Transitions

Transitions are the stuff of life. Or: change is the only constant.

There is a lot of transition in my life these days. It is unsettling.

There is a desire for stability and certainty that stays with me. It makes me moody, depressed, anxious, and envious.

Some of the transition is life stage stuff. I'm closer to 40 then I used to be. Health stuff is becoming more of an issue. I've got to pay closer attention to my body and how to not abuse it.

My four kids are all getting older everyday - though it seems most apparent when they finish up another year of school. Like they did the other day. 5th grade, 3rd grade and 1st grade are all coming up this fall.

And I'm back in school, at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois; I'm finishing up my first class in Missional Ecclesiology for my doctor of ministry degree in Missional Church Leadership. The class is messing with my assumptions about ministry and church. "New" brings both opportunity and anxiety.

Tara and I are approaching our 18th wedding anniversary, 19th engagement anniversary, and 20th dating anniversary. In all those years (two decades!!!!!) there has been so much transition (aka: growing up). I can't believe how much of my narcism and pettiness she has had to put up with all this time. There is so much more room for improvement for me when it comes to loving.

We are moving, for the fourth time, to a house we hope to make our home for a long time. Hopefully it can be a hangout house for our kids and their friends, and our friends.

But selling a house, buying, packing and moving brings with it lots of transition tension and frustration. All this while Tara is wrapping up a challenging school year as a kindergarten teacher, I'm transitioning back into pastoral work with Anchor after a four month sabbatical, and the responsibilities for lots of other details in life all seem to converge at once.

I suppose this sounds like whining. Maybe it is. But it's all swirling around in my head. And now that it's typed out, it doesn't all seem so intimidating. Still a little overwhelming, though.

But it's not just the physical transitions, the geographic ones or the scheduled changes. It's also about what I believe, what I see, how I interpret reality, what my purpose is, what matters in life, and how to sort through all the ramifications of my choices. There is spiritual transitions, existential transitions, philosophical and theological transitions, emotional and social transitions. It feels like everything in my life is in transition. Like I can feel the churning of all the transitions. Well, not all, but a lot.

Maybe the transition that weighs on my mind the most is economic transition. Meaning: the growing awareness that every economic transaction has a real consequence on how other people live and experience reality. For over three decades I never cared where my stuff came from or how it was made. But now there is a growing awareness that my purchasing power affects real people. My Apple products that I purchased affect the livelihood of underpaid workers in China. The Tyson chicken I eat was likely prepared in a disgusting factory by illegal immigrants. The gasoline I purchased for my car came at the expense of local villagers who were displaced by an energy company in Africa. The more global our economy, and the more "truth" that journalists uncover, the more aware I am becoming of how my actions affect other people.

I don't want to think about how to better spend my money on products that will contribute to real flourishing of workers. It seems so complicated. And yet....

Jesus makes a big deal about money and possessions in his teachings. I don't want money and possessions (ie anything I buy with money) to have priority over a life oriented around love of God and my neighbor. If I really am going to let the love of Jesus affect every part of my life, that has to include my money and all that I possess - whether for survival or leisure.

In getting ready to move, it has become apparent to Tara and I that we have way more stuff then we need. And we hardly ever go shopping for stuff! It is too easy to accumulate more stuff then we can even use. And as our economy becomes globalized, cheap stuff isn't so "cheap" anymore; and technology that is supposed to bring convenience and leisure to our lives often makes life more cluttered while impoverishing those that slave in another land to produce the minerals or piece together the instrument for my user-friendly life.

I can feel the resistance in me, the desire to put my head in the sand and not pay attention to the impact that my dollars have in the world. I tithe. Tara and I give more then ten percent of our before taxed income away. Most of it to our local church, and then also to other charities and needs. And we still have more then enough money to accumulate stuff we don't need. We could afford to give away more money. And yet some of the best use of our money would be to use it more wisely on the products we know we need.

Constant items we purchase are food (grocery and restaurant), utilities and mortgage for our house, gas, household items, and then there is the occasional purchase of clothes, luxury items like movies, music, books, and then big ticket items like vacation, technology stuff, and gifts for birthdays and Christmas. I'm sure I'm missing something. Tara and I work hard to handle our money well. But it seems so apparent to me that we need to pay more attention to what we buy, who we buy it from, how it was made, who made it, and what the real cost of the item is to us and those who "made" it.

To me, this transition gets at a core belief: does my money have anything to do with my love for God and my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? The one in need. Does my use of money in purchasing stuff keep people in need? Does it create greater need? Does it contribute to alleviation of need? With where I live in America, in Indiana, in Fort Wayne: do I believe that God wants a greater accounting with the why, what and how how of what I do with my money? And my time, for that matter.

If love of God and neighbor is the summary commandment of Jesus, and if money really is a central part of my life, I ought to make some practical connections with how I view/use money and possessions. Otherwise, all my Christianity is a whitewash for my unexamined motives and assumptions about money and possessions. As the truth comes out about how Americans purchasing habits shape the world, Christians have to ask: what does my use of money and possessions communicate about Jesus and the gospel?

It's this kind of musing that is bringing about fundamental transitions in my heart, mind, and life. There are expenses in moving, going back to school, doing a sabbatical, and raising a family. There is money to be earned through our work. Where we live, how we live, what we live for all connects to money and our purchasing values. I have paid too little attention to money and how it shapes my schedule, my time and energy for friends, my availability and heart for my family.

I want to do something great in the world. This desire is something I am learning to submit to Jesus. Same for my desire for stability and certainty. But in my desire to do something great in the world, I ought to probe around my unexamined assumptions about money. Maybe I can do more in the world with less. But with the less that I do consume/purchase - knowing how/what/where it came from can begin to make a great difference in the world. And my motivation for all of this? Obedience to Jesus. Because what I really desire is to please Him. And that starts with believing Him. And I'll know I believe him when I obey him. And I can only obey him when I let him convict me of my sins, forgive me, put a clean heart within me, and reshape my desires such that I can participate in his restoration of all things.

