Free Association: Janet Jackson, High School, Coincidence, Theology & Friendship

I heard from a friend today
And she said you were in town
Suddenly the memories
Came back to me in my mind...
-Janet Jackson, "Again"

I've been on a real Janet Jackson fetish this week. I watched Poetic Justice late Monday night, and I've been intoxicated sense. Watching old and new videos on YouTube. Remembering my gratitude for her help in puberty. Lamenting her obvious shift in trajectory from Rhythm Nation to The Velvet Rope. Wondering about the trauma that might have precipitated such a dramatic detour.

How can I be strong I've asked myself
Time and time I've said
That I'll never fall in love with you again

My love affair with Janet was primarily middle and high school. So it only stands to reason that last night I should stumble into someone else online whom I've loved deeply since then. It's amazing how such coincidences occur.

This person too was instrumental in my emergence from childhood. She was one of my campus mothers/big sisters in high school. Campus kinship was tremendously important to my intensely relational personality, being away from home at such a formative time in life.

Well, life has led us down similar yet incongruent paths (to draw upon a HS algebra expression). We both live lives on terms other than those we were raised to define as "right". The difference is that she still affirms intellectually the rightness of the SDA message; I do not. More accurately, I no longer view "rightness" as a thing to be pursued.

A wounded heart you gave,
My soul you took away
Good intentions you had many,
I know you did

A conversation with this friend about 5 years ago at my buddies' ordination (curiously enough, back on our old HS campus) was one of the impeti that propelled me toward the Emergent conversation. One of the questions I was asking at the time was "What keeps people so intellectually loyal to a religious system that isn't compelling enough to keep them committed to the actual practice of it?" Such pseudo-fidelity is puzzling to me.

I come from a place that hurts,
and God knows how I've cried
And I never want to return
Never fall again

So she and I spoke last night...

So here we are alone again,
Didn't think it'd come to this

...and because the conversation natural went this direction, I was quite honest about all the theological questioning she had stirred in me (probably to a fault). I shared that since our conversation I had deconstructed much of what we had been raised to believe...

I've come too close to happiness,
To have it swept away

...(not that Adventism isn't a valid path, but it surely isn't the last or definitive word on things). I shared furthermore that I do not believe that her choices to live contrary to her stated doctrinal beliefs are solely indicative of some great moral deficit in her, though she freely expresses such self-indictment. She responded to me like I were the anti-Christ.

Don't think I could take the pain
Never fall again

Well, as fate might have it, this morning I awoke to an e-mail that linked me to this post by Peter Rollins which articulates so well what I was feeling last night:

People who label themselves as ‘backsliders’ [are of particular concern to me]. Here the individual, whether they have left the church or not, are still under the sway of that evangelical [or fundamentalist] worldview and thus any positive step forward is still thought of negatively.

The choice to leave is made within the confines of the evangelical system itself and is thus understood within that system. In this way the explicit rejection of it is implicitly an affirmation of it (I reject it not because it is wrong but because I am wrong). The result is that the majority of people who see themselves as ‘backsliders’ will either return to the group they left or continue to define themselves in opposition to it.

The real choice to be made is thus not between staying or going from a particular church. Rather it is a meta-choice concerning whether I continue to interact with the linguistic system that sustains the church or step into an unknown space outside that linguistic system.

I wish I knew what I might say that would free my friend from believing that it's just her...

Kinda late in the game
And my heart is in your hands

...and open her eyes to the fact that the sheer number of people like her (myself included) who wind up in the same place for very different reasons would suggest that its not just total depravity creating the disconnect. But Adventism does its denominationalism work well (the passing on of language, culture and judgement). I've found that even for former Adventists, some who even consider themselves atheist, its a struggle to comprehend or articulate the world in terms other than those given them by their fundamentalist upbringing. What a horrendous prison?

Don't you stand there and then tell me
You love me
Then leave again

This singular reality would foster great resentment in me, absent the grace and forgiveness I've learned in the way of Jesus. But with it, I think I'm okay, and hopefully resurrected enough to be a good friend.

'Cause I'm falling in love with you again

This Changes Everything: An Interview with Brian McLaren

A statement like "this changes everything" or "everything must change" is what one might call idiomatic hyperbole: rhetorical exaggeration for the effect of conveying an overall meaning that is larger than the sum of its parts. Thus, when I came to the book Everything Must Change, I didn't expect it to be a literal "theory of everything." That would be too much expectation for any treatise to bear. However, I was hoping for a way forward out of the gridlock of integrity that occurs when people of faith no longer expect of themselves that "words of wisdom would be ways of wisdom" (Arrested Development, 1992).

