Similar Sense of Humor

Well kids, it's time to see if we have a similar sense of humor. For me the two minutes to skim over this was worth it...but don't take my word for it.

I guess we all still have that someone

The Words of Reason

I will probably utilize this space for posting many of the quotes that I love. They are words that have touched me in some way. I hope they bless you.

Today's quote is an older one from Tammy Bruce's book The Death of Right and Wrong. Tammy Bruce is a woman who has spent her life defending and fighting for the rights of women and the gay community. I really respect much of what she says in the book. She has a chip on her shoulder and at times I had a hard time hearing what she had to say, but she points out and attacks a real and present danger in the word "tolerance." Tolerance is good, but there must be balance and everyone has to start wondering what is going on when those who scream tolerance the loudest turn out to be the least tolerant people around.

One of my favorite stories about her is when she was the president of NOW in Los Angeles and was organizing the Gay Pride March. A group of peope came in leather and chains under the banner of the S & M community. Tammy looked at them and told them to get out because gay pride was not about what she called, "sick fetishes."

She feels tolerance is good, but not at the expense of our values and what we believe.

It helps me to remember that I cannot group people together into nice compartments and boxes. Every person is different and must be treated as an individual. It is in relationship that we need to deal with issues in peoples' lives and it is in community that we need to discuss serious issues. Do I think there is something unhealthy about wanting to tie someone up and inflict pain for sexual pleasure or be tied up and be beaten for the same...yes, unequivocally. But that is not what the church should be attacking. I am not sure the church should be attacking anything and definately not anyone. I think the church needs to offer the truth of forgivness and the healing touch of the light of life to people who are broken. Whether that brokenness plays out in sadomasochism or codependency or depression is not much concern to me. The fact that there are broken and hurting people is. Let's all get on the ball and stop focusing our anger (which is not righteous I assure you) and energy on the bad fruit, but on the root that brings it forth. I want new believers who have been freed from their burdens and pain, not outraged people that will never be able to hear the truth due to our obnoxiousness.

Anyway...here is the quote that I started this mess:

Yes, we have the freedom to do as we please, but it only works because we don't do everything we might please--we should exercise some degree of personal, and corporate, responsibility. -Tammy Bruce-

Poetic...Beautiful

You might not like Luther or much of what he has to say. If so, I think you are probably missing out on much of the beauty of the Gospel, but either way, here is something profound and beautiful. To be read and enjoyed by all:

So he [Jesus] makes the sin of the believing soul his own through its wedding ring, which is faith, and acts as if he had done it [i.e. sin] himself, so that sin could be swallowed up in him. For his unconquerable righteousness is too strong for all sin, so that is made single and free from all its sins on account of its pledge, that is its faith, and can turn to the eternal righteousness of its bridegroom, Christ. Now is not this a happy business? Christ, the rich, noble, and holy bridegroom, takes in marriage this poor, contemptible and sinful little prostitute, takes away all her evil, and bestows all his goodness upon her! It is no longer possible for sin to overwhelm her, for she is now found in Christ and is swallowed up by him, so that she possesses a rich righeousness in her bridegroom.

Like I said, Poetic...beautiful.

A Response to "The Walking Wounded"

How does the church respond to a broken world in light of its own brokeness? I feel John's criticims of the church's tendency to "copout" when it hurts people are spot on. The church does need to be aware that it is made up of hurting, broken people, but that is not the focus. Brokeness is a reality that is discovered in light of the Law, which Christ so beautifully expounded in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). This realization brings us to a place that is utterly hopeless - because we are not "sort of" broken, we are completely broken - and this drives us to the cross, but the truth is in the redemption that Christ's death and resurrection offer. Part of that redemption is forgiveness and that is what we must seek when we hurt others.

I think the tendency to blame things on our brokeness comes out of a sneaky pride issue. At least for me, there is a part that wants to remedy situations where I screw up. I want people to know that I am not that bad and that I am still a "good" guy and so I say that "I am broken" as if that is an excuse. No...that is a fact, but it is not an excuse. The only loving response I see to the church hurting anyone is to humbly seek forgiveness. When we hurt someone we need to seek reconcilliation. The motive and reason is for us, not for them. We certainly need to treat our hurtful actions seriously and attemt to discover from what they were born. We do this through prayer and sometimes even fasting (in my opinion), but it is ultimately for us.

I find that most people that are antagonistic to the church are so because they have been burnt by people in the church, representing the church. Someone or some group hurt them and instead of repentance they find excuses (read-not the Gospel) and leave talking of hypocrisy. In my opinion, such criticisms are not unfounded.

The Gospel (Rom 12:1-2)

Referencing Rom 12:1-2

John wrote:

Paul said, "So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

spectacular. This is the gospel.

My Epiphany

Well, I have been in a social ethics class for four weeks now and for those weeks I have rejected at least some part of what my professor has been presenting. We are talking about a grace/faith ethic. The idea is that there is NOTHING that we bring to the table when it comes to us and God and us and each other. This has been hard for me.

