The Gospel in 5D: Humanization

Jesus came into the world preaching the good news of the gospel. The gospel is God’s loving victory over Sin through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the launch of his Kingdom. But in what way is this good news and what does it mean for us today?

A couple provisors before I launch into my thoughts on that question.

First, American Christianity has used a strategy of "narrowing" across the board for achieving doctrinal correctness. Scared of being too Liberal and caught up in the Modern idea that reality is definable, we have sought to capture Truth in bullet points. But Truth is a man named Jesus who lived a very complex story long ago in a land far away, and who is still living and active today. This kind of thing just doesn't fit well into bullet points. So know that as I write my thoughts I am far from convinced of their perfection and certain that they are not exhaustive.

Second, good news is different for different people. A Western cultured person who struggles with guilt will hear one message as "gospel" which another person from an Eastern culture struggling with shame will not relate to. Those who are hungry yearn for something the well fed rarely consider. Instead of narrowing, the bible portrays a God big enough to meet every need.

That said, in the previous post, I laid out five dimensions of the gospel. For the next couple weeks, I'm going to give a brief explanation of each, but I will return to these ideas again and again. Today, let's start with...

Dimension 1: The Gospel as Humanization

The enslaving power of Sin and in particular the oppression it produces for the marginalized is grossly dehumanizing. People are robbed of their joy, their true identity and the experience of life as God designed it to be. Designed to be relational beings, we are instead alienated from God, self, others and creation. Accepting the gracious gift of Jesus’ salvific work on the cross launches a process of rehumanization within a person’s being. 

Jesus said, “I have told you this so that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). He came so that we might have “life and life more abundantly” (John 10:10). Paul declares the new identity we have seen in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” As a new creation, our ability to reflect the imago Dei is restored and we are able to be effective “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor 5:20). This is what Dr. Mark Baker refers to as “naming.” The unique identity each person carries is obscured by Sin, but revealed, identified and expressed through the power of the gospel (Rev 2:17).

Note that I am definitely not saying those who have not received the gospel are not humans. Rather, I mean that our ability to express the image of God located in all people and the creational intent Jesus revealed is in bondage to sin (Rom 6:20). The atoning work of Jesus has freed us to be that which we always were.

This theme of what it means to be human is something I will return to later.

I came into the idea that Jesus' saving work has restored our humanity while studying domestic violence. Wrestling with the portraits of abuse my class exposed me to, I wrote the following:

"Bernhard Ott demonstrated that the two great points of human accountability are found in God’s two seminal questions to the first family: “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9) and “Where is your brother?” (Gen 4:21) (23). As we stand in servant hearted, loving relationship towards God and towards others we are manifesting humanness as it was created to be. Sin, on the other hand, corrodes our humanity because it is a violation of loving relationship with both God and others. However, it does not only distort our own humanity, it also robs authentic human identity and experience from our victim. Oppressive abuse towards another person--because it is a flagrant disregard for their image of God, treating them as an object for use instead of a “brother” to lovingly serve--accelerates this process of dehumanization for both the oppressed and the oppressor."

The intensity of family abuse reveals something that is fundamentally true of any sin--it destroys all parties. Those on the receiving end are robbed of dignity, respect, love, and at times even the basics of life or life itself. Those committing the act fail to express the Image of God, losing the beauty that God meant humans to radiate.

Through the gospel, Jesus overcomes these distortions. Dignity is restored, love is pured out, relationships are reconnected, forgiveness is acquired, joy bubbles forth, and the image of God shines anew.

The New Testament in 100 Words or Less

This fall I got to play around with one of the more fun assignments I've had during seminary: trying to express the "central message" of the New Testament in one hundred words or less.

What a challenge! What do you include and what do you exclude? What do you emphasize? Who are the main characters? What is the goal? What is the big "why" behind it all?

We were given four opportunities over the course of the semester to take a stab at it. I decided that I would try to write mine in a completely different way every time. My core themes stayed mostly the same, but this choice freed me from trying to hone in perfectly on the dogma that I believe is "right." Like I said before, theological reflection is more about knowing and following God than it is about trying to fully comprehending him and his ways, or reducing our ideas to inflexible doctrines. Nonetheless, it was fun to lay out some riffs that express the essence of what I believe this Christian thing is all about. So, I thought I would share them in the hopes of hearing what yours would be in response.


The simplest one I wrote zeros in on discipleship as the purpose the New Testament was written in the first place...

Riff #1:
The New Testament is a collection of resources written for local communities of Gentiles and Jews who are trying to be disciples of Jesus. Jesus is the God who became a man, demonstrated how to be fully human and sacrificed himself as an act of grace that offers others the way to be fully human as well. To be a disciple of his way is turning from other pursuits, accepting forgiveness and the freedom he offers, entering a life of loving God and loving all others, and discipling others to do likewise.


This second one is where I was most meticulous to include every element I thought was essential...

