Category Archives: Theology

When Nature Calls…

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…at an awkward time…

Do you answer? 

Do you put the call on hold? 

But what if nature won’t be placed on hold?

What do you do?  

Nature gave me a call last Sunday during the Sunday morning service a few minutes before it was time for me to step up on the platform and deliver the weekly sermon.  

I tried to ignore the call knowing it would call back later.   But Nature would not wait.  

Didn’t Nature know what time it was and where I was?!

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says there is a time for everything.  Really?  Is this the right time?  

“I think I can make it back,” I whispered to Denise, my wife, sitting beside me, and tried to walk nonchalantly from the front row to the hallway restroom. 

I should have run. I didn’t make it back in time.  I stepped out of the restroom and didn’t hear the video or the special song that was set to play before I taught.  Uh oh.  

Opening the auditorium doors, I saw Dense on the platform trying to cover for me.  

I should have let her have the stage! 

I felt like Doja Cat.   ​​When Doja Cat and SZA won the Grammy in 2022 for Best Pop Duo Performance for “Kiss Me More,” Doja nearly missed it. The star was in the middle of a bathroom visit when her name was called and she barely made it to the stage before it was time to get to the next category. 

When nature calls you, you listen, even if it means missing your very first Grammy win or a sermon.  

The folks that gathered at The Venues Church Sunday totally understood.  

The Venues is a safe place to be human.  To be you.   

It was good for a laugh.  

The lesson?  Maybe when Nature, when God, when Love calls, we listen. 

When creation speaks, we listen. When others speak, we listen.  

Listening.  Father Rohr writes, “Perhaps one of the most precious and powerful gifts we can give another person is to really listen to them, to listen with quiet, fascinated attention, with our whole being, fully present.”

Listen with an open heart.  No judgment.  Just openness.  

Thank-you Venues community for listening and not judging.

Living in the Now While Waiting for the Biopsy

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I found another spot.  On my way to conduct a funeral Friday afternoon, I glanced in the rearview mirror while at a stop light to make sure I didn’t have anything unsightly on my face, nose, mouth before arriving at the funeral home.

That’s when I saw the spot.  A white mark on my upper lip.  It wouldn’t wipe off. “Rats,” I said to no one in particular.  I’ve seen that kind of mark before – on my arm.  

15 years ago. 

Melanoma.  

The light turned green so I drove on.  At the next red light I took a selfie and sent it to my friend and Dermatologist PA and asked, “What do you think?”  She replied within 5 minutes.  “Come in Monday.”

I went in.  I came out with a biopsied, bandaged upper lip.  

I’ve had two previous melanomas and one squamous cell carcinoma (the wound from that surgery is still healing).  

Now, I wait.  What will the biopsy show this spot to be?

I know the principles of living in the now.  But I don’t know how to live those principles all of the time. Sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don’t.  Right now, for me to live in the now, is a choice. 

It has yet to become an automatic response. 

The “right now” is this:

  • I don’t know the nature of the spot. That’s the fact.  So why worry about something that may not be?  Why let a fear of tomorrow rob me of the fun I can have today?
  • I feel good. At least until the anesthesia wears off!  
  • I have great care from the dermatology team.
  • I have this moment.  Right now.  That’s all I’m guaranteed. So, I will make this present moment, standing here typing and drinking from a straw, looking at Denise across the room, the best moment ever. 

I will live by Calvin’s philosophy when he says to Hobbs, “We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.” 

 

Yes, We Will All Die.

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I have a funeral today, Wednesday, March 2, 2022 – Ash Wednesday.  This will be the third funeral I’ve conducted this week.  

I face death regularly.  It’s part of the job.  Some humorist has said that the job of the pastor is to “Marry and Bury.” It’s a life of dealing with the “wed and the dead.”

Ash Wednesday is a reminder of death. The ashes used on Ash Wednesday are meant to represent dust.  When receiving ashes on their foreheads, they hear the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).  

Thanks, but no thanks, for the reminder.  We don’t like to be reminded of, to think about, death.  So we say just about anything to avoid saying the d-word:

  • Kicked the bucket
  • Six feet under
  • Bought the farm
  • Pushing up daisies
  • Passed away
  • Restin in peace

I get it.  Death is hard to face.  So to help us face it, we actually wear the reminder on our face. 

