Mr Toad And Pentecost

Sunday coming is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, or in the pre-1970 calendar, the 8th Sunday after Pentecost.  So you may be thinking that this is a bit late to be mentioning the Great Feast, the Birthday of the Church, and you would be correct.

It’s just that recently I’ve been thinking about the resemblances between myself and Mr. Toad – and it’s not that I’m particularly green and warty, rather it is that like Toad, I do tend to get swept away by new enthusiasms and great intentions of ‘better, faster, more improved’

Ordinary Time is not supposed to mean “ordinary” as in “plain, commonplace, everyday” but rather “not one of the Seasons”; it is supposed to be the time of the Kingdom of God, where we live now that the Good News has been declared.  Except I think that for most of us (and for myself especially), we do live in the manner of the old, not the new, life.  It is a relief after the feast of the Ascension is celebrated; Jesus has returned to the Father and now He is out of the way, gone, and I can go on in my own comfortable fashion like I did before: until, that is, the shake-up when the Spirit comes as promised – but that’s off in the future sometime, right?  Time enough to worry about that when it happens.

There’s no chance of seeing Him face-to-face and running the risk of getting things completely wrong, as the apostles did with the teaching on the leaven of the Pharisees, when they interpreted it as a rebuke because they had forgotten to bring any bread with them.  No, now that the Lord is safely back in Heaven, I can get on with my earthly life (all the while saying the right thing, naturally, because I have right belief).

Continue reading “Mr Toad And Pentecost”

Joe and Marge

Marge died today.

A petite, pretty octogenarian, she had been wandering in the world of Alzheimer dementia for many years. I’ve known her for a few of those years, at least I’ve known the lady who rarely sat still, who moved continually from one place to another, looking out the windows, fluffing and straightening the pillows, and then sitting down for a moment, her knees rising and falling as her legs bounced incessantly. Then it was up again, muttering this or that, moving like a tumbleweed blowing across the floor, rarely at rest, moved by some mysterious wind.

“Pleasantly confused” we’d write in our notes, because she’d smile, say a few words that may or may not make sense, give you her hand, and then rise to move about some more.

But today there she lay, still as can be.

Joe, her husband, in the immediate aftermath of her death, seemed a bit lost without her to chase around. His carefully maintained routine had now reached its end.

Joe is also a mover, an actor, a doer. He took care of Marge for a long time. Though he has twenty five years on me I never thought of him as being “old.” He had been an athlete in high school and college, still has most of his hair, and he moves energetically around the house. The military had given him a lot — discipline, plain and direct speech, self-confidence and good habits, a profound sense of duty, and impeccable organization skills. He is a smart man too. Joe had worked for the phone company and he is a master at diagnosing and fixing problems. With all his gifts, he still has an easy, “aw shucks” down-home Hoosier personality. He’s always smiling, quick with a story or a saying, or a “can I get you something?” offer. Then he’s off on the move again, serving his wife by keeping the routine going.

Most of all, he loves Marge.

I don’t mean he is sentimental or romantic. He may be, but I have not seen that side of him. What I have witnessed is the essence of what I take love to be: being with and for another for that person’s benefit.

Continue reading “Joe and Marge”

Follow Up on the Conservative/Progressive Discussion with Rachel Evans

Today, we continue our discussion by listening to the personal perspective of someone who feels caught in the midst of the battle between a more conservative evangelical faith and a more mainline progressive faith. As part of her excellent post, “Liberal Christianity, Conservative Christianity, and the Caught In-Between,” Rachel Held Evans wrote the following about her “in-between” status.

I’m interested in getting your feedback on how she feels.

* * *

Meanwhile, I feel totally caught in between.

For one thing, I don’t “fit” in the conservative evangelical church:

  • I believe in evolution.
  • I vote for democrats.
  • I doubt.
  • I enjoy interfaith dialog and cooperation.
  • I like smells, bells, liturgy, and ritual—particularly when it comes to the Eucharist.
  • I’m passionate about gender equality in marriage and church leadership.
  • I’m tired of the culture wars.
  • I want to become a better advocate for social justice.
  • I want my LGBT friends to feel welcome and accepted in their own churches.
  • I’m convinced that the Gospel is about more than “getting saved” from hell.

