The Dark Lord forged this ring of power in secret in the fires of Mount Doom. His own identity was bound up with this ring. It controlled all other rings he forged and gave to the various races of Middle Earth. The race of men was most susceptible to his scheme, since it above all other races longed for power (it still does). Boromir belonged to men.

Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is more than a myth. Indeed, it is a myth, but not like a fairy tale. This kind of myth addresses the depths of the human situation and ultimate reality in ways that our normal and even scientific uses of language do not. Tolkien’s tale of Middle Earth is our depth-dimension story in so many ways.

The love of power always wages war with the power of love in human hearts in great myths and in real life. The good will succumb to power, when power is what drives us, even in our effort to accomplish good. What started out as a good thing—the pursuit of justice, righting wrongs, freeing Middle Earth—became a very bad thing, when in the end Boromir (and I) tried to force Frodo to give him the ring so that he could use it for good.

Boromir did not want to share life with Frodo. The fellowship of the ring existed for accomplishing the mission for Boromir, whereas for Frodo, his hobbit friends and others in the band, the mission flowed from their fellowship. Before his death at the hands of the orcs, Boromir repented of his foolishness and hardness of heart. What about you and me?

It gets so overwhelming. Large voices. Large personalities. Large platforms and campaigns. Large hurts imposed on others as the machine marches on. These orcs are breathing down our necks. What will we do? Respond in kind?

Someone recently said to me how much he longed for a Christian leader of high rank and influence to confront the fallen powers of Christian celebrity and dismantle their linguistic weapons filled with bravado and that so demeaned and destroyed men and women. When he was told to stay in close proximity to a community of hobbits and haggard wizards and warriors, he did not respond. No doubt despondent. Inefficient and ineffective and pointless, no doubt, were his silent thoughts. What good would such communion do? What was needed was power, and a lot of it. What was needed was the celebrity with the large platform, not a bunch of little people who advance through table fellowship.

But table fellowship is what is most necessary. Table fellowship centered in Christ’s sacrifice is the most impactful platform of all, in part because it is the anti-platform. The platform is often if not always ideological.

Ideology is bound up with the love of an ideal, not persons in communion sharing ideas and life together. Ideology is skinless. Ideology as mere word stands in stark contrast to the incarnate Word who puts all his skin in the game. Jesus as the Word of incarnate love risks his own life for relationship with us because of his Father’s eternal embrace and eternal sharing in the Spirit’s ring (bond) of love.

Not only must I talk this way of the fellowship of the ring, but also I must live this way. This is the way of incarnate love, not ideology. Jesus’ incarnation moves us beyond ideology. Ideology is only words, words used to “win.” It is competitive and easily threatened. The ideologue is threatened by the possibility of others’ (“untrustworthy”) ideals, and like Boromir, this mistrust inevitably leads to schism and alienation from the community. The telltale sign of ideological “blindness” is the inability to accept a loving critique from those closest to you who share your values, and who challenge you in view of your shared values. Such engagement often backfires, for the ideologue is convinced that “everything you say is wrong because I am right.”

We too often make the mistake of fighting “ideology with ideology.” In the gospel of John, we discover a new kind of engagement. Although it is as old as the incarnation itself, it is always new because we continue to need to repent and enter anew into Jesus’ life: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). This Word calls us to share his life with him and abide in him (John 15:4, 7). God’s Word is not ideological, but incarnational; in “becoming flesh,” the Word enters into shared existence with humanity, and thereby, into the pain of relationship. In contrast, the Saurons of this world operate only in secret and become formless.

In keeping with what was said above, ideology is ultimately fleshless—there’s no skin in the game. The ideologue will not risk shedding his own blood, sweat and tears for others, only for his ideals. He is also more than willing to sacrifice others at the altar of his ideals. In contrast, the Word made flesh lays down his own life for his friends. Love is more than an ideal; it is his life in sacrificial relation to and for the ones he loves—and even those who hate him (Romans 5:8-10).

Ideology is detached speculation that is one-sided and opaque. Ideology permits immunity for TV and YouTube personalities, videographers and bloggers, and anonymity for those who want to “snipe” away at a safe distance without risking personal engagement. Ideology also says that anyone who does not say what I want said is out to get me, not out to love me. And while consumed with larger-than-life personalities, it refuses to engage personally and vulnerably.

Those who forge rings of power (or love?) in secrecy, immunity and anonymity rather than in community are to be feared. They believe their own press, and their ideology leads to paranoia and propaganda. However, rings forged in the fires of sacrificial and loving concrete community are rings worth wearing.

Whenever, and I mean whenever, movements are no longer grounded in concrete communities centered in Christ’s sacrificial love of transparency and vulnerability, they become ideological. They become consumed by power. They will still talk a good talk. They may even believe nothing’s changed. But everything’s changed.

Mind you, not all small groups and monastic communities are shaped by love. Love is never conditional, but unconditional. It always involves give and take and open and honest sharing with loved ones who have also put all their skin in the game. As described in these terms, love is communal. It is also always missional. Love is always directed toward the other. Whether or not you agree with me, such leaders of such communities will say, “I will love you still; I will win you over to the cause which is love by the power of love, not the love of power.” This all-powerful love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres,” just like 1 Corinthians 13:7 says. It always reaches out beyond its bounds, always breaking out to include others in its community’s embrace. The fellowship of the ring went forward with the destiny of Middle Earth on hobbit-like shoulders and in their hearts and minds, even as they shared life with one another, caring sacrificially for one another. How they treated one another in their fellowship dictated how they would treat others everywhere.

There was no forging of rings in secrecy, only forged relationships in intimacy, transparency and humility honed by sacrificial love. The Dark Lord saw right through them, but couldn’t see them. He looked past them and over them over and over again. He could not imagine that the providential path chosen for the fellowship to drop the ring of power in Mordor’s flames was to be traversed by hobbit feet. Hobbit-like leaders are the only leaders who succeed Jesus’ way in the end.

What kind of leader are you? What kind of leader am I? What kind of community do you belong to? Are we forging rings of power in secrecy in the fires of (private ambition) hatred, or are we forging rings of love visible to all in the flames of intimacy? What drives you and me?

Theopolitical platforms in arenas and coliseums, viral web campaigns and other weapon systems of mass destruction aimed at the enemy can never replace warfare waged in concrete community of fiery and sacrificial love. In fact, they can never equal their import as they continue to export good will here and abroad. They may even destroy the communities from which they emerged and those which they seek to help. They don’t listen. They just speak. They don’t sit down for dinner to dialogue with those they serve. They go to fix problems, not share life with those they serve, failing to be healed relationally in the process. They grab dinner on the run and run over people in the process—here and abroad. Eventually, they spin out, crash, and burn, just like the colonies they created.

No wonder Boromir died. While Gandalf died before him, he died for his friends, whereas Boromir died for a distant and possibly faceless cause and ideal. I am not sure what ultimately made possible Gandalf’s rising again: maybe it’s because he laid down his life for his friends.

If we are to take the ring to Mordor and drop it in the fires of Mount Doom, we will need to move beyond nameless fears and faceless loves to loving faces with names, fearing anything that would stand in the way, even a noble and good cause.

I am thankful to the New Wine, New Wineskins community. This community of friends hold me accountable—otherwise, I would give in to my Boromir ways even more than I already do! New Wine wizards, warriors and hobbits (including Chris Laird who offered invaluable input in the writing of this piece in between various drafts and first and second breakfasts), are wonderful fellow travelers. Thank you, New Wine!

And hanging with Dr. Perkins? Always a highlight. Video of Dr. Paul Louis Metzger’s interview with Dr. John M. Perkins during a plenary session address at The Justice Conference is available here for $2.99.

Our heartfelt thanks to Cornelia Becker Seigneur for capturing some of these memories for us!

L – R: Dr. Randy Woodley, Dr. LeRoy Haynes, Jr., John Canda, Steve Hanamura, Paul Louis Metzger, Dr. John M. Perkins, Jeri Williams

Dr. Paul Louis Metzger interviewing Dr. John M. Perkins at The Justice Conference

There is a great deal of talk about production and consumption in American society today. Such talk is found inside the American church as well. In fact, a noted pastor has called on men to be real men by moving from being consumers to being producers. Whether we are talking about men or women, we need to move beyond thinking of humans as mere producers and consumers and approach human identity and the church in communal terms. So, instead of separating people into classes such as producers and consumers, we must encourage everyone to move toward being “communers.”

Of course, we consume even as we produce, and everyone produces and consumes in some manner. However, we must never reduce our communal identity as humans and as the church to acts of production and consumption. Why? I maintain that the Bible teaches that we are created in the image of the triune God who creates us as an overflow of holy, loving communion; God’s purpose is to create and, after the fall, to transform us so that we can share in the glory of this loving, holy communion in the divine life for all eternity (Gen. 1:26-27; Jn. 17). Creation and production are not the ultimate categories. They point beyond themselves to something even more profound—communion with God and one another.

Another reason why we must speak in more communal terms rather than reductionistic terms involving mere production and consumption is that the latter categorization scheme leads to a bifurcation of humanity. When we move from communer categories to producer and consumer divisions we destroy the possibility of experiencing profound relationality. Relationality always involves reciprocity and mutuality. It is never unidirectional.

I will offer three examples of how this bifurcation affects us. If, for example, we define noble people as those who produce, it leads to a devaluing of those who consume their products. Related to this point, don’t producers need consumers to consume what they produce? Does that not entail the need for fostering at least two classes of people? The producers—the elect or naturally selected by their own survival instincts—will “enslave” or at least corral others to be consumers so that they can make their own election or natural selection sure. In the church culture today, there is at times a tendency to identify entrepreneurial creativity with a greater sense of personal worth and identity. Many Evangelicals rightly challenge consumerist tendencies and greed, but our production proclivities can still enforce an “us” and “them” mindset: those who produce the best justice packages for those in need of food and other necessities should not be seen as having the most worth; as important as these justice entrepreneurs are, we all have worth as we share life and resources with one another. We all have something to offer when we view matters relationally. Those who have the least “stuff” often have the most to teach us relationally, for they have learned the secret of the meaning to life: the fullness of life is experienced not in the abundance of possessions, but in the abundance of communal presence.

Besides noting the problem of enforcing and reinforcing two classes of people by way of productivity, we can easily move in the opposite direction by promoting a state of affairs where those who consume the most win. This problem often has economic as well as ethnic dimensions. The developed world—which generally is very white—consumes an inordinate percentage of the world’s resources, while the non-white developing world with its human and natural resources is used increasingly as the field to produce the goods for these enlightened, developed world consumers.

Beyond considering class and race issues, we must also account for matters of gender. If women stay home, that does not mean they aren’t producing. While husbands may be the breadwinners in some homes, they are not alone in cultivating family life. To many people, housewives and househusbands do not appear to contribute to the bottom line, if we think simply in production and consumption categories. But when we think communally, we find that breadwinners in families are not the only ones producing. It is much more constructive to think in terms of sharing. From the standpoint of sharing, everyone is needed—husbands, wives, and children. Everyone matters because everyone shares in communal life together.

We do not exist because we think, produce, or consume. We exist ultimately because we are loved by God. God calls us to be communers—to respond to God’s love by loving God and others in return (Mk. 12:30-31). As we move toward viewing life and people in communal terms, it will have a profound bearing on how we approach a variety of subjects. Most importantly, it will help us move from treating other people as objects, and see them as human subjects who really matter.

So began the meeting this morning, as our supervisor walked into the room to discuss our decision to leave the school.  After many unheeded complaints about classroom conditions over the past few months, my wife was sexually assaulted by a student in class.  The school’s response has been to chalk it up to trouble adjusting to the culture.

The supervisor’s summary has become all to familiar to us.  Since we first attempted to address the issue, we’ve received similar responses with remarkable consistency.  Upon hearing about the sexual assault, one of the more sympathetic of our coworkers replied, “Oh, I’m sorry you’re having trouble adjusting.  It’s hard to be away from home.”  The teacher in whose class this happened, and who was supposed to be in the class at the time assisting my wife, was less sympathetic.  She refused to discipline the student because, “I don’t think it happened.  It’s just an affectionate culture.  And anyway it’s your fault.  Maybe next semester you can work on classroom management.”

After a week of these responses, with the school having done nothing either to improve conditions or even discipline the student, we decided to leave our positions.  On one hand, the decision was easy – as our only American coworker said, “Well, yeah, the school’s giving you no choice.”  This has been and will continue to be an unhealthy place for us if we stay.

On the other hand, we lament the decision.  The school and our coworkers know that we are Christian.  Culturally, breaking a contract is a serious offense, and they view our leaving as breaking the contract, despite our protests that the school has broken a number of items in the contract.  We don’t take this lightly.  We want people to think well of us.  We are leaving behind friends.  We are giving up opportunities to serve the kingdom.

We also know that the gospel is beautiful but costly, and asks us to have the same mind as Christ, who took “the form of a slave” for our salvation (Phil 2).  An old tradition describes Christ selling St. Thomas the Apostle into slavery so that he can bring the gospel to India.  Some see the story as describing God’s sovereignty in an unfortunate situation.  Others think St. Thomas sold himself into slavery because he couldn’t otherwise afford the cost of the journey.  Either way, the story is shocking.  Americans don’t usually think of something being more important than our personal freedom.

As melodramatic as it is to compare our situation here to slavery in the first century, I’d like to think that I would be willing to stick it out here if we prayerfully felt that was our calling.  And there is a sense in which our supervisor and coworkers are half right.  Learning to deal with the issue in this context would be a necessary part of adjusting to the culture.  I also have to confess I have mixed motives in leaving.  I’m relieved to have the out, and every condescending “Oh, having trouble adjusting?” directed to me or my wife cements the decision.

After much prayer and counsel, we did decide to leave, and we may have to leave the country as a result.  As one can imagine, it’s been a trying time, and continued prayers are appreciated.

A week ago, while eating at a local restaurant we frequent on weekends, the husband and wife who run the establishment began to argue.  Although the tension between them was obvious to us before, this night it reached a new level.  They started to yell across the room.  Their children left – where, I don’t know.  Other customers began to laugh.  The conflict ended with the wife going to the back in tears.  As we finished our meal, I went to the back to pay.  I felt frustrated I couldn’t say anything, but I tried to make eye contact.  If nothing else (and I’m pretty sure it was nothing else), I hoped the eye contact would at least show that I didn’t think her pain was funny.

A few days ago, we were approached by a beggar.  Unable to communicate or understand what he was saying, I froze, as is my wont.  Luckily my wife pointed to a nearby restaurant, and, after a confusing process of ordering our food, we ate together.  I decided to ask him to teach us some of the language, pointing to food items and asking him one of the few phrases I know in the language, “How do you say this?”  He was a better teacher than I’ve come across in my time here – patient and understanding.  He never once raised his voice in that universal language teaching act of desperation, “Maybe if I say it louder….”

As I have said before, I still believe the kingdom of God is built with small, seemingly insignificant gestures.  I just find myself praying that even my tone-deaf, inarticulate mumbles can somehow contribute.

For a long time now, I have tried to be aware of how my purchases contribute to unfair labor practices and other structural evils.  I believed – simplistically, I now realize – that participating in sinful structures, like the ones which encourage the exploitation of workers to increase profit margins, is sin.  Ignorance is no excuse, I thought; we are responsible to be aware and proactive.

A major influence on my convictions was, in fact, a story about Aydun.  I read an account of a pastor in an underground church in Aydun, who, upon being arrested, was sentenced to several years in prison.  During his prison term, he was forced to work without pay at a factory on the prison grounds which manufactured Christmas lights sold in America.  The irony of celebrating Christmas with lights manufactured by someone imprisoned and enslaved for following Christ made me sick.  Though I still think complicity with structural evil is sin, I have realized nuance is needed.

Upon arriving in Aydun, I have found that avoiding participation in structural evil is impossible here.  It is impossible to know who is making what I buy and under what conditions.  For all I know, everything I buy is potentially made under conditions like the Christmas lights in the story above.  Unlike in America, where it is now a consumer trend and good business to be socially and enviromentally conscious, there are no options.  Even if I was to try to avoid compromise, I cannot go without eating.

There is simply no way around it.  To live in Aydun means to participate and, in however small a way, to contribute to the structural evils at work here.  This fact has made me realize it’s impossible to completely avoid participating in structural evil even in America; the problem is just more obvious in Aydun.

To the best of my knowledge, I have three options.  First, I can just not care and refuse to think about it.  Perhaps I could rationalize that if its unavoidable (or even just really hard) it must not be sin, so I should just live with it and keep going my merry way.  Second, I can still try to find a way to avoid complicity in the structural evils.  Perhaps I just need to look harder here to find options.  If holiness is taken literally as separation, then maybe I need to leave, to go somewhere which would not compromise my holiness, which would present less dilemmas.

Third, I can strive for distinctness from sin while still being present and so complicit in a sinful world.  I hesitate putting it like this, it sounds too messy for the label “holy.”  But I think that is because it is a derived holiness, it is not a holiness I have or earn.  In short, I’m stuck.  I can avoid personal sin, but there’s no separating from the sinful world, no way to avoid complicity in the structural evils all around me.  The only path to holiness is continual repentance.

Like Jeremiah, the only way to both follow God and remain in a sinful world is to lament the evil in this world, an evil that is my evil due to my complicity, however unavoidable.  To both follow God and remain here requires God’s forgiveness.  I cannot boldly ask for God’s forgiveness unless I acknowledge my need, unless God reveals to me the sin which surrounds me which He has already conquered in Christ.  Sin, personal and structural, should make us sick, but it should also drive us to Christ, where our holiness is found.  True repentance (to keep it from looking to much like the first option) should entail taking whatever small steps before us to avoid complicity and, perhaps more importantly, working for the kind of changes that make avoiding complicity possible.

(I’m kind of shooting from the hip here.  I’m not sure I have all the dots quite connected yet.  If I’m overlooking something, I’d love a correction or two.)

While there are plenty of sciptural passages which utilize spatial imagery for God’s holiness, with Ezekiel’s account of God’s glory leaving the temple being one of the most haunting, there is also a sense in which God’s holiness is revealed in His persistent presence with sinful Israel.  As Hosea claims in a passage describing God’s compassion, God is “the Holy One in your midst” (11:9).  God’s being “the Holy One” is revealed in His refusal to be anything other than Israel’s compassionate God.

Additionally, throughout the scriptural narrative, God sometimes punishes by sending away, but God goes with those who are punished.  For example, God kicks Adam and Eve out of the garden, but He still enjoys intimate conversations with humanity after this (Gen. 3-4).  God sends Israel into exile, but He goes with them and brings them back from the nations (Is. 43, Dan. 3).  God is never above the fray, but remans always the Holy One in Israel’s midst.

While remaining scandalous and unexpected, the incarnation thus fits neatly into Israel’s overarching narrative.  John no doubt attempted to convey this consistency in God’s character with his words, “the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us” (John 1:14), linking the incarnation with the Tabernacle, where God dwelled in the midst of Israel during their wilderness wanderings.  God’s presence among a sinful people was nothing new, John realized; His coming in the flesh was.

The incarnation, then, is the clearest revelation of what God’s holiness means.  God’s holiness is always that of “the Holy One” in our midst.  God’s holiness is not ultimately separation, but a distinctness from sin even while persisting in overcoming that very sin through His presence.

The church’s holiness, if it reflects the holiness of God as revealed in Jesus, is similarly not primarily separation.  The church’s holiness is a distinctness from sin even while persisting to witness to God’s victory over sin through speech and action.

Incarnational ministry, if it is truly “incarnational,” will be marked by this kind of holiness, the simultaneous presence in the midst of sin and distinctness from sin.  Incarnational ministry has no need for spiritual haz-mat suits.  Like another prophet with an intimate knowledge of God’s holiness, Jeremiah, we should be affected by sin, but respond with solidarity in repentance.  We should be so in the midst of this sinful world while being so focused on the Holy One, that repentance and laments naturally flow out.

O God I place myself
with those who struggle
this night
I am here in need
I am here in pain
I am here alone

O God, help me

The teaching situation here is rather dismal.  Due mainly to some mistakes on our part, we took a job with horrible conditions without realizing it.  Without going into specifics, suffice it to say that teaching well is impossible here.  We’re less teachers and more English-speaking mascots.  On a positive note, it has made me realize that teachers, as a group, must be the most Christ-like people on the face of the earth.  Even after years of seminary, I’m watching myself be profoundly and painfully shaped in the course of a few weeks.  There’s nothing like hordes of kids slapping you, yelling in your ear, or just plain ignoring you to reveal your own sin nature.

Like the Christian life, teaching requires acknowledging that you are not in control.  A teacher cannot control class size, parental involvement, other teachers, and a number of other factors that can make teaching either sheer joy or nearly impossible.  You cannot even control how others will take you saying “I have no control” – more often than not, it seems like the spoken or unspoken assumption is that you’re doing something wrong.  With the illusion of control gone, I’m finding the good teachers can refocus on being faithful with what little they can control.  As of now, I’m more in the going-crazy-trying-to-control category.

Teaching also requires the constant practice of forgiveness, a skill which I thought I was getting pretty good at.  Kids can be horrible little monsters.  The good teachers forgive students without their asking and give them a fresh start the next time they see them.  It’s both easy to do (what else can you do?  Hold a grudge or demand an apology for something the class will have no memory of?) and humbling (though sometimes in a bad, allowing-oneself-to-get-walked-over sense; sadly, I’ve seen plenty of that here and growing up).  You know that parable about the man who is forgiven an unimaginably large debt, but who then can’t forgive a tiny one owed to him?  I hate that parable right now.

So, if you’ve read the previous blogs you know that so far, things aren’t going as hoped in a lot of different ways.  Though it feels like looking at the bright side of a train wreck, God is still using the experience to shape me.  And, despite it all, I do realize I have it relatively easy in many senses, and I am thankful.

A prayer request – we’re looking into other options for when our contract ends.  We’re still hoping to find a job that better matches our sense of calling and love for the Muslim world.  Please pray that God would be guiding us where He wills and that the search and preparations wouldn’t distract us from being fully present here.

The center is a maze of exam rooms and lines of people twisting through hallways caked with dirt and mildew.  My examination began with a shove forward to the “Phlebotomization” (blood drawing) station, which eerily resembled a teller counter inside a bank.  Instead of cash or a deposit slip, I put my arm through the hole, resting it upon a blood and sweat stained cushion.  My arm was then stuck with a needle, blood was drawn, and I was motioned to leave, without a bandage, so that the next person could come forward.

It was clear that the center was designed for factory-like speed and efficiency, as well as the health concerns and comfort of the nurses and doctors conducting the exams.  At the “Urine” station, for example, the nurse wore gloves for protection, but he never changed them.  So with the same gloves with which he had just received full containers of urine from others, he handed me my cup.  His hands were safe and dry.

There were eight or nine stations, each of which suffered from similar sanitation issues as well as a lack of privacy.  I cringed as I passed a Muslim woman wearing a veil in the hallways, knowing that her desire for modesty would not be respected.  She would, like me, be forced to get partially undressed at several stations, in full view of the next few people in line.  Unlike me, should would also have to visit the “Gynecology” station, which, I was told, had a window opening to the outside which the doctor refused to close.

I knew before coming that the culture values the community over the individual.  I also knew that often the culture values the community to the detriment of the individual.  Even a quick perusal of the news articles on Aydun reveals that my experience at the travel health center reflects a more general lack of respect for the dignity and value of the individual, if not by the culture, then at least by the government.  But the personal experience of violation and the feelings of helplessness made the facts become a little more concrete.

The experience, however, was not without a few moments of grace, a few glimpses of humanity.  I shared a laugh with a few Indians who knew English as we awaited the station labeled “Surgery,” which thankfully was a mistranslation.  A few minutes later, after getting shoved into one station while on my way to another, it took me several minutes to realize I had already been there.  The nurse and I realized this fact at the same time, and shared a smile before she called the next person.  It was the only time my uniqueness as an individual was acknowledged during the examination process, and I’m learning to cherish the moment.

