Of Jesus Camps, Dixie Chicks, Jerry Falwell, and the Pope

Lately, I have been stopped by the observation of how often Christians (and sometimes it is more accurate to place that title in quotation marks) misspeak, and cause mild to massive uproars. If it is not Pat Robertson and his misguided, bigotry-is-the-new-devotion attitude, then it is Pope Benedict XVI reading a point-of-view that probably could as well have been foregone. It is wearying that much of "mainstream Christianity" expression (which, sadly, is what most of what the secular world views as what Christianity is all cracked up to be) is spent either inserting or attempting to extract the proverbial foot from the mouth.

The latest, besides the Pope's pseudo-innocent blunder which enraged Muslims around the world, includes Jerry Falwell stating, in so many words, at a "Voter Value Summit" prayer breakfast, that Hillary Clinton would be worse for the U.S. as a president than Lucifer himself. Nice one, Jerry. Chalk up yet another point to your illustrious foot-in-mouth record.

As much as these incidents make me want to write, in bold letters, STOP SPEAKING FOR CHRISTIANS EVERYWHERE, YOU CLOSE-MINDED MORONS, AND LEARN TO SHUT UP AND SERVE PEOPLE, I have realized something even further: misspeaking is not reserved to media-friendly Christians, and looking like an idiot can come in a variety of ways. Take the Dixie Chicks, who are still trying to ride the wave of publicity that came from their anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-war comments in Great Britain some time ago (there is more I could write here, but a good friend has dealt with their lunacy already, and his thoughts are quite good). Or Bill O'Reilly, who makes idiotic statements just about every night. And Howard Dean doesn't fair much better. Mel Gibson, Danish cartoonists, Germaine Greer, Tom Cruise ... the list goes on and on and on.

But it seems "Christians" have a talent all our own when it comes to hating and claiming the things of this world. A new documentary is heading to theaters (it might even achieve a wide release) called Jesus Camp. Get ready for a storm of protests and praises, most of which will be misguided, I suspect. And then there is The Nativity Story, almost certain to be an assault on the mystery and innocent beauty of Advent, yet will probably become evangelicals' next lovechild (especially now that the high from The Passion of the Christ has worn off and Mel Gibson has moved from savior to bigot according to the media). Where and when will it end? And where do we, as Christians who are even afraid to claim that title anymore, run for refuge in a world that has forgotten humble, loving service of others for mass media proclamation and proselytization?

I have but one hope. It is that somewhere beneath all the noise and misspeak and bigotry and the claiming and pillaging of loyalties, there is a thread of peace and compassion and selflessness that runs steady through it all. In a world where too many churches have become dens of robbers, there might still be a community, however disjointed and disconnected, that seeks to be a "house of prayer." Amidst the chaos, there is a quiet hope that only a few of us might hear.

"Here on the New Jersey shoreline, in the greed and the glitter of those hi-tech casinos, some mendicants wander off to a cathedral, and they stoop in the silence and there their prayers are still whispered..." - Rich Mullins

"Enter through the narrow gate, for broad is the gate and wide is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it, but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." - Matthew 7:13-14

The Substance of Things Hoped For

When did confidence become synonymous with faith? At what point did a a person's belief in God hinge on how much he or she took at face value, and how little was questioned? Such a question has become almost like a riddle to me these days, as if the answer might come like a punchline, and I would have to nod, scratch my head, and mumble, "Ohhh..." when falls the answer.

As I have shared in earlier posts regarding my own journey in and through faith, I was once taught that Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is being sure of what he hope for and certain of what we do not see," could be translated by injecting the word "certain" in place of "hope," thus rendering the verse, "Now faith is being certain of what we are certain of and certain of what we do not see." In other words, with faith there are no questions, because if one is certain, one needs not seek clarification.

As is often the case, the NIV sits somewhere between a good translation and a bad one. The NASB works well, especially in the use of the word "conviction." And, as is often the case, the Contemporary English and Holman Christian Standard versions fail miserably in capturing the mystic nature and weight of this single verse. To test most of the translations, go here and have a ball.

