Not The Religious Type

Centered-Set Thinking and Homosexuality

Well, you all have lots of great things to say, as always, on important subjects like this one.  And I do think this is a biggie, if not the biggie, question for churches to ponder in the next few years.

As with so much of my life, I feel drawn more to a vibe here than to what anyone would classically call an “argument.”  But my vibe is that we’re all wrong, all of us.  The gay community (in terms of talking about the Bible and church), the church community (conservative and liberal alike), we’re all asking the wrong questions in our own way.

And my vibe would target a particular villain in all cases: modernity. 

So I can wonder if a conservative believer’s instinct to preface any conversation with a gay person with a loyalty-to-the-Bible disclaimer (“I love you and respect you as a person, but I do need to let you know that the Bible clearly regards homosexuality as a sin”) is responding from modernity perhaps overmuch.  Modernity tells us that abstract truth claims of right and wrong and good and bad are the bottom line, so we need to fly our flag on those things and convincingly out-argue our opponents on these issues.

Just so the gay person saying up front, “Could I be a leader in your church should I join it, or would your bigotry exclude me because I’m gay?” is framing the conversation as a good modern.

I can wonder if centered-set thinking helps us here. 

Might it suggest that the bottom line is turning our lives and hearts and whole selves towards Jesus?  It would suggest that we’ll get feedback as we do this.  Our lives will get better.  We’ll find a kind of encouragement in living that nothing else can give us (certainly more than “being right” about hot-button issues can give us). 

It will suggest further ways to aggressively orient our lives towards Jesus, to take the kinds of risks in life that we couldn’t remotely have considered if we didn’t become convinced that we’d be backed by a living and communicating God.  (My favorite centered-set manifesto at the moment: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.  It’s all great, but check out in particular chapter 2, which I’m remembering is called “The Call to Discipleship.”  It’s just stunningly centered-set, or so it seems to me, and it’s all about aggressive, risky action towards the center, Jesus.  Why would we do such risky things with our lives?  Because “discipleship (in this sense) means joy.”  Yoiks!  Bonhoeffer became very, very hard to understand as he continued to write, but in this moment of clarity… my goodness.)

So is there anything in the Bible that would suggest we wouldn’t be advised to encourage all people, of all religions, ethnicities, and, yes, sexualities to follow and experience Jesus in just this manner?  And to encourage this with no disclaimers whatsoever?

So we, say, point out Zaccheus.  Or Matthew.  Or Mary Magdalene. They’re perhaps examples where Jesus took this approach.  And we might point out that, sure, true enough, but those folks all changed their ways as a result.  Absolutely!  But it seems to me those are two separate questions, which perhaps brings us back to our gay person’s question of “could they lead in our church as a gay person?” 

At that point, I’d think we’d want to be clear about our actual mission.  If our mission is to connect as many people as we can to an actual, living, responsive God, then it would seem to me reasonable to say to this gay questioner: Does that sound good to you?  Because that’s what we’re offering, or at least hoping for.

If they respond, yes, I’d love to be a part of something focused on that, then I’d think we’d respond: Fabulous!  Let’s start in on that right away!  And if you have such a good experience connecting with this living, communicative, directive God that you develop a passion to help other folks experience the same thing (which again, is our purpose), that would be awesome.  Let’s talk then about how to make that happen.

Just to end this long post with a tease: Yes, we have at present, I believe, two gay leaders in our church.  (Not a large percentage, granted, as we have a hundred-plus leaders in our church.)  They regard themselves as “gay,” not as “struggling with homosexuality” (although many, many people in our church very productively choose the other designation).  They're not perfect people.  They've got plenty of challenges in life.  But I believe they meet every standard the most conservative reader of the Bible would want them to meet in terms of leadership.  So… hey.  For what it’s worth.

 

My Day in Church

You'll be shocked to know that I do have some thoughts on our "churches and homosexuality" discussion, which I'll try to get to in tomorrow's post.  (They might turn out to be a bit long for a post, and then where will we be?  But we'll cross that bridge then.)

But I had the fun and rare opportunity yesterday to be in a church I have no connection with.  I'm in Texas with Grace's family and we went to a Bible church here.  On the one hand, it was very impressive.  It's in a massive modern building (I'm pretty sure it would be perhaps the second largest church in the Greater Boston area, but in Houston I'd be surprised if it's in the top hundred).  They have lots of little amenities I crave for us in Boston (for awhile I've really wanted one of those cool "countdown" screens that some churches use to let you know when the service is about to start).  And they do some really neat theatrical things with their stage area--layers, levels, hints of back-lighted trees poking out from behind; Grace immediately said, "Why can't we do that?" and I felt vaguely accused...but it was really cool). 

And these folks are believers, whatever we might mean by that.  The preacher talked in a confident and understated way about how "nearness to God" was the bottom line of what we want and need in life, and that strikes me as very much a centered-set thing to emphasize. 

And yet. 

(And what follows is only said in hope of being illuminating for our common enterprise, rather than to critique these folks.  I can't imagine they'd change, and why would they want to? They're clearly reaching a large swath of people.)

So I noticed that my secularist days flowed back over me like a wave very early on.  During the worship, I sat while most people stood (granted my kids were crawling all over me--the church didn't have kids' Sunday school this post-Christmas service) and felt pretty distant from the experience, an attitude that remained during the sermon, for all its virtues.  I strongly felt like the secularist husband dragged by his wife to church for the sake of the kids--willingly there and believing that the folks around me were likely "good people," but very much recognizing that this was not a place that offered me much. 

