Missional Explorer

Voyeuristic Christianity

Yesterday I exchanged emails with a pastor/friend who candidly expressed major frustration that most of us continue to "suck at the tit of Christendom" in living out our faith.  Not only did I agree with his assessment, but I went on to suggest my opinion that the spectator-mentality inherent in Christendom has become a major impediment to faith!  In fact, often without knowing it, modern-day Christendom has taken on an almost voyeuristic (or "peeping tom") approach to faith. . . allowing the vast majority to watch a much smaller minority of people "do it" from afar (in this case, engaging the world) which in reality reduces the majority to little more than "consumers of religious goods & services" during the week. 

All one needs to do is observe the pressures that "attractional" churches must face on a regular basis.  They not only have to meet the massively diverse expectations that individuals bring into the building regarding "church" and it's "programs" but they have to do so with a flash, flair, and excellence that will retain members who otherwise might find (as consumers of religious goods & services) somewhere else to "meet their needs". 

I actually have another pastor/friend who was driven from the church in general and church ministry in particular over this very issue.  As a pastor of a smallish church, he simply couldn't provide or meet the expectations that everyone brought into the building re: youth groups, infant care, small groups, etc.  He tried. . . in fact he struggled mightily over a number of years but, driven to exhaustion, he finally had to fold his very gifted cards and leave.  Lest anyone think this tale has a sad ending, my pastor/friend is thriving very nicely now, working a "secular" job and surrounded by friends (many not Christians) who share his passion for art.  He has not yet returned to "church" but has a wonderfully dynamic ministry all the same.

So how long are we going to "suck at the tit of Christendom"? 

Beyond the Christian "Bubble"

Among the important points we have discussed as a class (including the concepts of missional, incarnational, and contextual) is the importance of crossing the subcultural divide that divides the (optimistically) 40% of Americans who are "churched" from the other 60% (some put this figure as high as 80%) of Americans who are either de-churched, unchurched, or otherwise have no point-of-reference re: the Christian subculture.  It is no secret that most churches are competing over an ever-decreasing segment of the American population. . . while the rest of our culture looks on with distaste over our perceived prejudices (see the book unChristian listed on the sidebar), uncertainty as to who "we" are, and/or bemusement at our infighting over the seemingly limitless minutia of "belief". 

We discussed the reality that it is very possible to spend one's entire lifetime primarily within these bounds of the Christian subculture, having little-to-no significant contact those outside our faith.  There are, in fact, multiple reasons for this including, in my experience, fear of "the world" and all the temptations, lusts, and corruption within it.  But, as I have told our kids, we must missionally cross over this subcultural divide in order to engage the 60% for that is where we join Jesus.  It may not be pretty or clean but, like Jesus, we must get our hands dirty in the muck and mire of life if we are to join Jesus in his redemptive work.

The Christian subculture is not new of course as it truly dates back to the advent of Christendom and the rule of Constantine.  While the Christendom "bubble" remains formidable in the U.S., it appears to be dead or dying elsewhere in the West.  Some lament this course and are taking up "swords" to fight these culture wars.  Others (including myself) celebrate this dying for, in Christendom's demise, can be sown the seeds of an authentic rebirth of life and faith at the margins of society where we are not (a) in a confusing mixed allegiance with nationalism trying to save democracy and the American way of life or (b) buying into a uniquely American brand of Christianity where, mixing superficial faith with rampant consumerism and radical individualism, we have turned a pet phrase on it's head by becoming (in one author's words) "of the world but not in the world".

As you can probably tell, I am having fun with showing kids this world.  This past week, for example, I used The Truman Show to unpack the Christian "bubble".  While not a perfect metaphor, this film illuminates many of the dynamics we will face in exploring God's work beyond the walls of a still-formidable Christian subculture.  May God join us in this journey.   

Talking Consumerism with Ryan

I had coffee with Ryan, a new friend and kindred spirit from Adullam this past week.  Sometime soon Ryan is going to be challenging our community re:consumerism which often acts as a barrier in moving from the "oneness" of our communion to the "otherness" of mission.  This is gonna be a tough one to take on as I suggested to Ryan on Friday.  I have recently read Walter C. Hobbs chapter on "Faith Twisted by Culture" in Confident Witness--Changing World (Van Gelder) where Hobbs says:

"A cursory review of the history of Western Christian missionizing discloses two problems.  One is a colonizing tendency among those who have taken the gospel to other peoples.  The other is an inclination among the evangelized to reshape the gospel along the familiar line of their own traditional worldviews, values, and religious norms.

