Enchanted Community

BLOG 3/18/13: MY RESPONSE TO THE ELECTION OF POPE FRANCIS

I was asked multiple times last week (as were many of us) about my response to the election of Pope Francis (Archbishop Bergoglio of Argentina). Actually, my response was a part of a whole jumble of thoughts that had been occupying my mind. Earlier in the week I had been pondering an article in Salon about the Millennial generation’s response to the whole political process, entitled: “Don’t write off millennials just yet.” That led to another document: Government By and For Millennials.

A part of the conclusion of those articles has to do with the fact that this emerging generation firmly believe that government can and should play a role in solving society’s most urgent and complex problems, but they want a different kind of government which is more inclusive and more responsive—they want to be part of the decision-making process. They want to focus on common vision and common values … that sort of thing. They want to be part of the process.

If you stop and think about it, a significant part of the emergence of the whole field of information technology has come from such bright Millennial folk, as have the huge companies created by them. Or think of the fact that most of the so-called “fathers of our American government” (James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, etc.) were actually quite young, and so created a whole new form of government never before seen in the world.

Or, closer to the Conclave in the Sistine Chapel last week, think of the fact that St. Francis was a restive young adult when he initiated what became the Franciscan Order. Ignatius of Loyola and his peers were young, entrepreneurial, visionary disciples of Jesus and created the missionary order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), which included along the way young Francis Xavier, and later young Bartholomé de Las Casus (remember the movie: The Mission?). So nearly all of the Roman Catholic orders were movements of life and vision and mission initiated by young, creative, imaginative minds.

This is a generation that also is more at home with such esoteric new fields as chaos theory, and complexity science, and all of the implications of those frontiers of thought. And last week this old octogenarian was also trying to wrap my geriatric brain around those concepts.

Out of that jumble came this interesting thought: All of those Cardinals (Princes of the Church) in the Sistine Chapel were between sixty and eighty years old, and essentially captive to the patterns and traditions of the church of the past (many of which are quite commendable). But what if the make-up of that Conclave were to have been disciples of Christ, knowledgeable about the demands of discipleship (as recorded in the New Testament documents)—and between twenty and forty years old? What if they could look on church and world with fresh, new, imaginative 21^st century eyes? What if they appreciated the myriad of complex systems within the total Christian church, and how these systems were interacting with their cultural environments? Who would they have chosen as their leader, or would they have replaced the one pope with some creative new and composite understanding of the throne of Peter, that would both preserve the rich heritage of the past, but be able to respond to and appropriate and architect a new culture of interactive social networking and all of the realities of globalization?

Complex? No question. Easy solutions? No. But the one who is ultimately building the church is not any ecclesiastical hierarchy, but Jesus Christ. Oh, this could be a fascinating challenge to work on. That’s my jumble of thoughts, … which probably goes nowhere, but it resonates with many of my younger friends. Stand by.

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BLOG 3/14/13. IT’S NOT WHAT TAKES PLACE IN THE LOCKER ROOM, BUT …

Here we are again in March, and some of us are looking forward to the NCAA basketball tournament. Those forthcoming games are going to be an amazing expression of well trained players, bodies well conditioned, good coaching, skill, luck, breaks of the game, and so much more. What takes place on the hardwood will have begun months, maybe years before.

For those of us who tend to inhabit church meetings (too much?), it is worth reminding ourselves that it is not what takes place in the locker room, but what takes place on the court that ultimately determines the effectiveness of a team. In the locker room the coach can rehearse strategy, alert the team to the strong and weak points of the opposing team, talk blunt talk to the players, encourage them, and give them a good mindset, and create team spirit.

But then there are those, sometimes tedious, hours of practice, perfecting plays, discerning the teams own strengths and liabilities. Some years a team will have a super-star, or two, but even super-stars depend on the rest of the team to be effective.

Finally, it all comes down to the game. This is why the team is there. This is the purpose of all that has taken place from the start.

Translate all of that into the church.

The church does not exist to have church meetings. The church is called to have feet on the   ground in the very real world, in the very real mission of God, in the midst of the humanity that Jesus came to seek and to save—God’s great search and rescue mission. The church gathers because God’s “players” need to be equipped, need to understand the setting they live in, need to be encouraged, need to be reminded of the strategy necessary to “storm the gates of hell.”

