Thank You for Flying Calvin Air

“Welcome to CalvinAir. We ask during the flight that everyone please refrain from smoking. There are two restrooms; one located here in basic seating and one up front in select seating. For reasons of safety we have anticipated your every need. You will be allowed to leave your seats when we reach cruising altitude. At all other times we ask that you keep your seatbelts tightly fastened.”

“In case of an emergency there are four exits; two located here in standard class seating and two up front in select class seating. Only those doors in select will actually open. Those in standard are welded shut.”

“If the cabin loses pressure then face masks will automatically drop from the bulkheads located above your seats. Only those masks in select class will provide oxygen. The face masks in standard class are not connected.”

“If we are forced to land on water then your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device. Only the cushions in select class will actually float, those in basic class are filled with lead.”

“Please enjoy your flight and, speaking for the captain and crew, thank you for flying CalvinAir.“

An Over-Commitment to Scripture?

There is an interesting article over on the CT blog site. It concerns remarks made by J.P. Moreland at a recent gathering of the Evangelical Theological Society. He strongly voiced his objectiona to the  ‘bibliolatry’ among American Evangelicals:

“In the actual practices of the Evangelical community in North America, there is an over-commitment to Scripture in a way that is false, irrational, and harmful to the cause of Christ,” he said. “And it has produced a mean-spiritedness among the over-committed that is a grotesque and often ignorant distortion of discipleship unto the Lord Jesus.”

The problem, he said, is “the idea that the Bible is the sole source of knowledge of God, morality, and a host of related important items. Accordingly, the Bible is taken to be the sole authority for faith and practice.”

….more provocative was Moreland’s argument about why evangelicals became over-committed to the Bible. Rather than developing a robust epistemology in response to secularism, he said, evangelicals reacted and retreated. Now evangelical theologians aren’t allowed to come to any new conclusions about the truths in Scripture, and they’re not allowed to find truths outside of Scripture. As a result, he said, they’re engaged in “private language games and increasingly detailed minutia” and “we’re not seeing work on broad cultural themes.”

These are just a few of his remarks and the rest of the article may be viewed at:

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2007/11/postcard_from_s.html

J.P.Morleand is the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in La Mirada, California. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.P._Moreland

Towards a More Liberating Imagination

In talking with a number of people about the possibility of lasting social change, I mostly encounter pessimism. People often shake their heads, shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, what can we do? Jesus does say that the poor and oppressed will always be with us.” Thankfully, there is a growing movement of Christians who are imagining a brighter future for the world.

I’ve nearly finished Brian McLaren’s new book, Everything Must Change and so far have found it to be a very good read. Later I hope to present a more complete review but for now I would like to share some quotes from the 29th chapter of the book, entitled A New Kind of Question. These are not McLaren’s thoughts but those of others who have influenced Brian’s writing.

McLaren quotes John Stott, who the fairly conservative journal Christianity Today has called the ‘Guardian of God’s Word’ saying that he has been ” preeminently a steward of God’s truth and a herald of the biblical message”. (September, 1996)

“What will posterity see as the chief Christian blind spot of the last quarter of the twentieth century? I do not know. But I suspect it will have something to do with the economic oppression of the Third World and the readiness with which Western Christians tolerate it, and even acquiesce in it. Only slowly is our Christian conscience being aroused to the gross economic inequalities between the countries of the North Atlantic and the southern world of Latin America, Africa and most parts of Asia. Total egalitarianism may not be a biblical ideal. But must we not roundly declare that luxury and extravagance are indefensible evils, while much of the world is undernourished and underprivileged?”

“Many more Christians should gain the economic and political qualifications to join in the quest for justice in the world community. And meanwhile, the development of a less affluent lifestyle, in whatever terms we may define it, is surely an obligation that Scripture lays on us in compassionate solidarity with the poor. Of course we can resist these things and even use (misuse) the Bible to defend our resistance. The horror of the situation is that our affluent culture has drugged us; we no longer feel the pain of other people’s deprivations. Yet the first step toward the recovery of our Christian integrity is to be aware that our culture blinds, deafens and dopes us. Then we shall begin to cry to God to open our eyes, unstop our ears and stab our dull consciences awake, until we see, hear and feel what through his Word he has been saying to us all the time. Then we shall take action. “

http://intervarsity.org/ism/article/1952

He also quotes Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton from their book “Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be”:

“It is only when we can imagine the world to be different than the way it is that we can be empowered to embody this alternative reality which is God’s kingdom and resist this present nightmare of brokenness, disorientation and confusion…..A liberated imagination is a prerequisite for facing the future…If we cannot have such a liberated imagination and cannot countenance such radical dreams then the story remains closed for us and we have no hope.”

