Once more into the abyss

It is not news to any of you who know me or read this blog that I tend to wrestle with many of the pillars of Christian Orthodoxy, or more accurately, many of the hang-ups of North American Evangelicalism. I tend to take nothing for granted, enjoy questioning the establishment, and love to disassemble theological systems. It is a kind of cathartic vandalism for me.

A while back I wrote about some of my concerns with the doctrine of hell, or at least how the doctrine has been formulated and applied in the context of North American Evangelicalism. If you look at it in terms of how much we talk about hell and how much we have taken our Modern incarnation of the concept and made it an integral part of our gospel message, you would have to conclude that it is one of our favorite doctrines. We simply love the idea of hell.

When I was growing up most of my Christian experience was in a fairly conservative, traditional, and theologically even-keeled church. We believed in hell, no doubt about it. We had a somewhat friendly relationship with a like minded church in town who was into hell even more than we were. They had this big mansion on their church property, an old house that would fit the part in just about every haunted house story I had ever heard. Every Halloween they would transform this mansion into a kind of Christianized haunted house.

The theme was usually the apocalyptic judgment and eternal punishment of sinners, those who didn’t love Jesus like we did. It was scary stuff. Rooms would be dedicated to portraying the hellish reality of abortion clinics, drug users, porn watchers, rapists, and alcoholics and how they were all bound for the undying flames of hell. The end result was a brutal assault on the psyche of every teenager who walked through the halls of that house every Halloween, an all out barrage of hellfire and brimstone that motivated even the most pagan of us to turn away from our evil ways and embrace the Jesus who promised not to torture us as long as we loved him enough.

It seems a bizarre tactic when you consider the message and mission of Jesus Christ. “Go out and make disciples,” he said, “ teach them to live the way I taught you to live.” The part about scaring the bejebus outta people must be a text variant that was lost in transmission.

“Money, it’s a hit...

Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit.” So says Pink Floyd in their classic sarcasm-laden critique of materialism (the song appears on their “Dark Side of the Moon” album, which is coincidentally the fourth highest selling album in history…nice bit-o-irony there).

Funny thing is, this lyric is pretty much the mantra of my life. I spend most of MY money on MYself while simultaneously not giving a damn about the poor and oppressed that are living in squalor all over God’s green earth (hey, wait a minute, it is HIS earth, why doesn’t HE do something about it…oops he did, he created the Church and told her to get off her ass and care for the poor…my bad).

I was just thinking of all the money I made last year, and how much of it was spent on me and my family. We bought a car, rent a nice house, bought a new TV, go out to eat A LOT, new clothes, toys, toys, toys. I claim to be a follower of Jesus, but my checkbook says I am a follower of Scott. I spent almost 90% of my money on me last year. This year will probably be the same.

Super-size me, Jesus, make me bigger.

For me, one of the more devilish aspects of small church ministry is how often my lack of resources causes me to covet the resources of other churches. It is very difficult for me to read a book by a mega-church pastor, I usually only make it about two-thirds through the prologue before I start coveting that pastor's ministry.

It is almost impossible for me to watch a Rob Bell video the whole way through without coveting. Right about the time I hear the familiar "Noooo-ma" sound blurb at the beginning I start feeling a tightening in my gut, that all-too-familiar rumbling of steeple envy that I experience when I look at what Rob has (big church, national speaking ministry, hair) and wish it belonged to me instead. After all, I did win the preaching award in seminary.

This sinful thought cycle tends to get more intense whenever the church where I work encounters a financial crunch which, as luck would have it (or as God would have it, depending on your theological bias), is happening as I type. We are out of money. If we don't come up enough money this week, something won't be paid. I hope that this "something" won't be my pay check. That would not be good.

So I find myself constantly waging war against my steeple envy, telling myself over and over again that I am not in it to grow a mega church. However, if I was honest, I would have to admit that if the pharmaceutical companies came up with a pill that helped enlarge my steeple, I would buy it...in a New York minute.

I love my Jesus, mostly becasue he's mine.

I have been thinking a lot lately of the concept of Jesus as "personal savior."

I grew up in a context where a personal relationship with Jesus Christ was the primary focus of all evangelism and discipleship efforts. When we wanted to ask someone if they followed Jesus, we asked them if they had a "personal relationship" with him. This is the way we figured out whether or not they were going to hell.

