debt and atonement

I realize it’s been awhile, but life has been happening, so… whatever, you get what you pay for.

Anyway, Margaret Atwood is one of Canada’s greatest living writers and more than a few would say she’s one of the best on the planet. Her latest book, Payback is a non-fiction exploration of the concept of debt in our society from a sociological and literary perspective. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve read an excerpt and I’m persuaded to buy it. The book it also the subject for the Massey Lectures and I will be listening to Ms. Atwood on Ideas on CBC Radio (Sirius Satellite 137) from Nov. 10 – 14.

One of the ideas she explores is that of the connection with debt and sin. ““The whole theology of Christianity rests on the notion of spiritual debts and what must be done to repay them.” she says at one point. I don’t know if thats the whole theology of Christianity, but it’s certainly part of the picture. This language is in some translations of the Lord’s prayer “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” In this picture Jesus pays back in his death on the cross the debt we have accrued against God with our disobedience.

This has become an unpopular view in some circles and the debate over substitutionary atonement in this sense has burned up many blogs and has pushed people into deep corners of debate. I’m curious if some of the unconscious motivations behind the the denial of debts owed to God might be the accumulations of consumer debt and the desire to ignore it. Perhaps debt language hits too close to home and we’d rather it go away.

Just a thought, maybe Margaret Atwood will help.

I think Michael Guglielmucci’s song is more poignant now

I had never heard of the pastor from Australia with the unpronounceable last name before his story broke a couple of weeks ago, so I didn’t have an emotional attachment to his apparently popular song. I also don’t want to diminish the damage his sin has done to people who trusted him and the Body of Christ around the world. His lies caused an immense amount of pain to a great number of people and there are no excuses for him and there can be no rush to cheap forgiveness. True forgiveness is rarely fast and it is never cheap. That said, I think his song is more poignant now.

Full disclosure, I generally don’t like the Hillsong-y type songs. I find them kind of… stupid. The lyrics never say very much and what they do say is flat and trite and doesn’t really move me. Whatever, I hope I’m mature enough that I don’t have to like every song we sing in order to sing God’s praises. It’s not about me.

But now the story has broken that the disease that this man is trusting God to heal is not the cancer he is elaborately lying to everyone about, but something else; something deeper, something more sinister, something that endangers not only the body, but could destroy body and soul.

I can’t imagine the depth of fear and dread that would make someone try to pull off a charade like that but I can imagine not wanting to show people what I’m really like. I can imagine wanting people to like me, to think I’m smart, or good or worth something more than what I think I’m worth. And I know that this fear and doubt is real and dangerous and deadly and tougher than I am so I need a cure for that dis-ease. I need a healer who can bring me peace.

Now the song has layers. Now the song speaks of something bigger even than cancer to source of our inner conflicts. We fear, so we lie and we hide. But nothing is impossible for Jesus. Even making of us brave people who are able to love, live, and forgive.

patience, patience

I was having a late night conversation with my wife not too long ago and we were talking about, well… pretty much everything, mostly a project that I’m working on about church.

Some background for our conversation. People leave Church. Not just my church or your church but Church. They do this for a variety of reasons. Some are big and dramatic, some are subtle and draining, some we can call good, bad, whatever the reason, they drop out of community with God’s people. Now, I know many people in this situation and most of them would still call themselves Christians and many of these claim that they would like to be part of a church if it was … something.

The basic plot of the story is this: Person A meets Jesus and becomes involved in Church, there is a period of  happiness and contentment, at some point there is a conflict, large or small, where the Church fails to be what “A” expected it to be and they remove themselves.

If this seems like an incomplete story, that’s because it is. I know so many people who have run this far in the story who are still God haunted or church haunted, longing for a community they know intuitively should exist but seems incredibly difficult to locate. I could write more but you’ll have to wait for the book.

I can speak to this story because I lived it. I can tell bad church stories with the best of them and it amazes me everyday that my faith survived where it died in so many of my friends. More amazing to me is that I feel a deep bone call to serve this Bride that has left me scarred. The problem is that I did this young. My conflict and rejection of the church happened early enough that by the time God dragged me to Bible College at 22 I had been angry and fighting for close to a decade and I was tired. I had to figure out a way to live with God’s people or break the other way and, for me, that just wasn’t an option.

So when I hear people talking about leaving church and their anger and ambivalence and how they feel lied to and ripped off, I understand it. I really do, but sometimes it sounds adolescent to me because that’s the time in my life when I was going through this. Most of the time I manage to not be a jerk in this, but I feel myself categorizing people and I don’t want to be that guy. People walk their paths at their own pace in their own time.

