Not The Religious Type

Our Friends at the 700 Club...and a Solemn Assignment

If it holds any interest for you, I'll be on, yes, the 700 Club next Friday, June 5.  Check listings in your local area.  No further comment will be made from this front... (said from someone who's been in the midst of a massive amount of commenting on the cultural incongruity of it all, but wishes only the best for our friends at the 700 Club). 

As to the "solemn assignment," I very much do want your comments on something that I think will really help our conversation here and that isn't as easy to comment on as it looks.  It's in the comments section of the last post, called "Putting Second Things First."  My friend Dave Thom offered an articulate rebuttal of my post, I tossed out a brief comment that I felt we were fairly consequentially talking past each other, and then I invited other longtime readers of this blog to take the first whack at a response to Dave's comment.  As of this writing, three of you have done a great job of taking me up on that request.  But I still think there's more to be said, and I think that whatever it is that you'll say will be really on point and helpful to what we're up to here.

So I'm loathe to lose this opportunity and just rush onto something else.  So take this as a little thought exercise.  You--yes, you, longtime reader but rare commenter, along with longtime reader and frequent commenter--glance back at my post, read Dave's push-back comment, and weigh in with your own comment as you try to untangle what might be going on in that exchange.  I think you'll find it a valuable thing to try.  And I'll be nothing but eager to learn from you all as you do.

So...right now...put down that cup of coffee, take another minute off from whatever it is that you should actually be doing right now, and write your comment on yesterday's post.

No.  Seriously.

Putting Second Things First

As my upcoming article in Cutting Edge (mentioned in last week's post called Love Is an Orientation) will mention, I had a memorable encounter with a pastor who was leading our statewide fight against gay marriage a couple years back.  I asked him, in effect, if the main message he wanted to communicate to the secular world about the gospel was "gay people need to repent."  Whatever the merits he saw to that point, did he regard that as the main message of the Bible and therefore what secular people most needed to hear? 

We never arrived at an actual answer to that, but he didn't disavow that either.  "First things first," was the spirit of his reply.  To which my response was, "First thing first!?"  Even to this pastor, surely that would be a secondary point, however important a point he might regard it as being.  As a pastor who teaches the New Testament, surely he'd concede that the primary message, the most important--and by a long shot--message he'd want to convey would have something to do with, well, Jesus. 

But we parted ways over that.  It seems to me that this pastor made the key mistake this blog is doing its best to combat, the mistake of turning secondary things into primary things.  I think this is a big big deal.  And it's very easy to do.

At the risk of needless provocation, I think some of our conversation here last week about the "religious dimensions of the torture debate" did that.  Hot-button issues--gay marriage and Guantanamo, to name two--tend to draw many a commenter we don't otherwise see who are eager to interject strong, often hostile opinions into our conversation. 

When that happens, usually a regular commenter or I will try to redirect.  "Here's, I think, the conversation we're actually trying to have here."  But, in these hot-button conversations, attempts to redirect will either be ignored entirely or will be shouted down.  "How DARE you say that my perspective on this hot-button issue isn't the most important point that could possibly be made on the most important issue of our DAY?" 

In this case, the redirect went along these lines: "The reason for running this post actually wasn't to debate the merits of the Bush-era (or Obama-era) position on torture, except perhaps in passing.  It was actually to talk about how alienating the perception of Christian's support of torture proves to be to secular people.  What do you make of that and how can we do better?"

Even after that redirect was disregarded (by some :) ), we actually had a notable case in point.  An (albeit somewhat surly) older atheist commented that, yes, this in fact did strongly alienate him from Christian faith.  I acknowledged his point and mentioned that, hey, here was a case in point of what we were talking about.  And, a bit later, one commenter heatedly rebuked my acknowledgment of this person's point and heatedly talked about the atheist commenter's faulty logic.

Which, ironically, was the point as I understood it to Steven's provocative original post:.  When we do things like that, we put a massive wedge between us and the world around us, and for what?  Not for the gospel, which never came up in that conversation.  But for...our position on the Bush doctrine regarding torture?  Are we crazy?

Again, I think this is where centered-set thinking helps us.  (For an explanation of that term, check out the multimedia tab above.)  To be helpful in a secular setting, we're contesting that our only option is centered-set, to point ourselves and others towards Jesus, so that Jesus can validate himself.  When things go wrong for us is often when we make secondary things primary--hot-button issues that become more important to us than Jesus himself.  Or when we can't distinguish between the two.  I'm sympathetic both that this is easy for any of us to do and also that this way of thinking can be very challenging for those of us happily raised in very religious settings to see much value in.

