How To Read The Bible Spiritually, Not Religiously

What is the foundation of our faith? What is our faith based on? One of the most prevalent approaches within Evangelical circles is to make the Bible the primary foundation. This is typical of Calvinism, and in its stronger forms can involve a distrust and dismissal of things like prayer, worship, and mystical experience. In other words, anything that might be connected with feelings and emotions is seen as suspect. The rational is equally mistrusted. People are taught that they can't trust their own thoughts or moral judgments. 

The problem here is not with the Bible, so much as it is with a particular way of reading the Bible which results in a faith that is disconnected from our experiences, relationships, feelings, and thoughts -- in short, disconnected from life and what makes us human. 

That means that rather than having an experience of God, rather than having a living relationship, all there is is the Bible. It is not the Bible as a means to lead us to God, but the Bible as a replacement for God. The Bible being our one and only source, becomes our de facto god. 

When we then discover that the Bible is morally fallible, this shakes the very foundation of our faith. We then need to figure out for ourselves what is right and wrong, but we have zero tools for doing this. Since we've been taught for so long to mistrust our own ability to make moral judgments, these parts of our brains are like atrophied muscles.

That brings us to the Charismatic movement which also has had a huge impact on Evangelicalism. Unfortunately, it does not offer much of an alternative. Here the problem is not that feelings are involved, but that very little thought has gone into how to connect our own life experiences with the Bible. Really all we get is something like "Just make sure that it does not go against the Bible, your pastor, or what your church friends think (in that order)" In other words, it boils down to falling back on authoritarianism, which is where we started. There's no thought of how we can be counter-cultural (including religious culture), or how we can question abusive authority like Jesus did.

What I'd like to propose is a third option that goes like this: We live our lives, and we have experiences. Say, for example, you experience what it is like to be loved unconditionally by someone. Like that guy who wrote Amazing Grace, you experience how that kind of "unmerited love" breaks you, changes you, heals you. Or maybe you experience what it means to forgive someone who has hurt you, and how your hurt and the relationship itself is healed and renewed through that. You live those things, and in that experience you recognize that, while these things were by no means easy or comfortable -- in fact, it was extremely hard and difficult -- yet, nevertheless, there was something amazing going on, something deeply good, something... God. 

That's spirituality, where we connect those deep things in life to meaning, where we see what maters, what we were made for, where we recognize our telos.

Then you pick up the Bible and read where people are making those exact same connections, living out those same things, and you say "Yes! That's exactly what I'm experiencing, too!" The Bible then is not read as a catalog of dogmatic statements detached from life, but becomes a means for us to explain and understand what we experience, connecting it to meaning. 

That's the function of story, and why a movie or novel can bring you to tears as it helps you connect life experience with meaning. The Bible is filled with stories, and the New Testament in particular is a testimony of a people's encounter with God among us.  Their purpose in writing is for us to encounter the same living Someone that they had. That's why John writes,

"We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!" (1 John 1:3-4 MSG)

The Bible helps us to connect the dots between our own life experience of what is truly and deeply good, so we can recognize, as we walk in grace and forgiveness and love, "God is in this! This is the way! This is the life! This is the truth!"

The Bible has a vital role to play here in that it helps us to connect the dots, pointing us to Christ. But equally important is that we are living our faith out, growing in it, walking it out. Even better is to be walking it out together in a Jesus-shaped community which may, or may not, meet in a building with a pointy roof on the weekend to sing songs and listen to a talk. The important point here is not the thing that happens on the weekend, but that there is actually a community, a group of people who are all living this out in their day-to-day lives. When that's a reality then it becomes possible to benefit from the shared wisdom of others who have been down the road you are now on. However, when church is instead a thing we attend as spectators, that's not actually community at all.

Here I see the most fruits from those in the peace churches -- Quakers, Mennonites, and Anabaptists. They seem to have a deep history of walking out what it means to live in forgiveness, grace and enemy love. So those are the traditions I'm looking to, and hoping to learn from, as I stumble along towards the light.

The President Sings Amazing Grace: A Song About "Our Nation's Original Sin"

President Obama delivered an emotional eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney and the other victims of the AME church shooting in Charleston. If you have not yet heard it yet, you can it watch above, as well as read the full transcript of the President's speech.

Offering thoughtful reflections on themes such as institutional racism, gun control, and the epidemic of mass shootings in America, what was perhaps most remarkable about Obama's speech was that it was not delivered as a political speech at all, but as a gospel sermon. 

The central theme that the President kept returning to was the subject of grace. Grace as a gift of God. Grace in the face of loss and pain. Grace in the face of evil and hate. 

The President spoke of the grace that opened the church doors and invited a stranger in. The grace the families of the fallen showed when they saw the alleged killer in court, and in the midst of unspeakable grief, met him with words of forgiveness. 

The sermon reached a crescendo when the President paused. 

It was a long pause. 

Then President Obama began to sing in a low baritone the words to the familiar gospel hymn Amazing Grace.

Amazing grace how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind but now I see.

Amazing Grace is a song we all know well. It has been called our country's "spiritual national anthem," and has become a song that inspires hope in the wake of tragedy. But there is a significance in the words of this song that are particularly significant in the immediate context of the AME shooting, and its connection to the continuing effects of what Obama referred to as "our nation's original sin." 

Amazing Grace was written by John Newton in 1779. When he penned the words "that saved a wretch like me" he was not expressing remorse for some personal failing - such as intemperance or infidelity. John Newton came to see himself as a "wretch" because of his participation in the African slave trade. This was Newton's great sin. When the words of this song exclaim "I was blind, but now I see" Newton's blindness was specifically to the damage of systemic racism, and his participation in it for economic gain. This was what his eyes were opened to, leading to his conversion and outspoken advocacy for abolition.

Amazing Grace is a song about repenting of systemic sin. We typically think of "sin" in individual terms, as personal failings. Systemic sin is often not on our radar at all, but it needs to be. They say "all sins are the same in God's eyes," but that simply isn't true. Newton's involvement in the slave trade clearly affected and damaged more lives than any of his individual failings could have. What makes it all the worse is that systemic sin often hides under the mantle of political or religious authority, claiming as the system to represent "the good." That is the nature of systemic sin, and it is indeed wretched. 

In recent years there has been a move to soften the words of the hymn, replacing the line "that saved a wretch like me," with more palatable verse, such as"that saved and strengthened me" or "that saved and set me free." While it's easy to understand the desire to move away from the song's negative theological roots of self-loathing, at the same time, there is a power in those words that perhaps we should seek to face, even if that's hard to do, even when it's hard to face and own up to.

Even now, in a time when we have become almost numb to the news of yet another mass shooting, weary of all the vitriol, tired of nothing changing -- as we stare into the depths of our nation's addiction to violence, and its deep scars of racism -- perhaps especially now we need to rediscover as a country, as a community, the kind of grace that John Newton did.

Amazing Grace is a song about one man's real and ugly sin. The sin of slavery. At the same time it is a song about the power of forgiveness, a song about looking into the depths of very real evil and, even there, especially there, finding grace that is bigger than all the hate.

That light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The Heart of the Gospel: Loving the Unlovable

I have often made the claim that love of enemies was the very heart of the message of Jesus. Understand the way of grace, forgiveness, and enemy love, and you have understood the core message of who God is as revealed in Christ, and how we are to be in the world as his followers. Understand enemy love, and you have understood the message of Jesus, what led him to the cross, and God's plan of salvation in Jesus. Miss it, and you miss everything else with it.

But if "love your enemies" is something Jesus only specifically said once (recorded in the Sermon on the Mount in the 5th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, and in the parallel account in Luke 6), how can it be said to be the very core of his message?

The key here is understanding how everything else Jesus says, every parable, every paradoxical statement, every act of healing or caring for the poor, all culminates in the way of enemy love. So let's step back and take a look at the bigger picture and context of Jesus' message. 

