Friday, January 15, 2010

What Is the Essence of Following Christ?

Since her original post generated so many comments, Ms. Chellew-Hodge authored another post elaborating on her reasons for speaking out against Warren. I commented again, and though Candace did not respond, other readers engaged me in fruitful conversation.

Diversity

Thank you for this post. I now understand your viewpoint and criticism of Warren much more clearly, and I respect and embrace your desire to reform corrupt and oppressive institutions. Your beef with Warren is that he is not radical enough. Further, you argue that all Christians should challenge the established system and tear down oppressive social structures, particularly through political activism. This is certainly a worthy activity and a key component of God's kingdom, but I would argue that it is not the only vocation open to Christians, nor does the kingdom of God consist only in social justice.

Jesus told us that his Father's house has many rooms, and Paul asserts that the body of Christ has many diverse members. Surely there is room in the church for people who help the poor directly, for people who strengthen others' hope by deepening their understanding of God, and for people who use their talents to express the beauty of God through various media, in addition to those who bring about social justice through political activism. Each of these vocations involves challenging some form of status quo or some lie that the world tells, but not all of them are in the political sphere. In short, the church ought to embrace those Christians who are called to political activism and amplify their voice as they speak against the world; however, not every Christian, and not every Christian leader, is particularly called by God to be a political activist.

I want to be clear that I'm not trying to defend Warren here: he may or may not be a good leader, but the absence of political activism does not, by itself, make him a bad leader.

Maybe I'm misrepresenting you? Do you really believe that every Christian must embody the kind of politically-oriented activism that you describe? One thing Jesus and his followers truly valued was the unity of the church. How can we ever be united in love until we learn to respect each other's diverse, God-given callings and support each other in our work?

RE: Diversity

I'm not sure how Candace would reply to this but I have my own thoughts.
Political activism isn't the only calling on a Christian and not the only way to upend the power systems that not only maintain the gap between rich and poor but widen it year by year.
The problem with most of the high profile religious leaders of your country is that they do nothing at all to remedy the situation. Many of them seem to actively support it and not a few make a fabulous living for themselves out of it. Giving a few dollars to a charity does not help the poor. It simply makes them more and more dependant on the rich and widens the gap not only in material possessions but also in the ability to make everyday choices in their lives. It takes away the last of their power.
A very few Christians have taken Christ at his word and given their entire lifestyles. I can think of examples of businessmen who have changed the pay structure of their companies so that a worker with a family to support actually earns more than the CEO. That's not political activism but it is sacrificial. And it upends the system.
My reading of Candace's criticism of Warren is that he has built a veneer of Christian charity. His giving doesn't really involve sacrifice since he leads an enviably comfortable lifestyle but he expects his followers to give sacrificially in order to shore up the budget for his church. Nowhere in what I have read of his work does he ever suggest the kind of role reversal that Jesus was preaching. If he did wash anyone's feet it would only be symbolic.
Warren is by no means the worst of the American superchurch leaders - he may even be the best of them, which is why Candace's criticism comes in for so much flak - but if he is then he is merely the best of a bad bunch.

RE: Diversity

I think I can accept this criticism of Warren. What you are saying is that Christians in leadership need to be servant-leaders, humbling themselves and bearing their followers' burdens (financial and otherwise), rather than making their followers bear their burdens. Furthermore, Warren did not exercise this type of servant leadership when he called on his followers to finance a deficit that he could have covered himself. I think it is reasonable to question his actions on this basis.

While I totally agree with the servant-leadership model, I admit that it must be very difficult to implement. For instance, in my church there are frequently homeless people in attendance. As a church, we try to help meet their needs, but does the presence of a homeless person in the congregation mean that, in order to follow Jesus's model of servant-leadership, the pastor/elders of my church must give up their homes? Most of them have families; is Christ asking them to put their families on the street? I'm not trying to be rhetorical or sarcastic; I honestly want to know what you think about this challenging question.

(For the record, my pastor and his family do live modestly, and they devote an incredible amount of time and energy to serving the church with their various gifts, but they still have an apartment).