However, I do understand why some might take exception to Brian McLaren's most recent book , released October 2007. One major reason for consternation may be that Everything Must Change offers a hearing of the Jesus message that takes the gospel out of the battle for primacy in the global theater of self-aggrandizement. McLaren deconstructs the age-old debate of whose religion deserves top billing by conspicuously not participating in it. As opposed to hearing in the message of Jesus an exclusive call for Christians and the Christian church to be central in world affairs, he implores any (Christian or otherwise) who finds the way of Jesus inspiring to become integral in seeking justice, truth, peace and beauty in dealing with the biggest problems facing the world. Such a subtle yet profound shift undoubtedly unsettles many.

John Wilson, Editor of Books and Culture for Christianity Today, was certainly among those unsettled by Everything Must Change—in ways that he apparently did not appreciate.

I attended the launch of McLaren's Deep Shift Tour in Charlotte, NC. We gathered in a most beautiful urban arts commune, Area 15, embedded in the reconstituted NoDa neighborhood of Charlotte. The artists' home is an old warehouse that has been converted into gallery, gathering and prayer space and has had such an affect on the community that the City of Charlotte has asked the creatives of Area 15 to open a second studio in another distressed portion of the city. While there, I took the opportunity to invite McLaren's clarification of any of the issues raised by Wilson's article.

You may ask who am I to seek to challenge the collective wisdom of the Evangelical world's foremost public marketplace of ideas. To be honest, no one of much significance. Publicly, I am a simple storyteller, writer, activist and friend. Nonetheless, in a brave new wiki world, post-modernity, we are finally coming to recognize everyone's stake and the value of everyone's voice. And it just didn't seem right for Wilson's review to be the final word in Christian circles for what I and many others have found to be a most unsettling yet also inspiring declaration of revolt.

Q: Were you surprised to hear about the Christianity Today review?

A: In early or mid-January, a friend called me to express his condolences about a negative review in CT and to tell me not to let it get me down. I said, “What review?” It was a couple weeks before I actually saw the review, so over those weeks I imagined the worst. The review ended up being less negative than I had imagined it would be. John Wilson is arguably the best-read Evangelical in America and editor of a premier Evangelical publication in America, so I’m pleasantly surprised that someone of John’s stature would take the book seriously enough to engage with it.

CONTINUE READING This Changes Everything>>>

Q: The review compares your book to George Lakoff’s Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. He says that Everything Must Change is even more ambitious than Moral Politics, in that you are trying to reframe Jesus. How do you respond to the comparison?

A: I think John overestimates my ambition here. In the book, I integrate the work of a number of respected theologians and biblical scholars to do the reframing of Jesus, to which I add comparatively little that could be called original. And on the global crisis side, I integrate the work of a number of economists, sociologists, and other scholars, adding even less if anything original. My more modest goal was to try to assimilate and synthesize their scholarly work in relation to two questions that I have not been able to stop thinking about for many years: what are our top global crises, and what does the message of Jesus have to say to these crises.

I was interested in John’s decision to use Lakoff’s term “frames” to describe my work instead of my own term “framing stories.” One of the major themes of my book is the way that our social lives are guided—not just by ideological systems or “world views,” but by stories or narratives… or perhaps even metanarratives, depending on how one defines that contentious term. Then over several chapters I explore the way that Jesus’ good news of the kingdom of God functions as an alternative story to the dominant narratives of Jesus’ day. So by “reframing” my article in terms of Lakoff, this important theme of the book gets downplayed a bit. Maybe I can quote one passage where I talk a bit about the importance of stories:

Maybe you’ve never considered yourself this way, but you are a complex society of sixty trillion cells. In fact, there are about ten thousand times the number of cells in your body as there are people on earth. These cells are organized into ten organ systems: skeletal, muscular, circulatory, nervous, respiratory, digestive, excretory, reproductive, endocrine, and immune. All of these systems are integrated and unified into one person—you—in a completely unique way, through what we could call the framing story of you. Your story may unify your cells and systems to become an Olympic gymnast and father of three children, while someone else uses her cells and systems to become a drug dealer or astronaut or kindergarten teacher. The unique framing story of you describes how you have unified your ten systems so far, and the story then frames how you will do so in the future. Similarly… our societies are unified, integrated, motivated, and driven by the framing stories we tell ourselves as groups. (66)

Q: Having read Everything Must Change, when I saw Wilson's substitution of the term "frames" for "framing stories," I made the misguided assumption that you and Lakoff were expressing the same concept. How might this same assumption create misunderstanding for those who've done the opposite, read Lakoff and not Everything Must Change?

A: People might assume my message is, like Lakoff’s, largely for liberals and against conservatives. But what I’m actually saying in the book challenges both liberals and conservatives, although in different ways.

