Intellectuelle   Church

While talking up our blog, Melissa of Little Cabbages was in tune with the spirit--the spirit of this blog, that is:

I have always longed to fellowship with a group of women who continued to function beyond the usual "church lady" schtick. A good friend and I have often toyed with the idea of starting a weekly reading club where we could read and discuss the great books through the filter of a Christian worldview. Sadly, we have been unable to conjure up a very few faces other than our own. Not because we are elitist snobs, but because of those "blank stares and quizzical looks." Does anyone think beyond what's for dinner? Are Christian mothers and wives content to goosestep their way through their faith spouting platitudes and reading the latest feelgood literature from the Christian bookstore window? Are we as a church passing on such benign and powerless apologetics to our children?

Tonight I'm going to make myself a hot chocolate and a bagel and read Intellectuelle from it's first post to it's last!

You go, girl!  I love that she shares her literal food for thought as well :)

Since Samantha brought up sexual purity, let's discuss some other hot and bothersome topics:

1) How can Christian men, especially married ones, go to the beach? Or to a waterslide park?

I realize that just going out the door at this time of year is visually challenging for most men, but I've never understood how they can plant themselves right in the middle of guaranteed nakedness. It may even be worse than conducting a Bible study at Hooters (which I blogged about here and here).

2) How can Christian women wear bikinis in public?

I confess that I did for a season (I could write a whole post on that), but after I got married (and foolishly read Every Man's Battle--every man should read it, but not most women), I repented.  Of course now I wouldn't be caught dead in any swimsuit, but that's another matter.

3) How can Christian teens wear skimpy outfits?  And how can Christian parents let them?

Waterfall expresses my thoughts exactly:

One of my pasttimes lately is to contemplate the fact that pre-teen and young teenage girls will wear their Jesus t-shirts and cross necklaces with shorts that are so miniscule that you can see the beginning of the curve where the bottom of their butts start. Now, I'm not one to look at that aspect of people's anatomy, but you really can't help it when these kids wear these clothes. Particularly when their Jesus t-shirts are about two sizes too small, bringing their neo-breasts into perky prominence. My word. I'm really not getting prudish in my old age ... I just find it odd that these kids, of all people, dress this way.

Odd..dangerous..tragic.  Moms, where are you?  Hopefully not in the closet looking for your low cut form fitting sweater or your cleavage peek-a-boo sheer blouse or your butt hugging jeans or your...let's see, what other outfits have I seen on women of all ages at church lately? 

A woman at MOPS shared how she overheard her two elementary age sons discussing which woman at church wore the most "trampy" outfits.  They were debating whether it was one mom or another, based on the articles of clothing that had seen them in, i.e. "her shirts are the most low-cut" ..."yeah, but she [the other mom] wears the shortest skirts."

Because I'm on a major modesty crusade, I've blogged about this topic before here and here (you might want to check those before rehashing what I may have already covered). Sexual sins (which aided by lust) have brought down more Christians, especially leaders, than any other kind. I'm not isolating immodesty and lust and adultery from other sin issues that are obviously inextricably linked, and I do agree with getting to the root causes, but the basic fact remains that men are wired a certain way, and just as they have a responsibility to take precautions against lusting, we women need to do our part to not cause them to stumble...which means having our identity/security/esteem in God, not in the feeling we get from men paying attention to our looks.

In an article in the August 2005 issue of Christianity Today, Sam Torode reflects on his conversion to Orthodoxy. Essentially, the article focuses in on what makes Evangelicalism different from Orthodoxy and why Torode now sees more to "applaud than to disagree with." But there are some things that bother me about this piece, I only will focus on one at this time.

Torode lists 4 evangelical distinctives that he disagreed with when converting to Orthodoxy, though, he never says he agrees with them now:

1. Salvation is by faith alone, not works
2. The Bible is the standard for Christian doctrine and practice
3. Everyone needs a personal relationship with Jesus
4. "The church" means all Christians everywhere, and there is no "true" or "perfect" church this side of heaven.

Instead, what Torode does is endorse ambiguity. "I'm not arguing for relativism, but humility. Objective truth exists, but our human ability to discern it is limited. In fact, Truth is not a set of ideas - it's a person. We only know Truth as much as we know Christ."

This quote reminds me of my own fundamentalist roots where I often heard statements like this used to endorse anti-intellectualism.

This is required reading because at some point (if it hasn't already) your church will be faced with a similar situation and now is the time to prepare...

Six years ago I became acquainted with a young woman whose father was halfway through a 12 year prison sentence for an undisclosed crime she claimed he didn't commit. I felt empathy for her and a sense of indignation that an innocent man, a Christian husband and father, was unjustly incarcerated and separated from his family.

After I got married, I rarely saw this woman except for occasionally crossing paths at Christian functions. Then last year we joined the church where she and her family have been members for over a decade. We occasionally chit-chatted but I was usually too busy chasing after my three year-old to have a real conversation, though I kept meaning to ask her about her father.

Instead I ended up meeting him, though never face-to-face. This is where the story begins...

I just don't fit in the box...and I never really have. I've always cringed at the activities of the typical church women's ministry because what I saw seemed either to focus on a single group of women or lacked the quality and depth of books and studies not intended specifically for women. If you say I'm making broad sweeping comments about women's ministry, you might be right. But the fact is, in many churches, women with more intellectual tendencies are looked upon to nurture others - as they should - but usually are expected to keep their intellectualism to themselves. Women's bible studies are often very poorly written...with the exception of some great materials by Elizabeth George, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Kay Arthur, and a few others.

When I entered into seminary studies in 2002, I promised myself that women's ministry was the LAST thing I would ever participate in. That promise was reminiscent of the one I made when I was 18 - that I would never work in the fast food industry. So far, I haven't flipped a burger, but God seemed to have other plans for me with regards to women's ministry.

I came to the conclusion during one of my graduate courses in bioethics that women's ministry is, indeed, in need of a face lift (but please do not confuse that for some unnecessary nontherapeutic physical enhancement) and that I am called to this work. Born from this was The Foundation for Women of Faith in Culture, its primary mission being to support the spiritual maturation of women through biblical, theological, and worldview education. I'm excited to say that people are finding this ministry on the internet and are responding.

