This short story is dedicated to John Howard Yoder, a professor at Notre Dame for 30 years, known as a Mennonite and pacifist, and extremely well-respected from every corner of the Christian tradition. Yoder grew up in the Midwest and got his PHD in Basel, Switzerland in the 50s. At the height of the Vietnam Era, his Politics of Jesus [1972] became intensely popular in both conservative evangelical and liberal Protestant circles because of his unique dedication to both the authority of the Bible and nonviolent resistance. It was listed in the Top 10 Greatest works of Theology of the 20th century by Christianity Today Magazine [#5]. More and more, Evangelicals are finding Yoder's voice refreshing, demanding and illuminating for what it means to be faithful to the crucified and risen Lord in this ever-changing world. Evangelicals, noted by scholars for their anti-intellectual tendencies , should weigh and discern his voice, but need not agree with everything he writes.
In the introduction of the last book published before his death in 1997, a series of essays entitled For The Nations, Yoder wrote, ‘The themes I have been called to treat over the years overlap and interlock, each of them gaining significance from its connection to the others.’ What follows is my attempt to faithfully display Yoder’s thought, with all of its overlapping and interlocking, in a fictional dialogue format, showing how these themes connect and gain massive significance in our current North American context in the last half of 2008. This, in my opinion, is the best way to attempt to systematically portray both Yoder’s unique theology and method in a social location dominated by the language of mainstream Evangelicalism. Of course, much of what follows is autobiographical, borrowing [knowingly and unknowingly] from snippets of many conversations I’ve had over the past few years since I first encountered the writings of Anabaptists like Yoder and McClendon. The story is highly contextual. It attempts to portray the kinds of passionate conversations that erupt when conservative evangelical patterns of thought and action are confronted by the works of John Howard Yoder. Hopefully, what follows will reveal, holistically, the implications and confrontations that Yoder’s thought has had and will have on those, like me, paddling upstream from the turbulent waters of ‘conservative evangelicalism.’
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Chapter 1: Out of the Blue
Ryan Wellspring had been feeling the adrenaline since the day he got the call two weeks ago in his office at Grace Evangelical Free Church in Laguna Niguel, CA. It was from his best high school friend Anthony Tate, who called him ‘out of the blue’ to see if he was going to attend their 20-year High School reunion. Anthony, the quarterback, and Ryan, the wide receiver, were the winning combination on the 1987 CIF Championship football team at Capistrano Valley HS. It was a 42-yard pass from Anthony to Ryan in the final seconds of the final game of their high school careers that sealed the first [and only] title the school had ever seen. From the time they met each other at football camp when they were 14-year old soon-to-be-freshmen until the day they graduated, the two of them were virtually inseparable. But things change, and even best-of-friends take different paths in life, and each path is hectic and everything else is just out-of-sight-out-of-mind. And, then, before you know it, two decades pass by with barely a notice.
Indeed, Anthony’s call was ‘out of the blue.’ They hadn’t spoken since the summer before their senior years in college, when Anthony’s parents were still living in Orange County. That fall, his parents moved up north to Granite Bay, an upper-class suburb of Sacramento because of his father’s job promotion. The next summer, Ryan graduated from Azusa Pacific University and got married to Kimberly…after she got pregnant. They had been dating for 3 years and were planning on getting married soon after graduation, but news of ‘the surprise’ [just 6 weeks before they walked] sparked a shot-gun marriage proposal and a brief engagement period—after all, what bride wants to be showing on her wedding day? Ryan, of course, tried everything to get a hold of Anthony, who, lo and behold, had graduated from Notre Dame a semester early because of the three years of mandatory summer school for all members of the nationally ranked football team. Ryan wanted to ask him to be his best man, but Anthony’s phone number had changed and all this was happening in a bygone era: before cell phones and Facebook and email. It turns out that Anthony got one of those corporate jobs at Sprint in Kansas City and was already working 60 hours a week and making six figures. One thing led to the next and two whole decades had passed and now they were meeting at Santora’s Hot Wings, the place they used to hang with all the boys every Tuesday night for 25-cent wings.
Ryan was shocked that Anthony was even considering going to the reunion. He wasn’t at the 10-year and, of course, he was one of the main topics of everyone’s conversation. Most of their friends seemed far more interested in the mystery of Anthony’s absence than the presence of Ryan with his beautiful wife.
‘Did Anthony fall off the face of the earth?’
‘Did he turn into a Guinness swigging leprechaun at Notre Dame?’
‘Is he embarrassed because he never played a second for the Fightin’ Irish?’
‘Is he gay?’
The class of ’88 had all kinds of theories as to the whereabouts of Ryan’s former sidekick and he felt a lot of shame, and probably a touch of bitterness, over the fact that he had no idea where Anthony was living or what he was doing. That shame and bitterness seemed to evaporate the moment Anthony called to see if Ryan was interested in going to dinner at their old stomping grounds the night before the reunion, just the two of them, to catch up after all these years.
Indeed, Anthony’s call was ‘out of the blue.’ They hadn’t spoken since the summer before their senior years in college, when Anthony’s parents were still living in Orange County. That fall, his parents moved up north to Granite Bay, an upper-class suburb of Sacramento because of his father’s job promotion. The next summer, Ryan graduated from Azusa Pacific University and got married to Kimberly…after she got pregnant. They had been dating for 3 years and were planning on getting married soon after graduation, but news of ‘the surprise’ [just 6 weeks before they walked] sparked a shot-gun marriage proposal and a brief engagement period—after all, what bride wants to be showing on her wedding day? Ryan, of course, tried everything to get a hold of Anthony, who, lo and behold, had graduated from Notre Dame a semester early because of the three years of mandatory summer school for all members of the nationally ranked football team. Ryan wanted to ask him to be his best man, but Anthony’s phone number had changed and all this was happening in a bygone era: before cell phones and Facebook and email. It turns out that Anthony got one of those corporate jobs at Sprint in Kansas City and was already working 60 hours a week and making six figures. One thing led to the next and two whole decades had passed and now they were meeting at Santora’s Hot Wings, the place they used to hang with all the boys every Tuesday night for 25-cent wings.
Ryan was shocked that Anthony was even considering going to the reunion. He wasn’t at the 10-year and, of course, he was one of the main topics of everyone’s conversation. Most of their friends seemed far more interested in the mystery of Anthony’s absence than the presence of Ryan with his beautiful wife.
‘Did Anthony fall off the face of the earth?’
‘Did he turn into a Guinness swigging leprechaun at Notre Dame?’
‘Is he embarrassed because he never played a second for the Fightin’ Irish?’
‘Is he gay?’
The class of ’88 had all kinds of theories as to the whereabouts of Ryan’s former sidekick and he felt a lot of shame, and probably a touch of bitterness, over the fact that he had no idea where Anthony was living or what he was doing. That shame and bitterness seemed to evaporate the moment Anthony called to see if Ryan was interested in going to dinner at their old stomping grounds the night before the reunion, just the two of them, to catch up after all these years.
Chapter 2: Nuts, Flakes and Quakes
As Ryan pulled his Sequoia SUV up to Santora’s, he spotted Anthony’s 6’5”-230-lb-frame getting out of the KIA Rio rental car. He looked just like he did the last time he saw him except for that soon-to-be-forty-something hairline that was sneaking up past his forehead. Ryan’s mischievous and reckless side came out as soon as he laid eyes on Anthony, speeding up, just missing him by inches as he pulled into the parking spot next to him. Ryan whirled out of the car and embraced Anthony who was beaming with delight. Anthony had a t-shirt and hat for Ryan, both of which read: ‘Fresh-Squeezed Jayhawks,’ a reference to the University of Kansas football team’s 14-1 record the prior year, including a victory in the Orange Bowl. Anthony, it seems, wasn’t so ‘corporate’ anymore, getting a job coaching the quarterbacks for this up-and-coming powerhouse collegiate program.
RW: So this is what you’ve been doing with your Notre Dame degree!
AT: You didn’t think I could hack it in an office for the rest of my life, did you?
As Ryan continued the conversation, he ushered the two of them into the restaurant, where their autographed jerseys and team photo were still on the wall. Ryan had a knack for leading a conversation and getting things done. He was a gift for introverts like Anthony who tended to be more intimate, with a need to solely concentrate on the conversation at hand. Ryan shepherded them to the back corner of the joint and ordered 60 ‘nuclear wings’ and a pitcher of water, just like they used to share two decades earlier.
As they ate and sweat and got two refills of their water pitcher, they caught up on their families and jobs and Ryan gave Anthony the scouting report of a lot of their old teammates, where life had taken them and some random tidbits to go with it like, ‘After our old center Joe Ruiz graduated from USC, he went to Wall Street and married into old money and now I get a postcard from him every August from Kennebunkport.’ Of course, Ryan would not only bump into old friends from high school, from time to time, at supermarkets and the little league field, but he also had a Facebook page with a gigantic friend-list who shot one-liners at him just to say ‘hello’ and get a quick update. It was invigorating for Anthony to hear all these names after all these years, but he felt a warm sense of relief to be removed from all this social networking technology that seemed to trap people into old mundane conversations rehashing old mundane identities.
As the night was winding down, Ryan flippantly asked,
‘So, what’s it like to be back out here in California with all these nuts, flakes and quakes? I mean, 2/3 of the state is going to be voting for the most liberal member of the Senate to be our next President!’
Anthony smiled, but in his mind a battle was raging, just as it always did when matters of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ would be presented to him in ways that assumed that he agreed with them. Anthony wasn’t someone who put these twin-headed-ogres on the shelf with a ‘Don’t Touch!’ sign, as our culture seems to pressure us to do. He was passionate about dialoguing about them because they revealed one’s deepest convictions--no wonder they were so dangerous. But these matters, Anthony knew, must be given ample time in order to side-step the sound-bytes of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ packages that he had long since abandoned, but consistently encountered. Matters like these needed space and time and, preferably, quality beverages. The dinner conversation was well into its third hour, but Anthony decided that a conversation like this with Ryan was only going to happen once-every-20-years and so much had changed in his thinking since he and Ryan attended the same youth group together after Ryan had ‘led him to Christ’ at the Hume Lake Summer Camp before their Sophomore year.
AT: There is a lot that is compelling about Obama’s platform and leadership. Since I’m a devout pacifist now, I really respect that he called Iraq a ‘dumb war’ way back in ’02 when it was politically risky and unpopular to do so, when he was preparing for a heated Senate race.
RW: Yeah, seems like he was a bit of a prophet with that description of the war, but Anthony—a ‘pacifist’—-are you kidding me? That seems a little, how shall I put it, ‘irresponsible,' don’t you think? I mean, no offense, but what if a man broke into your home and held a gun to your wife and two daughters? You wouldn’t really just stand there as a bystander and let him kill the three most precious people in your life!
At this point, Anthony knew and appreciated, that this was going to be a long, in-depth conversation that embraced ‘full-disclosure,’ something that he rarely came across. Perhaps it was quite intimidating debating with a 6’5” hulk who spends far more time thinking than speaking. But Ryan, just like in high school, could be counted on to share his heart in an authentically transparent way, something Anthony really admired, but had almost forgotten about his good friend in their nearly two-decade hiatus.
AT: OK, it’s a fair question because my point-of-view on the violence issue is certainly in the minority, but there are some assumptions behind your question that we’ve got to consider. First of all, it falsely assumes that how I respond will inevitably determine the outcome of the situation. Second, it falsely assumes that I have control over the entire situation—that if I actually seek to stop the killer, I can. Third, it falsely assumes that I’m omniscient, like I could foresee exactly how events will unfold so that I could stop the evil killer by making the right move. Let’s face it, any real-life situation is vastly different than those predictable outcomes in all these Westerns—like Tombstone or Silverado—that we used to watch over and over and rehearse all the great lines.
RW: Point taken. But, in fairness to Hollywood, movies seem to be getting a lot less predictable these days—lot more random—like No Country For Old Men or The Departed, mirroring the complexity and confusion of a post-9/11 world.
AT: But even these, and especially these, are still widely endorsing violent solutions to rid the world of violence.
RW: I see.
AT: Where was I?
RW: Fourth?
AT: Yeah, fourth, in all humility, your proposed situation falsely assumes my untarnished righteousness. As my favorite professor at Notre Dame once wrote, the one responsible for my conversion to nonviolent Christianity, ‘I also assume that I am morally qualified to be judge, jury, and executioner—and to perform all those roles in one second.’
RW: Yeah, you were quite the athlete in your day, but surely no superhero. Who’s this guy who turned you into Gandhi?
AT: Ha! His name is John Howard Yoder. I had him for this social ethics class during the last semester at Notre Dame. He was mostly known in theological circles for his genius articulation of radical Christian nonviolence and peace-making. He came up with 29 different brands of religious pacifism in one of his books in the early 70s!
RW: 29? Are there even 29 pacifists in the United States today? Not counting places like Berkeley, Eugene and Madison, of course.
AT: Well, there are a lot more of us coming out of the woodworks in ‘Middle America,’ for any of some 29-odd reasons! Anyways, I only had two classes my senior year at Notre Dame and bowling was the other and I wasn’t wasting any energy since I wasn’t getting any time on the field. I was invigorated by what Yoder taught and how he thought and I started reading all of his works. He was a Mennonite and wrote this masterpiece called The Politics of Jesus in 1972, at the height of the Vietnam War. It was ranked #5 in Christianity Today’s top 100 theology books of the 20th century back in 2000. Anyway, Yoder also wrote this little pamphlet called What Would You Do about 25 years ago that deals thoroughly with your question.
RW: I knew this was a set-up.
AT: OK, I’ve only got one more point. Lastly, the situation leaves no room for any alternatives. Perhaps the ‘killer’ is just looking for dinner for his hungry children or some cash to pay rent. Furthermore, your question seems to falsely assume that if I don’t respond to this situation with force, like Jason Bourne or John Rambo, then I’ll somehow be less manly. Besides, your proposed real-life situation actually is quite different from the reality of war with its innocent bystanders, questions about jurisdiction and authority, the days and months of preparation and escalation, as well as questions of guilt and innocence. But here’s the key: I’m a pacifist, not because it works, but because I’m a Christian. I’ve been compelled by an interpretation of the New Testament that challenges the reader to take up the cross of Jesus by affirming, even to the loss of life, the dignity of the enemy and offender.
RW: All valid points. I see where I jumped into this conversation with a pretty simplistic question. But I’ve always just brushed off die-hard pacifists as idealistic hippies, or worse-off, sectarian Amish folk with funny outfits and IPOD-envy, totally out of touch with the real world. What if everyone in America was a pacifist? Wouldn’t al Qaeda be flying planes into buildings every other day?
AT: This second question you bring up has been around for the past 1700 years, since the days of Emperor Constantine who set the stage for a marriage between church and state. For the first 3 centuries, the Body of Christ was overwhelmingly pacifist. It was taken for granted that Christians, by the very logic of the gospel, would refuse to fight in armies while the Empire was run by pagans who either persecuted Christians at times or were totally indifferent. Since Constantine, Christians have taken on the distinct duty of ‘being responsible’ for society. This led to theologians like Augustine in the 5th c. and Reinhold Niebuhr in the 20th to come up with strategies for how imperfect Christian leaders could lead imperfect societies. After all, every President of the United States has been a ‘Christian’ and so will the next one…unless you really believe all those forwarded emails about Obama being a Muslim in disguise!
RW: Sure, a few disgruntled members of our congregation have passed those email warnings along, including a few predicting he is the Anti-Christ! But seriously, how could either Obama or McCain possibly be pacifist Presidents with bin Laden and Ahmadinejad breathing murderous threats at us and our allies? Again, it seems to me like that would be incredibly irresponsible, leading to the deaths of millions of hard-working Americans?
AT: I guess I’m just interested in asking different questions. Especially at this moment in history, I’m more concerned with the seriousness of Christian communities in the United States actually taking the Bible at face value in their own unique contexts and actually living faithfully where they are at. I think that it is easy to talk about American politics and offer some rather insane circumstances to debunk Jesus’ radical call for nonviolence. His call starts [and usually stops] in our day to day lives, not with decisions that President’s need to make in dire times. I believe that both a serious consideration of the Sermon on the Mount as well as the New Testament’s consistent call for an intentional imitation of the way of Jesus, the culmination of his faithfulness to the point of death on a cross, will lead communities to face the challenge of living by what Yoder called ‘the scandal factors’: enemy love, forgiveness and service. If we prioritize the local community, then we encounter a vocation to pledge allegiance to God’s reign, to be faithful, not necessarily effective. Sometimes, and only sometimes, people like Martin Luther King are faithful and effective. But remember, the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement has been tremendously slow and King died for that cause as he seemed to prophecy on a few occasions with statements like, ‘The cross we bear precedes the crown we wear’ or as Jesus said, ‘Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’ [Luke 14:25]. In Jesus’ day, the cross simply meant death to anyone who was subversive to the Empire. King’s life and death reveal that it is still often the case for those being unpopularly faithful to Jesus' way in a different sort of Empire.
RW: So this is what you’ve been doing with your Notre Dame degree!
AT: You didn’t think I could hack it in an office for the rest of my life, did you?
As Ryan continued the conversation, he ushered the two of them into the restaurant, where their autographed jerseys and team photo were still on the wall. Ryan had a knack for leading a conversation and getting things done. He was a gift for introverts like Anthony who tended to be more intimate, with a need to solely concentrate on the conversation at hand. Ryan shepherded them to the back corner of the joint and ordered 60 ‘nuclear wings’ and a pitcher of water, just like they used to share two decades earlier.
As they ate and sweat and got two refills of their water pitcher, they caught up on their families and jobs and Ryan gave Anthony the scouting report of a lot of their old teammates, where life had taken them and some random tidbits to go with it like, ‘After our old center Joe Ruiz graduated from USC, he went to Wall Street and married into old money and now I get a postcard from him every August from Kennebunkport.’ Of course, Ryan would not only bump into old friends from high school, from time to time, at supermarkets and the little league field, but he also had a Facebook page with a gigantic friend-list who shot one-liners at him just to say ‘hello’ and get a quick update. It was invigorating for Anthony to hear all these names after all these years, but he felt a warm sense of relief to be removed from all this social networking technology that seemed to trap people into old mundane conversations rehashing old mundane identities.
As the night was winding down, Ryan flippantly asked,
‘So, what’s it like to be back out here in California with all these nuts, flakes and quakes? I mean, 2/3 of the state is going to be voting for the most liberal member of the Senate to be our next President!’
Anthony smiled, but in his mind a battle was raging, just as it always did when matters of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ would be presented to him in ways that assumed that he agreed with them. Anthony wasn’t someone who put these twin-headed-ogres on the shelf with a ‘Don’t Touch!’ sign, as our culture seems to pressure us to do. He was passionate about dialoguing about them because they revealed one’s deepest convictions--no wonder they were so dangerous. But these matters, Anthony knew, must be given ample time in order to side-step the sound-bytes of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ packages that he had long since abandoned, but consistently encountered. Matters like these needed space and time and, preferably, quality beverages. The dinner conversation was well into its third hour, but Anthony decided that a conversation like this with Ryan was only going to happen once-every-20-years and so much had changed in his thinking since he and Ryan attended the same youth group together after Ryan had ‘led him to Christ’ at the Hume Lake Summer Camp before their Sophomore year.
AT: There is a lot that is compelling about Obama’s platform and leadership. Since I’m a devout pacifist now, I really respect that he called Iraq a ‘dumb war’ way back in ’02 when it was politically risky and unpopular to do so, when he was preparing for a heated Senate race.
RW: Yeah, seems like he was a bit of a prophet with that description of the war, but Anthony—a ‘pacifist’—-are you kidding me? That seems a little, how shall I put it, ‘irresponsible,' don’t you think? I mean, no offense, but what if a man broke into your home and held a gun to your wife and two daughters? You wouldn’t really just stand there as a bystander and let him kill the three most precious people in your life!
At this point, Anthony knew and appreciated, that this was going to be a long, in-depth conversation that embraced ‘full-disclosure,’ something that he rarely came across. Perhaps it was quite intimidating debating with a 6’5” hulk who spends far more time thinking than speaking. But Ryan, just like in high school, could be counted on to share his heart in an authentically transparent way, something Anthony really admired, but had almost forgotten about his good friend in their nearly two-decade hiatus.
AT: OK, it’s a fair question because my point-of-view on the violence issue is certainly in the minority, but there are some assumptions behind your question that we’ve got to consider. First of all, it falsely assumes that how I respond will inevitably determine the outcome of the situation. Second, it falsely assumes that I have control over the entire situation—that if I actually seek to stop the killer, I can. Third, it falsely assumes that I’m omniscient, like I could foresee exactly how events will unfold so that I could stop the evil killer by making the right move. Let’s face it, any real-life situation is vastly different than those predictable outcomes in all these Westerns—like Tombstone or Silverado—that we used to watch over and over and rehearse all the great lines.
RW: Point taken. But, in fairness to Hollywood, movies seem to be getting a lot less predictable these days—lot more random—like No Country For Old Men or The Departed, mirroring the complexity and confusion of a post-9/11 world.
AT: But even these, and especially these, are still widely endorsing violent solutions to rid the world of violence.
RW: I see.
AT: Where was I?
RW: Fourth?
AT: Yeah, fourth, in all humility, your proposed situation falsely assumes my untarnished righteousness. As my favorite professor at Notre Dame once wrote, the one responsible for my conversion to nonviolent Christianity, ‘I also assume that I am morally qualified to be judge, jury, and executioner—and to perform all those roles in one second.’
RW: Yeah, you were quite the athlete in your day, but surely no superhero. Who’s this guy who turned you into Gandhi?
AT: Ha! His name is John Howard Yoder. I had him for this social ethics class during the last semester at Notre Dame. He was mostly known in theological circles for his genius articulation of radical Christian nonviolence and peace-making. He came up with 29 different brands of religious pacifism in one of his books in the early 70s!
RW: 29? Are there even 29 pacifists in the United States today? Not counting places like Berkeley, Eugene and Madison, of course.
AT: Well, there are a lot more of us coming out of the woodworks in ‘Middle America,’ for any of some 29-odd reasons! Anyways, I only had two classes my senior year at Notre Dame and bowling was the other and I wasn’t wasting any energy since I wasn’t getting any time on the field. I was invigorated by what Yoder taught and how he thought and I started reading all of his works. He was a Mennonite and wrote this masterpiece called The Politics of Jesus in 1972, at the height of the Vietnam War. It was ranked #5 in Christianity Today’s top 100 theology books of the 20th century back in 2000. Anyway, Yoder also wrote this little pamphlet called What Would You Do about 25 years ago that deals thoroughly with your question.
RW: I knew this was a set-up.
AT: OK, I’ve only got one more point. Lastly, the situation leaves no room for any alternatives. Perhaps the ‘killer’ is just looking for dinner for his hungry children or some cash to pay rent. Furthermore, your question seems to falsely assume that if I don’t respond to this situation with force, like Jason Bourne or John Rambo, then I’ll somehow be less manly. Besides, your proposed real-life situation actually is quite different from the reality of war with its innocent bystanders, questions about jurisdiction and authority, the days and months of preparation and escalation, as well as questions of guilt and innocence. But here’s the key: I’m a pacifist, not because it works, but because I’m a Christian. I’ve been compelled by an interpretation of the New Testament that challenges the reader to take up the cross of Jesus by affirming, even to the loss of life, the dignity of the enemy and offender.
RW: All valid points. I see where I jumped into this conversation with a pretty simplistic question. But I’ve always just brushed off die-hard pacifists as idealistic hippies, or worse-off, sectarian Amish folk with funny outfits and IPOD-envy, totally out of touch with the real world. What if everyone in America was a pacifist? Wouldn’t al Qaeda be flying planes into buildings every other day?
AT: This second question you bring up has been around for the past 1700 years, since the days of Emperor Constantine who set the stage for a marriage between church and state. For the first 3 centuries, the Body of Christ was overwhelmingly pacifist. It was taken for granted that Christians, by the very logic of the gospel, would refuse to fight in armies while the Empire was run by pagans who either persecuted Christians at times or were totally indifferent. Since Constantine, Christians have taken on the distinct duty of ‘being responsible’ for society. This led to theologians like Augustine in the 5th c. and Reinhold Niebuhr in the 20th to come up with strategies for how imperfect Christian leaders could lead imperfect societies. After all, every President of the United States has been a ‘Christian’ and so will the next one…unless you really believe all those forwarded emails about Obama being a Muslim in disguise!
RW: Sure, a few disgruntled members of our congregation have passed those email warnings along, including a few predicting he is the Anti-Christ! But seriously, how could either Obama or McCain possibly be pacifist Presidents with bin Laden and Ahmadinejad breathing murderous threats at us and our allies? Again, it seems to me like that would be incredibly irresponsible, leading to the deaths of millions of hard-working Americans?
AT: I guess I’m just interested in asking different questions. Especially at this moment in history, I’m more concerned with the seriousness of Christian communities in the United States actually taking the Bible at face value in their own unique contexts and actually living faithfully where they are at. I think that it is easy to talk about American politics and offer some rather insane circumstances to debunk Jesus’ radical call for nonviolence. His call starts [and usually stops] in our day to day lives, not with decisions that President’s need to make in dire times. I believe that both a serious consideration of the Sermon on the Mount as well as the New Testament’s consistent call for an intentional imitation of the way of Jesus, the culmination of his faithfulness to the point of death on a cross, will lead communities to face the challenge of living by what Yoder called ‘the scandal factors’: enemy love, forgiveness and service. If we prioritize the local community, then we encounter a vocation to pledge allegiance to God’s reign, to be faithful, not necessarily effective. Sometimes, and only sometimes, people like Martin Luther King are faithful and effective. But remember, the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement has been tremendously slow and King died for that cause as he seemed to prophecy on a few occasions with statements like, ‘The cross we bear precedes the crown we wear’ or as Jesus said, ‘Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’ [Luke 14:25]. In Jesus’ day, the cross simply meant death to anyone who was subversive to the Empire. King’s life and death reveal that it is still often the case for those being unpopularly faithful to Jesus' way in a different sort of Empire.
Chapter 3: The Forensic Overkill and God-Ordained Killing
RW: It sounds to me like you interpret the cross of Jesus a little differently than I do. I mean, didn’t Jesus come in order to die for our sins, as a sacrifice? Wasn’t this the point of his life—to die so that we can have eternal life? It sounds like your radical vision, which I certainly appreciate, is more of a works-righteousness, which Paul shot out of the water in Romans.
AT: Martin Luther’s ‘forensic justification’ interpretation of the cross has became so popular in Evangelical churches over the past 500 years that it has become virtually the only way of understanding Jesus’ death. Yoder called this the ‘forensic overkill.’ There are many different metaphors used in the New Testament to make sense of Jesus’ scandalous death on the cross. These are metaphors from everyday Roman Empire life. The New Testament bears witness to the death of Jesus as an interpretive quilt, a patchwork of metaphors borrowed from their original life situations: the language of Jewish law [justification], religious worship [sanctification], medical healing and military rescue [heal and save], family [adopt, wed], life processes [born and reborn], the marketplace [redeem and reconcile]—all of these were adopted, adapted and pressed into service in order to describe how deeply meaningful the cross was for these Christian communities. All of these shed light on the new reality that God brought into the world in Christ.
Ever since I started wrestling with Yoder’s thought and trying to get my hands on everything he wrote, I’ve definitely come to cherish a more ‘political’ interpretation of the cross. By this I simply mean that he died because the powers-that-be were threatened by his words and deeds, or as Yoder wrote, ‘the most worthy and weighty representatives of Jewish religion and Roman politics acted in collusion’ because he refused to support their self-glorification. All of these metaphors can only make sense in the midst of the narratives. And the narratives are littered with political language. This is vital. Jesus had to die—not just for my sins and your sins—but because he confronted the oppressive powers head on. But God got the last word and vindicated Jesus’ way by raising him from the dead. But here’s what I want to emphasize though: we are called to model this same humility and willingness to suffer that Jesus embodied throughout his life…and death. This is what Paul is getting at in the beautiful passage in Philippians 2:5-11. Jesus emptied himself of the need to control history, to be ‘in the form of God,’ the original sin of Adam, in order to become a truly human person and obey to the point of death. Paul points to this as a model for the community in Philippi. He’s trying to plead with them, in the midst of trials and persecution, to be like him in his cross—in humility and suffering—and to treat others just like Jesus did, laying down his life. As Yoder writes in the conclusion of Politics of Jesus,
‘The relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of God’s cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection.’
We obey even if we get outvoted or fail to convince others or convert or possibly even get killed. Paul goes on to write in the same letter that when Jesus returns, he’ll turn our ‘humiliated bodies’ into ‘glorious bodies,’ [3:20-21] just like God did to Jesus on that first Easter Sunday.
RW: I think I’m tracking with you, but doesn’t what you’re saying still border dangerously on a kind of ‘works-righteousness,’ thinking that we have the ability to live with such humility and service, exactly like Jesus! Doesn’t that way of looking at the cross, as a pattern to follow, fail to take into account our own sinfulness and fallenness, our inability to do anything good apart from what God has done for us and in us? I mean, isn’t it a bit presumptuous to put ourselves on the same plane as JESUS? He was God, after all, and we are only human.
AT: Great question. Let me answer this by introducing another legendary theologian of the 20th century who died a year before Politics of Jesus was published: Reinhold Niebuhr. He is recognized by political scientists and foreign policy gurus as the theologian who has had the most influence on the decision-making of our Presidents and their advisors since World War II. Niebuhr was actually a pacifist way back in the 20s—-quite fashionable to be one just after the first World War with millions of soldiers killed and millions of acres destroyed. But Niebuhr abandoned the pacifism of his youth and got ‘realistic’ over the years about the human capacity for sin. He emphasized ‘original sin’ and the need for governments to use force, if necessary, to quell our universal human tendency to go astray, especially as it played out destructively in communities [political parties, nation-states, social classes, etc]. Niebuhr’s ‘realism,’ was of course, coupled with an emphasis on Luther’s popular ‘forensic-justification’ view of the cross: we try as best as we can, but in the end, we fail…but we are forgiven through the blood of the cross. God’s grace prevails. Niebuhr’s ‘realism’ was ‘responsible’ and ‘pragmatic’ and gave the Cold War politicians a respectable voice to back their policies.
Yoder critiqued Niebuhr with what he calls ‘biblical realism’ or ‘gospel realism.’ If Jesus is really Lord of the world, as the New Testament makes abundantly clear, then we pledge allegiance to a completely different sort of kingdom. Our faithfulness may be viewed as ‘idealist’ from the point of view of Niebuhr’s pragmatic realism, but it realistically represents the very scandalous enterprise of following Jesus. We can courageously live out this risky brand of Christian faith because of our fervent belief in a God who raises the dead. Death will never have the last word. Yoder prioritizes the cross as a pattern of obedience—it is the price of social nonconformity. This is what we are scandalously committed to as ‘Christians,’ but we will fail in the process. Jesus called for the disciples to deny themselves and ‘take up the cross’ and follow Jesus. In the Gospel narrative, none of the disciples are bold enough to take up the cross…only Jesus obeys the will of God all the way to the point of death. One disciple betrays him, another denies him and the rest scatter. The disciples in Mark’s Gospel are stumbling, bumbling fools as they journey with Jesus and slowly learn his very ‘political’ way of the Kingdom. But in the end, despite the fearful, scattering of the disciples at the cross, Jesus calls them back to Galilee, to the start of Mark’s story all over again. With Jesus, we always have a second chance, an opportunity to take up the cross again and again. But the point of the story, the invitation, is first to take up the cross, not to be forgiven! Forgiveness is the side-car, albeit an important one, to the main source of transportation for our journey.
RW: So the Christian life is an invitation to a life of failure?
