On seeking comfort

Seeking our own comfort is built in. We want to avoid pain and find the happy place in the world. But there is an attendant danger in seeking only comfort and not truth and even finding our duty. I ran across this quote this morning from the CS Lewis:

In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth--only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, book 1, chap 5, para 6, p39. Quoted in The Quotable Lewis ed Martindale and Root. 

Should pastors try hard to be uncool?

Note: Much credit to IX Marks, a ministry I love and respect, for the inspiration for this post.  I agree with most of what they wrote...maybe they will agree also with me? I added #7 of my own accord. 

1. Being an uncool pastor is not the power of God for salvation—the gospel is. If we think that the success of our evangelistic efforts depends on the communication style we don't care about, we are missing it. We should just flow without any style so we can be sure the only thing that is attractive to anyone are Bible words. We should write them on vellum and keep them in our room. We want to show that our trust is in the power of God’s Word working by God’s Spirit, so we want to be as awkward and uncool as we can be so to be sure about this.
   
2. Being disconnected to the culture is a double-edged sword. Though you can be sure you don't look cool, are not compelling, and be ignorant of what people care about, you might still be human enough to be in real relationships with sinners. Just don't be cool about it. Make them read the vellum if they want you to watch movies.
   
3. Our desire to be uncool may reflect more pride than we’d like to admit. Let’s say you want to be pure, unaffected by the culture and only have heaven oriented slang, dress and style. Is your desire to cultivate that image driven by a desire to save the lost or a desire for people to like you? Or maybe to have God like you more than he likes cool pastors.
   
4. Much pastoral ministry is profoundly cool. Preaching the cross is the power of God to save people is really cool. Moreover, faithfully pleading with others to repent of their sins and be reconciled to God requires a pastor to be earnest and enthusiastic (aka cool) in a way that is utterly at odds with the ironic detachment that being uncool requires. If you define cool as ironic detachment that is not cool.
   
5. We must never despise “cool” brothers and sisters in Christ. The more we try to be uncool ourselves, the more we’ll be tempted to look down on Christians who are not like us. Like those who have lots of tattoos.
   
6. Being unlike the culture can make it hard for others to see the gospel. The more we understand the world and its definition of “cool,” the less attractive we should find it. In fact, in a society that is increasingly morally and spiritually bankrupt, it may be our identification with people in culture that serves to highlight the gospel. Rather than trying to be uncool, pastors should lead their churches to cultivate a living presence with people in their own culture (to borrow from God's example in the incarnation) that points to a gospel that is genuinely different from what the world believes. It also will have the body of Christ walking among people in every day life. If we are unlike the culture they cannot hear us, see us or understand us...which makes it hard for them to see the gospel.
   
7. We should be cool and uncool like Jesus and Paul - Jesus became one of us in this world, in culture, with people in culture, hanging out with cool and uncool, the outcast, the one's with tattoos and no tattoos, loving the lost and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. We should also be cool and uncool like the apostle who for the sake of the gospel became all things to all people so that by all possible means he might save some. And he knew cool poems that the kids listened to also...which is kinda cool. He also preached the Christ crucified for sinners and the cross as the only grounds for justification by faith...which is really cool.
   

Many people assume that the best way to reach people is to not be like them at all. Like non earthlings that share no humanity, language, clothing, media and flow with them. So, if pastors don't want to reach cool people, they should try to be uncool. But there are several problems with the idea that pastors should not try to be cool:

What might God say to the IRON MAN?

Confession: I loved comic books growing up. Not simply an awareness of them but collecting them, bagging them, boarding them, knowing their value in various conditions, reading various strength levels and super powers in Marvel Universe almanacs etc. Not sure how that happened but I still have a box of them in my attic. I think I enjoyed them because they develop interesting characters; characters you follow and watch develop over many issues and many years. In light of this I have been a full supporter of the comicbookization of Hollywood.  Seeing the Marvel Universe come to the big screens has been more than a little fun for me.  Not sure if my old favorites Powerman and Iron Fist are ever going to make it to the 3D screen, but who knows.

I say all of this to comment briefly on a scene from Marvel’s new movie The Avengers.  Now, before you judge this film, you should see it.  Sometimes a movie everyone likes is good and everyone likes it because it is good. That is for my film snob friends reading.  I saw the Avengers twice in its opening weekend. Why? For the children of course. I had to see it with my wife on Friday (my day off) to grasp why it had its PG-13 rating to decide whether my daughters could see the film.  After we determined the girls could go, Sunday night we hit the show on a Daddy date.  Tommy would be freaked out and afraid of the Hulk so he is not seeing it any time soon.

One scene that got quite a bit of traction in the trailer and is important to two of the main characters flows as follows.  For Avengers newbies, Tony Stark is Iron Man and Steve Rogers is Captain America.  Stark is a spooky smart guy who has invented some killer high tech weaponry and has a history of womanizing. Rogers is a super soldier from the early 20th century who got frozen in ice. His values are old school. Here is the short dialogue:

• Steve Rogers: Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?
• Tony Stark: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.
• Steve Rogers: I know guys with none of that worth ten of you

So after thinking for a moment about this intense exchange between super heroes, I paused and asked what God might have to say to the IRON MAN:

• Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them. Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 ESV
• And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Luke 12:15 ESV
• “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:27-28 ESV
• “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:1-4 ESV

Is there something deeper that Captain America is getting at? Is there something bigger, more important going on in life that our “external suit”, our abilities, what we have and do? Jesus asked the following questions and I think asking them today would be good for you:

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?

One of the great story-lines in the Avengers film is what takes place in the relationship between Cap and Iron Man…this dialogue isn’t the end of it so I recommend the movie to watch the rest of that story unfold.

Artwork with our Mark Series

I have really enjoyed the artwork done by one of our Jacob’s Well members for our series in the gospel of Mark.  There are a few more coming but here are the pieces we have used so far. Many thanks to Adel Steman for her creative work on these. I think my favorite is the healing of the blind with the hand along the man’s face.

How you flow does matter...

I usually do not engage in what I deem evangelical politics or the evangelical celebrity culture. I find the whole clamoring game to be quite tedious and many times a making of all manner of men the center of our discourse. Our event features this person! Did you hear what he said?!? and her response!?!

Yet as evangelicalism is primarily led by big name pastors and publishing houses, the influence of people sort of wanders around a bit in various loosely affiliated crowds. As such, a local leader who is loving and serving his people must interact with the popular books and influential rock star pastors of the day. Some are good. Some not so much. Recently the bloggers, buzzers and tweeters have been lighting up about the recent video put out by Rob Bell and his coming book. The name Rob Bell even made the trending list of Twitter this weekend. I m sure those who like the buzz liked all of this very much.

The issues at hand are of great importance to the heart of the gospel and the message of the New Testament. It is right for people of faith to be concerned. Personally, I wrote a private note to my friends and leaders at Jacob s Well when all this starting going around. My care is for the understanding of our community and the broader movement of which I feel a part. Realizing I am a Protestant I also realize the spheres for which I am actually responsible. I do not know Rob Bell, never likely to meet him nor I am personally responsible for him or what he teaches. I am responsible if, by the strange realities of American church culture, he becomes a teacher for our people via blogs/books/videos etc. So I am trying to be responsible locally and have my head up and listen.

Others have and will be addressing the substance of Bell’s indirect communication and questioning that arise from his words and the performance in his recent video. What I am concerned about is how confessional evangelicals react to this sort of thing. My thoughts are only offered to my friends to encourage them about how they flow with the doctrines they hold. It matters deeply how we represent the truth to which we rightly hold firm. Some simple observations.

• Blasting men like Rob Bell with arrogant, harsh, reactionary, alarmist sounding tweets and blogs only reaffirms many people s rejection of the truth that you hold.
• If you hold true doctrine and hold it like a jackass you may alienate hearers and push many towards the pied pipers of our age.
• Many of these are simply echoing popular beliefs as they reject historic, biblical, Christian doctrine. The world will joyfully receive the teaching of heretics because many times they simply are sounding off with the current zeitgeist.
• In my experience, many people who are drawn away to these sorts of “New Christianity” are typically church kids who have witnessed a bunch of junk from those who hold to biblical truth. We need not add to this number.
• Believe me, I know that simply believing the teaching of Jesus and the apostles will cause people to say you are intolerant, narrow, etc. People did murder Jesus you know. Yet we should let it be the message of the cross and Christ himself that brings the offense. You can hold doctrines that people find offensive without adding to the offense by your own brash and arrogant rubbishing of others.
• 1 Peter 3 speaks to our offering our defense of the faith with gentleness and respect - I think we need to wear these virtues. Afterall, they look and smell a lot like Jesus.
• Yes, speak to your people directly about various types of philosophies and errors being peddled today. Yes, speak to the false teachers which are peddling their wares today. Yes, Yes, Yes. Yet do so as a compassionate friend and fellow sojourner. If you are a pastor, lead among your people with the responsibility, humble authority and the courage that you will need.
• Do I think there is a place for bold, personal confrontation? Absolutely. I do not think Twitter is the place for this. If you need to correct a brother or sister do so personally or by personal correspondence. We all know that the Interwebs can make cowards bold and remove many filters from our words.
• However, if something is in writing from someone and it is affecting your people of course you should address it. Even if Joe Blow is across the universe. To say you cannot speak to someone s published words (that they are pushing to the whole world) is just silly.
• I think the prophet and his boldness is ever needed in our day. In preaching the gospel, preaching the cross and preaching Jesus as Savior from sin, death, hell and the right and good wrath of God against evil (yes, even our own). Use your boldness here friends. This will bring you all the sanctified trouble you need.