Jesus begins his sermon, both in Luke's and Matthew's accounts, with a list of beatitudes that turn our normal values and expectations of what is desirable, fortunate, and good on their heads. Both our culture and theirs would normally say "blessed are the wealthy," but Jesus instead provocatively declares "blessed are the poor." 

Matthew adds to this "... in spirit" which can make this easier to relate to if you happen to be a middle class American. But the original statement made by Jesus, found in Luke's Gospel, is simply "blessed are the poor."

In the time of Jesus the poor were regarded as cursed. They were seen as sinners who deserved their suffering. Similarly today the "American dream" is to make it and become rich, and all it takes is "hard work." So those who are poor obviously are not working hard and consequently are derided as freeloaders, deadbeats, entitled, and welfare queens. Cursed are the entitled. Cursed are the deadbeats. That's the assumption of our culture, and it leads to our idealizing obscene wealth while despising those in need. That is the opposite of Jesus' message of compassion and care for the poor.

Similarly when Jesus proclaims,

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free" (Luke 4)

We can take this to refer metaphorically to "captivity to sin" or "bondage to destructive patterns of behavior" but the original context of what Jesus is saying is to people who are literally in chains, literally prisoners.

If you have read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, you will know the story of how Jean Valjean is imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread, and that upon his release after 19 long years he is unable to get food or a place to stay because of a card he must present that identifies him as an ex-con.

That's the story from pre-revolutionary France, but today in America it is little different. People, especially black and brown people, are regularly imprisoned for years for trivial offenses, or even for no offense at all. Upon release, just as Jean Valjean was turned away with his card, they too are required to "check the box" identifying themselves as felons on forms for housing, benefits, and job applications. Systematically denied housing, jobs, education, and public benefits for life -- the very things they need to re-integrate into society --  as a result, many become homeless or return to jail.

If we as a nation despise the poor, this is doubly so with those labeled "criminals." As Michelle Alexander puts it in The New Jim Crow, blacks labeled as criminals "are perhaps the most despised minority in the U.S. population... Criminals, it turns out, are the one social group in America we have permission to hate."

As Alexander documents,  this is not simply a matter of attitudes and mindsets, but takes the form of policies of systematic oppression. It translates into laws that are "tough on crime" and result in rampant discrimination and injustice as well as widespread patterns of "law enforcement practices that violate the law and undermine community trust, especially among African Americans." That quote is from the findings of the U.S. Justice Department's investigation of the Ferguson Police Department.

The message of Jesus, over and over, is focused on caring for "the least of these." That is, the way we treat the person who is seen as the least deserving, is the way we treat Jesus. This is not about romanticizing a problem. The poor are often poor because of destructive patterns, abusive and hurtful patterns. Jesus was not naive to this, and neither should we be. We are talking about people who are broken, and that is not the pretend picture of Oliver Twist with rosy red cheeks and an innocent heart.

Nevertheless, Jesus calls us, over and over, to love the unlovable. He calls us to compassion for the poor, the sick, and yes, for the sinner and criminal, too. His focus was not on punishment and law, but on restoring people who were broken, on freeing people from bondage, and a huge part of that is about being valued and honored and loved.

This re-humanizes a person, and that leads to their restoration and redemption. Punishment and condemnation -- which is the focus of our broken criminal justice system -- does the opposite, and is the reason for the "revolving doors" of our prison systems.

If we want to learn to love our enemies, the place to start is where Jesus starts. He begins by having us learn to care for the poor, to recognize our own brokenness, and also to develop compassion for others who are less fortunate than we are. This carries over into recognizing that those caught in the cycles of crime should not be hated as enemies, but also need help to reform. Jesus calls us to practice forgiveness and reconciliation in our lives.

Before we can begin to practice love of enemies towards those outside of our borders, those who have declared themselves our "enemies," we need to first begin to practice love of enemies at home in our own communities. We need to develop open hearts of compassion for the poor, seeking realistic and wise ways to help and care for those in need. We need to likewise seek to help rehabilitate those labeled as criminals in our country, being driven again by open-eyed wise compassion rather than by fear.

Jesus' message culminates in the idea of enemy love. But everything he says leads up to this. It begins with having compassion for ourselves, and spills over to having compassion for others. Understanding the larger context of how we are to practice compassion, reconciliation, and restoration of broken people and broken society gives us the larger context to understand that enemy love is not simply about prohibiting violence, but far more substantially is the culmination of  a way of working to make things right in our world that we desperately need today.

How forgiveness works (and how it doesn't)

Those of us who promote Jesus' way of peace and enemy love often speak of things like "self-sacrificing love" or echo Paul's vocabulary of the "foolishness of the cross" and Jesus' radical call to "lose your life to find it." We speak of this way as being "counter-intuitive" and part of an "upside-down kingdom."

This all makes a great sermon. Lots of vocabulary from the Bible. It sounds radical and inspiring and right. But there's little discussion of what this looks like practically. How do I walk this out in my day to day life? How do I tell the difference between the kind of "self-sacrificing love" Jesus wants me to have, and an abusive or hurtful understanding?

If we really want to walk this out, we need to go beyond saying the right stuff, and really get down to what a practical application looks like. Because we simply cannot obey if we don't know how. Faith seeking understanding means saying "Lord I want to follow, show be how to do this well." As a theologian I see part of my task as helping to articulate what that looks like.

Take forgiveness for example. Forgiveness is an idea that almost everyone is familiar with. Much more so than the idea of enemy love. It's common to hear people speaking of the need to forgive for the sake of our own health. If we hold on to unforgiveness, they tell us, this will eat us up inside. So it's not just a Christian value but a value shared by our general culture.

This is all true. However, I'd like to suggest that there is a healthy form of forgiveness and an unhealthy form, and it's critical that we understand the difference. As with anything good, it is possible to do forgiveness wrong. How can we tell the difference? Our culture values forgiveness, just as it values love, but it often has messed up understandings of both, and so do we.

Many times, people simply try to ignore the hurt and “just move on.” They choose not to confront the offending person and continue the relationship as if nothing happened. The problem with the noble-sounding approach of “taking the high road” is that it doesn’t allow a person to legitimize and work through their authentic feelings. 

We've all been there: You'd like to leave the issue in the past, but it keeps coming back—sometimes years later—sometimes hidden in the disguise of feelings of low self-worth or depression, or as anger seemingly “out of nowhere.” 

On top of this, if you never speak up, the other person is likely to continue doing the same things that hurt you. You may also find yourself in a similar situation with another person.

Like Bonhoeffer's "cheep grace" this is cheep forgiveness. Genuine forgiveness needs to start by honestly facing the hurt. Forgiveness is not conflict avoidance. Forgiveness is not saying "that's okay" when it's not okay. Real forgiveness is about getting past real hurt. 

There are basically two ways to do this: reconciliation or acceptance. 

Reconciliation 

Reconciliation involves the other. They need to be open to listen to your perspective and is willing to change their behavior, possibly leading to a full restoration of your relationship with them. For you, it means being willing to release the other from the weight of their offense against you, being open to allow the person to change, being willing to love again.

What makes this different from cheap forgiveness is that this process requires admitting to yourself, as well as to the other, that you have been hurt. It requires that the other asks for your forgiveness (or at the very least acknowledges the hurt they have caused) and takes sincere steps to prevent a repetition.

In the case were you have hurt or wronged someone it's important to remember that asking for forgiveness is something you do for them, not for something for you to feel better. This may seem obvious, but is often difficult for Christians because asking for forgiveness is often synonymous with our seeking assurance of God's love. When "forgive me" means "make me feel less guilty" this does not feel so great to the one who has been hurt. A better approach is to express to the other that you care about them, recognize that you have hurt them, and want to make it right.

Acceptance

Reconciliation is wonderful when it can happen. When you can work through real pain and hurt, and come out on the other side with a stronger and deeper relationship, this is a beautiful thing. But what if the other person is not willing or able to admit any wrongdoing? What if they are completely out of the picture or no longer living? How do you forgive an unrepentant person?