AT: Yes, but we partner with a God who is overflowing with forgiveness and mercy. I mean, he’s a God who was willing to watch his Son murdered by the powers in order to show us the way to liberating life.
RW: OK, let me just take one last stab at chipping away at your radical nonviolence. What do you do about these Old Testament texts where God commands the nation of Israel to destroy every man, woman and child in their path [Deut 7 & 10; Joshua 10:34-44] and where he tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac [Genesis 22]? This seems to be saying that sometimes God is OK with violence and war games—sometimes he even commands it!
AT: This is probably the biggest challenge to reading the Bible nonviolently. These ‘holy war’ passages are befuddling and reading all the different perspectives from theologians and biblical scholars can be mind-numbing. Yoder points out that we must take the culture during the time of Abraham and Joshua into serious consideration and that God, at that early juncture, was teaching his people, slowly but surely, to trust him. During the time of Abraham, everyone probably sacrificed their firstborn son just like they made an offering for the first-fruits of their farm and the livestock. The focus on the Abraham/Isaac story is on God’s promise that from Isaac, a gigantic family would spring to life. So, the confusing thing about God telling Abraham to sacrifice his firstborn son was not that it was crazy for anyone, let alone for God to do such a horrific thing, but instead that it was diametrically opposed to God’s promise to Father Abraham--that he would produce a world-redeeming community through his son, Isaac [not Ishmael or any other son for that matter].
As far as Joshua’s holy war is concerned, the focus, again, is on teaching Israel to trust the God of the universe. The morality of killing wasn’t even on the radar yet. Humans learn slowly. What we see in these texts are miracles. No doubt, God is fighting for Israel. Israel isn’t prepared for battle. They don’t have a strategy, unless you count Moses raising his hands! They probably don’t even have the proper weapons. They are just grabbing hoes, shovels and pick-axes, whatever they could get their hands on, trusting that God will provide the victory. I’m just not compelled that the OT tells us war is OK with God. The OT chronicles the life and times of a nation of God’s children slowly being transformed into his people. In addition, we should always have the words of Jesus at the forefront of our minds, interpreting the Torah on the mountain for his disciples: ‘You have heard that it was said, but I say to you…’ Jesus intensifies the Torah of Israel and interprets it in the line of the prophets who had consistently called Israel to do things like ‘beat your swords into plowshares’ [Is 2:4; Micah 4:3].
These Old Testament passages are ridiculously complex. A group of us back home in Kansas recently dialogued 6 different interpretive strategies that all come from biblical scholars and theologians of different Christian stripes. My ‘Yoderian’ option was just one of these. It seems like, from my research and conversations, that most scholars would say that it would be a stretch for these texts to justify violent solutions today, especially in light of Jesus’ life and teaching. I’m convinced, now more than ever, that pacifists, like me, who vow to never take up arms no matter what and just-war advocates, like you, who always view violence as the very last resort, can and should come together to find common ground in a third way: just peace-making. We can be creatively committed to practices, however small, that lead to peaceful solutions, both in our own neighborly [and not-so-neighborly] relationships and in the wider world of politicians and their policies, facing each other down.
Ryan was excited about this conversation. He had been a pastor for the past 15 years, first with the youth and now as the next-in-command with a congregation of about a thousand. His job consisted of ‘spiritual’ conversations of all sorts, but he certainly wasn’t used to being so stretched by being confronted with such a different theology which seemed to spring from a completely different set of questions. He was eating up everything Anthony was spewing out, and he found himself thinking of more and more questions as he listened, most of them starting with, ‘But how about…’ Just then, Ryan looked at his cell phone and saw that it was already 11pm—-5 hours had passed and they were just getting started.
As Ryan stepped outside the restaurant to call his wife, Anthony humbly wondered if Ryan, being a pastor, might think he was a bit kooky or even heretical. But really, Anthony had not even begun communicating the tip of the iceberg of how much his mind had been transformed since he sat at the feet of John Howard Yoder during his final semester at Notre Dame. What, after all, would Ryan think when they started talking about their church back in Lawrence?!
AT: Martin Luther’s ‘forensic justification’ interpretation of the cross has became so popular in Evangelical churches over the past 500 years that it has become virtually the only way of understanding Jesus’ death. Yoder called this the ‘forensic overkill.’ There are many different metaphors used in the New Testament to make sense of Jesus’ scandalous death on the cross. These are metaphors from everyday Roman Empire life. The New Testament bears witness to the death of Jesus as an interpretive quilt, a patchwork of metaphors borrowed from their original life situations: the language of Jewish law [justification], religious worship [sanctification], medical healing and military rescue [heal and save], family [adopt, wed], life processes [born and reborn], the marketplace [redeem and reconcile]—all of these were adopted, adapted and pressed into service in order to describe how deeply meaningful the cross was for these Christian communities. All of these shed light on the new reality that God brought into the world in Christ.
Ever since I started wrestling with Yoder’s thought and trying to get my hands on everything he wrote, I’ve definitely come to cherish a more ‘political’ interpretation of the cross. By this I simply mean that he died because the powers-that-be were threatened by his words and deeds, or as Yoder wrote, ‘the most worthy and weighty representatives of Jewish religion and Roman politics acted in collusion’ because he refused to support their self-glorification. All of these metaphors can only make sense in the midst of the narratives. And the narratives are littered with political language. This is vital. Jesus had to die—not just for my sins and your sins—but because he confronted the oppressive powers head on. But God got the last word and vindicated Jesus’ way by raising him from the dead. But here’s what I want to emphasize though: we are called to model this same humility and willingness to suffer that Jesus embodied throughout his life…and death. This is what Paul is getting at in the beautiful passage in Philippians 2:5-11. Jesus emptied himself of the need to control history, to be ‘in the form of God,’ the original sin of Adam, in order to become a truly human person and obey to the point of death. Paul points to this as a model for the community in Philippi. He’s trying to plead with them, in the midst of trials and persecution, to be like him in his cross—in humility and suffering—and to treat others just like Jesus did, laying down his life. As Yoder writes in the conclusion of Politics of Jesus,
‘The relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of God’s cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection.’
We obey even if we get outvoted or fail to convince others or convert or possibly even get killed. Paul goes on to write in the same letter that when Jesus returns, he’ll turn our ‘humiliated bodies’ into ‘glorious bodies,’ [3:20-21] just like God did to Jesus on that first Easter Sunday.
RW: I think I’m tracking with you, but doesn’t what you’re saying still border dangerously on a kind of ‘works-righteousness,’ thinking that we have the ability to live with such humility and service, exactly like Jesus! Doesn’t that way of looking at the cross, as a pattern to follow, fail to take into account our own sinfulness and fallenness, our inability to do anything good apart from what God has done for us and in us? I mean, isn’t it a bit presumptuous to put ourselves on the same plane as JESUS? He was God, after all, and we are only human.
AT: Great question. Let me answer this by introducing another legendary theologian of the 20th century who died a year before Politics of Jesus was published: Reinhold Niebuhr. He is recognized by political scientists and foreign policy gurus as the theologian who has had the most influence on the decision-making of our Presidents and their advisors since World War II. Niebuhr was actually a pacifist way back in the 20s—-quite fashionable to be one just after the first World War with millions of soldiers killed and millions of acres destroyed. But Niebuhr abandoned the pacifism of his youth and got ‘realistic’ over the years about the human capacity for sin. He emphasized ‘original sin’ and the need for governments to use force, if necessary, to quell our universal human tendency to go astray, especially as it played out destructively in communities [political parties, nation-states, social classes, etc]. Niebuhr’s ‘realism,’ was of course, coupled with an emphasis on Luther’s popular ‘forensic-justification’ view of the cross: we try as best as we can, but in the end, we fail…but we are forgiven through the blood of the cross. God’s grace prevails. Niebuhr’s ‘realism’ was ‘responsible’ and ‘pragmatic’ and gave the Cold War politicians a respectable voice to back their policies.
Yoder critiqued Niebuhr with what he calls ‘biblical realism’ or ‘gospel realism.’ If Jesus is really Lord of the world, as the New Testament makes abundantly clear, then we pledge allegiance to a completely different sort of kingdom. Our faithfulness may be viewed as ‘idealist’ from the point of view of Niebuhr’s pragmatic realism, but it realistically represents the very scandalous enterprise of following Jesus. We can courageously live out this risky brand of Christian faith because of our fervent belief in a God who raises the dead. Death will never have the last word. Yoder prioritizes the cross as a pattern of obedience—it is the price of social nonconformity. This is what we are scandalously committed to as ‘Christians,’ but we will fail in the process. Jesus called for the disciples to deny themselves and ‘take up the cross’ and follow Jesus. In the Gospel narrative, none of the disciples are bold enough to take up the cross…only Jesus obeys the will of God all the way to the point of death. One disciple betrays him, another denies him and the rest scatter. The disciples in Mark’s Gospel are stumbling, bumbling fools as they journey with Jesus and slowly learn his very ‘political’ way of the Kingdom. But in the end, despite the fearful, scattering of the disciples at the cross, Jesus calls them back to Galilee, to the start of Mark’s story all over again. With Jesus, we always have a second chance, an opportunity to take up the cross again and again. But the point of the story, the invitation, is first to take up the cross, not to be forgiven! Forgiveness is the side-car, albeit an important one, to the main source of transportation for our journey.
RW: So the Christian life is an invitation to a life of failure?
AT: Yes, but we partner with a God who is overflowing with forgiveness and mercy. I mean, he’s a God who was willing to watch his Son murdered by the powers in order to show us the way to liberating life.
RW: OK, let me just take one last stab at chipping away at your radical nonviolence. What do you do about these Old Testament texts where God commands the nation of Israel to destroy every man, woman and child in their path [Deut 7 & 10; Joshua 10:34-44] and where he tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac [Genesis 22]? This seems to be saying that sometimes God is OK with violence and war games—sometimes he even commands it!
AT: This is probably the biggest challenge to reading the Bible nonviolently. These ‘holy war’ passages are befuddling and reading all the different perspectives from theologians and biblical scholars can be mind-numbing. Yoder points out that we must take the culture during the time of Abraham and Joshua into serious consideration and that God, at that early juncture, was teaching his people, slowly but surely, to trust him. During the time of Abraham, everyone probably sacrificed their firstborn son just like they made an offering for the first-fruits of their farm and the livestock. The focus on the Abraham/Isaac story is on God’s promise that from Isaac, a gigantic family would spring to life. So, the confusing thing about God telling Abraham to sacrifice his firstborn son was not that it was crazy for anyone, let alone for God to do such a horrific thing, but instead that it was diametrically opposed to God’s promise to Father Abraham--that he would produce a world-redeeming community through his son, Isaac [not Ishmael or any other son for that matter].
As far as Joshua’s holy war is concerned, the focus, again, is on teaching Israel to trust the God of the universe. The morality of killing wasn’t even on the radar yet. Humans learn slowly. What we see in these texts are miracles. No doubt, God is fighting for Israel. Israel isn’t prepared for battle. They don’t have a strategy, unless you count Moses raising his hands! They probably don’t even have the proper weapons. They are just grabbing hoes, shovels and pick-axes, whatever they could get their hands on, trusting that God will provide the victory. I’m just not compelled that the OT tells us war is OK with God. The OT chronicles the life and times of a nation of God’s children slowly being transformed into his people. In addition, we should always have the words of Jesus at the forefront of our minds, interpreting the Torah on the mountain for his disciples: ‘You have heard that it was said, but I say to you…’ Jesus intensifies the Torah of Israel and interprets it in the line of the prophets who had consistently called Israel to do things like ‘beat your swords into plowshares’ [Is 2:4; Micah 4:3].
These Old Testament passages are ridiculously complex. A group of us back home in Kansas recently dialogued 6 different interpretive strategies that all come from biblical scholars and theologians of different Christian stripes. My ‘Yoderian’ option was just one of these. It seems like, from my research and conversations, that most scholars would say that it would be a stretch for these texts to justify violent solutions today, especially in light of Jesus’ life and teaching. I’m convinced, now more than ever, that pacifists, like me, who vow to never take up arms no matter what and just-war advocates, like you, who always view violence as the very last resort, can and should come together to find common ground in a third way: just peace-making. We can be creatively committed to practices, however small, that lead to peaceful solutions, both in our own neighborly [and not-so-neighborly] relationships and in the wider world of politicians and their policies, facing each other down.
Ryan was excited about this conversation. He had been a pastor for the past 15 years, first with the youth and now as the next-in-command with a congregation of about a thousand. His job consisted of ‘spiritual’ conversations of all sorts, but he certainly wasn’t used to being so stretched by being confronted with such a different theology which seemed to spring from a completely different set of questions. He was eating up everything Anthony was spewing out, and he found himself thinking of more and more questions as he listened, most of them starting with, ‘But how about…’ Just then, Ryan looked at his cell phone and saw that it was already 11pm—-5 hours had passed and they were just getting started.
As Ryan stepped outside the restaurant to call his wife, Anthony humbly wondered if Ryan, being a pastor, might think he was a bit kooky or even heretical. But really, Anthony had not even begun communicating the tip of the iceberg of how much his mind had been transformed since he sat at the feet of John Howard Yoder during his final semester at Notre Dame. What, after all, would Ryan think when they started talking about their church back in Lawrence?!
Chapter 4: Professional Religionists and Pastor-Heroes
When Ryan walked back into the restaurant a few minutes later, he had that smirk on his face like he did back in high school when he had an idea that he was sure Anthony would love.
RW: My wife is ready for bed, but she would like to have a male presence at the house—-just to feel safer. How about we go back to my place, you can meet Kimberly before she turns in for the night and then we’ll continue this conversation in the Jacuzzi?
At this point, a similar smirk formed on Anthony own face…
AT: Sounds great. I’ll stop at Ralphs to get the Twinkies.
The two of them had a tradition during their two years on the varsity football team after every Friday night game. Win or lose, they always came back to Ryan’s house and soaked in the hot water with the air jets on full blast, playing the game back over and over while they polished off a whole box of Hostess Twinkies. Ryan’s parents moved out to Palm Desert just a few years ago and handed Ryan the keys to the house [with the Jacuzzi!] since he was the only child.
When they got to the house, Anthony finally met Kimberly and they chatted for just a few minutes. Ryan, as he did back in high school, came back out in his tight speedo—-just like the ones that Olympic swimmers wear—-and it somehow caught Anthony off--guard, perhaps due to the 40 extra pounds Ryan had put on over the years, as he almost hit the floor laughing. Anthony borrowed one of Ryan’s ‘normal’ swimsuits and they headed outside. Ryan started in immediately:
RW: So, do you go to church in Kansas?
AT: Oh, we don’t have to ‘go’ anywhere. We have church at our house. Don’t get me wrong, this isn‘t like how my dad used to joke about going to St. Mattress with Pastor Sheets on Sunday mornings. We actually have a little ‘house church’ that meets every Monday night, which is great for us during the football season and recruiting period since I have to travel quite a bit on the weekends. There are 5 couples that are committed to the community and we’ve been meeting every Monday for the last 7 years. We have dinner together and then someone will direct a time of Scripture reading, but the floor is always open for questions, comments and concerns. We’ll have a time of prayer and sharing. We’ve really gotten to know these folks over the years and they’ve really gotten to know us. We feel like we really get to experiment with this New Testament concept called koinonia—what most English translations of the Bible call ‘fellowship’—but better translated ‘common life’ or ‘solidarity’ in Christ.
RW: That sounds just like our ‘small groups,’ but you guys save a lot of gas money and time not going to the Sunday service—what a deal! In fact, we even call them ‘Koinonia Groups’ at Grace Evangelical! How’s it different from that?
AT: Well, it doesn’t necessarily need to be any different from your small groups at all. But we do think our focus is a little bit unique. Most churches that I’ve experienced tend to be places that offer worship services and ministries to be involved with. We think that, overwhelmingly, ‘the church’ in the United States has come to mean a place where Christians go to get their needs met, whether that’s emotional worship through music or sermons to understand life and the Bible better or classes and groups to help them ‘grow spiritually.’ We are attempting to model a different idea of what church is. We think the church is a ‘political body’ or as Jesus called his gathered disciples, ‘a city on a hill.’ The church is the community where Christians, together, pledge allegiance to the kingdom of God with all of its alternative beliefs, practices and virtues.
In addition, churches divide their people into two groups: there are ‘professional clergy,’ pastors like yourself who are called and paid to do the work of the church, and then there are ‘laity’ like myself who have ‘secular’ jobs during the week and participate with the church on Sundays and during specified activities during the week, like small groups. Yoder speculates that what we now call ‘senior pastors,’ or ‘bishops’ and ‘priests’ in other traditions, started popping up in church communities about 75 years after the time of Christ. These ‘professional religionists’ were probably a carry-over from the pagan lifestyle of the Gentiles. Yoder critiques this idea and even thinks the New Testament doesn’t really support it. Our community wants to wipe out the ‘laity’ label altogether.
RW: So, does this mean you don’t have any leaders?
AT: No, actually we are all leaders in each of our own gifted ways. We’re all ‘professional’ Christians playing our roles in the power of the Spirit. Just like what Paul writes about in Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12 and, if he wrote it, Ephesians 4: we all have different gifts to serve the church with—-all vitally important for the health of the community. This NT vision of the people of God is empowering to all and gives both privilege and responsibility to all of God’s children, in all of their unique giftedness.
RW: What do you mean ‘if he wrote it?’ Are you questioning Paul’s authorship of Ephesians?
AT: Can we get back to that later?
RW: Sure, but it seems like your group is a standing rebuke to my career. Almost a thousand members at our church look to me as a ‘professional’ when it comes to the Bible and counseling and spirituality and basically all things ‘Christian.’ I don’t get paid much when compared to other ‘professions,’ but without the pay I wouldn’t be able to serve the church like I do. Isn’t it ‘biblical’ that each church has certain people who are called and gifted to be leaders, and that in these positions of leadership, they have greater responsibility for the spiritual growth of the congregation. These are leaders with a God-given ‘authority’ exercised to interpret Scripture, to feed God’s sheep, to protect the church from wayward teaching and to maintain a certain degree of order. Isn’t this vital so that not just ‘anything goes’ and so that decisions can be made instead of breeding chaos.
AT: This is something that I’ve been wrestling with for years. It seems to me, from observation and experience, that pastors in evangelical churches have become jack-of-all-trades spiritual advisors-teachers-comforters-administrators all rolled into one. All these roles that Paul and the other NT writers wrote about in regards to church communities were filled by multiple men and women. Now, these roles have all been laid on the shoulders of one or just a few pastors who are overwhelmingly men. Why is that the norm? I think there are two factors: (1) men like you are extremely gifted in a variety of areas of leadership so they find themselves doing ALL these tasks for the church and, if they can get paid for it, all the better; and (2) human beings feel more comfortable with certain men being the professionals in the whole realm of spirituality so that they can focus on ‘the rest-of-their-lives,’ as they lean on Pastor Ryan's expertise with ‘religious’ matters. American culture, from heroic characters in movies to CEO’s running corporations, has trained us to value the Renaissance man who can do-it-all and get the pretty girl in the end. I firmly believe that if pastors took seriously that this new people of God in Christ are ‘a kingdom of priests’ [not a kingdom with priests] then there would be a real burden lifted, a level of stress and pressure that they have to do everything in the church. It would also be tremendously healthy for church members to really be challenged with using their gifts and to take seriously that they, too, are doing priestly work for the kingdom, both at their ‘secular’ jobs and when the community gathers.
RW: So, in your opinion, should all these pastors like me give up their salaries and go out and get ‘real jobs?’
AT: I don’t envision that at all. Church communities, especially with a thousand people in it, desperately need leaders that are trained in the art of interpreting the Bible and others trained in counseling and others who are needed to give a little extra time to administrative work. These shouldn’t all be done by the same person and they shouldn’t all be men. It sends a message to the church community at large and to the non-Christian world that says, ‘We have some people in the church who are ‘professionals,’ and in many cases ‘superheroes’ or ‘rock stars’ who are doing the real work, the kingdom work, and then there are the masses who attend services [put on by the experts] and work at other non-kingdom jobs, but are expected to ‘do their time’ with a ministry at the church—the ‘kingdom work.’
RW: I think you are on to something here. In our own church leadership meetings or at these pastors’ conferences we go to, we often talk about how we can get the rest of the congregation serving—how 10% of the church does 90% of the work. The general consensus is that it is very much ‘their problem’: they are too busy or too lazy or don’t care about ‘spiritual’ things enough or are afraid of getting too involved or they are too comfortable. Yoder’s analysis seems to be getting at the heart of the problem—that God’s design is for his people to be a community of priests, not divided between two different classes of ‘Christian’—which, unfortunately, doesn’t necessarily mean solutions are easy.
AT: There are pastors I’ve heard of doing creative things like giving 10% of their salary each year until they are serving at the church voluntarily with what they are gifted in. Of course, that means they are working increasingly more and more part-time hours somewhere else and others in the church community are putting in time with the church community. I heard of another pastor recently who was doing all the teaching on Sunday mornings for years, but now he only teaches once a month because he finally realized that he wasn’t as gifted a teacher as he was with some areas, but some in the congregation were gifted and passionate and surprisingly well-trained to do the teaching. I just think we need pastors who aren’t threatened by the thought of others—who are gifted in areas that they aren’t—doing that work for the community. We need leaders who are committed to empowering people and not manipulating them. Maybe we just need a lot of pastors who don’t take themselves so seriously.
RW: Don’t you think that part of the solution must lay with the congregation though?
AT: Amen. Many of those descriptions you recounted earlier—too lazy, too comfortable, too busy—-are all valid issues, and those same every-Sunday-church-attendees are content, without a hint of critical thinking, to let the religious expert tell them how to live. But I do think that the church leadership [pastoral staff] must guide this in ways that are empowering to the rest-of-the-church-body. I think the majority of evangelicals need to get over this thing where everyone needs a ‘pastor-hero.’ This will take both humility and empathy. They need to humbly admit that they can’t possibly do it all and that its not God’s plan for the church. They also need to learn to see and experience the struggles of life through the point of view of ‘Joe the Plumber-Christian’ who works 40-80 hours a week just trying to pay the bills AND, in their workplace, be a sign and foretaste of God’s inaugurated reign. Wow…that’s a challenge! I think pastors need to invite a dialogue, challenging congregations with the notion that, perhaps, Scripture doesn’t really support it. But maybe more importantly, pastors need to start modeling it. These ‘pastor-heroes’ are just going to need to respectfully and gently say ‘no’ to a lot of what they are doing, and give opportunities for others in the community, with their distinct gifts and talents, to be involved with some of the burdens placed on the pastors’ shoulders. As harsh as it sounds, perhaps the ‘pastor-hero’ should stop taking all the hospital visits and others in the community can be challenged and, in the process, empowered to step it up with their gifting. But, I know, there is always something comforting, something special to have the ‘pastor-hero’ by my hospital bedside kneeling with me in prayer before the big operation! This is the bind that we are in. Expectations need to be scaled back and the people of God need to see what a community where everyone does pastoral work really looks like.
RW: I think I’ll need you in our leadership meeting on Tuesday to communicate all of this.
AT: It's all yours. I’ll be busy trying to win football games…and be a sign and foretaste of God’s reign in the process! Wow…what a challenge!
RW: My wife is ready for bed, but she would like to have a male presence at the house—-just to feel safer. How about we go back to my place, you can meet Kimberly before she turns in for the night and then we’ll continue this conversation in the Jacuzzi?
At this point, a similar smirk formed on Anthony own face…
AT: Sounds great. I’ll stop at Ralphs to get the Twinkies.
The two of them had a tradition during their two years on the varsity football team after every Friday night game. Win or lose, they always came back to Ryan’s house and soaked in the hot water with the air jets on full blast, playing the game back over and over while they polished off a whole box of Hostess Twinkies. Ryan’s parents moved out to Palm Desert just a few years ago and handed Ryan the keys to the house [with the Jacuzzi!] since he was the only child.
When they got to the house, Anthony finally met Kimberly and they chatted for just a few minutes. Ryan, as he did back in high school, came back out in his tight speedo—-just like the ones that Olympic swimmers wear—-and it somehow caught Anthony off--guard, perhaps due to the 40 extra pounds Ryan had put on over the years, as he almost hit the floor laughing. Anthony borrowed one of Ryan’s ‘normal’ swimsuits and they headed outside. Ryan started in immediately:
RW: So, do you go to church in Kansas?
AT: Oh, we don’t have to ‘go’ anywhere. We have church at our house. Don’t get me wrong, this isn‘t like how my dad used to joke about going to St. Mattress with Pastor Sheets on Sunday mornings. We actually have a little ‘house church’ that meets every Monday night, which is great for us during the football season and recruiting period since I have to travel quite a bit on the weekends. There are 5 couples that are committed to the community and we’ve been meeting every Monday for the last 7 years. We have dinner together and then someone will direct a time of Scripture reading, but the floor is always open for questions, comments and concerns. We’ll have a time of prayer and sharing. We’ve really gotten to know these folks over the years and they’ve really gotten to know us. We feel like we really get to experiment with this New Testament concept called koinonia—what most English translations of the Bible call ‘fellowship’—but better translated ‘common life’ or ‘solidarity’ in Christ.
RW: That sounds just like our ‘small groups,’ but you guys save a lot of gas money and time not going to the Sunday service—what a deal! In fact, we even call them ‘Koinonia Groups’ at Grace Evangelical! How’s it different from that?
AT: Well, it doesn’t necessarily need to be any different from your small groups at all. But we do think our focus is a little bit unique. Most churches that I’ve experienced tend to be places that offer worship services and ministries to be involved with. We think that, overwhelmingly, ‘the church’ in the United States has come to mean a place where Christians go to get their needs met, whether that’s emotional worship through music or sermons to understand life and the Bible better or classes and groups to help them ‘grow spiritually.’ We are attempting to model a different idea of what church is. We think the church is a ‘political body’ or as Jesus called his gathered disciples, ‘a city on a hill.’ The church is the community where Christians, together, pledge allegiance to the kingdom of God with all of its alternative beliefs, practices and virtues.
In addition, churches divide their people into two groups: there are ‘professional clergy,’ pastors like yourself who are called and paid to do the work of the church, and then there are ‘laity’ like myself who have ‘secular’ jobs during the week and participate with the church on Sundays and during specified activities during the week, like small groups. Yoder speculates that what we now call ‘senior pastors,’ or ‘bishops’ and ‘priests’ in other traditions, started popping up in church communities about 75 years after the time of Christ. These ‘professional religionists’ were probably a carry-over from the pagan lifestyle of the Gentiles. Yoder critiques this idea and even thinks the New Testament doesn’t really support it. Our community wants to wipe out the ‘laity’ label altogether.
RW: So, does this mean you don’t have any leaders?
AT: No, actually we are all leaders in each of our own gifted ways. We’re all ‘professional’ Christians playing our roles in the power of the Spirit. Just like what Paul writes about in Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12 and, if he wrote it, Ephesians 4: we all have different gifts to serve the church with—-all vitally important for the health of the community. This NT vision of the people of God is empowering to all and gives both privilege and responsibility to all of God’s children, in all of their unique giftedness.
RW: What do you mean ‘if he wrote it?’ Are you questioning Paul’s authorship of Ephesians?
AT: Can we get back to that later?
RW: Sure, but it seems like your group is a standing rebuke to my career. Almost a thousand members at our church look to me as a ‘professional’ when it comes to the Bible and counseling and spirituality and basically all things ‘Christian.’ I don’t get paid much when compared to other ‘professions,’ but without the pay I wouldn’t be able to serve the church like I do. Isn’t it ‘biblical’ that each church has certain people who are called and gifted to be leaders, and that in these positions of leadership, they have greater responsibility for the spiritual growth of the congregation. These are leaders with a God-given ‘authority’ exercised to interpret Scripture, to feed God’s sheep, to protect the church from wayward teaching and to maintain a certain degree of order. Isn’t this vital so that not just ‘anything goes’ and so that decisions can be made instead of breeding chaos.
AT: This is something that I’ve been wrestling with for years. It seems to me, from observation and experience, that pastors in evangelical churches have become jack-of-all-trades spiritual advisors-teachers-comforters-administrators all rolled into one. All these roles that Paul and the other NT writers wrote about in regards to church communities were filled by multiple men and women. Now, these roles have all been laid on the shoulders of one or just a few pastors who are overwhelmingly men. Why is that the norm? I think there are two factors: (1) men like you are extremely gifted in a variety of areas of leadership so they find themselves doing ALL these tasks for the church and, if they can get paid for it, all the better; and (2) human beings feel more comfortable with certain men being the professionals in the whole realm of spirituality so that they can focus on ‘the rest-of-their-lives,’ as they lean on Pastor Ryan's expertise with ‘religious’ matters. American culture, from heroic characters in movies to CEO’s running corporations, has trained us to value the Renaissance man who can do-it-all and get the pretty girl in the end. I firmly believe that if pastors took seriously that this new people of God in Christ are ‘a kingdom of priests’ [not a kingdom with priests] then there would be a real burden lifted, a level of stress and pressure that they have to do everything in the church. It would also be tremendously healthy for church members to really be challenged with using their gifts and to take seriously that they, too, are doing priestly work for the kingdom, both at their ‘secular’ jobs and when the community gathers.
RW: So, in your opinion, should all these pastors like me give up their salaries and go out and get ‘real jobs?’
AT: I don’t envision that at all. Church communities, especially with a thousand people in it, desperately need leaders that are trained in the art of interpreting the Bible and others trained in counseling and others who are needed to give a little extra time to administrative work. These shouldn’t all be done by the same person and they shouldn’t all be men. It sends a message to the church community at large and to the non-Christian world that says, ‘We have some people in the church who are ‘professionals,’ and in many cases ‘superheroes’ or ‘rock stars’ who are doing the real work, the kingdom work, and then there are the masses who attend services [put on by the experts] and work at other non-kingdom jobs, but are expected to ‘do their time’ with a ministry at the church—the ‘kingdom work.’
RW: I think you are on to something here. In our own church leadership meetings or at these pastors’ conferences we go to, we often talk about how we can get the rest of the congregation serving—how 10% of the church does 90% of the work. The general consensus is that it is very much ‘their problem’: they are too busy or too lazy or don’t care about ‘spiritual’ things enough or are afraid of getting too involved or they are too comfortable. Yoder’s analysis seems to be getting at the heart of the problem—that God’s design is for his people to be a community of priests, not divided between two different classes of ‘Christian’—which, unfortunately, doesn’t necessarily mean solutions are easy.
AT: There are pastors I’ve heard of doing creative things like giving 10% of their salary each year until they are serving at the church voluntarily with what they are gifted in. Of course, that means they are working increasingly more and more part-time hours somewhere else and others in the church community are putting in time with the church community. I heard of another pastor recently who was doing all the teaching on Sunday mornings for years, but now he only teaches once a month because he finally realized that he wasn’t as gifted a teacher as he was with some areas, but some in the congregation were gifted and passionate and surprisingly well-trained to do the teaching. I just think we need pastors who aren’t threatened by the thought of others—who are gifted in areas that they aren’t—doing that work for the community. We need leaders who are committed to empowering people and not manipulating them. Maybe we just need a lot of pastors who don’t take themselves so seriously.
RW: Don’t you think that part of the solution must lay with the congregation though?
