The Unnecessary Tragedy of Artists and the Church

Posted on May 7, 2013 by shel

I haven’t reposted an Internet Monk post/re-post for a while – THIS ONE however will break that streak.

Len Wilson: The Unnecessary Tragedy of Artists and the Church

Note from CM: A regular reader emailed me about an article that impressed him, encouraging me to consider it for IM. So I went to Len Wilson’s blog and was likewise stimulated by his words and insights. I have added Len’s site to our Blogroll, and recommend that you check it out. He introduces today’s piece by saying, “This post is a tribute to my friend Dr. Paul Bonneau and a call for the church universal to understand the soul of the artist. I wrote it in response to the news that he’d passed away.”

Thanks, Len, for this fine contribution, and the permission to use it.

* * *

The Unnecessary Tragedy of Artists and the Church
by Len Wilson

It’s these little things, they can pull you under.
Live your life filled with joy and wonder.
I always knew this altogether thunder
was lost in our little lives.
- REM

My desire to create a space in the church for artists took on a new meaning today. A friend and colleague from my former church has unexpectedly passed away.

Paul was a pan-seared spirit, a conductor and musician perhaps born out of time. He was a dapper dresser, quick with a compliment or a snarky comment at my choice of shirt or shoes. Once he picked a piece of lint off my shoulder and told me I was too nice looking a person to walk around with fuzz. Every week in our worship meeting, Paul sat in his corner chair with coffee, mostly quiet but quick to bellow at someone’s gallows humor. When pressed he would engage in conversations that poked below the surface of church life, such as the relationship of faith and doubt.

Like any artist, Paul believed in honesty. It scared some pastors and churchy folks, but fellow artists among our staff and volunteer cadre of worship planners valued his low filter for lies and stupidity. Though I don’t know this for sure, I think that Paul struggled with depression. If so, it was perhaps related to the fact that artists abhor truth dissonance, and often have a hard time living in the suspended chord that is the body of Christ.

Of course, our cynical age covers truth in a vacuous veneer of detached irony. Paul was brilliantly maddening for his insistence on naming the mockery of much of our attempts at playing church. He had perhaps the purest junk filter of any artist I’ve ever known. And this was his tragedy, because while many of us are artists who can’t afford unfiltered honesty, Paul could accept no alternative.

Dishonesty is a subset of ugliness, and ugliness is an affliction to the artist. Because sin is ugliness, an artist who follows Jesus lives a wounded life, yearning for connection to the wholeness and truth of a Holy God, yet disconnected by the darkness within. We are all saints and we are all sinners.

This potent mixture, this “outrageous humanity,” as Pat Conroy calls it, vexes the church. Consider the film release Don Miller’s biopic about searching for faith, Blue Like Jazz, which while in production received some complaints from church leaders. It seems that some find the ambiguity of a search for faith troubling.

To use Plato’s virtues as oversimplified categories, people who want to respond to art with argument are Truth types. They seek the resolution of a right answer. They’re convergent. Artists, or to use another platonic virtue, Beauty types, are comfortable with mystery. They are divergent. Paul did not need a final answer to know the truth of something.

The church tries to treat the artist’s affliction, and the need for honesty is indeed an affliction, with analysis and apologetics, which is like taking a laxative for a flesh wound. They’re different parts to the body.

Some Truth types fear that to acknowledge sin is to condone sin, never recognizing their fear perpetuates sin by creating a fortress around Jesus. Beauty types want to explore our humanity, and through it to find a deeper truth than a surface set of facts.

There are also Goodness types, who live between these two poles, more concerned with what is loving than what is correct. When Paul and I worked together at Trietsch, our worship team had a healthy mix of all three. One of the great moments that arose from our mix, and there were many, was the Sunday in worship we hosted Ron Hall and Denver Moore of the number one New York Times bestseller, Same Kind of Different As Me. The book recounts the true story of a wealthy art patron who befriended a homeless man, and the changed life each man discovered. That formerly homeless man, Denver Moore, gave a classic call to Goodness in our worship service when he said, “Churches in America are full of people studyin’. What we need is less studyin’ and more doin’.”

The church needs all three. We as people are built for all three.

Yet the church has traditionally served Truth types best, and Goodness types second best, and Beauty types the worst. For centuries, artists have been finding one another as refugees in a wilderness of systematic theological thinking. It’s easy to retreat behind a screen door mesh of doctrine and moral code. We in the church think we’re safe there, protected from profane elements. But of course the screen door not only fails to protect us but is invisible to those on the outside, who stand in the rain and look with dismissive incredulity through our porous arguments.

Beauty opens the screen door. It invites people in from the rain, but it’s dangerous, because it exposes us church people to the elements. We get wet. We are reminded of life, and for many of us, it’s painful. Beauty is powerful and threatening. Most in the church fear it. And as I mourn the passing of my friend and colleague, our ecclesial deficiency of Beauty has taken on an increased urgency.

My father, a retired pastor, is a Beauty, and is in many ways representative of our age. I sensed his undiagnosed introspection throughout my childhood. Most of the time he kept it hidden underneath a cloak of Truth and Goodness. The cloak fit him alright, but occasionally I saw him take it off. My father is not a pianist, and didn’t doodle or play much for fun. Yet every once in a while he would sit down at our upright and recall a story through Stardust, or I Left My Heart in San Francisco. When he played, I heard a different person, one that I didn’t know. If only for a few minutes, he opened his screen door. Growing up, I failed to understand what those songs meant. He played them with a melancholy that even today makes my heart ache. I never thought to question how someone who supposedly didn’t play the piano could play these two songs so wonderfully.

My father wrote. He completed multiple novels and sent them into some agents and publishing houses in big manila envelopes with SASEs tucked inside. After he received rejection letters, he put the keyboard away. Later, I asked him about the novels, and he said that he wasn’t sure what had happened to them.

He also painted. I have a couple of his prints hanging in my house. One is an oil of a rusted out shell of a pickup, abandoned in a field and partially obscured by tall grass and a broken wooden fence. Though unable to articulate any reason for it, I liked that painting in my room. Now I look at it and see an artist, abandoned in a field, never given wheels to find expression.

Dad was surrounded by a church culture of Truth and Goodness. He was never told it was good to be a Beauty. The most important voices in his life told him that to be a good Christian, he had to learn the proper Truth and do the proper Goodness. Such is a tragically disaffirming life, forced to operate by disingenuous virtues.

Of course, people have their own stories, apart from the systemic environment in which they live. Yet I wonder if this same dynamic affected Paul, and occurs en masse whenever the church stands between pillars of Truth and Goodness, forcing Beauty types to watch from afar.

It’s all about soul
It’s all about knowing what someone is feeling.
- Billy Joel

I do not aim to disaffirm the need for Truth and Goodness. We as God’s creatures and as the Body of Christ need all three. But modern, western culture values Truth above all others, while Goodness has had its moments and appears to be on a bit of a comeback. But Beauty runs a distant third, and has since the Reformers threw out the icons five hundred years ago.

Each of us is primarily one of these three virtues – Truth, Goodness, and Beauty – and secondarily one of the three as well. I am a Beauty, then a Truth. My wife is a Goodness, then a Beauty. Perhaps in this typology you see your own primary virtue.

Jesus has another way to refer for these virtues. When asked about the entirety of the Law, he condensed down 613 prescriptions into a stunning set of two simple expressions. The first acknowledges these virtues. When Jesus commands us to love the Lord our God with all of our mind, heart, and soul, he is affirming our need for Truth, Goodness and Beauty, all three.

While Truth and Goodness are doing just fine, the church needs to encourage experience and personal affect within the context of healthy spiritual growth. We in the Church are great at loving God with our mind. We have the ability to do great things for others with our heart. But we still don’t know what to do with our soul. This is tragic, because artists don’t have to live tortured lives.

I grieve my lost colleague and friend. The best way I know to honor Paul and other artists who suffer in and out of the church is to call for the church to learn to embrace Beauty.

UPDATE: I further explore the typology of Truth, Goodness and Beauty, and its relationship to personality, in the post Six Ways to Know Yourself and Others Better.

When The Pain Becomes Too Much To Bear

Posted on April 11, 2013 by shel

When The Pain Becomes Too Much To Bear

from internetmonk.com by Jeff Dunn

“Just the pain, the excruciating pain, was just too much.”

These were the words of a friend of Matthew Warren when he learned that Warren, the son of Rick and Kay Warren, took his own life last Friday. I know that pain all too well.