Riff #2:
The Kingdom of God is among you! It is commenced by the Father’s sending and incarnation of the Son, demonstrated through the life of Jesus, described through his teachings and epitomized in his death on the cross. The enemies of the Kingdom--human sin and the principalities and powers—have been overcome through his resurrection. It is carried forward by the sending of the Spirit to empower the Church as it participates in God’s mission of holistic redemption and reconciliation. It is enacted through the diversely unified, holy, worshipful, collective life of Christ followers. It will be fully consummated at Jesus’ return.


For the third, I thought I would try to pick a verse to let the NT speak for itself. I decided nothing captures it better for me than Philippians 2 (though I had to whittle at it a bit to get under the 100 word mark)...

Riff #3:
...look to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God 
as something to be exploited...
...And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death--
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus...
...every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God.


The last version I wrote is a unique approach. I decided that maybe the New Testament is all about unpacking the gospel. So if that is the case, what is this gospel? In my opinion, that's a much more complicated thing than walking the Romans Road or reciting Four Laws. Those might (emphasis on the "might") have some usefulness in evangelism, but they fall short of expressing the whole of the good news concerning God's activities in creation. Here's what I decided to boil it down to for the time being...

Riff #4:
The Gospel as…
...humanization. Freed from Sin’s Power(s), we are new creations in Christ by grace and submission to God.
...worldview reorientation. Jesus is Lord! Caesar is not. Rethink everything through the lens of his life, crucifixion and resurrection.
...community building. Sin has alienated us from God, self, others and creation, but salvation reconciles us back into a beautiful unity with our diversities intact.
...shalom spreading. We are tasked to join God in his mission to spread peace and justice through love of neighbor, enemies included.
...present and future hope. God has come and will return to make all things new.


Over the next few weeks I'm going to expand on this final riff, exploring what the Gospel as humanization, worldview reorientation, community building, shalom spreading, and present/future hope might mean.

In the meantime, what do you think about my attempts? What would you write if you had to explain the central message of the NT in 100 words or less?

Practicing the Way of Jesus

I have been very positively influenced over the past few years by the whimsical approach to follow Jesus expressed and embodied by Mark Scandrette. This afternoon I had a conversation with a local artist and coffee shop owner who wants to shape an experimental space in his shop for exploring creative Christian spirituality and discipleship, so I told him about Mark. This led me over to Mark's website where I read this description of Christian belief and practice. They get to the core of our journey of faith and obedience after the Savior in a special way, so thought I would share them for your encouragement and reflection. 

Our Creator is caring and present. 

There is a new way to be human.   

The life and teachings of Jesus are a reliable guide to transformation and greater wholeness-- for ourselves and our world.  

We engage these realities through embodied practices. Jesus said, “Anyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is wise.” (Matthew 7:24) Thus we seek a balance between right belief and right practice (orthopraxy) in order to close the gap between what we say we believe and value and how we actually live.  

We see ourselves as part of the continuing story of the Judeo-Christian scriptures, the ancient creeds and the breadth of historic church traditions. We want the the Gospel to transform every aspect of our lives.  

As a network we are shaped by our commitment to seven vows rooted in the gospels: 

To Creator, Obedience

To Creation, Service

To each other, Community

        In all things love, In all things love

With possessions, simplicity

For life, prayer

In our world, creativity

       In all things love, In all things love

Peace and blessings friends.

How I'm Trying to Read the Bible

Leadership is a practice based in biblical study and theological reflection. It has to be if it is to be "Christian." The bible and the ideas we draw from it provide us with the worldview, the vision, the character, and the means of leading toward the common good--shalom for all people.

But there are about as many approaches to interpreting the bible as there are interpreters, so I thought I would use this post to lay out a few of my presuppositions when it comes to biblical study--more focused on the "what" than the "why" or the "how." This has been a gradual process for me (an unending one I hope) but my thoughts took on much greater clarity (along with a whole new set of questions) this year. 

I'll start somewhat snarkily with this claim: a verse cannot be understood by studying it. 

What I mean is this. When I was being taught how to study scripture, probably starting around Junior High, I was taught to focus on a few verses at a time, asking the “when, what, where, why, who?” questions. I might need to look around before or after the verse to figure out what the "therefore was there for," but for the most part once I answered those questions and prayed about it, God would help me understand what this text meant--usually skipping straight to what it meant for me. 

Now these are by no means unimportant questions. We have to keep asking them, but that does not mean we can stick with Junior High bible study methods and expect them to allow our minds to wrap around one of the most complex books ever written in multiple literary genres, by multiple authors, speaking multiple languages, multiple millennia ago in cultures radically different from our own.  

These four hermeneutical pre-commitments represent the way I am trying to approach the text these days...

1) We are incapable of approaching the text from outside our own sociocultural location. This does not mean that we have to read our contemporary meanings into the text, but that our worldview is fundamentally shaped by our context. As exegetes, we must acknowledge up front that this affects our interpretive ability. Therefore, to write “Theology” as though we are objective readers is simply more than we should/can ever claim. It is possible to become a “border crosser” by gaining experience in other cultures, developing our cultural intelligence (CQ), and even by immersing ourselves in the biblical world, but we are never fully capable of reading scripture from its author’s perspective. I have already said a good deal about this here, here and here, so I'll stop repeating myself.

