Enchanted Community

BLOG 3/4/17. THE CHURCH … AND THE GATES OF HELL

The gates of hell? What in the world is Jesus talking about when he says that he is going to build his church and the gates of hell are not going to be able to stop that building—not able to withstand it? What it says, right up front, is that the church does not exist in neutral territory, that there is a formidable adversarial force present that will contest the building of the church, … so to be aware! Jesus, himself, had confronted that Adversary, Satan, at the threshold of his public ministry and was tested by him during those forty days in the wilderness. For those of us who are Christ’s followers, we are inescapably engaged in this same conflict.

So, the church has an adversary, a very real and malignant supernatural foe. One of the church’s earliest commissions was that it should go and turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God (Act 26:18). Exactly what are we, then, to expect? Exactly how does Satan contend against the church? The final book of the Bible spells out that the battle between the Beast (Satan) and the Lamb (Christ) is a battle in which the church is always the target. The question, then, comes: Exactly how does Satan seek to thwart the mission of God through the church? Let me propose at least three, but focus on the third. From the outset, in those first centuries, the Prince of Darkness (Satan) sought to stand against the church by hostility and persecution, both from the Jewish community, but more formidably, by the Roman Empire.  That continues in many hostile cultures to this day (one thinks of the radical Islamic ISIS beheading Christians). It was exhibited in China during the Cultural Revolution. But persecution has only served to purify the church, not destroy it.

Then there is the scheme of the darkness to co-opt the church as (beginning with Rome) the governments of this world seek to make the church official in exchange for its support of their agenda. This was first graphically demonstrated when the Emperor Constantine made the Christian faith the official religion of the empire, gave it all kinds of ‘perks’ in exchange for its loyal support. This continued down through the Holy Roman Empire, in the divine right of kings, to God save the Queen, to Hitler’s tragic co-opting of the Christian church to support his Nazi regime, to our present “God bless America” politicians seeking to co-opt the church in exchange for its support.

But to the point, the third scheme, that is so obvious among the church in the United States, is to simply immunize it to its true calling. When the life of Jesus is truly present in a person’s life, and the life of the Christian church, then Christ’s DNA, his genome, becomes dynamic in producing his life and passions in their lives. To immunize the church, the Prince of Darkness makes the church to be a source of spiritual entertainment, what with endless Bible studies, colorful Sunday mornings, … but to make its participants indifferent to those whom Christ’s came to seek and save, those lost and hurting folk, hiding behind their laptops next to us in the coffee shop, or next door. Satan immunizes when it is possible to be passive in the mission of God, even while being a faithful participant in a church, even while listening to good preaching, even while reading all the best Christian literature. True disciples of Jesus are reproductive (to making disciples), and radically committed to his agenda 24/7, who are contagious with the gospel of the Kingdom of God.  Satan immunizes the church (or domesticate it) when he makes it normative for church members to ‘love the church’ but to never become personally fruitful in its mission. With such a strategy, Satan has already neutered it as a transformational, culture creating, colony of God’s New Humanity in Christ. The dominion of darkness is left intact, alas!

[http://wipfandstock.com/the-church-and-the-relentless-darkness.html]

BLOG 2/28/17. A THROW-AWAY BLOG: MARDI GRAS

While the rest of the country is obsessing with colorful and controversial politics and politicians, or with the results of the Academy Awards faux pas, or with some other insistent vicissitude that is theirs, … in New Orleans, today is Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras Day, and is the climax of the social season for that unique city. Mardi Gras defies description, what with ostensibly having roots in the Christian observance of Epiphany: that event in which the wise men from the East came to pay homage to the newly born Jesus. Epiphany Day is the 12^th night after Christmas, and so New Orleans’ celebration of Mardi Gras begins on that day with the first parade, and builds up momentum over all the weeks until Fat/Shrove Tuesday, by which time it has become something of a civil orgy, what with uninhibited displays of hedonism, vanity, exhibitionism, along with the expenditure of huge amounts of money by the ‘carnival krewes’ (which are the elite social clubs that build the floats, control the parades, elect their annual kings and queens, hold their balls, and display their social status).

