My Education in Racism

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While I was born in Kansas City, the first place I remember living was Longmont Colorado. Longmont is a front-range city just north of Denver and a short drive from the Rocky Mountains. Quite a few of the children I went to school with were Latino; but it was not until fourth grade that I remember having a Black classmate. His name was DJ and he had blue eyes. A lot of the girls thought he was cute.

My mom's family is from eastern, coal country, Kentucky. One summer she and I road the Greyhound bus to Kentucky and during one stretch she sat with an African American lady to talk and I sat with the lady's young daughter. I do not remember the girl's name; but, I do remember tight braids with little white beads. I remember chatting with her and goofing around with her while we looked out the window.

In 3rd or 4th grade my mother read to me the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. She talked with me about a very specific word that Mark Twain's characters used in his books and that while that word had been used at the time it was written it was not a good word; rather, it was a word that was used to hurt Black people. I filed that information away in my head, my young heart not fully comprehending.

One day at school I heard that specific word used. It was not directed at any particular individual; rather it was sung as part of a rhyme girls said as they slapped hands. I was completely unaware that this was one of my first encounters with culturally-embedded racism.

When I was eleven years old we moved from Longmont, Colorado to the small town of Mexico, Missouri. With the move I instantly traded an eighth of my classmates that were Latino for an eighth of my classmates that were Black. Along with this change in racial context also came an intensification in the contrast between ethnicities. The town had clear geographic lines inside which many of the black citizens of the town lived. Mexico, Missouri had vestiges of the old south still in-tact. The marching band I was a member of in high school was named 'The Dixie Grey' for crying out loud.

Indulge me a brief history lesson. Missouri was one of the slave states prior to the Civil War; however Missouri itself did not secede from the union. There were however many pockets of southern sympathy and many a Missouri man journeyed south to fight for the confederate cause. Just south of Mexico, Missouri there is a county called Callaway and briefly during the Civil war it established itself as its own sovereign The Kingdom of Callaway and maintained a militia of farmers in alliance with the confederacy. As the union troops strengthened their control of Missouri the militia was held in a stand-off with the union army and had to negotiate a truce.

The word I had learned back in Colorado, the one said to hurt Black people, the one sung by girls innocuously on the playground took on a whole new meaning in Mexico. In Mexico, it was used by my Black classmates, it was used by my white classmates, it was used by adults in my community, and most specifically it was used by adults in my church. That word was part and parcel of the culture of the place and its meaning was clear. Black people are not very valuable. Black people are not very smart. Black people should know their place. Black lives do not really matter.

Well, except for one context. Sports; however that will be saved for another post on another day...

I am not writing about all of this to bag on the home of my teenage years specifically because the culture I experienced in Mexico Missouri was not marginally different from almost any other mid-western town that thrived on white family connections, white family history, and a very clear implicit understanding of who was in charge, white people. And it is this shared culture that negatively shaped my unconscious biases against people of color, and black people specifically. It is that culture of implicit white dominance that created patterns of understanding in me about how the world works for which I have had to repent, to ask forgiveness of others for, to educate myself out of, and due to which I now have to scrutinize my implicit assumptions for racist patterns.

So, where is the through line to my story? Despite all best efforts, and despite being raised to understand racism as wrong and evil, I was still taught racism implicitly. Despite my parent's best effort; racist beliefs, racist presumptions, and racist practices were imparted to me simply by living in a broader culture in which racism was and is continually present. Combating racism, and being non-racist are not and cannot be passive activities. If we want to not be racist, to no longer unconsciously perpetuate racist patterns, and to raise children who are conscious of racist patterns and fight against them it requires action and effort on our part to be consciously anti-racist.

The statement Black Lives Matter is a simple step in actively confronting implicit racism. It is a simple and elegant statement that confronts the implicit racism in our culture and reminds us that among all the other things that matter in this world Black lives matter too.

Drunken Jesus People

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I worship with some drunken homeless folks. That is not an edgy or cool thing (that kind of thinking is just Christian masturbation). I am not involved in 'street' ministry. I show up on Sunday at the same place they do and we worship together. I try to greet them, learn their names, and listen to them.

