Category: Faith

Remembering September 11th

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I woke up on the morning of September 11, 2001 both nervous and excited. I had spent the last two months slowly proceeding through the application and interview process for an entry-level editorial position at Christianity Today to work with their Christian History and Christian Reader magazines. I’d had multiple interviews and had to write a few research heavy articles along the way. For someone with degrees in English and History and a graduate degree in Missions, it seemed like the perfect job. My final evaluation involved joining the staff at an all day off-campus retreat where they would be evaluating potential articles for magazines. I was a bit nervous, but an insider in the company had told me the job was mine so the excitement of finally landing my first real job after school prevailed.

So on the morning of September 11, I arrived at the country club where the retreat was being held and situated myself at the conference table in a room with a panoramic view of the far west Chicago suburbs. We dove right into discussing the submitted articles, but about an hour later when the waitress came in with more coffee and Danishes she mentioned that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. We all assumed it was another personal plane incident like the one that had flown into the Empire State Building a few years before and continued working. When we broke for lunch the head editors called the office and then quickly left. The rest of us stayed on and even watched a Bibleman episode for possible review, fairly oblivious to the events of the day.

It wasn’t until I left the country club in the late afternoon and turned on the car radio that I began to have an inkling of the magnitude of the day. I rushed home to my tiny basement apartment which had no TV reception and tried futilely to get online but the dial-up lines were all busy for hours. I recall going out to get the special evening edition of the newspaper and crashing the Wheaton College student lounge (with their TV and cable hookup) just to get some idea of what was happening. The next day I was scheduled to host my church’s table at the Wheaton College ministry fair, which meant I spent the day surrounded by not only college students but also representatives of every church and parachurch ministry in the Wheaton area. It was a surreal day as people attempted to process the shock and openly shared the subsequent anger and hatred that had started to develop. That evening my church held a prayer meeting, and I recall praying that this act of terror would not lead to people lashing out against the innocent as a form of revenge. I was informed afterwards that my prayer was inappropriate. Three weeks later I heard back from Christianity Today informing me that they had a hiring freeze and the position I was applying for was eliminated in favor of restructuring the department.

It’s strange to reflect back on the day the world changed. And a bit eerie to recall that I spent the afternoon of September 11 watching the Bibleman episode about how good Christian students need to stop hanging out with their non-Christian peers because they can be a bad influence on their faith and then spent the next day listening to Evangelical leaders responding to their enemy in hate. I couldn’t have know it at the time, but within those first two days after the attack I caught a glimpse of how the events of Sept. 11th would shape the church over the next ten years. The world has irrevocably changed – despite the ongoing attempts to pretend that that the false security and pride of American exceptionalism is still a viable option in a globalized world. Over this past decade this new world has forced me to abandon a naïve faith that cared only for the state of my own soul, and embrace the fact that I am connected to others as a child of God. Who I am is as much dependent on how I honor the image of God in them as it is on any acts of ritual or piety I engage in.

Perhaps it took 9/11 and the response of fear and hatred I found in the church to push me to finally realize that my faith had to be more about God than myself. I don’t know if I will ever know for sure, but it has assuredly been a decade of change from which there is no going back. And sadly, constantly living in a culture of fear has prevented many in the church from wondering what sort of people we are being changed into. But the questions need to be asked. Are we more Christ-like now? Is God’s Kingdom more visible ten years later? Maybe simply asking those questions this Sept. 11th can help us turn a day that could easily kindle new waves of hatred into one that pushes us outside of our all-consuming selves and back to the sort of people Jesus calls us to be.

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Talking About Religion After Norway

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As written for the Common Ground News Service

Austin, Texas – The recent tragedy in Norway, the worst attack the country has experienced since WWII, shocked and pained the world. It has also forced us as a global community to look more closely at religion, identity, and how we see the “other” – as well as ourselves.

In the West, religion is often an uncomfortable topic of discussion, and the recent terror attacks in Norway have forced many of us, especially in the United States and Europe, to re-examine issues of religion and identity.

So, how do we talk about religion after Norway?

In the early responses to terror attacks, blame was quickly assigned to Muslims. Once it was revealed that the perpetrator, Anders Breivik, was actually an anti-Muslim right-wing extremist who self-identified as Christian, the proclivity to blame his actions on religious fundamentalism quickly vanished. It’s easy to point to the hypocrisy – to call people out on their inclination to assume Islam promotes violence while at the same time being quick to wash Christianity’s collective hands of any hint of wrongdoing.