It’s a big Wow! to anyone who is not a native. It is also a sacred cow to the city. The city’s whole calendar revolves around Mardi Gras, as does a significant part of the economy. When I arrived in New Orleans as an innocent young pastor, and publicly questioned the integrity of all that money and devotion being focused on an event that I thought to be something of a contradiction to my ethical senses as a Kingdom of God person and teacher—I was promptly warned sweetly and quietly by one of the church’s respected elders: “Pastor Henderson, we like you, and appreciate your ministry, … but Mardi Gras is ours. Leave it alone!”

But then, New Orleans is not a normal city, it is not a southern city, it is hardly an American city. Its roots are more French and Spanish, but it is a seaport town so that you have large colonies of Germans, Chinese, and, of course, the remarkable African-American culture, the descendants of slaves, which has produced so much of its own music-jazz, and produced great musicians  (think of Louis Armstrong, or Wynton Marsalis, or Preservation Hall). This not to mention that New Orleans produces good food ‘to die for’.

Of course, New Orleans is not the only city that celebrates Mardi Gras. In this country, Mobile, Alabama does, and then Rio de Janeiro, all cities with deep Roman Catholic roots. I, as one who can appreciate the huge contributions of the Roman Catholic Church, have never quite been able to make the connection between this annual orgy, and Epiphany, nor of the hypocrisy of all those weeks of hedonistic display, … and then (in New Orleans) early on Ash Wednesday morning (tomorrow) all of the hung-over celebrants will go to the St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square to have the archbishop put ashes on their foreheads as the begin being penitent for Lent (which leads up to Easter).  Doesn’t make sense to me, … but then there are lots of mysteries in this pilgrimage.

Somehow, written deeply into my Christian consciousness and calling is the mandate that we not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. But like so much our experience, those who are comfortable and secure can easily overlook those who are homeless, poor, desperate for healing, and hopeless. This was true in New Orleans in my experience.  There was so much that was tragic hidden behind the scenes. I knew professing Christians who contributed a couple of thousand dollars a year to the church, but then spent $30,000 or more to belong to one of the carnival krewes, and who would blithely tell me that I didn’t understand how important that was to them when I would seek to challenge their stewardship. I’m certain that there are inconsistencies in my life, too. We all have them, and we need one another to challenge and refine us. So, this is Bob Henderson ‘ventilating’ and giving you a ‘throw-away’ blog on part of my own Christian sojourn. May your Lenten disciplines be a refining and recreating time in your walk with God. Blessings.

BLOG 2/25/17. MUSLIMS: OBJECTS OF CHRIST’S LOVE?

The diatribe against Islamic immigrants to this country, coming out of some in high places, and echoed by a whole set of politically vocal people in this country is disturbing to me. I am, before all else, a follower of Jesus Christ, who is the expression of God’s love for the world. I am a follower of Jesus who made disciples of despised Samaritans, Syrians, and Roman soldiers, … and who left his followers the mandate to make disciples of every ‘people group’ / nation in the world. O.K. thus far?

Some several centuries later, there emerged the Prophet Muhammed and the genesis of the Islamic religion in the middle east, which became a huge religious community, and its sacred book, the Quran, became the formative document among untold millions of Muhammad’s followers. A whole culture with many marvelous artistic and scientific accomplishments followed in its wake. It has both its stricter and more militant wing: the Shia, and its larger wing: the Sunni—but that’s a whole study itself. That’s not where I want to go here.