AT: Amen. Many of those descriptions you recounted earlier—too lazy, too comfortable, too busy—-are all valid issues, and those same every-Sunday-church-attendees are content, without a hint of critical thinking, to let the religious expert tell them how to live. But I do think that the church leadership [pastoral staff] must guide this in ways that are empowering to the rest-of-the-church-body. I think the majority of evangelicals need to get over this thing where everyone needs a ‘pastor-hero.’ This will take both humility and empathy. They need to humbly admit that they can’t possibly do it all and that its not God’s plan for the church. They also need to learn to see and experience the struggles of life through the point of view of ‘Joe the Plumber-Christian’ who works 40-80 hours a week just trying to pay the bills AND, in their workplace, be a sign and foretaste of God’s inaugurated reign. Wow…that’s a challenge! I think pastors need to invite a dialogue, challenging congregations with the notion that, perhaps, Scripture doesn’t really support it. But maybe more importantly, pastors need to start modeling it. These ‘pastor-heroes’ are just going to need to respectfully and gently say ‘no’ to a lot of what they are doing, and give opportunities for others in the community, with their distinct gifts and talents, to be involved with some of the burdens placed on the pastors’ shoulders. As harsh as it sounds, perhaps the ‘pastor-hero’ should stop taking all the hospital visits and others in the community can be challenged and, in the process, empowered to step it up with their gifting. But, I know, there is always something comforting, something special to have the ‘pastor-hero’ by my hospital bedside kneeling with me in prayer before the big operation! This is the bind that we are in. Expectations need to be scaled back and the people of God need to see what a community where everyone does pastoral work really looks like.
RW: I think I’ll need you in our leadership meeting on Tuesday to communicate all of this.
AT: It's all yours. I’ll be busy trying to win football games…and be a sign and foretaste of God’s reign in the process! Wow…what a challenge!
Chapter 5: Going to Practice
RW: Back to your Monday night community—it still just sounds like a glorified small group.
AT: OK, here are two things that I think really set it apart from your normal ‘evangelical’ church small group in Orange County, or most anywhere in North America. First, it is how we define what church is. In the days and years following the death and resurrection of Jesus, communities that committed to Jesus’ nonviolent way began to call themselves ekklesia. This was a political concept, like an assembly or a parliament or a town hall meeting. It was the place where they worked out, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, how to be faithful to what God was doing in and around their community. In those early years, most of these folks were Jews who believed that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the King of Israel that would restore them to faithfulness—most Christian communities were simply made up of ‘Jews for Jesus.’ Then, some Gentiles began receiving this message about what God had done in Jesus and got an open invitation to participate with Jews in these communities. This was a socio-political miracle: Jews and Gentiles worshipping the one Creator and Redeemer God under the same roof! This is what Yoder called ‘the original revolution.’ So, first of all, church is a political body that pledges allegiance to God’s Kingdom. It is what Paul calls a ‘new creation’ in II Corinthians and Galatians, even though most Christians interpret that phrase individually.
The second key difference is what our community is committed to. Most churches have websites with doctrinal statements and key beliefs. These beliefs about biblical authority, Jesus’ identity, eternal salvation and views on other religions are, indeed, important to address and dialogue. However, in our community, we put the priority on practices. There are five practices that we are whole-heartedly committed to within and without our community: (1) a one-on-one commitment to conflict resolution and consciousness raising to deal with sin and error; (2) the open floor during our times together—anyone and everyone gets to share and question; (3) the multiplicity of gifts used—everyone has a role to play. And then the last two are two classic Christian sacraments with a twist: (4) our communion or Eucharist is an emphasis on sharing our food and resources with each other and those in need outside of the community; and (5) our baptism isn’t simply a one time event, but a commitment to interethnic solidarity, the new humanity in Christ, just like it was in those first Jew + Gentile communities—but in Lawrence, Kansas we have African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, refugees from the Middle East and Africa, all living in the same city and many of them are brothers and sisters in Christ, baptized into a new identity. These practices, we believe, are uniquely ‘Christian,’ and they constitute our worship, but also our evangelism since they are naturally practices that our non-believing neighbors are longing for and can actually participate with us quite organically. Another way of putting it is, in our time together on Mondays or any day of the week, our community is practicing what it means to be distinctly Christian. The more we practice these things together, the more these naturally overflow, in the power of the Spirit, in our workplaces, in the grocery store, in our eating and leisure times and everything else that constitutes ‘real life.’ It’s just like in prime-time college and pro sports: you’ve got to practice in order to win. Our Mondays are committed to practicing so that we can play aggressively—yet nonviolently, of course—for God’s Kingdom…and win.
RW: These all sound like great ideas, but I’m a bit skeptical of this overemphasis on ‘being relevant.’ Aren’t we just catering to what is chic or popular in our culture?
AT: It is impressive how ahead of his time Yoder was. I mean, he was publishing these ideas 20 years ago. But let me follow up with two notes. First of all, these practices are straight out of the New Testament: for instance, Matthew 18 is one of the hardest passages to follow in our gossip-saturated culture and I Corinthians 11 clearly calls the little ekklesia in Corinth to allow all members, men and women, to have the floor during their times together. Second, Yoder complemented these five practices with what I shared with you before—the three scandal factors: service, forgiveness and enemy love. These, by no means, are relevant concepts, if what you mean by that is that it is catering to culture in order to define Christian faith. Instead, these notions are rooted in the identity and mission of the scandalous messiah and his people. They are hard work and they cut against the grain of dominating leadership and vengeful solutions that our culture continues to be obsessed with. This vision calls Christian communities to more radical living, requiring blood, sweat and tears. At the same time, a community who models this way-of-life, consistently and practically, will produce an intriguing and mostly magnetic response from the neighbors. That’s what relevance should consist of in the Body of Christ today.
AT: OK, here are two things that I think really set it apart from your normal ‘evangelical’ church small group in Orange County, or most anywhere in North America. First, it is how we define what church is. In the days and years following the death and resurrection of Jesus, communities that committed to Jesus’ nonviolent way began to call themselves ekklesia. This was a political concept, like an assembly or a parliament or a town hall meeting. It was the place where they worked out, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, how to be faithful to what God was doing in and around their community. In those early years, most of these folks were Jews who believed that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the King of Israel that would restore them to faithfulness—most Christian communities were simply made up of ‘Jews for Jesus.’ Then, some Gentiles began receiving this message about what God had done in Jesus and got an open invitation to participate with Jews in these communities. This was a socio-political miracle: Jews and Gentiles worshipping the one Creator and Redeemer God under the same roof! This is what Yoder called ‘the original revolution.’ So, first of all, church is a political body that pledges allegiance to God’s Kingdom. It is what Paul calls a ‘new creation’ in II Corinthians and Galatians, even though most Christians interpret that phrase individually.
The second key difference is what our community is committed to. Most churches have websites with doctrinal statements and key beliefs. These beliefs about biblical authority, Jesus’ identity, eternal salvation and views on other religions are, indeed, important to address and dialogue. However, in our community, we put the priority on practices. There are five practices that we are whole-heartedly committed to within and without our community: (1) a one-on-one commitment to conflict resolution and consciousness raising to deal with sin and error; (2) the open floor during our times together—anyone and everyone gets to share and question; (3) the multiplicity of gifts used—everyone has a role to play. And then the last two are two classic Christian sacraments with a twist: (4) our communion or Eucharist is an emphasis on sharing our food and resources with each other and those in need outside of the community; and (5) our baptism isn’t simply a one time event, but a commitment to interethnic solidarity, the new humanity in Christ, just like it was in those first Jew + Gentile communities—but in Lawrence, Kansas we have African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, refugees from the Middle East and Africa, all living in the same city and many of them are brothers and sisters in Christ, baptized into a new identity. These practices, we believe, are uniquely ‘Christian,’ and they constitute our worship, but also our evangelism since they are naturally practices that our non-believing neighbors are longing for and can actually participate with us quite organically. Another way of putting it is, in our time together on Mondays or any day of the week, our community is practicing what it means to be distinctly Christian. The more we practice these things together, the more these naturally overflow, in the power of the Spirit, in our workplaces, in the grocery store, in our eating and leisure times and everything else that constitutes ‘real life.’ It’s just like in prime-time college and pro sports: you’ve got to practice in order to win. Our Mondays are committed to practicing so that we can play aggressively—yet nonviolently, of course—for God’s Kingdom…and win.
RW: These all sound like great ideas, but I’m a bit skeptical of this overemphasis on ‘being relevant.’ Aren’t we just catering to what is chic or popular in our culture?
AT: It is impressive how ahead of his time Yoder was. I mean, he was publishing these ideas 20 years ago. But let me follow up with two notes. First of all, these practices are straight out of the New Testament: for instance, Matthew 18 is one of the hardest passages to follow in our gossip-saturated culture and I Corinthians 11 clearly calls the little ekklesia in Corinth to allow all members, men and women, to have the floor during their times together. Second, Yoder complemented these five practices with what I shared with you before—the three scandal factors: service, forgiveness and enemy love. These, by no means, are relevant concepts, if what you mean by that is that it is catering to culture in order to define Christian faith. Instead, these notions are rooted in the identity and mission of the scandalous messiah and his people. They are hard work and they cut against the grain of dominating leadership and vengeful solutions that our culture continues to be obsessed with. This vision calls Christian communities to more radical living, requiring blood, sweat and tears. At the same time, a community who models this way-of-life, consistently and practically, will produce an intriguing and mostly magnetic response from the neighbors. That’s what relevance should consist of in the Body of Christ today.
Chapter 6: Was Luther Wrong?
RW: You mentioned earlier that these practices form your evangelism strategy, but they sound more like this ‘social justice’ stuff that every evangelical church in America is jumping on the bandwagon with. It seems like every cool evangelical pastor in America is touting their outreach to Africa and the homeless. This is great, but shouldn’t we be putting more focus on the real work of evangelism: saving souls for eternity? Shouldn’t we be giving them the real gospel, instead of this watered-down ‘social gospel?’
AT: OK, here’s where Yoder really makes a lot of sense to me, but can be a bit abrasive to North American Evangelicals who have assumed that Jesus’ mission to save the world was primarily spiritual and futuristic [heaven]. For Yoder, the gospel, euangelion in the Greek [where we get the word ‘evangelical’], was originally yet another ‘socio-political’ term [sound familiar]. ‘Gospel,’ in its original context, was ‘good news’ announced by the Roman Empire that Caesar was coming to town or that a huge battle had been won that insured the safety of the far-flung Empire outposts like Colosse and Philippi. It was exciting news that had implications for fellow citizens of the kingdom of Rome. The ‘good news’ that Paul was announcing was that there was a different Lord than Caesar ‘sitting at the right hand of God’ and that this messiah named Jesus birthed a whole new society bearing his name that embodied the love, forgiveness, righteousness and justice of God’s reign. Jesus came to usher in the long-awaited new age in the Palestinian Jewish community during the 1st century. It was political, not spiritual or religious as we know it. It was a ‘social revolution,’ God’s judgment on the present order, but with it, the promise of a new regime was breaking into the world with Jesus. We think of repentance in terms of sorrow or guilt, but really it was ‘a redirected will ready to live in a new kind of world.’ And remember, John the Baptist, announced the nearness of God’s inaugurated kingdom coming in Jesus, calling the people of God who were coming out to the wilderness to a new set of social practices [like our five practices]. It’s easy to skim right over John the Baptist’s answer to the repenting folks in Luke’s Gospel when they ask him what they should do to prepare for God’s reign: ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise’ [Luke 3:10]. John the Baptist called these gospel practices ‘fruits worthy of repentance.’ That’s what the Sermon on the Mount was all about—giving the disciples a vision for the new world that God was bursting into our present existence through Jesus and his disciples. The ekklesia embodied the new reality in the midst of a sin-dominated world. Repentance simply meant ‘turn your mind around’ or in our terms ‘join the team.’ Yoder’s reading of the New Testament in Politics of Jesus shattered the individualistic and uber-spiritual, and I may note apolitical, notions of what Christian faith was and is all about.
RW: Wow, that’s a different reading than I’m accustomed to. What about good old-fashioned ‘justification by faith’ alone?
AT: Again, we’ve been conditioned, especially since Luther 500 years ago, to think of ‘justification’ as an individualistic law-court term just like we learned back in youth group: ‘justified’ means ‘just-if-I’d-never-sinned’—in Christ, I’m acquitted! But I’m more compelled by what biblical scholars have called ‘the new perspective on Paul’ for the past four decades, although I don’t think Yoder ever used that phrase. The ‘new perspective’ is actually the oldest perspective on Paul. It claims that when Paul used that justification language—a lot in Romans and Galatians—it was always about how Gentiles become part of the people of God. You guessed it—it is a socio-political concept. Justification is about joining the movement, not how an individual’s sins can be wiped out in order to have a relationship with God and be saved for eternity. It is a term about how the covenant God is ‘setting things right’ in the world and how he invites everyone, Jew and Gentile, to join him.
RW: So, you’re saying Luther was flat-out wrong?
AT: No, Luther was flat-out cultural. He was reading and meditating on Paul in his medieval context, flooded with concerns about mortality [disease and war] and anxious guilt brought on by a corrupt Roman Catholic Church. Paul’s ‘justification’ was the cure for Luther’s self-flagellation!
RW: So, don’t we, too, interpret Paul contextually?
AT: Sure, but we’re in a unique era, I think, where our concerns actually parallel the concerns of 1st century Palestine quite closely. We are coming out of the modern era where the world has been dualistically divided into ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ and ‘political,’ and where historical and scientific study has provided certain foundational truths to build our lives on. It has been a time of intense focus on the individual who lives autonomously and objectively. We are slowly discovering that these dualisms and reductionisms and self-focus have led us into cul-de-sacs that don’t allow us to journey deeper and farther into understanding who God is and what it means to join him in his world-redeeming activity. In very similar ways to Jesus’ Palestinian world, our postmodern sensibilities are training us to think more holistically and communally. Yoder said that Evangelicals were constantly in danger of confusing the benefits of the kingdom for the kingdom itself. That is why he put all the marbles in the basket of seeking first the kingdom, following the way of Jesus. This following is salvation. Salvation in the first century was all about being a part of God’s people, not about each individual saying the right prayer or making the right individual moral decisions. God was about ‘setting things right’ in the world and that meant that Jesus and his people would set their sights on redeeming socio-political practices like loving their enemies and telling the truth and sharing their possessions. In the process, individuals were transformed.
AT: OK, here’s where Yoder really makes a lot of sense to me, but can be a bit abrasive to North American Evangelicals who have assumed that Jesus’ mission to save the world was primarily spiritual and futuristic [heaven]. For Yoder, the gospel, euangelion in the Greek [where we get the word ‘evangelical’], was originally yet another ‘socio-political’ term [sound familiar]. ‘Gospel,’ in its original context, was ‘good news’ announced by the Roman Empire that Caesar was coming to town or that a huge battle had been won that insured the safety of the far-flung Empire outposts like Colosse and Philippi. It was exciting news that had implications for fellow citizens of the kingdom of Rome. The ‘good news’ that Paul was announcing was that there was a different Lord than Caesar ‘sitting at the right hand of God’ and that this messiah named Jesus birthed a whole new society bearing his name that embodied the love, forgiveness, righteousness and justice of God’s reign. Jesus came to usher in the long-awaited new age in the Palestinian Jewish community during the 1st century. It was political, not spiritual or religious as we know it. It was a ‘social revolution,’ God’s judgment on the present order, but with it, the promise of a new regime was breaking into the world with Jesus. We think of repentance in terms of sorrow or guilt, but really it was ‘a redirected will ready to live in a new kind of world.’ And remember, John the Baptist, announced the nearness of God’s inaugurated kingdom coming in Jesus, calling the people of God who were coming out to the wilderness to a new set of social practices [like our five practices]. It’s easy to skim right over John the Baptist’s answer to the repenting folks in Luke’s Gospel when they ask him what they should do to prepare for God’s reign: ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise’ [Luke 3:10]. John the Baptist called these gospel practices ‘fruits worthy of repentance.’ That’s what the Sermon on the Mount was all about—giving the disciples a vision for the new world that God was bursting into our present existence through Jesus and his disciples. The ekklesia embodied the new reality in the midst of a sin-dominated world. Repentance simply meant ‘turn your mind around’ or in our terms ‘join the team.’ Yoder’s reading of the New Testament in Politics of Jesus shattered the individualistic and uber-spiritual, and I may note apolitical, notions of what Christian faith was and is all about.
RW: Wow, that’s a different reading than I’m accustomed to. What about good old-fashioned ‘justification by faith’ alone?
AT: Again, we’ve been conditioned, especially since Luther 500 years ago, to think of ‘justification’ as an individualistic law-court term just like we learned back in youth group: ‘justified’ means ‘just-if-I’d-never-sinned’—in Christ, I’m acquitted! But I’m more compelled by what biblical scholars have called ‘the new perspective on Paul’ for the past four decades, although I don’t think Yoder ever used that phrase. The ‘new perspective’ is actually the oldest perspective on Paul. It claims that when Paul used that justification language—a lot in Romans and Galatians—it was always about how Gentiles become part of the people of God. You guessed it—it is a socio-political concept. Justification is about joining the movement, not how an individual’s sins can be wiped out in order to have a relationship with God and be saved for eternity. It is a term about how the covenant God is ‘setting things right’ in the world and how he invites everyone, Jew and Gentile, to join him.
RW: So, you’re saying Luther was flat-out wrong?
AT: No, Luther was flat-out cultural. He was reading and meditating on Paul in his medieval context, flooded with concerns about mortality [disease and war] and anxious guilt brought on by a corrupt Roman Catholic Church. Paul’s ‘justification’ was the cure for Luther’s self-flagellation!
RW: So, don’t we, too, interpret Paul contextually?
AT: Sure, but we’re in a unique era, I think, where our concerns actually parallel the concerns of 1st century Palestine quite closely. We are coming out of the modern era where the world has been dualistically divided into ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ and ‘political,’ and where historical and scientific study has provided certain foundational truths to build our lives on. It has been a time of intense focus on the individual who lives autonomously and objectively. We are slowly discovering that these dualisms and reductionisms and self-focus have led us into cul-de-sacs that don’t allow us to journey deeper and farther into understanding who God is and what it means to join him in his world-redeeming activity. In very similar ways to Jesus’ Palestinian world, our postmodern sensibilities are training us to think more holistically and communally. Yoder said that Evangelicals were constantly in danger of confusing the benefits of the kingdom for the kingdom itself. That is why he put all the marbles in the basket of seeking first the kingdom, following the way of Jesus. This following is salvation. Salvation in the first century was all about being a part of God’s people, not about each individual saying the right prayer or making the right individual moral decisions. God was about ‘setting things right’ in the world and that meant that Jesus and his people would set their sights on redeeming socio-political practices like loving their enemies and telling the truth and sharing their possessions. In the process, individuals were transformed.
Chapter 7: A New Strategy
RW: All of this is quite a paradigm-shift for me, but before I forget and we move on to another theme, please tell me what you meant about ‘if Paul wrote Ephesians.’
AT: I guess I’ve been reading too much on Pauline scholarship lately. It’s just that most scholars outside of the conservative evangelical world don’t really think Paul wrote Ephesians or the Pastorals or even Colossians. But it doesn’t really matter to me. The Bible has authority whether Paul or one of his early followers wrote it.
RW: I have a sneaky suspicion that what you mean by ‘authority’ might be different than what I mean by it. Don’t you still believe that the Bible is ‘inerrant?’
AT: To be honest, I don’t feel that comfortable with any words that begin with ‘in’ used to describe the Bible. The push for inerrancy has really been a relatively new phenomena in the United States. It became a huge thing for evangelicals [some would call them simply fundamentalists] from the later 19th century onwards because it provided evangelicals with a much needed ‘foundation’ to lay the groundwork for ‘absolute truth’ in a fast-changing world becoming more and more complex. If the Bible is the error-free Word of God and is self-evidently interpreted with one meaning for every passage for all-time, then we have certainty about what Truth is. That kind of biblical reading strategy is not compelling to me like it was when we were in youth group. Sure it claims to provide simple, black-and-white answers to pretty much all of life’s questions, but I’ve found both life and the biblical text to be a lot more complex than we were taught back in our teenage years.
RW: Are you getting all of this from Yoder?
AT: No, actually Yoder doesn’t verbalize the battle over the Bible very much at all. I’ve read others like Jim McClendon, Nancey Murphy, N.T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann and Richard B. Hays who, in their own unique ways, write a lot about the baggage of modern biblical reading strategies like inerrancy and offer different paradigms. Yoder basically just models a different biblical reading strategy in all of his writings. He does, however, point to two specific doctrines about the Bible that have really held conservative evangelicals back over the years. First, the doctrine of perspicuity which ‘guaranteed that there can be no problems in understanding what the Bible says’ and, second, the doctrine of infallibility [or your even ‘higher’ authority: inerrancy] which ‘protected us against any significant clash with people holding other perspectives.’ When you combine these two theories about the Bible with the well-documented tendency for evangelicals to be anti-intellectual then, I think, it’s a biblical reading strategy that needs to be fixed. In fact, those, like you and I, who have been raised in the conservative evangelical tradition would only get anything from Yoder if we actually admitted that we may not be right about a lot of the biblical themes that we’ve taken at face value like those we’ve talked about for the past few hours: the cross, church, gospel, repentance, salvation, etc.
RW: It seems like you, or shall I say Yoder [?], are engaging with a completely different philosophical world than I am. I mean, as I listen to you, I would have a really difficult time accepting any sort of doctrine of the Bible besides inerrancy. If there are errors, then how would we even be sure Jesus rose from the dead, let alone was even an actual person? And then how would our salvation be assured?
AT: I guess I’ve been reading too much on Pauline scholarship lately. It’s just that most scholars outside of the conservative evangelical world don’t really think Paul wrote Ephesians or the Pastorals or even Colossians. But it doesn’t really matter to me. The Bible has authority whether Paul or one of his early followers wrote it.
RW: I have a sneaky suspicion that what you mean by ‘authority’ might be different than what I mean by it. Don’t you still believe that the Bible is ‘inerrant?’
AT: To be honest, I don’t feel that comfortable with any words that begin with ‘in’ used to describe the Bible. The push for inerrancy has really been a relatively new phenomena in the United States. It became a huge thing for evangelicals [some would call them simply fundamentalists] from the later 19th century onwards because it provided evangelicals with a much needed ‘foundation’ to lay the groundwork for ‘absolute truth’ in a fast-changing world becoming more and more complex. If the Bible is the error-free Word of God and is self-evidently interpreted with one meaning for every passage for all-time, then we have certainty about what Truth is. That kind of biblical reading strategy is not compelling to me like it was when we were in youth group. Sure it claims to provide simple, black-and-white answers to pretty much all of life’s questions, but I’ve found both life and the biblical text to be a lot more complex than we were taught back in our teenage years.
RW: Are you getting all of this from Yoder?
AT: No, actually Yoder doesn’t verbalize the battle over the Bible very much at all. I’ve read others like Jim McClendon, Nancey Murphy, N.T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann and Richard B. Hays who, in their own unique ways, write a lot about the baggage of modern biblical reading strategies like inerrancy and offer different paradigms. Yoder basically just models a different biblical reading strategy in all of his writings. He does, however, point to two specific doctrines about the Bible that have really held conservative evangelicals back over the years. First, the doctrine of perspicuity which ‘guaranteed that there can be no problems in understanding what the Bible says’ and, second, the doctrine of infallibility [or your even ‘higher’ authority: inerrancy] which ‘protected us against any significant clash with people holding other perspectives.’ When you combine these two theories about the Bible with the well-documented tendency for evangelicals to be anti-intellectual then, I think, it’s a biblical reading strategy that needs to be fixed. In fact, those, like you and I, who have been raised in the conservative evangelical tradition would only get anything from Yoder if we actually admitted that we may not be right about a lot of the biblical themes that we’ve taken at face value like those we’ve talked about for the past few hours: the cross, church, gospel, repentance, salvation, etc.
RW: It seems like you, or shall I say Yoder [?], are engaging with a completely different philosophical world than I am. I mean, as I listen to you, I would have a really difficult time accepting any sort of doctrine of the Bible besides inerrancy. If there are errors, then how would we even be sure Jesus rose from the dead, let alone was even an actual person? And then how would our salvation be assured?
Chapter 8: A Christian Spin-off
AT: Yes! This is key. It’s really important for us to all admit that we are actually engaging with philosophy, which is culturally conditioned, anytime we are interpreting the Bible and theologizing. The way we read the Bible isn’t self-evidently ‘true.’ In other words, the Bible doesn’t have a specific formula or method that clearly teaches Christians how to read it. It never says, ‘Read it this way and you’ll know the truth!’ There have been a variety of different biblical reading strategies over the centuries, feeding off different philosophical categories. I’ve used words like ‘postmodern’ with you already. I think that the whole activity of proving the Word of God or Jesus’ resurrection or anything else, what you and I have been brought up calling ‘apologetics,’ is kind of a waste of time. Don’t get me wrong, many people, Christians and non, want logical answers to their questions, but at the end of the day, there are compelling arguments on both sides of every theme of theology. Have you recently stopped by Barnes and Noble and scanned the number of books written about the historical Jesus by authors spanning both conservative and liberal extremes—pages and pages and pages written by scholars who are claiming all the right evidence and objectivity! Yoder just doesn’t spend time with these arguments. Most of the time he is concerned with prophetically calling his own Mennonite community, along with every other brand of Christian faith, to be faithful communities that reflect who God is: ‘Transcendence is kept alive not on the grounds of logical proof to the effect that there is a cosmos with a hereafter, but by the vitality of communities in which a different way of being keeps breaking in here and now.’ This is what a lot of younger evangelicals are calling an ‘embodied apologetic.’ They are saying essentially, ‘People don’t care what you say. They care what you do.’ Even the postmodern Batman [Batman Begins] agrees: ‘It’s not what is inside but what you do that defines you.’
RW: Don’t be quoting Batman movies with my kids around. They’ll start believing all of your postmodern heresies!
AT: Yes, exactly. Young people today resonate with this worldview. They won’t believe a word until they are confronted with compelling actions. This, of course, brings us back to my earlier comments about the five practices of our community and why practicing those is our sole evangelistic strategy. So, back to your question: yes, one way to say that I’m different from most conservative evangelicals that we grew up with is that I have different philosophical underpinnings.
RW: Your thinking just seems like ‘relativism’ to me. Have you completely abandoned Absolute Truth?
AT: The concept of relativism is just a ‘spin-off’ from serious Christian mission. Think about it like this. Jesus calls us to love our enemies. This must mean that we listen and seek to understand those who have different convictions than we do, whether Muslim, Mormon or Military.
RW: Good to hear that you are still using alliteration like the rest of us conservative evangelicals!
AT: I know, it’s catchy. So, we listen and seek to understand, but that doesn’t mean that we agree with everything people believe and do. However, the more we listen, the more we might be surprised with how much we do actually agree on. The key is that there isn’t anything or anyone to adjudicate between our positions.
RW: Adjudi-what?
AT: To ‘adjudicate’ simply means to judge between ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Take Bible reading, for example. It doesn’t matter how loud or how often pastors tell their flock that ‘the Bible clearly tells us’ how to live. There are probably a few valid interpretations on all of the most cherished Bible passages that we’ve grown up memorizing. Bible scholars, theologians and pastors from different Christian traditions, working in different social locations, are interpreting the Bible differently. How do we decide who has the ‘right’ interpretations? There is no answer in the back of the book.
RW: OK, it sounds like you are glorifying relativism or pluralism.
AT: Not ‘glorifying’ per se, but only trying to describe our culture for what it is and to adjudicate between relativism and the way of Constantine: absolutism. See, absolutism assumes dominance. Those advocating for absolute truth only advocate for their form of absolute truth. Any other perspective is wrong from the starting-gun. Authentic Christianity can never be absolutist. All voices must be heard and none coerced.
RW: But can’t we still know that ours is the absolute truth and not use it to coerce or dominate other people? I mean, say I buy what you’re saying about not being able to know, for certain, the truth of what the Bible is saying—where does that leave us? I mean, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.” That sounds pretty absolute to me! Where does that fit with what you are saying about Christianity not being absolutist?
AT: You and I have a strong conviction that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. It is cherished, it is tenaciously held and it compels us to do all sorts of things in the name of Jesus. On most days, I’m absolutely sure that Christ is actively reigning in our world, but I don't have proof and, on the other hand, my skeptical, atheist colleague can't prove that Jesus is dead and irrelevant. Sure, sometimes I have my doubts—this is a big part of faith—but all I can say is that everything that Jesus does in Scripture—his teachings, actions, death and resurrection—are always interpreted by individuals and communities, most of which are very different than you and I. So my point is simply that there is not a judge, a lower-case-j-judge, who is available on this earth to show us what exactly the truth is, differentiating from different faith traditions and hundreds, if not thousands, of Christian denominational distinctives. Until that Day when our Judge makes himself known ultimately and finally, we must wait patiently and live faithfully and humbly, as our communities own their distinct interpretations: ‘For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known’ [I Corinthians 13:12].
RW: How, then, in this dim, partial time until that Day, do we know what the Bible even says if so many scholars and theologians have so many different ideas about what each passage means?
AT: This is where the community is vital. The 10 of us, meeting in a modest house in Lawrence, KS on Monday nights, participate in what Yoder calls ‘practical moral reasoning.’ This is what the Reformers called ‘the rule of Paul’ 500 years ago after his directives to the community in Corinth in I Corinthians 14.26-33: ‘when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.’ Each and every member of the community should have the space and freedom to speak freely in the community and all the words of those who interpret and teach from Scripture must be weighed by the whole community. This method critiques authoritarianism, where usually one man has the say about how the church should proceed on any one issue or how the Bible should be interpreted, and it also critiques individualism, the rampant trend since the Reformation, and gathering steam throughout American history, where individuals have their ‘quiet time’ and interpret the Bible self-evidently or how each was led by the Spirit at that time. Our ‘practical moral reasoning’ seeks to give dignity to all and challenges all to listen to others and consent when convinced of their error.
RW: Anthony, don’t get me wrong, I trust you, but all I can think of is communities large and small taking this ‘practical moral reasoning’ seriously without any sort of theological training. There’s only one word for something like that: a cult.
AT: Sure, I understand your fear. But I do have faith that men and women will take this kind of worship seriously, and study it theologically and that they will have the patience and humility to help start these types of communities and facilitate them in the power of the Spirit. A movement like this has got to start springing up because I talk to a lot of younger 20-somethings and 30-somethings who want to be a part of a community, but don’t want to just go to church and do the same old cha-cha. They want to know people a lot more intimately and they want to actively participate in complex discussions about the Bible and their lives. And, sure, I know that a lot young people who complain about church for bad consumeristic reasons or who just want to sit at home and watch NASCAR or the NFL.
RW: Or Joel Osteen.
AT: Don’t get me started. I do, however, think that there are many Christians who want to be a part of something different, to really participate in something that is more like a town hall meeting or an underground movement or political campaign than a concert or social club.
RW: I can’t believe it is 2am already. Can we continue this conversation over cinnamon rolls and coffee in the morning at, say, 8:30am?
AT: You bet. Time to check in at the Holiday Inn. See you back here at 8:30!
As Ryan lay in bed, he thought about some of the things they talked about and about how he had been doing a little reading on the side lately, getting book recommendations from various friends: ‘Oh, you’ve got to read McLaren’s new book’ or ‘Have you seen Rob Bell’s NOOMA DVDs?’ or ‘I couldn’t put down Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz…you’ve got to check this out!’ All of these authors were proposing a little different Christianity than he was accustomed to and a lot of it resonated with him, but some of it was a bit abrasive. However, this Yoder stuff that Anthony had just sprung on him over the past few hours seemed to be completely re-writing what it means to be a Christian. It was a complete overhaul. But the way Anthony presented it made a lot of sense to me. Or maybe it was just because it was Anthony who was presenting it.
RW: Don’t be quoting Batman movies with my kids around. They’ll start believing all of your postmodern heresies!
AT: Yes, exactly. Young people today resonate with this worldview. They won’t believe a word until they are confronted with compelling actions. This, of course, brings us back to my earlier comments about the five practices of our community and why practicing those is our sole evangelistic strategy. So, back to your question: yes, one way to say that I’m different from most conservative evangelicals that we grew up with is that I have different philosophical underpinnings.
