Pastor Scott's Thoughts

The Olympics, Politics, and Postman

As someone who is a bit sports obsessed, I am going to miss the Olympics. Thanks to DVR I stayed up late nearly every night for the last two weeks watching even sports that most people only care about every four years. My new favorite athlete is Missy Franklin. Not to sound too unpatriotic, but my favorite Olympic moment was Mexico winning the gold medal in men's soccer. People in Mexico will remember their win over futbol-super-power Brazil the way Americans remember Lake Placid's "Miracle on Ice."

For some reason, watching the olympics made me think a lot about the late Neil Postman. I met Neil almost 20 years ago at a retreat on technology and faith when I was working on my dissertation. Neil taught for many years at NYU in an area he liked to refer to as "Media Ecology." He's probably most famous for his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business which lamented what he saw as the dumbing down of Western culture as it transitioned out of the literate age and into the video/technological age.

At the retreat he read the amazing introduction to the book he was working on at the time (and my favorite book of his) called The End of Education. (I love Amusing Ourselves... but the lesser-known The End of Education and a book entitled The Disappearance of Childhood are my favorites). We ended up in a small group together over the weekend, and for some reason he kind of liked me and so we ate a few meals together over the weekend and corresponed a few times in the years that followed. Neil was a crusty, sometimes crass, stereo-typical New Yorker, but I really liked him personally.

I thought about him during the olympics because of what he would so often say about the nature of television. Borrowing the famous line by Marshall McLuhan, Neil would often lament that when it comes to TV "the medium is the message." Television by nature is good at some things but not so good at others. In particular Neil thought sports made for great television. Sports are usually fast-paced, filled with drama, often has unexpected endings (just ask McKayla Maroney), and is completely unscripted. In other words, its primarily entertaining and relatively unimportant.

And there is no question that the London olympics made for great television. Even when I knew the outcome ahead of time (thanks a lot espn.com and yahoo.com!!), I still found myself jumping off the couch with excitement.

But then I would see the political ads that frequently ran inbetween the events and I'd be reminded of what Neil feared about television - it's effect on social discourse. Politics, Neil believed, made for terrible TV. Not because it couldn't be exciting, but because television, by nature, has to be entertaining to be good. Because that is the case, he knew that careful, thoughtful social discourse would make for horrible television (just try watching CSPAN). Therefore, Postman beleived that politics in a technological age would increasingly be about sound-bites, personal appearance, and the manipulation of the truth in easy ways. In other words, the most important social conversations a culture can have - because they have to make for good TV - would inevitably become trivial. The medium is the message.

In Amusing, Neil compares the careful, thoughful, WRITTEN debates between Lincoln and Douglas from the print dominated 19th century, to the short, sound-bite, talking-points oriented political debates that will fill our television screens for the next several months here in the twenty-first. He didn't like the comparison:

If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to prusue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether. And what the other matter is can be expressed in one word: advertising... The point is that television does not reveal who the best man is. In fact, television makes impossible the determination of who is better than whom, if we mean by "better" such things as more capable in negotiation, more imaginative in executive skill, more knowledgeable aabout international affairs, more understanding of the interrelations of economic systems, and so on. The reason has, almost entirely, to do with "image"... For on television the politician does not so much offer the audience and image of himself, as offer himself as an image of the audience. And therein lies one of the most powerful influences fo the television commerical on political discourse. - Amusing Ourselves to Death (p. 126,133-134).

So I'm sorry to see one set of games come to an end. But let the other (and unfortunately much more serious) games begin!

 

Prayer of Blessing for APU Convocation

I was asked to speak for Senior Convocation yesterday at APU. I used Luke 19 to speak on the tension that I feel between the Parables of the Talents and the Pounds (see previous blog). As we send graduates from Chrsitian colleges out into the world I always feel conflcted about whether the world should want them or reject them, whether they should fit well into the systems of power in the world or live prophetically in contrast to them.

I won't repeat the whole message here, but I've had several requests for the prayer of blessing that I wrote for the class of 2012. Here it is:

Blessing of the Talents and Pounds

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May he make his face to shine upon you and give you peace.

May you discover the mystery of living in the world but not being of it.

Like Daniel, may the leaders of nations want you in their inner circle of authority because of your divinely-given wisdom and insight.

But like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, may the leaders of nations hold you in furnace-building suspicion because you claim a higher citizenship than any nation can offer and you will always obey God rather than rulers.

Like Joseph, may your integrity and determination lead the prominent and mighty corporations of the world to place you in seats of power and influence.

But like the apostle Paul in Ephesus, may your prophetic life so call into question the idolatry on which our lives are built that the unjust economic systems of our world conspire to run you out of town before you undo their mythology.

May the great graduate schools and universities fight over you because they long to have students who committedly give their minds back to God as a an act of worship.

But may they not know what to do with brilliant people who rather than identifying themselves with the cultured elites, keep finding their identity with the poor and the marginalized.

Like Enoch, may you live long productive lives so connected with God that your transition to the next life will be like taking an unbroken stroll into the next life surrounded by the presence of the Spirit.

But like Stephen, may you lay down your life, in the prime of life, as a peaceful witness to a kingdom the world cannot see.

Like our Lord, may the world love you, and despise you.

May you be embraced, and rejected.

May you be given all things, but keep nothing.

May multitudes follow you, but may you take up your cross daily.

May you become first by being last, and may you become great by being the servant of all.

May you daily give your talents to the Lord prepared to one day be held accountable for how you have used the gift of life he has given you.

But, like Zacchaeus, - refusing to be conformed to this present age - may you wrap up and give back the pound the principalities and powers will offer to you, willing to pay the cost of discipleship.

May your life be lived in the tension between the talents and pounds.

God has called you to help him heal the broken world. May the world be both excited and terrified that you are on the way.

And may he who began a good work in you, may he carry it completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Amen.

 

Caught Between Talents and Pounds

I spent last Thursday and Friday on retreat with scholars from theology, business, and communication mixed together with Christian leaders in business, film, and various other fields. The APU School of Theology has been given a grant from the Kern Family Foundation to explore how to better prepare ministers to think and teach Christianly about the areas of work and economics and the retreat was set up to help kick off the project.