I have been honest with you about my battle with depression. It has not gotten any easier or better. And yes, sometimes the pain, the excruciating pain, just gets too much. I would much rather suffer physical pain than this emotional pain. Matthew Warren, a Christian who came from a loving home and had access to medical and spiritual help, could no longer bear his pain. Statistically, another American ended his/her own life seventeen minutes prior to Warren’s suicide, and another seventeen minutes after. Eighty six people in the United States take their own lives each day, while another 2,150 attempt to kill themselves. And this does not take into account all of those who walk through their days suffering from depression, feeling as if their soul is in a vice and their life is being slowly suffocated.

But statistics don’t feel pain, only people do. And mental illness does not avoid those who check the “Christian” box on their census forms. I guarandamntee you that at least one person in your pew or row at church this Sunday will be one who is suffering from depression or another mental illness. No matter the size of your congregation, chances are very good that at least one person in worship with you this Sunday has had suicidal thoughts in the last six months. And while we will gladly (and rightly) declare ourselves pro-life and take a stand for the unborn, we cower in ignorance and fear when confronted by someone who has emotional pain that could cause them to take their own life.

As to mental maladies, is any man altogether sane? Are we not all a little off the balance? C.H. Spurgeon

I really don’t want to join the growing chorus at this time saying that the church needs to do more for the mentally ill in their midst. Yes, that is true in a broad sense, but once again, the “church” is not going to be the one to help. It is the people who make up the church that must be God’s hand extended to those who are hurting. And these human hands are just that, human hands, imperfect and flawed and clueless. Yet it is these hands the Lord uses, or wants to use. So I want to address three people in this mess of life that involves pain so severe it can result in death.

First of all, pastors. You are not a leader, you are not a director, you are not a spokesman. You are a pastor, a shepherd. There is nothing, not one thing, that matters more than your sheep. Nothing. Forget everything else but the sheep in your care. Sheep get sick, and if you don’t care for them, they will die. Yet since you are most likely not a licensed counselor or medical professional, just how are you going to care for the sick sheep?

Certainly prayer. By all means, prayer. And helping them to know how God sees them is vital. For so many caught in the web of depression, the spider that is closing in on them is doubt and despair. Doubt that God cares, that he even knows who they are or that they are in agony. They may have seen God clearly for much of their lives, but now the clouds are so thick they wonder if he ever existed. Your job is to turn their eyes from themselves to God. This is not easy. It will take time and patience and tender fierceness.

More than anything, you just need to be there for them. Not just once or twice, and not just when you see the on Sundays. Go to them, even if they don’t want to see you. See them anyway. Sit with them. Listen to their stories. Stay. Be. Care. That is what a shepherd does. And you are a shepherd.

Next, laymen. You are just as useful to God in bringing healing as the shepherd is. Maybe more. After all, if my pastor were to come see me (which he hasn’t, but that is another story), I might think that he was just fulfilling his duty. But when my friend Mike calls to tell me he is coming over to watch baseball with me and bringing ice cream, I know it’s not because he is being paid to do so. It’s because he knows I am suffering and he wants to help bring healing. (When I told him I was feeling the effects of depression, he said he didn’t think it was depression, just a recession, and with any luck we’d get through it without anymore layoffs. I told him to shut up and pass the ice cream.) You won’t have to look very far to find someone suffering from depression in your workplace, your neighborhood, your school or your church. (And if you can’t find anyone, you can come be my friend.) And just like the commercials that say you don’t have to be perfect to be a Big Brother, just willing, the same goes here. You don’t have to be a medical professional or professional minister to give aid to one suffering from depression. You just have to be willing. I don’t want someone to come over and try to “fix” me. I just want friends who will love me and be with me.

I wrote earlier about how lousy Christians are at loving one another, even though that is the one mark Jesus said will identify us as his followers. I talked about how few people I have had who are willing to say “I love you” or just come be with me. This week I had breakfast with a friend who apologized for not being there for me, and said “I love you.” With him, that brings me up to a total of … three. Three people from my church who have said “I love you and will walk with you as you go through this.” I can count two or three other friends who also are there to encourage me (like Mike, who goes to a different church than I do, and my former coworker Smokey) and show me love. There are others, however, who, for whatever reason, don’t want to say “I love you” or cannot find time to just be with me. There are those who say, “If you are ever having a bad day, call me,” not understanding that someone in depression can’t even pick up the phone and call. So if you are going to be used of God to bring healing, you will have to do the calling. It will most likely be inconvenient and tedious to go sit with someone who is not the life of the party. Do it anyway.

Finally, the one who is depressed. You are sick, just as someone with diabetes or cancer is sick. You can’t just “get over it.” You need help. You need medical help. You need counseling. Both of these are necessary (and I am receiving help from my doctor and from a professional counselor). You also need spiritual help at this time, and that is going to be more difficult. If you have a true shepherd at your church, one who is willing to tend to sick and lost sheep (which, by definition, is all sheep), then count yourself among the fortunate few. If you attend a church with a leader or a celebrity or someone other than a pastor, you are going to have to look elsewhere. But do look. You don’t need someone who is a gifted speaker or a noted theologian. You need a patient listener who will help you to see through the clouds to the One who has never left you and never will leave you.

You may find it hard to keep going to church, to face those who smile and seemingly have no cares beyond beating the Presbyterians to Applebees for lunch. Forget them. Instead, find someone else who is hurting and give them a hug. You will know that one when you see him. He will look just like you.

Here are some additional essays/stories to read on this topic.

The Depression Epidemic

Spurgeon On Depression

The Boat In The Backyard (Michael Spencer)

“God’s operating system is TOC — the Theology of the Cross.” Whoa – Just read this very much the point of my sermon yesterday

Posted on September 24, 2012 by shel

Shel – Yesterday I introduced a new series on “Mapping the Bible”. Using the idea of a map to relate to how we should read the bible.

Sermon #1 – Getting Familiar with the Whole Sweep of the Map. Jesus and The NT authors tell us how to read it – the keys.

#2 – The Hebrew Bible – outline, problems of violence, and pitfalls of application.

#3 The New Testament/Covenant

Just as on a map there is a key/legend tell us what various items mean and represent and just as on the map there is an orientation print (often simply an arrow indicating North), we can relate these to the parts of the Bible that tell us how to read it and where it leads.

So we need to see the Bible as one level as a map leading to Jesus and when we go back over old territory – the Holy Spirit inspired and inspires us to follow the trail based on the destination of Jesus and the journey towards Jesus in various aspects of life and characters of the past (Map and story are always intertwined). The big “North” arrow is the Crucifixion, resurrection, life and teachings of Jesus.

We also talked about the various ways of understanding the map; inerrancy, infallibility, genre (I love the idea of inerrant poetry!), where fundamentalists get it very wrong, authority, The Living Word and the written Word – we worship Jesus, the Bible does not claim to be God – it is the ‘what’ more than the ‘why’ and ‘who’ – which are Jesus.

So imagine my surprise to read another kind of illustration relating to worship – as a kind of “reset” around Jesus and the cross. Enjoy:

God’s OS and the Church’s GUI

by Chaplain Mike

Today I’d like to riff on the primary illustration the pastor used in his sermon at the church I attended yesterday. The NT/Gospel texts for the day were:

James 3:13 – 4:3, 7-8a — where James decries the “envy and selfish ambition” leading to conflicts in the church, and commends to them the “wisdom from above” that “is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits…”
Mark 9:30-37 — in which Jesus again predicts his Passion, and then confronts the disciples for seeking to be first, setting a child in their midst and saying, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

He started his sermon by speaking of the new Apple iPhone 5, released earlier this week. Then he reviewed the history of Apple Computer, talking about when Steve Jobs toured Xerox and saw them doing work on a graphical user interface for computers (GUI). They were just experimenting, and chose not to pursue the idea, but Jobs “stole” the concept and went on to produce the Macintosh. The rest is history, and computer users all over the world today access their machines via icons and buttons rather than text and code.

The GUI is what you see when you look at the screen. It is also the means by which you relate to the computer — it is an interface. Now this is obviously the important part for those who work with computers. This is what’s on the surface, and it is this interface which enables us to do various tasks like word processing, spreadsheets, reports, graphic design, and so on.

However, the GUI is not the most fundamental part of the computer. Apart from the hardware itself, the heart of the computer is its Operating System (OS). Apple has its operating system OSX, Microsoft has Windows, some people use one called Linux. The OS is the “brain” of the computer. It consists of a collection of basic software that provides resources and services for the programs that run on the computer. Think of it as the control room that supports the programs and keeps them doing what they’re supposed to do.

Yesterday’s texts, I believe, reveal the fundamental OS of our Christian faith, and also show us the kind of GUI it is designed to run and what that interface should look like to the world.

God’s operating system is TOC — the Theology of the Cross.

The Gospel lesson from Mark makes this clear. Jesus was teaching his disciples that he would go to Jerusalem, be betrayed, then killed, and then be raised from the dead. The culmination of Jesus’ ministry would be his death and resurrection, what we call the “Passion” or “Cross-event.”