RW: Your thinking just seems like ‘relativism’ to me. Have you completely abandoned Absolute Truth?
AT: The concept of relativism is just a ‘spin-off’ from serious Christian mission. Think about it like this. Jesus calls us to love our enemies. This must mean that we listen and seek to understand those who have different convictions than we do, whether Muslim, Mormon or Military.
RW: Good to hear that you are still using alliteration like the rest of us conservative evangelicals!
AT: I know, it’s catchy. So, we listen and seek to understand, but that doesn’t mean that we agree with everything people believe and do. However, the more we listen, the more we might be surprised with how much we do actually agree on. The key is that there isn’t anything or anyone to adjudicate between our positions.
RW: Adjudi-what?
AT: To ‘adjudicate’ simply means to judge between ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Take Bible reading, for example. It doesn’t matter how loud or how often pastors tell their flock that ‘the Bible clearly tells us’ how to live. There are probably a few valid interpretations on all of the most cherished Bible passages that we’ve grown up memorizing. Bible scholars, theologians and pastors from different Christian traditions, working in different social locations, are interpreting the Bible differently. How do we decide who has the ‘right’ interpretations? There is no answer in the back of the book.
RW: OK, it sounds like you are glorifying relativism or pluralism.
AT: Not ‘glorifying’ per se, but only trying to describe our culture for what it is and to adjudicate between relativism and the way of Constantine: absolutism. See, absolutism assumes dominance. Those advocating for absolute truth only advocate for their form of absolute truth. Any other perspective is wrong from the starting-gun. Authentic Christianity can never be absolutist. All voices must be heard and none coerced.
RW: But can’t we still know that ours is the absolute truth and not use it to coerce or dominate other people? I mean, say I buy what you’re saying about not being able to know, for certain, the truth of what the Bible is saying—where does that leave us? I mean, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.” That sounds pretty absolute to me! Where does that fit with what you are saying about Christianity not being absolutist?
AT: You and I have a strong conviction that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. It is cherished, it is tenaciously held and it compels us to do all sorts of things in the name of Jesus. On most days, I’m absolutely sure that Christ is actively reigning in our world, but I don't have proof and, on the other hand, my skeptical, atheist colleague can't prove that Jesus is dead and irrelevant. Sure, sometimes I have my doubts—this is a big part of faith—but all I can say is that everything that Jesus does in Scripture—his teachings, actions, death and resurrection—are always interpreted by individuals and communities, most of which are very different than you and I. So my point is simply that there is not a judge, a lower-case-j-judge, who is available on this earth to show us what exactly the truth is, differentiating from different faith traditions and hundreds, if not thousands, of Christian denominational distinctives. Until that Day when our Judge makes himself known ultimately and finally, we must wait patiently and live faithfully and humbly, as our communities own their distinct interpretations: ‘For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known’ [I Corinthians 13:12].
RW: How, then, in this dim, partial time until that Day, do we know what the Bible even says if so many scholars and theologians have so many different ideas about what each passage means?
AT: This is where the community is vital. The 10 of us, meeting in a modest house in Lawrence, KS on Monday nights, participate in what Yoder calls ‘practical moral reasoning.’ This is what the Reformers called ‘the rule of Paul’ 500 years ago after his directives to the community in Corinth in I Corinthians 14.26-33: ‘when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.’ Each and every member of the community should have the space and freedom to speak freely in the community and all the words of those who interpret and teach from Scripture must be weighed by the whole community. This method critiques authoritarianism, where usually one man has the say about how the church should proceed on any one issue or how the Bible should be interpreted, and it also critiques individualism, the rampant trend since the Reformation, and gathering steam throughout American history, where individuals have their ‘quiet time’ and interpret the Bible self-evidently or how each was led by the Spirit at that time. Our ‘practical moral reasoning’ seeks to give dignity to all and challenges all to listen to others and consent when convinced of their error.
RW: Anthony, don’t get me wrong, I trust you, but all I can think of is communities large and small taking this ‘practical moral reasoning’ seriously without any sort of theological training. There’s only one word for something like that: a cult.
AT: Sure, I understand your fear. But I do have faith that men and women will take this kind of worship seriously, and study it theologically and that they will have the patience and humility to help start these types of communities and facilitate them in the power of the Spirit. A movement like this has got to start springing up because I talk to a lot of younger 20-somethings and 30-somethings who want to be a part of a community, but don’t want to just go to church and do the same old cha-cha. They want to know people a lot more intimately and they want to actively participate in complex discussions about the Bible and their lives. And, sure, I know that a lot young people who complain about church for bad consumeristic reasons or who just want to sit at home and watch NASCAR or the NFL.
RW: Or Joel Osteen.
AT: Don’t get me started. I do, however, think that there are many Christians who want to be a part of something different, to really participate in something that is more like a town hall meeting or an underground movement or political campaign than a concert or social club.
RW: I can’t believe it is 2am already. Can we continue this conversation over cinnamon rolls and coffee in the morning at, say, 8:30am?
AT: You bet. Time to check in at the Holiday Inn. See you back here at 8:30!
As Ryan lay in bed, he thought about some of the things they talked about and about how he had been doing a little reading on the side lately, getting book recommendations from various friends: ‘Oh, you’ve got to read McLaren’s new book’ or ‘Have you seen Rob Bell’s NOOMA DVDs?’ or ‘I couldn’t put down Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz…you’ve got to check this out!’ All of these authors were proposing a little different Christianity than he was accustomed to and a lot of it resonated with him, but some of it was a bit abrasive. However, this Yoder stuff that Anthony had just sprung on him over the past few hours seemed to be completely re-writing what it means to be a Christian. It was a complete overhaul. But the way Anthony presented it made a lot of sense to me. Or maybe it was just because it was Anthony who was presenting it.
Chapter 9: Coffee, yes, Christian Nation, no
The next morning Anthony arrived right at 8:30am to the smell of fresh coffee and piping hot cinnamon rolls. It was a Saturday morning tradition, Kimberly explained. Their 3 sons [15, 11, 9] were wolfing down cinnamon rolls like it was an Olympic sport. Meanwhile, Ryan was just sauntering out of bed, hungover from the nuclear hot wings and Twinkies he put down the night before. Cinnamon rolls were the last thing on his mind but he wasn’t going to forsake his coffee. Anthony, on the other hand, swore off coffee since college, but was definitely into the rolls.
As the boys scattered throughout the house, one to the computer room, one to the TV room and the oldest one sprawled out on the couch with his IPOD, Ryan, with a little help from Anthony, tried to bring Kimberly up to speed on their conversation the night before. Kimberly asked a few clarifying questions, but was content not knowing all of the details. She certainly wanted to hear more, but didn’t want to be a burden on their precious time. Ryan got right back to where they started the night before.
RW: This whole conversation got kick-started by a snide comment I made about Obama and then you came out of the closet—your acknowledgment that you are a card-carrying pacifist! As I lay in bed last night feeling the Twinkies and wings swirl around my stomach, I was thinking about how your position just seems so un-American. How could we simply abandon this Christian nation to those terrorist wolves?
AT: First of all, I take issue with the notion that the United States was or is a ‘Christian nation.’ Was it founded by Christians? Some of them were. Have our Presidents been Christians? All of them have claimed the title. But do our practices collectively reflect the character of God? I would say, ‘Not at all.’
RW: Here we go with the practices again.
AT: Yes. America can’t be labeled a Christian nation simply because a majority of its people subscribe to certain beliefs like ‘God created the world’ or ‘Jesus was God’ or ‘Eternal salvation is acquired through faith in Christ alone.’ And America can’t be labeled a Christian nation because we have ‘In God we trust’ on our coinage or because all of our good little children pledge allegiance to ‘One Nation Under God’ every morning. The God of the Bible established a people for himself [called Israel] and blessed it in order to bless the world. It is a community for the nations. The heritage of Abraham is passed on to little Jew-and-Gentile communities, empowered by the Spirit of the risen Christ, who live out God’s will for humanity in the days and years after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. These churches have a politics of their own that reflect the radical demand of the New Testament and, here’s the key, it is a world-wide people, crossing all sorts of borders. So can the United States be the center of God’s activity in the world? No. Is the United States a ‘new Israel’ or ‘the city on a hill’ that American leaders from George Winthrop to Ronald Reagan have claimed? No. The Body of Christ is represented in little, gathered clusters of people committed to following the way of Jesus, actually practicing this lifestyle. When people say ‘God bless America’ and they mean that God has unleashed his favor on us, this is not what is represented in Scripture. When the New Testament refers to the imperative of ‘blessing,’ it centers on one thing: our call in the Sermon on the Mount to bless [and pray for] our enemies. So, for instance, our so-called ‘Christian’ response to 9/11 should have been quite different than the response actually taken by our Christian President and mostly Christian Congress. In our day and age, it is vital that churches shift the focus back to who the people of God actually are and what that demands of them. It demands that we take these practices seriously: sharing our possessions, loving and caring for those brothers and sisters in Christ of different ethnicities, conflict resolution through gentle, restorative dialogue, loving our enemies, telling the truth, giving voice to those who have been marginalized, etc. And it means that the people of God, those who have been blessed in order to be a blessing to the world, is a voluntary community. Only those who choose to commit their lives to the cause are a part of it. Membership is fully voluntary, non-coercive. Kingdom practices cannot be forced upon people.
RW: OK, but what happens when these practices result in policies that have the result of hurting the United States as a whole.
AT: So be it. Reconfiguring JFK’s classic quote, Yoder wrote, ‘Ask not what God can do for America; ask what America owes humankind.’ If we follow the servant-king, then we too become servants ourselves. We should challenge America to a much more demanding lifestyle, especially if most of our leaders claim the title ‘Christian.’ Yoder goes as far as saying that the meaning of history is not about how the state successfully orders society, but instead, it is boiled down to what God’s people, churches all over the world, do in regards to evangelism and what he calls ‘the leavening process,’ the slow growth of morality that seeps into society through Christian example and the education of children who haven’t themselves chosen radical Christianity. In this way ‘the whole moral tone of non-Christian society is changed for the better.’ This requires slow growth and takes a lot of Christian patience.
RW: But that seems like Christians are just supposed to ghettoize themselves. Shouldn’t we care about legislation and leaders at every level—local, state and federal? Shouldn’t we care about making laws that protect the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage?
Kimberly: I need to protect the sanctity of my mind. I had no idea you two were getting so philosophical. Let me propose a time-out so we can start getting ready for the beach. Laguna is going to perfect today. Anthony, you are coming to the beach with us, aren’t you?
AT: Only if Ryan promises not to wear that speedo.
RW: You’ve got a deal. Let’s table this discussion until we get down to the sand.
As the boys scattered throughout the house, one to the computer room, one to the TV room and the oldest one sprawled out on the couch with his IPOD, Ryan, with a little help from Anthony, tried to bring Kimberly up to speed on their conversation the night before. Kimberly asked a few clarifying questions, but was content not knowing all of the details. She certainly wanted to hear more, but didn’t want to be a burden on their precious time. Ryan got right back to where they started the night before.
RW: This whole conversation got kick-started by a snide comment I made about Obama and then you came out of the closet—your acknowledgment that you are a card-carrying pacifist! As I lay in bed last night feeling the Twinkies and wings swirl around my stomach, I was thinking about how your position just seems so un-American. How could we simply abandon this Christian nation to those terrorist wolves?
AT: First of all, I take issue with the notion that the United States was or is a ‘Christian nation.’ Was it founded by Christians? Some of them were. Have our Presidents been Christians? All of them have claimed the title. But do our practices collectively reflect the character of God? I would say, ‘Not at all.’
RW: Here we go with the practices again.
AT: Yes. America can’t be labeled a Christian nation simply because a majority of its people subscribe to certain beliefs like ‘God created the world’ or ‘Jesus was God’ or ‘Eternal salvation is acquired through faith in Christ alone.’ And America can’t be labeled a Christian nation because we have ‘In God we trust’ on our coinage or because all of our good little children pledge allegiance to ‘One Nation Under God’ every morning. The God of the Bible established a people for himself [called Israel] and blessed it in order to bless the world. It is a community for the nations. The heritage of Abraham is passed on to little Jew-and-Gentile communities, empowered by the Spirit of the risen Christ, who live out God’s will for humanity in the days and years after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. These churches have a politics of their own that reflect the radical demand of the New Testament and, here’s the key, it is a world-wide people, crossing all sorts of borders. So can the United States be the center of God’s activity in the world? No. Is the United States a ‘new Israel’ or ‘the city on a hill’ that American leaders from George Winthrop to Ronald Reagan have claimed? No. The Body of Christ is represented in little, gathered clusters of people committed to following the way of Jesus, actually practicing this lifestyle. When people say ‘God bless America’ and they mean that God has unleashed his favor on us, this is not what is represented in Scripture. When the New Testament refers to the imperative of ‘blessing,’ it centers on one thing: our call in the Sermon on the Mount to bless [and pray for] our enemies. So, for instance, our so-called ‘Christian’ response to 9/11 should have been quite different than the response actually taken by our Christian President and mostly Christian Congress. In our day and age, it is vital that churches shift the focus back to who the people of God actually are and what that demands of them. It demands that we take these practices seriously: sharing our possessions, loving and caring for those brothers and sisters in Christ of different ethnicities, conflict resolution through gentle, restorative dialogue, loving our enemies, telling the truth, giving voice to those who have been marginalized, etc. And it means that the people of God, those who have been blessed in order to be a blessing to the world, is a voluntary community. Only those who choose to commit their lives to the cause are a part of it. Membership is fully voluntary, non-coercive. Kingdom practices cannot be forced upon people.
RW: OK, but what happens when these practices result in policies that have the result of hurting the United States as a whole.
AT: So be it. Reconfiguring JFK’s classic quote, Yoder wrote, ‘Ask not what God can do for America; ask what America owes humankind.’ If we follow the servant-king, then we too become servants ourselves. We should challenge America to a much more demanding lifestyle, especially if most of our leaders claim the title ‘Christian.’ Yoder goes as far as saying that the meaning of history is not about how the state successfully orders society, but instead, it is boiled down to what God’s people, churches all over the world, do in regards to evangelism and what he calls ‘the leavening process,’ the slow growth of morality that seeps into society through Christian example and the education of children who haven’t themselves chosen radical Christianity. In this way ‘the whole moral tone of non-Christian society is changed for the better.’ This requires slow growth and takes a lot of Christian patience.
RW: But that seems like Christians are just supposed to ghettoize themselves. Shouldn’t we care about legislation and leaders at every level—local, state and federal? Shouldn’t we care about making laws that protect the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage?
Kimberly: I need to protect the sanctity of my mind. I had no idea you two were getting so philosophical. Let me propose a time-out so we can start getting ready for the beach. Laguna is going to perfect today. Anthony, you are coming to the beach with us, aren’t you?
AT: Only if Ryan promises not to wear that speedo.
RW: You’ve got a deal. Let’s table this discussion until we get down to the sand.
Chapter 10: Constantine or Diaspora?
The journey from the front door of their house in Laguna Niguel to laying their towels on the sand at Victoria Street in Laguna Beach was 20 minutes. On the way, Kimberly drove the Dodge Minivan and played Simon and Garfunkel, another tradition that the boys were actually starting to like even though they wouldn’t admit it. Through the art colonies in the canyon, to the tourist attractions at Main Beach, through the rainbow flags of the gay and lesbian community to the wealthy neighborhood with McCain 2008 signs in the window, Anthony thought about his times with Ryan during the spring of their senior year in high school after their CIF championship. They would come down to the beach and throw the Frisbee and talk about girls and how they could invite more of them to their youth group and debate who sold the better breakfast burrito: A’s or Pedro’s. It delighted him that 20-years later, their conversations had become so deeply theological and, yes, philosophical.
When they got to the beach, the boys frolicked in the waves as the adults got back down to business.
RW: Anthony, we’ve got a huge election coming up in November, but it’s even bigger here in California since Proposition 8 is on the ballot. I’m sure you’ve heard of it: the proposal for a CA constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. If you were living here, how would you vote on it?
AT: I read just last week about a speech former President Clinton gave to the National Association of Governors. He reminded all these governors that the states had a tremendous advantage in our federalist system because they could be what he called ‘laboratories of democracy’—where they could be a little more risky with experimentation and innovation. As I read, I thought to myself, ‘Yes, this is exactly what Yoder would say…about churches!’ Churches are the places where we can really experiment with a ‘Christian’ form of democracy. Democracy, for Christians, isn’t simply majority rules or a system to give everyone a forum to air their views. It is a place where everyone has the right to dissent, where the minority position is cherished, not coerced or silenced or pandered to. Our church communities should be the places of experimentation, where we think and pray about more creative ways to implement God’s kingdom initiatives. We can establish ‘pilot programs’ that can influence how state and national government practice democracy by how we model them. The medium is the message of the kingdom. How we conduct business in the power of the Spirit speaks loudly to larger society. The Body of Christ is the prototype for democracy. The Christian congregation came before the town hall meeting. The ‘practical moral reasoning’ in the power of the Holy Spirit came before the congressional hearing and free speech. In Luke 22, in the upper room the night before he is crucified, Jesus tells his disciples after a post-meal feud that it is typical for the kings [and presidents] of the nations to ‘lord it over’ their subjects and to call themselves ‘benefactors,’ looking out after the best interests of society. But Jesus contrasts the way of the rulers with the way of discipleship, calling them to be servants.
RW: Let me guess: Yoder interprets this passage politically.
AT: Nothing gets past you. Yoder says that, in a democratic state like the US, the Body of Christ should focus on two things: (1) we can use our leaders’ [including the President] language against them—they are ‘benefactors’ so they must be called to account for peace and justice for everyone, even the minority; and (2) the ripple effect from the how the faith community models real democracy. These are the priorities of a community ruled by the Servant-king.
RW: All of this is quite fascinating, but you aren’t answering my question. In the cove just north of here, there are dozens of homosexuals basking in the same sun we are on an exclusively gay beach, and they can because it’s a free country. But a gay beach is different than gay marriage. But let’s be honest, according to the Bible they are living in sin. Shouldn’t Christians take a stand on this vital issue before our whole society becomes another Sodom and Gomorrah?
AT: Here’s why I’ve spent all this time analyzing these things. Christians have two choices in regards to the state. First of all, they can seek to continue the way of Constantine, to control history by dominating it with laws and leaders that mandate the majority’s convenient interpretation of Scripture. Or, we can embrace the diaspora situation that the prophet Jeremiah called exiled Israel to: to seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you’ [Jeremiah 21:9]. The Jews who were exiled to Babylon could spend their time longing for the glory days of David, or they could identify this new homeland as home, albeit in the heartland of enemy empire, and be on mission as a minority community. That’s what they did. They weren’t influencing the decisions of the empire, they, in their best of times, were seeking to be faithful to God’s way in every realm of their society. They had influence, in the way of Joseph and Esther and Daniel, with the dominators. So, obviously, I advocate for the diaspora because it is the more faithful strategy to bear witness to God’s reign.
RW: But the Jews didn’t have a choice. They had to live in diaspora. In 21st century America, we still do have a choice. Isn’t the most responsible thing to go with Constantine and legislate the truth?
AT: No, because it isn’t Christian. It’s coercive and involuntary, which is a method never advocated for by any of the New Testament writers. The way of Jesus must be voluntary. Humanity needs open space, freedom to decide to follow the way of Jesus [or not], to inhabit the story of Scripture [or not], after all the costs have been counted. Constantine doesn’t allow for that. He just says, ‘Here’s the truth. Obey it or else.’ It’s a counterfeit offer of faith.
RW: Alright, bottom line, is homosexuality a sin?
AT: At this time, I feel a lot more comfortable just being an advocate for the process of dialoguing, within each faith community, about this sensitive and emotional issue. There is a substantial gay and lesbian population in Lawrence and I’m getting to hear their experiences more and more. Yoder used the term ‘reification’ and I think it is really helpful in this conversation. Reification is when we lump a whole bunch of different things under the same label even though they have very little in common. He gives these examples for all things ‘homosexual’:
- what strong men in prisons or military camps do to weaker men;
- what strangers do with each other in public restrooms or gay bars;
- what mature men like Plato did with beautiful boys;
- what two persons of the same sex and values want to do by living in one household voluntarily;
- what the men of Sodom in Genesis 19 wanted to do with Lot's angelic visitors
These are all quite different realities and we must speak to the them separately, not simply place them under the umbrella of ‘homosexuality.’ To be honest, I would vote against Proposition 8 for two reasons: (1) because it is Constantinian—it embraces a coercive method to preserve a traditional form of Christian morality—as we sit here on the beach, a coalition of evangelicals is raising millions of dollars to buy TV ads for the Fall sweeps so that Christian marriage can be saved. But, of course, I think Christian marriage can be saved through what God is doing through our practices rooted in discipleship communities; and (2) Proposition 8 is seeking to combat a form of homosexuality—two members of the same-sex who want to commit to service, love and forgiveness for the rest of their lives—that simply is not addressed in Scripture. Sure, at every juncture in Scripture where ‘homosexuality’ is addressed—only 6 or 7 passages out of a million—it denounces it. But again, the five examples I mentioned are different realities and we can’t just put them into the same box labeled ‘homosexuality’ and store it away on the shelf labeled ‘sin.’ That’s not a fair biblical reading strategy. The denunciations of ‘homosexuality’ in the Torah and in Paul’s letters refer to sexual activity with temple prostitutes in the worship of idols, the dominating militaristic activity of rape and pillage or the use of young boys for the pleasure of older men. These are obviously destructive activities. However, there is not a biblical category for the controversy and complexity that surrounds ‘sexual orientation,’ let alone gay marriage. I happen to believe that many people, perhaps 2-4% of Americans, are either born gay or develop this sexual orientation very early in life, perhaps the first 6 months to a year. This is what a lot of scientific evidence seems to point to. On top of this, I’ve built relationships with gay and lesbian couples who are ‘Christians.’ They are disciples of Jesus and their lives bear the fruit of the Spirit. A free and democratic society should provide gays and lesbians with the choice of ‘marriage,’ giving them both the dignity of that title and the challenge of committing to one person for the rest of their lives. Christians, and other religious folks, should not have the monopoly on what constitutes ‘marriage,’ especially when their fears and concerns about how same-sex marriage will affect society are so contested.
RW: I must say, I’ve never heard a Christian talk about homosexuality like that. You’ve raised some interesting points, but I sure am not ready to buy your package. It just seems way-too-different than anything ‘Christian’ that I’ve ever heard. It’s a hard issue for us, especially having three boys growing up in this era. I could never imagine one of them bringing home a boyfriend someday. It just seems too unnatural, too perverted.
Maybe we Christians should just take a detour from this ‘political’ stuff altogether and focus on the things that really matters. I mean, didn’t Jesus say ‘render to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God’s?’ Wasn’t he saying that Caesar and our Presidents are in charge of the political stuff but the more important stuff is spiritual or religious? Isn’t this what Christian faith is primarily about?
AT: Your interpretation of Jesus’ conversation about ‘rendering unto Caesar’ is how most politicians and pastors would understand the passage. It is basically the way the passage is interpreted by both John McCain and, get this, Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright.
RW: Can you really put both of those men in the same category?
AT: It’s amazing, but true. And the category is really shaped by an Enlightenment understanding—this idea that ‘religion’ and ‘politics are two separate spheres of life. I recently read about a story of how McCain, during his 5 ½ year imprisonment as a POW in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, was the chaplain for his fellow prisoners. In McCain’s first talk as chaplain, he cautioned fellow prisoners not to pray for their release, reminding them of this New Testament episode when Jesus was asked whether it was right to pay taxes. ‘He held up the coin and said, ‘Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s,’ McCain said, recalling his lecture. ‘The point of my talk was we were doing Caesar’s work when we went into combat, so we really shouldn’t ask God for release.” McCain and his fellow prisoners lived in two different realms: Caesar’s political kingdom and God’s spiritual kingdom—McCain and his fellow soldiers could faithfully participate in both, but the important thing was to be careful not to confuse them.
RW: Yeah, this seems to be pretty much how I’ve always thought of this passage. But I’m dying to hear how ‘ole Jeremiah Wright interprets it.
AT: Obviously, Wright is coming from a different theological tradition than McCain. He comes from the liberation theology of James Cone and the prophetic American black church. His critique of American domestic and foreign policy has been both colorful and controversial and, as you know, Obama and his wife made decisions recently to leave the his church, distancing him from some of these statements. Here’s what Wright said in an interview a few months ago on PBS with Bill Moyers: "I don't talk to Obama about politics. He goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God. He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they're two different worlds.”
RW: Yeah, sounds like pretty much the same thing even though they are dealing with two different issues. Pastors have more important things to worry about than Presidential policy-making. So I’m assuming that Yoder interprets this passage differently?
AT: Of course. In Luke 20:20-25, when Jesus is confronted by his opponents who are looking to trap him by flipping him a coin and asking him about taxes, it is taken for granted that Jesus renounced Roman occupation of Palestine. His interrogators are looking for an answer from Jesus to put him on the cross! If they really thought Jesus was advocating for a ‘spiritual’ kingdom to combat Roman domination, they would have laughed themselves all the way back to Rome. Jesus would, then, be a harmless circus act. Instead, Jesus’ teaching, his miracles, his healings—his whole obedient life—were all about announcing a ‘clash between two regimes’ which were competing, overlapping in the same ‘political’ arena. Jesus spoke his mind and backed it up with signs and wonders and a perfectly faithful life, representing a true rival to the Roman Empire and its values. The image on the coin was Caesar’s, but Jesus was calling God’s people back to a subversive theology about humanity: we are all ‘created in God’s image,’ even Caesar! God’s inaugurated kingdom gathered disciples around the world’s true Lord: Jesus. If Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.
RW: Let me try to summarize: Evangelicals basically tend to go about ‘American politics’ in one of two ways: either attempt to advocate for laws and leaders who protect the Christian agenda or they refuse to participate in anything ‘political’ and instead focus on the things that last, the eternal, spiritual matters of this world. And Yoder is claiming that both of these strategies are bankrupt.
AT: Precisely. And it’s not just Evangelicals. Everyone in the West has been trained to think this way, living in a culture severely shaped by the Enlightenment. I would say that Evangelicals tend to be much more schizophrenic with politics. Sometimes, they are gung-ho campaigners and fundraisers for certain ‘Christian’ causes. Sometimes, they are adamant about staying out of the whole affair. But neither of these options represents the way that Jesus, or any other Jew living in the 1st century would have thought about God and politics. Jesus’ ‘third way’ was a radical lifestyle, coupled with a call for laws and leaders to be peaceful and just for the oppressed and marginalized in our society as well as those laboring in the Third World and beyond. Militaries and markets have historically placed unjust burdens on minorities, women and children. Shouldn’t God’s people prioritize ‘the least of these’ [Matthew 25:31-46] through their own creative action and by advocating for laws and leaders that come alongside them?
When they got to the beach, the boys frolicked in the waves as the adults got back down to business.
RW: Anthony, we’ve got a huge election coming up in November, but it’s even bigger here in California since Proposition 8 is on the ballot. I’m sure you’ve heard of it: the proposal for a CA constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. If you were living here, how would you vote on it?
AT: I read just last week about a speech former President Clinton gave to the National Association of Governors. He reminded all these governors that the states had a tremendous advantage in our federalist system because they could be what he called ‘laboratories of democracy’—where they could be a little more risky with experimentation and innovation. As I read, I thought to myself, ‘Yes, this is exactly what Yoder would say…about churches!’ Churches are the places where we can really experiment with a ‘Christian’ form of democracy. Democracy, for Christians, isn’t simply majority rules or a system to give everyone a forum to air their views. It is a place where everyone has the right to dissent, where the minority position is cherished, not coerced or silenced or pandered to. Our church communities should be the places of experimentation, where we think and pray about more creative ways to implement God’s kingdom initiatives. We can establish ‘pilot programs’ that can influence how state and national government practice democracy by how we model them. The medium is the message of the kingdom. How we conduct business in the power of the Spirit speaks loudly to larger society. The Body of Christ is the prototype for democracy. The Christian congregation came before the town hall meeting. The ‘practical moral reasoning’ in the power of the Holy Spirit came before the congressional hearing and free speech. In Luke 22, in the upper room the night before he is crucified, Jesus tells his disciples after a post-meal feud that it is typical for the kings [and presidents] of the nations to ‘lord it over’ their subjects and to call themselves ‘benefactors,’ looking out after the best interests of society. But Jesus contrasts the way of the rulers with the way of discipleship, calling them to be servants.
RW: Let me guess: Yoder interprets this passage politically.
AT: Nothing gets past you. Yoder says that, in a democratic state like the US, the Body of Christ should focus on two things: (1) we can use our leaders’ [including the President] language against them—they are ‘benefactors’ so they must be called to account for peace and justice for everyone, even the minority; and (2) the ripple effect from the how the faith community models real democracy. These are the priorities of a community ruled by the Servant-king.
RW: All of this is quite fascinating, but you aren’t answering my question. In the cove just north of here, there are dozens of homosexuals basking in the same sun we are on an exclusively gay beach, and they can because it’s a free country. But a gay beach is different than gay marriage. But let’s be honest, according to the Bible they are living in sin. Shouldn’t Christians take a stand on this vital issue before our whole society becomes another Sodom and Gomorrah?
AT: Here’s why I’ve spent all this time analyzing these things. Christians have two choices in regards to the state. First of all, they can seek to continue the way of Constantine, to control history by dominating it with laws and leaders that mandate the majority’s convenient interpretation of Scripture. Or, we can embrace the diaspora situation that the prophet Jeremiah called exiled Israel to: to seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you’ [Jeremiah 21:9]. The Jews who were exiled to Babylon could spend their time longing for the glory days of David, or they could identify this new homeland as home, albeit in the heartland of enemy empire, and be on mission as a minority community. That’s what they did. They weren’t influencing the decisions of the empire, they, in their best of times, were seeking to be faithful to God’s way in every realm of their society. They had influence, in the way of Joseph and Esther and Daniel, with the dominators. So, obviously, I advocate for the diaspora because it is the more faithful strategy to bear witness to God’s reign.
RW: But the Jews didn’t have a choice. They had to live in diaspora. In 21st century America, we still do have a choice. Isn’t the most responsible thing to go with Constantine and legislate the truth?
AT: No, because it isn’t Christian. It’s coercive and involuntary, which is a method never advocated for by any of the New Testament writers. The way of Jesus must be voluntary. Humanity needs open space, freedom to decide to follow the way of Jesus [or not], to inhabit the story of Scripture [or not], after all the costs have been counted. Constantine doesn’t allow for that. He just says, ‘Here’s the truth. Obey it or else.’ It’s a counterfeit offer of faith.
RW: Alright, bottom line, is homosexuality a sin?