Pointing fingers merely addresses the symptoms and not the actual problem of a worldview that chooses to view the other from a position of fear instead of love. And to address this problem, no matter how uncomfortable, religion must be part of the conversation.

Our religion, or lack thereof, shapes who each of us are and how we function in the world. When we believe in an idea, faith expression, or sacred text, these beliefs form our very identity – influencing everything from our politics to our relationships. For many, these beliefs are what give us hope that a better world is possible – a world where fear does not reign, and where compassion and service drive our actions instead.

Yet religious identity can also influence people to commit acts of violence and hatred. Common to fundamentalists of any religion are fear-based attempts at control. By insisting upon being right at all costs they reject the Christian discipline of trusting in God, or the Muslim call to submit to Him.

But for those who allow themselves to be formed in ways that respond to the other with love instead of fear, religion grants the means to build a better world. Orienting oneself around the needs of others strengthens the common good instead of selfish individual desires. Reclaiming love of neighbour as a religious and not merely a political mandate is therefore a necessary step in addressing the corruption of religion by fundamentalisms.

As a person of faith, I see this “lived out” faith looking like the response of Hege Dalen and her partner, Toril Hansen, to the attacks. When they heard screams and gunshots from their campsite opposite Utöyan Island, they immediately hopped in their boat and dodged bullets in order to save some 40 people. We can’t all be heroes, but choosing a life of helping those in need, no matter who they are, is the basis of any religion that would rather build than destroy. Speaking up about the religious values that motivate us to reach out, and being willing to listen to those who do the same but who come from other traditions can help change the way our cultures view religion.

Talking about religion after Norway means not letting fear define what faith is all about. Examining our own beliefs and living out our faith through selfless acts of love can move the conversation past the toxicity of fear.

Deliberate attempts to understand religion, uncomfortable as it may be, must be part of the path forward. Engage in conversation or read a book by someone who is “other” than yourself. Partner with people of other beliefs on relief or community development projects to understand how our different faiths motivate the same generous actions. And join in honest discussions about our differences to discover what we can learn from each other.

Living in secular societies does not mean ignoring our religion. Instead, we can choose to use that part of our identities to build a better world.

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Crazy, Holy, Hungry Ones – My Wild Goose Reflection

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I went to the Wild Goose Festival for the community. Meeting for the first time this year in the hills of beautiful North Carolina, Wild Goose was a gathering focused on arts, justice, and faith. I went eager to reunite with old friends and to finally translate a few virtual relationships into reality. Oh, I was excited to hear David Wilcox and Jennifer Knapp and learn from respected Christian leaders, but it was the gathering of friends that drew me and my family to the fest. And while it was the community that brought me there, it was the communal experience of commitment that defined my time there. Those lines posted above from Carrie Newcomer’s song “Where You Been,” sum up perfectly the experience that was the Wild Goose Festival.

If anything, Wild Goose was a gathering of those who dream of a better way. A better way to be human, a better way to be the church. Not in a “we want to be better than you” sort of way, but more of a deep felt recognition that the world is not as it should be. It was that wrestling with trying to live into the lives God created us to live that became the conversation at Wild Goose. As part of that, one theme that kept resurfacing in the talks I heard was that of learning to be open to the full range of human emotions and experiences in the world. The typical Christian impulse in our country is to dwell upon the joyful aspects of life and faith. We put on the mask of pretending all is fine to the world. We hold church services oriented around worship, praise, and the uplifting parts of scripture. While there is nothing wrong with doing those things, they don’t allow the faithful to reflect the fullness of reality. As the great civil rights activist Vincent Harding pointed out in his talk, there is pain and suffering in the church. Institutional and social evils such as racism and the inequalities it produces affect the body of Christ – harming both those who commit and who suffer those sins. To pretend that all is well when all is obviously not well is to pretend at joy – not to experience it in reality. As Harding commented, to ever be able to truly laugh, one must also be allowed to honestly weep for all the pain and suffering. Pretending that all is well or to deny that the suffering exists harms our souls, preventing us from being whole healthy people. In his talk Soong-Chan Rah also called for the need to remember the words of lamentations in our churches. The Western church has exorcised such biblical passages of lament from our services, lectionaries, and prayer books, and we would do well to be reminded from the global church (that knows far more about experiencing suffering) that recognizing and lamenting our sins and pain is part of what it means to follow God.