This would fulfill what the First Testament Scriptures anticipated — Jesus would die for our sins, be buried, and be raised to life according to the Scriptures (1Cor. 15). Through this self-giving act of love and by the power of God in the resurrection Jesus would be “identified as God’s Son with power” (Rom. 1:4) — that is, declared the rightful heir of David, Messianic King, and Lord of all. Jesus became King, accomplished our salvation, and inaugurated the New Creation via the Cross.

The Cross-event was the climax of Jesus’ ministry, but the Cross also informed every step of that ministry along the way. Jesus’ entire life was an act of self-giving love. Every action, every word sprang from the impulse to lay down his life that others might live. He continually suffered suspicion, opposition, and persecution because he took the risk of loving, speaking truth, welcoming those who were unwanted and unclean in society’s eyes, and confronting religious hypocrisy and hardness of heart. He served, therefore he suffered.

This, then, is at the heart of faith in Christ. The fundamental operating principle for those who are in Jesus is the Cross. This grounds and informs everything we are, everything we do. In every relationship, every encounter, the impulse that moves us, energizes us, and directs us is the dynamic of sacrificial love. What can I give that this person may have life? What does it matter that I may have to give something, lose something, suffer something in the process? When the Bible says that Jesus gave us his Spirit, it means that he installed this operating system within us.

Now, there is something else that must be said. Because of our flawed and less-than-adequate hardware, we know that God’s OS doesn’t always function as it should (just like on my computer!). That is why we come back to the sanctuary week after week and meet together to hear the Good News of forgiveness and to partake of the body and blood that nourishes us once more with God’s grace and mercy. Our operating system needs to be reset time and time and time again. And so we come back time and time and time again to the Cross and to our Risen Lord, who welcomes us, refreshes us in the Gospel, and sends us out again to walk in the way of the Cross.

And that leads me to say a few words about the Church’s GUI — our graphical user interface.

When we interact with people in our lives — our families, our neighbors, our coworkers — they don’t see the operating system. The OS is running beneath the surface, in the heart of our lives. What they see is what’s on the screen, as it were. They see the interface. They see and hear what we do, what we say, the attitudes we communicate, the priorities we maintain, and so on. They can tell if the operating system is properly controlling what’s on the screen or not.

Both the Gospel passage and the text from James show us what should and should not be showing up on the screen of our lives.

So, for example, in Mark, you have Jesus teaching his disciples about the theology of the cross, and then the next thing you know you hear them arguing and fighting for position among themselves. Each one wants to be first, each wants the trophy, the perks, the recognition. Something is wrong here. If the operating system is the theology of the Cross, the user interface should not be displaying pride and a lust for power and position. Jesus recognizes this, and does something to reset their operating system. He takes a child, puts that child — who in that culture was a nobody with no rights and privileges whatsoever — and says, “Hey look, here’s what the screen ought to look like. Forget about trying to gain accolades for yourself and start welcoming and serving little ones like this.”

A similar situation is seen in James, where the people in the congregation were fighting because of what he calls, “envy and selfish ambition.” Same kind of operating system error apparently — and it was showing up on the screens of their lives as conflict and disputes and trying to get the best of one another. So James says, “Your operating system is not working properly. It should not be displaying the errors I’m seeing. It needs to be reset so that it draws on the wisdom from above — which will lead you to display lives that are gentle, unselfish, and concerned about being at peace with one another.”

* * *

It is vitally important that we keep this distinction between the OS and the GUI in mind. Sins on the surface of our lives reflect that we need a “reset” in a deeper place. Selfishness on the screen betrays that the Cross is not being accessed as the controlling system of our lives.

Thank God that he welcomes back to “the shop” time and time again, and that the warranty never runs out.

Today We Visit the Liberal Circus

Posted on July 16, 2012 by shel

Internetmonk Repost – Shel Boese /Shelby Boese – for those who read my many re-posts and comments I had stop posting anything from the “new” internetmonk for some time primarily because he does not understand pentecostal/renewalist theology, movements and nuance at all and continues to put forward the abuses and straw-men as the “norm.” (let alone has any awareness of the charismatic renewal within the Lutheran tradition he now embraces). But this was a good compilation and so I re-post:

Today We Visit the Liberal Circus 16JULby Chaplain Mike http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/today-we-visit-the-liberal-circus

One of the main acts in American Christianity’s liberal version of the “circus” — the Episcopal Church USA — completed its triennial General Convention here in Indianapolis last week and, as usual, created a lot of conversation. You can read a summary of the General Convention and the decisions they made HERE, but here are a few highlights:

A quarter of the nearly 400 resolutions involved structure, governance, and administration, designed to help the church continue to transition into the 21st century.
In one of its more controversial moves, the convention authorized provisional use of a rite for blessing same-gender unions.
In another well-publicized decision, the convention approved two resolutions that offer support for the transgender community. One makes clear that the ordination discernment process is open to them, and another guarantees their equal place in the life, worship and governance of the church.
In a move that some call ironic, the church approved moving out of the Episcopal Church Center Headquarters in New York City for budgetary reasons. This took place in the context of the church’s actions in recent years, going to court to retain many church properties of congregations that seceded from the denomination.

Several articles have sprung up around the web, commenting on the week’s activities. Here are a few, obviously critical of the direction TEC is taking.

Michael Bird said it was Not a Good Week to Be Episcopalian
Rob Kerby states his opinions about Why the Episcopal Church is Near Collapse
In the Wall Street Journal, Jay Akasie asks, What Ails the Episcopalians?

Three other pieces captured my attention, because together, they form a conversation, one I invite our iMonk readers to join today.

The first is an editorial in the NY Times by Ross Douthat called, Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?

Douthat calls The Episcopal Church USA one of the “most self-consciously progressive Christian bodies in the United States,” and notes, “It still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.”

In his most critical statement, he says bluntly, “Today, by contrast, the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism.”

Douthat, who also argues that conservative Christianity has been damaged by compromise with contemporary American culture, though in much different ways, offers a well-known conservative analysis of the situation.

This decline is the latest chapter in a story dating to the 1960s. The trends unleashed in that era — not only the sexual revolution, but also consumerism and materialism, multiculturalism and relativism — threw all of American Christianity into crisis, and ushered in decades of debate over how to keep the nation’s churches relevant and vital.

…But if conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed. Practically every denomination — Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian — that has tried to adapt itself to contemporary liberal values has seen an Episcopal-style plunge in church attendance. Within the Catholic Church, too, the most progressive-minded religious orders have often failed to generate the vocations necessary to sustain themselves.

For all his doomsday predicting, however, Douthat expresses hope for a better future for more progressive forms of Christianity. He quotes an excellent study by Gary Dorrien that gives an overview of the development of American Liberal Christianity. Dorrien writes:

For millions of liberal Protestants and progressive Catholics the church remains a spiritual home, a community of fellowship, and the place where they live out their idealism. For them the church remains distinctive for its capacity to inspire community and a sense of transcendent good. The idea of a liberal third way between authority-based orthodoxies and secular disbelief has no less relevance or coherence in the 21st century than it held one hundred years ago.

…To put it bluntly, liberal theology has broken beyond its academic base only when it speaks with spiritual conviction about God’s holy and gracious presence, the way of Christ, and the transformative mission of Christianity. That is not how a great deal of liberal theology has spoken over the past generation, to the detriment of liberal theology as a whole. In the past a spiritually vital evangelical liberalism sustained religious communities that supported the entire liberal movement. What would the social gospel movement have been without its gospel-centered preaching and theology? What would the Civil Rights movement have been without its gospel-centered belief in the sacredness of personality and the divine good?

When the social gospelers spoke of the authority of Christian experience, they took for granted their own deep grounding in Bible study, family devotions, personal prayer, and worship. Today the loss of the transcendental, biblical voice in liberal theology is one important reason that much of it gets little notice. Liberals often show more concern about the postmodern status of their perspective than about the relationship of their perspective to gospel faith.

In this light, Ross Douthat wishes that liberal Christianity will rediscover a “religious reason for its own existence.” He does not see evidence of that in the recent General Convention of The Episcopal Church USA.

* * *

Diana Butler Bass thinks Douthat is asking the wrong question, and so she wrote a piece in Huffington Post called, Can Christianity Be Saved? A Response to Ross Douthat.

