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Who is evangelical anymore?

I saw two interesting bits of controversy this past week. I wasn’t necessarily surprised by either of them but I was disturbed by the way they overlapped. The first item was a post as part of a series at Pangea (on Patheos). This one was reeling over the evangelical credibility of C.S. Lewis. Apparently his views on the subject of hell were a little too open-ended and remind some self-proclaimed watchdogs of the views in a recent controversy surrounding you know who and his book.

Over the past decades there has been an increasingly contentious debate about the invisible boundary of evangelicalism. Apparently some have become so concerned that even historical figures who were previously safe (even adored) are in danger if their views are found to be too loose for the contemporary conservative backlash.
I was only mildly concerned by this whole line of reasoning. Then, I found out that this past Sunday, the NY Times called Michelle Bachman the evangelical candidate in the Republican primary pool.

So my question is:

  • what are the criteria that we are using for this public label of evangelical whereby the quintessential embodiment from the past century (C.S. Lewis) is out and tea-party candidate Michelle Bachmann is in?
  • who is in change of making these determinations?
  • what are the demarcations that signify whether someone is “in” or “out”?

This is something that I care deeply about as a Methodist minister (UMC) who is the son of a Methodist minister (Free Methodist) we are both proudly Wesleyan in theology. I think that whatever definition we use it should at least be inclusive of our most historical marquee figures and flagship franchises.
I like to use the definition from British Historian David Bebbington as a starting point. We should at least establish a historical framework. [here is an interview with evangelical scholar Mark Noll where he talks about it]
The four keys are:

conversionism: new birth and a new life with God
biblicism: reliance on the Bible as ultimate religious authority
activism: concern for sharing the faith
crucentrism: focus on Christ’s redeeming work on the cross

Admittedly, those four emphasis take on a different tone and tenor in each generation. They take on different manifestations in each generation. The presence of these four however is a stabilizing theme that runs through the many historical maturations through the centuries and around the globe. These four themes also hold together whether ones utilizes a bounded-set mentality for marking boundaries or a center-set framework to encourage a shared focus.

I celebrate these four themes and find them even amongst my more progressive friends. They could say these four things with confidence:

  • Relationship with God changes you personally internal and your relationships (external) .
  • The Bible is central as the Christian Scripture and sets both the agenda and the example.
  • One’s faith should both be shared (relationally) and will consequently impact the world around you.
  • God’s work in Christ is what illuminates and inspires the life of the Christian – Christ revealed God is a unique and significant way. Jesus’ way is to be our way.

This kind of faith is something that I am inspired by and find deep fulfillment by participating in. I am nervous that a reactionary period of retrenchment by the religious right , moral majority, or other politicized conservative groups would see evangelicals like myself and C.S. Lewis pushed out and figures like Michelle Bachmann made central.

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Religion: revision renovation and revival

Religions need revision. This is even true of made up ones! Scientology has been in the news over the past months for all the wrong reasons: splinter groups, rival factions, money issues, coercive strategies for intimidating dissenters, and even heated theological debates. [check out last week’s Time article for instance]

And this is religion where we have writings of the founder.  In fact, one of the original tenets of the religion (started just 50 years ago) was that nothing was allowed to be changed in the future. This stands is stark contrast to Christianity where we don’t have any writings of the founder (thank God) and have a model that is incarnational – which means that the religion is inherently contextual and translatable. [read Lamin Sanneh’s books like Who’s Religion is Christianity? and Translating the Message if you want to see a contemporary contrast with Islam – like ours, a religion based on revelation.]

All religion needs revision – or re-visiting, re-imagining, and reviving. Some people object to this much needed procedure. The arguments tend to fall in two broad divisions.

1) Those who object to deconstruction because it feels like destruction. This is understandable because when you hold dear something sacred, it is precious and worth protecting.

I would simply argue that like any house or house of worship, if it is going to continue to be useful, it will need to go under renovation – a re-examining with a critical lens (deconstruction) is actually a loving act of clearing room for the renovations  that need to happen.

