Bandits No More

What is one to do if one wants to be a United Methodist Bishop? As I noted before, if one can get a gig leading another Annual Conference in one’s jurisdiction in morning bible study, one can dramatically increase one’s visibility. The theory goes that if one does a good job, one might gain votes at the next Jurisdictional Conference.

My concern is about whether or not such “gigs” are rewarded on the basis of launching or promoting episcopal candidates. While the connection seems obvious to me, it is covert. No one at Annual Conference dared mention that our “guest Bible Study leader” might be being presented as an episcopal candidate.

Ok, no one but me. Everyone with whom I brought up the possibility shrugged it off our outright denied that it could be the case. I finally did get one person to acknowledge what was going on, that said Elder was indeed being presented as an episcopal candidate, and that said Elder was a choice of the current Bishops to be an episcopal candidate.

One of the most frustrating things for me in the family system we call The United Methodist Church is when we refuse to say things that are obvious but simply not to be said.

Isn’t it time we were willing to name things what they are?

Maybe when I grow up I’ll be able to write half as well as Tom Wright. In this piece (link is in the title) Wright summarizes the claim of the Book of Acts as “Jesus is Lord and Caesar Isn’t” – addressed to both a Jewish audience (which offers them hope and deliverance) and to a pagan audience – your pursuit of Mammon (money), Aphrodite (sex) and Mars (war) will destroy you. If you’re United Methodist like I am, try reading “Methodist” each time he writes “Anglican.”

Apparently the Supreme Court can’t decide if the Ten Commandments are religious or not. Or perhaps they cannot reach consensus on how religious they are.

I am interested in your opinion: Are the Ten Commandments inherently and inextricably religious?

Sometimes we church leaders are tempted to treat people like children. We selectively give information, we tell people exactly what to do, we make sure we repeat ourselves frequently – preferably in words of few syllables. Example: When it comes to church finances I’ve heard that you should never tell people things are going ok. If they hear things are going well, they’ll stop giving, on the reasoning that since things are going well now, their giving isn’t needed anymore. While I have seen some evidence to support this theory, I still can’t bring myself to treat my people like children – instead of as responsible adults. It honors God to say that we’re doing well financially (when we are truly doing so), when we see it as a result of his generosity with us. It honors the people when finances aren’t doing so well to tell them the truth and let them respond to the need in faith.

In his July article in Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens tells of the Iranian Mullahcracy’s practice of treating the Iranian people as children who need a nanny (or, since they’re all males, do we find a masculine version of “nanny”?).

The Islamic republic actually counts all of its subjects as infants, and all of its bosses as their parents. It is based, in theory and in practice, on a Muslim concept known as velayat-e faqih, or “guardianship of the jurist.” In its original phrasing, this can mean that the clergy assumes responsibility for orphans, for the insane, and for (aha!) abandoned or untenanted property.

When I read the Bible I see that while God talks of people as his children (in two different senses: universally as creatures made in his image, particularly, as though who have been adopted through faith in Jesus), and Jesus encourages us to respond to him with childlikeness, God always respects people enough to give them both freedom and responsibility. We may or may not like this freedom and responsibility. We may or may not use them well. But if God can love and hold accountable the people he has made for himself, surely we ought to do likewise.

In France at least, they’ve found a way to reduce the number of Down Children. Through the miracles of modern science and technology, they can now identify these defective children in the womb and kill them before they ever desecrate society with their endless needs and non-productivity. I wonder what defect they’ll work to eliminate next?

I’m with Angela Beise: if this is what a more perfect society looks like, I’d rather not have it.

Since the beginning Christians have been disputing what items are essential to the faith. In the West, current debate centers on homosexuality. The Anglican Consulatitive Council has recently acted to exclude the American and Canadian branches for their refusal to bring their views in line with Anglican doctrine (see here and here). In the BBC piece we read:

The Rev Susan Russell, president of the US gay Christian group Integrity, said gays and lesbians were just as capable of holiness as heterosexuals.

But she said: “The more important question, I think, for the Church, is, ‘Does God care more about our sexual orientation or our theological orientation?’

“And if one’s theological orientation is determined to be correct, faithful and holy, then we see no bar to ordination.”

She told BBC News the issue of gay clergy was “not a matter essential to the faith”.

She said: “The more important question to me right now is, ‘Is this an issue that should split a communion when our attention should be focused on people dying of malaria and children with Aids in Africa?'”