What is beautiful about this is that it means the act of reading scripture draws us into community and gift sharing with the body of Christ. My contextual lenses help me notice certain things in the Bible that others may miss, but in order to see all that God has provided in this incredible book I need to also listen to the insights of men and women from Asia, Africa and South America, of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and of different life experiences. Together our theology will be far richer than when we form conclusions on our own.

2) After acknowledging our context, we must come into an encounter with scripture recognizing that it is predominantly literature written as narrative in a historical context. Therefore, I cannot only ask the “w” questions of a text, but must also ask how it fits within the grand narrative being told through the entire bible, the salvation history of God’s activity in creation. Biblical scholar Sylvia Keesmaat describes the story like a 6 Act play:

“Act 1 is the creation of a good world. Act 2 is the distortion of that world by sin. Act 3 is the calling of Israel to be a blessing to this fallen world. Act 4 is the coming of Jesus, where sin is decisively dealt with. Act 5, scene 1, is the early church, where the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are grappled with and lived out in the lives of the first Christian communities. Further scenes unfold, from the apostolic era, through the patristic period, and so on to the present. Act 6 is the coming consummation, when Jesus will return and we will join him on the new earth at the resurrection of the dead.”

We come to the text as sojourners living in the story it reveals--still in Act 5, awaiting Act 6

I must also ask what the specific historical context of the verse is, what the author’s lifeworld means for the text, and how it fits within the literary context of the book or letter that contains it. Deeper study into the bible's historical, economic, and sociological backgrounds is never a waste of time.

3) Jesus is the key point of departure for biblical reflection because “Jesus Christ is the self-disclosure of God in history” (God Our Savior, Norman Kraus). All verses only make sense in the light of his story. And that means including the whole story stretching from pre-existence with the Father to fully human incarnation in a stable, to his childhood, adult ministry, betrayal and unjust trial, crucifixion, death and burial for three days (and whatever was happening on the other side of the grave!), resurrection, time spent on earth in his resurrected body, ascension to the right and of the Father, giving of his Spirit, presence through the Church as the body of Christ, and eventual return to remake creation and rule on the new earth with his people. 

One caveat to this. Jesus makes no sense except against Old Testament, Roman and Second Temple Judaism backgrounds. So while I am saying that he must be the starting point for biblical interpretation out of one side of my mouth, I am also acknowledging that he requires a good bit of interpretation. Sorry, but we aren't benefitted by shying away from the complexities.

4) A quote from Professor of New Testament Tim Geddert can sum this one up: “Theology is important not because it is “Truth” or certain or final, but because it helps us move closer to that which is far more important still. The bible is more important than theology. The triune God is more important than the bible. The goal is to encounter, relate to, and follow God. Don’t get it backwards.” 

The goal of biblical interpretation is not--contrary to what is often portrayed--about formulating the right doctrines. Theology matters. I am deeply committed to it. But if our convictions about what the bible means begin to take precedence over actually knowing and following Jesus our Lord and God we will wind up in all kinds of mess. Biblical study is about entering into relationship with God, learning to be his disciple and learning to help others know and follow him too.

reflections on MLK Day

Today, in the memory of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy of work on behalf of the forgotten, the minimized, and the marginalized, take a little time to reflect on his message and on the state of your community, our nation and world. What can we celebrate? What bright shoots of beloved community have appeared around you? Where has hope taken hold and love led to justice? Where is the hard work of reconciliation ongoing? And where does evil still lurk or pose uninhibited? Where does division and violence plague our streets and families? How do we remain alienated from one another and who is being oppressed? In what ways must you take on the role of prophet and speak truth to power on behalf of those who are voiceless? Who can you empower to raise their own voice? How do these prophetic words critique your own life? Do you need to sacrifice something, to redistribute your own unequal stash of power?

The following are some of my favorite MLK quotes, a few of which you probably haven't heard before. Read them slowly. Don't assume that they confirm what you already think. Let them challenge you in a new way as they are doing for me as I am typing them out. And, finally, open yourself to the incredible love that King announced, the love of God that fills you up until you can't help but spill it out all over your neighbor...

"Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority....In spite of this prevailing tendency to conform, we as Christians have a mandate to be nonconformists. The Apostle Paul, who knew the inner realities of the Christian faith, counseled, "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." We are called to be people of conviction, not conformity; of moral nobility, no social respectability. We are commanded to live differently and according to a higher loyalty." * 

"But the real reason that we must use our resources to outlaw poverty goes beyond material concerns to the quality of our mind and spirit. Deeply woven into the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are of infinite metaphysical value. If we accept this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see them victimized with ill health, when we have the means to help them. In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied together. They entered the same mysterious gateway of human birth, into the same adventure of mortal life." ** 

"In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be." *

"We must avoid extreme optimism--the notion that we have come a long way and have nothing to do but await the inevitable. We must also avoid extreme pessimism--the notion that we have come nowhere and can do nothing to alter our lives. We must say realistically that we have come a long way, but still have a long way to go. We must realize that change does not roll in on wheels of inevitability, but comes through struggle." ***

"What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. There is nothing essentially wrong with power. The problem is that in America power is unequally distributed." ** 

