TC Larson

Stories and Mischief

The guy on the Mat

10
Apr

Today I’m over at my friend Bethany’s site for her new series Sacred – the Dark and the Light. I’d love it if you’d come check it out. If you click this link, it should take you over to her site: http://bit.ly/1jwcsRx

Here’s a little sample to get you going…

There’s something about a cliché that makes my eye twitch.

…Maybe not literally, but you get the idea.

It’s the same with Christianese and those answers all neatly packaged that serve nothing except to shut down conversation. If I can shut you up with a tidy answer, then I don’t have to entertain your idea as valid. If I lift the drawbridge, then your issue with a certain doctrine or theology shall not pass.

Dontcha wanna come read more? Hope to see you there!

A reminder when we’re surrounded by dry bones

8
Apr

A valley of dry bones.

Decay

Death

Loss

A life broken down

Hot wind swirls the dust into the air, diffusing the sun, invading lungs. Any move to reposition, to turn your back to the wind shifts your uneven station. Try for stable footing and kick up more sand, amplifying desperate rasping cough. Pull your shirt over your mouth, try to filter out debris, find the good air. All around you are bones and little else, lifeless, evidence of the Final Destination.

////

The building didn’t excite me. I figured if I was going to visit another church, I should at least make it worth my time and do something different, but if the building was any indicator, I was walking into something that had a different name but was just the same ol’, same ol’.

People wore name tags.

The former pastor latched onto me and told me (three times — he’s getting on in years) the same four tidbits about his wife and about the woman playing the piano. He also hugged me, which made me wonder if he thought I was someone he knew instead of a complete stranger.

They had kneelers. We didn’t use them in this service, which both disappointed and relieved me.

The pastor wore a collar.

The guy who sat in front of me must have had some chips stashed in his pocket, Napoleon Dynamite style. The smell of cool ranch kept wafting back to me.

They passed the peace. They did numerous call and response-type readings. They did a Kyrie Eleison (and not down the road where I must travel). The congregation fully participated in the service, if only to pay attention and stand or sit as dictated by the bulletins in our hands.

Sun lit the huge stained glass window, which hadn’t been visible from where I had parked and entered the building. That window was a form of worship in itself, the way it painted bright color blotches on the wall and filled the whole room, all the way up to the soaring roof, with gentle light.

I didn’t expect to have any need met that morning. I just wanted a change of pace from the mega-church I attend, wanted a sense of rhythm and tradition. I wanted to be reminded that the Church is wide and the little mousehole I inhabit is not indicative of the mansion of faith expression.

I didn’t expect God to show up — I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on Him.

/////

Maybe it’s a normal passage used during the Lenten season.

Maybe it is dictated by church calendar or a book of the order of service that this denomination uses for all services.

Maybe it was a fluke.

That morning, I came to church having just worked through an art journal that focused on a passage in Ezekiel 37, the valley of the dry bones.

[Let me just say, as a general rule, I don’t spend a lot of time in Ezekiel — or any of the minor prophets for that matter.]

Here, let me show you what came out of that attempt:

Dry Bones Flowers

So when the pastor (a woman, also something different (and refreshing) that you don’t see all the time) began her sermon and focused on Ezekiel 37, the valley of the dry bones, my heart gave a start.

Why, out of all the entirety of the Bible, was she working from this text on the one and only time I’d ever stepped into her church?

/////

It is so easy to concern ourselves with the micro, the zoom-in, the close-up.  We get so focused on the inner workings of one system that we forget about the whole organism.

In terms of church, it is really easy for me to focus on evangelicalism. It’s what I know. It informs my worldview in ways I’m not even aware of. It’s the subculture I’ve lived in my whole life.  I can’t stress enough the ways this influences me without me meaning it to — it’s the same way you can’t hear your own accent when you’re around other people who have the same accent. Only when you are around someone with a different accent do you become aware that there are different ways of speaking…and you still think you don’t have an accent!

There have been so many hard things happening in the evangelical world and so many ways in which I feel like the entrance door keeps shrinking and shrinking, even for those who have been allowed in previously. There seems to be less and less room for conversation, less consideration of the conflicting sides of issues (without simply waiting until it is your turn to make your argument) and the merits of a differing conclusion, and suspicion about the true state of someone’s faith should they want to have these discussions. It is disheartening, demoralizing, and to be honest, it makes me want to crawl into bed for a month of Sundays.