One of the interesting things about the conversation surrounding work and faith is the inherent tension concerning whether or not the system of wealth and capitalism in which most of us are embedded is good or bad. The conversation is actually quite complicated because the problems and blessings of our economic systems are varied. The conversation at the retreat was certainly lively.

One of the things I wanted to do was to give the group permission to be comfortable with the tension that we often feel as Christians when we think, speak, and write about faith and economics. Not just as a scholar but more especially as a pastor I find myself caught in the tension between the importance of our material nature (especially as it pertains to the importance of our bodies and our work) and materialism (the worship or improper use and valuing of material things).

I shared with the group that I often describe the tension as a conflict between the parable of the talents and the parable of the pounds. Matthew gives us the parable of the talents (Matthew 25) and Luke gives us the parable of the pounds (Luke 19).

The parables are nearly identical and very likely were used by Matthew and Luke from the same or at least similar original sources. In each version the beginning of the parable is almost identical. Matthew and Luke tell their readers (through Jesus) the parable as a story about a master who goes away and leaves three servants or stewards in charge of their resources. To the first he gives five talents or ten pounds. To the second he gives two talents or five pounds. And to the last he gives one talent or one pound.

In both versions of the parable the endings are nearly identical. When the master returns he rewards the fist two servants because they have doubled their resources. But the last servant is punished for having hidden rather than having used his talent or pound. What he has received is taken away and given to the first servant.

Most of the time when this parable is preached it is Matthew's version - the parable of the talents - that is used. I think the preference for Matthew's version of the parable, at least in part, has to do with the ease with which the monetary unit called a "talent" can be translated to include not just our wealth, but our gifts, strengths, and "talents" for the purposes of God and his kingdom.

Matthew places the parable of the talents in chapter 25 among other instructions from Jesus about being ready for judgment. It is found in between the parable of the ten virgins and the parable of the sheep and the goats. All three parables have the theme of taking seriously the responsibility that we have to use the gifts, strengths, and resources that God has given us for his purposes in the world and that we will all be held accountable for how we have "invested" those gifts.

So on one side is the responsibility that all humans have as those created in God's image and sharing what some theologians call co-creation powers with God. God has formed as as people with creative bodies and minds and expects us to use those in ways that share in the goodness of his creative purposes. In that way all work can be seen as an act of worship back to the Creator. Our work inevitably forms larger structures of communities, cultures, and economies. So we can't help but be economic beings finding ways to work together for the good of all and for the glory of the God who not only creates us but holds us accountable for our work.

But on the other side is the parable of the pounds. Scholars like Kenneth Bailey and William Herzog have helped me read Luke's version of the parable in what I think are better ways. They argue - and I think the are correct - that Luke uses the parable differently than Matthew.

In Luke the parable is placed in chapter 19 between the story of Zacchaeus' conversion and Jesus' cleansing of the Temple. In both of those stories the emphasis is not on being ready but on the ways that the surrounding economic systems were corrupting the life and worship of God's people.

Therefore, in the parable of the pounds, rather than the third servant being the "bad guy" he may actually be the "good guy." It is possible, given the context, that the third servant recognizes that the world's economic systems are often ruthless (like the power gathering master). And he sees that the ways of gathering more power are unjust (gathering where they did not sow). And the parable also seems to recognize that in the system the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. So he cannot find a way to participate in this ruthless system. What happens? Like many of the early believers, the servant who is unwilling to work for the building up of the "empire" he dragged before the people and slain.

Maybe we can think of the parable this way... Have you ever wondered what happened to Zacchaeus after his confession to Christ when he went back to work on Monday (or Sunday) and told his tax bosses that he could no longer participate in the system of exploitation that he had so cleverly led up until this point? Do you think his boss shared in his conversion?

When Jesus cleansed the Temple he ended up getting crucified. My guess is that Zacchaeus' end was not a whole lot more successful than his Lord's.

And so here we are. Christians called to use their gifts everyday in ways that add value to others and to God's creation. We are accountable to work as unto the Lord. But we are also stuck in systems of injustice and brokenness in which we are called to live prophetically. And as we live prophetically we are called to count the cost of that discipleship.

This is a tension that the earliest disciples of Jesus felt everyday as they took up their cross. Two-thousand years later we are still caught in the tension between the talents and the pounds.

 

Follow Up on Marathons and Anonymous Letters

Thought I'd give you a run down (pun intended) on the Marathon. I did finish the 26.2 miles. It took me just over six hours to finish. One of my highly supportive colleagues at APU heard my time and declared, "That's slow!"

It was kind of slow. I ran the first hour and half without much problem. That got me about eight miles in. Then I started walking for two minutes and running for eight minutes. That worked great for an hour and got me over half way home. Then I went to walking three and jogging seven. That didn't work quite as well. My legs got so tight and cramped that I had to walk the last seven miles.

The great news was that despite the predictions, it did not rain. The forecast was for showers all day. At the start I think 23,000 of the 24,000 runners were wearing ponchos. It became apparent quickly that it was going to be cold and windy but it wasn't going to rain. So much of the day was spent dodging 23,000 discarded ponchos.

I couldn't walk on Monday (or Tuesday) after the race. But I'm thankful to have finished and to have raised over $2,800 for Child SHARE.

A great deal of attention was paid to my blog about the anonymous letter I received a few days before the race. I had written and saved a draft of the blog a couple of days before I posted it so that I could sleep on it a couple of nights and make sure I wanted to post it. I had no idea that it would receive the response that it did. Within 24 hours after posting it Saturday morning it had received well over 1,000 hits.

I have received emails and comments from friends and pastors from quite literally all over the nation - most of them thanking me for being willing to be vulnerable and address the issues in the letter. The encouragement from people at PazNaz has been both humbling and overwhelming. The outpouring of support has been an amazing gift.

The most surprising gift was an unexpected one. In the unique providence of God through circumstances I can't reveal or explain, the person who wrote the letter and I connected. The opportunity to sit down and talk face to face was redemptive for both of us. This season reminds us that God's grace is always greater than our brokenness. And the meeting was a reminder that we really can be a community of reconciliation. I hope the situation has made us both better people.