And that reminder is a good thing. Knowing that I will die motivates me to live a fuller life.  

After a funeral, I’m typically:

  • more “alive” – more aware of the beauty of all around me and its fragility.
  • more grateful
  • kinder
  • more affectionate
  • more loving
  • more here, now. 

My senses are sharpened.  Living with an awareness of death can make my living more loving. 

We don’t like to face death because we fear the loss brought by death. Yes, there is loss, but there is also gain.  “To die is to gain” (Philippians 1:21), Paul reminds us. It’s a trade. And it’s a trade up. 

So, I’m off to this funeral.  And I will return to a fuller life. 

Thank You George Harrison

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Yesterday, November 29 was the 20th anniversary of George Harrison’s death. The
Beatle had been suffering from a brain tumor and had been treated at a clinic in
Switzerland in the summer of 2021.


George was known as the “quiet Beatle” during his time with the Fab Four. Maybe the
press gave that name to him because John and Paul talked the most in interviews. I don’t
know. But, John and Paul as the song-writing super couple were the most visible of this,
my favorite band.


George brought to them and to us a deep spirituality – one of kindness.
Ringo tells about the last visit he had with George before his death. His visit was cut
short due to his own daughter’s health challenges: Lee Starkey was suffering a brain
tumor.


Ringo said in an interview:
“The last weeks of George’s life, he was in Switzerland, and I went to see him, and he
was very ill, you know, he could only lay down. And while he was being ill and I’d come to
see him, I was going to Boston, because my daughter had a brain tumor.”


When Ringo told George about his daughter, he said, “Well, you know, I’ve got to go, I’ve
got to go to Boston…and he (George) goes – it’s the last words I heard him say, actually –
and he said: ‘Do you want me to come with you?’”


What a friend.


After telling this story, Ringo wiped away a tear and said, “So, you know, that’s the
incredible side of George.”


George often said, “Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait, and
love one another.”


Words to live by.


George Harrison, you may have been “the Quiet Beatle” but we still hear you.

What if the Bible Is Not Our Guide?

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This Book Doesn't Have Any Answers

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth – the B.I.B.L.E.  Have you heard the Bible explained that way?  It’s clever.  But is it accurate?  

I said in my teaching Sunday that I used to think the clever acrostic is accurate.  But not anymore.  Let’s be honest.  The Bible isn’t really a very good instruction manual or guide book.  

I know.  That rubs us the wrong way.  But, as Billy Sunday said, and I paraphrase:  “If something rubs you the wrong way, maybe you need to turn around.” 

I needed to turn around.  Maybe you do too. 

Think with me:  The Bible tells us, for example, to “Be kind to one another,” “Love one another – even our enemies,” “Give generously to the poor.”  All good. 

But next to these good things are some bad things- really bad things:  

Rape (Deuteronomy 21:10-14; Numbers 31:15-18); 

Slavery (1 Peter 2:18; Titus 2:9) 

Genocide (Deuteronomy 7:1-2; Deuteronomy 20:15-17) 

…are all commanded – by God.  At least the writers pass the buck to God for these commands.  Are those instructions ones that we should follow?  I hope you’’ll answer “No”.

One more thing. It doesn’t make much sense to claim that the Bible is an “infallible” guide in what it says if we cannot agree on what it says.  “But we agree on the essentials,” I hear someone saying.  We really don’t.  Go to amazon.com  and type in “four views” in the search bar and get ready to “turn around.”  We’re given page after page of books about various ways of interpreting key Christian doctrines:

Four Views on Hell

Four Views of Atonement

Four Views on Divine Providence

Four Views on Eternal Security

These are not peripheral issues.  These are some “big rocks” of Christianity.  In each book we find opposing views in which each proponent is absolutely certain that their particular interpretation of the Bible is the right one.  

If the Bible spoke clearly on these issues then why isn’t there a “The Only View” series.

So, if we remove the Bible as our guide, what do we put in its place?  Are we just free to do whatever we want – to do what is right in our own eyes (Judges 21:5)? 

