Category: Christian Life Page 3 of 9

Christ’s church in this world is fragmented, divided, contentious, and marginalized.

And then, it’s not.

I meet with a group of pastors from Oviedo (currently all men, which is a reflection of our community and not policy) the first Wednesday of every month for breakfast. We purposely have no agenda and we are discouraged from discussing our programs and plans.

We just eat. We share a meal together and that is it.

Conversation is organic and may include talk of church just as much as it may focus on family or sports. We are just guys eating breakfast. I wish I could export this simple vision to more program oriented pastors in other cities who are trying to unite their churches.

But program oriented pastors come and typically don’t come back, which is sad. “You don’t DO anything,” is the charge, and it is an accurate one. We don’t. And it is in the not doing that there is value.

We are, in a weird way, competitors. We are each pastoring churches we want to see grow. And yet, something is happening when we sit over bacon and eggs and that weird Spanish oatmeal that some were eating (or drinking?) last time. What is happening is that we are becoming friends. We are drawing close to one another and coming to love one another. That kind of thing can happen when you work hard at not doing anything. And when you eat together.

We do nothing so that when we do something, we can do so as friends.

Once each year, we plan and host a community Thanksgiving service, which we did this past Tuesday night. Gathered in the chapel of Reformed Theological Seminary were over 200 Christians from churches in Oviedo. Mingling and worshiping side by side were those whom a pollster would delight in slicing into pet categories: white, black, Latino, independent, Presbyterian, Episcopal, old, young, exuberant, staid, and on and on. It smelled like heaven, and it was beautiful.

As I looked out over those gathered, I did not know 99% of them, but I loved them. I loved them because I love those who lead them. A unity among these Christians was being forged as their pastors did nothing together once/month, a nothing that becomes a significant something.

It may sound trite for me to say, on this November 24, 2016, this fourth Thursday in November, but I’m thankful for the church. But I am.

I’m thankful, certainly, for my precious local congregation which has loved me so deeply this past year. But my thanks is deeper. I’m thankful for the Church, the bigger expression of it, against which the gates of hell will never prevail, through which the kingdom of heaven is brought near to a broken world.

I got to glimpse a picture of that this past Tuesday night. I’m thankful I get to enjoy a taste of it every month. Over sausage and pancakes.

In a reflective essay for the Religion News Service last Wednesday, journalist Kimberly Winston, confessing to being “a little bruised and scared” as a result of the recent presidential election, sought out a church in the city she was visiting so that she might find “some balm for a very banged-up, frightened spirit.”

She picked “a nearby evangelical church.” That the extent of her screening was “nearby” and “evangelical” surprises me a bit. A journalist who, as she said, is not “in search of a story” should know that a bit more research than THAT may be necessary to dodge the charged political environment that too frequently finds its way into public worship.

In February my wife and I, like Ms. Winston, found ourselves in another city over a Sunday. Like her, we were seeking gospel solace and refreshment in a local church. Before we got to the area, I researched churches online, beginning with those bearing the most affinity with my own tradition. We longed for gospel truth absent nods of praise to party, platform, country, or candidate.

We narrowed the search to a few that seemed to offer the greatest promise. Looking more closely, however, we found the profile picture of the pastor of one church showed him standing in front of an American flag. Too much risk there, we decided, and we removed that one from our list. I took a peek at the Twitter feed of the pastor of another candidate church, only to find it full of angry barbs taking aim at one of the major presidential candidates. We removed that one. And so it went. I suppose we, too, might have settled for ‘nearby evangelical,’ but we opted to stay in and forego public worship.

So, I empathize with Ms. Winston’s longing.

And whether she was consciously looking for a story or not, she certainly found it. In the sermon whose title, she found out, was “Make Jesus Great Again,” the preacher, an elderly woman,

…described Donald Trump as a “godly man” who is “God’s instrument” and “a miracle” — proof, she said, that a country can “only wallow in sin so long” before God sends a savior….

After a time Ms. Winston left, “more broken and in need of solace” than when she went in. That is sad.

But here is the dilemma for preachers and the church. No one should be able to visit our churches without finding the comfort of the gospel. Everything we do should be infused with a message of grace. We should be defined by the gospel we preach, not by the political platform we support.