Bass has never bought the narrative put forth by conservatives, and wrote a book to make a different case: Christianity for the Rest of Us. She reiterates her perspective in yesterday’s HP article:

His argument, however, is neither particularly original nor true. It follows a thesis first set out in a 1972 book, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing by Dean Kelley. Drawing on Kelley’s argument, Douthat believes that in the 1960s liberal Christianity overly accommodated to the culture and loosened its ties to tradition. This rendered the church irrelevant and led to a membership hemorrhage. Over the years, critics of liberal churches used numerical decline not only as a sign of churchgoer dissatisfaction but of divine displeasure. To those who subscribe to Kelley’s analysis, liberal Christianity long ago lost its soul–and the state of Protestant denominations is a theological morality tale confirmed by dwindling attendance.

Diana Butler Bass thinks this misses the bigger picture. Noting that “decline is not exclusive to the Episcopal Church, nor to liberal denominations–it is a reality facing the whole of American Christianity,” her interpretation is that “decline only means, as Gallup pointed out in a just-released survey, that Americans have lost confidence in all forms of institutional religion.”

For Bass, then, “The real question is not ‘Can liberal Christianity be saved?’ The real question is: Can Christianity be saved?” Her answer is an unabashed “yes.”

Indeed, I think that the better story of contemporary Christianity is that of an awakening of a more open, more inclusive, more spiritually vital faith is roiling and I argue for that in my recent book, Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening.

She joins others, like Phyllis Tickle (The Great Emergence), in suggesting that we may be at some kind of turning point in the history of Christianity. In conjunction with western culture’s transformation from Enlightenment modernism to postmodern thought and sensibilities, churches of all kinds are facing institutional decline, questioning at the foundations, and decreasing influence in their communities. In her book, Bass chronicles her growing understanding that

…inherited religious identities like “Protestant,” “Catholic,” and “Jewish,” were in a state of flux in the United States, that actual attendance at weekly religious services is significantly down, that people mix and switch religions more easily than in the past, that traditional religious institutions are in a sustained decline, and that even general belief in God has eroded over the last thirty years.

Many individual congregations may be successful, yes. But the overall picture for religious life in the United States is not terribly encouraging, especially for Christians.

(Can you say, The Coming Evangelical Collapse?)

In spite of the current trends, Diana Butler Bass remains confident that this “death” will result in a “resurrection” to new and even more vibrant forms of Christian faith in the future. How we face what’s happening is not just a matter for folks like the Episcopalians, but for all who bear the name Christian.

* * *

The third article in this conversation was written by James McGrath. He comes back at Ross Douthat a bit more strongly, entitling his article, Can Non-Liberal Christianity Be Saved?

Like Bass, he has little confidence that “conservatism gives churches more staying power,” and he likewise notes the data that indicate they are declining right alongside their more progressive brethren. He disagrees with Douthat that liberal churches need to become more conservative to survive; in fact, he is clear about his opinion that the conservatives have been on the wrong side of history with regard to a plethora of issues, and still keep getting it wrong over and over again. Furthermore, it is their very conservatism that has been the problem, so how can it be an answer going forward? In addition, he decries the charges made by conservative Christians that those in more liberal traditions represent “a half-hearted, half-baked mixture of the traditional and the cultural, which does justice to neither,” and throws this counter-punch:“Those who claim to be ‘Biblical Christians’ are more prone than anyone to conflate their culture’s values (not all of them, to be sure, but many) with ‘what the Bible says.’”

Rather than seeing conservatism as the answer, James McGrath envisions a “big tent” Christianity in which respectful conversations can take place between those who disagree:

Douthat suggests that there can be a future for liberal Christianity, but it has to be one that sees renewed passion for conservative theology. I disagree – although I realize that only time can tell which of us was right. I think that a church which can embrace those who are theologically conservative, but also those who are theologically liberal, and become passionate about creating conversation between those who disagree, and passionate about the quest rather than adopting a particular stance reflecting a particular stage on the journey. We could even call ourselves “Evangelical Liberals.” We have a good news that we are passionate about proclaiming, and it isn’t about doctrines assent to which allegedly provides eternal fire insurance. Our core liberal convictions should lead us to stand on the front lines against injustice, and create meeting places where passion for our spiritual journeys is fostered, rather than a narrow conservative version which seeks to persuade people that they have already arrived if they just assent with all their heart to a creed or to four spiritual laws or to a particular doctrine of the atonement.

At any rate, he sees both traditions of Christianity continuing. The main question is, which forms will take center stage? Which will lead the way forward?

Eight Traits of a Responsible Ministry – A Tweak of Pope Piper’s “Masculine Ministry” by Chaplain Mike

Posted on February 6, 2012 by shel

Shel Boese / Shelby Boese – the Neo-Reformed-Fundamentalists NeRFs (aka Latter Day Border-Line Gnostics: LDGs) [This is my terminology in process] get it sort-of, kind-of right. Caplain Mike has a great tweak of John Piper’s “Masculine Ministry”.

[ I mean it in love, ya know like super-masculine Han’s Solo, being called a nerf-herder…Neo-Reformed-Fundes: NeRFs! Or the LDGs for the really extreme ones that cannot admit the Christian tent includes Arminians &Wesleyans (as Evangelicals), Catholics, Eastern Orthodox – because they have not seen the great reformed light or special revelation of the knowledge of the true “Gospel” like Smith and Moroni – Hence LDGs for the even more holy and hardcore NeRFs.

Why I LOVE the Christian & MIssionary Alliance – at least on paper – we let the debate rip between these camps and still welcome you – as long as you are willing to center on the work of sharing Jesus as Savior (fully human and divine) for all people. That means the NeRFs who become LDGs are problematic for the unity of the church around Jesus Only/The Trinity and God’s Mission.

Theological comedy OK back to work, back to work.

Eight Traits of a Responsible Ministry by Chaplain Mike

Eight Traits of a Masculine Ministry (John Piper)

1. A masculine ministry believes that it is more fitting that men take the lash of criticism that must come in a public ministry, than to unnecessarily expose women to this assault.

2. A masculine ministry seizes on full-orbed, biblical doctrine with a view to teaching it to the church and pressing it with courage into the lives of the people.

3. A masculine ministry brings out the more rugged aspects of the Christian life and presses them on the conscience of the church with a demeanor that accords with their proportion in Scripture.

4. A masculine ministry takes up heavy and painful realities in the Bible, and puts them forward to those who may not want to hear them.

5. A masculine ministry heralds the truth of Scripture, with urgency and forcefulness and penetrating conviction, to the world and in the regular worship services of the church.

6. A masculine ministry welcomes the challenges and costs of strong, courageous leadership without complaint or self-pity with a view to putting in place principles and structures and plans and people to carry a whole church into joyful fruitfulness.

7. A masculine ministry publicly and privately advocates for the vital and manifold ministries of women in the life and mission of the church.

8. A masculine ministry models for the church the protection, nourishing, and cherishing of a wife and children as part of the high calling of leadership.

• • •

Change a word here and there, and what Piper says makes sense to me.

Eight Traits of a Responsible Ministry (Chaplain Mike)

1. A RESPONSIBLE ministry believes that it is more fitting that LEADERS take the lash of criticism that must come in a public ministry, than to unnecessarily expose CHURCH MEMBERS to this assault.

2. A RESPONSIBLE ministry seizes on full-orbed, biblical doctrine with a view to teaching it to the church and pressing it with courage into the lives of the people.

3. A RESPONSIBLE ministry brings out the more rugged aspects of the Christian life and presses them on the conscience of the church with a demeanor that accords with their proportion in Scripture.

4. A RESPONSIBLE ministry takes up heavy and painful realities in the Bible, and puts them forward to those who may not want to hear them.

5. A RESPONSIBLE ministry heralds the truth of Scripture, with urgency and forcefulness and penetrating conviction, to the world and in the regular worship services of the church.

6. A RESPONSIBLE ministry welcomes the challenges and costs of strong, courageous leadership without complaint or self-pity with a view to putting in place principles and structures and plans and people to carry a whole church into joyful fruitfulness.

7. A RESPONSIBLE ministry publicly and privately advocates for the vital and manifold ministries of ALL BELIEVERS in the life and mission of the church.

8. A RESPONSIBLE ministry models for the church the protection, nourishing, and cherishing of ONE ANOTHER as part of the high calling of leadership.

• • •

Folks, in spite of what Dr. Piper and his folks assert, all of this has nothing to do withmale and female distinctions. It has everything to do with responsible love. It has to do with moving toward maturity and living our lives as faithful adults in Christ. Men and women alike.

I know many are concerned about the demographic of young men today that seem to be having a hard time growing up. But if young men are failing to move past adolescence and embrace responsibility, we do not need to challenge them to be more “masculine” or “manly.” We should be admonishing them to grow up, to become adults, to move toward maturity, dutiful living, and the kind of love that lays itself down for others. All believers, male and female, are called to seek this maturity and encourage others in its pursuit. Hierarchy should not enter into the discussion when examining the principles Piper sets forth. And as far as church leadership goes, I don’t see that any of the principles he is advancing involve the special domain of man and “masculinity.” Women church leaders are equally responsible to promote the eight traits he names.

