Tag: Christian Church

Yes Pastor Floyd, America Needs a Spiritual Breakthrough. But Not the One You Imagine

Ronnie Floyd, senior pastor of Cross Church in NW Arkansas, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and president of the National Day of Prayer, has written an editorial for CBNNews (claiming to offer THE Christian Perspective on today’s affairs) under the headline “America Needs a Spiritual Breakthrough.”  Here are a few excerpts from pastor Ronnie’s missive:

“America is broken and in deep need of a spiritual breakthrough. Division and hatefulness are abounding as none of us would ever imagine. Our greatest hope is a spiritual breakthrough in America…

“We are facing one of the most dangerous times across the globe in our lifetime. While encouragement occurs from time to time, we remain in fragile moments globally…

 “The churches in America are in need of a spiritual visitation by the Holy Spirit that will call them out of their lukewarm status and cause them to return to the power of the gospel. Jesus is still the greatest hope in every town, city, and region in America…

 “Politically, America is in trouble. The disappointment of our political leaders not working together for the common good of our nation has Americans filled with all sorts of emotions, many of which are not healthy. This partisan decision making is hurting the progress and future of our nation greatly.”

Alas, what hope is there for American evangelicalism when such poisonous, spiritual gruel passes for prophetic witness and is guzzled like cool-aid by the average church-goer?

How can God’s people hope to see clearly when their leaders are so willfully blind?  How will the people hear truth when their preachers are deaf to any words but their own?  How can the church mature when her teachers think and act (and write) like ignorant children?

When pastors like Ronnie persist in leading their congregations ‘round and ‘round in circles, I am not surprised that so much of the church remains confused, dizzy and socially ineffective.

The pastor of Cross Church is at cross purposes with himself, for he represents the most common theological confusions of American evangelicals, all of which I disentangle in my book,  I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans, 2018).  At the heart of this confusion is his mashing together of church and state which is then sifted through the grotesque assumption that God is a Republican who voted for Donald Trump.

Let’s not be so naïve as to think that Ronnie’s lament over “division and hatefulness” while facing “the most dangerous times across the globe,” dealing with “the disappointment of our political leaders not working together for the common good” is anything other than the predictably partisan judgments of a Trump-loyalist.  For people like Ronnie, healing national divisions for the common good means falling into lock-step behind an obscene, racist, malignantly narcissistic president and then following him anywhere like dumb lemmings running to the cliff.

But these political errors are the easy-to-see, low-hanging fruit.

Let’s move on to grab hold of the more substantial core of Ronnie’s theological errors.  Errors that identify him as only one more false prophet in the American pantheon of wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing defrauding God’s flock.

The tell-tale sign that Ronnie is up to no good appears with his blatantly utilitarian view of the gospel.  Notice that his ultimate objective for preaching the good news of Jesus Christ is not to glorify God or to expand God’s kingdom.  Those are merely penultimate goals.  Excellent goals, certainly, but not the final goal.

No, the final objective for Ronnie and his misguided kinfolk is the unification of America’s body-politic behind the president and his policies.  (Again, we will leave aside how shockingly immoral many of Trump’s policies are.)  What evidence will finally tell us that America’s “spiritual breakthrough” has arrived?  Well, we will see (1) a renewed political scene that is (2) free of partisanship (3) with “political leaders working together for the common good of our nation.”

When these things happen, then we can know that the America church has “received a spiritual visitation by the Holy Spirit” (what other kind of visitation would the Holy Spirit make?) that has “called it out of its lukewarm status.”  So the Holy Spirit will work in America as in ancient Israel.  The Spirit’s task is to unite the nation.  The church and the gospel are tools for achieving that greater end.

But Ronnie’s vision confuses the church with the world and the world with the church.  God’s people are called to become strangers and aliens within American society.  Proclaiming the saving work of Jesus’ death and resurrection recruits new citizens into God’s kingdom who will demonstrate their newfound redemption by their own transformation into strangers and aliens.

Declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ honestly will highlight the stark contrasts between the church and this fallen world.  It will never bring them closer together.  Gospel preaching is nothing if not a heavenly bombardment that destroys our flesh-pot idols of civil religion, nationalism, and salvation by politics.  Genuine followers of Jesus are not deceived by this ancient, beastly triumvirate of bogus, copy-cat Christianity.

Yet, this three-headed monster spewing out recycled false religion like “a dog returning to its vomit” (2 Peter 2:22) is exactly what Pastor Ronnie – and the bulk of evangelical leaders sharing his devotion to American redemption by politics – is offering both the readers of CBNNews and those attending his multi-campus megachurch.

Ironically, the true evidence that American evangelicalism is more than satisfied with its damnably “lukewarm status,” with no intention of confessing its sins or repenting of its many offenses against the Lord Jesus and his kingdom, is its blind, self-satisfied allegiance to such atrociously false teachers as Ronnie Floyd.

Yes, American evangelicalism desperately needs a spiritual breakthrough.  But it’s not the one pastor Ronnie is looking for.  We will know that the real breakthrough has arrived when Ronnie Floyd and others like him publicly renounce their idolatrous Christian nationalism, confess that the kingdom of God has nothing to do with American politics, repent of their adulteration of the gospel with the bile of civil religion, and then call their congregations to sell their excessive belongings, giving the proceeds to the poor.

Now, that would be a breakthrough.

Reading Religion Reviews My Book, “I Pledge Allegiance” #readingreligion # americanacademyofreligion

Eerdmans Publishers recently notified me of the first (to my knowledge) online review of my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.  You can find the review here at the Reading Religion website (an outlet of the American Academy of Religion).

Jacob Alan Cook, an Adjunct Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Friends University, is very kind in offering a positive review of my latest book.  He is both a thoughtful reader and reviewer, qualities not as common as you might think.

In the spirit of continuing the conversation – a conversation I believe is the most important contribution the Christian church can make to America’s public life at this moment in our history – I want to offer a few responses to Professor Cook’s observations.

Towards the end of his review, Cook suggests that “the root of the problem [i.e. the church’s abandonment of Jesus’ kingdom ethics] lies deeper than Crump’s analysis.”  He points to Bonhoeffer’s suggestion that the basis of every ethical problem is the human tendency to think that we already know what God wants of us, thereby conforming God’s will to our personal preferences.

I agree with Cook’s assessment of our ethical dilemma.  But I also think that I make this point several times myself, although I may not have been as thorough or as explicit as I should have been.  I will keep this in mind for the future.

