The Internet Monk Archives

Drawn to the Religionless

I often ask myself why a “Christian instinct” often draws me more to the religionless people than to the religious, by which I don’t in the least mean with any evangelizing intention, but, I might almost say, “in brotherhood.” While I’m often reluctant to mention God by name to religious people — because that name somehow seems to me here not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest (it’s particularly bad when others start to talk in religious jargon; I then dry up almost completely and feel awkward and uncomfortable) — to people with no religion I can on occasion mention him by name quite calmly and as a matter of course. Religious people speak of God when human knowledge (perhaps simply because they are too lazy to think) has come to an end, or when human resources fail — in fact it is always the deus ex machina that they bring on to the scene, either for the apparent solution of insoluble problems, or as strength in human failure — always, that is to say, exploiting human weakness or human boundaries. Of necessity, that can go on only till people can by their own strength push these boundaries somewhat further out, so that God becomes superfluous as a deus ex machina. I’ve come to be doubtful of talking about any human boundaries (is even death, which people now hardly fear, and is sin, which they now hardly understand, still a genuine boundary today?). It always seems to me that we are trying anxiously in this way to reserve some space for God; I should like to speak of God not on the boundaries but at the center, not in weaknesses but in strength; and therefore not in death and guilt but in man’s life and goodness.

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Letter to Eberhard Bethge, 30 April 1944

* * *

More from Bonhoeffer and one of his last letters today. I’ll admit that I was rather startled to read the words above. Not that I object to his sentiment, but given that my favorite Bonhoeffer book is Life Together, with its sublime consideration of Christian fellowship and intentional community, it is striking to hear him speak like this.

But I love this passage. I can relate.

Bonhoeffer complains here that religious people often speak of God when they can’t think of another answer for the unexplainable or when they express a need for God to provide some lack they perceive. However, as answers become available or solutions apparent, God no longer fits in the equation. Christians then have two choices: they can stubbornly cling to their old interpretation or forget it, chalk it up to limited knowledge in the past and find another insoluble matter of today for which God is the only answer. In this way we (for I am one of these religious folks too) constantly find ourselves “trying anxiously…to reserve some space for God.” Talk of God at times seems forced, born of fear that we might somehow steal glory from him if we embrace human capacity, knowledge, or achievement.

On the other hand, at times there can be a sense of ease when speaking of God to non-religious folks as God comes up naturally in conversation about matters of life.

I have found this to be true in my work as a hospice chaplain. When I enter a home, I often find myself among non-observant people. They don’t speak religious language or have religious habits. Most are just ordinary Midwestern folks who have lived in nominally Christian, common sense realistic environments and who have spent their years working, raising families, and dealing with the ordinary stuff of life.

And these are the things I talk with them about. I notice the pictures and knickknacks in their homes. I learn about their family backgrounds, significant events in their lives, their work, their hobbies. I try to take interest in what interests them, even if it’s something about which I don’t care much.

Sometimes we talk specifically about God, usually when they bring it up. In the context of a friendly talk about life I discover that people are often keen to consider spiritual or religious matters. As we converse, I stay away from jargon and try to keep it simple, but it’s amazing to me how these discussions can plumb the depths, even if the language remains basic.

I guess the point is that most of these folks haven’t learned the unwritten rules of religious discourse that pious Christians develop. They don’t feel pressured to insert God into a sentence or into their view of a situation just because it is expected. They are not worried about being seen as team players. Nor are they anxious to defend God. Unlike the Sunday School child, they don’t think every answer has to be “Jesus.” But they almost always welcome someone who will listen to them, pray for them, and speak kindly to them, and in that context spiritual language finds its natural place in our conversations.

Bonhoeffer notes that religious people tend to focus on matters of sin, guilt, and death — the “boundary” matters which only God can take care of. I wouldn’t deny that such things must be addressed, nor can I imagine that he as a Lutheran pastor would do so. But I hear him saying that perhaps we Christians spend so much time at the boundaries that we are missing God’s presence in “man’s life and goodness.”

As a result, the “God” we are speaking of in our God-language may not be truly representative of the Creator and Incarnate One who redeemed us that we might be fully human and not less.

Pliny vs. Paul

N.T. Wright launches Paul and the Faithfulness of God in surprising fashion: by examining the NT story of Philemon in its context.