My hope for Intellectuelle is that it is a place for men and women to reflect on faith and living, but I hope especially that it brings together a community of women who will continue the discussion of what it means to be a thinking Christian woman - and that the Church will take notice of our discussion and our existence.

Speaking of contemporary women's ministry, someone at my church informed me about After Eve Young Women's Conference. The date of this event is November 4-5 in McLean, VA...and if I wasn't busy, I'd plan to attend.

After Eve is different from typical women's conferences:

This is a conference by young women for young women. We believe there are many out there thirsting for truth and facing challenges in their lives - just as we are...we want to bring them a fluff-free conference that deals with relevant matters and challenges them to a deeper walk with Christ through living by the Word.

Speakers include Shauna Niequist of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI, Julie Bell, Kerri Pomarolli, and Janet Congo.

Topics for the conference include My Will Be Done, Get Over Yourself, Just One of the Guys, and my two favorite titles, Theology is for Girls, Too! and My Secret Secular Life. This looks like a fabulous event, I hope they have a great turnout and a major impact!

For those interested in what's going on in the emergent church community, September 15 begins "A New Kind of Conversation Blogging Toward a Postmodern Faith� with contributors Brian McLaren, Mabiala Kenzo, Bruce Ellis Benson, Ellen Haroutunian and Myron Bradley Penner.

"This blog-book will discuss what a postmodern evangelical faith looks like. The blog format will make it possible to allow you the reader, to participate in the writing of both the blog and the eventual published book to follow by Paternoster Press. Be a part of this experiment in conversation by adding your voice to the discussion. Sign-up to be notified when this project kicks off, or just check out the website.

One important thing I've learned in my first weeks at college is the distinct advantage of having a professor who will forward you articles of interest that provide the ever-welcome opportunity for productive procrastination. So when an article called "Developing a Discipline: The Recent Study of Western Church History in the People's Republic of China" pops up in my inbox, you'd better believe that a textbook reading about Archaic Era ceramics techniques is going to be demoted in priority.

The article, from the July edition of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, explores the development of academic preoccupation with church history in post-Marxist China. Following the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), during which the privilege of practicing and studying traditional forms of culture (such as religion) was taken away, Deng Xiaoping stepped in with his policy of "reform and opening" in 1978. Several factors contributed to the revival of Christianity as a topic for scholarly study and the gradual departure from the Marxist theory of religion as the "opium of the masses." The prohibition on unregulated spiritual activities was lifted; Buddhism and Protestantism, interesting bedfellows, led in the subsequent revival of religious practice; intellectuals took notice, and the Chinese interest in western church history was born.

It is much more comfortable, of course, to go on speaking the gospel only in familiar phrases to the middle classes. But that would be as wrong as, for example, if Hudson Taylor had sent missionaries to China and then told them to learn only one of three separate dialects that the people spoke. In such a case, only one group out of three could hear the gospel. We cannot imagine Hudson Taylor being so hard-hearted. Of course he knew men do not believe without a work of the Holy Spirit, and his life was a life of prayer for this to happen; but he also knew that men cannot believe without hearing the gospel. Each generation of the Church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting.

In a parallel way we are being as overwhelmingly unfair, even selfish, towards our own generation...The reason often we cannot speak to our children, let alone other people's, is because we have not taken the time to understand how different their thought-forms are from ours...So what is said in this book is not merely a matter of intellectual debate. It is not of interest only to academics. It is utterly crucial for those of us who are serious about communicating the Christian gospel in the twentieth century.

-Francis Schaeffer, Escape from Reason

Last night when I reread this section, it reminded me of a discussion/debate in the women's bible study I teach at my church. As we discussed Paul's passion for the gospel and the role of apologetics in evangelism, I was once again confronted with the false dichotomy of the heart and mind. Certainly we have no power outside of or independent of God to persuade anyone to have faith in Him, but apparently I've delluded myself into thinking that more people than not accept the role of the intellect as an instrument of God.

What I was able to gather in our discussion was that God's power is only actualized when the fact of Jesus' sacrifice for our sins is invoked in an outreach situation. This made me wonder if perhaps Romans 1:16 is being totally misunderstood:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16

God's power certainly is not limited to what we would consider the doctrinal content of the gospel, but I have a feeling that this is exactly the nature of my battle this week.

Yes, it's an official holiday - at least for the Lutheran church - but even those of us without a church calendar should have an interest in the historical significance of October 31. Four hundred and eighty-eight years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses onto the doors of the Wittenburg Cathedral; the sonnet below, written by a friend who excels in all things word-related (and whose name I'll withhold until she gives me permission to publish it), is good for telling the story from a more abstract Protestant perspective.

The pen that moves the centuries is done,
the paper dries that bears the age's sword--
a few small sentences, an iron word,
the thoughts a restless man is moved to own.
Then Truth and Justice pound the oaken door,
arousing men to come and take and read
a summons saints of old had often plead--
then whispered, shouted now as ne'er before.
The cries resound throughout the tomb-like hall,
shake ancient pillars, burst the colored glass,
drown out the dreary drone of Latin mass,
awaking the cathedral of man's soul.
Thus five and ninety words make darkness flee
and echo through the vaults of history.

Just before reading Bob Smietana�s post on it, I happened to read the interview with Doug Gresham at ChristianityTodayMovies.com to which his post referred. The portion Smietana quoted, however, gave me pause:

Americans have latched on to C. S. Lewis, and yet here's a guy who was a chain smoker, who liked his pints, who told ribald jokes, and in general, wouldn't fit what we think of as the "typical evangelical." And yet we've all wrapped our arms around him. Why is that?

Gresham: One of the reasons is that through the�if you can excuse the expression�the bulls--- that has come to be taken so seriously in American Christianity, through all of that, they can still see the essential truth that Jack represented. The problem with evangelical Christianity in America today, a large majority of you have sacrificed the essential for the sake of the trivial. You concentrate on the trivialities�not smoking, not drinking, not using bad language, not dressing inappropriately in church, and so on. Jesus doesn't give two hoots for that sort of bulls---. If you go out and DO Christianity, you can smoke if you want, you can drink if you want�though not to excess, in either case.

