200 Posts!

This marks 200 posts on this blog. Time to brag! :)

Also, for those who were curious, the reason there are these weird "@____" after the blog titles is because the posts automatically cross-post on my Twitter account. Putting the @TwitterUserName allows them to be marked in Twitter for particular people to see. (If you have a better way of doing, please let me know!)

Are We Good Or Evil? @jonathanbrink

Jonathan Brink recently released his book, Discovering the God Imagination, and he provided me a complimentary copy to review.

In this book, he tackles the assumptions most Christians have over the salvation story. He nicely argues that most theories and interpretations place the problem outside of us: On God, on Satan, on the law. And the solution is that a ransom has to be paid to one of those things. Each way of approaching this problem has major problems of its own (which Brink details).

Rather, he argues that the problem is actually our perception of ourselves, specifically how we answer the question, "Are we good or evil?"

Beginning with the creation story, Brink argues that God has judged humanity as good. What happened with the Fall is that we have given into a lie that we are evil and only redeemable through violence and bloodshed.

Brink continues through major stories within the Bible, exploring how God is not judging humanity as evil, but rather engaging in redemptive acts. What Brink says is that God's actions are not for him or for Satan, but rather for us. WE are the ones who need the violence, judgment, etc. Without that, we are unable to see the lie we have given into.

The best analogy I can think of is the standard interpretation of the establishment of kings in Israel. God didn't want or need kings. Israel wanted them. And God gave them a king to show them that this would not solve the problem. As Brink ays, "The long, slow progression of God interacting with a chosen group of people reveals an astonishing idea. God establishes and uses the human constructs in Israel to exhaust their possibility. God allows Israel to explore pride, social comparison, relationships, the law, and religion to see that they don't work" (p. 195).

All our ways of trying to save ourselves don't work. We need Jesus. However, it is not God, Satan, or the law who requires this sacrifice. It is humanity:

The religious contract is our final demand for satisfaction. We need the atonement. We need a way to appease our own sense of guilt. We demand something so perfect that it will fill our sense of violence with a nauseating stench. The brutality of this act is seen the moment we place our own children in the hands of the crowd. What we would never do, God does for us. The final act of atonement is the father giving up his son at the demands of humanity. (p. 239)

This is a rather radical idea and one I haven't heard before. I'm still processing it and its theological consequences (many of which Brink skillfully tackles). I can see many more conservative Christians getting up in arms with this "new" perspective. But that's the problem: Our perspective. We need to change it anyway. And the theological implications of this interpretation are actually quite in line with traditional, orthodox Christianity. It just approaches it all differently. And that can be quite good.

Everything he says fits with what I know about the Bible, God, and humanity. It all fits. I've had a lot of problems with many of the traditional salvation interpretations. There's hole that just don't fit with what we know about God.

As a result, I highly recommend this book. Not only does Brink present a very good, well written theological treatise, he does so while approaching the Bible as completely true (unlike even some of the traditional theologians). He knows the Bible well. And truly the arguments come from the Bible.

Additionally, Brink is part of the emerging conversation, which has contributed to a lot of deconstruction of our preconceived notions of church, theology, God, ourselves, etc. One of the things I particularly appreciate about this book and Brink is summarized in the book's subtitle: "Reconstructing a Whole New Christianity." Deconstruction is important, but so is reconstructions, which is the purpose of this blog.

My one complaint about the book is actually the cover. It looks a cheesy, bad theology book or some lame New Age, self-help book. But we have to remember not to judge a book by its cover, right? :)

I Choose Superheroes

As some of you may have seen, the (in)famous Westboro Baptist Church made an appearance at Comic-Con. I still don't understand who God hated at Comic-Con that would make them make such a trek (hopefully not Trekkers :) ).

If you look at the pictures in the article, you'll first see the counter-protest (very clever, by the way, and I would have loved to participate, so you can see which side I land on here). But just a little ways down, you can see some of the signs the church members hold.

Some examples:
God hates America

Antichrist Obama

You're going to Hell

You hate God
God is your enemy
And my personal favorite: God hates you

Not only do I believe these are completely unbiblical statements, I also don't see how they are helpful in any sense of the word. Even if they were all true, how does making glaring signs of these statements make ANY change?

Many of us do have signs, bumper stickers, license plate frames, posters, etc. with more accepted sayings, often with the hope of changing someone's life or bringing them to Christ.

When was the last time you were transformed by a sign?

God Told Me To Review @GodMadeMeDoIt

A couple of months ago, I shared about a book I found (er, God led me to) that told of the wondrous things He tells people to do. After being given the revelation of the existence of this tome, God then told me to review it. God told the author and his publicist to grant me a review copy. And so today you get a review.

Marc Hartzman does a much better job at humor than I do in God Made Me Do It. The premise is summarized in the subtitle: "True stories of the worst advice the Lord has ever given his followers." In 1-2 page vignettes, Hartzman summarizes tales of times people have used God as an excuse to do a variety of things. The book is a sort of Darwin Awards of God's advice.

