Not The Religious Type

"I am the truth"

Ah, I was onto something--we ARE into theology more than culture or fasting here! Thanks to those who, in response to my kvetching about that yesterday, said such nice things about the culture post. I'll admit: I do love that stuff and I may make it an annual feature (presuming our friendly blog exists in December 2010), if only for the subset of us that grooves on that stuff. Thanks to those of you who responded to it. Thanks to you, I've checked Infinite Jest out of my local library. And I saw The Blind Side the night before Trish endorsed it. I loved it (all the cringe-worthy perhaps racist stuff notwithstanding--and how's THAT for a backhanded compliment)! (Though, to reiterate, I loved it.) Showing my postman-like dedication, I'm away from an online connection and am, for the first time, posting this from my phone (forgive whatever typos ensue), so I'll be brief. In the spirit of yesterday's conversation, I'd love your thoughts on this. What--if anything--do you take from Jesus saying "I AM...the truth" rather than "I TEACH...the truth"?

Salvation (because of Jesus) in Other Religions?

So evidently as a blog community, we're not so interested in fasting or culture (or maybe the length of the posts threw us off).  So let me change courses and try that hoary standby for us of theology.

One of our number recently asked about something that Seek takes a glancing blow towards.  Namely, if the Bible teaches that Jesus is "the way, truth, life" and singular pathway to God the Father, could he be those things towards those in other religious traditions?  Could there be such a thing (as I posit in my book and as our friend Carl Medearis talks about) as "Muslims who follow Jesus" who truly are not "Christians?"  If so, how do we feel about that?

My friend talks about Abraham as someone redeemed by Jesus before he could have heard of Jesus, for instance.

In secular settings, this is a helpful thing to have formulated a few thoughts about, whatever your thoughts might be, because, let me tell you, it comes up.  My experience has been that--along with "what's your view of homosexuality?"--the question of "are all people who don't call themselves Christians going to hell?" is the first thing that comes up.

Some friends have pointed out that this question takes on a particular energy because of the resurgence of popularity of aggressive Calvinism in some sectors of American evangelicalism.  Aggressive Calvinism would have little patience for these sorts of questions and would, I think, be quick to brand those who consider them as outside the scope of orthodoxy.

Happily, the Bible (Romans 2 comes to mind) does seem more sympathetic to this question, though certainly it comes with challenges and risks. 

My friend who asks the question is aggressively interested in helping people encounter a living experience with Jesus, so his upshot is by no means to abandon that--quite the reverse.  And I can tell you, in our setting where we meet so very many people from around the world who've grown up in all of the major faith traditions, working with this question has been invaluable.

But what do you think?  Is it possible for people outside of "Christianity" to be saved through Jesus?  And is that a useful question for you to ask in your setting, or does it never really come up?

My Year in Culture. How Was Yours?

Here's the crazy stuff that comes up when one blogs, as many of you do.  You start constantly analyzing your experience of life (and, in this blog's case, God and church and culture) to see if there's anything as yet unexplored worth blogging over. 

All to say, this week I found myself reviewing my cultural intake over 2009 to look for themes, and I found a few things of at least limited interest to me.  But, before mentioning some of those, let me pose the question we'll also end on.  Namely, what do you think you get out of taking in culture (books, movies, plays, tv, and whatever else you take in--museum?  high culture?)?  What does it do for you?  Does it tie into developing you spiritually and humanly?  How?

The rest of this will be that navel-gazing prerogative of the blogger--bloviating about things I like and don't and the minutia of my culture habits.  And Dan is on vacation, so there won't be any jazzy graphics or--lazy man that I am--even links to all these books and movies.  So by all means, feel free to skip directly to the comments page in order to answer the (I'm sure you'll agree) provocative questions I just posed.  Let's talk about cultural intake!

But, you've been warned, now for more on my intake.

So a few tallies.  My biggest cultural intake in 2009, by a comfortable margin, was books.  I think this is because I've got this reclusive streak, and so I need to justify spending time by myself--and also need to keep myself entertained when I do spend time by myself.  Oh, yes, there are nominal benefits from all my reading.  I do read theology.  I do read fiction (I keep trying to write fiction, so there's some utilitaritan benefit there, presumably).  I read biographies, histories, and sociology books.  (3 sports books and 2 business books also made the list.) 