But I think that even past the trivialities, many evangelical Christians can see the ultimate truth to what Jack wrote. I think that's why he's so popular.

Gresham makes a good and interesting point, but I�m not sure that the issue of personal habits ought to be characterized as �trivial.� People no doubt admire Lewis because, despite his stupendous intellectual gifts, he was honest about his humanity and he preached a �real� gospel in his own deep yet conversational way. Yet I don't know that he himself put certain practices in terms of �trivialities,� or excesses. He spoke of temperance:

Temperance referred not specifically to drink, but to all pleasures; and it meant not abstaining, but going the right length and no further. It is a mistake to think that Christians ought all to be teetotalers...Of course it may be the duty of a particular Christian, or of any Christian, at a particular time, to abstain from strong drink either because he is the sort of man who cannot drink at all without drinking too much, or because he wants to give the money to the poor, or because he is with people who are inclined to drunkenness and must not encourage them by drinking himself. But the whole point is that he is abstaining, for a good reason, from something which he does not condemn and which he likes to see other people enjoying. The Joyful Christian, p. 126

Important, here, is to distinguish between those things which may be harmful to one�s physical or mental health (knowledge of which, in some cases, has been gained only recently), and those things which are merely a matter of taste. There is also a difference between wanting to see others enjoy what one enjoys, and allowing that others may enjoy what oneself does not.

Lewis also spoke of how people tend to equate the things that they enjoy with love:

What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, �What does it matter so long as they are contented?� We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven � a senile benevolence who, as they say, �liked to see young people enjoying themselves,� and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, �a good time was had by all.� Not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception: I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don�t, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs corrections. TJC, p. 38

These are just a couple of brief excerpts from Lewis� writing, but what of Gresham�s statement that �Jesus doesn�t give two hoots for that sort of bullsh**�? Does He really not care what we do or say as long as we are giving to those in need? It�s true that Jesus addressed character issues rather than specific personal habits in His words in the gospels, and from this I suppose one could say that He doesn�t care about personal habits. However, I don�t think that personal habits and personal character are entirely separate. Looking at the examples Gresham gives, i.e., smoking, drinking, using bad language, and dressing inappropriately in church, these things themselves aren�t the issue as much as why anyone is doing those things, what those things mean to them, how those things affect them, and how others are affected.

Discussion, anyone?

Before I get around to my second post about Christian women in academia I wanted to pose a question for discussion: Is our vision of the church just too small?

I admit, I thought I was the more adventurous vistionary-type in my marriage. But I was wrong. Way wrong. Maybe it just means that God's workng more on my husband's heart than mine (then again, I think that part of God working on my heart is through my husband). My husband and I have been talking a lot recently about the church where we live and the Church more generally. My husband often points out that our vision for the Church is just too small (while I, tend to agree and yet think that I'm fine with its smallness). (See for instance, his posts on our blog about God's law, I and II.)

We content ourselves with paying lip service to social justice issues (take for instance, the One campaign in the States and the Make Poverty History campaign in the UK). Not that these things aren't good -- and I'm the first to support such endeavours -- but, if the Church is simply piggy-backing on to these essentially political movements, isn't there something wrong with that? Shouldn't we be setting the standard -- not only in relieving poverty but in aesthetics, business practices, academia?

And with such generalisations, I wholeheartedly agree. Yes Christian artists should be setting the trends; yes Christian businesspeople need to be setting the ethically standards of corporate behaviour; yes we should be the first ones lobbying politicians to give mercy to the poor.

But then I realise the cost.

I may not find a job in academia if I'm too outspoken. Maybe I should just be supportive of others who are in theology departments, philosophy departments, ministers of the gospel at home and abroad. Maybe I should just be quiet but yet still support the *idea* that the gospel changes everything: our worldview, our understanding of where and how we are to live -- but yet still have my own life remain complacent and untransformed by the gospel.

Is our view of the gospel too small? Is our view of the Church too small? Do we really believe it does more than put a band-aid on our sin but totally removes it and replaces it with the righteousness of Christ? Are we, with Paul, "not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith" (Romans 1:16-17)? And if the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is not a band-aid but something that utterly turns our world upside down, why don't our lives (mine included, see doubts above) look radically changed and upside down to those around us?

I guess the short answer is that I'm a sinner. And yet, I have been saved by the grace and mercy of Christ. As this is the case, shouldn't the Church look different than it does? How do we go about looking like the hands and feet of Jesus instead of the comfortable middle-class suburbanites that mainstream evangelcalism is promoting.

(I know I'm coming up with more questions than answers but I hope it shall benefit the discussion.)

By sheer providential goodness, I've gotten a job as a sort of editorial apprentice in my school's academic press. The job is turning out to be even better than I had expected, and when you are constantly battling a neurotically idealistic Anne Shirley within, that's nothing less than a miracle. A couple of weeks ago I got to claim the first outstanding employee benefit: free access to the boss's library. Among all the hippest new works in higher criticism, an ugly duckling of a book stood out like a A New Kind of Christian on the bookshelf of yours truly (and so it stood for a time, but that's a long story): across a tattered, once-blue cover my widening eyes beheld A Reformation Debate: John Calvin & Jacobo Sadoleto.

Score.

To descend to the actual point of this essay-ette, the book consists of two letters, both written in 1539, after the fight between the civil authorities and the reformers (foremost at this point were Guillaume Farel and John Calvin) had erupted in Geneva, where many had adopted the Protestant reforms under the leadership of these two men. An Italian bishop ministering in southern France appealed on behalf of the Catholic church to his Genevan neighbors, pleading with them to return to the faith and lambasting the schismatic Frenchmen who had led them away from the Church. Calvin's letter is a defense of his ministry and his former parishioners (he had gone to Strasbourg to work with Martin Bucer by then) in three parts: first, an address to Sadoleto himself, and then two speeches he constructed--for himself and for his average parishioner--that he imagined being given before the tribunal of God on Judgment Day.

