The space that God occupies: prologue.

This year, at CCF, we have been teaching on the gospel of John.  In preparing and teaching through John, I've been struck by the theme of incarnation, the idea that God became human.  We tend to focus our discussion of incarnation during Christmas, which makes sense, as Christmas is our celebration of the incarnation.

Incarnation has a lot of implications beyond a baby laying in a trough full of hay, though.  Jesus, of course, is the answer to the question of the song, "What if God was one of us?"  We learn about God by seeing what what he would be like if he was one of us.

More interesting, to me, anyway, is what Jesus tells us about the physical space that God occupies.  We often talk about "God being everwhere (omnipresence, for those of you who enjoy theological terminology)," but our words and actions don't always reflect that.

Jewish people in Jesus' time had very distinct ideas about God's presence, and God's favor, which was often a condition of God's presence.  The fact that they were occupied by the Roman empire raised many of those questions.  We have similar questions today.  Where is God during Katrina?  Does Sandy Hook mean that God is not present in our schools?

To anchor another attempt at relaunching the blog, I'm going to look at the theme of "The Space That God Occupies" throughout the gospel of John.  Hopefully.

does satire equal mean?

On his blog, Theoblogy, Tony Jones asks the question: are those who use satire to point out the stupidity of certain Christians being "mean?" Personally, I think the use of the word "stupidity" is mean and not very useful for this discussion. I haven't read Theoblogy for very long, but I'm a long-time reader of some of the blogs he references. Thus, I may be off on this assessment, but I think what he refers to as "stupidity" actually is a broad category that encompasses 3 things: ignorance, excess, and hucksters. I like satire. But, back on one of my old blogs how such things can backfire. As Jones points out:

But each of us who uses satire and humor to point out the stupidity of Christians is walking a fine line. Satire can very easily become mean; it can even, I submit, turn into hatred.

Hatred is a possibility, but I think hateful is a greater risk.

I liked how the editors of "The Wittenburg Door," a religious satire magazine, stated their mission.  The point of satire, in their view, is to keep us from taking ourselves too seriously.  We all need to learn to laugh at ourselves, sometimes.  Even in the church.  But, of course, the church is sacred ground, and therefore immune, right?  I think that's where my three categories come in.

If you change "stupidity" to "ignorance" then satire can quickly become hateful.  For those who genuinely don't know better, our job is to inform them.  Satire can be a great teaching tool.  For me it works very well.  But, for most of us, the process of being corrected already comes with a dose of humility, and satire will usually just magnify that.  So, for ignorance, I think satire is inappropriate.

If you change "stupidity" to "excess," thing I think it becomes more appropriate.  It is in our excesses where we take ourselves too seriously.  Jones links to a post he made, which links to what he dubs "The Worst Church Website Ever."  If you click back far enough to get to that site, then you see the issue with it is that it is way too much.  I found it to be almost idolatrous, a worship of their church.  I think excess is where satire can be the most effective, but I think the crux of Jones' question is where does satire become mockery.

If you change "the stupid" to "the hucksters" then I think satire is fine, but probably pointless.  The hucksters are the Benny Hinns and the Fred Phelps of the world, those who present a false gospel for their own personal gain.  Jones mentions Bob Larson, who falls into this category.  Satire is one way to deal with them, but perhaps it's best to skip the jokes and just call them what they are.

The hard part is that anytime you point out someone's error, even when done well, it has the potential to go wrong.  The blunt approach, the satirical approach, and gentler approaches all have their pros and cons.

For example how do you deal with this.  You gotta go with satire, right?

the sluggard book club january 2013: a year of biblical womanhood

In my previous post I explained what the "book club" is.  The book I want to start off with is "A Year Of Biblical Womanhood," by Rachel Held Evans.  I've been reading Evans' blog for several months and have really enjoyed it.  Many of the bloggers I read have highly recommended "The Year Of Biblical Womanhood" (from here on it will be referred to as TYOBW).