While the church of course has a long way to go in regards to becoming balanced and healthy in such ways, it was encouraging to get a small taste of what that might look like at the Wild Goose Festival. I can’t speak for everyone there, but from the conversations I was a part of it truly did seem to be a gathering of folks who deeply dreamed of a better way. People who desired for our faith to mean something tangible. People, who, as Richard Rohr said there, don’t want to settle for the easy shallow faith of merely worshiping God – putting God on an idealized but distant pedestal to be admired but not known. They want to follow God in ways that transform their lives and therefore the lives of others as well. People who desire to follow God in ways that bring about justice, that seek to restore broken relationships, that always orient around caring about the needs of others. But also people who don’t trust in their own strength to do such things, who know the world and the church are messy, and that we need time for lament and repentance as part of our experience of following Jesus.

It can be easy to talk about such things, and I know I’ve done my fair share of talking before. But what I appreciated about the Wild Goose festival was that it forced us past the point of posturing to a place of transparent honesty. At most of our church gatherings, conferences, or cohorts we can easily erect a façade of self and allow others to see only what we desire them to see of who we are. We can talk grand ideas, look as pious/hip/committed as we desire, and then escape back into our solitary lives without anyone glimpsing our rough edges. But there is something about camping in close proximity in sweltering weather in fields crawling with ants and ticks, where the nearest water is a spigot several fields away, with your communal shit stinking up the port-a-potties and your children sleep-deprived from the excitement of camping and the loud bands that play into the wee small hours of the night that violently rips away any façade one might have attempted to hide behind. Everyone sees you crawling disheveled out of your tent in the morning desperate to concoct a coffee-like-substance over your tiny camp stove. Everyone hears you yelling at your kids to stop (literally) bouncing off the tent walls and go to sleep. And I’m pretty sure half the people there witnessed my tired, hot, and hungry children having a grand royal meltdown in the food area one day at lunch. It was just a few days, but it was real.

So when we came to worship together and share our passion for following God in transforming ways in this raw state of discomfort and exhaustion, it was more than just talk. We were those crazy, holy, hungry ones who believe in something better. It was a glimpse of the Kingdom of God that went far beyond just friends gathering to have fun together at a festival or to posture at caring for others. It was a gathering of the most committed Christians I know – those who long to follow God wholly. And that gave me great hope for the church. I had to laugh when I read after the festival that some opponents were deriding the festival, questioning our faith and referring to the event as Apostate-palooza (because *obviously* anything to do with art, camping, and justice can’t possibly be Christian). Yet I realized that they were right in a way. This was a gathering of apostates of the church as it has become – a often meaningless and impotent entity beholden to civil structures of culture and politics that cares more about power and privilege and shoring up hollow rituals and traditions than it does about loving others and believing in God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Wild Goose was a gathering of those crazy folks who are committed to a better way. We are apostates of meaningless religion, ready to strip away the facades and get at the real work of following God.

That was my Wild Goose experience – leaving me raw and tired and strangely full of hope.

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Acedia and the Church

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I was at the pool with the kids recently and couldn’t help but overhear a very loud and opinionated conversation happening near me. Apparently two families were just meeting as their kids splashed together in the water and they were doing the whole share about their lives thing. One woman shared about how they make money from poker tournaments and so can spend most of their time out on their boat. It was just a few minutes later that she started going off on all the idiots in America who don’t understand the value of money and so want to force people to give it away to undeserving poor people. She ranted for quite some time about how those liberals are ruining our country and teaching our children that you don’t have to work to get money. At one point she even threw in that she goes to church and knows that only the people who deserve healing should be given help.

I listened incredulous to this conversation (which was loud enough that everyone at the pool couldn’t help but hear) and finally just left because the hate speech was escalating to the point that I would rather not expose my kids to such things. Listening to her rants though made me think of a talk I had just heard about the dangers of acedia. The term is most often associated these days with the sin of sloth (one of the seven deadly sins), but it goes much deeper than mere laziness to describe the state of not caring or being concerned with one’s position or condition in the world. It’s a spiritual apathy that turns one inward instead of outward in a life oriented around loving others. In the talk I heard, it was compared to compassion fatigue – not having the spiritual resources to care anymore. In the talk I heard the advice that was given to combat acedia was to focus on my own relationship with God – which was defined as incorporating rituals of prayer and reflection into my days and disconnecting from the electronic world.