As I tried to figure out my distance, it hit me that it boiled down to faith.  While the preacher talked about God's goodness, he emphasized that saying that didn't mean that God would actually DO anything for us.  God's goodness wasn't about our health or finances or happiness (I think I'm quoting him here).  God's goodness was intrinsic.  God was good whatever our experience of life.  Now, that said, we'd be advised to turn to God in all sorts of hard times, big and small.  And our hope then should be that God would be "near" to us...not so much that God would address the situation at hand. 

He didn't use many stories, and the ones he did use were (if I was understanding him) "humanizing" attempts to draw an analogy to the biblical text, rather than actual experiences in which he had tried to apply his point himself, which struck me as clever but disingenuous or at the very least low-faith--as if whatever he was saying wasn't about anything good that would actually come to your and my life if we actually took him seriously. 

And, hang on, was this why I was so removed from the worship experience?  The musicians--as you'd expect in a congregation of several thousand people--were eminently capable.  But they were spread out on the massive stage; they were lit while we were in darkness; and they were strangely recessive for all their ability.  The songs seemed generic--talking about God's good attributes without much to tie those proclamations to any actual experience of life. 

And so yet again I wondered: Is Stage 4 by definition experiential rather than idea-based?  My experience yesterday morning told me: unless I'm being persuasively invited into something that's clearly worth my having and NOT obvious, I'm not much for church.  At that point, "church" seems to me something that people who I'm sure very much DO believe in God do together for the sake of good connection with each other and, as my mom said to me growing up, "a good reminder for the week."  Actual faith that God is alive and active might prove to be damaging there...because so often prayers AREN'T answered.  Better then to steer clear from that sort of disappointment.

On the drive back, we were listening to Grace's favorite Christian music radio station from high school.  (They have things like that here.)  I was listening along, liking one out of every four songs even as our kids were thinking this was the neatest innovation ever.  But then the DJ told us about a caller to their prayer line who had a dire medical situation and the DJ then asked all their listeners to pray, closing with what I guess is their catch phrase: "God listens."  And I was in. 

All to say: can we say that one necessary but not sufficient element to Stage 4 faith is that it's high-faith?  "Necessary but not sufficient" in that I'd imagine there are many settings--this radio station likely included--that are high-faith but still fit better into Stage 2.  And yet if Stage 4 is all about being invited into this experience of life and God that's so much bigger than we are, an ever-increasing faith would seem to be required.  Thoughts?

The Always-Present Question: Churches and Homosexuality / Sarah Wilson

From Dave:
Sarah Wilson submitted a you’ll-have-to-agree provocative guest post on how homosexuality might fit into a centered-set framework.  In whatever speaking gigs I have, I get asked about this more often than about anything else.  My answer wouldn’t be exactly the same as Sarah’s.  But, you’ll have to admit, she does get the ball rolling.  I’d love your thoughts.  (And, knowing you all, I’d be pretty shocked if you didn’t have plenty of them on this subject.)  I hope your holiday week has been a winner!

Being inspired by a recent Newsweek article and through the discussion of bounded vs. centered sets on this blog, I propose to add a real-world issue into the ongoing debate. In the Dec. 15th Newsweek, Lisa Miller writes a piece on the religious case for gay marriage. Within the article, she argues that the Bible cannot be used to deny the rights of a homosexual couple. Using references such as the acceptance of polygamy within the Old Testament and Paul’s avowal of staying single within the New Testament, Miller contends that the concept of marriage in religious standards is open for debate.

The treatment of homosexuality in general seems to be one of the most oft-used methods of excluding a group from the church. In my opinion, this is a practice of bounded set mentality. Reverend Richard A. Hunter outlines this notion perfectly: “The Bible and Jesus define marriage as between one man and one woman. The church cannot condone or bless same-sex marriages because this stands in opposition to scripture and our tradition”. Two thoughts on this quotation: one, Miller points out in her article that many marriages within the Bible are in fact a marriage between one man and many women. Two, the tradition of the church, so far in history, has been one that is awash in bloody records of forced inclusion and gory exclusions. Reverend Hunter, through his quotation, effectively places homosexuals outside of the bounded set of his defined Christianity.

Where does homosexuality factor in on a centered set? If you are inclined to believe that homosexuality is wrong and against God, then the homosexual would not have an arrow pointing anywhere near the center; however, in agreeing that it is indeed wrong, isn’t this implying a bounded set to the centered set? It’s like saying that sure, I believe in a centered set mentality but only if you believe this idea. What if a god-fearing man who is a model Christian in all aspects of his life continues his practice of homosexuality? Does this flip his arrow completely away from Jesus?

No matter your personal beliefs, the fact remains that many churches and many Christians are becoming known for exclusion through this issue. I have yet to meet a homosexual man or woman within any church community I have ever attended. Just today while attending the church I grew up in at home, I noticed an announcement for a support group for friends and family that are affected by someone of the GBLT community. I italicize friends and family in the previous sentence because it ignores the actual GBLT community entirely. Once again we see an exclusion from the church. The inclusion is only for those friends and family that know a GBLT person but are actually not GLBT themselves.

John 5:19 says “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner”. What I take from this verse is that God would reach out and love (accept?) the homosexual community. Jesus did not propagate marriage with his time of Earth, but rather dedicated his time to spreading the message of love. In a previous comment in a previous blog, the idea was brought up that we as a community need to be pointing our arrow towards Jesus (in loving people) rather than feeling comfortable that we are already “in” a bounded set. Another person said that perhaps a centered set is a way of humbly admitting that only God can draw the in-out boundary. Here we leave the judgment up to God and the love up to ourselves.

One final thought: by continuing to so openly exclude and denounce the GLBT community, the church and Christians continue to encourage an us vs. them mentality, promulgating a bounded set mentality and excluding a large (and growing) portion of today’s society. 

