Words'nTone

On Martin Luther King’s celebrated Birthday, I am hesitant posting James Lowell’s song, “One to every man and nation,” because some might think I do so to “protest” the our military or the fighting on foreign soils, or in some way want others to think I take an opposing position to a strong national policy on the War (yes I said it War) on Terrorism.  I do not.  Lowell did write this well known hymn, however, to protest America’s war with Mexico in 1845; and, Martin Luther King quoted in a speech given to protest the War in Vietnam (two days before he, himself, fell victim to an assassin’s bullet.  I do post it to remind us that truth can be awfully hidden from us and it seems that God must work in the shadows.  Just read the song, the words, and think of the greater, the so much greater war between truth and falsehood that exists around us everyday.  And, think of how the poles have been reversed in our culture where right (or righteousness or truth) is spun as wrong or incorrect or politically incorrect, and where wrong (unrighteousness or falsehood) is triumphed as freeing, independent, and progressive.

   Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
   In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
   Some great cause, some great decision, offering each
      the bloom or blight,
   And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and
      that light.
   Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her
      wretched crust,
   Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to
      be just;
   Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands
      aside,
   Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
   By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet
      we track,
   Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not
      back;
   New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient
      good uncouth,
   They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast
      of truth.
   Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
   Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne
      be wrong;
   Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim
      unknown,
   Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
        ~James Russell Lowell, published in the
           Boston Courier, December 11, 1845

Many yesterday, as well as in gatherings today, will sing Lowell’s song.  I continue to be touched by the words.  Though the causes that stem from evil seem to prosper, truth will triumph in the end.  We live truth on the cross and falsehood on our thrones (or political offices).  But still, God, although hidden in the shadows, keeps watch.  Christ on the cross; Ceasar on the throne.  Mismatched.  But we dare give up hope, and find ways to join God—in those shadows, righting wrongs, and bringing righteousness in the midst of the darkness of unrighteousness.  That is why I post the song.  This should be ingrained in the Church’s mission.

“The prohibition against stealing and coveting are thus safeguards in behalf of the primary commandment, the love of God alone, as much as they are safeguards in behalf of the neighbor’s property” [Patrick Miller, an essay, Property and Possession in Light of Ten Commandments, p 48 in a compendium called Having: Property and Possession in Religious and Social Life].

“The acquisition of excessive wealth as it arises out of coveting and stealing is indeed a neighbor issue, but it is fundamentally a matter of the fear of God and the sole reliance on the Lord for the provision of life” [Miller, p 49].

A recent sermon on the 10th commandment, Thou shall not covet, emphasized the sin of wanting what others have. No mention was made of coveting what we already have that has already been coveted and has stolen the economic means for other people’s well-being—which by the way is actually the text where the command is found (Exodus 20:17; cf. Deuteronomy 5:21). This happens in most sermons on coveting. We concentrate through the sermon on what we don’t have but want as sin, not what we have already in our possession that has robbed others of their means of sufficiency as sin. The end of the sermon keeps the non-poor suburbanites comfortably in their social location of having more; but no application for the non-poor to repent of what they already have coveted, making restoration, and finding the salvation that God’s promises for such faith.

Although most often glossed over with poor application, this is what is most likely meant in the wee-little-man Zacch’s words in Luke 19:8:

“Zacch stopped and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.’”

Whatever the short-little, tree-climbing seeker of Jesus had defrauded the poor, he would restore—just like the Old Testament implies of those who covet, steal, and defraud the poor and economically vulnerable (my goodness, read the Old Testament with your eyes open!). Zacch knew, in the preaching of Jesus was the inauguration of the Kingdom, the presence of the pending judgment of God. God had promised that those who stole and coveted and as a result put the economically vulnerable in peril and in generational poverty would be faced with God’s reciprocal wrath—they too would face such poverty in their life (either through personal tragedy or exile, or death, which would make their wives and children widows and orphans like those they defrauded through stealing and coveting). This is why, when Zacch repents, Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham” (v 9).

