Books on the Road to Damascus

I am a white male evangelical who repented.  I didn’t repent from being white or male, which I couldn’t help, and I understand from my science friends that it has to do with some genetic whoozawitz.  I still retain much that is evangelical, although my evangelical friends might disagree.   My repentance has not as much to do with being white or Christian, but it has much to do with the books I read.

It was a book that caused me to think that giving up everything I had and surrendering my life in service to the poor was a good idea.  It was a book that showed me that normal charity just wasn’t enough. It was a book that taught me that compassion to those not like us is the best way to live. It was a book that taught me that the Bible wasn’t written to the middle class evangelicals, but to outliers of society, and the best way to understand THAT book was to read it from their perspective. 

Clearly the lesson here is: Books are dangerous.  At least if you want to keep your life intact.

Obviously, not every book is dangerous.  I think reading Terry Pratchett is generally safe.  Or The Purpose Driven Life.  Or Jesus Calling.  I’m not saying that these books can’t  be inspirational or entertaining or even powerful.  But they can never be dangerous.  They aren’t the kind of books that take your life by the throat, choke out your last breath, toss you to the ground and say, “Now get up and walk.”  

There are books that speak to my privileged state as a white, relatively well-off, conservative evangelical  and says, “You know that this is not all there is to Jesus.”

Below are some books that belong to the “challenge the narrow-minded Christian” genre.  These are books that talk about how the author went through a process of paradigm shift and invites us to make that same change, to see the world in a different way than we did originally.  To see the world in a way closer to how Jesus saw it and sees it.  Yes, these books are all written by white male evangelicals.  But like the movie Knocked Up, these are books about male religious “slobs” who come to mature in powerful ways because a Lover taught them new ways to love.

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit by Jack Deere
Jack was a pastor of a moderate evangelical church who believed that the charismatic was of the devil and needed to be stopped.  This book details his journey to become a charismatic himself, not because of doctrine or theology (although that comes into play), but through the work of God.   It’s a well-told story, and Jack shows that his exclusionist theology was cutting off God’s work in his life.
http://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Power-Spirit-Zondervan-ebook/dp/B003TFE1QW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397415552&sr=1-1&keywords=suprised+by+the+power+of+the+spirit

The Jesus I Never Knew by Phillip Yancey
Phillip grew up with a Sunday School Jesus like many people, but when he really started examining the gospels, he found that the real Jesus was quite a bit different than the one taught in churches.  This is an open, informal examination of the gospels, explaining what Phillip learned by going directly to Jesus and learning from him.
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-I-Never-Knew-ebook/dp/B001EM0YAE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397415504&sr=1-1&keywords=the+jesus+I+never+knew

Unexpected News: Reading the Bible Through Third World Eyes by Robert McAfee Brown
When Robert started living as a church worker in Latin America, he thought he was the expert on the Bible.  What he soon realized is that he had a lot to learn.  The Bible wasn’t written to middle class Americans, but to the rural poor, and if we are going to learn what the Bible says, we have to learn how the poor read it.
http://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-News-Reading-Bible-Third-ebook/dp/B005B7UQHO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397415460&sr=1-1&keywords=unexpected+news+reading+the+bible+with+third+world+eyes

The Unkingdom of God by Mark Van Steenwyk
Mark grew up as a patriotic American evangelical, and saw nothing wrong with that.  It took Mark to learn, not only that the American way of leadership wasn’t necessarily the best one, but how to transform himself into a servant, as Jesus would want him to be.
http://www.amazon.com/Unkingdom-God-Embracing-Subversive-Repentance-ebook/dp/B00EHIC9SW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397415412&sr=1-1&keywords=the+unkingdom+of+god

Radical Faith by John Driver
Many of us were taught the basic lessons of church history by our church or seminary.  This is usually the story of our denomination or of Christendom’s triumph over the West.  But the heart of the church has been the outcast and rejected movements.  Driver examines many of these movements, planting a seed for a new way to look at the heart of the church over the last two thousand years.
http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Faith-John-Driver/dp/0968346286/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397415190&sr=1-2&keywords=radical+faith+john