Like reconciliation this includes an acknowledgment of the full extent of what happened, but unlike it acceptance is something you can do without their cooperation. Acceptance does not just mean "letting go" of a wrong. On the contrary, it requires that you validate what happened to yourself and the impact it has had on your life. This is a painful and often lengthy process. Revisiting an injury or loss is very unpleasant, but it is necessary in order to deal with the difficult feelings effectively so it doesn't spill over into other areas of your life. This involves looking at the painful event from every angle possible, including trying to imagine the other party's perspective. Acceptance means developing empathy for both you and for the other, and it means giving up the “hope for a better past” or for what “could have been.” 

None of this is easy. Cheap forgiveness or holding on to anger may seem like easier solutions at first, but the price you pay can be your physical or mental health when hurt is buried or allowed to fester in bitterness. Reconciliation is of course the most desirable option when possible, but you simply have no control over the other party's willingness to share your burden. The concept of acceptance allows one to independently process what happened and therefore to heal. Acceptance is therefore a kind of a reconciliation, too -- one that does not depend on the offender, but is a peace-making with your past. 

Militarization: The sin of our nation and our need for repentance

If we are called to forsake violence and instead unconditionally love and forgive others, does God also do this or does God instead act to violently punish the unrepentant? What does the New Testament teach us about this? We are supposed to be like Jesus, but is God like Jesus?

In a recent interview with Brad Jersak I explained that we see a clear movement in the NT towards an understanding of God's justice as acting to make things right, i.e. restorative justice, or as Paul calls it in Romans, "the justice of God" (dikaiosune theos). At the some time, we also find some NT authors who retain an understanding of God's justice as violently punishing and harming evildoers. The term the NT uses here is not "justice" (which is understood throughout the NT as restorative rather than retributive) but "judgment," which is destructive.

I then said that I think we need to move away from the view of God as violent and punishing, recognizing that the trajectory the NT puts us on should move us to a more Christlike image of God who acts through goodness to overcome evil rather than using violence and harm as a means to bring about the good.

In response, a reader pushes back on that idea. Here's the comment:

"Loved the discussion...brought more stuff into focus and clarified and stabilized more that I read from your book. But I'm not on the same page with you when it comes to forgiveness. If we refuse to repent from un-forgive-ness how can God forgive us? The NT makes it clear that we who hear the good news need to repent and believe on Jesus if we want to be saved. The Lord's Prayer comes to mind on how we are forgiven as we forgive"

In other words, God will not forgive us if we do not forgive. If we do not repent of our unforgiveness, we can expect God's punishment and judgment.

Let's consider this. When we think about this today, it is often in the context of our suburban lives, and so forgiveness revolves around interpersonal conflict. So when we think of who we are forgiving, what typically comes to mind is forgiving someone for hurting our feelings, rather than forgiving a person for, say killing a loved one or for putting us in prison unjustly.

The context at the time of Jesus was quite different. This audience was of a persecuted minority suffering violence and oppression, and the consideration was how they should respond. Should they take up the sword and kill their oppressors? The message of Jesus is that instead they should seek to overcome evil and oppression with love.

So when the NT authors speak of the stakes involved, and frame it in life-and-death terms, this is quite literal. That's why many have suggested that when they speak of judgment, they are speaking of the very real here-and-now consequences for taking up the way of the sword. They also saw the oppression of Rome as ripe for judgment with all of its violence and oppression. It was about to implode.

I can see this increasingly in my own country. We are becoming more and more violent, more militaristic -- both in how we deal with conflict abroad through drone strikes, torture, assassinations, and so on, and also in how the police a home have become increasingly militarized -- frequently using SWAT teams for routine situations and quickly reaching for their guns when there are much better ways to deal with a situation. This has led to protests across the country, and one thing is clear to me, we have here a huge problem that stems from America's tendency to glorify and put their faith in violence.

If you are a minority today in America, you might feel like they did in the time of Jesus under Rome. The message of the gospel has then a relevance in that context of oppression and injustice that it simply does not for those living in a sheltered and privileged environment. We live in Rome, and just as was the case in Rome there are those who lived in relative comfort unaware of the suffering of those in the lower classes. Jesus calls us to open our eyes to their need, and to break away from our tendency to look down on those who are less fortunate -- the poor, those in prison, and so on. It's about empathy and compassion, and our country seems to be moving away from that.

When the New Testament calls for repentance it is calling for a repentance from the way of violence. It is not simply addressing the personal and individual spheres, but the social sphere. It is saying that if we want to see change we cannot take the way of Rome (or the way of America) and instead must take a different way characterized by restoration, forgiveness, and love of our oppressors and those who wrong us. If we instead stay on the path of violence, this will result in tears and hurt for us. 

The point here is not to describe God's character, but to describe how we need to act in the world if we wish to end oppression and bring about justice. This is not a matter of God forgiving us. God has already loved us "while we were still sinners" in the incarnation (stooping down among us in our brokenness), the crucifixion (giving his life for sinners), and the resurrection (paving the way for us to overcome death and sin). God is willing to love us, and was before the cross. It's not about God being reconciled to us, but us needing to be reconciled to God, and that has to do with us being good, being loving, with us stopping the spiral of hurting and being hurt. Those who love as Jesus loved are the ones Jesus calls his "mother and brothers." Those who care for the poor are the ones Jesus says "well done" to.

So we absolutely do need to turn from having faith in violence. We have made an idol of our firepower, and trust in it instead of trusting in Jesus and his way. We need to repent of that. Especially those of us who are in positions of power and privilege. We call ourselves a "Christian nation," but we do not follow the way of Jesus and instead are the worst among Western countries when it comes to things like guns and prisons and money spent on war. If we want to look for sin in the land, this is it. This is our sin, and it is huge.

What I don't believe is that God calls us to seek the way of restorative justice, radical forgiveness, and enemy love while himself using the way of violent punishment and torture. After all, how else can you understand conscious eternal torment in hell other than as torture? This is to me an understanding of God that legitimizes the idea that those in authority can use harm and hurt to bring about justice. It is a very easy move to go from a picture of God punishing evil to a claim that those with the authority of the state can wield violence in God's name themselves, "For rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13:4). So we begin with the idea of God punishing, and it's a quick jump to "Christian" nations taking up the way of violence. That's where we are at now. This is our nation's sin. It is the sin of Rome.

At the time of the NT they believed, as did everyone else at the time, that beating people made them better. So they beat slaves, they beat children, they beat lawbreakers and rebels. Today we know that abuse does not make a person better, it makes them worse. Punishment, i.e. inflicting harm and suffering, is a way that simply does not work if our goal is reform and restoration, if our goal is to make things good and right. It does not work because it is based on an incorrect understanding of how humans function, and what leads us to repentance and reform. It makes things worse, not better. It does not bring about justice, it just perpetuates harm. Hurting people is not good, it is hurtful.

I can see how being hurt is the natural consequence of our hurting others. That's judgment, that's karma, that's sewing and reaping, but it is decidedly not the gospel. The gospel is about acting to reverse that course by the means of love and good. That is the way we are to follow in, and it is the way God demonstrates for us in Jesus.

So we do need to take up the way of forgiveness and love. We do need to repent. If we instead continue on the path of militarism and violence this will lead to hell on earth. However God in Jesus does not model that way of force and violence, but models for us the way of overcoming hurt with love. That is what God revealed in Christ looks like. God in Christ undoes the image of the God of war.

On Being the Nuts and Bolts

“I am a Christian, not because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity, but because there were people willing to be nuts and bolts.” 

This quote is attributed to Rich Mullins, from the docudrama Raggamuffin which tells the story of his life. It's a touching story of one man's struggle to find grace. You can watch the film on Netflix streaming.