Q: Wilson says, “McLaren intends to correct an overemphasis on Last Things in the 'conventional' view of salvation.” What are you saying about eschatology in Everything Must Change?

A: Strictly speaking, my concern isn’t an overemphasis on Last Things. If anything, I affirm in the book how important eschatology is (e.g. pp. 143-147). Rather than reduce emphasis on Last Things, I’m trying to correct what I think are popular and dangerous misreadings and misapplications of the Biblical texts on Last Things. Perhaps in some circles (maybe John’s?), the prevalence of “left-behind” eschatology isn’t very evident and so is easy to dismiss and consider passe. But in my neighborhood (and this is also clearly seen in some of the comments posted in response to John’s review on the CT website), I can’t avoid noticing the ongoing influence of what some of us call the eschatology of evacuation on domestic and foreign policy… relating to the environment, the Middle East, warfare, and so on. Although I think this kind of determinist eschatology of evacuation is past its prime, I would say its continuing influence is still pretty strong this year in our presidential elections, where it is often associated with the term “Evangelical,” to which John and I both claim some humble relation. Rather than a determinist understanding of the future which leads to an evacuation gospel, I’m advocating a participatory eschatology of warning and hope.

Q: Twice in the review, Wilson uses the term apocalyptic. In what sense is this book apocalyptic?

A: I’m curious about that myself. The word has a number of colloquial connotations—from extremist to hopeless to crazed. The word can also mean catastrophic, and so in a sense, to speak of global crises is to speak about potential or actual catastrophes. In its etymology, the word means “unveiling” or “uncovering” or “revealing,” and I certainly hope that my book exposes some things that are hidden to a lot of people.

Q: Some might say that heretofore environmentalism, conservationism and other such movements have been very much focused on staving off the catastrophe that is our inevitable future. In this perhaps they find some small common ground with the predominant trends in eschatology. In what ways do you believe the way of Jesus speaks into these convergent themes of inevitable doom, transforming them into meaningful efforts of hope and sustainability?

A: Many Christians seem to believe that God’s relationship with the universe is deterministic, that God has already filmed the future in his mind, and what we’re seeing unfold in history is the showing of a movie that’s already “in the can” so to speak. I don’t believe that. I believe God’s relationship with creation—including us—is interactive. God gives us warnings, which are an invitation to change our ways. God gives us promises, which are an invitation to persevere when the going gets tough. A great example is the prophet Jonah. He was sent to Nineveh to prophesy doom, in hopes that the people would repent so the prophecy wouldn’t come true!

Q: Wilson says that he found resonance between a lot in your book and conversations he has had with colleagues over the last decade, and he says he shares your dissatisfaction on some points with the conventional presentations of the gospel. But he criticizes you for not including the work of Robert Fogel or dealing with the subject of rising expectations, and he says, “the actual picture is considerably more complicated than McLaren presents.” Could you respond?

A: John is spot on here, at least in part: there was no way I could—in a reasonably short and (I hope) accessible book—deal with all the complexity I am aware of, not to mention the far greater complexity that John is aware of… and not to mention the even greater complexity neither he nor I can possibly be aware of. Of course, this is true of anything we write, isn’t it. For example, I imagine that the actual picture I present in my book is considerably more complicated than the one John presents in his review. Whenever one writes anything, one becomes vulnerable to the accusation that he should have included this, referenced that, or otherwise accounted for something else.

I also agree with John about the importance of Robert Fogel. I didn’t mention Fogel in the book, although I am aware of his work and admire it. Fogel summarizes fascinating research about how human well-being has improved in the modern era. For example, life expectancy in pre-modern Europe was around 40 years; now in the post-Industrial West it’s nearly doubled. He details other dramatic changes as well: our body size has increased by 50%, our caloric intake by 250%, we’ve grown inches taller and much healthier by almost any conceivable measure. Fogel not only summarizes these changes, but he reflects on what they will mean as trends of increased well-being continue through the twenty-first century. Another work of his deals with what he calls the fourth great awakening, and it is widely regarded as a masterpiece.

So I agree with the point I think John is making by referring to Fogel: whatever we say about things that need changing now, we must remember that conditions were much worse in many ways centuries ago. Middle class people today take for granted comforts that pre-modern kings never imagined. But this is part of the tragedy I am trying to address in my book when I talk about the equity crisis: a child born in Eastern Congo today has a life expectancy closer to that of a Medieval European than a contemporary one. That’s one of the things that—nodding toward my title—must change. As Bono says—admittedly, no Fogel, but not chicken scratch either—whether you live shouldn’t depend on where you live.

But in spite of the good news of progress John rightly wants to emphasize, the bad news is that the gap between the most well-off and the least well-off is growing wider, and everyone’s long-term well-being is being mortgaged for the short-term rise in prosperity that some of us currently enjoy. Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, dependency on fossil fuels, and global climate change pose new threats that could, if we don’t wake up, erase the gains which Fogel celebrates.