In her intro, Evans lays out the premise of the book.  The real question isn't about "womanhood" so much as it is about what we mean when we say something is "biblical."  As she observes, in the churches she grew up in, a woman could not preach, because that was not biblical.  However, as she points out on page xx, "

. . . technically speaking it is biblical for a woman to be sold by her father (Exodus 21:7), biblical for her to be forced to marry her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), biblical for her to remain silent in church (I Corinthians 14:34-35), biblical for her to cover her head (I Corinthians 11:16), and biblical for her to be one of multiple wives (Exodus 21:10).  

In her journey of trying to figure out why her church wouldn't let a woman preach but didn't require them to cover their heads, she got an idea:  what if she followed every single instruction for women in the bible literally.  And for one year, that's what she did.

There were some things that she did all year round, coming up with a "A Biblical Women's 10 Commandments."  And then there were 12 "virtues" of biblical womanhood, of which she focused on each month.  Each of those months makes up a chapter.

Going into a discussion of the book, there are a couple of terms you may or may not be familiar with.

1.  Egalitarian--an egalitarian is someone who believes in equality.  In discussion of Christianity and gender, it is used to describe someone who believes that men and women are equal in Christ, and that everything a man can do a woman can also do.  Evans would be an egalitarian.

2. Complimentarian--a complimentarian holds an opposing viewpoint of egalitarianism, believing that men are to hold leadership roles in the church and in the home, and that women are to hold roles that are complimentary to them.  

3.  Patriarchy--patriarchy describes a male-dominated culture.  Complimentarian churches are often accused of patriarchy, sometimes rightfully so.

In the discussion of "AYOBW," I will be looking at the following questions:

1.  What does it mean that something is "biblical?"  Why do we follow somethings in the bible but dismiss others?
2.  Along those lines, those critical of Evans accuse her of not taking the Bible seriously.  Are these criticisms fair, or is "not taking the Bible seriously" simply mean "disagree with my interpretation?"
3.  What is a "eshet chayil," Hebrew for "woman of valor."  (Or, as some of you might be more familiar with, a "Proverbs 31 woman)."
4.  Is complimentarianism the same thing as patriarchy?  And how can we in the church, whether we are egalitarian or complimentarian, do a better job of honoring women?

Next up:  Chapter 1, Gentleness.

the sluggard book club

I meant to get this going, well, a week ago.  But travel and the re-starting of a routine and illness have slowed me up.  Anyway, one of my goals this year is to write more.  And one is to read more.  I tried to do this last year, and am going to try again this year:  the sluggard book club.

I'm going to read a book each month, and post some observations as I go.  A few rules about the book club:

1.  I'm going to read about what I'm interested in.
2.  Choosing a book does mean that I endorse the book, but that does not that I agree with everything in it.  In fact, it's possible that I don't agree with anything in it.  I chose it because it sounds interesting to me (see rule one).
3.  Regardless of whether I agree or disagree, if you agree or disagree with me or the author, please say so, but in a way that furthers the discussion.  No name calling.  No accusations.  No simple "nu-uh" type of responses.  I know some of the books I have in mind contain some issues that I'm trying to make sense of.  I want to be challenged, stretched, and even occasionally become even more confused before finding the answers.  Help me along the way.

If you want to read along, great, if not, that's fine.  I will, with the exception of the first book, post info a couple of weeks out in case you want to acquire and follow along.  Not that I'm Oprah with a huge following or anything like that.  But, it could be fun.

it's really so simple

This made national news today, appearing on the "Today" show.  I found out about in on Facebook, posted by some people I know in Iowa City.  The name sounded vaguely familiar to me.

I don't know Jeremiah, but I do know his dad.   Maybe I'll get to meet him soon.

Either way, this was a cool story.  In the midst of a dark time when the news coming out of high schools is either about bullying or shootings, we see light in stories like these.

It seems so crazy that it made national news, though.  I mean, it's so simple.

Why isn't everyone doing this?

