my part. Moreover, it was an attitude that stands in direct conflict with one of the core things I believe - that in order to be in a real relationship, one has to allow the other to be on equal footing.
Now, I'm not writing this blog merely as a cathartic experience, though there is an element of that to it. Rather, I decided to share this for two reasons:
1. To apologize to the people who I have loved inadequately. I'm truly sorry that I have not loved as I should and that I have placed knowledge and information ahead of my relationship with you.
2. To begin the exploration of what it means for me to change and how I can go about that. Certainly, I cannot simply forgo knowledge and information - reading is core to who I am. But I must take the time to figure out how to place people in priority over pages.
Because one thing is absolutely certain: now that I know, I can't stay the same. I can't leave it that way. I have been given an insight into myself that disappoints me and frustrates me...but that insight comes with an opportunity to change.
This week I had one of those moments in the car on the way back from taking the kids to visit my grandmother.
Before I get to the insight itself, let me set the circumstances. Earlier this week I had been reading Randy Maddox's Responsible Grace - a book on the theology of John Wesley which emphasized the importance that love plays - or at least should play - in the life of Christians. Moreover, in my class we had been discussing the theology of love. Ultimately, I had been spending significant amounts of time contemplating love and what it means to be a loving person.
At this point I should confess that I have long considered myself to be, at my core, a loving person. This is not to say - not even a little bit - that my actions are consistently loving or that I have perfected love. But I believed that, in most of my interactions, I was motivated at the deepest level by concern for the other.
That is, until that car ride when, in a moment of clarity that could only have come from God, I realized that all this time I thought I was loving people, I wasn't. I was loving knowledge and information. More accurately, I was loving knowledge and information more than people. It wasn't that I didn't care about people. Rather, I cared more about knowledge and information and forcing that knowledge onto other people.
This is why I struggled so much with one of the things my district board said when I was pastoring in Oklahoma City - namely, they said that I wasn't coming across to the congregation as someone who loved them. I fought that, thinking the problem was in the way I was trying to communicate my obvious love for them or in their perception. Never did it occur to me that I genuinely wasn't loving them!
Far from being interested in them - and indeed others in my life - for their own sake; far from allowing them space to be themselves; far from listening to their stories and allowing them to invade my own - far from all of that, I was more interested in convincing them to change their views or their behaviors or something else. I approached relationships from the perspective that I had knowledge that they needed and that if I could just impart that knowledge to them, we would all be better off.
The remarkable thing is that it never occurred to me that this was supreme arrogance on my part. Moreover, it was an attitude that stands in direct conflict with one of the core things I believe - that in order to be in a real relationship, one has to allow the other to be on equal footing.
Now, I'm not writing this blog merely as a cathartic experience, though there is an element of that to it. Rather, I decided to share this for two reasons:
1. To apologize to the people who I have loved inadequately. I'm truly sorry that I have not loved as I should and that I have placed knowledge and information ahead of my relationship with you.
2. To begin the exploration of what it means for me to change and how I can go about that. Certainly, I cannot simply forgo knowledge and information - reading is core to who I am. But I must take the time to figure out how to place people in priority over pages.
Because one thing is absolutely certain: now that I know, I can't stay the same. I can't leave it that way. I have been given an insight into myself that disappoints me and frustrates me...but that insight comes with an opportunity to change.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Reflections on 10 Years Gone and Dreams for 10 Years to Come
I turn 30 today. Three decades I have been on the planet. Almost 1/3 of a century.
If I'm honest, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Or perhaps it would be better to say I wasn't sure how I felt about that. At 30, I'm not exactly where I dreamed I would be.
Then I thought back over where I was 10 years ago today and realized that the last 10 years have been nothing short of amazing.
On the day I turned 20, I was still in college. I had no degree. I had never worked in a church. I had a girlfriend but nothing else.
Between 20 and 30:
The temptation for me has always been to look at what I haven't accomplished and be disappointed and slide into thinking that I have accomplished nothing. The list up there puts the lie to that. Yes, there are things that I thought would have happened by the time I turned 30 - ordination, for one. Yet in spite of those things, the last 10 years of my life have been amazing. Throughout it all I have seen God's hand and experienced God's guidance - even if I have to admit that sometimes that guidance was not exactly what I wanted to hear.
There is no doubt in my mind that the me I am today at 30 is better than it would have been had everything gone according to my plans.
With that in mind, then, I offer up the following dreams for the next 10 years of my life - fully recognizing that they may or may not come true but remaining confident that when I type an "I'm turning 40" blog entry, my life will have been just what it needed to be.
By 40:
jB
If I'm honest, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Or perhaps it would be better to say I wasn't sure how I felt about that. At 30, I'm not exactly where I dreamed I would be.
Then I thought back over where I was 10 years ago today and realized that the last 10 years have been nothing short of amazing.
On the day I turned 20, I was still in college. I had no degree. I had never worked in a church. I had a girlfriend but nothing else.
Between 20 and 30:
- I got married to a ridiculously beautiful and smart and funny and sexy woman.
- I had two amazing children who have transformed my life.
- I got a Bachelor's degree.
- I got a Master's degree.
- I served as an Associate Pastor
- I served as a Lead Pastor
- I experienced major transformation from God.
- I lived in Bourbonnais, IL; Overland Park, KS; Merillville, IN; Lafayette, IN; Oklahoma City, OK; and Logansport, IN.
- I bought a house.
- I sold a house (after a lot of heartache).
- I survived having my house broken into.
The temptation for me has always been to look at what I haven't accomplished and be disappointed and slide into thinking that I have accomplished nothing. The list up there puts the lie to that. Yes, there are things that I thought would have happened by the time I turned 30 - ordination, for one. Yet in spite of those things, the last 10 years of my life have been amazing. Throughout it all I have seen God's hand and experienced God's guidance - even if I have to admit that sometimes that guidance was not exactly what I wanted to hear.
There is no doubt in my mind that the me I am today at 30 is better than it would have been had everything gone according to my plans.
With that in mind, then, I offer up the following dreams for the next 10 years of my life - fully recognizing that they may or may not come true but remaining confident that when I type an "I'm turning 40" blog entry, my life will have been just what it needed to be.
By 40:
- I would like to be even happier in my marriage than I am now.
- I would like to see my kids continue to grow into the awesome boy and girl they are becoming.
- I would like to have bought a house with my wife that we can stay in for 10+ years.
- I would like to never distance myself from God.
- I would like to complete a Master of Divinity degree.
- I would like to complete a Doctoral degree.
- I would like to have written a book (not necessarily published by 40, but at least written)
- I would like to be established as a Spiritual Director and/or Spiritual Formation pastor.
- I would like to be ordained.
- I would like to have traveled to England and/or Europe.
jB
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Complete Victory
The chorus of one of my favorite songs - Mighty To Save - includes a line that is quite appropriate to the celebration of Easter. Speaking of Jesus, the same Jesus who was crucified, dead and buried, the song says:
"He rose and conquered the grave."
Jesus conquered the grave. Conquered. As in defeated. As in overcame. As in took away the power of the grave.
The song is not alone in its proclamation. Nearly all of the ancient creeds of the Christian faith contain language about Jesus' descent into the grave (or hell, if you prefer) and his victorious ascent.
Moreover, Jesus himself speaks of this ultimate victory, in Revelation 1:18:
I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and hell.
I love this verse. To me, it is the perfect Easter verse. You see, Jesus was dead as dead could be on Friday but on Sunday Jesus was resurrected and, in doing so, Jesus permanently conquered the grave and hell.
All of that leads me to the question: Why does Jesus say that he has the keys if not to proclaim that ultimately even the gates of hell will be thrown open and even those once condemned will be given the opportunity to join God's Kingdom again?
Jesus has the keys, so he can unlock hell and the grave whenever he desires, so what possible reason could we have for assuming that he won't? I have read some interpreters who have said that Jesus has the keys in order to ensure that the gates of hell remain locked and all those bad people will stay in.
Huh?
Where in the New Testament do we find any image of Jesus as an excluder? Where do we see Jesus keeping people out? Show me...
It's not there! We see instead a Jesus who lets everyone hang out with him and who calls the outcasts to the highest positions in his ministry. We see a radically inclusive Jesus.
So tell me again where it makes sense that Jesus would use his victory against death and hell to keep people in?
