Monthly Archives: March 2012

Is the Church Autistic?

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The defining attribute of an autistic person is that they grow inwardly rather than outwardly.

My daughter, Elle, is autistic. My wife and I have to work very hard to engage with her and to get her to engage with us and the world at large. She doesn’t feel any particular pull to do it on her own.

Instead, Elle greatly enjoys watching TV and playing computer games. Then, she will repeat, over and over, script from the shows/games that she likes.

She’ll draw pictures of the characters in the show. She’ll pretend to be one of the characters (her favorite character is Quack from Peep and the Big Wide World).

She’s a wonderful daughter and I love her. But if you don’t engage her, she’ll most likely ignore you, and she’ll simply retreat into her own mind. The stuff she says will seem like complete gibberish .

In order to get her to break from living fully in her imagination, we have to get her talking about real things. Well press her for details about her day at school, we’ll ask how you make lemonade, we’ll ask what her favorite holiday is and why. In other words, we have to draw her out of her internal world and into the world all around her.

Sometimes, we have to cut off TV and video games for a while when she’s retreating into those things a bit too often. Not as punishment, but in order that she can’t simply seek refuge in a place where she won’t have to put forth the energy to deal with people.

Does this remind you of the church in America? 

- Has trouble relating to people who aren’t in the church.

- Likes to focus on something that really doesn’t apply here and now (the afterlife).

- Doesn’t want to engage, but would rather retreat into its own little world?

- Speaks with language that nobody else will understand (I’m not talking about tongues here, but rather the use of ‘Christianese’ like ‘binding the devil’ or ‘the prayer of salvation’, etc).

We can easily forget the the Body of Christ doesn’t exist simply to get together for 2 hours each Sunday and make each other feel better, but rather that we are supposed to be going out and making disciples.

We build buildings, call them churches, and often restrict most or all of our activities in these places. This seems to me more like putting your light under a basket than being a city on a hill to me.

I think there are a lot of believers and a lot of churches that really are taking Jesus’ mission to make disciples seriously. But I also think we need to increase the trend of engaging with the culture without losing our identity in the process.

By building walls to keep ‘secular culture’ out, we’ve also locked ourselves in. When we grow in a closed greenhouse, what good does it do to the meadow all around us?

Maybe it’s not fair to call the church autistic, maybe it’s just introverted.

As an introvert myself, I know it takes a lot of effort to socialize and engage with people, but I also know that it’s important to make that concerted effort.

As I’m reading the book of Acts right now, I see the church growing, expanding, engaging. I wonder how we’ve arrived at the place where we are now – exclusive, stagnant or shrinking, stand offish.

We’ve got to get our from behind our church walls, and put ourselves out there, vulnerable, letting the Holy Spirit bear his fruit in our lives where it can actually make a difference.

What is the Right Way to Worship God?

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In John 4, a woman asks Jesus where the right place to worship God is.

Jesus, in his typical fashion, gives an answer that the woman isn’t expecting.

He says, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)

Spirit and truth. I’ve thought about what this means. I understand that God is a spirit and I must worship him from my spirit, my soul…from within me. But what about truth? How do I worship God ‘in truth’?

In that verse, truth is translated from the Greek word alētheia. It has the connotation of meaning ”in reality’ or ‘in fact’.

What I think Jesus is saying here is that we must worship God both in the spiritual reality where he exists and in the physical reality where we exist.

In our heart as well as with our hands.

From who we are and in what we do.

The issue, according to Jesus, isn’t where you worship God, but how.

It’s easy to get caught up in the mystical realities of a supernatural God, and I’m not going to say that’s a bad thing. But I am going to say that we can’t stop there.

I’ve heard many people express the desire for God to bring about ‘More of you, less of me’. I understand the sentiment, but I’m not sure it’s what God is after. God isn’t trying to move us into oblivion as he takes over more and more. We’re not just roadblocks in his way. He has called us to be full partners in his work and in his kingdom. He wants to fill us, not destroy us.

We are his work, not a hindrance to his purposes. You may think I’m being arrogant and acting a little too presumptuously. I assure you I am not. I say these things only because God clearly reveals them in the scriptures. I would agree that we don’t deserve God’s presence among us, or the freedom to invest our lives in him; but he not only makes it possible, he helps us to accomplish it.