Professor Cook also dabbles in a bit of theological archaeology as he muses on the possible connections between my evangelical upbringing and my book’s emphasis on the place of evangelism within the ethics of God’s kingdom.

I think he is right to highlight this connection, but not for the reason he implies.

Yes, evangelicalism has traditionally distinguished itself by emphasizing the importance of personal evangelism in the Christian life.  But I would argue that the tenor of I Pledge Allegiance is due to an entirely different evangelical characteristic — namely, taking the Bible seriously.

I hope that my book’s analysis of the Synoptic Gospels makes it clear that sharing the good news of the gospel is an essential ingredient of Jesus’ kingdom ethic.  My goal in I Pledge Allegiance is to describe a Biblical theology, not an evangelical theology…in fact, just typing out those final, two words has stretched my attention span to the breaking point.  Yikes!

If there are any similarities between my arguments in I Pledge Allegiance and the work of Carl F. H. Henry (a godfather of American evangelicalism), as Professor Cook suggests, then it is because we both have read the same Bible and drawn similar conclusions.

So, thank you again, Professor Cook.

And if you subscribe to this blog but have not yet read I Pledge Allegiance yourself, I hope that this helpful review at Reading Religion will motivate you to do so.  What are you waiting for?

Different Bodies Mean Different Experiences, Especially in Church

Recently, I have written about the ways antidepressants have affected my spiritual life.  Check it out here, here and here.

My eyes were flung wide open with amazement when I first experienced the obvious, powerful connection between brain chemistry and the feelings of being “connected” with God.

The laboratory was my own body, and I couldn’t deny the results.

I was happy but not surprised when my first prescription of Prozac started to take effect (after about 6 weeks), and I actually felt better!  The oppressive fog of futility and hopelessness was burned away and slowly replaced by what I imagined most people would call a level-headed feeling about my place in the world.

No, Prozac wasn’t an “upper” or an opiate.  Antidepressants don’t work like Ecstasy, amphetamines or heroine. At least, not for me.  Prozac (which eventually stopped working after several years; changing from one drug to another is a frightening experience I may talk about some other time) did not induce euphoria.

Rather, Prozac helped me to feel something other than unmitigated hopelessness.  My depression was never so much about being sad, though I certainly did feel that often.  It was more about laboring beneath an unbearable weight of futility and despair with no relief in sight.  Depression was a long, dark tunnel with no glimmer of light ahead.

Prozac allowed me to glimpse the light.  Eventually, it opened up that tunnel into a 360-degree horizon of color, complete with day, night, sunshine, moonlight, rain, wind and, yes, even the occasional fog.

This was all new and wonderful, but it was exactly what the doctor told me I could expect after six weeks of properly measured medication.

What I did NOT expect was the amazing transformation that Prozac brought to my relationship with Jesus Christ.  I began – I think, perhaps, for the first time in my life…? – to experience salvation by grace through faith.  (Yes, I had always believed it.  I taught it and preached it.  But to FEEL it in an ongoing fashion! Well, oh my goodness…)

 I finally began to grasp the “joy of the Lord,” not merely as an ephemeral, distant specter vaguely perceived during those periods when life’s shadows were not constraining me like a pressure cooker, but as a regular feature of my day-to-day life.  I can remember thinking to myself, “This must be what knowing God is like for normal people.”  It was like feeling the stream of cold air from a brand-new air-conditioner blow across my face in the middle of a scorching Arizona desert afternoon.

These new experiences of spiritual well-being also set me on a new course of research into recent discoveries about the role of neurochemistry in both human emotions and religious experience. So expansive has this area of research now become that it has generated its own subject-heading of Neurotheology.  I have not tried to keep up with this research or its publications.  Too much of it is well beyond my understanding and my personal interest, if truth be told.  But I do continue to ponder the many, crucial questions raised for me by my own experience.  With these questions come many theological and pastoral implications, most of which I suspect we cannot sort out this side of eternity.

For instance:

  • How exactly does neurobiology affect spirituality viz religious experience? What is the connection between materiality, e.g. brain matter, body chemistry and the experience or the perception of knowing God?  Is it best described in terms of perception? receptivity? natural inclination?  Or something else, like imagination (as the skeptics insist)?
  • If neurochemistry is genetically determined, are people genetically predisposed (predestined!?) to be religious or irreligious?
  • If neurochemistry can inhibit and/or enhance a person’s feelings of intimacy with God, can it also completely shut down any and all sense of God’s presence? In other words, are atheists created (predestined) by their genes?
  • The Bible talks about spiritual experience in relation to things like faith, commitment and decisions of the will. What role does neurochemistry play in these matters? (For example, I never stopped having faith in Christ even as I lived with depression.  Faith and experience are not the same thing.)
  • So, can we one day imagine the creation of a “faith inducing” pill? If scientists can create a god helmet, what about a god pill?

I don’t know the answers to these kinds of questions.  But I have come to a few conclusions about their implications for Christian worship.

First, different bodies mean different spiritual lives and different types of spiritual experiences for different people.

Church folks, especially leaders, should neither expect nor enforce uniformity throughout the Body in this regard.  One might think that we would not have to point this out, especially in light of Paul’s teaching about corporate worship in 1 Corinthians 12:1 – 14:40, but it’s always worth a reminder.  I will never forget the student who described a scene in her childhood Sunday school class where all the children were lined up against the wall and told that they could not leave until everyone spoke in tongues to the teacher’s satisfaction.  Folks, I call that spiritual abuse.

People who love Jesus all experience, and therefore will all express, their devotion to Christ differently.  A certain measure of this variability is beyond a  person’s control.  Introverts cannot be turned into extroverts.  Neither is it kind to require extroverts to continually stifle themselves in forced mimicry of dour Puritan piety.

The church must allow for diversity in personal expressions of devotion.  What matters is God’s conversation with the heart, not external emotional outbursts.  (The Spirit’s presence is easily faked, if you haven’t noticed.)

Second, I hope and pray that everything going on in every corporate worship service is always a genuine expression of real encounter with the resurrected Jesus.  And I always assume this is the case until presented with clear evidence to the contrary.

Honestly, the internal affairs of another person’s worship-life are none of my business, unless I am a leader and the other person’s behavior becomes damaging to the Body for some reason.  Yet, as thinking people, it is always worthwhile to be “wise as serpents while remaining as gentle as doves.”