Besides, what kind of victory did Jesus win on Easter morning if in the end hell is still eternal and final? How is that "conquering the grave and hell?"
This, to me is the great news of Easter. Not only is Jesus alive. Not only does Jesus' life mean that every part and member of creation can also have life to the fullest. Not only does Jesus' life mean that God's Kingdom has broken in here and now.
Ultimately, Easter means all of that and more: Jesus' life defeats death forever and throws open the gates of death and hell, finally and completely removing the last barrier keeping people from choosing to enter God's Kingdom.
Does it get any better than that?
"He rose and conquered the grave."
Jesus conquered the grave. Conquered. As in defeated. As in overcame. As in took away the power of the grave.
The song is not alone in its proclamation. Nearly all of the ancient creeds of the Christian faith contain language about Jesus' descent into the grave (or hell, if you prefer) and his victorious ascent.
Moreover, Jesus himself speaks of this ultimate victory, in Revelation 1:18:
I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and hell.
I love this verse. To me, it is the perfect Easter verse. You see, Jesus was dead as dead could be on Friday but on Sunday Jesus was resurrected and, in doing so, Jesus permanently conquered the grave and hell.
All of that leads me to the question: Why does Jesus say that he has the keys if not to proclaim that ultimately even the gates of hell will be thrown open and even those once condemned will be given the opportunity to join God's Kingdom again?
Jesus has the keys, so he can unlock hell and the grave whenever he desires, so what possible reason could we have for assuming that he won't? I have read some interpreters who have said that Jesus has the keys in order to ensure that the gates of hell remain locked and all those bad people will stay in.
Huh?
Where in the New Testament do we find any image of Jesus as an excluder? Where do we see Jesus keeping people out? Show me...
It's not there! We see instead a Jesus who lets everyone hang out with him and who calls the outcasts to the highest positions in his ministry. We see a radically inclusive Jesus.
So tell me again where it makes sense that Jesus would use his victory against death and hell to keep people in?
Besides, what kind of victory did Jesus win on Easter morning if in the end hell is still eternal and final? How is that "conquering the grave and hell?"
This, to me is the great news of Easter. Not only is Jesus alive. Not only does Jesus' life mean that every part and member of creation can also have life to the fullest. Not only does Jesus' life mean that God's Kingdom has broken in here and now.
Ultimately, Easter means all of that and more: Jesus' life defeats death forever and throws open the gates of death and hell, finally and completely removing the last barrier keeping people from choosing to enter God's Kingdom.
Does it get any better than that?
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
An Invitation to Dance
When I was growing up, there was a very distinct image of God painted by those around me. God was the most powerful being ever and God knows everything. Consequently, God was watching every minute of my life and was especially disappointed when I failed, when I sinned, when I let Jesus down.
I'm not sure that it was intentional by the people around me, but this image was reinforced all the time - by Sunday School teachers, by pastors, by my parents, by everyone. The only God I knew was the all-knowing God with the eagle eye for sin.
And I have to confess that I have always felt the tension between that image of God and the loving Jesus that I was always taught about. Jesus wanted to be my friend, God just demanded my obedience. For most of my life I was unable to put words to the dilemma, but I felt it nonetheless. Jesus was kind but God was oppressive. Jesus I wanted, God I didn't.
Over the course of the last several years, though, I have come to understand where that tension comes from. When we are tied to a view of God who knows absolutely every detail about everything, we cannot escape the oppressive God. A God who knows every detail of the future cannot be loved, only obeyed and feared.
Yet this was all I knew...until I encountered theologian Clark Pinnock and a radically different image of God. Pinnock writes that, instead of viewing God as an oppressive, all-knowing dictator,
God is like the partner in a dance. As we act out our steps God is always there, leaping at just the right moments, steadying at others, and keeping perfect balance with the living reality that we are.
God as dance partner? What a beautiful image! God is not a judge dispassionately watching us dance through life, looking for our missteps and criticizing us for our falls. God is not the sole choreographer, either; God is not demanding that we slavishly follow the steps that have been laid out since the beginning of time. No, God allows us to play a part in choreographing the dance of our lives - indeed, the dance of creation itself.
God dances with us. God responds to us. God is always there to join us in a dance. The invitation never expires.
What a contrast to the domineering God I heard about for so many years!
In a way, God as the dance partner is a fitting image, since the dominant theological image for the Trinity is one of dance (the technical word used by many theologians is perichoresis) - the Father, the Son and the Spirit are all engaged in an eternal dance in which all lead and none lead. It is the ultimate expression of love and joy.
And that is what God invites us to be a part of. Where do I sign up?
I can't help but think that if we who are already learning to dance with God spent more time inviting others to join the dance and less time trying to get them to say a particular prayer or start following a certain list of rules, we would have much greater success with that thing we call "evangelism."
Because God is not waiting for people to say a prayer or obey a list of rules.
God is waiting with hand extended, asking quite simply,
"May I have this dance?"
I'm not sure that it was intentional by the people around me, but this image was reinforced all the time - by Sunday School teachers, by pastors, by my parents, by everyone. The only God I knew was the all-knowing God with the eagle eye for sin.
And I have to confess that I have always felt the tension between that image of God and the loving Jesus that I was always taught about. Jesus wanted to be my friend, God just demanded my obedience. For most of my life I was unable to put words to the dilemma, but I felt it nonetheless. Jesus was kind but God was oppressive. Jesus I wanted, God I didn't.
Over the course of the last several years, though, I have come to understand where that tension comes from. When we are tied to a view of God who knows absolutely every detail about everything, we cannot escape the oppressive God. A God who knows every detail of the future cannot be loved, only obeyed and feared.
Yet this was all I knew...until I encountered theologian Clark Pinnock and a radically different image of God. Pinnock writes that, instead of viewing God as an oppressive, all-knowing dictator,
God is like the partner in a dance. As we act out our steps God is always there, leaping at just the right moments, steadying at others, and keeping perfect balance with the living reality that we are.
God as dance partner? What a beautiful image! God is not a judge dispassionately watching us dance through life, looking for our missteps and criticizing us for our falls. God is not the sole choreographer, either; God is not demanding that we slavishly follow the steps that have been laid out since the beginning of time. No, God allows us to play a part in choreographing the dance of our lives - indeed, the dance of creation itself.
God dances with us. God responds to us. God is always there to join us in a dance. The invitation never expires.
What a contrast to the domineering God I heard about for so many years!
In a way, God as the dance partner is a fitting image, since the dominant theological image for the Trinity is one of dance (the technical word used by many theologians is perichoresis) - the Father, the Son and the Spirit are all engaged in an eternal dance in which all lead and none lead. It is the ultimate expression of love and joy.
And that is what God invites us to be a part of. Where do I sign up?
I can't help but think that if we who are already learning to dance with God spent more time inviting others to join the dance and less time trying to get them to say a particular prayer or start following a certain list of rules, we would have much greater success with that thing we call "evangelism."
Because God is not waiting for people to say a prayer or obey a list of rules.
God is waiting with hand extended, asking quite simply,
"May I have this dance?"
Monday, April 18, 2011
Why I am, In Spite of Myself, Ultimately an Optimist
Having spent some time reflecting on the series of "Why I am..." posts over the last several days, it occurs to me that the list is incomplete. Because in addition to being tolerant, rational, contemplative, an evolutionist, an Ally, an open theist and a (sort of, but not really) universalist - or perhaps more accurately because of all of those things, I am slowly becoming radically optimistic.
All of those things add up in my mind to good news. And as we enter Holy Week leading up to Easter, I can't help but think that the world could use some good news.
Not the good news that declares some people in and other people out. Not the good news that is intolerant and exclusive. Not the good news, in other words, that isn't good news at all.
What the world needs is the good news that makes me an optimist - the good news that God actually truly cares about the world God created; the good news that, in the end, God's love will win; the good news that earthquakes and floods and death and dying and even hell are not the end; the good news that Jesus - the man who died on a cross, was buried and rose again - has conquered death and hell forever.
Forever.
As in eternity.
That's a long time...and in all that time, death and hell will never win. That's good news.
And that's what makes me an optimist.
I can be optimistic in the face of hatred because I know that the day is coming when even hatred will pale in the face of the love of God. I can be optimistic in the face of poverty because I know that the day is coming when the God who already suffers with the poor will make all things right. I can be optimistic in the face of war because I know the day is coming when peace will reign.
