Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Making Faith Look Foolish

            Most of us who heard of Pastor Harold Camping's prediction of "the rapture" for last Saturday, May 21, 2011, just rolled our eyes. Or laughed. Or felt queasy that yet another counterfeit prophet had made it easier for unbelievers to mock Christian faith and harder for honest seekers to take it seriously.
            Almost 20 years ago, Camping had gotten it wrong once. He had predicted the beginning of the end back then. "When September 6, 1994, arrives," he wrote in a book titled 1994, "no one else can become saved. The end has come."
            Oops! That prediction didn't come to pass because of a mathematical error, Camping said. "I'm not embarrassed about it. It was just the fact that it was premature," he explained. But about the May 21, 2011, date, he insisted "there is no possibility that it will not happen." He'll have an explanation. Some of his cultic group will remain loyal. He will continue to ask for money.
            By one account, he plastered his message of doom on some 2,200 billboards across the United States. A paid ad in Reader's Digest proclaimed: "The Bible guarantees the end of the world will begin with Judgment Day May 21, 2011."
            Christians who have actually read the Bible know that the word "rapture" doesn't even appear in the biblical text and that Jesus said "no one knows" the time of his return. Indeed, he said, it would happen at "an unexpected hour." So much for Camping or anybody else who says he or she has figured out what Jesus said we would not know until it actually happened. Mark it down: anybody who says he knows the day or hour of Christ's return is a fraud.
            Christ was an appealing character in history. His message of salvation was not a scare tactic designed to shake people loose from their money; it was an affirmation of his love for the broken and a willingness to forgive and heal. It is not Jesus but "Christianity" that has given faith a bad name, not the honest and affirming Leader but the mendacious and fear-mongering who exploit religion.
            Even worse than the occasional Doomsday False Prophet are those Brennan Manning has identified. "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today," he claims, "is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door [of some worship center] to deny him with their lifestyle."
            My recent book I Knew Jesus before He Was a Christian . . . and I Liked Him Better Then seems to have struck a responsive chord with many of you. Thank you for reading and reacting to affirm it. But remember that the book is not meant to be a commentary; it is a call to action. It is a challenge to practice faith in a simple, straightforward manner that reflects the person Jesus and feels no obligation either to defend or make peace with religious hokum and nonsense.
            Atheism is less an insult to God than much that passes for religion.

To purchase the book click here.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

I Knew Jesus before He Was a Christian . . .


            I’ve just completed a book you might want to read. Its title is I Knew Jesus before He Was a Christian . . . and I Liked Him Better Then. Yes, the title is meant to get your attention. But it is also meant to be a very serious statement.
            The Jesus one meets in the Gospels is humble and appealing, engaging and life-transforming. He is God among us who rescues, heals, and empowers. But something happened in the fourth century that changed everything. The Roman Emperor Constantine took control of the church and morphed the Body of Christ into a hierarchical institution that looked more like a government or a business.
            From that time forward, people have had to form their opinions of a warm and generous Jesus through their experiences of an often-imperious church. Thus it has come about that the greatest single cause of atheism in the world is a church that has been at various times materialistic, acquisitive, racist, predatory, sexist, homophobic, and otherwise incongruous in character to its founder.
            Contrary to the advice of one cynic who cried “If you love Jesus, burn the church!”, my appeal is for the church to find ways to connect with Jesus. Identify with Jesus. Reform itself into Jesus’ image. Become what it was at first.
            The Christian religion simply is not serving the spiritual lives of people very well these days. If you doubt that claim, perhaps you should know that the fastest-growing segment of religious affiliation these days is neither Catholic, Protestant, Jew, nor Muslim but “None.” The report was titled “American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population.” Yet only 7% say they are atheists.
            My hunch is that some – if not most of these no-religion people – are anything but men and women running away from God but persons who see church as too bland, too tame, too unlike their titular founder. They are looking for a challenge to their faith that is worthy of being associated with Jesus Christ.
            My fear is that what we have come to call Christianity has blurred our vision of Jesus. If that is true, we need to dig beneath the debris of religious rituals and conventions that have accumulated over centuries to reclaim and live the vibrant gospel that turned the world upside down – and could do so yet again.
            I knew Jesus before he was a (post-Constantine, big-shot, uppity, privileged, hypercritical, disparaging, dismissive) Christian. It was back in the days that he was a servant to servants and said we could find God in that sort of simplicity. It was when he stepped between rock-throwers and guilty-as-sin people about to be stoned by them. It was in the times that he laughed, went to parties, held babies, touched blind people, hung out with outcasts, and otherwise showed humans the true nature of God. That God is love. That God is decent and holy, without being priggish about it. And I liked him better then!
            If you get a chance to read the book, I would welcome your feedback.

