"The Shack" by William Young

The Shack by William Young is a literary phenomenon as of late. I've heard a wide range of views on the book, so I decided I'm going to go on ahead and read it myself. I must admit that I have some reservations about the theology of this book. At first, when I heard about it, I thought, "what's the big fuss? Why do people always get so worked up over something a little different?" But the more I've heard, the more I'm suspicious that there is more than just a different perspective. As terribly unpopular as this might sound, right thinking about God is essential. Bad theology wrapped in pathos changes minds for the worse.

I don't deem myself some keeper of the faith. I am no fundamentalist, yet I believe the scriptures are the inerrant word of God. I believe it's the primary source of God's revelation to humanity. I also believe that God speaks in multitudes of ways through people, vision, dreams, revelations, and day to day circumstance. I have no problem with this, and I have no fear of experience. As a matter of fact I think experience is essential to acquire biblical knowledge.

However, I am deeply concerned about the corrosion of thought within our entertainment saturated culture. Fact and fiction have blurred together. The news is reported by entertainment conglomerates. What we see is what we believe. Critical thinking is less common, and therefore most everything is accepted as true. It all looks real in our virtual world. It feels so real. Therefore, it must be real. As a matter of fact, what's real is boring and so we turn to our visual techno entertainment "realities." Our productions of art that supposedly represent the world but in fact have enslaved the world to mimicking and loving the art more than the reality...

These might not seem like theological concerns, and honestly it's this social reality that concerns me more than any other. The postmodern departure from a logo-centric world has left the church with a dangerous propensity to abandon the true master narrative for lesser stories that sound so good. Stories like this one by Young might grab our hearts and ring "true" in our souls. But we forget how convoluted our world has become with the simulation of fact to create fiction to create fact to create fiction to create fact...

John Eldredge, The Way of the Wild Heart

This video is an interview with John Eldredge, author of "The Way of the Wild Heart". He hits on some points even in this video that weigh heavily upon my heart. The idea of rites of passage for boys has almost vanished from our culture, and its consequences are terrible. I am pained when I see how easily our adolescent boys slip off into the oblivion of inflated ego, peer worship, impulsivity, techno consumer gluttony, visual fantasy, and peter-pan escapism. How can we the church be so passive as to let this keep happening? The problem isn't video games, it isn't Hollywood, or the internet. It's a Fatherless generation. Maybe even a manless culture. Where are the men? Why aren't men of God reproducing men of God? Where is the Spirit of Elijah to turn the hearts of the Fathers back to their children?

Pagan Christianity

Last night I read Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna. I must admit it was interesting, and I am inclined towards some of the ideas.

However, I believe that the author fails to examine some of his own assumptions.

Let me preface this with the fact that I do not love the "institutional" church, and I often long for a more simple expression of Christian community. I understand that Viola's opinions are a major threat to many who cling to the Christian tradition of what we call church. Yet, I am still disturbed by some of the idea that Viola wants us to buy into. And the fact that he has the answer to all of my problems. I can just check his website, and get his books on how he interprets the way that church is supposed to be done.

The history and exploration of where our traditions come from was fascinating. I particularly enjoyed his brilliant take on the birth of American Evangelicalism. The book breaks down different pagan elements of church into individual chapters. So he does a chapter on the church building, the order of the service, preaching sermons, the offering, the pastor/clergy, dressing up for church, etc, and he demonstrates in each chapter how each of these have no foundation in scripture but are more so rooted in the pagan world. Now this might all sound so horrifying to some people to the degree that they would never listen to the fascinating insight offered in this book.

But what truly disturbs me is that Viola doesn't play by his own rules.

He deals particularly with how institutional christianity hinders believers from expressing themselves as the church. We have buildings that don't facilitate genuine relationships. We (the laity) sit in rows looking at the back of the congregation's heads while listening to a trained pastor (the clergy) preach a message. We listen silently, passively. There is no dialogue, and no room to question. The building is sacred, which presupposes a division of secular and sacred.

I agree that there are some serious problems with this form of "worship" and that it can become an addiction. However, Viola's call to arms is quite ironic. He traces these traditions back to pagan roots. Thus pagan roots equals evil. Yet Viola never asks us to swallow that assumption because his rhetoric (which is an art invented by the pagan greek sophists by the way) has already induced a spell to get us to agree with him without ever facing his baseline assumptions. Pagan = evil. Therefore, if any remnants of the pagan world find their way into the church, then it is not biblical.