On the other hand, I do have training in Bible and theology and feel gifted in discipleship.  I’d love the opportunity to learn from their faith and experiences.  But again, just because I have something to offer doesn’t mean I’m “needed.”  I’m finding myself longing for connections and opportunities for mutual encouragement and enrichment, despite knowing that the church is doing fine on its own and that my presence might even bring unwelcome attention.

At times, I feel an activism in myself that wants to force the Spirit’s hand, an arrogance that assumes that “faith” means jumping right in.  I sense the danger of using the local church and co-opting it’s story to serve my own desires and expectations of what being a Christian in a largely non-Christian culture entails.  The change of plans has meant that everything is moving at a snail’s pace, and I feel pressure to do anything but keep waiting.  In light of this, I find myself praying for the grace to do nothing but wait for God to give opportunities or not according to His will.

A friend who speaks Aydun’s language agreed to teach me a little of the language before we leave.  At the beginning of the lesson, I asked him, “So, how do you say, ‘Hello’?”

He replied, “Well, we usually just say ‘Hai’.”

“Hai.  Haiiii.  Haaaai.”  I repeated, practicing the new word and attempting to get the inflection just right.

“Umm… so, it’s ‘Hi’… you know, like English… ‘Hi!’”

I felt pretty stupid.  My wife laughed.

Back in May of this past year, I posted on Facebook and wrote, “A sobering, disturbing, significant article. While gentrification is a complex reality, we must work diligently to partner with vulnerable communities so that they are not displaced/replaced.”  The article itself begins with the words, “Portland, already the whitest major city in the country, has become whiter at its core even as surrounding areas have grown more diverse…Nearly 10,000 people of color, mostly African Americans, also moved out. They moved to the city’s eastern edges, where sidewalks, grocery stores and access to public transit is limited.”

One of my Facebook friends wrote, “Help me understand what white people are doing wrong, Paul. (I don’t like looking at things with ‘color’ in mind to begin with—isn’t this more a basic issue of economics?) If they move out to the suburbs it’s bad. If they live in the inner city it’s bad. What is the problem and what solutions do you propose?”  These are great questions.

I intended to respond in May, but then my Dad passed away.  I have not had the opportunity or emotional strength to write this piece until now.  I would like to begin with remarks made by Paul Kurth, who also wrote me in May in response to my post.  Paul is a designer at a Portland architecture firm.  Paul argued, “Architecturally, the city is an evolving organism and must change to survive—some buildings and neighborhoods get worn out and need to be fixed, but after reconstruction the neighborhood isn’t the same because it’s hard to make new buildings affordable without subsidies. Good city planning mixes uses and income levels. Affordable housing should be built alongside the more expensive homes. The segregation of higher income areas (the Pearl District) isn’t helping to ease economic tensions/imbalance. It’s up to the people who have the means and choice to make changes to integrate their own lives with people who are different than themselves and don’t have many choices.”

Sometimes we don’t determine to integrate our lives with people who are different because of lack of bandwidth and/or interest.  Sometimes we aren’t even aware of gentrification’s evolution and negative impact on some vulnerable (yet resilient) communities.  But if we are really about community, we must be diligent to diversify.  While people are often well-intentioned who claim that we should not look at things with color in mind, the lack of awareness of color is problematic for various reasons.  For one, we are not color blind; nor should we be.  Attention to color is attentiveness to the richness of cultural diversity.  Moreover, we often associate with those who are most like us.  So, if we are not intentional, we will not engage those who are of different ethnic backgrounds, especially when they belong to a different economic demographic.  And in America, race and class issues often track with one another historically and presently.  While I appreciate people’s desire to be color blind in the sense of not prejudging people, we must be intentional and see people for who they are in the fullness of their ethnic and cultural identity, including the color of their skin, though not exclusively so.  Moreover, given how racial profiling often occurs today in unimaginable ways (such as the racial profiling of a student I know in Portland by a white police officer last spring), we would be blind to injustices if we sought to be blind to matters pertaining to the color of one’s skin.

Back to my Facebook friend’s concerns.  I have no problem with people of diverse ethnicities moving into or out of Portland’s heart.  What I have problems with is when it is against their will.  There used to be a thriving African American community in what is now the Rose Quarter.  Then the community was displaced to Northeast Portland as a result of city planning endeavors.  I doubt if city planners would ever restructure thriving affluent communities on the Northwest side of town for whatever the reason, if such restructuring would threaten to displace them.  Given the recent migration of young Bohemians with bistros and art studios to Northeast Portland, African Americans living there have been displaced to places like Gresham and Beaverton.

My friend Robert Wall, a former Portland government official, reflects on Portland’s patterns of gentrification: “In most of these cases the driving force is the planning process without the incentives to remain.  I find it interesting that in almost every redevelopment there are huge profits made. Most of these profits are funded by the set aside tax dollars paid by the land owners prior to the redevelopment. So, in part we have a planning problem and a greed problem that adds up to racial discrimination. It used to be called red-lining. Now it’s mainly green-lining (of someone else’s pocket).”  Mr. Wall maintains that whenever a few people benefit economically from decisions that they know negatively impact many, it is greed.  Doesn’t that sound like greed to you?

The African American church has been significantly impacted by this trend.  So, what can be done?

Sister churches of diverse ethnicity can partner with them to minister effectively in their increasingly diverse context by working with African American pastors and congregations to reach out in these increasingly diverse settings.  This may include doing service projects together in the community, or sending a team of people to the churches in the historically African American community who would become members of those African American churches.

Moreover, one can work with one’s neighbors to keep the community intact.  A friend of mine who lives in Northeast Portland worked with his neighbors to make sure that one family would not have to move when the cost of living and taxes rose.  That family switched houses with another family: the family who could no longer afford their house moved into their neighbors’ house that was more affordable, and those neighbors moved into theirs, which they were able to afford.  While this is not often possible for a variety of reasons, it became reality for this neighborhood.

It is also important to be in contact with one’s city commissioner and one’s neighborhood association, advocating for equality and diversity.  When neighbors partner together in this way, the possibility exists that unjust forms of gentrification will occur less often.

It is also critical that we make ourselves aware of past and present tensions.  One reason why Portland’s central city is so white is because it was intended to be so historically, as one African American pastor reasoned with me recently.  A friend who teaches urban studies at a local university informed me that for many African Americans urban renewal is Negro removal.  He often cites the expansion of Emmanuel Hospital in the 1970s as one such example (See discussion on this expansion and its impact).  Moreover, red lining along with city developments historically in thriving African American sections of town along with laws on the books in Oregon and Portland in days gone by certainly made it extremely difficult for African Americans to live in Portland and Oregon generally.  The impact of those decisions is still felt in the city, even though those laws are no longer in place.  With this long-standing impact in mind, we need to restructure our laws and neighborhoods so that people of diverse ethnicities will feel more welcome and their businesses can survive and thrive. (See one recent proposal).  Cities and states offer such benefits for thriving companies to move to their regions.  The same kinds of incentives should be offered to those communities and businesses that have been impacted negatively from various forms of gentrification and urban renewal.  While some might take the following statement by an African American business woman in Northeast Portland for sour grapes, I take it to be more in keeping with what occurred to the migrants in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, albeit in a less overt and more subtle manner: “A black person’s property has no value until a white person owns it.”  It’s so easy to try and deny her view when one is white.  But one cannot deny her experience, if one has not lived in her shoes.

This point on experience and interpretation of events also calls to mind the statement made at a public gathering in one Northeast Portland neighborhood a few years ago.  A group of young white business owners of cafes and bistros and other such shops were meeting to protest the impending attempt of Starbucks to enter the neighborhood.  Those gathered there were recent transplants, and they were afraid that Starbucks would hurt their businesses.  It was almost as if they were saying, “A small business owner’s property has no value until Starbucks owns it.”  One African American man standing in the back during the gathering finally spoke up and said something to the effect, “To the traditional community (African American), you are the Starbucks.”  So, it is.  I often am.  So, now that I know that I am will I become more sensitive, as Starbucks has been known to do in many cases, or will I keep on pouring lattes laced with opium for the masses?

We will be entering a rather ambiguous time.  We’re aren’t sure if this is a detour on our path to Dunya, or whether we are heading in a new direction.  We have heard that “When God closes a door, He opens a window.”  But we also look at this and see cultural flaws such as non-confrontation and endless bureacracy thwarting what we perceived as God’s will and hurting this school.  On a side note, my wife and I’s favorite response to the news was from a friend of mine who, obviously in some sort of pastoral zone, simply said, “S___!!!”  So validating.  If you read this, thanks.  I think it’s shorthand for “God’s providential care doesn’t mean that crap doesn’t happen.  It does, but I’m here if you need anything.”

So it looks like we’ll be taking the scenic route to Dunya, if we make it there at all.  I’m disappointed but at peace about it.  I guess I’ll keep blogging.  Like the upcoming year itself, it just won’t be how I pictured it.

One passage which I have studied in preparation for my trip and which has influenced this desire is the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10).  In response to the question “Who is my neighbor?,” Jesus flips the question around through a beautiful story of mercy, asking in effect, “To whom are you a neighbor?”  Rather than looking for boundaries, Jesus calls the would-be-disciple to look for opportunities.

I came across a wonderfully insightful comment on this passage in Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine.   Augustine reminds his readers that “Nobody can be a neighbor except to a neighbor….  Thus we should understand that he is our neighbor to whom the office of mercy should be shown if he needs it… and that he is our neighbor who in turn shows this office to us.”  Perhaps this is why Jesus’ story depicts a Samaritan showing mercy to a Jew, when a Jew had asked Him the question.

It has been suggested to me that I should pray that any new Muslim friends of mine would have crises that might lead them to seek my counsel.  Besides being a rather morbid prayer request, it also seems a little one-sided.  Couldn’t a crisis of mine be equally an opportunity for mercy to be shown and friendships deepened?  Couldn’t a crisis of mine just as easily lead to a conversation about who Jesus is?  Does Jesus really need me to be in a position of power to make Himself known through me?  If He does, I hate to break it to Him, but He should have paid closer attention to who I am and where He was sending me.

I have heard a story of missionaries who struggled to connect with their new neighbors overseas.  These missionaries had a child, and their position of vulnerability raising a baby in a foreign land broke down those walls.  They found once distant neighbors suddenly warm, offering support through small acts of care for the young family’s well-being.  I don’t think it’s quite appropriate to pray for myself or anyone else to have a crisis, but I do pray for relationships filled with mercy when crises inevitably happen.

Prayer Request:  I will be flying out in a week or so – yikes.

In addition, the country is predominantly Muslim (in order to protect my identity I will be referring to the country as Dunya in this blog, the Turkish-Persian-Arabic word for “world”).  As someone who follows Christ, it has felt awkward telling others this part.  “Muslims don’t like Americans,” or so I’ve been told by countless, well-meaning people (enough times that I have to wonder whether that’s Americanese for “Americans don’t like Muslims”).  Or, from the more churchly, “God bless you, they really need Jesus.”  And we don’t?

At times I’ve tried to ease the awkwardness by stressing the financial benefits or the adventure of travelling across cultures, an attempt to make it understandable, even normal.  But they’re lies, and not even good ones – there are other countries I could go to for more money and more exciting adventures.  I believe that by going to Dunya I am somehow following Jesus.

On one occasion, after explaining where I was going and about my job, an incredibly warm-hearted person asked me, bristling with enthusiasm, “So is this gospel-centered?”  Somewhat caught off guard, I lamely replied, “Well, in the sense that I’m a Christian.”  I don’t know his intention behind the question – the gospel means different things to different people – but the more I think about it, the more I like the question.  I at least hope this is gospel-centered.  I hope this in whatever small way makes the kingdom of God more visible – to myself as well as others.  If “Muslims don’t like Americans” and vice versa, then simply showing up can be a small gesture of God’s reconciling work.  Even if not a single person “accepts the gospel” as popularly understood, if friendships are born which otherwise would not have existed, the kingdom of God will be present.

As a way to keep myself gospel-centered and to include others in the journey, I have decided to try to blog regularly with the NW community.  I thought it would be meaningful to share reflections on cross-cultural missions, prayer requests, and even the occasional ethical dilemma or two.

A very moving talk to be sure—I find it to be fascinating but also quite troubling. I myself spend most of my days online and am immersed in Internet communication and building the Internet in my work as a web developer. I love being interconnected with people from all around world and having access and providing access to information at a scale never before imaginable, and doing so at a rate that is increasing more rapidly than ever before. But to what end? Is the underlying hope that if we can connect enough people and disseminate enough knowledge that humanity can save itself? Jim says, “Humanity connected is God”—is this what we’re moving toward?

I think it is dangerous indeed to put so much faith in humanity, especially ultimate faith; as Jim shared, “We have faith that people connected can create a new world.” Didn’t we have a similarly optimistic impression of humanity at the beginning of the 20th century with all of the scientific progress of modernism? Then came the World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, and so on. If the Internet is the most powerful structure ever made by humanity, then it seems to me that historical precedent shows that it’s only a matter of time until it gets used in a very powerfully bad way. It troubles me to say this as I myself directly contribute to the construction of this latest “Tower of Babel”.

Jesus told us that we’re going to have trouble in life, so we shouldn’t be surprised when our lives fall apart; but contra fatalism, in the same breath Jesus also said that he has overcome the world (John 16:33), and also he will restore the creation and reconcile to himself all things. This is the movement that we are called to participate in, one in which Jesus is at the top—not humanity. As Christians, our faith is not in connected-humanity being able to create a new world, but rather as a community united in Christ and filled with the Spirit, we participate in the redemptive work of the Triune God. We can affirm Jim saying, “Every one of us has our own unique skills and talents to contribute to creating the kingdom of God.” How then can the church as the body of Christ use the Internet to be Jesus’ actual hands and feet in this world in the way which Jim so desperately needed?

[@Jim, I'm sure you'll get a Google Alert from this post. I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing from your heart.]

Click here to read the article.

How do you define success in life and ministry? This was a key question raised at the ordination council meeting for Milan Homola and Josue Gonzales.

Many people today and throughout the ages define success in life according to one or more categories; a few of the big ones for defining success are economic excess, physical prowess and academic progress. While financial viability, physical strength and educational advance certainly have their place, they should not define our lives in terms of what we prize most. Unfortunately, economic excess, physical prowess and academic progress so often do define the lives and views of success for many.

Such values and definitions stand in stark contrast to Scripture. Paul quotes from Jeremiah 9:24 in 1 Corinthians 1:31, where he is challenging the false boasts of the Corinthian Christians. Paul declares, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” Paul calls on them to boast in their relationship with the Lord–the same Lord who reveals his power in weakness and his wisdom in foolishness in the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). The boast in Jeremiah 9:23-24 puts everything in perspective: “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness ["steadfast love"--ESV], justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD.” (NIV)

Jeremiah challenges those who boast in their academic or intellectual progress, physical prowess and economic excess to go deeper and define life and success by way of intimacy with God, who although he is all-wise, all-powerful and owns the cattle on a thousand hills, defines himself relationally, as set forth here: the LORD exercises loving-kindness/steadfast love, justice and righteousness on earth in relation to us, for in these things he delights.

Josue and Milan, I heard your hearts the night of the ordination council. I was so struck by your relational instincts and concern for God and his people. I encourage and exhort you to continue defining yourselves in relation to God and intimacy with him, and in exercising his steadfast love, justice and righteousness toward those you serve, for in these things God delights. If you boast in the Lord and in bearing witness to his loving-kindness, justice and righteousness here on earth, you will live and minister well. You will succeed in the midst of fading failures and passing discouragements in ministry, as you succeed with God. Those who don’t define success in life and ministry along the lines described here will have a hard time making it down the road, for their boast is not in the Lord.

Let me go deeper. We live in a church age that values charismatic preaching, cutting edge marketing along with entrepreneurship, and CEO leadership. But do we value good shepherding? I believe those who truly define success the way I have defined it above will approach leadership and shepherding of God’s people in Jesus’ way.

So, what makes for good shepherding according to Jesus? Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep” (John 10:10-13).

Good shepherds are not ravenous wolves: wolves steal the lives of the people.

Good shepherds are not volunteers, who simply donate their time and labor to people.

Good shephers are not hired hands. Hired hands sell their time and labor to the people.

Good shepherds labor to lay down their lives for their people–daily.

Alluding to Ezekiel 34 which he fulfills, Jesus is the good shepherd, who contrasts himself with the failed shepherds/leaders of Israel: specifically those leaders who opposed him and the healing of the man born blind in John 9–the previous chapter. These supposed shepherds were ravenous wolves at worst and hired hands at best. But Jesus laid down his life for the sheep, even this man born blind whom he healed at great cost to himself at the hands of these bad shepherds of the nation. Such acts of sacrificial love led Jesus to the cross at the hands of his enemies, the same enemies of the sheep. Even the man’s parents wouldn’t sacrifice themselves for their son born blind, whom Jesus healed. They were so unlike my own dad.

My dad passed away in May after a long battle with cancer. My dad was not a pastor. He was not a Christian celebrity. But he was a precious Christian minister in his own right, who lived out the name of his parish church–”Good Shepherd.” My dad was a simple man, who was profound relationally. Simple profundity. My dad certainly had regrets about never being able to visit Europe. But he had no relational regrets. In this sense, he died a great success. My dad sacrificed his life and body to get me through school and life, working all hours of the day and night, for my mother, siblings and me. He cared for those from all walks of life with whom he came in contact–letting them know how much they mattered. The world was his parish. God used my dad more than anyone to bring me back to the faith after an intense time of rebellion in my youth. It was not a philosophical argument that brought me back. I could beat my Dad in any debate. It was his love for Jesus–the Good Shepherd–and me. My rebellion was no match for my Dad’s ceaseless and sacrificial love poured out on me. My key verse from my time of restoration from my life of youthful rebellion was John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Jesus came to give each of us life to the full and he used my dad to snatch me back from the hands of Satan the thief who had come to steal and kill and destroy my life.

Milan and Josue, I find you to be men marked by love. Don’t listen to how so much of the surrounding church and secular culture defines success and leadership. Listen to the men who were in the room with you that night in the ordination council meeting. Their values were and are precious to me. Define success and leadership the way Jeremiah and Paul and Jesus define success and leadership–in terms of God’s sacrificial love poured out for others. As you move forward in ministry, listen well to Paul and Peter, who learned a thing or two from Jesus about how to lead and shepherd well. I close with the words of Peter as he exhorts fellow leaders in 1 Peter 5. Josue and Milan, these are my closing words to you. May your eyes and heart be open to your high calling and Christ’s deep love for you and through you to those entrusted to your care:

“To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away” (1 Peter 5:1-4).

Roundtable discussion, Spring Thaw Round Table

Dear Friends,

Thank you for this enriching conversation. I am including current and future Advisory Council members in my response.

The conversation on the Trinity followed by this conversation on the theology of the affections is vitally important to New Wine, New Wineskins. As you know, New Wine’s theology of cultural engagement model is framed by the sacrificial love of the Triune God revealed in Christ and created in our lives by the Spirit.

I have articulated this in various ways over the years. I would encourage each of you on the AC now and those coming on board in the near future to read my essay, “Free at Last,” in New Wine Tastings. There I build on Martin Luther’s essay “Freedom of a Christian,” which was a foundational treatise for the Protestant Reformation. Further to that essay, Luther told Erasmus in his debate on “the bondage of the will” that Erasmus got to the heart of his writings: the matter of the heart (over against the enabled will), not the indulgences. Luther maintained in response to Erasmus that the will is enslaved to the desires (whether they be ungodly desires or godly desires). In my theology classes, I speak of hostility toward God vs. captivating affection from and for God over against disabled will vs. enabled will (the latter model is found in many Roman Catholic and Protestant circles–I reject the latter model as unbiblical and contrary to the Reformation teaching of Luther).

At New Wine, we speak of a Trinitarian theology of the affections. Affections change behaviors, according to Luther. Behaviors don’t change affections. Luther’s associate, Melanchthon, in his 1521 edition of the Loci Communes, develops this model at great length. Luther references Melanchthon in his debate with Erasmus, saying that Melanchthon’s work should be in the canon, and that Melanchthon’s arguments crush Erasmus’s model (most unfortunately, Melanchthon later modified his view, though Luther never did in my estimation).

According to Luther, whom I believe is true to the Apostle Paul’s teaching in Romans and Galatians, we are not made good by doing good things; we do good things because we are made good. For Luther, we are made good as God’s love is poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5–the later Augustine, Luther and Jonathan Edwards all developed their model of salvation and grace in relation to this text). All good moral actions flow not from spiritual habits and virtues that enable godly desires; rather, all godly actions flow from the Spirit of love poured out into our hearts. Sanctification, for Luther, is not a second work. In fact, he never developed a doctrine of sanctification, in my estimation. He feared that it would compromise the focus on the transformation of our hearts that occurs as the Spirit of God is poured out into our hearts thereby creating faith (Galatians 2:20; no doubt, Luther would also call to mind Paul’s challenge to the Galatians: “… Having begun with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”–Gal. 3:3).

While I find people performing godly actions growing in their love for the Lord, I believe that Scripture teaches that such godly activity flows from a prior love from the triune God of grace poured out in our hearts. As that love is poured out and we respond to that love which is instilled in our hearts by the Spirit, we then perform godly actions. This response to God’s love continues to express itself in godly actions. I am ultimately talking about a deep affection and not a passing feeling of infatuation. Sometimes I may not want to honor God given my struggle with the flesh; but I want to want God as the Spirit of God moves in my life. The affections from the Spirit wage war with the affections of the flesh (Romans 8, Galatians 5).

I have risked speaking more theologically here to get some fundamental issues out on the table. This is consistent with what I was driving at in the discussion of the triune God as love. In addition to the New Wine essay, I also wrote on this for the Westminster Theological Journal (“Mystical Union With Christ: An Alternative to Blood Transfusions and Legal Fictions”), challenging the Roman Catholic notion of infusion of righteousness and the Protestant Scholastic notion of imputation (which I believe is secondary to such participation and follows from mystical marital union with Christ through the affection of love poured out by the Spirit that creates faith in our hearts and the ensuing moral activities). You will find more concrete engagement of this material in my book, The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town. John’s Gospel is steeped in these categories. See John 8, John 14 and John 15 and my discussions of these texts in When Love Comes to Town. I flesh this discussion out culturally in New Wine Tastings.

I hope this moves the conversation forward even further. Thanks so much for your friendship and partnership.

Best wishes,

Paul

These are the words that fall from the lips of Mrs. O’Brien in Terrance Malick’s latest film, The Tree of Life. There are not many words I can use to describe this cinematic adventure except to say that it is something that must be experienced rather than explained.  The Tree of Life is a very important film.  It features an all-star cast of Brad Pitt (Mr. O’Brien), Sean Penn (Jack O’Brien), and Jessica Chastain (Mrs. O’Brien).

Serving as a prologue, Malick begins by quoting of Job 38:4 and 7 where God asks Job where he was when the foundation of the earth was laid.  The opening sequence suggests a family member has tragically died.  As time passes, we find a very candid Jack O’Brien as a successful New York business executive.  During a phone conversation with his father, Jack expresses that he thinks about his brothers often and loves his family.  However, it is apparent by Jack’s tone and mannerisms that he is struggling with the meaning of life and the love of God.

The film then switches gears and by creating a visual masterpiece Malick follows the evolution of nature starting with the cosmos and ending with the birth a human (Jack O’Brien.)  If Malick’s tour-de-force doesn’t get an OSCAR nomination for it’s cinematography, myself and many critics alike will be quite shocked!  The film’s use of imagery is absolutely breathtaking.  For the first 30 minutes, we see a visual depiction of nature.  Malick displays (at least I think so) that nature doesn’t care about the others involved but instead let’s survival of the fittest run its course (here we even see Dinosaurs!)

