ponder anew

cancel the 39 1/2- foot pole

2010-12-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

Your brain is full of spiders,

You’ve got garlic in your soul,

Mr. Grinch

Merry Christmas.

Check out this website, courtesy of one of the usual suspects, First Baptist Church in Dallas.

Christians have really developed a subculture of whistleblowers in this country. As evidenced by the website, the gospel is secondary to comfort level.

Their bishop…er…pastor swears that this is a friendly forum where the “Merry Christmas” camp can label businesses that don’t show enough specifically Christmas cheer as being “grinches.”

He also suggests that the church is not responsible for the reviews, since they are submitted. Funny – it says FBC Dallas at the bottom of the page. Their pastor has been on national news to (rather unsuccessfully) explain the intended humor of the site. There’s even a review process each comment must go through before being posted. Claiming no responsibility is ridiculous.

By the way, I submitted FBC Dallas as being a very naughty grinch. My submission is yet to be posted.

At least two of the businesses named have fought back in the local media, the owners of one, a Mexican restaurant, actually responding by professing Christian faith and identifying several charity events they sponsor during the holiday…er…Christmas season.

But they’re still grinches because their employees were instructed to say “Happy Holidays.”

There is an accumulation of things that are wrong with this website, but here are a few that are obvious to me.

First, though the Bible is clear that Christians will be hated, despised and persecuted, it also exhorts Christians to respond with rejoicing, since, when we are despised, we are participating in Christ’s suffering.

In other words, we don’t need to hit back.

Second, Jesus never went about change by political means. To the contrary, he responded to hatred and insult with love, mercy, and grace, instead of a “power over” approach. He could have eliminated his opposition with a single breath, but he didn’t. His example shows us what true Kingdom work is about: a “power under” approach, where we respond to all with grace and love, reflecting the grace and love that we have been shown through Christ.

FBC may have intended it to be fun, but we all know about good intentions.

Third, God does not need us to defend Christmas. That is not Kingdom work. It actually portrays hearts of judgment, distrust, and vengeance. Compiling a list of establishments that offend our righteous indignation and publishing it for the world to see seems to me to be decidedly mean-spirited and sub-Christian. If we are offended, that is okay. If we are made to feel uncomfortable, that is okay. Neither is a hindrance to our faith. I cannot adequately express how grieving this action is to me.

Fourth, this is plain mean. It’s name-calling, pure and simple.

Fifth, other Baptist churches and other evangelical individuals, congregations, and denominations are associated by name with this attitude. Here is brief sample of the comments this story has received on the Dallas Morning News website:

“I just want to go on record as a Christian to say that I do not approve of this at all, and this type of disrespect for non-Christians in not to be tolerated.”

“I would shop at all of the stores on the naughty list. I doubt Jesus would concern himself with this trivial website, but instead be ministering to the homeless, sick and destitute.”

“If you are a Christian, celebrate what Jesus was really about...”

“Funny thing is, these people's heads would explode if one of these businesses dared wish them a happy Hanukkah or a happy Kwanzaa.”

"’Happy Holidays’ is an appropriate greeting, even for Christians, because there's more than one holiday in the Season. In the Christian calendar, we're now in Advent, awaiting the arrival of the Christ child. Christmas runs from December 25 for 12 days, ending on Epiphany, when Christians celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men to the manger.”

“Baptist? Dallas? That about says it all! These folks take themselves way too seriously. Look beyond your noses, people! God is a whole lot bigger than you think.”

I had a professor at Wheaton who said several years ago, “The Southern Baptists have lost their minds.”

Please forgive us.

misfit

2010-07-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

So here's the problem: I don't really like myself. At least I haven't for most of my life.

I've been working on it recently. It's really no way to live.

I think a big part of the problem was that I was raised with a very negative identity. I mean, I was loved and had my basic needs met and everything, but what I heard pretty much everywhere was everything I wasn't supposed to be and do.

"We don't talk that way." "Boys aren't supposed to be like that." "Christians shouldn't be acting that way."

Before long, I internalized that sort of negativity. What's worse, it became my idea of God's personality.

I went from being a bit of a social butterfly and one of the most outgoing kids in elementary school to being a reserved, angry, introspective adolescent, teenager, young adult. I was beaten down and defeated. It really wasn't pretty.

A negative identity breeds those things. Whatever I did, wherever I went, I couldn't feel comfortable in my own skin. I desperately wanted approval of family and peers. I became wrapped up within myself in a messy inward crisis.

My big sister called it one day when I was a kid. She told me, "Jonathan, you're so bitter." Of course, at the time, I was bitter toward her for saying it, but remembering this actually may have later helped me come to terms with it. I could remember and place that moment in the trajectory of my childhood that began with not ever feeling good enough, smart enough, well-behaved enough, and ended with a slide into deep depression, anxiety and introspection.

Introspection. Sounds pretty safe, reflective, like something one does with a cold one, a cigar, maybe some cool jazz or Pink Floyd or something. Not so.

A speaker from English L'Abri that I admire a lot calls introspection, "mental masturbation," which I think is really helpful. The mind gets all wrapped up in itself and its anxieties, becomes completely withdrawn, and the person finally comes to the place where they live inside themselves, never entering the world around them. The focus isn't where it needs to be. This creates tons of problems for us.

It's not supposed to be this way. Our existence is supposed to be positive, freeing, liberating, not uncomfortable and repressed.

And what's more, I have everything it takes. I'm not a misfit or shortchanged or anything. I was created with everything I need for the life I'm meant to live.

And that is live-giving for someone who doesn't like himself.

turtlenecks for everyone

2010-07-11T21:16:00.000-07:00

We love to try to be the Holy Spirit. Especially for other people. It seems like it's some sort of civic duty for Americans or something. Or at least it's a guilty pleasure.

There were times when I was growing up when so many people were bossing me around that it completely drowned out the Spirit's voice in my life. And, sadly, that's the truth. It's hurtful. And it's judgmental.

There are a bunch of Christians, mostly male, who love to tell women how they should dress. If you're a father and the woman is a child and is your daughter, it's probably okay that you have some input, as long as you're not a jerk about it.

If the above situation doesn't apply to you, then hush.

Being homeschooled, there were always things like this going on. I even remember going to retreats where, and yes, this actually happened in the 90s, girls' swimming was first, mixed swimming next, and boys' swimming last, even though two-piece swimwear wasn't allowed. Thankfully, the term "mixed swimming" was preferred over the more baptistic "mixed bathing." That would have been an uncomfortable explanation.

Anyway, I have heard a lot of men complaining about this, even recently, and saying things like, no joke, "I should just paint the bottom half of my glasses black when I'm talking to a girl these days, so I can't see below her neck."

Or, you could just not look. That choice is on the table. The sanctifying work of the Spirit does give freedom from lust, just like every other struggle.

Check out the book of Romans. It's one of my favorite parts when Paul tells them, "hey, if your conscience lets you, eat a nice juicy steak." "If it says 'no,' then don't."

I know the Bible says to dress modestly. But there are a couple of issues with applying this here. First, we need to know exactly what the Bible is talking about. Second, it doesn't say "women who don't dress modestly should be sternly rebuked and judged by men."

Here's another issue. Where do we draw the line? What is the ratio of body to exposed skin that does us in? Last I checked, that's not in the Bible, either.

Let's face it, it's not our job to draw the line for other people, anyway.

See, this issue is one of Christian freedom. Just like drinking and TV-viewing and carnivorous eating. It's a matter of conscience.

The whole "women should cover themselves up so they don't cause men to stumble" argument has, at the very least, one major problem. Men should be able to control themselves. Don't shift responsibility here.

So, if people you come into contact with aren't covered up enough, don't look at them, don't hang out with them, whatever you need to do.

Just don't tell them they need to cover up.

Part of the problem is the whole "Every Man's Battle" phenomenon. Sex addiction is not every man's battle, nor is it "Every Woman's Battle" or "Every Young Man's Battle" or "Every Football Fan's Battle" or "Every Apricot Miniature Poodle's Battle."

But even if it is some guy's battle, that's his battle, not everyone else's.

And you might not want to go publicizing it if it is your battle.

Oh, and women can lust, too. Just thought I'd point it out.

like the fool I am and I'll always be

2010-07-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

God's will is our favorite excuse. It's a more serious form of "the dog ate it."

At the end of the last school year, the PE coach at our school invited the music teachers out to the gym during a pizza party for some of the 4th graders. After the pizza was over, the coach asked what game they wanted to play. Of course, the boys in the group wanted to play "Dodge Ball," more commonly known today by its politically correct name, "Avoid the Ball."

The girls wanted to do a more civil activity, like jumping rope or hula-hoops, but if you know anything about 4th graders, nobody heard anything the girls were saying, because Dodge Ball was a possibility.

Of course, being the mature role-model I am, I wanted to play. But Dodge Ball is one of those activities that, unless I want to be on the news, isn't the best idea. Still not fair.

The way we use God's will looks a lot like adults throwing gym balls at 4th graders. There's really not much you can do if you're on the receiving end. It kinda shuts things down.

For example, the following conversation:

Ernie: I want to go to the Outback Steakhouse.
Bert: I don't want to go there, Ernie.
Ernie: Why not, Bert?
Bert: I want to go to the Olive Garden.
Ernie: Why do we always have to do what you want to do?
Bert: It's God's will, Ernie.
Ernie: Oh.

Not much for Ernie to say, huh? Maybe it's God's will they go to the Olive Garden, but my guess is that Bert is conveniently using God's will to support what he wants.

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I'm not a parent, but I think parents should chill out just a bit sometimes.

Of course, this is coming from a recovering homeschooler, so my opinion might not be entirely accurate, but I do what I can.

When I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to see movies in theaters, ever. Especially not PG-13 or...gulp...R. And that's not much of a stretch. From 14 to 17, I maybe saw 3 movies.

But, for all those years, I made a list of all the movies my friends talked about. The summer after I graduated from high school, I got to house sit for some folks for a couple of weeks. It took me about 15 minutes to get to the nearest Blockbuster store. I caught up on movies. It was like I could breathe. And all those things my cool friends were talking about, I suddenly understood.

It was life-giving.

Even worse, don't harp on your kids about their behavior all the time. Let them be themselves. From what I've experienced, one of two things will probably happen. Either the years of repression will catch up to them in the form of bitterness and depression, or they will jump off the diving board of rebellion whenever you can't hold them down anymore.

Even if it's something stupid, like...I don't know...putting a household chemical into their shampoo bottle to slowly and secretly lighten the color of their hair and accidentally turning it orange....which is something I never did....

