Grace

Thankful

"Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone" (Gertrude Stein).

I am thankful for 40 years of life and all those who have shared in it and filled it.

I am thankful our definition of “family” is broad and the doors of our home and heart open.

Particularly…

I am thankful for my wife -- loving partner, gracious host, generous spirit, valued companion, beautiful.

I am thankful for Forest, my brother, my elder – who chose to move to Denver so we could live near each other for the first time in our adult lives, for those times when he can pop in, share a meal, and enjoy the seemingly insignificant things most brothers who grew up together take for granted.

I am thankful for my community of friends who do life with us, specifically…


I am thankful for Jonathon, my friend, my challenger and brother – for his tough choices, his willingness to live transparently, his sacrificial love for those who aren’t his, his audacity to walk across America.

I am thankful for Sput, a young man I am proud to know and count among my friends – for his hunger for learning, for his sense of humor, for his acceptance to college, for his search for purpose and significance, for his discovery of life, for his growing faith.

I am thankful for Jolene, a gem, a jewel, a Ruby – for the laughter she brings to our home, for her beauty, for her female presence among our male-majority (and because she hasn’t broken any of our stuff lately).

I am thankful for Ben, our son in grace and resident artist – for persistent creativity, for coming to grips with grace, for pursuit of life, for becoming his own person, for walking towards his future.

I am thankful for Corey, an unexpected import into our lives – for his risk-taking, for his success in career, and a fresh new start in Denver.

I am thankful for Curtis who shares our Thanksgiving Day with us – the stranger welcomed to our table and to our home, Jesus at our table.

I am thankful for our Irish friends – for special memories of Thanksgivings past and cherished, missed times in their homes.

And more…

I am thankful for the Rocky Mountains and the beauty of America’s West.

I am thankful for employment because we are not one of the 7 percent of Colorado workers and 10 percent of American workers without work this Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for my students who constantly remind me of the limits of my grace and who teach me to look beyond behavior and appearance to understand the reasons why.

I am thankful for the time I had with a dying student and his family, to witness their love and commitment to their son and experience their honesty in loss and grief…and to be thankful for the time we have with one another, even if that time is short.

I am thankful for books whose words I consume and thoughts I digest, books that both challenge my thinking and affirm it. I am thankful for Nouwen, Manning, Jethani, Boyd, Young, Petersen, Miller, Hunter, and Brown who have written some of my favorites.

I am thankful for dissatisfaction that pushes me toward change, anger which pushes me toward justice, pain which pushes me toward grace, and empathy which pushes me toward mercy.

I am thankful for Jesus.

Response

Walk Humbly

"Christ labored for thirty years in a humble carpenter's shop to fulfill God's will. And God wills that in imitation of Christ, man should live and walk humbly on earth, not reaching for the sky, but bowing to humble things, learning from the Gospels to be meek and humble of heart."

Vincent van Gogh

Re-Think: Evangelicalism

"Movements born in hatred very quickly take on the characteristics of the thing they oppose" (J.S. Habgood).

Trying to describe American evangelicalism is complicated. Let’s face it, placing Baptist, Reformed-Confessional, Pentecostal-Holiness, and Anabaptist traditions under the same umbrella wouldn’t be easy. Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, and Mennonites look very different from one another. I suppose in the broadest sense, evangelicals would agree on some of these basic points: the need for personal conversion (although with different understandings of what “conversion” is), the respect for biblical authority (although with different views on Scripture), the delivery of the message of the Gospel (although with different approaches), and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (although with slightly different theology). We’ll leave the narrower definitions to the fundamentalists. In general, however, “evangelical” is a term for anyone who agrees with biblical tradition and is committed to the good news that we can be participants in God’s redemptive grace in Jesus.


I believe that Christ calls us from our way of living into a new Way. I believe in expressing the good news of the Gospel of Christ, but I also think that expression must go beyond mere words. I believe in the authority of Scripture and particularly the teachings of Jesus whom I follow. I also believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his great mission to redeem humanity.

I am evangelical.

