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A while back, a friend invited me to join him in a business opportunity to, in his words, “become financially independent.” He had seen me developing financial partners for my work with InterVarsity, relying on the generosity of others for my family’s wellbeing. I think that, in his mind, asking other people for money was a risky and insecure way of making a living.

He’s right.

My work with the Emerging Scholars Network depends on other people sharing ESN’s vision for our nation’s colleges and universities.  It requires me to trust that God will lead me to the right people, and that my (often frustrating) work in contacting people, setting appointments, and making “asks” will be rewarded.  There is no certainty, except the ever-present certainty of God’s promises.

In contrast, many other jobs seem secure.  They have a steady income stream, a proven business model, contractual or governmental guarantees, well-funded pensions…

It’s all an illusion.  Independence is an illusion.  All of us are dependent on God, for both our daily needs and our eternal ones.  An economic downturn, a tragic accident, a sudden scandal - sometimes, just plain bad luck - can demolish our dreams, and our dreams of financial independence will be gone like vapor.

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.  (James 4:13-17)

Inside Higher Ed ran a story today entitled “Meditative Spaces,” about efforts at various colleges and universities to create space for meditation and contemplative prayer. The schools in the article represent a broad range of heritages - private secular, Buddhist, Baptist, Catholic, even a college based on Transcendental Meditation. On one level, I think this can be a promising development, as students, faculty, and administrators recognize the spiritual component to life and attempt to honor our human need for transcendence. The article quotes a recent study from UCLA, which found that most college students were looking for spiritual meaning in their lives:

Indeed, it seems the majority of college students consider themselves to be spiritual in some way. A 2005 study by University of California at Los Angeles researchers found that 80 percent of freshmen have an interest in spirituality – but while they expect guidance from their colleges on spiritual matters, those expectations often aren’t met. In an earlier pilot study of college juniors, the researchers found that nearly two-thirds said their professors don’t encourage discussion of spiritual or religious matters.

The meditation spaces described are as diverse as the schools: prayer rooms, small chapels, outdoor labyrinths. However, the article fails to mention the most important element of meditation. Who or what is the object of meditation?

Psalm 119 is perhaps the central Biblical text regarding meditation. The psalm is organized into 22 sections, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each line of each section begins with the same letter. Acrostic poems, like Psalm 119, were a Hebrew device for capturing the entirety of God, as if to say that the theme at hand is being covered “from A to Z.” In this case, the theme is God’s word itself.

The second section, Bet, vv. 8 - 16, has always spoken strongly to me:

How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, O LORD;
teach me your decrees.
With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from your mouth.
I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word.

The impulse of the colleges above is correct. Human beings are designed to seek transcendence, and meditation is a natural part of how we are wired (some more than others). I pray, however, that students and faculty across our country will discover the proper object for meditation. May the Christians among them be salt and light, so that they will see true spirituality, focused on Christ and God’s revelation.

From my reading today in Os Guinness’ The Call:

No more urgent task faces the church today than the recovery of the authority of faith over the modern world. Those who imagine this can be done solely through strong institutions, more administrative leadership, sharper formulations of orthodoxy, and ever more aggressive political movements will be disappointed. In a world as dynamic, flexible, and individualistic as ours, there can be no return to the authority of faith without a return to the understanding of calling as every follower of Jesus Christ “lets God be God” in practice. (The Call, 69)

The Faculty Ministry Leadeship Team (on which I serve, as part of my role with the Emerging Scholars Network) is reading Douglas Sloan’s book Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and Higher Education. I’m keeping a reading journal on my other blog (parts one, two, and three, so far are up). 

One passage, in particular, strikes me as something I’ve been thinking over for some time.  Sloan describes how, after World War II, universities redefined “knowledge” into, basically, the “higher utilianarianism” of scientific, technical, and social research, and the “lower utilitarianism” of “community service and vocational training.”  As a result, there was “very little concern…for an education devoted to the deepening and enrichment of personal and cultural existence.”

Elizabeth and I are just beginning our childrens’ formal education.  Over the last few years, I have wished that my early education included more of the “great books” in the Western tradition.  I have been jealous of the ways that my poetic heroes - Eliot, Auden, Wilbur - were/are able to draw (seemingly) effortlessly from a depth of cultural knowledge that I had to google just to understand.  I’ve been attracted to the classical Christian education movement as a corrective to what I see as gaps in my personal education. 

Just this morning, I was talking with a friend at my other job about the nature of reason.  His work deals quite a bit with debunking scams and seeing through false claims, so he has been attracted to skeptical societies and logical arguments.  Even though he himself is a musician and writer, he seems to lean more to the naturalism favored by so many professional skeptics.  In my experience, hardened skeptics have become so accustomed to fighting false beliefs in UFOs, magic potions, and con artists, that they fail to recognize the truth in philosophy, theology, and religion.  In fact, they often lump the two groups together as mutually “unprovable.”