He thinks that Philemon reveals that “something very different, different from the way the rest of the world behaved” was taking place through the early Christians. Wright suggests that this account is not just an example of extraordinary kindness, but rather represents something truly new in the world, something related to the message of Christos that is woven throughout the epistle.

Wright compares Philemon with a letter from a Roman senator named Pliny the Younger. Pliny wrote to a friend named Sabinianus about a freed slave who had angered him and had come to Pliny for help, fearing his former master’s wrath. Pliny, persuaded that the freedman was penitent, gave the refugee a stern lecture and then wrote to Sabinianus on his behalf.

The way Pliny reasoned with his friend reveals the social rules of the day. Pliny is in a power position, Sabinianus in the middle, and the freed slave at the bottom of the social pile. The freed slave needs and seeks out a friend in high places. The senator uses his position and attempts to convince his friend to take the penitent one back. Using a bit of ancient psychology, Pliny assures Sabinianus that he was right to be angry, but reminds him that anger might be counterproductive for his gentle personality. He lets him know that he has scolded and warned the offender and won’t give him another chance if he fails Sabinianus again.

The letter worked, and Sabinianus took the man back. As Wright notes, the freed slave was lucky that he could return and not face serious reprisals. In the end, the social order was restored, and the offender had received a strong enough lesson and warning that he dare not step out of line again. Sabinianus restored him on the basis of his repentance and the promise of better behavior, as well as a measure of self-interest in showing himself properly submissive to a superior.

How does this compare with Paul’s letter to Philemon about a situation regarding one Onesimus?

First of all, Wright notes a striking dissimilarity right at the start: Paul, the author, rather than holding a high position in society like Pliny, is in prison! Yet there is an air of strange authority in his words, as though being a prisoner were a noble calling.

But the main impression, once we study the two letters side by side, is that they breathe a different air. They are a world apart. Indeed — and this is part of the point of beginning the present book at this somewhat unlikely spot — this letter, the shortest of all Paul’s writings that we possess, gives us a clear sharp little window onto a phenomenon that demands a historical explanation, which in turn, as we shall see, demands a theological explanation. It is stretching the point only a little to suggest that, if we had no other first-century evidence for the movement that came to be called Christianity, this letter ought to make us think: Something is going on here. Something is different. People don’t say this sort of thing. This isn’t how the world works. A new way of life is being attempted — by no means entirely discontinuous with what was there already, but looking at things in a new way, trying out a new path.

– p. 6

Continue reading “Pliny vs. Paul”

Who Is Christ for Us Today?

What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience–and that means the time of religion in general. We are moving toward a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious anymore. Even those who honestly describe themselves as “religious” do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by “religious.”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Letter to Eberhard Bethge, 30 April 1944

* * *

The famous passage above, from Bonhoeffer’s prison letters, has led to more than a half century of discussion on the question of “religionless Christianity.” Richard Beck has argued that this striking phrase and concept, which has caught the imagination of so many, was actually Bonhoeffer’s penultimate concern. The chief matter for Dietrich Bonhoeffer was: Who is Christ for us today? His central theological question was about Christology. The context was the “religionless” age in which we live.

Beck summarizes it like this:

Bonhoeffer was trying to understand how Christ could be “Lord of the world” in a world that didn’t recognize Christ’s existence or seem to need him. In that kind of world, who is Christ for us?

This was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s question in 1944. The world was at war, with madness at every hand, and Christianity seemed impotent to do anything about it. It caused him to question whether history might be witnessing the end of the Christian era itself.

Our whole nineteen-hundred-year-old Christian preaching and theology rest on the “religious a priori” of mankind. “Christianity” has always been a form — perhaps the true form — of “religion.” But if one day it becomes clear that this a priori does not exist at all, but was historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression, and if therefore man becomes radically religionless — and I think that that is already more or less the case (else how is it, for example, that this war, in contrast to all previous ones, is not calling forth any “religious” reaction?) — what does that mean for “Christianity?”

In his June 8 letter to Bethge, Bonhoeffer further discussed how the historical movement toward “the autonomy of man” had in his time “reached an undoubted completion.” To him, it had become evident that “everything gets along without ‘God’–and, in fact, just as well as before.”