While I identify with what it means to be evangelical, I have difficulty with evangelicalism and what the movement has come to represent in American life. I believe the impact of fundamentalism on American Christianity, coupled with our love of Civil Religion, has had a profound influence on what evangelicalism has become and the cultural context in which it has taken root. As an organization and movement, I believe it was hijacked by fundamentalism. While there are many other voices under the evangelical umbrella, the fundamentalist ideology is the voice that gets heard. Evangelical has come to be associated with a socially conservative, anti-Catholic, politically active, GOP supporting, pro-war, pro-capital punishment, red-white-and-blue, anti-anyone-who-doesn’t-think-like-us, defenders of the right wing movement asserting its “power and influence” in American political and cultural life. The movement has become political and has been an active participant in the American culture war.

The movement seems to have embraced a “message” that isn’t necessarily evangelical at all but is political and cultural. You might be hard-pressed to be able to see the difference between their political and spiritual agendas. In some circles, if one chooses not to engage in the culture war, he or she could be questioned as to whether they are even truly evangelical at all. I’m sure many of them are convinced that they are doing “God’s work” and standing up for righteousness…but I’m not convinced. I simply don’t see the correlation between Jesus and how the movement presents itself in American life.

Evangelicalism, as a movement, doesn’t look much different to me than the world that surrounds it. It’s as shaped by politics, culture, society, and consumerism as much as any other secular movement. The Kingdom of God should be different. While our governments and officials should receive my honor and prayers, my loyalty is to the Kingdom of God, not to a political or social agenda that wages war against my flesh and blood neighbors I am called to love.

One of the principal shapers of my Christian thought is found in the Anabaptists. Among other things, the Anabaptists possess an appreciation for the separation of church and state, nonconformity, simplicity, justice, and peace as well as personal discipleship. Unlike other Christian traditions that arose out of Europe, the Anabaptists did not inter-marry church with the state or advocate political power. Instead of pursuing political power or influence, they quietly lived out the Kingdom of God in the presence of their neighbors, expressing the Gospel in both words and with their lives. Their allegiance was to God’s Kingdom rather than to movements or political boundaries. Sounds of patriotic hymns were not heard in Anabaptist meetinghouses nor were their platforms decorated with national banners. They took great care not to blur the line between Civil Religion and the Kingdom of God.

Because I am deeply concerned with how the church behaves itself, I have been re-thinking what it means to be evangelical, and I am learning to distance myself from the movement that has moved from the message. Their war is not my war.

Noise

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal" (1 Corinthians 13:1). Stop the noise. The Great Commission without the Great Commandment is only just a Great Commotion.

Believing

Quote by David Augsburger, "Dissident Discipleship"

Re-Think

"...be transformed by the renewing of your mind..." (Romans 12:2).

When Michelangelo was 87 years old, the great Italian renaissance artist was quoted as saying, “I am still learning.” What is remarkable to me is that he made this statement long after the completion of such masterpieces as the Sistine Chapel, David, the Pieta and countless other works of the world’s most magnificent art. His creations are among the best I’ve ever seen…truly created by an artist that had arrived! Michelangelo, apparently, still thought he had a long way to go.

I once heard a Christian speaker implore to a large gathering of youth the importance of knowing what one believes, digging in one’s heels, and standing one’s ground at all costs. He described a virtuous faith as one that did not waiver in its opinion, standing for God against the onslaught of the world. Changing one’s mind was considered weakness. Of course, he later described the variety of Christian faith that he wanted these young people to accept and not waiver from, so I doubted if he would have wanted someone who disagreed with him to be as unwavering and unflinching as he was.

While it may sound quite virtuous to not change one’s mind, I think that may not be a healthy mindset. To assume that we’ve arrived, got it all figured out, and that God is done teaching us is just a bit arrogant. Well, it’s very arrogant, actually. I believe we are life-long learners on this journey until we see Jesus face-to-face. “Now we know in part; then we will know in full.”

Personally, I have enjoyed the life-long discipleship process and all that the Lord continues to teach me. The last several years have given me the opportunity to re-think a lot of what I believe about the Christian faith and the role of the believer in the world. I have learned a lot about myself in the process. While the Lord certainly “changeth not”, I certainly do, and I thank God for the transformation and occasional rebuke!

