The Holy Spirit and the Need for Christians to Learn from One Another

One more large-scale controversial rant, and then I’m on to more easily digestible things, I promise. This one started percolating when a good friend of mine sent me an email about a year ago describing how the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (my friend’s denomination) had passed a resolution barring the hiring of anyone who spoke in tongues in public or private, and how a Baptist pastor from Oklahoma had drafted a resolution that would have required all Southern Baptist entities and organizations to enact the same sort of ban. My friend thought this was a bit ridiculous and wanted my take as a Pentecostal. Naturally, in discussing the issue with him I went off on a couple of different tangents, but I thought it was an interesting discussion and have posted the bulk of my reply below, slightly edited to reflect some further thoughts I’ve had on these issues.

Let me start off by articulating my own  basic views on the gifts of the Spirit in general (and speaking in tongues in particular). I am convinced that spiritual gifts (including speaking in tongues) are real, biblical, intended for the edification of the church in all eras, designed by God to be exercised in moderation and according to specific guidelines, grossly misunderstood by many Christians, and wildly, shamefully abused by a majority of Pentecostals. There’s a pastor in Seattle named Mark Driscoll who once labeled himself “a Charismatic with a seatbelt,” which I found just hilarious, and that’s another way of stating my own position I suppose. 

This particular controversy, however, led me to contemplate some larger issues than simply whether or not (or how) Baptists should seek to regulate speaking in tongues. Specifically, after having completed the mammoth task of authoring a book on the history of Christianity (and learning a great deal in the process), I have become fairly firmly convinced of the basic truth of this statement (whose source, for the life of me, I can’t remember): The distinctive beliefs that a Christian denomination holds most dear and that its members advance to distinguish themselves from other believers are most likely to be the ones that gradually get out of whack with the core claims of Scripture and the consensus of the historical church—or, in other words, every denomination tends to be highly susceptible to mistakes and distortions regarding precisely the same issues about which they claim to be MORE enlightened than any other denomination. This may not hold true in every instance, and again, I can’t remember who it was who advanced this claim, but I think that it is fairly instructive nevertheless. 

For example, Pentecostals (especially those on the fringes of orthodoxy, which unfortunately are often those who are most publicly visible) tend to be more out of balance with the claims of the New Testament on the issue of speaking in tongues and other gifts of the Spirit (particularly in passages like 1 Corinthians 12–14) than on almost any other issue (with the possible exception, in certain circles, of the whole “prosperity gospel” doctrine), even as they chasten other Christians—with some justification—for denying the validity of spiritual gifts. Similarly, Lutherans historically have put much more of an emphasis on precise dogma and systematic theology than Jesus ever did (just read the Book of Concord), while accusing other believers—again, with some legitimate justification—of not taking the intellectual demands of faith seriously enough and not knowing what they believe and why. Catholics and Orthodox believers give a great deal of attention to the traditions of the church and the authority of the teachings and proclamations of their popes and patriarchs, past and present, leading to distinctive doctrines such as the belief in papal infallibility and practices like the veneration of saints and of Mary (all of which seem to lack solid biblical support), while accusing Protestants—with some legitimate justification—of not having any real knowledge of or respect for the history and heroes of the faith. You could make similar points about the Reformed tradition offering the rest of the universal church legitimate and needed instruction and correction concerning God’s sovereignty that can tend to get distorted by hyper-Calvinism, or the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition offering the rest of the universal church legitimate and needed instruction and correction concerning sanctification and holy living that can tend to get distorted by excessively puritanical and legalistic attitudes. And so it goes. So while all the major branches of Christianity may be said to have insights that are vital to the increased spiritual health of the body of Christ as a whole, the tendency is often for them to veer (slightly or not-so-slightly) away from a balanced biblical perspective at precisely the same point at which they (often correctly) perceive others veering away from the Bible in the opposite direction.