This is the gospel message, right here.  This is Jesus calling Zacchaeus out of the tree, talking to the woman at the well, and telling the Pharisees, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."  Society tells us why we aren't valuable, but Jesus comes up and tells us why we matter.  It's not rocket science, it's not even deep theology.

What if we all told even one person per day why they mattered?

why corporate prayer?

A couple of weeks ago, I asked  the question of those of you who agree with Huckabee's assessment that, referring to God, "we've escorted Him right out of our culture and we've marched Him off the public square?"

I got a few good comments, though not quite to the core of the issue.  I still hope to explore that more, but in the midst of that, Tommy raised a question in response, both on the comments of my facebook post and then on his facebook status:

I used to be skeptical of the notion that taking prayer out of schools was really that big a deal, but if corporate prayer doesn't make much of a difference, then we may as well stop doing it in church, too, right?

 I have a quick answer, as it applies to this specific issue.  But, in a broader context, my answer is much more vague, meaning that I think I know the answer, but I don't know how to verbalize.  

Coming up with a theology of prayer is difficult because the mechanics of prayer transcend our understanding.  So, in the Bible, it's explained to us in ways to help us understand.  On one hand, Prayer is described as in a way that we make our request and God weighs that request and gives us a decision.  On the other hand, we are told that God already knows our needs and is taking care of them, like a Father.  With our own fathers, sometimes we need to tell him if we are hungry.  But we don't have to ask him for protection.

The problem with the removal of school prayer line of thinking is that it treats prayer like this pixie dust of protection:  we didn't apply the pixie dust, thus the school was vulnerable.  

The second problem is that it ignores the fact that even though there was no prayer over the loudspeaker, people in that school prayed.  Most likely, some of the victims prayed with their families before school, people pray for their meals, and according to the bumpers sticker, "as long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools."

And thus, the core of Tommy's question might be rephrased like this:  if individual prayer is sufficient, then why do we ever do corporate prayer?

Good question.  I want to do some time researching this, and explore it over a series of posts.  But, my quick hypothesis is this:  

Corporate prayer is about a community of believers coming together.  

As I explore this question, what are your thoughts?

resolved

I'm not much of a new year's resolution type of guy, but in 2013, I hope to:

Read more.

Write more.

Be healthy.

Learn economics.

Instead, here are 99 tips to make everyday life easier (h/t to slacktivist).

I can't believe I hadn't heard the one about which side the exit is on until now.  I mean, they put the effort into arranging the signs that way, but they didn't even explain that in driver's ed.  Although, I learned that it doesn't work in Connecticut, as they place it in the middle.  It does work in Mass, however.  I'll let you know about Illinois and Iowa later in the week.

Which tips did you find most useful?

creative solutions and mental health

In her response to the shootings at Sandy Hook, titled, "There's Little We Can Do To Prevent Another Massacre," Megan McArdle took a fatalistic approach.  She stopped short of the Ecclesiastes approach, that “meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless under the sun.”  “Pointless, pointless,” would be a better summary.

She addressed the major areas of reform that have been discussed in the aftermath of Newtown:  gun control, civic religion, mental health, and media coverage.  She decides that, from a policy standpoint, there was nothing in these areas that we could have done that would have changed the outcome, short of banning all guns, which she points out will never happen.

She has received criticism for her ending--that the best thing would have been to teach the children to ignore their flight instinct and rush the shooter.  Perhaps that could be an effective approach from an older crowd.  

I mostly found her discussion to be interesting and engaging.  More than anything else I've read, she grasps the overall complexity of the ills that lead to an incident like this.  I was taking Sociology 100 when Heath High School shooting happened.  My professor warned us that the media would take a monocausal approach--that there would be a rush to reduce the incident to a single cause.