I really love the idea of people being the "nuts and bolts" of Christianity. I'd love to go to a church like that. But my experience has unfortunately been very different. Regrettably though, I don't think my experience is atypical. I wish it were.  

In my experience, in every church I have been a part of, over the course of many decades, across many denominations, both liberal and conservative, and even different continents, over and over it was the pastor alone who was expected to be the "nuts and bolts" for everyone. There was talk about how we should do this, too, but the reality was that it was just one guy (who on some rare occasions happened to be female).

This is reflected in the name "pastor" which means "shepherd," implying that the rest of us are basically sheep. The pastor cares for the flock, and the fear is that if any of us leave church we will fall away like a little lost sheep. 

Baaaaa.

Our faith and morality will crumble if it is not held up by our shepherd. The catholic idea of a "father" is basically the same. They are the father, and we are all dependent little children.

Waaaaa.

This infantilizing creates a learned dependency where adults learn not to think and act as moral adults. If anything, the role of a pastor should be the opposite. It should be to empower people to think morally and to be those "nuts and bolts" in a loving community.

But this unequal "division of labor" is not just a major disservice to the congregants. It is also deeply unfair to the pastor who is saddled with an impossible burden.  They are typically expected to be an example of moral perfection. Consequently, they fear to voice any struggles or doubts or failures they may have for fear their congregation may turn on them. The result is not only that they hide their real struggles (and like the rest of us, they of course have struggles, too), but they often work themselves to the point of burnout.

J.R. Briggs, in his book Fail catalogs some alarming statistics: 

• 1,500 pastors a month leave the ministry forever due to burnout or contention in their churches.
• Pastors who work fewer than 50 hours a week are 30% more likely to be terminated. 
• 70% of pastors say they do not have a single close friend.
• Medical costs for clergy are higher than for any other professional group.
• 50% of pastor's marriages end in divorce.

As if this all was not enough, many pastors feel obligated not only to serve as a teacher, but also to act as a marriage counselor, social worker, therapist, addiction specialist, community organizer, and a host of other jobs that -- I can tell you first hand  -- you learn next to nothing about in seminary. It's then not at all surprising that, as Briggs notes, 90% of pastors say they were inadequately trained to cope with their job.

In short, pastors -- in trying to take on all these jobs -- act as if we were living in the middle ages when the local pastor really did need to be all these things since there was no such thing as mental health experts or doctors back then. But we don't live in the middle ages. To take this all on now is just nuts. Pastors don't know how to deal with clinical depression any more than they do a ruptured spleen.

What pastors (and the rest of us as equal members in a community) can do is love people. We can be a friend. That is something that is deeply important, and something a therapist or social worker can't do. Loving people is not a job you get paid for or get a degree in. But love is the central thing that Jesus said should characterize our lives as Christians.

It's important to note that this should be understood as a deeply important addition to the vital work that mental health experts provide, not a replacement. When you are sick, you need a doctor, but you also need human care and support. 

People with terminal or debilitating illnesses can often feel cut off from life and dehumanized. That's why it's so profoundly important in our struggles to have that human connection. We need people to support us, to stand beside us, to bring a casserole, or call on the phone to see how we're doing.

That's what the "nuts and bolts" of our faith are all about. This is not the job of one person, it is the job of all of us in a community.

The World's Best Pharisee

When the Gospels speak negatively of the "Pharisees" and in John's Gospel more generally of "the Jews" one can easily get the mistaken idea that all Jews were legalistic, angry, and opposed to Jesus and his ministry of caring for people.

That's simply not true. 

 

What makes this misunderstanding especially tragic is that the general impression of Jews being "legalistic" and "hypocritical" that we can get from (a misreading of) the Gospels has led to Christian persecution of Jews over the centuries. That means this is not only a wrong way to read the Gospels, but one that has led to real harm.

So let me set the record straight: Jesus was a Jew, and the conflict we see in the Gospels between Jesus and those identified as "the Pharisees" is more properly understood as an intra-religious debate within Judaism between two competing ways of understanding faithfulness to Torah.

More specifically, what we see in that conflict is best understood as a conflict between Jesus and the fundamentalism of his day. That conflict was real, and the Gospels record that conflict.

What's important to understand here is that fundamentalism -- then and now -- is not so much about what particular doctrines one holds to (indeed, doctrinally Jesus and the Pharisees had a lot in common), and much more about one's character and maturity -- about how we act and treat others.

There is a famous story about two of the key leaders of the Pharisees at the time of Jesus, i.e. the Second Temple Period -- Hillel and Shammai. Both were given a challenge by a Gentile who said,

 

"I'll convert on the condition that you can teach me the whole Torah while I stand here on one foot." 

 

Shammai's reaction was to try to beat the person with a stick for his insolence. Hillel in contrast responded,

"That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and learn."    (Talmud, Shabbat 31a)

Note, first of all, how in-line Hillel is with Jesus (or rather I should say how much Jesus was influenced by Hillel, since Hillel pre-dates Jesus). It's easy to see why many scholars believe Jesus got his "golden rule" directly from Hillel, and one can certainly also observe that Jesus' approach to Scripture mirrors Hillel's focus on it leading to love. For Hillel the law is there to serve people, not to burden them down. To paraphrase Jesus, the law was made for people, not people for the law. 

 

If all of the Pharisees had been like Hillel there would have been no conflict. But with Hillel’s death (10 CE) the Shammaites (followers of Rabbi Shammai) took control of the Sanhedrin and remained in control until the destruction of the Temple. The Pharisees we encounter in the Gospels appear to be ‘Shammaites’ rather than followers of Hillel (as Jesus arguably was). 

 

It did not stay this way however within Judaism. Just as the Gospels record constant disputes between Jesus and the Pharisees, within Rabbinic literature there are over 350 disputes recorded between the School of Hillel and the School of Shammai, and just as in the Gospels, in the Rabbinic literature the focus is always on Hillel's way of love over and against Shammai's harshness. As the Zohar puts it (Ra'aya Meheimna 3:245a), Shammai's way was based on severity and power (guvurah), while Hillel's was based on grace and mercy (hesed). Sound familiar?

 

Let's notice a second thing about Hillel's response to the Gentile standing on one foot. Hillel's answer is not only focused on love and grace, but he does so with a sense of humor. That's so important. Our political and religious debates are desperately in need of that. Humor is a crucial element of Jewish theology, and we can see a lot of that humor in the teaching of Jesus and Paul if you have your eyes open for it.

 

In contrast to this response of wisdom, compassion, and good-willed humor exemplified by Hillel, Shammai instead gets really angry and wants to hit people.

That's fundamentalism. 

 

Again, fundamentalism at its core is not about particular beliefs so much as it is about a way of dealing with people that is characterized by anger, judgmentalism, and close-mindedness. We constantly read stories in the Gospel where we are told that the religious leaders "tried to throw Jesus off a cliff" or "tried to kill Jesus, but he escaped into the crowds." That was what the fundamentalism of Jesus' day looked like. 

 

I hope the irony is not lost on you that rabbinic Judaism, in siding with Hillel over Shammai, has a lot in common with Jesus and his way, while many conservative Christians seem to have adopted an approach that looks a lot more like that of the Pharisees we encounter in the New Testament.

As the example of Hillel shows, not all Pharisees were fundamentalists, just as not all Evangelical Christians are today. Being a fundamentalist is not connected to one particular group or belief. We see fundamentalist atheists, too. (Bill Maher seems to be moving more and more in the direction of fundamentalism lately). Of course, let me hasten to say, not all atheists are like that either!

The question then is, are we focused on love like Hillel and Jesus? Or are we judgmental, close-minded, and angry? Do we feel it is more important to treat people right, or to be "right"? Are we trolling the internet, looking to put someone in their place, looking for someone to beat with our metaphorical sticks?

