Tag: Discipleship

Following Jesus with Kierkegaard: The Best Apologetics is a Genuine Christian Life

Certain sectors of American evangelicalism are devoted to the study of  apologetics, that is the defense of the Christian faith and the relieving of  doubts.  Some seminaries even offer doctoral programs in apologetics, as if an advanced degree will make anyone a better evangelist, or a more successful resolver of doubts.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I am not opposed to advanced education.  But I am leery of the American penchant for professionalizing normal aspects of the Christian life with advanced degrees and curriculae.

What’s next?  A Ph.D. in spiritual direction?  I am afraid to look, but I fear that somewhere, someplace, someone is already offering degrees in spirituality.

Alas…

In 1851 Sǿren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) published For Self-Examination: Recommended to the Present Age and Judge for Yourself!: For Self-ExaminationRecommended to the Present Age.  These books continue his investigations into genuine Christian discipleship and what true believers must look like in a society where Christianity has degenerated into either a passé, cultural artifact, a mere act of mental assent or an emotional high.

Is the problem that such cultures need more or better apologists to alleviate people’s doubts about Christ?

In Judge for Yourself!, Kierkegaard insists that the best answer to anyone’s doubts about Christianity is an authentic Christian life lived in front of them, a life of obedient discipleship devoted to the imitation of Christ.

He writes:

“Imitation, which corresponds to Christ as the prototype, must…be affirmed again…Without introducing imitation it is impossible to gain mastery over doubts.  Therefore, the state of things in Christendom is such that doubt has replaced faith. And then they want to stop doubt with — reasons…They still have not learned that it is wasted effort — indeed, that it feeds doubt, gives it a basis for continuing. They are still not aware that imitation is the only force that can break up the mob of doubts and clear the area and compel one, if one does not want to be an imitator, at least to go home and hold one’s tongue.

“Imitation, which corresponds to Christ as prototype, must be advanced, be affirmed, be called to our attention.

“…The Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not come to the world in order to bring a doctrine…he did not try by way of reasons to prevail upon anyone…His teaching was really his life, his existence.  If someone wanted to be his follower, his approach, as seen in the Gospel, was different from lecturing.  To such a person he said something like this: Venture a decisive act; then we can begin.

“Venture a decisive act [Jesus says to us]; the proof does not precede but follows, is in and with the imitation that follows Christ.  That is, when you have ventured the decisive act, you become heterogeneous with [i.e. contrary to, standing against] the life of this world, cannot have your life in it, come into collision with it.  Then you will gradually be brought into such tension that you will be able to become aware of what I am talking about. The tension will also have the effect upon you that you understand that you cannot endure it without having recourse to me [Jesus] — then we can begin.  Could one expect anything else from the truth?“

Faith in Jesus is the decisive venture, the ultimate risk, the act of obedience compelling us to live an upside-down, counter-cultural life in a fallen world simply because our Savior tells us to.

A Review of “From Here to Maturity” by Thomas Bergler, With Commentary on the National Disaster that is American Evangelicalism

From Here to Maturity: Overcoming the Juvenilization of American Christianity (Eerdmans, 2014) is the sequel to Thomas Bergler’s acclaimed book, The Juvenilization of American Christianity.  (See my review).  In his second book, Bergler offers practical advice for church leaders searching for remedies to the problems of perpetually juvenile congregations.  The goal is to grow churches of maturing disciples not content with permanent states of spiritual adolescence.

Chapter 1, “We’re All Adolescents Now,” briefly reviews the conclusions of Bergler’s extensive historical survey in The Juvenilization of American Christianity.  Once again, he defines juvenilization as “the process by which the religious beliefs, practices, and developmental characteristics of adolescents become accepted – or even celebrated – as appropriate for Christians of all ages” (2).  We should probably add the word indefinitely or forever to this definition.  Everyone is a juvenile at some point, but it should be short-lived, not a permanent condition.

The congregational expression of adolescent faith is a strong preference for “emotionally comforting, self-focused, and intellectually shallow” church services and worship experiences where a person’s connection to Christ is typically described as “falling in love with Jesus.”  The vocabulary of teenage romance becomes normative for all Christian faith among all ages, all the time.

After diagnosing these problems, Bergler provides a good, if brief, survey of maturity vocabulary in the New Testament, highlighting passages that distinguish mature from immature faith and the essential characteristics of mature Christianity (for example, see Hebrews 5:11 – 6:12).  Chapter 2 then elaborates on the New Testament descriptions of how this spiritual growth can be nurtured, including the fact that such development is not optional.  It is not ok to remain content with a juvenile faith.  Mature Christians are described as:

  • knowing “foundational Christian teachings well enough to explain them to others” (38)
  • able to discern the differences between sound and unsound teaching, encouraging the one and opposing the other while putting it into practice
  • embracing suffering and trials, especially for the sake of the gospel, as essential aspects of maturation
  • understanding that they are “being conformed to the death and resurrection of Christ,” especially by their sacrificial service to others (39)
  • devoted to the unity and development of the church, rejecting unloving actions intended to cause division (41)
  • actively “putting off the old self and putting on the new self” while displaying Godly character (42).

