1. A masculine ministry believes that it is more fitting that men take the lash of criticism that must come in a public ministry, than to unnecessarily expose women to this assault.

2. A masculine ministry seizes on full-orbed, biblical doctrine with a view to teaching it to the church and pressing it with courage into the lives of the people.

3. A masculine ministry brings out the more rugged aspects of the Christian life and presses them on the conscience of the church with a demeanor that accords with their proportion in Scripture.

4. A masculine ministry takes up heavy and painful realities in the Bible, and puts them forward to those who may not want to hear them.

5. A masculine ministry heralds the truth of Scripture, with urgency and forcefulness and penetrating conviction, to the world and in the regular worship services of the church.

6. A masculine ministry welcomes the challenges and costs of strong, courageous leadership without complaint or self-pity with a view to putting in place principles and structures and plans and people to carry a whole church into joyful fruitfulness.

7. A masculine ministry publicly and privately advocates for the vital and manifold ministries of women in the life and mission of the church.

8. A masculine ministry models for the church the protection, nourishing, and cherishing of a wife and children as part of the high calling of leadership.

• • •

Change a word here and there, and what Piper says makes sense to me.

Eight Traits of a Responsible Ministry (Chaplain Mike)

1. A RESPONSIBLE ministry believes that it is more fitting that LEADERS take the lash of criticism that must come in a public ministry, than to unnecessarily expose CHURCH MEMBERS to this assault.

2. A RESPONSIBLE ministry seizes on full-orbed, biblical doctrine with a view to teaching it to the church and pressing it with courage into the lives of the people.

3. A RESPONSIBLE ministry brings out the more rugged aspects of the Christian life and presses them on the conscience of the church with a demeanor that accords with their proportion in Scripture.

4. A RESPONSIBLE ministry takes up heavy and painful realities in the Bible, and puts them forward to those who may not want to hear them.

5. A RESPONSIBLE ministry heralds the truth of Scripture, with urgency and forcefulness and penetrating conviction, to the world and in the regular worship services of the church.

6. A RESPONSIBLE ministry welcomes the challenges and costs of strong, courageous leadership without complaint or self-pity with a view to putting in place principles and structures and plans and people to carry a whole church into joyful fruitfulness.

7. A RESPONSIBLE ministry publicly and privately advocates for the vital and manifold ministries of ALL BELIEVERS in the life and mission of the church.

8. A RESPONSIBLE ministry models for the church the protection, nourishing, and cherishing of ONE ANOTHER as part of the high calling of leadership.

• • •

Folks, in spite of what Dr. Piper and his folks assert, all of this has nothing to do with male and female distinctions. It has everything to do with responsible love. It has to do with moving toward maturity and living our lives as faithful adults in Christ. Men and women alike.

I know many are concerned about the demographic of young men today that seem to be having a hard time growing up. But if young men are failing to move past adolescence and embrace responsibility, we do not need to challenge them to be more “masculine” or “manly.” We should be admonishing them to grow up, to become adults, to move toward maturity, dutiful living, and the kind of love that lays itself down for others. All believers, male and female, are called to seek this maturity and encourage others in its pursuit. Hierarchy should not enter into the discussion when examining the principles Piper sets forth. And as far as church leadership goes, I don’t see that any of the principles he is advancing involve the special domain of man and “masculinity.” Women church leaders are equally responsible to promote the eight traits he names.

Piper and others who are elevating male/female distinctions in our day not only have an insufficient view of gender but, perhaps even more importantly, an inadequate ecclesiology. They should be encouraging young men (and all of us) to become mature adults and like Christ within a healthy Spirit-filled community in which all are called to submit to one another and honor one another. Instead, in the name of “masculinity,” they single out men and assign qualities to them exclusively that belong to the entire church. This leads to all kinds of adventures in missing the point.

No sir, God did not give Christianity “a masculine feel.”

He gave it the quality of responsible love. For everybody.

Commenter Jack Heron always brings well-thought-out ideas to the table here at the iMonastery. He has now stepped up with a very good look at the topic of dogma. Read carefully and comment accordingly, iMonks. JD

by Jack Heron

Having a dogma is a tricky thing. It’s irregularly conjugated, for a start:

My dogma irresistibly conveys the divine truth.

Your dogma is a well-meaning attempt to bring unity to the faith.

His dogma is a despotic weapon of the Thought Police.

As Christians, we are in the middle of a period of great religious change. New religious movements – Christian, non-Christian and debatably Christian – are springing up all over the place. At the same time the faith itself can seem under attack from secular, atheist and heterodox opinions. What, in this modern world, are we to do with our dogmata?

