Farewell to a Church, Part 6:

Last Sunday was my final day with the church that I have been working at for the past year or so.  The pastor asked me to speak and I am now posting a slightly modified version of the manuscript here in bite sized chunks.

Part 6:  The Gospel and the World

Now we can say these things, and we often do say these things, but I’m afraid, mostly because I have been very convicted of this myself lately, that we too often say these things and stop there. If this really is our faith then it has to be more than just words. And for that to be the case, it has to mean something to us.

When I was in high school I spent a couple of summers doing missions work in Reynosa, Mexico, which is a little border town right across from McAllen, Texas. So when we were in Texas, we were driving through nice suburban type neighborhoods just like what we might see in Hoover or Vestavia Hills around here. And then literally five, maybe ten miles away on the other side of the river, we were walking through neighborhoods where families of 8 or 9 were living in shacks made out of plywood and cardboard. We are so insulated in our society. My dad’s chosen occupation was a graphic design artist. So for any of you who have experience in any artistic field, you probably know how this works- there are a very few elite in the field that do quite well. Then everyone else barely scrapes by.  So when I say my dad was an artist I really mean that he worked every odd job he could find and we still at times were barely making ends meet. But even during the hardest of times then the five of us in my family still had a roof over our heads in a very sturdy suburban house outside Memphis. We still had food to eat. My siblings and I were still going to school. Eventually, my dad got tired of this and he went back to school and got a master’s degree in education and started teaching high school art. And he started off in inner-city schools in Memphis. Now Memphis is a rough little town, and let’s just say that after growing up there absolutely nothing in Birmingham really scares me or makes me uncomfortable. But even in the inner-city neighborhoods where my dad was working those families had some sort of shelter and source of food. They had a chance at going to school at least, though attendance was terrible. The point is even the worst off parts of our society have it good by world standards. The slums of inner city Memphis look like mansions compared to some parts of Mexico. A year ago last February was my British grandfather’s 80th Birthday, and so we got the whole family together and took a cruise in the Caribbean. You get off the ship at different islands and they take you to these very touristy built up areas. Well on one island we got a taxi and told the cab driver to take us to where he goes to hang out. The places he goes to eat, the neighborhood he lives in, etc. We wanted to see the real life of people on this island. And so we start driving and after about three blocks we are out of the tourist district. And about two blocks later, we are looking at shacks made out of plywood and cardboard and occasional pieces of sheet metal. And as we are driving around he is pointing out hotels to us, and apparently the way they measure the quality of the hotels on his island is by how many security checkpoints you have to go through to get to the actual hotel. He pointed out a really nice one where you had to stop for four different checkpoints with armed guards before you even got to the parking lot. I work some with a college ministry in Birmingham called University Christian Fellowship or UCF that is hosted by Mountainbrook Community Church on Highway 280- any of you youth that go to school in Birmingham, you need to check this place out, it’s a fantastic ministry. They partner with a ministry in Haiti that is working to save malnourished children whose families literally have to walk for miles to get to a clinic and have their kids looked at by a doctor to get food because they don’t have any at home. Some very good friends of mine that I just visited in Memphis a couple weeks ago founded a church there that works with crews doing the same thing in Haiti as well as in Africa. Those of you who have seen the movie Taken- the thing we don’t like to think about is that the premise of that movie is real. People all around the world really are being kidnapped and transported around the globe to be used as sex slaves. I just heard a story from a group of students in Birmingham who were doing missions work in Africa and were literally in the restaurant when a suicide bomber blew himself up during the World Cup Final that we were watching comfortably here without even knowing this attack had happened.

The point I’m trying to make throwing out all of these anecdotes is that the world we live in is broken and hurting and full of pain and misery. And we have the answer to that! We have the message that hope does exist. We have the message that God is in control no matter how crazy life seems. We have the message that God knows what our pain and misery feels like- that he has felt what it means to be betrayed or to be alone or to be overwhelmed and confused, that he has felt the agony of pain and death as Jesus died on the cross. And we have the gospel, the good news, that Christ has risen from the dead and that he is ushering in a new age when pain and suffering will be no more, when the hope that is promised to the poor and needy is finally going to come to fruition. We have hope, and we are called to share that hope, and that is what the gospel is about.