Anyways, I'm walking much better this week. I'm looking forward to Holy Week and I am thankful for the grace of Christ and the community his grace is forming. 

Addiction and Virtue - by Kent Dunnington

One of the great joys of teaching is when a former student outgrows you. Kent Dunnington was a clearly gifted undergrad student at SNU when I was a professor there. I had the privilege not only of teaching him in a couple of courses, but of developing a dear friendship. At the time he - like many college students - was struggling with how to be a thoughtful Christian in a church world that is often anti-intellectual. A couple of my colleagues and I were able to convince him to love Jesus even when he didn't like church people and to find ways of doing theology that got beyond the pitfalls of modernity. His first book is not only a testimony that he did both of those things well, but it is a gift to the Church he has learned to love and serve.

Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice, is the culmination of his work in theology and ethics at Duke Divinity School and his PhD in philosophy from Texas A&M. It has rightly received several excellent reviews including a very positive endorsement in Christianity Today.

Kent argues that the modern conversation about addiction has largely been shaped by the categories of disease and choice and neither in the end has been very helpful. People as they struggle with addiction rarely feel like they have true freedom of choice. All one has to do is sit through the testimonials at an AA group to know that those who suffer through addiction rarely feel like they were acting "freely" while their lives were dominated by their addiction. To call addiction "choice" just isn't very helpful nor very accurate.

But on the other hand, to place addiciton within the category of disease doesn't fit well either. As Kent points out in his book, when one thinks of disease one usually thinks of medical treatment through various chemical answers. However, in the case of addiciton, "medical treatment" does not have very high success rates. Plus, labeling addiction as a disease removes all of the moral implications tied to people's actions and it does not have an answer for why so many people are able to overcome addiction through non-chemical methods.

What Kent offers as an alternative is the philosophical category of "habit" as articulated by Thomas Aquinas. For Aquinas habits (or the habitus) are patterns of life that are so deeply woven into us that they operate in ways that become second nature and thus largely beyond the direct control of free will. However, habits are of such a nature that with the right environment, right circumstances, and most importantly the right set of practices, a different set of habits can be formed within us. So, at the risk of greatly over simplifying 97 pages of extremely careful and articulate philosophical reasoning from Kent, thinking in terms of "habit" explains why we often are not free. (Because we are a slave to our habits). But it also explains how one might have the freedom to be free from addiction. (Through the re-habiting of life).

I do think Kent is right about this. But my favorite part of the book is the second half where Kent argues that addiction is a particularly modern phenomena and that an abundance of addictions happen in a culture that has lost its sense of telos (or purpose). In pre-modern cultures there was, more often than not, a shared conception of a telos, purpose, or vision of the good life to which human life is pointed. If people know what their telos is, then they also are able to name the virtues that help them to achieve that telos and the vices they need to avoid that keep them from getting there. (Think Pilgrim's Progress).

But what if a culture lacks a clear vision of purpose or telos? What if postmoderns, inheriting the destruction of the older visions for life that took place during and after the Enlightenment, now live with the angst that life is going nowhere? What is left for people to do? Doesn't this lack of a shared telos for life create a human crisis of meaning? Kent rightly argues that it does. And then in one of my favorite sections, he writes,

The dominant response of our culture is simply to ignore the crisis by means of distraction. In particular, late modern capitalism provides consumers the opportunity to pursue "value" in the absence of any shared commitment to the good... Thus consumerism is an expression of the wish to be distracted from the frightening prospect that we do not really know what is worthwhile. The pursuit of constant titillation, which is the pulse of consumerism, is the enthronement of the immediate over the teleological... But addiction is addicting rather than merely distracting exactly because it provides the kind of propelling and purposive force that consumerism cannot provide. Consumers buy and sell to distract themselves from a lack of purpose. But addicts find purpose at precisely the moment in which they recognize that, rather than consuming their products of choice, they are instead consumed by those products. Addiction provides what consumers do not believe exists: necessity. Major addiction can therefore be interpreted both as a response to the absence of teleology in modern culture and as a kind of embodied critique of the late capitalist consumerism which this absence produced... For modern persons are not only plagued by the absence of a teleology but also by the belief that a resolution to the crisis is not forthcoming since the only imaginable sources of such a resolution - Aquinas's Faith, Kant's Reason, Hegel's History - are the very things that modernity has called into irremediable doubt. Modern persons, therefore, are not so much despearte as cynical or bored. (p. 112-113).

That last sentence is amazing.

The second half of my copy of the book is all marked up, with "Amen"(s) and "That is so right"(s) written in the margins. Kent's critique of the loss of a teleology not only helps make sense of the rise in addiction, but I think it helps us understand many uniquely modern maladies. We shouldn't be surprised that students cheat so frequently in a culture that has lost the telos of education. We shouldn't be surprised at the sexual ethics of a culture that isn't sure what the purpose of having sexual bodies is supposed to be. And we shouldn't be suprised at the economic ethics of a culture whose only end is acquisition and consumption.

Kent's book isn't a "how to" book on addiction. But if you are looking for a very thoughtful way of not only thinking about a culture of addiction and imagining ways forward (especially as the Body of Christ) this is a powerful and beautiful book.

Thanks, Kent for making your old ethics professor proud.

An Anonymous Letter About My Marathon Run

I am getting ready to run in the LA Marathon this weekend to support Child SHARE. The weather report is not great, but I'm going to try and get through it anyway.

I try to keep the myth of the negative emails and letters alive. I really don't get very many of them. The vast majority of messages I receive are very positive reflections on what God is doing in and through the church. But Thursday I received the following anonymous letter sitting on my desk at the church. Every pastor in the universe gets these kinds of letters and then has to decide what to do with them, because they truly are cowardly in nature. These kinds of letters give people the chance to unload on you without giving you a chance to respond. As I sat down to blog this morning I thought, "Hey, I can respond here." Chances are good that the person who wrote the letter will not read this, but it does give me an opportunity to reflect on my own priorities in ministry. It also gives me a chance to address similar questions other people might have even though they would never dream of writing this kind of letter. (And it's a lot cheaper than therapy).

