Resolved, To Embrace Christ as the Embodiment of Healing and Hope

I have to admit, although the people at Resolved had been a pleasure to interact with, by Saturday evening I was resigned to be continually frustrated by the preaching. Thus far I’d found the messages to be pedantic, fallacious, and repressive – not so much in content, but in the way the story of Christ had been conveyed and applied.

For a brief few hours that all changed Saturday night when C.J.Mahaney took the stage.

I was taken by surprise when he began by drawing attention to a woman and daughter he had met in the airport. They were finally able to attend the conference after being held back for several years due to the degenerative illness of the husband/father. Sadly, he had recently died and, though grieving, they decided to attend the conference this year in his honor. C.J. was deeply moved by their story and in front of 3000 people honored their loss and offered them comfort. It was the first display of compassion I’d seen thus far at Resolved. It was a genuinely powerful moment.

He then began his message, titled “I wish I’d been there,” launching into the first truly expositional teaching of the weekend. He read from the story of the Gadarene Demoniac in Mark Chapter 5, effectively immersing us into the social fabric of the time, the interpersonal tragedy of the affliction, and the inherent suffering and triumph of the story itself. He spoke with sincerity and expressiveness, with humor and creativity, and with a powerful sense of dramatic suspense. He was the only great storyteller of the weekend.

He addressed the obvious difficult subject – whether or not Christians can be demonically afflicted – handling it constructively and reasonably, without ridiculing opponents or propping up straw men. He did not try to scare us into believing he was right. In fact, quite the opposite: his tone and tenor he made it clear that standing with Christ was the safest possible place to be, and that nothing need be feared in the light of the gospel.

It was nothing short of a tour de force of gospel preaching.

Mahaney pointed out how this amazing story of deliverance demonstrated Christ’s authority to save people from all manner of sin and oppression; how we are all – like the demoniac – ruled by the prevailing powers that work death and destruction in our lives through our own brokenness; and, most importantly, how the infective mission of the liberating gospel was there too, in Jesus’ commission to send the man back to his own town to be a witness of this new, liberating Kingdom.

It was the gospel and it was all there in the story, plain as day and easy to see. C.J. was there in the story as well – he pointed himself out several times in the image of the demoniac – but I was there too…and so were you. Indeed, Mahaney started his message by saying, “I wish I’d been there,” but by the time he was finished we all had been. Each and every person in that room had just seen Jesus – the living embodiment of the healing, hope, and power of the Kingdom of God – and we would never be the same. It was now clearer that through Jesus all bonds could be broken, all wounds could be healed, and the distant and long-suffering promise of a truly good and liberating life had rushed in from the future, crashing headlong into the powers of death and oppression.

I had been sitting in a kind of lobby area, listening over the sound system and taking notes on my laptop, but halfway through I was compelled to get up and walk into the main hall so I could see for myself what was happening on stage. I was transfixed for the next 30 minutes or so. The message he gave us wasn’t merely audible. He actually seemed to bear the weight of it on his person and so preached it with his whole being. The experience changed me.

There was nothing resembling an alter call, and I don’t really even believe in alter calls anymore, but afterward it was all I could do to keep from rushing toward the stage and falling on my face before God in gratitude. It took all my powers of restraint to keep from disturbing the conference at the renewed and deeper realization that the Kingdom had come in the person of Christ.

Now anything was possible.

Technorati Tags: C.J. Mahaney, Gospel, Jesus Christ, Mark, Preaching, Resolved Conference

Resolved, Not To Think Too Rigorously About Jesus

I’ve interacted with literally hundreds of people at Resolved and I have to say that everyone has been wonderful. People are kind, upbeat, and demonstrate a singular passion for learning about God and worshipping fervently – and I appreciate the hospitality that has been shown by the event crew.

Saturday afternoon’s speaker was Steve Lawson. I’d never heard him before and I was anxious to shed my frustration from the morning session with Al Mohler.

It was not to be.

I’ll admit up front that Steve’s rhetorical style bothered me from the start. He’s an old-time preacher that likes to build a crescendo by saying the same thing, sentence after sentence, in a slightly different way in order to drive a point home. As in:

“Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The trinitarian ikon. The divine logos. The incarnated deity. Fully God and fully man. Not 50% God and 50% man. Not 100% God. Not 100% man. 100% God and 100% man!”

