For about a year now, I have been wrestling with how to teach my boys - ages 6, 5, 4 & 2 - about Jesus, salvation, eternity, sin, resurrection and what it means to actually follow Jesus. At the same time, I wrestle with how we can do this on an even larger scale in the church.
Since I was a kid I have struggled with the idea that Jesus had to die because I did bad things. I started learning about Jesus and religion at a fairly young age and I remember walking down to the front of the church because I wanted Jesus to forgive me for my sins and come and live in my heart. I struggled understanding why Jesus had to die because of a few bad things I did, but I eventually concluded that I must be pretty evil for a 7 year old so someone had to die.
My initial upbringing was in a mainline stage 2 church. At a very young age I knew what was in and what was out. I knew who was in and who was out. And from a very early age, I became a rule follower.
Now, 27 years later, I have morphed much in my faith. I do believe that the rules are what often keep us bound from the freedom that Jesus offers and the rules are what help us stay so judgmental.
As I journey through raising 4 boys, I desire for them to experience life and jesus and faith in a way that is not bound by rules but is instead engaged by the spirit of God directing them and leading them.
Jesus' mission to this planet was not to come to simply die for humanity's sin (although this was part of it), but his mission was to come and crush and ultimately destroy evil. And the way to obliterate evil was to beat evil at its own game....take evil's best shot - death - and conquer it. And once death was conquered, this released an overarching plan of redemption, restoration, renewal and reconciliation.
As we’ve noted many times on this blog, the problem with using the centered-set model to describe reality is just that; it’s only a model. And like all models or analogies, it falls horribly short of the reality. And yet, I’ve found it to be extremely helpful in reminding me of one crucial point that I’m forever trying to forget: I am NOT at the center.
I had a professor back at BC who once said “The irony of life is that we’re forced to live before we know how.” I love that. And it’s true for me. I didn’t even choose to exist, let alone choose my gender, race, socio-economic background, culture, geographic location, time period, family, etc. One day I just was. It’s like being thrown into a sports arena in the middle of a game of you’ve never seen before, not knowing how much time you have to play, let alone who’s team you’re on (if there are teams), or even how to play, and having someone says “GO!” It reminds me of GK Chesterton equating being born to “climb[ing] down a chimney into any house at random, and get[ting] on as well as possible with the people inside.”
That’s what I like about the centered-set model. In it, I’m just there somewhere, bumbling along with all these other dots trying to figure it all out and hopefully moving towards the center.
I don’t know if this is helpful, but perhaps we can give the centered-set model some added dimension by making it analogous to climbing a massive mountain. For our purposes here, let’s say that this mountain is so large that it encompasses all types of terrains, ecosystems, weather conditions, etc. and that there are infinite entry points around the base of this mountain. Some of which may be more optimal then others, some might have more distinct paths where others have seemingly none, etc., and let’s say that this mountain is so high that no one can clearly see the top.
First, an opening tidbit: Did anyone but me notice that the article we ran from Mother Jones last week predictedHarold Camping's response to his failed May 21 rapture prophecy? Mother Jones predicted that he and those like him would have to, in the face of the evidence, argue that the prophecy was in fact correct but in a way that has no verifiable proof, despite their earlier trumpeting that everyone would see the truth of what they were trumpeting. And, yea verily, that's exactly what happened! Give it up for those biblical-caliber prophets at Mother Jones!
Onto today's subject! We've had a few give and takes in the comments section recently about when/whether it's key to fight for a given theological truth. How does that fit in with the general centered-set vision in which we're trying to keep moving Jesus' way ourselves and trying to help others do the same? On the one hand, clearly we figure a few things out along the way that have helped us and perhaps would help others. We've noted some teachings about God that strike us as destructive and off-track--as being likely to actually direct someone's "arrow" not towards but away from Jesus--so we bring those up.
