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(NEW BOOK) What Bothers Me Most About Christianity - by Ed Gungor

Hello!

My new book "What Bothers Me Most About Christianity" has been released in bookstores all across the nation.

The reason I wrote this book is because I didn't want to ignore the fact that some things about Christianity are just plain messy. In recent years there have been lots of atheistic books that attack the Christian faith. I think some of their attacks need a response from the Christian community-but one that is both fresh and humble. In "What Bothers Me Most About Christianity" I try to do that. In this writing I explore the most difficult aspects of the Christian faith, including...

Why doesn't God just show Himself?
Why does a loving God allow evil in His world?
If the Christian faith is so good, why are some Christians so bad?
Why was God so harsh during Old Testament times?
Why is the Christian faith so exclusive?

I honestly believe that having faith does not demand intellectual suicide. There are reasonable responses to these difficult questions. This book will equip you to better represent your faith to everyone around you.

Here's what a couple of Christian leaders have said after reading my book:

"When I first heard the title, What Bothers Me Most About Christianity, I was a bit leery, because quite frankly, I am most grateful to be a Christian! But I was delighted to discover that Ed Gungor upholds Christianity while honestly addressing many of the misconceptions about the Christian faith. In a way that speaks to our post-modern culture, Ed Gungor takes these misconceptions, one by one, and systematically addresses them from a Christian perspective."
-- Jerry Newcombe, D. Min. - TV Producer / Author

"I love this book! It's a lot easier to give pat answers to questions people aren't asking than to wrestle honestly with the questions they are asking. Thank you, Ed, for wrestling with honest questions. I highly recommend it for people who wrestle and think!"
-- Bob Roberts, Author, Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World

It would be so helpful, and I would be so honored, if you would be willing to go to any one of our local bookstores to pick up a copy of "What Bothers Me Most About Christianity." The publishers are watching to see who will respond to this book and if you snag a copy, it would send a great message to them.

If you get one, please let me know what you think after you have had a chance to jump in and read it!

Thank you so much!
Pastor Ed Gungor

Click here to purchase this new book!

What About The Past

Because of our connection with sin, we were doomed for death. The Bible claims, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

However, God figured out a way to free us from our death sentence. Jesus Christ came to earth to cancel the effect of sin upon our lives. The book of John records that “John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

Jesus willingly came to earth to take the death penalty for our sin against God. The whole “cross” deal was done FOR us. Jesus Christ suffered and died for you and me. He experienced what we should have experienced. His blood was spilled instead of ours and now that blood is said to satisfy the demand that we each die for our sins, and his blood “purifies us” from our sin. John wrote, “The blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from every sin” (1 John 1:7).

From God’s perspective, every one of the stupid, evil things you did in the past is now forgotten. You are forgiven. That means there is no reason for you to live under the guilt of what you have done in the past. No matter how bad you were, God made a way to cleanse you and make it as though it never happened (people may remember, but God doesn’t – and he will help you get past the judgments of people). It turns out that God’s forgiveness is stronger than all the terrible things you may have done. The good news is that Jesus’ righteous actions on our behalf weigh more heavily in God’s mind than the evil we do.

Romans 5:20 makes the claim, “Where sin increased, grace (God’s favor to forgive) increased all the more.” People commit unspeakable crimes like murder, rape, incest, etc., and feel that God could never forgive them. But this verse declares that God’s kindness and forgiveness extends even those who have done what society and others will never forgive them for. God’s love overrides sin!

The word “forgiveness” used in Bible days was a word used in reference to the releasing of prisoners. It literally meant “to send off, to release, to let go or to let be.” When you understand that Jesus died for you (in your place), you understand that his death causes all your sins and failures are sent away and you are forever released from the prison of your past mistakes.

What a picture that paints for us. When God forgives us, there is no evidence before him in Heaven that we ever committed sins! Listen to these great Bible verses that take this view:

”As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

”For you have cast all my sins behind your back” (Isaiah 38:17).

“He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities underfoot. Yes, Thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19).

These promises mean you don’t have to live in the guilt of your past.

Paul wrote, “Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal; yet God declares us ‘not guilty’ of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins” (Romans 3:23-24).

Though there are times we need to make amends for the damage we have caused others, we don’t have to hang our heads in condemnation or believe we can never make it in life because of our wrongdoing. The Bible boldy declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

God never remembers your past; the bad news is that there are those who never forget it. Satan, the enemy of your spiritual life, loves to control people through guilt over the past. By doing so, he can keep you locked into old habits and destroy your future. But your past cannot be used against you now. Not if you remember Jesus’ death for you. The Bible claims you are now a child of God. You don’t have to identify with your past life; you have a new life in Christ.

So sweet.

Summer Madness

It’s summertime. That means it’s time to play—to experience some leisure. But our work-oriented society does not give leisure its due. In his book, When I Relax I Feel Guilty, Tim Hansel talks about the business of play, or “leisure” in an insightful way:

“If you excuse me a moment for not speaking English, I think you will find it helpful to know the background of the word ‘leisure.’ It comes from the Latin word ‘licere,’ which means ‘to be permitted.’ More today than ever, we need to learn how to give ourselves permission to relax, to play, to enjoy life, and to enjoy God for Who He is.

“It is interesting that the Latin word for word was ‘negotium,’ or ‘nonleisure.’ Work was thus secondary, defined as it related to leisure. Our society does just the opposite, defining leisure as ‘nonwork.’ We tend to be almost compulsively utilitarian. Everything must contribute to our work. We play in order to work better or be more ‘useful’ to God. In many ways these are the habits that keep us unhappy. In our myopia of overvalued productivity, we have forgotten how to enjoy things for what they are.

“Leisure is more than just nonwork. It is a point of contact with reality and a catalyst for new experiences, new ideas, new people, and new places. It is the time when the gift of wholeness again becomes a hope and a possibility.”

ZORBA IT
Whatever it is that you think of when you think of play make sure it is play and not just work masquerading as play. Zorba, in the book Zorba The Greek, cries out, “Boss, you’ve got everything except one thing—MADNESS! A man needs a little madness or else he never dares cut the rope to be free.”

Play is supposed to be madness. It us supposed to help us “cut the ropes,” which keep us bound to the rigorous demands of our work-oriented minds. That’s why you need to hone in on the things that do this for you. Every one of us needs a hobby, a diversion—something that we love to do with all our might and all our energy just for the fun of it. But keep in mind that one person’s play is another person’s work. Do what gives YOU a sense of freedom from your responsibilities.

Play is a process of doing something refreshing or fulfilling without having to achieve a goal. Play itself brings you pleasure; it is enjoyable. Play is free and spontaneous. Its emphasis is on feeling, with one moment of feeling leading to the next until you are lost in the present. Play is enriched by emotional involvement and spontaneity. It usually includes people, surroundings, and activities that push us into the moment, instead of letting the moment pass by unobserved. Though we tend to focus mostly on the past and the future, life really only exists in the present. Play is one of our few opportunities to live in the present—it is where now becomes most accessible to us. We need to play.

THE BENEFITS OF PLAY
Though thinking about the benefits of play can rob the point of play, I share a couple with you in the hope that you will start playing. Play gives us a whole host of benefits, but let’s talk about two: it’s a stress reducer, and it builds relationships.

There are scads of studies that show people who participate in recreational play (from athletic games, to outdoor interests like hunting, fishing, skiing, etc.) experience a reduction of stress. Since stress is a significant factor in our general health (especially heart disease and blood pressure), play will improve your overall health and increase your life expectancy. Play is a natural “tranquilizer.” So, what are you waiting for?

The only down side of knowing this is you may try to play to accomplish this, and then it won’t be play anymore. Remember play needs pointlessness to be play.

Play also contributes greatly to building relationships. Playfulness is a gift. If you plan on being married to the same person the rest of your life, you had better learn to get playful and to learn to laugh at yourselves. Gail and I have been partners in love and marriage for over thirty years. Early on in our relationship we were pretty good at throwing down a fight. We had our moments of huffing and puffing, and trying to blow each other down. But something changed in us along the way. After about twenty years of doing life together we stopped being able to get so upset. When our discussions escalated anywhere near a conniption fit, we started breaking out into giggles over it. I guess we finally stopped taking ourselves so seriously and realized that when we were huffing, we really were full of wind.

Happy, fun-filled play jammed with laughter and silliness is a treasure. It relieves tension and balances out the difficulties we are forced to face in a fallen world. The truth is, this world is not a very happy place. There is much pain and sorrow here. Many have lost their capacity to giggle because life has been so hard—there has been too much loss. The richness of life hangs on a slender thread, and even the strongest among us can lose it in an instant.

I think God has designed play to help us keep life “abundant.” Play is not a luxury; it is a necessity. It is a vital contribution to life and health. I’m suggesting that each of us should commit to recapturing play in our lives. I believe even in the midst of conflict and pain, God wants us to snag some joy and happiness.

PLAY IS NOT ESCAPISM
One note of warning: Make sure that you are committed to engaging in satisfying and enjoyable activities when you think of play—don’t just try to escape. Escapism will help you turn off the stress but it is not re-creative; it will not prepare you to reengage in life’s responsibilities. Though it’s fun to watch whatever is on TV from time to time, if you consistently “pass the time” you have doing that kind of mindless thing, it will not be satisfying, nor restorative. You will have squandered time that could have been used for activities that actually regenerate and renew you. Play isn’t “drifting” into “whatever” absorbs your time; it’s an active choice to engage in activities that reset your emotional and spiritual meters. Play well.

(NEW BOOK) What Bothers Me Most About Christianity - by Ed Gungor

Hello!

Click here to purchase this new book!

Life's Little Interruptions

Why is the word “interruption” filled with such a negative connotation?
As busy Americans, our lives are constantly being interrupted. Our work is interrupted by problems that need to be solved or family crises. Our vacations are interrupted by unplanned or seemingly necessary work. And sometimes our faith is interrupted by service, family obligations, and more urgent matters.

Webster’s dictionary defines the interruption as “to stop or hinder by breaking in, to break the uniformity or continuity of.” Though our first inclination is to think interruptions are a bad thing, maybe interruptions are God’s way of “breaking in” to get us back on His track.

When I started my blog, it was to learn how to balance all areas of my life—professionally, domestically, spiritually, and emotionally. I wanted to learn how to deal with interruptions and work through them. But if I was honest, I wanted to learn how to avoid them completely.

Like many of you, I hate interruptions. I hate being drawn from that sweet spot in my writing, ripped from an exciting scene in a book I’m reading, or being torn from an intimate place with Jesus to attend to a less worthy and noble task like answering email, cooking dinner, and yes, even tending to the needs of my children. It’s just not fun doing those things sometimes. And I’d look at those types of interruptions in my life as burdens, “have tos” on my way to get to the “want tos.”

Then, just like what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus, God knocked me off my horse. But instead of blinding me, the scales fell from my eyes. Though God didn’t speak to me in an audible voice, He came through loud and clear in a group Bible study on hearing the voice of God.

The topic of discussion study that week was being sold out and hungry for God. The author Pricilla Shirer shared these words:

“More and more the Lord is showing me what I consider interruptions are often divine distractions designed to reveal His plans for me…”

Pricilla Shirer wrote about her young son tugging on her leg, trying to get her attention while she sat engrossed in writing that very Bible study. “Ignoring this interruption ignores God’s attempt to move me away from my plan for my day to His.”

It was in that “ah-ha” moment that I realized I was treating my children as interruptions in my life and to my writing career. I had become so focused on what I thought my calling from God was that I’d been missing His divine plan for my life.

When I decided to homeschool almost five years ago, I felt it was an interruption in my life and writing career. My youngest was two and a half, and I had just recommitted to my writing after a ten year sabbatical to raise my kids. Wasn’t it the perfect time to focus on my career?

But without consulting me on the matter, God threw a wrench in the plan by directing me to homeschool. The time I thought I would have to write now had to be allocated to schooling. Still, I was determined to make it work even if it meant staying up past midnight and “winging it” through my lessons the following day. During a quick break or at lunch, I’d steal away to the computer and get on email only to stay longer than I had planned. My two-and-a-half-year-old would often interrupt what I was doing, and I’d either shoo her away or get irritated at the interruption. If I lingered too long on the computer, I knew chaos would erupt in the rooms below, but somehow I couldn’t pull myself away in time to prevent the inevitable.

Pricilla went on to write:

“…We all become frustrated when seemingly meaningless interruptions interfere with plans we have for our careers, families, finances, or ministries. Are we missing God’s interventions as He seeks to divert us to His will?”

Was I missing God’s intervention as He sought to divert me to His will? I thought homeschooling was an interruption in my life, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was God’s divine intervention to steer me back on the path He had already designed for me.

Pricilla said, “Sometimes when our plans are interrupted, we are staring God’s direction in the face. We must not push them aside to complete what we feel is most important.”

Five years later, with two in school and two homeschooling, I’m actively pursuing my writing and still learning to welcome the constant interruptions.

Interruptions are all around us, but if we learn to take a deep breath when they come instead of reacting negatively, God’s divine interventions might be easier to see.

Maybe our work is being interrupted because our priorities have become skewed and it’s the only way for God to get our attention and put the focus back on what truly matters. Maybe our recreation is being interrupted because God doesn’t want us to miss something more important in His big plan. When interruptions come in our faith, perhaps God wants us to push through the distractions of life to focus on Him, or maybe we simply need to attend to our family needs instead of our own. And sometimes, most times, interruptions are just interruptions and have no spiritual meaning at all. Either way, we can learn from them by embracing the moment and reevaluating our current path.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that many times I fall back into the old “I hate interruptions” mentality. But at least now, when my seven year old climbs up on my lap while I’m at the computer, I finish my thought, push away and smother her in a big hug.

God and Politics?

Ever since the days of the Roman emperor Constantine in the 4th century, the precise nature of the relationship between “the church” and what we might call “the state” has been… well, complicated to say the least. Constantine of course was the emperor whose conversion to Christianity transformed Rome from a pagan state to a Christian one. This arrangement (known as “Christendom”) has persisted down through history right up until at least the middle part of the 20th century. It wasn’t more than 50 years ago that many states (particularly in the South) still had so-called “Blue Laws” on the books: laws that functioned as a sort of political legitimization of Christian belief and practice, making, for instance, doing business on Sundays illegal, or prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sundays. Whether one agrees with these laws or not, the important thing to notice is their “Constantinian” shape: the State is to provide a sort of “canopy” for the Christian religion, privileging its status in society.

“Christendom”, however, is breaking up. The church no longer enjoys the privileged status it once did, and many in the church want to sound the alarm over this new state of affairs. “We need to take back America!” they shout, sometimes adding “for Jesus.” There’s a discomfort we seem to have that now, for the first time, we’re not in a position of power, and so we wage “culture wars” to try to reclaim our “turf.”

Honestly, as a Christian, I’m not sure what to make of all the bluster. In the first place, it seems to mask a thinly-veiled, seldom-acknowledged “fear of the other”. We don’t want to have to deal with genuine “others”, and if we do have to deal with them, we’re going to make sure they become more like us—in other words, we accept them on the condition that we can blunt their “otherness.”

Secondly, I gather that this fear of the other stems from a strange need we have for self-preservation. I say “strange” because it seems to me when I read the New Testament that the people of God are precisely those people whose “inheritance is in heaven”, who are called “aliens and strangers” awaiting the hope of a “better country, a heavenly one.” So why do we feel the need to protect our little corner of the universe from outsiders when our inheritance is in heaven?

Thirdly, what I find most strange about this anxiety is (what seems to me like) a hypocrisy that underlies it all. We fret the loss of political power because we won’t be able to influence things the way we once did. But I’m inclined to ask why we fret this inability to influence through the levers of political power. Is it because we were really interested in securing “liberty and justice for all” regardless of skin color, religious preference, or sexual orientation, or because, again, we were merely trying to make life more comfortable for the average white middle-class person?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not sitting here feeling “bullish” about the days ahead. Having more voices at the table means that more BAD voices will be at the table. I get that. But what concerns me is when Christians buy and sell hysteria in the open market because of this changed arrangement. Fear-mongering among Christians is always evidence that our priorities are out of line somewhere, and I suggest we get them back in-line PRONTO, because I’ve got news—we’re not going to “get America back”, no matter how hard we try.

Now some automatically think that this means Christians should no longer “be involved in politics”. “What’s the use?” they moan. But I think that we SHOULD still be involved in politics, though the nature of that engagement is going to need to change a bit. So let me suggest a few guidelines for the nature of our “political involvement” that may provide a framework for us to engage the conversation without emptying our witness or losing our sense of priority:

1) WE MUST SEE THE CHURCH ITSELF AS THE PRIMARY CATALYST FOR SOCIAL CHANGE. In the oft-repeated words of Duke ethicist Stan Hauerwas, “The first task of the church is to BE the church.” Prophetic influence in the book of Acts, where the church was lived on the fringes of power, came because of the vitality of life and witness that sprang from the church itself, not because they formed a coalition to get a Christian Caesar into office. We need to remember that the church is called to be an alternative society that shows up the social arrangements of the world as the shams they are.

2) WE MUST RELEARN THE VALUE OF “SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER” (to use Tony Campolo’s words), and we must learn to do it in the stealthy ways that make for influence. That is to say, we need to seek “truthful speech” not only in the overt ways of the prophets, but in the subversive way of Jesus, whose brilliance was that he took familiar narratives and subtly, subversively, turned them on their heads (and in so doing turned a few hearts too). The 2007 movie “Juno” (a movie about teenage pregnancy) is a great example of the kinds of subversive narrative games we Christians ought to be playing. “Juno” turned a cultural “story” (that the best thing to do, in order not to mess up your life with an “unwanted pregnancy”, is to terminate) and turned it on its head. I’m suspicious that countless pregnancies that may otherwise have been terminated were saved because of Juno. Christians need desperately to learn the art of subversive story.

3) WE MUST ENGAGE THE POLITICAL PROCESS, BUT, FOLLOWING JESUS, NOT TO SEEK OUR OWN GOOD BUT THE GOOD OF OTHERS. This will result in a widening of the issues that we come to see as important in the political conversation, and I dare say we may find, if we take this principle to its logical conclusion, ourselves taking sides with people we never imagined taking the side of. But that will be a good thing, since Jesus himself was a friend and advocate of “prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners.”

In the words of Dorothy, “We’re not in Kansas anymore”, and I think this new situation we as God’s people find ourselves demands a new, better way of being “political”, a way based not on power but on love. Will we have the courage to embrace Kansas with all its demands? That’s the question.

God and Evolution

I don’t think arguing for God being the Creator of the universe necessitates an attack on the theory of evolution. Don’t misunderstand me; I think evolutionists have gone ape over their theory (forgive the pun) to the point that they seem to forget it is a theory, and refer to it as if it is an undeniable scientific fact. True, all concede that a form of evolution is taking place all the time. Variations emerge within species of plants and animals—that’s why there are so many different kinds of dogs, seedless grapes, hybrid corn, horses that can be bred to race faster, and bacteria that develop immunity to antibiotics. This kind of evolution is referred to as microevolution, and it happens constantly.

But Darwin’s theory goes way beyond that. It claims that, without the guidance of any intelligent designer, life began millions of years ago from a kind of primordial ooze that gave rise to single-celled creatures, which then evolved into more complex ones, all the way up to we homo sapiens. This is referred to as macroevolution. Is the theory true? It definitely has its problems, but whether it is true doesn’t impact the notion that God is the Creator of the world. Scientific theories about origins simply talk about how things came to be, not whether God was behind it. For Christians to argue about scientific theory—any theory—because they think it attacks the notion that God is the Creator seems silly to me.

Let me take this a bit further. What if the point of the creation narrative in Genesis was more poetic than literal? Historically, the Church has always held this position about creation. The Church’s take was simply that God created the world. That’s it. Before the nineteenth century, the Church never tried to specify how or when God did it. Those in the ancient world (to whom the text was written) did not think in literal or scientific terms, nor would they have cared about such notions. The big news of Genesis to the ancient world was that ONE God, not many, was responsible for all we see. That radical, salient point rang through that world which believed in many gods—not one—and had absolutely nothing to do with science.

A belief in God does not necessitate that a person accept the position that the earth is just six thousand years old. The historical, theistic argument is simply that we believe God is the why behind what is here, whenever and however it got here. Scientists may ultimately tell us how and when everything happened in ways not articulated in the biblical text, but science will never be able to tell us why. Why is the stuff of belief. Understanding this helps us be open to the research and questioning of science, while recognizing such questioning is not an enemy to faith.

Science does not have to be an enemy of faith. Nanoscientist James Tour, a professor at Rice University, spends his life building molecules in the lab. He says, “I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.” Well said, nanoscience guy.

