The Upshot of Being a Stranger in a Strange Land

This is a fascinating read on why women are out-performing men in today’s economy.

As I read it, I couldn’t help being a pastor, researcher and communicator that there might also be connections to why the Christian Church has historically tended to grow the most when it was in a position of least influence. Perhaps there really is something to being “strangers in a strange land,” or to use biblical phrasing, “aliens and exiles.”

Something to consider.

Why Men Fail – NYTimes.com (HT: David Brooks)

Shooting at the Family Research Council: Hate from the left | Washington Times Communities

It is interesting to note what items get media play and attention, and what do not. If the “sides” had been reversed, but the story ended up the same (heroic security guard, taking a bullet and saving lives), would we have seen/heard about this more in the news?

Food for thought.

Shooting at the Family Research Council: Hate from the left | Washington Times Communities.

Can God do something about evil? He better!

John Stewart's take on Jerry Sandusky and Our Warped Sense of Morality

Can God do something about all the wicked, evil and depraved ways we hurt one another?  He sure can.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that He better do something about it.  Because if it is left up to us, I fear we will keep turning a blind eye to the injustices happening around us, or worse yet, we’ll let ourselves get upset over the wrong things.

Take the recent Jerry Sandusky/Penn State sexual scandal in recent history.  One of the best critiques of the whole thing came from a guy who makes his living as a comedian. Using satire and irony, John Stewart exposes both the need for accountability (responsibility) within organizations and even “sacred” institutions (like the sex scandals plaguing religious institutions and Penn State Football program), as well as the dangerously deceptive lie of an entitlement mindset.

 Link: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-10-2011/penn-state-riots

This is one of his more serious sketches, but he is spot on about identifying the colossal experience of Penn State rioters missing the point in weaping more over Joe Paterno being fired (entitlement) then the welfare and pursuit of justice and accountability for those young boys who were molested under his watch and with his awareness of the situation.

This is a good step.  We need to take responsibility for our actions, and that includes stepping into the messy, scary and sometimes dangerous situations we find ourselves.  Like when we are passing by a door and notice a grown man abusing a little boy.

But time and time again, we prove our utter inability to rise to the occassion.  Our nobility loses out to our lust – for sex, for comfort, for security, for approval – and things just keep going the way they’ve always gone before.

What we most desperately need is not a “Lets do better next time.”  What we need is a Savior who comes into “our can’t” and promises that “He will!”  That’s the great promise of Genesis 3:15:

The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
- Genesis 3:14-15 (ESV)

And its also the great and awaited fulfilment He promises at His second coming:

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away…And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”        -Revelation 21:3-5 (ESV)

As great as John Stewart’s commentary is, I think its rather this video that gives me great hope for the future:

A Dream of Heaven from the Jesus Story Book Bible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Py1hpnHjnQ

Why Looking for a Political Savior Can be a Bad Idea?

Loved this article. David Brooks picks apart the notion that what we typically look for in our political candidates is not a good man or woman for the job, but a shock-and-awe savior. History alone can bear out how silly and futile this expectation can be.

“The central problem is that Mitt Romney doesn’t fit the mold of what many Republicans want in a presidential candidate. They don’t want a technocratic manager. They want a bold, blunt radical outsider who will take on the establishment, speak truth to power and offend the liberal news media…

“They don’t want Organization Man. They want Braveheart.”

“The question is: Are they right to want this? Well, if they want an in-your-face media campaign that will produce delicious thrills for the true believers, they are absolutely right. But if they actually want to elect an effective executive who is right for this moment, they are probably not right.”

Here’s another good snapshot:

“It’s exciting to have charismatic leaders. But often the best leaders in business, in government and in life are not glittering saviors. They are professionals you hire to get a job done…

“The strongest case for Romney is that he’s nobody’s idea of a savior.”

While I hope you do not hear me endorsing anyone in particular with full, undoubted support, I do think that Brooks argument has a lot of credence.  My hope and prayer for the upcoming election is that we would vote more with our reason, than responding to the sensational.

Link to full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/opinion/brooks-in-defense-of-romney.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share

Context Matters Alot

Context…

Its being talked about alot these days.  In Christian ministry circles there’s no little debate on the issue of contextualization - how much should we try to reflect our specific context it in order to speak into it – as well as original context – what was happening in the setting that the Biblical authors were writing into.

I find it interesting that often times, there are people who can speak intelligently into this conversation who often times have no direct tie in to it.  One such person is David Brooks, a New York Times Op-Ed Columnist.  Yes, that David Brooks, who as you all know wrote Bobos in Paradise and On Paradise Drive, and who I undoubtedly heard about from, you guessed it, Tim Keller).

Here’s an interesting thought from his recent column regarding the current economic crisis:

Markets tend toward efficiency. People respond in pretty straightforward ways to incentives. The invisible hand forms a spontaneous, dynamic order. Economic behavior can be accurately predicted through elegant models

This view explains a lot, but not the current financial crisis — how so many people could be so stupid, incompetent and self-destructive all at once. The crisis has delivered a blow to classical economics and taken a body of psychological work that was at the edge of public policy thought and brought it front and center.

In this new body of thought, you get a very different picture of human nature. Reason is not like a rider atop a horse. Instead, each person’s mind contains a panoply of instincts, strategies, intuitions, emotions, memories and habits, which vie for supremacy. An irregular, idiosyncratic and largely unconscious process determines which of these internal players gets to control behavior at any instant. Context — which stimulus triggers which response — matters a lot.