Reflections After Traveling: Cautious Hope and Real Need

Spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of last week visiting some friends in my hometown of Memphis, TN and helping with a camp their ministry, Nations Church, was putting on. The camp was a pretty awesome concept- they took a couple of youth groups totaling about 80 kids and sent them each day to different work projects in inner-city Memphis helping with things like restoring houses, working on a neighborhood garden, and teaching refugees English to help them get started in this country. I feel like I contributed very little if any to this camp, but just the experience of observing what was happening there and of being privy to the many discussions of the church leaders surrounding the events of the camp and the vision of the church was a really fantastic experience! I am not kidding when I say that a part of me has seriously considered the last few days dropping everything I am doing to move back to Memphis and join their ministry there...

Also got to talk with Duke, the lead pastor of Nations quite a bit. Duke is a really cool guy. He has a Ph.D. in Old Testament, which is one of the things that I have thought about doing a doctorate in (my problem is I am interested in too much to narrow down the field…). So he is very knowledgeable of the "academic" side of Christianity. But he has also been very involved in ministry, specifically missions, and has a very practical perspective. So in a lot of ways he is, I think, someone who is traveling down a path very similar to the one I am traveling down but who is much farther down that path. So it was really great to talk with him and learn from him. It has been a really beneficial, edifying experience, I think.

Another member of their staff that I talked with a good deal was Paul. I have a feeling Paul and I may be a bit more different in our thinking, but we certainly I think share a disillusionment with many aspects of the Southern "Church Culture" and a heart for seeing the church really engage the serious issues that our world is facing. As we talked about this Paul asked a very interesting question- whether from my perspective I have hope for the church or am moving to the outside of things?

I think my answer is that I am cautiously hopeful. I am hopelessly prone to try and understand causes in terms of ideology/philosophy/modes of thinking, and hence my draw toward academics. But in academic circles I am seeing a shift that I think is cause for optimism. In my view the things that cause my disillusionment with church culture is largely based on very bad understanding of the relationship between the physical and spiritual realities we acknowledge as Christians. There are two ways to understand those things- as largely parallel or as closely connected/intersecting. If we take the spiritual and material realities to be largely parallel and separate, then it becomes very easy to put all our emphasis on the spiritual reality in "religious" circles. This is what I run into very frequently in highly conservative "Baptist" circles in the South- a view of religion that says that the sum total of Christianity is about what happens after we die and that wants to ensure that our soul ends up in the right place when that happens, a thing that can be ensured after a single "moment of salvation." Thus, engaging the challenges of this life, the difficult issues that face our society and our world, is something that maybe is nice to do but certainly not essential or necessary (and thus this kind of religion can be very easily paired with ultra-conservative politics that refuses to engage these issues). This kind of thinking is in my opinion nothing more than Gnostic Heresy reemerging in our contemporary churches. If we view the spiritual and physical as connected and intersecting, however, then we will take a different approach in dealing with our world. Now, our world and the issues that face it matter and dealing with them is part of our duty as Christians who are representatives of a spiritual kingdom that is breaking into the material world to give hope to the poor that one day justice will be restored and what is broken will be set straight again! My studies of history lead me to believe that this view is the view of Orthodox Christianity, the view of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and every other major Christian leader throughout history until very recently when for a variety of reasons the more conservative strains of Christianity in America began systematically disengaging from the world around them.

So we have two very different philosophies/theologies. The first is the source of my disillusionment with the Church on many levels and the reason that Churches like Nations may at times feel frustrated that the call to do the work of God goes unanswered in such a heavily churched culture as the one we live in. However, in my opinion, the second more Orthodox view is making a comeback, especially in Anglican and Methodist and to a certain extent "Reformed" circles. It may take a while for this comeback to be fully realized to the extent that we would like, but seeing this at least makes me cautiously optimistic that things are getting better, that the church is trying to reconnect with the world in a meaningful way, that our vision is coming down out of the "lofty clouds" to deal with real life.