Not all of them are drunk or high all the time nor is any one person falling over drunk or high every week. There are seasons to their abuse; but that is no different than the rest of us. They are not there for a handout; but they do take a shower so that they can feel human and drink the same coffee and eat the same donuts the rest of us do. Some of them do not take a shower, ever, and they still drink the same coffee and eat the same donuts as the rest of us.

Some of them live criminally. That is not a metaphor. They can be dangerous. One who worshipped with us is now facing up to 30 years in prison; another significant jail time. Yet they are part of Christ's body (judge not, lest you be judged our Lord once said). They are the prisoner, the alien, the widow, and the orphan in our midst. They are broken and hurting members; but members none-the-less. Some of them are very racist and can't help lying every other breath. Some of them love and forgive unconditionally. Are they that different than anyone else?

Some of them need a warm place to be. Some of them really love Jesus, even though they can't walk a straight line. Some like to talk about football, or baseball. Some of them work. They have families they love. They have pets they love. Quite a few of them are military veterans who served their country. They like fried chicken and barbecue. They make bad decisions. They are victims of physical and sexual abuse. Some of them are going to die soon because they've made poor health choices. How different are we?

Some of them know the Bible better than the average Christian. Turns out being homeless gives you quite a bit of free time to read. Sometimes they interrupt our services because they are trying to give out hugs to everyone in the front row and dance while too drunk to stand. Sometimes they start shouting at the preacher while trying to shoot out some Jedi force-lighting from their finger tips because the human mind is a fragile thing and they aren't coping well that day.

Many would give you whatever, or everything they had, if you asked and needed it. A lot of weeks they minister to me.

I am not a better Christian, and our church is not a better church because they are with us and we seek to see them as human. We are simply a church seeking to love who we have been asked to love and serve those we have been asked to serve. We don't do it perfectly and in fact a lot of weeks we probably suck at it. Still, I'd rather not be anywhere else right now, shoulder to shoulder with my drunken homeless friends, because in them I see the light of Christ at work in the world.

Everything You Ever Wanted

The author Roald Dahl wrote these words as spoken by the irrepressible Willy Wonka:

"And Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted. He lived happily ever after.”

Fairy tales have ended with some variation on the phrase, 'happily every after' for ages, being a well-worn saying by the mid 1800's. Within these three words we have expressed, as a culture, the basic belief that once we have all that we could want then things will finally go our way. This mindset runs deep within our materialistic western culture. If we could only just get ahold of everything our heart desires, so that it would go our way, then we would exist in the best of all possible worlds.

We have similar cultural mantras centred on the basic belief that "striking it rich" will set us free. We are constantly enticed by the notion that securing the power to control the levers, switches, and buttons that affect our lives (and our culture) is the means by which we can finally set our world aright. To summarize, he who controls his life (and/or the lives of others), who has everything he wants, is entitled to happiness (on this earth).

Being Americans we often think of these narratives as economic, or emotional. If we can just get the things, the lifestyle, or the people we want into our lives then all will be well. While certainly access to wealth is an important factor in meeting the needs of our existence and increasing our ability to enjoy life (whatever that means) then to that degree these are truisms. I say they are truisms and not ultimately true in the sense that eventually these stories begin to fail and we find our success soured by the complexity of life. These two areas of economics and relationships are not the only areas in which the narrative of control as a means to a successful existence is told. The third major area that these cultural narratives come into play is within our political life.

Within the politics of the United States we are often given two narratives of control (with each promising happiness.) The first, is the narrative of a personal freedom in which the main locus of power centers on the individual citizen rather than government. The second, is the story of a slightly limited individual in favor of a slightly more powerful government. Whie extreem views within these two narratives exist the majority parties still place more power and control within the hands of the individual (this is the USA after all). There is enough of a distinction here to be important (and even divisive as our current political environment shows.) Both narratives share a foundational belief that as long as we have enough power ourselves (or the right governmental policies are in place), and enough of those who share our worldview occupy the seats of power then we can animate our fairy tales and receive, "everything we ever wanted and live happily ever after."