You get the picture. It’s like listening to a live version of the Amplified Bible. I can’t stand the Amplified Bible. As my friend Jason Dougherty once said, “It’s a poet’s nightmare.”

But that’s just a matter of taste. Some people like that style, and as far as that style goes, Steve is very skilled. His topic was “Who is Jesus Christ?” and his approach was to rifle through the various claims made about Jesus in scripture. Not a bad approach. And, honestly, I wholeheartedly agreed with everything he said about Jesus – until he decided to get defensive about challenges to Jesus’ divinity.

Steve offered the following 5 irrefutable “proofs” of Jesus’ divinity:

• Divine attributes: Jesus possesses the incommunicable attributes of God
• Divine works: Jesus performs the works that only God can perform
• Divine names: Jesus is called by names reserved only for God
• Divine worship: Jesus receives the worship that only God can receive
• Divine quality: Jesus is doxologically referred to as God by the NT writers.

Let me be clear: I believe each of these statements constitute genuine knowledge about Jesus and I believe they are true. However, they are not facts and they do not constitute “proof” of anything other than a certain measure of internal consistency in Christian scripture. Yet, Steve Lawson postured them as irrefutable proof that Jesus Christ was and is, in fact, the incarnate God of the universe.

There are a few problems with this kind of foundationalist approach to preaching. First, it imparts a feeble epistemology – which could explain why so many college-bound evangelical Christians lose their faith. If you’ve been told your whole life that Jesus is God because the Bible says so then you’ll be unable to compete in a marketplace of ideas steeped in the worldview of empirical data. Christendom is over. The Bible is just another book as far as the world is concerned, and there’s no compelling reason to take its claims at face value.

In response, fundamentalism attempts to play the empirical game by dressing up doctrinal beliefs as empirical data. The exact opposite is needed. We must openly admit what any rational person can see – that faith claims are not facts – while faithfully demonstrating that empirical data is not the only valid form of true knowledge. Just because faith must be subjectively tried and tested doesn’t mean it isn’t genuinely powerful knowledge.

And therein lies the cruel catch: the power of faith is found in its ability to liberate people toward a life of divinely ordained possibilities, but that power cannot be experienced without being tested – a process that involves stages of frustration and doubt. Yet, most people won’t risk this if they’ve been told – under threat of ridicule, ostracism, and eternal damnation – that they must unquestioningly accept faith claims as irrefutable facts. By doing so, we impose constricting limitations on people rather than create horizons of freedom and possibility.

Author and organizational consultant Peter Block speaks to this in his excellent and provocative book, Community. speaking of the power of stories in our lives, he says:

The stories that are useful and fulfilling are the ones that are metaphors, signposts, parables, and inspiration for the fullest expression of our humanity. They are communal teaching stories. Creation stories, wisdom stories, sometimes personal stories that have a mythic quality, even if they come from a person sitting next to me [...] Limiting stories are the ones that present themselves as if they were true. Facts.

What Peter Block is describing here is the difference between how law and grace work in the imagination of a community. Law tells stories that restrict us; stories of fear and the need for boundaries in order to be safe. Grace tells stories that liberate us; stories of possibility and assurance that inspire us to take risks. Often the difference is not in the content, it’s in the telling. Even though all his content was true, Steve Lawson told a story of fear, restriction, and law rather than one of grace and freedom.

I was beginning to think the whole weekend would be an exercise in frustration…until C.J. Mahaney took the stage. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Foundationalism, Fundamentalism, Jesus Christ, Knowledge, Peter Block, Resolved Conference, Steve Lawson

On Spending Easter With a Porn Star: My Interview With Craig Gross

As the Production Manager for christianaudio, I sometimes conduct audio interviews with Christian authors. I recently spoke with Craig Gross, co-founder of XXXChurch.com and co-author, along with Jason Harper, of the recent book, Jesus Loves You…This I Know:

In this edition of Author Sketches we talk to speaker and pastor Craig Gross, whose latest book Jesus Loves Me This I Know, was co-authored with Jason Harper and continues the outward-focused themes explored in his previous books like Starving Jesus and The Gutter: Where Life Is Meant To Be Lived. In this interview Craig talked to us about touring the country with Porn stars, sharing Easter with Ron Jeremy, and learning to be less judgmental through his visit with Fred Phelps and the people of Westboro Baptist Church.

