New Year. New Way of thinking?

Last night, I was caught between two worlds--Theology and Cultur-ology.  Some might say you can't compartmentalize such things, insisting perhaps that theology cannot be removed from culture or the other way around.  Last night the two worlds seemed "worlds" apart (no pun intended!).  One one hand, I am reading C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters, which, if you haven't read it, should be on your "to read" list; and on the other hand  I follow Facebook.  Facebook intrigues me, as it is a seemingly limitless window into the the diverse worldviews of culture.  After all Facebook isn't just an "American" thing, is it?  It is global. There are a variety of perspectives that convene on one social network--pretty remarkable, actually.  As I casually read the instructions of Uncle Screwtape, a upper-echelon demon, to his newly apprenticed demon nephew, Wormwood, regarding handling his "clientele" (the humans--in particular a newly converted Christian), I was interested to see a correlation between Screwtapes instructions on "diverting the attention of the client" and Facebook.  After all I was epitomizing the power of FB to distract me from the very book that was telling me about the enemies effectiveness at distraction! Then I came across a post that chilled my blood. 

A FB friend posted an article from Barna Group, regarding the state of the church in 2010. The news is not good. A few blogs ago I posted about  Moralistic Therapeutic Deism--a rather insidious religious distraction in itself.  What is evident is that MTD has been around for some time, and in fact, I likely participated in it to some degree when I first became a Christian.  For some time, my greatest desire in ministry is to help children, teenagers or adults articulate what they believe, which means that they need to be able to speak on theology.  Barna's #1 research revelation about the church? The Christian Church is becoming less theologically literate.  As I read the words, I found myself nodding, affirming the research results.  I teach teenagers in a little Sunday school room, passionately striving to help them know what they believe and why.  The only way to do this is to teach basic theological fundamentals of the Christian faith.  I am surprised when high school seniors, who have been in church for years, cannot simply state what they believe beyond "I believe in Jesus".  There is a great book that came out some years ago that talks about teenagers and faith in a real, explicit way, and the research is humbling (Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is telling the American Church by K. Dean).  It would be easy to condemn, or point the finger, but that will not get the Church back on her feet.  I want to find a way out of this mess, and into a future that leads us towards a younger generation that knows the God they serve in an intimate, meaningful, authentic way.  I am not talking about making religion more religious (we sure don't need that!) , but I am talking about adding some more "meat" to the plate of our Americanized Christianity by taking our religion seriously.

What can we do this new year to bring about a new way of thinking?  As our world continues to become more and more crowded with stuff (distractions, might Screwtape say?), how can we incorporate a new way of living that involves a deeper reflection on the meaning of faith, as a Christian?  Theology is not as difficult or as complex as one might think, but it does require commitment.  In a pluralistic culture like the U.S. and Europe, Barna is correct in saying that the theological gap will only broaden, if we don't deal with it now.  The roots of Christianity are in danger, if not already compromised some would say. 


So there I sat, reading C.S. Lewis, Facebook and a Barna Group letter, and I felt paralyzed. What in the world are we supposed to do with this?  "There must be something we can do!" I screamed inside (the house was asleep!).  My passion, my heart, is to teach people about the deeper things of faith.  Yes, faith can be exceedingly overcomplicated, which only distances people from it.  I do not desire to make it harder to enter into an intimate relationship with Christ.  But once in the fold, fruits of the spirit like obedience, discipline, self-control are a desired outcome for God's people.  Have we exchanged the hard-rock truth of the gospel (which has nothing to do with getting blessed) for a moralistic therapeutic deism, a faith that is rooted in sand?  Let us choose the former! Let us look at the gospel. Read the gospel.  Dialogue about the gospel.  Dig deeper into the trenches of the faith by joining together as a community in order to grow in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Someone asked me sometime ago about a teaching a series on prayer to the youth, and my response was this: "How can we teach them to pray if they don't know who they're praying to?"  The question was not answered.

As I read these words from Screwtape to Wormwood, I couldn't help but consider the implications of these words in the context of our American Church. "It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out". 

