Classic iMonk Post

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1. State briefly what you believe about the Bible.

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is set down in Scripture, or may be deduced from Scripture. In scripture, God revealed what he wanted us to know about himself, ourselves and his Son. The Bible is inspired, true and the final authority for the Christian. Most importantly, the Bible is God’s revelation of his Son, Jesus Christ, and his Gospel.

2. How is the Bible inspired?

God inspired all things that in any way affected the production of the writings that make up the Bible in order to say what he desired to say in language. That inspiration contains supernatural events, but the production of the writing itself is natural in process, and it is unique, God-breathed and God caused. Human beings wrote Scripture, but the ultimate message of the Bible is because of the authorship of the Holy Spirit. The focus of the inspiration of the Bible is Jesus Christ and the gospel. Discerning inspiration is a matter of discerning the relationship of Jesus Christ to what was written.

3. So is the book of Judges inspired, or only the Gospels?

The inspiration of the book of Judges is the same as the inspiration of the Gospels, but they occupy different places in the trajectory toward the Bible’s message. Judges shows our need for a savior and previews human pictures of that savior. The Gospels tell us of that savior explicitly. If a person considers the book of Judges apart from Jesus, however, it has no importance as Christian scripture.

4. How is the Bible authoritative?

It conveys the person, work, words, accomplishment, story and meaning of the person of Jesus Christ to the church in the way God chose to express that story. There is no other source of authority in the church. The relationship of the Bible and the church is a relation where one does not exist without the other, but the Church submits to the authority of God mediated through Jesus Christ in holy scripture.

5. Is the Bible a human book?

The Bible was written by human beings. It did not drop out of heaven i.e. Joseph Smith. It is not written in a magical, miraculous way i.e. the Koran. The production of the Bible was a human process. The supervision of the Holy Spirit in NO WAY took away that human element at any point. But the inspiration of the Holy Spirit insures that what was written is not MERELY human, but is what God himself desired to say.

Some seem to feel that this statement negates Biblical prophecy and explicit passages where God spoke or appeared, etc. I am not saying there is no divine element in the Bible or divine action in history (how silly.) I am saying the production of the Bible was a human process. Whatever happened in the mind or experience of the author, the actual WRITING of the scripture was a human process, even when the author was told exactly what to write.

6. Are there aspects of the Bible that are not divine?

None of the Bible is purely divine in the sense that, for example, an angel took up the pen and wrote. It is a collection of human writings that exist because God the Holy Spirit supervised their creation. In portions of Holy Scripture, the “human” element is unmistakable, but this has nothing to do with the inspiration of the Bible. That the author of Psalm 137 wished for babies brains to be bashed in does not negate the ultimate purpose of that Psalm to introduce us to Jesus and the Gospel.

7. Why do you call the Bible a conversation?

Because I read it.

Read Deuteronomy’s strict covenantal conditionalism; read Proverb’s oberservational wisdom, then read the entire book of Job. Tell me there isn’t a conversation going on between Job and his friends over God’s justice.

There is a Biblical conversation about matters ranging from the wisdom of having a King, to the nature of the afterlife, to the justice of God, to the nature of the Messiah, to the relationship of faith and works.

That this conversation exists doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t teach a doctrinal or confessional truth on these things. It does mean we need to discern the various threads of the conversation that exist in the Bible, and not misrepresent the simplicity of an issue.

8. What do you believe about canonization?

The church did it, by listening to what writings said and discerning what writings were the revelation of God regarding his Son Jesus and his Gospel. While Christians believe canonization was a work of providence, they do not believe it is a work of the inspiration of the Spirit like the creation of scripture. The church, in various ways, discerned the nature of scripture over time and set aside those writings it believes are inspired. It is their relation to Jesus Christ, and not some magical process, that discerns the nature of the canonical books.

9. Do you reject the inspiration of some books?

No. What I do is make an attempt to focus on the Christ-related aspect of any portion of scripture, and that means I do not place as much importance or influence on some passages as other Christians. I am less interested in books apart from Christ than other Christians. For example, Proverbs as a course on parenting doesn’t interest me. Proverbs as related to Jesus does. Genesis as creation science doesn’t interest me. Genesis about Jesus and the Gospel does.

10. Anything else you want to say?

Yes. WCF 1 says that scripture says what God wants it to say. Barth says that the Holy Spirit takes the Bible and makes it the Word of God to you. I know there is some distance between Barth and the WCF, but I also think it is worth considering that the Holy Spirit is active in many ways with scripture, both in its production and in its proclamation/illumination. Making the “inspiration” of the Bible a matter of affirming one or two of the “right words” and ignoring what the Spirit does in all of scripture to make Christ real to those who hear the Word is foolish. And I am not a heretic for saying so.

11. is your theology “inconsistent?”

Probably. First, if someone thinks their “consistency” captures God in a theological zoo, then have a nice day. Yahweh isn’t in captivity in anyone’s theological game preserve. Second, I am in the emerging corner when it comes to theology as a “package.” I am tired of being told that believing the Bible = accepting modernistic inerrancy = Five point Calvinism = Limited atonement = like all the same theologians = read all the same books = despise and ridicule all the same people = the whole culture war = whatever is next. I completely reject that mentality. Give me inconsistency, post-evangelicalism and the crew that sails all the seas.

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UPDATE: If “inerrancy,” a term that doesn’t appear in any major confession or creed, equals “being a Christian” to you, then let me encourage you to stop worrying about the effect of this blog. I’m happy to have you here, but if a non-Biblical word is the essence of defining my relationship to God through Jesus and the center of your ability to accept me, then don’t wait around for me to change my mind. Move on.

NOTE FROM CM: I regularly direct people to Michael Spencer’s classic essay, The Original Talk Hard: Defending the Role of the Critic in Christianity. I do this when we get criticism that we are being unloving and judgmental. I’m sure we fall into that trap sometimes, but the point is — there is a place for healthy, robust public critique, disputation, and debate within the Body of Christ. This lies at the heart of the prophetic tradition, and was exemplified by Jesus and the apostles. We need to be careful, yes. We should not jump to conclusions about motives. We try to publicly critique only those who put themselves forward publicly. We remain open to critique from others. Etc.

Today, we present a follow-up piece that Michael wrote to his original essay, which focuses on the place of dissent and individual conviction within a common culture.

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Recently, I received an email from someone who has been a longtime reader of this blog, giving his reasons for being a regular reader and generous supporter.

This particular reader appreciated the writing I’ve done on the subjects of mental illness, psychiatric medication and emotional health. As this person is a professional in those fields and far beyond me in understanding, I was understandably happy to read that email.

