Is He Worthy?

I've spent much of my life subtly and sometimes not so subtly trying to avoid pain and loss.

I tend to narrow my focus to what I think are my problems, and I tend to compulsively lurch toward supposed solutions that let me believe and behave however I want or that require no loss on my part.

I tend to avoid judgment at all costs.

In the fifth chapter of Revelation we find John in deep distress as he's witnessing a vision of the great Day of the Lord - the final judgment God's prophets and poets had known for centuries would come.  

The Day when evildoers would be put to rights.  

The Day when the oppressed would be set free.  

The Day when ugly, despotic power structures would be unmade.    

The Day when Yahweh would set everything straight.  

But John's not agonizing like I might be - scared silly of what I might lose or of some pain I might face.  No, he's weeping because no one can be found worthy to break the seals of that great judgment scroll.  No one can be found worthy to read it's pronouncements and no one can be found worthy to render them.     

John saw what I'm coming to see.  That is, that God's judgment is nothing to be afraid of if we're following Jesus as Lord.  If we are following after Messiah, then the Day of the Lord is for us that great day when we and the whole wide world are ridden completely of the effects of evil.  

John was weeping because if no one could open the scroll, then nothing in this world of pain could ever be changed.  Nothing could ever be made truly and deeply and forever Good again.

If no one could open the scroll, then pain and sorrow and sadness and lack and loss would always be the cruel taskmasters of what God had made to be so beautiful in the beginning.

But of course, John then heard what he'd so been waiting to hear:

"Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals."

So rather than fear that Day - we can know deep in our hearts as did John - that's the Day we've all been waiting for...

On that Day, we'll finally be rid of the nasty bent to protect ourselves at any cost, to grab for ourselves whatever we can and to hurt others whenever we are hurt.

On that Day, we'll be rid forever of fear, doubt, selfishness, greed and all their ugly siblings.  We, and the whole wide world, will all be made totally and completely New.

Andrew Peterson has put this grandest of all scenes to gorgeous melody - to which I cannot stop listening.  It's truly beautiful.

In fact, his Resurrection Letters: Prologue and Resurrection Letters: Volume 1 are now on constant play in my ears and in my heart.  

Leading Desperate Lives

Here's a famous bit of Thoreau's Walden:

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go in to the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats.

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left."

Thoreau connects the desperation of most people ("the mass of men") with their deliberate choice to live a "common" life. But to them, he says, there is no other choice.

I've found this to be true at times in myself and in those I've been privileged to lead. I think most of us are so afraid of losing something that we choose the safety of a mundane existence rather than the risk of an adventurous one.

We choose to live in patterns prescribed to us by our surroundings, by the institutions to which we cling and by our own past experiences. And rather than face our fear of failure, we console ourselves by believing that there really is no other choice.

Self-Defense, War and Jesus for President

This summer, as I always do, I've been using "The Big Picture" of Judeo-Christianity to help students understand what the whole story of the Bible really says about this or that.

One confusing topic for the students is the appropriateness of using physical force to fight evil - whether in war or in personal protection or in the defense of others.

So what does the Bible really say about God's plan for the history and future of mankind? Is violence ruled out?

How is it that in the Old Testament God repeatedly commanded Israel to use violence against the pagan nations, yet Jesus commanded his followers to "love their enemies"? And then, what are we to make of God's obvious use of force in Revelation, where in the future he defeats all enemies forcefully and subdues all the kingdoms of the earth?

With all that in mind I thought I'd resurrect a book review I wrote last year. Maybe this'll help shed some light on this interesting subject!

Jesus Is (not) My Home Boy

A few years ago a t-shirt company sold gazillions of shirts emblazoned with the phrase "Jesus is My Homeboy". Well, he's certainly our friend - but he's so much more!

N.T. Wright goes into great detail about who Jesus was, and is, in his book "The New Testament and the People of God" or NTPG for Wright fans.

It's not light reading - that's for sure. And that means there's no way to do justice to a monumental work like NTPG in a blog post. So we'll deal with just a few points here.

First off, Wright deals with the development of the Messianic expectation held by first century Jews.

