The Internet Monk Archives

Saturday Ramblings: November 5, 2016

RAMBLER(S) OF THE WEEK

Our Rambler of the Week award goes to a team and a great company of long-suffering fans in Chicago, who waited 108 years for this day to arrive — the day when the Chicago Cubs would be crowned World Series Champions. It has happened, and great is the rejoicing!

Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace,
For my eyes have seen your salvation!

• Luke 2:29-30

The deciding game, Game 7, was as dramatic a baseball game as this fan has ever seen. It will go down in history as legendary, with even God getting involved by sending rain and delaying the game so the Cubs could regroup and come back for the win (yes, that’s bad theology; no, I don’t care!). There were so many story lines, so many great moments, so many excruciating twists and reversals, that most of us who were invested in rooting for either the Cubs or the Indians ended up exhausted and drained. It was exactly the kind of baseball game we fans live for.

The MVP of the Series, Ben Zobrist, is a pastor’s kid who maintains a strong faith along with his wife Julianna, a singer-songwriter, author and speaker. To show you what kind of a guy he is, after he arrived home on Thursday, he went outside and signed autographs for his neighbors, who were all waiting in a long line down the block to give him their praise, thanks, and congratulations.

An estimated five million Cubs fans — nearly twice Chicago’s population — crowded the city’s streets and gathered Friday in Grant Park to salute their World Series champions as they rambled through their victory parade.

The Chicago Cubs, and especially their fans — including my own beloved grandfather, in whose lap I sat and watched the Cubs on TV as a child — are our Ramblers of the Week.

• • •

TIME TO VOTE! (An IM editorial)

After another excruciating experience — a seemingly never-ending campaign season — the time for the big vote has arrived. Tuesday is Election Day, which means one form of agony is ending, and another may be beginning. If Donald Trump wins, well, I can’t imagine what the future holds. If Hillary Clinton wins, at the very least we are in for four years of conflict between the President and Congress that will make the gridlock of the last eight years look like the Cubs hugging each other after winning the World Series.

I voted yesterday. In down-ticket races, I chose some Republicans and some Democrats, and I wrote in the name of someone I deem qualified and competent for POTUS.

I know some will argue that I “wasted” my vote, but I don’t think for a moment that following my conscience and exercising my civil responsibility to vote for a worthy candidate is a waste at all. If more of us exercised personal responsibility and refused to let the big money, the media, the politicians, and the two-party system define us and make it seem like the only practical thing is to fill in their little boxes, then perhaps we might actually move toward a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Another fact: less than 50% of the eligible population will probably vote. That means, in my view, that neither of the presidential candidates will have a true mandate by winning, no matter how big the margin. But that’s not their fault. It’s squarely on our shoulders.

So, vote.

You heard me. Get out there and fulfill your responsibility.

It’s your country, after all. It doesn’t belong to the politicians.

• • •

CAL. CATHOLIC CHURCH: VOTE DEMOCRAT = GO TO HELL

A newsletter from a Catholic church in San Diego included a flier that told parishioners they’ll go to hell if they vote for Democrats.

Then this past Sunday, the message was reinforced and stated even more strongly: Satan is working through former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The Oct. 16 bulletin from the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church was stuffed with a flyer written in both English and Spanish that cited five legislative policies — support for abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research — that will doom a politician and their supporters to eternal damnation.

The flyer went on to warn: “It is a mortal sin to vote Democrat … immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell.”

Just wow.

• • •

JOHN PIPER: CHRISTIANS ARE FREE NOT TO VOTE

Of course, we can’t mention any public event without hearing what John Piper has to say about it. (Does the guy ever not have a public opinion?) Piper thinks Christians are under no moral obligation to vote.

“[God’s] children are free! Free from human institutions. As citizens of heaven, we are not bound in every situation to participate in the processes of human government. We are not bound! This is not our homeland! We vote — if we vote — because the Lord of our homeland commissions us to vote, and he does not absolutize this act above all other considerations of Christian witness!”

Here is just another example of someone proving the old charge against Christians — we’re so heavenly-minded that we’re no earthly good.

Just listen to the Platonic crap this guy is laying out here.

First of all, Dr. Piper, the world is our homeland. We are looking for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells — that’s the goal, not heaven. “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven” is the way our Lord taught us to pray. I may in some sense be a citizen of heaven, but heaven is not my ultimate home. This world is my home, I’m not just a-passin’ through to somewhere beyond the blue. God’s design for human beings is to be his image here in this world, now and forever, to represent him by living lives of love, faithfulness, and wise stewardship. That includes participating in our communities and in our world through such acts as voting.

Secondly, I don’t vote and I don’t believe Christians should vote only because “the Lord of our homeland commissions us to vote.” Where in the world does that come from? God gave us new life in Christ so that we might begin to fulfill the vocation with which he blessed us at creation: fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion (Gen. 1:28). The task of the Christian is not to withdraw from this world, even when knowing how to participate is murky or when it is clearly distasteful. And not everything we do is a matter of getting specific instructions from our Commander. He expects us to grow up and to act wisely as mature adults. As I said above, the two-party system need not constrain me on Election Day. I will vote as a follower of Jesus Christ who takes the mission of tikkun olam seriously, and I will vote for a worthy candidate. I will live with the results and carry on.

Thirdly, none of us are “free from human institutions.” This is just more separatist jingoism that serves only to inflate the pride of Christians and make them think they are too good to walk the same ground as their fellow human beings. Please. That’s utterly ridiculous.

In this case, I think “the Lord of our homeland” is giving us a clear directive: pay no attention to the man behind the pulpit.

Be a good neighbor. Plant a seed of righteousness. Vote.

• • •

QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK

What do Cubs fans have to live for now?

Is St. Augustine the patron saint of this year’s election?

Should selfies be allowed in the voting booth?

Why does fall foliage turn fiery red?

Why is an ancient disease still haunting us?

Did a big collision make the Moon, and also knock Earth on its side?

Will the “supermoon” on Nov. 14 have any biblical import?

• • •

PICTURES OF THE WEEK: PITTSBURGH’S SILENT SANCTUARIES

I encourage you to take a look at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s poignant pictorial of former houses of worship in the city that are not in active use at present.

In addition to viewing the strikingly sad yet beautiful pictures, you can learn about each building’s history and current uses. Here are a few sample pictures from the piece.

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85miller5_danese_forweb — Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church

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• • •

LOCAL NEWSPAPER INTERVIEWS CHAPLAIN MIKE

It was my privilege to be interviewed recently by our local county newspaper about my work and my book. The article came out this past week, and I thought the author did a good job putting it together.

I hope you’ll enjoy it and pass it on if you think it might be of encouragement and help to someone.

http://www.dailyjournal.net/2016/11/01/mike_mercer_story/

• • •

TODAY IN MUSIC: FOR ALL THE SAINTS

Though All Saints Day is officially Nov. 1, many churches will celebrate it this Sunday.

As we remember the “great cloud of witnesses” that has gone before us, having completed their journey of faith and now in God’s care awaiting faith’s consummation on the day of resurrection, let us be inspired by one of the greatest hymns in the English language, William W. How’s 1864 composition, “For All the Saints,” set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

It is sung here by the choir and congregation of First Plymouth Congregational Church, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Fridays with Michael Spencer: November 4, 2016

Note from CM: For a time Michael Spencer called himself a “Calvinist” and dwelt among the reformed. But he recognized pretty soon that there were a lot of ways he didn’t fit in. For our final “reformation consideration” this week, we present this address MS made to his friends in that world.

• • •

My Calvinistic and Reformed friends. If we are still on speaking terms, I need to say something to you.

I am not like you. That’s not an attitude of condescension, it’s just a fact that I need to bring to the front of our relationship. You are writing me letters and notes about N.T. Wright, my views on inerrancy, my coziness with Catholicism. Your concern is appreciated, but now it’s time to stop it. We need to accept that we are different, and we are not on the same page in this journey.