It is the King James Version that wins the gold ribbon in my opinion. It reads, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Many who read this might shrug and mutter, "What's the difference?" Perhaps I am nit-picking diction, but this version of the verse frees me rather than binds me. I do not mean to imply that I'm trying to manipulate Scripture so that I might have it read the way I want it to. On the contrary, I mean only to rescue Scripture from a Western thought-process that seeks facts over story, definition over mystery.

In our society, in our culture, we desire answers. We want results. We need proof. We bank on reasons. This is a remarkably different mindset than the days of the Old Testament, and even the days of Jesus, where Hellenistic (Greek) culture was already washing across much of the civilized world. Mystery was accepted in OT time. Not all things needed proof. The facts of a story were not nearly as important as the story itself. This is why there is so much vengeance, lament, doubt, and challenging of God in the Psalms and the Prophets. People were not expected to shut up and take everything with no questions, no concerns, no emotion exhaled. Apologists will point to the reason for the forbidden tree in Eden being that God did not want humans to be puppets and therefore blessed us with free choice, but then they will try to boil the movement and existence of God down to provable facts. What kind of freedom of belief is that? I've got news for them (and all of us): it does not, and will never, work that way.

God dwells in mystery, and he does not condemn us when we do not understand, when we doubt, and when we question. He wants us to wrestle with him - why else would he stalk Jacob in the wilderness? He boomed at Job, not for his questions, but because his questions had left the realm of doubt and moved on into despair. And, in the end, that is what the opposite of faith is - despair. Not doubt.

So, let me wrestle with my God. Let me collide with him. Let me question his ways, and seek to understand the sobering truth: that I will never fully understand him. On the other side of these things lies the substance of things hoped for, true faith.

Barefoot Before the Cross

Today is quite a meaningful day in the Church Year, though, unfortunately, I fear the weight of it will pass most of us ignorant evangelicals by. It is a feast day in the liturgical calendar, and considered to be one of the greatest. Today is known as "The Feast of The Exaltation of the Holy Cross." It is a day of both solemn and joyous remembrance of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, exemplified by the symbol of the cross of crucifixion.

The following is copied from the Monastery of Christ in the Desert's website:

This feast, known as "The Triumph of the Holy Cross" or "the Exaltation of the Holy Cross" originated in the Western Church about the year 629. According to tradition, it was on this date that the Emperor Heraclius recovered the relics of the cross of Christ from the Persians who had taken them off in 614.

The story is told of the emperor carrying the Cross in procession, but when he reached the Holy Places in Jerusalem, he was unable to proceed further. The Patriarch Zachary, who was by his side, suggested that his imperial finery was not in agreement with the humbleness of Christ when he bore this cross to Calvary. The emperor is said to have changed to simple clothing, and going barefoot continued in procession and placed the Cross where it had been originally. The clergy and people venerated this cross and many miracles of healing were said to have occurred at that time...

This feast ... calls to us to participate in [Christ's] resurrection through the acceptance of the crosses of daily life.

It is a humbling image, that of Heraclius' lessening himself, striving to place himself on the same level of the obedient Lord. It is certainly something to remember, this humility of Jesus, and his "obedience to death, even death on a cross." I work only blocks away from several churches that seem to exalt themselves and their image higher than they even exalt God. The names of their ministries are fixed in sleek logo signs to their towering buildings, or flashed in catchy electronic images across their digital marquees. But rarely is there the image of a cross, or a holding out of Jesus, who is our perfect picture of humility first, exaltation second.

May you and I glory in the cross today, and its exaltation, which is such a strange thing to ascribe to an instrument of death. Even if you hesitate to believe in Jesus as a Savior, take joy nonetheless in the story of a humble man who became exalted, which goes against everything this world (and many of its churches) stands for. Quite a remarkable wonder indeed.

