_awakening

Biblical Marriage?

The latest Newsweek has a fascinating cover article, entitled Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy, on the issue of what constitutes "biblical marriage." For those who appeal to the scriptures as a monolithic standard, the article carefully calls attention to the kinds of marriage found in the pages of the Bible:

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Later in the article, biblical scholar Alan Segal brings up a great point about the culture surrounding the authorship of the scriptures and it's difference from ours today.

In the Old Testament, the concept of family is fundamental, but examples of what social conservatives would call "the traditional family" are scarcely to be found. Marriage was critical to the passing along of tradition and history, as well as to maintaining the Jews' precious and fragile monotheism. But as the Barnard University Bible scholar Alan Segal puts it, the arrangement was between "one man and as many women as he could pay for." Social conservatives point to Adam and Eve as evidence for their one man, one woman argument—in particular, this verse from Genesis: "Therefore shall a man leave his mother and father, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." But as Segal says, if you believe that the Bible was written by men and not handed down in its leather bindings by God, then that verse was written by people for whom polygamy was the way of the world.

You may not agree with everything in the article, but it is indeed some good food for thought on culture and marriage.

[HT: NT Wrong]

Christianity's Image Crisis.

Not that this is any profound revelation, but...

The study shows that 16- to 29-year-olds exhibit a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations when they were at the same stage of life. In fact, in just a decade, many of the Barna measures of the Christian image have shifted substantially downward, fueled in part by a growing sense of disengagement and disillusionment among young people. For instance, a decade ago the vast majority of Americans outside the Christian faith, including young people, felt favorably toward Christianity’s role in society. Currently, however, just 16% of non-Christians in their late teens and twenties said they have a "good impression" of Christianity.

One of the groups hit hardest by the criticism is evangelicals. Such believers have always been viewed with skepticism in the broader culture. However, those negative views are crystallizing and intensifying among young non-Christians. The new study shows that only 3% of 16- to 29-year-old non-Christians express favorable views of evangelicals. This means that today’s young non-Christians are eight times less likely to experience positive associations toward evangelicals than were non-Christians of the Boomer generation (25%).

Sad... but oh, so true.

[taken from the article A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity, a write up about David Kinnaman's latest book, unChristian]

They Come To Die.

So I read this article this morning. It tells the story of a number of the widows in India who, shunned by society, come to the holy city of Vrindavan in order to await their death. I just couldn't shake it all day. It just broke my heart...

This is an absolute must read, including the photo gallery.

Faith and the iPhone.

Unless you've been living in a cave, the date of June 29th should be etched into your subconscious. It's the day that Apple finally releases the new iPhone [pause for a moment of reverence].

Anyway, with all the hype over the release you knew it was just a matter of time... the exploration of the endless connections between the iPhone and faith has begun. Today Andrew Sullivan tipped off his readers to this article on the faith and the newly approaching iPhone. Here's a sample...

Message here? The quest for, and appreciation of, beauty still exists in the world—and a bitten-into piece of fruit marks its vanguard.

As an amateur architecture buff I see a parallel at work. While the modernist project in design sought to exalt utilitarianism, banishing what it saw as a superfluous emphasis on the "decorative," the post-modern movement has restored the balance, as if to say, "Sure, functionality is helpful, but in our focus on function the uplift of something bigger went missing."

There's an analogy of faith in this. People want to belong to something that makes greatness manifest in our own time, a movement that can show beauty and achievement as more than just traits of the past. If that weren't true, today's masses wouldn't go to the ends of the earth—or, alternatively, blow thousands of bucks after keeping vigil all night on a strip-mall pavement—to it seek out, bring it home and plug it in.

As far as some of our own are concerned, man's expression of his God-given creativity halted sometime around 1570. But just as there'd be no internet without Gutenberg and no iPhone without Bell, tradition's clock never stops ticking. It extends even into our own time and becomes our responsibility to cultivate, grow and pass forward even richer than we found it, but just as faithful to its beginnings as it was before.

Podcast Time Change.

UPDATE - The Soularize Podcast conference call with Mark Scandrette has been changed from 9am PST to 1pm PST. See here for all the conference call particulars. Looking forward to connecting with some of you via phone tomorrow afternoon...

Soularize Podcast.