I have difficulty with this approach to the "divine relationship" because it takes a very complex thing (human relationships) with transcendent implications (the God of the universe is involved) and makes it a simple binary mechanism. Do you or do you not have a personal relationship with Jesus?

What if you do one day, but don't the next? I mean, this seems to be the way most human relationships work, they are constantly in process, in a sate of flux. Sometimes they are good sometimes they are bad. They are very meaningful some days, and almost meaningless other days. Relationship undulations are a normal part of the human condition.

And then theres the reality that Jesus was/is much more than my personal savior. We forget that the biblical Jesus was a prophet, priest, king, rabbi, radical, Jew, and human. He is the Savior of the cosmos, the Redeemer of all that is. This is a magnificent reality that is almost ignored in our obsession with our own personal Jesus (queue the Depeche Mode riff). We have taken the Creator-God, the Redeemer of the Universe, and made him our "Buddy Christ."

Yay for us.

It’s not you, it’s me…well ok, it’s you.

I had a person approach me on Sunday to inform me that they were leaving our church. I am not sure I can recall the exact reason given, but I am fairly confident that it was some version of the reason I have been given many times before, “I kinda don’t like it here anymore.”

I have become more comfortable with the inevitable departure that accompanies change within a church community. Things change, people leave. To be honest, many people have left our church over the past two years. Fortunately they have been replaced by others. The problem with this kind of dramatic and accelerated turnover is that the more people leave, the more things change, and the more things change, the more people tend to leave. At last count almost 95% of our church family has left since I showed up a little over two years ago.

I must have slept through the “church growth” class in seminary.

Thankfully, I have a bunch of good friends in our church who assure me that God is working in our small group, and that this kind of “changing of the guard” is quite natural. I tend to agree with them. I just don’t like what has become of our concept of community. How can you go from being a committed member of a family to “you know, this just isn’t working out” without ever really trying to work through the situation?

I think one of the most painful things is when people compose a kind of “Dear John” letter to explain their grievances while they slip out the back door. When people leave because they don’t like something about our church, or agree with me, or whatever and never make an attempt to work it out, it shows me that they value comfort more than they value the relationship they have with me or the church. It is just too uncomfortable to stay or try to work it out.

It makes me wonder if people are excluding themselves from the kind of relationships made possible by working through tough issues with your church family. I guess they’ll never know.

What the Hell?

It's St. Valentine's Day, which means that I am in my office thinking about eternal punishment. Not that I think being married is equivalent to damnation, not at all. It's just that sarcasm and melancholy are like love languages to me.

I have been thinking a lot about hell over the past few weeks. I have been wondering why I believe in a place called "hell," a place where all those who don't love Jesus go to be tortured by the God who "so loved the world." It seems a strange doctrine to me. Sorry, but it does.

I also wander why the concept of hell has been elevated to such prominence in the modern day evangelical message. We have made hell one of the most significant pillars of the Gospel message. We run around telling people that the key to eternal bliss is to have a "personal relationship with Jesus." The consequences for not beleiving in that relationship, or not accepting it, or not understanding it, or having never heard about it is to be burned alive for all of eternity in a lake of fire. What does that make Jesus? It makes him sound like he isn't so much a savior as he is an abusive bully.

"Love me, or else."

Now there's some good news that'll get 'em running down the isle at our next revival service. Amen, brother. Amen.

Riddle me this, Batman...

I tend to to reject the idea of "the Bible is my Answer Book." True, I believe the Bible offers many answers, but not ALL answers. It never even claims to be the Answer Book. This is what it claims:

"You, however, must continue in the things you have learned and are confident about. You know who taught you and how from infancy you have known the holy writings, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 3:17 that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:14-17 (The NET Bible)

In a nutshell, the Bible claims to be two things: 1) God-powered or inspired by God; 2) useful for teaching, training, etc. The ultimate purpose for the Bible's God-empowerment and usefulness is to help the person dedicated to God live a good life. I think the Bible can be these things (inspired and useful) and accomplish this purpose (equipping people to live good lives) and not offer answers to every question.

If you think about it, it is somewhat narcissistic to demand that the Bible offer up answers to all my questions. I think it is naive for Christians to claim that it can do so. If anything the Bible answers SOME questions, helps us cope with ambivalence and mystery, and gives us the raw material necessary to live good lives in an ever-changing world.