Piper and others who are elevating male/female distinctions in our day not only have an insufficient view of gender but, perhaps even more importantly, an inadequate ecclesiology. They should be encouraging young men (and all of us) to become mature adults and like Christ within a healthy Spirit-filled community in which all are called to submit to one another and honor one another. Instead, in the name of “masculinity,” they single out men and assign qualities to them exclusively that belong to the entire church. This leads to all kinds of adventures in missing the point.

No sir, God did not give Christianity “a masculine feel.”

He gave it the quality of responsible love. For everybody.

For those who see God in creation and science…

Posted on January 3, 2012 by shel

Paul Wallace Says, “Intelligent Design Is Dead” from internetmonk.com by Chaplain Mike

Johannes Kepler

“Because ID is established in scientific ignorance, it cannot last. It is passing even now.”

• Paul Wallace

• • •

In an article on the Huffington Post, Paul Wallace has stated his agreement with those who declare that the Intelligent Design movement is dead. But rather than list and explain the scientific reasons for this position, Wallace instead goes back to fundamental principles, giving readers a history lesson that speaks to the relationship between faith and science.

He takes us back to the 1600′s when Johannes Kepler was working on his theories of astronomy. One day, he came across a new star that had appeared, and in his 1606 work, De stella nova, he sought to understand how such an event could have happened. As he considered various possibilities, Kepler set forth the possibility that God had created the star in a special act of divine intervention.

He began to consider special creation: a deliberate, separate act of God unconnected with any other natural event, direct and special tinkering by the divine hand. But in the end he withdrew from that conclusion, writing “before we come to [special] creation, which puts an end to all discussion, I think we should try everything else.”

Why did Kepler reject supernatural creation as an explanation? Not because he had a small view of God, or was predisposed against divine intervention in the universe. He did not view creation as a closed system in which God could not tinker. Rather, it was because he held a conviction that God had created a comprehensible universe and made human beings in his image who were capable of discovering creation’s design. He believed there must be an explanation, though he could not name it at the time.

As Wallace notes, Kepler’s fundamental axiom was: The universe has been designed; therefore it must be comprehensible.

He contrasts this with the work of Michael Behe and other purveyors of Intelligent Design. When examining the complexity of the bacterial flagellum, Behe came to the conclusion that it was irreducibly complex, and therefore must have been specially designed.

As Wallace observes, Behe turned Kepler’s fundamental axiom on its head: The universe is incomprehensible; therefore it must have been designed.

In other words, Behe and the other proponents of ID have chosen an approach that puts an end to further inquiry and discussion by inserting a special act of God at a point where we do not yet have understanding.

Wallace points out how contrary this is to the spirit of Kepler and other scientists for whom the rationality of the created universe prompted never-ending curiosity and perseverance in the scientific enterprise.

Looking upon the new star in September 1604, could Kepler have envisioned stellar evolution, mass-transfer binary stars, and explosive carbon fusion? No, and so he remained silent. His humility, his belief in the richness of creation, and his expansive faith allowed him to admit ignorance while leaving the door of causal science wide open.

ID denies its proponents that freedom. Having opted to close the door on science, they steal from themselves the opportunity to see nature more deeply. In so doing they dig in their heels, refusing to be drawn, Kepler-style, closer to the creator God they all believe in. This is the great irony of ID.

Out of reverence for God, people of faith and science will reject any approach to comprehending the natural world that closes the door on further inquiry and discovery. Learning more about creation can only increase our appreciation for the infinite wisdom of our Creator. As we grow in our understanding, it will certainly pose challenges with regard to treasured interpretations and “certainties” that we have embraced in the past. It will require diligence, patience, generosity, and trust to work through the questions that will be raised. We must not bow to fear as our ruling principle or merely substitute God as a convenient answer when none is immediately at hand. Ignorance is no crime, and saying, “I don’t know yet, and maybe I never will” is not something from which to shrink. But to keep learning and trying to learn is a way of loving God.

As Paul Wallace reminds us:

Kepler reminds us that religious people do not need to shrink from science and its naturalistic methods, because they more than others have a rich tradition in which to locate these things, a context that allows them to take science seriously but not too seriously, and a strong bulwark against the lull of materialism.

“Lego” Bible too Graphic for Sam’s Club Parents by Chaplain Mike

Posted on November 28, 2011 by shel

“Lego” Bible too Graphic for Sam’s Club Parents by Chaplain Mike

David Dancing in His Skivvies

I never saw our kids do this with Legos. Maybe I was naive.

According to an article in the Christian Post, “Sam’s Club stores are no longer selling The Brick Bible: A New Spin on The Old Testament, which tells Bible stories through 1,400 images of toy Lego pieces, after ‘numerous concerns’ were received about some of the book’s content.”

Sam’s Clubs stores said they were responding to complaints from parents who found many of the Lego depictions of Bible stories objectionable. The Lego dioramas in the book portray nudity, sex, and violence (well, Lego nudity, sex, and violence) that many find too graphic for children.

The book’s illustrator, Brendan Powell Smith, says he was not necessarily creating a book for young children, despite the use of Lego blocks. “From the start, my goal was to create an illustrated Bible that stood out from all others – not just because it was illustrated in LEGO, but because I would be using only direct quotes of scripture to retell the stories just as the Bible tells them. I also endeavored not to water down the stories or censor them for content. If it was in the Bible, my thinking was, it was worth illustrating. That decision has meant, though, that not everyone considers The Brick Testament appropriate for all children, since the Bible is chock full of graphic violence throughout, and contains a few stories with sexual content.”

Adam & Eve Doing What Lego Couples Do

He has stated he thinks it should be up to parents whether or not they share The Brick Bible with their children.

Smith also claims that his publisher offered to remove any sexual illustrations from the book at the request of representatives from Sam’s Club and Walmart.

You can view the illustrations and access books, posters, and other materials that use his Lego art at “The Brick Testament”.

[Psst...Wait 'til you see Bathsheba. Va va va voom! Hottest Lego chick I've seen.]

There is a clear content notice on the site that reads:

- CONTENT NOTICE -

The Bible contains material some may consider morally objectionable and/or inappropriate for children. These labels identify stories containing:

= nudity = sexual content = violence = cursing

Question: Why don’t publishers post the same notice on the covers of regular print Bibles?

Christ-less Preaching Repost from Internet Monk

Posted on October 23, 2011 by shel

Shel Boese/ Shelby Boese – this garners a great big Amen! from me – EXCEPT the neo-reformed gushing towards the end. Some of the neo-reformed movement are simply dressed up fundamentalists or even “Gnostic-Jesus gospel” types – I am much less optimistic that Jesus of the NT and rooted in Hebraic thought is being reclaimed by that crowd in whole.

However in our community this Christ-less preaching does indeed concern me. OT narrative preaching for political purposes/civil religion Jesus is also an issue.

God help us all to run to Your son Jesus, bridge people to Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen

iMonk Classic: On Christ-less Preaching 22 OCTby iMonk

Is this a joke?

I’ve just heard yet another sermon that never mentioned Jesus anywhere or in any way. No, no, it’s not an oddity or anywhere close to the first time. I’ll estimate that in the last five years I’ve heard at least fifty sermons that totally omitted any mention of Jesus, and many more where there was no real reason for Jesus to be included. Sermons that could have been preached by Jews, Mormons, even Muslims in some cases, without any real changes. Sermons preached by ordained, and often, educated, Baptist ministers.

What’s up with this? Is this another “Internet Monk Straw Man Award”, or is this really happening, right in front of us?

At first, I thought it was the occasional oversight. Anyone can have a bad sermon. I’ve had volumes of them. Then I wrote it off to a focus on the Older Testament. Some preachers love the Old Testament and can easily, in their enthusiasm for the text, neglect connecting their message to the new covenant. Lately, I’ve considered the possibility there was a method to the madness. Maybe the idea was to NOT talk about Jesus, and then pull him out for the big answer to all the questions you’ve raised. Or something like that. All these theories, were, ultimately, wrong.

Now I’ve concluded that Jesus just didn’t make the cut. It wasn’t an accident or a mistake or trying to be sly with all those pesky post-moderns. It was worse than I thought: Jesus wasn’t needed, so he didn’t make an appearance. It was Christless preaching on purpose.

What is going on? And why is it happening? Let’s start with observing the kinds of sermons I’m discussing, and how Jesus is a no-show.

Sermons based entirely on Old Testament stories. The Christian Bible is the whole Bible, Old and New. All those Old Testament stories are our stories, too. Paul uses Abraham as the great example of Christian faith, not one of the apostles. We want our children to know these stories, and to know the truth in every story from Adam, to Elijah to Esther.

