Best Kept Secret … Needs to Get Out … Shapevine

My first encounter with Lance was via a conference call. We discussed the project on which he and Alan Hirsch collaborated. Shapevine added some key developers and the Beta period will be over soon. The value of the regular interviews along with the soon to be released features make Shapevine a one of a kind.

Today Lance will interview Ryan Bolger at 3:00 p.m. CST. I met Ryan a few years ago, in the early days of ETREK. What a great gift to students! Take some time and get over to Shapevine and help get the word out. You will not be disappointed.

Friday Photo … Late Saturday

John (left) playing Switchfoot Wednesday evening.

Arriving at the Right Time

Paul has a solid post on the practice of God’s presence.

And yes, when he says he is not a morning person you should note the mild understatement.

Intersections - Epiphany and Sanctity of Life on Martin’s Day

Yesterday we celebrated the third Sunday after Epiphany and Sanctity of Life Sunday on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. These intersections created some personal reflections that surely showed up in the morning “sermon.” Today I find an illustration in the blog post of Emily Hunter McGowin.

Perhaps is it appropriate that I am posting this story on the day in the US that we celebrate the life and achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On April 4, 1967, when speaking against the Vietnam War, Dr. King said, “I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.” I hope that we can say the same.

And, for the executive fat-cats who watch while gross injustice plagues poor women and children in the developing world, I hear the words of Amos echoing in my head:

“You trample on the poor
and force him to give you grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.

For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.”
- Amos 5:11-12

The revealing of Jesus marks a different understanding of life, what it means to be human and how we relate with the God who made us.

Good Practice Begets Good Theology

Tony Jones new book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emerging Frontier, is due out in March. At some point I may offer a review. Tony obliged my request for a review copy for some research I am working on. We have had occasions to share good conversations both in person and over the phone.

One of the emphases of the emerging church movement/conversation raises the level of emphasis upon orthopraxy - right practice. Scot McKnight boils down the movement, borrowing from Gibbs and Bolger, to an ecclesiological push to live the way of Jesus in postmodern culture. In other words, people really hope to live the life of Jesus in a world full of tensions and complications either not experienced at all or not experienced at the current level of complexity. Those willing to point beyond carefully defined doctrinal articulations to a practice that reveals what one really believes often face ridicule as forgoing orthodoxy.

A few years ago I met Michael Spencer online, a.k.a. iMonk. I believe it came in the comment thread of a blog Steve McCoy began. I cannot recall if it was the early days of “Reformissionary” or not. Needless to say, our exchanges led me to begin reading iMonk. In fact, I had hoped at one time to hold a position for our State Pastor’s Conference hoping I could persuade Micheal to come preach. I did not “win.” He was a bit shocked I would ask. Maybe some day.

Today I read his post, “The Bible I Don’t Believe.” I reminisced a conversation or two I have had over the problematic nature of power words used to draw lines in odd places. For example, Michael chronicles his sixteen years of teaching, preaching, counseling, and giving away bibles to/with students from all backgrounds. He notes his dependence and insistence on the Bible. He stands firm on its inspiration and authority. And yet, when he refuses to use the term “inerrancy” the “code word police” come out of the woodwork even, evidently, suggesting Michael apostate.

This sad affair illustrates just why we need an emerging emphasis upon orthopraxy. Tony Jones suggests, “Good practice begets good theology.” (my translation) The corollary would be “Bad theology begets bad practice.” Take it a step further and draw in Dallas Willard’s contention that it matters little what we say we believe, but that what we really believe is demonstrated in our living. So, when someone suggests “in my humble opinion” and then proceeds in a number of places on the internet to rip Michael not for what he does but for the word he refuses to use it seems we have a ripe illustration. Sadly many dismiss many of the healthy things associated with the “emerging church” for many of the same reasons and in the same manner.

Self-defense often comes off as defensive. In this case, iMonk’s defense illustrates his orthopraxy begetting healthy theology. How is this for a list,

But what really makes me angry is what I did in those seven hours I was at school.