The universe we live in is amazing. The visible universe—the universe we know and can talk about intelligibly—is a million million million million (that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) miles across. When we look up into the sky with the naked eye, we can only see about 2000 stars from any given spot on earth. With a pair of binoculars that number shoots up to 50,000. If you snag a small two-inch telescope, you’d be able to see up to 300,000 stars. With a sixteen-inch telescope you start to count, not stars, but galaxies—up to 100,000 of them, each containing tens of billions of stars. Scientists estimate that there are at least a million different galaxies in just the section of sky framed by the cup of the Big Dipper. And all of this vastness with all of its complexities works together in seemingly perfect order. In describing how the planets work together in our vast solar system, astronomer Geoffrey Marcy remarks, “They’re all in the same plane. They’re all going around in the same direction… It’s perfect, you know. It’s gorgeous. It’s almost uncanny.” And if you turn your attention away from outer space to the universe that is microscopic, there appears to be as much “inner” space as there is outer space.

One could say that the order of non-living things—the laws that govern physical objects, the earth orbiting the sun, the seasons coming and going, the laws governing atoms and the subatomic universe—is enough evidence to assert that there is a God who designed things to be the way they are. But the most compelling evidence—the evidence that seems to scream: THERE IS A GOD! — comes from things that are alive.

Even the smallest, single-celled organisms have more complexity within their cellular walls then anything scientists have been able to recreate using huge supercomputers. What guides the process in all living things is the DNA molecule, which regulates every cell of every plant and animal. The DNA molecule is like a tiny microprocessor that controls everything a living cell does. The data encoded on the DNA inside every cell of every living thing is a kind of written language. The English language uses a twenty-six-letter alphabet; DNA uses a four-letter chemical alphabet. As the chemicals are arranged in various “lettered” sequences, they form what amounts to words, sentences, and paragraphs containing all the instructions needed to guide a living cell. The DNA molecule instructs cells on how to make proteins, what and how to eat, how to get rid of waste, when to divide, how to repair itself, and so on. So, where did DNA come from? How was the code “written?” Was it written by chance or was there a Designer?

Dr. Walter L. Bradly, who has a doctorate in materials science from the University of Texas at Austin and is an expert on polymers and thermodynamics, says, “Ice crystals have a certain amount of order, but it’s simple, repetitive, and has a low amount of information, sort of like filling a book with the words, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’ over and over again. In contrast, the kind of complexity we see in living matter has a high information content that specifies how to assemble amino acids in the right sequence, like a book being filled with meaningful sentences that communicate a story. Unquestionably, energy can create patterns of simple order. For instance, you could see ripples on the sand at a beach and know they were created by the action of waves. But if you saw the words, ‘John loves Mary’ and a heart with an arrow drawn in the sand, you know that energy alone didn’t create that.”

If you and I stumbled onto an ancient drawing on a cave wall or found a novel at an abandoned campsite, we would probably argue that there was intelligence behind it. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that something as complex as the DNA molecule had intelligence behind it? Keep in mind that the DNA molecule is an enormous polymer that contains much more complex information than any cave drawing or novel. Its primary role is the long-term storage of information. Scientists often compare DNA to a set of blueprints because it contains the instructions needed to manufacture all the internal components of cells, such as proteins and other complex molecules. DNA carries all the genetic information (the genes) of an organism, but it also carries the information that regulates everything done on the cellular level. DNA molecules are immensely complex and filled with billions of bits of data. They even know how to replicate themselves when a cell divides so that new cell has an exact copy of the blueprint to take along with it. DNA contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of what we call life. Is it really plausible to suggest such complexity happened by chance?

The 1997 film Contact was based on Carl Sagan’s novel of the same name. Sagan was an American astronomer and astrochemist who pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). In the movie, Dr. Eleanor Arroway, played by Jodie Foster, scans the skies with radio telescopes, searching for signs of intelligent life in space. The radio telescopes are “listening” for a signal that is not the usual static (or white nose), which is the random sound of space. There is no intelligence behind random noise. One day Dr. Arroway began receiving a signal that was not noise; it was a transmission of prime numbers (which are numbers only divisible by themselves and the number one).

Arroway and the other scientists reason there is no way a natural cause could be behind a string of numbers like this; it would be too improbable. This was not random static; this was information. It was a message with content. The plot of the film is based on the pursuit to decode and learn from the message that was sent from space. Sagan himself once said, “The receipt of a single message from space would be enough to know there’s an intelligence out there.”

So, here’s a valid question: If, as Sagan asserted, a single message from space would be enough for scientists to conclude there is intelligent life out there, what about all the information encoded on the DNA molecule in every living thing? Isn’t that evidence that there might be some intelligent being behind it all? Is it silly to believe an Intelligent Designer might be involved?

To suggest that something as complex as DNA developed without any intelligence directing it is more far-fetched (strictly based on the odds) than the oft-used analogy of you standing in front of a fully functioning Boeing 747 and someone telling you it just showed up after a tornado went through a neighboring junk yard. Is it possible that believing that life emerged randomly, without an Intelligent Designer, requires more faith than believing it did?
Again, I am not attacking any scientific theories here, nor am I trying to blunt our curiosity to discover how things came to be. I’m suggesting that discovering how does not preclude the idea that there was intelligence involved. And, yet, there is such prejudice against this idea in many circles.

Case in point: Oxford educated, British chemist Leslie Orgel once said, “Evolution is smarter than you are,” to which atheist Christopher Hitchens responded, “But this complement to the ‘intelligence’ of natural selection is not by any means a concession to the stupid notion of ‘intelligent design.’”

Why not Christopher? Why couldn’t evolution have an intelligence that was put in it by God? That Hitchens (along with the other neo-atheists) can make no “concession” to the possibility of God being involved is evidence of a silly prejudice. It is not a logical observation.

The Divine Quest

When most think about God they think of rules, commands, judgments and wrath—with the cherished counterbalance of grace and forgiveness sprinkled in. In American evangelicalism the goal of faith appears to center on “believing” the right thing—believing the gospel. But if “belief” is the only goal of the gospel, then once a person believes, life is futureless—we’ve done it all; we’ve finished the race because the finish line is “spiritual enlightenment.” I’m not suggesting that belief isn’t critical and the place we must start—it is—but isn’t there more? Is it possible that God’s dream for human destiny is more than just believing a message?

It seems to me that Jesus and the early church were less about believing in something in order to “get ready for eternity" than they were about creating a community of people who lived differently—precisely because they “believed” something unique. Their belief was an alternative vision of reality, which demanded a nonconformist value system from the one being heralded by the religious and political contexts they found themselves in. These were a people who testified to the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ by embracing a new dimension of living—one committed to death, if need be, in order to fulfill the missio dei (the mission of God) in the world.

But relatively few think of Christianity as a call to enter a new kind of living—a life jacked up with adventure, mission and divine destiny. Faith for many is nothing more than fire insurance from hell, some acquiescence to rule-keeping (it’s the least we can do), and a safety net of forgiveness when we break the rules. On this view the human experience of faith isn’t much more than a life of stumbling and bumbling around “holding on” to faith the best we can till Christ sees fit to bring us home.

But what if the Christian life is supposed to be more than that?

What if it is a calling for us to step into something larger than ourselves?

What if God is inviting us into something more than legalism and rules?

What if he is inviting us to participate in some kind of divine quest?

A TIME-CRITICAL WORLD

God has invited us to be participants in establishing his kingdom in the world. God does not force that participation on us; we must choose to participate through our obedience. Truth is we don’t have all that much time—one life; one shot. This ought to freak us out a little. We ought to be a little crazy about seizing each day—trying to jam them full of as many right choices and as much Holy Spirit activity we can possibly say YES to. Jesus said with a palpable sense of urgency, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4). We need to keep that sense of urgency alive in us. This helps: the psalmist said, “Teach us to number our days” (Psa. 90:12). In other words, it’s good for us to think about the fact that we are going to die. Get that. You are going to die. So am I. We are going to expire, croak, become dust-lickers. Living life with this awareness isn’t being morbid; it makes us live better.

I want my days to matter. I don’t want to be guilty of living in the sin of sloth. Sloth is defined as the lack of desire to perform work or expend effort. It is one of the historical seven deadly sins. We see this sin present in Israel as Jesus calls out over the city of Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate” (Luke 13:34-35).

For Christians, spiritual sloth sometimes means we really don’t care what the Bible teaches, so we put off reading or asking about it. Sloth keeps people from participating in challenging spiritual experiences or events—it’s just easier to spend our time glutting our souls with TV dramas and comedies. Honestly, it takes lots of work to engage with people or ideas that call us to action: to loving our neighbor, helping the poor, telling the truth, et cetera.

Being IN the faith and experiencing salvation does not mean you are DOING the faith and participating in the missio dei. I think receiving Jesus is different from being an apprentice of Jesus, his mission and his ways. Being an apprentice of the Christ suggests you are not just believing in the message of redemption and experiencing personal forgiveness—that is certainly where it begins, but that is not where it ends. Following Jesus is an adventure in being counter-cultural. It is being on a mission to change the world. This is beyond simply dedicating one’s life to faithful service in order to build up a local church congregation, its programs, numbers and facilities—this is about a change of heart, about us putting our skin in the game of bringing God’s justice and salvation into a unjust world. A definite quest.

When Grace Goes Sour

For me, the most stunning aspect of faith is grace. Grace is that unmerited, incautious favor of God that most of us never tire hearing about. There is just something about it—whenever it comes, it changes what is into something grander. That is what I love about the gospel. It is a message of grace, and because of that, wherever it goes, it brings change.

But some groups who call themselves “grace” people make me nervous. I get the feeling that they spell grace g-r-e-a-s-e. They don’t talk about grace as something that changes them as much as something that lets them slide by with whatever they feel like doing—even sinful things. But grace yields freedom from sin, not freedom to sin. Justifying sin by appealing to grace sours the grace experience by turning it into something God never intended to be.

I’m convinced that the people who use grace as an excuse to sin aren’t experiencing it at all. They may have experienced grace in the past or they may have just heard about it, but they are not experiencing it now. You can’t experience the grace of God and continue being bad. Grace doesn’t promise immunity from sinful consequences; it promises power to live above sin.

It’s true that if you miss grace to prevent sin, you can tap into grace that brings the forgiveness of sin. God has a very effective 911 system. But using 911 is not a thing to boast about. And if you use 911 flippantly, you get in trouble. Grace is never a license to sin.

In fact, it is the grace of God that brings judgment for sin. Just as God tells us to discipline our children, and that if we do not discipline them, we, in effect, hate them (Prov. 13:24), He disciplines us too—because he loves us. But there are folks in the “grace” crowd that think God never does anything quite so negative.

But I think they might have God confused with Grandpa. Grandpa tends to overlook wrongdoing, and he always avoids confrontation. Grandpa’s goal at the end of the day is only that all had a good time. But Jesus didn’t tell us to pray, “Our Grandpa in heaven.” He said to pray, “Our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9).

Scripture is clear. God is our Father, and He “disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness” (Heb. 12:10). God doesn’t just love us with a smile while He distributes playful impulses of joy into our souls. He sometimes gets hard with us and treats us in a way that doesn’t seem “pleasant at the time, but painful” (v.11). We are His sons and daughters. You and I matter. He isn’t kidding about destiny. He consistently asks us to be part of His salvation history. We are called to a purpose.

If we say no to His plan, He will back off. That is a scary enterprise. When Israel said no to God, He said of them, “My people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices” (Ps. 81:11–12).

JUDGMENT
God is not the one who makes life ugly for us. But there are times He backs off and our own ugliness takes over. It’s called “judgment.” Judgment is not something God does to us as much as it is something He lets happen to us.

Jesus claimed that the Father doesn’t judge people (John 5:22). Judgment exists, but Jesus said it was His “word” that judged people (John 12:48). He talked about “the person who hears my words but does not keep them” (v. 47) and said he would be judged by the very words he spoke—not by the person of God. That means God is never out to “get you.” But, like any good father, God will eventually no longer protect us from the persistent negative actions that we refuse to renounce. If we don’t repent, He lets us experience the harvest of our sin.

The good news is, God usually hangs in there a long, long time, shielding us from our own devices for as long as possible and giving us every chance to turn away from our sinful actions. But if we persistently resist Him, He will eventually let us experience our own way. Here is a scary text: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

The idea of judgment is simple. God is trying to help us. If we say no to Him, eventually He leaves us alone. That is judgment—God backing out of our lives. It is the result of our refusal to submit to the person of Jesus—to His help and love. When we reject Jesus, we reject God Himself, along with all His freedom and forgiveness. Where freedom and forgiveness are absent, there is judgment.

That said, getting out from under judgment is a simple matter. If you have been heading west for fifty years, but turn to head east, the change is instant—you are now heading east. If you ever come to a place where you think you might be under judgment, don’t fear—just turn toward God. Instantly you will abort all judgment and find yourself back in the favor and grace of God. (Remember the prodigal son story?) Why is it so easy? Because what Jesus did on the cross carries much more weight in God’s eyes than anything you or I could do or not do, and as a result, the grace of forgiveness is never held back from us. As long as you have breath, there is hope for you.

Do Aliens Exist?

Sadly, God’s people have a history of trying to straddle the fence between the kingdom of God and the world around us—we long to fit in and belong. Though it was forbidden, the ancient Israelites even paid tribute to the pagan gods to open the door for trade and political power. They didn’t want to stick with monotheism if it cost them jobs. Though God wanted to be their King, they begged him to give them a real king so that they could be like “all the other nations” (1 Sam. 8:5). God replied, “They have rejected me as their king” (v. 7). They were a little embarrassed about explaining to outsiders that their King was invisible. A visible king would help them seem more normal, like they were from this planet.

But God didn’t want them to seem like they were from this planet; He wanted them to appear “as aliens and strangers in the world” (1 Peter 2:11) as “fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Eph. 2:19).

But historically God’s people have acted more like Beldar and Prymatt from the Coneheads movie. This alien couple with cone-shaped heads came here from the planet Remulak to prepare for its invasion that was to take over the world. While waiting to be contacted by their mother planet, they adapt to earth customs, doing everything they can to fit in. But they enjoy life on earth so much that they decide to abandon their mission to change the world, and a future life on Remulak. So they subvert the plan and make planet Earth their home.

Unwittingly, many believers are acting like Coneheads. We say we love the idea of heaven and that we are loyal to God; we say we want to help overcome the world by representing the kingdom of God, but secretly we have fallen in love with planet Earth, and we want to fit in. We act like, respond like, and seem like everyone else, often covering up our allegiance to Jesus or any attempts to be “more than conquerors” here (Rom. 8:37). If it is embarrassing or causes us to lose ground in some way, we don’t even mention heaven.

We spend tons of energy trying to reconcile godliness with worldliness—thoughts and beliefs that are diametrically opposed to each other. One cannot successfully mix faith with the unbiblical principles of the world in which we live. And if we try, we will lose our voice for God.

HOT OR COLD

“I know your deeds,” Jesus tells a group of believers, “that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15–16).
As a kid, I heard this text preached over and over again. Red-faced preachers would yell, “You can’t be lukewarm! God wants you to either be on fire for Him, or to hate Him, but because you just sit there, you’re going to get spit out—you’re in danger of going to hell!”

That always made the crowd nervous and populated the altars. But something about it didn’t sit right with me. Why would God rather have you “hate Him” than to be a bit casual about Him? And why would you merit hell for getting casual in your faith? Isn’t going to heaven a free gift? Or is our message, “Accept Jesus, be red-hot for Him, and you’ll get into heaven—but if you relax and get lukewarm, you better wake up quick and get red-hot again or you’re going to hell”?

I don’t think Jesus is talking about going to hell or about being fanatically “on fire” for Him versus hating Him. I think He is talking about the idea that if you want to be a “voice” for Him—to be in His mouth, you have to be willing to be different.

Think about it. If you take a cup of boiling water and a glass of freezing-cold water and leave them in a room for several hours, what happens? The boiling water cools, and the cold water warms—eventually they both become the same temperature as that of the room. Neither sticks out. Both fit in. They become lukewarm.

I think Jesus is crying out to these believers, saying, “Don’t try to fit in the world around you! Don’t long to be the same. I want you to be hot about some things and cold about others. If you say what everyone else is saying and believe what everyone else believes, you are the same as them. You can’t stick out. You become the same temperature as those in the room with you—you are lukewarm. I won’t be able to speak through you. I speak through different—hot or cold different. If you are unwilling to be different, you won’t be able to represent Me—I will have to spit you out of My mouth.”

He wasn’t talking about spitting us into hell. He wasn’t saying, “God prefers me to hate Him if I’m not on fire spiritually.” Just…we need to forego fitting in so we can speak for Him.

Aliens do exist. They are you and me, the followers of Jesus.

Faith and Reason

One of the best ways to discredit an opposing view is to simply dismiss it as “illogical.” It’s a tried and true method for a quick conversation killer. If you haven’t tried it lately, give it a shot. You’ll be amazed at how little effort you will exert; not only will you not have to think through the oppositions argument, you won’t have to think through yours either. It’s akin to the ‘my dad is bigger than your dad’ taunt heard on every playground in the world. As kids we all used this taunt knowing full well we would never have to actually present our fathers to each other for a physical inspection. In the same way, we accuse others of being illogical without an honest inspection of their view or a demonstration of why ours is any more profound. It is an intellectual cat and mouse game we play to avoid confronting the deep and terrible possibility that we might be wrong, that the other may have something to teach us about reality.

When brought over to the discussion of faith and reason the “illogical” card is thrown at every turn. I have participated in hundreds of online discussions, public debates, and private conversations over the issue of religious faith in a reason focused world and I am rarely disappointed. Someone always finds it necessary to accuse the other of being illogical or irrational. Why? Because most people hold their views of existence as close to their heart as possible. After all, if we get existence wrong, we get nearly everything else wrong. Faith and reason provide us with our ideas of existence (life, death, relationships, the afterlife, goodness, evil, God, human nature, etc.) and for many today reason, and reason alone, is the only sure way to the truth.

While faith usually finds itself under the scrutiny of popular media and academia, reason too reveals its own weakness upon close inspection. The curious thing about our reasoning powers is that we can reason about the very thing we are using to reason—our reason. Whenever we attempt to climb outside of reason in order to analyze it from a safe distance we find that we have never actually left; quite the opposite, we have only dug down further into our seat of rationality. It’s the one great variable that can never be properly defended nor properly dismissed. If we try to defend reason we only do so by our own reason, which only begs the question. Reason cannot be called in as a material witness when it is also, and at the same time, the defendant in the dock. On the flip side, reason cannot be dismissed except with the use of reason, this of course is another logical absurdity. Therefore, we are subject to reason and must trust that it serves us as a reliable tool of interpreting reality (the book to read is Miracles, by C.S. Lewis, and, if time is no object and you know a good psychiatrist, the Critique of Pure Reason, by Immanuel Kant is a must).

Faith and reason are often presented as an either/or: either one chooses faith or one chooses reason, but one cannot have both faith and reason. If the reader has been paying attention, and if my logic has been sound thus far, it is easy to discern why this dichotomy of faith versus reason is a false dichotomy. At a base level the very tool we use for interpreting existence—our human reasoning—is assumed to present us with the truth, an assumption based on little more than what skeptics often accuse religious faith of: a blind leap, or, if one is honest with the language – a blind leap of faith (the epitome of intellectual treason in modern academia).
Of course, this is not an attack on reason. As I just said, reason can neither be attacked nor defended. Instead it is an attempt to show how it is that reason necessitates faith to perform its most basic movements (as troubling as such a thought might be for those who wish to purge their worldview of the necessity of faith). They are not antithetical; they are not in strict opposition, rather, they complement one another in very profound ways.

In closing let me throw out a simple analogy to help make the point (keeping in mind that all analogies are flawed in one way or another). Take a tire and a road. What could be more opposite than a circle and a straight line? Yet, the two make for a wonderful relationship. Rather than being in combat with each other, they are perfect companions with a shared purpose of moving someone from one place to another. If we think of reason as the tire and faith as the road the idea is clear. Faith and reason both work to move us from one state of mind and/or being to another. One need not prefer roads to tires or tires to roads for they are entirely separate categories serving a common goal.

Questions, comments, and threats welcomed.

When is Jesus Coming?

As far back as you care to go historically, you can find preachers with a penchant for interpreting Bible prophecy by holding the daily news in one hand and the Bible in the other. Back in the 1950s, many last-days pundits claimed the apocalyptic city known as “Magog” in Revelation was the Soviet Union, but in the 1980s the Union collapsed. Then new revelations began to come as to the identity of “true” Magog (many now say Magog is Islam).

What confuses me is how the last-days experts talk with such confidence and authority. These guys read the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post the way a psychic reads tea leaves. And with a rising fever in the air, you get the feeling you need to stay close and stay tuned to hear the latest from their prophetic perspective. You want to make sure you are ready.