When a sermon stresses future action to be ceased—i.e., to cease wanting what others have in this case—and neglects to point out what one already has in possession might in fact have already broken the 10th commandment, this leaves the lost (the non-poor who don’t know they are lost but sitting comfortably in the pew) not feeling lost (or having broken any commandment, especially not the ones concerning stealing and coveting) and in no need of being sought after (or of repenting for that matter). That is why Jesus ends the short tree-climbing-humbled-tax-collector story with, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (v10). Contemporary, keep-the-comfortable-comfortable-and-give-more-to-the-church sermons leave the lost (the non-poor right there in the pews each sunday morn’n) not knowing they are actually lost, and as a result, not needing the Son of Man to seek them. This is a sad state of affairs for everyone, for the preacher who leaves the non-poor comfortable and in their sin, the poor who are to be protected, and the non-poor sinner up a tree with no salvation.

“What do you think are the one or two most critical needs in our community?  Notice this is different than asking people what they would like to see in a church. (Reggie McNeal in The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church p. 62).

“If you are a pastor or staff member of a local congregation, you must model missionary behavior for the church to see” (The Present Future p.64).

Some of McNeal’s material truly challenges the chaplain status of most evangelical pastors.  Yes, of course there is a need to care for the flock, but the flock and the individual sheep will end up imitating, not what the pastor says, but what the pastor does.  And this is an important point, especially in regards to discipleship and church ministry.  I agree that pastors need to visibly model out-of-church-in-the-community behavior, activity, ministry, outreach, evangelism, care, mission—whatever—in order to demonstrate “this is what we, the church, are about.” This model begins by re-asking congregational questions.  We ask both inside and outside of church the question: “What do you want in a church?” This is a good marketing question, for sure.  And, it has its place (rarely).  But a more biblical question to ask is, “What are the critical needs of this community?” The reason we tend not to ask this question is that the answers might be ones that make us uncomfortable, ones that might take us away from a building-centered ministry, answers that could take away financial and people resources from our church-building-centered comfort, ones that could put us right in the middle of enemy territory.  Discovering what are the important issues a community needs or faces might break up the club mentality of most congregations.  But, this question is a good modeling question for pastors to be asking and doing!

I am hearing the pangs of end time panic again.  We have this greed-caused economic turndown, an administration that seems bent on turning the USA into a socialist-styled government, and of course hurricanes are a’coming.  These temptations are always in the news.  Like back in 2005 we heard from the false-prophet Pat Robertson:

“This weekend’s catastrophic earthquake in South Asia in the wake of recent U.S. hurricanes and December’s tsunami is catching the eye of televangelist Pat Robertson, who says we ‘might be’ in the End Times described in the Bible” (Joe Kovacs in “Robertson: Disasters point to 2nd Coming,” WorldNetDaily.com, Posted: October 9, 2005).

Why is it that celebrity TV evangelists continue to predict that we’re living on the cusp of Jesus’ second coming?  It is all marketing that gives opportunity for appeals for donations and “hey, look at me, I am a bible scholar and prophetic expert”—you know the Rahm Emanuel “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” principle.  Why do we continue to allow and entertain such ‘signs of the times’ predicting?  Don’t we recall Jesus’ warnings that we are to be ware of those false prophets who falsify his “soon appearance.” Pat Robertson is a regular false prophet, along with his co-false prophet Hal Lindsey, who joined the televangelist by stating, “It seems clear that the prophetic times I have been expecting for decades have finally arrived. And even worse, it appears that the judgment of America has begun.” (a broadcast of the “International Intelligence Briefing” on the Trinity Broadcasting Network).

Is it for ratings?  For fundraising and building up their financial base?  Or worse, for setting themselves up as the “ones in the know,” the wise, insightful prophets worthy of admiration and acknowledgement of their abilities to understand Scripture (like no one else) and read the signs of the times (like no one else).  Robertson continued:

“If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia, he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order. And for anybody who knows what it’s like to have a wife going into labor, you know how these labor pains begin to hit. I don’t have any special word that says this is that, but it could be suspiciously like that.”

