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Monthly Archives for January 2007

The Church That Is

Last Sunday morning I was sitting in church contemplating how we often spin our wheels trying to achieve something that we already have, when I realized that a prime example was presenting itself in the sermon. The pastor was teaching on community, which has been a common topic in the Western evangelical church. As I’ve said before, I think one of the reasons community needs to be talked about so much, is because the Western evangelical church fails to recognize the community that exists in the Spirit, and actually undermines the functioning of community.

“Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” said Jesus. This should give us a clue as to the reality of community and the nature of the Church. While the “One Holy and Apostolic Church” includes all Christians worldwide (no longer practical to meet in one place), an expression of the Church – and a very real expression of community – exists wherever 2 or more gather “in Jesus’ name.” Church and community, then, are not dependent upon having a pastor, a building, a worship team, or an organizational structure. It is solely dependent upon meeting “in Jesus’ name.”

I contend that very real and tangible community (and “church”) happens daily across the globe in homes, coffeehouses, backyards and places of work, wherever people get together with a Kingdom purpose, whether to pray, serve, or merely encourage and relate to one another. These “2 or 3″ could be from different church families, different countries, or different theological positions; it doesn’t matter, as long as they meet “in Jesus’ name.”

I also contend that pastors are trained not to see or recognize this, for it often undermines the agenda of the “para-church” organizations that we call churches. In an age where a city boasts dozens and even hundreds of churches – often who recognize and respect each other – no one church can claim to be a church modality, or the only local representation of the universal Church. However, there is still a whole lot of kingdom-building (in the organizational rather than spiritual sense) going on, with many pastors jealous of any activity outside of their little organization in which their members may be involved. There is a definite tension between these church organizations (in my opinion, sodalities) and “The Church That Is,” that exists wherever 2 or more are gathered.

Take, for example, this sermon snippet:

There is no place for unholy individualism in this church. There is no place for just doin’ our own thing. If this is the place God has called you to… what it means is we begin to let go of our own of our individual stuff and doing our own thing … and we begin to ask … ‘how does what I do fit in with [this church]‘”

You can feel the tension here, can’t you? It’s one thing to say, “stop following the wide path and get on the straight and narrow.” It’s another thing to say “this church’s way or the highway.” Could it be that the needs of the church organization are not in line – and even in opposition – with the purposes of The Church That Is?

The problem, as I perceive it, is the proverbial failure to see the forest for the trees, or in our case, the failure to see community and church for the people. One pastor may look out on a church and see people off in many directions, with little or no energy to maintain the processes of the church organization. Another may look out and see wonderful examples of community and the Kingdom in action. One builds a structure and tries to make his people fit; another sees the people and tried to create a structure to support them. I think you can tell which viewpoint I prefer.

Written on 30 January 2007 by me under Church, My Own Personal Religion with 4 Comments

The State of the Union – my version

I feel compelled to offer a short commentary on the state of the union; not the President’s speech, but rather the media’s response to the speech, the day after. In my opinion, what I see in the media this morning is itself a sad commentary on the state of the media, which unfortunately is all many ever get to see of the union itself. If perception is reality, our reality is what shows up on our TV and computer screens.

It seems to me that either no one was listening, or if the media was listening, it appears that they would rather have you listen to them than to the President. For one thing, it was clear to me that having just presented his Iraq plan a few days ago, he didn’t need to address it again last night. However, apparently that’s all anyone wants to talk about, as the vast majority of the reporting focused only on Iraq. Bush had a lot to say on a number of other topics, which were only given perfunctory attention.

Then, of course, you balance the space given to the President’s 50-minute speech with that given to a 7-minute response by a fledgling Senator (interesting choice by the Democrats), which again focused almost totally on Iraq. I have to say that the initial responses by the TV media was fairly even-handed; that is, until Jim Webb spoke, and then they all seemed to develop memory lapses.

In case anyone is confused, the state of the union is that there are issues other than Iraq. That’s not to say we ignore Iraq (in fact, no one could make the claim that Iraq is being ignored); however, the State of the Union address is the place to discuss those other issues.

I also noted that within 1/2 hour of the Address, the Democratic Presidential hopefuls were taking pot-shots at each other, trying to establish why their opposition to the President’s Iraq policy is better than the other’s opposition. Give me a break, people. This does nothing to increase my faith in the state of politics.