I offered, Sunday morning, an option given to me by mother throughout my junior high and high school years.  Here is the question she told me to ask myself when considering the rightness or the wrongness of an action: “When you consider this action, ask yourself, ‘does the life of Jesus well up inside of you?’”  

That’s good.  

Denise and I went to Little Rock after Sunday’s service to see my dad.  Drinking a glass of wine and eating Girl Scout cookies, (what are the rules for pairing wine with Girl Scout Cookies) with dad, my sister and Denise, around dad’s kitchen table, I asked dad about mom’s counsel to me.  He told me mom read that in a book by Watchman Nee, an author that greatly influenced my parents.   

For 52 years I’ve been under the impression that mom came up with that on her own!

So, this morning, I did a quick Google search trying to find the exact quote.  I didn’t find mom’s version of it but I did find the following statements by Watchman Nee.   

Read them with an open mind.  Contemplatively. And get ready  to “turn around.”  

“Brothers and sisters, as we live before God, our actions must not be determined by good and evil, but by the life within.”

Hmm. “Actions determined…by the life within.”  Let’s go on…

“When we have the life within and feel life rising up, we are doing the proper thing.” That sounds a bit like Mom’s version. 

Then there’s this from Nee: “Many problems arise because we only have a standard of right and wrong.  Many mistakes are made because we do not have the standard of life.”

Then Nee, a mystical Christian,  offers this prayer,

“Grace me so that I live by the tree of life, not by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  I want to constantly pay attention to life…”

Mom was telling me, and I’m just now really hearing it: “Don’t live by an external rule book (the Bible), instead, live by an internal life – the life that is “graced” by  the Spirit of Christ.  

Have you been indoctrinated into seeing the Bible as your guide?  

Yes.  We need a guide.  No doubt about that! 

But have we settled for an external law when we have within us an internal life?  

“So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives and you will not obey your selfish desires (Paul to the Galatians, found in 5:16).

“And when that one comes, the Spirit will guide you into all truth” (Jesus, to his disciples, recorded by John, in 16:13).  

“Pay attention to life” the Christ-shaped life within (Watchman Nee to Mom; then Mom to me).  

I will live in the awareness of the presence of life in me and I will pay attention to it.

That will be my guide.

Testing Our Traditions

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Shiraz on the Shelf.jpg

“But we always have turkey for Christmas dinner!”

“But we always have pistachio pudding salad (the traditional dish when I was a kid) for Christmas dinner” 

“But we always open one present on Christmas Eve!”  

“But we always go see Christmas lights on Christmas Eve!”

Whenever someone tries to replace, remove, or reform a tradition, the change is probably met with a “But we always…”

What is your “always”?

Do something two years in a row and you’ve got a set-in-concrete tradition. 

Traditions are not just a holiday thing. They are a theology thing. 

Tradition. There’s a whole song devoted to it in Fiddler on the Roof.

Tradition.  It was the context of many of Jesus’ collisions with the Pharisees (Mark 7:1-8).

Tradition.  It has been the context of many of my own church collisions in my early years pastoring:

*Singing songs that weren’t in the Baptist Hymnal.

*Bringing a guitar and drums to the Sunday morning service.

*Replacing the denomination’s Adult Sunday School curriculum with a study of Charles Swindoll’s “Improving Your Serve.”

I could go on…

More recently, and more importantly, I’ve been dealing with traditions of what to think, what to believe, how to see God, how to see others, how to see myself.  

There are traditional ways of doing and there are traditional ways of thinking.  

 Both need to be “examined.”  Hold on to that word – “examine.”

First, let’s examine why we hang so tightly to traditions.  Why does the mantra, “We’ve always done it that way” fit so many so well?  There are two reasons:

 1.  We are copycats.   We tend to follow the crowd in both doing and thinking.  Instead of thinking for ourselves we want to be told what to think.   “Welcome to church.  Leave your brain at the door,” is the culture of many.   We count on pastors to tell us what to believe.  We follow their words in an automatic and robotic way. Pastors count on people to not question what they’re told.  Pastors can have an exalted opinion of themselves.  

Be a free-thinker!  Jesus told his followers that the Holy Spirit is their teacher (John 14:26). You’re walking around with the teacher within!  Listen to the Spirit.  

