To Rad or not to Rad, apparently, that is at least one of the questions.

There has been a profitable, I think, conversation going on about books like Crazy Love and Radicals.  A couple of younger friends of mine brought the conversation my way.

Here is an article in Christianity Today:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/march/here-come-radicals.html
Here is Ed Stetzer commenting on and interacting with that article:  http://www.edstetzer.com/2013/05/radical-christianity-a-cause-to-live-or-a-call-to-legalism.html
And here is Ed interviewing Francis Chan: http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/videos-for-pastors/167677-francis-chan-responds-to-ct-article-on-radical-legalism.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=clnewsletter&utm_content=CL+Daily+20130517b

I remembered an older conversation, with Francis Chan, that overlaps with this one.  Since it came pre-controversy, at least this controversy, it is worth thinking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3p-SYMis0-w

The main reason I am putting this post up, though, is so I can post one of my young friend's email's.  I think my former intern, Daniel Cook has some things to say that are worth considering.  The rest of this post is from him.  I post it with his permission.

I read the books mentioned in the article (Crazy Love, Radical, Not a Fan...). I did enjoy the books, but I took them at their purpose, and I know others that take them whole-heartedly beyond what their purpose is. I also read the article in CT, and I actually really liked it and agreed with it. 

First, let me say why I liked the books. As mentioned in the article, these books speak to the many Christians we all see in church who attend one service on Sunday morning at least 2-3 weeks a month. They are not involved in serving in the church or are only involved in minor serving roles. We all have a desire to see people fully embrace and grow in their faith and truly experience it. These books speak to that desire and to our own desire to grow in our experience and spiritual maturity. These books seem to also be well-recieved by the youth and young adults who long to be part of something bigger and see themselves becoming major players, even heroes of the faith. 

This is where I agree with the article. I want my teens to desire to be a part of something bigger, to see the big picture of the Kingdom of Heaven. See an excellent book that discusses this "The Explicit Gospel" by Matt Chandler. However, what that role in the Kingdom looks like is what I take issue with. Whether Chan admits it or not, many youth (and adults) will take these books a little too far and will not be satisfied with taking a role in the kingdom that is any less than a successful evangelist, political figure for social causes, front-lines warrior for social justice, inventor of the cure for cancer... What happens when many do not reach that role? What happens to the ordinary people like myself. 

I will illustrate this in two ways from personal experience. For most of my life until right before I graduated high school, I wanted nothing more than to be an officer in the military. Around 12 years of age, I settled on fighter pilot. Every decision I made from then on was taking me towards becoming a fighter pilot in the US Air Force. I was on the mailing list for the Air Force Academy at 12. I joined the Civil Air Patrol (auxiliary of the Air Force). I got advice from active and retired Air Force servicemen. I had Embry Riddle Aeronautical University as my backup. I read books.... I found out however that only 1% of the entire Air Force actually fly any aircraft whatsoever. That means that 99% of all those who serve in the Air Force are actually acting in support to the pilots who actually do the flying. Yet in all the promotional posters they only show the 1%. Most do not aspire to be a mechanic, cook, or other seemingly mundane worker in the Air Force. What's more, I found out that many who joined the Air Force also worked all their lives to become pilots, but they ended up taking different roles. I talked to one fighter pilot who never wanted to be a pilot, but was in the right place at the right time and was approached by an officer who invited him to be one. I think these books rightly promote becoming the 1% of "pilots," but don't really talk about the reality that most of us will be in the 99% category. What's more, it doesn't really demonstrate the virtue of serving where you are at and being content in being in that 99%. I see very often that people volunteering in my own church don't feel needed or important because they are serving in a minor role like the nursery or just following kids from station to station during VBS. Also, I see the negativity on church boards when they feel like we aren't making a big difference as a church. But we are making a difference in many lives in small (or even unseen big) ways. 