Part 1, in the Church

I don't know of a more hot-button topic for both the churched and unchurched than this one. For that reason, we should probably try to take a fresh new look at threading out the various views on just what a woman's place in society consists of.

It seems as if there are more presumptions on what the Christian scriptures say than there are authoritative doctrines. And of the authoritative doctrines, few are widely agreed upon as to how they work in the modern world. I'd like to look at that. In fact, I'd like to look at that with one of the more curious variations of recent memory: that blogging is a questionably womanly pursuit.

But first, what are some of the controversies? Women themselves are not agreed on what woman's freedom, rights, and dignities are or ought to be. And this has lead to some confusion about what the reaction of re-instituting traditional roles should look like. An example: Feminists of today would eschew the mid-twentieth century persona of "June Cleaver", TV mother. Neo-traditionalists seem to view those scenes with scentimental nostalgia. But what are we really looking at when we review mid-twentieth century female roles and lifestyle? Aren't we seeing the Feminine Mystique generation? The women who oftentimes threw off the homemaker's mantle and went into the workplace in hordes, who sometimes left home to " find themselves"? Or had to make new lives for themselves as divorce rates skyrocketed? I know my mother had 'Feminine Mystique' on her bookshelf, had to become a breadwinner, and lived a very different life from the Donna Reed Show, et al. This is why I don't think it is in looking backward culturally that we may find the defining roles of women.

And where has the Church been in all this? Pretty much where the rest of the culture has been: experimenting and floundering around to define women and understand how society should work. The Church hasn't had a voice of consensus. And I think it is out of laziness and self-protection that it hasn't yet produced clarity for even women in the Church, let alone a view of women in the Culture.

Further, the responsibility for this has lain with the Protestants. The ones who lay claim to Sola Scriptura, and studying to show oneself approved. But instead we are tangled up with reiterations of traditions and slipshod adoption of the culture's lead on this. The Worldly culture. We are the ones who ought to be able to work at rightly applying how the Bible's directives appear in our culture.

Because of the comments, I wanted to view the choices for women in the Church against the historical background and present circumstance.

Atlantic, commenting on the stance of the Catholic Church said this,"the issue of women priests: for the Church�s faithful, the case is completely closed," and "the Church is the only body that has been given the authority to determine who may be ordained a bishop at all." Logically, this is the correct stance to take when one considers themselves Catholic, in my view. I'll tell you why I think that Atlantic has articulated the proper stance for a Roman Catholic woman. The Church has already gone through one Reformation time, on points much more essential than whether women should hold particular positions of leadership. Bloody wars have been fought because at that time the temporal powers and the determination of the Church were united. It was similar to Shari'a law in my estimation. The theology could rule whether you lived or died in this earthly existance. This is no longer the case in Christian-majority countries.

I find myself distanced from some of the dispute because in my Church milieu women are given full access and free rein to participate in Church life and leadership. Officially. The de facto situation is that none of us are truly separate from one another in the body of Christ, and prevailing attitude will ripple against the shores of our own situation.

Yet, in the Protestant experience, there is a wide range of choices in bodies that have already worked through the questions on whether women may preach and teach or have input in the decision process.

So in our convictions, if we have settled that our specific Church policy is scripturally mistaken, what is the right pathway to take? Do we stay and protest, seeking change, or do we move to a congregation that has already settled on this issue? Our motivations will have to undergo critical review if we decide we take issue with our Church's conviction.

Many would take the first two title words of this post as a contradiction in terms. But I don't think they have to be a contradiction; and frankly, it's often our dollar/pound/yen/euro that speaks louder than our Sunday morning pieties about supporting the poor.

So how do we go about living out the gospel with our pocketbooks?

The thing is (as a large generalisation), it seems that most of the "liberal" churches are concerned about social justice issues while the more "evangelical" sort tend to focus on saving souls rather than alleviating poverty. But because Christianity is simply the good news of Jesus Christ and believing that the gospel is the very power of God, we need to be motivated to help alleviate poverty as well as introducing people to Jesus -- for we can only introduce people to Jesus if we love them first.

Therefore, I'd like to simply offer a few suggestions and links for further info for you to consider how to make a difference with your dollar. Let me reiterate that the reasons that Christians do such things isn't primarily because "it's good for the environment" or because "it's something we should do" or because we have a guilty conscience. No, we do such things because we are motivated by the fact that God, in his infinite mercy, redeemed us -- poor, ugly, broken and utterly helpless -- and so we too are to help those who are in need of physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual redemption.

1. Buy Fair Trade: Fair Trade is pretty big here in the UK and is just starting to catch on in the US (one of my friends is instrumental in the grassroots efforts of Fair Trade LA). Fair Trade works at making trade fair by paying farmers for their products at a sustainable wage as well as allowing them to invest in the future. My favourite product is Green and Blacks chocolate: it's organic, fairly traded, and tastier than your average bar.

2. Buy organic, local produce: There are a ton of local fruit and

- summing up my own view
...touching on woman pastors, parachurch alternatives, and double standard choices.

Coming from the other side....

Catez has brought the gauntlet to Intellectuelle. And I pick it up; sometimes you don't go looking for trouble - it finds you.

This is an old issue for me, and a personal one. For me, it dates back to my conversion experience and the Church that God decided to lead me into. I don't think the Lord had in mind, specifically, to hone my warrior instincts.... I don't think it was His intention that I immediately enter the fray of cessationism versus continuation. No, I rather think He took me along that path to introduce me to the importance of baptism at conversion rather than infant baptism. Although, that, too, is a contentious topic of debate. But God isn't interested so much in our carnal contentions as He is in the growth of the soul in Christ.

I haven't had to deal with these debates for a long time -except in internet venues, and indeed shied away from them as debate in real life, placing the conversation purely in witness form: "This is what the Lord has done for me" . But there are times to stand ground... and this is one of those times.

First, I dislike this placed in the black and white form: "is tongues of God or not?" Like it or not, that is exactly how it often articulated for people. Any time the topic comes up, I think Christians should be aware of that... it is an old argument and carries alot of baggage with it. Implied within, "is it for today, or has it ceased" is the conclusion that if it is not given by God today then the manifestation today must come from another source. You-know-who. And I don't have to outline where that thinking leads concerning the state of fellow Christians who claim to have the experience. 'Delusion' is the kindest term. So I think we need to consider our judgments on the matter. Just what are we saying?