So, we have a huge community of Islamic folk in this country, and many more wanting to immigrate because of the violence within the Islamic community in the middle east. They are our neighbors. How are the followers of Jesus to process this evident animosity against Islam from some segments, even of the Christian community? I may not be the best person to raise this question because I do not have any immediate Muslim neighbors that I know of, but there is a large community of Islamic folk here in Atlanta. There is a handsome new mosque right behind Georgia Tech, and a large community in a neighboring village to where I live. I have Hindu neighbors, and Buddhist neighbors (… but most of my neighbors are evidently post-Christian, typical urban nomads).

Face it: Yes, there are violent and nasty Islamic folk, who behead Christians, etc. But then there are also some violent and nasty folk who profess to be Christian. We do not always occupy the moral high ground. But, as with our Christian encounter with all our neighbors, it is primary that we become Christ’s agents of love to them. “God so loved the world …” So, you may ask: How, exactly, to we do that? It begins with knowing and listening to their stories. It can be initiated by hospitality, and a simple question over a cup of tea: “Tell me about yourself. What is your story? Where do you come from? What was it like growing up in (Egypt, Iraq, wherever)?”

In another setting, I have always been challenged by the late Lesslie Newbigin, who went as a young missionary to South India (Madras). He became hugely influential because he immersed himself in the Hindu culture, and learned the teachings of his Hindu neighbors so that he knew more of their religion than they. He listened. He socialized. He was loved and respected by his Hindu neighbors though he was a foreigner and an advocate of Christianity.

I think if I had Muslim neighbors I would want to acquaint myself more thoroughly with the Quran. I, frankly, find it difficult reading, but I know that it mentions the Prophet Isa (Jesus) many more times than it does Muhammed, and claims him as a true prophet–even the messiah. I also know that Islam is a religion of law, of obeying the teachings of the Quran if one is to achieve paradise, … while the message of Jesus Christ is one of unmerited grace, of unmerited love, because of Jesus. I should, albeit, be able to affirm the great achievements and positive teachings of the Quran. And to that end, may our Muslim neighbors come to see and know of God’s reconciling love in Christ for them through our reconciling love to them. To that end: Come Holy Spirit!

In this troubled nation, with all its current prejudices against Islamic immigrants, the sons and daughters of God in Christ, should be contagious in their love for these strangers within our gates, whom our God loves with an infinite love. The un-reached people have come to us and we are to be God’s agents of true gospel, and embrace them in care and love. What a calling!

BLOG 2/21/17. ANXIETY OVER DEATH … OR, REJOICING IN HOPE

So, today is my birthday, and as difficult as it is to comprehend, it is my 89^th birthday. That means that I’m standing at the threshold of my 90^th year. Wow! I entitled my (privately published) memoirs a few years ago: Journey Into Laughter, because I could never have conceived the crazy events that have shaped my life. But now, I am walking through the epilogue passage of my life—who’s fooling whom? But that ineluctably brings me/us to the subject of death and dying.

Some psychiatrists say that there are three major anxieties that are common to all humankind: 1) the anxiety over the meaning of life; 2) the anxiety over acceptance; and 3) the anxiety over death. Who am I? Who cares? And, what happens when I die? Sadly, most contemporary hymnbooks have diminished the number of great hymns on death, and God’s design in Christ to give us great hope for this life and the next. But I’m an incorrigible hymn lover, … so on my 89^th birthday let me share three of them (in part) with you. (You can track them down, in full on Cyber Hymns on your search engine).

One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o’er and o’er;
Nearer to my home today am I
Than e’er I’ve been before.

Nearer the bound of life
Where burdens are laid down;
Nearer to leave the heavy cross,
Nearer to gain the crown.

Then there’s:

The sands of time are sinking, the dawn of Heaven breaks;
The summer morn I’ve sighed for—the fair, sweet morn awakes:
Dark, dark hath been the midnight, but dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

O Christ, He is the fountain, the deep, sweet well of love!
The streams of earth I’ve tasted more deep I’ll drink above:
There to an ocean fullness His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land.

