Church Voices

Romans 1:22-23:

22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Suppose the average life-span of an average car is 70 years (suppose this is the not-so-distant technological future). Now suppose you bought an average car, call it the model X, new. It has a life expectancy of 70 years off the lot. The model X enjoys a tremendous marketing campaign. Now suppose 9 million of them sold, and the average life expectancy of the model X wound up being only 40 years. Moreover, suppose more than 75% of all model Xs were constant lemons; model X’s were checked into repair shops at a rate approximately 450% higher than average cars. Problems associated with the model X, some of them unfixable, far exceeded the number of problems associated with other average cars in type, severity, and number. Sadly, many model Xs even resulted in fatal accidents. Only 8% of model X owners reported keeping the model X for more than 3 years.

Now, here’s the catch—nothing is prima facie wrong with the model X. Upon inspection, engineers cannot locate any specific problem or design flaw. In fact, it resembles other average cars in every respect other than severe statistical failure, but nobody can say just why.

Despite this, I think we are well within our intellectual rights in concluding the following: something is wrong with the model X. Actually, in the face of these statistics, it would be foolish to think there is nothing wrong with the model X even if we can’t say what. The appropriate thing to do would be to scrap production of the model X, cancel the marketing campaign, recall any existing models, and warn people against driving a model X. In fact, it would be morally wrong to sell the model X to an uninformed customer as if it is expected to perform like an average car (I’m looking at you, MTV).

The gospel.

Two small words that mean everything. They sum up the why and what of the work of Christ. Paul puts it very succinctly this way:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Any church that allows something other than the gospel itself as the source of its reason for being quickly becomes unable to do what a church is supposed to do.

Paul warns of this in 1 Corinthians 11 when the church has taken on elements of a social club. The Lord’s supper was originally a re-enactment of the Last Supper in which an entire meal was eaten in addition to the broken bread and wine that symbolized the breaking of Christ’s body and spilling of his blood. However, even this early on sin had crept into the church and instead of being gospel-focused it had become social-club focused with those who were in with the in crowd getting a gluttonous belly-full of food and those who were not showing up just in time to miss out.

And this particular sin was being perpetrated in the name of Christ. And today the same sin goes on. Anytime there is a different set of rules for different people, whether its based on social status, or the type of sin, it is the same situation. Today this type of sin is often justified by using churchy words like, “fellowship” or an appeal to a long-standing friendship, or the amount of time someone has spent in services. But in the end its the same sin of thousands of years ago, justified in the same way.

But in the long term, it doesn’t seem that bad does it? Sure, favoritism is a sin, its condemned in multiple places in the scriptures, but it can’t possibly undermine a church driven by the gospel? Its just favoritism after all. Its not something truly awful like homosexuality, or prostitution.

The thing is, you can serve only one master. You a slave to either Christ or sin, and that’s as true of a church as it is a person, and favoritism is the anti-gospel. Favoritism selects one group of people over another based on a human measure, while the gospel brings people into the Kingdom of God on the same basis. We approach the throne of grace, and are a part of the church for one, single reason: the work of Christ. Favoritism adds to the work of Christ and creates the anti-gospel because you become part of the in-crowd based on your own work.

And people are smart enough to figure this out very quickly. Today I posted on Facebook this excerpt from Michael Spencer’s book Mere Churchianity:

We have a culture-war spirituality that produces Christians who might never share their faith but are ready at a moment’s notice to debate politics, abortion and civil union for gay couples. It is a spirituality that calls down fire on its enemies and shapes its followers into intolerant soldiers waging a morality crusade. Its kingdom is the eventual triumph of moral conservatism, and its spirituality is conflict and argument

Can we honestly say that Jesus was a culture warrior? Can we say that the spirituality of Jesus is geared to turning you into a noisy talk-radio pundit? Is our anger at the decline of culture really a dependable guide toward the experience of God?