RE: Diversity

Facing that kind of situation is always a challenge and as I see it there are no "either/or" type answers.
You mention homeless people. Should the pastor give up his apartment in order to house them? What good would that do in the end? You simply exchange one set of people without homes for another. The problem isn't solved.
Yes the church and the leadership should look very carefully at the resources they have. The leaders should be the first to do so but I don't think Christ asks to give what we don't have but we have to look at what we do have and how we can use it.
A few years ago when I lived in a different town the church I attended sold off its prestige building and bought more modest land where it built what we call "social housing" - property let for non profit rents to families on low incomes or on welfare benefits.
Again I'm not sure how Candace sees it and I'm not in the United States so I can only comment on what I read and hear of the situation there but your question does bring us back to Candace's political and social action call.
Why are these people homeless? From what I see of the US mega churches, including Saddleback, they aren't asking the right questions -or any questions - and so they never come up with a lasting solution. Why are some people poor? Jesus implied that it was because some others were rich. Judaism, early Christianity and the beginnings of Islam all held a special place for the poor and all looked with suspicion on those who amassed large personal fortunes - going so far as to describe it as sin. All of them lost this imperative to an extent and became comfortable, regarding riches as God's blessing (instead of a responsibility) and poverty as God's curse. In part, Jesus' message was to upend that.
I think Jesus would want the whole body of his followers to give what they could to help individual poor people but he stood in a tradition that would also call upon them to tackle the root causes of their poverty.
If your pastor has a home for his family I don't think Jesus would expect him to put them on the streets but I think he would expect him to challenge in any way he could a system and a national psyche that says it's acceptable for some individuals to have multiple homes they seldom use while others die of exposure on the streets.
Perhaps your pastor does this - all power to him.
My criticism of Pastor Warren and the others (and I think this is what Candace is getting at) is that this kind of challenge is absent from their action and their rhetoric.
Even if they aren't specifically called to such action they have a responsibility as leaders to preach the whole of Christ's message and not just the part which says you'll go to heaven if you believe.
The Gospel is hard - extremely hard - I'm in no position to criticise individuals for what they do but I think we all have a duty to criticise leaders where they so signally fail to make the attempt.

RE: Diversity

Well, Jesus didn't have a praise band. But, he did feed a lot of hungry people and generally disrupt the political order whenever he got the chance.

I do believe that every Christian is called to follow Jesus. I enjoy a pretty church service as much as the next one. But I don't think for one minute that anything that goes on in church is following Jesus. Oh, it's pretty. It's a lovely way to spend an hour and to feel all holy and stuff. But, it's not following Jesus.

Jesus is where the poor are, the marginalized, criminals, the insane, and the mildly different. You hardly ever see him with the popular kids, unless he's turning their temple tables over.

Sure, there are lots of different kinds of gifts. But no gift negates the mandate to follow Jesus. So, sing if you must. Even write bestselling books if it's your thing. You still have to fight the culture wars, because Jesus did.

RE: Diversity

Your description of following Jesus is appealing, but incomplete, and it leads you to some false conclusions.

In order to follow Jesus, you have to first have a pretty thorough and accurate idea of what was Jesus was all about. Most people today focus on one aspect or another of Jesus's ministry. Such focus is necessary for one person; however, when this focus is adopted by entire groups to the exclusion of other facets of Jesus's ministry, it becomes a dangerous idolatry. Conservatives think that Jesus was all about personal salvation and righteousness. Liberals claim he was all about social justice. In reality, his work encompassed and superseded both.

If you look at Jesus through the lens of the Old Testament (which is the only proper way to see him), you will see that everything he did was coupled to his identity as the Messiah, and the Messiah's job was to inaugurate the Kingdom of God. The OT anticipated that the Kingdom of God would transform and renew four key aspects of life. i) The OT prophesied of a new king who would sit on David's throne and give justice to the poor and needy. ii) It proclaimed that God would write a new law on the hearts of his people, causing them to be righteous and show love to one another. iii) The OT hinted that God would establish a new temple that would allow his people to directly experience the presence of God. And iv) it promised that God would renew creation (including both nature and humanity) and restore it to its pristine, pre-fallen state. There are many examples in the Gospels of Jesus's concern for all four of these aspects of God's kingdom.