And Bernard of Cluny’s:

Jerusalem the golden, With milk and honey blest,
Beneath your contemplation Sink heart and voice oppressed.
I know not, oh, I know not What joys await us there,
What radiancy of glory, What bliss beyond compare.

On this 89^th birthday this guy is rejoicing in that great hope, and Christ’s infinite love. Peace!

BLOG 2/18/17. WHO NEEDS ANOTHER BOOK RECOMMENDATION?

“Of the making of many books there is no end …” laments the ancient writer of Ecclesiastes, and so what I am about to blog here, you may want to dismiss by hastily punching the ‘delete’ button on your laptop, … but just in case … (I have a stack of books that people have given me, or have been recommended to me, that I will not ever read, and that is not to mention those that are now in the landfill).

But, all that said, let me introduce you to an author, a guy that fractures every image I have of typical Christian authors. It all began for me with a couple of titles: A New Christian Manifesto, and Reading the Bible With the Damned, that were published by Westminster John Knox Press, which is the press of my Presbyterian denomination, and which published my first book decades ago. The titles intrigued me, but then the author was someone I had never heard of: Bob Ekblad. Reading his bio was even more intriguing, it was downright weird. Here is a guy who is the unbelievable combination of a one, who right out of the university in Seattle, engaged in teaching campesinos in Honduras to do sustainable farming, who is an ordained Presbyterian whose degrees in divinity, and PhD in Old Testament, are from the University of Montpellier in France, and who is significantly formed by a transforming Pentecostal encounter with the Holy Spirit replete with  a compelling awareness of the healing ministry Christ gives his church), and, with his wife Gracie, maintains a remarkable compassionate ministry to prisoners and illegal immigrants in Skagit County, Washington, as well as to migrants and victims of human need in Europe, Africa and in other nations.

The guy doesn’t fit any mold. I initiated some communication with him, and we have continued in a very spasmodic and modest correspondence over several years.

So, I was hooked. My whole theological being, and the books I have written, are formed by the radical and subversive and transformative nature of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, …and I wanted to know what Ekblad had to teach me. Reading his uncanny ability to (with incredible exegetical skill) simplify and communicate the transforming message of Christ’s love, forgiveness and physical healing to prisoners, semi-literate, migrants, and desperately needy folk … blew me away. How would you go into a country prison for a thirty-minute Christian gathering and communicate the message of Christ to scarred gang members, drug-addicted, victims of a tangled immigration system … and get a hearing, and see lives transformed? He is continually engaged with the legal and court system because of the illegal status of these folk with whom he ministers.

All that having been said by way of introduction, brings me to recommending to you his latest book The Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus Global Liberation Movement [file:///The Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus’ Global Liberation Movement], which is highly readable, and given the social and humanitarian dilemmas of the world’s migrant and refugee (and prison) population, it is hugely rewarding to be able to ‘enter’ into Bob’s world through his unique gift of story-telling. He also has established The People’s Seminary in Skagit County, WA to be able to train others in this ministry, and this latest book is the first published by that seminary.

I commend him and his unique ministry to you, not to mention the riches he uncovers in the most unlikely Biblical passages. You will not be disappointed. For myself, I have been transformed by his writings. Peace!

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BLOG 2/14/17. ON BLACK HISTORY MONTH: UNSUNG HEROES

So, it’s Black History month, and we’ll read articles about the giants of our nation’s black community. I would like to tell you about one of my black heroes who became a friend, and yet operated totally out of sight of the vocal and visible black protest community. Like, I’m a white guy, but I cut my teeth as an adult right in the early days of the civil rights movement. I was ordained as pastor in the Presbyterian Church the summer of Brown-vs-the Board of Education. I was a product of the segregated South, and had never had to come to grips with the issue of racism, since it had seemed the normal state of things.