Now this does not address how those of us who do want to live a centered-set life should in fact address important social questions like those that become hot-button issues.  Clearly important issues are in fact important, and I'd love your thoughts here on how to hold these two things in balance.

But  I am saying that, to my mind, putting second things first is what the Bible calls "idolatry."  We're only supposed to put first what is first, and that would be God.

The Cycle of Jadedness / Charles Park

The traditional approach of the Church World is about ‘reasons’ and ‘arguments’ for God.  This approach seems based more on the culture of the church world where there exists a shared framework of viewpoint leading to interest in finer points of theology and approaches to God, but for the post-Christian world, ‘reasons’ won’t work on mass scale.

These people have heard the ‘reasons’, and rejected them.  And now they have built their identities around being a post-Christian.  In such cases, arguments tend to only make them dig deeper into their positions, because ‘reasons’ rarely convince someone to abandon their identity, because the ‘logic’ itself flows from our culture and our identity.

For example, it’s hard to imagine Saul/Paul could have been won by arguments pre-conversion.  He changed only because Jesus appeared to him out of the blue. 

A real presence of God is needed.

The church movement that has the size and the scope to matter, and emphasizes the real presence of God is the Pentecostal movement.  Yet, there are real limitations of the Pentecostal approach to reach the post-Christian world, because it is a movement that grew out of the people suffering from various forms of oppression (from slavery for African-Americans to the poverty in third world countries, etc.).

Well, in that setting when they are starving to death, dying of AIDS, with no hope for the future, they need to encounter the presence of God in powerful ‘deliverance miracles.’  They need healing, they need food, they need miracle, because they are in desperate need.

So, there is no holding back for them.  There is shouting and yelling and praying all night, because they have no other hope.  The miracles are celebrated, hyped, and the volume is way up, because they need the hope that ‘it can happen.’

However, many in the Western culture are turned off by the ‘loud’ volume of this particular expression of faith.  Some even condemn it as prosperity gospel.  I believe we need to withhold such judgments because we don’t share their context. What if the preachers there are preaching the power of the Cross to deliver them from the modern form of slavery?  Didn’t Moses promise a land flowing with milk and honey?  Was that prosperity gospel?

But of course, when this style comes over to the Western setting, it doesn’t transfer well to the secular culture.

The secular people in the culture centers of America are not attracted to 3 hour services (or all night prayer meetings) with yelling and shouting and miracle-touting ‘hype’ going on, because they are not desperate. By and large, they are educated, prosperous, with health care plans and 401k’s.  They are the ‘empowered’ people.

Their problems instead come from being part of a consumption driven society, where we go for the more and the better only to become jaded and cynical, because the riches we have, the vacation homes we own, that nifty Lexus we so wanted, they haven’t led to the happiness we thought these ‘things’ would bring. 

A stark example is from the New York magazine article by Naomi Wolf in 2003 which talks of the onslaught of porn in our society and how such stimulation has affected us.  Her conclusion:  “The evidence is in:  Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity.”

We haven’t counted on the dynamic of ‘diminished capacity’ to enjoy life even as we get more stimulation. 

So, we need even more stimulation to feel the same level of thrill which leads to even more jadedness which requires even more stimulation, so on and so on. We are caught in a vicious trap of consumption driven jadedness.  So, our problems are in addictions, depression, relational brokenness, alcoholism, workaholism, sexaholism, etc.

Jesus once asked, “what good is it to gain the world and lose your soul?”  If we consider our soul to hold our capacity to enjoy life, what good is it indeed to pursue the greater thrills only to lose the capacity to enjoy it?

Freud once mused that the modern society has gained what the primitives would ascribe to the gods, yet we’re not happy.  He did not know why.  Perhaps we have gained the world and lost our souls.

This might explain why the secularized people who are experiencing spiritual thirst are turning to the high church.  The high church with their liturgy and sacraments bring relief to the clogged soul in a quiet, toned-down way.

This people group tend to instinctively understand that authentic relationships bring healing and wholeness to the soul.  So, it makes sense to them that their soul can experience cleansing in the presence of God.  But of course, there are limitations to religious rituals because they tend to be mysterious.

 This is a serious limitation, because this generation conceives of relationships in terms of ‘conversations.’  Sacraments worked better in medieval times when people thought of relationships in terms of duty and honor and guilt.  They didn’t think of relationships as ‘hanging out’ as much as we do now.