And now that I've written this post, gotten stuff out of my head, I feel better. And has all this just been a way to procrastinate on changing any of my purchasing habits? Tomorrow will tell....

Jesus & Our Culture of Addiction

Alcohol, smoking, drugs, gambling, food, video games, internet, sex, shopping and work have been referred to as the ten most common addictions. Someone put together a rather long list of addictions from A to Z. It would seem that almost any substance or activity that provides some kind of rush, satisfaction, pleasure or ecstasy is now considered a prime candidate for addiction. Thus, almost anyone is now a possible candidate to become an addict.

Addictions often get labeled as either a hedonistic choice or a disease of the brain. In the book, Addiction and Virtue, Kent Dunnington makes the case, using Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, that addictions are instead best understood as a complex habit. It's well known that people are a sum of their habits. Addiction happens to be a very alluring yet destructive habit. Dunning explores the role of reason and appetite in forming habits, emphasizing that addictions are a complex habit formed as a rationale response to a moral and intellectual crisis.

Dunnington makes a case that addictions are how many people react to the deep longings swirling around in them. Addictions are new to human history, one of the tragic by-products of our Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment. Our uniquely individualistic, hedonistic culture breeds meaninglessness, arbitrariness, boredom and loneliness. As people get reduced to cogs and cubicles in our post-Industrial, Information-age society, and as doubt and cynicism chew away at our certainty, absolutes and beliefs, humans must find a way to cope.

For the Christian, addiction is certainly a sin. And like all sins, it is one for which repentance and forgiveness are needed. But unlike most sins, addiction is in a category all its own, being a complex habit that is more then just a series of bad moral choices or a disease in the neurons. Understanding the roots of addiction in our culture help bring about Christian compassion for those that are addicted. It also helps mobilize Christians to better understand their culture, which will result in more accurate criticisms as well as more helpful solutions. This is where Jesus comes in.

When Jesus entered his culture, there was much to critique. Instead of rampant addictions, he addressed demonic possession. The evils of Empire, the terror of kings, the thousands of crucifixions, the chronic starvation and disease - this is what Jesus confronted. The trauma that filled people, the brokenness, the ache caused by unrestrained wickedness and demonic activity met its match in Jesus.

To all who would listen, Jesus called people to repent, to turn away from the evil, to return to God - for the kingdom of God had come. The sign of God come to Earth through Jesus was evident in demons being powerless before him, being sent away almost effortlessly. Thousands of the crippled and diseased - products of not enough food, brutal wars, and slave labor - found healing and hope in Jesus. Jesus was recognized as a king, the Son of David, the Messiah, the deliverer, the forgiver of sins - and he was a direct threat to Caesar, King Herod, and all others with power who propped up the destructive status quo.

And here we are, followers of this King Jesus, in a culture that fuels addictions. What can Jesus do through his followers in response to loneliness, boredom, meaninglessness in our culture and communities? If the kingdom was still coming into our neighborhoods today through those that trust Jesus - what kind of healing and hope would that bring to addicts?

In the Spirit of Jesus, Christians must be astute critics of culture. But this will only have credibility to the degree that they are honest and humble about how they are both products of that same culture and have also been able to create an alternative society that brings about healing from the more destructive elements of the culture.  Bill Wilson, one of the famous founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, was an alcoholic who found healing and hope through Jesus through passionate and pious Christians. His story of how he became a Christian has been published for all to read. 

Interestingly, a recent survey showed that the majority of people who are getting help from A.A. got connected through former A.A. members. Only 1% of the respondents said that their church referred them to an A.A. meeting. Without making too much of this stat, and recognizing that churches are one of the places you might find a A.A. meeting happen, there seems to be a disconnect between churches and success in overcoming addictions. Spirituality infuses the recovery outlined in A.A. Spirituality infuses church...but not in a way that helps fuel healing. Why is this?

Dunnington points out how addicts are "a kind of unwitting modern prophet" that the church ought to heed. Imagine a church that heeded this prophecy. Imagine how a church like that could help answer Jesus' prayer for the kingdom to come. Imagine how a church like that could help answer the prayer of the addict: "God, save me." Imagine how difficult it would be to be part of a church like that - difficult yet inspiring.

This reminds me of another of Jesus' words: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well." Difficult words to live by, yet when done so very inspiring - both for those that do it and those who see it.

How do you see addicts? Or do you prefer to not see them? We can be sure that Jesus would see them. And that he would have compassion on them, as sheep without a shepherd. And he would bring them healing and salvation. Addiction is a complex habit, hence it requires a complex, indirect response. It's not that people aren't delivered from their habit of addictions, it's that too few are saved. And it's that the church as a whole too often judges or overlooks addicts.

The irony being that we all breathe the same cultural air, and but for the grace of God, they could be you. Maybe if more addicts were welcomed into the church, the church would feel more urgency in embracing a spirituality that brings healing and not just warm fuzzy feelings.

Dunnington's book illuminates the role of virtue and habits from the perspective of philosophy (Aristotle) and theology (Aquinas). These explorations into ancient virtues and centuries of developed thought on the role of reason and appetite in human behavior will enrich your perspective. It will also reveal how negligent most Christians are in regard to habit, to habits of virtue, and to habits of spirituality. Dunnington's insights on addictions as habit and sin will deepen your understanding of how close we all are to becoming addicts.

The loftiest suggestions come in tying addiction to idolatry, pointing to renewed worship of God (not praise songs, but attitude and allegiance) as a way to bring order and meaning to life. This alternative, along with a resulting loving community of Jesus-followers has potential to help nurture more healing for more addicts who refuse to be bored, who refuse to live without purpose, and who will do whatever it takes to avoid the feelings of loneliness.  The difficulty is in the pervasive weak worship of too many churches, the ambivalent communities, and the anemic Christian ministries.

Still, Jesus speaks to all with ears to hear: "Repent, for the kingdom of God has come." And those with eyes to see: Jesus heals as he preaches.