If we didn’t love it and intend to live in it, we would walk away, burn it down, or blow it up.

2) The second objection seems to be more theoretical, less sentimental but equally as defensive. It comes from those who object by saying “that is not what those who came before would have recognized as the faith” or “those who ________  (wrote the creeds, were reformers, etc.) thought that they were doing something that you now say they did not accomplish (making meta-physical statements, producing a once for all systematic theology, etc.)

In this case, I would simply argue, with Bernard of Chartres, that we are dwarves who stand on the shoulders of giants. We have a perspective that they did not have. Ours then in a 2nd order reflection on their 1st order activity. They were in the arena, we are in the balcony. This sets up two tensions: A) it is not possible to do what they did nor is it possible to disregard it  B) you know a tree by it’s fruit and we now see that they may not have done what they thought they were doing at the time.

This is the critical element. We are part of a living tradition that lives out faith in community – communities that are radically located in particular times and places. Our tradition proclaims an incarnational gospel and orients around a living word of God. That is, both conceptually and practically, an ongoing model of revision, renovation and revival. In these ways our faith stands in distinct contrast to other religions – especially made up ones.

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The Future of the Church in N. America

The past month has seen the end of a long semester, a trip up the coast with my wife, and we have been doing all sorts of renovations over at Homebrewed Christianity. I have taken a little break from blogging and next week I will be away at a Youth Service Project with SSP. But I wanted to put a couple of things up this week:

  • some thoughts about the future
  • a theological query
  • and there have been some requests to put my sermon transcript up

Some thoughts about the future of the church

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to an event at Fuller Seminary where Phyllis Tickle, Lauren Winner and Tony Jones were speaking. During the Q & R time I asked this question:

When you look at attendance rates across the board, the atrocious rate that we are losing young people raised in the church, and the passing of the WWII generation (I could have listed several other factors) … Do you think that 50 years from now there will be 50% fewer Christians in North America than there is today?

And if that is so, will homosexuality be the straw that broke the camels back?

Tony passed, Lauren wanted nothing to do with it (in their defense they are not ‘futurists’ by their own admission) so Phyllis gave the response. It was good. I have it on audio and will let her respond down the road.

I just wanted to post the question here. I do think that in 50 years there will be 50% fewer Christians in North America than there is today. I also think that is a problem… not because the church does not function well as a minority, but because the kind of christianity that we have is not calibrated well to be in that scenario.

Like it or not, the majority of our frameworks, institutions, establishments, attitudes, expectations, and Biblical interpretations are hold over from Christendom frameworks (if not colonial ones) but with the added blind spot of a lack of self-awareness. Most Christians that I talk to in Canada and the US seem to think that this is the way it should be.

I actually think that all this is just kindling. There is some gas that will be thrown on the fire. When the Baby Boomers retire (which they have just started to do) there will a significant loss of revenue and we will no longer be able to fund ministry the way that we have been. That is what will inflame the situation dramatically.

Add this to the Internet (making resources available and connections possible), the Browning of America (no white majority by 2050) and internal fighting of those who claim the name … and we may be talking about a tipping point.

Add this to fact that a lot of people have bought into a form of Christianity (whether it is conservative, charismatic, evangelical, etc.)  that looks for the Rapture (Tim Lehaye style) . But 50 years from that still will not have happened… and the disillusionment will be devastating.

Put it all together and I think that in 50 years there will be 50% fewer Christians in North America than there is today. But that it just my opinion – I could be wrong.

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>After Easter

He is risen!   …  now what?


Last week I was a part of two vigorous online conversations regarding the resurrection. Then I had a wonderful opportunity to celebrate Easter Sunday in a glorious way. I thought it might be good to recap the implications of last week’s conversations and celebrations as we turn the corner toward Pentecost. 



The next question seems to be “what do we do with this?” – also known as the so what question. People want to know because there are 3 key passages in the New Testament that say Jesus’ resurrection has consequences for what we as believers can expect after our death. 


