A Thorn of Disillusionment

I mentioned in my last post about a new blog series titled, "A Gospel Stripped of Power" where I'll be examining the emptiness behind the gospel we find ourselves presented with today. This is actually written by my friend Michael Beardslee and if you would like his contact information let me know and I'll get it to you. If you have any questions about what any of this 'means', let me know that too. I'm free to answer questions.

God has a way of reminding us that he is really God.

I'm usually not reminded by the sweaty evangelist on the morning radio anymore. I've become bored with him. What haunts me is a whisper. It's those times where the presence of God is so profoundly felt that it spurs me to change. The Word of God brings forth the winds of change. It moves and empowers; Elijah heard a quiet whisper, and returned to the city. I feel as though I have stumbled upon a change within the church. And like Israel, this change rides the wings of our folly.

I began to catch wind of this when I was involved with a simple outreach to high-school kids. Week after week I became more aware of a thorn in my side. We taught and taught, and after two years with mainly the same kids and various reinterpretations of the youth program itself my itch got worse. We were still left with a group where the passionate people that desired to worship and discover God were the minority. Our changes had failed. In the rest of the church, I saw many faces that were bored with God and uninspired to worship him. Communion had become a mandatory act, merely a filler of time. I knew something was about because of the few who seemed to radiate with gratitude. Was I judgmental? Perhaps. But it was too obvious to ignore, the thorn never left. Sometime later I talked with a close friend of mine. She had lost her faith.

A dear friend had died of cancer, which shook my friend to the core. As most of us would, she fell back on her doctrine supporting her faith, and fell straight through. Her doctrine failed to console her, but it was worse than that. It painted an ugly picture for her, one that disgusted her, to the point that she renounced her claim of being Christian. This doctrine of hers was not something strange or abnormal. On the contrary, it reminds me of the words of that early morning evangelist. Something was very wrong within the walls of the American Church.

Boredom, complacency, friends renouncing faith. At school I began to ask the "why" question. We entertained many hypotheses, such as teaching the disciplines. Then it hit me; the answer was desperately simple. We have a poor idea of what the gospel is truly about.

Let me explain

Man doesn't live life in his head; I was first awakened to the truth of the gospel in my heart, and then in my head. But the truth of the matter is this: the way that we understand the gospel as Christians builds the framework on how we understand the Christian life and relate to God. If this was the case, the answer was simple. The church, at least the churches that I had grown up knowing had a poor understanding of the gospel of Christ, and this poor understanding is passed onto others.

I propose that much of what the American church understands as the gospel is not gospel in full. It is instead a watered down version, stripped of its power in our attempt to pigeonhole it into a singular, systematic process. Best shown in two different categories, Richard Foster calls it the gospel of the right and the gospel of the left.[1] But I will restrict my argument to focus on the "gospel of the right".

It is difficult for me to point the finger and say, "That is wrong." The difficulty lies in that this gospel stripped of power denotes that it once did, indeed, have power. Karl Barth tells us that a gospel of salvation that has lost its power can have all of the trappings of a true gospel, it can be shrouded in biblical truth and pietistic zeal and still be a "dull impartation which says everything and nothing…"[2] Having once known power, or understood the gospel in one sense, the watery gospel cannot be critiqued on a purely doctrinal level as it still retains doctrinal truth. But we can begin to discover what happened.

What strips the Gospel of its power is what is called reductionism, and in a majority of churches, the gospel of Christ has been reduced.

---

[1] Foster, Richard. (2004.). "Salvation is For Life". Theology Today 61.03. Pg. 297-308

[2] Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Vol IV. Part 2 Edinburgh. T & T Clark. Pg. 813

A Gospel Stripped of Power

I've been thinking a lot lately about why we pray the prayer for salvation. I think a lot of it has to do with where we're at in the world, probably because it has a lot to do with how we're fed the gospel. Like in America, it's almost as if we pray it because it's a free ticket to Heaven - that's it and no more. We spend the rest of our lives just waiting around for death; death so we can go to Heaven and reap the benefits of speaking a few words in our lifetime. The result? Rotting dead people in pews.

The consequence is that we miss out on the reason for accepting Christ in the first place. We're such a consumerist society that this lopsided version of the gospel isn't well received anymore. Other religions have more appeal, especially with the promise at the chance of a new and maybe better life ‘reincarnated'.

But why does it seem that this is the one catch-phrase for most evangelists: are you going to heaven when you die? It's so empty, really. It's very shallow and whenever I run into street evangelists on the street… it pisses me off because this is all their concerned about. Some people say, "as long as the gospel's being preached…" But is this really all there is to the gospel? Because I think there's something more.

What I'm about to do I've never done before. I'm actually going to do a blog series. That's right. The funny part is: it's not my words. My friend Michael Beardslee and I were talking about this very issue and how it affects the church.

Apparently he wrote a paper on it.

It's a very sweet paper titled, "Reductionism Crisis: A Gospel Stripped of Power". It revolves around this very issue that's been plaguing my brain for the last few weeks. So I'm going to share it in a 3-4 part series.