And yet, the message we preach is one that, properly considered, is inherently political. Jesus is king as well savior, and that will have political overtones. In seeking to articulate the kingdom of grace, our message may unavoidably sound political.

If, for example, we want to speak of love, we will drawn to Jesus’s clearest articulation of love for one’s neighbor. There he speaks of a man transcending racial and religious prejudices to sacrificially serve a stranger. If a preacher does not articulate the racial overtones of that story, he will have failed to apply it properly to his congregation and abandons them to be shaped rather by the loudest voices on radio, TV, or internet. If he does articulate the racial aspects, he exposes himself to the criticism that he is too political.

A church should not set out to make political statements, of course. But we do need to seek to shape thinking according to the Scripture. And this we must do with great humility and care. When, as my previous post suggested, the culture is caught up in nationalistic fervor, the church needs to embrace even more passionately its call to serve the kingdom of Christ. And this can be very hard.

I myself should probably not be so sensitive to preachers with flags or a pastor’s personal tweets. I have no intention of giving up on the church. I still believe it is the vehicle through which God intends to bring renewal. Sadly, Ms. Winston is not so sanguine.

“I have no plans to return to a church in anything but a professional role again.”

I hope she is speaking rhetorically. The church needs its best people now to plot a careful path through a difficult time.

As I write this, the U. S. presidential election of 2016 has not yet taken place, although, given the ready availability of early voting, I have already voted. So, I do not know now what the state of our political landscape will be at the point this post goes live.

Like many, I have very strong feelings about this election. Normally I keep those under wraps, though the particular dynamics of this election cycle has made it harder than normal so that those who follow me here or on Twitter may not find my convictions too difficult to discern.

As a minister my commitment has always been never to identify with any one candidate or political party but to apply a biblical moral judgment to all. I supported the criticism of (Democrat) Bill Clinton’s moral failure during his presidency and I publicly called for the resignation of then Florida Senate president (Republican) John McKay who about the same time admitted to having an affair with an AT&T lobbyist.

When ministers and churches tie their horses to particular political wagons, when the wagon goes down, so do the horses with the resultant dilution of the Christian witness of that minister or church. The gospel message is too important to risk aligning with any one political party. It has been hard this election cycle to retain some semblance of neutrality as issues vital to Christian sensibilities were subsumed to fear and Christian concern for compassion and justice and mercy seemed to be assigned second place to concerns of personal liberty and economic and political prosperity. Where in the Bible is liberty championed as a cause greater than that of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger?

The election is behind us now and a new president has been chosen. The result will cause some to relax and others to fear. But what it should not do is alter in any shape the call and function of the church. The church is NOT to be a politically defined entity, though much we are called to do will have political implications. Our role is not in the least defined by who occupies the White House or sets policy in the legislative chambers. What defines us must be the call of Scripture to be those who love

To do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

As we are to be those who

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. (Philippians 2:14, 15)

Much could be said by way of developing these things which I won’t do now. However, I’m certain that these are the things we are to pursue regardless of the political order and climate.

Emailing a friend this morning, I felt the urge to share something troubling me and to ask him to pray. A simple and common thing. But after hitting ‘send’ a question came to mine, “Why did I do that? Why did I ask him to pray?”

The answer should be obvious. I was asking a friend who loves Jesus to join me in prayer for a particular concern, and God invites us to do that. God tells us to share one another’s burdens in this way. So that was why I asked him.

As true as that is, I think there is more. A lot more. We ask others to pray for us so that in our pain and suffering and hurt we won’t feel so much alone. Suffering isolates us, and loneliness frightens us. A simple request for prayer fights back against the awful possibility of suffering alone. And this is as it should be.

In the creation, God saw only one thing that was not good.

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone….” (Genesis 2:18)

And upon this declaration God gave a woman to the man and in an instant created community. Things then were good and neither were alone.

It is the searing damage of sin that breeds emotions such as these:

I have no need of friendship;
friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain. (Paul Simon)

It is no incidental detail that the result of the fall was the maligning of community. In the chaos of sin the man and the woman hid from God and pointed the finger at each other. The direction of sin is always away from community. Sin makes us alone, or drives us to find community in harmful ways and unhealthy places.