I’m not like most of you because my dad was divorced, and the legalism in my church destroyed his willingness to fellowship and worship with other Christians. In our church, divorced people were castigated weekly as the worst of sinners. Dad stayed home in shame. He was a man of prayer and the Bible, but he only heard me preach five times in his life because the church we attended had both his ex-wife and my mother as members. I’ll never forget what it felt like when it dawned on me that my father wasn’t enjoying the forgiving welcome of Jesus, but was living in the condemnation of legalism. He loved God, but only at the end of his life did he hear the preaching of the cross that assured him his sins were forgiven- all of them.

This changed me in ways I can’t explain, but I can put it this way. When Jesus said of Lazurus, “Loose him and let him go,” I think he was talking about my dad. Other Christians didn’t hear that word, but I did, and it makes me who I am.

I’m not like you because I believe much of contemporary Christianity has nothing to do with the public ministry of Jesus or the reality of his Kingdom. I don’t see five finely honed points of reformed theology in Jesus’ acceptance of sinners in the Gospels. I don’t see the divisive rejection of people in Jesus’ ministry, but I see it on every corner in evangelicalism. Jesus ministry is the Kingdom of God made actual in the here and now. I see a new Israel being created around Jesus himself. I see the covenant love of God for his people extended to the last, lost, least, little and dead. Jesus’ denunciation of the religious establishment doesn’t seem to register with the religious crowd today who are every bit as outraged as the Prodigal’s older brother when it comes to joining the party being thrown for the son who’d been received home again.

I’m not like you because I learned the value of silence from that darned Catholic, Thomas Merton. I don’t think I can explain this, but I believe you can learn more about God in an hour silence than in a year of reading or listening to preaching. I learned that monasteries aren’t monuments to Mary, but places where another dimension of life is protected and nurtured. I learned in the silence and solitude of monasticism that God is more than a concept, a proposition or a list of statements. He is a reality that breaths life and being into every moment, every cell, every bit of matter than can not exist without him. In the silence, I learned that the voice of God is not the voice of lecturing professors or shouting preachers, but the very voice of being itself. I learned that only my monastic friends seem to understand the great power and universality of this, and because I learned this, I want to be far away from all the things we do to convince ourselves we’ve made God real. It’s not necessary. The God of the Word is found by faith in silence.

I’m different from many of you because God used that monk to show me a life lived before God. Merton wasn’t a theologian, but a writer, poet and activist. He went to the woods. He loved and hated the visible church, but he came back to it every day because from it he learned who he was and in it he found Christ. His lifetime of argument with the church and his superiors has shown me my own heart and attitudes a thousand times, and reminded me that for all its faults, the church is my family, my DNA and my best place in the world. Yet, Merton also taught me that the way of God is on the other side of the mountain, where we go to find ourselves in God and God alone, revealed in Jesus Christ.

I’m not like you because I have chosen to be part of an intentional, full-time, residential, mission-oriented Christian community. I am not bragging when I say this, because God brought me here to save my life as surely as he brought Merton to the monastery to save his. And like Merton, I have made some of my worst mistakes and arrogant errors here, and found the forgiveness of Christ here as well.

I have chosen to bring my life, my family and my ministry to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, to a place where I live in a prefab house, receive a salary that I can’t explain to my father-in-law, and nothing- absolutely nothing- is like any mega-church or typical Christian school. We worship every day. We live together and work together. And we are not all Baptists. Or Calvinists. Or conservatives. We are here to evangelize and teach students who come from every nation and every situation, but who want an education and/or a place to start over. We are a Christian school for non-Christians. We give opportunities to internationals, kids in trouble, expelled students, older students, kids who have been failed by the public schools and well-intentioned home schooling parents. For 106 years, God has sustained us, and I am now a vital part of the vision that birthed and nurtured this unique place.

I don’t know why there aren’t hundreds of schools like ours, but I suspect the poverty aspect of our life doesn’t work for most Americans. Therefore, the people who come to work here are special people. They are Christians who are called to live and work out their faith in situations only Jesus would create. It’s amazing, exciting, difficult and demanding. It’s been a potter’s house for me, and God has used it to work wonders in my life. When I came here, I knew that the experience would shape and change me, and that has been true.

Our school was founded by a Calvinist, and his confidence in God’s sovereignty is part of who we are, but our school is made up of 150 staff and 300 plus students of every background, denomination and commitment….and I cannot afford to define Jesus narrowly. For the sake of my brothers and sisters, I must find him everywhere.

You see, I have to love my brothers and sisters with different theology because we labor side by side in the trenches of ministry together. I can’t spend my lunch hour or my chapel messages debating the finer points of Calvinism. I can’t separate from everyone over anything or everything. We are in battle on this hill, and like fellow soldiers taking ground under fire, we must look out for one another, sacrifice for one another and bind up the wounds we all endure. If you want to know why this theologically minded writer gets so disgusted with theology, then come walk alongside of me for a while. Listen to the stories of broken and dysfunctional homes. See the poverty of these mountains. Come and experience the worst poverty of all: the poverty of the Gospel that goes that is everywhere in the mountains. Go into the modest homes and Christ-adorned lives of my fellow servants; watch, listen and you will see that the ministry of Jesus to our students and neighbors is not the propagation of Calvinism, but a daily living out of the love and mission of Jesus.

I am not like you because I have seen the theological battle for the Southern Baptist Convention up close, and I realize that both sides- all those involved- are capable of being right and wrong. I entered The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1979, the height of the controversy. I was on campus when the conservatives forced a Bible Conference onto the campus, led by evangelist James Robison, to take a stand for inerrancy. I watched the angry reaction of the professors, many of whom were members of my congregation.

Years later, I watched conservatives take over my seminary, and while I agreed with much of their theology, their methods- especially in the treatment of people- left much to be desired. Sometimes, it was unavoidable. Other times, it was simply cruel and stupid. The moderates were driven from the school, and conservatives occupied the chairs of theology. The school’s theological confession was reinstated as a meaningful part of the institution, and I applaud the accomplishment. But the treatment of people- the thing I suspect Jesus would have looked at as a measure of true faith- was shabby.

I was left with a nagging sense that the liberals were never as terrible as I’d been told, and the conservatives were never as wonderful as advertised. Many of my professors in the “liberal” seminary were men and women of great faith, commitment to Christ and concern for his church. Both sides played loose with the truth. Both could be cruel to those in the middle, both were “parties” that thought in herds, and both saw their mission as much in terms of conflict within as missions and evangelism without.

This nagging sense of the flaws, agenda and group-think that pervades theological controversy among conservative Calvinists has not left me. As I grow older, I much prefer the study of Biblical theology to the doctrinal debates that currently rage among conservative evangelicals. I cannot comfortably say that the reformation of the church needs to remake it into the image of what I saw in the conservative resurgence in the SBC. I support much of that reformation, but where is the humility? The generosity of Jesus? The flavor and aroma of grace? I have had enough of war metaphors, because I have seen enough war. No more.

I am not like you because I constantly find Jesus taking me out of the places and labels other Christians find essential, and instead showing me that he is more, greater, deeper, wider than any way I can try to limit him. He was greater than my fundamentalism. He was greater than my Charismatic phase. He was greater than my liberal, seminary student days. He was greater than my years as a youth minister on church staff. Now I am finding he is greater than my years of Calvinism.

There is a visible horizon with Jesus, because there are things I can understand and affirm in the creeds and confessions. But there is no actual horizon. His love, grace and majesty are never ending. My theology is a map, not a photograph. A sail, not an anchor. Faith is a mystery, not a certainty, because I can never be certain that my mind has captured more than a glimpse of his glory. A hope, not a possession, because nothing I possess can hold the one who holds me.

I am not like you because I take no comfort in theological assertions. I feel little affection for most of them. I have a passionate love for the God of the Gospel, the one mediator Jesus Christ, but this love for God surely comes from God, not from me. When I try to think great thoughts about God, and when others propose great theologies, they are impressive, until the reality of Christ refocuses and recalibrates my vision. Then that theology becomes scratching in the dirt.

The defining moments of my life have come in deeper experiences of the reality of God coming to me in Jesus. I read to know that I am not alone in my experience with this God. That the glimpses of glory that have flashed upon my undeserving heart and mind are not fantasies of someone desperate to believe in something good in a meaningless world.