That’s why I believe communicating the gospel in terms of the power of the Cross to open an authentic and personal relationship with God today can speak to the post-Christian generation.

I believe this is what the next truly ‘emergent church’ must learn, how to present to the secular people in terms (and context) easily accessible to them, how to connect to the presence of God and experience cleansing of their souls for increased capacity to enjoy life.

 

 

 

Not-Religious Dimensions to the Torture Debate

This is all fascinating stuff.  And yet I find myself largely feeling like this is an offline conversation for our purposes here.

What interested me in Steven's original post was not his perspective on whether people trying to follow the Jesus of the Bible could ever support a government that authorizes torture.  That actually strikes me as beyond the scope of our general conversation here.  By and large, I don't find myself caring one way or the other about the opinions people I meet hold on the hot button issues of the day.  I don't care if I convert someone from their political point of view or even their moral point of view.  And I feel much the same here.  Clearly we approach this from different perspectives, and--quoth Dickens--God bless us everyone.

What made me want to run his post was his pointing out how the conversation played out for people of faith in very secular settings.  If his data bears out and far more evangelicals than secularists support torture, then (a) it might be relevant to kick around thoughts on why that's so, but (b) it might even be more relevant to realize that this will need to be part of our conversation with the world around us if we live in very secular places. 

Clearly if we live in places where most people are churchgoers or feel guilty that they're not, then we're golden (unless we feel some perverse need to talk perfect strangers out of their support for Guantanamo). 

But most people in very secular settings do, rightly or wrongly, regard "Christians" and, more specifically, "evangelicals" as gun-toting, warmongering bigots.  What Steven's post reminded me was that I need to take that into account in such places and have some thought-through responses when things like torture come up.

I vividly remember one get-together I had a few years back with a local political comedian.  He's actually quite well-known around here and a few years back had a national show on one of the networks.  He briefly came to our church as he wondered whether he wanted to re-engage with faith after his destructive Catholic upbringing.  As he drove me home from one of his gigs, he stopped the car and, almost shaking, looked me in the eye and asked this.  "President Bush, he's a Christian, right?  But he refuses to ban land mines.  AS A CHRISTIAN, HE REFUSES TO BAN LAND MINES!  HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?"

At the time, either to my shame or my credit, I was more or less supportive of President Bush.  (Full disclosure, it was indeed the torture issue that got me off of the Bush bus.  But maybe that's needlessly provocative in the context of this current conversation...)  So I started futzing around and said something like, "Well, I do believe he's a sincere Christian..."  To which my companion said, "I agree with you!  He DOES seem sincere!  That makes me wonder if I could ever be a Christian!"

Proving what a bumbler I am in conversations like this, my next comment was something about the complex political realities that I was sure the president was responding to.  But my friend wouldn't drop it.  "We're talking about LAND MINES!  Land mines that KILL CHILDREN!  That doesn't seem like a hard call for a Christian to MAKE!"  And he was shaking by this time.  This really bothered him.

And finally, maybe, I clued in.  I said something like, "You know, I don't know what I'm talking about, and I really don't want to spend much time defending President Bush's land mines policy.  But clearly this really hits something profound in you.  So can you forgive me for my stupid answers and can I back up and ask you why you bring this up?"  And we ended up in an impassioned half-hour conversation at the curb in front of my house about what he would want from a God if there was one, about why he was re-exploring faith at all, and about the seemingly impossible barriers he felt he had to get past to even get started in this conversation--the main one being that the evangelical political debate, by all accounts, was something he had to sign off on before he could explore Jesus at all.

So, clearly, if we were to meet one of Steven's secular partners in conversation who, hearing that we followed Jesus, said, "I'm really troubled by evangelical's support of torture," I'm presuming none of us would say, "Well, I don't believe we can be girly men if we want to keep our country safe from terrorism."  I'm also presuming none of us would repeat my mistake and launch into a thoughtful perspective on why, against our friend's initial thinking, Jesus might indeed be supportive of governmental use of torture in certain circumstances.

I'm thinking we might head more quickly towards, "Wow, tell me more why that's the first thing that came to mind for you when we talked about Jesus."

How do those of you who live in very secular settings respond when hot-button issues get raised as barriers to faith by your secular friends?  Have you seen good and generative things happen as a result of your responses?  What are your hopes for how you might navigate such difficult terrain?

Religious Dimensions to the Torture Debate / Steven Hamilton (Baltimore, MD)

A recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted April 14-21 among 742 adults interviewed in English and Spanish on landlines and cell phones, has found little change in opinions about the use of torture against suspected terrorists since the public knowledge of these tactics were released and the debate about it has been on-going in the public forum. 

