First Cup—Evangelicals, Bullies, and Swirlies…

This blog began a few days ago right after discovering the ongoing Facebook discussion about World Vision’s decision to not discriminate against Christian same sex married employees—and, then, sadly, its decision to run away from that cliff. My initial thought was this: I’m getting one step closer to completely disassociating myself from the label Christian. (I gave up on evangelical a long time ago because of its rampant, ahistorical misuse.) I know there are some who already think I have abandoned the faith and are neither surprised nor shocked by such a decision. There may be a few out there who are thinking—well, good riddance; he’s been messing up the purity of the faith for years.

Why might I do this? Well, some of the reasons:

• The continuing confusion between faith and politics. I grew up relatively apolitical; my church was never sure how to be involved in politics. It was, I think, for us more personal and less political—we voted our conscience. We thought politics a necessary evil, at best, because it tended to subvert the gospel, tending to create division rather than unity. Now, apparently, Christians think it is the primary forum for communicating the Good News.

• The continuing confusion about how what matters to us gets turned into what matters to Jesus and not the other way around. In the lectionary this week, the Gospel reading shows Jesus criticized for working (aka healing) on the Sabbath. He cannot be from God because he broke the Sabbath by forming dirt into mud and giving sight to a blind man. All Christians are more or less guilty of proof texting—that is, reading texts from our own perspective—and we tend to think that the way I read the text is, in fact, the biblically correct one. I’m honest enough to confess that I struggle with this. Yet, this biblically based certainty about so many things that Jesus is silent about—and our apparent inability to consider our lives in the world in the context of how Jesus lived in the world, reducing it to, well, what follows...

• The continuing confusion that insists that the USA is a Christian nation, founded on Christian principles, by Christian founding fathers. I’ll not say more here except, well, only if one puts a fairly broadly Enlightenment spin on the label Christian.

• The continuing confusion about replacing serious theological discourse with sloganeering and jingoism and blame. Intelligent, thoughtful discourse (the kind we see throughout the Christian scriptures) about what matters is very nearly a lost art.

• The continuing and confusing ways we make decisions that protect us while damaging and disrupting others—even society in general. One has only to consider the vast exodus of Christians from public schools over the last decades for one (not so) pretty devastating example of this.

For the record, Judy and I are not contributors to World Vision; we do support Children of Promise, the child sponsorship program of the Church of God (Anderson, IN), our denomination. But I think the decision that the first WV made was reasonable and thoughtful and clearly in keeping with their mission. I wonder how many people read the carefully reasoned statement about why they were doing this—as an expression of their mission and their historical relationship with a variety of denominations and communions. I think the decision to take money away from children in the name of Jesus is, well, simply wrong. Jesus said something about hurting children, millstones, and drowning. (And I do hope that those now offended, angry, or saddened about its reversal will not choose to behave in the same ways that its attackers did.)

And, now, we’re going viral about a movie—Noah!

If I remember correctly Christians were first named Christian by the people who watched them (Acts 11:26); apparently their behavior was such that others associated their compassionate and generous behavior with Jesus.

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:43-47 NRSV)

In this narrative, Christian is not a political label, and I don’t think it was meant to be derisive. I think it was a response to how these followers of Jesus lived: "These people are apparently not going away; what shall we call them?" In that spirit, therefore, I choose to label the current crop of “evangelicals” (which, last time I checked, has something to do with Good News) “bullyvangelicals” in keeping with their behavior, which I see as bullying, threatening, intimidating, crass, and finger pointing—the ecclesiastical equivalent of “swirlies.” Somewhere the Good News is lost in favor of some new kind of religio-political correctness.

This leaves me with a problem, however: What will I call myself? I’m not sure. Some now like to say, “I’m a follower of Jesus.” I think I understand why they say that, and I’d like to say that, but it seems presumptuous. I’ve said that; I want to be that but am not sure that I have the ethos to do so. I’ve always thought of myself as a pilgrim, trying to live on a journey of discovery open to the call of God in Christ in my life—waiting for way to close and way to open. Perhaps that’s it—pilgrim. But I guess it finally doesn’t matter what I call myself; it is about what others see in me and my living and loving (a scary proposition), and, finally, God’s grace.

