Embarking

There is really no way to capture the passion we just heard from Christine Caine in notes on a blog.  This is a woman who, as she said, is still “old-school enough” to truly believe that that Jesus is the hope of the world.  She challenged us to live into this moment – our moment in which there are great needs in the world and to step up and be the church that God longs for.

I was moved when Christine was telling a story in which she was challenged by a woman who was just being rescued from sex trafficking slavery who said, “If what you’re saying about your God is true, why didn’t you come earlier?”  She said this amazing statement, and one we should all reflect deeply on:

It is not that God did not hear your cry; but I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to hear it.  I honestly cannot think of anything in my life that was so important that I shouldn’t have come earlier.

There is a great challenge – not only in terms of human sex trafficking – but in all the ways that God’s heart breaks for his world.  Isn’t it true that we are so often so busy with so many things that are merely much ado about nothing and are neglecting the very deep things that moved the Father to send Jesus into the world in the first place?

Towards the end of her talk, Christine talked about hope.  She talked about how courageous her little 4 year old becomes in the middle of darkness with a simple flashlight in her hand – with that little light, she’ll go in darker.  While they were in Walmart buying a flashlight, her daughter said, “Mommy, can we please go find some darkness?”  It doesn’t take much light to dispel the darkness, it simply takes the courage to step in for “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.”

Bill Hybels had a great opening session.  He started with a simple leadership principle from his journal:  Leaders move people from here to there.  It’s not anything new.  It’s the vision piece, the picture of the preferred future.  It’s the thing you get excited about and say, ”It will be bliss on a stick when we get there.”  It was a really helpful reminder that ”The first play is not to make there sound wonderful.  It’s to make here sound awful.”  That the preferred future begins with a “holy discontent” as Hybels has said in the past.

“Long before MLK gave his “I have a dream speech,” he gave hundreds of “We Can’t Stay Here” speeches.”

He used some great examples, including moving Willow’s food pantry onsite:  ”Imagine if at the end of our weekend services… I could say, go right over there and we’ll give you groceries for the week.”  The reality is, though, that there are many people who say, “there, shmere, what’s wrong with here?”  They don’t want to move.  Hybels has given a number of good talks (I have several in my own journals) on the change process and important steps along the way, and this is another.

One of the other important pieces of leadership is hiring fantastic people.  Bill reminded us that hiring fantastic people requires Character, Competence, Chemistry (cf. Bill’s book Axiom).  He added a new C, that he calls Culture.  Understanding the culture of the organization and the culture of leadership is key to moving from here to there, and is as important at Character, Competence, and Chemistry.

I love Hybels focus on his staff.  Here are a couple thing he said:

“We don’t offer potential staff persons a tidy career opportunity, we offer them a mission they can lay their lives down for.”

“Building teams of fantastic people who fit our culture is one of the joys of leadership.”

“Do you view the assembling of fantastic people as a privilege, as a leadership essential?”

He also said that there are usually 3 reactions when a person resigns.  Bill invited us to imagine that as we sit here we get a text from someone or an email saying they’ve resigned.  Here are the 3 normal reactions:

• Phew
• Aaugh… I feel bad about that, but we’re going to be ok.
• Read the text.  Read it again.  Run into the lobby and vomit because you’ve lost someone who feels irreplacable.

I love the questions that arise out of this for any leader:  what would be your reaction for each person on your staff?  Do you have a staff that you would be in the 3rd category for every single one?  Which of the 3 reactions would your boss have if he or she received the text from you?

So, if you do have some of these fantastic people, how to keep them on your staff, excited, passionate, and engaged?  Here are some things Bill suggested:

• Regularly refill the vision bucket.  With his typical phrase, “vision leaks,” Bill reminded us again that we have to continue to refill the vision bucket with our staff.
• Put mile markers along the way, and celebrate.  What keeps people on the journey is a sense of hope that they’re going to get there someday.  And it’s important to celebrate along the way, not just at the end, even if you have to make up mile-markers.  When is the last time you had a party for progress along the way, not just the destination?