This is why it is so essential to zoom out.

Stained Glass Window pews bones

Instagram: tclmn

As much as the evangelical church has a corner on the “right way” to believe, there are other, long-standing (longer-standing, in fact) expressions of faith. These are usually viewed with condescension in evangelical corners, or a raised eyebrow about the validity of the parishioner’s real relationship with God, but these non-evangelical congregations tap into something evangelicalism doesn’t — a sense of history, tradition, and world-wide connectedness. There is a whole history of church movements that I am largely ignorant of, and each movement has an arc — a rise and a diminishing — within the larger story of faith.

I don’t delude myself into thinking that all the answers are simply in a different denomination, something mainline or even non-Protestant (is there anything that is non-Protestant that isn’t Catholic???). I know enough about church life to know that the church, whatever church that is, is made up of humanly human people. There is no perfect church.

However, as a visitor, upon hearing the pastor preach on a fairly obscure verse that I had been focused on in the days leading up to that visit, I have to tell you that I was reminded of the size of God, of His movement and activity in places I will never know about, in people I’ll never encounter, in expressions I might not recognize at all.

God’s crazy like that.

And me, with all my angst and grappling and raging, I am just one dry bone that God breathed into and brought back to life. There is a whole valley around me, other bones God is working with, breathing into, bestowing His Spirit on. He is big enough to handle it.

Thank God for that.

What is your faith tradition? Does it satisfy your desires for expression of your faith? What are ways you incorporate your faith into daily life?

 

 

I’m Taking Death and Suffering Personally

26
Mar

Every death I hear about is now personally connected to me, whether or not it is actually someone I’m close to. I’m not arrogant enough to think I will maintain this level of sensitivity, but right now I embrace all hardship and suffering as an affront to my own person. And death and suffering are suddenly everywhere.

In the past six months…

A friend I had in college died, leaving behind a husband and two children. This was a healthy woman, a woman my age, a woman I had not talked to face to face in more than a decade. I felt her loss keenly.

My uncle is considering drastic steps to combat his multiple, complex health issues, and I count his suffering as one of my own.

My sister-in-law lost her grandmother, and I grieve almost as if it had been my own grandmother.

My grandfather passed away and even though he was 94, it was quick and unexpected.

And now, after a controversial decision and a drastic reversal by a hugely respected charity organization, the level of polarization within the Christian community was revealed.

What are these dark thoughts of inevitability, impending doom and constant bracing for the worst? What is it that makes my heart feel clenched and heavy?

My sister named what I could not: despair.

Isn’t that Melodramatic?

Despair sounds like a pretty drastic word. I think of it being used in a scene from Princess Bride when the albino henchman with the raspy voice starts telling the heroes their location: the Depths of Despair.

I used to be aware of danger, but didn’t bother with the possibility of it coming to me. We bought life insurance, but didn’t really discuss the possibility that one of us would actually DIE. It was all theoretical, and to dwell on it felt pessimistic (and honestly, it really didn’t occur to me to dwell on it anyway – it just wasn’t in my mind). There’s almost always something positive to find, even in the midst of hardships. Sometimes you have to zoom waaaay in to notice it, but the positive is in there somewhere.

Is this what was meant in Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep”? Have I only chosen to listen to the latter all these years, ignoring the challenge to enter into weeping?

Weeping makes me all red, puffy and exhausted. It makes my throat hurt. I’m not a pretty or dainty weeper, and it might be paired with wailing when it happens. It is probably uncomfortable for any parties who witness the weeping, but I’m glad to say that it is only a small number of people who have been subjected to it. (I’m sure you’d be happy to have avoided it if you knew what it looked like.)

Other translations of the verse mentioned above use the word “mourn” and today I feel the burden of the world, and a sense of mourning.

Some may say that word too is dramatic, too extreme for the circumstances.

I disagree.

Mourning is just right.

/////

There are events so significant, their scope so broad in impact that mourning and despair are the only appropriate words.

Tonight, I am focused on the betrayal so many believers feel, on both sides of the issue. Some felt so betrayed by World Vision’s decision to allow gay married couples to be on staff that they withdrew their sponsorship and condemned both the decision and reiterated their abhorrence for homosexual people. People on the other side of the issue got their turn to feel betrayed when the organization reversed its decision, and asserted that they’d make sure their employees signed a document agreeing to a specific lifestyle code.