John writes that “the true light gives light to everyone” (John 1:9).  Did you catch that? “Everyone”  Yes, me.  Yes,  you.  Wake up to the light.  Be aware of the light.  You have in you the light of understanding. 

2.  We are scaredy cats.   Our world can be scary, stressful, uncertain.  Having traditions, when we do the same things over and over – like shampoo, “Rinse and Repeat” – we know what to do, when to do it, how to it, gives us a comforting sense of control and stability.  But is the comfort an illusion? A shadow?  Is there something more solid to which we can hold?  

Let’s examine the traditions themselves – not just the traditions of putting trees in our house or hanging our socks on the fireplace – but the tradition of thinking a certain way, of believing a certain thing. 

Ask questions about, critique what you believe and what you have been taught.

Paul tells us to “examine the preaching” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).  

Does it pass the test?  
Here’s the test:

When it comes to hearing a sermon, Paul says,  “Examine it and hold on to that which is good.” 

Listen carefully.  Listen critically. Give it a test. A beauty test.

The Greek word translated “good” (kalos) means “beautiful.”  

Does the preaching pass the “Is it beautiful?” test.  The test is not, “Is the preacher beautiful?” (I’m glad because there’s not much I can do about that!),  but is the preaching “beautiful?”

Kix Cereal is “kid tested and parent approved.”                                                              Preaching is to be “beauty tested.”

When listening to teaching/preaching, if it’s beautiful, hold on to it. If it’s not beautiful, let it go.

Traditions are about:

  • Priority – what/who is first in my life?
  • Authority – what/who will have authority over my life?
  • Beauty   

Jesus calls us to connect with something bigger than our traditioins.  He calls us to connect with love.  When traditional thinking, traditional views, clashed with love,, Jesus always came down on the side of love. 

Healthy religion always pulls us away from traditions of exclusion to inclusion, from scarcity to abundance, from a God with only enough love for my group to a God for the universe.  

Lessons In The Leaves

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Leaves

I spent this afternoon engaged in a typical fall activity – raking, mulching, bagging leaves.  I did it all. While doing so I thought of a couple of “Lessons in the Leaves.” 

The first lesson was “Gratitude.”  Gratitude has never been my response to the chore of “leaf maintenance.”  I’ve been grateful for the brilliant red leaves falling from our maple trees creating a soft carpet on our ground – until it was time to bag those leaves.  Then my gratitude quickly turned to complaining.

But not this year.  For some reason, each sweep of the rake brought with it a breath of thanks…

Thanks for the beauty of the leaves.

Thanks that I’m still able to rake and bag. 

Thanks for the change of seasons…

How’d I make a switch from griping to gratitude?  I wish I had a simple recipe to share. I think it’s just about being present.  “What is there right now that shows me the beauty of love?  The beauty of God?”  

Which made me think of the second lesson: Change.

Things change.  Seasons change.  I change.  You change. Methods change.  Theology changes.  I may have lost you with that last one…

It’s a common understanding of conservative Christianity that theology never changes.  Progressive Christianity understands that theology is fluid, never static.  

I guess that makes Martin Luther a progressive.  We celebrated last week on October 31, not just Halloween, but the beginning of the Protestant Reformation – the day Martin Luther nailed or mailed his 95 thesis to the church in Wittenberg Germany.  

Martin Luther and the other reformers – re-formed – the church’s theology.  

They changed it.  Drastically.  

Yes, theology has changed.  Is changing.   Will change.

That fact scares some people.  I get that. I mean, where do you stop changing? It’s the slippery slope argument.  Change is hard because the things we are asked to let go of have been important to us.  It was hard for Peter to let go of the Scripture’s prohibition against eating certain foods.  Yet, who can deny that God changed?  At least God changed his word (Acts 10:9-16).

There are things I believe today I didn’t believe a few years ago.  And there are some things I believed a few years ago that I don’t believe today.  How about you?  I wonder if a lack of change reflects a lack of thought?  That was true for me.  

One thing hasn’t changed:  Love.  

I wonder if the way to tell if one’s theology is “right or wrong” is to observe if it leads or doesn’t lead to being more loving?  Paul is talking theology in Galatians 5 – the theology of circumcision.  For centuries the theology on circumcision was set – Any true follower of God had to be circumcised.  Period.  

