Who Is The God Who Loves You?

God loves you. God loves you. God loves you?

Here's my opening admission. I'm going to raise a difficult question, but only answer an easier one.

I've had the first question in the back of my mind for a few years now. A friend brought it up where most important theological discussions happen—Momma G's.

My friend Dave had noticed his church leadership—or at least the worship service emcees—saying God loves you early and often. They were really driving this point home, proclaiming it several times per service, week after week. No matter what the sermon was, the emcee always began and concluded each service with this mantra, with no elaboration.

Dave wasn't sure what to make of these declarations, given that the emcee was speaking to a thousand people, and the emcee knew so little about who was listening. Who in the audience were believers, and who were not? Who was going to do something horrendous that week because they didn't have the Holy Spirit? Who, among believers and nonbelievers alike, was experiencing life circumstances that they couldn't see as reflecting God's love?

I don't remember exactly how Dave posed his question, but here's how it's taken shape in my mind:

How meaningful is it to repeat God loves you ad nauseam when you don't know who you're speaking to?

That's the difficult question that I'm not sure how to answer. Here's why I'm thinking about it today. Over the weekend a certain Instagram account posted the following two statements:

The most important thing you can know in life is that God loves you.

The most important thing you can do in life is love him back.

These statements have the same problems as the emcee's refrain. On Instagram, you don't know who you're talking to. Not everyone agrees on who God is. That's been true for a long time. Remember Pharaoh's initial response to Moses and Aaron?

“Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2)

It's more true in America now than in any other generation. If we want to tell people that God loves them, we need to tell them who God is and how he loves. That brings us to the easier question:

How do we describe the love of God, and how do we identify the God who loves?

The Bible gives us several succinct answers. For example,

. . . but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Those 18 words tell us more than just God loves you.

• What God/god are we talking about?

• He's the God who's connected to Christ.

• How does he love?

• He provides salvation through Christ that we don't deserve.

Sure, Romans 5:8 requires further exposition, but even without any it goes further than God loves you. Let's try another one.

Granted, in my faith tradition we recited John 3:16 without much meaning. It was something you turned off your brain to say. But, at least it says more than God loves you.

Now, about John 3:16. One might argue that because God so loved the world, anyone can say God loves you to any number of unknown people with confidence that he or she is speaking both truthfully and meaningfully. Maybe that's right. Maybe.

To understand who makes up the world in John 3:16 and in what regard God loves the world exceeds the scope of this post. What I do know is that if you begin and end each service by quoting John 3:16, you're saying something about who God is and how he loves. You're saying something that relates to the gospel.

God loves you⁠—without any context⁠—isn't the gospel. It isn't the church's message to the world. Our message is: You need to be reconciled to God. Thankfully, there is a means of reconciliation. It is the gospel of Christ Jesus.

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On Being Back In Church

Being back at church Sunday didn't feel too weird, even with the masks and socially distanced seating. It felt normal compared to not being there at all. On the way in, I reminded my kids not to hug or kiss anyone. Dad, we never kiss anyone at church!

The weirdest part was the recorded message after the service. A familiar voice used an airport tone to tell us to get out—the sooner you get out, the sooner the people who have to clean all the pews can go home. She didn't actually say that. Maybe she should have.

Our church even asked us to leave the whole building immediately. I get it, but that's a hard ask. Visiting—next to singing with people singing all around you—is the chief difference between worshiping at church and watching at home. We stopped for just one conversation in the lobby, and I was rushing us through that one. I try to play by the rules, I guess.

How Long?

In the service I found myself wishing we would celebrate communion. That was the last thing we were going to do. But, it would be the first thing to do if we were going all the way from watching in homes to worshiping in one house. Going all the way was never the plan for the first Sunday back. When will it be? That reminds us of the psalmist's inquiry, How long?

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul

   and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? (Psalm 13:1–2)

Sure, I know it isn't as bad as that. For one thing, we're the ones hiding our faces. If we worship in person, but file in and out like automatons, are we living with the virus, or hiding from it? Granted, I don't bear the burden of making these decisions for my church. I imagine those who do would say, Yes, we're living with the virus; hiding from it is telling everyone to stay home.

What Do We Do?

I guess I'm feeling ready to live in spite of the virus. That I feel as such doesn't make it wise. So, what do we do?

