iMonk Classic: An Appetite for Fanaticism

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
 Undated

From CM: In the light of yesterday’s video post and discussion, I thought it appropriate to dig out some of Michael Spencer’s thoughts on religious enthusiasm.

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An Appetite for Fanaticism:
Is there something wrong with saying “You’ve gone too far”?

It occurred to me this week, while observing a group of religious fanatics putting on a public demonstration of embarrassing, excessive religious behavior, that I would be considered way out of line if I told the fanatics to cut it out and calm down. Such is the equation of fanaticism with the genuine work of God, that I would be proving to my peers that I was totally insensitive to the Holy Spirit if I questioned the behavior of fanatics in any way.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a fanatic as a person motivated by an extreme, unreasoning, enthusiasm for a cause. The original latin root had religious connotations referring to orgiastic temple rites and ceremonies. Today, the word “fanatic” is used generously in everything from sports to hobbies to religion. Americans are, generally, quite tolerant of fanatics, whether they be grown men dressed as Jedi Knights or football fans colored and tatooed like some kind of visitor from the islands of New Guinea. Unvarnished, undiluted enthusiasm is considered a good thing, even if it borders on the excessive.

The exception to this seems to be the secular view of religion. Your average Joe or Joanne doesn’t want to work next to a religious fanatic, have their kid’s team coached by a fanatic or be visited by fanatics selling literature. A whole array of laws have now come into existence to warn the religious fanatic to build his church elsewhere and keep his religion invisible. So one may tattoo a team logo on his forehead, but John 3:16 tacked on a cubicle may result in reeducation camp. Even churches are discovering that their once-welcome presence in the community is now interpreted as an invasion of drooling pedophiles.

On the other hand- and of more interest to me in this article- is the inability of the Christian community to come to terms with fanaticism in its own ranks, and to agree that it is 1) probably not the work of the Holy Spirit and 2) ought to be discouraged- firmly and frequently.

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Classic iMonk Quotes from 2005

Today, some significant snippets from the writings of Michael Spencer, mined from the 2005 Archives.

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On how theology must lead to reality
While discussing the doctrine of election the other day, I asked BHT fellow Bill a version of the following question: “If you were able to follow Jesus for the three years (or whatever) of his ministry, life, death and resurrection, do you believe you would conclude that Jesus believed the same version of the doctrine of election as you do today?”

That question applies to all of theology. In fact, it is the preeminent question of the Christian Life. I do not say the preeminent question of Christian theology, but of the Christian life, because in the end, theology must lead to the lives that we live. Theology must be a description of REALITY. Of real life. Just as mathematical propositions must eventually let the space shuttle fly or a heart monitor give accurate readings, so our theology must prepare us for death, and for the lives we lead before death. Our theology must make us human beings, husbands, fathers, teachers, neighbors, members of a community, and so on.

– June, 2005

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Daniel Jepsen on “Promethean Faith”

Promethean Faith
by Daniel Jepsen

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I saw the SF movie Prometheus last week.  I won’t review it or summarize it here except to note that it featured a creature far rarer than aliens in Hollywood’s universe: a practicing Christian.  She is even portrayed in a positive light, and is, in fact, something of the heroine of the story.

Not that this is in any sense a movie advocating Christianity or even religion.  Indeed, we never see Elizabeth Shaw engaged in prayer, worship, seeking guidance from scripture or really anything that could be described as spiritual. How do we know she is a Christian at all? First, because of the cross she wears around her neck; It is so symbolic that at the end of the movie she even pointedly demands it back from the robot who took it from her (long story). Secondly because when challenged how she can still believe in spite of all the…mess…that has hit the fan, she says explicitly, “It’s what I choose to believe”.

There is a bit of backstory to that statement. Earlier we see a dream sequence flashing back to Shaw’s childhood, where she is sitting with her father (who appears to be a missionary, if I am not mistaken).  Some of the local people are waking in a funeral procession, grieving their dead, and the girl asks her father, “Can’t you help them?”

“They wouldn’t want help from me”

“Why?”

“They believe different things.”

“Well, how do we know they are wrong and we are right?”

The father answers, “It’s what I choose to believe”.

The adult Shaw, then, has learned this lesson well, and repeats the type of faith she inherited from her father.  This is the extent of her Christian belief portrayed in the film: wearing a cross, and clinging stubbornly to a faith that she simply chooses to believe.