I know it's really easy to read that above paragraph and think of someone else who fits that description, someone over there who does this. But remember Hillel's words, don't become what you hate. Instead of pointing fingers and shifting blame we need to instead put the searchlight on ourselves, to remove the plank from our own eye, as Jesus said. 

 

Properly understood, the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees as it is presented in the Gospels is not at all about a clash between two religions, rather it shows how all of us can easily get our priorities wrong, get focused on the wrong thing, and as a result we can be total jerks and think we are in the right, that we are fighting the good fight.

This applies to how we have treated our LGBT brothers and sisters. It applies to how we treat our Muslim neighbors. It's about a way of being, and that way should be one focused on love, on seeing the one we regard as "other" and even as "enemy" as a human being beloved by God. We need to stop otherizing people, and start humanizing them. That's at the heart of Jesus' way, and if we read the Gospels and instead end up otherizing and blaming some other group like the Pharisees, then we've missed the whole point of the gospel.

 

In Jesus' version of the Golden Rule he alters the focus from Hillel's. Instead of not doing what we hate having done to us (which is already a huge moral advance), Jesus says to treat others the way we want to be treated. This is preemptive love. It's not just refraining from evil, but actively sewing good. It's a way to break the cycle of blame and hurt. Being the first to forgive, the first to say "I'm sorry."

Okay, I'm done. You can stop standing on one foot now.

Why Love the Sinner Hate the Sin doesn't work

Love the sinner, hate the sin. I'm sure you have heard the phrase a million times. Some attribute it to Augustine. Those who use it view it as a generous position to take. But many "sinners" are protesting and saying that they find it unhelpful and even arrogant. So maybe it's time to take a look at love the sinner, hate the sin.

The first thing we need to consider is the context: Who are we addressing when we say this? The way we answer that question makes a huge difference.

If we are speaking to people who feel wronged, wounded, hurt, by others--addressing people who are struggling with loving and forgiving those who have deeply hurt them--then "love the sinner, hate the sin" can be a powerful push towards recognizing the humanity in another and thus taking a step towards looking to mend the relationship. In this context "love the sinner, hate the sin" is about recognizing the humanity of the other. It moves the one who hates to instead learn to love in the face of hurt with the hope that love can act to mend the wrong.

However, much of the time when people say "love the sinner, hate the sin" the focus is not on helping another move away from hate and towards compassion, but rather it is more of a political statement, a way of saying publicly "I'm a compassionate guy, but let me make clear that I don't approve of this!" It's motivated by concern for our own good reputation--not wanting to be associated with those of questionable morals.

This is a focus that is primarily concerned with self-protection, with preserving one's own good name, as opposed to a focus on the needs of the one who is accused and condemned. This is the focus of PR firms,  advertising companies, and those concerned with the "bottom line" of public image and money.

It is decidedly not the focus of Jesus who had a reputation of being a "friend of sinners" (not a compliment) and was because of that association judged by the religious people of his day as a sinner himself. Hear me when I say this:

Jesus didn't give a damn about his reputation in their eyes.

What he cared about were those in need--the poor, the disenfranchised, the neglected, the condemned, the forgotten. That's who we should care about, too, if we truly care about the things Jesus did.

This brings me to the third focus of "love the sinner, hate the sin" which is when it is addressed to the sinner. This is where the phrase becomes especially unhelpful. In this context it sounds arrogant, patronizing. This is because people recognize that the real focus is not on them and their welfare, but on making a public statement to protect the speaker's reputation. People recognize that the statement is self-focused and that the professed care for them is disingenuous.

If our desire is truly focused on helping people move away from hurtful behavior then we need to realize that saying "love the sinner, hate the sin" simply does not lead to change in a person's life. In fact, it acts to push them in the opposite direction. Let me explain why:

When someone tells you what you are doing is wrong, your natural reaction is to become defensive. This is about self-preservation, and we all do it. What we need to instead communicate to a person is that we care about them, that we value them. When people feel safe--that is, when they know they are unconditionally accepted--this safety creates the possibility for vulnerability and reflection and openness.

Now, we may think that having a non-judgmental environment would be promoting sin, but actually the opposite is the case: When a person feels shame, they tend to hide the behavior. Defensive walls go up, things are covered up. If you want to see change, then what is needed is honesty and reflection--in other words, an atmosphere where things can be brought into the light, rather than hidden in the dark--and that requires a non-judgmental environment where a person feels secure and accepted.

That unconditional acceptance, rather than promoting sin, creates the setting where people can actually be real, where they can face the dark and broken places we all have. In that place we can own up to our weaknesses, to the parts of ourselves we are ashamed of and hide from.

That's beautiful when that happens, but I need to add a word of caution here: Be careful who you open your heart to. If we are vulnerable like that in a place where we are not in fact secure--where the love and acceptance is conditional--then that vulnerability can be dangerous, leading to condemnation and rejection. That of course can deeply wound us.

Behind that condemnation and rejection is fear, wrapping itself in a religious mantle. The Bible says that "love casts out fear" but the reverse is equally true: Fear casts out love. Many Christians are sadly driven by fear instead of love. They do not stay with God in response to love, but because they fear punishment. Take away the threat, and they will leave. Because they never really loved.

Love works. Love leads us to repentance. Love moves us towards healing and wholeness. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love always protects, always trusts, always perseveres.  Love never fails.

So I hope you stay because of love. I hope you can find a place where you are loved unconditionally and experience how that makes you come alive. I hope you find a place you can really be real, where you can admit your struggles and failures and hurts, and hear those two powerful words: Me too.

Gungor and the Two Faces of Evangelicalism

(Note: This article originally appeared on Red Letter Christians)

This past week the Christian corner of the internet has been somewhat abuzz with headlines like: Gungor drifts from biblical orthodoxy (World Magazine), Dove-Award Winning Gungor Rattles Christian World, (Christianpost) and Singer to Answer for Controversial Views (Breathecast). These articles then go on to accuse the band of “unorthodox theology” leading them to pronounce the band’s “departure from traditional Christianity” and their “wandering away from a biblically defined Christianity."

So what are these “unorthodox” and “controversial views” that put Gungor outside of the bounds of “traditional Christianity” and has thus “rattled the Christian world”?

Read more »

What Church Do You Go To? (Why Jay Bakker is my Hero)

I often get emails from people, stuck in dogmatic churches, who are hungry for grace. They hear the message of the cross expressed in terms of God's restorative justice, rather than divine wrath and revenge, and they ask me where they can find a church that teaches that, too. They hear the focus on unconditional grace and radical acceptance and long to be part of a church with that focus as well. So they write to me asking "Where do you go to church?"

I wish I could say I have found a great church where people are focused on being real and loving each other, warts and all. A place where asking hard questions is not a sign of moving away from Jesus, but a sign of moving closer to him. A place where the goal is not for one guy in authority to control people's morality like they were infants, but to empower everyone to develop a mature adult faith. 

That's what church ought to be like. So why is a place like that so hard to find? 

Maybe it's because pastors feel a pressure to act as if they are perfect, and so end up leaving no room for us to ask healthy questions either. Instead, they feel they have to act as if they have it all together. So we get up and sing happy and triumphant songs that don't really reflect our reality, the worship leader pumping up people with all sorts of unhealthy expectations, instead of creating an atmosphere where we can be real and loved for who we really are.

I wish there was a church that was focused on grace and messy radical love. I haven't found a place like that where I live yet. But I have been "attending" Revolution Church for quite a while via their podcasts from Pete's Candy Store in NYC and more recently from a bowling alley in Minneapolis, and I am proud to call Jay Bakker my pastor. What makes Jay so awesome is that he is an open book. Rather than being authoritarian, he gets us all to think and reflect by modeling this for us—including humbly questioning himself. Rather than acting like he has it all figured out, he demonstrates what normal and healthy struggle looks like, and in so doing creates a space for us to face our questions, too. He has real authority because he uses his power to lift up those who are often marginalized and kept down. He's my hero precisely because because he is not invulnerable and perfect, and makes it a little more okay for the rest of us to admit we aren't either.