 

OK, but what exactly does that mean and what is it that hasn't changed much?  The religious dimensions of this survey are astounding, and I think translate into difficult issues to tackle in faith conversations. 

 

Well, the survey sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that the most frequent American churchgoers-those who attend services once a week or more-are the most likely to support torture of prisoners.   

 

About 54 percent of the frequent churchgoers, compared with 42 percent of infrequent churchgoers, said that torture was often or sometimes justified.

 

The strongest support for torture-60 percent-came from "white Protestant evangelicals."

 

According to this survey from the Pew Forum, those who profess no religion at all are least likely to support torture.

 

How do we explain this?...and what exactly does this mean? 

 

How can this be if "evangelical Christians" believe in the principles expressed in the Sermon on the Mount:

•  "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" (Mt 5:7)
  
  
• "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" (Mt 5:9)
  
  
• "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Mt. 5:43-48) 

This kind of research and publicity says something to other people, so what kind of witness is this for Christ and His principles of the Reign of God?  If "evangelical Christians", as represented in this survey, believe in the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, where does justifying torture fit into it? 

 

How can I be a "person of peace" loving those church-goers who adamantly support what I think is wrong, and carefully articulate this love while loving and engaging those who aren't church-goers?  Why do you think that "secularists" exhibit less support for torture than "religious" Americans?  Do you think this has any effect on the faith conversations you have had recently?

 

Finally, does this make it tough to identify with "evangelical Christianity" and have faith conversations in secular city-center culture spaces?

Love Is an Orientation

First off, here's a super-interesting (and super-long) post from another blog about trends of people entering or leaving faith.  Feel free to comment here (or there) about anything that strikes you.

That said, some thoughts for today:

Some months back, we had a really generative, really (to me) unpleasant conversation about homosexuality. 

I'm not mad at anyone for the unpleasantness.  Rather, what that told me was that this conversation requires some common terms, which we lacked.  And so we endlessly talked past each other and then turned our guns on each other.  Just a bad time had by all.

And yet this is a conversation that's not going anywhere.  It might be what I'm most often asked about on my travels.  One of our awesome commenters on this blog, Jeff, asked me to write about it for his magazine, Cutting Edge.  With lump firmly in throat, I did write a really gentle, experience-heavy article that he tells me will come out in August.  (I'm resisting the gallows humor of saying something like, "And, however gentle my article may in fact be, my formal ostracism from many communities of faith is scheduled for mid-September."  One national evangelical leader has already formally broken ties with me because of a rumor of what he suspects I might think.)

But there is far more to be said on the topic than I hazarded there.  This is arguably the biggie conversation for folks who start conversations about Jesus in great, secular places.  UnChristian told us that their polling suggested that the number one association for "Christian" or "evangelical" for non-churchgoers was "anti-homosexual."  And it is the thing that comes up the most for me in the many conversations I have with folks exploring faith.  I've come to the conclusion that nobody from the faith side of things has yet found the right terms for this conversation.

Except for Andrew Marin.  He wins.  And, from what I can yet tell, even he would say that he's only started the process. 

Mr. Marin has begun a really remarkable journey, both personally and professionally, as his organization, he tells us, "is conducting the largest-ever research study on religion in the gay community."

I've just started his (thus far fantastic) book Love Is an Orientation.  Which prompts a suggestion from me.  I'd like to venture into our "let's talk about homosexuality and faith" waters yet again, despite all.  But this will only work if you make me a deal.  I'll plan on starting the conversation, say, a month or so from today.  That gives you a whole month to acquire or borrow or whatever Mr. Marin's book and to read it.

I'll then open up the conversation to those of us who have read the book.  This, one hopes, will give us all a frame of reference from which to have this conversation and just maybe make some progress.

Other people, of course, will jump in, mostly destructively.  As good commenters, we will either ignore them or occasionally interpret our ignoring them by cheerfully inviting them to read the book and then join the conversation. 

This, of course, may not work.  I discovered the last go-round how very quickly this particular conversation could spiral into awfulness.  But I hope we agree that we (meaning "people of faith") do have to make some progress on this one.

I'd love to hear your comments on this proposal.  I'd particularly like to hear from you if I can count on you--that would let me know if there actually will be a conversation to be had in a month.  But what I don't yet--for reasons I hope you understand by having read this far in this post--want are your opinions about faith and homosexuality, even if they're entirely friendly and open-hearted.  We've all seen where that can go.