Richard Beck observes that this “world come of age,” this world that had arrived at “adulthood,” was not viewed as a bad thing by Bonhoeffer. He seems to have recognized it as a natural development from childhood to adolescence to maturity. It was something God’s people should accept and not fear. With that in mind, he critiqued as pointless, ignoble, and unchristian any Christian apologetic approach that attacked the world’s adulthood.

Pointless, because it seems to me like an attempt to put a grown-up man back into adolescence, i.e. to make him dependent on things on which he is, in fact, on longer dependent, and thrusting him into problems that are, in fact, no longer problems for him. Ignoble, because it amounts to an attempt to exploit man’s weakness for purposes that are alien to him and to which he has not freely assented. Unchristian, because it confuses Christ with one particular stage in man’s religiousness, i.e. with a human law.

Furthermore, in using these apologetics the Church is advancing a heretical view of God. By complaining that in coming to adulthood the world has evicted God, the church denies the exaltation of Christ as Lord over all things. As if humans could rise up and cast out the Creator and Redeemer of all from his universe! The Church, according to Bonhoeffer, too often presents God as a frustrated parent who doesn’t want human beings to grow up and achieve independence. As if God’s aim is to turn us all back into children.

But if this is not a good approach, how then should Christians live? How should they witness to the Lordship of Christ in a world that has achieved independence from God? We come back to Bonhoeffer’s controlling question: “Who is Christ for us today?”

In the end Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his letters and via his martyrdom, pointed to the Cross as the answer to that question. He writes, “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.”

In other words, God acts in the world through the very act of letting himself be evicted from the world. Christ’s resurrection power and Lordship in the world is exercised not by his powerful, commanding presence and domination over the world, but by letting himself be crucified and cast out again and again. Through his weakness, impotence, and even his absence, Christ reigns.

If the Church is to truly witness to Christ then, it will not be through apologetics or any type of “ministry” that attempts to put the world back under the guardianship of a celestial nanny. Rather, it will be through taking our place alongside our fellow humans as people without God in a world without God in order that we might truly know God. As Richard Beck puts it, “By pushing the false ‘Powerful God’ out of the world the way becomes clear for the God revealed in the cross of Jesus.”

In this light, Dietrich Bonhoeffer expressed his desire to live:

…unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world — watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia; and that is how one becomes a man and a Christian.

The world’s “adulthood” is not something to be feared and fought, rather it becomes a “midwife” to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ: that in his absence Christ is Lord of all.

And perhaps, when we embrace life in a world without God, we shall become Christians.

* * *

Recommended Reading: Richard Beck’s series: “Letters from Cell 92” at Experimental Theology.

Here is a link to Part 1.

No Right Way Once and For All

What you must realize, what you must even come to praise, is the fact that there is no right way that is going to become apparent to you once and for all. The most blinding illumination that strikes and perhaps radically changes your life will be so attenuated and obscured by doubts and dailiness that you may one day come to suspect the truth of that moment at all. The calling that seemed so clear will be lost in echoes of questionings and indecision; the church that seemed to save you will fester with egos, complacencies, banalities; the love of your life will work itself like a thorn in your heart until all you can think of is plucking it out. Courage is persisting in life in spite of it. And faith is finding yourself, in the deepest part of your soul, in the very heart of who you are, moved to praise it.

– Christian Wiman
My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

* * *

In the final scenes of the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks’ character stands at a crossroads with new possibilities for his future, and perhaps for love. An unexpected accident which left him stranded on a desert island had forced him from the life he had planned. Upon his return, he discovered that others had moved on with their own lives without him, and that it would be impossible for him to pick up where things had left off. However, when he takes care of one final detail remaining from his shipwreck — delivering a package to a home in the country — he ends up meeting a woman in a pickup truck who, it is hinted, may provide direction for his life in days to come.

And so at times, we too stand on the threshold of a new season of life. We have changed, others around us have changed, situations and circumstances have changed. We may have passed through a time of disorientation or disruption that has altered life by loss. Perhaps our prospects have moved in the other direction and life has been transformed by good fortune. It may be as simple as being at one of those points in the normal course of growing older and facing new roles and dealing with new realities.

The difference is, our lives are not a Hollywood movie. We may not receive a sign foreshadowing the way forward.