Note from Dan: Round three of the Blue Ocean Podcasts will be brought to you in two 1hr. parts. For this round, we thought it was high time to gather some friends in the LGBT community to discuss what it's been like for them to be members in our church and how we can make it better for others in similar situations.
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Last week I had to do quite a bit of driving which allowed me the opportunity of getting caught up on my backlog of podcasts. As I was listening to one of the recent episodes of This American Life I was struck by a piece of insight that I found in a story they put together concerning the thousands of students from State University in Pennsylvania that spontaneously took to the streets to celebrate the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Sarah Koenig, the reporter who was putting together the story, stated that most of the people she knew in their thirties and forties had the same rather muted reactions to the news of bin Laden’s death that she had—something of an “oh, wow” but nothing that would cause one to take to the streets with such patriotic fervor. She was puzzled as to why a group of people in their early twenties felt so passionate about this issue when they would have only been ten or eleven years old at the time of the 9/11 attacks. So to try to answer this question she interviewed a student by the name of Lexi Belculfine who had taken part in the celebrations that Sunday evening.
...so you'll need to look up our NHNE ("New Heaven/New Earth") URL once you get there.
Tomorrow is Judgment Day, "guaranteed" by Family Radio. A CNN/Money article yesterday looked at Family Radio and passed on interesting tidbits, like their net worth (a robust $72 million) and an informal guess by Family Radio's receptionist that 80% of Family Radio's employees do not believe that Saturday is Judgment Day. ("I don't believe in any of this stuff that's going on, and I plan on being here next week," a receptionist at their Oakland headquarters told CNNMoney. A program producer in Illinois told us, "We're going to continue doing what we're doing.")
What's your take on "evangelistic urgency," on "today is the day of salvation?" Clearly, Family Radio's predictions aside, thousands of Americans will die between now and the end of Saturday, so they will face their own end of the world. Are you motivated by such things?
Many people trying to follow Jesus whom I talk to are ambivalent. While many of them do--back to our conversation on Rob Bell--very much believe in the ultimate stakes of heaven and hell, I often hear that "evangelistic urgency" just doesn't work for them. It puts weird relational dynamics between them and everyone they know.
I'd agree with that, while still saying that, nonetheless, I actually am very motivated by the urgency of the task. In any individual relationship, I rely on prayer and friendship and enjoying the deep conversations as they come up and hoping--with all that being done--for the best for my friend. "Today is the day of salvation" does, in fact, seem like more than any individual relationship can bear, in my world at least. And yet as a means of laying down the stakes for how I'll be focusing my energies for the rest of my life, "today is the day of salvation" not only seems just about right, it seems perfectly calibrated for me. I do want my life to be about opening up as large a portal to heaven--as it were--as possible for as many people as possible. I think about this a lot. My sense is that it has little to do with me being a pastor--I thought about all of this equally as much in the many years of adult life where being a pastor was never given any thought at all. It captivated me from my very early days of following Jesus, and it hasn't abated.
How about you? Judgment Day tomorrow or not, do you find any helpfulness in "gospel urgency," in ultimate stakes, in "today is the day of salvation?"
You might have missed a provocative exchange between Bill Sergott and Bill Hoard in the comments section of Vince's "How Should We Relate to Other Religious People?" post last week. To throw in one more name, Bill and Bill were commenting, pro and con, on Brent's advocating for "a pluralistic Christianity." Did that idea invalidate truth? Is there a way to be aware of context that does not make one a (this is a fighting term in many Christian traditions) "relativist?"
In the teeth of that exchange, Kristin Wensel passed on this link to a really provocative article from Mother Jones called "The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science." Kristin flagged to me that it was really long--I'd guess it runs at about 5,000 words. But let me give you the flavor of it for the first 1,300 words or so. You might need to get your morning cup of coffee. But this is fun stuff, engagingly presented. (Let me warn you in advance that it might quickly dismiss a view you actually hold. Hang in there!)