While the film relies on little extensive dialog, Malick weaves a stunning masterpiece of aesthetics that go beyond the limits of story, while the limited dialog presents the two proposed dualities as experienced by a young Jack O’Brien in his boyhood.  From the beginning of the film we can see that Jack believes that God is love.  In one particular sequence we see an infant Jack and his mother pointing to sky and exclaiming, “that’s where God lives.”  Jack wrestles with nature and grace, life and death, and love and pride.  A young couple, Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien model the polarity of nature and grace to young Jack.  Mrs. O’Brien models a life of simplicity, beauty, and love, and reminds her sons “unless you love, your life will flash by you” whereas Mr. O’Brien is a stern authoritarian who demands his sons call him “Sir” when addressing him and tells them that “it takes a fierce will to get ahead in this world.”

Throughout the film we see a battle of Jack’s affections.  He is torn between his desire to embrace the love and gentleness of his mother and but to also gain the approval of his father, who isn’t so gentle.  He holds his parents in tension, exclaiming “Father. Mother.  Always you wrestle inside me.  You always will.”  After his first experience with pain, loss, and suffering Jack begins wrestling with who God is, asking how a loving God could allow such affliction and why he has to endure the hardship of his father’s rule.

We are then returned to the opening scene of an adult Jack, but this time walking through the frame of a doorway into a desert like terrain.  Malick, I believe, is visually illuminating  the O’Brien family’s emotional subconscious, and displaying “the way of Grace.”  The final twenty minute sequence appears this way.  Some may say the story is open ended and leaves you hanging, but in terms of the nature/grace polarities the film flows quite well, almost like movements in a symphony.

As mentioned before, The Tree of Life is best described as something that must be experienced rather than explained.  It blurs the lines of narrative between word and picture and written and visual.  I think it has much to offer us in our Christian walk.  As we see the experiences of a young Jack O’Brien, we cannot help but see ourselves in his place.   The film wrestles with questions that have been asked for centuries and it sheds light on what the love of God might look like if we were able to see it and can’t help but make us think of life in the Kingdom of God.   In our most vulnerable state, God finds us and brings us into a family of eternal and communal love.  As fallen humanity, we wrestle with submitting to God’s love or submitting to our own nature of selfishness.  Just as grace “doesn’t try to please itself, it accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked”, so it is with Christ.  Christ didn’t seek to please himself, but he accepted being forgotten and disliked so that we could enjoy a restored relationship with Him.  I suppose if I were to rephrase the opening quote, it would read,

“There are two ways through life, the way of selfishness and the way of Christ.  We have to chose which one we’ll follow. Christ’s way doesn’t try to please itself.  It accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked.  Accepts insults and injuries. Selfishness only wants to please itself.  Get others to please it too.  Likes to lord it over them, to have its own way.  It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it.  And Christ’s love is smiling through all things.”

God desires to extend his grace to all of us through Christ, and The Tree of Life gives us just a mere snapshot of that grace.

The Tree of Life at IMDB

In short, as I see it, God is a holy, loving communion of divine and eternal persons. At the core of God’s being, we find holy, interpersonal love. God is relational to the depths of his being. Love always requires an object. In the divine life, there is mutuality and reciprocity. Such love flows out from the Godhead into the world. While God does not need us, God does not use us either. God longs to have communion with us, for God is communal, and God’s glorious love is expansive and inclusive. The church as a Trinitarian community is first and foremost being-driven, not purpose-driven, as Brad Harper and I say in Exploring Ecclesiology. The church’s purposes and activities must flow out of this sense of relationality. Instead of “I think, therefore, I am” or “I shop at Wal-Mart and Macy’s, therefore I am” or “I have a job, therefore I am,” the model here is “I am loved by God, therefore I am.”

Click below for the audio from this interview.

Interview, part 1
Interview, part 2
Interview, part 3

I received the news a few days prior to the New Wine, New Wineskins San Francisco Bay Area trip scheduled for May 17th-19th that my Dad might pass away within a week’s time. When I spoke with my Mom about my Dad’s condition and about my upcoming meetings in the Bay area, she urged me to move forward with the trip. She emphasized that my Dad would not want for me to cancel; she added that my Dad worked and prayed for me for years in terms of God’s calling on my life and saw his own life and ministry flowing through me. My Mom’s encouragement and exhortation moved and mobilized me. Her words from above gave me the strength and focus with which to proceed.

My Dad died a few days earlier than we had expected. He passed away into the presence of the Lord on Wednesday the 18th, when I was in San Francisco. Soon after I received the news, my friends and fellow New Wine, New Wineskins Advisory Council members Gloria Young and Cooky Wall encouraged me to be alone with the Lord and pray and reflect. They went out to buy lunch and bring it back to Gloria’s office for us to eat before our afternoon meetings. As I prayed and reflected in the presence of the Lord, the words “the table” were impressed upon my mind and imagination. There I was kneeling and crying out to God and saying, “The table, …the table, … the table!” What did these words mean?

One of the things that stands out most to me about my Dad is that he always invited people to “the table”—at home, at church, in the neighborhood, and elsewhere. No doubt, his life has shaped my writings on matters pertaining to the Lord’s Table. I believe his life will continue to shape my life so that I will invite others to “the table” and receive their invitations to table fellowship, too. I thank God for my Dad’s life and love. May his life—a legacy of love—continue to flow through me.

I believe my Dad’s legacy of love will be alive and well in New Wine, New Wineskins’ ministry in the San Francisco Bay Area. Why? Because I believe New Wine, New Wineskins is being invited to the table there as a member of the family and as one whose task it is to make sure everyone else in the Bay Area is invited to come and remain at the table of Jesus’ love by faith. As long as we proceed in prayer and in sacrificial love for those around us—whoever they may be—rich and poor, conservative and liberal, large and small, cool and un-cool, Black and White and Hispanic and Asian and Other (no longer treating them as other but as us), we will be drinking from the Vine who is Jesus and bearing biblical witness to my Dad’s living legacy who with all the saints drinks from Christ’s cup and who eats the same broken bread. O Lord, O Broken Bread, O Vine, as I consume you, break me! Break me and flow through me. Flow through New Wine and replenish these wineskins! There is such a need for brokenness on our part, such a need for prayerful repentance and renewal, such a need to eat the Broken Bread and drink from the Vine. Only as we eat this Broken Bread and drink from this Cup will we make relational space for others to feast, too, in the Bay Area and beyond.

A few overlapping comments shouted out to me during the trip and bear witness to the pressing need for being intentional on making relational space for others at the table. I had shared with a Chinese American pastor in San Jose on Tuesday of that week what the African American pastor couple in San Francisco who had invited me to San Francisco on behalf of New Wine, New Wineskins had shared with me: the white Christian establishment in San Francisco has not invited people to dine at “the table” with them. If anything, they are sometimes invited as guests who can only return when invited again. They are not really seen as part of the family. When I shared this painful statement with the Chinese American pastor, he quickly claimed that “We aren’t invited to the table either. So, we have made our own table.” The next day, Wednesday, the day of my Dad’s passing, a young white emerging church leader led us up on a high hill that overlooked the city and outlying region to give us an aerial perspective. As he pointed to various sectors below us, he spoke of how disconnected and isolated the various Christian communities were in the Bay Area. He also noted in one of our recent conversations that it is not only the African American Christian community that feels vulnerable. In San Francisco, all Christian groups feel vulnerable. After all, it is post-Christendom there and the Christian table appears to be getting smaller and smaller and the number of chairs at the table appears to be dwindling. No doubt, the various Christian groups are trying in conscious and unconscious ways to make sure they have a place at the table. Perhaps, as a result, table fellowship ends up looking there (and in many other places, too) more like the game “Musical Chairs.” Only it is not a game.

The African American pastors who invited New Wine, New Wineskins to come to the table in San Francisco had indicated to me that as we grow in our friendship and partnership, we will share with one another our relational networks. At the table where we celebrate the bounty of the Lord Jesus’ love, we will find that we no longer have to fear scarcity. We no longer have to compete or guard our turf or make sure that we are seizing a sliver of the increasingly smaller religious pie in post-Christendom America. We no longer have to worry about not having a place to sit when the music stops. When we’re at the Lord’s Table, we’re no longer playing at Musical Chairs. There’s seating for one and all.

One event in particular served as a microcosm of hope for what can transpire where there is seating for one and all. I am referring to the final meeting which took place on Thursday afternoon, just hours before I returned to Portland. One leader present later wrote, “The group was small but represented an interesting cross section of the city. Various denominations and church personnel showed quite a variety. The discussion needs to broaden to include many more church leaders. Many of the shakers and movers of the city need to be invited to the table.” Another leader present at that meeting and with whom we interacted the previous day wrote about our efforts: “It is clear that the people involved in the conversation are high caliber people who see what is at stake and who are ambitious for the Kingdom of God. I enjoyed hearing people’s stories and feeling their passion. It is great to see people take time out of their busy schedules to prioritize being together in a listening posture to each other. This is the way of Christ! I believe that doors will be opened that would not have been were it not for the proactive servant-leadership demonstrated by the New Wine, New Wineskins team.”

No doubt, as we celebrate at Jesus’ table, we will be mindful of our need to be good stewards of what God has invested in us. We won’t hide our talents in the ground. Instead, we will make sure that we are investing relationally as we pour out our lives with and for one another as Christ’s body and for the world in the Bay area and beyond. The new wine of the kingdom will flow through New Wine, New Wineskins as we sit at the table to which we have been invited in the Bay area and at which we continue to dine and as we continue to pass the cup and break the bread together and as we make sure that everyone else is invited to the table, and there remain as cherished brothers and sisters, cherished ministry partners and friends. As we live into this reality, I will be offering day in and out a toast to my Dad and a drink offering of sacrificial praise to the Lord.

Friday, June 3 from 7 – 9pm : open to the public
Imago Dei Community (1302 SE Ankeny in Portland)

In today’s world, Osama bin Laden symbolizes a lot of things to a lot of people. In our nation alone, his life is celebrated, despaired, and feared by religious groups, political organizations, and individuals. With bin Laden’s recent death, we have been bombarded by a range of responses. From parties, to shrines, to political jockeying, it can be hard to find your own voice. This forum will be an opportunity to develop a Christian response to the death of bin Laden and the world he left behind. We will consider the Church’s public witness on the war of terror by reflections from New Wine leaders, Dr. Paul Louis Metzger and Dr. Brad Harper, and by hearing from several individuals in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community which is promoting a project called Muslims for Peace.

Watch a video from CBN about the Muslims for Peace project.

Refer to this list of books, articles, films, organizations, etc. relevant to this discussion.

UPDATE: Click here to listen to an audio recording of this event.

What do you think?

“Overjoyed by death?” Really? Is that possible? I’m not sure if such a response can rightly exist. It sounds like an oxymoron. Never in my life had I ever heard anyone say that they were “overjoyed” by someone’s death.

Now, I believe Osama bin Laden was a horrible tyrant and that he knew this day was coming. I share the peace that the families and loved ones of the 3,000+ victims of 9/11 must feel knowing that the man responsible for their death has been brought to justice and is no longer a threat to their well-being. But the idea of being “overjoyed” by death seems a bit out of focus. Now, more than likely Pierre Thomas and other news reporters were probably at a loss for adjectives for describing the peace and comfort we feel and I give them all the benefit of the doubt. Their words are not held against them.

But with such a comment the question now arises, was Osama bin Laden above redemption? Were his sins too great for us to show him grace? The answer of course is no. Christ died to take away the sins of the world, including the sins of mass murder by Osama bin Laden.

The fact that Osama bin Laden is dead is not something we should feel joy about. We can feel joy that the threat of his influence and networking of terrorism is gone. We can rest easy knowing that justice was served and that the threat of terrorism has been greatly reduced, at least in the short term. This is something we can be overjoyed about. But we must not forget that Osama bin Laden was also created to be a child of God. He was created to love God and be loved by God and give God glory by loving Him. The God of the universe created Osama bin Laden to be in a mutual love relationship with Him and bin Laden rejected that invitation. Because of such selfishness, he murdered millions in the name of a false God and false hope and this ultimately led to his own death. His death is not something we should be overjoyed about but instead it should grieve us as Christians. Osama bin Laden was loved by God, just like us. We must remember that our sins are no different than bin Laden’s, though we often express godless passions of murder in our hearts and not with our hands.

It is saddening that Osama bin Laden rejected God, rejected love, and rejected grace in exchange for hate, selfishness, greed, and envy. Now he is in God’s hands and has been judged by a holy God who is loving and because of that love will give bin Laden what he wants, which is selfish and egocentric love and the removal of God’s relational presence in what Christians call Hell.

Osama bin Laden chose death instead of life, but that is not what he was created for. He was created for life and it saddens me that death has defined him.

I commend the President for his courageous efforts in finding bin Laden.

I applaud the team of NAVY SEALS who risked their lives bringing down the world’s most wanted murderer.

I salute those all the men and women of our country who have lost their lives in defense of freedom, having fought the many agents of bin Laden’s terror networks. Likewise to those who have fought and returned (some of them friends) and also those who are continuing to fight.

I mourn with all of the families of the 3,000+ lives lost on that sad September morning 10 years ago.

I admire all those around the globe who did not back down in the face of terrorism and violence but instead united and rose up to proclaim freedom, peace, love, and grace.

I honor those members of Osama bin Laden’s family who greatly disagreed with him and stood for justice and peace in condemning his words and actions and supported our efforts to bring him to justice.

And I proclaim that God is bringing about resurrection and redemption to his broken world and is recreating us as we seek to participate in His grand story.

While the death of Osama bin Laden comes in the name of justice, we must remember that we are not called to rejoice in death but to inhabit and embody life that is brought about by the resurrection of Christ. We must be overjoyed by new life.

EDITOR’S UPDATE: You might also enjoy a roundtable discussion between Paul Louis Metzger, Rick McKinley, and Rob Hildebrand which addresses engaging tensions such as Milan suggests below. Click here to listen to the audio of that discussion.

“Bon Voyage…”

“Farewell…”

These are words that create a mental picture for me. The same way that “Your Excellency” creates a picture of someone bowed low to receive a king.

With “farewell” or “bon voyage” I picture an early 20th century scene. A large passenger ship pulling away from a pier filled with people looking back at the familiar audience left standing on the dock. The family members wave back and forth wishing “bon voyage” or “farewell.” The atmosphere is filled with love, longing, and good.

\fer-‘wel\ = a wish of well-being at parting

Recently “farewell” has taken on a new meaning. It has been used in a way that means exactly the opposite of its literal meaning.

In one short message (Pastor John Piper’s Tweet) that circled the world, ”farewell” had its meaning flipped. In <140 characters, the world received a message that was bigger than the message itself.

In a world of hyper-fast communication, using the most universal mediums with the fewest characters possible, we have to be aware of the complex messages we create and communicate in 140 letters. Today the message is much more than the message, if you know what I mean.

On February 26th Pastor John Piper sent a tweet that has spread like wildfire: “Farewell Rob Bell. http://dsr.gd/fZqmd8”.

This was his response to Pastor Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins, which wouldn’t be released for another two weeks. It seemed clear that Mr. Piper had drawn some conclusions, and he wanted the world to get his message. Of course “farewell” meant something in this message… but what? And more importantly, what is the larger ripple effect of such a statement?

I’m definitely not writing this reflection to debate the content of Bell’s book. That has been over-debated already. I’m actually arguing that a more important debate should arise: “Does it matter how Christians communicate with one another and to the world?”

There are two problems with Piper’s message to the world.

First, to say “farewell” is to suggest that somehow Piper is standing in one place (a place of authority/knowledge/etc.) while wishing “goodbye” to Bell, who is headed to some other place. We aren’t sure to where Piper was wishing him farewell.

Is John Piper the standard by which we measure the debate? Is he the man who can stand in a position to “wish” farewell to someone else? Piper’s message communicates to the ever-watching world an authority structure that may not, or shouldn’t, exist. Is Piper the schoolmaster who sends the dunce to the corner?

It raises an important topic, hopefully to be discussed later, about the structures of authority within the universal Church. Is there one? Should there be one? If so, what does it look like in a 21st century global world that is ever increasingly anti-authoritarian? There is a clear biblical standard for authority, but we have divided ourselves to the point that each man or each tiny denomination is its own ultimate authority.

Second (and much more significant than the first), the most damaging aspect of the actions taken in the tweet is the negative impact on the overall Christian witness in the world.

I do know scripture enough to know that John 13:35 does NOT say: “By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you have the proper view of hell.” Instead, it actually says they will know you follow Jesus “if you love one another.”

Any good Bible scholar can find loopholes and ways to wiggle around the blatant truth proclaimed here. You can parse it out and go to the Greek and even redirect attention by focusing on “speaking the truth” or the “watchtower” mentality against heresy. But at the end of the day the statement remains clear. The world will know more about us and what we stand for by how we treat each other than by the explanation of our nuanced beliefs. Therefore, the way in which we treat one another (members of the body of Christ) matters significantly in communicating the truth of the Gospel.

To flippantly send someone away is to communicate to the world that we aren’t even capable of first loving one another. If we don’t love one another even in the worst of times/conditions/shattered theologies, then it is a symptom of a wretched disease. That disease is disunity which in essence is screaming to the world that a loving God isn’t all that real.

Who is this Jesus guy? Does he really impact my thoughts, my message… my tweets?

I have no doubt that both Pastor Bell and Pastor Piper love Jesus. If together we love Jesus then our greatest priorities in life are living for Him and making Him known. And believe it or not, that comes before debating theology, amassing huge followings, even tweeting. I love Dr. Paul Louis Metzger’s interpretation of the Apostle John’s vision at the end of his book Consuming Jesus. Metzger sees a banquet table that includes men from opposite sides of the debate sitting together with Jesus, from MLK Jr. to Jerry Falwell. If Jesus will bring us together to sit at the banquet table tomorrow, then it should impact how we see each other today. At the very least, we should be able to love one another so that the world might know this profound love of God.

Slavery was the fundamental reason why the North and South went to war, but according to the TIME article, you wouldn’t know it based on how history and Hollywood have often portrayed the conflict and its origins. No one likes to admit guilt, unless perhaps it is someone else’s. But Lincoln viewed things differently. He believed the entire country was to blame for the war (a point often lost on us Northerners). Lincoln no doubt knew what the TIME article claims: “Slavery was not incidental to America’s origins; it was central” (p. 48).

This TIME article got me thinking further about the matter. I reviewed three of Lincoln’s most famous speeches: his first inaugural address, the Gettysburg address, and his second inaugural. I came across a “This American Life” documentary on the second inaugural. The following statement from the program puts the matter well: “In his second inaugural address, Lincoln wondered aloud why God saw fit to send the slaughter of the Civil War to the United States. His conclusion: that slavery was a kind of original sin for the United States, for both North and South, and all Americans had to do penance for it.” Assuming that this is correct, if the Lincoln of the second inaugural were here today, I wonder if he would claim that those who died in the Civil War to do penance for the nation’s “original sin” died in vain based on the North’s and South’s ongoing denial of the war’s true cause.

So often, we function with pragmatic and collective amnesia for the sake of pursuing progress. Like Teddy Roosevelt who according to the article became the champion of reconciliation and the prophet of progress, we grew up as a nation post-Civil War receiving “a master tutorial in leaving certain things unsaid in the pursuit of harmony” (TIME, p. 48). But there can never really be progress where there is no ownership and repentance of personal and corporate sins. As 1 John 1:9 declares, “If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” No confession, no forgiveness, no cleansing, no true progress. This is not simply an individual matter. What some of us take to be true personally for our spiritual condition and relationship with God must be taken to be true corporately as a church and as a nation.

Lincoln did not view slavery as the sin of the South for which the North brought judgment during the war. As stated above, Lincoln saw the war and its carnage as the judgment of God on the North and the South. Lincoln’s words taken from the second inaugural come to us from the grave:

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (link).

The American church is often so rootless. While you and I may not have not committed any act to reinforce the evolving structures that slavery and its post-Civil War legacy generated, are we doing something—anything—to overturn those structures the previous generations put in place and nurtured? If not, we are still reinforcing those evil structures, for failing to act righteously is just as bad as acting in an unrighteous manner. Both forms of sin flow from a hardened heart and both forms of sin harden fallen structures. We must understand that history is with us. It lives into the present. Lincoln saw the connection between the nation’s past and its present trial at the time of the Civil War. The connection was and is organic. As such, we are not talking about fatalism. Fatalism involves a sense of helplessness, being bound to impersonal cause and effect forces beyond our control. Corporate guilt passed down from generation to generation is not a problem we are powerless to challenge. We can bring an end to it by owning it and restructuring our individual and corporate existence, beginning with acknowledging the real cause of the War and repenting of our nation’s ongoing disengagement from our racialized story.

By not seeing that North and South alike were to blame for the Civil War (TIME, p. 51) and by not advocating for racial equality and unity in our day, the people who according to Lincoln died to do penance, from his perspective, may have actually died in vain. The same might be true for Lincoln. If only we could talk to him now.

I believe we listen more to General George McClellan today than we do President Lincoln. McClellan had been Lincoln’s chief general at the outset of the war and later Lincoln defeated McClellan on the way to his short-lived second term in office as President of the United States. McClellan viewed the race question as “incidental and subsidiary” to unity (TIME, p. 42). But what kind of unity is it when there is no reconciliation? McClellan “did not perceive…that the Union and slavery had become irreconcilable” (TIME, p. 46). The same held true during the Civil Rights era, but Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his movement sought to show us that separate but supposedly equal is no real equality and cannot sustain a nation—or a church.

Things still have not changed all that much as a country and as the church in this country (See the consumingjesus.org post by Daniel Fan titled “Is Racism Over Now That a Black Man is President of the United States?”. See also the link to The Oregonian “Opinion” piece by Clifford Chappell titled “Is Racism Gone for Good?” along with the ensuing interview at consumingjesus.org with Rev. Chappell). In all too many quarters, we are still separate and nothing more than supposedly equal. As Black Theologian James Cone said in a 2006 interview, in some ways the situation is actually worse in terms of such things as health care, education, employment, and the prison system. In the interview, Cone exhorts white theologians to speak out forthrightly about the unrighteous situation in which we find ourselves, claiming that the white Christian establishment is complicit. As a white theologian, I believe we should listen to Lincoln and Cone, among others, and speak out and live forthrightly. Otherwise, I fear that not only Lincoln’s death but also Jesus’ death may be robbed of its redemptive, catalytic power in our lives (See 1 Corinthians 1:17 where Paul talks about the possibility of emptying Christ’s cross of its power in his ministry if he were to preach the gospel with words of human wisdom). Sins of omission (righteous acts we have failed to do) are just as evil as sins of commission (evils we have committed). Jesus died for both. May we live to please him in every way, making sure we contend against sins of commission and omission.

What does speaking out and living forthrightly look like—especially in the church? For starters, we need to denounce the McClellan version of the church growth principle that claims that the race question is incidental and subsidiary to Christian unity. What kind of unity are we talking about when we claim that we are separate but equal in our ecclesial experience (separate churches for whites and blacks and others)? The McClellan church growth principle is pragmatic, though not practical if we mean missional. Christendom’s collapse in our country is bound up with the Civil War: Christianity came to be viewed as captive to cultural trends—the North and South had the same red, white and black letter Bible but read and preached it differently on matters black and white. Christian America took a further hit during the Civil Rights era, as many Christian conservatives stood in opposition to King’s biblical mandate. The Evangelical church will take another hit shortly if white Evangelicalism doesn’t make far greater space for unity along ethnic lines in its worship centers across the land, for America is becoming increasingly brown, decreasingly white.

However, our concern is not political correctness, opportunism and penance, but biblical justice and repentance. Again, 1 John 1:9 puts it well: “If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (This is not simply an individual, personal matter. The prophets of old identified with their people’s sin and confessed on their behalf; see Daniel 9:1-19). No confession, no forgiveness, no cleansing, no true progress. What kind of unity and progress are we talking about when we are talking about unity and progress based on non-confessed sins of commission and omission? There is no prophetic power and progress in such unity.

Lincoln was seen as a rabble rouser in his day. That’s why he got shot in the head. King was seen as a rabble rouser in his day. That’s why he got shot in the head. Jesus was seen as a rabble rouser in his day. That’s one key reason why he was hung on a cross. Each one died to bring unity and create one people out of the ashes of disparity. While as a Protestant, I do not believe in doing penance, I do believe that we are responsible for our sins of commission and omission. When we don’t own the sins of our past and present disunity whereby we fail to love our brothers and sisters of diverse ethnicity in concrete forms of ecclesial and civic engagement, it is almost as if we are saying with our lives that Lincoln, King, and the Lord Jesus died in vain. Did they?

