10 Cities

UFO's, Cosplay & Real Repentance

People get into conspiracy theories, political movements, scientific or technological trends and even Christianity as a method of forgetting personal failure and disappointment in their lives. Sometimes it really has not so much to do with a truth of whatever the subject as it is a group activity…a way of connecting when real life has been a series of unfortunate disconnections. Part of that is because we need others and try to find shortcuts for that need. Part of it is because we want a way of escape from the reality of our personal lives.

When we’re talking about UFO’s, Big Foot, Marvel Universe or the Illuminati, it shows all this in sharp color. That especially goes for cosplay stuff, which is just a more honest expression of the same thing. Unfortunately, you can throw Christianity (or any religion) into that mix. You can also toss in atheism, especially on university campuses, where atheism is considered an aphrodisiac among many of the debt-burdened educated. Yet there’s tons of cosplay Christianity out there too. And it’s far stranger than actual cosplay, especially when you get to the circles that purely define themselves by who they dislike and put down. It has very little to do with their faith, unless we’re talking about faith in salvaging Christianity…which is bizarre.

But Christianity is far from being innocuous cosplay. In fact, I would say the message of the Gospel Jesus preached is sobering reality. “You have heard it said…but I say to you” or ““If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple” as well as so many other sayings, is sobering. It's like He sees through the costume to the parts we are trying to hide. And it rattles us.

Not just understanding but coming to grips with your own neuroses, addictions, secrets, lies and false imaging is a tough thing to do. It’s so tough that many professing Christians don’t do it. It’s easier to find more outspoken personas with their mistakes or misunderstanding to chide. It keeps the attention off our own mess. However, Jesus doesn’t offer that route in true repentance. And, so far as we limit the term to just bad thoughts, words or behavior, we can relax in our duck-taped latex El Sid suit and save Christendom from the Arminians, charismatics, Catholics or Beth Moore. We remain stuck in neutral, spiritually, but make up for it with bluster and showmanship.  But it’s always to keep us far away from our own mess that needs addressing.

The cure for cosplay Christianity is repentance. But it’s not a button you push every time you say ‘shit!’ True repentance is a normal and natural part of following Jesus, all day, every day. That's because all of us are screwed up and in need of real transformation. And, as painful to face that internal garbage is, it actually becomes easier, over time, and the effects of bringing the hidden goods out in the open for Christ and me to look at honestly, own it and look to His Word on how to overcome it is so much better than turning the struggle outward towards atheists, liberals or fallen megachurch pastors. I think I finally got this repentance stuff figured out. It’s not a requirement that all of my mess be publicly shared with everyone. There’s biblical precedence for confessing to others. But, like everything else in our non-repentant view of things, we universalize it and think if an ounce of it is good, let’s go 18 tons of it. Then it gets weird, embarrassing and we go back to the drawing board. You know something, drawing boards are great to go back to so long as they are Scripture and some quiet meditation over it in His presence. Drawing boards can make you sane and normal…not at all like your definition of sane and normal before.

I highly recommend Jesus’ command to repent! As hard as that can be for us, the Kingdom of God is really at hand. And the real thing is so much better.

 

You Bet Your Life

Everyone’s a gambler.

I don’t care how much you may have a disdain for gambling or think it sinful. You gamble. So do I. What do I mean by that? There is so much outside of our direct control, we must put our faith in something that will get us to the point we envision our self to be. Our knowledge is also so limited that no matter how confident we think we are, there is a significant degree of trust that bridges the gap between what we think is or should be from what actually is. Another way to look at it is faith. No one can live in this world without faith, whether it’s in God or in the light switch turning on the light when you flip it up or the chair holding you when you sit down in it. Everyone requires faith. We bet on these things coming through, even without giving it much thought. Being human means placing bets. When you bet on black 17, you are saying you think the marble that spins around the roulette wheel will fall on black 17. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. You may even be sure of it. Certainty is not a lack of faith. That idea of certainty where it is opposed to faith is a modern invention (Cartesian anxiety). But you can be certain about something even while having to admit that there is a possibility, no matter how small you think it may be, that you’re wrong.

Okay, having said that, what do you gamble on? Where is your trust that directs your life? We live in the world where it is very easy to place that trust in ourselves or in our reputation or material wealth or health.  But these things are fleeting and precarious. Even family isn’t a sure bet. Kids depend on you only because they can’t depend on themselves and when they do, they leave you. There’s also so many sad stories of spouses who leave or die. There’s nothing under the sun worthy of our faith and trust. Yet, we double down on these things, not because of our certainty but because of our desire to make these things fulfill us in the way we want them to. And when they do not, as is always the case, we become miserable. In fact, I don’t think the most miserable of people are those who have little of everything but failure. The most miserable people are those who make it to the point they saw themselves only to discover it’s not what they thought it would be. The very thing that drove them has ultimately let them down. Now what? That’s a miserable person. I’m not talking in a vacuum or from Mt. Sinai. These are common human experiences.

The only thing worthy of our trust and the one thing we can direct our lives can’t be seen. And, because the things we can see fall short, that sort of makes sense. But, in a world where nothing exists but physical things, the concept of placing faith in something unseen, overtly, seems naïve and silly. Everyone places faith in something unseen (love of family or friends, among other things, are not seen or tangible), but when it comes God, it’s difficult for us. But, if we’re honest, it’s not because there aren’t good reasons to do it. It’s more likely because even admitting there is a God means we’re accountable and no longer autonomous….we’re no longer the boss of ourselves and our own kingdoms. That conflicts with our self will and causes anger and contempt, not only towards God but towards anyone who asks us to consider faith in God. The most offensive thing we could ever hear or read is the idea we are not in control of our destiny, people or reputations. It angers us. So, it’s never been a lack of evidence or lack of relevance but anger towards the implications of letting God be Who God is rather than keeping God safely at a distance or at the conceptual stage. It provides us more control while still speculating on these things.

But unless our faith is in the God who created the cosmos, us and has control over all destiny, we will never realize our true potential as human beings. We will become deformed and warped in many ways. It will work itself out in greed, selfishness, envy and spoil or taint our relationships with others. We find friends and family strategic, rather than unconditionally. We find the center of gravity for all of our aspirations and fears is within us. We are the center of the universe and it destroys the very reason we exist. That’s why you read about rich and famous people splitting from their spouses, why people decide to shoot strangers in a school or mall, protect the slaughter children as a human right (a human right to slaughter humans) or fight in the streets over political power struggles over those ‘human rights’. We human beings are unique in the world of living things, but also very marred because of our resistance to God or the reason we exist. And we try to re-index normal, not because of a virtue of some kind, but to ignore the ugly in us so we can focus more on our perceived nobility. Listen to what the writer of Hebrews says about our reason for existing:

“5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere,

‘What is man, that you are mindful of him,

    or the son of man, that you care for him?

7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels;

    you have crowned him with glory and honor,

8     putting everything in subjection under his feet.’

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

There are two “him’s” and “he’s” in this text. One us talking about us. The other is talking about Jesus. Verse 7 and 8 tells us our reason for existing: crowning us with glory and honor, putting us in control of the created order. However, the second reference to a human “him” is the fact that, right now, not everything is under our subjection to us. That’s a good thing. With all the mess in our world, giving us even more control over the created order is a frightening thought. But, the second “him” in this text is crowned in glory and honor because of his suffering and death, so that Jesus can pull humanity up to the place where our purpose for existing can be fulfilled. Because of Jesus, we can exercise power appropriately and responsibly so we can reign with him in this universe.

How do we go from our marred condition to this picture presented in Hebrews? Jesus. Is there another option? No. If there was, Jesus would be the first to direct us that way. Jesus’ finished work on the cross establishes us peace with God for those who accept it (Romans 5:1-2). Jesus is also who empowers us to really live now. What I mean by really live is that even if we have trouble, we find a peace within us that stables us and keeps us sane and content. It also changes us from selfish, envious, greedy, violent and angry people to peaceful, loving, longsuffering and generous people. It’s all tied together and is encompassed in Jesus’ own words when he says “Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!” He’s not chiding us but inviting us, not to a good spanking but to real life, not the counterfeit version we have fostered all of our lives. It makes us not think about ourselves because we are loved and accepted. It means that perfection or gaining God’s merit is not something required for this. We have been given acceptance despite ourselves, so we don’t have to worry about messing it up. It makes us not worry as much about our well being because we will never die, even if our bodies are destroyed. It gives us hope because if we learn to adjust to God’s will, we can see where God is working here and now, as well as have a hope about a future without end. Because of the Kingdom of God, we survive and flourish with it, which is the safest place to be in all of reality. In fact, the Kingdom of God is ultimate reality. It makes the most important of our current idols of life garbage and hopelessly fleeting.