Also, I do address the issue of rising expectations, though I focus more on recent decades than recent centuries. For example, I explain how “…over the last fifty years in the United States… we have doubled household incomes largely through the addition of wives and mothers to the paid workplace. We have also doubled the ratio of cars to people and we have doubled the frequency of eating out…” (211). But then I explore some findings that are somewhat counter-intuitive: the ways in which consumerism paradoxically creates increasing discontent with increasing prosperity. In other words, once we have passed a certain level of basic comfort, we don’t feel better off as we become better off. I quote David Korten, who concludes, “Over the last half of the twentieth century, inflation-adjusted U.S. gross domestic product per capita tripled, yet surveys indicate self-reports of satisfaction with life remained virtually flat.”

So, although I don’t quote Fogel, like John I certainly do admire his work, and I do actually address the issue of rising expectations in a number of places.

Q: Wilson and other's use of the phrase "rising expectations" sounds very much like the way many Christians misuse Jesus' words: "The poor you will have with you always." It often seems as if they want to absolve themselves from seeking the good of others. How do you see your responsibility to others differently?

A: I address that issue in the book. So often when I talk about poverty, well-meaning Christians come up to me and quote those words from Jesus about the poor being with us always. They seem to be saying, “If we eliminate poverty, we’ll make Jesus a liar” —as if the elimination of poverty is a clear and present danger!

I love to refer people to Deuteronomy 15, which Jesus is actually quoting. Right before saying, “There will always be poor among you,” Moses says, “Give generously,” and right after, he says, “Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Even more interesting, at the beginning of the same passage (15:4), he says, “There should be no poor among you” —because God is giving them a land capable of producing enough for everyone.

So, the point of the passage Jesus quotes is not, “There will always be poor people, so don’t worry about it.” It’s the opposite: “There shouldn’t be poor people, because the land is bountiful. But because of human injustice, there will be poor people, so be sure to be generous.”

Q: Although Wilson seems to affirm your hope for a new dialogue between just-war folk and pacifists, he is highly critical of your discussion of the addictive nature of war. He suggests your analysis is "sophomoric," "painfully naïve," and "patronizing"—which I imagine you anticipated hearing from someone. Why did you choose such strong metaphors (e.g. addiction, suicide, the worship of money), knowing the resistance they might arouse?

A: Well… to understate it, war is a life and death matter, and life and death matters call for strong language, especially when—as George Orwell and others have taught us - the rhetoric of war is carefully calculated to numb us to what it entails. Perhaps my description of war as addictive is not quite as sophomoric, etc., as it seemed to John when he wrote the review. When I speak of the addictive nature of war, I’m pointing to the economic addiction President Eisenhower warned of in 1961 under the term “military-industrial complex.”

And I’m also referring to the kind of psycho-social addiction that Rich Cizik of the NAE has noted more recently. I believe it was in a New York Times interview that he said that many people who had been formed by the Cold War era had, in the aftermath of 9/11, substituted Islam as the new evil empire in place of the Soviet Union. With the Soviet Union gone, we needed a new global enemy on which to externalize our fear and aggression. What I’m saying is that it’s too easy for us to define ourselves in such a way that we need a war and a flesh-and-blood enemy in order to know who we are and why we’re here. I’m sure that a well-balanced thinker like John would agree: not acknowledging this danger could be deemed downright sophomoric and dangerously naïve too.

Q: Are you suggesting that terrorism isn’t a real threat?

A: Of course not. I’m just saying it’s not the only threat, and it may not be the biggest threat either. It certainly isn’t a new threat. As I explain in the book, terrorism has a long history. Even in the Gospels, the Zealots functioned as terrorists—so Jesus actually is addressing a society no less touched by terrorism than our own.

Along with the threat out there, there are a whole range of threats in here – in our own individual and national psyches. And one of those threats is forgetting what Paul said: that our real enemies are not “flesh and blood.” Or as Alexander Solzenheitzen said, we make a mistake if we think the line of evil runs between people and nations, with the bad guys over there and the good guys over here. The truth is, he said, that evil is a part of us as well as them, and there is good in them as well as us. One of the dangerously addictive chemicals in the war cocktail is its invitation to tell us we are pure good and they are pure evil.

That’s why, I suggest in the book, that in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, Jesus challenges us to see ourselves outside of the binary categories of us/them, friend/enemy. He invites us to repent from the warrior narrative. Instead, he calls us to live within a narrative of active peacemaking and reconciliation in the kingdom of God. My friend Jim Wallis, in The Great Awakening, and my friends Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, in Jesus for President, also explore this theme of active peacemaking—probably more effectively than I have.