The world of evangelical spirituality from which I came, it seems to me, is not adequately suited to provide support for people facing these perplexing transitions in life. Revivalistic piety is essentially one dimensional. Read your Bible. Pray. Attend church and listen to sermons. Be active in the church. Witness to those around you. Pursue personal holiness (i.e. avoid sins and cultivate good habits). This is usually preached as though it were a one-size-fits-all garment that will stretch to fit any person, apply in any situation, and equip one to face any challenge.

On the odd chance that life’s changes are acknowledged, too often spiritual leaders give wandering believers a false notion of perceptible, measurable progress in the Christian life. They communicate the idea that there is a definable pattern of personal development.

Over the years, the spiritual life has been likened to a journey. That suggests a road with recognizable landmarks and destinations. It has also been envisioned in terms of climbing a ladder, though Protestants have usually been suspicious of this as advocating a system of meritorious works. But this is not a leftover relic from medieval theology. Mission statements of many contemporary churches are quite explicit that they expect certain measurable evidences of “growth” to become apparent in the lives of their members. However, I agree with Henry Nouwen, who said, “It is of great importance that we leave the world of measurements behind when we speak about the life of the Spirit.”

I don’t want to be hyper-critical, but I doubt that many so-called spiritual leaders today would cede control over the message and the process long enough to admit “that there is no right way that is going to become apparent to you once and for all.”

I also wonder how many of us in churches and Christians communities have enough courage to stand up and say, “I feel like I’m out in the middle of the country at a crossroads. North, south, east, west — in every direction a long and winding road stretches out before me, extending to a vague horizon. I don’t see a single sign guiding me toward the way I should take. It’s like I’m in a wilderness, lost, alone, without a compass.”

If we did, would anyone listen?

And where might we find courage and faith to move on?

Homily for Baptism of Our Lord

In fact, I think we would benefit tremendously from having our identity established in God’s good and gracious acceptance and affirmation of us that comes from Baptism. Sometimes I wonder if amid all of our customary focus on baptism as washing away sin, we have missed the profound words of empowering grace that are spoken here to Jesus and also to us. For we, too, are God’s beloved children, those with whom God is well pleased.

– David Lose,
Baptismal Problems and Promises

* * *

The Gospels do not often let us in on Jesus’ thoughts and emotions. Unlike modern literature, which emphasizes the inner psychological workings of its characters, biblical stories focus on external words and actions to describe and characterize people. Nevertheless, on certain occasions it might not be stretching things to imagine what an event might have meant to one of the people to whom scripture introduces us.

One that invites such contemplation is portrayed in today’s Gospel — the baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17). I sense something of how Jesus may have experienced that auspicious occasion when I read the story in the Message version:

Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him. John objected, “I’m the one who needs to be baptized, not you!”

But Jesus insisted. “Do it. God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.” So John did it.

The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God’s Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”

First, Jesus must have felt a remarkable sense of fulfillment that day. Peterson’s translation captures it well: “God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.”

Many commentators, spoiled by dogmatic theology and centuries of debates over baptism, sometimes miss the essential Jewish and narrative nature of this story. John, in OT prophet’s garb, calls Israel back to the river where they first crossed into the Promised Land in the days after Moses had led them out of Egypt and through the desert. John is calling them to enter that land once again by passing through the waters as their ancestors did. The first Israelites followed the ark of the covenant through those waters, leaving behind years and years of slavery, wilderness wanderings, sin and rebellion, death and destruction. They entered a new life in a new land as God’s new creation. Led by Joshua, they took possession of God’s promises that day. The dust of death was washed away by the water of life.

Now in Jesus a new Joshua arrives! He steps into the river Jordan to “fulfill all righteousness” — to signify that God’s promise of making things finally and fully right is coming to pass. Taking his place with the repentant who are trusting God to end their exile, he leads them through the waters of baptism into newness of life.

All the Gospels affirm that this is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ (see Mark 1:1). But it is not an absolute beginning. It is the beginning of the climax of the story that has been told since the first “beginning” (Genesis 1:1). It is the beginning of the long-awaited time of fulfillment. And Jesus knew it! He tells John here that the day has come. That must have been a profound moment for Jesus. Imagine it. Standing there in the water, on the threshold of a new creation!