In my opinion, the state of Union seems pretty sound, and our future looks hopeful. The state of the media is at best questionable. My assessment of the state of National politics is that it pretty well sucks. On the bright side, by 8 p.m. most people had turned off CNN and were watching American Idol.

Written on 24 January 2007 by me under Politics/Current Events with 1 Comment

All mimsy were the borogoves – Rumors of windmills, part deux

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
– Lewis Carroll

This post continues the topic & discussion began in the prior post, War and rumors of windmills. In a comment to that post, Quixote raises an interesting point: based on the premise that the U.S. can’t afford to lose (that is, losing is not an option), winning (however that is to be defined) is the only remaining option. For many of the plan’s supporters, such as John McCain & Joe Lieberman, this appears to be the logic.

Lewis Carroll’s seemingly nonsensical work Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There demonstrates an important point. While the book is indeed incredulous, its internal logic is quite sound; Carroll was, among other things, a skilled logician. The point, as Quixote states, is that “an argument based upon a fallacy may be internally consistent, but cannot be meaningful.”

We have long since left the point where it is useful to argue whether the decision to enter Iraq was valid. As they say, that ship has sailed. The question now must be, “Is winning really our only option?”

The statement, “winning is our only option” is, of course, a false monochotomy and illogical. Winning can never be the only option, unless we have absolute control over the outcome. Ruling out the option that God has mandated this war (perhaps Pat Robertson knows something we don’t?), failing to win (i.e. losing) is always an option.

Even to say that our only options are either to win or to lose is to express a false dichotomy, unless either “winning” or “losing” is defined over-broadly. Without clearly defined goals, we’ll never know. However, we must consider the distinct possibility that – as illustrated in the movie War Games – this war may be as unwinnable as a game of tic-tac-toe. As I said in closing in the aforementioned post,

I think Bush’s plan to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq is like going “all in” after the turn on a pair of twos. Certainly, as John McCain has said, it could work… But, I wouldn’t bet my money (or my life) on it.

There are many, many reasons why you probably wouldn’t go all-in on a pair of twos, even though there’s always a chance it’s the winning hand. It is possible to win even a game of tic-tac-toe, if you are playing someone who doesn’t understand the concept. In the case of Iraq, I think everyone understands, at least well enough to not let the other side get three in a row. We must consider, then, that logical predictions based on the situation as we know it must include the option that this war is not winnable.

One of the main reasons why this outcome is possible, if not probable, is that Iraq simply doesn’t get it. There is no sense of nationalism among the majority of the people; they are still primarily Sunnis, Shiites or Kurds, and their only real interest is in furthering their own group’s agenda; they are all like the white supremacists of the old South – equality is not a high value to them. We’ve led the proverbial horse to water; I suspect that is really all that we can do.

To use a Biblical metaphor, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Perhaps a year ago, we could have had hope that a unity could develop among the Iraqis. It seemed to be so – the elections were, in my opinion, a marked success. However, the voices from Baghdad are telling us that the Iraqis are still just not getting it. So, to use another Biblical metaphor, what’s happening is that we took out the one evil strong dude, and now there’s a line up of seven worse strong dudes wanting to take over. So, if we aren’t planning on taking over, and the Iraqis aren’t willing to take over for themselves, then what’s the point?

I remember hearing stories about how untrained farmers and ranchers fought off the British in the late 1700′s – you might remember them as our founding fathers. They won, because they wanted to. We need to let the Iraqis see if they can make it happen, and it won’t happen if we do it for them.

In a nutshell, what I’m saying is that it is not us who needs to win, it is the Iraqis. In fact, we cannot win for them. It is simply not about us.

There are some other reasons why I can’t support Bush’s new plan, including:

  • Where have all the coalition members gone? They’re slowly disappearing, and now it’s really just us. You don’t hear any of our mighty partners signing on to add troops. You don’t even hear the word “coalition” anymore. In my opinion, it’s time to humble ourselves and beg the U.N. to step in and take over. Not that I have any faith in the U.N., it is just that the Middle East is – or will be – a world problem, so let them have at it now.

  • We will never solve the Middle East situation. We don’t understand them. Unlike the various empires that once ruled that area, we can’t even dominate them if we wanted to, because it’s full of crazies who believe that killing us with suicide bombings is equivalent to running a spiritual touchdown. Anyone who’s that willing to die will always hold the upper hand – you can only negotiate with someone who actually wants something, like to live.