The process of spiritual growth requires (1) sound teaching on the importance of Christian maturity and what it looks like within the context of (2) personal relationships where mature believers can serve as “spiritual parents” to newer believers, modeling the maturation process in community.

The remainder of the book explores specific ways for church leaders to become intentional and specific in their promotion of congregational maturity across all age groups.  Chapter 3, “Helping Adults Mature,” grapples with motivating and instructing the current generation of juvenilized adults who have never known anything other than “youth group” Christianity.

One of the greatest challenges to this demographic is the development of mature emotional patterns.  Bergler says, “Among contemporary American Christians, it seems that feelings are too often obstacles rather than resources for spiritual growth…They think that the way to grow closer to God is to seek new and better emotional experiences” (72).  Bergler encourages leaders to adopt Dallas Willard’s useful model of VIM, referring to a strategy for implementing Vision, Intention, and Means.

Chapter 4 elaborates on the need for congregational-wide planning by refocusing on healthy youth group strategies.  Juvenilization is the result of adolescent ministry strategies expanding throughout congregational life and becoming normative for all age levels.  Bergler’s maturation strategy encourages youth ministries to adopt processes of spiritual growth that are transferable throughout the entire congregation.  The road of spiritual influences would be a two-way street, from youth to adults as well as from adults to youth.

This chapter is the lengthiest and most elaborate section of Bergler’s book.  I suspect that many readers will find his suggestions too programmatic and complex for their liking.  It certainly appears overwhelming, at least it did to me.  But Bergler offers a number of practical suggestions for modifying, adapting and customizing this material in ways that keep the Biblical essentials while allowing for flexible implementation.  It is well worth studying the results of his research and then brainstorming with others about the best ways to implement processes for congregational maturity in your church.

Living in a culture that can be very anti-intellectual – within the church, this attitude typically expresses itself in “anti-theological” language; we have all heard it – Bergler emphasizes the importance of leaders teaching sound theology to their congregations.  Good teachers figure out ways to make Christian theology accessible and practical while highlighting its importance.

Allow me to quote at length from Bergler’s conclusions on the centrality of theology:

“First, theology provides the basic truths and principles of discernment that every mature Christian must embrace…Both the biblical and sociological evidence confirm that churches that help people learn, love, and live theology (as opposed to just having uninformed good feelings about God) tend to produce more spiritually mature Christians…

“Second, theological reflection can help church leaders identify the barriers to spiritual maturity in their congregations.  Often it is not the official theology of the church that hinders spiritual maturity; rather, it is the lived theology of the congregation that gets in the way…When churches find it hard to get adults to care about the youth ministry or to get young people to care about the rest of the church, a lived theology of the church that does not challenge American individualism and age segregation may be one of the causes” (112).

Amen.

Bergler’s final chapter, “From Here to Maturity,” links to several diagnostic indices offering tools for congregational assessment.  Understanding a congregation’s current maturity level is a preliminary step in determining the right strategy for moving forward.  Again, some readers will find this chapter too programmatic for their liking.  Leaders who ignore his advice, however, do so at their own peril.  Remember James’ warning that “teachers will be judged more strictly” (3:1).

To illustrate his analysis for the need of remedial leadership, Bergler focuses on congregational worship and the importance of changing the style of music to which so many American church-goers have become accustomed – though he does touch on other issues as well.

Bergler is particularly concerned about “the ways that certain contemporary worship practices mimic pop culture” (127).  And, No, he is not a fighting-fundi condemning rock-and-roll in church.  He is analyzing musical content and the patterns of thought and expression embedded in the lyrics.  A brief but important discussion of research in cognitive psychology explains how musical preferences can “hard-wire” our neural circuitry into “schemas” or mental, neural patterns that “reinforce patterns of thinking and behaving” without our ever realizing the ways in which our brains are being programmed (130).

Bergler focuses on two problems in contemporary worship:

First, a great many contemporary worship songs are me-focused rather than God-focused.  A congregation can easily spend more time referring to themselves, singing about things they are going to do, rather than focusing on our Triune God, declaring the things that He has done.  There is a proper time and place for talking about ourselves – especially as we confess our guilt and sin, repent and ask for forgiveness; rarely performed acts of worship in non-liturgical churches nowadays – but for many congregations singing about oneself is the main course all the time.

Second, a great deal of contemporary church music “draws from the North American culture of romantic love” (126).  The result is that “falling in love” or “being in love” with Jesus becomes the central image of Christian living.  True love becomes the agent of salvation (131), despite the fact that New Testament passages using marriage or marriage feasts as metaphors for Christ’s relationship to the church never tell believers that they should be in love with Jesus (check out the passages listed on page 133).