That’s advice I’m hearing a lot in the American church these days. Feeling overwhelmed and far from God? Then do more for yourself – reconnect (or disconnect as needed), get healthy, then you will have something to give back. Another talk I heard recently advised people to never do anything because they think they should. It’s okay not to care about poverty or kids dying in Africa if those aren’t the passions God has given you. God gave us gifts and passions so we should spend our time on only the things that fill us with joy. In other words – my relationship with God is all about me. I as an individual must be happy, healthy, and whole – that is why I was created and that is how I am to live. I must not feel guilty about not serving God or others if such things don’t make me happy, I should only do the things that feel comfortable to me.

I hear this kind of stuff over and over with reminders that the Christian life cannot be just about action and service but must contain contemplation to be balanced. I agree with that, but every time I hear that line I have to ask if there really is such a dire and pressing danger that the church in America is focusing so much on action and service that we are neglecting contemplation? In truth, I see exactly the opposite at work. We are instead so concerned with our own individual spirituality that we rarely if ever engage in serving others. We like hearing talks that tell us to think more about ourselves and not feel guilty about not serving others. At my church recently there even was an audible collective sigh of relief when the pastor explained that while “blessed are the poor” can refer to the physically poor, it also refers to the poor in spirit which includes our own spiritual needs and struggles. It’s far easier to care for ourselves than others.

Maybe most of the church isn’t so caught up in themselves that like the woman I heard at the pool they argue for not helping others at all (although that is a becoming a common response these days), but it seems like the greatest commandments these days are “love myself then love God” instead of “love God, love others.” But in reality, our acedia, our spiritual fatigue, isn’t to blame on us not pampering ourselves with enough quiet times or devotional moments, but on our rampant self-absorption. Constantly hearing that we need to focus more time on ourselves simply adds to the problem. It’s not that I don’t see tremendous value in contemplation or think that we all need to practice self-care, but that perhaps we need to alter the most basic ways we view ourselves in the world. We are not rugged individuals dependent on getting our own relationship with God right; we are members of the body of Christ, existing in relationship with God and others at all times. Our gifts are meant to be shared eucharistically in community. It is a way of living that the philosophy of Ubuntu that Desmond Tutu writes about refers to. It is living not for oneself, but as a member of a community where one is “open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”

The last thing the American church needs are more messages telling us to focus on ourselves. Guilt trips and shoulds don’t help much either for our “it’s all about me” mentality knows how to resist anything that makes demands on our self. It will take a drastic change in mindset to move us past our “I think therefore I don’t give a crap about anyone but myself” operating system. But I think for the church to not only get over this plague of acedia, but to survive, we must start thinking communally. As Ubuntu thought states, “I am because we are.” We belong to God which means we belong to each other – embracing that relational identity may perhaps be our only hope.

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Entering God’s Story

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The following is a part of a conversational essay I wrote for my theology class recently on the reasonableness of faith. I thought it might be interesting to post it here.

My daughter has had a difficult time understanding Lent this year. She was all about pancakes and beads on Mardi Gras, but was disappointed that Ash Wednesday was more solemn and faith oriented. The lack out an outward expression to grasp hold of was something she had a hard time wrapping her mind around. But it’s hard to explain faith to a kindergartener, for that matter it’s hard to grasp as an adult. We are so conditioned in our modern post-enlightenment world to assume that everything around us must be scientific and objective that we lose sight of the fact that we are subjective creatures that are immersed in mystery at all times.

Take the Bible for instance. For most of Christian history, people didn’t try to place it under a microscope like we do now. That’s a very recent development. So these days we see passages like Lazarus rising from the dead and we either scoff at the supernatural elements or use historical criticism to dismiss any possibility of them ever happening or we insist on biblical literalism and that one must believe in the historicity of the text. But those approaches don’t reflect what true faith is about. The Bible isn’t just a book of facts giving us a snapshot of past events that we have to swallow whole. It’s a story of God that we are invited to enter into and be transformed by. We are narrative creatures living in unfolding time; our lives come from somewhere and are going somewhere. We inhabit the same world as the authors of scripture and so can enter into that narrative and be transformed by it. The text isn’t totalitarian, forcing us to believe scientifically; it is a story that we enter into. We enter this story and are able to embody its eschatological end which is always leading to Jesus. The point is less about if stuff really happened or not, but if we are allowing our story to be overtaken by God’s story and our lives to be overtaken by that grace.