We look to heaven and say, How long?  How long until the Spirit gives our leadership confidence that it's time to meet and greet? We trust our leaders to listen to the Spirit for that guidance. In the meantime, some of us will wear mask, and some of us won't—liberty in the non-essentials, right? It's the same policy we've always had for instructions like this one:

Greet one another with a holy kiss. 
(2 Corinthians 13:12)

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Follow the bikes to the book!

On The Air That We Breathe And The Water That We Filter

It's a decision every dad must make. Do I write a blog post on my children's fish?

Should I really compare us—you and I—to nine-dollar Danios? Am I, too, going to see something in an aquarium about the fragility of life?

It's a decision often made too lightly, including this time.

But! What if I told you this post isn't about the choice to get out from behind the plastic plant and explore your world? What if this post is about a prayer—not the prayer of a father, but of a mother? Now, you're reading [likely, something, somewhere, if not this].

I was taken aback by Sarah's prayer Saturday when she first saw these fish in the plastic bag from the pet store. With no forethought or pretense, she pleaded for their perseverance. She petitioned the Ruler of the universe to fix their gills aright for this water we have filtered and heated for their home. She prayed so earnestly that I cannot think it was for the life of the fish, but for the feelings of our daughters. But, it was for the life of the fish—two sides of the same coin.

What struck me the sharpest was her confession, You made these creatures. Now I'm tempted to ruminate more deeply than the outset of this post should allow.

They are genetically engineered to make their color more eye-catching, but You made these creatures.

They were taken from their previous tank, seemingly at random. We just as easily could've gotten any other two from the twenty, but You made these creatures.

We moved their new home out from under the air conditioning vent. We bought different water conditioner and we're following the instructions more closely this time. We hope for the best, but You made these creatures.

I think about the refrain, "the Lord giveth"—from Job—repeated so mechanically in As I Lay Dying that it loses the spirit of Psalm 100.

Know that the Lord, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. (v. 3)

It goes for now, and for virus time, and for all times other. Whatever we think we own, and whatever rights we like to hold—we are his, same as the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the tank.

 

On Hymns We Used To Sing And Hear

Years ago I started looking for a good CD (that's how long ago it was) with all the hymns we used to sing in church. I wanted my children to know Blessed Assurance, Sweet Hour of Prayer, The Old Rugged Cross, All Creatures of Our God and King, and a hundred others, and I knew they wouldn't learn them at our church.

Yes, hymns make appearances at our church, but precious few get sung even in consecutive years, and those often have new-fangled praise choruses forcibly inserted.

I know I'm once again sounding like old, bitter grownup church kid. But, I do have something positive to say. I have finally found that CD—albeit not physically, but on Spotify, which I hadn't heard of when I began this quest.

The answer proved to be Baptist Hymnal Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 by Tony Weeks. These recordings are not what I set out to find. I wanted something that sounded close to how the hymns were sung at my home church. I thought that would be easy to find. It was not.

Tony Weeks' recordings are not close to my hymn-singing background either. But, by the time I discovered him, I was desperate. And these acoustic-guitar renditions are very listenable (after all, who really drives to the park with a pipe organ and choir as the soundtrack). They reflect the same spirit as congregational hymn singing. These albums don't so much sound like the Sunday mornings of my youth, but they feel like them. They stand in the stream of tradition.

That's really the crux of the matter, right? I want my children to know the songs I sang as a child in church, in part because my parents and grandparents and beyond sang the same songs. And, if you'll permit my bitter traditionalist persona to pose a question:

When was the last time we sang Awesome God? When was the last time we sang Oceans? We sang the hymns for generations, but when a song is written for the moment, that's exactly how long it's good for.

Follow the bikes to the book!

Why Don't Baptists Say The Apostles' Creed?

Will Willimon says he didn't think much of Dogmatics in Outline when he first read it, just that Bart sounded like "some kind of conservative." Well, sure. Dogmatics in Outline is Barth's brief commentary on the Apostles' Creed, and anyone doing right by the Creed should sound like a conservative, because the Creed is so faithful to Scripture. One might respond, Yes, but the Creed is not Scripture. That line of thought must be why I never heard of the Creed—at least not at church—in my evangelical upbringing.

If we neglect the Creed simply because it is not Scripture, we might ask whether we need any theology at all. Why not just read the Bible, and only the Bible? We can answer that question with one word—Trinity. It's a word not found in the Bible, but it helps us understand what the Bible teaches about God. The same is true of the Apostles' Creed.