You can download the interview for free at christianaudio.com by clicking here (registration is required).

Technorati Tags: Books, christianaudio, Christianity, Craig Gross, Interviews, Jason Harper, Jesus Christ

The Tale of Two Gardeners, An Easter Parable

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ~ John 12:24

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ~ John 6:53

Once there were two men who longed for real tomatoes with good flavor – unlike the bland, waxy variety found in the chain supermarkets. So they both decided to start their own home gardens.

The first gardener bought the best seeds in the best seed catalog and picked out a nice patch of dirt behind his house with good sunlight. Since tomatoes are the gateway drug of home gardening, he couldn’t help but purchase a few pepper plants and eggplants too. He dug in the hard soil (there was a lot of clay in their area) and planted and watered his seeds, careful to space them apart properly, and reflecting on how – in a sense – the seed had to die before new life could spring from it.

Every day he was diligent to water and weed his garden and, sure enough, in about a week little sprouts poked through the surface. But neither the tomatoes nor the others plants grew as big as those in the catalog pictures, and although his tomatoes tasted far better than the waxy supermarket variety, they looked a bit scrawny and didn’t produce very much.

The second gardener bought the best seeds in the best seed catalog and picked out a nice patch of dirt behind his house with good sunlight. Since tomatoes are the gateway drug of home gardening, he couldn’t help but purchase a few pepper plants and eggplants too.

Because there was a lot of clay in their area he rented a roto-tiller and spent a day plowing up the hard dirt for his garden bed. The tiller violently ripped into the hard soil about a foot deep, churning everything over and deeply cultivating the topsoil and clay into a soft new mixture. Then he went to the local compost facility where grass clippings, pulled weeds, and other yard waste from all over the city was allowed to rot and decay into smelly black piles of rich organic matter. He filled his truck bed to the brim with this living-dead dirt and shoveled it onto his freshly-tilled planter beds. To this he added earthworm castings (worm poop!). He then folded all this deep into the soil turning it over and over again one shovel-full at a time.

Then he added organic fertilizer, made from decomposed bone, kelp, and fish meal. He sprinkled the ashy white powder all over the planter beds and raked it into the dirt, shaping the beds into gently sloping mounds, which were now smelly, soft, and a deep dark brown color. Into this graveyard of decomposed animal and vegetable waste he planted and watered his seeds, and reflected on how they would have to break open and “die” in order for life to spring from them. And he thought, too, of how the young plants would be – in a sense – eating the flesh and drinking the blood of all the animals and plants that were sacrificed and given on their behalf, and he marveled at how much death was required to produce rich, full life.

That summer his tomatoes outgrew their cages, and the pepper plants were so full they crowded each other in the beds. He picked so many big, beautiful tomatoes and peppers that he had to share them with his friends and neighbors since it was more than he could possible eat all by himself. And his tomatoes were very tasty.

Technorati Tags: Easter, Gardening, Jesus Christ, John, Parables

The Prostitution of the Gospel Through Marketing

A while back I wrote a post called 5 Arguments Against the Use of Media and Marketing in Church (I followed up with a related post about hologram pastors here). Not surprisingly I received some pretty irate feedback from other pastors. But today Eric Seiberling posted a very even-handed response disagreeing with me that is worth reading if you’re interested in this subject. I really appreciate Eric’s thoughtful response. Having said that, Eric and I definitely disagree:

Marketing and media is just another tool.  It changes the dynamics of reach, immediacy and immersion of a message, but it does not change it. The message is the message.

If tools are neutral then he’s right. We can put the gospel on a postcard and all we have to worry about is being faithful to the message. But there are two problems with that. First, tools are not neutral; hammers, televisions, and guns are all engineered for purposes and with technology which prejudice their use. At the very least tools participate in the shaping of their subject in ways that are beyond the control (and sometimes beyond the awareness) of the operator. At worst they dominate to the point of becoming the message and even transforming the operator (yes, like a ring of power!). Personally, I think the degree to which that domination occurs depends on the amount of power the tool facilitates (for example, guns prejudice their own use and shape the character of their operators more powerfully than, say, hammers). There are few tools more powerful these days than media.