But can we preach these Old Testament stories Christianly without any mention of Jesus? If we do, we are preaching truth, but we aren’t preaching Gospel truth. Our preaching may be practical, full of lessons and wisdom, but it will be absent the Gospel.

Many of the sermons I am hearing are Old Testament lessons, told well and used as examples of truths that are repeated in the New Testament. But without the context of the Gospel, such sermons send an alarming message about the value of those lessons, and an even more distressing message about the point of the Christian life.

For example, Jonah’s decision to obey God is a true story with evident value, but how do resolutions to stop running and begin obeying fit into the Gospel? It’s not generic obedience or generic repentance that matter, but the obedience of Jesus and repentance from any way of thinking and living that ignores Jesus as the Final Word and the treasure. I need to be saved, not just see the better way.

Sermons that teach lessons and principles. There has been an increasing trend in evangelical Christianity to preach practically; to teach “life principles.” This kind of “coaching” from the pulpit is extremely popular, and many Christians value such practical teaching as “something I can use on Monday.” The megachurch movement in evangelicalism relies heavily on this approach to the sermon. Often it’s called “Powerpoint” preaching, because the inumeration of principles and lessons fits well into the visual technology used in those churches.

Such practical teaching fills churches and bookstores. It is obviously helpful to many people, and appeals in some cases where traditional preaching doesn’t. It also produces a good bit of the Christless preaching that I am describing. It is possible to preach on many things in the Bible, drawing out “life principles,” without bringing Jesus anywhere into the picture or the message.

Scholars have long recognized the difference between “kerygma” and “didache” (proclamation and teaching) in the New Testament, but they also recognized that Jesus was essential to both. The Gospel message–everywhere it occurs–is a proclamation/application of who Jesus is and a proclamation/application of what he did for us. Didache and kerygma are both the application of the Lordship of Jesus to the Christian, the church, family and society.

In contemporary evangelicalism, however, “life principles” are increasingly disconnected from Jesus, either falling into the category of “proverbial wisdom” or the Christian application of secular wisdom, particularly from fields such as education, psychology or commerce. These sermons aren’t kerygma or didache, and they never bring the hearer to Christ or the gospel.

Sermons dominated by personal narratives. Evangelicalism loves a personal testimony. It loves anecdotal writing and preaching. Scripture contains personal narratives and illustrations, and preaching that entirely omits these things becomes a dry recitation.

But many of the Christless sermons I’ve heard have been dominated by personal narratives. The primary “revealer” of truth is the preacher himself. The more of a “celebrity” the preacher happens to be, the more likely that he will tell stories from his own life as revealing authoritative truth for us.

The fact is that personal narratives and anecdotes–no matter how entertaining or moving–have no authority whatsoever. If we argue that we aren’t listening to a sermon, but a personal testimony, we’re entitled to ask what is the authority of a personal testimony, and how does Jesus relate to such a story?

Of even more concern is the loss of the Biblical story in much preaching. Jesus is the key person and event in God’s story that is revealed throughout scripture. For more and more evangelicals, Jesus is simply a token of personal salvation, completely isolated from the Biblical worldview. I frequently meet Christians who know nothing more of Christianity than that they “accepted Christ” at one time.

Is this sort of Christian profession intelligible or meaningful? Or does it create a new, miniature, moldable Jesus who is more at home in American individualism than in scripture?

Sermons about moral and cultural problems. We live in a time of continuing moral breakdown. There is no doubt that the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our culture are being eroded. Traditional values are under attack. The role of religion in society is disputed in almost every niche of the public square.

The church feels particularly sensitive to this breakdown. There is a sense of moral and prophetic outrage. Some Christians see the demise of cultural morality as proof Jesus will soon return. Others see moral breakdown as a threat to our children and our political freedoms.

For these reasons, many evangelical sermons deal with the moral and cultural crisis. This sort of preaching has a long history in evangelicalism, so we ought to know the dangers of preaching against saloons and movie theaters. But it seems we haven’t learned our lesson.

A generous segment of today’s social and cultural preaching is increasingly Christless. Instead of Jesus, the message is either personal moral fortitude or collective political action. Because this sort of preaching appeals to the fears and emotions of evangelicals, it is commonplace. Thanks to people like James Dobson, Jesus has become the patron saint of any conservative’s social and political agenda. While many of these crusaders are doubtless correct on the Biblical worldview, they are also usually too busy getting us to the polls to get us to Christ.

The Bible is certainly not oblivious to moral issues. The prophetic voices in scripture testify to God’s holy concern with how we treat one another, and how justice is exhibited in society. But the key to scripture is always Jesus, not moral or social reform. In some of his most shocking words, Jesus says that there is a comparison that can be made between religion that helps the poor and the Gospel that commands all men everywhere to repent and believe.

Evangelicals are emotionally–and politically–engaged with cultural battles like homosexual marriage and abortion. They have demonstrated substantial growth in their support of ministries of mercy. But some of this political and moral involvement has been at the cost of Christ-centered preaching. “The Crisis”–whatever it might be–is never the point of our discipleship. We are always followers of Jesus.

Sermons that talk about a vague and undefined “God.” One of the characteristics of Bible belt preaching is an assumption that the audience–even the unchurched audience–understands the basic assortment of Christian teachings. This makes it easy to speak about “a relationship with God” and not explain how Jesus creates and sustains such a relationship. Is this vague relationship what the Bible means by “faith” or “covenant?” Few evangelicals are asking that question. For a faith where Jesus is the substance of everything we have in a relationship with God, it’s a catastrophic omission.

Some of the most Christless sermons I’ve heard simply avoided the name of Jesus and the fact of Jesus’ death and resurrection, but spoke constantly about “the Lord” and “God.” These weren’t sermons with an animosity toward Jesus or the Gospel. They were simply lazy sermons, with shorthand replacing exposition and explanation.

Am I being overly theological? (See the coming IM piece on “I Hate Theology.”) Is there really something wrong in speaking of God without centering that proclamation on Christ himself? Yes. If we believe that Jesus makes all the difference between the idolatries of our own opinions and the self-revelation of God in scripture and preaching, then we have to be concerned about preaching and teaching that allows the hearer to decide what Jesus is all about or if Jesus matters at all.

In fact, it is ironic that so much preaching is about a generic “God” when Acts 17 records Paul saying that Christian revelation fills in the “unknown God” with the specifics of Jesus. Have evangelicals themselves become a kind of Mars Hill crowd, surrounded by all sorts of individualistic ideas about what God is like, but more and more omitting Jesus himself? Isn’t the point of the resurrection that God approved of Jesus, and we ought to pay attention to him as a result? Much of what evangelicals say–or don’t say–seems to assume the resurrection was just something God did because it was a cool ending to the story.

I know what these preachers are talking about when they say “the Lord,” and when you fill in the generic God with Jesus some of these messages are quite appropriate. But I’m not the typical congregation member or secular listener. Assuming that we’re all able to fill in the truth about Jesus is a naive assumption, and the Bible belt is increasingly full of “Christians” who know next to nothing of Christ. They went to The Passion and came out saying “I never knew that before!”

Sermons in which Jesus is a minor character. It would be wrong to say that all Christless sermons are without any kind of reference to Jesus. Many of them contain what I call a “guest appearance” by Jesus. Jesus isn’t the point, or the key or the Final Word. But he is a good example, or an authority to be heeded.

These sermons don’t need Jesus to make sense. Leaving Jesus out wouldn’t change the sermon at all. He could easily be replaced. (This is particularly common in the “grocery story method” of using the Bible, where the importance of the method is in accumulating verses about the topic under study.)

So, for example, imagine a sermon on God’s promise to provide guidance. Such a sermon could utilize many different verses and examples from the Bible or personal experiences. Some of Jesus’ sayings on the guidance of the Holy Spirit might be included, and examples of Jesus’ own reliance on the Holy Spirit would be appropriate.

But the sermon could go forward in many settings with little or no mention of Jesus. As a minor character in a topical sermon, Jesus isn’t the focus of the message. Nothing essential is communicated about Jesus, and the principles of guidance apply to life without any particular reference to Jesus. A perfectly good sermon on guidance can be produced just talking about a Biblical character or a list of Biblical principles without taking the trouble to bring Jesus into the essential focus of the subject. (This is why topical preaching is the most dangerous kind of preaching, because it can easily exempt itself from winding up with Jesus and the Gospel.)

So it is with many “how to” messages. Jesus may make an appearance as an example or a coach, but he isn’t the Final Word. He may have a privileged place in a hierarchy or examples or authority, but what’s the real point of Jesus in the message? Ultimately, he’s just one more character, and often a minor one at that.

Why is this happening?

It’s happening for reasons that aren’t hard to discover.