It feels like the final glove has been thrown down in the ongoing battle. Knives have been drawn in a fist fight. There is no room for middle ground anymore. How can either side try to meet in the middle and agree to disagree when the reactions have been so extreme? Such vehement spewing of un-love in the name of love makes me question if there can be – or should be – reconciliation  after such a display. Where can we go from here?

Despair.

Fracture.

Heartache.

Sorrow.

Sorry I don’t have a tidy end to this post. I would ask that in discussing this, we all keep each other’s humanity at the forefront of our minds, and treat one another with utmost respect in any comments we offer, knowing that we come at this from very different angles.

 

 

Missing Ash Wednesday

5
Mar

One year when I worked as the junior and senior high youth coordinator at a church, I got to participate in the Ash Wednesday service.

My background was in the same denomination but we hadn’t really marked Ash Wednesday in any particular way that I recall. We always had Wednesday night church, so an Ash Wednesday might mention of the start of the Lenten season (the lead up to Easter), and even go so far as to encourage us to give up something for Lent. There was no somber service that I remember, no special candles and certainly no marks made on people’s foreheads. That was something Catholics did, and we weren’t totally sure about them anyway (I’ve come way off my high-horse about that, by the way.).

The Wednesday when I helped with the congregation’s service, I was asked to administer the ashes. It wasn’t only me up there, but I was the youngest, and I was female. I would stand alongside two other people, both older. The man next to me was a longstanding fixture of the church.

I felt the significance build as I approached the event.

The service went along smoothly and the time came for me to go up front and play my part.

It was a divine and holy moment.

People I cared about, people I served, students I led, these all came to the altar. As they stood in front of me, I made a smudgy cross on their foreheads and repeated a phrase, the specifics escape me now but it was to the point of “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

The ashes were a sign of penitence, contrition, and acknowledgment of sin. It almost felt as if I was bestowing a blessing upon these friends. I remember being teary and wishing I could kiss everyone right on their mark of the cross.

And at the end of the service we all wore the ashes.

|||||

This year I wanted to attend an Ash Wednesday service.

Something in my spirit desired the ritual, the darkened space, the high ceiling and quiet corners. But despite my research and efforts, I couldn’t make it happen.

I know that the outward sign of ashes are not necessary, that it is a condition of the heart. My heart. But there is something about wearing the ashes as a mark that lines up the image I project with the inner state of things.

My inner state is such that I get mad and raise my voice with my kids.

I bend the truth rather than have the hard conversation.

I ask leading questions or make (what I intend to be) subtle suggestions to try and get my way.

I’m self-centered.

I lack generosity.

But I wouldn’t let you know it by looking at me.

Wearing the ashes reminds me that no matter how much progress I’ve made in taming my inner turmoil, I still screw up. And there is a freedom in those times when our outside and our inside line up, when the façade and neatly colored lines get wonky and the gaps can be seen.

There are still theological ideas that get my brain in a twist and I want to dig deeper into the various school of thought on alternative to substitutionary atonement, but I know this:

Jesus, out of His great love, came for me. He came for you. And whatever you decide to do with that – accept, reject, ignore – is up to you.

I’m missing Ash Wednesday this year, like I have many other years. Even though I’m not in a church today, my heart is in the right place.

Do you have a tradition of participating in Ash Wednesday or Lent? How does that look for you, and are there elements that make it especially significant?

Oh dear – one more purity Event

27
Feb

A Christian camp, a place where I worked in my younger years, is hosting a purity retreat.

When I read this news, I groaned.

“What are they going to teach those students?” I said to myself, “And how long will it take them to undo it?”

As someone who was on the early edge of the big evangelical push to churn out curriculum, trinkets, marketing and events surrounding purity and abstinence, I speak as an observer a few steps removed from the hard-core movement. But I remember accountability partners, vague discussion of boundaries, the concern about being a stumbling block for the males of the world, the guilt over “going too far”, and the way it was stressed that sex should be confined to marriage.

At a purity retreat, there will most likely be a challenge to use your mind over your emotions (although I’m sure they’re not above drawing on emotions to motivate the participants), pledges of future behavior, repentance over past thoughts or behavior, and they might even give out some small purity token — a souvenir of significance to mark the weekend and the new commitments people made.