I’m not writing these things because I’m not marred myself or have reached some sort of place where I have earned some authority to teach it. I’m still a mess. In fact, what I find easy and without thought still shock me. I put my name in the text of 1 Corinthians 13 (“Charles is patient. Charles is kind…”) and don’t get very far at all without realizing how short I fall. But it doesn’t worry me. I know my own heart and mind. I also know where I’ve come from. Although I don’t follow Christ in all things, I have experienced Christ’s words as vindicated when I do. No, I am writing these things for the person who doesn’t see any hope or any point but hides it from others. I am writing to those who are so tired of managing appearances and other people. I am writing to those who have so many skeletons that if any of them became public, they’d be suicidal. I am writing because I am like you. I’m a beggar who found bread and showing you were I got it. Christ’s Kingdom is available now to you to free you from cultural captivity you find yourself. Once free, you’ll become odd to that culture. But you are free from being obligated to it, without exiting or removing yourself from it.

Other than having to work over my Labor Day Weekend, I enjoy doing this. And, I hope that’s okay, because I’m probably not going to quit. My gamble is on the Kingdom of God. My hope and source for living is Jesus Christ. Is there a possibility I have it all wrong? Because I’m not God, of course. But does that mean I’m not certain of these things? I am becoming more certain of these things than anything else this world offers as an alternative. In fact, making that distinction makes me want to never go back to that place again and to enjoy seeing where this is going…and it is going somewhere. I want what I have come to know and experience for everyone else. I'm all in, warts and all.

BABEL ON AND ON

Freedom is everything to us, especially in America where it’s the Land of the Free. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote that human beings each had inalienable rights to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, he was taking the quote from Locke but used happiness instead of property. But the main concern is eliminating an intrusive government that gets in the way of human flourishing. Any point in history is better understood when you understand the context which produces it. In the American Revolution, these people had been harshly reminded of their ownership by King George. That struggle was so focused on breaking that unhealthy connection and it comes out in the words and the ideas. They are good words and ideas, but their context isn’t ours. As a result, reading these old documents produces the problem comes in getting people to agree on what they mean.

Not considering context is probably our worst mistake in reading history, especially the Bible. People who get ticked at slow Starbucks drive thru times will read the covenant given in Exodus, for example, and find it cruel and unusual. In the Middle East, during the Bronze Age, getting our coffee quick and how we ordered it wasn’t quite as pressing as survival. In fact, in ancient times, freedom was not as much of a concern than instilling order to push back impending chaos. Things were more life-death than they are today. We no longer worry about the chaos that threatens our lives. Instead, we almost have a fascination with it. The only reason for that is an incredible wealth and an insulated reality that has forgotten about Leviathan. For us, mind-numbing chaos is losing air conditioning in summer. Freedom has become god for us. Freedom has become absolute, the point of everything. All virtue is bound up in eradicating limits to freedom and all evil is bound up in placing any limits on self-will and desire. Doing so can split up countries, cultures and even families.

But freedom isn’t absolute. Even without any human agency, freedom is always limited by reality. If your Chase VISA has $0.24 left on it available and you think it has $7,000 left, you will find out the truth of that quick enough. You will not be able to change it…unless you find $7,000, suddenly. After all, something doesn’t become true because you believe it. Truth limits freedom. What is truth? It’s a real and actual state of affairs and knowledge is comprehending those state of affairs based on thought and experience. Because freedom has become idolized, self-will asserts itself against truth and freedom because of the possibility of our self-will crashing up against limitations or obstacles to getting what we want. Self-will rules and it usually expresses itself sexually or through violence. Why is that? It’s because we have nothing left outside of our bodies to legislate how we are to live and our bodies dictate it not just to us, individually, but to accommodate our desires, to everyone else around us. We want what we want when we want it. The problem with unbridled self-will is that it doesn’t ever get satisfied. In fact, all it can do is create more desire. And most of our anger (if not all of it) comes when we don’t get our way in something.

Up until recently, societies based their laws on the desire for them to harmonize with what became to be known as natural law. Natural law means that reality works a certain way. Farming usually works well when you not just fertilize but also pull weeds. When you don’t do that, it doesn’t work that well. Men and women who reproduce find it easier to create a stable society if they do that as a family, rather through rape or promiscuity (in our society, we want to completely decouple sexual activity from reproduction). Societies tend to become safer and more secure when families come together to form towns, municipalities (it’s a natural organization of humanity---families---civilization, rather than social contract). All these things are geared towards what works and making that a law of commission while recognizing things that don’t work as laws of omission. The scientific revolution had summarily rejected natural law, not because science had proven it outdated, but because it was taught by the Roman Catholic Schoolmen and after the religious wars, the intelligentsia wanted nothing to do with anything that even gave a whiff of Aquinas or Albert. So, all of reality was to be pursued by limiting our exploration and research only to the material and efficient causes of things, abandoning the formal (qualitative) and final (purposeful) causes that are simply beyond chemistry and science.

Let me explain what I mean by this. Say I want to make a cup of coffee. Here’s a sort of scientific explanation of what happens:

Electrical current flows through a conductor that excites molecules and creates heat. The heat then diffuses into a liquid, thereby heating it up. A small mechanism measures the heat and at a certain temperature, electricity flows into a machine that draws the heated liquid into a chamber where there is placed a pod containing ground organic material. As the heated liquid flows through the pod, the smaller material from the pod blends with the liquid and flows into another container below it. After it reaches a certain measurement of time, the machine stops, the conductor cools down.

Here’s another way to explain what happens:

I made a cup of coffee.

Modern science is only interested in the chemical and physical phenomenon of material and efficient causes. Modern science cannot explain the purpose, end or reason behind anything. It’s not that scientifically advanced people don’t have purposes, reasons, meaningful functions. The things going on at the subatomic level that are not apparent, are what science is interested in explaining. The things that actually make life life are relegated to social or animal behavior or evolutionary development.

So, when it comes to love, sex, meaning, destiny, morality, good, evil, God, love, science doesn’t inform us about them but reduces them down into something completely different than how they are experienced. Everything is relative to us as a human animal or middle-aged American. As a result, our laws are not based on anything other than public sentiment. You can read this throughout supreme court transcripts on topics of social issues, such as sodomy laws or the like. The decisions are based on deciding first public sentiment. But what if public sentiment is wrong? Could it ever be wrong? And, if public sentiment can be wrong, on what basis can we judge it? Although even the most progressive person is usually the most morally vocal, using this reasoning, they have no way to respond to these questions at all.

So, if there are no answers offered, maybe the motivation is to just let human nature take it's course (ignoring the fact the same people don't believe there is such a thing as human nature). Without objective guidance, in which direction will we drift? Will we drift at all? What will be the thing that energizes that drift? It will depend on what drives us. What drives us is the desires of self-will and as those drive us, our institutions begin to reflect it. Those desires are almost always sexuality as well as the violence that comes when reality threatens to place limits or prohibitions on those desires. By placing a very low value on truth and knowledge, our culture has strategized a way to eliminate the pursuit of self-will. Our culture is trying to redefine reality to fit our desires. With an explosion of technological advancement, that almost seems like a reasonable option. But such advancements are usually promoted on nobler descriptions. We don’t say we create new technology to help us experience an erotic fantasy or spy on people to see if they’re experiencing their own. We usually say it’s to make life easier and get more done. There’s nothing contradictory between those two ways to look at it.

Our culture has devolved into a tribal soup of very well-off people who sound like they are experiencing Bronze-Age problems. Unfortunately, there are some places where that might actually be the case. By and large, however, it’s intentional exaggeration in a power struggle to get what we want and eliminate anyone or anything that might get in the way. As we struggle to fulfill self-will, we get angry. That anger is mostly associated with not getting our way, rather than justice. And what we call justice is better expressed as vengeance.

Christians have bought into the same thinking and have simply become one group of self-willed people out of the soup of other self-willed groups. The resolution to all our cultural and societal problems has been political. Everything that I have written is profoundly political. The difference is engaging on a level of truth and knowledge. The other is engaging merely in a raw power struggle. Unfortunately, we’ve decided to delve into the self-will pool and fight with the other groups for domination. So, this isn’t a conservative or liberal issue. It’s a necessary condition of a culture that has relied on material possessions and human ingenuity. Those things are simply not enough to sustain society. They work for a while. But because human beings, outside the will of God, are ruled by their bodies, all the good things produced are for our bodies, ultimately, and not for flourishing. In fact, today, we find getting what we want and flourishing to be exactly the same thing…until we run into reality.

As a disciple of Jesus, we have a great opportunity here. As our culture continues to dwindle down the trek of satisfaction of desires, we will continue to decay and experience what has always been: reality. Truth doesn’t care what you believe. Reality doesn’t care what you want. The way all civilizations worked in the past was to conform our beliefs to truth and our desires to a way conducive for that civilization to flourish. In our churches and in all of our ministries, understanding where we are as a culture, as well as understanding how the Kingdom of God can address it, are more important than ever. But, because of the low value our society places on truth and knowledge in any area outside of the technically mundane are the only places in our life that truth and knowledge are considered useful. But life is still full of the same realities since life began. We experience good, evil, love, aspirations. The Kingdom of God not only addresses the scientifically mundane but these larger concepts of life as well (especially them).