How can Viola rail against the institutional church's terrible dichotomy of secular and sacred and priesthood verse laity, when he uses the same reasoning? The Bible is a book of redemption. Psalm 24:1 says that the earth is the Lord's and all that is within it. We don't forfeit the world as Christians, we let God redeem it. Viola sets himself up as the interpreter of the New Testament as it really was yet he does the very thing that Paul of Tarsus had fought against. You see Paul had this revelation that he was to take the gospel to the Gentiles, and he believe that they could partake in the promises simply by faith. However, many Jews demanded that the Gentiles be circumcised and basically converted to Judaism. Eventually the apostles held a council and decided that Gentiles do not have to become Jews in order to be Christians. Thankfully this happened because this allowed Christianity to explode in the Greek world so much so that by the end of the first century the majority of Christians were Gentiles. The bottom line is that Christianity is not bound to a culture, and therefore it can thrive in any culture. If the Jewish culture were a requirement of Christianity I dare say that I wouldn't ever have heard of Christianity.

Now I agree that Constantine's implementation of church was devastating, but even that is something that God is redeeming. In the meantime, God has redeemed pagans and I don't know of any other kind of person he has redeemed. That's the point. From Adam to the last man on earth, we're all pagans. Humanity has a knack for discovering things as well. The Greeks discovered theatre, they didn't invent it. The Greeks discovered rhetoric, they didn't invent it. We as Christians don't need to forfeit these things just because "pagans" discovered or even invented something. If a man in some remote primitive tribe comes to faith in Christ should he throw away his conch shell that he once worshipped his gods with? Yesterday he blew the conch in worship to false gods. Is the conch evil? Is it pagan? Or is it possible that the redeemed man determines the direction of worship? Is it possible that he can now worship the god of heave and earth with the same tools. Even in America should we throw away our guitars? How many worship leaders once played them in bars, but now play them for the glory of God. Is this pagan?

Where is the line? What is Viola saying? Even if I joined his house church movement, I'll bet that they would encourage us to be relevant to our culture. But isn't that pagan?

Yet, I must admit the criticisms are insightful and can bring some constructive criticism to the church. We do need a massive revolution. I'm just not so sure that I want to follow Viola. It scares me when someone claims to know what God really wants. This is the way to do it. This is the way they did it in the New Testament. Viola uses this reasoning to support his own ideas, and yet he also criticizes the institutional church for not being organic like the new testament church (which I agree with). But this accusation is backed up by his point that the new testament church didn't even have the new testament, they didn't have all the systematic theologies that we do. They simply expressed the life of Christ and what came out of it is what we call the New Testament Church. So he criticizes the institution for not being fluid and spontaneous -- organic if you will. Yet when he puts forth his ideas of home churches he relies on his claim that we must understand the new testament in all of its fullness and historical context, which by the way Viola has an entire curriculum that will help us laity, I mean Christians, to understand. But not just to understand, also to mimic and reproduce the church as it was meant to be. However, the act of following a prescription excludes improvisation and the organic life that we're supposedly supposed to live. It sounds more like the institutional prescription that Viola is criticizing. Which one is it?

So as you can see I don't trust Viola's arguments. It disturbs me because he's just one more expert out to tell me God's will. I need him to help me interpret and understand. I need to listen to his lectures, sermons, and read his books. I need him to be my priest, my pope? But according to him we don't need leadership except that of the lord Jesus himself. Now that of course is only in a small group setting. But we do need itenerant apostles to keep us in check... I'm just poking fun. I love the church. And the lingo is constantly recycled. I just don't like the gaps in Viola's logic. We aren't the first century church, and the Bible doesn't give us a lot of prescriptive methods. So I am on a journey. And I'm looking for leaders that aren't trying to go back to yesterday, but are trying to find God today in the here and now with all the stuff we've built and done, good and bad... Just like the first century church.

Lifehouse's Everything Skit

A good friend of mine pointed me to this video awhile back. Let me know if this moves you.