Interview with Aaron Gillespie

This interview comes in anticipation and promotion of New Wine’s Summer conference, Worship 2.0: Culture, Community, and Communication.  (click for more info).  Pre-registration is open now!

Review of Anthem Song here

Check out Anthem Song here

Check out The Almost here

To learn more about Dr. Metzger and Abbot Carlson’s friendship, click here to read a profile of them in Tricycle Magazine, Fall 2006.

This event will be held the afternoon of April 28 at Dharma Rain Zen Center. Email newwine@multnomah.edu for more info and to RSVP.

Click here to listen to an audio recording from this event.

One of the main reasons I believe we find it difficult to move beyond prejudice and objectification toward reconciliation with “the other” is our fear of vulnerability. The fear of losing control and of being vulnerable leads us to conceive of people who look different from us as always “them.” White Christian leaders like me often like to minister from a position of strength. No doubt, those of other complexions do as well. Flesh (as in carnality)—no matter the color of one’s skin—enjoys boasting in oneself. But what usually differentiates us is that many of us white Christian leaders have a long history of ministering from a position of supposed strength, especially when engaging those of diverse ethnicities. We often have no idea of how much power and privilege we have until they are challenged or taken away from us. Ministry undertaken from seeming strength fails to perceive one’s relational need. As a result, we fail to sense our need to lean into God, and so we minister from the flesh. The only ones we can connect with in such settings are those belonging to our homogeneous demographic groupings of whatever kind—those we naturally like and those like us.

In contrast, Jesus brought people together who previously were opposed to one another through his weakness on the cross. As a result of his crucifixion and resurrection and our participation in him, there is no longer any division between male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free (Galatians 3:28). Jesus’ greatest hour of power—the hour of glory of cross and resurrection recorded in John’s Gospel—was when he was most dependent, hanging on a cross and depending on the Father to raise him from the dead. Following from this, when Paul was weak in Christ, God’s power was manifest most profoundly through him (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Paul’s very conversion experience and early Christian life involved incredible dependence on others: Saul was led as a blind man to Ananias who laid his hands on him so that his sight could be restored; and he was given the right hand of fellowship by the Christian community through Barnabas (Acts 9:8, 17-18, 26-28). Saul experienced great suffering in ministry—beginning with dependence on others, especially dependence on the Christian community, whom he had once persecuted. How humbling that must have been for Saul who became Paul!

Without experiencing vulnerability in ministry whereby we sense our need for those who are different from us (those we would often think are in need of our help without a sense of our being in need of theirs), we will never experience the breaking down of divisions between those of diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds. Instead, we will reinforce barriers by ministering out of privilege. In fact, it is not enough to minister to others whereby we use our power for their good. We must sense our need for them and receive from them as well. Only when there is give and take, where people are interdependent, is there intimacy in relations and reconciliation. Paul could never have been the Apostle to the Gentiles had he not become so dependent on Jesus and the church whom he once had persecuted. He was enslaved to Jesus’ vulnerable love that breaks down divisions between people.

White Christian leaders like me often treat African Americans, legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, and the homeless as “them” or as “those people” who need us. When this is our posture and perspective, we violate these people. What is required is that we experience vulnerability, which would involve encountering these people face to face, eye to eye, and heart to heart. While this is a common problem for the majority culture in any given society, it should not be common among God’s shepherds of his people. It is only as we experience vulnerability and spiritual vertigo whereby we find ourselves secure in the Good Shepherd’s embrace that we will be in a position to move beyond the marginalization of others toward mutuality and partnership in ministry.

The young white pastor friend to whom I referred at the outset of this piece shared with me that his spiritual director is an African American woman. I couldn’t believe it when he told me. Not that this is scandalous, but because it would often be viewed as scandalous to many white male leaders, I believe. I was so impressed, and hope that other white male pastors—and white theologians like myself—will avail ourselves of similar opportunities. My young pastor friend informed me that he recently told his spiritual director how isolated and weak he feels in ministry. He was wondering if God was no longer working in and through him. His spiritual director responded by saying something to the effect of “Don’t pull back. You are truly experiencing the fruit of the Spirit in your ministry.” And again, “Now you know how I feel every day as an African American woman.”

Now my young pastor friend is really beginning to connect with his congregation, bearing much fruit. Instead of modeling professional distance, my friend models pastoral intimacy with his ministry team at the church. His ministry team made up of people of diverse ethnicities encourages him to keep pressing on and into Christ’s vulnerable love with them.

I hold out great hope for this young pastor in the inner city of Chicago in terms of breaking down ethnic barriers. Instead of approaching people of other ethnicities from a position of presumed strength, he is approaching them from an authentic form of weakness. He senses his relational need for them, thereby moving beyond charity toward the poor and condescension toward non-whites. He is pressing into community where the Spirit’s charitable fruit breaks down divisions. The poor is no longer them. The poor is me. The poor is each one of us. You are no longer “the other.” I am in you and you are in me.

The book of Daniel, however, shows the church a different way, a way of purity and presence, a way of vulnerable dependence upon God.  The book begins with a group of young men being taken into King Nebuchadnezzar’s service (1:3).  This is the same king who razed Jerusalem to the ground and demolished the temple, the same king who stole everything valuable in the temple and placed them in his own god’s temple in Babylon, to symbolize his presumed defeat of Israel’s God (1:1-2).  These young Jewish men were forced to serve a king who would have felt at ease in the company of Genghis Khan, Hitler, or Stalin.

What is most remarkable about the first chapter of Daniel, however, is the prudence the young Jewish men show.  When it comes to a relatively minor matter of purity (consuming unclean food and drink), Daniel and his friends resolve not to compromise, no matter the consequence (1:8-16).  They politely request to receive different food, confident in God’s ability to sustain them.  When it comes to things seemingly more substantial, they are willing to obey because they see that they can do so without risking their purity.  No knee jerk reactions here; they willing serve the Near Eastern equivalent of Hitler without resisting.  They not only willingly learn the language and literature of the pagan Babylonians (and remember that this literature would have included a large chunk of Babylonian religion and myth!), but beat their pagan colleagues at their own game, excelling in their learning (1:4, 17-20).  They are willing to be called the names of foreign gods, knowing, perhaps, that an idol is nothing (1:7; 1 Cor. 8:4)

Nebuchadnezzar no doubt recruited these young men in order to influence his Jewish captives, to make them good Babylonian subjects.  Ironically, as the rest of the book shows, because they remain loyal, God is able to use them to influence Nebuchadnezzar and to be a redemptive presence in the Babylonian Empire.

The Full Story ]]> http://new-wineskins.org/blog/2011/01/bird-like-me/feed/ 2 http://new-wineskins.org/blog/2010/07/post-graduation-pre-wedding-strange-new-world-of-planning-waiting-and-tears/ http://new-wineskins.org/blog/2010/07/post-graduation-pre-wedding-strange-new-world-of-planning-waiting-and-tears/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:42:20 +0000 Kelsi http://new-wineskins.org/?p=2347 It has been 2 months since I exited the doors of Multnomah as an “alumna” for my first time. A girl with a master’s degree, and a ring on her finger.

I have had the sinking reality of school loans set in. It involved tears and screaming at the top of my lungs (more like a very disturbing roar with a lot of spit flying everywhere and a little dog running away from me for dear life). Maybe that was a break down. I still work at a “quick service” cafe and  drive a borrowed car from my parents. I now live with my sister, and am trying to save up some money to move to Santa Cruz in October. After I get married. My fiance, Josh, lives down there, which menas we have the joy of sustaining and growing a long distance relationship in the midst of planning a wedding here. I just found my wedding dress, and really, am not too excited about it. Don’t ask me why. I think it’s becasue “they” (Hollywood, wedding magazines–which deserve a blog entry in and of themselves) always hype it up, like finding a wedding dress is the holy grail, your wedding planning climax. It’s not. It’s another thing to check of the list, quite frankly.

It is a lonely process, wedding planning. It can be lonely when your fiance lives hundreds of miles away, and it is challenging just planning a reading date on the phone. We aren’t doing (prepare yourself, Christian community) premarital counseling, so we are reading Sacred Marriage over the phone together instead. Or at least we are about to. And well, marriage counseling once we live in the same town will be in order.

It is hard to remember what it is like to hang out for a day with each other, what it is like to “do life” together–study, worship, socialize, rest, work, eat, fight, love, cry, laugh.

But, we are doing it. It is tough. It is tough knowing what to do about birth control (which I think deserves its own school on ethics, thought and philosophy), let alone which tie to buy for him when I don’t even know what his suit looks like. It is hard to register when we can’t just meet up one day and go to the store. We are getting married in less than three months, I am moving to a new state, will be going to a new church and will be eagerly looking for a  job. (Eh-hem. Anyone?) It’s just strange, all this planning and waiting.

I miss my seminary community. I miss New Wine meetings, and the smell of the entrance of Travis Lovett when the sun has been baking in and it’s this weird little pressurized oven between the first set of doors and the second. I miss rushing to get coffee during lecture breaks, and I miss that adrenaline rush when I am about to finally finally, by the grace of God, finish a paper.

And now, my mind is filled with the wonderous waiting. Waiting to get married, pack, move, make new friends, start a new community, find the best coffee shops and running trails, and leave. Leave a city that is my home. A city that never ever bores me, and never fails to feed me new food (hello food carts! Is it just me or are they multiplying by the dozens every week?), give me the best cup of coffee ever and surround me with beautiful flowers, trees, rain and sun.

So, I guess I am just checking in. I know that it is summer. Finally. Sort of. At least it was two days ago. But life is strange, and I just had a tearful conversation last night with Josh that went something like this, “by the time we are able to maybe, barely afford to have a kid, will we be too old, anyway?” I never thought I would face the reality that, as Josh puts it, “kids just may not be in the cards for us”. I am trusting and praying they are. Honestly, I cannot conceive (no pun intended) of not ever being a mom, but it is so strange to even have to consider that (!)

So, there you have it. Thoughts from an engaged, recently graduated Seminarian with a heap of debt and giant, bulging files of class notes to show for it. The only way to find joy in all of this, I am proved over and over again, is to really, truly press in to the loving arms of the one who is masterfully, carefully, and intentionally  behind and in all of this. So glad it’s not all on my shoulders.

What is Caesar’s to Caesar

http://www.crosswalk.com/11629244/page0/

NOTE: THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS, PUBLICATIONS, AND ORGANIZATIONS REFERENCED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THE SOLE OPINIONS OF THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR(S) AND DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF NEW WINE, NEW WINESKINS OR MULTNOMAH UNIVERSITY.

Is the Emerging Church for Whites Only?

To survive in a quickly diversifying global church, the emerging church movement must do a better job of opening up its doors — and pursuing justice.
By Soong-Chan Rah and Jason Mach, with responses by Julie Clawson, Brian McLaren, and Debbie Blue

At the turn of the millennium, I (Soong-Chan) began hearing a lot about the “emerging church.” It seemed that everywhere I turned somebody was talking about the emerging church. A clear definition of the term was elusive (see “What is the Emerging Church?” by Julie Clawson, below), but the emerging church seemed to reflect ministry and theology rising out of the generation after the baby boomers. In particular, the emerging church was Western Christianity’s attempt to navigate through the context of an emerging postmodern culture.

At the time the emerging church was coming into vogue, I was pastoring a multi-ethnic, urban church plant in the Boston area. It seemed that every brochure for nearly every pastors’ conference I received featured the emerging church. As I began to attend some of those conferences, I noticed that every single speaker who claimed to represent the emerging church was a white male. A perception was forming that this was a movement and conversation occurring only in the white community.

On one occasion, I was at an emerging church conference and was told directly that non-whites were not of any significance in the emerging church. Granted, this was one specific instance, but it led to the sense that the emerging church was not a welcoming place for ethnic minorities. At another conference, on the future of the church, one of the speakers invited up a blond-haired, 29-year-old, white male, replete with cool glasses and a goatee, and pronounced him the face of the emerging church. “This guy is a great representative of the future of American Christianity.” I cringed. In terms of the public face of the emerging church, white males dominated. It seemed like the same old, same old. As per the lyrics by The Who: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

When Professor Rah was writing The Next Evangelicalism, he asked me (Jason) to visit a number of Web sites for emerging churches. I discovered that the large majority of emerging church leaders were white 20- to 30-year-olds. Photos showed people in trendy clothing, sporting cool hairstyles and eyewear.

Some might respond, so what? If the majority of people to whom the emerging church movement appeals are younger people of European descent and stylistic flair, then so be it. But there is a larger problem. As I continued my research, memories from my own spiritual journey flooded my mind—memories of hopelessness and longing, of wanting to believe there was something more rich and diverse about Christian life than what I was experiencing in the white suburbs. There was a great sense of joy when I found an emerging church, a place where people from various backgrounds (so I thought) were gathered in one community. I quickly became a fan of the emerging church. But now, in the midst of my research, my excitement was beginning to fade.

The emerging church, or rather this particular expression of it, was in essence no different than the church environment in which I was raised. Younger and cooler, maybe, but still the same: white, middle- to upper-class, and reflecting many of the values associated with these categories. It became apparent to me that this “emerging,” postmodern church was simply the pierced and tattooed offspring of its older, modern parents.

Missing the Big Picture
Both of us, in our own cultural contexts, began to recognize that what was being presented as the future of Christianity was only a small sliver of larger changes in the church. Left out of the spotlight, and perhaps the whole discussion, was the fact that the church is going through change on a global level, not just in the West.

Part of the problem was the conflation of terms. The emerging church is popularly presented as a catch-all concept of a generational shift at work in the West, represented by specific brands such as “Emergent” or “Emergent Village,” a group of emerging church leaders who organized, established a board, gained members, and launched a Web site. There has been disproportionate coverage given to the emerging church in the Christian media and in Christian publications, exemplified by Emergent Village’s three separate book deals with major Christian publishing companies. As noted in The Next Evangelicalism, in 2000 only about 200 churches in the U.S. and the U.K. could be identified as emerging churches. Yet, there are more than 50 books with emerging church themes. In contrast, there are less than a handful of books written about, for example, the second-generation Asian-American ministry, which numbers as many as 700 churches.

Further complicating the confusion is the recent notion among some in the West that the emerging church as a whole has died. For example, in January 2010, one blogger wrote an obituary for the emerging church. The obituary characterized the emerging church as having made “many advances in the Christian church, including facial hair, tattoos, fair trade coffee, candles, couches in sanctuaries, distortion pedals, Rated R movie discussions, clove cigarettes and cigars, beer, and use of Macs”—a satirical characterization that nonetheless seems to hold a grain of truth.

Even in declaring the death of the emerging church, the focus is on its Western expression. The face and heart of the movement that was being lamented was defined by white Americans, furthering the perception that the emerging church is an exclusively Western, white expression. Even when the blogger notes the emerging church’s contributions to “women’s issues, conversations about sexuality, environmentalism, anti-foundationalism, [and] social justice,” they are put in the context of Western society.

Another example of the difficulty in understanding and using the term “emerging church” is found in a blog entry from December 2009. The blogger states that “history will most likely mark 2009 as the point of transition and maturation for the emerging church movement.” The “emerging church” being referred to is the Western expression of it; the history provided centers on events in Western countries and cultures. Yet found in the following sentence is this statement: “various streams within the movement will continue on for many years to come. For example, the biggest global emerging church event on the calendar for 2010 will take place in Brazil and be attended mostly by Latin Americans.” If the larger emerging church has many different streams, then why, if one of those streams supposedly has dried up, is the entire movement being declared dead?

In truth, the term “emerging church” should encompass the broader movement and development of a new face of Christianity, one that is diverse and multi-ethnic in both its global and local expressions. It should not be presented as a movement or conversation that is keyed on white middle- to upper-class suburbanites.

Finding a Balance
In search of some much-needed perspective, we spoke with a number of people in Emergent Village. Do they think the emerging church is truly dead? If not, where is it headed and what does it have to offer?

Emergent Village participants interviewed for this article held the same general belief: The emerging church is not, in fact, dead. Both David Park, who had previously been involved with the Metro Atlanta Emergent Cohort, and Anthony Smith, a member of the Emergent Village Coordinating Group, noted that if anything about the emerging church has died, it is the novelty, hype, and commercialism given to it by the Christian publication industry.

“Christian [publishing] took the emerging church from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds,” Park said. On this same note, Rebecca Cynamon-Murphy, co-host of a Chicagoland Emergent cohort, said that “the emerging church has a number of people of privilege, and the Christian publishing companies handed the keys over to them.” According to Cynamon-Murphy, this led to difficult choices for those who wished to use the published materials as a means to effect real change. Waning attention from the media could likely prove to be beneficial, said Park, allowing more space for those in the emerging church to “get on with the work.”

Cynamon-Murphy and others, such as Julie Clawson, a member of the Emergent Village Council (Emergent’s leadership group), spoke of changes and shifts occurring within the church, both in its larger sense and in the Emergent context. “The conversation [in the larger church] is shifting from a belief-based system to a relationship-based system,” said Cynamon-Murphy, a perspective she believes matches that of Emergent and which will help bring about real transformation and liberation focused on people of all backgrounds, not only the privileged. In words echoing our own experiences, Clawson noted that the emerging church is moving away from its “initial expression as something cool, fun, and trendy,” and toward the “hard work of building its identity,” which includes recognizing the important role of missions in the life of the church.

So if the emerging church is still alive and well, what is the next milestone on its path? Many feel it’s the difficult and challenging work of racial reconciliation. Melvin Bray, a member of Emergent’s Village Council, discussed the importance of the emerging church working toward a “wider voice [being given to] a wider breadth of people.” More specifically, Bray said that the emerging church should seek to become an agent in “creating opportunities for those who, in the past, have been marginalized.” This would direct the conversation away from being centered “exclusively on a Western theological perspective,” giving those who have long been subordinated to colonialism an opportunity to “deconstruct non-helpful religious constructs” and engage God in their own ways.

In talking about racial reconciliation, Anthony Smith said there is a difference between racial diversity and racial justice. Simply including people from ethnic minorities in events and leadership positions is not enough. Doing so may create the appearance of racial diversity, but this would only be a surface solution. Instead, the emerging church must engage in what Smith calls “racial penance,” a situation in which there is true justice between people of different ethnicities, allowing the church to “get rid of Western, white captivity.” Smith said that “friendship is important for repentance” and that “isolation is dangerous.”

The way these concepts are communicated—especially to younger people—is very important, according to Alise Barrymore, pastor of a self-identified emerging church called the Emmaus Community. Specifically, said Barrymore, the emerging church needs to offer “new language and tools to help the next generations understand church.” This, combined with the drive for racial reconciliation and justice, will be crucial for ethnic churches such as the African-American church, which places high value on “negotiating the [role] of race.” Failure to effectively engage individual cultures on their own terms will result in “not translating ideas into language that is accessible and understandable to others,” said Clawson, creating a barrier to the spiritual and social progress the emerging church seeks.

An Emerging Future?
Members of the Emergent movement are optimistic that a more ethnically diverse and inclusive future is possible. Has there been a shift in Emergent? One of the major developments in recent years is that the more visible faces and names from the early years have moved on from leadership in the emerging church, and Emergent Village is now in the process of building an identity that doesn’t rely on these well-known people.

If the white male locus of Emergent is truly passé, then Emergent has the opportunity to become a part of the larger stream of the real emerging church. If the label of the emerging church is to have a future, then the term needs to be reclaimed and disassociated from the specific brand of Emergent, and applied much more broadly to the church around the world.

The burgeoning church is not just a small sliver of American Christianity; rather, it must be seen in the context of a larger movement of God on a global scale. The real emerging church is global and multi-ethnic—and a truly international, truly diverse emerging church has great potential to bring about authentic, deep revival to the world.

Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson associate professor of church growth and evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago and the author of The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. Jason Mach is a student at North Park Theological Seminary.

What is the Emerging Church?
On its face, the emerging church is a decentralized Christian movement exploring what it means to follow Jesus in our postmodern age.

Since it is cross-denominational and cross-cultural, however, expressions of emergence vary widely, encompassing everything from evangelical conversations about being culturally relevant to mainline liturgical renewals, from a rediscovery of social justice among suburban Christians to new monastic communities among the urban poor, from provocative theological discussions to postcolonial reconciliation movements (to name just a few). These culturally and theologically diverse streams are discovering together how to move the faith forward into the 21st century.

Transparently open-sourced, the emerging conversation includes anyone who desires to lend her voice to it. Emergent Village serves as one facilitator of this conversation, resourcing and connecting people to the diversity of emerging voices worldwide.

Theological discussions sparked by leaders in Emergent are often met with controversy, especially when they challenge traditional Western assumptions about the gospel and encourage the voices of women and other cultural minorities. Nevertheless, both Emergent and the broader emerging movement are navigating what it means to practice sustainable faith in a globalized and postmodern/postcolonial world, and hopefully helping the church universal better understand and celebrate the beautiful plurality of Christian expressions worldwide.

Julie Clawson is author of Everyday Justice and a member of the Emergent Village Council.

Overcoming Resistance
I’m glad that Soong-Chan Rah and Jason Mach have addressed some important questions about this wide-ranging phenomenon known as emerging church. I might address a few small details differently. For example, while I’m very happy to see that many new churches are being planted, for a lot of reasons I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to brand and count them as “emerging” or “emergent” or whatever. What’s far more significant to me are wide-ranging changes in outlook among a wide range of leaders in both new and existing churches—Catholic, mainline Protestant, Pentecostal, evangelical, etc.

But small quibbles aside, I am in full agreement that we need to understand the real story in terms of a shift away from white, Western, male hegemony and homogeneity. For many years I’ve believed that “the postmodern conversation” in the West was one side of the coin, and the more interesting side was the postcolonial conversation arising in the global South.

To me, deep, theological conversations about the shape and purpose of the gospel, along with issues of justice—racial, environmental, and economic—are far more urgent and important than arguments about what goes on in church services, as valuable as church services are. The way forward must involve—and not just in a token way—exactly the kind of diversity Soong-Chan and Jason call for. The systemic resistance to this diversity is subtle but strong, and its consequences are sad. Many of us have been working quietly behind the scenes in hopes that this resistance can, by God’s grace, be overcome.

Brian McLaren’s most recent book is A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith.

A Broken Church, Renewed
The church at its best is a messed-up, broken witness to the grace of God, and at its worst a suffocating, power-seeking, patriarchal, and divisive body. If the emerging church reflects some of the values of the “capitalist entertainment empire,” it also has generated an enormous amount of creativity and freedom to question structures and texts and power. Certainly other communities all over the world are generating similar freedoms.

The church I serve is diverse. The congregants are old and young, from Catholic, mainline, fundamentalist, and atheist backgrounds, gay, straight, working class, intellectual, Buddhist, Quaker, drunks, in recovery, artists, and musicians. They are square, circular, zigzag, hyphenated, and occasionally Republican.

Despite these differences, there is a commonality to the people who end up at our church as well. They are usually not wealthy. They tend to question a lot about mainstream society. They are often of European descent. I would not hold us up as the face of the future of American Christianity. That would be silly, scary, and boring. Every manifestation of the church reflects some of the aberrations and illusions of the culture it lives in. Hopefully it also reflects the entirely life-giving love of God.

Debbie Blue is pastor of House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota and author of Sensual Orthodoxy.

Is the Emerging Church for Whites Only? By Soong-Chan Rah and Jason Mach, with responses by Julie Clawson, Brian McLaren, and Debbie Blue. Sojourners Magazine, May 2010 (Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 16). Cover.

Each time he was struck, his hat would naturally fall off his head. Each time his hat fell, the reporter would bend over, pick it up, put it back on his head, and continue walking.

I imagine he was afraid. I imagine he knew how situations like this usually ended in the South. I imagine he knew attempting to run away or fight back would not help and would compromise the reason he was there in the first place. I imagine he realized the only thing in his control was his own response, and he decided to not let the hatred of the mob change him. He walked at a normal pace. He stopped to pick up his hat.