Why in the world, you yawn, is this important?

Because one of the great tragedies in the modern church is that we've yanked Jesus out of his first century context. We don't have a clue as to what those people were expecting, what they saw and heard, and more importantly, how they interpreted Jesus' words and works.

And so, ignoring historical reality, we do what comes naturally to us - we construct an image of Jesus that fits our 21st century, modern (or postmodern, if you will), Greek-philosophized view of reality. And then we worship that image.

Even Sunday-school kids know the word for worshipping an image of our own creation. Idolatry, right? That kinda thing got you in deep doo-doo back in Old Testament times.

Wright also explains the importance of story in the human experience. Stories...




Humans think, and communicate with each other, in narrative form. We tell stories. Stories give context to our actions and beliefs. They explain, both to our listeners and to us, where we are and where we're going. In the broadest sense, we understand our place in the world and we interpret our daily "micro-stories" in the context of our "macro-story" of choice.

Muslims have variations of a unique macro-story and Jews have very different ones. Maybe someday we'll examine the differences between these macro-stories, or worldviews, and see how they affect life on the ground for these very different groups of people.

But the subject of NTPG is, of course, the Christian macro-story. The grand Christian meta-narrative that so fired-up those first-century Christians that they turned the world upside down. Perhaps we'll outline the Christian metanarrative another day.

In my younger years, Christian theology was a confusing set of sometimes-conflicting "doctrines". And that confusion came from listening every weekend to preachers that apparently viewed the Bible as a collection of convenient anecdotes. They'd reach into what was meant to be an overarching story - a single play with many acts, as Wright says - and yank out an amusing anecdote or a vignette. Then, with much bluster, they'd vigorously proclaim some "timeless truth" hidden in the scripture-snippet.

Problem is - this piecemeal, anecdotal grab-bag of pop-theology gets really confusing for those of us that think very hard about the whole thing.

Now I'm not saying I have everything figured out - not by a long shot. But deeply historical works like NTPG help me to see Jesus firmly within His historical context. And that's the way we need to see him.

That leaves way less chance of me creating some 21st century, white, middle-class, SUV-driving, Starbucks-drinkin', home boy Jesus (idol) that bears little resemblance to the magnificent, 1st century, kingdom-inaugurating, world-renewing Jewish Messiah.

Thanks goes to Mr. Wright for his brilliant insight!

50 Jewish Messiahs

Sometimes I need to read something a bit lighter than my normal intake of multi-volume works of theology. So I just finished reading 50 Jewish Messiahs by Jerry Rabow.

I know, I know - I really need to lighten up. :)

But this book was really enjoyable. Rabow did a great job connecting a Gentile like myself with the men and women that various populations of Jews over the last 2000 years have followed as Messiahs.

He covers 50 of them, to be exact. Each of the messianic hopefuls is given just a few pages to acquaint themselves with us.

Many of these stories are a bit sad - but Rabow does a good job injecting humor wherever he can. Let's look at just one of those Messiah candidates - Moses of Crete.

Moses made his claims of messiahship in A.D. 440 on the Greek island of Crete. As his popularity increased, he gained a large following. Ultimately Moses declared that he would lead the Jews on Crete back to Israel by parting the Mediterranean Sea.

"The Jews ignored their business affairs, gave their wealth (which wouldn't be needed in the messianic era, after all) to their Messiah, and assembled on a cliff overlooking the sea on the day he had fixed for the miracle." (p. 17)

But Moses of Crete did not part the waters as did the Biblical Moses.

"Instead, he ordered his followers to trust him and jump into the sea. He stayed behind on the cliff, with their money. The believers did jump, and many were drowned. Puzzled Cretan fisherman rescued the others. It is reported that most of the survivors converted to Christianity. Moses of Crete disappeared along with the wealth of his followers." (p. 18)

Rabow doesn't cover Jesus in this book, since "fine historical and theological scholarship about Jesus abounds" elsewhere. (p. 7) But this book is super-helpful for the Christian teacher for the rich perspective it gives us on what the word Messiah meant then, and means now, to the Jewish people.