Don’t think for a minute, they’d be as “insightful” without the structures of modern American and the media culture that props them up.  Despite his mis-use of the text, the Thessalonian text Robertson alludes to is acknowledging that the end will come unannounced, suddenly, and that our daily faith and trust in Christ prevents us from being taken by surprise.  Not surprised because we can read the tea-leaves of the times, but not surprised because we are trusting in Christ and are obedient to His Word.  In fact, trusting in these false-prophets will take our eyes off Christ and make us ill-prepared for the end.

“Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you.  For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.  While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober” (I Thessalonians 5:1-6).

A thief does not announce his coming; but a smart thief knows to send distractions, ways to get his victims to be looking elsewhere, tricking them with misinformation whether it be comfort or smartly placed activity to distract them from the real activity of the thief.  Thieves pair up with those willing to bait and switch the victims, con them with false information.  Whose side are these guys on anyway?  Believing friends, don’t be fooled or distracted.  My non-believing friends, don’t believe them.  Please know these guys who are always predicting the future are either simply misguided Christianized media elites who believe in their own greatness or, worse, are working for the other side.  They and their kind have misguided us for 2000 years—full of predictions that “this is it” and “this is the end,” but have never been right, not once.  And as Jesus says about those who predicate the signs of the times,

“Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him.  For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.  Behold, I have told you in advance.  So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them” (Matthew 24:23-26).

“…discontinuous change is much more disturbing and difficult. Unlike the continuous form, it creates a situation that requires something different from and more potent than the normal habits and skills that were so useful during a stable period of continuous change. Congregations do not do well with this unexpected, dramatic change; they need entirely different skills and capacities from those that have service them well in the past” [Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk in The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, pp 57-58]

Although I spend most of my time reading up on issues of poverty, urban blight and suburban sprawl, the tensions of economic advantages and disadvantages, the significance of demographic data and profiles of populations, and of course taxes, legislation, and politics, I try to keep up on church-related, ministry and mission issues facing Christianity and the Church. To be frank, I have been so unimpressed with much that I have read on the so-called emergent and emerging church (including anything smacking of contemporary church growth or just trying to be trendy), and books on missional churches have been as well unimpressive. Same ol’. Same ‘ol. I have heard it all before—just an attempt at keeping up on the times. Just trendy stuff and approaches wrapped in postmodern (hyper-modern, really just modernity gone wild) language.

I am very skeptical of the down-play given to the place of Scripture coming from most of the new elite authors. There is one set of authors that caught my attention and left me a little impressed (there I said it), that is, with Roxburgh and Romanuk’s book on the The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World. I appreciated the analysis of their church leadership approach to change and how various congregations fit within the continuous-discontinuous change mode. I like the honesty. The star statement comes on page 54, although it had already been hinted at on almost every page:

“Decisions must be made and action taken that no longer fit an established paradigm.”

Of course this book on Church Leadership is coming from guys who aren’t doing church, they advise, consult, and critique churches and church leaders. That’s always a problem for me. Doesn’t mean what they are saying isn’t right (and so far, I am about 90% in agreement—thus far, all good excepting, again, with their low view of Scripture and the eschewing of strategic planning—for another Thought), just that its easier to consult than do. But I digress.

In my reading: First we must face up to it—we make changes and respond to change (or instability) in ways that find its basis in protecting the current structures, authorities, and dare I say jobs (i.e., position and place). The book, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, stresses that we simply cannot make changes and do church the way we have always done it, or even to attempt to try harder at the same thing. The social and cultural contexts have vastly changed from what the older church structures were built upon. Something else must emerge (oh, man I can’t believe I wrote that!). A different type of church must emerge (ouch, even that word I can’t believe I actually wrote out-loud) in order to compete with the changes surrounding the church—and that doesn’t mean just being trendy or mod. And the direction we face—we can’t think that serving up religious goods and services is the call of the Church. We continue to think it’s our job to create something the un (or even the churched from a competing church) will desire and come get, as if potential members of the congregation are consumers and we are selling a product. Some church leaders and authors continue to think we are, and some church growth gurus still portray church growth in such terms—but they are dead wrong, unregenerately wrong. And this book I have appreciated the idea of imaging a new future for God’s people (within a congregation), and allowing the Word, the sacraments, and our worship to be more formative in helping the congregation imagine that new future. What the authors paint is scary for pastors and congregational leaders—some might lose their jobs and their elite status!

