Canon Fodder

Below is an article written by one of my mentors, Bart Campolo. I reference this article often because it is very meaningful to me and really approximates many of my own thoughts. The first time I read it out loud, I cried. Much later (just the other night, in fact) I read it out loud again, and cried again. I guess that tells you something about what I care about. You’ll find the article in its entirety below, or you can read it among the other “barticles” here.

take my god… please

A few years ago, after being politely asked to depart early from yet another speaking engagement for giving the wrong answer to a question about the limits of God’s mercy, I decided it wasn’t fair to keep sneaking up on unsuspecting Evangelicals. Strange as it seems to me, I know all too well that to promote a God both loving enough to desire the salvation of all His children and powerful enough to accomplish it is a dangerous scandal to such folks. After all, without
the fear of their unsaved loved ones’ eternal damnation, how would they motivate one another for outreach and missionary service?

And yet, almost everywhere I go, I meet people –especially young people – who are not motivated at all by such fear. On the contrary, these people are utterly horrified by the notion of a Heavenly Father who essentially says to His
children, ‘I love you, but if for any reason you fail to accept that fact before your mortal body expires, I will kill and torture you for all eternity’. Especially if that same Heavenly Father holds in His hand all the reasons His children do
or don’t accept Him in the first place. These are the people who ask me the questions that used to lead to my early departures, and who write me letters and emails like this one:

Dear Bart-

This might be kind of weird, but I have a question for you. I did Mission Year last year and when you came to visit my team you told a story about how when first started working in the inner-city, you got to know a girl who was gang-raped as a 9-year-old and, after her Sunday School teacher told her God must have allowed it for a reason, rejected God forever. Because you believed God
was indeed in control, and because you believed that girl’s lack of faith doomed her to eternal damnation, you decided that God was a cruel bastard. You sort of said the words inside my head out loud, words I had wanted to say for a long time.

Anyway, after putting this off for almost a year, I want to know how you reconciled that. How did you make it from, “God is a cruel bastard” back to “I can trust Him”? I can’t seem to make that leap. Sometimes I begin to really trust Him, but as soon as I think about my past abuse and those I know and love who are bound for Hell…it just doesn’t add up. I want to know the God
you know- who apparently allows for horrible things in this world to happen, but remains pure and holy and trustworthy and faithful and loving.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you, but as I was wrestling with it again today I was reminded of you and hoped you might be of some help.

Sarah

Dear Sarah,

Thank you for writing to me. Over the past few years, I have become convinced that yours is actually the single most important question in the world. As Rabbi Harold Kushner observes, “Virtually every meaningful conversation I’ve had with
people about God has either started with that question or gotten around to it before long” While I am sure my answer will not be as eloquent as his, I will do my best.

First of all, while I certainly believe my most cherished ideas about God are supported by the Bible (what Christian says otherwise?), I must admit they did not originate there. On the contrary, most of these ideas were formed during that difficult time I described to you, when I was suddenly disillusioned by the suffering and injustice I discovered in the inner-city, and did not trust the Bible at all. At that point, for the first time, I realized that a person’s life does not depend on whether he or she believes in God, but rather on what kind of God he or she believes in. I also realized, for better or worse, that the only evidence I was could rely on was that which I saw for myself.

What I saw then, and still see now, is a world filled with dazzling goodness and horrific evil, with love and hate, with beauty and ugliness, with life and death. In the face of such clear duality, it seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, that there are but a handful of spiritual possibilities:

*There are no spiritual forces. The material universe is all. Our lives bear no larger meaning, and those who hope for more hope in vain. In this case, considering that 9-year old rape victim, I despair.

*There is only one spiritual force at work in the universe, encompassing both good and evil. This world is precisely as this force wills it to be, and everything—including the rapes of children—happens according to its plan. In this case, again, I despair.

*There are two diametrically opposing spiritual forces at work in the universe, one entirely good and loving and the other entirely evil. Satan (or whatever one chooses to call that evil force) is most powerful and therefore will utterly triumph in the end. The suffering of that poor little girl is but a foretaste of the complete suffering that is to come for us all. In this case, of course, I despair.

*There are two opposing spiritual forces at work in the universe, one entirely good and loving and the other entirely evil. God (or whatever one chooses to call that good and loving force) is most powerful, and therefore will utterly triumph in the end. The suffering of that poor little girl – Satan’s doing – will somehow be redeemed and she herself will be healed as part of the complete redemption and absolute healing that is to come for all of us. In this case—and in this case alone—I rejoice, and gladly pledge my allegiance to this good and loving God.

I cannot prove or disprove any of these possibilities, of course, based on the evidence of my experience. What I know with certainty, however, is the one that makes me want to go on living, the one I choose for my own sake, the one I deem worthy of my allegiance. I may be wrong in this matter, but I am not in doubt. If indeed faith is being sure of what we hope for, then truly I am a man of faith, for I absolutely know what I hope to be true: That God is completely good, entirely loving, and perfectly forgiving, that God is doing all that He can to overcome evil (which is evidently a long and difficult task), and that God will utterly triumph in the end, despite any and all indications to the contrary.

This is my first article of faith. I required no Bible to determine it, and—honestly—I will either interpret away or ignore altogether any Bible verse that suggests otherwise.

This first article of faith was the starting point of my journey back to Jesus, and it remains the foundation of my faith. I came to trust the Bible again, of course, but only because it so clearly bears witness to the God of love I had already chosen to believe in. I especially follow the teachings of Jesus because those teachings—and his life, death, and resurrection—seem to me the best expression of the ultimate truth of God, which we Christians call grace. Indeed, these days I trust Jesus even when I don’t understand him, because I have become so convinced that He knows what He is talking about, that He is who he is talking about, and that He alone fully grasps that which I can only hope is true.

Unfortunately for me, God may be very different than I hope, in which case I may be in big trouble come Judgment Day. Perhaps, as many believe, the truth is that God created and predestined some people for salvation and others for damnation, according to His will. Perhaps such caprice only seems unloving to us because we don’t understand. Perhaps, as many believe, everyone who dies without confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior goes to Hell to suffer forever. Most important of all, perhaps God’s sovereignty is such that although He could indeed prevent little girls from being raped, He is no less just or merciful when He doesn’t, and both those children and we who love them should uncritically give Him our thanks and praise in any case.

My response is simple: I refuse to believe any of that. For me to do otherwise would be to despair.

Some might say I would be wise to swallow my misgivings about such stuff, remain orthodox, and thereby secure my place with God in eternity. But that is precisely my point: If those things are true, God can give my place in Heaven to someone else, and go ahead and send me to Hell. For better or worse, I am simply not interested in any God but a completely good, entirely loving, and perfectly forgiving One who is powerful enough to utterly triumph over evil. Such a God may not exist, but I will die seeking Him, and I will pledge my allegiance to no other possibility, because, quite frankly, anything less is not enough to give me hope, to keep me alive, to be worth the trouble of believing.