I read and teach quite a bit on the subject of the "Messianic Expectations" of the Jews developed throughout Old Testament times. I do so because I believe it's the only way for modern westerners to truly understand the real historical Jesus that walked in Palestine in the first century.

And so I recommend this short, easy to read work for Christian teachers and anyone that wants to better understand the role that Jesus filled then, and fills now, for those of us that believe he was and is the Jewish Messiah.

Many thanks to Jerry Rabow for a great little book!

A New Kind of Christianity

At any given time I'm reading a book or three on theology or philosophy. So I recently read Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity and I thought I'd review it here.

McLaren is a prominent voice of the emergent church, and I've read several of his books, including A New Kind of Christian upon which I briefly commented here.

Like most people, I find some things in the modern institutional church to love, and some things to critique, and thus I hoped to find some common ground with McLaren in this his latest published work.

And, lo and behold, I thought I'd found that common ground when I first gazed upon the table of contents. For there I found as the first among his 10 questions "that have a potential to unlock us from a prison" (p. xiii) a question upon which I've focused my teaching ministry.

That is, the "Narrative Question" or "what is the overarching story line of the Bible?" To address this question I've written much around here about what I call the "teleological perspective" of Christianity.

That is, looking at the Bible as a single, connected story - a play written by God himself outlining his overarching plan for human history (past, present and future) - a plan based on covenants that ultimately consummates in his Kingdom in the New Heavens and New Earth.

My main point is that the Bible shouldn't be chopped up into small anecdotes taken out of their historical context. As tempting as that may be, to use such anachronistic anecdotes to cajole or coerce an audience into believing whatever we may desire, the Bible must must be interpreted as a single historical story.

So when it appeared that McLaren was going to address this very issue - I thought I might have found a soulmate.

But alas, more reading proved that nothing could be further from the truth.

McLaren sets out in A New Kind of Christianity to deny several key ideas that I strongly affirm. I'll only mention two here that cut out the heart of the Judeo-Christian story as I teach it, including:

THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE

McLaren denies that the Bible is in any sense a constitution for us today. Nevermind David's words in II Samuel 7 as God showed him "The Plan" for the distant future. That overarching plan, that plan that included the distant future, that plan that includes us today and our futures - David called that plan torah, or legal constitution. But again, nevermind that!

Rather, for McLaren, the Bible is an "inspired library". He says, "this inspired library preserves, presents and inspires an ongoing vigorous conversation with and about God, a living and vital civil argument into which we are all invited and through which God is revealed." (p. 83)

This sounds innocent enough, until you read further and realize that he actually believes the God depicted in the Old Testament didn't really exist (he says that God was too violent).

It sounds OK until you realize that McLaren is obviously a proponent of "reader-response" theory with regard to the interpretation of the Bible. In other words, the meaning is not really in the text itself, but in the mind of the reader. In other, other words - you may assign meaning to the scripture!

He says "for us to be naive about the 'eye of the beholder' regarding the Bible renders us vulnerable to repeating yesterday's atrocities in the future. Slavery, anti-Semitism, colonialism, genocide, chauvinism, homophobia, environmental plunder, the Inquisition, witch burning, apartheid - aren't those worth taking care to avoid, for God's sake?" (p. 85)

So in a nutshell, McLaren says we need to rid ourselves of traditional interpretations and adopt a more modern, more educated view of these things.

By the way, he devotes much ink to placing the traditional view that "homosexuality is sinful" right alongside the promotion of slavery, segregation and apartheid, as well as the Inquisition and witch burning.

Nice move, eh!?!

So for McLaren, God did not inspire the words used in Scripture (verbal inspiration). God didn't even inspire the concepts! Rather, much of the Bible is merely the projection of violent, power-hungry mankind upon the canvas we call "God".

Wow. To say I see it in exactly the opposite way would be gross understatement.