Long Live the Riff Raff: Jesus’ Social Revolution by Steven Kimes
It’s a little tacky to suggest one’s own book, but here it is.  I grew up as a non-Christian in a wealthy part of the U.S. and when I spent time in India, I was shocked to see real poverty.  When I came back to the Bible after my experience, I found that Jesus’ teaching had a lot to say about social issues that I was never taught in the church.  This book is a summary of what I learned from Jesus about social structures and how to turn them upside down.
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Live-Riff-Raff-Revolution-ebook/dp/B007RJCBQS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397415608&sr=1-1&keywords=steven+kimes

It is amazing how many of these books are simply Christian men being re-converted by Jesus.  Not converted by the church, by theology or by an excellent teacher.  Rather, in following Jesus, Jesus stopped us on our own road to Damascus and told us we were going the wrong way. 

I am sure that we all have things we need to learn from Jesus.  I pray that we would all be willing to keep being ready to repent, to be converted to be more like Jesus. 

Fixer Upper

The Creator gave us an incomplete world so we might share in his creation.

He gave us a world of violence so that we might create peace.

He gave us world world of competition so that we might reward charity.

He gave us a world of suffering so that we might heal.

He gave us a world of emptiness so that we might fill it with love.

Sacrifice

Unless the hero surrenders all, even his life, he cannot be honored or even noticed.

Unless the heroine loses her way and faces the villain who threatens her life, she is only a girl.

Unless the robin pierces his breast with the thorn, he is an unremarkable bird among millions.

Unless a child suffers under a life-sucking cancer, the genius will not invent the cure.

Until the police brutalize and kill the protester, the wrong will never be righted.

Unless the mother loses many nights, 
            breaking her body and spirit, 
            weeping at her weariness, 
the child will not be fed or loved 
             to become the strong generation that will change the world. 

Without suffering, nothing worthwhile is accomplished.

Water Dispensing Help

The best are like water
bringing help to all without competing
choosing what others avoid
thus they approach the Way,
dwelling with earth
thinking with depth
helping with kindness
speaking with honesty
governing with peace
working with skill
and moving with time
and because they don't compete
they aren't maligned.
-Lao Tzu

Experiencing Evil in 12 Years a Slave: MennoMovieNerd

In light of 12 Years a Slave obtaining the Oscar... wait, it hasn't won yet? Well, it will.  I'm sure.  This paragraph is written the morning of the Oscars and I trust that the Academy has enough intellect and moral strength.... um... well... anyway, we'll see.   So here's my reaction to 12 Years a Slave: 

The best movies are not intellectual.  This is not to say that the great movies do not have an intellectual element.  Certainly they do.  The very best films stimulate thinking and conversation.  However, at times also some not so great films do the same thing. 

The greatest films do not remain just in the mind, however, but in the soul.  It stirs your emotions: inspiring awe or anger; inciting romance or rage; stirring tears or trembling.  There is much to consider, but it is also an experience in and of itself.  It puts you in another person’s shoes and, for a moment, allows you to see the world as they see it.  To wear their clothes and allow us to walk around in them, allowing others to react to us as if we were them.

For a few moments, we experienced what it felt like to be a soldier on D-Day in Saving Private Ryan.  We could experience the ethereal beauty of music in The Double Life of Veronique.  We could experience the dread of the supernatural evil in The Exorcist.  We could sense the awe of the desert world in Lawrence of Arabia. We could feel the rage building up in us in Malcolm X.  (Sorry if you didn’t experience those particular feelings when watching those films.  Consumer response may vary.)

Certainly two films this year comes close to that: Gravity, that allows us to float with the astronauts and 12 Years a Slave that give us the barest taste of what it meant to be a slave, if we were not born a slave.

There is much in this film to intellectualize, certainly.  Systemic injustice and how it touches everything in society.  How the black was assumed to be property without proof.  The differentiation of treatment between white and black and how that still affects American society.  The use of religion and Scripture in unjust institutions.  Smaller themes—just pay for one’s work, the loss of name as dehumanization, just and unjust use of violence—abound.   All of these could be discussed forever.