Allow me to quote Bergler at length one last time:

“Slow dance worship songs are drawing on American cultural scripts about romantic relationships for their emotional impact. Those exposed to a steady diet of this music will be tempted to embrace the Christian life as a kind of romantic infatuation…such Christians may develop a self-centered relationship with Jesus…They will value the way Jesus makes them feel and will be much less concerned about the theological content of the faith.  Too many slow dances with Jesus may reinforce immature forms of the Christian life (132).

“A relationship with Jesus the master involves training and submission, not just emotional comfort…Followers of Jesus give up all claims to their own life and devote themselves to joining him in his kingdom mission…Slow dance worship music does little to grow mature Christian communities.  With its emphasis on the one-on-one relationship between Jesus and the believer (“Jesus I am so in love with you”) it does nothing to counteract the rampant individualism in American society. The particular brand of individualism found in this music emphasizes how God fits into my life and provides me what I need, not how I need to fit into God’s kingdom.  In other words, it reinforces the therapeutic or even narcissistic religion that is rampant in contemporary America” (134-135).

Bergler offers some excellent advice on how to sensibly address these issues and implement much needed changes in church life.  I recommend reading his book for yourself to discover the details of what he suggests.

As I conclude this review, I find myself meditating on the abysmal spiritual condition of American evangelicalism in this era of Trump and wondering to what extent Bergler’s diagnosis of juvenilized Christianity helps to explain the many current, evangelical political behaviors that I find utterly abhorrent, even down-right pagan.  Remember, 81% of self-identified evangelicals voted for this man.  White evangelical support for Trump remains at an all-time high despite his noxious behavior, war-mongering, flagrant disregard for common decency, dehumanizing of others — especially women — immigrants and people of color, pathological lies, misrepresentations and stunning political ineptitude.

It makes perfect sense to me that our malignantly narcissistic, petulant man-child of a president continues to ride the wave of support given to him by equally self-centered, childish, anti-intellectual, evangelical “Christians” who have never learned the value of spiritual discernment, theological acumen, self-denial, or obedience to the kingdom mission of Jesus Christ before every other distraction.

In the book of Revelation, John the Seer warns the church about their need for spiritual maturity if they hope to stand firm until the very End.

“This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints” (Rev. 13:10).

“This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus” (Rev. 14:12).

Another of history’s many antichrists (see 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7) now sits in the oval office.  Thus far, America’s juvenilized evangelicals remain Trump’s staunchest supporters.  The devotees most lacking in conscience impute to him an almost messianic status as The One sent to us by God.  What further proof is needed of the destructive social consequences born of wholesale, unapologetic childishness among God’s people?

The shepherds who failed to instill maturity throughout their flocks, who never even thought to ask the right questions, will one day be held accountable for their neglect of God’s children.  They will “weep and wail” because of their faithlessness (Jeremiah 25:34-35).

The church is not exempt from divine judgment.  We dare not forget Israel’s own pitiful example:

“Like a woman unfaithful to her husband,

so, you have been unfaithful to me,

O house of Israel,” declares the LORD…

A cry is heard on the barren heights,

the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel,

because they have perverted their ways

and have forgotten the LORD their God.

“Return, faithless people;

I will cure you of your backsliding.”…

Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hills [e.g. Capitol Hill]

and the mountains is a deception;

surely in the LORD our God

is the salvation of Israel.  (Jeremiah 3:20-23)

Am I suggesting that there is a straight line from slow-dancing with Jesus to embracing Donald Trump?  No.  But circuitous, evasive lines full of detours, while trickier to trace out, are no less significant.

And we all know that subtle, hidden connections can be more dangerous than obvious straight lines.

Stories of Self-Denial, 2

Having confronted my earlier failure to ask Jesus what he wanted to do with my life, I completed my undergraduate degree in wildlife biology and did something I would have never thought possible – I stepped into Christian ministry.  (Check out part 1 of this story here).

My friend, Marv Anderson, convinced me to join the staff of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.  Terry and I moved to Salt Lake City, UT where I worked on the campus of the University of Utah.  Four years of campus ministry with university students convinced me that I had to pursue graduate work in theology and Biblical studies, but that pastoral, parish work was the last thing I would ever consider.

Jesus had certainly been answering my daily prayer that he teach me to love people, but he hadn’t altered my basic makeup as an introvert.  Yes, I was learning to care deeply about others, but they still exhausted me.  I couldn’t imagine becoming a pastor, dealing with the messiness and conflicts of congregational life day after exhausting day.  So, I searched for a graduate school offering advanced degrees in Christian theology without directing students into the pastorate.

I enrolled in Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

My first year at Regent blew my mind.  I absolutely loved studying theology, church history, Biblical studies and languages.  Perhaps I will share more miraculous stories from my time at Regent in future posts.  Terry and I were the beneficiaries of many, many miracles during those years.  We also made a number of life-long friends.  Those years living in Blaine, Washington were foundational in making us the people we are today.