It’s about being pro-active versus re-active, isn’t it? Not a call for more charitable giving, but a call for changing systems that create these problems. Blaming the flaws (even when they are real) in the systems of other cultures tends to take our focus off of the systemic flaws of our own culture. We need to ask ourselves the hard question of how we personally are benefiting from the suffering of others. Just asking these types of questions is a start and worth the little effort it takes. At least more worthy than throwing up our hands over the world’s despair. I am glad that people like Brian McLaren , John Stott and others are encouraging me to think about my complicity as well as offering me a vision of hope for the future.

How will future generations look back on the Christians of this age?

Ric Booth’s “Rich Young American”

A fairly new blogging friend, Ric Booth, has written a great poem and it has won an award. I’ve reprinted it here for everyone’s enjoyment but be sure to check out his site:  www.ricbooth.wordpress.com

the rich young american
by ric booth

my cell is padded grey on grey
fluorescent shadows flood my days

i sit and type old words so tired
and plod enough to not get fired

i cut from here and paste to there
and meet to scrawl just like i care

and ponder words to rhyme with bored
the heart screams sail but I am moored.

i know there is a better way
still fear is king so here i stay

i earned all this. i worked real hard
to brick my cell, to debt, my bars.

poor envy me, this life i lead
buy all i want and do not need.

they watch me go through one-way glass
refuse to see, i walk on past

one thing i lack, i cannot feed
i crave a faith of mustard seed

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said.
–Mark 10:21a (NIV)

Christian Chameleons

Tonight I will once again sally forth into the fray, exposing myself to debauchery, drunkenness, sacrilegious song and other temptations of the flesh. I just hope I have a good time.

There was a period not too long ago, just after I had my conversion experience, when I was a bit unsure as to how a Christian should behave. I think my confusion was due to where my spiritual home was at the time; a fairly conservative Methodist church (pretty hard to find these days). Confronting the challenges of Methodism’s fading Puritanism along with the ‘old time religious’ habits of my congregation, I felt like my lifestyle might be inconsistent with someone who claimed to be born again. So I faked it. I was a chimera – the owner of separate personality characteristics- some reserved for my church, some for those who knew me to be a Christian and some for those who did not know me at all.

I’ve talked about this at other times and places so I don’t want to bore anyone with the details. Suffice it to say, I was masquerading as what I thought a Christian was supposed to look like. I am embarrassed to tell of some of the silly things I did. For example; when friends from church would visit we would hide the wine, the wine glasses and the corkscrew, lest anyone get the ‘right’ idea. I began to think of myself as a clean cup with a permanently stained bowl.

You can imagine my relief when I found out that I need not become a 21^st century disciple of Carrie Nation in order to be a “good Christian”. I remember the pivotal point as an enjoyable evening spent having cocktails with another Christian couple while listening to live music at a local…(gasp!)….bar. No lightning bolts fell from the sky and it was not the slippery slope to hedonism that I’d heard about. (Or more likely what I thought I had heard.) That was a few years ago and since then I have grown in my faith and, losing some of these hang-ups, learned how to enjoy life in the process. I’ve also had more opportunity, through the casual acquaintance of people I’ve met in “secular” venues, to talk about Jesus.

A friend from work has a band, a classic rock- heavy metal type band that will be playing near my home tonight. He’s had a fairly difficult time of it lately. About a year ago he had his own ‘conversion’ experience and, like so many of us, went through some significant lifestyle changes. The partying he once enjoyed has fallen by the wayside, with the smokin’ and the drinkin’ that go along with it. He’s had some influence on the band as they no longer play music that employ lyrics of a violent or overly sexual nature and any song that even hints of insulting God has been kicked off the play list.

Yet the people of his church are telling him that he is sinful and the Bible is very clear in its condemnation of bars, bands and beer. In the process they use terms such as; sinners, fornicators, profane, drunkards, depraved, sluts and whores. I guess I should take offense, since these epithets are also directed towards people like me and my wife, since we will be in attendance this evening. But that doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is that these words, these bigoted thoughts, are being directed at anyone at all. None of the patrons at these clubs and bars are known to his congregation yet they have been conveniently labeled and filed away under the heading “unsaved”.