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It’s an older paper now, and I wrote it to critique the status and state of the bible college movement and offer a future direction—don’t think anyone listened—but some of you might be interested in the thoughts in my paper on ministerial training, “Ministerial Training & (Post)Modernity: Institution-Based Ministerial Training Creates Concrete (Post)Modern Experiences for Students”

“This kind of development is what David Lyon calls ‘Disneyfication,’ what ‘diminishes human life through trivializing it, or making involvement within it appear less than fully serious.’ It is a fearful idolatry and the immediate judgment that is being visited upon us is that our culture has become shallow, cheap, and vulgar. And far from challenging this emptiness and futility, evangelical churches have too often been its exemplars, as I shall argue in a later chapter, pitching their ‘product’ to ‘consumers’ and emptying themselves of every vestige of spiritual gravitas as if striving for a serious faith were a failing of great magnitude and one to be avoided at all costs” [David F. Wells in Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World, p 47]

When my daughter turned into a teenager, I happened to be watching “politics” in action and I couldn’t help but hope that she will be a better teenager and less sophomoric than the Senators I am watching on TV showboating to their voter-base and baser instincts…and it makes me think of our culture, which is very much like a teenager…anyway… Reading David Wells book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, isn’t quite like a breath of fresh air. It is more lot a ton of bricks falling. He hits the nail right on the head—Church as exemplar of our culture. Being creative and seeking how to “sell our product” to the unchurched consumer are not the same things. I have often thought the community at large and the unchurched don’t take us as very serious, because we aren’t—we do not show them serious, we show them entertainment, happy theme park, Disney-faith. I remember reading Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, and learning that Sesame Street didn’t work as well as they had originally thought—that is, the show didn’t actually help prepare kids for school. The big problem: school, once they were there, didn’t look or sound or feel like the Sesame Street TV show. I have often wondered: Life doesn’t look like or feel like or sound like church-life or worship, and maybe that’s why our faith doesn’t penetrate into society. People don’t live at Disneyland: they might work or play there, but they don’t live there. It is for escape, forgetting, for fun, a pause in life, not for developing life. No wonder we have it so awfully wrong within our church-life and worship habits.

“For earlier generations, the ideal minister was the evangelist who was measured by his success in persuading large numbers of people to become Christians. Some were traveling revivalists, and countless others worked in local congregations where they were appointed for evangelistic purposes. In the second era, congregational expectations for ministers shifted from outreach to nurturing the congregation and responding to the needs of individuals. In this era, ministers learned the techniques of the therapist and placed considerable value on pastoral care and counseling. Their task was to meet the ever-increasing perceived needs of the people in the congregation. In the present era, the minister is ultimately measured by the ability to organize, build, and manage a complex organization. Congregations continue to assume that the minister will maintain the traditional roles of marrying and burying, but they believe that the ultimate goal of the minister is to take the congregation to a new level of growth. The minister must be both an effective communicator and an administrator. In a competitive religious marketplace, the task of the minister is to ensure that the congregation maintains its place among religious consumers. Often search committees no longer look for someone who conforms to one of these models. Instead they seek someone who is a combination of, for instance, Jay Leno, Lee Iacocca, and Dr. Phil [James W. Thompson in Pastoral Ministry according to Paul: A Biblical Vision, pp 8-9].