Can Christmas be over?

Reading Facebook this morning, I smiled to myself as I read some status updates.  They varied from "Look what I got!" to "Christmas is over :(".  On a couple, I took the time to comment that Christmas isn't over--Christ is born! Christmas is remembering His birth, so when we say Christmas is "over" there is a finality to it.  A door shuts in our hearts and minds, and we, being human, start looking for the next thing.

One way to understand this concept is to look at the liturgical calendar. The liturgical calendar is the way that the Church (the GLOBAL body of Christians) ecumenically remembers the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  With the remembrance of the birth of Christ during Christmas, we are led to the celebration of the Epiphany, and then we prepare to enter the season of Lent. Depending upon your denomination affiliation, you may have never experienced or participated in the season of Lent, however I strongly encourage you  to seek to enter into the forty days that precede the celebration of Easter. That is another long-winded tangent that I won't go into today. :)

My point today, the day after Christmas Day, is that Christmas is not a doorway that opens and shuts once the gifts have been opened, and the lights taken down.  It is the open-ended path that began with Advent (our preparation to receive Christ anew in our hearts again and look forward to his return) and leads us dynamically forward throughout the year towards Easter.  There is a song that I love by Bebo Norman, "Born to Die".  Music is a powerful messenger, and this song is a helpful reminder to me that when we celebrate the joyful birth of Christ, it is always foreshadowing the humiliation of the Cross. 


So do you think Christmas is over?

It's almost here! Christmas is almost here!

All is set.  The Tree is up and twinkling. The gifts are wrapped in pretty paper and bows, carefully prepared by loving hands.  The stockings are hung.  Flour and sugar sprinkle the kitchen floor as the sights and smells of the season come alive in favorite baked goods--holiday sugar cookies, pumpkin cake, fudge, candies and more! It is the season of Christmas.  And traditions very much embody this wonderful season!

Traditions are richly instructive in that they should remind us why we do the things we do and who we are.  I read a FB status a few days ago, and it caught my attention:  "Watching sappy holiday shows that teach us what Christmas is really about, but then the commercials that teach us buying stuff is what it's all about".  I realized that that is the tension  that holds us all between a rock and a hard place.  We are receiving conflicting messages about the WHY of Christmas (why we do the things we do), which causes us to misunderstand the WHO (who we are) of Christmas.  Traditions are effective instructors, when held in the context of knowing the WHY and WHO; however apart from these important focal points they just become things that entertain and temporarily warm our hearts. 

Our culture has taught us a great deal more than we realize, as the fictional television shows seem to understand the WHY and WHO better than the "real people". I wonder if advertisers (those people paid to coerce us through the medium of TV) know that we innately want to experience a real Christmas, so in offering us a plate full of "temporary warm fuzzies" in TV shows they, in effect, warm us up to unconsciously associate Christmas with "stuff".  This is the commercialism that has infiltrated the hearts and minds of our culture at this season.  The reality is that most of us were raised up in this framework of Christmas--we want the real deal but don't know how to really experience it apart from the hustle and bustle of the stuff.  That is the tension that makes me want to go crazy at this season, and each year it seems to get worse for me.  I don't know why, however I know I am not the only one.

Enter Jesus the Christ.  Yesterday, I spent some time with folks, who are in more ways than I could ever possibly list "Jesus with skin on" to me.  They help me re-orient myself when I get lost in the mire of this world (all the stuff that wants to distract us from our real purpose, which is to love and worship God).  We briefly began to speak the same language regarding the tension. We feel it, and we don't really know what to do about it. 