If we listen to some of the voices of Progressive Christianity, the answer is to throw them all out and enter a happy, peaceful world in which everyone follows their heart and nobody tells anyone else what to think or professes an absolute dogma. Alternatively, we might listen to more conservative voices that announce our beliefs will never need to be reconsidered and we should defiantly remain in the Good Old Days when men were real men (and women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri).

From the slightly mocking tone, you can probably guess I don’t approve of either viewpoint. Fortunately there aren’t too many people who hold to either extreme, although there are plenty who border on them. I am going to argue that robust examination of our beliefs is important, but that we must be examining them, not abandoning them willy-nilly.

Both unquestioning acceptance and dogma-free religion are wrong for the same reason: they destroy that which they set out to defend. The doctrinal universalist who holds that all beliefs are equally valid eventually ends having no beliefs at all. But the obedient and unquestioning audience of the magisterium ends up in the same place, for none of his beliefs are truly his.  Both are stung by a kind of unhealthy intellectual humility, the worry that perhaps they have nothing to say. This is distinct from healthy intellectual humility, which is the knowledge that one’s powers are limited. A modest theologian carefully constructs his arguments while acknowledging that he may be mistaken – this is good and productive humility, for it leads to discussion and debate. But an over-modest theologian constructs no arguments at all for fear that he can’t get anything right – and this is unproductive, leading eventually to no theologians at all. Both, ultimately, are trusting in a kind of magisterium while simultaneously undermining the very foundations that make magesteria useful. In the case of the doctrinal universalist the magisterium is called Humanity; in the case of the unquestioner it is probably a church of some sort. In both cases those august bodies to which they submit are made up of people just like them – and they have decided that such people can make no comment.

“But they are so much wiser than I!” Yes, but their wisdom is the cumulative effect of generations of men reasoning and arguing and disputing. Orthodoxy didn’t drop fully-formed from some pure Platonic sky. It was fought for, and wrangled over and thrashed out on debating floors. Some of the people who did so were intellectual giants before whom we are as dwarfs. But, though dwarfs, we can climb onto their shoulders and sometimes see further than they could. G.K. Chesterton referred often to the ‘romance of orthodoxy’. He was right, and a romance is an adventure to be grappled with. A complete lack of doctrine in the face of the Vague Deity Concept is a surrender, but its human analogue is the Omniscient Council of Vagueness who are so good at using reason that they prove the uselessness of reason.

Ask a hiker who goes wandering off the trail a lot: he’ll tell you there are two ways to get lost. One is never to get your map out; the other is never to question the map.

I should say a few words here about the Holy Spirit. The arguments above about the importance of questioning tradition and authority are often opposed by the assertion that since the Spirit works in the world, guiding us and inspiring us, tradition has been guided so as to be totally correct. Now, I believe in the Spirit’s presence as much as any of you. But this will not do. There are schisms aplenty in church traditions: has the Spirit issued a statement indicating the one He’s backing? There are categorical contradictions in the Bible: why were these not important enough for the Spirit to correct? It looks like the difference between a tradition inspired by the Spirit and one that has gone off the rails is not so easy to determine. It looks like the Spirit has better things to do than correct every single misapprehension in our minds. Further, let us consider the early Church when the broad outline of orthodoxy was thrashed out. How did the Spirit work then? It worked through people, inspiring them with arguments and analogies, guiding them to make suggestions and call debates. It didn’t just descend one night and resolve everything with a quick memo. The Spirit is acting today, sure: but in whom? I don’t recall that the third Person of the Trinity has signed an exclusive contract with one organisation.

Now, if we’re going to use our own reason, we face another set of objections. People will object that we can’t rely on reason and rationality here. We run the risk of producing that very same Vague Deity Concept we hope to avoid: infinitely reasonable and infinitely remote. But that presupposes that rationality leads to materialism and it isn’t so. I shall follow Chesterton in distinguishing two types of rationalism.

The first is true rationalism, the realm of inference and deduction.

• All cats are animals.
• Some cats are black.
• Therefore some animals are black.

This is indisputable and it is an essential component of our faith. If God is not subject to this kind of logical reasoning then all bets are off. An irrational God might save us by damning us to Hell. It would strike at the foundation of every sentence ever uttered, every idea ever conceived if once we deny the essential nature of true rationalism. Lucien Gregory in The Man Who Was Thursday was rather surprised to find out that bishops didn’t go around crying ‘Down, presumptuous human reason!’ Let’s not make the same mistake he did.

The second is empirical rationalism, the realm of experience and science.

• When I drop cups, they fall.
• Therefore, if I drop this cup it will fall.