But then, when what they say doesn’t happen or the interpretation they have been espousing demands adjustment, they do so as unapologetically and frequently as the local meteorologist. But are Bible prophecies supposed to be approached like weather forecasts, or should we just be a little more tentative about our interpretations to begin with?

KNOCK, KNOCK; WHO KNOWS?

Why is there so much room for arbitrary interpretation in the arena of Bible prophecy? Primarily because most of it is written in a style that isn’t found anywhere else in modern literature, and we have a hard time trying to decipher and interpret it. It’s called apocalyptic literature.

In Bible days there were dozens of apocalypses that were popular with Jews and Christians (not all were considered canonical, of course). Apocalyptic literature is just that, a genre of literature. Just as stories, parables, and psalms have specific literary characteristics, so does an apocalypse.

Imagine being part of an archaeological team one million years from now that uncovers a few “knock, knock” jokes from our century. Let’s say you have no counterpart in your culture—no “knock, knock” jokes exist.

You translate the text:
Knock, knock.
Whose there?
Duane.
Duane who?
Duane the bathtub, I think I’m duowning.

As you try to interpret the writing, someone suggests, “Perhaps the word knock has some kind of special meaning. Notice they said it twice.” Someone else pipes in and says, “Yes, and apparently Duane is the name of a bathing device—it reads, ‘Duane the bathtub.’” Yet another remarks, “And what do you think ‘duowning’ is?” “Perhaps it has something to do with the double ‘knock,’” you reply.

You all miss the point.

You might come up with half a dozen equally ridiculous interpretations simply because you don’t get the fact that this was a joke. Jokes have characteristics that must be understood in order for the joke to make sense. Apocalyptic literature is like that. It has certain characteristics that must be mastered to make any sense to us including: heavy themes of judgment and salvation; visions and dreams; cryptic and symbolic language; images presented in the forms of fantasy rather than reality; and time and events neatly divided and carefully ordered with a great fondness for the symbolic use of numbers.

So when you take a book like Revelation (which has all of that plus general epistle material and a huge chunk of specific prophecy elements), you have the makings of a right gnarly piece of literature. And “getting it right” requires careful interpretation and sensitivity to the limits of the text. The problem is, most of us ignore all that and approach prophetic texts simply with an open heart and prayer. It sounds good—spiritual even. But is it? Go ahead and put one hundred people in a room and ask them to run at this kind of material prayerfully, with an open heart, and you will end up with one hundred thousand different interpretations.

Bottom line: We need to be more wary of our last-days interpretations.

MOTIVATED TO SERVE
Something about the return of Jesus Christ gets people motivated to serve. But I would suggest the motivation is not good when we get people excited about the return of Christ based on current events that are interpreted hastily and inappropriately.

In 1988 a book came out titled something like 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Is in 1988. Tens of thousands of believers bought that little book and made it a central issue in their lives. When Jesus didn’t come back, the author came out with another work with a title to the tune of 89 Reasons Why the Rapture Is in 1989. It didn’t sell nearly as well.

People who got all jacked up from that book were disappointed and embarrassed after Jesus didn’t return in 1988. Some even slipped away from the Lord. Why? Because trying to motivate people to serve God by using fabricated timelines on Rapture dates and presenting them like a salesperson’s “last-chance” sale always produces a short-term yield. This kind of motivation is like a flu bug—you get hit hard, but it only lasts a little while. And when it’s over, you feel worn out.

A HEALTHY ESCHATOLOGY
When you read the New Testament, you get the idea that they expected Jesus to return at any moment—and that was 2,000 years ago! Why would they talk about the return of Jesus in a way that suggested it could happen at any moment? I think the answer is found in Paul’s comment that God rewards those “who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8). God wants us to think about, dream about, and long for the return of Jesus Christ.

Today, I don’t believe our “longing” for the return of Jesus should be based on forcing obscure texts into modern news stories. I think it should be based on the fact that earth isn’t home. At best, it is a hotel room. Our longing for the return of Jesus needs to rest on the footing that He has made a home for us and is coming to get us—not based on some prophecy expert’s dubious revelation. It is said of the saints of old, “they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them” (Heb. 11:16).

So the next time you feel a little out of sorts and that life is less than you had hoped, look up and smile. This is not your home. This is not heaven. Heaven is coming to get you.

THAT is last-days thinking…and it’s sweet.

The Heresy of the Authentic Self

Somewhere along the line in modern history there developed the conviction that individual "selves" were more interesting and absolute than relationships. To trace the history of this development would take some time, but we might begin by citing the french philosopher Rene Descartes' famous creed:

"I think, therefore I am."

From there ensued a whole cultural and intellectual tradition that understood the autonomous, rational, thinking "self" as objectively capable of discerning what was true and living a truthful life. Authority and tradition were seen as impediments to the flowering of this supposed "self" into a full-fledged existence as it rationally and objectively wove its way through the vicissitudes of history. In time, this radically individualized way of knowing and understanding "self-hood" eventuated in what we have today: more or less "omnivorous selves", who understand truth only by way of the pursuit and satisfaction of their own desires. The modern self is thus a self that sees itself as the ultimate arbiter of truth as it pursues its desires in an unfettered way. Authority, tradition, story, and the obligations that issue from those things are of no concern to the modern self, because those things stand in the way of this self self-expressing its desires, which of course is the point of this self's existence.

    "I think, therefore I am"
    "I express, therefore I am"
    "I consume, therefore I am"
    "I desire, therefore I am"

    It doesn't take much investigation to see the manifold ways in which this way of understanding "self-hood" poisons our world. Without a guiding narrative or framework to orient these omnivorous, consumeristic selves in the world, a "telos" to tell their desires to what end they ought to be oriented and where they get off, all we are left with is an empty space in which desires are left to collide and consume each other—all in the name of being "authentic selves".

    I take it that the "authentic self", the "real me" buried somewhere beneath a web of obligations and commitments or "out there" somewhere to be found is a myth at best, a destructive and profound heresy at worst. The modern self thinks that it can find itself if it unfetters itself from cumbersome commitments, if it has the freedom to write it's own story. And that's fine as far as it goes, but when you get right down to it, you've got to wonder where that "real me" would be if it weren't for a narrative, a story, and a web of commitments and obligations that "interfaces" me and make me who I am.

    I mean, is there some "real Andrew" out there that I can abstract from my history in the Arndt family? Is there some "authentic me" out there (or buried deep within) that if I disentangled myself from the day-in and day-out routine of waking up with and coming home to my family I could discover? If I walked away from my calling as a pastor in order to be true to some other desire embedded deep within, would I really find myself?

    The reality is that moms, dads, pastors, friends, family members, etc, who are constituted by stories, obligations, and commitments are far more interesting than "selves" with their "selve-ish" desires. And what the modern self fails to realize is that in pursuing its desires unfettered, in seeking to disentangle itself from narrative, tradition, history, and commitment, what it achieves is not a "widening" or "expanding" of the self, but a profound and disturbing "narrowing" of the self.

    Selves become smaller and lose robustness when they're allowed to abstract themselves from history and the demands that history places on us. And the "authentic self", in my judgment, is simply not a self worth having.

    So, when I hear church folks and leaders say from time to time, "You know, the real thing is being true to yourself," I think to myself, "That is the biggest pile of bull____ I've ever heard." The gospel isn't about the quest to be true to the inner self, but rather, the gospel exposes the self for the lie that it is and calls it to orient it-self towards a reality far greater and more profound than the paltry, emaciated "authentic self" could ever hope to achieve. To put it another way, the church's job is not to validate our "selves", but to actually GIVE us selves worth having in the first place. For we all know that heroes don't become heroes by pursuing their "authentic selves", but by committing themselves to the goal set out for them by the Teller of the tale. Imagine if Frodo had decided to be true to his "authentic self." Tolkien's tale would never have gotten underway.

    The gift of the gospel is that it gives these errant, wayward, omnivorous selves a story, a context, that helps them make sense of their lives, that gives their lives meaning. And thus we do a profound disservice to people when we tell them that they need to just be "true to their selves" in order to discover what life's really all about.

Life is not about being true to yourself. Life is about getting caught up in a Story. And in dying to our idolatrous "selves" we can live for something far greater than our own ridiculous and misguided desires.

So let us confidently cease and desist with the self-help jargon that masquerades as wisdom. Let us instead call people to a rich life lived in commitment, obligation, narrative, story, and service, and in so doing help them give up their pale, thin, emaciated selves, and find selves worth having in the first place.

Amen.

DARE TO THINK SMALL

America is a hero culture. Prominence rules. Inconspicuous means insignificant. We search for people who stick out, who are worthy of adulation. We seek idols—American idols. We believe in being stick-out beautiful, stick-out rich, stick-out famous, and stick-out talented. Stick-out proves significance. If we don’t stick out, if we are average or small in comparison to our heroes, we are losers. We certainly couldn’t be small and be significant. Being big is what matters.

But does prominence really rule? One could argue that there are many significant things that are inconspicuous. Our eyes are obviously more prominent than our lungs, but are they more significant? We can live without eyes. My hands are more prominent than my liver, but I can’t live without a liver. What if the small, hidden things are as significant as the big, prominent things? What if, at times, they are more significant?

In writing about the gifts and abilities of individuals in the church, Paul says, “Those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Cor. 12:22). “God,” he writes, “. . . has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it” (v. 24). Think of that. God gives “greater honor” to those who are less prominent. God must see average Joes and Janes as the lungs and livers of the human race—maybe not prominent, but absolutely essential.

The biblical claim is that we were all calibrated by God to make us fit in this world where He wanted us to fit. Your personality (what makes you laugh, what makes you feel loved, how you make decisions, etc.) was on purpose. Your talents and abilities (or lack of them) all play into God’s fitting you into specific places on earth for specific times to reach specific people. (See Acts 17:26.)

This is a cool idea if you happen to be as good-looking as Ben Affleck or Julia Roberts; or if you are as talented as Sting or Bono. But what if you aren’t? What if you are kind of ugly, by media standards? What if you can’t sing? What if you can’t speak well in front of people or you aren’t very smart? What if you have what some call a birth defect? What if your uniqueness is a small uniqueness—it only sticks out after people get to know you? Is it possible that God made you small on purpose?

The psalmist claimed that God created “small and great alike” (Ps. 115:13). What if God made you small? We are afraid of small in our culture. We think it means insignificant. But what if God doesn’t agree? If you are an American who has been influenced by American culture, this thinking seems weird. After all, don’t we all want to be in the spotlight? The popular reality-TV shows draw on making ordinary people famous. Isn’t that what we should all want—to be BIG and famous?

But Jesus said, “What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight” (Luke 16:15). What if, in God’s economy of thought, BIG isn’t always best? What if small is often best? That would sure explain some things.

How do you feel when you run into someone who is bigger-than-life or stunningly talented? When I meet great people, most often I feel less. It’s a bit like visiting the Grand Canyon. When you see amazing things, you tend to feel unamazing. God has chosen to make amazing people. But amazing people don’t fit everywhere. They are too fat. That’s why God makes all kinds of people. And one could argue that making people less talented and less gifted and less brilliant takes a lot of work.

My boys were young when Hasbro first came out with their Micro Machines. They were so cool. I couldn’t get over the striking detail of those tiny cars and trucks. It is very difficult to create small things with moving, functional parts. If you have been around the past thirty years, you have been stupefied at the progress made in the personal computing world. Engineers have tackled the seemingly impossible task of jamming more and more data and processing speed into tiny microchips. They have found a way to get the power of computers that used to fill whole rooms into chips that fit in your hand. But guess what? Those same engineers claim that creating the big stuff was much easier.

What if creating small people with small talent and ability is a greater miracle than making big, talented, brainy people? Could it have taken God more power to create something less? If you ask a professional singer to sing out of tune, it’s tough. She alleges that it is harder for her to sing poorly than to sing perfectly. What if that is true with God?

Imagine standing on a beach and being hit by a seventy-foot tidal wave. The instant before the wave hits, you close your eyes, expecting to be swept away. Instead, as the monstrous wave passes, you are left standing on the shore with only one drop of moisture on your forehead. How could so much water leave so little of itself? What would you say? You would exclaim, “It’s a miracle!” How does the only omnipotent Being in the universe, who is perfect and powerful and brilliant, creatively splash a person into existence who can’t sing or dance or tackle math with ease? That had to be tough. Is small the greatest miracle of all?

Being God to Others

One of the cornerstones of Christian theism is the idea that humankind was created to be a reflection of God himself. The Genesis account claims “God created man in his own image” (Gen. 1:27). Paul claimed human beings are to be “imitators of God” (Eph. 5:1).

Once God spoke to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh…” (Ex. 7:1). What if God wants that for each one of us? What if he wants us to be “like God” to others in our walk-about world? That would mean the way God makes himself known to others in the world would be primarily through the actions and attitudes of everyday people: us.

I’m not saying God doesn’t reveal himself directly to people through creation or miracles; he does. But what if his preferred plan is to make himself known through our humanness—where our hands become his hands; our words become his words; our care for a child is an extension of his care for that child; our kindness to an injured soul is a reflection of his; and so on?

When Jesus came into the world, he said explicitly, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Then he says something strikingly similar about his followers: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing” (John 14:12). And then again in prayer to the Father, “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18). The imagery is clear: when someone asks, ”Where is God?” we should be able to respond, “You’re looking at him.”

I’m not suggesting that we are God. I am simply pointing out that God wants us to be (as Jesus was) a reflection of God—his image bearers. Sadly, that is not the case. Mohandas Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” How many times have you heard comments like that from people outside of faith? Even those of us in the church are well aware of the hypocrisy and un-Christlike actions Christians are guilty of. That being said, God still believes in the Church and we must too. Instead of decrying her and abandoning her, we must pray for her renewal and for refocus. We find ourselves in the same tension as St. Augustine when he exclaimed, “The church is a whore, but she's my mother.” We cannot abandon Mother, but let’s be honest—she’s got big problems.

So where do we start? I think we need to get back to the heart of the matter. We need to stop trying to make faith about getting stuff or persuading people to think like we think, and we need to return to making faith about reflecting God to the world.

The trait that most defines who God is, is love. John wrote concerning God’s essence, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). We reflect God the most when we love. In his final hours with the twelve apostles, Jesus told them, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). The key-defining trait of a Christ-follower is love.

But what exactly do we mean when we say we “love” something or someone? Human love is a potpourri of loves: affectionate love, friendship love, erotic love, committed love, etc. Though each of the human loves rumor some aspect of divine love, the love that God loves with transcends all human loves—it is deeper and deathless.

Christian teaching holds that God’s love for us never changes. He loves us, period. He will never love us less or more than he does right now because his love is not based on what we do, but on his nature of love. Though our actions are important for the enrichment of our lives, they don’t earn God’s love.

This is good news because the truth is we are not all that good. In fact, what we seem to do best is botch things. God forgives us; we fall again. God gives us courage; we get discouraged. God gives us a dream; we make it a self-actualizing quest filled more with us than God. God gives us gifts; we go prodigal with them and use them for our own advantage. Let’s face it; if we were God, we would probably kill us.

God bases his decision to pursue us and work in our lives on his unconditional love. Unconditional love loves without conditions—it isn’t a response; it is a direct action. This kind of love simply sets value and preciousness on others irrespective of how they act. It isn’t an earned thing; it just is.

Remember, Jesus asks us to love the people in our lives the same way God loves us! We are to love others unconditionally. Unconditional loving is a completely different way to relate to people around you than most of us are accustomed to. We are so used to responding to people based on appearance, status, how they treat us first, et cetera. Paul acknowledged that we tend to “evaluate people by what they have or how they look” (2 Cor. 5:16). But then he cries, “We do so no longer!” That needs to become our cry.

Do It Afraid

Whenever I think about courageous people I usually think of someone who has done an amazing thing, like running into a burning building to save an elderly person or risking his own life by jumping into flood waters to save a mother and her baby—you know, things worthy of media coverage. But those kinds of courageous acts are not afforded to many of us (not to mention that most of us carry a fair degree of uncertainty about whether or not we are brave enough or strong enough to pull those acts off if they were).

However, that doesn’t mean courage isn’t accessible to everyday people. We all face problems; we all have setbacks, troubles and pain—it’s the stuff of life. Courage helps us deal with whatever life throws at us. And it helps us keep an even keel through it all. It equips us with fortitude to work through failure, or with the integrity that prevents compromise if we’re overwhelmed by success. It helps us overcome sickness, discouragement, and the losses that come in all sizes and shapes. In other words, your life will either get smaller or larger in direct proportion to your courage.

Most of life needs to be navigated with courage. Think of raising children. That takes guts. Think of the issue of discipline alone. I was the kind of dad who loved giving my kids whatever they wanted. But always giving children what they want is a recipe for raising third-world dictators, not responsible adults. Raising healthy, responsible adults demanded doing an un-fun, courageous thing—I had to learn to say “NO.”

In every relationship there are the important “I’m sorry’s,” the “That was my fault,” the “I procrastinated and then completely forgot,” the “This is who I am; I am not happy about it and I need help,” the “I need to understand you better” admissions that are required from time to time in healthy relationships. Talk about scary.

I remember when I was pastoring my first church and I made a statement from the pulpit about someone’s kids. I knew it was risky (they were in the audience), but I thought I had veiled it sufficiently. And, besides, I was right. A couple days went by and I got a letter in my in-box from the mom. It kindly asked why I would refer to their family in a public forum and wondered if they should leave the church. The letter had been stained with tear marks.

I felt completely trapped. Part of me screamed, “She’s overreacting. I was just making a point.” Another part of me whispered, “You shouldn’t have done that. Go to them and ask them to forgive you.” That whisper paralyzed me with fear. But in spite of the gravitational pull of fear, I got up from my desk, went to my car, immediately drove to their home with the dread that they might actually be there (it was a Saturday morning), walked up to the door and knocked. They answered. I stayed for about an hour or so explaining what I was thinking, while still owning my mistake, and asking them for forgiveness for being so insensitive. They were gracious enough to do so.

I learned something very important about courage that day. Courage is not the absence of fear; it is doing what is right in spite of fear. Don’t think if you are riddled with fear that courage has somehow evaded you. Look smack at the fear, focus on what is right, and then DO IT AFRAID. That is what courage is. John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death—and saddling up anyway.”

Just because things get difficult and uncomfortable that doesn’t mean you should avoid them. Decades ago, W. Beran Wolfe wrote, “If you have evaded all unpleasantness in your life your happiness is placed in unstable equilibrium by the constant dread that some unavoidable disappointment is just around the corner. If you have faced pain and disappointment, you not only value your happiness more highly, but you are prepared for [the] unpredictable. There may be many happy human vegetables who have succeeded in avoiding unhappiness and pain, but they cannot call themselves human.”

So much of the good stuff is had only after you have walked through the “land of hard.” Norman Vincent Peale said, “Too much caution is bad for you. It is usually wiser to stand up to a scary-seeming experience and walk right into it, risking the bruises or hard knocks. You are likely to find it is not as tough as you had thought. Or you may find it plenty tough, but also discover you have what it takes to handle it.”

Instead of avoiding something that makes you feel bad or scared, ponder on whether or not it is good. Look into the future. What would your life be like if you continued on that course of action? Would it be good? Would your life be richer? If you determine that it is something good (though it makes you feel scared trying it now), decide to start thinking about it differently—refuse to play it safe. John Shedd said, “A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are for.” You were not created for “safe” either.

Look past the pain of the action to the joy of its reward. Then do the uncomfortable, hard thing courageously and do it with joy! The ancient poet Ovid said, “The burden becomes light which is cheerfully borne.” Re-jigger your emotions and commit to the thing; don’t let your emotions set the course of your life. There’s a chance you’ll end up ruining a lot of things that could have been wonderful if you let your emotions rule you.

The famous World War II General George S. Patton, Jr. said, “"If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows not fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened. The courageous man is the man who forces himself, in spite of his fear, to carry on.”

People of faith are at an advantage because Scripture tells us, “God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Nice to know.

Listening to the Text

One day, Jesus told a story:

"The kingdom of God is a lot like this," he started out. "A king prepared a wedding banquet for his son. It was a huge deal. After making his preparations and decking out the banquet hall, he slaughtered the best of his cattle, prepared the best of his wine, and then sat back and waited for friends and family to arrive."

So far, so good. Our imaginations are gripped and moved by the idea that God is something like a benevolent, generous king with a son that he loves.

Jesus continues, "So the king sent out servants to those on the banquet roll to tell them that everything was ready, that the time was right for them to come. Strangely, they replied that they had more pressing matters to attend to. Still worse, some of them actually seized the servants and killed them."

