Category Archives: Witnessing/Apologetics

If God Is Love (Part 5)

Posted on by RJ

This is a continuation of my discussions of the book entitled “When God Is Love” by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland. Here is the quote for today:

Working to make the world a more gracious place wasn’t a priority in the churches of my childhood. Some of this negligence was a result of apolcalyptic interpretations in which the world was doomed and damned anyway. One man insisted we shouldn’t work for peace in the Middle East because we were simply postponing Armageddon and the return of Christ. However, the primary reason the church didn’t have time to change the world was because we expended so much energy trying to save souls. We’d work for weeks on revivals, evangelism programs, mission support, and the like. We didn’t have time for soup kitchens, visiting prisoners, or working with the homeless — unless of course, we could figure out a way to work in an altar call.

When I became convinced of God’s intention to save every person, my perspective on the purpose of life changed. Salvation became a lifelong adventure in which God is gently and patiently drawing us away from self-absorption and toward authentic relationship with God and one another. The point of life was no longer to get saved or to save others. The purpose of life was to live graciously. Freed of personal anxiety about God’s acceptance and no longer obsessed with creating others in my own image, I was able to focus on what it means to be rather than do.

Working to make the world a more gracious place is still not much of a priority in today’s church. While I am yet to be fully in the camp that God will in his own way bring all souls to him, I am fully on board that much of the current church approach to those outside the faith is misguided. When we quit looking at others as projects to be converted and instead as fellow human being to be loved our whole approach to them changes. They become fellow children of God and not heathens to be saved.  The way we point others to Christ is through our actions and not our words or even necessarily those words found in our ancient books.

Lets finish up with a follow up quote on this subject.

Saving souls isn’t about altar calls, but about responding graciously to those we encounter in our daily lives. Being gracious is not about inviting others to our church, but about living an inviting life — one both attractive and winsome. The purpose of life isn’t to create more Christians , but “to let our lights shine before others, so they will see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven” Matthew 5:16

A few posts ago, and several other times on this blog, I have stated that we all at some time, and often many times, question what is our purpose in life. Why did God create us. I think Mr. Gulley and Mr. Mulholland have got it right in that regard. We are to be like the Son and let our lights shine in order to point others to Christ. Alter calls and such just don’t hack it. They never have and they never will.

The Slippery Slope

Posted on by RJ

 


  It s amazing to me the number of Christians who cling to the concept of the “Slippery Slope”. This mentality is similar to NRA not willing to even allow assault weapons or bullets known as “Cop Killers” to be banned for sale to the general public. They are afraid that once one weapon is banned it will lead to all the others being banned. I.E. the slippery slope. This is a very tenuous position as most reasonable people understand the need to restrict at least some weapons.

The slippery slope for many Christians I believe is similarly tenuous. Some Christians refuse to admit that some words in the Bible have a greater significance in our lives than others. They are just afraid that if they admit that some parts of the Bible are more meaningful than others it will open the door to some saying some parts of the Bible is not meaningful at all! And then sliding to making the whole Bible meaningless!!

I recently went through a round of blog comments with a person fairly high in level from a large American Christian denomination about this topic. Out of courtesy I will not mention him or his blog by name. He was concerned about me concentrating mainly on the words of Jesus. He kept coming back to the argument that ALL the words in the Bible are the words of Jesus. When I asked him if Paul’s words that “I do not allow women to be teachers or to have authority over men” were as important to Christian living as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He refused to accept that premise or at the least he completely dodged the question! After half a dozen exchanges he informed me that he was deleting our discussions from his blog as “they were not related to the post they are attached to.” I think maybe the old saying “out of sight out of mind” might actually apply here. Since these exchanges I am apparently banned from further comments on his blog! It is indeed sad to see that some Christians are so unwilling to listen to differing opinions no matter how biblically based they might be. My personal view of Christ is not that fragile. I am sorry that theirs appears to be.

I will repeat the words of Phyllis Tickle in her book the Words of Jesus that I reviewed about a month or so ago:

What I am suggesting here—and with some trepidation—is that the time may have come in popular Christian conversation for us to speak of the differences in authority between the words of Jesus and those of even His most inspired followers. All of Christian Scripture depends from the Gospels, and whatever comes after must be received through them and in terms of them. We Protestants in particular, with our historic preoccupation with Pauline theology, would do well to remind ourselves of that obvious truth several times a day.

Phyllis said ” with some trepidation”; I have no trepidations about this whatsoever. I absolutely believe that we should look at Jesus’ word first and filter all the others through what he says and as Phyllis says even those of his most inspired followers. After all Jesus is God incarnate. The Gospels are the absolute center of the Bible and Jesus’ words are the absolute center of the Gospels. When someone refuses to give primacy to Jesus’ words I believe they are actually weakening the significance of the Bible not protecting it from sliding down an imaginary deadly slope. I think, but am not sure, that the “slippery slope” thing is primarily Protestant in nature. Since the Catholic church does not hang their whole canon on the Bible alone (Sola Scripture) they are more willing to admit that some parts of the Bible are only historical in nature or are just not very significant in today’s world.

Christ and whose Culture?

Posted on by RJ

I recently read an article in the June issue of Sojourners magazine ( http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0906&article=christ-and-i-whose-i-culture ) about Christ and Culture. It was related to past evangelism focused on stripping native culture in order to bring Christ to an aboriginal people. In my mind this has always seemed wrong and I can’t understand how it could not have seemed so to those doing it then. I just don’t understand why there was no voiced dissent about it. But maybe there was and it is just not well known. But then again in those days Christians bought into the worldview that Indians and Negroes were less than human.