I found myself also taking note of pieces of culture that I especially liked or that stayed with me.  And I also put black marks by pieces I especially loathed. 

The totals.  On the books front, 62 books that I at least half-read.  I read all of 44 of them.  Fiction comprised 22 of them.  There were 37 movies I saw in theaters of which 17 were to entertain children (and 3 were jointly entertaining to kids and adults--Star Trek, Michael Jackson's This is It, and Where the Wild Things Are).  8 plays.  2 TV series on DVD, one of which Grace and I watched, the other of which we dabbled in.  3 university courses on CD.  11 music CDs.  Only one concert comes to mind, and it was a gift a friend gave to Grace and me of higher culture than I usually experience (a vocal trio that sang medieval music).

What was most notable for me as I looked at my starred items and black marks was one common theme.  It seems to me that things that especially stayed with me across all genres were things that seemed big-hearted, bold and, in the classic-not-prurient sense, lusty.  Things I loathed seemed small-hearted and mean.  So, to name a few names.  (And always with the disclaimer that I've found these things are utterly personal.  Movies in particular I've found completely divide people--this from a man who spent a few years as a movie critic. One person's favorite is another person's worst of the year.)

A few of the books that made my good and memorable list:

The Snowball, by Alice Schroeder: a vast, to me largely gripping biography of Warren Buffett that, for all his quirks (a long-term mistress with the full knowledge and permission of his wife, for one thing) conveys a huge vision and heart that comes across admirably well in this massive book. 

Also on the biography front, Audition, by Barbara Walters was a surprisingly gripping read.  I read it as research for a novel I'm sputteringly trying to write, but I was completely engaged by her story of blazing an unprecedented trail in a men's world.  I thought she was (largely) a great writer: often quite candid, often quite insightful, and big-hearted throughout. 

Malcolm Gladwell's mega-seller Outliers had a lot to recommend it.  My take on Gladwell is that he's super-interesting and largely inconsequential.  What can one actually do with any of his insights?  But the scope of his questions is utterly fun and, again, to my mind big of heart. 

My good-list fiction is dominated by quick genre reads that were delightful rather than by big, deep books (which were disproportionately represented on my "I hated this" list).  Elmore Leonard's Road Dogs.  Lee Child's Persuader.  I visited Stephen King's back catalogue and came away with It, which has what must be his most unaccountable and yucky sequence ever (and, my goodness, this is Stephen King we're talking about) and was a good 300 pages too long, but to my mind turned out to be a really impressive and moving book about friendship and love being at the center of the universe in the most-cosmic sense. 

On the religion front, we've talked here about Love is an Orientation. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, which splits the difference between fiction and theology, was a fascinating work to revisit.  It's bold to the extreme.  And yet, always having loved Chesterton and having read a lot of him this year (Kindle will sell you his entire 200+ books for something like $4), lately I find myself wondering if I've over-rated him and he's better described as a narcissist blowhard.  I can't decide.   

And no "good book of 2009" list (of mine at least) could be complete without Bill Simmons' magisterial The Book of Basketball, which is astounding in his belief that any reader could possibly care as much as he does about his endless NBA minutia and just as astounding in his vivid, engaging and endlessly fun discussions about said minutia.  What goes on in that man's head all day?

My "I hated it" list includes two big novels that I'd hoped would be big-hearted and vast and ended up enraging me as only a reader who's just given many, many hours of his life to a book can be enraged when they don't pay off.  Drood, by Dan Simmons.  (Curse you, unreliable narrator!  Aspiring novelists out there, make a vow with me right now never to center your book on such an irritating mind game.)  And Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo.  I've read a lot of Russo.  His "The Whore's Child" may be my favorite short story ever.  I loved Paul Newman in the movie version of Russo's Nobody's Fool.  Straight Man has lots to recommend it.  But my goodness.  I now know two other friends who made it several hundred pages into this book and abandoned it awaiting a plot and a point.  On the theology front, The Future of Justification by John Piper.  Desiring God changed my life and future.  But Piper has spent a bit too much time for my taste in recent books settling scores and ripping people he doesn't take too--NT Wright in this case.  I'm actually not as much of an NT Wright fan as any of a hundred of my friends, but Wright has a positive agenda.  I find I'm not such a big fan of talented theolgians and pastors like Piper who spend their time and energy as watchdogs.  This goes back to my "small-hearted" vibe.