It shocks us to hear this. "Who are these people? Why are they so indifferent? Why so murderous? What's the backstory here? And how will the king respond?" "Surely," we think to ourselves, "if this is a story about God, grace will win out."

We keep reading:

"The king flew into a fit of rage, sending a battalion of soldiers to those murderous invitees, destroying them and burning their city to the ground."

We're startled a bit. Maybe a tad put out. If we're so inclined, we might hang with this story, hanging on Jesus' words, trusting that the resolution of this sordid tale is going to satisfy our sense of what's right, wondering where this whole thing is going, and hoping it goes somewhere good.

Jesus keeps going: "After collecting himself, the king found his servants and said, 'I prepared my banquet, but those I invited apparently didn't deserve the honor of being present at this party. So here's what you're going to do: Head out into the marketplace, into the street corners, and find anyone and everyone you possibly can - the good, the bad, the ugly - I really don't care - and bring them in - all of them - until this hall is filled up. I WILL have a full banquet hall to share in the joy of my son."

We breathe. This sounds much more like the Jesus we know, the story we're used to. Of course there were some that hated Jesus - perhaps this is Israel? We're not totally sure. We're aware of the general contours of the story and know that some reject him. From what we've gathered it was the proud and self-secure that shunned him, those that possessed power and prestige, the official keepers of religion. So this coheres well with our sensibilities--that those that received Jesus - then no less than now - are often a surprising and variegated lot of tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes and thieves. "God," we think, "is so gracious."

But the story is not resolved. Not yet. Jesus continues:

"The party began. And as the king made his customary rounds, greeting this strange but fortuitous lot of of folks at each of their tables, he noticed a man present who was not wearing wedding clothes, but instead was dressed in rags. 'Friend,' the king said to him, 'How did you get in hear without the appropriate attire?'

The man had nothing to say in reply.

"'Well get the hell out here!' he yelled. Calling his attendants to him he said, 'Take this man and bind him hand and foot, and then throw him outside, into the darkness."

And God, Jesus seems to be saying, is sort of like that. Story over. And we're left numb. Not sure what to do with this strange and harsh story. Questions float through our minds:

"Wasn't that a tad extreme?
Kind of harsh?
Sort of unfair?" we think.

"Maybe the guy was homeless and didn't have a tux.
And whose fault was it that he was in there anyway?
I mean, really; it's not like they told him to get all dressed up.
Couldn't the king have been more understanding?" we inquire silently.
"This is really so unlike the God I had in mind."

We wiggle around with texts like this. Explain them away. Perhaps this "man not wearing wedding clothes" represents believing folks who hear the invitation but behave badly at the "banquet" so to speak. Or perhaps, as some have suggested, it has to do with improperly-undergone rites of the church. And those are fine and inventive interpretations. There's just one problem:

Jesus didn't think of them.

Rather, he told the story and then let it hang out there in all it's stark, bold detail. In all of it's resonating otherness. In it's troubling lack of interpretation of explanation. He sees no need to soothe our troubled minds, to soften the punch of it or downplay it's potential implications.

The story stands against us,
challenges our views of God in deep ways,
causes the boundaries of our orthodoxy to tremble.

We linger at the text.
Troubled by it.
Maybe scared by it.
Perhaps offended.

This is not the Jesus we expected.
Not the God we expected.
Not the text we expected.

And we're not sure how to respond.
Do we get mad? Is that okay?
Or do we silently, quietly acquiesce.

We let the story shake us.
And then we walk away,
Wondering if perhaps "God" is a less predictable reality that we liked to imagine.
For this God does not fit our safe, flat, one-dimensional depictions of him.

The reality is that the Bible is chock full of texts just like this. Texts that just don't fit the frameworks of faith we carry around with us like security blankets. But there they are. Challenging us to listen. Demanding to be heard. I mean, what do we do with texts like this? I think that for most of us, our natural reaction is to resist them in a sort of passive aggression. We decide that we've already figured out the "real truth" about God. That he's nice. And lovable. And huggable. And agreeable to "modern" sensibilities. So we hear what we want to hear. We read past - hurry! - the part about the king's retribution against the murderers and cling tenaciously to his grace towards "the outsiders", for this conforms to the ways we've been conditioned to understand God: modern, liberal, inclusive. But then we read of the strange twist and the end of the tale and it just...

Well, it doesn't fit. So rather than listening, we quietly edit it out. Ignore it. Have you done that before?

I'm just wondering if that's a good strategy for dealing with the parts of Scripture that make us uncomfortable. I'm wondering if our part of the reason our spirituality on both an individual and corporate level is thin and emaciated is PRECISELY because of our refusal to listen to texts that linger in power at the edges of our understanding. And I'm further wondering whether if in our refusal to listen we aren't making bold statements about what frameworks of thinking really DO hold functional authority over our lives. And whether we ourselves are not guilty of fashioning gods after our own image and likeness in all the subtle, quiet ways in which we ignore the parts of Scripture we just don't like.

I think we do this all the time.
All of us.

We pick our pet issues.
Our favorite doctrines.
And we search the Scriptures for proof of a framework we'd already determined was the right one beforehand.

Charismatics do it.
Evangelicals do it.
Social crusaders do it.
Liberals do it.
The Reformed do it.
The non-Reformed do it.

We all do it.

Because deep down, we don't want a God that doesn't "fit".

Maybe we too worship idols.
And maybe our lives are thin, one-dimensional, and devoid of the surprise of actually worshiping a LIVING God because of it.

In the Old Testament, when a new, righteous king would come to power, he would frequently launch a campaign to "smash the idols" that Israel had been worshiping in order to restore the worship of the uncontainable Yahweh in Israel. I think that one of the most profound and powerful ways that we engage in such "idol smashing" today is by daring to sit humbly before the texts that disturb, trouble, upset, and shake us, in order that we may hear a fresh word from God.

What are those texts for you?
Those parts that you don't want to listen to?
Those parts you instinctively resist?

What if a sense of God's immediacy and vitality were accessible to you only in those texts that are "foreign" to you? What if?

I just wonder if we'll dare to worship a living God.
Dare to listen to these defiant, alien texts.

Hell No

WHAT THE HELL?

The “creep” factor shoots pretty high when you start thinking or talking about hell. “Hell no!” seems to be the only appropriate response to the topic. Definitely disturbing. It surprised me to discover God is uncomfortable with the subject too. Scripture suggests that he hates hell and he hates that people are going there (see Ezek. 33:11). God’s dream is for all to experience eternal life. But the problem still exists: the Bible says there is a hell and people are going to go there forever. I still can’t get my mind around that.

Jesus said hell was “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mat. 25:41) not for human beings. John 3:16, the most famous verse in the Bible, affirms that God’s heart aches over the idea that any person is going there: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Peter adds that God is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

If God hates the idea so much, why is there a hell? And why does it have to be forever? And why does it have to be a place of absolute horror and abject despair? Again, faith turns out to be less than tidy.

So, what do we know from Scripture on this very difficult topic?

The Bible is clear: there is a hell. And whatever it is like, it is a real and horrible place. That being said, there are varying opinions on whether or not the descriptions of hell given in Scripture are to be taken literally or symbolically. Saying a description is “symbolic” is not to say the place being described is not real.

There are a number of texts in the Bible that are obviously not to be taken literally. When a text uses symbolism, the meanings are actually richer and deeper than if were interpreted literally. For example, when Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters…he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26), he is not demanding we actually “hate” our families to be his followers. He is using metaphorical language to communicate the idea that loyalty to him must be supreme in a disciple’s life. In addition, when he said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away” (Matt. 5:29), we know he did not mean this literally, because the context was dealing with cutting off lust—tearing out your physical eyes can’t stop lust; blind people lust too.

If the images of hell are to be taken literally, then we should accept those images at face value. After all, we say we believe what the Bible teaches. We should not try to adopt a softer view simply because it violates our American sensibilities. We cannot allow sentimentality to dull or undermine the authority of Scripture. But there are some compelling reasons why many Evangelical scholars do not take the descriptions of fire and worms literally (including conservative scholars like F.F. Bruce, Billy Graham, C. S. Lewis, and J. I. Packer).

For instance, when examining the descriptions of eternity (heaven or hell), we find the imagery given to us in Scripture a little confusing. For example, the text says in eternity there is no need for the sun or moon to shine in the New Jerusalem, for the radiance of God will fill the city (Rev. 21:23-24). What does that mean? And when the city is actually described, it is unlike anything ever seen before (14,000 miles square!). Are the words to be taken literally, or is the message to be that our eternal home is beyond what we can imagine?

The literal view of hell has produced some pretty wild imaginations in the past. In the fourteenth-century Dante imagined a place of absolute terror where the damned writhe and scream. The descriptions of hell come complete with loud wails of sinners boiling in blood, terrified and naked people running from hordes of biting snakes, and lands of heavy darkness and dense fog. In Dante’s hell, people must endure thick, burning smoke that chars their nostrils, and some remain forever trapped in lead cloaks, a claustrophobic nightmare.

Descriptions like Dante’s have proven somewhat effective at jolting folks to repentance, but the Scriptures do not explicitly teach what he imagined. Certainly, the Bible teaches that hell will be a place of frightful judgment, but precisely what it will be like physically is really questionable.

Let’s talk about “fire” first. In an interview with journalist Lee Strobel, conservative evangelical scholar J.P. Moreland points out, “We know that the reference to flames is figurative because if you try to take it literally, it makes no sense. For example, hell is described as a place of utter darkness and yet there are flames, too. How can that be? Flames would light things up.”

But there is more. The flame imagery is most powerful when you think beyond literal fire. Fire has been symbolic of judgment all through the Scriptures. For example, we are told Christ is going to return surrounded by flames (Rev. 19:12). It is also says he will have a big sword coming out his mouth when he returns (Rev. 19:15). Nobody thinks Christ is performing a literal circus sword-swallowing trick here. The flames and sword stand for Christ coming in judgment. Fire is used in another verse to describe God as a “consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29) Nobody thinks God is actually a gigantic, cosmic Bunsen burner. Again, the flame imagery is a way of talking about judgment.

We are not diminishing these texts by looking at them metaphorically—in fact, they come alive as we do! It is possible to interpret the fire of hell as a portrait that symbolizes the wrath and judgment of God, which means the words are not necessarily indicating a literal, fiery abyss, but a severe (though unspecified) judgment that awaits those who are God-ignorers.

What about the “worms” Jesus mentions that will eat people’s flesh in hell? Will they be in hell? In Jesus’ day there was a sewage area where the blood and fat of thousands of animals from the weekly sacrifices held in the temple would flow into. Worms constantly ingested that stuff where it pooled just outside the city gate. Jesus referred to that wormy place, calling it “hell.” But did he really mean that hell was going to be the sewage pit outside of Jerusalem’s gate, or did he mean that hell was going to be worse than that disgusting, odorous, abandoned place? Everyone present would have understood he was speaking metaphorically and not literally.

Then there’s the phrase “gnashing of teeth” (Luke 13:28). You can take it literally as the reaction to physical torment, or you can take it as an expression of rage. Ever see how a self-centered, self-absorbed, highly narcissistic two-year-olds grind their teeth and growl in anger when they doesn’t get their own way? Perhaps the “gnashing of teeth” symbolizes the anger that will be realized as hell-dwellers discover their deep, permanent loss of all that is good.

If there are no literal flames or worms or gnashing of teeth, does that mean hell isn’t such a bad place after all? Nothing could be further than the truth! Back to Moreland: “It would be a mistake to think that [hell isn’t that bad]. Any figure of speech has a literal point. What is figurative is the burning flame; what is literal is that this is a place of utter heartbreak. It is a loss of everything, and it’s meant to stand for the fact that hell is the worst possible situation that could ever happen to a person.”

GOD IS LOVE
This discussion seems important to me because many push back from faith because they cannot justify the idea of a loving God sending someone to an unimaginable torture chamber for all of eternity. But what if we are missing the point here? The Bible says 49 times that God is a rock—none of us think he is literally a “rock.” Thinking so would make us miss the point.

What if the point of hell is not torment? What if it is actually proof of God’s respect for the human race and a compliment to the reality of human freedom? Remember, God’s will—his great longing is that no one perish, not a single person. So, why does he allow anyone to do so? Because he created human beings with free will, and he has no intention of violating that. We are not modified monkeys, subject to instinct alone; we are unique creatures who have the power to cognate, reason, and choose. God will not force his purpose on us (though the purpose he set for the human race is one that causes us to flourish in a way nothing else can!). We can choose to reject God’s purpose for us (and to ignore or reject God). God created us with that right. Sadly, many choose to ignore and reject God. This is the worm that has curled its way into the apple of the human condition.

Here’s the deal: we humans either have free will or we don’t. If we do, then God cannot strip us of the right to choose, even if we choose something he did not want for us. That means it would be a violation of our free will for God to force us to be with him for eternity if we don’t want to be. By allowing us to say no to him, God is actually showing respect for us and keeping human dignity in tact.

To Moreland one last time: “Hell will forever be a monument to human dignity and the value of human choice. It is a quarantine where God says two important things: ‘I respect freedom of choice enough to where I won’t coerce people, and I value my image-bearers so much that I will not annihilate them.’”

The formation of hell is not an indication that God is mean, angry, or capricious, like a spoiled child who is hacked off about not getting his own way, so he’s decides to make the disobedient pay. It is evidence that God will never force himself on the human race. It evidences that he honors human will by choosing to create a place where he is not.

There is a hell (whatever it will be like) precisely because God loves the human race.

Is Christianity Too Exclusive?

IS CHRISTIANITY TOO EXCLUSIVE?

“I think everyone has to find his own spiritual path to God,” my fellow shopper said.

I don’t remember how we got on the subject of finding God. He may have asked me what I did for a living and I told

him I was a pastor. At any rate, we were in a deep spiritual conversation in the fairly long checkout line at Best Buy.

“Wouldn’t that be cool if it were true?” I responded.

“What do you mean?” he queried.

“It would be great if everyone could find his or her own spiritual path to God,” I answered. “But that’s not what Jesus said would happen. He claimed there was only one path and that no one can get to God except through him” (John 14:6).

Whenever I get in a spiritual conversation with others, a part of me cringes as I talk about the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ. I love Jesus and I have come to believe his claims, but that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with the idea that Christianity doesn’t allow for the position that each person can find his or her own path to God. It seems to me that if a person is op

en to spiritual reality in general, that that should be enough. After all, isn’t Jesus big enough and gracious enough for all religious impulses and thoughts to ultimately find their way back to him? Surely open-mindedness, humility, and liberality fit into the Christian ethic, why not into Christian theology? Why can’t faith be this open?

EVERYTHING ELSE IS RELATIVE

Unless you have been living in a bunker for the past thirty years, like Brendan Fraser in Blast from the Past, you know that we are living in a world of relativism. Relativism is the belief that all points of view are equally valid. What you think is right and wrong is right and wrong for you, and what I think is right and wrong is right and wrong for me. Though our lists may be different, our lists are equally legitimate.

There is something very seductive about this view. If a thing is right just because I think it is, then being right is an easy proposition. Being able to select one’s own right and wrong fuels a sense of personal empowerment. It means I can do whatever it is I want to do. And if that isn’t freedom, it certainly feels like freedom. You can see how embracing this perspective would help us to stop judging one another and to begin respecting each other’s personal convictions. Why wouldn’t we? Relativism fosters the sense that everyone is right, which delivers personal empowerment, the debunking of judgment, and a respect for others and their opinions. These are all good things, right?

Of course, this view also means there are no absolutes, no truth that is true for everyone—just relative ideas that are true to each one. What’s good for me is not necessarily good for you, and vice versa. Thus, everyone must find his or her own way. This view engenders a sense of unity in matters of faith, because what you believe about God and what I believe about God are equally good and equally true, simply because we believe what we believe. We can stop focusing on what one believes and applaud all belief in general, because all paths lead to God. Who wouldn’t love that?

But as appealing as relativism is, and while the intellectually elite and culturally en vogue espouse that it is the only tenable position, it doesn’t appear to be an option for the Christ-follower. Why? Because the claims of Christ are absolute and universal. Jesus claimed to be “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that “no one comes to the Father” except through him (John 14:6).

THE PROBLEM WITH TRUTH

The problem with the concept of truth is that it is exclusive by nature. Any time a person makes a truth-claim, he or she is saying all other contradictory claims are false. Hence, truth is non-negotiable; it is stark and raw. For example, the notion that the earth is orbiting the sun is either true or it is not. There is no room for negotiating, though it seems as if the sun is orbiting around the earth from my perspective. Truth has no interest in what I think or feel about the matter; subjective views are irrelevant.

If truth exists, then there are people who are right and people who are wrong. But we don’t like that. It’s too judgmental. Consequently, two-thirds of Americans now deny there’s any such thing as truth. We prefer opinion to truth. It’s more civilized.

Yet, As a Christ-follower I’m faced with the challenge that Christianity is not just presented as another subjective, religious philosophy. Christians see the claims of Jesus Christ as objectively true—true in the sense that gravity is true. And if the gospel of Jesus Christ is truth, then it is absolute and true for all people. The problem is, there are so many knotty and untenable implications with that position.

At first blush Christ’s claims seem to smack of arrogance, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. And, in a cultural milieu that holds pluralism and tolerance sacrosanct, claiming that Jesus of Nazareth is the only path to God is a proverbial slap-on-the-face to all other belief systems. Pluralist Rosemary Radford Ruether labeled this as “absurd religious chauvinism,” while another religious leader called it a “spiritual dictatorship” that encourages smug superiority and unnecessary judgment. All of us have witnessed the hatred and violence that comes from religious one-upping. As a culture we are more open to comments like that of Indian philosopher Swami Vivekenanda who said, “We [Hindus] accept all religions to be true.” He claimed the real sin was to call someone else a sinner.

Atheist Charles Templeton claimed it was an “insufferable presupposition” to claim that “salvation is found in no one else” but Jesus (Acts 4:12). Templeton writes, “Christians are a small minority in the world. Approximately four out of every five people on the face of the earth believe in gods other than the Christian God. The more than five billion people who live on earth revere and worship [other] gods. Are we to believe that only Christians are right?”

I honestly don’t know what to do with these arguments against Christian absolutism. And, truth be told, on some level I want to agree with them. How can it be possible that so many have it so wrong? And what of those sincere souls who never have the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ? Will they really go to hell?

I wish I could tell you I have all of this settled in my mind. I don’t. The wrestling match continues to this day. The only solace I have found is that I believe that God will work all the details out in the end because he is good and he is fair. Though it may sound like an intellectual cop out from dealing with the problem, something in me finds rest in the promise of God’s goodness and fairness—like a young child who trusts that all will be well just because they are with their father or mother, not because they understand what’s really going on.

So, after careful analysis, I take the position that Jesus Christ is the truest reflection of the one true God. In the same breath (and at great risk), I believe the gods of other religions are not gods at all—they are worthless idols. Ooooo…those are fighting words for many. And that’s the problem with Christian truth—it is too exclusive to let you fit everywhere. And

adhering to it can get you into some deep trouble. That’s why Jesus warns us: “The world would love you if you belonged to it; but you don’t—for I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you. Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave isn’t greater than his master!’ So since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you” (John 15:19-20 NLT ).

Though I would love to be liked by everyone, I choose to believe Jesus…even if that gets me in trouble and I'm accused of being closed-minded. I figure it just goes with the territory.

Evacuation

Why doesn't the North American church at the beginning of the 21st century exercise a more transformational, provocative, and prophetic role within our culture?

As one of the generation of "younger evangelicals" I find myself asking this question quite a bit. In many ways the question has shaped my approach to church life and my imagination about what the future of the church in North America could look like.

Now of course it may be argued that the question itself is wrong. After all, look at all the sprawling megachurches that dot the landscape in our culture. Heck, even 30 years ago, you'd be hard pressed to find a church nearby that topped 1000 people. Now, you may have half a dozen just in your city. And look at the abundance of Christian media and books and the like. We're putting out more music, have more magazines, more movies and online media than ever before. We're ubiquitous in the blogosphere and, depending on where you live, you may have SEVERAL Christian television stations to watch.

We're everywhere, right?

Well, not so fast. The evidence suggests that despite the explosion of megachurch growth around the country and despite the pervasiveness of "Christian" media, the church in North America is in retreat. Rather than growing and spreading, rather than penetrating culture and transforming it for the glory of God, we, in some ways, are admitting defeat, pulling together, and consolidating our resources to make one last stand.

You get the feeling that the ship is sinking.

It is likely that there are numerous reasons for this, and in some ways I wonder if this eclipsing of Christendom at least in North America is not related to the coming of age of our culture in general ... in the same way that when you hit adolescence, you push off of the authority of your parents, rejecting the "mystique" they held over you when you were a child, so perhaps our culture is rejecting the mystique of its Christian parents. And perhaps then this is just a natural vicissitude of history that we should neither feel guilty for nor be alarmed by. The Prodigal has left the house. What can his father do?