Not everything happening in every church service is entirely of God.  We can know that to be true because human beings are involved!  And human beings – even Spirit-filled human begins – have a prodigious talent for messing things up.  Especially in church, where zeal, fervor and expectations of sincerity provide fertile ground, sometimes even shit-filled compost heaps, for ego to work its deceptive schemes for pulling the wool over our eyes.

How much of our corporate worship is due to the Spirit? How much is of the flesh?  How much is generated by genetics? How much is bubbling brain chemistry?  How much is evidence of group psychology?

I have no idea.  But it is naïve to imagine that any of these factors are ever missing from our get-togethers. After all, we are only fallen, fleshly, damaged people seeking to adore a Holy God forever beyond our comprehension who saves us by grace while momentarily leaving us to face off daily against the ugly ghosts of our unredeemed selves.  What could go wrong?

Praise God, then.  For Jesus is always faithful to us no matter how we feel about it or (fail to) express it.

If Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder, Is Faith in the Brain Chemistry of the Believer? #christiansanddepression

Some years ago, I came across the story of Dr. Michael Persinger (Professor of Neuroscience at the Department of Psychology of Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada) and his amazing “god helmet.”

Dr. Persinger invented a contraption that directs magnetic impulses to specific parts of the brain.  The doctor discovered that by targeting low-level impulses at the temporal lobe, he could induce mystical god-experiences (among other mental states) in his patients.  I recall an account (which I cannot find now) where a professed atheist, of all people, suddenly “experienced god” under the influence of Dr. Persinger’s magnetic helmet.

I was not the least bit surprised by Dr. Persinger’s experiments because I

An early version of the ‘god helmet’

read about them years after my own life-changing experiences with antidepressant medicine.  Antidepressants probably helped to save my life.

Accepting my need for such medication (taken in combination with counseling/talk-therapy) has been, as far as I can tell, the single most beneficial step that I have taken in securing a healthy, stable state of mind and a positive outlook on life; it has certainly made an extraordinary difference in my relationship with God.  (I am careful to say “I have taken” because I believe that the Holy Spirit was/is active in the entire process.  We can never isolate the physical from the spiritual. My Savior always gets the glory, even for the effects of antidepressant medicine).

Yet, I know how strange, even offensive, my claims may sound to many Christian people.  But it seems to me that this is one of the unavoidable complexities we are stuck with as material creatures created for spiritual relationship.

For whatever reason, our Creator decided to make human materiality and human spirituality inseparable.  If we want to blame someone for that messy, uncomfortable connection, then we must blame God for giving us bodies in the first place – bodies that would be mangled in the Fall by sin.

Please, do not blame the people whose flawed brain chemistry cripples their genuine desires to know and to love Jesus.

Because the LORD decided to make us embodied, physical creatures, our weak, sickly, degenerating bodies are an essential part of God’s equation for knowing Him, experiencing His presence, responding to the Holy Spirit and grasping the things He wants to say to us through Scripture.  So, brothers and sisters, I am open to whatever help medical science can offer me in keeping my body running the way it is supposed to in order that I may serve my Lord for as long as I can, just as I am supposed to.

I realize that skeptics offer a different explanation for this connection between magnetic waves, neurochemicals and spiritual experience.  Many have suggested that brain chemicals don’t just facilitate our experience of God.  They actually create the God-experience within our minds.  In other words, “God” or what-have-you is literally a figment of our neurochemically inspired imaginations.

Religious skeptics point to humanity’s long history with naturally occurring hallucinogenic drugs. Many ancient people turned to ritually induced hallucinogenic experiences that they believed bridged the gulf between this world and the next.  Amazonian Indians use a concoction called ayahuasca.  Some Native Americans use peyote in their quest for the spirit world.

What makes my experience with antidepressants any different?

Perhaps what I call an “improved relationship with Christ” is simply a chemically induced spiritual euphoria that I happen to label with Christian terms.  What about that possibility?

Here’s what I think:

First, as with all things religious, I openly confess that my preferred answers are intertwined with my Christian faith, just as the atheist’s preferred answers are a result of his/her faith in disbelief.

That I am experiencing the real God who actually exists independently of myself can neither be proven nor disproven by empirical evidence or logical argument alone. I choose to believe in God for a host of different reasons (both objective and subjective) that lie well beyond what we can address here in this discussion. (Maybe I will take up those matters in the future. Obviously, the issues of faith and unbelief long antedate the study of neurochemicals and brain chemistry).

Second, I came across a useful analogy offered by a neurobiologist some years ago.  He compared brain chemistry to the way cells work in the human eye. Our retinas are lined with two different types of cells: rods and cones.  Rods allow us to see black and white.  Cones perceive color.  Or do they?

Maybe cone cells only create the illusion of a brightly colored world splashed with red, blue, green, scarlet, aqua marine and the many additional hues we all know and love.

Do the cone cells create an illusion of color or do they facilitate the perception of colors that are really out there?

Answering that question does not require faith.  Just ask the person suffering from color-blindness because their retinas lack healthy cone cells.

So, I wonder, why can’t neurochemicals work for our brains in a way that is analogous to the way cone cells function in our eyes?  They help (or, perhaps, hinder) us in perceiving the presence of a God who is really there.

Obviously, much more could be said about these things.  Perhaps I will have more to say about my thoughts on and experiences with depression, medication and connection with God in the future.  But, for the moment, I think this is maybe enough.

I hope that my periodic discussions of depression I have provided some small measure of help and encouragement for those who needed it.

Following the Messiah-No-One-Expected and Very Few Want Today

Carlo Corretto

I have been busy enjoying a visit from some dear, long-time friends this past week, hence my brief vacation from blogging.  But I am back today with this excerpt from the book Why, O Lord? by Carlo Carretto.

The tremendous life-altering challenge of following the real, historical, Biblical Jesus rather than the convenient, sanitized, nationalized Jesus of American evangelicalism is a contemporary version of the New Testament call to discipleship that has confronted every generation (in its own, unique way) throughout church history.

It is no easier today than it was 2,000 years ago.

I have described what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah-no-one-expected (or much wanted) in my book, Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture.

My new book, I Pledge Allegiance, describes the life-or-death struggle facing the American church right now in this age of Trump .

Carlo Carretto eloquently makes the same point in his book, and I believe it is well worth sharing.  I do not know Mr. Carretto, but he writes like a man who knows the real Jesus:

“Goodness! How difficult it is to believe in the sort of Messiah that Jesus of Nazareth represents!

