Engagement, not extraction

Tim Schmoyer has an article discussing how a Christian should approach online gaming as a potential mission field. His suggestion is not to form a Christian group, but instead to join an existing group and be a Christian in it.

This is precisely the opposite of some of the extractional thinking we’re seeing. The church down the road advertises on their web site that soon they’ll be offering a “24/7 Christian Experience”. You’ll be able to work out, eat, do homework, play basketball and video games, apparently without ever meeting a non-Christian! I’m not at all sure this is what Jesus had in mind.

I know what you’re thinking! I’m the pot calling the kettle black because I homeschool! Let me explain the difference. The primary (and overwhelming) reason for us to homeschool is to spend more time with our children. Sure, there are other reasons too, but our goal is build our relationships with our children. We anticipate that the end result will be children who are properly prepared to engage with the world, not to find ways to avoid it. The kinds of relationships one can build at the gym, on the basketball court, at a cafe or the library are the very ones I believe Jesus wants us to cultivate, once we are equipped.

I spent several formative years associating mostly with like-minded believers, both at work and play. This helped me develop some (I hope) “Jesus lenses” through which I can view life around me. It prepared me for spending the rest of my life engaging the world, not running from it.

Of course, my Jesus lenses occasionally get fogged up, so I’m counting on my brothers and sisters to keep me honest.

What is cultural?

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how my cultural glasses affect my reading of the Bible. I’ve only just now started wondering how Paul’s cultural glasses affected his writing of it.

Folks (like McLaren) insist that it is impossible to view the Bible apart from one’s culture. It’s not that I can’t see the forest for the trees, it’s that the trees are a very part of me. Ok, so did Paul have the same problem? Was he unduly influenced by his culture, or did he somehow manage to free himself from that which traps the rest of us?

If I say Paul was influenced by his culture, then that opens the Bible up to dramatic new interpretations. If I say he wasn’t influenced by culture, then I’m saying it is perhaps possible for ME not to be influenced either.

Or do we say that Paul was an exceptional case, that he was divinely inspired and thus able to see the kingdom of God without distortion — but we are unable to do so? I must say, this is not a conclusion I like. I would much rather have something to aim for, than settle for culture-colored glasses.

Church on Christmas?

I was surprised to read that some columnists (like this one) are complaining that some churches are choosing not to have services on Christmas day. Even (gasp!) Willow Creek has decided not to open the doors on Christmas. What’s the big deal?

The columnist I linked to says that not having church on Christmas means: 1.) We love things more than we love Jesus. 2.) The church is compromising. 3.) The church is hypocritical. 4.) Non-christians think we are compromising and hypocritical. 5.) The family has become more important than Jesus.

All this because of skipping one service. This leads me to ask the question, what is the purpose of a church service, anyway? According to this guy, we go to show the world that we are self-sacrificing world-haters who would rather attend church than see our families. In his defense, he also says that a church service is an opportunity to “gather with God’s people for worship.” A noble endeavor, of course, but is that it?

To me, it depends on whether the purpose of Christianity is to facilitate church services, or whether the purpose of church services is to facilitate Christianity. I fall into the latter camp. I attend church for the same reason I take my car to the gas station — it’s an opportunity to fuel up. I gain spiritual energy through fellowship and corporate worship, helping me to live the rest of the week as Jesus would have me do. Missing one week doesn’t drain my tank, and some services (you’ve been to them, too) don’t exactly overflow the tank, either.

I didn’t decide to follow Jesus so that I can attend church services. I attend services to help me follow Jesus. Church is not what we do on Sunday morning. Church is when we talk with our friends, when we gather with our families, when we live out our Christian faith in our everyday lives. I don’t know about you, but I definitely will be “attending church” on Christmas.

The Battle over Intelligent Design

This last weekend, while visiting my hometown of beautiful Wichita, KS, I engaged in a lively discussion re: the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools. Certainly this is a hot topic right now.

This last weekend, while visiting my hometown of beautiful Wichita, KS, I engaged in a lively discussion re: the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools. Certainly this is a hot topic right now. The article that prompted our discussion is one you may have read in the KC Star. Specifically, a professor at KU who is being told to teach intelligent design thinks it mythology, and thus will name and classify his course as such. An e-mail he had written was ‘pirated’ and placed on a right-wing message board. In his e-mail, he rants against the Christian Right, as well as fundamentalists with their “fat faces” and so on.

