The Lutheran Insulter

Entering Conversations On Race as a White Male

The interview below was conducted as part of a broader project to end racism and racial injustice called "Giving Up Racism"  

Matt is a staff member of the christian para-church college outreach "Intervarsity" as the communications coordinator with InterVarsity's Multiethnic Ministries department.

He's on a mission to find new ways to bring the healing power of the Gospel into the broken relationships that exists between races.

If you are interest in supporting his ministry check out the link below:

Support Matt

The Liturgy of the Heart

This week a few friends and I looked through Jeremiah 7:1-15. It's a text that doesn't get looked at a whole lot. Most Sunday lectionaries don't included it (I believe the Anglicans are the only ones), and few people spend a lot of time reflecting on the beauty and power of the Prophets in their personal study.

I think one of the reasons for this is that people often think that prophets are too difficult to understand.

This is a shame. 

The prophets offer us a glimpse into the heart of ancient Israel in a powerful way that goes beyond history and dogma.

The prophets offer a living liturgy in which true worship is defined. They not only teach God's people about the outward forms of worship, but the inner heart.

The prophets take the forms of liturgy and religion, turn them upside down, shake them around, strip off the outward appearances and display the heart beneath it all. The prophets remind us that the Liturgy is a dance that must by performed to the beating of the heart of God. There are few places that do this more powerfully then the passage in  Jeremiah 7:1-15.

This is a summons to repentance. The prophet issues a call to repentance to a people who are trusting in The Temple to save them while they are under siege from their enemies. They seem to think that God will not allow his house to be destroyed. Jeremiah's words cut against this. He proclaims a pending judgement. His mood is seems relatively hopeless. The picture is bleak, the light is faint, the scenario is dire. The mood that is set seems contrary to the genre. The genre calls people to repentance, but the context all but guarantees that the people will ignore the summons. One is left wondering why the prophet bothered in the first place. 

God’s problem with Israel is primarily that the people seek protection in their cult of worship but disgrace that very worship with their wickedness. The lives of God’s people do not reflect the character and love of the God whom they claim to worship. All of the other condemnations seem to flow from this central concern. God declares that they are creating a name of injustice for him by daring to enter his house while practicing injustice. They have the gall to enter the temple after they steal, commit adultery, bear false witness, worship other gods and murder. God’s house has become a den of thieves because they do these things rather than turning to God’s ways. These ways are to care for the widow, the orphan, the innocent, and the alien.

God’s house is called by His name, but his people live in a way that offends God. Therefore they will be cast out. It is not wise to trust in the House of God, if you offend the God who dwells there in your life, hope and worship. Do not hope in the Temple, for you have condemned it by turning away from the one who it claims to seek and reflect.

Therefore the people are called to look to a former dwelling place of God. The land of Shiloh was a place where worship of God used to happen but at the time of the prophecy this land has become utterly destroyed. God tells those who hope in The Temple that their fate will be the same.

This Passage Teaches Us Four Things 

1. The Temple does NOT guarantee salvation
1. Verses 4 “Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’”
2. Alluded to in 8; the “deceptive words” referenced to point to The Temple itself as a place of hope
2. God is not bound to a particular place
1. Verse 12 - “But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.”
3. Your place in worship actually condemns you rather than saves you
1. The people are doing the things listed in verse 9. Therefore they have degraded the house into a “den of thieves” 11.
2. Verse 10 points out how foolish it is to come as unrepentant wicked people to a Holy God and expect him to deliver you.
4. God desires a place that is worthy of God’s own self
1. Verses 3 states that God desires his people to amend their ways
2. Do the things in verse 5, do not do the things in verse 9.
3. As Shiloh was cast out for wickedness in verse 12, so too will he cast out  the people in Jerusalem. God is actually more than willing to destroy a place where the worship of God reflects hypocrisy.

The pericope is framed by statements that seem to guarantee that the people will be judged and there is nothing they can do about it. However the form of this segment we are looking at is a call to repentance. Why would the prophet bother calling a people to repentance if he knows that they will not listen?

It seems as if it is issued as a call to be heeded by those who look back and wonder what went wrong. The text is something of a time capsule sent into the future. It proclaims a promise that will not be grasped and a paradigm that will not be believed.

At the same time the message is still delivered primarily to the people who are living at the time and hearing the message. God is instructing his people at all times and places in what right worship looks like, but he is doing so in a context that is particular. Jeremiah embodies a theology of worship in his own time, and calls his people to do the same. Although he does not expect them to listen, he can preach no other message.

The Church today can often be a place very similar to the temple cult at the time of Jeremiah. Many people do not see how faith relates to their spiritual life. Many people think it is acceptable to be united to systems that oppress extort those around them, but still think that because they are a part of a Church that they are “alright” with God. This passage cuts across this tendency. It points out that a heart filled with malice and greed cannot come into the house of the Lord unrepentant and expect safety, rather they can expect the wrath to be that much greater. To him (or her) who has been given much, much can be expected. Theology and praxis are two themes that cannot be separated. You can’t have one while ignoring the other.

