Here is the link to a little diddy titled The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity by Ricard Beck posted on his blog.  Richard Beck is a Christian and an Associate Professor at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas which means that he is an educator of students who for the most part are professing Christians. 

As a Christian minister and leader,I found this post to be spot on, very thoughtful and provocative, and well written.  I wish it could be published in every church bulletin.  Take a few minutes to click on the link and read.

The sermon is titled “Faith and Fear” from 1 John 5.5-12.  I preached this sermon on May 3, 2009 at the Kandiyohi Church of Christ in Kandiyohi, Minnesota.

Walk in to most Christian bookstores or pick up a Christian book catalogue and you most likely will find a section entitled “Apologetics.”  Christian apologetics is that discipline which seeks to offer a positive defense for the Christian faith using philosophical arguments along with historical and physical evidences (generally categorized as ontological, teleological and cosmological arguments).  I had classes at both the undergraduate and graduate level dealing with this subject and I do believe there is a place for this discipline in the study and advancement of the Christian faith.  But is this the best apologetic we Christians have to offer an unbelieving world?

This morning I was reading from the Gospel of John, chapters 13 and 14.  This section begins with Jesus washing his disciples feet and ordering them to do likewise, since no slave is greater than his master and no pupil is greater than her teacher.  This is followed by Jesus’ prediction of his death and his command that his disciples love one another.  The fourteenth chapter follows with Jesus reassuring his disciples that he is the way and that those who love him will obey him.

However, in the middle of chapter fourteen, Jesus is posed a question.  After offering his own evidence to show his disciples that he is indeed from the Father, Jesus is asked “…But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world” (Jn 14. 22)?[1]  In typical fashion, Jesus gives a very direct but unexpected answer.  His reply begins… “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.  My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.  These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me” (Jn 14.23-24).  Jesus goes on to promise the coming Holy Spirit who will remind his disciples of this need for obedience and his promised return – a promise assuring his disciples that obedience will not go unrewarded.

Do we hear the call to obedience?  That word – obedience – is sometimes avoided in contemporary Christian thought out of some wrongheaded view that being obedient disciples is a works oriented salvation.  Not only is this wrong, it is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer described as “cheap grace.”[2]

We want the world to become believers in Jesus Christ, hence the reason for Christian apologetics.  The question being asked of Jesus in 14.22 is why he doesn’t show the world who he is, assuming that if he does then the world would believe.  Jesus’ reply is that if his disciples, then and now, would have the world to believe in him then they and we need to be obedient to him.  Plain and simple, there is no substitution for obedience.  Obedience is the disciple’s best apologetic.  If we want to know what that apologetic looks like in practical use, we need to look at Jesus taking on the role of a servant and washing his disciples feet a week before he takes on the ultimate act of obedience by laying down his life on the cross in obedience to his Father’s will.

The Christmas/Holiday season is approaching soon.  Like the last several Christmas seasons, there will be a large debate over whether the public greeting should be the more generic term “Happy Holiday’s” or the more Christian influenced “Merry Christmas”.  Some Christians would have us to respond by going so far as to boycott those businesses that do not greet or well wish others with the phrase “Merry Christmas.”[3]  Why?  What is it that they are after by engaging in the practice of boycotting?  I assume they ultimately want everyone to come to faith in Jesus just like the rest of Christianity does.  Will that really happen by boycotting, by playing the political power-play games all too common in our secularized world?  Or will it happen when we learn to be obedient unto Jesus before the world, taking on the form of a servant and even laying our own lives down (metaphorically or otherwise) for the very people who wish to avoid the term “Merry Christmas” during the holiday season? 

Let the Gospel of John remind us once again: obedience unto Jesus Christ as his disciples is the very best apologetic we have to offer the world that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God!

[2] “…cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 43-44.

[3] See http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147487233.

“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.  For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”  (Jesus of Nazareth, The Gospel of John 17.15-19, TNIV)

“Beloved, I urge you, as aliens and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.  Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they may malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.”  (The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 2.11-12, NRSV)

“For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe…  They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all…”  (The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, ca., 2nd century AD, trans., Roberts-Donaldson)

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The first two quotes come from canonical scripture while the last comes from a post-apostolic writing.  However, this post-apostolic writing gives us a glimpse of how a very distant generation of Christians understood the paradox of being sent but sanctified, being aliens living out good works among a pagan and hostile world.