But Paul’s theology changed. And he challenges others to change, to allow love to shape their theology:   “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.  The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love” (Galatians 5:6).

If my theology doesn’t make me more loving, maybe I need to change it.  Maybe I need to change me.  

Changing leaves.  Changing theologies.  Changing people.  

Trying to Keep Up

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Can't Keep Up 2

The above pic is from a classic episode of the classic “I Love Lucy” TV show in which Lucy and Ethel take a job in a candy factory. Watching them trying to keep up with the conveyer belt is hilarious.  
Watching John MacArthur’s response to a question at the “Truth Matters Conference” held at his church October 16-18 is distressing.  

The very influenctial pastor, leader, author, was asked to give a gut reaction to a one- or two-word phrase.   The phrase was “Beth Moore,” the name of a well-known Southern Baptist Bible teacher.  MacArthur’s response was “Go home. ” 

The attendees at the conference “Amened” applauded and laughed their approval of his response.  

MacArthur went on to accuse the Southern Baptist Convention of no longer believing in biblical authority because they were, in his opinion, taking a “headlong plunge” toward allowing women preachers at its annual meeting this summer. 

Oh my. You can read more about his statement here.

Christians have been beating up each other and others for centuries. But for MacArthur to pick a fight with the SBC kind of makes me laugh – maybe to keep from crying.  The SBC and MacArthur’s organization are two of the most conservative Christian groups on the planet.  I guess the SBC isn’t conservative enough for John MacArthur.  

I don’t see the SBC allowing women preachers. Maybe I should not be so pessimistic.   They did, afterall, abandon their views on slavery.   On the matter of women-preachers/pastors, right  now, the following views of these SBC leaders represent, I think, the view of the SBC.  

“For a woman to teach and preach to adult men is to defy God’s Word and God’s design,” wrote Owen Strachan, professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo. 

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky, piped in with, “There’s just something about the order of creation that means that God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice.”  

So, I don’t get the beef MacArthur has with the SBC.  I guess he just really, really, does not like Beth Moore preaching.  

From this whole, sad mess, let’s create something happy and helpful. Let’s approach it with the philosophy of Bob Ross: “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents,”

The “happy little tree” that comes out of this for me is a new way of determining my ethics. 

Some friends and I were discussing this morning through our “Theology through Texting” group my teaching from yesterday in which I spoke of the evolved ethics regarding Domestic Violence.  I showed pictures of print-advertisements that were horribly offensive yet, in the 50s, must have been perfectly acceptable.  

We’ve evolved. Thankfully.  

Tragically, much of the misogynistic views and subsequent treatment of women came from a “biblical ethic” – an ethic that sees women as property, as “under” a man (1 Corinthians 11:3), who is to “obey” her husband (1 Peter 3:6) in the same way that slaves “obey” their masters (Ephesians 6:5) or children “obey” their parents (Ephesians 6:1). It is a view that women are “not to have authority over a man” (2 Timothy 2:12).  

Most of culture has evolved beyond this ethic.  Much of western Christianity has not.  Why not?  

Why have Christians been so slow to evolve in regard to science, in condemning and abolishing slavery, in embracing the equality of the races and gender equality?  

Here’s a thought.  Just a thought.  Christianity – at least the Protestant version of Christianity – has been shaped by a book more  than a spiritual connection with God within, the spirit.    We see it in phrases such as “Biblical worldview” “Biblical authority” and so many other things to which the prefix “biblical” is attached.

Maybe there’s a better way.  The way of the Spirit.  

In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus tells him that “the spirit moves (blows, changes) where it wishes (wills, desires, wanting what is best)” – John 3:8.  The Spirit moves –  is fluid – is active.  The Greek of John 3:8 is literally, “The pneuma pnei.”  “The spirit spirits.”  “The wind winds.”  

The spirit (wind) moves.  

A book is stagnant.  It sits on a shelf.  

Maybe that’s why the writer to the Hebrews says the Word is active – living (Hebrews 4:12).  The “word” here is not a book.  It is the Christ of John 1:1.  Still speaking of the “word” in 4:13, the writer uses the masculine pronoun and says, “no creature is hidden from him.” The word is not a book.  The word is Jesus (see also 4:14-15).