This Wednesday afternoon, I'll be hosting the latest edition of the Soularize Podcast with special guest Mark Scandrette. Mark and I have bumped into each other pretty frequently over the years, but only over the past few years have I really gotten to know Mark and the community he's a part of in San Francisco's Mission District. Mark is the author of the newly released Soul Graffiti [which is an amazing read I must add] and the executive director and co-founder of ReIMAGINE.

As I've been reading Soul Graffiti, I've been completely blown away by what their community has been exploring - being a generative community that seeks to live in the flow of the Way of Jesus. It's pretty amazing. In a culture where people are focusing so much on what they are against, their community is focusing on what they are standing for - love and hope and beauty. I'm really looking forward to our conversation together on Wednesday morning.

The cool thing about the Soularize Podcast is that it is more than just an interview - it's a free, live conference call. So if you're interested in joining Mark and I live for the recording, all you need to do is dial 218.486.1300 and then enter the pin number 900438. The call will take place this Wednesday, May 16th at 1pm PST, so swing on by and be a part of the conversation.

The Gospel as Good News.

Becky Garrison [who will be one of our workshop facilitators at Soularize 2007] has quite the brilliant post over at the God's Politics blog. She was recently attended the first ever Nightline Face Off, a taped "debate" [and I use the term very loosely] for ABC News between Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort of The Way of the Master and the Rational Response Squad over the issue of the existence of God. [Yeah, and these were the best people we could find to represent a Christian perspective?] Apparently the debate was less than spectacular, and perhaps not half as thought provoking as these concluding thoughts by Garrison...

Through my travels and travails covering this unique phenomenon called Americana Christianity, I've learned that many of those with a deep hunger to be fed spiritually are those souls for whom "church" is not in their vocabulary. Often they’ve been burned by one too many toxic church settings, or they grew up in a household where religion was inconsequential at best. They can embrace the universal message of Jesus but they balk at how his teaching gets corrupted by those prayer warriors who are engaging in some very public and tawdry biblical battles waged in the religious-political arena.

Still, I see glimmers of hope. For example, prior to going to this taping, I sat in on a panel that was part of the Tribeca Film Festival, titled "Prodigies, Nobelists and Penguins: Science and Stereotypes in the Movies." Here, I found a group of filmmakers and scientists who were open to exploring where we can find common ground between religion and science. Where is there space where we can dialogue with the other? Or are we so concerned about being right that we forget what it means to put Christ's teachings into practice?

To quote postmodern philosopher Peter Rollins, "The truth of Christianity is life. The implications of this are vast." I can't speak for the atheists, but for those of us who profess to follow Jesus, what does it mean for us to live a life that is truthful to the gospel teachings of Christ? Along those lines, how should we interact with those whose hold beliefs that are different from ours?

Absolutely genius. [And I am so looking forward to getting some time to connect with Becky at Soularize.]

Liberation Theology as Heresy?

The NY Times ran a fascinating article about the Pope's upcoming trip to Brazil and the ongoing tension between the Catholic Church and the liberation theology movement in Central and South America. In essence, the tensions revolves around how involved followers of Jesus should be in standing in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, and especially what that might look like. Liberation theology sees itself as carrying on the mandate of Jesus to see the gospel as more than an individual faith, but one that is also a socio-political revolutionary movement. The Catholic Church sees it as a "dangerous, Marxist-inspired movement," a "fundamental threat to the faith of the church," even "a singular heresy." Here's a quote from the article...

"We believe in merging the questions of faith and social action," said Valmir Resende dos Santos, a liberation disciple who brings base communities and labor groups together in the industrial suburbs here. "We advise groups and social movements, mobilize the unemployed, and work with unions and parties, always from a perspective based on the Gospel."

Since liberation theology first emerged in the 1960s, it has consistently mixed politics and religion. Adherents have often been active in labor unions and left-wing political parties and criticized governments they complain are beholden to modern-day Pharisees.

Supporters see that activism as a necessary virtue to answer the needs of the poor. Opponents say it dangerously insinuates the church into the temporal, political realm, and in recent years they have repeatedly announced the movement's decline or disappearance.

Some of the distinctions in this debate are finely drawn. John Paul II's reach extended into human rights and politics, as he discouraged abortion and divorce and encouraged fellow Poles and other Europeans to reject Communism. He is widely credited with helping to bring about the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

That, some say, differs from the direct, class-oriented political activism embraced by liberation theology. Cardinal Ratzinger once called the movement a "fusing of the Bible’s view of history with Marxist dialectics," and other critics complain of what they see as its emphasis on direct collective action in Jesus' name over individual faith.