I wish there were more churches like Jay's. I'd be the first in line if there was one near me! The trouble is that because he is focused on taking a stand for love alongside the marginalized, rather than making money his main goal and bottom line as so many churches do, that means he struggles sometimes to make ends meet. It's the opposite of the mega-church, and that is good because it means that it's the kind of radical place that Jesus wanted us to be a part of, and at the same time hard because the way of Jesus was never intended to be a business model.

So if you are looking for a place to go to church that is focused on grace, and, like me, can't find anything like that down the street, I'd like to invite you to come to my church next week. There's no commute, no problem with parking, you just need to stick some headphones on your ears and tune into the podcast. I'll meet you on the internet. It's not perfect, but I call it home.

The Biggest Heresy

Many pastors fear that if they were honest with their congregations about their doubts they would be fired, and the sad fact is: They probably would be. Not fired for some moral indiscretion mind you. But fired for being honest, fired for taking a stand of integrity. Those in the pews are no different. I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten from people who tell me stories of how they've been given the clear message that their questions are not welcome, and if they keep asking these questions they wont be welcome either. The same is true of seminary professors who are often reluctant to honestly pursue their studies, knowing that if they stick their neck out too far, it might get cut off. So while they should be pursuing truth, they can't. Otherwise they put their livelihood and the well-being of their family in jeopardy.

So we are left with an isolating silence where we think we are the only ones with these thoughts. That's indicative of a deeply unhealthy faith. Something is very wrong here.

On the other hand are those loud and shrill voices who call out "heresy!" demanding that these above people be expelled from their church home or seminary positions. Take for example Norm Geisler who has frequently brought heresy charges against other members of the Evangelical Theological Society, demanding that these scholars scholars publicly recant or face expulsion from the society.

I'm sure Geisler thinks he is a shining example of upholding orthodoxy, but I want you to stop and think how completely absurd that is. Consider the legacy that is being upheld here by those who still see it as their job to be heresy hunters (and let me make clear that this is a phenomenon that is all too common in conservative circles): The history of heresy is one of people being tortured and killed in the most inhumane ways imaginable. It's a history of atrocity, drenched in blood and murder, and it is frankly appalling that anyone would want to associate themselves with this sad legacy. Yet those who still make heresy charges, and do so by means of threat of harm as a way to silence dissent are in fact aligning themselves with that very legacy. 

Ask yourself what's the bigger crime: Not getting the formulation of the Trinity quite right, or slaughtering those people by the sword? What's a greater sin: Questioning a fundamentalist doctrine or working to destroy someone's career and livelihood because they questioned it? The simple fact is, all the so-called "heresies" throughout history pale in comparison to the hurtful ways that people have been ostracized, threatened, and wounded by those who act as the champions of orthodoxy. 

The biggest heresy, the only real heresy, is the idea that trying to silence those by force, threat, and violence who disagree with you is a good and faithful thing to do. In fact it's a sin. It's wrong, and it's time we said so. 

Now I'm not saying we can't take moral or theological stands on things. It's understandable when people want to speak out against beliefs or actions that they perceive as hurtful or wrong. But what matters far more than the things we profess is how we stand up for those convictions. When we do that in a way that wounds, dehumanizes, and harms others then this undermines any good that might have been there. That stance is all too common among conservative evangelicals who want to "take a stand for traditional moral values" but do so in deeply hateful ways, apparently oblivious to the painful irony of trying to uphold morality by being a voice of hate and condemnation. 

Now I think most of us can all name pastors who are basically blow-hards and bullies, but many of us still find ourselves thinking "Maybe they were too harsh, but theologically aren't they right?" One has to ask what it means to be theologically "right"  however if it can result in such rotten fruit. I'd like to propose that we need to seriously reconsider what being "right" means, and propose that you cannot be unloving and "right" because the very definition of being right begins and ends with how our faith is expressed in love (on that point see Gal 5:6)

We need to have the freedom to question, especailly when we question things in the name of compassion. There can't be love if we can't be real and honest with each other. All the more so we need to engage each other with grace. If we are going to "take a stand for morality" then this needs to be characterized by compassion and grace, not by condemnation and hurt. Whenever we see hurt being championed in the name of morality, this needs to be a red flag for us that something is very wrong. That's not Christianity, because the whole point is to love. As the Apostle Paul says, "All of the commandments are summed up in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.^' Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:9-10). John makes the point even stronger: "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar" (1 John 4:20). That needs to be the final standard we measure things by—because when we are not acting in love, nothing we do is right, and nothing is orthodox.

Faith Based on Love Not Fear (Joshua Tongol)

My friend Joshua Tongol just made a new video on the critical difference between basing your faith on love instead of fear.

Really, really, good stuff. Give it a watch:

Soldiers Aren't Heroes, They're Humans

Soldiers are not heroes. They are not villains either. They are human beings; human beings who have been put in the middle of a horrific situation.

A ten year old boy holding a grenade approaches a group of soldiers. He does not respond to their shouts. One shoots him with his M-16 and the boy crumbles to the ground, dead.

Did he have a choice? It was do or die, kill or be killed. Still he killed a little boy, and those images still haunt him.

This is a classic example of psychological trauma: A person is put in horrific life-threatening situation where they do not feel they have control. That's the situation he found himself in. It was a no-win scenario -- kill a little boy or have you and your friends all die.

Soldier suicides have reached epidemic numbers. As the AP reports, More soldiers are taking their own lives than are falling in battle. Add on top of that the many who suffer from PTSD, and who as a result find themselves estranged from their home, their loved ones, and indeed from themselves.
This is about experiencing trauma, and, with multiple deployments, being repeatedly re-exposed to trauma. It's about people who have seen or done things that they can't forget, things that may haunt them for the rest of their lives. It's about people like you and me carrying the horrors of the reality of war, and often they are carrying those burdens completely alone.

The tendency in the media is to glorify war, to speak of "heroes" and noble ideals like God and country and freedom. But war is not about ideals. Our bumper stickers say "support our troops," but if we really care about our service men and women then we need to wake up to the very real fact that many of them have had their worlds shattered. On returning home they need more than just a parade, they need real support.

Regardless of what you think about the war, I'd like to suggest that we all should support our troops -- not as warriors, but as people. We need to get away from the rhetoric of either glorifying or demonizing soldiers, and instead treat them as fellow human beings like us.

Trauma disrupts a person's sense of security and connection to themselves and others. Consequently there is a deep need to make sense of the world afterwards, to recalibrate reality. For many soldiers that means bridging the disconnect between their experience of war, and the "real world" which can now seem so unreal. Simply "trying to forget" and bury the past is not enough.

That's why it's so important that we provide the soldiers in our lives with a safe space to work through what they experienced. We need to have the courage and the compassion to hear their stories, told in their own time and on their own terms. We need to listen, without judgment, to what they have to tell us. It's a difficult conversation, but one that we as a country need to be willing to have.

As a Christian this is a difficult issue because the church has tended to fall into those two polarized camps: either romanticizing it on the conservative side or condemning and demonizing it on the liberal side. Then there are the rest of us caught in the middle who simply fall silent. So I want to break the silence. I want to speak up from the radical center with a message of unconditional grace.

As soldiers struggle with feeling profoundly estranged and de-humanized by what they have seen and done, as they work through the fallout of this brokenness in their lives of divorce, depression, unemployment, and the crushing feelings of abandonment that accompanies all of this (including feeling abandoned by the military when they are denied benefits) what they deeply need to hear is a message of grace from the church. Soldiers need to hear that  no matter how damaged or inhuman you may feel, you are loved. They need to experience that same unconditional grace that we all so desperately need. They need to know that we will stand beside them, even when it is messy and scary.