Complete and total grace with no exception. There is nothing we do. God works up within us and flows out of us in our "fruit" not in our "works." Fruit is something that we cannot control becuase it grows naturally out of the root of our being. The root is us and we cannot produce anything but what that root naturally bears. What I do is not what defines me, but who I am is what defines me and my actions are indicitive of who I am.

This sounds great, but what about my transformation? What about sanctification? What about me being better and "working" to be better than I am? I really like the idea that I am in control of something. I want to be part of becoming better that I once was.

Last week a very powerful thing came out of this class. I was driving home and I realized that it was all true. Unequivocally true. Complete grace is the only thing that can free us and bring the life that God desires for us; the life that God sent his son for us to have. The church does not preach true grace very much if at all. We are enslaved by our guilt and our sin because we think that we can do something about it. This world is based on doing and action, which leads to constant assessment by ourselves and by others. We will always come up short and this is why we live in a depressed and overmedicated culture. It is the only realistic response to a false sense of grace (or no sense of it at all).

Instead, God says that it is only by his working in our hearts that we even come to call him God and only that by his working do we do anything truly outside of ourselves and our selfish ambitions (we can have the predestination discussion later). There is true and complete grace in Christ because we can do nothing and therefore God requires nothing. This brings complete freedom in Christ. There is an immediate lifting of the chains that we allow the enemy to use to hold us down in our guilt. We have no reason to bear them once we receive the truth of the cross.

The fear that prevents this truth from being preached from the pulpit is the fear of Christians running free; being terrible witnesses to Christ and feasting on what Bonhoeffer called "Cheap Grace." My professor requested one thing when this was brought up in class..."show me one person where this is the case." In other words, show me one person that has experienced the true grace of Christ (which isn't cheap at all by the way, its free) who is running around being anything but a free and loving example of God's truth and forgiveness. For he who is forgiven much loves much.

The true Antinomian doesn't exist. Someone that experiences the freedom and forgiveness of God does not go off and do whatever he wants. He (or she) is so floored by God forgiving them when they deserve eternal punishment and damnation that they can do nothing save run throughout the town telling everyone, "there is a man who has told me everything I have ever done!" It is an empty fear made up by the enemy to keep us in bondage. And many of our pastors are perpetuating this from the pulpit when they preach that God requires something from us.

Please understand that I was not convinced by my professor and I understand that I am not going to convince you. This is my experience, and now, a large part of what I believe to be true. I hope that you will struggle with it. I hope that you will ask lots of questions as I did (and as I am still doing). But, it will take the hand of God to convince you as it did me. However look for it, because once it happens, true freedom will flow and a true desire to share that completely with others will proceed naturally.

A Response to "Tensions"

"Tensions" (John O'Keefe)

Kingdom in tension with Conversions:

Most of me wants to agree that there is a complete distinction between kingdom growth and conversion (church growth), but there is no way in my mind to do it. I think that treating people or even seeing people as an ends (numbers) is a travesty, but placing importance on conversion is a different thing. The Gospel is about life and life to the full. I think kingdom growth is more people coming to know what that true life is, where it comes from, and seeking the grace that gives them the faith to live that full life. The kingdom is not about numbers, but converts do make up the body that is the church. While growing in our faith (discipleship) is as important to the kingdom as new believers are, I know that God is more concerned with those who are not yet following Him (Luke 15:7).


Community in tension with Corporation:

This tension I do not see as a tension. In my opinion, there is little benefit to the business model of church other than price point. I struggled with this a lot because I saw so many great and godly organizations (and people) that were struggling financially. So many that if they just had the money and could run more efficiently they could do so much good. I also asked why so many things "Christian" had to be so poorly run and sloppy and unprofessional (unbusinesslike)?

What I have come to realize is that the church is not a business no matter how you look at it. No matter how careful you are, the more efficient things run the more people are left behind. The church has to move as slow as its slowest part because we are in it together. We must help each other and increase in speed and focus and direction together under the covering of our Lord, following in his footsteps. Buth the moment we start leaving people behind becuase it makes "good business sense" is the moment we have lost track of our true identity...community. God is in charge of our money, our converts, our disciples. Nothing we can do will change that and nothing we can do should change that.


Rhythm in tension with Schedule:

This is perhaps the hardest one for me. I live in the States, but my life is lived with an "event" mentality meaning that I move on to the next thing when the first thing is done, not when the clock strikes. I do have a palm and I have a schedule, but I am rarely on time and I am rarely on schedule. My palm acts more as a reminder and a priority list and my life acts accordingly. I am more concerned with people than with timing. You can call it rhythm, but I call it life. The problem is that most people here are offended by others being late and I must admit sometimes I am too. This is the tension I live within.

I want to draw the distinction between being late because of my relationships and being late becasue I am irresponsible. These are two very different situations and one is obviously not a point of discussion here. However, the other is very important. Do I value Dan or Dan's time less because I am in the midst of an important conversation with Emily? No, but how do I hold that in tension. How does he know that? Is it more important to finish my time with Em?

This is why community (as I mentioned above) is so important. When we are in community and in the church we are (hopefully) willing to give the benefit of the doubt. We understand that there is no disrespect. There are only messy lives that are being led to the best of our ability and we are joyful as we join into that with one another. Does this community always work the way it is intended? No, but it must be forgiving and full of grace because if it is not, then it is not the church.