But what I was constantly wondering was how much the director identified with this story.  Steve McQueen—despite the connection in name with the white American movie star—is a black British artistic director.  I wonder if he picked this story because if he were born at a different time, this might be his story.  It might be him, having woke up with chains, told he was a runaway slave and given a new name, beaten until he accepts his new life.

The fact is, if I were born a different color in a different time, this could be me.  Being articulate, being educated, having a northern accent and even being born free didn’t help Solomon.  In a time of prejudice, it takes very little to be on the other side of the tracks.  One dramatic change, and you are no longer well regarded, you are no longer loved.  You become the outcast, the very bottom rung of society, no matter what you did, no matter who you are.  So much depends on the story society tells about you.

I trembled as I watched this film.  Not just at the atrocities Solomon and his fellow slaves had to suffer.  But at the fact that so few did so little as to change this societal abomination.  That the promoters of this evil used the very same words I do on a daily basis to teach people how to love and care.  I wept at Solomon’s experience.

Just as the credits rolled, my phone rang.  Don’t worry, I had it silenced through the film, but I decided to walk out and take the call.  On a Saturday, I would normally be leading a day shelter and worship service for some fifty homeless people, but once a month I get a day off, which I occasionally use to watch a film I am highly anticipating.  My day shelter leader, who used to be homeless herself, asked me about getting gear for Greg.  The police came and took everything he owned except what was on his back.  We didn’t have a tent, but we made arrangements to get him a tarp, a sleeping bag and a leather coat.

Today, more than ever, anyone could be at the bottom rung of society.  Anyone.  Suddenly, without warning, one could be thrust onto the street and become a criminal, an object of public scorn.  And the only way to get past this gauntlet of shame is to clamber up the myriad of obstacles to become middle class again.  The longer one remains on the street, the deeper the pit of shit one sinks into.

Who will help stop this societal injustice?  Since I see it, whoever else will, I must participate in this evil’s demise. If only because I see it for what it is.

Is God Love?

God claims to be compassionate, but in the Bible we see him be cruel.

                God sends the angel of death to kill all the Egyptians first-born sons

God claims to be forgiving, but we see him be petty.

                God kills a man for touching the ark of the covenant to settle it when he wasn’t the right person to touch it.

God claims to be gracious, but we see him be harsh.

                God commands death for small crimes, such as picking up sticks on the Sabbath.

God claims to be good, but we see him be evil.

                God commands the genocide—killing of men, women and children as well as animals—of entire nations.

Yes, God is shown to be loving as well. 

                God delivers an undeserving nation from slavery.

                God forgives a man for murder and adultery.

                God provides food for the hungry.

                God raises children from the dead.

                God pays the debt of a widow.

                God establishes a great nation out of nobodies.

But the very nation God established was patriarchal, bloodthirsty and warring. 

They’re ancestral heroes are lying, cheating and disloyal.

I’d like to say that there is an error in the Bible.

  That some events were attributed to God when they really weren’t.

  That people penned God’s name to sayings he never said.

  That God experimented in different methods to train humans to love, and many of them failed.

  That God could do what humans could not do because He was creator.

But these are all excuses for an unloving God, or, at best, a God that was learning how to love.

  A God who did not know what compassion, grace, forgiveness and good really meant.

  Or a God who was sorely, even deceitfully, misrepresented.

Frankly, I just don’t know.

But this I do know:

The God I worship, adore, obey and imitate is displayed in full glory in Jesus.

Jesus is the perfect demonstration of the love of God.

Jesus is the God who transforms the occasionally harsh law into pure love.

Jesus is the God who heals the sick and feeds the hungry.

Jesus is the God who supports the poor.

Jesus is the God who welcomes the sinner.

Jesus is the God who sacrifices himself for the sake of the world.

Jesus is the God who forgives completely, without punishment.

Jesus is the God who exuberantly, abundantly, enthusiastically loves.

And there is no other God but the God whom we see in Jesus.

Jesus is the complete fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus turns deceit into Truth.

Jesus turns disloyalty into Faithfulness.