In the meantime, I'm working on another blog series on "community". It's something I've been really passionate about in the last few years and, well, I'm going to write more about it looking at it biblically, theologically, and practically… granted I'm sure that over the course of the next year, I'm going to blow my own thoughts out of the water.

I might mention that Beardo's writing is pretty in depth. If you have any questions as to what something means, whether vocabulary-wise or theologically, let me know. I would love to answer questions. Not only will this challenge me, it'll hopefully challenge you.

dreams

It’s just a vapor
A tantalizing desire;
Something I dream
Of chasing into reality.
Fear of grasping air
Catches up with me,
Paralyzing my feet
And imagination.
Where is this hope
Of something new?
Something not a mirage?
Perhaps it’s up ahead
Or else another
Cloud, a vapor that I
Wish to chase…

Jesus Came Back

About a month ago I wrote about an experience I had. I was approached by a homeless man for money, money for a shelter, he wanted a hug ‘in the name of Jesus', amongst other things. I turned him away in a not-so-kindly manner. I wrote about it here and I really encourage you to go read it before reading the rest of this post. Consider this the sequel, a continuation of my journey through life…

Every Tuesday night some friends and I get together in a local bar. Part of me hesitates to call it a bar because, well, they serve coffee and special food and it doesn't seem like a bar. It smells like a bar. It looks like a bar. But because of the coffee, I consider it a coffee shop with extra strong coffee ‘options'. Anyway, we gather there to talk about theology.

It's called "Theology Pub". Part of me thinks it's really ridiculous. Sometimes the intention is to talk about theology; issues of our faith that we're really wrestling with, other times we just sit and catch up. I've come to find out that a lot happens to each of us in a week's time and theology pub has become a great place to lay prayer requests on the table. It's a powerful thing because these are Christians who actually pick them up and pray over them - they even follow up the next week to see how things have or haven't improved. And, yes, they drink beer.

I was sitting there tonight and started dozing off. It gave me the impression that I was pretty tired, so I decided to head home for the night. I said my goodbyes, made my way through the haze of smoke, and walked outside. It's finally winter here in Wichita. Today our first ‘official' cold front came through. It's a biting 40 degrees out… with wind. Needless to say, the cold punched me in the face when I stepped out of the bar.

I started walking to my car, which was a block away - parking was severely limited when I arrived earlier. But as I was making my way to the car, I saw this guy ride his bike out of the alley. I'm not going to lie, it was kind of creepy seeing someone emerge from the darkness on a bicycle, especially when you realize they're talking to you.

"You still got your black friends?" he asked.

"Excuse me," I inquired because I wasn't sure if I heard him right.

"You still got your black friends?"

"Well, yeah. I have lots of black friends." I was puzzled at what having ‘black friends' had to do with anything, but I knew he was checking me out so I just went with it. I immediately knew this guy was homeless, too, but I couldn't understand why he looked so familiar. I had seen him before but I knew I hadn't ever seen him at Church on the Street.

"Listen brother," he began, "It's pretty cold tonight and I'm sleeping in a shack that I built. I was wondering if I could have a few bucks to recharge my propane tank?"

A few weeks ago I had bought several blankets to keep in my car so when I'm driving around at night and see someone camped out on the side of the road, I can do what I can to help keep them warm. I offered all of the blankets to this guy and he didn't want them. He said he had plenty, that what he really wanted was actual heat. "Just a few bucks," he pleaded. I truly had no cash on me, so I told him he could follow me to my car and I would check the ashtray.

We made conversation on the way to my car. His name was Tater - obviously not his real name. A lot of times the homeless won't give their real name, but a nickname or such, just to avoid being picked off by cops or something. Tater's from California but came here when he found out his mother was sick, but now he's trapped on the street and does what he can to get by, including begging. I was able to give him about $1.50 in change - all I had - and then he asked me to pray for him. So I took his request and gave it to God. It was powerful. He also asked for prayer for one of his friends. Despite his condition, his faith astounded me.

And on my way home, I just smiled. I remember where I saw this guy last. He was that other face of Jesus that I told to ‘buzz off' up the road a month before. Talk about a renewed opportunity.

Maybe there's no such thing as second chances, but I think God's pretty passionate about restoration. I think he remembered how much that experience had scarred me, how dirty and rotten I felt. I truly believe that he presented me with an opportunity to not redeem myself, but I believe he let me tangibly feel the restoration in my own heart. And maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I really don't care. I just know that God rocked my life tonight… again.

When I'm at the End

I don't know what it is, but I'm definitely at the end of my rope. I'm restless. Very restless. And that's probably the biggest understatement that I've made this year. I've noticed, also, that it's paved a road to a lot of anger lately - not what I was expecting. I feel like I've been kept locked up for so long, I'm ready to break loose, to be set free. But I wait. I still have more time to fester and to let my emotions stir. Why? Because sometimes the cruelest thing I endure is what's best for me.

But I'm definitely at the end. I can take no more.