My family was surprised and shocked that I stated that this whole discussion interested me very little, that I could understand the KU Professor’s point (maybe not agree with what he states, but I can understand how he’d feel that way), and namely that I wish sometimes the whole topic would just go away. They countered with the familiar battle cry of “We must take a stand”…“We are in a cultural war” and so on.

In fact, much of the discussion going on re: these topics is very relevant to an excellent book I am reading entitled “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller. I bought the book on Saturday and have already read about 10 chapters of it.

The book emphasizes what I was trying to talk about the other night with my family. It is not that “Creation VS Intelligent Design VS Evolution” is a bad topic. It is just that more and more people (especially the current 20-somethings in my classrooms and younger) are largely apathetic to this subject. More importantly, they are turned off by these arguments and sadly turned off the rest of Christianity as well. My guess is that if you asked a college student what a “Christian” is, or what came to mind if they heard the word “Christian”, they would say something like “They are that group of people who hate abortion, are against gay marriage and against evolution.” No mention of Jesus…just the issues we seem to be fighting for. If that is the case, how sad this is.

I further explained my opinions to my family (none of my thoughts are original, certainly). My feeling is that this generation is NOT going to be “converted” with “new scientific proof that the Bible is true!” Nor will they repent by Christians sharing “The 4 Spiritual Laws” or “The Bridge Illustration” (of course, there will always be exceptions). They are going to be converted largely by narratives and testimonies and people who take an interest in them. This generation seems to say things like “I like the Jesus I read about in the Bible, but I don’t care for ‘Christians’ per se.” This could largely be due to all the coverage of Christians is in regards to three topics: Creationism, homosexuals and abortion. That is why I wince when I read constantly about this Intelligent Design fighting that is going on. (Do you think the professor who made these comments is further or closer to becoming a Christian after all of this??? I wonder if the death threats he is receiving is helping him understand the love of Christ for him?) This Intelligent Design is dividing people at the college I teach at…everyone is bickering back and forth defending their point. Ugh.

The scientific/logical/a=b=c approach falls on deaf ears with this generation. Thus, what I was trying to say was this. I think a lot of Christians (with the Intelligent Design debate) are trying to still reach kids with the ‘scientific’ approach (‘We can PROVE God! Just look at these facts!’). But, I fear the negative repercussions of the debate (the fighting, the nastiness, the petitions signed to remove this KU professor) is drowning out the discussions that should be going on, and may be going on.

While the generation of my father and others of us may be reached by memorizing John 3:16 and Romans 3:23, this next generation I think will be touched more by reading the entire Gospel of John and thinking “I like this Jesus fellow.” This will hopefully lead to them taking a fresh look at Jesus, the fact that he is God, and a relationship with Him. They will become Christ followers not because of media coverage of Christian issues (“CNN” OR “Focus on the Family”…..we can’t just blame the ‘liberal media’) but DESPITE the coverage of Christian issues.

Also, I know there are many in this generation who are hurting tremendously, and no one is paying attention to them because the Christians in their world of influence are too busy with other issues or political topics. That is a tragedy. Jesus reached people by spending time with them individually. He did not lead a ‘political campaign’ against the Romans. Where in scripture does it talk about Jesus organizing a campaign against the Roman government (which treated Christians horribly…..much worse than now in the USA…I laugh when Christians imply we are “persecuted in America!”…we live in Disney World compared to other countries!)?. This was largely why people were disappointed with Jesus. He seemed disinterested in the political issues of the time, and instead focused on the needs and hurts of society’s fringe.

Hey, Bloggers, I encourage you all to read the book I mentioned (as well as another book I read and loved by Donald Miller entitled “Searching for God Knows What”) and tell me what you all think. I will warn you. The author, Donald Miller, is someone who would be labeled as ‘liberal’ by many. I suspect he is not a George Bush fan, for example, although he doesn’t rant against him.

Thoughts on the book? Thoughts on Intelligent Design? Am I a heretic? Some in my family may think so! (not really : ) )

The shallow atheist

Thanks to djayt for this link to Penn Jillette’s stance on why he is an atheist. When I first read it, I didn’t think much of it. Then I read it again, I still didn’t think much of it.

