Eugene Peterson, Teresa of Calcutta, and the path of sainthood

I began reading Eugene Peterson last August, after a good friend of mine spent several years reading most of his works. He's quickly becoming one of my favorites. I really appreciate his restful, thoughtful spirit and the particular way he encourages us to get God's Word in us, to form and shape us in a way that leads to flourishing.

Therefore, I was pleased to hear Andy Crouch bring him up in the latest episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. The entire podcast, while well done and fascinating, has been a troubling and sad indictment of what happens in leaders when charisma outpaces character and how abuse can be overlooked and even protected by those close to it because a lot of good is happening too. 

And that brings us to Peterson, and Teresa of Calcutta, on a different way to live and be. Here's Andy Crouch: 

Through this whole story of the rise of the mega-church, there's this incredible alternative being offered in the writing and the life of this guy, Eugene Peterson. Who then happens to perform a kind of act of media, sort of brilliance, by doing The Message thing...Then he becomes powerful in a worldly sense. Everyone was like, "Oh, Eugene Peterson." But his life mattered long before The Message. His life would matter if the Message had never been produced and sold the way it did. There was a witness, right there, in our world.

Teresa of Calcutta, not a perfect person, sometimes a little harsh with her people that she had power over. But nonetheless, a witness. I think about the fact that Teresa and Diana died in the same week. They are like these mirror images of what we want to be as a human being. The two most recognizable, visible women in the world, it was said, at the time. But utterly different paths to celebrity. Utterly different paths to influence. And of course, one of the things I said in my book Culture Making, it's fascinating that almost everybody wanted to be like Diana, but nobody could be like Diana. Only one person gets to marry the Prince of Wales. And most of us are not beautiful like Diana. We've got no shot. Zero.

Meanwhile, you have Teresa of Calcutta and anyone could be like her, because all she is is a saint. And anyone can be a saint if they open themselves up to Jesus. We have not lacked for models of godly power. We just don't want the suffering that comes with it, the long stretches of anonymity and seeming ineffectiveness, the humiliation of being like your Lord. That part we would really rather not have. There have been other options. But the way of Eugene Peterson, the way of Teresa is right there. Any day I can wake up and say, "I'm heading on that road." Whereas, if I look at some celebrity and try to imagine how I'd get to where they are, I got no chance. Yet, every day I'm tempted to divert into some facsimile of the path of celebrity rather than the path of sainthood.

Is the news bad for us?

I just ran across an article on The Guardian that was explaining how news is bad for us. The title of the article is "News is bad for you--and giving up reading it will make you happier." The title definitely piqued my interest because I think it is very true.

You see, I don't read or watch much of the news. In any conversation, I will probably be the one who knows the least about what is going on around our country and around the world. There is a part of me that has wondered if I am a bad citizen or neighbor because I don't follow the news. I still don't know for sure. However, I do think that much of the news is really not all that beneficial to any of us.

Consider what the Guardian article suggests. It gives 10 reasons why the news can be bad for us:

1. News misleads
2. News is irrelevant
3. News has no explanatory power
4. News is toxic to your body
5. News increases cognitive errors
6. News inhibits thinking
7. News works like a drug
8. News wastes time
9. News makes us passive
10. News kills creativity

All this reminds me of some thoughts Neil Postman has in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He points out that news, education, politics, etc have all basically become forms of entertainment. He believes news is a collection of decontextualized facts that we cannot do much about:

"How often does it occur that information provided you on morning radio or television, or in the morning newspaper, causes you to alter your plans for the day, or to take some action you would not otherwise have taken or provides insight into some problem you are required to solve?...most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action.”

...What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime or unemployment? ...What do you plan to do about NATO, OPEC, the CIA, affirmative action, and the monstrous treatment of Baha'is in Iran? I shall take the liberty of answering for you: You plan to do nothing about them.

...We have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing."

What do you think?

