crazy love: a review

Christians spend so much of their time trying to live the right way. We try not to swear or use foul language. We try not to tell dirty jokes. We try to make our kids sit straight and be quiet in the worship space.

Do you ever wonder if we are trying to do the wrong things?

Sometimes I wonder if we major in the minors and completely ignore the big things God is calling us to. I wonder if we gloss over Jesus’s radical calls to obedience in the scriptures on purpose, or if we simply miss it.

Francis Chan, in his book Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God says that yes, indeed, we have missed it. At least the vast majority of us have.

You may wonder if this is simply another angry book blasting the North-American church for not following Jesus. To be honest, I wondered that myself. As I began to read the book, I actually felt that it moved rather slowly. Chan takes his time outlining what it means to follow God, and makes sure that we understand just who this God is.

He incorporates his website in his text, urging the reader to go and watch some videos that are hosted there. I found this somewhat distracting. When I sit down to read a book, I want to read the book. I do not want to have to take the time to go to my computer and watch a visitor.

These drawbacks were more than made up for, however, as the book progressed. Chan Biblically draws an outline of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, not in specifics but in attitude.

His explication of what it means to be obsessed with Jesus really hit home for me. Here is a quick summary of his description of a person deeply in love (obsessed) with Jesus.

People who are obsessed with Jesus: give freely and openly, without censure, aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else, live lives that connect them with the poor in some way or another, are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status-quo, know that the sin of pride is always a battle, do not consider service a burden, are known as givers, not takers, think about heaven frequently, are characterised by a committed, settled passionate love for God, are raw with God, have an intimate relationship with Him, are more concerned with their character than comfort, know that the best thing they can do is be faithful to his saviour in every aspect of his life.

While there are other books that relate the same subject, they rely more on experience than scripture. Chan makes a concerted effort to remind us that it is only in Jesus that we are saved, and that for the glory of God. This salvation calls us to lead a radically different life than those around us. This is one of the best books I have found that outlines the Biblical basis and demand for radical discipleship in an accessible and engaging way.

the church on the other side: a review

What is the future of the church going to look like? The culture is shifting, and there are new influences impacting the church. The movements provide reason for optimism, but also for caution. We have to remember that there are redeemable things about every culture, which help in the work of the kingdom, but there are also things about every culture which are contrary to the gospel. What is the culture of the next generation going to look like, and to what should we be hopeful and cautious?

Brian McLaren has a very optimistic answer to these questions in the book The Church on the Other Side. He views movements within the culture as perfect jumping off points to help revamp the church and make it better. He sees post-modernism as a chance for purifying the stagnant modern culture. He points out some obstacles which may hamper churches from attaining this goal. He claims that the churches which will be successful will understand the culture, be involved in it, and accept it for what it is. He does not take a cautious enough view of what the culture is, or what the church can do with it.

Post-modernism is a response to the failure of the modern or enlightenment agenda. Modernism held that humans could solve all the world’s problems through the progress of science, technology, and philosophy. The two world wars, the failure of logical positivism, and the failure of science to solve problems of disease and pestilence has led to a sense that humans cannot solve all the problems. This has led to a sense of resignation about where we are, and where we can go. Culture as a whole no longer holds a very optimistic view of humanity’s role in the future.

The modern period threw out any attempts to discuss things outside natural observation. This naturalism has seeped over to post-modernism, but in a different form. Modernism claimed that there was no sense discussing anything outside of natural observation because there was no way to prove its truth claims. Post-modernism has begun to seek for answers to questions outside this realm because people realise the need to answer spiritual questions. Since it retains the restriction to proof by natural observation, it has resulted in a form of agnostic relativism in spiritual questions. This places a high emphasis on subjective experience because it is the only natural ground for answers to these questions.

McLaren claims that post-modernism holds the following 5 core values:

1. Post-modernism is sceptical of certainty.
2. Post-modernism is sensitive to context.
3. Post-modernism leans toward the humorous.
4. Post-modernism highly values subjective experience.
5. For post-moderns, togetherness is a rare, precious, and elusive experience.

