Enchanted Community

BLOG 5/3/15. CHRISTIAN FAITH NEVER A COMFORTABLE FIT POLITICALLY

For the next eighteen months we are going to be deluged with all kinds of reports and commentaries on politics, politicians, and candidates for the United States presidency. Such is one of the colorful, but sometimes obfuscating, dimensions of our political system. Those of us, who take seriously our Christian discipleship, don’t ever fit comfortably into the cultural and political patterns in which we live. At the same time, we do live positively and creatively in these same systems. Christian, if they take seriously their calling to be people of God’s New Creation, are those who are light and salt, and a New Humanity that demonstrates God’s design for the human community in lifestyle and relationships.

One only has to remember that when the Israelites were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, God told the exiles to “seek the welfare of the city in which you dwell.” Such a calling requires us to be very sensitive and creative in communicating the reconciling grace of God in what are often very hostile situations. We are never called upon to seek security or dominance, rather, we are called upon to be instruments of peace and reconciliation, and of humane solutions to human need—and face it: that is seldom simplistic or uncomplicated.

Or, look at Jesus. One could say that he was both anti-establishment and counter-cultural. He was on a whole different agenda than either the Jewish temple establishment, and he certainly was on a different agenda from the Roman Empire. At the same time he moved among that scene as an instrument and advocate of justice, of caring, of sensitivity, and healing even to those who were traditional enemies, and who were alien to all he had come to be and to do. He launched his earthly ministry with the announcement that he was the fulfillment of the Isaiah 61 prophecy that the Messiah would bring good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, recovering sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed, and he year of the Lord’s favor. He also told his followers that when the Son of Man was to come in his glory, they would be judged on their response to the hungry and thirsty, to the immigrants/strangers, to the naked, to the sick and to the imprisoned.

Translate that in to the political and social agendas of so much of our contemporary scene and it reminds us that (as Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us) that we respond to a higher law, to a counter-cultural agenda. Rather that seeking to escape the areas of greatest need, God’s people should be moving into them as an incarnational folk as demonstrations of reconciliation and costly love. There are marvelously helpful and realistic resources for such incarnation, I think especially of the Christian Community Development Association (which you can access on its website). But our incarnation also involves environmental concerns, economic justice concerns, the unconscionable number of those in prisons in the country, yes, and the racial injustice that seems to pervade so much of our scene—and to realize that most political candidates are loathe to even touch some of these.

Are God’s New Creation people conservative, or liberal, or progressive, or disruptors of the status quo? The answer: Yes, all of the above. We are also light and life, courtesy and caring, and positive in the face of hostility. We are Christ to our neighbors, and to the dominant social order. We are to be always transformational, even at the risk of our lives and careers. Jesus never promised that his calling was into a comfort-zone, but it is never dull or unfruitful.

Keep all of that in mind, and feed me back some comments. Thanks for being my subscribers.

BLOG 4/29/15. WHEN THE GROUND SHIFTS UNDER OUR FEET

It is described as a diastrophism: that event that occurs when the tectonic plates beneath the surface of the earth shift, and tend to obliterate much of what is on the surface We have certainly observed this geological phenomenon this past week in Kathmandu, Nepal. The descriptions of that totally unsettling and chaotic scene are a reminder that all that seems permanent and secure, isn’t—dwellings, historic temples, monuments, ordinary and familiar scenes reduced to rubble.

There are other kinds of diastrophisms. This week the Supreme Court of the United States has before it the issue of the legality of same-sex marriages, which defies simplistic responses, and which (as the justices have noted) is a shift from the definition of marriage which has lasted for millennia. Yet, the nation has been increasingly confronted with such an existential issue, and the stability, health, and legality of gay families and children. The mood of the nation has been shifting rather quickly in recent years. It is traumatic for some and hopeful for others.

I’ve also written several blog posts in which I have pointed out another diastrophism that has to do with the dominant image of the church, which has existed for at least a millennium and a half, which image sees the church in terms primarily of temporal institutions, ecclesiastical organizations, hierarchically ordained clergy/church professionals/priests, … and, of course, the ever present church buildings that house such sacralized institutions. All of that is the product of ‘Christendom’ which emerged when the church was essentially co-opted by the governmental and cultural principalities, and given privileges and status, … yet that has little to do with the New Testament teachings of the nature and mission of the church. Such an ecclesiastical paradigm is fast vanishing before a new generation, and before a new global culture that is post-Christian, and generally indifferent to the church as we have known it—to such a dominant paradigm, which has been so essential to our previous generations.