My argument has been that addiction is a habit informed as all habits are, by rationality. And I have been trying to probe the structure of this rationality. I have been trying to display how addiction insinuates itself into the cogitative estimation by supplying order and integrity to an addicted person's life - order and integrity that we as human beings, and particularly as modern human beings, crave.

Addiction, I have argued, operates as a moral and spiritual strategy, carrying out particular functions in the moral life and empowering a person for the pursuit, albeit misguided, of ecstatic satisfaction. This is why I have paid much attention to the constructive and positive potential of addiction and have elaborated little on the destruction and havoc it wrecks. Addiction is mysteriously powerful, but if we fail to ask what the power consists in, then we make it not only mysterious but also foreign.

I have attempted to make addiction less foreign, giving us ways to think about the pull that addiction has on all of our lives. I hope my analysis has shown how near, rather than how far, each of us is to the major addict.
~ Kent Dunnington, Addiction and Virtue, pg 167

The Individual and Community

For thousands of years, the primary way that a human identified himself was through a community. And then came the Age of Enlightenment, the Light of Reason, the Way of the Individual. And we live amongst the confusion, a few centuries later, mired.

When people fail, we look at them with disappointment, assuming that they didn't take responsibility as an individual for their own life. We discount the role of their community and lift up too high the assumption that people have great power as an individual over their destiny.

We see people succeed and we admire them for taking their life by the reigns and victoriously surging forth as an individual. We downplay the contribution that any kind of community played in their life to prepare them for there accomplishments.

This downgrade of community and obsession with individuality has been part of our heritage for a few centuries now. It's too easy to look at our parents or older generation and reject their traditions and perspectives - for that's what they did in their days, and so on. We inherit from our parents the desire to think for ourselves - which means we must reject any accumulated wisdom they might be able to pass on. How smart is that?

What are the fears associated with a renewed emphasis on community? People don't like to be told what to do. They don't like to be forced into a routine, to have a tradition enforced. People don't like being accountable to people outside their family. People don't want to feel obligated to care for others outside their selective network of friends.

Christians are born into this aura of individualism. It's why we struggle so much with community. Yet Jesus places a high value on community, almost more so than on individualism. In our age, we think that community results from the gathering of individuals. But for Jesus, community is both the origins and nexus for individuality.

Christians are identified as the body of Christ - which implies that we only exist because of our connections to each other. How can a foot increase it's value to the body by insisting on its individuality? Of course the foot is a sort of individual, differentiated from the hand and heart. But it's value is not just that it is different, but that the difference plays a substantial role in giving life to the community to which is attached.

The greatest command for Christians is to love. God is love. We are go give God, to give love to the world. But we can't do that as individuals. Love can only happen in community. You can't love by yourself. You can't even come to know God or love by yourself. It requires a community to give birth to you and those ideas and structures and history from which you benefit and are nurtured. Love is can't be just an exchange between two individuals. Love is what makes community possible, what makes individuals able to be attached and make a contribution to the life of others.

It's almost as if you have to pick one: love or individualism. If you pick love you get community. If you pick individualism, you get yourself, your way of doing things, your thoughts, your attempts to relate to God and know love on your own terms. But God seems to insist on being first and primary - often at the expense of your individuality. God wants you to love and be loved, and that means embracing community, his way of becoming.

The funny thing is, people throw away their individuality in dozens of ways, all the while insisting that they are not going to be bound to community and let someone tell them what to do. So they live in this shadow world, rootless, anchorless, drifting. They claim to be an individual while at the same time embracing the fashion styles of celebrities. Just like a few million other fans. The individual asserts the ability to think for himself, and then aligns himself with a popular modern writer. Just like a few million others.

Oh, we want community. We want to be led. We want to be bound to tradition. We want love. But we've drank so long from the toxic well of the Enlightenment. Even our readings of Scripture, our thoughts on God are fueled by this pervasive attitude of individuality. We think of God as the supreme individual. Except that he exists as the Trinity. And he bound himself up to Israel, and the church. And the world. God lives in community. It's how he expresses love, himself.

We ought to reconsider our attachment to individuality. I am just as much an individualist as the next person. I was born into it, like everyone else. And yet. As powerful as the drug is, the call of community continues. The desire to love and be loved - God, my wife and children, friends, church - results in a draining of those individualistic energies that drive me towards loneliness. I want God's kingdom to come. I want to love. I want to see my city flourish. I want the church to prevail as a blessing. Those are all community-oriented themes that undermine my individuality. So be it.

Of Passive Men and Flailing Pastors

It was a good day for a long drive with the windows down. Plenty of sunshine and blue sky. Lots of time to think to be grateful. And think.

My trip took me to a prison. I spent a few hours with a friend. He's a good guy and I always learn something from him. Today we were talking about our fathers. I was also trying to recruit him to become a pastor.

In sharing our stories with each other, we got to talking about the different ways that men can be passive. How passivity in a man can become addictive, a form of bondage, and how a wife's response is often counter-productive. We ruminated on the ways that this passivity can get passed on to the next generation. It's a form of giving up, of disconnecting, of disengaging. It's part laziness, part selfishness, part apathy, part despair. It's also toxic.

We also got to talking about the ways pastors can flail in their ministry. There are pastors who are very religious, but disconnected from reality. There are pastors who are above others. There are pastors who are popular but then disappoint. There seems to be an expectation of pastors to never fail. But there is also an expectation for pastors to be useless. The common experience seems to be that pastors will let you down sooner or later; they are ultimately unreliable, just like everyone else.

For the boys and men in our church who have passive fathers and flailing pastors, what is their fate?

And what is the antidote?

My friend in prison is honest with me about his life, his experiences, his assessments of people. He can see through people. He knows what failure is. And recovering. Together we discussed some options for dealing with a past that included passive men and flailing pastors. It involved authentic introspection, identifying the ways that we were passive, the ways we flail.

How do you impart courage into a passive man? What's the antidote for cowardice, the fear to engage and love and make decisions? There is help, it doesn't have to be a mystery. It's not about ignorance, it's about desire.

