Reincarnation?

The MSNBC website reports that the Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue of Newsweek has this article:

In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission.

You have to read it to believe it. I swear, I am not making this up.

Common Sense

This one was too good to pass up. I like Ben Witherington, and this post just about says it all, or at least better than a game based on Joel Osteen's writings. Here a few aphorism on Common Sense:


3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.


4. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.


5. Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.


6. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.


7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.


10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.


11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.


13. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.


14. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.


17. Duct tape is like 'The Force'. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.


18. There are two approaches to arguing with women. Neither one works.


And my all time favorite:
22. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

Now for something completely different...

Here is a new game from Endless Games Inc. Between the name of the manufacturer and the game, I think that pretty much says it all.

(Someone I know wrote me to say that he had played the game, and the winner was... Joel Osteen!)

The Trouble Is...

This cartoon by david hayward (who by his own confession is an artist trapped in a pastor’s body) says what's been on my mind lately. I have been doing my monthly cruise of blogs, and I am somewhat disappointed by the battle that is being waged in the name of Christ.

Way back when, when I was a wee one in Christ, the battle lines were clear: It was the Fundies against the Liberals, we knew who the enemy was, and what they believed, and how they were a threat to those of us who took the bible seriously.

Well, I've gotten over a lot of that nonsense, but the battle still goes on, and only the names of the guilty have been changed so that we know who to gnash our teeth at and bash.

One is either a target or looking for a target. Take for example, this web page from the blog Critical Issues Commentary. The purpose (oops, sorry) raison d'etre for this blog came about because the writer of the blog...

"...met regularly with a group of local pastors, often presenting position papers on timely doctrinal issues. When he found that the messages were accepted by only a few of the attendees and rarely reached the pews, he chose to speak directly to the people by initiating a bimonthly newletter."

The writer of this blog took the scriptures from the various bibles that Rick Warren uses in the Purpose Driven Life and laid them out alongside the same scriptures from NAS Bible. I'm not sure why he did this. Maybe it was to show that even with all the different versions, the word of God still says the same thing?

Or, how about this one from Extreme Theology, where they write

"Those of you familiar with Rick Warren’s writings are aware that this man is a scripture twister. He constantly rips passages out of context, exegetes bad paraphrases and generally proof texts his own ‘made up’ doctrines."

Then there is this article from USA Today that points out that

...Warren is part of the ultra-conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and all his senior staff sign on to the SBC's doctrines, such as the literal and infallible Bible and exclusion of women as senior pastors. Yet Warren's pastor-training programs welcome Catholics, Methodists, Mormons, Jews and ordained women (emphasis added).

Critics of Warren have latched onto this article as ammunition for their assault on Warren, especially the line about welcoming Mormons and Jews. I find it interesting that they lump Catholics, Methodists, and ordained women in with Jews and Mormons. The last I checked, Warren does not offer a special session for Catholic, Jews, or Mormons, everyone goes to the same sessions. So, if Mormons, Jews, and other are attending this training, they are hearing the gospel, no punches pulled. So what is so terrible about that?

I have some issues with Rick Warren, but I think it comes out of my own arrogance, believing that I am more on track with the truth than Warren. I forget that I can at best impact 15 or 20 people a month for Christ, and he has the attention of 10's of thousands. So, how would you present the gospel to that many people? If I did it, the fire marshal would close the place down because of the fire hazard from all the dry material in the place, or at the worst, a repeat of Acts 20v9.

And just so Rick doesn't feel alone, here is a blog that does a take on the theology of Rob Bell in his book Velvet Elvis, or this one about what Rob believes about hell.

Actually, I've read the book, and I am impressed with his handling of scripture, and the insights that he shares, but that doesn't seem to be the view of his commentators.

Then of course, we can't let the day pass without taking out our theological rulers and rapping Brian McLaren's knuckles. Truth War Central has a list of quotes by McLaren, including this sample of "outright heresy":

"I don't think we've got the gospel right yet. What does it mean to be 'saved'?.... I don't think the liberals have it right. But I don't think we have it right either. None of us has arrived at orthodoxy."

