Month: June 2009

Thoughts on “A Jesus Manifesto”

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I have to say that I’m disappointed in Frank Viola’s and Len Sweet’s latest internet push “A Magna Carta for Restoring the Supremacy of Jesus Christ, a.k.a. A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church.” Besides the crazy presumptuous title and slight affront to jesusmanifesto.com (which Mark has addressed nicely), the document really seems to be a step backward for the church. In essence “A Jesus Manifesto” calls Christians back to a Christ-centered faith. Which, in general, is something I heartily support. And, in fact, there is much in the document that I completely agree with. But when they say stuff like “What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less.”, I start to have problems.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a Christ-centered faith. And unfortunately those of us who are uncomfortable with the document are now being accused of wanting to ignore Christ or question his divinity. So let me say upfront, that is not the case. Christ is central. Period. But the assertion that Christianity – the movement of the followers of Christ – is nothing more or less than the person of Christ just really seems to miss the point.

The attack and reason for the document springs from the talk about the Kingdom of God and social justice within emerging missional communities. Viola and Sweet insist that such talk turns Jesus into an abstraction and tempts us to ignore the person of Jesus. They say “Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing.” I’m sorry guys, but Jesus was both of those things. He can’t be reduced to those things, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t embody those things as well. To say that is all he was would yes, drain his glory, but to say he wasn’t those things too denies reality. What is going on here is really a discussion of which image of Jesus we want to embrace – a niche Jesus of one extreme or another or the full Jesus.  More on that in a bit.

My main problem with the document lies in their assumption that those of us talking about justice and the kingdom are doing so apart from the person and power of Jesus. That’s just plain and simply not true. But it has become the favorite straw man argument for the opponents of the emerging missional community. I think in many ways it is based on a misunderstanding of us that projects the theology and history of the classic liberal social gospel movement onto the missional movement. Len Sweet even admitted that the document sprung in part from the lessons he’s learned from teaching a class on the history of the Social Gospel movement in early 20th century America. And while that movement was influenced by theological discussions that questioned the divinity of Christ and sought to find the “historical Jesus,” it is unfair and inappropriate to assume the same thing of the emerging missional movement.

I don’t know how many times we have to stand up and say that caring for the Kingdom, seeking justice, and loving others is all about choosing to focus more on Christ. As Christians we believe in him and follow him. He said, if you love me you will obey me. Not “if you love me, you will worship a ethereal, conceptualized version of me that is disembodied from action and the world I came to save.” When following Jesus becomes simply about doing works or simply about standing in awe of a divine person then we’ve got problems – and a Jesus that has nothing to do with the Jesus of the Bible. Those images of Christ are dangerous, but what I see the manifesto doing is attacking a (projected) incomplete image in favor of another incomplete image.

While Viola and Sweet may personally think that following the commands of Jesus is part of what it means to be a Christian (although they say it is just about Christ), to tell others that talking about the commands of Jesus takes the focus off of Jesus is unhelpful in the extreme. I grew up only hearing about the person of Jesus. Jesus is divine, he did miracles, I am to believe and worship (be in awe of) him. Nothing more. Ever. It is naive to believe that just by presenting this Jesus, people will start doing all that he commanded if those commands aren’t allowed to be talked about. For instance, my daughter attended one night of a neighborhood backyard bible club this week. Her lesson was on Jesus serving the poor and healing the sick. The takeaway was that Jesus did miracles so therefore we have to believe in him. No mention at all of the “go and do likewise” aspect of being a follower of Christ. At this same club, the leader presented the Wordless Book, but after doing the Gold (heaven), Dark (sin), Red (Jesus), White (substitutionary atonement) pages she turned to the Green page and couldn’t remember what it was for. (the green page, btw, is the grow in one’s faith page). It was the perfect representation of a faith that focuses on the need to believe in the person of Jesus to the exclusion of following Jesus. This is the faith I grew up with – one that cares a lot about the person of Jesus but which doesn’t even talk about following his commandments. An impotent faith that essentially tells Jesus that we don’t love him enough to obey his commands.