It all reminds one of the old gospel hymn: Abide With Me, which has that line: “Change and decay in all around I see. O Thou, who changest not, abide with me.”

Such cultural and ethical, geological and ecclesiastical moments, however, though never easy, do in fact give us the critical moment in which to take a fresh look at our calling, our priorities, our ethics, and our institutions with eyes of God’s New Creation people for the future (and not for the past). They are never easy, and they seldom have simplistic answers. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who grappled with ethical issues more deeply than most Christian thinkers, found himself with the inescapable decision of whether it was better to be complicit in the attempted assignation of Adolph Hitler, or to allow such a wicked leader to continue to wreak destruction on humanity. Bonhoeffer, of course, was captured and ultimately hanged for his complicity in that assignation effort, but in his prison diary he found refuge in the passage from II Chronicles 20:12: “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” We frequently face diastrophisms where we do not know what to do.

God’s people are never called to be passive or safely ‘religious’ folk, mindlessly ossifying in our church activities. It is our calling to be those creative, caring, innovative instruments of righteousness—to be God’s New Humanity, and our most fruitful moments are frequently in such moments of diastrophism when all of our merely human securities are suddenly gone. How do God’s people demonstrate his extravagant love and justice in the midst of hostile governments, or among those of different religions, or lifestyles? How are we, in all humility, those who become true salt and light when everything is chaotic? How are we those creative and fresh stewards of our calling?

It is dangerous to avoid the risks of our faith. We are always a counter-cultural folk who are indwelt by the Spirit of the Father and the Son—not somewhere else, but here and now.

BLOG 4/26/15. THE CHURCH: WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

If you’re looking for a popular religious society, replete with many activities as your social medium that may call itself a church—you’re not looking for the church.

If you’re looking for an eloquent, posturing clergy figure to charm you with his/her homilies—you’re not looking for the church.

If you’re vulnerable to the glitzy church signboards that seek to lure you into their scene with all kinds of invitations—you’re not looking for the church.

If you’re looking for some ‘denomination’ that will assure you that you’re social and ethical norms are guaranteed—you’re not looking for the church.

If you are looking for some association in which you can seek ‘spirituality’ and yet be somewhat passive, and not have to engage in any costly discipleship—you’re not looking for the church.

If you’re looking for some religious setting where all of your friends hang-out, and where you can happily engage in ‘small group Bible study’ but never follow through into active obedience two the teachings of Christ—you’re not looking for the church. Have I been negative enough?

Church comes from a common Greek word which defines ‘a people who are called-out for some specific purpose.’ It is not a Christian word, but it is a word that Jesus employed to denote the people he would ‘call out’ to himself (to his person and his mission), and for the specific purpose of demonstrating the New Humanity, or the people of the New Creation, that he had come to inaugurate right here and now in this present earthly scene. It is first of all a calling to himself, a calling to make your dwelling in him, and to have his forming word dwelling in you and shaping your life. It is a calling that is not safe, but will make huge demands on your thinking and behavior. It is a calling to enter into his New Creation by forsaking all of the broad way of human religion, and to take a narrow path that leads through the small gate but into a whole unimaginable new reality, which he calls: the Kingdom of God, and which is his New Creation.

The church is the community, or the colony of those who have taken that path. It is the community of those who have Christ dwelling in them, so that his life and teaching take on flesh and blood wherever they are. It is a community in which every follower of Jesus becomes, in turn, Jesus to one another. It is costly. That life of discipleship requires that we forsake all other lords and loyalties and become the very children of the Living God. It is a community whose calling is to demonstrate the radical New Creation lifestyle as, say, spelled-out in the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes (which, you will note, includes the willingness to suffer persecution for the name of Jesus, and to be peacemakers). It is the community in which we demonstrate the healthy, self-less,  reconciling relationships—first of all with each other in love, but also Christ’s calling to love our enemies and those who are enigmatic to us and who don’t share any of our New Creation values.