But, alas, in my second year of study, the leadership at Regent College double-crossed me!  The powers-that-be decided to add a Masters of Divinity program to their catalogue.  An M.Div. degree is the standard gateway course of study for would be pastors.  To make matters worse, I began to sense that God was calling me to switch programs and enter the M.Div. program.  Yikes!

Following Jesus is a mysterious way to live.  For instance, how do you know when an invisible God, whom you have never seen, who does not speak in an audible voice (at least, not to me) is “telling” you to do something?  And not something in general, like “be a nice person,” but something very specific, like “change your major and enter the M.Div. program you have been running away from”?

Well, you just do.

Following the Holy Spirit is one of those things a person has to experience for themselves in order to understand it – and here I am using the word “understand” very flexibly.  Some would say I am stretching it beyond recognition.  Real Christianity is always mystical at its core.  If a person says they follow Jesus but has never experienced the ineffable compulsion to do this, go there, start that, move over here – especially when those urges direct you in ways that run contrary to your personal preferences – then I would suggest that person is only pretending to follow Jesus.

Remember, the way of Jesus is a way of self-denial.

I pushed back against God’s mystical shove towards the M.Div. program for weeks.  Yet, try as I might, I could not shake the sense that Jesus was telling me to sign up.  My early morning devotional times became lengthy wrestling matches where I worked hard at convincing God that he was making a terrible mistake.  If he had wanted me to become a church pastor, he should have made me a different person.  I simply did not have the proper personality to become a successful church minister.  Why had He made me this way if that was His design for my future?

I still remember the moment of my surrender, actually if was more like a collapse, as if it were yesterday.  I was spiritually and emotionally exhausted.  It is not easy to fight against your Creator.  At least, not if you are trying to love Him at the same time.  In the early morning darkness, sitting in my Blaine living room, I prayed this prayer:

“Ok Lord.  I think that you are making a big mistake.  You made me in such a way that I can never be anything more than a second-rate pastor.  But if that is what you want me to do, then I will try to become the best second-rate pastor I can be.”

That morning I went to the Regent registrar’s office and switched my course of studies to the M.Div. program.  I did not know where or how I could become a minister, since I had no denominational ties or support.  But when Jesus tells you to do something, it’s best to leave the future necessities to Him.  He knows how to work out the details.

I did eventually become the pastor of a church in Salt Lake City.  I was there for 9 years.  When people ask me about it, I sometimes quote a line from the opening of Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities:  it was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

The Lord and I continued to have regular wrestling matches.  Many were the prayers that repeated my fears: “I told you, Lord!  Why am I here?  I am in over my head. I feel like I am drowning. You should have made me a different kind of person.”  And then the prayers would resolve themselves in a new moment of surrender: “But I know you brought me here, Jesus.  It’s up to you to make this work.  I’ll continue to try my best, but I need all the help you can give me.”

During those 9 years of pastoral ministry, I also experienced more of the grace, mercy and the power of God than I had ever dreamed possible.  All together our church body grew in maturity as we shared in more miracles, saw more lives changed, helped more new people enter into the kingdom of God and witnessed more genuine discipleship than I had ever seen before.  I experienced genuine Christian community in very profound ways through the love and support of church members who helped carry me through some of the hardest times of my young life.

I miss those 9 years even as I never want to relive them.  All I can tell you is that, in every way at all times, our God is always good.

We rarely, if ever, know what is best for us.  Heck, we don’t even know what is mediocre.  But Jesus does, and he wants to guide us into a peculiar way of fulfillment through self-sacrificial service because sacrifice is the way of fulfillment – at least, it is for people who follow Jesus.

Jesus says, “Everyone who wants to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.  Anyone trying to save their life will lose it.  But whoever loses their life for me and the gospel will find it.”

Yes, Virginia, You Can Make Sense of the Bible

 

The recent brouhaha stirred up by Jeff Session’s reference to Romans 13, in defense of Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their

St. Jerome studying scripture

parents, has irritated another of my pet peeves. (Check out my explanation of Romans 13, lifted from my book I Pledge Allegiance, here and here).

So, I have decided to chime in on the latest Bible reading controversy.

First, let me say that I have been upset with Jeff Sessions for a long time, beginning with his record of refusing to enforce Alabama’s civil rights laws.  Concerning his comments on illegal immigrants, I found his earlier public statement on Trump’s policy most mind-numbingly dystopian when he referred to parents illegally bringing their children across the border as “smugglers.”

What?  Yes, loving parents who risk everything they have trying to get their children someplace where they can try for a better, longer and safer life, suddenly become child smugglers in Sessions’ view.  Oh boy.  George Orwell would have a field day with Mr. Sessions’ use of the English language.

Most recently, Christian and secular media alike are up in arms about Sessions’ reference to Romans 13:1-7, a New Testament text that mentions “submission” to government authority.  Both he and Sarah Sanders have cited the Bible’s apparent emphasis on law-keeping as somehow a universally applicable word from God on following orders.

