Church Voices

How sweet are your words to my taste,  
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Psalm 119.103

If you have ever investigated techniques for losing weight you have come across the advice to slow down when eating your food. Many times the advice includes references to French traditions which turn a meal into a shared experience with friends, that includes savoring your food.  The end result is that you eat less food, and still feel full, and so you eat less calories without having to eat rice cakes and oat bran. 

The march of progress have brought us many excellent advances.  The printing press has brought cheap Bibles to the average person.  An excellent advance that we all applaud. However, what we may not have considered is that this advance fundamentally changed the way we use scripture.

Imagine you are part of the early church.  You have the opportunity to hear pieces of scripture at gatherings of the early church.  You are able to hear pieces of the old testament on the Sabbath at temple if you happen to live near enough to one.  But what you take with you on a regular basis is what you hold in your mind.  Now, everyday for you doesn’t include pen or paper so you’ve become very adept at remembering important information, but what you can remember is far less than what you can carry around with you in a Bible produced on a printing press that will be invented in 1400 years. 

So how do you interact with scripture?  Chances are you won’t be going to Bible studies that methodically parse scripture verse by verse, and you won’t be looking up individual words for study.  Instead you’ll be contemplating small chunks of scripture for days if not weeks at a time.  Savoring each word, examining it from every angle, considering the implications for every facet of life.

Lets say you and I set up a meeting at a coffee shop at 8AM.  How many minutes past 8AM does it take you to pull out your cell phone and tell me to get my late carcass over there?  Five minutes?  Maybe ten if you’re particularly patient.  And what do you do while waiting?  Are you listening to music?  Playing games on your phone?  Working on your laptop? 

On the other hand, if you were living in a world without instant communication, where travel involved using your two legs or riding something with four how much more patient would you be?  Would it be unreasonable to wait hours for an appointment?  Or even days if you were meeting in a distant city?  What would you do while waiting or traveling?  You’ve got time, and you’ve got scripture in your head.  What do you do? Contemplate scripture.

I wonder if we miss out on some of the sweetness of scripture when we take a buffet style approach to it.  So many times I hear about the shallowness of a particular church, or of Christians in general.  It may be just plain old laziness or it may be the entire paradigm that has been created by mass production is the problem.

Internet Monk puts together a list of sins that are commonly tolerated in churches. The last two on the list really caught my attention:

Cruel speech about those with whom we differ.

No grace for ordinary failure

One of the most abused pieces of scripture is Proverbs 22.6:

Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Not too long ago I heard second-hand about a Sunday School teacher (and Bible College grad, and former minister) opine to his class that this is a promise of God, and that if you really properly trained your child then at some point they would return to the church. Its this sort of thing that makes me want to light myself on fire.

A maxim in the NFL goes that if you can run the ball well you will win games. This particular pundit disagrees. and offers up as evidence the recent game between the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants. He accurately points out that the Giants dominated the run game, while the Browns won the battle for air supremacy, and concludes that it is the passing game that determines winners, and not the running game.

Case closed. Right?

Well, lets not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet. Because a closer look at the box scores shows us something else. That something else is that the Giants turned the ball over three times, including an intercepted pass that was run back 94 yards for a TD (which is essentially a 14 point swing since the Giants were six yards from paydirt).

While a good day running might not be a guarantee to a victory, it is probably generally an indicator of victory, so long as you’re not handing over the ball to the other team.*

Biblical wisdom functions similarly to football wisdom. They are observations that are generally true. They are not mathematical formulas wherein you do X and always get A. Generally someone who works hard will end up materially better off than if he did not. But occasionally life kicks a hardworking man in the teeth and gives a big fat cupcake to a lazy fattie.

And usually a child raised in the faith will remain or return to the faith he was raised. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. And when it doesn’t it has to be heartbreaking to their parents. Teaching that a child who doesn’t remain or return to the faith did so because either God broke His promise, or the parents weren’t faithful to God doesn’t do anything but turn that heartbreak into an unbearable load of guilt that isolates and crushes.

This reminds me of another piece of scripture:

“Yes,” said Jesus, “what sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law! For you crush people with unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.

Read the rest of this entry »

A common practice in ancient Rome was to leave unwanted infants on a hillside to die of exposure. As Christianity spread it became common for those infants to be saved by Christians as a way of advancing the kingdom of God in the great here and now. This practice is now looked back on as a great source of pride by current Christians. I doubt very much that ancient Romans even recognized this as an abhorrent practice.

Every era has its unseen vices. Practices that are so deeply ingrained in the daily routine of life that the horror of the practice fades away to background noise.

The unseen vices of America’s past include slavery quickly followed by societal and lawful racism. Americans today recognize the sin easily, and so today actively grapple with its effects, and the current forms of racism. Americans of even 60 years ago did not.