I preached on John 1 to 350 students about what it means to be a prophet who points to Jesus. My fourth sermon this week.
I prepared a sermon on John 1, on what it means to be a disciple, to be delivered tomorrow.
I read scripture and prayed with all my classes.
I taught four Bible survey classes, including three full lectures on the book of Judges, delivered to a majority of unbelievers, including Muslims, Buddhists and atheists.
I read scripture myself in my own devotional time, and made the words of scripture my own prayer.
My wife and I read scripture together this evening.
I started preparing for the two messages from the Bible and the one Bible class I’ll teach this weekend.
All like I’ve been doing for 16 years. I’m not blowing a horn here. This is my life. In the community setting where I live and serve I can’t go ten feet without bumping into something I’m doing with a Bible.

In none of those 16 years or before has anyone- student, staff, pastor, trustee, elder, pastor, parent of student, lay person or preacher- complained that I didn’t believe the Bible sufficiently. And I talk about the Bible and what I believe about it constantly. I assure you I don’t hide behind anything or anyone. I proudly read from Wright, Capon and Peterson to whoever will listen. I’m perceived on our staff as the original curmudgeon and stick-in-the-mud for my insistence that all our chapel preachers preach from the Bible, and from text of the Bible ONLY. As campus minister, I give away the Bible in every language on our campus and answer Bible questions all week. We make our students purchase the ESV for Bible class.

I know….lots of liberals going to hell like a greased pig have similar involvement with the Bible. Teaching and reading it mean nothing. Do you believe…really, really, really, believe…..like the “inerrancy” crowd? That’s the acid test.

It takes people who read blogs to figure out that I don’t believe the Bible, am apostate, a Biblical invertebrate and “wuss,” and will be judged by God as a false minister according to James 3:1 (a verse I know very well from my ordination.) This internet is a wonderful tool, isn’t it? Incredible insight with very little actual knowledge.

Whatever I believe about the Bible, I’m out here doing something with my life and my ministry that is unthinkable and impossible without my own foundational belief that the Bible is true, inspired and the Word that delivers the Gospel of Jesus. I know God in and through his Son Jesus, but what I know of Jesus grows out of the Bible first of all. My confidence in its truth, power, authority and relevance hasn’t changed.

Ask the people I minister to and with what I believe about the Bible. Oh wait, you aren’t actually here. Sorry.

If that’s a diatribe against “historic orthodox reformed Protestants,” then I hope you enjoy it. Sorry that I actually want to be accepted as a brother in Christ who believes and loves scripture. What’s gotten into me

I listened to Ed Stetzer’s CNN interview noting recent Lifeway research. He confirmed what Dan Kimball wrote giving people good reason to Like Jesus but not the Church and paint ourselves in such a light 44% would as soon avoid us as have a civil conversation.

If more people lived out the conviction iMonk shares we might reverse statistical trends and re-title our books. Here’s to iMonk. May his tribe increase.

It’s What I Want to Do

My brother Paul began a series on ecclesiology - the Church. During the course of his initial post he took a necessary detour and has been writing about “Authority.” For we “Free-Church” types it is bound to eventually stir controversy. During his series he has noted James K.A. Smith’s discussion of the effects of the autonomous self on the Church. After today’s post I left the office and mused on the way home.

If we follow out the effects of the autonomous self, especially among “Free-Church” traditions, isn’t the idea of “Church Discipline” undermined? For example, since our connectedness to a local church is a matter of an autonomous decision and remaining connected to that church a continued result of one’s autonomous decision, just how could we possibly exert discipline on a autonomous self who does not see himself or herself connected to the Church by any other means, temporally, that the will of the self to participate. Further, the whimsical nature of the autonomous self makes accountability something quite mythical.

Thoughts?

Frye Exegetes the Gospel via Newbigin

I came across this sentence from Leslie Newbigin from his book Truth to Tell…“The missionary action of the Church is the exegesis of the Gospel.”

 John Frye at Jesus the Radical Pastor

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Book Tag

Generally my brother has a bit of disdain for being tagged. Yet, he and I share an appreciation for the thoughtful writing of Emily Hunter McGowin. So, when she tagged Paul he obliged. Then as any good brother would do, he shared the love and tagged me. I thought, “What are brothers for?” I’ll give the tag a go.