That may placate our consciences for a time, but if we're honest I think deep down we know that it's deeper than that. That it's not just about the coming of age of culture, not just a historical inevitability that we had nothing to do with. Somehow I think we're aware that this retreat is about fundamentally about US, that WE are implicated in this, that a certain soul-searching is demanded of us along with a reevaluation of what it means for us to be the church of Jesus Christ at the start of the 21st century.

I would like to suggest that at least part of the problem is that we fail to represent and embody a real, alternative "other" to the culture we live in. Christians have long held the conviction that part of our calling is to penetrate and engage the cultures we find ourselves in. One thinks immediately of the four Jewish youths in Babylon in the book of Daniel - taking on and learning the culture of the Babylonians to such an extent that they put the Babylonians to shame. Yet I would contend that precisely what made those youths salient in their culture was not exclusively that they knew how to engage and take on the culture, but rather that they had learned how to RESIST and SUBVERT the culture. Over and again throughout the book of Daniel we witness the gritty resolve of these youths not to let their Jewishness be co-opted by ideology of Babylon.

And that, to me, is precisely where we've failed--and not just "we" individuals in our individual lives (though that is certainly the case)--but "we" the church. We've figured out how to penetrate our culture, how to speak it's language and engage its thought-forms, but in the final analysis I think we've become SO fascinated with the culture, so bent on interpreting ourselves to the culture, that we've forgotten that the shape of our life is not to be determined by culture first but by the Christ-story first and then by culture secondarily, after we've ferreted through what pieces of culture are compatible with life in Christ and which are to be rejected.

In short, I would contend that in the attempt to make ourselves "relevant" to the culture, we've given up our Christian imaginations and in so doing have given up any sense of Christian uniqueness and along with both of them the ability to actually make a difference.

Here's a question for you - What if we've actually LOST relevance and effectiveness in the attempt to be relevant and "effective" for Christ?

Luke tells a fascinating story in the book of Acts 17. Paul and Silas head to Thessalonica where they find a synagogue. They preach the gospel ("Jesus is Lord") and a fair number of folks are persuaded. A community of nurture, worship, and discipleship begins. And it is THIS that causes a huge, dis-equilibrating, culture-transforming stir in the city.

Let's review:
- Paul and Silas
- Preached the gospel
- Formed a community
- Learn to actually live out this Messianic reality
- Get accused of "turning the world upside down" and "defying the dogmas of Caesar"

Really? They had THAT kind of effect? For doing what? For breaking the bread and drinking the cup and reading Scripture and singing Jewish hymns as they sought to make "Jesus is Lord" a reality in their lives? And they're actually stirring up persecution for that? REALLY?!

Indeed they did. And not for mirroring culture, but for subverting and resisting it. There is no apparent attempt to be "relevant" by Paul and Silas, no obvious marketing strategy at work, no slick presentation tactics being employed.

Just an announcement.
A bold, stark announcement.

And it makes the city tremble.

I think there's something to that. Something that should give us pause and wake us up. These apostles and this community had done nothing more than let the substance of their lives be shaped by the "Word" of God made flesh, Jesus Christ, and this "Word", like the prophetic "word" of the past, jolted the city awake, for there was a genuine "other" being announced here, an other that both judged Thessalonica and provided the means for its salvation as well.

Perhaps, then, it is advisable for the church of the 21st century to be much less enamored by the task of "relevance", and much more enamored by the task of figuring out how the heck to be faithful to Jesus--in our worship, our preaching, our praying, our witness, our public life, etc.; how to let his life and work determine our life and work.

Now let me be clear (before I get accused of advocating a wholesale rejection and retreat from culture), that such a stance does not entail withdrawal or a retreat into an aesthetic from another era (pull out the organs!). Rather, it is to suggest that the WAY in which the church penetrates the culture must be such that it actually stands a fighting chance of being DIFFERENT. In the absence of this, we simply have nothing to offer the world other than a tacit acceptance of "the way things are."

Decades ago, during the rise of the Nazi regime and in the face of the so-called "German Christian Church" (a collection of churches that accepted the dogma of the Third Reich including nationalism and anti-semitism in an attempt to enhance their evangelistic effectiveness), a group of Christians came together and decided to be different. Led by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, these Christians (who came to be known as "The Confessing Church"), drafted a charter entitled The Barmen Declaration which sought to re-draw the boundaries of Christian uniqueness for the people of God in 1930s Germany. The first article of this Declaration stated:

"Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation."

Barth and Bonhoeffer were convinced that part of the reason the church of national Germany was incapable of seeing Hitler and his dogma for the profound lie that they were was because they simply were not enamored enough with the reality of God's revelation in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Their uniquely Christian imaginations had been evacuated and filled with the propoganda that made the Third Reich possible, and as such, in an attempt to stay "relevant" to the culture, they got co-opted by it. They failed to be a unique "other."

Let me suggest that here, with Christendom in the throws of death and the evangelical church in North America in retreat, that we pause to reflect on the ways in which we've been so enamored with our culture that we've gotten co-opted by it, failing to maintain the prophetic distance and distinctiveness necessary to actually give us a fighting chance of making a difference in the world.

Walter Brueggemann once said, "The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated into the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act ... The church will not have the power to act or believe until it recovers its tradition of faith and permits that tradition to be the primal way of enculturation ... The church has no business more pressing than the reappropriation of its memory in its full power and authenticity."

Would to God that the church in North America would have its imagination liberated in and for Jesus Christ again.

Losers Are Welcome

There is an unspoken understanding, especially among older Christians, that it’s OK to be a hellion and an extravagant sinner—as long as you are an outsider, a pagan, one who has never served Christ. But if you have served Christ and then you act in a way that is unbecoming or that makes the rest of us look bad, you’re going down, baby. And it’s going to remain on your permanent record. You can be “bad-to-the-bone” as a heathen outsider and be forgiven. Hey, we will probably ask you to testify from the platform about it—but not after being a connected insider. If you knew the ropes or held some official position, and then go prodigal, you need to kiss your acceptance good-bye.

But I don’t think Jesus holds the same opinion.

The thing many overlook in Jesus’ story of the prodigal son is that the son held a prominent position in his father’s house before he went AWOL. He wasn’t an outsider, but a connected insider. He knew the ropes. He understood the inheritance he had and the position he held. Yet, in a blaze of utter stupidity, he grabs what he can and becomes unconscionable—he goes prodigal, which means he became rash and extravagantly wasteful.

After he wasted everything he had on all the wrong things, the Bible says, “he came to his senses” (Luke 15:17). In other words, he realized he was an idiot wrapped up in a moron. After thinking it through, he set off to his father’s house to humble himself and to take whatever punishment the father would dole out. But an angry father didn’t meet him. Instead, he was surprised by a father’s boundless love and tender embrace. Jesus used the father in this story to represent his Father, God.

The prodigal story isn’t a message of a pagan coming into the family of God; it is a message of a family member returning home after being completely rebellious and patently destructive. Jesus said this guy wandered into a “distant country” and ended up “feeding pigs.” Being in a “distant country” symbolized being estranged from God’s kingdom and from God himself. Feeding the pigs signified that this young man had hit rock bottom. Pigs were detestable to the Jews. These minor elements of the story communicated to Jesus’ listeners that this guy was a lost cause. As he was telling it, they presumed the prodigal’s sin was unpardonable.

But it wasn’t.

Not only was his sin pardonable, Jesus reveals that the father was actively watching for and anticipating the deadbeat son’s return. And once he sees him from a distance, the father bolts toward him and embraces and kisses him—pig stink and all.

The message is clear: Fallen people everywhere, those of you who once did well in the faith but somehow lost your way; those leading destructive, wasteful lives in “foreign countries,” estranged from the church and from God—listen: the Father wants you home. And the instant you turn toward “Father’s house,” you will go from being a prodigal to becoming a pilgrim. God will run to meet you and to hug and kiss you—even though you may still have the smell and grime of swine on you.

A DARKER TALE

But there is another side to the prodigal story, a much darker side. It has to do with the elder brother. The prodigal’s elder brother was not at all excited about his younger brother’s return. In fact, he was mad about it. Jesus said he “refused” to take part in celebrating his brother’s return and argued that his father was being too lenient..

There are “elder brothers” all over the church. These guys and gals are the ones who, like the elder brother in the prodigal story, are disciplined, diligent, and all-around model saints. They wouldn’t dare demand anything from the Father. But, also like the elder brother, they have an agenda: performance. That’s what they believe the economy of the kingdom of God is all about. They work to earn God’s blessing and are quick to jump on anyone who might be trying to secure blessing without working for it.

Though the elder brother refused to ask for his inheritance, he kept working hard—and cross-fingered—hoping to get the father to notice and reward him. When he sees his father celebrating the loser prodigal with a fatted calf and a party, he is angered. He says to the father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15:29–30).

The elder brother completely misunderstood how things work in Father’s house. The father responds, “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” The truth was, the elder brother never had to “slave” to earn what was in his father’s house—everything there already belonged to him. His “right” to the goods of Father’s house was based on the father’s love, not on his performance. It, too, was grace.

When those of us who are older in Christ see the failure of others and God’s unwarranted and incautious restoration of them, His kindness, forgiveness, and love often seem irrational and even unfair. We don’t understand the Father. How different this story would have read if the prodigal had run into the elder brother first. I am certain he would have turned back to the pigs.

I have witnessed folks being written off by the elder brothers. And for good reason—the prodigals acted improperly and hurt their fellow believers. And now they are labeled. Labels are always paralyzing.

Has anyone ever labeled you a “misfit” or “rebellious” or “inconsistent” or “untrustworthy”? If so, you probably agree that it wouldn’t be so bad if the labels were said to your face and the accuser actually commits to helping you work through your stuff. But more often than not, the labels are a kind of insulation between you and others. They are reminiscent of the “kick me” signs people used to stick on your back without your knowledge in grade school. People may be courteous to your face, but you can see it in their eyes—something’s up. And when you walk away, you know you have about as much a chance of belonging as a snowball in hell. It’s easy to think about going back to the pigs under such conditions. At least pigs don’t reject you.

But don’t let the elder brothers keep you from running to the Father and coming back home. Let God deal with those folks. You just head into the house and enjoy the party (I personally love “fatted-calf”). God has your back here.

Borg

Time

Escape

Perfect

Salt and Light

Prayer

Bible

Why I Want to Cuss

One of the guys from our community of faith called me this week to tell me that his wife had decided their marriage needed to end. They have been married for over 20 years; have two adult kids; had served as pastors at a couple of other churches before landing in our tribe—really nice people.

I asked him what the heck happened? He said there’s been no abuse, no adultery, no fighting…just a kind of drifting from each other over the past few years. She claimed her needs weren’t being met and that she needed a new life. Plain and simple.

I wanted to cuss. Don’t misunderstand me; I believe God always welcomes us, no matter what. We welcome the divorced, the discouraged, the disenfranchised, the hurting, the sin-torn, the broken into our midst—God is a redeemer. But something in me wishes those of us in the church would fight more for our marriages.

We live in a throw-away world. We throw away everything. When I was growing up, repair shops were not hard to find. Shoe repair, television repair, appliance repair, and watch repair shops were commonplace. Today that isn’t true. When was the last time you had a pair of shoes fixed? Who repairs torn socks anymore? Unless you have an expensive watch, you just throw away the one you have when it quits working. We throw away everything today—even the things that should never be thrown away, things that are designed to last for a lifetime—like marriages.

I think the problem is most American marriages are built on selfishness. There are scads of people who think: “I got married so my spouse can meet my needs.” True, meeting needs is a wonderful relationship builder IF each of you is committed to meeting the other’s needs mutually—but not when you put your needs first. Prioritizing your own needs over your spouse’s and fighting to ensure you are personally taken care of, is the one of the greatest hindrances to a happy marriage. Marriage isn’t supposed to be about “me.” In fact, selfishness is probably the strongest anti-marriage attitude you can embrace.

Whatever happened to the words of Jesus, "It is more blessed to give than to receive"? But the idea of sacrifice and giving ourselves in service to others is viewed by many today as one of those ridiculous, outdated standards we have done well to abandon.

Just the other day one of the daytime talk shows showcased a group of individuals who had the "guts" to “stand up for themselves” and quit their jobs. The host said they were a cut above the millions of “wimps who enjoyed being taken advantage of by serving people." One lady boasted of having over fifty jobs in the past several years because she refused to lower herself to serve her boss. The audience applauded. (One of the most popular songs in country music history is the classic Take This Job and Shove It!)

Today the media glorifies rebellion and selfishness. Bill Hybels writes:
"Watch the T.V. screen—things are tense at work. The employee is disagreeing with the boss. Nerves are snapping as the background music builds. The camera comes in tight on the employee and shows the veins popping out on his forehead. A moment of silence, and then his voice proclaims, 'I quit!' The music crescendos wildly as he storms out, slamming the door behind him. And while the show's sponsors sing the praises of beer or antacids, viewers across the nation sigh and say, 'That's exactly what I want to do to my boss someday. I want to quit in living color, in front of a vast audience, with violins and a drum roll.’

“Look again—a husband and wife are disagreeing. The tension builds. At the peak of anger, the wife suddenly slaps her husband across the face, just as the cymbals crash, of course. Spinning on her heels, she storms out and slams the door just as the employee did on the last show. And half the wives in America say, 'That's what I want to do. Johnny, get the pie tins and we'll go talk to Dad. This time I'm going to tell him to take a walk.’

"Watching these shows, we do not stop to think that the man is now unemployed, the woman is divorced and little Johnny doesn't have a dad anymore. All we see is the glamour, the sweet relief of cashing it in and walking out. But God's truth pierces through our tinsel-town values."

It is important to realize that there is a new morality in town. Americans are now being programmed to think it is a sign of integrity and strength to stand up for one’s rights and selfishly defend oneself no matter who gets hurt in the process. To not do so is considered a weakness. But if giving to others and serving them makes you a wimp and a weakling, then Jesus Christ was the greatest wimp who ever lived! Jesus said, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Please know that I say this without trying to give a hint of condemnation for those who find themselves on the back end of horrible relationships…divorce is certainly not the unpardonable sin. But it still is sin. God still says, “I hate divorce” (Mal. 2:16).

I just think giving up on relationships happens in our midst more often than it should. I think we need to try a little harder to work things out and I think we need to cry out to God (and each other) for help a little more often.

We are the church, right? We are a “colony of heaven” according to the Apostle Paul (Phil. 3:20, Moffatt). That means we are his divine representatives in this fragmented world. Obviously a great challenge, but also a great joy. Let’s ask God to empower us to do better. It'll keep my cussing down to a minimum.

Planting Flowers and Doing Mission

Last night I had a premarital counseling session with a young couple in our church preparing to get married this summer ... I LOVE doing premarital counseling, I think, because it gives me the chance to help nudge couples in the right direction from the outset.

In any event, as has become my custom, I walked the couple through Genesis 1 and 2 and opened up a discussion about what the point of marriage actually is. I do this for a very central reason. Far too many couples, in my opinion, carry around a completely myopic/atomistic view of marriage. What I mean is this. When you read MOST books on marriage, the focus seems to be exclusively on couple intimacy. How to communicate, how to resolve conflicts, how to "get the most" out of the relationship, date nights, and the like.

Not that any of those things are bad. Heck, I spend a TON of time with my couples talking through exactly those issues, and a whole host of others. My concern, however, is that too much pop-Christian rhetoric on marriage abstracts marriage from its biblical context and purpose. It becomes just one more place where we find intimacy and self-fulfillment in a topsy-turvy world as we seek to escape the pressures of modern life.

But Genesis will not let us think of marriage as abstracted from the concepts of

CONTEXT,
VOCATION, and
CALLING.

When we come to the opening chapters of Genesis and listen to the rhetoric used, we find (perhaps to our amazement), that the "internal" dynamics of the couple's relationship are subordinated to the purpose for which God created the couple in the first place ... and the narrative is unambiguous in what that purpose is:

"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves along the ground" (1:28).

That is, they are to function (coordinately) as the very "image" of this invisible God over the precise space allotted to them ... extending the administration of this creative and creating God into every uncultivated territory they find themselves: "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it" (2:15). And this work is a quite holy work. In fact, the Hebrew words used for "till" and "keep" ('abad and shamar) are the same words used to speak of the work that the priests in the Temple did before the Lord. Make no mistake, the writer of Genesis is telling us, bringing God's goodness, life, truth, beauty, and order to bear in a world filled with evil, death, lies, ugliness and disorder is holy work.

I like that a lot. I like it because it infuses marriage and family with a sense of purpose. THERE IS WORK FOR US TO DO! Great work. Work that gives marriage meaning, a "telos", that keeps things interesting. Now don't get me wrong, the internal dynamics are critical. The text makes it plain that this first couple was to enjoy the "one flesh" reality and live before each other in the delightfully blissful state of "naked" and "no shame" (and all the people said "Amen!"). But marriage, in the biblical perspective, is like language - no meaning apart from context.

And even more than that, marriage has something to do, something IMPORTANT to do, with the Missio Dei - the mission of God. That homes are to be beachheads for the kingdom, outposts of heaven, in a world that's spinning out of control.

What if, I wonder, we got this? What if we stopped relying on programs and institutions to bring the kingdom of God, and instead started asking ourselves what it might mean, in the homes/families in which we dwell, for US to bring the kingdom of God?

With that in mind, I suggest the following things:

1) Get to know your neighbors. We live in a highly fragmented and socially distant age where we're rapidly losing the skills to relate meaningfully with one another. Be AGAINST that slide as God's people, and find out the names of your neighbors. Learn their stories. It will feel awkward at first, but do it. It will reap rewards later.

2) Spend less time inside your house and more time outside in space that's visible to the rest of the neighborhood. One of the great tragedies of modern life is that our most intimate spaces are those furthest back from our streets. It's like we're so paranoid, disconnected, and fearful that we don't want people to see us actually living our lives. And of course that makes the people who live across from us and next to us feel like distant strangers. Counteract this by playing with your kids in the front lawn. Or even...

3) Plant some flowers. Having landscaping to tend to in your front yard forces you to spend significant time outside, where your neighbors can see you and where the mundane conversations that make up the substance of rich relationships can take place. You'll be surprised at how the psychological distance between you and your neighbors decreases when you begin to get into such mundane conversations about mundane things like gardening. Furthermore, the prophets described God's new earth as a place that will be filled with abundant, fertile beauty. So be a prophet and plant some pansies :-)

4) Learn to borrow things. We evangelicals have an odd love for occupying power positions in relationships with folks outside of faith. So when we think about doing mission in our neighborhoods, we immediately think, "WE must be the ones to give something ... the gospel, our money, our time ... whatever!" I submit that intimacy does not occur in any relationship until there is a sense of give AND take. Remember that Jesus and his disciples relied on the generosity of the people they brought the gospel to AS they conducted their mission. So if you need a tool or a stick of butter, don't run to Lowe's or WalMart. Go to your neighbor's house and ask. Again, you'll be shocked at how the distance will decrease.

5) Learn to bless and pray for the homes around you. As we all know, the home can be a taste of heaven on earth. It can also be hell. And buried deep in the homes of many of our neighbors are all the things that Paul talked about as belonging to the "old humanity" - strife, anger, contentions, factions, infidelity, harsh words, hardheartedness, unforgiveness, bitterness, greed, etc. - making them hard homes to live in. Pray that God would "walk about" (Gn 3:8) these homes and up and down your street to drive back darkness and bring light.

I'm sure you can think of more. What are some of the ways you've discovered as a means to bring the kingdom of God to bear in your neighborhood?

On Making Peace...

"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."

Ephesians 2:14-16

---

I am a runner.

Every day, after donning myself with my running vestments (usually shorts and a ratty t-shirt), I walk out onto the front porch, draw in a breath of the murky Tulsa air, and then begin my morning jog. After turning up Pittsburgh avenue, I then take a left onto 21st street, and jog for three quarters of a mile before I turn right on Jamestown avenue. And there ensues a ritual that has become one of the favorite moments of my day: my interaction with Johnny.

Deeply embedded in the collective consciousness of Tulsa's past is one of the worst acts of racial violence in U. S. history. In 1921, in the middle an oil industry depression (Tulsa was once called "The Oil Capital of the World", having built its early wealth through oil) and massive unemployment (mainly of white people), a mob of jealous, angry white folks marched through the Greenwood district of North Tulsa, burning down houses and businesses, looting, rioting, and killing all through the night. When all was said and done, Greenwood (which had been dubbed "The Black Wall Street" for its prosperity) was burned to the ground, leaving hundreds of blacks dead and thousands more displaced. In fact, the displacement of the black community ranks as the greatest in U. S. history until Hurricane Katrina. Once-prosperous black folks were now living in tents and being forced to clean up the mess in Greenwood with no pay. In the years and decades the followed, virtually no action was taken to restore what was lost; even the dignity of an official apology from the city for its failure to protect the black community never emerged. The wound is very real. And very deep.