The last thing Bill talked about was hearing from God.  He passionately talked about the whispers of God in his own call to faith, to plant a church, and to serve other pastors.  He spoke about hearing from God through the word, lowering the ambient noise, repairing our antennas, and listening and obeying the whispers deep in our hearts.  Bill was right on when he said, “I don’t think you get from here to there without hearing from God in the process.”  This gets at, in my opinion, one of the great failures of many of us who are leaders.  Too often we merely see the picture of the preferred future in the beginning, but we don’t listen to God and his ever-present whispers along the way.  Too often, the initial picture is fuzzy and we don’t fully understand it, and God continues to lead all the way to the end, all long the way.

Some Whispers:

• Step Up
• Take the Risk
• Stand Firm
• Start a Church
• Apologize Now
• Admit Your Mistake
• Make The Tough Decision
• Get Help
• Stop Running From God
• Slow Down (for some of us, velocity is killing our soul)
• Show Your Heart
• Let Others Lead
• Feed Your Soul
• Bless The Team
• Make the Ask (some of you know here “there” is, but you’re just chicken to make the ask)  Courageous
• Do Something Impactful (some of you have been pounding the same nail your whole life)
• Come Clean
• Embody the Vision
• Celebrate the Victories
• Speak the Truth
• Pay the Price
• Count Your Blessings
• End the Secret
• Check Your Motives
• Set the Pace
• Give God Your Best
• Get Physically Fit
• Serve Your Spouse and Kids
• Pray
• Humble Yourselve

Z

Browse Inside

Browse

Info

Add

Last week I read And: The Gathered and Scattered Church by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, and am finally blogging a few of my thoughts.

I had heard of this book initially after a few friends were at Exponential this year.  I couldn’t go because I’d just been at the Q Conference in Chicago.  However, I probably should have been there because I’m in the throes of planting Fair Haven’s first multi-site right now called South Harbor Church (a week and a half from the first preview, with launch on 10.10.10.), but I couldn’t give up the Q experience.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, and will recommend it to several people – particularly certain chapters.  Let me begin with a critique, and end with some things I liked.

The premise of the book is basically to stop fighting over different models of the church and honor one another in our differences but seek to use whatever models work in seeking the kingdom.  The book talks often of mega and mini churches, and of missional and attractional.  These are important dichotomies on the one hand – and ones I’ve struggled with myself.  On the other hand, it’s too easy a division to hang a hat on and there are deeper issues than the book goes into.  Ultimately, I love title, but think the book got into too much about Adullam (Halter and Smay’s church), and only scratched the surface of these deeply ecclesiological issues of our time.

“And” does a good job of articulating the need for working together through various models with the same ends in mind, but in my estimation never gets to some of the deeper issues about how much a model influences the end goals.  For instance, Halter does a good job talking about moving people out of consumerism and into transformation and into dying to oneself for Christ.  He nails the issue that disciples are not consumers (chapter 3), but then never really deals with models of doing church these days that promote consumerism of a Christian sort.  In an effort to be unifying, Halter sometimes borders on not being critical enough where healthy critique is necessary.  Other times, though he says that both types of models are helpful, but then tends to tip towards favoring the missional impulse.  One question that would be more helpful to me would be around how the mega church can remain missional enough to be Christian and how does the missional church become attractional enough to stay alive and have an influence beyond a small group.  Overall, I think he tries to be balanced between multiple models, but speaks only out of the Adullum experience.  It would’ve been nice to see a balanced approach in this book with multiple models all expressing the unifying aspects of the gathered and scattered church.

Where “And” does hit the nail on the head in terms of what’s necessary for both the scattered and gathered, missional and attractional, mega and mini is the incarnational community.  Here is how it’s put on page 66:

“Whether you’re starting from scratch and moving down the missional flow or starting from an existing structure and moving up, you’ll notice that the center of the process is ‘incarnational community.’”