The church, because it is the dwelling place of Jesus by the Spirit, also shares his missionary passion to communicate his unimaginable love and forgiveness and grace to all of those persons whose lives are separated from his. The church is, in terms I so often quote: the missionary arm of the Holy Trinity, and can never be passive until every person and ethnic group know of the love of God in Christ. … And where do you find the church? You find it wherever you find one or two (or more) others who are consumed with their love for Christ and their mutual desire to live lives of obedience to him, and so to encourage and nurture each other as they share their lives and the Word of Christ with each other—you find the church in surprising and unexpected places and relationships. And the church exists in innumerable unexpected places globally.

BLOG 4/22/15. EVANGELIZING THOSE ALREADY BAPTIZED? … SAY WHAT?

From somewhere back in the archives of my mind comes the quote: “The primary task of the church today is that of evangelizing those already baptized.” I (probably mistakenly) attribute it to the short-lived Pope John Paul I, who only lived as pope for thirty-three days. But I do think it is from Vatican encyclicals or something in that direction (even though Mr. Google and I can’t find it).

I can resonate with it, however. After all, I have many decades in the pastoral trenches, and on our denomination’s staff in evangelism, and in ecumenical discussions Roman Catholic and Protestant. Maybe it came home most inescapably on the Sunday morning in our fairly ‘healthy’ congregation, when I decided to ask the congregation to become part of the sermon. There are, after all, those New Testament teachings to us about being Christ’s witnesses, and so I think I was looking especially at the one from Peter’s first epistle, which encourages those obviously persecuted followers of Jesus to live exemplary lives among their non-Christian counterparts, and to be ready to give a thoughtful answer to anyone who asks a reason for the hope that is in them (I Peter 3:15-16). That’s simple enough. Our lives as God’s New Creation people ought to create curiosity among the folk with whom we associate who have never encountered Jesus … and maybe cause them to ask about what they see.

So, I proposed to the folk that, as part of the sermon time, we take a couple of minutes, turn to one or two persons near, and to tell each other about your encounter with Jesus Christ, and the reason for your faith in him. Sounds simple enough … after all, most of these folk had been baptized and taken the standard baptismal vows that renounced all other Lords and the darkness of unbelief, affirmed their sole trust in Jesus Christ and their vows to be Christ’s faithful and obedient disciples.

You could almost feel the atmosphere get a bit tense. There were, of course, those who were enthusiastic and articulate disciples of Jesus, but for the most part, it was sort of an embarrassing moment because many had always considered their faith a private thing, and had never had the least sense of obligation to be contagious witnesses of authentic, and especially verbal, Christian repentance and faith. Most took it well and gave it their best shot, but then I got some not-so-subtle suggestions that such procedure was totally out-of-bounds. The reports I got back were that there were a lot of bland expressions, such as: “I have always loved the church, and felt a part of it;” or, “I know that God is always near, and hears me when I call on him;” … or, maybe, “I don’t think it is my place to try to impose my faith on anybody else.” Behold the company of the un-evangelized and yet baptized folk that the pope, or the Vatican, or whoever, was talking about.

Or there was a friend of mine who was professor of evangelism at a prestigious theological seminary, who lamented to me: “How can I teach evangelism to these young men and women, when they cannot even share their faith with each other over a cup of coffee?” It is as though it were some off-limits subject even in such a context.

But then there was my dear wife, who was with me when we were guests at supper with two delightful faculty couples from another theological school. We guys were typically zooming all over the place with our ‘theological discussions’ while the wives quietly ate their delicious meal or talked to each other. When there came a moment of silence in our guy conversations, my Betty leaned across the table and asked a professor (who was new to us): “Marion, how did you come to know Jesus?” There was an almost stunned moment of silence, and then he laughed and thanked her. “Betty, I have been a celebrated professor here for four years and that is the first time that anybody asked me about my faith in Jesus!” And he gave a beautiful answer.I nside the church is a vast mission field of religious but un-evangelized folk. Yes, it is a primary task of the church today if we are to be the light of the world, or a city set on a hill. Got it?

