What about the Babies?

Human lives are marked out and segmented through ceremony and ritual.  This is as true for the non-religious as the faithful.  It is rooted in our shared humanity, which is to say it is rooted in Eden, not Pentecost.

Weddings.  Births.  Deaths.  School graduations.  Joining the military.  These life transitions are marked out by ceremony and celebration in every culture and major religion.

It is as if we are driven by some innate need, as evidenced across a broad swath of human cultures, to mark out the great transitions life through a planned gathering and sharing of certain expected activities, words, or behaviors with family and friends.  These life-marker ceremonies are typically both familial and religious, tied as they are to both identity and time.

Toe Praise

In the early years of the twentieth century, missionaries from the British “Brethren,” came into central and southern Africa.  Here, the Good News of Christ evoked celebration and responses largely unknown to the stalwart and strict English evangelicals.  One of the missionaries, Dan Crawford, (in his book, Thinking Back ) recounted watching an African woman break into exuberant dancing during the church service:  

“The amazing, maddening mix-up of the prayer in the heart, and the prance in the feet! Asked her what it meant at all at all, and she quaintly replied, ‘Oh! it is only the praise getting out at the toes.”

Sometimes you just gotta let it flow.

The Downside of Exegesis

This is definitely not how early 
Christians experienced the Word 

It is no surprise that the cultures that were basking in the glow of the Enlightenment and the emerging

disciplines of scientific research would be at the forefront of modern approaches to the process of exegesis.  While much of this was framed in a broadly anti-supernatural and naturalistic set of presuppositions (emerging in what might be broadly called theological liberalism or modernism), conservatives flocked as eagerly to the seductive appeal of immersing their approach to scripture is quasi-scientific methodology as their modernistic antagonists.

The Gospel?

Do we even know what the New Testament means by "the gospel?"  I'm not so sure.

Do we even know what the New Testament means by "the gospel?"  I'm not so sure.

Ask most evangelicals to define the "Good News" (or "Gospel") and you will likely get a quick and confident answer.  But, however much the common-sense everybody-knows-that definitions pour out of our mouths, it would do well to hold them up against the actual biblical material.

Demythologizing Esther

Esther is a great story of redemption - one that comes about in a great crisis forced upon Esther. But, we often re-tell it as a Christian fairy-tale - one that equates her beauty with goodness (just like all fairy-tales seem to do).

Of the course, the storyline framework of "pretty girl" equals the "good girl" and star of the story has all kinds of problems, especially if you think about the consequences on young girls. The truth is that Esther enters (some may read it as she is coerced into entering) a contest that is not about simply being the prettiest or with the best homemaking skills. The contest centers on a series of comparative sexual performances for the Persian monarch.

Martyrs and the Baffling Loss of Framework

The news of twenty-one Coptic Christians beheaded on a Libyan beach by Islamic radicals proclaiming their allegiance to ISIS is heartbreaking.

It is also deeply troubling that, in the desire to remove religion from the discussion, the White House comment lamenting the murders only designated those beheaded on the beach in Libya as "Egyptian citizens." No mention of any religion whatsoever. Since these twenty-one were slain, according to their murderers, because they were among the "crusaders," the omission is baffling.

Apparently the whole world, without their knowledge of consent, has been unilaterally assumed to embrace the politely privatized religious assumptions of western Europe and the U.S. It seems that many in the west have no framework to grasp any reality where religion might be more central to a person's primary identity than family, tribe, nation-state or ideology. This loss of framework has left many without the grammar to comprehend words being shouted right at them.

For a much clearer voice, here is a link to the reaction of Pope Francis: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0-FPpvkIV4

I Don't Believe in a Hill Called Mount Calvary

While criticism of contemporary worship music is sometimes fully justified, I'm baffled that older gospel songs seem insulated from such scrutiny.  The truth is hymns, gospel songs, and contemporary worship music all have their fair share of either shallow, silly or even wholly heretical (a phonetic oxymoron) lyrics.

We ought to stop longing for A Mansion over the Hilltop.  In 1611 the word "mansion" simply meant a place to live.  The actual idea in John 14:1-2 is clearly the "Father's house" has more than enough room for everyone.  The gospel song seems to suggest heaven is going to be a land of millions of eternal antebellum southern plantations.  I would note this is an image of heaven many black Christians, for some reason, find less than appealing.  

Racism and Dressing Up for Church

As the title suggests, this post will explore dressing up for Sunday worship and racism. Racism, I need to acknowledge at the outset, may not be exactly the right word, particularly if someone is thinking about a consciously malicious way of looking at people based on ethnicity or skin color. Myopic cultural provincialism would actually have been a better description. But, then again, would you have read the post even this far if I stuck those words in the title? While it may start to sound like I’m writing about proper clothing for Sunday worship, bear with me to the end and you’ll find the point I want to make is considerably more important than clothing for church.

In an undergraduate course on Christian worship, I was concluding the unit examining the history and traditions of African-American worship in the United States. Since the students had seen the videos and pictures, my question was, “So, why do predominately black churches dress up for Sunday worship?”

Does God Care about Ritualistic Worship?

Stephen Lawson* oversees a course in the history of Christian worship for The Consortium for Christian Online Education.  A student recently asked a good question in an online forum that many evangelicals ask.  The question, and Stephen's response, are worth reading.

A student's question:

Does ritualistic worship matter to God?  I realize that it may matter to some men or women, but does God really even care about the ritualistic parts of our worship of Him?

Ode to Lent

A reflective and candid meditation for the season....

I pause now and want to lament
The bad poetry I have written for lent
But rhyming is just so tempting
And easier than actually repenting

                                    - Tom Lawson, 2014

Monkeying with History

First, I do apologize for getting off topic.  This isn't about worship.

But, I just finished reading over yet another evaluation of the recent televised debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham.

It was one of several reviews I have read recently that bring up the specter of the Scopes trial (the so-called "monkey trial").  In this case, the reviewer (somewhat begrudgingly) said that at least Ken Ham was better informed than the hapless William Jennings Bryan when confounded by brilliant Clarence Darrow about the earth being created in just six days.

Rhythm

Sometimes the message might be when there is no message.

It is a shame Protestants, especially Evangelicals, give little thought to the liturgical seasons. The reality is that advent is four weeks of anticipation. A little four-week metaphor on longing for what has not yet happened. And, yes, it does not end with Christmas. But, for nearly 80% of the world's believers, it does not end there.

Epiphany, associated with the visit of the magi, as well as the baptism of the adult Jesus in the Jordan River by John, is on January 6. In the Orthodox tradition, Christmas falls on our calendar date January 7. But, even those are not the end.