If you are not familiar with the purity/modesty rules philosophy, it goes like this:

Sex before marriage is wrong for lots of reasons.

Foremost of those reasons is that the Bible says you are supposed to reserve sex for marriage.

If you do not reserve sex for marriage, you are messing up God’s plan.

When you mess up God’s plan (a.k.a. ‘the two shall become one’,’ a woman shall leave her mother and a man shall leave his home’, etc.) you give away parts of your heart to each partner until you have but a tiny scrap of a heart left. You are unable to give yourself fully to your eventual spouse (because everyone gets married, you see), you end up with lots of baggage and assumed regrets, and you mess up your spouse’s life because your spouse was a good person and saved sex for marriage.

If you have sex before marriage, you are guilty, blemished, and broken in God’s eyes. Sure, you can be forgiven — there’s even discussion of having your virginity reclaimed — but you’re still going to have to sort out the consequences of your sin, which may play out for the rest of your life.

This also goes for other sexual expression, because the Bible says to stay away from sexual immorality. In some circles it includes kissing and holding hands. Yes. Some people reserve kissing and/or holding hands until they are engaged or married.

I’m serious, and it is a deeply held conviction for them, one they are willing to stick with and in doing so frequently feel misunderstood and judged.

And superior, don’t forget superior.

So if you think Christian culture is quiet about sex, you’d be wrong…except that the thing students hear while they are growing up is that if you wait until marriage it will automatically be blessed, fantastic, fun and natural. You’ll take to it like a fish in water, even if you haven’t ever kissed a person and have, up to that point, convinced yourself that all sexual expression is negative and ridden with guilt and shame.

Good luck with that.

|||||

Alongside the purity culture of evangelicalism is the modesty culture.

During her time at a Christian college, a close friend of mine was brought in to have a long talk with her resident assistant. The reason? It was because she wore a sports bra without a t-shirt while playing volleyball outside on a hot autumn day.

This is pretty common.

Girls are told what kind of swim suits they can wear to church events that involve beaches or water, and shirts and skirts are monitored for length and coverage.

Modesty can be subtly damaging because it is the preamble to sexual purity. If you are immodest, it follows that you are also impure. And if you’re not the one who is impure, you’re making a bunch of other people impure, because you’re causing them to stumble.

So make sure you cover up those mazongas because you shouldn’t “think of yourself more highly than you ought but consider others better than yourselves.” (This is an often-used morphing of Romans 12:3 and Philippians 2:3, both letters from the Apostle Paul.) First of all, who are you to think you look that good anyway, and plus, when you choose clothing you should be thinking of the ways you could be causing your Christian brothers into sin by wearing that spaghetti strap tank top.

(I’m 99% sure that boys are not taught to cover up for their Christian sisters.)

The damage to our young men and women in this is profound.

It makes our young men into mindless primates with little will of their own, held captive by their urges, which they cannot control.

It makes our young women into temptresses who, by nature of their female-ness, lead all men into impure thoughts and impure actions for which they cannot be held accountable. It’s the whole virgin vs. vixen idea of a bygone era when women were presumed to be either wholly sterile in their total lack of sexual desire or appeal, or they were women of low moral character who were ultimately subhuman, meant to be used and tossed aside like an old tissue.

|||||

There is something amiss with the evangelical obsession with sex, either having it or not having it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a good idea for unmarried people to sleep around. I’m all about self-respect and I’m a big fan of modesty because sometimes the reason for the lack of it is to gain self-worth from our boobies (or other parts…and yes, I just wrote “boobies.” Focus, people, focus. Stay with me.) When I consider this concern for modesty and the purity culture it spawned, it’s a huge sweater of interlocking stitches. When you pick at one, it turns out that it’s connected to the stitches around it.

Consider: The burden of modesty is set on girls, since boys’ urges are somehow too uncontrollable and they can’t reasonably be asked to take much responsibility in it. Heck, they can’t even look at a bikini without lusting, much less a girl wearing that bikini. Therefore, the responsibility lies with females. But females, by nature of being female, are lesser, the argument goes. And since they are lesser, they can’t be asked to handle such a potentially dangerous mission. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is to enact a no-touch, no-look policy…Or enlist the “leadership” of the girl’s father, and return to the days of dowries and arranged marriages, when the girl was a commodity to be traded.