 To believe that we win by losing our very selves!

To believe that love is everything.

To believe that power is a great danger, wealth slavery, comfortable life a misfortune.

 It is not easy.

 This is why you hear [people] in the street say, ‘If there was a God there would not be all this suffering.’

 Two thousand years have gone, and there are still Christians whose doctrinal notions belong to those ancient days when the power and existence of God was revealed by displays of strength and the victory of armies. And especially by wealth and having more possessions.

 The real secret had not then been received.

Nor is it received very easily even today.

Hence the blasphemy in general circulation denying the kingdom’s visibility, given the ordeal of suffering and death.

 The old teaching that we, the Church, must be strong still feeds our determination to possess the land and dominate the world.

 We must make ourselves felt. We must keep our enemies down. We must scowl. We must win, and to win we need money, money, money. And to have money we need banks, we need the means and we need clever bankers. How can we do good without means, without money? Let’s have a big meeting, and then any opposition will be shamed into silence. Well, we must defend our rights, the rights of the Church. We must defeat our enemies.

 Enemies, always enemies on the Church’s horizon!

 Yet Jesus has told us in no uncertain terms that we no longer have any enemies, since they are the same people we are supposed to love, and love specially.

 Can it be that we have not understood?

 Don’t we read the Gospel in our churches?

 How long shall we wait before following the teaching of Jesus?”

Indeed…how long?

When Knowing Jesus Is Depressing #christianityanddepression

I know what it feels like to find Christianity oppressive and guilt-inducing.

It is true that certain people within the church often seem to think that the main goal of Christianity is to make others feel condemned.  But those who struggle with undiagnosed depression don’t need anyone else’s help to find themselves trapped inside guilt’s dank catacombs. We typically discover ourselves wandering throughout guilt’s labyrinth without any outside assistance.

The unhealthy tendencies of a fallen mind (and everyone’s mind is fallen since Genesis 3) can discover a variety of creative ways to turn the gospel of God’s grace into a script for endless self-accusation.

Here is another excerpt from a message on depression I gave to students at Calvin College years ago:

“For much of my life, knowing Jesus was not an experience of grace or forgiveness. Neither was it a confrontation with authentic guilt. Rather, it was predominately an experience of failure and accusation where nagging, anonymous guilt became a never-ending state of mind. 

Spiritual Torment

 “Being a Christian was like falling through the rabbit hole with Alice in wonderland.  I was chasing after something that was always just around the next bend in the tunnel.  For years of my life, from the moment my eyelids opened in the morning till they closed at night, I would be filled with the gnawing feeling that somehow or another I had let God down.  I didn’t know how; I just felt it. 

 “Each day unfolded beneath the thick, dark shadows of an anonymous cloud of accusation, never tied to anything specific but always there accusing me of unrelenting failure. 

 “I once told a friend that life was like a huge jig-saw puzzle, and somehow or another my part of the puzzle was missing a few pieces.  Try as I might, I could never seem to find those missing pieces.  God knew where they were. He was waiting for me to figure out what I was missing, but I could never find the answers.  And He would never give me any hints.

 “Have you ever heard the Christian chorus, “The Joy of the Lord Is My Strength”?  I always hated that song.  Whenever we sang that song at my childhood church or my high school youth group, my insides would tie themselves in knots because it never, never made any sense to me. 

 “As far as I could tell, the joy of the Lord was a hoax.  There was no such thing, at least not for me. 

The Torment of St. Anthony by Michaelangelo

 “Knowing the Lord brought duty, challenge and unbelievable expectations, but in all my life I couldn’t remember a single time when knowing Jesus had brought me joy or gladness.  It just didn’t happen for me; and try as I might, I couldn’t find the 10 easy steps that would change my experience on that score.  I knew all about the power of positive thinking but trying to believe in that power only added to my guilt because it was just one more thing I could not do.

 “That guilt drove me for much of my life.  It drove me to be the very best student I could be, because maybe then Jesus would be satisfied.  It drove me to be the best Inter-Varsity staff-worker I could be.  It drove me to become the best pastor that I could be.  It drove me to try to grow the biggest church that I could grow, because maybe then I could wake up in the morning – just once – with a sense of peace, feeling that Jesus was finally satisfied with me.  (Let me tell you, working to become the best at something does not make anyone the best at anything.  I know that too, as a staff-worker, graduate student and pastor).

 “Does any of this sound familiar?  I suspect that many people may recognize themselves….

 “I now know that my struggle with this particular breed of spiritual depression was hopelessly (in my case) intertwined with my psychological, clinical depression.  So, I want to emphasize two lessons I was able to learn anew once counselling and medication started helping me to see my life from God’s real perspective (not my warped, false perspective).

 “First, I slowly began to understand that Jesus was living through my depression with me. 

He was not condemning me. He was grieving with me. 

 “I could know this because the New Testament tells me that Jesus had experienced depression, too.  He had even lived through my anxiety attacks, first hand. (Have you ever had one of those? Not fun.) 

 “The gospels tell us that on the night he was betrayed, Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, and “he was terror-stricken.”  (That’s what the language means).  He was “overwhelmed with fear and anxiety.”  In fact, he told his closest friends, “My soul is so overwhelmed with grief that I feel like I am being crushed to death” (Mk. 14:32-34).  That is a perfect description of depression with panic attacks.

 “When Jesus finally hangs on the cross, he feels himself to be wholly abandoned by his God, thrown aside like a rag-doll by his own heavenly Father. He groans in agony, “My God, my God, why…why have you turned your back on me now?”  Jesus experienced the unquenchable despair of a failing sinner’s groping for a God who is always somewhere else.  He knew my desperation and my anxiety.

 “Secondly, I began to see with new eyes why Jesus had died.  

 “I recognized that for years I had unwittingly read the gospels as if I was hearing the story of a Savior who loved me in spite of myself, in spite of my failures.  Now, with new eyes, I was beginning to see that Jesus had not died for me in spite of my sins.  No.  Jesus died for me because of my sins. 

 “Jesus didn’t look at me with all my struggles and say, “Oh, well, I guess I’ll love him anyway.”  NO!  He sees me in my struggles and says, “Oh, he needs my love and forgiveness!”  And Jesus really, really, really does love me (and you!) just exactly the way that I am.  I now know that I really, really, really am fully and completely accepted by Christ Jesus just exactly the way that I am.

