My Barrage of Vacation Books

Well I am back from my two summer vacations, the first one to the beaches of Delaware followed by a trip to Yellowstone and Montana.

While on vacation I read lots of books:

Fasting by Scot McKnight (had a head start reading before vacation)
Sabbath by Dan Allender
Ancient-Future Worship by Robert Webber
The Devil Reads Derrida by James K.A. Smith
The Folly of Prayer by Matt Woodley
The Maytrees by Annie Dillard
Pontoon by Garrison Kiellor
The Fidelity of Betrayal by Peter Rollins (half way through)

I also brought along The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson but his prose is far too glorious to read in large quantities.  It is best dolled out in small doses like poetry, so I read one chapter and put it back.

It was great to get back into fiction and to read a diverse set of theological books.  The poet Franz Wright was mentioned by many of the authors, and I had never heard of him before, so I will have to read some of his poetry.  Another meme was the church fathers.  I must start reading the church fathers much more.  Time to visit CCEL and print some works off.

I will be reviewing the theological books in the coming days.

We Mend Ourselves But Not Our Clothes

I noticed looking through pictures from vacation that on the last day I was in Delaware my wife snapped two pictures of me wearing a white Adidas visor and a yellow Relient K tee.  I am tan from a week at the beach and my hair is all tassled.
I have another picture of myself in that yellow Relient K tee from eight years ago.  I was a lifeguard then, a junior in high school, and very tan.  My hair was short.  My glasses were round and undistinguished.  I had the white visor’s twin on, a blue Adidas visor.
Now I have long hair and cool glasses.  I also have stubble, which was impossible back then.
What most struck me though was that I was wearing the same clothing from eight years ago.
I don’t want to pat myself on the back here (well, one, two, three…okay I’m done), but this juxtaposition struck me as profound in our consumerist culture.  We’re in a giant tornado of a receission ripping a path through prestigious business and yuppies bank accounts, yet everyone I know, including myself has new clothes.
I don’t have nearly as many as most, I can proudly say that, but I also just shopped at a GAP outlet on vacation.  Pray for me.
We can change a lot in eight years, whether in mind, body, or appearance, yet most of us stay the same.  When we are broken we mend ourselves.  When our clothes rip, when our computer malfunctions, when the plank breaks we don’t mend them: we buy new wardrobes, new computers, and build additions onto our houses.  We throw away everything when it is perfectly fixable or wearable.  And that is in a recession.  It’s pathetic.

I’ve been taking inventory of my old clothes.  The reigning champions are my pairs of shorts: two Umbro shorts and olive drab cargo shorts I got before I started eighth grade.  They’re over ten years old.  Shane Claiborne would be proud of me.  It encourages me if anything to trust in the ability to endure, that the "new" won’t solve any problems.  The new will become old soon enough anyway, so just stay with the old.  Retro is in I here.

Answering The Wrong Questions

A Guest Post by Evan Curry

I’ve had my fair share of
encounters with Christians over the years. I have found that Christians
are in the business of asking the wrong questions and giving
poor answers to wrong questions. 

How many of us have heard this
– Is global warming true or a hoax? Now, Al Gore and company would
say that global warming is, indeed, true, and Rush Limbaugh and company
would state that global climate change is nothing but a liberal hoax.  

Christians have often joined
in and asked the same question – Is global warming true or a hoax?
Mainline Christians often align with the “Al Gorian” camp, and evangelicals
have aligned themselves with the “Rush Limbaughian” camp. Both camps
will debate one another, spit fire, and demean each other’s character,
but nothing is ever resolved. Why?  

Because we are asking the
wrong question. 

Asking, “Is global warming
true or a hoax?,” is the wrong question. The right question is, “What
are we doing to preserve God’s good earth presently and for those
in the future after we are long gone?” If the question is asked this
way, Christians are no longer facing and debating Al Gore or Rush Limbaugh,
but they must face, debate, and wrestle with the Creator God [who
really wants to do that?]. 