In a sense, I believe those few seconds of footage sum up the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans decided to stop waiting and to live as equals, patiently enduring the consequences as the rest of their brothers and sisters caught up to them. I believe God has called the church to live with such patient endurance as well, to be people who can sense the hatred in the world around us, but not let it change us even when it threatens our well-being. I believe we are called to be people who can, even with a mob breathing down our necks, walk with quiet dignity, stopping to pick up our hats along the way.

Do you think it is ok (or possible) to be a consumer about your next church selection but not necessarily be a consumer about the gospel (picking and choosing what you desire most)?  How do you think online reviews for churches affect the gospel that is being preached in these churches vying for a 4 star rating? Bottom line: What are the implications of this?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125394718&sc=emaf

The problem that we have with being the guy “down in the mud” is two-fold: 1) No one likes being the “messy” guy – it’s hard on our self-image. 2) Letting people see you “in the mud” conflicts with the conditioning we have received from society, including the church. The church tends to make everything a technique for ministry and “message transfer.” Accordingly, the ultimate goal of the Christian life is to be spiritually “competent”…but never “muddy.” But relationality , “being with” and “being for” one another, is not a technique. Relationships and sharing life with one another, even  ”life in the mud”, is God’s outline for Christian life and spirituality. Some people in this community would go so far as to say that relationality is the outline of God’s very own existence – the trinity (hmmm).

We must keep in mind that every encounter we have with another person will always involve a certain risk. One of the biggest risks for us is in our confession – confession that we are presently hurt, struggeling, fearful, confused, sinful, and “muddy.”  Henri Nouwen reminds us that Christian community is a “shared life” experience.  But what exactly do we share with each other?  According to Nouwen, community that is “Christian” is grounded in the experience of a shared brokeness (confession) and a shared hope.  These two things: brokeness (confession), and hope go together and must never be separated from each other.  Hope without brokeness (confession) is blind optimism and leads to slogans and “winning formulas.” Brokeness without hope is also blind and too easily leads to despair; for we should never seek to judge ourselves outside of Jesus Christ, who is our hope.

This is all counter-intuitive to our logic and our habits – we share our brokeness with one another and in so doing we experience a profound sense of hope.  Why is that?  Why do we experience hope just by showing each other our private “messes”?  The answer has something to do with the fact that Christ loves us “as we are” and not “as we should be.”  In other words, Jesus doesn’t love our “virtual selves”or our “idealized selves”, but our “real” selves.  Why is it so hard to admit to someone that we fall short of God’s laws and our personal standards?  Could it be that we have wrongly assumed that mature Christians don’t get “muddy”?  Could it be that we have lost the practice of modeling authenticity with the people we live with?

i am a little church (no great cathedral)

These wounds become his glory
From the wound in his side flowed the waters that vivify
and heal us.
Through his wounds we are healed.

Jesus invites each one of us, though Thomas,
to touch not only his wounds,
but those wounds in others and in ourselves,
wounds that can make us hate others and ourselves
and can be a sign of separation and division.
These wounds will be transformed into a sign of forgiveness
through the love of Jesus
and will bring people together in love.
These wounds reveal that we need each other.
These wounds become the place of mutual compassion,
of indwelling
and of thanksgiving.

We, too, will show our wounds
when we are with him in the kingdom,
revealing our brokenness
and the healing power of Jesus.

My interest here isn’t to join the fray.  Though it troubles me the lack of discernment shown by some Christians with this, it’s become clear Beck is wading into unfamiliar waters and making a fool of himself in the process.  Even leaders of Beck’s Mormon church have called Wallis to apologize for Beck’s uninformed statements.  My interest is instead to explore what I believe is really at issue here, but to my knowledge overlooked by commentators: the political nature of the church.

It’s become a truism that the church is not political and moreover should not be political.  When the church and state are not kept separate, the logic goes, both the church and state suffer.  The problem, I believe, is not that the church has become too political, but rather that the church in America is suffering because it has not been political enough.  The church is itself a political body with its own brand of politics, and this politics has been largely forgotten and replaced by the world’s politics.

One key part of the church’s politics is the church’s unity.  The church is to be one, in complete unity.  This unity goes deeper than any loyalty to blood relations, any patriotic sentiment, or any political ideology, and it shows the world that the Son and the Father are one (Jn 17).  I’m convinced that one of the best ways to spot idols in the church is to see what divides us.  If we are divided by anything but the essential truths of the Christian faith, we are in effect placing whatever divides us over our loyalty to Christ and so each other.  We may not do this intentionally, and we may even have the best of intentions for doing so, but by dividing ourselves we are implying that what divides us is more important to us than the unity of Christ’s body.

This is, in my estimation, the danger of what Beck has called for.  Not so much that he denies social justice as being a part of the gospel (although I’d strongly disagree with him there), but that his statements imply that political views are more important than church unity.  The world is divided by languages, religions, race, politics, and, our most recent invention, the nation-state.  But Christ has shattered each of these dividing walls of hostility through His death and resurrection (Eph 2).  In a constantly warring world, Christ is our peace.  The peace Christ has created shows the world that division is not apart of God’s plan, and that something is more important than the world’s political games: that the Father and the Son are one.

That being said, the story of William Wallace has for centuries been been more “legendary” than historical. The story of the “legend of William Wallace” exploded onto our cultural landscape as Mel Gibson’s, BraveHeart.  Gibson’s Wallace was a revolutionary leader characterized by fearlessness, self-sacrifice and a single-minded vision.  Wallace was committed to one thing and one thing only, the freedom of Scotland from British rule and tyranny.  Wallace as BraveHeart was such a heroic figure, and his battle for freedom is such a compelling story, that it’s easy to overlook the critical sub-plot to the film.

The sub-plot centers on the struggles of a certain Scottish Lord who is the heir to the throne of Scotland, Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce is a gifted and capable leader. He admires Wallace and he is devoted to Scotland, but unlike Wallace, he lacks the single-minded vision. Wallace is “black and white” and does not entertain compromise. In contrast to Wallace, the Bruce is cautious, calculating, and at times, conflicted. Robert the Bruce wants to be like Wallace; he wants to lead his people to freedom, but tragically, in a moment of weakness, he ends up betraying Wallace in order to cut a deal with the the king of England.

One of the reasons that I love this film so much is that I really identify with the character, Robert the Bruce, and his struggle for integrity. Like the Bruce, I too admire Wallace for his courage, his passion, and his uncompromising nature, but the reality is that like the Bruce, my life falls well short of the heroic and legendary.  I admire the “legend” of William Wallace, but I relate to the story of Robert the Bruce, the man who is still very much in the process of trying to close the gap between his ideas and his actions. I relate to the man who is tired of living constrained by the fears and cynicism of the people around him. In a powerful and defining scene (I couldn’t find that clip), the Bruce’s father is chiding his son saying,”All men lose heart, all men betray”, but Robert the Bruce shouts back at him, “I DON’T WANT TO LOSE HEART!!!”  Who among us can’t relate to that struggle?

Historically, as well as in the last scene of the film, Robert the Bruce eventually led Scotland into several strategic battles, which led to Scotland’s freedom and to his ascendancy to the throne.  The following clip is a scene that shows some of the contrast between the two men; Wallace confronts the Bruce’s political equivocations, and he challenges him to take his rightful place as the leader and the King of Scotland.

Year          Income          Expenses          To the Poor
1                 47.40          44.24 (93%)          3.16 (7%)

2                94.80          44.24 (47%)          50.56 (53%)

3               142.40         44.24 (31%)           97.96 (69%)

4               189.60         44.24 (23%)         145.36 (77%)

Later      2212.00         47.40 (2%)         2164.40 (98%)

Wallis urged us to re-consider the concept of common grounds: sharing space and ownership and re-establishing what he termed, the “new old values”—values such as “enough is enough”, and drawing from the Native American value of measuring the impact we have today by the impact it will have seven generations from now. He challenged us to ask, “how will this crisis change us”, rather than, “when will this crisis end?”

This said economic crisis could be, if we are wise, humble and teachable, an opportunity. Yet if we close our hearts, imaginations and minds, it could be a long-term disaster, only to be repeated years later. I’m not going to pretend I am a financial or economic expert. I am a 28-year old who has been in school pretty much my whole life, and am currently living off a part-time job and school loans. My experience of the housing market is writing a rent check every month. That said, all this talk about the financial crisis makes me feel a bit oblivious. However, I do know that this crisis, regardless how much one understands the technicalities, must wake us—me–up in some capacity. As Wallis challenged, what do we do when the “invisible hand” lets go? This is a brilliant time when, as Christ followers, we have the opportunity to stand apart and offer our communities another way.

As Christians, the way we “do business”, the way we invest, what we invest in, and how we invest (be it our time, energy, money, resources, relationships) must reflect kingdom values. These values are those of solidarity, community, unity, self-sacrifice and humility—values that are sadly the opposite of what too many Christians are currently operating under in our country. I wholeheartedly believe that we must do everything with intention, because whether we realize it or not, everything we do sends a message and affects our community. We must be aware of this. Rather than looking out for our own best interest, how would our economy look today if we first looked out for the interest of the other? And isn’t that a Biblical mandate anyway?

As Wallis put well: instead of keeping up with the Jones’, we should check and see if the Jones’ are ok. This is what both Wallis and our upcoming conference on April 10^th address: building community not on hand outs, charity, or quick fixes, but on costly relationships and kingdom values in which both the poor and the rich need and empower one another in Christ.

We who prayed and wept
for liberty from kings
and the yoke of liberty
accept the tyranny of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.

Those who will not learn
in plenty to keep their place
must learn it by their need
when they have had their way
and the fields spurn their seed.
We have failed Thy grace.
Lord, I flinch and pray,
send Thy necessity.

In a world full of salesmen, where everything seems to be an advertisement for one thing or another, the interrelated questions of sincerity and character often seem to be fading in significance.  We are a people who have forgotten who we really are behind our own sales-pitches.

The film “The Big Kahuna” makes my list for its focus on the question of sincerity and character, as shown in the following clip alone.  The story follows three salesman who are on the road, waiting to make a sales pitch to the CEO of a large company.  Tension builds as the young, pious baptist unknowingly befriends the CEO, but rather than talking business, asks the CEO about his faith before sharing his own belief in Jesus.

I’ll let the clip speak for itself, but it makes me wonder how often the church is guilty of adding to the noise, as the young, baptist salesman is accused of doing.  In a world so full of people just waiting for their turn to speak, and usually speaking in order to sell you something, I wonder whether the church might better witness to Christ by simply taking a step back and listening.  Or perhaps listening and asking the right questions, questions that give people space to think about what is going on in their life, what is truly important, and who they are.  That moment of silent receptivity may be what people need in order to then hear what is being said.  I’m beginning to think the most “prophetic” possible act in our culture may be to simply slow down and listen to the voices usually drowned out by the noise, including the honest songs of birds.

I also think the film is brilliant for connecting sincerity to character.  Our culture tries to produce artificial character instantaneously like we would a twinkie.  As a consequence, one usually gets a reputation for being of good character more often than not by just hiding their s@%& better than average.  One of my favorite line from the film is when Phil tells Bob, “I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret, you just don’t know what they are. [Character] is when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you’ve done, and you wish that you had it to do over, but you know you can’t, because it’s too late.”

The more years I have under my belt, the more I screw up and the less excuses I have.  At the same time, the more I realize what true wisdom means, what character means.  If such a simplistic division can be made by someone as young as myself, I think the first half of your life is spent learning to be honest with yourself about who you are, and the second half is spent learning to be okay enough about it to open yourself to God and a community.  Character, then, is the honesty that comes from humility, the humility that comes from honesty.

I decided not to take the time to organize my thoughts better, hopefully the big picture behind the disconnected thoughts makes sense.  Go rent the movie, whoever produced it deserves a little of your money.

While I was writing about the first film on the list, the video (at the bottom of the post) of Mark Driscoll’s comments on “Avatar” during a sermon came to my attention.  Instead of spending much time criticizing it, I’ll just present it below and add that, based on Driscoll’s criteria for accusing “Avatar” of being demonic, “The Lord of the Rings” series should be seen as an equally pagan, modernist-industry bashing movie that hooked audiences through special effects.  Hopefully the absurdity here is evident.  Especially since it seems to go against some of Driscoll’s own comments concerning cultural engagement.

Though he may not appreciate the category, Mark Driscoll is, here in this one video clip, a poignant example of someone who is taking a “Worldview Approach” to cultural engagement.  He sees the world as a battleground between competing worldviews.  One convinces another to become a Christian by pointing out the flaws in their worldview and demonstrating the reasonableness of their own.  Part of a pastor’s job is to attack worldviews that may be influencing his flock.

Another typical evangelical method of engaging culture is known as the “Market-Driven Approach,” or also the “attractional model.”  In this method, one sees what is culturally popular and attempts to use that as bait to draw people in.  For example, there is (was?) a church in Chicago that regularly has a raffle for cash prizes (with the “Price is Right” music playing in the background, nonetheless) during services in order to attract people to attend their church.  There’s nothing more popular than money, and as long as it gets people in the door…

The last method I wish to highlight is what New Wine tries to espouse, however unsuccessfully, the “Incarnational Approach.”  The Incarnational Approach (also known as missional), looks to build relationships in the community.  While hopefully also showing the reasonableness and attractiveness of the faith, one simply loves other people in word (and so verbal evangelism is not left behind) and in deed.  Despite the fact that this seems to more closely resemble Jesus’ and the apostles’ ministry, people are rarely argued into a different position anyway (especially emotionally laden beliefs like religion or politics), and rarely stick around when the “raffle” is over.

I hope the following series will be an imperfect example of how the church can engage the arts, and specifically films, in an incarnational way.  I hope it shows how each of these films get at profound questions that the gospel is dying to answer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ

The title of the first entry, “Repentance”, is written by Kathleen Norris, a teacher who teaches parochial grade school.  Ms. Norris, in seeking to expose her students to the spiritual and poetic wealth found in the Hebrew Psalter, gave her class the assignment of writing their own personal psalm.  One psalm in particular stood out to Kathleen. It was the psalm of a little boy titled, “The Monster Who Was Sorry.”

“He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him: his response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town.  The poem concludes: ‘Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all that.”

I just love that little poem.  Why do I love the poem of the little “monster” so much?  I love it for the same reason that Ms. Norris loved it. I love it for its honesty, “the emotional directness”, and I love it for the subtle yet powerful lessons that it teaches us about repentance, an often misunderstood spiritual practice.

There are several lessons from “the psalm of the monster” (not surprisingly these lessons are found in the biblical variety as well).  First, it teaches us that people who practice repentance have this defining trait: they are “messy.”  The problem of course, is nobody wants to be “messy.”  Why do we have such a hard time with this – the fact that in God’s economy it really is okay to be messy?  This should be obvious: only “messy” people need to “clean up”.  Doesn’t the Bible say something like, “for all of us are messy and no one is clean, no not one”?

The second lesson from “the monster” is that it’s not enough to just be messy – you also have to be honest, and not just with yourself.  People who practice repentance are honest with themselves and with at least one other person (the monster wrote a poem for others to read).   Repentance is a process that begins with an honest assessment, which leads to a confession – “I’m angry”, “I’m hurting”, “I’m tired of living with the pigs.”

The third lesson on repentance comes from the closing thoughts of Kathleen Norris who writes, “If that boy had been a novice in the fourth-century monastic desert, his elders might have told him that he was well on the way toward repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human.” Like Aslan in, “The Silver Chair”, Jesus doesn’t give up on his children even when they turn into “monsters”, but like Aslan with Eustace, Jesus comes to the rescue of the boy trapped behind the “scales of the dragon”, and he patiently works at setting him free.

Repentance does not erase our sins, for only Christ can do that, but it does help us to recognize the “mess” we are in.  We are so easily deluded by our own assessment of things and confession breaks the spell of our denial, our delusions and our “blind spots.”  Confession puts us on the path of discovery, where we discover that if our room really is “messy”, perhaps it could be cleaned. Perhaps it could be a room we could be comfortable sharing with others . . . maybe even with God.

Here’s to all you “monsters” out there – Have a happy and penitent Lenten season!

C

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only a shade,

and once more I am blessed, choosing
again what I once chose before.

“Clarence, I can’t do that.  You know my political aspirations.  Why, if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I’ve got.”

“We might lose everything too, Bob” [his brother Clarence replied.]

“It’s different for you.”

“Why is it different?  I remember, it seems to me, that you and I joined the church the same Sunday, as boys.  I expect when we came forward the preacher asked me about the same question he did you.  He asked me, ‘Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?’  And I said, ‘Yes.’  What did you say?”

“I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point.”

“Could that point by any chance be – the cross?”

“That’s right.  I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross.  I’m not getting myself crucified.”

“Then I don’t believe you’re a disciple.  You’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his.  I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to, and tell them you’re an admirer not a disciple.”

“Well now, if everyone who felt like I do did that, we wouldn’t have a church, would we?”

“The question is, ‘Do you have a church?’”

I want to affirm the sanctity of human life, and so I appreciate Tim Tebow’s concerns and his desire to do something with his faith. Not having seen the commercial, I cannot speak directly to it. However, while I affirm Tim Tebow’s zeal to speak out on this issue, and while finding the personal story of his birth significant, I do wonder about the approach. In other words, affirming the sanctity of human life is a great message, but is the Super Bowl a good venue? Will the commercial help move the discussion of the sanctity of human life forward, or will it simply serve to raise the volume on the culture war rhetoric from various sectors?

We should also ask about what is to be made of the use of celebrities in this discussion? Is this how we make our views as conservative Christians credible, as we seek to exist and thrive in a secular world that does not affirm our values? Are we saying that Jesus needs celebrities? The Apostle Paul talks of how God often uses the weak and foolish things to present the power and wisdom of the Gospel. We are attracted to high profile impact, but is it also long-term and deep-seated impact? Christian Scripture promotes saints, not celebrities. While there are many wonderful collegiate and professional Christian athletes, they must make sure that they serve as witnesses to Jesus, pointing beyond themselves to him (like John the Baptist, who said that Jesus must become greater and he himself must become less) rather than drawing people to themselves.

Evangelical Christianity is close to popular culture, and often makes use of popular culture (such as sports) to share about the faith. While Christian Scripture does talk of sports and athletics, and while sports is very prominent in American culture and so provides a very visible forum for engagement, we still need to ask about the effectiveness of using professional sports for conveying our faith. For example, what are we to make of all the violence and materialism associated with professional sports? Sports as a vehicle of communication is not neutral, and it is not always pure. At the very least, I would hope that professional (and collegiate) Christian athletes would address these subjects, too. It would also be wise for them to acknowledge Jesus when their teams lose. Otherwise, are we saying that Jesus is only with the winners, and not the losers? Wouldn’t that be a form of prosperity gospel thinking?

As an evangelical Christian, I affirm sharing the good news of Jesus Christ publically. Yet public witness must be done thoughtfully and sensitively. We want to engage people from other sectors, not disengage them in our public witness. As part of our public witness, it is wise that we enter into discussion with other groups, since it is not simply what we say but also what we communicate that matters. Other groups can help us to perceive what we are actually communicating. Sound-bite, bumper sticker Christianity and Decal Jesus can appear shallow and simplistic—quickly uttered and quickly stripped away (being only decal deep), failing to communicate the richness, depth, and wisdom of the Christian faith.

Lastly, we’ve seen the conservative Christian movement make use of Christian celebrities previously. It does not always turn out so well. Will the conservative Christian public be there to pick Tim Tebow up if and when he falters and falls (and hopefully he won’t), or will we leave our celebrity in the dirt to be soiled by the late night talk show hosts of this world?

You can learn a lot about the relation of American religion and sports from journalist Tom Krattenmaker. You can also learn a lot about Tom Krattenmaker from his personal story with American religion and sports.

So, who is Tom Krattenmaker? Tom serves as a member of USA TODAY’s editorial Board of Contributors and writes regularly for the paper’s “On Religion” commentary page. In addition to authoring the controversial book on American Evangelicalism and sports, Onward Christian Athletes: Turning Ballparks into Pulpits and Players into Preachers (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2010), his article, “The Evangelicals You Don’t Know” (USA Today, Opinion, June 2, 2008), received critical acclaim as one of the top three pieces of religion commentary in the American Academy of Religion’s 2009 Journalism Awards program.

Dr. Metzger asked Tom for an interview to discuss his journey into the realm of American religion and sports as well as his own faith journey. What makes Tom especially interesting is that he is a reporter who positions himself as a member of the religious and cultural left (attending a Unitarian Universalist Church and serving as Vice-President for Public Affairs and Communications at Lewis and Clark College), who engages American Evangelicalism fairly, openly, and insightfully. Here’s what Evangelical leader Kevin Palau, Executive Vice President of the Luis Palau Association, has to say about Tom and his work. “Tom Krattenmaker—in my opinion—is one of the most informed and relevant writers on the Evangelical movement today. His critique is fair and his knowledge is impressive.” No doubt, some of his insights and expertise in this area derive from Tom experiencing numerous courtships with Evangelicalism over the years, including flings with Young Life and Campus Crusade for Christ. None of these flings with Evangelical Christianity stuck, but his fascination with the movement has not diminished.

Check out this audio clip from the interview. Stay tuned for the whole interview, appearing in Cultural Encounters Volume 6, Number 1.

The culture wars have entered the economic realm. What are your thoughts? If you, like me, feel this is wrong-headed for a variety of reasons, then why? What may be a better way to engage this issue?

It’s a clip of Sir Ken Robinson, an “internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources”. He claims that we get educated out of our creative capacity, and that  ”if we’re not prepared to be wrong, we will never come up with anything original.” Very interesting.

There are more clips of him on U Tube if you are interested.

What do you think about what he has to say as it relates to us being made in the image of an infinitely creative God?

Why do you think creativity is more and more being pushed out or undermined in our society and educational systems if it is indeed part of our core identity?

Since my conversation with Guillermo I have taken that question to prayer two or three times now. Just yesterday I was feeling really pinned down, really discouraged and I eventually made it to ”the closet” for some heavenly dialogue.

“Lord, do you understand my plight?  I feel so pinned down by my own ‘wrongness’ and there is no where to go?  I feel trapped!”

Just then I had this thought  that I needed to press further with my question - I needed to press the point until I had expelled every last bit of bile and angst from my soul.  I framed another question for God. 

“Lord, are you the one behind this?  Are you the one pinning me down?”

With each question I went deeper down into the chasm, the chasm which exposed the ”badlands” of my soul but there was still yet one more question to be asked.  One more question before I reached the bottom  of the chasm . . .  

“Lord, will you be my ‘wrongness’?   Will you be my ‘rejection’?”  

With that final question I knew that I had put it all on the altar and this was my ”bottom line” with God.  And though I didn’t see or hear heavenly “thunder and lightening”, there was an unmistakable sense that I was being heard. No sooner had I finished asking , ”Lord, will you be my ‘wrongness’?” I immediately knew the answer to the question.   I knew it like the Slumdog kid knew the answer to those first eight questions.  The answer was so simple and yet so totally mind-blowing. 

“That’s who I am for you.”

Until that moment in the closet, I knew that Jesus was the one who “takes away the sin of the world” but I did not appreciate how he does it – and how he does it for me.  I have come to discover that Jesus doesn’t bear our burdens from a remote location as though he was operating some kind of ‘cosmic crane’.  Jesus Christ does not deal with us in the abstract.  Jesus deals with us personally and therefore,  when he ”takes away” our sin and our sorrow he does it by “taking it on” himself.

“Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows.” Isa. 53:4 

My desire in sharing this experience with you wasn’t to provide you with a “sweet devotional” but rather toopen a dialogue, “Who is Christ for us today?”  Biblical scholarship is a gift to the community of faith but thankfully, you don’t need a theological degree to care about this topic or engage this thread (thank God!).  You no more have to be a theologian to care about God than you need to be a botanist to enjoy flowers.  So for you churched-unchurched-lapsed-devout-mystical-skeptical-biblical-W-loving-Obama adoring-politics-loathing-young-middle-age-seniors out there, jump in and extend the thread even if it’s just a short phrase.