Nouwen's refreshing thoughts on Christian leadership

I recently finished a book called In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen. It was quite a refreshing read as it addressed issues that Christians face as they desire to be leaders in their ministries and in the world. Nouwen bases his book around the three temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness.

He explains how Jesus's first temptation was to be relevant, as Satan tempted Him to turn stones into bread. If you don't know, Nouwen left the life of teaching at places like Notre Dame and Harvard to go live with the mentally handicapped people of the L'Arche community near Toronto. He talks about how, when he comes to that community, he is struck by the fact that people did not care at all about all of the useful things he had done up until then, but only how he was perceived in the moment. He explains how this left him naked and vulnerable in many ways:

“These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self—the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things—and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.”

He goes on to explain that the Christian leader has to be one that gives up the desire to be relevant and merely offers the world his or her vulnerable self. He says the discipline that will counteract this desire for relevance is contemplative prayer. Instead of listening to the world and getting pulled into seemingly urgent needs, we need to be people who constantly dwell in God's presence. It is only here that we can find the source of our words and guidance for the hurting world.

The second temptation Jesus faced was to be spectacular, as he was tempted to throw himself down off the temple. Instead of the individual heroism that is so highly touted in our culture, the Bible offers a different perspective where the value is placed on speaking God's Word in community. He also says that ministry is not only a communal experience but a mutual one. This means that we are not called to create a safe distance between us and those we intend to lead, but are called to make our full selves known, including our doubts, fears, sadness, and failures.

The discipline he suggests that keeps us from desiring individual impressiveness is confession and forgiveness. He says, “Confession and forgiveness are the concrete forms in which we sinful people love one another.” This needs to be a two way street. Christian leaders need to be able to share their wounded selves with those they want to lead. Otherwise, there is a bifurcation that occurs. He explains,

“They separate themselves from their own concrete community, try to deal with their needs by ignoring them or satisfying them in distant or anonymous places, and then experience an increasing split between their own most private inner world and the good news they announce…When ministers and priests live their ministry mostly in their heads and relate to the Gospel as a set of valuable ideas to be announced, the body quickly takes revenge by screaming loudly for affection and intimacy.”

The third and final temptation that Jesus faced was the temptation to power, as He was tempted to rule all the kingdoms of the world. Nouwen explains that there is a great temptation to have power among Christian leaders, even though Jesus came and emptied Himself of all rights to power. He goes on to say that it is easier to control people than to love people. It's easier to be God than to love Him. The way of the Christian leader does not look like the world. Nouwen says,

“The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.”

The discipline suggested to guard against the temptation to have power is theological reflection. Without this, he explains that we will be nothing more than pseudo-psychologists in trying to help people deal with the stresses of their life. In contrast,

“The task of future Christian leaders is not to make a little contribution to the solution of the pains and tribulations of their time, but to identify and announce the ways in which Jesus is leading God’s people out of slavery, through the desert to a new land of freedom. Christian leaders have the arduous task of responding to personal struggles, family conflicts, national calamities, and international tensions with an articulate faith in God’s real presence.”

Through prayer, through confession and forgiveness, and through theological reflection, Christians can counteract the temptations to be relevant and popular, to be spectacular and removed from those whom we lead, and to exert power and control over others. At this point we can finally help people to hear God's gentle and loving voice in a noisy world.

The 50th Anniversary of King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

When you think of the most influential Christian leader of the 20th century, who do you think of? I'm not sure how I would have answered that question a couple months ago, but I probably would not have thought of Martin Luther King Jr.. Sure, I know he was a great leader, but until recently, I didn't quite grasp the impact he had and how that impact was so shaped by a theological vision.

Yes, MLK Jr. was a civil rights leader, but he was also a brilliant man who had a firm grasp of theology, philosophy, politics, and ethics. Beyond that he was a pastor who cared deeply about how the gospel applied to the injustices of his day.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." He wrote the letter to eight white pastors of his day as he sat in a jail cell in the most racially segregated city in America at that time. He was getting feedback from church leaders (who were white) to stop causing so much controversy over segregation, and to wait it out. Some day, they said, it will get better.