In 2008 Barrack Obama was elected to office in a campaign that focused on hope, a hope that the USA could be a different (and a better) place following eight years of a Bush administration that initially swelled in support after 9/11; but had become unpopular as it navigated the country into two wars of attrition. For populists and Democrats alike there was a hope that with Obama in the seat of the presidency and the Democrats in charge of both congressional chambers that progressives could finally get everything they ever wanted, and that things would finally be, 'happily ever after.' While the country devolved into a stale-mate just two years into Obama's first term, nothing capped this progressive sense of hope more than the defacto legalization of gay marriage (a ruling actually hastned by conservative legal action in the states to institute bans on gay marriage) during Obama's second term.

Despite two years of governmental control president Obama and the Democrats were unable to close Guantanamo Bay or to meaningfully enact tax reforms. They had everything they wanted from a power perspective and yet they were unable to secure a 'happily ever after'. This was true too of George W. Bush who enjoyed Republican control and the pick of Supreme Court choices for six of his eight years in office; and yet Bush and the Republicans were not able to bring about any meaningful reform on their tent-pole right-to-life issues. With the recent election of Donald Trump to the presidency, he was elected largely upon a continuation of the fairy-tale narrative outlined above, a narrative that if we are honest, we know ultimately doesn't bring about what it promises.

How often do we actually see these themes of, 'everything he ever wanted,' and 'happily ever after,' working out in life in the ways that our culture conditions us to expect? Marrying our true love idol is no gaurantee of life-long bliss, neither is the acquisition of wealth. Politically we have ample evidence that there is no quick path to utopia within the the reach of either dominate party. There is little anecdotal evidence that getting everything we want can actually provide us with a lasting (or ever-lasting) benefit. Given the hollowness of the happiness narrative, what is it that we are actually looking for in life? I would argue that what we want most in life is satisfaction at a job well done after a struggle hard fought, in-short: hard work.

On the surface we may want the reward of success alone but intuitively we know that true satisfaction lies in the challenge to get there. To suddenly and unexpectedly end up on the mountain top, whisked along by a beneficial wind, may be novel and surprising for awhile however it would quickly give way to the desire to again enter into the journey to see what we missed along the way. As humans we find our meaning less in our successes and more in our struggles. It is time as a nation that we get back to the basic concept of hard work as its own reward and to place less hope in the hands of the politician, or in the promise of technology, wealth, or other people to bring us happiness and success.

Do you want happiness? Do you want success? These things are within your power to effect only when you give up on any hope for a quick ticket and instead invest into and and engage each of your days by embracing its own particular struggle.

Protect or Adapt: Doing What is Right Amidst Cultural Clash

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https://unsplash.com/annadziubinska

To borrow a sentiment and a line from Steve Martin in The Jerk, I was born a small Nazarene boy in Kansas City. My father was a graduating seminary student from NTS. He and my mother attended Olivet and prepared for a call to ministry in the Church of the Nazarene (CotN). Nazarene blood courses through my veins and while I am currently not part of a Nazarene congregation I claim my Nazarene bonafides by heart and by heritage. My calling is now as Paul was to the gentiles, a missionary for Arminian and Wesleyan doctrine within the broader church world.

In addition to being born into a Nazarene household I was born in the late 1970's, a time period that straddles the generational divides. I have found that I fit more into the GenX generation than the much talked-about Millennial generation (those media hogs!). The lens which I view the world though reflects the sensibilities and cultural influences of both generations. I straddle the cold war on one side and the war of terror on the other. I am just as versed in the rise of grunge music as I am in the Millennial luxuries of beard grooming and artisanal bacon. I enjoy REM, Greenday and Mumford and Sons in equal measure.

Through these aforementioned lenses I have studied the developments within the CotN in North America; as well as the broader changes taking place in the evangelical/protestant world as a whole. My master's degree from Fuller has provided me with another missiological lens through which I see and hear what is going on around and among us.