Think about Jesus as He’s revealed in Scripture. If you asked an evangelical to list the top 3 most intelligent people who ever lived, Jesus wouldn’t be on the list. No one thinks of Jesus as intelligent. He’s thought of as a good teacher, savior, Son of God…but not intelligent. But Jesus is intelligent. In fact, if you pay attention to Him, He’s the smartest person ever. Not just that, He is also the most powerful. Colossians 1 doesn’t just show a Jesus who dies on the cross, but Someone who rules the universe, from the tiniest elements to the largest. He's in charge. He’s also the founder of the church and has a loving protection for us, in all types of cultural settings and even despite us. Recently, a Christian singer lamented that we need to stop following celebrity pastors, worship pastors, social media influencers, etc. That’s because none of those people know what they’re doing. They simply are not smart enough to provide you the answers you need. Not only that, they are not in charge of anything. They are meant to constantly point us to the one who is. But, because of self-will and how that confuses and complicates us, human beings are poor reference points for ultimate answers in the church, let alone society.

Our Gospel is Jesus crucified and Jesus resurrected. Our solutions are in following Him. That means, rather than trying to answer the questions or promote solutions to problems out of our ministerial tool box, we spend time with Him, alone and together. We seek His will, watch, listen and adjust appropriately. There’s no sex appeal to it, but it has the sum total power of the entire universe behind it. It doesn’t matter how bleak culture is. We still serve a sovereign Lord and that will never change.

It's Time to Stop Kidding Myself! Joshua Harris, the Gungors and Turning From Faith

I read several articles from Christian publications about Joshua Harris’ apostasy. These things seem to be more frequent, but my guess isn’t that they’re more frequent. It’s just that we’re in a celebrity Christian culture and when the celebrities fall away, everyone wants to analyze why or even how something like that could happen. For those outside of Christianity, it’s more verification that Christianity is hokum and these people who have left the faith are finally waking up to a long, protracted self-delusion.

Harris was a mega church pastor and author of several pop-Christian self-help books that caught on and sold, making him a household name in Christian circles. Recently, Harris announced he and his wife are divorcing (Harris’ books were mainly on sexual purity and waiting to find who God has for your spouse). Not long after, Harris posted an Instagram pic explaining how he was no longer a Christian and gave an apology to the LBGTQ community (as if being a Christian requires an apology be given). It seems in the longer explanation; Harris may have always been a little leery of his faith and has finally come out to reject it (at least in the form he held it…we’re not told what his faith now actually is). When I read about Harris or the Gungors (much exposure was given to the Gungors on their journey away from Jesus), I can’t help but re-examine myself. After all, I am from the same strain of Christianity these people were. Am I deluding myself? Is my belief in the Bible as the Word of God and Jesus as my Lord and savior pure hokum?

I am one of those people who probably examine and re-examine themselves to a fault. So, the click-bait about an evangelical that turned skeptic always gets my Pavlovian response. Also, since about 2013, my own belonging to a church was tested with fire. I’m no longer there. I was a dedicated member of this church since May 2000. After 2015, I was done. It wasn’t abuse or neglect or some fantastic story of my being hammered by a local church tyrannical cult set up. I just witnessed way too much to continue believing what I used to believe about church. In fact, I am still trying to figure all that out. The sort of re-examination of faith that Harris has gone through I can identify.

Yet, aside all that, I question my faith in Jesus, in the Bible, in His universal, visible and invisible church of “called out ones”. Do I still believe all of it, after all I have been through? Do I still believe there’s a God, an entire unseen realm of angels, thrones, powers, principalities, spirits of people whom have died, etc? Do I still believe in heaven, hell, being saved by faith in Jesus, alone, through grace, alone?

Yep.

Why? I don’t know for sure. I don't think I'm better than Harris or others who ended up on the same side as him. I'm certainly not smarter or more moral. In fact, comparatively, I am a huge mess.

I think I can better answer why not. For me (and I am sure it’s amplified for notable Christian people) a bad experience can reveal the truth of what we thought was faith. Sometimes we can find out what we called faith was more a group membership, a job or a cultural given. Then when all hell breaks loose, we discover we weren’t really being authentic as we thought we were. After all, there’s so many things that can influence our devotion to things, people, organizations. And when something fundamental to those things, people and organizations go or implode, there’s nothing left to hold it together and we can more clearly see what we’ve been doing this entire time. I think that’s what happened with Harris (and with the Gungors). I can also identify with them, in that regard. There has been much I believed or taken for granted that I no longer do. There’s things I used to do as a Christian, without thinking, that I just can’t do anymore.

But, aside all that, I still love Jesus and the Bible. I probably do more so than I ever did. It’s not a point of pride nor do I have awesome intellectual reasons behind that (not that there aren't intellectual reasons to believe or moral reasons...it's just that they are not why I am a follower of Jesus). In fact, after searching and re-examining, the only reason why I do is simply because I can’t not believe it. All the reasons given to me to go the same way as people like Harris seem so incidental and weak to me. There are strong political and cultural reasons to abandon Jesus and the Bible (or at least try to redefined both, which is stupid to me). But I’m not sold on modern political narratives or our modern culture. I think our political and cultural environment is crazy. The only reason I would give in to these narratives and abandon Christ is because of group pressure, not because these narratives are true or mine are false.

There are simply no intellectual or sophisticated or even moral reasons why I still love Jesus and study Scripture as a final authority on life. And I think that’s a good thing. If there were, I might face the same fate as Harris or the Gungors. My faith is in the presence of Christ, revealed to me in a PICU 23 years ago, and who’s presence is still with me, even when I think He’s gone away. I’ve also learned my intuitions and feelings are fickled about the reality of grand, cosmic truths like those.

Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.

It sounds naïve. It sounds trite. It sounds like I’m 6.

That’s okay. I am not selling books or trying to pay a huge mortgage for a multi-million dollar campus. And, I continue to pray for those that do, because the worries of this world can choke you out (Jesus told us this). I also know too much to deny either Jesus or Scripture. The reasons people give me to abandon either are pretty flimsy or self-motivated, or both. They’re usually super intellectual, but the corner stone that holds it all together is bunk.

What about my views as they relate to other popular and even required narratives, like LGBTQ, immigration, taxes, injustices, racism, etc? For one thing, I don’t simply drink in the narratives and adopt all the finer points of them. I actually reject them. That means there are parts of those narratives I think have good points and parts that are deadly. But I am not interested in making sure everyone likes me. I’m also not interested in being anyone’s Mother, either. This means my circle of confidants is probably tiny. It’s probably bigger than it appears, but there’s no doubt that holding my views, in this day and age, make me look like a naïve little kid to some, or an evil, racist, Nazi, to others. I can’t control other people’s opinions of me. In fact, they’re not important. He is. And He has a tendency to work all things to my good, especially when I couldn’t have ever figured out how or why.

What about church? Now, you have me there. Church is a necessary part of being a follower of Jesus. The natural outworking of following Jesus is to be a disciple and to encourage other disciples as well as make new ones. I still haven’t figured out what that’s supposed to look like. I wish I was in the first century and could see all the in’s and out’s of life as a disciple that close to Jesus’s ministry on earth. The Bible helps, but its context isn’t mine. And, I am not smart enough how to figure church out for my context. Quite frankly, my context is bizarre. I do know what it’s not or what I can’t believe about it. So, right now, I’m still wandering in the wilderness when it comes to corporate belonging.

One last question that only Christians would ask: Can you leave the faith? The Apostle John in the second chapter of his first epistle tends to say that those who left them, then, were never part of them or else they would’ve returned. Seems definitive that those He calls, He preserves. However, John wasn’t God. In the end, I think that’s a question only God can answer. The important thing for me (and for you) is that He never abandons me (or you). He is always faithful. So, when going through these weird times as a follower of Jesus, we will probably not understand more and more. Our belief in many things will be challenged, again and again. But, I am beginning to believe that my faith in Jesus and in the reliability of Scripture to touch on matters of life, death and eternity, are still strong, despite being cut off from a solid grounding, church wise. And, that gives me peace instead of making me think something is still wrong. 

My story isn't over yet. Could circumstances make me change beliefs and consider myself as having been self-deluded? I 'm not a soothsayer, so I don't know. I do know that my trust has been in Someone that transcends circumstance and I am not the one holding that together, apparently. I don't think the story is over for Joshua Harris or the Gungors (or those of that category) either. We'll see.

Apprenticeship: Solution to Our Problems

Discipleship is a vague term within church circles, ranging from the harshly legalistic to just about whatever you want it to be. However, when you read the Gospels and the New Testament epistles, it seems that discipleship is pretty much the whole process in between now and when the show's over, either individually or corporately. Even Jesus' Great Commission commands to go make disciples. It's a big deal. In fact, outside of loving one another as Jesus loves us, it's the thing we're charged to do. However, we live in an age that has withstood so many trends, both harmful and just over-used. We tend to be a people of reactions rather than anything else. People react against rationalism with fundamentalism. People react against fundamentalism with evangelicalism....and so on. When it comes to discipleship, we've been beaten up, shamed, guilt-ridden, on the one hand. And, on the other hand, we've been left wondering if it just means teaching the Bible or helping someone memorize Scripture, as an encompassing definition...we don't really know. We know salvation. We know baptism and the Lord's Supper...but discipleship remains elusive to most. 