The Creed concisely states fundamental Christian beliefs that are taught throughout different places in the Bible. The ESV Following Jesus Bible has a page on the Creed that matches up 23 biblical references to specific items.

One might argue we would do better to memorize the 23 Scripture passages. OK, but, the Creed is easier to learn and easier to share. If we learned the 23 passages, we'd also need to learn some way to understand and communicate how they fit together. Given this usefulness of the Creed, we again ask, why don't Southern Baptist use it?

In answering this question, Google reminded me that Al Mohler wrote a book on the Apostles' Creed just last year. In this interview, he says Creed aversion usually stems from a fear that we'll emphasize the Creed above Scripture. I get that. I respect the concern that we not confuse anyone on what is authoritative. At the same time, this position brings us back to the difficulty of a "nothing but the Bible" approach. If that's our stance, we need to throw out the Hymnal. [My church already did so, but that's a different story.]

Mohler also says that if we don't use the Creed, we'll need to make up some other summation of our faith. Mohler warns against that. The Apostles' Creed has stood the test of time for good reason. That reminds me of Stanley Hauerwas' comment that Christianity is something we receive, not something we make up as we go along.

I enjoyed Dogmatics in Outline. I don't know if I'll read Mohler's book, but I do plan to read Ben Myers'. I used to enjoy his blog. (It's still here, but someone else posts on it now.)

If you don't know the Creed, I encourage you to learn it. It's a good thing to carry around with you (in your head). You'll find yourself remembering it on occasion. You'll read or hear something and think about how it connects to the Creed.

I can't predict how referring to it may go over in your Sunday school class, but, if you run into Dr. Willimon, maybe he'll think you're some kind of conservative, like Karl Barth.

The 3 Times I Met Pat Dye

I've known the legend all my life. I didn't know the man personally, but, with Coach Dye, you felt like you did. It seemed like the man in the arena was the same as you would find him anywhere else. I always hoped that was true. They say not to meet your heroes, but in the times I met Pat Dye, he never disappointed that hope.

The Dinner Party

It was either my second or third year in school. Matt and Sam and I went out to eat at some restaurant on College Street, out past the interstate. Why we went to this place, I have no clue. We may have been the only ones in there when they seated us. We were already eating before anyone else came in. I was facing the door. Matt and Sam sat across from me.

I told them Coach Dye just walked in. They didn't flinch. They thought I was joking. [They knew me well enough to know I don't joke about Pat Dye. But, sometimes you know someone too well.] The host seated Coach and his family at the table next to us.

He must have seen that I wanted to shake his hand, but I had wing-sauce all over them. [That must've been why we were there. Matt was into getting wings for a while.] Instead, he put his hands on my shoulders just like he knew me. It was so cool. He must have seen the way I looked at him. He had seen it a hundred thousand times. He knew I had watched games sitting in the floor. He knew what my first Iron Bowl meant to me.

He could see that I hadn't played football, but that I played more years for him—in my mind—than any letterman.

After they sat down, Sam immediately started recalling all manner of Auburn football games and events from the 80's. Was he saying all this loudly enough for the next table to hear? Maybe.

Whatever you think of that move, know this: Sam just as likely would have done that any other time we went out to eat, or got pizza, or went to a movie, or church.

He wasn't acting differently. He was just being himself for a different reason.

I don't remember whether we said anything to them when we left. I hope not. They probably chose an unpopular restaurant for a reason.

Game Day

The next encounter must have been the following football season. We had just entered the stadium at the student-section gate when Matt exclaimed, "Hey, Coach Dye!" I looked over, and there he was, coming right at us.

This time there was no wing-sauce, and he shook my hand. I think he said something like, "I gotta find where I'm supposed to be." He was looking up, trying to read the signs that tell you which way to which section. One of his teams was being recognized on the field before the game. It was funny. You'd think he would have an entourage, or a handler, a bodyguard, something. Nope. He was on his own, looking as lost as any freshman (or senior) trying to find a class in Haley Center. The next time I spoke with him was at Haley Center.

War Eagle

I wish I could date this one precisely. I think it was the 2006 Washington State game. Sarah and I were milling around the University Bookstore when we saw people in line in the courtyard. What's this for? Coach Dye was signing copies of his new children's book, War Eagle. What! All I have to do is stand in line for a little while, and buy a book [surely I can think of somebody with a kid who would like to have this book—oh, yeah—Matt!] and I can speak to Pat Dye? Show me to the end of the line!