By incarnational community, they mean here bands of people with the missional heart of God integrating their lives with those who don’t know Him and are doing something intentional about.  Simplistic, yes, but true none-the-less.  Too many churches lose the core mission of God to reach his people far and wide and lose their very nature as church altogether.

For me, chapter 4, “Spiritual Formation for Missional Churches” was the best chapter in the book.   This chapter really deals with how to move someone from being far from God through the discipleship and growth process to the place of mobilization in ministry (in their words from Observance to Preparation to Participation to Partnership).  This is such a key issue, and one that churches tend not to do well.  We call it a “people pathway” or a “people process” – but who wants processed people!  However, churches today desperately need a pathway of discipleship that includes evangelism, grounds people in the basics, and moves them towards influential leadership in the use of their gifts.  With studies like Reveal and churches realizing their lack of depth, discipleship pathways are getting popular.  Chapter 4 is all about how to go about that, focusing on the transitions in stages, and developing a clear pathway.  I like it. This chapter is one that I will recommend several people read.

Chapter 5 is also very helpful in describing the difference between modalities (structures focused on caring for those already in the church) and sodalities (those that push toward those on the outside).  This is a helpful chapter, finding its roots in the missiology of Ralph Winter.  This is where the book gets closer to living up to its name.  I think if the book had moved this chapter earlier (after the biblical foundation of Chapter 1) and then built upon it, dealing with the centripetal and centrifugal forces necessary for the gathered and scattered church to remain in balance, it would’ve felt more balanced and helpful.  This chapter is one that I will recommend several people read (like church planting interns, student and children’s ministries staff, seminarians, etc.)

That’s not exactly how he phrases it, but James Davison Hunter in his recent book To Change the World: Irony, Tragedy, and The Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World questions the possibility of Christians really changing the world through intention.   It’s not nearly that simple, particularly for this brilliant sociologist, but Hunter argues – among other things – that changing the world is a long, complicated process involving cultural elites and centers of power, particularly in politics, that run contrary to the biblical vision given to us by Jesus.  I’ve been reading this book over the past couple months and have finally brought it to conclusion, although I think I’ll read it again.  In a nutshell, Hunter challenges the assumption that aggregated individuals through grassroots efforts can make any lasting or significant change in culture, particularly without wielding the very power of coercion that Christianity rejects.

I think Andy Crouch from the Christian Vision Project sums it up well when he says, “The irony is that there is no phrase more beloved to a certain kind of Christian than ‘to change the world.’ But in Hunter’s persuasive account, the strategies those very same Christians have pursued are, by themselves, woefully incapable of changing the world…”  ”…the very idea of ‘changing the world’ is rooted in a quest for dominance that fundamentally misunderstands the Christian gospel and the way of Jesus.”

Hunter goes on to critique the Christian Right (conservatives), The Christian Left (liberals or mainliners), and what he calls the “Neo-Anabaptists” made up of folks like Hauerwas, Yoder, Claiborne, and the New Monastics.  In this critique, Hunter betrays his philosophical (or sociological?) postmodernism in agreement with the likes of Foucault, Nietzsche, and others about language, power, and the coercive nature of culture creation.

There are several people who engage Hunter’s work, not the least of which are Andy Crouch and Chuck Colsen (see the posts below) who ask some great questions.  What I found interesting was that nowhere (I’m sure it’s out there somewhere) have I yet seen someone challenge the philological, linguistic, postmodern philosophical assumptions of Hunter’s work.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually agree with Hunter on these points about power and cultural transformation, but he doesn’t fully tip his hands about the philosophical foundations of those ideas, choosing instead to shroud them more spiritually in the non-coercive, non-violent leadership of Jesus.  I happen to think these two things are very compatible, but haven’t seen much work done to connect the two (which I’d love to do if I had the time).  Hunter does his sociological work as a Christian within a postmodern philosophical framework, but only acknowledges his indebtedness to the likes of Foucault at a cursory level hidden in the endnotes (yes, some of us do read them, cf. endnote 1, Chapter 4, Part I) and to Nietzshe with a short explication ofressentiment from Nietzsche and its relationship to Christianity in Chapter 7 of Part II.  Generally I find most Christians merely lambasting postmodern thought and philosophy without a) really understanding some of the seminal thoughts, b) seeing the ability to be a Christian and acknowledge some of these realities, or c) understanding how deeply these ideas affect issues of hermeneutics, missions, and even contextualization.