So I thought I would try and respond here. The letter in its entirety is posted below in italics. (Sorry for its length). My response and reflections come after the letter.

March 14, 2012

Dear Dr. Scott Daniels,

May I voice my opinion at the disappointment I feel in some of our pastoral staff, especially pertaining to this coming weekend?

I am very disappointed to learn that:

1. You will be absent from the pulpit this Sunday due to your involvement in the fundraiser marathon for Child Share. Even though it is a great ministry and one of which we support as a church, you, of all the staff, need to be doing the job you are being paid for, being in the pulpit, instead of running in a marathon on a Sunday morning. What does this say to our people? Supporting an "outside" ministry is more important than supporting our own ministry - on a Sunday morning, the main time in the week when we all come together for teaching and fellowship? If Child Share is a Christian organization, I'm suprised that they would set an event that would take people away from going to and serving their church on a Sunday morning. I'd think they'd plan it for a "non-church" day. If others want to participate in the acutal running, that is their choice. But for you, you are now not even a true full-time pastor anymore since you give much of your time to your other position at APU now and are not even in the office and/or on campus much of the week. And then it seems like you're gone a lot on trips attending conferences or serving on various boards that take you away as well. I really don't even consider you my "senior" pastor anymore, but our "preaching" pastor only. Your salary I'm sure reflects a senior's pastor salary, but I'm not sure I believe that's fair now either. And now with your participation this Sunday in the marathon, you're even giving up your preaching responsibility. You suggested to us last Sunday that if you don't or can't run in the Child Share marathon, that you can still support it monetarily. Well, you should be doing it that way instead of being absent from your job. If you absolutely want to run to raise money, then still get the sponsors but run it by yourself or with a few others on Saturday! What little time you give PazNaz anymore, you should keep your few commitments.

2. I've heard that Pastor Joe Halbert is also shirking his responsibilities at the Valley Center church to run the marathon. Isn't he considered the preaching pastor over there? Wow. Now we have two pastors that are not setting a very good example to our congregants, that taking part in something other than their primary job is an okay thing to do on a Sunday morning. And then you talk from time to time about our numbers and maybe our lack of participation, faithfulness and commitment to our own church and its ministries? Can you blame our people for choosing other things to do on a Sunday morning when some of our own leadership does, too? Isn't there a spaghetti luncheon fundraiser this Sunday after church to help support one of our ministries? Everyone will no doubt be eating lunch somewhere after church. That's a simple ministry fundraiser to participate in... instead of spending money at Isalnds, give it to one of our ministries! So I guess neither you or Joe will be a part of supporting that ministry, huh? I hope you don't expect other staff members to support one of yours (or his) ministry opportunities if you don't support theirs. I've even heard that there may be a small contingency from the Valley Center church that wants to come over to PazNaz from Covina in order to support the spaghetti luncheon fundraiser! Wow. They've got better commitment than some of our pastoral staff! They're attending their own church and then coming over to PazNaz just to eat lunch so that they can support their larger church family! Will either your family and/or Joe's family also be absent so that they can support their husband and father?

3. Then I've also heard that our youth pastor, Keegan Lenker, is going to be out of town over the weekend to attend some of the March Madness NCAA Basketball games up north. Here we see another example of giving more commitment to a sport over being in God's house and in Chrisitan fellowship that the Bible tells us we should make a priority. Okay, so I know he could be taking some of his vacation time, and he is allowed to do whatever he wants with it, and if that's the case, okay. But if it's just for the weekend and he'll be back next week to do his job, what does that say to be allowed to be gone on a Sunday just to attend a sporting event over ministering to the youth of our church? Go on a Friday or Saturday, but be back for his Sunday morning responsibilities with his youth group. What if all of his volunteer staff decided to do the same? Who would be left to minister to our youth? Let him not complain if his ministry's attendance begins to fade because they're following their pastor's example to put a sport (or any other event) over being in God's house for teaching and fellowship!

How strongly does this speak to our congregation when three of our pastors this Sunday (and that's all that I've heard of) will find other opportunities and set them as their priorities to participate in rather than be in church, doing their jobs that we are paying them to do? The next time I hear you or them talk about the lack of commitment of our people for events or ministry offerings within our own church, my thoughts will be saying "hypocrisy"! If you want to set an example for First Church, set a good one. I can't blame friends who, though making me very disappointed, choose to attend their child's sports events on Sunday mornings rather than be in church. Some of them are just following the examples set before them in their growing up years, albeit not a good example. If their parents didn't give church a priority for them then, why should they think it should be a priority now? And when their children grow up and decide that church is just another option, and maybe not the most fun one over the others available, why should they be disappointed when they fall away from the church eventually because they didn't give God priority? If there is another activity taking place on a Sunday morning that would mean not being able to attend, worship, and/or serve in my regular capacity, that invite or event will be graciously turned down, or if necessary, we would still attend but arrive after we have attended church.

Just think about his as you are away from your congregation this Sunday and not standing in the pulpit preaching, not doing what you are paid to be doing, not being seen around campus, now even less than usual.

I guess I shouldn't be suprised if any of the other pastoral staff don't support some of the other ministry opportunities made available if the "senior" pastor doesn't support some of them either. Sometimes I've noticed that it is other pastoral staff that I see supporting a ministry event, possibly in your absence or just because they feel it's a priority, than I see you there supporting it because your other non-PazNaz commitments have taken priority. Do you let your staff pick and choose what they wish to support outside of their specific ministry? I hope you don't put a guilt trip on them if they don't support specific opportunities when you don't always give the best example in what to support and what not to support. I know you or them can't support, and shouldn't be expected to support, every ministry's offerings, programs, or events. But I do think you should give better consideration to what you make your priority, and that of your staff as well since they are in the position of setting an example for our congregants. Don't demand on your staff or their families, as well as your congregants, what you can't set an example for yourself. Remember what we are paying you for and at least give those responsibilities priority!