You can figure out the rest. I don’t hate God because I don’t believe God is fully in control of this world yet. Heck, God is not fully in control of me yet, even when I want Him to be, so how could I possibly believe that God is making it all happen out there in the street? I don’t hate God because I believe He is always doing the best He can, within the limits of human freedom, which even He cannot escape.

On that last point, consider for a moment the essential relationship between human freedom and love, and then consider the essential identity between love and God. If God is love, if He made us for love in His image, then He had no choice but to make us free, to leave us free, and to win us for His Kingdom as free agents (which, evidently, is a long and difficult task). So He did, and so He will.

I don’t hate God because, although I suppose He knows everything that can be known at any given point in time, I don’t suppose He knows or controls everything that is going to happen. I also don’t hate God because I really believe in Satan (and also in my own, moving-in-the-right-direction-but-still-pretty-doggoned-sinful nature). I don’t hate God because it seems to me that this world is a battleground between good and evil, not a puppet show with just one person pulling all the strings. I don’t hate God because the God I have chosen to believe in isn’t hateable, and because I refuse to believe in the kind of God that is.

Now here is the good news: I may be entirely wrong, but even in my darkest hours, my God of love hasn’t stopped speaking to me. On the contrary, I hear His voice in places I never did before, always saying the same things, one way or another: I am with you. I’m sorry about all the pain. It hurts me too, especially when my little ones suffer. I have always loved you and I always will. Do the best you can, but don’t worry. Everything will be all right in the end. Trust me.

And I do. And I hope you will too, sooner than later.

Your friend,

Bart

Of course, to believe in God the way I do is to change the rules of ministry, and especially of youth ministry. I still convince young people to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour, but not because I’m afraid God will damn them to Hell if they don’t. On the contrary, I want kids’ to follow Jesus because I genuinely believe it’s a better life. Eternity aside, I want their lives to be transformed by God’s truth right now, for their sakes and for the sake of all the hungry and broken people out there who need them to start living His disciples. After all, the sooner we all start following Jesus by feeding the poor and freeing the oppressed, the sooner God’s will will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. But most of all, I evangelize people because I know they are my loving God’s beloved children, and I don’t want them to live a minute longer without knowing too that most wonderful fact of life.

And I stay in the inner city, in spite of all the suffering and injustice I see here every day, because I can. No longer do I blame God for what is beyond His control, or hate him for visiting so much pain on His little ones. Even in the midst of such ugliness, I can stay here because I am full of faith. I may not be sure of what I know anymore, but I am absolutely certain of what I hope for, and most of the time I manage to live in that direction.

I stay here for one more reason, of course: In places like this, nobody asks you to leave early because you can no longer find the limits of God’s mercy.

Okay, so what are those “essential” pieces to a community I could really immerse myself in? I’m hesitant to start listing things because I think it’s a bit like folks sometimes describe love: “you’ll know it when you find it.” With some trepidation, then, these are some of the signposts that I guess would point me in the right direction:

• For a dozen years now I’ve been captivated by the vision of a community of faith that has a life together, that is, a community that really is a community. Those who know me probably tire of me saying things like this (and so many other things, I know), but when I’ve seen this “life together” really work people start moving in to the same house together, but not just into the same house- also on to the same block, and around the corner, and in the same neighborhood. They do this because day-to-day physical proximity matters in a larger society that seems to do everything it can to isolate and atomize us. Being side-by-side on a daily basis is important because we simply can’t bear one another’s burdens unless we’re around to see each other struggling with them in the first place. In my experience, a cell group-based congregation is the best, most effective way to create this kind of intentional community in urban settings (not just churches that have cell groups or small groups, but ones that are cell group-based).

• Of course, being together is vitally important, but I think there has to be a reason to be together. Vision is vital. I want to be part of a community that (here’s one of my oft-used phrases) “is on a mission together.” When an ever-growing number of Christ-followers have a life together and have some kind of common purpose that they can all get excited about in one way or another, there’s an energy and vitality that is captivating. I won’t go so far (at this point, I guess) as to say what that vision “should” be, but man, when it’s there, it’s amazing to behold.

• For good or ill, I guess there’s something to be said for being “called out” and “set apart.” Being that “peculiar” people that some Bible translations talk about is part of all this too. I’m treading very carefully here, because I don’t mean this like some Christians do. I don’t mean drawing lines between us (the “redeemed”) and them (the sinful “world”), and marking the difference between the two via behaviors like smoking, drinking, voting, and cussing. If that’s all the difference there really is between those trying to follow Jesus and those who aren’t, well- to borrow yet another phrase- I really don’t think Jesus had to die for that. No, I think following Jesus should really, truly, deeply change your life, and if it doesn’t, well then what’s the point? Most Christians I’ve been around live the same middle class American life as all their friends and neighbors, only they have better manners. Really, to be honest, I think that’s a total (and totally sad and wrong) joke. I think much of the challenge of relating to the stories about Jesus and his followers in the Bible for Christians for much of the past little while in U.S. history has to do with how “foreign” it all seems. To find our place in the story, obviously we want to play the role of Christ-followers, people like the disciples, and Paul, and all those we read about who came after them. But who plays the part of Rome? Who is the “empire” in our day? For a good long while (at least as the Great Communicator framed it) there was a bona fide evil empire to contend with; so it seemed easy to get all patriotic and think we were holy for doing so- but there was little correlation to the stories we read in the Bible, unless we lived in Russia or China, that is. All of that has changed, though, and obviously I’m asserting that the U.S. these days isn’t all that unlike Rome- or any empire in any time. We need to see the Bible with fresh eyes, and find a new way perhaps to enter into the ongoing story of God’s redemption of the world. All of that, then, is simply to say that I think following Jesus, as a part of a community that has a life together and is on a mission together, has to be more than a little subversive to the powers that be. “Opting out” of the American dream, I think, is just the beginning. Living in community not only is an ideal but it’s the lifestyle that makes it possible not to be caught up in the pursuit of the American dream. But I think there’s much more to it. Perhaps I crave adventure, but then again- don’t you?