Restoring things to the way they are supposed to be will always be a restoration of community. God saves us into relationship with himself and with one another. Union with Christ means union with his body, the church. This was the first of his acts of bringing his kingdom near, to create a community of disciples who show their relationship to him by the love they bear for one another. We are not meant to be alone.

When I asked my friend for prayer, it was an act of faith, but in ways far greater than I thought. To ask another to enter into our need is an act of rebellion against the sinful order and a definitive stand for the kingdom of God.

A member of our church is battling some serious injuries and surgical complications and his wife has kept me up to date with his status and has asked me, and the church, for prayer. This morning I drove to the hospital. I was not able to see him, but I was able to spend some time with his wife. When I walked in, she burst into tears. Why? It was not that I bore words of wisdom or could bring immediate healing to her husband of 41 years.

I believe it was because with my mere presence, she no longer felt as much alone, just as when I emailed my friend, I no longer felt as much alone.

And in these small ways we glimpse life as it is supposed to be.

My contention in previous posts (here, here, here, and here) has been that we make better men by calling on men to be better people, not by building illusory models of masculinity imaginatively drawn from Scripture. Since posting, I’ve been gratified to stumble across others saying similar things, albeit with far greater erudition and eloquence. A recent post on the First Things site is entitled ‘Making Better Men‘, and it is worth a read.

Speaking of the male role models in his life, the author, First Things assistant editor Alexi Sargeant says:

The strength of both these fathers, physical and spiritual, was a humble one, in that they had no need to boast or domineer. They had the character to suffer wrongs patiently and trust in God rather than crave the accolades of men. I am grateful that my image of masculinity was formed by these men of faith and integrity. They modeled love and respect in their marriages and their friendships, building up the people God had placed in their lives with care, devotion, and joy. This unpretentious constancy is what men should strive for. When I ask my friends for their formative, positive male role models, the answers (real and fictional) were often men of quiet confidence and steadfast service, like St. Maximilian Kolbe or Atticus Finch of To Kill A Mockingbird.

That a lesser, as he calls it ‘a dingier’, sense of manliness is seemingly embodied in the popularity of Donald Trump is sad to me as I think it does reflect something of the confusion men feel as to what it means to be a genuine, or decent, man. Sargeant notes that

The virtuous man, by contrast, demonstrates both self-control and self-respect.

And he calls us to find, and to be, better role models.

To which I say, “Amen.”

It was our date night, and my wife wanted to shop for some shorts. I was willing to set aside my natural aversion to shopping, and shopping for women’s clothes in particular, on a date night no less, in order to accompany her cheerfully and to earn some serious husband points in the process.

After visiting several stores we ended up at a Montgomery Ward department store, which dates this story a bit. As she was holding up a pair of shorts to the light, I said, “Why don’t you just buy this pair?” I suspect my patience was running out. She said something like, “Oh, I wasn’t going to buy anything; I’m just looking.”

I realized then what was meant by those who had said in messages about the differences between men and women that women shop, but men hunt.

That’s been a fun distinction to think about and, to an extent, joke about. When I go to the store, I set a bullseye to this item and a bullseye on that item. I grab them and throw them in the cart and leave. Barb will stop and read the labels and pause and think and consider. We cannot go to the store together. She shops and I hunt.

What I should NOT do, however, is to generalize from my own limited personal experience to say that this is a ‘masculine’ trait, an aspect of what it means to be a man. I should especially not hit the Christian speaker circuit (as if anyone would want me to) drawing that and other distinctions of dubious value which I doubt would stand up under clinical scrutiny. In fact, I suspect that there are other couples where the husband is more likely to shop, and the woman more likely to hunt. Is he therefore less man-like?

The effort to find a so-called ‘biblical’ masculinity is fraught with this danger. We ought never to generalize from our own cultural or personal experience distinctions which we observe as if they apply to all men or women. Nor should we legitimize these distinctions by calling them biblical. Whether I hunt or shop of course is fairly innocuous. But we baptize other instincts as ‘manly’ or ‘masculine’ such as dominance or vengeance or, even so-called ‘locker-room talk’. These may be in fact sinful instincts best overwhelmed by a pursuit of decency.