But the real game is not in church meetings, but in what happens as a result of church meetings. The pastor-teacher, equipper, coach of the Christian community is not there to entertain, but to condition the people of God mentally, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, ethically, and in their understanding of God’s glory which is to be radiantly displayed on the ground, and in a broken world, when the church is scattered into the field “which is the world” for the period between coaching (worship and instruction) sessions.

That sounds so obvious, but it is so often ignored. Church institutions can be consumers of time and energy and attention, so much so that in the real calling to Christian mission in neighborhood, office, laboratory, trade route, engagement with people … we are oblivious to the very reason we have been called, that of being “salt and light,” of having our light so shine that men and women may actually see our good works and know that God has a hand in our lives.

Pastors and teachers, who see themselves as only ecclesiastical figures who are keepers of the church institutions, are like a coach who only sees the meeting in the locker room as an end in itself. If he can only make the players happy with the locker room he/she assumes they are successful. So tragic.

Who models the faith to God’s people? Who coaches them on living it out in the realities of this fallen world? Who demonstrates grace and truth and God’s love in action? Who encourages each one of God’s “players” to pursue excellence in all that they do? Who gives them a compelling vision of what “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth …” looks like?

Duke University and Davidson College don’t get to the NCAA by hanging out in the locker room!

BLOG 3/11/13. JUST TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT—ST. PATRICK

I am by self-definition, a missiologist, i.e., one who makes a study of Christian missions currently, and historically. This being so, while some of my Blog readers may be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day next Sunday by wearing green, or shamrocks, or drinking green beer, let me remind you that St. Patrick (circa 5^th century) has got one of the giant missionary figures of Christian history, even though there are scant records, and even though he is much mythologized.

Patrick was the son of a deacon in Britain and the grandson of a priest. He was kidnapped by Irish raiders as a youth and spent several years as a slave and a sheepherder in Ireland. In a vision he was provoked to escape and take passage back to his home in Britain. Again, he had a vision of one calling him to come and herald the Christian message and to walk among the Irish people. Ultimately, that is exactly what he seems to have done, returning as a missionary bishop to the northern and western region of Ireland. We are, to underscore, dealing with historical shadow-lands here.

Now then, when one does something of a cultural analysis of what he entered, it becomes the more fascinating, even though there really aren’t many reliable records of what he did. But looking in hindsight, he managed to initiate a monastic/missionary movement (monasteries in that period of history were missionary outposts of the church) of awesome proportions.  From that work of Patrick came generations of missionary monks, who evangelized much of Scotland and Britain, and ultimately much of Europe.

Back to the cultural analysis: anyone who enjoys people and cultures has got to be fascinated by the Irish. The Celtic-Irish (in my mind) are a mixture of a robust, humorous, sensuous/sexual, poetic, musical, melancholy, musical, tempestuous, strong-willed, tragic folk, with a marvelous and profound capacity for reflection on life’s meaning (as is evident in their literary figures). Patrick would also have been dealing with a host of local monarchs, or tribal leaders, jealous of their own fiefdoms, and suspicious of outsiders such as Patrick.

Yet, somehow, he did what he went to do, and evidently baptized a huge host of Irish folk, established Christian communities, ordained priests, and left behind a legacy that is undeniable. Whether he banished snakes as the myths indicate (doubtful) or not, the oral tradition assigns to him the establishment of a vigorous Christian presence in Ireland, which would have required a very gifted and determined Christian disciple, who must have employed spiritual disciplines that are amazing. There continue to come forth from the press books on Celtic spirituality, which has roots in Patrick’s day.

In many ways, to my mind, there is a strange combination of Celtic paganism and profound Catholic Christianity within the Irish church. Yet, they continue to send Irish Christian missioners to the corners of the earth.

(It is even possible that this week the College of Cardinals could name one of Irish descent as the next pope, as the name of Seàn O’Malley emerges among the papabile.)

So, from a missiologist: Here’s to St. Patrick, who no matter how much he is mythologized is a giant figure in the history of Christian missions. Lift a green beer in a toast to such a giant.

Peace!

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BLOG 3/7/13. THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS, AND A DIFFERENT GENERATION

Having been a guest of the Vatican at one time (when members of the Curia invited a group of us who identified ourselves as Protestant evangelicals to come discuss some topics together), I can appreciate the pageantry of what must be taking place there with the forthcoming conclave to select a new pope.