As John Paul II put it early in his papacy: "This conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the church’s catechism."

A couple of questions kept running through my head as a I read this [especially in light of just having read Boyd's book The Myth of a Christian Nation]. At what point does standing in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed move into places where you pursuing the "power of the sword" to ultimately try and solve the issue? On the other side, at what point does embracing an "individualistic" faith place you in a position of religious and social escapism, and thus becoming complicit with the system of oppression and marginalization? I have to disagree with the assessment that Jesus was not a political figure and a revolutionary - as he was crucified on a Roman cross, a punishment held exclusively for those seen as a threat to the Roman Empire. Yet at the same time, Jesus chose a "third way," a revolutionary movement that did not seek the "power of the sword," but instead chose the way of love and life-giving sacrifice.

[photo courtesy of Lalo de Almeida/The New York Times]

The Kingdom of the Cross.

While reading tonight, I came across another gem from Gregory Boyd's book, The Myth of a Christian Nation - perhaps one of the better and more compelling visions of what the kingdom of God is like...

By God's design, this is how the kingdom of God expands and transforms the world. As we allow Christ's character to be formed in us - as we think and act like Jesus - others come under the loving influence of the kingdom and eventually their own hearts are won over to the King of Kings. The reign of God is thus established in their hearts, and the kingdom of God expands. That process, Scripture tells us, will culminate in the return of the King accompanied by legions of angels, at which time Satan's rule will end, the earth will be purged of all that is inconsistent with God's rule, and his kingdom of love will be established once and for all.

This in a nutshell, is the primary think God is up to in our world. He's not primarily about getting people to pray a magical "sinner's prayer" or to confess certain magical truths as a means of escaping hell. He's not about gathering together a group who happen to believe all the right things. Rather, he's about gathering together a group of people who embody the kingdom - who individually and corporately manifest the reality of the reign of God on earth. And he's about growing this new kingdom through his body to take over the world. This vision of what God is about lies at the heart of Jesus' ministry, and it couldn't contrast with the kingdom of the world more sharply. [p. 30]

Amen.

The God of America?

Recently a friend of mine recommended Gregory Boyd's book, The Myth of a Christian Nation. It had been on my "to read list" for a while, so I decided to pick it up. My smiley box arrived a few days ago. This morning, I decided to launch into the book and got as far as the introduction and came across this little gem...

The myth of America as a Christian nation, with the church as its guardian, has been, and continues to be, damaging both to the church and to the advancement of God's kingdom. Among other things, this nationalistic myth blinds us to the way in which our most basic and most cherished cultural assumptions are diametrically opposed to the kingdom way of life taught by Jesus and his disciples. Instead of living out the radically countercultural mandate of the kingdom of God, this myth has inclined us to Christianize many pagan aspects of our culture. Instead of providing the culture with a radically alternative way of life, we largely present it with a religious version of what it already is. The myth clouds our vision of God's distinctively beautiful kingdom and thereby undermines our motivation to live as set apart (holy) disciples of this kingdom.

Even more fundamentally, because this myth links the kingdom of God with certain political stances within American politics, it has greatly compromised the holy beauty of the kingdom of God to non-Christians. This myth harms the church's primary mission. For many in America and around the world, the American flag has smothered the glory of the cross, and the ugliness of our American version of Caesar has squelched the radiant love of Christ. Because the myth that America is a Christian nation has led many to associate America with Christ, many now hear the good news of Jesus only as American news, capitalistic news, imperialistic news, exploitive news, antigay news, or Republican news. And whether justified or not, many people want nothing to do with any of it. [p. 13-14]

For many people I've talked to "outside" of the religious establishment, the good news of Jesus has become exactly as Boyd as described it. Which has led me to question how this beautiful message of the kingdom has become so sectarian. It's become not just a message about the kingdom, but one that has now come with qualifiers. Could God be concerned about issues larger than either the Democratic or Republican platforms? Is God indeed "on our side" as a nation, even only on the side of the Republican Party? I wonder, have we merely made God into a nationalistic, tribal God - and thus are being led into a seductive form of idolatry?

The Kingdom of God transcends political platforms and tribalism. It is a way of living that we are invited into, a way of life that is counter-cultural, even counter-American culture. May the Church rediscover its radical, counter-cultural, revolutionary nature once again, remembering that the Church is at it's best not when it is fighting for power, but is inhabiting places of love, servanthood, and embrace. This is the way of Jesus.