It follows that since a female form, simply by existing, causes sin in the males who observe the female-ness. The curve of a breast is inherently sexual, rather than just being an added bit of skin over the pectoral muscles. The female body, it follows, must be sinful, otherwise why would it raise such chemical, physiological reactions? Plus, it was Eve who corrupted Adam by offering him the apple so it follows that it is in the nature of women to lead others into sin.

See what I mean about the stitches being interlocked? You can’t pick one stitch without it unravelling the ones around it.

|||||

There are people having conversations about these assumptions, these categorical dismissals of the individuality of each person, the choices placed before us and the attitudes about the worthiness of women. They are talking about a woman’s ownership over her own body, and the dastardly connection between purity culture and it’s potential to tumble down the rabbit hole of making a woman responsible for her own sexual harassment, or worse. There’s a discussion about men NOT being hormone-driven maniacs who have no control over their impulses (for an interesting perspective, read Micah Murray’s piece, http://bit.ly/1dzk1BV ) , and who will do almost anything for sex.

This is too big for one post. And we’re only skimming the surface here. I’m certainly not the only one writing about it, not by far, but we need more people talking and writing about it.

It’s something I take very seriously, as a woman, as a wife, as a mother, as a human.

What I wear should not single me out for harassment, regardless of how much skin I show.

My sons should be responsible for their own actions, their own choices when it comes to purity, attitudes of the heart and physical expression.

My daughter should be free to respect herself and not draw her self-worth from how much attention she garners with her bra straps or short-shorts. And she should be safe from other people treating her as an inanimate object or something inherently sinful.

I’m going to look into this advertised purity retreat at that camp. I want to find out who is organizing it, what its goals are, and how they are treating this topic. I have a feeling it is probably representative of the whole purity/modesty culture that is so intrinsically interwoven in evangelical culture.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re doing something different with this retreat, bringing in fresh perspectives and voices that offer another way.

I know that, as a woman, I am created in the image of God. And men are as well. And we can all pursue a deeper relationship with Jesus, and that can include all parts of ourselves, even our sexuality. And that is something our students and young people need to hear.

November Book Club: Chapter Three (Part One)

31
Dec

Corcovado jesus

Corcovado jesus (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

Yes yes, I do realize that it is the end of DECEMBER and here I am working on a book club from November. That’s just the way things go sometimes, right? If I should retitle this “December Book Club” that would only work for like a few more hours, so that’s a dead end.

Peter Enn’s book, Telling God’s Story: A Parents’ Guide to Teaching the Bible, is what we’re working through and chapter three is when the author starts giving specifics about what to teach to whom and when.

In most Sunday School settings, there are lots of lessons about Old Testament characters, in addition to stories about Jesus. Enns argues that “the proper foundation is now what it has been since the first Christmas: Jesus.” He makes the point that “the Bible as a whole is going somewhere, and that “somewhere” is actually a “someone”.”

Before you think Enns is suggesting that we focus only on the New Testament, as was done to the exclusion of the Old Testament in church circles for many years, he is making the case that for our youngest children, we begin with and focus on the person of Jesus. He says “the apostles didn’t start with the background stuff. They got right to the point and talked about Jesus.” As children get older and more mature, then it is time to address the Old Testament and larger context of the New Testament.

This resonates for me because of my years as a volunteer in various churches’ children’s and youth ministries, as well as my time developing curriculum and leading children’s and junior high/senior high ministry. Kids in the earliest grades see things in black and white, and understand concrete ideas most readily. This changes as they get older, but in terms of the focus for grade 1-5, Enns stresses the validity of building a foundation of Jesus and worrying about Old Testament historical context yada yada as children get older.

One thing that makes me bristle is the focus on depravity in children in evangelical circles. We are so concerned that children “come to Jesus” that we sometimes resort to scare tactics rather than focusing on the freedom, direction, purpose and fulfillment Christ brings while here on earth. The focus is so heavily weighed towards the hereafter that it’s no wonder why people tend towards “fire insurance” (a terribly crude term) and a once-and-done mentality rather than seeing how a commitment to following Jesus plays out in our every day decisions. That’s probably why I love this line so much:

What should not be emphasized is the child’s miserable state of sin and need for a savior. …We must remember that our children’s salvation is not our work, it is the work of the Spirit. …To introduce children to the wrath of God right at the beginning of their lives, without the requisite biblical foundation and before the years of emotional maturity, can actually distort their view of God.