Doubtless one’s take on whether homosexual practice is compatible with the Christian faith is not “a matter essential to the faith.” At least not the Christian faith as revealed in Scripture. Just because it is not an essential belief does not mean that particular beliefs in this arena are not truly in line with Scripture – or church teaching – and more conducive to a healthy church. Of course we can trump almost anything with the appeal to deats caused by Malaria and AIDS in Africa. Surely even doctrines that have been considered essential to the faith – the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the resurrection of Jesus – can be trumped by our need to attend to these horrible realities. But the church isn’t just a social service agency. We’re to to make disciples of Jesus. This involves life transformation – in the direction of holiness. Though supporters of the homosexual lifestyle see no conflict between that lifestyle and the life of holiness, it sure looks like Scripture argues differently.

But then maybe this whole point is misguided. Maybe one’s position on homosexuality reallyis an essential matter of the faith. A bank in England has asked a Christian group to close its account because that group rejects homosexuality. It appears that in some circles at least, the acceptability of homosexuality IS an essential matter of the faith – the secular faith, that is.

I first read Seth Godin’s work years ago in Fast Company. I continue to find his work stimulating and helpful in my role as a church leader. Though his recent post is titled Shark Attack, he only uses the recent tragedy to discuss other matters.

First he talks about his recent book (which I’ve commented on several times in the past).

All Marketers are Liars was probably a dumb title for my latest book (if my goal was to sell a lot, fast). It doesn’t do a good job of matching the worldview of the people most likely to buy it or talk about it. Perhaps I should have called it, “The Orange Kangaroo: How Smart Marketers Tell Stories People Want to Believe.” Same book, different worldview. To be fair, my goal wasn’t to write a sequel, though, it was to change minds–which is a very time-consuming and difficult thing to do.

Actually in his terms, he failed to “market” the book. Instead of telling a story within the worldview of the hearers, he sought to tell the “truth” from a meta perspective – from above the fray. We philosophical types found this interesting, but I guess those interested in marketing found it less appealing.

He then raises the questions we communicators of the Gospel need to consider:

If you don’t have the energy or the time to change minds, though, what should you do? You need to realize that changing a worldview requires you to get your prospects to admit that they were wrong. This is awfully hard to do.

I think that tapping into a worldview almost always requires more than a new title or a new wrapper or a new ad. I think it requires rethinking the product itself, starting from scratch with the worldview in mind.

Udner Bishop Huie’s leadership this year’s session of the Texas Annual Conference was quite different from any I had previously experienced. The most obvious agenda difference came on Tuesday with the addition of two workshop sessions. The first workshop I went to was on a new conference plan for evangelism. The workshop leader recognized that most of our United Methodist churches aren’t currently configured for evangelism. Maintenance of facilities, yes. Paying the bills, yes. Taking care of members, yes. But evangelism? Reaching people outside the church and bringing them to faith in Jesus? Nope. Change is required. The plan calls for spending 4 weeks changing the minds of the congregation toward evangelism so the work can proceed, since “it takes 30 days to change a person’s mind.” I almost fell down laughing. Is he serious? Have his churches been easier than mine? Changing minds – except on trivial subjects – is much too complicated to be accomplished in a mere 30 days. Seth Godin understands this.

So how do you change minds – whether to sell a book or to lead a church to care for evangelism? When worldview is involved – and in evangelism it most assuredly is – two acts must be performed simultaneously. First, the old worldview must be shown to be deficient. Second, the new worldview must be shown to be desirable. Both must be done continuously. Understanding the second step is fairly straightforward (though actually doing it is a huge job), so I’ll speak to the first step.

Undermining a worldview is extremely difficult. Not only are worldviews highly resilient, but attacks often provoke violent responses (if you think I’m exaggerating, consider the current relations between America and the Islamic world). Personally I’m not sure I’m cut out for the frontal assault. I tried that in one church and got run off pretty quickly. More in line with my personality is attempting the reductio ad absurdum of the current worldview. The weakness of this approach is that it is built on the notion that worldviews are primarily things of reason – and they’re not. Though they form the framework for one’s reason, we become very emotionally attached to our worldviews.

So what does it take to do this kind of undermining? At the very least, a strong sense of humor. You need to demonstrate over and over again that while you take God and his mission with utter seriousness, you don’t take yourself too seriously. Additionally, you need to find ways to exaggerate your love for people. This will require actions and words. By “words” I mean not only the saying of loving words, but also active interpretation of actions as loving. Why? Because love looks different in each worldview. As Christians love is defined by Jesus. In American culture love is often defined as a hormonal response (in one kind of context) or as complete affirmation of one’s desires and actions (in another kind of context). Perhaps you are sufficiently aware of worldviews to see a difference between these two understandings of love.