I was a little nervous. They had us fill out slips for how we wanted Coach to autograph the book. I wrote something very original, like "War Eagle, Sam!," and asked the student managing the line if that was appropriate. He said it was perfect.

What do I remember from the front of the line? Not much. He said something to me that I thought was quintessentially Coach Dye, and I told everyone, but now I can't remember what it was. Mostly, I just remember it making me happy.

Coach made a lot of folks happy over his 80 years. Of course, the man I "knew" wasn't the only side of Coach Dye. That's reality for everyone. We are sinners. We await the full revelation of Christ's work to make all things new. Thankfully, in the here and now we already see some fruit of the redemption.

I think we see a redemptive arc in Coach's life—something of a move from work to grace. That idea exceeds the scope of both this post and my insight. Nonetheless, it is something I hope. In 1986, Alabama led Auburn by 10 at the start of the fourth quarter. It was an era when points were harder to come by—especially in the Iron Bowl. It didn't look good, but with Pat Dye on the sideline, you never lost hope.

Good News vs. News You Could Use

If you'd like to experience virality—not of the corona sort, but, you know, the way we used to speak of going viral, where people click and share something ad infinitum—post a new way of doing something that will cause people to say, Oh, I should do it that way, even when you and they both know they never will.

News You Could Use

For example, last week I saw a video of how to fold a cereal box top into itself so that it looks like you picked it up at a bakery. I guess the idea was that if you fold the box this way, it won't pop open on its own. The video was sort of watchable, but I knew I would never try to learn cereal-box origami.

I was one time convinced—for about a second—by a similar video. I thought I was going to show my kids an artsy way to tie their shoes. I never did. It was news I could use, but I didn't. Have you ever found this kind of news in a sermon or "Christian" book?

It often shows up as self-efficacy—the idea that the results you get are determined mostly by the effort you put in, rather than by outside factors. For example, even if the other guy or gal up for promotion is dating the boss's daughter or son, if you really believe that your success depends on your commitment to excellence, then you're going to have more success than if you focus on the office politics. There's nothing wrong with that way of thinking, but proclaiming self-efficacy is not the church's mission.

News That Can Use You

Self-efficacy is news you could use. The Good News is that Jesus our Lord "was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25). The gospel is not news you can use. It is news that can use you. The gospel can make your life a testimony to God's goodness.

Keep an eye out in the messages from your church and others. Notice whether they're giving you good news, or just news you could use (but probably won't). Keep a close eye on bloggers, too!

 

Keep A Close Watch On Your Bible

Fill in the blank.

Do not be conformed to this ______, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind . . .

Here's a picture in case you want to think for a second before seeing the answer.

Do not be conformed to this world . . . It's the first part of Romans 12:2. We covered it in Sunday school last week, and the ESV footnote on world got my attention. It reads, "Greek age."

You may be thinking, so what—translations have little different-word notes like that all over the place. Yes, but consider the difference between this footnote and the kind we see in Romans 12:1. There the ESV footnotes spiritual worship with, "Or your rational service."

Note the difference. The footnote on spiritual worship begins with "Or." The translators have chosen one phrase, but they acknowledge another choice could have been made. The footnote on world begins with "Greek." The translators acknowledge that the Greek text says one thing, but they have chosen to say something else. Why?

I wondered if the ESV Study Bible would comment on this question. Here's how its note on Romans 12:2 begins.

The present evil age still threatens those who belong to Christ, so they must resist its pressure.

That is, the ESVSB presumes age as the object at hand. It says nothing on why the ESV text reads world.  I found the same tactic in the commentaries I consulted.

For instance, Robert Mounce, in the New American Commentary, devotes some thought to why we might choose spiritual worship or rational service in verse 1, but in verse two he presumes age, even though the NAC uses for its starting point the NIV, which also reads world, and without any footnote!

There are some translations that read age, including the (Holman) Christian Standard Bible [which kind of works to the tune of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles], but I've found no more explanation on why they use age than I have for why others use world.

Having said that, there is one explanation we can assume for the ESV choice. It comes from its preface.