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state and never its tool. if the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority." *

"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity.... We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind's last chance to choose between chaos and community." **

"Above all, we must be reminded anew that God is at work in his universe. He is not outside the world looking on with a sort of cold indifference. Here on all the roads of life, he is striving in our striving. Like an ever-loving Father, he is working through history for the salvation of his children. As we struggle to defeat the forces of evil, the God of the universe struggles with us. Evil dies on the seashore, not merely because of man's endless struggle against it, but because of God's power to defeat it." *

*Strength to Love
**Where Do We Go From Here?
***first address as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, Holt Street Baptist Church, Dec 5, 1955

Book Recommendations: Looking at Our Contexts

I've talked a lot over the past few weeks about contextual awareness and the importance of thinking theologically about our contexts. So, today I thought I'd throw out a few book suggestions that can take . This will be the first time of many that I share book recommendations, so if you're into that sort of thing, get excited. Today I have six for you, each in a different genre. Every one of these has helped me for peel back the layers of my own identity and the nature of this complex world. Enjoy :)


Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multiethnic World,  Paula Harris & Doug Schappe (Christian ethnic studies)

Most white people I know who have struggled with "our place in a multiethnic world" pass through a few stages in this journey, moving from ignorance, to shock, to highly self-critical, and hopefully at last into a stage of rebuilding. This book was a significant gift to me when I was trying to move through these last couple stages and recapture the good in my white identity. 

Harris and Schappe wrestle with what it means to be white when it is white people have been the perpetrators of much of the world's colonization, exploitation and oppression over the past several centuries. What does it mean to have this history and yet be made in the image of God? What things must we leave behind about our heritage, and what things can we celebrate? Their treatment of these questions and others is splendid--a very healthy blend of the prophetic and pastoral.



A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present,  Howard Zin
(History)

The English historian Thomas Carlyle claimed that history is the biography of great individuals. Zinn disagrees. He thinks that it is not history itself, but the stories of history we have been telling about history that are about so called "great individuals." And it's time we tell better stories. 

A People's History tells each era of America's past from the perspective of the powerless: the indigenous peoples, African slaves, women, Chinese immigrants, and so on. It is often a sobering account, revealing how expansive the oppression that sullies our nation's history actually is. But they are stories we need to hear in order to honor those who have been trampled by "great individuals," to gain a more accurate and less romantic view of the United States, and to fight against repeating these injustices in our generation.



Churches, Cultures and Leadership: A Practical Theology of Churches and Ethnicities,  Mark Lau Branson & Juan E. Martinez
(Multicultural Christian Leadership)

Branson and Martinez lay down a substantial challenge to church leaders. They call us to consider what the call of the gospel is for the Body of Christ that has been fractured for so long on ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic lines. They do a great job of melding theological reflection with the social sciences in the effort “to help men and women in our churches to see differently and to gain the skills and competencies needed for multicultural contexts.”

I was particularly helped by their identification of the founding myths of American culture. As the authors point out, “majority-culture evangelicals do not have the proper tools to understand the dynamic of race relations in the United States.” This book is a powerful effort to make up that gap, not only through its own contributions but also through the wealth of outside resources they point to.




Encounter God in the City: Onramps to Personal and Community Transformation,  Randy White
(Christian Community Development)

Randy White is one of my professors at seminary--a large part of why I chose the seminary that I'm at--and someone to whom I am greatly indebted both personally and educationally. In this book he challenges his readers to "see" the city with new eyes, to see it with the love of God and to acquire God's vision and hope for its future. 

One of the best parts about this book, and the reason why I am including it on this list, is actually in the appendixes where White lays out a comprehensive strategy for assessing the characteristics of urban contexts. No matter how long you have lived in a place, follow his steps and learn more about the world around you than you ever imagined exists.



The Gospel in a Pluralist Society,  Leslie Newbigin
(Missiology)

This book is amazing. Newbigin--who is famous for returning from years as a missionary in India and taking a missionary's eye to Western culture--accomplishes more with greater brilliance in each chapter than in most books I've read. I took it one a solo camping trip last May, staked up by a river and totally lost myself in his writing as my paradigms were blasted over and over.

Part contextual analysis, part philosophical treatise, part apologetics, part theological system, part missiological imperative for the modern church--buy, steal or borrow it and learn something amazing.

Learning About Theology from the Third World,  William Dyrness
(Contextual Theology)

For most of the Church's history, theology was written within the fairly culturally homogeneous confines of Western Europe by white men. Over that time, the generally accepted sources of theological reflection were scripture, tradition, reason and religious experience, weighted in that order within Protestantism. As the Christian faith has spread to every nation on the planet we have had to realize that culture has a significant impact on our interpretation of the bible, allowing us to "see" or miss various messages from the same stories.

 This book has contributed to my beliefs on how to "do theology" (which I talk about here) more than any other. Dyrness identifies four different ways that people use Scripture and context together to generate theology, and offers what I have found to be a highly insightful approach which allows us interweave the two while still giving a healthy prioritization to the text. The end result is a theological process that offers critique to both cultural forms that err from the ways of Jesus and overly parochial theologies that fail to speak into the lifeworld of particular peoples.  

