James Baldwin on Ministry

I read this early this morning. It's from James Baldwin, talking about his time as a teen preacher in Harlem:

"Being in the pulpit was like being in the theatre; I was behind the scenes and knew how the illusion worked. I knew the other ministers and knew the quality of their lives... I knew how to work on a congregation until the last dime was surrendered-it was not hard to do-and I knew where the money for 'the Lord's work' went. I knew, though I did not wish to know it, that I had no respect for the people with whom I worked. I could not have said it then, but I also knew that if I continued I would soon have no respect for myself... I was even lonelier and more vulnerable than I had been before. And the blood of the Lamb had not cleansed me in any way whatever. I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born. Therefore, when I faced a congregation, it began to take all the strength I had not to stammer, not to curse, not to tell them to throw away their Bibles and get off their knees and go home and organize, for example, a rent strike... But I had been in the pulpit too long and I had seen too many monstrous things. I don't refer merely to the glaring fact that the minister eventually acquires houses and Cadillacs while the faithful continue to scrub floors and drop their dimes and quarters and dollars into the plate. I really mean that there was no love in the church. It was a mask for self-hatred and despair. The transfiguring power of the Holy Ghost ended when the service ended, and salvation stopped at the church door. When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did..."

Peace,
Matt

Christmas in America

This is so important, every American should get to see it for free. Now if only somebody would care enough to do something...

Peace,
Matt

Prayer in a Time of War

I read this great quote from Wendell Berry this morning while reading Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community. He wrote it with the first Iraq war in mind, though it is just as relevant today:

"We can come to peace by being peacable. That possibility, though little honored, is well known; its most famous statement is: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.' I did not include this idea as a precious possession of our civilization because it is not one. It is an idea given to our civilization but so far not accepted.

In times of war, our leaders always speak of their prayers. They wish us to know that they say prayers because they wish us to believe that they are deeply worried and that they take their responsibilities seriously. Perhaps they believe or hope that prayer will help. But within the circumstances of war, prayer becomes a word as befuddled in meaning as liberate or order or victory or peace. These prayers are usually understood to be Christian prayers. But Christian prayers are made to or in the name of Jesus, who loved, prayed for, and forgave his enemies and who instructed his followers to do likewise. A Christian supplicant, therefore, who has resolved to kill those whom he is enjoined to love, to bless, to do good to, to pray for, and to forgive as he hopes to to be forgiven is not conceivably in a situation in which he can be at peace with himself. Anyone who has tried to apply this doctrine to a merely personal enmity will be aware of the enormous anguish that it could cause a national leader in wartime. No wonder that national leaders have ignored it for nearly two thousand years."

pp. 84-85

Peace,
Matt

Hoorah for Sherman Alexie!

In case you didn't hear already, Sherman Alexie won the National Book Award for his book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. All I can say is, if you have never read anything by Alexie, today is a great day to start.

Peace,
Matt

So Many Good Links!

I've been seeing and reading so much cool stuff lately, which is a very nice change from a lot of the garbage I'd been seeing. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are your links!

• Amazon has put up its Best Books of 2007. Its a great resource for any other book nerds out there.


• Greg Boyd has been blogging about heresy, and asking whether the greatest heresy is to believe the wrong things, or to live the gospel out in the wrong way. You can see his thoughts on this subject here, here, and here.


• David Fitch has totally ripped into Willow Creek's Reveal research. It is a bit more blunt than I am used to scholars being, but it is well worth the read.


• Jurgen Moltmann was just in Seattle for a few lectures. I unfortunately missed it, as my child was being born at the same time. But, SPU has posted some helpful stuff online for those of us who could not attend. They have created a sweet Moltmann bibliography, a short write-up in the school newspaper, and an iTunes link so you can hear Moltmann lecture on The Vital Power of Hope.


• This is an old article that I just read for the first time. It is by Phyllis Trible (one of my heroes), is a great introduction to her way of reading and writing about scripture, and is titled Feminist Hermeneutics and Biblical Studies.


• A friend gave me a copy of an article from Radiant magazine that I enjoyed by Sara Groves, but I cannot find it online anywhere. I don't know anything about Sara Groves, but I like these lyrics she wrote and the fact that this is all based on Paul Farmer, another one of my heroes. Who knows, even though I am so frugal/cheap, I might even download the song...

Okay, that's all of the links I can think of putting up today. I hope you check them out and enjoy and/or are challenged.