What to do with the flailing pastors of your past? Forgive them? Be wary of them? Learn from them? Pity them? Mock them? Reconnect with them? When a pastor flails, it often results in others falling away from the church, their faith, even God. The pressure to not flail can be oppressive. And yet flailing pastors will always be part of the church experience, of our culture. Why the scorn for flailing pastors?

I know a lot of passive men. I could be one of them. I know pastors who are flailing. I could be one of them. I have been passive, and it was toxic. I have flailed, and it has hurt others. What do I do with that part of me? What do I do when I see that in others? When those men and pastors are part of my life?

Initiative. Decisions. Confidence. Choices. Engage. Listen. Learn. Sacrifice. Desire. Lift. Care. These have been my attempts to erode my passivity, to make amends for my flailings.

Hmmm...well, yes... there is plenty on which to ponder.

My Brief Review of Love Wins

Article first published as Book Review: Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, And The Fate Of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell on Blogcritics.

There is a long-standing belief that Christians go to heaven and that God sends everybody else to burn in hell, in eternal conscious torment.

This way of phrasing the situation is common. It is also unhelpful. It misrepresents heaven and hell, God and Christians. And so Rob Bell decided it was time to present another way of of looking at this controversial belief, thus Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, And The Fate Of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

In covering ground from Genesis through Revelation, pastor Rob Bell concludes heaven and hell are right next to each other, and that you get endless invitations from God to enter heaven and depart hell — both now and in the life to come. The implication is that there will be people in hell, that hell will be temporary, and that eventually every person who has ever lived will repent of their sins in response to God's love as demonstrated through Jesus.

For Christians who are repulsed by the long-standing belief of hell as eternal, conscious torment, Bell's idea are a welcome relief. But Bell has also fired up immense controversy amongst those Christians who adhere to eternal conscious torment — which is a majority of conservative evangelical Christians. Using the same Bible, both sides have conjured up opposing views of God and the afterlife. Whose interpretation is right?

In his book, Bell methodically addresses some key ideas that undermine the traditional view of hell as eternal, conscious torment while making the case for his understanding that love wins. He tackles what the Scripture teaches about heaven, hell, free-will, resurrection, atonement, gospel, and love. Each of these topics are highly-contested theological ideas. Scholars have written thousands of pages on each of those topics, denominations have been formed on varying interpretations of these ideas. And Bell wrote a short book trying to summarize the whole Bible — not an easy task, one open to much criticism and misinterpretation.

Love Wins insists that Jesus' death on the cross atoned for the sins of the whole world, of every person who ever lived. Love Wins understands hell as necessary and needed judgment for evil actions and thoughts, but it is restorative and corrective judgment. Love Wins frames the gospel as good news for the wicked, forgiveness of their sins and the grace-full offer of reconciliation by God. Love Wins believes that people can choose heaven or hell, now and then; and that every person will someday choose heaven. Love Wins demonstrates how resurrection explains the way the world works, and that Jesus' resurrection points to a day when God will make all things new. Love Wins sees heaven as that time and place where God will get what God wants — the rescue and restoration of all Creation.

Love Wins requires the reader to rethink what they've been taught to believe about heaven and hell, God and love, Jesus and the gospel. But it's a requirement that takes thinkers back to the Scriptures, the primary source for what Christians believe about heaven and hell. Rob Bell takes you back through the two Testaments, presenting a Biblical view of the world that is Jewish in its origins, and Jesus-centered in its proclamations. This will result in an understanding of heaven and hell that differ from what has become pop-culture visions of the afterlife.

Pastor Rob Bell's interpretations are certainly open to debate, his controversial conclusions need scrutinized. And while many may dismiss or reject the idea of Love Wins, it is certainly proper and Christian to hope for it.

My Review of Love Wins: the Preface

Story.

That's how Rob Bell understands the Scriptures. What he writes in Love Wins comes from his interpreting the Scriptures as "Jesus's story." And what is the heart of Jesus' story? In the preface he centers on John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Love Wins challenges your traditional understanding of this oft-quoted verse. It takes a firm stand against some interpretations - particularly those that promote belief in hell as a place of eternal concious torment for most of the people who have ever lived. Rob tells a story about God's love as revealed through Jesus that has in mind those who have walked away from the Christian faith that emphasizes this story of hell.

Love Wins asks really focused questions that are designed to make you squirm, to make you really think about what you believe about hell. Rob is comfortable with asking big questions, looking at a particular idea from different angles. There's no answer he's not willing to question. Discussing ideas - and allowing all view points to be considered and sifted and challenged - this is how we get clarity. Dousing controversial questions is not acceptable.

I think that Rob was fully aware of how the evangelical Christian community will generally receive his book. He knows he'll get accused of heresy, that debates will descend quickly to slander and misrepresentation, and that there will be "a massive exercise in missing the point." But it would seem that he also wants to share what he's learned from Scripture - as a pastor, as a student, as one immersed in the writings and research of many Christians who have come before him. And he senses that there are those within the evangelical community and many outside of it who are interested in learning from him.

Here's how Pastor Bell attempts to frame his telling of the Jesus-story in the preface to Love Wins:

...please understand that nothing in this book hasn't been taught, suggested, or celebrated by many before me. I haven't come up with a radical new teaching that's any kind of departure from what's been said an untold number of times. That's the beauty of the historic, orthodox, Christian faith. It's a deep, wide, diverse stream that's been flowing for thousands of years, carrying a staggering variety of voices, perspectives, and experiences.

Some Evangelicals are suspicious of non-evangelicals who are also part of the historic, orthodox, Christian faith. Rob isn't. Love Wins draws on plenty of non-evangelical yet historic, orthodox, Christian thinkers and theologians. Thus there will be plenty for some evangelicals to resist. But maybe more evangelical Christians should be reading from a wider stream. Love Wins, for many, may be their first dip.