But there’s a second problem beyond the prejudice of tools. If you think the gospel is a propositional message meant to lead people to an action (like the sinners prayer) then any delivery system will do – indeed, the more powerful and compelling the “call to action” the better. But the gospel is not merely information to be conveyed, it is a person who must be both proclaimed and demonstrated. And because that person is not physically available to us, the means of proclamation becomes a demonstration of his reality. Hence, there’s simply no way to proclaim the gospel of Christ without personally, locally, and relationally demonstrating him. Marketing seeks to bypass that inefficiency, and in doing so eliminates the presence of Christ from the gospel. Do we really want to personify Christ in the same way that Madison Avenue personifies, say, Oprah Winfrey or Colonel Sanders?

Is it even possible to represent Christ with postcards, television commercials, and propaganda films without irreparable misrepresentation (Ceci n’est pas une Christ? – HT: Chris Nelson)? As far as I know, there is only one ikon that embodies the image of Christ on earth – the Church – and that ikon is so obviously flawed that dressing it up in marketing lipstick just makes her look, to the rest of the world, like a cheap prostitute.

Case in point: is this really an accurate embodiment of Christ?

Or this?

Or, my personal favorite:

Each of these are real examples of church marketing products (mass-mailer postcards) from one of the largest and most successful church marketing companies in the U.S. (yes, there’s profit in this). I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that these postcards distort Christ in ways that range from mildly perplexing to blatantly idolatrous. Especially in the last two, the medium really is the message, and the message is most definitely not the gospel. Moreover, this is not just about the intent of the user or designer (although that clearly is a factor); marketing inherently tends toward expressions of leisure, affluence, and power in the same way that hammers tend toward expressions of blunt force. Otherwise they just don’t work because of the prejudice of their technology and design.

I’ll admit there are many nuances to be explored in this topic, and I do think media can be used by churches in missional and educational ways. Perhaps I’ll explore some thoughts on that in the future, but in the meantime I think my friend Bill Kinnon says it best:

What we win them with, is what we win them to. Win them with entertainment, and you’ve created customers – who expect to be continually entertained.

Picking up our crosses and following Jesus is not particularly attractive. Buying into a worldview where the last are first, and the first are last doesn’t win us any earthly popularity awards – and seems antithetical to the North American Dream.

Death to self. Becoming weak and poor. Identifying with the marginalized. Relinquishing the American Dream. Try putting that on a postcard and see who shows up.

Technorati Tags: Church, Eric Seiberling, Gospel, Jesus Christ, marketing, Media

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 8

(This is the 9th and final installment in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7)

Pastors as Teachers of the Nations

Of all the chapters in Willard’s latest book, this final one surprised me the most, starting with the seemingly outrageous title, “Pastors as Teachers of the Nations.” Isn’t that arrogant? Imperialistic, even, in a post-Colonial sort of way? Still, it is the logical conclusion of Willard’s line of thought regarding the central importance of spiritual knowledge in general and knowledge of Christ in particular:

“Who is to bring the knowledge that will answer the great life questions that perplex humanity? [...] The primary responsibility to teach falls upon those who self-identify as spokespeople for Christ and who perhaps have some leadership position or role in Christian organizations.”

He makes it clear that he is not speaking exclusively to those who hold official leadership positions, but he is speaking especially to them and in so doing he addresses Jesus great comission to”make disciples of all nations,” and says something perhaps challenging to us pastors:

Above all, perhaps, we must not think of the task as making adherents to a particular brand of Christianity now current. If we do, we will then lose the cosmic viewpoint and see the task only in terms of religious organizations and political realities. Jesus, however, did not send people out to make Christians or start churches as we understand them today. He set them to make disciples (students, apprentices) to him and, supported by his presence, to teach them all that he had taught by word and deed. That is a very different enterprise!