If you're like me, it's easy to take the term "evangelical" for granted. It's also easy to accept a general, vague understanding of it. "Evangelical" is an umbrella term for all who believe in the Great Commission (Mark 16:15): go and preach the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus to all creation. However, as described at Wikipedia, it has several distinct meanings:

1) the definition just given, i.e. belonging or related to the gospel (Greek: evangelion)

2) a general designation (of mainland Europe, specifically Germany and the Scandinavian countries) for churches adhering to beliefs of the Reformation (otherwise known as Protestantism), e.g. Evangelical Lutheran Church, Evangelical Reformed Church, or Evangelical Methodist Church, in contrast to Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches. In this sense, it comprises everything from a liberal state church to a conservative free church in the Baptist or Pietist tradition. This designation also applies to US churches descended from mainline European churches.

3) a separate designation, in German, for Protestant -- specifically, Lutheran and Reformed churches (evangelisch), and evangelicalism (evangelikal).

4) an adherent of evangelicalism (in Australia, Canada, the UK and the United States).

Wikipedia defines evangelicalism as "a tendency in diverse branches of Protestant conservative Christianity, typified by an emphasis on evangelism, a personal experience of conversion, biblically-oriented faith, and a belief in the relevance of Christian faith to cultural issues. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, Protestant people, churches and social movements have often been called evangelical in contrast to Protestant liberalism."

The Wiki reference states also that sometimes "evangelical" is mistaken for a synonym of "Pentecostal," but that this is far too narrow a use of the term. And certainly the history and meaning of the term "evangelical" are far more complex than indicated by the general definitions given above.

There's been great discussion on the question, "What is an evangelical?" and even "What is 'evangelical'?" both here and elsewhere, and I've been chomping at the bit to participate. Due to limited internet access, however, that's not been possible. I prepared portions of this post much earlier but wasn't able to post them. Which is probably just as well, because I can now revise according the other discussion.

In my last post I attempted to answer the question, "What is an evangelical"� Perhaps I shouldn't have bothered, because, as John Schroeder at Blogotional posits, the term "evangelical" may no longer serve a useful purpose, at least religiously speaking. John also links to a bomb dropped by iMonk: an assertion that the term "evangelical" is dead and that we are in a post-evangelical age.

Michael also spectacularly supplies 17 defining characteristics of evangelicalism (sheesh -- wish I'd have seen those before writing the previous post!) and makes a clear distinction between evangelicalism and evangelical mainline churches.

Michael sees problems with the term "evangelical" as resulting from cultural (namely, mainstream media and political) labeling as much as from "internicene squabbling." True, the media has influenced the picture of "evangelical" that the general culture holds, but I don't know that they've influenced its meaning within evangelical contingents themselves, nor have they invented it. They picked it up from the evangelical movement itself and attached their own baggage to it. And evangelicals themselves, never mind the politicians, have tried to co-op faith into political action (which I don't think is entirely illegitimate.) But never mind that; as others have stated, different individuals who call themselves Christians have different ideas as to just who and what is an evangelical.

I’d like to throw out a question (a bunch of them, really) for discussion:

What part should maintainance and/or building of a church facility play in the stewardship of a Christian or a congregation?

Let’s say that a church building is aging and in need of repair or updating. Obviously, no one wants any damage to occur to the property that’s going to cause it to lose significant value or become unusable as a facility. So plumbing, roofing, and heating/cooling equipment, etc., are probably best kept in good order. But what about updating other portions that have more to do with aesthetics, such as carpeting, painting, or replacing furnishings that are still functional...yet dingy?

Is a building itself a ministry? Must a building be beautiful and updated in appearance in order to truly glorify God, or for the church that meets there to do God’s work? Is it important to have a nice, attractive building with comfortable facilities that might draw more people and make church members feel good about it, or a functional building in combination with some sort of ministry into which money is being put instead of the building?

How important is it to be “demographically aware” when building and/or renovating? Does it matter whether or not the facility appeals to a certain demographic? Ought the building match the demographic of the people who attend, or of the area in which the building is situated?
Is it right to fund-raise in the community in order to fund renovations of a church building?

How is “ministry” defined in a church – is it legitimate for a church to exist largely to minister to itself? Can it minister to itself while ministering outside its walls? At what point does “ministry” become self-serving?

If you are not in the habit of reading Middlebrow, I highly recommend it. Excellent stuff. Fred Sanders recently wrote a very insightful piece on Marmosets Underfoot in which he discussed Calvin and footnotes (and marmosets), but what he really wanted to talk about was temperament, as in conservative- vs. liberal- , in discussing Decadent Conservatism.

All cultures and subcultures move through stages, and two notable stages are the classical and the decadent. In cultural terms, a classical period is a time when all the parts of a community’s life seem to hang together, mutually reinforce each other, and make intuitive sense. By contrast, a decadent period is marked by dissolution of all the most important unities, a sense that whatever initial force gave impetus and meaningful form to the culture has pretty much spent its power.

...Evangelicalism in our lifetime seems to be in a decadent period. In some sectors of the evangelical subculture, there is not even a living cultural memory of a classical period or golden age; what we experience is decadence all the way back.

Ouch. But I think he’s right. He fleshes these statements out in the post and you must go read it.

...under the condition of decadence liberals become streamliners and conservatives become packrats. Evangelicals have long tended toward the packrat temperament, even though there are some signs that we may currently be exchanging that temperament for its relatively less happy alternative. What it leaves us with is an impressive stock of doctrinal and devotional bric-a-brac that we don’t know what to do with, or how it originally went together. Maybe Dwight Moody knew, maybe R. A. Torrey knew, but we can no longer articulate the unity.

The final statement is the clincher:

Until we can do that, we’re left to squat in the ruins arguing about whether we should throw things away because we don’t understand them, or enshrine them unquestioningly forever because we don’t understand them. Conservatism is to be preferred, but only in a very relative way. Having marmosets in your footnotes is no way to live. The only real way forward is to understand why things are where they are. (emphasis added)

Now, hold that thought.