AT: At this time, I feel a lot more comfortable just being an advocate for the process of dialoguing, within each faith community, about this sensitive and emotional issue. There is a substantial gay and lesbian population in Lawrence and I’m getting to hear their experiences more and more. Yoder used the term ‘reification’ and I think it is really helpful in this conversation. Reification is when we lump a whole bunch of different things under the same label even though they have very little in common. He gives these examples for all things ‘homosexual’:
- what strong men in prisons or military camps do to weaker men;
- what strangers do with each other in public restrooms or gay bars;
- what mature men like Plato did with beautiful boys;
- what two persons of the same sex and values want to do by living in one household voluntarily;
- what the men of Sodom in Genesis 19 wanted to do with Lot's angelic visitors
These are all quite different realities and we must speak to the them separately, not simply place them under the umbrella of ‘homosexuality.’ To be honest, I would vote against Proposition 8 for two reasons: (1) because it is Constantinian—it embraces a coercive method to preserve a traditional form of Christian morality—as we sit here on the beach, a coalition of evangelicals is raising millions of dollars to buy TV ads for the Fall sweeps so that Christian marriage can be saved. But, of course, I think Christian marriage can be saved through what God is doing through our practices rooted in discipleship communities; and (2) Proposition 8 is seeking to combat a form of homosexuality—two members of the same-sex who want to commit to service, love and forgiveness for the rest of their lives—that simply is not addressed in Scripture. Sure, at every juncture in Scripture where ‘homosexuality’ is addressed—only 6 or 7 passages out of a million—it denounces it. But again, the five examples I mentioned are different realities and we can’t just put them into the same box labeled ‘homosexuality’ and store it away on the shelf labeled ‘sin.’ That’s not a fair biblical reading strategy. The denunciations of ‘homosexuality’ in the Torah and in Paul’s letters refer to sexual activity with temple prostitutes in the worship of idols, the dominating militaristic activity of rape and pillage or the use of young boys for the pleasure of older men. These are obviously destructive activities. However, there is not a biblical category for the controversy and complexity that surrounds ‘sexual orientation,’ let alone gay marriage. I happen to believe that many people, perhaps 2-4% of Americans, are either born gay or develop this sexual orientation very early in life, perhaps the first 6 months to a year. This is what a lot of scientific evidence seems to point to. On top of this, I’ve built relationships with gay and lesbian couples who are ‘Christians.’ They are disciples of Jesus and their lives bear the fruit of the Spirit. A free and democratic society should provide gays and lesbians with the choice of ‘marriage,’ giving them both the dignity of that title and the challenge of committing to one person for the rest of their lives. Christians, and other religious folks, should not have the monopoly on what constitutes ‘marriage,’ especially when their fears and concerns about how same-sex marriage will affect society are so contested.
RW: I must say, I’ve never heard a Christian talk about homosexuality like that. You’ve raised some interesting points, but I sure am not ready to buy your package. It just seems way-too-different than anything ‘Christian’ that I’ve ever heard. It’s a hard issue for us, especially having three boys growing up in this era. I could never imagine one of them bringing home a boyfriend someday. It just seems too unnatural, too perverted.
Maybe we Christians should just take a detour from this ‘political’ stuff altogether and focus on the things that really matters. I mean, didn’t Jesus say ‘render to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God’s?’ Wasn’t he saying that Caesar and our Presidents are in charge of the political stuff but the more important stuff is spiritual or religious? Isn’t this what Christian faith is primarily about?
AT: Your interpretation of Jesus’ conversation about ‘rendering unto Caesar’ is how most politicians and pastors would understand the passage. It is basically the way the passage is interpreted by both John McCain and, get this, Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright.
RW: Can you really put both of those men in the same category?
AT: It’s amazing, but true. And the category is really shaped by an Enlightenment understanding—this idea that ‘religion’ and ‘politics are two separate spheres of life. I recently read about a story of how McCain, during his 5 ½ year imprisonment as a POW in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, was the chaplain for his fellow prisoners. In McCain’s first talk as chaplain, he cautioned fellow prisoners not to pray for their release, reminding them of this New Testament episode when Jesus was asked whether it was right to pay taxes. ‘He held up the coin and said, ‘Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s,’ McCain said, recalling his lecture. ‘The point of my talk was we were doing Caesar’s work when we went into combat, so we really shouldn’t ask God for release.” McCain and his fellow prisoners lived in two different realms: Caesar’s political kingdom and God’s spiritual kingdom—McCain and his fellow soldiers could faithfully participate in both, but the important thing was to be careful not to confuse them.
RW: Yeah, this seems to be pretty much how I’ve always thought of this passage. But I’m dying to hear how ‘ole Jeremiah Wright interprets it.
AT: Obviously, Wright is coming from a different theological tradition than McCain. He comes from the liberation theology of James Cone and the prophetic American black church. His critique of American domestic and foreign policy has been both colorful and controversial and, as you know, Obama and his wife made decisions recently to leave the his church, distancing him from some of these statements. Here’s what Wright said in an interview a few months ago on PBS with Bill Moyers: "I don't talk to Obama about politics. He goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God. He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they're two different worlds.”
RW: Yeah, sounds like pretty much the same thing even though they are dealing with two different issues. Pastors have more important things to worry about than Presidential policy-making. So I’m assuming that Yoder interprets this passage differently?
AT: Of course. In Luke 20:20-25, when Jesus is confronted by his opponents who are looking to trap him by flipping him a coin and asking him about taxes, it is taken for granted that Jesus renounced Roman occupation of Palestine. His interrogators are looking for an answer from Jesus to put him on the cross! If they really thought Jesus was advocating for a ‘spiritual’ kingdom to combat Roman domination, they would have laughed themselves all the way back to Rome. Jesus would, then, be a harmless circus act. Instead, Jesus’ teaching, his miracles, his healings—his whole obedient life—were all about announcing a ‘clash between two regimes’ which were competing, overlapping in the same ‘political’ arena. Jesus spoke his mind and backed it up with signs and wonders and a perfectly faithful life, representing a true rival to the Roman Empire and its values. The image on the coin was Caesar’s, but Jesus was calling God’s people back to a subversive theology about humanity: we are all ‘created in God’s image,’ even Caesar! God’s inaugurated kingdom gathered disciples around the world’s true Lord: Jesus. If Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.
RW: Let me try to summarize: Evangelicals basically tend to go about ‘American politics’ in one of two ways: either attempt to advocate for laws and leaders who protect the Christian agenda or they refuse to participate in anything ‘political’ and instead focus on the things that last, the eternal, spiritual matters of this world. And Yoder is claiming that both of these strategies are bankrupt.
AT: Precisely. And it’s not just Evangelicals. Everyone in the West has been trained to think this way, living in a culture severely shaped by the Enlightenment. I would say that Evangelicals tend to be much more schizophrenic with politics. Sometimes, they are gung-ho campaigners and fundraisers for certain ‘Christian’ causes. Sometimes, they are adamant about staying out of the whole affair. But neither of these options represents the way that Jesus, or any other Jew living in the 1st century would have thought about God and politics. Jesus’ ‘third way’ was a radical lifestyle, coupled with a call for laws and leaders to be peaceful and just for the oppressed and marginalized in our society as well as those laboring in the Third World and beyond. Militaries and markets have historically placed unjust burdens on minorities, women and children. Shouldn’t God’s people prioritize ‘the least of these’ [Matthew 25:31-46] through their own creative action and by advocating for laws and leaders that come alongside them?
Chapter 11: Cultural Head-Coverings
Kimberly: Can I change the subject here? At Grace Evangelical, we don’t think that women teaching from the pulpit is biblical. It ‘s a policy that we all feel very comfortable with. But when Ryan and I were going to Azusa Pacific, one of our more ‘liberal’ professors was a woman who was quite out-spoken about the need for the church to embrace equal participation of women in ministry. It seems like you are pretty ‘liberal’ too. What are your thoughts?
AT: Well, I certainly wouldn’t call myself ‘liberal,’ but we can talk about that later.
RW: Yeah, Kimmy, he’s ‘postmodern,’ not ‘liberal.’
AT: These ‘labels’ can be a bit confusing…more on this later. The question about gender really needs to start with the question of ministry that we talked about earlier. I think we are asking the wrong question when we focus on whether or not women should be senior pastors or bishops or priests or get to have a speaking or teaching role in the community. These roles have been overvalued and hero-worshipped since, it seems, the 3rd generation of Christian faith. It wasn’t originally like this. So should women have equal participation in ministry? By all means! Everyone has an equally vital role in ministry, none being more important than any others.
RW: Yeah, but what about Paul’s admonitions in the Pastorals and I Corinthians 14 about women remaining silent in the church?
AT: These passages, I believe, have been traditionally used, since the second century, for power agendas by men who are in charge and women, with their own agendas, who feel quite content letting the man be in charge. In addition, notions of self-evident and inerrant Bible reading strategies have made the issue a non-negotiable in many Christian communities. However, the same Paul who wrote in I Corinthians 11:3-16 about men and women each having time to prophecy in the community could not have possibly meant in the 14th chapter of that same letter that women could not teach from the Bible during the community’s time of worship. There must be a reasonable, contextual and practical explanation like, for instance, women who were less educated having more questions that would steer the community into tangents during their worship time. I know a lot of evangelicals who get quite anxious about my cultural explanations, as if it is watering down the Word of God, but honestly, I doubt too many women in your congregation wear head-coverings to the service and that’s exactly what I Corinthians 11 calls for. And, of course, these same defenders of the Word of God would naturally explain the absence of head-coverings in their congregation as forsaking an unnecessary cultural obligation of a bygone era. And, of course, the head-coverings example is the tip of the cultural ice-berg. We could go on and on and on, offering one ‘Biblical’ principle after another that is no longer followed in our congregations: what about adulterers being stoned to death [Deut 22:22] or clear commands against divorce and remarriage [Mark 10:1-2] or the acceptance of slavery, polygamy and the treatment of women as property? I’m not saying that any of these should be followed to the letter, but simply advocating for a more complex, nuanced biblical reading strategy.
RW: It just seems like you are advocating for positions that our society at-large seems to be very passionate about…like you are caving into the cultural climate. These are convenient, popular positions to take on these issues right now. Don’t we need to be ‘countercultural’ with sexuality and gender issues?
AT: It certainly seems to some that my positions are part of the slippery-slope of a culture gone awry. But I’ve got three points to make here.
RW: You’ve always got ‘points.’ Why do you need to be so ‘orderly?’
AT: When you are compelled by a new paradigm and have pretty much staked your life on it, and you are constantly being placed in the position of defending it, then you’ve got to be structured. Here’s why I don’t think I’m caving in: (1) sometimes, society at large actually needs to critique the Body of Christ—history reports this happening in Western civilization. The Enlightenment thinkers, many of them non-Christians, were the ones who influenced societal decisions about the separation of Church and State and freedom of speech and religion and dispelling the myth of the divine-right-of-kings. ‘Secular’ philosophers, many of them full-fledged atheists, led the way on these issues as the Church mostly pushed back. Society had to critique the Body of Christ as it was in its majority form; (2) when we are dealing with these sexuality and gender issues, we are confronted with groups of people who have been marginalized. The voices of women and gays/lesbians, and those advocating for them, have had very little say with the regard to both church policy and societal mores and laws. They’ve been silenced by power structures that haven’t given them a say. This, again, is anti-Christian; and (3) I’m starting with the Bible. I’m not just, like some Christians, shrugging my shoulders and saying society is right about this, ‘anything goes.’ No, I’m not arguing for anarchy or chaos or an ‘anything goes’ attitude. I’m arguing against absolutism and domination. These methods are not biblical no matter how you slice it.
AT: Well, I certainly wouldn’t call myself ‘liberal,’ but we can talk about that later.
RW: Yeah, Kimmy, he’s ‘postmodern,’ not ‘liberal.’
AT: These ‘labels’ can be a bit confusing…more on this later. The question about gender really needs to start with the question of ministry that we talked about earlier. I think we are asking the wrong question when we focus on whether or not women should be senior pastors or bishops or priests or get to have a speaking or teaching role in the community. These roles have been overvalued and hero-worshipped since, it seems, the 3rd generation of Christian faith. It wasn’t originally like this. So should women have equal participation in ministry? By all means! Everyone has an equally vital role in ministry, none being more important than any others.
RW: Yeah, but what about Paul’s admonitions in the Pastorals and I Corinthians 14 about women remaining silent in the church?
AT: These passages, I believe, have been traditionally used, since the second century, for power agendas by men who are in charge and women, with their own agendas, who feel quite content letting the man be in charge. In addition, notions of self-evident and inerrant Bible reading strategies have made the issue a non-negotiable in many Christian communities. However, the same Paul who wrote in I Corinthians 11:3-16 about men and women each having time to prophecy in the community could not have possibly meant in the 14th chapter of that same letter that women could not teach from the Bible during the community’s time of worship. There must be a reasonable, contextual and practical explanation like, for instance, women who were less educated having more questions that would steer the community into tangents during their worship time. I know a lot of evangelicals who get quite anxious about my cultural explanations, as if it is watering down the Word of God, but honestly, I doubt too many women in your congregation wear head-coverings to the service and that’s exactly what I Corinthians 11 calls for. And, of course, these same defenders of the Word of God would naturally explain the absence of head-coverings in their congregation as forsaking an unnecessary cultural obligation of a bygone era. And, of course, the head-coverings example is the tip of the cultural ice-berg. We could go on and on and on, offering one ‘Biblical’ principle after another that is no longer followed in our congregations: what about adulterers being stoned to death [Deut 22:22] or clear commands against divorce and remarriage [Mark 10:1-2] or the acceptance of slavery, polygamy and the treatment of women as property? I’m not saying that any of these should be followed to the letter, but simply advocating for a more complex, nuanced biblical reading strategy.
RW: It just seems like you are advocating for positions that our society at-large seems to be very passionate about…like you are caving into the cultural climate. These are convenient, popular positions to take on these issues right now. Don’t we need to be ‘countercultural’ with sexuality and gender issues?
AT: It certainly seems to some that my positions are part of the slippery-slope of a culture gone awry. But I’ve got three points to make here.
RW: You’ve always got ‘points.’ Why do you need to be so ‘orderly?’
AT: When you are compelled by a new paradigm and have pretty much staked your life on it, and you are constantly being placed in the position of defending it, then you’ve got to be structured. Here’s why I don’t think I’m caving in: (1) sometimes, society at large actually needs to critique the Body of Christ—history reports this happening in Western civilization. The Enlightenment thinkers, many of them non-Christians, were the ones who influenced societal decisions about the separation of Church and State and freedom of speech and religion and dispelling the myth of the divine-right-of-kings. ‘Secular’ philosophers, many of them full-fledged atheists, led the way on these issues as the Church mostly pushed back. Society had to critique the Body of Christ as it was in its majority form; (2) when we are dealing with these sexuality and gender issues, we are confronted with groups of people who have been marginalized. The voices of women and gays/lesbians, and those advocating for them, have had very little say with the regard to both church policy and societal mores and laws. They’ve been silenced by power structures that haven’t given them a say. This, again, is anti-Christian; and (3) I’m starting with the Bible. I’m not just, like some Christians, shrugging my shoulders and saying society is right about this, ‘anything goes.’ No, I’m not arguing for anarchy or chaos or an ‘anything goes’ attitude. I’m arguing against absolutism and domination. These methods are not biblical no matter how you slice it.
Chapter 12: Rejecting the Packages...Clarifying the Labels
Kimberly: We’re not leaving the beach until you explain how you aren’t ‘liberal.’
AT: When we use labels like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative,’ we are usually referring to what our society calls ‘politics’ or ‘religion.’ There wasn’t a difference between the two back in Jesus’ day and that creates confusion for how we engage the Bible. What’s interesting is that these realms seem to be meshing in our own time as well, so that we can make pretty accurate generalizations about where a ‘conservative’ evangelical Christian stands both politically and theologically. In the 21st century, a conservative evangelical is someone who has a ‘high’ doctrine of Scripture [usually called infallibility or inerrancy], is passionately pro-life when it comes to the legislating the abortion issue, thinks homosexuality in all forms is a sin and should be legislated as thus, and has a highly individualized view of the world [personal piety, personal relationship with Jesus, saving my soul for eternity]. A ‘liberal,’ on the other hand, tends to view the Bible much more mythically—its more of a ‘fiction’ book that teaches moral principles and metaphorically teaches us about God, the world and evil. A liberal doesn’t necessarily believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, nor a virgin birth, but does believe that Jesus should be taken seriously as a prophet or teacher to imitate. The liberal also tends to focus more on social issues like anti-war and relieving the impoverished, and fighting for individual rights like abortion and same-sex marriage. These are the two extremes that have been fighting for the heart of North American Christianity for the past 150 years during the modern period. Some theologians like Murphy and McClendon have proposed that a new ‘postmodern’ era is upon us where these labels aren’t as helpful as they used to be. This is where I would place myself…and, of course, Yoder. Way back in 1972, Yoder published his Politics of Jesus and it drew a crowd of readers, both liberal and conservative due to his intense dedication to both the authority of the Bible [conservative!] and to nonviolent resistance [liberal!]. Or put another way, the good folks in the heartland had to respect his whole-hearted demand to follow the Word of God and the anti-war protestors from Berkeley to Boston had to love the outcome of his reading. In one of the few times Yoder used the label ‘postmodern,’ he wrote about his
‘post-modern acceptance of the particularity of the Christian story without subjecting it either to the claimed objectivity of general consensus or to that of some specific ‘scientific method.’
This is a great example of where Yoder isn’t easy to read. What does he mean by these big words? Well, he is arguing for the Christian story being the true story, but he doesn’t believe in objectivity or any proposed method that will bring the world absolute truth. Yoder was adamant that every individual or community that sits down to read the Bible is reading from somewhere, a unique perspective formed by all sorts of things ranging from experience to denominational distinctives to family upbringing to psychological factors to vocational agendas [and trust me, the list doesn’t stop here]. We all read and re-read and tell the Christian story from a point of view. There is no such thing as objectivity or absolute truth. This drives conservatives crazy. But Yoder did argue for the Christian story. He refused to just shrug his shoulders and accept just any old reading of the text or just any old story about the world. He was not only passionately and critically ‘Christian,’ but he advocated a severely life-altering radical discipleship, taking hard stances on a lot of issues…and this drives the ‘liberals’ crazy.
Kimberly: I see how these packages, liberal and conservative, are transforming and how you don’t really fit into either category. I guess it’s just easy to get caught up in the culture war, you know, ‘Do you watch FOX news or MSNBC or CNN?’ ‘Do you believe in absolute truth?’ ‘Do you think the bible is inerrant?’ It sounds like your answer for all of these is ‘none-of-the-above?’
AT: Yeah, I’m finding that I’m just not interested in these questions at all. But I know many Americans, Christians and non-Christians, most certainly are. I think a big draw is that they provide simple answers and supposed certainty, joining a large audience that agrees with you. Our culture provides TV news shows, blogs and radio talk shows that cater to millions who are morphing into the same uncritical packages. This is why one of the last essays Yoder ever wrote was outlining 19 different forms of patience that were vital for communicating his ideas, which obviously transcended any available package.
RW: Let me get this right. He came up with 29 different brands of pacifism and 19 different brands of patience? Yoder would have made a lot more money as one of those creative geniuses that work for corporations, coming up with new brands of everything to sell the American public! As a father and a husband and a pastor, I’m working on patience all the time. What is that: 3 brands of patience? How am I supposed to work on 19 brands of patience?
AT: My favorite was what he called ‘the collegial patience of the outvoted theologian.’ In one of the Yoder’s ‘greatest hits,’ he wrote, ‘Coming to terms with being hopelessly outvoted is quite different from being convinced.’ Yoder was an ecumenical genius, an Anabaptist at a mostly Catholic University for 30 years, consistently being invited to speak at conferences all over the world. He was always in the minority, but just wasn’t compelled by the theological choices that were in the majority. That was one kind of patience that he seemed to be consistently honing.
Kimmy: So would you consider yourself an Evangelical?
AT: Honestly, it depends on the day of the week. Evangelical scholars like Stanley Grenz and Mark Noll cite David Bebbington’s four-fold description of what it means to be an Evangelical: (1) biblical authority, (2) importance of the cross, (3) the call to evangelize and (4) emphasis on conversion. All four of these evangelical pillars are very important to me, but, of course, Yoder has thrown a curve ball at all four of them and I’ve swung away. And, of course, I’m ‘evangelical’ from the Greek root euangelion—we Christians are supposed to be ‘good news’ people for the world. But evangelism means something quite different than it did 20 years ago in high school when we were trying to get everyone to make a decision to receive Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
RW: I can see that, but clarify what you mean by saying that your being an evangelical depends on what day of the week it is. That seems a bit wishy-washy.
AT: On rare days like yesterday and today, when I’m in vibrant conversation with evangelicals like you two who think differently than I do about these four things, but who listen and question and object and share, then I feel like I want to be a part of this movement for the rest of my life. On other days, the theological convictions, heavily influenced by Yoder, that my wife and I believe passionately about, are so different from evangelicals-at-large, and either me or my conversation partner or both just aren’t listening and empathizing very well, then it gets to be just little too defeating.
RW: Yep, makes perfect sense. I hope we can be conversation partners like this for the rest of our lives. Kimmy and I need Christians like you, good friends, who will listen and understand and care, but also present a different perspective that will more faithfully shape our lives into the image of Christ. Last question about labels before we get in the water: you mentioned the label ‘Anabaptist’—what in the world is that?
AT: If we go back 500 years ago, when Luther was doing his thing in Germany and Calvin was doing his thing in Switzerland, a small community on the border of those two countries, in a little town called Schleitheim, was outlining a vision for what’s now called the ‘Radical Reformation,’ neither Protestant nor Catholic, neither Lutheran nor Reformed. The radical reformers were adamantly pacifist, lived simply, took the teachings of Jesus—especially the Sermon on the Mount—at face value and believed that the church and state should not be married—citizens of the kingdom should always have the non-coerced decision to join God’s ranks. That’s how the Anabaptists got their name. Their enemies, mostly Protestants who were none too happy about their anti-Constantinian beliefs and their demanding vision of discipleship, gave them their name mockingly because these radical reformers demanded that Christians who were baptized as infants get re-baptized in adulthood, when they chose voluntarily to follow the way of Jesus in community.
Kimberly: So Anabaptists believe you need to be baptized to be saved?
AT: Well, Anabaptists in the line of Yoder just would never put it that way. They would claim that the real significance of baptism was a clear-cut-count-the-costs decision to follow Jesus, to be a part of what God was doing in a specific community who were committed to the practices I talked about before. Baptism had deep meaning for the original Anabaptists, and still does today, because it signaled a change in the believer’s identity and mission by being a part of the enemy-loving-and-serving-and-forgiving messianic team. It was an act that sealed the deal—those baptized into the messiah would not be primarily identified any longer by ethnicity, race, socio-economic status or national patriotism, but instead by being part of the messianic people.
AT: When we use labels like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative,’ we are usually referring to what our society calls ‘politics’ or ‘religion.’ There wasn’t a difference between the two back in Jesus’ day and that creates confusion for how we engage the Bible. What’s interesting is that these realms seem to be meshing in our own time as well, so that we can make pretty accurate generalizations about where a ‘conservative’ evangelical Christian stands both politically and theologically. In the 21st century, a conservative evangelical is someone who has a ‘high’ doctrine of Scripture [usually called infallibility or inerrancy], is passionately pro-life when it comes to the legislating the abortion issue, thinks homosexuality in all forms is a sin and should be legislated as thus, and has a highly individualized view of the world [personal piety, personal relationship with Jesus, saving my soul for eternity]. A ‘liberal,’ on the other hand, tends to view the Bible much more mythically—its more of a ‘fiction’ book that teaches moral principles and metaphorically teaches us about God, the world and evil. A liberal doesn’t necessarily believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, nor a virgin birth, but does believe that Jesus should be taken seriously as a prophet or teacher to imitate. The liberal also tends to focus more on social issues like anti-war and relieving the impoverished, and fighting for individual rights like abortion and same-sex marriage. These are the two extremes that have been fighting for the heart of North American Christianity for the past 150 years during the modern period. Some theologians like Murphy and McClendon have proposed that a new ‘postmodern’ era is upon us where these labels aren’t as helpful as they used to be. This is where I would place myself…and, of course, Yoder. Way back in 1972, Yoder published his Politics of Jesus and it drew a crowd of readers, both liberal and conservative due to his intense dedication to both the authority of the Bible [conservative!] and to nonviolent resistance [liberal!]. Or put another way, the good folks in the heartland had to respect his whole-hearted demand to follow the Word of God and the anti-war protestors from Berkeley to Boston had to love the outcome of his reading. In one of the few times Yoder used the label ‘postmodern,’ he wrote about his
‘post-modern acceptance of the particularity of the Christian story without subjecting it either to the claimed objectivity of general consensus or to that of some specific ‘scientific method.’
This is a great example of where Yoder isn’t easy to read. What does he mean by these big words? Well, he is arguing for the Christian story being the true story, but he doesn’t believe in objectivity or any proposed method that will bring the world absolute truth. Yoder was adamant that every individual or community that sits down to read the Bible is reading from somewhere, a unique perspective formed by all sorts of things ranging from experience to denominational distinctives to family upbringing to psychological factors to vocational agendas [and trust me, the list doesn’t stop here]. We all read and re-read and tell the Christian story from a point of view. There is no such thing as objectivity or absolute truth. This drives conservatives crazy. But Yoder did argue for the Christian story. He refused to just shrug his shoulders and accept just any old reading of the text or just any old story about the world. He was not only passionately and critically ‘Christian,’ but he advocated a severely life-altering radical discipleship, taking hard stances on a lot of issues…and this drives the ‘liberals’ crazy.
Kimberly: I see how these packages, liberal and conservative, are transforming and how you don’t really fit into either category. I guess it’s just easy to get caught up in the culture war, you know, ‘Do you watch FOX news or MSNBC or CNN?’ ‘Do you believe in absolute truth?’ ‘Do you think the bible is inerrant?’ It sounds like your answer for all of these is ‘none-of-the-above?’
AT: Yeah, I’m finding that I’m just not interested in these questions at all. But I know many Americans, Christians and non-Christians, most certainly are. I think a big draw is that they provide simple answers and supposed certainty, joining a large audience that agrees with you. Our culture provides TV news shows, blogs and radio talk shows that cater to millions who are morphing into the same uncritical packages. This is why one of the last essays Yoder ever wrote was outlining 19 different forms of patience that were vital for communicating his ideas, which obviously transcended any available package.
RW: Let me get this right. He came up with 29 different brands of pacifism and 19 different brands of patience? Yoder would have made a lot more money as one of those creative geniuses that work for corporations, coming up with new brands of everything to sell the American public! As a father and a husband and a pastor, I’m working on patience all the time. What is that: 3 brands of patience? How am I supposed to work on 19 brands of patience?
AT: My favorite was what he called ‘the collegial patience of the outvoted theologian.’ In one of the Yoder’s ‘greatest hits,’ he wrote, ‘Coming to terms with being hopelessly outvoted is quite different from being convinced.’ Yoder was an ecumenical genius, an Anabaptist at a mostly Catholic University for 30 years, consistently being invited to speak at conferences all over the world. He was always in the minority, but just wasn’t compelled by the theological choices that were in the majority. That was one kind of patience that he seemed to be consistently honing.
Kimmy: So would you consider yourself an Evangelical?
AT: Honestly, it depends on the day of the week. Evangelical scholars like Stanley Grenz and Mark Noll cite David Bebbington’s four-fold description of what it means to be an Evangelical: (1) biblical authority, (2) importance of the cross, (3) the call to evangelize and (4) emphasis on conversion. All four of these evangelical pillars are very important to me, but, of course, Yoder has thrown a curve ball at all four of them and I’ve swung away. And, of course, I’m ‘evangelical’ from the Greek root euangelion—we Christians are supposed to be ‘good news’ people for the world. But evangelism means something quite different than it did 20 years ago in high school when we were trying to get everyone to make a decision to receive Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
RW: I can see that, but clarify what you mean by saying that your being an evangelical depends on what day of the week it is. That seems a bit wishy-washy.
AT: On rare days like yesterday and today, when I’m in vibrant conversation with evangelicals like you two who think differently than I do about these four things, but who listen and question and object and share, then I feel like I want to be a part of this movement for the rest of my life. On other days, the theological convictions, heavily influenced by Yoder, that my wife and I believe passionately about, are so different from evangelicals-at-large, and either me or my conversation partner or both just aren’t listening and empathizing very well, then it gets to be just little too defeating.
RW: Yep, makes perfect sense. I hope we can be conversation partners like this for the rest of our lives. Kimmy and I need Christians like you, good friends, who will listen and understand and care, but also present a different perspective that will more faithfully shape our lives into the image of Christ. Last question about labels before we get in the water: you mentioned the label ‘Anabaptist’—what in the world is that?
AT: If we go back 500 years ago, when Luther was doing his thing in Germany and Calvin was doing his thing in Switzerland, a small community on the border of those two countries, in a little town called Schleitheim, was outlining a vision for what’s now called the ‘Radical Reformation,’ neither Protestant nor Catholic, neither Lutheran nor Reformed. The radical reformers were adamantly pacifist, lived simply, took the teachings of Jesus—especially the Sermon on the Mount—at face value and believed that the church and state should not be married—citizens of the kingdom should always have the non-coerced decision to join God’s ranks. That’s how the Anabaptists got their name. Their enemies, mostly Protestants who were none too happy about their anti-Constantinian beliefs and their demanding vision of discipleship, gave them their name mockingly because these radical reformers demanded that Christians who were baptized as infants get re-baptized in adulthood, when they chose voluntarily to follow the way of Jesus in community.
Kimberly: So Anabaptists believe you need to be baptized to be saved?
AT: Well, Anabaptists in the line of Yoder just would never put it that way. They would claim that the real significance of baptism was a clear-cut-count-the-costs decision to follow Jesus, to be a part of what God was doing in a specific community who were committed to the practices I talked about before. Baptism had deep meaning for the original Anabaptists, and still does today, because it signaled a change in the believer’s identity and mission by being a part of the enemy-loving-and-serving-and-forgiving messianic team. It was an act that sealed the deal—those baptized into the messiah would not be primarily identified any longer by ethnicity, race, socio-economic status or national patriotism, but instead by being part of the messianic people.
Chapter 13: The Church is the Answer
After Ryan and Anthony body-surfed with the boys for about an hour, it was time to pack up and head home. Ryan, as an associate pastor who worked 3 services on Sunday morning and then met with members of the congregation after that, was accustomed to taking a long nap on Saturday to prepare himself for the next day. But today was different. He continued to live off the adrenaline of spending time with his long lost best friend and these theological conversations were rare and invigorating. When they got home, they snacked a little bit and Ryan came up with the brilliant idea to hit the local 24 Hour Fitness for a little workout…again, just like old times. Anthony, anyone could tell, is the type of guy who would never pass up a workout. And he found that a little bit of physical activity gave him more energy for his body and his mind.
When they got to the gym, they headed straight for the bench press, of course, the ultimate test of aging manhood. Just as Ryan laid back on the bench to do his first set has lobbed another question toward Anthony:
RW: So, do you believe in heaven and hell?
AT: Wow, we are getting a workout!
RW: Well, I mean, we’ve got limited time here. If we can’t talk about these things during a workout, when can we ever talk about them?
AT: These heaven and hell questions are a part of what guys like you and I call eschatology, you know, using big words to pretend like we really know what we’re talking about. Eschatology is about what comes last and, traditionally, evangelicals have had firm convictions about the end: either we go to heaven or hell when we die. But when eschatology is boiled down to ‘where we go when we die’ it loses the force and focus of the New Testament. When Jesus comes on the scene in Mark’s Gospel, he’s fully grown and he’s on a mission, ‘Repent for the kingdom of God has come near.’ In the world of 1st century Palestinian Judaism, this was an announcement that the end was very close indeed. At the time, Judaism was more like Judaisms, splitting into different religio-political camps like the Saduccees, the Herodians, the Pharisees, the Zealots and the Essenes, all with different nuances on what it meant to be the people of God. They all believed that there would be a day when their God, YHWH, would come and establish his reign on earth and the other nations, the heathen gentiles, would come flocking to Jerusalem to worship the true God of the world. Many, but not all, believed in a general resurrection, where Jews would rise from their graves and physically participate in God’s eternal reign on earth. The crucial difference between these groups was how this kingdom of God would come about—in other words, how the people of God should be living as they awaited that day. The Sadducees and Herodians were ‘realists.’ They believed that Jews should accommodate Roman imperialism. Jews should faithfully toe the party line and wait for YHWH to show up. Today, these would be like ‘chaplains’ who sanctify society with the hope of being able to progressively improve it. The Pharisees, on the other hand, wanted to separate themselves by keeping rules of segregation, to keep themselves from being tainted by society. This is like the tendency for some evangelicals to draw a clear line between what is ‘spiritual’ and what is ‘political.’ It’s along the same lines as the idea that we Christians should passionately maintain a personal piety and not be concerned with politics. The Essenes represented the monastery existence of withdrawal from society in order to become perfectly faithful. It’s like the Amish or rural communities or even the suburbs which promise a safe distance from the crime and sin of the inner-city. Lastly, there were the Zealots, the righteous revolutionaries who wanted to use military force against the enemies to usher in God’s reign. This was the greatest temptation for Jesus, from the trials in the wilderness with Satan at the beginning of his ministry to the Garden of Gethsemane at the very end—Jesus, in order to establish God’s new order, could never draw the sword because God, instead, had chosen servanthood as ‘his tool to remake the world.’