My second illustration, (sorry this is a long message) goes back to my college days at ABC. At the end of the year, they would give out awards in chapel. Some of them were to encourage spiritual maturity and involvement. These awards always went to the students that seemed to pray the most and loudest during chapel on National Prayer Day, who went on missions trips during the summer to exotic places, and who did as the books described it, "radical" things. Than there were people like me who had to work a full-time job plus overtime during the summer in a worldly construction-job environment in order to pay for college. People like me who did ordinary things were not viewed as "spiritually on-fire." However, the greatest spiritually growing times in my life were those times where I was just an ordinary guy working with ordinary unsaved guys and being salt and light. During one of those summers I led a hispanic man to Christ and handed out half-a-dozen spanish Bibles and tracks at their request to legal and illegal immigrants from South America. My bosses talked to me frequently about faith. I was of the only representatives of Christ that they came into contact with, and I earned their respect. 

In summary, I enjoyed the books and think they make good points. But the CT article also points out weaknesses or areas that are overlooked by these books. I agree wholeheartedly with the CT Article and think more Christians need to hear that message too.

The Face of Evil:

(I posted this over at STTA, but it is one of those that kinda fits both places, so I am posting it here as well.  Maybe somebody else will find it that way.) What does the face of evil look like? We see it all around us, but most often we see it in silhouette, if you will.  In fact, often as we sort through the aftermath of grotesque wickedness, like the law-enforcement investigators in Boston, we see the horrendous aftermath, but we don't see the face that perpetrated the crime.    The fact is, evil wears different masks:  They are found all across the spectrum from the distortion of extreme righteousness, so called, as was the case with evil on that first Good Friday, all the way to the just out-and-out, unadulterated badness, that too often stalks our streets.     The Bible is clear that evil is here.  The Devil is not merely a personification; he is a real, spiritual person, Satan, Lucifer, the Dragon, and he gets around, and gets a lot done.  In the book of Job, he describes the territory he has marked with his foul scent:  "I've been 'roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.'"   (Job 1:7)  In the New Testament he is described as the "Prince of the Power of the Air."  (Ephesians 2:2)--no more localized than the air we breath.  He is not the evil opposite of God.  He lacks, for instance, the omni attributes: omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. He does get around, though, he is cunning and powerful, and he does have help.  His network is so widespread and effective that John says "The whole world lies in the power of the wicked one."  (1 John 5:19)    Not only are these spiritual entities busily spreading evil, you and I, the Bible makes clear, have evil in our core, and in the same way that the physical ecosystems of our world are degraded, the moral spiritual realm is polluted.  (Read Romans 8, and Ephesians 2:1-10 for both description and hope.  An evil tempter, tempting people with a propensity to sin, in a world that is skewed in an evil direction--there is a recipe for a mess.   Carnage, like that in Boston, gets our attention and causes us to cry out for answers:   "Who?" "Why?" "Where is God?" As to the last question, I assert that God is both here, with you, and in Boston.  The Bible teaches that He doesn't take coffee-breaks.  Look here, here, and especially here to see some things I have written after past tragedies. The face of evil is sometimes sanctimonious, at other times on fire with raw hatred.  It often is heavily colored with selfishness.  If you look around the eyes you can detect deception.  Ironically, and in a way that troubles me the mouth on the face of evil is often seen to be grinning.   I guess what troubles me most about thinking of the face of evil is I sometimes see it looking back at me from the mirror.   It's STTA.

Wading into the swamp of Family-Relations and trying to lead others through . . .

April 7, here at Covington Bible Church, Pastor Doug Williams and I started a series on the family.  Doug's message on Husbands Who Love Like Christ can be found here.  My message on Colossians 3:18 is here.
Last night I decided that it would be good to give a chance for folk to ask questions, and attempt to offer some answers, based on these first two message, not that the concept of husbands being given the
responsibility of loving leadership and wives being instructed to "be subject" is controversial or anything.
I am posting this blog to do a couple of things:

1. I want to clear up a possible misconception from the Q&A time, and maybe even apologize.
2. I want to offer some material that is good for further thought, and continuing in this vein,
3. I hope some further discussion will take place here.

 Part of my answers last night (If I'm able to do some editing I may post some of those answers.) were along the line of a person unfamiliar with a particular type of automobile asking,

"How do I start this thing?"