Following Jesus includes advancing all four aspects of his kingdom. While each person will necessarily focus their life's work on one or two areas, the church as a whole must pursue all four. It is wrong for the church to promote one over the other. The Sunday worship service you talked about is primarily about (iii), so it is wrong for a church to have great music but neglect service to the poor (i). It is also wrong for a church to have a great ministry of social justice (i) but de-emphasize sanctification and righteousness (ii).

Thine is the kingdom (it belongs to You, not us), and the power (it comes by Your hand, not ours), and the glory (it is for Your benefit, not ours), forever. Amen.

My Attempt to Lovingly Confront a Christian... About Confronting Another Christian

A couple weeks ago, I responded to a post on Religion Dispatches by Candace Chellew-Hodge. Her post criticized Rick Warren's last minute appeal to his flock to bolster Saddleback's sagging finances, and the amazing $2.4M surplus it generated. In what I thought was a stretch, she speculated that Saddleback's financial troubles in the first place were the result of congregants' disillusionment over Warren's foot-dragging response to the anti-gay legislation being debated in Uganda. Ms. Chellew-Hodge did make it quite clear in her post that her theory was merely conjecture with no evidence to support it. Read her post first, then the discussion below.

Disappointment

It is convenient to cast someone's entire life in an evil light when that person disagrees with you on an important issue.

But Candace, if Warren hadn't done or said anything about homosexuality, would you care about his income or his church's finances? Would you claim to know the motives behind his giving and charity work, declaring that he does good "accidentally" and "in spite of himself" [from the comments]?

Let's compare Warren to Bishop John Spong. Spong, like Warren, will probably live in material comfort this coming year, perhaps more so than some of his former parishioners. If he didn't happen to take a certain stance on a certain doctrine, would you be actively criticizing his finances too? Would you be equally suspicious of his motives for charitable giving and service?

Or has the issue of one's opinion on sexuality risen to become the only relevant criterion in deciding whether someone is good or evil? Do you have the ability to genuinely look for the good in someone who disagrees with you on this issue? Or has the issue of sexuality become your god - the lens through which you see and judge the world?

I used to admire the way you responded to people like whodat?, and I rejoiced at the patience and love you showed to your enemies. I would love for you to convince me that I didn't get the wrong impression.

RE: Disappointment

No, my disgust with Warren has nothing to do with his stand on homosexuality. Comparing him to Bishop Spong is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, in my opinion. Bishop Spong isn't sending out emails letting us know that his budget is short this year and asking his supporters to dig deeper so he'll be comfortable this coming year.

Warren, on the other hand, is a businessman, running a business that just happens to be a mega church. He doesn't take a salary and lives in a modest house, drives a beat up truck, all lovely and admirable, but he and others like him purvey a cheap grace where God is reduced to a vending machine - or a business transaction where our prayers and good works go in and God's good blessings come out.

I don't have to agree with Warren on homosexuality but he's said some fairly disgusting stuff about gays and lesbians, comparing us to pedophiles and incestuous relationships. He has no understanding of gays and lesbians and worse yet, wants no understanding of us.

I just get the feeling that Warren is a con-man. Again, complete conjecture (which apparently everyone missed), but I sense that he's not everything he puts himself forward to be. I could be wrong, but I have a right to voice my opinion, even if it's pure speculation.

RE: Disappointment

And another thing, I never called Warren evil. I don't think he's evil.

RE: Disappointment

Fair enough. I don't know enough about Warren's ministry to say whether you're right or not (I haven't read any of his books or heard him preach). I too loathe the prosperity gospel, and if that's what he preaches, then I neither support nor defend his message. But we're not just talking about Warren's message, we're also talking about Warren the Christian.

I understand that you have clearly acknowledged your words to be conjecture - nothing more - and I don't dispute your right to post them. However, the question we, as Christians, need to ask is not "do I have a right to say/do this?", but rather "is it good for me to say/do this?". Is it good to post negative conjecture about a brother in Christ (wayward or not), in the absence of knowledge about his motives, addressed not to him directly but to the general public? Is that loving? Does it honor Christ?