But he has done all this so that we can be part of bringing his Kingdom and his will to this earth. He doesn’t just want us getting happy off his gifts and his presence, he wants us to do something with them.

I think it’s very possible to be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good. And I would argue that you’re forgetting to worship God in truth if you reach that point.

We are both in this world and also not of it. We must not run away from either of those truths. Because doing so would prevent us from worshiping God in the way Jesus said we ought.

How Important is Theology?

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There are some people who believe that bad theology is the greatest evil that exists in this world. I used to be like that.

Recently, I had somebody re-post several blog items of mine and tear them to shreds. Not in a constructive conversation, but simply saying how wrong I was.

I realized that, while I would not have gone about it in the same way, I probably would thought the same way as that person a couple years ago. The old me would have rejected the new way I’ve begun to look at God and his purposes in this world. And I would have known that I was 100% right. I would have pitied the new me for being so mistaken and tried to set him straight if I could, for his own good.

I viewed ‘Theological Police’ as being one of the most important jobs a real Christian has.

But as I’ve become more familiar with the Jesus that actually comes across the pages of the Gospels (as opposed to the Jesus I had pictured in my head), I’ve had to face the fact that Jesus ‘the real person’ wasn’t really caught up in policing theology.

Most of his speeches, while having deep theological implications, are practical spiritual advice for everday living.

The times that he gets into deep theological debates? It’s usually because the religious leaders (Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, etc) are challenging him.

In Mark 12:27, in response to one of these challenges, Jesus tells the Sadducees that their theology is “badly mistaken.” He then tells them the truth to answer the scenario they posed to him.

But by and large, Jesus doesn’t spend his ministry going to the religious institutions and correcting the teachings of the Rabbis and leaders. Clearly, promoting ‘accurate theology’ is secondary in his ministry. Should it not also be in ours?

I’m not saying heresy is a good thing. But should we in the church ever have gotten to the point where we were burning heretics at the stake? Of course not.

When the devil tried to tempt Jesus, he used good theology to defeat him. But when he encountered broken, hurting people, he never used theology as a weapon against them. The adulterous woman didn’t get a lecture on the seventh commandment. She got mercy, compassion, and a call to live a better life.

Jesus didn’t side with the people who had the correct theology (the crowd of people who wanted to stone her). He sided with the one who was about to be killed by that theology.

There’s a saying I like: “First things first.”

Clearly, good theology was important to Jesus. But bringing light to the darkness was more important.

March for Life

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I couple weeks ago, on my commute home, I found it was crazy busy at the train station.

Union Station (Washington, D.C.) was packed with people heading to the March for Life.

There were a great deal of college kids, several groups from Catholic Churches, lots of people holding signs, and crowds of people everywhere as commuters tried to make their way through the station.

When I see these people, I am torn on how to feel about them. Here’s why:

I hate the fact that babies are being killed in large numbers in our country. Hate it. I have three children, one of which will be born in about 6 months. I can’t imagine any of my kids being killed before or after birth. Life is an amazing miracle. Seeing your own child born brings this home in a way I can’t begin to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it.

However, I believe that making abortion illegal is a horrible way to approach this issue.  If you ask me to choose whether I want a child killed before birth, or I want a child to be born into a household that doesn’t want that child, I can’t. Neither of those options is acceptable. A mistreated, neglected or abused child doesn’t make me happy.

Saying that adoption is a better choice is a nice line. But with the number of orphans and kids in foster care already in this country alone, let alone the world, you can’t convince me that the addition of another million+ kids a year into that system won’t overwhelm it and cause more difficult conditions.

I worry that people who go to such rallies believe that making a big noise about being pro-life and advocating for legislative changes is a fulfillment of our responsibility. I’m sure most people there would agree that it doesn’t stop at attending a rally, but I would also bet most don’t actually do anything beyond attending a rally.

What good is it for us to be mad at the end result (abortion) if we aren’t working to fix the process that creates them?

How useful would it be to yell at a chicken farm to stop selling eggs, but not to help it acquire goats or cows or some other form of subsistence?

Rather than just getting mad at the result, maybe we need to get to work on the conditions that produce the results.