Well, this is the beginning of what I think are some signposts that point us in the direction of the kind of community I’d gladly give my life to. In the meantime, what am I to do, though? Well, for starters, I just got my copy of Jesus for President, and I intend to blaze through it this weekend, hoping to get some good tips. I know that Shane will have much to say in regard to all this; so I’m excited (and I know you’re reading it Rand- so I’m excited to talk about it with you). This isn’t the “idea” I was alluding to before, though. Of course, lots of folks have gotten fed up with the institutional church over the years, and we would do well to learn from their example. One of them, the mentor I spoke about before, moved into a disadvantaged neighborhood near some friends and just starting loving his neighbors (imagine that). Part of how he goes about this is by having weekly dinner parties to which he invites his friends- both the more affluent folks that are on this mission with him that he moved nearby, and the less wealthy folks from the neighborhood that he’s in the process of becoming friends with. As I understand it, at these dinner parties they talk about all kinds of stuff, God-stuff to be sure, but more than that, just life-stuff (and really, should there be much of a difference?). This life he’s living with his family and friends new and old, is a “church:” the Walnut Hills Fellowship.. They don’t own a building or hold a worship service. They don’t have “small groups” that I know of- they are a small group at this point. But they’re certainly, in my humble opinion, following Jesus. Of course, they need lots of help and support to do what they do, both financial and otherwise, which is why they went to the trouble to incorporate and become an official state(Empire, he he)-recognized “church” with non-profit status, etc. Anyway, that’s the kind of church I want to be a part of. I know I’m still missing the whole “relocation” piece, but much of what Bart does is centered around those dinner parties, and I eat dinner; I like to party :). Anyway, maybe having such a regular feast with some like-minded friends new and old might be a good place to start. I guess I’m about to find out.

I think I’ve largely been avoiding blogging lately, for several reasons I’m sure. One of them no doubt is my awareness that once I started writing, I would have to write about my current struggles regarding my faith, etc. I actually recently wrote one of my long-standing mentors about these struggles, and below is an edited copy of that email. There are a few personal references in the copied text below, but I think most of it should be pretty accessible. It reads:

I think part of the challenge for a lot of people like me is just how to “keep the faith” in the face of a lot of very good reasons not to. For my part, my upbringing in a very abusive, very “Christian” home remarkably served to give rise to and strengthen my faith for a long time, because for a long time God was the only “adult” in my life who, in my experience, was both loving and reliable.

Even so, as I moved away from my abusive, Republican, Bible-believing Texas home (those things don’t always go hand-in-hand, do they?) I became aware of a growing social consciousness that was largely shaped, of course, during my Kingdomworks experience. As I’ve said before, I think I’ve spent much of the past thirteen years (now) trying to re-create that experience. I know, of course, that I can’t, but somehow that doesn’t stop me from trying. It was during that summer that I first learned about and lived in community. It was during that summer that this Texas boy fell in love with “the city” (and specifically Philly), and it was during that time that I learned how beautifully hard a life lived serving the poor in the city can be.

Anyway, part of my experience has been time spent in two amazing postmodern/emerging (though they may not choose these labels for themselves) congregations- House of Mercy in the Twin Cities and Circle of Hope in Philly, and part of my experience too involves my seminary education at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. It was at House of Mercy that I first really experienced grace, I think, however fleeting that experience seems now, and the prophetic witness of House of Mercy’s pastors rings in my ears to this day. Circle of Hope, of course, challenged me to really “be the Church” and to live a life of discipleship- in community- that was truly radical (but ordinary, to borrow Shane Claiborne’s phrase). In seminary, though, I first became truly aware of the Bible’s many shortcomings (that is, if you accept- or used to- what the “fundagelicals” say about it). It was there that I was first disabused of the notion that the Bible is “inerrant,” and came to see the development of that doctrine within Protestantism for what it likely was- a “knee-jerk” reaction to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope.

Of course, this presented a major stumbling block to my faith as I had always known it, which was thoroughly Modern (rational and proposition-based). Unwittingly, I had bought the line which said that faith is about lending intellectual assent to a set of propositions- a checklist of orthodoxy (and behavior). So long as I could check off all the appropriate beliefs, and didn’t engage in any of the usually suspect behaviors (smoking, drinking, voting Democratic, etc.), I was okay, and that’s really what it seemed to be all about. Though this may be a gross overgeneralization, the rest of the Christian life in my experience growing up seemed to be mostly about pursuing the American dream, and I suppose I’m still a little bitter about that to this day (even as I remain stubbornly middle-class in my lifestyle, to my great chagrin). Anyway, in the circles that I grew up in there’s a saying about going to seminary (or at least one like mine) to “lose your faith,” and I definitely experienced that.

If the Bible was, for the most part, the source of the Christian’s faith, and it was as laden with inconsistencies and “factual” errors as I learned it to be, what then? Fortunately, my seminary experience took away (the faith of my youth) and it gave, as I was challenged to look at the Bible in a new light- not as a “magic 8 ball” that could answer any question posed, but rather as the story of God’s wooing of humanity throughout the ages, and as such one that could only properly be understood in light of Jesus. In short, in seminary I learned to ask what the Bible was for (not a science textbook). This, coupled with one of Circle of Hope’s proverbs (“Jesus is the lens through which we read the Bible”), proved immensely helpful in giving new ground upon which to base my faith. Still, it required a fine little theological jig for me to “give account for the hope that is within me” from that point forward. I suppose I’m writing you now because I’m getting a little tired of dancing, while hoping that the “jig” isn’t “up.”

Long ago I heard you talk about your interest in not why a person became a Christian but why they’re still one, and for a while now I’ve been answering that question like this: I talk about the Bible, and say that I used to trust Jesus mostly because of the Bible’s authority (which I now would call “Bibliolatry”). Now, however, I trust the Bible’s witness because it points to Jesus, who is the source/foundation of my faith. I think the Bible is somehow “true” on its major points (like the Resurrection, for example, but more importantly- what the Resurrection is for), but it doesn’t bother me so much that the Bible seems to get some of its facts wrong. I’m also not too worried about whether or not all of its stories might have been observably verifiable, for in my view that’s not really the point. I also talk about the whole belief/behavior checklist as being so not what I now understand the Christian life to be about. I also talk about my deeply held belief that “rules are for relationship” (I think I coined that, but I’m not sure). I tell my son not to touch a hot stove or play in traffic (the “rules”) not because I’m arbitrary and controlling but because I know that doing these things will hurt him. Likewise, God tells us not to sleep around or mindlessly pursue our impulses because he knows that doing those things will hurt us. In both cases, though, what’s important are the right relationships with God, one another, and the world that we were made for- not the rules, per se. Unfortunately, many Christians, resorting to their “checklists,” speak and act as if the rules are more important than the relationships they’re meant to serve.

Anyway, all of this puts a ton of pressure on me, though, for if I can’t hide behind some checklist then I’m forced to actually relate to the living God, to struggle to follow Jesus as best I can. Here we move into some pretty tricky territory, for everything that I’m saying seems to come to a crux in my actual experience of relating to Jesus- or not. Though I was raised Pentecostal, I’ve never had an “ecstatic” experience, and while there are many times (though mostly when I was younger) when I’ve felt what might be characterized as “the presence of God,” how can I say with any certainty that it wasn’t something else- groupthink or some psychological projection, etc.? I ask because, if pressed, I don’t know that I have much else to offer. I keep following Jesus, or at least try to, or at least say that I am, because on some level/in some way there is something within me that resonates with the call to a life lived in a community that is actively loving and serving the world- especially the poor. This is particularly challenging to me these days because I have a very good friend (you know who you are) who will say that you don’t really need Jesus to do that, and I suspect that he’s right. I might respond to that by saying that maybe it’s more accurate to say that you don’t need to acknowledge Jesus in order to live that kind of life, but if the Bible is in any way true it’s still Jesus “in whom all things hold together” and without whom we would in fact be unable to love, because God is love. Of course, this brings us full circle- and back to my “problem,” for the preceding statement seems all too propositional and dependent on the authority of a scientifically suspect Bible. I’ve gotten around that by saying that the Bible’s authority rests in Jesus, but I’ve also said basically that Jesus’ authority rests in my experience of him, but he doesn’t “walk with me and talk with me” and in the face of intense scrutiny that experience seems all too fleeting and inconsequential.