 

It's not legalism. Discipleship does involve activity. But that activity isn't a prerequisite to be a Christian, or even a good Christian. There is no law of discipleship that we must do and do well in order to get God's approval. We're saved by grace, not works, lest anyone should boast. However, we are also told, just a few verses later, that God created us to do good works, in advance. Grace is not opposed to effort, but earning. Discipleship, although not a requirement for approval, is a necessary thing.

 

What is it? Discipleship is synonymous with life in the Kingdom of God. I prefer the word "apprentice" rather than disciple. It paints a more cogent picture. You can't step into the life offered in Christ without also stepping into what it all means. Of course, it results in joy, peace, patience, etc. (we'll get to more of that in a minute), but it also requires efforts to kill off old habits (pick up your cross and follow me...). It involves suffering, sacrifice but leads to joy, sanity, compassion fueled by great hope. It's the kind of life that is a treasure worth buying an entire field to bury it to keep it safe. It's a process that moves us beyond just dying to our old so-called life and into a real one, overflowing and contagious to those around us. There's no graduated levels of improvement or certifications. In fact, we may not 'feel' much better than when we first started the process. That, ironically, is also a result of this sort of life (humility).

 

Apprenticeship in Christ is a learning process in becoming who we are and Jesus is our Teacher...our Mentor. We are learning from Him...to be like Him...to think, say and do the things He would say, think and do were He us. For people like me, that is a tall order. But my perception of things, particularly myself, isn't His. It will, eventually. I'm still asking for that.

 

Who are we? When we have placed our confidence for everything in the hands of Jesus Christ, we experience God's love for us firsthand, and are declared children of God...holy ones. Those are loaded terms and paint a picture of an apprentice of Jesus Christ that may seem almost embarrassing compared to how that person feels or sees himself or herself. But, it is there identity. They are in Christ. Christ is in them. They may not see it now, but they will. They may not notice the good works God prepared for them to do (that's usually the case--we couldn't handle our pride if we always knew) but one day it will all fall into place. In the meantime....we continue to pick up our cross...continue to pray, associated with each other...try to work through this new life until it all consummates in Christ's return.

 

In Greek, hagios (ἅγιος) means holy one. "Saint" is not a very good translation. Holy one is a term exclusively used for God's heavenly host/assembly in the Old Testament (Hebrew: קֳּדָשִׁ֗ים/qodeshim). Another OT name for them is sons of God (Hebrew: בְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֱלֹהִ֔ים/bene elohim). Both of these names are exclusively used to describe followers of Jesus in the New Testament/Christ's church.

 

That's not a coincidence.

 

The comparison (who we are) to God's host of heaven seems ridiculously foreign compared to what we experience right now (what we're actually like), whether we admit it or not. Being an apprentice of Jesus is precisely what we do where we are, always in the presence of our Teacher, like children-heirs learning to live, rule and reign before we inherit the Kingdom (Galatians 4:6-7).

 

Eclipsing that process by focusing only on minimum entrance requirements leaves us as heirs who either don't know how to live or pretend we do. We front-end the process and hope the rest of it all pans out. That's a root to just about every problem we face. That would mean discipleship or apprenticeship is the solution for just about every problem we face. In fact, there's no reason to believe learning to live in the Kingdom of God as an apprentice of Jesus doesn't also tend to evangelize (minimum entrance requirements). In fact, they are two sides of the same coin.

 

The ongoing results of learning from Him now isn't how you vote, where you go to church, who's side you're on or with whom you associate. Its:

 

joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

 

Read that list again. How much of that do you see around you? I'm not talking about the front-end appearance managing but the real thing. We could use more of it. It's not a set of new commands. That's not what we do, it's who we become to resemble, which reminds us of who we actually are...Holy Ones, Sons and Daughters of God. They come from stepping into the life Jesus offers, in Him and with Him, in every facet of life. It's not that voting or political issues or matters of justice aren't important. They most certainly are. But they aren't the fruit of the Spirit. We front end things that should follow naturally as a result of that fruit. For example, take same sex attraction. There are many who imply that heterosexuality is a fruit of the Spirit. It isn't. Self-control would be. So, it makes sense for someone with same sex attraction, resembling self-control and goodness, glorify God just as much as someone who is heterosexual. It's not that the issues surrounding our sexual revolution aren't critical. It's just our response to it and the initial and natural pull is for us to front-end it and focus on managing the outcomes rather than abandoning those, focusing on being an apprentice of Jesus and leaving the outcomes to Him.

 

Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. Think how powerful those results would be in our world....in our nation....in our community....in our church. That's immensely more powerful than anything we try to front end in our own strength. And these things aren't contingent on our circumstances. When we go through struggles and painful periods, these results don't just extend salt and light and justice into our world...they also give us immense hope, reminding us of our destiny which provides the fuel/grace to persevere. It's a loving sanity...the opposite of everything around us...it's a deep confidence in our Lord and His continual presence in our lives.

The Weight of Your Identity

"Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace...When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 6:20-23

 

We live in a world that adamantly tries to manipulate us to comply with all the narratives it promotes. That includes our identity.

 

Who are you?

 

In a secular culture, all the options offered us fall woefully short of our existential reality. "I am a lawyer" or "I am a mom" or "I am the president of the Rotary Club", which are all fine things, cannot bear the weight of a person's essential identity. When we place those things in the center of how we define ourselves, we are enslaved to it. It can't help but mold and shape us. To the extent "mom" cannot inform our being president of the Rotary Club, we find those identities not big enough for real life. We chose a virtuous, albeit, finite reference point that can't bear the weight of our actual identity. But can we simply make our identity all of those things? We can certainly list them as parts of our function or our relationship to others, but it simply cannot take center stage in our essential identity. These things have their place. We bring who we are into all of those places. Sometimes we can choose an identity that's almost purely synthetic or entirely out of our imagination, despite whether it comports with reality. That especially goes for the more popular political hot topics like sexual orientation or gender. We try to force it to fit, while pretending not to force it at all...like it is as natural as sunshine. Christians tend to do this too, especially when they get confused about what life is supposed to be like as a follower and friend of Jesus. We declare ourselves cured of all diseases and then begin hiding the sores that tend to show themselves along the way. That's a miserable life. It doesn't have to be that way. In fact, the life Paul talks about in this text betrays that sort of life.

 

Who we really are...our true identity...is not entirely made up by us. It can't be. If we choose that we are a turnip, we are still not a turnip no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves and everyone else we are a turnip. We are contingent, meaning we were born and we die. We aren't a sufficient reference point to declare who we are, without it backfiring on us. We were made to be who we are, no doubt. But the most important part of our identity is to be embraced through discovery of what that means, not made by our will. Our will is engaged in discovering it and moving toward that, but not creating it. Who we are will inform all the other roles we play...we will be enslaved to it. And, by enslaved, I do not mean that to be a derogatory term. We are all slaves to something.

 

Let me repeat that: we are all slaves to something. What matters is who or what you are a slave to.

 

Whatever you have placed in the center of your life, as your identity, is your master, whether it is sex, politics, money, family, body image, fame...when the demands of your chosen identity command, you respond. It doesn't necessarily have to be bad things. But if they are insufficient to bear the weight of identity, it creates a difficult life. That's the fallacy of modern libertine attitudes of doing what feels good. It's a euphemism for obeying the commands of your bodily urges. It also ignores the consequences of doing so. You are a slave. You are either a slave to sin or to righteousness. You cannot be both, at the same time.

 

There are a couple of things in this text that are important to mention. Nowhere in this text does Paul say that we are no longer sons or daughters of God if we submit ourselves to sin again. There is no mention of the fact that if you do submit yourself to sin, you are lost and have to either start again or consider yourself out for good. No, he implies that believers are capable of deciding submit either way. This is the difficult part of the Gospel that even evangelicals today have a difficult time accepting. By submitting yourself under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you are a part of God's family. It doesn't matter what you've done or will do. You are a child of God. You are approved because of Christ's finished work on the cross. Approved workmen are not ashamed, as Paul writes to Timothy.   