But they will incarnate a problem that is not theirs alone, but which is taking its toll on all of the Christendom church institutions—being isolated from the real cultural, social, and generational issues of our day in any “hands-on” way. Church professionals tend to create an ecclesiastical sub-culture that defines everything in terms of its own cloistered perception. There is an isolation that is tangible.

One of my all-time favorite movies was the movie: “The Shoes of the Fisherman,” which starred Anthony Quinn (1968). It is the story of a Russian archbishop imprisoned in a Siberian prison, camp back in the Soviet era, for his refusal to deny his faith. After twenty years in that isolation his release was the result of an attempt by the Soviet premier to establish some means of communicating with the Vatican. For twenty years he had been only another laborer with his imprisoned colleagues in that god-forsaken isolation. He had lived his faith and his inner freedom in the most dire of circumstances, and in the daily engagement with other sufferers.

The story is that upon his arrival in Rome, and over his protest, the pope made him a cardinal because of his incredible record of faithfulness. Then, while still trying to digest that new role, the pope died and in a surprise to him and the world the College of Cardinals, in their conclave, elected him pope. His frustration was that he didn’t know the simple people all around for whom he was to be the Holy Father. So he conspired to exit the Vatican one evening back a back door and in plain priestly black, and to roam the streets of Rome where no one knew who he was. It was an eye opener. (The Vatican soon discovered his absence and fetched him back inside the cloistered safety of the Vatican.)

OK, my point here is that as the “princes of the church” gather in secrecy to select the next pope, they are a group of those most committed to the prerogatives of that huge ecclesiastical system, and they are all somewhere between 60-80 years old. Many of them have been in the religious orders since their adolescence. They are still dominated by the Curia’s Italian and European members.

BUT … 50% of the world’s population is under twenty-five years of age, and formed by a totally different culture. The institutions of Christendom (Catholic and Protestant) are captive to their own well-being and survival, and that well-being and survival may have nothing at all to do with “new wine” of the gospel of the kingdom of God. What of the church’s tomorrow?

The younger generation is not impressed with the pretensions and expensiveness of these institutions. They are, however, quite capable of discerning what is authentic. They can see the simplicity of Christ, who could talk to the shady lady at the well, or hangout with publicans and sinners, or invite himself to dinner with a local crime boss—and see no connection between that Christ and what will be going on in the Sistine Chapel, or with the pretense of too many church professionals.

But their spiritual hunger is very real. Stand by …

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BLOG 3/4/13: QUESTION: BEYOND MY FACEBOOK IMAGE, WHO AM I REALLY?

I’m fascinated by the coffee shops in which I hang out. Here are all of these people with their laptops, their iPads, and iPods … busily engaged in communicating, writing, talking to someone on their phones. There’s energy there. There’s more communication globally than was imaginable only a few years ago. I was talking with a cool guy at one the other day and he got a call from Afghanistan. I mean, I know I’m an octogenarian, but when I was the age of that guy I didn’t even know where Afghanistan was (except that Rudyard Kipling had some poetry about it), or how to spell it.

With all that, however, I have a question about what goes on in the lives of all of these same talented and energetic folk that stays hidden? What do they think about when the social networks are turned off, and the laptop shut down? What are the ultimate questions of life on whose answers hang a sense of freedom and wholeness? … something like that.

One thoughtful writer speaks of the four human quests that are common to all humankind. He lists: 1) A quest for justice; 2) a quest for spirituality; 3) a quest for relationships; and 4) a quest identified as a delight in beauty. If you unpack those four and pursue them into their implications for your life and mine, then their fulfillment, or realization could usher us into a level of understanding of ourselves that is fraught with all kinds of new dimensions into true joy.

A psychiatrist friend of mine had a different, but similar, set of perspectives on the human quest when he shared with me that there are three common anxieties shared by all humankind: 1) the anxiety over meaning (what does my life mean? count for?); 2) the anxiety over acceptance (does anybody know I’m here? really care for me? would they accept me if they knew who I really am?); and 3) the anxiety over death (what happens after this life? Is this life all that there is? Or is there something I’m missing here?).

