Why I can't bring myself to do an altar call...

This past week, Sammy Rhodes had an article published that was a magic carpet ride of nostalgia for every church kid who started youth group between 1997 and 2005.  If you haven't seen the article yet, I encourage you to look at it, it will give you the feels (although I can't guarantee what set of feels it may be).

One element of growing up a church kid in the late 90s that he left out however was the obligatory altar call at the end of every retreat, music festival, mission trip, camp, and Superbowl party.  If you were like me, when you were in high school, the church calendar looked something like this:

At the end of August there would be a Back to School Youth Kickoff party where the plan of salvation was presented.  Then in the middle of October, at the Fall Retreat, the plan of salvation was presented again and I would be saved for the first time that year by raising my hand when everyone else had their eyes shut.  By the end of November, I had back-slidden to the point where at the FCA Retreat I would once again raise my hand while everyone kept their eyes shut for my salvation.  On New Years Eve, we would have our lock-in where once again I would hear the plan of salvation.  The first week of February I would hear the plan of salvation again, this time shown on the bigscreen by a pre-recorded NFL player during half-time (which of course is why no church kid saw the 'wardrobe malfunction' live).  By the end of March, I had been to the purity retreat, repented of youtubing the wardrobe malfunction, and once more asked Jesus to be my personal savior (we are up to 3 for those of you scoring at home).  In April we would go to Ichthus, where once again the plan of salvation was presented, and this time I, along with 10,000 of my closest friends raised my hand to be saved.  The summer brought a week at camp that culminated by praying at the altar and a mission trip where once again I could raise my hand while everyone else kept their eyes shut.

Looking back, I must have been saved and resaved at least 27 times before getting my driver's license. None of which resulted in transformation of my heart and mind.

In, The King Jesus Gospel, Scot McKnight talks about the way that 'salvation culture' has overcome 'gospel culture' in much of evangelicalism.  He argues that most evangelicals (and many mainliners as well) when questioned about the content of the Gospel jump straight to a plan of salvation (whether that be the 4 spiritual laws, the romans road, the bead bracelet, or some other tract).  For McKnight, the plan of salvation is a meager gospel, in large part because it fails to connect the life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus to the larger trajectory of the story of God.  For McKnight, a rendering of the Gospel that casts Jesus as savior without also casting him as Lord is no Gospel at all.

Tom Wright has claimed that when we distill the Gospel down to the plan of salvation, that we cease to be a Gospel community, we cease to be Evangelical, but instead we should be called soterians, the saved ones.  The difference being that as soterians we are justified, but there is little impetus for sanctification--there is little impetus for being transformed into the image of God.

And there in lies the rub.  God calls us to make disciples, who immersed in a Gospel culture, are transformed into the image of God, and while the plan of salvation (how we become justified) is part of this Gospel culture, it has no power when separated from the discipleship pathway (how we can become sanctified). So, no matter how much I want to, I can't bring myself to offer an empty gospel that justifies without the probability of sanctification.  And neither could Wesley.

As United Methodists, sometimes we imagine John Wesley as a larger than life, Superman-like character in the English religious landscape.  But the reality is that Wesley's work as a field preacher was dwarfed by that of George Whitfield.  Whitfield was the master evangelist, whose preaching brought at least 10 times as many Englishmen to saving faith than did Wesley's.  However, every person who came to faith under Wesley was immediately put in a [discipleship] class.  In other words, Wesley refused to offer justification without the expectation of sanctification, and now, almost 250 years later, the movement with the method is in mission in nearly every community around the globe, while Whitfield, even before his death, lamented that he had not been as committed to getting converts into classes.

Here is where I want some feedback.  I believe that the acknowledgement of justifying grace in one's life is important, but I don't believe that our usual ways of acknowledging justifying grace are working for making disciples.  How have you seen the moment of decision turned into the first step of the discipleship pathway?  How does the plan of salvation function in a Gospel culture?

What do we deserve by virtue of being human?

This morning I saw a new meme on Facebook that had been shared by a couple of my friends saying something to the effect of, "Those who receive government benefits should have to be tested for drugs, since I do to be able to work and be taxed for said benefits."  On the surface, this is a relatively reasonable argument.  It makes sense that if I want to collect a "public good," a certain level of responsibility with the resources I do have should be expected.  However, on closer inspection, this sentiment reveals a troubling assumption about poverty, responsibility, and the human condition.