In light of all this, all I can really say is that I’ve felt best about myself and my life in those brief times when I’ve been part of a community that was really doing something to better the world. Those communities I’ve been part of that have managed to pull this off have done so in Jesus’ name, and largely in contradistinction to the pursuit of American dream. So I want to do likewise, but is that enough? The fact is that in spite of all too many compelling reasons not to follow Jesus (the problem of evil, the Biblical issues I’ve described), for some reason that I guess I can’t explain very well, I’m still clinging, however weakly, to Jesus. As you say, I’m sure of what I hope to be true, and I hope that the resurrection is true. I hope that God is redeeming the world and that in the end his mercy will outrun our resistance to it. I hope that all of this is true because it’s the only way that I can come up with to account for the world as I find it- otherwise everything truly is meaningless. Still, I wonder if my friend isn’t right after all, and I’m just not honest enough to admit it. Maybe I’m too afraid to cash in my “fire insurance” after all.

Having had some time to reflect further after sending that email, I think there is another layer to my struggle. I spoke above of being part of communities (of faith) that were really trying to live out the kind of Christian life (“together”) that I would like to be a part of. However, it’s been a long time now since I’ve been a part of a community like that. Don’t get me wrong, I have the deepest respect for South St. Ministries (the church that my family and I have been connecting to for a while now) and the ministry of its pastor, Duane Crabbs. In fact, I think Duane, his wife Lisa, and their family live out the gospel (as I understand it) better than most folks I’ve ever met. Following the principles of Christian Community Development, they “relocated” to the “forgotten place(s) of Empire” (to borrow a phrase Shane Claiborne uses) and now live among the folks they feel called to serve. I admire that, and would like to do likewise, but right now my family is not in a position to make such a move (or at least that’s what I tell myself), and so I struggle to know how to do my part (we are about to become foster parents, though). Community is so important to me that I tried to start a cell group with South Street, but it recently failed, and honestly I’m so burned out and tired of “the traditional/institutional church thing” (including/especially the language of traditional/institutional church folks) that even though South St. in many ways is not such a church, the degree to which vestiges of the institutional church remain even in South St.’s DNA make it hard for me to relate. So all of that is simply to say that despite my deep respect and high praise for Duane Crabbs and what South Street Ministries is doing in the Summit Lake community of Akron, I still don’t feel like I’m a part of a community that I can fully immerse myself in and commit to, and I really believe that it takes a “village” to be a Christian; so I’m floundering.

I actually do have an idea about how to move forward, maybe, but I’ll stop for now and see if anyone else has anything to say.

Sunday’s church meeting was really interesting for me. The discussion topic, which I had nothing to do with choosing or leading, was “practical atheism,” with the main thrust being that Christians should live as if they really believe what they profess. In other words, beliefs should determine actions. By the way, I completely sympathize if you are having difficulty in understanding how the title and substance of the discussion connect, but this oddity is not important as far as what I have to share goes. What was particularly interesting for me was the definition given for “practical atheism,” which came from Wikipedia:

In practical, or pragmatic, atheism, also known as apatheism, individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine. The existence of gods is not denied, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view. (source: Wikipedia entry on Atheism)

Of course I just had to look up “apatheism,” because that is such a cool word:

Apatheism (a portmanteau of apathy and theism/atheism), also known as pragmatic or practical atheism, is acting with apathy, disregard, or lack of interest towards belief, or lack of belief in a deity. Apatheism describes the manner of acting towards a belief or lack of a belief in a deity; so applies to both theism and atheism. An apatheist is also someone who is not interested in accepting or denying any claims that gods exist or do not exist. In other words, an apatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningful nor relevant to his or her life; nor perhaps to human affairs. (source: Wikipedia entry on Apatheism)

Wow! I feel like I’ve heard this somewhere. :-)

So the end of 2007 saw my family wrapping up what Jared has appropriately called the “Robert and Kirsten- this is your life” tour. We hit the road like college freshmen on their first Spring Break on December 21st (only we’re a post-30-something family with a toddler in tow) and drove to Chicago, where we stayed with a good friend from my seminary days in the Twin Cities. The next day, we finished driving to the Twin Cities, and it was a homecoming of the most poignant of sorts. We thrilled to be in the Cities again for a variety of reasons. In the first case, it was just good to be in such a familiar metropolitan area. The Twin Cities aren’t Philly, of course, but then again I’ve only ever managed to live in Philly in spurts (the summer of ’95 while doing Kingdomworks, then the first two years of our marriage from late Summer ’96 to early Summer ’98, then early Summer 2003 to the Fall of 2005). We lived in Minneapolis/St. Paul for nearly five years straight from ’98 to ’03, and perhaps not surprisingly (in hindsight, of course) I hence reserve a special affection for our time there. When you live somewhere for five years and are intentional about really getting to know the place, well, you really get to know the place. It helped that both Kirsten and I had jobs where we got paid to take kids to the wonderful Minnesota History Center and Como Zoo or the Science Museum, for example, but boy we sure didn’t mind doing so. Anyway, it was great to be back. The Cities really do have a lot to offer in terms of culture and urban life in general, and of course I say so by way of contrast to living now in little Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, a de facto suburb of Akron (which statistically isn’t all that smaller in population than St. Paul, but somehow manages to feel much smaller).

Of course, what was nicest about being back there was re-connecting with the people and places that had particular meaning to us. Regarding those places, we spent time in the neighborhood in north Minneapolis where we lived for most of our five years there. We saw our old apartment building a number of times (and even saw our old landlord out running the snowblower), spent time at my favorite coffee shop where the owner instantly recognized and greeted me, we stopped by our old (now totally remodeled) library, we drove past the house Kirsten’s dad passed away in, we went down to the Mall of America, we drove past (though never managed to spend time at) my seminary, etc. More importantly, we saw our good friends Teka and Steve and their new baby just before they went out of town, we spent time worshiping with the House of Mercy and had dinner afterwards (despite a major snow storm) with our good friends Lori, Pierre, and their daughter Simone and our other good friend Sarah, plus two of the pastors from House of Mercy (now the only two)- Russell and Debbie (and Debbie’s wonderful family; Russell’s couldn’t make it)- whom we are also privileged to count as friends. Being with those people was really important and meaningful to me. Being “at” House of Mercy was too, but more (perhaps) about that later. We also spent time with Kirsten’s family that are still in town- her younger sister Kim and her family, her brother Kris and his wife, and her newly returned Mom (until this past summer Kirsten’s mom lived with us in Ohio). We also visited with one of the families Kirsten used to do home care nursing for whom we have stayed in touch with and whom we now count more as friends than anything else, which was also good.