So this sense of cautious hope I think makes me a bit slower than the crew at Nations to strike out on my own, though in a way that is not entirely true. They are coming from the same "Baptist" culture that I came from, a culture that I have largely abandoned for Anglican/Methodist thought. So I am certainly in the same position as they are in saying something in our thinking desperately needs to change. There are challenges and problems that we desperately need to face, both in our own lives and in the larger world, in our neighborhoods and around the world. There is a real need for change. But I think the tide is turning a little and the change is coming. Part of what I want to be about (and this week I have been very convicted that I am not doing nearly enough to contribute to this) is fighting to ensure that the tide continues to move in this direction, change continues to happen and real engagement with our world becomes the norm for the Church.

Soul Searching, Part 9- Moralistic Thereapuetic Deism and the Collapse of the Church in America

Perhaps the most alarming and also the most honest section of the book Soul Searching is the one that contains these passages:

In short, our teen interview transcripts reveal clearly that the language that dominates US adolescent interests and thinking about life, including religious and spiritual life, is primarily about personally feeling good and being happy. That is what defines the dominant epistemological framework and evaluative standard for most contemporary US teenagers- and probably for most of their baby boomer parents. This, we think, has major implications for religious faiths seriously attempting to pass on the established beliefs and practices of their historical traditions.- p. 168.


We have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity's misbegotten step-cousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This has happened in the minds and hearts of many individual believers and, it also appears, within the structures of at least some Christian organizations and institutions. The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist, and heaven and hell appear, among most Christian teenagers in the United States at the very least, to be supplanted by the language of happiness, niceness, and an earned heavenly reward. It is not so much that US Christianity is being secularized. Rather, more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith.- p. 171.

A few thoughts in response to this: My last post covered a good bit of the themes related to these issues, so no need to rehash everything here. Suffice it to say my assessment of Christianity in America is not too different from this one.

Thinking in some more blatantly philosophical terms, I think what we are seeing here is an effect of Enlightenment/Modernistic thinking that resounded so well with American individualism. This philosophical thinking attempted to exalt the abilities of man to solve all of life's problems through concrete and scientific means. This optimistic, triumphant spirit is very prevalent in American thought where it was embodied in the individualistic spirit of the American dream. However, most of the philosophical claims of this movement have been abandoned because of logical problems and because of the experience of the 21st century. This is much more obvious in Europe- it is hard to tell a continent that still remembers vividly the destruction of two world wars and the tenseness of the Cold War that mankind is getting better and our problems are being solved. However, the optimism of Modernism has also given way in United States to a variety of Post-Modern philosophies.

Here is what makes this all relevant to our discussion- Modernism is built on the concrete- science and engineering are the golden occupations of Modernism because the belief is that through these mechanisms all the answers that can be answered and all the problems that can be solved will be. The "can be" is important- purely abstract things- like morality, religion, etc.- these things cannot be solved according to modernistic thinking. So we have to either be skeptics or relativists about questions regarding religion or morality. Post-Modernism is often considered more radically relativistic. I am of the persuasion, however, that a positive post-modern philosophy that does not result in a radical relativism is possible (and maybe someday I will write out something that outlines such a philosophy… probably not, but lets be optimistic). This skepticism/relativism however leads to a variety of systems of morality (and religion) that attempt to provide some sort of moral guidance without making absolute claims. Typically, the guiding principle for these systems is "whatever makes you happy" or "whatever you feel is best." These systems are very much rooted in emotions and the immediate satisfaction of our desires. Is it any wonder, then, that our churches have begun to teach the same, even if it is couched in more religious terms? Far too often we hear that following God will make you rich or that following God is the key to happiness. Godliness the is the key to a successful marriage (it no doubt plays a part, but I know plenty of non-believers with more successful marriages than most of the believers I know). Godliness is the key to satisfaction at work (I never found this to be true when I was working in the food business…). And what is Godliness anyway? It gets defined in terms of jumping through some religious hoops- reading the word and praying everyday, attending church regularly, etc.- all things that ensure that people who work in ministry (like I do) have jobs. Now, no doubt all of those things are beneficial. And no doubt godliness is beneficial. But is that our motivation for doing these things? For a religion that claims in most of its literature that selfishness is wrong and immoral, this whole scheme sounds very selfish!