It is because I love Jesus that I talk about and pursue justice and the kingdom. Even Viola and Sweet mention that “the teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself.” I just wish they wouldn’t falsely accuse us of doing that. And I wish they wouldn’t encourage these dichotomized versions of Jesus by criticizing the actual following of his commands. It is a step backward into the faith my daughter witnessed the other night at the Bible club, and truly unhelpful to the church in the long run. I love Jesus, but I want nothing to do with a faith that is disembodied, disconnected, and impotent. I want to believe in, worship, and follow Christ (since those are all technically one and the same). I’m sorry, but a real Jesus Manifesto wouldn’t be about such a one-sided incomplete image of Jesus. No – it would present Jesus in the fullness of the gospels and not be afraid to tell Christians that following Christ involves a heck of a lot more than standing there slack-jawed in awe of him. I’d love that message to get out to the world, but this, “A Jesus Manifesto” was simply a disappointment in that regard.

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Stories That Mean Something

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So for the last month or so, Mike and I have been watching the Firefly DVDs. Now that we’ve seen them and the movie, we can now join in on the “what a fantastic show, what idiot cancelled something that good???” outcry. I like good stories – stories that go deeper than mere entertainment, that take the time to explore the human condition. Stories that ask questions and in doing so run up against the mysteries of the universe.

Of course, most of these good stories fall into the SciFi/Fantasy realm. There is something about that genre that allows for the unknown to be explored and tested. And there is something about those of us who are drawn to those stories that allow for them to be lengthy tales. Part of the magic in something like Lost for example is the convoluted drawn-out path the story has taken. Having cut our teeth on epic tales like Lord of the Rings or three part stories like Star Wars, we want worlds we can enter and stay for awhile. That’s why I think Deep Space Nine is my favorite Star Trek series – we got to see a continuing story of a community unfold. So it was sad to get caught up in the Firefly story and have it cut short before it even really began.

But it made me wonder why so many of us within the emerging church are caught-up in these sorts of stories. During the spring it seemed like every person on my twitter page was watching Lost as the mystery unfolded and deepened. I wonder if in part it is our affinity for these ever-developing stories that brought us to the emerging conversation in the first place. Too many faith communities act as if the story is over – as if the story of our faith was merely a static event of the past that holds no mystery or wonder for us now. That sort of story isn’t engaging or alive and can only be entered into in the most perfunctory of ways. But those of us who had an inking that there is some sort of epic tale unfolding around us and who believe that God in all his mystery is still at work in the world wanted to join our friends at a campfire and tell better stories. And we find ourselves watching together the good stories like Lost, or Firefly, or Lord of the Rings, or The Matrix because in them we see glimmers of the stories we want to affirm we are a part of. Or as Sam says in Lord of the Rings, “Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.”

So what stories hold the mystery for you? What are the good stories you watch or read that go deeper than just entertainment?

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Recession and Compassion

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I recently read an interview with Marc Ian Barasch (author of The Compassionate Life: Walking in the Path of Kindness) in the June/July issue of Ode Magazine and loved his response to the question “can compassion and kindness survive in a recession?” He comments –

“Compassion isn’t just a smiley-face emotion that blooms in giddy times when everything’s coming up roses. The literal meaning of the word comes from the Latin compatior—to suffer with, to feel with. It’s about removing that clanking suit of armor that keeps us from being touched, that blocks our authentic responses. I’m not sure people were more compassionate in the so-called successful economy. All those Darwinian TV shows: You’re fired! Get off the island! Triumph doesn’t necessarily make individuals kinder. But when things go downhill, community becomes less dispensable. If everyone’s feeling vulnerable, it can restore that feeling of ‘We’re in this together.’ Compassion grows out of a willingness to share the human condition, not just the pursuit of happiness.”

I am honestly sick of people making excuses for why justice or charity can’t happen in a recession, so to hear a reminder that compassion is active helps. It is hard work, it does require us to get over ourselves and think as a community. Contrary to popular opinion, I think the recession is the perfect time to jump headfirst into living the compassionate life – the needs are so much more apparent and we are all more aware of struggles. Recession shouldn’t be a time to bitch and hoard, but the chance to re-evaluate our lives and start focusing outward.

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Twitter, Truth, and Revolution

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I have been doing my best to keep up with the ongoing events in Iran. I don’t know enough to truly understand the nuances of the election or the political science behind it all, but like many others, I’ve been caught up in the human drama of it all. Photos like this one literally brought tears to me eyes. Knowing the plight of women in Iran, and hearing even limited stories in interviews or from the book Reading Lolita in Tehran, connected me on a visceral level with all that this picture symbolized. And those of us following the hundreds of tweets a second with the #iranelection tag can’t help but be overwhelmed at the role social networking is playing in this revolution.