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BLOG 4/19/15. THE CONFESSIONS OF THIS ‘GADFLY’ BLOGGER

I get asked with some regularity (like this morning) why and how I got into blogging? That’s an interesting question and so I’ll take a stab at an answer. I’ve got sixty years behind me of being designated as: clergy (which designation I do not even like). I’ve jumped through all of the hoops of the traditional and dominant ecclesiastical paradigm, and since I am by label: Presbyterian—which very traditional denominational bunch are often caricatured as being over-obsessed with “decency and order” and so are part of the dominant order. I was a very sincere young follower of Christ, and was ‘baited’ (which was, I suppose, providential) with the proposition that one could really serve God best by: “going into full-time Christian ministry”—as though all the other Christians were not also in full-time Christian ministry by virtue of their baptismal vows! Anyhow …

Yet the very wearing of that clergy designation has been a disconcerting experience, and provoked in me not a little cynicism about the hollowness of such a designation, and the fact that there is never any such designation even hinted at in the New Testament documents. I hope I have at least been a positive and encouraging disciple-maker to the generations of folk whom I have worked with as clergy. Yes, and I have known, and do know, others who have worn/wear that designation wonderfully and fruitfully—but not because they are called clergy. I, early on, came to the conclusion that there were a whole lot of vain egos, and thoroughly screwed-up personalities, who like the title reverend, or doctor, who somehow had missed the whole point of true church leadership, and of especially of disciple-making. It made me chuckle when I read the quote from somewhere (maybe G. K. Chesterton) that “the church is much too serious an enterprise to be left up to clergy.”

Along the way, I also found the classic definitions of the church all seemed to emerge out of such a false clergy-dependent form of church institution, what with preaching, sacraments, liturgies, etc. Living next to a divinity library for a decade I also read up in the vast field of ecclesiology, or the study of the church. That led me then into the field of missiology, or what is the Christ-given mission of the church—and my lights went on. It is only within the last several generations that missiology has emerged into a major field of study, and given us a good focus on what Jesus Christ called the church to be and to do in the world, and how the Holy Spirit energizes the church for the missionary calling of all of its members.

But then, that caused for me, even another problem, since I found in the remarkable set of circumstances through which I have lived just how un-evangelized so many who make up the church itself really are, and how inept the church seems to be in equipping all of its members/Christ’s followers for that missionary calling which is given them by Christ in their daily lives and incarnations. Missiology creates problems because it requires that ostensible church institutions subject themselves to the constant searchlight of how they are forming themselves to be colonies of the Mission of God/Missio Dei, … which can be most disillusioning.

Then along came a brilliant South African missiologist by the name of David Bosch, who wrote in Transforming Mission, that missiologists become gadflies in the company of ecclesiologists. It was then that I realized that my formative experiences of these many years have morphed me into an ecclesiastical gadfly. I, thereupon, began to write eight or ten books in which I was emerging more articulate in my own thinking about the church, and assumed that my last one of a trilogy on the subject (The Church and the Relentless Darkness) was the final one. But then some of my younger family members and young friends insisted that I needed to keep writing, so set me up with this Word Press web sight, and now you become the victims/beneficiaries of this ecclesiastical-missiological gadfly, and these regular blogs are my contribution. Got the picture? If you find them provocative, recommend them to friends. Thanks.

BLOG 4/15/15. A BEAUTIFUL WORD HI-JACKED: EVANGELICAL

Politicians and the press have horribly misused and distorted the word evangelical by using it to identify an extreme right wing coalition as ‘evangelical Christians’, … and too many who have identified themselves as ‘evangelicals’ have, sadly, given tragic substance to that distortion.

You see, when the early Christian writers were recording the accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, they reported that Jesus came into Galilee preaching “the gospel of the Kingdom of God,” and the Greek word they chose for gospel was ‘euangellion’ which was a commonly used word to designate some thrilling announcement, such as a great military victory, or the visit of some very prominent figure—something of huge significance.

It is who Jesus is, and what he taught, that makes the current misuse of the word so ironical, if not tragic. One wonders if those who use it have ever even read their Bibles, or familiarized themselves with the radical teachings of Jesus about the nature of his mission and of his in-breaking Kingdom. One has only to read, first of all, the content of Mary’s Magnificat, to realize that the child she was bearing was not to be some quiet religious figure conforming to the status quo of the Roman Empire, or of the Jewish Temple establishment in Jerusalem, or of the ethics of the economically privileged. “He has showed the strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their heart; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away; …” (Luke 2:51 ff.).

That sounds much more like some socialist manifesto than any conservative political platform. And if that were not enough, Jesus first public sermon recorded says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has caused me to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to the (economic) captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18ff). That’s the kind of stuff that ‘evangelicals,’ if they are really wedded to the teachings of Jesus, should find as determining principles. Or if even that does not put the lie to their misuse of the evangelical designation as those who are formed by the ‘thrilling announcement of the Kingdom of God’ i.e., the evangel of Jesus Christ, … then keep reading.