"A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger [2] (PDF), in a passage that might have been referring to climate change denial—the persistent rejection, on the part of so many Americans today, of what we know about global warming and its human causes. But it was too early for that—this was the 1950s—and Festinger was actually describing a famous case study [3] in psychology.
Festinger and several of his colleagues had infiltrated the Seekers, a small Chicago-area cult whose members thought they were communicating with aliens—including one, "Sananda," who they believed was the astral incarnation of Jesus Christ. The group was led by Dorothy Martin, a Dianetics devotee who transcribed the interstellar messages through automatic writing.
So, I’ve finally gotten around to reading David Foster Wallace’s commencement address at Kenyon college. Thank you Dave for putting this out. I must say it ranks up there as one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read. It moved me deeply. DFW had profound understanding of the human existence and pointed out where we can so easily get hosed.
When he talked about how human beings are wired to worship something, and how self-centered we are, combined with the brilliant description of the grind of daily existence, I felt like I was hearing one of the best sermons preached.
A participant in this blog, Caleb Maskell expressed feeling profoundly unsettled by DFW's suicide. With his permission, this is what he said in his email to me.
" The way he communicates in this piece is winsome beyond words, offering a compass and map to Reality-capital-R in a manner so generous, self-effacing, and true as to feel liberating in the very process of delivery. He doesn't just tell us but in fact shows us the beauty not of who we could become but who we already are--worshippers at the core of our beings. Form and content meet here in such perfect harmony that it deserves to be called Genius, nothing less, which makes me all the more unsettled by his suicide. He is no ordinary tortured artist--he's pastoring a generation in the face of the spirit of the age. So, why the despair? Why the hopelessness? Why the bitter early end of the road? The most obvious thing it reveals is that diagnosis--even incredibly perceptive spiritual diagnosis--is not cure.”
So, okay, this is...what's the word I'm looking for?...cheap. Easy. Lobbing the taget up while you all take aim. But you'll have to grant me that it's also irresistable. I give you the first two-thirds of an article from the heretofore-unknown-to-me Christian Post website. (And let me note up front the author's persistent-if-inconsistent misspelling of "McLaren," which might say something about their readership. But that's not to take much away from a very provocative article.)
Pastor Paula White and Donald Trump are teaming up to host a private meeting with Christian leaders in New York this week.
The Thursday meeting has been billed as a "time of dialogue & leadership with Mr. Trump," who is seriously considering a run for the presidency in the 2012 election.
Details of the meeting could not be confirmed. Multiple calls to Paula White Ministries were not returned.
Note from Dave: Kevin is a Law Professor at Boston University.
I wonder if a stage 2 tendency is for Christians to idealize ministry as a vocation, as opposed to all other vocations. I can think of theological reasons people might think this, but also there is a major selection bias issue because most sermons are by professional Christians who made that vocational choice. We don't see or hear from many examples of God calling people to "secular" careers.
So, what's the stage 4 take on this? Are all vocations open to God's blessing? Are some "better" than others? And how can stage 4 churches support people in this?
I sat in on a panel discussion last week that was looking into the necessity of holding various tensions in church leadership. A particularly interesting tension that seemed to arise was over how individual churches should relate to a large group of other churches, some of which might go about things differently. The two sides of the tension were well captured by two phrases: "we need to cut each other some slack" vs. "we need to more clearly define the center of our set."
This got me thinking about, among other things, the discussion of how people interpret the Bible differently. The undertone beneath all church leadership tensions seems to be that, no matter where one stands on a given spectrum, he/she has an interpretation of Scripture to back that standing up. And it struck me that this tension helps us zoom out and see why that happens. On one hand you have the "cut each other some slack" side which might suggest that humans can interpret Scripture adequately. This punts to the fact that, given one's context, perspective, and limited ability as a human, it is foolish to consider perfect understanding a possibility; our job is to do our very best and humbly trust others to do the same. On the other hand you have the "define the center of the set" side which carries with it arguably just as powerful appeals: The message here is to never settle, to not become complacent, and that we must be life-long learners.