One of the best ways to understand something is to listen to people's stories. The trailer above is from the 2006 feature documentary The Ground Truth and in it veterans of the Iraq war speak of their experiences in war, what it did to them, and what they are going through now that they are back. It's a really powerful and eye-opening film, and I hope you will watch it. You can view the entire film either on Archive.org (for free) or on Netflix (instant download):

Watch The Ground Truth on Netflix

Watch The Ground Truth on Archive.org

 

God Loves Us F**k-ups

(Re-posted from Huffpo and RLC)

I recently discovered People of the Second Chance (POTSC), a group that describes its mission as:

A scandalous awakening of radical grace in life and leadership. 
We exist to overthrow judgment, liberate love
and live a life that rebels with grace for everyone.

I love that.

POTSC has an ad campaign, called "Labels Lie," that draws attention to the ways that labels tell lies about who we are that can be devastating. The images are graphic, shocking, and deeply moving. They are the kind of images we tend to censor because our real lives can be shocking. It's not the kind of thing you want to reveal in polite company. They reveal the ugliness that we are all afraid to show. They reveal our deepest wounds, our failures, our fears, our brokenness. They are heartbreaking.

It is precisely into that place of woundedness, failure, fear and brokenness that Jesus wants to come. Faith is not about certainty; it is about vulnerability. It is about having the courage to let Jesus into our screwed up lives, the courage to be loved for who we really are. It is the outrageous hope that we would still be loved if God knew about all the things we try to hide.

We need to begin there in that place of honesty, and then we need to hear when God says to us: These labels are lies about who you are. God sees us, all of us, and sees someone beautiful, someone beloved. Not because love is blind. Not because we hide things well. But because love sees much deeper. That is the truth about who you are. You are loved.

These labels alienate us. They shut us out, they paralyze us, they destroy us. They are lies. That's why we need to be careful. It's good for us to be real, for us to admit our need and allow God to come in to those broken places in us. But we shouldn't let ourselves be defined by these hurtful images, nor should we define others by them. Jesus did not come labeling others as "sinners" and "whores," he came to write love on our arms.

Preachers are so afraid of that kind of radical acceptance and unconditional embrace. You probably know the story of the woman who was caught in adultery. The religious leaders wanted to stone her to death, but Jesus stands in their way and defends her, saying "Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone." One by one they all walk away, and Jesus is left with her. He then turns to her and asks "where are your accusers?" She looks in his eyes and answers, "They are gone Lord." And then the one who was without sin, the only one who is able to throw a stone, says "Then neither do I condemn you. Go in peace, and leave your life of sin."

It's an amazingly powerful story, and I think every time I have heard it told in church the preacher could not resist stressing that last line "go and leave your life of sin." As if Jesus wanted to say "Now don't take this for granted. You need to pull your act together." These preachers are worried about behavior, but Jesus was worried about her. Yes of course she wants leave that life. Who wants to live in a broken identity when you have just met love? Those words were not an admonition (as if Jesus was having second thoughts about what he had just done). It was an invitation. An invitation to leave her hurtful and broken identity, and to enter into a new one.

That's what repentance is really about. It isn't about pretending we don't have these wounds, and it isn't even about merely changing outward behavior. On a much deeper level it's about not letting ourselves be defined by these hurtful identities, and instead living into a new identity where we are loved unconditionally. Being loved like that changes everything. As we begin to see that, we can have the courage to show that same radical grace to those around us too.

This isn't about religion. In fact, it is often religious people (especially the ones who have gotten hold of a microphone) who are the worst at using those hurtful labels. This is the kind of stuff that scares the crap out of lots of religious folks because it's messy and dangerous and real. It doesn't look presentable, respectable or dignified. But it is nonetheless beautiful. It's about trusting that if we know what it is like to be radically loved, and love others like that too, that can change the world.
And so I say: You are loved. Right now. No matter where you are at. No matter how far away you feel. You are loved. Don't ever forget that. There is always a second chance.

What Does Jesus Think About Homosexuality?

(Originally posted on Huffington Post and Red Letter Christians)

Is homosexuality a sin? It's an age-old question, and there are people on both sides of the debate, each quoting their Bibles. How do we know who's right? What would Jesus do if he were here with us today? Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, so can we really say?

I'd like to propose that we can. Perhaps we wont be able to settle the debate over what the Bible says about homosexuality (least of all from one little blog post!) but I think there is one thing we can be sure of -- Jesus loves every one of us. In fact Jesus was especially known for loving the very people that the religious people of his time had condemned and cast out. Let's consider some facts:

There has been story after story in the news of LGBT teens committing suicide because of bullying. We have also seen a surge of news stories of kids being harassed, threatened, and even physicality assaulted. No one's child should have to endure that. No one should feel afraid, hated and rejected like that. These are not just a few shocking exceptional cases either. As their voices have begun to be heard, we have seen story after story of how gay and transgender kids have felt hated, at times even hating themselves. We have heard how life for them can be a living hell, so bad that it makes some of them want to end their lives.

That really should be a wakeup call for us as Christians. Regardless of where we stand on the rightness or the wrongness of being gay, none of that matters much when people are dying. We can argue over what the Bible says about homosexuality, but one thing is utterly clear: Jesus clearly teaches us to love people, not to hate them, not to make them feel hated, and not to stand by while that is happening. From the perspective of the New Testament there simply is no room for doubt on this. We know exactly where Jesus stands. He stands on the side of the least, the condemned, the vulnerable. 

John's Gospel tells the story of a women caught in adultery who was brought before Jesus. The religious leaders say to him, "The law commands that she should be stoned to death, what do you say?" Jesus bends down and draws with his finger in the dirt, and then says to them "Let the one who is without sin throw the first stone." One by one they all leave until he is there alone with the woman. Jesus says to her "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she answered. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared.

Now, many preachers are quick to point out that Jesus next says to her: "Go and leave your life of sin." But the real point here is that even though Jesus did consider adultery sinful, he still was the one who defended her. In fact, he was the only one there who was "without sin" and yet he did not cast a stone and did not condemn. So again, even if we think homosexuality is wrong, we know what Jesus would do in our shoes. He has drawn a line in the sand, and we need to decide what side of that line we will be on. Will we be on the side of Jesus and the one who is being condemned and threatened? Or will we stand with the religious accusers on the other side of that line? Maybe we were not the ones actually throwing those stones, but did we stand on the side of the accused and condemned and actively defend them like Jesus did? Did we actively defend and love "the least of these"? Because Jesus says that the way we treat them is the way we treat him.

Jesus never says a word about homosexuality, but there was one kind of sin that he spoke out against all the time. There was one kind of sin that got Jesus really mad. This was the sin of religious people who shut out those in need of mercy. This was the sin of people who used the Bible as a weapon. You hear Jesus saying this on page after page of the gospels. Why? Because this type of sin has the potential to damage people like few other things do. It is particularly damaging because they claim to be speaking for God. So if we really want to speak out against sin, we as Christians need to speak out against the kind of sin that Jesus did, and side with the kinds of folks he did. 

What this all comes down to is we, as Christians, acting like Jesus. It's about discerning what Jesus would want us to do right now, and the answer is clear: We need to change our priorities and focus on the critical issue of communicating love and acceptance to people -- especially the very people our society so often ostracizes, condemns and rejects. Because that is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus was known for hanging out with "sinners" and was frequently accused of being a sinner himself because of it. But that did not stop him because he cared more about those people than he cared about being judged. 

If we want to follow Jesus, then we need to have that same reputation of loving to a fault. We need to be so radically accepting that we are misunderstood and judged like Jesus. If we really do love Jesus, then we need to love like he did, so much so that it seems "scandalous" in the eyes the religious folks of our day, just like it did in his day.

We have spent so much time being "balanced" in the other direction, so much time worrying about "giving the wrong impression" that it is time to shift our lopsided boat the other way. Because as long as our priority is in looking moral rather than in showing compassion and grace to those on the outside, we simply do not have the priorities of Jesus. And when we do not reflect Christ, we are giving the wrong impression. 