In the second chapter of the book of Titus the family of faith was encouraged about their manner of life together. Men and women, young and old, slave and free were all encouraged about how they flowed in life together. They were all new Christians, all living life together as a new people in Christ. There is great teaching for us here.

2Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. 6Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. 9Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

There is a way of life that adorns the doctrine of God our Savior. What a humbling and shocking reality! There is also a way that serves to graffiti and deface that same doctrine. The doctrine of God is heard from and seen in the lives of Christ s followers today. If you flow like a jerk, you might just be shrouding the gospel and leading people straight to the teaching of nice leaders who may not even be preaching the truth. None of us are or will be perfect in tone, speech or reaction in our world. My failures here are many. Yet we want to repent when we fail one another in with jerkful tones, distracting speech and harsh reactions to those around us.

What you believe matters deeply. How we live with others matters deeply. Let us have the gospel of grace make us people of grace. We cannot just live with our audience being the church/Christian world, we have to hold firm to the word with grace before the world. It is from these grounds which we continue to proclaim the gospel and with deep sobriety. We must find refuge in Jesus from the wrath to come. Hell may not be an empty place but may our hearts pray and work to see that many know that they need not go there. Forgiveness is found in Christ alone. Go preach that message friends and adorn it well.

Ecclesiastes in Song

Cake is going the distance and is sick of you…this is a great song illustrating the vanity of life under the Sun without God. Thanks to Ben V for passing this along.

All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it;the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:8-9

The Unbearable Shortness of Writing

This morning I have finally been provoked enough to write something that has been chaffing me for some time.  In the LA Times, Neal Gabler recently published an opinion piece entitled The Zuckerberg Revolution - Social media have increased the volume of our communications yet diminished the substance of them in which he discusses the effect on public discourse of our desire for communication today to be “seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal and short.” In other words, the desire that communication be a short stream of nothingness floating by us in a feed of tweets, news and nonsense. OK, that is perhaps my bias showing already.

I will say up front that I am on Twitter, Facebook and obviously I am writing this on my own personal blog. I am in no way a Luddite nor do I disdain new forms of communication. I do however, share Gabler’s concerns that if these sorts of communications become the de facto standard for life in our culture we will loose our ability for complex thought, shaping of ideas, forming arguments and will continue on our way towards a sort of imbecility.  Gabler’s argument centers around the difference between a culture of books/print/reading and that of passive consumption of textual electronic communication. I will leave it to you to read his entire essay - surrounded by banner and Google ads of course - but before I move on from him I want to share a few of his more significant quotes - too long for Tweeting of course. 

The seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple, minimal and short communication is not one that is likely to convey, let alone work out, ideas, great or not. Facebook, Twitter, Habbo, MyLife and just about every other social networking site pare everything down to noun and verb and not much more. The sites, and the information on them, billboard our personal blathering, the effluvium of our lives, and they wind up not expanding the world but shrinking it to our own dimensions. You could call this a metaphor for modern life, increasingly narcissistic and trivial, except that the sites and the posts are modern life for hundreds of millions of people.

…

Gutenberg’s Revolution transformed the world by broadening it, by proliferating ideas. Zuckerberg’s Revolution also may change consciousness, only this time by razing what Gutenberg had helped erect. The more we text and Twitter and “friend,” abiding by the haiku-like demands of social networking, the less likely we are to have the habit of mind or the means of expressing ourselves in interesting and complex ways.

…

He [Zuck] has facilitated a typography in which complexity is all but impossible and meaninglessness reigns supreme. To the extent that ideas matter, we are no longer amusing ourselves to death. We are texting ourselves to death. Ideas, of course, will survive, but more and more they will live at the margins of culture; more and more they will be a private reserve rather than a general fund. Meanwhile, everything at the cultural center militates against the sort of serious engagement that McLuhan described and that Postman celebrated.

…

Postman [referring to Neal Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death] was more apocalyptic. He believed that a reading society was also a thinking society. No real reading, no real thought. Still, he couldn’t have foreseen that a reading society in which print that was overwhelmingly seamless, informal, personal, short et al would be a society in which that kind of reading would force thought out — a society in which tens of millions of people feel compelled to tell tens of millions of other people that they are eating a sandwich or going to a movie or watching a TV show. So Zuckerberg’s Revolution has a corollary that one might call Zuckerberg’s Law: Empty communications drive out significant ones.

Gutenberg’s Revolution left us with a world that was intellectually rich. Zuckerberg’s portends one that is all thumbs and no brains.

Neal Gabler, The Zuckerberg Revolution, accessed 12.24.2010

For some time I have been scratching my head as to why we find it a good thing to “write short, simple things” on our blogs so that “people will read them.”  It is like we simply accepted that the kids don’t read good any more and we will play along.  Even Derek Zoolander made a stand for the kids where we seem to find no will to be counter cultural in our writing, reading and learning. 

Just yesterday I was reading a site about how to make your blog awesome, build traffic etc. One of the answers was - keep entries real short and simple containing no complex ideas and thought. I will not tell you the french words I uttered when reading that schmack.  Of course this was counsel for those who want high traffic, high readership and high dollars out of their blogs. Obviously, I do not. 

One of my passions is to serve the Christian communitity by challenging us to think a bit more. No, I am not some super intellectual guy. I did not get anywhere near a perfect score on my SAT and I am no genius of any sort at all. I do care that we think, engage God, life and mission with some serious reflection about our questions and deep truths. Some of the most popular Christian blogs have taken up the “short entries” banner these days. You can read most of the entries in less than a minute and not  have to scratch your head one time, or think through anything. I am guessing this is an intentional style to communicate in today’s culture.  But what if today’s culture is heading in a direction that is stupid? Do we just go with it? 

I know I will likely hear from some of you that we must accommodate and contextualize in order to connect and communicate today.  Of course I will agree.  But for God’s sake we must also call ourselves and one another into the deep end of life and thought even though our culture might think there is only a three foot section of the pool. Keep your floaties on kids!

Some might find communication in 165 and 140 characters sufficient and perhaps it is for SOME things. Perhaps we think 22 words is enough to say something and it certainly is enough for something. But are we to be damned to only such things? No, we must not.  

Some ways forward. I’ll keep them short and in bullet form so that we all can read them good. 

• Be a hold out on the reading of books - even long books

• Write stuff that is not simple and short - ever so often attempt to say something

• Live that way with people - your family, community, church, etc.

• Think deeply about important things - life and death, God, truth, ethical lives and meaning - stuff the Bible is about.

• Think through your questions and put together your thoughts on them.

So tweet, friend and text in your life but menace your digital flickering with time for thinking, reading and learning.  Hold on to truths that cannot be said so quickly and should not lost.  We are a culture intent on living through reality TV and tweeting about the fact that we watched it. Each and every generation has cultural forms that lead us to what Ecclesiastes call a chasing after the wind; we certainly have our own. Shall we choose to live only through short and simple nothingness? No, we shall not.  Too much remains at stake under the Sun.

That is all - Merry Christmas friends! I will tweet that to all in a bit. 

What Sacred Games?

In the late 19th century western philosophy was starting to get honest about its godless trajectory.  Thinkers had placed the knives of reason upon thinking itself and began to come to some stark honesty about what they really believed about God, truth and morality. The pariah Friedrich Nietzsche, whose work only became popular after his death, was perhaps one of the most honest.  Many of the conclusions were that God was dead¹, truth was perspectival rather than universal and morality was a fake, a ploy to keep people in chains when they were made for greatness. Nietzsche wrote many works addressing these realities many times using metaphors to describe his views.  For example, in his treatment of morality, he chose the title beyond good and evil.  In his treatment of what he thought human beings could become he chose the language of “superman” or “overman” to describe a higher human race which history and evolution would produce. To this sort of thinking GK Chesterton responded pointedly in the early 20th century in his classic work “Orthodoxy”

This, incidentally, is almost the whole weakness of Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, “beyond good and evil,” because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” or, “more evil than good and evil.” Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, “the purer man,” or “the happier man,” or “the sadder man,” for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says “the upper man,” or “over man,” a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being “higher,” do not know either. ²

Though Nietzsche was certainly a man hiding his ideas in metaphors when he suggested to us a world “post-God” and what such a world would become I find him quite clear.  In writing about the implications of his views, Nietzsche wrote the now classic parable The Madman.³ In this short work he artfully portrays what the world after the death of God would have to be like. In this essay I want to highlight a portion of The Madman and then, in a way of sorts, look at how we have indeed attempted to answer Nietzsche’s questions.  I will then ask whether the Preacher of Ecclesiastes is a better guide for staring into the empty void of life under the sun. I will close by simply arguing that the death of God has indeed been quite the exaggeration.