But what about today? What are the unseen vices of the current age? While I’m sure I overlook a great many, I humbly suggest usury as a prime candidate. Consider the following story:

The New York Times has an article that tells the unfortunate tale of Diane McLeod and her love affair with debt. She started out “debt free” when she got married, but after a divorce she’d managed to accrue $25,000 in credit card debt. Despite not having a down payment or any assets, Diane was given a $135,000 mortgage. Over the next few years, illness, underemployment, and shockingly irresponsible spending combined disastrously with the bank’s willingness to refinance her loan as her home appreciated (for a fee, of course). 5 years later, Diane owes $237,000 on her mortgage. She’s in foreclosure now, and a recent sheriff’s auction of the home did not draw a single bidder. A similar house down the street recently sold for $84,000 less than she owes on her home.

The NYT says there is a bright spot at the end of the tunnel for Diane. She’s still getting credit card offers from “Urban Bank.”

Recently an envelope arrived offering a “pre-qualified” Salute Visa Gold card issued by Urban Bank Trust. “We think you deserve more credit!” it said in bold type.

A spokeswoman at Urban Bank said the Salute Visa is part of a program “designed to provide access to credit for folks who would not otherwise qualify for credit.”

The Salute Visa offered Ms. McLeod a $300 credit line. But a closer look at the fine print showed that $150 of that would go, as annual fees, to Urban Bank.

Its clear that we’ve long passed the point where credit cards (and banks that issue them) have are not trying to earn a living off of interest in the form of short term loans that are paid off. Instead, their goal is to create debt that is never paid off. Credit card loans are essentially becoming assets. They don’t care if you have the ability to pay off the loan because they don’t want the loan paid off ever. They just want a constant revenue stream.

Christians of the past recognized the danger of usury. St. Jerome concluded that on the basis of Deuteronomy 23.20 earning any interest at all should be banned (as all men are brothers, sharing a common creator), Augustine concluded “to live by usury is exceedingly unnatural”, Saint Anselm began the shift in thinking that lead to the belief that charging interest was the same as theft, in 1139 the second Lateran Council denied sacraments to unrepentant usurer, by 1142 a decree had been issued that forbade re-payment greater than the amount actually lent, and St Thomas Aquinas and his disciples generally concluded that earning money lent on interest was wrong with a few exceptions. The list can go on and on, these are just some of the larger examples.

Of course to come to such a conclusion would require some major re-thinking of how Christians conduct themselves. The obvious being to avoid using, being employed by, or investing in credit cards, rent-a-centers, check cashing business and other businesses that earn money by charging exorbitant fees and interest on those least likely to be able to re-pay it.

What might hurt a bit more is the examination of the role that banks play. The sub-prime mortgage meltdown demonstrates that even large, reputable banks have acted in a way that is contrary to scripture. For most of us this isn’t a huge concern as we have the ability to use the services of a bank when and how we choose, and so can choose to use our money and borrowing power in a way that is consistent with scripture.

However, for those who find themselves in a banking career a bit more discernment is required. Do the scriptures forbid a Christian from being a teller at a reputable bank who may or may not be engaged in producing credit cards and other less than wise lending services? What should someone who is rounding out the end of their career as a bank president at a local branch do? They are bound to take care of their family, but at the same time their skills are now all in areas that would require them to work for a business that oversees auto loans. What about a car salesman who doesn’t actually make loans, but knows that many of the people he sells to can’t afford the loans they’re signing? While Christians can probably exist in these industries in some capacity, these questions are rarely, if ever, wrestled with.

There is one area to thank God for the progress made in. I thank God that men like Dave Ramsey have sounded the alarm on money management and debt in general. I also thank God that many churches are involved in educating their communities in this area.

Children can be a wealth of insight.

Ellianna asked me as we were driving to the doctor’s office, “Is this real or is this a dream?”

I replied, “Is what real or a dream?”

Elli: “Me.”

She soon clarified the question was in reference to the particular trip we were taking, but still, it was one of those moments where as a parent, you realize that your children at the various stages of childhood have all the insight and wisdom of man.  A lot can be learned from children, but we aren’t to rely on the wisdom of man but the wisdom of God.  Our children can come up with man’s conclusions on their own, they need us to show them who God is.

Bob Myers over at the BHT notes:

During the Phillies N.L. Championship series, manager Charlie Manuel’s mother died. (His father was a Pentecostal minister who tragically committed suicide when Charlie was in high school.) Statements about his mother looking down on the game, watching it, being the 10th player on the field etc. are rampant on Sport’s talk radio here and they have provoked a littany of others sharing how their deceased loved ones who are Phillies fans manifest their presence when they attend a game or watch it on television.

He goes on to say its interesting the universality of such beliefs as they likely came from evangelicals, Catholics and agnostic types. He makes a couple of observations.