Still, while McArdle was able to grasp that there are a lot of issues, and that they aren't easy to solve, that difficulty took her to a place where she decided not to even try.  I think her discussion on mental health is a good illustration of how she got to that point.  She says:  

An affluent resident of an upper middle class town, Lanza had exactly the kind of resources that you would want for taking care of a kid with these kinds of problems.  His parents had all the money he needed to get him help, and his school did everything they could to help him cope, according to the Wall Stret Journal: "Not long into his freshman year, Adam Lanza caught the attention of Newtown High School staff members, who assigned him a high-school psychologist, while teachers, counselors and security officers helped monitor the skinny, socially awkward teen, according to a former school official. 

The problem in her analysis of the issue is that there are only two choices:  the school psychologist or institutionalization.  The school psychologist didn’t work, and nobody likes to be institutionalized, so that leaves us with no possibilities. 

The problem is this:  while these may be the two most obvious choices, they are not the only choices. 

If the two options don’t work, we don’t give up.  We seek out a third.

The obvious choices are, of course, the easiest.  Coming up with options in between can take some time, effort, creativity, and dialogue.  Put another way, problem solving takes some effort.  But, it’s possible.

I’m reminded of an essay written by Malcolm Gladwell for the New Yorker that was published in his book of essays, “What the Dog Saw.”  The essay is called "Million DollarMurray."  Murray was a homeless man in Reno, NV.  Studies of homeless shelters have found that most people stay only one or two nights.  People who stay on the streets longer than that tend to have mental illness or addiction issues. 

Murray fit into that category.  His struggles with alcohol kept him on the streets and in bad health.  However, when he was in a supervised treatment program, he did very well.  He was able to hold a job as a cook.  But, when he would graduate from the programs and was unsupervised, he would relapse, and soon be back on the street.  All to a great cost to society:

The first of those people was Murray Barr, and Johns and O'Bryan realized that if you totted up all his hospital bills for the ten years that he had been on the streets—as well as substance-abuse-treatment costs, doctors' fees, and other expenses—Murray Barr probably ran up a medical bill as large as anyone in the state of Nevada."It cost us one million dollars not to do something about Murray," O'Bryan said.

So, to keep Murray on the street, it cost a million dollars.  What if we paid for an apartment and a staff to treat him? 

The cost of services comes to about ten thousand dollars per homeless client per year. An efficiency apartment in Denver averages $376 a month, or just over forty-five hundred a year, which means that you can house and care for a chronically homeless person for at most fifteen thousand dollars, or about a third of what he or she would cost on the street. The idea is that once the people in the program get stabilized they will find jobs, and start to pick up more and more of their own rent, which would bring someone's annual cost to the program closer to six thousand dollars.

In essence, it’s cheaper to rent him an apartment and hire a nurse or social worker to keep track of him than it is to leave him on the street.  Of course, this isn’t a perfect solution, as Gladwell points out:

The reality, of course, is hardly that neat and tidy. The idea that the very sickest and most troubled of the homeless can be stabilized and eventually employed is only a hope. Some of them plainly won't be able to get there: these are, after all, hard cases.

He lists some other issues with the program.  It’s not perfect, but it has been effective in some of the cities that have tried it out.  Now, this is about helping the homeless, but could it have a broader application.

I’m not saying this is the solution, but it is a third option.  It’s more intensive than session with a therapist, but with more freedom than institutionalization.  More to the point though, is that if there is a third option, then there is likely a fourth option, a fifth, perhaps even many possible solutions.  And each one individually may be imperfect, but perhaps one solution can fill in the gaps of another. 

what do we do with westboro

Use your Linda Richman voice when reading this:

Westboro Baptist Church is neither in Westboro, nor Baptist, nor a church.  Discuss.

Okay, so it is in Westboro in Topeka, KS.  But, on the other two points, the Baptists kicked them out, so they are not baptist.  As to the question, "are they a church," my inclination is to answer "no," but I suppose I don't have the authority to make that determination.  That said, I don't have to call them a church, so the above sentence is the last time I will refer to them as such.  So, from here on, I'll just refer to them as "Westboro," (apologies to those who live in Westboro).