New Wine will be hosting a series of “Fireside Chats” beginning November 20th in the A-Frame. Come for prayer, food, and honest dialogue as a panel of speakers involved in the less-than-glamorous work of multi-ethnic integration will answer your questions and address such topics as: What is a multi-ethnic church? How does one create an open space for other cultures and ethnicities? How can Multnomah improve in this crucial area?

New Wine director, Paul Louis Metzger, articulated the vision and passion of New Wine.

New Wine Advisory Council member, Cooky Wall, and New Wine intern, Joe Enlet, spoke of New Wine’s role in their personal commitments to holistic cultural engagement.

Executive Vice President of the Luis Palau Association, Kevin Palau, spoke of how New Wine helped in providing the theological undergirding for the Luis Palau Association’s Season of Service.

That being my highest point, there have been many other intriguing aspects of my experience in America. One of which I would love to reflect on. I call it “the America pull.”

As a person of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, I soon encountered warring forces trying to put me in the categories of “conservative,” “liberal” or “independent”, terms of which I was not familiar with prior to my arrival in the west. In my opinion, “independent” is not a rather appealing bracket because it’s self concerned. I would rather suggest an attitude of interdependence.

Due to this forceful “pull” I was compelled to research and learn more about what appeared to be an American societal, cultural and political identity phenomena. I was genuinely interested because of the common sayings like: “While in Rome, do as the Romans,” or even most inspiring, “I become all things to all men to all men so that by all possible means…” What do these sayings really mean? The question of what I should become, if anything, began bombarding my brain.

Should I become conservative and seek to preserve the best of America’s historic values, promote life that begins at conception, argue against affirmative action, support fiscal responsibility in government, advocate for school vouchers and scream “You lie!” at the President, then raise millions of dollars in campaign contributions? Or should I be liberal, think progressively, de-campaign school vouchers because they are untested experiments, be bold in thinking new unconventional ideas, and protect the environment against the harms of industrial growth (global warming, etc.)?

Would my adaptation of these foreign labels mean working towards being Americanized? Well, how about my African decent…even more so, my identity in Christ? What a dilemma! I wondered as to whether conservatism had a Confucius and liberalism a Nietzsche? Who are the fathers and mothers of these sects?

One source described conservatism as the right wing people who generally like to uphold current conditions and oppose changes, while liberalism as the category on the left where anything goes. I remain puzzled as to why one would desire such labels. Jesus Christ did not espouse any of these identities.

While this grouping many serve to unite some people they also encourage division in the body of Christ. In my opinion, the label conservative can be limiting while liberal may be almost meaninglessly flexible. So I am inclined to the conclusion that these American categories are political terms and to some a form of religion, although unbiblical. These forms of identity are not the way forward to unity, mutuality, and oneness in Christ in any given culture.

“For there is no difference between Jew or Gentile- the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him” (Romans 10: 12). The “pull” to which I belong is self-evident: Christianity! It is simple and not about labels. T.S Eliot defines Christianity perfectly; a life of complete simplicity (costing not less than everything).

“Obviously, my death will justify the opinion of all those who dismissed me as naïve or idealistic: ‘Let him tell us what he thinks now.’ But such people should know that my death will satisfy my most burning curiosity. At last, I will be able – if God pleases – to see the children of Islam as He sees them, illuminated in the glory of Christ, sharing in the gift of God’s passion and of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to bring forth our common humanity amidst our differences.

I give thanks to God for this life, completely mine yet completely theirs, too, to God, who wanted it for joy against, and in spite of, all odds. In this Thank You – which says everything about my life – I include you, my friends past and present…

And to you, too, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing. Yes, for you, too I wish this thank-you, this “A-Dieu,” whose image is in you also, that we may meet in heaven, like happy thieves, if it pleases God, our common Father. Amen! Insha Allah!”

It’s from “Collision” a documentary which follows an atheist and theologian as they debate whether Christianity is good for the world.  What do you think about this clip?

No wonder the book was able to garner such a loyal following among adults and children alike.  What child hasn’t lashed out in anger, finding an uncontrollable “wild” side of themselves?  Who doesn’t remember those strong, confusing feelings of anger and the fear of feeling so out of control?  And, these days, what person hasn’t found themselves struggling with the modern tendency to repress those emotions?  Surely much of the book’s popularity owes to this tendency to dull the extremes of our emotional experiences through willful ignorance or self-medication.

Christians especially seem to find themselves prey to such repression, fearing that expressing negative emotions somehow betrays a lack of faith or goes against the biblical admonition to be joyful in all circumstances, as if we can trick God with a fake smile.  We forget that hope and despair are both ultimately longings for a new creation, longings for peace, justice, and the presence of God in a God-forsaken world.  The opposite of hope is not despair.  The opposite of hope is the unthinking acceptance of the status quo.  In a world full of sin and suffering, surrounded by resigned realists and head-in-the-sand hedonists, for the Christian to long for a better world, to be angry at injustice, to grieve over his or another’s loss, to cry out from the depths of abandonment and despair can be acts of profound faith in the God who promises to make all things new.

But we tend to skip over such emotions just as we skip over the Psalms that express such emotions (Ps 88 is especially challenging in this regard).  We are frightened at times by what we may find if we were to open our hearts and allow the Spirit to plumb its depths.  Too often this pseudo-piety betrays our own desire to hold on to the perceived possibilities of this world and to maintain some semblance of still having control.  But God Himself calls us to struggle and to long for the impossibile possibilities of His promises.  He calls us to hold Him accountable, like Abraham, Moses, and the psalmists, expressing even our anger, as numerous psalms show, when things don’t seem to go right while still trusting Him in faith.  He calls us to stop numbing the pain and ignoring the suffering of ourselves and others, and to experience the depths of our own suffering and, in so doing, open ourselves to the new life available to us through His grace.  A grace that listens to the cries of pain and longing, that meets us where we are in our anger, frustration, and despair, because through His Son, God has already experienced the full extent of our suffering and then some.

At the end of the movie Max misses his family and returns home.  He finds his mother joyful over his return, giving him a hug and a hot bowl of soup.  We can expect as much from our heavenly Mother.

My wife and I recently watched a news show that took us “Inside the White House” – a day in the life kind of expose on the Obama’s and their staff. It was really interesting but there was this one interview that stuck with me and it wasn’t with the President or the First Lady. It was with a woman who worked in Michelle Obama’s personal office in the White House as her personal secretary. I don’t recall her name but I remember her story. She explained that while the Obama’s were campaigning in her home town she was one of the many volunteers who assisted Mrs. Obama and taxied her around town.

The woman in the interview went on to describe the day she received a phone call from Michelle Obama, who was now the First Lady, asking her to join her staff. It came as bolt out of the blue and with that one phone call, her life magically transformed – she had been given a seat in the most powerful and prestigious institution in the country, the White House. This show happened to intersect me at a unique time and forgive me for not giving more background but here was my un-edited reaction to what I just described:

“Hey Lord, I have been part of your election campaign since the day I met you. I’ve given you my best time and energy for decades now (I just turned 42). I’ve helped organize, set up and break down countless rallies and events for you. I have made thousands of phone calls, held hundreds of grass-roots meetings in my home. I’ve donated money for the cause; I’ve even traveled to other countries as your good-will ambassador. And after twenty years of working the campaign trail for you I’ve got to ask you…

How come we never win? I’m getting the feeling that you don’t really care about getting elected. But you see, Lord, the problem is I was kind of counting on it. I was hoping that after your landslide victory that you would remember me and all the hard work I’ve put in for you. I guess I’m a little burned to see that lady sitting in the White House office after just her first campaign run. I guess I’m getting tired of working the trail and never attending an inaugural ball. I guess I was hoping that when you finally took office that you’d give me a cabinet post in your administration and a seat at your right hand…I guess I was wrong.”

This article presents a somewhat different viewpoint than what New Wine presented at the conference.  I agree with some of what he’s trying to get at, but have a little trouble with some of his conclusions.  Thoughts?

And it does include both St. Francis and evangelism, so it’s officially a series on the New Wine blog.

John Morehead of the Western Institute for Intercultural Studies

Milan Homola of Compassion Connect and Alyssa Agee of Second Stories

Mike Abbaté, author of Gardening Eden and Rusty Pritchard of Flourish

Tony Kriz and Dan Merchant of Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

Now leprosy may not quite be the socially divisive scourge it was then, but since moving to Portland, I’ve noticed an ironically similar tendency in myself and others. It seems that the wider church (or at least traditionalist and seeker-sensitive churches) have become lepers of sorts for more “missional” or “emergent” churches. And bashing the church has become a method of evangelism. In fact, I’ve seen several churches that seem to include an antipathy towards the wider church as part of their very identity as a church community, if I can be forgiven the obvious hypocrisy in such an observation. Rarely a church service goes by for these churches that they do not pat themselves on the back for not being apart of the Religious Right.

One of the main reasons for the criticism is the seeker-sensitive or attractional model so popular in the wider church, a model that has a tendency to increase one church’s numbers at the expense of other churches in the area and at the expense of the church’s wider mission. But by distancing ourselves from the wider church, we’re not only guilty of the same crime, we’re taking it to a whole new level! We’re now throwing the whole church, rather than just a few local churches, under the bus for the sake of our evangelistic efforts (and sometimes… just maybe… for the sake of our pride). Instead of hiring a U2 knock-off as a worship band or building a multi-million dollar church building, we attract people by telling them, “We’re just like you: we don’t like those guys (conservatives, complementarians, republicans, dispensationalists, etc.) either.”

Rather than admitting that we in the church are all a messy mix of broken people still in need of God’s grace, we like to distance ourselves from those who are different, even within the church and even though we hardly have things together either. But whether we’re focused on distancing ourselves from homosexuals or homophobes, the effect is ultimately the same: a distorted gospel and a hindered witness. We could all be reminded that the church’s unity will itself show the world that Jesus was sent by God (John 17:23). All this isn’t to say that there isn’t a place for criticism (Jesus’ criticism was mainly directed to the religious conservatives of His day), but to question how we go about it (first of all, we’re not Jesus and we’re not perfect either) and to question where we find our identity (in the church or a theology/ideology).

And so, I must ask myself and these well meaning churches: would you kiss Joel Osteen? Pat Robertson? Glenn Beck? What about good ole W.? And before any fundies get too excited, would you kiss Obama? Greg Boyd? How about Rob Bell right in the middle of one of his… patented… pauses… for… effect?

This jam-packed day of thoughtful enrichment included presentations, workshops, and panels by Paul Louis Metzger (New Wine, New Wineskins, Multnomah Biblical Seminary at Multnomah University), John Morehead (Western Institute for Intercultural Studies), Rusty Pritchard (Flourish), Mike Abbaté (Urban Design & Planning Director, Gresham), Clark Blakeman (Second Stories), Tony Kriz (New Wine, New Wineskins), Caleb Rosado (Warner Pacific College), Gary Tribbett (Compassion Connect), Brad Harper (New Wine, New Wineskins), Dan Merchant (Lord, Save Us From Your Followers), Cliff Chappell (New Wine, New Wineskins), Steve Baker (Southwest Washington Medical Center), Derek Chinn (New Wine, New Wineskins), Roger Trautmann (Multnomah Biblical Seminary at Multnomah University), Rachel O’Brien (New Wine, New Wineskins) and more!

Click here to see the complete conference schedule.

Click here to see a complete list of workshops offered at the conference.

Conference audio recordings are now available! Click below to download any of the plenary talks, panels, or workshops presented at the conference.

Plenary Session 1
Reframing Gospel Witness: Beyond Ned Flanders and the Fascists with Paul Louis Metzger
NEIGHBOR Subjective Life Spiritualities and Post-Christiandom Missions with John Morehead
NEIGHBORHOOD Neighboring, Community Development, and Sidewalks in the Kingdom with Rusty Pritchard
PUBLIC SQUARE Accountable to God While Answering to the People with Mike Abbaté
Panel with Paul Louis Metzger, Rusty Pritchard, and John Morehead

Workshops 1
NEIGHBOR From Cults to Cultures: Bridges, Grounded, and Transitions as a Case Study in a New Evangelical Paradigm on New Religions with John Morhead
NEIGHBORHOOD Together in Story; Holistic Proclamation with Clark Blakeman
PUBLIC SQUARE The Lost Art of Place-making: What We Build Shapes How We Love with Rusty Pritchard

Plenary Session 2
NEIGHBOR Practicing Faith Together with Tony Kriz
NEIGHBORHOOD From Duality to Oneness: A Fresh Perspective on Neighborhoods with Caleb Rosado
PUBLIC SQUARE Lord, Save Us From Your Followers with Dan Merchant
Panel with Paul Louis Metzger, Roger Trautmann, Tony Kriz, Caleb Rosado, and Dan Merchant

Workshops 2
NEIGHBOR The Life of a Friend: the Dynamics of Verbal and Non-Verbal Evangelism with Tony Kriz
NEIGHBORHOOD Which Way to the Future? with Caleb Rosado
PUBLIC SQUARE I Am Dobson: Converting Societal Structures with Paul Louis Metzger

Workshops 3
NEIGHBOR Won’t You Be My Neighbor? with Ben Malick & Rachel O’Brien, New Wine Interns
NEIGHBORHOOD Uniting to Serve: Churches Working Together to Demonstrate the Love of Christ through Unity and Service with Gary Tribbett
PUBLIC SQUARE Church-Based Medicine for the Underserved, Evangelism, and Engaging the Structures of Healthcare with Steve Baker

Plenary Session 3
Panel with Paul Louis Metzger, Roger Trautmann, Rusty Pritchard, John Morehead, Clark Blakeman, Tony Kriz, Caleb Rosado, Ben Malick, Rachel O’Brien, Ronaldo Sison, Gary Tribbett, Steve Baker, and Brad Harper

It made me think about a conversation I recently had with my dear friend and former New Wine intern, Crystal. We were talking about how dangerous love is—yet it’s something that we all pine for. Odd, isn’t it? Love is the very thing that breaks us down, ruins us, and makes us crazy, pathetic, annoying, delirious and sometimes a bit awkward. We lose our common sense. We forget or misplace our priorities. (I mean, I never do that. But I hear it happens.) We go BLIND over this creepy thing called love. Yet we all want it, and when we get it, we are so “in love” that when the person we love hurts us, we are shocked. Dismayed. Beside ourselves. Our guard was down because, well, we were in love, silly.

Are we all masochists? We are then so surprised that that this beautiful, irresistible love hurt us and we become broken, scarred, terrified.

The crazy thing is, we all love imperfectly. Yet love in this world is not only absolutely necessary and the glue that holds humanity together, but it is also the glue that sticks to our fingers, peels our skin off, and makes us go mad. It’s also a force that, when mismanaged, can turn ugly. It is crazy to me to think that the only love that is perfect and full is our Creator’s love. And this love still sometimes hurts, sometimes shocks, and sometimes hides from us. But it’s the most perfect love we will ever experience. It’s also the perfect love that we must learn from and imitate. God loves recklessly. How are we allowing love to manifest and truly be fostered in our lives?

Loving cautiously to me, is scared, untrusting love. It’s rancid love. I want to step out in faith on love a bit better. I want to know what it’s like to truly love my co-worker who can never seem to utter one positive thing about anyone, bless my roommate who can never seem to grasp that beautiful step of moving the dishes from sink to dishwasher, extend a helping hand to my overwhelmed colleague who, quite frankly, is in way over her head (no, I’m not talking about you) and awkwardly build a relationship with someone who is so different from me I don’t even know where to begin. But again, that requires stepping outside of myself and trusting that love truly does cover a multitude of sins.  I guess my question is, do we really believe this enough to risk allowing this sort of crazy love into our own lives? Or are we trusting more in our own fears, wounds and pride that we are depriving ourselves from experiencing this deep, reconciling love?

Oddly enough, the challenge for me in coming on board with New Wine has not been meeting new people – that’s actually been the easy part and the people in New Wine have been really great to me and my wife.  Being part of New Wine feels refreshing and hopeful but it also feels a little bit like déjà vu and vertigo. I’ll need to explain.  

 When I left LA in December ’07 I left it all behind…    

 I left my hometown of 40 years. I left my remodeled four bedroom house with a Jacuzzi bathtub (I now live in a little house with pealing paint). I left my circle of friends (my band of brothers), my family members including our youngest daughter, and my neighbors of ten years.  And with all of that I’ve left, I confess that the hardest thing I’ve had to leave behind has been my identity, “Pastor Chris”     

Since moving to Portland I have struggled deeply with these issues surrounding identiy, belonging and usefulness and I have been haunted by these questions:  “Will I ever be good again?” ”Am I of any use?” 

I recently discovered that I am not the only one struggleing with these issues of work and soul and in fact, I’m presently sharing this foxhole with two of my new Portland friends, Jeff and Johnny.  Despite the fact that both of these guys are very skilled in their fields, Johnny and Jeff have been working for months now under the stress of impending corporate layoffs and the uncertainty of finding work in this fragile job market- John has been with his company for twenty-five years!  We have a saying among the three of us, “This affects us all, man.” 

With the help of some wonderful people, God has been gradually weaning me off a ”Pastor-Chris Driven Life.” He’s teaching me to look elsewhere for my significance and identity and He’s teaching me to let go of things that I once thought I couldn’t live without. It’s a totally different way of life for me - it’s like I’ve moved to Mars. There is a haunting scene in the movie Schindler’s List that really captures the essence of what I’m talking about. I identify with the man with only one arm who is defending not only his job but his very life as he pleads with the SS officer, “But I am useful!”  (But wait, isn’t our “reason for being” as humans to serve God and be “usefull” to his kingdom?)

This region of soul I’ve just shared with you is not merely “personal” (not just for me) but it’s relational.  You see, as we continually allow God to re-orient our “reality”‘; as we learn the difference between living from Love instead of for Love; and as we learn to recieve our identity from a place of “rest” (very counter intuitive isn’t it?),  we will inevitably be confronted with this question: 

Will I now learn to love others…even the ones who don’t appear to be of any real “use” to me?  

 Your thoughts?

Obviously this is a bit of a caricature, but theology does effect how we view the process of evangelism, and in turn how we evangelize.  How might different aspects of the evangelical church’s theology negatively effect how we witness?  How might we improve our sharing of our faith in word and deed?

In today’s world, it indeed takes the eye of faith to see God’s faithfulness to prayer.  For example, disasters, both natural and human-made, do not seem to relent despite the countless prayers of the faithful.  So much suffering seems to stagger on unabated.  Though I believe God does act on prayers, He does not seem to do so often.  Why not?

I believe this problem is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had in mind when, in his Letters and Papers from Prison, he wrote that “God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him.”  Humanity has turned its back on God, and God has granted humanity’s wish by allowing us to live without Him.  God allows Himself, in a certain sense, to be “pushed out of the world.”  To see the suffering in the world is then to see our need of God.  On the other hand, then, to see the one child saved is to see God’s intention for the thousands of others.  That answer will not silence many critics, and will not, in itself, offer much comfort to those in pain.

The Christian response does not end there, however.  As God is pushed out of the world, so God becomes one with us through Jesus Christ.  God is present to us in suffering and weakness because we have rejected His power and strength.  He experiences the struggle of a creation without a Creator, even experiencing the height of our abandonment in His death. As Bonhoeffer continues, “Man’s religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the deus ex machina.  The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help.”

And so, I would add, only the suffering church can help.  Not all of our prayers will be answered, at least not in the ways and with the timing we wish them to be answered.  Not everyone will respond to God’s love.  Not everyone will find their pain eased.  In this sense, we must continue to struggle as those who have pushed God out of the world and so live without Him.  But we can now pray with the knowledge that God is present in our pain and with the hope that God is even now setting things right.  That knowledge should drive us to be present with people in their suffering, to love, serve, and pray for them as Christ loved, served, and prayed for us, no matter the consequences.  Our prayers, then, may not be effective in any immediately perceivable sense, but the ultimate point of prayer is not to be effective.  The point is to be faithfully dependent on the One who will be effective in setting things right.

In the last weeks of summer leading up to 8^th grade, I began thinking about the football practices in 100 degree heat that would accompany going back to school in the fall. I had joined the team mainly because of family pressure, and I was not excited. Although not religious by any stretch, I prayed with all the earnest, melodramatic passion of middle school that God would make the upcoming season worth my while. “Just one touchdown. That’s all it would take. Do it, and I’ll read the whole Bible.”

For the first game of the season my coach put my then 90 lb. body at second-string linebacker. During the second quarter I was thrown into the game, and spent the first two plays running for my life from a lineman twice my size (and age, for that matter) without even feigning an attempt to go after the ball. The third was a pass play, and, forgetting what I was supposed to do on pass defense, I just stood still. The quarterback, perhaps as confused as I was, threw the ball directly at my feet. I caught the pass, ran for my life, and, just barely squeaking into the endzone, scored what ended up being the only points of the game. I then read up to the genealogies in Genesis before abandoning my side of the bargain.

I know it’s a silly thing for God to take action on, and I realize that it’s not even much of a coincidence when you think about it, but that memory still reminds me of God’s faithfulness, even as it makes me wonder about the role of prayer. And I think it’s more than fair to wonder why an all-knowing, all-powerful God listens to prayers, especially trivial and selfish prayers like mine above. I think the answer lies in the nature of the relationship between God and humanity.

The Bible presents the first act of sin in the book of Genesis as an act of autonomy against God, a declaration of independence from God. The following chapters in Genesis then portray a downward spiral, as the order God created under His leadership dissolves into the violence and power-plays stemming from our willful rejection of Him for our own devices. If this is the case, it would make sense that our participation in God’s restoration of peace and order in the world would invovle a constant submission to God’s leadership, a submission expressed in humble prayer. I believe God hears and acts on prayer because it reflects His original intentions that we be dependent on Him, that we put aside our aspirations for power and independence.

Too often our (or at least my) ministry finds its foundations in my own reasoning and devices. When that happens, we easily find ourselves building up our own kingdoms. Instead, the loving service of our neighbors and neighborhoods must find its foundation in humble prayer that acknowledges our dependence on God and asks Him to build His kingdom with us and through us as His servants. And even when our dependent prayers focus less on His kingdom and more on our selves, I believe God in His grace still desires to provide for His children and reward dependence on His provision.

Discussions of prayer usually begin with what is referred to as the Lord’s Prayer, and not without good reason. But if sharing in the sufferings of Christ is central to the spirituality of the New Testament, then I believe the prayers of Jesus from the cross should be the starting point for any discussion of Christian prayer.

“With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.” Mark 15:37

The last prayer of Jesus recorded in Mark’s gospel does not have words. It is an unintelligible cry of abandonment, pain, and desperation. It echoes the prayers of those under oppression, the prayer that God is seemingly most likely to act on (Gen 18:20, Ex 3:7, etc.). In Christ, God shares in our humanity and experiences the pain of His creatures who have chosen to turn their backs on Him. In Christ, God becomes one with us, experiencing both abandonment from the Father and death for us, and cries out to the Father from the depths of that suffering. In short, Jesus’ prayer is a crying out to God both for us and with us.

The prayer that Jesus models, then, is a cry on behalf of and in solidarity with those who are suffering. Though we cannot experience the suffering of others in a literal sense as Jesus did, we can, however, empathize with them in prayer, petitioning God not just by reading off a list of requests, but by allowing our hearts to break for them, and as much as possible, with them. Even though Everett’s prayer in the previous post is theologically flawed in some fairly obvious ways (the characters are kids, after all), he gets at this truth in a poignant way. The prayer that would best provide the foundation for “lifestyle evangelism,” the proclamation of the gospel in word and deed to neighbors and neighborhoods, is the prayer that imitates Jesus by seeking to be on behalf of and in solidarity with others.