There have been several influences that have shaped my understanding of the Kingdom of God and some that have caused me to re-think a few things. Here’s a few of them:

1. My Anabaptist heritage: I cannot deny the role the Anabaptists have had in shaping my faith, understanding of Scripture, and way of life. I was raised Brethren and influenced by Mennonites and have spent much of my adult life studying Anabaptist theology and history. I learned to love the Scriptures, value simplicity, trust Christ, serve my neighbor, enjoy community, and practice peace from by Brethren and Mennonite mentors. I appreciate the different voice that the Anabaptists have in the Christian faith in America, and I value the role they have had in my life.

2. I was raised by the church: I wasn’t simply raised in the church but raised by the church. The local congregation I was nurtured in profoundly shaped my life and “saved” me from much of the crisis that consumed my early years. It was there I discovered a sense of belonging and found purpose and meaning to my life. I was given opportunities to grow, practice, and fail all within the safe confines of a small congregation. They called me to ministry and I followed the path all the way from being “called” to studying for ministry to licensure to ordination. Beyond the usual marrying and burying, I found joy in the discipleship of young people, the ministry to the sick, the baptism of believers, and the teaching of God’s Word.

3. I have had varied Christian experiences: While my upbringing may have been Anabaptist and Evangelical, my adult experiences were quite varied as I participated in missions with charismatic believers, partnered with Pentecostals, attended Mass with Catholics, broke bread with cultural conservatives, held revival meetings with Appalachian believers who “got religion”, preached in Anglican youth gatherings, engaged the Emergents, fellowshipped with house churches, worked for an independent church, and even offended a few Presbyterians in Northern Ireland. I gained an appreciation for each (well, most) and learned just how diverse the church is. I learned that the way I was used to wasn’t the only way, and I came to the conclusion that some ways aren’t necessarily his Way.

4. International life and ministry: I spent the better part of a decade living in two distinctly different cultures which afforded me the opportunity to see the Christian faith stripped away from an American cultural context. Of course, I witnessed firsthand the Irish and British cultural influence but never before had the opportunity to see my Americanisms challenged like I did living among Northern Ireland Protestants and Republic of Ireland Catholics. I also felt the tension of American church expectations to do things the American way with a propensity towards buildings, programs, numbers, sustainability, and frontier revivalism-style evangelism (all reflecting our cultural value of consumerism). Living in Ireland gave me my first real experiences with the Kingdom of God rather than sectarianism, institutionalism, and denominationalism. I began to enjoy the freedom that comes with a missionary’s adaptation and adoption of other lands, cultures, and peoples. It is an experience that profoundly changed me, and it is something I miss terribly.

5. My love for those outside the church: While I value my church experiences (and my present faith community), I love it “out there”. I will gladly spend my time with the salt of the earth, but the saltier the better. I know there are many in the church who would counsel (or condemn) anyone who spent their time with the “worst of all sinners”, but I heartily count myself in their number and am happy to bring the Kingdom of God with me wherever I go. I am as at home with the gang member as I am with the middle class family. The truth is, when you understand the love and grace of God, loving people becomes much easier and judging them much more difficult. Every day, my public school students teach me more about myself and the limits of my love (patience, mercy, etc) all while I try to be the living presence of Christ in their lives. It’s a relationship and dynamic that I really enjoy.

6. I believe in challenging the church: While many are content to preach at the world, a lot of my words are aimed at those who claim to follow Christ. I believe our most thorough examination must be of ourselves. If we follow Christ and believe he is the Way, then shouldn’t we listen to his voice and follow his example? I have a deep longing to see things turned upside down so that they may be right side up. Even though I credit the church with so much of my personal and spiritual formation, I find myself dissatisfied (even dismayed) with our representation of Christ among our neighbors, communities, and nations. I think we are extremely distracted with our collective self.