Second cup—Poetry Friday

It's been a while since I've posted any of my poetic musings; it's been a dry spell brought on by too much of nearly everything. Lately, I've been thinking a great deal about what I do in the classroom--what am I really doing there.

Liberating Professors

“If you are not here faithfully among us,
you are causing terrible damage.”
—Rumi

Where are you? How did you get here?
On whose back? On whose shoulders?
Did you get here playing by the rules?
Subverting the rules? Bending the rules?

Did you arrive by bus, train, by straight road or
mountain path or, trackless, cross-country?
Did you arrive by grabbing hold and
refusing to let go or by letting go, fearful,
of the fall? Did you arrive alone
or in the company of a friend or teacher.
Perhaps a company of pilgrims?

I suspect no one who traveled well traveled here alone.
My guess is we’ve traveled with companions
more than by ourselves. My guess is no one would
or could arrive here alone. My story clearly suggests
this. However tall I may stand, it is always on the shoulders
of giants, Christophers, who carried me across rivers.

If not well, that is, alone, something
is wrong, something stunted. Deformed. We are
not simply alone but lonely. Maybe frightened.
Imposing our loneliness and pain on others
we bang into, accidentally or on
purpose, damaging others in our care.

Remaking others in our image more than,
Virgil like, guiding persons out of their personal
hell through purgatory to their own Beatrice.

We have a language; it defines us as greater than,
more authoritative. Our jargon—insider language—
and the assumptions/attitudes that say clearly
but without words: be like me.
Use my language (for Christianizing Indians.
For uninvited immigrants.) My language.
My vocabulary. My tone.

I wonder. What do we really teach?

—amk (3/28/14)

A late afternoon post--several cups gone...

Mary and the Franciscan Renewal Center—

In the mid-90s my life seemed to be spiraling out of control. I was at the top of my game; I was asked to lead the operational life of the College in a time of great risk; I was emotionally on edge and physically not well. The job was demanding but not impossible, but my health complicated my ability to sustain its demands.

The deeper struggles were spiritual. I was out of sorts and my journey with God had grown cold in face of the challenges of my life—it seemed to me that God was on sabbatical. (Yes, I know, and knew then, God doesn’t do that; but it is one way to characterize my state of being. It is how it felt.) But, like so many of us, I chose to address a deeper spiritual problem by ignoring it and pretending it was something else. So off to the medical doctor. I spent a great deal of time at Kaiser with a Dr. Kono who was a very good and caring doctor—he took me seriously and resolved to find out what was wrong and fix it. Just the kind of doctor we all want. His methods were exhaustive and exhausting. I’m fairly confident that all orifices of my body were probed, every piece of equipment available to him was used, and every possible kind of test was administered. (He did find an insufficiency of thyroid and did correct that.)

The wake up call began about the third of my on going weekly visits when the good doctor asked me a set of questions; he asked the same questions again the next visit; then, the next. I admit I am slow on the uptake and finally asked why these same questions week after week? His initial response was “hospital protocol.” “Protocol?” “Yes.” “Protocol for what and why now?” Here’s the alarum bell: “Protocol for persons who might be suicidal.”

“Oh….”

I don’t think I was; I think I’m too much of a coward. But it was a very loud alarm. What to do? Clearly I needed help; where was I to go? I needed someone and I was pretty clear that it needed to be someone who did not know me, know about me—and did not know the Church of God or Warner Pacific College. I won’t go into all of that except to say that I had a fairly profound sense that if I were clinically depressed—and I’m pretty sure I was—that some (or a great deal) of the cause of that was tied up in all of above.

I remembered a colleague in chapel at WPC talking about his own journey with spiritual direction; I thought my problem was spiritual—or at least had deep spiritual roots. I had some limited—and as it turned out narrow—understanding of direction. It fit my sense of what I didn’t want and had the lure of something new. So I called and asked to speak to the spiritual director at the Franciscan Renewal Center, in the West Hills of Portland, near Lewis and Clark College.

One of the most important phone calls I have ever made. It saved me.