Here are the 4 layers of thought that seem to come out of the Resurrection conversation.  
Continue reading “>After Easter” →

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>Resurrecting space for belief

It goes without saying, Easter is a big deal. I only have to mention the significance of passages like Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 15:13-15 (NIV) 

13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.



As I a pastor I looked forward to Easter so much, but I knew that we would have  visitors, family members, and friends who would come to our services out of relational obligation or for social interest in the event. I knew that some of these would not believe in the literalness of the resurrection of Jesus’ body. 



I always had to think through how I was going to talk about this as a way that was both faithful in proclamation for us as a community of faith, while also attempting to be invitational and sensitive to potential objections or barriers from our guests. 


I have no interest in apologizing for what we believe as a faith community. But neither do I want to dogmatically push an ancient worldview that may, to the listener, be suspicious at best and incompatible at worst.  Continue reading “>Resurrecting space for belief” →

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>the springs of Saratoga – a story (part 2)

in part 1 I began to tell the story of the springs …


When I first became inspired about the imagery of the springs, the language contributed a definite gravity to the direction of my sermons and the content of my congregation’s prayers. We began to see miraculous healings and answers to prayer that convinced us that there was something deep to this idea. 


I shared these developments with my regional pastor group and also my denominational pastors gathering. I was met at both places with a swift warning. “Make sure that your people know that the power for healing is with God and not with the water.”   This caused me to be very hesitant as I was continuously exhorted by other pastors and leaders not to “take it too far.”

 My wife would object to their line of reasoning by asking rhetorically “ If they have a headache and take an aspirin, do they think that the power is with God or the aspirin?” 
Continue reading “>the springs of Saratoga – a story (part 2)” →

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>Friday Follow up: Mashing Christmas into Easter

>Just a couple of reflections on this week’s conversations, posts, and emails:

1) The biggest response was to the idea that “Christmas reminds of this every year: live in the place, speak the language, love the people, and show the way.  It’s called incarnation and it is how God works in the world.” I am always intrigued by what draws the most responses and this one really got me thinking. I wrote my Master Thesis on this topic and so it is an everyday aspect of my thought life… but it dawned on me that I have not said or done much here with the idea.  I will have to build this into more of the posts down the road – since it is the thing that I care the most about in real life!

2) Mashing things together is a real problem.  several examples surfaced this week after the Pod was recorded.
– Like saying “worship” and meaning what happens on Sunday morning when we are together and singing.  That is such a shallow definition of worship.
 Worship is a whole life response to God’s gracious love and lordship.  Trees worship on Tuesday nights as much as I do when I sing on Sunday morning. A nursing baby worships in the early hours of morning with her mother – who is also worshipping in the same act of offering. The mechanic worships when he does an honest estimate for a transmission repair.

Thank God for honest mechanics and nursing mothers and trees as the grow toward heaven.

– When we say things like  “God showed up”… I know what we are after but,  it is such a bad understanding!  God was already there and at work long before you showed up , in fact – it might be WHY you showed up.  God was calling.  SO to say that we did this, sang this, prayed this and then God showed up is bad language and worse theology.

3) Incarnation is HOW god works.  I agree with John Cobb when he says : I think that is it a BAD understanding of power to say that God does whatever he wants in the world and however it is is how God wanted it. 

  Saying that the world is the way that God wants it is not true.  God is not that kind of powerful.. God is a different kind of powerful. I say that God is weak. Some people do not like that I say that.
Some say that God self-limits (I get what they are doing with that).
Some say that God is persuasive rather than coercive (I agree).
Others say that God is sovereign like a King is sovereign – unable to control every move and decision of every member of their Kingdom… but in charge of it (I like this).
Still others say that God is storing up his judgment for the End (I worry that they might be disapointed with how gracious God is in the end).