Relax. You'll be happier and their hair will eventually go back to its original color.

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Why is it that we naturally assume extremely emotional people are more sincere? This most commonly happens when we see them engaging in some kind of interpretive dancing during the slow music at church.

No kidding, one time during some music at a Promise Keepers conference, I saw this dude actually take off and fly away...it was awesome...

Anyway, I know some phonies. Sometimes what we feel the strongest keeps us most calm.

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Anyway, in celebration of Independence Day, here are some lovely pulpit quotes.

"I believe God's hand is still on America (read: U.S.), but just His fingertips."

"Jesus died for our salvation, the American soldier dies for us today."

"We're about to be judged, big time. God's let America (read: U.S.) go even further than He did with Israel."

"Everything our leaders do needs to be engulped (sic) in prayer."

"God Bless the U.S.A. by Lee Greenwood fits this sermon perfectly."

It only gets better with time.

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If I were to preach on freedom, I think this would be a complementary text:

O, the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Love of every love the best.
Tis an ocean vast of blessing,
Tis a haven sweet of rest.
O, the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Tis a heaven of heavens to me.
And it lifts me up to glory,
For it lifts me up to thee.

skin grafts

2010-06-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

For those who, like is my early experience, are consumed with guilt over fighting their own battles with sin and trying (key word) to be good enough, polite enough, and pious enough, here are a couple of texts I have been thinking about.

They serve as a reminder for me that I live Christ's life, breathe his breath, walk his walk.

Saying to "let go" seems too trite in this case.

"Back off," maybe.

Oh well.

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

- anon, 1700s

Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

Christ ever with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me
Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ to my right side, Christ to my left side
Christ in his breadth, Christ in his length, Christ in depth
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me
Christ in every eye that sees me
Christ in every ear that hears me.

- attributed to St. Patrick

alone

2010-05-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

I am disconnected.

Sometimes sitting in church is the most disconnected place to be. It's a bunch of people talking about how to try harder and give our best efforts toward becoming like Jesus.

It's depressing. It's just not going to happen.

My prayers crash. My singing is off-pitch. My piano playing is frustrated. I'm just banging away, going through the motions.

I feel the paucity, the emptiness in my brain, my bones, my soul.

I have no hope of being like Christ this way. I'm just flailing, gasping, dragging.

This is not what "following" Christ is supposed to be.

But it's what we preach. We preach morals and beliefs. We preach being down on ourselves when we fall short.

If this is true, aren't we just agreeing with all those "liberals" who preach that Christianity is following Jesus good teachings?

"Worship" is cleverly devised as a way to feel something. But we have to wait to do it until we're in church. It makes us happy. It makes us feel connected to something.

There's no Christ in that. There's precious little of him to be found anywhere in the false religion we preach. And it sucks. It's no way to live.

It's not about mimicking the good things we see in Christ. It's about living his life. It's about tasting and seeing.

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green.
The trees of nature, fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought.
I miss'd for all-but now I see-
'Tis found in Jesus Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil.
Here I will sit and rest awhile.
Under the shadow I will be
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit does make my soul to thrive.
It keeps my dying faith alive,
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

I turned twenty-one in prison doin' life without parole

2010-05-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

Moms are better than dads.

That's what many evangelical churches believe. There's a church I know about that actually cancels the evening service on Mother's Day so that folks can spend time with their mothers.

But on Father's Day, they do what every one of the three God-fearing SBC churches left does: they have an evening service. It's what the Lord would have them do.

This is a problem for two reasons, I think.

First, mothers are not more important than fathers.

There. I said it.

Obviously children rely physically on their mothers in a significant way early on. But they are no less dispensable than fathers.

But I think most people, somewhere inside, believe they are.

Second, motherhood is not the highest calling of women.

There. I said that, too.

It's a high calling. It's a noble calling. But not everyone is called to it, and that doesn't make them second-class in any way.

Coming out of the homeschooling community, I know some people who turned from being driven, accomplished people to being barefoot and pregnant overnight. Not that it was wrong for them to have kids, but when that happened, they lost all drive to do anything else.

And that is not okay. That's not how we were meant to live, regardless of our plumbing.

bad, bad Leroy Brown

2010-04-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

He got a 32 gun in his pocket for fun,
He got a razor in his shoe.
- the incomparable Jim Croce

Normally, I review books on my other blog, but this one has a place in Ponder Anew.

Let me introduce myself to you. My name is jaigner. I am a man. Okay, check. I'm a Christian. An evangelical. I'm a teacher. A music teacher. An elementary music teacher. I have a wife. My wife and I own an apricot miniature poodle named Ellie. I don't call her my wife's dog. I call her my dog.

I like music, poetry, reading books. I enjoy strawberry margaritas. I have gotten a professional massage at a place where they give you a robe (which came to mid-thigh on me) and have water for you to drink in a big bowl with sliced cucumbers floating around in it.

I love the sport of baseball, but football annoys me a lot.

I'm an egalitarian and don't think it's necessary for men to dominate or have an uneasy dignity they have to defend.

And John Eldredge doesn't like me. I'm not the perfect man by a long shot. Not even normal, according to his point of view. Here's the thing: when Eldredge talks about how every man deep inside wants to be a Mel Gibson in "Braveheart" kind of guy, he's not talking about me.

I guess I resent the fact that he thinks all of us men are alike at our core, and, in the same way, women are the same at their core. It's just not true. Besides that, in his quest for the perfect proof text to prove his thesis, he virtually ignores everything in Scripture that talks about how men should be able to be something other than tough and rugged. In fact, he seems to greatly prefer Hollywood's vision of men over the Bible's.

There are other things wrong with this book. His theology lacks substance. His exegesis is bad and his hermeneutic is lazy. His writing style is flowery and romantic - now that you mention it, it's really way to flowery than a book about an "Eldredgeman" should be. But what really bothers me is what do you do with the rest of us, both men and women, who at their very core do not see themselves in his idea of gender.

Besides the fact a lot of us don't see ourselves in this uberdude, there's got to be some balance. I need to be tough sometimes, that's true. I may need to kill snakes or ride a horse or something. But I am not being a fully developed, fully alive man if everything I do looks like John Wayne or something. Can you imagine John Wayne teaching music to a room full of 5-year-old children? No, but Mr. Aigner can do it. I might be lost in the saddle, but I can do things a lot of those guys can't do.

I do, however, refuse to use body wash. I don't care what color it is or what the label says about it being for guys. It's not happening. I'll stick with my bar soap.

kentucky fried music

2010-04-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

Lord, we are few, but thou art near;
Nor short thine arm, nor deaf thine ear;
Oh rend the heav'ns, come quickly down,
And make a thousand hearts thine own!
-William Cowper

So I sat down earlier today to read the online newspaper from my community. Now this wasn't the major Houston paper, but one from my little part of the greater metro, which means the headlines read something like these: "Vern Richard's cow escaped and was torn in half on the railroad tracks down by the Texaco" and "local man arrested for public urination...there were no witnesses." You know, the real good stuff. I really read these papers for the obituaries, if you must know.

Anyway, so I was reading about the prayer breakfast held earlier by the local Kiwanis club. It was all fine until I got to the part about the musical selections. Someone sang this song called "We've Got to Get America Back to God." Well, naturally, I was horrified by the title, so I checked into it further. Apparently, it's a cute little southern gospel number that has been recorded at least a couple of times and I finally came across the lyrics. It's a real gem. It goes like this:

What ever happened to “In God We Trust?”
Prayer has been banned and taken from us.
When will we say, “Enough is enough!”
And get our country back to God?

We’ve got to get America back to God
We’ve got to rule the world with the staff and rod.
We’ve got to fight the Devil everywhere we trod
We’ve got to get America back to God.

Millions of babies we’ve lost each year
What have we done to stop their tears
Christians rise up let America hear
we will take our country back to God.

The silence is broken
It’s time now to stand
Well take this world for Jesus
If we go hand in hand.

Not sure who the lyricist is, but I'm guessing it's someone named "Sonny," or, in the unlikely event that it's a woman, "Jean." Fortunately, I hadn't yet eaten lunch. Good thing.

Needless to say, this song is horrific. It is so far from the gospel that there’s nothing actually Christian about it. It’s pure nationalistic fervor and griping about the fact that Christianity is no longer the civil religion in our country.

Guess what. This was never a “Christian” nation. Oh, people tried to say it was, but there was never a time when we looked like Christ. In fact, we’ve done horrible, ungodly things in His name. It’s time we break away from that cycle of abuse and choose God’s Kingdom over this earthly kingdom. The U.S. may be one of the more successful earthly empires, but the Bible is clear that all of those are in Satan’s domain.

How silly is it to say prayer has been banned? Prayer can never be "banned and taken away." It is not our job to “rule the world with a staff and rod.” That will come later on the renewed earth when Christ sets up His reign. Political power isn't the answer. We do that by living and loving like Jesus. The U.S. will pass away. We serve a higher throne.

Instead of whining and complaining about how we’re uncomfortable with our society and how much our feelings get hurt all the time and showing everyone how touchy we are, maybe we should take some real steps to change it. We need to love other people - really love them as Jesus did instead of condemning them. We need to stop trying to legislate Biblical principles because that is not a way to effect actual, visible change in people. If we do these things, then we might see a real change.

So stop being so freakin' sensitive.

man in the mirror

2010-03-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd be using my spring break to catch up on a some blogging. Unfortunately, my mind is also on spring break, so I've only been able to produce a few streams of consciousness. Here are a few and maybe, especially if one of you inspires me, I'll develop some in the near future.

Christians have really screwed sex up. Really. It doesn't work to tell young people that "sex is wonderful" and then follow up that statement with years of negative reinforcement. I heard this guy on Christian radio (I'm a closet listener) who was hosting a live call-in show. He was going full-throttle until someone asked an honest and serious question about sex. The host's tone completely changed. He couldn't evens say the word. Maybe if we weren't so polite and prudish and could talk about it openly and honestly, we wouldn't see sex being screwed up by generation after generation of Christians and it would finally be something sacred. Just a thought.
John Eldridge's Wild at Heart is a very strange piece of work. Talk about a stream of consciousness. It goes on for hundreds of pages and says almost nothing except that I'm a failure as a man, maybe even gay, because I like to be clean and odor-free, enjoy strawberry margaritas, watch HGTV, own a miniature poodle - a FEMALE miniature poodle, and enjoy hour-long massages at places that have mini waterfalls and soothing music and give you water from a big, clear bowl that has cucumber slices floating around in it.
God's favorite sport is baseball. God's least favorite is football. One day I'll write a theology of baseball, but it's still way down the road.
God's favorite time signature is 6/8. His least favorite is any where the numbers, added together, equal more than 15.
Treating retail customer service employees kindly and warmly is a manifestation of grace in our lives. And not just when they're warm and kind to us. All the time. Teaching elementary school is very hard, but the customer service jobs I've worked have been the hardest. Those people need lots of grace.
I am sick of people asking my wife and I when we're going to have children. It's none of their business. Next time someone brings this up, I'm going to change the subject to their last intrusive medical exam. Even worse is when someone gets on to you about how it's wrong to limit the number of offspring you produce. The audacity!
News flash to my Southern Baptist friends: there is biblical support for paedobaptism. It's fine if you don't agree, but kindly stop referring to adult immersion as "Scriptural baptism."
2 Chronicles 7:14 has nothing to do with the moral condition of the United States.