My answer was akin to giving the person a lecture about the combustibility of gasoline and the construction of an internal combustion engine.

What they really wanted to know is, "Where is the place where you insert the key on this particular model?"

A couple of the questions centered around The Question--The 800 pound gorilla question:

Does the concept of husband-leadership, and wife submission in the home require that a woman endure abuse?

If my answer did not indicate a clear and unequivocal "NO!" I apologize.  I give that simple unequivocal answer here.  No.

I do not believe that the teaching of scripture is such that it condones any kind of abuse--in this case the question has to do with that way too prevalent sin of husbands abusing their wives.  I do not believe that kind of  behavior is right or acceptable (I'm glad to say that I don't any responsible preacher or teacher who maintains that such behavior is right for husbands.) and I believe that where it takes place relief should be sought.  Furthermore, I believe the church should be at the top of the list of those who offer assistance.

I was right, to indicate that this question has a great many complexities to it.  If I didn't clearly state that simple answer, I am sorry.

A couple of morning after thoughts on those complexities:

• The maintenance of ethical/moral/behavioral standards is often difficult in extreme situations.
  The position that Doug and I take--which was reflected with our dealing with husbands first--is that wives submitting to their husbands ought to take place in a context of husbands giving themselves for their wives.  So, what is a wife to do in a situation where the "leadership" in the home is not at all Christ-like?
  These quotations from the book Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, acknowledges  this stress in taking what could be called a "general principle" and applying it homes that are outside the realm of what should be going on. I think the authors point us in the right direction.
  "Submission refers to a wife's divine calling to honor and affirm her husband's leadership . . . it is not an absolute surrender of her will."  (41)  "No submission of one human being to another is absolute." (21)  All of us who struggle with this issue would say "Amen," to "We are not claiming to live without ambiguities." (62)
  Throughout the text, the authors make plain that submission does mean that one should be forced into sin.
  The book gives a helpful word on page 196.  This thought is born-out in other places in the text.  What the authors of the book, what I, and what Scripture writers are talking about is an attitude--"Submission is an inner quality of gentleness that affirms the leadership of the husband."
  (The website of the group that produced this book, The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, is referenced below.)
• I hold to an ethical system known as non-conflicting absolutism.  I believe it is possible to respond to the situations life throws at us without sinning, or without becoming the judge of which ethical standard takes hierarchy over another.  Often these judgments are difficult.  One of the maxims that was shared with me back in college is that hard cases make bad ethics.  It is appropriate to work hard to make sure our ethical system covers the extremities, but in doing so, we should not negate the good that a particular standard does in the vast majority of cases.  In this case, the fact that some husbands distort the concept of leadership, and abuse some wives who, perhaps, have a faulty view of submission, should not prevent us from teaching a Biblical principle that is of benefit to countless homes where proper leadership and submission is being practiced.
• We need to exercise caution in "taking sides" when this gets out of the theoretical and into a real home.  Words like "exercising leadership," or "abuse" are notoriously slippery.  What some consider leadership is harsh and abusive.  What other refer to as abuse may be merely an inability to get their own way in a minor matter.  The culture in which we find ourselves has a great impact on how we see these matters.  Our goal should not be to justify our personal preconceptions and cultural prejudices by the use of the scripture, but to bring our behavior into alignment with the teaching of the Word.
• I'll leave further bullet points for commenters. I hope this will bring about a conversation.

In the question-answer last night I referred to two positions on the view of the relationship of men and women in general, and particular on wives and husbands.  You can find out more about these two positions at the websites below:

(If readers know of other website that reflect the two positions more accurately, or clearly, please let me know.)

     

The Egalitarian Position is the represented by those who, by and large, play down male female differences.  It is an over-simplification, but this position is sometimes described as Christian-Feminism.
You can find out about this position from Christians for Biblical Equality.