In short, I have more hope now than I have ever had at any point in my life. Whereas before the God I was told to believe in seemed to stand in contrast to real hope, now I am convinced that God is the source of all hope.
Like I said, that's good news.
jB
All of those things add up in my mind to good news. And as we enter Holy Week leading up to Easter, I can't help but think that the world could use some good news.
Not the good news that declares some people in and other people out. Not the good news that is intolerant and exclusive. Not the good news, in other words, that isn't good news at all.
What the world needs is the good news that makes me an optimist - the good news that God actually truly cares about the world God created; the good news that, in the end, God's love will win; the good news that earthquakes and floods and death and dying and even hell are not the end; the good news that Jesus - the man who died on a cross, was buried and rose again - has conquered death and hell forever.
Forever.
As in eternity.
That's a long time...and in all that time, death and hell will never win. That's good news.
And that's what makes me an optimist.
I can be optimistic in the face of hatred because I know that the day is coming when even hatred will pale in the face of the love of God. I can be optimistic in the face of poverty because I know that the day is coming when the God who already suffers with the poor will make all things right. I can be optimistic in the face of war because I know the day is coming when peace will reign.
In short, I have more hope now than I have ever had at any point in my life. Whereas before the God I was told to believe in seemed to stand in contrast to real hope, now I am convinced that God is the source of all hope.
Like I said, that's good news.
jB
Friday, April 15, 2011
Mercy Beyond Comprehension
One of my favorite New Testament stories involves Jesus, a demon possessed man and a herd of pigs. The story is found in Luke 8 and Mark 5, and it goes something like this:
Jesus enters a town and, as he does so, he encounters a man possessed by a demon. The usual "casting out" encounter occurs, with one exception. Rather than simply cast the demons - since there were many - out, Jesus permits the demons to enter a herd of pigs, which then commit mass suicide by jumping off a cliff. The formerly possessed man and the witnesses go running into town to tell everyone.
This is when the story gets interesting - the people don't react as you might expect. You would expect that they would be overjoyed that this Jesus guy, a guy who could heal and cast out demons, had come to their town. That's not what happens at all. Instead, they get scared and they ask Jesus to leave. That's right, before Jesus even has a chance to teach them or proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God to them, they ask him to leave their town.
Never willing to force himself on people, Jesus complies with their request and heads back to the boat. The formerly possessed man begs, begs Jesus to come along, to be allowed to travel with Jesus.
And now we come to why I love this story - Jesus won't let him come along. Instead, Jesus sends the man back into the town with the following instruction: "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."
This amazes me. It leaves me in speechless awe at the mercy of God in Jesus.
This was a town that had deliberately chosen to not have Jesus come to them. They stated as clearly as possible that they wanted nothing to do with Jesus when they asked him to get back in the boat and leave.
Yet...Jesus doesn't give up on this town. He could have, and he would have been justified. After all, they did say that they didn't want to hear what Jesus had to say.
But Jesus has other ideas - he leaves, but he leaves them with a messenger in the man who had been possessed. Even through their resistance, they would have the visible witness of the Kingdom of God presented by this healed man.
The mercy of God is beyond compare and beyond comprehension. Never will God give up on people. Even those people who deliberately ask God to leave them alone are not beyond the reach of God's mercy. God will always pursue and will use whatever messenger God can.
Amen.
Jesus enters a town and, as he does so, he encounters a man possessed by a demon. The usual "casting out" encounter occurs, with one exception. Rather than simply cast the demons - since there were many - out, Jesus permits the demons to enter a herd of pigs, which then commit mass suicide by jumping off a cliff. The formerly possessed man and the witnesses go running into town to tell everyone.
This is when the story gets interesting - the people don't react as you might expect. You would expect that they would be overjoyed that this Jesus guy, a guy who could heal and cast out demons, had come to their town. That's not what happens at all. Instead, they get scared and they ask Jesus to leave. That's right, before Jesus even has a chance to teach them or proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God to them, they ask him to leave their town.
Never willing to force himself on people, Jesus complies with their request and heads back to the boat. The formerly possessed man begs, begs Jesus to come along, to be allowed to travel with Jesus.
And now we come to why I love this story - Jesus won't let him come along. Instead, Jesus sends the man back into the town with the following instruction: "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."
This amazes me. It leaves me in speechless awe at the mercy of God in Jesus.
This was a town that had deliberately chosen to not have Jesus come to them. They stated as clearly as possible that they wanted nothing to do with Jesus when they asked him to get back in the boat and leave.
Yet...Jesus doesn't give up on this town. He could have, and he would have been justified. After all, they did say that they didn't want to hear what Jesus had to say.
But Jesus has other ideas - he leaves, but he leaves them with a messenger in the man who had been possessed. Even through their resistance, they would have the visible witness of the Kingdom of God presented by this healed man.
The mercy of God is beyond compare and beyond comprehension. Never will God give up on people. Even those people who deliberately ask God to leave them alone are not beyond the reach of God's mercy. God will always pursue and will use whatever messenger God can.
Amen.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Why I am (sort of, but not really) a Universalist
A couple of days ago, my Lenten reading schedule had me reading through the book of Lamentations. As the title suggests, there's not much in Lamentations that is positive or hopeful - it is generally a litany of complaints and "woes."
At least, that's what I've come to expect. Imagine my surprise, then, when I ran across Lamentations 3:21-24, which read:
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord's great love
we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
God's compassions never fail? Really? Never? As in never-ever?
Do we really believe this? Do we really believe that the love and compassion and mercy of God are limitless? Or do we believe something else?
If you were to ask most Christians whether or not they believe that God's compassions never fail and I am convinced you will get an affirmative answer. Of course they believe that.
But if you were to analyze the beliefs and behaviors of those same Christians, I am not convinced you would find the same affirmative answer. Instead, what comes across is, "Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed" - while we are alive, but if you die without knowing Jesus, you're screwed; and "For his compassions never fail"...until it comes time to send people to hell for eternal punishment.
The traditional view of hell and eternal punishment, it seems, sends a different message than that God's compassion never fails.
In one of the readings for my class this week, the author commented that eternal conscious punishment is a punishment far too excessive for the deeds of a 70-80 year lifespan. He has a point.
You see, never is a long time. Never goes beyond the 70-80 years of life the average person gets on this earth. So, if we believe that God's compassion never fails, what do we say about death and eternity?
All of this is why I have come to the point where I reject absolutely the view of hell as eternal conscious punishment, as God sending people to never-ending pain and suffering.
Let me address two common questions:
1) Does this mean that I believe everybody will "go to heaven?" - No. What I believe the biblical narrative teaches is that God's compassion and mercy are so great that God will never stop encouraging people to choose God. Death is not a barrier to God. Jesus conquered the grave.
However, the biblical narrative also clearly teaches that God has created humans with free will and that God respects that free will. Just as it is possible that someone can live for 80 years on this earth and continually choose not to be in relationship with God, it is possible for that "no" to continue on after death...potentially even throughout the whole of eternity (though I admit that I find it difficult to believe that anyone would be able to eternally resist the persuasive power of God.
2) Does this mean that I do not believe in "hell?" - Again, no. "Hell" is the natural consequence of choosing not to be in relationship with God. As such, "Hell" is experienced here and now and (potentially) for eternity. Hatred and oppression and violence and war are manifestations of hell, as are hunger and thirst and sickness.
The radical difference between this view of hell and the traditional view is that in this view, God does not send people to hell. Rather, hell is what happens when God respects the free will choices of individual human beings. Whether or not to be in hell is my decision - God is always there waiting for me to choose God.
Because God's compassions never fail.
jB
At least, that's what I've come to expect. Imagine my surprise, then, when I ran across Lamentations 3:21-24, which read:
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord's great love
we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
God's compassions never fail? Really? Never? As in never-ever?
Do we really believe this? Do we really believe that the love and compassion and mercy of God are limitless? Or do we believe something else?
If you were to ask most Christians whether or not they believe that God's compassions never fail and I am convinced you will get an affirmative answer. Of course they believe that.
But if you were to analyze the beliefs and behaviors of those same Christians, I am not convinced you would find the same affirmative answer. Instead, what comes across is, "Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed" - while we are alive, but if you die without knowing Jesus, you're screwed; and "For his compassions never fail"...until it comes time to send people to hell for eternal punishment.