We may use this every day, but we can’t rely on it in matters of theology. It is predicated on experience and no one has any experience of being the Creator except Himself. It is this kind of rationalism that would lead to materialism and Deism and it is this kind that we disqualify from the debate.

We must have a faith that relies upon true rationalism, we cannot have one that relies upon empirical rationalism.

But doesn’t this fly in the face of that Biblical criticism we irritating doubters are so fond of? Actually, no. There is a distinction between using empiricism to pronounce on matters beyond its ken and using it to pronounce on historical facts that may have implications for matters beyond its ken. It is foolish to say ‘Mary could not have been a virgin, because virgins don’t give birth’. We have very little experimental data on the fertility of virgins subject to the Holy Spirit and Divine Will and so are not qualified to make that statement. But we are qualified to say ‘The attestation to Mary’s virginity in Luke is problematic for reasons A, B and C’. That is a matter of scholarship and hereto can empiricism come, but no further.

This is a time when religion is in the dock and being judged by all and sundry. The foundations are under attack, it’s true. There are those who say that we should get rid of the foundations the better to survive their being attacked. This seems counter-productive. And then there are those who say we must defend the foundations without checking to see if, perhaps, the attacks on them are in some way justified. This runs the risk of having the whole structure tumble down when an attack does indeed turn out to be so. I say that we should go about trying to find cracks. Then if we find one, we can fix it. If not, we can sleep a little easier.

Finally, I offer a disclaimer and warning. Orthodoxy is important, but it’s not everything. Even amongst those who hold to salvation through faith alone there are thankfully few who hold to salvation through exact dogmatic assent. I don’t believe that God is a kind of cosmic bureaucrat whose only means of judgement is to check you’ve ticked the correct doctrinal boxes on your Kingdom of Heaven Application Form (KH#1, to be completed in triplicate). Chesterton, who I will never tire of referencing, said that a heretic was a man mad on one idea. Let us not be that strangest of creatures, a heretic mad on orthodoxy.

Modesty, Bouguereau

By Chaplain Mike

Why does everything have to be an “issue” for Christians?

Why do we feel the need to speak publicly about every matter under heaven?

Why is so necessary to make it clear “where we stand” on everything?

Can’t (shouldn’t) there be some things that we deal with quietly, privately, personally, face to face and heart to heart, rather than in public venues?

When and why did Christian leaders start to think we would serve the world better by adding to the cacophony of voices about sexual matters rather than quietly, humbly giving perspective to our overly sexualized culture in wiser, more discreet ways?

When did privacy, modesty, and restraint cease to be important virtues for us?

Are we so afraid of being called “prudes” that we feel we must talk publicly about sexual matters in detail in order to stay edgy and relevant?

Don’t we realize that buying into the world’s practice of making sex a matter for public discussion only adds to the confusion our society faces when it comes to sexual morality?

The Veil, Bouguereau

I know the arguments contrary to what I am saying here, and I am not buying them.

Yes, we live in a sexualized culture.

Yes, we are exposed to sexual images a thousand times a day. Yes, our children are exposed to sexual matters at earlier and earlier ages.

Yes, people who have grown up in such a world are dealing with many, many issues related to sexual brokenness.

Yes, we need to learn to think Christianly about human sexuality.

Yes, certainly in years past, the church has not always provided adequate wisdom, compassion, and theological perspective on these matters to God’s family.

And, certainly, we have not always had a good testimony in the world about a good and loving God and his interest in our blessing and well being with regard to this and all activities of life in his creation.

However, don’t we want to teach and convey that the deeply personal experiences of one’s sexuality and sexual relationships are to be thought about and handled within the framework of Christian virtues like chastity and modesty? within communities where such discussions can be held among those we trust and respect?

Shouldn’t we be hesitant to speak publicly about such things, except on rare occasions, deferring most of the time to families and friends, pastors and counselors, who can deal privately and considerately with people’s intimate questions?

I have concluded that what we have here is yet another instance of trying to fix what is broken by high visibility sermons, media, and church programs rather than by building genuine community and institutions that encourage and enable people to know and walk with God in their daily lives.

Why am I focusing on this today? I blush to report that I came across the piece, “The Cult of the Orgasm: Thinking Christianly about the vibrator boom and unsatisfied sexual desire” over at Her.meneutics, Christianity Today’s blog for women.

Yes, really. I’m blushing just reading the title.

Crown of Flowers, Bouguereau

In the post, Anna Broadway opines about a new cultural trend (publicly advertising and making available sexual aids) and tries to help us think Christianly about it and the issue of masturbation, particularly as it relates to single Christian women.

