Bandits No More

I first ran into William T. Cavanaugh’s work a few years ago with his article of revisionist history in Modern Theology (“A Fire Strong Enough to Consume the House”). I’ve just finished reading his Theopolitical Imagination (the first chapter of which is a revision/representation of that article from Modern Theology). I’ll comment more on the book later.

Today I came across a piece he wrote for Sojourners on Consumerism (free registration required). He notes:

What marks consumerism as something new is its tendency to reduce everything, both the material and the spiritual, to a commodity able to be exchanged. Things that no other culture ever thought could be bought and sold—water, genetic codes, names (Tostitos Fiesta Bowl), human blood, the rights to emit pollutants into the air—are now routinely offered on the market. The recent story of the Nebraska man who auctioned off advertising space on his forehead is only the latest example of the commodification of everything. This story is not so much a lesson about greed—his forehead was apparently not big enough to garner bids for more than a few hundred dollars—as a statement about the extent to which we are able to become detached from even those things, like our foreheads, to which we are most obviously attached. We stand back from our bodies, faiths, vocations. Our very identity is something to be tried on, chosen, bought, sold, and discarded at will.

I recognize the temptations of consumerism in my own life as well as its prevalence in society. Everything is conceived as belonging to someone, and thus sellable (remember the story a few years ago about a couple Australian guys who copyrighted every possible phone tone?) I’m sure I know what the solution is. Cavanuagh offers both a dose of Marxism – “Worker ownership of the means of production” – Christian theology. The latter he expresses thusly:

The Christian task in a consumer society, then, is to create economic spaces that underscore our spiritual and physical connection to creation and to each other. We must strive to demystify commodities by being informed about where they come from, who makes them, and under what conditions. We should support products, such as fair-trade coffee, that pull back the veil from the production process and offer a sustainable life to their producers. We should attempt to create local, face-to-face economies, where consumers and producers know each other well enough that their interests tend to merge. My parish’s connection to a local cooperative of family farms (www.wholefarmcoop.com) is a hopeful example.

As far as implementing this in America, I don’t see any easy way to do it – for ordinary people anyway. If you live in the urbs or the suburbs you can find places like this. If you have a high enough income you can do the research and buy the more expensive stuff you know all about.
I guess my difference with Cavanaugh (besides the fact that I know less about the subject), is that I fail to see the complete evil of capitalism, understanding it more as one currently available economic system, not inherently worse or better than other systems. From what I see, however, it does seem to be the most effective system for large scale populations. Maybe I’ll learn differently as I advance my economic education.

Context is everything. In the context of a tennis game, “love” means something very different than in the context of Valentine’s Day. When and how words and phrases are used directly and significantly affects meaning.

One of the phrases most commonly used out of context is “the truth shall make you free.” It is etched in stone on buildings of universities and courthouses. It is cited as though a quest for truth is all that is needed for freedom.

These words are attributed to Jesus in John 8. Let’s look at the context for this great philosophical saying. This statement is not even a sentence in the scripture, but a clause. The whole sentence says: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (verse 32) Now, when a sentence begins with a word like “then,” it does so to refer to a prior thought or statement. In this case, verse 31, immediately before the “then,” has Jesus saying, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

What a difference the context makes! Instead of some abstract, freeform quest for truth, what Jesus is saying that if one wants to find truth one must do some very specific things. For truth that will set one free, one must hold to Jesus’ teachings.

It may be argued that there is access to truth without going through Jesus. I do not take issue with such a point in this column. I only want to make the point here that the truth that has the power to set one free is available for any who would be a disciple of Jesus and hold to his teaching.

If you want someone else’s truth, quote someone else. If you are going to quote Jesus on truth, hold to the truth he was talking about.

Roger Kimball rants in the New Criterion about the cuurent state of American Universities, ranging from the Ward Churchill fiasco to the transgender phenomenon sweeping even elite women’s colleges. He offers much in the way of diagnosis, but other than suggesting we need to do something about tenure, I don’t see much in the way of solutions offered.

I do find this interesting, however. He comments:

The chief issue is this: should our institutions of higher education be devoted primarily to the education of citizens—or should they be laboratories for social and political experimentation? Traditionally, a liberal arts education involved both character formation and learning.