In January of 1984, I was in a class with Dr. Timothy George on “The Theology of Luther.” He was lecturing on Luther’s discovery of justification by faith alone. I was sitting by the window, listening, when I had what I can only describe as a deep, mystical experience, one that continues to resonate within me. In it I saw, and felt, the vast chasm that separates humanity from God, a divide so vast that it is as if there is no God at all. And then I experienced the reality of the mediation of Jesus across this divide. I sensed that all things in God, and all things in that separation, and all things in human life, were encompassed in this one being of Jesus. All was well, all was well, and all will be well.

This was not an “aha” moment of theology, reformed or otherwise. It was a gripping moment of sensing the true nature of the universe and all that exists. It was a moment when scales fell from my eyes. I wrote furiously, and for months afterward, felt the power of that visionary moment. Twenty years later, I tell you that this is the God I know and the God I love. The God who is absent to us, yet ever-present, always embracing us, and our sins, in Jesus. I recognize this God in Luther. In Calvin. In Merton. In Capon. In Wright. In many, many other friends from many other traditions and theologies.

Those of you who wonder why I react to some persons (Osteen) and not others (John Paul II), just go back and read the last few paragraphs. You’ll still judge that I am muddled, and that is acceptable to me. But perhaps you will understand a bit better.

I will continue to call myself a Calvinist, albeit a poor one. I welcome you into my writing and my journey. My readers are very special and important to me. I don’t mind your judgments and your critiques. (Those of you who insist it’s “unloving” to critique Phil Johnson, Joel Osteen or Rick Warren are excused for the rest of the day.) All I is ask is that you understand that God has placed me in a ministry to those much like the people Jesus ministered to, and my ministry is not a contention for Calvinism. I counsel those whose families are dysfunctional and cruel. I pastor those who have been rejected and abandoned by parents, and those whose parents were taken away by tragedy and selfishness. I pray with the sexually abused. I share Christ’s gospel with students from all over the world and every religion. I open the doors of our Christian community to those whose mistakes have cost them other opportunities. I preach 20 times a month in places and to people other people don’t want to preach to. I live for the Gospel, and I am spending my life, health and years in communicating Christ to students in word and example. To do this, I must live Mere Christianity and the truth of one Body of Christ. I am not all about defending Calvinism and I have no desire to be a promoter of Calvinism. I preach and teach within the theology that I believe, but I do not make Calvinism an issue. I believe it would be unloving and foolish to do so. (I think even Spurgeon regretted the amount of attention he gave to Calvinism- by name- in his early preaching.)

Tonight I listened to a girl talk about a sexual abuse incident that happened to her just over a year ago, an incident disbelieved by her divorcing parents, and an incident that is robbing her of her normality and sanity. I shared with her the Gospel of the suffering Christ, and his power to allow us to endure evil. It is the God of the reformed faith that I am talking about when I tell her that God allows some dark lines to be drawn into a beautiful picture. My prayer is for her to come to utterly trust and value Jesus as Lord. My Calvinism tells me to pray that God will sovereignly create such a faith. I could not counsel hope to such a person without a trust in a great, sovereign, God. I take the treasures and the weapons of the reformed faith into every battle, but only because Christ is my captain and my victory. Calvinism is the way God has brought me to one greater than Calvinism or any other attempt to outline the reality of one who is reality itself.

I am not like you. Every day I wander further from the safety of Calvinism into the wideness of God’s mercy. Warn me. Talk about me, but let me go. I have never been a risk-taker in life, but in this journey I want to ride far away from home. I will return from time to time, but for now I am exploring the Holy Wild.

Mike the Geologist: On the Grand Canyon and the Flood (1)

Grand Canyon Sunset: Hopi Point, Photo by Gary Craig — Grand Canyon Sunset. Photo by Gary Craig

Note from CM: We welcome back Michael McCann, aka Mike the Geologist, to do a series blogging through a book about the Grand Canyon, one of earth’s great natural wonders. Young earth creationists have tried to explain this magnificent geologic marvel by appealing to a great worldwide flood in the days of Noah. Let’s see how their arguments hold up.

• • •

The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon?
By Gregg Davidson, Joel Duff, David Elliott, Tim Helble, Carol Hill, Stephen Moshier, Wayne Ranney, Ralph Stearley, Bryan Tapp, Roger Wiens, and Ken Wolgemuth.

♨︎

The Grand Canyon is one of the most iconic geological features on Earth. It is also one of the most well-known and recognizable National Parks in the United States. The immensity of its features, the sheer grandeur and awe-inspiring beauty of its landscapes spark the imagination of those who see it and cause them to wonder how it could have formed. There have been many books written describing the geology and history of the canyon, so why is another one necessary. To quote one of the contributing authors, Joel Duff, who also blogs at Naturalis Historia:

“I believe that there is such a need because there is an audience which needs to hear the testimony of the Grand Canyon: much of the modern Christian church. That audience has different concerns than many that peer into the canyon. The Grand Canyon forces Christians to confront questions of the age of the Earth and biblical authority. A book, with the Grand Canyon as its central focus, that addresses those concerns seriously is lacking.”

I agree with Joel, and the seeming inability of too many American evangelicals to deal with the supposed conflicts between modern science and the Bible are what led me to develop and teach the Science and the Bible course that I subsequently blogged here at Internet Monk. With the opening of Answers-in-Genesis’s Ark Encounter this summer, I believe it is more important than ever for scientists who are evangelical Christians to speak out on these issues in their local churches and help guide their fellow congregants in dealing with what I assert is a mistaken hermeneutic as well a scientifically untenable view.

Jim Kidder, a paleoanthropologist and evangelical Christian, who blogs at Science and Religion: A View from an Evolutionary Creationist, recently reviewed a book by Joel Edmund Anderson called The Heresy of Ham: What Every Evangelical Needs to Know About the Creation-Evolution Controversy.

Kidder quotes from Anderson’s book thusly:

The heresy of Ham that is actively “subverting, destabilizing, and destroying” the core of the Christian faith is the claim that a modern, scientific interpretation of Genesis 1-11 as literal history is fundamental prerequisite for the trustworthiness of the Gospel of Christ. It is the claim that if the universe is not 6,000 years old, if there was no historical Adam and Eve, and if there was no worldwide flood 4,000 years ago, then that would make God a liar, that would mean there is no such thing as sin, and that would mean Christ died for nothing. Such a message is heresy, and that message has subverted, destabilized, and destroyed the Christian faith of many people, has destroyed careers, and unfortunately, has taken root within a significant portion of Evangelical Christianity.

Although Kidder warns that Anderson’s book is polemic and somewhat of a rant and “clearly written in passion and frustration”, I am beginning to share in that frustration and I have to agree with the above quote. The whole “young earth” view, even though it arises from an understandable desire to defend sacred scripture, actually ends up undermining the very thing it seeks to defend.

Kidder goes on to say,

If we are to take the Primeval History (i.e. Genesis 1-11) as scientifically accurate, and it is the foundation of our faith, then it MUST reflect reality. The two are inextricably linked: if we find holes in the scientific accuracy of the PH, then our faith crumbles. It can do nothing else. If, on the other hand, we view parts of the PH as non-literal, then science and faith can be decoupled, a position that Ken Ham is unwilling to take. Yet, if we decouple them, then faith thrives and scientific discourse retains its integrity.

In 1994 a young earth creationist named Dr. Steve Austin published a book entitled: Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe. In that book Dr. Austin puts forth an interpretation of the geological history of the Grand Canyon in which the rock layers and the canyon eroded in them were formed less than 5000 years ago.

Nine years later, inspired partly by Dr. Austin, Grand Canyon tour guide Tom Vail authored the book Grand Canyon a Different View. This book of photography of the canyon and more than 20 essays by Young Earth Creationist’ (YEC) authors, including Dr. Austin, was a huge commercial and critical – among creationists – success. The book was sold at the Grand Canyon bookstore until 2014.

It really is past time for Christian geologists and other scientists to stand up and come against this erroneous view — for the sake of the Gospel. We, who know better, cannot allow the Gospel to be tied to error and untruth. So, for that reason, I am going to blog through this book, Grand Canyon: Monument to an Ancient Earth.