 “And I’ll tell you something:  He really, really, really loves you just exactly the way that you are, too.  Jesus Christ did not die for you in spite of your sins, either.  Jesus gave his life for you on the cross because of your sins.  Remember this, for this is the gospel of grace.

 “For some of us, learning to reorient our thinking towards the acceptance of Christ’s unconditional love can become a significant step towards the healing of spiritual depression.  “But some of us can’t seem to shake our depression no matter how hard we try to adjust our attitudes or our thought patterns.  We need something more…”

 I will talk about what that “something more” was for me next time I write about Christian faith and depression.

The Holy Spirit is not the only force influencing a person’s relationship with Jesus Christ. There is a fraternity of mysterious, internal actors known as neurochemicals that exercise incredible force over everyone’s spiritual life, whether we know it or not.

God made us physical, material beings.  Our physical make-up actually appears to monitor our spirituality in ways that we are only beginning to understand. I will talk about the human body-Spirit connection and how dealing with my own depression led me into exploring this area in my next post on this subject.  In the meantime, ask yourself this:

Can the Holy Spirit be a neurochemical?

A Review of Thomas Bergler’s The Juvenilization of American Christianity

Several months ago, I read a fine book by Thomas E. Bergler, The Juvenilization of American Christianity (Eerdmans, 2012).  Bergler is associate professor of ministry and missions at Huntington University, Indiana.  He has written what amounts to a history of the creation, rise and evolution of youth ministry in the American church.

He simultaneously argues, convincingly in my view, that a movement which began as an element of church ministry has successfully expanded to consume the whole of (most) American church life.

Whether we like it or not, we are all teenagers now.  At least this seem to be the case if we look at the way congregational music, messages, teaching content, programming, expectations, goals and ambiance are orchestrated in the average, Protestant worship service today.

Bergler begins by defining juvenilization as “the process by which the religious beliefs, practices, and developmental characteristics of adolescents become accepted as appropriate for Christians of all ages” (4).

The result, whether intentional or not, is a condition he calls “adolescent Christianity,” which is “any way of understanding, experiencing, or practicing the Christian faith that conforms to the patterns of adolescence in American culture” (8).

Before we all get hot, bothered or defensive, Bergler is careful to argue that this juvenilization process has not been all bad.  It has generated a number of valuable benefits for the American church, such as a desire for emotional connection and contemporary relevance in our services. Whatever problems exist with juvenilization, however, are due to a lack of theological reflection, analysis and strategizing about the best ways to avoid and/or manage the unexpected, negative consequences.

However, Bergler’s focus in this particular book is on telling the story of how we got to where we are today, not on diagnosis or treatment for the creation of a healthier future.  He saves that discussion for his follow-up book, From Here to Maturity: Overcoming the Juvenilization of American Christianity (Eerdmans, 2014).  I am reading that book now and will review it in the near future.

Bergler begins Juvenilization with an overview describing the rise of a genuinely distinct teenage, “youth culture” in the 1930s and 40s.  He then discusses the various attempts made by different branches of American Christianity to engage this new youth culture effectively for Christ.

One of the more telling features of this nascent youth ministry movement was the eagerness with which the gospel of Jesus Christ was used as the centerpiece to an alternative gospel of anti-communism.  Though this is my observation more than Bergler’s, it illustrates something that became a characteristic strategy of ministries like Youth for Christ and Young Life. That is, an instrumental use of the good news; not teaching the gospel for its own sake but using it for a seemingly higher purpose.  In the 1930s and 40s that higher purpose was America’s fight against the “Red Menace” and equipping the next generation to win our fight against the Soviet Union.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Bergler provides a series of fascinating histories about the different strategies adopted by (1) mainline, liberal Protestantism, (2) the African-American church, (3) the Roman Catholic church and (4) American evangelicalism.  To a greater or lesser extent, everyone’s main goal was not only to hold on to their own young people, but to expand the church’s mission into the expansive field of America’s unsaved teenagers.

Bergler explains how and why the evangelical wing of the church proved most successful in these tasks. (Buy the book to see the details.  It’s worth the money).  Not only was there an explosion of new, church-centered youth groups, but there was a simultaneous development of youth-targeted, para-church organizations like Youth for Christ, Campus Life, and Young Life.

In order to capture the typical teenager’s attention, the leaders of these youth organizations mastered the craft of developing consumer-oriented, fast-paced, emotionally-charged, fun-loving, content-light meetings that appealed to modern adolescents. However, an unexpected, or sadly neglected consequence of this evangelical success was the eventual rise of church-going adults who insisted on taking the new youth-oriented methods along with them into every other aspect of adult church life.  Bergler hits the nail on the head when he concludes:

“…the leaders of parachurch youth ministries experimented freely with ways of being Christian that would create an ever more immature evangelical church. As time went on, more and more white evangelicals of all ages began to demand this new combination of old-time religion and adolescent spirituality.” (214)

In his final chapter, “The Triumph and Taming of Juvenilization,” Bergler briefly elaborates on this juvenilization phenomenon (pages 208-229).  On the positive side of the ledger, he concludes that:

  • “Juvenilization has kept American Christianity vibrant” (208)
  • “investment in youth ministry has led to greater retention of young people in evangelical churches” (215)
  • “Youth ministries helped to make the Christian life more emotionally satisfying…and socially relevant” (210)

On the negative side, he traces several evangelical weaknesses back to juvenilization:

  • “The desire to gather a crowd can easily push leaders to compromise the message of the gospel and downplay spiritual maturity” (211)
  • Understanding the gospel primarily in “therapeutic” terms, leading to what he calls a “moralistic, therapeutic deism” (219-20)
  • “simplified messages that emphasize an emotional relationship with Jesus over intellectual content” (220)
  • Emotional fulfilment becomes the gospel’s primary objective (219-20)
  • “the relentless attention to teenage tastes ends up communicating that God exists to make us feel good. Christianity operates as a lifestyle enhancement…” (220)
  • With the adoption of a consumer mentality for church life “youth ministries have formed generations of Americans who believe it is their privilege to pick and choose what to believe” (223)

Bergler hints at some of the remedial measures he believes necessary for outgrowing the hindrances of juvenilization.  For instance:

  • Leaders “need to teach what the Bible says about spiritual maturity, with special emphasis on those elements that are neglected by juvenilized Christians” (226) – (Hopefully, his next book will elaborate this point.)
  • Using worship music that does not focus exclusively on “fostering a self-centered, romantic spirituality” in which “falling in love with Jesus” is the center (227)
  • Asking every church member “to master a shared body of basic truths” and “training leaders to disciple others” one-on-one and in small groups (227)
  • Model, teach and provide opportunities for service to others (227)
  • Help leaders to understand that “cultural forms are not neutral. Every enculturation of Christianity highlights some elements of the faith and obscures others” (227).