Here's something worth some thought.

Luke 2 (TNIV)

The Birth of Jesus

¹ In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

The Shepherds and the Angels

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.

⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

¹⁰ But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ "Glory to God in the highest heaven,
       and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Merry Christmas, everyone!  We'll talk again tomorrow.

You Talk About the Center of the Set...

Is America Going Secular?

Thanks to all of you who commented on my last post, asking if you shared my vibe that America is profoundly turning secular, as we've seen in Western Europe. Here's what I learned from you all.

1. Some of you share my vibe; some of you don't.

    

   That's fair enough, and that's been my experience in talking about this to others.

    

2. Laura is smarter than I am.

    

   Others of you may also be smarter than I am, but Laura has a clear-cut case to make. Here's her comment, rocking my vibe in a pithy two sentences:

    

   If we're talking about educated middle-class/upper-middle-class America, I believe it. I'd be interested in hearing about whether this is also true in lower-income American communities.

    

   And that is the key difference between America and Western Europe on this front: diversity. The Pew survey earlier this year talked about native-born Catholics dropping out of Catholicism at a dizzying rate… but then said that the percentage of U.S. Catholics was holding fast. How is that possible? Hispanic immigration. So when we talk about "America" going secular, who are we talking about? We have lots of pockets of "America" in a way that, until recently at least, France or Holland or Sweden hasn't. Prashant mentioned that Europe might be re-religioning a bit. If so, my take would be that we can largely attribute that to Islamic immigration.

    

   So maybe my vibe needs to be rephrased. Maybe I'd say that, "college-educated America will rapidly turn secular." That doesn't account for ethnic pockets, but still might prove true. And it might be consequential nonetheless, as 70+% of America's youth now goes to college.

    

Merry Christmas everyone! We'll have a mini-Christmas moment here Thursday. Then on Friday, we'll have what might be our most-incendiary (yet) guest post, from Sarah Wilson.

Do You Share My Vibe?

I and some friends are working off of a pretty profound vibe that we can't prove. 

But evidently it seems compelling enough that we're willing to put a fair amount of resourcing its direction.  I wonder whether this matches a vibe you have.

We find ourselves betting that America will soon, spiritually, go the way of Western Europe and pretty much all other industrialized western nations.  Europe, of course, was once the seat of Christendom and now is perhaps the worldwide seat of atheism.  European churchgoing rates are quite comparable to those in my city, Cambridge, MA: 5% or less in each country.  We do have a theory about WHY this will happen, but maybe more profound than that theory is just our vibe THAT it's on the way.

This seems evident to us just from reading any national newsmagazine or watching hip programming like The Colbert Report or reading anything put out by someone who's on faculty at any university most people would have heard of.  Fifty plus years ago, there at least would have been some attempt at civil religion from those sources ("It's a Wonderful Life," for instance), but now it's far the reverse.

Stephen Colbert on the O'Reilly Factor

Many of our friends don't believe this to be true.  They're from parts of the country where religious adherence--or general religiosity--is vastly different than it is in Cambridge or New York or San Francisco or Western Europe.  The world they see suggests that America is the great hold-out to the general secularizing of the Western world. 

But my vibe just doesn't match up with that observation, try as I might.  Once the culture has turned,  as it seems evident to me that ours has (but maybe those are just my blinders--feel free to push back), it seems to me that that's that.  Every young person consumes culture, whatever part of our country they come from.  About 70% of them will go to college, which will also push hard this direction.

So there you have my vibe.  If my (and many others') vibe turns out to be on target, that would seem to me to suggest some worthy responses from people of faith.  But perhaps this is not YOUR vibe.  What think you?

This and That on Our Topic D'Jour

Hi all.  I'm seriously on the run, but I did want to make a few comments on our continued conversation.  I'm hopeful to have an awesome guest blog on Friday with yet another perspective on this bounded/centered set question, which it looks as if we'll milk for just a bit more.

Again, my position, and I'm sticking with it, is live and let live on this.  "Winning'" this conversation both seems impossible and inadvisable.  That said, a few observations from our conversation:

1. It clearly has emotional stakes for some of us on both sides.

I know it does for me!  I'd be curious if it does for you.  Both, strangely, can fight feeling a little judged by the other camp.  (Folks arguing the "bounded" point of view feel sneered at by the "centered" gang.  The "centered" gang feels disregarded by the "bounded" gang.) 

For me, the stakes strangely seem tied to (a) love of Jesus and (b) reliance on the Holy Spirit.  I can find myself feeling that my occasional conversation partners from the bounded point of view are invested in the question of who's in and out of heaven to the point that that they discount actually loving Jesus (and needing to rely on the present direction of the Holy Spirit).  That's pretty much the only reason I'm in this faith deal at all.  I can find myself choking up.  Now, clearly, no reputable follower of Jesus would EVER agree with me that those were the stakes of our conversation.  But that does seem to account for the emotion I sometimes feel. 

Some folks from the "bounded" side of the conversation have graciously shared with me that, to them, the stakes are peace in life.  Can they put to bed whether they're going to heaven or not, or must it perpetually remain an open issue?  Conversely, they can feel loyal to the Bible in this conversation (I have thoughts on that in a moment), and that can be an emotional issue as well.  Also, folks have shared that they've seen a ton of good, honest faith in what, to them, is clearly a "bounded" community on our terms here.  It hurts to feel as though those folks are being discounted in any way.