I must admit, some of what I read in the “Mathetes to Diognetus” quotation is not new to me.  For I have witnessed Christians in my life time who are striving to live a life of good-works (and praise God for that!).  Yet the quotation seems very foreign to the North American Christianity I am part of in the twenty-first century.  Why?

May the call of both Jesus and Peter along with the “Mathetus to Diognetus” quotation move us with an invigorated passion and imagination for how we can live as alien disciples sanctified and sent into a foreign land!

Yesterday I attended the Colorado Rockies baseball game against the San Francisco Giants.  Since it was “Faith Day” at the Rockies game, after the game there was a concert from a well-known contemporary Christian music band.  It was all good until I heard the lead singer give a speech (sermon?) about glorifying God.  It started out good, I agree that God is to be glorified and we as God’s creation are to glorify God.  However, he went on to speak about people suffering.  That is when it all went south. 

According to the singer, both cancer and the loss (death) of a loved one glorifies God.  Now I have no doubt that a person suffering with cancer or the death of a loved one can glorify God in the midst of such suffering.  But I do not believe that human suffering itself, something which is a result of the fall of the cosmos rather than its creation, glorifies God.  If it did, why is God trying to redeem the cosmos from suffering?  If suffering, which is part of the fall, glorifies God then why does sin, which also is part of the fall, not glorify God?

I came home last night, troubled by what I heard, and picked up my Bible.  I found my way to two particular passages, 1 Chronicles 16.8-36 and Psalm 72.  In the Chronicles passage, the Ark has been returned to Jerusalem and David has just finished offering up sacrifices unto God (v.2-3).  Now David calls upon the Levites to offer thanksgiving and praise to God (v. 4) and v. 8-36 serve as that call to worship.  In this call to worship, God is to be praised because he is holy (v. 10), because of his wonderous deeds (v. 12), because of the covenant he made with Abraham (v. 16, a globaly redemptive covenant).  This is the reason for the salvation language of v. 24, the reason why God is to be ascribes with glory (v. 24-30), and the reason why the entire cosmos offers praise to God (v. 31-36). 

In Psalm 72 there seems to be some paralell themes with 1 Chronicles 16. Here the Psalmist envisions a world where judgment is rendered with righteousness (v.2), where the afflicted and oppressed are cared for (v. 4), where such a righteous judge rules over the entire earth (v. 8-11) because this is the one who redeems.  Of course, this is God and this is the reason why God name is “glorious” and the earth is to be filled with his glory (v. 19) – something that happens when the world envisioned by the Psalmist becomes reality.

To borrow New Testament terminology, the two passages under consideration seem to suggest that God is glorified when the presence of his kingdom reign breaks forth upon this fallen world.  There is no hint that God is glorified by the continuous presence of evil (moral or natural) upon this earth.  If anything, death, either by natural causes or violent causes seems to detract from the glory of God.  I stand to be corrected but I neither see where the notion that cancer and death glorify God is biblical nor how it is coherent with a view of God who seeks to redeem the cosmos from suffering and death.

So why would a Christian who has the attention of 30,000 plus spectators (most of whom I assume are Christians) suggest that God is glorified by cancer or the loss of a loved one?  I don’t know.  Perhaps, his choice of words were accidental and not really a reflection of this theology.  But why did so many cheer to such a claim about God?  That is perhaps the more troubling question for me because so many seem to swallow whatever they hear from another prominant Christian voice without any hint of discernment being employed. 

I do believe that a person can glorify God even in the midst of a tremendous battle with cancer.  For I have witnessed first hand those who have glorified God while suffering in such circumstances.  But to say that God is glorified by cancer or some other form of suffering seems not only unbiblical and incoherent with a sound theology but it also seems to paint a portrait of God taking pleasure in the suffering of others because it brings him glory.

What do you think?

I will do a little shameless self-promotion here.  I just noticed that New Wineskins published my article “Enduring Life in the Mystery of God’s Goodness” and if you would like to read it just click on the title.  Thanks to Greg Taylor and Keith Brenton for the publishing.

          Missions, evangelism…the Christian bookstores are full of literature geared to assist churches at becoming more evangelistic and more missional.  For those called into the vocation of missions and ministry, there are even seminary degrees focused on the specific studies of missions and evangelism.  Few Christians would deny that in some way and some capacity, the church is called into mission and a part of that call is to evangelistically announce the good news of Jesus Christ to those not belonging to Jesus Christ and his church.  However, is learning to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ the only important factor for evangelism?  If “sharing, telling, preaching, teaching, communicating, etc…” the good news is the first thing that comes to mind, have we skipped a step?