It’s interesting (and often sad) to see how some of these distinctive beliefs emerged in the first place, and how often they were slowly and subtly distorted from earlier truths. For example, the whole thing with Catholics and Orthodox Christians venerating Mary (almost to the point of idolatry in some periods of history) began in 431 at the Council of Ephesus, when it was decreed that Mary was to be known as “Theotokos,” which means “God-bearer.” The context was a major dispute about whether Christ was fully divine (and therefore truly God in some meaningful sense), or whether he was a supernatural being who was subservient to God, or just a human with a divine calling. Thus, the original aim of the church in labeling Mary “God-bearer” was to assert that the one she bore in her womb WAS GOD, not some lesser being. In other words, they were making a point about Jesus, not about Mary. But over the years, a very important truth was gradually covered over by some questionable theology, with the results that A) Catholics and Orthodox believers got a little too hung up on Mary and B) Liberal Protestants in the post-Enlightenment era often tended to denounce Catholic and Orthodox Christians as superstitious nuts, then proceeded to write books in which they essentially portrayed Jesus as less-than-God (things like Strauss’s Leben Jesu or Renan’s Vie de Jesus), thus falling into the very trap that the early church was trying to guard against in the first place.

Now, closer to home for me, I think Pentecostals similarly set out to stress an important biblical truth (that the Holy Spirit remains powerfully active in the lives of believers today), got sidetracked by a lot of bad theology and bizarre practice, and, as a result, have essentially lost a lot of the credibility necessary to serve as a herald for the rest of the body of Christ on this issue. Baptists (and others of course, but Baptists are particularly known for their belief in cessationism, i.e. the theory that spiritual gifts were only valid for the apostolic era) have reacted (with justification) against Pentecostal excesses, but have often fallen into the same trap that the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liberal Protestants did: by distancing themselves from Pentecostalism’s mistakes, they have simultaneously shut themselves off, to a certain extent, from some of the important truths that lay buried under Pentecostalism’s (admittedly often unattractive) exterior. Now, rather than just opposing the more flagrantly improper usages of the gift of tongues (as they should), some Baptists at least seem to be launching an inquisition. And Pentecostals themselves, of course, are guilty of the same sort of thing when, rather than simply opposing something like the excessive veneration of Mary, they write off pre-Protestant Christian history completely as ”the Dark Ages” and pretend like there is nothing that they need to learn from the Catholic or Orthodox communities or from the medieval Church Fathers, thus leaving them with very shallow roots and a high degree of ignorance concerning the broader scope of the Christian tradition throughout history and around the world. Or when, rather than, in accordance with their Methodist and Arminian roots, objecting to some elements of the hyper-Calvinist theology that is defended by some (by no means a majority) within the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition, they instead indiscriminately use the word “Calvinist” as though it were a epithet (in spite of the fact that few of them have any very clear idea of what Calvin himself actually said), thus missing out on many of the important insights of the Reformed tradition (not only on issues related to God’s sovereignty, but on a wealth of others), and leaving themselves more vulnerable to a tendency toward hyper-individualism.

There are undoubtedly dozens of other useful examples of this same phenomenon in all branches of the Christian church throughout history. This, in short, is one of the most insidious dangers of denominationalism—we all need each other’s insights, but by recoiling from what we perceive to be most flawed in each other’s teachings, we also miss out on what is most true and important in each other’s teachings—which are often just the things that we need to correct those things in our OWN understanding that are most flawed.

Ok, next point: In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that there are times when I am tempted to distance or even completely dissassociate myself from Pentecostalism. The basic reason for these feelings is this: for a group of Christians who have often claimed to have a virtual monopoly on understanding and experiencing the Holy Spirit, many Pentecostals (not just individually, but as corporate entities) woefully underemphasize many of the most significant things that Scipture tells us about the Spirit. For example, it seems to me that Jesus’ “farewell discourse” in the Gospel of John (Chapters 14–16) tells us a lot more about the Spirit than does Acts Chapter 2 (the Day of Pentecost story, the classical text of Pentecostals). In John, Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit is going to come and dwell within them (14:16, 17), that the Spirit will teach them and remind them of the things that Jesus has said to them (14:26), that the Spirit will convict people of sin (16:8), and that He will guide believers into truth (16:13). Furthermore, in Galatians 5, Paul uses a famous metaphor to inform the early church that the FRUIT of the Spirit—in other words, the evidence of the Spirit’s presence in the lives of believers, the spiritual “fruit” that proves that a person really is a Spirit-filled Christian in the same way that an apple on the branch proves that a tree really is an apple tree—is love, joy, peace, patience, and so forth. Now, in my mind, the things that Jesus mentions in John are infinitely more significant aspects of the Spirit’s work than the bestowing of the spiritual gifts (at least as most Pentecostals have classically conceived of them), and the fruit of the Spirit listed by Paul are infinitely more accurate indications of the activity of the Spirit in a believer’s life than is speaking in tongues. And yet, by and large, Pentecostals have been so overly-focused on spiritual gifts (and speaking in tongues in particular) that they have largely failed in their duty to highlight these core truths about the Holy Spirit that are right there in the gospels and epistles. And the saddest irony of all is, that while Baptists and Pentecostals (and Presbyterians and Catholics and most all Christians) would fully agree with each other that the Holy Spirit guides and convicts and teaches, AND that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and the rest, all of us so often fail to exhibit any evidence that we are truly allowing the Spirit to guide, teach, and convict us OR that we are increasingly being filled with love, joy, kindness, and so forth. And, in the saddest of ironies, one of the chief ways in which we tend to manifest this lack of an intimate connection with the Spirit is by violently arguing with each other over secondary aspects of His work like speaking in tongues.