Part of Reverend King's letter specifically addressed this call to wait. Check out these powerful words:

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

I hope you feel even a fraction of the weight that this paragraph carries. He and the rest of the black community had been fighting against this sense of "nobodiness" for so long and they were understandably tired of it.

The famous phrase, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" also comes from this letter. From Atlanta, he saw the injustices that were happening in Birmingham. He talks about how we are all "caught in an inescapable network of mutuality," so he cannot sit idly by and do nothing. In response to this injustice he begins to teach people the power of nonviolent action, which forces a community who has long refused to negotiate to finally confront the issues of injustice.

As I thought about this, I began to see some parallels between King's thought and what Isaiah says of the coming Messiah. Isaiah says that he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a sheep before his shearers, he was silent. As Christ came to confront THE injustice of the world (the broken relationship between humanity and the Creator) through humility and nonviolence, so King stood up against the powers of the world, and through nonviolence, shed light on one of the greatest injustices of our time.

Through this letter, I have become so thankful for Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. His courage is inspiring to me and his faithfulness to stand up for justice in the midst of opposition and oppression is convicting. I'm so thankful God used him to bring a glimpse of the coming kingdom to this world through the breaking of these racial barriers. Because of this, the gospel is lived out in a fuller way. As Paul tells us in Galatians 3, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, or male nor female. We are all one in Christ.

Click here to read the letter. I highly encourage it.

Law As Freedom: Fitting With The Grain Of The Universe

When you think of rules and law, you typically don't think about freedom and love with them. That's partly why many see the Bible as a repressive and somewhat arbitrary list of do's and don'ts. Many see being a Christian then, as following these rules whether one wants to or not.

But what if the commands of God were actually life giving? What if when God created the universe, he intended a certain beautiful design that, if conformed to by humanity, led to great flourishing and deep fulfillment? That is exactly what James K.A. Smith is saying in his excellent book, Desiring the Kingdom. He says:

"...the giving of commandments is an expression of love; the commandments are given as guardrails that encourage us to act in ways that are consistent with the 'grain of the universe,' so to speak. They are the means by which God invites and encourages us to find abundance and flourishing."

God's standards for us help us match up with the grain of the universe. They are for our good, not for suppressing us. But our modern understanding fights against the reality. Smith goes on to say:

"The secular liturgies of late modern culture are bent on forming in us a notion of autonomy--a sense that we are a law unto ourselves and that we are only properly 'free' when we can choose our own ends, determine our own telos. Since it's early beginnings, Charles Taylor notes, modernity has been marked by a rejection of teleology, a rejection of the notion that there is a specified, normative end (telos) to which humanity ought to be directed in order to enjoy the good life. And this rejection was driven by a new notion of 'libertarian' freedom, which identified freedom with freedom of choice."

Smith concludes with a picture of true freedom, rightly ordered desires in conformity to how God designed the universe to be. He explains:

"In contrast, right here in Christian worship we see a very different understanding of the good: humanity and all of creation flourish when they are rightly ordered to a telos that is not of their own choosing but rather is stipulated by God. Creation is created for something, for a particular end envisioned by the Creator...The reading of the law is a displacement of our own wants and desires, reminding us that we find ourselves in a world not of our own making--which is why all our attempts to remake it as we want (as if we ourselves could be little creators) are not only doomed to failure; they are also doomed to exacerbate suffering. The announcement of the law reminds us that we inhabit not 'nature,' but creation, fashioned by a Creator, and that there is a certain grain to the universe--grooves and tracks and norms that are part of the fabric of the world. And all of creation flourishes best when our communities and relationships run with the grain of those grooves. Indeed, the biblical vision of human flourishing implicit in worship means that we are only properly free when our desires are rightly ordered, when they are bounded and directed to the end that constitutes our good. That is why the law, though it comes as a scandalous challenge to the modern desire for autonomy, is actually an invitation to be freed from a-teleological wandering. It is an invitation to find the good life by welcoming the boundaries of law that guide us into the grooves that constitute the grain of the universe and are conducive to flourishing."