Before I go any further, I should lay my cards on the table.  I believe that humans, by virtue of being human in society, are entitled to a certain necessities for human flourishing.  Beyond these necessities, we are entitled to nothing.  What exactly these necessities include is constantly changing (and are different from society to society), and is extremely difficult to nail down, however, the basic principle remains that there is a basket of goods and services that every human living in society should have access to by virtue of being human.

In the past, calamity was viewed as a fact of life.  In any society, some would be wealthy and many more would be impoverished, and no one ever blamed the poor for being poor, in fact, in many societies, these assumptions about the lack of class mobility were codified.  But at some point around the Industrial Revolution, Western society (most strongly in North America) began to assume that wealth was primarily the result of merit, and by extension, the poor were responsible for their being poor, without regard to the systems in place that perpetuate generational poverty or the psychological differences that contribute to poverty.

What we are saying when we require a person to be drug tested before receiving public goods is that they are wholly responsible for their poverty, which is patently false.  A child born to a single mother, who abused drugs and alcohol during her pregnancy, whose mother couldn't read and therefore couldn't read to the child, who moved twice a year clear through elementary school, whose only balanced meals came on Sunday at grandma's house and free lunches on school days, who went to failing schools the whole way through, and who was abused by all six of her mother's boyfriends, the fifth impregnating her at age 14 cannot be held accountable for her poverty anymore than a privately educated child with two parents, who was cared for every step of the way can be fully accountable for perpetuating wealth.

In light of this, in 2014, in Dayton, OH by virtue of being human, we should be entitled to:

temperature controlled shelter
12th grade or equivalent education
transportation to place of education/library
2000 whole food calories per day
light
clean drinking water
hygiene products
world's most efficient method of communication, research, and leisure (smart phone)
Basic preventative and emergency health care

My guess is that some of you would want to add or subtract from this list, please do in the comment section and we can dialogue about what are the necessities for human flourishing in Dayton, in 2014.

Also, if you have creative ideas about the vehicles by which these necessities would be best delivered contribute them to the discussion.

Finally, if you think my basic assumption about poverty and what humans deserve by virtue of being human feel free to make your objection and we can dialogue on that topic as well.

Hated by the World?

Two of the Gospels record Jesus encouraging his disciples in the struggle to be faithful disciples in the face of opposition.  In Matthew 10:22 says, "You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved." and this idea is also found in John 15:18, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."

Here recently, I have seen culture warriors paint these texts on their shields as they try to repel scrutiny for acting in mean and devious ways in the name of "Biblical" [marriage, science, morality, gender roles, etc].  It is not uncommon for Christians to take Biblical texts out of context, for example, when a football player writes PHIL 4:13 on his eye black, chances are he is not making a statement about the Holy Spirit's power to sustain the falsely imprisoned and enslaved; so when I started seeing the culture warriors claiming that the criticism leveled against them was the fulfillment of Jesus teaching that the world would hate his followers, I couldn't help but wonder what Jesus meant by "world."  Blowing the dust off the ol' lexicon we see that the Greek word that we have been translating as world is the word, "cosmos," which can mean "world," but can also mean "universe," "government," or more generally "order."  

If you don't think that word study was all that helpful, I would agree with you and think that the best way we can really get a sense of what Jesus meant when he said that the cosmos will hate you, is to take a look in the Gospels and see who treated Jesus with hate and contempt.

I will give you a hint, it isn't the sinners.  Yes, the antagonists in the Gospels are most often the Jewish religious elite.  Which is why, when modern day religious elite quote these words of Jesus, serious questions must be raised about the validity of the assertion that the criticism of the ostracized is "the world" hating them for following Jesus.

I think the best way to read, "cosmos" is to read it as the spiritual forces in the universe, because behind the curtain, the religious elite in the Gospels are being played by the spiritual forces of sin and death, who Jesus ultimately defeats in his death, resurrection, and the here-but-not-yet consummation of the eternal kingdom.