There were going to be ten, but I think I'll save the last one for later.

all you need is rolaids

2010-02-10T12:52:00.001-08:00

I hate Valentine's Day. It's a completely fake holiday. There, I said it. You can tell my wife. She knows how I feel about it. Since Hallmark has decided we need to have this one day to tell that someone special how we feel, so we spend a bunch of money on crap we don't need and put all this energy into saying these words.

Our whole culture is really strange about the love thing. We're all into saying it. It makes us feel good. It doesn't matter that we treat each other like crap all year long.

My beautiful and perceptive wife gets this stuff right. She really doesn't care if I tell her I love her all the time. She just wants me to actually do it. And if there's, hypothetically speaking, a time when I'm not loving toward her, the last thing she wants me to say is "I love you." It wouldn't really be true until I had gotten my act together and actually been loving.

We also think that God must like to hear it. I recently heard someone say that the song, "I Love You, Lord" was the greatest worship song ever. He said it says everything we ought to say to God. For those of you who haven't heard this one recently, it goes like this:

I love you, Lord and I lift my voice,
To worship you, oh my soul rejoice,
Take joy, my King in what you hear,
Let it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.

Wow. Compelling and rich. You know, I think actually it was written by the Council of Nicea.

Seriously, it's the worst song I've ever heard, and if it's worse than "As the Deer," it's really got to be bad. It's so bad because it is often thoroughly untrue.

Nevermind that there is no Biblical precedent for saying "I love you" to God. (Except for the time with Peter and Jesus, and we all know how that turned out.) Nevermind that we actually haven't loved God. Saying it doesn't make it true.

It's completely unloving to say we love someone and then not do it.

wouldn't know who he was

2009-12-13T13:16:00.001-08:00

I can see how easy it must have been for Israel to completely miss their Messiah. If it were me, I hope I'd recognize Him, but I'm really not so sure. I mean, what's this baby supposed to do? Frankly, the crying might get a little annoying.

But a baby it was. What a wonderful beginning to earthly life spent loving and serving. It's a bit easier to see that now.

If Jesus came today, many of the professed Christians I know wouldn't recognize Him. They're too busy fighting to keep nativity scenes legal and whining whenever a Wal-Mart cashier tells them "Happy Holidays." Gotta keep those pesky gays from marrying.

They need a powerful King to lead their fight. A president. A CEO. They need someone to embody their political gospel. A baby just won't do.

Sweet little Jesus Boy —
They made you be born in a manger.
Sweet little Holy Child —
Didn't know who you was.
Didn't know you'd come to save us, Lord;
To take our sins away.
Our eyes was blind, we couldn't see,
We didn't know who you was.
Long time ago, you was born,
Born in a manger low,
Sweet little Jesus Boy.
The world treat you mean, Lord,
Treat me mean too,
But that's how things is down here —
We don't know who you is.
You done told us how, we is a tryin'!
Master, you done show'd us how,
even when you was dyin'.
Just seem like we can't do right,
Look how we treated you.
But please, sir, forgive us, Lord —
We didn't know 'twas you.
Sweet little Jesus Boy, born long time ago.
Sweet little Holy Child,
And we didn't know who you was.

thanksgiving

2009-11-19T19:37:00.000-08:00

I really, really don’t like it when the Church celebrates secular holidays. I suppose it’s okay to mention them in passing, but I really don’t see what the Church is doing celebrating civic holidays as if they had much of anything to do with God or creation or salvation history or any of those things. I was even in a Church recently (a liturgical setting, believe it or not), that sang some strange hymn about concrete and steel to celebrate Labor Day.

Hallmark holidays are even worse. Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are just distractions. Give the mothers a flower and the dads some kind of cigar substitute like a pen or a book, but don’t build the whole gathering around it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine to celebrate them with your families. But they are big distractions in churches. And the music played and sung in them is usually pure crap.

I think I’ve made my opinion about the place of Independence Day pretty clear.

I still don’t know about Thanksgiving. Even though its origins had religious overtones, it’s little more than civic in our culture today. And even though the pilgrims were probably pretty thankful for those natives they ran across, the sentiment didn’t last too long, did it?

That reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite TV shows, FOX’s King of the Hill.

Bobby Hill: You mean Indians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving?

John Redcorn: We did. Once.

Southern Baptists are big on Thanksgiving. They like it because it gives them a chance to eat themselves silly and not feel bad about it. Actually two chances, the actual Thanksgiving meal and the church dinner and pie fellowship. Being people that keep a covered dish on their person at all times,

Thanksgiving resonates deep in their souls. And their tummies. Of course I’m exaggerating, but not that much.

Thankfulness is something we really need to work on. I’m convinced in a lot of places, Thanksgiving is more about celebrating our own ability to hoard. Seriously. We feel like we’re entitled to all the good stuff of life and we get really pissed when that’s not laid right at our feet. Don’t look at me that way. You know you do. I do too.

I remember how mad I was when I finished my master’s degree and was still stuck working at Outback Steakhouse. Like someone should have popped out of thin air and served me a job on a platter. It finally hit me that I still had it way better than I deserved.

The holiday doesn’t usually have anything to do with thankfulness before God.

But Thanksgiving comes at a good time thankfulness. We’re closing out the church year and getting ready to begin Advent. Seems to me like thanksgiving is a good way to finish things out. But in the Church, giving thanks for the symbolic harvest we enjoy should always be done in light of God’s mercy and faithfulness in Christ.

The really good thanksgiving hymns help us to do this. They don’t get bogged down in warm fuzziness.

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come, Now Thank We All Our God, We Gather Together, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, My Heart Is Filled With Thankfulness.

I guess that’s where I am on Thanksgiving celebrations in church. If we’re not careful, they become just another sappy, sentimental civic celebration that dilutes our real celebrations and gives us the chance to pig out. But if they do Thanksgiving right and put us in the right perspective, I’m okay with it. At least for now.

my family

2009-11-13T20:12:00.000-08:00

How about a break from the more serious topics I've been pondering in this space recently. Above are some pictures of a few of the things that make my life particularly beautiful.

First is my beautiful wife, Kelsey. I first met her as a teenager and, shortly thereafter, fell as in love as a 15-year-old boy possibly could. We didn't date then, though. We both had a lot of growing to do. I went to Waco and Chicago, she went to England and Vancouver (pretty sure she got a better deal). 8 years later, it was time for us to be together. All these years later, I still love her as much as I possibly can. And I hope that my love for her can always be increasing. She's the perfect companion for me and I'm so grateful for her presence in my life. She's also very smart, ambitious, and thoroughly beautiful.

Below that is my dog, Ellie. She's an apricot miniature poodle. She likes to cuddle and sniff and lick. She also likes to run fast, followed by periods of stretching and sleeping. I'm not sure about all the theological implications of this, but I think taking good care of a pet is an act of worship.

I am an elementary school music teacher. I get to share something I love with 500 kids every week. Pretty cool.

What a wonderful life.

idols

2009-11-10T17:26:00.000-08:00

All the heroes and legends I knew as a child have turned into idols of clay. - Styx

The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be
Help me to tear it from Thy throne,
And worship only Thee.
- William Cowper

When I was growing up, I heard stories about how the Israelites were always bowing down to these idols. I guess for the most part, I figured these idols were some big carvings or statues made of stone and metal and stuff. I also heard about how God said we're not supposed to worship them.

I thought the Israelites were pretty dumb for doing these things and, since I was a kid and didn't really have a whole bunch of scrap metal lying around and didn't have money to go buy a ready-made idol, I figured was pretty safe from the whole idolatry thing. That's one sin I can go ahead and check off.

We bow down to idols all the time.

I just recently realized that I'd been bowing down at the altar of pleasing people. It seems like a pretty good thing, especially if you're raised Southern Baptist. They love to be caught on their best behavior and have people like the things they do. If people don't like the things they do, they make sure and pick a fight with them so they show everyone else how mean and crazy they are for not liking them. I figured that's what God really wanted out of me. Good behavior and likability.

Actually, it was an idol that I was worshiping. I worshiped it every day of my life, except for a few minutes here and there when I knew nobody was watching.

This idol had a stronghold deep inside me. But it was nothing more than a God substitute. It left me cold and empty. It failed me all the time. Idols always do.

The more committed I was to pleasing people, the more shame I felt every time I didn't do a good enough job and displeased my idol. After time, it left me worrying more and more about the next time my idol was going to let me down. Idols breed guilt and anxiety.

It also made me repressed, I think.

I knew a lot of people growing up, mostly homeschooling parents, who idolized their children. Or maybe their idol was being good parents. Either way, their life was consumed with these kids, trying to never let them experience pain or feel sad or want for anything. Later on, when these kids hit reality and started doing all kids of distasteful things, their parents completely crumbled.

I am close to some people that idolize financial security. The thought of their stocks crashing sends crushing waves of anxiety. Watching their 401K go up and down consumes them in worry.

Other people idolize their health.

Or how about their country. People sing worship songs to the U.S. all the time. They never miss a tithe. If you're interested, here's where you can buy their book.

Idols can be any number of legitimate things like relationships, marriages, food, sex, good behavior...whatever.

A really bad thing about idols is that they keep us from meeting God. They keep us either in our future or our past, writhing in guilt over times our idols failed us, or they keep us up at night, terrified of the next time our idols fail us.

If I am actually worshiping the one true and living God instead of substitutes, I don't need to feel shame and anxiety. Jesus' love covers my past and gives me hope for the future.

I had a professor who used to say all the time that everybody worships. Pretty true.

a year in london

2009-10-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

When I got really depressed a few years ago, I figured out that I was a pretty disengaged person. Actually, I finally realized that when I started to get better. When I was really depressed, I was mostly worried about revving myself up for my daily routine of getting out of bed, eating, working, and sleeping.