Q: Wilson says your title is misleading. He takes some jabs at it a couple of times, and he makes “Everything Hasn’t Changed” the title for his review.

A: My theme, of course, isn’t “everything has changed.” My point—allowing for admitted hyperbole—is that a lot of things haven’t changed that need to. Early on in the text (page 1, paragraph 2), I acknowledge that the title is hyperbolic, and since John’s title is equally hyperbolic, I don’t think he is against that literary device in principle. In Chapter 3 of the book, I tell in some detail the story from which the title derives, and that story, I think, justifies the hyperbole and places the title in a context.

Q: Wilson acknowledges that you “occasionally” add nuances and qualifiers, but he says that you are “a-historical” and “misleading.” Let me quote him: “McLaren is particularly misleading when he's suggesting, as he does quite emphatically at times, that somehow the church went off the rails early on, and that only now are (some) Christians beginning to understand what Jesus was really saying.”

A: That was one of the most puzzling sentences in the review to me. I’m glad John noticed some of my nuances and qualifiers, although I think they are far more common than his word “occasionally” suggests. I actually was quite careful to avoid saying—emphatically or non-emphatically—what John says I suggest, because I grew up with the same kind of a-historical narrative that he described later in the review—with an idealized version of the early church, then a sense that the whole thing became a disaster, and then pride that “our denomination” or whatever has finally gotten it right and restored the church to its original pristine status—whether that was done in the 16th century or the 19th or the 21st or whatever. I share his distaste for that naïve approach and I can’t imagine where he would find anything like that in my book. He may have been mistaking what I actually wrote with what he assumed I was going to write.

Q: Wilson is particularly frustrated about something you say about sweatshop workers. He says,

Do we, as McLaren suggests, decide not to buy a cheaper shirt that has been made in a factory where the workers receive terribly low wages and instead pay more for a shirt that has been made in a factory where the workers are better compensated? Or—as a number of economist friends of mine would maintain—would McLaren's well-intended gesture, insofar as it had any effect beyond producing a sense of virtuous conduct, actually tend to undermine the fortunes of those poor workers?

Nothing in this book will help you answer that question with greater confidence than you had before you started reading.

A: Here, I think, John dismisses a point I am considerably more nuanced about. I mention shirts once in the book. I say,

…a popular chain store sells brand-name shirts made by sweatshop workers, almost always women, in Honduras or China or Mexico. These corporations have minimized labor costs to perhaps .03 percent of retail price, which makes them, and American bargain hunters, very happy. But what about the women who sit at sewing machines for seventy hours a week and make a pittance: about thirteen cents per hour in Bangladesh, forty-nine cents per hour in Haiti, or $1.69 per hour in the Dominican Republic? Yes, even these wages are better than unemployment, but is there no sense of compassion or fairness among the sellers and wearers of clothes for their neighbors across town or the globe who make them? (197)

I then reference an article that raises the very debate of which John seems to suggest his economist friends are aware, but I am not.

Q: Well, how do you answer his question? Is it better to buy a sweatshop shirt or not?

A: When it comes to which shirt-purchasing strategy actually helps poor sweatshop workers more, top-drawer economists could line up on both sides of the issue, each side mounting vigorous arguments according to their ideology or economic school. I was less interested in taking sides on that argument than I was in encouraging my readers to see their economic life—including their wardrobe selection - as a succession of choices that connect us to a whole chain of people—from cotton growers to factory workers to corporate executives and truck drivers. As people seeking to follow Jesus, I am suggesting, we should see these people as our neighbors and be concerned about the ways our choices affect them. There are a lot of issues to be worked out as we pursue ethical buying or fair trade, but we at least need to begin by seeing our purchasing power as a real kind of power that must be stewarded for the good of our neighbor, not merely our personal interests. That’s a topic that I will continue to be engaged with in the future, I’m sure.

So regarding shirts: if I buy a cheap one produced in a sweatshop because I care a lot about my pocketbook and not much about the fortunes of the poor workers who produced the shirt, I think it’s pretty hard to say that I’m living out the values of Jesus in my daily life. If John buys a cheap sweatshop-produced shirt because he sincerely believes that doing so will actually help an underpaid sweatshop worker in China, I think his hypothetical motive is better than mine. But if John and I can both work together to mobilize growing numbers of buyers to demand shirts that are produced on farms and in factories that treat workers justly, and if we can inspire shareholders to nudge the corporations in which they have a stake to increase their corporate social responsibility, I think we can make a positive difference for everybody. Admittedly, it’s hard to find ways to make these changes, but stopping slavery and ending child labor and passing civil rights legislation in the US weren’t easy either. Unless we care, we won’t try, and unless we try, we won’t find the ways. So I’m focusing on the caring part, trusting that if we can build momentum for fair trade and ethical buying, with God’s help we can work out the details in time.