Thanks to mind-bending, challenging classes in my seminary experience, I have learned that culture is not something that you can change overnight.  Culture does change however and it is very interesting to observe that it is a few elite circles which determine the direction of culture. As a populace, we are trained to trust and follow the way of culture.  We don't even realize that we do it. Seriously. Sociologists study this kind of stuff, and frankly, it is exceedingly complicated.  Hence the reason I am not a sociologist. But...they have a point, and their voice should be heeded, particularly regarding the Christian Church.  New questions have been asked about how the Church could be relevant in the context of our culture, which is tends to be a more pluralistic, tolerant perspective.  How on earth do you teach a culture that believes in tolerance, relativism and pluralism that Jesus is the only way?  The word "belief" is really an ambiguous word in our culture; it could mean a variety of things to a variety of people. A really smart guy named Lesslie Newbigin wrote a book, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, in 1989.  (Yup, they were talking about this stuff twenty years ago--I wasn't even out of high school yet.) Newbigin writes, "The relativism which is not willing to speak about truth but only about 'what is true for me' is an evasion of the serious business of living.  It is the mark of a tragic loss of nerve in our contemporary culture.  It is a preliminary symptom of death" (22).   Newbigin states that, yes, we are a pluralist culture where beliefs systems are ambiguous things, illustrated in most often in two polarities: objective and subjective. Beliefs in FACTS are typically understood as objective, factual reality (though at the core they are based on presuppositions); Beliefs in FAITH are typically perceived as subjective, based on an individual personal reality or truth. For example, conceptually, the truth of Darwin's theory is perceived objective vs. the truth that God created humankind is perceived as subjective.  In our culture, objective wins, therefore, Newbigin adds that we really aren't pluralist at all--we know and believe, as a culture, in one way--objective truth or FACTS.   "For science is what we all know, and religion is what some people believe" (27).  Newbigin spends significant time in this book talking about knowing and believing--and how as a culture we have come to know things as FACTS, which were initially not based on any systematic, mechanical framework (which we would understand as science today). 

OK, STOP! Right?  You're reading this blog and you're thinking--WHAT is she saying?  The tension that I described earlier i, I think, based upon these belief structures in our culture.  We are disoriented, as a culture, in regards to the purpose of Christmas, mostly because we no longer know who we are.  Faith is not considered a plausible objective truth--it is a privatized, individual choice.  Therefore, when we as a culture, choose to celebrate Christmas, which is rooted in a Christian faith-system, there is a gap--a big gap--and we do now know how to fill it.  Faith is individualistic, not communal, in our knowledge of reality.  So, we have grown into a system of belief regarding Christmas that says it is about being nice to others, giving gifts and loving the world, without the context of understanding the real PURPOSE of Christmas. We give because God FIRST gave to us.  We LOVE because God first loved US.  In the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God stepping down into history and taking on human flesh, we have the factual, real-deal illustration of love and the greatest gift of all.  Apart from this context, Christmas simply does not make any sense, in my opinion.

So...you might say this:  "Heather, you are a Christian! If you know the purpose of Christmas, why do you feel the tension?"  After some time reflecting on that, I think it is because I am in the world--living in a culture that does not embody the purpose of Christmas and does not know whose they are. All of the roadsigns at Christmas, the commercials, the advertisements, and the stores seem to paint an idyllic winter wonderland of joy and happiness in stuff.  That is not reality, yet, we, as a culture, believe that we can get those experiences when we get that new car, that new toy, that new techno-gadget--we believe that joy and happiness can be found apart from the revelation of truth in Jesus Christ.

My heart's desire is to experience Christmas on a more communal level, I think, not simply as an individual.  My beliefs are not just based upon my individual experience--they are based upon the revelation of God's plan through Scripture and the historical Church (even with all of her problems!).  Faith in Christ is realized most fully in the community of believers.  Surrounded by a culture that does not embody the purpose of Christmas can be disorienting.  I don't know what the solution is for the believe in our culture.  We are impacted much more than we realize by our culture--by the media, etc.  So the tension exists.  What are we to do about it?  How can we find our place as believers in God, followers of Christ, in a culture that clearly rejects the truth of our proclamation? I think that is a very good question, and the answer is difficult to find.

In the midst of today's culture, I seek to find the Christ-child. The image of a precious gift, sent in the most humble means possible.  All is set.  Traditions are in full swing today.  It is the eve of the greatest celebration of all--the birth of Christ.  The purpose of Christmas.  He is the Who and the Why of Christmas. 

It's Advent...and I have no hope!