2. I'm not sold that saying "the Bible supports 'x'" is a conversation-stopper at this point of the conversation.

As we've seen, some scriptures that some of us have clearly regarded as supporting a bounded set point of view ("for those outside everything is in parables," the sheep and the goats) can be pretty persuasively (to my mind) be argued as supporting just the opposite point of view.  I'd suggest that this conversation calls for a deeper look at the Bible, rather than (I'm by no means suggesting any of us have done this... except possibly me) proof-texting in any way.

3. I'm not persuaded the model can support much pushing into it.

What are the boundaries to a centered-set model?  Beats me.  My leaning remains that there are none, that that's a confusing of categories, that that's essentially saying that a centered-set model is a subset of bounded-set models rather than just a different thing.  But it's a mathematical model popularized in the 70s by Paul Hiebert at what was then Fuller Seminary's School of World Mission.  So it's a fairly new model and, like Peck's stage theory model, is, after all, just a model that some smart guy thought up.  It's useful primarily if it triggers new thinking, which both have done for me.  But to my mind saying that either is "true" is just a bit of a head-scratcher.  How could such a thing be "true?"  Helpful, absolutely.  But it seems to me that's the standard we're looking at this from.  We can make the models into anything that serves this conversation.

Go to it everyone!  (And an increasing "almost-Merry Christmas" to you!)

Fun Story and a Proposal on the Rip-Roaring “Bounded” versus “Centered” Debate

Well, seems like we hit a nerve with this centered-set stuff! 21 comments since the post went up yesterday morning, along with the 15 or so to Charles' post that started the conversation off. Just by way of comparison, my helpfully pastoral "take all the permission given, but no more" post last week got a robust 2 comments. Dan didn't even put up any cool graphics with this one!

A fun story came in today that I'll pass on before taking my pass at a proposal on the bounded/centered stuff. A friend passed on Not the Religious Type to her non-churchgoing boss and came to the next staff meeting (my friend's boss oversees a hundred or so employees and impacts several thousand other people) to find a diagram on the white board of a bounded and centered set. What was at the center of the set? "Doing the Right Thing." Not the same as Jesus, but certainly worthy on its own merits. Apparently this man has become a Not the Religious Type enthusiast on other fronts as well, which is fun.

Thanks for all the give and take on the bounded vs. centered set stuff. I feel like I've learned a lot…not least about what a tricky concept we're dealing with here. All this leads me to a proposal about how to go forward from here on this stuff. Perhaps we can agree that, in this setting, we'll be talking about "faith from a centered-set perspective." I wonder if we'd all be advised to pull out a bit on either bounded or centered-set thinking needing to vanquish the other.

On the one hand, I wouldn't think I'd do an especially helpful job of detailing the blessings of bounded-set thinking, so it would seem unwise to give it much focus here, not to mention that there are lots of other places which take great delight in doing that.

But should any folks feel a need to point out the importance/inevitability of bounded-set things, perhaps I at the very least could agree to say, "Fabulous! You go! May all those good things you're describing have great impact on your life and on the lives of those you love! Three cheers for you and your point!" Whatever my own views on the subject, I don't feel as if this by any means is a point I need to "win" (as if "winning" is even a possibility on such a thing). But, that said, my feeling is that I and many, many of you have quite a bit to contribute on the virtues of a centered-set approach, for all its ambiguity and kinks that remain to be worked out.

The only thing this would exclude would be the perspective that "In versus out" (as I characterized bounded-set thinking in the last post) is ALL there is to be said in the conversation of faith, that all this centered-set stuff is just word games. That point of view, it seems to me, wouldn't find much that's helpful here (but, again, would have many other wonderful places to go to find encouragement and community).

2 questions for you. (1) Do you find that proposal helpful? And (2) even if you do, is there any more that's burning on your heart on this question? I'm not meaning to shut down the conversation, just perhaps to give some shape to it.

Does it all come down to "in" versus "out"?

Thanks so much everyone for your responses to Charles Park's piece that went up last Thursday. 

What grabbed most of your interest wasn't so much his provocative point about "black swan" events and how to respond to them, but rather his talking about centered versus bounded faith.  Some of you were more openly skeptical about his distinction and others were trying to work with it, if with some challenges.  To restate the key question, it's whether salvation (or, on Charles' terms, any life strategy) comes down to being in or out of something or comes down to whether we're moving towards or away from something.  Seems abstract, but it ends up having quite a few pretty big implications.

On Charles' terms, the Pharisees were the key advocates for "in versus out" as the bottom line, while Jesus was the great teacher of movement being the bottom line ("Follow me:" "I only do what I see the Father doing"). 

Some of you saw this as sophistry--of course it all boils down to in versus out!.  Others wondered if there might be a blend between the two (one provocative comment: "I think you can be "in" but facing pretty far away from God, or "out" but facing toward God").  One comment that got me thinking quite a bit came from Brian Odom, who wondered if bounded sets are crucial in moving from stage 1 into stage 2 and centered sets come into play after that.

My take at the moment?  It's centered-set or bust for me.  I seem to have a sharp eye for this in the scriptures.  "Their lips praise me, but their hearts are far from me."  (So they appear pretty "in" but God knows where their arrow is truly pointing.)  As I'll speak on next Sunday, the tax collector who turns his heart towards God goes home justified; the religious person who looks down on those who are not "in" goes home without God. 

Peter B. rightly says that both Jesus and Paul talk about insiders and outsiders.  My quick memory scan has Jesus most profoundly (and maybe only) using this language in Mark 4 as he talks about "for those outside, everything is in parables."  But here, to me, he seems to be speaking quite prosaically.  Those "inside" were actually...well, inside a house with him.  "Those outside" were everyone who wasn't there at the moment.  What had these folks done to get inside?  They'd followed Jesus around a lake because he'd told them how important his teaching was and they hadn't understood it.  So the "arrow" of their lives very literally was pointed towards Jesus to the point that their feet followed right along.  Their being "inside" at that point was not a statement about their ultimate salvation (after all, he immediately tells them they could be one of three different types of "soils" in terms of him, only one of which ends well [my read is that they're not at risk of being the fourth type of "soil"--the path--by virtue of their having tracked Jesus down]). 