So does the cosmos hate the culture warriors? Yes, but not because they will die on the hill of a 6,000 year old solar system.  Rather, I can speak from experience to say that when I bought in to the culture war, the cosmos was destroying my heart by feeding me the lie that my selfish pride was not only normal, but praiseworthy.  The lie that being right was more important than being loving, to the point where I had a warped view of love that allowing someone else to think differently from me was failing to love them.

The cosmos promotes selfish pride, which make no mistakes is the root of all sin.  When we put on the character of Christ and live for the good of others, we will be hated--sadly, all to often those who will hate us the most are our own religious elite.

Tennis Van Debates: Women in Church and Family Leadership

On the 2009 Spring Break trip to Florida, two of us were reading The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible.  In this book, Scot McKnight reflects upon the ways that different Christian traditions read the Bible and how these differences lead to controversy.  After making general observations, McKnight devotes the second half of the book to applying the lessons of previous chapters in thinking through whether or not women should be in church leadership positions (which believe it or not is still debated in many Evangelical traditions).

About half way through the trip, the two of us had both finished the book and began discussing some of the claims and arguments made by McKnight in The Blue Parakeet.  As the two of us were talking, another member of our team chimed in, "Women can't be pastors.  It says so in the Bible."  

Now, I am prone to being wrapped a little too tight, with too short a fuse; so, when our misinformed teammate parroted the same complimentarian line he had heard growing up I was rearing back to rhetorically pummel him--luckily the other guy who read the book was far more even tempered and simply asked, "where does it say that?"  Of course, our teammate didn't know (probably because it doesn't actually say that anywhere in the Bible),* but he made some assertions about Paul's letters, which were quickly defeated by my teammate who had read the book with me.

But then, my complimentarian teammate said, "Well, that may be true, but I don't think I could respect a female pastor."  And this, I believe, is the actual central tenet of an ecclesial view that limits the places where women can serve and lead.  Once one wades through all the weeds of theological and biblical arguments for the limiting of women in the church and home, at the very center of the complimentarian project is a fear/lack of respect for women, which drives some to abuse the Biblical text to satisfy their sexist disposition.  "But Caleb," some might say, "Jesus' 12 original disciples are all men."  Yep, and if you go to Jerusalem today, and visit the western wall, you will discover that to this day, men pray on one side of a fence and women on the other.  The first 12 were all men, like every other rabbi in Israel, but notice how many women surround Jesus as his ministry progresses, enough that the Gospel writers feel it appropriate to make special mention of the women present at the crucifixion, resurrection, and the day of Pentecost.

In the words of Colin Cowherd, if you don't want a female in church leadership, "that is a you problem." Throughout church history, women have played vital roles in the leadership of the church; oftentimes relegated to the margins by men who hid behind weakly formed theological and biblical arguments.  But at the margins, these women were at the center of some of the church's most interesting and world changing renewal movements.  At this point, one can only deny that God is calling both women and men into the ministry and mission of church leadership if they close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and pretend like God hasn't been using female pastors, elders, deacons, seminary presidents, professors, missionaries, monastics, and authors to renew the church and transform the world.

If I have missed a relevant piece of information, feel free to leave a comment and we can practice intellectually virtuous dialogue.

*I can already hear the interlocutors key strokes ready to say that I am overlooking 1 Corinthians 14, Titus1, 1 Timothy 2, and 2 Timothy 3: four cases where Paul advises specific communities of faith to "silence" the women and/or describes male leadership.  While there is no doubt that in these four occurences, which are all canonical documents, that Paul calls for the silencing of a particular group of women, we don't know why for sure, but clearly he does so; however, it is foolishness to assume that the four times that Paul advises churches to silence the women carries more authority than the half dozen times he praises female apostles and deacons in the same letters (see Junia, Priscilla, Phoebe, etc.).  Additionally, the modern notion of 'pastor' is not seen anywhere in the Bible, but has been developed over the church's 2000 year history, so that much like the modern family is not the same as the ancient household, one shouldn't assume contextual similarity between the 21st century west and the 1st century near-east.

Tennis Van Debates: Greatest Champion of All-Time.

One of my favorite college activities was riding in the tennis van to and from away tennis matches.  Now, it should be noted, that the van was cramped, uncomfortable, and smelled like half a dozen 20 year old boys whose mothers weren't around to make sure they showered and did their laundry--but for all its physical shortcomings, that tennis van cultivated the life of the mind like no other space on campus.