          See if you can hear the evangelistic implications in this scripture where the prophet Jeremiah calls Israel unto repentance:

“If you, Israel, will return, then return to me,” declares the Lord.  “If you put your detestable idols out of my sight and no longer go astray, and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ then the nations will invoke blessings by him and in him they will boast” (Jer 4.1-2, TNIV). 

Here Israel is being called to abandon their idolatry but not simply because this is a detestable offence to God and his glory.  To be clear, idolatry is an offense to God.  However, this passage illuminates another problem with Israel’s unfaithfulness.  Israel was called to be the missional witness of the greatness of God and this was accomplished through faithfulness…by living in covenant relationship with God (cf. Duet 4.5-8).  Without Israel’s faithfulness, how will the nations come to know the awesome greatness of God?  This is what Jeremiah recognizes.  If only Israel will abandon their idolatry then the nations will “invoke blessings” by God and “boast” in God.

          God’s mission is to all nations of the world and his people are thus vessels through which he accomplishes his mission.  Assuming the punitive consequences of Israel’s idolatry, Jeremiah deals with the bigger implications:

If Israel will return to their proper place of covenant loyalty and obedience, then God can get on with the job of blessing the nations, which is what Israel was called into existence for in the first place.[1]

The missional purpose of God and the missional calling of Israel have been thwarted by Israel’s idolatrous disobedience (unfaithfulness) to God.  The point is clear:

Let Israel return to their mission (to be the people of YHWH, worshiping him exclusively and living according to his moral demands), and God can return to his mission – blessing the nations.[2]

Mission, God’s mission, and its evangelistic thrust for Israel is not accomplished simply upon their ability to effectively and truthfully communicate the blessings of God’s grace.  Prior to any preaching or sharing of such good news, Israel’s evangelistic effort hinges upon their faithful obedience to God.

          There are deep implications for the Christian church.  We are called to discipleship in Jesus, to live obedient (faith) lives unto Jesus who is Lord.  It is this life of discipleship that bears witness to the Lordship of Jesus.  While the church still preaches and communicates the good news, without the witness of faithful living our preaching and communications of good news appears useless.  To be candid…it makes no difference if the church preaches Jesus Christ as Lord but lives as though he is not Lord.  It made no difference if Israel declared the greatness of God while living as though the idols were great. 

          I raise this issue because I am increasingly convinced that idolatry has become the biggest challenge to the Christian church living in North America and specifically the United States (you can read my previous two posts Idolatry, Then and Now and Idolatry, Then and Now: A Follow Up to understand some of my reasons for making this claim).  Idolatry is an obstacle to our missional calling.  How can we convince the people of our community and culture to become followers of Jesus if we are caught up in idolatry, either in the way we live or by the things we worship?  By way of example, what good does it do to claim “one hope” (cf. Eph 4.4) in Jesus Christ but functionally live as though hope resides in our finances, careers, retirement, government, etc…?

          I am now living in Brighton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, and have taken on the calling to help plant churches.  I am not the only one who has been called to this missional task.  Church planting efforts are taking place all over North America as well as all around the globe.  As part of this effort we must tell the good news of Jesus Christ but before we tell, our community must see a people who live out this good news in faithful obedience to Jesus.  This means we must deal with the issue of idolatry.  We must ask ourselves what are the idols, not only to call others out of such darkness but also to come out ourselves.  Until we deal with this issue, our vocal witness will remain weak at best and mute at worst.

Questions

1. What are the idols of the North American culture?  How do we discern their identity and the cunning schemes by which people, even Christians, are ensnared into such idolatry? 
2. With boldness and urgency, how do we truthfully but lovingly expose idolatry and call people to Jesus Christ within this context? 
3. Assuming that a rejection of certain culture idols will result in an unwelcomed counter-cultural stance, what does it look like for a church to balance such a life with the open welcoming nature that Jesus also embraced the world with?

[1] Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2006), 241.  In chapter 6, Wright discusses numerous Old Testament passages that connect this missional intent to Israel’s covenant life with God.

[2] Ibid.