We're (Not) All the Same

In my last post, I critiqued a major stumbling block in American culture--the idol of success. Today I'd like to address a couple other factors that get in the way of effective shalom work. 

I was recently introduced to an inspirational quote by self-help author Marianne Williamson that seems to fairly accurately represent the middle-to-upper-class ethic of leadership in the US. She says:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

This sounds so good, so inspirational, and borders enough on truth to be convincing. I don't know much about Marianne. She seems like a nice, well intentioned person who has made quite a career off of self-help spiritual writings. I don't mean to pick on her, but because this quote captures two key elements of American mythology based in the same erroneous theme, I'm going to use it. 

The problematic idea both elements grow out of is this: we're all the same.

Who Are "We"?

Like a good motivational speaker, Williamson makes use of the universal "we/us/our." She generalizes that everyone essentially has the same fears, desires, and destinies.

Part of the American narrative is the expectation to conform. Even though the cry of personal liberty has been on our lips since the earliest days, the melting pot metaphor held great sway over our corporate imagination and continues to influence our expectations for cultural deviants. There were always founding American ideals that all were expected to align.


But all people are not the same. Even though we want them to be, there are huge difference among us. Differences in cultural, ethnic, religious, gender, and even experience are fairly obvious, and I've talked about them in the past. However, in her opening words, I think Marianne is trying to point to something about human nature that transcends these things.

The problem is that she gets it wrong. She speaks as though all people essentially want the same things and fear the same things. But this simply isn't true. The Enneagram is perhaps the most helpful tool for identifying the variety of deep yearnings and fears held by people with different personalities. If you have never looked into it, I strongly encourage it.

Ironically, though Williamson thinks everyone is really just scared of their own power, as a Enneagram Type 1 personality my deepest fear literally is that I am inadequate!

What does this mean for leaders? It means that we must honor difference. Diverse elements functioning together in synergy is a universal principle for vibrancy and effectiveness. This shows up everywhere from city planning (The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs is the bible of progressive urban planning and is totally based around this idea) to healthy ecosystems (check this out).  It's even in the bible (Rom 12:4-5).

We cannot impose our vision or aspirations on others. We have to create collaborative environments that draw out the dreams of all and foster contexts in which all are able to connect with God and draw on their gifts to overcome their personal fears, freed to follow Jesus in community.

How do we Get There?

Williamson declares that we are all meant to shine as children do, that this is not something only a few a meant to enjoy but that it is intended for all. Amen! That is a beautiful line and very reminiscent of the vision of shalom I am trying to paint with this blog. 

But, how does she suppose this will come about? And is this the same way Jesus put forward? This is most often the point at which a Christian worldview diverges from the secular world. We may all agree that world peace or any other form of justice is a great thing, but our methodologies stem from radically different sources.

The first principle she offers is to embrace our power and exercise it. Is this good? Well, yes and no. Power is sticky language. Power is exactly what the marginalized have had stolen from them and what needs to be redistributed. However, it is also the misuse of power that generates oppression. It true that all people are meant to shine. However, there is a degree of self-aggrandizing triumphalism in the approach to this end which ignores the fact that our society’s power differentials and systematized oppression have created an uneven playing field. 

Once again, we cannot act like everyone is the same because power is not evenly distributed in our world. Everyone--to our shame in this instance--is not the same.

For many, the call to embrace their power and stand tall may be an important and true message. Many have been oppressed, silenced and dismissed. Though there are times when this is not possible because of tyrannical injustice, it is a beautiful thing when people can embrace their dignity and the inherent power they have as a human being to regain their rights. This was the story of women's suffrage and the Civil Rights movement, for two examples. 

However, our culture is rather adept at stockpiling power (in a variety of forms) in the hands of the few. For the powerful, this is not a message for them to embrace. Let me explain why after pointing out the other side of Williamson's methodology.

Her second strategy for helping everyone shine comes through these words: 

"there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you...as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

To claim that if I just pursue my own success others will naturally be lifted with me is--sorry for being harsh--a gross lie wrapped in a silver lining. A rising tide, as mountains of data confirm, does not lift all boats because we live in a world where the people with the best ships have built retaining walls around their neighbors’ boats so that the water cannot reach them.

We must not forget that it is far easier for some to stand tall than for others. As a man, I have to realize that I have been socialized to assert my opinion in public settings more naturally than many women. The "brighter" I shine, the more I may intimidate them into silence. As a white person in America, I have to realize that I am awarded inequitable privilege that my friends of color are deprived of.