It’s a stance that breaks down the Enlightenment spawned dichotomy of faith versus reason. Those things aren’t pitted against each other, but work together to bring us ever closer to a God that is constantly revealing Godself to us. God created us to be in relationship with him – our purpose is to ever love and praise God. This is part of what it means to enter into the narrative of scripture and become part of the story of the work of Jesus in the world. It’s not about following faith or reason; it is about embracing who we were created to be – which includes both our faith and reason. Treating God or the scriptures like a lab experiment misses the point – such things are not mere pieces in a puzzle that we need to figure out and then statically place in the correct place once we have all the answers. They are transformative glimmers of a story that is given to us as a gift – a story that we have the privilege of living out. It is this story that shapes the community called the church. The church doesn’t exist to tell us dogmatically what to do and believe. It is a place where this story unfolds with a polyphony of voices. This pluralism of voices will necessarily cause conflict, but because we are narrative creatures always moving towards God the point is not to ever impose a false unity on this community. The church, while at times having to take stands, shouldn’t tell people that they are expected to believe in some static way, but instead invite the community with the full humanity of their faith and reason intact to be in constant dialogue as we move forward in this story of following Christ

If we stop pitting reason against faith, the triune God becomes less of a problem to be solved and more of a relationship to experience. Mystery and a relationship grounded in love are not fantasies no matter what our modern world has conditioned us to believe. We cannot put love inside a test tube and objectively declare it to be true, that is not the purpose of love. We love to be transformed, to be part of a story that is greater than ourselves. We were created for love, and to live into that story we need to stop selling ourselves short by forcing ourselves to be people of faith or people of science. Embracing our full humanity changes the lens through which we see the world, encounter the scriptures, and understand how a triune relational God reveals Godself to us. Our faith isn’t a discredited tradition from simpler times; it is a reminder that there is a greater story being told that invites the whole of who we are to step into an eternal drama. We don’t unthinkingly observe Lent or smear ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday because we have to or because someone tells us we must in order to be a good Christian, we do it to remind ourselves of the story we are a part of and the eschatological end we are living towards. My daughter might not see yet the intensity of the invitation to join in on that story – pancakes and beads hold more power in the moment – but to me these ashes are charged with eternal significance that pulls me ever closer in relationship with a dynamic God. And that is what faith is about.

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Being Spiritual in a Crazy Busy World

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So this post is part promotion and part reflection. The promotion part is to get the word out about a conference I will be a part of at the end of May – the 2011 Montreat Signature Conference. Held May 29- June 1 at the Montreat Conference Center near Ashville, NC, this year’s theme is “Being Spiritual in a Crazy Busy World.” The conference looks to be a refreshing as well as inspirational time of spiritual rest, reflection, and challenge.

The conferences invites attendees with the assertion – “You are called out of the chaos of your crazy busy, constantly moving, overextended lives to a place grounded in the imagination of God.” I was asked to lead workshops on everyday justice issues as part of the conference and I appreciate the opportunity because it reflects to me a valuing of the idea that in truth everything is spiritual. I think that truth is something that most of us intellectually affirm, but which often doesn’t get translated into our day to day reality. We so narrowly define what it means to be spiritual that we end up constantly feeling disconnected from God because we can’t sustainably live what we have defined the spiritual life to be.

We all have of course heard of the mountaintop experiences – moments of spiritual connectedness that generally come from times of retreat or focused devotion. I don’t deny that those are spiritual moments, but the reality of life is that we cannot live constantly in those moments. And if we expect all spirituality to mirror the intensity of the mountaintop, we will inevitably be disappointed and feel far from God. We blame ourselves, or our church, or our culture for our distraction and disconnectedness, but perhaps the real problem is our definition of spirituality.

We have come to see spirituality as something set apart from the mundane aspects of everyday life and so become frustrated when our lives seem to get in the way of connecting to God. But God is not found in just the moments of devotion or prayer, or in the communal gathering for liturgy, or in voices lifted up in song. Those are all great tools for helping us concentrate on God, but God is the God over all creation, not just the systems the church has developed. A crazy busy world isn’t the antithesis of spirituality; it is simply a setting where spirituality can be manifest. Grounding ourselves in the imagination of God and redefining spirituality to include all aspects of life is what I think is needed to help us get over our constant struggle of feeling spiritually disconnected.

