review: seeing things john's way

For those interested, my review of David deSilva's latest book is now posted online at Denver Journal.

Click Here

. . . and the decline of western civilization4

It is becoming clear that one of the factors leading to our culture's demise is our own inability to exist in proximity with one another in peace and comfort. Thus, I offer . . .

"Walking in Large Crowds and the Decline of Western Civilization"

Many times in my life I have noticed that people in crowds are often insufferable. I don't think that it is too difficult to figure out why, simply that it is an extension of who we have become being played out around the rest of us.

Have you ever noticed that wherever you try to work your way through a large gathering of people it quickly becomes a survival effort? You go with the flow and someone is walking directly at you, and you dodge at the last second to safety. Or you find people with no sense of the fact that other people are walking beside them, leading them to migrate into your path without ever knowing of your existence. Or you follow a moving line when someone sees something shiny on the ground and STOPS (smack dab in the middle of everything!) to admire it, leaving you to the pile up of human bodies lying in the wake.

The most extreme version of this I have encountered came one fateful November day in 2002, when trying to navigate the Frankfurt airport. Upon reaching the top of the escalator, many people would take the one-step-off and come to a complete stop in order to determine their next direction. Hello! Top of an escalator!! Keep the line moving!!!

So, what's up with all that? I believe it originates in the individual's inability to see the world as it exists outside of themselves. Now, this isn't meant to say that these folks have no concept of the world around them. They do. They have laptops and PDAs and cellphones and friends and interests in those shiny things on the ground. My point is that we have lost a sense that there are things (esp. people) around us even when they aren't presently affecting our existence at that moment. And that is where it is hard.

Even more problematic is that we have also made the inane decision to give most of these individuals a license to drive a motor vehicle. But that is for another day.

shall inherit

blessing as missional

There is a lot of talk going around church circles about being missional. That is the key concept for understanding the purpose of the people of God, and has now become a challenge issued to the way things have always been. It appears that the concepts of church are undergoing a radical transformation, and congregational life is in desperate need to adapt.

One approach within this way of thinking is to rethink the purpose of the people of God. What is God's project and how are we to participate in it? Of all of the answers that could be developed from this, one which has a particular influence on modern thinking is blessing.

Genesis 12 contains the first statement of the Abrahamic Covenant, where God promises land, seed and blessing. This is foundational to the covenant, which is then foundational to Israel. The third concept is stated thus in v 3, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." This statement can be taken a couple of ways, but one which we dare not miss is that it is a missional charge given to Abraham (and his 'seed') that they are expected to be proactive in blessing the world around them with God's presence. And then it is more of God's activity than ours when he takes over the blessing work.

There are numerous examples of missional blessing at which we could point, but consider Jesus' words in Matthew 5, where he gives the beatitudes. Each of these statements can be understood as a summons to proactive movement within God's missional work. It is interesting that the blessings which are promised here are not constrained to the 'right people' or 'church people' or even 'Jesus people' . . . but that they are promised to those whose lives demonstrate an active dependence upon God for their entire existence. And then the blessing appears. But, could we then think that this blessing would be heaped upon the individual without further benefit to creation? That would seem a bit counter-productive to the mission our God has initiated.

Compare this language with Luke 11:28, where Jesus gives a blessing on those who not only hear the word of God, but do it. Of first note, this is to say that knowledge is no guarantee of wisdom or godliness. Second, it is a charge that blessing is linked to the missional activity of living out God's Word into the world. Third, it reiterates the blessing motif in Scripture as a non-passive piece of God's mission.

Blessing is constant throughout Scripture and, as this incredibly brief survey of a few passages helps illustrate, is linked to the missional activity of God's people. We are called to be a people who bless the world by bringing God's presence into the lives of those around us. Through this we will remember that we are in the world are not part of the world, but are rather those who are to discover blessing in the washing of their robes in the blood of the Lamb (Rev 22:14) as the covenant kingdom finally and fully reaches its climax.

seeding

This week is our annual Brethren Church General Conference, and our plenary sessions have featured author and speaker, Reggie McNeal (not the football player, some other guy). He is laying down some strong challenges to the church, especially the failures of Western evangelicalism and its inability to converse with modern culture.