So my feeling would differ on the thought that anyone could be "'in' but facing pretty far away from God."  "In" becomes a bit nonsensical for me at that point. 

That said, for all I know, Brian O. is onto something with his take that in/out language is key as folks transition out of stage 1.  Could well be.  I feel pretty far removed from that transition, so I doubt I have a good feel for that. 

But if that's the case, in/out language is still transitional into something that's radically more true.  Or so it seems to me.  And it seems to me that Charles takes that insight and applies it in some pretty provocative real world ways.  In my next post (tomorrow or something soon), I'll try to spell out what, to me, the implications of this are.

But what are your thoughts?  It sounds like, at least from Charles' presentation, many of you weren't sold.

True or False: “What is unforeseen ends up becoming your life.” / Charles Park (Manhattan, NY)

I had the pleasure of watching a well-made movie, Appaloosa directed by Ed Harris.   The movie begins with a statement that what is unforeseen ends up becoming your life.  It reminded me of a theory called ‘Black Swan Logic.’  Black swans are defined as rare and extremely disruptive, yet fundamentally unpredictable events. 

Consider the current economic crisis. The great financial houses had the best minds and the best computer models to predict every conceivable outcome, but they were unprepared, totally unprepared for what is happening today.  And so, it is what we don’t know, those unpredictable, “un-preparable” events that drive history. 

“Black Swan logic makes what you don't know far more relevant than what you do know.”  (Taleb,  The Black Swan:  the impact of the highly improbable.)

Just think about that for a moment.  What we don’t know has a greater impact on life, because we don’t prepare for what we don’t know.  And what we’re not prepared for is what changes life.  We don’t EXPECT to get divorced or struggle with life-threatening diseases, or get laid off.  But they happen, and we get rattled, because life refuses to fit conveniently into our boxes.

Yet, we have a tendency to build life around ‘certainties.’  Especially in religion, it’s often all about whether you’re in or out.  The inimical enemies to Christ in the Bible are the Pharisees.  And they majored in what here we’ve sometimes called ‘bounded set’ mentality.  The ‘religious people’ are favored by God, they’re in, they’re going to heaven.  And, the pagans, well, they’re outside the box.  I’d like to pitch that this is a maladaptive strategy for living, precisely because of the realities that Apaloosa and The Black Swan are trying to teach us.

In our bounded sets, we can miss God right in front of us.  You could argue that Christmas itself, introducing a God come to us in weakness, is a ‘black swan event.’ 

In a world filled with black swan events, Jesus shows us an alternative way to live, a model of ‘centered life’ that doesn’t get rattled by the unexpected.  Read any gospel and you’ll see how he evades traps set for him by bounded set religious leaders.  Where does he come up with these stunning reframings of their questions?  He tells us in this centered-set manifesto:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”  John 5:19 (NASB)

Apparently, he turns to God for everything and gets answers. He doesn’t think in categories.  He just looks to the center and heads that way.

In this centered set, it’s not about how close or how far you are from being ‘in the club.’  It’s more about where the arrow of your life is pointing.  In fact, the closer you are to God, the harder it is to keep pointing towards God.  When you’re far off, you can point approximately towards God, and you’d be moving closer to the center.  But if you’re really close to God, then if your arrow is at the same angle as that far-off dot, well, you’d be moving away from God!  The standard gets higher as you get closer to God, which makes it impossible to coast or to judge others in this model.  You’re busy with other things, because your arrow has to be re-calibrated every day to point towards God.

What is our center?  If it’s a set of doctrines or a strategy for success, I’m afraid they will be too rigid for a world filled with ‘black swan’ events. 

Living outside of a bounded set can feel threatening.  Judging from what we see in Jesus, though, it seems to be the only game in town for an adaptable life.  Your thoughts?

Updates Plus an Invitation to Sign up as a Faith Ambassador / Peter Vessenes (Boston, MA)

Hi all, I'm glad to make my first post on the blog. I won't be blogging about anything related to Stage 4 Faith as an idea today, but I wanted to update you all with a few statistics and invite you to formally sign up with our Ambassador Program.

We had a couple of things happen this week that told me we're hitting a first level of critical mass, and I wanted to share them with you.

Milestone 1: We passed 500 comments on the blog. Wow! When we batted around the idea of a blog only a few months ago, I told Dave not to expect much in the way of comments or dialogue for some time. I was wrong, you all have been having a stellar conversation here for many months, and I look forward to more.

Milestone 2: We had our first official request for a forum today. I like forums, and we've been planning on one. Forums are a next step for communities that want to talk amongst themselves. Our only concern is not jumping the gun and launching a totally dead forum, so if you'd be interested in participating in the forum, could you let me know in the comments?

Invitation: Finally, I want to invite any of you who are interested to sign up with our Ambassador Program. You can do that by filling out this form. We are in early stages of developing tools for Faith Ambassadors, so if that sort of thing worries you, then don't sign up now. On the other hand, if you like being in on the ground floor, sign up! We'll be tapping you to help us develop the Ambassador program over the next few months.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled conversation..

Take every bit of permission given, but no more.

I'd love to begin an occasional series about some quirky fundamentals that, best as we can figure out, have driven much of the approach many of us have found helpful.

Here's one, and not a minor one.