Meaningful conversation didn't usually happen. I didn't usually get past navel lint or comparing baths to showers. I tried talking about historical theology with someone once. It wasn't pretty.

When I wasn't stumbling around doing these things, I was always worried. Worried I was going to make big mistakes, that people wouldn't like me, those kinds of things.

More than anything, I was worried I had lost God's presence forever. I felt nothing. There is nothing as depressing as feeling abandoned by God.

Now don't go quoting verses telling me God doesn't forsake His own and that sort of thing. I know those verses. They're little help to someone in the middle of depression. Don't try to get depressed people to snap out of it, especially with Bible verses.

Come to think of it, I think what did it was that I lost an awareness of God's presence. I had it once, but then I lost it. I know God never left, but my perception told me otherwise.

I know what Ron Burgundy was talking about when he was "in a glass case of emotion." I was there. Except it was dark, so either my case wasn't glass or it was nighttime. One of the two. Or maybe fog. It doesn't really matter.

So now I'm not depressed anymore. And I have mostly recovered my feeling of God's presence. Now, those verses about God not leaving or forsaking really mean something to me.

And I have to learn to engage with reality. I don't know exactly why I didn't before, but I imagine it had a lot to do with my living within my own critical and judgmental thoughts. This was my favorite place to be. That and Whataburger.

God can't really make an appearance until you get out of yourself and into reality. That's when the fog really starts to burn off.

tales from the BGCT

2009-10-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

So I was sitting in church this evening thinking about the disparity between Christ-like love and judgment when I thought of a great story from my teenage years that illustrates the substitute gospel of good behavior I grew up around.

My family was in a new church where I didn't know anybody. There was this guy who was really nice to me, especially when I was still really new. I'll call him...I don't know...Kurt. He wasn't particularly well-behaved like I was, but his being nice made up for it in my eyes. In any event, he was a guy the adults in the church loved to pass judgment on.

We were in this Sunday school class...think it was 11th grade...that was directed by this older couple who were well-meaning, but probably were better suited to be teaching 1st grade. I'll call them the Worthingtons. There was this one time they made a microphone out of an empty paper towel roll and pretended to be newscasters reporting on the death of Jesus. Pretty lame in a funny sort of way, but not the time I'm thinking of.

This particular Sunday we were playing this Bible trivia game, where we could answer these multiple choice questions and, if we got the question right, try to throw a ball into a trash can to score points for our team.

I don't remember the exact question, but there was some disagreement between the Worthingtons and Kurt regarding one of our team's answers. In disbelief, Kurt turned away and used a mild epithet, I think it was "bull crap."

When Mrs. Worthington heard this, her shallow smile turned to the tightest frown imaginable and her squinty eyes got as wide as the Red Sea. Kurt said, "what'd I do?" Mrs. Worthington replied, "When you say "bull crap" in church I don't like it. You might as well call it dirt, cause that's what you're acting like. When I was your age, we never would have used that language in God's house."

There you have it, folks, a pretty obvious example of someone separating and distancing herself from other people who didn't live up to her standard.

It was a pretty funny scene, but I'm pretty sure Kurt isn't seen around church much these days.

I can't say I really blame him.

the gospel according to Jerry Falwell

2009-10-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it's a good thing when people are serious about their faith. I think people sometimes get kinda tied up in defending it, though. The more my grown and deep and rich my faith gets, the less I feel like I need to worry about it's defense.

The other day I was listening to this Christian radio station here in Houston. They have this short segment when a "Christian law expert," or maybe I Christian "law expert" (expert on our law, not God's, I mean) comes on and sounds the battle cry over Hebrew texts disappearing from courthouses or two men marrying each other or something else that threatens our God-given right as Christians to be comfortable and not get too close to any of the scary stuff we might otherwise have to see.

This day, the guy was talking about the right of landlords to deny applications of unmarried, cohabitating (hadn't heard that term for a while) couples. He talked about how terrible it was that so many Christian landlords were being forced to violate their faith by renting to such couples.

Here is the heart of judgmentalism. It's not just disagreeing, it's refusing to love people until they get their act together.

It's fine with me if they don't approve of that lifestyle choice. What's really disturbing is that people believe this is a violation of their faith to even rent them an apartment. It's like a manager at "The Golden Corral" deciding to turn away overweight people because gluttony violates his faith.

Or a pool owner who won't let women in because they might tempt the men. Sounds pretty funny, doesn't it?

Let's get real. Couples can get housing anywhere else. And if you turn them away, they will get it somewhere else. Why not with you?

We talk about wanting to change the world and reach people and all that, but when these people are delivered right to our doorstep, we judge them, deliver our lawful sentence and send these people further and further away from the gospel.

Robert Webber was an amazing theological scholar and teacher, and also, though an older gentleman, a man who was sensitive to the disconnection between American Christianity and the younger generation. In his book, The Younger Evangelicals, he tells the story of a woman who had been attending a pragmatic megachurch, earnestly seeking a deeper connection in her life.

This woman made contact with the Church, saying she wanted to become a Christian. Was she welcomed with open arms? Was she lovingly shown the deepness and wonder of the Christian faith?

No, she was told that, because she lived with her boyfriend, she needed to change her life before she could make a Christian commitment.

And all she wanted was a relationship with Jesus.

I wonder if it would be a shock for my church to realize I still struggled with sin, and that sometimes I struggle with it out in the open, for everyone to see. I've been a Christian for almost 20 years, but I can't say I've figured out how to avoid it.

God, help us understand how we can genuinely love people and how easy it is to get in your way. Help us finally learn to step back.

yesterday's gone

2009-10-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

The issue of truth is difficult.

The really difficult part is that, though there are a number of salient things of which we can grasp in faith, nobody can hold the whole of God's truth in our own hands. Our human finiteness coupled with the parasite of sin ensures this.

We can see this by looking at the landscape of Christian belief. There are a countless number of committed and humble Christians who take the Bible seriously and genuinely seek the Spirit's leading who cannot come to a consensus on the whole of truth.

Beyond this, the Bible is our source of truth regarding what we need to know about Christian belief and God's story of creation/redemption, but it does not contain all truth. There is truth revealed in Creation. There is truth revealed in the Spirit and human conscience. There is truth to be found everywhere - even non-Christian belief - but it all belongs to God. Paul understood this when he drew upon ancient Greek thought.

I don't know, man. I love the Church. That's why it's so grieving to see it in the state it's in.

I also love the Bible.

More to come about the Bible. Sometime after I get some sleep.

where do I go from here

2009-10-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've got a real problem.

Much of what is going on in the Church makes me want to vomit. Sometimes even literally. Like right now, my stomach is turning. I am so often repulsed by the Church in this country. I hate the substitute gospels of patriotism and moralism. I hate the judgmental undertones (and sometimes overtones). I hate the segmentation; the ghettos that are created at the expense of community.

I'm repulsed by the consumerism. Did you know you can rate churches on the internet now? No real surprise, I guess. The Church in this country is almost entirely driven by marketing. It's a business model. Meet people's felt needs and give them good entertainment, they'll buy your product. It's all pragmatics, really.

But it doesn't have anything to do with the gospel.

I hate the sexism, racism and fundamentalism.

Many people are being saved, you might say. Yes. I think it is obvious that God's sovereignty allows for the gross and obscene omissions and commissions of our sin-weighted souls. That is amazing grace.

It doesn't excuse us. It doesn't absolve us.

There is a deeper problem. I AM a part of the Church. I can't just opt out.

Beyond that, I love the Church. That's what makes all of this so difficult.

What can I do about all this? Especially when I'm so sick at my stomach.

Grace and peace.

the gospel according to beer

2009-10-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

Recently heard in a sermon: You might be surprised if you knew some of the sinful things I had in my past. I was mean. I closed many a bar down.

I have not recently heard this in a sermon: Beer is good.

There, I said it. I can hear my Southern Baptist heritage crying out with pain at that statement. But, long before prohibition, long before "thou shalt abstain from strong drink" became the eleventh commandment, long before secular became known as the opposite of sacred, Christians liked drinking beer. Billy Sunday and Adrian Rogers probably believed with all their hearts they were preaching the right thing, but they're up against some pretty big names in this department.

Don't take it from me. Take it from a guy named Martin Luther, who once said, "We old folks have to find our cushions and pillows in our tankards. Strong beer is the milk of the old." Of course, that is politely rendered from the original German quote, which may actually be closer to, "I like beer/it makes me a jolly, good fellow/I like beer/it helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow."

Baptists don't like beer. I'll take that back. Actually, Baptists in the south don't admit to liking beer. Even though I have long begun to distance myself from the Baptisty position on a lot of things, I was still surprised when I received my copy of The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World by Stephen Mansfield from Thomas Nelson Publishing. It's just not everyday us Texans see Guinness and God in the same sentence, unless it's regarding Sodom and Gomorrah. They were big Guinness drinkers, you know.

This is the same guy that wrote The Faith of George W. Bush and The Faith of Barack Obama. Because of his reputation for writing fair, engaging analysis of cultural snapshots, I was anxious to read his book.

But beer?

I have to say that, excepting Baptists in the south, of course, Guinness is well-known as the preferred beer of theologians, at least the English-speaking theologians. My guess is that if Luther were here, he might have something to say about Heineken, but that's hard to tell. Therefore, I learned to drink it on occasion during deep theological discussion with others. There's nothing quite like having Bible study and beer.

Trust me, folks, they fit together perfectly.

Mansfield realizes this. He also realizes that because of a good beer's ability to bring people together, along with the unique business model of Arthur Guinness's company, make the Guinness story an especially interesting one.

In a day when the bottom line is all that matters and when institutions and corporations have robbed, cheated and lied people out of their livelihood and future, the story of the old Irish brewers is a breath of fresh air. It also begs the question, "Can we see anything like this here in our culture?

I was especially struck with Mansfield's account of a corporation that functioned like community. In a culture when churches continue to run themselves according to a business model, especially an American business model, we have some things to learn. What people are hungering for is Christian community, not good preaching, not entertaining music, not ministries specific to demographics, but genuine community.

Maybe our churches should run more like an - GASP - Irish brewery.

Please don't throw stones. Not yet, at least.

Mansfield's retelling of this story is an inspired and fresh account, a sober analysis, and a motivating conclusion. It is worth the read.