 

The second thing about this text is the fact that a follower and friend of Jesus is someone who may offer themselves both to sin or to righteousness. We allow one or the other control over our life and it's never at the same time. Paul states one way leads to death and the other to eternal life. But can a follower of Jesus end up letting sin control them? Of course. It happens all the time. In fact, our entire lives as a Christian is a struggle to stop. And, until we die or Jesus comes back, we will never accomplish that. The idea in this text is whether or not we can simply live like we used to live before we were identified in Christ and Paul's answer is clearly no. It's not a no with the threat of eternal damnation. It's a no with the ultimate consequences of what that sort of living leads toward. It makes no sense to become a slave to Christ but then slavishly obey something else. And what, who or Whom you serve will shape who you become. If you fall back on the old familiar, you will reap the consequences of it. Even with grace, you will still have to contend with the consequences of sin. Paul wants them to avoid such a painful life. Life as a believer already comes with the promise of suffering. It makes no sense to compound it through our own doing. What Paul wants to tell them is that it can go hard or easy...regretful or grateful. Seems like an easy choice. But in our context of a life prior to Jesus, what seems easy isn't what we're used to choosing.

 

Being set free from death means being set free from sin. That doesn't mean you stop sinning. It just means you are free to not obey it. And the more you deny sin, the less power sin has over you. The more you submit to righteousness, the more you can transform into what your identity says you are to become. That's fairly familiar and obvious, but it also entails that you will discover sin you probably never considered sin before. The more you obey Christ, the less sin dominates you but the more sin you discover within yourselves you didn't know was sin. For me, it was pride, arrogance...both stemming from fear and my resolve to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, both morally and intellectually. That's sin. I didn't think it was 20 years ago. In the Old Testament, they had sacrifices made to unintentional sin. Unintentional sin included sin that you didn't intentionally pursue yourself. It also includes sin you haven't considered. Making sacrifices for unintentional sin meant that everyone who made such sacrifices was a screw up to some degree...and that to that degree they may not even be aware. God was aware, hence the sacrifice. For us that are no longer under law but under grace, we have that safety net to pursue righteousness, even if it uncovers the most unseemly things within us. That's one of the most amazing things about grace.

 

Coming back to politics, gender, sexual orientation and the narratives of the world...I have questions only you can answer: do you really think you can be defined essentially by these things? Are these things able to bear the weight of your identity? Be careful to think that through. Also, if you were entirely honest with yourself, do you think getting what you want or doing what you want will make you happy, cause your life to flourish or make you into the person you think it will? Do you think there there is a limited or fixed boundary to nature that should inform our will or freedom or do you think there is no such boundary and we can become turnips or sponges, if we so desire?

 

These sound like arcane (maybe ridiculous) questions to you, but I ask them to get you thinking. Thinking is a good thing, especially when it comes to self examination. A life not examined isn't worth living. And if you honestly examine your life, I pray you have enough confidence to accept wherever that leads.

 

Have you gave your life to Christ but have messed things up or feel its too late to walk things back? To think such a thing is to think that you are powerful enough to thwart the will of an omnipotent God. You give yourself far too much credit in your own criticism. Maybe you have given your life to Jesus but you feel like you are all talk. If people knew your secrets, you'd be suicidal...you feel you have to pretend to be a person you aren't. I have been there. Sadly, that sort of thing can be encouraged within church, which is to its harm. Being a follower of Jesus means being honest with yourself, first. If you can't be honest with yourself, you can't be honest, period. We are all messed up. But we are all His and this is all going somewhere. Stop pretending. You may fall out of circles with your honesty, but a clear conscience is far more valuable than uptight friend you probably couldn't keep in the first place.

 

Have you not given your life to Christ but have placed your identity in something else? If so, has there ever been an occasion where you have to convince yourself things are going just fine when you deep down know they are not (Christians do this too, by the way)? What if I told you that a new life, and one with amazing promises, starts with accepting His promise for you with empty hands, plus nothing else. It doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter who you are. He loves you for who you are right now. He doesn't only love you if you're who you're supposed to be. You and I will never be who we are supposed to be, this side of death. Despite the latest cause, nothing this world offers you can save you or make you into the person you were created to be. No one ever thinks of buying a new car to use as a vegetable garden. Human beings were not created to be anything except our Creator's representatives in this world. Anything else is an adventure in futility. Submitting yourself to Ultimate Reality may mean doing a 180, but it's not enslaving yourself. You already are a slave. Your politics or circles may find that idiotic or humorous. But, that doesn't make it less true. And, if you choose to laugh, a life without Christ will need whatever humor you can find, once the reality of this world bears down.

 

Let Him set you free from the slavery you endure. Let Him transform you into who He plans for you to become. You'll still mess things up. But if you accept His offer, the kind of life He promises you never runs out of supply, no matter what you go through. I've got 22 years and change to say this with certainty. And I pray He does the same thing to you He did for me all those years ago.

Here's the Church, Here's the Steeple: Thoughts on Spirituality, Trends & the Local Church

These are some thoughts I have been having for several years that I have not been able to put into words until now. You may read them and think I still haven’t been able to accomplish that. Maybe so, but that’s due to my inability to communicate clearly, not an impingement on the thoughts themselves. Keep an open mind on the following. It has to do with what church looks like, how it seems to have morphed in our generation. In some ways it has been for good. But it also has in ways that I think have crippled us and maybe cheated us from access to His Kingdom in ways that have always been available to us. Hear me out: I think we have made the Sunday morning service something far more than it is supposed to have ever been. The symptoms are our thinking about worship and study. We also have been scared to death to approach faith itself without tripping the fine balance we have created among our denominational doctrines and traditions. Things tend to follow from there.

Worship

Do a word study on worship for both Hebrew and Greek. It will astound you. Hardly ever does it refer to singing songs. It does, but as a ratio for all references, it’s very low. What does worship usually reference in the Bible? It can refer to bowing (showing reverence), praying, serving. In Romans 12, Paul describes the most rational or reasonable form of worship is to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. What that means is offering your entire life, whatever you do, as an act of worship. The Bible teaches worship as your entire life, reflecting what’s most important to you, a reaction of what that ends up looking like in how you think and act, as well as a conscious or subconscious pointer back to Christ as how you are defined.

We have made worship, popularly, a 20-minute participatory concert. There’s nothing wrong with that. Worship would include such things. But when someone talks about worship at church, that is exclusively what they mean. Hardly ever is worship used in a sentence to describe any of the other ways it is referenced in scripture.

Preaching

The Greek word for preaching basically means proclaiming. It’s very much tied to teaching but with the added element of it being before gathered believers and with the added function of exhorting, encouraging, rebuking, using scripture to help bring us into focus compared to all the voices out there. It’s a necessary thing and very much biblical. However, it’s not uncommon for preaching to be the only access to Bible study people have. Many have made preaching the weekly Bible study. In a sense, it makes sense in American 21^st century life for that to be pervasive. We have jobs, children to raise, bills to pay…not much time for an hour every other day or once a week, outside of church, to spend studying Scripture. But the trade off is that preaching becomes our Bible study, which is every Sunday morning. What then happens is that we put all of our authority for anything scriptural on the backs of the Sunday morning pastor. That’s a task that I would be most of them would not want to encourage (most—some are wanting that pinnacle of authority, unfortunately). So, if we want to know what God thinks about work, politics, society, even the Bible, we listen to our pastor preach and that’s how we get our knowledge. It puts all the focus on the Sunday morning message and it creates evangelical flock that seems helpless without going to the pastor, rather than scripture. We should be digesting the things of God on our own, if for no other reason to help the local church pastor to fulfill the office held. At the very least, when a pastor says we should hold him accountable, how can we do that if he's the sole source of our study?

Faith

Evangelicals have historically been muddled on the concept of faith. In some quarters, faith is a force or energy that is accessible to the believer to make things happen. You see that in the Word of Faith circles (Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyers, Steven Furtick). In others, faith is the transactional event where your ticket is punched for heaven and everything else in between now and then is making sure all your associated beliefs are correct, while waiting for death or Jesus' return (Reformed, fundamental Baptist). In yet others, faith is an ambiguous human connection for human betterment (progressive strains). For skeptics, faith is a religious belief in God that is not needed in the age of modern science.

Faith is confidence in something not seen (Hebrews 11:1). No one lives without faith. Sitting in a chair or flipping on a light switch necessarily requires faith. Once more, what you do or don’t do (so long it isn’t against your will) reflects belief. No one calculates the strength of the chair compared with their weight prior to sitting…or runs a continuity test on the circuit for the light prior to flipping it on. Faith is a fundamental feature of normal human existence. Once more, Christians believe you cannot do anything in this life to please God without faith. What does that mean? It means whatever you do in faith is to do as an act of worship (see above) which reflects giving your life to the God who has shown unfathomable mercy (Romans 12:1-3). It doesn’t mean doing things right or correct. It has more to do with the intent or motivation behind what you do.

Faith isn’t a force or energy. Evangelicals who believe this are more aligned with Steven Spielberg than scripture. Any miracle or supernatural thing that defies natural explanation isn’t something done by faith, but by God or by God through human beings. The Word of Faith movement creates a crippling ministry of laying on tons of shame and guilt on people when bad things happen to them. If faith is a force and speaking words makes reality, then when you get cancer or your child dies, that is entirely your fault. It’s spiritual malpractice.