Here's a not-uncommon scenario we discover with many a young person who freshly encounters faith.  They all-but immediately meet a dashing/sexy romantic interest (not a person of faith; in fact, usually a little hostile to the whole faith idea) who makes a strong play for them and then we never see our friend with newfound faith again.  And the nearly-irresistible urge we have when our next new friend tells us about their sudden love interest is to remember how often we've seen this before and shout, "Stop NOW!  Is this really what you want for your life?  Think about what you're doing!"  On occasion this turns out to be a good tactic.  But mostly it hastens the exit of our new friend.

This one (granted, common) scenario has led to a whole philosophy of spiritual direction that seems to tie into everything in life: namely, take one hundred percent of the permission given, but no more. 

So, if we're doing well when our new friend excitedly tells us about their new love interest, we'll wade in and find out what response we're getting.  And then we'll pay attention to that.  If the person is receptive and open, we venture in until we find they're no longer receptive and open.  But if we encounter resistance, we back off with an apology. 

We've found from that that people are more receptive to us and to God than they were before.  Their "no" will be taken seriously!  Sometimes they last with us where previously they'd have blown out.

This philosophy has found its way into how we speak about God at all.  One person recently compared it to laying out a tasty buffet, but then inviting our hearers to eat whatever they'd like to eat and leave the rest until a later time when they might want it.

It's shaped our understanding of talking with our non-churchgoing friends about spiritual things.  We often find ourselves pressing in on interesting spiritual topics of interest.  If there's openness, we'll keep down that path, maybe even pushing in a bit more confidently.  If not, we'll do our best to graciously change the subject.

Strangely, this has led many of us to feel as though we're bolder than we've been before about spiritual things.  If we know we'll be quick to back off at the moment we realize we've overstepped, we've actually felt freer to talk candidly.

As--God willing--we talk more and more with the secular world as a whole, perhaps the same dynamic will hold true: Take a hundred percent of the permission given, but no more.

Have you experienced that to be a helpful rule of thumb?  Does it sound watered-down to you?  Do you have stories where you've ignored that guideline and paid for it--or where you're really glad you DIDN'T keep that guideline in mind? 

Some updating from Not Religious Land

Let me give you an update from Not Religious Land.

You may or may not be aware that there's actually a whole non-profit behind your friendly blog.  It's existed since July and now has two employees, Dan Littauer and Peter Vessenes.  The non-profit was Peter's idea.  He's a longtime entrepreneur and he pitched that, if we were serious about the goal we talk about (starting a different and pervasive conversation about faith within America's secular culture), it would take more than just talk or publications, it would take a sustained effort.  So we've made Peter put his money where his mouth is on that front and we're testing his theory even as he makes a career shift this direction.

We're finding our way into some audacious goals.  The seed of everything is this idea we're working with called "faith ambassadors."  These (presumably many of you would be among them) would be folks engaged in promoting what we're calling here "Stage 4 faith" and we're hoping to work with faith ambassadors in every zip code of America (we're still honing how many zip codes there actually are--we've established a minimum of 42,000, so that should keep us busy for a week or two).

Our theory is that these folks would have the fun opportunity to participate in faith conversations on different terms than might be possible in many church settings.  To switch terms on you, we're hoping to see lots of centered-set conversations about faith kicked into gear, conversations where the hope isn't to help folks jump into a certain denominational expression of faith, but rather to mutually encourage each other to turn ourselves towards the relational God (embodied, from my point of view, in Jesus). 

This opens up some interesting and confounding possibilities.  Peter tells me about a conversation with a secular Jewish friend who's super-excited about this and hopes to become a faith ambassador.  We're learning together if that will be possible, and, if so, what that might look like.

I recently got quite an honor.  I got asked to be a keynote speaker on the final night of Harvard's Veritas Forum event this February.  (Their last two headliners: NT Wright and Tim Keller, so I'm flattered!)  I've been talking with some of their leaders about the prospect of pitching becoming a faith ambassador to everyone who attends, churchgoing or secular, perhaps on different terms. 

As I hope you'll pick up from this: (1) It's a pretty fun and expansive conversation.  We talk with a fair number of folks who've participated in our congregation while they're living in Boston, and then have a hard time connecting with folks who share these values once they leave.  Perhaps this would provide a fun way to stay connected wherever they live.  Not to mention with many of you!  (2) We can't credibly claim we know what we're talking about.  "Faith ambassadors" around centered-set, Stage 4 faith that's open to interested folks from a mix of spiritual backgrounds...what?  And, to that, we say a hearty "touche!" 

But, nonetheless, we're banking quite a bit on having a thought-through answer to the "what?" question within a month or two.  Pray for that!

And there's more, perhaps for another post.  We're working with a few churches on what we hope will be a pretty gripping, fun and expansive faith experience during Lent.  We're hoping it will not only train and encourage the church's members and leaders in this "faith ambassador" stuff, but will also be a profoundly encouraging personal faith experience for each participant.  If all goes well, we'll have that available to other churches next year.  SEEK (a ten-week course on faith of this sort) has now gone out to about 70 churches and groups, so we're learning a lot about how that works in different contexts.

We'll keep you posted!  And I'd, of course, love your thoughts (while, again, emphasizing that our current answer to many questions runs along the lines of, "Good one!"). 

    

The Best Job

A brief prefatory note before the post: For no especially strong reason, I'd love to ask any of you who are willing to go to Amazon.com and post a review of Not the Religious Type.  We're promoting the book in all sorts of fun new places, and it would be great if there was a bit more robust of a collection of reviews for folks to look over on Amazon.  And I think sheer numbers of reviews can make a difference to people--lots of reviews signifies a book being talked about to some folks.  So, if you're game, that'd be awesome.  That said, on to the post!