What I have seen (along with others, such as Josh Broward and Michael Palmer) is that the CotN is approaching a crossroads. The choices made by leadership in this transitional moment will determine whether the CotN, as we know it, endures. Cultural tensions are coming to a head within the CotN. These tensions are not wholly unique to the CotN; rather, they are the result of broader cultural shifts. The surface crust of western culture has begun to buckle under the building pressure of the postmodern-secular cultural shift taking place. The modern era of empirical truth and Cartesian reason is coming to an end. A new world-view is emerging, influenced by secularism and a focus on local and situational ethics. These two colliding eras are reacting like baking soda to vinegar.

Two philosophical substances are fighting it out within the bottle of our culture, and the CotN is caught within it. Christians (Nazarenes) are not immune to their culture of origin. We exist "within" culture, and it is often as invisible to us as the air that we breathe; whether that culture is modern or postmodern in origin. I mentioned above that I have blended aspects of the modern and postmodern in my own world-view. Each of us carries with us a certain way in which we hold our Christian faith that is shaped by things other than ourselves, our tradition, or by God.

Because we do not always perceive our own culture of origin, it can result in the bias of seeing "our way" (how we hold our Christian faith) as the right way (thus, implying the other side is doing it wrong). For modernists, seeing the approaching wave of postmodernism has caused a reactionary and defensive response. Likewise postmodernists often see their modern brothers and sisters as stuck in the past and obstructing progress. As our assumptions about how we view the world (and how to act rightly in it) are challenged, the natural outcome is for us to be defensive of what we see as the plain reality. It is both natural and okay for us to desire to either preserve what we have, or to argue for change depending on our worldview. These impulses are both driven by God-given and good instincts.

The truth is that this struggle, this buttressing against cultural change and struggle to establish something new, is not a new thing in history. It is a saga that has played out time and time again. The Church has faced cultural shifts like this before, and the Church was rarely left unchanged in the wake.

An example that predates Christianity, but had a fundamental effect on it, is something historians of the faith identify as Hellenism. In the world of the New Testament, there were Hellenized Jews. These were Hebrew people of Jewish faith who had adopted the Greek culture that dominated their geographic world. They dressed in Greco-Roman fashion and took Greco-Roman names. This cultural identity went beyond just looks and names, but affected their thinking too. Some within Judaism thought Hellenization would be the end of their faith, that Hellenization watered down the Jewish faith (ignoring that Judaism has also changed significantly from ancient times). A result of this cultural change was the production of the Septuagint (the Hebrew scriptures translated into Koine Greek). If it wasn't for the Septuagint and the effects of Hellenization the New Testament world might not have been paved so well for the Gospel of Jesus to have been shared by the early church in such a fast-moving way.

This brings me to an important point of observation. Not all cultural battles are moral battles.

What is right? On the face of it, I have no doubt that many of us see that question as easy to answer and rather impetuous. What right does someone have to ask that question, especially within the context of the Christian Faith? Ethical questions lie central to our Evangelical and Protestant understanding of our faith. It is precisely because we (individually and as a people) did not answer that question well the first time that were all in this mess called sin, correct?

The difficulty we are facing as part of this cultural shift is that doing what is right is intrinsically linked to the culture in which the opportunity to do right is given. We (as humans) have trouble separating for consideration "rightness" as something outside of our own cultural lens of interpretation. This inability to see a third way is true equally of modern as well as postmodern Christians. When faced with a question of "what is right," we likely will default to our base cultural view as the standard by which others should be judged. The danger is when we begin asserting our base-cultural view as the one and true kingdom of God view.

In the last few years, signs of this ethical tension at work within the CotN have been the ongoing stories surrounding the demotion or dismissal of two well-loved professors at Nazarene higher-education institutions. In each case the official statements haven't seemed to jive with the information on the ground. The reasons for the actions taken have been clouded in a haze of cultural arguments on both sides. These two dismissals come on the heels of the near downfall of NPH, hastened by its merger with a faltering media production company and under likewise hazy circumstances. These events have given a black eye to CotN leadership (in the view of some) and eroded confidence among a number of Nazarenes. Some argue that the denominational leadership is not acting in transparent, ethical, and accountable ways.