Wow. When thinking about, searching for, or affirming a pastor—everything and anything but a biblical understanding of the role of the minister, pastor, shepherd of the flock. Immediately I connected with what Thompson was driving at in his new book. Over the past twenty-five years, I have read countless books on pastoral ministry, church ministry, and the expected role and duties (requirements) of the pastor. I have not seen many that actually struggles from a theological (what does the Bible actually say?) or an exegetical (what does the text actually say?) point of view. Oh, sure, a few proof texts here and there; a words study because an English word in our English translation of the Bible connects to our perception of what we are looking for; but, no exegesis or theological analysis. Thompson puts the discussion of Pastoral Ministry (at least according to Paul) within a theological and biblical framework. When I read the above words, my heart was saddened: we have traded the patterns of this work of ministry with marketplace values pressed upon the pastoral role and church praxis at the expense (really the replacement) of a Scriptural basis for pastoral ministry. We’ve invented much of what we call church and church life and experience, so a little return to Scripture is a good thing, a very good thing. I anticipate good things from Thompson’s book. I am getting closer to wanting to actually throw my hat back into the Pastoral ring. (Scary thought—for the church! And, after what I have said so often in this blog or written about, not sure bureaucracies and denominational hierarchy would want someone like me in their midst.) Sorry, a Dr, Phil I will not be. More biblical work needs to be done on measuring success biblically—something I have discussed throughout this blog, but also something I hope to tackle more fully in the future.

One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains— and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.
     The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him.
     This time the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS replaced him.
     The three victims mounted together onto the chairs.
     The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.
     “Long live liberty!” cried the two adults.
      But the child was silent.
     “Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked.
     At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over.
     Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting.
     “Bare your heads!” yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping.
     “Cover your heads!”
Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive…
     For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
     Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
     “Where is God now?”
     And I heard a voice within me answer him:
     “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows…”

[Excerpt from Night by Elie Wiesel in Jon Pahl’s book Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces: Putting God in Place (2003), p 36.]

Pahl excerpts this piece from Wiesel’s book, Night, a powerful narrative of living through the Holocaust. What struck me was how the narrative (this little story) moved my own thoughts about God is showing up and what is typically thought of on that subject. Of course, as good evangelicals (and, yes, I am still one) we know God can’t be seen (at least according to texts like John 1:18). So, we piously eschew the idea of seeing God “in person” anywhere. But that’s not what is being asked when we say, “Where if anywhere, is God?” (as Pahl puts it). Of course, this is a metaphorical question or idea. So when we ask the question Where is God? we are really not asking something about God, but something about ourselves. The short account from Night made me think: where we see God is where we show our emotions, give our time, and place our commitments. If we see God in a cardboard box, over a street sewer vent keeping warm from the night’s cold, we do something about homelessness. If we see God hanging out on the street corner, spray-painting graffiti on a store façade, we fight for programs to change lives. If we see God hunched over on a hidden park bench smoking a crack pipe, we develop soup kitchens and halfway houses and drug rehab-centers. If we see God, baby in toe standing in line for free bread and clothing, we develop self-sufficiency programs to break the cycle of poverty. Maybe we’d have more Christian community action if Christians would stop limiting where we see or can see God.  Where do you see God hanging?

“For you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men? What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building” (1 Corinthians 3:3-9).

These verses should humble every prominent or self-proclaimed evangelical church growth “expert” and guru and wannabe. Every pastor. Every under-shepherd of the flock. It sure humbled and convicted me as a Christian college professor. Always pontificating as if I am right, as if my words were next to God’s, as if I received them straight from the Spirit Himself. Acting as if I got, the right insight, and everyone else is missing it. Don’t get me wrong. I have deep convictions about the Word and what the original authors, through the Holy Spirit, meant when they wrote down their words. I have deep convictions about the Word’s application, especially for the up-to-date-church. I certainly don’t mean to say I should be more wishie-washie, compromising, or tolerant on interpretation of sacred text, or that I should be more open-minded. I am talking about confessing my arrogance. We picture Martin Luther taking his stand before the Council as strong, prideful, maybe even defiant. And we think that’s “me.”

“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

Yet earlier, the great reformer pleaded with God, confessed a desire to just go home and live in peace, not troubled by the stand he must make against, who he called, “wise counsel and elders, more learned” than he, and stand for his conviction of the supremacy of God’s Word. So his words before the Council were more humble, contrite, even reluctant than arrogance. These words from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians should strike at our heart, pierce through our misunderstanding of the nature of the Church. Reggie McNeal is right in his book, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church, when he says:

“…we have the best churches men can build, but we are still waiting for the church that only God can get credit for” (p. 23).