Apparently, no one in the Trump administration has heard of the Nuremburg defense, which is, in fact, no defense at all.  And we all should beware of politicians citing Bible verses!

Inevitably, as the ruckus brews the media chimes in on the dubious citation of Christian scripture in arbitrating American public policy.  Next, we have the unavoidable influx of historians dispassionately describing the various ways that the Bible has been interpreted and (mis)applied in the past.

This historical overview typically provides a very unsavory retelling of humanity’s worst impulses justified by assorted Bible verses wrenched from their contexts.  Or are they?  How can we know?  Helpful guidance on answering these questions is rarely a part of the historians’ contribution.

Prepare yourself for the onslaught of historical references to slavery, South African apartheid, western colonialism, southern opposition to desegregation, and any number of atrocious actions, all of which were once defended by “good Christians” standing on the supposedly solid rock of Romans 13.

By the time this public furor has run its course, the only thing most people are sure of – including the Christian historians with their scurrilous illustrations and the run-of-the-mill believer with a now dented faith in scripture – is that the Bible makes a handy club for battering the less fortunate.  It is subject to so many different, competing, even contradictory readings that it is impossible for anyone – except, perhaps, for a few ivory pillar, egg-head scholars, who can’t even agree among themselves – to know what the Bible may actually mean.

Eventually, the controversy dies down.  Everyone returns to their own corner, while the general public is confirmed in its long-held suspicion that the Bible is, in fact, just as inscrutable as they had always suspected.  No one can say for sure what any part of it actually means.  There are as many possible interpretations as there are readers.  All interpretations are equally plausible, it seems.  There is no way to sort out the preposterous from the compelling.

Thus, most folks continue along the road of least resistance.  The majority continue to ignore the Bible altogether.  Why not?  Those who bother to read it at all are confirmed in reading the Bible as they wish.  We interpret it as we wish. We apply it as we wish.  And we castigate our opponents for being wrong as we wish.

This is the point where I begin to scream, jump up and down, and pull out my hair.  (Luckily, I have a lot of it. I need every last strand.)

I watched a good many of these “the futility of turning to scripture” cycles when I taught at Calvin College.  I heard students and faculty alike conclude, with a greater or lesser – often a much lesser, even diffident – sense of disappointment, that the Bible offered no help at all in adjudicating our ethical debates. So, let’s forget about Bible reading and move on to the more substantive matters of general morality with the infusion of “Christian values” into public policy.

I sometimes quizzed people at this point in the conversation.

I asked a few simple questions. I initially asked because I was genuinely curious about the answers. But eventually I asked because it was a good way to make an important point. Here are my questions:

  • What parts of the relevant Biblical passage(s) do you find most difficult to understand? Why?
  • Which commentaries have you consulted as you have tried to resolve your questions?
  • Which commentaries were most helpful to you? Why?
  • Among the different possible interpretations that you have discovered, which one(s) do you find most convincing? Why?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different interpretive options?
  • What are the different, possible social applications arising from these various interpretations? How has your preferred application influenced your choice of preferred interpretation?

Actually, believe it or not, I never got further than the second question.  The reason is simple:  I never encountered anyone who invested that much energy into finding answers to their questions.  I am not surprised when the general public knows so little about reading scripture, but I was asking my questions of faculty and staff members at a Christian college with a sizeable theological library available to anyone.  Oi vey…

Yep, sometimes understanding the Bible takes a bit of work.  But discussions that leave us believing that scripture is hopelessly inscrutable are irksomely lazy, misleading and just plain wrong.

First, I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God.  If a person doesn’t believe that statement, then they are off the hook when it comes to the work of interpretation, but they should also stop pontificating about the Bible’s usefulness/uselessness in today’s world.

Second, if a person does share my belief in Biblical inspiration, then it should follow that expending a bit of effort in the task of rightly understanding a Word from God is no big deal.  So, get to work.

Third, every Christian ought to read and study scripture regularly, even daily, with the help of (at least) a good single-volume Bible commentary and a Bible dictionary.

Fourth, yes, there are many multi-volume Bible commentary sets available.  But I will let you in on a little secret: a good many of the modern series are not saying anything particularly new about the Bible.  Most of them exist because today’s publishing houses all want to market their own set of books.  Yes, you will find some variations in interpretation.  There are some choices to be made, but not nearly as many as there are commentaries to buy.  Don’t be fooled by the abundance of books available.

Fifth, a good commentary will survey the interpretive options available whenever a text has been read in different ways throughout church history.  It will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each interpretation, concluding with the commentator’s own preference and the reasons for that selection.  Don’t rely on commentaries where the author only pushes his own views without explanation or looking at the alternatives.  (Note: there are far fewer alternatives than the pundits want you to believe).