All three of these situations (NNU, MNU, and NPH) have largely been marked by the inability of leadership to respond to criticism promptly, in humility, and with full disclosure of the facts. The ambiguity (or contradictory statements) have prompted many within the CotN to question the motives, reasoning, and integrity of those in leadership of its institutions. This perception (and in some cases truth) of a lack of integrity and lack of transparency is compounded by the lack of any formal accountability by the Board of General Superintendents for those who have made the allegedly poor decisions.

The tensions at work are broader than just our tribe or even just our faith. What is playing out in the CotN is mirrored in the broader church culture. Other Christian denominations and educational institutions are experiencing the same struggles. The most recent example of this conflict is the controversy surrounding Larycia Hawkins and Wheaton University.

We have tension, that is established; however what is accelerating the use of harsher and harsher words and exasperating the tensions at work in the church?

Above I explored the growing power post modern and secular thought has on our culture in the west. The answer to the division lies in finding a third-way in how we handle the present and coming cultural change.

Within culture and within the church, there are largely two factions at work at any given point in time: preservationists and adaptationists. A few caveats before continuing: I am going to generalize a bit, and I see the division between these two groups as cultural more than generational.

Preservationists want things to stay as they are. This means things like polity (how we do things as the church), and dogma (what we believe as a church) are basically fixed. The goal of the preservationists is to maintain what the church has and is amidst the perception that any other way to be the church is fundamentally a weakening compromise. (Think of the Hebrew speaking Jews in the example above.) Preservationists tend to be more accepting of hierarchical power structures. Those given authority by virtue of title are deferred to and rarely questioned.

Adaptationists want the church to become a flexible entity that flows within the broader culture. (These are the Hellenists.) Polity is contextual (how one local church is structured may be different from another based upon its culture), and dogma is adaptable (theology remains consistent with Christ, scripture, and tradition; but can be interpreted, expressed, and even held differently based upon culture). The adaptationist church seeks to live as a part of, as well as in contrast to, the culture of which it is a part.

The core values of the adaptationists are transparency and authenticity as integral to the leadership process. Adaptationists are looking for humble, vulnerable, and accessible leaders who share both their successes and their failures in open ways. (Preservationists admire these quality too; however, they aren't essential.) For adaptionists, these qualities build trust, accountability, and authenticity. Authority is not based upon position or title; rather, authority is the product of shared struggle and willingness to be continually transformed by the mind of Christ.

The strong reactions of adaptationists surrounding the three most recent controversies was sparked by our denominational leaders not exhibiting these valued qualities of humility, vulnerability, and accessibility throughout the process. For adaptationists the capstone is that the leaders at the center of these decisions have by-in-large not been held accountable by the CotN leadership for actions and words perceived as disingenuous, evasive, and manipulative of the truth.

As I stated above, not all cultural battles are moral ones. It is entirely possible that individuals with strong feelings all sides of the issues may have a mixture of valid and invalid observations when they approach it largely from an adaptationist/preservationist or modernist/postmodernist lens. The third way for followers of Christ is to look through the lens of his kingdom. No matter our cultural position we are called first and foremost to handle our conflict as citizens of that kingdom. What is "right" in these situations may very well not satisfy the base cultural views of either side since neither side is fully rooted in kingdom culture.

Kingdom culture and kingdom ethics call for us to stop for a moment to consider what God wants as the primary goal. It is this ecumenical and kingdom spirit that must be embraced and sought after by folks on either side of the cultural shifts taking place. To do otherwise is to condemn the CotN (and the church as a whole) to a the dustbin of denominations that have already died amidst internal squabbles.

This setting aside of preferences for the sake of the gospel has even happened before within the CotN. Both social justice oriented and personal moral witness groups united at the very founding of the CotN under a common theology of holiness. It is perhaps this ability to show charity to other Christians in non-essentials that has allowed the church to survive to this day in its own unique and beautiful way.