It's also better with Guinness.

the fightin' side of me

2009-09-21T18:53:00.001-07:00

"I wonder just how long the rest of us can count on bein' free." - Merle Haggard

I just don't see how the US can be called a "Christian" nation. Can anyone help me understand that? I was raised with all the "one nation under God" stuff and the religious right and Peter Marshall and Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition. I heard it non-stop at church. I even remember when Carman's "America Again" was performed at our 10,000 member church on July 4 to thunderous applause. Now this stuff just eats at me.

Someone tell me what to do with slavery. Explain to me how getting rich off the blood and sweat of Africans can be identified with a gospel cause. Why do African-American evangelical Christians tend to distance themselves from the Christian right? And why were we singing racist hymns in our churches?

What about how we took England to war over taxes, slaughtering thousands of image-bearers? Did that reflect the love of Christ on the cross? Or did it fit the selfish ambitions of a minority (the war was opposed by an estimated 2/3 of the colonists)?

What can we say about manifest destiny and the Native Americans? What a joke. We stole. We murdered. That's what there is to say.

All this for a godly purpose? I'm less than convinced. The crusaders said the same things. I can't understand how Christianity's place as the unofficial civic religion negates all the bad.

There is little distinctly Biblical language in the founding documents of this country. Why is that if it was supposed to be an overtly Christian nation? Does it really make a difference to Christians? Where does Scripture say we should fight to be made comfortable in our culture? Where does it say that restoring Christianity as the civic religion of our country is a part of the great commission? This kingdom will fail. It's of the world, you know.

I mean this seriously. Can anyone help me reconcile all the bad things with the cross of Christ?

the gospel of Tim LaHaye

2009-09-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

Recently heard in a sermon: In my opinion, the rapture could happen at any moment. But I think there's one reason he hasn't come back yet. I think he looks down on Creation and says, "Oh, it can't be today. Today's the day that "Shirley" or "Maynard" or "Gloria" is going to get saved." One day, he'll look down on us and realize that there's not going to be anyone getting saved anymore, and then the rest of us will be out of here.

Hmmm...okay.

The church I grew up in is consumed with end-times stuff. At least they were. As a little kid, it really freaked me out. I mean, majorly. I really wanted to grow up a bit first. Looking back, those sermons that really harped on it were really traumatic for me.

I've recently been reminded of all this stuff, and even though I've grown up a bit, I'm still a little freaked out by this. Everywhere there are silly people looking at all kinds of things and desperately trying to see how they fit with all the Bible prophecy. They might be well-meaning, but they're silly. I've read at least most of the Bible and I don't think Obama or healthcare or the part in Ted Kennedy's hair or what Kim Jong-Il ate for breakfast is mentioned once. A couple of these silly people are on TV. Hal Lindsay, seen here with his fourth wife, might be the most resilient man in the world. Been wrong a hundred times, but he keeps on truckin.' Plus, he and his "Tom Selleck ain't got nothin' on this" mustache don't look a day over 65. Amazing.

There was another guy who used to freak me out when I was a kid. See, I had this 5-inch black and white TV in my room. Late at night, when I was supposed to be asleep, I would get it out and turn on some of the filth I was never supposed to see, like "News Radio" or "Unhappily Ever After." Occasionally, I would watch this guy...forget his name...Jack Van Impe talk about how he was constantly shocked that he was here on Earth to see another day. I think he was talking about Christ's return, not his bout with cancer.

All this stuff, the sermons and TV shows, did little to foster my faith and help it grow. I'm really sick of it, actually. I think it's like this for most people, even if they don't realize it. All I know is, if you're always looking at the sky, you're going to have no friends and a stiff neck.

A little faith would go a long way here.

For the record, I long ago left dispensationalism...really, you can do that...and I'm 58% sure a post-trib, pre-mil position is safe, but I'm not particularly worried about it. I'm not saying it isn't important. I'm not saying we should avoid the issue, either. It's going to happen someday and I'm cool with that. I'm just thinking maybe we should kinda, you know, chill out about it a bit. There are three main reasons:

1) Nobody knows when it's going to happen.
2) It's not going to help me show Christ to anyone.
3) There are better things to do with our time.

So next time you feel a little anxious because folks around you are consumed with all this stuff, just relax and enjoy your afternoon. Be faithful image-bearers. Oh, and "Left Behind" paperbacks burn nicely when it's cool outside.

this little kingdom went to market, this one stayed home

2009-09-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

Recently heard in a sermon: God's people need to be working on turning America back to God.

I've talked a lot recently about the idea of the United States being a Christian nation. I guess that's because it's been on my mind. That idea is one of the supreme teachings of my childhood, both at church and in my homeschooling circles. It really amounted to brainwashing. Moving to the Chicago area was a breath of fresh air for me. Nobody up there knows about this idea. Actually, they probably do, but nobody ever really talks about it. It was really nice. I managed to forget about all the founding fathers and John Locke disguised as gospel stuff. Then I moved back to Texas.

Most Christians here in this part of the country are really preoccupied with it. I think they believe that the toughest thing facing Christianity today is that it is losing its place as the unofficial civic religion in the U.S. They know this because they go to Wal-Mart a lot, and it's not pretty. They hear people using some cuss words and occasionally find women with children but without wedding rings. Focus on the Family tells them about all the bad things movies and working moms are causing us to do. They've read "The Light and the Glory," so they know that sin was not introduced in America until Maurice Chevalier first came over from Paris.

Some of them are buying something called "The Patriot Bible." Yeah, I'm not kidding. As one Amazon reviewer says: "The Bible itself is not altered," but is augmented by "colored illustrations and facts about how our country was founded upon the Word of God." One person named Wilma A. Keel loves all the Americanecdotes side by side with Scripture. "Honestly it makes me WANT to read the Bible," she says.

This is where it really gets bad. Christian faith and nationalistic zeal united in holy matrimony.

Since I haven't looked at the entire thing and since my wife would object to my spending thirty bucks to pad the "heretics section" of my book collection (complete with Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, James Dobson and a few others), I've got to base my opinion on....

...a quick reading made possible by an impromptu trip to Barnes and Noble just now. Okay, they had this thing. It was one of those featured items that gets turned on the shelf so it's cover is completely visible. I could see the flag from the other end of the aisle, so I didn't even need to hunt for it.

This book features the NKJV text which gets frequently interrupted by patriotic quotes and editorial musings on the lives of famous people who 1) were well-known for doing something American and 2) at least once talked about God or the Bible. It also contains other illuminating commentary. What a great idea to include the "Fireman's Prayer" after the whole fiery furnace account. Too bad those guys had never read it.

The focus of the Patriot Bible is that many instrumental people in U.S. history claimed God's blessing. Also, the editor seems pretty sure that the great commission is to restore Christianity as the unofficial civil religion of the U.S.

In other words, scripture is hijacked for nationalistic purposes.

What about some of the other parts of our past? How about the way we got rich off of slavery? What about manifest destiny? Remember the revolutionary war where we killed lots of image-bearers over unfair taxes? (Maybe Christians should organize an army and attack Washington in 2009.) What about all the people who have had to die for our ideals? We've done some horrible things in the name of Christ. We're not the first...sneezecrusadescoughcough...to try this. I almost vomited when I discovered that TPB stops in the middle of Genesis 4 to quote the text of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

This is just disgusting and sad. God forgive us for making a mockery of your Kingdom.

If it walks like a duck

2009-09-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

They’ll Know We Are Christians By . . .

· … Our Absence from Movie Theaters

· … Our Disney Boycotts

· … Our Fish Decals

· … Our Tracts

· … the Absence of Alcoholic Beverages in Our Fridges

· … Our Courtship

· … the Clever Pop Culture Parodies on Our T-Shirts

· … Our Skepticism of Catholics

· … Our Modest Swimwear

· … Our Natural Family Planning

· … Our Nondescript Clothing

· … Our Street Preaching

· … Our True Love Waits Rings

· … Our Fight to Keep the Ten Commandments on the Courthouse Wall

· … Our Condemnation of Those Who Disagree With Us

· … Our Worship CDs

· ...Our Republican Bumper Stickers

· … Our Love of Biblical Names

· … Our Living Our Best Life Now

· … Our Christian skate night

· … Our Clever Church Signs

· … Our Heroes

· … Our Biblical Patriarchy

· … Our Megachurches

· … Our 170-foot Crosses

· … Our Creationism Museums

· … Our Well-behaved, Repressed, Depressed, Perfectionist Children

· … Our Affinity for Discreet Gossiping

· … Our Phobia of Homosexuality

· … Our Corporal Punishment

· … Our Denominational Splits

· … Our Belief in Manifest Destiny

· … Our Hijacking Hit Songs and Making Them Ambiguously Christian

· … Our Single-Income Households

· … Our Bachelor of Arts In Humanities With a Concentration in Homemaking That Is Only Open to Women

· … Our Sunday Cafeteria Patronage

· … Our Strategic Muting and Fast-Forwarding While Watching Hollywood Movies

· … Our “Jesus Is My Girl/Boyfriend” Music

· … Our Ignorance of Our Own Church’s History

· … Our Support of the Death Penalty

· … Our Cabbage Patch Bonfires

· … Our Unaccredited Institutions of Higher Learning

· … Our Non-sexual Crush on James Dobson

All sung to the tune of the antiquated, vapid song “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” (What a novel idea.)

We all need a little humor.

Got any other good ones?

home from the office

2009-09-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot recently about these kinds of issues. It's something that I've wrestled with for a long time and have just in the past few years found a resting place. It also reminds me of some horrible, nearly unspeakable things I encountered in the homeschooling community.

I found a few sites encouraging this lifestyle called "Biblical patriarchy." Now, these aren't just your garden variety complimentarians, whose ranks I left for good during grad school. The "patriarchal" folks are really hard core about it. I guess I encountered some of this stuff when I was growing up, but reading it now, and seeing how many people actually subscribe to it, is shocking. Just to give you a good idea of what we're dealing with, here are some of the best quotes from Biblical patriarchy I could find on the web.

When I worked for another boss outside the home, it was no longer my husband who called the shots for me. In contrast, the scriptures indicate that my husband is my lord, with a lower-case l.

Patriarchy is not the most important thing in life, but when it is lost one of the foundations of culture is destroyed...it is the path to family and social blessing.

Male leadership in the home carries over into the church: only men are permitted to hold the ruling office in the church. A God-honoring society will likewise prefer male leadership in civil and other spheres as an application of and support for God’s order in the formative institutions of family and church.