That’s not to say that even within the life of Jesus there aren’t many intense, adult-rated moments. Using common sense, it should be obvious that age-appropriateness is of the upmost importance. However, in my experience, common sense and age-appropriate sensitivity isn’t always used when approaching the Bible. People often fear they’ll be “watering down the Word of God” by leaving out certain parts or focusing on some things over others (although I wonder if they’d be so cavalier with the things in Bible of a sexual nature). People think they should start with Genesis and work their way through the Bible, book by book. Have you ever tried doing that? Let’s just say that most folks find their eyes glazing over by the time they get a chapter or two into the books of the law.

Enns takes a logical approach that considers child development and the overarching movement of the Bible narrative. It is the person of Jesus that draws people, it is the stories of how He treated children, how He related to women, how He reached out to outcasts and misfits — these are the stories that draw us to Him. By letting the life of Jesus speak for itself, and by studying the impact He had on the lives of the Apostles, we set a solid foundation on which they can delve into the depths of the Old Testament, historical background and prophetic fulfillment of Jesus’ life.

This chapter has two more sections, one that deals with middle grades and one that deals with high school ages. I think these areas need their own review, so I’m going to lump them together into a future post.

What is your take on this different way of teaching the Bible to our youngest children? Does it seem like a good approach to you? What objections do you have to it? 

British Library Add. MS 59874 Ethiopian Bible ...

British Library Add. MS 59874 Ethiopian Bible – Matthew’s Gospel (Ge’ez script) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

November Book Club, Chapter Two

3
Dec

The title of this post is not a typo.

The Book Club I joined with began in November, so I’m sticking with that as a name, even if it doesn’t quite fit anymore. Go with me on this, okay?

****

Have you ever had someone else complete your thought? Or maybe someone said the exact thing you had felt but never could articulate? Maybe someone was able to succinctly sum up a series of ideas you had? It is a bizarre feeling, to have the sense that someone tapped into your brainwaves and put them out into the world. When it happens, all at once I can feel elated, overwhelmed, dejected and as if I’ve found a like-minded friend.

  • Elated because finally someone else said what needed to be said. How wonderful to feel like you’ve been heard.
  • Overwhelmed because sometimes that person is able to take your thought to its logical conclusion or application and the implications require a paradigm shift I might not be ready to implement.
  • Dejected because why couldn’t I communicate that complex thought so eloquently?

This has been a year of reading books by brave, creative people who have put into words the stirrings I’ve felt for many years, a discontent with simple answers and an unwillingness to engage with questions.

Peter Enns‘ Telling God’s Story is becoming one of those books.

Yes, I know that I’m only supposed to be writing about the second chapter (which is long overdue by any standard — I was supposed to be doing this through November and here we are in December!) but that doesn’t mean I haven’t read ahead a bit. Even though my reading took a hit in November, this is the one I’m ready to come back to. Like any good book, I’m finding it hard to put this down.

Chapter Two: What the Bible Actually Is (and Isn’t)

The chapter starts with an seemingly simplistic question: what is the Bible? This is followed by a series of other questions: what do we expect to happen when we read it? What is the Bible there for?

The author goes on to ask us to step back from that question which is most often applied to Bible reading: how does this apply to me?

Instead we are asked to look at the Bible with a different question in our minds:

“What do we have the right to expect from God’s word as a book written in an ancient world?”

Enns asks us to consider how Jesus’ existence as a human does not detract from his being the Son of God. He then goes on to assert that the Bible does exactly what God wanted it to do, even using expressions and ideas of the ancient world. The anchoring of the Bible in ancient times does not take away from the inerrancy of it, nor does it keep it from “doing exactly what God wants it to do.”

The Bible is Not an Owner’s Manual

Bummer, huh?

In some ways it would be so easy if the Bible did spell out every little thing for us. Some people believe it does — seriously, there are a lot of people out there who have been taught that the Bible IS an owner’s manual and that on every single thing that we should do or not do, every attitude, every current issue, examples of applicable/transferable rules, attitudes, and lessons can be found.

I tend to lean this way, even though I know there are limits.

Enns suggests that “we need to learn the kinds of issues the Bible addresses so we can learn to ask the questions of the Bible that the Bible is meant to answer.” He then gives us the disappointing news that “what is not being addressed are specifically modern situations.” He says that when we read the New Testament in particular, we see “a portrait being painted for us of what a life in Christ looks like.”