-- A disappointed long-time faithful church member

I want to start by saying that I agree with some of the concerns expressed. I believe regular participation is not only helpful but necessary in the life of beleivers. (And not just because I'm a pastor). I too am very concerned about making worship a priority for my family. As our kids have come through youth athletics we have said "no" to their participation in various sports or other activities that would require that they miss church on Sunday for any extended period of time. As churches we've created Saturday night or early morning services to try and help families work around occassional conflicts. But in a world where the culture no longer holds Sunday mornings sacred, it is a challenge for people to make regular worship attendance a priority in ways that my parents and grandparents did not face.

Just as a point of defense, the church does give me six Sundays a year that I can be gone (four for vacation and two to speak in other places). In six full years at PazNaz I have yet to use all six. I looked back through my calendar and in six years (309 Sundays) I have taken 9 vacation Sundays and 8 non-PazNaz travel, conference, or outside speaking Sundays (and one other marathon Sunday).

Nevertheless, I will admit having an inner twinge of a question about whether or not to run in the marathon or not. (This will be my second time in three years running for Child SHARE). In the end, I agreed to participate for two reasons. (Other than wanting to stay in shape).

The first is my taking quite literally James 1:27, "Religion that is pure and undeflied before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans, and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." The fact that five households this year from PazNaz are going through the process of becoming foster parents in order to literally care of the orphans in our area is one of the things I am most proud of today. Our family cannot currently open our home in this way, so the least I can do is sweat and raise resources for those who can. I believe I am being as honest as I know how to be when I say that I see what I am trying to accomplish and embody this weekend as (from James' point of view) a purer form of religion than preaching. (At least for one week). If I thought having every member at PazNaz run the marathon would get every orphan in LA a Christian home,(and it were physcially possible, and I wouldn't get 50 letters like this one), I would move that the entire church body take this coming Sunday off and run rather than have another weekend of worship and Sunday school. Not because worship, praise, and preaching isn't critical. It is. But if James is right, taking a week off so that every orphan in Los Angeles would find a home might be the purest form of worship we could do to glorify God's name.

Second, in some ways the decision to run this weekend reflects my changing view of ministry. I am increasingly convinced that Paul is correct when he writes that, "Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up..." (Eph. 4:11-12). The primary call for those of us who are pastors is therefore to equip the saints for service as the Body of Christ. Another way I might say it is that my role is not to help PazNaz "do" church as much as it is to help us "be" the church.

For me, apart from the personal attacks, the most troubling part of the letter is the internal focus. I hope what I'm doing as a pastor is teaching people to be the church and not just do church week after week. The goal of the church and the staff is not to create programs to see how many people we can get on campus. Whatever we do as the church is to help us figure out how to be the church in the world. So again, if I thought being the church this Sunday meant that every member ought to take a week off from doing church, I'd be the first one to say "go for it." Hopefully the two aren't mutually exclusive. Hopefully when we gather to do church, we are also being the church.

I was told this week about a lay person at PazNaz who attends activities, bible studies, and services when they can, but has made a commitment to go each Sunday morning and "bring the church" to a person who cannot, for a number of reasons, attend a worship service. I don't know how you feel about that, but I find that more Christian than having perfect worship attendance.

Over the last couple of months the church board has spent time reflecting with me and evaluating the last six years at the church. I am so thankful for their leadership. To a person, their concern in our discussions has been about how my family and I have been able to handle the double-duty that I have been doing these last two years between the church and the university.

Nearly every one of them remarked how thankful they are that God has made it possible that through the multiple venues of writing, speaking, teaching, radio, and internet, and through my continued leadership at the church, APU, in the denomination, and in the community, that the ministry of PazNaz is being expanded far beyond the walls of the church. It certainly does mean that I have been stretched in many different directions. But I am really thankful that unanimously the vision of the church's leadership thus far has not been just focused what is going on within the boundaries of the church campus but how far the reach of the church is extending. They recognize that in being a blessing, the church itself is also being blessed.

Most particularly, the letter reminds me of how truly thankful I am for the gift from God's people to be supported in fulltime ministry. The generosity of God's people has made the entire history and welfare of my family system possible. Nevertheless, like Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, it is my hope that someday I can refuse pay from the people of God. Having been raised in a family of ministers, litte about our lives has been kept secret. Especially in the area of finances, I work at being as transparent as possible. 

My positions at the church and at APU have truly been a gift to me and to our family. Even though I didn't accept a full dean's salary, my role at the school has allowed me to take a 30% reduction in salary at the church and then give 20% back. God has certainly adding blessing by opening the door for our four kids to get tuition remission to college. The reciprocal privileges through the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities is making it possible for Caleb to go to Point Loma next year.

I got a chance last year to spend some time with Rick Warren. One of the ways I would like to be like Rick is to be free to pastor without being paid by the church. I don't know if it will ever happen, but with God and Dave Ramsey's help, it is my long term goal to continue reducing my salary at the church - or at least match what I get with what I give back - so that we can keep putting more resources into extending ministry and so that, along with Paul I can say, "I belong to no one but choose to be a slave to everyone."

Anyways... To the one who wrote the letter. I apologize that my running this weekend caused you offense. I really am just hoping to help some foster kids and be a healthier pastor. I promise - if I can still walk - to be back in the pulpit next week.

The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight

There is has been a growing angst among evangelical Christians for the last several decades over the question of salvation. The angst takes several different forms. It shows up in questions about whether modern American evangelical Christianity looks more like Paul than like Jesus. It shows up in tense debates over substitutionary atonement in relationship to other understandings of Christ's work on the cross. It shows up in the questions about the goal of salvation. (Is the ultimate goal of salvation to get people to heaven or to redeem the creation)? In the Church of the Nazarene (and other Holiness traditions) the tension shows up in the on-going conversations about the relationship between justification and sanctification.

There are other manifestations of the angst that could be pointed to, but the root issue or question is the same: What is the good news of the Gospel? Or to say it another way: What do Christians mean when they invite people to be "saved"?

There are many books that have tried to address this question. Dallas Willard addresses the question in both The Divine Conspiracy and in The Great Omission. NT Wright has taken on the question in books like Justification, Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, and his most recent book Simply Jesus. As I look at my book shelf and the three piles of books on my floor waiting to be read, I count somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty or forty books that are trying to address the question of the Gospel under the assumption that at least part of what American Christianity has been advocating as the good news is at least partly incomplete (if not outright distorted).