It is also disappointing that, when confronted with a man in their midst, who has grown closer to God through Jesus, they demand an immediate and visible change in his habits and appearances. This change needn’t be something that mimics Christ, who was also labeled as a glutton and drunkard as well as someone who consorted with prostitutes and the unclean. He need only mimic those in his congregation, becoming a born again chameleon. To avoid being preyed upon it may be necessary for him take on their colors, blending in with the ecclesiastical scenery. To his credit, he refuses to be this type of hypocrite and suffers even more scorn and derision.

I wonder how many other Christian chameleons are out there. For those of you who find yourselves in this type of scenario, weary of always having to be ‘on’, censoring your speech and playing at being holy, I heartily recommend coming in from the cold. The company is warm and the beer is cold.

Michael Gerson on Open Arms Conservatism

There was a nice piece written by Michael Gerson in the Post yesterday. For those who don’t know him, he was a senior adviser with the Bush administration but left over idealogical differences. He has a book out; “Heroic Conservatism” in which he talks about those differences.

In this article he says;

This obligation to protect has never, in Jewish and Christian teaching, been purely private. Hebrew law made a special provision for the destitute — requiring that a portion of harvested crops be left in the field to be gathered by the poor. The Hebrew prophets raucously confronted the political and economic exploitation of the weak.

A significant portion of the Republican Party and the American public is influenced more by the social teachings of the Jewish and Christian traditions than by the doctrines of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Religious conservatives, broadly defined, prefer free-market methods. But they believe that the goal directing all our methods must be the common good.

You can read the rest of his article here:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/30/AR2007103001822.html?wpisrc=newsletter

The One Minute Evangelist

SCENE 1

The new girl, Mary, walked briskly into the office carrying a stack of file folders. She was smiling cheerfully and wearing a bright yellow dress with a vibrant floral pattern. Martha looked up from her desk. “What in the world are you wearing? That dress is not appropriate business attire for this office –besides, it’s way too tight.”

Mary dropped the folders on an empty desk and rushed from the room.

“Where do we find these people?” muttered Martha.

SCENE 2

“Well, what do you think?” Mary asked her new supervisor, Martha. Smiling, she spun around lightly in her new sun dress. Although a pretty outfit, to Martha it looked to be painfully tight on her. And much too casual for this type of office.

“Mary, you look beautiful!” she said. Mary gave her a quick hug and dashed back to her cubicle, excited to start a new work week. Martha made a mental note to invite Mary out to lunch and have a tactful conversation about the office dress code.

Please bear with me – I do have a point, somewhere….let me see….

Lately we’ve had some heated discussions on this site, over such issues as the doctrine of hell and the nature of evangelism. Rarely does one side seem to get the other to see it their way, including those times in which they actually are in close agreement.

I realize now that we’ve been arguing about the wrong thing. It’s not the message, but the messenger (as I suggested in an earlier post: http://sharpiron.wordpress.com/2007/07/09/shoot-the-messengers-why-fire-and-brimstone-preaching-is-evil/#comment-1788) More precisely, it’s how we put the message across that seems to really be the issue. I don’t think that it is always the truth of Christian doctrine that may repulse so many people (although that is often what we have been told) but more likely it is our delivery that needs to change. Of course we need to choose the right words but it is also important to take into consideration who we address and when we address them.

To criticize or rebuke someone we do not know well, someone who has yet to garner our trust, is often an exercise in futility. We must first take the time and effort necessary to convince someone that we really do care about them, in ways that are meaningful to them, and not necessarily to us. Telling an unfamiliar person that their actions or beliefs will result in damnation is akin to lobbing a personal insult at them. Marching in rallies with placards and signs (or calling radio shows or commenting on blogs) condemning perfect strangers rarely wins converts. How many times do we respond favorably when we are the targets of such criticism? I think it is unreasonable of us to expect a more open minded response than we would give ourselves. In many cases our opinions are unsolicited and unwelcome, no matter how well reasoned and thoughtful they may be.

When someone does ask for our opinion it might be best to ease it into the conversation gradually, finding out first who this person is, what burdens they might carry, what wounds they may still suffer from. To quickly respond with brutal honesty, no matter how convinced we are of the correctness of the answer, is not a good way to build honest relationships. The fear of being judged will discourage many people from opening their hearts. It may also deter them from asking our advice again.