Jesus taught that self-sacrifice is the way of the Kingdom. Leadership for the Christian is not about naively seeking our own welfare in the belief that our success will be other's
salvation. Verse after verse drives this message home. The gospels alone are enough to unsettle our whole conception of how to live in this world:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit...those who mourn...those who hunger...who are persecuted." Matt 5:3-10 

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matt 5:44 

"Whoever becomes like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matt 18:4 

"My Father, if this cup cannot pass by without my drinking it, your will be done." Matt 26:42 

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." Mark 8:34-35 

"If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." Mark 9:35 

"Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate." Luke 6:36 

"For all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted." Luke 14:11 

"Father, I commit my life into your hands." Luke 23:46 

"I can do nothing by myself. As I hear, I judge, and my judgement is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me." John 5:30 

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:24 

"The words I say to you I do not speak as from myself: it is the Father, living in me, who is doing this work." John 14:10 

"When you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go." John 21:18

The lens of Christ's life, the ethic of the Kingdom of God, flips the world's wisdom upside down and shows us the true way for all to shine. How exactly to hold these two themes of empowerment and servanthood in tension, when to know which should apply and who it should apply to, I am not sure. I only know that this is what God is asking us to do.

A Word of Agreement

There is one thing I want to strongly affirm from Williamson's quote: she has an abundance mentality. 

Most of us bring a scarcity mindset to the table. We see limited resources and just try to figure out what the best way is to distribute them. As leaders we can do better. Look for ways to reject power mongering attempts to slice ourselves the biggest piece of the pie and instead divvy things up more equitably is great, but let's not stop there. Most things in the world that relate to wellbeing are not fixed assets--love, for example. Abundance minded leaders are always exploring ways to bake bigger pies. 

Success-ism

In her typically poignant way, Mother Teresa said: "We are not called to be successful, but faithful." 

That's powerful stuff, but when I hear that from her I want to say, "Ok, Mama T, that's good and all, but you still ended up being a pretty dang big deal. Even though you might say you weren't successful because Calcutta is still in rough shape and all, you have personally been canonized as a saint and are basically a celebrity. I'd call that pretty darn successful."

I have all the love in the world for Mama T, but this quote meant more to me when I heard it restated by a ninety year old pastor who had ministered in obscurity among the poor of Bryan, Texas his whole life, at times preaching to no one but his wife and kids on Sunday mornings. Speaking about himself, he admitted that, "I am called not to be great, nor to be successful, but faithful."

Honestly, that's the harder piece for me. I can accept that I may not be successful in accomplishing my goals (eradicating all pain and injustice is honestly a bit out of my pay grade), but so long as people know who I am and think I'm awesome I would be fine. Being thought of as great is all the success I need. At least that's what insecure Nathan thinks. And unfortunately I'm not that unique. 

We live in a world where from the time we're a baby (see picture) we are told that not succeeding is failing and if you're failing you're worthless. If the company's profit margin doesn't expand you're out of a job. If the nonprofit doesn't have huge numbers to show the funding dries up. If the church doesn't grow the doors might as well close. If you're single you're obsolete. If your kids don't get A's you must be a terrible parent. And in these and too many other ways our culture shames us. 

One of the problems with a focus on success is that it tends to grow out of a need to appear impressive. We are constantly comparing ourselves to the next person and terrified they won't think we are special. 

My fiancée went to Yale where she made some VERY impressive friends, by most any standard. They work everywhere from Wall Street to Capital Hill, and honestly do some awesome stuff. Every time we are about to meet one of her friends, I'm terrified. I go into Mr. Inadequate mode and start stacking myself up against them: grew up in small town Nowheresville, went to a state school, grades were only so-so, haven't worked anywhere anyone's ever heard of, broke, etc. These folks are consistently as sweet as could be, but because American culture tells me they have been more successful than me, I usually just want to crawl in a hole. 

Worthiness--that sense of deep acceptance and love for one's self--is a precious commodity in our culture. Few of us have it and most are fighting to attain it through the misconceived notion that it lies "out there" somewhere. But it doesn't. It is right here, present in the beauty of who God created us to be and in the unconditional, unshakable love he has for us. We are already worthy but are terrified to live into it, wounded too many times by those around us who can't see this glorious reality.

It's not hard to see why leadership gets messed up when we're constantly on the lookout for our next best shot at feeling worthy. Steven Covey said great public leadership begins with the intentional leadership of one's own life. A life led by insecurity, always driven to gain acceptance, be enough, fit in, and gain respect or love simply can't discern the correct decisions that will provide long term benefit for others. If we want to lead toward shalom, we have to accept the paradoxical truth that success is not our goal. Following Jesus is.

The cross--God's strange strategy to allow his own murder so that the world he so loved would be saved--is the greatest critique ever leveled at a life strategy aimed at greatness or success. Read the opening verses of Philippians 2 again and think about how success as our culture defines it jives with the example of Jesus:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 

who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. 

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I'll conclude by throwing a few quotes your way from Father Greg Boyle*, a man who continues to walk through life alongside gang members in LA:

"Salivating for success keeps you from being faithful, keeps you from truly seeing whoever's sitting in front of you...If you surrender your need for results and outcome, success becomes God's business." 

"Can we stay faithful and persistent in our fidelity even when things seem not to succeed? I suppose Jesus could have chosen a strategy that worked better (evidence-based outcomes)--that didn't end in the Cross--but he couldn't find a strategy more soaked with fidelity than the one he embraced." 

"Sr. Elaine Roulette, the founder of My Mother's House in New York, was asked, 'How do you work with the poor?' She answered, 'You don't. You share your life with the poor.' It's as basic as crying together. It is about 'casting your lot' before it ever becomes about 'changing their lot.' Success and failure, ultimately, have little to do with living the gospel. Jesus just stood with the outcasts until they were welcomed or until he was crucified--whichever came first." 