I soon found myself in Durham, North Carolina during the decade of the 1960s. Durham, in those days, was a blue-collar textile and tobacco town and seething with racism. In that small city, there were also, two major universities, so that the civil rights movement, lunch-counter demonstrations, street marches by (primarily) black students and civil rights activists singing “We shall overcome.” I became more and more engaged with the black community, and a point of communication for black student protesters, and even joined the Black Ministerial Alliance.

Along the way, the rector of my neighboring Episcopal Church and I began to wonder if there was some area of need in that whole turbulent scene in which our two congregations might have some encouraging ministry. To that end we consulted with the city’s planning commission and discovered that one of the most distressed communities in the city was a hidden black neighborhood (what would be called a ‘bottoms’ community) very near to our church houses, hidden from the major thoroughfares, and within a half mile of Duke University and the Veteran’s Administration Hospital. None of us even knew it was there. In sanitation, unemployment, illegitimacy, unpaved streets, and obvious poverty it was one of Durham’s most needy communities. My colleague and I found our way into this hidden area of need, and to our surprise, there was a neat, white frame church there: New Bethel Baptist. We were able to contact the pastor and set up a date to meet him. His name: Pastor L. W. Reid.

Reid was a wonderfully authentic and warm person. He had come to that church and discerned all the needs. He set about to create a day-care center in the church so that their parents could leave them safely there and find employment. The church became about the only scene of encouragement in that dismal setting. But while we were sitting in Reid’s tiny study, I noticed a whole shelf of identical books on Biblical doctrines from Moody Press, and so asked Reid about them. It turned out that Reid had discerned that most of the other pastors he knew were ‘tent-makers’ who held full time jobs as well as pastoring churches—but that few of them had had any training. To that end, he established the Union Bible Training School that met in his church in the evening once a week. There was a new generation of educated black young adults who needed pastors who were equipped to minister to them, and Reid provided that training. Wow!

There were all those prominent civil rights figures, some seeking publicity and fame, … and here was Reid quietly meeting the needs at the grassroots. Our two churches became supportive of Reid and New Bethel, and were able to assist in getting additional funding for his day care, and providing some administrative support for the training school. (I actually taught the pastors both evangelism, and black church history for a season, and bonded with those wonderful brothers.)

Real change and transformational ministry take place at the grassroots. Reid and I exchanged pulpits occasionally, which was humorous because black congregations talk back to their preachers, and white congregations don’t, so Reid and I had to learn the rhythms of each other’s congregation. Reid is probably, now, with the Lord, but I always think of what a remarkable hero he was in his own quiet and fruitful way. This Black History month gives me this occasion to

BLOG 2/11/17. MAYBE THE CHURCH COULD LEARN FROM ‘HACKERS’

There is a whole, fascinating, innovative, increasingly influential reality emerging out there in the world of business, education, and many other realms, known as ‘hackers’. It is a fundamental rule to the world of hackers to be unafraid to question and challenge the accepted and entrenched behaviors in whatever field of endeavor they are interested in. Hackers have not only been hugely influential in challenging older and prestigious business and educational communities, but they continue to keep the new generation of business institutions (i.e., the Silicon Valley bunch and their counterparts) on their toes. Hackers are always seeking a better, more efficient, and more profitable way of doing things.

Take, for instance, the emergence of the MOOCs (Massive Open On-line Courses) in education. Hackers had learned how to by-pass costly enrollment in expensive colleges and universities, and to access their courses in other ways. Some schools and faculty saw this tide coming and found ways to benefit by it (Stanford early in the game). But hackers are a relentless lot. They look at some commercial need, and look at what is out there, and find ways to set up new entities that are potentially much more efficient, cost-effective, consumer-friendly, and worthy of taking huge gambles to bring them into reality.

The generation of entrepreneurial hackers (as some students of this phenomenon, such as Koulopoulos and Keldsen, have written) are “those of undaunted mind-set, and who recognize the positive impact brought about by the ability to connect people, mobilize communities, and drive positive outcomes that would otherwise be impossible.” The phenomenon is obvious and inescapable in much of the cultural, social, and economic contexts of today. But here is where I have a problem. What do you do with church institutions that are seemingly irretrievably wedded to the ecclesiastical patterns of a world that no longer exists?