There’s a remarkable amount of overall Biblical ignorance among the evangelical clergy. Some of this is because many clergy are completely uneducated, and their churches don’t care. Revivalistic evangelicals made peace with this a century ago, and I don’t know what can be said at this point. If you are comfortable with having an utterly uneducated man preaching through the difficulties of Romans 9-11 or telling your children what the Bible says, I won’t argue with you. But when Jesus doesn’t appear in the message, don’t whine. If it appears that your pastor’s messages are drawn entirely from last night’s T.D. Jakes performance, don’t complain about that either.

(I am NOT insinuating that education equals good preaching. My childhood pastor had one semester of college. He was self-taught, but formally uneducated. He did a marvelous job presenting–and living–the Gospel week after week, but he certainly knew he needed to study. Still, he perpetuated remarkable ignorance about the Bible, including once denouncing “the Greek and other translations.” He never encouraged me to go to school, and made sure my mind was fully stocked with Scofield and Clarence Larkin. But he did preach Christ and salvation by faith, and at least he knew he needed to read and study.)

The trend toward Christless preaching is also happening because even educated preachers are not students of scripture, or even students at all. I’ve met several seminary graduates who bragged that they hadn’t read a book since seminary, and never intended to correct that. Christian bookstores are a good measurement of the intellectual muscle of the average pastor. Research tells us that the average younger American is now watching a hundred movies for every book he or she reads. That includes a lot of preachers. This is perpetuating remarkable ignorance, and it is taking away the ability to preach Christ.

This loss of a scholarly mind is resulting in sloppy theology, ignorance of the original languages, and dependence on technology like the internet. Notice how quickly modern preachers have embraced the use of film clips in preaching. The replacement of literate references in communication is part of the culture, but it is also an admission that the clergy themselves are not reading, but watching.

Ever sat there while your preacher told jokes you’ve been forwarded by e-mail, or repeated internet mythology like the Mel Gibson “scarred face” story? Did you get the sinking feeling that something bad was happening? You were right.

Does this mean these non-scholars can’t be effective communicators? Of course not, but it does mean we shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus is lost or misplaced in the messages we hear. The transformation from a literate to a visual culture presents Christians with a remarkable challenge: the challenge to continue being loyal to God’s revelation of Jesus in all of scripture, and the greater challenge to study and understand the Bible.

Scripture can’t be replaced, and it must be understood, and the ministry has the responsibility to lead the way. In other words, don’t let your pastor become an idiot.

The most distressing reason for the disappearing Jesus is the pragmatism of the current church growth culture. If the church growth gurus were telling their flocks of ministerial admirers that the way to grow a megachurch was to preach Jesus and to focus sermons on Christ, it would be happening. In large measure, it’s not happening because the church growth experts don’t believe it works. It isn’t seeker sensitive. This is why some preachers are purposely avoiding Jesus, and instead talking about life issues like “success” and parenting. They are hoping to “hook ‘em” with the church program before they “cook ‘em” in the frying pan of commitment to Jesus. This bass ackwards approach is remarkably successful, and it apparently a hard habit to break. Jesus increasingly isn’t showing up except at the Easter and Christmas pageants.

What works is life principles, low content and plenty of entertaining anecdotes. Preaching Christ, God’s primary ordained means of growing a church and developing disciples, is held in suspicion among the seeker-sensitive crowd. When Jesus makes it to the big show it’s going to be either as a “life coach” or because a cultural discussion of The Passion of the Christmakes it acceptable to preach about Jesus. I read with amazement Rick Warren’s enthusiasm for using the Gibson movie as a suddenly ripe opportunity to talk about Jesus. Does anyone else find that notion bizarre? What else are we supposed to be talking about in the church?

The preachers who prompted my thoughts in this essay are of two sorts. They are younger men who are virtually disconnected from any roots in Christian faith other than contemporary evangelicalism. They are much more impressed with the lyrics to a recent CCM tune than they are most of the Bible. They are experience oriented and generally shallow theologically. They major on personality, relevance, and in many cases, the slick use of technology, to communicate. They are rapidly approaching the unblinking acceptance of anything that appears to be “a relationship” with God as real Christianity. They scare me.

The second category of preachers is represented by a man I recently listened to preach three completely Jesus-less sermons in a row during a series of “revival” services. He is experienced, college and Bible school educated, conservative and earnest. He is also deeply impressed by what he is hearing from the church growth camp. His preaching, which I once noted as effective and Christ-centered, has become anecdotal and highly “life principle” oriented. He believes, I’m sure, that Rick Warren and company are preaching the scriptures.

Neither is antagonistic to Jesus, but both have moved to a place where they are under no compulsion to preach the Gospel of Christ. This is not a good place to be.

Some Shreds of Hope

Despite this trend, I am hopeful on several fronts.

For starters, I believe there are signs of a mighty reaction to the current pragmatic church growth establishment. Especially among the younger generation of evangelicals, there is a strong current of simply wanting MORE than the shallow, culturally accommodating religion of the megachurches. Whoever you people are, God bless you. Stir things up.

This can translate into a new loyalty to scripture, and a demand to hear Christ preached and worshiped in his church. Increasingly, younger evangelicals are understanding that the spirituality of white, suburban, corporately niched megachurches is neither deep enough to inspire an authentic life nor Christ-centered enough to transform a culture. I pray that these younger evangelicals in their emerging churches will return to Christ-centered preaching and worship as the very Bread of the Christian life.

I am also hopeful that younger evangelical preachers will begin to appropriate a greater appreciation of creativity than their baby boomer parents, and that this creativity will result in more Christ-centered proclamation.

The great beauty of the Bible is that its message about Jesus is given to us in a banquet of images that inspire creative presentation. The themes, pictures, stories and symbolism of scripture can inspire art, music, poetry and, yes, preaching. The Bible’s rich tapestry of communicative images are there for us to use. Why don’t we?

Evangelical preaching is boring. Even much good evangelical preaching. Our Reformation heritage damaged our theology of creativity. But there is finally appearing, among younger evangelicals, a hopeful resurgence in creativity that promises to eventually make a difference in the mindset of preachers themselves.

Evidence of this can be found in a book like Charlie Peacock’s A New Way To Be Human, where very traditional reformed theology is communicated in a way that appeals to creative aspirations as well as spiritual questions.

In other words, part of the recovery of Christ-centered preaching is simply to work harder at the business of communication. Much of evangelicalism has spent the last 30 years finding ways to sell out to the culture. We need preachers, artists, poets, actors and writers to make worship a Christ-centered event again. Not tangentially by appropriating the culture–which isn’t exactly useless, but close–but through transforming both Biblical content and cultural forms into expressions of the Gospel.

An excellent example is the Indelible Grace hymn project, where Christ-centered, Christ-exalting hymn lyrics are being reinterpreted through new tunes and instruments. This is miles from the church worship band expressing the bland “God is my girlfriend” sentiments of recent CCM or attempting to sound like the pop bands on the radio. These hymns have serious Biblical content. They takes us to the Bible. And the overall presentation is creatively attractive. Yes, younger reformed evangelicals are singing hymns, while their baby boomer parents are quickly concretizing the own Muzak worship bands and blathering lyrics into a tradition they’ll fight to protect.

Lastly, I am hopeful because someone gave away 1.4 million books by John Piper. Someone is still buying Spurgeon. Someone is filling up those emergent churches that preach hour-long Biblical expositions. Someone is reading Internet Monk and writing me encouragements every day. Someone is going to Ligonier conferences, joining Reformed Baptist Churches and making RUF worship CDs. In other words, someone wants Christ to be the center, the all in all of Christian life and worship.

If your pastor preaches a Christless sermon, or a sermon with only a guest appearance by Jesus, don’t get mad at him. Make an appointment. Take him a cup of coffee or a book. Sit down and tell him what you heard, and why it concerns you. Don’t villainize him, because he is probably as much of a victim than a villain. If he loves Jesus, he won’t resent your concern. If you are labeled the enemy, and Christless preaching is defended, then you learned something important.

Let’s pray for the day when no one stands before God’s people without knowing that the point of everything, before it’s all over, will once again be Jesus.

It’s the End of the World As We Know It (again)

Posted on May 20, 2011 by shel

Shel Boese / Shelby Boese : While most christians ARE NOT worked up about Harold Campings prediction of the end tomorrow – a few are. Let me say that I still wrestle the bible on this one. Most evangelical and pentecostal denominations were formed in a time with pre-millennial/pre-tribulation rapturism was the pop-theology of the day. So many still have statements of faith to this effect. However, the older and orthodox churches DO NOT attempt to define “rapture” and millennialism as such.

The MOST orthodox of beliefs simply declare based on Jesus teachings, that He will come again and end this world as we know it. Then there will be a final judgement of all beings.