As a result of that call, I met Sister Mary Smith, a diminutive, tough, feisty, and lovely “Clare”—a Franciscan sister. Mary was a trained and gifted director. I wrote a poem about her that hints at who she was to me:

Mary

she walks within a light
from within, without;
inviting others to the Light
and their light
from within, without.

a gentle light, soft, hinted at
playful light, daring across and
around, highlight

she treads lightly along
the darkling paths—
a companion of seekers and
journeyers lost among mazes
of their own construction,
hidden from others
hidden from self,

and provides a threaded way
out of worn and weary
self-constructed
torturous labyrinth
like another Mary she
opens wide a heart light to
the mysterious God whose
darkness is light
and
births new life
where sterility and formless
chaos holds sway:

let it be
to me
according to your word.

—Advent, 1993

For nearly a year and a half, I met with Mary in her cozy, private, relaxing, incensed space with a view of hydrangea and trees and grass. It was a holy space. She asked me what I hoped for; I told her about the genuine, loving little boy I was before the “prison house” of my own egotisticdefensiveintentionalharmful choices closed about me. I told her about the boy who knew no strangers but who chose to become an alien. I told her about the boy who, for all kinds of reasons, grew into an adolescent who never felt he belonged anywhere and, upon reflection, never had anyone around to help him find his own way. The boy who chose the wrong path to individuation and, now, ironically, felt trapped in every other person’s expectations. I said, I want to get back to that boy. The journey took a long time. Honestly, it is still not over—I still struggle with the who am I question and still seek recognition and reward in unhealthy ways.

But, I am no longer determined by those desires. I know what they are and can name them, call them out, and dismiss them (well, usually, dismiss them). Mary’s tender loving companionship, her “simple” questions—and her willingness to simply let me sit and cry, sometimes she just held me as I sobbed unable to put feelings into any other kind of “words.”

Few days go by that I do not remember Mary, think of her fondly, miss the visits, and pray for her. I do not know where she is, but wherever--and I do mean wherever--she is changing life for the better.

SECOND CUP—SHAPE-ing a life....

Continuing my ongoing reflection on my life. In a recent conversation with a good friend, I was asked "Where is Arthur?" Not in a location or geographical sense but in the sense of spiritual journey. Since my life is so often bounded by the classroom, my response took me there and the ongoing journey of life as a teacher. I began to reflect on a particularly powerful formational time in my more recent past. As I begin to re-engage my Blog, I thought, I should share about SHAPE.

It seems odd to me that one of the most foundation shaking and formational events of my life should be so, suddenly, not a part of my life. There is a “before SHAPE” and an “after SHAPE” divide in my life. For those who may not know what it is, SHAPE (an acronym for Sustaining Health and Pastoral Excellence) is a national ministry of the Church of God, born out of a Lilly Foundation program called Sustaining Pastoral Excellence. (I could also include the Lilly Endowment in my list of amazing life changing entities; between the Continuing Conference on the Liberals, the Conference on Illuminative Evaluation, the Gathering Storm Initiative, and Sustaining Pastoral Excellence, they have afforded deep life change, growth, and learning opportunities for me that have initiated new formation in my journey.)

SHAPE is another of those times in my life when everything came together—work, ministry, relationships, gifts, money, intentionality—to address a very real problem in the church: the loneliness of ministry and its debilitating impact on pastors, their spouses, their families, and the church. I am grateful, truly so, to have served in the development and implementation of this far reaching and life changing ministry. The amazing thing is that it worked. It was actually a “service of Anderson” that changed lives and ministry in significantly healthy ways.

As significant as it was/is in the life of pastors in the church, it was also in my own. It’s a long story and I think I won’t tell it in detail. But the essence is this: as it became clear to us that a trained coach was the key to successful life and ministry change through SHAPE, an exceptional leader in the life of the church, Jeannette Flynn, made a far reaching decision—those of us on the national staff, involved in and committed to SHAPE, were to be trained in order to be the coach trainers as SHAPE spread out across the US. I can’t explain what a far-reaching decision this was—for all of us. It encompassed a significant commitment of dollars and time and energy AND transparency and vulnerability and pain and joy—the proverbial “tears and laughter.” But we walked this road together. It was a challenging road—pleasurable and painful—but so deeply worth it. I can’t speak for the others, although I believe their stories parallel my own, but through the experiential training, lead by the amazing David Ferguson and his staff at Great Commandment Ministries, SHAPE took me into myself, my faith, my relationships, my gifts, my inadequacies and vulnerabilities. Tears and laughter. Laughter and tears. Honesty and fear. Abundances of both. Deepening relationships. Honesty to the point of discomfort and, nearly always, joy. Assessment. Affirmation. Probing. Coaching.