After citing a couple of lame ways Christians in the past have addressed sexual self-gratification by trying to find instructions about it in the Bible, she basically admits that the Bible does not broach the subject. That being said, she then launches into a typical form of Christian teaching we fall back on when the Scriptures prove they aren’t interested in what interests us.

In the end, she exhorts her sexually-frustrated readers to “cry out to God” as the solution. So typical.

I left a comment on the piece. Before I did, I started reading the other comments, and by the time I had made my way down through a few of them, I began to feel frustrated myself about the discussion. It reminded me of so many conversations I have been involved with, on a variety of topics, with other believers. Most of it is simply useless talk, missing the point, complaining about one aspect of the author’s viewpoint or another, thinking that we are being good Christians because we have an opinion and are willing to speak it, with little sense that talking with a bunch of strangers on a public forum about matters like this is itself an obscenity and helpful to no one in the end.

Here is the comment I wrote:

The author basically admitted it: the Bible says nothing about masturbation. Where does that leave us? So many areas of life are not addressed by Scripture that we need to think for ourselves, wisely and lovingly about life and our own relationships. Teach people to do that, find ways that friends, mentors, and counselors can talk in private about such personal matters with individuals and couples who have questions, and leave it at that.

Why do Christians think everything has to be an “issue” that we must address?

The cultural indecency I would like to address is not the fact that anyone can buy a vibrator at Walgreens. Rather it is this: Everything must be discussed publicly. No. it. does. not.

Not all matters have a public solution. Nor must they be addressed from pulpit, by public media, or in a public forum. And if one thinks something like this should be, the answer is not to carry on pointless web discussions that only add to the cultural noise, but to direct us toward private life and community as the setting where true conversation and personal help can be found.

I’m well aware that some may accuse me of hypocrisy for saying this as a writer on a blog like Internet Monk, where people talk about their lives and we discuss personal issues. Fine. But listen to me now as I repeat words I have said before. Life and spirituality is local. Despite the false intimacy and sense of connectedness our media persuades us we have, I am not your pastor or personal mentor. The level of “help” you can receive from reading a post or participating in a blog discussion is far less efficacious than the personal help available to you in your local community and in face-to-face relationships. As I’ve said before, this is not where I live, and neither should you.

So please, can we just stop the blush-producing talk? God gave us that reflex for a reason.

From Kentucky.com, following a high profile murder that followed a high profile history of domestic abuse:

The news reports of the recent death of Amanda Ross, allege that she was a victim of domestic violence. Based on statistics, it is likely domestic violence is happening across all faith communities in Kentucky. (According to the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association, in 2007, over 4,000 Kentuckians were in shelters, including 2,313 women and 1,760 children.) Are faith communities adequately addressing the problem?

Why doesn’t the church talk about domestic abuse?

1. It’s an issue where women and children are the victims of men’s sins (primarily), so it’s an uphill battle right there.

2. Scripture deals with “love your wife as Christ loves the church,” and the application is obvious, but none of Paul’s sin lists or our favorite parables or stories contain a guy who slaps around his girlfriend or a man who beats his wife when he’s drunk.

3. What’s the payoff for the average pastor who brings this up? Counseling women and hearing embarrassing secrets. And then….divorces. We all know how evangelicals feel about those….or, at least most of them

4. Never has the church’s need to develop its own counseling resources with women specializing in helping women been more obvious.

5. Deal with this much, and someone in your church is either going to jail, or to a lawyer. Families will point fingers, phones will ring, emails will be sent and it will all be your fault.

6. You can be sure it’s going to hit very close to home. Maybe too close for a lot of church leaders. Lots of people are going to be wrong. Lots of people are going to be guilty and lots of people are going to admit some scary things. Who wants to go there?

7. Plenty of women and men prefer to hear about how submission will get you through any marriage problem, and they need for that to be right. It’s what they have been told and what they are telling other women. If someone says I’m leaving a man who is hitting me, then a whole lot of problems occur for some people’s version of submission. (I do not believe that is necessary, btw. I think that is a wrong emphasis on submission and a right emphasis is what’s needed. Mutual love in Christ.)

8. You have to talk about emotional abuse, and now the circle just got very, very, very wide. Are you sure you want the women talking about that one? Pastor? Pastor? Hello?

9. Sexual abuse? Religious abuse? Financial abuse? A lot of roads, all with similar dynamics. Let’s just say we don’t want feminists and liberals starting trouble. IOWs, Who are we empowering with this discussion? Uh-huh.