Johnny is black. An elderly man, quite possibly old enough to have lived through the riot and certainly old enough to have inherited its violent memory and devastating effects, Johnny works as a crossing guard at 21st and Jamestown. Old, frail, with a back so crooked that he strains to look you in the eye, Johnny is a fixture on the corner, directing traffic and making sure kids get across the street safely. And so for months now, every day, when I turn up Jamestown, I make it a point to say hi to Johnny.

"Mornin' Johnny!" I'll cry out through my labored breathing, "How we feeling today?"

"All right..." he'll answer. "How are you?"

"Just trying to keep moving! Have a great day..."

"You too!" he'll reply as I jog away.

The interaction is short. Very short. And my relationship with Johnny doesn't really go beyond 21st and Jamestown. But there is something right about it. Something that smacks of grace and peace in a world that's filled with collective memories of hatred and violence. For a brief moment in time, in the middle of a city that hatched one of the most heinous acts of racial violence in our country's history, the nerve of violence - fear - is cut. And strangers receive each other in small acts of love and generosity.

In Matthew 5, Jesus charted out an alternative vision of reality for his followers saying, "Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called sons of God" (5:9). I admit that it's tempting to turn the call to make peace in a violent world a matter of taking the appropriate sides in theological arguments, of coming to assent to the appropriate ideological abstractions or to be committed to a certain set of appropriate social and political theories. But important as such issues are to engage in, what should never be lost on us is that it is one thing to define yourself by an abstraction, quite another thing to actually follow the Crucified one in small, local, concrete ways. I mean, suppose a lock-down, air-tight, open-and-shut case could be made in one of these arguments for one side over the other. Would anything substantial be gained? The conditions that give rise to large-scale conflict would still persist, the nerves of violence in our world still bursting with pain. And the gritty work of making peace in a world at war would still lie in front of us. It's just not as easy as argumentation, and rhetorical flourishes make not a world at rest. At some point, the hard work must begin. We must enact peace in local, small ways in the name of the One who already has gone ahead and made peace between enemies.

I'm inclined to think that part of the reason we do this is because coming out right in an argument placates our sense of guilt over not living out the Messianic reality we confess. It's simply easier. Much easier. Easier to choose a side than to make friends with an old crossing guard, easier to read books and write blogs denouncing large-scale violence than to work with your neighbors to defuse the conditions that give rise to small-scale violence on your block.

And perhaps, still more, the reason we do this is quite simply because of our impatience. We want the kingdom. And we want it now. And because we don't push the buttons and pull the levels of international geo-politics, we retreat into diatribe, thinking, albeit subconsciously, that if we just make the one slam-dunk argument and get enough people to agree, the problems of our world will be solved.

But they will not. The work will STILL lie in front of us. The horizon of pervasive, final peace will still lie outside of our grasp, demanding that if we would taste it at the last, we must enact it first, in all the spaces we now inhabit.

Mark records Jesus saying:

"'This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.'

"Again he said, 'What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.'" (Mark 4:26-32)

There's a sort of covetousness, an impatience that lies deep in our souls. We want to sow the seed AND be able to predict the outcome. The need for control grips us in ways we are hardly aware of. For the kingdom to come, we want to employ a strategy, enact a program, vote the right people into power, pass the right legislation. But the kingdom, Jesus says, does not work that way. It is not manageable, not reducible to a system or argument. There is mystery. Deep mystery. And it is not the biggest, broadest thing in our world. Not a program or system or ideology that millions assent to that will ensure world peace.

No, the kingdom, Jesus says, is like a seed. Multiple seeds. Multiple acts of love and grace and generosity that lie just on the horizon of a brand new world, hinting at that world, but never disclosing its fullness. For the kingdom, we must always remember, is a gift given to us, never something we attain through argumentation or programming. We hear whispers of it when we make friends with old crossing guards, and hope for the day when the gift of grace and peace given in those humane moments becomes pervasive Reality. We lurch towards newness, and hope for the kingdom that lies just outside our greedy grasping. It is gift. It is grace. It is worked for, but not earned. And when it comes, the credit for its coming will not go to our arguments or our programs, but to God, and only to God.

As we journey from Easter to Pentecost, I am reminded of a poem written in the honor of Oscar Romero, an El Salvadoran bishop of the Roman Catholic Church who was murdered while performing the Mass for speaking out on behalf of the poor and victimized in the Salvadoran Civil War:

"It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own."

Amen. Give us grace to be your workers, Lord God.

Less Than Super Faith

In an old movie called Mystery Men, William H. Macy, Ben Stiller, and Hank Azaria starred as a trio of lesser superheroes with fairly unimpressive superpowers. The opening scene is in Champion City, a metropolis in a slightly altered (but not enough to really work), comic book-style reality, where costumed crimefighters (many with mediocre 'powers') are in oversupply, to the point that many of them are out looking for work.

Three such individuals are 'The Shoveller' (William H. Macy), who can wield a shovel pretty well; 'Mr. Furious' (Ben Stiller), who has the 'ability' to get very, very angry; and 'The Blue Raja' (Hank Azaria), a self-described "effete British superhero" who throws forks and spoons (but refuses to use knives), and wears a green turban (a running joke being that, despite his name, his costume has no blue in it whatsoever).

This motley crew arrives to foil a robbery in an old-folks home by a similarly inept band of villains. They are largely incompetent at what they do, and are quickly upstaged by Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear)—this guy is a genuine superhero, who arrives just in time to save the day and completely upstages the 'wanna-be' heroes, who are treated as a joke by the police officers, villains, civilians on the scene, and Captain Amazing himself.

As far as faith is concerned, there are a lot of Captain Amazings in the Evangelical church. As much as I would like to be, I am not one of them. I feel much more like “Mr. Furious.” I can make lots of noise, express large emotions…but that’s about it. I wish my faith were really big. Don’t misunderstand me, I believe in God most of the time. And I have my moments when I know that I know he is present in my life. But I have moments when I wonder if I’m wrong; times when I have a taste of doubt in my soul. Faith is a tricky business for me—the idea of living my whole life for someone I’ve never seen is a pretty gnarly enterprise.

Some claim they never experience tension or doubt in their faith. They seem to project a kind of faith that is always an ecstatic, absolute, and full of an unwavering “knowing” that overwhelms them at all times—always clean; forever effervescent; never encroached upon with doubt. These are the super-faith people.

I’m just not there. I think the whole nature of faith is untidy, and I would argue God made it that way. I think faith is about persistence in the face of uncertainty and doubt. Some think faith completely eliminates the presence of doubt, and that if doubt is present, it is an indicator that one doesn’t have faith. But I don’t agree.

There is a great story in the life of Jesus where he asked a guy if he had faith. The man responded to the Lord, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) Notice that it is possible to believe and still be wrestling with “unbelief.” It turns out that faith is NOT about absolute certainty. Just because you have doubts, it does not mean you do not have faith. The guy in the Jesus-story asked that his doubt be “overcome” so that it would not be the prevailing force in his life. It’s a good ask. That is the basic battle of faith—we must fight so that our doubts don’t drown our faith. But there is nothing wrong with the struggle.

For many people of faith, the idea of experiencing doubt at all makes them very nervous. They view the questions that rise in their minds as evidence of a lack of faith, which surely disqualifies them from being authentic believers. So they shove their doubts into their sub-conscious in Pollyannaish fashion. But what if it’s not true? What if honest doubt is actually the essence of faith? What if real faith has doubt in the mix, as a coin has two sides? That would mean struggling with doubt is not a lack of faith; it would actually be faith!

I think it is healthy to be uncertain every now and then. Frederck Buechner wrote, “Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: ‘Can I believe it all again today?’ …At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so.”

It turns out that considering the “What if it’s true?” juxtaposed up against the “What if it’s not?” is a healthy thing to do spiritually. We should not be ashamed if we are drawn like magnets to the uncertainties and questions inherent in faith. Faith, after all, is not supposed to come naturally. Faith is the venture of human consideration and divine illumination. Only in a world where faith is difficult can faith exist.

I believe God wants people of faith to question, to wonder, to get disturbed, to seek for tenable answers. Faith is not the quelling of all sense of doubt, but the result of a choice after one has honestly and earnestly sought to understand. If this is a true description of faith, then faith is more like an intense mud-wrestling contest than anything else. It’s hard, sometimes painful, often disorienting, and always messy—certainly not a cheery, no-conflict, refreshingly bubbly, perpetual happy place.

Overall, faith has won the day in my soul. Something deep within me—like the E.T.-phone-home beacon—draws me inexorably back to the pursuit of the Holy. But I still get thrown and disturbed from time to time, and I think God likes it that way.

The Good Journey

The apostle Paul wrote, “There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears” (Phil. 1:6 msg). You gotta love this. God promises to keep chasing us and working in us even after we start our journey of faith.

This is great news, because the thing we tend to do best is botch things. God forgives us; we fall again. God gives us courage; we get discouraged. God gives us a dream; we make it a self-actualizing quest filled more with us than God. God gives us gifts; we go prodigal with them and use them for our own advantage. Let’s face it; if we were God, we would kill us.

The wonderful news is that God knows us completely and still loves us. J. I. Packard writes, “There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself.”

God bases his decision to pursue us and work in us on his unconditional love. Unconditional love loves without conditions—it isn’t based on the actions of the one being loved. This God-kind of love simply sets value and preciousness on us. It isn’t an earned thing; it just is. We are loved because we are. We belong because we are. When this truth becomes real to you, there is no more fear of abandonment. In fact, this “perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18).

Virginia Lively tells of a vision she once had of Jesus Christ that gives us a snapshot of this kind of love. She writes, “[The] thing that struck me was his utter lack of condemnation. I realized at once that he knew me down to my very marrow. He knew all the stupid, cruel, silly things I had ever done. But I also realized that none of these things—nothing I could ever do—would alter the absolute caring, the unconditional love that I saw in his eyes. I could not grasp it! It was too immense a fact. I felt that if I gazed at him for a thousand years, I still could not realize the enormity of that love.”

I have no idea why, but God loves us. He believes in us. He trusts us. He pursues us. When we see that, really remember that, we can’t help but love him back.

Our loving him is a “reflex” action from discovering his love for me. John said, “We love [him] because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). When you visit the doctor and he hits that “spot” just below your knee (or on your elbow), there is a “reflex”—an autonomic muscle response. Unless you’re diseased, you can’t help it. The same is true here. Unless you’re deeply diseased with sin and deception, the more you hear about and catch a glimpse of God’s love with the eyes of your soul, you can only respond with love back towards God. It’s a reflex.

I think the secret to loving God “more” is ordering our lives in such a way that we intentionally and consistently experience the face of God. The more we see his face, the more he hits that “spot” in our souls that causes the “reflex” of love back towards him. Loving God more is possible if we intentionally face God more. I think this is why the Psalmist prayed again and again, “Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved” (Psa. 80:3).

I want more face time with God. I want to forget him less. The journey of faith is all about gazing at the One who is invisible. I want to journey well. David prayed, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple” (Psa. 27:4).

We need to find ways that help us experience the face of God. There are lots of ways. I feel like I experience God most easily as I ponder the Scriptures. As I wrestle with texts, grace dawns inside me. My wife, Gail, taps into God’s presence as she sings and worships. Others touch God’s face most by getting together with other believers or by retreating into times of solitude or by one of the other many spiritual practices modeled in Scripture and church history (i.e. study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, submission, solitude, silence, fasting, sacrifice, etc.). Once you find the pathways that help you succeed at experiencing God’s presence then commit to practicing those pathways.

Happy journeying.

The Us-ness of Faith

We Americans like being strong, individualistic, and tough. It’s so . . . American. We are rugged individualists. And there is some good in that. But there is also danger.

Aristotle claimed that sharing our lives with one another is very important. He said that if “each man lives as he pleases,” he lives “as the Cyclopes do.” The mythical Cyclopes were mean, destructive beings, with a single eye—for themselves. I think we evangelicals stand guilty of that. Our lack of true community and intimacy and our rabid individuality have often made the typical American evangelical church monstrous.

We humans are by nature individual and communal beings. We were created that way. Throughout the first two chapters of Genesis, you find the phrase “and God saw that it was good” repeatedly. That was God’s reply as He reflected on each aspect of the creation He had made. But after creating the first human, God said something very different. He looks at Adam and says, “This isn’t good” (Gen. 2:18). He was referring to the fact that Adam was alone. God quickly moved to bring someone else into the picture. Community.

What’s interesting in the narrative is that God essentially is saying human beings need more than just a relationship with God. We need other human beings! God designed us to need one another. Most think that needing or having to depend upon others is a sign of weakness. Our society teaches us that independence equals strength, when just the opposite is true.

It takes great strength to get along with others. We have to have a lot of intestinal fortitude and plain ol’ guts to stay in relationships. All it takes is a well-developed attitude of selfishness to join the ranks of the Cyclopes. There is an abundance of that these days.

But God created us with a need for others. And that need was not the result of sin. Needing others is the plan and will of God. To feel actualized, we must find expression both individually and within the context of community. Sadly, in the evangelical tradition there is little discussion about or awareness of the corporate element of faith.

James Sanders suggests that many in our culture “think of religion as a personal matter and concern, something between them as individuals and God.” Though few Evangelicals would hold to the idea that community is inconsequential, our view of community is pretty pale. Perhaps our concept of individual faith has been so radicalized that we don’t see the value of community.

But Jesus said one of the primary ways we show ourselves to be his disciples is by connecting with others who have faith (John 13:35). The idea is that faith is not to be lived out alone.
What if grace—the power to change—is not just communicated to us when we are by ourselves? What if God designed faith to be more than just an intensely personal experience? It certainly is that, but what if God planned faith to have a corporate element as well? What if community—the idea of connecting with others—is a necessary conduit of critical grace in our lives? What if we are not just supposed to figure this out alone?

What if the deepest, deadliest, and most terrible parts of our lives never get uprooted until we can talk openly about them—confess them—to trustworthy others who can encourage us and lock arms with us to help us walk out our freedom?

This begs the question: Do YOU have anyone like that in your life, someone with whom you can be totally honest? Or are you basically doing life alone? There are lots of us that are alone—and it can mean real trouble.

I think we are in trouble as a culture, and I don’t think the church is doing much better. I think our greatest need is for community—for connecting with one another. Remember that Jesus never wrote a book, never established a school—his legacy was leaving a community.

The New Testament writings that we love and read devotionally sprang from the living community Jesus left. We still have the writings. We still have his words, his truth. But I fear we have lost much of the idea of community—which is the Word (the writings) incarnate. (See 2 Corinthians 3:3.)

True, we have some huge churches with lots of numbers—the American church is big—but I am not sure we are all that significant. And I am quite sure there is little true connection. And I think people are starting to get tired of big and are longing more to belong.

So, what should we do?

Refuse to Fly Solo
I think the biggest hindrance to community and belonging is that, for the most part, we do faith alone. We come to church and we hear thoughts about God, but then we are expected to figure out how to apply those thoughts on our own. It’s as if the whole reason we come together is to hear the truth, and then we are to go off alone and try to figure out how to get it into practice.

Or we come together and we try to fix one another. Someone gets anointed and preaches and prays for people—maybe throws some oil on them or tries to expunge the devil—the goal is to fix people so they can, again, go off and try living out their faith on their own.
Certainly, there is good in preaching and in praying and in ministering to one another, but what about the biblical imperative to “confess your sins to each other” (James 5:16)? Do you have someone in your life to whom you can really confess—with the confidence that he or she will not betray you, think less of you, or reject you? Will that person actually believe God is bigger than your weaknesses? Are you confident that, though this friend loves you, he will not accept your sin, but work with you to break through it?

Here’s a dream worth living for: a place where you can be honest about your doubts and fears without being met with worn-out clichés or empty platitudes; a place that recognizes faith as a time-laded, growth process, not the product of an “instant-pudding” altar prayer; a place where you can get help today but be challenged to grow so you’re better prepared to face tomorrow; a place of intimacy, where you can know and be known; a place where it is hard not to find God; a place where finding God is as corporate as it is personal; a place where you belong whether you’re single, married, divorced, widowed, young, old, rich, poor, smart, dull, thin, fat, beautiful, or ugly; a place where you can find meaningful service, where you commit to something bigger than yourself; a place that needs you; a place of safety; a place off-limits to witches, demons, and the walking dead—the safest place in the world.

We could call it church.

Can We Talk about Dying?

Everybody loves a great ending of a book or movie. I hate stories that end badly. If an ending is bad, the whole story seems like a waste of time. I wonder if that says something about how the story of our lives should end? Death only comes in two varieties: fast or slow. Having a fatal accident or heart attack would be a fast death—one moment you’re alive; the next you’re dead. A slow death happens after a prolonged battle with a terminal illness, or as a result of old age. It’s this slow variety that affords us the chance to end things well.

Why shouldn’t life end well or even grandly for us? Leaves are the most beautiful at the end of their life cycle. Why shouldn’t humans be? True, the months and weeks before one’s death are chock full of challenges and anxieties to address, but can’t we run at whatever time we have left purposely celebrating life’s memories, sharing cherished moments with those we will leave behind, and saying what needs to be said before it’s too late to say anything? Why can’t we move through the autumn of our lives with our leaves bursting with radiant color?

The problem is we are afraid to talk about death. But that doesn’t make sense. We all know that, like taxes, death is unavoidable. The truth is, life itself is a terminal experience—the moment we are born the death process begins. Every doctor will tell you as much. Aging itself is the process of dying. It’s just that when we are young, death doesn’t seem real or relevant to us.

In centuries past, people were accustomed to death because it visited them more often than it does us today. The general attitude was one of acceptance and ars moriendi or belief in the “art of dying.” During those days when serious illness occurred, the only choice was to simply let dying take it’s course and to do it in the best way possible—at peace with God. Physicians were ones who practiced the art of medicine, using their skills and knowledge to guide patients with dignity to their final breaths. Today, physicians in their rescue saving efforts have, by and large, lost touch with helping people with the art of dying. Because of the advancements in medical science through extending life expectancies and stopping many terminal illnesses from being terminal, some unconsciously believe science will ultimately keep us all from dying. But medicine will never eradicate death; it can only postpone it.

All of us will reach the end of what science can do and death will be at the door. We will have to face it. Because this is true, we moderns must rediscover the art of dying—an “art” that helps us live all the way to the end. Dying is really the final act of living. We must take time to learn how to do it. When we are young, life is about learning and growing into adulthood. As adults, we must learn about productivity and family. As we age we learn about retirement and contentment. Then we start to die. Here we must learn how to exit life by getting things in order; remembering what should be remembered; forgetting what should be forgotten; being thankful for life (despite its ups and downs, successes and failures); and cultivating hope for the next dimension of living—eternity.

Dying is hard work. Lot’s of t’s to cross and i’s to dot. Part of the work is being willing to talk about death—something many don’t want to do. Our culture celebrates whenever a life comes into the world. We laugh and cry and gather together to talk about the new life coming into the world. On the other hand, we are reluctant to talk openly about death, and we find it hard to accept a report from the doctor that tells us we are going to die. Something in us hopes medical science (or God) will help us beat whatever threatens our lives (and for the bulk of our lives that hope is valid). But there is a time to die.

In the West, we only value youth, beauty, competition and individuality. Death to us represents physical weakness, loss of power and uncertainty...none of which we appreciate. Our cultural bias interprets death as a failure. Nobody likes to fail.

Other more traditional cultures, however, treat death as an extension of living, bearing testimony of a well-lived life and as an opportunity to begin again. The dying are given space to resolve conflicts, to celebrate, to prepare for their final journey, and to acknowledge that their life had great meaning.

Celebrating those who face death is long over overdue in the West. Families and friends need to laugh and cry and gather together in order to memorialize a person’s life when they are about to leave this planet—we need to learn how. The good news is, when you do, understanding comes, peace comes, hope surprises you, and most of the creepiness about this subject matter leaves.

It is often said that everyone wants to go to heaven; it’s just that no one wants to die to get there. The God story has an upside and a down side. We must partake of both until all things are redeemed and death is put under Christ’s feet. I think Christians are not only live well but die well. But embracing the uncertainty of death in hope of a future in God’s hands requires we overcome the fear of death. Faith helps us here.

C.S. Lewis captured the concept of crossing into eternity on the last page of the Chronicles of Narnia series that conquers some of that fear for me. He closes the series by writing:
“For us this is the end of all the stories…But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world…had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever and in which every chapter is better than to one before.”