Here, looking at these quests and anxieties I am incorrigibly one who finds all the answers in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. One writer described Jesus as the one who had made known the mystery hidden for ages, i.e., the meaning of this whole human experience. I guess I am totally hooked on the fact that the love of God for broken and imperfect people (such as I) is not some abstract ‘religious thing’. Rather, Jesus speaks to the deepest needs and longings of the human heart, so that we can look at these quests and anxieties and find God’s design for us and for God’s new creation in Christ and what he taught and demonstrated … and in so finding, also find the profoundest freedom.

I can know who I am. I can know that I am accepted by God. I can be free from any anxiety about death because death has been conquered by Christ. In Christ, I and so many others have found true and joyous and existential freedom.

When the card-carrying agnostic C. S. Lewis finally realized that agnosticism was a dry well (he was provoked to this awareness by his friends at the Eagle and Child Pub) … he describes his conversion: “I remember that night at Magdalen College when I heard the footsteps or him whom I so desperately did not want to meet.” What resulted was his conversion to become one of the great voices of the Christian faith in the 20^th century.

I’ll bet you that C. S. Lewis could have some great conversations in the coffee shops of my habitation.

Peace!

BLOG 2/27/13: “THE HOLLOW MEN” … OR, AUTHENTIC HUMAN BEINGS?

OK, so maybe I’m just an incurable contrarian, … but my response to the academy awards, as well as to the morning talk shows on the networks (and their ilk) is that they are just so very sad. The celebrity cult, what with expensive designer sets and clothes, with forced good humor, painted faces and painted smiles … all of which hide so much behind that artificiality.

But that’s not the world I live in. It is a fantasy world. It is an empty world. It is in all reality a very sad world. Those celebrities, out of the spotlight, seem never to be a peace with themselves. Is that unfair of me? It reminds me of T. S. Eliot’s poem: “The Hollow Men” of a half century, and more, ago:

We are hollow men

We are stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom

Remember us—if at all—not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As hollow men

The stuffed men.

In my real world the people I want to be around (and the person I want to be) are those authentic human beings, whose lives are so genuine and free and transparent … that they don’t need to try to be other than what they are. I can remember those dear folk in all of the distressing economic and social inequities of our southern mill village, whose lives (both black folk and white folk) were those at peace with themselves, who were the incarnation of true love, generosity, kindness, listen-ability, and meaning. Their very modest homes were places of hospitality and utter unselfishness. Their tables were places of good conversation and ministry. And they didn’t need to try to be important, or seek power, or be in the limelight. They could operate quietly out of sight, and yet others loved to be near them.

Jesus didn’t come to create hollow men, or plastic saints. No, Jesus came to create men and women in his likeness, who are contagiously, and in all humility, the incarnation of meaning, of loving relationships, of hope, … to make them authentic as his own self-effacing servants, as the sons and daughters of the living God, out of whose lives flow rivers of living water—authentic humanity, and his glory.

BLOG 2/25/13: “ … NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD OF JESUS.”

Yesterday, on the second Sunday of Lent, and after a profound lesson on the tragic consequences of the rebellion of that primordial human community against their Creator-God, and after that always poignant celebration of the bread and the wine of the Eucharist, would you believe that the congregation concluded with a hand-clapping, lively, soul-version of the old gospel hymn: “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus”?

When finished, the whole congregation broke into applause!

It was so refreshing to me. A generation ago, what with so many of the church’s ostensible leaders expressing the dregs of the theology of Protestant liberalism, the very idea of any focus on the blood of the Lamb, shed for the sins of the world was held in some disdain as being theologically archaic. It was even derided in a now infamous women’s conference on “Re-imagining God.”

To that end most of the classic hymns on the atonement that focused on Christ’s shed blood were removed from the newer hymnbook: “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” “There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood,” “I Know a Fount,” “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness,” and, of course, “What Can Wash Away My Sin? Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.”

And just who were these folk singing and applauding such an “outrageous” notion (as described by that former generation) yesterday? Interesting to me as an octogenarian observer, these celebrators were young urban professionals: architects, graduate students, graphic artists, film-makers, physicians, educators, coffee-shop managers, musicians, delivery service folk, software company executives, lawyers, bankers … to name a few. They were the emerging generation.

These are folk who have on their iPads the commentaries of major Biblical scholars and theologians. These are folk who understand why it was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer. These are those who come in humble adoration.