This reminds me of the best set of management books that I have ever read. There are literally thousands of dry, boring, ponderous tomes on how to effectively manage people and in my opinion they make excellent substitutes for firewood. But one tiny little book, “The One Minute Manager” by Ken Blanchard made my job so much more enjoyable as well as productive. Throughout the series that he co-authored with Spenser Johnson there is a consistent theme. Their philosophy in a nutshell is this:

No one wants to be ‘told’ what to do. People respond to praise much more readily than reprimands, so we need to find something that they are doing right before we try to redirect them. If we can’t get people to ‘buy into’ what our goals for them are then we will fail miserably. In order for them to ‘buy into’ our goals they must believe that we care for their well being even more than our agendas. This is only possible if it is the truth.

Think about it; if we don’t like it when people harangue us why should we expect them to respond favorably when we do it? If we expect others to respect our point of view, then we should treat their views with equal if not more respect.

My brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in any kind of wrongdoing, those of you who are spiritual should set him right; but you must do it in a gentle way. And keep an eye on yourselves, so that you will not be tempted, too. Gal 6:1

You should forgive him and encourage him, in order to keep him from becoming so sad as to give up completely. And so I beg you to let him know that you really do love him. 2Co 2:7-7

The Bible in Five Acts

I very much enjoyed N.T.Wright’s book on Biblical authority, “The Last Word.” In it, he illustrates an innovative way of looking at scripture in its entirety, a way which avoids many of the pitfalls that we encounter when trying to corroborate writings that appear to have diverse, even opposing points of view. He calls it the ‘Bible in Five Acts’ and the following is a more in depth description that I found on the NT Wright web page: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm

Let me offer you a possible model, which is not in fact simply an illustration but actually corresponds, as I shall argue, to some important features of the biblical story, which (as I have been suggesting) is that which God has given to his people as the means of his exercising his authority. Suppose there exists a Shakespeare play whose fifth act had been lost. The first four acts provide, let us suppose, such a wealth of characterization, such a crescendo of excitement within the plot, that it is generally agreed that the play ought to be staged. Nevertheless, it is felt inappropriate actually to write a fifth act once and for all: it would freeze the play into one form, and commit Shakespeare as it were to being prospectively responsible for work not in fact his own. Better, it might be felt, to give the key parts to highly trained, sensitive and experienced Shakespearian actors, who would immerse themselves in the first four acts, and in the language and culture of Shakespeare and his time, and who would then be told to work out a fifth act for themselves.[5]

Consider the result. The first four acts, existing as they did, would be the undoubted ‘authority’ for the task in hand. That is, anyone could properly object to the new improvisation on the grounds that this or that character was now behaving inconsistently, or that this or that sub-plot or theme, adumbrated earlier, had not reached its proper resolution. This ‘authority’ of the first four acts It would consist in the fact of an as yet unfinished drama, which contained its own impetus, its own forward movement, which demanded to be concluded in the proper manner but which required of the actors a responsible entering in to the story as it stood, in order first to understand how the threads could appropriately be drawn together, and then to put that understanding into effect by speaking and acting with both innovation and consistency. would not consist in an implicit command that the actors should repeat the earlier pans of the play over and over again.

This model could and perhaps should be adapted further; it offers in fact quite a range of possibilities.Among the detailed moves available within this model, which I shall explore and pursue elsewhere, is the possibility of seeing the five acts as follows: (1) Creation; (2) Fall; (3) Israel; (4) Jesus. The New Testament would then form the first scene in the fifth act, giving hints as well (Rom 8; 1 Car 15; parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end. The church would then live under the ‘authority’ of the extant story, being required to offer something between an improvisation and an actual performance of the final act. Appeal could always be made to the inconsistency of what was being offered with a major theme or characterization in the earlier material. Such an appeal—and such an offering!—would of course require sensitivity of a high order to the whole nature of the story and to the ways in which it would be (of course) inappropriate simply to repeat verbatim passages from earlier sections. Such sensitivity (cashing out the model in terms of church life) is precisely what one would have expected to be required; did we ever imagine that the application of biblical authority ought to be something that could be done by a well-programmed computer?

I think this is a neat way of looking at the Bible; as God’s dramatic achievement that has yet to play out – a play in which we all have important roles. Wright’s idea puts a more relevant twist on an old theme. People like George McDonald Fraser, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, CS Lewis, Tolkein, and lately Frederick Buechner and John Eldridge have all made the connection between the message and the medium, especially as it pertains to stories of mythic dimensions. We are all recieving our own stage directions and it’s important to make sure that we are listening to the director himself and not some of his flunkies. It is a good idea to spend some time making sure that the ‘back story’ hasn’t gone through any unnecessary and dangerous ‘re-writes’ that may have been made to meet the agendas of some of its self-appointed sponsors.