It is hard to quote just a portion of The Madman, but even quoting the entirety of  even the short parable would consume too much space here for our purposes. I suggest that you take a quick trip online to read the whole thing and I will highlight a few sections here.  After a madman frantically asks the question “where is God” he is chided by some modern atheists and he replies to them in vigorous prose.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. “How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

I have highlighted just a few portions of this passage for us. In the first we realize that when we loose sight of God, we realize that there simply is no higher purpose, no meaning and life is cold, dark and void.  As we stare into that void we realize that we no longer have any center to life, nothing to base our journeys on, no truth, no moral accountability and all is up for grabs.

Nietzsche realizes that humans need such things. He therefore predicts that various festivals of atonement (trying to justify ourselves and our guilty consciences) and sacred games (dalliances to fool ourselves into believing life is meaningful) will be created by to help people deal with the infinite nothingness of life with no higher purpose. Of course, Nietzsche’s own solution, was to will to power and become a great person towering over and dominating others who were stuck in the herds of humanity groveling in morality and superstitions. That, however, is for another essay.  Here I want us to look at the sacred games and efforts towards atonement that we have indeed undertaken since the unhinging of the earth from its sun, people from their creator.

Our Sacred Games

In light of the loss of ultimate meaning, some atheistic thinkers have taken up the more modest task of creating “local meaning” for ourselves.⁴ If we can but tell ourselves that life matters in the day to day, we can escape the reality that all those days taken together are ultimately meaningless, empty and void. If we can only tell the truth to keep quiet we can live our short miserable life in an blissful ignorance. Or at least we can tell ourselves we are good enough, smart enough and people like us. By creating these “sacred games” we can escape the truth of life’s meaninglessness and smile along a way filled with a myriad of distractions. Before we look at these games, let me affirm all of them.  They are good things to pursue, but they are horrible God-substitutes.  In fact, if there is no God, all of these pursuits will drown in their own meaninglessness. OK, to quote WOPR from War Games: Shall we play a game? Of course you would, these are the games we play to avoid facing our maker or facing the void of a world without God. 

The Distraction Game

Some might say the questions of truth, meaning of life, existence and the question of God are very important. More than often I hear them summarily dismissed. These questions are not important!?! Really? I have more important things to do in life.  Life is hard, we have to work and get by, I don’t have time for all this philosophizing. We seem to make time for reality shows, tweeting, face-booking and recounting how awesome TV show characters are.  So we stay distracted, living our lives by what is on TV tonight. Is there anything more? Don’t ask, don’t tell.  Some time ago, philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal marveled at our unwillingness to wrestle with the deeper questions of life.  His reflections were before internet, TV, smart phones and the wonderful distractions of the modern era. His words are as relevant as ever:

I see the terrifying immensity of the universe which surrounds me, and find myself limited to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am set down here rather than elsewhere, nor why the brief period appointed for my life is assigned to me at this moment rather than another in all the eternity that has gone before and will come after me.  On all sides I behold nothing but infinity, in which I am a mere atom, a mere passing shadow that returns no more.  All I know is that I must soon die, but what I understand least of all is this very death which I cannot escape….As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go.  I only know that on leaving this world I fall forever into nothingness or into the hands of a wrathful God. Without knowing to which of these two states I shall be everlastingly consigned.  Such is my condition, full of weakness and uncertainty.  From all this I conclude that I ought to spend every day of my life without seeking to know my fate.   I might perhaps be able to find a solution to my doubts; but I cannot be bothered to do so, I will not take one step towards its discovery. ⁵

The Knowledge Game

Knowledge and education are sacred in our culture.  It is said that education is somewhat like a magic bullet that cures all.  If we throw money at education then all will be well in the world.  I am heartily for education, but learning must have truth at its foundation.  Learning does not make life meaningful unless our knowledge serves some purpose and is guided by a moral compass. It cannot be an end in itself.  When knowledge has no moral guidance or high good in mind, we can become arrogant. As the ancient apostle wrote “knowledge puffs up” in pride.  The outcome can be a world where we think the educated are superior to the uneducated. Elitism anyone? Furthermore, being educated is preferable than a life without learning, but great evils can and have been done by the most brilliant people. 

The Pleasure Game

Another great game we play to fill our lives with meaning is the pleasure game. We can get high, we can get naked, we can go through multiple relationships one after another.  We play the game of love to get what we want and we purchase various pleasures on the internet or on the corners of city streets. We even have something called “sexual addiction” today.  Married people do this all the time and it is not called an addiction.  What changed? We unchained pleasure from its purpose and removed it from its proper context.  Why? If God is dead we can do whatever, whenever and whoever we want. Sadly, numerous children today grow up without two parents and broken bodies, disease and death line the avenues of this sacred game.

The Power Game

We like to control things so we seek out little kingdoms for our own sovereignty.  If we can control some area of life, we’ll forget that ultimately we are going towards a certain death, the day of which I have zero control over. So we try to control our boyfriends or girlfriends, our families and friends and others seek to rule in business and politics.  If life is short and death is waiting for me at least I can try to be in charge along the way.  Everyone will love me for it! Or not…but at least I’ll get mine.

Festivals of Atonement

So we have our games to prop up life, but what are we to do when we still feel guilty and we have the haunting fear that something may be wrong “with us” or even scarier “with me.”  Well, we have our festivals to atone for our many sins indeed.

Festival of Blame

We know something is wrong with us so it must be somebody’s fault.  We love the festival of blame in our culture.  It is always “their” fault that we can’t fix the mess of our lives. It is the other team’s fault. We blame the other political party, we blame other nations, we blame our culture, we blame economic systems and we absolutely love to blame our parents. After all, my teachers have told me that I am great and special my whole life, so all that is wrong must have come from elsewhere. Life is too short to feel guilty, admit sin and seek forgiveness.  Shifting blame can atone without me coming apart.

Festival of Me

Once we shift blame away, we can focus on what is truly the wonder of our universe…ME! Yes, when faced with our sins, just tell yourself you are AWESOME! Live life for your plans, your purposes, your pleasures, your successes, your happiness and all will go well. After all, if you don’t look after yourself, who will?

So what happens when our sacred games and festivals still leave us feeling empty, alone and stuck in shame? We are told to play them harder or try another game.  Such is the only recourse with a life without God under the sun.  Yet perhaps the death of God was not so rightly ascertained.  Perhaps there is a living voice speaking to us from eternity. Staring into this void, the preacher of Ecclesiastes was just as honest as Nietzsche but found another game.  It was a game of  truth and a struggle before God and not a denial of him. Solomon would tell us that knowledge, pleasure and the right use of authority have great purpose under the sun if used and aligned with the purposes and commands of God. 

Long ago another voice, one greater than Solomon⁷ spoke to us about looking into the world which is so prone to fear, anxiety and diversions.  While we run around seeking knowledge, pleasure, power and distraction, worrying about clothes and food and other needs his voice thunders clear: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.8

The madman need not incessantly look for God when his sanity arrives when he is found by his creator.  May we all be found by and rest in Him.

Notes

1. The phrase God is dead did not intimate that God was alive and now dead.  Nietzsche was communicating that the idea of God which had been the foundation of western culture for centuries had been disassembled by the thinker and philosopher of his day. 

2. GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter VII THE ETERNAL REVOLUTION, available for free online at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130.html

3. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) para.125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.

4. See the interesting dialogue between a Christian professor and atheistic punk rocker turned scientist in Preston Jones, Greg Gaffin, Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant?: A Professor And a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity (Downers Grove: Intervarity Press, 2006).  Gaffin acknowledges life to ultimately have no higher meaning but we create our own meaning through various means.  In my opinion Gaffin treats evolution/naturalism as a sort of religion which I find both interesting and revealing.

5. War Games, United Artists, 1983.

6. Blaise Pascal, Pensées

7. See Matthew 12:42

8. Matthew 6:33,34

The Axe Man or the Old Spice Man?

There are two men’s body washes that are creatively vying for the hearts and minds of man consumers (or those who purchase on their behalf) today. This morning after lifting a bit at the gym and using some man wash myself, I was thinking about how each of these brands is pitching its wares to men today. Ironically, two different versions of manhood are found. One note before we begin. I am endorsing neither product, nor their future choices in marketing schtick. Either company could produce very different advertising efforts in the future. I only want to comment on what we see from them today.

The Axe Man

The Axe brand is a new comer on the scene of man products not having been around as long as Speed Stick or Hai Karate. Its line of man sprays and washes is marketed quite aggressively to the young male today. What is their hook? If you use Axe, lots of hot chicks will want sex from you. Use Axe body spray or wash or hair product and look out…you will become the irresistible object of the uncontrolled sexual desires of multiple women at the same time. The Axe man is a picture of the modern view of manhood - adolescent, sex crazed and led around by things other than self control.

The Old Spice Man

In contrast, the new fantastically popular “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” is surprising, funny and different. Apparently, the campaign has been economically effective as sales appear to be up some 107%. The spots highlight masculinity, have brilliant writing and are so ridiculous that their humor seems to appeal to a broad audience. I know I find them awesome and I even had my wife buy some Old Spice Bodywash for me this week.