Over the next few weeks, this blog will be remembering some of the greatest debates that were waged on the benches of the tennis van.  Today, we remember the 'Greatest Champion' debate of 2007.  (If you have no interest in tennis, you may want to skip the next paragraph, with the assumption that tennis folks can't agree on who is the best for a plethora of reasons)

A bit of background for those who are not familiar with tennis: If you ask 5 tennis players who the greatest tennis champion is of all time, you will get 5 different answers, with 5 different rubrics for assigning greatness. Every sport has a debate of this kind, but no other sport has this complex a debate when it comes to greatest champion, because while in golf one could point to Jack Nicklaus' 18 majors or Sam Snead's 82 professional wins or Bobby Jones' double grand-slam, tennis record keeping is more nuanced because it is played on three dramatically different surfaces that historically have produced three different sets of champions.  So much so, that in the last 40 years, there have only been three men to win a major championship on all three surfaces (Agassi, Federer, Nadal).  For some, this limits the discussion to these three players and since Federer has 4 more than Nadal and 7 more than Agassi, that makes him the GOAT, but, he has a losing record to Nadal, can he be better than the player who has owned him for the last decade?  And where does Sampras fall on the list?  He has the second most slam wins, but never won at Rolland Garros.  And while Agassi has less than these four, he is the only won with an Olympic Gold Medal... And this is just the Open Era.  What do we do with the great champions of the past like Rod Laver and Roy Emerson.  Yes, the Greatest Champion discussion is more murky in tennis than in any other professional sport, and this is the debate we had over the course of three or four trips my freshman year.

I have just explained why this debate is murky, now let me tell you why the clear choice for greatest tennis champion of all time is Andre Agassi.

I have been re-reading Gordon McDonald's 'Ordering Your Private World.'  And in this text, McDonald describes the danger of premature success.  He writes, "Premature success is often more of an obstacle than a help.  The premature succeeder is usually a fast learner, able to aquire expertise with minimal effort...And he may conclude that he can do anything he sets his mind to, because things come easily to him."  

Andre Agassi is quite possibly the most gifted tennis player to ever live.  I recently came across a youtube channel that has 500 recorded matches from the late 90s and early 2000s, and I am amazed even now at just how good Andre Agassi was at returning serve and the ease by which he moved from defense to offense.  In the early 90s, he was ranked in the top-10, won Wimbledon, the US Openn, and dozens of ATP tour events all while addicted to cocaine and "hating" to play tennis.  His ranking dropped during the mid-90s as his personal life spiraled out of control, but he still managed to sneak out an Aussie Open championship in 95 and a Gold Medal in 96.  After winning Gold, living out of control caught up with him and he fell out of the top 150 in the world (164 at his lowest).  

At this point, the assumption was that Andre Agassi, much like Marcello Rios, Marat Safin, and Guillermo Corea, was a fast starter with premature success and wouldn't be heard from again.

But in 1999, he came back, won two slams and reestablished himself as the #1 player in the world.  The premature succeeder became a champion whose victories were the result of endurance and discipline, not talent.  He finished his career the only player to have won the career grand slam and an Olympic Gold Medal, but more important than his raw statistics is the narrative of how an undisciplined fast starter, who was accidentally one of the best players in the world became a bum on the circuit, but found new life and a second career after disciplining himself.

That being said, Federer and Nadal would also be accepted as correct answers.

How Many Buckets?

Yesterday morning, Adam Hamilton sold some books by posting a blog in which he talks about how the Bible functions, especially in light of the NY Annual Conference's decision to dismiss the trial against Rev. Dr. Thomas Ogletree.  In this blog, Rev. Hamilton suggests that all scripture falls into three 'buckets.'  From his blog, they are:

Scriptures that express God’s heart, character and timeless will for human beings.

Scriptures that expressed God’s will in a particular time, but are no longer binding.

Scriptures that never fully expressed the heart, character or will of God.