Don’t get me wrong, there are serious problems with postmodern philosophy, postmodernity as a cultural project, unthoughtful “postmodern churches” and edgy “postmodern pastors”.  But some of the more serious questions about our embeddedness in cultures of understanding based on would help us think through contextualization in mission, understanding of  power and language might help us avoid our sometimes coercive tendencies (in marketing, preaching, the use of guilt, etc.), and a greater honesty about our presuppositions and framing stories might help us get closer to real conversation with people about basic beliefs without mere condemnation and help our evangelism.  Recently Tim Keller told a group I was a part of that we need a new approach to apologetics, and I think this is part of it.  Hunter, in my opinion, opens the door to some of these conversations in a different (and potentially less volatile) way than Brian McLaren.

So, here are a couple wrap up thoughts on Hunter’s book:

1. This is a wonderful, scholarly work on how cultural change actually functions.
2. This work requires additional study on these issues by Christians and non-Christians alike.
3. There is much more work to be done in helping Christians to wrestle with some of these underlying issues of power, language, and culture (which, honestly, postmodern philosophy is mostly about).
4. This analysis is extremely helpful in understanding many of the drawbacks of the Christian Right, Christian Left, and the Neo-Anabaptist approaches and their rooting (or not) in ressentiment (which, interestingly enough, was the subject of one of my senior seminar papers in 1994 dealing with Neitzsche and the will to power.)

Enough of that for now.  I have more to say, and if I find the time I’ll write more.  Here are some helpful articles that give some more information about the book and Crouch and Colsen’s responses.

• Executive Summary of Is There a Culture War:  A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2006 featuring Michael Cromartie, Alan Wolfe, James Hunter, and others.
• Andy Crouch’s response Hunter and I Agree on Culture Making (He just seems not to know it) in Christianity Today and How Not to Change the World in Books and Culture.  I read Crouch’s book last year, and really enjoyed it.  Crouch takes issue with Hunter’s cursory overview of his book, and having read it, I agree with Crouch.  I ran into him at the Q Conference a few weeks ago and ask him, “What did you think of Hunter’s challenge to your book,” to which he responded, “Have you read my review in Books & Culture?”  Thanks for the tip, Andy, and it was good to meet you.
• Chuck Colsen responded in his article More Than a Faithful Presence in Christianity Today.
• Interview of Hunter by Christopher Benson Faithful Presence in Christianity Today.

One of the interesting things that Dr. Tim Keller said at the North American Network gathering for City to City was something like the following:

“The reason secularists are afraid of Christians is their belief that if we get in power, we will take everyone else’s freedoms away.”

I found this to be an interesting and enlightening comment.  I’m not sure the word “afraid” hits it quite right, but what Keller is getting at is that Christians are often not great “citizens” in the secular society because of our propensity towards creating a government which takes things away from people – rights, civil liberties, freedom of belief, etc.  I’m not sure this has happened in recent history in any way of significance, but the threat is certainly there from the Christian Right.  The sense that, if Christians would be placed into major political positions of power, we would use our power to estrange others of different beliefs is palpable in at least the rhetoric.  The interesting thing about this is that certainly, any political group lobbying for power hopes in someway to use that power to leverage their beliefs for their version of the good of the country.  I’m not so sure that Christians are all that different in this political sense than any other idealogical group.  However, my deeper question (and possibly Keller’s) is whether there is another way to approach cities, politics, and the social sphere in general from a Christian perspective or from Christian values and beliefs.