Eleven authors, all of them scientists and Christians, contributed to this book including several that have extensive personal experience with the Grand Canyon geology. As a result, this book brings you the most current understanding of the formation of the Grand Canyon from experts who have developed some of those theories.

The book takes you on a vivid geological trip through the Grand Canyon examining every aspect of its amazing geological formations and exploring how this massive canyon was formed. It examines many sources of evidence and compares the “flood geology” and conventional geology models to see which makes most sense of the data. The book is vividly illustrated with beautiful photographs and laymen-friendly charts and graphs.

It would make a great coffee-table book as well as a great reference should you engage an evangelical friend in a discussion. I hope you enjoy the series.

• Mike the Geologist

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Photo by Gary Craig at Flickr. Creative Commons License.

Reformation Considerations: Reforming Evangelicalism Today

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Bill Hybels did market research and now his daughter does a Christian-spin on a TED tour.

• Jake Meador

• • •

Today, some considerations about reforming the church in our own day.

In the light of the Jen Hatmaker situation that drew a lot of attention in the Christian world this past week (and which I have no interest in discussing today), Jake Meador has written a thought-provoking article at Mere Orthodoxy called “Our Impoverished Imaginations: The World of Jen Hatmaker.”

So, this is more about the world Ms. Hatmaker comes from and which she represents — the evangelical church world that grew out of the boomer-era seeker-sensitive evangelicalism in which today’s young Christians grew up. Jake Meador suggests that this world is in need of serious reform.

This is a critique that comes from a different perspective than the one that has characterized Internet Monk over the years. Michael Spencer and the rest of us here have represented baby-boomers who eventually found that the revivalist-based, consumerist-oriented, culture war transformed, programmatic world of U.S. evangelicalism failed to nourish and support us as we aged into mature adulthood.

As our personal worlds grew bigger and deeper and fuller, our churches appeared smaller and shallower, more in their own little worlds of theological biblicism, moralistic therapeutic deism, and a pragmatic growth mentality that emphasized packaging, programs and performances. By and large, they avoided pursuing spiritual depth through liturgical renewal and practices of silence and reflection, pursuing relational depth through pastoral care and welcoming the poor, and pursuing missional depth by getting out into their communities with forbearance and ecumenical grace. Evangelicalism, in essence, represented suburban U.S. culture as much or more than it did historic Christianity.

While Meador acknowledges some of evangelicalism’s contributions, he strongly confirms this critique:

The suburban Christianity of the 90s and 2000s existed within a broader cultural milieu. This milieu relied upon the same thing that sustains our culture today: Market-backed individualism that sacrifices the social capital existing amongst traditional small societies in hopes of obtaining increased personal freedom for individual members of the society. Within such a space, religious and political identity becomes more of a personal branding statement than adherence to a defined set of principles that you believe to be accurate descriptions of what is good, true, and beautiful.

Boomer-era evangelicalism was itself a creature comfortable living in this ecosystem. Indeed, the institutions that defined it were almost unimaginable apart from that broader system. We had our huge megachurches with concert-like worship spaces and pastors who often behaved more like CEOs than shepherds of souls. We had our radio stations, TV stations (and shows), musicians, and award shows. We had our own tee-shirts and gift store paraphernalia. We had youth ministries that looked like typical after school clubs but with superficial trappings of Christian faith.

In all these ways, we had a Christianity that served more as a brand identity within the broader realm filled with autonomous, self-made consumers building and refining their selves through commercial activity. We had different products, but the differences weren’t the point; the products were.

As long as we shopped and engaged in other sorts of commerce as the primary way of expressing our self-identity, the market was happy to indulge our difference. Thus religious identity for many Americans came to look more like a brand than fidelity to the Covenant Lord we meet in Scripture.

Now, Meador says, the new generation of evangelicals is continuing to subconsciously conform to today’s dominant culture, at the same time they are criticizing and even leaving the evangelical bubble in which they grew up.

Meador calls these young people, “the second generation of seeker-sensitive evangelicalism.” His charge? “Even when they try to stake out a more ostensibly counter-cultural position…they often end up mimicking more mainstream trends in rich, suburban America.” To help us visualize these trends, Meador links to an article that describes the sleek and clean “Apple ideology” that has come to characterize this world.

He compares videos that show the similar ethos between business conferences and progressive Christian conferences. He observes that TED Talks have become the standard and that evangelicals today riff off of that vibe in the same way that previous generations took cultural trends and “Christianized” them in order to appear “relevant.”

In other words, we boomers taught our children well.

By adopting the norms of the bourgeois, the attractional Christians of the 1970s were setting themselves and their children up to become good syncretists and utterly incapable of mounting any kind of serious prophetic critique of their culture.

How does Jake Meador suggest that we reform evangelicalism today?

First, he says, we must counter commercialized and individualized church. “We need to regain the idea of Christianity being an entire life system. Our faith does not simply serve as a set of therapeutic principles to help individual people feel better about themselves. It actually defines what reality is and holds us accountable to it.”

Second, he says we must go local. “What we must recover, then, is the idea of a domain in which we live that is not the global marketplace. We need to return again to the idea of smaller places that we work to build and improve through work characterized first and foremost by affection, intimate knowledge, and patience.”

These are good suggestions that need to be fleshed out. I especially like the way he ends his piece with an appeal to “the glory of the mundane.”

Talking about these very matters has always been and will continue to be a big part of our raison d’être here at Internet Monk. Thanks to Jake Meador for helping us remember the ongoing need for reformation in each generation.

Reformation Considerations: An Interview with William Sola

Note from CM: In the light of Reformation Day and the beginning of the year-long celebration of the Ref’s 500th anniversary, we will present some articles this week on Reformation themes.

Michael Spencer, whose views about Protestantism and Catholicism developed and changed a great deal over the years of his writing, once said that the Reformation, “while tragic and sad, was and remains a sad, tragic necessity.”

While I basically agree with that statement, it doesn’t mean that all the formulations that came out of the Reformation have ultimately proven helpful. In an article at RNS, for example, Jacob Lupfer says this about the doctrine of “sola scriptura” —

Luther’s “sola scriptura” — “Scripture alone!” — is the essential Protestant rallying cry. Yet it is highly problematic, requiring a rejection of the church that Jesus built on Peter in favor of a book that was canonized centuries later and subject to endless unresolved and unresolvable conflicts of interpretation.

Sola scriptura unleashed innumerable fights over which interpretations will prevail in churches and institutions. This has led to an endless proliferation of sects and denominations.

Today’s post of an interview first given here at IM in 2010, takes a metaphorical look at this teaching and suggests some of the problems attending it.

• • •

Reporter: Hello, today I’m with William Sola, great, great, great grandson of Jack Sola, founder of the Sola Bakery Company. Thanks for joining us today, Mr. Sola.

Sola: My pleasure.

Reporter: You are the latest in a long line of Solas to have inherited the Sola Bakery business. if I understand correctly, your company is now being run in quite a different way than it was in the past. Can you tell us about that?

Sola: That’s right. we operate strictly on a franchise basis now — you tell us you want to run a Sola Bakery, we verify that you’re a believer in the Sola name, and boom! there you go, you can run your own Sola Bakery.

Reporter: How do you go about helping these franchise owners get started in business?

Sola: We give them the book.

Reporter: The book?

Sola: That’s right, the Sola Bakery book.

Reporter: I assume that this book contains all the directions one would need to get a bakery going — specific steps for setting up a business, company policies, the unique Sola recipes, all of that?

Sola: No, not really. The book is more like a history of Jack Sola and his family. It lays out his roots, the background of why he started the bakery, and then tells about his life, his sayings, and especially the sacrifices he made to start the first Sola Bakery. It also tells the exciting story of the early growth of the business, and several letters that the first company managers wrote to bakeries around the area to help them with their specific problems. Oh, you can find bits and pieces of various recipes in there, and fragments of policies and procedures. but mostly, it’s the story of Jack Sola and what he created.

Reporter: It doesn’t contain specific company policies and the actual recipes for baking Sola products? How then do you maintain quality control? How do you make sure one Sola cake is like another Sola cake?