These are folk who become more and more overwhelmed by the love of God displayed in Jesus Christ. These are those who understand the suffering of God, and the cost of reconciling the world to himself.

O, yes! “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus; What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

“In him we have redemption through his blood,

the forgiveness of our trespasses,

according to the riches of his grace.” 

                                                                                                        (Ephesians 1:7)

Peace!  (“ … by the blood of his cross.” Colossians 1:20)

BLOG 2/21/13: “THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS”

In my last Blog, I was heralding Shayne Wheeler’s new book, but Shayne and I have been rejoicing together in giving birth to books. Two weeks ago, Wipf and Stock Publishers (Eugene, OR) released my newest contribution to the discussion of the church’s essence and mission under the title: The Church and the Relentless Darkness.

Behind that weird title is my engagement with a dimension of the church’s life that is seldom touched in major writings on the subject, namely, the church’s very real battle with one called Satan. In 2010 there were several international missionary conferences of major portions (Capetown, Edinburgh, and Tokyo). In the reviews of these international gatherings, the reviewers could find little note of the spiritual warfare in which the church is engaged with the powers of this age, of darkness, of Satan.

This seems, to me, incredible. Beginning with Genesis 3 and continuing all the way though the Bible to Revelation 21, the whole story is about a cosmic rebellion against God and God’s good creation, which in time called forth the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The apostle John will succinctly state it: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:8).

As if that were not enough to get our full attention, consider that Paul’s “great commission” from the ascended Lord, was: “ … the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God …” (Acts 26:17-18). Or maybe: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:12).

Question: How can you ever even begin to comprehend what the gospel of the Kingdom of God (or Lent, or Good Friday, or Easter) is all about without this understanding that Jesus came to storm the gates of hell, and by his life, sufferings, death, and resurrection to destroy the works of the devil? How, for heaven’s sake?

So, in this book of mine, I have engaged a set of insistent young adults who ask me where the church’s “drift and drag” come from that seem to always be enticing the church back into something merely human, back into a religious Christianity (Bonhoeffer), back into comfortable religion devoid of conflict? What seems to continually be seeking to emasculate the church and the gospel from its eschatological calling? What eclipses “the mystery hidden from the ages” which is now made known in Jesus Christ?

I walk with them through the Epistle to the Ephesians, with all of its riches, and come to the abrupt (and what would almost seem a non-sequiter) ending in which Paul says, in essence: “All of this is going to come crashing down on your head unless you put on the whole armor” because of the fact that you are in an ongoing very subtle and sophisticated engagement with the wiles of the devil.

The conclusion is a consensus among my discussion partners and myself about some disciplines necessary as we participate in very real Christian communities where this conflict is ever present. May God be pleased to use this book of mine to encourage and equip a new generation of faithful and well-armed disciples to keep the church vigilant to its true mission.

Peace!

BLOG 2/18/13: SHAYNE WHEELER’S THE BRIARPATCH GOSPEL

I read a lot. I’ve taught evangelism on three continents, lectured on it in half-dozen theological schools, been head of the denomination’s office of evangelism, and written books on the subject myself. One troubling thing I learned in much of this experience is that many (so-called) Christian communities conceive of evangelism more in terms of marketing their congregation than they do of joining Jesus in his mission to seek and to save those who are lost. It is also quite easy to become just plain jaded with the plethora of books written on the subject.

That is why a new book by Shayne Wheeler has my full attention. Not only is Shayne my very dear friend and encourager, but also he is a gifted practitioner of Christ’s compassion to those men and women who, for whatever reasons, have never entered into the joy of being made whole by Jesus Christ. He is also a profound teacher of scriptures, and a gifted storyteller. This new book of his is both a study of the scripture’s portrayal of God’s infinite love in Christ, and an anecdotal visit into the author’s own pilgrimage in being the incarnation of the love of God to real sinners.

I have lived a long and full life, and every once in a while there has appeared on the scene a book that dusted off the subject of the gospel of God, decluttered it, delivered it from all of its churchy jargon, and made it compelling. I think of Keith Miller’s ­The Taste of New Wine some fifty years ago, or of the impact of Brennan Manning’s writings forty years ago.