What do we make of this?  Are Christians (or religious adherents more broadly) simply those who “choose to believe?” Or, as I have seen in put in more insulting terms, do religious people simply believe without reason or evidence? An atheist columnist in my local paper put it this way: “Christians don’t need reason. They take everything by faith”.  It seems the writers of Prometheus, in spite of their good intentions perhaps, have pretty much the same view. Are they right?

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iMonk Classic: The Boat in the Backyard

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
originally published June 2006

From CM: This is one story I always think about around Father’s Day. Thank you, Michael.

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When I was twelve years old, my father bought a small aluminum boat, just enough for two people to use for fishing in the local lakes. He put it in our backyard. It had a tiny motor that sat in our shed. He bought the boat so we could go fishing together, father and son. It was his dream, a father’s dream that I can now relate to as I share ball games and movies with my own son.

The boat never took us fishing. In fact, it never got in the water. It remains there in the back yard, photographed by my memory, waiting for a fishing trip that would never happen. In my tendency to personify objects in my world, I picture that boat as eager and expectant, then confused, and eventually depressed. Its purpose- its joy?- was not to be fulfilled.

At age twelve, I was about as interested in my father’s dream of fishing together as the fish were in getting hooked, cleaned and fried. I resisted my father’s overtures with a quiet, but persistent force. I was always busy. There was always something else to do. I wasn’t interested in being outside. My friends wanted me to play. Mostly, I wasn’t interested because my dad was interested, and I was at war with my dad. Not a physical battle, but a back and forth emotional war that had been going on as long as I could remember, and now that my dad wanted something from me, I was in a position to frustrate him. I felt the power, and I used it to disappoint his dream.

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Evening Psalm

God, our Upholder, how vast is your signature over all the earth. It reflects your glory in the heavens.

From the mouth of infants and nurslings you have made a foundation of strength—to oppose those who oppose you, to bring the enemy and person of vengeance to a halt.

When I behold your name in the heavens, the craft of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you fixed immutable, I think: What is a mortal that you should be mindful of him, offspring of flesh that you should pay her attention?

Yet you have made us only slightly less than God. You have encompassed us with glory and splendor. You allowed us dominion over the works of your hands; you placed everything under our feet, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, all of them, every beast of the field.

The bird of the sky and the fish of the ocean, all that traverses the sea.

God, our Upholder, how vast is your signature over all the earth.

(Psalm 8, The Complete Psalms, translated by Pamela Greenberg)

Morning Psalm

Sunrise from Esquire.com

God, you are for us a strength and shelter—in times of affliction, you are found everywhere we look.

And so we won’t be afraid at changes of the earth, when mountains tumble into the heart of the sea or waters rage with tumultuous froth; the peaks quake in awe of your presence. Selah.

A river—its streams will bring rejoicing to your city. Holy are the dwelling places of the Most High.

With you in its midst, it will not totter; you change its darkness to dawn.

Nations rage tumultuous; governments totter. When you give forth voice, the earth melts.

The Creator of the Heavenly Array is with us, the Upholder of Jacob will keep us from harm. Selah.

Come and gaze at God’s works, the one who has astounded the world with wonders, who has brought all the earth’s wars to a halt.

The bow will be shattered and the arrow split in half, the chariot burnt in fire.

Be calm and know I am your Sustainer. I will be lifted in praise among nations, I will be lifted in praise throughout the earth.

The Creator of the Heavenly Array is with us, the Upholder of Jacob will keep us from harm. Selah.

(Psalm 46, The Complete Psalms, translated by Pamela Greenberg)

Saturday Ramblings 6.16.12

Greetings, iMonks! Happy day before Father’s Day. Before you begin cleaning the grill, putting up the croquet set, and stringing the hammock between trees for dear old dad, why don’t we whip up a tasty batch of Saturday Ramblings?

If you are new here, this is InternetMonk.com. Dot Com. If Craig Groeschel and LifeChurch.tv have their way, they will own the doman .church. So anyone who wants to append their website to dot-church will have to go through LifeChurch. But you may get to speak to their “innovation leader.” What? Your church doesn’t have an innovation leader?

And the Vatican wants dot-Catholic. What kind of mash-ups can you envision with this? HopewellBaptistChurch.catholic?

There really is a Hopewell Baptist Church in Lake City, Florida. Just a local Baptist church, but one that now is affecting movie lovers everywhere. Rodney Baker, pastor of Hopewell, petitioned the Southern Baptist Convention to have The Blind Side removed from all LifeWay stores because it—gasp!—contains some profanities. Imagine that. A movie about college football that contains cuss words. Glad we are still fulfilling the Great Commission—to clean up the world to our standards.

