Jesus: The Glory of the Christian Journey

I can’t speak for anyone else, just for me.

When I became a Christian in 1974, I was immediately taught to define myself three ways.

First, did I believe that I was a sinner and that Jesus died for my sins so I could go to heaven?

Second, was I doing the the things my church taught me to do: attend worship, pray, read the Bible, tithe, “witness”, come to Sunday School, be a good Baptist?

Third, was I not doing the things my church taught me were sinful: drink, dance, use drugs, watch R-rated movies, listen to rock music, have sex outside of marriage, use profanity, work on Sundays, marry a Catholic?

That was the menu. Simple. Comprehensive. Understandable.Continue reading “Jesus: The Glory of the Christian Journey”

My Highest Recommendation: Love Is An Orientation by Andrew Marin

Here’s a previous IM essay on this topic: “What Do Gays and Lesbians Hear? (When They Are With Evangelicals.)”

UPDATE: I appreciate Andrew’s kind words in the comments. I have to confess that I’m a little disappointed that the emphasis of Andrew’s book- relationships and conversations- seems to be lost, and the discussion is drawn immediately toward “what should churches do to those people?” As I said, this book will not be the normal reading experience. Andrew is trying to do something- in his own experience first- that is incredibly difficult: pay the price to love those who are very angry with us.

This book has been as profoundly unsettling as Sara Miles’ Take This Bread. It’s Jesus shaped Christianity, and it does not leave you alone. It is not what you’re prepared for. It will hit you like Jesus’ love for the unacceptable hit his world..

Love is An Orientation. Andrew Marin. “Elevating the conversation with the gay community.” Inter-Varsity Press.

I’m hoping to write a book in the next few months. I have something I want to say and I think it’s important. I hope all of you buy it, and I wouldn’t mind if a few million people bought it and I could change my life accordingly.

But I want you to hear what I am about to say: If you had two books to choose from, whatever I will write and what Andrew Marin has written in Love Is An Orientation, I would want you to buy Andrew’s book.

What Andrew Marin has written in this book isn’t just interesting. It is absolutely vital that evangelicals hear what Marin is saying about the state of things between Gays and Evangelicals. This is a message that may be more important than any issue evangelicals are currently discussing short of the content of the Gospel itself.Continue reading “My Highest Recommendation: Love Is An Orientation by Andrew Marin”

In The End, God Knows Us (A Meditation for Friends)

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God…(Galatians 4:9a, English Standard Version)

I’ve been teaching Galatians for over a year, and I happened to cross this verse this week, a week marked by the passing of one of my most significant mentors. She exemplified many things in my life, but one of the most significant was her amazing hunger for the teaching of the Word of God. She had a quick and focused mind that was always taking in a sermon or a book of theology or Biblical teaching. Right up until her last few months, she was accumulating knowledge about God.

It’s interesting to me that Paul interrupts himself in Galatians 4- almost corrects himself- to say that the better way to describe the Christian experience is coming to be known rather than coming to know. People who make this kind of distinction can be a bit irritating.

But there’s a reason to make such a distinction, and it’s very important we make it.Continue reading “In The End, God Knows Us (A Meditation for Friends)”

Internet Monk Radio Podcast #138

podcast_logo.gifThis week: Encouragement for my 21 year old son on his birthday.

The Theology Program is enrolling NOW for new classes next week. Check out the best theological education available at the most affordable price.

My great sponsors: New Reformation Press. New products available: New music and DVDs. Emmaus Retreat Center. A great place for your next group or individual retreat. The Devotional Christian. All the best online devotional resources in one place.

Steve Scott on How His Beliefs Have Changed.
TSK on the Swine Flu and A Rational Church Response

Intro music by Daniel Whittington. Exit Music by Randy Stonehill. Bumpers by Clay Spencer.

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Evangelical Untouchables 4: How Important is Church Membership?

untouchThe Evangelical Untouchables are seven diverse evangelicals who will give us a window into what’s happening in evangelicalism today.

Who are the Evangelical Untouchables?

Michael Patton is the director of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries, blogs at Parchment and Pen and is one of the teachers on The Theology Program.
Tony Kummer is on staff at a Southern Baptist Church in the midwest and blogs at SBC Voices.
Ryan Couch is a Calvary Chapel pastor in Oregon, and blogs at Small Town Preacher.
Kirk Cowell pastors a Church of Christ in North Carolina. He blogs at A Soul In Training.
Lindsey Williams is planting a PCA Church in North Carolina, and blogs at From Acorns to Oaks.
Matt Edwards is a small groups pastor in a Non-denominational/Bible church in Washington, and blogs at Awaiting Redemption.
Darrell Young pastors a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church near Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

This episode’s question: “Many evangelicals are abandoning the practice of formal church membership. What is your feeling about the practice of formally joining the local church? How do you relate your church’s practice to the mission of the church?”Continue reading “Evangelical Untouchables 4: How Important is Church Membership?”