THE BIBLE AS GOD'S SCRIPT FOR THE PLAY OF HISTORY

Given the above, it should go without saying that McLaren doesn't see the overarching story that I see in the scriptures. Alongside the vague narrative that he actually does propose - he denies a number of facets that I along with most of historical Christianity affirm, such as:

- The final judgment at the end of the age

Judgment and punishment of non-covenant keepers is a persistent theme of both the Old and New Testaments. The idea consistently expressed throughout both testaments is that mankind must keep covenanant with God, or God will punish mankind - ultimately by removing the sinner from his kingdom.

While views of this punishment range from eternal torment to exclusion from the New Jerusalem - most evangelicals agree that there will indeed be punishment and separation from God.

McLaren, however, redefines judgment by claiming that instead of punishment for non-covenant keepers, God will merely make all the mean people nice.

Wow.

- Resurrection and the kingdom to come

My view, and that of many Third Quest scholars more intelligent than I, is that the Jewish expectation of the Messianic Kingdom was well-developed by the first century, and that Jesus understood it, and that he planned to fulfill it literally.

In other words, the Bible tells us from beginning to end that God will set everything straight in the end. It tells us that Messiah will return, resurrect those that are his with bodies that won't die, bring New Heavens and a New Earth, rule from the New Jerusalem with perfect justice, etc, etc, etc.

If you'd like, dig around here to find lots of articles I've written on the topic of the Coming Kingdom.

In this way, God will ultimately fix the huge problems of our world. While this in no way absolves us of "living now, as much as we can, as if we were in that perfect kingdom" (as I state constantly), it does mean that we will NOT be the ones to ultimately and completely fix the world. That's Messiah's job when he returns.

McLaren at first seems to agree, but then says our future is not achieved "by God working apart from humanity via miraculous skyhooks. No, a better future comes as we join Jesus first in dying (metaphorically by dying to our pride, our agendas, our schedules, our terms, or literally through martyrdom as witnesses for God's kingdom and justice), and then in rising through the mysterious but real power of God." (p. 200)

Huh? Basically McLaren believes the future is really up to us - that we are on a journey of our own making.

Again, while I believe we are responsible under the New Covenant to live in anticipation of the Kingdom, and do our best to build the Kingdom in everything we do - I put my faith in Jesus' ultimate return to the planet as the comprehensive fix for the huge problems of our world.

Worst of all, McLaren astonishingly redefines parousia, the word interpreted for 2000 years as Messiah's "appearing" or second coming to the earth.

With a few taps on his keyboard, McLaren wipes out the hope of Jesus' return. Gone are the Messianic hopes of the ancient Jews, gone are the promises of Jesus and the words of Paul and John on the topic and the understanding of the orthodox church on the matter since the first century.

And he replaces all that with the depressing notion that the parousia has already occurred. It happened, he says, when Jesus was resurrected (p. 197-200).

Bleh.

Throughout the book, Mclaren uses faulty logic, inconsistent hermeneutics, straw men, anachronistic interpretations of history and on and on and on.

And so I realize as I continue typing that there's no way in a blog post to identify and refute all the claims made by McLaren in A New Kind of Christianity. It would require a full-length book to deal with all the problems.

Perhaps a more fitting title for his book would have been A New Twist on an Old Universalist Pseudo-Christianity. I think such a title would more honestly represent its contents.

But I am thankful to Mr. McLaren for one thing.

For as I said, I believe there are things to love and things to critique in the modern institutional church.
But despite the fact that I have no problem questioning the status quo, McLaren would still call me An Old Kind of Christian.

And hey, after understanding his belief system as set forth in this book, I would gladly accept that as a compliment!

The Book of Eli

I've been tricked a few times lately at the box office.   You know what I mean - movies that are hyped to be one thing, and then turn out to be something totally different.


Well, I just watched Denzel's The Book of Eli.  This thing is an apocalyptic action movie that ends up delivering as strong a message as most moviegoers can probably handle.

*** Disclaimer:  Please be advised - this is an action movie made in traditional Hollywood style.  The brutality and the language in this movie give it an "R" rating - so my boys won't see it until I can rent it and play it at home on ClearPlay.   If you're uncomfortable with knife fights, gun battles and realistic depictions of death, then apocalyptic films like this are not for you. ***

Denzel appears as Eli, the stereotypical Mad Max character.  Sure, Max is in there somewhere.  But Eli's older, humbler and has a curious singleness of purpose about him.  He's all that, of course, mixed with echoes of Clint Eastwood and Bruce Lee.