I think McLaren’s emphasis on the scepticism of post-modernism is exaggerated. Post-moderns are sceptical of other people’s belief systems, but are relatively sure of their own. There is much more individual searching and analysis of people’s individual belief systems, but they are prepared to defend them as relevant. This defensiveness has led to the “what’s good for me, is good for me, just leave me alone” rebuttal. This agnostic relativism is the main threat to Christianity today.

Post-moderns have resigned themselves to the idea that there is no way to know the truth, but they are still looking for it. People are looking for meaning, for reasons to the existence of things, for direction for their lives, and for a place to belong. They are very sceptical of anyone telling them what to believe. This means that we cannot tell people what to believe any more, we have to show them how to believe. People are open to matters of spirituality and faith, but they do not think that we are able to know which way is the correct way. This openness is very encouraging, as it allows us to present the truth. The problem comes in when we push too hard.

This is part of the wisdom of McLaren’s book. Part of his strategy in to encourage people to ask tough questions and to seek out the answers. Christianity need not be afraid of intellectual interrogation. It can stand on its own two feet. It has a rich history of brilliant people who wrestled with intriguing questions regarding the mystery of the faith, the way it interacts with the rest of the world, and how the faith works as a coherent belief system.

McLaren has a very high commitment to a congregationalist structure of church government. His discussion of the structure of the church completely ignores the possibility of a different structure. The relativism within the post-modern culture would seem to push away from any kind of confessional structure toward an individualistic faith. Since it is harder now to tell people what they ought to believe, they have to work it out for themselves. This makes it harder for people to swallow a confessional tradition, like the CRC, than a loosely defined Christianity in a congregationalist church. The fact that people are more willing to delve deeply into spiritual questions will lead to more people seeking out the confessional tradition than the shallower, more personal styles of Christianity. The confessional tradition will provide a large asset in the future, provided we allow people to explore it and the reasons behind it.

In sum, the post-modern culture is characterised by the search for meaning in an overarching structure of agnosticism. This presents an opportunity for sharing our faith in a more open and honest dialogue. It also presents the challenge to alter the way that we do our evangelism and apologetics. We have to be less challenging, and more empathetic. We have to become more Christ-like as we care for the lost. The church cannot afford to accept the culture wholesale nor can it reject it outright. It has to work within the cultural context it is placed to witness to the eternal truths of Jesus Christ.

Over all I think McLaren falls into the extreme of wholesale acceptance of our current cultural context and does not provide enough critique of it.

eyes to see

Image by * 5 ō Ō ō 5 α ω ō я ℓ ∂ via Flickr

“It is customary to blame secular scienca and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society.” Abraham Joshual Heschel

Christians often moan about the fall of “Christian culture” within which we live. We look around us and wonder why it is that things have gone this way. It seems as though we are in the Autumnal stages of a culture that so many people dearly loved.

However when I see this movement I say, “Good ridance.” The so-called Christianity which seeped its way into the popular culture became so warped and twisted, so allied with earthly powers and kingdoms that it became virtually unrecognisable from the good news for the oppressed which it is. It slowly became good news for the rich and powerful. It became a tool to oppress rather than one to liberate.

In many places it still is.

“It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religions declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rahter than with the voice of compassion–its message becomes meaningless.” Abraham Joshual Heschel

We have to admit that perhaps the reason many people around us no longer claim to follow Jesus is because we have not given them sufficient reason to want to. Often our lives seem to be more drugery than joy.

What happens, however, when these problems are reversed? What happens when habit turns into love, when discipline changes to worship, creeds are imbibed with deep faith?

What happens when the faith we receive as an heirloom suddenly begins to flow living water?

God is opening our heart to the lost, the hurting, the oppressed. God is renewing our first love for him, and changing our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.

God is moving in this world.

May we open our eyes to see.