I have received many thousands of emails in the last 8 years of Internet Monk. A sizable portion express appreciation for something that deserves a moment’s consideration: that this blog is one of the few places some folks have found where certain points of view can be discussed with relative civility.

I won’t attempt a listing, but any regular readers will know that I’ve made it part of the mission of this blog to be present an alternative view of any number of issues within evangelicalism in particular. I do so with provocative writing if possible, and with active moderation of the discussion. I’ve done this without expectation of finding there would be thousands of people reading and thinking: “O I’m not the only person who feels this way.” In fact, I’ve expected considerably more hostility and objection than I’ve received.

Recently, the IM comment threads have started routinely going over 100 comments. Interpret that as you will. In all the time I’ve done this blog, I have temporarily banned around 20 people, and absolutely banned 2.

Yesterday, a commenter aired the usual complaints at me:

• I don’t affirm inerrancy.
• I’m critical of “my brethren.”
• I give “Papists and liberals” plenty of space.
• I limit conversation.

Of course, as most readers know, I fully affirm the truthfulness of the Bible in the language of the Second London Confession and the Westminster Confession. Ask any of the dozens of advocates of gay marriage and gay ordination how I’m doing on taking the Bible seriously. What I’m not doing is allowing the word “inerrancy” to become a code word for a set of positions I don’t believe the Bible teaches. I’m not turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy that the “inerrancy” stampede has foisted on my denomination. Give me a confession made before the word “inerrancy” was invented, and I’m perfectly content.

There are thousands of people who don’t buy the kind of flat, literalistic inerrancy that is being sold among conservative evangelicals today, and, sorry to disappoint the gallery, but we don’t have to. Being a Baptist doesn’t force me to buy the search for the ark, young earth creationism, Hamm/Hovind, complementarianism, homeschooling, conspiracy theories, Dobson’s view of politics, bad Christian art, arrogant leaders, bad scholarship or the SBC’s view of itself as compared to other denominations.

Yes, I am critical of some of my brethren. I’ve never lived a day in Protestantism that there wasn’t a critical conversation going on. If the memo has gone out that we’ve stop asking questions and contending for answers, I didn’t get it. My blog is one tiny voice in the midst of a massive evangelical self-promotion machine. When I first called for the outing of Osteen as a motivational speaker, what had you heard from anyone in the evangelical establishment about him? (Oh, that’s different. Of course it is.)

The animosity some have towards this writer and this space comes simply because I have staked out a different position than they’ve been led to believe is the only allowable, God-endorsed, position allowed by the Christian worldview. Their orthodoxy, and the God who sponsors it, requires that dissent be quenched as an act of faithfulness. When I express dissent and protect its expression by others, I’m certain to be told by some amateur fundamentalist Freudian there’s something psychologically wrong with me. (Friend, if you believe you are the ultimate measure of mental health, please go on a world tour so the rest of us can see what it looks like. But just between you and me, I wouldn’t quit my day job on that one.)

The commenting voices at this site give witness to another view. There are Protestants who aren’t Catholics and don’t hate Catholics. There are Catholics willing to talk with Protestants as fellow Christians. There are Orthodox and mainliners seeking to relate to evangelicalism. There are Lutherans insisting we all know nothing about law and gospel. (That’s a joke.) There are Baptists who question the “What we need is more evangelism!” mantra. There are evangelicals who have nuanced views on the issue of abortion, women’s ordination, the nature of homosexuality and the Christian view of mental illness. There are people who give “Papists” and “liberals” space to talk just like the other kids in the class. There are many of us lost in the evangelical wilderness trying to find a drink of water and some food.

I don’t endorse all these views or their opposites. There are a number of issues where I’m not sure what I think, but I am determined to not be railroaded into being told that I must endorse or bow down to positions that I do not hold, am not required to hold and are not my conviction. I’m just as determined to tell my audience that other views exist as held by REAL PEOPLE.

Roger Williams

If you look out in the back yard of the last twenty years of battles in the Southern Baptist Convention, there’s a baby in the bathwater. That baby’s older name was “soul competency.” More recently, he went by the name “priesthood of the believer,” but I like the previous name much better. In the “battle for the Bible” in the SBC, the moderate/liberals took those terms and used/abused them, causing conservatives to spend most of two decades bad-mouthing “soul competency” and “priesthood of the believer” as anathema to Bible-believing Christianity. Some of that response was necessary, but some of it has been singularly unfortunate and overblown.

In truth, Baptists have historically stood with the individual in his right to have his/her own convictions in regard to what scripture or a person’s own religion teaches. We sided with that principle when it caused us to defend Muslims and atheists. We sided with that conviction as a proper summary of Luther’s contention that his conscience about the Bible was adequate defense as to why he stood against the Pope. We defended that principle as essential to the classic definition separation of church and state endorsed religion. We understood that, without embracing all the tenets of anarchic individualism, it was right to protect and hear the minority. We rejected, historically, the tyranny of a class of theological enforcers and their political ambitions. We defended confessionalism, but we did not mindlessly defend all levels of uniformity. We realized, after painful lessons in the civil rights era and beyond, that the majority and their Bibles can be completely wrong.

Today, we live in an evangelicalism that is enamored with numbers and success. And of course, those vast numbers are told they must think, write, worship, vote, educate, live, preach and teach identically to one another because they possess the truth. (Or someone at the home office does…somewhere.) This is the sadness of being ranted at about the “sin” of refusing to use the proscribed word to describe inspiration or of daring to differ with some well-funded, fat cat majority with a mailing list. I may be wrong, but this web site is exercising something Baptist Christians used to care deeply about: DISSENT.

But in today’s atmosphere of sheeple following the media and denominational shepherds, we place no value on dissent. It’s far more impressive to rant about my failure to appreciate the fact that anyone who waves a Bible around should be free from having anyone actually differ with them. It’s now good, conservative sport to tell a dissenting fellow Christian that, as I heard today, my faith is about to collapse and/or I’m going Catholic. All this- ALL- because you have steadfastly decided other views are not worthy of your RESPECTFUL appreciation.

The reason I am unafraid to side with the dissenters and those asking questions that aren’t allowed is that history is moving to our side. The manipulators of orthodoxy are in trouble. They’ve taken our confidence and put the screws to us for the sake of their own power. The celebrity-driven churches are, for the most part, going to be exposed as having no clothes. The laboratories that produce these evangelical clones are shutting down as the experiments seem to have gone horribly wrong. The deluded majority can act as if they have squashed everyone’s arguments and rendered all competing opinions foolish, but in fact, quite the opposite is happening. A lot of people are dissenting, even in an atmosphere of intimidation and spiritual abuse. Write all the books and blogs you want. Have a conference and get 3000 men to wring their hands with you. You aren’t gong to stop the collapse of the kind of authoritarian fundamentalism that wants to keep all of evangelicalism in a stranglehold. It’s over.