If Christians took their cues from the spirit rather than a book, maybe we’d be quicker to evolve (move, blow, change).

 I have 7 of MacArthur’s books in my library that I purchased, read, and from which I preached in what seems to be another life.  I liked him.  But today, I’m sad. I’m sad for him. I’m sad for the state of Christianity. 

I want to evolve.  To move with the spirit.  To change with the spirit.  To, as Paul says to the Galatians in 5:25 of his letter, “keep in step with the spirit.”  The spirit is moving.  Am I keeping up?   

A Wrinkle in the Sheet of Immigration

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Fitted Sheets

Did you know that Ruth, the lady whose story is told in a book in the Hebrew Scriptures that bears her name, was an illegal immigrant?

How does that fact affect your view of the immigration issue that heats up our country?

I talked about Ruth in my teaching last Sunday in our series “What Would Jesus Say About…”. 

The issue about which we tuned our ears to Jesus was immigration.  Christians often agree with the many  “be kind to foreigners” verses in both the Hebrew Scripture and Christian Scripture, but they also often add this caveat: “Yes, but those were legal immigrants.  Since illegal immigrants are lawbreakers they shouldn’t have any rights.”

Then, we read the story of Ruth.  And she throws a wrinkle in our position (Have you tried to fold a fitted sheet?).   People think they have a Biblically wrinkle-free position on immigration until they read the story of Ruth.  

Ruth was an illegal immigrant.  She’s from Moab.  One of those countries.   Check out Israel’s policy toward immigrants from Moab:  

“An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever” (Deuteronomy 23:3).

“Forever”  is a long time.  

Still not convinced that Moabites were excluded…that Moabites were to be kept out? 

Look at Deuteronomy 23:6: “You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all their days forever.”  

There’s that word “forever” again.  

The Hebrew of this verse is colorful.  Check out these different translations:

Never pursue their welfare or prosperity – CSB

Never promote their welfare or prosperity – NRSV

Never seek a treaty of friendship with them – NIV

Never seek their peace or their prosperity- NASB

Don’t wish for their peace or success – NCV

Don’t be concerned with their health and well-being – CEB

 Ok.  I get it.  The message is clear.  Don’t give a hand to help the Moabite and Ammonite.  They’re not good people. 

Here’s the wrinkle.  Boaz, the hero of the story, flagrantly disobeyed Moses’ law.  He showed Ruth, and her mother-in-law Naomi, kindness, provided food for them, pursued their welfare, helped them succeed.  And friendship?  

Oh, Boaz went way beyond friendship and got intimate with Ruth.  

Follow that intimacy down the family tree and we arrive at Jesus – Jesus, the Son of David (Matthew 1:1).  Ruth and Boaz were great-grandparents of David.  Jesus was the “Son of David”, and David was the great-grandson of an illegal immigrant mother and a law-breaking father.  

Boaz, like his descendant, Jesus, chose love over law.  Kindness and compassion over keeping the rules.  

What would have happened had Boaz obeyed the law?  

He wouldn’t have been kind to Ruth.  He wouldn’t have provided care for and to them. 

He and Ruth would not have fallen in love.  They would not have had sex and conceived a child, a grandchild…and if you keep going, Jesus would not have been born.  

That was my point in the sermon.  Afterwards, a good, wise friend pointed out to me another way to look at it: If Boaz had kept the law, God could have found another way to bring Jesus to the world.  True. Then my friend said,  “But isn’t it cool that God chose to use an illegal immigrant to bring Jesus to us?”  Cool indeed. Thank you friend!

I get that nations have a responsibility to protect their borders.  I’m not campaigning for illegal immigration.  Here’s what I’m thinking:

* Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world.  As a follower of Christ, I am, foremost, a citizen of that kingdom. For me, that citizenship takes precedence over my U.S. citizenship.  I am to embrace and express the values of His kingdom – values of love and service to the least of these.  How can I live in the  kingdom of the U.S. and live by the principles of the kingdom of Heaven?