One of the assertions of certain postmodernists is that concepts don’t exist until language creates them.  For example, if you didn’t have a word for “love,” then not only would you not be able to recognize, define, or discern love, but love itself would not really exist for you.

Heady concept, but it’s something I think about a lot with my almost-2-year-old daughter.  She is at the stage where she is learning new words almost daily, and it’s amazing how she begins to communicate her awareness of the world.  One day she learns the word “apple” (OK, it’s more like “bop-bul), and the next day there are apples everywhere - in books, on wallpaper, on TV.  She sees apples that we completely overlook, because (in my pop child development reasoning) the apple is something that she has a word and concept for, so she picks out the apple instantly.

Now, I believe that apples existed before my daughter discovered the word for them - she ate them all the time without worrying about what to call them - but her experience teaches me about the way that I learn and perceive the world.  As I gain new concepts, I understand the world in new ways.  For example, for years I’ve heard people refer to “Cape Cod” houses.  Just this week, I’m embarrassed to say, I made the connection between the term “Cape Cod” and an actual Cape Cod-style house.  Now I have a new way of thinking about houses.

I have noticed, too, that the literature and film that I consume affects how I view the world.  Elizabeth and I have been watching The Sopranos, and I have noticed that I have to work to control my language more carefully, else I revert to my middle school ways of talking (my 13-year-old mouth = Tony Soprano’s).   When I am constant in my devotions, and reading the Bible daily, carefully and reflectively, the Bible’s concepts of the world - its language for reality - infuse my daily life.

I was blessed to have been given A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People during my introduction as a new InterVarsity staff member. The book provides readings for each week, including weekly readings in the Psalms.  This week, my Psalm has been Psalm 1.  Because of my background in literature and poetry, it often strikes me how powerful the psalmists regard the Word of God to be.  Psalm 1 begins by saying what a righteous man does not do (i.e. allow himself to conform to sinners), then switches to his positive traits:

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

There is nothing special about the blessed man, except that he loves the law - the words - of God.  The language of God centers him, blesses him, and changes his whole life.
Perhaps these postmodernists are on to something.

Yesterday, a person asked me how InterVarsity staff (like myself) are funded. In his words, he contrasted two models: what he called a “mission field” model of “not muzzling the ox” and being supported by donations, vs. a “tentmaker” model where I “earn my keep” by being paid for the work I produce. It was an honest question, and I think he was primarily trying to understand how InterVarsity works. But it’s a good question, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot this morning.

My position (ESN Associate Director) is funded by those individuals and churches who share my concern and vision for the university, and who want to partner with me financially and prayerfully in this ministry. I believe that this is a Biblical model (not “the” Biblical model, though), and I also think it makes sense in a general, nonprofit sort of way. When I’m wearing my other hat, I work with several hundred Greater Cincinnati nonprofits, so I think I have a good perspective on the nonprofit world. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you hadn’t heard, Pope Benedict reiterated the official Catholic position that Protestant churches are not “full churches,” since they are not “governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him.”  Instead, they are “ecclesial communities.” 

Some good coverage:

• The CNN story with the basics (thanks, Kelley!)
• Reaction and text of the statement from Scot McKnight
• Anglican reaction from Ruth Gledhill of the Times of London

I don’t have anything original to contribute to this discussion, but, a few years ago, Miroslav Volf wrote a terrific book entitled After Our Likeness: The Church As the Image of the Trinity.  Volf lays out a free church ecclesiology based on Jesus’ statement, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matt. 18:20).  He responds to both an Orthodox theologian, John Zizoulas, and a Catholic theologian, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who has since become Pope Benedict). 

I found the book to be very helpful in thinking about my church, which comes from a nondenominational, nonsacramental tradition.  Historically, these types of churches have not had a strong ecclesiology (theology of the church).  Volf helped me to develop my thinking of a Scriptural foundation for the free church style of church governance, based on the intentional gathering of Christians.  I strongly recommend it for anyone who, like me, loves the church  and sees it as integral to God’s Kingdom.  

UPDATE: Christianity Today has linked to an editorial they wrote back in 2000 about these same issues.  Very positive view of the Vatican’s position as a way forward, since it recognizes Protestants as fellow Christians.

Here, Scot McKnight describes some positive and negative aspects of the “Romans Road” method of presenting the gospel, including this sage comment:

First, it is only one “language game” for the gospel. The Romans Road is not “the” gospel but “a way” of expressing the gospel. It tells the truth about the gospel, but not the whole truth.

I agree that it’s not the whole story, but I have systematic theology texts on my shelf that are longer than the Bible itself, yet still aren’t the whole story. Have some Christians presented the Romans Road as the whole of the gospel? Definitely. I think that if you asked them, they would agree that there’s much more to the gospel than a handful of verses from Romans, but when you repeat an abbreviation over and over again, it becomes louder than the complete message.