A very gifted writer and thinker - Scot McKnight - also takes on this question in his latest book The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. Scot may be the king of the theological bloggers and I frequently find his insights helpful. So I'm not surprised that I found his most recent book The King Jesus Gospel very thoughtful and helpful. The book is not very long and is written at a level that most lay people will find accessible. I think it will be a nice book for small groups to wrestle with.

Scot's main concern is that the contemporary church has become what he calls a "salvation culture" rather than a "gospel culture." A salvation culture is fixated on the question "who's in and who's out"? A salvation culture, argues McKight, separates salvation from the gospel.

The key to overcoming this divide, for Scot, is rooting the "plan of salvation" into the larger story of God's redemption in the world. He argues that there are four big categories or themes given in the Scripture. The primary story is the story of God's redemptive work in the people of Israel. The story of Israel not only tells us what is wrong with the world, but it gives us the vision for a renewed creation and the trajectory of God's plan of redemption.

The second big category is the story of Jesus. The story of Jesus is embedded within the story of Israel. This is the primary reason why the early church refused to get rid of the Old Testament. But it is clear when one reads each of the four Gospels that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are clearly retelling the story of Jesus within the categories and themes of the story of Israel. Jesus is the completion of the story of what God was doing in Israel and apart from that story the story of Jesus makes little or no sense.

The third big category is the plan of salvation. This is the key idea for Scot. The plan of salvation cannot be removed from its location within the story of Israel and Jesus. When one is "saved" one does not just simply cognitively affirm a few ideas about God and his Son Jesus, one enters into the story of God's redemption and salvation as it is revealed in the stories of Israel and Jesus.

The last big category for Scot is then the method of persuasion or evangelism that flows from those first three categories. If salvation is not simply convincing someone of a few ideas (or a few spiritual laws) but inviting someone to enter into God's redemptive story, then our methods of evangelism must flow from those stories. In particular, I believe this is why a re-affirmation of baptism as a means of receiving salvation is so critical. In baptism the new believer leaves behind their former story, former life of sin, and their former story and enters by faith into God's story, God's new life, and God's redemptive story. 

Scot goes on to demonstrate biblically how the preaching of both Peter and Paul reflect a "gospel culture" and not just a "salvation culture." I particularly appreciated the last sections of the book that address how a church can begin to form and reflect a gospel culture.

If you are looking for a good introduction to many of the important conversations going on regarding salvation today, or are looking for a good small group book for discussion. As always, Scot McKnight gives the church a really nice resource for helping us live into the mission God has given us.

Reflections on a Year in Mark

It was a transformational experience for me to have to wrestle my way through the Gospel of Mark this last year. It is fun for me to look through my bible now and see all the marked up places in the second book of the New Testament. I hope your bible got a little “marked up” also (pun intended).

I have been spending some time these last few days reflecting on what parts of Mark have stuck deep inside me.

Without question the first thing I think about is the kingdom of God. There are many stories and sermons in the Gospel, but there is one primary message: “…the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (1:15). Whatever else the early church thought about Jesus, they knew this one truth; Christ had come to announce the reign of God in creation. That reign establishes a new reality, a new people, and a new way of living in the world. The call of the Gospel, first and foremost is to repent of all of the former ways of life and to enter into God’s new kingdom through Jesus. 

The second thing I think about, however, is how hard it is for us to imagine that a new kingdom is present. I am convinced that this is a major part of the reason Mark gives the reader the parables of Jesus. The parables help disciples discover the unusual reality of God’s kingdom. Parables help to subvert our imaginations. The parable that resonates with me most from Mark is the Parable of the Sower (4:1-9). When we hear the word “kingdom” we usually think about power, might, wealth, pomp, and circumstance. But the kingdom of God is not like a warrior who went out to conquer. It is not like an emperor who goes out to expand his empire. The kingdom of God is like a sower who went out to sow seed. What a contrast! Every kingdom that has come in human history has come through conquest and revolution. God’s kingdom will come like a farmer faithfully distributing seed and waiting for the good soil to respond. Amazing! I have a hard time even imagining that. (Which is exactly the point).

The importance of the signs of the kingdom breaking into the world is the third thing that sticks with me from Mark. The miracles of Jesus are clearly not just present in the Gospel to let the reader know the power present in the life of Jesus. Rather, the signs reveal something about the nature of the kingdom as it breaks in. Those paralyzed by sin are able to walk. Those who cannot hear or speak about the kingdom are healed. Lepers who are considered unclean and thus excluded from community are not only restored to health but to relationship with others. People oppressed and possessed by the principalities and powers that bring destruction are set free to be what God created them to be. But most importantly for Mark, those who are blind – those who simply cannot see what the kingdom of God is about – are touched so that they can clearly see the truth of the kingdom clearly.

The most marked up places in my bible are chapters 8 through 11 where three times Jesus talks about how the Messiah must suffer, but the disciples simply cannot see what he means. He keeps talking about the self-giving love that is the essence of the kingdom, while they keep fighting over who is the greatest and arguing about who will get to sit at the right and the left in the kingdom. They, like us, need a complete do-over. Unless we become like little children, we will never see, let alone enter, the kingdom of God.

The fourth and perhaps most important idea that sticks with me from Mark is the call to take up the cross (8:34-35). When the good news about Jesus is proclaimed today it is often preached as something Jesus did for us so that we now don’t have to do anything except cognitively ascent to a few propositions. Certainly Jesus did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. He alone brought the kingdom and he invites us by grace alone to share in it. But the call is for disciples not just to cognitively ascent (to “believe”) in what he has done, but we are called to share in the kingdom. The invitation to discipleship in Mark is for the disciple to take up their cross also and follow Jesus.