Once an unwanted child has been conceived, all we have left are imperfect solutions. We need to be at work in the causes of these pregnancies. Why are teenage girls using their body to gain the affections of teenage boys? Why are teenage boys seeking their own pleasure at the expense of any consideration for the girls they get involved with?

Large swaths of the youthful generations today believe their actions are normal and that the choices they make are the best of what’s available.

Isn’t it our job to tell them about the better options? To help them discover the abundant life Jesus offers? I don’t see how yelling about their terrible actions helps that.

Shame doesn’t fix anything.

Scorn doesn’t lead to acceptance.

As David Kinnaman says in unChristian, “We [Christians] have become more famous for what we oppose rather than who we are for.”

Jesus was a champion of the downtrodden, of the ‘dirty sinner’. People say that they are speaking up for the babies who can’t speak for themselves. How about giving love to those who have never known it? Undeserved, unearned love for those that find themselves being chewed up by the hardships of life.

If you want to go to a rally, fine. But please, see if your church can reach out to the people who need the love of God at a crisis pregnancy center. Instead of taking an option away from people who are in desperate places, maybe we can give them a new one: being loved by a community who will do anything they need.

Revenge

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I watched season 2 of a show called Justified on DVD this past week.

The show is anchored in powerful, well crafted story telling. It does have a fair bit of violence and language in it – so choose whether to watch it accordingly. (At one point in my life, I would not have watched a show with such material, or I at least would have felt guilty for it, but I’m in a different place now. Not more or less holy/sanctified, just different.)

Without giving spoilers, season two ends on a climax that deals with revenge. One character is pointing a gun at another character, debating whether they should pull the trigger as payback for certain actions.

In the dialogue of the scene, a third character is asking that the trigger not be pulled. This character tells the gun-holder “If you pull that trigger, your life is going to change forever…and not for the better.”

The thing about revenge is that, not only does it not heal a wound, it creates new ones: guilt over what you’ve done, and the injury to the other person.

If that person, or their family members decide to take revenge for what you did, you’re in a never ending cycle, perpetuating hurt and hate.

I started thinking about this in the context of what I read in a book written by Bishop Desmond Tutu called “No Future Without Forgiveness”. South Africa, divided and full of rage over the years of apartheid, where a white minority systematically oppressed a black majority, was attempting to enter into peaceful cohabitation. Many feared that the blacks would slaughter the whites in vengance.

But something alltogether different occured: The government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whereby crimes and attrocities on both sides (there were blacks who fought back with violence – and in war, terrible things always occur) could confess what they had done and avoid judicial punishment.

That’s right: if you said what you did, truthfully and completely, you were not held liable. People got to hear the facts about the death of their loved ones – how they died, who killed them, where the bodies were located, etc. Amazingly, this lead to a great deal of forgiveness.

People were tired of bloodshed. Most yearned for peace. Instead of dealing with skeletons in the closet and trying to pretend that they don’t exist, South Africa laid them to rest.

By ending the cycle of revenge, hurts could begin to heal. South Africa is far from perfect, but they have never descended into the genocidal civil war many expected.

Jesus said that loving people who love you back is easy. (Matthew 5:46)

The Children of God are called to love the wicked.  What a war we are called to fight when our weapons are love, mercy and grace.

You may think this is a great way to lose, but I look at leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., who used patience and endurance to defeat tyrannical forces.

In Romans 12:19, Paul even says not to take revenge. That’s a job best left up to God. He knows when it’s appropriate and when it isn’t. Our job is to love, not settle scores.

Two Edged Sword

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I used to read the bible to gain knowledge; to find the ways scripture confirmed that my theology is correct. Now, I read it to be changed.

The book of Hebrews describes the Word of God thusly: “[It] is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12)

I so often used the scripture as a weapon against other believers, in order to show that I was right and they were wrong.

I know many believers who feel that they are the only ones who really, truly understand the character of God. That they have discovered the sacred secrets hidden in the scriptures.  And they have the theology and proof texts ready to prove it.

I’ve realized that the word of God is actually a weapon meant to be used on myself.

I love the song “The War Inside” by Switchfoot. It talks about the fact that living this spiritual life has less to do with fighting “what’s out there”, and more to do with what is inside of us. Here’s part of the chorus.