  • We’ll never get the Islamic factions to tolerate each other, and certainly they’ll never tolerate anyone else. Iran and Iraq have been problems for years, and it turns out Iran is now a bigger problem than Iraq ever was. Maybe we should just them fight it out between themselves – it doesn’t look like we can stop them.

Well, the story is back in the news as one more Republican Senator has signed the resolution against the plan, not that it matters – the first “surge” troops have already arrived. We’ll just have to see how this story plays out.

Written on 19 January 2007 by me under Politics/Current Events with 2 Comments

War and rumors of windmills, part 1

While the top news story of the past week was undoubtedly the feud between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump, I’d like to address another issue which appears to rank a little lower in terms of national interest: the President’s New Iraq Plan. Yes, I know, this is now old news and most people have already gone on the record either for or against it, and it no longer even appears in the headlines. But, I needed time to think. Unfortunately, some of that has come between the hours of 2:30 and 4:00 a.m. when I lie awake concerned about the state of the world and the things I forgot to do the day before. I came close to writing this last night during that time period, but that would have meant getting up and waking either my wife or my cat. I chose to let sleeping – and not so sleeping – people and cats lie.

So, here’s my assessment, after hours of fitful consideration: I don’t have a clue what Bush is up to; his decisions concerning Iraq are completely befuddling to me, without any apparent sense of logic or rationality. I have given him the benefit after benefit of doubt, and have simply run out. He is either an astounding genius, thinking on a level that normal humans can’t grasp, or he is Don Quixote, willing to risk an entire nation to carry on his war with the proverbial windmill. I like Don Quixote, but I’m not about to go off on a quest with him.

I can hear my liberal friends and readers cheering in the distance. I have not, however, except perhaps on some minor points, changed my views. I admittedly hold some some beliefs tenuously in tension against others, like a physicist’s belief that light is a wave (oh, wait… it’s a particle). Here, for the record, are some of the things I believe:

  • I am, at heart, a pacifist. By this I mean that I am called to make peace, not war. As the Apostle Paul said, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18). That being said and human nature being what it is, I believe I would die and even kill to protect the lives of my family (in defense, not as an affirmative action. I just had to make that clear…). I think about this when I am awake late at night and hear noises outside my window. (Whether I would kill or die to protect you remains to be seen.)

  • I think that Bush is, at heart, a good, well-meaning person. From what I know of him, I like him. His economic policies were “right on the money,” so to speak, resulting in tax breaks for people like me, and record-breaking stock market numbers, without any over-inflated dot-coms to drive the numbers up. He was a great president during the immediate post-9-11 period.

    I would like him to succeed, for his own sake as well as for the sake of the country. I do not think, as does my son, Keith Olbermann, and Green Day, that he is an idiot. He has 3 major failures, that I see: For one, he failed to stop the obscene pork-barrel spending by congress (in fact, failed to veto anything). Second, he enlarged the Federal Government in the name of security but left our borders unguarded. And last but not least, I do think that he’s had several years of very bad military advice on Iraq, and that his advice has gotten worse.

  • I agree with the late President Ford (as I’ve blogged already) that the arguments given for invading Iraq were not adequate, or at least not adequately presented. As others have pointed out, the justifications have shifted over time, and it certainly calls into question the true motivation. At this point, I don’t think anyone really knows why we’re there, except to try to bring a scintilla of order to the chaos that is Iraq.

  • I have always questioned whether invading Iraq when we did was the right thing to do. Saddam was a bad dude, no question about it. But, he perhaps wasn’t the most dangerous man out there, and there were other available means of dealing with him. As I have said, I believe that there are things worth fighting for, but I’ve never been totally convinced that this is it (again, the “it” has changed over time, suggesting that the “it” we know may not be “it” at all).

Now, there are some very good reasons (in my humble opinion) why I think Bush’s plan to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq is like going “all in” after the turn on a pair of twos. Certainly, as John McCain has said, it could work… But, I wouldn’t bet my money (or my life) on it.