The task is perhaps even more difficult for the missionary who is a member of the culture to which the gospel is being proclaimed.  North American Christians face a substantial challenge in this regard.  The gospel we preach is too often shot through with Western sentiments, such as individualism, consumerism, security, personal happiness, and corporate success.  North American culture has a tenacious grip on our expression of the Good News, and we face a formidable task in disengaging ourselves from its hold. . .

The thesis of this article is that North American Christianity is in great measure a faith twisted by culture.  Too often, we have uncritically embraced many of the taken-for-granted presumptions and priorities that characterize the dominant worldview of Western civilization instead of testing our culture's values and perspectives against the biblical standards.  And we have merged those cultural givens within our doctrine and practice, even though we are people who claim to be followers of the Way."

Finally, Hobbs unpacks our unfaithfulness in three specific ways:

"Consider the several gods that our cultural forebears followed, and ponder the various ways in which the North American Church permitted the worship of such gods to become blended into our Christian faith.  Three gods, in particular, seem to permeate Euro-history that still dominates North American culture and North American Christianity.  These are: (1) modern science, itself the progeny of the Enlightenment and rationalism; (2) economic liberalism and individualism; and (3) organization and professionalization.  Each of these cultural themes has distorted a basic Christian doctrine.  Science and rationalism have shaped our view of Scripture; the individualism of economic liberalism has shaped our view of salvation; and organization together with professionalization has shaped our view of the church."

Do we lemmings have the courage to ask these kinds of questions of each other in our headlong dash to the abyss?

Disengaging in Order to Engage

Wrapping up three observations on moving from Christendom to Diaspora from Douglas John Hall, Hall commends us to:

"Disestablish yourselves!  But what does that mean, concretely speaking?  It is a relatively straightforwad thing to disestablish when establishment, in the primary sense, has meant a legal arrangement between the church and state.  The famous Barmen Declaration required immense courage and a strong, biblically inspired theology; but it could come to the strategic point that it did come to with a kind of enviable immediacy.  'Since we Christians are bound in obedience to the one Lord', said the drafters of the Declaration, in effect, 'we cannot admit as ultimate the authority of any other leader, and (by implication) especially not the little self-proclaimed Fuhrer whose agenda so obviously violates what w hear from our one Source and Sovereign.

In light of the suffering of the Confessing Church under Hitler one dare not suggest that Barmen was easy.  But as the most dramatic instance of Christian disestablishment in modern European history, Barmen is premised on the existence of a de jure form of religious establishment.  Its authors knew quite precisely where the disengagement from culture had to concentrate its attention.  Intentional disestablishment in North America is another story.  How can churches disengage themselves from such nebulous things as worldviews, ways of life, moral codes, social values, dreams of happiness and prosperity?"

Personally, I totally agree with Hall's diagnosis here and also agree with his general prescriptive treatment of disestablishment or, what I call, disavowing/disengaging from Christendom as the institutional church.  Yes, very easy to say. . . incredibly hard to do.  Ultimately however I disagree with Hall's specific prescriptive treatment as he proceeds to identify "theology" as our way out. . . ao our way to disestablishment.  My current and preferred option of dealing with (again in Hugh Halter's words) our "1700 year wedgie"--- where the early Church was unwittingly corrupted in accepting an alliance between church & state (yes, the ending of persecution was obviously welcomed but at what cost as Constantine proceeded to "use" Christianity to unite the empire)---is not theology but missionality at the margins: accepting and perhaps even welcoming our marginality in society as an opportunity for authentic faith and true engagement with our culture. 