Could we paraphrase this comment as, “Do universities exist to educate people or to socialize them?” It looks to me like today’s university faculties are seeking to produce both “character formation and learning.” What we have is some radically different notions of what kind of character ought to be formed combined with a near monopoly by one particular viewpoint. Are we surprised that when faculties have such a strong position (no real competition, piles of government & corporate money, money from parents, and students waiting to hear their wisdom) that they don’t seek to socialize their students into their own world?

Perhaps one solution to this problem, then, is to find ways to introduce competition – competition over ideas – into higher education. If Baylor can carry through with its 2010 plan (even with the loss of Robert Sloan) and make it work, that will be a first small step. If other schools, in other traditions, can take similar paths, it will be for the good of us all.

Steve Sjogren has written extensively on his experiences with Servant Evangelism, a style he characterizes as “High grace, low risk.” In this book, Irresistible Evangelism, he teams up with Dave Ping and Doug Pollock to consider the broader picture of evangelism, showing how servant evangelism can fit into the total evangelistic ministry of the church.

The authors recognize that many have set out to do evangelism – from a variety of motives – but have often found their work unproductive In fact, many of the things Christians do in their attempt to evangelize lead people away from Jesus rather than toward him. They identify 7 “deadly sins” in particular:

1. Scheming – Using slick marketing and “bait and switch” methods to bring people to Jesus
2. Scalp Hunting – Out for numbers; highly impersonal
3. Screaming – Self-righteously afflicting people with the gospel
4. Selling Jesus as if He’s a Juicer – Jesus as a fix-it man for life’s every difficulty
5. Stalking – Giving people no space; suffocating them with the blessing of your witness
6. Sermonizing – Offering all the answers before you hear any questions
7. Spectating – So paralyzed by fear you do nothing

If these are practices to avoid, what ought we to do? First, we ought to have a better understanding of what evangelism is. When I teach on the subject I teach that evangelism has three components: (1) What we say; (2) What we do; (3) Who we are – and each of these three components needs to be done by Christians as individuals as well as in groups. The authors say something similar. As they put it, “True evangelism is not merely proclaiming a message of good news; it is becoming a living representative of God’s heart toward people.” That is very well put. As a consequence of this understanding of evangelism, they emphasize that it is something we do not merely with designated unbelievers, but with everyone we encounter. God want to use us to help all people move closer to Him.

Once we understand evangelism as God’s action through us, what next? The authors suggest that discover each person’s “spiritual address.” They identify four levels of needs: Physical, Emotional/Relational, Directional, and Spiritual. We all have these needs, but respond differently to messages and actions addressed to each, depending on the situation. They observe that,

“we subconsciously evaluate whether what’s being communicated connects to any of our basic needs. If it doesn’t, we will choose to turn away and ignore it. If it does connect, we’ll begin to turn toward it and give it more attention. Once we begin turning toward the message and have started to understand it somewhat, the second set of choices kicks in. Based on a largely intuitive appraisal of the potential threats involved, we’ll choose either to begin to embrace or to reject the message.”

We usually only let these needs-meeting messages into our lives when we trust the messenger. Obviously, therefore, one of our primary needs as witnesses is to prove ourselves safe and trustworthy people.

Over the next several chapters Sjogren et al. address four methods to address these four kinds of needs:

• Active Kindness (Servant Evangelism) – meets physical needs of people, showing them God’s love in a practical way. Evangelists working at this stage need to avoid an instrumentalist approach: I’ll love you if you respond to my love. Rather, true servant evangelism is done “with no strings attached;” it’s offered freely. Does Servant Evangelism “work?” We pragmatic Americans always want to know if something works; too often we decide whether something is true, good, or to be done solely on the basis of whether it works. Sjogren’s Cincinnati church provides strong evidence that Servant Evangelism is a factor in reaching people for Jesus. He says, however, that it doesn’t work quickly. A church needs to keep at it at least a year before assessing effectiveness. He has three further suggestions for using it in the church: (1) Keep it simple so more people can participate; (2) Do it regularly – treat it as an ordinary part of the Christian life; (3) Be friendly – count the relational aspects as essential to the process.
• Active Friendship – Learning to pay attention to people and engage with them; the varieties of Friendship evangelism come in here. Take time to get into their lives and discover what matters to them. If you find that they’re sinners – with sinful desires and motivations – don’t reject them. Seek to understand them and love them where they’re at. Let friendship – loving them as Jesus would – be your main agenda item.
• Active Wondering – Creatively looking at the message of Jesus and connecting it with people’s lives. Apologetics fits in here, and can be mistakenly standardized in a one-size-fits-all approach. The key method they advise in this part of the process is asking open-ended questions (they provide 99 sample questions) probing their understanding of life in a non-threatening, non-judgmental way.
• Active Sharing – Helping people discover the “how to” of becoming a follower of Jesus; an essential part of evangelism, but too often the only focus of training in evangelism. In their chapter on this part of the process, they look at how the sharing process works in different kinds of relationships.