*quotes from Tattoos on the Heart

Being a better Evangelical and/or Better than being an Evangelical

I love Evangelicals. Truth is, I are one. It's an identity I cling to because of those core truths it represents, even while those who represent the name are often folks I have no desire to align myself with.

Some of the things I love about Evangelicals' beliefs are:

• God has priority in all things...he is sovereign and a relationship with him is the essential ingredient of their life and faith
• the Bible is believed to be the authoritative word for all areas of life and knowledge
• their general quest to be authentic disciples



Dennis Oppenheim, "Device to Root Out Evil"

• the culture of mutual spiritual encouragement

In so many ways, I am deeply grateful that this is my heritage and affirm each of the above. It has instilled in me values for family, hard work, education and kindness to others. My parents demonstrated an abiding, personal love for Jesus and taught me the same. However, as I said before, no culture is above the need to be remade by the gospel.

What must be critiqued in Evangelical culture if we are to be effective agents of God's shalom? Asked another way, how has this culture warped us out of the image of God and how might we need to re-posture ourselves as followers of Jesus? These are significant questions emerging from my own autobiography, and questions that I believe are far more relevant and far to infrequently asked by many of my Christian brothers and sisters.
My critiques aren't exhaustive, nor are they universally applicable to all Evangelicals, but here are the three points I'd like to express today... 

Continual Narrowing 

Evangelicalism has gone the way of most tribes in America by drawing its lines of inclusion/exclusion in ever narrowing circles. These days, many question if you can truly be called an Evangelical if you are not also a neo-Calvinistic, penal satisfaction atonement proclaiming, eternal torment for the damned affirming, dispensationalist eschatology believing card carrying member of the club.

Personally, I have major problems if not outright denials for every one of these positions.

We must stop working so hard to draw the boundaries which define who is in and who is out. Instead, it is time to point to Jesus as the center toward which we all desperately need to move. Jesus--the entire story of the true God who became a real human being to save the world--cannot be captured in our doctrinal statements. Doctrines are not God and we build idols when we treat them as such.

Evangelical theology has produced far too many instances in which we come riding in on our imaginary white horses, waving around a gospel that made sense to us but is all but irrelevant to people of other cultures--particularly those who are oppressed.

When was the last time you listened to a podcast, read a blog or a book by someone who isn't a white Evangelical? That might be a great place to start.


Unquestioned Ignorance of Privilege in White Evangelicalism 

Ok, first I need to caveat what I have already said. I do not have really Evangelicalism as a whole in mind. I have white Evangelical culture. This is the context I was formed in and with which I have the greatest familiarity.

Emerson and Smith’s significant book Divided by Faith opens with a haunting wake up call: “This book is a story of how well-intentioned people, their values, and their institutions actually recreate racial divisions and inequalities they ostensibly oppose” (1). The people they are referring to are my people.Our approach to social/cultural leadership is unfortunately epitomized in movements like the “Moral Majority,” a fundamentalist lobbying organization that attempted to use power to impose so-called Christian beliefs and ethics through the American political system. We don't use this strategy much anymore mostly because we aren't the majority at this point and it doesn't work.  While I still cling somewhat anemically to an Evangelical identity, any theological ethic of leadership that lovingly addresses the contemporary context will be a break from these historic patterns. In an age when inequality is as race based as ever, transformation in this category is imperative.

One look at Jesus' approach to making change happen reveals another way. We could begin by asking how Jesus used power. By amassing lots of it and forcing his agenda on others? No. He became the least, the servant of all, the one who refused to use his limitless divine resources and instead sacrificed himself on a cross. 

It is time to acknowledge that as white people, our society has (unjustly) endowed us with great power. Stop saying that people are poor or in prison purely based on their personal choices and lack of positive will. People exist within systems that have profound influence on their personal possibilities. This is something we must address. 

As people with power, we must ask what the model of the crucifixion means for us in real life.


Uncritical Politics

From the first moment Jesus opened his mouth to begin his ministry, he was political. Evangelicals know this at some level, though they would rarely say it that way. They must or they would not be so unified in they desire to end abortion (An important issue, for sure, even if the approach has often been flawed. Mother Teresa set the best Christian example here when she put herself on the line by telling people to give their unwanted babies to her.)

But Jesus was political in ways radically different from Rush Limbaugh. For Jesus to say that the Kingdom of God had arrived, or for the early Christians to declare that "Jesus is Lord" was a direct counter to the claims of Rome and its empirical assertion that "Caesar is Lord." 

This goes back to the first point. We think that as Evangelicals we pretty much have things figured out. But time after time, we are saying "Jesus is Lord" while still giving our allegiance to the ways of Caesar. Everything has to be reconsidered through this lens. The best questions we can ask sound something like this: "If Jesus were running things, what would they be like? What would happen here?"

I have been guilty of this more times than I'm comfortable admitting. What I am having to learn to do is to be passionately about convictions but hold them with open hands, recognizing that I might be wrong and need to retain a critical posture toward everything, testing against the model of Jesus' life.