The criteria by which the whole human community is to be judged (and Jesus was speaking to those who were actually in his audience at the time) renders this sobering prophecy: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory … Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, and was in (debtors) prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord when did we see you (in such conditions and minister to you)’ … And he King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it unto me’” (Matthew 25:31 ff.).

If our 2015 citizenry, who designate themselves as evangelical Christians, can’t relate such a teaching as this to issues such as immigration, minimum wage, food stamps, and health care, and the economic and social issues before us, then perhaps they need a massive reality check. The gospel of the Kingdom is not safe, and it is surely counter-cultural. Having said that, political prejudice runs deep, and I suppose I am talking to deaf ears, alas! But at least I want to protest the hi-jacking of such a beautiful word for such alien purposes. Justice, generosity, compassion, self-sacrifice, mercy, peace-making, and such, are the true evangelical expressions.

BLOG 4/12/15. “THREE THINGS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT IN OUR CHURCH …”

… Then there was the dude who boasted: “There are three things we don’t talk about in our church: sex, politics, and religion.” That would be sort of funny, if not ridiculous, if we lived in a morally and ethically neutral setting, but not so. As a matter of fact, (setting aside the laughable contradiction of a church not talking about religion), we live in a media culture that is deluged with news reports, and programing about religion and politics. Yet in some Christian communities, where it is acceptable to trade political interpretations, there is a strange silence on the subject of sexuality. Question: How can the church equip God’s saints/people to be salt and light, to be mature in Christ, if we assiduously avoid equipping them to deal with the powerful presence of human sexuality in our calling to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

Churches can get all lathered and engaged in endless debates about the GLBT issues of our society, and yet turn a blind eye, or deaf ear to recreational, adulterous, outside-of-marriage sex, … and never see the contradiction. It is not a new issue. The Greco-Roman world was one where there were hardly any moral constraints on sexual relationships, inside or outside of marriage, pedophilia was a normal and acceptable practice, i.e., grown men had their ‘boy’ and no one gave it a thought. Brothels were as common in that culture as fast-food franchises are in ours. But we may be the inhabitants of a corrosive culture of permissive sexuality that is more omnipresent than theirs was. Television, pornographic web sites, morally indifferent culture, and … the church remains silent?

As the Christian mission moved into that culture, sexuality was an issue. Paul would write to the Christian folk at the new church in Thessalonica: “This is the will of God for your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality (fornication).” Does that mean that God’s New Creation men and women lost their hormones? Not at all. But it does mean that they are a whole new race of humans, who understand God’s purpose in creating us sexual, and giving us our genital equipment, and are disciplined in using it to the glory of God in intimate love and in creating family units.

When Paul writes to the Christian folk in Galatia, he does his graphic cataloging of the works of the Spirit, which they were to be exhibiting, … but he also catalogs the works of the flesh (the without-God behavior) and begins with sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality. Christians were to demonstrate a whole New Humanity, of which their sexuality was to be exemplary. This is what the watching world saw, and which caught their attention. In his second century Letter of Diognetus, the author responds to the request by his pagan overseer to comment on the character and conduct of this new sect who were called Christians. The author is obviously somewhat amazed and puzzled by such a different kind of community, and among the things he notes is: “They marry and have children just like everyone else, but they do not kill unwanted babies. They offer a shared table, but not a shared bed. They are at present ‘in the flesh’ but they do not live ‘according to the flesh.’”

In the unfolding of the re-creation of all things by Jesus, there is that fulfilling of the prophecy that in his New Creation the law of Moses would be written not on tablets of stone, but in a new heart, and by a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26), which law includes the seventh commandment about human sexuality, and its sanctity. When the church becomes casual, and does not confront aberrant sexual behavior among it adherents, the church become more salt-less. Such confrontation and discipline, of course much be done with grace and love by those who know and love the offender, and it is never easy. But it is essential. Even as a husband is to delight only in the breasts of his own wife (Proverbs 5:19), so also a wife should delight only in the manhood of her own husband. A critical dimension of the church’s witness has to do with the sacredness of sex. (It could thin out the ranks, alas!)

BLOG 4/8/15. CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS: SO WHAT?