Depending on where individuals or churches stand on this spectrum, how they relate to others (especially others who are different) begins to come into focus: Do they have a high tolerance for risk? Is integrity there most important value? Both sides of this seem virtuous to some degree. I'm wondering: where do all of you stand with regard to this tension? Why do you think that is? How has that helped you offer a Stage 4 faith to folks around you?
Note from Dan: Here is round two of the Blue Ocean Podcasts. In the near future we will be rolling out a podcast page where you can subscribe to all of the Blue Ocean podcasts, read about the interviewees, share your thoughts, etc. In the meantime, let us know what you think.
(Right click and choose "save link as" to download the podcast)
I have three master's degrees in the Philosophy of Religion with some Ph.D. work. I majored under William Lane Craig at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1985. I'm the author of Why I Became an Atheist, and editor ofThe Christian Delusion, and The End of Christianity
You can email me at johnwloftus at frontier dot com. I read all emails sent to me but I can only respond to a few of them. You don't need to send me your painful life story. I know the pain of a deconversion all too well and I've read plenty of these stories. If you have a question ask it, but please keep your email short.
I can only correspond at some length with people who have previously read my book(s) because I get too many requests to do so, and because I probably already answered most of your questions there. I hope you understand.
Please be advised that I may take the liberty of publishing any nasty email sent to me on this Blog if I so choose.
I've had so many fantastic conversations recently with so many fantastic people recently. I've felt such gratitude for getting to hang out with people like this. And, in all the fantastickness, I can make one global observation.
People tend towards being stressed out.
Okay, maybe that's largely me. But, often only incidentally, so many of my friends, while very much seeing all the richness in their lives if only they were more grateful than they actually seem to be, find themselves detailing the very real threats and stresses of their lives. It's like the memorable quote from Jason Robards' grandfather character in the original Parenthood movie of a couple decades ago: There's no goal line in parenting, no end zone where you spike the ball. It seems like many things in life are that way; however well they're going, they need to constantly be maintained or they could still go horribly wrong.
But here's where a number of my friends seem to be finding an antidote (and I embrace that this may sound expected--given the source): the praise and companionship of God. I have a number of friends--including many of you--who feel perpetually consigned to, in their minds at least, pushing the envelope in their circles. They talk to me about always feeling like outliers. I remember one of my favorite professors ever talking candidly about how he felt like a pariah among his peers for his out-of-the-box thinking.
My Facebook feed has been dominated by "America shouldn't have killed bin Laden" sentiments. Revenge is never a good thing. "Do not gloat when your enemies fall." We're contributing to a cycle of violence that will only cause more violence. Grace, who cares quite a bit about the Middle East, worries that it will engender more anti-Americanism and extremism just when those things were waning.
So I find myself feeling kind of bad that my response leans more towards the "Ding dong the Witch is dead!" lines. I'm not tempted to wave an American flag on the streets. I plan to join no mass celebration. Bin Laden's death, for all I know, might well have negative overall consequences. I may be in clear violation of Romans 12:19 and "never avenge yourself."
I have been thinking about Tim's post and wondering if the 4 stages take place in every person's spiritual journey, or if it depends on an individual's personality as well as their spiritual upbringing. I wonder the same thing about children maturing... must they always go through teenage rebellion? As a brand new born again Christian with young children, I was told that if I parented my children a certain way that they would never go through rebellion as a teen. My own teens proved that theory miserably wrong. But is it possible that the theory was right, that teens don't have to go through rebellion, but the parenting style was wrong? In other words, if I was less focused on rules and looking like a "good Christian", and more intent on loving my children well, would my children still rebel? Or, do certain personality types never mature without going through the rebellion. I'm testing this theory out on my youngest child, but it will be a few years before I can tell.
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