Occasionally, I write with the express purpose of sounding a wake up call. I’m provocative and my audience appreciates that in my writing. I am not sounding so much of a call to arms as a literal wake up alarm to the sluggish and the sleepy. We are standing on the brink of momentous changes in the evangelical world. Many Christians brought up in a fundamentalism with all of the answers have discovered things are much different than they would have anticipated. They are exploring this new world, even as the old one is still shifting beneath their feet. Part of that experience is being told you shouldn’t speak or write what you feel. The better part of the experience is ignoring that, and speaking exactly what you’re thinking, feeling and discovering. “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say,” as Will Shakespeare put it.

In the meantime, I consider IM a public service to people who need to get out of the way before a chunk of crumbling evangelicalism falls on their head. If the house isn’t falling where you are, that’s wonderful. Make whatever you want out of the reports from my part of the house. That’s your privilege as a reader.

One of the things I really don’t like about run-of-the-mill evangelical spirituality is the assumption that we’re all basically clones of each other. Cheerful clones. Mentally healthy clones. Good family clones. Conservative political clones. Happy at church clones. Like the same music clones. Clones who cope well. Clones who think alike. Clones who can take a cheerful verse and dissolve any problem in short order.

Let me take a simple thing. I don’t like Fox News. I don’t have a vendetta about it, but it’s inflammatory much of the time, and their overall harping tone doesn’t do a thing for my blood pressure. They do a lot of name calling, cheap shots, girly pics and “true crime” coverage. I don’t live in England, so I don’t want the screaming British media.

What would be my fate if I stood up at my next public gathering with conservative evangelicals and read the previous paragraph? Let’s just say that many judgments would be made on this one item, most of them far from true.

We aren’t alike, but there’s a kind of desperate, weird, compulsion to act like we are alike; a compulsion that causes many Christians to walk around carrying the burden of an entirely false self. Their struggles, scars, questions, confusions, missteps, short-comings, darkness and brokenness are going to be a secret.

If…if…we broke those secrets, what would we learn?

There’s a years worth of blogging, but I’ll talk about one thing you’d learn about Michael Spencer and more than a few other people in the Christian community.

I am quick to forgive other people. I suspect that it’s not just that the grace of God makes me that way. I have a subtext: I believe it’s the best way to be liked. There’s wisdom in it, and it makes sense to me that we’ll all do better if we find a way to share the goodness of forgiveness with one another, and to do it easily when possible. (I realize it’s not always possible.)

When I tell my wife, children, co-workers and/or students that I forgive them and it’s all behind us, it’s the truth. I do, and it’s unlikely that the issue will ever come up again from me.

Like I said, don’t give me many points. I believe Jesus forgives us and that’s crucial to me, but my dad was a marvelous and gracious forgiver. He showed me that it’s the best way to live. I like those moments when I can enjoy reconciliation with someone that I’ve been estranged from. Those are sweet moments in life. If it’s fathers and sons, get me the Kleenex box.

But guess what? Forgiving myself is another matter entirely.

Forgiving myself may rank as among the hardest assignments I have in life. My own sins and crimes are setting in file cabinets in the basement of my soul, holding onto what I’ve done, both known and unknown.

I’m a crud, and even when Jesus, Christians, my lovely wife and any number or normal, mature adults say I’m forgiven, it’s almost impossible for me to receive it.

The analytical part of me says it’s narcissism. Holding onto my own sins allows me to play the victim; to insist that I receive more attention for my sins. In being stubborn about self-forgiveness, there’s the human tendency to manipulate love out of other people.

Wretched. Remind me that doesn’t deserve to be forgiven either.

Even when there is no manipulation or attention seeking, when it’s just Michael and God, it’s hard for me to hear that word. I’m not naive here. I know that when almighty God forgives you by the blood of his own Son, I have no business saying, “No, not me.” There’s a stubborn part of me that fights God’s kind of grace. Condemnation comes easy, and often the Gospel falls upon a heart that is drowning in self-reproach.

I’m not the only one with this malady, and some of you who share this experience know the irony that often you are the one offering the Gospel of forgiveness to others, and yet you feel like you live without it yourself.

What’s wrong? Not a lack of scripture or sound teaching. Please hold off on that.

I’ll say it’s a conscience that has been trained, often in ways unknown to us, to hold on to our sins and crimes because we believe that is the right thing to do. We’re fighting a moral battle against the Good News that God justifies sinners.

Some of us hold ourselves to an impossible standard because we’ve bought deeply into the law and stood at a distance from the Gospel.

Some of us were brought up in families where the grace of self-forgiveness was rare. Despair was plentiful. Grace was a stranger.

Others of us have been convinced on a deep level that we are a special case; a person whose depravity exceeds God’s forgiveness. We can’t see how we can think of ourselves as that prodigal returned to the place of an honored son. We want to go out back, into the servants quarters, and live like a slave, because that’s what we ought to be.

For some, our revivalist tradition abusively used invitationalism and altar calls to communicate to us that we could never feel bad enough, or surrender enough or be dedicated enough. So….we can’t.

Many of us just don’t know why we resist forgiveness so much. All we know is that we need to hear and experience the Gospel in community, in word, in experience. We need to be told by people who we cannot manipulate that we are forgiven for Christ’s sake. We need reconciliation in ritual, art, music, celebration and vocation. We can never say “I’ve experienced enough of God’s gracious forgiveness. Let’s move on.”

We need your prayers, because we’re not one of the clones. Of course, I don’t think many of us are clones at all, even when we act like we buy into that nonsense. We’re different in our experiences, spiritual perceptions and apprehension of grace. Some of us just have a lot in our basement that we are reluctant to get rid of. If we don’t condemn ourselves, we don’t know what to do.

One of my favorite stories in scripture is the invitation of Jesus to Peter: After you have recovered, go and help your brothers. So simple, but it is spoken as Jesus knows the crushing condemnation Peter is going to experience. He doesn’t psychoanalyze or beg. He tells him to let go and take up a useful task. Nothing is useful about wallowing in self-reproach.