One final consideration concerning the implications for all of this for our church leadership and global missions. There are two conflicting phenomena going on in the global church. First, the dominant presence of the church in the West is shrinking while the presence of the church in non-Western parts of the world is exploding. Second, the leadership of the church is still overwhelmingly Western. In part this is natural- the West has existing leadership structures that have yet to be built in the developing parts of the world. However, it is also worrisome. Particularly among American missionaries who attempt to provide leadership to other parts of the Christian world, I get the strong impression that there is an attempt to export American modes of thinking to these regions. Given everything we have said already about the cultural inconsistencies between what should be proper Christian doctrine and the popular American conception of faith, this should set off a lot of alarm bells. Somehow as we educate and teach other cultures to follow Christ, we need to keep in mind that we have not exactly done this well ourselves and that we do not need to teach them to repeat our mistakes but instead to learn from them and avoid them.

Reflections During Missions Conference

We've just finished a missions conference here at Southeastern with Dr. Billy Kim as our keynote speaker. He is a native of Korea who came to the United States to go to school after the Korean war and then went back to Korea as a pastor of what has now become one of the largest and most influential churches in Asia and the president of the Far-East Broadcasting Comany. He has really challenged and I think on many levels convicted us regarding our often apathetic attitude toward missions and making disciples of other nations and peoples.

He has talked several times about the explosive growth of the church in South Korea. His church, for instance, began with barely a dozen members meeting in a shack. Now it has 20,000 members. Overall, there were less than a million believers in South Korea 40 years ago. Today, there are over 13 million. According to Dr. Kim, the largest Presbyterian, Methodist, and Pentecostal churches in the world are in South Korea along with "probably 20 of the world's largest churches" (not sure out of how many). As I was hearing these stories, a statistic I had heard came to mind. About 100 years ago, 80% of Christians were found in the West (West Europe, North America). Today, 80% of Christians are outside of the west. In Europe, which used to be the major stronghold of the Church, Christianity is all but dead. I wonder if the United States is not headed in that same direction. There are at least some indications that it may be. In twenty years, will America likewise be labeled "spiritually dead and dark" as France is right now and will countries like Korea be sending missionaries to us?

It is somewhat disheartening that Christianity seems to be faltering in the West, but I think in large part that has been by our own making. Our wealth and prosperity has, in many ways I think, made us apathetic towards God. By contrast, when I meet Christians from less wealthy parts of the world, I am always amazed at their zeal and passion. One thing, however, has occurred to me that makes me quite nervous. Many of the Christians in the developing parts of the world are remarkably uneducated. This definitely extends to theological education. Dr. Kim said at one point this week that Korea admittedly does not have the theological knowledge that many Christians in the west have. I've spoken with missionaries this week who discussed regions in the world where new Christians are easily led astray by cult movements like the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses (some even to the point of making cult leaders the pastors of their newly founded churches). There is a real danger here.

Christianity may be "dying" in the west, but there is still a great wealth of knowledge in the west. The best seminaries and theological schools in the world are primarily in the United States, Britain, and Germany. If Christianity is shifting to other parts of the world, it seems to me it is essential that Christian theological education shift into those areas as well. Yet this seems a fairly neglected need.

I have definitely felt God's calling towards full-time ministry. I desire to work to some extent in a pastoral role, but I also know that my main interests and skills are more academic and related to teaching. I have also felt, to some extent, a desire to work in oversees missions for at least a little while. I am definitely beginning to entertain the notion of going to the missions field to train pastors and teach theology to people in parts of the world where that knowledge is much more scarce.