We have a culture-war spirituality that produces Christians who might never share their faith but are ready at a moment’s notice to debate politics, abortion and civil union for gay couples. It is a spirituality that calls down fire on its enemies and shapes its followers into intolerant soldiers waging a morality crusade. Its kingdom is the eventual triumph of moral conservatism, and its spirituality is conflict and argument.

Can we honestly say that Jesus was a culture warrior? Can we say that the spirituality of Jesus is geared to turning you into a noisy talk-radio pundit? Is our anger at the decline of culture really a dependable guide toward the experience of God?

Immediately, I received two amens from unexpected quarters. Two people who had left the church a long time ago and haven’t returned both noted two separate examples of favoritism, both focused on how churches have dealt very differently with two different type of sins.

The gospel-soul of a church can’t survive along side any competition. Favoritism, to our modern eyes, seems like an innocuous sin (after all, it doesn’t even make the big-10), but it will choke, kill and ultimately destroy the gospel in a church.

I’ve added a few new sermons over at my sermon repository. Check it out.

I’ll try to update them more regularly. Promise. ;)

I could give you a lot of reason why I believe the scriptures are true and authoritative. The reasons range greatly but many of them deal with the historical reliability of the documents, that means examining other historical documents, archeological digs, ancient languages and other areas of knowledge. However, as I’ve studied the Old Testament another reason that has convinced me of the truth of the scriptures is their subversive nature.

The scriptures favor the powerless over the powerful. The scriptures condemn the use of debt as a weapon to enslave the poor, demands justice for the alien, provides for the material needs of widows and the poor, and in general skews the rules of society towards those lacking the power and influence to get things done.

“But if there are any poor Israelites in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them.
-Deuteronomy 15.7

If your neighbor is poor and gives you his cloak as security for a loan, do not keep the cloak overnight.
-Deuteronomy 24.12

“You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.
-Exodus 22.21

“Every third year you must offer a special tithe of your crops. In this year of the special tithe you must give your tithes to the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows, so that they will have enough to eat in your towns.
-Deuteronomy 26.12

Now, its fair to say that people have been concerned with the welfare of the poor and powerless outside of Judeo-Christian traditions. And that’s true. However, the thing to keep in mind is the scriptures you read above weren’t the platitudes of a moralist, or the ruminations of a teacher, nor were they the urgings of a do-gooder community organization. They were the law of the land.

Have you considered who it is that makes the laws of a country? Kings, Presidents, Senators, Heads of State, and other dignitaries that wield great power by definition, and in fact attained their positions by using the power they already had, whether through a democratic process or by birth-right, and so the laws that define our society tend to favor those making the laws. In fact, even today the scriptures I posted, while their core meaning is encouraged in our society through tax breaks and public pressure, are not mandated the way they were in ancient Israel.

And so, part of the reason why I believe the scriptures are of divine origin is precisely because they are both subversive and authoritative, a combination that requires divine inspiration.

I have to admit that I’m a little bit in shock right now. I just got done reading this announcement by Denise Spencer. It is an update on the health of Michael Spencer, who is known as Imonk.

I never met Michael. In fact I only talked to him personally once in an interview I did with him. I remember a few different things about that interview, but what really sticks out was that he warned me that he couldn’t be as witty and entertaining as Brant Hansen, who I had interviewed the week before. Of course, few if any of us can be. That struck me as odd because Michael is undeniably gifted. The idea that he would be intimidated by the performance of someone else on a stage as small as the one I offered was an absurd one, it was a bit like Alex Rodriguez being worried he wasn’t a very good pitcher (somehow the baseball metaphor seems an apt one). The other thing I remember about that interview was realizing how greatly Michael had been gifted by God. I preach once a week. I pour my heart into it, and I am very competent, maybe even approaching excellent at times. However, in order to do that I have to devote 15 hours to crafting a sermon. Michael told me in that interview he sometimes preached as many as 4 in a week. I’d have to work 60 hours to do that, and he maintained a full work load at a ministry in addition to that.