Look at the vast church institutions formed by stagnant patterns of yesterday, and yet cling to them as though those patterns were sacrosanct, even though they are visibly non-generative, hardly reproductive, hugely expensive, and inefficient in forming disciples of Jesus Christ who are mature in living out their New Creation/Kingdom lives in the realities of their 24/7 work-a-day lives. Services are held, music is good, perhaps the pastor is a gifted teacher, … but they are less and less a factor in any community. (There are wonderful exceptions to this caricature, such as Redeemer Church in New York City, … but that church has been willing to depart from many patterns and priorities of yesterday’s churches, and to innovate to accomplish Christ’s mission in NYC.)

We live in a culture of urban nomads, always on the move and changing. We live in a society in which one’s office is his/her laptop. We live in that hyper-connected culture in which any ordinary person has access to more Biblical and theological resources on his/her iPhone than is available in the largest of theological libraries in the world. Believers often find one another on-line. One’s company of other believers is casual, but quite intimate. The largest growth edge of the church in the world is in house-churches, and transient communities.

Meanwhile the entrenched ecclesiastical patterns cling to theological institutions that continue to produce academically credentialed institution-keepers, too often trained by academically gifted teachers and yet who have never been tested ‘in the trenches’ of true church leadership and disciple-making. Ordination is not an acknowledgement of tested leadership and maturity in a Christian community, but rather is vested because of an academic degree, alas! Yesterday’s church.

Maybe it’s time for a generation of ecclesiastical hackers to reconceive the church for the world of our present realities, and for tomorrow’s children. And … I see it happening!

BLOG 2/7/17. RECLAIMING RIGHTEOUSNESS:  GOD’S WAY OF DOING THINGS.

It’s high time we got serious, within the Christian community, about reclaiming our calling to be God’s agents of righteousness. I’m not talking about ‘self-righteousness’ by which people try to foist themselves off as better than others, … I’m talking about the character of God that is to be expressed in God’s sons and daughters—or as Eugene Peterson paraphrases righteousness: “God’s way of doing things.”

All too often, especially within our Protestant-Reformation tradition, we have put the focus on the blessing of our Christian faith, that our sinful persons are made ‘righteous by faith,’ i.e., that reality by which Jesus Christ bore our sins and carried our sorrows, and made us righteous before God by his own atoning death. Yes, amen. That is an inestimable blessing, … but it must not obscure the incarnational reality of that which teaches us that God’s calling of us, in Jesus Christ, is in order to “conform us to the image of his Son”—spelled out as our recreation in knowledge (to have the mind of  God in us), in righteousness (to exhibit in our behavior the image of  God), and in true holiness (to be embraced as intimate sons and daughters within the Trinitarian community) [Romans 8:29-39; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10].

It is this calling to be conformed to God’s Son in righteousness by which others can see our good works. It is this ‘Kingdom behavior’ that is visible to the watching world. It is in this that God demonstrates in flesh and blood his design for his New Creation people, … those who incarnate in their human lives, and daily live-out the Sermon on the Mount. Paul reminded the Romans that before they were baptized into Christ they were slaves of sin, but now in their new life as his resurrection people they are slaves to (guess what?) righteousness. This is critical for us to grasp. God’s people march to a different drummer. O, we may be Americans, or Democrats or Republican or whatever—but these are not our primary identity. We are God’s holy nation, and thereby transnational. God’s church knows no national or ethnic barriers. In whatever political, cultural, social, ethnic, or whatever context we find ourselves, we are to be those whose priorities and ethical behavior is motivated by our calling to be God’s righteous ones.

