Live Generously

I realize I’m probably about the zillionth person to post this video on their blog, but I just couldn’t resist. Anglican bishop and New Testament super scholar N.T. Wright was recently interviewed on the Colbert Report about his new book Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. I thought he did a pretty darn good job, and he actually managed to be pretty funny. Rumor has it Cookie Monster made an appearance earlier in the show, so this was quite a star-studded episode.

I am quickly becoming a big fan of Relevant magazine. It is a refreshing change from the status quo of the Christian media culture, and publishes interesting articles about, as their cover advertises, God, life, and progressive culture.  I appreciate the magazine’s ability to talk about matters of faith in a real way while remaining very much, well, culturally relevant.  Their cover stories are always great, but this issue’s was particularly good.

The story was called 7 Burning Issues, and it featured questions related to injustice, war, consumerism, faith, culture, politics, and gay rights.  You know, standard fare, nothing too difficult or controverisal ;-). To make it even better, the panel answering the questions included Brian McLaren, Shane Caliborne, N.T. Wright, and Jim Wallis, four of my favorite authors/thinkers/cool guys whose books you should all read. Their answers were all really fantastic…here are a few excerpts that really stuck out to me, with my comments in italics (hopefully this isn’t illegal!).

Wallis on social justice: “The message to Christians today is very clear.  Any gospel that isnt good news to poor people simply isn’t the Gospel of Jesus Christ; any evangelism that doesn’t include social justice ignores the perfectly integrated life and message of Jesus.

The false dichotomy of evangelism and social justice simply has to be overcome if either are going to have any sort of significant impact.  I’m reminding of a professor I had at Fuller last quarter who said that Christians must learn to “lead” with social justice, honesty, integrity, humility, and values of that sort, because if we simply “lead” with the four spiritual laws in a culture that doesn’t really much care we aren’t going to get anywhere.  That also kinda sounds like something Hal said yesterday morning in church…good works lead to good will that leads to the hearing of the good news.  There’s a lot of truth to that, and there is also a lot of truth to the idea that to be Christian is to be a person of good works.

McLaren on how we should respond to homosexuality: “When the issue of homosexuality comes up, people quickly say, “What about Romans 1? What about Leviticus?  What about 1 Corinthians 6?” I want to say, “Well, what about 1 Corinthians 13? What about James 3?”

McLaren is right on here.  Passages like 1 Corinthians 13 and James 3 must be our criterion for interpreting passages like Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6.  Does that mean we ignore what Romans 1 and 1 Cor. 6 say?  Certainly not.  It does simply mean that we seek to show love first.  Period.

Claiborne of interacting with culture: “part of what I think we have to do is not just figure out how we interact with the culture,  but create a new culture where we bring one another to life and call each other to the best of who God wants us to be.  So it’s not “How much secularism can I get away with?” but “How can I be set apart is a way that celebrates the distinctiveness of who we are as people in this world who are resident aliens?”

That point is absolutely huge.  At the end of the day it’s really about us as Christians changing the questions we are asking.  He is right to point out that many of us, myself included, are often seeking how much ’secularism’ or ‘worldliness’ we can ‘get away with’, which in my few reflects a major problem with our hearts.  It’s as if our goal is to resemble the world most closely, rather than setting ourselves about from the world for the purpose of living as the people of God.  I guess the question then becomes, are we willing to hold ourselves to the high standard that a new way of thinking would require of us?

And finally, N.T. Wright on money: “Money becomes a god very, very easily.  So giving it away cheerfully and wisely is a step towards really saying money is not the ruling force in our lives.”

I’m currently listening to an amazing series of messages by Andy Stanley at North Point Church where he is talking all about the heart.  One of the messages was on greed. He hammered home the point that prioritized, percentage giving is probably the most effective means of countering greed in our lives.  He added weight and credibility to the point by adding that if people are skeptical of him then they can give somewhere else.  He and Wright and correct is saying that the only way any of us can hope to get a handle on our greed is to make giving a priority.

So those are just a few small excerpts.  I highly encourage you all to pick up this issue and read the full article.  That’s all from me for now…I’m going on a mini technology fast now, so I won’t be back online until tomorrow afternoon.

For the last several weeks the folks over at Sojourners have done a series of posts on their God’s Politics blog (which is nearly always well worth reading) in recognition of the five year anniversary of the Iraq war. I have perused a few of them, and have found them to be at least interesting and at most insightful. I particularly enjoyed the always snarky Shane Claiborne’s post about celebrating Good Friday by going through the stations of the cross on the base of weapons juggernaut Lockheed Martin. I would expect nothing less from him.