10. And, as everyone knows, we don’t have those kinds of problems. We’re Christians.

A big salute to those churches and pastors who are on the front lines and involved in this issue. They are real warriors for compassion, justice and reconciliation.

For Further Reading: Check out: “Seven Reasons Women Stay In Abusive Relationships and How To Defeat Each One of Them,” by John Shore.

Of course, it’s far from over, but it has been a week like no other in the memory of anyone who wasn’t old enough to be aware of what happened in November, 1963. Yes, our children will remember this week. They will measure their experience by where they were and what they felt when they first saw the towers fall, and our nation shaken, but still standing.

I want to remember the day. So I will write it for myself.

At 10:15 a.m., I was walking to the post office to get my mail, just two blocks from my home, when two of my co-workers pulled up and began to tell me what happened. I couldn’t picture the reality, the loss, the carnage, but I simply tried to conceptualize what this meant. I would have to tell the students at our school what had occurred. Plans would have to be made for finding out if any of our students, drawn from all over the world, including New York and D.C., had any connections to the WTC or the Pentagon. (As it turned out, we had one student with a relative in the WTC. One of our recent graduates was two corridors down from the Pentagon explosion, and e-mailed us a touching letter later in the week.)

It seems to be my place here at our school to bring the bad news to our students and staff, and on those days I have always felt the presence of the Spirit, giving me the right words and a good heart. This day I felt the same, but I felt something else: the weight of history. Our nation had been attacked in a way reminiscent of Pearl Harbor. As that event galvanized a generation and a country, I had a brooding sense that this tragedy marked the beginning of a certain inevitable sea change: cultural, political, financial, social, spiritual. It was a day that would be driven into our consciousness by the force of the events and the weight of their consequences and implications.

Our school gathers each day for worship, and I decided to have as much of a normal chapel service as possible, since events were still unfolding and it was unclear what was actually happening. Our scheduled speaker had no idea what was going on, and when I told him to cut it to ten minutes and drop any jokes, he didn’t understand, but he spoke on the twenty-third Psalm. The valley of the shadow of death seemed very near and, for a moment, the Good Shepherd seemed very far away. But the ancient words of assurance and guidance gathered us up and held us for those moments in a power far exceeding the words themselves, and the unknown was less frightening.

Watching the explosions on television, I was struck with how much they resembled Hollywood’s illusions of the apocalypse. It looked like an out-take from Independence Day. Except I was watching people die. More than five thousand. Over and over again. This was, I thought, the collision of our innocence, our entertainment and fantasies, with the cruel and unforgiving realities of the world we glibly tune into and out of every evening. But here was something so horrendous that to go back to the Soap Opera channel or QVC seemed blasphemy. Even MTV suddenly began broadcasting Dan Rather. (Liberal patriotism. So little. So late, but appropriate.)

Later in the day, we called a special assembly and our school president told our students, in detail, what was going on. There were tears of concern and fear, and tears of sympathy with strangers. Some wept because their families were traveling or they had relatives in the affected areas. Some wept for our army reserve faculty members, who we expect to leave us in the near future. Others wept because they were replaying their own private and unknown moments of terror and helplessness. Several of our students lived through the Liberian civil war and one of our students came from Bosnia, where he defended his family while yet a boy himself. These students knew the feeling of being vulnerable. Many of us wanted to weep, but were afraid to show our vulnerability. It was easier to give a hug than to ask for one.

I looked for my children. They would only understand the seriousness of these events by watching adults who understood them better. My sixteen year old daughter, so much like me emotionally, took in far more than she showed. My thirteen year old son, with his sensitivity like his mother, seemed amazed. Their innocence was being taken away before their very eyes and they did not know it. Only when they look at the names of their friends and teachers and neighbors, taken in the first war of the twenty-first century, will they genuinely understand the tragedy of 9-11-01. When their children ask how the world used to be, they will tell them of this day, this marker in steel and glass and blood.

Looking at my children, I realized that children all over America had lost fathers and mothers unexpectedly. Their lives forever altered by the accumulated policy decisions of leaders here and elsewhere that had birthed such hatred of our country that only an invasion of hell itself could provide an outlet. We act as if politics is a hobby of the detached, having nothing to do with the real world, yet it makes widows and orphans. Surely some of the planes had children on the passenger lists, perhaps dying with their parents or teachers. Do terrorists really rejoice believing that feeding our children to the monster of their anger somehow accomplishes a greater good? Such insanity can not be looked at for long without the righteous desire to wipe it cleanly and finally from the blackboard of history.