However you come at this, I think you have to admit three things:
a) God does not do whatever God wants
b) The world is not the way that God wants it
c) as Christians, we should look to Jesus as our model when we look at God’s methods

4) This is why I keep saying that it is almost as if Jesus did not come!  When Christian ministers, theologians and lay people talk about power or love – it is almost as if this was done without reading the Gospels of Jesus Christ.  Most of the definitions are about some ancient conception of God or some philosophical assertion about God – but what they clearly are NOT, is reflective of the revelation of God in Jesus.

I know that it is probably too cynical to say that Jesus came into a world where the Powerful reigned, he presented a vision of humility, and then the Powerful co-opted Jesus and went back to being Powerful only now it is in Jesus name.

I look at organized religion and think to myself “it is almost as if Jesus never came”… when you look at Priest centered – Temple worship and then Roman power structures, it is tough to see sometimes what difference Jesus makes.

Sure – the TOPICS are changed and the SUBJECT is different, but the motives, the methods and the models are almost unchanged… but like I said , that is too cynical.

OK  until next Tuesday – I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and I pray that you are safe in your travels this Holiday season!

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>Christmas is not Easter

>

Christmas is not Easter. They each hold a meaning that is in danger of getting lost when it all collapses into one thing. For the purpose of this conversation, I would like to even pull apart the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Each of these three is essential, and while there is a unity that ties them together, there is something  particular to each one – a uniqueness that we don’t want to lose.
 [if you get what I am saying – go ahead and jump down to the main point… you can just skip the side thought]
Listen to the Podcast [here]

Side Thought: I generally do not like when things get mashed together – especially when I am not sure that they belong together. I think that it often takes away from the very thing that it is suppose to provide our understanding.

There are four gospels.  We love to ‘harmonize’ them make it one gospel – which can be a helpful study tool – but let’s not be under the impression that there is only one gospel account.

Then there is that crazy thing people do with the Anti-Christ. When most people talk about the mythical character, what they actually do is mash together 5 biblical bad guys from  various genres and centuries. You end up with the Prince (of Daniel 9), the False Prophet, the man of Lawlessness, and the Beast jammed into one Big Bad Guy that – if you actually read the four passages in John – don’t sound like a single person or in a single time period.

We already covered the whole Heaven & Hell mashup and the Devil mashup last month (and earlier). But it is a real problem! It’s this darn thing that when Jesus says “wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction” and people automatically swap out ‘destruction’ for ‘hell’ when that passage is clearly not about hell.

So as you can see, this is a real problem. I love that every modern Christian can have a Bible in their hand. But as with most things, there is both an upside and a downside. The downside is that a lazy condensing or mashing together can result in something that leads to monstrous amalgamations.

You might think that I am overstating it, but I actually think that the amalgamations are perverse. This whole shorthand thing that we do with Heaven & Hell, the Devil, Salvation, the Anti-Christ and prophecy drives me crazy. I actually have come to think that they are a form of false-religion that keeps us from true religion (as defined in James )

Oh – one more… when we talk about Jesus‘ miracles by simply saying “he was God” , that sunday school answer actually becomes a real problem. By not celebrating Jesus’ humanity we cripple ourselves when it comes to participating is the kind of miraculous religion that we (who love the Bible) celebrate so much in the book of Acts.

But that is a side note. 

Main Point: Leading up to Christmas, I love to ask church and non-church people of all ages “why did Jesus come?”  The most frequent response is ‘to die for our sins’ or ‘to save us’.  Which is fine enough I guess (on one level) but is really more of an Easter answer and not a Christmas answer.

One of my favorite professors in Seminary made the point (I think that he may have been  quoting James McClendon) that if the whole point is for the just to die for the unjust then Jesus could have been ‘created’ by God as a sinless little baby and plopped in the Arctic, to die in the harsh elements.  That would have satisfied the sinless life expectation of ‘the righteous for the unrighteous’.

But that is not how it happened. Jesus was born to a family, in a place, learned a language, and participated in a culture. That was not a random detail or an accidental circumstance. That is important and central to the story.

If God could have accomplished the atonement in the Arctic – having made Jesus to suffer and die the cruel effects of human existence and to experience an unjust death that would satisfy the wrath of God and heal the broken gulf between God and his creation… since that is how it could have happened (and it could have) – then there is something significant in the fact that it did not happen that way.