The words and phrases themselves grow out of the Tyndale–King James legacy, and most recently out of the RSV, with the 1971 RSV text providing the starting point for our work. (source)

The RSV says world, and so does the ESV. Translation is always an act of interpretation. Sometimes, it is also an act of tradition.

What does it matter?

Granted, this world is the realm in which we experience this age, and this age is the time—between Christ's ascension and return—when we live in this world. Both show the marring of sin, and we don't want to conform to either. They're two sides of the same coin?

Even if it doesn't make a huge difference for the meaning, any translation owes us an explanation when it deviates from the most straight-forward translation. In this case, the ESV is deviating both from its claim to be essentially "word-for-word," and also from this:

Therefore, to the extent that plain English permits and the meaning in each case allows, we have sought to use the same English word for important recurring words in the original . . . (also from the preface)

Paul uses the same Greek work several times elsewhere. There are a few other instances where the ESV renders it world, but in most cases it is either age or part of a construction translated forever. Here's a couple examples:

Galatians 1:4

. . .who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father . . .

Ephesians 1:21

. . . far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

But really, what does it matter?

What matters is that we remember our Bible translations are always making decisions for us. Usually, they don't even footnote these decisions. Let's be sure to read the disclosures when they do make them. Remember Paul's exhortation to Timothy.

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Tim 4:16)

Let's keep a close watch also on our Bible translations!

Stanley Hauerwas: A Prayer For Pandemic Times

Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon are leading a Zoom webinar, Reading Barth Together. Each week they discuss a few chapters from Karl Barth's Dogmatics in Outline. So far, it's been pretty cool. It's interesting to hear these two guys—both very influential in their own right—engage a thinker who's been so influential on both of them.

The highlight, so far—at least regarding the experience—has been Stan's prayer at the conclusion of session two. Here it is. See below the video queued to where the moderator raises the prayer request.

God of time,
Lord of creation,
We feel lost in the cosmos.
We are not sure what's happening to us.
We're not sure how to respond.
Help us receive you as the Lord of all that is,
Making it possible for us to rejoice in your befriending us,
So that we might befriend one another in times of loneliness and isolation.
Make us love one another and even ourselves,
So that we might see in a world that seems lost
That we are in contact with one another by being made in your image.
Thank you for this time together.
May it feel as though we are enjoying one another and you.
In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ
Amen

If you'd like to have the prayer as an image, click here.

When Did Han Know What He Was Doing?

We watched Star Wars Saturday. It may have been only my third time to see it start to finish. Somehow, I felt a little like I was seeing it for the first time. I felt like I was watching a movie, rather than watching Star Wars. One scene stood out to me.

It's when Han is loading up his reward for rescuing the princess, while everyone else is preparing to attack the Death Star. Luke confronts him about deserting the cause. He tells Han to take care of himself, since that's what he does best. Luke turns to walk away, and then Chewy says something to Han, to which Han replies, "I know what I'm doing."

The attack commences without Han, but he later reappears at the critical moment, disrupting Vader's pursuit of Luke, so that young Skywalker can ring the two-meter target and blow up the Death Star. Presumably, Han was on his way to pay back Jaba, but his conscience ate at him until he turned back, returning fortuitously at the optimum time to intervene. But, what if that was his plan all along?

What if Han knew what he was doing back at the base, when he told Chewy he knew what he was doing? I think Han was preserving the element of surprise—relating to both his enemy and his ally. Han didn't want the rebels to include him in their plans. He wanted to be their ace in the hole—that they wouldn't know they had until they needed it. Han likes to work alone, wookie not withstanding. As he says earlier in the movie, he doesn't take orders. It was always his plan to help, but on his own terms.

After all, Han had stopped Luke when he was walking away from the confrontation to say, "May the force be with you." It wasn't that Han had become a believer. He was just tipping his hand a little. Luke would have some luck. Han would see to it himself.

When the two reunite after the big explosion, Luke tells Han, "I knew you'd come back." But, he didn't seem like he knew it when he didn't respond to Han's well-wishing before the attack.

I guess this dynamic got my attention because it's one of the movie's more human moments. Two people don't see eye to eye. One of them knows something the other doesn't. The other will later claim to have known all along. We all know what that's like, right? We all know that in a fight more is said beyond what is spoken and beyond what is not spoken. At the end of the day, you're either both trying to blow up the same Death Star or you're not.

Sometimes we have to fly half-way to Jaba's lair first. That's ok. It gives us time to think, to make sure we know what we're doing, and to look at the situation like we're seeing it for the first time.