Discipleship is a call to kingdom work, but it is not a call to “works righteousness.” This is the fifth thing that I take away from Mark. The call of Jesus is to kingdom faithfulness but it is not a call to religiosity. I have been deeply shaken by Mark chapters 11-13 that deal primarily with the fall of Jerusalem and the religious establishment that gave structure to the life of Jesus and the disciples. Readers of Mark should always be keenly aware that the Pharisees, scribes, and other Jerusalem leaders, who so badly missed seeing the kingdom, were not secular people but very religious. I do not believe that the religious leaders were evil people. In fact, I think they probably look a lot like me. I believe their intentions were to protect the faith that they loved and the temple establishment that gave meaning to their existence. Before we get too critical of the pagans in our world today we should never forget that well-intentioned religious leaders crucified Jesus. Lord, have mercy.

Finally, I take away the young naked man who fled from the Gethsemane (14:51). I don’t know if the scholars who see this young man as a literary devise used by Mark to symbolize the church are right. But that interpretation does make a lot of sense to me. I love that like the rest of the disciples who run away when persecution comes, this young man’s flaws, fears, and sin are exposed. Before the cost of discipleship we are all exposed as naked and broken. But I am convinced that it is this same young man who reappears in chapter 16 at the empty tomb as the witness to the resurrected Lord. He is no longer naked but wrapped in the white robe of the saints. He is the Church. He is every one of us. He is the sinful person redeemed by God’s grace to be a witness to the most important truth in the world: the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and forever.

I love that Mark begins his account of the life of Jesus this way, “The beginning of the good news (the Gospel) of Jesus, the Son of God” (1:1). What Mark has given us is the beginning of the coming of the kingdom. The continuation of the Gospel takes place in and through you and me. May it be so.

Review of Wright and Borg: The Meaning of Jesus

A few weeks ago I attended the annual combined meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion which was held this year in San Francisco. It was a four or five day conference attended by 10,000+ bilblical and religious scholars. Papers were presented. Thousands of books were on display. Receptions and gatherings took place. It is quite a bit of nerdy fun, but these kinds of conferences can also be quite overwhelming - especially for someone raised in conservative Evangelicalism.

My first trip to the conference - several years ago now - was quite troubling because it was certainly not what I was used to. The purpose of both the SBL and the AAR is to advance the academic scholarship of the Bible and religion (as a discipline) not necessarily to advance the Christian faith. That was what seemed so foreign to me. It felt so odd to spend several days talking about God as an object of our intellectual speculation and not as the subject of our worship. (I remember calling my dad and telling him that the conference was great, but if the Lord returned, I think the conference would carry on). I don't ever want to grow fully accustomed to dealing with faith as an academic pursuit, nevertheless I have grown in my appreciation for what even the most suspicious scholarly work contributes to the conversation of vital Christian faith.

In particular, I've grown a bit in my appreciation of what the so-called "Historical Jesus Movement" has contributed to biblical scholarship and even to evangelical thinking about the Gospels. As Christians read the Bible with any degree of thoughtfulness we recognize that what we find there is the product of both divine and human interaction and synergy. Even the most conservative Christian who is convinced that the Scriptures contain the authoritative "Word of God" recognize that the divine Word is received and then transmitted through human agents.

In the conservative Evangelical church our emphasis tends to be on the divine voice revealed through the Old and New Testaments - and rightly so. We are, as the Body of Christ, most interested in discovering what our Creator and Father has to say to us through the preaching and teaching of the church. Religous and Biblical scholarship on the other hand, tends to focus more on the role particular humans and particular human communities played in the writing and formation of the Scriptures. The interest of current scholarship tends to be on the historical contexts, the political motivations, and the social constructions that were at work in the development of Hebrew and Christian sacred texts.

By the way, both are important. I would argue that when conservative Christians fault it is when we pay no attention to human aspects of history, politics, sociology, religious development, etc. at work in the writing (and interpretation) of the Scriptures. But when scholarship faults (at least from my perspective as a Christian) it is when it only pays attention to the human element and leaves out (or nearly leaves out) the presence, revelation, and work of the divine in the Bible.

The Historical Jesus Movement is and was primarily a scholarly pursuit. The basic premise of the movement is that because the four Gospels contained in the New Testament are products of the early community of Christian faith written to inspire others to have faith in Jesus as the Christ, they are faith histories and not what we would consider today to be "acutal" histories of the person Jesus of Nazareth. (Which by the way is a premise we conservatives would not disagree with). So the pursuit of the Historical Jesus Movement is to try and recover - as much as possible - the actual historical Jesus (what he said, what he did, and what he meant) from the Jesus described by the community of faith. That likely means - for those scholars - that much of what we receive in the Gospels are faith additions, embellishments, and products of the later church placed within the mouth (and actions) of Jesus. (Which is the point where they lose most conservatives).

One of the leading advocates and respresentatives of the Historical Jesus Movement is Marcus Borg - Professor of Religion at Oregon State University. I just finished read the book The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions which is a dialogue between Borg and well-known and much more conservative scholar NT Wright. The book takes eight questions about Jesus - How do we know aobut Jesus? What did Jesus do and teach? Why was Jesus killed? What is the resurrection? Was Jesus God? What do we believe about the birth of Jesus? Is Jesus coming again? And what is the impact of Jesus on the Christian life? - and allows Borg and Wright to each write a response (and some dialogue) on each of those important questions. Borg writes from his "Historical Jesus" standpoint and Wright from his more conservative Orthodox vantage point.

The book is actually quite a fascinating read. Subject by subject they alternate who writes first and it is interesting how civil, thoughtful, and convincing both writers are with one another. I found the book stimulating. It was like getting to go to lunch with both of them and asking them the questions you have always wondered about.