just one more thing…

I think in my eagerness to explain to Sarah in particular why I feel differently than she does about the whole “recognizing servicemen and women in the context of corporate worship” issue, I sort of deflected attention away from what was originally in my mind when I wrote the first post, which was this: I just think it is wrong on some level for the church, which is supposed to be a transcendant, universal body, to essentially publicly say, in the context of worship, ”Isn’t it wonderful to be American?” (even if a particular congregation IS 100% American, which many are not), for the same reason that we wouldn’t say “Isn’t it wonderful to be white?” or “Isn’t it wonderful to be middle class?” even if our particular congregation was 100%  uniform in racial or economic terms. (And by the way, I feel exactly the same way when my particular church says, in effect, “Isn’t it wonderful to be Pentecostal?”). I think that any such statements by the church (whether they are implicit or explicit) distort our fundamental identity, pit us against others in subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways, and undermine our mission. I simply seized on the nationalistic version of this dangerous tendency because (A) July 4 is coming up, and (B) It seems to be the one that we are all most willing to overlook.  

More on the whole nation/church debate

So after reflecting a bit more on the topic I blogged about yesterday and carefully considering some of the comments I got, I think I need to wrestle a bit more with why something that clearly doesn’t bother the majority of even particularly thoughtful believers (which I sort of suspected going in to this) disturbs me so much. Here’s what I’ve come up with: while it is true (as I stated in my first post) that service to one’s country and service to God are not mutually exclusive by any means, the equal and opposite truth is that service to one’s country and disobedience to God are also clearly not mutually exclusive. When a pastor stands up in the pulpit of a large church and says, “Everyone who has ever served in our country’s armed forces, please stand, and let’s all give them a big round of applause,” there may be some of those standing who served in a very moral and prayerful way in spite of the obstacles to Christlikeness that military service often presents. There may also be people standing who engaged in Abu Ghraib-like torture of prisoners (or at least looked the other way), stood by as his or her comrades executed civilians, violently hazed a homosexual comrade, sexually harassed a female comrade, got through the horrors of Vietnam with the aid of opium and prostitutes, or flew as a teenager on the plane that dropped a bomb on Hiroshima, killing 100,000 mostly innocent civilians (including, no doubt, at least a few Japanese Christians). These examples may seem overly melodramatic, but the point is that we just don’t know, and don’t even think to wonder. Military service is often presented—not just by the nation, but by the church—as if it were a moral virtue in and of itself, regardless of the content of that service.

Just to clear up any confusion, my argument is not necessarily a matter of saying “I don’t think military personnel should be given more recognition in church than non-military members”  (although you could certainly make that argument, and some might press for equal recognition for others who ”serve their country” like teachers, policemen, firemen, postal carriers, or whatever). As Sarah pointed out, once you start making this argument, you get into treacherous waters with things like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and so on. However, I really think that if you wanted to maintain logical consistency on this point, you would certainly not be out of line to suggest that both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day church services often make the same mistake as Independence Day or Veterans’ Day ones—celebrating the fact of successful procreation as an honorable and praiseworthy thing in and of itself  (thus potentially wounding those who cannot successfully conceive or those who have suffered miscarriages or stillbirths), rather than celebrating Christlike and responsible parenting, which is clearly woefully lacking in our country and, yes, in our churches. But I digress… 