"For the last eighteen years I've gone to the Greek Orthodox Church. It was a relief to replace tyrannical simplicity with Byzantine paradox, tidy theology with messy mystery, smug certainty with forlorn hope. Nevertheless the old Calvinist preoccupations stick. God still worries me. And he probably doesn't like you either."

Frank Schaeffer, the son of Christian apologists Francis and Edith Schaeffer, has had a hard time growing up in the shadow of his famous parents and seems to have spent his fifty plus years of life trying to overcome the negative effects of having had parents who taught him about God, the Bible, prayer, and the Christian faith. Pobrecito. He says, "Those of us with evangelical/fundamentalist backgrounds are doomed to a lifetime spent trying to re-imagine the divine." Maybe so, or maybe it's just those with such a background who fail to grow up and get over their childish rebellion and disappointment that are "doomed." I come from such a background, and I've certainly never felt doomed, nor could I say that I've ever believed that God doesn't like me or you.

In his blog posts, Mr. Schaeffer makes fun of his parents, of their mission to explain the Christian message to post-modern Americans, and of most things evangelical. It's all very bitter, as if Frankie Schaeffer takes it as a personal affront that his parents weren't perfect and some evangelical Christians make decisions with which he disagrees.

...will be held December 7-9 at Northern Seminary, Lombard, IL at the Lindner Conference Center. More info on the conference can be found here.

Speakers are Brian McLaren, Lauren Winner, Martin Marty, Frederica Mathewes-Green, and Aaron Flores.

For background information on the AEF Call, see this interview with Robert Webber in Christianity Today or visit the AEF Call website.

We call evangelicals to strengthen their witness through a recovery of the faith articulated by the common consensus of the ancient church.

John at Blogotional raises yet another very important issue in Why is it Rare? He's referring to spiritual formation.

John quotes from Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice: Experiments in Spiritual Transformation by Dallas Willard and Jan Johnson, who mention sexual sin among pastors (and Christians in general), saying,

But sex is far from being the only problem inside and outside the church. The presence of vanity, egotism, hostility, fear, indifference, and downright meanness can be counted on among professing Christians. Their opposites cannot be counted on or simply assumed in the standard Christian group, and the rare individual who exemplifies these opposites - genuine purity and humility, death to selfishness, freedom from rage and depression, and so on - will stand out in the group with all the obtrusiveness of a sore thumb. This person will be a constant hindrance in group processes and will be personally conflicted by them, for he or she will not be living on the same terms as the others. (emphasis added)

...The path of spiritual transformation today lies through the illumination that we have ruined souls. This must be gratefully and humbly accepted and applied, to oneself above all... Only then is a foundation laid for spiritual formation into Christlikeness.

(There is more; I commend the whole post.)

Of the first paragraph quoted, John says,

This tells me that our institutions are very sick. We breed our leadership to show attributes other than what we desire, and we reward those that show not the correct attributes, but the ones we encourage in leadership.

How do we fix this?

He speaks specifically of leaders in the church, but, in light of the priesthood of all believers, the question must be asked in regard to all believers.

And here are my thoughts, for what they're worth:

1. We breed Christians in general to show attributes others than what we desire. We don't really aid and encourage their transformation (Romans 2:12); certain types of transformation are rewarded but others are ignored. We don't encourage one another to look for reward in heaven rather than on earth. We preach at people, and give spiritual transformation a lot of lip service, but don't follow up with action.

2. We encourage or allow worldly (or at least mainly human) leadership characteristics rather than spiritual ones. Not that the two won't always overlap, but the servant-leader model, again, gets more lip-talk than actual walk.

Bottom line is that we all need to be bold, and to find our true confidence in God and in others whom we recognize as true spiritual leaders. But bold doesn't mean brash; nor does humble mean not bold. We have to speak up for godliness and truth even when doing so, even at church, is not popular. Which can be done in kindness while we go about our usual business of fellowshiping; we can continue to enjoy our fellow church members and participate in the life of the church.

However, if the problem is so bad that we cannot enjoy them, and if the sin is serious and unrepented of, then we must address the issue according to Matthew 18:15-20. If there aren't enough at the church (or other Christian institution) who are willing to do this, though... then, as John says, "Dear Lord help us!"

We must also be bold (and humble) to confess our own weaknesses and sin, in appropriate ways and to the appropriate people. We need to exhibit kindness to others who fail or who fall.

I suspect that many in the church, even those who are predominantly good of heart, honestly don't know what to do with the pride of others. Vanity, egotism, hostility, fear, indifference, and downright meanness can be confounding, confusing, and downright scary. Many seem cowed by the sin -- the evil -- behind this type of behavior. Or else they don't actually recognize it for what it is. They are confused and intimidated by the manipulation.

Bradley Nassif, associate professor of biblical and theological studies at North Park University, asks, Will the 21st Be the Orthodox Century? His words are most encouraging. Of himself, he says,

I haven't merely thought about Orthodox and evangelical compatibility; for most of my life, I have lived it... Thus, I bring an intellectual and experiential knowledge of both communities, which is probably why I have a love/hate relationship with them. I'm not fully at peace with either one.

Nassif discusses Thomas Oden's The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco, 2002)

Scholars define the Great Tradition as the theological consensus of the first 500 to 1,000 years of Christian history...Oden uses the lowercase o in order to embrace all Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians who adhere to the first 500 years of the Great Tradition. Oden sets forth six layers of evidence to show that there is, indeed, a widespread rekindling of "the orthodox spirit" at the dawn of the 21st century.

These layers are an interesting "mix" of what could appear to be disparate elements of those churches in the world today which call themselves Christian (such as pietistic, Reformed, emergent, Catholic, and Orthodox), yet an authentic Christian faith certainly embraces them all. Most neglected today, perhaps, are #s 5 and 6: Ecumenical roots reclaimed and Rise of a new ecumenism.

I remember reciting the Nicene Creed in church growing up; ironically this was a rather liberal United Church of Christ. But its explanation of 'catholic' (small 'c') as in "I believe in the unity of all believers, the holy catholic church" has always stayed with me: "this is the unity of all who adhere to the Nicene creed -- 'catholic' means 'universal'". Amen, amen, and amen!