Faith also isn’t transactional. Faith is a life transformed by believing in Someone Who is responsible for the transformation. Faith justifies, which means faith in Jesus as Lord makes you part of God’s family. That same faith also transforms. I believe in Sola Fide, but just as Ephesians 2:8-9 are true, so is verse 10 of that same passage. Works cannot save, but a faith that is without works reflects a faith in something other than what’s proclaimed (James 2:17). Believing this doesn’t believe in a works-based salvation. It believes in a salvation that makes a transformed life possible. This is probably why many Reformed and fundamental Baptists have preached a Gospel that is really only a speech about minimum entrance requirements. It’s also why they have been so worried about believing what the Bible teaches about works to become a legalism. By worrying and reacting to this unfounded fear, they’ve created a sort of legalism of their own making.

In short, if the belief the Dodgers are the best team in the nation results in going to Dodgers games and wearing Dodgers windbreakers, why is it so weird to associate belief in Christ in a similar way? Where the Word of Faith has created a paranormal idea of what faith is, the Reformed and fundamental Baptists have tended to reduce it down to a punched ticket.

Local Church As the Kingdom

Because worship has been something almost entirely reliant on the Pastor of Worship and Bible study to be something almost entirely reliant on the Lead Pastor, the local church has become something distorted from what it is. Dallas Willard stated that the three incomplete gospels in modern America are:

the 1) Gospel of Forgiveness of Sins,

2) the Gospel of Social Justice and

3) the Gospel of Local Churchmanship.

If the problem with the gospel of forgiveness of sins is that it eliminates any relevance of the life Christ offers us in this life and the problem with social justice gospel is that it entirely ignores the individual’s need for spiritual transformation as a starting point, the problem with the gospel of local churchmanship is that the Kingdom of God is equivocated to the local church, which it is not.

A preference for belonging to a church because of locality or worship practices has ballooned into thousands of individual kingdoms to themselves, virtually isolated from each other (and even encouraged by the local church in many cases—this is abuse to other fellow believers). The fact worship and Bible study are focused on Sunday mornings is what I believe to be symptoms of this gospel. It has become the path of least resistance. Hebrews says we shouldn’t neglect gathering together often. But I had church on Saturday morning over pancakes with friends. It was far more meaningful, honestly, than the big corporate gatherings I attend in quite some time. That verse isn’t a gotcha verse for making that gathering only to be going to the big campus on Sunday mornings.

I don’t have a solution. I’m not writing this to just poke a finger into the eye of local churches. I belong to a local church myself. There’s plenty of finger poking that can be done at my expense for sure. These are my thoughts. But I also believe that although church has remained the same in essential ways as the first century church, it has also changed over time, with the times. I don’t see this as a trend setting or following phenomenon. I see it as the providence of God over His Bride. The shift in re-analyzing what church is probably reflects the fact she’s in flux towards the next manifestation of what church will look like. The best we can do, as a form of worship, is seek His counsel ourselves, through His Word, through meditation, awareness and fellowship with each other. It will all work out the way He wants it. But, the worst thing we can do is the two extreme tendencies to worship tradition or force things to happen.

Now, I know when I mention some of these things, particularly Bible study, many of you may get bunged, as if I am trying to create a bondage you don't need. To dispel as much of that as I can, let me tell you that the weight of the church or Christianity is not on your shoulders. God has done just fine before you were born and will do just fine after you go. This is for you. It's something to enrich, not burden. The problem with talking about these things is desire. How do I get the desire to study the Bible or make my life a form of worship without it being forced or just an awful form of bondage? Maybe this is where faith comes in too. Rather than worry about it, place trust in Christ with even the desires we wish we had. Don’t beat ourselves up if we go through ‘dry spells’ without cracking open the Bible or spending time in silences for a while. Give ourselves a break in that regard. Putting local church worship and preaching in its proper perspective are healthy things we can do but putting the desires in our hearts is something only the Spirit of God can do. We just need to practice our faith even here and trust that He can and will, without us required to know when and how.

God's Voice & the SBC Safe Space

In Islam, there's a weird doctrine about the eternality of the Quran. The hadith teach that the Quran wasn't created in the 7th century. They believe the Quran, in it's verbalized or written form, has always existed, from eternity. However, they also believe in the tawid, that Allah is one and shares eternal existence with nothing else. How do you reconcile these things? You don't. If you try, you get condemned for blasphemy. Christians don't have this view of the Bible...sort of. Many actually do tend to fall into the issue of making the Bible the sum-total of your entire Christian walk. In many cases, you end up with just as strange a metaphysic as the Muslims, where there seems to be an equating of Jesus, the Word, with the Bible, the written Word.

Here's the recent video blog from J.D. Greear giving his (and the SBC) position on whether God speaks to people today. The real question isn't whether God speaks to His people but how He does this. Does God ever speak to us independent of Scripture or is 100% of all God's communication with His people only through the Bible? Greear quotes Hebrews 1:1 as a sort of proof-text for his idea that God speaks to us through the Bible. However, it's not a great or even compelling proof-text. What Hebrews 1:1 says is that, in the past, God spoke to His people through the prophets (which can easily be assumed to point to Tanakh) but in these last days God has spoken to us through His Son, Jesus. Greear says this clearly represents Scripture since everything we know of the Son is in Scripture. But that's not the question, nor is that what this text is saying. First, with regards to what the writer of Hebrews is saying, read the rest of this pericope:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.³ The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. -- Hebrews 1:1-3 (I added the emphasis)

I don't think Hebrews 1:1 was written to be a proof-text the way Greear is using it. But aside, this, I think the over-all implication of that interpretation is off too. Does reference to the powerful word refer to the written word or the Word in the sense we get from the opening chapters of John's Gospel? 

Is the universe sustained by the Bible? No. That's nonsense. The Bible teaches Christ sustains all things through his powerful word...but t equate 'word' with written Scripture just doesn't make any sense. 

Is Jesus the Bible? No. The Bible is about Jesus...it points us to Jesus, but it is not Jesus. That, also, would make no sense at all.

I am in no way saying Greear would answer yes to these things. But I do think he's trying to walk an impossibly thin line with this position...and really doesn't need to. He's trying to stay away from the extreme cessationist view that God stopped talking after the canon was compiled....and the other extreme of crafting God's will to suit his own gain. There's a third rail response to this question. Before explaining that, I want to show three things wrong both extremes as well as the mistaken middle ground, as expressed by Greear in the video. 

There's no question the Bible is God's Word in all that it affirms for us (putting aside the apologetic for those who don't buy into this). There's no question the Bible is the ultimate authority for us in determining God's voice. Should we be bold enough to listen for God's voice, outside of studying Scripture....does God speak only through Scripture or in other ways? Greear says, basically, he's open to that but doesn't know....and that it's much safer here on the guard rails of being open but cautious about the idea. Many hold this view, which is sort of the middle path. Others go farther and state Scripture is the Word in every sense of how it's referred to within the Bible. There becomes a muddled equivocation between Scripture and Jesus, as a result.

Why the equivocation between the Bible and Jesus? I think it has much more to do with a reaction against doctrinal abuse than it is a hermeneutic from Scripture. Even Greear admits so much to this. There clearly are violations of morality and common sense among many who start off saying, "God told me...". But to use a reaction against a scriptural abuse to form doctrine is as wrong-headed as getting fast and loose with "God told me..." stuff. Why is it wrong-headed? Wouldn't Greear's position simply be a sensible, conservative one? No, and I'll tell you why.

First, Scripture clearly teaches us that God, Himself, makes His home within us when we accept Jesus as Lord (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:19, Ezekiel 36:27, 2 Timothy 1:14, Ephesians 5:8, Romans 8:11, John 16:13, Galatians 5:18, Romans 8:15, to name just a few). The Godhead, an independent agent, dwells within the believer. What does that look like? Well, clearly, it involves communication that goes beyond just reading the text. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul tells us we have the very mind of Christ. In 2 Timothy 1:14, Paul states that the Holy Spirit guards the good treasure given to Timothy. That implies more than a book or a proof-text. Romans 12:1-3 states that we submit ourselves to God as an act of worship (far more than studying or memorizing scripture), we can begin to discover the will of God, through the renewing of our minds. Not only will Scripture aid us in that, but submitting all of our life as our act of worship will give us new insight and a new way of thinking. This teaching simply cannot be reduced to only Bible study. It is far more encompassing than that....and the Scripture about Christ and His Spirit is also far more encompassing too. The Spirit teaches us, speaks to us, guides us, convicts us...many times that is through Scripture. But, it would be a huge mistake and a misreading of the same Scripture to say the Spirit does this EXCLUSIVELY through Scripture.