“Calvin DeWitt, professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leading evangelical supporter of various environmental causes, called the NAE statement “a retreat and a defeat.” He predicted “negative consequences for the ability of evangelicals to influence the White House, unfortunately and sadly.” Should influencing the White House be the primary or even a major objective for evangelicals, or should their goal be to please God?

“A better objective would be to follow another statement made not by a committee but by a single individual who claims ownership of His church and requires obedience to all who would follow Him: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19) Jesus also called on His disciples - then and now - “to obey everything I have commanded you.” A quick look does not reveal those teachings as having anything to do with global warming or the environment. Rather, He calls individuals to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and pray for those who persecute them. Evangelicals should pursue these higher virtues instead of settling for the lower life of politics” [Cal Thomas, “The agenda-driven life,” in Townhall.com (Feb 13, 2006)].

I certainly hope there are some evangelical Christians involved with environmental issues. And some, I hope, are lobbying politicians for legislation that is reasonable and actually helps protect our environment. But this is crazy. Now evangelicals are seeking to be known as “green.” Don’t they know the verdict is not out on whether there really is a man-made global warming, let alone if we can gauge how much, or whether it is something we (man) can stop? (Read Michael Crichton’s State of Fear that exposes the weak, but agenda-driven green movement’s argument and its manipulating the evidence for global warming.) I think I am mostly bothered because there are other “causes” which there is clearly a need and clearly presented in Scripture. I am speaking specifically about the issues of poverty. Where is the same outcry and desire to end poverty right here in America? Let’s see a “Call to Action” from these same 86 evangelicals to end poverty. I guess it is not sexy enough of an issue, especially since it is in their own backyard. Let’s see these 86 signers of the green evangelical magna carta call on the President to fight the war on poverty right here in the United States. Plead with him, lobby him to restore full funding to the Community Services Block Grant program, the primary Federal instrument that has as its mission and purpose “to alleviate the causes and conditions of poverty.”

A New York Time’s essay also highlights some of the concerns other evangelical have on the evangelical switch to green (selected paragraphs):

“Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying ‘millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors’.”

“Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller ‘The Purpose-Driven Life’.”

“’For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority,’ the statement said. ‘Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough’.”

“Some of the nation’s most high-profile evangelical leaders, however, have tried to derail such action. Twenty-two of them signed a letter in January declaring, ‘Global warming is not a consensus issue.’ Among the signers were Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; and Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

“E. Calvin Beisner, associate professor of historical theology at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., helped organize the opposition into a group called the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. He said Tuesday that ‘the science is not settled’ on whether global warming was actually a problem or even that human beings were causing it. And he said that the solutions advocated by global warming opponents would only cause the cost of energy to rise, with the burden falling most heavily on the poor” [“Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative,” by Laurie Goodstien in the NY Times (February 8, 2006)].

Well, my goodness. Haven’t they seen enough of poverty? Haven’t they heard enough? Isn’t the Bible full of agenda regarding the Christian community’s responsibility to the poor? This climate thing is still an unknown. But, what is known is that people are poor and Christians are supposed to do something about it...no need for research on this issue.

“…the marketing model, if followed, empties the truth out of the gospel. First, the needs consumers have are needs they identify for themselves. The needs sinners have are needs God identifies for us, and the way we see our needs is rather different from the way he sees them. We suppress the truth about God, holding it down in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18). We are not subject to his moral law and in our fallenness are incapable of being obedient to it (Rom 8:7), so how likely is it, outside of the intervention of God through the Holy Spirit, that we will identify our needs as those arising from our rebellion against God? No, the product we will seek naturally will not be the gospel. It will be a therapy of some kind, a technique for life, perhaps a way of connecting more deeply with our own spiritual selves on our own terms, terms that require no repentance and no redemption. It will not be the gospel. The gospel cannot be a product that the church sells because there are no consumers for it. When we find consumers, we will find that what they are interested in buying, on their own terms, is not the gospel” [David Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World, p. 53].

Dr. David Wells is always putting the right words to what I have been thinking. When someone like me takes a contrary position to the trendy ways of the building-centered, market-driving church, I am accused of everything from being an antiquated fuddy-duddy to someone who misunderstands the needs of the modern person. Dr. Wells points out well “marketing the gospel” to meet the needs of our fellow modern-day sinners empties the truth right out of the Gospel.