“Well,” Everett began, “I warned you it’s stupid. But the other night, after Freddy’s little prayer, I got to thinking about how easy my life is compared to Papa’s. Then I started thinking what a strange notion it is that Jesus supposedly got strung up on a cross to save zillions of other people – as if his one life, in exchange for zillions, was some kind of even trade… It didn’t make much sense to me, really,” Everett said, “but what I thought was: What the hell. If that’s how things actually work, why not propose a similar swap – on a much smaller scale, of course – to help Papa out. Why not ask God, if He exists, to let me do for Papa what Jesus supposedly did for everybody on earth. Why not ask to trade some of my good luck for some of Papa’s bad, just to get his life back on track.”

“That’s not stupid at all,” Peter said.

“I don’t think so either,” I agreed.

“Me neither,” Irwin said. “Except… I don’t quite get it. Yet.”

“The way I see it,” Everett said, “God either made everything there is, Satan included, or He’s nothing. He’s in charge of all of it, or none of it. So what I was thinking about prayer – especially ours lately – was that when people turn it into begging, when they use it to try to blackmail God into giving them nothing but miracles and money and new cars and babies and marriages and all that, what they’re really asking Him is to remake, or even unmake, what He’s already made… so I was gonna propose to God, if there is one, not that He change His will, not that He remake or unmake the life he gave Papa, but just that He hand me enough of the rotten part of Papa’s life, and Papa enough of the good part of mine, to get him back out on the ballfield.”

“Why do you say your prayer was stupid?”

“It’s not the prayer that was stupid,” Everett muttered. “It’s praying to someone who isn’t there that’s stupid.”

“But He is there!” Irwin bellowed.

“Whisper, you moron!”

“But He is.”

“Then you do it,” Everett said. “It’s not too late. You’re the big believer, Irwin. Why don’t you ask God to put Papa’s bad luck on you and your good luck on him. Go ahead! Do it up good! And we’ll see how much it changes anything.”

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Me too!” Irwin cried.

“Then let’s everybody do it,” Peter said, laughing at the look of disgust on Everett’s face. “That way, if it works, we’ll spread the rotten luck over a wider area.”

Freud said that religion was little more than a way for people to alleviate the harshness of the real world. I am convinced he had it backwards. I think what we often perceive to be the ‘real world’ is an attempt to alleviate the harshness of what the Gospel reveals. The same Jesus whose love and solidarity with the suffering and the God-forsaken led to the cross bids us to come and follow Him by loving others in self-sacrificial solidarity, no matter the consequences. I fail to see even a hint of escapism. If anything, the Gospel’s call is a self-consciously probing realism, a call to proactively seek out suffering in the world and participate in God’s redemptive work. If it has been a source or encouragement of escapism, I’m afraid it’s because we’ve misread the Gospels along with the rest of the New Testament.

I don’t know the ins and outs of blog-ethics, but this post borrows heavily from British atheist-Marxist Terry Eagleton’s Reason, Faith, and Revolution. As I said above, unlikely places.

Pathfinder R.S.

God has given me a burden for Christ-centered ethnic diversity in the church and Christian institutions and organizations. The other day, I had the opportunity to discuss this topic with a leader in a Christian organization, and remarked how I have noticed that there is hardly any diversity in the leadership structure of her group and organization at any level.

“I noticed that for the past two years, the set of officers in your organization have been white Caucasian. There has been no ethnic diversity. Even with your incoming administration, every one is a white Caucasian. How do you suppose that affects the majority of the non-white people you represent?” She was candid, and honestly admitted how difficult it was to encourage other ethnicities, or those belonging to visible minorities, to run for office. I suggested that such encouragement must be deliberate, intentional and identity-driven.

Thus, we had an engaging conversation on how to really live out of the bubble that our churches, Christian institutions, and organizations often foster. We agreed that it was difficult for her to get into the world of the non-white Caucasians in her midst given that (1) they constitute less than 5% of the representative population (and therefore, I would add, are not beneficial to relate with as they are very few in number), (2) the staff in the organization has less than five non-white members (most of this staff’s exposure to multi-ethnicity would probably have been a feel-good two-week missionary visit to Africa,  Asia, South America, or anywhere not urban America). 

Multi-ethnic involvement, not in a token condescension by the predominant white Caucasian race, but in a loving way of breaking down barriers between the modern-day Jew and Gentile divide of the Christian church, serves many purposes. First, it tells the world that the Jesus of the Gospel is not the white, blond blue-eyed, middle-aged, upper-middle class purveyor of Christianity. It further makes the statement that today’s Christocentric Church and Gospel are neither an adherent nor a promoter of the homogeneous unit principle of church growth. It tells us that today’s evangelicals have waged- and have won – the battle against the Balrogs of their existence.

When other ethnicities involved themselves in theo-political activities, such as taking on leadership positions, they demonstrate an integration of races and an acceptance, beyond token tolerance, of other cultures and ideas toward expressing the profound love of the Triune God. Such an integration of ethnicities forges a single, united church of God. Paul said that the undivided church, which includes the church being multiethnic, demonstrates and makes known to principalities, rulers and authorities “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10). 

When other races, outside the predominant white (and now, black) race, are allowed to voice out their ideas, experiences and cultural differences within the purview of God’s love in the crucified and risen Christ, then this Jesus Gospel ceases to become a vanilla-flavored neo-colonization of the “barbarian” natives in Asian boondocks at the turn of the 20^th century. It painfully addresses the evils of the Manifest Destiny annihilation of the true First Nations and natives of this land of the free, of this home of the brave.   

Vanilla is said to be a bland flavor. It is supposedly tasteless and colorless, and provides for a racially and culturally neutral “background” color of our society. Or so, wrote one contributor to the Consuming Jesus blog. If it is so, then, we all must plead for a little less vanilla. A little less tastelessness, a little less colorlessness, because a little less neutrality in our society will take us quite far in the struggle for a more Christocentric engagement of theology in the culture of our day.

May we, with little less vanilla and more Dylan Thomas, not go silently into that good night. May we rather, in view of the compelling love of Jesus, rage, rage against the dying of the light!

MORITURI TE SALUTAMUS! (We, who are dying for Jesus, salute you!)

Perhaps our hesitancy to take Jesus’ call to take up a literal cross, and not merely some generic “burden” as we often read the call, and follow Jesus results from how we view the significance of the cross. If Jesus’ death on the cross is solely a once-for-all substitutionary sacrifice, then it makes little sense that He would call us to take up a cross alongside Him. But what if the cross has a wider significance? What if the same cross that the powers of this world placed Christ on unraveled their own pretensions to power? On the cross, Christ takes the worst the powers have to offer, and rises again victoriously as Lord of all, showing that God will not let the evil in this world to have the last word.

What might the cross then tell us about ourselves in the grip of these powers that be? It says that a man who unflinchingly stands up for love and justice can expect violent resistance for his trouble. It reveals the depth of our rebellion and hostility against God. The cross puts to death any hope of our finding peace and justice on our own, even as it gives us the hope that God will stop at nothing to find a way. The depravity of humanity guarantees that Jesus will die alone in His godforsaken but God-obedient death; at the same time, Jesus’ death in our place allows the Spirit to enter our hearts, opening up the possibility of participating in the sufferings of Christ so we may participate in His resurrection life.

As Terry Eagleton asserts, albeit hyperbolically, “If you follow Jesus and don’t end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do.” So we must ask ourselves, is the comfort we all presumably experience in the American church a comfort from an improved and cleansed world, or the comfort of a weakened witness?

My previous post, in this same vein, was an attempt to explore what would have happened at Gethsemane if Christ was a little more like me (and I’m guessing all of us), and what consequences one could expect in turn.

Listen to Podcast

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James, and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. So take this cup from me. Unless you say otherwise, I’ll assume that is your will.”

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch, for if danger comes we may need to leave quickly. We all know that the spirit is willing, but if you keep watch, we won’t have to prove it.”

Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back he found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man will be delivered from harm. Rise! Let us go to Rome! We will be safer there.”

Just after they left Gethsemane, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. Unable to find Jesus, the men seized the seated disciples who had not fled to Rome, and they took them, without any struggle, to Pilate to be crucified.

In his post titled, The Death of Americanity, Tyler suggests that Christianity in America is:

a mix of American nationalism–and all that it implies (consumerism, materialism, isolationism, arrogance and apathy, zenophobia, historical and cultural ignorance, missionization by Americanization, simple, propositional faith claims with no new way of being, etc)–mixed with anywhere from a semblance of the Christian message to a fetishization of some of its most obscure and useless dimensions…

While in my opinion Tyler correctly describes the state of affairs concerning what he calls Americanity, his post is not a cynical rant that leaves you in a state of despair.

And perhaps this is why Americanity will fail, too, because it has tried as it may to cover up the radicality of the event of the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection, the events that change everything and leave nothing in tact as it was, except as a new order of love, constituted by charity and community and zeal.

Here Tyler is trying to turn things back to the reality of Christ, and all the implications that come with Him. Whether or not you agree with his assessment of Christianity here in America and the urgent need for change, I am sure you agree with having Christ at the center of our faith.

I for one am looking forward to June 15th. It will be interesting to hear how Dr. Metzger and other panel members address this issue.

Milan and I explore aspects of the New Wine, New Wineskins paradigm and how Compassion Connect is uniting local churches to serve their neighborhood at a most crucial time.

Listen to Podcast

Clark and I sit down and talk about the most recent developments with Second Stories, a biblical framework for community development and how to get involved.

Have you ever thought of where the gesture “thumbs up” originated? Your thumb is a unique digit on your hand, so maybe it’s from sign language.  We’ll have to Wikipedia it to find our for sure. Wherever it came from, it sure does feel good to get them, especially from people you’ve just met.

On April 25^th, I had a chance to reflect on some great “thumbs up” moments as I presented a portion of our New Wine Intern “Created to Create” conference workshop. I spoke of an experience I recently participated in with a diverse group of fifteen others as we gained exposure of Portland’s Alberta Streets Last Thursday Arts festival. I had been struggling with coming up with an idea of how to create exposure to different perspectives on art, faith, and racial reconciliation. It was in my cultural anthropology class at Multnomah Biblical Seminary that I started learning of the gentrification and displacement of the African-American community in the Alberta Arts district. During the 1990’s, the city of Portland along with private investors poured money into an extensive urban renewal “face lift” in Alberta’s crime infused area. As property values in the area skyrocketed, many of Alberta’s long-lived African-Americas were displaced because of unaffordable increases in housing rental costs.

The neighborhoods around Alberta Street look a lot different than they did fifteen years ago. Now, the community is predominantly a mixture of young hipster white middle class Portlanders and what remains of the traditional African community. On the last Thursday of every month, Alberta Street opens its sidewalks to experimental art venders and performers. The hipsters and hippies come out in droves to hang out for this uniquely Portland block party. To create space for exposure for this New Wine Immersion event, I decided to look at the aspects of restoration and beauty as well as observation and participation as it related to arts, faith, and racial reconciliation.

When our group first arrived to Alberta Street I unpacked how the night was going to unfold. Then I began to pass out bright purple latex gloves and black garbage bags to everyone. With looks of confusion on their faces, I explained that, as a matter of our faith, we were going to participate in the beautification of the Alberta neighborhood. Neighborhood clean up, or restoration, is an artistic act of worship. Artistic expression often times puts a greater emphasis on scarcity, or an individual’s creation of a uniquely original work. It seems that God’s involvement in the creative restoration and beautification of what was once damaged in creation, points us to places where our artistic expression can move into areas of collaboration and participation in this process.

We divided our beautification efforts between Alberta Street, where the Arts festival takes place, and the surrounding neighborhood residential streets. Not too long after we began, I noticed the group really getting into the project. We were having a great time interacting with each other, when we began noticing the neighbors paying closer attention to us. Folks on Alberta were giving us “thumbs up” and shouting thank-you’s wherever we walked. As we started moving off Alberta and deeper into the less admired parts of the neighborhood, residents began to come out of their houses and meet us on the street as we were picking up garbage.

One woman came up to me and said, “Thank you so much! No one ever does this sort of thing, especially not around this side of Alberta. Everybody forgets about us down here.” As our trash bags became full we took in a gorgeous sunset and deposited our restoration waste into a nearby dumpster.

We finished off the night with some observation of the art work being displayed by the various venders as we asked ourselves questions like, “What makes good art?” and “What is the artist trying to communicate through their work?” As we entered a time of reflective dialogue in our group, I began to ask myself how the church at large can best integrated the arts into the proclamation of the gospel in both word and deed. I’m still wrestling with this question. I’m starting to realize that I’ll probably be living in this tension for a long time. I’m just glad I have some of those “thumbs up” moments of reflection to soak in while I’m wrestling.

I’m interested in hearing how you are engaging creatively through the arts in the holistic expression of the gospel. In what ways has the church done this well or perhaps not so well? Where do we go from here?

The name of the band came when one of the band members read Lauren Weisberger’s critically acclaimed novel The Devil Wears Prada. The story is about a controlling, stylish-New York fashion magazine editor who is known for her stuck up, selfish attitude, and is referred to as “the Devil incarnate” by some of her employees. From the reference to fashion comes the catchy title, The Devil Wears Prada.

TDWP lead vocalist Mike Hranica states the band’s name, while from the novel, is about the concept of how the devil uses materialism and consumerism to remove our focus from loving God. Hranica stated in an interview, “if the devil were walking around, he would be wearing Prada or Gucci, or some super expensive clothing just so he could go around and be like, ‘Yo! Check out what I’m wearing! I’m wearing this sweet stuff!’ God, on the other hand, would be walking around wearing rags because he wouldn’t care. He’d be like, ‘You know what? I’m clothed; it’s all good. I am just as good as all these other people walking around.’”

The show was intense as mind blowing, as I was expecting, but I noticed something in particular that I’ve never really noticed before. I think music is certainly a gift from a loving God who created us to be creative and reflect His love. I’ve noticed that when I’m at most rock shows, up close and squished between sweaty bodies of people I’d probably avoid if I saw them on the street, this overwhelming sense of passion begins to overtake my body, and with the adrenaline rush from the live show, I all of a sudden I feel like I am capable to take on anything and save the world. I’ve noticed that I frequently find myself thinking of social justice initiatives and global peace advocacy when I am with that crowd, rocking out! I’m sure it sounds strange, so let me clarify a few things.

I’ve always had a strong connection with music that is different than just enjoying a song or a band. I seem to really find myself and often find God in music in more often than in nature or in a story. Music just seems to have a special place in my life. Historically, throughout American Evangelical History, metal music has been primarily associated with the demonic influence, Satanism, and evil. The sound of people screaming lyrics seems to resemble more the shriek of demons and appear to be filled with anger rather than the “baah”of a lamb or the peaceful sound of a babbling brook. However I think I see things a bit differently.

When I’m at a hardcore show or even just listening to metal and hardcore music, I envision the screaming and fast paced music more like the roar of the Lion of Judah as He wages war against injustice and sin rather than Satan torturing a soul in Hell. I believe that there will certainly come a day where God will judge the living and the dead and there will be a great war between good and evil and evil will be destroyed.

On the contrary, when I’m enjoying mellow, slow, acoustic music, I envision myself basking in the awe of God’s presence and enjoying His blessed creation. With this sentiment in mind, I wonder if this is how God uses music to connect to us, His creation. It’s one thing to sing a song; it’s another thing to be completely swept away, in awe of grace, joy, beauty, and wonder.

Furthermore, I cannot seem to get over the fact that God uses music and art as a platform to transform us and mold us into His image. I’m not talking about singing praise songs on a Sunday morning in church, I’m talking about the emotions that are drawn up when you hear your favorite band singing your favorite song and what the melody and notes crafted together create within you. While some would say it’s selfish, I think it’s an example of who God made us to be: loving, passionate, and affectionate creatures. God created us with emotions and music is just one way in which we respond with emotion.

I’ve noticed that during a live show, as soon as the band takes the stage, all of a sudden it’s as if all of those little mundane things that separate us as a culture (race, class, religion, skin color, etc) seem to melt away and for a moment we are united together, all focused on one thing, the music that we love. A common good unites us regardless of diversity.

In his captivating story, The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis depicts Aslan the Lion creating the great mystical land of Narnia by singing. Rather than stern, rigid statements and commands, Aslan’s creation comes out in the form of a beautiful, sweet song, with each note building on the previous one. The song begins to reach certain points of climax as Aslan’s creation becomes more and more beautiful and more complex. Lewis brilliantly captures a rather beautiful expression of God’s artistic ability through the use of a beautiful medium, song. Lewis weaves together the intricacies of the Creation narrative while simultaneously capturing the beauty of what the experience of creation would have been like if we were there to see it, because God said that it was good and beautiful.

There is no song or music piece that captures God’s heart perfectly, for I think if such a song existed, it would have to contain elements of heavy metal, jazz, acoustic guitar, piano, etc. The music of God is something that is so mysterious yet so revolutionary, it cannot be captured.

I believe God has written us to perform certain parts of his song called Redemption and that we all play a different tune at different times. When put together this displays a beautiful example of the true and living God. God the Father through Christ’s redemptive sacrifice given by His Spirit is a song that is being composed and written and will one day be performed. As each day goes by He is making edits and deletions of parts of that song in each one of us until it is just right. When that day comes He will return and will look at his beautiful creation once again and say, “it is good.”

Until that day, I ask you to think of what song you are singing. What music are you playing with your life? Maybe you’re destroying injustice or maybe you’re relaxing in God’s presence. Or maybe you’re playing a sad song that makes God weep and He desires to retune that song until it’s a beautiful reflection of His love for you. What song are you playing, and what song are you called to play?

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At the sight of the bloodsplotch I think of Jesus sitting with the disciples at the Last Supper and his explanation of the cup of wine from which they drank symbolizing the new covenant inaugurated by the pouring out of His life for us (Lk 22:20). I think of His prayer to His Father in the Garden of Gethsamene and am reminded of the anguish He experienced when sweat fell like blood from His forehead (Lk 22:44). I see the splotch and my mind pictures His blood drops that hit the dusty road He walked to the cross, beaten and bloodied. In the gospel accounts there is a build – up of tension and an expectation of a reordering of powers. In the Fourth Gospel, the Apostle John creates this sense of anticipation by referring to Jesus’ ‘hour’ or ‘the hour of glory’. Of course we learn that Jesus’ ‘hour of glory’ (John 12:23, 27) was not the expected hour of power in which the Messiah would overthrow the Roman occupants. Jesus’ glorification was being lifted up, but on a cross to death. What does all this mean that Jesus, Lord of lords and King of kings chose this life of suffering?

For those of us who have been brought up in the church, we know the story of Jesus’ life, and we’ve got our favorite verses for swift employment and brief contemplation. For me, I held much tighter to a list of New Testament doctrines forgetting the life of Jesus from which those doctrines came. Don’t misunderstand me, I do not want to devalue doctrines in the least, but knowing the story in which these doctrines are framed literally gives flesh and bone to the teaching of God. It is in this taking on of flesh that we come to more clearly understand who God is because He so clearly presents Himself to us.

John, the author of the Fourth Gospel, synthesized the paradox of glory and the cross. In the 16th century Martin Luther saw the Late Medieval Catholic Church holding onto a theology of glory through power, contradicting the theology of the cross. They seem antithetical, yet Christ’s bride, the Church adopted the pursuit of power instead of following Christ’s path to the cross, the path of discipleship (Luke 14:25-35). For us today we’ve done something very similar. We avoid seeing the cross as the destination of discipleship. Somehow we miss it; we’ve made the same exchange for our glory and autonomy and have only submitted ourselves to Christ’s lordship on our terms, precisely confined to the gaps of our lives in which we sense he might be useful.

Let “my personal Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ” read something more like “Jesus, lord of my religious/spiritual self, or even just sunday morning.” But God is calling us to so much more! I am fighting to return to a theology of the cross and to bow my head and drop to my knees before my Lord who found me in His gallows. I need a theology for my whole self for the whole of my life. Is God any less God when all goes wrong and when I lose the life I expected? That expectation is what I made my salvation to be. When life has gotten dirty and doesn’t look like the optimistic brochures of the “American Dream”, Jesus’ lordship unites the spheres of my life. He brings together the entirety of my life and all that He has in store for me, sufferings or successes under His presence. That is what relationship with Him entails. To remain in Christ because He is my life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spent the last 2 years of his life in a Nazi prison because of his ties to assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler. He understood the cost of discipleship; he a was pacifist who felt it necessary to rid the evils of Hitler by killing him, a decision he did not take lightly. For that conviction and the courage that led him to the attempt, he came to know that God was not limited to the gaps in which he needed to be rescued. Jesus’ ministry was one in which He took on suffering. Jesus had no home, He was abandoned by those closest to Him and the authorities wanted His life and eventually got it. Yahweh, The Great I AM, whose presence made Israel a distinct people, was with Him in his sufferings, for He is God in the gallows and reaches out to us in His sufferings. It is through weakness and death that Jesus most clearly demonstrates and communicates Himself to us in His powerful presence and love. Bonhoeffer was concerned with living a ‘worldy – life,’ not one of sin, but one where he wanted to live (spiritually) unreserved in all of lives’ successes, and sufferings. I want the God in the gallows because I’m tired of drawing back out of fear for self protection and autonomy. I want a life where I increasingly see my life in Jesus’ life and my security in my Heavenly Father.

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. Psalm 86:11

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11:19

Dr. John Franke, Professor of Theology at Biblical Seminary was recently in Portland, Oregon presenting ideas from his forthcoming book Manifold Witness, Plurality of Truth. Multnomah Biblical Seminary and New Wine, New Wineskins invited Dr. Franke to share some his most recent work. The forum, on March 6th, began with Dr. Franke presenting an overview of his book and followed with various responses from  Drs. Al Baylis, Brad Harper, and Paul Metzger. The forum also gave the opportunity to the broader audience to ask questions of Dr. Franke and to present some of their personal concerns where they might have diverging opinions.

Personally I really enjoyed the opportunity to listen to Dr. Franke’s ideas. His insights about language as a cultural construct and the “word games” and symbols that the authors of the Bible use to point to Christ strike at the core of gospel contextualization. This point became especially evident in view of the Gospels. Instead of imposing a rigid systematization of uniformity, Franke seeks to preserve the distinctiveness of Gospel accounts, thereby highlighting there uniqueness as authentic witnesses to God’s revelation in Christ. He views the many voices united in Scripture as distinct and holding their own valid testimony. Franke referred to this as the “irreducible plurality” of Scripture’s testimony.

Franke pointed to this sort of contrived “reconciliation” of facts to be like racial reconciliation which at times can lead to the destruction of the minority through assimilation into the majority. Likewise, the assimilation of varying points of truth can lead to a loss of the richness of Scripture’s testimony. Franke follows this line of thinking and applies it to the church today. How can there be real unity in the Church when there seems to be so many disagreements? Franke surmises that instead of assimilating traditions and doctrines into one coherent whole, we should view the unifying thread of the Scriptures and church history’s witness as a unique pattern of the Christ – transformed life fundamentally important to each narrative.

Many of the issues brought up at the forum are sure to be provocative points to ponder as we move into a post – Christian era. The same issues that we face in contemporary culture are questions and concerns shared by Christians dedicated to bearing witness to Christ in cultures across all borders.

I once attended an art exhibit displaying several portraits of Holocaust victims during WWII. They had been photographed during their release from the concentration camps. As I stood paralyzed by the overwhelmingly pressing weight of trauma worn on each of the victims’ faces, a thought occurred to me. I wasn’t just staring at the photos, the photos were staring at me. With all that going on, I also thought of the thousands of stories I had heard connected to the Holocaust. As this flood of emotion crashed through me, the eyes of each victim starred through me to the point of penetrating my very soul.

A few weeks ago I began reflecting on how art, story, and advocacy are connected. It started after I had the privilege of attending the Oregon Center for Christian Value’s (OCCV) conference, entitled Vote Out Poverty Advocacy Training. The event, in association with Sojourners, was hosted by Mosiac Church here in Portland. Aaron Graham, the keynote speaker from Sojourners, began the session with a talk entitled “The Power of Stories”. It went something like this.

The LORD says in Exodus 3:7, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.” God’s concerned love initiates His movement down to rescue these oppressed people. He does this through calling Moses to be an advocate for justice.