We’re getting near the end of the chapter at this point and Enns uses a personal example to illustrate his statement that “…I want to introduce you to what I think is the single most important biblical concept for living a Christian life, not only today, but during any era: wisdom.” Because the Bible doesn’t say specifically DON’T EVER GO TO ANY R-RATED MOVIES Enns must use wisdom when parenting his son and when deciding what to say when his son asks if he can watch the movie Saving Private Ryan. His answer must be based on wisdom; wisdom from knowing his son, knowing about the movie, knowing Biblical admonishments and exhortations, and wisdom from learning to trust the Holy Spirit’s voice.

This is the paragraph that stood out to me most from the chapter:

…if we learn to hear what the Spirit is saying through these ancient yet transcendent writings, we will see that the Bible is much more than we bargained for. The Bible is not a book primarily devoted to what we should do. Instead it is devoted to telling us who we are and how our behaviors should reflect that reality.

Rather than just having a religion or a faith-by-rote, isn’t it true that we all wish to have a faith that is an identity? I’d want my family to live out our faith in actions, attitudes and self-worth even if we can’t name all the books of the Bible in order.

Some people get so hampered by wanting to do exactly the letter of the law of what they think the Bible spells out that they forget the spirit of the law, the reason guidelines exist and what they were originally put there to accomplish. The result from this is often a rigid, fear based faith that is spindly and brittle. I believe God has something more for us, something much more robust, verdant and lush, filled with joy and courage. I think that’s where Enns is headed in this book, and I’m excited to see where he takes us.

Do you expect to find every answer to every question you have in the Bible? Do you think it is dangerous to consider the idea that every answer might not be there? What expectations do you have of the Bible?

Teaching my kids the Truth about Heaven

8
Nov

Today’s post is a lazy (or pragmatic) woman’s attempt to kill two birds with one stone. Lisa-jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday has become part of the rhythm around here, and I’ve enjoyed the community involved there. This month I’m also participating in an online book club organized by Abi Bechtel. We’re reading Telling God’s Story by Peter Enns. Therefore, today’s post is based on the word prompt “Truth” and the first thing that came to mind was informed by book club, so I’m hybridizing the two.

Set the timer to five minutes.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

Two nights ago my son asked me about heaven.

He asked if it was really gold.

He said he used to feel scared of it, but now he feels better because he read in a kids booklet that there’s no crying or sickness there. This was a relief.

Then he did it. He asked what happens to the people who don’t have Jesus in their heart when they die. Do they go to heaven?

I want to be truthful, but I want to give him security. How can I do both when I feel like there is such a broad cannon of interpretation within Christendom? How can I tell him the questions in my own heart about the strict interpretation I was trained to accept? How do I tell him what is true?

The words of a former professor, Greg Boyd, popped into my head. I studied with him while at Bethel for more than one class, but his World Religions class was the scene of this truth bomb. I have come back to it again and again.

He said something similar to this, but this is not an exact quote…

Imagine you are a beggar with a loaf of bread. Another beggar comes to you holding a loaf of bread. It is moldy and dry. The beggar is breaking off bits and eating them. You say to him, “That bread may make you sick. It may not. But I can tell you for sure that the bread I have is good. It is life giving and you will not get sick from it.” And you share your bread with the man.

It goes along with the concept of there being a wideness in God’s mercy, which I love.

So what did I tell my son?

I told him that many many people who love the Lord have studied the Bible for years and years. These people have come up with different ideas about what it says. I gave him a couple short examples of what I meant.

I told him it is up to God to decide about who hangs out in heaven with Him, and He wants everyone, but that the simplest, most straightforward, reading exactly what the Bible says, is by asking Jesus into your heart…which he’s already done.

It’s not a fantastic answer.

Bread

Bread (Photo credit: CeresB)

Is it true?

Yes, sort of.

See what I mean?

STOP

*****

Sorry if this was hard to follow today. It was hard to corral my thoughts into a linear, succinct form.

May I ask how you interpret some of the hard, fast rules of entrance into the pearly gates? If you are a person of faith, how has your understanding changed from when you were a child? How do you handle the Big Questions of faith with your kids?  

Sunday School and November Book Club

29
Oct

High Bank, Denby. Derelict Methodist Sunday Sc...