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sin boldly: a review

There are plenty of books out there on the subject of “Grace”. This could be perhaps the most discussed theological concept within the protestant tradition. The problem, however, is that grace is very rarely something that can be talked about, but is really something that has to be experienced. Perhaps this is why there is such a profusion of literature on the subject. Everyone is trying to identify, dissect, and explain their own experience of grace. This sometimes has the effect of taking all the wonder and joy out of the experience, draining it of its power.

“This collection of stories is about the author’s experiences with grace–in ridiculous moments and in those that seem trivial but are anything but.” (from the front flap)

In this collection of stories entitled Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, Cathleen Falsani tries to simply relate her experiences of grace. The times when she felt something of God in the circumstances around her. The times when people showed her the heart of God. The times when her faith has been shaped as she was introduced into deeper expressions of grace.

I have to admit that I found this book to be lacking in some ways. I found a distinct lack of true wrestling with scripture and how the experiences Falsani was having fit in with the experiences of those who recorded the scriptures for us. A very important part of finding God in everyday life is learning more about God from his revelation to us. It is not as though Falsani led us down any heretical paths, but her abstinence from any kind of commentary on the stories did little to expose how she was experiencing God in them.

The title of the book comes from a famous quote of Martin Luther.

Sin bodly.

Believe in grace even more boldly.

Love without limits.

Live this life.

Luther was trying to relieve the people he was talking to from the cripling guilt that they were experiencing. They had a tendency to become overwhelmed with their sin, and their lives become joyless and unsatisfying. Luther was attempting to remind them that their sins do not create an insurmountable barrier between them and God. There is grace which will cover our sins. So, we may sin boldy, not in the sense that we deliberately go out and commit more sins, but that when we do sin we can admit the mistake and move on.

Falsani attempts to convey a life that is organised in this manner. She attempts to collect stories which will lead us into a place where we need not be debilitated by guilt, but can be overawed at the grace of God all around us.

While I wish that Falsani had done more reflection on her experiences in the light of scripture, this collection of stories do provide glimpses of grace which can lift up our eyes from contemplating our own sin to a place that recognises God’s grace.

losing God: a review

I’ve been telling myself lately that faith without doubt—like faith without works—is dead. – J.C Schaap

James Schaap wrote in a blog post recently about a student whose life has not been going so well. There have been a quite a few things which have drawn much energy out of her. In her words, “Life just got a lot more complex in the last few years :/”

Maybe it is simply because I am moving into an age range where more problems seem to appear, or maybe it is because I am a pastor and people are more willing to open up to me, but it seems like this has been happening to a lot of people. Life just seems to get more and more complicated. Perhaps “painful” is a better word than “complicated.”

Life just seems to get more painful, and we don’t seem to know how to handle pain.

Matt Rogers, in his book Losing God: Clinging to Faith through Doubt and Depression records his own long journey through the dark valley of doubt. Through all his struggle, Rogers said he wanted to know that there were others who shared his struggle.

What I really wanted was just to knowthat someone, anyone, had shared my pain and asked myquestions-and had made it out the other side with their faith intact. I wanted a story.

In this book Rogers provides his story in order to help others understand what the experience of depression and doubt does to a person. He highlights how depression is often intermingled with doubt; doubt about salvation, doubt about God’s goodness, doubt about the purpose of it all. Much of his own experience of depression is intricately tied up with a theological struggle involving election and predestination and a sense of being on the outside of that election. He relates how a time of worship at a missions rally became the darkest point in his life. Standing there with thousands of other Christians, he suddenly felt his heart grow cold. He stopped singing and felt completely lost.

Rogers’s story is intensely personal. He relates his own struggle. His own thoughts. His own pain. This may make it difficult for some people to relate to his story, as everyone experiences depression in different ways. However, this may also help someone identify with his thought processes and feelings. Even though different circumstances gave rise to them, someone else has thought these thoughts and has clung to their faith through it all.

This book is not a guide to treatment, or even an analysis of depression and its intersection with the faith. It is one man’s story of his experience.

I recommend this book to those who have never experienced depression. Rogers brings you into his experience and allows you to see, first hand, what it is like. For those who are in the midst of a crisis, this book may provide a little comfort and perhaps some hope that all is not lost.