Now you may have noticed that I didn't ever say what I thought about whether homosexuality was wrong or right. I didn't say because this is not about me and what I think. It's about us as Christians learning to care about what Jesus cares about. This is not about gay rights. It is about about human rights, and that starts with the least. It is about us having the courage to stand with those who are vulnerable. It is about us saying "no" to hate, even when it is done in the name of God -- no, especially when it is done in the name of God. It's about having the guts to draw that line in the sand like Jesus did. Even when that means facing that mob ourselves.

So let's stand alongside of LGBT individuals. Let's let them know they are loved, they are welcomed, they are not alone. I think when we do, we will find that Jesus has been there with them for a long time now. It's time we joined him.

The More I Follow Jesus, the Less I Like His Teaching

Over the years I have been increasingly troubled by the doctrine of Hell. As my love for God and my neighbor increased, the horror at the thought of many of those I love suffering eternal punishment had increased with it. In other words, this was not a crisis of faith, it was the result of my faith. The more I experienced God's grace in my life and grew to share Jesus' heart for the lost, the more I was troubled by Hell.

Now what makes this even more complicated is the fact that most of the statements about Hell found in the Bible are said by Jesus. The one who is leading me to question Hell, is the very one who teaches it. Similarly, Jesus is known for preaching love of enemies and nonviolence, yet many of his teachings use very violent imagery. Again, how can we understand these apparent contradictions? How can we think of Jesus as compassionate and loving when he says such harsh things?

There's a movement among emerging folks like me to focus on the teachings of Jesus over the doctrines of Paul as a way to get away from legalism and back to grace. I like the idea of getting to grace, but I've always had a problem with this for two reasons: First of all, Paul is all about grace, and any legalistic dogmatic interpretation of him is a misinterpretation. Second, Jesus (as we have seen) is anything but easy to interpret. In fact, if one takes a literalistic approach to the teachings of Jesus they are sure to come up with the most un-Christlike teachings imaginable. So in light of that, I'd like to offer a more sophisticated approach to interpreting the teachings of Jesus that take all of this into account.

Let's begin with the parable of the unmerciful servant (Mt 18:21-35). Jesus tells the story of a king who forgives his servant for a huge debt, but then when he hears that this same servant has refused forgive very small debt, the king becomes enraged. Jesus tells us that the king "handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed." and the concludes “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Now the debt the servant owed was basically unpayable. Scholars say that it was more money that an entire kingdom would have had, and so it would be like us saying "a zillion dollars" meaning he would never be able to pay it, and would thus be tortured forever. So are we to conclude from this that if we don't forgive others that God will torture us in hell forever? It is crucial here to look at the context: Jesus tells this parable in response to a question from Peter were he asked Jesus "how many times must I forgive, seven times?" Jesus answers "no, seventy -seven times" (v. 21-22). So if we read this like an accountant we would need to conclude that we should forgive 77 times, but God does not do this. God (according the parable here read in a pedantic fashion) does not even forgive seven times like Peter suggests, or two times for that matter. Just one chance and then that's it. God here appears at first infinitely merciful, forgiving a huge debt, and then suddenly flips and wants to torture us forever.

Does God suffer from some form of borderline personality disorder where he is at first loving and forgiving, and then suddenly becomes brutal and merciless? Are we more merciful than God? No, this is a parable, and a parable is essentially a loose analogy. As everyone knows, if any analogy is pressed too far it becomes absurd (as we can clearly see here). The broad point Jesus is making here is that it would be really horrible if we were forgiven a great debt, but then turned around and were merciless to others. We should treat others with the same grace that we need, and which God has richly shown us.

This is an interpretation that fits with the overall point of this pericope. To read it literalistically would mean that the point Jesus was making to Peter was completely undermined by Jesus' own parable -- be merciful as your Heavenly Father is... who is not merciful at all! Clearly, that cannot be what Jesus was trying to convey. To understand Jesus we need to listen to context of his larger point which is always about showing mercy to others, about radical unconditional grace.

Now, so far I've just been following rules of basic biblical interpretation -- considering genre (a parable), reading a passage in context (explaining to Peter why we should forgive more than seven times), and focusing on authorial intent (teaching that we should show great mercy as God has shown us great mercy). Let's take that a step further now: In the above parable Jesus compares God to a king who -- in the way dictators do -- flies into a rage and orders torture for an ungrateful servant. Yet if we keep reading in Matthew, we see that a couple chapters later, Jesus questions the entire idea of comparing God to a king. "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:25-28). In other words, Jesus models the way of God, not as one who "lords it over others" but as the servant Lord, and calls for us to embody that way too. Following Jesus means rejecting the way of domination, the way of kings.

So to the extent that you have embraced that idea, you will have a problem with the above parable of the king. You'll read "God is like an angry king" and think "No, Jesus teaches us that God is not at all like a king, God is like a suffering servant," and you would be absolutely right. In each of these parables, Jesus is turning our thinking upside down. He begins by turning the idea of payback on its head. When he says "not seven times, but seventy-seven" he is alluding to a passage from the Old Testament where Lamech says "If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times" (Gen 4:24), and reversing it. Jesus replaces escalation of violence with the escalation of mercy. In the second parable he is similarly dismantling our understanding of greatness, and redefining how we see God. God is the servant. Power is about lifting people up, not pushing them down.

In doing this, Jesus not only dismantles our traditional concepts of what justice and power are about, at the same time, he also dismantles his own parables. Once we have embraced Jesus' understanding of servant lordship, we cannot accept the crude comparison of God to a volatile dictator. So when reading these parables as disciples of Jesus, we need to keep in mind that each one is beginning with the assumptions of the crowds. He begins there, with their familiar ideas of kings and slaves and torture and then introduces a radical new idea into the mix which flips one of those ideas on its head. The more we embrace these ideas of Jesus' "upside-down kingdom," the more we will have trouble with the worldly assumptions that these very parables are situated in. That's not because we are disagreeing with Jesus here, but because we have fully embraced his new way of thinking. So the more we follow Jesus, the more we'll question the worldly values the parables are set in. That is, we can embrace the idea of forgiving a great debt (which is the point Jesus is making), but reject the idea that God is a torturing dictator (which reflect the worldview assumptions of his first century audience -- assumptions Jesus is repeatedly challenging).

That means that when we read statements about Hell and "torture," we need to ask whether these are the main point Jesus was trying to teach, or whether it is in fact part of the worldview that the people had already accepted -- like they had slavery and dictatorship -- which Jesus is dismantling bit by bit.

Consider the parable of the sheep and goats just a few chapters later in Matthew (Mt 25:31-46). Here we hear Jesus make some very harsh statements about Hell, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (v. 41). But again, what is the central point that Jesus is illustrating here? It is not a description of how the last judgement will look. That is the assumed setting, just as the first parable we looked at assumed a king and servants. Here Jesus is drawing on the familiar apocalyptic imagery of his Jewish audience, and once again he is turning the tables: The righteous will not be determined because they are part of the right race or religion (as his audience thought), but rather by how they love the least. Jesus redefines what makes a person "in" or "out" -- you are in if you care for those who are out. In doing this, he tears down the very barrier separating insiders from outsiders. Once again, he begins with a common assumption (the image of the final judgement) and turns it on its head: you show your allegiance to God by how you love those who are condemned.

If you study all the passages that allude to hell in the Gospels, you will see this pattern over and over: Jesus is not in fact teaching "this is the way hell is" any more than he is teaching "God is like a emotional dictator." Rather, these are the people's assumptions that he begins with in order to introduce a radical new idea focused on grace. That's how we need to read Jesus, and that's a point that even many biblical scholars miss. Because in order to really get it, you need to follow. You need to adopt the way of Jesus, and let his heart become your own. The more I do that, the less I think God looks like a king or a judge, and the more I think God looks like Jesus who redefines all those terms, and indeed redefines how we conceive of God.