Q: In spite of his critical comments, Wilson seems to conclude the review on a more positive note. He says,

But this is not a counsel of despair, or an excuse for apathy. I share McLaren's wonder and delight at the power of new life in Christ, which should inform our thinking and our actions in every sphere. With God's help, there's plenty of work for us to do.

This type of "nonetheless-God-bless-you" or, as we say in the South, "bless-your-heart" closing—whether genuine or not—seems customary of Christians. But where do you think it leaves us in terms of making meaningful strides?

A: I really appreciated John’s magnanimity here. I don’t know John’s political leanings or economic philosophy, but my guess is that there would be some small differences from my own. Rather than ending on those differences, though, John is trying to focus on what we share in common in Christ, and this, to me, is truly important and exemplary on his part.

In Rwanda in 1994, Christians let their common identity in Christ become less decisive than their tribal identity as Hutu or Tutsi. And here in the United States, especially this year, we can let our unity in Christ be eclipsed by various tribal identities—as Americans, as Democrats or Republicans, as “neocons” or progressives or libertarians, as “trickle-downers” or populists, as hawks or doves, or as left-wing liberals or right-wing conservatives, whatever we might mean by these labels.

I like what Jim Wallis has been saying for many years now: we can’t allow ourselves to be polarized and paralyzed in old ruts of discourse. Instead, we need to find common ground by seeking higher ground. That’s what more and more of us, I believe, are seeking. If we keep seeking common ground and the common good in the light of Christ, everything might not change, but some things, with God’s help, surely will.

Q: The subtitle of Everything Must Change is Jesus, Global Crises, and A Revolution of Hope. Many believe hope is too flighty and indefinite, but I love what Barack Obama reminds us about hope. As it relates to the unlikely dream that is the kingdom of God, "there has never been anything false about hope."

A: Yes, hope truly is downright audacious! It’s much easier to be a cynical observer or distanced nay-sayer than to throw one’s hat in the ring and act in love, faith, and hope. I’m certainly no stranger to the downsides of hope—as Proverbs says, when hope is deferred, your heart gets sick. But as Paul says of Abraham, there’s a time to “hope against hope”—to contemplate how impossible change seems, but to believe God anyway, trusting that the impossible is possible with God.

My friend Jim Wallis says that hope is believing against the evidence, and watching the evidence change. In 1956—the year I was born—Dr. King could have felt that ending segregation in the US was impossible—like some may feel tackling global crises is—but he acted in “hope against hope.” And here we are, a generation later, and an African-American has a great chance of being President. We’re seeing the audacity of hope in front of our eyes.

Nutrition for the Soul... from an SDA Kitchen No Less

Back in August I posted a rather sad review of the junk (self-interested, superficial, escapist, etc.) food served up from many pulpits week after week. Well, its easy to deconstruct what doesn't nourish, particularly if it no longer tastes like anything to you. The more difficult part is to begin to reconstruct something that's better. (I think the whole local, organic, sustainable foods movement serves as an instructive metaphor.)

A friend of mine, Ryan Bell, is (in my humble opinion) reconstructing a thing of beauty. I encourage you to check him out. His ministry is missional, it's contextual, it's prophetic. I'm really diggin' his fall series on Jesus' Journey to Jerusalem (beginning 3 Sept), taken from the New Testament gospel of Mark; it's real kingdom-come stuff. And should you visit his blog, pay attention to the types of things he's involved in.


The Skill to See

Last Thursday I had lunch with a dear friend and partner in imagining and being the change we'd like to see in the world. Troy and I spent much of our time together conversing about his newly confirmed post as pastor of the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Sandy Springs, GA (a newly incorporated city that sits right up against North Atlanta). He was bouncing ideas off of me and asking for my feedback, which I shared for what it was worth.

One of our brainstorm exchanges involved how best to inspire new imagination among his parishioners about what it means to be church, which for the many would require the development of previously unused muscles. Though under-developed, Troy explained, such imagination is very much a part of the Presbyterian tradition and, in fact, are the same intuitions that led to previous innovations in the Presbyterian tradition now recognized among congregants as "the Confessions." Of course, one seldom thinks of tradition handed down to her as innovations of the past, but that's what Troy wants his congregants to see: that it is faithfully Presbyterian to re-imagine and re-form routinely what it means to be church.

He asked what I thought about how best to go about teaching this. I asked what was wrong with the way he had just articulated it to me. I went on to describe what it might look like from week to week: him finding a particular confession that he could use as justification for an act of innovation today. And his response was, "No, because that would develop the wrong muscle."

His response, like getting the wind knocked out of one, stunned me for a moment. The insight was just so keen. He reckoned immediately what that practice would produce fully formed.