Have you tried writing a letter to Warren directly and asking him, in a non-accusatory tone, about his motives, actions, theology, etc.? Even if he is unlikely to respond, at least you could say that you followed biblical protocol by confronting him individually before taking the matter to a wider audience. I mean, isn't there a right way and a wrong way for Christians to confront each other, with love?

I'm sorry for carelessly insinuating that you said/thought Warren was evil. I'm glad you don't think that, and it was wrong of me to imply that you did.

RE: Disappointment

Thanks for your reply. Funny thing this morning, my daily horoscope echoes what you said:

"However strongly you may feel, some opinions are best kept to yourself."

I suppose that's wise counsel, and should have been my horoscope days ago! :)

I have tried to correspond with Warren in the past but had gotten nowhere. He's even blocked me from following him on Twitter. (!) So, my entreaties (hopefully they were not accusatory) have gone unanswered. I would love to hear from him one way or the other.

RE: Disappointment

Haha, that's interesting about the horoscope. If only the stars could keep up with what the Holy Spirit has to say... :)

Wow, he he blocked you on twitter? What a strange thing to do. Well, I commend you for trying to start a conversation with him. Let us know, in the unlikely event that he ever responds (unless it's in confidence, of course).

It All Comes Back to the Resurrection

It's interesting to see how conversations develop organically, often within an unexpected context. This conversation between Jim Reed and me (aka reuster) originally happened in the comment thread of an article on Religion Dispatches about Pat Robertson's statements on the Haitian earthquake.

RD Reader: ...Understanding isn't about "who is persecuting whom". It's about loving people, regardless... Jesus did that, didn't he? So what's [Robertson and his followers'] excuse?

Jesus did that what's their excuse?
Posted by Jim Reed on January 14, 2010 at 1:26 PM

Religion evolves like all other life on earth. That which can propagate to the next generation and in larger numbers will survive, and might eventually dominate. Jesus was teaching something more like a humanistic philosophy. His methods could never compete with the more traditional forms of religion that have evolved over time by being able to out-influence the others. Jesus never really stood a chance in the long run. All that is left is a name.

RE: Jesus did that what's their excuse?.
Posted by reuster on January 14, 2010 at 3:00 PM

How does Jesus's teaching qualify as a "humanistic philosophy"?

Why do you say that his methods failed to compete with other religions? Christianity spread throughout the Roman empire within decades of Jesus's death and resurrection, to the extent that the Romans started to get anxious and violent about it.

RE: a humanistic philosophy
Posted by Jim Reed on January 14, 2010 at 4:05 PM

Jesus was about an approach to life, love others, treat them well, help them. It was not about a system of judging people according to how deeply they profess belief. Christianity is just a religion, and it works like other religions. It teaches belief in the name of Jesus, and belief in the scriptures. The scriptures are not there so that people will believe them. They are stories that you might find can help you see something about how to live. It doesn't matter if you believe them. God is not going to judge you by whether you have the proper system of beliefs.

RE: a humanistic philosophy
Posted by reuster on January 14, 2010 at 5:54 PM

"Jesus was about an approach to life, love others, treat them well, help them."

Jesus did not come to earth simply to tell us to love each other. Such a message would have been redundant, since God had repeatedly told his people in the Law of Moses to "love your neighbor", in so many words. In fact, Jesus went out of his way to emphasize that his teaching was the exact same as the Torah. But Jesus did not come primarily to teach, even by example. He understood that the people's problem was not that they didn't know how to love others, but that they didn't have the power to do so. Instead of simply telling them for the 100th time to "love their neighbor", Jesus came to do something about the root of the problem.

Jesus saw his execution and resurrection as central to his mission. He predicted his death several times, calling it necessary and moving towards it of his own free will. When his death finally came, Jesus was not executed for reminding people of what they already knew; he was executed for blasphemy. He was executed because he claimed to be God, and claimed to offer direct access to God through himself (thus circumventing the power of the religious authorities, and upsetting them). That's why he told his followers that they needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life. That's why, whenever someone came to him for healing, he praised them for their faith in him. Nothing excited Jesus like faith, and nothing disappointed him like a lack of faith. Jesus wanted people to trust him, to follow him to his death and resurrection, and to gain access to God through him. Only then would they be able to love others.