As to movies (I'll say less here, I promise--and I'll barely mention plays at all since my career as a playwright established that no one except me actually goes to plays):

Let me preface this by reminding you--especially in movies, opinions vastly diverge.  We remember that, right?

My most-memorable and pleasureable movies of a year full of both mainstream and arthouse movies (and did I mention kid's movies?  Lots and lots and lots of kid's movies, but I'm wondering if you really want a breakdown of Hotel for Dogs) were Star Trek, Michael Jackson's This is It and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.  In very different ways, the scope and ambition and heart of these movies gave me a ton of delight and reflection and pleasure.  Grace strongly didn't want to see the Michael Jackson movie for the obvious reason that all we've heard about him for about twenty years has focused on his creepy, allegedly child-molesting, face-altering side.  So I went with my oldest son, Ben, who loves Michael Jackson's music.  We shared a theater with an exclusively African-American crowd, apart from us.  One group, quite winningly, applauded robustly after each (astounding) number (it's quite a reminder of what a super-colossal talent the man was), finally shouting to Ben and me, "C'mon you people!  You gotta give it up for Michael!  Get yourselves out of your seats and give it up for Michael!"  And so we did, and were they ever right.

My "naughty" list is headed by a large margin by Disney's A Christmas Carol, which is the only movie I can say I'm actively angry at this year.  Maybe it was just my foolishness for bringing a four and six year old to see it (horrific effects are about the only innovation the filmmakers bring to Dickens apart from one of the most spectacularly stupid new sequences to a classic story I've ever seen).  We calmed our jangled kids down by showing them The Muppets Christmas Carol and not only was it, yes, big-hearted, but when a Muppets movie has notably better performances than a big blockbuster, you know something has gone amiss.  But the smallness of spirit would equally apply to two other negative moments on my 2009 movie horizon, Woody Allen's Whatever Works and the Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading.  I've been an Allen fan most of my adult life--if any of you has seen more of his movies than I have, I'll be shocked--but it's been a long stretch for me since his Chekhovian bigness of spirit has trumped his misanthropy--and, well, you know about the Coen Brothers.  Big strengths and the occasional snide, everyone-except-us-are-idiots effort.

So, my year in culture.  (Oh yes, the plays, but unless you were in England when I was, you missed the exemplary revival of Rattigan's The Winslow Boy and unless you make it to New York soon, you'll miss the misbegotten revival of The Royal Family by one of my old favorites, George S. Kaufman.  But the impressive off-Broadway Our Town is still going strong.)

My year in culture.  Evidently I look to culture to expand my heart and I get mad at it when it tries to contract my heart.

How about you?

Spiritual Fasting Evidently is Powerful. Who Knew?

Two Sundays ago, our church ended a 21-Day fast (for most people it was a so-called “Daniel Fast,” which had them eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains—usually excluding meat, milk products, desserts, often caffeine and alcohol as well).

It came up in a quirky way.  One woman who prays for our church felt God strongly suggesting that a collective fast on behalf of our church and our city would do us, as a church, a lot of good.  I wouldn’t have expected to go for a pitch like that, but it very quickly started resonating with me and with Grace.  Grace and I both started our own variants on that fast immediately and a couple months later we invited the church into it.  Five other churches joined us once we mentioned it (in Madison, WI, Minneapolis, MN, Burlington, VT, Wellesley, MA and Worcester, MA).

Two weeks ago, as the fast ended, we invited people to write down what had happened for them as they gave it a shot.  Along the way, I’d heard some very powerful reports from folks and I’d been surprised at how widespread the participation in the fast seemed to be (as we’d strongly emphasized, “Please only do this if you want to”).  About a quarter of the folks at the service did write a response, almost all of them with very positive things to say.

Let me mention a few broad categories of the comments and then toss a few specific quotes your way. 

Most people commented that their spiritual life had picked up significantly—the most common adjective to describe the experience was “amazing.”  A very common story described how they’d never been able to hear God’s voice and now could.  Going to God with the cravings they felt for whatever food they were fasting from yielded lots of good results.