Naturally, being there made it easy to imagine moving back, and we briefly discussed what it might look like, though without any real motivation at this time. To say the least, however, we really miss it.

So we got back from that thirteen hour drive on the Friday after Christmas, spent one night at home, and then loaded up our other car- this time with Jared and Tina along too- and kept heading East for a weekend trip to Philly. This little trip was actually Jared’s idea, as he had suggested some time ago that seeing some of the people and places that were most important to us in Philly would help he and Tina to know us better- and vice versa- as we plan to do a “Coleman heritage” tour of the places that are historically important to Jared and Tina in the Akron/Canton area. Anyway, loving Philly as we do, we were more than happy to oblige, knowing that it would be a bittersweet trip.

The “sweet” part of that trip was just being back in Philly again, for starters, along with seeing some of our good friends there too and attending worship with Circle of Hope. Philly is an amazing city that I’ll always love. It’s huge (for a long time it’s been #5 in population in the country, though Phoenix may have recently eclipsed it) and obviously very historic. It’s a city of “firsts-” first capitol of the country and birthplace of the nation, the first library (the “free” library) was founded there, as was the first hospital, and children’s hospital, and so much more. You can walk on streets that are as old as the country itself, and to do so is a remarkable thing. Philly is incredibly diverse, and that gives it an energy that is lacking in “Caucasian Falls” (and even the larger NE Ohio area) where I now live. Speaking of energy, there’s a “hustle and bustle” that I really like. When we got in town with Jared and Tina we drove down to Center City (downtown) and stopped by the Reading Terminal Market. We drove through the center of downtown to get there, and there were people everywhere, such that Tina remarked, “Now I understand what you mean when you say that no one is ever out” in downtown Akron or Canton. Philly is a city of neighborhoods, which isn’t the same as the “boroughs” of New York, but indulge me as I say that it may not be all that far off, either. West Philly/University City (where the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel are, among others) has a “feel” that is entirely distinct from North Philly. South Philly is definitely its own animal as well, as is Roxborough/Mt. Airy/Germantown (where we lived for most of our two times there). Moreover, Philly really feels like a “city.” It’s got an incredible transit system including buses, a subway, trolley cars, an “el”(-evated train), and regional rail system, such that you can be much less dependent on owning a vehicle (which is one of my great frustrations about NE Ohio). It’s got huge, incredible bridges going over a major body of water (the Delaware River). Obviously, perhaps, I could go on, but you probably get my point by now.

So it was cool to show Jared and Tina some of those places. We were able to stay in town with our good friends Jill and Brian, and Jill’s gift for hospitality was in full effect, to our great benefit. We also visited with our good friends Laura and Leonard and their daughter Hannah, and that evening at their house was incredibly fun and familiar. Those are good people that we really miss.

The most monumental part of our weekend in Philly was of course attending worship with the folks from Circle of Hope East. This moves us over into the more “bitter” part of this “bittersweet” trip. While Philly is the city that in many ways most captivates my imagination because it was the locale for my Kingdomworks experience- which marked an extremely seminal period in my life- it also does so because it serves as the setting for Circle of Hope, the faith community that likely most captivates my imagination (which is no disparagement in the least bit to House of Mercy- it’s just that House of Mercy-in my experience- for good or ill has always been more about what its pastors do, while Circle of Hope is unique in really creating that sense that they are a community of like-minded Jesus-followers “on a mission” together).

Kirsten and I came to Circle of Hope as barely twenty-year-old newlyweds who knew almost no one in the big city in 1996, just months after Circle began. Circle’s vision is to “build the church for the next generation” in Philly through cell groups, and it wasn’t long after finding them that we found we were part of a new family. The vision is simple really. Circle “gets” that the Church is a people, not a place, and that the “priesthood of all believers” is to be taken seriously. They further “get” that Jesus characterized his mission as having much to do with justice when he proclaimed the fulfillment of the prophet’s words at the inauguration of his ministry; so Circle seeks to be about bringing God’s peace-with-justice too. They also seem to “get” that if all this talk about the kingdom of God is to be taken seriously, it likely means that our allegiance is to that King first and foremost; so when you’re a part of Circle there is this wonderful sense that you’re a “world Christian” rather than an “American who also happens to be a Christian.” That’s a big part of the diversity that Circle strives for, and it’s apparent in the songs they sing, the practices they adopt, the other ministries they support, etc. Anyway, getting to the nuts and bolts of the vision, Circle started as a cell group-based congregation and has now grown into a network of congregations and cell groups throughout the region. The idea, as I so often say, is that as Christ-followers we’re supposed to have a life together. We’re supposed to be a discernible community. “Attending church” shouldn’t be about getting re-charged for another isolated week of pursuing the American dream. Rather, we need to be intentional about developing meaningful relationships with one another as we seek to build God’s kingdom and pursue his dream for the world. As the pastors at House of Mercy would say, “it’s not (only) about us.”

The “cell” metaphor uses the language of biology as an analogy for the “body” of Christ. Just as the cells in your body work together to make up the whole, so does the Church. Just as your body grows when those cells “multiply,” so does the Church. So a “cell group” is more than a mere “small group.” It’s not a Bible study, or fellowship group, or anything else. It’s a group of people who gather in Jesus’ name with the express purpose of (simply!) loving and getting to know one another deeply. Hence, “Jesus is the only agenda” of a cell group. When all those cell groups get together to worship on Sunday, the “public meeting” becomes a celebration of the life of the Church that is happening throughout the week in the cells. “Evangelism” in this context becomes less about inviting people to your church and more about inviting them into your life, and into the life that your church is having together. As folks really get to know and love another in cells, they start to talk about it. They tell their friends, neighbors, co-workers, loved ones, etc., and pretty soon their cell starts growing. When their cell group gets too big, it multiplies- forming two cell groups. This works because the original cell group leader has been discipling/mentoring an apprentice cell leader all along, and that new leader is ready to step up when the time is right and lead his or her own group. In this way leadership is developed and that whole “priesthood of all believers” thing gets unleashed and folks are always being challenged to realize and utilize their gifts- and not everyone has to be a leader, of course, as the “body” has many needs. Anyway, that cell multiplies and the process starts over and in this way the kingdom of God advances as folks who maybe wouldn’t have said they were Christ-followers before are drawn into a way of life “on the way” with Him. In my experience at least, it’s an intense and beautiful thing.