Continue reading “Homily for Baptism of Our Lord”

Saturday Ramblings 2.0 – 1.11.14

While you, my iMonk friends, are carefully removing your bagels and English muffins from the toaster, pouring your juice and coffee, and lounging around in your jammies, I, Chaplain Mike, am flying over the heartland on my way from Indianapolis to Tulsa, OK, to visit my friend and colleague Jeff Dunn. In last week’s installment of Saturday Ramblings, Jeff announced that he is leaving Internet Monk. I appreciate your prayers as I travel to say thank you and enjoy a couple days of mutual encouragement.

While I am navigating airports and air space, it’s your turn to ramble (in the metaphorical sense, of course — you can keep your jammies on).

It was well nigh impossible to ramble anywhere in the midwestern and eastern parts of the country, along with eastern portions of Canada this last week. Our high temperature here in Indianapolis on Monday, for example, was -9˚F (that’s minus freakin’ 9!) and we were snowed in during most of the week.

The “polar vortex” that blew across the land caused Donald Trump to call global warming “bull****,” prompting Eric Roston at Bloomberg to explain the phenomenon and why Trump’s comments were sillier than his hairdo. Rush Limbaugh chimed in and asserted that the whole “polar vortex” thing is a hoax cooked up by today’s liberal media to justify their support of that looney climate change theory. Then good ol’ Al Roker pulled his 1959 meteorology textbook off the shelf and found that the term had been explained way back then, proving — surprise! — that Rush had said something rash and unsupportable. “It’s Meteorology 101,” Roker tweeted. “No political agenda.”

Hands down, for this Chicago boy, the funniest take on the weather came from Scot McKnight.

Speaking of Chicago and the cold, I remember when we moved there to go to seminary in 1983. The Weather Gang at the Washington Post recalled that year too, and wrote an article to make those who are complaining about this winter feel like weenies. On Christmas Eve 1983, the temperature in Chicago was -25˚F and the wind chill was -82. We lived in a mobile home and I spent the next two weeks lying on my back on the frozen ground fixing broken pipes. Our little VW diesel froze up solid. I still have a bit of a habitual shiver.

What is the coldest, most uncomfortable winter weather you have endured?

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings 2.0 – 1.11.14”

Thoughts about Divorce

Once in a while a statistic comes along that grabs a hold of me, chews me up, and then spits me out, leaving me wondering what just happened. This week had me experiencing another one of those occurrences.

To put it into perspective though, I need to back up a number of years.

When I first moved to Hamilton, Ontario in 1994, I lived in the East End, not far from the belching of smoke and flame from the steel factories. It was a tough part of town, dominated by heavy industry, and none was tougher than our Federal Member of Parliament Sheila Copps. She came from a political family. Her father was Mayor of Hamilton for 16 years, but he was eclipsed politically by his daughter. Sheila had a remarkable run as a parliamentarian, with 3 years in the provincial legislature followed by 20 years as an elected official at the federal level. In her time in Government she served at various times as the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, the Minister of the Environment, and the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. She had strong second place finishes in her bid to lead the Liberal Party of Canada, both as Prime Minister, and as Party President.

I never voted for her.

To be honest, I only had one chance, in 1997, before I moved to Dundas where I still live, but I still remember vividly the reason why I didn’t vote for her. You see, Ms. Copps was on husband number three. My reasoning at the time was that if someone couldn’t be faithful to their marriage; if they couldn’t be trusted to keep the vows that they had made to their spouse (or in her case spouses), then how could I trust her to keep her word for what she would do as a political leader. Obviously my opinion was not shared by the vast majority of voters as she easily won election after election. Maybe I was being a bit smug and sanctimonious about not voting for Sheila, but at the time it was an opinion that I sincerely held.

So here then is the statistic that I read last week that jumped up and slapped me in the side of the head. Eighty-five percent of elected federal politicians in Canada have been divorced. Eighty-five percent!

To put this in perspective, in Canada, since the late 1980s the likely that a marriage would end in divorce within 30 years has varied between 35 and 42%. (American and British numbers are similar but slightly higher.) The percentage of adults who are currently divorced is significantly less than that as most have not yet made it to the thirty year point from when they were first married.

So a Canadian politician is more than twice as likely to have been divorced as the Canadian average! Does it matter which political party they belong to? I don’t have the party breakdown (pardeon the pun), but based upon seat distribution it is hard to imagine that any of the larger political parties have a majority of members who are not divorced. Even if every never divorced member was in the Conservative Party of Canada (the party that Evangelicals tend to vote for), at least 70% of their members would have been divorced.