He's traveling west across a post-nuclear-war America with a particular book - one he reads from every night.  This book holds, in his mind, the key to the recreation and restoration of mankind after the near annihilation of civilization.

Gary Oldman plays Carnegie - the antagonist - the power figure in a small western town who's bent on finding the book.  Carnegie sends his gang of thugs on regular but unsuccessful reconnaissance missions to find a copy, killing and pillaging as they go.

Whether it's serendipity, fate or Providence - Eli and Carnegie meet.  And in the tension between these two, the message of Eli is unveiled.      

Maybe I didn't dig hard enough for reviews before I went and saw Eli.  Maybe I didn't pay enough attention before I walked through the door tonight.  OK, I admit it - I didn't do my customary homework before we watched.

So I found myself at first thinking "Nah, he can't be going there...".  Then a bit later, "Not possible.  No way is this thing moving in that direction...".  Then, when it really began to unfold, I'm mentally shouting "NO STINKIN' WAY THIS MOVIE'S GOING THERE!"

And then, sure enough, it did.

It did, in a way I've never seen done by any movie before.  There was no way out - straight up and in our faces - BOOM.  Crystal clear - no one's gonna miss the message of this film.

But it's not just Eli's message itself - the story line spins interestingly as well.  You get a one-two punch consisting of an unexpected plot twist, along with a hidden element of Eli's character you're hit with near the end.

WOW.

I'm often in the minority on movie opinions.  So my guess is that the average moviegoer will not like this movie.  I'll go one step more and predict that you'll either love it or hate it - there's no middle ground.

And frankly the ol' Hollywood switch-a-roo marketing trick is usually a real turn off to me as well.  But this time the surprise was not only pleasant, but because of my worldview and because of what I'm living my life towards - it was downright invigorating.

My hat's off to Denzel for The Book of Eli!

Why Old Testament History?

Many everyday Christians I talk to read little of the Old Testament. They pay a vague tribute to Judaism, if anything at all. I understand that point of view - I held it for many years. But I have come to love studying Jewish history, especially with regard to the Jewish messianic expectations.

Here's a great book on the topic that I've found incredibly useful.

Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament, by J. Julius Scott, is 416 pages of insightful historical study.

Do you want to understand (as best we can from a vantage point 2000 years distant!) the mindset and expectations of first-century Jews?

"Huh?", you say, "why would I want to read that stuff?"

Well, because if you don't, you'll likely interpret Jesus as a 21st century westerner living in a postmodern society. "Not me," you say, "I know better than that!"

OK, well, maybe not you - but most people I talk to have no idea how Jesus' first-century listeners would have heard him. And if they have no idea what those people heard, how in the world are they to interpret Jesus' words and works for themselves today?

Dr. Scott does a grand job. Especially worthwhile to me was chapter 10 on apocalyptic literature. Chapters 14-18, though, dealing with Jewish expectations for the Messianic Kingdom are just superb.

Incidentally, this is graduate-level reading and can be quite densely packed. But Dr. Scott has a way of giving you the meat without all the extras. This book will remain a permanent part of my library.

Now if only I could find it in hardback...

Muslims, Christians and Jesus

Who hasn't thought about the relationship between Muslims and the rest of the world at least once in the last few years? I know I've spent more than a few hours on this subject while contemplating how to move forward in this post 9/11 world.

So the second book loaned to me recently is entitled Muslims, Christians and Jesus by Carl Medearis. Carl and his family spent around 12 years living overseas in Lebanon and he used that time to develop his unique perspective on how to relate to Muslims.

Muslims, Christians and Jesus is extremely easy to read - it's not a scholarly work. Rather, it's a very practical guide to the similarities and differences between Muslim and Christian worldviews. And of course, Medearis beautifully places Jesus as the bridge between the two.