Meanwhile, one notes that there are all of those folk who inhabit so many congregations, who are thoroughly churchified folk, who are content to attend all the church meetings week by week, engage in all of the typical (and inane) church talk, listen to comfortable sermons … and never even notice that those same communities almost avoid those men and women most broken and in need of God’s transforming grace in Christ. Shayne doesn’t allow us to go that way.

Shayne’s book is entitled: The Briarpatch Gospel: Fearlessly Following Jesus Into the Thorny Places (Tyndale House Publishers).

I love it. I am refreshed by it. I am motivated again to join my Lord Jesus in hanging out with publicans and sinner, i.e., those who are indifferent to, have no connection with, been burned by, suspicious of the Christian church and faith … or are too busy ever to stop and ask the most profound questions about the meaning of life. Shayne has immersed himself with just such folk.

Shayne’s anecdotes deal with agnostics, guilt-ridden and fearful folk, victims of broken marriages, the community of gays and lesbians, the alienated, the spiritually hungry, the confused … and those in so many ways expressive of the existential experience of lostness. He exalts the love and grace of Gods to all. While holding a wholesome orthodox Christian faith, he also holds on to the infinite love and grace of God to real sinners such as you and I.

And he does it with his own whimsical, humorous, but well crafted and expressed understanding of what Christ, and the mission of God, are all about in this very real world.

I am, as you can tell, enthusiastic about this new book, and encourage you to buy it and read it to your own spiritual benefit.

Peace!

[This may be a duplicate, but some didn’t get it on their email subscription.]

BLOG 2/18/13: SHAYNE WHEELER’S THE BRIARPATCH GOSPEL

I read a lot. I’ve taught evangelism on three continents, lectured on it in half-dozen theological schools, been head of the denomination’s office of evangelism, and written books on the subject myself. One troubling thing I have learned in much of this experience is that many (so-called) Christian communities conceive of evangelism more in terms of marketing their congregation than they do of joining Jesus in his mission to seek and to save those who are lost. It is also quite easy to become just plain jaded with the plethora of books written on the subject.

That is why a new book by Shayne Wheeler has my full attention. Not only is Shayne my very dear friend and encourager, but also he is a gifted practitioner of Christ’s compassion to those men and women who, for whatever reasons, have never entered into the joy of being made whole by Jesus Christ. He is also a profound teacher of scriptures, and a gifted storyteller. This new book of his is both a study of the scripture’s portrayal of God’s infinite love in Christ, and an anecdotal visit into the author’s own pilgrimage in being the incarnation of the love of God to real sinners.

I have lived a long and full life, and every once in a while there has appeared on the scene a book that dusted off the subject of the gospel of God, decluttered it, delivered it from all of its churchy jargon, and made it compelling. I think of Keith Miller’s ­The Taste of New Wine some fifty years ago, or of the impact of Brennan Manning’s writings forty years ago.

Meanwhile, one notes that there are all of those folk who inhabit so many congregations, who are thoroughly churchified (religious and spiritual?), who are content to attend all the church meetings week by week, engage in all of the typical (and inane) church talk, listen to comfortable sermons … and never even notice that those same communities almost avoid those men and women most broken and in need of God’s transforming grace in Christ. Shayne doesn’t allow us to go that way.

Shayne’s book is entitled: The Briarpatch Gospel: Fearlessly Following Jesus Into the Thorny Places (Tyndale House Publishers).

I love it. I am refreshed by it. I am motivated again to join my Lord Jesus in hanging out with publicans and sinner, i.e., those who are indifferent to, have no connection with, been burned by, suspicious of the Christian church and faith … or are too busy ever to stop and ask the most profound questions about the meaning of life. Shayne has immersed himself with just such folk.

Shayne’s anecdotes deal with agnostics, guilt-ridden and fearful folk, victims of broken marriages, the community of gays and lesbians, the alienated, the spiritually hungry, the confused … and those in so many ways expressive of the existential experience of lostness. He exalts the love and grace of Gods to all. While holding a wholesome orthodox Christian faith, he also holds on to the infinite love and grace of God to real sinners such as you and I.

And he does it with his own whimsical, humorous, but well crafted and expressed understanding of what Christ, and the mission of God, are all about in this very real world.

I am, as you can tell, enthusiastic about this new book, and encourage you to buy it and read it to your own spiritual benefit.

Peace!

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