Film director Scott Derrickson noted recently that things such as racism and misogyny are in our American DNA. It’s worse than that. It’s in our human DNA. That’s not pessimism. That’s good theology, and rings more true than the hunting/shopping distinction. Untaught, unrestrained, unaddressed, and well fed it will grow into a cancer that will consume us. What is needed is a community of ordinary men and women embracing a contrary ethic, an ethic of decency, to lead us not to generalized and perhaps imagined standards of masculinity and femininity, but to be a people reflecting as much as we are able, the standards of the kingdom of God.

At a political rally a Christian pastor proclaims,

“In a manly time of struggle one cannot get by with effeminate and sweet talk of peace.”

One can imagine his comments receiving a vigorous supportive response. Men, even Christian men, are to be marked by strength and aggression. We are to fight for our rights and never back down. Real men pack heat and and kick ass when called upon.

And I wonder if we’ve read our cultural biases into a Christian script and gotten off track somewhere. Perhaps way off. The Christian pastor spoke these words at a 1937 rally in Frankfort, Germany, in support of Adolph Hitler.

Christianity’s current determination to make sharp distinctions between masculinity and femininity is, while aimed at a good goal, wildly off the mark. Nostalgia leads us to imagine a time when men were men and women were women. We feed off that nostalgia, no matter how inaccurate, and then find in our Bibles verses that seem to anchor those claims in scripture. That’s a bad idea all around.

And yet the motive is a good one. Christian men are wondering how to shape their character and how to be obedient as a man to their Christian discipleship. It is good to give them direction. But the issue is not masculinity but decency. Let’s guide men toward decency.

But isn’t the word ‘decent’ too tepid? Isn’t it too broad? Perhaps. I know there are those who sense some of the same things I do who rightly prefer to speak of ‘godliness.’ I don’t quibble with that. To be godly is to be decent. But the language of decency speaks to a broader public and includes within its boundaries people of virtuous character who make no claim to Christianity. Christian men seeking to be godly men will be decent men, will be good men. That is language I think we can understand and live with.

Such decency will be for us defined by Scripture. It is modeled by Christ. It is outlined in the gospels and the epistles. It includes attributes we ordinarily attribute to masculinity – courage, for example, and integrity – and those we see as more feminine – compassion and gentleness. We should pursue these things not because we want to be men, but because we want to be like Jesus. And in our current context, to aim to be simply decent men will be to run against the tide, politically and culturally. It is an act of rebellion.

When the question is asked, “What kind of people do you associate with the church?” I want the answer to be, “Decent people.” There is a certain appeal to looking at a person, man or woman, and noting their fundamental decency and longing that more of us might evidence such character. My appeal as a pastor speaking to men who want to be men is simply this: let’s be decent men.

I could be drawn to a community, a church, a nation, and a world comprised of decent men. I’m not sure how to seed the world that it might sprout such men, but that would be the world in which I’d like to live.

—

Note: The quote with which this post begins appears on page 262 in Charles Marsh’s Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a book I hope to review here soon.

Standing in the serpentine line guiding us to our luggage after a cruise, my wife and I passed and re-passed a confident and athletic looking man wearing a t-shirt that broadcast his vision of masculinity. It said, “Cool story, Babe…now make me a sandwich.” He was not one to be pushed around, this one. He knew his place as a man and was going to assert it. Or, at least, he wanted others to THINK he knew.

We are told, though, that many men these days aren’t quite sure what their place is. And so books for ‘dudes‘ are written to guide them (with endorsements by real men like pro athletes). Charismatic pastors speak directly to men, using strong and colorful language, to shape their thinking of manliness. Defining what is called ‘Biblical Masculinity’ has become the rage and I’d like to make a modest plea that we stop trying to define what isn’t there.

My plea may arise from my not being very masculine. Yes, I can grow a beard, so there is that. And I like to hang out in my garage when I can. So far so good. But I don’t hunt. And if I do go fishing (once every decade, at least, just to keep the skills fresh), and if I were to catch anything (not likely), my wife is the one who would clean it. She likes that kind of thing. I do the grocery shopping in our family and have to be reminded how to start the lawn mower should my wife not be able to take care of the lawn some week. So perhaps my dismay over the search for biblical masculinity arises from my own confusion.