In a month, however, when you've read Andrew Marin's excellent book, I'll want nothing but your comments.

Are We Emergent? / Dave Schmelzer & Charles Park

This weekend, I was surrounded by all things emergent. 

You may well be familiar with the emergent church movement, a very different take on what evangelicalism has been for the last many decades.  It has lots of really sharp and culturally-savvy thinkers--maybe most notably Brian McLaren--and is creating a fair amount of literature and new thinking.

This weekend I read Phyllis Tickle's new book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, and couldn't have had a better time with it.  She makes the bold case that every 500 years or so Christianity has a "rummage sale" in which it fundamentally changes and challenges the dominant church structure of the day.  This challenge, while threatening to the extreme, ends up yielding good stuff to all parties.  The old structure gets renewed.  The new structure reaches new people and teaches us about God in a fresh way.  And the world gets increased access to Jesus.

So the 500s gave us the "dark ages," but most notably gave us monasticism.  The 1000s gave us the Orthodox Church.  The 1500s gave us the Reformation.  And now we're getting "The Great Emergence." 

(An ancillary note to her point is a stunner--evidently written at least a year back, she points out that each of these transitions has been marked by a global pandemic.  Spooky.)

I can't recommend the book more highly for those of you who like to think interesting new thoughts.  And one of her heroes for what this "great emergence" will look like is The Vineyard, a church movement many of us are a part of.

But I do wonder about her conclusion that this new thing that's coming is the emergent church.  And, at the very least, her book did have the effect of driving home to me that, for all my sympathy to pretty much everything she said, I'm not emergent.  I'm also not what the emergent church is reacting against (I don't think).  I'm neither.  If I were to characterize where I'm at, I'm a guy trying to help empower vibrant faith in great, secular places, which is something other.

(The other event that drove this home for me this weekend was a largely negative review of my book passed onto me recently.  The main charge against it [it was written by a pastor of a fledgling emergent church] was that he's read lots of  emergent (and postmodern) books, and my book offers nothing new on those terms.  That had the effect of making me ask: I wrote an emergent, postmodern book?  How did I miss that?)

Here's a take on the distinction from Charles Park, in Manhattan.

Consider:  one in three people under 35 have no religion at all, let alone those with non-Christian faiths.

Non-religious group was 8% in 1990.  15% now.  And, 33% for under 35. And, this number is growing every year.

 Clearly, there is a flow in the American society from being a Christian world to being a Secular world or at least a multi-faith world.

 Visualizing this move, imagine three boxes. 

The first box is the Christian world.  The second box consists of people who are leaving the Christian world.  And, the third box is the group that have left the Christian world.  Call them the post-Christian world.

 Currently, the first box is the biggest.  Almost 80% of Americans say they are ‘Christian.’  But, there is a flow out of this box. 

 Christian World,  flows to-----People leaving the faith,  flows to-------People who left the faith (or "the Post-Christian world").

I imagine the Emergent Churches do well with the people who are in the process of leaving the church world.  I imagine this because of the observation that the Emergent Churches seem to thrive on the message:  ‘we’re not your father’s church.’  We do church ‘better’ or ‘with integrity and passion’ or ‘we’re cool church.’  These kinds of message work for people who are unhappy with the church world, but still interested in church.  They want a better church. 

 This message does not work for the people who have left the church.  They are not interested in a ‘better church.’  They’re just not interested.

 Today, the Emergent space is the hot space to be in, because it sits on top of the flow (out of the Christian world), catching people on the move.  It is probably the quickest way to grow a big church.  And I applaud the Emergent Churches, because everyone we catch on the flow is great!  

But in the long run, this space is not a stable space, because it is not a stable equilibrium state.  The world consisting of ‘people leaving the Christian faith’ will disappear one day when the society has settled into one of the two permanent equilibrium states (Christian world and post-Christian world).  The flow will dwindle to a trickle one day as the Christian world box gets smaller and stabilizes.

This is why it’s important for the church in America to also figure out how to reach the post-Christian world, because that is the growing box, and the future, if we have learned anything from the European experience.  The statistics seem to indicate that in 50 to 100 years, the Christian world will be smaller than the post-Christian world. 

But the Church in America has not yet figured out how to bring the message of the Cross to the post-Christian world.  The figures are dismal in places like Cambridge and Manhattan.  1 to 2% church attendance. 

 It’s as if we live in a different country.  People from other states move in to Manhattan, move into Cambridge.  And, they stop going to church in a massive way.