As I thought about the two full length Old Spice commercials as well as the myriad of responses given to peeps on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites something quite surprising came to mind. The man your man could smell like is quite a different man that the Axe man; in fact, we find a mand of Chivalry. Now hold on professor, are you not reading too much into some humor - perhaps, but I don’t think so.

• Two Tickets to that thing you love! The man your man could smell like is thinking about woman and how he might woo them. How so? He is thoughtful to know what she loves and proactively buys tickets. Men, this sort of initiative with women is an old school art that the Axe boy knows nothing of.
• A Cake He Backed for You Again, an attempt at thoughtfulness, planning and giving to his woman - men, let us be awake to learn here!
• In the Kitchen He Built for You This man fixes house stuff and seems to do so as an act of service to the lady of his manor. Again, the man is serving his woman…Swan Dive!
• Finally, he’s on a horse and we know who rides horses right? Men who protect and provide for a lady. Men who both ride to battle and rescue what is valuable from the hands of marauders, idiots and tyrants…maybe even from childish Axe men. Yes friends, a knight rides a horse and I just think Old Spice giving a nod to men on horses is refreshing.

Where are the men of the old code, where are men of courage, truth, valor and respect for ladies? Where are the men who are like the man your man could smell like? Well, perfect ones do not exist. And this man is a caricature. Yet men can become knights and men can learn to love a lady. Men can learn to fight for the good and resist the evil without and within. Men can treat women with grace, service and yes honor.

Yes indeed Old Spice Man you are on a horse. May that tribe increase and the Knight’s sword triumph over the barbarians Axe. Let the old school return my man friends.

Don't Fight Authority...

I fight authority, authority always wins – John Cougar Mellencamp – circa 1984

The subject of authority is a bit of a sensitive one in our culture today.  At the dusk of Western Civilization we have brought our individualism and autonomy to its logical conclusion.  Many of us have a profound disrespect and disdain for authority.  Admit it, we do. Yet rightful, God ordained authority is a good gift and necessary for our lives.  No person is an island, no person need to operate without being under a good authority for their lives.  Yet authority is often abused where human beings go on trips of power over one another.  Indeed, Jesus said it this way in Matthew 20:25-28:

²⁵ You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. ²⁶ It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,  ²⁷ and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

So there is a lording over and a servant sort of authority with the latter being both commanded by Jesus and more pleasant to live under. Nobody likes to work for a boss who is a jerk, a little Napoleon with a King Kong sized ego. Yet simply because some authority is abusive does not mean that all authority is bad. In fact, Scripture shows us that good and just authority is the outflow of the plan of God. 

There are many layers of authority surrounding each person all the time. Parents are responsible authorities in the lives of their children; the worldview of MTV notwithstanding. Governments have a God ordained authority in the lives of their citizens; the worldview of the anarchist notwithstanding. Pastors have a responsible authority for those in their care and men have a responsibility for their families.  The latter will cause squirming in both irresponsible, passive men and the women who despise them.   Yet how do all these spheres interact. What follows will only be a brief attempt to theologically state my theological perspective on authority for follows of Jesus. I will proceed according to certain assumptions so I will briefly lay those out so it will be easier to track with me. 

First, I believe that God is the highest authority for all creation and every human being. This is true whether we acknowledge it or not. His authority is then vested at various levels through various institutions – the home, the church, the state.  Second, I believe that the church and state have different realms of responsibility given by God so I support the separation of church and state and oppose theonomy¹. Third, I believe the Holy Scriptures are true and binding over all humanity but they are NOT the instrument and code of civil government nor should the worship of Jesus be compulsory, so I also oppose theocracy².  Fourth, I believe in human conscience in relation to parenting and believe that Moms and Dads to be the primary authority  in raising kids; children are not wards of the state.³ Finally, I believe the church and the individual Christian are bound to conditionally obey all governments under which they are living. In other woods, unless the government is ordering/compelling one to sin, the government should be obeyed.

Authority from the Ground Up

Children and Parents

The Scripture in several places declares an order to the human family in that children are to obey their parents and parents are to love, instruct, teach and discipline their kids. In the 10 commandments we find that God tells us to “honor your mother and father” (See Exodus 20). Additionally, this is restated in the New Testament in Ephesians chapter six: Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Furthermore the same passage encourages fathers to “not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  This of course echoes the call of Deuteronomy 6 for parents to teach their children to know and follow God. When this responsible authority is abdicated in the home children grow up lonely, insecure and many times turn to alternative “families” such as gangs or other groups to find identity. Additionally, when parents do not both love and discipline children, the kids do not develop respect for authority. As a result kids can be either pressed towards rebellion or live in complete unruliness. Serving in communities with rampant fatherlessness or watching one episode of Super Nanny are sufficient as examples. This unit of the home is then under the care and authority of local churches and its leadership.

Pastors and Churches

Pastors were once held in high regard in our culture but times have changed. First, there is a lack of trust in church leaders who through repeated moral failure or financial scandals have repudiated a respected and holy office. Additionally, today’s church shopping consumer mindset in matters of religion makes the pastor out to be a producer of religious goods and services. If someone does not like the product – be it preaching or instruction, many will just move on to another house of worship or a new religion to suit their purposes. If a pastor tells someone he is acting like an idiot by running around on his wife and to knock it off, the man can simply move on to a man who will not challenge his sinful behavior. Yet it is clear in Scripture that God places his people in churches for their good by giving them spiritual authority. 

Hebrews 13 teaches us this in two ways. First, the pastor/elder is to set a good example: Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith (Hebrews 13:7). Second, we are to obey our leaders and submit to their care: Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you (Hebrews 13:17).  

It is to be said that churches should give much care in calling their pastors.  Scripture insists that such men be wise, responsible, godly, qualified men (See Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3). Pastors and other Christians in the church should walk together in community so that families are cared for and that parents are instructed and helped lead their homes.  Finally, there is a lost calling not practiced by many cowardly clergy and passive Christians which must also be a part of life together, that of discipline. Frankly put we should call each other to standards of integrity, our marriage vows, loving our kids and doing what is right in our communities.  If someone sees me screwing up I really want to be called to account; this is good and should not be neglected in the church.

The Authority of Government

Followers of Christ and their families are shepherded in the church by qualified pastors/elders, yet Churches also exist in a broader culture under various forms of governing authorities.⁴  Let us be clear that Scripture is not silent on the believer’s relationship to government.  We are to pray for our leaders and submit to their government.   Two passages of Scripture are quite relevant, 1 Timothy 2:1-3 and Romans 13:1–7. We’ll quote them at length in turn.

¹First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, ²for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. ³This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior.  

1 Timothy 2:1-3

¹Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. ²Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. ³ For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, ⁴ for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. ⁵ Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. ⁶ For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. ⁷ Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. 

Romans 13:1-7

The clear teaching of Scripture is the government is given by God to enact and enforce good conduct in a society. Wrong doing should be punished and the government has been given the sword to hold evil doing at bay. This means that Christians under all manner of governments are called to be good citizens.  Now, a huge rejoinder must be made.  It is also clear that government should not be obeyed when it commands and compels its citizens to do evil and disobey God. There are many examples of this.  The Hebrew midwives in Exodus 1 and the apostle’s civil disobedience when commanded not to share the gospel in Acts 4 are most often cited. When a government is compelling evil, the believer has a duty to do what is right and refuse the unjust law. A modern example would be a doctor refusing to obey a government which might make him to perform abortions. It is my opinion that non violent civil disobedience is the path in such cases and that taking up arms against a government is not advisable unless in self-defense. I will leave that complicated discussion for another time.

Separation of Church and State

Both church and state have been called by God to govern and have authority in the lives of Christians. The church is a body of believers called out by God together as a covenant people by the gospel. As such the highest authority in our lives is the Word of God, the Scriptures. Yet each church is in a realm of state authority as well so the lines of separation must be discussed. Historically, the Roman Catholic Church and the magisterial reformers (Luther, Zwingli and Calvin) held to a unification of church/state. The state was legitimized by God and the church endorsed this legitimacy. Additionally, the state enforced and permitted the establishment of religious authority and unity in a realm. This view had long standing back into Greek and Roman times. A state and its gods were one.  However, this was questioned by many reformers and evaluated in light of Scripture. Did not Jesus teach that the rule of Caesar was different than the rule of God?  Does not a marriage between worldly power and the church have a corrupting influence on both?  Such questions in Western culture led the founders of the American experiment to articulate clearly the relationship between church and state.  It is found in the well known establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment of the US Constitution. Here is how it reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  

The meaning of this statement is quite clear but the implementation has always been a bit fuzzy. What it means is that there will be no official state religion or church in our country. Additionally, the government will not prohibit law abiding citizens from freely practices their religion. It does not make a religion free zone in any portion of society nor does it create a religion of which all citizens must participate. It means we have freedom of religion – a gracious gift to the people of America. If this is the case and I take this to be a just solution, how are the authorities of church and state established.