Second, you can't judge a philosophy based on its abuse. If Kenneth Coplan says things like Jesus was the first born-again human, or that Creflo Dollar tells us God told him to buy a new jet plane, that doesn't mean it is dangerous to consider God speaking to us outside of Scripture. What it means is that Coplan and Dollar obviously have fallen far from the entire mind-renewal process Paul tells us about. Instead of discovering God's will, they'll turn over all the cards and tell us what it is...which usually benefits them, at our expense. The problem isn't seeking God's voice in every day life, outside of Scripture. The problem is with false teachers who decide to remain ignorant about Scripture in order to serve their own interests, which is really what Christ died to save us from. But, it would be an over-reaction...throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, to decide it safer to stick only with the Bible to find out God's will about things. What is God's will about you buying a microwave? How about God's will on leaving or staying at a current job? You need the Bible as a continual resource to help mold your thinking, but if you don't think the Spirit has anything to say to you in the moment or about the more mundane things, you are missing the boat on all that the Spirit offers you.

Lastly, Scripture doesn't say God only speaks through Scripture. But in the examples given by Greear, as well as many others, when the this topic arises, it's always in the context of a big, miraculous event. God speaks more in the mundane moments than He does in the more spectacular events. There is also nothing that says God will stop speaking to us outside of Scripture either.  God still speaks to us outside the Bible, but God never says anything to us that would ever contradict what He's revealed in the Bible. In fact, the Bible is the resource to test and see if what we hear is from God...or not. We need to do that, many times, because learning to distinguish God's voice from all the others (especially our own) is a process that takes time. He's given us His Spirit and the Scripture. It would be as big of a mistake to reduce that down to Scripture-only as it would Spirit-only. All the sola's of the Reformation period probably open the door on going way too far on this sort of dilemma.

So, how do we listen for God's voice in a responsible way? I think J.P. Moreland has cornered the market on how to do this, in his book, The Kingdom Triangle.

First, we study Scripture and learn to replace the junk we have believed with truth.

Second, we practice spiritual disciplines, using means of grace, through the Spirit, to make our bodies, our social context and our circumstances serve Jesus, rather than being a slave to them. Means of grace are very diverse and even individualized, depending on the person's own struggles or habits.

Third, we remain open to God moving, speaking, revealing....all the time, every day, every moment, even (and especially) when times are awful. One way of helping encourage us in this is to read testimonies of people who credibly reveal how God revealed or acted in their situations. It encourages us.

But, if you miss out on either of these three things, you will go awry, as many have. For those who are way too careful to listen, watch or wait to discern God outside Scripture, they grow cold and controlling. For those who neglect study of Scripture, you will go off into believing all sorts of harmful things that will harm yourself and others. And for those who neglect the disciplines, you'll have a hard time hearing God because you keep getting in the way due to your own impulses and desires. You can see this play out in all sorts of ways. There's a plethora of examples.

Say it another way: If you neglect study, you'll remain ignorant to the things of God. If you neglect the disciplines, your desires and impulses will continue to enslave you, rather than you getting a handle over them. Lastly, if you are not open the the miraculous...to God's communication to you, you close yourself off from an incredible amount of joy and wonder that could fuel you to continue making His Name known enthusiastically.

I like Greear, but he's too good of a Southern Baptist on this topic and has decided to stay very safe and secure in the tight margins of the predictable (sort of) open but (overly) cautious view of hearing God.

 

 

America: A Melting Melting Pot

Dallas Willard stated that in modern America, freedom and liberty are euphemisms for impulse and pleasure. When pressed on particular tropes of freedom and liberty, regardless of the more popular issues being bantered around, it's tough to disagree with Willard on this point. An ethic of unfettered impulse or pleasure is an ethic of unfettered will over reality/nature. Nature is actually seen to be a tyrant that is the enemy of the will. An individual gets to define not so much who they are, but what they are, and anything that even hints at resistance toward the will's freedom to do so is considered evil.

 

Plato's critique of democracy, in The Republic, addresses this in an almost prophetic way. For Plato, democracies eventually fail because there's an underlying ethic reflecting an egalitarian view of ideas. That devolves into a war of subjectivity, where conflicting ideas end up clashing with each other. What gives way is a new dogmatic orthodoxy that denies criticism of any ideas, requires celebration and protection of all ideas and the polis devolves into chaos. The chaos, of course, leaves a vacuum which is eventually filled with tyrannical rule. In short, democracy is the cradle of despotism, rather than civilization.

 

America treats desires and pleasures as groups of people, rather than just things people can have or entertain. What you end up with are people at war with each other because of extreme identification with these impulses of the will. As a result, you can't conceivably have psychological disorders anymore. You have problems recommending any solutions without them undermining other ones. This is true intersectionality....the chaotic clash caused by an egalitarian view of ideas and desires that drive them, which eventually undermine other ideas and devolve into conflict.

 

One great example of this has been the sexual revolution, driven by postmodern Marxist ideas of identity politics. The legalization of gay marriage didn't cause havoc, per se, but the philosophical ideas used to argue for its legality were havoc-causing side effect. The definition of marriage gets expanded to include more than the concept of marriage was originally intended, muddying the entire enterprise. Next, gender becomes nuanced, separate from biology. A person who is male, based on chromosomes and sex organs, identifies as a woman, or vice versa. Next, even the term 'lesbian' is nuanced and the original gay marriage philosophy undermines itself. A man who self-identifies as a woman who is attracted to lesbians looks a lot like heterosexuality, enough to convince lesbians to adopt a puritanical position (which smacks a lot like conservative ethical positions) against other lesbians even entertaining a sexual relationship like that. One group of marginalized persons that are part of their same ever-increasing acronymed identity group, find themselves at odds. The same thing has applied to racial politics as well as modern feminism: an unlikely conflict between two subgroups of the same political cause. Of course, this hasn't developed into full-fledged chaos yet, but to say chaos hasn't got its foot in the door now is to be blissfully ignorant. 

 

What can we expect with the new sexual revolution?

 

Chaos, unintended consequences and a society that no longer has a way to maintain any sort of identity or cohesiveness at all. In other words, societal collapse. Identity politics has no room for trade-offs because identity politics has no room for reality. Reality requires limited people embrace trade-offs. That ticks off the postmodern mind.

 

The only viable option is to return to a pre-modern view of natural law and appreciation of reality as something limiting the will. But, that will not happen. There is no way a heavily politicized people who are now accustomed to celebrating a person's desire to become a brussel sprout would ever conceive of embracing the idea of nature limiting freedom. Hell is more preferable. Of course, there are more moderate liberals who are thoughtful enough to realize identity politics is a serpent eating itself, desiring progressives adopt a little natural law to keep the balance. But, you simply cannot adopt a little natural law. You either embrace reality or reject it. So, that pits our current trajectory towards chaos as almost fatalistic. 

 

The conservative response to identity politics has unwittingly turned into an identity politic of their own. In other words, the best way to fight cultural identity politics of the left is to become an identity politic of the right, as if that was something possible.  It isn't. Conservative politics has devolved into a highly pressurized desire to force progressives into accepting conservative ideals, as if that were possible. The only other concievable outcome of the conservative identity politic is the unthinkable conclusion to 'convert or die'. No one on the right is saying that, but I don't see how you get around it...and if the right decides to pursue that line of thinking, were it to seize power in all sectors, then it will just usher in another bloody reality, as opposed to the bloody reality explicitly envisioned by Marxist identity politics.

 

The only hope we have in America is the Gospel (duh!). But, the Gospel never over-rides individual will. Any historical examples where the Gospel results in force is not the Gospel but an abuse of it. Nowhere in Scripture are people forced to accept Jesus and His Kingdom or face the sword. In fact, Scripture reveals people who are changed, but never by force. In a cultural environment where force seems to be the only answer, we are stuck between thousands of horrible solutions we will entertain and a solution we will probably never consider. As a Christian, we don't have to be El Sid and we also don't have to crawl in a cave until the dust settles. We are Christ's disciples who are in the world, even though we are not of it. 

 

That brings me to American Patriotism. I've been watching the Netflix documentary about Steven Avery. One thing I can tell you without it being a spoiler is that Manitowoc County and the State of Wisconsin were horrible wrong in how they handled the arrest, conviction and appeals of Avery and his nephew. There are so many infractions against Avery's constitutional rights as well as infractions against basic methods of investigation...I mean, even if the guy is guilty, if there is any possible exculpatory evidence, it's the responsibility for authorities to disclose it to the defense. They failed big on all counts. Instead of fixing their issues, the county and the state officials simply dug in their heals and acted abhorrently in hopes of anyone questioning them to go away too. They're cronies, regardless of Avery's guilt.

 

It reminds me of my time as a juror on a case where police arrested a young girl for DUI. The problem with the case the State made against her is that they simply didn't have evidence for the charge. What they had was a charge against her boyfriend and an accusation of her bad attitude toward the arrest of her boyfriend. Maybe she's guilty of that. But the State had to make its case...and it failed. One juror was the former mayor of Harrah, Oklahoma. His vote was guilty because the arresting officer's testimony is considered expert testimony. Myself and another woman called BS on that logic and declared our not-guilty vote was because the State utterly failed to make its case. It was a hung jury and declared a mistrial. 