Sola: We don’t care too much about quality control or consistency. We pretty much just give new owners the book and let them go. They’re on their own then. We think the book contains enough principles to keep them straight and faithful to the spirit of our founder, but they are free to develop their own recipes and run the business any way they want. This has led to a whole new, exciting era in Sola Bakery history, and we are celebrating it with our new slogan.

Reporter: And what is that?

Sola: “SOLA BAKERIES: A SURPRISE IN EVERY BOX.”

Reporter: Oh my. But, doesn’t that confuse people? Doesn’t it bother you that people don’t really know what to expect when they buy a product from a Sola Bakery? And what if they get something really bad, or even harmful?

Sola: Actually, we like it that people don’t know what to expect — it adds an air of spontaneity and excitement that we think is great! Here at headquarters, we just say, “LET THEM EAT CAKE!” and then wait to hear the thrilling reports from the field. If a customer isn’t satisfied with her local Sola Bakery, we figure there are enough other franchises in the area. We don’t care if she tries them all until she’s satisfied.

Reporter: So, the “Sola” name really doesn’t indicate what kind of a product you’re going to get.

Sola: That’s right. What we can guarantee is that it will be a “Sola” cake, no more, no less. Beyond that, it’s up for grabs. And we like it that way.

Reporter: And there you have it — William Sola, President of Sola Bakeries, telling us that, when it comes to Sola Bakeries and Sola cakes, it’s a surprise in every box.

Good night, and GOOD LUCK.

Sermon: The Truth Will Make You Free (Reformation Sunday)

Note from CM: Beginning yesterday, I will be preaching every Sunday at St. George Lutheran Church in Edinburgh, Indiana until April. On Mondays, I’ll post my sermons, and I hope that you will find nourishment and encouragement through them. Of course, you are free to critique and help me improve my preaching as well!

We celebrated Reformation Sunday yesterday, and so the Gospel text was from John 8. My sermon takes a fairly traditional Law/Gospel approach to the words of Jesus in this passage.

• • •

SERMON: The Truth Will Make You Free
Reformation Sunday 2016
Oct. 30, 2016

³¹Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” ³³They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

³⁴Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. ³⁶So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. ³⁷I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. ³⁸I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father.”

• John 8:1-38

❦

How many of you have heard the saying, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free”? It looks like everyone is familiar with these words of Jesus from today’s gospel text. It is hard to read today’s gospel without focusing on that line that has become such a slogan in our world: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” So today I’d like to explore it with you.

I have heard this slogan used in a variety of contexts.

I have read newspapers who have this as their purpose statement. They put it on the front page, right below the name of the newspaper: “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.”

In this context, they are expressing a modern idea about the role of the press in a free, democratic society. The role of journalists is to keep citizens informed of the truth, because it is only in dealing with the actual facts of life — the truth — that we will be able to make informed decisions about our lives together in a representative democracy. “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

I have also heard it used by those who practice psychological counseling: “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.”

In this context, counselors emphasize that we have to overcome the lies we tell ourselves every day, the distortions of truth that keep us from being full and free human beings. For example, a counselor might be dealing with a client who was abused as a child. She grew up thinking that she was worthless, that no one loved her, and that she was only here in this world to be controlled and used by other people. There is a tape that keeps playing in her head telling her these things. The counselor tells her she needs to dispel those lies and come to know the truth about herself, about the abuse she’s suffered, about her true worth as a human being created in the image of God, loved and claimed by Jesus in the gospel.

And there’s a lot of truth in that. Like this woman, all of us, to one degree or another, find ourselves enslaved to thinking that is unhealthy and that does not represent reality. We need to learn to overcome that and to retrain our minds to view ourselves and our lives from a different standpoint, so that the chains that bind us can be broken and we can live as truly free human beings. “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.”

On this Reformation Sunday, we might also think of this slogan in terms of what happened in Germany 500 years ago. Martin Luther was an advocate for spiritual freedom, represented in this slogan from today’s gospel: “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.”

On a personal level, as a young man Luther felt enslaved by his own sins and could not believe that God welcomed him and accepted him as his own beloved child. Even though Luther had become a monk, devoting himself to God’s service, he felt lost and hopeless. One biography of Luther describes his spiritual condition like this:

So acute had Luther’s distress become that even the simplest helps of religion failed to bring him heartsease. Not even prayer could quiet his tremors; for when he was on his knees, the Tempter would come and say, “Dear fellow, what are your praying for? Just see how quiet it is about you here. Do you think that God hears your prayer and pays any attention?”

Martin Luther was as religious a man as you could imagine, yet he had no spiritual peace. In German, the word that describes Luther’s inward state in those days is Anfechtungan: spiritual despair. Luther felt enslaved to his sins and without hope of gaining emancipation. He saw himself under God’s judgment and condemnation. He lived in constant fear and anxiety about his soul. He was not free.

However, in 1513 Luther began to study and lecture on the book of Psalms and then on Paul’s letters to the Romans and the Galatians. Through these biblical studies, he began to realize the grace of God in Jesus Christ. As he meditated on the meaning of the cross Christ, in particular, he came to see that a “great exchange” had taken place: Jesus had taken his sins and in return had given him a righteous standing before God. Luther saw that he was accepted by God, loved by God, and considered righteous by God because of what Jesus had done for him. He was no longer under God’s judgment, but instead believed he had been delivered from his sins and from the onslaughts of the evil one.

Martin Luther was set free through the truth of the grace of God in Jesus, who died and rose again for him.

But there was a great captivity in society in those days as well. The whole Catholic church in Europe also found itself in a kind of bondage, and Martin Luther felt a growing discontent against corrupt practices that he believed were enslaving God’s people. So, beginning in 1516, he began to speak out specifically against the practice of indulgences, by which one could pay money and buy a way out of purgatory for oneself and for loved ones. In essence, people were being encouraged to buy their salvation. You can imagine the corruption that might attend that.

Then in 1517, Pope Leo was trying to raise funds to build St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, and the practice of selling indulgences grew dramatically. A man named Tetzel became renowned for his persuasive practices of raising money in this way. Martin Luther reacted to such practices, believing that they were enslaving people in spiritual bondage and keeping them from freely trusting Christ and living lives of freedom in him. Luther served as a parish priest as well as a teacher during these days, and as he heard the confessions of ordinary people in Wittenberg, he realized that they had little spiritual peace and only a paltry understanding of the gospel.

And so it is said that on the eve of All Saints Day, October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This was his way of calling for public debate on such matters as indulgences, purgatory, and other theological questions. Then, making use of the new technology of the printing press, Luther had the 95 Theses printed and distributed throughout Germany so that the common people could read them too. And thus the Reformation was born.

That’s why we’re celebrating Reformation Day today. Through the ongoing work of Martin Luther and other reformers, a new era in the history of western civilization was born, an era in which the truth of the gospel, applied in the context of the abuses of the dominant church theology and practices of that day, set people free to trust Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

However, it is not enough to simply commemorate that today. Rather, it is essential that we bring these matters into our own context, into our own lives, so that the truth might set us free too. First, we must understand this text before us, then we must determine how it will affect us in our own context.

st-paul-lutheran-fall-2

The first thing I note in our gospel text for today is that the Jewish people here, who had to some extent believed in Jesus and were listening to him that day, did not believe that they were enslaved.

They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

Actually, this was a rather ludicrous statement. At that very moment, the Jewish nation was occupied by Rome. They were living under the rule of another world power. Soldiers walked their streets. The Jewish people had little say in their own affairs and destiny. Nevertheless, in their pride and independence, they said, “We’re not slaves! What are you talking about?”

I wonder how many of us would say the same. Here we are, relatively wealthy Americans, living in a free land. It’s hard for us to imagine that we are in bondage to anyone or anything.

Is it possible that our ears are deaf to the prophets in our midst? Is it possible that many of us are living self-indulgent lives, neglecting the poor in our midst, continuing to live in patterns of pride, selfishness, neglect, violence, racism, and materialism that represent destructive forces in our lives and society? Perhaps we are bound to more enemies than we can imagine.

Nobody likes to think of himself or herself as enslaved. I know I certainly don’t. But if I stop and think for a moment, and if I’m honest, I realize that my own heart, mind, and life is often filled with characteristics that represent this evil age more than the gospel and the way of Jesus. I’m not so different from the folks in this text at all.