The passage also cuts to the heart of one of the sins that ministers can fall into. It can be easy to speak words that comfort the church. Jobs are more secure when you support the status quo. Being a minister of the Gospel is not about pleasing those who come to worship. Being a minister of the Gospel is about pleasing the One who is being worshiped. In fact there is a very real way in which whom we seek to please points out whom we seek to worship.

The Christian life is not about becoming a better you, or having your best life now. Rather it is joining into a new economy of humility. We do not exalt ourselves, our churches, or our leaders. We offer them in love for the life of the world. In this way we imitate Christ himself who gave up his flesh for the life of the world. For in the person of Jesus we see what The Temple was intended to be. Jesus points to God in all he does, but in doing so he practices justice. He sets people free, reaches out to the alien, and has mercy on the broken. In the flesh of Christ we have a true temple and in the Holy Spirit we can become true worshipers in that sacred place.

Two Outlines

  Listed below are two outlines of the form of the text. The first one describers what is going on in broader sections (the flesh). The second outline seeks to examine the parts and their relationship with one another in a more detailed manor, but with less commentary (the bones).

Here is a basic look at the flesh of the structure:1-2a

The pericope is contextualized here. We see where the prophet stands when he delivers the oracle. This is a significant narrative. The prophet Jeremiah stands in the Gate of The Temple. This is significant because the oracle is directed against those who hope their hope in The Temple saying “הֵיכַ֤ל יְהוָה֙ הֵיכַ֣ל יְהוָ֔ה הֵיכַ֥ל יְהוָ֖ה הֵֽמָּה” in verse 4 below.

2b-4

This section begins the oracle with the word “שִׁמְע֣וּ” (hear). In this passage we have the command for the people to amend their ways this functions as an initial call to repentance (A1) and a result of God dwelling in The Temple (B2). This sets up some parallelism that this is expanded in the next section. This section ends with the admonition about trusting in The Temple.

5-7

These verses seem to expand the initial summons to repentance laid out in verse three. It functions as a restatement. It begins with a condition of related to amending the ways (A2) and ends with the promised result of being able to live in the place (B2).

8-11

The word הִנֵּ֤ה (Behold) indicates a transition in the text. In verses 9-10 a case is made against the people through asking two sets of questions. The first set of questions focuses on specific things that the people are guilty of. The second “set” is really just one question that brings the focus back to The Temple. These questions point to a guilty people that are now reflecting their wickedness back on God because they are bringing their injustice into his house without shame.

12-15

This final section uses history to condemn the people. God reminds the people that he used to be worship in Shiloh. This fact did not keep God from allowing that place to become desolate. In the same way he tells the people that he will cast them out.

Here is a basic look at the bones of the structure:

Admonition

1. Messenger Formula (1-3a)
2. Command Promise 1 with Prohibition
1. Command (3b) (commend your ways)
2. Promise (3c) (God will dwell in The Temple)
3. Prohibition (4) (trusting in The Temple alone)
4. Reason is missing here
3. Command/promise 2 (restatement of 1) with Accusation
1. Command (5-6) (amend ways and care for)
1. Alien
2. Orphan
3. Widow
4. Innocent Blood
2. Promise (7)
3. Restatement of prohibition as Accusation (8) ( You trust in deceptive words)
1. Accusation through Question 1 (9-10)
1. Theft
2. Murder
3. Adultery
4. False witness
5. Idolatry
2. Accusation through Question 2 (11a)
1. re-contextualization of Accusation - bring it back into The Temple (The fact that they do these things and still can show their face proves that they are transforming The Temple itself into a “den of thieves.”)
4. Reason (12-15) in the form of a threat (by example of Shiloh - the first place of worship)
1. Poetic Parallelism of guilt (13)
1. When I spoke you(A) did not listen(B)
2. You did not answer (B1) when I called (A1)
2. Poetic Parallelism of Consequence (14-15)
1. I will make the new place of worship like the old (Temple vs tabernacle in Shiloh)
1. Verse 14 lays out the consequence (I will do to you like Shiloh)
2. Verse 15 lays out the method (cast you out of my sight)

Entrapment: The Biblical Art of Cloak and Dagger Rhetoric

I remember when I was in middle school I had a teacher who began class by teaching me of a strange tribe of people that was just discovered called the Nacirema. He described all sorts of odd behaviors that they were discovered to be doing. He told me that the tribe believed that the human body was ugly and that naturally diseased. They fear their bodies becoming more ugly so man's only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of ritual and ceremony every household has one or more shrines devoted to rituals to prevent such progression. Some of the rituals were odd. They applied holy water found in their shrines to their faces and mouths multiple times a day. They preformed ritual purification of their mouths once a year my a mystical healer. Thier women had monthly ceremonies where they placed their heads in ovens, and there were many more odd things that he described to us.