7. I love to read: I am an avid reader, something my high school teachers might find amusing (if they had any recollection of my quiet, mediocre presence in their classrooms at all!). The only book I recall reading in high school was Lord of the Flies, and that probably had a lot to do with the fact that the story was morbidly bizarre enough to hold my attention. Since then, my reading habits have improved, and I have spent a considerable amount of time with my nose in a book (or two). Amazon.com is one of my favorite websites, and I’ve recently discovered the joy of reading books out loud with friends. Reading, for me, satisfies my hunger for informal education and the exploration of ideas. In fact, one of the most transformational experiences I’ve had in my adult life came from reading. I “fasted” from the entire Bible with the exception of the Gospels for almost a year, focusing my Scripture reading completely on Christ…and I began to find my mind being renewed. As I read Jesus, Jesus began reading me, and I was convicted. I committed to being a student of Christ, and I am enjoying the journey.

While I am happy with the place I now find myself in, I realize I have not arrived, and I am still learning.

Next article: “Re-Thinking Evangelicalism”.

Enlarged

Intrinsic

"If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured the world will not raise your price" (Annonymus).

Occasionally, I come across a book that expresses what I haven't been able to put into words. "The Divine Commodity" by Skye Jethani is one of those books. In it, Jethani describes America's Consumer Culture and its effect on the church. As I read it, I soaked it in, hearing the echo of my own heart. It's not one of those books that have changed my mind; my mind had already been changed as I've wrestled with the effects of culture on the American church. I felt refreshed to read this author sound a very well written "amen" to my soul.

Commodity: an article of trade or commerce; a product; something of use, advantage, or value.

Jethani wrote, "In a commodity culture, we have been conditioned to believe nothing carries intrinsic value. Instead, value is found only in a thing's usefulness to us, and tragically, this belief has been applied to people as well" (p.87). Instrinsic is defined as "belonging to a thing by its very nature". Intrinsic value simple means that something (or someone) has value just by its very nature without having value assigned to it.

And there's the conflict.

In a consumer culture, it seems as though everything can be given an assigned value. Even people. Perhaps especially people, and that's what makes it so tragic. We assign value to objects based on its usefulness to us and our demand for it. The lessons of history teach us that humanity has been commodified (exploited) for as long as people and nations have seen the profitability in it. Men, women, and children have been given an assigned value and sold on our street corners (slave auctions) and back alleys (prostitution and child exploitation). Entire races of people have been annihilated because those in power convinced the masses of their lack of intrinsic value.

We need not look far to see the commodification of people right in front of our own eyes, in our own neighborhoods, in our own workplaces. Our consuming culture assigns value to people everyday based on what is in demand and what is more useful to us. Of course, these values change like the wind. We assign worth to people based on their bodies, based on their politics, based on their beliefs, based on their race, based on their income, or based on their convenience and usefulness to us.

It's everywhere.

What's worse is when we accept the assigned value that our culture places on us and forget who we really are. We are not cheap! We are not what our culture says we are but are instead who the Creator says we are. As believers, we must see ourselves as He sees us...and we must, we must see humanity as God sees us all.

Our relationships also reflect our consumer culture. Rather than building our relationships based on mutual trust, love, and commitment, we tend to see people for what they can offer us. Our people-as-commodity mindset enables us to trade, exchange, and dispose of with relative ease. We date those who fulfill our needs and base friendships on what we can get from others.

We offer ourselves to the highest bidder -- whoever pays what we think we are worth. For some, that price is little more than whoever gives us a little attention, nice words, or even the false sense of meaning that comes with an orgasm. Whatever our "price", many of us seem to be pursuing what keeps us empty. As products of our culture, we exchange ourselves as a commodity for the smallest thing our low assigned value will accept.

I apologize for the frankness of my writing, but I see this in the lives of my students everyday. I see their pain as they move from broken relationship to broken relationship and accept whatever crumbs seem to fall from the table. It causes me to want to scream, "For the love of God! Stop selling yourself out to the lies! You are worth so much more! You are worth more than what the culture that consumes you says you are worth!"

People who follow Christ must be different in both how they see others and in how they see themselves. We are certainly not worth more than others. That arrogant belief only damages people and destroys lives. We are, however, definitely worth more than the value our culture assigns to us.

Exceedingly more.

Infinitely more.

And that goes for everybody.

Solitude

All Saints Day