One statement which resonated well with me is that too often the church is trying to harvest a culture which hasn't been seeded yet. By this he intends to say that the church is looking at culture and expecting them to come and join us instead of being the salt and light into the culture, as we were told to be. Further, the church culture has put it in our minds that unless we are at the moment of saying the sinner's prayer with an individual, then we have not been engaged in evangelism.

I have encountered this personally: A number of years ago I was applying to various church positions and answering different forms and doctrinal statements when I came across one particular church which included 3 of 10 questions around the topic of How Many People Have You Personally Led to Christ? (under what circumstances, what are their names, are they still believers, etc). Wow. More adventures in missing-the-point I suppose.

The reality is that the church is not adequately engaging the culture around us. We have become Pharisaic (which I have been demonstrating in my post-series on Recovering Pharisees) in our actions and have been more content to separate completely out of culture - forgetting that we were supposed to remain in the world. This must change before the work of the church becomes completely lost on ourselves (and our attendance, buildings and cash).

This will require a radical shift in the way the church operates. Emergent does not have the answer to this, nor does it move us in the right direction. The church does not need another movement built on the promise of relevance and spiritual success. The church needs to relocate itself in the work of God's kingdom, which will move faster and accomplish more than we will ever be able to keep up with.

quote of the day

"The church doesn't have a mission; the mission has a church."

Reggie McNeal

church basement really awesome apocalyptic B movie festival: honorable mention

Because I have a special place in my heart for apocalypses, I am sole sponsor of the cbraaBmf. This disaster deserves an honorable mention . . .

whole church

Mel Lawrenz, Whole Church: Leading from Fragmentation to Engagement (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2009).

I am not accustomed to reading books on church leadership and church growth, as so many of them simply reduce the conversation to models intended to be replicated, overused analogy, and bumper-sticker-depth practical theology. As of now, I can say that I have made it through my third (#3!) complete reading of a church leadership book. And that statement alone is a stretch because the first one was more of a book about Jesus than it was about leadership, and the second was Swindoll's study of Nehemiah. So, in a sense, this is my first (#1) straight-up-church-leadership book. Woot. Woot.

Why this book? Why now? Simple. I attended a conference this past week and it was given to me for free. Even moreso, I flipped through a few pages and saw that the theme of moving from fragmentation to engagement, and realized how relevant this book was to me and the church at which I work. Truly, this leadership book must be an encounter of divine proportions. And, truth be told, I enjoyed the read - perhaps because of the conference at Elmbrook Church which introduced me to the congregation which Mel Lawrenz has been a part of for these past many years.

Churches of all sorts struggle with the issue of unity within the body, perhaps the most targeted area of our enemy. This book rests upon biblical truth and ministerial experience, and Mel is a good choice to have written it. His challenge is directed at church leadership, being sensitive to both the spiritual heritage of the faith and the modern relevance of the message. His opening lines, "I have never met a pastor or other church leader who said that he or she wanted to foster a partial or broken church. Churches are meant to be whole."

And yet the reality of fragmented church pervades the Christian experience in our day and age, for there is often more passionate pursuit of power and control than there is of Spirit.

This is a very practical-oriented and engaging book, which will appeal to a wide range of readers. With a wide range of examples, drawing from years of pastoral experience, the author is able to connect the need for whole churches to every conceivable situation of fragmentation our culture is facing. Yet, this does not cast a dark shadow over the message. Mel continues to be optimistic in the power of God's Spirit to bring about genuine change and lead to engagement.

Four areas of engagement form the centerpiece of the book: Engage with God, Engage with God's People, Engage with Your Community, Engage with the World. These areas of emphasis become foundational for the approach which the author advocates. At the end of each chapter are 25 suggestions for practical implication of the presented theories. Working through preparation to ongoing management, these steps help get the creative juices working for those involved in ministry leadership.

pretend quote

"To pretend homage to God and intend only the advantage to myself is rather to mock God than worship Him. When we believe we ought to be satisfied rather than God glorified, we set God below ourselves and imagine that He should submit His own honor to our advantage."