I am changed forever by this experience. My work in the classroom is changed forever by this experience. My relationships are changed forever—as is my marriage. SHAPE is one of the hardest best things in my life. I carry it with me as I walk into the classroom; as I enter into conversations with friends and colleagues and students. It is no longer, formally, part of my life. For some reason that I don’t know, my work with SHAPE is not needed here in the Northwest—neither by the national work nor by the district. Actually, since I offered it to the WPC and the religion department here, I guess it is not needed there either. But I carry it with me. It is in my heart and, I hope, in my life and relationships. SHAPE was and is a great grace in my life.

Second Cup—Redemption and the classroom

In a recent noon brown bag lunch, several WPC faculty gathered in Egtvedt 203 to talk further about the mission of the college and how it actually informs the classroom and the life of the mind. It was a good conversation. Timothy, our convener and instigator for this conversation, asked us to think carefully about three challenges.

It was a hearty conversation but one statement really stuck with me. It was almost not heard; I heard it —and I’ve rolled it around in my mind and heart many times since. Ruth said that she wondered about redemption in the classroom….

Seems an appropriate wonder, doesn’t it, for a college whose mission begins “Christ-centered.” I suggested that we might want to think more fully about that wondering when we had more time—as is often true, the richest comments come late in the discussion and there is little time to talk…. But I continue:

Redemption—how does that happen?

As a generic term, we redeem all kinds of things: recycling is a form for redemption; I’m old enough to remember Green Stamps; anyone who has ever been in a pawn shop knows what redemption is about; ransom is sometimes associated with redemption—both legally and theologically; an entity that issues bonds is obligated to redeem those bonds. So, the principle is fairly clear: to regain, turn in, convert, to make up for—even to restore.

I think, however, Ruth is asking more specifically about how we might be in that line of work—how might a Christ-centered liberal arts college do this?

Redemption (in the theological sense of the word) happens at WPC in the usual ways: persons find Jesus for the first (or second) time and begin (or restart) a journey with him. A person goes forward to pray at the end of chapel and life-change occurs. A conversation with a friend, a professor, staff person, the president—such conversations do happen and do lead to redemption in the sense often meant by the word salvation—deliverance from sin through Jesus Christ.

But WPC is not a church; it is a college—a point of confusion not always understood by either its friends or its critics—and its role in the work of redemption may be missed when looking for the more usual ways. I told this story before in my blog but it bears repeating here. Milo Chapman gave me a book and redeemed my mind and heart.

While I was never in his classroom, I count him among the great teachers of my life. I was having the not so unusual struggles of college students making sense out of the Bible and faith and reason (as they were taught and modeled for me growing up) and life and learning, none of which seemed to conform very well to the others. I was reading the Bible and going to church and, yes, Sunday school—just as I was always admonished to. I understood that the Bible is an important book and, as a person who grew up in a Christian culture, I knew it was supposed to be sacred and True. Yet, there were all these problems, which I’ll not enumerate because there was nothing particularly unique about them. I was, however, really struggling. I went to see Milo—actually, then, Dr. Chapman (I would never have called him Milo then). I went a Judy’s urging. He gave me two life-changing gifts:

One, simply, he listened. He is the first person to hear me and my doubts/struggles with faith who did not attempt to solve them for me. By that I mean, he did not try to explain anything, tell me that it was normal, or dismiss them as silly (which, no doubt, some were).

Two, simply, he gave me a book that I still own: John Bright’s The Kingdom of God. What I came to understand was this: My struggles were with the pieces: I had no frame to put them in. Like a jigsaw puzzle, I didn’t have the outside pieces connected so that a great image would occur. The Kingdom of God did that for me: it gave me a big picture. My purpose here is not to describe that, but simply to say, I was heard and responded to in a meaningful way by a person who really had no reason to. As important as that book and the other Book were and are to me, Milo’s response—and the relationship that emerged from this meeting—were/are far more important.