He points out that the Christian love (respect, perhaps?) for Jesus is shared in many ways by Muslims. One of the most useful parts of the book is Chapter 3 - "Islam's Holy Book: What the Qur'an Says about Jesus". Carl lays out a long list of teachings from the Qur'an on Jesus and the similarities between Muslim and Christian views of Jesus are striking.

The problem for Muslims is the word "Christian" as a category that dredges up centuries of political strife, wars, fear and misunderstanding. Medearis' central point, then, is to stick with the person of Jesus and forget the "Christianese".

Even looking at eschatology, there is much to agree upon between Christians and Muslims.

One other aspect of Medearis' approach that was so appealing to me is his casual evangelistic posture. He presents several beautiful stories of conversations between he and his Muslim friends.

These stories remind me so much of those wonderful times discussing faith with my Jewish friends, pagan friends and all manner of unchurched co-workers and acquaintences.

They remind me of the first time I ever led someone to Messiah where it was just "me, them and the Holy Spirit". I knew it was by far the most meaningful thing I'd ever been a part of. I realized that nothing - no experience in business or ministry - compares with it, and I all I wanted to do was more of that.

So do yourself and the Kingdom a favor and grab a copy of Muslims, Christians and Jesus. And then let's go live it.

Father, thank you for your Spirit that gives us what we need to do our part of the Great Project. Help us find creative ways to bridge the gap between ourselves and the world you sent Messiah to renew and re-create.

Politics, Leadership and A Failure of Nerve

Dr. Edwin Friedman - the eminent psychologist, therapist, lecturer and consultant - didn't finish A Failure of Nerve before his untimely death in 1996.  His wife and several former colleagues went ahead and finished it for him.

I use a number of sources as the theological and philosophical bases for my approach to leading and training leaders.  But Friedman's works (Generation to Generation and A Failure of Nerve) have become my primary psychological foundation for leadership. 

Here's a quote from the introduction of Failure.  Emphases are mine.

"I believe there exists throughout America today a rampant sabotaging of leaders who try to stand tall amid the raging anxiety-storms of our time.  It is a highly reactive atmosphere pervading all the institutions of our society - a regressive mood that contaminates the decision-making processes of government and corporations at the highest level, and, on the local level, seeps down into the deliberations of neighborhood church, synagogue, hospital, library, and school boards...

It is my perception that this leadership-toxic climate runs the danger of squandering a natural resource far more vital to the continued evolution of our civilization than any part of the environment.  We are polluting our own species.  The more immediate threat to the regeneration, and perhaps even the survival, of American civilization is internal, not external.  It is our tendency to adapt to its immaturity.  To come full circle, this kind of emotional climate can only be dissipated by clear, decisive, well-defined leadership.  For whenever a 'family' is driven by anxiety, what will also always be present is a failure of nerve among its leaders."

Friedman goes on to detail the symptoms of nerve failure throughout the book.  And of course he outlines the cure - which is brilliant, yet astonishingly easy to understand.  

I must admit that the book could have used more of Friedman's touch - he was the master of applied Family Systems Theory and he also had a way with words that his proteges have unfortunately not quite captured.  But nonetheless, the ideas expressed in the book stand, in my opinion, as the genesis of what I hope will become a significant new trajectory in leadership thinking.

I'm now old enough to have paid attention to a sizable chunk of the political discourse in this country.  And in watching the presidential campaigns, culminating in yesterday's election, I'm reminded of Friedman's analysis.

Now more than ever I'm convinced Friedman was right on when he spoke of our nasty, self-destructive tendency to adapt to our own personal and national immaturities - to adapt toward weakness rather than strength.  Here's an example of what I'm talking about.   

What is Peggy actually saying?  Is her fundamental approach good for her or for our country?

Again, I'm with Friedman - I believe we're polluting our own species.  Any thoughts? 

My Happy Place

I had originally planned to backpack through Yellowstone's backcountry on my first Rocky Mountain trip. This book cured me of that silly notion.

I recently returned to Mark of the Grizzly because, I think, it reminds me of the wild places and the hope that there is still something left untamed in this world - that adventure can still be found somewhere. That's my happy place.

Scott McMillion dissects 18 grizzly/human fights that are quite...grisly.