In the end he revealed that Nacirema was American spelled backward. I had been tricked into judging my own society as absurd and was forced to evaluate my culture from a more critical vantage point.

My Teacher had employed an ancient rhetorical device known as entrapment.

Entrapment is essentially framing your message in such a way that the real meaning is not revealed until the listener has engaged themselves fully. The listener is forced to render judgement on themselves when the curtain is pulled back and the subject of judgment is shown to be the hearer.  

This is a somewhat frequint rhetorical device in scripture.

David is trapped by his verdict against the man who killed the lone sheep when the prophet Nathan reveals that HE himself is the man who "killed" the lone "sheep" of Uriah in 2 Samuel 12:1-13.

The prophet Amos entraps the Israelite people in his “Oracle Against the Nations” (Amos 1-2) when he reveals at the end of a list of nations upon which the wrath of God had been kindled that the  people worthy of the most wrath are the listeners themselves. They are caught in a fervor of "amens" only to be confronted with their own sin.

Isaiah 5:1-7 tells a story of a classic covenant lawsuit, but spins the story at the end and condemns the judges (this very theme Jesus picks up in his own parable based about this story in Matthew 21:33-45 where he uses the expectations set up by this entrapment to condemn the people of his own time.)

This same technique is also used in a short book in the Bible called Zephaniah.

Zephaniah is one of the first prophetic voices to emerge after a period of relative prophetic silence during the reign of a kind opposed to the worship of יְהוָ֤ה called King Manasseh.

Zephaniah seems to take on the rhetorical style of his prophetic predecessor Isaiah by incorporating entrapment.

He moves from Judgment on Israel's Enemies found in 2:1-15 to the Wickedness of Jerusalem condemned in 3:1-7 without indicating he is doing so.  He begins talking about Jerusalem as the הָעִ֖יר הַיּוֹנָֽה (tyrannical city) and leads the listeners to condemn the judgment against the rulers, the priests, the prophets, and even the city itself. Then in verse 5 the listener learns the city is the place where  יְהוָ֤ה dwells.

Has anyone experienced entrapment in their own life as an effective way to humble you and bring you to repentance.

Part of the reason we have the season of Lent is to allow ourselves to be put in a vulnerable place so that we might become convicted of our hidden faults.

I pray that God would allow me to become entrapped this season.

Why did Protestants Remove the Apocrapha (Deuterocanonical) Books of the Bible

Help Me Give Up Racism for Lent

Giving Up Racism: My Project

Today marks the beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday. Every year millions of Christians give up certain foods and activities for the 40 days (not including Sundays) leading up to Easter.

This year, in addition to my regular dietary restrictions, in honor of Black History Month, which we are in the midst of and in the spirit of corporal works of mercy for Lent, I have decided to give up racism for Lent.

Although I generally don't think of myself as a racist, I can recognize in myself a lot of white privilege I take for granted and I know that I often participate in structures that prolong the oppression of minority races here in Chicago and the nation at large.

I would like to stop doing this, but I know it's going to be hard.This is where I need help. I don't know the first thing about not being a racist. My friend Dominique Gilliard made a bibliography for me this month, as well as linking to a number of videos on the subject. Compiling these resources I have decided to create a project to help me learn with others about what it means to be a Christian in a world of racial tensions. Will you help me? Take a look at the resources below and JOIN IN the project.

Giving up Racism: Reading List

• Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice,  Peace and healing
• Let Justice Roll Down by John M. Perkins 
• The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice from the Civil Rights Movement to Today by Charles Marsh 
• A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Clayborne Carson, 
• Race Matters by Cornel West
• Linking Arms, Linking Lives: How Urban-Suburban Partnerships Can Transform Communities
• Who Is My Neighbor? Lessons Learned From A Man Left For Dead
• Jesus and The Disinherited 
• White Privilege by Paula S. Rothenberg (Feb 9, 2011)

I know I can't make it through all of these alone! This is where you come in.

How you can help

If you would like me to help me please to the following four things:

1. Choose ONE of the books above to read
2. READ THE BOOK
3. Come back here and post FIVE things you learned from the book that will help people like me be less racist!
4. Decide one action that you can do to help you and your own culture to become less racist, Post that idea too

Post the book that you will be reading in the comments section below!

Giving up Racism: Video Playlist

If you don't have time to read a whole book at least check out the video playlist on racism I just created on YouTube.