The Authority of State – Natural Law

Many thinkers in history, particularly Aristotle, Aquinas and John Locke have taught that there is a law built into human experience which dictates to conscience basic categories of a just society.  I do not have space here but I discussed various types of law briefly here⁵.  Natural law would be defined in the Christian tradition as follows:

Natural law is the law “written on the heart” (Romans 2:13) – the conscience by which people know Good and Evil – right from wrong. Sin mars this faculty in man, but it remains none the less. These are things that people “Can’t Not Know” – i.e. that Murder is wrong, it flows from the moral nature of God and presses upon people. People suppress this and hold it down in wickedness, many becoming callous as to be seared against God’s witness in conscience. See Romans chapters 1 and 2. This is shared by both regenerate and unregenerate – though our Reformed brothers (and I consider myself part of that team) some times do not like saying that non Christians know right and wrong. Thomists think Natural law is evident to right reason, reformed scholars say that the noetic effects of sin blur, mar, even destroy this capacity in people, though some make room for “common grace insights” i.e. that murder is wrong. Some recent works on Natural Law would be found in the writings of Princeton scholar Robert George and J. Budzizewski of the University of Texas at Austin. 

The state then governs in accord to the law written on the heart expressed in basic morality found in all cultures. The so called “second tablet” of the Ten Commandments is reflective of such basic moral foundations. The natural law is an expression of God’s authority on all peoples and we disobey this moral law to our own peril and destruction.

The Authority of Church – The Word of God

Christians however are called to a higher authority than even the state, the authority of the Word of God.  Scripture is the Supreme Court in all matters of life and teaching for Christian believers.  It is to be obeyed and headed out of love for Jesus Christ who is revealed in this Word.  It reveals the laws of God which demonstrate to us our sinfulness and need of grace.  It reveals the gospel by which we are saved and restored to right relationship with God.  It reveals the mission of the church in the world as the in breaking of the ultimate rule and reign of God in the Kingdom of Heaven.  It reveals that we are citizens of two realms…the Kingdoms of earth and the Kingdom of God.  Scripture instructs us as to when civil disobedience is warranted while simultaneously calling us to submit to just and reasonable laws. In this age church and state are separate spheres of authority with Scripture guiding the church.  When Jesus returns he will set up a perfect divine monarchy with himself as King of Kings.  Aristotle once wrote that the best government would be by a perfect and virtuous ruler.  Yet none of this metal is to be found among the sinful throng of humanity.  In the current state of affairs it has been said that democracy is the best of all bad forms of government.   Yet a day will come when authority will be always good, kind and just.

Conclusion

During our days on earth we are called to love rightful authority and submit joyfully to it as a gift from God.  We are also called to stand against injustice in its various forms.  Parents should embrace responsibility and children should submit to their parents.  Mothers and Fathers should be responsible for their homes and families, pastors should willfully and humbly shepherd the church and all citizens should obey the laws of their lands. None of this will happen in perfection so love must cover a multitude of sins.  The ultimate high treason against authority is humanity’s rebellion against God.  In this case the highest of rulers came to earth as a lowly servant. This servant died to save rogue rebels from the justice they deserve. All of history will one day be wrapped up when that same servant will come back again with full authority to judge the living and the dead. We may bow our knees today in light of his love and grace or face the fury of the wrath to come by persisting in our rebellion. When we realize that we can entrust ourselves to a fully loving, fully good, fully just God – we realize that this is an easy choice to make.  May he reveal this to you by his Spirit and may we find repentance and faith.

Notes

1. Theonomy is the idea that the laws of the state should be the literal laws of God. Islam practices this and some Christians have advocated for this as well.  As is said, we do not.
2. Theocracy is seeing God as the head of the civil state and requiring submission to a certain God for all citizens by law. We oppose this because the worship of God should be from a persons heart and from conviction.
3. The view that people belong to the state is an ancient view prominently on display in Plato’s classic work The Republic.
4. For more on Christians existing under various forms of government throughout history see my Relating to Caesar, Christians and Governments http://www.powerofchange.org/2009/3/28/relating-to-caesar-christians-and-governments.html
5. See Christianity and Nation States…Law and a Just Society-http://www.powerofchange.org/2005/5/3/christianity-and-nation-stateslaw-and-a-just-society.html

Booze and the Bible - Walking in the Wisdom of God

What is the wisdom of God relating to the use/abuse/abstention from sauced beverages?  About this issue our Presbyterian and Roman Catholic friends are shrugging their shoulders; no big deal. Just practice moderation.  On the other hand, some of our Baptist and Pentecostal friends might be red in the face that we even discuss the consumption of alcohol in any terms other than prohibition. The consumption of alcohol is a large part of our culture and has quite a history. European Christians for millennia have consumed alcohol as did the first settlers to the new world. One of the first things off of the Mayflower was a keg.¹ Yet during some of the excess of the late 19th and early 20th century many American Christians led a temperance movement which brought about the rapid passing and ratification of the 18th amendment. This amendment brought a national “prohibition” of the production, sale and consumption of beverage alcohol. The 21st amendment, which passed with some momentum as well, repealed prohibition in the United States in 1933.² So this issue has been divisive among Christians for some time. I do not intend to settle it completely, but only to present some positions believers hold and practice today in relation to alcoholic beverages.

Before we begin, let me give a bit of context to why we are even talking about this.  Let me say clearly and vigorously that it is not to be followers of Jesus who are known by whether or not they drink beer.  Such a view is immature and can be a bit silly.   I have two reasons for bringing us to a discussion of alcohol.  First, I have concern for us that we have a responsible discussion of the Scriptural teaching on the matter and the strong warnings we have about the devastating nature of drunkenness and alcoholism.  Second, I care deeply about the culture of our community in that we do not have legalistic attitudes about something God might declare a liberty and even a kind gift from his hand. In this essay I want to lay out four positions practiced in various form by those around us.  In doing so I want to make the argument that two of them are out of bounds for followers of Jesus and the other two need to create a culture together of joy, thanksgiving and wisdom in relationship to our life as a community.  Now on to some perspectives.

Libertinism

This position makes no prohibition about drinking and you are free to drink as much as you like. Get a designated driver and hammer down to Liquortown. This position is untenable in light of the clear teaching of Scripture. The Bible is univocal in its condemnation of being drunk with alcohol (Deuteronomy. 21:20; 1 Corinthians 6:10; Ephesians 5:18; Galatians 5:21) and is clear about the results of drunkenness. Mark Driscoll lists several of these in his book The Radical Reformission. Incest, violence, adultery, mockery/brawling, poverty, hallucinations, antics, murder, gluttony, vomiting, staggering, madness, nakedness, sloth and depression, just to name a few.³  There are many behaviors in our world today, which have no other goal than to get drunk, wasted, messed up, etc.  Such a view is unwise and often ends up in places the partyer never portended to go.

Prohibitionism

This position states that alcohol is prohibited for Christians and this is without exception. A follower of Jesus shall never place the devil’s drink in his mouth as some might put it. Usually the references to drunkenness listed above are cited as positive support for the position.  To be clear, there are periodic prohibitions given in Scripture for certain people in certain occasions. In the Old Testament, Leviticus 10 teaches that the priest was not to drink during his ministry in the tabernacle. Proverbs 31 tells us that a king should not drink while adjudicating law and there are specific religious vows which call for abstinence (see the Nazirite vow in Numbers 6; Judges 13;Luke 1). Finally, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego choose abstinence for a time of service in the book of Daniel. However, this position does not deal with the following biblical realities. First, Jesus Himself drank wine and was even wrongly accused of being a glutton and drunkard. He acknowledged that He came to earth eating and drinking (Matthew 11:19). Second, Paul exhorts Timothy to use a little wine to help his stomach instead of simply drinking water for health/medicinal reasons (1 Timothy 5:23). Third, the Last Supper has the disciples drinking wine (Luke 22:14-23). Fourth, the Bible actually teaches that wine is a good gift from God (Psalm 104:15; 15). Fifth, the lack of wine or fruitful vineyards is a motif of God’s judgment in Scripture (Isaiah 16; 24; Jeremiah 48; Lamentations 2; Habakkuk 3:17-20) while wine is a sign of blessing (Genesis 27; Deuteronomy 7). So when looking at Scripture, the prohibitionist position is a difficult one to defend on biblical grounds. It seems this position speaks beyond Scripture and exalts a human tradition or value above the Word of God.

Abstentionism

This position is a bit more balanced in that it sees no blanket prohibition against consumption.  This view urges the believer to choose complete abstinence based on the possibility of the harmful effects of alcohol or being a witness to the gospel in culture. All the biblical commands about drunkenness and the risks of addiction are rightly brought in support of this position. Additionally, arguments against aiding an industry which exalts a non-biblical lifestyle and offending people in certain church cultures (sometimes described as causing people to stumble) are offered as support.⁴ This view sees drinking as something too risky, too dangerous to participate with and the prudent Christian will just say no. The one weakness I see is that it cannot accept a glass of wine as a good gift from God and purveyors of this view may slide towards legalistic prohibitionism in practice though not holding to this as biblical conviction. However, I do feel this is a valid biblical stance which steers clear of sin and I commend it to those who have a history of alcoholism and exhibit addictive life patterns. One final warning is needed. This view gives no leeway to pass judgment on those who choose a path of moderation and gives no excuse to remain immature always “stumbling” over the biblical practice of others.