If we are offering forgiveness, we should be experiencing forgiveness. If we are experiencing forgiveness, we should have more and more reasons to trade our sorrows and self-loathing for the joy of the Lord. But we don’t live by “shoulds.” We live what we live, and we need one another’s help to create a community of people who aren’t cheerful clones, but are diverse, different, utterly real Jesus followers.

Classic iMonk Post

I’ve been involved in some good discussions recently on the role of subjective, personal spiritual experiences. How should we deal with personal experiences of God “speaking” or otherwise relating to Christians on the subjective levels of feeling and sensing? Because there is such abuse and misuse in this area, it’s very easy to create a kind of “classroom” Christianity, where everyone is a theologian and a note-taker, but those who have experiences with God are viewed as off the rails and abandoning the Bible.

Jonathan Edwards can write about overwhelming sensations of God’s presence, but such talk today will get you looked at as one of those touchy-feely contemplative types.

Is subjective Christian experience one of those areas we have to throw away in order to hold on to Biblical authority and reasonable, non-fanatical balance in the Christian life? Or is there a way to look at subjective experiences that is positive, balanced and healthy enough to honor the Biblical material, the reality of the Spirit and our own humanness?

Here are some of the main points in these recent discussions, followed by a case study. Your comments are welcome.

Abraham and the Three Visitors, Chagall

1) Subjective spiritual experience is everywhere in the Bible. It’s an incomplete and distorted Christianity that tries to take away the element of feeling, hearing, sensing, enjoying God and his presence. God speaks to Abraham, and we rightly look at the words of the promise as crucial. But God also MET and SPOKE to Abraham, an experience that would have been life-altering on its own.

2) So the Christian life is a life that believes and trusts in a personal God of objective truth, but this God is experienced. He has made us in his image that we might subjectively know him as well as know about him. We cannot make this a secondary aspect of the knowledge of God, and we cannot make it the primary aspect of the knowledge of God. Finding the proper place of subjective Christian experience is an important part of Christian growth and the life of the church.

3) Many Christians automatically make the experience of God a matter of suspicion; often to the point that to say “I felt” or “I sensed….” is to commit the sin of disbelieving and ignoring scripture. Yet how can we believe the Bible’s story, and especially its portrayal of the life of the Spirit exemplified in Jesus, and say that the Christian experience is only rational and objective? The Christian has a subjective experience of God in the Spirit, and that experiential Christianity must be rightly valued and encouraged.

4) Subjective Christian experience is often the critical place where God reveals himself to us, leads us, encourages us and gives us particular directions and assignments. Without a healthy emphasis on subjective spiritual experience, Christians will overvalue the role of human leaders and reason. While these are two very important components in the Christian life, it is impossible to see that the God of the Bible only works in and through those elements. We have a God who speaks, who gives senses of his presence, who works within our life experience in ways that cannot be entirely objectified or systematized.

5) For example, at times in the Bible God revealed himself to individuals through dreams. Nothing will make a thoroughly rational person more uneasy than someone saying that God speaks truth through dreams. We are, like Scrooge, more like to say there’s more of “gravy” than God in such revelations. Yet we cannot deny that this is the God who spoke to Joseph and Paul, and unless one is a cessationist of a high level, there is no reason that we should not believe that God, in his freedom and sovereignty, could not speak through a dream in the life of an individual today.

6) The argument that God does not give various kinds of subjective experiences today generally depends on the desire to honor the sufficiency of scripture. But completed revelation in scripture does not change God’s design of human beings to experience him subjectively, nor does it change his nature to do so. That the authoritative place of the Bible in Christian experience now is part of the “matrix” of Christian experience does not erase or replace that subjective experience.

7) It is, therefore, important to build into the church a culture that values subjective Christian experience rightly, interprets it correctly, and equips us to minister to one another in ways that honor the work of the Spirit. Leaders should determine that they will not create a church where those who “feel,” “sense” or “hear” God are looked down upon or seen as immature, deceived or deluded.

Crucial to this culture will be inter-relating subjective experience (“God spoke to me through this event”) with scripture (“What does the Bible teach and tell?”), the collected wisdom of the church (“What does the wisdom of church tradition tell us about this kind of experience?”), and the role of spiritual leadership and mentors (“How does a wiser, gifted Christian mentor see this experience?”) In this matrix of factors, subjective experience can be valued, but not over-valued; owned, but not in a way that begins to dominate and over-influence.

9) The relationship of subjective spiritual experience and human personality is the critical area of study. Because we are fallen, sinful and broken images of God, none of our spiritual experiences may be seen as absolutely dependable. We can be wrong. Other factors of humanness- from brain chemistry to sleep to food- influence our perception of spiritual experience.

10) This awareness of our fallenness does not, however, render subjective experience useless. Abraham was a sinner when God spoke to him. Joseph had other dreams where God did not speak. Sometimes we have a subjective experience that is due to factors that are not God. But this is where we ask simple and important questions?

11) Does this experience validate God and the Gospel as revealed in scripture?
12) Does this experience reveal truth that is validated through reason and the wisdom of others?
13) Does this experience make me more useful in my assignments in God’s Kingdom?
14) Does this experience foster Christian virtues like humility and the despising of sin?
15) Does my critical reasoning ability tell me that such an experience is outside of what the Christian worldview presents as the right interaction between God and the world, and between myself and other persons?
16) Is there any obvious reason to attribute this experience to other factors?

17) It is important for all Christians to remember that subjective Christian experience is a significant part of God’s response to our humanness. Everyone on the day of Pentecost was a sinner. Many of those in scripture to whom God gave significant experiences were sinful, weak and broken. We cannot automatically conclude that our depravity means that any sense of God’s presence or voice is meaningless.

18) An unhelpful emphasis on “hearing God’s voice” as the normal pattern of the Christian life can create havoc in the matrix of Christian experience. We ought to beware of anyone who proscribes or describes subjective experiences in universal terms. Godâ’s ways of dealing with all people are in scripture. His subjective ways are unique to our personalities, etc.

19) A further warned is needed for those leaders who base their leadership upon their own subjective experience. Leaders are, in particular, to be aware of their need to submit aspects of their experience that affect leadership to the wisdom and counsel of others. It is unethical and wrong to manipulate others with our subjective impressions of God. (“God has revealed to me that you are going to fall in love with me and marry me.”)

20) Finally, the subjective experience of Jesus was a sense of the Father’s fellowship and constant love. While we see other kinds of experience- such as insight into the human thought process, etc- the primary work of the Spirit is the assurance of God’s love for us, which is proclaimed in scripture and poured out in our hearts.