Sixth, notice how much of the Bible is actually rather straight-forward.  Yes, historical background is a big help here and there, but most of scripture’s pages will speak to you very simply and straightforwardly.  And remember, the Spirit is always calling us to respond.

So ask yourself: How does this reading want to change me?

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.

Practice in Christianity, with Sǿren Kierkegaard #kierkegaard

In my opinion, Sǿren Kierkegaard’s book Practice in Christianity is one of the best handbooks on Christian discipleship ever written.  Personally, I far prefer Kierkegaard over Bonhöffer’s Cost of Discipleship.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Kierkegaard lived in Christendom. He knew very well what it meant for people to define their “Christianity” in terms of nationality and earthly citizenship.  Loyalty to one’s homeland, patriotism, military service, church attendance, mourning over the redemptive deaths of Danish soldiers, these were the liturgies and sacraments that defined a good Christian life in his world.

But Kierkegaard had the spiritual maturity and insight, not only to realize how corrupting the Christendom counterfeit could be, he also had the prophetic fortitude to loudly warn his compatriots of Christendom’s fiendish ability to snuff out authentic Christian witness.

For everyone who believes that society ought to be more hospitable and welcoming to Christianity, so that the church can enjoy greater privilege (and maintain its tax-exempt status); for all who imagine that the legislature and the courts can advance the kingdom of God, or that the rules of church discipline ought to be imposed on everyone in the public square, Kierkegaard observes:

 “As long as this world lasts and the Christian church in it, it is a militant church; yet it has the promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  But woe, woe to the Christian church when it will be victorious in this world, for then it is not the church that has been victorious but the world. Then the heterogeneity [the contrast] between Christianity and the world has vanished, the world has won, and Christianity has lost.”

The church militant is the body of Christ that understands this world is not home.  If we become too comfortable, we have forgotten our mission. Authentic discipleship always faces opposition.

Suffering with and for Jesus is the defining characteristic of genuine Christian living in this fallen world.  The true church, which is always the militant church, never forgets these things.

Keeping Christianity Difficult with Sǿren Kierkegaard

I plan on periodically sharing excerpts from the writings of Sǿren Kierkegaard, one of my favorite Christian authors.  Whether or not you agree with him, he is always worth reading (very slowly) and pondering (usually, for a long time).

Here is our Kierkegaard reading for today:

“Hardship is the road [for the Christian life].  Far be from us this hypocritical talk that life is so varied that some are walking along the same road without hardships, others in hardships…Doubt about the task [of discipleship] always has its stronghold in the idea that there could be other roads…but since hardship is the road, the hardship cannot be removed without removing the road, and there cannot be other roads, but only wrong roads.”

In other words, living for Jesus by definition brings difficulty and suffering.  If following Jesus has never made my life more complicated, more difficult, then I am probably not really following Jesus.  I am simply taking a walk.

The Danish Christian thinker, Sǿren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), has been an important spiritual friend of mine for many years.  His writings have provided me with comfort, encouragement, challenge and insight, always mixed with spiritual and intellectual stimulation.

I have even written a book – Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture – explaining how Kierkegaard’s “way of knowing” through personal experience is, in fact, the New Testament’s own account of acquiring faith through spiritual experience.

Engaging Kierkegaard has helped me to persevere in following my Lord. Though, as the famous Dane repeatedly confessed, I continue in the process of following Jesus, dependent entirely on his grace.  I still have a long way to go in being conformed to the image of our Savior.

Kierkegaard often went so far as to say that he was in the process of becoming a Christian.  He had not yet arrived.  And, no. He did NOT say this because he believed in earning his way into God’s kingdom by relying on works righteousness.

Kierkegaard talked this way because 19th century Denmark was a nation in the throes of “Christendom.”  That is, the vast majority of its citizens attended the Lutheran state church, and almost everyone considered themselves to be Christian simply because they were Danish.  Denmark was, after all, a “Christian nation.”

Sound familiar?

Following his conversion out of Christendom and into genuine repentance and trust in Jesus Christ, Kierkegaard became a resident missionary to his own people.  He well understood that the Jesus we encounter in the New Testament is highly offensive to anyone who takes him seriously.  After all, Jesus makes the most outrageous demands of his followers.

When the gospel of Jesus Christ is explained truthfully, it is highly offensive and inconvenient.  Jesus repells as well he as attracts.  He offers the average listener many more reasons to say, No, than to say, Yes.

So, as a missionary to Christian Denmark, Kierkegaard became convinced that he must make Christianity difficult.  For only by hearing the highly offensive challenge embedded in the Lordship of Jesus Christ does anyone hear the truth of the gospel.

Making Christianity “difficult,” then, was simply a matter of talking about Jesus faithfully. Something that was in short supply in 19th century Denmark, especially among pastors and theologians working for the state church.

But, if we stop to think about it, Kierkegaard’s Denmark was not all that different from America today.

Even though the United States has never embraced an established, state church, far too many Americans are blinded by a similar idolatry – belief in a Christian nation where patriotism eclipses allegiance to the resurrected Jesus.