No, Jesus was born via painful labor, to a family, with a family name (Bar Joseph), and he learned to speak their language and practice their religion. He participated in ceremonies and cared for his sibling and mother. This is all a part of the incarnation. It is not secondary or inconsequential – it is central.

So here is my theory:  Christmas is not primarily about the salvation of mankind or the redemption of the world. That is what the crucifixion and resurrection are about!  (they – by the way – are not the same thing either and there is something that we are suppose to learn from each of them as well – by resisting the temptation to mash them together into one… but that is for a Pod about 4 months from now.)

Christmas is about Incarnation.  Incarnation tells us that God has drawn near to humanity. We know that God has bridged the gap and that this is in order to restore the broken relationship. In fact, God did not just visit for a day and import, impose, and implement a new order… God dwelt with us.  Literally (in the original language) God tabernacled with us. As The Message has it “God moved into the neighborhood”.

God is not afraid of our sin. God is not offended by our presence. In fact, God became one of us.  And here is the wild twist – God became like us so that we may become like God. This is an ancient tradition called Theosis – made famous by St. Athanasius of Alexandria.

In fact,  what the Incarnation is to the beginning, Pentecost is to the middle. Not only did God become one of us – but God gave us the Spirit of God as a gift to help us along the way and God’s Spirit remains on the earth as a constant presence … but I don’t want to get ahead of myself and mash things together that do not go together.

Bottom Line: the Christian life is not to simply to believe that in a time long, long ago in a land far, far away that God did something … and that if you just believe and receive that ‘truth’, that after you die, then God will take one part of you (your soul) to another place.

No. There is something else going on in the Christmas story. It has to do with the fact that God loves the world. That God became one of us, spoke human language (not heavenly or angelic language) and showed us the way to live.

The goal is not so much to believe right things so that I go to a better place after I die – but to behave like Jesus showed me so that I experience that life of the ages (the eternal life) before I die and then impact this world that God loves so much that God came and visited in person – becoming one of us.

We miss most of that when we mash Christmas and Easter together. Incarnation is the thing that God did and it is what we are suppose to learn (and do) with Christmas: move into a neighborhood, learn a language, give our life and show the way.

The Christian religion is to be – first and foremost – relational.  It is transformational (of both person and place) and this is accomplished by being incarnational. Christmas is suppose to remind of this every year: live in the place, speak the language, love the people, and show the way.

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>Doubting the Devil

>

Next week will get to the Heart of Relationship and why  it is the single most important thing to know about when reading the Bible. But I just wanted to wrap up this conversation that we have been having about doubting the devil .

  I have four examples of the problem and then some possible solutions. First up is bit from the Edict of Worms when the Protestant Reformation was ramping up.