But, seeing as how this post is lengthy enough, I’ll give you these reasons tomorrow…

Written on 16 January 2007 by me under Politics/Current Events with 2 Comments

That murky place between sleep and cognizance

There are, or so I have been led to believe, those people who awaken in the morning and are instantly awake, alert and out of bed. I don’t know who you are, but I hate you people. You are the ones who always show up for work having read the morning paper over a real breakfast, after they have run a few miles or gone to a yoga class or built a model of the White House out of matchsticks. What is it with you people, anyway? You are the ones who have created this world where us non-morning people are at a disadvantage every morning until about 10:00 and three venti Americanos.

Fortunately, I telecommute.

Anyway, the real subject of this post has to do with what was running through my mind the other morning as I lay trying to remember how many times I hit the snooze button, or wondering if that, too, was just a bad dream.

Has it ever occurred to you that the old 1969 Zager & Evans hit, In the Year 2525, may be coming true, only it won’t take nearly as long as Rick Evans thought? Technology has already made the Industrialized World a world of wimps. Most of us couldn’t survive without a microwave. We can’t find our own food (unless it’s in the freezer aisle), we definitely couldn’t kill it, we’d be naked once we ran out of clothes to steal, and a majority of us would simply die out of ignorance and helplessness. For most of us, there simply is no post-apocalyptic existence possible. We are, out of our own design, completely reliant upon technology.

I started thinking (why, I don’t know) about the kings and the wealthy of just a couple of centuries ago. Do you realize that Solomon had no indoor plumbing? Most of us wouldn’t even spend the night where we had to use a chamber pot. No daily (or even monthly) showers? No anti-bacterial soap?

Somewhere around the Enlightenment things started to change; as we grew in knowledge, we began to lose something else. The more we learned, the more we became dependent upon our own inventions. And, shockingly enough, it occurred to me what the real culprit was. It’s not television, the internet or rock music; the culprit was movable type. Our dependence upon books and information and ideas has made us “book-smart” but weak in other areas.

Am I awake yet?

Written on 10 January 2007 by me under Random Thoughts with 2 Comments

The Fools’ Challenge

The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
– David, Psalm 53:1

Newsweek‘s Beliefwatch column this week discusses a new YouTube trend: self-damnation (there’s got to be some Latin word for that, but I don’t know it). In what is at the very least pure foolishness, the website blasphemychallenge.com is encouraging those who are pretty convinced of their atheism (along with the young and unwise) to post videos of themselves in which they attempt to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, in essence playing “chicken” with God.

I don’t really understand what their point is. So you choose not to believe in God? Fine. It is, as they say, a free country. But, why the challenge? Do the two individuals behind the challenge think they can turn their fantasies into reality by getting enough people to agree with them? Or, are they looking to subconsciously ease their fears by the “safety in numbers” theory?

Throughout history, many individuals have erroneously believed that they could change reality; the Roman rulers, for example, attempted to do so by edict. Today, we think we do it with opinion polls. Reality, as someone said, is perception. Those of us not foolish enough to fall for that postmodern hoohaw know better. As the Beliefwatch column states, this blasphemy challenge “is the ultimate no-win wager, as the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal calculated—it can’t be settled until you’re dead, and if you lose, you go to hell.”

One of the guys behind this operates his own site, RationalResponders.com; however, whether there is anything rational behind it is open to debate; certainly this challenge raises questions. And, of course, we have David’s analysis, in the opening quote. Now, I know that there are those who have chosen not to believe in a god of any kind, based on their honest analysis. These people, as with rational believers, can still carry on honest discussions of the issues. I am not sure if any of these people behind the “challenge” fall in that category. Rather, I suspect that most of them are to atheism what people like Robert Tilton and Jerry Falwell are to Christianity: they are fringe-dwellers, and can not speak for the population at large.

The real issue here, of course, is this:

“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

“Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!”
– Jesus, Matthew 18:5-7

Jesus was no fool; those behind these websites appear to be. I dare not think about what kind of a hell they are creating for themselves. But what of the hundreds of teenagers who have jumped on this bandwagon? Have they indeed sinned the Big One? I guess that’s not for us to judge. If, of course, they still care about eternity in the years to come, then I would say that speaks for itself and is proof that they are still “savable.” If they don’t care, then only God knows.

But, a rational (which rules out many well-intentioned ministries) Christian response is probably in order. I’ll have to think about that…

Written on 03 January 2007 by me under My Own Personal Religion, Random Thoughts with 2 Comments