That is redemption, and I suspect it is the kind of redemption that happens more often at WPC primarily because WPC is not a church but a college. In a very real sense, I think, redemption at WPC can be understood as mission fulfillment. To work seriously, lovingly and relationally and with discernment toward the realization of mission and core values at WPC is to be redemptive. It is inherent in the mission.

I could tell story after story of young men and women, enslaved to all kinds of narrow and fundamentalist and unhealthy perspectives who came to WPC and were redeemed. They were redeemed because someone listened to them and heard them. They were redeemed because no one judged them; instead, they were invited on a journey of discovery with their professors who were also on this journey—and weren’t afraid to say so. As a consequence, they were redeemed because they found a God different than the one they were raised to know; this God is freeing and liberating and challenging and demanding and loving in spite of (or because of) our doubts and questions—especially the ones earnestly asked.

Another form of redemption: discovering how to be a man who is himself and a woman who is herself—not a clone; not a product; not a consequence; not a predetermined Ken or Barbie. We live under such pressure. In a class I teach, Religion 320, we ask students to look critically at the messages with which we are all bombarded—with malice aforethought—in our culture through every possible medium. That message is you are not good enough, not whole enough, not worthy of love enough—unless you buy this product. Instead, colleges like WPC show the hollowness of that powerful and more often than not iniquitous message and replace it with this—You are a person, individual and created for community, worthy and lovable and powerful because you are created by God and loved beyond measure by your Creator.

Another form of redemption: the student who has very nearly given up on life—little or nothing has ever gone well for them. They’ve made poor decisions, have become addicted to something or someone not good for them, been homeless, houseless, churchless; felt life has little good purpose and certainly no higher meaning. Yet, they find a hand somewhere who lifts them up and they find themselves at WPC in a degree program and the process of redemption begun by the one who offered a hand continues through a myriad of hands—professors, academic counselors, teammates—to discover their own distinctiveness, their own worthiness, their own intelligence; in short, their intrinsic value as persons valued and love by others and by God….and valued and loved by themselves.

How does this happen? Books, learning objectives, learning activities, team and individual projects, service learning, opportunities for reflection, teachers, relationships, discernment and reflection, a helping hand, a caring comment—“Take care” “What to talk?” “Can I take you?” Where does it happen? In coffee shops (and sometimes a pub), during an evening break, in between classes, in an office, walking across the commons, standing in the rain at a bus stop. Who helps it to happen? Teachers and advisers and teammates and presidents—persons who know that the fulfillment of mission is finally about relationships and learning and mutual care and living out and teaching within the “letter and spirit” of the Great Commandments.

Second Cup—Students!

Last night I sat in Egtvedt watching a really remarkable event.

But first some background: Just a few months ago a group of about 20 new to WPC students walked into a room—mostly not by choice. A few knew each other but most did not; while they may not have been perfect strangers, they were mostly strangers. Some perhaps a little fearful; one or two a bit defiant; a few perhaps unhappy about the newness and strangeness and apparent arbitrariness of life. Two teachers were there who knew each other but had never taught together before. In many ways, typical of just about every new student’s situation in just about any college or university in the USA.

On top of this, they were part of an experiment—not always the best thing to be. They were members of something called a Freshman Year Learning Community (FYLC). Not only were they going to be in this experiment but they were also going to have to spend time with me in an English class—each week, they were going to be in a room together working on new stuff in new ways and, added to all of that, becoming a community, working on social justice in the classroom and in the neighborhood and with Portland City Council and in downtown Portland and in homeless shelters—whew! That’s a lot of stuff. But there’s more: Strength Finder and Enneagram and self-reflection and biblical justice studies and washing the feet of homeless men and women, cutting hair—well, the list could go on.

Well, amazingly, yep, it happened. Community happened. And last night we celebrated together. If you weren’t there—and most of you were not—you missed out on some good stuff: public, transparent self-reflection; original music; the visual history of the formation of our community, advocacy, life story, art, humor, thoughtful biblical reflection—in short, you missed out on witnessing community: shalom! Celebration!