Jesus turns selfishness into Sacrifice.

And Jesus turns a broken God into a God broken for us.

In Jesus we see the Compassionate, the Gracious, the Merciful, the Forgiving.

This is the God I love, the God I seek, the God I pray to.

There is no other.

Obey: A Four Letter Word

Yes, Andre, whatever you say O Giant One

My friend Styx and I were driving in the snow, just leaving a store where we picked up some food for the homeless folks in our church, keeping folks safe and warm and fed another day.  Yep, we are good people, and we don’t care who knows it.

Suddenly, blue and red lights flash behind us, and we are being pulled over by a local officer.  I’m wondering what I could have done wrong... as far as I could see, everything was legal.  The officer comes up to the window and politely points out that my friend didn’t have his seat belt on.  Styx is in a rage, almost shaking, but he keeps it to himself as he gives his ID number.  When the officer walks away, he fumes, “Really?  Don’t they have anything else better to do?”  He is almost shaking in rage. 

After the officer comes back, he gives Styx a ticket and explains that he won’t have to pay anything if he takes a safety class. As we drive away, Styx says, “Let me know that this is no big deal.”  I assure him that it isn’t, but that doesn’t lessen his rage.

Let’s face it, none of us likes to get caught doing something wrong.  We especially don’t like it when a wrong is over-punished, like Styx getting a 350 dollar ticket when he forget to put a strap across his shoulder. Recently, I’ve been reading what the Bible has to say about the ten commandments, and many have been shocked at how frequently the death penalty is used for the smallest infraction of the laws.  Like the man picking up sticks on the Sabbath and he is stoned to death.

Sometimes obedience is a problem because we think particular laws are useless or pointless.  An oft-repeated law in the OT is the rejection of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk.  Who would have thought of  that?  And if a society is okay with eating meat, what’s wrong with that?  Some rabbis interpret it as a separation between meat and dairy, but that doesn’t seem to be the point to me.  What IS the point?  Why should we go out of our way to obey such an arbitrary command?

In the end, obeying a bunch of arbitrary commands seems downright silly or even immoral.  Keeping the Sabbath holy seems okay until we are telling kids not to play on the Sabbath, or going hungry because a crisis happened and we couldn’t prepare food ahead of time.  Few people know that in the same section of Scripture that places a taboo on incest and homosexuality is a taboo on having sex with one’s wife while she is on her period. I mean, the idea is kind of gross, but they are married, so who can complain?  And what harm is there in other sexual taboos?  Bestiality is a form of animal abuse, and pedophilia is child abuse, rape is violence, but other kinds of sexual taboos… really, where’s the harm?

In the end, many people want to label sins as “stuff we do to hurt other people” and “nobody’s business”.  Obedience depends on whether we are harming others or not.  If we are loving people, all is good.  Otherwise, we shouldn’t bother.  If a person uses drugs, no harm, no foul, unless they do actual harm to another, like steal or neglect their child.   Everything should be dependent on love.  If no one is harmed, the no one should complain.

Living with God

The funny thing about sin, though, is that it has more to do with our relationship with God than anything else.  The ten commandments and all the laws that follow under those ten categories have to do with a community living under the sight of God, in the presence of God.  They are laws that don’t necessarily say, “This is how we live together”, but more like “God’s house, God’s rules” whether they make sense to the people or not.  God’s people couldn’t eat shellfish not because it could make them sick, but because, in that context, it was “gross” to God.  God was displeased by it.  Just like in my house we don’t have alcohol on the property and no one drinks there.  It’s because we have some who struggle with alcoholism, and we don’t want to tempt them.  This doesn’t mean that people can’t drink in other houses.  Or that loving people don’t drink—I don’t believe that.  That’s just how we work it in my house.

Often there are things that disgust others that we have no problem with.  Our spouse might find eating meat horrifying, but we don’t have any problems with it.  It would make sense that we not eat met in our house, out of respect and love for our spouse, although we might occasionally sneak out and grab a hamburger when she’s not around.  As long as our relationship is honest and respectful, there’s nothing wrong with that.  But if we insisted that our spouse watch us eat meat, or participate in eating meat, or to have the smell of cooked meat in the house, we are forcing the one we love to share in that which is abhorrent to her.