My larger point is that the church should be careful not to formally celebrate things in the context of corporate worship just because the government has put them on the calendar, or because national sentiment (as opposed to Christian conviction) says that they are important. The question to ask is, when I stand on July 4 or Veterans’ Day to applaud, what am I applauding and why? Am I applauding clear and inarguable moral virtue and Christlikeness because I feel sure that Christ would also applaud the actions of all of these men and women? Or am I applauding abstract concepts like bravery and sacrifice and the defense of religious freedom and “the American way of life” and basically assuming that on some level, all service is automatically virtuous service and thus worthy of being celebrated by the church? In other words, am I responding first and foremost as a Christian, or as an American? It can be really insidious, can’t it?

I think what I would prefer to see in our churches is a climate in which God’s activity in the lives of individual people (in any and every walk of life, including parenthood and military service) is publicly highlighted and corporately celebrated every week of the year (perhaps anonymously? see the discussion in the comments), thus ensuring both that  no one is excluded from having God’s good work in and through them affirmed, AND that we are honoring things that truly honor God, rather than giving blanket commendations to particular groups a couple of times a year on grounds that, when we really honestly examine them, turn out to have more to do with patriotism or what we might call “nationalistic religion” than with authentic, boundary-transcending Christianity. Let the debate continue…       

Some thoughts on Christian identity in anticipation of Independence Day

Over the course of the last few years, Leia and I have taught a course on the basic flow of the biblical narrative multiple times, both here in the States and in Cyprus. One of the highlights each time has been the lesson on God’s calling of Abraham in Genesis 12, in which He summons Abraham to follow Him and promises both that He will bless him and his descendants, and that He will make them a blessing to others. One of the points that we draw out of this story is that following God requires embracing a new identity. Abraham was not a Jew whom God called; he became the ancestor of the Jews because God called him. Before that, he would have seen himself as a descendant of Adam or a descendant of Noah, perhaps, and certainly as a descendant of Peleg (the patriarch of one of the seventy or so nations that emerged following the dispersion of humanity from the Tower of Babel), and his identity would have been defined by that particular heritage and nationality, along with its language and culture. But after God’s calling, Abraham’s descendants no longer traced their ancestry to Peleg, nor did they view Ur as their ancestral homeland, nor did they define their identity primarily in terms of a shared language (as had been the case since Babel). Rather, they defined themselves in terms of their common identity as the people who had been called and chosen by God.  

The point we make to the young people is that we all have various “identities” (gender, age, race or ethnicity, nationality, social class, school clique, denominational allegiance) that divide us, but in God’s eyes, our primary identity is as Christians,  as those who have received a common calling to carry on the task that God entrusted to Abraham and his descendants. And accepting His calling requires that we lay aside some of the ”rights” and attitudes that go along with our other, lesser identities. Throughout history, when one of these other identities that divide believers from one another has become more important to them than the common faith that should have united them, the results have been tragic and shameful:

• Christian-sponsored racism, slavery, and ethnic genocide
• Christian-sponsored sexism and exploitation of women
• Christian-sponsored classism, capitalism without conscience, and neglect of the poor and marginalized
• Christian-sponsored nationalism, imperialism, and subjugation of other peoples
• Prideful denominationalism causing Christians to compete with, look down on, and separate themselves from other Christians  

It seems clear from this terrible legacy that in order for us to be faithful to our common calling, we must renounce our right to segregate ourselves from, compete with, mistreat, or ignore the sufferings of our fellow believers, no matter who they are. Our common identity as brothers and sisters in Christ must outweigh and override everything else.  

I was led to revisit this line of thinking this week as a result of my sense of impending dread regarding my congregation’s upcoming service on the Sunday that falls closest to Independence Day. Typically, this service involves the singing of patriotic anthems like the Battle Hymn of the Republic, God Bless America, and America the Beautiful, as well as the requisite digital backdrops of soaring eagles and flags billowing in the breeze and so on. On a personal level, I find it a bit annoying that my wife, a British citizen born and raised in England, is forced to come into church and pretend to be excited and inspired by the fact that my country kicked her country’s butt in battle in the 1770’s, but I have another concern that runs much deeper—the fact that the American church so often casually and unthinkingly allows our nationalistic identity to outweigh our identity as Christians, which we share with believers around the globe.