Moderationism

The final position would be that of moderation. Though God prohibits drunkenness and drinking in certain circumstances, He by no means prohibits the moderate enjoyment of alcohol. The verses above in favor of alcohol and those warning against excess should both be embraced. This position requires maturity and accountability in community, yet in my view, balances both sides of teaching found in Scripture.⁵ One final warning here as well. Moderation is not more righteous than those who choose not to drink.  I have seen a self-righteousness from some believers as it they were more pleasing to God because they drink.  Such silliness is a sign not of maturity, but immaturity, and we need to move on from this attitude.

Life in Our Community

A few words in conclusion. First, Romans 13 is clear that we are to obey the laws of the state.  If you are not 21, you do not drink. Period. Second, as we live life together as Jacob’s Well there will be both abstentionists and moderationists among us.  If you find yourself leaning towards mandating your abstinence for others in judgment of their partaking, please cease. You have no biblical warrant and will jack up our church making it a not so fun place to live. Furthermore, if your moderation is leading you towards drinking too much, you need to repent of sin and live differently. You may even need to have others help you move forward and put down the sauce. How can we discern these things?  We must live openly with one another in community.  A healthy community will help one another to avoid the extremes of both legalism and license.  We must be honest with a brother or sister if we know he or she is drinking too much.  We cannot sit idly by while someone begins to drink in a way that dishonors Christ and destroys their life. On the other side of the equation, if someone asks you if you are putting down too much beer/wine, you should thank God for this question, not be defensive that someone would ask.

In short, we must live in biblical love, with biblical wisdom regarding this gift of God.  To not to do so, or to create an oppressive, legalistic culture is simply a FAIL.  The Scriptures carve out a better path.

On that Journey with you,

Reid

Notes

Some of the material here has been reworked from Reid S. Monaghan—Gray Matters: Media, Movies and Miller Time available online at http://www.powerofchange.org/storage/docs/gray_web_jw.pdf

1. Stephen Mansfield, The search for God and Guinness—A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009) 5-6.

2. Our friend Wikipedia has an overview outline of this season in our history and the Christian influence of the temperance movement—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States

3. Mark Driscoll, The Radical Reformation—Reaching Out without Selling Out (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004) 147, 148.

4. See lecture by Albert Mohler and Russell Moore, Alcohol and Ministry, http://www.sbts.edu/MP3/Mohler/Alcohol&Ministry.mp3 for an example of this.

5. For a more thorough treatment see Kenneth Gentry Jr., God Gave Wine (Lincoln, CA: Oakdown: 2001).

Watch your mouth...

In the book of Ephesians it is clear that followers of Jesus are called to walk in a manner congruent with their calling to God in the gospel. We are a forgiven people, a people who have been shown grace, a people who were once alienated from God and under his just wrath but now reconciled and adopted into his family. We have a new life to live and everything is now shaped by our relationship with God.

Some of the interesting exhortations we are given in the middle of this New Testament letter have to do with our mouths—what we say to people and what our speaking should really be about. In this essay our goals are too ambitious. First, we are going to look at what our speech is for; why we should be speaking creatures saying things to one another. Second, with that purpose in mind, we will look at ways we dishonor God with our mouths. Finally, and please don’t skip to this part, we will cover the use of strong language and the diverse subject of “bad words.” I told you not to skip down yet, keep reading right here.

On Talking

Ephesians 4 and 5 give us some strong counsel as to how our speech is to be exercised. Chapter 4 gives us the commands to put aside falsehood and speak the truth to our neighbors (Ephesians 4:25). It should not be shocking, but lying is a big deal. It goes against God’s very nature as truthful and runs over one of his central commandments (Exodus 20:16, Deuteronomy 5:20). Further, Ephesians 4:29 gives resounding clarity as to the purpose, or telos, of our talk. It is worth repeating:

 ²⁹Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Our mouths are to be used not to tear down and corrupt but rather to build others up, to give grace to them, as is fitting for the moment of speaking. With this in mind, it is easy to see why elsewhere Scripture encourages us to be “quick to listen, but slow to speak” (James 1:19). Though some more than others, each of us can tend to pipe off in ways that are not always helpful or uplifting. Anyone else guilty here? Thankfully God, uses his speech to say “I will forgive you through Jesus.”

We do not have the space here to get into all the ways God speaks and his purposes in doing so. It is clear from Scripture that God’s speaking brings life, brings joy, brings fear of judgment, leads to repentance, forgives and gives hope to those who come to him in need of grace. We are called to follow God in the way we speak to others bringing life and grace to our hearers rather than evil doing with our mouths. We need to repent of using our mouths for purposes that are just wicked. What follows is just a small look at how we use our mouths to talk schmack rather than build others up, worship God and bring peace to situations.

Talking Schmack

In several places the Scriptures teach us about the use and abuse of our mouths. The wisdom literature in the Old Testament book of Proverbs, the teachings of Jesus in his sermons and the book of James come to mind. First, on more than one occasion Jesus taught that it is out of the overflow of the heart that the mouths speaks (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45). What is in our hearts is the source of the outflow of our mouths. The heart is central in this matter and hear are a few ways the our hearts lead us to sin with our lips.

Lying Tongues (Psalm 5:9; Psalm 120:1,2; Proverbs 6:16-19, John 8:44)

God simply hates lying and we do it all the time. We lie to protect our image, to try to be nice to others, to increase our financial wealth, to cover up all manner of other sins. Jesus said the native language of the Devil was to lie and we do have this family resemblance (John 8:44). Repentance always involves us putting away falsehood and confessing what is true. It also involves stepping out of darkness into the light. Yet in this very act of confession, we find freedom again. No more lies…let us speak truthfully with one another and give grace to them when they fall short of God’s ideal.

Slander, Gossip and Tearing Up People (Psalm 50:19, 20; Romans 1:28-32; 1 Timothy 5:13)

Slander is lying on people in a way that directly hurts and damages them. It is maliciously aimed speech which is designed to tear down someone in the perceptions of others. Gossip is the revealing of personal information about someone to others when there is no authority or permission to do so. Even when gossip is the true, it is a betrayal, it hurts community and relationships and is sin. Gossip breaks trust and creates confusion and can cause deep divisions that can take years to heal.

Profanity and Obscenity (Proverbs 30:7-9; Ephesians 5:4)

The English word profane is derived from Latin terms meaning “before or outside the temple” (pro-before + fanum temple). It means to deal with that which is unholy. Profane speech is defiling or making something unholy. God has made certain aspects of life holy. His name, his people, our bodies and sexuality come to mind. To speak of such things in a way that degrades, mocks, tears down and dishonors that which is holy is what we call “profanity” - it should be avoided. Obscenity is a specific subset of profanity whereby we degrade human sexuality, sex organs and acts of a sexual nature. Ephesians 5:4 calls this foolish talk and crude joking—people do this sort of thing often, particularly young men. Remember, to understand whether something is being profaned or made obscene we must know the purpose for which something exists. Perversion and profanity flows from deviating from God’s designs for something. Be it our bodies, marriages, our sexuality or the worship of God.

Cursing Folk (James 3)

This one is actually pretty easy to understand—we call down curses, or ill desires upon others with our mouths. Many times, people will use the Lord’s name in doing so (see blasphemy below) as if they are invoking God to aid in the sins of their mouths. For followers of Jesus, the book of James gives striking clarity to us here:

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Blaspheming God

Blasphemy is to speak against and profane God and his name. Using God’s name to curse others, using his name as an expletive is to speak about God in a blasphemous way. His name is not to be used as if it is some magic trick to accomplish our will nor is it to be used to back up the truthfulness of your words.

I hope this treatment of sins of the mouth will help give us pause in how we utilize speech. We also should not overestimate the urge to pop off at the mouth—James taught us “no human being can tame the tongue.” This ought to lead us humbly to God for his help in realigning our hearts towards the gospel and the reeling in of careless words.

Up until this point I have made no comment about “bad words” as I find such discussions far too simple and not always helpful. God is far more concerned with our hearts than with creating a list of “banned words in heaven.” We will close this discussion with a meandering around the use of strong words and language. It is my hope to help us avoid both a silly legalism and serious sin with our mouths.

On the Use of Strong Language

We live in a culture quite polarized about the way we speak. Dana White, president of the mixed martial arts Ultimate Fighting Championship has no pause in dropping F-bombs on camera and in his personal video blogs. James V. O’Conner is doing his part in publishing his book Cuss Control—The Complete Book on How to Curb Your Cursing. Connor’s book and his associated Cuss Control Academy are examples of how even the secular world is wrestling to curb the tide of base language. On the other hand I have met some Christians who seem to want to make every word into banned speech unable to be used by those who are truly holy. Which usually means people just like them. In the small bit of space we have remaining I want to do a few very ambitious things. First, to look at the nature of speech how a word is considered bad.  Second, I want to look at the shifting meaning of terms over time and the question of acceptable vernacular (everyday, common speech). Finally, I want to close by challenging some misunderstandings among Christians on all sides of the issue of cussin.

