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Talking about Tebow’s God

This is a repost from Homebrewed Christianity. There was a wild discussion that ensued. I thought I would bring it over here as well – in case anyone wanted to have quieter conversation.

I have held off as long as I could but I think we better talk about this now before it goes any further.

Tim Tebow is a phenomenon is the media these days. His Denver Broncos football team is on a 6 game winning streak and he is 7-1 as their starting Quaterback. Despite his apparent limitations (skills) he has orchestrated a series of amazing comebacks during the winning streak.  That is a big deal! Any fan would love to have their team on this kind of a roller coaster – come from behind – frenzy.

That, however, is not what makes this news. Continue reading “Talking about Tebow’s God” →

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Humans: nipples, bellybuttons and the imago dei

3 themes continually emerge in my conversations these days – these 3 things about humans I have become convinced of:

Humans are mammals. The nipples and bellybuttons give it away. Some people will want to say that we are more than mammals, but we are not less than mammals. One can argue that we are exceptional mammals – but we are not exceptions to mammals.

Humans are social creatures. If biologically we are mammals then sociologically we are communal. We naturally break into families, clans, and tribes.

Humans are meaning making beings.  We have an inherent propensity to take any number of events or variables and assign them a narrative framework. Our minds long for reasons and explanation to tie together our experiences.

These three confessions have several deep implications. Continue reading “Humans: nipples, bellybuttons and the imago dei” →

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No One is 1st Century these days

I have been having a great conversation with a good friend of mine named JD. I wanted put part of it up here in the hopes that others will be able to jump in.

Me: I keep saying: I have no interest in discounting or explaining away my Christian experience – but neither am I willing to be bound to the antiquated ways that it was talked about in the 1st centuries.
JD: Understood! But does that mean you also discount people that do follow the 1st century Christianity? Is there not a place for everyone to understand and follow God in his/her own way
Me: Good clarification! I certainly do want to be open – engage – interact with – and learn from people of all traditions, denominations, and sects.
The one thing that I am most concerned about is people who think that they have a 1st century perspective but … who have not accounted for the radical developments that have impacted their faith! I will give you three examples:
1) Individualism. 1st century folks would not have even thought in our terms. They were connected in community and family systems/structures that defined them. When they said “I” they did not mean what we mean when we say “I”.
2) Literacy: since the Gutenberg press we each have a Bible in our own hands. The Bible was never meant to be studied alone. It was a communal activity where is was primarily read out loud.
3) Science: our understanding of everything from the Universe to the human body (not to mention Facebook and the Internet) has profoundly changed the way that think about the world, interact with each others and interact with God. This can not be underestimated. Continue reading “No One is 1st Century these days” →
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A Progressive take on being Pentecostal (or Charismatic)

In a recent Homebrewed Christianity podcast episode Mike Morrell interviews Leif Hetland, a charismatic signs & wonders Pastor. Afterward I got to talk with Tripp about my thoughts on reconciling the best of Pentecostal practices with a Progressive Christianity.

Here are my two big points:

 What Pentecostals have to say to Progressives

Jesus laid hands on people, the Disciples laid hands on people and the letters of the New Testament tell us to lay our hands on people. If you have bought into a brand of Christianity that does not have you laying your hands of people and praying in expectation that something would happen – you may want to revisit the reasons why.

If your faith is primarily intellectual, abstract, and conceptual … it may not be the religion that the writers of the New Testament called us to. The early church was a hands on movement and prayed with expectation.

What Progressives have to say to Pentecostals

Being delivered from personal demons is great and praying over whole cities to break or bind the ‘strong man’ that holds people in bondage is fine. There is a vital missing element that needs to be added. Its not just about the personal (mini) and the heavenly (meta) – that leaves a gap that must be filled. In the middle is the address of systems, structures and institutions (what Walter Wink calls ‘The Powers the Be”).

If you faith is primarily personal-congregational and supernatural-heavenly, then you might want to revisit some understandings of Scripture and the address of systemic sins (like injustice).  Otherwise you are in danger of being so heavenly minded that you actually reinforce and empower that very structures that you say you are praying against.

The 21st Century

I think that it is important to have these two camps are in conversation. Continue reading “A Progressive take on being Pentecostal (or Charismatic)” →

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Heaven, we have a problem – with sexuality

This was a week of controversy in the Blogosphere – at least in my neighborhood.

The topic of gender, femininity, and sexuality were the touch points.  I am going to highlight 3 controversial blogs from this week … but first I want to acknowledge that it mirrored (albeit in a much smaller way) something happening in the larger culture that we are embedded in.

This was also a week that saw the Penn State football sexual abuse scandal rock the nation, the Herman Cain sexual harassment allegations, and several other national news story related to discrimination, abuse, and harassment.

These three christian conversations that follow are not happening in a vacuum – perhaps that is why they illicit such a heated response and so much attention. It impacts all of us.