High Bank, Denby. Derelict Methodist Sunday School Building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of my life has been punctuated by Sunday School.

There were the many years when I participated in it.

There were the years when I was the teacher.

Now there are these years when my children go each week.

And it never really occurred to me to ask “why” about Sunday School until recently.

My dad, a retired ordained minister in the Covenant church, made the comment recently that Sunday School is a modern creation born of a desire to provide a place for children to learn to read since they were working every other day of the week. (Here’s a link to get the short version of Sunday School’s development: http://bit.ly/17uv3sB)

As someone who has grown up in the church, worked in various youth programs, and been responsible to create curriculum for those programs, I know that the regular idea is to make lessons that show God’s acitivity in the world, and use the scriptures to teach character lessons.

I wonder if I was coming at it all wrong.

In my conversation with my dad, it came up that you really don’t want to use a lot of “Bible Heroes” as such because they were a mess. Lessons ought to focus on how many mistakes these people made and yet God was able to accomplish great things through them, because He is great.

Instead, we usually focus (for example) on how David was “a man after God’s own heart” and gloss over his adultery and scheming, including arranging to have his competition sent to the front lines in order to get him killed.

Dude was sketchy at best.

Here’s another example. At our church a few months ago they wanted to teach about friendship so for some reason they chose the story of Job. If you’re familiar with the story, Job goes through some really hard trials. His friends hang with him for a while, but then they basically tell him to throw in the towel.

The lesson taught only focused on the first part of the story, and happily the teacher chose not to include the detail that God allowed Satan access to Job. My first and third graders were not ready to deal with that information. It was a poorly planned lesson that pick and chose details for their illustration of the point the creators were going for, regardless of whether that was the point of the actual Bible story.

All of this is to say that there might be a better way to go about teaching our kids about the Bible.

In the month of November I’m going to participate in an online book club. The book we’re going to read is Peter Enn’s Telling God’s Story (http://bit.ly/1coKmHn). I haven’t read any his books before, but it sounds like this book has a different take on teaching the Bible to kids.

The premise of Telling God’s Story is that for 1-4th graders the focus should be on learning all about Jesus, then 5-8th graders focus on the overall narrative of Israel, and high schoolers focus on the Bible’s historical context. I’m really interested in exploring a new approach to valuing the Bible and teaching it in a way that honors it.

I’ll be blogging about book club, and the fabulous woman hosting it is Abi. She’s a riot and is on a really interesting journey that I resonate with in many ways. If you’re interested in reading along with us via her blog, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/1aQVwOB It would be fun to do this together!

What are your memories of Sunday School? Was there a point when you started having friends there, rather than just merely sitting next to other kids? What’s your view of Sunday School now?

Sunday School, Chicago, IL, USA

Sunday School, Chicago, IL, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Five Minute Friday: Together

25
Oct

It’s Five Minute Friday and the word prompt is “together” but what came out spun off in it’s own directions. I don’t know how to explain this except to say when I saw the prompt I immediately thought about how lately I’ve been thinking about starting a “small group” through my church. The only thing is, the more I think about it, the more confined I feel by that definition — that a small group needs be organized under the umbrella of a church. I didn’t used to function that way. Maybe that was because I had the luxury of overlap between the people who were in the small group, people who were my friends, and people with whom I attended church.

Things now don’t have the same overlap.

Enough with the preamble. I’ll be interested in your reactions, so please feel free to chime in in the comments. As always, I am very grateful that you’ve taken time out from your day to read my scattered thoughts.

Deep breath.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

*****

I don’t know when I became so rigid.

Maybe it was bit by bit,

as frost settling onto the top of water

into a crust of ice

into a brittle sheet

into a thickness you drive a car across and need an auger to drill through.

Definitions matter, but not if you use the wrong ones.

A place that preaches a doctrine of small groups in the midst of being a swarm,

very little is intimate about the great multiple-gather,

multiple-site,

multiple satellite venue,

People punch tickets, hand out gold stars for attendance but gloss over how hard it is

to force foot in front of foot  as that doorway approaches.

Inside you see the round table (why a round table – you can’t hear the person across from you, you’re stuck with two options of conversation and one of them is inevitably busy talking to the person on the far side of them), purses already stake out territorial plastic claims

And no one stops their sentence to greet you.

No one looks up,

No one seems to realize you’re even there.

****

STOP