Bergler has written an important history describing the infiltration of American youth culture within the Christian church.  Whether the reader judges that infiltration to be a blessing or a curse, a thoughtful judgment will need to be informed by Professor Bergler’s insights.

A Look at Romans 13:1-7, Must Christians ‘Obey’ the Government? Part 1 #christianityandpolitics

Vice-President Mike Pence’s speech at the Southern Baptist Convention, thankfully, sparked a debate over whether he should be welcomed or disinvited.  Pence’s defenders predictably quote Romans 13:1 as their argument for welcoming a political speech at the convention.

In Romans 13 the apostle Paul says:  “let everyone submit to the governing authorities.”  So, that means Pence needs to be given the time normally allotted for group prayer in order to deliver a partisan, political speech?

In light of this current debate, I thought I’d post a few serialized excerpts from my book, I Pledge Allegiance, that looks carefully at what Paul actually says in Romans 13:1-7.  The complete excerpt is from pages 56-62.  Here goes:

“Paul had specific concerns in mind as he wrote his letter to the Roman church and describing a comprehensive political theology of church-state relations was not one of them. Recalling the church’s precarious standing with the local government in a time of tax revolt is far more illuminating of Paul’s argument in this chapter. The early church lived within an authoritarian state. There was no expectation that the average person could exert any meaningful influence in bringing about broad-based, systemic social or political change. Neither Paul nor his readers had any conception of participatory democracy. Modern strategies for popular political and social transformation through civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance were inconceivable at the time. Naturally, this does not mean that Paul was devoid of political opinions or that he might not write something of universal political significance for the church, regardless of its particular location in time and space, but it does mean that properly understanding Romans 13:1–7 requires that we keep the actual historical situation foremost in our mind.

Observing God’s Order

“Several details in Romans 13 need elaboration for Paul’s ethical instruction to become clear for the modern reader. The chapter’s opening sentences twice affirm that government authority is put in place by God (v. 1). God has established a hierarchy of civil authority to regulate the otherwise strong tendency toward unruliness in human society. Anyone who rebels against this ordering of authority, therefore, is rebelling against God’s design (v. 2). Two details of Paul’s vocabulary clarify his point.

“First, Paul describes civil authority as part of the way God “orders” the world. This idea of God’s ordering, organizing, appointing or arranging is central to the passage, with several derivatives of the verbal root “to order” appearing five times in three verses (vv. 1 [twice], 2 [twice], 5 [once]). It is clearly Paul’s key concept. God “establishes/orders/institutes governing authorities” (v. 1) not by bringing any particular leader to power—though he may at times also do that—but by providentially creating structures of governing authority that exercise responsibilities delegated by God. When Paul says that “there is no authority except that which God has established” (v. 1), he is not claiming that divine providence places all rulers in their specific positions of power. He is saying that the various stations of authority that make up civil government are put in place by God’s providential ordering of human society.

“Understanding Paul’s use of “ordering” vocabulary helps to answer long- standing questions about Christian obedience to tyrannical rulers. The problematic logic, based on Romans 13, usually goes like this: If every governing authority is put in place by God, so that disobeying the authority is the equivalent of disobeying God, then even a man like Adolf Hitler must have been put in place by God, and disobeying even Hitler becomes the equivalent of disobeying God. This was, in fact, the logic used by many German Christians who swore allegiance to Hitler, the “divinely appointed” Führer.

“Though some additional arguments will be advanced below for addressing the question of obeying Hitler, Paul’s emphasis on ordering rather than personnel makes it clear that God establishes positions of authority, positions that are occupied at different times by different leaders of greater or lesser ability, wisdom, and moral fiber. Paul does not make God responsible for ordaining every leader who ever fills an office. Christians are obligated to respect the role of government per se in their lives, but that is a far cry from being obligated to obey, much less enthusiastically endorse, every wretched leader braying for national allegiance to his every foolish decision.

Subordination vs. Obedience

“A second—equally important—matter of vocabulary arises once we notice that Paul does not command believers always “to obey” the governing authorities (Rom.13:1). Translations that render Romans 13:1 along the lines of “obey the government” (Living Bible, Contemporary English Version, Good News Translation, Worldwide English) seriously misrepresent Paul’s words. Instead of commanding obedience, Paul tells the church “to be subject/to submit” to the way God has “ordered” governing authority. If Paul had intended for the church always to obey the government, he could have used the common word hupokouō (obey) to make his point. But he doesn’t do that; instead, Paul stays with the “order” word group and directs believers to be “subordinate (vv. 1, 5) to the authorities that “have been ordered” by God. In effect, he is reiterating the need for believers to cooperate with God’s design in ordering human society.

“Following the logic of verse 3 is crucial for understanding the full significance of Paul’s refusal to tell the church that they must always obey the government. Notice that Paul’s description of civil authority is utterly idealistic, in so far as he assumes that the church can always count on the government to faithfully enforce God’s expectations. “Rulers are not a terror to those who do what is right but to those who do wrong. If you don’t want to be afraid of the one in authority, do what is right and the authority will praise you” (my translation). Had Paul intended to deliver a lesson on Christian obedience, he missed a perfect opportunity to do so. Notice that he does not say, “Shed your fear of authority by doing what you are told; be obedient.” Instead, Paul counsels the church to free itself from any fear of authority by always “doing what is right.”

“At least two assumptions are at work in this statement. First, Paul’s argument assumes that government authorities will never be corrupt. Their judgments will always faithfully reflect God’s judgments concerning what is good and bad, right and wrong, just and unjust. But we all know better. The claim that “rulers are not a terror to those who do what is right but to those who do wrong” is not always true, and Paul knew it. The civil rights demonstrators who walked across the bridge in Selma, Alabama, with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965 were excoriated by the state’s governor, condemned by the local sheriff, and beaten with clubs by the local police. It is no secret to us or to Paul that rulers can easily reward those who do wrong and become a terror to those who do what is right, but Paul is describing the ideal, the way things are supposed to be, for the sake of his argument.