When we join God, we are married to Him.  As soon as we begin living together, we begin negotiating our lives with Him.  He will insist that we change some aspects of our lives, and we agree because we love him so.  We don’t want to disgust Him, even if we see nothing wrong with it.  So we make terms of living together, and we work these terms out together.

The problem is that some people think that the terms they live with God must be replicated by everyone else, as if everyone’s marriage must come to the same terms.  But how can we determine another’s relationship?  If we do not participate in a relationship, what right do we have to tell them how it should work?  Yes, we can look at another’s relationship and offer wisdom (if asked) about what might work or not.  But in the end, it is that couple, that pairing of God and that particular person, that must determine their own terms.  We might see how a couple might fail unless something changes, but in the end, that’s between them.

Learning to love

Let’s say that all “sin” or wrong-doing did have to do with harm to others and that all positive action has to do with loving others, including God.  Part of the problem we have with this is: What is real “harm” and what is only superficial?  What is really love?  And can’t something be loving in one context, but not another? Can’t something be loving in most contexts, but not all?

And how are we to know?  Let’s say that we have a toddler who only wants to love.  He would give useless gifts to those around him.  Do little deeds that ultimately mean nothing.  Perhaps he would command people to do pointless tasks, because he thinks that’s really loving, even though it’s not. We find it cute, but the actions of a toddler don’t really add up to love, no matter how much he tries.

Even so, we are all toddlers.  We all fail to understand what is truly love.  This is what happened to the law.  So much added to it that the people failed to understand the basic point.  Many people today couch the idea of love in the context of economic terms, that if we do what is good for the economy, we are doing what is good for everyone. 

Sometimes I feel that Jesus is the grown up trying to explain things in simple terms so us toddlers to love could understand.  He lays it out very simply and starkly sometimes: “Do good to those who harm you.” “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” “Deny yourself.” “You cannot worship both God and wealth.” “Do not commit adultery.” “Do mercy.”  We sometimes find excuses to not follow these straightforward commands. We make ourselves busy with what doesn’t matter, so we don’t have to obey.  But really, we are just acting like disobedient toddlers who don’t want to do what is good for all of us.

Some of us need laws

While I was sitting next to Styx, all I could think of was how I agreed with the seat belt laws.  When I was in high school, I wrote a five page report about the proof that seat belts save lives.  I included the chances of death without a seat belt and how much more likely it is for a person with a seat belt to not die in the case of an accident.   But that didn’t change my habit of not wearing a seat belt.  Just knowing what was right and good doesn’t change our habits.

What did change my habit was when my state made wearing a seat belt compulsory.  On the day it became law, I began to click it around me and I have never turned back.  I appreciate the law because it was a simple tool to help me save my life for the sake of my wife and my children.  I probably would never have done it myself, without the law in place.

Even so, I don’t think I would have learned compassion or sacrificial love without Jesus telling me to do it.  I had a couple people ask me how I am such a compassionate person, and I responded to them honestly (which isn’t always the best idea): “I’m not compassionate.  I don’t really care that much.  I help people because Jesus told me to.  Someone asks me for help and my first response is to say no because I’m too tired or too busy already or don’t feel that they really deserve it.  Then I am reminded that I do this work not because I want to do it, but because Jesus does.  I’m here to represent Jesus and even though I might not give to this person, Jesus would.  So I’ve got to do what Jesus says, even if it doesn’t make sense to me.”

Some people might call this a servant mentality.  Some people might think that I’m so obedience-minded that I’m not open to really loving people.  I might agree.  But obedience is the path God gave me to learn to love.  I wish I was naturally loving.  But at least I’m on the path.  Perhaps others can approach love more flexibly and open-mindedly.   But I’m on the path that works for me.

So I’d say don’t complain about God’s rules and laws.  Perhaps they are doing some people some good.  And remember, that Jesus also gave us a law not to judge others.  That very restriction could be the path of freedom to everyone.