Glocal Christianity

Unity in Community

What does it mean to be a unified Christian community? It's interesting to note that when the issue of unity comes up in the Acts of the Apostles, musical conformity NEVER rates a mention. Nor does language, dress, social structure or even, dare I say it, theology.

So what does rate a mention? Read it for yourself, "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."

To be unified was to share one hope and one wallet, to share one love and one way of life.

In a sense I exaggerate, there is a sort of theological conformity expected here. But it's  theology of a very basic and very practical kind, a theology that requires no college degrees, that even a child can understand. To be unified as Christians means to trust in Christ and to live like Christ, together, with one another. Our unity should be gauged by how we live Monday, not by how we sing Sunday.

Propositional Truth in Missional Situations

A discussion over at NeoBaptist on crafting belief statements has led to an interesting discussion the place of propositional truth in missional evangelism and discipleship. More recently I commented: 

Joe, as is hopefully becoming clearer, I tend to see ANY imbalance as problematic, so I don't disagree with the counter examples you raise. I see hypercalvinism and hyperliberalism as equally dangerous. If I emphasize here the errors that may be attributable to hypercalvinism, its because I want to highlight the necessity of being "in the world". But let me assure you that amongst Emergent deconstructionists I have been at equal pains to highlight the necessity of not being "of the world". Close to my heart is the instruction, "So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left." (Deuteronomy 5:32) I tend to see both sectarianism and syncretism as falling away. In advocating contextualization I am rejecting both. I have drawn a diagram here that I think fleshes it out more.

My basic argument is that propositional statments have their place in missional situations, but that place is not necessarily a leading one. See what you think.

Is God mysogenistic?

From a conversation I had earlier: To whom did Christ appear first? Actions speak louder than words. In an age where the testimony of women was not trusted, the God we know through Christ entrusted the good news to women first. It was they who told the men. Is that the mark of a mysogenistic God?

The Final Century of Civilization?

What if? What if our civilization is truly on a path to disaster? It wouldn't be the first time a civilization collapsed. In fact, if you look at history its evident that no civilization lasts forever. So what if? What if its more immanent than we would like to admit? And what does Christianity have to say about this? What is the Christlike thing to do? Is it enough to simply preach and gospel of guilt management and otherwise carry on as normal? Or does Jesus call us towards more radical lifestyle transformation?

Still Rejoicing!

This week Mark Falson and I organised for Nathan Dirs, Morling College's evangelist intern for this year, to come and speak to the church on personal evangelism, the why's and the how's. Nathan made the excellent point that witnessing is far more about "being" an ambassador for Christ than "doing" anything in particular and illustrated this with a story of Reg, a mentor of his that died recently. As this ninety year man old lay dying, wracked with pain, struggling even to breathe, the nurses would ask him, "How you doing Reg?" and he would invariably reply, with all the strength that he had left, "Still rejoicing!" That's an ambassador! That's what being is about.

The Gospel of Jesus? Or the Gospel about Jesus?

Some people see the the Gospel of Jesus as being in opposition to the Gospel about Jesus. They note that Jesus announced the coming Kingdom of God. They note that Paul and the other apostles announced the resurrection of Jesus. They see the different language and conclude this represents a fundamental difference between the two. I think this perception represents a fundamental misunderstanding.

The way out of the impass, I think, is to recognize that the apostles announced Jesus as King with the same breath as they announced the resurrection. King and Kingdom are intimately related. To acknowledge Jesus is King through his resurrection from the dead is to acknowledge the Kingdom of God has now come on earth. There is no need to draw a line between the personal gospel of evangelicals and the social gospel of liberals. Both contain elements of a larger truth.

The Good News: It's Not All About Guilt

Yesterday I suggested that we need to be more aware of cultural diversity and of the guilt-innocence, shame-honor and fear-power paradigms intermixing in glocal cultures.

I also suggested it has implications for how we share the good news, for our paradigms shape what we see as good news.

Today I want to draw people’s attention back to the Bible, which engages with all three of these cultural paradigms.

Guilt, Innocence and the Gospel

How do we judge yourself? Never mind God’s standards, what about your own standards? Do you always live up to them? Does falling short of your own expectations get you down? How do you deal with that? Here are some passages on guilt and God’s forgiveness to reflect on.

Genesis 44:16
"What can we say to my lord?" Judah replied. "What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants' guilt. We are now my lord's slaves—we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup."

Deuteronomy 25:1
When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.

John 16:8 
When he comes, he will prove that the world's people are guilty. He will prove their guilt concerning sin and godliness and judgment.

Romans 5:16 
The result of God's gift is different from the result of Adam's sin. God judged one sin. That brought guilt. But after many sins, God's gift made people right with him.

Hebrews 10:22
So let us come near to God with an honest and true heart. Let us come near with a faith that is sure and strong. Our hearts have been sprinkled. Our minds have been cleansed from a sense of guilt. Our bodies have been washed with pure water.

Shame, Honor and the Gospel

Have you ever done something that brought friends into disrepute because they were associated with you? Dig it bring them down with you? Did it sabotage more than just your hopes? Here are some passages on shame and God's welcome to reflect on.

Proverbs 3:35 
The wise inherit honor, but fools he holds up to shame.

Zephaniah 3:19
At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you; I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame.

Romans 2:7
To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.