Secondly we see here that Jesus goes on to say to them that everyone who commits sin is, in some way, enslaved.

I think Jesus is trying to get us to see that this whole world we live in is occupied by strong powers of sin, and evil, and death. Every day, you and I are subject to those powers, and we often find ourselves making bad choices, going the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil rather than the way of Jesus..

We choose to listen to the gossip about a neighbor or coworker.
We join in and make fun of the person who is quirky or unpopular.
We give in to our anger and indulge ourselves with hateful revenge fantasies toward others we think have offended us.
We worry incessantly and never even think to pray about the matters in our lives that we should trust God with.
We give in to laziness or apathy and fail to practice love toward those who need our help or attention.

We find ourselves saying, “How could I do that? How could I say that? How could I think that?” And we fail to recognize that we under the influence of the powers of disorder and corruption that fill this world. We often cooperate with them rather than following Jesus and walking in the way of the gospel.

We need a wake-up call, like the one Jesus gave to these Jewish folks that day. We need to look around and see the bars that imprison us, the habits of thought and action that we cannot break, the ways in which we are complicit with the ways of the world. Sin will enslave you. Sin often does enslave us.

The third thing I see in this text is that these people who did not believe they were enslaved, but who nevertheless were acting under the powers of sin, evil, and death, were in danger of missing Jesus.

In our text, Jesus says that these people to whom he was talking — good, religious Jewish people, descendants of Abraham — would soon be looking for an opportunity to kill him because they would not receive his words. And that would be a tragedy, because Jesus himself was the truth that could set them free. Not only did he say, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” he also declared, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

The people in this encounter were developing an animosity and opposition to the only One who could save them, the only One who could set them free. How sad it would be for them to miss Jesus, their only hope of emancipation!

Jesus is the truth that sets people free. That’s what this text is telling us. So, if you want to be free indeed, free to live as the person God created you to be, it’s all about knowing Jesus, trusting in Jesus, following Jesus.

So, when we say, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” we are not talking about how a free press will help secure our political freedom. Nor are we talking about how we can free our psyches from the pain of the past. As important as those things might be, when Jesus says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We’re not even looking back to the great events of the 16th century, when Martin Luther took on a corrupt church culture that he felt was enslaving God’s people. No, we are hearing this word for ourselves. What is Jesus saying to us?

He is talking about knowing him, because he himself is the truth.
He is talking about being set free from the power of sin and evil and death.
He is talking about getting out from beneath the slavery of our sins. He is talking about being released from the kingdom of Satan and being transferred into the Kingdom of God.
He is talking about finding a new life in Christ.
He is talking about being forgiven, and renewed, and set free to become the human beings we were created to be.
He is talking about receiving the Holy Spirit and being filled with the fruits of God’s love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.
He’s talking about our opportunity to display the image of God to all around us so that they might see the goodness and love and generosity of our Creator.

In one of Martin Luther’s hymns, he testified to the joy of coming to know Christ and being set free:

Though great our sins and sore our woes,
His grace much more aboundeth;
His helping love no limit knows,
Our utmost need it soundeth.
Our shepherd good and true is He,
Who will at last His [people] free
From all their sin and sorrow.

May we also be people who know the truth in Jesus, and may it set us free today and forevermore. Amen.

Pic & Post of the Week: Halloween Classic Edition

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Porch Rail Pumpkins

(Click on picture for larger image)

Note from CM: Because tomorrow is Halloween, our pic & poem post will become a pic & post article — excerpted from one of Michael Spencer’s classic Halloween pieces.

• • •

The world of the imagination has always been essential to human beings, but they’ve never known just what to do with it. Sometimes they want to live there entirely, and others times they avoid it completely. They reward those who create it in books and music, and yet they fear these artists of the imagination as well, even doing them great harm. Throughout history, the imagination has been denounced as well as celebrated. Each one of us knows about those times when we were welcome to bring happiness, and also about those times when we were blamed for all kinds of evil that we did not create, in fact, could not create because of what we are.

This ambiguity is part of human nature, and we ourselves embody part of the struggle. Is the world a place that truly is as it appears, or is there more to the universe than what eyes see and ears hear on any particular day? Do good and evil really exist, or are they simply words that mean nothing? Do human being really understand themselves, or are there mysteries within them that defy explanation?

On our best days, we all realize that we are simply the imaginary embodiment of that struggle to know and comprehend, and our part is to play the unseen, the unknown, that which is not understood. We allow the human imagination to play with the reality that escapes science and math and college courses and glib experts. We are the night, the darkness and the fear. We do not exist, but human imagination needs us desperately to try and take hold of the incomprehensible.

Particularly painful for many of us are the escalating attacks of religious people on the realm of the imagination. We have suffered from those who see the imagination as a gateway of evil, rather than a canvas on which human nature itself paints the picture. We have been blamed for violence and even death, things we would not even know were it not for human beings investing us with those actions in their own minds. It is as if some religious people actually believe that we exist — that we are real and were somehow a threat to them.

When I see someone explaining the evil influence of a pumpkin, it’s both a cause for laughter and for sadness. How can anyone, particularly one who says they believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, believe that mummies and werewolves and ghosts and witches hold any spiritual or actual power? One of the best imaginative writers, C.S. Lewis, who created all of the Narnia characters, was convinced that God gave human beings the realm of the imagination to be a sort of classroom to teach them, in a childish form, the spiritual nature of the universe and reality itself. In allowing them to create the imaginative realm, they were learning to reflect on reality and see its true character, and to see their own character as well. It was a way to see that human beings are the imaginative creations of God himself, and they reflect both his nature and their own fallen, rebellious nature.

I believe it was Frank Peretti who recently said that from his childhood fascination with monsters and ghouls he learned to live with his own physical deformity and the isolation and rejection it brought. He learned to love himself, and to find compassion towards other hurting people, by watching Frankenstein and Creature of the Black Lagoon. How many children have come to see spiritual reality through Narnia? To know Jesus through Aslan? What lessons of good and evil are being taught right now by Harry Potter? Whether they be fairy tales or silly horror movies, the imaginative realm is a reflection of human beings’ ability to create their own worlds, with realities that reflect the depth of nature and the realities of good, evil, hope and redemption.

For all the abuse we have suffered at the hands of those who believe Halloween is somehow the real world ( and that includes those humans who think themselves to be vampires and spend hours looking for ghosts), we must never forget those who celebrate our world purely and simply, without making it into an idol of fear or devotion. On our night, millions of children will enter into the world of the imagination and be enriched by doing so. They will safely sojourn in a world slightly different from their own and return better for it. Teenagers who take time off from being so serious to play and be children again. And certainly adults who continue to love the world of the imagination and return there often. To these person we owe our continued joy.

Saturday Ramblings: October 29, 2016

pope-leo-x-as-antichrist_0 — Pope Leo X as the Antichrist, as pictured in a Reformation era flyer

RAMBLER OF THE WEEK

Despite the fact that, in one of his last writings, Martin Luther:

addressed the pope as “Your Hellishness,”
called him a person who shoveled horse shit into people’s mouths;
despite his description of the pope as “full of all the worst devils in hell-full, full, and so full that [he] can do nothing but vomit, throw, and fart devils!”;
despite the fact that he called him “a desperate scoundrel, the enemy of God and man, the destroyer of Christendom, and Satan’s bodily dwelling,” “a crude ass, unlearned in the Scriptures,” and “a pope of Sodomists, this founder and master of all sins” —

— despite all that, Pope Francis will ramble to Sweden this week, where he will honor Luther at a conference that kicks off a year of commemorations of the Reformation’s 500th anniversary.

Here’s the announcement from the National Catholic Reporter:

Pope Francis travels to Sweden Monday on a trip that marks the start of yearlong observances for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. He will be meeting with the Lutheran World Federation, which was founded in Lund, Sweden 70 years ago. Some 10,000 people are expected to attend a joint Catholic-Lutheran conference and prayer service under the theme From Conflict to Communion – Together in Hope.

Francis will attend a Catholic-Lutheran prayer service at the Protestant cathedral of Lund on Oct. 31, the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of a German cathedral, which questioned the sale of indulgences and the Gospel foundations of papal authority and sparked the Reformation.