The traditional view of hell and eternal punishment, it seems, sends a different message than that God's compassion never fails.
In one of the readings for my class this week, the author commented that eternal conscious punishment is a punishment far too excessive for the deeds of a 70-80 year lifespan. He has a point.
You see, never is a long time. Never goes beyond the 70-80 years of life the average person gets on this earth. So, if we believe that God's compassion never fails, what do we say about death and eternity?
All of this is why I have come to the point where I reject absolutely the view of hell as eternal conscious punishment, as God sending people to never-ending pain and suffering.
Let me address two common questions:
1) Does this mean that I believe everybody will "go to heaven?" - No. What I believe the biblical narrative teaches is that God's compassion and mercy are so great that God will never stop encouraging people to choose God. Death is not a barrier to God. Jesus conquered the grave.
However, the biblical narrative also clearly teaches that God has created humans with free will and that God respects that free will. Just as it is possible that someone can live for 80 years on this earth and continually choose not to be in relationship with God, it is possible for that "no" to continue on after death...potentially even throughout the whole of eternity (though I admit that I find it difficult to believe that anyone would be able to eternally resist the persuasive power of God.
2) Does this mean that I do not believe in "hell?" - Again, no. "Hell" is the natural consequence of choosing not to be in relationship with God. As such, "Hell" is experienced here and now and (potentially) for eternity. Hatred and oppression and violence and war are manifestations of hell, as are hunger and thirst and sickness.
The radical difference between this view of hell and the traditional view is that in this view, God does not send people to hell. Rather, hell is what happens when God respects the free will choices of individual human beings. Whether or not to be in hell is my decision - God is always there waiting for me to choose God.
Because God's compassions never fail.
jB
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Why I am an Open Theist
Open Theist sounds like a technical theological term and, in many respects it is. However, it is a theological term with tremendous impact on how people live and act. So what does it mean?
In the simplest of terms, an open theist is a person who believes that the future is "open" - that is, not determined before it happens. The extension of this is that an open theist believes that God does not have "exhaustive definite foreknowledge" (EDF) - a complicated way of saying that God does not know the outcome of free choices I have yet to make. In other words, God does not know what I am going to have for breakfast on my 35th birthday because I have not yet made that choice.
While I want to avoid turning this into a discussion of the detailed theological side of open theism (you can pick up Most Moved Mover by Clark Pinnock if you're interested in knowing more), there is an important comment I have to make. There are two schools of thought as to why God does not have EDF.
The first says that God cannot know because the future does not exist to be known. I'm not sure this view is accurate.
The second - to which I ascribe - is that God chooses to not know.
But why would God choose to not know? Simply put, for the sake of love.
God loves creation and desires to be in relationship with it. A relationship - as any good counselor will tell you - requires give and take. This is what God has with creation - God gives to creation and creation gives to God. If God is distant and removed from the world, there could be no relationship.
The God of EDF is more like a dictator than a beloved parent. The God of EDF is never wrong, never changes his mind and is, in many respects, unlovable.
Open theists - like myself - believe that God is not like that. We believe that God takes risks, that things don't always turn out the way God wants, that God adapts God's plans in response to the actions of humanity.
Before you write this off as "out there" and/or "heresy" (as too many have already done), take a look at the story of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20. Here's the story in a nutshell:
Hezekiah gets sick and God tells him he will die. In response to the news of his impending death, Hezekiah prays to God and begs God to remember his faithfulness to God's desires. In response to Hezekiah's prayer, God changes God's mind! Hezekiah does not die as originally promised, but lives another 15 years.
There are two different ways to look at what happens in this story. If God had EDF, God would have known that Hezekiah was not going to die for 15 years, which leads to an uncomfortable reality - God was deceitful with Hezekiah...God lied to Hezekiah. Surely we cannot agree with such an idea.
The alternative view is that God genuinely interacted with Hezekiah and God changed the date of Hezekiah's death as a result of Hezekiah's prayer. God's honesty and goodness are preserved.
Thus we come to the crux of the issue for me - in reality, every Christian acts as an open theist. Whenever we pray, we are assuming that God hears our prayers and responds to them by changing God's actions. We pray that God will heal from cancer with the honest hope and belief that God can do it. If God has EDF, why pray?
Open theism makes sense, is supported by Scripture and has been found in some form or another throughout Christian history.
I'll leave off with the question that started the process that led me to become an open theist. I challenge you to think about it for awhile.
Could Mary have said no?
jB
In the simplest of terms, an open theist is a person who believes that the future is "open" - that is, not determined before it happens. The extension of this is that an open theist believes that God does not have "exhaustive definite foreknowledge" (EDF) - a complicated way of saying that God does not know the outcome of free choices I have yet to make. In other words, God does not know what I am going to have for breakfast on my 35th birthday because I have not yet made that choice.
While I want to avoid turning this into a discussion of the detailed theological side of open theism (you can pick up Most Moved Mover by Clark Pinnock if you're interested in knowing more), there is an important comment I have to make. There are two schools of thought as to why God does not have EDF.
The first says that God cannot know because the future does not exist to be known. I'm not sure this view is accurate.
The second - to which I ascribe - is that God chooses to not know.
But why would God choose to not know? Simply put, for the sake of love.
God loves creation and desires to be in relationship with it. A relationship - as any good counselor will tell you - requires give and take. This is what God has with creation - God gives to creation and creation gives to God. If God is distant and removed from the world, there could be no relationship.
The God of EDF is more like a dictator than a beloved parent. The God of EDF is never wrong, never changes his mind and is, in many respects, unlovable.
Open theists - like myself - believe that God is not like that. We believe that God takes risks, that things don't always turn out the way God wants, that God adapts God's plans in response to the actions of humanity.
Before you write this off as "out there" and/or "heresy" (as too many have already done), take a look at the story of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20. Here's the story in a nutshell:
Hezekiah gets sick and God tells him he will die. In response to the news of his impending death, Hezekiah prays to God and begs God to remember his faithfulness to God's desires. In response to Hezekiah's prayer, God changes God's mind! Hezekiah does not die as originally promised, but lives another 15 years.
There are two different ways to look at what happens in this story. If God had EDF, God would have known that Hezekiah was not going to die for 15 years, which leads to an uncomfortable reality - God was deceitful with Hezekiah...God lied to Hezekiah. Surely we cannot agree with such an idea.
The alternative view is that God genuinely interacted with Hezekiah and God changed the date of Hezekiah's death as a result of Hezekiah's prayer. God's honesty and goodness are preserved.
Thus we come to the crux of the issue for me - in reality, every Christian acts as an open theist. Whenever we pray, we are assuming that God hears our prayers and responds to them by changing God's actions. We pray that God will heal from cancer with the honest hope and belief that God can do it. If God has EDF, why pray?
Open theism makes sense, is supported by Scripture and has been found in some form or another throughout Christian history.
I'll leave off with the question that started the process that led me to become an open theist. I challenge you to think about it for awhile.
Could Mary have said no?
jB
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Why I am (becoming) an Ally
According to a document published by Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, an ally is "a person who is a member of the dominant or majority group who works to end oppression in his or her personal and professional life through support of, and as an advocate for, the oppressed population" (see http://www.siue.edu/lgbt/ally.shtml). Usually the term is applied with reference to the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-sexual) population.
Now, for many Christians, becoming an "ally" for the LGBT community would seem, well, wrong. "After all," they might say, "all of those lifestyles are sin and we have a responsibility to let them know about it."
This entry is my attempt to explain why being an ally is not contradictory to my Christian faith.
First, let me speak to the issue of LGBT lifestyles being sinful. Often I hear Christians cite particular verses from the Bible in their efforts to "prove" that LGBT lifestyles are sinful. Typically the go-to Old Testament verse is Leviticus 20:13, which commands the death penalty for men caught practicing homosexuality. Cut and dried, right?
Here's the thing - there are a lot of laws in Leviticus that the church no longer interprets as literally applicable to today's culture. For example, we are no longer expected to kill animals on a regular basis to maintain our relationship with God. Another example is found just a few verses earlier, in Leviticus 20:10, which clearly commands the death penalty for all adulterers. If we practiced that, the population of death row would be quite a bit higher, no?