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Isaiah, Chagall

CASE STUDY: A church member, Brian, comes to me and says that as a college student, he repeatedly had dreams where he was preaching to Muslims in a setting that he believes was North Africa. He believes these dreams were God speaking to him at a critical time in his life about being a missionary to Muslims in North Africa. He wants to begin making preparations to go on a short term mission trip to North Africa in view of a major move to the mission field later on.

God has obviously used subjective experiences like this to call missionaries down through the centuries. The fact that these dreams were years ago makes it difficult to ask what other factors might be present, but it would be important to ask if Brian was, at any time, under the impression that missionaries are serving God in ways he cannot where he is, or that missionaries are better Christians, etc.

If it appears that the dreams were not unduly influenced, then I would accept that God was speaking to Brian. I would then move to looking at what this means in the short and the long term. For example, does Brian have the character and overall life situation that makes missions a possibility for him. If, for example, Brian is in debt for college loans, these must be paid. If he needs to make significant growth as a Christian, this should be addressed.

If these are not factors, however, then I would advise Brian to begin a process of reading and learning about Muslim missions. In particular, I would put him in dialog with retired and furloughing missionaries to discuss missions in general, and I would tell him that evaluation by these missionaries would be crucial in my further support. Should he show any evidence that he would not submit to a process of long-term preparation, I would not support his short term trip or further goals. If, however, Brian was willing to learn what is needed in Muslim missions so that he could evaluate his own gifts and involvement, I would support him in the short term and likely in the long term.

In the process, it will be revealed that Brian’s wife is not interested in long term missions, but is open to considering it later. This would cause me to shift my emphasis with Brian to what he can do in short term situations, perhaps language missions or training pastors/leaders in new churches. I would see Brian’s relationship with his wife as more crucial than any perception of a call. I would not hesitate to ask Brian’s wife to read, prepare and be involved in Brian’s initial investigation into Muslim missions. I would also ask her to pray about her role as it relates to Brian’s sense of call. I would ask Brian to submit his own perception of call to the needs of his marriage, reminding him that it may be some time before his wife “hears” from God in a way that releases her to affirm his call or their future together in missions. In the meantime, he can be very useful in Muslim missions in many ways.

It would be important to keep Brian’s call to missions in mind, and to help him interpret that in a “critically-realistic” way. The danger would be that Brian would go beyond his call experience and begin to fill in for himself what he must do. In fact, his call experience did not make it clear in what way or when Brian would be on the mission field, and that would be a critical element in my counsel to him to be in process and in short-term opportunities if that is useful on the field. Because the dream did not include his family, but he has chosen to be married to someone who does not share this sense of call, he must work with his call experience in the context of marriage. This may mean some compromise from his own interpretation of the dream experience.

“Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry.” – Martin Luther

• • •

It’s been a very interesting day. I can’t tell you much about it, but I can tell you something.

When a discussion starts about God, the Christian is not faced with the same choices as other people.

Most people can go wherever they want in the discussion. They can talk about “God as I understand him” or “my higher power” or “my church says that God….” and so on. Really, the choices are practically infinite.

The Christian, on the other hand, must immediately think about Jesus. Jesus from the pages of scripture. Jesus the light, the revealer, the image of the invisible. Jesus in his own words, in the Gospels and in the totality of scripture.

Jesus reveals God, and from there, the discussion can go on.

You can explore the Bible, or you can place Jesus into a moral issue or various cultural settings. You can apply what you know of Jesus to what you don’t know of God. You can pray, sing, preach. There are plenty of roads open NOW. But only after we come to Jesus.

It truly breaks my heart to hear, see or read anyone who is a Christian approaching the subject of God, God’s will, God’s guidance, God’s message—without going to Jesus and camping right there with no intention to move or be impressed with anything else.

There are dozens, hundreds of ways to avoid Jesus when talking about God. There are dozens, hundreds of ways to manipulate Jesus to a less than defining place.

Many of these are fun. Some have the approval of important and powerful people. Some are wrapped in scripture verses. Many are surrounded by books or endorsed by ministers.

But at bottom, Jesus isn’t defining the God conversation. So the conversation is on the wrong foot and making a wrong turn. It may not be worthless, but it isn’t reliable.

You can dress your opinions about God up in whatever language you want. You can validate it with experiences, signs and wonders. You can claim miracles, voices and confirmations in the mystical realm.

When the smoke clears, you’ve explored your own imagination or otherwise missed Jesus.

If you are going to think about God, go to Jesus and start there, stay there and end there.

This simple rule is too simple for the religious, the worldly wise, the power seeking and the proud.

It is infuriating to those who want to manipulate for money or distract for some personal agenda.

Jesus will break our idols, complicate our assumptions, overturn our tables and put himself squarely in the center of every question. He is the way, the truth, the life. He is the answer. He is the one way we think about, know, love, worship and relate to God.

When you think about God, go to Jesus.

Now you know.

King Wenceslas

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
From December, 2007

I want to start this post with a quote from a typical ambitious evangelical church that wants to grow. Get big. Add lots of people. Become “mega.” Get the crowds and their kids in the doors.

But I’ve decided not to insult you. If you don’t know the vast majority of American Christianity is about churches getting bigger, and bigger…and bigger if possible, then where are you? Iceland? Mars?

Then I want to tell you what a friend is doing this week. He’s in Hurricane Katrina country, building houses. He’s with a group of Christians that moved down there after the hurricane and planted a church. The thing is, this church doesn’t have a building and all the usual church programs. They don’t have that single-minded church growth ambition focus. They are different. These Christians are basically building houses, cleaning up, rebuilding. They are a servant church. “Missional” for those of you who can say that and think good thoughts.

They’ve come into the ruins and incarnated Jesus, the carpenter, by serving and loving the homeless. They build and repair houses. The reputation of Jesus in that community is not displayed on a neon sign, but in the finished houses and tears of those who will live in them.

Those Christians are a different kind of church. A footwashing, gospel-living, Kingdom-embodying, incarnational movement of Jesus followers.

I’ve got a prediction: They never will be big.

Not with goals, attitude and actions like that. They won’t ever have to worry about where to put the crowds or how to finance a worship center to seat the thousands and thousands who want to worship with them.

There are a lot of churches and ministries that won’t ever get very big. Here in the mountains we have what we use to call “Baptist Centers.” Little “social ministry” operations, aimed at mercy ministry for the poor. Ours around here is called the “Friendship House.” We give away clothes to poor people in the community. Sometimes we give away food. We don’t ask any questions. That ministry won’t ever need to worry about stadium seating. Or replacing the audio-visual gear before next year’s Christmas pageant.