“Paul’s second assumption is that when government functions as it should, citizens never need to be afraid about doing what is right because “the right” is always what governing authorities will want from their citizens. Those who do what is right can be confident in their Christian obedience because they are simultaneously being submissive to authority, as God requires. In an ideal world, a believer’s act of submission will be synonymous with obedience because the perfect, incorruptible government will never ask its citizens to disobey God.

“Unpacking these assumptions at the root of Paul’s idealization of earthly authority also exposes the prick hidden in his argument. Paul knows that the Roman government does not measure up to this ideal. He cannot possibly in- struct the Roman church always to obey a government that made public sacrifice

Roman Christians were thrown to the lions for refusing to obey the law

to the Roman pantheon a civic responsibility; but he can tell them always to do what is right. When Christians act on what they know is right and those actions coincide with the government’s expectations, Paul’s argument predicts the happy outcome—“do what is right and the authorities will praise you.” But when doing what is right puts the believer on a collision course with government expectations, Paul’s instructions take on even greater significance: “Still do what is right.”

“God’s own perfect government awaits the coming age, when Christ is seated on his earthly throne. As long as Jesus’s disciples live in this world, however, they must anticipate times when the governing authorities will not praise them for doing what they believe is right in the sight of God. So Paul diplomatically commends the Roman government as much as he is able to in his description of the ideal, but he also assiduously avoids giving the church advice that could eventually lead it to compromise with the ungodly designs of a government that is out of step with God’s vision of truth and justice.

“Christians are not commanded always to obey their government or its laws. The church is told to be submissive and always do what is right. Obedience is one way of showing submission to authority, but submission and obedience are not synonymous. In some circumstances the submission God requires will work itself out as disobedience to governing authority. When a government expects believers to do things that the latter believe are wrong, things that will compromise their relationship with Christ, things that will violate their kingdom citizenship, then godly adherence to what is right demands conscientious disobedience against the government. At that point, faithful disciples remain submissive to misguided governmental authority, not by compromising their Christian conscience, but by freely submitting themselves to whatever punishment the authorities threaten to impose for disobedience. Living out the values of the kingdom of God always comes first for the followers of Jesus.”

A Few Thoughts on the Vice-President’s Speech at Today’s Southern Baptist Convention

I watched most of Vice-President Pences’ speech at the Southern Baptist Convention today.  Yes, the SBC has a history of extending bi-partisan

(Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

invitations to its politician guest-speakers.

But in today’s political climate under the Trump presidency, with leading Southern Baptist pastors like Robert Jeffress serving as Trump’s so-called spiritual advisors, the image of a “non-partisan” event has worn a bit thin.

Here are a few of my thoughts as I listened to the Vice-President’s speech:

  1. Listening to the convention’s applause for a thoroughly partisan, political talk reminded me of the recent service where church elders walked out on my message for being too political. Would these same men and woman have walked out on the vice-president this morning?  I doubt that very, very much.
  2. I, too, hope that the recent agreement with North Korea will be a step towards greater peace in that part of the world. I stand with the crowd that wants to see the entire world denuclearized. However, as a simple practical matter, I cannot help but wonder why North Korea would denuclearize so quickly and easily almost immediately after achieving its long-term goal of creating its own nuclear arsenal?  Their nukes are brand new! Call me confused…
  3. In terms of world peace, our obsession with North Korean nuclear weapons is downright bizarre in light of Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Israel possesses an estimated 250+ nuclear weapons.

Israel has refused to sign the international Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow independent inspectors to look at its nuclear facilities.

Much of the early technology for Israel’s nuclear weapons program was obtained by Israeli spies stealing US secrets.

Israel threatens and attacks almost all of its neighbors on a regular basis.

Yet, the US never says a thing about the threat posed to world peace by Israel’s behavior or its nuclear arsenal, while we scream and shout about the dangers North Korea and Iran.  I call this hypocrisy.

  1. Well, I could go on about Pence’s misleading claims about the Trump tax cuts, unemployment, the growing income/wealth gap in American and much more, but this is enough for now.

The main question I kept asking myself was this: what does any of Pence’s partisan chest-thumping have to do with the mission of the Christian church?  I do know that there are SB pastor’s raising the same questions and objections within their denomination.  To them I say, don’t stop objecting. Insist that all South Baptist leaders and their churches prioritize the righteousness of the kingdom of God rather than Republican (or Democratic) politics.

(P.S. Excuse me for some shameless self-promotion, but I think I have written a good book about prioritizing the kingdom of God over and above all partisanship.  It’s called I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America).

Anthony Bourdain, Suicide and the Human Condition. Depression Can Affect Anyone, Including People of Faith

Fans of Anthony Bourdain were saddened this morning to learn that he had committed suicide.

Mr. Bourdain had always struck me as a great guy. I imagined that we could have been good friends.  Although I never knew him, I have come to know a thing or two about the overwhelming sort of sadness that led him to hang himself.

Depression wears many different faces, not all of them bleak, most of them deceptive. As others have already observed, we never truly know what is happening inside another human being.

Heck, much of the time I don’t even know what is happening inside myself.

And while it takes a lifetime of effort to survive in the world, it only takes a moment of overwhelming sadness to bid this life farewell.  Life is unfair in that way.

I know this for I have stood on that precipice, too, and lingered long staring over the edge, sharing in fellowship with people like Anthony Bourdain.

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US.  On average, 123 Americans kill themselves each day.  51% of them do it with a gun.

Christians and other people of faith are not exempt from this danger. In fact, religious convictions can be a complicating factor in a person’s will to live…or to die.

In the fall of 2000, as new faculty member at Calvin College, fresh out of the pastorate, I gave two talks at student chapel services describing my own struggles with depression and thoughts of suicide.  Perhaps now is an appropriate moment to offer abbreviated versions of these talks on my blog.

Here is the first.  I called it:  When You Know Jesus and You Still Want to Die:

Yesterday, I went to see my psychiatrist.  Sometimes I call him my shrink, but I’ve sensed that he doesn’t think that’s funny.  So I’ve stopped calling him that…at least, in his office.  He is a great guy.   I visit him every three months, and we talk about life.

We also talk about whether my medication still seems to be working properly.  That’s the main reason for our appointments.  For the past 5 or 6 years I have taken anti-depressants.  I expect that I will do so for the rest of my life.  And seldom does a day go by when I don’t thank God for the gift of medical research.