 

Watch Now

The first 3 set of videos that go together are a study that a teacher, Jane Elliot, did with her 3rd grade class in Riceville, Iowa just days after Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis TN. April 4 1968. As you watch, think of the courage it took her to do this assignment, the potential backlash that she knew she would face, & think about what the motivating factors behind her doing this could have been, because living in Riceville, Iowa she sure had the option not to do it, because "it wasn't there issue there in Iowa" in that part of the country.

Freedom Riders

You should also check out the documentary "Freedom Riders"

 

Watch Now

Where did the Sign of The Cross come from?

This Wednesday millions of Christians will gather in churches and receive a cross on their foreheads. In doing this they will be marked with the same sign, in the same spot as millions of Christians have done before for nearly 2000 years. Where did this sign come from? Why is it used? and what did it mean to the earliest Christians?

As Lent approaches I invite you to explore the cross with me!

Much of the reason that the cross has persisted as a the central symbol for the christian faith is the fact that it uniquely expresses outwardly the interior convictions of the communities of faith that have delivered the faith down through history. The cross points to theological themes like atonement, sacrifice, incarnation and laying down your life. It is a visceral reminder to Christians that the work of God in Christ was a tangible expression of love in a bloody tactile way.

Although the cross was not the preeminent symbol of faith in the early church[1], it was the subject of a great deal of thinking by those who sought to teach the faith. These pedagogical pioneers drew inspiration from Hebrew scriptures and the Greek translation of the scriptures known as the Septuagint. In these texts they saw the cross as a symbol that was prefigured in a number of different places.

One of the major texts that early fathers looked at was Ezekiel 9:4. This passage states that a mark will be placed on the heads of certain inhabitants of Jerusalem. This mark was the taw, and in the Hebrew of the day it was written like a multiplication (X) sign or a plus (+). This sign had already been established in the Jewish tradition as a sign employed in funerary functions. The Christians were quick to pick up on this, and they connected the sign in Ezekiel with the sign that Jesus speaks of in connection to the son of man in Matthew 24:30.

The Taw had two counterpoints in the Greek script, the Χ (Chi) and the Τ (Tau). These two had connections in the minds of many early believers. The Chi is the first letter in the word Χριστός which is the word for Christ. The Tau already had a history in the church as having significance as a symbol of victory known as a Tropaion. It didn’t take long for these cross symbols to make their way into the piety of the early Christians, and it was taught by both Tertullian,[2] Justin Martyr,[3] Origen and Jerome.[4]

One of the most influential thinkers in the Latin tradition was a man named Tertullian. He believed the apostles themselves were martyred because they were the very ones of whom Ezekiel spoke who had been sealed on their foreheads with the letter tau, which, he explained, was like the Latin "T."[5] The cross was a symbol that one could point to as seen in not only Ezekiel 9:4 but also Exodus 12:22[6] where the Israelites apply a mark in blood over their doorposts to protect them from the Angel of death on the Night before they would leave slavery in Egypt in a Exodus passing through the Red Sea toward the promised land.

Another early christian thinker was a philosopher named Justin Martyr. He drew connections to the cross from all over the Hebrew scriptures.[7] He saw the cross in the form that Moses took as he held out his hands while the Israelites fought in Exodus chapter seventeen. He connected it to the blessing of Joseph in Deuteronomy[8] for he saw in the horn of the beast described[9] a picture of the cross. He saw the serpent of bronze raised up to save the Israelites[10] as a type and a sign that pointed to the cross as well. He sees the cross in the stance of the prophet Isaiah,[11] in the cry of dereliction from the psalmist[12] and wood of Noah’s ark.[13]

The symbol of the cross was not only seen in the writings of the past, but also in the worship life of the church at the time. The first place the cross had began to show up in the practices of the early church was connected to the practice of baptism. Baptism was seen as the place where you were marked with the cross. Just as the tau was placed on the heads of the Israelites in Ezekiel 9:4, so too the cross was placed as an invisible symbol on the heads of those who were united to the cross in baptism. The connection of baptism to the cross was first made by the Apostle Paul[14] and this theme was picked up and developed by many in the Early Church.

Ambrose of Milan, the fourth century bishop of Milan who became one of the original doctors of the church, connected the cross to baptism in such a way that he didn’t believe baptism was possible without the explicit connection. In his work De mysteriis he argues that the baptism is only consecrated as a result of the preaching of the cross. He compares the action of Moses casting the wood into the water in Exodus 15:25 to the declaration of the cross by the priest over the waters makes them “sweet for the purpose of grace.”[15] This was likely a reference to the making of the sign of the cross over the waters before a baptism as a form of exorcism.[16] Abrose also reflects on the role of the cross durring the second (of three) emissions. This immersion reflects on the work of the son and Ambrose sates that this action unites the baptised to the “sacrament of the cross.”[17]