You Need To Get Rid of Some Of Your Theology

Some of you won’t like what I’m about to say, but trust me, I’m not shooting at you. I’m not shooting at anyone. I’m trying to be pastoral, if there’s any hope that I have any pastoral instincts left.

Here’s the word: Some of us need to let go of some of our theology.

***bottle flies through air***

No, seriously. Some of us need to get to the trash can and empty out some of what’s in the theology file.

***tomato in flight***

Some of you people have got some seriously bad theology, and it’s stinkin’ up your life.

***pitchforks and torches sighted***

I’m telling you this for your own good. Some- not all- but some of what you’re holding on to so tenaciously is messing you up. It may be messing up your life, the lives of others and its going to spread to your children and those you minister to.

***angry voices***

Looks like I better get this said before the rocks start flying.

I believe what Christians believe. It’s what my life is founded on.

My Christian faith is like a map. It tells me where I am, who I am, where I’ve been, where I’m going and what it’s all about.

But I don’t believe everything Christians teach. I don’t believe everything I used to believe. Maybe it’s my own critical, skeptical nature. Maybe it’s the “sola scriptura” Protestant in me. Maybe it’s living awhile and drawing some conclusions. Maybe it’s learning something about what matters.

Maybe it’s the Holy Spirit.

Or maybe, as some of you will conclude, I’m some kind of post modern jellyfish who quits the team when things get tough. One of those post-evangelical emerging liberals who prefers a big hug to a good systematic theology lecture.

I don’t understand our loyalty to things that make God so unlike the one who revealed God on earth. Why we take on whole planks of Christianity that Jesus wouldn’t endorse or recognize.

Personal reference. When I discovered that God wasn’t going to stop something that I believed with all my heart and mind he had to stop, I was really pulled up short. My “map” was well worn with 30+ years of telling who I was and what God was supposed to do for me.

And now, I was discovering that my map was flawed. I’d believed it, and I had a choice. I could deny what was happening around me, in me and in others.

Or I could throw out some theology.

That meant admitting some of my teachers were wrong. Or at the least, didn’t know all there was to know.

It meant that some of what I was sure God had showed to me wasn’t God at all. It was me, or someone else.

I was wrong. My theology was wrong. My collection of Bible verses was wrong.

I hadn’t quite arrived. I didn’t have all the answers.

Part of my misery in the situation I was facing was my collection of theology.

There’s a moment when you realize things aren’t as certain as you thought they were. It’s a scary moment, and you want to blame someone. This collection of verses, statements and opinions was supposed to keep this from happening. The right theology was supposed to keep the sky from falling; it was supposed to keep the trap doors from opening up under my feet.

It makes more than a few people angry to hear that following Jesus is less like math and more like white water rafting. It’s less like writing down the right answers to a test and more like trusting yourself into the hands of a doctor. It’s less like standing on concrete and more like bungee jumping.

It’s less like what you think it is and lot more like something you never thought about.

Some of you have been beating your head against the wall of your bad theology for years. You’ve beaten your head against that wall until you aren’t a very pleasant person to be around. You’ve made yourself and some other people miserable. You’ve been like the Pharisees: you gave others the burden you’d chosen to carry and more. You’ve taken your misery and made others more miserable.

You’ve blamed others. You’ve silently accused God. You’ve sat there, arrogantly, insisting that you were right no matter what was happening. You’ve sought out arguments to assure yourself that you were right.

But the whole time, there was the trash, and some of that trash was theology that needed to go.

I’ve thrown out some of my theology, and I haven’t replaced it all. As much as I would like to know the answer to some questions, I’ve concluded I’m not going to know the answer to them all. I’ve concluded that lots of the theology I’ve been exposed to and taught falls considerably far shorter of perfection than I ever imagined. Some of it hasn’t served anyone very well. Some of it was nothing more than my way of jumping on a passing bandwagon.

The other day, someone who knew a bit about me wrote me to question why I didn’t believe in “limited atonement.” He wanted my verses and my theology. He wanted me to debate, and if he won, to adopt his theology.

I couldn’t explain myself very well to this questioner. My reasons aren’t all about verses. They are about who God is; who I believe God shows himself to be in Jesus. It’s biblical, but it’s also existential. It’s about the shape and flavor of truth, not about who wins the debate.

I can’t bend my faith into the shape of a “limited atonement” Jesus. And I can’t explain that. I only know that I needed to throw that away, because it was shaping me and my world in a way that was taking me away from Jesus.

I don’t expect anyone to understand. It’s inside of me that, ultimately, his song has to ring true. If you can’t hear it, that doesn’t mean I don’t. Having everyone else tell me all about the music was taking away my desire to sing. And I am here to sing, not study music.