Let me begin by saying that there simply is no eternal list of bad words in heaven somewhere. Each language and culture has words that are unsavory and people typically know what they are. However, we must acknowledge the fluid nature of language in that it is spoken in a sociolinguistic context. Many of us would not recognize a curse word spoken in Farsi or Tagalog. Most of us would not even recognize a curse word spoken in Old English in 1000AD. Now don’t go searching the Internet for Tagalog cuss words to use with your friends. That would be immature. So how do we use wisdom in deeming words appropriate and inappropriate today? It is a question that is not always so simple. Some Christians love to say see Ephesians says “no corrupting talk…no filthy language” as if that solves the issue. It does not because we have to say that THIS SPEAKING fits the description of the Ephesians exhortation.

Moral philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas deemed all actions to be made of both an internal act including motive and intent and the external acting out of said intent (See his treatment in the Summa here) Speech acts are no exception to this. All speech has intent, motive, sociolinguistic context and meaning. It is spoken with a purpose and it has effect and meaning to the people who hear the speech. We must consider this when looking at how we speak and whether it is corrupting, filthy or crude. It is my contention that someone can do more evil without speaking a four letter word than by using one. Imagine for a moment of a young man, broken because of his sins, weeping and confessing to a Christian friend “I have really f-ed up my life…I’m so sorry.” Are we really going to focus on the fact that the guy used the f-word in this case? Imagine another case where a husband is sarcastically belittling his wife or mocking her physical appearance without a single four letter word. I think you see my point. In Scripture, God seems much more concerned with the heart and use of language than simply the terminology employed. I am not saying certain words should be used, I am just trying to keep us from massively missing the point that Scripture actually teaches about the use of our tongues.

We have to think hard about certain words today as the meaning of terms does shift over time in a particular culture. A word with a less than ideal origin may evolve into a harmless word that has a different meaning today. Sometimes words that have less than savory origins make their way into the vernacular. A friend this week asked me if I knew the origin of the word “snafu.” I did not but I knew it roughly meant a situation of confusion—it’s etymology is a little rougher. You may disagree with me but many words that some would consider bad simply are not any longer. If you told me this essay sucked I would know what you meant and would not be offended by the term. I would just need to try and do better next time.

One last note on speaking within cultural settings. Adults may use strong language at times in certain circumstances and settings. I remember pastor John Piper’s use of the term “God kicks your ass” with a group of college students in 2007. Some understood his use of the word, some…not so much. It was controversial and he sort of apologized; you can read that letter here. However, I think the students understood exactly what he meant in a clear and compelling way. We all realize that young children do not have the experience, wisdom or maturity to comprehend something an adult would easily grasp. There is language appropriate in adult conversation that is not for children. I do not find this controversial.

In closing, there is nothing quite as silly as a Christian cursing because he thinks it is cool or because he has escaped from a Christian College and is trying to make up for lost time. It is equally silly to obsess about words that nobody considers bad in our culture and try to avoid people who speak in a gritty fashion. Anyone in sports, the military, construction or just alive today will be hard pressed to keep ones ears virgin. More importanly, mission demands us be present with people.

God considers the heart, motive and context of our speech. We need to ask if it builds up, does it honor God, does it give grace to the hearer, does it accomplish what is needed in that moment. These issues should be our concern. We should all watch our mouths and this goes far beyond vocabulary. My hope is that we might love people around us, build them up, communicate effectively with people in culture and bring honor to God with our lips. If you disagree, I would love to hear some positive interactions…

Amen?

On Tim Tebow and Christian Celebrities?

Everyone knows Tim Tebow is a rock star on the college football scene.  He is already a heisman winner, he already has national championship rings and he is simply the most dominant player in recent history. He is also an evangelical Christian. Today I read an article about Tebow’s recent answer to the question as to whether he was a rock star virgin as well.  The writer is obviously a Tebow fan, both of his football exploits and of his public stance for the faith. Believe me, I applaud both of these things as well, but the article did give me some serious pause.

A lurking question about Christian celebrities came to mind as Tebow’s life was lauded so loudly in this article. It reminds me of the peril of Christian celebritism reflected masterfly by the late AW Tozer:

How eagerly do wee seek the approval of this or that man of worldly reputation. How shamefully do we exploit the converted celebrity. Anyone will do to take away the reproach of obscurity from out publicity-hungry leaders: famous athletes, congressman, world travelers, rich industrialists; before such we bow with obsequious smiles and honor them in our public meetings and in the religious press. Thus we glorify men to enhance the standing of the Church of God, and the glory of the Prince of Life is made to hang upon the transient fame of a man who shall die.

AW Tozer, The Pursuit of Man (Camp Hill: PA, Christian Publications Inc., 1950) 44.

Now I think it fully appropriate for athletes, politicians, business people to share openly and publically what God has done in their lives, the saving work of Jesus and how others can come to the same knowledge. I worked for years with Athletes in Action where we did just this sort of work with young athletes. Yet this is different than the placing of people on high pedestals upon which no person really belongs. Think just for a moment about this quote by the author of this article:

I think everyone is afraid to ask, but wouldn’t this be the ultimate testament to his religious faith?” And then I further wrote, “And if he wasn’t a virgin wouldn’t this at least prove that Tim Tebow has violated a Bible verse? Something that, to be honest, there is no evidence of thus far. Put it this way, if Tebow got shot and we all thought he was dead, and then he came back to life, wouldn’t you be convinced that Revelations was unspooling before your eyes?

Now I realize that he is using a bit of hyperbole here, and for the most part I agree with the authors admiration of Tebow’s integrity.  Yet it did provoke a question I have for both the media and for followers of Jesus who esteem the “perfect walk” of Tim Tebow: “How will the media, and Christian people, treat Tim Tebow when he screws up?” Years ago, I remember people throwing David Robinson under the bus for saying a bad word on the basketball court. Today’s star and Christian celebrity can be abandoned and left to be eaten by the naysaying dogs when sin rears its ugly head.

I reserve perfection for one person who lived on earth and that guy was God. I like it that Tebow walks the walk and I like it that he is saving his sexuality for the context of covenant marriage. It is what I want for my kids. I even like it that he has mad skills on the football field. I just hope there is “grace” for him if/when he messes up in life. For we all need forgiveness and grace…that is the point of the Christian gospel…not that we can be perfect at obeying every command in the Bible. I think Tim Tebow would agree.

Thoughts?

(HT- Mike Heffner for the link to the article)

Mawwiage, mawwiage...wove, true wove...

I am waiting for the day that a crazy young couple asks me to mimic that crazy preacher in Princess Bride at the opening of a wedding.  Not likely to happen, but I’ll go on record that I am more than willing to oblidge - would be funny.

On a more serious note I love weddings and I love marriage even more - it is God’s gracious gift to men and women as they travel through this world.  This weekend I enjoyed doing the wedding of my friends Shaun and Lesley - a great time celebrating the faithfulness of God in our lives and the gracious gift of the marriage covenant. 

Later this summer we’ll be looking at Marriage through the great lens of Scripture in Ephesians 5. I look forward to looking at this passage of our holy writings to see the beautiful living metaphor tha is the marriage covenant.  In a husband’s sacrificial servant love for his bride and a wife’s joyful submission and love for her husband we get a picture of Christ’s love for his church.  Though it is an ancient vision of marriage that many snub arrogant modern noses at, it is a beautiful dance that this much better than “the battle of the sexes” and randomly defined, throw away relationship we see in our culture today.

Anyway, true wove, is from God - not from romantic hearts saying things at a wedding.  The show of a wedding quickly fades into the reality of life together in a fallen world.  It is then that the love of God, the grace of God and the hope of God is the rock upon which marriage must be found.  The type of fare in chick flicks is awesome (yeah, I said it, you got a problem?) but it is vapid and blows away before fickle hormones and the daily torrents of life. 

Deepening love is founded on a covenant promise of the soul before God - other things called “Mawwiage” tend to blow away like chaff in the wind.  None of our marriages are immune to the challenges of sin, selfishness, vanity, unforgiveness, infidelity and hopelessness. Pray for marriage today - that no matter what others want to do with it - redefine it, slander it, throw it away - we would bring back some old school words to our marriages today: a promise of faithfulness til death do us part.

Western culture

Today, I read a quote of Justin Taylor’s blog from Malcom Muggeridge:

[I]t has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created

his own boredom out of his own affluence,
his own impotence out of his own erotomania,
his own vulnerability out of his own strength;

himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary, battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.

Nobody ever likes prophets…they tell the truth too often.  I think Muggeridge’s words will apply to Europe sooner than many realize.

Jesus or the Jesus of Dan Brown?

Rous Douthat of the NY Times has an excellent opinion piece about the shallowness of American Christianity as related to the preachy thriller novels written by one Dan Brown.  I’ll let you mosey on over to the Times to read (you have to login), but I will share the last paragraph:

For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.

Personally, I am keeping Jesus - the wide eyed, loving, fierce revolutionary God incarnate.  Dan Brown’s Jesus is boring to me…very tame, normal.  One wonders if the Jesus imagined today by many would even have been killed. Dan Brown’s conspiracy laden, action packed fiction is fun to read, but his theology and his Jesus are fiction of a much more yawnable variety.  His Jesus could never have changed the world - the real Jesus is still doing so today.