Ephrem the Syrian, a fourth century hymnographer and theologian, also believed that the power of baptism was dependent on the power of the cross. He stated that you can not know forgiveness in the water of baptism unless it is built on the baptism of the the passion of Jesus Christ. Ephrem also described his own baptism as an act of bathing in the water that rushed out the side of Jesus[18] when his side was pierced with a lance.[19]

Augustine, arguably the most influential theologian in all of Christian history, pointed to the cross in baptism as a seal. He stated that since it was placed on the head of the baptised it should be the lense through which the life of the baptised is lived. This life hermeneutic of the cross should lead people to submit to the life and passion of Jesus. Augustine states that having the cross on your forehead means you have just as high of a call on your life to holiness as any priest or bishop.[20]

Augustine did not see the cross as a sign that was only symbolic in baptism. He also developed a number of metaphors in which the cross became the primary symbol. He saw the cross as a mousetrap where the death of Jesus so delighted the devil, the commander of death, that he was drawn into the trap and death’s power was lost.[21] A similar image is employed by Gregory of Nyssa where the cross becomes the bait, and the divinity of Christ is the hook that catches the devil.[22]

Augustine also read Matthew 5:15 allegorically, teaching that the lampstand that Jesus talked about that would not be hidden was the cross itself. The house that contained the lamp stand was the world, and the cross has the power to fill the whole world with light so that even those who killed Jesus would be able to become friends of God through the cross.[23]

Augustine also saw the cross as a chair upon which Jesus taught the world. On the cross He taught the thief beside him, the beloved disciple and His own mother. From the cross he sets an example for all Christians to learn by.[24] The cross in a sense become a cathedral from which Jesus most powerfully exercised his office as teacher.

The cross also becomes a Boat in Augustine’s thought. Although he acknowledges that philosophers are capable of knowing a great deal about God by observation of God’s creation, he believes they will never be able to reach God because of their pride. He says of them,

“They were able to see that which is, but they saw it from afar: they were unwilling to hold the lowliness of Christ, in which ship they might have arrived in safety at that which they were able to see from afar and the cross of Christ appeared vile to them. The sea has to be crossed, and do you despise the wood?”[25]

Only through the humility of Christ are men able to seek God in the humility required to approach Him.

One final image of the cross employed by Augustine draws on a word play in Latin. In the story of Zacchaeus found in Luke 19:1-10 we learn of a tax collector so short that he needed to climb up a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus as he passed by one day. Jesus sees him in the tree and calls to him. Zacchaeus comes down, meets with Jesus, and is converted. Augustine exhorts all people to be humble like Zacchaeus and climb up the tree of the cross. Then Christ can pick His followers like fruit from the tree. All people must love the cross and fit it on their foreheads. The Latin word for the fruit of the sycamore is translated “silly figs”. Augustine calls all christians to be “silly figs” that are found on the cross of Christ.

The cross was truly a powerful symbol for many of the early Christians. In it they found a way to live and a powerful medium to express truth. Often times it was an easy image to grab, but few of the early Christians spent a great deal of time trying to figure out where exactly the cross fit into a robust soteriology. As the cross moved from a symbol of salvation to a means of salvation it revealed that there was a lot of theology that was still undefined.

NOTES
[1] Barbara Baert and Lee Preedy, A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image (Boston, MA: Brill, 2004), 20. [2] Tertullian, “Against Marcion, Book III,” trans. Peter Holmes, New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03123.htm, (accessed February 14, 2012), 22. [3] Justin Martyr, “The First Apology,” trans. Marcus Dods and George Reith, New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm, (accessed February 14, 2012), 55. . [4] Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 141. [5] Tertullian, “Against Marcion, Book III,” 22. [6] Barbara Baert and Lee Preedy, A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image (Boston, MA: Brill, 2004), 19. [7] Justin Martyr, “Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters 89-108,” trans. Marcus Dods and George Reith, New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01287.htm, (accessed February 12, 2012). [8] Deuteronomy 33:13-17 [9] μονοκέρωτος in Greek, ראם in Hebrew. Both indicate a wild beast with horns, sometimes translated unicorn. [10] Numbers 21 4-9. [11] Isaiah 53:9. [12] Psalm 22. [13] Justin Martyr, “Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters 125-142,” trans. Marcus Dods and George Reith, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01289.htm, (February 14, 2012). [14] Romans 6, Colossians 2 [15] Ambrose, “On the Mysteries,” trans. H DeRomestin, E. DeRomestin, and H.T.F. Duckworth, New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3405.htm (Accessed February 20, 2012). [16] Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2009), 637. [17] Ibid, 643. [18] Ibid, 510. [19] John 19:34 [20]John Cavadini “Images of the Cross in Saint Augustine”, The Cross in Christian Tradition : From Paul to Bonaventure Elizabeth A. Dreyer, ed.,(New York :: Paulist Press,) 148. [21] Ibid, 154. [22] Gregory of Nyssa:, “The Great Catechism: Chapter XXIV,” Christian Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.xi.ii.xxvi.html, (Accessed February 20, 2012). [23] Cavadini, 155-157. [24] Ibid, 157-158. [25] Augustine, “Tractates on the Gospel of John: Tractate 2 (John 1:6-14),” trans. John Gibb, New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701002.htm, (Accessed February 20, 2012).