I invite you to think about the law in such a way. Yes the law points to our need for a Savior, because of our inability to fulfill the law's demands. But the law is also a good thing in and of itself, a loving blueprint for what God intends for a thriving new humanity.

Nouwen on solitude, community, and ministry

A friend of mine recently suggested that I read an article by Henri Nouwen entitled, "Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry". I'm glad she did. In the article, Nouwen is arguing that there are three major disciplines for the faithful disciple of Christ. As the title suggests, he believes that solitude, community, and ministry are those three disciplines and that they only work by starting with solitude and working up progressively. He sees Luke 6:12-19 as a prime example for this idea. In this passage Jesus spends the whole night in prayer, then calls the disciples, and then cures people of unclean spirits and disease.

Solitude is foundational to the other three disciplines because it is only here that we can dwell on how God views us. He says:

Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It’s important because it’s the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you “my beloved daughter,” “my beloved son,” “my beloved child.” To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being.

He goes on to say that if we are not hearing this voice then we cannot walk freely in this world. Without hearing this voice, success and failures will equally wreck us because our identity will be tied up in those things. We will constantly be seeking affirmation and praise from others if we are not listening to God's voice and claiming our belovedness.

Community then is something that flows from solitude. But it is not because we are lonely. He explains:

...community is not loneliness grabbing onto loneliness: “I’m so lonely, and you’re so lonely.” It’s solitude grabbing onto solitude: “I am the beloved; you are the beloved; together we can build a home.”

He also talks about how forgiveness and celebration are two key components of community. Forgiveness is acknowledging that other people cannot love you perfectly. Forgiveness is allowing another person not to be God. If you can forgive others and stop demanding from them something that only God can give, then you can learn to celebrate that person's gifts.

Ministry comes after you know you are beloved and continue to forgive and celebrate one another. Nouwen says that part of our ministry is to help others let go of resentment, to discover that in the middle of your tears, "that's where the dance starts and joy is first felt." He continues:

Jesus says, “Cry over your pains, and you will discover that I’m right there in your tears, and you will be grateful for my presence in your weakness.” Ministry means to help people become grateful for life even with pain. That gratitude can send you into the world precisely to the places where people are in pain. The minister, the disciple of Jesus, goes where there is pain not because he is a masochist or she is a sadist, but because God is hidden in the pain.

When talking about ministry, many of us talk of the desire to see fruit. Nouwen reminds us that, "the fruits of your life are born often in your pain and in your vulnerability and in your losses. The fruits of your life come only after the plow has carved through your land."

I resonated with this article because I often shortcut this process. I desire to help people grow in the understanding of God's love for them in Christ, but I often do it out of a place where I am not resting that love myself. Because of that, I can use people and demand that they give me the love that I need. From there, I find myself unwilling to enter people's pain because it seems too heavy and messy.

I want to be the type of man who like Mary, sits at Jesus' feet often, who then can forgive others quickly, celebrate who they are, and move towards bearing one another's burdens and pointing to the One who bore ours.

I share, therefore I am: how technology is making us more lonely

"Connected, but alone?" was a TED talk given by Sherry Turkle last February. It's an excellent look at the ways in which we are isolating ourselves in and through technology. We have a desire to connect more with people, but the ways in which we are connecting are actually making us more lonely. Check it out:



And here are some of her quotes:

"We're getting used to a new way of being alone together. People want to be with each other, but also elsewhere, connected to all the different places they want to be. People want to customize their lives."

"We can end up hiding from each other even as we are all connected to each other." 

"Human relationships are rich, and they're messy, and they're demanding, and we clean them up with technology. And when we do, one of the things that we do is that we sacrifice conversation for mere connection." 