In Jewish culture those who consistently lived out the life designed by the Torah were designated as tzadik / righteous ones. It was high tribute. I have known such Jewish friends who were tzadik, and they were a breath of fresh air as they endured anti-Semitism and slights of all kinds with gentle consistency, and lives filled with good works. I regularly pray that I will be a Christian tzadik, and that those outside the community of faith will see my good works and glorify God—will see Christ’s genome incarnated in me. Or Latin American brother and sisters refer to this as ortho-praxis, i.e., the visible living out of the true nature of God. It was many of those Latin American brothers and sisters, also, who, when the church leadership became too captive to the wealth and power of the upper-classes, reminded the church of “God’s preferential option for the poor.” Yes, the helpless, the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the imprisoned, … they are God’s preferential option, and must also be ours. Righteousness.

In our present political climate of arrogant wealth and power seemingly in the ascendency, that we need to remind ourselves and all those who profess to be followers of Christ, that we are to be the radical practitioners of his righteousness with integrity and humility, no matter the cost. It is thus that we are salt and light, and true to his calling to be the radiant display of his divine nature—his peculiar people, his holy nation—even if it costs us our lives (cf. Revelation 12:11).

Yes. That men may see our good works, our New Creation behavior and thinking, … and glorify God, know that somehow God is the one who has brought this about in our lives. Righteousness. We are to wear it like a breastplate (Ephesian 6:14). That God’s design and it is our inescapable calling, especially in such tumultuous times as these are.

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BLOG 2/4/17. EXCUSE: “BUT I’M ONLY A LAYMAN!”

Somewhere in the DNA of a vast company of those who identify themselves as: followers of Jesus Christ, … is the devastating virus that renounces personal responsibility for the mission given to all of his followers—his church. These settle, rather, for continual immaturity, and dependency on ‘clergy’ so that these same folks are content to be passive in their ostensible identity with the Christian community. This is so common that it is scarcely recognized, … oh, maybe, serve on a committee, or engage in endless Bible studies, but never getting ‘kicked out of the nest’ and becoming active agents in the mission of God in their actual 24/7 ‘incarnations’. This lame excuse has come to me as a teaching-pastor all too often: “O, but I’m only a layman.”

This horrendous error needs to be surfaced, named, and intentionally renounced. Robert Coleman, a  professor of missions, once wrote that if anyone cannot identify his/her life with Christ’s Great Commission, then that person’s life is irrelevant to history. The problem is not a new one. In the New Testament letter to Hebrews, the (anonymous) author laments that: “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food …” (Hebrews 5:17 ff.).

How long does one sit in church meetings, hear endless lessons and sermons, partake of the bread and wine of the Eucharist, … and continue to be passive and non-contagious, disobedient to Christ’s mandate, and essentially illiterate—to deny responsibility for daily incarnation—in any dynamic sense, in his or her Christian faith? Face it: the engagement that your present and local social, cultural, and realistic context offers, is not met by passive church members sitting in worship services (unless those worship services energize them afresh, and equip them for their ‘Monday-morning world’) … but it is engaged when all of Christ’s followers in the midst of all of the realities (often crappy, intractable, and complex) live out their gospel in that very setting. It is in Christ’s follower’s daily incarnation that they become the glory of God, that is:  salt and light. It is there that they are those on whose feet is the “readiness of the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15).

The mission of God takes place when and where the people of God live out that faith in their particular Monday morning world, … in the ‘marketplace’ of daily realities. It is for this reason that we need to be equipping and provoking each other, and growing into maturity. It means that whenever you hear a teaching/sermon, you need to be translating it into that which equips you to understand your calling, and how you exegete your daily culture, how you communicate New Creation to your peers, … and even how you establish new church communities (since a church that is static become stagnant and non-fruit-bearing).

The other side of this growth process is that those who are teaching-pastors of your community need the practical feedback from you as you candidly articulate your misunderstandings, or feed to them the existential realities, and challenges, of your life—else how will they know how to assist you into fruitful maturity. But to escape into the lame excuse that you are ‘only a layman’ and therefore bear no responsibility for the work of the gospel is a statement of basic misunderstanding of Christ’s calling—probably even a heresy!