But okay…let’s return for a second to what we perceive the needs of our surrounding unchurched and unsaved. Although I am not opposed to the idea that meeting a physical or social need might lead someone to Christ, it is also true that doing so can—and many times does—lead them away as well. Plus, meetings needs isn’t for getting to church or even to the Gospel--that model doesn’t exist in the New Testament as far as I can read. Meeting people’s needs is simply a good Christian thing to do and is supported by plenty of Old and New Testament passages, especially meeting the needs of the vulnerable and the poor.

Are consumers of the Gospel really saved? Now that’s a question for debate. (And really for a future post.) I will not judge here, but I will say this question presents a dilemma for the Church who seeks to “market” the gospel. I’d rather think we are to do the Gospel and let the foreknowledge of God and work of the Holy Spirit fall where they may. It is a curious thing that the New Testament spends almost 100% of its words on getting the Church to do the Gospel and be the Church and virtually zero on how to market the Gospel—we’ve invented that, sadly. Now, now, don’t get me wrong…in a bland or neutral sense of the word “market” we can present a pitiful gospel which is handedly rejected, not because of what Christ has done but for what we represent. But that’s not “marketing,” that’s presenting the wrong Gospel. There is a difference.

And then you have the problem of turning consumers of the Gospel into faithful followers of Christ, disciples. At what point do you train or turn your consumers at church into disciples. And what do you do when they choose to be consumers and never disciples. Good for church numbers (attendance perhaps), but not good for the building of the Church and expanding the Kingdom. If you get them to church as consumers, is there any wonder that you can’t get them to grow-up in the Lord while they are there?

“We’ll repaint Christianity in a light that will make it appeal to postmoderns” (Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be), p. 61).

“’Post-evangelicals are less inclined to look for truth in propositional statements and old moral certitudes and more likely to seek it in symbols, ambiguities, and situational judgments’” (p. 73 quoting, Dave Tomlinson, The Post-Evangelical, p. 94).

“The whole movement seems to be built on reductionistic, even modernistic, either-or categories” (p. 75).

Have you ever noticed that those who do not believe truth is available as a category use propositional statements to argue their view? How silly. You can’t use propositional truth to clobber propositional truth. I understand my atheist friends arguing for allusive truth. I can even understand my skeptical friends believing “what’s truth for you might not be truth for me.” But for those who are supposed to take God and His Word seriously, I have the hardest time fathoming this turn away from revealed truth and the devaluing of the Bible itself. Understandable from unbelievers and strains of liberal theologically oriented; but those claiming some direct correspondence to the Church found in the Bible, this is very hard to accept for me. First, I don’t believe they grasp the danger in their own fallacy of diminished certainty. Second, isn’t it really idolatry to fashion a “faith” out of the contemporary, cultural influences? And third, ultimately the Christianity the emergent church is attempting to fashion will not be something people will give their lives to—for long.

“Young people will give their lives for an exclamation point, but they will not give their lives for a question mark, not for very long anyway” (p. 127).

“Arguing for the inherent uncertainty of knowledge causes problems when you write books trying to convince people to believe or behave in certain ways. That is to say, radical uncertainty sounds nice as a sort of protest against the perceived dogmatism of evangelical Christianity, but it gets in the way when you want to [sic] prove your point. At some point, no matter how often you rag on certainty and boast in the great mysterious unknowability of God, you will want people to be clear about your beliefs” (Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be), p. 41).

“So intrigue and ambiguity are good when the ideas in question are ones emerging leaders don’t particularly care for or care about, but when it comes to making their point, clarity is key” (p. 42).

“What is so frustrating, then, is when emerging authors claim the postmodern high ground that supposedly eschews reason, logic, and certain truth claims” (p 42).