There are lots of questions wrapped in whether and how Christians should be involved in politics.  And historically, there are any number of ways in which Christians have approached the public realm, from ruling and reigning to fomenting revolution to isolation.  Today, Christians can be found on the left, on the right, in the middle, and on the outskirts.   What I appreciated, though, about Keller’s comments was that it is disturbing that our neighbors and fellow citizens would be worried about persecution and oppression under a Christian lead government.  That’s enlightening when we think about it deeply.  I realized that I’m afraid of many of the Christians I know getting into the political realm for the same reasons.  So, Keller asks, why don’t our neighbors think we love them?  Why don’t people in the city think we love their city?  If we are truly loving our neighbors as ourselves and seeking the welfare of the city (and country), why would that be threatening?  Is it the confusion in their hearts and minds, or is it in something we have done? (my bias is that it’s something we are responsible for more than anything… cf. the wonderful book UnChristian by Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman).

I’ve been reading the book To Change the World by James Davison Hunter, which is a fascinating book on culture, history, power, Christianity, and change.  In that book, I think it’s chapter 5, Hunter shares some history of the relationship between Christians and political movements.  One of his arguments (to be really simplistic) is that when the cultural elites are truly converted and lead with humanity in mind through true care for the poor, estranged, and powerless that Christianity has been the most effective in cultural change.  Though I haven’t heard enough on Keller, I think this is where he’s pointing.  How do you impact the cultures of power and ideas while maintaining a heart for true justice and care for all humanity?

Jesus said this in his inauguration into ministry in Luke 4, quoting from the Isaiah 61 vision:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

One of the questions here is how this message and mission of Jesus – the good news – is being missed by our culture when Christians try to enter into the public realm?

I think Keller’s right.  We don’t know how to enter the public discourse, and often aren’t allowed into the public discourse as Christians because of our reputation.  We do need a new apologetic that arises out of the message and mission of Jesus for a new humanity, rooted in love and redeemed by love, for all people.

Again, we return to love, the gospel of love, the message of love, the heart of love, the approach of love, the words of love, the power of love, the conviction of love, the character of love, the way forward through love.  Love.  Jesus.  Simple.

What would a politics or public discourse of love look like, feel like, and sound like?  What if the world looked to Christians and said instead, “We would love to have you at the table because we know if you were in power, more people would experience the true freedom that love brings.”

The Expanded Bible

I recently got a copy of The Expanded Bible, New Testament, published by Thomas Nelson. It’s text is a modified New Century Version, and the “contributing scholars” are Tremper Longman III, Mark L. Strauss, and Daniel Taylor. I’m new to Strauss, but I’ve appreciated Longman’s writings and thoughts as a biblical scholar for a long time. I first learned about him through Dan Allender (who happens to be a promoter on the dust jacket). Taylor, as far as I’ve known, is more of a writer than a biblical scholar, but has always worked with biblical material, is contibuting editor to Books & Culture, etc. I had my introduction to Taylor at the Calvin Faith & Writing Conference years ago.

In any case, this is a very interesting resource, and I’ve already found it quite useful. What these writers/ scholars have done is take the New Century Version and then expanded it within the text to include alternative translations for words or phrases, literal translations of the words, the traditional translation (read KJV), comments, references and textual variants. Rather than have some of these within the footnotes, or expanded explanations (as in a Study Bible), these are included within the text. Doing this allows the reader to see the translation decisions that need to be made, or the possible other meanings, textures of the text, etc. It also allows the reader to see both the formal equivalence possibilities (favoring a more literal translation) and functional equivalence models (favoring words that convey meaning rather than being literal) – choices which most translations make and you never see.

What I appreciate about the Expanded Bible is the ability to really see what’s going on a little better without a) having to go to multiple translations or b) having to go back to the original language. Particularly for those who do not have training in Greek or haven’t studied the textual variants or semantic range of words or idiomatic renderings, this can be a great help for Bible Study or teacher preparation.