But I don’t “fit” in the progressive, Mainline church either.

  • I love a good Bible study.
  • I think doctrine and theology are important enough to teach and debate.
  • I think it’s vital that we talk about, and address, sin.
  • I believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus.
  • I want to participate in interfaith dialog and cooperation while still maintaining a strong Christian identity.
  • I want to engage in passionate worship, passionate justice, and passionate biblical study and application, passionate community.
  • I’m totally down with a bit of spontaneous, group “popcorn” prayer, complete with hand-holding and references to the Holy Spirit “moving in this place.”
  • I’m convinced that the Gospel is about more than being a good person.

These objections represent generalizations, of course (and, it should be stated, this whole conversation is unique to Western—particularly American—Christianity). I know plenty of evangelicals who embrace the science of evolution, and I know plenty of mainliners who are passionate about both social justice and theology.  But the reason I struggle to go to church on Sunday mornings is because I generally feel like I have to choose between two non-negotiable “packages.” There are things I really love about evangelicalism and there are things I really love about progressive Protestantism, but because these two groups tend to forge their identities in reaction to one another— by the degree to which they are not like those “other Christians”—Sunday morning can feel an awful lot like an exercise in picking sides.  And often, when I find myself actually sitting in the pew, the pastor  or priest will at some point in the service, either subtly or overtly, speak of the “other side” as an enemy.

Daily Bread in Days of Drought

According to a new report released by the National Climatic Data Center today, the 2012 drought disaster is now the largest in over 50 years, and among the ten largest of the past century. Only the extraordinary droughts of the 1930s and 1950s have covered more land area than the current drought. 55 percent of the contiguous United States was under moderate to extreme drought in June.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture declared 1,000 counties in 26 states disaster areas because of drought.

Here in Indiana, some parts of the state had the driest month of June on record. Indianapolis had less than 1/1oth of an inch of rain during the month. Burn bans have been in place since Memorial Day and now cover the entire state, and many municipalities have now put watering bans in place.

Forecast for this week here: Most days in the mid-90’s with heat advisories, cooling off to the upper 80’s. There’s only a small chance for scattered showers on any given day.

Today the blower motor on our central air conditioning went out. It has run constantly for two months.

They say we need 4-6 inches of rain over a two-week period just to bring us back to our normal hot, dry summer conditions.

Last week, 22 people in Chicago died from heat-related causes.

Drought does not make as spectacular an impact as hurricanes or tornadoes or some other natural disasters, but the 1988 drought ranks as the second most costly weather-related disaster since records began in 1980. It racked up an estimated $40 billion in losses and was surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina in costliness as a natural disaster.

Only 31 percent of the nation’s corn crop is rated good or better. Only 34 percent of the soybeans. Missouri, hit worst by the current drought, has only 7 percent of its corn good or better.

Farmers here have started abandoning their crop, cutting down the corn and grinding it up for silage.

It’s all a huge comedown for farmers who had expected a record year when they sowed 96.4 million acres in corn, the most since 1937.

An Associated Press article quotes southern Illinois farmer, Kenny Brummer, who has lost 800 acres of corn that he grows to feed his 400 head of cattle and 30,000 hogs. Now he’s scrambling to find hundreds of thousands of bushels of replacement feed. “Where am I going to get that from? You have concerns about it every morning when you wake up,” said Brummer, who farms near Waltonville. “The drought is bad, but that’s just half of the problem on this farm.”

Plan on paying higher prices for many, many food and other items as the year goes along. Some predict this year’s drought may make a $50 billion hit as effects of the drought work their way through the economy, with a real possibility that food prices will be forced to record levels.

Let’s not forget the poor and more vulnerable among us. Extremely hot, arid weather poses real hardships for homeless people who are elderly or disabled, struggle with alcohol or drug addiction, suffer from medical conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure, or who take medications that cause sensitivity to the hot sun. Elderly people, folks with breathing difficulties, and children are especially susceptible to the heat and those caring for them should take special precautions to keep them cool and hydrated.