Here Willard stresses, again, the central importance of genuine knowledge for teachers of any kind, but particularly Christian teachers. It is not enough to know about Christ, or scripture, or theology proper. Our task is to know Christ and make him available by that knowledge to others. This, of course, means that we must actually be people who possess such knowledge of Christ and be able to demonstrate it; and this leads to another challenging point – Willard says we should ask for and expect no priviledge accoriding to title, but rather be ready to demonstrate the truth of the knowledge we profess:

True spokespeople for Christ need no special advantage and seek none. It is one again – but now on the worldwide stage that comes with “globalization” – a question of the God who answers “by fire” (1 Kings 18:24).

Are pastors really ready and willing to be tested in that way? Being willing to have one’s knowledge tested and demonstrated as true in real life speaks to a level of confidence we don’t often see in Christian leadership. Instead, what we tend to see is endless defensive bickering and accusations aimed at belittling the competing dogmatic thoughts of others (usually other Christians). Entire ministries and churches are now built on that foundation. Willard has something to say about that as well:

It is not knowledge, but nervous uncertainty, that makes people dogmatic, close-minded, and hostile – which spokespeople for Christ must never be. Paul wisely said to his young pastor friend, Timothy” “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth” (2 Tim 2:24-25).

Of course, because we live in a time when all religious thought – and the status of Christian leaders along with it – has been relegated to the scrap heap of mere opinion, pastors will have to repeatedly, and under tremendous external opposition, present the basic tenets of Christianity as knowledge and be ready to defend and demonstrate it. This is largely not the case today, where pastors as seen as teachers of what Christians are supposed to believe, not of what is known and can be known as true by anyone through fair inquiry.

Finally, all this discipleship is an activity that happens not in the church, but in the world – for that is where people live their lives and that is where God is at work. Raising people up to serve in the church is ultimately a dead-end. “Discipleship is for the sake of the world, not for the sake of the church.” Willard ends the Chapter and the book with this exhortation and encouragement:

The most important thing that is happening in your community is what is happening there under the administration of true pastors for Christ. If you, as a pastor, do not believe that, then you do not understand the dignity of what you are supposed to be doing. Whatever your situation, there is nothing more important on earth than to dwell in the knowledge of Christ and to bring that knowledge to others.

Questions:

1. What’s your reaction to Willard’s claim that pastors are to be the “teachers of the nations?”
2. How do you feel about the idea that our claims of knowledge about Christ must be testable and provable as true?
3. What other thought or questions are you left with as we finish this book series?

Technorati Tags: Books, Christianity, Dallas Willard, Jesus Christ, Knowing Christ Today, Pastors

Does It Matter If We Know Jesus?

I’m going to interrupt my series on Dallas Willard’s book Knowing Christ Today with this brief interlude:

In Evangelicalism we talk famously about “Knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior.” What is generally meant by that statement is that salvation is the result of knowing Christ in an affective way, not just knowing about him. That is, it doesn’t matter if you merely accept the tenets of the faith (“even the demons believe”), and it certainly doesn’t matter if you merely do the good works of the faith (that would be either a works-based righteousness or *gasp* a “social gospel”), what matters is whether or not you have a discernible, personal connection with God. That is what “saves.”

A classic passage for supporting this notion is Matthew 7:22-23:

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

This is, I think, the most frightening thing Jesus ever said. It imparts the sense that one could work very hard to do what Christ said we should do, but in the end never really know him. Frankly, for those who struggle with self-acceptance, this passage plays into their very worst fears.

But notice two things: First, Jesus utters these words directly after saying that what really matters is what we do:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

The issue is not that the “evildoers” were focused on doing, but that they were focused on doing the wrong things. I think there are strong shades of Matthew 6 here (prayer, fasting, and alms for the sake of public recognition). Second, Jesus doesn’t say the evildoers didn’t really know him. Quite the opposite: he said he didn’t know them:

Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

What if the soteriological question isn’t “Do you know Christ?” but rather, “Does Christ know you?” What if salvation doesn’t depend on our knowledge of God, but on God’s knowledge of us? Consider this question from the perspective of a related passage, The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Jesus here is directly answering a question about the end of the age and judgment (Matt 24), and part of his answer is three parables, each of which successively interprets the one before. Who will be saved at the end of the age? Answer: The Parable of the Ten Virgins (Those who are “watchful” will be saved). Who is watchful? Answer: The Parable of the Talents (Those who are “good stewards” are watchful). Who are good stewards? Answer: The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Those who care for the poor and needy are good stewards – an idea explicit among certain OT prophets). All three parables ask and answer the same question, “Who, in the end, will be saved?” and the ultimate answer to all three is, “Those who cared for the poor and needy will be saved.”