I am the war inside

I am the battle line

I am the rising tide

I am the war I fight

N.T. Wright also talks about this issue in Evil and the Justice of God. The line between good and evil isn’t something that we look and and pick a side to stand on. It runs right down the middle of each of us.

Paul himself talks about this in Romans 7: “…when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind…”

Reading the Bible isn’t about winning arguments, it’s about looking in a mirror that shows me what I could be. What I should be, then letting God work to bring that person into existence.

I’m no longer interested in getting people to agree with me. Instead, I’m interested in being more like Jesus.

Incentives

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Most people probably know the old proverb: You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Recently, I decided that I wanted my oldest daughter to read more books. She had winter break coming up, and I told her that I wanted her to read two books during the 10 days she would have off.

She wasn’t very enthusiastic about “having to” do all that reading. In the end, she only read one book, and it required a great deal of reminding and cajoling on my part.

I quickly realized that if I made reading into something that she was constantly being hounding to do, she’d learn to hate it. So I changed my course.

Instead, I decided that I needed to create an incentive that would get her into reading. I know once she gets into it, she’ll learn to love it. At 7 years old, I decided it was time to institute an allowance for her.

But unlike many households, she doesn’t get an allowance for her chores. Her chores are how she earns food and keep. I don’t pay her to handle her responsibilities.

Instead, I linked her allowance to reading. She earns 50 cents for every book she reads (I have to approve that it is long enough first – no less than 75 pages is my standard.)

She started reading every night, proudly announcing “fifty cents, please!” as soon as she finished yet another book and telling me all about what she had just read.

I wonder if we haven’t made living for Jesus more like a punishment than an incentive, and that’s why many people loathe Christianity and church life.

‘Accept Jesus or go to hell’ is an awful marketing pitch. It’s like me saying ‘read a book or you’ll be punished.’ My daughter would not want to read the book, and she would only do it at the last minute under threat of imminent punishment. Instead of loving to read, she would probably hate it.

However, I also think ‘Accept Jesus so that you will go to heaven’ is a terrible pitch. similar to the previous pitch, it puts all the emphasis on ‘the afterlife’ rather than the here and now. This essentially says ‘life is still gonna stink, but once you die, you’ll be happy forever!’

For me, one of the primary reasons to believe in Jesus is his promise and desire to bind up the broken-hearted in this life. To release people held captive in this life. To give sight to people who are blind. Today. Here. Now.

A more abundant life starting today, not when you’re dead.

God teaches us to live a life of love rather than strife. He teaches us to function with faith and hope rather than despair and meaninglessness. Not necessarily (or even usually) by changing our circumstances, but rather by changing us.

He makes us to be part of his family, his community, where we no longer need to compete and jostle for positions of prestige in order to gain more self worth.

I’m trying to remember this when I teach my teens at church. If you force somebody to do something, they’ll resent it. You must attract them. Allow them to leave if they want, without threats or insults.

Instead of coming up with better sales pitches for the life of faith in Jesus, perhaps we just need to do a better job of demonstrating it. Perhaps more people would be more drawn to the product if our smarmy sales tactics weren’t in the way.

The God Formula

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We all know the story of Job. He has to deal with some pretty bad circumstances: losing everything and getting very sick. He has some friends that show up to comfort him and (very pointedly) try to fix his problems.

The problem with Job’s friends is that they thought they understood God. They knew how God worked. They had the formula memorized.

If you live right, God gives you blessings.

If you live in an impure way, God will come against you with judgement.

Job lost his wealth, his family and his health. This meant God was angry with him; therefore Job was living sinfully.

Job’s friends were trying to help him: repent of your secret sin and God will forgive you! But Job was insistent that he had not sinned.

But his friends would not - could not - believe him. Because if what Job said was true, then everything they thought they knew about God would be wrong.

Listen to what the youngest of the friends says as he makes one final attempt to get Job to admit to his wicked ways: “Be assured that my words are not false; one perfect in knowledge is with you.” (Job 36:4)

In other words, “I can’t believe what you’re saying, because I know I’m right.”

I was struck when I read Elihu’s speech (Job 32-37) that it includes some portions that are almost identical to what God says later (for example, that he commands lightning and snow).

Job’s mistake was thinking that God had committed an error.

Elihu’s mistake (and the 3 other friends) was thinking he knew exactly what God was doing.