So the question that has to be asked is this: why do we choose to take one verse - the one against homosexuality - literally and the rest of the laws as either figurative or no longer applicable. That is hardly a consistent hermeneutic (rule of interpretation). If we affirm that such a hermeneutic - picking and choosing which verses to take literally - we then have to answer the question of who gets to decide which verses are literal and which are not. Suppose I believe that the laws about sacrifice should still be taken literally and the law against homosexuality should not - if we go with the above approach, that would have to be seen as a valid interpretation.
In other words, I think we need to be more careful in our appropriation of Old Testament laws for the purposes of excluding others.
In the New Testament, Paul is the one who speaks against homosexuality. While I believe that Paul's words are more forceful and potentially decisive in the debate about the sinfulness of LGBT lifestyles, the argument has been made that Paul could be referring not to the universal practice of homosexuality but to the very specific cultural practice of homosexual pedophilia that was rampant in the culture of many of the cities to which he wrote.
Again, I think we need to be more careful in our interpretation of Scripture. It is fairly easy to look at a text and see what we want to see.
Not only are there troubling questions about the typical texts used to exclude members of the LGBT community, there is positive evidence for their inclusion.
Jesus says more than once that the only way to identify one of his true disciples is by their fruits. In Matthew 7:18, he even goes so far as to say that, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."
It is pretty clear, then, that Jesus is telling his disciples of all times and places to look at the fruits of a persons life as the predominant factor in determining whether or not they are truly following him.
This is a powerful statement that only really hit home for me with regard to the LGBT issue recently. A few weeks ago, Rev. Peter Gomes - the minister at Harvard Memorial Chapel at Harvard University - died. Rev. Gomes was a much loved minister whose preaching, teaching and writing had a positive, life-changing and Kingdom building effect on the lives of many students. Rev. Gomes was a gay man.
Then there is Henri Nouwen. There is no doubting the fruits of this man's life - though dead for almost 15 years now, Nouwen continues to bear fruit fit for God's Kingdom. He, too, was a gay man.
What are we to do with people like Gomes and Nouwen and the many others who are like them? Do we have to say that, since they were "gay," they and their ministries were invalid? Should I throw away all of my Henri Nouwen books and forget all I have learned about God from them? Are Peter Gomes' sermons now less powerful and less true? Surely not.
To answer the question of whether or not I believe LGBT lifestyles to be a sin, then, I simply say that I do not know. The evidence from Scripture seems to indicate that yes, such lifestyles are sinful, but there are some troubling questions about that evidence. Moreover, there is evidence that God not only uses LGBT people (without demanding they first become heterosexual) but uses them powerfully and to accomplish great things. Faced with the question and the somewhat conflicting evidence, I have to conclude that I simply do not know.
And that's okay, because it's not my job to know!
Even if we were to proceed on the assumption that LGBT lifestyles are sinful, does that change how we relate to LGBT people? It shouldn't, but too often it does.
Moreover, how does the sin question even enter into the decision whether or not to be an ally as defined above? Should we not "work to end oppression" for LGBT people even if they are living sinful lives? Should we not "advocate for" them because of their alleged sin? I think not.
The call of the church is to be bearers of God's good news to the world - the good news that God is love and that God loves every single person just as they are. It has never been our job to deal with the sin of other people - ever. In fact, it seems that the church always gets itself in the most trouble when it attempts to legislate or "crusade" away sin. Our job is to proclaim God's love and to work on behalf of the oppressed. That is the message of the gospels and that is the task of an ally, which is why - if I'm honest - I cannot understand why every Christian does not identify himself or herself as an ally.
So how does this work itself out in life and ministry?
Let's say that I know an LGBT person. I have two choices as to how I interact with that person. I can
A) Base my interactions on a level of certainty with regard to the "sin" question, which means I either tell him or her that their lifestyle is a sin or I embrace their lifestyle as completely within the boundaries of God's intentions for creation.
or
B) Base my interactions on a healthy and humble uncertainty by simply loving the person without limits and without demands and - this is the key part - trust that, if in fact his or her lifestyle is sinful, God will make that clear to him or her in time. In the meantime, I can stand up for his or her right to be the way he or she is and I can speak out against those who would deny that right.
I choose the latter. In other words, I choose to be an ally.
jB
Now, for many Christians, becoming an "ally" for the LGBT community would seem, well, wrong. "After all," they might say, "all of those lifestyles are sin and we have a responsibility to let them know about it."
This entry is my attempt to explain why being an ally is not contradictory to my Christian faith.
First, let me speak to the issue of LGBT lifestyles being sinful. Often I hear Christians cite particular verses from the Bible in their efforts to "prove" that LGBT lifestyles are sinful. Typically the go-to Old Testament verse is Leviticus 20:13, which commands the death penalty for men caught practicing homosexuality. Cut and dried, right?
Here's the thing - there are a lot of laws in Leviticus that the church no longer interprets as literally applicable to today's culture. For example, we are no longer expected to kill animals on a regular basis to maintain our relationship with God. Another example is found just a few verses earlier, in Leviticus 20:10, which clearly commands the death penalty for all adulterers. If we practiced that, the population of death row would be quite a bit higher, no?
So the question that has to be asked is this: why do we choose to take one verse - the one against homosexuality - literally and the rest of the laws as either figurative or no longer applicable. That is hardly a consistent hermeneutic (rule of interpretation). If we affirm that such a hermeneutic - picking and choosing which verses to take literally - we then have to answer the question of who gets to decide which verses are literal and which are not. Suppose I believe that the laws about sacrifice should still be taken literally and the law against homosexuality should not - if we go with the above approach, that would have to be seen as a valid interpretation.
In other words, I think we need to be more careful in our appropriation of Old Testament laws for the purposes of excluding others.
In the New Testament, Paul is the one who speaks against homosexuality. While I believe that Paul's words are more forceful and potentially decisive in the debate about the sinfulness of LGBT lifestyles, the argument has been made that Paul could be referring not to the universal practice of homosexuality but to the very specific cultural practice of homosexual pedophilia that was rampant in the culture of many of the cities to which he wrote.
Again, I think we need to be more careful in our interpretation of Scripture. It is fairly easy to look at a text and see what we want to see.
Not only are there troubling questions about the typical texts used to exclude members of the LGBT community, there is positive evidence for their inclusion.
Jesus says more than once that the only way to identify one of his true disciples is by their fruits. In Matthew 7:18, he even goes so far as to say that, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."
It is pretty clear, then, that Jesus is telling his disciples of all times and places to look at the fruits of a persons life as the predominant factor in determining whether or not they are truly following him.
This is a powerful statement that only really hit home for me with regard to the LGBT issue recently. A few weeks ago, Rev. Peter Gomes - the minister at Harvard Memorial Chapel at Harvard University - died. Rev. Gomes was a much loved minister whose preaching, teaching and writing had a positive, life-changing and Kingdom building effect on the lives of many students. Rev. Gomes was a gay man.
Then there is Henri Nouwen. There is no doubting the fruits of this man's life - though dead for almost 15 years now, Nouwen continues to bear fruit fit for God's Kingdom. He, too, was a gay man.
What are we to do with people like Gomes and Nouwen and the many others who are like them? Do we have to say that, since they were "gay," they and their ministries were invalid? Should I throw away all of my Henri Nouwen books and forget all I have learned about God from them? Are Peter Gomes' sermons now less powerful and less true? Surely not.
To answer the question of whether or not I believe LGBT lifestyles to be a sin, then, I simply say that I do not know. The evidence from Scripture seems to indicate that yes, such lifestyles are sinful, but there are some troubling questions about that evidence. Moreover, there is evidence that God not only uses LGBT people (without demanding they first become heterosexual) but uses them powerfully and to accomplish great things. Faced with the question and the somewhat conflicting evidence, I have to conclude that I simply do not know.
And that's okay, because it's not my job to know!
Even if we were to proceed on the assumption that LGBT lifestyles are sinful, does that change how we relate to LGBT people? It shouldn't, but too often it does.
Moreover, how does the sin question even enter into the decision whether or not to be an ally as defined above? Should we not "work to end oppression" for LGBT people even if they are living sinful lives? Should we not "advocate for" them because of their alleged sin? I think not.
The call of the church is to be bearers of God's good news to the world - the good news that God is love and that God loves every single person just as they are. It has never been our job to deal with the sin of other people - ever. In fact, it seems that the church always gets itself in the most trouble when it attempts to legislate or "crusade" away sin. Our job is to proclaim God's love and to work on behalf of the oppressed. That is the message of the gospels and that is the task of an ally, which is why - if I'm honest - I cannot understand why every Christian does not identify himself or herself as an ally.