Upon witnessing it, I recognized that being able to project what the fruit of a particular course of action might be is a skill lost to many leaders. Many are either too arrogant to even want to consider the possible unintended consequences of a proposed action or their vision is too immature and experience too limited to forecast accurately that far out. One forces plans forward that should have been interred on the drawing room floor. The other clings to the familiar because it is so easily predictable and, thus, perceived as safe or puts her energies into pseudo-innovations toward status quo or worse ends.

We see daily in the national political news the results of an agenda that under estimates then disregards its negative impact on the lives of people—even now that it has almost fully formed—"none is so blind as he who would not see." Yet, maybe sadder still, one is left to wonder what good is missed when other leaders don't innovate simply because they can't see how.


Malnutrition

Today I attended a church service at a pretty prominent church. Sadly, it was for the most part a voyeristic exercise to begin with. I did not expect much. Still, my heart broke as I listened to the sermon. I would wither away of malnutrition and be of no good to anyone if I had to eat that each week. When did the 'gospel' become so empty and self-interested?

Do we really believe that trials come to take our "praise [(in this case, a verbal affirmation of God's goodness)] to another level?" Did the Human One set us free simply so we could sing and shout about how we've overcome? I mean no condescension. It just hurts me to hear and know how many people are trying their best to live in that, because that's what they've been taught God wants from us.

...on being Seventh-day Adventist

As a member of the Emergent growing, generative friendship, I am learning to appreciate fully the church in all its forms, which can be most difficult when it comes to Seventh-day Adventism, my home, because I know its faults. "But God gives more grace."

Last night I had an enlightening conversation with a fellow SDA who is quite close to me. It was yet another variation on a conversation I have had many times before. It generally goes something like this. The person I'm talking with quietly or jokingly expresses some discontent with Adventism, never harshly, mind you, but almost like one would speak of someone who might be within ear shot. It's the kind of criticism one could easily explain away if they had to. At some point, I'll commiserate by deconstructing the very thing that’s got them sore, and before I know it, I find my conversation partner defending the faith from me as if I meant it harm. It's uncanny how predictable it can be.

Knowing that despite my hopes and efforts to the contrary my recollections are apt to be rife with bias and woefully reductionistic, in recounting what happened last night I will only seek to recall my own offenses. My primary offense last night went something like this, "If the hope of God is to reconcile the whole world unto Godself, embracing the entire earth in God's resurrection (basically, what it means to be 'missional'), then I struggle to see how all our calculating of prophetic times and interpreting ourselves to be the (definite article) "remnant" spoken of throughout scripture and figured prominently in the imagery of Daniel and Revelations, who against all odds remain true to God, gets us there." Now, of course, I was hardly so eloquent or coherent. And, mind you, my deconstruction was in response to some things about the SDA dynamic my conversation partner (in jest) just didn't want to be bothered with anymore. Nonetheless, this statement changed the tide of our conversation. [Read More!] Perhaps it was too incisive.

No more sympathetic exchange. From that point on I was expected to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what it was I meant. I hate that. Adversarial (in the legal sense) conversations never accomplish much good. Nonetheless the same enculturation I was in the mist of deconstructing makes it very difficult to back down from a hermeneutical, apologetic challenge. So I pressed on. At some point I brought up how missionally problematic the SDA sense of identity is (Rev. 12:17), substantiated primarily upon some hyper-contextual shenanigans, misappropriating certain New Testament phrases like "the testimony of Jesus Christ" and "the spirit of prophesy" (undoubtedly my second offense).

It was then that something unexpected happened. My dialogue partner, who is a generation more mature than I, confessed that, although she considered such phrases very much indicative of the SDA church, she didn't see them as the exclusive expression thereof. This surprised me because she, consistent with most those of her generation who were raised in the SDA church and now hold the positions of power, is very pro-Adventist, and such an adjudication is not the party line. My conversation partner went on to rationalize that her position was the difference between being a literalist and taking a more reasoned approached. By way of example, she suggested that literalists have a hard time differentiating individuals from the institutions Adventists believe are indicted in eschatological prophecy.

For the first time in my life, I felt compassion for literalists. It became apparent to me that literalism was the only consistent way one could expect to interpret biblical prophecy. And how could one avoid literalism with all the emphasis put on prophetic time calculation and 'precise' reading of scripture distinctive to Adventist doctrine (Daniel's 2300 Days Prophecy, its postulates and corollaries)? Absent literalism, how could one expect for the millions of Adventists in the world to be 'reasoned' in the same way about the same things? Whereas some variation in interpretation is to be expected, free-spiritedness (an open interpretation of scripture) is not prized in a cultural homogeny (like Adventism) whose identity is predicated upon (biblical) accuracy and (doctrinal) distinctives: "I am, because you're not."