Look for opportunities to give a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name to someone who must work or spend a great deal of time outside in this weather.

Praying “Give us this day our daily bread” is taking on fresh meaning this year.

* * *

O God, heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ
hast promised to all those who seek thy kingdom and its
righteousness all things necessary to sustain their life: Send
us, we entreat thee, in this time of need, such moderate rain
and showers, that we may receive the fruits of the earth, to our
comfort and to thy honor; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

– Book of Common Prayer

Today We Visit the Liberal Circus

One of the main acts in American Christianity’s liberal version of the “circus” — the Episcopal Church USA — completed its triennial General Convention here in Indianapolis last week and, as usual, created a lot of conversation. You can read a summary of the General Convention and the decisions they made HERE, but here are a few highlights:

  • A quarter of the nearly 400 resolutions involved structure, governance, and administration, designed to help the church continue to transition into the 21st century.
  • In one of its more controversial moves, the convention authorized provisional use of a rite for blessing same-gender unions.
  • In another well-publicized decision, the convention approved two resolutions that offer support for the transgender community. One makes clear that the ordination discernment process is open to them, and another guarantees their equal place in the life, worship and governance of the church.
  • In a move that some call ironic, the church approved moving out of the Episcopal Church Center Headquarters in New York City for budgetary reasons. This took place in the context of the church’s actions in recent years, going to court to retain many church properties of congregations that seceded from the denomination.

Several articles have sprung up around the web, commenting on the week’s activities. Here are a few, obviously critical of the direction TEC is taking.

Three other pieces captured my attention, because together, they form a conversation, one I invite our iMonk readers to join today.

The first is an editorial in the NY Times by Ross Douthat called, Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?

Douthat calls The Episcopal Church USA one of the “most self-consciously progressive Christian bodies in the United States,” and notes, “It still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.”

In his most critical statement, he says bluntly, “Today, by contrast, the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism.”

Continue reading “Today We Visit the Liberal Circus”

Just A Thought

I have been reading through the book of Job lately. You know the story. Job suffers the loss of his wealth, his source of income, and most of all, his family. Then he’s visited by some friends who, if you read their words carefully, speak words that would not be out of place in most pulpits this morning. They are meant as comforting words, speaking about God’s faithfulness to the good and his judgment on evildoers. But they don’t help Job at all.

Job’s response is one of growing anger. Anger with his friends, yes, but mostly anger with God. Nice words won’t cut it. Trying to explain God’s ways doesn’t help. Finally Job gets what he wants, an audience with God himself.

So, just a thought as you go to worship this morning. If you have deep wounds in your soul, if you have needs in your life that cannot be solved with a pat on the back and a quick “I’ll be praying for you, my friend,” then come sit by me. In the last few years I have gone from making right at six figures to now working for a little above minimum wage. Disconnect notices pile on my table. My meal options are often hot dogs or macaroni, but not often both at the same time. I won’t go into my family situation, only to say it has been very, very rough. Platitudes and cliches about God don’t do it for me. I no longer can accept them. I am pressing in to know Jesus my Lord as he knows himself to be. Happy-clappy songs turn my stomach. I need real, not plastic. I don’t want God explained, I want God revealed.

If you are in similar situations, it’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to say to your pastor, “Your words today were like those of Job’s friends: empty and without meaning.” It’s ok to tell someone who offers to pray for you, “Are you just saying something nice, or are you going to be on your face with me seeking God?” Job pushed past cheap religion until he reached God. It is very hard to do this today in our Christian culture, but without doing so, we will never be able to say with Job, “I had only heard about you with my ears. Now I have seen you with my eyes.”

Just a thought. Enjoy your Sunday morning, wherever you are.

Another Look: Mark Galli on “Transformation”

Still Life: Vase with Five Sunflowers, Van Gogh

Note from CM: Mark Galli is Sr. Managing Editor of Christianity Today. In 2009 he wrote an article that proved rather controversial. It was called, “The Scandal of the Public Evangelical,” and in it Mark said things about the evangelical buzzword “transformation” that many didn’t like. Our friends at Mockingbird, being devoted to promoting grace as they are, did an interview with Mark and the following is an excerpt from that conversation.