*What should be my motivation?  Respect for the law or love of people?  Let’s not forget that it was famine and death that compelled Ruth and Naomi to migrate to the land of Israel.  The same story can be told millions of times today.  Think about the words of an immigrant from Kenya, Warsan Shire,

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”

Maybe I should have more compassion for people in horrible situations?

So, if God broke the Mosaic law, or used a law breaker and an illegal immigrant to bring Jesus to us, lifting love and compassion over law-keeping, what might God think of people today who challenge the law for the cause of love?  Think about it.  

Kissing Goodbye…

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Joshua and Shannon

I read with sadness last week that Joshua Harris and Shannon Bonne were splitting up (I didn’t see the word “divorce”in their announcement).

Joshua is the famous author of the influential book, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.”

The mega-hit had mega-influence on teenagers and college students.  The book, a love manual for a generation of conservative Christians, was foundational in youth and college ministries as leaders sincerely worked to help those under their care to build healthy relationships.  

It didn’t work out so well.  Josh began to have regrets about the advice he had offered.  In 2016 Josh participated in a documentary called “I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye.”  In 2018, Josh released a statement disavowing the concepts in the book and calling for a stop of its publication. 

This morning, I read this from Josh, 

“The information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus.  The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away’.  By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.”  You can read Josh’s full statement here. 

I kissed dating goodbye.

I kissed marriage goodbye.

I kissed Christianity goodbye.

While these announcements have sent shockwaves through the evangelical community (and garnered a lot of criticism) the waves I’m feeling are ones of understanding and sadness.

I understand the deconstruction. It has been a necessary but sometimes painful part of my spiritual journey.

I am sad about their break-up but absolutely respect their decision and approach to their future relationship. I don’t know them.  I don’t know their story.  I don’t judge them.  I am for them. 

Maybe Josh, Shannon, my wife Denise and I are learning some of the same things – we’re just taking different paths in the education process.  

*I’m learning that “formula faith” is empty and dangerous.  You know, the “if/then” formula.  If you do this, then you will get this.  If you put a $100 bill in the offering plate then you will get $1000 back. That’s called the “prosperity gospel.”

Well, there is also “prosperity dating”.   If you stay a virgin until you’re married (Josh took it further by suggesting boundaries of no kissing, no holding hands, no being alone together before you tie the knot) then God will bless you with a good spouse, great sex and a lifetime of marital bliss. 

When the “tit for tat” way doesn’t pan out, we not only question the “way” but we question the goodness of God.  

*I’m learning that legalism is lethal and fear-based faith is scary.  Josh relates in an interview with SOJO that he and his staff started to “recognize a lot of legalism and really unhealthy patterns.”  

*I’m learning to trust the inner voice of the spirit within. Shannon puts this so well in her Instagram post when she says she was taught in her fundamentalist conservative church  “that my heart was deceitful above all else and therefore, someone else knows better what’s best for me” – describing a culture of authority figures knowing more….

We’ve been taught to listen to others but not taught very well, if at all,  how to listen to the divine image of God within us (1 Corinthians 2:11-13, John 10:27).

*I’m learning that deconstruction is not just ok, it is good.  Is deconstructing what Jesus did?  “You’ve heard it said…but I say to you.”  Or, exchanging old wineskins for new ones that can hold the new wine of his way? 

But deconstruction is hard. Do you know how hard it is to question and challenge what our culture of family and church has taught?  It’s gut-wrenching stuff.  Our world seems to collapse.

Josh says that he’s no longer a Christian.   Josh goes on to say that “by all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not not a Christian.” I so get that.  I have felt the same way.  How many times have I said, “Well, if that’s what being a Christian is, I’m not one.”  

What is the measurement of being a “Christian?”  Is it Christ? Maybe? That kind of makes sense.  The early Christians were “followers of the way” (6 times in the book of Acts).  

Maybe a Christian should be defined as a person who follows in the way – the pattern – the values of Jesus? 

I admire Josh and Shannon.  They are expressing publicly, at high risks of being judged and ostracized, their spiritual and relational journeys. They didn’t have to do it.  They could have kept it to themselves.  But by doing it like this, they are helping others like us. 

I hope for Josh and Shannon a steady move through the process of de-construction toward re-construction in which they discover a religion that indeed “re-aligns” them with the God of love in them.