The final chapter of their book, “An Arsonist’s Guide to Evangelism,” presents 5 “fuelish” ways to “ignite ordinary church members with a passion for introducing their family, friends, neighbors, and complete strangers into life-changing relationships with Jesus Christ.” These five “fuels” include: Kindness, Fun, Generosity, Humility, and Prayer & Worship. At the same time we need to remove the “asbestos” items from the church: Fear, the idea that evangelism is something only for the experts, apathy and self-centeredness.

If you’re looking for help in developing a well-balanced approach to evangelism in your church, this book would be worth considering. (There is also a training kit available, but I haven’t checked it out yet.)

Nick Kristoff of the The New York Times writes about the narcissism of the baby-boom generation (his own). My guess is that many will read this and then take a cruise to distract themselves from thinking about the consequences of their actions.

We live in a dangerous world. People are out to get us. They want to kill us, maim us, abuse us, steal from us. They want to destroy our way of life.

And we don’t know what to do.

Thursday, someone took a suspicious object into a middle school in Clovis, New Mexico. After locking down the school and having police in place all around the school they discovered the object was a burrito. It was a really BIG burrito (30 inches), but still only a burrito. Scary.

Burrito’s are pretty dangerous. Just imagine how many calories and how much fat a 30 inch burrito would have. I bet the tortilla wrapper wasn’t even whole wheat.

Maybe burritos aren’t the biggest danger we face. But neither are terrorists. Though more dangerous than burritos – and absolutely murderous on many occasions, the worst they can do is kill us. We would be foolish to let our fear of terrorism control our lives – and equally foolish to pretend there is no threat. We need to find a healthy balance of preparation and busying ourselves with what we need to do.

Supporters of Beth Stroud looking for a change in the UMC blame the current UM position on homosexuality on homophobia. Translated into plain english, they’re saying the majority in the UMC – at least the majority as determined by General Conference voting over the past 30 years – is AFRAID of homosexuals/homosexuality. Sometimes they generalize: We’re afraid of the Different. We feel threatened. We might find that we’re different too.

Is fear a factor, or is this just another way of the schoolyard challenger yelling, “Chicken!” – encouraging us to be more afraid of being afraid (or seen to be afraid) than acknowledging danger?

Is there any danger – anything to be afraid of? I suppose one could express a fear of displeasing God; a fear of leading the church astray; a fear of leaving people in brokenness away from the transforming grace of God; a fear that sexual hedonism will become the norm in the church as it is in the broader culture. Of course each of these presuppose the idea that God has an opinion – a preference – regarding human sexual relations, and that we can best discern that opinion/preference by consulting scripture before we consult our feelings, experiences – even our science.

Assuming any or all of these (or others) might be legitimate fears, what might be an appropriate response? Calling out the police? Deploying sharpshooters? I don’t think so. If we look at Luke 15, we see the Pharisees and Jesus arguing about holiness and how to relate to those perceived as unholy. If we take Jesus as authoritative, then we can learn from his approach of defining holiness as not merely adhering to certain codes or standards, but bringing people back to God. Now this is a tough place to stand. It can easily be on the precipice of the slippery slope to antinomianism – “as long as I’m ok with God I can do whatever I want.” But Jesus DID describe his way as narrow – and I think it is in more than one way.

Late last year, in accordance with the United Methodist Book of Discipline that declares that a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” is ineligible for appointment as a United Methodist pastor, Beth Stroud lost her clergy credentials. Today the verdict of that court was reversed on appeal. Today’s decision was based on two points:
1. The General Conference has not defined “practicing homosexual”
2. The paragraph in which this rule occurs identifies the rule as based on the fact that the practice of homosexuality is “not compatible with Christian teaching.” “Christian teaching” is “doctrine.” The first restrictive rule in the UM Constitution limits what can be changed in our doctrine. The appeals court rules that because the GC had never spoken on the non-incompatibity of this restriction with our “accepted doctrine,” it was therefore unconstitutional.