Again, the key isn’t who knows Christ, but who Christ knows (an idea mentioned by Christ again in The Parable of the Ten Virgins, 25:12). In fact, it’s interesting to note that both the “righteous” and “unrighteous” seem quite surprised at the prospect of having in some way encountered Christ on earth (moreover, it seems to be that this sense of having encountered God without knowing, or being known by God without knowing it, is a frequent pattern in scripture). The bottom line is, we are known by Christ by virtue of having served him (often unknowingly) according to his will. 

Of course, many will point out (rightly) that all this still depends on a certain kind of knowing on our part. Namely, that we know the will of Christ. But that’s my whole point. Christ appears to be holding people disastrously accountable for knowing his will but not doing it (and Paul seems to make it clear that everyone, to some extent, knows his will). By failing to do his will, we are not known by him. The unrighteous seem to be banking on “knowing Jesus,” when, in fact, they were never known by him – and it is the latter knowledge by God that saves.

That, to me, introduces some interesting questions:

1. How is it possible to know Christ, but not be known by him? (Which is abundantly clear in these passages)
2. Is it possible to not know Christ, yet still be known by him? (Which seems to be insinuated)
3. How is this knowledge of us by God through our service to him still a function of grace? (Which, it absolutely must be)

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Jesus Christ, Knowledge, Matthew, Theology

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Chapter 3

(This is part 4 in my series on Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today. Previous Entries: Intro | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2)

How Moral Knowledge Disappeared

In the third chapter Willard is concerned with helping us understand how we have come to a place where religion is no longer viewed as a valid source of knowledge.

He begins by reinforcing that for centuries Christ was known primarily through his moral teachings, and that this moral teaching was reliably passed along and used for the general good of everyone – believers and non-believers alike – until very recently in Western history. Specifically, he says,

This knowledge was available to the public through the institutions of society recognized as sources of knowledge, primarily, of course, churches and schools (of all the various levels). Then, over a period of time, less than a century, the knowledge institutions of our society ceased, for various causes and reasons, to represent traditionally recognized moral values and principles as constituting a body of knowledge. They took it to be an area in which knowledge was not possible or not possible to the extent it could be taught as knowledge. This is the disappearance of moral knowledge that has actually occurred in our recent past.

Willard then lists several causes for this disappearance. They are:

1. The failure of the visible Christian church to apply the principle of Jesus to the appalling conditions of European humanity during the 1700′s and 1800′s. When the church was still the public custodian of morality, it failed to speak for Christ in the face of horrible abuses.

2. The simultaneous advancement of knowledge by the sciences that called into question many of the founding documents, events, and personalities of the Christian traditions and institutions. According to Willard, the cause here was not so much the advancement of scientific knowledge itself, for that knowledge never really succeeded in showing a non-Christian foundation for moral knowledge. Rather, the failure was on the part of Christan institutions who, under secular pressure, capitulated to the abdication of moral knowledge as actual knowledge.

3. The emergence of many different kinds of moralities through the anthropological research of non-European cultures. As the moral systems of other cultures was studied, there grew a common academic consensus that no morality was necessarily true, as such, and that Western (Christian) morality was merely another cultural form of morality.

4. The disappearance of the human self at the hands of psychological research. The concept of the unconscious emerged, rendering meaningless the idea that the human self was something that could be formed intentionally and consciously. The conviction grew that we are shaped and formed largely beyond our own control by forces inside and outside that are neither moral nor immoral.

Over and against this trajectory of relative morality and cultural opinion, Willard states that Christ’s version of morality is clearly unique and superior to anything else found in human history. To be sure, there are reflections of it in a variety of cultures and religions, but Christ stands alone in his radically teachings about love.

Particularly, the way Christ applied the rule to love neighbors, which includes strangers, aliens, and enemies. This kind of love pervades every level of life – especially the ordinary – supersedes any and all laws, and becomes the basis for a revolutionary society that successfully cultivates such neighbor love among others, beginning with the early Christians.