Youth Ministry

I post our Wednesday night youth discussions on the LifeChurch Blog. Check out some of the posts to see what kind of stuff I teach:

• “Worship in Spirit and Truth”
• “Eternal Whoosh
• “Youth are Honest About Prayer”
• “Praying to Know God”
• “Personal Prayer Tips (Video)”
• “Ephesians 1:17 Jam”

Male Rites of Passage

I am devouring research about male initiation. I truly believe that this accounts for so much of the social disarray among our young people. And I am enamored with the possibility of rallying the men of our church to first of all submit to God our Father’s initiation process for our own lives, and secondly, to take our young men on a journey into manhood. If we do not fill this role, then they will turn to follow peers and cheap thrills just to feel alive.

John Eldredge claims that the masculine soul was designed to long for an adventure to live, a battle to fight, and a beauty to rescue. This sounds like young men to me! However, most men do not live epic lives that embody these traits. It’s no wonder that youth are often repulsed by the spirituality of men. Besides, most young men are essentially fatherless. Either the father is absent, he’s present but disinterested, or he’s present and abusive. Any which way, it leaves a boy alone to face the world on his own. Fatherless.

Eldredge also claims that every boy is asking two questions. Brace yourself. 1. Am I loved? When Jesus was baptized the father’s voice came from declaring “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” Every boy needs this question answered. 2. “Do I have what it takes.” Boys need the opportunity to test their strength, to take risks, and to demonstrate courage in order to answer this question. But they need a man to initiate them, and help them interpret their victories and failures so that they can rightly discover the answer to this question. Therefore, boys need validation and they need initiation.

I’ve also been reading a book called Adam’s Return by Richard Rohr. Wow. He’s got some brilliant research and insight, but every once in a while he says some really dumb things. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water though. He takes a raw and honest look that is quite refreshing.

Here’s a quote from Rohr’s book, From Wild Man to Wise Man:

In almost all cultures men are not born; they are made. Much more than for women, cultures have traditionally demanded initiation rites specifically for the boys. It is almost as if the biological experiences of menstruation and childbirth are enough wisdom lessons for women, but invariably men must be tried, limited, challenged, punished, hazed, circumcised, isolated, starved, stripped, and goaded into maturity. the pattern is nearly universal, and the only real exceptions are the recent secular West. Boy scouts, confirmation classes, Lions clubs and Elks clubs have tried to substitute, but with little spiritual effect.

Historically, the program was clear. The boy had to be separated from protective feminine energy, led into ritual space where newness and maleness could be experienced as holy; the boy had to be ritually wounded and tested, and there experience bonding with other men and loyalty to tribal values, and then have something to give back. The pattern is so widely documented that one is amazed that we have let go of it so easily. The contemporary experience of gangs, gender identity confusion, romanticization of war, aimless violence and homophobia will all grow unchecked, I predict, until boys are again mentored and formally taught by wise elders.

Sacrifice and The Local Church

Church is a dangerous place often enough. I don’t know any honest person who hasn’t been burned by the church at one time or another. And I certainly know a lot of people who would never set foot back into a church for that very reason.

Yet I find there is a sinister irony at work. On the one hand, many people complain that the church is just an institution. Some follow Christ but aren’t part of the institutional church, and some don’t follow Christ at all for the same reason. I’ve certainly had my bitter moments with institutional Christianity. I agree that the church is the people and not the buildings and programs to which “church” so often refers. However, I find that people including myself oftentimes grow bitter with their local church because it’s not doing what we want. “This isn’t the way I want it” or “that could be done better”, and “why don’t we (meaning “they”, i.e., the leadership) do x,y, and z?” It’s as though there is this passive force within the human soul that wants a welfare institution. Now, I don’t doubt that some churches have power structures that would never allow regular lay-people to do some new thing — that’s oppressive. But there’s plenty of unwarranted belly-aching that merely perpetuates the whole institutional cycle. We’ve got the clergy and the laymen. The clergy need to make me happy or I’m going to bail!

Honestly, I’m just pondering this phenomenon with a clear conscience. I am not involved in any situations presently that would fit this bill, so I’m not venting or anything. Instead, I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming of a church that would wake up and get it:

Ask not what my church can do for me, but what I can do for my church.

This morning, as I pondered how we’re ever going to become a relevant force in society, the Lord brought this scripture Haggai 1:3-8 to mind:

3 Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

7 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD.

This came to me not as a word written long ago, but as a word that is being spoken this very moment. It has the sound of responsibility and sacrifice. We might have given up on the dream for which the apostle Paul gave his life. We might even say like the people in verse 2: “The time has not yet come for the Lord’s house to be built.” But it is time to consider our ways.