So why does this happen?

The article above states:

While many of the divorced politicians split up before they got elected, MPs work long hours away from home, are often separated from families four days a week and spend a lot of time socializing and at functions. There are also a lot of young staffers on the Hill, a problem for some marriages. “Every potential stress point in a marriage is alive and well in political life,” says Jim Armour, a lobbyist and former Stephen Harper staffer.

I was reminded of my post last week where I talked about work and home life balance. Apparently political life is one place where you won’t find it. Sheila Copps certainly found life in Government a challenge, but by no means was she the only one. As for me: I am married to my wife, and not to my job, and I intend to keep it that way.

And maybe, just maybe, I owe an apology to Sheila Copps. What do you think?

A Defense of Megachurches

For those of you who just crawled out from under the rock where you’ve been hiding throughout the 2000’s, allow me to let you in on something: we have not been shy about criticizing megachurches here at Internet Monk.

Yeah, and the Pope is still a Catholic, a lot of people like to watch a show called Downton Abbey, and the Cubs still haven’t won the World Series and will not in 2014 either.

Here are a few examples of our rather consistent disdain for the form and the philosophies and practices that tend to characterize it:

Michael Spencer wrote a remarkable rant almost ten years ago called, A Contrarian Manifesto for the Church Growth Debate. Michael wasn’t afraid to say what he really thought, was he? — “The ‘boomer megachurches’ aren’t presiding over a rediscovery of Biblical Christianity. They are leading a revolution where culture, generational niche groups and consumeristic agendas subvert the Gospel.”

He also critiqued the evangelical megachurch as “the entertainment-driven church.” Ouch.

Michael became disillusioned with these palaces for the “suburban Jesus” — “Churches in suburbia can do so much good for the Kingdom, but when I have to come face to face with a version of Christianity that puts Christ in his place and baptizes all the values of the empire, it makes me angry. It discourages me about what all those nice people are thinking in those beautiful buildings.”

In his well-known Coming Evangelical Collapse articles, Michael suggested that, rather than go away, megachurches will continue to dominate the ecclesiastical landscape in the U.S. This, however, will not be a sign of health and Christ-centered vigor. Rather, it will indicate the triumph of a-theological pragmatism.

Expect evangelicalism as a whole to look more and more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. The determination to follow in the methodological steps of numerically successful churches will be greater than ever. The result will be, in the main, a departure from doctrine to more and more emphasis on relevance, motivation and personal success….with the result being churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith. For some time, we’ve been at a point that the decision to visit a particular evangelical church contained a fairly high risk of not hearing the Biblical Gospel. That experience will be multiplied and expanded in the years to come. Core beliefs will become less and less normative and necessary in evangelicalism.

And then he said:

Will the coming evangelical collapse get evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about its loss of substance and power? I tend to believe that even with large declines in numbers and an evidence “earthquake” of evangelical loyalty, the purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in full form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church’s problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time. (I rejoice in those megachurches that fulfill their role as places of influence and resource for other ministries without insisting on imitation.)

I, Chaplain Mike, have had my say as well. Back in 2010, I wondered why we really need big churches. A year later, I wrote in praise of two megachurches whose leaders “closed down the show.”

Our brother Jeff Dunn joined the chorus and pulled no punches when he wrote, “Evangelical megachurches are mostly led by circus clowns. They put on a circus act each week so they can attract people under the Big Top. Once inside, those who bought their tickets hear anything but the Gospel.” To be fair, in the same article he acknowledged that there is good to be found in megachurch organizations, but that didn’t change his overall opinion.

In another pointed article, Jeff called what megachurches and other aspects of American evangelical culture represent “excessive evangelicalism.”

Perhaps it is time to let a megachurch supporter make a case for a contrary view.

Phil Cooke has written a post called, “What’s Right About Megachurches.” You can follow the link and read the details of his reasoning, but here are Cooke’s main contentions:

You had a bad experience at a megachurch? Grow up. There are plenty of bad experiences to be had in small churches too.

Megachurches are not as shallow as you think.

Megachurches make a dent in communities.

Megachurches engage the media.

Megachurches are making a global impact.

Megachurches plant other churches.