Church, But Don't Touch?

I saw a frog on the walking trail last night, but not before I scared him. He was hopping away before I could get a good look. I went back to walking, and thinking—wondering about when and how we'll return to church.

Maybe your church sent out a survey like the one we had last week. The question boiled down to something like:

Are you . . .

• ready to come back
• ready to come back but not touch anybody
• not ready to come back

I posed the question a little differently to our Sunday school class. I asked whether folks would rather return sooner, but with restrictions, or return later without restrictions.

Our opinions will not affect policy, but I wanted to give everyone a chance to share what they were thinking. I didn't actually count, but I think the responses were roughly, six for returning later, five for returning sooner.

Our teacher commented that we're going to have restrictions regardless, whether it's sooner or later. That was more realism than I bargained for.

When I imagine going back to church, I have two pictures in mind—inspired by the survey questions. The first picture has families spread out across the sanctuary, with lots of space between the little groups. But, we're still in one room; singing together. That picture seems pretty good right now.

The other picture is one-way pedestrian traffic at the entrances. I don't like that picture. It strikes me as dystopian. But, if that's how we need to come into the building to make the first picture reality, well—we do what we gotta do.

One day—at least in theory—we'll settle into some new normal. The question is how close the new church normal will be to the old church normal. Who can say? I hope it involves social nearing as soon as possible. I hope we're able to get at least as close to each other as I got to this guy.

In Which I Say Nothing About Ear Lobes, Thumbs, And Big Toes

As we continue our online "services" and "gatherings," I find myself wondering why we call our gatherings, services to begin with. That question led me to this post by Anthony Smith. His comments led me to work up this definition.

Just as the Lord called Israel out of Egypt to serve him, and just as the priests served by offering sacrifices, so now all believers serve as priests in offering the sacrifices of praise. We gather together to perform this service. (cf. Exod 10:3; Lev 7:35; 1 Pet 2:5; 1 Tim 2:1;  Heb 13:15)

We don't think of ourselves as preserving the Levitical-ritual tradition when we gather on Sunday morning. Maybe we sometimes think about the Psalmic-festival tradition; let us come into the house of the Lord, enter his gates with praise, that kind of thing. The closest we get to Leviticus is communion. Rather than making any blood sacrifice, we remember the only sufficient blood sacrifice.

I look forward to once again gathering physically in the same place to perform services. Or, perform might not be the best word. We don't want to hold performances and call them worship. Let's just say we long to gather together to serve.

Might we do well to soften the division between worship and service? Maybe we'd congratulate ourselves less if we called cleaning up the playground a worship project. Maybe we'd approach worship more seriously if we saw ourselves as Aaron's sons and daughters.

I'm saying nothing new here. It's only the idea that the servant on the back row should have the same spirit as the servant in the choir. We cannot make that happen. But, if we can do anything to make it more likely, our return to offline service gatherings would be great timing!

Chuck Klosterman and Stanley Hauerwas at McDonald's (No, Not Really)

When you google Chuck Klosterman with Stanley Hauerwas, you don't find much besides Brett McCracken's description of Christian Hipsters (link below). To me, that's really weird. Then again, to me it's weird that people go to Starbucks. Still, the lack of Klosterman-Hauerwas dialogue on the internet is even weirder. So, here's an attempt to correct that deficiency, if by just a little.

I recently read something from Klosterman that I think Stan would appreciate. It's from the beginning of his report on eating nothing but McNuggetts for a week (several years before the Supersize Me documentary).

We are a nation obsessed.
American culture is nothing more than a pastiche of fixations. We are obsessed with health. We are obsessed with pleasure. We are obsessed with speed. We are obsessed with efficiency. In simplest terms, we are obsessed by the desire to accelerate every element of our existence in a futile attempt to experience as much life as we can in the shortest possible time. We have all entered a race to devour the largest volume of gratification before it kills us.

Keeping this in mind, I ate nothing but McDonald's Chicken McNuggets for seven straight days. (Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, page 58)

This assessment reminds me of Stan's maxim on wanting to get out of life alive.