You can see this reality in everything – from the debate of Christians regarding the role and place of culture in the context of ministry, to Oprah falling off the wagon of her diet and physical transformation of six years, to the current financial state our country finds itself in.

What amazes me about Brooks’ piece is that he bases his argument in human nature, not financial policy or historical trend.  Maybe one way of contextualizing the “cultural mandate” is to say that everyone is responsible for and a responder to their cultural environment.  Or, everyone is subject to external and internal triggers that stimulate a response, of which, only reason can be considered one such trigger.

I wonder, if this is universally held to be true, how this would effect our understanding and appropriation of older models of codified knowledge, such as systematic theology, or matters of  contemporary contextualization?

I’m asking this as a guy who loves his Christian heritage of the Reformed tradition, even the formulations of Christian doctrine found in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

I do believe, however, that noting is context-less, and these invisible stimuli are more important and impactful then perhaps we have historically assented to, both in discerning the original context within which various issues and doctrines were raised and formulated, as well as their current usage and appropriation.

Context matters, alot.

The Old “New” Thing

Just read an interesting article by David Brooks over at the NY Times blog regarding Obama’s infrastructure and economic stimulus plan.

It actually made me question ministry and church planting a little bit.  I wonder if planting new churches and congregations is the old “new” thing that has replaced creatively reflecting on how the gospel affects and transforms a particular community or urban context?  Here’s an excerpt (read the whole thing here)”

This kind of stimulus would be consistent with Obama’s campaign, which was all about bringing Americans together in new ways. It would help maintain the social capital that’s about to be decimated by the economic downturn.

But alas, there’s no evidence so far that the Obama infrastructure plan is attached to any larger social vision. In fact, there is a real danger that the plan will retard innovation and entrench the past.

In a stimulus plan, the first job is to get money out the door quickly. That means you avoid anything that might require planning and creativity. You avoid anything that might require careful implementation or novel approaches. The quickest thing to do is simply throw money at things that already exist.

Must Learn to Live As Missionary Citizens

Great thoughts by Timmy Brister over at Provocations and Paintings on Obama’s win and what it means for American evangelicals.  Read the whole thing here.  Here’s a quote:

On the other hand, I can’t help but think that the Obama presidency will help Christians who happen to be American to open our eyes to our syncretistic views of American Christianity.  While the fundamentalist impulse is to retreat into the ghetto, pull out the dispensationalism charts, and check the rapture ready index as a morning devotional, perhaps for the first time Christians will no longer seek to Christianize America but speak prophetically and live missionally in our growingly secular world.  Our greatest need is not to fight the battle against the culture but to fight against the battle against unbelief.  It is safe to live as functional atheists when we’ve got God in our constitution, on our coins, in the White House, but when the props are removed from us, how shall we then live?

We must learn to live as missionary citizens.

Justice Problems in Prison

Does the Gospel, really, bear on every aspect of the world? Does this include prison, and criminals? Should we care about prison rape?

Yes…

But by and large, we seem to find more humor than outrage in these crimes. In part, this simply reflects the nature of our criminal justice system, which has become decreasingly rehabilitative and increasingly retributive.

Here are some other interesting quotes.

“In the 1970s, as economist Glenn Loury has written, “the corrections system was commonly seen as a way to prepare offenders to rejoin society. Since then, the focus has shifted from rehabilitation to punishment and stayed there.”

“Morally, our tacit acceptance of violence within prisons is grotesque. But it’s also counterproductive. Research by economists Jesse Shapiro and Keith Chen suggests that violent prisons make prisoners more violent after they leave. When your choice is between the trauma of hardening yourself so no one will touch you or the trauma of prostituting yourself so you’re protected from attack, either path leads away from rehabilitation and psychological adjustment. And we, as a society, endure the consequences — both because it leads ex-cons to commit more crime on the streets and because more of them end up back to jail. A recent report released by the Pew Center on the States revealed that more than one in 100 Americans is now behind bars. California alone spends $8.8 billion a year on its imprisoned population — a 216% increase over what it paid 20 years ago, even after adjusting for inflation. That’s money, of course, that can’t be spent on schools, on job training, on wage supports and drug treatment. Money, in other words, that can’t be spent on all the priorities that keep people out of prison. Money that’s spent instead on housing prisoners in a violent, brutal and counterproductive atmosphere. And there’s nothing funny about that.

Ok, so anybody have any thoughts on this?

Should the gospel have an impact on the way we allow prisoners to be treated?

Should the church have and take responsibility for this?

What did Jesus really mean?

I’m tired of hearing myself, as well as others, ask the above question as an attempt to soften the blow of what the Bible often tells us to do.

Case in point:  How many of us would actually do this?

Could it be that there actually is a way to live that is counter-cultural – that cuts across our unevaluated biases that we possess?

Maybe Jesus was on to something, and we would be wise to take Him at His word.

Fellas: what keeps us from doing this ourselves?  Thoughts, comments or other provocations…please.

We live in a beautiful world?

I put that in the form of a question because I actually typically agree with that statement, but a simple scan of the news tells me that this world is not quite right as it is right now. Anyone who makes an ultimate claim that the whole world is “right” and that all people are fundamentally “good” do not see the world through the lens of reality.When I read news like this, I am thankful that God is sovereign and restrains the evil that could be much worse, and that there will be a time where all evil is removed from the world and will be punished accordingly.