The same is true with the question,
“Are homosexuals born gay, or do they choose to be gay?”
Again, the Christian extremes are one side will say they are born gay/lesbian,
and the other says, “You’re not born-a-gay. You’re born-again”
(yes, that’s from Saved). The correct question is, “What
are you doing to share the love of Jesus with people in general—gay,
straight, bi, whatever?” This way you have to wrestle with
Jesus, not Ellen, not Elton John, but Jesus. 

What’s worse is we
give poor answers to these wrong questions. We say (by actions more
than words), “Well, the earth is for people, and we can use it however
we want.” Or “Well, we take care of the earth just because it’s
the ‘right thing’ to do.”  

Not only do we ask the wrong
questions, but we follow them up with poor
answers. 

Thus, we answer the wrong questions.
Instead, we should push back on people to ask the right question.
The right question focuses on the Christian wrestling with the love,
grace, and peace of Jesus and giving such to the inquirer so he or she
must wrestle with it as well. 

So, what questions do you ask?
Are you asking the right question or the wrong one? And, when someone
asks you the wrong question, are you pushing back on him or her to ask
the right one? Are we pushing each other to wrestle with the love of
Christ?

The Kingdom Possibilities of Public Option Healthcare

Healthcare in America is, in the words of David Brooks, "the insane spawn of a team of evil geniuses from an alien power."  The system is broken and it needs to be fixed.  The fixing is the difficult part, and words start flying, flags start waving, peole get angry, and the poor Canadians and Brits get dragged into a tug-of-war of greed and power between political forces and special interests groups.  I am here to represent the Kingdom’s special interest!

When I imagine the financial difficulties of Christians serving in this country the paramount issue is probably healthcare.  Healthcare is an enormous financial burden, one that can easily take up $1,000 per month of the support for a full time Christian worker.  The economics of Christian vocation in America necessitate the giving of money to full time Christian workers to cover the significant private costs of doing ministry in this country, with healthcare being the largest percentage of support.  A survey done last year by the National Association of Evangelicals found that the lack of health insurance for full time pastors is at a inappropriately high level.  As reported in Christianity Today last year, Leigh Anderson, president of the NAE, commented: "It’s really a crisis. If things stay as they are, there is going to be a significant loss of pastors from the ministry" ("Blessed Insurance" by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra).

To take a Kingdom stance on this issue we must divorce healthcare from politics for a moment.  If we remove concerns for costs or taxes or "fairness" for a few seconds, take off the American caps and put on our Kingdom rally caps, we must agree that if health insurance is in such a state of crisis that it will lead to a significant loss of pastors and other full time Christian workers then we must consider public option healthcare a benefit for the Kingdom.

This is a political stance, but one for the Kingdom and not one for America.  I am not espousing a specific plan and confess that any health care system will have flaws, but we must look at health care coverage for all Americans as a tremendous opportunity for the advancement of the Kingdom that cannot be ignored.

Not only would health care for all lead to a removal of the crisis that threatens the workforce of full time Christian workers, public option health insurance would open up tremendous opportunities for Christians to serve in new, dynamic ways for the Kingdom.  One of the roadblocks for many individuals, including me (I must confess), to serving in ways that may lead to personal poverty is the astounding cost of healthcare.  I can deal with a penance for a salary.  I cannot deal with paying over one thousand dollars a month to insure the health of my family.  That is an economic burden on the vocation of the full time Christian worker and on the organization and supporters.  When we support Christian ministries we indirectly supporting the burueaucracy of the insurance industry.  This has been a necessary evil and one that could not be helped until now.  With the average amount of health care coverage for a family at $12,680 in 2008, a crucial amount of money that could be used in more meaningful areas of ministry is instead filling the coffers of health care companies.
Public option helathcare is not "the answer," and we certainly shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that this is helping to accomplish the work of the Kingdom by proxy.  Only the Church can do the work of the Kingdom, yet this is one way in the complex American govermental system that we should think critically about how this can be a healthy opportunity for the advancement of the Kingdom.