In a large city in our state, there’s a mission downtown that’s ministered to the homeless, the addicted and the mentally ill for many years. They’ve got better facilities than they did twenty years ago, but never enough resources for the need. They could use better facilities, but they won’t be moving to the suburbs any time soon. Like most ministries of their kind, they use a lot of volunteers. few people are paid. Except for those holiday groups and the occasional youth group doing a project, it’s usually a bare bones crew serving the meal and handing out the blankets.

They’ll never become “mega.” Success in today’s evangelical success race will completely allude them.

It’s that way with ministries all around you. The ones that shelter homeless people. The “rescue missions.” The battered women’s shelter. The facilities providing care for Alzheimer’s families. The outreaches to build houses for the poor and to try to repair substandard houses in Appalachia. The volunteer crisis pregnancy centers. The literacy programs. The “Help” programs that provide assistance with utilities.

They will never become some “big church” featured on the local news. You’ll probably never hear about them unless some celebrity stops in or it’s a VERY slow news day on local media.

These ministries and missions are almost always small while their sponsoring churches are big. The crowds are at the pageants, not at the weekly meal for the homeless. The churches are full. The ministries in the darkness, on the streets, in the mountains, on the reservations, in the poor neighborhoods…they’re small. So small you can miss them if you don’t know about them.

Most of them have no budget for publicity. They aren’t on Christian radio asking for money. No billboards. No golf tournaments. They aren’t getting Joel Osteen’s and Joyce Meyer’s 100 million dollars a year. To be honest, many don’t know if they will be open six months from now. Their staffs aren’t making six figures or driving a Lexus. Those who loyally serve at those ministries long ago got used to getting by on whatever second hand donations of money and goods show up. They depend on God to see what happens. They can’t make it happen otherwise.

They are no big thing. In fact, for many of these small, unglamorous ministries, there is a kind of invisibility, even locally. They aren’t competing for young families with the church across town by adding another kickin’ band. They aren’t working on how to appear hip, cool and relevant. They are trying to hammer a nail, keep a drunk off the street, save some children, hand out some blankets and food. They are trying to do justice and show mercy. They are always walking humbly with God compared to the rest of us.

Of course, one day, you’ll know all about them.

One day, they will be a big thing. On that day when Jesus comes to reveal his Kingdom, there won’t be any way to miss these ministries and the people who keep them going. He’ll make sure of that.

The one for whom there was no room in the inn, the one from forgotten Nazareth, the one with the unwed mother, the one whose infant skin was covered with straw and rags in a stable, the one who had no place to lay his head, the one who was the poor, the cold, the naked and the imprisoned. He will remember those ministries. I assure you.

You might consider dropping in on one of those ministries sometime. They do have one thing many big churches don’t have.

Or, to be more precise, they do have someone many big churches don’t have. And he’s not generated on a big screen or via special effects.

He’s the one I hope we’re all looking for. He’s not so hard to find, even if, in this world, he’s no big thing. Just think like Jesus, and you’ll find the way.

A few weeks ago, I listened to an extraordinary sermon, but not extraordinary in the way you might think. The absence of Jesus in the sermon shook me.

Jesus was never mentioned. Not once. Not anywhere. Not ever. Not in any way. Not in the introduction. Not in the illustrations. Not in the conclusion. Not in some trailing reference to “accepting Christ” stuck on to the last paragraph a la Joel Osteen.

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Change the word “Bible” to “Koran” and the sermon could have been a hit in any mosque in the world.

Frankly, this kind of thing has caused me to start rethinking a lot of things. How can we be approaching Christianity as if it is the Oxford English Dictionary, where Jesus is an entry, but you can read thousands of entries without any reference to Jesus? That’s not right.

In the hopes of deterring some from the road that ends in giving talks about reformers and doctrine and the Bible and why we’re so right, but never even speaking about Jesus, here’s a (hopefully) provocative post.

I am going to give you a flawed and errant post. I’ll say that right off the top. What I’m going to recommend in this post as a method for doing theology is almost certainly flawed enough to inspire pages and pages of response in the blogosphere. So, if anything that admits its imperfections immediately offends you, move on to the cat pictures.

In fact, I can be pretty fairly specific about the error I am going to promote: I’m going to suggest an imonkish version of “What Would Jesus Do?” I’m read up on all the problems with that particular approach to Christian ethics, and I while I think it has its merits, I don’t recommend it to unlicensed drivers.

I’ll go on and say I’m not going to recommend my version to just anyone, either. What I’m going to suggest might be useful, however, to those of you who have enough experience with the Gospels to have some idea of what Jesus was like in the day to day.

I have no trouble admitting, by the way, that the Gospels weren’t written to give us a transcript of the day-to-day with Jesus, or to answer the kinds of questions about “A Day With Jesus” that our curiousity might suggest. The Gospels were front-loaded with the message that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, while also being the resurrected Son of Israel’s God; “God with us”, in other words. Still, I believe we can use the Gospels’ presentation of Jesus as a guide to evaluation of much that we do and believe, and even with a “verse”, we can have a sense- an accurate sense- of how Jesus impacts certain questions.

My theological suggestion has now been substantially disarmed of any potential arrogance, so I’m going to get it out of the garage and take it for a spin:

“If you were to spend three years hanging around with Jesus as he is presented in the Gospels, do you believe you would come to the conclusion that [fill in this part with the theological issue being tested]?”

Let me repeat: this method has a lot of possible subjective mischief associated with it, and I would never recommend this in a discussion other than to describe why you have come to a conclusion about Jesus or the Christian life.

It is far from useless, however. It’s actually worked in my own thinking in ways that have been marvelously clarifying and helpful to me. (I’ll say it again: I’m not drawing these conclusions for you. You can just point at me and say I’m weird and wrong.) Despite the fact that every book I’ve read on Jesus has been full of statements that we really can’t know all that much about Jesus, I find myself constantly overwhelmed with what I have come to believe I can know about Jesus. While I don’t believe my version of Jesus is without subjective, cultural bias, I’m not living with a kind of hopeless cynicism about what Jesus would think about, for example, abortion.

Remember, the key to this exercise is the idea of seeing the integration of life, ministry, teaching, priorities, worship and relationships in the life of Jesus. It’s not “What conclusions can I draw from Jesus about predestination?” but “What would I be saying about predestination if I hung around Jesus for three years?”

The difference is essential: Not what conclusions would I draw, but HOW WOULD I BE DIFFERENT? What would I see differently? How would I conceive of life, priorities and the continuing Jesus movement?

So how about a few laps around the track?