As a church that is intentional about being a church “for the next generation,” Circle is full of amazing, smart, resourceful “young people,” and it’s been incredible to see what all those young folks, full of vision and with their gifts unleashed, have accomplished. Circle started in 1996 with a handful of people in one congregation with a handful of cell groups, and now boasts two congregations (with two more on the way) comprised of about 44 cell groups (of approximately ten each). Along the way they’ve rehabbed (themselves) three buildings and started two thrift stores and a counseling agency-and so much more. It hasn’t all been perfect, of course. There were three congregations for a while before scaling back to the present two, and long before the two current thrift stores there was another one that didn’t make it. Even so, every failure- even some spectacular ones- were regarded as learning opportunities and those lessons learned were incorporated into the next new thing.

So, as I said above, Kirsten and I came to the fledgling Circle of Hope in 1996 and were immediately embraced by a new “family” as we got into our first cell group. That family really cared for us when our car was totaled in ’97, and the manner in which they did so gave hands and feet to the talk of the vision for Circle of Hope in a way that marks me to this day. They gave us an old car when we wouldn’t have had one otherwise and paid to get it up to par and even paid off what we still owed on the loan for the totaled car. They loved us in the most practical of ways when we needed it most. So it was with very mixed emotions that we moved away from Philly after only two years in ’98 in order to be with Kirsten’s dying father in the Twin Cities.

Of course, once there we found House of Mercy, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. The vision of the pastors of House of Mercy was to build a church that focused on the recovery of “evangelical” (good news) theology, liturgical eclecticism, and active participation in the world. Mark Stenberg, Russell Rathbun, and Debbie Blue started House of Mercy when they realized that none of their friends believed the Jesus story anymore, largely because the good news of the gospel had been turned into bad news in the hands of (in my words) “fundagelicals,” and they wanted to do something about that. They were wonderfully humble enough, however, to recognize that folks had been “doing church” for 2000 years, and they weren’t likely to suddenly discover the right way of doing church that no one had ever thought of before. So they sought to draw on the best of all that church history (hence, liturgical eclecticism) and incorporate it into what House of Mercy did. One of the ways this was realized had to do with crafting a worship experience that appealed to all five senses (like the historic church had long done). So walking into a House of Mercy service is an experiential feast, and the incense and use of candles is something that I’ve always cherished. Moreover, the arts are a really important part of what House of Mercy does too. House of Mercy “actively participates in the world” by- among other things- offering a prophetic voice to the powers that be, a duty that Modern American Christianity (or at least some parts of it) seemed to abdicate for a long time. It was at House of Mercy that I first really learned about grace (and “true” prophecy, despite having grown up Pentecostal). Still, after five years (including my seminary experience) we found ourselves drawn back to Philly and Circle of Hope. So we went.

Once back, we quickly immersed ourselves in all that Circle was doing, and felt great joy in doing so. We joined a cell group and I became its apprentice leader. That cell multiplied and I led my own group. We became part of the formation team and helped launch Circle of Hope- East. This was particularly important to me in no small part because, having gone through seminary, I had harbored a fleeting hope to perhaps be its pastor. Circle hasn’t abandoned the “professional clergy” in the sense of having paid pastors that are supported by the church, but they have done so in the sense of relying on seminary training as the key factor in determining a person’s “fitness” to lead. It’s far more important to the leaders of Circle to have a pastor that really “gets” the vision. So when we came back there was an already formed group of “intern pastors.” I asked Rod, the lead/founding pastor about joining the group, but was rebuffed (everything with Circle is “relational,” and nobody in that group of intern pastors really knew me yet/again). Joshua Grace emerged out of that group as the candidate to lead Circle East, and though disappointed for myself, I decided to do all that I could to support him.

So we helped launch Circle East, and I became one of the Cell Leader Coordinators (a leader of cell leaders; the Coordinators were the leadership team- or “board” in institutional churches- of Circle of Hope). Kirsten and I also moved in with some new friends we had made- Aubrey and Jacob White (Jacob is the oldest son of Rod White, Circle’s lead/founding pastor). We wanted to be an “intentional community” that shared resources and sought to impact our neighborhood in truly meaningful and positive ways and we hoped to raise our children and perhaps grow old together. I’ve told this story a number of times, even on this blog, I do believe, but needless to say it didn’t work out. Our son was born four months early and our entire life was disrupted/changed forever. Some folks from Circle were incredibly supportive, understanding, and non-judgmental during Samuel’s entire 115-day hospital stay, and we will be forever in their debt. Unfortunately, others- including Joshua and the other pastors and cell leader coordinators, and Aubrey and Jacob- inexplicably were not so supportive, and the stress of that situation created fissures in all those relationships that practically blew them apart. Our “intentional community” crumbled around us and my leadership role with Circle was stripped from me (“for my own good and the good of the church, it was better for me to ‘sit this one out’.”)

Obviously, there’s much, much more to it. Suffice it to say, it was very painful- so painful that we moved out of that house, eventually asked to be released from our covenant with Circle of Hope (Circle’s form of membership- something else that is incredibly meaningful and rich with symbolism which I can describe further if asked), and then ran away to Northeast Ohio. Put that way, I guess that makes our lives here a bit of a “rebound,” which leads me to the title of this post. We just completed (in Jared’s words) a “this is your life” tour having spent time in the two cities that we lived in for the better part of a decade, which is the better part of our married life together (and boy was it something to attend worship with House of Mercy and Circle of Hope on back-to-back Sundays). Having done so, I wonder- that was our life, but is it still? Am I still mostly looking back and pining for what was, regretting all the mistakes made along the way? It was so hard to be back in that room where Circle East worships above Circle Thrift- a room whose very walls I helped build. It was great to see many folks and many were very welcoming, but it was so hard to see Joshua- and he especially was not so welcoming. So what now?

I have so much guilt about being here- guilt about abandoning our life in Philly and all that it represented, regardless of the circumstances; guilt about not only leaving “the city” but buying a nice, safe, comfortable house in a (very working class- hear the rationalization?) “suburb,” guilt about so much more. If my life is about following Jesus, and for me that has everything to do with living in community and being part of something bigger than me- being part of a group of people that are seeking to change the world together and realize God’s kingdom of love, justice, and peace (and actually doing something to make that happen with rehabbed buildings and thrift stores and changed lives to show for it), is this my life? Obviously I aspire to that life I just described, but the evidence of my actual life in Cuyahoga Falls would lead me to believe that I really don’t value very much that life I supposedly aspire to, for “one of these things is not like the other.”

Well, Jared, that’s my despair. I don’t know how postmodern it is, but it’s what keeps me up at night wondering if I’ll ever be who I want to be, if I’ll ever live the life I aspire to.

…says the proverbial horse we keep beating. I actually meant to post about something else, but when I put fingers to keys, this is what came out. So be it.

So this is what my life as a purported “Christ-follower” these days looks like:

• I almost never pray, except before meals or in treacherous driving conditions.

• I almost never read the Bible, except to look up something to make a point.

• I cuss (also usually to make a point, and I’ll leave you then to make any comparisons between cussing and the Bible).

• I watch “R”- rated movies, listen to a wide range of “secular” music, and am otherwise somewhat thoroughly versed in popular culture.