I also enjoyed a post written last week by N.T. Wright (whose book I am currently reading) entitled Easter’s Challenge to Empire. In it, Wright talks through, well, the challenge that the truth of Easter brings to the empires of the world. And while Wright, in this instance, applies this concept specifically to issues of war and peace, I believe it is vital that–especially in the Easter season–we who claim to follow Jesus remain connected to the reality that his death and resurrection ushered in an entirely new way of living and an entirely new way of understanding reality (and an entirely new way of writing run-on sentences with too many commas). The whole post is well worth reading, but here are a few notable excerpts:

“It is the task of the followers of Jesus to remind those called to authority that the God who made the world intends to put the world to rights at last, and to call those authorities to acts of justice and mercy which will anticipate, in the present time, the future, coming, final victory of God over all evil, all violence, all arrogant abuse of power.”

“Where then is God in the war on terror? Grieving and groaning within the pain and horror of his battered but still beautiful world. Stirring in the hearts of human beings the desire for a more credible structure of global justice and mercy. Burning into the imagination of human beings a hope that peace and reconciliation might eventually win out over suspicion and hatred, that the world may be put to rights and that we may anticipate that in the present time. The Christian gospel, revealing the mysterious God we discover in Jesus and the Spirit, offers a framework for discerning where God is at work in the midst of the dangers and opportunities that confront us. All of us in our different callings are summoned to this task; some of you, perhaps, to make it your life’s work. Jesus is Lord. The Spirit is powerful. God is doing a new thing. Let’s get out there and join in.”

Good stuff. Ok, now I need to review the assigned reading so that I don’t look like a moron in class tonight.

So I know it’s been quite awhile since I last posted. There has been a lot going on and I have a lot I’d like to talk about. There isn’t a particular reason why I haven’t been posting…other than the fact that I’m lazy. It has been a good last couple of weeks, and here are a few things that have caught my attention:

1) We had a truly fantastic Easter last weekend at New Song. I certainly was not at my best, but I was very proud of our church. I thought everyone did a great job with Sunday morning, and we had a wonderful time of worship together on Sunday night. It was really a great day of celebrating the resurrected Christ.

2) During my spring break I read the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project. My dad, who is not a Christian, recently read the book and he seemed to like it, so I decided it was worth getting a copy of the book and giving it a read. I felt that Collins did a great job of showing how what he knows to be true from his scientific training and what he knows to be true as a Christian need not be seen as contradictory. It particularly recommend the book to those who are Christians and find theories such as young earth creationism and intelligent design to be intellectually unsatisfying. What I most appreciated about the book was Collins’ fair-mindedness. I felt he was very even-handed in his analysis of the various issues that he was considering, and he was cordial towards those with whom he disagreed. I never sensed that he was overly dogmatic, nor did I sense that he sought to belittle those with different persepctives. We need more people who can present their perspectives in the way that Collins does, particularly in the church.

3 ) The Bruins somehow made it to the Final Four. There were some tense moments along the way, but they made it. That is a good thing. The tournament has been a lot of fun this year and has produced several great games. Speaking of March Madness, while my bracket has totally stunk this year, my wife is currently in the 99.9 percentile on espn.com with her bracket. I am humbled and amazed.

4) I just started reading N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope the other day. N.T. Wright is a terrific scholar and I am always challenged by reading his writing. So far this book has been about the resurrection, and it appears so far to be a helpful theological corrective. He acknowledges that perhaps the biggest problem when it comes to understanding the resurrection and other issues of life-after-death and eschatology (end times stuff) is simply that many Christians don’t understand what the Bible actually says.

5) Last night at Seven24 we had a woman from Elam Ministries come and share. Elam works to distribute Bibles and otherwise equip the underground church in Iran. It was remarkable to hear stories of what God is doing in Iran. I was both inspired and challenged as I heard about the hunger that the Iranian people have for the Word of God. We have it so easy over here. Towards the end of her talk I asked the woman what we as American Christians in Southern California could learn from our brothers and sisters in Iran. She suggested that perhaps the church in America needs a little bit of persecution in order to wake us up spiritually (not her exact words, but that was the basic gist). I often wonder if she is right. I encourage you to click to their website above and read about some of the terrific work that Elam does.
6) School starts tomorrow. I’m very excited to have another class with Dr. Craig Hovey. He is by far the best professor I have had in my year and a half at Fuller. This class is on political theology and it promises to be a good one.