Yes. Our country desperately needs to hear a much more difficult brand of Christianity.

Strengthening the Community of Kingdom Citizens, An Excerpt from My New Book

Here is an excerpt from my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st-Century America, pages 190-94. Consult the print edition to follow up on the notes.

Available from: Eerdmans or Barnes&Noble or Amazon

Strengthening the Community of Kingdom Citizens

My brief but significant experience of spontaneous community that hot Chicago night offers a good corollary to the central role that should be filled by the Christian church in the implementation of Jesus’s kingdom ethics in this world. As the community of flesh-and-blood citizens inhabiting God’s kingdom, the church is called to be the birthplace and the supportive family that assists faithful disciples in both the blessings and the risks awaiting anyone daring enough to obey Jesus’s upside-down model of loving God.

In fulfilling this mission, God’s kingdom community will be characterized by a number of essential features, none of which are electives from which we may pick and choose as we like. Rather, they are each defining traits that identify the church as church, as opposed to its being a curious religious/ social club. First, every kingdom community will be awash in biblical teaching that explains how Christ not only died for us but also how he lived for us in order to exemplify the way of salvation. A community of the redeemed will worship and adore the Lord Jesus for his gracious sacrifice, and it will exemplify his teaching and ministry throughout the regular affairs of daily life.

Consequently, the material contained in this book should not be unfamiliar to members of the body of Christ. On the contrary, all of these lessons should be old hat for anyone who regularly attends a Christian church, as familiar as a child’s nursery rhyme to even the youngest novice disciple. Wherever Jesus’s teaching is new or unfamiliar, remedial measures need to be vigorously implemented by church leaders, for the community obviously has not fulfilled its responsibilities. Anyone inclined to reject Jesus’s gospel lessons as objectionable or unrealistic requires mentoring by more mature disciples who can explain the importance of following Jesus faithfully from their own personal experience. As both Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard insisted, in this world the true church is always the church militant, never the church triumphant.

Whenever the church becomes a byword for prosperity, comfort, and success, or offers nothing more than a blasé ceremonial blessing draped over a safe, middle-class life proceeding without inconvenience or interruption, then the church has ceased to be the church. Those who refuse to embrace the difficulties of authentic discipleship need a good talking to, an occasion on which they are told, gently but firmly, that their behavior belies their confession. Jesus warned the boastful disciples who were seeking recognition for their gifts of prophecy and miracles:

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.” (Matt. 7:21–23)

We dare not forget that the Father’s will, previously described by Jesus in Matthew 5–7, never says anything about working miracles, exorcisms, or delivering prophecies. Rather, true disciples reveal themselves as those who are poor in spirit (5:3), meek and merciful (5:4–7), behave as peacemakers (5:9), are persecuted for the sake of Jesus and his gospel (5:10–12), never carry grudges (5:21–26), always speak the truth and keep their word (5:33–37), love, serve, and pray for their enemies (5:28–48), share generously with anyone in need without ever demanding repayment (6:1–4), forgive all those who sin against them (6:14–15), and make faithful kingdom citizenship the number-one priority of life (6:33).

No one can follow the Lord Jesus by moving exclusively along broad, smooth, level, six-lane highways festooned with convenience stores, gas stations, restaurants, and health spas. Jesus warns us in advance that he rarely travels those routes. His preferred pathways are dusty, narrow, steep, rocky, inconvenient, lacking in amenities, and often dangerous. No one can complain that they weren’t warned. Jesus commands us to “enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13–14).

Serving among such faithful Christian communities entails the cultivation of a normative Christian self-understanding throughout the entire body of Christ that focuses on the ultimacy of life in the kingdom of God. The focal point of a disciple’s identity is life in Christ, not nationality, gender, sexual orientation, career, hobbies, levels of personal consumption, leisure-time pursuits or political activities. This self-understanding will express itself as community members (a) consistently think, believe, and behave according to the upside-down values of God’s kingdom; (b) remember that this world is not the believer’s true home, that we are only pilgrims here, strangers passing through a fallen world on our way to a perfected, eternal home; (c) learn not to value what the rest of this world values so that we remain free of its deceptive power—for us “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21); (d) remember that we are always sinners saved by grace, even as we are being sanctified through experience. This means that following Jesus—at some level, in some way—will commonly run contrary to our natural inclinations. When my faith in Jesus never makes me the oddball in the board room, then I know that I have lost my way somewhere along the line.