Questions:

1. What are your thoughts about Willard’s four causes of the disappearance of moral knowledge? Do you find yourself in some ways agreeing with those conclusions (the church is not a moral agent, science has dis-proven Christianity, all moralities are equal, and the human self cannot be intentionally formed)?
2. Do you feel the church has at any time demonstrated a heritage of successfully cultivating genuinely Christlike people? If so, when?
3. Are you comfortable with the idea that Christ is superior to other spiritual figures?

Technorati Tags: Christianity, Dallas Willard, Jesus Christ, Knowledge

Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Introduction

(For the next five weeks I’ll be blogging every Wednesday and Friday through Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today, one chapter at a time. Today, I begin with the Introduction.)

A memorable quote from a college lecture appears on page five of Willard’s latest book, attributed to Dr. William Provine, professor of Biological Sciences at Cornell University:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutioinary biology tells us loud and clear…there are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans either.

Willard’s one-sentence response is simply, “Logically viewed, this statement is simply laughable.” That statement pretty much summarizes the book, which is primarily concerned with re-appropriating real knowledge itself – as opposed to mere information, belief, opinion, emotion, or fantasy – as the foundation of faith.

It would be hard to find a better candidate for the task. Dallas Willard is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California and is generally well known by Christians as the author of the 1999 book The Divine Conspiracy. Since then he’s followed up with a series of books, all of which address his ongoing central theme of spiritual formation.

Willard states the problem as, “the trivialization of faith apart from knowledge and with the disastrous effects of a repositioning of faith in Jesus Christ.” In other words, the erosion of confidence in religious truth claims as claims of real knowledge has lead to a dismantling of faith as sure footing for life. The most obvious effect of this erosion is the relegating of Christian teachers and leaders on the public stage to general irrelevance.

Yet Willard is concerned about far more than a public relations challenge. Nothing considered to be less than real knowledge can function as the ground upon which lives are lived. For Willard this is the root cause of the identity crisis the Church is currently experiencing.

Some will not appreciate Willard’s prescription for this malaise. He says the answer lies not in the cultivating emotions, faithful practices of ritual or liturgy, just “trying harder,” or even miraculous intervention. He readily admits these all have their place in shaping a person’s faith, but fundamentally belief cannot properly govern life without being in harmony with the genuine evidence of true knowledge as we live it out in practice. Whether we like it or not, that is what we all base our lives upon.

He asks, is that possible? Is it possible to actually know the things you profess or believe as a Christian or is the task of the Christian to simply believe what cannot be known?

I haven’t heard much noise about this book, but this is a highly relevant question for our time for there are many Christians currently claiming that actual knowledge is outside the realm of faith (and many who claim it is outside the realm of all life in general). Willard disagrees, saying:

“A life of steadfast discipleship to Jesus Christ can be supported only upon assured knowledge of how things are, of the realities in terms of which that life is lived [and] There is a body of uniquely Christian knowledge, one that is available to all who would appropriately seek it and receive it.”

I suspect that some in Emerging/Missional Church circles will be uncomfortable with this book because it represents a nod toward a form of certainty that too closely resembles Modern fundamentalism, while some fundamentalist-leaning folks will distrust Willard’s work here because he has had such a profound impact on Emerging/Missional folks in the realm of spiritual formation.

My perspective is that Willard’s work provides a haven from both the paternalistic authoritarianism of Modernity that many, including myself, long for as well as a shelter from the dislocated wilderness of post-Modernity. In that sense, it could possibly represent an epistemological common ground for both progressives and traditionalists alike.

Questions:

1. What has been your experience with the belittling of faith as true knowledge?
2. Do you tend toward faith as a certain form of knowledge or faith as that which fills the gap of knowledge?
3. What do you see as the limits of religious knowledge?

Technorati Tags: Books, Christianity, Dallas Willard, Jesus Christ

Been There, Done That

Today the Ikon folks met at Grape Day Park in Escondido to have a Thanksgiving meal with our friends who live in the Park. For the past six months Cory and Crissy Verner have spent every Saturday having coffee and donuts with these folks, making friendships and immersing themselves in the lives of people who are typically overlooked. Once a month a few of us join them, bring real food, get to know people, offer haircuts, etc. Today they wanted to share the holiday with their new friends in a meaningful way.