I like asking big questions. I like digging around, pushing back against accepted tradition. And I like that others challenge me in what I say I believe. But I'm not interested in being novel or quirky in my beliefs. I want to know the truth. I seek to follow where the truth leads in Scripture. I try to read widely, to look at issues from a multi-faceted point of view. Thus my interest in exploring Scriptures and its idea of hell and the fate of every person who ever lived.

Initial Reactions to Rob Bell & Love Wins

There have been several responses to Rob Bell and his new book Love Wins.

Some have called him a heretic, a false teacher, a liar.
Others agree with him and appreciate his putting into words what they've wondered about for a long time.

There have been simplistic caricatures of the book - dismissing it outright, misrepresenting it and then disparaging it; or simplistic acceptance of the book absent any critical review or examination of Scriptures.

And many, many, more responses...


What about you? What are your personal beliefs about Hell? Are you vocal about it? Confident in it? Confused or unsure of what to believe? Disturbed? Inquisitive? Indifferent?

A good thing to come out of the release of Love Wins is the revived attention the idea of Hell will receive. Musty or muddled ideas on Hell can get a new light shined on them - and vigorous thoughtfulness can be applied again to what Jesus said.

My plan is to lead a Bible study on what the Scriptures reveal about Sheol, Gehenna, Hades and Tartarus - what the KJV called "hell." It will be a good introduction into the very broad and deep realm of theology on salvation, God, Jesus, heaven, judgement, faith, love and truth. (See more at the Anchor website.)


Here's the video that Rob Bell released to introduce his book:

American Activism

I subscribe to the investigative journal Mother Jones. They sent me a survey the other day. One of the questions wanted to know the following about me:

In the last year, have you...
o voted in a Federal, State, or Local election?
o taken part in some local civic issue?
o actively worked as a volunteer for a nonprofit organization?
o written a letter to the editor?
o spoken at a public meeting?
o actively worked for a political party or candidate?

The question made me reflective of my participation in civic society as an American and as a Christian. I've voted and I volunteer, but I haven't taken part in a local civic issue, nor written a letter to the editor (I almost did two years ago...), nor spoken in a public meeting or actively worked for a political party or candidate. If I'm not very active in civic life, does that make me a leech?

The oft quoted tag-line for Mother Jones is, "It's worse than you think." The investigative journalism reveals the corruption and failures of government, business, civic and religious institutions and individuals. I can't read the magazine before I go to bed, otherwise I won't be able to fall asleep. I carefully choose when I'll read the magazine so that I have the emotional energy to react to the articles. Anger and frustration rise up in me as the stories unfold of the stupidity and cruelty that often mark the leaders and institutions of our nation.

What to do with that anger and frustration? Rant and rave? Despair and whine? Or fuel convictions with wisdom and action? And this is why I was affected by the series of questions about my activism as a citizen. It gave me a series of choices, ways to serve and channel my anger into constructive action. But it also revealed my lack of participation in American civic life.

There's obviously lots of anger in the air towards the state of affairs in America. Rage against government inefficiencies, bureaucratic sludge, corporate vampirism, and religious ridiculousness. But all of those institutions we are angry with are made up of fellow American citizens. We end up being frustrated at the system and at people - and maybe even with ourselves. And then we are torn between feeling helpless and wanting someone to come and rescue us and fix the problems.

Instead of waiting or wailing or whining, I must get more involved in civic life. Not from a posture of arrogance or anger, but as a neighbor. A neighbor who links up with others - others in need, others who are like-minded, others who have gifts to give, others who are different. A neighbor who gets involved in the complicated, messy, enduring stuff of community-life.

We Can Always Find Time...

We are all overworked and tired and the bad conscience over things that we cannot do wearies us as much as the things we can do.

Living means choosing.

But do we always choose freely and consciously? Is our choice not frequently forced on us by circumstances, by our faint-heartedness, our habits or even our guilts?

What do you feel guilty about these days?

I'm re-reading through a book called Guilt and Grace by Dr. Paul Tournier. It's prompting me to think of how guilt shapes my life. As I consider the influence of guilt in my life, the list gets longer and longer.

Guilt is profoundly a relational issue. I feel guilty for not spending enough time with Tara. I feel guilty for not spending enough time with Emma, Levi, Isaac and Eli. I feel guilty for not spending enough time with my parents, my brother and his family, Tara's family, and my friends. I feel guilty for not spending enough time with members of Anchor. I feel guilty for not spending enough time alone. I feel guilty for not reading the books on my shelf I bought. I feel guilty for being overweight. I feel guilty for not doing enough to get healthier. I feel guilty for feeling guilty. Argh!!!

We can always find time to do what we really wish to do.

When I have a lecture to prepare, or a piece of work like this study, I always promise myself to take my time and do it carefully. Then I keep putting it off, I have difficulty in settling down to it, just because I am very keen on doing it well and am afraid of failing. I find all sorts of other things to do first.

Does this describe you? It describes me profoundly. Especially when it comes to my sermon preparation.

The subtle thing about this is that by wasting time, I am building up a sense of guilt which I need to drive me to work. It is as though I were building up the power of an auxiliary motor which will get me moving. On the eve of the lecture a moment will come when I shall feel so conscience stricken at having prepared it so badly that I shall rush to it, just as one must jump into the water from a burning ship. It will be a kind of excuse for the inadequacy of my work: it is a pity if it is less good than I would have wished, but I must be satisfied with what can be done in a hurry.

These paragraphs are convicting to me. And guilt-inducing. Sigh. But it is the truth, and that is important to face.

Time belongs to God, and we are stewards of time, we are responsible to him for every minute that he gives us. We all feel that if we listened to Him more carefully, our lives would be more harmonious.

And less driven by guilt. And more by grace.

Are you aware of the ways that guilt is driving your life?
What would your list look like?

It's Always About Something Else

It's not easy to understand sometimes what is going on in your own life. Why do you do what you do?

We like to think that we are intelligent, logical creatures - so we try to make sense of the messes in our life. Our efforts to make connections, to come up with explanations, might get an A for creativity, but a C for reality. Maybe even a D or an F. Sometimes we just don't know why we do what we do. As you consider your life, it's helpful to remember: It's always about something else.