---

For too many people, being an Evangelical means getting it right. 

Friends, be better than just an Evangelical who thinks they are right. Please don't allow this to be your primary identity.

Be a follow of Jesus the Christ. Seek his ways. Be conformed to him and no other.

The world desperately needs you to do so.

Reading and Responding to Contexts

Wassily Kandinsky, "Concentric Circles" 1913.

In the last post I expressed my conviction that the world is now a "glocal" place requiring multivalent contextual awareness for effective leadership. But how exactly do we tap into the culture's worldview? More difficult still, how do we connect with those people who are at culture's leading edge? The Church has had a bad habit of responding to the questions people were asking 20 years ago with the kind of answers that made sense to people 50 years ago. How do we attune our minds to those shaping our culture's future so that we can have answers for our neighbors' questions before they even start asking them? (recapturing and reimagining the role of culture creating in post-Christendom America is a can of worms for another day!)

First of all, we will benefit from seeing that this task moves beyond awareness of current events. Knowing what is going on is important, and there's a slew of things in the news right now that the church needs to have Jesus shaped responses to. However, if our awareness of the culture is only as deep as the constant stream of news and people's reactive commentary on it we will remain stuck within the culture. By doing so we forfeit our right/ability to see its presuppositions, offer prophetic critiques, appropriate Good News and deeply relevant pastoral care.

Francis Schaeffer was a master cultural interpreter and apologist, and my first introduction to this task. In The God Who is There he explains how existentialist philosophy (specifically its dismissal of absolutes and sense of despair) progressed through Western culture. From his perspective, they cascaded in the following order:

Philosophy
---------------
                  |  Art
                   -------
                            |  Music
                             -----------
                                          |  General Culture
                                           ------------------------
                                                                        |  Theology
                                                                         -----------------


I think he needs to pay more attention to the historic events (usually driven by technology, economics and contact with some new "other") and shifts in the actual contextual forms and functions themselves that move philosophers to articulate new thoughts. But I agree that this is a fairly apt (though perhaps overly linear) portrait of how a cultural worldview shift takes place.

As Schaffer describes it, the church's problem was that it was too absent from spaces where people were asking the questions and experimenting with the ideas that eventually eroded modernism. We weren't hanging out at the exhibits where Dada artists acted out their beliefs on life's absurdity. We weren't listening to the music they listened to or reading the books they read. Far from shaping the conversation, we were not even at the table.

So we became irrelevant. And it's a practice we are still repeating.

Most Christians still struggle to understand what it means to be postmodern or "late Modern" (myself included!) even though the key bards of postmodernism (Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard, etc) are all dead, and the ideas they offered have mostly had their way at the general culture level by this point. A new wave of thinkers is already writing and painting and filming and singing away while we continue to be mired in the questions of the previous generation.

My point in saying these things is not that every leader needs to be reading the latest philosophy books. We don't. Most contemporary philosophy books coming out will never take hold and it is impossible to know what will except in retrospect twenty years from now.

Rather, I am trying to affirm and intensify Karl Barth's charge that as pastors, theologians, community developers, and Christian leaders of all stripes we must hold the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. We need to see the big picture, the megatrends, the worldview/philosophical perspective that the majority share, tapping into the ideas innovators are pushing at culture's leading edge when and where we can.

My seminary professor Dr. Brian Ross offers three suggestions for understanding what he calls "the secular mindset":

1) Be friends with secular people and listen to them. Not in a creepy, you are only friends with them because you have an agenda kind of way. Just a normal friendship where you have fun together and share about the stuff that matters to each of you. But pay attention and note those ideas that seem to emerge from a different source than your beliefs.

2) Look into the founding "myths" of the culture. Whether it is a macro-culture like America (City on a Hill, a Christian nation, the American Dream, the land of opportunity, the Founding Father stories, the King Arthur tales, etc) or a micro-culture like the local craft brewery scene (Hipster ideals, local economy, environmental concerns, etc), every niche has narratives--some we are only subconsciously aware of--that provide the backdrop for our concepts of the the world, how to act in it and what the good life is. Researching these backgrounds helps us identify the presuppositions people in the culture are walking around with, even if they can't identify what they are for themselves.

3) Read what people are reading in the philosophy/english/sociology classes at the local universities, watch popular movies, definitely watch indie movies, listen to secular music, play secular video games, etc. As you watch/read/listen/interact with these media, consider the two basic questions that Howard Thurman claims all humans ask: "Who am I?" and "What am I here for?" At some level, we are all trying to figure out what it mean to be human and what our purpose in life is. What answers are the films and books and songs offering to these questions? To what fundamental longings or problems do the answers relate? Get together with some thoughtful friends and have fun with this one.


Once some categories begin to emerge, it is time to consider...

A) How Jesus' Kingdom culture might speak prophetically to the context

and

B) What the gospel (good news) might be for this context (Note: it may be different than what has always been good news for us; that's ok, God is more than big enough).


There's several gospel and culture related posts in the pipeline, so stay tuned. But in the meantime, I'd love to hear what you think.