I’m pretty sure my questioner wrote me off because I wouldn’t sign up. That’s OK. I respect him, but here me clearly: I don’t need my theology — my opinion of my theology especially — to be that important. It’s unhealthy.

I believe a lot of things. I could teach through a course on theology without any problems. But the difference between myself now and myself in the past is that much of that theology is less essential than it used to be. It does not equal God and I won’t speak as if it does. I won’t pretend that my own thoughts about God are the place I ought to stop and announce what God is always thinking and doing.

Hopefully, it’s going to be a lot easier to have a theological housecleaning. In the future, I don’t plan to fall for the flattery that I’ve never changed my mind or said “I don’t know.”

I know. That’s me. The way too emotional, way too flexible, over-reacting Internet Monk. Baptist one day. Calvinist the next. Catholic tomorrow. Talking about being “Jesus shaped,” whatever that means.

And that’s my trash can in the corner, and what you’re smelling is what I finally threw out.

It was long overdue.

By the way, guess what? I’m still here, believing. Following Jesus, loving Jesus, wanting more of Jesus than ever before.

I don’t recommend my path be your path. I only ask if you’ve opened yourself to the possibility that a spiritual renovation in your life can’t keep all the old junk. Yes, you may upset someone or some important, self-validating group. You may, for a moment, wonder if you know who you are and where you are. It may frighten you to consider that Brother so and so or a sincere family member were wrong.

You may not be excited to discover that all that accumulated trash does not equal God.

I hope that soon you are excited. I am sad to see and hear some of you involved with a God that increasingly holds you hostage in a theological extortion scheme.

That’s not the God who came to us in Jesus. It’s not.

There’s more. He is more. Your journey is more.

Butter and Cream: Denise’s Tribute To Our Departed Friend and Mentor, Betty Hasty

This morning our school community lost one of its most loved and influential members, Mrs. Betty Hasty. For 21 years she’s been my personal accountability group. No one on the planet has more to do with my passion for the Gospel in the place where I serve than Betty. She was the person responsible for Denise and I coming to where we now serve almost 17 years ago.

I never knew a person more ready to go to heaven. I feel guilty missing her. Really, for Betty this was everything she’s lived for and dedicated every waking moment to. She’d done all she could do in this world. Her heart was through and she was more than ready to see Jesus. This morning at 7:30 a.m., she got her wish.

I don’t know if I will be writing about her for a while. She’d not like what I’d have to say, because it would be too much about her.

So Denise, the better writer in the family, has written a beautiful tribute at her blog: Butter and Cream. Please read it and think of our friend. (BTW, the rainbow pics are on my facebook page.)

READ: Butter and Cream.

My Latest Attempt To Become a Complementarian

If you don’t know what a complementarian is, please do that bit of research first. Thanks.

I’ve harped on this subject a bit before while wondering where is the secret book.

I’ve not been one to be convinced by a great deal of the exegetical reasoning I’ve heard from complementarians. I assumed the problem must be with my sources- internet pundits and preachers with little scholarly acumen. So I asked around for the best serious, scholarly treatment of the complementarian position on all issues related to gender, marriage and family. The recommendations were unanimous, and I dropped the cash (not Kindle format even) and acquired the recommended book.

I’ve just finished the chapter that explains the complementarian exegesis of Genesis 1-3.

I want to be impressed. I’m really open to seeing that scripture says Jared Wilson was living in sin when he was a stay-at-home dad. But I’m sorry. I’m not getting there.Continue reading “My Latest Attempt To Become a Complementarian”

Liturgical Gangstas 11: Be Perfect? What?

UPDATE: Alan Creech has added his answer.

Welcome to IM’s popular feature, “The Liturgical Gangstas,” a panel discussion among different liturgical traditions represented in the Internet Monk audience.

Who are the Gangstas?

Father Ernesto Obregon is an Eastern Orthodox priest.
Rev. Peter Vance Matthews is an Anglican priest and founding pastor of an AMIA congregation.
Dr. Wyman Richardson is a pastor of a First Baptist Church (SBC) and director of Walking Together Ministries, a resource on church discipline.
Alan Creech is a Roman Catholic with background in the Emerging church and spiritual direction. (Alan’s not a priest. If he is, his wife and kids need to know.)
Rev. Matthew Johnson is a United Methodist pastor.
Rev. William Cwirla is a Lutheran pastor (LCMS) and one of the hosts of The God Whisperers, which is a podcast nearly as good as Internet Monk Radio.

Here’s this week’s question: How do you interpret Matthew 5:48 within a larger picture of the Gospel and the Christian life? (48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.)Continue reading “Liturgical Gangstas 11: Be Perfect? What?”