You know what, these students met with Amanda Fritz and this professor, Stephanie Mathis, carried the petition they wrote with hundreds of WPC student and faculty and staff signatures to the hearing in which they called for the restoration of funds to aid the victims of what is perhaps Portland’s saddest story—human trafficking of boys and girls, men and women.

I sat back in my chair, eyeing the cookies and cake that I had to wait for, amazed by this remarkable group of first year WPC students. And I thought: Oh my! I hope I get to hang around long enough to see how these students change WPC and where the hopeful trajectory they started this semester carries them. Few things more powerful in the world than a community of committed change agents—watch out world, here they come.

The other thing I thought about last night: This is why I love Warner Pacific College: never afraid to walk down the road that connects learning, faith, and life in community to discover what we are called to become.

I am so grateful this morning for Stephanie, Maranda, Linnette, Trent, Tayler, Kiki, Bailey, Robert, Oksana, Riley, Trent, Jose, Skyler, Selena, Justyn, Shannon, Brenden, Ben, and Rochelle. Each of this has taught me this semester; each of them gives me hope for the future. Grateful to God that I get to do this!

FIRST CUP: Some random thoughts on rebranding and the church….

I don’t suppose it will come as a surprise to anyone that I am not exactly applauding the recent announcement about rebranding the Church of God (now Non-Reformation) Movement. While the church is in many important ways my mother, our relationship has often been more difficult than dutiful. I love her but she’s a difficult mother and I've been a challenging son.

I do want to be hopeful about the future, although I find it harder and harder to believe that anything like the traditional church has much of a future. This won’t be the first time I’ve wondered if God hasn’t already moved on in his constant reimagining of church to something infinitely bolder and humbler. It often feels to me that those of us still connected to the institutional church are filling and stacking sandbags against a perfect storm of cultural and theological change.

The church is in the midst of a massive cultural sea change. This paradigm shift is altering everything around us and we in the church are not at fault for the devastating impact it is having upon our institution. The decline in the church is not primarily the fault of mismanagement, bad theology, or lack of good will. We are caught up in forces much bigger than we can control.

I just want the church to be the church and not some strange hybrid of entertainment, big business, and marketing.

I’m not against marketing; I find value in the processes that marketers manage. There can be real value in the creative process; anytime people are brought together to think about who they are and what they do and where they are going and how to bring greater focus and, thereby, greater energy to their work—that’s good. It is good especially if it is rooted firmly in the historical narrative of the organization as it leads to new/renewed vision.

But I am troubled when the marketing process, as it unfortunately often does, remains pretty much at a superficial level—inch deep and a mile wide. Too often there is a paucity of thoughtfulness and depth—the glossing over of the deep divisions and uncertainties that do exist by the artful use of language and the creation of a new look, a new tag line, and a new web site. And no real grappling with.

I do think it is oddly presumptuous to talk of rebranding the church: brands are about ownership. (I remember at least that much from my Saturday morning Westerns: people got killed for rebranding where a brand already existed.) I don’t think we own the church; I’m not really sure that we have the authority to rebrand it.

I want to be equally clear about this: the future of the church does not rest in the processes and methodologies of marketing and public relations, however useful they may be. The future of the church lies in deep historical, theological, sociological, and epistemological reflection—and actions based on such reflection so long as such work is grounded in the life and teachings of Jesus.

The church will not recover its nerve, its creativity, or its authenticity simply by instituting fancy new gimmicks, implementing flashy programs, trying to get more organized, or working harder. The way forward is through the development of meaningful spiritual practices, a renewal of corporate spirituality, and a profound shift of consciousness in the way we do church. These deep inner changes will only be achieved by creating space for awareness of the presence and action of God to emerge in our midst.

I’m out of the loop on these discussions; I don’t assume that I should be in the loop. But it is interesting to me that I am alerted to the new logo, tag line and web site by a friend in Auckland, New Zealand (I love the Internet!).

The announcement of new bold change for the Church of God came, oddly enough, at the same time I received a copy of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium. I have to say there is more contrast than comparison.