So much for the argument that people in Bible times were gullible, but we moderns live in a scientific age…

We can’t bear to believe any one that we loved is simply “no more”. And this stubborn notion that leads to sentimental superstition is correct. This clearly demonstrates that there’s something against death in our nature. And it makes me have compassion on all who walk around with sorrow in their hearts over a death that occured decades ago.

The second observation is, to me, far more interesting than the first, and one many Christians often overlook in their zeal to look forward to the life eternal. Death is always tragic. It is tragic because we weren’t created to die, and is a reminder of the power and horror of sin. It is also tragic, even when it happens to a saint, because we are without that person and they have left a void behind in our lives. I suspect many Christians feel guilt over their sorrow because they’ve been told its a happy day that their loved one has entered eternity. I also suspect that same impulse prevents many Christians from going to a counselor when sorrow deepens into depression.

I’ll add a third observation to this list. That observation is that no matter what we may think we never make an intellectual decision about what we believe. Oh, I realize you read that sentence and probably think it applies to other people who are not you, but we all do this. Our feelings, perceptions, biases, and other factors that are decidedly outside the intellect form our beliefs as much as the intellect does. This, of course, has application for both evangelism and discipleship and Christians ignore it at the own peril.

We were riding in the car running errands the other day when our 4 year old daughter asked my wife to tell her the story of Jesus dying on the cross again.  She’s heard the story in her numerous illustrated Bibles we read her, as well as in Sunday School and during Children’s church.

So my wife replied somewhat to me, somewhat rhetorically, “Where do I Begin?”

Our daughter: “At the beginning.”

Makes sense.  So my wife and I together say, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

It gave us a good laugh at the time, but as children tend to do, my daughter got at the heart of much that is important to the story of Jesus with her simple answer.  I’m currently reading the book Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey.  In it she proposes Creationism as foundational to communicating the gospel.  I have to agree.  The story of Jesus’ death on the cross only makes sense in light of creation.  Which is why it can be difficult to evangelize in cultures (such as ours) that declare that we are only a part of nature which has it’s roots in itself (Darwinism is a form of this naturalistic worldview).

Maybe when we tell the story again, we really do need to start at the beginning.

Recently, I’ve been reading a post-apocalyptic comic book. It was pretty standard fare, civilization has fallen, and what’s left of humanity is scavenging the corpse of the fallen civilization to survive. During the course of this looting the group of protagonists come across a store house of wealth. There’s gold, cash and other valuables. One member of the looting party sees the lucre and says, “how much is all this worth”, the response by the de facto leader of the party is “nothing”.

Michael Spencer has a post up called One Stock That Needs to Drop. The stock in question is evangelicalism and Spencer makes several points as to why it needs to drop. I would guess that Spencer uses this metaphor because the current financial crisis is on everyone’s mind and the attending stock market drop that goes with it is the focus of many, many news stories. But as Spencer is clearly aware, the stock metaphor is especially apt because the value of stocks are based on the perception of how valuable they are.

A rumor made the rounds that Steve Jobs’ health is in decline, Apple’s stock goes down. There was no change in sales numbers, no change in assets, no change in anything but a whisper about the health of the lead man at Apple, and the panic sales were on.

While I doubt there will be a single watershed event like a post-apocalyptic event, or rumors of a health scare that will cause a single day drop, I do believe that the value of the stock of evangelicalism will leech away over time.

And that’s ok.

In fact it might be preferable. Because much like the character who, in the middle of a post-apocalyptic meltdown where food is scarce and safety is fleeting is busy gathering defunct currency, much of the current valuation of evangelicalism is based on a whole list of job descriptions that just no longer apply, and the more evangelicals try to chase those things the more time, and resources are wasted.

Politics, health, wealth, better living, wisdom, Amway, the power to force moral choices on society as a whole and marketing dollars have all been a big part of the valuation of evangelicalism, and all of it is an illusion. And if that illusion were to go away this instant, many people would go with it. And that would be a good thing. Because the church shouldn’t value any of those things, and the Christ didn’t resurrect to bring us those things. And eventually churches and lives built on those things won’t be able to sustain themselves.

Salvation, love, community, lives of service, humility, disciples, and redemption however, are all a part of the real value of the church. And none of those things have ever moved a stock price upward.

Some day, probably a day not too far away if it hasn’t come already, Christianity in the United States will be a shadow of itself in terms of measurements that matter to people who matter. And it doesn’t bother me at all. Because its time for the church to stop its two-fisted gathering of defunct currencies while the world around them is dead or dying.

Ellianna (our 4 year old): “Who raised Jesus from the dead?”

The question seems simple enough, but is actually quite profound.  Many people (and hymns, songs, etc) talk about Jesus rising from the dead as if of His own accord, but Paul in Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians as well as Peter say that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Click to enlarge.

HT: ASBO Jesus