7) I recently subscribed to Relevant magazine and I have greatly enjoyed the magazine so far. They are speaking the language of twentysomethings at Relevant, and I’ve been impressed with several of the articles I have read. I particularly enjoyed a short essay from the most recent issue that I also just discovered is posted in its entirety here. The piece is called Will We Obey? and it’s written by a guy named Winn Collier. He begins by admitting his distaste for Christian cliches that over simplify faith (a distaste that I fully share), but he then turns the mirror inward and confesses that his frustration with oft cheesy Christian culture has led him to a place of spiritual passivity. In his words:

“I’m noticing the uncomfortable fact that I have used my distaste for Christian cliche as well as my desire for authentic faith illicitly, as a cover for my spiritual passivity. If I imagine everything must be so hard, so complex, so confusing all the time…If I believe honesty requires me to constantly rehash, rethink and circle round and round and round…then I excuse myself from the responsibility of trusting what I do know and from obeying God wherever ) and whenever) He has spoken clearly.”

Collier raises an important point. I believe we are right to acknowledge that faith is more complicated than perhaps we make it out to be, but we are in big trouble if we turn this acknowledgment into a tacit excuse for spiritual passivity. He goes on to quote the great Eugene Peterson, who once said that the most important question we can ask of a passage of Scripture, “What can I obey?” I was deeply convicted by the entire article, as I see in myself and others like me a desire to question and otherwise commiserate about various spiritual issues under the facade of seeking authentic spiritual maturity that is instead hiding a desire to avoid obedience (I’m not sure if that sentence made sense, but oh well). I wholeheartedly believe that questions are good, especially when it comes to faith. But I (we) must not use our questions as a sort of implicit excuse for obedience. Give the essay a read, it will take all of two minutes.

8 ) I got to hang out with my buddy James on Saturday morning. We had a great time talking about our lives and working through various theological issues we have been struggling with. He just returned from Uganda, and is working on starting a great socially pro-active business called Acholi Beads.

9) And finally, I’m teaching on a particularly important passage of Scripture from Mark 9 this weekend. I spent a couple of hours at a coffee shop today studying for the message, and I’m really looking forward to writing the rest of it. It is my hope and prayer that we will have an honest, convicting, and encouraging discussion together this week at Seven24.

That’s it for now…I probably could have written a whole post about all of the above items, but I wanted to at least make a brief mention of all of them. I’ll try to post a little bit more regularly this week…

N.T. (Tom) Wright, a bishop in the Church of England and one of my favorite theologians, recently did an interview with Time magazine discussing the concept of heaven. It was fascinating to read the thoughts of such a respected voice in the Christian world speaking about a subject that is so widely discussed in the Christian world. My church recently finished a series on heaven, and Randy Alcorn’s book Heaven has certainly created quite a buzz in evangelical circles. I appreciate the way that Wright sort of sets the record straight on a number of misconceptions that many of us have about heaven (I gotta say, I’m a little bummed about not getting a harp). The entire interview is well worth reading and can be found here. One thing that I particularly appreciate about much of Wright’s thought is that he focuses heavily on the implications of who God is and who he calls us as a people to be. Those subjects are dealt with extensively in his books Simply Christian and Following Jesus, both of which I wholeheartedly recommend. I’m anxious to take a look at his new book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, because judging by the title it will clearly dive even deeper into these ideas. I guess I just get frustrated at times because it seems like we’re so fascinated with trying to figure out what heaven will be like and yet we’re so often disinterested in beginning to live like heaven on Earth (I’m as guilty as anyone on this). I’ll close with a quote from the interview where Wright touches on the New Testament concept of rebirth and renewal and how that is sometimes at odds with traditional “Christian” understanding.

Much of “traditional” Christianity gives the impression that God has these rather arbitrary rules about how you have to behave, and if you disobey them you go to hell, rather than to heaven. What the New Testament really says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, and his resurrection was the opening bell. And when he returns to fulfill the plan, you won’t be going up there to him, he’ll be coming down here.

That’s great stuff from a great scholar. I certainly believe that coming to this sort of an understanding of rebirth, renewal, and heaven has the potential to radically transform the way we think about what it means to follow Jesus.