"You have the best job," my skeptical humanist scientist friend said to me on Tuesday night. 

I asked why. 

"Because you get to baptize people and you get to be in these small groups where people talk openly about faith."  I asked for more.  Why, for instance, would she--a skeptic--regard me baptizing people (which she'd just watched) make for such a great job?  "Because you're right there at what's so obviously such a key turning point for people, such an obviously powerful moment.  And spiritual small groups, like the one I was just in in SEEK... there's no other setting I've ever experienced for something like that.  I always thought that scientists have the best job... but you have the best job."

My friend was right on any number of levels.  For the first time we'd incorporated a baptism into the "post-SEEK party" we throw after each SEEK class.  (SEEK is a ten-week class/ small group experience I'm part of running for people who regard themselves as on the front end of questions of faith.)  About a third of the class participated in the baptism...and it was a wow.  The stories they told and the clearly powerful spiritual experiences they were having were really moving.  At the sharing afterward, we heard many variants around, "I never knew an experience like this was available in the world."  Or: "I never understood that God wanted to be relational, but boy do I now."  Or: "I never realized that I could have such close friends in this adventure of faith." 

One of the leaders on this course said with some passion afterward that everyone should not only take something like this, they should lead something like this.  Why?  Because they'd see the power of leading people with "tell me more" to their questions rather than with quick answers, and would get to watch how God is eager to take over from there and really change peoples' lives.

I told my skeptical scientist friend that it wasn't too late--she could quit that flimsy scientist gig and have my job.  I'm hoping she'll join in with the post-SEEK small group that starts next week.  (You could pray for her if you have a moment.) 

But I'd love to encourage you towards the best job!  Finding settings for people with questions about faith to be able to talk safely and openly with others in their same situation...there's not much that turns out to be more fun than that.   

Should Faith Take Cues from Science?

Brian Odom* (Chicago, IL)

Some people feel that there is a huge tension between Science and Faith.  As someone who both follows Jesus and works as a university professor of physics, the little bit of science/faith tension I do experience tends to be constructive, in that it helps shape my faith.  I think that this shaping is a good thing, but it also leaves me with some questions about what the interaction should look like.

The subject of evolution is one example where I am quite happy to have let science shape my faith.  I am told by trustworthy biologists, ranging from atheist to Christian (e.g. Francis Collins author of The Language of God -- check the former link for some good quotations), that the evidence for human evolution (yes, going back to amoebas) is too good to argue with.  Following Jesus in taking a high view of scripture, I am left with two choices concerning the Genesis creation stories:  (1) believe that they are intended to be literal accounts leaving no room for evolution and that God deliberately set up DNA in such a way as to trick us, or (2) hold the Genesis accounts as truth-telling God-inspired creation myths.  (I use the word “myth” here in a reverential sense.  Myths are non-historic, symbolic stories which can tell profound truths.)  I choose option (2), and far from detracting from my faith, this view boosts my awe of God.  With a measure of humility about what I know and don’t know, I say, “How spectacularly clever of God to use the intricate process of evolution as his tool for creating me.”

I think mistakes can be made when faith willfully ignores science, but I also think mistakes can be made in the opposite direction.  Taking an example from my own field, do the laws of physics allow for free choice?  In the pre-20th century clockwork picture of physics, given enough information about initial conditions everything about the future was thought to be predictable, leaving no room for free will.  A 19th century believer might have been tempted to conclude that science, if it left room for God at all, led to the conclusion that every single human action has been predestined by God.  However, quantum theory, developed through the first part of the 20th century, made a mess of that clockwork picture.   Microscopic processes appear to observers as being fundamentally unpredictable, and therefore related macroscopic outcomes are also fundamentally unpredictable.  Does quantum mechanics open up space for human and divine free will?  I think it’s a very interesting possibility, but I wouldn’t claim that for certain.  The one thing I know is that 19th century believers would have been making a mistake to let physicists remove the possibility of free choice from theology.

Other specific questions come to mind, including physiological discoveries about spiritual experiences, archaeological findings, and “historical Jesus” studies.  It might be interested to talk about these or other specific topics, but I was especially interested in discussing how to find a good posture for allowing faith to be shaped by modern scholarship.  What is at stake if Christians continue to regard the theory of evolution with hostility or with reservation?  What is at stake if people of faith overstate the case that the Big Bang provides evidence for a Creator, or if we prematurely allow science to shape aspects of theology?  How do we strike the right balance?  I think that humility is one key element, but there’s certainly a lot more to say…

* For those of you who have been following this blog, I’ve previously been posting as “Brian O.” Since this post relates to my job as a physics professor, I’ll drop the anonymity and go by “Brian Odom” from now on.

Is There an Opportunity in Christmastime?

Grace and I had a disagreement over Rosie Thomas’ fun new Christmas song, “Why Can’t It Be Christmastime All Year?” which seems to strike at something in the season itself. 

(Listen to the song!)

While agreeing that the song is cheerful and tuneful, it seemed to me it overtly celebrates the husk of what used to be a meaningful holiday.  Why does the singer wish it could always be Christmastime?  Because of Santa and New Year’s resolutions and sleighbells.  So what we like these days are the feelings we get from something which actually used to have substance.  We like the vestiges of Christendom without actually wanting Christendom. 

Grace’s point?  Sure, but a lot of what the singer likes about Christmastime are things like having friends over.  If this and the things I mention are the formal death of Christendom, well then so be it.  Those trappings are, in fact, good things.