In the end, I agree with Patrick Keifert in his new book We Are Here Now: A New Missional Era when he insists, with theologian Martin Kahler, that "Mission is the mother of theology."  Perhaps its because I've seen theology as wedded to the discipline of philosophy and propositional (abstract) truth far too long.  If theology were more often de-westernized and seen as "relational truth" (as author Mary Lou Codman-Wilson identifies in her chapter "Witness in the Midst of Religious Plurality" in Van Gelder) rather than "propositional truth", I might agree.  But, in the meantime, my own personal view is that walking in primacy of our missionality (actively engaging the world) will force our theology to be more than just a "head trip" and therefore more accountable in the real world beyond academia.    

Intentionality: On Being Stewards of Change

Douglas John Hall's second observation of our present context I quote without comment (save for choices identified by Hall in italics) is

Intentionality: On Being Stewards of Change: "Basically there are only three alternatives for Christians caught in the tempestuous waters of the metamorphosis now taking place.   They may resist the change, either openly or by a process of repressive denial, and attempt to put the Humpty Dumpty of Christendom back together again.  They may resign themselves to the change, with or without regret or sorrow, and simply allow the waves of transition to wash over them.  Or they may see to steward the change, asking for the positive meaning that is in it and endeavoring, on the basis of that perceived meaning, to direct the process toward its potential goal.

The latter response, so far as I am concerned, is the only one that is Christianly justifiable.  Even apart from the question of possibility, the idea of re-creating a Christian West seems to me repulsive theologically, and perhaps wicked morally.  But the rejection of that alternative does not just leave us adrift and redundant, doomed to eventual extinction.  Rather than letting the process of disestablishment happen to us, we must discover, under the guidance of the divine Spirit, how to steer the ark of the Church so as to take best advantage of the winds and tides of the historical moment in which we find ourselves."

Metamorphosis: From Christendom to Diaspora

As I continue to traverse the resource landscape looking for missional materials to use with high school students, I continue to glean some cool stuff from the book I mentioned in yesterday's post, Confident Witness--Changing World, this time from a chapter authored by Douglas John Hall.  Hall is tweaking from the writings of Karl Rahner in making 3 observations about our current context.  I'd like to quote extensively from Hall regarding these 3 observations over the next few days, making comments of my own along the way as well as cross-referencing to observers.   Hall's observations #1 is this:

Metamorphosis: The Changing Form of the Body of Christ in the World: "The alteration in the morphe or shape of Christianity that is occurring in our historical period is a momentous one. . . There is only one previous transformation of the morphe of Christianity that adequately matches, in reverse order, this metamorphosis.  This is the fourth-century transition of the Christian movement from the voluntary, minority, scattered, and often persecuted communio viatorum of the pre-establishment period, to the imperial church begun under Constantine and elevated to the status of exclusively legal cultus under Theodosius the Great.

To that beginning sixteen centuries ago, there now corresponds an ending.  Once again the worldly form and vocation of the Christian movement is being fundamentally altered.  Once again, as during its first three centuries, the Christian community is being required to live outside the protective walls of power and privilege.  Once again, the church finds itself being pushed to the sociological periphery, where its message and mission must authenticate themselves quite apart from any external props and pressures, rewards and punishments.  This is a hard and shocking thing for most Christians in the West, for a millennium and a half of living in the imperial household has profoundly conditioned all of us to expect that kind of preeminence as our birthright.  We tend to forget the price we had to pa for our proximity to power."

What Hall is describing circles back to what has become a major focus of my blog, namely the need for us to recognize and navigate the transition to a post-Christendom context where Christianity has lost/is losing it's preferential function in Western Civilization.  I will leave it to my next posting to describe the options of how other followers of Jesus are responding but, if you know me, you know that my response is "bring it on".  Following Jesus has always been walked more faithfully and authentically at the margins of society where there is no temptation to travel in the midst of a "cultural Christianity" where church and state are co-mingled with issues of power and allegiance.  Therefore I would enthusiastically welcome a return to, what Hall and others call, a "disestablishment" time period (separating in fact not just in theory Church and State).