Being ever the salesman, Hamilton didn't actually give us the tools in the blog to figure out what scripture goes in what bucket (but for 16.49 you can pre-order the answers), however, in the 30 hours following this post, the UM interwebs have buzzed with the question, "How many buckets are their really?"  Or put another way, are there really sections of the Bible that in no way, at no time reflected the heart, character, or will of God?

Are their really parts of the Bible that serve as something of a bookmark in the history of religion showing the human witness to the spiritual around them, while misinterpreting, omitting, or embellishing the encounter with the Holy?
I hope not.

I think Hamilton is right in the sense that, when read in a vacuum, there are parts of the Bible which, as Christians, we must reject; however, this rejection is based on the completion of the narrative.  To be clear, the parts of the Biblical text that should be rejected by Christians are parts that the text itself rejects if you read it to the end.

Putting it another way, the Bible is not a list of bullet-pointed claims about reality.  Rather, we receive most of the text as narrative.  Now, think about Star Wars: A New Hope.  If you turned off the VHS when Han Solo told Luke that he was going to take his money and run, rather than help in the offensive against the Death Star, you could make a claim like, "Han Solo is such a jerk for leaving Luke and Leah high and dry." And while you could go to that scene and clearly point out how he is loading his money up and clearly point out how he refuses to join in the fight, you would be missing the most important part of the story, where he swoops in, sends Vader spiraling into deep space, and gives Luke the chance to blow up the Death Star.

The Bible has a handful of different genres, but one that we see a lot is narrative.  We see, in both the Old and New Testaments, stories told to express the character, nature, and work of God in the world.  Stories must be read to the end to capture the author's intent, because oftentimes a good storyteller will transform characters and the realities they live in as the story progresses.  If we stop short, or read the story out of order, or a passage without regard to its context, we are abusing the author.

So, I am not sure the image of buckets is going to be helpful.  I will read the book when I can get it for $2 on Kindle (which almost always happens because that is how most Christian publishers get on the best-seller list), but I am not expecting the three buckets to be earth-shattering, because it would be ludicrous to read a good novel, periodically stopping to take a red pen to the parts that I thought were inconsistent with the broader trajectory of the book.  Likewise, reading the Bible with an eye towards what parts do and don't apply to me removes the Spirit from the living, creative process that is dwelling with God through the reading of and being read by the Bible.

Newsletter Article April 2014

My favorite thing about Sulphur Grove is the diversity of ways that we are in mission together.  Whether it be the ministry of setting up and tearing down, leading worship, mission trips, Harvest Party and the Eggstravaganza, Bags of Love, Hickory Dickory Shop, Home Before Midnight, Grub at the Grove, Boy Scouts, Youth Group, Emmaus, Kairos, The Factory, or The Grove--there is a place for every person in our church family to participate in God’s mission in the world.  And what I find the most amazing is that none of these ministries were started by the Pastor.  Sulphur Grove has a long history of three to five friends gathering around a God-sized vision of service and courageously following God into the uncertain waters of mission.

In Luke 5, we see a group of four friends rallying around the God sized vision of seeing their paralyzed friend walking, and this vision leads them to the house where Jesus is staying.  Much to their chagrin, when they arrive, the house is crowded with pharisees from every village of Galilee and Judea.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that squeezing their friend through the front door isn’t an option, but these four men are committed to their friend and they go up onto the roof, tear away the ceiling tiles, and lower their friend down into the room where he experiences forgiveness and healing in the presence of Jesus.

As Christians, we too are called to look for opportunities to lower our friends, neighbors, coworkers and family members through the roof to experience the love and power of Jesus.  One of the ways which we have done this in the past is through partnering with the Y at the Heights to host the Eggstravaganza at Healthy Kids Day.  By hosting the Eggstravaganza, we get to interact with more than 500 children in the community who we wouldn’t get to see otherwise, and in that time we get to demonstrate Jesus love for them in a tangible way and interact with their parents.  Eggstravaganza is a mission opportunity that opens the back door of our church to members of our community.

On April 6th, we are beginning a new ministry at the Y, that is designed to serve families affected by disability by partnering them with a buddy who is trained to help them navigate a Sunday morning with us at the Y, providing a safe and welcoming environment for the entire family to worship.  The Buddy Program is just one of the ways that three to five friends with a God sized vision is transforming our church family and blessing the community around us.

What God-sized dreams do you dream?