To put this crassly, think about an entrepreneur’s “elevator pitch.” It’s not designed to give the whole, agonizing back story if the company, its product, production methods, target market, etc., etc. Instead, the 15 or 30 second elevator pitch is supposed to give a brief-yet-true glimpse of the business, to draw the interest of the investor or customer. Using this model, the Romans Road would be perfectly appropriate in a conversation with a stranger or in introducing a friend to the basics of the gospel for the first time, but completely inappropriate for teaching someone what it means to follow Christ daily (the “long obedience in the same direction” that Eugene Peterson writes about).

Keep in mind, of course, that as soon as you substitute any particular method of evangelism for the true gospel, you’ve settled for something sub-Christian. One of the dangers of the elevator pitch is that you’ll begin to believe it. When you describe something via shorthand, that shorthand starts to change the way you think about the original something. For a simple example, think about our nicknames for our loved ones. Another example is corporate branding. Wal-Mart has sold itself so well as the home of “lowest prices guaranteed,” that they now have trouble selling more upscale products.

This is why we have to careful about the shorthand we use to describe the gospel. Any shorthand presentation must be carefully sculpted to be completely true, even in its brevity. We must also continually return to Scripture (our primary source of the gospel). We must be reminded that God’s good news is much larger and much more grander than we can express in a few words, a sermon, or even a lifetime of books.

Twice this week I’ve run across articles in secular magazines that use “praying in church” as shorthand for “you know, that church stuff.” Here’s one, from a New Yorker article about commuting:

The source of the unhappiness is not so much the commute itself as what it deprives you of. When you are commuting by car, you are not hanging out with the kids, sleeping with your spouse (or anyone else), playing soccer, watching soccer, coaching soccer, arguing about politics, praying in a church, or drinking in a bar. In short, you are not spending time with other people.

The other article, the source of which I can’t remember, dealt with what unattractive/unpopular people did with their time prior to modern times. “Praying in church” was one of the options named.

This got me to wondering. What do unchurched people imagine that Christians do in church? “Praying” is probably the only experience that we have in common, which the unchurched would at least partially understand and respect. I’ve heard many people who don’t go to church talk about praying on a regular basis. As far as the other actions in a typical service -

• corporate singing: General American culture has now limited singing in groups to Christmas carols, and even those are on the decline.
• a sermon: Probably seen as akin to a college lecture or motivational speaker, at best. Fictional sermons on TV and in movies tend to give a message something like “Be true to yourself” or “God is on your side.” At worst, sermons are imagined to all be like Robert Duvall’s character in The Apostle.
• tithing: The closest equivalent - a group request for funds for general, unspecified purposes - might be the annual United Way request at the office.
• fellowship: The Christian friendships I have at church, with fellow members of Christ’s body, who pray with and for me, worship with me, and follow Christ alongside me, are of such a different nature than friendships based on work or common interests that I’m not even sure they deserve the same name.
• the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper: Do the unchurched even think of this when imagining church?

If you had never attended church, had never even visited one, what would you imagine the experience would be like? Would you even think of it in terms of an organized service? Or would your imagined church be more like one of those cathedral-esque Catholic churches that appear in cop shows so often, in the time between masses, empty except for a few lonely souls, presumably praying?

In this post, Scot McKnight publishes a letter from a pastor struggling with some Christian leaders’ reactions to the “emerging church,” and an extremely lively conversation has ensued.

I am not going to comment on the post itself, but many of the comments talk about “the” emerging church or “the” evangelical church. This is a common, yet dangerous, practice. The world of Christian thought and practice is so diverse that it’s practically impossible to summarize even what subgroups like “emerging” or “evangelical” Christians believe and practice. I do it myself, I know, though I shouldn’t.

Let me use my own church as an example. Most Americans, I think, would classify us as “evangelical,” if they were familiar with that term. Our church tradition, however, historically had very little interaction with the broader Protestant tradition: we have published our own magazines, read our own Bible commentaries, founded our own colleges, etc. That changed about 20 years ago. Today, our church incorporates some unique beliefs and practices that developed in isolation from the wider church with beliefs/practices borrowed from, say, Bill Hybels or Beth Moore, to just give two examples. At the same time, there are many elements of Hybels’ and Moore’s theologies that our church either outright rejects or simply ignores. Other giants of “the” evangelical world - like J. I. Packer or John Stott - are practically unknown. For many of our members in their forties and fifties, Francis Schaeffer was an enormous influence, but younger members have no idea who he was. Rob Bell has gained currency among our members in their 20’s and 30’s, but no one in our church has even heard of Brian McLaren. An increasing number people are reading John Piper, while others think that Reformed theology is practically heresy.

Even within just one church, it’s difficult to generalize. And now a generalization about generalizations: painting with a broad brush can be easy. You can create a straw man that’s easy to knock down with your arguments. Since you get to paint with your own brush, you don’t have to interact with specific positions or find a real basis for your criticism. You discover that you’re always rights, and anyone else is wrong, if you want them to be. It’s intellectual softness that does nothing to advance the Church.