One thing that may be lacking here is a more helpful explanation of textual variants as well as translation in general. There is a good, short explanation of the difference between a formal and functional model, but more information in the introduction could help those who pick this up and haven’t been introduced to the issues. What I find in most churches is a relative lack of knowledge about how the bible has been contructed, about additional manuscripts, scribal errors, the decision-making process of most translators (older, harder reading, etc.)

However, overall, I think this is a great addition to or prequel to a Study Bible. It allows you to get into the text with more texture without getting into someone else’s decisions about what the correct reading is, or someone else’s interpretation. With any translation, many decisions have been made. With a study bible, there is lots of commentary on interpretation.

I would not probably use this Bible as a normal “reading” bible. I would find all the symbols and extra information distracting, but in the right uses, it can be really helpful. I think an Old Testament Version would be great.

I finally watched the video last night between Cizik and Jacques Berlinblau on Faith Complex in the Washington Post.  A couple of follow up comments:

• It appears that Cizik does view homosexuality as a sin, but is not against political anti-civil unions.  Many people would say that’s a clear contradiction, but there is a big question that bears discussion on this and many other issues about the fact that the US is a political democracy founded on political liberalism (different than “liberal”).  Since we are not a theocracy, what can be and should be expectedand/ or demanded from the government according to our values is naturally limited by the type of liberal democracy we have.  The big questions are probably these:  What are those limits for Christians?  At what point are we unable to live in such a democracy without strong resistance (and I don’t mean violent resistance, cf. 1 Peter 2&3)?  How do we respond faithfully and biblicall to government laws and programs that we cannot agree to, or that may contradict our beliefs?  At what point do we violate political democracy by forcing our own values and beliefs up others, and is it ok for us to do that through political leveraging or rule of the majority, but not for others we may disagree with?  I’ve not heard enough conversation among Christians on those issues, which would be a great help to clarify where we stand on such important clarifications  (maybe some time would be helpful with William Wilberforce, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and of course Paul and Peter in their time in Rome and Jesus in Jerusalem).  It’s simply more complicated than saying, “We are a Christian nation” or “We were f0unded on Christian principles.”  Even if that were true (and it is and it is not, depending what you mean), these questions are still important.
• Cizik spoke well about environmentalism.  The church in many quarters does seem to be waking up to these realities at a higher level, for which I’m very glad.  There are some great minds in this area within the Christian Church, great voices that need more air time, people like Stephen Bouma-Predegar and Wendell Berry and one of my favorites, Joseph Sittler.
• Cizik spoke of the Republican Party as the part of denial.  I thought this was interesting.  He was basically saying that if you deny something (that global warming exists, that millions are without healthcare, that poverty is epidemic) then you don’t have to do anything about it.  I found this a fascinating idea.

I was actually impressed with Cizik.  Whether you agree with him or not, this is an interesting video.  As I’ve said a million times, and Berlinblau gets at it at the beginning of the video, the future of evangelicalism, and particularly the leadership of evangelicalism is up in the air.  I’m fascinated and interested in how this will play out in the next 20-50 years of my lifetime and wonder if and how I might be involved in that dialogue and development.

I read a blog post tonight in the Washington Post from the Georgetown/ On Faith by Jacques Berlinerblau on “Evangelical America’s Future.”  I’m actually really interested in the topic of the future of evangelicalism.  Personally, I believe we are going through some major transitions, not only in Evangelicalism, but in Christianity in general.  My friend Doug put me on to Phyllis Tickle’s book The Great Emergence this past year, and I really enjoyed her argument [tuncated here] that we’re going through a major shift in Christianity out of which will emerge both a changed Christianity and possibly a new breed of Christianity as well.  (As an example, the Prostestant Reformation lead to the birth of Protestantism as well as a forever changed Catholicism – two new things out of one.)

I’m interested in who will lead the new evangelicalism, what will happen with the so-called “emerging church” (lots of conversation lately on whether Emergent is dead or alive), how orthodoxy will be restated (it’s always restated into new cultural contexts when the culture shifts… and the culture is shifting… truth is still true but may be communicated, understood, or incarnated differently in new and emerging cultural contexts).