So how does this work itself out in life and ministry?
Let's say that I know an LGBT person. I have two choices as to how I interact with that person. I can
A) Base my interactions on a level of certainty with regard to the "sin" question, which means I either tell him or her that their lifestyle is a sin or I embrace their lifestyle as completely within the boundaries of God's intentions for creation.
or
B) Base my interactions on a healthy and humble uncertainty by simply loving the person without limits and without demands and - this is the key part - trust that, if in fact his or her lifestyle is sinful, God will make that clear to him or her in time. In the meantime, I can stand up for his or her right to be the way he or she is and I can speak out against those who would deny that right.
I choose the latter. In other words, I choose to be an ally.
jB
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Why I am an Evolutionist
One of my favorite songs in Scripture is Psalm 148. It is a song of praise to God that speaks of the beauty of creation. Verses 5-6 are particularly moving to me:
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for at his command they were created,
and he established them for ever and ever-
he issued a decree that will never pass away.
(NIV)
The Benedictine Daily Prayer breviary that I use to pray the divine office, translates the last line a little differently: "He gave a law which shall not pass away."
I love that verse and the image that it presents. It reminds me that God is behind all that I see, God is behind all of creation. That's right, I just said - in a post explaining why I am an evolutionist - that I believe God is Creator of all that is. And in my mind, there is no conflict between those two statements - that God is creator and that the theory of evolution is, in all likelihood, true.
I read verses like the one above which speaks of the "law that will never pass away" and my mind is drawn back to my brief foray into the world of physics as a freshman at Purdue University. I think of the laws of thermodynamics, and Newton's laws and all the other laws that I was supposed to memorize. And I think how amazing it is that even though we have only recently "discovered" some of these laws, they have nonetheless been operating for thousands of years.
This is what comes to mind when I think of Psalm 148 - that God established the physical universe with its governing laws, and that those laws have been established forever and will never pass away.
At this point, I imagine some objecting, "But what about the Genesis account? Doesn't the Bible say that God spoke everything into being, not that it took place over millions of years?"
Well, that depends on how you look at the Bible. The Bible was never meant to be a science textbook, or a history textbook for that matter. Let me say that again, because it is tremendously important - The Bible was never intended to be a science or a history textbook. That is, its task is not to describe the exact events of creation in factual form as we (post)moderns would expect from a history book; nor is its task to offer the explanations of the theoretical physics of creation as we might expect to find in a science book.
When we read the accounts (yes, there's more than one) of creation in Genesis, then, we cannot read them as scientific treatises and/or factual essays. The author of Genesis knew nothing of quantum mechanics or biological adaptation or recombinant DNA or anything like that, and to expect their writings to conform to such things is, well, ludicrous.
The strength of Genesis, of the Christian creation accounts, is found where science is at its weakest. Science, for all its insistence otherwise, is fatally limited when it comes to exploring the beginning of all time. It cannot account for the ultimate starting point without resorting to the very unscientific creation ex nihilo, or the idea that the matter which was present at the Big Bang spontaneously appeared out of nothing.
This is where Genesis matters, because Genesis offers an answer to the question that science cannot answer. Genesis may not explain the how of creation, but it clearly identifies the who of creation. Genesis says that it was and is God who was and is the First Mover of creation. Genesis tells us that we do not have to resort to ex nihilo thinking, but that we can say "Yes" to the evidence of science while still affirming that, in the beginning, God.
And for Christians, that last part - being able to say "Yes" to the evidence of science will affirming God's role as Creator - is important. In the letter to the church in Rome, Paul writes that, "since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities...have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made..." (Romans 1.20). That is, creation itself points to God.
I have yet to meet a Christian who would disagree with that.
So go with me on a thought experiment for a moment. We'll start with the assumption that the Genesis account is literally true. That being the case, we have to acknowledge that the physical world God created - with all of its laws of physics and carbon dating and fossils and all of that - is somewhat deceptive. After all, the vast preponderance of evidence points to an old earth, not a young earth.
So what invisible qualities of God do we learn from that creation? That God is a trickster? An illusionist? That the God who desires that creation enter into relationship with God would create a world that pointed people away from God? Certainly we do not see love as part of the divine nature here, because true love does not deceive.
Back to our thought experiment. Let's assume for a minute that the physical evidence that points to evolution is true and that God was involved in the process. What do we learn about God's nature? We learn that God is infinitely creative, and that God created a world of relationships, that God's is complex and amazing. Certainly it is easier to imagine that such a God is a God of love.
That is why I accept the theory of evolution...because it reveals the God I see and the God I serve, it expresses the beautiful complexity of the "law which shall not pass away."
jB
Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for at his command they were created,
and he established them for ever and ever-
he issued a decree that will never pass away.
(NIV)
The Benedictine Daily Prayer breviary that I use to pray the divine office, translates the last line a little differently: "He gave a law which shall not pass away."
I love that verse and the image that it presents. It reminds me that God is behind all that I see, God is behind all of creation. That's right, I just said - in a post explaining why I am an evolutionist - that I believe God is Creator of all that is. And in my mind, there is no conflict between those two statements - that God is creator and that the theory of evolution is, in all likelihood, true.
I read verses like the one above which speaks of the "law that will never pass away" and my mind is drawn back to my brief foray into the world of physics as a freshman at Purdue University. I think of the laws of thermodynamics, and Newton's laws and all the other laws that I was supposed to memorize. And I think how amazing it is that even though we have only recently "discovered" some of these laws, they have nonetheless been operating for thousands of years.
This is what comes to mind when I think of Psalm 148 - that God established the physical universe with its governing laws, and that those laws have been established forever and will never pass away.
At this point, I imagine some objecting, "But what about the Genesis account? Doesn't the Bible say that God spoke everything into being, not that it took place over millions of years?"
Well, that depends on how you look at the Bible. The Bible was never meant to be a science textbook, or a history textbook for that matter. Let me say that again, because it is tremendously important - The Bible was never intended to be a science or a history textbook. That is, its task is not to describe the exact events of creation in factual form as we (post)moderns would expect from a history book; nor is its task to offer the explanations of the theoretical physics of creation as we might expect to find in a science book.
When we read the accounts (yes, there's more than one) of creation in Genesis, then, we cannot read them as scientific treatises and/or factual essays. The author of Genesis knew nothing of quantum mechanics or biological adaptation or recombinant DNA or anything like that, and to expect their writings to conform to such things is, well, ludicrous.
The strength of Genesis, of the Christian creation accounts, is found where science is at its weakest. Science, for all its insistence otherwise, is fatally limited when it comes to exploring the beginning of all time. It cannot account for the ultimate starting point without resorting to the very unscientific creation ex nihilo, or the idea that the matter which was present at the Big Bang spontaneously appeared out of nothing.
This is where Genesis matters, because Genesis offers an answer to the question that science cannot answer. Genesis may not explain the how of creation, but it clearly identifies the who of creation. Genesis says that it was and is God who was and is the First Mover of creation. Genesis tells us that we do not have to resort to ex nihilo thinking, but that we can say "Yes" to the evidence of science while still affirming that, in the beginning, God.
And for Christians, that last part - being able to say "Yes" to the evidence of science will affirming God's role as Creator - is important. In the letter to the church in Rome, Paul writes that, "since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities...have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made..." (Romans 1.20). That is, creation itself points to God.
I have yet to meet a Christian who would disagree with that.
So go with me on a thought experiment for a moment. We'll start with the assumption that the Genesis account is literally true. That being the case, we have to acknowledge that the physical world God created - with all of its laws of physics and carbon dating and fossils and all of that - is somewhat deceptive. After all, the vast preponderance of evidence points to an old earth, not a young earth.
So what invisible qualities of God do we learn from that creation? That God is a trickster? An illusionist? That the God who desires that creation enter into relationship with God would create a world that pointed people away from God? Certainly we do not see love as part of the divine nature here, because true love does not deceive.
Back to our thought experiment. Let's assume for a minute that the physical evidence that points to evolution is true and that God was involved in the process. What do we learn about God's nature? We learn that God is infinitely creative, and that God created a world of relationships, that God's is complex and amazing. Certainly it is easier to imagine that such a God is a God of love.