Here’s a sampling of the Edict’s pronouncements about Martin Luther from 1521:
To put an end to the numberless and endless errors of the said
Martin, let us say that it seems that this man, Martin, is not a man but
a demon in the appearance of a man, clothed in religious habit to be
better able to deceive mankind, and wanting to gather the heresies of
several heretics who have already been condemned, excommunicated, and
buried in hell for a long time. Let us add to this all the heresies
recently brought in by him to be the source of all iniquity and rubbish
and to destroy the Catholic faith. As an evangelical preacher he labors
to trouble and demolish all religious peace and charity and all order
and direction in the things of this world. And finally, he brings
dishonor upon all the beauty of our Holy Mother Church.
    Secondly, The new PBS documentary called “God in America” has been incredible. One little snippet that caught my attention was when the American Civil War kicked off and preachers on both sides were quoting Bible verses (Old and New Testament) to justify their positions for and against human slavery. The narrator was explaining that both sides thought that God was on their side and the segment was really focusing on the North (who would prove victorious), then said “There was a war in heaven – it was between the Archangel Michael and his angels, and the Devil and all of his.” There was no explanation beyond that. Was the Devil from the South? Was the Devil fighting for the South? Was the war on earth just a mirror of something that was going on in the heavenlies? 
    Third, I had a phone call a couple of years ago with a girl from the youth group at our church. She was spending the summer working at a Christian summer camp.  A stomach bug had been imported with one of the teenagers who has shown up for Teen camp and on the second day a number of people woke up vomiting.  It sounded pretty awful. So they started to pray – intercessory prayer – against the Devil and demons and that kind of thing. 
    More and more people got sick, kids and counselors, and by the end of the third day they had to call off the camp and ship everyone home.   At this point in the story she says “After this week – I really believe in spiritual warfare. I do not doubt that there is a real Devil.”  She was one of only a handful of workers that was not sick and so that small group was in change of washing all the buildings with bleach – walls, floors, bathrooms etc. 
    Fourth (and lastly) the same week as the Camp Vomit fiasco, there was a terrible murder in the local news. A mentally disturbed man, recently released form an institution [the news was not clear if it was prison or a mental ward],  broke into the home of a lesbian couple, beat them, tied them up, and did terrible terrible things to the two ladies. One of them escaped while he was torturing her partner. The women who escaped lived. Her partner did not. People were calling this man the Devil – the reasoning was ‘who else could do this type of thing’. 
    When I put these four stories together we see that Martin Luther was the devil for questioning the authority and power of a church that was in perhaps the most corrupt time in its history. Southern Americans (slaveholders and soldiers) are the Devil (or his demons).  A stomach bug is the Devil (or at least his doing). Finally – a mentally disturbed man is the Devil. 
    So when someone says “But you believe that the devil is a real being and not just the personification of the worst of humanity right?”  I have to respond : until we take a hiatus from blaming everything on the devil and take a look at human issues like our responsibility to challenge the status quo,  our opportunity for all humanity to live free, to do what we are capable of with contagious diseases and mental disorders… I reserve the right to be an agnostic on the issue of the Devil. 
    For now on,  I am going to point to systemic abuses (Martin Luther) misuses of the Biblical text (justify slavery) the realities of contagious viruses (anyone following Africa in the news?) and ramifications of imprisoning the mentally ill (and the transfer of our prisons to corporations instead of the State) and say that the Devil is a personification of the worst potential of humanity first. 
We can deal with everything else  or anything else second.
Here is why I think that it is so important to get this right:
    I listened to an old sermon this past week where I talked about the enemy of our soul and the realities of neglecting that aspect of our story.  It really brought home the seriousness and consequences of getting this one right. SO let me be crystal clear about this.
    I believe that life is a story. It is not a game to won or lost; a test to be passed; or a competition to get the most. It is not a set of rules to followed or a list of things to be accomplished.  Life is a story. 
    I believe that this story has evil in it.  I do not think that what we can see is all there is. There is more going on in the world than science has access to.
    I believe that this sabotage comes early and attacks our glory – the area that God most wants to use us (in strength and weakness). Usually the areas that we struggle to live the life we want are areas that have been assaulted early and often. I do not think that this is random or coincidental. 
   I believe that as Christ we tempted in the wilderness, as Peter was told to ‘get behind me’, and as Judas gave in – that the temptation is twofold: 
A) we are tempted to use our gifts-talents-strengths-passions-skills for our own benefit and not for the way that God wants to use them to make the world better for others
B) we are tempted to take the shortcut / easy road and not to trust God as people of faith. This is when we take matters into our own hands. 
    If we begin by 1) acknowledging that the Devil is a personification of the worst of humanity and 2) admitting that how the Devil works is to tempt us to use our gifts on ourselves and to take the short-cut and not trust God as people of faith by taking matters into our own hands… THEN we can talk about some big bad guy who is an ancient fallen angel and the super-natural enemy of God who controls the powers of the world by pulling the strings behind the scenes. 
    Otherwise I think that it would be wise for us to lay off the boogie-man stuff and concentrate on the evil that we can see and those things that we do have access to in our natural abilities. 
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