The Complimentarian Position--the postion to which Doug and I hold--is represented by the book I quoted above and this website: Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Working at getting along:

Like many of you, I've been thinking about the increasing polarization of our culture.  The casualties of the culture war, that has been raging cold and hot for some time now, are relationships.  Often on one side are those who won't give an inch, because it may lead to losing a mile.  They face-off against those who demand not only tolerance, but heart acceptance--or at least a publicly acceptable synthetic version thereof.  I've been doing some reading and thinking about alternatives--are there any? what are they?
Some of you may find these articles thought provoking as well.  I welcome your thoughts.

Here is an article recently posted on Patheos.  I appreciate that the author is trying to sort it out.  I fear that in our zeal to maintain Biblical absolutes, we conservative Evangelicals too quickly allow our positions on issues to harden and then we label them as absolutes.  Maybe, maybe not.  I'm saying there aren't absolutes; I absolutely believe there are; I'm just saying that we shouldn't be so eager to label all our conclusions as such.  Let's think and talk a bit.  When you read this article be sure to click on the links at the beginning to previous articles.  Also, if you are familiar with Andrew Marin, or the Marin Foundation, (much of the article is written by Marin) I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Would Jesus Fight a Legal Battle Against Same Sex Marriage?  Timothy Dalrymple

The statement, below, which has been making the rounds on Facebook, etc., by Rick Warren, reminds me of a recent conversation I had with someone struggling to maintain a relationship across the "Gay Divide."  If one side doesn't require that every conversation has to include a condemnation of homosexuality and the other side does not demand a surrender of honestly held sexual prohibitions, and if both sides will attempt to leave hypocrisy at the door, maybe people who love each other can find ways to get along.  Or maybe me and Pastor Warren are just Naive.

“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”  (Rick Warren)

Steve Cornell is a thinker, a Biblical thinker.  I appreciate his thoughts.  He is not a Johnny-come-lately to this conversation.  His stuff is worth reading.  Here are three recent posts that I have appreciated:

New Pope fails litmus test

Responses to My Sunday Column

The Marriage Debate

Can We All Get Along?

Here is a post I offered on this blog, about a well known preacher's (He is not alone.) public announcement of a change of view on homosexual marriage.
This one reveals that I'm somewhat conflicted on this.  I figure I'm not alone.

Maybe some of this will help generate, or continue, some profitable discussion.

As I say on the other blog, "It's Something To Think About."

Rob Bell, Gay Marriage, and me

The following article contains somewhat of an announcement of Rob Bell's acceptance of Gay marriage.  No surprise, there.  I think the direction of Bell's leaning has been clear for some time.  Brian Orme comments on that in the article.
The article also asks a worthwhile question.  "What does this have to do with me?"
Probably more than I think--or want.
Ironic, when I saw this article I was dealing with this issue.  My world may be small, but it is the world.

http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/166294-why-rob-bell-s-view-on-gay-marriage-matters.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=clnewsletter&utm_content=CL+Daily+20130319

Church attendance (non-attendance) and Sunday Sports:

I can have a really good conversation with myself on this subject.  All I need to do is record what I say about it one time and then respond to it on another day.  I have made statements similar to this one, just not as well stated:  "And, frankly, it’s a not a bad thing for the Church to stand on its own, apart from cultural props. I don’t want the Church to be dependent on the world to say Church is important."  (Keith Anderson) I have often paraphrased a colleague of mine, Chris Cobb, who pastored in Covington years ago, "When Christianity is no longer tax-deductible, we'll know who the true followers of Christ are."  On the other hand I was a recent visitor in a church where the pastor inserted a strongly worded segment on travel-sports-teams into his sermon.  I found myself saying "Amen!" at least under my breath.

Both from the viewpoint of how we see church and culture, and concerning public-relations, this is a worthwhile article to read and discuss.
I'd rather not have the conversation with myself.  :)

http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/164281-keith-anderson-pastors-stop-complaining-about-sunday-morning-sports.html?p=1

Truth we very much need to hear from the Apostle John: An overview of 1 John

Recently I shared my interactions with 1 John.  John gives us answers to the question, "How can I know if I am right with God?"

I encourage you to listen.

TruthCasting - Covington Bible Church - Covington, VA - Overview of 1 John