Missionary icon David Bosch aptly describes, in hindsight, what the early Church could not know at the time when Constantine first "legalized" then "mandated" Church membership thereby initiating (again in hindsight) 1700 years of an institutionalized Christendom church.  (Lee Camp refers to Christendom as our "Constantinian Cataract" due to our often inability to recognize how our view has been profoundly effected.  I also like my friend, Hugh Halter's, description of Christendom even more as a "1700 year wedgie" for the church.)  In A Reader's Guide to Transforming Mission, author Stan Nussbaum makes assessable the words of David Bosch in referring to the original morphe Hall described above:

"At the time Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal, the church was like an infant that has never before seen a cobra.  The child does not know how to charm the snake.  It does not even know not to pick it up by the sharp end.  When the church announced a political theology in which the church and state were inseparably united, it did not know what poison it was letting into it's system.  It could not foresee what historians have noted since: Orthodox churches tended to become ingrown, excessively nationalistic, and without a concern for those outside.  The bite of the pro-Christian state proved more deadly to mission than the bite of the anti-Christian state had ever been." 

What a compelling and articulate rationale for (a) our desperate need to disavow Christendom in our time and (b) embrace the missional Missio Dei. . . there is no other way by which we can pro-actively reject then the overwhelming tendency described above as "ingrown, excessively nationalistic, and without a concern for those outside".

Political Thoughts and Accusations

"To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns.  Don't be surprised if they are used."  Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins as quoted by journalist Terry Mattingly.

I regularly read Terry Mattingly's weekly online commentary and often find his words fascinating "food for thought" (www.tmatt.net).  This mornings commentary was no different as it pertains directly to what we have been experiencing over the past 2 weeks. 

In response to the above accusation, Terry quotes Washington Post and former presidential speech writer Michael Gerson. 

"This anti-religious viewpoint claims too much. Do its advocates really intend to lump the Grand Inquisitor with the Amish? To say there is no difference between radical Salafists and Sufis?", asked Gerson. . . Surely the content of religion makes some difference," added Gerson. "But the central problem with this anti-religious attitude is this: It would remove the main source of reform -- the main source of passion for justice and change -- in American history."

While I obviously have huge problems with Richard Dawkin's assumptions, rendering his conclusions not only incomprehensible but highly inflammatory for all people of faith, I must admit to some discomfort with Michael Gerson's words as well.  Granted, as Gerson suggests, people of faith have been an incredible source for reform in various societies for hundreds of years, most recently Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King here in the States.  But, in reading Terry's column, I can't help but ponder the siren-song of power that calls people of faith to, however well-intendingly, seek political power to enforce/coerce their views on others. 

This quest for political power is happening here in the States (in the context of Christendom) and is happening virtually everyplace else in the world as well including in the Middle East within both Jewish and Palestinian culture.  The mantra seems to be "If only I'm in charge, I will use political power for righteous ends".  In this sense I must admit to a strong sense of ambivalence about the use of political power to address human need.  Yes, sometimes it works for proper ends but just as often it taints those who seek it as well as those who must live (and often disagree) with the results. 

Here I actually resonate with my Anabaptist brothers and sisters who, in looking at Jesus, find God-in-the-flesh fascinatingly ambivalent about political power.  It is not that Jesus embraced or rejected political power (He did neither).  Rather He almost seems to ignore it all together and, in Jesus, we must recognize His political context was Roman rule which, for Jews and Christians, formed one of the most repressive political regimes of all time.  Yet, despite the overwhelmingly oppressive nature of Roman rule, Jesus consistently frustrated the Zealots (who longed for Jesus to liberate the Jews, seize power, and overthrow the hated Romans), the Sadducee's (who wanted Jesus to accommodate Himself to Roman power) and the Pharisees (who, as the religious elite, were outraged by any contact with those consider "unclean outsiders").  More on this in my next posting.

This past weekend, our family watched the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" which traces the historical context of the Crusades which was essentially the quest for power between Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages.  It's a sad and bitter story which tragically continues to this day whenever and wherever people of faith seek to use political power to coerce their views on others.  In that sense, the Crusades have really never ended.

I am not at all saying that Christians should give up on using political power to address the vast injustices of our time.  At various times, the use of political power to address human need is probably unavoidable and must be pursued with vigor and righteous indignation.  And, furthermore, I am not at all saying that Jesus was apolitical because I truly think there are political implications for just about everything Jesus did and said.   My thought is, however, that when seeking/using political power, we must take very special care lest, as a moth to the flame, we sacrifice something of our very identity, often ending with "the oppressed becoming the oppressors".  In out Middle East trip, we definitely saw many Jews struggling with the implications of this reality.  But the equally sad question is this: If the Palestinians were "in charge", would the results be any different?  I invite your thoughts!