Imagine if we were doing the same thing today and were witnessing to a modern day American. What if we told them that they must give up everything they now deem normal and go back to living as Middle Easterners did in Jesus’ time.  Give up your suits and designer dresses for a sack cloth robe and sandals.  Give up your modern homes with granite countertops and oak floor for a dirt floored 10 x 10 shack.  And of course you would have to from this day forth quit speaking in English and instead learn Aramaic as Jesus spoke. I don’t think we would have many takers to our invitation to follow Christ.  But, this was what was actually done to the original people who inhabited North America. They were totally stripped of their native American identity! At least that is what they tried to do. I am one eighth Native American so I am somewhat sensitive about this issue I guess. But shouldn’t we all be.

Shame on us for doing that. Thank heavens as the above Sojourners article show we are, for the most part,  not doing that any more.

Doing church vs. Doing Discipleship

Posted on by RJ

This is a continuation of my personal reflections on the world and where I might fit into it.

 Is doing “church” separate from doing discipleship? Let’s investigate that question. I have always assumed that the two were actually the same but recently I have come across a couple of definitions of church that seem to separate the two practices.

Here is a definition of “church” from Greg Ogden in his book Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ: ” The church is a caring community, a serving, studying, praying, healing community. But what is the fundamental purpose of the church? If it is true that “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, then fundamentally the church is a worshiping community”.

Is it possible that doing church and doing discipleship are indeed be two different things? Do we have one group of Christians who form our worshipping community and another, for those of us who are so inclined, to reach beyond our door out into the world. My church is certainly strong in worshipping God and they do it very well!

I don’t know if that is common to most Christians or not. I may certainly perceive this wrong and I hope this doesn’t come off as judging, but it seems that my church mainly wants to do the usual things: worship service, Bible studies, church dinners and of course a full menu of committee meetings. But many members just don’t seem to have as strong an interest in the poor and down trodden that I do.

Don’t get me wrong, we do have outreach but never enough for my satisfaction. This year we have done or will do several projects in our community. We are perhaps more engaged than many churches in our area but never enough for me . It is usually only a small core of members actually participate in these activities and they are almost always one-time events, not an on-going thing that requires day-to-day commitments.

My discipleship work takes me around the community and, at least monetarily, around the world. I give my time and financial support to a local homeless shelter, a regional food bank, the Salvation army and a couple of international “feed the poor” organizations and even a Christian organization focused primarily on political issues. In the past it has bothered me that my “church” members don’t seem to share the same commitment in the things that I have passions for.

 I used to get upset about this but I am now learning to chill out somewhat now. That is just the way it is I guess. My pastor keeps telling me that I may not be aware of what others are doing and spending their time on. Maybe they are committed to a day-to-day discipleship activity but I am not aware of it? I know that I am a retired old white guy who now has the time to spend on discipleship things. Maybe, actually probably, I am being too harsh on others who do not share my enthusiasm for such things. I also have more time to read the Bible and as a result I hear Jesus “screaming” that loving your neighbor is where he wants us to be. No one, including me, ever seems to be able to do enough! At least the need never seems to be even remotely quenched.

 In summary, is doing church and doing discipleship the same thing. In a perfect world they would be but given the reality of our times they are not the same today. Christians today are just not that homogeneous anymore (if they ever were). We seem to concentrate on only our personal limited versions of both these topics.

Book Review – Letters from a Skeptic

Posted on by RJ

 


 
 

 
 

I just finished the book Letters from a Skeptic by Greg Boyd and I must say I was profoundly moved by the contents. The book is essentially a series of letters between Dr. Boyd, who was once an atheist, but now a noted theologian and his unbelieving father Ed. The letters took place over a two year period and covered many items that are basic concerns that skeptics have about Christianity. It is not my intent to discuss any details of the book. I will leave that for you to discover yourself. Coming to Christ from the extreme skeptic side myself I had many of the same objections to Christianity as mentioned in the father’s letters. Unfortunately I didn’t have the advantage of a son who is a world renowned theologian to help me wade through them. It took me much more than two years to finally get over my stubbornness and allow the Holy Spirit into my heart.

I am just going to give you some teasers on the type of subjects covered:

  • Why has Christianity done so much harm?
  • Why did God create Satan?
  • Why does God make believing him so difficult?
  • Why are there so many differing interpretation of the Bible?
  • How could an all-loving God torture people in an eternal hell?

     

As he promised his father when they started this correspondence Dr. Boyd tries to answer all of these and many other of his father’s questions in “non-theology terms”. Anyone who has spent any time on this blog know that in my mind is critical in interacting with non-believers. They are turned off by all the technical terms and the “it has to be true because it is in the Bible”!

 

The epilog of the book literally brought me to tears. It was one of the most moving accounts of a conversion I think I have ever read. I can only imagine the joy in Pastor Boyd’s heart to see his father in his senior years finally accepting Christ’s invitation of salvation. The book was one of those that was truly hard to put down. I read it totally over a three day period. I can’t imagine any other book that would prove to be more useful in understanding the thoughts and reasons for why people resist Christ’s invitation and the possible answers to those questions. And I have read many books in this area (apologetics). It is a must read for anyone who is seriously trying to reach out to others with God’s word.

 
 As a epilog to this post I am well aware of the conflicts that some Christians, particularly Calvinists, have with Dr. Boyd’s view of what they call open theism related around man’s free will. I personally am not totally in the open theism camp but I am also not in the Calvinist camp on beliefs related to free will or few other issues for that matter. That being said, don’t let your bias in either direction prevent you from reading this book. Yes, there are some things that you might not totally agree with in the book but I truly believe the vast majority of the contents are enlightening no matter what you leaning is.