Here's some thoughts from Rob Bell and his book Sex God on the connections between sex and spirituality - two things we don't normally associate with each other:

Jewelry, pictures, sculptures made by children, antiques that have been in the family for years, art projects, velvet paintings - we hold on to them because they point beyond themselves.

If we were to ask you about a certain picture and why you have it displayed in such a prominent place in your home or office or why you carry it in your purse or wallet everywhere you go, you'd probably respond by talking about the people in the picture, where it was taken, when it was taken.

But that would only be the start. Those relationships and that place and that time are all about something else, something more. If we kept exploring, you'd probably end up using words like trust and love and belonging and commitment and celebration.

So it's a picture, but it's more than a picture.

This physical thing - this picture, trophy, artifact, gift - is actually about that relationship, that truth, that reality, that moment in time.

This is actually about that.

Whether it's what we do with our energies

or how we feel about our bodies

or wanting to have the control in our relationships

or trying to recover from heartbreak

or dealing with our ferocious appetites

or the difficulty of communicating clearly with those we love

or longing for something or someone better,

much of life is in some way connected to our sexuality.

And when we begin to sort through all of those issues surrounding our sexuality, we quickly end up in the spiritual,

because this

is always about that.

It's always about something else.

Something deeper. Something behind it all. You can't talk about sexuality without talking about how we were made. And that will inevitably lead you to who made us. At some point you have to talk about God.

Sex. God. They're connected. And they can't be separated. Where the one is, you will always find the other.

The Tension of Talking to Your Kids and Teens about It

It's not easy to talk to your kids and teens about it. Especially in a healthy, mature, nurturing, wise, helpful, biblical way. When it comes to it, our children aren't angels, and they aren't animals. Not talking to your kids is a form of neglect, it's damaging, and it leads to pain. Talking to your kids and teens while laced with shame, embarrassment, and nervousness definitely sends the wrong message.

So that means that parents have a lot of work to do if they are going to prepare well for initiating conversations that will span years about sex. Better than the conversations, though, is the atmosphere of the home, the everyday actions and attitudes of the parents when it comes to marriage, faithfulness, love, faith, intimacy, affection, and satisfaction.

Here's more on the subject from Rob Bell and his book Sex God:

The impulse in our world when faced with tension is to come up with the seven steps or the formula so that if you do things in the right order the tension will go away.

But that doesn't always work. One of the marks of someone who has experienced significant growth in their soul is their ability to live in the midst of the tension.

Often people are told, "Just don't have sex and you'll be fine." Well, yes, that's true, to a certain extant. If you're talking to a room full of junior high students, they will be much better off if they learn the fine art of self-control. But it's larger than that. Because they are still full of raging hormones. Much like the rest of humanity.

To simply tell them to ignore the animal and be the angel puts them in the awkward place of trying to ignore something that is very real and very new, something central to who they are.

We have to talk about everything we're experiencing. Repressing and stuffing and refusing to acknowledge never works. Whether it's a friend or a group of peers or a priest or a pastor or a counselor, we have to get it out.

Some friends of mine started a website where people could talk about their struggles with their sexuality, and right away it received several hundred thousand visitors. Several hundred thousand.

You are not alone. Whatever you struggle with, whatever you have questions about, you are not alone. It doesn't matter how dark it is or how much shame or weakness or regret it involves, you are not alone.

Your kids and teens will need to talk about sex. "Where do babies come from?" And so on. The older you get, the more intense the questions, the more raging the desires and urges. And the more difficult to talk about. But the conversations are crucial. Especially when a parent can tell their son or daughter, "me too."

When Helping Actually Helps

My friend Don Gentry urged me to work my way through this book - When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor...And Yourself. I bought it, and today I'm digging into it.

Both Don and I have had many conversations about how our churches can help the poor and low-income families in our communities. With compassion and wisdom, we want to discover best-practices.

Don pastors in one of the poorest counties in Michigan. I pastor in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Fort Wayne. Don's church has done some great work with area churches to care for the poor. Anchor has hired a Community Connections Director to help care for the poor and low-income families in our church and neighborhood and city.

But still the question remains: what's the best way to help?

I'm hoping this book will help Don and I move forward, to help our churches blossom even more in providing really good help to the men and women and children God brings to us in response to their prayers for help.

Here's a quote from the opening chapter that was convicting to me:

First, North American Christians are simply not doing enough. We are the richest people ever to walk the face of the earth. Period.

Yet most of us live as though there is nothing terribly wrong in the world. We attend our kid's soccer games, pursue our careers, and take beach vacations while 40 percent of the world's inhabitants struggle just to eat every day.

And in our own backyards, the homeless, those residing in ghettos, and a wave of immigrants live in a world outside the economic and social mainstream of North America.

We do not necessarily need to feel guilty about our wealth. But we do need to get up every morning with a deep sense that something is terribly wrong with the world and yearn and strive to do something about it. There is simply not enough yearning and striving going on.

Second, many observers believe that when North American Christians do attempt to alleviate poverty, the methods used often do considerable harm to both the materially poor and the materially non-poor. ...these methods are wasting human, spiritual, financial, and organizational resources, [and] these methods are actually exacerbating the very problems they are trying to solve.

Who Are The Dumbest Christians?

What makes for a dumb Christian? Are Evangelical Christians some of the dumbest around?

Here's an excerpt from Donald Miller's blog on this topic:

So here is what I surmised: American culture has become a consumer culture, and a large demographic within the culture simply does exactly what they are told, as long as what they are told promises a pay off of some sort.

They do not ask questions. They trust you if you seem trustworthy. Many evangelical leaders, then, simply become info-mercial-type salesman, selling their understanding of the truth to this large demographic. Most of them are extremely well intentioned, and do remarkable ministry around the world for the poor.

The dumbing down of what we must loosely call truth is just a sign of the times.