A Very Practical (and Missional) "What If?"

I know that my blog postings often come across very abstract and remote with lots of stuff from books, etc.  In fact, my blog drives two of my brothers crazy. . . one brother politically and another brother because he rarely sees anything personal here about me or my family.  Just so you know that all this "missional stuff" may be going somewhere in practical directions, I'll let you in on a little secret.  In this post, I want to suggest a possible direction I may be exploring with former students of Jim Elliot School in the days ahead (we've had over 200 graduates and almost 700 students walk these halls over the past 15 years. . . a small but very relational community).

It is no secret that, as I've blogged in recent days, the age demographic of 18-30 is currently one of the least "churched" age groups here in the U.S.  There are lots of reasons for this and many have similarities to the same age demographics in other countries.  Just a few reasons to consider: (1) after being segregated from mainstream "church life" in youth groups for 18 years, why are we so surprised when kids don't re-enter the church at age 18??? and (2) studies show that people in this age range are increasingly looking for "spirituality" outside of conventional "church" for a variety of reasons including the fear of being "condemned" for the brokenness they are often experiencing as individuals and families (personally, I think these fears are often very warranted because most church communities do not begin with an assumption that we are ALL broken, making it much more likely to point fingers at "others" who are "sinning").  One recent book by Dan Kimball even names this tendency by titling his book: "They Like Jesus But Not the Church".  (3) Lastly, people in the age demographic 18-30 often know intuitively that something is wrong/bogus/broken about "church".  And, my belief is that, at least part of what is being sensed, is that the Christendom we have known as the institutional (and often attractional) church is dying.  Honestly, it's already long dead overseas as demographic studies in most other western countries have demonstrated church attendance and involvement to be a minuscule (and therefore marginalized) fraction of the population.   It's only here in the U.S. that we are still fighting what is essentially a rearguard action,, desperately hanging on to a diminishing Christendom model.

Some denominations are actually sweating this seismic shift in demographics because their congregations are aging and not being replaced with new generations (see previous posts).   I heard one denominational leader suggest that they have taken to calling Confirmation Day "Graduation Day" because, once confirmed, most kids are leaving the church.  I could go on and on about this and especially after working with kids for the past 16 years, I acutely understand (and in many cases, agree with) their reasons for abandoning "church" as we have known it.  But, getting very practical, here is one avenue I may be exploring here in Denver.  At least I am asking the question. 

I have previously mentioned the Adullam community of communities (they call them villages) here in Denver.  You can find out more about Adullam at www.adullamdenver.com and I recommend checking out the following links: About Us, Our Story, and Villages.  Adullam is very missional in the sense that what happens on Sundays in their public gatherings is far less important than what is happening in their smaller village gatherings during the week.  In this very missional sense, small/cell groups are not just one "program" of the church, they ARE the church!  Sunday gatherings (I am beginning to dislike the word "service" because who/what/where do we presume we are "serving"?) are only a loose and informal "coming together" of the villages, some of whom don't even join the rest every Sunday because they are spending various Sunday mornings actually engaging the world by serving in the city.  Hugh, my contact with Adullam, has taken great pains to insist that they don't really know what they're doing. . . that's how "process" the whole missionality movement is at the present time.  In fact, he sorta discouraged me from coming a few weeks ago because they are desperately trying to avoid being an "attractional" church.  (Hugh's actual words to me were "Jim, If you're looking for a kicka-- worship band, we aren't it).  But here's what I'm wondering, thinking, pondering, and will be exploring in the next few months.  Are there former students of JES who, disillusioned with "church" as we know it, might want to explore something new like this with me?  I've even suggested to Hugh that, if the answer is "yes", we might want to organize and join Adullam as a 17th Village.  How's this for being practical.  There is nothing for sure, I haven't even posed the question yet to grads, and I certainly do NOT want to pull former students away from current church commitments that may be "working" for them.  But, what if???  What if there are former students in the 18-30 age range that might want to explore missional community together?  The point is NOT to start a trendy new church.  And the point is NOT a bogus claim to be the first, middle, or last authoritative word on how "church" should be done.  There is no magic formula here and the process will probably be pretty messy.  But the point IS that we may suggest an alternative, organic gathering of former JES students who are willing to engage our brokenness within (individually and collectively) in order to engage the brokenness outside the confines of our community.  We would probably be repulsive to those who are still yearning for the Christendom they have known.  But we may also find that some, by feeling disaffected and therefore marginalized with conventional "church", may jump at the opportunity to walk this messy and often hideously painful life together as a embodied foretaste, however incomplete, of God's Kingdom which is to come.  What if???  Should we try it??  Your thoughts??       