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Why Is the Gospel of John so Different?

First Things First
Restoring the Gospel to Primacy in the Church
Part Six:  — Why Is the Gospel of John so Different?

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“The last of the four Gospels appears among the rest in a manner reminiscent of the appearance of Melchizedek to Abraham: “without father, without mother, without genealogy” (Heb. 7:3). Everything we want to know about this book is uncertain, and everything about it that is apparently knowable is a matter of dispute. The Gospel is anonymous; argument about its traditional ascription to the apostle John has almost exhausted itself. We cannot be sure where it was written, or when. We are uncertain of its antecedents, its sources, and its relationships. This includes its relations with the synoptic Gospels and with the religious movements of it day. Whereas many scholars have spoken of it as the gospel for the Greek world, others have seen it as firmly rooted in Judaism by upholding the good news of Christ among Christians from the Synagogue.”

– George R. Beasley-Murray, John (WBC, vol. 36)

Before we give our overview of the Gospel of John, it is appropriate to ask an obvious question: Why is this Gospel so different from the other three? Let’s consider some of the differences

1. John is different in structure. The Synoptic Gospels (Matt/Mk/Lk) follow the same basic outline: after various beginnings, they move from John the Baptizer’s ministry to Jesus’ ministry in Galilee until Peter’s confession. The story then moves toward Jerusalem, where Jesus’ last week, death and resurrection is detailed. John’s Gospel, on the other hand, begins with a theological Prologue, ends with a narrative Epilogue, and in-between is divided into two “books” —

  • The Book of Signs (John 1:19-ch. 12) — includes stories from Jesus’ ministry that are not connected by chronology or geography. These stories are organized around the themes of the signs he was working and the sayings he gave. They emphasize (1) how people responded to his words and works, and (2) how Jesus engaged in controversies with the Jewish religious leaders.
  • The Book of Glory (John 13-20) — describes Jesus’ in-depth ministry to his disciples in the upper room as he prepared them for his departure, and then tells the story of his death and resurrection, bringing the drama to a climax with the account of his appearance to Thomas.

Some examples of John’s different geographical and chronological perspective: While the Synoptics have Jesus going to Jerusalem at the end of his life, John portrays most of his ministry occurring in the region of Jerusalem and Judea. The Temple cleansing takes place at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, not at the end. Jesus is anointed before he enters Jerusalem. The timing of events at the Last Supper and crucifixion are different:

In particular, the chronology of the passion in the Fourth Gospel, as compared with that of the Synoptics, seems so idiosyncratic that it has generated complex theories about independent calendars, or about theological motifs that John is self-consciously allowing to skew the naked chronology. Did Jesus and his disciples eat the Passover, so that he was arrested the evening of Passover and crucified the next day, or was he crucified at the same time the Passover lambs were being slaughtered? And how does one account for the fact that the Synoptics picture Jesus being crucified about the third hour (9:00 am), while in John Pilate’s final decision is not reached until the sixth hour (Jn. 19:14).

– D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John

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Another Look: Our Dangerous God

Nearly five years ago a friend of mine stepped forward in our Sunday morning service to share a message he had wrestled with for weeks. It was not a message he was excited to share, but knew that God was compelling him to do so. The word he shared that morning changed my life. God used this as a sledgehammer to shatter all that I thought was good and right in my life. This was the Master Potter taking the clay into his hand, squashing it, and starting over. The Potter is not finished with me yet—will he ever be before the resurrection?—and this word continues to be a tool he is using to shape me.

We often repeat the line that “Aslan is not a safe lion.” Of course he’s not. But how many of us actually want to encounter Aslan in all of his un-safeness? Aren’t we really more comfortable just reading about lions, then putting the book away where it can’t find us, claw us, scar us? We are much more at home with a safe God–-one who can be contained in Seven Secrets or Five Principles. One who wants to do nice things for us all day long, like keep the rain away while we hang out the wash. Do any of us really—really—want to meet God, as he knows himself to be, face-to-face? Do we want to hug a God who is an all-consuming fire?

God, it seems, has very little interest in making things comfortable and nice for us. Instead, he is intent on our freedom. As Robert Capon puts it, “What would you do with freedom if you had it?”

Here is the word shared in October of 2007 by Joe Spann to a congregation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Be forewarned: If you truly embrace this, your world will be unmade. I don’t say that lightly. Mine has been. Freedom is a very scary and dangerous thing.

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