Embracing spirituality in the whole of life means understanding that even the acts that make our life crazy busy are spiritual acts. Waking up in the morning, making breakfast, and getting the kids off to school are spiritual acts. Rushing from meeting to meeting and facing project deadlines are spiritual acts. We are spiritual people in relationship with a spiritual God; everything we do therefore is a spiritual act. What matters then is if we are living our everyday life in a way that moves us closer to God or further from God. When we choose our clothes, or commute to work, or interact with our kids are we becoming more Christ-like and caring about the things God cares about or not?

Rethinking spirituality as an every moment of the day sort of thing opens us up to having God work in our lives in out of the box sorts of ways and moves us beyond the unsustainable “mountaintop experience” mentality. Embracing that we are always connected to God though is both comforting and infinitely more challenging. Everything being spiritual means we can’t shove God aside to just Sundays, or believe that God doesn’t care about what we eat or how we vote. Everything means everything. Sure, we still need times of reflection, communal worship, and retreat from the ordinary in order to help us refocus, but when every action of every day becomes a choice for God, our spiritual lives will unavoidably be transformed.

So I look forward to this conference where we will explore how to both take the time for rest and reflection as a spiritual practice and how to learn to see the world not as the enemy of spirituality but as instead the very place where our spirituality is developed and lived. It should truly be a time to leave behind the old paradigm of our crazy busy lives (in more ways than one) and discover a sustainable spirituality.

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The Contemplative and Active Life

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I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for writing this, but I need to rant for a minute about a theological pet peeve of mine. To put it bluntly I’m sick and tired of the false dichotomy theology has created between the contemplative and the active life of faith. Granted, the conversation of the vita activa versus the vita contemplative sounds a bit medieval (and I’m sure Thomas Aquinas would serve me a disputative smackdown on the subject), but the division still permeates our religious psyches today.

In its historical definition the contemplative life is the one that is focused on meditation on God. It is a life full of prayer, of the study of scripture, of divine listening. The active life on the other hand is the life of service – of caring for the poor, the needy, and the oppressed. The contemplative life is supposedly about loving God and the active life about loving our neighbors. The Medieval theologians, influenced by Platonic and gnostic thought in their deprecation of the body, not only made the distinction between the two, but placed them in a hierarchical relationship. They argued that the contemplative life – the one that focused on spiritual things – was superior to the active life which was mired with its association with sinful and corrupt bodies. There, of course, was also some class snobbery involved here. Only the wealthy and the clergy had the luxury to live a contemplative life while the peasants had no choice but to live a sort of active life in order to survive (and make the lives of the wealthy and the clergy possible). By defining contemplative worship of God as superior to active service, those groups created a caste system where they reinforced their position at the top of the social hierarchy.

They, of course, supported the division with scripture, most often using the Mary and Martha story to support their position. Since Mary listened at the feet of Jesus she became the archetype for the contemplative life, while busybody Martha was associated with the active life. Once those associations had been made, using Jesus’ affirmation of Mary’s choice as the better one was an easy way to argue for the primacy of the contemplative life. This interpretation of the story is the one still supplied even in churches where the average member has never even heard of guys like Thomas Aquinas. We still get fed theology that tells us that bible study, prayer, devotions, liturgy, meditation and the like are better ways to know God than the active forms of service. We still create that dichotomy that not only separates but privileges the soul above the body.

But as I see it, that division is utterly false and creates unnecessary barriers for our walk with God. To begin with, I don’t buy into the idea that we are spiritual beings trapped in corrupt bodies. I don’t think the physical world is something to be put up with until we can escape to our true home. God created this world and called it good. My body is good. Not simply because it houses my soul, but because it is how God created me to be. I don’t have to ask if I am a spiritual or a physical creature – they are inseparable. I cannot be me if I wasn’t both at the same time. So I’m not starting with the same “spiritual=good, physical=bad” assumptions that fueled most of the contemplative vs. active debates.

