“You have heard that the law of Moses says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, TOLERATE your enemies!” Matthew 5:43 – 44
“Honor your father and mother. TOLERATE your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 19:19
“I command you to TOLERATE each other in the same way that I TOLERATE you.” John 15:12
Continue reading “Why Tolerance is not a Christian Response”
One of the coolest things about Twitter is that I’ve made some great new friends, people I never otherwise would have met. But I’ve also connected with old friends. One such person is Nean Burkholder, a girl I met at Messiah College. When she sent me this post, I knew it would be one that you guys would enjoy.
I recently watched the movie “Saved!” with a friend. While he laughed at the ridiculous portrayal on the screen and couldn’t really imagine it as anything but fiction, I sat there in fascinated horror as my high school was depicted on the screen. This surreal caricature was funny to me too, but very differently – in the way that one grows up, looks back on one’s life, and is “embarrassed” by silly things that once seemed “normal.”
I’ve seen those kids, taught those kids, and I was one of those kids. Deluded into making choices based on arbitrary rules and not on reasoning skills. Censored and sheltered from anything that contradicts the established religious philosophies and values.
Continue reading “Confessions of a Christian School Ex-Clone”
Wow! You guys wrote some incredible posts last month. Thanks for taking the time to comment last week and let the rest of us know about the most-read posts on your blog during the month of April.
Sorry for the delay in getting this post up – I had planned on doing it yesterday, but Monday kind of jumped up on me. As always, I enjoyed reading every single one of them. Here are the posts that got my attention, including my favorite one, the writer of which will receive a $50 gift card:
Continue reading “The Best Blogs of April…and the Winner is…”
The other day Cade and I were sitting in the living room. You never know what this kid is thinking about, or what he might say next.
Out of no where he turned to me with a concerned look on his face, as if a troublesome thought was stuck in his little head. Usually this means some apparent paradox is trying to work its way to resolution.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” I asked.
“Dad,” he asked slowly. “Why did God make that poisonous tree with the poisonous apples so that everybody would get hurt and scared?”
I think any parent likes to see their child connecting the dots, but there was something about this question that made me want to sigh, to pull him up into my lap and rock him to sleep.
“That’s a good question,” I said. “Why do you think he made it?”
Continue reading “Poisonous Trees, Poisonous Apples and Heaven On Earth”
DISCLAIMER – I AM ABOUT TO GRACE YOU WITH INCREDIBLE WISDOM THAT I FIND DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW. PLEASE DO NOT HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE WHEN, SOMETIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE, I DO NOT TAKE MY OWN ADVICE TO HEART.
“Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation… tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.” ~Jean Arp
I grew up on a farm. It was pretty much heaven on earth for a seven-year-old kid: plenty of animals to antagonize, plenty of space to grow into. Fruit trees erupted along our stone lane, perfect for climbing and hiding in. Two huge oak trees grew in our front yard – one of them was struck by lightning while my mom walked underneath it. She was okay, but later we found pieces of the tree lying in the far field.
Someone had divided the huge farmhouse into two sides, so we shared the house with another family. They were a nice, peace-loving group, and they had a boy my age.
But we just didn’t get along.
No matter what we tried to play, we ended up fighting. No matter where we played – the cemetery, the church parking lot across the road, the creek down by the Amish schoolhouse – it ended with conflict. He was large, I was quick, so we were a good match: my rapier-like tongue cut him with its sharp wit, and his lumbering body, if it caught me, would pin me to the rich earth and smoosh me like a grape.
Based on our personalities, and the age we were when we met, we were just not meant to be friends.
* * * * *
There’s a guy at my church who sees a world I don’t see. He’s certain, he’s full of belief and he’s definitely never wrong. I, on the other hand, am intrigued by paradoxes, don’t worry so much about doubt and am pretty certain that most of us are wrong most of the time. Or much of the time.
This guy and I, we just don’t make good Bible study buddies.
And that’s okay.
Sometimes I think restoring unity will be more about disengaging from conversations than it will be about changing people’s minds. And this is the difficult part, because we all usually want people to think like we do, or to at least be open to it.
What if those of us concerned with restoring unity would spend a month without commenting on blogs or Facebook statuses? What if, whenever we found ourselves on the precipice of a conversation that we know will lead to an argument, we engaged with God (instead of the person) in the spiritual disciplines of silence, meditation and prayer? What if we let our modern, rational minds take a back seat and instead relied on the mystical, the unexplained, the Holy Spirit?
If we want to restore unity, sometimes we have to shut up. Sometimes we have to refrain from hitting “send” or “submit.”
Sometimes we have to turn the other cheek.
“If we are only certain in our beliefs, we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality about our views; but when we are rightly related to God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest)
This blog is part of the “Rally to Restore Unity” organized by Rachel Held Evans. Check out her blog to find out more or to see a full list of blogs on this subject.
There’s an amazing thing about speaking to big crowds: when you are in front of them, they become this huge organism. There’s an energy there, a pulsating sort of emotion that you can read just like you can read individual people.
So when I made the announcement at church last Sunday, that I was going to lead a 6-week book discussion on Rob Bell’s controversial “Love Wins” in a Sunday-School-type environment, I was surprised at how conflicted the organism (ie congregation) seemed to be.
A few people looked at me with eyebrows straining to leave their forehead and hit the ceiling fan (along with everything else that might “hit the fan,” so to speak). A few looked excited, as if I had just validated their questioning personality. Others looked intrigued. After we played the trailer for the book (you know, where Rob Bell asks how we know whether or not Gandhi is in hell?), I made an off-the-cuff joke asking people to stop looking for rocks with which to stone me.
Chirp, chirp.
So here they are: three reasons I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to do a “Love Wins” book discussion at my church:
1) My dad’s the pastor, and I don’t want him taking the heat. Look, I get to show up on Sunday mornings and do whatever I want. I can blog about whatever I want. At the end of the day, I’m not a pastor, and I’m not in charge of fielding all the concerns/complaints from a congregation full of very varied theological opinions. If this book discussion ends up causing problems, you know who’s going to hear about it? My dad. (Sorry pops).
2) The whole topic seems to have flown right over the heads of most people in our church. A huge portion of our church is made up of people who didn’t grow up in the church. Their newbies. They don’t know Rob Bell from John Piper. Should I really be introducing them to controversial topics when they might never have even seen this book otherwise?
3) Franklin Graham has called Rob Bell a heretic.
But after all of that, am I still going to have this book discussion? Yes.
Why? Because I feel so strongly that this stuff has got to be talked about! Because too many people in the church have based their theology on movies and classical literature! Because if you open a book, and you open the Bible beside it, I think you might just learn something you’ve never known before!
I’m not a Rob Bell disciple, but I do believe that the way he packs his books full of questions presents an effective way to get people to use their Bibles for something during the week other than paperweights in their minivans.
May 15th. 9:00am. Gap Community Church.
Love Wins.
Be there.
Farewell. (Sorry, couldn’t resist).