An Equilibrium of Dunces

With a move to a new city, assuming a new job, making new acquaintances/friends, and unloading oneself into a new living space, there is always the desire to mark this relocation with some level of lifechange. A change of behavior, a change of conduct, a change of mindset ... this, at least, is what I often seek to accomplish. In my never-ending quest to be genuine yet new in every season of life, I often find myself disappointed with how much my new position begins to immediately look very much like my old ones.

Why can't I change? A friend of mine, Myles, recently wrestled with the concept of transformation on his blog, and indeed, this is what I truly desire, I believe, at the heart of relocation. To transform and in so doing transcend my current surroundings - to stand above them, unfazed, yet pour this new, noble, genuine self into all that is around me.

A forced transformation is no transformation at all, but an indignantly-worn disguise of who I really am. Such a disguise is stressful, on one extreme, and on the other, the lows of realizing how little I have changed brings with it a much more melancholy stress.

It's dumb - plain ol' dumb - to try to force anything, mainly because we have been created a certain way, to be a certain kind of person, and the task is not to overcome who we are, but learn how to compromise who we are (even the rough, unpopular, unpristine edges of ourselves) with the world around us, no matter where we end up for however long. To attempt anything else is to be off-balance, off-kilter.

So let me be dumb if I am dumb, but not in the way that tries to pretend I'm not. Even as I grow and mature, let me be a bit of a dunce always nonetheless. Let me accept who I am and be taught that if who I am is good enough for God, it should certainly be good enough for me.

Faith Journey: Part Four

I appreciate those of you who have weathered the length and withstood the pretentiousness of the last three parts of this, the story of my journey through faith up to this point. There is both excitement and weariness within me as I realize how little of my life this story recounts, and how much may still be yet to come. There is no doubt, this life is hard, despite what Osteen and all his brethren may assure us. But there is indeed wonder glimmering through the cracks, potholes, and sharp edges of this road we shuffle down.

I promise to return to a more consistent blogging sense of mind following this final part of my story...

It was not until after I graduated from college and began serving as a missionary in New England that I reclaimed a measure of equilibrium. It was during a cold winter in Northboro, Massachusetts when I experienced the most poignant of subtle revelations (for there has never been an audible voice from Heaven as I once desperately desired, but only the subtle nudges of the God who does not adhere to our daily planners and formulaic self-help schedules). Still I feared I was years away from figuring out the structure of my life, from being pure and confident like those members of my childhood church standing up and singing with certainty. How could I preach salvation if I was not even confident of my own? I was conflicted about the wisdom of the mobilization board sending me out. I certainly did not feel like a capable missionary, and I wondered if my sponsors suspected this self-doubt. However, it was only while accepting the task to serve in student ministry programs that I finally found release from the tensions of my youth.

The answer to this agonizing question – the profound discovery of truth – settled before my eyes in the gentlest of ways. While clicking across the Internet one afternoon, bored and carrying around the normal, back-of-my-mind despondency, I came across a webpage that contained all the concert transcripts by one of my favorite musicians, the late Rich Mullins, a songwriter also hailed as a poet and a missionary. I began lazily reading through some of the stories and statements from his concerts, knowing that Mullins was notorious for being controversially honest, no matter the fallout. Then I read an anecdote Mullins told at one of his last concerts, a few weeks before his death, about the time a producer from a Christian cable television station called to investigate him because her show was considering inviting him as a guest. The woman proceeded to question him about when he “accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior.” Mullins replied that he was around three years of age, and the woman incredulously asked how this could have taken place. “Well, I was in Sunday School and we prayed, ‘Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come in today. Come in to stay. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus,’” Mullins sang. The woman told him that wasn’t what she meant, and asked him to clarify when he “knowingly” accepted Christ. When he told her he was probably a third grader at the time, she once again questioned him in disbelief, arguing that he couldn’t have possibly known then what he was praying. It was Mullin’s answer that shook the very foundations of the world I had fashioned around myself. He told the producer, “Lady, we never understand what we’re praying, and God, in his mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to his wisdom.”