Yes, and this leads to another often misunderstood reality in the Christian community: those who are the elders and overseers, the teachers and equippers of others, … must also be the tried and true practitioners of that which they are teaching. They are to be the models and mentors because they have faithfully, and with mature understanding, lived out their calling to be fruitful agents of God’s New Humanity. There needs to be that continual dynamic interaction between teachers and God’s people, where both hold the other accountable. That’s challenging, but it certainly creates growth and fruitfulness in the realities our calling to mature discipleship.

BLOG 1/31/17. OF THE FOUR FREEDOMS, ONE IS ‘RELIGION’

To jog our memories in the midst of this distressing and chaotic moment in our national history, … we would do well to remember that in 1941 as these United States were seeking to cast off the isolationism that pervaded the country after World War I, our then president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, heralded our role as the champion of ‘Four Freedoms’ that should be the guarantee of all humankind. They were: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship/Religion, Freedom From Want, and Freedom From Fear.  These four freedoms were heralded as this nation’s calling as a light to the nations of the world, and were memorialized on a famous Saturday Evening Post magazine cover, and ultimately in a national monument and national park on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan.

Note that it does not specify any one religion. It recognizes the mosaic of faith / or lack of faith positions that are represented in these United States and in the other nations of the world in this community of nations who are our neighbors. This noble calling has been tragically compromised in the recent actions of this new administration, in its diatribe against (particularly) Islamic peoples. It ignores the reality of the religious quest (or lack thereof) of humankind. There is a real sense in which everyone has some kind of faith presupposition, or faith position—even those who deny any affinity for religion are engaging in a faith position that there is nothing out there besides their own quest for self-fulfillment. Probe deeply, and one will find that there is, however, some quest after meaning, or true relationships, or some sense of what is their final destiny—all faith questions, often shuffled off to the margins in one’s busy life.

But then there is the contextual reality, to which our new president seems oblivious. Take greater metropolitan Atlanta, the city in which I live. A ‘southern city’? Far from it. Very international. Right behind the campus of Georgia Tech stands a handsome new Islamic mosque. Hindu Temples dot the area, along with meditation centers for all kinds of oriental religions and spiritual gurus. (maybe even a temple to the Atlanta Falcons!). I live next to the small city of Clarkston, which is part of the metropolitan complex, and is reputedly the most international city in North America. My remarkably gifted congressman is a Buddhist. In my subdivision of (mostly) wonderful neighbors are representatives of several world religions, of the traditional institutional Christianity, so prominent in former days, along with energized followers of the life and teachings of Jesus. I would not be surprised, however, if the most of my neighbors would fit appropriately into the poet T. S. Eliot’s definition of “decent godless men” for whom God is hardly at all in their thoughts—but that also is a religious position if the truth were known—and they are my neighbors whom I am to love.

Then it would be interesting for this president to recall that President Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Award for his Camp David accords, when he got Anwar Sadat (a Moslem) and Menachem Begin (a Jew) together upon the basis that they were both of the lineage from theirs ancestor Abraham.

President Roosevelt’s four freedoms should always be this nation’s quest in its relations with our global neighbors. There are over sixty-three million refugees in the world at this tumultuous moment, and they are from many ethnicities and religious persuasions. Their welfare is much on the heart of the God whom I serve who has expressed his infinite love in Christ, and in Christ did not come to condemn the world and its inhabitants, but to save them and to make all thing new.

I will add my voice to those who protest this administration’s inhumanity to humankind, and to throw light on his total ignorance of the mission of God in the world, … or even to the basic calling “to love justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8) … in the midst of every kindred and tribe and nation. Yes: the four freedoms are more germane than ever. We must not be silent at such a moment as this. To be continued …