To point this analogy in another direction – too many cooks spoil the broth. God’s given us the ingredients, the untensils, even the kitchen to work in. Play with it, have some fun. Just remember that Jesus has spelled out certain basics, that if ignored, could result in a ruined recipe. But we can take joy in the fact that God is forgiving and will gladly help us to pick up where we left off.

N.T.Wright on the Enlightened Church

We are all children, grandchildren or at least stepchildren of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and have cause to be both grateful for the consequent privileges and anxious about some of the consequent problems.

So says N. T. Wright, in his little yet important book “The Last Word: Scripture and the Authority of God – Getting Beyond the Bible Wars“. In a brief chapter devoted to the challenges that the church has faced from the Enlightenment, Wright talks of how Modern thinkers have successfully proposed that all the Earth’s sordid history had been making its way to this pivotal point, the point where humanity had finally come of age. From that point on, through the auspices of science and philosophy, mankind would thrive as it never had before. War, suffering and disease would soon be things of the past.

This meant that the Enlightenment was offering its own rival eschatology, a secular analogue to the biblical picture of God’s kingdom, inaugurated by Jesus. Christianity had declared that God’s Kingdom had been decisively inaugurated by Jesus himself, particularly through the death and resurrection. This sense of a one-off historical moment in the first century, however, had been so muted in much Christian theology – eschatology being replaced by systems of salvation and ethics – that the Enlightenment’s cuckoo-in-the-nest move was made all the easier, and has in fact often gone unremarked. It was this eschatological takeover bid which caused Enlightenment thinkers to pour scorn on the Bible’s picture of the coming Kingdom, in a move which is still taken for granted in many circles today; first, to misrepresent it (“All the early Christians expected the world to end at once”) and then to rubbish it (“They were wild fanatics, and they were proved wrong.”) This “we-know-better-now” move, so characteristic of various strands within Enlightenment thought (and now forming part of the mental and emotional landscape of most modern Westerners), disguised the fact that the Enlightenment’s alternative was equally wild and fanatical: the belief that world history, up until now a matter of darkness and superstition, had turned the decisive corner – in western Europe and North America in the eighteenth century! – and come into the light, not least through science and technology.

The Enlightenment proposed a new perspective and a new solution to the problem of societal evil. Not to be outdone, the church caved in;

Much would-be Christian thought (including much would-be “biblical” Christian thought) in the last two hundred years has tacitly conceded these huge claims, turning “Kingdom of God” into “the hope for heaven after death” and treating Jesus’ death , at the most, as the mechanism whereby individual sinners can receive forgiveness and hope for an otherworldly future – leaving the politicians and economists of the Enlightenment to take over the running, and as it turns out the ruining, of the world. (This political agenda, by the way, was of course a vital part of the Enlightenment project: kick “God” upstairs, make religion a matter of private piety, and then you can organize the world to your own advantage. That has been the leitmotif of the Western world ever since, the new philosophy which has so far sustained several great empires, launched huge and horribly flawed totalitarian projects, and left the contemporary world thoroughly confused.) Scripture itself, meanwhile is muzzled equally by both sides. It is squelched into silence by the “secularists” who dismiss it as irrelevant, historically inaccurate and so on – as you would expect, since it might otherwise challenge their imperial dreams. Equally worrying, if not more so, it is squashed out of shape by many of the devout, who ignore its global, cosmic and justice-laden message and treat it only as the instrument of personal piety and the source of true doctrine about eternal salvation.

In an attempt to “prove” the Bible true to those “Enlightened” critics its defenders strove to demonstrate it’s historical accuracy by redefining what a “literal” interpretation meant:

There is a great gulf fixed between those who want to prove the historicity of everything reported in the Bible in order to demonstrate that the Bible is “true” after all and those who, committed to living under the authority of scripture, remain open to what scripture itself actually teaches and emphasizes. Which is the bottom line: “proving the Bible to be true” (often with effect of saying, “So we can go on thinking what we’ve always thought”), or taking it so seriously that we allow it to tell us things we’d never heard before and didn’t particularly want to hear?

Pint Sized Preachers

Check out this report from ABC’s 20/20.  Looks very “Hollywood” to me. 

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/247.1/popup/index.php?cl=4501215