We live in a death-denying world that seems determined to develop technologies that will enable us to get out of life alive. Yet the more we strive to be free of death the more our lives are shaped by the death-determined means we create to try to free ourselves of death. Even more paradoxical, the means we use to free ourselves from death only serve to increase our isolation from one another. (Stanley Hauerwas, A Cross-Shattered Church Reclaiming the Theological Heart of Preaching, page 87)

Survive The Dollar Tree

Hauerwas considers health—or, at least staying alive—our greatest obsession. We might conflate their thoughts by saying Hauerwas defines Klosterman's gratification as survival. We want all the safety-health-security we can get our hands on or get out of anyone else's. We're even ok with it killing us so long as it keeps us alive. (a la Chris Carrabba, "I'll die in here just to be safe.")

Klosterman also connects our gratification-lust with the fragility of life. He begins and ends his followup to the McNuggets essay with the following comments:

Staying alive is complicated. It's the single most difficult thing every single person does every day. There is just so much in this wicked world that can kill us: cancer, avalanches, liver failure . . .
And life is dangerous. Like I said, staying alive is complicated. But I'll take my chances.

Something Else

So, what's the alternative, besides just taking our chances? For Hauerwas, it's the bread and wine.

The devil would have us remain fixated on death, but in sharing this meal [Eucharist] we learn to gaze upon Christ, who makes it possible to view our lives and deaths through the power of the resurrection. Death has been undone.

Klosterman reaches no comparable conclusion in his two-part McDonald's essay, and, granted, that wasn't his aim. Several years later, however, he said something that at least admits the possibility of life beyond staying alive until staying alive kills us.

There are so many things we don't know about energy, or the way energy is transferred, or why energy (which can't be created or destroyed) exists at all. We can't truly conceive the conditions of a multidimensional reality; even though we're (probably) already living inside one. We have a limited understanding of time, and of the possibility that all time is happening at once. So while it seems unrealistic to seriously consider the prospect of life after death, it seems equally naïve to assume that our contemporary understanding of this phenomenon is remotely complete. (But What If We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past, pages 11–12)

So Klosterman and Hauerwas agree that the popular understanding of death as the final end is at least possibly incorrect. That's a pretty solid starting place for conversation. They really should get a cup of coffee sometime—at McDonald's, not Starbucks.

Christian Hipsters

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Follow the bikes to the book!

The Kingdom of God: Now, Or Later?

The kingdom of God keeps popping up. I don't mean that as a theological claim, but as a report on my work. For instance, when I taught a Sunday school lesson on Mark 2, I wondered about the following:

And he was preaching the word to them. (Mark 2:2b)

What was the word Jesus was preaching to them? In trying to answer that question, I landed on Mark 1:14–15 for my best guess.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

And, so it seemed to go. A question would lead me to the kingdom of God, but, what is the kingdom of God?

Even coming from a tradition with no catechism, you might think I would've learned a standard answer to this question. If I was supposed to, I don't remember it. It's always been an idea that seemed obvious in its implication—that there is life as we know it, and there is something other, called the kingdom of God. But, to say there is something other, and to say what that something other is, are two different things.

The Rule and Reign of God

My church's senior pastor likes to say the kingdom of God is "the rule and reign of God in the hearts of his people." I may be splicing his definition with John Piper's. I don't disagree with this definition, but neither do I find it fully satisfying. (Granted, we'll likely get a fully satisfying definition for the kingdom of God as soon as we get one for the Trinity.) What I find lacking is some acknowledgment that the kingdom of God is not fully a here-and-now thing. It is in some regard a here-and-later thing.

Of course, that's just the older way of thinking—that the kingdom will come on a certain day in the future. Everyone will see it. There will be no denying it.

Ruling and Reigning for God?

On the other end of the spectrum we have the thought that, with the right social policies and what not we can bring the kingdom to fruition as soon as enough of us make it job one. This idea may draw support from passages like Matthew 13:33.

He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

The leaven is spreading continually. It's a gradual growth rather than an instant event. The Piper definition accommodates this idea. The kingdom comes gradually as God rules and reigns more and more in the hearts of more and more people. Still, there has to be a future element, right? Remember what Jesus says about the cup.

Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. (Mark 14:25)

That day cannot be this day, can it?

Crossing the River

Of course, the answer is both. The kingdom is already and not yet. Maybe you've heard that one before. We put our hope on the not yet and our hands on the already. We live with the tension. We take it one day at a time.

What About Right Now?