Over the next few months, my moralistic and decisionistic view of God and salvation began to melt away from me like an ice sculpture set out beneath the blazing sun. Of course! Never have God’s movements or his emotional qualities hinged on my actions or my prayers. In the reality of God, no one on earth has complete understanding, and therefore, no one can truly know all the ramifications of their prayerful requests. If God is truly transcendent then nothing can deter him from his chosen purposes, not even the sheer tonnage of human sin and ignorance. And if God is truly immanent, then he “knows me better than I know myself,” as St. Augustine would agree, and I should not fear that God might be duped by prayers possibly derailed by a misguided emotion or desire.

I found confidence, finally, in letting go, rather than desperately trying to keep hold of every loose end of my life. Realizing that God communes with me solely according to his love and wisdom, rather than my vain strivings, I live in freedom. The stress of maintaining a well-checked gauge of moral compliance has vanished. I believe mercy is an integral characteristic of God, and is daily shown to me. To honor him, I resist temptation and sin, but even in my failure, I have faith that my behavior does not alter his love for me. This faith is not false, for it is grounded in God and not myself. It is certain, yes, but certain like a man who, though walking in the dark, whistles all the while. My literary hero, Frederick Buechner, writes in his book, Wishful Thinking, “Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. … Faith is not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway. A journey without maps.”

I recognize that there is struggle in this life. I have first hand experience that in life there are significant moments of confusion, of doubt, and separation. I suspect I will experience such times again and again. Nevertheless, I do not despair of my life. I believe that through even the difficult times, God brings laughter. He brings joy. I do not find my legs trembling to stand anymore, and no longer do I have to fake a smile.

Faith Journey: Part Three

The journey of faith goes on...

One of the first moments of illumination through the dusty murk of this crisis came halfway through my time in college. While working a part-time job at a Christian bookstore, on a whim I picked up a book entitled The Ragamuffin Gospel, a work by Brennan Manning, a former Catholic priest. The odd title inspired me to turn its pages. I credit this book as one of the most influential works I have read in my life up to this present time. Manning not only communicated the unconditional, endless nature of God’s love, but how his grace, impossible to earn, should revolutionize our entire life, not just prompt our moral obedience. God was not only to be recognized as Lord over my spiritual activities, but every aspect of my life, from the mundane to the magnificent. In words that have stayed with me since first reading the book, Manning expounds on Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s famous prayer:

Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe. Delight me to see how your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his, to the Father through the features of men’s faces. Each day enrapture me with your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all.

My spiritual wounds found a salve in these words, and I began to try to take delight in a life of religious simplicity. God was no longer furrowing his eyebrows as he studied my every good and bad act, but was joyfully supplying my life and breath. Most importantly, my self-centered view of God began to fade, though slowly. He grew larger than merely an immanent god – he became transcendent. He was the God of the Universe. The God of mighty deeds, yet still desiring relationship with those he created.

However, with this shift in theology came a new struggle. As I learned to embrace the grace of God – that he loves me as I am and not as I should be – I found it hard to reconcile God’s justice and forgiveness, especially concerning how, as a forgiven Christian, I was to avoid taking advantage of the grace given to me. My Christology was central; the death and resurrection of Jesus was the source of the salvation I claimed. But having prayed to God for ultimate forgiveness and having accepted this salvation, I felt as if I were treating God like a weak friend who cannot help but continually forgive his fair-weather pals no matter how many times they reject his friendship. My lack of confidence metamorphosed into a burden of guilt, heavy as a millstone, bending my entire body into weariness. Day after day, I recognized a desperate need for God’s grace mainly because I believed I was treating it as a license to lie, or to explode in anger, or to indulge in lust, or to put off praying. Surely, if I truly understood the gift of grace, I would not need it to the extent that I did. And so, as in my days as a teenager, I doubted my salvation. Surely a real Christian in my situation would have come to an understanding about how to live both obediently and effectively, growing beyond a need for so much grace. This road of life was as spastically up and down as an EKG, where from each mountaintop experience of grace I would plummet into valleys of guilt.

It was not until after I graduated from college and began serving as a missionary in New England that I reclaimed a measure of equilibrium. It was during a cold winter in Northboro, Massachusetts when I experienced the most poignant of subtle revelations ...