The new orthodoxy of which Nassif speaks has similarities to the Ancient-Future movement, which seeks to recapture the totality of meaning from the ancient church and bring it to the 21-century church.

Of evangelical influence on the Orthodox church, Nassif says,

But revival will not happen automatically. Dialogue at the local church level will help, even if evangelicals learn more from the Orthodox than the Orthodox are willing to learn from evangelicals.

Dialogue! Christians -- local Christians -- of different stripes, talking to one another!! Yes!!!

Nassif closes with this:

Yes, these predictions and exhortations are speculative; they may never come to fruition as I hope and imagine. And I admit that my commitment to an evangelical Orthodoxy predisposes me to hope like this. That being said, I still see signs that suggest that these two great expressions of the Christian faith, the evangelical and the Orthodox, are gradually coming together in vision, if not in worship, and that the 21st century may be known as the Orthodox century.

I share this hope, and possess a hope that revival of both orthodoxy and evangelism may spread throughout the entire Christian church!

In yesterday’s Breakpoint commentary, "Bigotry or Obedience", on the media and the Episcopal church, is this quote from Nigerian Anglican Bishop Peter Akinola, speaking on the separation occurring within the Episcopal Church:

The point here is not of separating from sinners . . . but objecting strongly to yielding to the . . . worldly spirit of a materialistic, secularist and self-centered age, which seeks to mould everyone into its own tainted image.

Our argument is that if homosexuals see themselves as deviants who have gone astray, the Christian spirit would plead for patience and prayers to make room for their repentance. When Scripture says something is wrong and some people say that it is right, such people make God a liar.

This upholding of orthodoxy, as Chuck Colson refers to it, applies to every sin imaginable, not just homosexuality or other outward sin. Anyone who would mold themselves or try to mold others to an image other than that of the repentant person redeemed in Christ, as explicated in the Bible, is a deviant. Ouch. Yet such a person cannot be merely “written off”; with patience and prayers may we make room for their repentance. To write a person off is to assume the role of judge.

However, to accept a person into church fellowship without addressing their sin is to compromise the message of salvation, as it is to allow the unrepentant person into church fellowship. I know this goes against the grain of a lot of church practice, but I think the key word here is unrepentant. Obviously we’re all sinners; if all sinners were banned from church, the church would be empty. But I think the problem comes from seeing church as the place to save people. Perhaps some programs or fellowship meetings or other such activities held at a church can serve to minister to "tax-collectors and sinners", yet obviously it can be very harmful to allow the unrepentant to be part of the full life of the church.

The unrepentant may certainly be associated with outside of corporate worship, and should be. This is where the real work of evangelism may take place. Then if persons show signs of repentance, they can be invited to church, where they may worship and be discipled. But we can't rely on the building and the pastor and a friendly smile as they walk past to do the job.

Sin among church members must also be addressed. The repentant may deal with it together, encouraging and supporting one another. Yet confronting sin is so often avoided for fear of offending people or running them off. Some churches I know of believe in preaching what's good and bad and then pretty much leaving it up to individuals to recognize and deal with sin on their own. Sure, there are pastoral counseling and other programs available, but then a person gets "classified" -- branded, in a sense -- or else their sin is kept private so as to protect everyone involved. Certainly prudence in this regard is to be encouraged. Yet it so often has to do with avoiding public humiliation or feeding the gossip mill.

What a shame that this is the case -- if Christians can't lovingly confront, confess, and help one another with the sin in their lives, minus the humiliation and gossip, then who can? I offer that orthodoxy includes proper dealing with sin in all ways.

In a recent Christianity Today article, Edward Gilbreath tells us what is happening to blacks in the evangelical church: they’re leaving. But the things he says in Exit Interviews apply not only to blacks and the evangelical church, but to prejudice and discrimination of any kind, anywhere. Too often this is seen to be against race, gender, an element of society or other group, or against certain practices, but I don’t think the problem is the prejudice or discrimination itself. It’s a flat-out refusal to honor and love another – any other, as a creature of God or a brother or sister in Christ.

This is evident in practices which honor a person or group for what that person or group represents, not for who they really are. They consist of token gesture rather than authentic love. Leaders are forced to be poster children or figureheads for a cause – positions in which they can neither be effective nor free to be themselves. The concern is with how things, or people, look, rather than with what’s really going on.

(Does this happen in the blogosphere, even the Godblogosphere...?)

Says Gilbreath,

Over the years, I've noticed a pattern of African Americans joining evangelical organizations, often as the first black, only to leave two, three, or four years later—usually in frustration. In dozens of interviews with black evangelical leaders, I heard story after story of alienation, anger, and defeat.

...Why do so many successful black evangelicals feel marginalized in evangelical institutions? Worse, why are some giving up on the idea of racial unity in the church altogether?

Consider Darrell Davis (not his real name) and his job with a large ministry:

For a while, things at the new position were fine. "I was the flavor of the month," he says. But over time, Davis began to sense tension between himself and his colleagues as he tried to implement new ideas. "I wasn't trying to make trouble," he says. "I was just there to do my job. But people will read into what you do out of their own fears and insecurities." (emphasis added)

I can’t emphasize that last statement enough. Who among us is not guilty of this? I certainly am, and I regret it, because it means I’ve been unfair to someone. It also means that I haven’t taken responsibility for something that I need to deal with.

But what’s the remedy? What’s the answer to prejudice and discrimination?

Simple. It’s friendship. Real friendship.

“Davis” tells of a confession made to him by a prominent white Christian leader during a lunch date. The leader confessed unfair treatment, including the fact that, when meetings were held, decisions had already made before black leaders even got there.

(How often does this type of thing happen in your church, or other group or organization? In your family?)

When asked how things could be made right, Davis invited the leader to his home so that they could share some barbecue and get to know one another.

Davis never heard from the gentleman again.

How many of us do this sort of thing? Sure, we get busy, things come up, and often people go their separate ways simply because of circumstances. But sometimes, aren’t these used as excuses merely to snub one another?