I first dismissed Jillette’s musings as those of an entertainer, so I shouldn’t expect him to be very deep or insightful. I therefore ignored his errors of logic, his ramblings, and his self-absorbtion. Then I noticed he’s a research fellow at the Cato Institute. Whatever that is (and I don’t know), I guess it’s supposed to make me think that he is someone with something to say. After all, he’s lectured at prestigious universities, written books, and produced TV shows. I’m not sure how the TV shows fit into all this, but I’ll just go with it.

Ok, so let me deconstruct his points. Jillette claims he’s beyond atheism, which he defines as “not believing in God”, whereas he claims to “believe in no God”. If there is a distinction between the two positions, Jillette’s doesn’t make it very well. Whether you say, “I don’t think anything is there” or “I think nothing is there,” you are making this point: “If you look, you won’t find it.” Word games aside, Jillette is an atheist. Why try to get fancy and say something different?

(One point in Jillette’s favor: at least he acknowledges that his atheism is a belief system. By saying, I believe there is no God, he is making a statement of faith, and it’s refreshing to have someone be so open about it.)

His second paragraph begins with a conclusion which he has not established in the least: “So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God.” At best, this is an arbitrary starting point. What reasons does Jillette give for doing this? Absolutely none. How frustrating to have a conversation, even one like this, with someone who presents only conclusions!

Ok, frustrations aside, let’s briefly examine Jillette’s technique for finding God. “She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power,” he says. This is such a backward way of discovering God, although it has been tried for (literally) millennia. If you want to discover natural things, you observe nature, which can be (although not always is) done objectively. If you want to discover supernatural things, you observe….super-nature? How can this be done objectively? The god of our major religions claims to be a spirit; how can a spirit, or the actions, motivations, and effects of a spirit, be observed objectively? If you want to discover whether there is a god (Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or other), then the solution is to pursue him/her/them passionately, fervently, with a hope of finding that which you seek. Oops, hope isn’t objective. See? You can’t get there from here. (Side point: has Jillette actually searched for this evidence, objective or not? He makes no claim to do so. Instead, he makes a statement of faith: “I believe in no God,” then proceeds from there. Sigh.)

I feel sympathy for Jillette. He sees the truth staring at him, yet doesn’t realize it. He describes his wonderful life (love, blue skies, rainbows), and acknowledges that he has “won the huge genetic lottery” and needs nothing else. To summarize: I have a happy life on earth because there is no God. That is apparently good enough for Jillette, what about those among us without earthly happiness? More on them later.

Jillette impressed me with the word “solipsistic.” I had to look it up. Then I wondered if Jillette looked it up. The definition I found was: “The theory or view that the self is the only reality”. Now, Jillette is saying that his atheism keeps him from being solipsistic. So he’s saying that believing in no God keeps him from viewing himself as the only reality? But isn’t the opposite true? By saying, “I have found no objective evidence for God, therefore no God exists,” Jillette is claiming that his is the only reality, his experience is the only one that matters, and that if something is outside of his perception, it either does not exist or is irrelevant. Sounds like a pretty good definition of solipsistic to me.

It bothered me that Jillette took pot shots at religious people. My children, who have studied logic, would call this a Straw Man Fallacy. Jillette describes religious people as those who say, “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means [sic] more to me than anything you can ever say or do.” If Jillette has had the misfortune to associate with that type of religious person, I understand his distaste for religion. However, that’s like hating Ray Kroc because a McDonald’s employee treated you poorly. Don’t blame Ray for the ignorance of his employees, and don’t blame God because some of his followers are idiots. And especially, don’t deny His existence because of it.

The Straw Man of an ignorant religious person is easy to knock down. How about taking a shot at Mother Theresa? That’s not so easy to do.

Finally, Jillette gets to what apparently is his real point, which is the old “If God were as good as I am, things would be much better on the earth” complaint. I don’t have much to say about this for Jillette, because he just finished telling us how his life is so great precisely because he doesn’t believe in God. Now he says that the lives of other people are so bad that they also demonstrate there is no God. Can you have it both ways? Apparently, if you’re a research fellow at the Cato Institute, you can.