I will spare you all the gory details.  Suffice it to say that I have struggled with cyclical bouts of depression, from mild to wild, since I was about 18 years old.  I taught myself to cope.  I learned how to “keep on keepin’ on” until the clouds finally broke and I could see some blue sky again.

But as I hit middle-age the dark periods became darker and longer, and the slices of blue sky became slimmer and duller.  I have long been familiar with thoughts of death and its appeal.  But now I found myself strongly wishing that it would come soon, and thinking about how I should help it along.

Being a Christian didn’t help.  In fact, being a Christian made death all the more appealing.  After all, I knew where I was going, and I believed it would be a much better place where I could finally be free of the darkness.

There’s no darkness in heaven.  Oh my goodness, how I really, reaaallllllly wanted to lay down and finally rest in all that heavenly light.

Honestly, knowing Jesus is not what kept me alive.   Thankfully, God had given me the gift of a family.  Though I did not understand why, I knew that my wife and children all loved me.  And I knew that I would scar my children for the rest of their lives if I took my own life.  So I worked very, very hard at sticking around…for them.

I know that listening to this kind of story makes some people uncomfortable.  Either it hits too close to home, or it is so foreign to you that it sounds like science fiction.  So, I want to offer some encouragement to both groups of people:

(1) For everybody – I owe my mental health, in large part, to the loving support of a beautiful Christian community where I was fortunate enough to be the pastor.  I was a part of a group of people who loved me and accepted me, warts and all.  I was free to talk openly about my struggles, about my depression, and rather than pushing me away, they held me even closer.

My elders and staff members would ask me how my medication was doing, and then they would pray with me.  My small group Bible study passed the hat and raised the money to send my wife and I to a psychiatric retreat center for crazy clergy.  (It was full).  Then when I got back the church asked me to teach them about what I had learned, and they told me they wanted me to be their pastor more than ever.

The Body of Christ loved me through my darkest hours.  I never once felt judged or condemned by anybody.

I know that this is not everyone’s story, but I was fortunate enough that it became mine.

People who struggle with depression tend not to talk about their struggles, at least not in the church, because we are afraid of the ostracism, the silent assumption that there must be something wrong with you if you feel that way.  Every depressed personality has heard the standard, religious lines:

“It’s your own fault.”

“There must be some sin in your life.”

“Pray more/Pray harder/Pray in tongues.”

“Get into the Word more regularly.”

“It must be the Devil.”

“If you were spiritually mature you wouldn’t feel that way.”

“If you really had the Spirit, you wouldn’t need a pill.”

If you hear that kind of advice often enough, leaving this world for heaven sounds more and more inviting…if doesn’t put you off of the faith altogether.

We need to remember the advice that Jesus gave, “Come to me, all you who labor and are carrying heaven burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Jesus then condemned the Pharisees for putting “heavy loads onto the backs of hurting people who were already bent over by more than they can bear.”

The church is called to be the body of Jesus Christ, not the long arm of the self-righteous.  We all need to examine ourselves and pray that the Lord will cleanse us of our wretched judgmentalism and teach us to love all people regardless of their problems.

(2) For those who have never been depressed, let me tell you, people who write self-help books explaining how your attitude is entirely up to you do not understand what it is like to be depressed.

I never understood my depression any better than anyone else.  Intelligence, rationality, will-power, self-discipline, those things all become irrelevant.  You might as well urge Rush Limbaugh to vote for Hillary Clinton as tell a depressed person to just snap out of it.  It’s just not possible.

I would often feel disembodied, as if I was an outside observer watching myself in a bad horror movie.  I would tell myself that I was being totally irrational, that there was no good reason to feel the way I did, that I really needed to do something about the situation, but…I…could…not…do…anything.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are trying to run, but you cannot make your body move?  You are being chased by a pack of ravenous wolves, but…you…just…can’t…move….

Imagine waking up one morning only to discover that it’s not a dream.  It’s real.  You CAN’T move!  You’re frozen.

That’s what it’s like to be depressed.

Please, don’t give you friends glib advice about how they ought to just buck up and feel better.

(3) What about people who are struggling right now? – There is one step I hope you can take:  reach out for help.  Please.  If you are thinking about suicide, know that there are people (some you haven’t met yet) who will love you and want to help you.  Talk to someone you can trust.

There is nothing wrong with talking to a counselor or a therapist.  The Spirit of God has given different gifts to different people.  Some people have the spiritual gift of listening and caring; when that gift is sharpened through study and practice, going to a therapist is simply another way God wants the body of Christ to be a real community.

If you feel you have no one, then call your local suicide hot line.  If you don’t know a local number, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.  Call a distant relative. Visit a neighbor.  Talk to someone.  Anyone.

There is nothing to be ashamed of in talking, confessing, asking for help. I know how hard it is.  I know that I felt ashamed.  I suspect that most of us who live with depression feel ashamed most of the time.

I felt ashamed of not being able to make myself feel better.  And admitting to depression feels like adding one more failure to the list.

And to be told that you may have to take medication…  No way! When I first heard those words I cried like a baby, partly because it felt as though I was surrendering to mental illness, and I was ashamed of my apparent weakness.

Friends, all of those thoughts and feelings are a lie.

The fact is, we live in a world that does not work right.  Believe it or not, this is the hidden consolation to be found in the Christian doctrine of original sin.

This life is not the way God originally intended it to be.  Sin has thrown a huge monkey wrench into the cosmos, and shrapnel has flown everywhere, ripping huge, ugly gashes throughout every part of God’s good creation.

Babies are now born prematurely and come into this world scarred with birth defects.  Cancer ravages our parents and grandparents, cutting their lives short before our own children ever have a chance to get to know them.

For some of us, our brain chemistry is all fouled up so we can’t always think straight or feel right.  Fortunately, we live in a time where surgery can perform wonders for premature babies.  And cancer treatments can prolong people’s lives for years.  And…when necessary…for some of us…medication can help the chemicals in our brains to finally start working the way God intended them to.

Admitting to a problem is never a weakness; it is never something to be ashamed of.

Reaching out for help, admitting your limitations is a step of maturity, just as offering such help to others and loving hurting people is a task for the church.  For, at the end of the day, it is only within those sorts of honest, caring relationships that we can begin to experience what it means to be loved by Jesus.