Certainly the conflict(s) we find ourselves in today is centered less around our continually shared holiness theology; rather it is located among the non-essentials. The ethical question of what is right needs to be answered; however those questions can't be settled by just preservationists, nor can they be settled just by adaptationists. Both sides need to pray that the Holy Spirit would form a charitable middle in the midst to allow for helpful dialogue, understanding, and Christian love to take root.

We cannot give into the temptation to follow current political leaders (across the world) into arguments of us versus them. Jesus Christ lives in the hearts of those on both sides of the widening gap within the Nazarene church. Let the CotN be an example to our broader culture that Christians can come together, even in our well-founded differences, and arrive at consensus and peace under a charitable banner of a shared gospel message.

The cultural questions of sexuality, leadership styles, political activism and social engagement aren't going away. We can seek out a way forward together, even through these toughest of issues, if we can practice peace-making and loving the other. This is because what is "right" is ultimately a Kingdom of God issue, and all who believe are its citizens.

I want to give a special thanks to Josh Broward for editing this article.

Welcome to Babylon

The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem - Francesco Hayez - 1867

The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem - Francesco Hayez - 1867

What's in a word? Turns out a lot. Especially when that word is marriage. The "M" word has sure generated a lot of other words in the last few days. I have seen words of joy, lament, anger, denial, confusion, contrition, and explanation pour out across the internet, in private conversations, and over our news media outlets. We have reached a tipping point in the American conscience that began in earnest in the 1960s, took root in the 1970s, and has reached critical mass in 2015. The tipping point is this...

No matter your conviction on whether it should be, or if it ever was, The United States of America is not a Christian Nation; and when I say Christian Nation I define that in the Falwellian/Culture War sense of the term. Like France, like England (at least in practice), or like many other European nations, as of June 26, America has firmly and decidedly planted its flag upon the rock of secular humanism.

For those that longed for America to turn in a different and more religiously conservative direction this has been a crippling blow to the cause. Hope in a tangible victory has proven instead to be a chimera. For those who have long sought to draw ever more contrast between church and state this is seen as a victory.

The conservative Christian denominations of the United States have lost their hold upon the greater conscience of the American people. Catholic, protestant, Orthodox, and otherwise the longstanding assumption has been that while the Constitution establishes no state religion, Christianity holds the de-facto status as such. The writing on the wall has become more than an omen and the fear of many church leaders and adherents of being pushed aside and made irrelevant is now the reality.

The voices of denial that I have heard seem to be ringing the strongest at the moment. Among protestant and evangelical leadership there are a multitude of calls to once again circle the wagons in the face of the newest attack on Christianity. There is a wave of denial sweeping over this group that despite all evidence to the contrary it intends to go on as if Gay marriage is still not a real and concrete thing. It is this voice of denial, even more than voices of anger, that I find the most troubling because if these voices prevail the American Christian church has truly lost its way.

For those who are not part of Christian culture you need to understand that for many Christians the decision of the Supreme Court in favor of Gay marriage has caused a deep and resonating mourning within many in the Church. As with any loss of such a deep and profound nature I have no doubt many of America's Christian leaders are shell-shocked. Denial is part of the grieving process. Denial however; is only a coping mechanism that tides us over as we progress through our grief and begin to deal with reality; and reality is what I want to address.

The reality is this. America is not a Christian nation (and I would argue never has been). Despite the Pledge's assertion, it is not, "one nation under God"; rather America is a possession of this world, and as such, is ultimately controlled by the powers of this world. Since Constantine in 324-5 the Church has tried to hasten the Kingdom of God to Earth through wielding Earthly power. The last forty years of American history have seen that plan of attack waged upon the United States as Christians have systematically sought to bring American government under Christian control and influence.

If you are uncomfortable with me using the words attack in referring to the strategy of the church in America you need to first consider that it was we Christians who first cast our kingdom building efforts as military terms. It is we who have sung the Battle Hymn of the Republic, it is we who have urged onward the Christian soldiers, and it is we who have sought to do what Jesus urged his disciples to forgo, namely the forcible (though not military) installment of God's kingdom here on earth.