RW: I get the feeling that your history lesson is evading the question. Let me guess, these different groups of Jews didn’t believe in heaven and hell, but Jesus did, right?
AT: Not exactly. The common interpretation is that all of these groups were looking for a kingdom of this world, but Jesus’ kingdom was spiritual or it was a heaven-after-you-die kingdom that was ‘not of this world.’
RW: Yeah, I mean, that is what Jesus tells Pilate in John’s Gospel.
AT: Right, but this is a matter of interpretation. Yoder and many others read this passage as Jesus saying that the way he rules is different than the way rulers in this world go about their business. As Yoder writes in Politics of Jesus, ‘The alternative to how the kings of the earth rule is not ‘spirituality’ but ‘servanthood.’ Jesus’ kingdom is every bit as socio-political as Caesar’s or Pilate’s or George W. Bush’s. As we talked about yesterday, the church is a political body. But it is a new kind of society that has a new way of dealing with offenders [by forgiving], a new way of dealing with money [by sharing], a new way of dealing with leadership [by serving], a new way of dealing with violence [by suffering], a new attitude toward the state and the ‘enemy nation’ and a whole new pattern of relationships between men and women, parents and children and employers and employees.
RW: You seem to bring up church as the answer to every question. I actually asked about heaven and hell.
AT: Yes! You see that I have a really high view of the church. No wonder I’m so critical of what I see all around me in North America. The church is the center of God’s ‘heavenly’ activity. In Jesus, God inaugurated the new age that Jews of all stripes were longing for. The way God ushered in his kingdom was quite shocking, though. He did it through the scandalous Roman instrument of torture: the cross. God, in essence, was saying through Jesus’ story from conception to death through risen life, ‘This is how I do things in the world—through the lowly, humble, suffering servant way of Jesus.’ Today, there are all sorts of brands of Christianity that emphasize all sorts of things that we should be doing and thinking on our way to heaven [when we die]. But what God did in Christ was to implement eternity in the midst of our sin-dominated world. No doubt, we await the ‘reappearing’ of Christ when we will see things as they truly are and the New Heavens and New Earth are fully restored. But our vocation now is to live out this new age as a foretaste, a sign of what will one day come.
When they got to the gym, they headed straight for the bench press, of course, the ultimate test of aging manhood. Just as Ryan laid back on the bench to do his first set has lobbed another question toward Anthony:
RW: So, do you believe in heaven and hell?
AT: Wow, we are getting a workout!
RW: Well, I mean, we’ve got limited time here. If we can’t talk about these things during a workout, when can we ever talk about them?
AT: These heaven and hell questions are a part of what guys like you and I call eschatology, you know, using big words to pretend like we really know what we’re talking about. Eschatology is about what comes last and, traditionally, evangelicals have had firm convictions about the end: either we go to heaven or hell when we die. But when eschatology is boiled down to ‘where we go when we die’ it loses the force and focus of the New Testament. When Jesus comes on the scene in Mark’s Gospel, he’s fully grown and he’s on a mission, ‘Repent for the kingdom of God has come near.’ In the world of 1st century Palestinian Judaism, this was an announcement that the end was very close indeed. At the time, Judaism was more like Judaisms, splitting into different religio-political camps like the Saduccees, the Herodians, the Pharisees, the Zealots and the Essenes, all with different nuances on what it meant to be the people of God. They all believed that there would be a day when their God, YHWH, would come and establish his reign on earth and the other nations, the heathen gentiles, would come flocking to Jerusalem to worship the true God of the world. Many, but not all, believed in a general resurrection, where Jews would rise from their graves and physically participate in God’s eternal reign on earth. The crucial difference between these groups was how this kingdom of God would come about—in other words, how the people of God should be living as they awaited that day. The Sadducees and Herodians were ‘realists.’ They believed that Jews should accommodate Roman imperialism. Jews should faithfully toe the party line and wait for YHWH to show up. Today, these would be like ‘chaplains’ who sanctify society with the hope of being able to progressively improve it. The Pharisees, on the other hand, wanted to separate themselves by keeping rules of segregation, to keep themselves from being tainted by society. This is like the tendency for some evangelicals to draw a clear line between what is ‘spiritual’ and what is ‘political.’ It’s along the same lines as the idea that we Christians should passionately maintain a personal piety and not be concerned with politics. The Essenes represented the monastery existence of withdrawal from society in order to become perfectly faithful. It’s like the Amish or rural communities or even the suburbs which promise a safe distance from the crime and sin of the inner-city. Lastly, there were the Zealots, the righteous revolutionaries who wanted to use military force against the enemies to usher in God’s reign. This was the greatest temptation for Jesus, from the trials in the wilderness with Satan at the beginning of his ministry to the Garden of Gethsemane at the very end—Jesus, in order to establish God’s new order, could never draw the sword because God, instead, had chosen servanthood as ‘his tool to remake the world.’
RW: I get the feeling that your history lesson is evading the question. Let me guess, these different groups of Jews didn’t believe in heaven and hell, but Jesus did, right?
AT: Not exactly. The common interpretation is that all of these groups were looking for a kingdom of this world, but Jesus’ kingdom was spiritual or it was a heaven-after-you-die kingdom that was ‘not of this world.’
RW: Yeah, I mean, that is what Jesus tells Pilate in John’s Gospel.
AT: Right, but this is a matter of interpretation. Yoder and many others read this passage as Jesus saying that the way he rules is different than the way rulers in this world go about their business. As Yoder writes in Politics of Jesus, ‘The alternative to how the kings of the earth rule is not ‘spirituality’ but ‘servanthood.’ Jesus’ kingdom is every bit as socio-political as Caesar’s or Pilate’s or George W. Bush’s. As we talked about yesterday, the church is a political body. But it is a new kind of society that has a new way of dealing with offenders [by forgiving], a new way of dealing with money [by sharing], a new way of dealing with leadership [by serving], a new way of dealing with violence [by suffering], a new attitude toward the state and the ‘enemy nation’ and a whole new pattern of relationships between men and women, parents and children and employers and employees.
RW: You seem to bring up church as the answer to every question. I actually asked about heaven and hell.
AT: Yes! You see that I have a really high view of the church. No wonder I’m so critical of what I see all around me in North America. The church is the center of God’s ‘heavenly’ activity. In Jesus, God inaugurated the new age that Jews of all stripes were longing for. The way God ushered in his kingdom was quite shocking, though. He did it through the scandalous Roman instrument of torture: the cross. God, in essence, was saying through Jesus’ story from conception to death through risen life, ‘This is how I do things in the world—through the lowly, humble, suffering servant way of Jesus.’ Today, there are all sorts of brands of Christianity that emphasize all sorts of things that we should be doing and thinking on our way to heaven [when we die]. But what God did in Christ was to implement eternity in the midst of our sin-dominated world. No doubt, we await the ‘reappearing’ of Christ when we will see things as they truly are and the New Heavens and New Earth are fully restored. But our vocation now is to live out this new age as a foretaste, a sign of what will one day come.
Chapter 14: Contagious Powers
RW: This just seems like very dangerous teaching to me. Isn’t hell a real place and isn’t the devil real, as CS Lewis wrote ‘horns, pitchfork and all.’
AT: Yes, evil is far more powerful and destructive than either you or I could ever understand. But I don’t think it is manifested by some fallen angel who uses his demons to tap us on the shoulder to make us hate more and lust more and cuss more and drink more and watch more R-rated movies. Satan is manifested in what Paul refers to in some of his letters as ‘the principalities and powers.’ Throughout the Middle Ages these ‘powers’ were very important as can be discovered through its literature and painting and poetry. These were interpreted as angels and demons, the spiritual forces battling for the souls of everyone. Biblical scholarship in the past half century has critiqued this view [again culture at work], claiming that Paul would have never viewed the world this way. Instead, these powers, that Jesus had a hand in creating in Colossians 1:15-20 and that Jesus came to triumph over in Colossians 2:13-15, were the systems that order our society like the family, the economy, the government, schools, political parties, as well as cultural practices like grocery shopping and even ‘mores’ about who we say ‘hi’ to on the street. These powers are vital, otherwise we would live in chaos. But these powers are fallen, enslaving humanity to obey their rules and laws. The powers are, how shall I say, extremely powerful, and they hold us back from living abundantly and, how shall I say, ‘heavenly.’ Remember, Jesus was killed by these powers, Roman political leaders and Jewish religious leaders, because he refused to obey them and unveiled a different way-of-being that critiqued and threatened the powers-that-be. In the cross and resurrection, these powers were unmasked, they were seen for what they really are: an illusion to what God has designed them for. They enslave and demand obedience. They don’t liberate us.
RW: OK, give me an example of how these powers work.
AT: Here’s one example of literally thousands from my life. When I was a freshman at Notre Dame, I joined a fraternity because that’s what a lot of the football players were doing at the time. The fraternity was a power at work. It had tremendous potential for health and goodness, like raising money for charitable causes and giving me a source of community, a brotherhood that any 18-year-old kid living 2,000 miles from home desperately needs. But the college fraternity is a culture that socially forms us into ways of thinking and being. I began to drink heavily and joined the ‘contest’ of finding women to flirt with and hook up with. I could go on and on, but what was going on wasn’t this individual spiritual battle. It was social formation through the powers. The fraternity, through its collective culture, was teaching me how to live. The ironic thing is that I was still going to church, another power, for an hour-and-a-half on Sunday mornings. But let’s all be honest, it wasn’t socially forming me anywhere near what the fraternity was doing. These powers that run our world can only be countered by Spirit-indwelt church communities who subversively critique and constructively imagine the different way-of-life that Jesus came to bring.
RW: How about an example from your life today?
AT: Well, how about an example from this very second. Here we are at 24 Hour Fitness.
RW: 24 Hour Fitness is one of the powers-that-be?
AT: Of course. It has a tremendous potential to order our lives for good. We can get our heart-rate up on a lot of these machines and we can strengthen muscles to avoid physical injuries. It also has a communal element to it. You and I are working up a sweat but we are bonding through dialogue and by ‘spotting’ each other on each lift to get the most out of our muscles. But there are ways that this power enslaves us.
RW: Yeah, look at all these perfect looking human beings! I can’t help wanting to look just like them, only better. The pull to compete is tremendously strong.
AT: And look at all these mirrors. This is just one little aspect of a nation obsessed with our own images. We are being transformed into the image of something other than the Messiah. But again, these are pretty simple examples. Our world is ordered by Powers that have a ‘powerful’ affect on us. They form us and enslave us. Our market-saturated economy produces a scarcity mentality that creates a lot of anxiety and deceptively forces us to make value judgments about people and things and places. It commodifies everything. The families we grew up in have systematized us—they have produced patterns that enslave us to certain ways of thinking and doing. The hold these Powers have on us is hard to break.
RW: This way of interpreting Paul’s principalities and powers can be very contagious. I might be thinking about this everywhere we go!
AT: Just wait until we get to the reunion tonight.
RW: Oh boy.
AT: But as we think about these powers dominating our world, it is powerfully liberating to think imaginatively about how church communities can criticize and energize a different way-of-being. Perhaps, there are Christian communities imagining a different world of workout facilities that have less mirrors and a dress code that honors humanity and facilitates solidarity in the Spirit much more than this place does. Our church communities, through the counter-power of the Spirit, working through our brothers and sisters in Christ, in our alternative kingdom practices and in the words of our alternative kingdom script will form us into the image of Christ slowly but surely.
RW: So churches are building God’s kingdom on earth.
AT: Not exactly. That sounds like way-too-much-responsibility. God does the building and, surely, he will do some shocking things when it is all said and done, just like he did in Jesus the messiah. But we should view God, working through the church, as the primary instrument to change social structures in our society. This concept critiques what Yoder calls ‘the pietistic misunderstanding,’ that the gospel is only about personal ethics and that we can change society only when key leaders have their hearts changed or that what is really important is having a spiritual life.
RW: I think I’m really starting to track with you more.
AT: What do you mean?
RW: Well, for about the past 24 hours, we’ve been engaged in this deep theological dialogue and, as I listen to you, I find myself getting a little frustrated with some of your supposed answers to my questions. You don’t really answer them. But what I’m realizing is that your theological transformation seems to have lead you away from these old questions. You and I just have different questions. And certainly, this leads us to read the Bible differently and have different priorities for what Christian faith is all about. Am I right about this?
AT: Definitely. Yoder used to say, ‘If you ask the wrong question, you may not be able to get the right answer.’ But he always seemed to temper his language, though confident, with a belief that his ignorance or sinfulness might lead him to being wrong about any number of things, including his own questions. He wrote, ‘Our recognition that we may be wrong must always be visible’ and he added that maybe we should get used to using phrases like ‘as far as I know’ or ‘until further notice’ in the midst of our passionate, controversial dialogues. So let me just say this: we can’t adjudicate between our two sets of questions. We don’t have a judge to tell us, ‘Yeah, Anthony’s questions are ‘right’ and Ryan’s are ‘wrong.’ We just have a lot of talking heads that will certainly have opinions about whose questions are more important and which answers are more compelling.
RW: Yeah, ‘compelling’ seems to be a key word for you. Are you compelled to hit the squat rack?
AT: Lead the way.
AT: Yes, evil is far more powerful and destructive than either you or I could ever understand. But I don’t think it is manifested by some fallen angel who uses his demons to tap us on the shoulder to make us hate more and lust more and cuss more and drink more and watch more R-rated movies. Satan is manifested in what Paul refers to in some of his letters as ‘the principalities and powers.’ Throughout the Middle Ages these ‘powers’ were very important as can be discovered through its literature and painting and poetry. These were interpreted as angels and demons, the spiritual forces battling for the souls of everyone. Biblical scholarship in the past half century has critiqued this view [again culture at work], claiming that Paul would have never viewed the world this way. Instead, these powers, that Jesus had a hand in creating in Colossians 1:15-20 and that Jesus came to triumph over in Colossians 2:13-15, were the systems that order our society like the family, the economy, the government, schools, political parties, as well as cultural practices like grocery shopping and even ‘mores’ about who we say ‘hi’ to on the street. These powers are vital, otherwise we would live in chaos. But these powers are fallen, enslaving humanity to obey their rules and laws. The powers are, how shall I say, extremely powerful, and they hold us back from living abundantly and, how shall I say, ‘heavenly.’ Remember, Jesus was killed by these powers, Roman political leaders and Jewish religious leaders, because he refused to obey them and unveiled a different way-of-being that critiqued and threatened the powers-that-be. In the cross and resurrection, these powers were unmasked, they were seen for what they really are: an illusion to what God has designed them for. They enslave and demand obedience. They don’t liberate us.
RW: OK, give me an example of how these powers work.
AT: Here’s one example of literally thousands from my life. When I was a freshman at Notre Dame, I joined a fraternity because that’s what a lot of the football players were doing at the time. The fraternity was a power at work. It had tremendous potential for health and goodness, like raising money for charitable causes and giving me a source of community, a brotherhood that any 18-year-old kid living 2,000 miles from home desperately needs. But the college fraternity is a culture that socially forms us into ways of thinking and being. I began to drink heavily and joined the ‘contest’ of finding women to flirt with and hook up with. I could go on and on, but what was going on wasn’t this individual spiritual battle. It was social formation through the powers. The fraternity, through its collective culture, was teaching me how to live. The ironic thing is that I was still going to church, another power, for an hour-and-a-half on Sunday mornings. But let’s all be honest, it wasn’t socially forming me anywhere near what the fraternity was doing. These powers that run our world can only be countered by Spirit-indwelt church communities who subversively critique and constructively imagine the different way-of-life that Jesus came to bring.
RW: How about an example from your life today?
AT: Well, how about an example from this very second. Here we are at 24 Hour Fitness.
RW: 24 Hour Fitness is one of the powers-that-be?
AT: Of course. It has a tremendous potential to order our lives for good. We can get our heart-rate up on a lot of these machines and we can strengthen muscles to avoid physical injuries. It also has a communal element to it. You and I are working up a sweat but we are bonding through dialogue and by ‘spotting’ each other on each lift to get the most out of our muscles. But there are ways that this power enslaves us.
RW: Yeah, look at all these perfect looking human beings! I can’t help wanting to look just like them, only better. The pull to compete is tremendously strong.
AT: And look at all these mirrors. This is just one little aspect of a nation obsessed with our own images. We are being transformed into the image of something other than the Messiah. But again, these are pretty simple examples. Our world is ordered by Powers that have a ‘powerful’ affect on us. They form us and enslave us. Our market-saturated economy produces a scarcity mentality that creates a lot of anxiety and deceptively forces us to make value judgments about people and things and places. It commodifies everything. The families we grew up in have systematized us—they have produced patterns that enslave us to certain ways of thinking and doing. The hold these Powers have on us is hard to break.
RW: This way of interpreting Paul’s principalities and powers can be very contagious. I might be thinking about this everywhere we go!
AT: Just wait until we get to the reunion tonight.
RW: Oh boy.
AT: But as we think about these powers dominating our world, it is powerfully liberating to think imaginatively about how church communities can criticize and energize a different way-of-being. Perhaps, there are Christian communities imagining a different world of workout facilities that have less mirrors and a dress code that honors humanity and facilitates solidarity in the Spirit much more than this place does. Our church communities, through the counter-power of the Spirit, working through our brothers and sisters in Christ, in our alternative kingdom practices and in the words of our alternative kingdom script will form us into the image of Christ slowly but surely.
RW: So churches are building God’s kingdom on earth.
AT: Not exactly. That sounds like way-too-much-responsibility. God does the building and, surely, he will do some shocking things when it is all said and done, just like he did in Jesus the messiah. But we should view God, working through the church, as the primary instrument to change social structures in our society. This concept critiques what Yoder calls ‘the pietistic misunderstanding,’ that the gospel is only about personal ethics and that we can change society only when key leaders have their hearts changed or that what is really important is having a spiritual life.
RW: I think I’m really starting to track with you more.
AT: What do you mean?
RW: Well, for about the past 24 hours, we’ve been engaged in this deep theological dialogue and, as I listen to you, I find myself getting a little frustrated with some of your supposed answers to my questions. You don’t really answer them. But what I’m realizing is that your theological transformation seems to have lead you away from these old questions. You and I just have different questions. And certainly, this leads us to read the Bible differently and have different priorities for what Christian faith is all about. Am I right about this?
AT: Definitely. Yoder used to say, ‘If you ask the wrong question, you may not be able to get the right answer.’ But he always seemed to temper his language, though confident, with a belief that his ignorance or sinfulness might lead him to being wrong about any number of things, including his own questions. He wrote, ‘Our recognition that we may be wrong must always be visible’ and he added that maybe we should get used to using phrases like ‘as far as I know’ or ‘until further notice’ in the midst of our passionate, controversial dialogues. So let me just say this: we can’t adjudicate between our two sets of questions. We don’t have a judge to tell us, ‘Yeah, Anthony’s questions are ‘right’ and Ryan’s are ‘wrong.’ We just have a lot of talking heads that will certainly have opinions about whose questions are more important and which answers are more compelling.
RW: Yeah, ‘compelling’ seems to be a key word for you. Are you compelled to hit the squat rack?
AT: Lead the way.
Chapter 15: Spotting Yoder
Anthony remembered how vulnerable weight-lifting could be back in the high school years. His body was tall and lanky and it was hard for him to build muscle like guys like Ryan, whose leg strength was almost double what his was. So Ryan’s next question was an extra-challenging, a call for him to be even more transparent.
RW: OK, now I want to hear your critiques of Yoder. Do you disagree with him on anything?
AT: Oh sure. Yoder is, by no means, the perfect theologian. Of course, much of my critique is how Yoder is interpreted and is actually lived out. The human element gets in the way! I’ve got 7 points of critique for you: (1) one of the biggest critiques of Yoder is that he seems to boil every bit of Christianity down to ‘social ethics.’ Everything seems to be socio-political. Maybe he goes a bit overboard in order to critique our highly-individualized, spiritualized and forensically justified Christian culture; (2) with this said, I think a form of individual spirituality, within the wider contours of Yoder’s socio-political vision of Jesus, Kingdom and Church, is important. I’ve thought about trying to combine Henry Nouwen’s more spiritually contemplative vision of Christian faith with Yoder’s communal vision. For a while, those two guys were at Notre Dame at the same time! It is easy for me, in light of all of my reading of Yoder to criticize the proliferation of ‘relationship’ language on the lips of evangelicals. Everything is about a personal relationship with God, interpenetrating my struggles and guilt and shame. But I know this has got to be an element of the Christian journey. My devotional reading [the Evangelical ‘quiet time’] and my times of solitude and prayer are still vitally important, in spite of Yoder’s critique of individualism and spirituality; (3) reading Yoder tends to make me a bit too idealistic with how our Monday night community is organized and how we relate to each other. Life is just a lot messier than Yoder’s pretty language about the church being such a revolutionary experience. But then again, Yoder’s emphasis on conflict resolution as a key practice for every community simply assumes how ugly it can get. Sure is hard to pursue each other with love, gentleness and humility time and time again. Sometimes, I’d rather just miss out on Monday night and spend the 2 hours watching Monday Night Football, or quite frankly, cleaning my sock drawer! And quite often, I’d rather not resolve conflict by approaching the other member of our community. I’d be much more content just lamenting to my wife about the whole ordeal. But these practical commitments always pay off. They are extremely hard and taxing but transformative; (4) other times, I have my doubts about Yoder’s historical reconstructions about the 1st century ‘political’ Jesus. His proposals, although quite convincing, seem to stand and fall based on proposals that aren’t given a lot of air-time with most Christians I rub shoulders with. His vision for what normative Christianity should be is so different than the popular options on offer that it can be extremely jarring to carry on a conversation with brothers and sisters in Christ whose categories assume common ground with me; (5) on a more personal note, before our Monday night community started, we experienced a lot of loneliness. We had very little koinonia, solidarity, with other Christians. We tended to focus far-too-much on how different we were than how the majority viewed their Christianity. We’d be quite jaded today without the common vision of our community; (6) Yoder can be a bit ‘elitist,’ what with his big theological vocabulary and critique on the American evangelical and political scene. I can see how Yoder can be both frustrating and intimidating to read, especially coming from a mainstream Evangelical tradition that has been far-too-anti-intellectual in the past century; and (7) lastly, I wonder, at times, if Yoder’s vision of following Jesus may just be too demanding. He is certainly raising the bar very high for what it means to be a Christian disciple. I mean, this practice-oriented communal vision of Christian faith is a lot harder than most brands of Christianity on offer where fine-sounding worship music, a good sermon and guaranteed salvation of heaven are emphasized.
RW: You are speaking about my world now.
AT: Yeah, and trust me, I’m looking forward to your sermon in the morning.
That last line was really comforting to Ryan because he subconsciously was doubting, with all of his critiques of conservative evangelicalism, whether Anthony would be interested at all in coming to one of the services in the morning and he was not so sure if he was feeling bold enough to invite him. But with Anthony bringing it up as something that he was going to obviously participate in was deeply meaningful.
As they left 24 Hour Fitness, Ryan thought to himself how it would be a great challenge to start really thinking differently about his workout experience—to take it more seriously as a power that enslaves humanity. Ryan wondered how some of the other social structures in his life like watching TV, eating meals and his own church could be criticized and energized by a more ‘powerful’ engagement.
RW: OK, now I want to hear your critiques of Yoder. Do you disagree with him on anything?
AT: Oh sure. Yoder is, by no means, the perfect theologian. Of course, much of my critique is how Yoder is interpreted and is actually lived out. The human element gets in the way! I’ve got 7 points of critique for you: (1) one of the biggest critiques of Yoder is that he seems to boil every bit of Christianity down to ‘social ethics.’ Everything seems to be socio-political. Maybe he goes a bit overboard in order to critique our highly-individualized, spiritualized and forensically justified Christian culture; (2) with this said, I think a form of individual spirituality, within the wider contours of Yoder’s socio-political vision of Jesus, Kingdom and Church, is important. I’ve thought about trying to combine Henry Nouwen’s more spiritually contemplative vision of Christian faith with Yoder’s communal vision. For a while, those two guys were at Notre Dame at the same time! It is easy for me, in light of all of my reading of Yoder to criticize the proliferation of ‘relationship’ language on the lips of evangelicals. Everything is about a personal relationship with God, interpenetrating my struggles and guilt and shame. But I know this has got to be an element of the Christian journey. My devotional reading [the Evangelical ‘quiet time’] and my times of solitude and prayer are still vitally important, in spite of Yoder’s critique of individualism and spirituality; (3) reading Yoder tends to make me a bit too idealistic with how our Monday night community is organized and how we relate to each other. Life is just a lot messier than Yoder’s pretty language about the church being such a revolutionary experience. But then again, Yoder’s emphasis on conflict resolution as a key practice for every community simply assumes how ugly it can get. Sure is hard to pursue each other with love, gentleness and humility time and time again. Sometimes, I’d rather just miss out on Monday night and spend the 2 hours watching Monday Night Football, or quite frankly, cleaning my sock drawer! And quite often, I’d rather not resolve conflict by approaching the other member of our community. I’d be much more content just lamenting to my wife about the whole ordeal. But these practical commitments always pay off. They are extremely hard and taxing but transformative; (4) other times, I have my doubts about Yoder’s historical reconstructions about the 1st century ‘political’ Jesus. His proposals, although quite convincing, seem to stand and fall based on proposals that aren’t given a lot of air-time with most Christians I rub shoulders with. His vision for what normative Christianity should be is so different than the popular options on offer that it can be extremely jarring to carry on a conversation with brothers and sisters in Christ whose categories assume common ground with me; (5) on a more personal note, before our Monday night community started, we experienced a lot of loneliness. We had very little koinonia, solidarity, with other Christians. We tended to focus far-too-much on how different we were than how the majority viewed their Christianity. We’d be quite jaded today without the common vision of our community; (6) Yoder can be a bit ‘elitist,’ what with his big theological vocabulary and critique on the American evangelical and political scene. I can see how Yoder can be both frustrating and intimidating to read, especially coming from a mainstream Evangelical tradition that has been far-too-anti-intellectual in the past century; and (7) lastly, I wonder, at times, if Yoder’s vision of following Jesus may just be too demanding. He is certainly raising the bar very high for what it means to be a Christian disciple. I mean, this practice-oriented communal vision of Christian faith is a lot harder than most brands of Christianity on offer where fine-sounding worship music, a good sermon and guaranteed salvation of heaven are emphasized.
RW: You are speaking about my world now.
AT: Yeah, and trust me, I’m looking forward to your sermon in the morning.
That last line was really comforting to Ryan because he subconsciously was doubting, with all of his critiques of conservative evangelicalism, whether Anthony would be interested at all in coming to one of the services in the morning and he was not so sure if he was feeling bold enough to invite him. But with Anthony bringing it up as something that he was going to obviously participate in was deeply meaningful.
As they left 24 Hour Fitness, Ryan thought to himself how it would be a great challenge to start really thinking differently about his workout experience—to take it more seriously as a power that enslaves humanity. Ryan wondered how some of the other social structures in his life like watching TV, eating meals and his own church could be criticized and energized by a more ‘powerful’ engagement.
Chapter 16: A Suitcase Term
Ryan and Anthony got home, showered up and got dressed for the 20-year reunion. Kimberly and Ryan had already made the decision for Kimberly to stay home with the kids since Anthony made the trip out to California. Kimberly felt great about not having to see all of Ryan’s old friends talk about all the football games all over again. When they got to the reunion, old teammates and classmates were shocked that Anthony was out of the cave and in public again. There were hugs and laughs and stories and even some tears over a couple of guys from the championship team who had died of cancer just recently. It was a long night of great memories and not remembering names. As they filtered out of the hotel in the warm summer night, Jermaine Harris, the star running back on the team asked if Ryan and Anthony wanted to get a burger at In-N-Out, probably the only place still open. Jermaine’s dad was a preacher at a local Baptist church, growing up as one of the very few African-American kids at the high school. Jermaine went on to graduate from Grambling, a historic black college in the South where he continued his football career. He got married and settled in Atlanta, where his wife was from. As they settled into eating their double-double hamburgers and greasy fries, Ryan boldly asked whether Jermaine was going to church out in Atlanta.
JH: You know, I started doubting my Christian faith a little bit in college and partied with the football team and listened to professors unveil the hidden hypocrisies of Christianity and I began to really doubt the message of Christianity: everyone needs Jesus to take care of their sin problem so that they can go to heaven when they die and of course to be good people and follow the rules from the Bible and so one and so forth. Then when I met Shandra, it was never really something that was important. Her family wasn’t really religious at all and her dad was really burned by the church in Georgia and doubted that a real God would ever allow the pain and suffering that African-Americans have endured in the South over all these years. I think he’s right, but my biggest issue is that Christianity just isn’t believable. I’m not talking about ‘beliefs’ like Jesus being born from a virgin or his resurrection. No, I’m talking about the Christians that I observe on a daily basis. They are no different from Shandra and I as far as trying to be good people. Sure, Christians work hard and are generally nice people, but they sure are opinionated about things like gay marriage and abortion and the absolute truth of the bible and about heaven and who’s getting there and how. I mean, we live in a complex world with a lot of gray and these Christians are black and white about everything. I apologize for speaking my mind. I’m sure you two are still good Christians who believe all that stuff, right? I mean, Ryan, you’re a pastor, so obviously you believe it.
RW: Well, maybe not after my weekend with Anthony!
AT: Ha! Yeah, Jermaine, I would definitely call myself a Christian but you and I would probably have very similar critiques about how the Christian faith is being lived out. There’s a store in Lawrence that has a shirt they sell, hanging in the window, that reads, ‘Jesus, save us from your followers!’
JH: That’s what I’m talking about. Save us from Ted Haggard and his sex addictions. Save us from George W. Bush and his war machine. Save us from Joel Osteen and his perfect hair and even more perfect bank account. But I guess you guys would agree with that bumper sticker I saw the other day, ‘Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.’
RW: What would Yoder call that, Anthony, ‘forensic overdrive?’
AT: The ‘forensic overkill.’
JH: Who the hell is Yoder?
AT: Oh, he’s a professor I had at Notre Dame who has really made quite an impact on how I view Christian faith. He would call a lot of the types of Christianity that you are experiencing ‘civil religion’ and he spent a lot of his 30 years at Notre Dame critiquing it. Christians all over the United States justify all sorts of things in the name of Jesus. That’s maddening. Yoder wrote, ‘We call a nonviolent man ‘Lord’ and in his name rekindle the arms race. We call a poor man ‘Lord’ and with his name on our lips deepen the ditch between rich and poor. We call ‘Lord’ a man who told us to love our enemies and we polarize the globe in the name of Christian values…’
JH: So you haven’t abandoned faith. You’ve just kind of reconfigured it.
AT: Kind of. Christianity is a ‘contested concept.’ ‘Christianity’ is what my friend back home in Kansas calls ‘a suitcase term.’ You can put all sorts of things in a suitcase when you are getting ready for a trip, but they certainly aren’t the same types of things, even if they are in the same suitcase.