Pope Francis, with this initiative toward healing old wounds, is our Rambler of the Week.

• • •

CHICAGO CUBS AND CLEVELAND INDIANS IN THE WORLD SERIES!

That’s right, in case you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, the unthinkable matchup in Major League Baseball’s World Series has come to pass. The Cubs haven’t been in a World Series since 1945 and the Indians haven’t won a World Series since 1948. The teams split the first two games in Cleveland, and will meet at Wrigley Field for the next three games. Who’dathunk it?

In related news, the Prince of Darkness announced that a heavy frost surprised residents of hell when they awoke this morning. A hard freeze warning was issued for tonight. “We just might freeze over,” Lucifer warned.

Also, this just in: God did not make the little green apples. And it does not rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.

Go Cubs go.

Update: The Indians just beat the Cubs 1-0 in game three. This Cubs fan is very, very anxious.

• • •

INTERNET MONK ALTERNATIVE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 2016

Well, we’re just a little more than a week away from the 2016 elections here in the U.S. To say the least, we here at IM are underwhelmed by our choices for president this year. So we’re looking for alternatives, and this guy…

He’s suave. He’s debonair. Cool under pressure. And you can bet he knows his stuff. We present our fourth alternative candidate for President of the United States in the election of 2016: Deputy Bernard P. Fife.

Just ask him where Aleppo is, you’ll see.

♋︎

• • •

MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART LUTHER EXHIBIT

An extraordinary and extensive exhibit has come to the Minneapolis Museum of Art (Mia) in this Reformation season. “Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation” opens October 30.

Mia partnered with four German institutions for the show, including the Luther House in Wittenberg, which is closed in preparation for its jubilee year, allowing a number of key works to travel to the U.S.

Here’s an overview of the exhibition:

Five hundred years ago, one man took a stand that shook Europe and changed the world. Now you can see the story of Martin Luther and the Reformation brought to life through astonishing artworks and historical objects, traveling outside Germany for the first time ever. Luther used art and the newly invented printing press to challenge Europe’s leaders and spread a revolution of religious, cultural, and societal change. This exhibition includes paintings, sculpture, gold, textiles, and works on paper—as well as Luther’s personal possessions and recent archaeological finds—that shed new light on an explosive era and the man who ignited it.

In addition to archaeological objects that tell the story of Luther’s life, the exhibit contains some rare pieces, including the pulpit of Luther’s last sermon. There’s also a copy of the Ortenburg Bible, a hand-colored copy of Luther’s translation of the Bible into German, and paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, who helped shift the style and tone of religious art as a way to communicate Luther’s message.

• • •

R.I.P. JACK CHICK

It’s almost unfair to put this right after the notice about some of the sublime and world-changing art of the Reformation. But Jack Chick died last week, and the “art” he exhibited through his tracts was one of the staples of the modern Jesus movement that I was involved with in the 1970’s.

Here’s the report from Christianity Today:

Jack Chick, the cartoonist who wanted to save your soul from hell, died Sunday at age 92.

Jack’s Chick’s not-so-subtle warning about Halloween

The biggest name in tract evangelism, Chick distributed more than 500 million pamphlets, nicknamed “chicklets,” over five decades. His signature black-and-white panel comics warned against the dangers of everything from the occult to Family Guy.

Chick’s messages were controversial—including among evangelicals—but his work enjoyed a global reach. His most popular tract, This Was Your Life!, was translated into more than 60 languages.

Chick came to faith shortly after World War II through Charles E. Fuller’s radio show, “Old Fashioned Revival Hour.” The former technical illustrator began drawing and funding his first comic books and pocket-sized tracks in the early 1960s, according to Christian Comics International. Chick Publications grew to start its own print shop, and took off in the ’70s.

• • •

R.I.P. C. PETER WAGNER

Another influential person from 1970’s evangelicalism went the way of all flesh last week. C. Peter Wagner, whose Wikipedia entry describes as “an Apostle, theologian, missiologist, missionary, writer, teacher, and church growth specialist best known for his controversial writings on spiritual warfare.”

Wagner had a missionary background in South America, which influenced his perspectives on spiritual warfare. This emphasis ultimately found Wagner heading up Wagner Leadership Institute, which serves to train leaders to join in a movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, an organization Wagner also helped to found.

My own little corner of fundamentalist evangelicalism decried his charismatic teachings and didn’t have much to do with Wagner. What I do remember was his teaching about spiritual gifts, which was his major contribution to the Church Growth movement. Most everything that became common regarding spiritual gifts teaching and implementation in evangelicalism (defining the spiritual gifts, teaching that every Christian has at least one spiritual gift, using inventories that help people “find” their gift”) owes Wagner credit (or blame, depending on your point of view).

• • •

R.I.P. LARRY RICHARDS

And that’s not all, folks, though the next name may not be as well known to you if you did not go to Bible college or seminary, or have a familiarity with the theories and practices of Christian Education.

Lawrence O. (“Larry”) Richards was a Wheaton College Graduate School professor in the late 1960s, when his seminar on Christian education was highlighted by the National Association of Evangelicals, launching him into the national spotlight.

A Dallas Seminary graduate, his books were standard fare in our dispensationalist-oriented Bible College, including Creative Bible Teaching. One professor said that Richards developed “the most comprehensive theory of Christian education by any evangelical writer of the 20th century,”

Larry Richards wrote more than 250 books, and is probably known by most people for his children’s and youth Bibles. His kid-friendly versions of the NIV include the jungle-themed Adventure Bible, which is the top-selling children’s Bible in the world, and the Teen Study Bible, which sold more than 4 million copies.

• • •

QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK

How can I tell if a quote really came from C.S. Lewis?

Does social media make us dumber?

What’s it like to be a female pastor’s husband?

Was this the spot where Jesus’ body was laid in the tomb?

How are giant sequoias weathering California’s drought?

What’s it like to be the Catholic chaplain for the Chicago Cubs?

How does Christian theology affect one’s body image?

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PUT THIS IN YOUR “HUH?” FILE

Hey, maybe he didn’t realize he was being watched. But I would think being followed by a helicopter after police tried to arrest you on an outstanding warrant might be something a person wouldn’t miss.

Nevertheless, 35-year-old Joshua Adkins either didn’t know or didn’t care.

While leading police on a chase, including the helicopter that kept tabs on him, Adkins did something most fleeing criminals wouldn’t do — he stopped at In-N-Out Burger and ordered a meal. Apparently, he got ahead of his pursuers just enough to satisfy his hunger. But then, when he drove into a neighborhood and tried to flee on foot, the cops got him.

Doesn’t say much for Adkins, though you might give him credit for not going to jail hungry.

On the other hand, it says a lot for In-N-Out Burger.

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REFORMATION MONTH: LUTHER INSULT OF THE WEEK

Fridays with Michael Spencer: October 28, 2016

Autumn Mountain Ridges, photo by David Cornwell

A saint is capable of loving created things and enjoying the use of them and dealing with them in a perfectly simple, natural manner, making no formal references to God, drawing no attention to his own piety, and acting without any artificial rigidity at all. His gentleness and his sweetness are not pressed through his pores by the crushing restraint of a spiritual strait-jacket.

• Thomas Merton
New Seeds of Contemplation

• • •

At the end of the day, Paul says it is his ambition to take the gospel where it’s never been heard. Jesus says his Kingdom will replace the kingdoms of this world. Between the areas where “no one has heard” and the “Kingdom has come,” God the Holy Spirit is doing countless things with different people at different places of spiritual maturity and with different degrees of success.

Jesus does what he does through people. They are in small groups or large; they disagree and agree; they get along or they don’t. But Jesus’ chosen method is to use people to get his work done. If you have left the church, are you still following Jesus, and are you still available to work in the Kingdom of God in this broken world? Are you open to the truth that in Jesus’ Kingdom you still have an important part to play?