1. One book that changed your life. I am a bibliophile. To attempt to narrow the books that have influenced me to one is nigh impossible. Nearly ten years ago I received a copy of The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. Ironically it was given to me for helping coordinate the time of “Invitation” at Falls Creek one summer. Two interesting things - the giver had not read the book and I did not immediately read it. A couple of years before receiving my copy of The Divine Conspiracy, a friend we were talking about what we were reading. Hance suggested I pick up a copy of The Jesus I Never Knew. Immediately Phillip Yancey became one of my, if not the, favorite authors. I literally sought to buy nearly everything he had written. I have read most of his books and to this day am deeply indebted to the suggestion to read this book. Shortly after finishing The Jesus I Never Knew and What’s So Amazing About Grace, I ventured into Willard’s book. A road exposed by Yancey became one I would not soon leave as I worked through The Divine Conspiracy. (Those of you who have stayed past the first three chapters of this book know well what I mean when I use the word, “worked.”)
2. One book you have read more than once. My mother in law gave me an old copy of Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Another volume I did not immediately read but after reading Willard’s book, I picked up this classic and have read it a few times. I am not sure there is another book I have read a second time - ever.
3. One book you would want on a desert island. In college Dr. Hall taught a course on survival. Since I did not take the course, I would want to get a copy of a survival guide like those noted by Emily and Paul.
4. Two books that made you laugh. There are likely a number of books that have made me laugh. My new friend Jim Palmer gave me a copy of his first book, Divine Nobodies. I finished this book, all but about 20 pages, on a flight from Miami to Dallas this past October. I immediately wrote Jim and e-mail thanking him for the book. I told him he made me laugh and cry. While Jim opens readers up to his experiences, some funny and some sad, he writes with such a style that keeps you ready for the next comedic description of some event or conversation. For some of the same reasons, it reminded me of a book I read in the early 1990’s by a Bruce McIver, Stories I Could Not Tell While I Was a Pastor. I am not sure I have laughed harder than reading and identifying with much of what Bruce wrote in 1991.
5. One book that made you cry. There are some stories that are hard to tell. People will suggest the process is something akin to cathartic. We often run the risk of reducing someone’s story to how is “speaks” to us or for us. In doing so we may minimize the pain and the courage taken to tell those hard stories. Rene Alston wrote Stumbling Toward Faith. Rather than risk doing just what I described, I will simply say, you must read this book and you must be prepared when you do.
6. One book you wish you’d written. There is something about identifying with those whose picture of Jesus tended toward the very one dimensional variety. Yancy, I think, referred to it as the “flannel graph.” For those too young to remember the flanner graph, think the stories you have heard of “vinyl albums.” Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew restored the humanity of Jesus and helped overcome something of a gnostic vision we tend toward by pristinating his every encounter.
7. One book you wish had never been written. I am going to re-post Paul’s description here. This is tough because I generally think there is some value to most books including the ones with which I would violently disagree because I think there is something to be learned from them. I think the worst books are those that are entirely unoriginal and just boring or incredibly superficial. That said I think I’d have to go with the entire Left Behind series, mainly because I think they are deceptive. If people understood up front that they are just fiction that would be one thing. That they are taken so seriously and that the authors want them to be taken seriously leads me to view them as eschatological versions of The DaVinci Code.
8. Two books you are currently reading. Recent conversations with a couple of theologians inspired me to pick up Leslie Newbigin’s, Proper Confidence. Something of an explication of Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge, Newbigin notes the need for intruders. His own story of living among the Hindu in India helped him provide insightful missiological principles for Western Churches and Christians. The rash of “new atheist” tomes - thinking Dawkins and Hitchens here - led me to pick up I Sold My Soul on eBay by Hemant Mehta. Jim Henderson of Off the Map won the eBay auction and sent this “friendly atheist” to church. We need to listen to those “intruders” willing to share life and a conversation with us. (Note: David Phillips told me reading Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge was like a root canal. I am looking for the nitrous before sitting in my chair to read it.)
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read. My friend John recommended Christopher Wright’s, The Mission of God. I admit this is way down in the stack. It looks like it could take a short sabbatical to get through. I might note, I have also meant to read Friedman’s, The World Is Flat.
10. Five people that I tag. Natalie Burris, Rick Davis, Steve McCoy, David Phillips, and Alan Cross.

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