Dinner at the Agape Restaurant

              A fascinating and thoughtful article in the Wall Street Journal (Feb 18, 2012) laments the “loss of a sense of community” in our culture. I call it fascinating for the simple reason that its author acknowledges that its loss is traceable directly to “the privatization of religious belief that occurred in Europe and the U.S. in the 19^th century” – when faith was booted off the town square of public, communal truth and relegated to the ghetto of private, non-falsifiable personal opinion.

            Alain de Botton, author of the article in question, is an atheist who wants to find a way to recover the spirit of community in a secular world. The one thing he will not suggest is a return to a personal God, authoritative Scripture, or objective behavioral standards. He suggests a path to building a superstructure for community without bothering with the foundation of faith.

            The article is titled “Religion for Everyone” and seems to be a sincere lament over the loneliness that radical individualism has created; when each of us is an island of her own wants, fears, and self-defined values, heady isolation quickly becomes cold seclusion from others – all of whom struggle with their own wants, fears, and self-created values that are in conflict with those of others.

            De Botton has the dual goal of moving people from personal selfishness to harmony and from despair to hope. So he suggests an Agape Restaurant where people could read and reflect on the Book of Agape. (No, I’m not making this up!) All genders, ethnicities, and customary distinctions would sit together; there would be a spirit of acceptance leading to friendship. Readings would allow people to explore all degrees of alienation and pain, fear and regret. The result of an evening there would be compassion, forgiveness, and unity.

            The de Botton agenda intrigues me. Invites me. Encourages me. And I wish our human failure across the centuries had not left him so disillusioned with faith that he cannot see that his quest is doomed to failure. (There’s certainly a lesson here for those of us who love the church to get our act together!)

            No less than Thomas Jefferson produced an edition of the New Testament that omitted the supernatural in order to leave only the moral teachings of Jesus unfettered by faith; but the authority to teach as he did derives from his incomparable divine nature put on exhibit in his occasional miraculous actions. Similarly, our quest for community begins with a common confession of need (sinfulness) and the unity created by receiving and sharing the healing (forgiveness) God offers in Agape Restaurants (churches) that are open to the ultimate Book of Agape (the Bible) that tells a story of Good News worth sharing.

            One follow-up letter to the Journal summed up my view of the article pretty well: “Certainly seems like a lot of trouble just to avoid going to church.”

Before You Can Launch

            Merle Jordan writes about standing on the edge of the ocean and watching a young man and an older man row a small boat out to a larger one that was anchored at some distance from the shore. The older man climbed aboard, went to the wheel of the large boat, and brought its engine to life.

            It was the young sailor’s job to hoist the anchor. Struggling with the heavy, dead weight was no easy thing for him. But it was clear the boat was not about to move forward on its charted course until the anchor had been hauled aboard.

            Jordan uses that episode as a metaphor for his book Reclaiming Your Story. He writes: “We are all anchored in the personal histories we inherit from a family of origin. . . . Our maps of reality; images of God; values, beliefs, and meaning systems; patterns of relating, communicating, and interacting; sense of identity and self-worth; and emotional awareness and means of expression are largely determined by our relationships and experiences in our families of origin.”

            Haven’t you seen that play out in the life of someone you know? An abused child never learns to trust as an adult. Boys molested by men are often aggressive as an antidote to feeling weak or afraid. Traumatized kids frequently overreact to upsetting things with rage and horror. People who grow up with alcohol, violence, or abandonment issues even tend to choose mates and business partners who have the same traits. After all, they can relate to them.

            The Christian faith is about transformation. “If anyone is in Christ,” said Paul, “he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

            But some people never experience the new life Christ has made possible for them. And often it isn’t their fault. They don’t realize they are repeating history from their families of origin or their early life experiences. No one has helped them fathom that those early experiences have them stuck in emotional cement.

            If you have children, it is important that you look for and interrupt any unhealthy patterns in your family history. You don’t want to pass them on to future generations. Your leadership in business, community, or church will be enhanced through an awareness of how those dynamics work. You can become the catalyst for helping others find emotional and spiritual health.

            We sometimes need others’ help to pull up our anchors to the past in order to move forward on the journey God has in mind for us. Be brave. Cut loose from the dead weight. There is an expansive ocean out there for you to sail and enjoy.

           

Too Soon to Give Up

            She wanted to talk with me about her son. It wasn’t that he is a “bad” boy or has had any serious problems, she said. But she was worried about the fact that he isn’t particularly interested in the youth group at their church and – beyond being with the family at Sunday worship times – seems pretty distant to faith.

            I know something about parental anxiety over a child. That’s why God gave children parents, right? To worry about them? To wring our hands over them?

            In all seriousness, there would be something wrong with a mother or father who is a Christian who didn’t notice or care about what was bothering that woman. All of us who are believers think about such things. We pray for our offspring and want them to share what we think is so vital to a meaningful life.

            At the same time, children are children. They are often interested in nothing beyond the immediate. They have games and music and sports. Then they have girlfriends and braces and pimples. Then come algebra and cars and girls. Oh, and did I mention girls? (Or, if it is a daughter, boys and boyfriends?)

            Then there is the constant issue of being puzzled about life. An adolescent doesn’t know what to think about lots of things – including his or her parents. There may be issues of anger with siblings. Maybe she just can’t understand being expected to measure up to an older sister who she believes is prettier or smarter. He resents being identified with what his family takes for granted. All of us want to be given space to work out some things for ourselves.

            Often the best any of us can do is worry. And pray. Then worry and pray some more. It is fairly certain that the worst thing any of us can do is to try to force things to the conclusion she wants. Children, friends, employees, neighbors – all of them have this scary thing called freedom. And freedom is a double-edged sword that has the possibility to accept or to reject.

            So I encouraged her simply to continue loving, believing in, and praying for her son. That all she had invested in him would have a good outcome. That she would be proud of him one day for who he would become. And I made the point more than once that she should not give up on her best dreams for him.

            After all, do you remember that Jesus had blood relatives who didn’t know what to make of him? That his brothers – James, Joses, Jude, and Simon – kept their distance from him during his preaching and healing ministry? Thought that he was weird for doing what he was doing – if not altogether out of his mind?

            We don’t know how all Jesus’ siblings turned out. But at least two of his brothers, James and Jude, became believers and wrote epistles bearing their names that we preserve in the New Testament. The most famous of them became a “pillar of the church” at Jerusalem before all was said and done.

            Faith sometimes takes time. Don’t give up on any of the people you love.