You don't have to be a Republican to know that a fist fight is simmering in the GOP. Republicans have been talking about "big tent politics" for years, but after last year's election losses, what was once a suggestion has become a battle cry. Leading voices are demanding that the party must become a Big Tent and make room for more people. Some would-be GOP candidates have recently launched a "Listening Tour" in order hear the voices of America and discover what potential voters really want.
Let's not be so PC for a moment. When it comes to shaping your identity, listening tours are a silly idea. For the most part, people don't really know what they want. Rather, most people know what they like when they see it. Consumers weren't demanding Ipods or until Apple invented one. Then the world beat a path to buy them in five colors and three sizes. Politicians need to be less sensitive and more centered. A group seeking to cast a vision for people ought to begin by drawing a red circle around their moral center. Once folks know what you truly stand for, they can make in intelligent choice about whether it makes sense to them or not. If political ideas don't matter anyway, why bother with politics?
I happen to be a political conservative, but that's not why I find this particular debate so interesting. Rather, I've been fascinated by this movement because it feels so familiar. Perhaps you've realized that this is the same Happy Meal that was sold to the American Church about 20 years ago. Loud voices insisted we were too narrow and too shrill, and that our tent was too small. Trend setters insisted we should listen to the voices of the culture and discover what Americans really wanted. Once we identified what our communities really wanted, we could shape our "ministry" to scratch whatever itches in their lives.
Now after more than two decades of "Big Tent" church, we are shocked to learn that the American church has grown much smaller and the American public is much less Christian. No matter how hard we tried to be edgy, youth-oriented, self-centered, psychology-oriented, sexually frank and non-judgmental, most churches found it didn't work. Apparently, people could get all those things without coming to church. And the ones who really wanted to worship required more than cultural vomit with artificial spiritual sweeteners. The tent got bigger but the American church got smaller.
So it's interesting US Republicans are now salivating over a strategy that has failed miserably for US Christians. Rather than looking for the Big Tent, we should have dug deeply to find the Big T: Truth. What is it that Jesus died for so that we could live for it? What is our biblical center of gravity? How does the Cross of Christ honestly challenge our narcissistic, over-sexed culture?
The people of Athens overwhelmingly wanted idols, but Paul refused to embrace idolatry in his preaching. Rather, he used the Word of God to show Greeks how their idol-mania revealed a deeper hunger they had never addressed- their yearning for the One True Creator behind the universe. The people of America are obsessed with sex, but I doubt Paul would have sat on a bed to preach about hooking up with hotties at work- or with your spouse, for that matter. Rather, he would have used this obvious lust to point us to a deeper yearning- for divine love, consuming purpose and intimacy with God. When it comes to philosophical tents, size doesn't matter. Go for Big Truth. As Jesus taught us,if the Truth is big enough, people of faith will force themselves inside, no matter how small the tent seems: even if they have to cut a whole in the roof to get in.
Just imagine that!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Life Happens!
Newsweek magazine knows what Americans want to read. Their best-selling issues have always been those with Princess Di, JFK Jr, or the Christian Faith on the cover. Significantly, two of those cover icons are no longer among the living, and many insist the Church is on its way out as well.
So I wasn't surprised when the news mag recently featured a cover story, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." In fact, the essay found inside was not nearly as grim as the cover, designed to gin up controversy and sell magazines. The resulting debate was colorful, with some Christians agreeing with the thesis and others insisting its not true. One writer for USA Today insisted Christianity is alive and well- just evolving into new forms. Hmm. You mean like self-worship and consumerism? You just made their point.
Like many popular religious discussions in the country, this one comes way too late. Dr. Francis Schaeffer called the US a "post-Christian" society four decades ago! In a 1969 book entitled Death in the City, he tracked the spread of materialism into education, entertainment, and across society. He concluded, "Our generation has nobody home in the universe, nobody at all." That forty year old book is still more accurate and more insightful than the 2009 Newsweek article.
Don't bother asking if we're a post-Christian nation or not. The heart of the Christian Faith in the American colonies was New England. Today that region is the national capital for atheism and unbelief. The cancer has metastasized. In fact, Americans are living in a post-Christian age.
Forget that question, and ask this one: "Are we a post-Christian church?" We follow a Savior who was so counter-cultural that his own nation killed him. But today, our strategy for success is to blend in. "Don't challenge the culture: win them with tolerance."
Houston, we have a problem! Our tolerance and hip refusal to be shocked isn't working. We aren't winning them over, but they are beating us at every turn: courts, schools, the media, even government. And lots of former church-goers are now finding they have gradually evolved into non-church goers because the new church feels so much like the old, familiar culture. Why drive to a church house for the same attitudes and platitudes you can TIVO on Oprah and watch at home in your jammies?
John Lennon is most famous for "Imagine," his melodic hymn to atheism. But I remember him for a different recording. Writing a song to his infant son, he mused "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." That's what happened to the church. While we were reaching for a nugget of cheese offered by the culture, something clicked and- out of nowhere- the hammer came slamming down to trap us. Now we find ourselves pinned hopelessly to the mousetrap and wondering "Hey, how did everything go south so quickly? What happened to us?"
Life happened, dudes! When repentance happens, God will smile again on his post-Christian American admirers.
So I wasn't surprised when the news mag recently featured a cover story, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." In fact, the essay found inside was not nearly as grim as the cover, designed to gin up controversy and sell magazines. The resulting debate was colorful, with some Christians agreeing with the thesis and others insisting its not true. One writer for USA Today insisted Christianity is alive and well- just evolving into new forms. Hmm. You mean like self-worship and consumerism? You just made their point.