Phil Cooke concludes the article with these words:

I recognize that some people may just have an irrational beef with large churches, so I probably won’t change their minds. But problems are problems, and being a preacher’s kid and spending my life inside churches, I can report that many large congregations are doing some amazing things. And by the way, if you’re interested, here’s a good look at the state of megachurches in the U.S. at the end of 2013.

So I say it’s time to celebrate and support churches of all sizes, because the most important thing to remember is that the Church is the hope of the world.

Whatever size a particular church happens to be…

* * *

Now it’s your turn to respond. What say you?

For Me: The Year of Paul

Thanks to a generous gift from a dear friend, I received my study assignment for 2014 the other day when N.T. Wright’s massive, two volume Paul and the Faithfulness of God arrived on my doorstep.

Digesting this is going to take some time, and I look forward to working through it slowly and carefully. My only hope is that you won’t get sick of hearing about it, because I’m sure its contents will prompt many a post here at Internet Monk.

At the outset, Wright gives us the “map” by which his work proceeds. It is written in four parts.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Paul’s World

His contexts

Paul’s Mindset

His worldview

Paul’s Theology

His beliefs, reworked
around Jesus and the Spirit

Paul in His World

His mission in his contexts

* * *

Parts I and IV are parallel. The first encompasses the historical background — Paul’s Jewish context, the world of Greek philosophy, ancient religions, and Roman empire. The final section shows how Paul, his message, and mission related to those various contexts.

Parts II and III bridge these two by discussing the symbols, stories, and myriad influences that would have played a role in how Paul as a human being thought about and viewed the world of his day — that is, what we might call his “worldview” (Part II). Part III forms the climax of the book. This section discusses how Paul radically reworked the core beliefs of his Jewish world around Jesus the Messiah and the coming of the Spirit, and formed his “theology.”

I find this approach much more compatible with the nature of the Bible than the dogmatic and systematic approaches that have dominated Western Christendom (particularly of the Protestant Reformation variety) and have given such a scholastic air to the study of theology.

Wright’s approach honors history and story first, which is as it should be when discussing the Christian faith, which relies upon a narrative of God’s faithfulness in history to his promises, culminating in the exaltation of the King and Kingdom he pledged would come to the world. Christianity certainly has ideas and doctrines, but these are played out through actual events in the world, and as the story continues, we take our place in it not so much by reciting our tables as by heeding the call, “Follow me!”

Let Wright’s words suffice to introduce one of the key “doctrines” this approach impacts:

Most works on “Pauline theology” have made soteriology, including justification, central. So, in a sense, does this one. But in the Jewish context “soteriology” is firmly located within the understanding of of the people of God. God calls Abraham’s family, and rescues them from Egypt. That is how the story works, and that is the story Paul sees being reworked around Jesus and the spirit. This explains why chapter 10, on “election,” is what it is, and why it is the longest in the book. I hasten to add, as readers of that chapter will discover, that this does not (as some have suggested) collapse soteriology into ecclesiology. Rather, it pays attention to the Jewish belief which Paul himself firmly endorses, that God’s solution to the plight of the world begins with the call of Abraham. Nor does this mean that “the people of God” are defined, smugly as it were, simply as the beneficiaries of salvation. The point of the Jewish vocation as Paul understood it was they were to be the bearers of salvation to the rest of the world. That, in turn, lies at the heart of his own vocation, issuing in his own characteristic praxis.

– Preface, xvif

N.T. Wright calls his method, “critical realism.” By this he means “the application to history of the same overall procedure as is used in the hard sciences; not simply the mere assemblage of ‘facts,’ but the attempt to make sense of them through forming hypotheses and then testing them against the evidence.”

One of the most interesting facts about Paul and the Faithfulness of God is where Wright begins. He relates how, as a young boy just learning to read, he was given a Bible. Leafing through it, he found a one page epistle written by Paul that seemed to tell a story. It was Philemon. That young boy, now grown, begins this mature work of history and theology with that same NT letter.

How unconventional. And yet, what would you expect from N.T. Wright?

What Is the Goal of Preaching?

Fresco, Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Via Labicana, Rome.