That is why I accept the theory of evolution...because it reveals the God I see and the God I serve, it expresses the beautiful complexity of the "law which shall not pass away."
jB
Monday, April 4, 2011
Interlude: A Request & A Prayer
As I near the point of no return in this whole "Why I am..." series, of posts, I find myself a little afraid. Thus far I have stuck to things that are relatively painless and controversy free - things that most Christians could agree with without much hesitation.
The things to come, though, are far less safe. They are the things that have led me to the point of being an unlicensed minister, that have led me to question my denominational home, that have already disrupted some friendships & relationships. More worryingly, these things have the potential to cause further such disruptions.
Yet I am more than ever convinced that I have to write them. The act of writing down the very things that I have been afraid to say has become something of great significance. I feel as though writing them is the inescapable next step in my spiritual life - as if God is gently testing my willingness to go out, way out, on a limb for God. So I have to do it, I cannot run and hide in fear.
Before I do, though, I have a request for anyone who might read the various upcoming posts: remember grace. I recognize that some of the things I will say are going to distance me from many Christians and that many, if not most, will disagree. That's okay. I could be wrong. I only ask for the grace of others - that those who disagree will not cast me out as a heretic in their minds but sincerely pray for me as I strive to learn to pray for them.
I leave off with a prayer of Thomas Merton that I quoted several years ago in a different blog during a different life experience, but which has taken on new meaning in recent weeks and months:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Amen.
The things to come, though, are far less safe. They are the things that have led me to the point of being an unlicensed minister, that have led me to question my denominational home, that have already disrupted some friendships & relationships. More worryingly, these things have the potential to cause further such disruptions.
Yet I am more than ever convinced that I have to write them. The act of writing down the very things that I have been afraid to say has become something of great significance. I feel as though writing them is the inescapable next step in my spiritual life - as if God is gently testing my willingness to go out, way out, on a limb for God. So I have to do it, I cannot run and hide in fear.
Before I do, though, I have a request for anyone who might read the various upcoming posts: remember grace. I recognize that some of the things I will say are going to distance me from many Christians and that many, if not most, will disagree. That's okay. I could be wrong. I only ask for the grace of others - that those who disagree will not cast me out as a heretic in their minds but sincerely pray for me as I strive to learn to pray for them.
I leave off with a prayer of Thomas Merton that I quoted several years ago in a different blog during a different life experience, but which has taken on new meaning in recent weeks and months:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Amen.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Voices (Channeling my Inner Henri Nouwen)
There are many voices that I hear on a regular basis. Each of them has something different to say, and each of them seeks to gain my ear and to tell me who I am and what I am worth.
There is the voice of the district licensing board, which tries to convince me that I have no place of service in God's church.
There is the voice of the family member I spoke to recently who told me that, in light of recent events, that I should rethink my entire educational and career path.
There are the voices of my wife and kids telling me that I am loved and that I have value.
And so it goes - voice after voice vying for my attention and competing for my acceptance. Even my own voice gets into the act, going back and forth between the extremes - agreeing with the voices that tear me down one moment and telling me I am loved the next.
For so long I have believed that my job is to learn to listen to the positive voices and to ignore the negative voices, and thus to remain "healthy." Now I am coming to believe something different.
My job is not simply to ignore the negative voices but to ignore all the voices save the voice of the One, the voice of God. God doesn't tell me anything other than that I am God's beloved. That is the voice I need to hear and to pay attention to. It is the voice that will never lie to me - it will never tell me I am worthless and it will never tell me I am perfect.
It is only when I give absolute priority to the voice of God that I can truly hear and discern the other voices that surround me.
This is a challenging task, as the myriad other voices often clamor for attention and may seem to shout down any hope of hearing the quiet voice of God. But God's voice is persistent and I know that if I listen long enough, I will hear it.
Even now.
jB
There is the voice of the district licensing board, which tries to convince me that I have no place of service in God's church.
There is the voice of the family member I spoke to recently who told me that, in light of recent events, that I should rethink my entire educational and career path.
There are the voices of my wife and kids telling me that I am loved and that I have value.
And so it goes - voice after voice vying for my attention and competing for my acceptance. Even my own voice gets into the act, going back and forth between the extremes - agreeing with the voices that tear me down one moment and telling me I am loved the next.
For so long I have believed that my job is to learn to listen to the positive voices and to ignore the negative voices, and thus to remain "healthy." Now I am coming to believe something different.
My job is not simply to ignore the negative voices but to ignore all the voices save the voice of the One, the voice of God. God doesn't tell me anything other than that I am God's beloved. That is the voice I need to hear and to pay attention to. It is the voice that will never lie to me - it will never tell me I am worthless and it will never tell me I am perfect.
It is only when I give absolute priority to the voice of God that I can truly hear and discern the other voices that surround me.
This is a challenging task, as the myriad other voices often clamor for attention and may seem to shout down any hope of hearing the quiet voice of God. But God's voice is persistent and I know that if I listen long enough, I will hear it.
Even now.
jB
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Why I am Contemplative
When someone says that they are a contemplative, that usually brings to mind one dominant image, that of a monk or nun sitting silently in a cell for hours on end, meditating on Scripture and praying, a la Thomas Merton or Madame Guyon or others.
Obviously, since I am a happily married man, this is not what I mean when I say that I am a contemplative.
Rather, what I mean by it is best reflected by the following quote from Henri Nouwen:
"A life that is not reflected on isn't worth living."
That is a phenomenal statement. I'm talking life-motto level of statements. I cuts to the core of how I feel about life, and it defines what I mean when I say that I am a contemplative.
I am someone who reflects on life. I try not to hold a belief without reflecting on it and knowing why I believe it. Because just as a life that is not reflected on isn't worth living, a belief held uncritically isn't worth believing.
I have to admit, though, that I wasn't always this way. Ask anyone who knew me as an undergrad student at Olivet Nazarene University. I was arrogant and assured of my own views and convinced that I needed to devote no time to reflection. The credit for my transformation goes to three things: God, Henri Nouwen's books and a man named Craig Keen.
Nouwen's writings showed a man who had wrestled with his beliefs and reflected on his life, and it showed me how such a life could be lived and how such a life was needed in the world around me. He inspired me to open my mind to the idea of living a life more contemplative.
Craig Keen didn't inspire me to reflect so much as dragged me kicking and screaming into reflection. His theology classes at ONU were difficult and he challenged his students to take the time to think, to really think about what we believed - to go beyond "I believe it because I was told to believe it" and come to "I believe it because I have considered the alternatives and know that it is true." Without the hand of Craig Keen pushing me in the small of the back, I might never have opened myself to the transforming power of God.
Of course, God did the hard work of actually transforming my heart and mind and it is God who gets the ultimate credit.
It is hard to overstate how important the concept of reflection is to me. It is the commitment to reflection that has led me down the road to where I am today. It is the commitment to reflection that helps me realize that I am where God wants me to be - even if I do not have a license and even if I never get ordained.
When all is said and done, if I could pick one characteristic of myself that people would be able to see and identify, it is this intense focus on reflection and contemplation.
Because I want to live a life worth living.
jB
Obviously, since I am a happily married man, this is not what I mean when I say that I am a contemplative.
Rather, what I mean by it is best reflected by the following quote from Henri Nouwen:
"A life that is not reflected on isn't worth living."
That is a phenomenal statement. I'm talking life-motto level of statements. I cuts to the core of how I feel about life, and it defines what I mean when I say that I am a contemplative.
I am someone who reflects on life. I try not to hold a belief without reflecting on it and knowing why I believe it. Because just as a life that is not reflected on isn't worth living, a belief held uncritically isn't worth believing.
I have to admit, though, that I wasn't always this way. Ask anyone who knew me as an undergrad student at Olivet Nazarene University. I was arrogant and assured of my own views and convinced that I needed to devote no time to reflection. The credit for my transformation goes to three things: God, Henri Nouwen's books and a man named Craig Keen.
Nouwen's writings showed a man who had wrestled with his beliefs and reflected on his life, and it showed me how such a life could be lived and how such a life was needed in the world around me. He inspired me to open my mind to the idea of living a life more contemplative.
