Billl Maher and Tim Tebow are Right

One thing many of the so-called "New Atheists" are right about, and something they share with Tim Tebow, is that religion, by its very nature, cannot be left merely a matter of private and personal opinions.  It very much belongs in the arena of public discourse. Your beliefs (even the belief that religious faith is a misguided set of pathetic superstitions) form the framework through which you understand your world and your place in it. It is as irrational as it is hypocritical to insist it is a private matter. Few things you will ever think about or have conversations about have the potential for greater impact on every aspect of life. This is hardly something that should be politely avoided or relegated to the "it-does-not-matter-much" closet of private opinion.

It is a strange era in the evolution of cultural expectations of civility when an open and frank discussion on the merits of masturbation will likely be seen by many adults as less awkward or inappropriate than a discussion about the basis and reasons for someone's religious faith. Actual assertions about religious conclusions made in public settings have managed to achieve that status once reserved for profanity, sex, or bodily waste - a kind of awkward stare-downward uncomfortableness that suggests the speaker has broached a boundary into what ought not have been brought up in mixed company.

Many among the popular cultural wave of new atheists have no hesitation to insist public declarations against a religious faith (or all religious faiths) are appropriate, since religion has been the source of so much violence and oppression (largely oblivious to the absurdity of the claim in light of the magnitude of carnage wrought in the name of decidedly secular ideologies, nationalism, and the ambitions of warlords in the last two centuries, alone). They are entirely correct, however, to insist that a person's understanding of ultimate reality and meaning (or, in the case of pure materialism, lack of meaning) are so fundamental to a person's values and behaviors that it is ludicrous, if not impossible, to relegate the subject to politely held personal preferences.

Bill Maher is absolutely correct when he reflects the assumption that religion is something too important and central to be pushed out of public discourse. Ironically, he shares that conviction with the likes of Tim Tebow. However contradictory their conclusions, they stand as reminders that the questions regarding God and religion cannot be removed from education, discussion, and discourse without creating a pathological culture -- that is, a culture in which education, critical thinking, or rational discourse are left only to address subjects of limited genuine importance to how that same culture actually arrives at its expected behaviors, values, laws, and reasons to exist.

Resistez

Sixty-nine years ago today...

The small speaker crackled with static, and then they heard it.  “Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne blessent mon coeur D'une langueur Monotone.”  The poem by Paul Verlaine was well known.  Many listening had learned it in childhood.  The melancholy words spoke of the long slow weeping of autumn’s violins. 

This time the words held sensus plenior (fuller meaning).  This time they were announcing, somewhere out there in the darkness, ships were plowing their way through the waters of the English Channel  – among them a thousand Higgins boats – the landing craft that would bring soldiers of the Allied Expeditionary Force onto the beaches of Normandy, beginning the liberation of France. 

Banning Prostitution in the Church

A man once mistook me for a hooker.  I know what you're thinking.  No, I was not dressed in drag and I was as surprised and ultimately pretty offended by the mistake.  Perhaps more surprisingly, it all happened over the telephone.

The Solicitation

There I was, peacefully sitting in my office grading exams when the phone rang.  The man introduced himself.  He was an elder at a rather large and very well-known church.  The conversation began with small talk but quickly got around to the exchange of money for services.

Treading Very Thin Ice: Cheap Grace Redivivus

This may step over the edge into the abyss of controversy...  But, does anyone seriously think, on balance, the majority of large and dynamic American churches face the constant danger of being overly legalistic and narrow?  I have no doubt I can dig up quotes and stories to support that idea.  But, it's obvious that's not representative of where things are heading.

Facing the Ugly Truth about Jesus

People will not let the reality of the Jesus they encounter in scripture see the full light of day.  For many, it is plain ignorance.  For others, including those deeply committed to biblical truth and regular Bible readers, it is surprising that they also join in remaking Jesus of Nazareth into the Jesus of Hollywood.  They learn to take scripture quite seriously and ignore some of it all at the same time.

Le Résistance: The Subversive Church

The small speaker crackled with static, and then they heard it.  “Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne blessent mon coeur D'une langueur Monotone.”  The poem by Paul Verlaine was well known.  Many listening had learned it in childhood.  The melancholy words spoke of the long slow weeping of autumn’s violins. 

This time the words held sensus plenior (fuller meaning).  This time they were announcing, somewhere out there in the darkness, ships were plowing their way through the waters of the English Channel  – among them a thousand Higgins boats – the landing craft that would bring soldiers of the Allied Expeditionary Force onto the beaches of Normandy, beginning the liberation of France. 

My Church Looks Like a Bar

When people walked into First Christian Church on a Sunday morning not long ago, most of them were not prepared to see the newest fad in popular worship music sitting in the front of the sanctuary.  Some of them had enough musical background to know they were looking at a percussion instrument.  For a lot of people, the one thing they knew was it made their church look like a bar.  

Sermon: Rachel Weeping at Sandy Hook

In addition to teaching at Ozark Christian College (Joplin), I also serve as the interim pastor at the small Christian Church of Liberal (Liberal, MO).  

This Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, my sermon addresses the apparent contradiction between the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School and the message of the Nativity.  You may download it or listen to it streaming online. 

Rachel Weeping at Sandy Hook

Thank God and Pray for President Obama

What must politically conservative Christians do with the results of the recent elections?

The answers are clear and unambiguous: Thank God and pray for President Obama.

First, we should thank God.

We should thank God because the promise that all things work together for good applies to more than just stubbing our toes or not getting the job we wanted.