Human nature, being what it is, will frenetically poke and prod each of us, looking for a way to turn this advice into the framework for a new game of spiritual one-upmanship. But kingdom communities will consciously foster an environment that rejects legalism and works-righteousness while making grace-filled obedience to a forgiving Savior central. We will bear each other’s burdens, rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn (Rom. 12:15), not guffawing at those who bungle or turning green with envy at those who succeed. Richard Burridge makes an important observation in his book Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics, when he notes that, whereas Jesus’s ethical instruction is always rigorous and demanding, his actual treatment of repentant sinners, including his doubtful disciples who often fail him, is always gracious and forgiving.2 Anyone who genuinely wants to follow Jesus can always have another chance—another chance to do the hard things he tells us to do. Jesus is like the patient parent who anxiously anticipates the day when his child will walk all the way to school by herself; but as long as the child remains an infant, he lovingly cheers her on at every feeble act of faith, no matter how imperfect, one faltering step at a time. But he never excuses her from the task of walking.

Moments of fellowship and mutual support in such communities will extend well beyond the typical chitchat about ball games and vacation plans. It will include regular stories of how our friends have taken risks, suffered setbacks, and been shunned by others in their efforts to live for Jesus. The church community will be able to recite the details of miraculous interventions, dramatically transformed lives, amazing answers to prayer, and the refreshing presence of the Holy Spirit—all of which occurred because faithful brothers and sisters were serious about the risky business of following Jesus.

Conversely, there is no reason for God’s kingdom people to expect similar behavior from those living outside of the kingdom or to shun unbelievers for violating the norms of kingdom living. Unfortunately, this is an ancient confusion that many in the church perpetuate today. When the apostle Paul condemned sexual immorality within the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 5:1–5), he urged the community to discipline the guilty parties by banning them from the fellowship until they repented and changed their ways (vv. 2, 5, 11). Discipline was a tool for redemption. The church, however, grabbed the wrong end of the stick and mistakenly assumed that Paul’s admonition “not to associate with sexually immoral people” (v. 9) meant that they should not have any dealings with people outside of the Christian community. This is always the easier—and more self-righteous—decision to make. However, Paul offers a quick correction:

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral. . . . In that case you would have to leave this world. . . . What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. (1 Cor. 9–13)

The church suffers from a massive delusion when its members think they are justified in refusing to do business with “sinners” outside of the community. Are we to assume that Paul, the tent-maker (Acts 18:3), never sold a tent to local shoppers in the marketplace because they, like everyone else in the ancient world, prayed to their household-ancestor deities before family meals?3 I doubt that very much. Consequently, Christians are not being persecuted when they suffer the legal consequences of such self-righteous discrimination against those unlike themselves. Whatever the penalties may be for this misguided misbehavior, none of it has anything to do with following Jesus of Nazareth, the man who feasted with sinners, tax-collectors, and prostitutes.

Finally, a community of kingdom citizens will work to break down the traditional, destructive liberal/conservative political dichotomies by doing evangelism an proclaiming historically orthodox theology while simultaneously encouraging widespread counter-cultural kingdom living and social activism among its members. The modern American evangelical church’s unhelpful identification of historic orthodox theology with conservative Republican politics, while it identifies and links liberal, unorthodox theology with progressive Democratic politics, has always been a poisonous misrepresentation that is damaging to both ends of the political spectrum. The kingdom of God can never be identified by way of anyone’s political Rorschach test, as though we can project a new tax policy or foreign affairs initiative on the screen and then discover God’s will in the fine details.4 Real disciples simply will not fit into anyone’s partisan mold because Jesus’s kingdom mindset is not of this world. I once told a colleague that he had given me one of the nicest compliments of my life when he said in exasperation that he could never predict where I would come down on a controversial social issue. I smiled and said, “Thank you. I hope that is because I am trying to think biblically, not politically.”

I am still trying.

The church must continually plug its ears to the numerous strategies that are offered for manipulating earthly power for kingdom purposes by grabbing the reins of government. The lie of that power is as old as the devil himself. Those who would co-opt the kingdom of God for their own partisan agendas need to listen again to Jesus’s rebuke when that very temptation was first offered to him in the wilderness: “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only’” (Matt. 4:10).

Admittedly, equally sincere disciples will not always agree on where the lines of kingdom faithfulness should be drawn. One of the intractable debates that divided the German Confessing Church in the days of the Third Reich was a stubborn disagreement over when resistance against the state was genuinely theological and confessional (and therefore justified) versus when resistance was merely political and not truly a result of faithfulness to the gospel (and therefore unjustified).5 As a result, the Confessing Church never extended its critique of the Nazi government beyond its interference in church affairs; and it never criticized Nazi foreign or domestic policy. For example, Confessing Church leaders such as Pastor Martin Niemöller never opposed the Nazi anti-Semitism laws because the enactment of those laws did not interfere with normal church life.6 After the war Niemöller confessed that his own anti-Semitism had blinded him to the demonic nature of the Nazi discrimination laws. Today it would be well worth the time for church members to prayerfully discuss—with Bible in hand and an unwavering focus on the personal character cultivated by kingdom citizenship—what the gospel’s implications are for a Christian’s response to the laws, policies, and actions of our own government. In how many ways has American Christianity been blinded to the right-minded implementation of God’s upside-down kingdom values because of our own cultural conditioning?7