It can take courage and real effort to meet one another honestly and work with each other in an honorable way. It can take real courage and effort to be a true friend. (Yes, I’m beating this theme into the ground!) The thing is, this is where Christianity becomes real, and not just a creed, or something we do in a legalistic way. It’s relationship. Pure and simple, Christianity is about relationship. First and foremost it’s about our relationship to God and vice-versa, and then our relationships to and with one another. That’s it.

Even when we snub someone, we still have a relationship with them – a poor one. So when I say Christianity is about relationship, I mean that the type and quality of the relationship are of great moral bearing and require accountability. It is through relationship that we reach one another in God's name.

Says Gilbreath,

Somehow...we've gotten stuck in the rut of familiar patterns. These patterns lead us to believe we've accomplished something simply by, for example, hiring a person of color or speaking to a person of another race at church or hugging someone we don't know at a conference 300 miles away from home. These types of gestures are good and necessary. But we should not let symbolism displace the purpose of the acts themselves.

There it is again – symbolism over substance.

Gilbreath goes on to list ways in which we can have substance in our relationships. He exhorts us to do it and not wait, because

The cost of maintaining the status quo is too high.

Indeed.

A few days ago, while discussing Edward Gilbreath’s article on blacks and the evangelical church at ChristianityToday.com, I suggested that a cure for discrimination is friendship. Mark Traphagen at Connversation also comments on Gilbreath's article and offers another suggestion:

...the thing that it takes...is the willingness to give up a certain amount of control. (emphasis in the original)

If we want blacks to begin to feel at home in our white churches, we’ve got to be willing to have blacks in leadership positions. And once that is accomplished, we have to make sure that they really have a voice in determining the “look and feel” of the church. Which means we may end up singing songs we wouldn’t choose ourselves or listening to sermons that aren’t all “tastefully-delivered” neat little logical treatises. That means giving up a little control, and that can be scary. But that is the cost of having a church that looks like all of God’s people.

HT: a comment by Mr. Traphagen at Jollyblogger

OK, that's not really funny. Or maybe it is. Anyway, this post is about the new Christian Reconciliation Carnival, founded by Weekend Fisher.

I have noticed something interesting in certain parts of the Christian blogosphere. I have seen debates that degenerated into people trying to understand each others' positions. I have seen Christians praising members of other groups, a growing body of recognized common ground, and people with crossover appeal beyond their own group. Of course, I've seen nastiness and divisiveness too, but the opponents of nastiness and divisiveness are becoming bolder, more outspoken.

To that end, I'm proposing a Christian Reconciliation Carnival. It's intended as a "Road to Reconciliation" Carnival, a place where we do not expect too much of ourselves except humility, and a Carnival that is a cease-fire zone.

Amen. The carnival will happen monthly. There will be a Question and Answer section as well, to which questions can be submitted. (see guidelines here.) Oh, and the vanguard Carnival can be found here, at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength.

The host (and founder) does a little math:

...most current estimates show the Christian church divided into 20,000 to 30,000 different groups. If each theological difference causes a split, and each distinct group has a unique combination of beliefs, that works out to only about 15 actual differences. (2 to the 15th being 32,768.) Beyond that, there are far fewer major groups (maybe a dozen). Unfortunately all 15 of the same issues are probably still in the picture with the dozen groups.

Well, that's a bit over my head but I understand what he's she's getting at. And I can't tell you how encouraged I am by an effort like this -- it's definitely a step toward unity in the Body of Christ. (Can I hear an "amen"?)

HT: Pseudo-Polymath

Yet another great article at Christianity Today talks about Defining Business Success. At a time when so many churches are trying to “succeed” by adopting a business model or using various business strategies, its message is a breath of fresh air.

Stan Guthrie interviews John D. Beckett, 68, chairman of the privately held R. W. Beckett Corporation in North Ridgefield, Ohio. Beckett has written “one of the leading books on living out Christian faith in the marketplace, Loving Monday (InterVarsity, 1998).” Last year the sequel, Mastering Monday: A Guide to Integrating Faith and Work (InterVarsity, 2006) was published.

What strikes me most about Beckett's words on what makes a business successful is that they also ring absolutely true for a church, or for the individual Christian. Of the late Ken Lay and the Enron scandal, Beckett says,

But frankly, like so many of my peers and contemporaries, I think he [Lay] separated his work world from his faith world. Enron had a code of four values. Three are very close to my heart, because they're identical to the ones at our company: integrity, excellence, and a profound respect for the individual. What happened to these [values]? People close to it told me that they basically set them aside. They breached their own integrity for the sake of doing these deals. Apparently, this happened at the board level, and it happened with Ken Lay. We don't know the extent of his guilt, but I cannot absolve him for failing to stand up, pound the table, and shout, "We're violating our core values by going in this direction." He didn't; nobody else did.

I wonder, what would this look like in the church? Can we really stand up at a church meeting, pound the table, and shout out a violation? Can we call out the sin of another Christian, saying, "hey, you're violating our core values -- your core values, here?" I think in general, such action doesn't go over well. It's considered shocking, even scandalous -- a violation of social mores. But does this mean it shouldn't be done?

I believe that it should. If we are working together to serve God, then we must help keep one another on track. Not for the good of "the company," but for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven, as well as ourselves.

In light of what happened at Enron, Guthrie asks what good core values are. To which Beckett replies,

That's the question. I don't think they're any good—in fact, they may be counterproductive—if they're not worked into the fabric of the organization.

He says that business formulas have a tendency to become substitutes for “being sensitive for the Lord.” As can any “Christian” formula:

I can't love a person as a formula. Formulas may get you part of the way, but ultimately they break down. Unless a person's heart has been transformed, you'll just never get there by pushing levers and turning dials.

Beckett’s definition of success?

If success is never losing a customer or having a bad product go out the door, or never having a failure in your organization, whether it's moral or financial or whatever, it just doesn't work that way. But if success is honoring the Lord, if it is being faithful to him, then we can go through mountains of success and valleys of failure and still come out serving the Lord.

Amen.

(I know I’ve practically quoted the whole interview, but go ahead and read it anyway. And pray with me that this model of success would manifest in the church.)