So how long does it take to change someone’s – or a congregation’s – mind? In my experience average situations would call for a minimum of at least 3 years. Obviously this calls for a third virtue – beyond a sense of humor and love: patience – or perhaps plain old stubborness. In the short term it’s almost always easier to go with the status quo. But in the long term is will almost always kill you (or your organization). There are no quick fixes.

The United Methodist News Service is trying to figure out the “Emerging Church” movement. In two articles they explore the nature of these churches and discover that they contain quite a bit of variety. Not a great surprise. I’ve done some stuff with Emergent & its people in the past, so I’ll share from my own perspective.

Emergent Village defines itself as a “conversation.” They avoid dogmatism – either theological or ecclesiastical. Most of the people I’ve met (Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Chris Seay, Brad Cecil, etc.) come from an Evangelical background – think Bible Church, Reformed and Southern Baptist. To my evangelical United Methodist ears they sound like they could easily be taken as liberals by their communities of origin. Such a label would be mistaken, however. They have learned much from theologians with a postmodern tilt – Stan Grenz, Stanley Hauerwas, Miroslav Volf. From my evangelical UM perspective, it sounds like they’re finally learning from the broader Christian tradition – and thus not all that new from our point of view. But to take the movement as solely or even primarily theological would be a mistake. It’s a conversation, not an institution. They’re not seeking power over anyone. Who is accepted as a conversation partner? In my experience they’re very open. As evangelicals they didn’t look at my United Methodism and reject me as hopelessly tainted with liberalism (as others have in the past). You can check out the conversation at their blog.

If Emegent has a bias, it is toward reaching the culture that has found American Christian culture irrelevant. This is where they rub a lot of their fellow evangelicals the wrong way. For modern evangelicals, the problem with modern culture is its atheism, its active rejection of Christian truth claims. From what the Emergent folk have seen, however, the question of truth has shifted from the theoretical to the pragmatic. Instead of facing moderns who hold to only one truth – knowing Christianity isn’t it – they face a new cohort who admit to many truths and seek to create their own path through the mess. In the midst of this creativity the Emergent folk hold to Jesus as the truth – not merely as the messenger of truth (in line with some forms of modern Christianity – and Mohammed in Islam) but as truth personified. Their passion to reach this generation has led them to where they are.

I like the Emergent people. They’re fun to be around. Most of my ministry, however, is in established churches with long term Christians. Most of the young people in my small town setting are at least nominal Christians. They take traditional ways of doing church as the way to go. So I’ve had less occasion to hang out with the Emergent folk than I would like. We’ll see what happens in the future (when I become an old geezer).

Well, it’s not exactly a new ride – just new for me. The Indiana Jones ride was built years ago, and I’ve been to Disneyland at least a couple of times since they’d added it, but I’d never ridden it until our visit a week ago. Hannah (age 9) and I rode it right after we rode the Snow White ride. You’d think there would be a lot of difference between the two. Snow White is a ride for little kids; Indiana Jones is for big people. Riding them one after the other, however, I saw they were essentially the same. Oh, Indiana Jones is faster and louder, but it’s essentially the same. In both you ride a vehicle that jerks you around through images from the story. Sure the images are more like-like, and thus scarier, in Indiana Jones, but if you’re a little kid, what’s the difference?

So now that I’ve ridden it once, I don’t need to do it again. I’ll stick with the g-force rides.

Several years ago – before the crash of the dot coms, I subscribed to Fast Company. Though the magazine has gotten much thinner of late, it is still putting out interesting articles on organization and leadership – and from the church perspective, windows into our culture.

In a recent piece they look at despair.com and the new book put out by the owners. The motivation industry puffs everyone up, aiming to make peopel feel good (sound familiar church?). Here’s what the authors say:

“What executives fail to realize is that the life-changing insights sold by the motivational industry are the source of their problems rather than the solution,” Kersten writes. “The primary objective of the motivational industry is to stoke the fires of your employees’ narcissism so that they fall in love with themselves all over again, just as they did when they saw their own beauty in the distorted reflection of their mother’s adoring gaze.”

For Kersten, the heart of the problem lies in what he calls the “noble employee myth,” a product of what he dryly calls the “motivational educational-industrial” — or “ME-I” — complex. The central elements of this myth are that employees are good and productive labor is natural for them. Management is responsible for creating the circumstances that unleash employee motivation and should be blamed when employees fail. Profits should not be pursued at the expense of employee satisfaction. On it goes — the very kinds of things you’d expect to read if Jean-Jacques Rousseau happened to be unleashed in an HR department.

In our churchly effort to meet “felt needs” and make people feel good – centering the gospel on notins like “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for yourlife” – we’ve forgotten sin and the reality of its destructive power in our lives. I think a little de-motivation for us sinners might be a good thing.