As a voracious reader (when my attentions spans allows it), I've seen a lot of this material in it's original context. And I am disappointed by what I read on these posts and blogs. I have no doubt about the sincerity of the writers, but there are some things that bother me. Let me list a few things that I think writers and bloggers need to be aware.

1. Guys (and gals), try to be a little more discerning as you read. Take for example this quote from McLaren that is put forth as unorthodox:

"What if Jesus' secret message reveals a secret plan?".... What if he didn't come to start a new religion--but rather came to start a political, social, religious, artistic, economic, intellectual, and spiritual revolution that would give birth to a new world?"

––Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, p. 4

I've read the book, and I remember this quote quite vividly, because I thought McLaren was right on target. The way it is presented in the blog makes is look like McLaren is saying something completely different from what he says in the book.

So, try to be a little more discerning. Make sure that you are reporting what the writer/speaker is actually saying, not what you think you hear through your filters and presuppositions.

2. This brings me to the next point. Let's try a little more charity when we discuss things that someone has said or written. Isaiah reports God as saying "Come, let us reason together." God had brought a charge against his people, and now he was calling them to discuss and defend themselves before him. He was calling them TO judgment, not pronouncing it. Don't we owe the targets of our posts the same courtesy?

3. Related to this is the reality that we are our own worse enemies. These attacks do more to debilitate the cause of Christ than any broadside we get from our adversaries. Muslim apologists, for example, take these attacks and arguments as illustrations of the unworthiness of Christianity, and that so much disagreement must prove that it is not true. Let's not give them ammunition for their Dawa.

4. I am also appalled by the ad hominem arguments used in many of these articles. Attacking the person never has a place in the life of the Christ follower, so please, stick to the issue.

5. There is also the practice of impugning motives for the subjects of our posts. It is easy to paint with a broad brush, and it is a good way to vilify someone as well. Be more careful in this area.

6. Finally, a professor once told me (a LONG time ago) that it is easy to attack and tear down, but how will you rebuild it so that it is more viable? I think we need to look at the issue in this context, in order to sort out what really needs to be done. Instead of shelling and bombarding indiscriminately, how do we work to reach out to those whom you think are being lead astray. What about those who have not heard the message of the gospel, or not taken the step of faith that turns them to follow Christ?

Throwing out punches through a blog is not going to be taken seriously by those who do not follow Christ. I use bloglines to track my favorite blogs, and quite frankly, based on the subscriber numbers given when I add a blog, most of us don't have much of a following inside the camp either. So perhaps a little perspective is in line?

We also seem to forget that the Roman Empire was not transformed by a long list of bloggers and writers, but by people, one by one, who lived the Christ life and witnessed to others through their lives the reality of the one they followed and served. Open proselytizing was frowned on, and criticizing the Emperor wasn't the best idea either.

John says that "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written (John 21v25)." Well, we are still writing about what (we think) Jesus did or didn't do, but we've move out of the libraries and now piling it up on the internet.

Let me finish with another cartoon by david hayward. I once had an old saint tell me that we Christians not only shoot our wounded, we often bury them as well.

I have no doubt that I will get some feedback and flack about this post, but that's okay. I like a good discussion as much as the next person (after all, I've been to bible school, right?).

But don't come after me waving the bible in my face saying how we are supposed to do this or that to defend the faith. I agree, we are to be ready to give a defense of the hope that lies within us, but we are not called to bludgeon others based on some general command Paul gave to Timothy or whomever.

So do your homework, and come, let us reason together.

Swarm Theory

When we visited Grenoble a few years ago, my friend Matt told me about what he called the Hive Mentality, which states that the group or colony is smarter than the individual, and that the group will work together successfully without a leader. At the time, I thought that Matt was pretty smart and the subject very intense.

Well, three years later, I still think Matt is pretty smart, and I still think that the topic is still very intense. I came across an article online at the National Geographic website about Swarm Intelligence. Swarm intelligence is based on the study of collective behavior in decentralized, self-organized systems (e.g., insects, birds, and fish). Basically the thrust of the argument is this:

“Ants aren't smart," Gordon says. "Ant colonies are." A colony can solve problems unthinkable for individual ants, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, allocating workers to different tasks, or defending a territory from neighbors. As individuals, ants might be tiny dummies, but as colonies they respond quickly and effectively to their environment. They do it with something called swarm intelligence.”