To say more is to read or misread or simply theorize based on passages of scripture that are less clear. As for me I stick with the last days according to Jesus teaching approach. The Gospels are the top of the Bible. And let the debate rip – the rest of end times teaching IS SECONDARY to what I stated above.

Internet Monk the 2nd does a good job on this (I do believe that there will be a unique revival among ethnically Jewish people as part of the second coming – I’m a not a total “replacement theory” guy like IM is in this account – the rest -though is really good…enjoy:

Time to Leave Behind the Rapture

from internetmonk.com by Chaplain Mike

By Chaplain Mike

Come on, children
You’re acting like children
Every generation
Thinks it’s the end of the world

• Wilco, “You Never Know”

I had a spiritual awakening as a teenager in a time when prophetic expectations were high. Israel was in her land and engaged in violent confrontations with her antagonistic neighbors. Issues regarding Arab oil and other tensions in the Middle East were becoming more intense. Life in the United States itself was in turmoil. Ongoing civil rights struggles, the Vietnam war, the youth culture of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, amazing technological achievements such as the Apollo space program, the continuing Cold War, and political intrigue in the White House—all these things and more had believers feeling certain that we were in the last days and that Jesus must certainly be returning soon. Prophetic teachers like Hal Lindsey were having a field day and selling lots and lots of books. Youth groups and outreach events often featured films like A Thief in the Night.

In those days I started following Jesus in a fresh way with my New Scofield Bible in hand, prophetic teaching a major part of the Bible studies I attended and the churches where I worshiped. I wasn’t able to spell “dispensationalism,” but my friends and I believed Jesus was coming back. We sang Larry Norman’s “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” with real feeling.

Soon, it was off to Bible College and full immersion in the theology of C.I. Scofield, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Charles Ryrie, John Walvoord, J. Dwight Pentecost, Alva J. McClain, Renald Showers, and Charles Feinberg. If theology was the “Queen of the Sciences,” then dispensationalist eschatology was her crown, I was taught.

In this light, we were warned that such established and traditional interpretations such as “Covenant Theology” and “Amillennialism” were to be dreaded and viewed as hopelessly inadequate. And God forbid that we should get caught making any “compromises” such as acceptance of a post-tribulation rapture. The Book of Revelation was taught in a purely futurist fashion, and the Bible as a whole was presented almost like a giant puzzle book that, once figured out, provided a detailed prophetic vision of “God’s plan for the ages.” It was as clear as the amazing draftsman-like charts in Clarence Larkin’s Dispensational Truth. Which is to say, it was confusing.

Before I ever began to grasp specific exegetical and theological problems with the dispensational system, I felt uncomfortable with the whole approach. The theological charts and outlines and lists of proof texts bore no resemblance to the form of the text I saw when I opened my Bible. I read stories and poetry as well as prophetic passages that spoke in eloquent imagery and with dramatic symbolism that engaged my imagination as well as my mind. However, I could not detect the same kind of beauty or wonder in the prosaic, mechanical system of theology my professors droned on about. All the magnificent animated three dimensional literature of the Scriptures became flattened, reduced to a blueprint or series of mathematical formulae.

Not only that, but the system seemed to miss (or at least downplay) the most important theological point of all—that Jesus and the story of him told in the Gospels is the pinnacle of God’s plan, the fulfillment of his promises. In essence, dispensationalism denies that. Jesus’ ministry was necessary, but only an interim step in God’s ultimate triumph. The real victory will be won when Christ returns. The church is only a “parenthesis” in God’s plan until he starts to work with Israel again.

The dispensational approach fails to see that Jesus fulfilled the calling and role of Israel. They failed to be the light of the world, but he succeeded. Now in him God is gathering his new creation people, made of up of Jews and Gentiles alike. The Jewish people are called to Christ through the Gospel like everyone else, and though God continues to deal providentially with nations, there is no special divine plan for the nation of Israel. The boundaries of the Promised Land now encompass the entire earth, and soon all the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

Not so, say the dispensational teachers. For them the future vision is made up of the Middle East, the nation of Israel, the land of Palestine, the coming Antichrist, a rebuilt temple, the battle of Armageddon, and so on. The event that will trigger it all is the Rapture, when the Church is “caught up” to heaven to be with Christ, spared from the season of trouble that will come on the whole world.

It is only within the entire dispensational system that the teaching of the “Rapture” makes any sense. In fact, you will not find any passage or text in the Bible that unambiguously teaches the pre-tribulation Rapture. It must be inferred from the whole theological package. The reasoning goes like this.

God made an eternal covenant with the nation of Israel.
As part of that covenant, Jesus came to offer himself to Israel as their King.
Israel rejected Jesus, so God set aside Israel for this age and formed the church, which he deals with during this parenthesis in God’s plan known as the Church Age.
God’s prophetic clock has stopped until the end of the Church Age, when the church will be removed from earth (via Rapture), and God will restart his plan for Israel.
God resumes his work with Israel during the Tribulation period and the prophetic clock starts ticking once more, leading to the Second Coming, the resurrection and the judgment, the millennial kingdom, the final judgment, and the new heavens and new earth.

Dispensationalism asserts that the reason for the Rapture is to bring the Church Age to its conclusion and make way for God to resume his plan for Israel. Deconstruct that reasoning and out goes the Rapture. Without that theological infrastructure, one would be hard pressed to find anything that looks like the Rapture in the teaching of the Bible.

The one passage that people most invoke as a description of the Rapture (“caught up”) is 1Thessalonians 4:13-17, which is Paul’s teaching about Christ’s return (parousia). I won’t take the time to discuss it in detail here, but refer you to an article by N.T. Wright and another piece that includes commentary by Ben Witherington III and others. Both give excellent explanations of the imagery Paul uses in this text. The Apostle is describing Jesus’ return using language from the culture that evoked the visit of a Roman official, something that has been recognized since the days of the early church. For example, here’s a quote from John Chrysostom (349-407) which gives the sense:

“For when a king drives into a city, those who are honorable go out to meet him; but the condemned await the judge within. And upon the coming of an affectionate father, his children indeed, and those who are worthy to be his children, are taken out in a chariot, that they may see him and kiss him; but the housekeepers who have offended him remain within. (Homily 8 on 1 Thessalonians)”

As James-Michael Smith says, “Paul is not talking about the mass disappearance of Christians from all over the globe. He is talking about the final return of Jesus as conquering King and Judge of the Living and Dead. And he is doing so using the unmistakeable vocabulary of Roman Imperial rhetoric, which his Thessalonian readers would’ve immediately recognized.” In other words, the text does not teach a “Rapture” in which the church is removed from the earth, but a triumphant return of a King coming to rule, who is welcomed by those who come out to greet and attend him as he enters his kingdom with acclaim.

There will be one Second Coming, one return, one glorious “appearing” of the Lord Jesus Christ when he comes to consummate his triumphant finished work. It’s time to leave behind puzzle piece theology and read the Bible more carefully as it is given to us, not as we dissect it and put it back together.

In doing so, we will leave teachings like the Rapture far behind.

How Evangelicals Pick and Choose What they Admire in Heros – IM Classics – repost

Posted on March 13, 2011 by shel

How Evangelicals Pick and Choose What They Admire in Their Heroes
I’d like to suggest that when you observe evangelicals picking, promoting and icon-ing their favorite theological heroes, you may not be learning so much about those theologians as you are about evangelicals themselves. These icons tell us what evangelicals want to believe about themselves, their theology and their church movements. Consider some questions:

How many who quote Luther endorse Luther’s overall view of his connection to the RCC, Mary, the Jews or the radical reformation? How many can endorse his use of language or his view of the sacraments?
How many who quote Calvin have his view of church and state?
How many who quote Bonhoeffer would agree with Bonhoeffer’s view of Barth’s theology, especially regarding scripture?
How many who cite Spurgeon would agree with him on weekly communion? The use of the invitation? Sharing the pulpit with other denominations?
How many who cite Edwards know that there is considerable evidence of obsessive/compulsive disorder and a tendency to terrorize his congregations to the point that suicide among members became a concern and a reality?
How many who cite Owen endorse his congregationalism?
How many who quote Wesley endorse his perfectionism or agree with his ecclesiology?
How many who cite the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention have ever read a defense of slavery by those founders?
How many who quote Tozer or Chambers know how those men would have viewed today’s Calvinistic Christianity?
How many who cite Lewis agree with his view of free will, atonement, inspiration, purgatory or beer?

• From “Photoshopping Luther,” (3/12/07)

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It’s the End of the World As We Know It (again)

Time to Leave Behind the Rapture

How Evangelicals Pick and Choose What they Admire in Heros – IM Classics – repost