That may be so. But I like to think it arises from the fact that the Bible shows a complete lack of concern for such a thing. I don’t see Jesus or Paul or any of the gospel writers or apostles overtly concerned with teaching men how to be men. Yes, we are given some direction as husbands and fathers, but many fine men are neither.

I would plea that we simply get over trying to be men and replace that with a passion to be decent. How about we champion the admittedly rather bland and gender inclusive goal of biblical decency? We could stand for this, couldn’t we?

I don’t think the book on this has yet been written, but certainly it would include a chapter on kindness. And for sure there would be one on the courage to stand for the weak. Another would encourage integrity and fidelity. And it must include one on owning our wrong and making it right. It would cover all the essentials of what makes for a decent, if not ‘manly’, man. Compassion. Patience. And the meekness with which one will inherit the earth.

I’m open to correction here. Maybe ‘biblical masculinity’ is a genuine biblical thing. But even so, should not the pursuit of ‘biblical decency’ be an even more noble cause? To embrace that is my plea.

I’m sure my sons would have loved to have had a more manly dad. They had to have other guys show them how to fish and to take them hunting. I did go backpacking with the older two once, so maybe that counted for something. But as I recall, none of them ever sat me down and urged me to do more ‘manly’ things.

One, though, did sit me down and ask me to be more gentle. I think he wanted a dad who was a more decent man. And that is a good longing.

Go think about it, men, as you make your sandwich. Make one for your wife as well. It would be the decent thing to do.

It is typical for preachers such as I in an attempt to bring encouragement to people struggling through difficult times to quote from the hymn whose first line is ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way’. We will often along with that tell something of what we know of the hymn’s author, William Cowper.

We will tell how he was a pastor and a poet, and friends of the famed John Newton, the author of the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’. And finally we will point out how Cowper dealt with severe affliction, that he struggled with mental health issues and that he was hospitalized numerous times, sometimes after attempts on his own life. Given that context we will then encourage people to reflect on lines from the hymn:

You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break
in blessings on your head.

And from this, we hope people will find comfort.

But did Cowper find comfort from these words himself? That he did not is the possibility that hymn scholar Erik Routley in his book I’ll Praise My Maker suggests.

Routley points out that the bulk of Cowper’s hymns show they were written by a man with a passionate and sensitive heart. His words were often personal, flowing from a heart in love with his savior.

Oh! for a closer walk with GOD,
A calm and heav’nly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!

But Cowper, like many sensitive souls, struggled to understand God’s providence when it took dark and inexplicable turns. And so, Routley points out, the words from his hymn on that matter,

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

are completely true and deeply hopeful. But, coming from the pen of Cowper, they are oddly lacking anything personal or emotional. They lack, that is, Cowper’s heart.

The whole hymn exhorts men to trust in God and not to enquire into His ways, which is well enough so far as it goes….

But what astonishes the careful reader is surely this, that here is a man who had both plumbed the depths of suffering and scaled the heights of faith, who wrote so passionately of his Saviour as he did in “There is a fountain filled with blood”,…yet, when he would advise men upon the inscrutability of God’s Providence, he makes no mention whatever of the Saviour of the world, and does not so much as mention the word “grace”.

How can Cowper, after all his experience and all his exhortation, write a hymn of providence that makes no mention of redemption?…Something is wrong here…. (page 110)

I’m not sure that there is something actually ‘wrong’ here, but something is clearly missing. How can that be explained?

Sometimes we find ourselves in those hard places where we are torn between the pain that hurts so badly and the truth that we are supposed to believe. All that we can really do in the midst of that agony may be to recite what we know to be true even though it seems distant from our hearts. Sometimes all we have strength to do is to sing, or in Cowper’s case write, what we are having trouble believing so that we might come around to the place where in fact we do believe and our hearts can again rejoice.

This is the ‘I believe’ part of the complete confession, ‘I believe; help my unbelief.’ (Mark 9:24) We do believe, but contentment eludes when the horror of what we are experiencing and feeling overcomes us.

Perhaps in his own way, Cowper, struggling with the incomprehensible darkness of mental illness, is showing us a path. In the dark we confess the truth that we know until the light comes to illuminate it to our hearts. Perhaps this hymn itself moves in a mysterious way.