1 Corinthians 12:23
and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,

1 Peter 1:7
These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Fear, Power and the Gospel

Have you ever felt anxious? Have you ever let your anxiety and a lack of perspective lead you down a destructive path? Have you ever felt powerless and overwhelmed? Here are some passages on fear and God’s empowerment to reflect on.

Isaiah 11:2
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD –

Luke 10:19
I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.

Luke 12:4-5
"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

Romans 1:16
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

In the face of guilt, shame and fear the resurrection of Jesus all good news, but what resonates more will depend on where you are coming from.

Resurrection Shockwaves

Like a stone thrown into a pond,

The resurrection sends shockwaves through history.

May our lives reflect the life of Jesus,

May his energy energize us.

What is Evangelism?

I would like to draw attention to these comments by Bryan Stone, author of Evangelism after Christendom, in an article entitled, What is Evangelism?

Christian evangelism, or so I want to argue, is pacifist in every way. The good news is, as Isaiah said, the good news of “peace.” But this peace is not only the content and substance of evangelism; it is its very form. Christian evangelism refuses every violent means of converting others to that peace, whether that violence is cultural, military, political, spiritual, or intellectual. Evangelism instead requires only the peaceable simplicity of an offer and an invitation to “come and see” (Jn 1:46).

This does not mean that there is no apologetic dimension to evangelism – no room for making a case publicly, intellectually, or culturally for Christian faith. The character of Christian evangelism is not only invitation but summons (cf. Webb: 27). It does mean, however, that a Christian apologetics must refuse to consider unbelievers as either barbarian or irrational. It also means that a Christian apologetics may very well have more to do with an aesthetics, since, in declining every ‘secure’ foundation for belief other than Jesus Christ, evangelism relies from first to last on the beauty of holiness made real in the church by the operation of the Holy Spirit. The very possibility of Christian evangelism, then, is premised wholly upon the faithfulness of the Spirit’s witness in our lives rather than our own ability to calculate and predict how our obedience might translate into effectiveness.

I find this quote facinating as draws together three things I very much emphasize on this blog: nonviolence, humble apologetics and thought-provoking art.

For me these things are very much intertwined.

The good news, it is it to be received as good news, must be offered as a gift, without coersion, without demonization of your ways, without defence of my ways with guns. What I offer instead is the beauty of Jesus, the beauty of his life, and way of life. You can take it or leave it, that is up to you.

Good News amid the Flames

In the wake of the Australian bushfires some of the good stories are finally starting to emerge. Stories of courage, stories of endurance, stories of self sacrifice, stories of families trying to resurrect their lives.

But the flames. The images linger. So surreal, so deadly. Imagine standing behind the lens of this camera, watching the flames come at you faster than you can run. The oxygen sucked out of the air.

What I find most haunting is the faces of the children who perished - so, so many - and the stories of the children who survived, survived alone. Where is the meaning in that, in lives damaged, in lives cut so short?  

Tragedies like this draw me into reflection about the meaning of life, and the way towards life lived without fear of death. There is good news, but, but its amid pain.

Altar to an UNKNOWN GOD

What stories do you live by? One story which has deeply influenced me, in how I relate to Pagans, Buddhists and the 'spiritual but not religious' is the story of Paul in Athens. It goes like this: 

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

There are a number of things that stand out for me:

• Paul met people wherever they were at
• Paul walked amongst other religions
• Paul was invited to speak further; that says something
• Paul began with what they had in common
• He quoted Pagan philosophers favourably
• He spoke of the resurrection, not theological minute
• There were a variety of responses.

That is massively different to how some evangelicals engage with other religions today. No insults, no curses, yet he is not wishy washy, he is still hard core. I am sure my comments may provoke a variety of responses too, but that's ok.

[photo: Altarpiece for the End of the Twentieth Century - Barry Krammes]

Life Decisions

The other day on Missional Tribe someone asked:

"Just wondering about how missional it is to ask someone to make a decision for Christ? How biblical is it? What other means do we have?"

Here was my response:

Well if I'd never been challenged to make a decision for Christ I would not now be a Christian. I was deeply anti-Christian. So were many of my friends. My decision included being prepared to loose every one of them. It was that serious a decision, that was the cost I had to count. Total rejection of everyone I knew. As it turned out, some of them became Christians too. But the point is it was very traumatic. Becoming a Christian was no minor course correction, it was a radical life change.

What's your thoughts on decisions for Christ?

The Politics of Resurrection

I think its worth spending some more time contrasting the politics of pragmatism with the politics of resurrection, so here is a quote from John Howard Yoder in The Politics of Jesus:

The key to the obedience of God’s people is not their effectiveness but their patience. The triumph of the right is assured not by the might that comes to the aid of the right, which is of course the justification of the use of violence and the other kinds of power in every human conflict; the triumph of the right, although it is assured, is sure because of the power of the resurrection and not because of any calculation of causes and effects, nor because of the inherently greater strength of the good guys. The relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of God’s cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection.

Brian McLaren suggests everything must change. Including politics. Yoder suggests that everything has changed. Already. That through the resurrection God has disarmed the rulers and authorities of their ultimate weapon, death. But we need to awaken to this. Politically as well as personally.

Is jesus the only way?

Erwin McManus - is Jesus the only way?

Becoming normal again

I loved this comment from Alex McManus:

One of the the first steps in effective evangelism is becoming normal again. Social again. Transparent again. Reaching people may be easier and scarier than we thought. Easier because we don’t need a budget, a building, a core team, or a seminary education. Scarier because there is nothing stopping you.