"We use conversations with each other to learn how to have conversations with ourselves, so a flight from conversation can really matter because it can compromise our capacity for self-reflection." 

"People get so used to being short-changed out of real conversation, so used to getting by with less, that they become almost willing to dispense with people all together." 

"That feeling that no one is listening to me is very important in our relationships with technology. That's why it's so appealing to have a Facebook page or a Twitter feed: so many automatic listeners. And the feeling that no one is listening to me makes us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us." 

"Technology appeals to us most, where we are most vulnerable. And we are vulnerable. We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy." 

"We are designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship." 

"I share, therefore I am." 

"You end up isolated if you don't cultivate the capacity for solitude. The ability to be separate, to gather yourself. Solitude is where you find yourself and where you can reach out to other people and form real attachments. When we don't have the capacity for solitude, we turn to other people in order to feel less anxious or in order to feel alive. When this happens, we're not able to appreciate who they are, it's as though we are using them as spare parts to support our fragile sense of self. We slip into thinking that always being connected is going to make us feel less alone. But we're at risk, because actually it's the opposite that's true. If we're not able to be alone, we're going to be more lonely."

To be deeply known and loved

I've been doing some thinking recently on the human desire to be deeply known and loved. I gave a talk last weekend at our student retreat on the subject. When I came back I saw my buddy Scott's post, where he talked about what it means to know and to be known.

Then I ran across what Jodie Foster said recently at the Golden Globes. After being given an award for lifetime cinematic achievement, being in the public life since she was 3 (46 years!), she said this:

I may never be up on the stage again, on any stage for that matter...I will continue to tell stories, to move people by being moved, the greatest job in the world. It's just that from now on I may be holding a different talking stick, and maybe it won't be as sparkly, maybe it won't open on 3,000 screens, maybe it will so quiet and delicate that only dogs can hear it whistle, but it will be my writing on the wall. Jodie Foster was here. I still am and I want to be seen, to be understood deeply, and to be not so very lonely."

Wow, what an honest expression. To be seen, understood, and not to be lonely. Isn't that what we all want? I think it is. But what is interesting about this pervasive desire is that we often work so hard against it. We are so scared to open up and be ourselves, because it could mean being rejected. So we hide from others and even ourselves. We put on masks to so that others will like us, but the problem is, they end up not liking the real us only the fake us. And we know that. That's why we say things like, "If you REALLY knew me..."

So how do we get to the place where we don't have to hide any more? We have to realize that there is One who already fully knows us (1 Cor. 13:12). We have to realize that He was exposed and rejected on the cross so that we wouldn't have to fear or face ultimate rejection. There is no one who knows us better than God and no one who can love us better than Him. He loved us first (1 John 4:19) while we were sinners (Romans 5:8). Knowing this is what gives us the freedom to be ourselves before others. We don't have to hide anymore. We can be real because He whom we were created for knows us fully and loves us completely.

By the way, I don't know of a better expression of this longing to be deeply known and loved than Alanis Morisette's song, "That I would be good." No explanation needed. Just watch and listen:

True freedom vs. the freedom of affluence

Our present idea of freedom is only the freedom to do as we please: to sell ourselves for a high salary, a home in the suburbs, and idle weekend. But that is a freedom dependent upon affluence, which is in turn dependent upon the rapid consumption of exhaustible supplies. The other kind of freedom is the freedom to take care of ourselves and of each other. The freedom of affluence opposes and contradicts the freedom of community life.”

Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound, pg. 135

The God Who Suffers

Nicholas Wolterstorff, highly respected Christian philosopher at Yale University, lost his 25 year old son to a mountain climbing accident in 1983. Four years later he wrote a book called Lament for a Son, where he lets the reader in to his thoughts as a grieving father. I highly recommend the book for any of you who have experienced the death of someone you loved or will ever experience the death of someone you love...meaning, I recommend to everyone.