Responding to Lynn's Email

Lynn visits this blog regularly.  As many blog visitors feel, she does not choose to make her presence known in terms of public comments (in the context of the blog) but Lynn responds to me often by email.  And, while Lynn and Jeff are very good friends going back 12+ years, Lynn has frequently "taken me to task" for some of my observations about nationalism, militarism, Christendom, the emerging church, etc.  In a phrase, Lynn has held me accountable for some of my more inflammatory statements and I have, in fact, changed/added/elaborated on several blog postings as a result of Lynn's feedback.  There are many areas in which we have disagreed. . . but we have hung in there with each other which is one reason why this blogging conversation has come to be so important to me.

Lynn emailed me this week about some of my postings on Christendom and, since I found several of her comments so helpful, I would like to respond to Lynn publicly in the context of this blog.  In responding to my pre-Christendom example of the stratospheric growth in the early church, Lynn responded by saying:

"We are in a different age now, we are not the early church.  I think we could easily become underground again if the world continues on the path it is and becomes increasingly hostile to the gospel, but we aren't going to be able to go back to the early church." 

I completely agree with Lynn.  But I do think that, as many observers are suggesting, while our present cultural context is certainly not identical to that which faced the early church, there are many similarities where the early church can definitely give us guidance in living faithfully in our own time.  Whether it be The Forgotten Ways (Hirsch),  Ancient-Future Faith (Webber), Exiles (Frost), Another City (Harvey), Resident Aliens (Hauerwas/Willimon), Post-Christendom (Murray) or Mission After Christendom (Smith), there are hundreds of leaders/authors who are calling us back to re-examine the early church for guidance in our own time. Here are just a few reasons:

1.  Like the early church, many of us see that living out our faith in an integrated 24/7 manner (as more than just a hobby) effectively puts us once again at the margins of society.  In this sense and as institutional Christendom* dies (as it certainly has in Europe and Canada and increasingly so in the U.S.) the historic alliance of church and state which has governed our lives for the past 1700 years is dying along with it.  And as Christendom dies, those of us who are seeking to follow Christ as an actual embodied faith and more than just a hobby are increasingly being shoved back into the margins. . . just as in the cultural context of the early church where it was not only quaint and unfashionable to seriously follow Christ but dangerous as well.  The danger we face (at least so far) is not that we will be killed as the early Christ-followers experienced but that we will be increasingly cast as intellectual/political misfits if we take our faith too far or too seriously.  (*As a side-note, what we call "Christendom" dates from when Constantine not only established Christianity as the official state religion but sought to bond church and state in what Hirsch calls a "sacred embrace" uniting all "Christians" in one central and institutionalized church which, in Constantine's view, not only helped unify the empire but also, in bringing them into a church-state sacred embrace, he correctly saw that Christians would now in self-preservation help support the maintenance of the empire.  As Hirsch suggests, "The church provided religious legitimation for state activities, and the state provided secular force to back up (church) decisions".  It is this Christendom model which has governed our context for the past 1700 years including through what we call the Reformation.  Indeed, Luther's very survival was dependent on his alliances with temporal kings)   