If you want to know what that noise is you’re hearing, it’s the angry mob that doesn’t like hearing that the New Testament isn’t just the story of their church. Those who support churchianity are using Jesus and the Scriptures to win an unnecessary argument. They feel it’s their highest duty to prove the rightness of their chosen franchise operation. In fact, Christians have been so busy proving their wing of the church is number one with God that they fail to recognize the many ways God’s Kingdom work is being done by those who are strikingly different from themselves. If you leave the franchised church, you might be going out the door to find God or to serve God more freely. Either way, it makes little difference to those who see Jesus only within the walls of a church building. In their minds, if you step outside you’re wrong.

If you are a church-leaver, I don’t want to drag you back. I have a better idea: find yourself in God’s great and diverse purpose. Where do you fit in his movement, bringing the Kingdom of God to all people on earth? Can you find your place in the wide diversity of where God is working and how God is working? Can you replace churchianity with a Jesus-shaped spirituality that experiences God’s power as God works toward fulfilling his incredible, history-changing purposes?

Where you are right now in relation to the church, you are still part of God’s design for the Kingdom. Jesus is building his people and his movement his way. I believe we’re all experiencing God’s agenda for our lives. It’s a journey of discovering a Jesus-shaped spirituality now and usefulness in God every day we’re alive.

by Michael Spencer
Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality

❦

Photo by David Cornwell at Flickr. Used by permission.

Chris Kratzer: I’m Done: Why I’m Completely Walking Away From Church, Ministry, And Most Everything “Christian”

Note from CM: Today we hear from Chris Kratzer, who blogs at Putting into Words What Only Grace Is Brave Enough to Say. Chris, believe me, I understand. Thanks for letting us share a bit of your journey today.

• • •

I’m Done: Why I’m Completely Walking Away From Church, Ministry, And Most Everything “Christian”
by Chris Kratzer

I promise, it’s not you, it’s me.

That, I’m convinced.

I’ve tried, I really have. Twenty-two years of ministry—even more time, simply being a “Christian.”

I can’t do it, and it’s high time to call the wizard out from behind the curtain.

This whole American-Christianity thing, I’m just not good enough. I can’t pull it off.

Church, ministry, “Christian” stuff—I simply don’t have what it takes.

I mean, you Church folks are amazing, I don’t know how you do it. The way you keep your righteousness and closeness with God afloat through a vigilant life of sin-management, do-gooding, and Christian faithfulness, I can’t even begin to lift that kind of weight, let alone hold it up. For me, every time I’m admonished with things I need to do in order to be a better person or become a more “fully devoted” follower of Jesus Christ, I don’t even get close to mastering just one of them, not to mention the five others listed in the sermon notes. And before you know it, the next Sunday, we’re on to a whole new set of things I need to go after. Honestly, I just can’t keep up like you. I’m so far behind from being a “real deal Christian.” And quite frankly, I’m ashamed of my incapacity to spiritually perform at your level. I truly don’t know how you field that kind of pressure and keep good going with all the spiritual consequences ahead of you if you don’t. Your fear management skills must be impeccable.

Something is wrong with me, I’m sure. All the accountability partners, prayer warriors and small-group interventions have somehow fallen flat. Years of Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, pastors, and mentors hoping I’ll get serious enough to get my life on track. I feel like such a hypocrite and fake to just take a step towards your fellowship, as if I’m even close to making the grade or would ever be capable of drawing within your lines. It all leaves me so empty. I feel everything in my soul shutting down at just the thought.

I look around, and everyone else is so much more spiritual. All the inspirational posts they have on Facebook, all the good things they are doing for the Lord—so deep into worship and prayer with their eyes closed and hands raised, loving every minute of it with complete abandon. There’s this ardent love and commitment to Jesus that’s just dripping from everybody’s lips with such eloquent and Jesus-flavored verbiage. And here I am—riddled with serious doubts and questions, embarrassed that I’m not feeling nearly as into Jesus as apparently I should. Heck, truth be told, I’m still struggling with a good amount of the bad stuff you folks seem to be so far beyond. My beliefs change, my behaviors fall short, my passions fade—no wonder why, from time to time, I’ve gotten the disappointed looks, cold shoulders, and leadership “time outs.” What was I thinking, I’m way out of my league. Repentance here, pointing out sin there, keeping people from an eternal torture in hell prescribed from a God who is Love—I don’t know how you stomach it all. It’s true, I really should be so much further along by now, but for some reason, all the formulas, disciplines, rituals, steps, and “soaking” in worship aren’t working for me. And trust me, I’ve tried—really, really hard.

Church, I want to fit in so badly, I want to feel like a genuine follower in American Christianity, but I just can’t. Whatever it is you have, I simply don’t have it in me.

I mean, you people in ministry—you got it going on. All of you, rockstars for sure. How you keep up in the whirlwind of competitive Christianity is beyond me. It’s everywhere—in all my searching, I’ve been hard pressed to find a layer of Christian ministry that hasn’t been turned into pretty much a kind of all-out ministry cage match. Quite frankly, I don’t know how so many of you do it—making sure your ministry is out-growing the next, your blog posts are the first written on the latest controversial subject, your platform is increasing, your branding is on point, your engaging your following, updating your Twitter account, promoting your latest “thing”—on and on and on, keeping up with ministry trends, making sure you’re “in” with all the right people, all while having the picture perfect marriage and family pimped with the latest fashions, fohawks, tattoos, and skinny jeans required in order to be relevant. Wow, I bend a knee in your honor and awe.

And then, the criticism. All the people determined to misunderstand you—the people who treat you unfairly, kick you to the curb, and hang you out to dry. The fellow people in ministry who sabotage you, seek to undermine your influence, use you, and are always trying to “out minister” you. How you shrug it all off and plow through—my hat goes off to you.

I’m sure I just don’t have enough faith and I am way too insecure. I should be so much stronger in my identity in Christ, but a lot of times, I’m just not. Thank God there are celebrity ministers out there within every camp and kind who do, say, and write so much better than the rest of us—makes up for all my floundering for sure. You folks are heroes, how you stomach and swim in the business and enterprise that is empire Christianity is way beyond my capacity—the compromises you have to make, the duplicities you must have to embody—yours is a high wire act I’m just not good enough to swing. As much as your table in the lunch room captures my attention, I can’t hang with you all, though my ego might keep on dreaming. I must concede, I just don’t have it in me.

I mean, “Christian” stuff—your imagination is mind-boggling. Christian yoga, Christian yoga pants, Christian basketball, Christian football, Christian dance, Christian art, Christian music, Christian movies, Christian television, Christian bathrooms, Christian food, Christian fast food, Christian books, Christian book marks, Christian clubs, Christian groups, Christian values, Christian principles, Christian nations, not to mention, Christian ___________. Oh, and I almost forgot, Christian_____________.

I am amazed, you are the masters of drawing lines—defining who’s in and who’s out, what’s in and what’s out, what’s good for me, and what’s not. My radar for sin and uncleanliness just isn’t that good. Thank God, you label it for me.

But even still, if I’m honest, I find myself deeply wanting to “be with” and “in with” so many of things that aren’t necessarily “Christian.” And for that, I know I am suppose to feel, “dirty”—but, I don’t.

Surely, something is wrong with me—terribly wrong with me. I’m damaged goods, falling away, chasing wayward spirits of doctrine, or something “biblical” like that. Yet, I can’t help it. Something inside of me that I have been told for years is so weak, meek, and poor feels, yet all so strong and divine, drawing me away— far, far away.

I’m pretty sure I am going to hell, at leasts that’s what “they” say. So, I guess that’s just how it’s going to have to be, because I simply can’t fake-it-to-make-it anymore. You folks have it, I don’t.

I know breaking up is hard to do, but I’m done. I’m walking away.

Church, ministry, so much of this “Christian” stuff.

I’m done playing the game, running the rat race, never measuring up or doing enough. I’m done competing, sacrificing my sanity, and being spiritually cross-checked every time I have an open shot on goal.

I’ve simply resigned myself to a life of trying to fully be myself—relying on Grace and loving some people along the way as best I can, believing that in so doing and in so being, Jesus is somehow pleased.

I’m a firm believer that you don’t lose friends, you lose people who you thought were friends.

And better than that—you don’t stop loving, you just learn to love more honestly.

I sense I’ll be doing the former, and I know, I’ll be doing the latter.

For honesty is the first thing that grows from a life planted in Grace.