* * *

I don’t know that I’ve talked about grace in the radical nature in which Paul and the New Testament talk about it unless people are shocked and appalled by what I’ve said. The doctrine of grace is so radical and so contrary to our assumptions about what religion is about, that once we express it in a clear fashion, it will appall people. Because we’re all so anxious—even people like me who preach grace—to justify our lives. We want our lives to be meaningful, purposeful, useful. So we hook our futures to God and think, “Now I can really make my life purposeful and useful and I can do something for God in the world. And if I work with God, he’s going to change me.” We’re not so interested in God a lot of times, we’re tired of who we are and we’re more interested in wanting to be a different kind of person so we can feel better about ourselves. So much of our religious language and religious motive is about ourselves: justifying ourselves or improving ourselves, with God as a means to that end. Well, the fact of the matter is it’s not about you. But that’s shocking and appalling to most people because we’re so used to thinking that religion is about us, even though we’ve learned to use religious language to suggest otherwise. But in fact, it really ends up being all about us.

The other thing is the whole business of “transformation.” I notice how often that word comes up—our lives can be transformed, our churches can be transformed, our culture can be transformed. We imagine if we do everything right according to what the New Testament teaches us, that things will be completely changed. And if they aren’t completely changed, I’ve either bet my life on something that’s not true, or the Gospel itself is not true.

I just keep on coming back to Luther’s truth that we are simultaneously justified and sinners. I keep on looking at my own life, and at church history, and I realize that when the Gospel talks about transformation, it can’t possibly mean an actual, literal change in this life of a dramatic nature, except in a few instances. It must be primarily eschatological; it must be referring to the fact that we will in fact be changed. The essential thing to make change possible has occurred—Christ died and rose again. (And in this life we will see flashes of that, just like in Jesus’ ministry there were moments when the Kingdom broke in and we see a miracle. And these moments tell us there is something better awaiting for us and God is gracious enough at times to allow a person or a church or a community to experience transformation at some level.) But we can’t get into the habit of thinking that this dramatic change is normal, this side of the Kingdom. What’s normal this side of the Kingdom is falling into sin (in big or small ways), and then appropriating the grace of God and looking forward to the transformation to come.

Now, some people would say that it’s depressing that I can’t change. Well, it’s not depressing, it’s freeing! It’s depressing and oppressive to think every morning that I somehow have to be better than I was the day before to justify my Christian religion and to justify my faith. That’s the oppressive thing. The freeing thing is to realize that I am a sinner and God has accepted me as such. And yes, of course we’re called to strive and be better and to love and all those things—duh!—that’s not the issue. The issue is the motive out of which that comes and what we actually expect to happen as a result of that.

A lot of this is driven by my own personal spiritual journey and is hammered home by the biblical message, and something that Luther got really well: the harder I try to be a good Christian, I notice the worse Christian I am: more self-righteous, more impatient, more frustrated. But when I stop trying to be a good Christian and just realize I am a sinner and that God has accepted me, and that’s the way it is, that, for some reason, releases the striving part of me that makes life harder, and all of a sudden I find myself, surprisingly, more patient, more compassionate, less judgmental and more joyful. So I think that kind of personal experience is a merely reflection of what the Gospel truth is. And those moments when I experience that, that’s wonderful.

Mark Galli
From an interview at Mockingbird
by Aaron G. Zimmerman, 11/20/09

Saturday Ramblings 7.14.12

I am old enough (and I turn yet another year older on Tuesday) to remember getting up on Saturday mornings and staying glued to the TV from 8 in the morning until 11, watching the Looney Tunes cartoons. Bugs, Daffy, the Road Runner … all my favorites gathered into one nice, long program. Only after the final “That’s all, folks!” would I venture outside for baseball, bike riding, or whatever the day held. Don’t you kind of feel like Saturday Ramblings is today’s equivalent to Looney Tunes? You know you won’t be able to do anything else today until you read all of today’s goodies. And since I know you all want to get shopping for my birthday, let’s get rambling…

Oh my. YEC Ken Ham is upset with the media for making a big deal of a homeschool textbook that claims the Loch Ness Monster is real and is proof against evolution. Just because it is totally ridiculous is no reason for the “secular media” to laugh at it, says Ham. Yep, it’s all the fault of the secular media. Wait a minute. We made fun of this story as well. So what does that make InternetMonk?