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot—coronavirus, pandemic, quarantine, all that. Where is the kingdom of God now? The leaven analogy speaks to that question. It's growing all the time, even when (especially when?) we don't see it. Each day is one day closer to that day, whether we're sitting down in groups of 50 or hiding in the upper room.

postscript

It just occurred to me that the children have already finished the school year—they're home for summer—but not yet completed it—they're still doing work. Ha!

Presence and Purpose: Reflecting On Pandemic Responses

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

Last week, a local pastor told me, "People are hungry right now." We're looking for voices we trust to say something meaningful in these days of disorientation. All of us are separated from people and places where we usually find meaningfulness.

Most of this post relates indirectly to that hunger. I've just been curious how certain influential voices would respond to this moment. Now that some of them have spoken, I'd like to share with you summations of their comments. Further below, I try to synthesize their thoughts and draw out something that relates more directly to our shared hunger. Here we go.
 

N. T. Wright 

Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus. It's Not Supposed To

Mansplaining Acts 9 to Tom Wright.

Professor Wright warns against adopting common answers to why our world has this pandemic. Instead, he promotes we recover the biblical practice of lament, which he defines as asking the question why, and not getting an answer.

Wright points us to the Psalms as the handbook on lament. He notes that God, too, laments—as when he observes the violence in Genesis 6; and as when Jesus weeps at the tomb of Lazarus.

He concludes that now is the time to wait; to focus on God's love wherever we can; and, to look for this challenging time to breed "new possibilities, new acts of kindness, new scientific understanding, new hope," and new wisdom for our leaders.

Walter Brueggemann

God's New Thing

In his brief comments, Brueggemann says God can be at work through the pandemic without being its cause. The crisis exposes our societal systems, usually thought to be unassailable. Breuggemann concludes with reasons for hope. He points out unusual measures of compassion in the midst of crisis. He hopes this heightened compassion will become the new normal, and he relates this hope to Isaiah 43:18–19.

“Remember not the former things,

nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I am doing a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

and rivers in the desert.

John Piper

Coronavirus and Christ

John Piper emphasizes God's hand in the onset of the virus. Like the other voices, Piper avoids guessing why God sent the coronavirus. Instead, he encourages us to trust that God knows why, and that God is always working for good.

The secret is this: Knowing that the same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus and doesn’t, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it. Indeed, more than sustains — sweetens with hope that, for those who trust him, his purposes are kind, even in death.

Piper says God is working—not just in the coronavirus—but by it. God has a purpose for it. Our role is to worship and cherish the One who purposes all things, even this.
 

Stanley Hauerwas

You're Not Accepted (Podcast), Episode 6

The brief conversation in Stan's recent appearance on You're Not Accepted is kind of all-over-the-place. He mostly laments the absence of gathering (physically) for worship.

When asked about God's whereabouts, Hauerwas warns against using God as an explanation. After that, I'm not sure I understood his response. He seemed to say we can't pick and choose what events God is behind and which ones he isn't. I think that's what he meant.

He said more clearly that to understand God's interaction in history we need to start with his choosing Israel. He also recommends reading the Psalms if we want to contemplate God's relationship to earthly events.

Can any fruit come from this crisis? Stan hopes that a universal problem will ultimately lead to unity in thanksgiving.

The Presence of God

The one thing these guys most agree on is the presence of God. Tom Wright sees it in the fellowship of lament. Brueggemann sees it in remarkable compassion. Piper sees it in the virus, itself. (Maybe that's unfair. Read his letter to judge for yourself.) Stan sees it in the possibility of everyone realizing we are all God's children. (He says that more expressly than I alluded to above.)

They disagree on the matter of whether God authored the virus and the crisis. Hauerwas rejects the question. Piper says yes. Brueggemann says we don't know, but God can work in it regardless. Wright hints that God instigated the virus, and encourages us to draw near to God in faith with our question of why—even while understanding God does not owe us an answer.

O Lord, Be Gracious to Us

What is the way forward here? One thing we can do is to remember that now is not the first end of the world as we know it. It frightens us. It's fresh. It's closer to home than historical crises of such magnitude. But, we have always known that God is present. He is working in the world. He is altogether good. His ways and thoughts are higher than ours.

The contributions surveyed above all engage one or more of the following: lament, Psalms, and Isaiah. All three have much to tell us at this time, and we find the influence of all three in this simple prayer.

O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you.

Be our arm every morning,

our salvation in the time of trouble. (Isaiah 33:2)