Here is the particular issue that is disturbing me today. Some guy named Philip Lancaster has written a book called Family Man, Family Leader in which he claims husband/fathers are to fulfill the offices of prophet, priest and king in their families. The reasoning for this appears to be the Biblical metaphor of the husband being the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church. Since Christ's work (offices) is as Prophet, Priest and King over the universe, it is paralleled in the family by fathers. As prophet, a father acts as "teacher and enforcer" over his children (and wife), as priest, a father has the duty of "worship leader and intercessor" over his children (and wife) and as king, he must be the "lord and master" of his home. Seriously - lord and master.

This is damaging theology, primarily since all of humanity was created to fulfill these roles on Earth. It's damaging because it suggests there is something funny, something not quite human about woman. It puts them in a place somewhere above children but not quite men. It says "hey, ladies, you don't qualify for plan A, but plan B is still pretty good."

Because of Jesus, men and women (and even children) can be prophets/prophetesses), priests/priestesses and kings/queens. If it does apply to parenting, surely it applies to both fathers and mothers.

I know these folks are only trying to do the right thing. I get that. They just don't seem to follow their ideas to their logical conclusions: that they are against the character of God and what we know about God from the Bible.

Yes, there are examples of patriarchy in the Bible. Lots of them. I believe God allowed this imperfect state to exist for the greater good of the Kingdom. This is where lots of study and prayer have taken me.

It's fine if you disagree. Really. Just make sure you're holding this with an open hand, along with all other divisive issues. There is a lot of Scripture we can be sure about. A lot of other things are not so easy, because we're fallen and we're so far from the original language and context of the Bible.

It is a lot easier when you don't feel like you need to have all the answers. Faith more than makes up the difference.

change you can believe in...or something

2009-09-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

After one of my recent posts my new friend Dan made this comment:

As a recovering jerk myself (I almost used a different two-syllable anatomic reference, but I don't know where you draw language lines), I can identify. Looking back, I don't like the guy I was in early college, so I wonder why any of my friends did...

For me, it was serving in Africa for a couple years that opened my eyes to a bigger world and a smaller me in it. What situation(s) or event(s) helped you to see and change this?

First of all, Dan, you're free to express yourself here. Christians don't always need to be so polite. Sometimes strong language is necessary.

I really identify with your experience. I don't think I would have gone out of my way to be friends with me back then.

On the other hand, I hope I would be a real manifestation of grace and love in that person's life. That person I was back then was really tortured and depressed. I may not have been willing to listen to a graceful voice at the time, but it may have sunk in with me at some point in the future.

The change you're asking about really began in me during my senior year of college at a certain Baptist school in Texas that begins with a "Bay" and ends with a "lor." I got to the point where I couldn't live that way anymore. Much like your experience, getting away from my cramped little corner of Judgmentalhomeschooledbaptisttexanville, USA was what finally let me breathe. Of course, I didn't go to the other end of the world. I just went north about a thousand miles. But that was about all I was up to at that point. I just needed to get away.

That was the first stage of growth for me and in a lot of ways was the most difficult. Getting into graduate theological studies in a non-fundamentalist evangelical setting forced me to confront the person I was and all the guilt that lay underneath the hardened exterior. It was freeing experience, but was so very difficult at the same time. It was freeing in the sense that I could finally breathe and begin the healing process, but difficult in that I had to both come face to face with myself (cue Michael Jackson) and reject a lot of the false gospels of moralism and legalism I desperately held on to.

Struggling with my past and my inability to live up to my own code of conduct brought me into a deep depression. It had been coming for quite some time...sure wish I had seen it. I remember feeling it settling in like a winter snowstorm at dusk. I can almost point to the exact hour. My faith was growing stronger, but the toxicity of my own introspection held me down for the better part of two years.

Enter stage right: Kelsey. A wonderful, bold, beautiful woman came into the picture at just the right time. As bad as things got and as difficult it was on her, I'm sure they would have been even worse without her love and faith by my side. What an amazing grace she has been. Then there are the 400 or so 5-10 year old kids I have taught that won't let me escape, even for a second, from reality back into my own head. I'm so grateful for that.

So here I am. I'm not perfect and the judgmental instincts are still being tamed, but I feel more free in grace than ever before in my life.

Thanks for asking, Dan.

boy's club: no girls allowed

2009-08-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

Recently heard in a sermon: "The Bible clearly teaches that women should not be pastors and that the husband is the leader of the home."

Actually, it doesn't. I know, I know. Anyone who has known me for a long time probably cannot believe that I just said that. I was the one who used to make those tired old points. Like the one that women are ontologically equal to men but just differ in their roles. Or the one about how women can do lots of great things in the church, but not teaching or having authority over men. How about the one that women were not supposed to work outside the home if she was married with children, which of course she would be if at all possible.

But I got this one wrong.

Thank goodness I never made the argument that women don't make good leaders because they're too emotional. Perhaps I had attended enough professional sports events to know that's not actually the case.

During grad school, I became unsure about my position. It had a lot to do about the things I was learning in my classes, taught by male and female professors on both sides of the issue. I finally got to the point where I realized that I was not comfortable with real, practical, pragmatic equality for women, but I also realized I couldn't get that from the Biblical text. So either I had to ignore what I felt Scripture was saying or I had to make myself change. It was a difficult but obvious choice.

I also realized that almost everything I had ever learned in church and school was from a male perspective. There's nothing wrong with the male perspective, but it cannot wholly represent an accurate view of the world around us.

The tribes of evangelicalism that still silence authentic female perspective do so by taking a few tiny pieces of Scripture out of their historical and grammatical context and carry them over to extra-Biblical issues like ordination and seminary professorship.

The Southern Baptists have really lost their minds and the rest of their credibility because of this. Just ask Sheri Klouda. Don't worry, though. Women will still be able to attend the seminary and can now exclusively participate in the academically rigorous homemaking program, and (I'm not making this up) wrestle with these deep theological problems:

textile design and clothing construction (with lab), 7 hours
meal preparation (with lab), 4 hours
financial stewardship, 3 hours
interior design, 3 hours
something called "the value of a child" (no medical exam prerequisite), 3 hours
home and family management, 3 hours
senior practicum (hmm...using a real man or a close facsimile?), 1 hour

As for men who are attracted to this program, no dice, but there are a lot of other programs in which men can contribute in ways more suited to their God-given role. I guess we should just stick to making the money.

This is hilarious on one end, but it should make any Southern Baptist, or evangelical Christian, angry. What a damaging witness.

As for the issue of women in marriage, I also realized that there were many couples who would adamantly argue for the complementarian position, but for whom it made no practical difference. This was the case in a couple I was very close to growing up. I'll call them Burt and Sally. Burt was the ceremonial leader of his family. He prayed before dinner at family gatherings, made big announcements on the family's behalf, etc. But in reality, he and Sally shared the important decisions and Sally was the one who really made things happen. Burt was the King of England, really a figurehead, but Sally was the Prime Minister; the one who drove the policies and decisions.

Look around. Most complementarians are in an egalitarian marriage. Those who aren't are often in abusive unions. Complementarians know this on some level. They even laugh about it constantly (insert cliche "better half," "earners and spenders," or "she's my boss" joke).

But they just turn their heads. It's kind of like Ted Kennedy. Everyone knows the guy was a creep. He was a womanizer and a heavy drinker and a cheater and should have gone to prison for letting Mary Jo Kopechne lie in her watery grave for hours. You wouldn't know it from watching the nightly news today.

Augustine said that "sin is to a nature what blindness is to an eye." God, please open our eyes.

steel Bible covers

2009-08-25T15:13:00.001-07:00

Recently heard in a sermon: "If there's ever an argument here's my position: the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it."

Really? Why do Christians so often feel like we have to draw these kinds of lines in the sand? I guess it's more polite than saying "you better believe what I believe because I really, really believe the Bible and anyone who says anything different from me just doesn't believe it as much."

But there's so much we really don't know. Greek and Hebrew scholars will admit this is true. The rest of us have to be extra careful.

When I moved from Texas to go to grad school in the Chicago area, many things changed for me. The biggest realization was that there were all of these Christians: Baptists and Lutherans, high church and low church, liberals and conservatives, egalitarians and complementarians, Calvinists and Arminians who all believed the same thing about the Bible - that it is the inspired and infallible record of God's revelation. All of them.

This was life-giving. It really set me free. I didn't have to be suspicious and skeptical of others anymore. Honestly, it made me a new person in a lot of ways. I came from a background that scrutinized behaviors and I learned to be one of the best at this. I hurt and offended a lot of people (including a lot of believers) by telling them that there was no way they could believe in the Bible's reliability and believe that women could be ordained to ministry or that adult immersion was the necessary form of Baptism.

I was the one who wasn't serious about the Bible. I thought God's truths were all mine. They never were. They were always and remain God's.

Cling to Christ, love God, and follow the Spirit. Hold everything else with an open hand.

back in the buckle of the Bible belt

2009-08-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of leading the music for First Baptist, Waco yesterday morning. It was good to be back.

I had forgotten how beautiful the place is. The sanctuary is large, but feels intimate. Everything inside seems strangely clear and in focus. The pews are wooden and the floor creaks all over, but that's okay. It only adds to the warmth.

I also learned something that I took for granted during my three years there. FBC is a singing congregation. A lot of churches do music by having as big a group as possible on the platform and amping the sound up as much as possible. They create the feel of a singing congregation. They fill up the space electronically.

Yesterday at FBC was not like that. The choir was not large. The instruments were supportive but not overpowering. The difference was in the congregation. They were actually a congregation, not an audience vegging out on sensory inundation.

There was something else, too. They weren't just loud or hearty. There was some depth to their singing. It's hard to really put my finger on it. I don't want to make it sound like a purely emotional experience. Not at all. There was obviously a heart connection to the songs, both those they knew well and the new ones. It's great to be leading music in a place like that. I was able to step away from the microphone, quit waving my arm and participate.

I have always thought the tune to "Out of My Bondage" was mediocre. Not bad, but just so-so. With little help from me, FBC got it right yesterday. To hear Waco Baptists singing "Out of unrest and arrogant pride, Jesus, I come" was moving. It was a musical prayer and a great, worshipful response to the 1 John 1:5-10 preaching text. Brain to heart to mouth in 6/4 time.

I had also forgotten not to ever, ever drink Waco water. I swore I'd never forget. Thanks a lot, central Texas ranchers.

do what I say and nobody gets hurt

2009-08-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend I will be back in Waco, filling in as music director on Sunday for First Baptist. I was thinking earlier about the four years I spent at Baylor and how much different my life was back then and the growing I have done since I left the land of green and gold four years ago.