I brought my classes into my office and let them watch the news coverage all afternoon. They watched in silence, with only a few acknowledgments of the horror. In nearly every class were young men enlisting in the military. Now that promise of college money seemed to fade next to the prospect of going to war in a country you couldn’t find on a map, against an enemy you couldn’t name or find. The yearning to know “who did it?” was tangible among my students, but I couldn’t tell them any more than the name of man about who none of us really knew anything, and who surely could not be the sole perpetrator of these acts. Americans need an enemy on which to focus their anger, but these events did not provide Japanese or Germans or Iraqis, only shadowy figures with names we could not pronounce and motives we could not understand. Why do those who hate us not stand and say so? Such is the nature of this evil, that it has no pride, only appetite.

At home that afternoon, I became angry. Such a scenario for disaster had been making the rounds for years in scripts and novels, and now it burst out of the pages of pulp fiction into the real world. The cumulative stupidity of it all sickens me. Our ridiculous courting of Arafat. The false promises of retribution. The flippant attitude towards airport and airplane security. The Kafkaesque reinvention of the military into “peacekeepers.” The desertion of American spine exemplified in the abandonment of Desert Storm and the ridiculous posturing of Clinton’s limp foreign policy. (Please, please, PLEASE don’t let the media follow him on his certain “grief tour.” The thought of this amoral oaf hugging the families of victims and spouting inane platitudes to a grateful press when his dereliction of leadership weakened us to this point is simply more than I can bear.)

Driving home I stopped at our community market. There were almost thirty cars lined up in a gas panic. Ignorant Americans, living on rumors, believing the refineries would be shut down and they might not make it to the lake or to the doctor or to church. I found myself amused, then saddened. We must not panic. We must not live on rumors, or we will not be strong. It is patience and perseverance, not ignorance and panic, that will serve us in the days ahead.

That evening, the President seemed angry, yet it was anger tempered with the decency, sensitivity and emotion that anyone can see in President Bush. He is the kind of man we need at the helm right now. If our young men and women must go fight, this is the man who I want to say the word. I think everyone respected him more after his tuesday night speech, because he was clear. If you harbor this, finance this or cooperate in this, you will pay. I believe I was not alone in tending to believe this was not posturing, but prediction. I do not want the calculating ambition of Al Gore or the legacy-chasing of Bill Clinton. I want Barbara and George’s oldest boy, who knows how to cry, who believes in Jesus, who became a sober man for the sake of others and who embraces the virtue of humility. I trust his anger because it is not distorted by arrogance, but seasoned with humanity.

Later, as I lay in bed, listening to the radio reports late into the night, I wondered if, when my son is 18, this will still be going on? Will he fear the draft as I did at eighteen? Will I hear the names of our students called out in mourning, gone to war and never returning? Would I pay $5 a gallon for gas? And would I care? How were my nephew John and his new wife Alicia, living and working in Manhattan? Were there really people alive under all that rubble? So many police and firemen and rescue workers dead. What did it feel like to die? What would I say if I had a thirty-second phone call before dying? Was it all a dream? Would sleep bring any relief? Or would it bring nightmares of worse things to come? Eventually, sleep triumphed and my questions surrendered.

Our high school principal teaches our students to say “This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” We say it so much, it has sometimes become unconscious and empty of its fundamental meaning. Each day is a gift of a God, a day that need not exist, but does exist because God wills it so. And each day contains its share of our own responses. To do good, to do evil, to do nothing. Or to praise God for the gift of a day and the life to enjoy it. For five thousand, it was their last day. They flew in perfectly blue skies, on the most beautiful day of an approaching fall, and they died. Leaving me to live this day and others as I choose. As we choose together.

This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice. And be glad in it.

Editor’s note: Many were offended earlier this week when Chaplain Mike wrote about the statue outside of Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio burning down. Chaplain Mike referred back to a quote from John Piper, and some were upset that we would dare to touch the “third rail” by being even slightly critical of Piper. The comments got rather heated and offensive. If you were offended by Chaplain Mike’s post on Tuesday, you will not want to read this post. Skip this one entirely. It is guaranteed to make you think.

I was traveling on Tuesday when I heard the news that lightning struck Big Butter Jesus and burned it to the ground. I laughed so hard I could hardly see the road. I laughed until I cried. How is it that I could laugh at tragedy? Well, if you had ever seen that monstrosity, you may not have considered it a tragedy. People referred to the statue of Jesus rising up out of the water, hands raised into the air, as Big Butter Jesus after the lyrics of song by Heywood Banks. It looked like one of those butter sculptures you see at the state fair. And being right by one of the busiest interstate highways in the nation, lots of people got to see Big Butter Jesus every day.