Much has been written about the waning of Christendom in the global North and West. The pull on the rope that resulted in the bell toll of June 26 was actually begun long before the 1960s; rather its roots come in the 1800s and the rise of secularism, existentialism, and modernism. Humanity in the West has ceased to find compelling arguments for Christianity that are based upon external (and often oppressive and political) forces.

American Culture has been shaken and tilled up. The maps of our past culture no longer apply today, the landscape has forever changed into a new and different form.

So what do we do? How can we move forward? What questions do we consider?

First, instead of denying the present, and clinging to a hope for the return of the past, Christians in American must begin the hard work of seeing our world through the eyes of foreigners. We have formally entered into the reality other Christians have been experiencing in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Places where Christianity has become merely one cultural mythology among many.

Second, we must embrace our role as God's remnant amidst the ruins. Just as God provided for the continuance of a faithful few during the period of Israel's and Judah's exile to Babylon so we must accept our role as keepers of God's Good News. The Good News hasn't changed even though the world has continued to change. The story of Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection still apply today.

Third, we must also embrace our role as the exiled. When Israel and Judah were exiled it was because they had fallen away from being the people God had commanded them to be. The American church has lost its core identity as it has chased after peripheral issues and worldly power. We have not honored God in our care of the poor, in our care for the aliens in our midst, in the Christ in need before us. We have confused a message of individual salvation as the totality of the Gospel. We need to learn from this time about how to truly become servants of the cities we inhabit, and how to share a Gospel that is bigger than just ourselves.

Lastly, we need to start asking the questions that will need concrete answers in the coming years:

  • How do we deal with homosexuality in Christ-honoring ways?
  • How do we guide married homosexual couples into the Gospel, and integrate them into our communities of faith?
  • How do we serve, love, and support women who were once men and men who were once women, and families with children who do not conform to their birth gender?
  • How do we influence culture without demanding a dominant position?
  • How do we navigate an ancient, and culturally distant scripture in light of scientific discovery?
  • How do we as Christians finally begin to handle sin and judgement well within our own bodies of faith?

I could go on and on with more questions; however I think the point of importance is that with new terrain comes new questions, and new methods.

In closing, I want to welcome my fellow American Christians into our exile. Don't be afraid! God is still with us, and we are still his people; however we must now live that out in a new world, in a new way, and with a new understanding of what it means to be faithful. The idol laden temple of American Christianity has been demolished, and not one stone stands upon another. Welcome to Babylon.

Resources on Faith and Science

One of my passions is science. From a young age I remember my father's own interest in the sciences, especially Astronomy. There is something wonderful about God's gift of this universe that draws me in and feeds my thirst to understand how our world works.

For many Christians science is an uneasy topic, and for some it is a downright foe and a threat to faith. This reality makes me sad, as people on both sides of the divide end up missing out on a richer understanding of God's creation. This needless struggle between the two camps of faith and science leads us into a bleak world where either nothing can be explored for fear of loosing one's faith, and faith can never be considered due to a lack of material evidence.

I have put together a resource page that I hope people will find useful in navigating this sensitive topic. Please take a look here.

I hope you find the resources I point to helpful as you navigate this topic in your own life and development. Part of owning our faith is engaging those questions we might otherwise not want to ask. Please use the contact form to get ahold of me if you like.

Sermon - All in All

This is my sermon, "All in All". It was delivered on July 13th, 2014 to Indian Creek Community Church in Gardner, Kansas.

The sermon deals with submission to God, and how living a fragmented life leads us away from God. It starts with making Jesus the Lord of all of our life; rather than expecting Jesus to wait in the background until we want him.

You can download a PDF of the text here.

This is the Day

When I was a kid we would sing a song:

This is the day, this is the day
That the Lord has made, That the Lord has made
I will rejoice, I will rejoice
and be glad in it, and be glad in it

Chances are if you attended most any church as a child you sung that song as well.