I've mentioned before about how I fell into a difficult time of depression a few years ago, one that I should have seen coming but which really hit me by surprise. There were lots of things that brought it on, but one of the chief culprits was a judgmental spirit I held on to back then.

At the time, there was no word I hated as much as "judgmental." Probably because a bunch of people who didn't understand the word threw it my way a lot.

I shudder to think of what I was like to those who were around me. I had a lot to learn about grace.

I remember feeling like I had this responsibility to proclaim the path of righteousness to those around me. I'd rip people for voting democrat, partaking of adult beverages, going to restaurants with people who partook in adult beverages, smoking pipes on the sidewalk by the dorm (I did waver a bit on the smoking thing - seemingly every other week, I indulged my affinity for cigars), going to non-denominational churches...you get the idea.

Funny - kinda - I also remember ripping people for being horribly judgmental. How dare they tell me I'm doing things wrong.

One of my college roommates - I'll call him "Q" because of his love for James Bond movies - caught me in this once. This roommate was a good guy, though it was tough to overlook the beer in our fridge. "Jack," (that's what they called me back then), "how come you watch R-rated movies." I asked, "I don't know, man, how come you watch R-rated movies?" "No, Jack, I mean, you're so big on not watching Family Guy on TV, but you watch R-rated movies. Don't you think that's kind of, I don't know, hypocritical?"

By the way, "judgmental" was the only word I hated more than "hypocritical."

I was stuck, but I pretended not to be. I think my response was particularly well-reasoned and insightful: "Well, I don't watch ALL R-rated movies."

I felt instant remorse after talking with "Q." No, actually I didn't. I actually remember asking how he could see the speck in my eye with the giant redwood protruding from his and then saying something about how I didn't need two Holy Spirits.

It's tempting to blame this on my Southern Baptist background and upbringing. Those things definitely played a part, but I still deal with the guilt from letting myself get into this mindset and attack those around me with it. I should have known. I turned a lot of people off and had few good friends and still thought I was doing the Lord's work or something.

This really grieves me. It's a part of my past that grieves me very deeply. It also makes me all the more thankful for the blood of Christ which covers me. There's nothing else I can do.

medium-rare grace

2009-07-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Before I was a music teacher, or at least a full-time paid music teacher, I used to wait tables at Outback Steakhouse.

Waiting tables is quite possibly the worst job in the world. I'm serious. I read about a study recently that claimed employees in the food service industry were the most likely group to suffer depression. I can totally believe it. It's so bad because people are so picky about their food. I mean, it's just dinner. You had one last night and you'll have one tomorrow night. That's a good thing about being in this country. I'm convinced that, besides money, people are most picky about their food.

Because of all the pickiness, servers suffer a whole lot of abuse. Many customers have a strange way of making their displeasure a personal issue. After a while, it's enough to really wear on you. At least it was for me. Some people may have an easier time dealing with it, I don't know.

Would you be surprised if I told you the absolute worst demographic to serve in a restaurant are Christians? I'm speaking in generalities, but one of the worst things for a server is to head out to take care of your tables and finding them bowing in prayer, blessing their food. You just know you're probably going to be run around like crazy, listen to lots of complaints, and at the end of the meal, these folks will find some sort of reason to tip poorly.

I'm not making this up. Talk to servers in any restaurant and they will tell you the same thing.

I'll never forget serving a big family one time that returned thanks in one breath and berated me for their steaks not being well-done in the next. I was trying to explain that what they saw was not "blood," but was juice. The lady jumped up and just short of shouting said, "Look here, boy. Blood, blood, blood!"

What can I say to that? Not much.

Sundays are absolutely the worst. Christians come in droves from God's house to the steakhouse, filling up eateries with prayers and forced evangelism. Religious tracts too often take the form of American currency.

For people who supposedly have been radically transformed by grace, they seem to have little room for its manifestation in this area of their life. I'm the customer and my faith has no bearing in this matter.

We preach salvation by grace through faith, but when it comes right down to it, we're uncomfortable with that. We would much rather it be by grace through faith and not drinking, smoking or chewing. Adding extra-biblical, pharisaical elements like these gives us some stability we feel we need. In the end, we still trust ourselves more than Christ.

Because we don't feel like grace is, or at least that it should be, sufficient, the way we treat other people is affected. The grace that has seared our beings gets lost in translation when we deal with servers or other drivers or the lady in line ahead of us at Wal-Mart who pretends not to realize we're there even though she has 3 baskets full of those individual cans of cat food and we just have a small container of sour cream.

And I've got to let grace rule how I deal with others.

I wish I had the kind of grace my poodle has. I lock her up in a kennel for hours sometimes, but she doesn't care. If I accidentally step on her foot, she still runs for my arms. She keeps no record of wrongs. She just loves me pervasively.

If you want your server to notice a difference in you, lavish them with grace. Tip twenty percent always, even if in your gut you feel they don't deserve it. Say "please" and "thank you." Don't act like tomatoes in your salad or flies on your table are the worst things that ever happened. Above all, don't leave tracts. I'll say it again: don't leave tracts.

Honestly, religious tracts are not effective evangelism tools and usually find the trash before the first page is read, but if you must leave one, don't leave it unless you have also tipped over twenty percent. That's right, overdo it. The type of Christianity that ignores physical needs and targets spiritual ones is fruitless. As far as servers are concerned, the gospel won't keep their phone connected or buy formula or fix their car.

Some years ago, CBS news anchor Dan Rather somewhat strangely ended a week of newscasts with one word: courage. If I were to use a word like that, it would be "grace." I remember when my second niece was born and I heard she was named "Grace." I remember thinking that was just the most wonderful, perfect thing to name a little child.

May I wear that name, too.

Grace

grief

2009-07-18T22:33:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday night. Actually, it's Sunday morning. 12:30 a.m. to be exact. I'm sitting on a couch in my in-laws house, watching some Mel Gibson movie. I think it's "The Patriot." The revolutionary era garb should be a giveaway, but I don't know, maybe Mel Gibson was also in a movie called "White Wigs for Redheads" or "Can I Try This War Over Again: The Patrick Henry Story."

In any event, it's definitely one of those movies that came out during the black hole of my movie-viewing existence known as high school. There was a period of about three years in there when the only current movies I saw were "You've Got Mail" and the remake of "Godzilla." There may have been another one or two in there, but I can't remember what they were.

Anyway, I'm here in their house as my giving and loving wife lends her assistance to her mother and sister as they go about preparing for an upcoming road trip. I don't mind being here at all. My in-laws are gracious and generous people. Their house is one of the rare places where I feel I can truly relax, be myself and not feel like anyone is expecting some big show out of me. They are loving people like that.

Okay, here's the part where I quit rambling and get around to the point. I am wrestling with something in my life right now. I guess it's nothing new. It's probably manifested itself in various ways for the past 15 years or so. I'm just now figuring out how to express it.

I am wrestling with grief at the state of the evangelical Church in North America. I'm so tired of the hardness that seems to arise out of the grief. I so desperately want a heart of flesh for the body of Christ. There are many reasons why I feel this way.

I grieve because the Church lives and functions as if Christ died in 1963. Our Church has a rich history spanning 2000 years. Billy Graham is not a Church father.

I grieve because generations of evangelical Christians have never recited the Apostles' Creed.

I grieve because the Church has shunned its responsibility to educate believers in theology and Church history.

I grieve because the Church has done a better job of making customers than disciples.

I grieve because ministry to entire people groups have been forfeited because their sins are just too gross to talk about in polite company.

I grieve because the singing part of church services is called "worship" when it is more of a prelude to worship.

I grieve because moralism and legalism have replaced grace.

I grieve because patriotism has been made into a false, substitute gospel.

I grieve because an inch of Scripture spawns a mile of sermon.

I grieve because I believe Epiphany and Pentecost should outrank Veteran's Day.

I grieve because I desperately want my grief to be an impetus for real change, but just don't know how to take on the corporation.

I grieve because my grief often descends into anger.

God, please give me a heart of flesh for the bride of Christ. Help me to be the Church.

if you're happy and you know it

2009-07-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

This has got to be fast, cause I have to be at class in 30 minutes. Let's see how much ground I can cover.

I recently heard a preacher talk about depression and he said that the only true cure for it was "the spiritual antidepressants in the Word of God." He also said that studies show (not sure whose) the depression rate among Christians is about the same as non-Christians.

He just couldn't understand this at all since all we need to do as Christians is take our daily dose of spirituality and we'll be fine. Occasionally at church when I'm leading the music, I have someone from either the platform or the congregation tell me we should sing the last stanza again and, if we really love Jesus, we'll sing better or louder or faster or with a bigger smile on our faces. I'd like to say "no, I'm gonna let that stand as it is," but it's kinda hard when you're called out like that, so I just oblige.

It's a big problem, though, this feeling that we should be happy all the time if we really are saved. Part of this, I'm sure, comes from the modern pragmatic evangelical opinion that God's chief purpose in my life is to meet my needs and make me happy, although they don't usually use that word. It's not churchy enough. Fulfilled, maybe. Joyful is a big one. Anyways, while I don't have a problem with those words or people feeling that way or with a sense of fulfillment, I do resist the mentality that says there's something wrong with our salvation if we struggle with depression and grief and loss.

We just can't be happy all the time. Many of us struggle with this, actually. Some more so than others. I asked my friend, Francis, if he'd ever felt depressed one time. He said, "no, but I haven't thought about it, really." It's just a result of the fall that affects some of us more than others.

I used to agree about the spiritual antidepressants until I hit rock bottom, wallowing in my own depression. Not the kind you have when you have a bad day and get cranky. The kind I'm talking about is when you feel horrible and down for days, weeks, months and then you run out of hope and then you get sick and tired and can't sleep and stuff like that. The kind you have when you go to the doctor thinking you're anemic or need some vitamin shots or something.

Part of what brought that on was the attitude of guilt that I carried around with me all the time and the legalistic, formulaic form of Christian spirituality that I was familiar with. Trying to hold myself and other people to the same moralistic code will really wear you down.

When I began to wrestle with this toxic mindset, it was more than I could handle for a while. I experienced a deep sense of loss and shame. I had been living as if the only thing that mattered was how other people saw me. I thought they saw someone with strength and conviction. Too often, they actually saw judgment, self-righteousness, and insecurity. Growing really hurt.

Thank God for my wonderful wife. She came along at just the right time, after the depression had begun to set in. I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't run into her right when I did. She helped me understand some important things about grace. Actually, she taught me more about grace than anyone, before or since. Her and Martin Luther, actually. I know he was kind of a grouch, but there's a lot one can learn about grace from his work. We would have gotten along well.