God ♥'s Religion

There has recently been a good deal of Religion bashing. Slogans like "religion kills" and "it's not a religion, it's a relationship" are common in the evangelical world. There was recently a viral video that has revived more then 19 Million views entitled "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus."

Hating religion is very popular.

Because of this it's easy to import the anti-religion bias into scripture. This seems to happen a lot when people read the writings of the prophets. The prophets write at times of crisis when the people of God have begun to turn their back on him, and God is not pleased with what they are doing.

This tendency can easily be interpreted by people with an anti-religon bias as God hating the religion of the people. This, however, is the furthest thing from the truth.

As I have read through the Eighth Century Prophets (Isaiah Hosea Micah Amos) over the last few weeks I have noticed  that although the prophets in the Old Testament condemn what people are doing, they are not condemning the structures and systems of their society in which the people are abusing.

• The king at the time might be condemned, but the HOPE is not for no king but rather for a king true to the heart of God who trust in the LORD.
• The people are called Harlots because they are seeking help from other nations (and other nations God's), but the solution is not to cease being a nation. RATHER God calls the people to be a nation that trust in His promises rather then the horses, chariots and deities of empires.
• Rituals are condemned for being empty, but the hope is not that rituals will pass away. RATHER the prophets call for rituals that flow from a life of justice and mercy and praise. God seeks rituals based in trust and obedience with righteousness and justice

The prophets don't condemn structures but they remind people of WHY structures exsist in the first place.

Worship if not a formula to gain favor today, but the means through which God shapes the people for participation in the economy of heaven.

This economy is one that seeks God and Neighbor about yourself. This economy values Justice over comfort. This economy sees the Humble exhaled and the exhaled made humble.

Religion is designed to be the school through which God leads people to this understanding. In fact it's the BEST way to teach people about how to live and worship with God. THAT is why it's so despicable when it is manipulated to try to gain power and influence for people in the economy of this world.

God's harsh words against the structures that existed in the days of Isaiah, Hosea, Micah  and Amos are not due to a HATRED of the structures, but a LOVE of them.

Hosea redeems his wife BECAUSE she is his wife

Micha keeps coming back to hope to a future of rituals with heart, not a future without them

Isaiah offers proclamations of a nation that trusts in God, rather then a world free of nations

Amos holds onto the promises of the covenant with Israel, not an undefined affection


All of these things are not being free from religion and structure, but actually receiving freedom from the structures themselves

Yes SYSTEMS FAIL but the bible points to a redemption and resurrection of religion rather then ruining and ravishing them.

Jesus, Aristotle, Courage, and the American Way

Ben Steel talks with Billy Kangas about what it means to be a man of virtue in light of Christ in the 21st century

Why I Need The Saints

Loosing my keys is on my list of top five most frenzy inducing life situations. In it’s very nature it strikes most often at times when I am already running late and need to be somewhere, (I don’t generally go looking for keys as recreation). Add to that the helplessness of not being able to find something, and I’m generally a mess. Suddenly the world has stopped, and can’t start again until I find my keys. Friends, Family, hygienic maintenance, these all become barriers to finding those prized pearls without which I find myself grounded and sedentary.

One such encounter with the dreaded loss of my primary means of entry into my car happened one June morning. My wife, Joan, and I were gearing up for a long trip to Michigan to visit family and we discovered that the keys were missing.

How could they be missing! We had to go! Soon I was turning up pillows, dumping out the contents of clothes hampers and rifling through the trash. Joan went outside and started to look around out there. Suddenly a thought came to me, almost like an assurance of where Joan had left the keys. I rushed into the other room and put my hand deep in the crack of my couch and triumphantly pulled out my car keys, they were just where I thought they would be!

I rushed out to tell my wife. Holding the keys in a clenched fist above my head primeval exhibition of victory I cried out, “I found them!”

Joan calmly looked back at me without missing a beat, and said, “well of course you did, I just prayed to saint Anthony.”

Saint Anthony is one of the hundreds of popular saints that help Catholics live their lives as better followers of Jesus. Saints are an powerful antidote to one of the maladies of human life that we all experience, vainglory. Vainglory is the perpetual human condition to be blowing ones own horn at all times and at all places. Its a natural tendency. In my own perspective I am the center of the universe. Judging the world through my own empirical data set I can easily come to the conclusion that I am the most important person there is.