If you were to spend three years hanging around with Jesus as he is presented in the Gospels…

• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that the primary job of a pastor is to ensure a church gets as large as possible?
• do you believe you would present the doctrine of predestination the same way as contemporary Calvinists present it?”
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that without the right kind of music, your church can’t grow?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that systematic theology is as precise and as important as we’ve made it?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that Jesus is best represented by western, American, middle-class white evangelicalism?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that a sincere and faithful homosexual should be a leader of the church?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that confessing Christians who disagree on the meaning of the Lord’s supper should disfellowship one another?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that the best way to describe the Bible is inerrant?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that pastoral ministry is primarily about defending our theology from those who differ from us?
• do you believe you would place as much value as we do on formal, school based, education?
• do you believe you would promote “family values” and the “culture war” as important causes that represent Jesus?
• do you believe you would identify with the Republican or the Democratic parties?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that it’s very important to read from one translation of the Bible only?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that Jesus would identify himself with the labels of your denomination or group?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that the Christian life as explained by evangelical evangelists and church leaders today is true to Jesus?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that the emerging church is unfaithful to Jesus and should be condemned?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that you are not one of the rich? Or one of the Pharisees-types?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that you are, now, a disciple and follower of Jesus? Not a fan, but a follower?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that the terms “liberal” and “conservative” are really helpful?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that the Reformation was the high point of Christian history?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that Jim Wallis, James Dobson, Joel Osteen or Rick Warren were acquainted with Jesus at all?
• what kind of sermons would you preach?
• do you believe you would come to the conclusion that your current approach to prayer is similar to Jesus?
• do you believe your treatment of people would change?
• do you believe you would spend money as you do today?

The objections? Well, we already know that some will say that without the presuppositon of an inerrant Bible, I can’t even spell “Jesus” correctly. And I can hear one of the BHT fellows already: “Jesus doesn’t live now, so we have no idea what he would say about these things.” Of course, but that’s not my experiment. My premise is how would three years living with Jesus change the way you answer the questions, live your life and conceive of Christianity?

I contend that we ought to be able to become conversant with the Gospels and make these judgments.

This is substantially different from, “Let’s select verses and build an outline of what the Bible says on predestination.” It is admitting that Jesus was seeking to make disciples, not to teach a class. The New Testament can be sorted through to produce a chapter or predestination, but isn’t this appeal to the imagination AND our knowledge a way to find an authentic answer to the questions we face?

In my experiment, I can not only take into account, “What did Jesus say about predestination?” but I can include how Jesus treated everyone. How did his stories and exorcisms and miracles combine to present his beliefs about predestination? How do I see predestination in his relationships and actions toward others? How did predestination come out of and work into, the life, teaching and ministry of Jesus? How does the topic interact with the Christian life?

There is always this question of “What do we see of a topic in the complete picture/impression of Jesus’ life?” And if we ponder this subject in the “light” of Jesus, what can we see ourselves saying, doing and stressing as faithful to Jesus?

[I am not, by the way, attempting to cut off the Gospels from the rest of the Bible, but I am frustrated and exhausted with the idea that Paul so accurately conveys Jesus that no contemplation or consideration of the Gospels is even NECESSARY. Paul is the first one to raise the issue of his own faithfulness to everything about the Gospel that came in Jesus. If he can be aware of his own dependence on Jesus- and the possibility of various on how much he can claim Jesus as standing behind his teaching at points- then so can we. But let me be clear: I absolutely reject any notion that there are theologies that "trump" the Kingdom theology of Jesus. Jesus' chosen paradigm MUST have preeminence, and his life, ministry and actions are part of that Kingdom message.]

I am asking how much contemplation of Jesus actually goes into our thinking about Christianity. It is the Jesus-movement. We are the followers of Jesus. We are worshiping in, and through, Jesus. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is God with us. Jesus is Emmanuel. Jesus is everything.

If you spent three years with him, what kind of person would you be? What kind of theologian? Husband? Father? Man?

So much for my experiment. It may be an abject failure, but it is helping me every day, and maybe it will help you, too.

I believe this is a fundamental question. One of the things that really helped me was recalling that Paul studied Jesus for years before he started church planting. His “zeal” for the new Messiah wasn’t knowledge of the Messiah. Paul needed to be deeply “Jesus-saturated” in his thinking. When I read Mark and Luke, I realize I am reading the things Paul was hearing, and his life was being shaped by those Markan-Lukan stories.

I invite you to the Gospels, and to books that take you “further in.” And as you journey, contemplate this helpful question, and let it guide you as you are formed by the Spirit of Jesus himself.

NOTE: Michael Spencer had many friends with whom he regularly conversed at The Boar’s Head Tavern. Each year they run an Advent blog called, “Go to Bethlehem and See.” I encourage our IM readers to check it out. Today’s classic iMonk post is from the 2006 edition of that Advent blog.

• • •

I never heard about Advent growing up. Our church recognized Christmas, but anything else would have been too “catholic,” and we were fundamentalistic Southern Baptists. What I heard about Christmas was dependable preaching from the texts surrounding the birth of Jesus, the Lottie Moon Christmas offering for foreign missions, and a lot of negativity.

Negativity? Yes, there was plenty of negativity in the season of Joy. We heard a lot about how Christ had been “X-ed” out of Christmas. We heard of the evils of Christmas celebrations involving alcohol. We heard warnings about leaving Christ out of Christmas. We heard that most people had no idea what Christmas was about anymore. (Apparently things used to be better.) Eventually, we heard that if you stayed home from church for any kind of Christmas or New Year’s celebration, your salvation was probably questionable.

This eventually extended to Super Bowl Sunday night, but that’s another story.

The season of Advent- with all its traditions and customs- would have been a good idea in our church. We were intense about the meaning of Christmas, but not very interested in the kind of spiritual formation that would allow us to “keep” Christmas with our families and our children. It would have given us something to do besides complain.

Part of the Lottie Moon offering was a prayer guide for foreign missionaries. It’s still a deep part of my own spirituality too think about missions when I think about Christmas, and I owe that to those Lottie Moon prayer guides. Of course, along with the missions stories were daily scripture readings. Maybe someone suggested lighting a candle in there somewhere. It was close to Advent, but not quite there. It wouldn’t have been to hard to make the leap.

Evangelicals and their more conservative cousins have a tendency to go negative at Christmas. It’s understandable. The pagans took their holiday back and made it more pagan than ever, this time with our St. Nicholas, our wise men and our music. That probably deserves some “Bah! Humbugs” from the church, but if all we can come up with for the next 5 weeks is carping, we’re pretty pitiful.