Post 1:  from Stuff that Christians Like – a post called ‘Girls with a Past’ was a little test (written by a man) that women could take to see if one qualified as intriguing or not.  It was satire (which not everyone gets or likes) and it pointed out a real problem. Now, some people were offended and took it out on the author. I just want to say that the situation is infuriating but we can’t take it out on the person who illustrates the problem, Jon was articulating a severe inconsistency between what we say and what we do in the ‘church’.

Here is his post: http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2011/11/stuff-christians-guys-like-girls-that-have-a-past/ let me know what you think. My 2 cents will be at the bottom of this post. It got over 500 responses.

Post 2: Rachel Held Evans (one of my favorite bloggers) put up a post called “13 things that make me a bad feminist”. It is part of a series that she does from time to time – she has also admitted to being a bad ‘evangelical’ and ‘progressive’.  This post went over like a lead-balloon . This led to a guest-post the following day.

Here is the post: http://rachelheldevans.com/13-things-lousy-feminist . It got 149 responses.

Post 3: my good buddy Tripp Fuller came out of the closet as not being ‘open and affirming’ on a video from Two Friars and a Fool. His contention was that affirming letters – whether L, B, G, Q, T, I or any other dash or asterisk – is an inherently limited response. It has two great dangers: Continue reading “Heaven, we have a problem – with sexuality” →

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Reading Revelation Better (part 1)

A month ago I threw out some ideas about Reading the Bible Better. I loved the comments and questions that it generated. It led to a short discussion about the book of Revelation – which is one of my favorite topics. I had to take some time off for the Soularize conference and some other projects but now I am back. I thought is would be good to pick up were we left off.

I first heard about Ronald Farmer in an interview with Homebrewed Christianity. His take on different ways of reading the Bible (hermeneutics) was helpful and inspiring. He has a commentary on the book of Revelation in the Chalice series.

He breaks down the different ways of looking at the book of Revelation into 4 schools: Historicist, Futurist, Symbolic and Preterist.

The Historicist school thinks that Revelation is a forecast of Western history “from the 1st century until the consummation of time.”

The Futurist school is similar to the Historicist but thinks that most of the book (chapters 4-20) is yet to happen and will start after the ‘rapture’. Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey, as well as the Scofield and Ryrie study Bibles are in this camp.

The Symbolic school thinks that the main point is God’s ultimate triumph over evil in symbolic or poetic imagery. So the ‘Beast’ would be “neither the 1st century Roman empire nor a future end-time antichrist.” It represents tyranny wherever it is found. Continue reading “Reading Revelation Better (part 1)” →

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talking about the Bible [links]

I have really enjoyed the recent conversations about Reading the Bible better and the book of Revelation. I will pick up on those themes tomorrow and Thursday.

Until then, I wanted to point to one of my favorite blogs with professor of Bible J. Daniel Kirk. He has been reviewing a new book about the Impossible Bible and he said something really true about those of us raised or converted into a tradition that reads the Bible in too-tight a way (mostly ignorant of it’s cultural context among other things).

Students who believe in this kind of Bible but then leave the world that makes it plausible by going to, say, a public university or a differently oriented seminary or, worst of all a PhD program and there encounter the real Bible for the first time–well, they lose their faith. Or, they have to go through so much intellectual reconfiguring of their faith that its persistence stands in question.

We see this over and over again in Pastoral circles. It is only going to get worse with people like Bart Erhman (who this happened to) promoting all the ugly stuff that young believers are usually protected/sheltered from .

You can also get the Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith here.

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Obama, the Antichrist, and the Beast (reading the Bible better)

This past week a heckler was escorted from a speech by President Obama for calling the President ‘the Antichrist’. If you want to read about it or watch the video,  here are some links.

I find this story very interesting for four reasons:

First, I passionately believe that the Book of Revelation was a spiritual-political commentary on the Roman Empire of the first two centuries. It was written in a Jewish style of literature called Apocalyptic.  I do not think it is about our day nor is it about the end of the world. It is an inspired (and thus scripture) movement of prophetic imagination to call for (in hope) a preferable future.

but that is not how I was taught to read the Bible. I was taught to read it in one hand with a newspaper in the other (as they say). I was told that we could see events (like the Bear from the East) being fulfilled in the Soviet Union or Israel. I no longer believe this but am fascinated by those who still do.

Second, there is no such thing as the Antichrist. Now, scripture does speak about an antichrist spirit – it is all in the books of 1 and 2 John of the Bible and there are 4 references – none of them are what get thrown around these days. The idea of THE Antichrist is actually a horrible amalgamation of nearly every bad-guy in the Bible mashed into one. We take the Man of Lawlessness (from Thessalonians), the Prince (from Daniel) and a whole bunch of other baddies from the Old and New Testament and transform them into one galactically bad figured called THE Antichrist. In reality, there is no such thing.

Third, if there was such a cosmic bad-guy, do you think that you could just pay $250 dollars for entrance to a fundraiser and yell at him because he let gays into the military?  Don’t you think that he would destroy you with like… I don’t know… beams of hell-fire from his eyes or something.  You can’t just yell at the Antichrist and get away with it.  What are you thinking? Continue reading “Obama, the Antichrist, and the Beast (reading the Bible better)” →

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