Additionally, this world sucks. I mean, the grace of God is wonderful and the look in my wife's eyes is wonderful and my little dog is wonderful. There's actually a lot of good and Creation is good and we need to realize that, but there's a lot to hurt about. There's a lot we should hurt about, both in general and personally. Relationships are strained, our psyches can be tormented, the Church...oh, it's so easy to feel hurt and grief when we see the Church.

We need to feel this. We need to allow others to feel this grief. It's not an option. We must lament sometimes. We can't have feasting without fasting. True worship must incorporate every aspect of human expression.

Next time I'm asked to repeat the last stanza of "Trust and Obey," I'm going to cut right to "Abide With Me" instead.

The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide.

Blessings.

crisis of conscience

2009-07-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. It's the time of year I dread, and not just because the Texas weather is unbearably oppressive. It's because I will be expected to devote a portion of corporate worship to patriotic celebration. Now, I know there is nothing wrong with being thankful for a country where we can worship freely, but focusing on it during corporate worship has increasingly become a crisis of conscience for me.

Of course, I didn't always feel that way.

I think I'm bothered by this mostly because of the way evangelicals have thrown out the traditional seasons of the church year. Oh, we love Christmas and Easter. But why no Pentecost? No Holy Week? Certainly no Epiphany (the last New Year sermon I heard was on the crucifixion). For some reason, it makes much more sense to evangelicals to observe secular holidays like Mother's Day and the 4th of July. For goodness sakes, enjoy fireworks as a fellowship and honor mothers with recognition and a gift.

I suppose part of it is a reminder that evangelical Christianity gave itself to a political cause at the expense of the gospel. My own political views aside, the era of the religious right brought us to a place where it was impossible to be an evangelical Christian and a democrat. This idea once made logical sense to me. I now find it loathsome.

Why is it that Christians think they deserve a culture that makes them feel comfortable? I guess that's a question for another day. For now, I pray that evangelicals will give themselves fully to the authentic gospel of Christ and remember which kingdom will pass and which will endure forever. We serve a higher throne.

Jesus, I Come

2009-06-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

Out of my bondage, sorrow, and night,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into Thy freedom, gladness, and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee;
Out of my sickness, into Thy health,
Out of my want and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of earth’s sorrows into Thy balm,
Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm,
Out of distress to jubilant psalm,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

Out of unrest and arrogant pride,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into Thy blessèd will to abide,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,
Out of despair into raptures above,
Upward for aye on wings like a dove,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into the joy and light of Thy throne,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

Text by William T. Sleeper, 1887

Tune by George C. Stebbins

I was listening to a well-known evangelical theologian and pastor on the radio after church on Sunday and something he said reminded me of this text, which has been a great encouragement to me. The tune, well…it is functional and has its place. It is harmonically pleasing and I’ve always been a sucker for a 6/8 hymn tune.

Anyways, back to the text. Theoretically, it could be the song of a person at the point of regeneration, which is why it is one of those texts unfairly branded as an evangelistic invitation or “alter call” hymn. But this has still been my song at numerous points during my Christian journey. Why is that? If salvation is a reality in my life, why do I find these words passing through my lips even now? Well, if sanctification is, at least partially explained as the process of “getting used to justification,” it makes some sense.

I was brought up in a tradition that is very skeptical of people who could not name a particular time and a particular place where they were converted, or “saved” (a term that is appropriate but I believe is probably overused, for reasons I might get into later…possibly). I think the reasoning is that if you can’t remember it than it must not have been that important and life-changing. At this point in my life, I’ve come to the place where I don’t think the words in the so-called “sinner’s prayer” are not so magical. I didn’t get this when I was young. In fact, I can recall times in my life, usually after I was subjected to a sermon on dispensational eschatology, I was so scared my first meant recitation of that prayer had not been effective that I stayed awake in my bed for hours trying different combinations of the usual words just in case I hadn’t gotten the magical combination just perfect. Thankfully, I did get to the place where I stopped worrying about it so much and I realized my faith was alive and vital and that periods of doubt were points on my sanctification journey.

Let me be clear: I believe that regeneration is instantaneous; that one steps out of night and into light, as the first line of the text reads. Because of the pervasive presence of sin and its effects on the human psyche and conscience, we cannot always pinpoint that particular instant. I believe that I was saved one night in my bedroom in 1990, but I no longer worry about it, and I wish many evangelical circles would have more grace for Christians who don’t have their “spiritual” birthdays highlighted on their wall calendar. A thorough awareness of justification may not be immediate.

Now, back to the text. I believe this and other similar hymn texts are so meaningful for us who are getting used to the reality of our salvation. Since we continue to struggle with sin, both the personal and general realities of it, we keep finding it necessary to move out of bondage into freedom; out of sickness into health. We could personalize this statement, too. It could be out of depression and anxiety, I come. Or out of addiction, I come. Maybe out of my idols I come. Perhaps it could be out of my passive belief into active belief.

Regeneration is “once for all.” Recommitment and repentance are constant. May we be released from the “dread of the tomb” and be confident in the “glorious gain of the cross.”

Blessings.

not for ease or worldly pleasure

2009-04-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

Granted, this may not be a very creative or imaginative post, but I have loved this song and the song writer. About her poem, Fanny Crosby said this:

"Toward the close of a day in the year 1874 I was sitting in my room thinking of the nearness of God through Christ as the constant companion of my pilgrim journey, when my heart burst out with the words."

Thou my everlasting Portion, more than friend or life to me,
All along my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee.
Close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee,
All along my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee.

Not for ease or worldly pleasure, nor for fame my prayer shall be;
Gladly will I toil and suffer, only let me walk with Thee.
Close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee,
Gladly will I toil and suffer, only let me walk with Thee.

Lead me through the vale of shadow, bear me o'er life's fitful sea;
Then the gate of life eternal may I enter, Lord, with Thee.
Close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee, close to Thee.
Then the gate of life eternal may I enter, Lord, with Thee.

Words by Fanny J. Crosby
Tune by Silas J. Vail

May it be so.

Blessings.

Silence!

2009-04-15T05:57:00.000-07:00

It’s comical how often I utter this phrase in my public school elementary music classroom. Silence is something with which we’re just not comfortable as a society. I think it’s a problem of failing to engage with the present; with our current reality. It is at this point that our problem with silence meets with a similar problem of stillness. We live sedentary lifestyles, but cannot be still. We have little meaningful conversation, but cannot be silent. Most of the things children in our society find to engage themselves with is mindless drivel and repetition created to merely fill the space. I confess I remember well the times during my childhood where I could waste away hours upon hours with computer sports games (baseball, of course, was the chief culprit). After the sorts of activities lose their novelty and become rote and repetitive, our senses lose their place in time.

As adults, we have similar problems (although I’m sure there are some among us for whom video games are the chief culprit). We fidget and flail and don’t get anything productive done. Our minds never stray from all the items on our “to-do” lists. The discipline of silence becomes quite essential at this point if we are to be fully engaged people. We need to be able to fully engage in our present moment if we are to have a genuine encounter with the Creator.
Because churches so frequently seek to provide entertainment – pure sensory stimulation – the discipline of silence in corporate worship is a lost art among members of the Body. In fact, sound amplification is continually increased to make up for the dulling of our senses and our need to turn up the assault. It seems appropriate that, since true corporate worship encompasses the entire range of human existence, it is imperative that our services feature the “loudest” of louds and the “softest” of softs. Silence offers congregants the opportunity to place themselves squarely in the middle of the present moment and prepare to meet the King. We must be willing to sacrifice the space in a jam packed order of worship. Neither “contemporary” nor “traditional” corporate settings are without fault in this matter, though contemporary setting presents its own special problems that easily conflict with the presence disciplined, prayerful silence (which, perhaps, I will discuss at a later time).

I appreciate the comments of A. Daniel Frankforter in his book, Stones For Bread: A Critique of Contemporary Worship (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), regarding the unfortunate lack of silence in our contemporary Christian situation:

Clergy are reluctant to let silence blossom within their service plans for fear that
their congregations will become bored. When worship is conceived primarily as a
clerical performance and, therefore, an entertainment, silences seem out of place. They
have limited uses in entertainment. Silence interrupts a show’s flow and makes its
audience nervous. It suggests that a performer’s concentration has lapsed or that his
timing is off. On the other hand, when worship is truly a communal activity, silence
feels comfortable. It functions as a sacrament (pg 170).

May we all know the grace of God that can be known through palate-cleansing, prayerful silence.

Blessings.

get rid of the hymnals, and the Bibles too, while you're at it

2009-04-12T18:25:00.000-07:00

I was recently listening to a church service led by an evangelical preacher who was busy preaching reliance on the Bible as the ultimate source of truth. Of course, such a reliance on Scripture is a key tenet, even a qualification of evangelicalism, and I have sat through countless sermons and classes in which this tenet has been driven home.

This time, while listening to the entire service, I was dumbfounded by the absence of Scripture. The songs made reference to Scriptural truths and solid theology. The pastor even alluded to some passages as proof-texts, but nowhere was there any extended (beyond a partial verse) dissemination of Biblical text.

As I have stated before elsewhere, my belief is that an act cannot be worshipful unless it is a response to God's self-revelation, which to us is given through Scripture. If this is true, how can there be an act of corporate worship when the community of believers has received none of God's self-revelation to which they can respond? I was reminded of a project I undertook in a graduate theology class. The assignment was to attend worship services at three different venues. My services of choice were an evangelical Christian service, a mainline Lutheran service, and a Catholic service. I remember writing at the time about the lack of actual Biblical text in the evangelical service while the other two, non-evangelical services made liberal (pardon the word choice) use of Scripture, including extended Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospel readings.

How ironic. Throughout my entire evangelical upbringing, which weekly included two Sunday services and one on Wednesday, I only remember a handful of times when extended Biblical readings were given, and the ones that stick in my memory were used in a novel, even jovial manner, usually regarding the evangelical disconnect with Old Testament law. There was certainly extended singing (though not always an extensive program of songs). There was often drama. Even church announcements were loquaciously given. No - pith was seemingly only employed when it was time to open God's inspired and infallible Word.

Now, an absence of Scripture reading does not mean worship did not occur on an individual level, but corporate worship is something different; it is a ceremonial time for the body of Christ to be corporately present. Let's not forget such a basic element.

Blessings

greetings

2009-04-12T17:52:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, way back in grad school (MA 2007), I did a great deal of writing on the subject of church music and theology of worship. My goal here is to kick myself back into gear. Beyond that, we shall see how this plays out.

Blessings.