"GOD SAID IT. I BELIEVE IT. THAT SETTLES IT."

April 2, 2014

I do think the attitude many Christians take toward scripture is unhealthy. And this seems especially true of Evangelicals. I believe our assumptions and certainties concerning what we think "the Bible says" are often getting in the way of our actually seeing Jesus in what we read. I think they even get in the way of us reading the Bible honestly, contextually, and holistically - despite the praise and reverence we lavish upon its pages. I am convinced that a lot of us are more interested in our ideas about this holy book than we are the person it's meant to be pointing us to. And I think Christian culture (and Christianese) bears witness to all these things I'm saying.

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"THE WORD OF GOD IS LIVING AND POWERFUL..."

February 8, 2014

I'm going to show you something that might blow your mind.

It concerns a very popular verse in the Bible, and it certainly blew my mind - even after years of knowing (and quoting) the verse, having been raised in Christian culture. It's a simple and yet very pervasive error of interpretation. A wrong understanding which has become the dominant understanding.

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"KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS!"

December 9, 2013

"Keep Christ in Christmas!" they say. We hear it all the time. But is Jesus even allowed in our "Christmas?" There was no room in the Bethlehem inn for his birth... Is there even room for this guy in mainstream Christianity?

How can we say we care about keeping the Christ in Christmas when we make it so obvious that that we don't care about keeping Christ in Christianity?

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"IT'S NOT RELIGION, IT'S A RELATIONSHIP!"

May 15, 2012

Despite the cliché not making it any easier for many in our society and generation to swallow Christianity, people continue to feel that speaking it covers them somehow, or that it means something substantive simply because they hope it does.

Who are we kidding?

I mean, do "religion" and "relationship" have to be so mutually exclusive? Do you have to pick one over the other? Can you not have both? Can you not be in "relationship" with God and have that inform what "religion" is and looks like for you?

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"YOUR WORKS ARE FILTHY RAGS."

April 3, 2012

If you are one who knows this saying to be taken from scripture, you might be immediately defensive at the idea of me criticizing it... But let me ask you a question the people who use this phrase in sermon after sermon never ask: Is it really "scriptural" to repeat "Your works are filthy rags" in the way we do? Are you certain? Just because the phrase is in the Bible - does that mean we're using it properly or for the same reason? Is it even a correct perspective to take in holding it over the heads of others?

You may have already guessed (you're fairly clever, after all) that I don't think the answer to any of the above questions should be "yes."

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"LOVE THE SINNER; HATE THE SIN." - Part II

March 15, 2012

“God is love.”

And God’s people will forever be those truly marked by and saturated with love. There is no way around this. And they are people of every type - every nation, every tribe, and every tongue - but what they have in common is this: God’s people take on God’s nature. And if “God’s people” devise ways to not love, if they scheme in their hearts these evasions and excuses and deceptions over what God is like and expects them to be… If they delude themselves into thinking they can remain unchanged at the core, that they can somehow represent God while fundamentally avoiding God's character… They cannot in any rational sense claim to be "God's people."

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"LOVE THE SINNER; HATE THE SIN." - Part I

March 12, 2012

If we allow hate to sit alongside love, thinking we can perfectly compartmentalize the two, we will inevitably find that it does not work. Hate trumps love, because love will not share its bed and sell out. Love will not be bullied or compromised or mistaken. Love will not be treated as secondary to its exact opposite. And we should not be surprised at how easy it is for us to relinquish the place of love in our hearts when we’re so hung up on keeping room for hate in there.

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A Cacophony of Clichés... [READ FIRST]

March 12, 2012

Jesus had a way of drawing attention to common religious sayings to both examine and challenge them. He would even do this with popular, quoted scriptures if he felt that the general usage of them robbed them of their true meaning, intent, or context. The device Jesus would use was a simple phrase, “You have heard it said…”

HERE - SOME 2000 YEARS LATER - IT SEEMS TO ME THAT IT HAS BECOME NECESSARY, EVEN ESSENTIAL, FOR US TO REVIVE THIS PHRASE.

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John Cooper, and "What is Happening in Christianity"

Despite criticizing the motivations of others, John Cooper is the only one who stands to benefit from the things he’s communicating to the same target audience.

THE STORY OF "THE WOMAN AT THE WELL" NO ONE EVER TOLD YOU...

...Where could one such as her ever worship? She wants to know. Truly. Jesus is the only learned Jew she has ever felt safe to ask. And in response, Jesus treats her like a serious and worthy theologian. As he honors her capacity for understanding, he elevates her and all women along with her. He drops the most significant teaching on worship in all of scripture on her alone, there at the well. The entire, sweeping theme of the New Testament and covenant, and the implications of everything else he does and says, he lays out plainly for her. He doesn't shroud it in parable. He can see she's ready for the fullness of light to shine. He tells her that worship is ultimately without ritual or rite. That it is found in spirit and truth at the very core of a person. That, whether in Jerusalem or at Gerizim, such temples are already obsolete. This means that people are the very temple of God. And this suggests to her she has as much access to God as some self-important high priest who loathes her. And she always has.

WE ARE NOT WAITING ON REVIVAL. REVIVAL IS WAITING ON US.

People have been pleading with the ceiling for revival for decades. For as long as we've had this American culture of Christianity, they've been attempting to stoke this fire and make something happen. Something lasting and real. They've sung and prayed and wept for it. Hundreds and thousands and millions of them – at altars and in tents and stadiums, in conferences and crusades and every other kind of service imaginable, they've been crying out for revival. And it has never been enough. But they keep telling us to try again, try harder, pray more. And maybe this time our withholding God will answer. Maybe. (Judging by the past, though, probably not.)

Of Course You're "Worthy"

You hear a lot in Christian circles about how "unworthy" we are. You hear a lot of it in Christian music, too. And this idea of our unworthiness is one that's meant to champion God's goodness and grace... But it's misleading. It's misleading because, while God's love and goodness may not be something we have to earn or deserve, that doesn't mean we aren't "worthy" of it. Here's something important that we often forget when it comes to "worthiness": the one giving the gift is the one who decides whether the one receiving it is worthy.

One Wish: Solomon, David & Desire

The desire of David reflected in some beautiful things and progressed the discussion for the whole world. Where his son desired wisdom above all else and wrote proverbs, David desired to sense the nearness of God... and he wrote songs. A whole lot of them. It could be reasoned that David saw himself as an ambassador joined with the move of God, while Solomon saw himself as a diplomat working for God. These two ideas persist to this day. Many still beg God for wisdom and seem to labor as though they were going it alone, while many others simply live with God and focus on declaring God's faithfulness to sustain and beautify all things. Many see God in the compartments, and focus on making big shows and displays of faith and piety for God... But many others see God with them always and everywhere - even down in the muck, when they're at rock bottom and have nothing to give.

things i learned while sleeping

My subconscious mind was narrating something I already understood to be true. Over and over, it was weaving an image of what I needed to come to grips with in myself. The smallness of the System I had known to address the bigness of the world. The smallness of God as I had known God... The dream was an invitation to something bigger. It was a declaration of the position I was learning to take outside the world as I had known it. It was a manifestation of my growing heart to be accounted with outsiders and those on the margins. Mine was a nightmare which helped point me toward greater light and greater truth. And it didn't leave me alone until I was truly ready to wake up.