Peace,

Matt

The Real Sin of Halloween

I remember as a child, even being as self-centered and oblivious as I was, all the controversy surrounding Halloween every year. It was always a matter of discussion in church and even made it into the news. People were afraid that we might be promoting witchcraft or devil worship or some other form of pagan evil into our children. And perhaps these are good concerns for parents to contemplate. But on October 31st of this year, I witnessed the real sin and evil of modern-day Halloween.

It goes like this; my wife and I had taken our daughter out on her first outing. It was Halloween night. On the way home, she informed me that there was something she needed to buy, and it could only be purchased at Target. So we went. And it was PACKED. The entire mall was packed! It looked like December 23rd! And of course it didn't take me long to realize that it was packed because the people of our community were taking their children to the mall to trick or treat.

That night we did not have a single trick or treater come to our door. Not one.

Did I mention I live on Main St. of my small town!

We worry about kidnappers, child molesters, razorblade implanters, poisoners, satan worshipers and a host of other kinds of people who are meant to stir fear in our hearts. But what worries me is that when we feel afraid, we go to the mall. What frustrates me is that we apparently trust places with commercial interests more than our own neighbors. What saddens me is that the church is so afraid of satanic influnces in things like Halloween or Harry Potter, never noticing that the antichrist himself hides in our shopping malls influencing our kids (and us) towards the gods of consumerism and capitalism. That is the real sin of Halloween.

Peace,
Matt

Preaching, Practice and Participation

I read this amazing post on Jordan Cooper's blog today, which Len Hjalmarson also took some time to write about on his own blog. Cooper starts with preaching, the church's continual idol. He brings up the painful truth that we listen to sermon after sermon for year after year, but can remember very few and are arguably changed by even fewer. So why do we continue on in such a preposterous way? Of course there are the obvious answers; we are afraid to change, we have elevated one element of the faith above others, and we continue to falsely believe that the transfer of more knowledge equals spiritual growth. But none of these are my biggest issues with preaching.

My issue comes with the help of Paul Tillich. Tillich, whenever he discusses discipleship, describes it as participation. For him, following Christ means taking part in what God is doing in creation. The modern, preaching-obsessed church asks its members to show up consistently on the weekends and hear a talking head that is supposedly going to lead them towards transformation. Obviously there is a place for this, but it is a lie for any church not to claim that this is where it believes 90% of its transformation is going to occur. Why do I say this? Look at any church and how much of its budget and employee time go into its weekend services and tell me I am wrong. Besides the fact that this is the usual sad fact that the majority of church budgets go back into the church, it also points out that churches, especially "outreach churches" are self-centered and are not asking their population to do anything with their faith.

Jordan Cooper ends his post by claiming that this has a lot to do with preachers not living it out, so they are not asking church-goers to do so. I think there is a lot of truth to this. But that's only half of what is going on here. The other half, I believe, goes with a post I did last week. For most churches, attendance is an idol. If we call people to higher, tougher standards (think of Jesus and the rich young ruler), if we spent a Sunday morning praying for our cities, if we took an hour of a service time to brainstorm how God might use us in our neighborhoods for his glory, basically if we did anything that called all of our "attendees" to become participants in the Kingdom of God who actually practice what they supposedly believe, our attendence would most likely drop, especially at first. And if our attendance dropped, we would lose our beloved idol, the functional savior of most pastors. How could we measure our impact if not by numerical growth, I ask with sarcasm. But wow, how great would it be if we became truly missional, and began to participate with our Lord and put our faith into practice.

Peace,
Matt

Evan Almighty: A Half-Review

I finally sat down and watched Evan Almighty. Most likely I am the last person in the country to watch it who was at all interested to begin with. Regardless, I would like to share my humble, quick response to the movie, a half-review of sorts, since first of all I believe you have already seen it, and second, my thoughts on the movie are not fully thought-out, and I will most likely never finish putting them together.

While the acting, writing, and cinematography were nothing to write home about, this film had something to offer that few ever do. I honestly believe that it preached a better message than most of our churches. The message was something like this; God is about more than just sin managment. He is a God of justice, compassion, and care of the creation. The parallels between John Goodman's character and many modern-day political leaders was obvious, and the implications equally so. What a great reminder to Chrisitans that voting involves more than listening to ignorant-but-popular preachers and only voting against abortion and gay marriage. What about environmental destruction, unjust leaders, and rampant exploitation of the world's poor and lower middle classes? I guess what I'm saying is that behind the corny jokes regarding patriarchs and the way God uses his power, there was enough theological thinking, especially in showing how God interacts with his creation, to make this movie a fascinating watch for me. I hope we can all watch it with the desire for more than just being entertained.

Peace,
Matt