One thought from the book that is especially relevant this week, as we begin thinking about Good Friday, is his thoughts on the God who suffers with us, the God of sorrows:

“God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. The pain and fallenness of humanity have entered into his heart. Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God…

And great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us., through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil.

Instead of explaining our suffering, God shares it.

But I never saw it. Though I confessed that the man of sorrows was God himself, I never saw the God of sorrows. Though I confessed that the man bleeding on the cross was the redeeming God, I never saw God himself on the cross, blood from sword and thorn and nail dripping healing into the world’s wounds.”

What does being filled with the Spirit mean?

Tim Keller offers his thoughts:

The first place in the New Testament that discusses the work of the spirit at length is in the gospel of John. Jesus considered the teaching so important that he devoted much time to it on the night before he died. When we hear of ‘spiritual filledness,’ we think of inner peace and power, and that may indeed be a result. Jesus, however, spoke of the Holy Spirit primarily as the ‘Spirit of Truth’ who will ‘remind you of everything I have said to you’ (John 14:17,26). The Holy Spirit ‘will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you’ (John 16:14). What does this mean?

‘Make known’ translates a Greek word meaning a momentous announcement that rivets attention. The Holy Spirit’s task, then, is to unfold the meaning of Jesus’s person and work to believers in such a way that the glory of it – its infinite importance and beauty – is brought home to the mind and heart. This is why earlier in the letter to the Ephesians, Paul can pray that ‘the eyes of your heart be enlightened’ (1:18), that they might ‘have power…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…’ (3:17-18). The Holy Spirit’s ministry is to take truths about Jesus and make them clear to our minds and real to our hearts – so real that they console and empower and change us at our very center.

To be ‘filled with the Spirit,’ then, is to live a life of joy, sometimes quiet, sometimes towering. Truths about God’s glory and Jesus’s saving work are not just believed with the mind but create inner music (Ephesians 5:19) and an inner relish in the soul. ‘Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…’ (verses 19-20). And because the object of this song is not favorable life circumstances (which can change) but rather the truth and grace of Jesus (which cannot), this heart song does not weaken in times of difficulty.

Some Thoughts on the Kingdom of God

One of the many theologians that students love to love here at Fuller is John Yoder. Until recently I haven't read much of him, but glad I finally did. I recently read an essay entitled The Original Revolution. It was rewritten from a sermon he preached in November of 1968. The bulk of the essay is talking about the (wrong) ways we typically deal with injustice in the world. Yoder says that we are either too passive, we use violence to stop violence, we retreat, or we remain in the world but segregated from it. The way of Jesus brings a new way of living together where we incarnate our values in the way we live our lives among the world, all because we are expectant of the coming kingdom (or rule) of God.

Towards the end of the essay, he talks about a danger in evangelicalism of confusing the benefits of the kingdom with the kingdom itself. I thought it was spot on and worth sharing:

"Protestantism, and perhaps especially evangelical Protestantism, in its concern for helping every individual to make his own authentic choice in full awareness and sincerity, is in constant danger of confusing the kingdom itself with the benefits of the kingdom. If anyone repents, if anyone turns around to follow Jesus in his new way of life, this will do something for the aimlessness of his life. It will do something for his loneliness by giving him fellowship. It will do something for his anxiety and guilt by giving him a good conscience. So the Bultmanns and the Grahams whose 'evangelism' is to proclaim the offer of restored selfhood, liberation from anxiety and guilt, are not wrong. If anyone repents, it will do something for his intellectual confusion, by giving him doctrinal meat to digest, a heritage to appreciate, and a conscience about telling it all as it is.

So 'evangelicalism' with its concern for hallowed truth and reasoned communication is not wrong; it is right. If a man repents it will do something for his moral weakness by giving him the focus for wholesome self-discipline, it will deep him from immorality and get him to work on time. So the Peales and the Robertses who promise that God cares about helping me squeeze through the tight spots of life are not wring; they have their place. BUT ALL OF THIS IS NOT THE GOSPEL. This is just the bonus, the wrapping paper thrown in when you but the meat, the ‘everything’ which will be added, without our taking thought for it, if we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness!”