JH: What?
AT: Basically, it’s like the term ‘sport.’ How in the world could bowling and boxing both be called sport?
JH: Bowling isn’t a sport, it’s recreation. It can’t be a sport if you get better at it after you drink beer.
AT: Right, doesn’t make a lot of sense. With bowling you get better with a 12-pack and boxing is so brutal you might get killed! But they are both aired on ESPN, the ‘Total Sports Network.’ This is a crucial point about Christianity. There are many brands of faith. Let’s face it, God loves variety. But a lot of these brands of Christian faith simply are not compelling. Like you said before, Jermaine, they aren’t ‘believable.’ My reading of Yoder [and a few others] has led me to the promised land of a compelling brand of Christian faith. It’s very believable. But I might add, not provable. And by no means perfect!
The night continued for another hour as they talked more about faith and what life was like in three different cultures: Orange County, a university town in the Midwest and a big city in the South. The next morning Anthony came to the 8am service and then headed to John Wayne Airport to catch a noon flight to Kansas City, wondering when, if ever, he would come back to the region of his youth. He offered a prayer of thanksgiving for his seemingly unlimited time with Ryan and the depth of conversation that was sustained throughout. He thanked God for a friend like Ryan who would forgive his long absence and who offered the hospitality and asked sincerely penetrating questions about his life and theology. He prayed that they would continue their relationship, through email and cell phone, but Anthony refused to even consider a Facebook page despite Ryan’s pleading. And lastly, Anthony prayed what he always prayed back home in Lawrence with his wife, that God would grant the energy and wisdom to faithfully and imaginatively participate in God’s ‘original revolution.’
JH: You know, I started doubting my Christian faith a little bit in college and partied with the football team and listened to professors unveil the hidden hypocrisies of Christianity and I began to really doubt the message of Christianity: everyone needs Jesus to take care of their sin problem so that they can go to heaven when they die and of course to be good people and follow the rules from the Bible and so one and so forth. Then when I met Shandra, it was never really something that was important. Her family wasn’t really religious at all and her dad was really burned by the church in Georgia and doubted that a real God would ever allow the pain and suffering that African-Americans have endured in the South over all these years. I think he’s right, but my biggest issue is that Christianity just isn’t believable. I’m not talking about ‘beliefs’ like Jesus being born from a virgin or his resurrection. No, I’m talking about the Christians that I observe on a daily basis. They are no different from Shandra and I as far as trying to be good people. Sure, Christians work hard and are generally nice people, but they sure are opinionated about things like gay marriage and abortion and the absolute truth of the bible and about heaven and who’s getting there and how. I mean, we live in a complex world with a lot of gray and these Christians are black and white about everything. I apologize for speaking my mind. I’m sure you two are still good Christians who believe all that stuff, right? I mean, Ryan, you’re a pastor, so obviously you believe it.
RW: Well, maybe not after my weekend with Anthony!
AT: Ha! Yeah, Jermaine, I would definitely call myself a Christian but you and I would probably have very similar critiques about how the Christian faith is being lived out. There’s a store in Lawrence that has a shirt they sell, hanging in the window, that reads, ‘Jesus, save us from your followers!’
JH: That’s what I’m talking about. Save us from Ted Haggard and his sex addictions. Save us from George W. Bush and his war machine. Save us from Joel Osteen and his perfect hair and even more perfect bank account. But I guess you guys would agree with that bumper sticker I saw the other day, ‘Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.’
RW: What would Yoder call that, Anthony, ‘forensic overdrive?’
AT: The ‘forensic overkill.’
JH: Who the hell is Yoder?
AT: Oh, he’s a professor I had at Notre Dame who has really made quite an impact on how I view Christian faith. He would call a lot of the types of Christianity that you are experiencing ‘civil religion’ and he spent a lot of his 30 years at Notre Dame critiquing it. Christians all over the United States justify all sorts of things in the name of Jesus. That’s maddening. Yoder wrote, ‘We call a nonviolent man ‘Lord’ and in his name rekindle the arms race. We call a poor man ‘Lord’ and with his name on our lips deepen the ditch between rich and poor. We call ‘Lord’ a man who told us to love our enemies and we polarize the globe in the name of Christian values…’
JH: So you haven’t abandoned faith. You’ve just kind of reconfigured it.
AT: Kind of. Christianity is a ‘contested concept.’ ‘Christianity’ is what my friend back home in Kansas calls ‘a suitcase term.’ You can put all sorts of things in a suitcase when you are getting ready for a trip, but they certainly aren’t the same types of things, even if they are in the same suitcase.
JH: What?
AT: Basically, it’s like the term ‘sport.’ How in the world could bowling and boxing both be called sport?
JH: Bowling isn’t a sport, it’s recreation. It can’t be a sport if you get better at it after you drink beer.
AT: Right, doesn’t make a lot of sense. With bowling you get better with a 12-pack and boxing is so brutal you might get killed! But they are both aired on ESPN, the ‘Total Sports Network.’ This is a crucial point about Christianity. There are many brands of faith. Let’s face it, God loves variety. But a lot of these brands of Christian faith simply are not compelling. Like you said before, Jermaine, they aren’t ‘believable.’ My reading of Yoder [and a few others] has led me to the promised land of a compelling brand of Christian faith. It’s very believable. But I might add, not provable. And by no means perfect!
The night continued for another hour as they talked more about faith and what life was like in three different cultures: Orange County, a university town in the Midwest and a big city in the South. The next morning Anthony came to the 8am service and then headed to John Wayne Airport to catch a noon flight to Kansas City, wondering when, if ever, he would come back to the region of his youth. He offered a prayer of thanksgiving for his seemingly unlimited time with Ryan and the depth of conversation that was sustained throughout. He thanked God for a friend like Ryan who would forgive his long absence and who offered the hospitality and asked sincerely penetrating questions about his life and theology. He prayed that they would continue their relationship, through email and cell phone, but Anthony refused to even consider a Facebook page despite Ryan’s pleading. And lastly, Anthony prayed what he always prayed back home in Lawrence with his wife, that God would grant the energy and wisdom to faithfully and imaginatively participate in God’s ‘original revolution.’
Epilogue I: 3 Months Later...A Barrage of Emails
Ryan and Anthony hugged and parted ways at the end of their reunion weekend and hit the ground running. Ryan had loads and loads of pastoral duties and Anthony had an Orange Bowl to defend. Although they hadn’t connected, both were reminded from time to time of different aspects of their weekend conversations. The ‘historic’ 2008 Presidential Election came and went as Obama repainted the electoral map. He earned only ¼ of the Evangelical vote, though, mostly because of his pro-choice stance on abortion and fears that he was ‘the most liberal member of the Senate.’ Anthony and his wife drove 25 miles into Kansas City in October to an Obama rally of more than 75,000 people. He was shocked at the outpouring of devotion, the hope for change in the diversity of faces: white, black, Latino and Native American.
Ryan, meanwhile, privately prayed with his pastoral staff for a McCain victory. For the leaders of Grace Evangelical, this was a crucial election. They were lukewarm on McCain until he named pro-life superhero Sarah Palin to be his VP. Palin was the young-working-mother-Governor-of-Alaska who just gave birth to a Down Syndrome son just a few months earlier. This energized Evangelicals like those at Grace. If McCain could win and appoint a couple more pro-life Supreme Court justices, then 35-year-old Roe v. Wade could be overturned and babies would be saved.
Of course, the other major item on the ballot was the controversial Proposition 8, which would specifically define marriage as ‘between a man and woman’ in the California Constitution. It won 52% of the vote and it sparked a wave of protest against mostly Evangelicals and Mormons.
Anthony was overwhelmed with the football season, but tried to stay abreast of what was going on. He has always been an avid reader not only of his Bible but also of the Lawrence Journal World. He didn’t get to watch TV at all, in fact, his Monday night church community committed to dumping their TV’s as a practice. They wanted to be more intentional with how their minds were formed.
Ryan and Kimmy had a TV and they tried to stay fair-minded when it came to how they received their news. They flipped from CNN to MSNBC to FOX to local stations. Recently they watched a broadcast that sparked Ryan to connect with Anthony.
11.12.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: Check out Rick Warren!
Anthony,
It’s been way too long. So sorry for the silence. So much has happened in the past few months: the economic melt-down, Joe-the-Plumber, the election! Our oldest just started high school and he’s playing freshman football! You should see him in pads. I’ve thought of our time together often—great memories, great conversations. I continue to wrestle with some of the theological and political notions that you’ve brought to my attention. Your position is very unique.
I saw Rick Warren on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes last night. I have the utmost respect for Warren’s creativity and fervor to see people come to Christ and for what he’s trying to do with social justice in Africa, but I wondered what you thought of him. He seems like a very unifying figure. After all, I’ve heard him say multiple times, ‘I’m not right-wing. I’m not left-wing. I’m for the whole bird.’ Anyways, he raised some interesting points that I think could lead to some more theological/political dialogue. You can YouTube it right here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqVdKGR8_u8&feature=related
Say ‘hi’ to the wife and good luck in the big game against Texas on Saturday!
In Christ,
Ryan
11.16.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Check out Rick Warren!
Ryan,
Thanks for the update and the link to Warren’s interview. Maybe you can send me some YouTube clips of your boy on the gridiron! As I’m sure you saw, Texas blew us out! We’ve got our revenge game with Missouri to prove to the bowl committee that we belong in the post-season. We’ve been really busy out here in this red state, so I too apologize for being silent the past few months. I finally got a chance to watch the Warren interview this afternoon. Here are a few of my thoughts:
I don’t really know too much about him. I’ve, of course, heard about Purpose Driven Life and even read a couple chapters, but I had no idea that he sold 35 million copies of it! He seems like a very likeable leader. I see why McCain and Obama would agree to start the general election campaign with an interview with him. But he certainly doesn’t come across as being for ‘the whole bird’ in this interview. His positions are definitely ‘right wing’ through and through: free market ‘wealth creation,’ protecting ‘traditional marriage,’ and crediting Obama with earning evangelical votes ‘simply because he was actually campaigning like Reagan’ with 95% of the population receiving tax cuts. This may not even phase you out there in the OC ‘where every good Republican goes to die’ [classic Reagan quote], but coming from out here in Lawrence, he just sounds like a FOX News anchor. Am I being fair? There are two parts of the interview that I want to comment further on:
(1) Here’s his answer to the question about Prop 8: ‘I absolutely believe in loving everybody, giving respect to everybody, and giving everybody the freedom of choice. I just am opposed to redefining marriage. For 5,000 years that term, marriage, has represented a man and a woman.’
You know I disagree with him in regards to his ideas about the relationship of the church and the state on this issue—he’s choosing the Constantinian approach: sanctify society by legislating Christian morality, no matter how contested the issue of ‘marriage’ is. But I also disagree with his claim that marriage has been a term that refers to a man and a woman for the past 5,000 years. This isn’t true. Even in the Bible, we see King Solomon [and plenty of other men] with thousands of wives—that’s marriage between a man…and many women!
Honestly, I’m a bit confused about Warren’s die-hard support of Prop 8. Something just doesn’t add up. Like I said, I don’t know too much about him so I googled ‘Rick Warren, Bible, Homosexuality’ and learned that he and his wife have been hosting these wonderful AIDS conferences and it seems like they saturate gays and lesbians with a lot of dignity and respect. The Warren’s have gotten a lot of heat from uber-conservative Christian groups calling them full-fledged gay rights activists! Now, I know that’s not true, but my hats off to all they’ve done, leading the Body of Christ in this very important arena.
But then, I found the video blog that Warren made a couple of weeks before the election, valiantly endorsing Prop 8. He proposes that the Bible is clear about the issue and proclaims, ‘If you believe what the Bible says about marriage you need to support Proposition 8.’ Going back to the Bible, I think it is important that we remind ourselves humbly that famous Christian leaders have been famously wrong when they’ve confidently quoted the Bible against some of the complex issues of their day. Martin Luther said, ‘This fool Copernicus wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture in Joshua 10:13 tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.’ Not only does this Luther quote remind us to humbly weigh what our leaders are saying, it also reminds of how not to read the Bible. Luther was assuming that the author of Joshua got it right in regards to everything, including astronomy. But, of course, the author of Joshua was writing a book about God and His people, not about exact science. The author of Joshua did not have categories for which object in space orbits around the other: the earth or the sun.
In similar ways, the legendary Princeton theologian Charles Hodge found himself waffling in the middle of the 19th century with the moral question of his day: slavery. He wrote, ‘The fact that the Mosaic institutions recognized the lawfulness of slavery is a point too plain to need proof, and is almost universally admitted. Our argument from this acknowledged fact is that if God allowed slavery to exist, if he directed how slaves might be lawfully acquired, and how they were to be treated, it is in vain to contend that slaveholding is a sin, and yet profess reverence for the Scriptures.’ This biblical reading strategy, among other things, failed to take into account the vast differences between chattel slavery in the US and debt servant-hood in the Roman Empire. It’s a huge cultural gap. And now, of course, we all look back and say, ‘Yeah, of course slavery in the US was horrifically un-Christian!’ But it takes a nuanced Bible reading strategy to get there. If we just quote Bible verses, then the sun revolves around the earth and slavery is God-ordained—and we’re just getting started! Likewise, Paul did not have a category for homosexual orientation—homosexuality did not exist in that culture like it does in ours. Is it possible that Warren and many others will be corrected, just as Luther and Hodge are now, as we continue to learn a lot more about our complex world and follow the Spirit’s prodding? I think so.
(2) Here’s Warren’s answer to whether evangelicals are changing the way they are voting:
‘in this particular election, the economy trumped literally everything else. People were worried about the bread and butter issues…I don't think evangelicals have changed on any of their core issues at all, not at all. But I do think that, in this particular election, the economy came up at the top.’
I also googled ‘Rick Warren, political issues’ and listened to a recent NPR interview he did. He sent out a list of 5 non-negotiables to thousands of Christian leaders before the 2004 election: abortion, gay marriage, human cloning, stem-cell research and euthanasia. He says these are still his convictions even though he didn’t send out the letter during this election cycle.
My experience talking with evangelicals, especially younger evangelicals [18-29] who were two times more likely to vote for Obama than they were for Kerry in 2004, is that many are indeed expanding and shifting their core issues. Check out Donald Miller’s blog at donmilleris.com. He recounts his political testimony, from his the days of his youth, listening to Rush Limbaugh and his pastors who embraced the religious right right up to his participation in Obama’s campaign. His is a dramatic shift and, trust me, it’s happening, albeit slowly, all over America. We are re-thinking what it means to think biblically about American politics.
Many Evangelicals that I talk to are pro-life across the board: inside the womb, against the bomb and around the slum. Many Christians resonated with Obama on war and poverty issues, as well as his diplomatic posture with the rest of the world. Certainly, his stance on abortion was a hang-up with most evangelicals, but there are some compelling evangelical voices that are rightly emphasizing progressive economic policies that will financially allow more young pregnant mothers to keep the child. Did you know that pregnant mothers living below the poverty line are 3 times more likely to have an abortion than those who aren’t? I’m convinced that something needs to change in the economic structure of our country in order to reduce the number of abortions. Those who live below the poverty line need help. And remember, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will be decided by state legislatures, and, no doubt, California will continue to give abortion rights to women. On top of this, many evangelicals are taking more ‘biblical’ stances on the protection of the environment, extending affordable health care to everyone and giving dignity to undocumented workers in our economy. This is not only what I’m experiencing but also what polls seem to be saying…and I’m very hopeful about these trends. The pull toward Obama cannot simply be chalked up to the faltering economy.
Much Love in Christ,
Anthony
11.18.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: Following Up on Warren
OK, just a couple follow up questions:
1. Would you say Paul was flat-out wrong about homosexuality?
2. If so, then couldn’t anything be wrong in the Bible…even the resurrection of Jesus?
11.22.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Following Up on Warren
1. I would not say Paul was flat-out wrong, just flat-out out cultural. This cultural aspect makes Bible reading a little more nuanced, but remember, even full-fledged biblical literalist fundamentalists have a ‘cultural filter.’ Everyone has to pick and choose what applies to our Christian faith today and how we live out the stuff that does…but I don’t want to sound like it is just a consumer experience like going to the grocery store and picking out my cereals for the week. This task needs to be prayerful, intellectually engaging and humble, and it needs to involve a variety of voices in community as we all weigh the issues and their implications.
2. Of course, anything could be ‘wrong’ in the Bible. We have got to be humble about that. 500 years ago, Copernicus was right and Luther’s Bible was ‘wrong’ [at least an aspect of his strategy was]. 150 years ago, the abolitionists were right and Hodge’s Bible was wrong [at least an aspect of his strategy was]. The Bible isn’t read…it is interpreted. And that’s where faith, conviction and humility all must intersect. As we talked about during our reunion weekend, I’ve rejected the philosophical need for an inerrant Bible. Many Christians use this biblical ‘doctrine’ to bolster certainty. The inerrant Bible gives them ‘proof.’ Philosophers call this understanding of the world ‘foundationalism,’ and it has ruled the roost during the Modern period since Descartes in the 17th century. Part of the problem with Biblical inerrancy is that the Bible is interpreted by fallible humans. Another part of the problem is that the Bible is simply not that kind of text. It’s a book of stories, poems, sermons, letters and apocalyptic literature [don’t get me started on how difficult it is to understand Revelation]. I subscribe to what’s called a ‘post-foundationalist’ epistemology. OK, I know this phrase is way too intellectual-sounding, but what it simply means is that many folks living in Western culture have given up the project of the perfect, provable system of coming to truth and knowledge. I’ve given up the theological game of Jenga, where we mine out of the Bible timeless truths and universally proclaimed principles to build up our perfect ideas about God and the world. The Bible, instead of being a perfect encyclopedia of truth and belief, is a script for faithful performance. I don’t believe in the dictation theory of the Bible—the idea that God dictated the exact words through all the biblical authors. Instead, these very human authors were inspired to write about who God is and what it means to be a part of what he is doing to redeem the world. Did Jesus rise from the grave? Of course. This is the bold conviction that propelled all the New Testament writers who wrote absolutely convinced that Jesus continues to live in their presence [and ours], empowering, guiding, comforting and reminding them [and us], through this same Spirit that raised him from the dead.
I hope this makes sense. These are rather simplified answers to your very important and rather complex questions. These ideas have been quite paradigm-shifting for me and it has taken a lot of time hashing through a lot of questions and concerns like these.
11.23.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: Rapture?
OK, I don’t claim to know precisely what you were saying in your last email. I read it and re-read it a few times and I think I kind-of-understand where you are coming from, but the paradigm-shift is a little too HUGE for me to accept right now. It just makes my head spin. I’m sure I’ll have questions for you later.
I have thought about you a few times in recent weeks when certain members of our congregation have shared their concern with me about Obama. Usually, they just commit to praying and trusting God during this ‘worrisome’ time of gay marriage, the economic melt-down and a President of dubious character and background. But some go even further, asking me if Obama might be the Antichrist. I’ve even overheard one of our members proclaim jubilantly that Obama’s win might just be the last straw before the Rapture!
Anthony, I know that many Christians have been unfair towards Obama in the past year or so, but do they have some reason to be concerned about him. Is it possible that he could be this world leader that is a ‘false prophet’ as described in Matthew: a wolf in sheep’s clothing? All politics aside, do you concede that these Christians could be justified in some of their fear?
I know you’ve got a big week ahead of you with Thanksgiving on Thursday and the Missouri game on Saturday at Arrowhead. Go Jayhawks!
11.25.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Rapture?
Reading Revelation and other ‘apocalyptic’ biblical literature [like Mark 13 and Daniel] can be quite taxing…especially when attempting to make sense of it in light of contemporary events and world leaders. Many Evangelicals read Revelation as an ‘end-times map.’ I prefer to read it as a ‘political resistance document.’ Again, I want to preface my choice of words: by ‘prefer,’ I don’t mean that it is just a consumer choice. I mean that I have tried both reading strategies and understand the implications. I am far more compelled by approaching Revelation as a political resistance document, what apocalyptic literature originally was. When we read Revelation in light of the historical circumstances of small Christian communities faithfully witnessing and worshipping as minorities in the Roman Empire and when we read Revelation with even a novice understanding that apocalyptic literature was written as a metaphorical critique against powerful, oppressive governments, then we can take a couple steps closer to understanding more fully how these original communities understood these Spirit-inspired words. The document was not so much about what was going to happen ‘at the end of the world,’ but instead about what was going on in the Roman Empire back in the day. The Empire had an oppressive effect on these communities, a constant threat towards their witness. During some periods of time in the early days of Christian faith, they endured particularly harsh persecution. Other times, the Emperor and his cronies were more indifferent to the strange Christians. Revelation is written to 7 Christian communities in 7 cities of the Empire. These communities are referred to as ‘lampstands,’ sources of kingdom light that are supposed to illuminate the dark Empire. Instaed, complacency and idol-worship are both at the forefront of how the powerful Empire is disrupting these communities. The bottom line is that Revelation is calling these communities to follow ‘the Lamb who was slaughtered’ into faithful witness…sometimes this meant martyrdom [martus is Greek for ‘witness’]. These communities pledged allegiance to King Jesus, not Caesar. Though many were citizens of Rome, they were primarily citizens of the ‘reign of Christ.’ This was a difficult vocation. Revelation is best interpreted by Christian communities who are actively and creatively resisting the Powers that threaten their faithfulness to God’s reign.
I share all of this because I think all of this talk about Obama possibly being the Anti-Christ is sheer nonsense according to the reading strategy I find most compelling. The title ‘Anti-Christ’ actually isn’t in Revelation—it’s in I and II John. I’m compelled by scholarship that interprets that term, as well as ‘the beast’ and ‘666’ in Revelation, as referring to the powerful seduction of the Roman Empire, and by implication, governments, economies and rulers who have consistently oppressed Christian minorities throughout the centuries since then. The idea that Obama is the Anti-Christ that will come before the end of the world is not worth speculating. What is worth speculating is all the ways in which Christian communities in North America are getting seduced by the Powers through economic complacency and idolatry: the pull of advertising and consumerism, militaristic patriotism, instant gratification, the cult of celebrity [in and out of the church] and ecological degradation [to name a few]. Surely, Christians should be critical of how Obama’s Administration, like all of our leaders in all three branches of government, makes decisions and guides the United States in ways that are counter to ‘the kingdom of God.’
As far as the Rapture is concerned, I believe that when Christ returns to this earth, what the New Testament refers to as his ‘reappearing’ [parousia], he will establish his kingdom on earth forever and ever. Our hope is not that he will save us from the earth but that his reign will be rooted firmly on earth. In I Thessalonians 5, where Paul writes about how Christians will meet the Lord in the sky when he returns, he is again using the language of Rome. When Caesar would travel to towns in the Empire, the citizens of these colonies would leave the city and meet Caesar on the road in order to escort him back into their hometown and throw him a grand festival. So, too, when Christ returns will there be a giant redemption party on earth, just as it is in heaven. These early Christians were eagerly expecting King Jesus to return, to fully set up his kingdom on earth. Again, their hope was in the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth, not the militaristic and glorified Caesar of Rome. So, too, should we be expectant and hopeful as we live out the radical kingdom lifestyle until he reappears. No need to worry about being ‘Left Behind.’ No one is going anywhere. God has always been about putting the world back to rights, redeeming the entire creation. He would never consider abandoning his creation to total destruction. His covenant with his people assures that the entire world will indeed be released from its bondage to sin, death and decay [Romans 8:18-25].
12.20.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: Back to Warren!
Anthony!
I’m sure you’ve heard this week’s news that Rick Warren is going to be giving the invocation at the Obama inauguration. Most media outlets seem to be spinning this as a very ‘controversial’ move on Obama’s part, mostly because of Warren’s outspokenness over the gay marriage issue in California. It seems to be a strange pick considering Warren represents the conservative evangelical world, one of the only groups that overwhelmingly did not vote for Obama. What are your thoughts?
12.21.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Back to Warren!
As I type this email in my pajamas, sipping on some hot coffee with snow on the ground outside, you are probably getting ready to preach a few sermons. I just wanted to remind you of some of the perks of having our church meeting on Monday nights!
Oh, yes, Rick Warren. After I heard the news this week, I’ve been checking various news websites for reactions and more information on Obama’s decision. Here’s where I’m at:
First of all, this Warren phenomena is becoming more and more the classic example of Constantinian Christianity in our day. Remember, from the 4th century onwards, the Pope and the Emperor blessed each other, gaining more and more power for their respective causes. In this relationship, the church gives the public realm [politics/economics] over to the state in order to claim the private realm [spirituality] for itself. Yoder called it ‘the Constantinian concubinage’: when the church ultimate prostitutes herself out to the state. This is about as harsh as Yoder gets with his language, but let me explain. Obama is, no doubt, courting the white conservative evangelical vote that he failed to gain over the past 20 months of campaigning. He is trying to reach across the aisle to find some common ground because, let’s face it, these folks are not going to like decisions that he’ll make in the next 4 years regarding abortion, stem cell research and homosexuality. Warren has been ‘progressive’ on issues like AIDS, Africa, global warming and poverty, so he’s the evangelical leader who is most visible and most characterized by liberals and seculars with comments like ‘he’s doing a lot of good in this world.’ Bill Maher recently said that he liked Warren because, let’s face it, he’s A LOT better than Jerry Falwell!
Warren sees this opportunity at the inauguration as yet one more bolstering of his own ministry—a phenomenal opportunity to change hearts and lives for Christ. I did a little on-line research and came across a very illuminating email that Warren wrote to his church after it was announced that Saddleback would be hosting the Civil Forum with Obama and McCain back in August. Warren tells his congregation that ‘since the founding of our nation, no church has ever been given this kind of opportunity’ and that ‘both men have been friends of mine since before either decided to run for president,’ adding that both Barack Obama and John McCain had participated in Saddleback’s Global AIDS Summit in November ’07, and, in addition, both officially support his worldwide P.E.A.C.E. Plan and have given written endorsements for the P.E.A.C.E. Coalition. In addition, Warren wrote that it was necessary for Saddleback Church to come up with $2 million to upgrade their cameras, lights and mixing boards to high def digital in order to host the event. He proclaimed, ‘We need a miracle.’ Honestly, this email was a bit abrasive for me to read, mostly because it opened my eyes to how this leader thinks about being a witness to God’s Kingdom.
First of all, Warren emphasizes the association both he [as a ‘friend’] and Saddleback have with these powerful political leaders. He believes that both he and the church get credibility by this association. This can only lead to a fundamental understanding that a church community’s success can be defined, not by what it knows or what it does, but by who it knows. Second, Warren’s focus is on the church’s opportunity to serve the United States. Saddleback is one of the few churches in America that has a venue that seats 4,000 people. Saddleback, following their own logic, believes that they should, of course, take this opportunity to allow the State and its media outlets, to use their facilities and their facilitating pastor. This can only be construed as an opportunity for Warren to serve as yet another, in a long line of chaplains to the State. Third, he homes in on the church’s opportunity to influence. He twice mentions Saddleback’s opportunity to influence viewers not only in the nation, but the entire world. This points to a key component of their theology of mission. They believe that they can best be a witness to the wider world through the various mediums of our culture. In this case, through privileged participation in the political process and through free access to all the major networks, a huge audience will know about Saddleback Church—at least, its pastor and its facilities. Only this sort of understanding of mission could warrant spending $2 million on high-end video equipment.
It’s hard for me to understand all of the attention that Warren is getting right now—from Fox to the Today Show to Dateline to MSNBC to CNN. They are asking about his convictions on everything from the economic crisis to the auto industry bailout to gay marriage to Obama’s impending Presidency to the real meaning of Christmas. He’s quick-witted and commonsensical and that makes a lot of Americans feel very comfortable with him. It seems like the gay community is very angry right now with the loss in the Prop 8 battle out there in California. The decision to appoint Warren as invocation speaker can only be construed for them as pouring salt into their collective wounds. One thing I’m convinced of is that Warren just doesn’t seem to understand how hurtful his comments on Prop 8 and gay marriage have been to the gay community. I found multiple interviews this week where he equates gay marriage with incest and pedophilia. In one of the interviews, the interviewer even asked Warren to clarify [‘So, you equate gay marriage with these things’] and Warren affirmed it [‘Oh I do.’]. Warren, of course, is lumping gay marriage and incest and pedophilia into the big-tent category of sin and claiming that they are all the same. But this is tremendously insensitive, not only to the gay community whose love for one another is consensual, but also with the contested nature of homosexuality and the Bible. Time and time again Warren says in interviews that ‘the Bible clearly says’ or even ‘God says’ that homosexuality is a sin. He should really watch his language because a lot of Christians would disagree with him. But let me reiterate: I think Warren is just a bit ignorant about the ongoing debate about this issue [and many others]. He is busy with running a church, a family and bringing his Purpose Driven message to the world. He consistently gives confidently concrete answers to questions that are way above his pay grade—forced to confront topics that he is really not that informed about. The world we live in is far more complex than how Warren describes it. But since Warren’s strategy is to use all the means of power—from TV networks all the way up to the President’s Administration—to win the world to Christ, he’ll continue to accept these interview requests. I have a hunch we’ll be seeing quite a bit of him in the years to come.
12.22.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: re: Back to Warren!
OK, I get your take on Warren, but don’t you think he should use all the means of communication possible to be ‘a light to the world’ for the gospel? How would you do it if you were in Warren’s shoes?
12.24.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Back to Warren!
Again, as I type, you are conducting a Christmas Eve Service and I am looking out the window at a soon-to-be white Christmas!
Thanks for your follow-up question. My answer involves about conversations about the Anabaptist perspective I’m coming from.
From its origins in the 16th century, Anabaptists have been quite wary of the association of the local community of Christ followers and the powers-that-be that enforce government laws and control the economy. They have emphatically rejected the Constantinian project of the 4th century Roman Empire that married the power and influence of Church and State and that continued with the nation states of the 16th century onwards. These strange bed fellows have poisoned the wells of Christian faith, leading to varieties of coercive, compromised Christian faithfulness in a multitude of settings. This Constantinian Christian dirty laundry is long indeed: forced conversions, inquisitions, genocide, crusades, colonization and ruthless expansion of Western powers. Instead, the Anabaptists have adamantly believed that ‘if Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not,’ [this is actually Reformed Anglican N.T. Wright’s phrase!] which points to a radical trust that Jesus Christ sits ‘at the right hand of God’ controlling history [Psalm 110 is the most quoted OT passage in the New Testament]. To be a ‘light to the world’ is to practice God’s alternative politics as a model of faithful living. The practices of loving the enemy, sharing possessions, advocating for the poor and downtrodden, refusing violent solutions, telling the truth, listening to others with humility [etc] are what sets the Body of Christ aside and gives us a platform to be a witness. God’s Empire, not America’s, is what guides history and this means that Christians are called to be obedient, to live according to God’s kingdom, not to be guided by what is most ‘responsible’ or ‘effective’ according to the kingdom of this world.
As we talked about a few months ago, Anabaptists render Paul’s ‘principalities and powers’ as the structures that order our lives [family, government, economy, education, etc], instead of what was emphasized during the Medieval period— angels and demons in a separate spiritual realm. These ‘powers’ have been created by God to serve us, but, too, are fallen and work to enslave us. The strategy to transform these created-yet-fallen powers is not primarily to change the hearts of individual leaders within those structures who will then work to change the structures. On the contrary, Anabaptists believe that God works through the church as a social institution to discern, critique and redeem these powers by being a faithful witness to Christ’s Lordship and unmasking where the powers use lies and illusions to deceive humanity. God’s kingdom is a social reality working through his alternative microsociety, the church.