Anyway, this article was looking at how Richard Cizik, former head of the National Association of Evangelicals, has been changing his political position (Cizik resigned from the NAE in December after 28 years) from classic conservative and Republican political positions to more liberal positions on a number of issues.  This isn’t uncommon these days, what I call the de-Republicanization of evangelicalism.  I have always maintained that being evangelical is neither congruent fully with Republicanism or Democratic platforms.  There are biblical issues on both sides of the spectrum, probably making the more faithful political position of a committed evangelical being somewhere in the independent middle.  In any case, I haven’t watched the video of the interview, yet, but I was disappointed in his apparent stance on same-gender civil unions.  Now, to be fair, there are some people I know who are not in favor spiritually or biblically of same-gender sexual union but are ok politically with civil unions, and maybe this is Cizik’s position (though I doubt it).  I’m not there, either, and I remain biblically conservative on homosexuality, but I can see their point in a non-Christian liberal democracy.  (I appreciate Stanley Grenz’s phrase “Welcoming but not affirming” for the church).   However, I will agree with Cizik that many younger evangelicals (certainly not all, particularly not the young calvinists) tend to be more politically liberal.  This younger evangelical political liberalism tends to be focused around issues of war, poverty, ecology, racial issues, gender equality, nuclear disarmament, etc.  I think it’s important to note that there are many younger evangelicals who have a conservative view of marriage as between one man and one woman, are concerned about the protection of the unborn and at the same time are anti-war, concerned about global and local poverty, have a high value for racial reconciliation and gender equality, are eco-concerned, etc.  To continue to act as if there are only two sides for evangelicals to be on politically is to make simplistic political positions that are highly complex.  The two-party system is not only broken from a secular political theory point of view, but is broken from a biblical, evangelical point of view.

Just sayin’.

I made a cynical comment about marketing in the previous post, indicating the possibility that the Jesus Manifesto was could be a marketing stunt to sell more books.  I want to apologize to Len Sweet and Frank Viola – two men that I don’t really know – for suggesting such a thing.  Sometimes my cynicism gets the best of me.  Len direct messaged me on Twitter saying two things that I found helpful.  First, in response to my post, he thought that “the kingdom of God” should have been left off of the list (on page 2 of Manifesto).  Second, he said that Cook [publishing] had know idea that they did this.  So, gentlemen, my apologies for my cynicism and thanks for the message!

I just finished reading A Magna Carta for Restoring the Supremacy of Jesus Christ aka A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola.  I enjoyed reading it, and many things resonated with me.  Apart from potentially being a marketing tool to sell more books possibly suggested by the publishers (my cynic is always present), the manifesto essentially highlights the importance of Jesus the Christ over and above anything in his name – be it justice, being missional, good works, laws or any other thing.  It is a reminder that Jesus it the one important thing, not anything else.  True.  I think what stood out for me were a couple of phrases:

Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth, and Goodness are found in a person.

This connects to what I’ve always said that truth is relational rather than (or superceding) being objective.  Jesus – as a member of the Trinity – is truth, and truth is personal.

We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder.  The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”

I agree with this in principle, but also want to make the point that much of the [evangelical] church has for far too long ignored issues of justice and particularly the gospel focus on kingdom.  Some of the strong language in these directions is to recapture the biblical messages of Jesus in a more holistic fashion.  Agreed that Jesus himself is the point, but because he is the point, his kingdom and justice are important.  I’m not as big a defender of “values” and “leadership principles,” although I certainly do have both, and the bible speaks to both as well.

The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ.

Those of you who know my story of conversion to Christ know that Paul’s statement in Colossians that “in Christ all things hold together” means a great deal to me both existentially and philosophically.

Christians don’t follow a book.  Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person.

Well said.  Many people never get through the book to Jesus the Christ.

Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.