But that of course begs the question of the validity of using Twitter as news source. Just follow the hashtag for a few minutes and anyone can see that there is a lot of confusion about what is really happening. One person can say something and it gets re-tweeted hundreds of times regardless of whether or not it is true. And while we have all witnessed the ability of other open-source projects like Wikipedia to self-regulate, this Twitter revolution is too intense and caught up in the moment to do so well, if at all. So other media outlets are left trying to sort fact from fiction and have found themselves then attacked when they question some of the more emotional aspects of what is going on. Like – Was there really election fraud? How many protesters are actually involved? Were the election results really leaked? For those caught up in the momentum of the moment, those questions challenge the very thing they are fighting for.

So in watching this unfold, I have to wonder how much truth does matter when it comes to something like revolution. If the truth is that Ahmadinejad won fair and square and that there were only a small group of protesters, does that truth matter if the lies that were spread ended up being the catalyst that spark change on a massive scale? It seems to me that in situations like these, the details matter less than the cause. If the viral spread of information on Twitter – albeit unsubstantiated possible misinformation – ends up pushing people beyond the tipping point in the fight for freedom, can we really call that information bad?

These are just the thoughts that run through my head as I watch this whole thing unfold. I don’t know where it will lead, or if it is truly a revolution of any sort. But at the same time I can’t help but wonder how differently other fights for freedom like Tiananmen Square or even the Holocaust would have gone if the passionate yet unsubstantiated spread of information through Twitter had been around then. Would enough people knowing about them and getting angry have stopped them? Or for that matter why isn’t there the same passion and endless Twitter campaigns for other freedom issues like human trafficking?

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Father’s Day Thoughts

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At a recent wedding I attended, one of the groomsmen toasted the bride saying that she was going to make the perfect wife because she had already demonstrated her ability to be her fiancé’s full time maid and wait on him and his friends hand and foot.  My husband later told me that he sincerely hoped that no one would say something like that about our daughter at her wedding.  As a pastor he knows that any marriage based on such unbalanced submission is on shaky ground.  But more importantly, as a father, he would be heartbroken to see our daughter’s exuberance, inquisitive nature, and passionate love for life reduced to a toast like that.

Granted, our daughter is four, so even the vague thought of a wedding is years away, but now is the time when who she is as a person gets shaped.  When the values we want to impart as her parents compete with all sorts of other messages telling her what little girls should be like.  Now, we have no problem with her playing at princesses and fairies or having a wardrobe of all pink.  The real dangers come with those who want to limit who she is simply because she’s a girl.  Messages that tell her that girls cook and clean in the background while the boys explore and achieve.  That tell her that her worth stems from being physically appealing to boys.  Or that tell her that her voice is offensive or unwanted by God.  And as much as we’d like to believe that such messages are a quaint thing of the past, we continually see them popping up in the most unlikely of places.  From Cinderella’s maxim that to be beautiful is to be good (and to be ugly is to be evil), to Snow White sitting around waiting for her prince to come, to Sunday school lessons that focus exclusively on the male heroes of the Bible, she encounters values that will restrict her sense of self.

While I as a mother can encourage her to pursue her dreams and to not listen to those messages, in today’s world fathers must also play a major role in challenging those limitations.  Daughters need not be told by daddy that they can be whoever they want to be and then witness daddy go watch TV while mommy cooks dinner and does the dishes.  Or overhear daddy tell others that they play soccer well “for a girl.”  Fathers, now more than ever, need to be aware of how they help shape the way girls view themselves as people and in relation to men.

My daughter, like many young girls, is a total daddy’s girl, and constantly seeks his approval and mimics his actions.  This special relationship provides fathers with the chance to encourage their daughters to develop into whole people.  In our home, we do our best to show our daughter that both mommy and daddy work, and cook, and clean, and change diapers, and take time to relax.  My husband plays dress up fairies as well as lightsaber duals with my daughter.  He doesn’t want to push her into the preconceived box of “this is the way girls are”, but encourages her to be herself and use her active imagination.  We are, of course, making many mistakes along the way, but I am grateful my husband is being the type of father my daughter needs in order to grow up not into a set of stereotyped expectations, but into a healthy and whole version of herself.

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