Eleven years ago today, August 8, 1998, in South Bend, Indiana at the former Don Moyer Church of Christ (now Living Stones Church), I took in marriage Laura Joan Martin to be my bride.  We will celebrate the evening by going out to a simple dinner at the Apoloosa Bar & Grill on 16th st. in downtown Denver.  The simple dinner is fitting of who we are…simple people, simple Christians.

As I reflect back on the last eleven years, it seems like such a short distance between 1998 and 2009.  Yet it has been eleven great years.  That is not to say that we have not had our challenges, most notable the unexpected death of our first child, Kenny.  Yet we have been blessed with eleven years, three children (Kenny, Caryn, and Jared), wonderful parents and families on both sides of the marriage, the blessing of have been priviledged to travel many places including Brazil, meet many new friends, and grow in faith together and in love for each other. 

At the center of it all is God.  I thank God that he has blessed me with such a wonderful wife as Laura, who is both a great wife and an equally great mother.  I know for certain that I would not be where I am today and who I am today if it was not for Laura and how God has worked through Laura to bless me.

The best way to describe our last eleven years is “aventurous love.”  I say that because love has certainly been the bedrock of our marriage, a love for each other and an even stronger love for God.  Yet it has also been adventurous.  I was raised in La Porte, Indiana and prior to meeting Laura, I though I would have remained in La Porte.  Since meeting Laura, we have visited approximately 35 different states, along with Canada and Brazil., we have made friends with people from all around the world, and now lived in six different states (AR, CO, MN, MO, NY, & TN). 

Thank you God and thank you Laura.  I love you God and I love you Laura.

I don’t know what a person thinks of when they hear the term “leadership”.  The literature on this subject is vast, some of which is helpful and some is…  But as a Christian leader and evangelist whose interest is the gospel and the development of churches living out the life and mission of God, I am not interested in general leadership.  I am interested in a specific sort of leadership, the sort of leadership Jesus continuously employed during his public ministry all the way to his death, resurrection, and ascension.  Since this is the sort of leadership I believe that is to be found in the church and in her leaders, I will simply call it “Christian Leadership.”[1]

We see this sort of leadership employed in such passages as Mark 8.31-38; Lk.14-30; Jn 13.1-17; and the Apostle Paul most pointedly utilizes this sort of leadership both as his means and as a way of instruction in the book of Philippians.  So what is this type of leadership?  First, it is self-sacrificial for the sake of others.  It is the type of leadership that serves others even at the cost of forsaking self.  It is the way of Jesus’ life who served others even at the expense of his own life which is seen as Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.  It is the way of Paul who in Philippians is willing to be imprisoned and even put to death for the sake of the church.  Secondly, it bears witness to the redemptive life God creates and redeems people to live.  Rather than employing the wisdom and methods of this world, it rests upon God’s wisdom and God’s ways.  Rather than turning on Judas because he would do wrong to Jesus, Jesus continued to serve him by washing his feet.  Rather than Paul calling for the two sisters in the Philippian church to mistreat each other, Paul encourages them to become like Christ to one another (e.g., Phil 2.5-8, 12-16).  Lastly, this leadership operates with the big eschatological picture rather than the temporal and seemingly immediate needs in mind.  Jesus’ definition of success or results is not determined by the present circumstances (good or bad) but by whether but by whether his actions serve the redemptive goal of God.  Those who are focused simply on immediate results must view both Jesus and Paul as failures because their lives culminated in being arrested and put to death with few disciples (in the case of Jesus) and a mixed bag of disciples (in the case of Paul) to show for their mission efforts.  However both Jesus and Paul understood that their efforts here on earth were only part of the bigger whole that God will accomplish because of their faithfulness that may have appeared too many as failed leadership rather than faithful leadership.

As I reflect on my last year serving as the evangelist/pastor for the Kandiyohi Church of Christ (KCOC), I have tried to employ this model of leadership.  I certainly was far from perfect in modeling this type of leadership but I also believe that I am just a clay jar and yet God can still work through me for the sake of others.  I also had the privilege of serving with a group of four other men and two women from the church called the Leadership Focus Group.  I was proud of these six Christians because they continually sought to live out this model of leadership.  With their own families, their own full-time jobs, and other responsibilities, they sacrificed one Sunday afternoon per month and one Thursday evening per month to serve the KCOC.  We met together to serve as a steering committee for the church to accomplish certain goals and activities.  We did not accomplish everything we had hoped to accomplish nor did every member always have things go the specific way they thought the church should go but that was ok because we all knew the group was not about us, our ways and wants.  Rather we wanted to help the congregation to be more about God’s redemptive call and to that end, we did see increased youth ministry in the congregation, we spent time praying for people who were on our prayer lists, organized the church’s participation in the Kandi is Dandy day for the local Kandiyohi community of which many people from the church participated in some way, to name a few things. 