Of course there aren't any Christians who would claim to be the dumbest. But it's not only evangelical Christians that are dumb. Is it possible that you are a dumb American if you do what you are told in the hopes of some sort of pay off? Pick a health magazine. Pick a get-rich-quick book. Pick the better-sex-column on a website.

The definition of dumb is the obsession with guaranteed pay off. This is especially dumb when it is pursued at the expense of character, integrity, sacrifice, and truth.

Here's the link to Miller's entire blogpost.

Thoughts?

Lots of Parents are That Clueless

Sex is a really big deal. And yet it rarely gets talked about in a healthy, nurturing way. Especially between parents and children. Why is that? Why is it so hard for a mom to talk to her son about sex? Why is it so awkward for a dad to discuss with his daughter about her sexuality? The topic is too important for parents to stay clueless about the sexual interests and attitudes of their children.

Here's a story from Rob Bell's book Sex God that highlights this crisis:

A man I've known for years was recently telling me about some of his challenges running a youth camp over the past year. The biggest one involved a fifteen-year-old girl. It had recently come out that she had been having sex with a man in the area. Which, among other things, go the man in trouble with the law. But when my friend and the girl's dad got involved, it turned out that she'd been having sex with, well, lots of men in the area. My friend said that as the truth began to come out, her dad was shocked. He had no idea that she was this involved with anybody, let alone with this many men.

How can a father be that clueless?

But as many of us read that last sentence, we were thinking, Lots of parents are that clueless.

Parents who don't talk with their kids about sex, ever?

Did your parents ever talk with you about sex?
How'd that talk go? Was it helpful? Awkward? Scary?
If you could make some suggestions to your parents, how would you advise them if they could do the talk over again?

Talking to your Kids and Teens about "It"

What's your story about how your folks talked to you about "it?" Sex.

Here's a piece from Rob Bell's book Sex God in relation to this crucial conversation:

Somehow we got on the subject of how we were first told about sex. One friend heard about it from his dad, who used ticket stubs to show how... well, actually he doesn't remember how the ticket stubs fit into his dad's explanation.

He was so traumatized by the subject that he stopped listening partway through. Other than his experience, which made us laugh, and a few others, it was striking how many in the group did not hear about sex from their parents. In fact, as the conversation continued, it turned out that a good number of the group were raised in homes where sex was not talked about at all.

How can parents ignore something this big?

That's an agonizing question. Was that part of your story?

How is the talk going to go for your kids and teens?
Are you scared about it? Does it make you nervous?
Why?

Really...why?

Revolutionary Christianity

In seeking to minister in the Same Spirit of Jesus in the real world of our culture and city, I'm finding the writings of Jacques Ellul to be very formative and disturbing. Who do you know that is content with life as it is? But could our life be any different? How could it be better? And in what way is the Church a part of that change, that revolution?

When Ellul talks about revolution, he is probing to uncover the subversive nature of the Gospel of Jesus. He discusses the nature of revolution, the necessity of revolution, and what it would like like to emerge in our life. It's not a wild-eyed rant by a crazy discontent. It's the deeply reflective ideas of a man who keenly sees life as it is, and proposes ideas on how a man or woman could live amidst the tension of living in the real world and following Jesus.

Out of all the quotes in the chapter that I highlighted and commented on, here's one that asked haunting question to me:

The revolutionary position is quite different. But we still have to ascertain what it is, for it cannot be merely the affirmation of "truth" or of "liberty," or the affirmation of a new political doctrine: a revolutionary position is totalitarian.

Now we ought to realize that if this revolution does not take place, we are done for, and human civilization as a whole is impossible. At the present moment (1967, and 2010) we are confronted by a choice: either a mass civilization, technological, "conformist" - the "Brave New World" of Huxley, hell organized upon earth for the bodily comfort of everybody - or a different civilization, which we cannot yet describe because we do not know what it will be; it still has to be created, consciously, by men.

If we do not know what to choose, or, in other words, how to "make a revolution," if we let ourselves drift along the stream of history, without knowing it, we shall have chosen the power of suicide, which is at the heart of the world.

But we cannot have many illusions; confronted by the power of organization, our revolutionary knowledge can scarcely be used. On the other hand, where are the men and women, at the present time, who have a true sense of "revolution"?
~ Jacques Ellul, "Revolutionary Christianity", The Presence of the Kingdom, pg 30-31

Forgive Us Our Debts

Religion Dispatches had this biting and passionate article on why we ought to oppose the debt-driven crimes of our era, A Matter of Life and Debt: The Role of Religion.

Here's the paragraph that was illuminating to me - and disturbing.

Question: All right. But aren’t these weighty systemic questions better left to experts and economists? We religious folk have a lot of other issues to worry about—issues that we are more competent to address.

Answer: Actually, just about all of the issues that we religious folk insist we really care about—issues like world poverty and hunger, resource wars and environmental degradation, human trafficking, widening domestic inequality, shrinking access to quality higher education, declining on-time graduation rates for low-income students and students of color, urban neighborhood blight, stress-related health problems, declining family life and domestic violence—are directly related to systemic debt oppression.

If the most urgent moral question of the 20th century was the question of color line, perhaps an equally urgent moral question for the 21st century is the debt line—a line not at all unrelated to ongoing race-based oppression.

What can a local church do in light of such global and insidious financial sins?

An immediate beginning is to live out the heart and mind of the early church that we read about in Acts 2 and Acts 4. When someone who is part of the church community has a need, work is done to meet that need. Stuff gets sold, connections get made, help is given to meet that need. The bigger the need, the bigger the sacrifice. But after awhile this kind of activity will force the local church to say: instead of treating the symptoms, how can we bring healing to the sickness?

If Anchor is committed to the long-term work of helping make our neighborhood a better place to live, we have much to learn. Our collaboration with others like NeighborLink and Fort Wayne Fatherhood Coalition and Lutheran Social Services and Associated Churches of Fort Wayne and Allen County, and other churches like Grace Presbyterian and First Mennonite and others are all part of this work.