What I love the most about this song is its present-ness, this is the day that the Lord has made. It can be hard living in this day, this moment, right now. I find that most people prefer to time travel mentally and dwell either on the past or the future. Our nows are often swallowed by the thens.

When I graduated from college I was completely unsure of my future; what it was that God wanted me to do with my life. The culture of church often pressures young folks that are devout and have some inkling of a ministerial call into discerning 'God's will for their life.' Frankly, it's downright intimidating, especially when you are in your early 20's and your adult identity is just forming. I was literally depressed at times because I didn't know what God's will was for me.

In hindsight I see God's hand it work in my life, and most of us see God's hand in our own lives as well, but I was so worried about the future that I missed opportunities laying right at my feet to serve God in the present moment. Francis Chan remarks that God rarely gives his followers a five or a ten year plan for their life up front; rather we are to seek out God's will in the present moment, seek what it is that God is asking of us right now, an then do it.

I was convinced that if I knew God's plan that the rest would just kind of fall into place, that I wouldn't have to think or do much about it. The problem with that was that it totally removed me from the equation. Certainly God has specific desires for us; but when we ask God to lay it all out on the table what we are really saying is, 'God, I don't want to have to think about this thing, I don't want to be challenged to bring any of myself to this partnership; just tell me where to go, what to say, how to say it.' God doesn't work that way. God wants you to be engaged with him in the building of His kingdom using your unique gifts and strengths.

Knowing God's will is, more than anything, a surrendering of the the present moment, and listening for God's prompting. Jesus says as much when he says:

Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

Learn from the past, look with hope to the future, but live in the present and listen to God in the here and now.

On Honesty

There is a blessedness in honesty, the kind of honesty that gets you in trouble. Let me be clear what I am referencing is self-honesty, not the one where you boost your ego by saying unkind things to others. Self-honesty is the kind of honesty that you have with yourself about yourself and the kind of honesty you share about yourself with those closest to you.

I am not always an honest person, even though I strive for it each and every day. Lacking confidence in the person I am I might be tempted to sprinkle a bit of spice on the top. Not out and out bold lies mind you, I wouldn't want to face the backlash if you did your homework, these are just little white lies that help puff up my ego in just the right places. I am sure you have no idea what I am talking about.

The problem with these little white lies is they don't let people (and myself) see (or let me be) the true me, the me God made me to be. Instead of me they (and I) see some kind of slightly blurred echo, enough definition so as to not mistake it from reality at first; but in the end a projected and hollow shell. It's this hollowness that ultimately defeats us, especially when we forget who we really are and trade the real for the shadow, or as John Ortberg calls it, the impostor self. A crust builds up over time, a hardness to the shell that slowly encases us and traps us inside of our false self. Eventually we petrify, becoming a rigid and lifeless statue forged from false ideals.

As I think through my life anything of meaning has only occurred because I chose (active verb here) to be honest about who I was and who I wasn't. It is only when we reveal our defects, our shortcomings, and our failures that we find ourselves covered in the redemption that can come from Christ, the redemption that brings congruence to our warped selves and the restoration of our full humanness. When we trade who we are, warts and all, for the shadow-self we end up completely missing the fullness of God's restoration into his image and settling for some lesser idol of our own sin-bent vision.

I think of the song Create In Me a Clean Heart and its prayer that the Holy Spirt would renew a right and harmonious spirit in us. When we forget, or do not yet know, the power of God's forgiveness we can easily trade away our own identity for some false and presumably more glamorous image. We let slide those things we would rather not admit about ourselves hoping that by taking away our humanity we would somehow become righteous. The problem with that scenario is that it is a false understanding of what God's grace is. Grace isn't some kind of spiritual surgery where God cuts out what doesn't please him; rather it is the full restoration of who he always wanted us to be. God works with all of who we are (and often in spite of who we are given the opportunity).

My prayer is that I (and you) would have the courage to step out of our own shadow, embrace our humanness in all of its weakness and frailty of being, and to hold out for the grace that comes when we let God meet our needs of acceptance.