I have posted on my refrigerator door an old ‘Mother Goose and Grim’ cartoon strip with two of those big-nosed dogs talking to one another. The one on the left is obviously a St. Bernard and has the requisite keg of brandy attached around its next. He is saying to the other: “I am a St. Bernard. What are you?” The other with something of a stupid look responds: “I think I’m a Presbyterian.” That says humorously my feelings about the archaic nature of denominationalism in our present post-Christendom culture. And yet there are still those who are idolatrous about denominations, even though they may know very little about their own roots, or any core reason for their existence. Actually, many denominational communities ceased including the name of their denominational affiliation on their signboards and letterheads several decades ago.

My greater concern, however, is that their very existence poses something of a stumbling block to many seekers after meaning and hope for their lives, which they ought to be able to find in Jesus Christ, and in vital Christian colonies whose participants have found such meaning and hope and reconciliation in Jesus Christ. But denominations have become, too often, the message, and Jesus has been relegated to the margins.

For all those centuries of the church’s existence previous to the protest movements (Protest-ant) of the sixteenth century, the Church of Rome was the dominant ecclesiastical presence and paradigm, and it did, indeed, become somewhat corrupt and power-hungry, and more than a little bit ruthless with those who deviated in any way. The result was, inevitably, that those brave souls who studied the New Testament documents, and were willing to risk their lives began to speak out, and to gather about them those whom they formed into more Biblical understanding of the Christian faith and the purpose of the Christian church. We are most familiar with the Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, who challenged the Roman Church’s selling indulgences (free tickets out of purgatory) to make money for its lavish buildings in Rome. Luther was summarily excommunicated, but having the protection of German nobility, became the leader of what would become the Lutheran Church. He was a giant figure. But that was also a different and ancient culture, nothing remotely similar to our digital age.

There were all those other movements that became denominations: Peter Waldo and the Waldensians in Italy, John Calvin and his profound teaching beginning in Switzerland, Menno Simmons with his clear calling to simplicity of life and refusal to become too attached to this world, John Knox and his rigorous reform movement in opposition to the Roman Church’s domination of his native Scotland, the Moravians, and the Wesleyans … and so many more, who legacy is certainly worth studying. There were missionary movements, and theological movements, and (truth be told) some movements which were just the result of those Christians who missed the whole point of love and simply could not get along with others who disagreed with them.

We are now very clearly in a post-denominational era, but deninations persist. They are a rapidly diminishing phenomenon, yet some remaining denominations still want to establish their denominational franchises in other neighborhoods. But from the emerging culture of younger adults especially, comes the response: “So what?”

We are living now still with Christ’s commission to: “Go, make disciples of every people group, … baptizing them, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you …” And then: “When this gospel of the kingdom shall have been preached in all the earth, the Lord will come.” Denominations may have had a significant part of this in their heyday, but in the fulfillment of Christ’s mission in our 21^st century culture, denominations are archaic and increasingly irrelevant to Christian obedience. I would love to have your comments, … and maybe tell your friends about this Blog site. Thanks.

BLOG. 4/5/15. EASTER: A BRIEF WORD ABOUT SUFFERING AND FORGIVENESS

Easter might just be an appropriate time to say a brief word about the demeanor of Christ’s followers within difficult contexts and unfriendly-hostile people. The news media seem to relish reporting on all of those who purport to be Christ’s followers, and who seem to always be against something, or protesting something, or accusing others of some violation of their own ostensible Christian faithfulness. One would almost get the impression that this was the whole mission of such purported Christian folk, i.e. to be negative.

What it really reveals is that neither the press, nor the ostensible Christian folk they are reporting about seem to have read seriously the primary documents of our Christian faith, i.e., the New Testament, or the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. One might begin on this particular Easter Sunday by reminding ourselves that while being unjustly and horribly tortured and executed, that Jesus asked his God to forgive those who were expediting his crucifixion, because they did not even know what they were doing—or maybe that they were just doing their job as ‘ordinary Joe’s’ who were doing the scut work of the Roman army.

Or remember that it was Jesus who warned any who would follow him that they also must willing accept the risks: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24). There is no ‘health and wealth’ message here. His mandate was that his followers know the consequences. There is the clear word that to follow him means that they/we become counter-cultural, and so therefore, often misunderstood and reviled. The apostle taught: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those of the household of faith.” God’s true saints are inveterate do-gooders, even to those often-unpleasant folk who don’t understand them, and can seek to make their lives miserable socially, economically, politically, and in other ways.