2.  Other characteristics of the early church which might help provide guidance for us in the 21st century are (a) moving away from the power-oriented domination of single leaders to a more decentralization of leadership, returning authority to a more local lay-leadership, (b) the present movement away from buildings, identifying "church" as a people not a place, (c) a creative, informal, and organic structure. . . highly personal and often small in size and finally (d) like the early church, take on a "missionary" stance in relationship to our host culture, recognizing that, like the early church, our culture is becoming more hostile to authentic faith especially a faith walk that sometimes calls into question some of the overarching values and decisions that are being made by our host state/country/empire.  In this sense, we are now able to differentiate ourselves from our "fellow (and not yet Christian) Americans" but are more ideally in a position to advocate for a more Godly prophetic critique, a role which, by following our host country without question, Christians have often abandoned.  This of course is not unique to the U.S. but has happened throughout the history of Western Christendom.  Kierkegaard railed against this in his native Sweden as did Bonhoeffer and Barth in Germany as have so many other Christ-followers who "get" that allegiance to God must always trump allegiance to country.

Finally, Lynn had this to offer about my "take" on Christian schools (although she misunderstood my comments about Jim Elliot School): "It saddens me that you have such a down feeling about JES.  What is it you want it to be?  It's like you against the rest of the Christian world.  That alienation seems odd to me.  God is not the author of alienation from your brothers and sisters, is He?"  (Can you see how/why I have come to appreciate Lynn?)

I responded to Lynn directly about misunderstanding my comments re: Jim Elliot School but Lynn is "right on" with my feelings of alienation from much of what she calls "the Christan world".  Yet I hope I don't across as "me against them" (as one of my pastors used to say "Your brother is never your enemy!")  or that I see it better, clearer, or somehow have it "right".  We have enough of that already in the Christian community.  (I love Dallas Willard's comment on denominations: "There are more than 30,000 different Christian denominations in the world. . . and they all think they are 'right'.":-).   Lynn however is correctly picking up on my feelings of alienation.  But my alienation hopefully does not stem from lack of love but just the opposite. . . an exquisite love for my brothers and sisters who may be risking their very identities as followers-of-Christ.  As one author suggested about the "Christian world" (I'm paraphrasing here), American Christians have traveled a seemingly impossible path.  Instead of authentically living "in the world but not of the world", we have against-all-odds reversed it by living "of the world but not in the world".   This is my passion and also the source of my alienation from much of what we see of a dying Christendom.  It is not that I am "right".  It is more that I am passionately engaged in trying to wake us all up, myself included.

Turning our childhood prayer around, it is not "if I should die before I wake" but "if I should wake before I die".  May we all awaken together to the possibilities, realities, and opportunities we have in such a time as this.      

Sound Familiar?

"Most people who went to church and thought themselves 'decent Christians' actually knew little or nothing about the faith they claimed to practice and did not practice the Christianity of the Bible at all.  Moreover, they were quite unaware that this was the case."  (underline mine) 

An amazing quote that would seem to describes our present circumstances exactly.  But there's more: "(His) main charge against the faux Christianity of his day was that it pretended to be the real thing but wasn't---yet few dared to rock the boat and say as much.  (He) couldn't stand the tepid version of the real thing and labored to show that this practice that everyone thought was Christianity was in fact not Christianity at all.  It was an uphill battle."

Uphill battle, indeed.  This is precisely the situation that I believe presents itself to kids today.  Kids intuitively know that, what is often presented as "church", "faith", and "God" these days, is not worth the investment and certainly not deserving of a supposed "all-consuming commitment".  You know what?  I think they are right and I usually say so.  But here's the catch. . . and the challenge.  Many kids are (rightfully in my mind) walking away from "faith" as it is being presented but they tragically don't know that, what they are walking away from, is not the real deal at all but only a superficial facade.  So, rejecting what legitimately needs to be rejected, kids (and adults) begin to "look for love in all the wrong places", a tragically ironic dance that I see being played out with horrendous consequences every day.  I say tragically ironic because most do not realize that the alternatives they are embracing are no more worthy than the shells of religiosity they have correctly rejected.  How then do we hang in there with kids (and adults) who, having rejected what needs to be rejected, are yet unaware that the focus of their longing, the home for which all hearts long and all abandonments deserved, does not lie down another path. . . but must be found by exposing the fraud, pushing past the false "god", and walking further down the road toward the True and Living God!!!

FYI, the quotes above are not from today but from 18th century England with the pen and times of William Wilberforce as quoted in Eric Metaxas'  Amazing Grace.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.