Now I recognize that this is a controversial argument to make, and in the interest of full disclosure I should state that due to the vagaries of birthdates and disabilities, no one in my immediate family has ever served in the armed forces, so my patriotic feelings probably do not run as high as those of many Americans. On the other hand, having lived in another country for awhile, I will maintain til my dying breath that there is no better place on Earth to live than America. Nevertheless, I believe there are some important biblical principles that we overlook when we suggest that religion and patriotism should go hand in hand.

In Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11, Paul maintains that, in light of Christ’s death and resurrection, among believers there can be no more divisions between male and female, slave and free, circumcised and uncircumcised; that we are no longer Jews, Greeks, Scythians, or barbarians, but rather that Christ is in us all and that we are all one in Him. So if there is no longer Jew, Greek, or Scythian, does it not stand to reason that there is also no longer American, European, or Iraqi? If this is the case, how can we continue not only to take such pride in the national identities that divide us from other believers, but (more troublingly) champion those national identities from the pulpits and platforms of our churches? 

Should our country (and particularly the men and women of its armed forces) be honored? Sure—by the federal and state governments, by the mayors and city councils of our communities, by civic organizations and veterans’ associations… but by the church? I’m not so sure. Rather, I believe that Christ should be honored, and that any words of commendation for others should be based on faithfulness to Christ, not service to their country (although the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, of course). And of course, one of the ways in which we can honor Christ is by affirming our unity with other Christians, regardless of the political or cultural lines that divide us.

A quote from Lesslie Newbigin on this issue really struck me. He said this (describing post-Enlightenment nationalism):

“If there is any entity to which ultimate loyalty is due, it is the nation state. In the twentieth century we have become accustomed to the fact that—in the name of the nation—Catholics will fight Catholics, Protestants will fight Protestants, and Marxists will fight Marxists. The charge of blasphemy, if it is ever made, is treated as a quaint anachronism; but the charge of treason, of placing another loyalty above that to the nation state, is treated as an unforgivable crime. The nation state has taken the place of God.”

Newbigin’s words about blasphemy and treason caused me to reflect on this question: Would the average American churchgoer be more shocked and outraged by hearing someone using the Lord’s name in a blasphemous way, or by seeing someone burning an American flag? I think that if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s no contest. Why is this? Because blasphemy is so much more common that we have become desensitized to it? Sure, in part. But also because our national identity and loyalty is viewed by so many as transcending our Christian identity. This fact is linked to the rampant denominational and even congregational pride and exclusivity that I discussed yesterday. If your most deeply-held religious identity is as a member of a particular local church or even a specific denomination, then your identity as an American (which you share with many people from many local churches and denominations, as well as non-Christians) naturally seems like a more fundamental one. But if you see yourself first and foremost not as a church member or denominational affiliate but a follower of Christ, in communion with other followers of Christ from every nation, ethnic group, social class, and confessional tradition throughout the world, then being an American suddenly becomes a good deal less relevant, and using your national identity as a means of asserting your collective superiority to fellow believers in other nations becomes unthinkable.

Should we give praise and honor to God for the varied blessings that living in our respective countries bring? Of course we should. But that’s very different from giving praise and honor to our countries themselves. Whether it is July 4, September 11, or any other day of the year, the first words on our lips should be “Holy, Holy, Holy,” not “God Bless America.”

A splintered body (or St. Paul and postage costs)

I live in a county of approximately 95,000 people or so. By my best reckoning there are upwards of 200 formally established Christian congregations in this county, not counting a number of small storefront operations, informal home groups, and the tent revival that is conducted a few times a year a block from my house. Of course, many of those 200+ churches are tiny, but a fair few have 500+ members, and some many more. So if we guesstimate that maybe 75 people are affiliated with each church on average, we’re in the neighborhood of 15,000 churchgoers. In terms of Jesus’ salt of the earth metaphor, this county is essentially a 16 oz. porterhouse with 2.5 oz. of salt on it. You would think that you would notice that kind of salt concentration when you took a bite. 