Some might look at what took place and claim little to nothing was accomplished.  There were not many baptisms.  In fact, there were only two baptisms over the last year.  There was not an increased church growth in the congregation.  With a couple of families moving away, we actually declined in membership slightly.  There were not big events being organized and carried out every week in the church.  Yet we were not railroading our personal expectations upon the congregation at the cost of division.  Some of us believed the KCOC would have been better served by relocating into downtown Willmar, MN but not everyone in the congregation agreed and so the Leadership Focus Group did not push this issue. Yet people were growing stronger in their faith.  God was at work in ways that cannot be seen through eyes relying upon the wisdom of the world rather than the gospel. 

I have heard leadership defined as influence more than a few times.  While there is some truth to that definition, it is also misleading.  If leadership is only about influence then Jesus, abandoned at the cross by everyone but God and a few women, must be the biggest failed example of leadership.  Leadership is about faithfulness to God, in the ways of God and for the sake of God’s redemptive goal.  I am proud to say that the Leadership Focus Group – Kevin, Wendy, Peter, Tim, John, and Wanda – understood this and modeled this (even if they would not articulate it in the same language as I do).  They were a source of encouragement in both the good times and in some difficult times.  They sacrificed themselves for the sake of God’s mission and God’s church, specifically at the KCOC.  I am proud of them and their reward is an inheritance being “…kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet 1.4-5, TNIV).

[1] I am writing this essay in dedication to the Kandiyohi Church of Christ who loved my family and I in ways that go beyond description for the last year.  To my family at the Kandiyohi Church of Christ, thank-you!

I just finished watching the movie Gran Torino in which one of my favorite actors, Clint Eastwood, both stars in and directs.  If you have not seen the movie then do not read on but instead go and watch the movie as soon as possible.  It is worth the dollar or two you will pay to rent the movie.   

In the movie, Walt Kowalski (played by Clint Eastwood) befriends his hard-working Asian neighbors despite the major obstacle of his racism and ethnocentricism.  Walt, a decorated Korean War Veteran who is both retired and recently widowed and has tasted the blood and violence of killing during the war, is a take no prisoners kind of guy that is more than willing (and capable) of utilizing his semi-automatic pistol and assault rifle.  He steps in as a “savior” to protect the Asian family from a violent Asian street gang.  As the tension mounts and the street gang assaults the daughter of the Asian family, Walt Kowalski realizes that this family will never be at peace unless he takes matters into his own hand and so he does.   

Everyone, the characters in the movie as well as the audience watching, expects Walt Kowalski to fight fire with fire…to come with a gun and “finish things” as Walt puts it.  So does the Asian street gang when Walt shows up at their door.  In fact, as Walt appears to be reaching for his gun but is actually reaching for his cigarette lighter, they open fire and mortally wound what turns out to be an unarmed Walt Kowalski.  Because Walt is unarmed, it makes his assailants guilty of murder for which they will go away to prison for life.  And of course this frees the Asian neighbors to live at peace from the violence and oppression of the street gang.   

Do you see the parallel to the Gospel of Jesus Christ?   

We think fighting fire with fire…evil for evil…will free us from the principalities and powers that strive to oppress in various ways.[1]  Yet it never does…it only escalates the fire.  Yet Jesus knew better.  Rather than resorting to the violent ways of this age, Jesus triumphs…exposing and disarming the powers when he lovingly subjects himself to their evil through his crucifixion.  We see the powers for what they are…cowards dressed up as street thugs who can only thrive by keeping their feet stamped down on the throats of others.  Yet they are also rendered powerless.  Thinking they have won by murdering their opponent, they unknowingly set in effect their demise and the victory of those they sought to oppress.  What the powers believe to be one last act of victory and infinite dominance becomes the act that brings them under divine judgment and gives victory to Righteousness.

“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col 2.15, TNIV).

[1] For a brief introduction as to why the principalities and powers are cosmic powers manifesting in physical entities see Walter Wink, The Powers that Be: Theology for a New Millenium (New York: Double Day, 1998).  In the case of this movie, the principalities and powers have manifested themselves in a street gang.