Here are three quick thoughts about the book:

1. Although I really enjoyed the book I don't recommend it for everyone. Not because the book raises some hard issues, but because some people aren't wired in ways that will allow them to fully appreciate it. There are a lot of brothers and sisters in Christ who prefer - or are at a place in their walk with Christ - when they desire or even need indoctrination. They want to know what they should believe and are not ready to wrestle with the challenging perspectives of others. I think at some level it is healthy to have to wrestle with hard questions, but not everyone is ready for that or even wants that. So consider yourself warned.
2. Although I largely don't share Borg's perspective, I am very thankful for the work of the Historical Jesus Movement. I think the basic flaw of the movement is that it is always forced to set up rules ahead of time to try and recover the historical Jesus from the Gospels. When we have to set up rules to help us discover what is historical from what is not, the rules always determine what we are looking for ahead of time. For example, if we begin to look for the "historical" Jesus by determining that miracles were added to the Gospels by the faith community after the life of Jesus and anything that is unique to one particular Gospel and not found in the other three is a later addition, then we don't really know in the end if we discovered the historical Jesus or the non-miraculous, highly repetitive Jesus we were looking for at the beginning. If historians assume Jesus was a politically profound peasant, then that's usually who they discover. As Wright points out in the book, all we have today is the Jesus of faith because that is the only Jesus the Gospels tell us about. Nevertheless, the work historical scholars have done in helping us root Jesus back into the historical, political, and sociological context is invaluable. Too much teaching and preaching decontexutalizes Jesus which easily turns into a form of idolatry on our side of history as we assume the words and actions of Jesus are decontextual and therefore easily translated and recontextualized into the twenty-first century. The truth is, the more we discover Jesus in his historical and social setting the more we are able to discover his radical kingdom message for our day.
3. Even though I sided with Wright's perspective in the debates, I left the book deeply moved by Borg's own personal sense of Christian faith. And there are even parts of Borg's articulation of faith that I found not only informative but significant for my own faith. What I appreciated most about this book is the ability of Borg and Wright to dialogue with Christian civility about their differences. There should be more of what Richard Mouw calls "Convicted Civility" or "Uncommon Decency" that marks our conversations with one another as followers of Jesus (both the one of history and the one of faith). For that alone I am thankful to have read The Meaning of Jesus.

Cue the Locusts

Pay attention, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a town. We will stay there a year, buying and selling, and making a profit." You don't really know about tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for only a short while before it vanishes. Here's what you ought to say: "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

- James 4:13-15

 

This last week has certainly been a wild one in the Pasadena area. Debbie and I have often commented that one of the reasons we like living in Southern California is because we seemingly get a different natural disaster (or human disaster like a riot) about once a year which forces all of our friends and family to get in contact with us to make sure we are okay. We have found that it's a good way to maintain long distance relationships.

The winds last Wednesday night into Thursday morning were simply awesome. Not in a skater sense of "that's awesome dude," but in the sense of truly forming a sense of overwhelming awe. Driving around and witnessing the destruction the winds caused around Monrovia, Sierra Madre, and Pasadena has been awe-inducing. Trees that have been standing longer than any of the currently living humans have been around fell to the winds with their deep and complex root systems now exposed for all to see.

This certainly wasn't the way those of us at PazNaz hoped to make the national news, but the destruction of the roof caused by what some speculate to have been 100 mph wind gusts or better was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. Long, heavy sheets of metal had been twisted into every conceivable shape and were scattered in no discernible pattern.

About 1:30am Thursday morning the three of us (and the dogs) with bedrooms at the back of the house were awakened by the flying debris hitting the windows and so we huddled together in the front of the house praying that the trees would stay up and the roof would stay put. In that moment I realized something critically important. At a very significant level we are all powerless in the face of greater powers. I had no way to stop the wind. No way to keep the trees up. No way to make the shingles on the roof stay in place. If the winds wanted to continue until everything clinging to land had been blown into the Pacific I suppose that it could. And there would be nothing available in any of our humanness to stop its force.

Call me Exodus obsessed, but I couldn't help but think about Pharaoh Thursday morning while I laid fearful in the dark. I couldn't help but think about Pharaoh with all of his power and wealth, Pharaoh with all of his mythology of universal control, huddling behind a wall in his palace powerless to stop another of the plagues sent by Yahweh through Moses. Apparently one of my staff members at church thought of Pharaoh also because as we were trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces at the church Thursday morning, one of them said, "It seemed so Apocalyptic last night that I felt like someone should say, 'Okay, stop the wind, cue the locusts.'"

Some of the apocalyptic talk came about because I have been preaching through Mark 13 during this Advent season. We are two weeks into Advent and I will admit that it has been a challenge. These days Advent has really become an extended celebration of Christmas filled with frankly sappy songs, stories, and movies about family, mistletoe, and gentle drifts of snow on the roof. I like all of those Hallmark-ish kind of things, but it has been really hard to figure out how to fit biblical texts about the desecrating sacrilege in the Temple, the moon turning to darkness, and the stars falling from the heavens around tinsel, baby Jesus, and cute little children dressed like shepherds and angels.

The advent of the Santa Ana winds may have saved my preaching this year. The season of Advent really is about being reminded that things that seem permanent - Rome, Caesar Augustus, Herod, taxes, Temples, over-populated cities, Black Fridays, Cyber-Mondays, BCS standings, stock market downturns, presidential politics, and continuing wars on terror - are not only temporal but are quietly being subverted by a kingdom that actually is eternal. The Temple becomes rubble, the moon turns to darkness, and the stars fall because another empire that believes itself to be eternal (an empire that drinks the same kool-aid as Pharaoh) is being replaced by a new heavens and a new earth.

So in a strange way I'm thankful for the Advent Santa Ana winds that blew away an awful lot of what seemed permanent in the San Gabriel Valley. It is an important reminder that we are very, very temporal and that we live most of our days living out Pharaoh's same myth of control. James is right. Our language should more often reflect what ought to be a deeper conviction. We more frequently ought to say: "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

I found myself on Thursday morning deeply thankful for God's mercy in not allowing the winds to keep blowing. But I also found myself more grateful for what I do have, grateful for the kingdom work I have been gifted with today, and grateful that I am ultimately free from the burdensome myth that I am ultimately the one that controls all the outcomes of my existence. 

It took ten plagues to try and teach Pharaoh that he was not in control. His hard heart never learned the lesson and so his mythology of over-blown self-importance came to an ugly and unfortunate end at the Red Sea. I'm sure by this time next week I too will be right back into my self-reliant mythology of control, but I am thankful for this moment of grace to try and break out of my Pharaoh-complex. But I'm sure it will be back soon. So, cue the locusts.