Do you agree with Rick Warren that, “The Aim of Preaching Is Life Transformation”? Here is an excerpt from his article:

If God’s objective for every believer is to transform us into total Christlikeness, then the objective of preaching is to motivate people to develop Christlike convictions (to think like Jesus), Christlike character (to feel like Jesus), and Christlike conduct (to act like Jesus). Every other objective of preaching is secondary. At the end of the sermon, if people aren’t being transformed in how they think, feel, and act, I’ve missed the mark as a preacher.

I used to think this way (at least theoretically), but now I’m not so sure. I would state this much differently now that I am no longer a part of the evangelical movement that Warren represents. I think his description of preaching and its purpose is problematic, though there are certainly elements of truth in what he says.

I guess what I feel most hesitant about is this idea of “life-change” or “life-transformation” being the goal rather than a byproduct of preaching the Word.

It makes me feel, as a preacher and pastor, that my job is to change people’s lives. Is that really true? This is one of the more uncomfortable characteristics of the evangelical mentality as far as I’m concerned, and no doubt the source of many abuses in the Church.

Do I want people who hear the Word to become more Christlike? Of course. But I get the suspicion that what we are hearing about from brother Warren and others reflects the quote I gave out on Sunday from Juergen Moltmann (and here I highlight the key phrase with italics): “The reduction of faith to practice has not enriched faith; it has impoverished it. It has let practice itself become a matter of law and compulsion.”

Focusing on life-transformation as the goal of preaching seems to me to reduce the faith we hold to constantly telling people that they must turn over a new leaf. It is telling people, to use Warren’s categories: you must think this, you must feel this, you must act like this. And then note, he lays the burden on every sermon to accomplish this.

Now to his credit, Warren does indicate that he is talking about something deeper than merely giving people instructions and expecting compliance. He says this is about changing minds at the deepest level, aiming for repentance and seeing people’s beliefs and values change.

But I’m not sure that quite gets at it, either.

There is something very inorganic about the way evangelical preachers talk about preaching. It sounds mechanical to me, programmatic, methodistic (sorry Methodists). In other words, it comes across as a description of a process of production, not a process of life and nourishment and growth. We’re called to make disciples, after all. Well then, let’s make them. Here’s how.

Again I come back to my favorite text on ministry in the NT, 1 Thessalonians 2:

But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.

You remember our labour and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was towards you believers. As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children,urging and encouraging you and pleading that you should lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

– 1 Thessalonians 2:7b-12, NRSV

What is the goal of preaching, according to Paul?

Yes, he wants his Thessalonian friends to “lead a life worthy of God, who calls [them] into his own kingdom and glory.” I suppose you could call that “life-transformation.”

But Paul’s goal seems even bigger than that. Giving them “the Gospel of God” to “change their lives” doesn’t adequately summarize what Paul was about. If I read the passage correctly (and please read all of 1Thess. 2 for the whole context), his goal is to represent God well by proclaiming Jesus and his kingdom while laying down his life for his listeners in personal, sacrificial love.

I find nothing mechanical, programmatic, or methodistic about the way Paul presents his mission and its goal. It is personal, through and through. It’s about love. It’s about integrity in relationships. It’s about sacrificing for others. It’s about being part of a family together and being one who gives life and nourishment to others through the words he or she speaks. These are are all part of the goal.

Whatever “life-transformation” takes place is a byproduct of that.

I won’t go on a screed against megachurches here, but I just wonder how 1 Thessalonians 2 works out for a preacher like Rick Warren in a congregation of tens of thousands of people. Perhaps the sheer scale of the organization requires systems, programs, and good old American ingenuity to get across a message that can “change lives.” Can my life really be transformed by someone standing and speaking at a pulpit that I need binoculars to see?

Perhaps if I am at a point of transition in my life I might respond to such a disembodied message, whether in a megachurch, on TV, or in some other mass media form, and change my ways for a season. But what about the ongoing nourishment, the family life, the preacher who is my pastor? Who’s the “nurse tenderly caring for her children,” the brother “working night and day” at my side, the “father…urging and encouraging” me?

Of course we want people to grow in Christlikeness. As we say here at IM, it is always our privilege to invite others to join us in seeking a Jesus-shaped life. And you may find some help here, some help in books, some help in listening to good preachers. But ultimately it comes to down to the fact that God’s goal is to form a people, a family full of people that represent him well by proclaiming Jesus and his kingdom while laying down their lives for one another in personal, sacrificial love.

If we make that the goal, I have no doubt we will see lives changed.