Crippled Faith

I was at the coffee shop one day just sitting there. I like to sit in the front of the store because I can stare out the window and into the street where people are carrying on with the day's activities. Sometimes I feel like I'm at the zoo because I watch them so carefully, paying close attention to their every move, almost like I'm going to write about them later or something…

But while I was sitting there I noticed an individual scootin' by in their wheelchair. It was one of those fancy motorized ones, you know, with the joystick that enables their mangled hand to weave them in and out of traffic. If I were them, I would probably use it to hit people or opossums. I would blame my rudeness on my handicap, which is why I probably don't have one. It's God's way of punishing me and telling me I can't have fun while wheeling around town or the mall (that would be a fun place!).

Fortunately, this particular individual wasn't me. He was a very generous man, gracefully moving around on four wheels like they were his own two feet. He was courteous and very kind to those that were getting in his way, although he didn't view it like that. There was one thing that stood out, however: he had the worlds most simple and complex book resting on his lap. It was the Bible. I could only sit there and marvel.

Maybe I'm jumping to an insurmountable conclusion concerning this, but I admire the faith of the handicapped. I don't understand how so many of them do it. They're completely crippled, fettered to a wheelchair for their entire lives, yet they hold so diligent and fast to their faith - to God. They love and proclaim the goodness of God from the confides of a chair on wheels and the whole time they tote around a Bible that sports story after story of God healing people, including the paralyzed, lame, and crippled.

I don't know about you, but I would have a serious problem with this… yet it doesn't bother them that Jesus hasn't healed their handicap.

Or has he?

See, I think the ‘handicapped' understand something about faith and God that I'll never understand. They have a grasp on the reality of life and what it really is. Cause while I'm busy running back and forth from meaningless activity to redundant inactivity, they're sitting on their motorized seat, powered by Jesus, and look at me like I'm crazy.

Why do I look at them like they're crazy? Is it because I'm insensitive to their ailment? Is it because I stare at people like they belong in a zoo?

No.

I marvel at their display of faith. And what's more, I don't think it's a display. I think it is their faith which captivates my attention, my gaze, and my heart - my heart to be more like them.

So next time you see a handicapped person, don't stick your foot in the way to trip them or see if it hurts when they run over it - just smile at them and attempt to muster out a ‘hello' to someone with great faith.

**I might make it clear that I really like handicapped people. I'm not mean to them, really. I have handicapped friends. I don't stare at them… all the time… but I do admire the faith of many of them. It inspires me and I hope that in some way it can inspire you as well. And please don't trip them, that's just plain stupid A lot of them know karate…

Asleep in the Light

"Surpresa Sithole, one of the four international directors of Iris Ministries, had to attend the tragic funeral of his brother Pastor Sithole and his cousin after a group of radical religious anti-Christians cut him up into pieces because he was preaching the gospel. Pastor Sithole will be greatly missed."

This was a report from Heidi Baker on October 22, 2007. Her and Rolland, Heidi's husband, run Iris Ministries where my friend is actually in school right now.

But the reality and worthiness of the Gospel really hit home reading this urgent prayer request. There were actually several prayer requests, but this particular one stood out at me. It made me realize the presence of darkness out in the world - the opposition that Christians face on a daily basis across the globe.

I guess the frustrating part is that there are so many Christians here in America who will read something like this and think how pathetically sad it is that that had happened to somebody, then they'll promptly go back to retreating to their pew on Sunday mornings where they play a Christian one day a week. It drives me nuts at the insensitivity of Christians in the States. The least they can do is actually get on their knees and pray. It demands nothing of us but our time.

Oh, wait.

I forget how much value we've placed on time in America. We don't have much of it.

But dang it, if there's something this intense happening in the Kingdom, especially in the realm of spiritual attack, why do we just sit on our hands, kick up our feet and not do anything about it? We're all the same under Christ. Under Christ we are all brothers and sisters. We are family. Pastor Sithole was my brother. I lost a brother. My brother was chopped into pieces by religious fanatics because he was preaching about our Jesus.

While I am incredibly saddened by the loss - sincerely - I am rejoicing that he ‘went out' doing something so awesome. I hope that I can go out whatever way brings God the most glory. If it's while sleeping in my bed… great. If it's while getting slaughtered in a jail cell because I told someone about Jesus… (though hesitant), great!

Seth Barnes wrote in one of his blogs, "I want to live the kind of life so that when my eyes snap open in the morning, the demons say, 'Oh no, he's awake again.'" I'm pretty sure that's how I want to be. In all honesty, I wish that's the way that we were as a church. I think it's rather unfortunate that we're not. I'm pretty sure the demons shrieked every morning Pastor Sithole woke up. They knew that he knew how to kick their smelly butts.

Keith Green, an awesome Christian hippie and musician from the 70's, wrote a song called Asleep in the Light. He says, "the world is sleeping in the dark that the church can't fight, cause it's asleep in the light." How true is that?

When are we going to wake up? When are we going to realize the immensity of the Kingdom? When will we stop hiding our ‘faith' inside a building on Sunday morning and actually start living it?

Jesus is on the move - are you?