All of this again raises a question for me—that I expressed last night (possibly offense number 3)—that I have wrestled with for a few years now. At what point is it disingenuous for me to claim to be SDA when I have deconstructed/reconstructed or flat out disagree with much, if not most, of what is distinctively SDA? I truly want to honor the best intuitions of my denominational tradition, which birthed and nurtured my theological imagination for so many years, even though in integrity I must critique much of its teachings and practice. For years now I have always confessed up front when people start asking me what I believe—and what they really mean is what do Adventists believe—that I am not the best example of Adventist theology. At most, I now consider myself a "post-Remnant Seventh-day Adventist". I am totally through with believing that what sets me right with God at the same time makes everybody who is otherwise committed suspect.

Which brings me to a new nagging question. What are the effects of living out of this hermeneutical dualism that my dialogue partner describes as exemplary of the more reasoned approach to dogma—this striving to maintain distinction between individuals and their aggregate institutions that Adventists believe are indicted by scriptural prophecy? It's a continuation of the whole "God hates the sin but loves the sinner" motif. I believe his mantra has for too long blinded us to any possibility of joining God in the redemption of God's good world. The most we could ever hope to accomplish believing this is to save individuals out of world before it all crashes and burns.

Thus, as night follows day, so it follows that the SDA church as an institution as well as its individual members have been and remain largely complicit in some of the greatest injustices perpetrated in the earth. And why shouldn't that be the case? For as much as individual members may cultivate reasoned and nuanced beliefs for sanity sake, the institutional constructs are allowed to remain the same—in misbegotten honor of God who changes not—whether or not they accomplish anything for the good of God's creation.

God doesn't change (if we hear that as a statement God makes of himself) because God is inerrant. Such infallibility does not transfer to us or our constructs, systems or institutions just because we claim God. As creatures of a Creator God who is always creating and whose creations are always evolving, our expectation should be the need for continual re-formation, I would think. Thus, the reoccurring need to deconstruct in order to reconstruct based on what we understand more fully today than we did yesterday. What I continue to wonder is: Can I do this and in integrity to self and in fairness to the group still call myself Adventist?


Pimpin' in the Name of the Lawd

I just found out today about Earl Paulk's betrayal of all I hold dear. I was literally sick to my stomach when I heard. Paulk's history of alleged molestation, sexual harassment and abuse at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit (Chapel Hill Harvester Church) dates back to the 1960's. He has been bizarrely successful in minimizing the media exposure of his predatorial exploits. In 2004, in a profound act of courage, after 14 years of victimization Mona Brewer finally came forward to bring her abuser to justice.

I stand in solidarity with Mona Brewer, Cindy Hall and all the women, girls, their families and fellow congregants victimized by Paulk, his brother and all that conspired with them. I was glad when I heard Mona's husband, Bobby, confronted Paulk and broke his nose. I wish I had such restraint.

What touches me deepest though, in this moment of reflection, is the realization that Paulk's betrayal was almost inevitable. The pursuit of power corrupts. Institutionalized religion fans the flames of desire for power in a way that few other experiences can, particularly in a modern Christendom that patterns its organization after large global corporations. In a day and age when the bishop of a prominent Atlanta mega-church can say something to the effect, "I'm the head of a multi-million dollar global corporation, I refuse to die poor!" How long would a pastor caught up in the transactional pursuit of that kind of power accept the possibility (let alone reality) of going to bed without getting some?

So how do we mediate the corruptive influences of the absurd pursuit for power that tempts so many church leaders? I believe guilds of faith (churches) must require that their leadership put in place self-imposed mechanisms that undermine the accumulation of power. Not just a balance on power, I'm talking about an intentional divesture of it.

From what I understand, the founders of Ben & Jerry's instituted a policy at the onset of their endeavors that said something like the top paid employee would never make more than seven times (?) what the least paid makes. Thus, if execs wanted to make more, everyone would have to come up as well. Whether my recollection is accurate or not, it gives an idea of what can be.

What if pastors were to refuse to move outside of their church's immediate community? What if pastors refused to accept salary in excess of twice the median annual income of their congregation or community? What if pastors chose to commission the formation of new fellowships under new leadership once their congregation's numbers topped a predetermined tipping point? What if pastors… did any- and everything they could to stay in full, intimate, accountable relationship with their congregants instead of seeking the authority and distance sought by their corporate executive counterparts?

Professional distance is a crock in a post-modern, post-colonial world of ministry. The desire for money, sex and influence will only surrender to immersion in and accountability to the very fellowship one has been called to lead. Otherwise a pastor's corruption is only a matter of time and opportunity. I'm almost certain of it.