What’s your take on Christmastime?  Is it just annoying and destructive in its materialism, its stress and its secular spirituality about “the most wonderful time of the year?”  Or is there value, even from God’s perspective, in those trappings themselves?

What I'm Learning about Mysticism

I’ve told many of you that I’m taking a 32-session course on CD on the history of mysticism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (via The Teaching Company, taught by Luke Timothy Johnson—it’s not bad, though I often find myself wanting him to say more; as I so often find with academics, I want him to editorialize). 

I mentioned a few weeks back that what initially struck me in the Judaism section was that, as Johnson presents it, so little of the “mysticism” there involved actually connecting with God.  Instead, study of Torah (the first five books of the Bible) was the vehicle for “mystical experience” (still a bit of a mystery to me what this “experience” is if it doesn’t involved hearing from or connecting to God, but I’m a novice), often in a Bible-Code sort of way. God was seen as distant (the concept of 7 heavens came up there, with each heaven taking 500 years to attain—by the 7^th, we’re as near to God as we’ll ever get…after 3,500 years of strenuous mystical effort).

As we move onto the Christians, I begin to kick into gear as we hit the Middle Ages and I pretty much check out as we hit the Reformation and move into the modern era.  Pre-Middle-Ages, a lot of what Johnson presents are pictures of people coping with post-Constantine Christianity.  Now that it’s a state religion, how can people get really serious about it?  Maybe they can go into the desert and live apart from all companionship (and, largely, food).  Or, per the Stylites, can build tall pillars and live on them.  It’s strenuous, but not enticing.

That turns for a brief period in the Middle Ages.  There we get these passionate women…often a little too passionate, granted.  We get the modern phrase “holy anorexia” to describe several of them—they fasted so much that they died young.  (St. Francis died that way as well.)  But we get the Hildegard of Bingens and Catherine of Sienas of the world who write about passionate love of Jesus.  These cloistered women clearly direct their romantic selves Jesus’ way…but it seems all to the good on my end.  Suddenly we get an interlude where the heart gets engaged towards Jesus.  We hit a groove where the mystic does these incredible acts of sacrifice and finds…love.  Previously they found asceticism or “special spiritual insight.”  But now we hit a stretch of a few hundred years where mystics found passion, love, connection, gladness. 

These cloistered women give way to Francis and Dominic, who clearly have a lot to recommend them on this front.

They give way to the weirder, possibly heretical, but still passionate variants in Germany like Meister Eckhart.

Then the Reformation pretty much stamps passion out in favor of the head.  The Reformers, themselves so persecuted as they brought this clearly needed corrective to the then-corrupt church, become absolute demons as they—now with the upper hand—torture and persecute the Anabaptists. 

What was the Anabaptists’ crime?  They believed Jesus needed to be experienced, not just thought about.  Baptism, in their view, had to come by way of immersion, because being dunked was a whole-body, whole-spirit experience (and, incidentally, to their mind was the biblical picture), and sprinkling was a cognitive metaphor of something.  This perspective infused their world view.  The descendants of the Reformation came up with tortures that transcended some of those in the Inquisition to go after this “heresy.”  And mysticism that would actually engage the heart became far more sparse.  (You could make a good case for William Law, in England, and—absolutely—for Therese of Lisieux and certainly others.  But the golden age of the Middle Ages wouldn’t return.)

If we’re talking about a “mystical” faith of some sort here, this all would seem to suggest a few things.  First, it does take at least a little work.  A conversational relationship with God is certainly put right at the center of things.  But these folks had a taste for sacrifice, simple living, fasting, things like that.  And they found love at the heart of things; their hearts were engaged; they found passion, not just “insight.”  And then, in Francis’ case certainly, they aggressively took that to the wider world.

I presume you want passion at the heart of your life.  Does this prod you in any particular way towards how to find it?

Did Thomas Merton Prophesy the End of Evangelicalism?

I'm writing this during Thanksgiving week, knowing I won't be able to do any posting during it.  As of this point, none of you responding to the "What are you reading?" post have mentioned perhaps the 20th Century's most famous mystic, the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. 

And I can sympathize!  I've tried Merton again and again and have found him largely impenetrable, if with many moments of things that seem deep and great if just a hair out of reach.  Merton was known for his ecumenism--he got good stuff from his own, Catholic, tradition, but also from Buddhism and Hinduism and other sources, so that might account for his depth that flummoxes me.

Merton also took his place in the Civil Rights Movement and other causes of the 60s.  And, no doubt thinking of those things, but maybe also hearkening forward to the closing days of evangelical modernity, he wrote this:

Our task is to disassociate ourselves from all who have theories which promise clear-cut and infallible solutions and to mistrust all such theories.  Not in a spirit of negativism and defeat, but rather trusting life itself and nature and, if you will permit me, God above all.  For since man has decided to occupy the place of God, he has shown himself to be by far the bloodiest and cruelest and pettiest and most ridiculous of all the false gods.  We can call ourselves innocent only if we refuse to forget this.

So there's a bit of that ecumenism and a clear comment on the totalitarianism of his immediate half-century.  But his point seems, in its purest form, to be that anyone who claims a "clear-cut and infallible solution" is anti-God, who's bigger and messier than that. 

One friend, hearing this, mentioned the Pharisees asking Jesus if he was really going to "work" on the Sabbath (a clear-cut violation of their rule), him saying, "Uh-huh," healing a man, leading them to plot how to murder him. 

While Merton's comment has its stage 3 side ("I don't trust anyone who says they have clear answers"), it goes into stage 4 by the end of the sentence, it seems to me.  Does this seem at the heart of the kind of "mystical" faith we talk about here?  Or does it seem to fit more into the reactive, stage 3 world?