So for me, the lesson of the day is patience. Patience for you, patience for me, patience for God who is working in his time to bring about peace for all of us who seek it.

It’s okay not to like stuff!

I don’t generally write rants here. Not because I don’t like a good rant now and then, but you can find a lot of them online and I don’t need any more space in my life to complain about stuff. So forgive the next 200 words or so.

Matthew Paul Turner has a post on not liking Third Day on his site and he’s received many comments both for and against their brand of Christian generi-pop. (I just made that up. In case you need an explanation it’s a combination of “generic” and “pop.” Music writers, you can have that one for free) All in all a civil and somewhat humourous conversation on the merits of the music of Third Day. Until the inevitable happened.

The “nice” Christian showed up.

You know this person. They go to your church, or they work in Student Life at a Bible College, or they write letters to the editor for a living, and they will always let you know when you’re in danger of stepping outside of their piety. In this case it was roughly “I don’t know if it’s edifying to write about what we dislike about a Christian band, they are worshiping and playing the gospel, blah, blah, blah,” topped off with a whopper like “A better question would be what would Jesus think of Third Day”

Well, since you asked, I think he would find their music bland, inoffensive, and boring. I am just guessing because the gospel accounts unfortunately don’t give us a playlist for Jesus’ iPOD. (although as we speak some Christian Music Executive is planning a promotion, an ipod pre-loaded with Jesus’ music. God help us all) I also don’t think that just because a band has the adjective “Christian” in their genre they are exempt from criticism. When we begin to follow Jesus we don’t have the opinion part of our brains cut out. It’s okay to like some stuff, and by the same rule, it’s okay not to like other stuff, even if lot’s of Christians like it. I’ll show you with a short list of things I don’t like that other Christians like:

1. Settlers of Catan- This game takes like four hours and nothing really happens. It’s like Risk without pot.

2. Come, now is the time to worship – it just bugs, and it takes like four hours too.

3. Tony Campolo – I’m sure he is a lovely person and he has does amazing things for the Kingdom, but I find his speaking style really annoying.

See how easy that was? You may like them, I don’t. None of these opinions, or my expression of them, in any way affects my ability or disability to love God and neighbour.

But I’m going to go a step further, nice Christian person, I call bullshit.

You don’t really care about what is edifying or good, you only care about propping your own lagging confidence by establishing your spiritual dominance over others. Your main motivator is fear. Fear of being wrong, fear of being foolish, fear of your inability to control the people and world around you. You don’t trust that God is good and in control, so you have to be.

The problem is that the rest of us just nod our heads politely rather than taking you on because we’re afraid that you’ll play the victim and we’ll look mean, not nice and spiritual like you. You do damage to people by misrepresenting what it means to be a Christian, and the rest of us allow it by refusing to take you on. You make people feel small and inadequate and like the Gospel is not good news. You act as if the Body were yours and you better believe it’s not.

People of Earth, know this. You can be a follower of Jesus and not like stuff.

how to read the Bible #3

Part 3 in a bible reading series

why we read the Bible

How to read the Bible

We’re experimenting with some teaching stuff  online.  Let  me know what you think about both format and content

Thanks and enjoy

if I say it out loud it will be real, right?

So I’m working on a book. It sounds silly even as I say it but I am and I want to finish it so I’m going to pressure myself by announcing it publicly. Feel free to ask me how it’s coming so I will feel stupid if my answer is that I haven’t touched in six months.

Please bear in mind I said that I’m writing a book, not publishing a book or selling a book. These are very different things. Of course it would be nice to publish and I may do it myself, but the main goal hear is to actually write the thing. We worry about other stuff later.

The book is going to be about the church, because thats where my head is at these days. I want to people to fall in love with the Church again, with all her flaws and stupidities and meanness, I want to help people see her as the Bride. I want to see her as the Bride.

We’ll see what we can do.

The best laid plans… #1

So we’re in a re planning thing for Bridgepointe. There are some church planters or aspiring or recovering church planters who end up here, so I’ll put the plan up in small parts for your perusal and ridicule. Enjoy.