But we still, at some point, have to prophetically address those institutions in our city that propagate the insidious financial sins that undermine our neighborhoods.

An Old Fashioned Commercialized Christmas

How did Christmas become this way? Frantic shopping, bloated credit card debt, piles of gifts, migraine headaches over what to buy all those people... and how to afford it all?

It would seem that Christmas as we know it has always been this way. All the way back to the 1820's. That's when our version of Christmas was invented by Clement Clarke Moore. In 1822 he put together the famous poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" - or as we know it, "'Twas the night before Christmas...". Clarke's work is identified by historians as the linchpin event that enabled our commercialized version of Christmas to emerge.

Think about it - Charlie Brown was lamenting the over-commercialized nature of Christmas in the 1960's - almost fifty years ago. If anything it's gotten worse. By the time we hear the cry: "Isn't there anybody who knows what Christmas is all about?" we've had about a hundred and forty years of the frantic Christmas shopping and over-indulgent giving. 190 years of Christmas as we know it! 

If you are one of those people that resonates with Charlie Brown: you want a slow-down Christmas, you want a simplified Christmas, you want a restful Christmas...well you're resisting a powerful force of culture. Almost two centuries of Santa Claus being used to hawk wares, to sell mass-produced toys, to evoke that nostalgic feel of Christmas long, long ago.

I just found it very interesting how far back our current state of affairs go when it comes to the typical Christmas rush. And there is a lot more that is interesting about Christmas as we know it. Stephen Nissenbaum has written a fascinating book, The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America's Most Cherished Holiday, which I started reading last year (and blogged about here and here).

As a Christian I sometimes ponder how I ought to participate in Christmas as we know it. Nissenbaum's book is helping strip away the myths and nostalgia around the cherished season, bringing reality to the surface. I'd like to think that what I learn will contribute to my ability to stay calm and centered during the holidays. Not only that, but focused and able to enjoy the people in my life - whether we give gifts or not.

Keep the X in Xmas

For the ancient Christians, the name Christ was Greek for the Hebrew word Messiah, which meant "anointed one." The early Christians believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited-for Jewish Messiah come to save Israel and be a light to the nations. In Greek, Christ is spelled with an X (instead of our "eks" pronunciation in English, in Greek it has a hard "k" sound to it: Xristos).

The sign of Christ was an X to the ancient Christians.

For us, we get to reclaim the name Xmas. We know what the X stands for - it's the ancient sign of Christ. Maybe there are some shopowners and other overly sensitive types you use the phrase "Xmas" as a generic way to share holiday cheer. But we know what the word really means!

So keep X in Xmas!

Even When You Don't Feel Like It

There are still a bunch of jobs out there that require physical labor. Whether it's a skilled physical labor job, or unskilled, your body gets tired at the end of the day. You risk physical ailments because of the repetitive motions, the strain on your back, the headache from the fumes.

For awhile, though, there have been more and more jobs that require emotional labor. Sure, it's pretty hard to imagine a job where your body does no movement - if you move around, I guess that counts as physical labor. But more and more people are getting hired - not for the skill of their hands or the eloquence of their mouth, but the intelligence and capacity of their emotions. And this is not just for women.

More and more, where you work is requiring more emotional labor from you. Whether you type, file, push a button, drive a truck, use a hammer, make a phone call, write a document, or the thousand other physical tasks that you can get paid to do - all of them are done within the web of relationships. Most immediate is going to be a customer or a coworker. At some point you interact with your boss. After awhile, the physical labor can get mindless, but the relationship side of your work - well it can always be full of drama, tension, disappointment, anger or joy, fulfillment, and excitement. It's usually the emotional side of your work that makes it unbearable. And it can be that the emotional labor is the hardest work of all.

To be a linchpin where you work, do the hard work of emotional labor. Even when you don't feel like it.

Here are some thoughts on emotional labor from Seth Godin:

Apparently, we don't have a lot of trouble understanding that work might involve physical labor, heavy lifting, or long periods of fatigue. But, for some reason, we hesitate to invest a more important sort of labor into work that really matters. Emotional labor is the task of doing important work, even when it isn't easy.

Emotional labor is difficult and easy to avoid. But when we avoid it, we don' do much worth seeking out. Showing up unwilling to do emotional labor is a short-term strategy now, because over time, organizations won't pay extra for someone who merely does the easy stuff.

We're not at all surprised when a craftsman sharpens his saw or an athlete trains hard. But when an information worker develops her skills at confronting fear (whether it's in making connections, speaking, inventing, selling, or dealing with difficult situations) we roll our eyes.

It turns out that digging into the difficult work of emotional labor is exactly what we're expected (and needed) to do. Work is nothing but a platform for art and the emotional labor that goes with it. (80)

Volunteering to do emotional labor - even when you don't feel like it, and especially when you're not paid extra for it - is a difficult choice. (81)

When you do emotional labor, you benefit.
Not just the company, not just your boss, but you.

The act of giving someone a smile, of connecting to a human, of taking initiative, of being surprising, of being creative, of putting on a show - these are things that we do for free all our lives. And then we get to work and we expect to merely do what we're told and get paid for it.

This gulf creates tension.

If you reserve your emotional labor for when you are off duty, but you work all the time, you are deprived of the joy you get when you do this labor. Now, you're not giving gifts on duty, but you're not off duty much at all. Spend eight or ten or twelve hours a day at work (not only in the office, but online or on the phone or in your dreams), and there's not a lot of time left for the very human acts that make you who you are and who you want to be.

So bring that gift to work.

And what do you get in return? In most cases you get very little in return. At least, little in terms of formal entries in your permanent file or bonuses in your year-end pay. But you do benefit.

First, you benefit from the making and the giving. The act of the gift is in itself a reward. And second, you benefit from the response of those around you. When you develop the habit of contributing this gift, your coworkers become more open, your boss becomes more flexible, and your customers become more loyal.

The essence of any gift, including the gift of emotional labor, is that you don't do it for a tangible, guaranteed reward. If you do, it's not longer a gift; it's a job. (82)