Anabaptists have a firm belief in being on mission from the margins, just as God did in the incarnation, in Jesus the messiah from nowheresville Nazareth [not from the ‘metropolis’ of where God was expected to reign: Jerusalem]! This geographical exclamation point symbolizes a much deeper understanding of how Anabaptist messianic communities define success and faithfulness to God’s will. To missionally embrace marginality means that the messianic community will prioritize practices like serving and sharing possessions with those who are lacking, giving voice to the powerless, loving and forgiving enemies and embodying virtues like humility, empathy and patience. As Bryan Stone writes in a great book called Evangelism After Christendom [2008], ‘What the gospel needs most is not intellectual brokers or cultural diplomats, but rather saints who have taken up the way of the cross and in whose lives the gospel is visible, palpable, and true.’ A community that pledges allegiance to God’s reign will be a witness to the wider world by its kingdom lifestyle.
Veteran Anabaptist missionary Linford Stutzman has posited that Christian communities who ‘occupy a position within a society which is fundamentally different from that of Jesus’ will be destined to use ‘inauthentic methods of proclaiming the good news,’ as well as ‘restricting the prophetic content of the message.’ Stutzman has critiqued marketing, target groups and meeting felt needs, as well as aligning the community’s missional outreach to ‘the Establishment minority who represent institutional and social power within society.’ When a messianic community starts from this ‘Establishment’ social location, where power and resources are abundant, it ‘tends to ignore, condemn, or ‘evangelize’ individuals’ in marginal situations, leading to what Stutzman calls a ‘fundamental mutilation of the gospel.’ Instead of following a strategy that pursues positions of power that inevitably leads to the status quo, Jesus, the early church and the Anabaptists started from the margins where people have a deep longing for justice, peace and goodness—‘a longing for the kingdom in all of its forms.’ This mission success is explosive as the Spirit of God intersects with desperate human longings for the kingdom. This strategy has historically led to an authentic witness of communities that eventually attract participants from every slot on the population spectrum.
The argument can certainly be made by conservative evangelicals throughout North America that Anabaptists are simply arguing for a ‘bottom up’ missional strategy that they have carried out for the past 500 years because they have had to. It is, perhaps, ‘sour grapes’ missional theology! Since Anabaptists have always been the outvoted minority in society their approach has, inevitably, had to be on the side of the marginalized of various forms—they haven’t had access to a ‘top down’ mission of the establishment or power elites like Rick Warren has had. Indeed, neither McCain nor Obama were interested in accommodating a few thousand Anabaptists during a campaign that will need millions to win. If Rick Warren has the rare opportunities to be a voice for Christ on news network shows and to give the invocation at the Inauguration, shouldn’t he then seize this opportunity and shouldn’t we construe this as ‘missional?’ The Anabaptists would say ‘no.’ Anabaptists have been historically, and rightly, skeptical of power, as Yoder writes: ‘the only way in which faith can become the official ideology of a power elite in a given society is if Jesus Christ ceases to be concretely Lord.’ In other words, Christian communities who participate in power-plays as their chaplains sacrifice the radical message of the gospel. When the most powerful Americans, whether political leaders or financial gurus or movie star celebrities, embrace the label ‘Christian,’ or simply ask a chaplain to bless their ceremonies, inevitably some other ‘lord’ takes over, whether power, fame, wealth or efficacy—these are what Yoder would say end up being ‘the new functional equivalent of deity.’
Ryan, this was a lot, but as I’ve shared with you before, I’ve put a lot of time into thinking through these things because Anabaptism is and has been such a minority position throughout the history of Church and State.
Ryan, meanwhile, privately prayed with his pastoral staff for a McCain victory. For the leaders of Grace Evangelical, this was a crucial election. They were lukewarm on McCain until he named pro-life superhero Sarah Palin to be his VP. Palin was the young-working-mother-Governor-of-Alaska who just gave birth to a Down Syndrome son just a few months earlier. This energized Evangelicals like those at Grace. If McCain could win and appoint a couple more pro-life Supreme Court justices, then 35-year-old Roe v. Wade could be overturned and babies would be saved.
Of course, the other major item on the ballot was the controversial Proposition 8, which would specifically define marriage as ‘between a man and woman’ in the California Constitution. It won 52% of the vote and it sparked a wave of protest against mostly Evangelicals and Mormons.
Anthony was overwhelmed with the football season, but tried to stay abreast of what was going on. He has always been an avid reader not only of his Bible but also of the Lawrence Journal World. He didn’t get to watch TV at all, in fact, his Monday night church community committed to dumping their TV’s as a practice. They wanted to be more intentional with how their minds were formed.
Ryan and Kimmy had a TV and they tried to stay fair-minded when it came to how they received their news. They flipped from CNN to MSNBC to FOX to local stations. Recently they watched a broadcast that sparked Ryan to connect with Anthony.
11.12.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: Check out Rick Warren!
Anthony,
It’s been way too long. So sorry for the silence. So much has happened in the past few months: the economic melt-down, Joe-the-Plumber, the election! Our oldest just started high school and he’s playing freshman football! You should see him in pads. I’ve thought of our time together often—great memories, great conversations. I continue to wrestle with some of the theological and political notions that you’ve brought to my attention. Your position is very unique.
I saw Rick Warren on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes last night. I have the utmost respect for Warren’s creativity and fervor to see people come to Christ and for what he’s trying to do with social justice in Africa, but I wondered what you thought of him. He seems like a very unifying figure. After all, I’ve heard him say multiple times, ‘I’m not right-wing. I’m not left-wing. I’m for the whole bird.’ Anyways, he raised some interesting points that I think could lead to some more theological/political dialogue. You can YouTube it right here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqVdKGR8_u8&feature=related
Say ‘hi’ to the wife and good luck in the big game against Texas on Saturday!
In Christ,
Ryan
11.16.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Check out Rick Warren!
Ryan,
Thanks for the update and the link to Warren’s interview. Maybe you can send me some YouTube clips of your boy on the gridiron! As I’m sure you saw, Texas blew us out! We’ve got our revenge game with Missouri to prove to the bowl committee that we belong in the post-season. We’ve been really busy out here in this red state, so I too apologize for being silent the past few months. I finally got a chance to watch the Warren interview this afternoon. Here are a few of my thoughts:
I don’t really know too much about him. I’ve, of course, heard about Purpose Driven Life and even read a couple chapters, but I had no idea that he sold 35 million copies of it! He seems like a very likeable leader. I see why McCain and Obama would agree to start the general election campaign with an interview with him. But he certainly doesn’t come across as being for ‘the whole bird’ in this interview. His positions are definitely ‘right wing’ through and through: free market ‘wealth creation,’ protecting ‘traditional marriage,’ and crediting Obama with earning evangelical votes ‘simply because he was actually campaigning like Reagan’ with 95% of the population receiving tax cuts. This may not even phase you out there in the OC ‘where every good Republican goes to die’ [classic Reagan quote], but coming from out here in Lawrence, he just sounds like a FOX News anchor. Am I being fair? There are two parts of the interview that I want to comment further on:
(1) Here’s his answer to the question about Prop 8: ‘I absolutely believe in loving everybody, giving respect to everybody, and giving everybody the freedom of choice. I just am opposed to redefining marriage. For 5,000 years that term, marriage, has represented a man and a woman.’
You know I disagree with him in regards to his ideas about the relationship of the church and the state on this issue—he’s choosing the Constantinian approach: sanctify society by legislating Christian morality, no matter how contested the issue of ‘marriage’ is. But I also disagree with his claim that marriage has been a term that refers to a man and a woman for the past 5,000 years. This isn’t true. Even in the Bible, we see King Solomon [and plenty of other men] with thousands of wives—that’s marriage between a man…and many women!
Honestly, I’m a bit confused about Warren’s die-hard support of Prop 8. Something just doesn’t add up. Like I said, I don’t know too much about him so I googled ‘Rick Warren, Bible, Homosexuality’ and learned that he and his wife have been hosting these wonderful AIDS conferences and it seems like they saturate gays and lesbians with a lot of dignity and respect. The Warren’s have gotten a lot of heat from uber-conservative Christian groups calling them full-fledged gay rights activists! Now, I know that’s not true, but my hats off to all they’ve done, leading the Body of Christ in this very important arena.
But then, I found the video blog that Warren made a couple of weeks before the election, valiantly endorsing Prop 8. He proposes that the Bible is clear about the issue and proclaims, ‘If you believe what the Bible says about marriage you need to support Proposition 8.’ Going back to the Bible, I think it is important that we remind ourselves humbly that famous Christian leaders have been famously wrong when they’ve confidently quoted the Bible against some of the complex issues of their day. Martin Luther said, ‘This fool Copernicus wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture in Joshua 10:13 tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.’ Not only does this Luther quote remind us to humbly weigh what our leaders are saying, it also reminds of how not to read the Bible. Luther was assuming that the author of Joshua got it right in regards to everything, including astronomy. But, of course, the author of Joshua was writing a book about God and His people, not about exact science. The author of Joshua did not have categories for which object in space orbits around the other: the earth or the sun.
In similar ways, the legendary Princeton theologian Charles Hodge found himself waffling in the middle of the 19th century with the moral question of his day: slavery. He wrote, ‘The fact that the Mosaic institutions recognized the lawfulness of slavery is a point too plain to need proof, and is almost universally admitted. Our argument from this acknowledged fact is that if God allowed slavery to exist, if he directed how slaves might be lawfully acquired, and how they were to be treated, it is in vain to contend that slaveholding is a sin, and yet profess reverence for the Scriptures.’ This biblical reading strategy, among other things, failed to take into account the vast differences between chattel slavery in the US and debt servant-hood in the Roman Empire. It’s a huge cultural gap. And now, of course, we all look back and say, ‘Yeah, of course slavery in the US was horrifically un-Christian!’ But it takes a nuanced Bible reading strategy to get there. If we just quote Bible verses, then the sun revolves around the earth and slavery is God-ordained—and we’re just getting started! Likewise, Paul did not have a category for homosexual orientation—homosexuality did not exist in that culture like it does in ours. Is it possible that Warren and many others will be corrected, just as Luther and Hodge are now, as we continue to learn a lot more about our complex world and follow the Spirit’s prodding? I think so.
(2) Here’s Warren’s answer to whether evangelicals are changing the way they are voting:
‘in this particular election, the economy trumped literally everything else. People were worried about the bread and butter issues…I don't think evangelicals have changed on any of their core issues at all, not at all. But I do think that, in this particular election, the economy came up at the top.’
I also googled ‘Rick Warren, political issues’ and listened to a recent NPR interview he did. He sent out a list of 5 non-negotiables to thousands of Christian leaders before the 2004 election: abortion, gay marriage, human cloning, stem-cell research and euthanasia. He says these are still his convictions even though he didn’t send out the letter during this election cycle.
My experience talking with evangelicals, especially younger evangelicals [18-29] who were two times more likely to vote for Obama than they were for Kerry in 2004, is that many are indeed expanding and shifting their core issues. Check out Donald Miller’s blog at donmilleris.com. He recounts his political testimony, from his the days of his youth, listening to Rush Limbaugh and his pastors who embraced the religious right right up to his participation in Obama’s campaign. His is a dramatic shift and, trust me, it’s happening, albeit slowly, all over America. We are re-thinking what it means to think biblically about American politics.
Many Evangelicals that I talk to are pro-life across the board: inside the womb, against the bomb and around the slum. Many Christians resonated with Obama on war and poverty issues, as well as his diplomatic posture with the rest of the world. Certainly, his stance on abortion was a hang-up with most evangelicals, but there are some compelling evangelical voices that are rightly emphasizing progressive economic policies that will financially allow more young pregnant mothers to keep the child. Did you know that pregnant mothers living below the poverty line are 3 times more likely to have an abortion than those who aren’t? I’m convinced that something needs to change in the economic structure of our country in order to reduce the number of abortions. Those who live below the poverty line need help. And remember, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will be decided by state legislatures, and, no doubt, California will continue to give abortion rights to women. On top of this, many evangelicals are taking more ‘biblical’ stances on the protection of the environment, extending affordable health care to everyone and giving dignity to undocumented workers in our economy. This is not only what I’m experiencing but also what polls seem to be saying…and I’m very hopeful about these trends. The pull toward Obama cannot simply be chalked up to the faltering economy.
Much Love in Christ,
Anthony
11.18.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: Following Up on Warren
OK, just a couple follow up questions:
1. Would you say Paul was flat-out wrong about homosexuality?
2. If so, then couldn’t anything be wrong in the Bible…even the resurrection of Jesus?
11.22.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Following Up on Warren
1. I would not say Paul was flat-out wrong, just flat-out out cultural. This cultural aspect makes Bible reading a little more nuanced, but remember, even full-fledged biblical literalist fundamentalists have a ‘cultural filter.’ Everyone has to pick and choose what applies to our Christian faith today and how we live out the stuff that does…but I don’t want to sound like it is just a consumer experience like going to the grocery store and picking out my cereals for the week. This task needs to be prayerful, intellectually engaging and humble, and it needs to involve a variety of voices in community as we all weigh the issues and their implications.
2. Of course, anything could be ‘wrong’ in the Bible. We have got to be humble about that. 500 years ago, Copernicus was right and Luther’s Bible was ‘wrong’ [at least an aspect of his strategy was]. 150 years ago, the abolitionists were right and Hodge’s Bible was wrong [at least an aspect of his strategy was]. The Bible isn’t read…it is interpreted. And that’s where faith, conviction and humility all must intersect. As we talked about during our reunion weekend, I’ve rejected the philosophical need for an inerrant Bible. Many Christians use this biblical ‘doctrine’ to bolster certainty. The inerrant Bible gives them ‘proof.’ Philosophers call this understanding of the world ‘foundationalism,’ and it has ruled the roost during the Modern period since Descartes in the 17th century. Part of the problem with Biblical inerrancy is that the Bible is interpreted by fallible humans. Another part of the problem is that the Bible is simply not that kind of text. It’s a book of stories, poems, sermons, letters and apocalyptic literature [don’t get me started on how difficult it is to understand Revelation]. I subscribe to what’s called a ‘post-foundationalist’ epistemology. OK, I know this phrase is way too intellectual-sounding, but what it simply means is that many folks living in Western culture have given up the project of the perfect, provable system of coming to truth and knowledge. I’ve given up the theological game of Jenga, where we mine out of the Bible timeless truths and universally proclaimed principles to build up our perfect ideas about God and the world. The Bible, instead of being a perfect encyclopedia of truth and belief, is a script for faithful performance. I don’t believe in the dictation theory of the Bible—the idea that God dictated the exact words through all the biblical authors. Instead, these very human authors were inspired to write about who God is and what it means to be a part of what he is doing to redeem the world. Did Jesus rise from the grave? Of course. This is the bold conviction that propelled all the New Testament writers who wrote absolutely convinced that Jesus continues to live in their presence [and ours], empowering, guiding, comforting and reminding them [and us], through this same Spirit that raised him from the dead.
I hope this makes sense. These are rather simplified answers to your very important and rather complex questions. These ideas have been quite paradigm-shifting for me and it has taken a lot of time hashing through a lot of questions and concerns like these.
11.23.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: Rapture?
OK, I don’t claim to know precisely what you were saying in your last email. I read it and re-read it a few times and I think I kind-of-understand where you are coming from, but the paradigm-shift is a little too HUGE for me to accept right now. It just makes my head spin. I’m sure I’ll have questions for you later.
I have thought about you a few times in recent weeks when certain members of our congregation have shared their concern with me about Obama. Usually, they just commit to praying and trusting God during this ‘worrisome’ time of gay marriage, the economic melt-down and a President of dubious character and background. But some go even further, asking me if Obama might be the Antichrist. I’ve even overheard one of our members proclaim jubilantly that Obama’s win might just be the last straw before the Rapture!
Anthony, I know that many Christians have been unfair towards Obama in the past year or so, but do they have some reason to be concerned about him. Is it possible that he could be this world leader that is a ‘false prophet’ as described in Matthew: a wolf in sheep’s clothing? All politics aside, do you concede that these Christians could be justified in some of their fear?
I know you’ve got a big week ahead of you with Thanksgiving on Thursday and the Missouri game on Saturday at Arrowhead. Go Jayhawks!
11.25.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Rapture?
Reading Revelation and other ‘apocalyptic’ biblical literature [like Mark 13 and Daniel] can be quite taxing…especially when attempting to make sense of it in light of contemporary events and world leaders. Many Evangelicals read Revelation as an ‘end-times map.’ I prefer to read it as a ‘political resistance document.’ Again, I want to preface my choice of words: by ‘prefer,’ I don’t mean that it is just a consumer choice. I mean that I have tried both reading strategies and understand the implications. I am far more compelled by approaching Revelation as a political resistance document, what apocalyptic literature originally was. When we read Revelation in light of the historical circumstances of small Christian communities faithfully witnessing and worshipping as minorities in the Roman Empire and when we read Revelation with even a novice understanding that apocalyptic literature was written as a metaphorical critique against powerful, oppressive governments, then we can take a couple steps closer to understanding more fully how these original communities understood these Spirit-inspired words. The document was not so much about what was going to happen ‘at the end of the world,’ but instead about what was going on in the Roman Empire back in the day. The Empire had an oppressive effect on these communities, a constant threat towards their witness. During some periods of time in the early days of Christian faith, they endured particularly harsh persecution. Other times, the Emperor and his cronies were more indifferent to the strange Christians. Revelation is written to 7 Christian communities in 7 cities of the Empire. These communities are referred to as ‘lampstands,’ sources of kingdom light that are supposed to illuminate the dark Empire. Instaed, complacency and idol-worship are both at the forefront of how the powerful Empire is disrupting these communities. The bottom line is that Revelation is calling these communities to follow ‘the Lamb who was slaughtered’ into faithful witness…sometimes this meant martyrdom [martus is Greek for ‘witness’]. These communities pledged allegiance to King Jesus, not Caesar. Though many were citizens of Rome, they were primarily citizens of the ‘reign of Christ.’ This was a difficult vocation. Revelation is best interpreted by Christian communities who are actively and creatively resisting the Powers that threaten their faithfulness to God’s reign.
I share all of this because I think all of this talk about Obama possibly being the Anti-Christ is sheer nonsense according to the reading strategy I find most compelling. The title ‘Anti-Christ’ actually isn’t in Revelation—it’s in I and II John. I’m compelled by scholarship that interprets that term, as well as ‘the beast’ and ‘666’ in Revelation, as referring to the powerful seduction of the Roman Empire, and by implication, governments, economies and rulers who have consistently oppressed Christian minorities throughout the centuries since then. The idea that Obama is the Anti-Christ that will come before the end of the world is not worth speculating. What is worth speculating is all the ways in which Christian communities in North America are getting seduced by the Powers through economic complacency and idolatry: the pull of advertising and consumerism, militaristic patriotism, instant gratification, the cult of celebrity [in and out of the church] and ecological degradation [to name a few]. Surely, Christians should be critical of how Obama’s Administration, like all of our leaders in all three branches of government, makes decisions and guides the United States in ways that are counter to ‘the kingdom of God.’
As far as the Rapture is concerned, I believe that when Christ returns to this earth, what the New Testament refers to as his ‘reappearing’ [parousia], he will establish his kingdom on earth forever and ever. Our hope is not that he will save us from the earth but that his reign will be rooted firmly on earth. In I Thessalonians 5, where Paul writes about how Christians will meet the Lord in the sky when he returns, he is again using the language of Rome. When Caesar would travel to towns in the Empire, the citizens of these colonies would leave the city and meet Caesar on the road in order to escort him back into their hometown and throw him a grand festival. So, too, when Christ returns will there be a giant redemption party on earth, just as it is in heaven. These early Christians were eagerly expecting King Jesus to return, to fully set up his kingdom on earth. Again, their hope was in the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth, not the militaristic and glorified Caesar of Rome. So, too, should we be expectant and hopeful as we live out the radical kingdom lifestyle until he reappears. No need to worry about being ‘Left Behind.’ No one is going anywhere. God has always been about putting the world back to rights, redeeming the entire creation. He would never consider abandoning his creation to total destruction. His covenant with his people assures that the entire world will indeed be released from its bondage to sin, death and decay [Romans 8:18-25].
12.20.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: Back to Warren!
Anthony!
I’m sure you’ve heard this week’s news that Rick Warren is going to be giving the invocation at the Obama inauguration. Most media outlets seem to be spinning this as a very ‘controversial’ move on Obama’s part, mostly because of Warren’s outspokenness over the gay marriage issue in California. It seems to be a strange pick considering Warren represents the conservative evangelical world, one of the only groups that overwhelmingly did not vote for Obama. What are your thoughts?
12.21.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Back to Warren!
As I type this email in my pajamas, sipping on some hot coffee with snow on the ground outside, you are probably getting ready to preach a few sermons. I just wanted to remind you of some of the perks of having our church meeting on Monday nights!
Oh, yes, Rick Warren. After I heard the news this week, I’ve been checking various news websites for reactions and more information on Obama’s decision. Here’s where I’m at:
First of all, this Warren phenomena is becoming more and more the classic example of Constantinian Christianity in our day. Remember, from the 4th century onwards, the Pope and the Emperor blessed each other, gaining more and more power for their respective causes. In this relationship, the church gives the public realm [politics/economics] over to the state in order to claim the private realm [spirituality] for itself. Yoder called it ‘the Constantinian concubinage’: when the church ultimate prostitutes herself out to the state. This is about as harsh as Yoder gets with his language, but let me explain. Obama is, no doubt, courting the white conservative evangelical vote that he failed to gain over the past 20 months of campaigning. He is trying to reach across the aisle to find some common ground because, let’s face it, these folks are not going to like decisions that he’ll make in the next 4 years regarding abortion, stem cell research and homosexuality. Warren has been ‘progressive’ on issues like AIDS, Africa, global warming and poverty, so he’s the evangelical leader who is most visible and most characterized by liberals and seculars with comments like ‘he’s doing a lot of good in this world.’ Bill Maher recently said that he liked Warren because, let’s face it, he’s A LOT better than Jerry Falwell!
Warren sees this opportunity at the inauguration as yet one more bolstering of his own ministry—a phenomenal opportunity to change hearts and lives for Christ. I did a little on-line research and came across a very illuminating email that Warren wrote to his church after it was announced that Saddleback would be hosting the Civil Forum with Obama and McCain back in August. Warren tells his congregation that ‘since the founding of our nation, no church has ever been given this kind of opportunity’ and that ‘both men have been friends of mine since before either decided to run for president,’ adding that both Barack Obama and John McCain had participated in Saddleback’s Global AIDS Summit in November ’07, and, in addition, both officially support his worldwide P.E.A.C.E. Plan and have given written endorsements for the P.E.A.C.E. Coalition. In addition, Warren wrote that it was necessary for Saddleback Church to come up with $2 million to upgrade their cameras, lights and mixing boards to high def digital in order to host the event. He proclaimed, ‘We need a miracle.’ Honestly, this email was a bit abrasive for me to read, mostly because it opened my eyes to how this leader thinks about being a witness to God’s Kingdom.
First of all, Warren emphasizes the association both he [as a ‘friend’] and Saddleback have with these powerful political leaders. He believes that both he and the church get credibility by this association. This can only lead to a fundamental understanding that a church community’s success can be defined, not by what it knows or what it does, but by who it knows. Second, Warren’s focus is on the church’s opportunity to serve the United States. Saddleback is one of the few churches in America that has a venue that seats 4,000 people. Saddleback, following their own logic, believes that they should, of course, take this opportunity to allow the State and its media outlets, to use their facilities and their facilitating pastor. This can only be construed as an opportunity for Warren to serve as yet another, in a long line of chaplains to the State. Third, he homes in on the church’s opportunity to influence. He twice mentions Saddleback’s opportunity to influence viewers not only in the nation, but the entire world. This points to a key component of their theology of mission. They believe that they can best be a witness to the wider world through the various mediums of our culture. In this case, through privileged participation in the political process and through free access to all the major networks, a huge audience will know about Saddleback Church—at least, its pastor and its facilities. Only this sort of understanding of mission could warrant spending $2 million on high-end video equipment.
It’s hard for me to understand all of the attention that Warren is getting right now—from Fox to the Today Show to Dateline to MSNBC to CNN. They are asking about his convictions on everything from the economic crisis to the auto industry bailout to gay marriage to Obama’s impending Presidency to the real meaning of Christmas. He’s quick-witted and commonsensical and that makes a lot of Americans feel very comfortable with him. It seems like the gay community is very angry right now with the loss in the Prop 8 battle out there in California. The decision to appoint Warren as invocation speaker can only be construed for them as pouring salt into their collective wounds. One thing I’m convinced of is that Warren just doesn’t seem to understand how hurtful his comments on Prop 8 and gay marriage have been to the gay community. I found multiple interviews this week where he equates gay marriage with incest and pedophilia. In one of the interviews, the interviewer even asked Warren to clarify [‘So, you equate gay marriage with these things’] and Warren affirmed it [‘Oh I do.’]. Warren, of course, is lumping gay marriage and incest and pedophilia into the big-tent category of sin and claiming that they are all the same. But this is tremendously insensitive, not only to the gay community whose love for one another is consensual, but also with the contested nature of homosexuality and the Bible. Time and time again Warren says in interviews that ‘the Bible clearly says’ or even ‘God says’ that homosexuality is a sin. He should really watch his language because a lot of Christians would disagree with him. But let me reiterate: I think Warren is just a bit ignorant about the ongoing debate about this issue [and many others]. He is busy with running a church, a family and bringing his Purpose Driven message to the world. He consistently gives confidently concrete answers to questions that are way above his pay grade—forced to confront topics that he is really not that informed about. The world we live in is far more complex than how Warren describes it. But since Warren’s strategy is to use all the means of power—from TV networks all the way up to the President’s Administration—to win the world to Christ, he’ll continue to accept these interview requests. I have a hunch we’ll be seeing quite a bit of him in the years to come.
12.22.08
To: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
From: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
Subject: re: Back to Warren!
OK, I get your take on Warren, but don’t you think he should use all the means of communication possible to be ‘a light to the world’ for the gospel? How would you do it if you were in Warren’s shoes?
12.24.08
To: pastorryan@graceevangelical.com
From: jayhawkquarterbacks@kufootball.com
Subject: re: Back to Warren!
Again, as I type, you are conducting a Christmas Eve Service and I am looking out the window at a soon-to-be white Christmas!
Thanks for your follow-up question. My answer involves about conversations about the Anabaptist perspective I’m coming from.
From its origins in the 16th century, Anabaptists have been quite wary of the association of the local community of Christ followers and the powers-that-be that enforce government laws and control the economy. They have emphatically rejected the Constantinian project of the 4th century Roman Empire that married the power and influence of Church and State and that continued with the nation states of the 16th century onwards. These strange bed fellows have poisoned the wells of Christian faith, leading to varieties of coercive, compromised Christian faithfulness in a multitude of settings. This Constantinian Christian dirty laundry is long indeed: forced conversions, inquisitions, genocide, crusades, colonization and ruthless expansion of Western powers. Instead, the Anabaptists have adamantly believed that ‘if Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not,’ [this is actually Reformed Anglican N.T. Wright’s phrase!] which points to a radical trust that Jesus Christ sits ‘at the right hand of God’ controlling history [Psalm 110 is the most quoted OT passage in the New Testament]. To be a ‘light to the world’ is to practice God’s alternative politics as a model of faithful living. The practices of loving the enemy, sharing possessions, advocating for the poor and downtrodden, refusing violent solutions, telling the truth, listening to others with humility [etc] are what sets the Body of Christ aside and gives us a platform to be a witness. God’s Empire, not America’s, is what guides history and this means that Christians are called to be obedient, to live according to God’s kingdom, not to be guided by what is most ‘responsible’ or ‘effective’ according to the kingdom of this world.
As we talked about a few months ago, Anabaptists render Paul’s ‘principalities and powers’ as the structures that order our lives [family, government, economy, education, etc], instead of what was emphasized during the Medieval period— angels and demons in a separate spiritual realm. These ‘powers’ have been created by God to serve us, but, too, are fallen and work to enslave us. The strategy to transform these created-yet-fallen powers is not primarily to change the hearts of individual leaders within those structures who will then work to change the structures. On the contrary, Anabaptists believe that God works through the church as a social institution to discern, critique and redeem these powers by being a faithful witness to Christ’s Lordship and unmasking where the powers use lies and illusions to deceive humanity. God’s kingdom is a social reality working through his alternative microsociety, the church.
Anabaptists have a firm belief in being on mission from the margins, just as God did in the incarnation, in Jesus the messiah from nowheresville Nazareth [not from the ‘metropolis’ of where God was expected to reign: Jerusalem]! This geographical exclamation point symbolizes a much deeper understanding of how Anabaptist messianic communities define success and faithfulness to God’s will. To missionally embrace marginality means that the messianic community will prioritize practices like serving and sharing possessions with those who are lacking, giving voice to the powerless, loving and forgiving enemies and embodying virtues like humility, empathy and patience. As Bryan Stone writes in a great book called Evangelism After Christendom [2008], ‘What the gospel needs most is not intellectual brokers or cultural diplomats, but rather saints who have taken up the way of the cross and in whose lives the gospel is visible, palpable, and true.’ A community that pledges allegiance to God’s reign will be a witness to the wider world by its kingdom lifestyle.
Veteran Anabaptist missionary Linford Stutzman has posited that Christian communities who ‘occupy a position within a society which is fundamentally different from that of Jesus’ will be destined to use ‘inauthentic methods of proclaiming the good news,’ as well as ‘restricting the prophetic content of the message.’ Stutzman has critiqued marketing, target groups and meeting felt needs, as well as aligning the community’s missional outreach to ‘the Establishment minority who represent institutional and social power within society.’ When a messianic community starts from this ‘Establishment’ social location, where power and resources are abundant, it ‘tends to ignore, condemn, or ‘evangelize’ individuals’ in marginal situations, leading to what Stutzman calls a ‘fundamental mutilation of the gospel.’ Instead of following a strategy that pursues positions of power that inevitably leads to the status quo, Jesus, the early church and the Anabaptists started from the margins where people have a deep longing for justice, peace and goodness—‘a longing for the kingdom in all of its forms.’ This mission success is explosive as the Spirit of God intersects with desperate human longings for the kingdom. This strategy has historically led to an authentic witness of communities that eventually attract participants from every slot on the population spectrum.
The argument can certainly be made by conservative evangelicals throughout North America that Anabaptists are simply arguing for a ‘bottom up’ missional strategy that they have carried out for the past 500 years because they have had to. It is, perhaps, ‘sour grapes’ missional theology! Since Anabaptists have always been the outvoted minority in society their approach has, inevitably, had to be on the side of the marginalized of various forms—they haven’t had access to a ‘top down’ mission of the establishment or power elites like Rick Warren has had. Indeed, neither McCain nor Obama were interested in accommodating a few thousand Anabaptists during a campaign that will need millions to win. If Rick Warren has the rare opportunities to be a voice for Christ on news network shows and to give the invocation at the Inauguration, shouldn’t he then seize this opportunity and shouldn’t we construe this as ‘missional?’ The Anabaptists would say ‘no.’ Anabaptists have been historically, and rightly, skeptical of power, as Yoder writes: ‘the only way in which faith can become the official ideology of a power elite in a given society is if Jesus Christ ceases to be concretely Lord.’ In other words, Christian communities who participate in power-plays as their chaplains sacrifice the radical message of the gospel. When the most powerful Americans, whether political leaders or financial gurus or movie star celebrities, embrace the label ‘Christian,’ or simply ask a chaplain to bless their ceremonies, inevitably some other ‘lord’ takes over, whether power, fame, wealth or efficacy—these are what Yoder would say end up being ‘the new functional equivalent of deity.’
Ryan, this was a lot, but as I’ve shared with you before, I’ve put a lot of time into thinking through these things because Anabaptism is and has been such a minority position throughout the history of Church and State.
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