• I don’t dance, but only because I can’t.

• I don’t drink beer, but only because I think it tastes gross; so I consequently do imbibe a dizzying array of “girlie drinks.”

• I don’t smoke, but again only because I think it’s gross. The same goes for tobacco in any of its other forms.

• I’m engaged in our political system- I vote “early and often,” but do so as a de facto Democrat. If given the chance, I will gladly vote for a woman or an African-American, just because I can, almost regardless of their policy stances, if only to flip the electoral “bird” at a couple centuries worth (in the U.S.) of sexist, racist politics. Having said that, I have to admit the adulterous Republican (or at least the one we all know about) intrigues me, and there’s probably a direct correlation between the degree to which this is the case and the degree to which “fundagelicans” (I just coined that- quick, somebody get me a patent. By the way, that’s the now commonly used “fundagelical”- a conflation of “Fundamentalist” and “Evangelical”- further conflated with “Republican”) are so afraid of him that they’d rather have a Mormon on the ticket (if they can’t sustain Huckabee’s recent surge, and no, Mike, at least according to this account, Mormons don’t believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers, but I digress).

• I’m part of a local congregation, but it doesn’t have any kind of formal membership, doesn’t own a building, doesn’t focus on doing a lot of programs, and doesn’t assuage my middle-class White guilt or assist me in maintaining the comfort of my middle-class White lifestyle.

According to the version of Christianity that I grew up with, all of the above would add up to me in no way being able to claim that I was in any sense a “Christian,” especially since I also don’t “speak in tongues” or otherwise manifest in any way the “life of the spirit” within. However, to my detriment I do live in a de facto suburb, shop at big box retailers, participate in free corporate advertising by wearing labeled clothes, and otherwise do my part to perpetuate all the evils of unmitigated corporate consumer capitalism, and that all by itself probably comes close to making up for all of the above in the eyes of the would be judges from my youth.

Even so, I wonder- what does this make me, and what does it mean that I still hold on to the label “Christian” inasmuch as I still find it useful even though it hardly signifies what it used to? Jared and I have been blogging a lot about identity lately (at least in a roundabout way). In your case, Jared, you’ve said that you want to live a life that is somehow about love and justice, and (as I understand you; correct me if I’m wrong) the Christian story used to serve as the basis for that life, but now no longer seems adequate, able, or maybe just necessary for it. So we’ve both seen the term “Christian” be stripped of its meaning for us, and we’re both responding to the resultant disillusionment.

Jared, you’ve talked about the freedom you’ve felt in discovering that “Christians don’t have a corner on love and justice,” and it reminds me of the manner in which I exulted so many years ago upon discovering that “God isn’t a white, anglo-saxon protestant who lives in the suburbs, shops at the mall, and votes republican.” I agree that Christians don’t have a corner on love and justice, but I think this is worth exploring a bit more. It wasn’t all that long ago that I went through quite a bit of tumult upon coming to a similar discovery. (Is it okay to bring up Buechner now? Look, I’ve gone through a nine-part list and almost three paragraphs so far without mentioning him; so it’s not like he’s my only muse or something). You’ve heard me offer this quote before; so forgive me for recycling it. I do so only because, of course, I think it’s relevant. Buechner writes:

Some think of a Christian as one who necessarily believes certain things. That Jesus was the son of God, say. Or that Mary was a virgin. Or that the Pope is infallible. Or that all other religions are all wrong. Some think of a Christian as one who goes to church. Getting baptized. Giving up liquor or tabacco. Reading the Bible. Doing a good deed a day. Some think of a Christian as a nice guy. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me’ (John 14:6). He didn’t say any particular ethnic, doctrine, or religion was the way, the truth and the life. He said that He was. He didn’t say that it was by believing or doing anything in particular that you could ‘come to the father’. He said that it was only by him -by living, participating in, being caught up by the way of life that He embodied, that was his way… a Christian is one who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and who has at least some dim and half-baked idea of whom to thank. A Christian isn’t necessarily any nicer than anybody else. Just better informed.

Along with other parts, it’s the “better informed” piece that I keep coming back to. To say that “Christians don’t have a lock on love and justice” isn’t necessarily to say that God isn’t the source of both. From my perspective, it only acknowledges the reality that if God created the world, and if God is love, then there is, in fact, something innate that would have us leaning in the direction of love and justice whether we are aware of and acknowledge the source of that love or not. As I said in one of my comments to your previous post, Jared, I think the idea that “God causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine on both the just and the unjust” also applies to the love we were all made for and the yearning we all have for justice, however marred- in varying degrees- both may be in all of us as a result of our brokenness.

I like that Buechner seems to say above that what matters is being caught up in “the way” of Jesus. That, I think, has much to do with living the kind of life that he did- a life of sacrificial love. I think there’s more to it, of course. I “know” (that is, I intuit) that somehow Jesus is the crux of it all, but I’m in no position to judge how that gets played out for anybody else but me, and by experience I know that I judge the same for myself poorly at best. I take some comfort from seeing how Jesus dealt with those around him. To one he says “Go and sell your possessions.” To another, “Don’t go- let the dead bury their own dead, but come and follow me.” To another it was simply, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Perhaps this is why we are to work out our own salvation with such “fear and trembling.”

I don’t know, and maybe that’s the best I can say about any of this. Perhaps I should have just boldly posted those three words and left us all to sort it out. Like I said before, though, I think that a life committed to love and justice, which I would say is a life lived along “the way” of Jesus, is a life well-lived indeed. I’m glad to join you in that journey, Jared. If you do it for its own sake (or for your own sake, or for the sake of the “least of these”) and I do it for the sake of Christ, I don’t know how very far apart that really puts us after all, and it may be that we both meet Jesus along the way, and realize it only in the breaking of bread after he’s gone.

For those of you who don’t watch Battlestar Galactica, let me first say that if it’s not the “best show on television,” as its promoters like to say, then it’s not far off. One of the many reasons that I’m such a big fan is that it succeeds in doing what the best of the sci-fi genre usually does- that is, it uses science fiction as a “cover” to boldly tell very timely human stories. It’s a purportedly science fiction show that isn’t really about sci-fi. In fact, as I consider it now, I might even go so far as to say that in this it functions much like prophecy (remembering that at least for the Biblical writers, prophecy was much more about “truth-telling” than it was about forecasting the future- think of Nathan’s biting “you are the man” to King David in 2 Samuel 12:7). For example, one recent episode early last season dealt with a supposedly benevolent (at least in this case), militarily superior occupying army and the “freedom fighters” who opposed them- including the rise of suicide bombers. Sound familiar?