But beyond embrace a holistic view of people, I also see the creation of hierarchies between the contemplative and active life to be utterly unbiblical. Those that propose such suggest that when Jesus delivered the greatest commandment, he gave two separate and ranked commands. Love God (be contemplative). And then (second and therefore inferior) love people (be active). In that view, it’s not that one shouldn’t love and serve others, only that contemplative practices are better for communing with God.

By why must the command be seen as dualistic and ranked? As I read scripture, loving God and loving people are one and the same. Doing acts of service, leading the active life, is an act of worship, a way to reflect back to God a bit of the imago dei. When we read the demands God makes of his people there is no division of the two. We are told to rest on the Sabbath so that we will not overwork servants and animals. The day was not created to spend time contemplating God, but to ensure the wellbeing of people. When Micah lists what the Lord requires of us, humble piety is listed alongside acts of mercy and justice. Isaiah goes a step further and condemns people for participating in contemplative acts of worship and while ignoring the injustice in their own community. He tells that that the worship God desires involves feeding the hungry and helping the oppressed. We are reminded over and over again that God cares for the physical wellbeing of people – if we dare claim to know and follow that God our worship should reflect that aspect of God’s character.

Acts of solemn contemplation and acts of service are both ways we worship and come closer to God. The point is relationship with God. Mary wasn’t preferred to Martha because she sat still while Martha worked. Mary sought to follow God. Seeking God is what is preferred. No need to insert gnostic lies about the evil body. No need to create social caste systems. No need to say that one form of worship is better than another. Loving God and loving people are the same thing. We can’t choose between the two. We can’t say one is better than the other. To love God is to love people and to love people is to love God. It is what we were created to do; it is what God expects of us.

So I’d really appreciate it if people would stop spewing lies about how one is better than the other. Prayer is no better than feeding the hungry. Setting the oppressed free is no better than lectio divina. All are acts of worship. All bring us into closer relationship with God. Continuing to promote the dichotomy only serves to restrict people from serving God in the fullness of who God is. Paul got it right when he chided the Corinthians for desiring what they deemed to be the greater gifts. Pretending to be holier than others by asserting that the way your worship is superior to other types (or refusing to acknowledge that anything else is worship) misses the point. The Bible says God detests such worship gatherings. So in my insignificant opinion maybe it’s high time we got rid of this petty division between the contemplative and active lives (and all the posturing that goes along with it) and start worshiping God fully. Because isn’t that what it’s supposed to be about anyway?

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Existing and Thriving

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During a recent conference call with the Emergent Village Council, Deth Im made a statement that has stuck with me. He said, “communities can exist for themselves but they thrive when a question arises that they don’t already have the answer to.” I love the idea because it so immediately rang true with my experience.

It is that difference between existing and thriving that stood out to me. I think most of us, and the communities we are a part of, concern ourselves with simply existing. Sometimes we exist to survive – to hold it all together and make it through the day. It is our needs and our desires that matter above all else. And at times simply existing is all we can do. If all we can do is survive, that’s just fine. But simply existing is not the same as thriving.

I know in my own life when I retreat into myself and concern myself with just what’s going on within the walls of my own house, I become a different person. I’m far more withdrawn, depressed and not very pleasant to be around. It takes concerning myself with something bigger than myself that helps me be the sort of person I actually want to be. Thriving means being fully alive – being filled with the passion and energy that comes from opening myself up to challenges, learning new things, and using my blessings to bless others.

From what I’ve experienced, churches operate the same way. I’ve been a part of churches that for some (if not most) of my time there have existed mostly for themselves. They are concerned with meeting the needs of the congregation – making sure they are fed (or simply entertained). They are concerned with the stereotypical butts, budgets, and buildings and spend a lot of time discussing why they are such a special community that everyone should feel blessed to be a part of. On one hand, all of that is part of what a church needs to do to survive. But sometimes going through these motions in order to survive starts to have a negative effect. The navel gazing – intended to strengthen and help the community – slowly and often subtlety leads to the withering away of that very community. All the energy turns inward leading to the corporate version of the depressed, apathetic, and listless person I described above. The body is surviving and pragmatically getting the basics done, but it is obviously not thriving.

What I find most disturbing is that the general prescription for this inward focused withering away is simply more self-care – better programs, a building-project, community meetings – making things bigger and better for the self. But none of that leads to thriving growth, it simply sustains and prolongs the slow death. And when there is nothing outside of the self to bring inspiration and new energy in, burn-out is quick. Like gardens, without the constant engagement with outside elements people and churches will never thrive.