Steven Charnock Discourse IV “Practical Atheism”

george washington's sacred fire

Peter A. Lillback, George Washington's Sacred Fire (Bryn Mawr, PA: Providence Forum Press, 2006).

This past week I have worked through this tome of George Washington's faith, knowing that a book such as this would have a love-hate relationship among those who engage it. Why? Because it is the intersection of faith and politics (political history), and the two have become as oil and water in our current culture. However, God and country have not always held this wide distinction, and any discussion that we have regarding the Founders must certainly examine the role of their religious belief. Figuring out just how the two come together is the real issue.

There are many who have asserted (academically), and many who have accepted the premise (popularly) that George Washington, along with the rest of the Founders, were Deists. Although this is true, and easily verifiable, for some of them (e.g., Thomas Jefferson), such a sweeping historical statement refuses to hold water. And that is where Lillback's volume comes into the discussion.

At first blush it is an impressive book: 725 pages of text, 228 pages of appendices, and 198 pages of footnotes (the print of which strains the naked eye). The weight of this volume has no doubt already sent many curious readers heading the other direction. But this is part of the problem one will encounter when publishing within one's own organization. Lillback is the the president of Providence Forum, and thus probably did not receive an honest and challenging editorial process for his own work (Providence Forum Press should be concerned with other volumes being produced, which would have helped this book become more solid and would have helped clear the air of editorial bias and charges of self-publishing).

Indeed, the writing style of this book is often redundant and repetitive. Often the primary source material is presented two or three times as though it were unique. Those who would wish to challenge the book's credibility could easily point to this as an attempt to make the source material appear more abundant than it actually is. Further, such writing style is frustrating to the reader who quickly begins to gloss over and lose portions of the argument. Certainly, a more strenuous editorial process would have caught and challenged this disappointing aspect of the book.

In terms of content, the book does well at providing a good amount of source material which allows Washington to speak for himself when he can. The difficulty here is that Washington doesn't always speak for himself, and it becomes the role of historical scholarship to fill in the gaps with speculation - hopefully informed and responsible speculation. Lillback is no exception to this, although he perhaps could have demonstrated more scholarly humility in this fact. For as much as he charges other Washington scholars (most notably Boller and Flexner) for their theorization, he does not always accomplish a greater method.

My point in challenging Lillback is this: The argument he presents should have (and could have) been presented better, seeking a more sound case for the faith of George Washington. There are many points at which I think Lillback gets it right, and a few places where his assertions wear thin and are not supported by the evidence in front of us. Although I am a biblical scholar, I do know how to evaluate an argument, consider evidence and understand the historical method. Hence, I believe that my comments are justified here - there is a better case to be made.

Lillback succeeds in making the case for George Washington to be separated from the Deists. Simply, this can be done by setting him next to Hume and Jefferson and watching the worldviews quickly part ways. Many look to the context of the Age of Reason and dismiss the impact which it held on the entire world, even the church. I learned a long time ago that every age has its impact on the faith of those who live through it, and the Founders are more apt to look like Deists from our perspective than from their own. We are examining Christianity in conversation with the Age of Reason, a world that we do not experience.

The words and deeds that survive George Washington (along with the testimonies of those who knew him well) give us a strong probability that he was a Christian in his belief, though a few disappointing unanswered questions linger. Perhaps the strongest conclusion which Lillback makes is the founding of the United States as a whole, with a figure like George Washington leading the way: A nation with these values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, defined in the manner which the Founders have demonstrated in their own work could not have come about by people who believed that God was not present in the daily affairs of the world.

George Washington's words captured this often throughout his life as he demonstrated a strong faith in Divine Providence for the forging of this new nation. Overall, I recommend this book - even with its shortcomings and disappointments - to those who would be interested in understanding Washington's faith from the inside, as we see his own words exhibit a deeply rooted and embedded faith.

Part of his own words:

"You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are."