The biblical claim is that there is another dimension beyond this one. Jesus claimed he is working in that dimension to make it “home” for the believer—this means that, at best, Earth is a hotel. When we embrace this idea by faith (and there’s no other way to do so) death doesn’t sound so bad after all. In fact, it is here that we best understand the claim of the Apostle Paul: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Bubble Children

Ed Gungor uses the biblical portrait of Daniel in Babylon to explain the concept of protecting your children for the culture and not against the culture.

Pow Pows

Pastor Ed covers finding a discipline style that works for your children.

God's Breath

Ed Gungor talks about feeling God breathe, and using scripture in parenting.

A Day Wasted

Pastor Ed talks about the prophetic note having children creates in our lives as well as the importance of children to God.

Dying Slowly

Marriages die slowly, which is why we need to fight for intimacy.

Healthy Fighting

"If you're going to have a healthy marriage, then you're going to have to learn to fight in a healthy way!"

It takes a lot of work...

Pastor Ed talks about what it takes to make a marriage work.

Finding Our Place

Is it possible that there is more going on than we can possibly understand? The Apostle Paul claimed that God’s “paths”—his schemes—“are beyond tracing out” (Rom. 11:33). That implies some mystery. Other texts claim each of us is a destiny—a planned, on-purpose being that God wanted to cast in his unfolding play. If this is true, we can’t think about life in terms of making our own story. Instead, we must each find our place in the story being told by God. If that is true, this is a world where God has a purpose and a place for everything. Then success and fulfillment could not be based on personal aggrandizement or actualization, but on obediently finding the position predestined for us by God.

I saw a stage play once in which one of the minor actors had a hard time being a minor actor. He felt he should have had a larger role, so he ended up trying to expand his bit part into a bit more. He walked on and off the stage in an exaggerated way, and his lines were stretched and out of cadence with the other actors. Instead of lending what talent he had to the overall good of the show, his performance hurt it. Successful acting isn’t about whether or not you are noticed or if you have the largest part, but by whether or not you play the role you are asked to play in a way that fulfills the writer’s dream and the director’s instructions.

If we dare to buy into the idea that we are part of God’s story, this becomes a world where both small and great are relevant. True, some folks will always be amazingly bright and talented stars, while others of us are more like “bit” actors—but that distinction is not critical as long as both are essential. We may be different, but we are never insignificant.

THE DOMINO SCENARIO
Some time ago I watched a CNN human-interest piece on a guy in Japan who had set up one million dominoes in a large field house. As thousands gathered to watch, and the cameras were rolling, he knocked over the first domino, and the fun began. It took a long time for all the dominoes to tumble, one hitting the next. I remember thinking, “What if someone had snuck in and pulled a domino or two out of line?” How frustrating would that have been? The guy would have had to start all over!

I couldn’t help but wonder if that isn’t exactly what we believers do to God all the time. Because we don’t take ourselves seriously, because we don’t think we matter; we step out of the game. We slack off or shrink back. Imagine how many times God is left grieving because believers don’t accurately evaluate who they are. Then we end up wasting our lives and forcing God to come up with new strategies (and new people to “place”) for future redemptive gestures in the “field house” of life. The point is, just because we appear to have a minor role, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a critical one.

The Bible is chock-full of stories that exemplify the idea of the seemingly insignificant person changing the world. A young woman named Ruth left her family and the land of her birth to care for the mother of her dead husband. Ruth was a Moabite woman; Naomi, her mother-in-law, was an Israelite. But Ruth’s selfless dedication to Naomi was immovable. She told her, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). When Ruth landed in Israel with Naomi, they were poverty-stricken. At Naomi’s request, Ruth married a guy who was twice her age in order to survive (the tone of the text suggests he was not an Abercrombie model). The story ends with Ruth giving birth to a son named Obed. Nice story.

Though the story of Ruth is sweet from one standpoint, it is so ordinary—so seemingly unimportant. But then we are surprised. Ruth, it turns out, is the great-grandmother of David, the greatest king in Israel’s history, a man after God’s own heart. The dedication and selfless love David shows in his life mirrors the same selfless commitments his great-grandmother Ruth had. I bet when Ruth met David in eternity and realized the connection, she was shocked. I’m sure she had no idea she was such a central player in God’s kingdom enterprise.

What if this is the way God loves to do things? What if God loves to weave the spectacular out of the ordinary — maybe a generation or more from us? And what if he loves to do it in a way that causes most to miss it—unless we are suspicious of his activity? Maybe being suspicious of God’s activity is what faith really is.

Hurry Up and Wait

Generally speaking, I hate to wait. I always have an eye out for the shortest line at the store and religiously pursue short-cuts around traffic.

I wish I could say my aversion to waiting is because I hate to waste time. But the truth is I kind of like wasting time doing things that don’t really matter. I think it is more accurate to say that I hate to wait because I am selfish and want what I want right now before YOU or anyone else gets it.

I know it sounds bad. But as I’m getting older, I think I’m getting better at waiting. But only because it is dawning on me that most of life is spent waiting. Plus, I’ve discovered that most of my “hurry” only leads to hurry-up-and-WAIT some more. Not just in store lines and traffic, but for friendships to grow, opportunities to develop, gnarly situations to change, dreams to become realities, and for the overarching will of God to come to pass.

The Hebrew writer claimed that we inherit God’s promises for our lives through “faith and patience” (Heb. 6:12) The bottom line is, we don’t live well unless we learn to wait well and trust God.

It seems to me that the most difficult thing about Christianity is the whole “wait and trust” piece—but we are called to wait upon and trust Jesus Christ—not just for salvation, but also for our daily lives. That means we have to be comfortable with leaving control of things that directly impact our lives in the hands of someone else. If you have never had a good trust experience—where someone proved trustworthy, you will have a hard time with this. For many, only disappointment has followed trust—we even disappoint ourselves.

It is terrifying to think that we don’t have the stuff to make it on our own. Instead of waiting on another, we would rather take control and manage our own lives. Waiting on God admits we don’t have what it takes to make it on our own and that we need help outside of ourselves. There is something deeply disturbing about this position. It’s like falling backward—instinctively we scramble for control. Something in us fights to prove we can control our lives.

But the psalmist claims our efforts for control are in vain: “Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain”(Ps. 39:6). We may have our moments of resolve and confidence, but the reality is, we are fallen. We are bankrupt. We need help outside of ourselves. And we need to wait on God for help to come. And, as I said, I hate to wait.

The good news is when we dare to wait…he comes. And he comes in a way that is surprising and delightful. The more I learn to “wait,” the less I mind the pain of it. What started out as a discipline ends up becoming a delight.

I’m still not really good at this, but I’m trying to hurry-up and wait better.

The Stem Cell Question

This week, President Obama rescinded an executive order that prohibited the use of federal funds for stem cell research. Though this move is the fulfillment of a campaign promise (and shouldn’t surprise us), it is very disturbing for those of us who are advocates of life. The fundamental impediment to our acceptance of embryonic stem cell research has to do with destruction of the human embryo.

Thankfully, President Obama said he opposed human “cloning,” which would be the creation of human embryos solely for the production of stem cells, rather than with the intention of creating a new human being.

Advocates of life believe that life begins at conception, and since an embryo uninterrupted by death grows into a baby—it is a life. Ethically, any life is inherently valuable and should never be voluntarily destroyed. It is hard to justify the taking of a life in order to extend or improve someone else’s. It seems like cannibalism on some level. And without the protection of the basic right to stay alive, aren’t all other human rights sort of arbitrary?

On the other hand, supporters of stem cell research say it will open up a broad front of research to find better treatments for ailments like diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and other serious illnesses. These supporters claim they are being “pro-life” by acting on the moral imperative to alleviate suffering. They are also quick to point out that the embryos used for this research are the unused embryos from fertility clinics that would otherwise have simply been thrown away.

As you listen to both sides of the debate, it becomes obvious that this issue is more complex than it first appears. And there’s some inconsistent logic. Consider, for example, that though the pro-life movement regards all embryos as human persons, pro-life leaders seem mainly concerned about the relatively few embryos that are killed by having their stem cells extracted. There seems to be little or no concern over the many hundreds of thousands of embryos which have been terminated or which will eventually die in in-vitro fertilization clinics.

If we are against the use of stem cell research on the basis of embryonic destruction, shouldn’t we also be against in-vitro fertilization clinics because there are always excess embryos that get discarded?

But how can those of us who love life fight against in-vitro fertilization clinics when those clinics give infertile couples (and those who have great difficulty getting pregnant) the joy of being able to have children? Shouldn’t we celebrate that?

As you can see, conversations about medical ethics can get complex and circuitous very quickly (like many socio-political issues do)—which is precisely the point that most of us miss. We oversimplify issues; we stand on soapboxes; we scream and yell at those who disagree with us (all in the name of God, of course.)

Before you scream too loudly over this move by President Obama (or claim this evidences he is the antichrist), keep in mind that the prohibition for using federal funds under the executive order by President Bush DID NOT stop the practice of harvesting of stem cells from unused embryos from fertility clinics. Even President Bush, who disagreed with this ethically, did not try to stop the research completely. Why? It’s a complex issue.

Think about it. You may be (as I am) against destroying embryos to use for stem cell research, but I bet you are delighted for the couples that get to have children as a result of in-vitro fertilization clinics.

You may not be for stem cell research, but what if there was a treatment that utilized stem cells (that would have been tossed away) that would curb a crippling disease tormenting your child or loved one? Wouldn’t you wonder if that wasn’t a good use of what would have otherwise been thrown in the garbage?

Perhaps you scream “NO!”—but can you understand why others might struggle here?

The good news is that there is new research that may make this whole discussion moot. According to Science Daily, Dr. Nagy, Senior Investigator at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital, there is a “new method of generating stem cells does not require embryos as starting points and could be used to generate cells from many adult tissues such as a patient's own skin cells” (see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090301181423.htm).

As Christians wrestle through issues like this jn the 21^st century, we need to remember that these kinds of developments are not addressed explicitly in Scripture—there are only general parameters to ponder, wonder about, pray over, and wrestle through. The problem is many of us try to make these issues this black-and-white simple when they often are not. They are filled with complexity. But complexity is too colorful for some of us, and we prefer doling out black-and-white conclusions.

Remember the movie Pleasantville? In the universe of Pleasantville (filmed in black and white instead of color), life was . . . pleasant. Nothing akin to the horrors of war, famine, or AIDS existed there. The bathrooms didn’t even have toilets—that would have been impolite. The high-school basketball team never missed a shot, firemen only rescued cats stuck in trees (there were no house fires), families were perfect, and teen sweethearts never went past “first base.” Everything, absolutely everything, was perfect in that idyllic little town.

Some people try to make every issue like Pleasantville—simple and clear, with some added Bible verses blazing (along with chapter and verse) to back up our opinions. We tell people what to think and what to believe. Telling people what seems so much simpler than telling them why. And safer too.

Thinking, cognizing, conceptualizing, perceiving, understanding, comprehending, and cogitating—all are words for actions that are much more complex than simply commanding and directing. Demanding that people think a certain way in order to belong is so clean, so black-and-white simple. Helping them internalize the why behind a position and letting them participate in a discussion on conclusions is both cumbersome and potentially dangerous—they may conclude something different than what we think. God forbid.

Recognizing complexity is an untidy affair. It’s more color, less black-and-white, and most crave a black-and-white, “Pleasantville” world—especially religious people.

Certainly we can tell others at the water cooler and in our churches what we believe about issues like this, but I think it is important that we talk and listen and trust God to help us wrestle through the seeming contradictory pros and cons involved. The truth never changes, but how it is applied within the context of the 21^st century needs careful consideration. But “careful consideration” demands more trust in both God and his people. That will mean we need to be tolerant, patience, and open to diversity and difference of opinion—open to color.

Marriage - Feedback

Pastor Ed Gungor talks about "feedback" in marriage.

Marriage - Bad Intel

Pastor Ed Gungor explains how the person you marry, is not always the person you end up with.

Marriage - Annoying Laugh

Pastor Ed Gungor shares a story about a man who's wife has an annoying laugh.

The Way (Clip 2)

Ed Gungor discusses a life centered around the Cross, obedience, and service to others.

To watch the full message, click here.

The Way (Clip 1)

Ed Gungor discusses a life centered around the Cross, obedience, and service to others.

To watch the full message, click here.

Solitude Salt

Ed investigates the concept of solitude.

Chasing butterflies with President Obama

BARACK OBAMA, the 44th president of the United States heralds the promise of a new beginning for America. With reckless abandon President Obama is telling us that this is a new day; that a new dawn of positive change is upon us no matter how challenging the times are. Though I don’t think any politician can make good on the kind of future President Obama is promising, I gotta be honest—I love the way it sounds!

Something in me loves the language of hope and change. There is such innocence about it. And I love innocence. Innocence is purity without corruption. It’s jammed with trust and curiosity, without ever considering the possible positive or negative outcomes of its position. A toddler running out into the street, chasing a butterfly is an example of innocence at work. There is a raw, wonderful quality about being willing to chase butterflies without thought as to where you will end up. I get that innocence can get you into trouble…chasing butterflies into the street can ruin a perfectly good day. But that being said, being overly cautious and viewing life through the lenses of gloom and doom will cause you to never even notice the butterflies. Then every day turns out to be a bad one.

It probably won’t be long before the hope President Obama is touting starts yielding diminishing returns. Political power and maneuvering just aren’t powerful enough to really fix all that ails the human community. Those of us who are Christians should get that. We know the “fix” we need isn’t the result of human effort or national resolve; it’s the stuff of God’s kingdom. And that kingdom is still on the come—it’s here a little, but not yet fully. And it won’t be here fully until Jesus arrives. That means that this side of eternity all human systems are broken to some degree, though some more broken than others.

I’m hoping the Obama administration will give us the best possible version of a broken political system. Hopefully, caution, wisdom, accountability and the like, will shape the decision-making process of the new administration. But in the process, I refuse to watchdog their every move as an over-reactionary, fear-generating purveyor of woe and danger. I want to believe.

Just hours after the November election an old minister friend of mine sent out an email warning of the evils that were sure to come as a result of an Obama administration. He claimed the economy was going to spin into a “major depression”; that our military was going to be “emasculated” and forced into a “shameful retreat”; that millions are going to be tortured and murdered around the world by ”emboldened jihadists”; that there would be open persecution of Christians; that the Obama administration will create “coerced” community service programs that will force people to work for free; that new laws will “outlaw home and private schooling”; and that there will be a “silencing of opposition voices through the reenactment of the Fairness Doctrine."

Dude. I wanted to move to Canada after I read his thoughts.

Paul instructed Christ-followers: “I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil” (Rom. 16:19). The challenge here is that believers need to focus on good more than we do on evil. That doesn’t mean we are unaware of evil—we are just not to major on it. Life is sweeter when we live that way. But my preacher friend was not being innocent about evil; it was his total focus. There wasn’t a single word about any possible good that could come out of an Obama administration.

Ideologically and philosophically, I don’t stand toe to toe with Barak Obama (I don’t like his position on abortion, science and ethics, size of government, etc.). But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to chase butterflies with him. If President Obama turns out to be a huge disappointment or a complete disaster, there will be another election in four years. If an oncoming delivery truck hits us as a nation while we’re chasing butterflies with him, we’ll recover. Truth is, whether you like it or not, we’re in this together, so you might as well enjoy being an innocent butterfly chaser instead of a negative, cynical naysayer.

As a teaching pastor, I always urge folks to fight to maintain their innocence. Whether they are in social work, law enforcement, medicine, retail, or wherever, I implore them to use their faith to stay hopeful and idealistic. Often it is only the newbies on the job who come across that way. After efforts produce little fruit and ideals run smack into manipulative agendas, folks get jaded and cynical and lose their innocence. I don’t think Christ-followers should yield. True, things may not turn out the way we had hoped, but some change will come and some change is always better than none. That focus keeps you on board as a butterfly chaser.

You may not like our president or you may think his rhetoric of hope is a delusion, but you don’t have to be jaded and cynical. Decide to pray for our new president. At the very least, God’s promises, “The Lord can control a king's mind as he controls a river; he can direct it as he pleases” (Proverbs 21:1, New Century Version). We should look expectantly for the good God is going to be working through this new leader. Keep in mind that historically God has used leaders the likes of King Nebuchadnezzar to forward his agenda. Neb was the Bible king-guy who built a statue of himself and made people worship him! (He had issues.) But God still worked through him. God still uses people who are not as right as we think they should be.

As we begin this new journey with President Obama at the helm of our country, I dare you to open up to the idea and hope that American can change for the better under his leadership. I am. Though I’m not a card-carrying Democrat, I’m smiling as I yell with reckless abandon, “YES WE CAN!”

Me thinks that butterfly can fly.

Hey God... will You be my Valentine?

I think we long for romance because God is romantic. I also believe there is to be romance and mystery in our journey of faith. Paul said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:31-32). It obvious from this text that committed, romantic relationships give us a glimpse into the kind of relationship God wants with each one of us.

It turns out that many of the characteristics in a romantic relationship mirror the relationship a believer has with God. Let’s look at three.

EXCLUSIVITY
Romantic love is privileged love. In this kind of love there is a desire for the couple to be emotionally and physically separate from other people. In friendship love, if a person wanted you to be their only friend and no one else’s—that would be a signal of some kind of weirdness. We should have many friends. But this is not so with romance. Romantic love is exclusive love. Only two should be in on this—that defines normal.

The first commandment in the Decalogue carries the idea of exclusivity: “You shall have no other gods” (Exo. 20:3). God wants to be ours and wants us to be his—exclusively. It is because he is God Almighty that he can pull off being “only” with me and “only” with you at the same time. No dissolution. No infidelity on his part. But we cannot. We must carefully watch what we allow our attention and love to be attached to. James warns, “You're cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn't care? The proverb has it that ‘he's a fiercely jealous lover’” (James 4:4-5 MSG ). God gets jealous of our love for other things. He wants exclusivity. Cultivating a love for God instead of for things gives concreteness to the notion that we belong to God alone.

FLIRTING
Romance has flirting in it. To flirt is to chase another. Happy couples do this all the time. Gail and I have been married for over thirty years and we still flirt. On and off throughout the day you can catch us flirting—we still run after each other. You can hear it in the tone of our voices as we talk with each other; it’s in the love names we call each other; it’s in the passing touch; it’s present in the lingering stare from across the room, it’s in those teasing whispers—flirting adds to the joy and playfulness to the romantic relationship.

Flirting is all about the “chase.”

Does God flirt with us? I think so. In the 1800”s, Francis Thompson referred to God as “the Holy Hound of Heaven.” The imagery familiar in Thompson’s day of a bloodhound on a dashing hunt to track a scent, powerfully reflects how God tracks us down the corridors of our lives to capture us with his relentless love. The Psalmist penned, “Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit”” He goes on to say, “If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there! If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, you'd find me in a minute—you're already there waiting!” (Psa. 139:7-11 MSG ).

God chases us. And he shows no pause or caution in it.

And I think we are to flirt back. Prayer is one of the ways we can “chase” God back. The Psalmist said, “Seven times a day I praise you” (Psa. 119:164). He was chasing. Chasing after God is sweet. Even a peppering of simple one-sentence prayers throughout your day like, “I love you, Jesus” or “I think you are amazing and so generous” or “Praise to you, God—I belong to you” or singing a simple praise chorus, are all good examples of spiritual flirting. You are simply chasing after him. You are flirting. And flirting adds joy and playfulness to spirituality.

TOGETHERNESS
Romance demands togetherness. Sharing everyday life together is the only way a couple will ever experience a true “union” of heart and mind. Life’s experiences always shape and challenge who we are as persons, as well as who we are becoming. If you don’t have continuous interaction with the one you love in “real time,” you won’t be able to integrate and harmonize your experiences together—you’ll end up being like ships passing through the night. You’ll grow apart instead of growing together.

Human togetherness rumors the way God wants to make himself accessible to us. He wants to be with us—right in the mix of the contours of everyday life. He loves to engage us within the potentials and flaws of the human experience and within the possibilities and limitations of our fallen world. Paul exclaimed, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God wants a day-in/day-out relationship with his people.

Jesus came to earth to open a way for a union of God’s life with ours. Grace makes that possible. Grace is God’s presence with us in time. Grace brings a new way of living to bear—a new quality of life. This “life” is not simply “added” onto what we experience as ordinary life. Grace is not like a super-unleaded gasoline pumped into our human tanks so we can function more efficiently. Nor is grace a new layer of existence that covers up the old. Grace is the free and gratuitous communication of God’s life into our human experience—God wants to hang with us. It creates new birth and new creation in the context of real time. And it results in giving us full utilization and meaning for human life. This is God and humankind uniting—us living “together” in what becomes sacred space. This is a divine/human interaction—a relationship of cooperation.