Was there anything wrong with a statue of Jesus in front of this church? Well, again, I though it was a very poor work of art. But art is very subjective. You might be reading this now and saying, “Wow, Dunn, if this is the best you can write, maybe you ought to stick to lawn care or some other profession.” There is no accounting for taste. Just because I say it is a poor work of art does not mean that needed to burn down.

Or maybe I was laughing along with the majority of residents of southwest Ohio who found Big Butter Jesus (sweet cream Jesus) to be more than just a little embarrassing.

“So, where do you live?”

“In Monroe.”

“Oh, near Big Butter Jesus?”

Sigh…

Really, the reason I laughed so hard was I now know what Michael Spencer’s duties are in Heaven. He is now in charge of lightning strikes in the Tri-State (Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky) region. And—wow!—did he get accurate quickly.

Seriously, let’s look to see if there really is a problem with a sixty-two foot tall statue of Jesus that looks like it was made from butter. Are we warranted to make fun of Solid Rock Church in their loss?

There was the predictable outcry from many who said the money used to build Big Butter Jesus (unsalted Jesus) could have been used to help the poor. I was barely past St. Louis on Tuesday when I got a text from someone saying, “Instead of spending money to rebuild the statue, why can’t they help me put food on my table for my family and help me pay my past-due bills?” The original cost to build Big Butter Jesus (tastes just like Jesus) in 2004 was estimated at $250,000. That money would be better off put to use to help poor people—or, at least, that was the cry of many in the days after the fire. I seem to recall a vaguely-similar cry by some people who hung out with Jesus, something about a waste of a resources when the money could have been used to help the poor.

⁶Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon, a man who had suffered from a skin disease.⁷While Jesus was sitting there, a woman went to him with a bottle of very expensive perfume and poured it on his head.

⁸The disciples were irritated when they saw this. They asked, “Why did she waste it like this?⁹It could have been sold for a high price, and the money could have been given to the poor.”

¹⁰Since Jesus knew what was going on, he said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing for me. ¹¹You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me with you. ¹²She poured this perfume on my body before it is placed in a tomb. ¹³I can guarantee this truth: Wherever this Good News is spoken in the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (Matthew 26:6-13, Gods’s Word).

Why is it we like to play the “poor” card when it deals with our disapproval of the way money is spent? And note that it does not matter how much money is involved. This was a “very expensive perfume,” but did that really matter? Don’t you get the idea that it could have been the equivalent of Aqua Velva and the disciples would still have grumbled? What was their real beef? Could it have been that they were just upstaged by a woman? Here they were, the closest friends of Jesus, the ones who hung with him day and night, and yet a woman has to come to honor Jesus and prepare him for his coming burial. Perhaps the disciples were just trying to cover their embarrassment of the fact that they had just been schooled by a girl. Time to wave the money flag to take the attention away from themselves. But Jesus is having none of that.

“You’re always going to have the poor around,” he says to them. “But you aren’t always going to have me here. This woman has done a beautiful thing for me—what she has done is honoring to me.”

Are we really hearing what I think we are hearing? Is Jesus really saying that it is more important to honor him then it is to care for the poor? This is big stuff if we are reading this right. Many of us would say that we honor Jesus in the act of caring for the poor, and I believe this to be right. So how could this act—an apparently wasteful act—honor Jesus more than helping the poor?

First of all, it was a sacrificial act. This spikenard perfume was very valuable, and it was just dumped on Jesus. All of it. She couldn’t have reserved any if she wanted to as she broke the vessel that contained the perfume. Her intent was to give it all to Jesus, a sacrifice that got his attention, but not that of the disciples. Jesus saw this as an act of love, the disciples saw a waste of a valuable resource. To Jesus, there is no waste when we are acting out of love, especially love for him.

Secondly, this was a prophetic act, foretelling the death and burial of Jesus. Spikenard was used to anoint the body before it was placed in a tomb. This woman was anointing Jesus for his burial, something Jesus did not take lightly. Why would he? Jesus did not come to teach us how to care for the poor, or to teach us anything else for that matter. He came to pay our debt. He came to destroy the works of darkness by dying on the cross. We cannot forget this, for if we do, we are simply followers of another empty religion. Name for me a religion that does not urge us to care for the poor. Jesus is saying that this woman “gets it.” She understood that Jesus had to die—he came for no other purpose. Again, the disciples were so caught up in the practical and processes and procedures that they missed the prophetic.