Back to Dave:

So.  I realize I haven't, say, defined "the Emergent Church."  But, space limitations being what they are, nonetheless let me ask: are we emergent?  Are you?  Is this a good thing?  Bad thing?

There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life. / Dan Littauer

 
A few months ago a friend of mine sent me an interesting article on the British Humanist Association. They recently sponsored a campaign ad that ran on over 800 buses in London with the cheerful slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The comedian writer Ariane Sherine had the idea for the campaign when she saw a Jesus Said ad on one of these buses that read “When the Son of Man comes, will He find Faith on this Earth?” directing readers to a URL at the bottom.

Ariane visited the site and is quoted saying:

I received the following warning for anyone who doesn’t ‘accept the word of Jesus on the cross’: ‘You will be condemned to everlasting separation from God and then you spend all eternity in torment in hell. Jesus spoke about this as a lake of fire which was prepared for the devil and all his angels (demonic spirits)’ (Matthew 25:41). Lots to look forward to, then.

Richard Dawkins avidly supported the campaign and promised to match up to £5,500 (the campaign’s initial fundraising goal).  To the surprise of everyone, the campaign raised over £135,000!

I was puzzled. Why did this campaign produce such a positive response? And why, as a follower of Jesus, did I find myself secretly liking this ad?

Then it slowly dawned on me. This ad is a cry for freedom; a cry against the tyranny and oppression caused by a diabolical god. For once, I find myself fighting alongside the atheists. A god who paralyzes with fear, overburdens with guilt, and replaces the joy of life with sorrow and regret is no God at all. This god is an idol that demands tribute and can never be feed enough. The atheists are avidly fighting against a god who takes life rather than gives it.

In this instance, perhaps the cry of Ariane, Dawkins, and others is not far from the cry of Jesus, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them… you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” (Lk 11:46, 52). 

Sometimes I wonder… Would Jesus ride the atheist bus?

The Remnant and Spiritual Revival

A challenge faced by pretty much everyone I know who tries to live a life of vibrant faith in very secular places is frustration.  People with rich faith pretty much always want other people to experience it.  And yet that often goes pretty slowly for folks who live where almost all of you live.

We look around at whatever superstar faith community is getting press and we feel bad about ourselves.  And yet I wonder if the persistent biblical theme of "the remnant" has anything to say to us. 

Romans 11 suggests that there will often be times where people with vibrant faith will feel utterly alone.  A key part of Paul's point here--and the point he's alluding to that God is making to Elijah in Kings--is that this isn't their fault.  It's just the way things are at this moment in their setting.

But the hope to them comes in a couple of forms.  First, though they feel alone, they aren't.  God will always have lifted up others like them in their area.  There is always "a remnant."  And, secondly, the point seems to be that that's something they can build upon, almost as if the remnant in each place is always a seed from which a great plant can grow.

So the advice seems to be to celebrate the remnant that is there, rather than to curse the tree that hasn't yet grown (to mix my metaphors).  But then it's also to cooperate with God as the remnant gets gathered together.  If it's actually a seed, then perhaps this remnant can work together to cultivate the soil around them in hopes that God will bring growth.

I've talked with folks in this situation lots and lots in the last week or so, folks from all over the country.  And what I always feel as I talk with them are, "Man, you're doing AWESOME!  In the tough setting you're in, look at all the great stuff that's happening around you!  I'm envious!"  But that's not always how the person themselves feels.

And I can play that role here in Boston.  A given group or service or whatever doesn't take off as I'd dream of and it can feel discouraging.  And yet it seems that, again and again, God brings the remnant analogy to mind.  "Look around you!" he'll seem to say.  "Look at all these awesome people I'm gathering around you!  Do right by them and then keep your eyes open for what I'll do next!  Way to go!" 

So may we all be, I don't know, "remnant cheerleaders" for each other!  This seems like a really, really important part of the Bible for people of faith living in great, secular places.

I love learning more about faith conversations

A lot of the conversations I end up having with folks who are open to but skeptical of faith are with folks with horrible faith backgrounds.  Sometimes their family is a bit crazy—abusive yet very religious.  Sometimes their family was very religious, but openly anti-science, say, or anti-secular culture.  These folks often end up living in strong reaction to the things they came to regard as nutty…but they can’t shake God, and so they end up in a setting—often but not always SEEK—where I end up talking with them.  And they’re often, understandably, pretty skittish once we do talk.  Will I say something that will detonate a painful memory or judgment against them or something? 