So no, Jesus's message was not primarily "love others" but rather "I am God; have faith in me, ingest me, come to the Father through me, die with me, rise with me! Only then will you have the power to love as I love." Jim, Jesus was the polar opposite of a humanist because he knew that humans could do nothing on their own.

I agree that God does not judge by belief, if belief simply means intellectual assent. But God does judge us by our faith, because trusting in him is a prerequisite for loving him, and for truly loving others as well.

RE: a humanistic philosophy
Posted by Jim Reed on January 15, 2010 at 4:39 AM

Bill, that sounds overly complicated. Jesus was born when he was born because that was when he was born. He was born where he was born by the luck of the draw. He dealt with the people of the area where he lived, who are much like the people of the world today. Americans might be a little different because we might be more like the people of Rome. Jesus' life was recorded in many gospels that were written in the several decades after he died. They were selected and rejected and collected by the church over the course of a few centuries. The story evolved along with the church, and in fact a primary purpose of the story was to meet the needs of the church. Don't try to read more into this than is actually there.

History begs to differ
Posted by reuster on January 15, 2010 at 6:54 AM

On the contrary, when you take the gospels and strip away everything that contradicts your preconceived notions about Jesus, you're not talking about Jesus anymore, but rather a figment of your own imagination. You're not looking at what is actually there; you're looking at what you want to be there. And you don't want to find a dying and rising God who will change your life; you want to find an ordinary guy who preached exactly what you already believe.

A point of fact: you claim that there were many gospels written in the decades after Jesus's death and that some were selected and others rejected from the final canon. This is misleading. The only gospels that scholars and historians have reliably dated to the 1st century AD are the four canonical gospels. Other gospels like the those of Thomas, Mary, Judas, Philip, Truth, etc. were written no earlier than the 3rd century, 200 years or more after the events they describe. Many gospels do not even claim to be eyewitness accounts of Jesus's teaching and ministry. These two criteria: early authorship and Apostolic (eyewitness) authority, single out Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the only trustworthy sources on Jesus. They were not simply selected because they happened to support some theological agenda of the church.

A more interesting question is: why was there even a church in the first place? The century before and after Jesus was rife with charismatic individuals who opposed the political order and attracted groups of followers. These failed Messiahs would be imprisoned or executed, and their movement would fizzle out as their followers dispersed and fled, for fear of a similar fate. The same thing should have happened to Jesus's followers. He opposed the authorities and hinted at his Messianic identity, attracting large crowds of followers. Then he was executed, and his Messianic movement should have fizzled out like all the others. In fact, in the days after Jesus's death, the gospels report that his disciples were in hiding, probably out of fear of being similarly executed.

However, history (even secular sources) tells us that these same disciples went on to spread the message of their failed Messiah throughout Palestine and the larger Roman world. Especially interesting is that they established a vibrant church in Jerusalem by preaching boldly in the backyard of the same authorities they had earlier feared. Indeed, all the disciples except John paid for their boldness with martyrdom. Against all odds of history, the cult of yet another failed Messiah exploded into a major religion overnight (Nero was persecuting Christians on the other side of the known world just 30 years later). In the disciples' own explanation, this phenomenon was entirely the result of Jesus appearing to them - in bodily form: eating, talking, walking, and touching his wounds - 3 days after his execution.

Other interesting facts of history: i)in the Jewish authorities' polemical attacks on early Christians, the emptiness of Jesus's tomb and the disappearance of his body are taken for granted. ii) Saul, the zealous persecutor of early Christians, became Paul, the Apostle of Christ, after claiming to have seen and talked with the resurrected Jesus. iii) James, the begrudging brother of Jesus who wanted nothing to do with Jesus's ministry, became one of the leaders of the Jerusalem church after claiming to have seen his brother risen from the dead, in the flesh.

Whether you believe in the resurrection or not (and if not, I challenge you to offer a consistent explanation of all of the above), Jesus was anything but ordinary in the effect he had on people, and his mission cannot be understood in ordinary terms, as you would like. His life doesn't fit into an overly simplistic paradigm; he shatters everybody's ideas about who he should be. For my own part, he has surprised me many times over.

Followers