“Before the fast I felt God’s presence most strongly just as I would lie down to sleep at night.  That was perhaps the only time each day that I would feel at ease and content.  During the fast I was surprised to find that same sense of ease, contentment and peace coming to me unlooked for at various points of my day—even in hectic moments.”

Lots of folks had some pretty dramatic emotional or physical or spiritual healings happen.

 “I’ve been struggling with rage since childhood.  During the fast I received prayer…and now appear anger-free.  I have a lot more hope for my future.”

“I’ve struggled with bipolar disorder for more than half my life and am on medication for it.  Starting on week two of the fast, my mood and energy started going up enough that I have been able to decrease my dosage.  …My mind is cleared.  I’ve really enjoyed this fast, which totally caught me off guard.”

 “As a part of the fast, many of my prayers have focused around how to change my life to follow Jesus.  (I have recently decided to do so.)  For years I have struggled with alcoholism and have failed at repeated chances to quit drinking.  I have gone through the 21 days without a drink and I feel empowered and strengthened by God to continue not drinking.”

“I’ve been delivered from years of depression and have a renewed sense of God’s presence.”

“I was finally able to forgive a co-worker that I’ve been bitter towards for years.”

“God shifted my perspective on pornography and sex before marriage.  I understand that I have an addiction now and I’m seeing a counselor to deal with it.”

“I am hypoglycemic and tried for the first time to fast food.  [Editor’s note: We encouraged everyone with medical or dietary issues to talk with a doctor before fasting.  Just to mention.]  I was nervous about what would happen and if I would be able to do it.  I figured I would do the best I could and not put too much pressure on myself.  I was so excited and impressed that I was able to go all 21 days without eating meat without any problems!  I was shocked and knew it was supernatural because after the fast, when I tried to do the same thing, I didn’t do well and got sick!”

Some people found fresh faith or found our church.

“I made a decision to dedicate myself fully to the Lord.”

“The fast brought me to this church!  (I joined the fast after hearing Dave’s sermons on a bus on November 1^st.)  I enjoyed this fast way too much.”

Two people describe folks they’d been praying for for years who, on their own initiative, came to church with them during the fast.

A common theme was suddenly finding themselves in faith conversations where that hadn’t been true before, sometimes because of the fast.

“It forced me to explain that I go to church and care about God when I went out to eat and my friends said, ‘What?  You don’t want the bacon that came with your breakfast?!’  Admitting to more people that I have a friend in Jesus made me feel closer to God overall, happier and closer to my small group.”

Many people said how powerful it was that the church as a whole was doing this and how it bonded them to our church.  Many people talked about how they were actually continuing the fast in some form.  We’d spent a fair amount of time talking about being “serious” but not “strict” about fasting, in the spirit that the fast was meant to serve the people who did it rather than the people themselves somehow serving the fast and constantly feeling in danger of “failing.”  We’d said that goal was that the fast would be a great experience for any who participated in it rather than being a taskmaster or a test of their spiritual fortitude.  That perspective went over very well with some folks.

“I learned from God for the first time during the fast (I usually fail miserably at fasts) that it’s not about following the rules.  God just wants me to make space for him.  This is very profound for me.  Now I actually am looking forward to fasting again soon.”

Lots of folks talked about the novelty of praying regularly for a whole city and passed on senses from God about a great future awaiting Boston.

“I’ve realized how good it feels to pray for something greater than myself.”

“In a dream I saw a beautiful, brilliant light shining on construction of a massive cathedral being built in Boston out of ancient materials.”

And there were some encouraging stories of provision—several describing new jobs or relating to the economic challenges.

“Two wonderful gifts came from the fast: thankfulness and provision.  I have been living in my car for four months and during the fast was offered housing starting just after Thanksgiving.  The Lord provided good, healthy food during the entire fast and I always had gas in the tank to attend every prayer meeting.  Thank God for this church.”

Some people described how hard it was initially or how they weren’t looking forward to it, but most of those ended with “But it was amazing!”  There were a very few folks for whom it was primarily just hard, but here’s hoping some good comes their way somehow as a result of it. 

So a few stories and reflections.  Thoughts?  Have you found benefit from God through fasting?  If you’re from another church that participated (or from our church), how’d it go?