A centered-set approach often helps with this and often seems disarming.  Really?  You’re not going to draw a line that will clearly show me how I’m on the outside of faith and godliness?  You’re going to ask questions and find out what I really want to talk about and affirm the good things you see in me and point out the things I’m teaching you?  And then you’re candidly going to throw your perspectives into the ring? 

But it certainly doesn’t always go that way, which is the way of it with folks who are understandably skittish.  I find myself really glad to know that I’ll get to meet more and more folks who are in this emotional space.  I learn so much from each of them…and yet everything doesn’t ride on any given conversation going perfectly well.  There will in fact be others. 

Here, in no particular order or completeness, are things I’ve learned from these conversations.

1.       Crazy-making faith is indeed crazy-making.

2.       That doesn’t mean that God isn’t alive and working in our lives even when we’re in the midst of crazy-making faith settings.

3.       Science is great and helpful.

4.       My experiences with faith can be super-helpful and received if I throw them out with no need to see them embraced.

5.       Once I have permission to talk candidly, I should talk candidly, particularly if I make liberal use of phrases like: “It seems to me that…” or “I guess my experience has been that…”

6.       It goes especially well if I close my remarks with, “But what do you think?”

7.       Push-back from the other person about my experiences and perspectives can be really helpful… and doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wrong.  It may just mean the person I’m with is trying them on for size.

8.       There doesn’t have to be a next conversation for something good to have happened in this one.

9.       The rules stay the same if we do have a next conversation.

10.   I really like these conversations and it’s great when that comes across to the other person.

11.   I find myself really glad for the experiences I’ve had that have encouraged me in faith—and really glad to talk about them with skeptical people who are open to faith and tell me about their experiences.  It’s one of the great win-wins of my life.

What have you learned from these sorts of conversations you’ve had (and hopefully continue to have at a dizzying pace)?

Exhort me! Or, alternatively, just pass on a few great tips.

This afternoon, as on all Friday afternoons, I’ll have a “special time” with one of my kids.  (I have five.  You heard that right—five.  I’ve noticed that Grace and I get different responses when we take them all out in public.  She gets asked, incredulously and with a vague sense of accusation, “These are all YOURS?”  By contrast, I get treated like the father of the year.  A DAD?  Spending time all by himself with FIVE young kids?  He must be the best father ever created, full grown, from God’s hand!)

So I’ll take my ten year old somewhere, just him and me.  I’m pondering trying out the new Star Trek with him, like every other dad of preteen boys in the country.  It’s a PG-13, which might prove controversial with Grace, but I’m confident none of you will call her in warning.

The idea of special times is that you take each of your kids out just by themselves at some frequency.  The promise is that, if you start this up young enough and can keep it at least somewhat functional throughout the teen years, you’ll keep lines of communication open with your kids.  And you’ll have fun with them throughout their upbringing.

I first heard this idea at a conference workshop on fathering maybe six years ago, and it hit me like a thunderbolt.  What a fabulous idea!  I went home determined to do it and, here we are, six years later, with me leaving work each Friday at 4 for a special time with one kid.  (We still haven’t started in with my youngest.  They get slotted into the rotation sometime between age 4 and age 5.) 

In recent weeks, I’ve taken beautiful walks to fun new places.  I’ve played early spring tennis with a seven-year old.  (Much running onto other courts is required.)  I’ve bought six-dollar sunglasses for a little girl as we walked along a sunny boardwalk and discovered things like a rare bird exhibit (we have a picture of her with a blazing yellow parrot perched on her arm as she looks down wondrously behind those killer sunglasses). 

I just got back from another fun conference (explaining the low-post week) and what do I most return with?  Well, renewed and advanced relationships would probably be the best thing.  I’ve heard many inspiring and passionate words about our lives and missions with God. 

But, what do you know, the things I’m most pondering are again tips.  This or that fellow pastor has tried this or that thing that sounds really intriguing.  I’m finally ready to try something I learned from a friend in one of these settings two years ago, and I’m really jazzed.

And this seems mildly deep to me.  (Which, you’ll have to admit, is an impressive hedging of terms: “mildly deep.”  There’s a book title in that for someone.)

I wonder if we’re all geared towards sharing lives with each other and learning as we go, if “I tried this and, wow, I’ve really liked it” are among the most profound words any of us ever say or hear.

And, as someone who often tries to inspire and motivate people, I can wonder if I’m overvaluing passionate and inspiring rhetoric.  (This is no comment AT ALL on inspiring and passionate rhetoric I’ve heard, say, this week.  Three cheers for all of it!  I am indeed duly inspired and impassioned.) 