Several things surprised me about the gathering, but one thing didn’t.

I was surprised how many people turned out. There were probably over 100 folks there today, and at least 30 of them came to bring food for our friends in the park. Wow.

I was surprised at how peacefully the event unfolded. I’ve done a ton of feeding programs at churches and non-profit centers as a pastor, and it’s not uncommon for a large gathering like this to grow tense (or worse) with people cutting in line, jockeying for position and taking more than their share. There was none of that today. I think this is because our approach all along has been that we’re not feeding the homeless, we’re eating with our friends. Cory and Crissy embody this approach perfectly and did a great job of setting it up like a large family picnic. People chatted in line, piled their plates, and plopped onto blankets in small groups scattered around the area. Kids played football and stormed the playground. It was genuinely fun and restful.

I was surprised we didn’t get a ticket. The Verners have been progressively harassed by the Park Police over the past few months because it’s illegal to feed the homeless there. We do it anyway because we think that’s stupid, immoral, and discriminatory – but we’ve always been discreet about it and it’s always been much smaller than this. Today a Park cop showed up, saw all the people sitting on blankets laughing and eating together and said, “This is a good thing. I’m not going to call it in.” Then he stayed and chatted for awhile. Wow again.

I was surprised how many different churches were involved. As I walked around meeting people I counted 6 different churches from a variety of traditions represented. This wasn’t intentional. As word organically spread over the past few weeks other churches jumped on board, officially and unofficially. It was inspiring and humbling to see.

I wasn’t surprised when someone expressed disappointment that we weren’t sharing the gospel. I’ve come to expect this from Christians. We’ve been telling ourselves for a couple hundred years now that the gospel is an intellectual formula about Jesus and heaven, so it comes as no surprise to me when people expect a speech about that formula.

I was proud of my wife Jenell who replied, “These people already know about that, they don’t need to hear it again from us. Actually, I think most of them have more faith than we do. What they need now is relationships.”

Exactly.

Every Saturday around the time Cory and Crissy go to the park another man shows up with his bible and preaches a message. Every week he says the same thing: “You’re sinners; you’re filthy and depraved; your addictions are keeping you from God and you’re going to Hell; turn to God and be saved.” This means saying the sinners prayer so they’ll go to heaven when they die – because that’s what’s really important. Additionally, the natural, yet deeply superstitious implication is that if they do so, some of their immediate problems might start going away too.

Now – never mind for the moment that I don’t think this is the gospel – Jenell and I have taken an informal poll, and as near as we can tell they’ve all been there and done that already…multiple times in most cases. In fact, in 15 years of ministry in 3 different States we’ve never met a homeless person that didn’t profess Christ. They’re so desperate they’ll pray anything if it means getting some relief for their hunger, their illness, their woundedness, and their hopelessness. You would too.

But it doesn’t help.

Praying a sinner’s prayer won’t fill your belly. It doesn’t fix mental illness, it won’t get you a job and it won’t dry your addictions. I don’t even think it will get you into heaven when you die (but that’s another blog post).

Here’s what does help: people. God, yes…but God through people. What helps us is deeply committed, compassionate people who are willing to get to know us, suffer with our dysfunctions, love us in spite of our shit, help us re-build our lives, and include us in the little things. As John says,

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:7-12)

That’s where God resides. That’s where we “see” him – in the vacuum of human need, which then fills to overflowing with life as the abundance of God flows from person to another. This is a significant implication of the incarnation of Christ, and every time we do it we’re literally “sharing” the gospel.

Sadly, not may Christians I’ve met have been there and done that. It’s way too hard, too messy, and too frightening. But that is where salvation lies, for both the giver and the receiver. In my recent series on the Kingdom and Economy I quoted Bryant Myers, and he’s worth quoting here again:

“Poverty is a result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable.”

There’s an indispensable place for proclaiming the audaciously disruptive news of Christ’s Kingship, but for those who’ve already heard, our urgent task is to demonstrate the gospel as a life of deeply just and harmonious relationships that manifest redeeming love between people.

Technorati Tags: 1 John, Bryant Myers, Gospel, Grape Day Park, homeless, Ikon Community, Jesus Christ, poor, poverty, Salvation, Thanksgiving