The incredible thing about swarm intelligence is that...

One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one's in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all—at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.

Another thing that fascinates me is how ants (or in this case, bees) arrived at decisions. In one test, they set out five boxes as potential hives for bees and watched as the scouting bees investigated the potential new nests. After bees had visited all the boxes, a decision had to be made which one would make the best nest.

The decisive moment didn't take place in the main cluster of bees, but out at the boxes, where scouts were building up. As soon as the number of scouts visible near the entrance to a box reached about 15—a threshold confirmed by other experiments—the bees at that box sensed that a quorum had been reached, and they returned to the swarm with the news.

The decision making process was very simple; seek a diversity of options, encourage a free competition among ideas, and use an effective mechanism to narrow choices. All this without someone with the gift of leadership.

This has brought me back to the question I’ve posted on more than once, what is “leadership” in the context of the body of Christ?

This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians about the body:

¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body (1 Cor. 12v18f).

In an Ant colony, there are workers, a queen, foragers, nurses and the like. Each has a different function, yet they all function together as a colony. How much like the function of the body of Christ?

The key to swarm intelligence is that the sum of the individuals is greater than the whole. Individuals all may have a function, but it is understood in the context of the need of the whole colony.

It also appears that the interaction of the individuals in making a decision is key to the well-being of the colony.

What does this all mean? I think maybe we need to think of the body of Christ as less a bunch of people meeting together in one place and more as a colony. With all the emphasis that the writers of the New Testament put on the collective of the body of Christ, the current mindset about leadership in the church is a little thick-headed. Most of it is centered on the individual, and not on the group (or colony).

Such thoughts underline an important truth about collective intelligence: Crowds tend to be wise only if individual members act responsibly and make their own decisions. A group won't be smart if its members imitate one another, slavishly follow fads, or wait for someone to tell them what to do. When a group is being intelligent, whether it's made up of ants or attorneys, it relies on its members to do their own part.

I find the part interesting about not waiting for someone to tell them what to do. As I said in an earlier post, we want a hero who will tell us what to do so that we can disengage and not have to do our part. But what if Christians tried to listen to God and did what they thought they were supposed to do, and did this is concert with other Christians who are trying to listen to God, wouldn’t we have something that looks and acts like a colony? More importantly, wouldn’t we be closer to the idea of the Body of Christ that we find in Scripture?

Anyway, one last thought from the article:

"A honeybee never sees the big picture any more than you or I do," says Thomas Seeley, the bee expert. "None of us knows what society as a whole needs, but we look around and say, oh, they need someone to volunteer at school, or mow the church lawn, or help in a political campaign."

I think the idea of the gifts of the Spirit is that the life and ministry of Christ is spread out among a group of people, acting responsibly, which will bring wholeness and Shalom to the colony. The focus isn’t on me, seeing prayer as a spiritual cosmic slot machine that we plug our prayers-nickels into in order to hit a spiritual jackpot.

Why do we have leaders? Probably for the same reason Moses allowed divorce.

The Colony of Christ. Hmmm.

It would make an interesting experiment.

We Need a Hero

I arrived at an interesting conclusion the other day as I was discussing a sermon with my wife I had just preached. I spoke on the concept of being someone after God's own heart. The premise centers on the idea of David, who, for all his lechery and sinfulness, God still called a person after his own heart. (Which I now agree is true, by the way, but that's another sermon.)

As I followed the development of the need for a king in the book of 1 Samuel, you first find a people who are morally corrupt. Judges 21v25 says that there was no king in Israel in those days, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

Next we see corrupt leadership, first in the sons of Eli (ch. 2), and then in the sons of Samuel (ch. 8), whom even the people of Israel saw as crooks.