Schedule is important. It is how I know that my meetings are going to happen and thus that our worship gatherings will be planned. It is how I know that I am even meeting with Dan or with Emily, but all must be understood in the context of broken and fallen people that are daily offering up the simple prayer, "God have mercy on me, a sinner."

What I Understand the Church to be

Whenever I speak of the church, I am speaking of the church as it pertains to the body of believers. Those who believe in the triune God of the Bible. The God who sent His son to show us what it meant to live and the God who allowed that same son to be killed that we might be offered the chance to live as we were created to live.

One of the most recent posts by O'Keefe is a response (or should I say rebuttal) of Tim Stafford's article in Christianity Today "The Church—Why Bother?" Both touch on the idea that the church is the entire body of believers, but both come back to debate the requirement of Christian's presence in a physical church building. Tim is right in his statements about the need for community and fellowship and to be a part of a body, but I find it more accurate to express a need to be a part of "the" body.

In his response O'Keefe says, "the idea that salvation is tied to the church is both nonbibical and controlling." While I agree that salvation does completely rest on the work of the cross and our joining with God through the life and death of Jesus, I do not want to downplay the importance of the church. The church (and I am not speaking of "a" church, but "the" church) is part of salvation and I do not think that is nonbiblical or controlling. While Christ died on the cross to complete His work here on earth and to "allow" us to live life to the full, he spent three years before that setting up the church and teaching/showing us what it "meant" to live life to the full. The church is the working of that which Christ set in motion because His death was not about us getting to heaven, it was about us living the life we were created to live in communion with God. So, no, I do not think that tying the church to salvation is nonbiblical nor is it controlling...tying it to a church is.

Of course, we can never figure out church as God intended it fully while we are here in this age. The best we can do is to constantly strive for the better and seek His leading wherever he goes. If that is to a life of contemplation in the desert or the rather unfortunate life of a mega-church pastor, so be it. While I have my theological problems with both, I must allow for God to move differently in each person's life as long as they submit to the larger body of Christ. Holding that tension is the challenge for me in any situation. The tension between the freedom of "All things may be permissible" and "but not all beneficial." I will leave it for my God to judge and turn to my commission of tending to the other sheep (and goats as they may be) around me.

Response to the comments in my post, "True Heart Follow Up"

To the first question about my understanding of sin and other religions, I want to be sure I understand the heart of the question. When I think about the search for God, I think about how "spiritual" people of this culture are and how desparately they search for God. In no way do I mean to communicate that that is good enough. I fully believe that it is in Jesus, the Christ, that we find life and that those who reject Him reject God. That is not a blurry issue for me. The sincerity of search is important becuase I believe that God will reveal Himself to those who seek after Him and I know that I have more to say to someone searching than to someone that is closed off. That conversation can go on forever, but I think the question was if I figured the cross into my theology of salvation and the answer is an emphatic "yes!" If I missed the point please correct me.

Everything you said in your first comment (somethingtrendy) I think is right on. I think a clarification of what I mean when I say the Doctrine of God's suffering will shed some light. I do think that understanding that God suffers with us/for us is important. What I get a little frustrated over is when we get really nitpicky and worry about how and what part of Christ/God can and has suffered. My concern and what I would like to communicate is that the Lord weeps with me and that His heart breaks for mankind. What I am not really concerned about is whether part of Him suffers or not, or whether any part of the Spirit can suffer, or if His suffering is strictly limited to knowing that we suffering and responding to that suffering. Basically, I get frustrated when people insinuate that if God's heart breaks for us that He is less powerful and somehow less God.

Now to the meat in the 2nd and 3rd posts. I would agree with what was said in fatwrath's comment. At the same time I do not think that that challenges the work of the cross in any way. I would disagree that there can be no higher purpose in tragic situations like the one described, but I agree that it is not God's plan (and I would like to encourage a little more grace and gentler responses to peoples comments, I do not want to discourage anyone from posting for fear of a condemning response). Specifically, I have multiple friends that have had miscarriages and working through them has been tremendously difficult for all of them. I was drawn to the reaction one of these women had to the situation while struggling through it. It was simple, God intended us to live happily, joyfully, peacefully with Him in the garden. It was not God's plan for us to screw it up. While I believe He knew we would and understood the ramifications it would have, I do not think it was His desire. I do not think it is His desire for any pain or suffering to come to us. I think it is all a result of the fall and part of our plan, not His. Pain and suffering is a part of our rebellion that we bring on ourselves and we deserve MUCH worse than we get. I think God does mourn with us when He allows tragic things to happen in our lives. They may be part of the plan that He is working now, redeeming the garbage we give Him to work with, but I do not think it is ever HIS plan. We have done things that have forced His hand and He is working for the greatest, truest good. That is God's plan for us in my opinion. I do not believe He ever desired for His Son to have to die, but He loves us and that was the result due to our depravity and His glorious, merciful response.

Does the scandal of the cross legitimize suffering? I don't know. I don't think the cross makes tragedy make sense. I think it makes sense of how little suffering we face compared to what we deserve.