What does it mean to fear God?

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been reading a book by Ellen Davis called Getting Involved With God: Rediscovering the Old Testament. I'm really enjoying the book, as each chapter continues to provide great insight into certain stories and books from the Old Testament.

The latest chapter I read was on the book of Proverbs. She makes several good points about what wisdom is really all about (namely that wisdom is never abstracted from goodness and how we live our lives), but what stuck me the most is her thoughts on the fear of God. Proverbs says that the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. Davis points out that Proverbs consistently "upholds fear as a healthy and necessary disposition toward God. That in itself is to modern readers one of the most offensive things in the Old Testament." So why are we usually so offended by this? What does it mean to fear God?

She says that fear is something we feel in our gut when we come upon the power of God. She continues,

From a biblical perpective, there is nothing neurotic about fearing God. The neurotic thing is not to be afraid, or to be afraid of the wrong thing. That is why God chooses to be known to us, so that we may stop being afraid of the wrong thing. When God is fully revealed to us and we 'get it,' then we will experience the conversion of our fear.

I really like the way she explains this. I am often afraid of the wrong things, mainly being afraid of what people think of me. I desire a healthy fear of God that makes silly fears like that disappear.

I love the way she ends the chapter:

The time comes in every life--and more than once--when we are personally confronted with the power that spread out the heavens like a sequined veil, that formed us out of dust and blew breath into our lungs, that led Israel through the Red Sea on dry land and left Pharaoh's whole army floating behind. If we can experience that power close up and not be gripped in out guts by the disparity between God and ourselves, then we are in a profound state of spiritual slumber, if not acute mental illness. 'Fear of the LORD' is the deeply sane recognition that we are not God.

How the Song of Songs Helps Us Better Understand Love for God

One of the books I'm reading for my Christian Ethics class this quarter is Ellen Davis's book Getting Involved With God: Rediscovering the Old Testament. She is basically looking at various books and passages in the Old Testament and revealing how important they are for us today. So far it has been an excellent book.

In one of the chapters, she explains how beneficial the Song of Songs is for the church today. She points out how we have often misunderstood this book and many of us consider it to be a little too racy to be in the Bible. However, the Song is incredibly beneficial to us because it speaks of divine love and sexual love as a healthy expression and desire in the midst of covenantal faithfulness.

One thing she points out how toward the end of the chapter is how the Song affirms that "longing for intimacy with God is a necessary desire for a healthy soul." She goes on to mention how there are two kinds of love of God. The first is grateful response to experiencing God's mercy, generosity, and blessing. This is frankly how I generally understand love for God and probably the way most of us do. However, look at how she explains this second love:

But there is another love that is even more precious. It arises in us not from anything God has done for us, but spontaneously, becuase our souls were made to delight simply in God's being, and God's being with us. One great modern mystic, Rav (Rabbi) Abraham Isaac Kook, taught that all the rich imagery of the Song of Songs exists precisely for the sake of making vividly real this rare love that does not derive form material benefits. The Song shows us love in its purest form.

i was struck by this because it's hard for me to think of times I don't express love for God apart from seeing his love or grace given to me. I'm reminded that God is worthy of my love purely because he is God, before I benefit from anything he gives me (including forgiveness, sonship, etc.). His majesty and glory and holiness and beauty are aspects that I need help seeing. I'm thankful that the Spirit is alive and is faithful to increase this type of love for him.

Letting the Clean Breeze of the Centuries Blow Through Our Minds

I recently started reading On the Incarnation by Saint Athanasius. It was written about 1700 years ago (in 319). Appropriately, C.S. Lewis writes the brilliant introduction and gives fantastic advice about reading older books. Many of you have probably heard bits of this quote before, but I wanted to share it again its fuller context. I have joyfully lived by this philosophy ever since I first heard it (I've actually started having the opposite problem -- not reading many new books). I hope it will encourage you in the same way:

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium...The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him...It has always been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.