Here at the POCBlog, we highly recommend Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for Jesus…and Star Trek for a good adventure flick.

Bart Ehrman on Colbert

Bart Ehrman has a great way of rehashing 19th century biblical scholarship and making it sound scandalous and interesting to those in the news media.  But Stephen Colbert was not having it…

Ehrman and his ideas have been well answered recently by Darryl Bock/Daniel Wallace and Timothy Paul Jones. We reccomend these works.

Book Review - Unfashionable

 

 Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different
by Tullian Tchividjian (Author), Timothy Keller (Foreword)

When another new book came out talking about the issue of "Christians and Culture" I first wanted to yawn.  I read in this area quite a bit and did not think someone could improve on the good work being done by the likes of Os Guinness, Tim Keller, DA Carson, Nancy Pearcy, Cornelius Plantinga and even popular level authors like Mark Driscoll, Andy Crouch and Dick Staub. Being somewhat of a junkie in this area of study I went ahead and clicked the Amazon.com buttons and had Amazon Prime send Tullian Tchividjian's Unfashionable my way. I have been pleasantly surprised.

In many ways Tchividjian says little that is new in this discussion but what he does give us is a book that can be read by anyone.  So often Christ/Culture treatments can get lost in theory, making more arm chair quarterbacks than missional practitioners.  Tchividjian is a pastor, a guy who is shaping these ideas in a real community and it comes through loud and clear in this volume. 

The subtitle of the work gives his thesis right away: making a difference in the world by being different. Tchividjian's goal is both critical and constructive in this book.  He realizes that there are great perils for the church that chooses to mimic the world to the point that it simply IS the world.  He also realizes that the church must understand and know culture in order to be a resistance community within it.  Too often the church falls off a cliff in one direction or another becoming either worldly or absent among the people she is called to connect with the gospel. On page 81 he sums up well the difficulties of living as God's people in a world that is in rebellion with its maker:

We've found it easy, as Andy Crouch points out in his book Culture Making to condemn culture, critique culture and consume culture. All too often we are guilty of cocooning, combating or conforming.

Tchividjian seems to strive for the right balance. He advocates walking in the world as a peculiar, unfashionable people who are set apart as different even as we live among the various tribes of culture. 

Strengths

I found several things to my liking in reading Tchividjian's work.  First, it is very approachable and could be read by scholar, pastor or layperson. Furthermore, the book's division is very helpful and drew me into the work. He begins with a section entitled "The Call" which chronicles God's call on Christians to be different in the world.  He begins with his personal story of being a prodigal from a godly home who left the church for the party life on South Beach. His return was not because church was cool, but it was so different as to be compelling and attractive.  This brought me right into the work.  Following the autobiographical discussion was a treatment on how we need not to clamor to be so cool that we are no longer salt and light in the world.  His focus on this generations desire for transcendent reality and connecting with something bigger than the normal was helpful for me as we are forming a culture in the early days of a church plant.

The second part of the work, "The Commission", is also the most meaty and perhaps most controversial.  In this section Tchividjian, following many other thinkers, sees God's work through the church as comprising more than simply saving souls for heaven, but taking part in manifesting the Kingdom on earth. We sojourn to God's final consummating of all things building kingdom culture along the way. We are to participate in the cultural mandate to steward and rule creation and to manifest a Kingdom culture in the here and now. In no way does he mute a conversionist gospel that calls individual sinners to repent and find salvation in Jesus Christ. What he does advocate is calling the church, made up of these saved souls, to create and redeem culture in the time appointed for us. Some may find this difficult to see in the Bible (case in point is Tim Challies review of the same work) but I find it very much the story of the Bible.

1. God creates and give man stewardship and vice regency with him on the earth.  We are to populate and cultivate (See Genesis 1-2)
2. Our sin and rebellion brings curse on creation and the work of our hands...yet we are called to populate and create even after the fall, after the flood (See Genesis 9)
3. God's decree to redeem a people comes through his covenant promises, is culminated with Jesus and extends through his people bringing the gospel
4. God's church is a community that represents the good news of the Kingdom in space and time - it is to multiply and teach what Jesus taught to others - this includes working jobs, loving people, making babies and building new communities as God saves new people.
5. God will make all things new through Jesus in the end - the culmination of creation is a new heavens and new earth.

So I guess I am unsure of what Mr. Challies and others are objecting to when they say that creating culture or a cultural commission is lacking in the Bible. I don't see how Christianity can be lived otherwise. 

One note of warning. Though Tchividjian warns against it (see pages 62, 63) there are others in his tradition that have advocated, using some of the same Kingdom Now thinking, for theonomy. I am thankful that he actually deemphasises politics and only calls for cultural renewal through persuasion and never compulsion.  My fear is that sometimes the "bringing the Kingdom to earth" sort of thinking ends up relying on the work of woman and men rather than the final coming of Jesus.

Part 3 of the book that is simple entitle "The Community" and is a discussion of what a counter cultural community looks like. Drawing on Paul's letter to the Ephesians Tchividjian lays out how we are called to a different sort of life now.  We are teaching through Ephesians right now at our church and when we get to the second half of that book I will be rereading Tullian's observations and application of this epistle. 

Finally, Tchividjian provides a great bibliography/reading list for those interested in the discussion of Christ and Culture. All the usual suspects are there but having these in one place is a great blessing.  Furthermore, he cites works from diverse theological perspectives which is always a plus in this discussion. Case in point is that you find Timothy Keller and Stanley Hauerwas on the same list.  Now on to a very small weaknesses observed.

Weaknesses

To be honest, I liked the book and only noted one minor annoyance for me. On several occasions Tchividjian refers to the Bible as "a manual for life." Now I understand him to mean that the Scripture has guidance for everyday living but this metaphor can be a bit misleading to some and can lead to misuses of the Bible. The Bible is primarily a revelation of Jesus Christ, God's character and his work in redeeming all things. I have avoided "the Bible as manual" and "the Bible as playbook" in the past several years as it leads to Christians seeing it as a "how to book" rather than a book that reveals God, brings life and then calls us to live in wisdom in light of its teaching. My issue is with the choice of metaphor more so than how Tchividjian handles the Bible. 

Conclusion

Tullian Tchividjian has written a book that strikes a needed balance between punking out to being the "cool church" in the world and being an irrelevant enclave speaking to no-one but those within its own walls.  The book is not only a balanced treatment of Christians relating to culture, it will also be accessible to a broad audience. Though there are more meaty and scholarly treatments around, this volume is one I would hand to people in my church to see the holistic calling God has on our community.  We are to preach the gospel that saves sinners and then live as an inbreaking of a new Kingdom in the here and now.  This affects how we live, eat, work, play, study, think, recreate and create. The mandate God has on us is to make disciples - converts to Jesus Christ who learn from him and then participate in God's work until he comes again.  This means keeping the two hands of gospel proclamation (atoning work of Jesus that saves from sin, death and hell) and Kingdom demonstration (including shaping culture) alive and well in our midst.

Recommended...

Check out the Long Shots

 

Jon Copper and Dane Randolph are long shots to make the NFL - they were successful collegiate football players but are not ringers on draft day.  They are top level athletes with a shot, even if some see that shot as being a bit long. The Washington Post has asked these guys to blog a bit about their process in trying to make an NFL team.

Jon is a guy I have met through a mutual friend named Dave.  I like Dave, even though he showed me the difference between a college quarterback's arm and a 5 fot 7 inch high school quarterback arm in 1999. Dave was Mike Vick's backup at Virginia Tech, I was a the starting quarterback at Floyd E. Kellam High School - no comparison when we threw the pig skin around at an Athletes in Action picnic so long ago.  Jon and I have interacted some through email and I look forward to meeting him in person.

I think Jon is doing a great job with his blogging opportunity both in his witty writing and in taking opportunity to weave some gospel love into his posts. It is an art to saturate your life with the gospel yet not be the pushy, obnoxious religious guy.  Jon seems to have a great stride here and I wish him well in his NFL shot and his future beyond the gridiron.  Even though he went to UVA (an enemy of both UNC and Va Tech) I will be pulling for Jon in the coming days...then I am hoping he'll become a church planter, perhaps even come to Jersey to train for that season of life as well.

You can read the two Longshots' here: http://bit.ly/TTm7W

Weak Sauce Religion

A friend of mine sent me a quote this week that I finally tracked down in a piece by Ross Douthat on the Atlantic Monthly web site. The post is entitled "Theology has Consequences" and the discussion is about the "new religion" of America.  Some scholars, such as Christian Smith, have deemed the beliefs of many of Americas young people as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism."

Here are the central tenants of this point of view.  Perhaps we could call this the five pillars of niceness:

1. "A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth."

2. "God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions."

3. "The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself."

4. "God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem."

5. "Good people go to heaven when they die."

It really makes me want to watch Oprah, Joel Osteen and not think at all about human nature, hope and a God worthy of worship.  I might as well read those five things and start worshiping my own good self.  Hey, maybe that is the point.  The Douthat piece is worth your time...if you are not watching Oprah that is.