We didn’t talk writing at all in that interview. But I was always amazed at the sheer volume of his writing. He would update Internet Monk several times a week, sometimes with very in-depth writing. I update maybe twice a month. And these days its not terribly in-depth. I’ve started four different novels. I love the concepts behind each of the four of them. None have more than a chapter or two finished. Michael has only officially written a single book that has yet to be released, but I recall how quickly he was knocking out chapters as he kept us updated on the progress of his highly anticipated book.

The man was flat out gifted. Yet, still concerned that he couldn’t entertain as well as others. And its exactly that sort of honest self-reflection that I came to admire and love about him. Because he wasn’t as entertaining as Brant. He wasn’t as good an interview as Brant. And that sort of honest self-assessment was reflected in the body of his work in which he was willing to expose his short comings to the entire world if it meant communicating the gospel in an effective way.

As I read back over what I’ve written I realize that I’ve written about myself a lot. Odd, considering this is supposed to be about Michael. But that’s the kind of person that Michael is. I can’t write about him without writing about myself because the authentically confessional style of writing that Michael was known for draws out the personal journey of each reader into the experience of Micheal’s communication.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I first began reading the Imonk, I didn’t like a lot of what I read. If you dig through the archives here I guarantee you that you’ll find uncharitable, angry, and just plain mean posts about Michael. I don’t have the heart to deliberately delete what I was writing at the time, but I don’t like them now. Its probably why he never (rightly) acknowledged my emails asking entrance to the Boars Head Tavern. As time went on I found myself not so much agreeing with the specific point of his writing, but agreeing with the way he was writing. I won’t pretend that Michael’s writing was the driving force behind the growth I’ve experienced, but his writing significantly affected me. In a lot of ways it was a bellwether to where my journey was taking me. The rejection of consumerism and the culture war especially strongly affected the way I would come to think of my faith. He, in conjunction with other mature and intelligent Christians helped to steer me away from these particularly destructive mentalities to the gospel. And for that I’m forever grateful.

The one thing however, that Michael did without question that impacted his readers more than any other was transparently living and teaching the gospel. The emotions he wrote about were real. The issues he was struggling with were real. The apologies he issued were real. And the gospel he articulated so well is real. In a lot of ways you can’t separate the real struggles, and real emotions from the real gospel. Few people are willing to open themselves up to the kind of scrutiny that Michael was. And as a result few were as effective at communicating the gospel as he was.

You’ve probably realized by now that this might be a eulogy. A few weeks ago his wife, Denise, let the world at large know that Michael was struggling with cancer. It looked bad, the doctors gave him 6-12 months. Today she let us know that the treatments had been ineffective and that they had discontinued medical treatment and had contacted hospice. I had always assumed that some day some lucky publisher would give Michael an opportunity, and that opportunity would grow into a second career as he became well known. Now, it looks like that won’t happen as Denise Spencer has asked for prayers for healing to shift to prayers for a quick passing.

I know this is probably a eulogy, but I hope its a prayer answered, as when Michael Spencer passes, the church and myself will have lost something valuable.

Finished The Shack. I believe part of the reason that this book is so popular is because we speak primarily about God the Just, and God the Holy and rarely about God the Daddy, and God the Lover.

As far as I can tell the Shack is only postmodern in the sense that it exposes the obvious weaknesses of modernism. This will only bother you if you put the emphasis on modernism rather than Christianity.

In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners’ access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges?

-The Shack, page 60

In other words, God will one day right all wrongs through Jesus, and earthly rulers, whether or not they acknowledge this Jesus and this coming kingdom, are entrusted with the task of anticipating that final judgment and that final mercy. They are not merely to stop God’s good creation from going utterly to the bad. They are to enact in advance, in a measure, the time when God will make all things new and will once again declare that it is very good.

-NT Wright

A lot of churches are hurting right about now. Donations are down, and the general economic malaise has meant that a lot of budgets have had to be severely tightened. I wonder if this might be a good thing though. The basic functions of the church – telling people about Jesus, serving others, and discipleship – don’t have to have all that big of a budget, especially if a church already owns a building.

It may be this soft economy is a good thing if it causes us to re-focus on what we’re supposed to be doing.