So by this point you may rightly be wondering why I’m blogging about Battlestar Galactica (hereafter: BSG) and what this could possibly have to do with the Bible. Well, when the “re-imagined” Battlestar Galactica was launched as a mini-series in 2004, it began by telling a vivid, compelling story which set the stage for the future series. In the BSG universe, humanity is a space-faring race living on 12 planets that are colonies of a now-lost home planet. There are sacred stories (scriptures) that talk about an also-lost 13th colony- Earth, but this is essentially the stuff of legend/myth. No one has been to earth and no one knows where it is. Anyway, humanity faces a technologically superior, mortal enemy in the Cylons, who, as the mini-series opens, succeed in wiping out all 12 colonies- all 12 planets, leaving a “rag-tag” fleet of survivor ships led by a lone warship (the Battlestar “Galactica”). These few survivors have no choice but to flee or face the extinction of the human race. As they’re leaving, they gather to remember the dead, especially those who gave their lives to help the remnants of humanity escape. Commander Adama, the venerable leader of the warship, looks out upon the faces of those who are left as they wrap up this memorial service. He sees the despair in each one’s eyes, and knows that the fight to survive is already lost unless he can give them something to hope for, some reason to continue the struggle. So, in a moment of desperate intuition, he takes a major gamble. He begins to tell them again that old story of the “lost tribe” of Earth that the Scriptures talk about, and then boldly proclaims: “I know where it is!” In this moment, even if only fleetingly so, hope is re-born and some at least can begin again to imagine a future in which humanity not only survives but has a chance to flourish.

Later confronted by the political leader of the colonies, Adama admits that he does not, in fact, know the location of Earth. Interpreting for him, I might say that he knows the location of Earth, but only in hope rather than “in fact.” Perhaps not coincidentally, however, as the series progresses there is a form of “divine intervention” that does at least steer them in the direction of Earth, thereby confirming the “truth” of Adama’s hopeful proclamation. Backing up a bit, though, the question arises: did Adama tell a lie? A better question, I think, is this: is there any way in which Adama’s proclamation can be said to be true? I think the answer to the latter question is a resounding yes! While Adama’s proclamation, when first uttered, was not “factually observable,” nor did it “correspond” to anything empirically verifiable, still- I say- it has the ring of truth. It is “true,” after all, that humanity yearns and needs to survive, and that (especially in their circumstances) hope is a vital component of that survival. It’s also true, I contend, that Adama was “sure” about his hope for the survival of humanity and saw the dream of Earth as the embodiment of that hope. Thus it can be said that Adama had faith (he was “sure of what he hoped for”) as he made his proclamation.

Okay, so let’s make this a bit more personal. If I am sure of my hope for a (present?/)future in which God’s kingdom is come and his will is done, do I lie when I say I know where the kingdom of God is? I’ve said it before, after all. I’ve proclaimed it even from a makeshift pulpit, with portable heaters around in an unfinished building in the dead of winter, surrounded by between 50 and 100 Jesus-followers, all of them in their twenties. These like-minded, revolutionary “young people” were part of the newly formed Circle of Hope East, and I told them in my sermon that when people ask me where the Kingdom of God is (I get that question all the time, ya know), I can point to it. I pointed to all of them and said “you’re it.” What then, is truth? I know this is (one of) the big po-mo question(s), and you won’t get a full treatment of it in this post (there’s some truth for ya), but I do want to touch on it. Jared- you talk about truth criteria and speak of “correspondence theory”- the classic(al) Modern idea, born in the Enlightenment, that truth statements are those that correspond to something that can be observed, that is factually verifiable, etc. You do a great job in the link above of deconstructing some of that; so I won’t repeat that here. You go on to say that your truth criterion, rather than correspondence, is love. You give the example of the Holocaust and say that the person who, in order to avoid a lie, gives up Jews to the Nazis- likely to be killed- has not actually uttered a true statement, because it was (in my view) one of the most unloving speech-acts imaginable.

To tell the truth, then, is to love, but is it loving to misrepresent the facts of a particular circumstance to most people most of the time? Of course not. In some cases, though, is it more loving to misrepresent the facts? Perhaps so. Did Jesus ever do this? I would argue that he did. In John 19, as he gazed down from the cross he told his beloved disciple and his beloved mother that they were now mother and son to each other. Was this somehow “factually” the case? By no means! There was no Roman- or Jewish, for that matter- adoption court at the foot of the cross that could somehow make it all legal. Jesus didn’t perform a time-traveling, womb-twisting miracle as he died that somehow made his statement biologically “true,” yet for the most part don’t we take Jesus “at his word” here? Don’t we understand that he meant for them to care for each other, and that this hope was somehow realized by his statement?

Furthermore (I’m treading lightly, here, believe me), take the Eucharist. Did Jesus “lie” when he said that the bread was his body, that the wine was his blood? A Roman Catholic can answer with a confident “no!” because in the miracle of transubstantiation, it is “in fact” his body and blood. But even then, is this “factually observable” or “verifiable?” Of course not. Protestants don’t have it so easy, especially the so-called “free churches.” Taking Baptists as being representative of this group, they contend that in the Eucharist Jesus’ words are to be taken as symbolic, as the Feast is representative of a (non-“observable,” non-“verifiable”) spiritual “truth.” Isn’t this playing a bit fast and loose with Jesus’ words, though? How do we know this is what he meant? Is this a “literal” reading of that text? Is that argument made simply because it would be un-“reason”-able to think otherwise? Alternatively, take Lutherans. They’re (in my view) at least good enough to take Jesus at his word. They believe that Jesus meant what he said, (it somehow “is” his body and blood), but are wise and humble enough to admit that it’s something of a mystery, and that’s okay.

Getting back to my point then, and in an effort to bring this to a close, perhaps then you can see why I might say that one can learn something from Battlestar Galactica about how to read the Bible. In my example from the show that opened this post, Adama stated something that wasn’t factually true in order to serve the greater truth of the people’s need to have hope that they might survive. Does the end, then, justify the means? No! For truth must be guided by and always serve love, and love must enter into every part of the equation. It must be considered along every step of the Way. I, for one, see this dynamic at work throughout Scripture, and as I let the Bible interpret me a bit for a change, I hope that this will be evident in my own journey of becoming a Christ-ian too. I’ll have more to say about this, but (with some trepidation) let’s make it a conversation. What do you think?

It does. I’m a child… as my wife keeps reminding me.

I recently read a wonderful article by N.T. Wright called The Cross and the Caricatures in which he argues that not everybody means the same thing by “penal substitution,” and some versions are more biblical than others. Take the atonement, or the story of Jesus in general, out of the larger story of Israel and the Abrahamic covenant and you have a different, sub-biblical version of it. Even if you tell such a version using other biblical categories it doesn’t matter. The damage has already been done. Once the link has been broken between the atonement narrative and the larger narrative of Israel of which it is supposed to be the climax, the door has been opened for the caricatures to enter.

I’ve been very critical of penal subsititution lately, but this article was just the kick-in-the-pants that I needed to see that there is a critical, biblical version of this doctrine and that the problem is with the caricatures of it. I highly recommend it!

I only wish more people meant what Wright means by “penal substitution!”