The chaos of those days are seen in the review of Israel's history in ch. 12, one of rebellion, idolatry, punishment, and deliverance. When Samuel cries out to God about his rejection by the people, the LORD reminds him that it isn't about Samuel, it's God they are rejecting.

Considering that it was the moral decline of the nation that had created the necessity for a king, and that the people’s desire for a king originated from a purely national and not from a religious motive, it is not surprising that Samuel is unwilling to comply with the demand for a king. Instead of recognizing that they themselves were responsible for the failures of the past, they blamed the form of government they had, and put all their hopes upon a king.

As I thought about this, I saw the paradigm of politics in America summed up in this idea. Living in Europe, I like to think I'm a bit more "objective" about US politics. Maybe not, but much of what I have seen since the beginning of the Reagan hegemony is that we don't want to deal with the issues. Give us a leader who can tell us what to do. Or as Israel said, "save us, then we will serve you."

That means that I can remain emotionally unattached and unchallenged by the issues that we face in our country today. Yes, family values are important, but what of the family values that allow the children of someone else's family to be malnourished, poorly educated, and turned into social pariah's that we affectionately call the "Poor."

Or family values that allow obscene amounts of money and lives to be spent on creating an economic enterprise zone in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Our moral failure has caused us to abandon ship on our country, and we seem to lack the will to face the issues. Instead, give us a leader that is tough on crime, on terrorism, _______(fill in the blank) who will guarantee our lifestyle at the level to which we are accustomed. We need this person to take charge so that we can remain in the moral and social apathy that we so deeply enjoy, so I don't have to commit to getting involved.

The thing is, we have a hero, but since he doesn't have a mask and a gun that shoots silver bullets, we don't take him seriously.

Are you listening?

I find it interesting when things seem to flow together. For example. I have had some long conversations with a friend about our church, and what it should look like. One of the things that my friend said is that our church is a crossroads.

A crossroads is a place where two or more roads meet. It is also a place where people tend to congregate at they travel these roads.

The Roman empire was noted for their roads, which facilitated travel across the length and breadth of the known world. Paul knew these roads and traveled them during his journeys, eventually ending in the city of Rome.

What was unique about Paul, and Christ as well, was that they knew the importance of a crossroads. Galilee was such a crossroads, and his teaching and preaching focused on the crossroads between Greek and Hebrew culture.

Paul focused on the major cities of Asia Minor and Greece, planting churches that would impact the people that passed through them with the claims of the gospel. These churches were planted in cities that were crossroads.

What my friend suggested was that Grenoble is a crossroads. People come here literally from all over the world, stay a while, and then move on elsewhere. We have people from the UK, France, US, Canada, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, China, Germany, Singapore, India --which is just a partial role call. If that is the case (and it is), what are we as a church doing to impact these people? How do we help them to begin a journey of faith with Christ, or to equip these saints for ministry, so that when they leave, they will be prepared to minister to others at their next stop?

This past weekend, Harry, the speaker at the men's dinner, spoke about hearing what is really said. As the story goes, he was driving in the country when a woman drove by and yelled "Pig!" at him. He leaned out the window and yelled "Cow!" He then came around a bend in the road and had to stop quickly, in the road in front of him was the largest pig he had ever seen.

I didn't think much about it at the time. Nor did I think much about the email I received from another friend discussing the vertical and horizontal axes of the cross. The upward axis is the Christian life lived to and for God, and the horizontal axis is the Christian life lived to and for other Christians and others who have yet to follow Christ in the faith journey.

I've heard it before, so basically I filed it away. During the sermon on Sunday about the church in Acts 2v42-47, the main illustration was a picture of a cross, with a discussion about the significance of the horizontal and vertical axes, as mentioned above.

I was beginning to hear. I knew that the church should be a crossroads, but I hadn't considered what that looked like. We had to be a crossroads, but to do that we had to have both the horizontal and the vertical axes in place and in balance. And, quite frankly, seen from above, the crossroads is cross shaped.

So Harry, I think I got what you meant. You need to listen to what is said, but often what is said is in a conversation, which means it often comes in little pieces. It also means that sometimes you don't get it right off, it had to soak for a while before you can do anything with it.