Like many popular religious discussions in the country, this one comes way too late. Dr. Francis Schaeffer called the US a "post-Christian" society four decades ago! In a 1969 book entitled Death in the City, he tracked the spread of materialism into education, entertainment, and across society. He concluded, "Our generation has nobody home in the universe, nobody at all." That forty year old book is still more accurate and more insightful than the 2009 Newsweek article.
Don't bother asking if we're a post-Christian nation or not. The heart of the Christian Faith in the American colonies was New England. Today that region is the national capital for atheism and unbelief. The cancer has metastasized. In fact, Americans are living in a post-Christian age.
Forget that question, and ask this one: "Are we a post-Christian church?" We follow a Savior who was so counter-cultural that his own nation killed him. But today, our strategy for success is to blend in. "Don't challenge the culture: win them with tolerance."
Houston, we have a problem! Our tolerance and hip refusal to be shocked isn't working. We aren't winning them over, but they are beating us at every turn: courts, schools, the media, even government. And lots of former church-goers are now finding they have gradually evolved into non-church goers because the new church feels so much like the old, familiar culture. Why drive to a church house for the same attitudes and platitudes you can TIVO on Oprah and watch at home in your jammies?
John Lennon is most famous for "Imagine," his melodic hymn to atheism. But I remember him for a different recording. Writing a song to his infant son, he mused "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." That's what happened to the church. While we were reaching for a nugget of cheese offered by the culture, something clicked and- out of nowhere- the hammer came slamming down to trap us. Now we find ourselves pinned hopelessly to the mousetrap and wondering "Hey, how did everything go south so quickly? What happened to us?"
Life happened, dudes! When repentance happens, God will smile again on his post-Christian American admirers.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Anything But Socialism!
"Not only do I believe every word of the Bible is absolutely true, but I even believe the cover is genuine cowhide leather!" We conservatives go to great lengths to emphasize the reliability of the Bible. But if we're truly honest, there are some places in the Bible we wish weren't true!
For example, I think many of us have cringed in discomfort over the years whenever we have come to those two sections in Acts that explain how the early Christians tended to pool all their resources so that everybody had something to eat. Of course we wouldn't have wanted anyone to starve to death, but we're troubled by the politics! You know what I mean: "Are these guys socialists are what?" Everybody knows they would have been better off to find a capitalistic solution to their problem! Really, has anything good ever come out of a commune?
This discomfort with socialism probably explains an interesting phenomenon. Whenever we conservatives come to Acts 2: 42-47 or 4: 32-35, we always leap to the topic of unity. These Christians were united in heart and mind; they were united by shared purpose. But there is a blinding light shining out of these passages that we refuse to see.
Throughout the gospels, Christ uses one particular story format over and over again in his parables. Time again he speaks of a wealthy land owner who goes on a journey, leaving a trusted servant to manage his entire estate. Whenever he finally returns, there is always a time of accounting. There is a simple reason why Christ spins so many story lines around this scenario: he is teaching that everything we have belongs to God, and we have simply been entrusted with the task of managing God's wealth. Christ was teaching his followers to hold their possessions lightly, realizing it was all from God's treasury and for his purposes.
The Christians in Acts represent the first generation of believers challenged with living out this radical worldview. And what do they do? Do they give a tenth to the church and spend everything else they earn on themselves and their families? To the contrary, Acts 4:32 explains, "Not a man among them claimed any of his possessions as his own, but everything was held in common..."
We tend to ask, "What were these people- socialists?" The simple answer is "No, they weren't socialists. They were followers of Jesus." There is a more relevant question that often goes unasked by the capitalistic materialists of today's church: "If those guys were real Christians, what are we?"
For example, I think many of us have cringed in discomfort over the years whenever we have come to those two sections in Acts that explain how the early Christians tended to pool all their resources so that everybody had something to eat. Of course we wouldn't have wanted anyone to starve to death, but we're troubled by the politics! You know what I mean: "Are these guys socialists are what?" Everybody knows they would have been better off to find a capitalistic solution to their problem! Really, has anything good ever come out of a commune?
This discomfort with socialism probably explains an interesting phenomenon. Whenever we conservatives come to Acts 2: 42-47 or 4: 32-35, we always leap to the topic of unity. These Christians were united in heart and mind; they were united by shared purpose. But there is a blinding light shining out of these passages that we refuse to see.
Throughout the gospels, Christ uses one particular story format over and over again in his parables. Time again he speaks of a wealthy land owner who goes on a journey, leaving a trusted servant to manage his entire estate. Whenever he finally returns, there is always a time of accounting. There is a simple reason why Christ spins so many story lines around this scenario: he is teaching that everything we have belongs to God, and we have simply been entrusted with the task of managing God's wealth. Christ was teaching his followers to hold their possessions lightly, realizing it was all from God's treasury and for his purposes.
The Christians in Acts represent the first generation of believers challenged with living out this radical worldview. And what do they do? Do they give a tenth to the church and spend everything else they earn on themselves and their families? To the contrary, Acts 4:32 explains, "Not a man among them claimed any of his possessions as his own, but everything was held in common..."
We tend to ask, "What were these people- socialists?" The simple answer is "No, they weren't socialists. They were followers of Jesus." There is a more relevant question that often goes unasked by the capitalistic materialists of today's church: "If those guys were real Christians, what are we?"
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