Did that title catch you off guard?  Well, it should.  It is unsettling to read, and hear, those words; even moreso when such words come from one's own lips. Fortunately, they were said to a group of people whom I trust and love, and frankly people I knew could handle hearing it.  Seminary teaches you to hear things that challenge, unsettle and disorient without impulsive reactions; seminary teaches you to listen.  A favorite professor often said to simply "Show up and pay attention!".  Like the Psalms, seminary has been a cyclical experience of disorientation and reorientation for me.  And this day, I found myself lost in a dark forest and I needed someone to show me the way out.  I was disoriented and I felt hopeless.  Thus my exclamation, "It's Advent, and I have no HOPE!"  This wonderful group real people received it with laughter; they laughed because they know me well. I am a highly intense person with highly intense emotions, opinions, ideas, concepts, etc.  They know me; so they laughed not at me, but with me.  You see, I had spent much of the morning in an emotional storm, full of wet tears (not the sobbing kind of tears) but pouring tears. You know the difference, right?  There times to sob, and then there are times when tears flow like water.  Honestly, the pain blindsided me; something inside of me was breaking. There was a lesson to be had in the pain, in the tears, so when my friends laughed at my exclamation I laughed too.  I have often said during this seminary journey, with it's ups and downs, valleys, joys and glorious mountaintop moments (though those seem fewer anymore) these words: "I laugh because otherwise I would cry".  Yesterday, I cried. Then last night, I felt the prickling of pride in me became embarrassed at my tears, as if crying was a sign of weakness.  I had to fight that feeling, realizing that crying is a part of the human experience.  Ecclesiastes describes the states of being in relation to time: a time to cry, a time to laugh, and even a time to die.  Our humanity is something that we often do not want the world to see; our humanity is broken and fragile and ... weak.  Our culture tells that strength is defined in confidence, self-assurance and powerful demonstrations. Yet Paul tells us in Corinthians that power is defined in the symbol of the Cross--where a innocent man was killed, his clothes bartered over, and his body brutalized.  Something in us rebels against such a thought!  The Corinthians did, and so do we.  Something in me broke yesterday when I exclaimed, "It's Advent, and I have no hope!"  It was not the circumstance that brought the pain; it was something much deeper, much more profound.  Honestly, I am still trying to wrap my feeble brain around the nature of that "something", but I am looking to see the lesson.  I am listening rather than talking.  I am waiting rather than worrying. Another favorite professor said something along these lines, "I believe that we are created human and that should fully experience that humanity".  He was right.  Yesterday, I cried...a lot. Yesterday, I got broken, and I'm still breaking.  Today, I read words from Oswald Chambers, "Utmost" devotion, dated yesterday, Dec 2:



"It is a snare to imagine that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do; God's purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements is apt to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you go off on this idea of personal holiness, the dead-set of your life will not be for God, but for what you call the manifestation of God in your life. "It can never be God's will that I should be sick." If it was God's will to bruise His own Son, why should He not bruise you? The thing that tells for God is not your relevant consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your real vital relation to Jesus Christ, and your abandonment to Him whether you are well or ill.
Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship to God which shows itself amid the irrelevancies of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that strikes you is the irrelevancy of the things you have to do, and the next thing that strikes you is the fact that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives are apt to leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary, by human effort and devotion we can reach the standard God wants. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in perfect relation to God so that my life produces a longing after God in other lives, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God is not after perfecting me to be a specimen in His show-room; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He likes" 

I was suddenly aware that God was re-teaching me something that I thought I "knew".   It is in our weakness that we are strong. I forgot that the incarnation of God was through a frail, weak, helpless baby, who needed his parents to care for him, to raise him.  Jesus cried. Jesus got hurt. Jesus felt rejection. Jesus felt betrayal.  Jesus knows where I am, and He knows where you are today.  He sometimes needs to break us down completely so that we may live more fully.  My exclamation yesterday, "It's Advent, and I have no hope!" was part of my breaking, but only so that I could some to say, "It's Advent, and there is always hope."

Peace friends.