Here’s the rest of the story though: the county is also home to the international headquarters of two major Pentecostal denominations, the Church of God and the Church of God of Prophecy (which, as you may have guessed, started out as one denomination). They’ve had their differences over the years, but currently they are virtually indistinguishable in terms of their core theological commitments. The COGOP (of which I am a member) has (at least by my count) 7 congregations in the county, which together consist of around 1000 people or so. The much larger Church of God has several dozen congregations in the county. In addition, there are another several dozen other denominational and nondenominational Evangelical/Pentecostal churches. This all adds up to an appalling amount of duplicated effort and wasted resources, largely because most of these churches refuse to engage in meaningful cooperation with each other, preferring to operate instead as independent clubs or personal fiefdoms of a particular pastor.

Now, my personal conviction is that I am willing to work with and learn from Christians from all different traditions (Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist… whatever). But even supposing for a minute that the core theological and practical issues that distinguish Evangelicals and Pentecostals from those other parts of the Body are too much for some of us to look past, why can’t we even cooperate among ourselves and avoid further divisions, not only within Pentecostalism, but within the same denomination inside the same city limits?! When Paul needed to address the early Christians, he would send a letter to “the believers at Rome” (which had a population between eight hundred thousand and a million) and they would share it with one another. How could Paul possibly contact “the believers in Bradley County”? He’d have to address more than 200 separate envelopes and spend over 80 bucks on stamps!   

Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to (and I’d like some feedback on this). I think that one of the greatest barriers to unity among churches who do NOT have major theological differences with each other (like, for example, the dozens and dozens of congregations of Church of God-descent in my county) is the fact that we have all founded our congregational identities largely on the style of our worship and preaching. The shameful truth is that the African-American members of our denomination in this county, the lower-income white members, and the middle-class white members are largely segregated into separate congregations, and a lot of it has to do with the kind of singing we want to do and the kind of preaching we want to hear—and again, I’m talking purely about STYLE, not about content. It’s not that our middle-class white members object to the theology that is presented by our black preachers, for example—it’s just that they don’t want their preacher shouting at them. 

Could it be that by making singing and preaching styles our primary focus as congregations (and let’s face it, these are two of the biggest criteria that ”church-shoppers” examine), we have isolated and crippled ourselves? What good could be done in the service of Christ in this community with the money that it costs to pay the mortgages and utilities on the seven church buildings that our denomination currently uses (most of which are within five minutes of at least one of the others), not to mention the money that it cost to equip them all with the instruments and sound systems that they use to produce the type of worship music that they prefer? And, more critically, even if we have different tastes in terms of what happens on Sunday morning, why should that keep us from working together Monday through Saturday on the crucial tasks of fellowship-building, evangelism, discipleship, and the promotion of social justice and basic welfare for people in our community? Quite simply, the answer is that we are all too busy pouring all of our time, money, talents, and energies into propping up our own congregations and “improving the quality” of what we are doing on Sunday mornings, which, (we seem to assume), is the cornerstone of our respective corporate identities. In other words, if six dozen different groups of Christians from different congregations within the same denomination in the same city meet on Saturday evening at six dozen different locations across town to independently rehearse the worship songs that will be sung the next morning in their dozens of respective congregations, that might work out to three, four, or even five hundred believers who are NOT free to study the Bible together, to invite each other over for dinner, or to hand out food in a soup kitchen together—all so we can provide worship and preaching styles to suit every taste.

I realize of course that there are other issues that play into this splintering of Christian communities, many of which are more substantive. But I submit that an alarming overemphasis on the importance of worship and preaching styles (or worship and preaching “excellence,” as some would define it) is keeping Christians who have absolutely no theological quarrel with each other from working together for the Kingdom, or even from meeting each other. As far as I am aware, the Gospels only record one occasion on which Jesus offered formal instruction to a discrete community of faith in a synagogue on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16–30—and they didn’t like His style, by the way) and one occasion on which He sang a song (Mark 14:26). So maybe instead of being divided from like-minded believers by superficial stylistic differences concerning formal preaching and singing (two things which Jesus seems not to have spent much time on), we should unite around some of the things that we all recognize WERE central to His life and ministry—things like informal and dialogical teaching, ministering to the needs of the poor and the sick, prophetically opposing both pagan secularism and hypocritical religion, and, most crucially, the formation of deep, transformative relationships with God and with one another—even with those people in the same denomination in the same city whose names we don’t know because they like black gospel instead of southern gospel.      