Killing Relevance

“The temptation to be relevant is difficult to shake since
it is usually not considered a temptation, but a call.
We make ourselves believe that we are called to be
productive, successful, and efficient people whose words and actions show
that working for God’s Reign is at least as dignified an occupation
as working for General Electric, Mobil Oil, or the government.”
– Henri Nouwen

Relevance is something we hear a lot about today.  We want to make the message relevant.  We need to show people a Jesus who is relevant.  A good deal is riding on the automatic assumption that relevancy is always a good thing.

What if it's not?

A Community Called Atonement

     Well known author and New Testament scholar, Scot McKnight, was on our campus this past week.  The focus of much of his attention over the past several years has been on forming the framework out of which a more gospels-centered (that is, Jesus-centered) understanding of the Christian life might be formed.  His recent bestseller, Jesus Creed, is one example of this.

     But, it is his best known work, A Community Called Atonement, that continues to impact students, pastors, and laypeople that I want to talk about here.  Many of us have been raised to think of the work of Jesus as almost entirely centered on the act of dying for our sins.  Because of that, many of us focused far more on the epistles than on the gospels.  I look back on my own epistles-dominated preaching emphases back in the 1980s, and I understand why John Piper, who still champions this approach, can speak of  "the religion of Paul" as theological shorthand for Christianity.
     Today a large number of preachers and teachers and scholars are challenging these ideas.  Some are challenging the whole notion of penal substitution (Jesus' death as a punishment from the justice of God offered in our place).  Some, are questioning the traditional doctrine of hell.  At least some of this is the common phenomenon present in reactive theology: what my grandmother called throwing out the baby with the bath water.

A Litany for Worship: You Have Left Your First Love

I have written previously about the need to bring regular times of facing and acknowledging our sins int out primary* Christian worship.  There are, of course, a number of ways this might be done.  One way, though not always the most effective, can be through music.  The song "I'm Sorry" by Paul Wright (from the album Kingdom Come) is an example of such a song.

A Litany of Confession

In all the major traditions of Christian worship until the arrival of free church Protestant worship, early in the time of worship the celebrant would lead those present in a time of confession of sin, seeking the mercy and forgiveness of God, and then celebrating that forgiveness (usually with the Greater Doxology: Gloria in excelsis Deo).  Since the typical Litany employs liturgical dialogue largely foreign to American Evangelicals, the one below revises it to be more usable for those who do not typical engage in liturgical dialogue.

What the...?

So, I'm excited to report that I've discovered,  in order to church the unchurched, what we need are churches designed and staffed and marketed for people who don't like church.

Yep, a church for people who don't like church.  What kind of church do get you when get a church of people who don't like church?  Think outside the box.  

Meeting Needs

Meeting Needs
A Poem of Lament

In the empty darkness of a soul's great fall
When the siren song of ending whispers her seductive lies
When unseen angry voices press the mind to desperate silence
And from some small last bit of strength 
You find you are holding a phone

Patriotic Worship

     It is a question being asked repeatedly in church after church in this second decade of the twenty-first century.  Should the church be political? And, behind that, an even more controversial question: Should the church embrace American patriotism at all?

     In case you haven't noticed, take a look around you this Sunday when you go to worship.  If you see an American flag proudly displayed in the front of the sanctuary somewhere, chances are your church is more than thirty years old.  If you look around and see no American flag anywhere, chances are your church is less than twenty years old.  Now, this is far from a hard and fast rule.  There are many exceptions.  But, it is true enough to indicate a seismic shift in the assumptions churches have regarding their role in relation to the United States of America is underway.

There Was this Preacher in the Bar...

So, the bartender looks up, and this preacher comes in...
      Wait. Is this some kind of joke?

       Not exactly. But it is pretty much what happened one night in the bar of a hotel in Indianapolis...

       A few years ago a young Canadian studying ministry at Kentucky Christian College (now Kentucky Christian University) traveled to Indianapolis for a two-day national gathering of preachers. He, along with other students, anticipated hearing outstanding preaching in a gathering of more than four hundred men.

       The student's name was Jacques. But, since he was named after his father back on Prince Edward Island, everyone who knew him just called him Junior.

     

It was a little after midnight and Junior was sitting by himself at a table in the little club having a drink on the main floor of the hotel.

You Should Have Been There: The Problem of Multi-Campus Churches

     Not long ago, one of the largest and best known Christian churches in Lexington expanded their ministry by planting a new site a number of miles south of their main campus.  Land was acquired and a building was education and worship was completed.
     The preacher of the church, one of the best known pastors across the nation, was a major reason the church was so large.  So, naturally, it was decided that the new location would use a projected presence of their lead pastor.  

Church-Mart:: We Do Church Your Way

Memo:    

                 From    Pastor of Expansion

                 To         Associate Pastor of Commercials

                 RE:       This week's radio ad for WRNG AM/FM

   

     A once-in-a-lifetime bargain for you and your family.

     That's right, this is the church you’ve been waiting for all life.  Come on down this Sunday.  We're the big church just off exit 17. 

     Don’t like singing in church?  We don't even try.

     Sick and tire of religion that all rules, but no tools? 

     Tired of the narrow-minded?  Afraid of the broad-minded?  Well, how about a church that never expects you to have any kind of mind at all?  Isn’t that what you’ve been hoping to find?  Then this Sunday, you know where you need to be.

Celebrating Violence in Church

In Eucharist we have to face a table of great violence.  

Flesh torn.  A body broken in pain. 

The table is not made of wood.  It is carved out of betrayal, cruelty, torture, and, finally, the violent taking of a life.

Relax.  We'll get this mess cleaned up.