So, what is justice? In the recently release anti-slavery movie, “Call + Response”, I remember Dr. Cornel West saying that justice is what love looks like in public. Aaron Graham spoke of justice as an act of worship. These concepts spun around in my head over and over again that day. In what ways do we, as proclaimers of God’s kingdom, communicate in word and deed, this deep longing to engage the people of injustices to the world around us?

So, what does communication look like that breaks down the callousness of people’s hearts, penetrating their very souls? Can we see it in a photograph or painting? Does it embrace us in a song? I believe that artistic expression has a way of penetrating one’s soul, without one’s soul giving it permission. Art is never absent from the lives of oppressed people. Aaron went on that day to teach of the importance of the art of story. Throughout scripture we are gripped by God’s character being revealed through the narrative story. God is first introduced in Genesis 1 as the Creator, the artist who’s writing His story. We receive the invitation to participate and write our own story with Him, united in Him in community.

Aaron Graham has experienced a severe disconnect between Church priorities and what he reads in scripture concerning how much God cares for the poor and marginalized. This is why he is passionate about advocacy training for the Christian community. In Matthew 9:37-38 Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” This rhythmic drum beat for justice is the call. Our activity is the response. As we have been created in the image of the Creator Artist God, how are we bearing the imaginative response to his love for us and those suffering at the hands of the oppressors? If you really love people, you don’t want to see them abused. How are we practicing the Art of Advocacy for Jesus? What stories are we telling? What portraits are we painting?

Sometimes as I read the Bible, I picture Jesus in his humanity with a sort of halo around his head during his treks through Galilee. The French painter Georges Rouault captures the humanity of Jesus (seen in his piece, ‘Christ Mocked’) in a much different way. His depictions of Christ are not with a halo but as a clown, one despised and mocked. A clown represents the victims of society, the refuse of the world, the perishable, the transient, the foolish (1 Cor. 1:26); this is what Christ took on in his humanity according to Rouault’s art.

Rouault was born 1881 in Paris into a poor family. At the age of 14 he began an apprenticeship as a glass painter and restorer. This early experience as a glass painter is the likely source of the heavy black contouring and glowing colours which characterize Rouault’s mature painting style. When you view Rouault’s work, as in the picture above, what do you feel?

The sorrow and suffering that comes with everyday life is something Rouault fully engaged in his art.  This is why Rouault commonly painted clown and prostitutes. In both Rouault’s depictions of clowns and Christ, there is the same downward curve of the lips, the same elongation of the face, and the same deep emanation of suffering from the eyes. This is the tragic plight of humanity according to Rouault.

There are those who have criticized Rouault for his melancholy depictions of Christ as a clown. Some have even labeled him irreligious. He explains, however, that his art was meant to give a taste of the extent of God’s compassion, “I saw clearly that ‘the clown’ was myself, ourselves . . . this rich, spangled costume is given us by life, we’re all of us clowns . . . wear a ‘spangled costume,’ but if we are caught unawares . . . who would dare to claim that he is not moved to his very depths by immeasurable pity . . . King or emperor, what I want to see in the man facing me is his soul, and the more exalted his position the more misgivings I have about his soul.” (Harvey Cox, A Feast of Fools, p. 139)

I think often we want the resurrection without the cross, the promise of hope without any suffering, new life without the death of the old. Rouault reminds us that it is through the pain and suffering that God’s joy and promises come. In the same way that Rouault’s paintings were made to have light shine through them, the light of God’s hope goes through the cross to the resurrection.

As a group of us reflected on a few paintings of Rouault’s today, we were astounded at how this master painter could portray Christ in utter sorrow but at the same time in amazing serenity. We came to the following conclusion: in the midst of taking on our shame and pain as the clown, Christ entered into a new confidence and peace in his Father’s love. There is symmetry between Christ’s endurance of pain and the embrace of his Father’s love. Christ only enters the pain because of the warmth of love he first feels from the Father and that warmth grows in the midst of the suffering.  And the cross extends this same love of the Father, amazingly, to us.

Rouault’s art has made me think about how Christ’s engagement of humanity as the clown impacts our interactions in society today. If you agree that Christ took on the form of a clown, how do you think this metaphor of the clown should inform how we should relate to others? Have you experienced a ‘clown encounter’ in your life?

Click here to see more of Rouault’s art.

Underøath is perhaps one of the most prominent metalcore/hardcore bands to come on the “scene” in the last 4 years or so. With over 1 million records sold, they’ve reached mainstream status followed by musical grandeur. With success at their doorstep, you would think that they’d be like any other rock band….alcoholics, womanizers, and drug users. But Underøath is different. Underøath is, as a band, about the name of Jesus Christ. Underøath is what several within Christian subculture would consider a “Christian” band. However you won’t find them doing mega-church tours or Christian youth events and you won’t find them preaching a salvation message from the stage. In addition, you won’t find the average gathering of “churched” youth group kids at an Underøath show. The band of course has fans who are followers of Christ, but they aren’t out to “target” a particular demographic and aren’t about “selling Christ.” Nevertheless Underøath is my favorite band, not just because I love their music but also because of their faith in Christ. The band, at their core, is real and honest with people about who they are and do not separate their faith from the culture they’re part of. Their message is revealed by their actions more than their words (not necessarily lyrics, but “words” from the stage and in the media) and I am particularly eager to see them play tonight!

On this cold November evening at the Roseland Theater in downtown Portland, Underøath puts on a stellar performance and my small yet energetic body is enthralled by the show. The energy from the crowd of devoted fans is astounding and ecstatic! It’s down to last minutes of the show and after an amazing and hard hitting 14 song set the band takes the stage once again for their encore performance.

As anxious as I am to know what their encore will be, my ears prick up and I am soon screaming my heart out in approval as the band begins to play a new fan-favorite off their latest record (Lost in the Sound of Separation), a song entitled Too Bright to See Too Loud to Hear. Unlike the typical scream-rich hardcore/metal music you get from Underøath, this song utilizes the smoothness of vocalist/singer and drummer Aaron Gillespie rather distorted screams of front man Spencer Chamberlain. The song is slow and sweet! I, as well as many other fans, love this song because it speaks of the reality of God’s forgiveness and grace and how we are all loved and cherished as God’s children.

Chills overcame me as I peered at others in my proximity. Not surprisingly, I saw several people, bodies drenched in sweat, with their hands raised in praise and worship to God and embracing the song’s beauty. I soon felt something move inside me that I couldn’t hold back. In the midst of hundreds of sweating, tired, hardcore kids I lifted my hands in worship to my savior, singing along at the top of my lungs. Before long, it became apparent that I was encountering God’s presence! I stood there basking of the awe of my Savior’s grace in quite a strange place–a hardcore show! My experience encountering God with Underøath is something I have not forgotten! Every time I hear this song, I am reminded of that night.

I think so many times in our American Evangelical subculture we tend to limit the places and ways in which we can “encounter” God’s presence, having created religion. It seems as though we’ve put God in this box with rules attached to Him, and we’re only “allowed to” encounter and experience God in certain ways (Prayer, “quiet time”, church on Sunday morning, etc) as if He’s not around other times or doesn’t care. I think worship is holistic in nature, being an embodied response to God for what He’s done for us, regardless of our environment, upbringing, etc.

When it comes to encountering God in the arts, artistic expressions of faith have been limited, if not totally removed from “Christendom” except for the likes of Thomas Kinkade paintings or Fireproof-esque movies (the list could go on) that are created within the subculture with the sole purpose of bait and switch evangelism of the broader culture or being created specifically for Christian people within the subculture. It appears to me that we as evangelicals have restricted God to our finite, western, American, religious systems and nothing more. Where have the artistic expressions of faith gone? Where has the engagement of culture gone?

Too Bright Too See Too Loud to Hear was not written with the intention of worshiping God and the band’s purpose was not evangelism, but it appeared to create an atmosphere of worship among the crowd that night and I believe people encountered the true and living God. The song is first and foremost a work of art, regardless of whether it expresses the faith of the band or not. It led me to encounter God and I felt no different worshipping God in that crowd of people than I did in a church on a Sunday morning. While several within Christian subculture today would say that a hardcore concert at a “secular” venue with “secular/non-Christian” bands performing alongside “Christian” bands is not where we’d go to worship our Savior, I know for a fact that God revealed Himself to me there! I experienced God in a place that was not expected and I experienced God through the medium of poetry and music…through art.

I believe the Kingdom of God will break in when and where we least expect it, and God will move in ways we least expect Him to. As MTV’s Diary of a Rock Star says “You think you know, but you have no idea!”

To listen the song Too Bright to See Too Loud to Hear, go here. Click on the “more info” link in the side bar to see the lyrics while the song is playing.

Call + Response has been out for a while, but alas, I just watched it. And go figure, I am inspired. First of all it is inspiring to see individuals who are giving their lives, their voices, their careers, their talents, to abolishing modern day slavery.  I realize I need to fight that voice in my head that says it can’t be done, because it CAN be done. Slavery has been abolished before, we can do it again, and this time with the help of much more resources. I am sold: I do believe that this is a 21st century challenge to an age old problem that we all are faced with and called to respond to. We are responsible. 

We must do what we can with what we have. And what we have is… a lot.

We have our voice, resources, education, talents, gifts, consumer power, the wisdom of God, the power of the Holy Spirit and community. Slavery was abolished before because of concerted effort and solidarity. It can and will happen again in the same way.

But I’m afraid.

I’m afraid that I will forget the hopelessness in their voices 

and the emptiness in their eyes.

I’m afraid I will forget the anguish I felt for them.

I’m afraid that the empowered voice in my head that said “Yes! I must do something. I can liberate these people!” will fade away.

But what if we don’t let it fade away.

What if we encouraged one another to 

consider the challenge 

to fight for another’s freedom

to fight for another’s laughter and song

to fight for another’s dignity.

What if “holding each other accountable” took on a whole other level?

What if we followed the ramifications of our actions to the ends of the earth (rather than foolishly thinking they stop at us)

and what if we saw the tremendous power we have as consumers, decision makers, social changers?

What if we harnessed this power and freed the oppressed 

to sing the better song of freedom.

I’m afraid I will forget the way I felt sitting there, looking at the faces of God’s beautiful creation–

tormented and broken–

wanting so badly to break into their lives and bring them hope and liberation,

to rescue them from their hell and lead them outside,

so they can look up at the endless sky

simply because

now they can.

I fear that the blatant corruption and evil I saw will be overshadowed,

that the moving music, impassioned calls, fiery convictions

will be subsumed by 

a stressful paper to write

a job to find

a family member I must call

a traffic jam I must endure.

And I will forget

the 27 million (individuals with names, fears, hopes, desires, just like us)

who know no freedom

of writing a paper

searching for a job

talking with family

battling traffic

And beyond this, they don’t even know how

to read or write,

express themselves or laugh.

They don’t 

even know how

to smile.

Again, I am pleading with my self, with my flesh in all its funk, with my community

with you

to cry with them

and to fight for them.

I fear I will move on and say one day,

Yes, I saw that movie.

Yes, I knew there were 27 million oppressed, enslaved individuals (each created and loved passionately by a God who knows them by name and calls us to love and liberate them)

and…no

I didn’t respond

because I had a paper to write

a phone call to make. 

And besides, what can one person do?

That, my friends, is the voice of an oppressor.

And I fear that in all my shock and paralysis, I will only succumb to being

yet another slave trader

out of cowardice and disconnect.

Like Ashley Judd said (something to the effect of), ” I don’t want my purchases to be another’s torture, my  freedom to be another’s slavery.”

“And now let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds.”  Hebrews 10:24

Solidarity + Action = Call + Response

Addendum:

It starts somewhere, and somewhere is all it takes. No action is too small.

In my humble opinion, these are the 4 first main steps we can take:

1) Become a conscious consumer. I am convinced that this is the first most tangible, immediate, powerful step. Know who you are oppressing. Know who you are empowering. Live, love, shop and eat intentionally. It does make a difference.  ”What you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” (Gandhi)

2) Identify your strength. What are you good at? Do that. God intentionally gave us different gifts and I believe he desires us to use this to love and liberate the world. Making a musical documentary (a “rockumentary” if you will) was creative and beautifully harnessed the power of music for a greater cause. Those people used their strengths. If organizing is your “thing”, then organize an event to have a group or community write their senator requesting him/her to address slavery. 

3) Pray– for wisdom, vision, courage, for the slaves and slave traders

4) visit  http://www.callandresponse.com/responsinator3.asp

would like to cordially invite everyone to attend the upcoming membership meeting at *Warner Pacific College on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. * The meeting itself will be held in Kardatzke Hall  below Schlatter Chapel, on the west side of campus near 68th Ave.

This will be a time of music, prayer, reflection, and fellowship.  Stephanie Ahn will also be providing a brief introduction to biblical justice.

You will also be able to hear about upcoming opportunities to serve together to promote God’s heart for the poor, sick, and all of creation.  Our hope is that this will be a time of reconnecting and spiritual refreshment for all.

If you are interested in attending this event and have not yet RSVP’d, please contact Seth in the office at 503.222.2072, or e-mail us at info@occv.org.

 Ron’s vision came in to fruition because of the help and support of churches and people in the area. This is a testimony to the power of community. It is amazing to me what can be accomplished when visions are shared and callings are fearlessly pursued. But this was only possible because Ron’s vision and calling was supported within the context of community. He shared his burden with others, and this was like oxygen to his dream. 

Rachel and Ronaldo shared their testimony regarding what New Wine has been and continues to be for them. It is refreshing to hear two totally different testimonies that both attest to the power of building relationships, and the transforming power of engaging culture with a loving, compassionate Christ, who deeply desires to have a deep, dynamic relationship with everyone. Realizing that our calling is to bear witness to this relational, compassionate God is powerful.

The night went well and I am excited for the opportunity we had to share what New Wine is about, and to, like Ron, invite others to catch the vision of living out the redemptive power of Christ in this broken world.

The theme for this year’s Christian Community Development (CCDA) Conference, referred to in the quote above, is “Shalom—Seeking The Peace Of The City”. It’s a great idea, right? I mean who doesn’t like peace? But how do we move and act to bring it about in this broken world? Peace is a great idea, as long as brokenness never enters the picture.  We often think of peace as the absence of any sort of tension. However, defining shalom apart from its relationship with tension is like defining courage without mentioning the need to face fears. True shalom seeks to lovingly redeem through entering into brokenness. The whole, completed picture after the restoration is where shalom rests.

So often in my personal experience, especially in regards to relationships, I have had this incomplete picture of peace. Rather than addressing and resolving tensions with people in my community, I tend to disregard, downplay, drown, or even desert associations with conflicts. This disengagement of emotional sufferings never results in my attainment of peace. Jesus suffered for the sake of love, bringing victory in the form of entering into and defeating death by his resurrection. As I find Him pursuing my heart here at the conference I am realizing true “Shalom for the City” must begin with the shalom of my heart that can only be found by living in Him. By being united in His Spirit I have courage to engage my emotional sufferings from the past, present, and future.

2 Cor. 5:17-19, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”

Any attempts that we may have to “Seek the Peace of the City” apart from Him are impossible. As God’s community, we are found in the Prince of Peace and called to reconcile the tension in our hearts so that we may go out and bring that message of shalom to our cities and the world. Thread by thread He is weaving us all back together.

One, there is only one true incarnation, and he is Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus is the only pure embodiment of the gospel; we are not.  I think we would all agree with this statement.  Yet, I find myself at times eclipsing Jesus in my attempt to be incarnational rather than simply pointing people to Jesus (as well as looking for them to point me to Him), the one full incarnation.  When we say we are living incarnationally this does not mean we are Jesus but that we represent and point to Jesus.

Second, we must acknowledge that incarnational living is a two way street.  If we are able to embody the gospel through the Spirit in a concrete location, then it would follow that we will at times also have the gospel embodied before us by others.  In other words, we reciprocally point one another to Jesus.  I know when I think of living incarnationally, I think of it as my behavior towards others and not others’ behavior towards me.  We must expand our view of living incarnationally to also include learning from others’ incarnational living.

What do you think?  Do you think speaking of living incarnationally in our neighborhoods undermines the incarnation of Christ, why or why not?  What other dangers do you think there are in using this language if any?  How would you define living incarnationally?  And what does living incarnationally mean to you?

Dr. Paul Louis Metzger and Dr. Brad Harper spoke about how the church is to minister in culture as the triune God’s kingdom community. Their talks were based on their forthcoming book with Brazos: Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction (2009).  Metzger and Harper addressed such questions as “What is the gospel?”  “What should the church’s relation to culture be?” and “What difference does it make for the church in its ministry in the broader culture that it is the triune God’s kingdom community?” 

Tony Kriz will served as the MC for the workshop.  He led an ample Q&A session during the proceedings. 

As Christ-followers committed to Christ’s church’s missional outreach, it is important that we exegete rightly the Bible as well as the culture into which we seek to communicate the gospel. 

Conference audio recording are now available! Click below to download the talks and join us as we continue to wrestle with these important issues. 

The Church as a Being-Driven Community, part 1 with Dr. Paul Louis Metzger
The Church as a Being-Driven Community, part 2 with Dr. Paul Louis Metzger
Discussion Session 1 and The Church as a Kingdom-Building Community with Dr. Brad Harper
Discussion Session 2, part 1
Discussion Session 2, part 2
Discussion Session 2, part 3
Discussion Session 2, part 4 and closing with Crystal Santos

New Wine, New Wineskins is an official program of Multnomah Biblical Seminary and is committed to assisting the entire Multnomah University community in its efforts to bear witness to Christ in contemporary culture.

It has always been useful to me to think of engagement with  culture when proclaiming the gospel using three categories:

1. Things we accept
2. Things we reject
3. Things that are redeemed

I believe that this fits in with Paul’s approach when proclaiming the gospel on Mars Hill in the book of Acts as well.  Admittedly this is a bit reductionistic in that some things aren’t quite this simple, but I wonder if these categories can serve as a primer to thinking through how the Gospel is proclaimed in a specific cultural context.

Do you think that there is anything of merit in the system I propose?

What can we learn from it?

What are weaknesses to this sort of approach?

If you totally disagree with this sort of approach, how do you think through issues of relating Gospel to culture?

Moreover, if you took a room of 100 people, 50 Christians and 50 non-Christians, and asked similar questions, you might as well put a bunch of hungry monkeys in a room with only one banana. The vibe in the atmosphere would certainly not be pleasant.

I think we as humans can correctly state that we can become rather uncomfortable around those of which we do not agree with. Be it theology, politics, ethics, personal practice, etc. we, the human race, throughout history have naturally tended to gravitate toward those in which we are in alignment with.

Ever since I can remember I have always struggled to love and befriend those of which I find disagreement with. More recently within the last few years, as my theological and political beliefs have shifted quite profoundly, as a Bible college student I have found myself becoming more and more uncomfortable with those of which I disagree in areas such as theology, politics, and personal practices. In some cases it has even gotten to the point where I don’t feel like I can completely be myself in some ways unless I am with people of whom I agree with. This is sad, but true. As in other cases, it has become a rather shameful practice of mine to subconsciously stereotype individuals of whom I disagree with into a completely separate group of people. For example, when disagreements arise, I have essentially said to myself “you think (blank) about this, you must be one of them” Fill in the blanks with whatever labels you wish (liberal, conservative, Calvinist, Arminian, etc) and voila, you have my rather vial thought process. I have conceived a rather dangerous “me vs. them” mentality. This is a personal aspect of which I do not envy, and I have spent many restless nights fighting with myself over my desire to be a truly loving person.

On a wider scale I have always asked the question of how we as evangelical Christians can engage those within our postmodern culture who share different beliefs. I have noticed that we seem to get so hung up on the other’s “wrong” beliefs that we never get past arguing, wasting precious time bickering with one another.

It wasn’t until recently that I truly began to understand engagement with culture can look like. I was listening to a sermon MP3 and the pastor mentioned this…
We could spend our time asking questions about rather mundane issues of theology, politics, morality, etc.

But what if we asked different kinds of questions?
Can we as opponents agree, as different as we are, that Christ’s body was broken and blood poured for the healing of the world? Can we agree on that? What would it be like if the next time we were in a shouting match with a fellow Christian we said
“Can we agree that Christ’s body was broken and his blood poured out for the healing of the world? Can we agree on that?”

Imagine what it would be like if the we engaged someone who was not a Christian, who didn’t want anything to do with God, Jesus, The Bible, or Church? What if we asked, “do you agree that the world needs healing? I believe Jesus’ body was broken and blood was shed for the healing of this world. Can we agree that the world needs healing? Can we agree on that?”

Also, can we agree on our need for the grace and peace of Christ? Can we agree on that? The interesting thing about our opponents is that we both agree that we both need the grace and peace of Jesus Christ. We have a connection we didn’t know we had. Our boundaries would soon look much different and we wouldn’t want to throw bombs at each other if we realized our mutual need for the grace and peace of Christ.

What it would be like if this was how we viewed things?
How would our world change?
How would our faith as followers of Christ be changed?

So what role does culture play? Is the gospel a part of–or apart from– culture?  I don’t want the gospel to be some abstract idea that I dance around, or am studying so closely that I miss the gospel for the theologies. (Get it…?) I want it, essentially, to be evident in and through my life. Ideally, our lives should paint a picture of the gospel. Do we need to disentangle ourselves from culture in order to embrace the gospel? Or do we need to embrace culture in light of the gospel? Does culture reflect the gospel, deflect the gospel, or both?

Thank the good Lord these issues will be addressed and explored on October 18th for the New Wine, New Wineskins Autumn workshop led by Dr. Metzger and Dr. Harper, as well as at the New Wine Benefit Dinner on November 6th. This is what New Wine is about: getting to the heart of these issues, and wrestling with how to live this gospel out in tangible, contextual ways. We comprise culture. And hopefully our lives, in community, exhibit Christ. So how do the two- gospel and culture- work together for his glory? In my opinion, that’s when it gets good. These are not simple questions. And, because the gospel is so profound and beautiful, it doesn’t not warrant a quick, simple answer. This would only limit Christ’s love, and show a lacking gospel.

The gospel is good news. But how do we show that to, for instance, a co-worker who is “just fine, thank-you-very-much”? What is so compelling about the gospel? Are we fanning the flame of this little light of ours, by engaging culture and issues (which, essentially is people) or are we cupping it with our hands, fearful that this light might wake up the neighbors, or be extinguished by the issues of today?

The workshop will provide an excellent time to explore these questions, but until then, what do you think? What is the gospel to you, and what relationship do you think gospel has, or should have, with culture?

We are looking forward to the conversations and reflections that will be posted here. In the meantime, I would also encourage you to check out consumingjesus.org the blog site for Dr. Paul Metzger’s latest book, Consuming Jesus.

Dr. John Perkins of the John M. Perkins Foundation

Rick McKinley of Imago Dei Community

Nancy Haught of The Oregonian and John Fortmeyer of Christian News Northwest

Richard Twiss of Wiconi International

…and Georgene Rice herself!

New Wine director, Paul Louis Metzger, articulated the history and passion of New Wine.

New Wine Advisory Council member, Lindsey Smith, and New Wine intern, Ross Halbach, spoke of how New Wine has provided a theological basis for their personal commitments to multicultural engagement.

President of Wiconi International, Richard Twiss, spoke of his and New Wines’s shared value of engaging culture faithfully, not fearfully.

New Wine director, Paul Louis Metzger, articulated the vision and missional passion of New Wine.

New Wine interns, Andreas Lundén and Crystal Santos, spoke of New Wine’s role in their personal efforts to engage culture.

Environmentalist and director of Restoring Eden, Peter Illyn, gave a talk entitled “Belly Button Christianity – Encountering Jesus in Tribal Culture,” giving a tangible example of how cultural engagement refines our understanding of Christ.

New Wine director, Paul Louis Metzger, articulated the history and passion of New Wine.

New Wine friends, Letha McCloud, and graphic designer, Steve Mitchell, spoke of New Wine’s role in their personal commitments to holistic cultural engagement.

Don Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz) spoke of the necessity to build a bridge back to culture, crystallizing New Wine’s commitment to bearing witness to Christ in contemporary culture.