Jesus also taught: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.” One get the very clear understanding that to follow Jesus has many consequences, so that with all of the ultimate existential promises of blessing that come from Jesus, there is also the fact that his New Creation stands always in missionary confrontation with the often dominant principles and practices of the culture in which we live. So Paul would remind early believers living in Rome under the shadow of the Roman forum, that as heirs of Christ we might well suffer with him in order that we be glorified with him (Romans 8:17).

Because all that is so, Jesus’ instruction behavior pattern make sense and to define us in the face of all the crap that might be coming down on us: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:44). This is the cost of discipleship. It requires discipline. We are called to be reconcilers, not dividers. We may viscerally be offended by patterns of others, and of the accepted behavior of the dominant social order. We also know that when we model God’s New Creation, we may well be a threat to those who don’t accept that New Creation, but we live in the midst of that tension with love and grace.

Those, who are ostensibly expressing their Christian convictions with only protests and blame of other and accusation are hardly faithful witnesses to their calling to be light and salt, to be people of grace and love and reconciliation among those still captive to the darkness. That’s my Easter blog to you. We pray for both the strength and sweetness of Christ in the midst of a confused culture of cynicism and discontent. Such is our Easter character.

BLOG 4/1/15. (NO FOOLING) POST-NEWBIGIN SCHIZOPHRENICS

A couple of generations ago, missionary Lesslie Newbigin returned from a distinguished missionary career in India, only to find that it was much more difficult to get a hearing for the gospel in his native U.K. than it was in India. His conclusion after some time in a local parish was that western culture had heard the gospel and had built up anti-bodies against it, and was finding the church totally irrelevant to their secular and post-Christian lives. That, in turn, provoked him to write a couple of significant volumes: Foolishness to the Greeks, and The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, which books became a cause célèbre among a large number of (frustrated?) clergy, who were finding the same phenomenon here in the United States.

There emerged onto the scene a number of think tanks, study centers, and seminary curricula to study and research this reality, namely, that we had passed from the era of Christendom, and were now rapidly entering a totally post-Christian (or post-Christendom) culture. It seems that almost everyone who encountered Newbigin’s teachings found them inarguable.

The irony that has become obvious, however, is that the very promoters of Newbigin’s thesis are those who have been formed by the ecclesiastical culture and institutions of Christendom itself, like: church institutions, theological seminaries, clergy, and church-planters—which culture is deep into their DNA—rather than by a very real and virile post-Christendom response to the problem. Church institutions, such has have dominated at least the last millennium and a half, along with a whole ecclesiastical class of church-professionals/priests/clergy are, after all, not New Testament categories. (This is possibly true of even Newbigin himself!)

All of this transition is not some night-to-day rapid transition. Cultures change at their own pace. Newbigin lived and wrote primarily to the latter half of the twentieth century. His milestone books were written at the birth point of the millennial generation, which is now entering middle-age. What has transpired meanwhile is the emergence of a digital culture, of instant communication, of social networks, of whole new and innovative cultural phenomena that now determine our daily lives more than we know.

The products of this post-Christendom culture are not only not at all impressed or influenced by our venerable old church institutions, … they are unaware of them for the most part. I have been asked by some very bright young products of this culture: What is the church? What is a pastor? These conversation partners were not asking this in any hostile way, but out of pure curiosity about terms I used that didn’t register with them. What causes curiosity in them are those persons who actually are products and practitioners of the life and teachings of Jesus. When they encounter one or several folk who think and behave in response to a different authority, or creative source, or guiding line, or center provided by God’s upside-down Kingdom which lives have meaning and hope and humor, … then they want to know why that is. That’s what Christendom missed. It focused on the ecclesiastical institutions and its traditions and rites, but not on equipping Christ’s individual followers into the image of Christ.

Back to the post-Newbigin schizophrenics: There is (as I said above: ‘ironically’) a whole syndrome of church leaders who think they are cutting edge folk because they have studied Newbigin, and agree with his thesis, but in reality are still practitioners of a Christendom ecclesiology. They need a lesson from Jeff Bezos and focus on the individual customer rather than on corporate profits., … or maybe Steve Jobs who said that every company ought to reinvent itself every ten years. Chew on that, and feed me back your comments. Thanks.