Sigh.

I have no reason to doubt that Beth Stroud loves God. I have no reason to doubt that she has abundant skills for pastoral ministry. But that is irrelevant. Although these are disciplinary qualifications for ordained ministry, they are not sufficient. This organization we call the ordained ministry of the UMC, like all organizations, has certain requirements. Some of these are positive: skills, abilities, achievements, practices, qualifications that must be in hand or in life before one is ordained or if one wishes to remain ordained. Some are negative – practices, attitudes, dispositions – that one must refrain from or not evidence it one is to be or remain ordained. We find most of these requirements in the Book of Discipline, though each Annual Conference adds some further specifity and hoops to jump through. Some of the requirements have long standing in the Christian tradition, some are peculiar to United Methodists. Some of our requirements are common and comprehensible to the ordained in other church groups, some aren’t. Some make great sense, some are completely arbitrary. I like some of them, I don’t like others.

But the thing is, my likes and dislikes are, at this point, irrelevant. As one who has entered the System, I have pledged myself to uphold it. It is my job to submit to it. This is tough sometimes. I sometimes don’t like to submit (ok – rarely; submission isn’t fun). But I was not forced to become a United Methodist pastor. I am not forced to remain one.

And neither is Beth Stroud.

Here are links to the 10 parts of my review/discussion of Steve Sjogren’s, The Perfectly Imperfect Church: Redefining the “Ideal” Church. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.

With this post I’ll close out my discussion of the 13 “paths” Steve Sjogren traces for the “struggling church” to become a “perfectly imporfect” church. The eleventh path, True, deals with doctrines & beliefs. Sjogren divides these into those that are essential, traditional, and opinions.Not surprisingly, he urges churches to pay the most attention to the essentials (under which he counts “Who Jesus is,” “How we get truth,” and “How we get right with God.” I have to agree with him that most churches have enough agreements in these areas that they can exhbit basic unity with each other. Path 12 is Cooperative. The perfectly imperfect church lives out its misison in connection with other churches. It does not act like the only true church or seek to exalt itself above others. Finally, churches should be Leading Out. By this Sjogren seems to mean that churches should be bold and set strong, healthy examples for people.

The Book as a Whole: Sjogren’s other books are more useful than this one. His most useful books for ordinary church ministry include, Conspiracy of Kindness; Irresistible Evangelism; and 101 Ways to Reach Your Community. This book would have worked better as an extended magazine article rather than a complete book. Perhaps if he’d spent more time on it he could have made it more substantive, meriting book-length treatment. My wife also read the book and thought the beginning of the book was good – especially where Sjogren says there is no single right way to be a healthy church. Her take on the rest of the book was that he then proceeded to deny his first point, implying that the “low-church Vineyard” way was the best.

Time to get a move on here, so in this post I’ll deal with several of Sjogren’s “paths”s to becming a “perfectly imperfect church.” Path 8, which he calls Trusting, is about small groups. Small groups, he says, are the best way to build disciples, equip leaders, and maintain healthy body life. If you’ve read other books on small groups you’ll find nothing new here. Path 9 is Atmospheric (I’m not sure we use that word in East Texas – must be an Ohio thing). Atmosphere (East Texans do use that word), he says, is “what people feel in a church.” We help the atmosphere by allowing coffee in the sanctuary, paying attention to lighting, color, temperature, and seating in the worship space, and the flow of the service itself. Path 10 is Generosity. A healthy church is not stingy with its resources and through its acts of generosity – with outsiders, with other churches – trains its people to be generous. Of these three paths (Trusting, Atmospheric and Genrosity), I think this might be the biggest leverage point for the struggling church. In my experience fear is a major factor in the struggling church. Will we be able to keep the doors open? Will we be able to keep our own children in church? Will we be able to pay the bills? The natural response to money worries is to hang on more tightly to what one has. Stinginess seems to wise – and we know being wise is somehow connected to being godly. In the process we miss God – who is generous beyond our wildest imagination.