(...)

...Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old...A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light...It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books..Where [modern books] are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.

Being afraid of being alone

Francis Schaeffer:

“People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark of our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people’s lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid having to face their own existence. . . .

No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place of quiet — because, when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise. . . .

The Christian is supposed to be very opposite: There is a place for proper entertainment, but we are not to be caught up in ceaseless motion which prevents us from ever being quiet. Rather we are to put everything second so we can be alive to the voice of God and allow it to speak to us and confront us.”

(via)

Encounter with Aslan: The Dawn Treader

My favorite Aslan encounter in the Narnia series comes from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace, who had been turned into a dragon, is explaining to Edmund how he got turned back into a boy:

"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it -- if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."

"You mean it spoke?"

"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on top of this mountain there was a garden -- trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well."

"I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells -- like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not."

I was just going to say I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that is what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales started coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it deals after an illness, or if I was a banana. In a minute of two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down to the well for my bathe."

"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin tore off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe."

"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I had looked at myself in the water I knew that it had been no good."

"Then the lion said -- but I don't know if it spoke -- 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back and let him do it."

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I had no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them."

"After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me -- "

"Dressed you? With his paws?"

"Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes – the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think that it must have been a dream."

"No, it wasn't a dream," said Edmund.

"Why not?"

"Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been -- well, un-dragoned, for another."

"What do you think it was then?" asked Eustace.

"I think you've seen Aslan", said Edmund.

Encounter with Aslan: The Silver Chair

I've been reading through The Chronicles of Narnia recently, since I received them for Christmas. It is my very first time through and I am loving them. It's opened up a new world of C.S. Lewis for me, as this is the first of his fiction that I've read. Not surprisingly, I love his way with words and his imagination.

My favorite moments of the books have been the encounters with Aslan. I finished The Silver Chair last night and wanted to share my favorite part of the book. It is a conversation between Jill, as she first meets Aslan:

“If you are thirsty, you may drink.”

They were the first words she had heard since Scrubb had spoken to her on the edge of the cliff. For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink,” and of course she remembered what Scrubb had said about animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time,and the voice was not like a man’s. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the lion.

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the lion.

“May I – could I – would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to – do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion – no one who had seen his stern face could do that – and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn’t need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once.

The News

Neil Postman, (from Amusing Ourselves to Death):

"How often does it occur that information provided you on morning radio or television, or in the morning newspaper, causes you to alter your plans for the day, or to take some action you would not otherwise have taken or provides insight into some problem you are required to solve?...most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action.”

...What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime or unemployment? ...What do you plan to do about NATO, OPEC, the CIA, affirmative action, and the monstrous treatment of Baha'is in Iran? I shall take the liberty of answering for you: You plan to do nothing about them.

...We have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing."

Dallas Willard, (from The Spirit of the Disciplines):

“Henry David Thoreau saw how even our secular existence withers from lack of a hidden life. Conversation degenerates into mere gossip and those we meet can only talk of what they heard from someone else. The only difference between us and our neighbor is that he has seen the news and we have not.”

The Difference Between Gutenberg and Zuckerberg

Neal Gabler (in the LA Times):

...Gutenberg's Revolution transformed the world by broadening it, by proliferating ideas. Zuckerberg's Revolution also may change consciousness, only this time by razing what Gutenberg had helped erect. The more we text and Twitter and "friend," abiding by the haiku-like demands of social networking, the less likely we are to have the habit of mind or the means of expressing ourselves in interesting and complex ways.

That makes Zuckerberg the anti-Gutenberg. He has facilitated a typography in which complexity is all but impossible and meaninglessness reigns supreme. To the extent that ideas matter, we are no longer amusing ourselves to death. We are texting ourselves to death.