What

What is a church?
We believe that the local church is a group of people called by and committed to Jesus and his work who preach and teach God’s word, who participate in the sacraments (or ordinances) of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, who hold each other accountable to live lives consistent with the good news, and who share resources to accomplish God’s purposes. The local church is tied to the global and timeless Church that is Christ’s body here on earth.2. Jesus called and empowered the Church to be his witnesses here, taking his message to all the world and teaching people to follow him Bridgepointe Church is a group of people who passionately believe that we have good news to share with Edmonton and the world. This good news is that Jesus and his Kingdom reign is here, and he loves us, and that we can be saved in every way we need to be saved.
What kind of church?
We often hear the question “Does Edmonton need another church? Does North Central need another church?” and the answer depends on what you mean by church. If you mean a nice, polite gathering of people who say pretty Jesus words and are unable to risk and dream because they are stuck in survival mode, the answer is no. If you mean a small group of Christians who are angry with the church as they have experienced it and define themselves by everything they’re not the answer is no. If you mean a group of people, gathered into community by God and a common vision of what he’s doing in this city, a group of people that is large enough to make a difference and small enough that their main task isn’t managing their size, then the answer is yes, we need more of those. We need many, many more of those.
In response to this need and what we believe is God’s call, our goal is to have 200 people regularly committed to Bridgepointe by fall 2011. This goal isn’t made for the sake of numbers alone, but at this size we can concern ourselves with something other than our own survival, and can commission people to plant more churches. Our goal is to be a church of missionaries, training and inspiring missionaries to change Edmonton and the world.

Yes I signed it, and I’d do it again

I signed the Evangelical Manifesto today. I read it first, in case you’re wondering. And I read the whole thing not just the shortened highlights version.

I didn’t expect to sign it. These kinds of large scale statements tend to have some mileage amongst people like me who have a vested interest and the time to devote to reading a twenty page pdf file. I doubt that most of the people I worked with at Starbucks gave a rip about what an evangelical is, and they’re not going to care tomorrow. They care about how you treat them. Are you a caring person? Are you honest? Are you easy to spend time with? These are the things they care about, not what team I happen to be on.

But as I read it I realized that I agreed with it, and If I agree with a group of people who are asking people to stand with them, and I’m not hurting anyone or dishonouring God, I probably should, and it’s not like it cost me anything.

I do think we need to return to a better way of engaging in public space. This section on the public sphere has Os Guiness’ fingerprints all over it and who wouldn’t jump up to claim this section

“We solemnly pledge that in a world of lies, hype, and spin, where truth is commonly dismissed and words suffer from severe inflation, we make this declaration in words that have been carefully chosen and weighed; words that, under God, we make our bond. People of the Good News, we desire not just to speak the Good News, but to embody and be good news to our world and generation.

Here we stand. Unashamed and assured in our own faith, we reach out to people of all other faiths with love, hope, and humility. With God’s help, we stand ready with you to face the challenges of our time and to work together for a greater human flourishing.

I wish I had written that one. I might have chosen a word other than flourishing. Redemption perhaps?

So what does this manifesto change? Has one heart been changed? Have the hungry been fed, the naked clothed, the sick and imprisoned visited? Have we stepped further into sharing the good news with every people, making disciples and teaching them to obey Jesus’ commands? Are we today better witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and Edmonton and Charlottetown and Nashville and Washington and Sao Paolo? Not really. But I chose today a statement to live up to. I chose to not be identified in reaction to something, or to be motivated by fear or pride. I chose to pledge allegience to a better king and to seek first his kingdom.

Now I just have to do it tomorrow

If I’d been Senator Obama’s pastor…

He would have heard a lot more lame jokes,  like this one

“So with Phinehas God begins what we sometimes call the Aaronic Priesthood… Not to be confused with the Ironic Priesthood, that was a mediorce sketch comedy troupe from Winnipeg circa 1993″

See, It might be painful to listen, but no one is going to replay it on CNN.

Now that the hype has died down a bit, I do have two cents to contribute to this conversation. I am a pastor. I get up in front of people every week and I talk to them for around 25 minutes. I often ask questions and have a bit of conversation, but I’m driving the thing. Week in, week out, I talk. I don’t know that it’s the best way to do things, but it’s what we’ve got for now so I do it. Over the course of a lifetime of preaching we say  stupid things. You hope that over a lifetime the non stupid outweighs the stupid and that you’ve gotten out of the way enough to let God speak. I don’t say that to excuse Wright or any of his boggling opinions but I empathize.

The other part, and anyone who’s been a real part of a church knows this, is that a church is more than the sum of it’s pastor. There is the breaking of bread and prayer and holding things in common and giving to people who have need praising God and sharing life with people with glad and sincere hearts, and when all of those things are there sometimes you ignore the teaching. You realize that there is something bigger and more powerful happening here than just what is coming out of the mouth of the guy up front.

I’m a Canadian so I don’t have to decide who I want to be the next U.S. President. It’s sort of like caring what girl your more popular, athletic older brother is going to date. He doesn’t ask your opinion, and if he does, he really doesn’t care. But if a president could sit with a group of people, looking up at a central important figure, and realize that what is happening within us and among us really isn’t about that central important figure, but is about the people down here and the Spirit of God that fills us, well, I think that that person might make a decent central important figure him or her self.