Yes, the world has gotten into our treasure closet. But let’s not kick them out and yell at them to stay out of our decorations and music. Let’s ask them what they found. Let’s explain what it all means. Let’s connect the dots from Santa Claus to St. Nicholas to the Incarnation. Let’s invite them to sing along and, at the proper time, let’s pour some egg nog, tune up a “Gloria” and shine the light right in their eyes.

Our church had a “live” Nativity scene for several years. We had a big parking lot next to a busy street and that was a good place for such an event. Cars drove by, Eugene Ormandy played the big arrangements of the carols and we shivered in bathrobes. Hard to top it for a Christmas memory.

It was one of the few positive things we did that acknowledged the existence of the outside community. It was a way of saying, “You’re borrowing our incarnation and putting it right in the middle of this big nasty fallen world….which is what God did on Christmas. Did you know that?”

I remember the feeling of being exposed to the headlights of the world, standing there with the baby Jesus, outed as a Christian willing to shiver for 30 minutes in exchange for hot chocolate. (Well….Mary was pretty cute.)

Stay positive this Advent. Even the pagans like the calendars, the music and the candles. Let’s like it all so much that the joy of it overflows into the streets in the middle of the coldest nights. Put away the negativity and include yourself in all those regular folks that God loves enough to come up with this entire Christmas business.

Knowing what Christmas is all about doesn’t add ten points to your score. It just makes it all the more amazing.

(Reprinted from “Go to Bethlehem and See.“)

Original Title: “Riffs: Joseph Bottum on the End of Advent (and the horror of our version of Christmas)”

Many years ago, we made a decision to, as much as possible, speak of Advent and not of Christmas, until Christmas. I’ve never been able to hold off the Christmas music, but as much as possible we’ve stayed with that commitment.

It’s also amusing to watch my co-workers get the puzzled look when I start referring to “advent,” something some/most of the have never heard of. They often assume I’m one of the “Christmas is a Babylonian occultic festival” whack jobs, which we usually have somewhere in the gallery.

It’s really very simple: Christmas is the feast of the incarnation and the season following that event. Advent is the recognition that we need a savior and the longing for that savior to come, according to God’s promises.

Christmas is joyous, but the joy comes after weeks of waiting, watching, lamenting and calling upon God. Advent is that season of waiting; of looking for the signs and promises of the savior in the scriptures and in the world.

That distinction should save us. We think we can manufacture our own salvation by going shopping. Advent says we cannot save ourselves, that only God can save us and that in his own time and in his own way.

First Advent and First Candle is Lit, Ola Wiberg

Christmas is the return of the pagan festivals that we Christianized; the triumph of the commercial invention of a “holiday as shopping season” to end the year. It is the pagan, secular, godless imagination creating its own world of blessed wonder by way of its own story and its own magic. Christmas has become, in many ways, as spiritually dangerous as any of the recognized belief systems that apologists spend their time dismantling.

Joseph Bottum takes on the loss of Advent in the rise of the secular Christmas in an essay that continues to demonstrate his skill and importance as a writer. While I wish that Bottum had acknowledged the rediscovery of Advent by many evangelicals and the potential of the rediscovery to introduce the Christian year as a counterbalance to the pragmatic manipulation of time at the heart of our culture, it’s still an outstanding essay.

Read Joseph Bottum: The End of Advent.

I have written about the celebration of Advent in our family with suggestions for that celebration in your family: Observing Advent and Christmas: Thoughts for the Christian Family.

I’ve also written on “The Mood of Advent.”

I hope all of this helps you get off to a good start with Advent this year.

Once upon a time there was a playwright. While this playwright was the best who ever lived, his passion was not for his plays, but for his son, the greatest actor of his time. The son loved to act, and to bring joy, truth and meaning to audiences of every age and all kind. His gifts were immense, and his talent untapped. This son had played many parts, but had never played a part that truly demonstrated his true talents and potential.

Both the playwright and his son were convinced that, if the right play could ever be created, this young actor could change the world forever.

So the playwright devoted himself to the writing of the greatest play ever conceived, a play that would somehow tell the story of the world, and yet be the story of every person. Yet, above all, this play would finally and undoubtedly reveal the playwright’s son as the greatest actor of the age.

And so the play came to be. The play was written in chapters and scenes, and was played out slowly, over many nights, in a grand auditorium where thousands could attend. After a majestic and complex first act, the son took to the stage for four incredible and magnificent sections of the play. His performance was amazing, yet it was even more than what it appeared. The audience was stunned to see that this actor had, in fact, been in the entire first act, and his wonderful performance left everyone in awe.

The play was the story of this actor. He was its great key and meaning. The tragedy and triumph of this actor became the hope of all who saw his story. Their lives were changed by this performance. It was not just a play; it was a window and an answer into the meaning of life.

The playwright had yet more surprises in store. The second half of the play invited the audience to join the story; to take the truth, power and beauty of what they had seen in the playwright’s son into the darkest corners of the world and into ever facet of their own lives. This play could change the course of life, even the destiny of the world.

When the play’s sublime ending had unfolded, the audience realized that this play was not a simple play at all, but a revelation of this amazing actor and his message of hope and life for all people. This play presented an invitation into a new way of life embodied and presented by the actor in this perfect story. Everyone left the theater realizing they must continue the play themselves.

In years to come, however, the playwright was saddened to discover that the play was largely overlooked in favor of a great interest in….the script. Copies of the script of his play had become massively popular, and his son, while being appreciated as a character in the story, was not truly appreciated as the playwright had intended. The son came to mean little more than a role in a play, while the script came to be almost mysteriously and superstitously revered. The script became the point of discussions and societies. Disagreements broke out, and schools of interpretation were everywhere. Experts arose to debate and defend their views on the script.

These experts on the play grew in influence, and were able to explain everything in the play in detail, usually in ways the playwright found absurd and depressing. The experts had little appreciation of the Great Actor, his message and his significance. They found him interesting only in their debates about the true interpretation of the play. What had been a life-transforming experience became an object of study.

The invitation to live out the remaining acts of the play became something of a tired joke, and the son decided to never play the stage again. But one could go virtually anywhere and find battles and books written about minute details of the script. The actor’s words became the source of more animosity and hostility than love and humility. It was a sad and ironic end to a dream.

The playwright never wrote again, and after a time, there were few who remembered that the true power of the play was the son, and not the script. When someone would ask the playwright what the play was really about, or question the meaning of some detail, he would ask a question in return: “How can you read the play, and not see that it is about my son?”