I use these stories to remind myself of just how serious a run-in with one of these bad boys (or girls) can be.

I know, I know. Thousands and thousands of people hang out in the grizzly country of Montana, Wyoming and Alaska every year without getting chewed on. The statistics are on our side.

But still...

Passive Evil

As far as I can tell, two categories of evil are manifesting in my situation.

First and most obvious is the active-aggressive evil that I spoke about in the last few posts. This kind of evil is fairly easy to identify, both in ourselves and in others. It's the kind that makes headlines - the kind that makes for a better-than-average movie of the week.

But the second is a less obvious form - the passive-aggressive evil. This kind of evil is harder to identify because it's couched in calm words, it's exercised with a smile and the victim often feels quite comfortable as the deed is being done.

To me, movies about passive evil are bland. If I had it my way, they'd never appear in theaters - they'd go straight to the Lifetime channel, bypassing even DVD.

Oldtime preachers, by the way, distinguished between these two forms of evil as "sins of commission" and "sins of omission".

So I've been piecing together data on the filthy river and those floating downstream in it - linking comments and actions to complete a jigsaw puzzle of human behavior. The script might actually make a decent B-grade movie.

I see plenty of active-aggressive activity. It's the kind that's been so obviously hurtful. And in fact, this is the kind of evil I'm most tempted by - like the retribution I spoke of earlier. It's the main reason for the prayer in my last post.

But I've found that passive evil is even more well represented. One example is the nasty little accusation posed as a "question" or a "concern".

I think the antagonists have learned by experience that an initial direct assault on another person's character often fails. It's much easier to sell an aggressive lie later if you pave the way first with a few passive accusations. For maximum effect, pose them as questions.

Or even better yet, why not humbly suggest praying about a "concern for someone's welfare". It's a sure-fire way to paint yourself as benign and benevolent. It puts the antagonist, regardless of their proven history of bad behavior, in a position to be trusted.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer did serious theology work in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. He is famous for wrestling with the issue of the German church committing passive evil by neglecting to address the torrent of aggressive evil rushing across Europe from the bowels of Hitler's regime.

Bonhoeffer was ultimately killed by Hitler just a week or so before the German demoniac took his own life.

Ethics, yet unfinished at the time of his death, is perhaps the most challenging thing I've ever read on dealing with evil.

And now that I've written this far, I realize there's no way I can adequately summarize Ethics in a blog post. So I'll deal quickly with just one point.

It appears the German church justified its lack of confrontation with evil by holding to the belief that spiritual things were spiritual things and earthly things were earthly things.

So when Hitler skinned a Jew and sewed the resulting birthday suit into a lampshade - that gruesome evil was, for the church, an "earthly" thing that the church shouldn't involve itself in.

Bonhoeffer spent alot of ink convincing the German church that the universe exists not in two realms, but in just one. He said that when God became flesh in Jesus Christ - God engulfed the carnal and the spiritual in Jesus. God thus made it clear that His concerns are with the profane, the holy, and everything in between.

As a result, Bonhoeffer argued that the Church must actively engage in exposing and defeating evil, because defeating evil is the passion of God Himself. If we don't expose the evil, Bonhoeffer argues strongly that we become part of it ourselves. In my metaphor, we jump in the river by default.

Let's note Paul's words in Ephesians 5:

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as
children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness,
righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have
nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose
them."

Exactly how to expose evil in particular situations is a topic for another day.

Father, "search me and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me". Give me strength to face and reject my own evil, and the courage to lovingly expose it in those around me - so that your glory may be evident to all.

Evil and the Justice of God

I read N.T. Wright's Evil and the Justice of God a few months ago. I have to admit - at the time I wasn't as impressed with the book as I've been with Mr. Wright's other works.

At the time I read it, I was trying to reconcile my understanding of the present and coming kingdom of God with America's struggle against terrorism in the wake of 9/11. I was left wanting a more comprehensive solution than Wright proposes. And so, the book took its place alongside the many others in my library and I moved on.