When we engage with questions that we don’t have the answer to we are forced to move beyond ourselves. We have to face challenges, expose ourselves to new people and new ideas, seek solutions to complex problems, and use our resources in new ways. It becomes impossible to remain static when we must constantly wrestle with constant new input. Instead of withering away, we grow and in that sense, thrive. This is something I have to remind myself of after periods of inward withdrawal. I don’t despise such periods – everyone needs rest – but I know I can’t stay there if my desire is to be fully alive. And I’m beginning to see that churches can’t either. We are the living body of Christ – living things need to grow and thrive.

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God Even in Christmas

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as posted at The Christian Century blog –

I’m a sucker for Christmas songs. I’m not so far gone that I’m okay with department stores playing some pop princess’s version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” on an 85-degree early November day here in central Texas. But let me join in on a round of “O Holy Night” or “White Christmas” and I’ll get choked up every time.

They might be overdone and cheesy, but there is something visceral about the collective emotion that Christmas songs tap into. Something is stirring even in all the schmaltz and sentimentality, something that goes beyond the consumeristic trappings. God shows up in the midst of all that cheese.

This week I finally allowed myself to click on the “Christmas Songs” playlist on my iPod (yes, I waited until Thanksgiving week). The songs shuffled between Willie Nelson and Enya and Harry Connick Jr. and The Wiggles. Then the player landed on U2’s version of “I Believe in Father Christmas.” Released two years ago to raise awareness for World AIDS Day, this quickly became my favorite Christmas song–mostly because of a one-word change Bono makes to the lyrics.

The original lyrics question any deeper meaning of Christmas and encourage people to simply enjoy the chance to be with family. The song writes off the reasons for the season as a mere bill of goods:

They sold me a dream of Christmas
They sold me a silent night
They told me a fairy story
Till I believed in the Israelite.
And I believed in Father Christmas
And I looked at the sky with excited eyes
Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And I saw him and through his disguise

We were apparently sold to and told until we believed. But Bono changes the fourth line to “But I believe in the Israelite.” This present-tense affirmation changes everything:

—

We still have the trappings of Christmas and the competing narratives. But God shows up–there is room for belief. Yes, our eyes are full of cheap tinsel; yes, we can see through Father Christmas’s disguise. We may not get the snow at Christmas or peace on earth–but that isn’t all there is. We can say, “But I believe in the Israelite,” and this affirmation provides a meaning that the season otherwise lacks–and even infuses the season’s trappings with meaning. The sparkly lights, the trees, the tinsel and the songs (even the cheesy ones) can connect us with a surprisingly weighty soul language.

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On not growing in faith and knowledge

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(As posted at The Christian Century blog)

In recent conversations with my seminary classmates, we’ve
been lamenting the state of Christian education. In many churches it is evident
that the average member hasn’t grown in religious or biblical knowledge since he
or she heard moralistic tales of Noah, Esther or Daniel as a child. Some even resist
pastoral attempts to expand their Christian knowledge, and they simply refuse
to learn about other
religions. As seminarians, we are struggling with how to respond to this.

It’s a significant problem because it affects not only the
faith of the communal body of Christ but also how we live in a pluralistic
society. Religious identity matters, now more than ever. Our globalized age has
seen increased secularization and indifference to the particularities of
religion-but this doesn’t lead to a society where religion doesn’t matter. It
leads to misunderstanding about the other, with sometimes dire consequences.

A poor understanding of our religious self fails both the
body of Christ and the needs of our global society. For society to be healthy
we must do the hard work of understanding ourselves as religious creatures as
well as opening ourselves up to learning about the religious other. I
appreciate this comment from Tom Greggs:

Far from being a distant (and
perhaps unimportant) figure, the religious other has become in recent times a
real person who affects the communities and the world to which each of us
belong.

We are interconnected with people of all religions whether
we like it or not. A lack of understanding places us in a position of judgment
of other faith systems’ validity. It also fuels the paranoia of fundamentalist
factions within them. When the interconnected world asserts that
fundamentalists’ faith is too irrelevant to be understood, this confirms their
worst fears–and fear can spur violent reaction.

Living in a pluralistic world requires respect, which in
turn requires knowledge and understanding. The question for current and future
clergy is this: how can we initiate and shepherd this process in our churches?

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