I also find it humorous when those who downgrade truth or disdain truth as a category argue their case. How in the world can they do that? It is obvious that they want to be believed, understood, and seen as positing something, well, true. Truth obviously exists somewhere, or they would be quiet, for they would have nothing to say. They expect you to understand their words and their meaning, to have some clarity on their use of language, and ultimately that you would agree they have something worthwhile to say. Furthermore, it is very frustrating when those who go by the name “Christian,” who claim a dependence on the apostles, claim to know better than anyone else that “truth” is relative, unattainable, and allusive—except of course what they are teaching as true. No matter the false humility, they still want you to hear them clearly, understand what they are saying, and to know it is exclusively true compared to another argument—say, for instance, that truth is knowable and that God’s true Word is revealed in the Bible’s words. Eschewing truth and downgrading certainty, like poison, kills those who use it themselves. (I am so clever.)

“What we suffer from today, wrote Chesterton in the previous century, ‘is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition…[and] settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table’” (Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be), p 40).

I agree with the two guys who wrote Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be): I should be an excited and welcoming emerging emergent Church attender (maybe even, leader). And loving it. Some might be surprised at this, but I love thinking out of the box, innovation, and edgy stuff when it comes to Church stuff and the worship experience. But some things really bug me—being trendy for trendy sake, purposely being “radical” just to be noticed, doing your best to up-one all the others who are seeking to be trendy, and just be to accepted by so-called postmodern (really hyper-modern) contemporaries devaluing the Bible as God’s inspired, inerrant Word just because its trendy to do so (for all the reasons I just listed). It is a false humility to feign uncertainity, and somewhat idolatrous (if you ask me), to adopt the postmodern tendency to eschew the reliability of the Bible simply because it is out-of-vogue to believe in truth. Whenever I hear emergent leaders downgrade the Bible, I think of something Albert Camus, a postmodern of his day, once said,

“The world expects of Christians that they will raise their voices so loudly and clearly…that not even the simplest man can have the slightest doubt about what they are saying. Further, the world expects of Christians that they will eschew all fuzzy abstractions and plant themselves squarely in front of the bloody face of history. We stand in need of folk who have determined to speak directly and unmistakably and, come what may, to stand by what they have said.”

To risk it all just to be accepted. That is ultimately not what postmoderns need or want.

“So much for the money.  The raging debate in student-aid circles today is whether money is the worst of the barriers facing the poor.  ‘No,’ says James Heckman, a professor at the University of Chicago and a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics.  Among well-prepared students, he finds that the poor enroll at almost the same rate as the rich.  For those who can’t raise enough for tuition, targeted grants would be ideal.  But to prepare and motivate larger numbers of poor kids, the most effective “college prep” may be enrichment courses for infants and toddlers.  The research is proving it, Heckman says.  Schools (and testing) play only a minor role in raising test scores.  Stimulating tots produces more successful and smart adults” [Jane Bryant Quinn in “New Math for College Costs” (Newsweek, March 13, 2006)].

Everywhere I go, it seems that I read or hear of mounting evidence and even from authors referring to the growing evidence that the best way to raise “student test scores” and produce more college bound students and turn out more productive adults is to invest in children ages 1-5 (i.e., preschoolers).  And, when the discussion turns toward the poor, there seems to be a univocal voice among researchers that investing in preschool literacy does more for the the poor than any other resource the government or private sector can provide.  In an essay from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota, the research shows that early childhood development equals economic development, especially among the children from low-income and poor families.  The writer concludes, “It is time for Minnesota to put its money where the return is: Prepare our disadvantaged children for a successful education and the opportunity for personal achievement.” This could be said of every state.  (Connecticut legislature, are you listening!) Quinn, the essayist above, concludes that our federal legislators are not that interested in the research of people like James Heckman, “but governors are.” (As well they should be.) If we want to make long-sighted, cost effective change among rural and urban poor, we need to invest upfront in children, especially pre-school children.  “No Child Left Behind” is a good slogan, but the real teeth in such a government policy should result in more investment in children ages 1-5, especially poor children.  (Stop level funding Head Start!) As the above thought concludes, “Stimulating tots produces more successful and smart adults.” This is one trickle up economic approach I like--and we know it works.

For the Federal Reserve essay >> “Early childhood development = economic development” by Rob Grunewald and Art Rolnick