But over the past week, the evil surrounding the otherwise victorious death of my mother has brought several insights given in the book to the forefront. I'll deal with only one of them here.

In the recent events - as the title of my last post hints - I've received a particularly vivid understanding of where evil is and how evil works. Also, no less important, I have a particularly deep feeling of the effects of evil.

First, to the questions, "Where is evil and how does it work?". Wright masterfully points out that evil is not a problem of me (the good guy) versus them (the bad guys).

Rather, evil is a problem that runs like a polluted river right through me, you, Mother Theresa, Adolf Hitler and everyone in between.

But for now, let's take the focus off me for a bit and use you as an example.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you are slandered. Let's say that heinous lies are perpetuated about you for the benefit of the slanderers. What is your "natural" reaction? Well, if you're anything like me, and you have similar skills, you'll likely want to use those skills to systematically destroy those slandering your good name.

And "why not?", you might ask yourself, "they're doing the slandering, they're doing the lying!". Then, if you're like me, you can actually plan and visualize the retribution. What's more, you know that you're capable of taking that retribution to shocking and debilitating levels.

But if - and this is a big "if" - if your moral compass still works, you realize that evil is "crouching at the door", to use a phrase from a particularly ugly family situation in Genesis 4.

So where, then, is evil? That filthy river is indeed running right there next to you. The antagonists are swimming in it, for sure. In fact, they've found a way to channel it right through them, through their thoughts, words and actions. It runs out of their mouths.

And the temptation for you to do the same is almost beyond resistance. You dip your toe in and much to your surprise, the water's warm. Sure, there's rot and feces and every manner of vile putrefaction floating by - but strangely, you don't retch.

That's how close evil is to you, to me, to the antagonists and even to the heroes.

How does it feel to be in such proximity to evil? Well, in this case, I have two very strong sensations. The first is utter loneliness, brought on I think by the shape of this particular evil.

Truth is, I deeply enjoy a certain kind of loneliness, the kind I recently felt for 6 days spent solo backpacking in a remote section of the Rocky Mountains. But this is not that kind of loneliness - evil this close to home does indeed hurt.

But the second sensation is unexpected. It is that of pity - pity for the antagonists.

Not a self-righteous pity born of a "me-good, they-bad" mentality, but a deep, slow sigh born from the knowledge that I was able by the power of the Spirit to pull my toe out of the river, yet the antagonists were not. For whatever reason, they surrendered themselves to its current.

It's just really, really sad.

Wright reminds us that one day Jesus will set the world fully straight. His kingdom will come, for real, on the earth - and he will rule with utter justice.

In fact, there's a very different river in store for those of us that can keep from being overcome. In the last chapter of the Bible the Apostle says:

"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great
street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing
twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the
tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse."

Father, give me strength to stay ever farther from the filthy river so that I may enter your coming kingdom, and experience that river which waters the tree of life.

A New Kind of Christian.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I just recently got around to reading Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian.

I say that I'm embarrassed not because McLaren is such a dynamite Christian thinker, but because of the stir the emergent church has caused in evangelical circles in recent years. If you're an evangelical and you're paying attention - you've likely heard about the emergent church.

In this book, McLaren expresses the drivers behind the emergent phenomenon in a conversational narrative that is easy and enjoyable to read.

In A New Kind of Christian, McLaren exudes in many ways the same feelings I have toward the traditional church. A sense that the traditional church is still answering questions no one is asking anymore. A gnawing in my gut that we're never going to really make a dent in the Great Commission if we keep trying to do church the way we've always done it in the face of the postmodern world.

McLaren is ambiguous with regard to solutions, though. That ambiguity might be intentional and meant to align him more fully with the deeply ambiguous postmodern world.

Neo (the fictional emergent guru of the story) and I don't see eye to eye on the telos of Covenant and Kingdom, culminating in the very real New Jerusalem. But that in itself I can handle.

I appreciate McLaren's willingness to express his own disappointments in a rather candid fashion - disappointments that I share in many ways. I would prefer a prescription or two, though, rather than vague admonitions.

But that's why Neo would likely call me a "modern" - I'm looking for real answers rather than a postmodern shrug.