I married my wife Gail to stay in her presence. The same goes with my relationship with God. I have faith in order to stay in God’s presence. The Psalmist wrote, “As for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge” (Psa. 73:28). When God told Moses to lead the Israelites into the wilderness, Moses answered, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Ex. 33:15). We should say the same.

This Valentine’s Day, don’t forget to ask God to be your valentine too. He’s already madly in love with you and I bet it will make him smile.

OUCH!!!

The better I get to know some people, the more I like my dog. That sounds mean, but it’s true. I don’t know why it’s so easy to get hurt by others. Insecurity? A longing for fairness? A desire to be loved and appreciated? All of the above? Whatever the reason, getting hurt by others is part of the human experience.

I’ve never responded well to hurt. I always end up with self-pity arriving in my soul like a sentry for guard duty. And at those times, no one is going to get through my well-guarded emotional gate. I want to draw back from people. I get in a state of ungiving—I can’t give people a smile, a conversation, my trust, my kindness, my anything. And that is precisely what unforgiveness is—ungiving. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is for-giving.

When Jesus taught on prayer, he said forgiveness was critical to the prayer process and that unforgiveness robs its effectiveness and our ability to receive God’s help (Mark 11:26). That stinks, because I’ve been in unforgiveness more times than I care to admit: when my expectations went unmet; when an unexpected betrayal was realized; when I encountered meanness, rudeness, or being overlooked by others; when people expected too much from me; and when I felt used.

It usually doesn’t take long to fall in love with your dog.

Unforgiveness is a kind of HIV to the human soul. HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that steadily weakens the body’s defense, or immune, system until it can no longer fight off even simple infections. Unforgiveness does the same to the human soul. Love, kindness, mercy, justice, and the like—the immune system of human relationships—all wither when unforgiveness infects us. Unforgiveness weakens the human soul to the point that the simple stresses of everyday life become too much to bear, and the infections of anger, strife, revenge, hatred, and indifference rule.

THE TRAP
Jesus said offense always shows up in our relationships at one point or another (Matt. 18:7 KJV). All of us have experienced that. But He warns us to resist offense. Interestingly, the word Jesus uses to describe how others offend us is the Greek word skandalon, from which we get our English word scandal. Literally, skandalon refers to the movable stick, or “trigger,” of an animal trap. Get the imagery here. You set up a trap and put in a scrap of food. The animal you are after enters the trap to snag the food. He hits the trigger, the trap door falls, and you are an official trapper.

The “trapper” in the spiritual context is the enemy of our souls, Satan. When people do hurtful things to us, Satan loves to see us run “instant replays” of the event over and over in our minds. Often thoughts inspired by Satan run through our minds with machine-gun rapidity: Why? How did this happen? What were they thinking? Do I even matter to them? And we begin to pace back and forth inside the event, like a caged animal. If we do not purposely try to forgive the incident, offense is born—skandalon occurs. The trigger is pulled, and the trap door falls.

We’re stuck. Helpless. Powerless.

When we are trapped in offense, we stop progressing spiritually. Paul warned, “If angry, beware of sinning. Let not your irritation last until the sun goes down; and do not leave room for the Devil” (Eph. 4:26–27 WEYMOUTH TRANSLATION). Setting up a “room for the Devil” sounds like a bad idea. But that is exactly what we do when we focus so much on an offense that it influences the way we act.

Gail and I have gotten stuck hosting one or two very weird people in our home over the years. They made us nervous the whole time they were in our house. We didn’t sleep well and were happy to see them leave. What if you had the Antichrist stay overnight? Would you sleep well? Would you worry about your kids in the next room? Well, Satan is the Antichrist’s dad. Allowing the irritations of people to fester in your mind after “the sun goes down” causes unforgiveness to dawn. Unforgiveness, unresisted and unchecked, is a welcome mat for Satan to move into your home. No good can come from that.

THE CURE
So how do we resist something that comes on us like an armed man? How do we process the overwhelming feelings of offense and unforgiveness? The Greek word translated “forgiveness” is aphieemi, literally, “to send off,” “to release,” or “to let go.” This suggests that forgiveness is the act of sending away incidents that cause offense to brew in us. We can’t keep focusing on the wrong done to us.

This is how God deals with the way we offend Him. Instead of getting into unforgiveness with us over our sin, He chooses to forgive us by sending our sin away. God sends our sins “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12). The prophet Micah wrote that God would “cast all [our] sins into the depths of the sea” (7:19 KJV).

This is the way we are to forgive one another. Paul said, “Forgiving each other, just as in Christ God has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). When we forgive others, we must “send away” the sins they commit against us. We cannot let the bad things others do to us linger in our minds—not if we want to walk in forgiveness.

But how do we do that? Not easy. This is at the heart of what Christians call “spiritual warfare.” Satan wants us to think our struggles in life are with “flesh and blood”—against people (Eph. 6:12). But Paul claims our struggle is really with the forces of darkness—there is spiritual warfare. Darkness is seeking a place to live. It wants to overwhelm us. If we become convinced that people are the problem, and we hold sins committed against us in our minds after “the sun goes down” (or the incident passes), we “leave room for the Devil”—we invite Satan and his demonic agenda into our lives.

But there are some helpful thoughts I have found, which aid in the forgiveness process. I’ll be blogging about them this coming week, so com’on by!

Is Nancy Pelosi the Devil?

For those of us who are Christ-followers, it doesn’t take long for us to get offended as we look at what’s going on in American culture. We live in an upside down world where good is called evil and evil, good. It grieves us, and it should. It grieves God’s heart as well.

This past weekend Nancy Pelosi was on NBC’s “This Week” program and said some things that offended me to the core. Ms. Pelosi, who is a rabid liberal voice, was pushing funding for family planning services as an important part of the strategy for our recovering economy. Why? Because if we eliminate births of children, states will have more money to spend on other things. She apparently only views children as a cost, not a resource to our world. One conservative pundit quipped, “The Speaker’s bottom line: Fewer children reduces the cost to the state. And fewer politicians like Pelosi reduces the cost to the children.”

Well said pundit guy.

Our culture has lost sight of God. Far from honoring God, it honors things like self, pleasure, personal advantage, comfort, and convenience. As society drifts farther from God and his ways, the face of evil comes into clearer focus. Evildoers seem bolder than ever; they no longer hide their tactics. Celebrities build careers out of doing the things they would have kept secret a generation ago. Evil is now public. It’s praised and rewarded. It’s something to be aspired to, not kept under wraps. Evil is right there in front of us.

We may be grieved about what we see happening, but we will add to the problem if we do not respond appropriately. Sadly, the appropriate response is not obvious. In fact, it is counterintuitive. What should Christ-followers do about the evil we see? How should we respond?

Let me discuss a three-pronged strategy.

We must not let anger motivate us.

Though anger is a natural response to the evil we see in the world around us, we are warned to not let it drive us to action (Eph. 4:26). Instead, we are to be driven by things like faith, hope and love. We may want to respond in anger and to use truth in a sword-like manner, poking and cutting away at what we know is wrong, but that is not Christlike. James wrote, “Man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires” (James 1:20).

We must respect those who disagree with us.

Respecting the right of people to disagree with the truth is definitely counterintuitive. Yet historical Christian thought has always held to this view. Paul’s instruction was clear about how we should talk to those who reject the truth: “A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants” (2 Tim. 2:24-26, NLT).

In another place Paul tells us that when we deal with truth-rejecters we should “slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men” (Titus 3:2). In the same context we are told we have no right to attack those who oppose us because, “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures” (v. 3)

In other words, we should always be humbled by the notion that, except for the grace of God, we would be as deceived as anyone we encounter in the culture in which we live. That should be a kind of “chill pill” to our emotionally jacked-up rhetoric. These texts are clear; we don’t have the luxury of attacking those who disagree with us. Insulting and name-calling are never options for the believer. Besides, people are not the enemy.

So, who, then, is “the enemy”?

Lot’s of Christians think we need to fight people. They have identified the “outsiders”—they are the abortionists, civil libertarians, pacifists, activist federal judges, feminists, Planned Parenthood, Democrats, environmentalists, proponents of big government, secularists, humanists, welfare advocates, gays, Darwinists, anyone who tries to raise your taxes, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, anybody who is soft on illegal immigrants and supports gun control; pornographers, organized labor, and the NEA. But scripture is clear that, “We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world” (Eph. 6:12, CEV).

People like Nancy Pelosi are not our enemies. She is not the devil (though I don’t doubt that much of her reasoning comes from him). Once conservative commentator claimed Ms. Pelosi acted like a government official from Red China in her interview this past weekend. That kind of labeling and name-calling may make for captivating television, but Christians must not join in—at least not in the name of Christ. Jesus said, “Do not resist an evil person” (Mat. 5:39). Instead we are to love them, pray for them, and try to influence them.

We must find a way to influence.

When Christians feel the weight of the world on their shoulders, we have typically lashed out at anyone we believe opposes God’s ways. If we do not want to fail in the future we must learn from our history. The kingdom of God is not about the use of power. It’s about the hope of influence, which is a kind of antipower. When power is the strategy and battle plan, the goal becomes forcing your opponents to think “like-I-do.” Power relies on force, leverage, superior numbers, maneuvering. It’s about vanquishing enemy, utterly annihilating your opponent. No mutual respect and bridge-building here.

Jesus introduced the idea of changing the world through antipower. Jesus gained influence in our lives vis-à-vis his sacrifice, not his fist. As Christ-followers, we are to imitate Jesus’ sacrificial gesture. “To this you were called,” scripture says, “because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). This is how we make room for God’s kingdom to change people and ultimately the world. The struggle of sacrifice, kindness, forgiveness, humility, and love is an unavoidable, inescapable theme of the Bible.

Influence is found on a narrow, straight, and hard road that seems to violate common sense. It requires self-sacrifice, humility, grace, goodness, altruism, and incautious, reckless love. To follow Christ is a call to surrender in the culture war—to ditch our power weapons of choosing sides, leveraging political alliances, demonizing the opposition, and forming pressure groups and using pressure tactics. We discover that only the cross really exhausts evil.

Influence is the Good Samaritan. You bind up your enemy’s wounds and care for him at your own expense. Influence is never safe; it requires involvement and engagement, while power wages war from a safe distance. It’s risky and won’t bring personal glory. But it WILL win the heart of our neighbors.

When we follow Jesus’ example of authentic sacrifice, we stop investing our energies in defending or advancing our own religion, ideologies, agenda, nationalism, or tribe. Instead, we love as God loves—without reservation or condition. We no longer live in an “eye for eye” or “tooth for tooth” world; we don’t return evil for evil or hatred for hatred. Instead, we give a blessing. We no longer live in an “us” versus “them” frame of mind. We drop labels. We only see people; people for whom Christ died.

Is this hard? You bet. So hard it may kill you. But isn’t that what it means to takes up one’s cross to follow Jesus? From its inception Christianity has always involved death on some level. Why should we think it would be any different today? Jesus overcame evil in this world and changed people’s lives by sacrificing himself for them. He didn’t war against people to change them, nor did he enact change by starting a political organization or by badmouthing sin. There was nothing forceful about Jesus. He didn’t come to earth to conquer us. Instead, he came in weakness. He came to die. This is not Patton or MacArthur, Rambo or Iron Man. This is Jesus. He is the ultimate example of what it looks like to win by losing.

Only God would promote something so preposterous.

Confessions of a Christian Treehugger

I grew up an earth user. Along with millions of other Americans from my generation, I shamelessly tossed out my fast food trash on the highways and byways as I traveled along, singing a song. I never thought much about it until I saw a public service announcement in the 1970s featuring an elderly American Indian chief looking at huge piles of garbage and sewage with a large tear running down his cheek. The commercial was very impacting emotionally and it was a watershed moment for me as far as my ecological worldview was concerned.

I remember thinking, Maybe we shouldn’t trash the planet.

But after I came to Jesus and realized he was going to return sometime in the next couple of months, I began to think, Wait a minute…who cares what happens to this planet? We’ll be out of here soon anyway. This thinking caused me to discount concerns about how big business was recklessly polluting the air and water and plundering the land for all its natural resources with little care for conservation. Heck, I even found verses that seemed to back up my irreverence for the environment. I saw that God himself was eventually going to trash the planet with fire (2 Peter 3:10)—so a few Styrofoam cups on the roads and some ozone holes in the upper atmosphere shouldn’t matter. I figured since the world was destined for doom and destruction, what does it matter if we humans pollute it or exhaust its resources.

My anticonservation bias was actually spiritualized. As a result, I used to look at conservationists with disdain, accusing them of being “men of this world whose reward is in this life” (Ps. 17:14) and ones who, in Paul’s words, “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). They were tree-worshipping heathens to me.

Any verses that suggested God cared about the condition of the earth escaped my notice.

BECOMING STEWARDS
It wasn’t till I entered seminary that I first saw what the Bible actually taught about the sacredness of the environment. One day I caught my Old Testament professor roaming around campus collecting soda cans from receptacles he had set up. I thought he was doing it for the money, but when I asked him about it, he said, “Actually, I use the money I make for missions, but my real motivation is to what I can to conserve the earth’s resources and to keep it clean in order to honor God. Sin has sullied it enough.”

I wrinkled my eyebrows in surprise. I had never thought in those terms and told him so. He smiled and told me that God does care about the earth and that God is planning on returning to this place to live in it one day. He pointed out that it was because of God’s care for earth that he told Adam and Eve to “work and take care of” it (Gen. 2:15). His care also explains why God told Israel to make sure the land got the rest that was its due (Lev. 25:4). He even judged Israel for not giving the land rest.

It wasn’t until I really stopped to consider that God created this planet to be a place for his glory to be seen and that in he invited humanity to participate with him in sustaining it—to bring his rule into it—that the picture changed for me. God doesn’t want us to carelessly trash the planet in the name of progress, even if we think Jesus is coming back soon. He wants us to use it responsibly and to care for it. It is true that one day God will recreate what is into a new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21), but he is planning on returning to the one that is here now. For most of my life as a Christian I was taught that the goal of faith was to escape this planet and “go to heaven.”

This may surprise you but it wasn’t until 1832 that John Nelson Darby came up with the whole concept of the “rapture” made so popular by the “Left Behind” book series. No one in church history had ever surmised such a thing. The Christian-story had never been about escaping. It wasn’t about escaping the first time Jesus came, nor is it about that as scripture talks about his second coming. The story has always been about bringing God’s kingdom into this world, just as the prayer states: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven.”

I’m not arguing that there isn’t going to be a “rapture.” I really don’t have much of an opinion on the matter. The point is, whether or not there is one, those who leave planet earth won’t leave it forever. Whoever is in heaven when it’s time for Jesus to come back to earth, will return back to earth with him. There will be no “going to heaven forever” for any of us. The historical Christian view has always been that human beings will live on this planet for eternity with God (Rev. 21-22).

THE SHAPE OF THINGS
Thinking Jesus is coming to rescue us will shape your faith differently than believing Jesus is coming to join us and that we need to welcome him to the planet he loves.

If you were coming to pick me up at my house tonight, I wouldn’t care much about the dishes in the sink, my messy papers on the kitchen counters, the dog toys strewn all over the living room, or the spotty sinks in the bathroom. You would be coming to get me out of here…who cares what things look like inside my house. But if you are planning on coming over to hang around at my house, my whole agenda changes…I would want this place to be clean and to look good. I’d get to work cleaning the house before your arrival.

Because so many of us think Jesus is coming to get us out of here, we are way too casual about the condition of this planet. I think we need to wake up and enter the long-standing Christian tradition of responsible environmental conservation. Jesus is coming. We need to embrace practices like only cutting down as many trees as we can replace with seedlings. Jesus is coming. We need to stop dumping more waste into our air and water than the environment can recover from. Jesus is coming. We need to be stewards instead of users of this planet.

The saints that have gone before us have claimed that God loves this place. What if that is true? What if conservation glorifies God? Then that would mean the followers of Jesus should become the champions of environmental issues. We shouldn’t tolerate global warming, overflowing landfills, species extinction, and the like. We have to find simple, sustainable ways for we earth-dwellers to live here without destroying “here.” So, though we are not supposed to be tree worshipers, I think we should at least be hugging them.

Is Israel Always Right?

For some time Hamas, backed by Hezbollah and Iran, has been randomly firing rockets at civilians in Israel (thousands of them since 2005). Retaliatory strikes from Israel have been tricky because Hamas has turned Gaza into a complex maze of tunnels where Hamas militants emerge in civilian clothes to fire missiles, then disappear back inside. Central to the strategy of Hamas is using their own women and children as shields from Israeli retaliation. Hamas’ rocket and weapons caches, including rocket launchers, have been discovered in and under mosques, schools and civilian homes. According to intelligence reports even the Gaza-based leadership of Hamas is hiding in underground housing beneath the Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza! These tactics are nothing less than sinister, illegal and inhumane.

From all indications the threat from Hamas is escalating as it is receiving better training and acquiring more sophisticated weaponry. In response Israel felt they needed to act now with significant force against Hamas. The strategic decision the Israelis have made this time is to approach their incursion as a war, not a police operation. This decision paved the way for Israel to attack Hamas bringing all her strength to bear. This has had grave consequences for the non-combatant citizens living in the Gaza.

Because the magnitude of Israel’s retaliation has caused many civilian casualties, it has created an international uproar both in the Arab world and the West. In just one episode, 43 people died when the Israelis shelled a street next to a United Nations school where refugees were taking shelter. Though no one rejects the right of Israel to defend itself, there are questions about the intensity of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. For many, Israel’s response is tantamount to using a bazooka to kill a fly. The international cry is that Israel is ignoring the “rule of proportionality.”

Israeli officials claim they are obeying the rules of war and trying hard not to hurt noncombatants, but they insist that Hamas is using civilians as human shields to protect themselves making it difficult for Israel to avoid killing innocents.

As a Christ-follower I find myself in a bit of a conundrum about all this. Something in me wants to give extra room for the rationale of Israel just because it is Israel. The Bible tells us that God loves Israel—that she is the “apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8). It also claims that whoever blesses Israel will be blessed (Gen. 12:3). I want to do whatever I can to bless the Jewish people. But does that translate into absolute, unconditional support for whatever the Israeli government does? Many Christians hold that anything less than complete support is anti-Semitic.

I’m for the nation of Israel and for the Jewish people, but aren’t all nations supposed to be judged by standards of justice and fairness no matter who they are? It is true that God called Israel to be a special nation, but how? Referring to the future nation of Israel, God told Abraham, “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:3). To say that Israel is to “bless” implies people groups should be better off by encountering them. It implies that God had a destiny in mind for Israel where she would be a demonstration of God’s goodness, justice and kindness to the world. Imbedded within the Jewish story over the centuries was a higher cause, not just for the Jews, but for all of humanity. The Jewish people were chosen to be God’s laboratory for humanity—the people to whom God revealed his commandments in order to show what a full human life can be. Israel was to be a light to the Gentiles, attracting them to the one true God and a new way of living.

But Israel was not always faithful to her destiny. God repeatedly sent prophets to Israel to calling her to standards that she had abandoned. One of those standards was called the lex talionis, or the law of retaliation (Lev. 24:17-21; Duet. 19:14-21). The intent of this standard was to ensure that the injurers would be given retributive injury in exactly the same way as they had injured. Under this rule justice would be achieved through equalization.

Dallas Willard writes concerning this command, “More was not to be done than the injurer did. That was a major point of the old law and a great advance for civilization. If someone broke your arm, you were not to break both arms in return, or even one arm and a finger. There was to be equalization of injury, and then a stop to injury and counterinjury. No insignificant or easy task, of course, as contemporary life around the world or in our own homes and workplaces shows.”

Stepping back and questioning whether or not Israel has used force beyond what is proportional under the lex talionis (much less the conventional laws of war) seems reasonable to me—certainly not anti-Semitic. The international community should have the right to raise questions and to call any government into accountability for their actions. Shouldn’t those of us who love peace support that call? When I examine Israel’s choices like I would that of any other nation, I find myself appalled that they are not doing more to protect the innocents.

The psalmist wrote, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” As believers we need to be committed to pray for the peace of Israel and to speak for her cause. But praying for “peace” does not mean that we are to pray that Israel gets whatever she wants whenever she wants it. The word for peace here is the Hebrew word, shalom. Shalom means peace, but it is more than the absence of conflict—I don’t think we should be praying for Israel to “win” so that she has an absence of conflict. Shalom means peace is present because all things are appropriate. Shalom fosters appropriateness on the behalf of all parties with the result being an enduring peace.

Praying for the peace of Israel is a cry for God to help her act appropriately—no matter what it costs her. It is a commitment to the high road of respecting and honoring God by respecting and honoring people. Israel’s call to shalom was a clarion call when God brought her to life through the loins of Abraham. That call has not changed. May God help Israel!