To be concluded...

One Book

I have been tagged by Myles Werntz, whom I respect greatly and whose blog is one of my favorites (see sidebar links to visit it), so without further adieu ...

One Book ...

... that changed my life: The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. Say what you want to about this book, and scoff at the bandwagon following that has grown with it (though I prefer to think of it as a grassroots movement of sorts), this book is extraordinary. I first read it my sophomore year in college, and then again right before I graduated. The message of God's relentless grace and love struck so deep a chord within my hollow soul that now, in recounting my faith journey, I almost always mention this book.

... that you'd want on a desert island: The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. Like Myles, I feel I would need a good anthology of sorts, and none would be better than O'Connor. I've loved her writing since first reading "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "Good Country People," and "Parker's Back," and just about every story I read of hers, I marvel at it's simple wonder and bone-crushing truth. I feel it wuld do well in keeping me occupied. Also, O'Connor once reinterpreted a famous Scripture verse that always assuages any self-consciousness I might feel: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."

... that made you laugh: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I have never attempted to quote another book so much, or annoy people by reading them so many passages. And I have never, ever, ever burst into boisterous laughter on an airplane, but for the time I was reading some of Douglas' passages lampooning theology and the existence of God.

... that made you cry: A tie between Peace Like a River by Leif Enger and A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I'm not much of a crier, and honestly, I wasn't blubbering at the end of Enger's delicately moving, astonishingly good story, but my eyes were misty, and I was full of sorrow that this book had a last page. The same is true for Irving's work. I was devastated to part with the character of Owen Meany, and the incomparable gusto with which he clung to faith in God.

... that you wish had been written: Barefoot Poet: An Autobiography by Rich Mullins. There is no other person other than Jesus himself whom I wish I could know the full story of their life. The biography/hagiography by James Bryan Smith is a phenomenal work, and filled with Mullin's wit and musings and brave, get-under-your-skin statements, but if only Rich himself had had the time to sit down and write about his life, from childhood in Indiana to ministry with the Navajo people in New Mexico, pouring out reflections with the same vigor and beauty with which he crafted his songs ... I believe such a book could have changed the world, if not at least the Church, if not at least me ...

... that you wish was never written: Left Behind by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim Lahaye (as well as all its brethren sequels). I read seven of the series before I finally wised up, and from book three or four on I was almost gagging at the massacre of literary craft these books are. Terribly written. Terrible story. Terrible theology. Flat characters. Predictable action. Stereotypical villains. The reader is beat over the head so much by genre fiction archetypes that he or she begins to lose brain cells. These books are, perhaps, one of the worst assaults on contemporary fiction, not to mention the Christian literary market (which was never very trustworthy in the fiction arena save a few talents). Beware the horrors of these works!

... that I wish I'd written: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. There truly are no words to describe this book, simply because each sentence is composed of the most perfect ones. To describe it would be to lessen it. To even write but a shadow of the way Robinson wrote her Pulitzer prize winner is to acheive a greater understanding of the craft as I will probably never know ... and I won't even attempt to discuss how magnificantly she captures small town religion and pastoral ministry.

... that you are currently reading: The Brothers K by David James Duncan. I'm only into the second or third chapter, so the jury is still very much out. However, I have a feeling this is going to be a very, very good one ...

... that you want to read: Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton. I just finished his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain which was my initial foray into Merton, and I loved it. So, now I'm hooked - I suppose I'll become a Mertonite like Dr. Talbert, Burt Burleson, and so many others who have quoted him to me. C'est la vie.

It occurs to me that at no point in these answers have I offered a book by my literary hero, Frederick Buechner. It must be noted that of all the books I have read by Mr. Buechner, I can substitue one of his for almost every category's answer. His expressions and stories are matchless.

So now I must tag, and I tag I shall:

Chris Moore
Janalee Shadburn
My beautiful girlfriend, Leigh (ha ha, you have to post again)
Josh Brewer (because he now has an active blog)
Grayson Goodman

Farewell, dear and loyal readers.