Job, knowing that he hadn’t brought these curses upon himself through foolish living, was forced to conclude that God’s sovereignty allowed him to act as he pleases, and the only viable choice of humanity is to accept that. As Job says it, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10)

I’d love to pretend that Jobs friends were the last people to make this mistake, but when Jesus shows up, he tells the religious experts in his day that they have made the same mistake of making God into a formula which they understood.

“You [The Pharisees] diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40)

They thought they knew the formula, but when the the culmination of God’s design arrived, they didn’t recognize it in the least.  Jerusalem was destroyed because the time of God’s intervention arrived and they were blind to it. (Luke 19:44).

I think the fact that we think we have this whole God/Jesus/Bible thing down pat can turn us into monsters, too.

We have hundreds of different denominations (which are basically forbidden in 1 Corinthians 3) because we think all the other denominations are doing something wrong, and we are doing it right.

We spend so much time and energy bickering and in-fighting rather than fulfilling the purpose Jesus gave us. To be conduits of God’s Kingdom come and will being done on earth.

God cannot be put in a formula. He cannot be understood. He cannot be explained. We can only say the things he has told us to say. To speak of the things we see him do.

Paradoxically, it is only when we accept that we never fully know him that we can actually begin to connect with him in a greater way.

Socrates and The Oracle of Delphi

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There’s a story about Socrates that I love. Let me quote what pbs.org says:

After his service in the war, Socrates devoted himself to his favorite pastime: the pursuit of truth.

His reputation as a philosopher, literally meaning ‘a lover of wisdom’, soon spread all over Athens and beyond. When told that the Oracle of Delphi had revealed to one of his friends that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, he responded not by boasting or celebrating, but by trying to prove the Oracle wrong.

So Socrates decided he would try and find out if anyone knew what was truly worthwhile in life, because anyone who knew that would surely be wiser than him. He set about questioning everyone he could find, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Instead they all pretended to know something they clearly did not.

Finally he realized the Oracle might be right after all. He was the wisest man in Athens because he alone was prepared to admit his own ignorance rather than pretend to know something he did not.

Socrates thought that he couldn’t be the wisest man in Athens because he was conscious of how much he didn’t know. But it was that self awareness; the fact that he knew how much he didn’t know that actually made him wiser than the rest.

A couple years ago, I thought my knowledge of scriptures and the nature of God was vast and commanding. I had great confidence in my conclusions. As I worked through the program of my Master’s Degree, I began to discover that I was gaining more questions than answers.

I began to realize how much I didn’t understand, couldn’t explain, didn’t comprehend about God.

And I believe I have become much wiser than I once was. You’ll get a lot fewer definitive answers out of me these days. If you start a discussion about the nature of God, you’ll probably hear me asking lots of questions.

I’ve stopped pretending that I hold answers to the secrets of the universe, but I’d like to think I’ve started asking some of the right questions.

In Jesus’ Name

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I have made the decision to stop saying “In Jesus’ Name” at the end of all my prayers.

Not because I believe that I shouldn’t pray in Jesus’ name, but because I believe that praying in Jesus’ name doesn’t mean slapping 3 words onto the end of whatever I say.

I watched a video by Francis Chan where he talked about this. We pray ‘I want, I want, I want, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme….In Jesus’ Name, Amen.’ and we call that praying in Jesus’ name.

I think that’s closer to taking the lord’s name in vain than it is praying in Jesus’ name.

The Seven Sons of Sceva (Acts 19) thought that they could toss Jesus’ name around in order to accomplish their own agenda. It didn’t turn out so well.

I’ve realized that I have spent most of my Christian life trying to get God to go along with what I wanted to do. I seem to forget that he is a lot smarter than I am. That I am the insignificant speck of dust and he is the infinite creator.

So these days, I have stopped tacking on the phrase “In Jesus’ Name” to all my prayers, and instead tried to learn to pray for the things he wants to do - forgiveness of sins committed against me; provision on a daily basis rather than an overabundance I can place my trust in; protection from the evil one – who is greater than me, but not greater than God; and for the coming of his kingdom and his will on this earth.

Rather than ‘how can I get what I want?’, my driving question is ‘how can I participate in what he is doing?’

Instead of saying that I’m praying in Jesus’ name, I’m actually trying to do it.