As a Christian, I don't think God actually told people to do these things. As I'm sure Hartzman was well aware, I bet some people could be offended by his sarcasm. He does include some high-profile people in his work (particularly from the prosperity gospel tradition).

However, I saw nothing blasphemous in this book. In contrast, I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it if you enjoy this kind of humor. I would suggest reading only a few stories at a time, though. I read many more than that at one point, and they stopped being as entertaining, so I think they're more effective on the humor side in the short-term.

My reaction to reading more at once may be telling of another, perhaps unintended message of this book: I kept thinking, "This is really sad." In fact, it is sad how much we, as a society, use God to explain things we want. And how much we accept that from others without really challenging those comments. Granted, it's hard to challenge.

But perhaps this book is not just useful for its humor: Perhaps it can remind us that we really need to get back to truly listening to God and knowing what he will and will not say. I guess that is a function of humor--it lets us look at something with a fresh eye with less defensiveness involved.

Evangelical Representative @OutOfUr

Last week, John Ortberg penned an article on the Out of Ur blog (which I highly recommend, by the way), entitled, "Who Speak For Evangelicals?" He describes how evangelicalism has become increasingly divided, so there is no central voice that can be identified as THE voice of evangelicalism.

He points out many of the problems that can occur with the lack of clear leadership, particularly in contrast to the Pope and Catholicism (there's no doubt who has the final word). And I agree, this can cause some confusion.

However, I think the benefits of no clear spokesman outweigh any disadvantages. This is coming, though, from someone who is not a particular fan of authority and being told what to do. Particularly in the realm of spirituality, though, I believe it is important to have autonomy and to be able to be identified independently of any denomination, movement, church, or even religion.

When we insist on putting others in boxes (or putting ourselves in a box), we lose the richness of the intellectual diversity God granted all of us. And we also lose the sight of the fact that none of us will ever get all of theology correct. As we continue to institutionalize faith more, the organicity that brings life to faith is lost. And we lose the ability to speak freely (as discussed in yesterday's post), leading to hiding and shame.

I don't want someone to speak for me. I want to speak for me. What about you?

Permission to Speak Freely @speakfreelybook @flowerdust @christianaudio @caReviewers

This last week I had the privilege to listen to an audiobook version of the soon-to-be-released Permission to Speak Freely by Anne Jackson courtesy of a complimentary copy from christianaudio's reviewers program.

The basic idea intrigued me: Jackson asked on her blog, "What is one thing you feel you can't say in church?" The book is an outgrowth of the responses she received from that and her own experiences.

This is definitely one of the absolute best books I have reviewed for christianaudio. It is also one of the best nonfiction Christian books I have ever read (or listened to). It very much coincides with the mission of this blog of encouraging people to be honest and authentic about their struggles and having the permission to speak freely about difficult matters.

Jackson does a beautiful job of describing the problem of restricted dialogue, not only in the institutional church, but also throughout society. It causes more damage than good.

The way she humanizes the struggles is phenomenal. It is the first book in a very long time that has brought tears to my eyes, not only from sadness of the pain we all cause others, but also because of the hope she reminds readers/listeners of.

Through her commentary on the core of problems that take our attention (like addictions to substances and sex), she also helped me remember why I entered the field of psychology and not give into the push to focus on symptom management. It reminded me to take a wider and deeper perspective with myself and others.

She states at the end of the book that she cannot give some nice, easy steps to solve the problems like most self-help books do. While it's true she does not provide a formula (which would have ruined the book), she did provide a solution: Relationships. Honest, authentic relationships where people can engage one another, challenge one another, and grow IS the solution.

It's not easy. And it takes a lot of courage. I loved her recognition of this in discussing giving the gift of going second (if you want to know more, read or listen to the book! :) ). If we can use this courage, though, the results are astounding.

However, we still have work on developing a culture, both inside and outside of the institutional church, where we can give people the permission to speak freely about anything. The church building should be a safe place, a sanctuary, where people can openly struggle. Instead, it's often turned into the exact opposite.

On a final note, I also love the fact that Jackson read the book herself. As I have said before, I prefer books read by the author, even if they are not all that polished. This book is intensely personal on many levels. It would have definitely lost some significant meaning if a professional narrator was hired.

Type 1 and 2 Miracles

Following-up on last week's post on miracles, there was another BioLogos post on miracles, describing what they term as Type 1 and Type 2 miracles. The former is "providential timing," meaning all the things work out perfectly together. The latter is more of the type that violates nature (the more obvious miracles).

This may be a good way of working with the debates people have over how to define a miracle. My guess is that most of us probably do agree, but as a friend said in the comments of my original, it can be about semantics.

I do believe we have to be careful about relegating all miracles to only what God can obviously do, though, because then we can fall into the idea of the "God of the gaps," where God only does what science cannot explain. And that gap gets smaller and smaller everyday.

I fully believe God works through science and in ways that we can "explain away" fairly easily. And that's the beauty of his work.