Church of God—here’s what I found on our new Web site, which I had to look for:

Branding, marketing words—our church as defined and described by a marketing firm, our values color coded, and our mission more ambiguous than ever—although I am sure that marketers would say more open ended and inviting.

Lack of theological reflection—in fact, I have yet to find such. It may be that such reflection exists and that I just haven’t found it, but so far it is missing.

Foundationally ahistorical; we are no longer a reformation—this one, frankly, is pretty astonishing to me and not just a little disturbing. Without the theological reflection, of course, I can’t know what is meant but it seems odd that a church that has described itself as part of the reformation now decides that doesn’t matter anymore.

A tagline as definition, yet a definition that is as ambiguous as it is clever—Jesus is the subject. It has a nice ring, but what does it really mean? It seems to me to raise more questions than it answers.

We are “modern” in a post modern, even a post Christian, era—I just don’t get this. Modernity nearly killed the church; it may be singlehandedly responsible for the understanding that we are now living in a post Christian era and we suddenly want to describe our selves as modern?

A conflation of church and “headquarters”—a dynamic tension in the historical life of the church—how do we do the work of the church without becoming a denomination—is suddenly dismissed, and suddenly it is all one.

I do celebrate the reassertion of a global vision and, certainly, any discussion that doesn’t include Jesus would be simply wrong, but a question is begged: “If Jesus is the subject, which Jesus are we talking about.” The naiveté of the statement is, to me, pretty staggering.

There is a presumption operating: a logo precedes rather than flows from theological reflection.



Evangelii Gaudium—here are my observations after my first read of this letter to the church.

Francis’s “joy of the gospel” resonates so deeply into the roots of the Catholic Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ—I’m afraid the contrasts between the rebranding of the Church of God, Anderson, and the depth of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation are so striking that that they are nearly overwhelming.

His is a deeply theological and sociological and economic and relational reflection. It is, I think, a radical call to be the church; it is radical because it is so focused on Jesus—on a particular Jesus.

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.

Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers.”

The result is a striking, even radical, contemporary reframing of historical truth, which calls the church and its leadership to a deeper spirit marked by contrition, humility, and integrity—and Christlikeness.

It names the sins of the church for what they are and calls the church to be better—no, really, it calls the church redemption so that it can be the church founded by Jesus.

There is no question which Jesus Francis speaks of: this is the Jesus of justice and peace and life and dignity and inclusion, unity, holiness, dialogue: Jesus, clearly, for others. Radically crossing nearly ever barrier imaginable to make God real in the lives and systems of his—and our—day.

The word of God also invites us to recognize that we are a people: “Once you were no people but now you are God’s people” (1 Pet 2:10). To be evangelizers of souls, we need to develop a spiritual taste for being close to people’s lives and to discover that this is itself a source of greater joy. Mission is at once a passion for Jesus and a passion for his people. When we stand before Jesus crucified, we see the depth of his love which exalts and sustains us, but at the same time, unless we are blind, we begin to realize that Jesus’ gaze, burning with love, expands to embrace all his people. We realize once more that he wants to make use of us to draw closer to his beloved people. He takes us from the midst of his people and he sends us to his people; without this sense of belonging we cannot understand our deepest identity.

I truly believe that every leader of every communion, fellowship, and denomination, especially in the West, should be studying this document: it is a flat out challenge not only to the Pope’s own church (our ancient Babylon) but also to anyone and everyone who claims Jesus as Lord. But it is especially a challenge to any person who assumes leadership roles in any expression of God’s church. I cannot help wondering why we seem incapable (or unwilling) to truly engage each other along the same lines.

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The italicized comments are taken from a record of a conversation among eight church clergy, academics, and spiritual teachers that took place in Victoria British Columbia, Canada, during Lent, 2011. There are 12 observations about the “future of the church” that emerged from that conversation. These are two that I thought connected to my random thoughts:
http://www.contemplative.org/pdfs/The_Future_of_Church_04July11.pdf.

The comments in bold are taken from the text of Pope Francis’s Evangelii Glaudium, which can be found at It is over 200 pages long and not all of it relates to our own story, but if anyone is interested you can download a .pdf of it here:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html.