To purchase the book click here.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Living in God’s Story


            The Bible is not a safe book. Even if you begin reading it for the sake of the children’s version of Noah’s ark, Joseph’s coat, or Jesus’ kindness to little children, it still can get to you. It is the narrative account of God’s purpose to rescue sinful-but-dearly-loved humans through his grace made known in Jesus.
            People who overhear that story somehow get pulled into the narrative and begin to follow Jesus through their own personal engagement with The Story.
            Your story is my story is ultimately the story of every human life. And our personal and collective stories make sense only in relation to God’s Story as we learn it through Jesus. The gospel is not a series of doctrinal affirmations over which we fight in our different denominations. It is the unfolding story of God’s good purposes for the creatures he has made in his own image and likeness.
            In its simplest form, then, evangelism is inviting people into the story of Jesus. It is challenging people to see themselves and all the events and relationships of their lives in the light of Jesus as their Way, Truth, and Life. The task of evangelism is to share the gospel so as to invite people to channel the streams and tributaries of their human experience into the ocean vastness of God’s love for them in Christ. It is to call them to find meaning, identity, and purpose for their lives in knowing and following him.
            The world’s culture offers the option of shutting out God, pursuing a self-willed agenda, and suffering the tragic consequences. The church is called out of the world to be an alternative culture whose identity is shaped by God’s nature, whose activities reflect his redemptive love, and where authentic joy reigns.
            Our neighbors won’t get caught up in the story of Jesus until they see us genuinely engaged with it. The heart of evangelism is not bumper stickers, T-shirts, and tracts; it is bona fide imitation of Jesus. Only when our churches are cultural alternatives to the world’s racism and sexism, jealousy and rivalry, selfishness and materialism can we be light in a dark world.
            It isn’t just your church’s reputation but you as a neighbor, worker, classmate, or friend to the person who does not know Christ. You are called to be a person who keeps promises, lives with integrity, cares about others, and demonstrates an appealing, joyous way of life. Then a neighbor just may want to know more about what you believe and how you live. She will be open to talking with you about Jesus, attending church events with you, or joining your Bible study group.
            In the process of interacting with the people of God, people hear the music of the gospel and begin to move to its rhythm. They see how The Story engages their personal stories. They encounter the Holy Spirit and are changed.
            The unsafe-but-inviting story told in Scripture still engages and enlists hearts. Our task is to model it. Paint the picture. Make the music. God sees to the result.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Garth Pleasant: Tribute to a Friend

 
            Once in a great while these days, you hear about or see from a distance a man or woman who gives you hope for the human race. Maybe we’re not all selfish or hiding deep character flaws with phony PR or working the system while pretending to serve others. Maybe faith really works and the Spirit of God truly lives in human hearts. Sometimes you actually get to know one of those people.
            Garth Pleasant is one of those rare people, and I have been blessed to get to know him. Work with him. Be his friend. Find him to be a man in whom there is no guile. See him do things at great expense to himself for the simple reason that he believed someone would be encouraged. And watch him deflect compliments and praise to others for the simple reason that his humility won’t let him believe he is as special as those of us who know him best know him to be.
            For more than three decades, Garth Pleasant has coached basketball at Rochester College. Only two of his teams had losing records, and12 competed in the final four of national tournaments. He and his team cut down the nets as national small-college champions four times – in 1989, 1994, 2004, and 2005.
            In 1989, the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan (BCAM) named Garth Pleasant its Coach of the Year – the same year the University of Michigan blew through their March tournament to win the NCAA National Championship. Garth was inducted into the BCAM Hall of Fame two years ago. He has been paid tribute by the likes of Joe Dumars, Tom Izzo, and Don Meyer. These greats in the coaching field know they have a peer in Garth Pleasant.
            You’d think a track record such as this would have earned Garth Pleasant a head coaching job at a big school, a Division-I NCAA school, and a salary multiple times what Rochester College could pay him. It did! But he turned down those offers time and time again to stay with his ministry to young men.
            Garth’s “Aw Shucks” attitude toward all his achievements is a genuine humility born of his sincere faith. He has always told me his work is his kingdom service to a gracious God. Like the God he serves, he has shown grace to recruit players whose high school coaches and teachers warned him to avoid. Not all those risks had happy endings. Enough have that he is a life-changer for more young men than I can name. While teaching basketball, he taught character.
            Carlee Barackman captured Garth’s legacy well with a headline in the college’s student publication – “It Was Never About the Wins, Championships, or Halls of Fame.” In Garth’s words: “I try to tell my players that I will know how good a team we were in 15 years when I am able to see how good of a husband, father, and member of society they are. Then I will know how good we were.”
            He’s hanging up his whistle, but his investment in young souls lives forever.