Kirk Cameron has been named by the National Organization for Marriage as one of our nation’s greatest “marriage champions.” Not sure who else was in the running for the honor. “Kirk stands fearlessly in defense of God’s truth about marriage despite frequent and merciless harassment by the mainstream media for his outspoken Biblical views,” says NOM. Do you want Kirk Cameron as your marriage champion? Discuss.

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings 7.14.12”

Another Look: How I Got to “OK”

Winding Road, Raymond Murray

Note from CM: For the past couple of days I’ve been trying to write a post summarizing our discussions on the kind of discipleship being promoted by teachers like Francis Chan. I’ve made fits and starts and have not been satisfied with how the words were coming out. Then, in looking through the archives, I found this post from May, 2011 that said what I’ve been trying to get across. This is not the final word on this subject, we will be returning to it in the days to come, including some input from guests authors, but for this week, I hope this will sum up my perspective on the issues raised a few days ago.

* * *

From the start of my ministry three decades ago, there were aspects of being an evangelical pastor that I simply did not “get.”

I would hear other ministers speak and tell about what God was doing at their churches, learn about their approaches and their programs, listen to testimonies from folks in their congregations, and I would leave scratching my head. It seemed to me that many of them, certainly the ones with forceful personalities, had a way of convincing others that their agenda as pastors was the same thing as God’s agenda for Christians.

In my circles, very rarely did I hear the full-blown “God told me to do this” account that was more prevalent in charismatic or pentecostal churches. Still, that was the impression, even in our more theologically conservative groups. Whether it was defining a preaching series, implementing an element of worship that the pastor thought the church should practice, organizing an outreach program, expanding staff, building new facilities, using a certain method of teaching or training in the educational program or youth group, or designing the way the church should be overseen by its leaders, these ministers had a way of making it sound like these were directives from God himself. And the corollary to that, of course, was — if you are a truly dedicated, committed Christian, you will participate.

Over and over again, I watched as the pastor’s agenda became the church’s agenda, because the pastor was able to persuade people that it was God’s agenda.

I never felt comfortable with this. It always felt like a shell game to me. I came to believe that it is one of the key dynamics that has contributed to the “churchianity” which Michael Spencer lamented. Identifying a particular church program of the moment with the path of the Christian life, leads to “church-shaped” people; not necessarily “Jesus-shaped” people.

I guess that’s one reason I’ve been in the wilderness, and am not a pastor in a local church today.

Continue reading “Another Look: How I Got to “OK””

The Forgotten Character

This morning we looked at the most popular author residing on Christian bookstore shelves, the handsome, polished, smiling and totally spineless Gilderoy Lockhart. Lockhart writes under many different names and on myriad topics. But one topic, or rather one person, is seldom if ever mentioned in Lockhart’s works. It would take a great deal of effort to find this character in most Christian books. If he is mentioned, it is often as a minor character who supports the major one—in this case, Gilderoy Lockhart.

Who is this mysterious missing character, and does he even really need to be in these books at all? Well, he apparently doesn’t need to be in order to sell books. Lockhart’s sales are through the roof without featuring this person. Occasionally this character is held up as an example for what we need to do in order to be successful, but we only see him for this short time.

This person is not cool, and of course we only want to hang with cool people so we will look cool ourselves. That’s why we read Gilderoy Lockhart’s books in the first place. After all, he is cool, and we want him to teach us to be cool. So any uncool people can just sit this one out.

Who is this uncool person who is not in these books?

Jesus.

Continue reading “The Forgotten Character”