I have never accomplished anything that I wasn’t a part of. There has never been an experience in my life I didn't take part in. Every morning I am the first person I encounter. Every night my own thoughts are what accompany me as i sleep. All the evidence seems to point to a world that’s all about me.

Of course we know that this is not the reality of the world. We all learned when we were children that other people have lives that we are not the center of. Every day things happen in the world that have nothing to do with us. We know we are not the center of the universe, but deep within us that is a narcissistic tendency that makes it difficult to see the world through other eyes. We can even bring this tendency to how we formulate ideas about God. This is referred to at the heresy of selective theology.

Selective theology shows up in many ways. When I choose to make one doctrine more important then another simply because I feel more comfortable with it, that’s selective theology. When I choose to only use ideas about God that I can get my head around, that’s selective theology. When I look at how my church does things and decide that that is the best way to worship God, that’s selective theology. The list could go on and on.

The problem is viewing faith as something that I HAVE rather then something WE have as a community of faithful throughout time. Saints are a good corrective to the problem of selective theology. They connect us to lives and people throughout time, and around the world. they open our eyes to the ethnocentrism, nationalism, philosophical assumptions and the oligarchy of the living. Saints offer a democracy of the dead to us. They are living voices that can speak into a living faith and open up worlds to us that we never could understand without them.

All you Holy men and women, inspire us, teach us. open our eyes to the greatness and glory of God, and pray for us!

What is prophecy and how do we recognize it?

Last week I started a debate on facebook about the charismatic movement and it's compatibility with the Lutheran tradition that I grew up in. I have always had a love for charismatics, but have often run into people within the Lutheran church that do not agree with my stance on the issue.

This really brought home an age old question: What is prophecy and how do we recognize it?

How does one tell a prophet sent by God from one not sent by God?

It's easy to look back at the Prophets in the Bible and simply say God spoke then, but won't speak now. This provides a list of prophets that have been approved by the church. If you want to know if a prophet is genuine all you have to do is see if he's in the Bible. If he's not then you can just throw him out.

This is not a healthy approach to prophecy. It might be easy, but it limits God to someone who used to speak, but has stopped. It can even imply that God is limited in his power in some way.

Another option is that of the appraiser.

In this context a person who says they have a word from God is put in lockdown. Their teachings are evaluated in the light of the scripture and the creeds. Their writings are scrutinized. Their theology is tested.

This is a better option, because it allows God to speak, but it too has it's problems. It limits God to only being able to speak through people who have all their theological ducks in a row. By this test many prophets in the Bible would have trouble. Sometimes the message of the prophets was condemned by the religious establishment of their day, and sometimes not so perfect people were called to speak the word of the Lord. Saul prophesied in one place and he doesn't have the best track record of being faithful to God. There is even the story of balaam's ass speaking at one point.

On the other end there are people who say they speak from God, but they speak messages of driven by greed, pride and power. Many false prophets have come and led many people into danger. These people are not rare. Every generation seems to have a handful of would-be-prophets. If we accepted everyone who said that they had a message from God things would get out of control pretty fast.

At this point I don't really have a great answer. How can we recognize that God has spoken to people throughout history and can still speak through people in history, and yet avoid manipulation and narcissism from taking over.

Here is my simple rule... test the message.


It seems that most false prophets that have come along could be easily recognized by people who have a decent amount of biblical literacy and some training in historic Christian theology.

This is why false teachers often discourage their followers from getting a good theological education, and mock people who desire to go "deeper" in their faith.

If a leader wants to give you a message from God, but doesn't want you to delve deeply into the Word of God you know you have a problem. A message from God will point to the action of God. A prophet does not come to tell you to be nice to everyone. A prophet comes to call a people called by God to remember what God has done, is doing, and promises to do.

This is Centered in Jesus.

If Jesus can be removed from the prophecy and the message remains essentially the same you are probably dealing with a false prophet.

How do you understand sacrifice in light of Christ?

Some people today point to a golden era in church history where everyone got along. This golden age simply did not exist. Within the pages of the New Testament there are many accounts of warring factions vying for the authoritative interpretation of who and what Jesus was and what and how Jesus did whatever it was that Jesus did.

The theological discussions within the church in the earliest days were ugly.

Sometimes the fights were conflicts in personality or preference, but more often the conflicts were between contrasting worldviews.

There was a clash of two worldviews within the early church and how those worldviews were resolved would forever change how Christians spoke about God. On the one hand there were Greek thinkers, who looked to Greek philosophy to form their ideas about the world and God. On the other hand there were those influenced by Hebrew though. These believers drew from a Hebrew worldview of God and history.

Many of the Greek thinkers were deeply influenced by the ideas of Platonism. They believed that our physical existence was simply a shadow of a higher reality and God was a unchangeable force so beyond the world that nothing we could do could ever impact God’s mind or heart or decisions. They did not see the death of Christ as something that impacted God, but rather something that impacted man. Sacrifice was something that you did in order to make yourself welcome with God. It was the fulfilment of a vow (The Other Christs, Moss). Sacrifice was a gift.