Where Liberty Truly Lies: Not in Democrats or Republicans

This week the story of Liberty’s
denial of certain rights to the college’s Young Democrats group spread across
the blogosphere after a Terry McAuliffe, a Virignia Democrat running for
governor of that state, entered the foray. Many other politicians, pundits, and
bloggers jumped at the divisive issue as well. 
Liberty’s
response and actions were bad news.  The
school has a Young Republicans group after all, and stifling political
conversation at a place of learning goes against the ethos of an education in
the first place (though their action is not illegal or unconstitutional, as
this is a private school).  If Liberty is willing
admitting here that their purpose is not to mold and shape young men and women
of Christ who can think, live, and act for themselves the school is
useless.  It is a big deal that they have
treated a school club in this matter by blatantly refusing to have any type of
debate at the school by showing privilege to the Republican group (the former
chairman of Liberty’s Republican group was interviewed by one source and
basically said: "Letting
a club like that exist goes against what the school is founded on").

While Liberty’s
formal response to the Democratic group was wrong, they have been wrong in the
first place: they had a Republican group on campus.  As a private Christian school the celebration
of party politics on campus goes against the heart of the kingdom message: we
are the kingdom
of God, a nation without
borders, a peculiar people. 

We are citizens of another world.  We can be interested in American politics,
debate it even, but the Christian is called to pragmatism in these issues and
should definitely never declare allegiance to a party.  You already pledge allegiance, and you have
pledged it (hopefully) to God and certainly not to country or flag.  We need to take a long loving look at the God
that is "above politics."

In our baptism we pledge allegiance to the lamb of God, the
one who sits at the right hand of God and is the king of the coming kingdom,
active and present today—more active and more present tomorrow.  We should be political, fighting for justice,
standing up for what the Church believes in, but we should not do it through
political parties.  The government of
this country is God-ordained, no matter which party is in office.  The sword is wielded by our nation, for good
or for ill, and those who live by the sword must die by the sword.  Our kingdom, the one us baptized citizens are
now a part of, does not live by the sword. 
Instead we serve a King who:

plants flowers and trees all over the earth,
Bans war from pole to pole,
breaks all the weapons across his knee.

We live as the kingdom of Creation, not the kingdom of the
Fall.  Every war is a branch from the
seed of Cain.  We are children of the new
Adam, first fruits of peace, justice, and the New Earth and heavens. 

Liberty
is just one example out of thousands in this country.  I don’t blame them really.  The precedent was set long before they chose
to become linked to worldly politics and neglect their calling as citizens of
the kingdom.  But this precedent must
cease.  We must eradicate it.  We must tell our fellow kingdom men and women
to rise up and pledge allegiance not to Republicans, Democrats, or the Flag but
instead to the King of Kings.—–

Additional Liberty articles:

Info on Liberty’s Democratic club inaccurate

College Democrats Weigh Liberty Offer

Democracy at Liberty

For more intrigue into the conflation of politics into Christianity see Greg Boyd’s review of The American Patriot’s Bible (part 1 and part 2) along with the publisher’s response.

Gardening is a Redemptive Act

There is a lot of frustration in our gardening plans going arye, and it was compounded by the fact that we started early this year—the first week of March.  We planted inside.  We have already been caring for our tomato plants for two months now.  Most of them are a foot tall already, before going outside.  It has been brilliant.

And now we’re stuck without any soil.  We can’t add more because the chemicals will just leach back in, so we are building up.  We ordered 67 nursery containers last night.  We’ll fill them with dirt and scatter our plants all over the yard.  There is redemption through hardship.  And I will be so grateful to toil in our garden knowing how easily we could have been left with nothing.

God has called us to do this since the beginning, to do justice where there is injustice and hardship, to give mercy where there is emptiness and defeat. Gardening teaches us that life is, as Tolkien would put it, eucatastrophic: it is a good catastrophe.  When things seem hopeless there is always a way of redemption.  The pilgrim’s path is never closed to those on the Way, no matter how hard that Way is.  No matter how hard we have to toil.  And if it is too hard, too bleak, too grim, we must pick each other up and keep going. We are running a race after all, and I want my crown at the end.  I want to be redemptive, to resurrect tainted soil, to "practice resurrection" as Berry puts it.  And most of all, I want my fresh tomatoes.

—
You can find more out about Tolkien’s idea of eucatastrophe then you ever wanted to know in my thesis "Sub-creation: The Image of God and Eucatastrophe."

The Berry quote comes from his poem "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front."