It’s more that concrete swapping of tips is seeming like the deepest thing ever to me at the moment.  How about for you?  Are you like me?  Or are passion and inspiration what do it for you?

Now, excuse me while I cram a few more things into my day before boldly going where no man has gone before, the ten-year-old boy next to me excepted.

More than this Life?

Hitting clear-cut middle age (I’m 46) with so many of my dreams in front of me still has had a couple of good aspects to it. 

One, it’s kept me hopeful.  I’m not done!  No need to be bored!  There are so many longstanding dreams left to hope for that that should give me interesting things to try for awhile.

But it’s also refocused me on the hope of an afterlife.  If dreams I’d hoped for in my twenties are still not here, is it time for me to put them behind me?  Part of life is accepting our limitations as we get older.  Many famous people in one field actually pursued a dream in an entirely different field, had early failure, abandoned that early dream, and thrived in something else.  And, once you hit middle age, continuing to pursue dreams that could take decades feels a little dicier.  If one is able to spin into a new dream when they’re…sixty?...is there still a point? 

But does it change anything if there’s the hope of an afterlife?  If everything we do here is preparation for fruitfulness and leadership beyond our days on earth?  Maybe that’s the primary way we can continue to grow and risk.

Starting a church in a young person’s area has driven home to me that traditional evangelism is passé: i.e. “convert so you don’t spend an eternity in hell.”  The question on peoples’ minds here tends more towards whether there are ways that Jesus can help make this life better.  And that’s by and large been more motivating to me as well.  “The afterlife” has just been too distant and hypothetical.

But that’s changing for me as I age.

How about you?  I’m not particularly interested in debating the merits or demerits of an afterlife in terms of logic or plausibility.  I’m more interested in hearing personal reflections on the importance or lack of importance of the hope of an afterlife to you.  What’s powerful or less-than-powerful about that to you?

Culture Center Summit!

See that pretty, cool, metallic-looking logo over to your left that says "Culture Center Summit 2009"?  You should really click on that link and roam around a bit.  Let me preview some of what you'll find there and then make a few comments.

Here's the description of the summit that you'll find there.

A YEARLY CONFERENCE ABOUT VIBRANT FAITH IN GREAT, SECULAR PLACES.

Welcome to the 2009 Culture Center Summit! This conference is a continuation of last year's Center City Summit, "Where Faith and Secular Culture Meet."

Our hope for these summits is that, for folks who feel committed to experiencing and fostering vibrant faith in places that are known for their secular culture—whether big places like Manhattan or smaller places like, say, Iowa City—they’d find support, vision and concrete help at these yearly gatherings.

Last year’s gathering drew from 13 states spread around the country.  This year, while we’re expecting plenty of inspiration and vision, we’re giving a particular focus to offering as many concrete tools as we can and to setting up a more interactive environment among people with similar jobs or interests.  Our afternoons will be spent in these settings, so pastors will hang out with other pastors, and other leaders will have chances to spend time on these issues with folks with similar interests.

We’ve worked with several churches and individuals this year who, having appreciated the specific focus of last year’s conference, have wanted more help with the nuts and bolts of setting up these sorts of communities of faith.  They’ve rightly noticed that, to use an old analogy, understanding and implementing a fresh and helpful mindset is only the tip of the iceberg of what makes such communities thrive.  They asked for more specific attention on the iceberg itself.

In response to that, folks who come to this conference will receive a draft copy of a book we’re currently calling CULTURE CENTER CHURCHES: THRIVING CONGREGATIONS IN GREAT, SECULAR PLACES.  We’ll try to offer quite a bit of detail about what we’ve seen that has most helped churches and passionate individuals in these settings.  And, again, we’ll be working some of these issues there in the afternoon gatherings.

So I did want to alert you to this event and to urge you to move heaven and earth to come.  Our strong hope is to start a movement with things like this, and our dream is that this yearly gathering will become a pretty key time, yes, of inspiration and concrete help, but also of connection and reunion with partners in this endeavor.  If you regard yourself as on-board with the hope of empowering vibrant faith in a secular setting and from a secular point-of-view, you should be at this thing.  I don't think you'll find anything else like it.  If you were with us last year, presuming you appreciated it, I'd love to see you back!  There will be a fresh focus and, again, an even-better opportunity to connect with partners in this stuff.

There is an early -bird registration that will save you twenty bucks, so do note that deadline. 

Here's hoping you can make it!  It would be great to share this experience (now and ongoing) with you.