Craig Keen didn't inspire me to reflect so much as dragged me kicking and screaming into reflection. His theology classes at ONU were difficult and he challenged his students to take the time to think, to really think about what we believed - to go beyond "I believe it because I was told to believe it" and come to "I believe it because I have considered the alternatives and know that it is true." Without the hand of Craig Keen pushing me in the small of the back, I might never have opened myself to the transforming power of God.
Of course, God did the hard work of actually transforming my heart and mind and it is God who gets the ultimate credit.
It is hard to overstate how important the concept of reflection is to me. It is the commitment to reflection that has led me down the road to where I am today. It is the commitment to reflection that helps me realize that I am where God wants me to be - even if I do not have a license and even if I never get ordained.
When all is said and done, if I could pick one characteristic of myself that people would be able to see and identify, it is this intense focus on reflection and contemplation.
Because I want to live a life worth living.
jB
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Why I am Rational
I am a thinker. I like to spend time thinking about ideas and how some ideas connect to other ideas and how changing one idea affects other ideas. I am a rational person, and that rationality extends to my faith and theology.
Let me unpack that a bit.
I believe that our faith - as much as is possible - must make sense. To be sure, there are aspects of theology that we will never understand completely. No matter how rational theology is, it will not be able to come to a logical understanding of the Trinity or of eternity. Such things are beyond human capability to understand.
However, that does not mean that we should throw up our hands, toss logic out the window and surrender to a faith that makes no sense and follows no logic. As Galileo famously said in response to a church stuck in irrational ways of thinking:
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Amen. I couldn't agree more. And that is why I am resolutely rational in my approach to faith and theology.
To be clear, I do not believe that we can ever achieve a faith or theology that is completely logical. But I believe that we have an obligation to seek reasonable answers where they can be found. I further believe that we have a responsibility to not cop out and hide from this task.
To some it is more important to feel safe and comfortable with what they believe than it is to do the work of having a faith that is coherent and makes sense. Rather than put their God-given sense, reason and intellect to use, they end up believing a list of contradictory things that simply defy logic or reason.
When we refuse to be rational about our faith, we have no ground on which to discuss our faith with those who currently do not believe. We end up with conversations like this:
Person A: "How do you know the Bible is God's Word?"
Person B: "It says right here...*quotes Bible verse*."
Person A: "But I'm not sure the Bible is God's Word, so how does quoting the Bible prove it is?"
Person B: ...
And an opportunity to discuss matters of faith and theology is missed because Person B has never learned to approach their faith in a rational manner.
Logic matters in faith and theology. It certainly is not the only thing that matters, but it definitely plays an important role - at least in the way I approach it.
jB
Let me unpack that a bit.
I believe that our faith - as much as is possible - must make sense. To be sure, there are aspects of theology that we will never understand completely. No matter how rational theology is, it will not be able to come to a logical understanding of the Trinity or of eternity. Such things are beyond human capability to understand.
However, that does not mean that we should throw up our hands, toss logic out the window and surrender to a faith that makes no sense and follows no logic. As Galileo famously said in response to a church stuck in irrational ways of thinking:
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Amen. I couldn't agree more. And that is why I am resolutely rational in my approach to faith and theology.
To be clear, I do not believe that we can ever achieve a faith or theology that is completely logical. But I believe that we have an obligation to seek reasonable answers where they can be found. I further believe that we have a responsibility to not cop out and hide from this task.
To some it is more important to feel safe and comfortable with what they believe than it is to do the work of having a faith that is coherent and makes sense. Rather than put their God-given sense, reason and intellect to use, they end up believing a list of contradictory things that simply defy logic or reason.
When we refuse to be rational about our faith, we have no ground on which to discuss our faith with those who currently do not believe. We end up with conversations like this:
Person A: "How do you know the Bible is God's Word?"
Person B: "It says right here...*quotes Bible verse*."
Person A: "But I'm not sure the Bible is God's Word, so how does quoting the Bible prove it is?"
Person B: ...
And an opportunity to discuss matters of faith and theology is missed because Person B has never learned to approach their faith in a rational manner.
Logic matters in faith and theology. It certainly is not the only thing that matters, but it definitely plays an important role - at least in the way I approach it.
jB
Monday, March 28, 2011
Why I am Tolerant
On a wall inside the seminary I briefly attended several years ago there is a plaque. On that plaque is a quote that I cannot remember word for word, but goes something like this:
"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, tolerance; in all things, charity."
During my brief sojourn at this particular seminary, I loved walking into the building and seeing that statement. To me, it represented the ultimate goal of the church - to be a body of a whole bunch of different theological types united on the things that really matter.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, the quote on the wall turned out to be more naive idealism than actual reality. Everywhere I look, I see people who are either intolerant on everything or dreadfully confused as to what is truly essential. People fiercely fight when someone disagrees with them on hell or on predestination or even something as stupid as whether or not drinks should be allowed in the sanctuary (I've actually experienced that fight before). I can't help but think that such people have missed the point.
I am tolerant - or at least I try to be - because I am absolutely certain of one truth: The God that I love and worship is much, much bigger than anything I can imagine.
Even when I speak of God, I have to acknowledge that the words I use are fraught with difficulty. What am I really saying when I say "God is love?" Or, to borrow a question from Saint Augustine, "What do I love when I love my God?"
These are hard questions to answer and there are many different ways to answer them - which is why I am tolerant.
In Isaiah 55:8-9, it says this:
"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'"
These are a couple of my favorite verses in the Old Testament because they remind me of what I said above - that the God I serve is bigger than I can imagine. So I choose to be tolerant simply because I do not know for certain that the way I think about God is the correct way.
Some people believe that God predestines every man and woman's life. I don't. But I could be wrong, so I don't condemn those who disagree with me.
Some people believe that hell is a place of eternal conscious torture and that God's grace is limited to this life. I don't. But I could be wrong, so I don't condemn those who disagree with me.
Some people are absolutely sure that God's grace does not extend to certain segments of the population (such as homosexuals). I am not so sure about that. But I could be wrong, so I don't condemn those who disagree with me.
Do you see the trend?
The idea for me is that it is within the realm of possibility that I could be wrong about God's grace and about other aspects of my theology. And because it is within the realm of possibility, I have to be careful not to assert certainty where there is uncertainty. Such is the essence of intolerance. Instead, I cling to (again, or at least try to) that simple four word phrase: I could be wrong.
Imagine what the church would look like if more of its members learned those four words.
jB
"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, tolerance; in all things, charity."
During my brief sojourn at this particular seminary, I loved walking into the building and seeing that statement. To me, it represented the ultimate goal of the church - to be a body of a whole bunch of different theological types united on the things that really matter.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, the quote on the wall turned out to be more naive idealism than actual reality. Everywhere I look, I see people who are either intolerant on everything or dreadfully confused as to what is truly essential. People fiercely fight when someone disagrees with them on hell or on predestination or even something as stupid as whether or not drinks should be allowed in the sanctuary (I've actually experienced that fight before). I can't help but think that such people have missed the point.
I am tolerant - or at least I try to be - because I am absolutely certain of one truth: The God that I love and worship is much, much bigger than anything I can imagine.
Even when I speak of God, I have to acknowledge that the words I use are fraught with difficulty. What am I really saying when I say "God is love?" Or, to borrow a question from Saint Augustine, "What do I love when I love my God?"
These are hard questions to answer and there are many different ways to answer them - which is why I am tolerant.
In Isaiah 55:8-9, it says this:
"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'"
These are a couple of my favorite verses in the Old Testament because they remind me of what I said above - that the God I serve is bigger than I can imagine. So I choose to be tolerant simply because I do not know for certain that the way I think about God is the correct way.
Some people believe that God predestines every man and woman's life. I don't. But I could be wrong, so I don't condemn those who disagree with me.
Some people believe that hell is a place of eternal conscious torture and that God's grace is limited to this life. I don't. But I could be wrong, so I don't condemn those who disagree with me.
Some people are absolutely sure that God's grace does not extend to certain segments of the population (such as homosexuals). I am not so sure about that. But I could be wrong, so I don't condemn those who disagree with me.
Do you see the trend?
The idea for me is that it is within the realm of possibility that I could be wrong about God's grace and about other aspects of my theology. And because it is within the realm of possibility, I have to be careful not to assert certainty where there is uncertainty. Such is the essence of intolerance. Instead, I cling to (again, or at least try to) that simple four word phrase: I could be wrong.
Imagine what the church would look like if more of its members learned those four words.
jB
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