    

Quick postscript

Just to follow up briefly on yesterday’s post, I finished reading God’s Politics last night and started an older book by Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon called Resident Aliens. I’ve heard mixed reviews on it and am not quite sure whether I fully understand the central thrust of their argument yet (and therefore, whether or not I agree with them), but I came across a passage today that seemed relevant to the thoughts I expressed yesterday. The authors were employing a typology set out by John Howard Yoder, who basically said that a church can choose to be an activist church (socially aware and involved, concerned with improving society, essentially a “liberal” position), a conversionist church (what matters most is not tinkering with the problems of society but individual reconciliation with God, essentially a “conservative” position), or a confessing church. This is how the authors go on to describe this third option:

“The confessing church is not a sythesis of the other two approaches, a helpful middle ground. Rather, it is a radical alternative. Rejecting both the individualism of the conversionists and the secularism of the activists . . . the confessing church finds its main political task to lie, not in the personal transformation of individual hearts or the modification of society, but rather in the congregation’s determination to worship Christ in all things” 

Presumably, of course, worshipping Christ ”in all things” would lead to both proactive social justice AND a burden for reconciliation between individuals and God (as well as reconciliation among individuals, groups, political parties, nations, and even, dare we dream, denominations), though for an entirely different reason than a simple desire to “strike a good balance” between the other two approaches—namely a holistic commitment to Christlikeness. I thought this was an interesting way of framing the issue, and I think that the mess that we currently find ourselves in is largely a result of the fact that many American Christians have bought into an (often highly-politicized) false dichotomy between worshipping Christ in our personal piety and worshipping Christ in our public engagement rather than in “all things.”  

Opening Salvo

So I’ve been reading some thought-provoking stuff recently, including a couple of books of cultural and agricultural essays by Wendell Berry (a farmer/poet/novelist/social critic) and God’s Politics by Jim Wallis (a Christian social justice activist and political advocate). Berry’s writings focus on the intersections between faith and morality, sustainable land use and environmental responsibility, poverty and economic injustice, and the integrity of families and local communities.  Wallis’ book is basically an indictment of the modern American two-party political impasse and an examination of what a more holistic faith-driven political and economic agenda might look like. Not exactly the kind of stuff I was brought up on as a Pentecostal kid in the South, needless to say. While I don’t agree fully with either author’s perspective (naturally), and find Wallis’ book to be slightly unbalanced and surprisingly poorly-edited, these works have given me a lot of food for thought. I find it incomprehensible that the American political and social system doesn’t seem to allow for people to be both strongly in favor of personal morality, the sanctity of all life (not just unborn American life, but young Iraqi or Palestinian or Sudanese life too) and healthy family dynamics AND simultaneously be firmly committed to promoting racial reconciliation, gender equity, economic justice, environmental responsibility, peacemaking, and so on. I realize that these are hardly original thoughts, but in this election year I am finding myself deeply troubled by the inconsistencies in our society as a whole and, more specifically, in the body of Christ. How does one take a stand for a holistic Christian worldview in a society where one party claims a monopoly on “Be holy because I am holy” and the other claims a monopoly on “Whatever you have done for the least of these you have done for Me” AND in which embracing either set of issues gets you condemned by fellow believers on the other side of the aisle? People like Wendell Berry and Jim Wallis are making honest attempts at it, and I guess I am too, but part of me longs to see this kind of holistic faith being proclaimed from more pulpits in this country (especially in the evangelical/Pentecostal community that, for better or worse, I am still part of at the moment). And that part of me finds it difficult to understand how this unconscionable divorce between personal morality and public justice and mercy was ever allowed to occur and fester by people who claim to be imitating Someone who clearly took both very seriously. 

Come on in

A few words of explanation: this blog is intended to be a place for me to semi-publicly wrestle with my thoughts, prayers, hopes, frustrations, musings, ramblings, things I’m reading, current events, and various other minutiae. I’ve recently found myself longing for some sort of constructive outlet for that kind of thing, and seeing as how I’m a writer and all, this seemed like the natural solution. This is not going to be a “what’s going on in my daily life” kind of thing. Leia and I still have our Deep Breaths blog for that (though, to be honest, it doesn’t get updated much). I greatly desire as much input and feedback as you have time to give, and I will do my best to keep this thing updated with provocative conversation-starters. Welcome all.