The Hebrew understanding was somewhat different. God was seen as personal and involved in the life and History of humankind, in particular the life of the Jewish people. God was at work in the world seeking to accomplish a goal. As his people walked in ways contrary to the plans that God had instructed them in they were required to sacrifice. This was not seen as much as an act that was only impacting the giver, but they actually believed the sacrifice could touch God in some way. Sacrifice was expiratory and propitiated a wronged deity (Gorday. Origen’s Theology of The Cross, 108).

For there to be any serious consensus on what the Cross actually did there would have to be a great deal of thinking within the Early Church.

Why people with masculine gender identity hate going to Church

Over the weekend I read through a book called Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow. I got a free copy from Thomas Nelson and figured it was worth a read.

And it was worth a read. There was a lot of good insights that were expressed. I found myself inspired at many times while reading through the book. As a man in professional ministry there is a lot I have experienced that he has warned against and I will be much more thoughtful in the future so that I can communicate the faith to people in the most effective ways as possible.

HOWEVER

I won't recommend this book to any members of my church. There were a lot of assumptions about masculinity and I think that giving someone this book might cause more harm then good.

Although David tries to make it clear that the assumptions about masculine preferences are not limited to men, the feel of the whole book make me feel uneasy. For a book that seeks to inform pastors and church leaders on how to have a properly nuanced sensitivity toward gender there is very little care given to how this might be revived by a man or women who does not fit neatly into a gender box.

In light of recent comments by John Piper it is more important then ever for people to stand up for feminine christian expression.  The book is dismissive of these sorts of expressions and I think can be hurtful to people of both sexes.

It was a good message BUT it was not wielded with enough care.

ALSO


I was struck by David's anti-liturgical bias. I find it interesting that he spends time criticizing the praise songs that are sung and the feeling oriented worship of his own tradition, but still manages to point to these sorts of worship experiences as more "masculine" compared to liturgical traditions that are represented as drawing in males in spite of themselves.

David, there is a reason that the Orthodox don't suffer a "gender gap" and that when songs like "A mighty fortress is our God" are sung men start showing up.

Is WHERE, WHEN and HOW Jesus died important?

Although the Early Church did not use the cross in the overt and casual way we use it today, they still incorporated it into their theology, liturgy, and identity. When people look at the cross today they generally think of Christianity as a religion. When the first followers of Jesus looked at the cross they thought of it as a place in space and time and a seal that marks people of faith. The way that this twofold understanding manifested itself in the life, theology and worship of the early church is essential to understanding how they viewed the work and death of Christ and the place that death had in their own lives.

The Place
The place of the cross was centered on the historical event of the crucifixion of Jesus. Christians and historians alike generally agree that Jesus was killed on an actual cross made from an actual tree. The cross was set up on a area that was called Golgotha, which was located just outside of a real city called Jerusalem. Jesus was hung on that cross at an actual time, and died on the cross at an actual time, which was around three in the afternoon according to Luke 23:44. As early Christians began to reflect on the historical reality of the cross they began to realize that the cross was a historical event that was so important that the it’s effects were still actively being experienced in their own lives. They believed that the cross spoke a word from God that, when received, could actually bring about salvation across all time.

The entire salvation event was seen as so connected to the historical cross that the Apostle Paul goes so far to point to the Gospel that he preached as a λόγος (word) that came from the cross itself. The historical cross was not just something that people looked to and remembered. It was seen as a active participant in the christian life. To be a christian meant to be united with Christ and the cross on which he was crucified. It is due to this understanding that Paul teaches that the cross is used in his own time, decades after the crucifixion, as an active force which reconciles Jews and Gentiles and a location upon which the χειρόγραφον (certificate of debt) recording transgressions is removed.
One of the Early fathers, Athanasius, saw the place of the cross is where the church is drawn into Christ.

In John’s Gospel Jesus declares that when he is “lifted up” he will draw all men to himself. Athanasius, and many other church fathers, belived that the place where Christ was lifted up was on the cross. They believed that on the cross Jesus made a way for all people to go to heaven. Athanasius was inspired by even the posture of Christ’s death. He states that,

“it is only on the cross that a man dies with his hands spread out. Whence it was fitting for the Lord to bear this also and to spread out His hands, that with the one He might draw the ancient people, and with the other those from the Gentiles, and unite both in Himself”(On the Incarnation, 25)

Even the very act of lifting Jesus was seen as having an effect on the cosmology of the spiritual realm. Athanasius points to Ephesians 2:2 as indicating that the air itself was a should be seen as a sphere of the devil, and that by Christ being lifted up into the air the Devil was overthrown and a way was made to heaven.