 

Why does that remind me of the actions (and inactions) of Manitowoc County and the State of Wisconsin? People tend to glorify local officials, be they Attorney Generals, judges, police, sheriff. etc. What am I not saying? I am not saying people in these positions are not to be respected. They have an incredibly difficult job to do...which is my point. When you put these people up on a pedestal, you provide them an escape valve to buy into their own press...which encourages them to feel entitled enough to make decisions that are contrary to the oath they swore. That's how you get people into thinking police offer is equivalent to expert witness...why the sheriff becomes more of a crony than an enforcer of law. Just to make this simple: it is not only logically possible...but actually probable to be very patriotic and also unjust. The one does not guarantee the other.

 

I can go on forever about the bankruptcy of neo-liberal and progressive thought. But it has usually been a thoughtful traditional core that pulls America away from the fire. That core is increasingly becoming just another flavor of the identity politics of the left...patriotism, God, guns and guts...creating a culture where there are celebrity public officials and a necessary group of detestables that need to simply go away (like they have treated the entire Avery family, right nor wrong). America is becoming two horrible political camps who smell bad in completely different ways.

 

America was never great because it was America. That's a useless tautology. America was only great to the extent its leadership humbly considered itself in a servant-like position...and its people had at least some common ground with one another on essential things. America's history is a mixed bag of that and not that. It has been great to the extent it resembles that and not so great to the extent it hasn't. But both of those things (humility and common ground) are quickly evaporating in totality. There is hardly any essentials that opposing tribes can agree. And, as for humility, even the staunched conservative increasingly finds humility as vulnerability. The solutions are not to be found in any camp. The solution is Christ and His Kingdom. His Kingdom never expands through violence or arrogance. The Kingdom is also reality and reality is what you always run into when you're wrong, in case it's hard to define.

 

Here's the error on behalf of modern politics: Not all ideas are equal. Some are actually better than others, as they are tried up against reality. All people, however, are equal. Once you make ideas equal, you create an inordinate amount of tribes and tribal clashes that end horribly. When you treat people as equals, regardless of the ideas they hold, there can actually be disagreement without the worry of total disintegration. All people are equal. Not all ideas are.

 

The Gospel addresses this in an elegantly simple way: there is only 1 Messiah and none of us are Him, of which the real Messiah offers a transformation that obliterates hostilities, slippery slopes and tribal inclinations. But, only through the Messiah can this happen. It can be easily recognized and agreed to apart from Him...but can never be realized apart from Him. Unfortunately, America will most likely have to learn this lesson the hard way.

 

 

 

 

 

Rejection: Are you something wrong?

Rejection is probably the most significant way to describe life after the Fall. Some would say, 'no, it's sin', as if rejection, abandonment and human throw-aways aren't sinful things. Sin is a description and the outflow of a ruptured relationship. We were created to be God's human family to rule and reign over the earth. However, we believed a lie and decided it better to reject that destiny and look after ourselves. One more chapter and brother spills the blood of brother. It doesn't really get much better after that. History flows, from that point onward to the cross, as viral rejection that gets into our DNA. It's our heritage as sinful human beings.

 

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! -- Isaiah 49:15

 

It implies that, even though the mother-child bond is the greatest of human bonds, there are still mothers who reject their child. There is not much to keep that child from being destroyed in life once her mom pulls her love back from her. It happens. Yet, God's bond with His own children is far stronger than the mother-child bond. This verse is both alarming and reassuring, all at once. 

 

Rejection hurts more the closer this rejection comes to your inner circle of sufficiency (mom, dad, wife, children, sister, brother, etc). It makes you feel there's something congenitally wrong with you that makes normal bonds impossible. Almost as soon as the spouse decides he no longer loves you or the sister conveys you're expendable...or just an obligation...something deep within you breaks. The feeling of facing the destruction of a chaotic world comes closer to the forefront. You feel alone. You examine what went wrong...why did they throw you away?

 

'Did you do something wrong?' devolves into the question of 'Are you something wrong?'

 

You re-examine all the rest of your relationships. Are they true relationships? Do I even have a support system at all? There is no one looking after you. You are alone.

 

We don't stay there, unless suicide is considered. We can't live alone. We were made for relationships. When relationships are destroyed or become illusory, the essential part of us that requires connection flails in the expanse of arbitrary circumstance. Over time, we've been busy working on survival skills. When self-stranded on the island away from God, we become Robinson Crusoe with all the ingenious ways of surviving on this cruel island...maybe even flourishing on it. The world offers  us a tool box of strategies to take ourselves out of the stare of the abyss where we were thrown by rejection. That tool box is diverse, but all of the tools are lies or basic beliefs we decide to use, not because they are true, but because they are useful in keeping us from the vulnerability of being tossed outside on our butts.

 

We find ways to present ourselves as intellectually adequate, morally adequate, financially adequate, culturally adept. Maybe we put away the cigarettes, alcohol or speed and start lift weights or taking martial arts classes, achieving the appearance similar to that of wearing a pistol. Adequacy is the main magic trick we work on for the watching world around us. We pretend to be resilient...put on a good face and find a distraction (any distraction) to keep your mind off of all these swirling thoughts. It angers us that even if we can put away further back in the hippocampus, it's still there. And, even the tiniest object, word, musical note or color could have those fears flood back into the forefront, eclipsing everything else.

 

Along the way, we discover that we are quite capable (and endeavor) to reject others. In a sick way, our rejection of someone assures us that we are part of a bigger community of rejectors...we aren't the sickly kid in the corner. 'Do it to them before they do it to you.' It may be wrong, but better them than us. Our world isn't split between victims and perpetrators. It is a world of victim-perpetrators and perpetrator-victims. The flow of pain is fueled this way.

 

This isn't a new thing. It describes our world even thousands of years ago. In the midst of all this punishment and self-abuse, we find something so foreign to our world that it is easy to overlook or ignore.

 

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 54:3-6

 

For years, no one knew who this prophetic text was talking about. Someone who would refuse all the tools given to us to survive in a broken world...someone who would, as a result, be despised, rejected, abandoned. This man would die alone. He would die alone for the very same people who despised, rejected and abandoned him. Where we believe that the way to survive in this world is to toughen up and learn how to deal, this man lays his life down to be devoured by the same world, in order to cure those in it. This sounds insane. 

If you think it sounds insane from a human perspective, according to Paul, it's also quite unexpected from a cosmic perspective too.

 

¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you^[d] alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,¹⁴ having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. -- Colossians 2:13-15

 

Jesus makes a public spectacle of powers and authorities, triumphing over them by being beaten, whipped, stripped down and nailed to wood in plain site.

 

That makes no sense.

 

Actually, it does. It's real love. Real love is described in this way:

 

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit,if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:2-11

 

Jesus, Himself, describes His work on this rotten planet this way:

 

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. - John 15:13

 

God doesn't find His infinite glory and power something more valuable than His love for the world. Therefore, He degrades Himself into becoming one of us...takes on human flesh, suffers all the things we do and eventually suffers things we can't imagine...to defeat the lies of rejection.

 

He does this to kill the lie that we are alone. We are not alone. He loves you. He loves me. There is nothing you or I can do that will change this. Even the love you may have with your spouse or child is tenuous, at best, compared to His love for you. Never-ending love is never-ending life. Remember we are made for relationships. There is no relationship more essential than this one. It is eternal life, now and without end.

 

Is this religious bull crap?

 

Keep in mind that your idea of religious bull crap is one of those tools you have picked up along the way to avoid getting hurt. it isn't so much true as it has been useful for you. It has no basis of reality, except the reality we have created around us. A better question is: is this too good to be true? That's a far better question.

 

In the end, the only way you can buy into this redemptive love is to inexplicably embrace it...accept it. It's a self-vindicating exercise. Everything else flows from there. It becomes more than a proposition: it becomes who you are and who you will become. Everything changes from that simple moment of surrender. There will still be rejection. However, the pain from rejection will just send you running back into the arms of this Love, for healing, wisdom, perspective and a hope that will not ever disappoint. He will also show you that the one who hurt you isn't your enemy. You can forgive him or her or them. They hurt you because of their own hurt they carry around with them. The rest is nothing but show.

 

For anyone reading this who still weep at the pain of being thrown away by another human being, especially one who was so important to you, you are loved. I am writing this for you, because He would want me to do so...because He loves you so much. I love you too. And my love isn't something for my own advancement. It's not to get something out of saying so. My love is an overflow of His love for me and a shared desire to see Him bring you closer to Him and His people. I have been rejected and have rejected. I hurt and have hurt because of that. I may not have been through what you've been through, but I know how it can hurt. I also know there can be healing.

 

Don't define it through your outward, local observed church or Christian environment. Define it by His love for you and leave the rest to Him. Rather than defend yourself to survive, let His love make you real, truthful and resilient in His presence, rather than your own survival strategies.

 

One day, we will sit by a vibrant river and exchange war stories. In the meantime, I am around to talk, if you need an ear. And there's many more like me than you realize. He told me to tell you so.