Of course it doesn't matter if they are a church or not.  What matters is hat what they stand for is wrong, and how they go about it as wrong.  I first heard about them several years ago, and checked out their website.  What I found deeply disturbed me.  Since then, there have been times due to incidents where I've been tempted to drop by the site and check up on them, but I decided that it would be best to just ignore them.

For most people, reaction to Westboro tends to be visceral:  anger, hatred, and fantasies of violence.  As fun as that sounds, they feed on that.  Their whole religious framework is based on hatred.

That seems so odd to me.  But, on Monday, I dropped by their website again.  I'm headed to Connecticut in a few days to spend Christmas with my in-laws.  And, I heard that Westboro was going to be picketing, and I thought I've got to do something.  What, I don't know?  But something.  

So I went to check their picket schedule.  Connecticut wasn't on the schedule, but I got to browsing around.  It's all about hate.  They even have a list of verses about God's hatred.  It's 8 verses.  Seriously, their entire theological framework is built on 8 verses.  Only one is in the New Testament, and it's Paul quoting the Old Testament (this is part of why I don't consider them a church.  There is no Jesus whatsoever).

The difficulty in dealing with Westboro is that most reactions either have no effect or actually play right into their hands.  Reacting in anger is what they want.  Hating them is their religion.  If you disagree with them, you've proved them right.  Realizing this, I've wondered about responding in love . . . giving them them hot chocolate during a cold protest, that sort of thing.  Some churches take that approach.  Maybe sending a lot of kindness their way may soften some of them at some point, but I think most of that just bounces off of them.

It's attention that they crave.  So, let's just ignore them, and they'll go away.  That's the approach most of us took.  Even the Topeka media started ignoring them.  And it was working.  But they came up with a plan, a way that we could not ignore them.  

They started picketing funerals.

Jesus said, in Matthew 5:

4Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

This is another reason they are not a church.  Jesus comforts those who mourn.  Westboro taunts those who mourn.  This is why, for those of us who follow Christ, we can not ignore them.  This is why all of us, regardless of who we follow will not ignore them.

Which is actually quite ironic.  Westboro realizes this, which is why they picket the funerals.  They prey on our decency.  It's ironic because supposedly it is our depravity that they are protesting. In their view, we have gotten so bad that every tragedy is a judgement of God.  There is no talk of love or redemption because it's too late.  There is nothing to redeem.

But, they clearly don't really believe this, because it is our goodness they are using to get our attention.  And it's our attention that they want.  Some even speculate that it's just a money making scheme:  a family of lawyers hoping to get punched so that they can sue.

Either way, they are winning, because we have to respond.  We must comfort those who mourn.  There have been some cool responses:  The Texas A&M students forming a wall that couldn't be passed, the Illinois radio station that gave them 2 hours of airtime if they wouldn't protest the memorial for the NIU shootings.

These are great and these are creative.  But what if we came up with something that could be replicated everywhere, that wouldn't play into their game.  No anger, no violence, no attention.

honest question

"And to get to where that we have to abandon bedrock moral truths, then we ask, 'Well, where was God?' And I respond that, as I see it, we've escorted Him right out of our culture and we've marched Him off the public square and then we express our surprise that a culture without Him actually reflects what it's become."

--Mike Huckabee, in response to the Newtown shooting.

On Facebook, I've seen many people who I respect agree with Mr. Huckabee on this.  Here is my question:

Today, I woke up.  I read the Bible.  I quoted and alluded to the Bible on Facebook and this blog.  I prayed.  I went to my job as a campus minister.  On Sunday, I let people in singing praise songs.  I read from John 1.  I listened to Christmas music on the radio.  I bought Christmas presents.  I have friends who do all of these things too.

My question, and I ask this without any sarcasm or criticism, is what does it mean that "we've escorted Him right out of our culture and we've marched Him off the public square?"

I have an idea of what is meant by that.  And I want to explore this in an upcoming blog post.  But, I don't fully understand what is meant by this, in that I don't feel any infringement on my faith.

Also, for those of you who disagree with Mr. Huckabee, don't comment on this post.  This is about research.  There will be a later thread for discussion.