Finally, this was the actions of an artist. It was, if you will, performance art. This woman in the act of pouring spiced perfume on Jesus was acting out the suffering he was enduring and would endure. She broke the alabaster jar—valuable in itself—signifying that we are to be broken and emptied out before Jesus. She used spikenard, a healing oil that was used not only to treat skin disease (note they were eating at the home of Simon the Leper, presumably a man healed of leprosy–perhaps by Jesus?), but also emotional trauma of deep sorrows. The healing oil was poured out on the Man of Sorrows himself. Art is always subjective and most often misinterpreted and misunderstood by those who observe it. This did not seem to bother the woman who went through with her performance even as the disciples whined and gasped at her act.

Jesus understood. He got it. And he proclaimed that this performance would be remembered for all time to come. It was the performance of a lifetime, offered for one show only, before a very small and unappreciative audience. Much art is like this, which is why it is so hard to find artists bold enough to act on their convictions through their art. Ridicule and scorn are bitter paychecks.

So the hue and cry of those who say that Big Butter Jesus should not be rebuilt but instead the money should be used to feed and clothe the poor must be held up in this light: Will rebuilding the statue honor Jesus? Will it be an act of love, or one of pride? Will it somehow show to those with eyes to see the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus? And will be it an artistic performance understandable to those who view it?

I can’t answer these questions. I don’t know Lawrence and Darlene Bishop, the pastors of Solid Rock Church. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know anyone who attends that church. It is not up to me to pass judgment on their motives. I have been around many churches that operate in a similar fashion, and could have a pretty accurate guess as to what makes them tick. I certainly have my opinions as to the quality of the art seen in the first Big Butter Jesus. But just because I don’t like something does not make it wrong. If they choose to rebuild Big Butter Jesus, I hope it will be for the right reasons. Sadly, I suspect it won’t be.

Finally, I know that I have decisions to make each day as to what to do with the alabaster jars of spikenard I possess. I can consume them on myself. I can sell them and give the money to poor. Or I can use them to anoint Jesus and risk being called a wastrel, accused of neglecting the really important things of life for this mysterious God I love and chase after. Only I can make my decision, and I then must live with the consequences of my actions. As for me, I pray I will always choose to honor Jesus.

You can now hurl your comments at me. I just ask that when using profanities, please try to spell them correctly.

By Chaplain Mike

MOD NOTE: I’ve gone back and weeded out some comment threads that got off track. BTW: this post is not about John Piper, egalitarianism, homosexuality, or who goes to heaven and hell. It’s tongue-in-cheek, humor, folks, about a “striking” incident (insert groan here). Oh yeah, and please do buy the book!

Last August, a tornado struck during the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s convention. At their meeting, the ELCA adopted a sexuality statement opening the door for homosexuals in ministry, and the timing and peculiarity of this tornado brought forth comment from Christians who thought they discerned divine messages in the whirlwind.

Most prominently, Pastor John Piper, whose Baptist church is just down the road from the convention center, thought the storm sent a clear message. “The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction.”

Receiving special attention was the fact that the tornado broke the steeple at Central Lutheran Church, leaving an unforgettable image for the chastened to ponder.

(On the other hand, few reported that at the moment the motion passed and the sexuality statement was adopted, the sun broke through the clouds.)

Fast forward to last night and today. Here in the Midwest, we’ve had yet another week of powerful storms. Strange things have happened, and we need to hear from folks like John Piper again to discern what our current weather means. Or maybe, since Piper’s on sabbatical, Pat Robertson might want to chime in.

But, I’ll warn you: this time it’s a little trickier— one event in particular might be harder to interpret.

You see, last night in Cincinnati a well-known conservative Christian landmark, jokingly referred to as “Touchdown Jesus,” was burnt to the ground after a lightning strike. The 62-foot statue, “King of Kings,” appeared to rise up from the waters before Solid Rock Church along I-75 in Monroe, Ohio, north of Cincinnati. Comedian Heywood Banks wrote a song about the statue, called “Big Butter Jesus” because of the pale yellow appearance of the huge steel-framed structure, covered in plastic and fiberglass.

So…

…what do you think?

Is this the devil’s doing, an attack on Jesus and his work?

Is God sending a message of judgment? On “graven images”? On conservative evangelical Christianity? On obnoxious kitsch?

Is this, as one church member suggested, just another example of how Jesus sacrifices himself to save his church? (The church building itself was spared, except for an adjacent amphitheater.)

Here’s my theory:

Since today marked the release of Michael Spencer’s book, this event is God’s way of preparing us to receive it. This is God saying to us:

“Thus saith the Lord, I myself will bring an end to ‘Mere Churchianity!’ My people shall not go on building megachurches to satisfy religious consumers. My people shall not continue their culture war ways. My people shall not build gigantic statues that cause the world to mock and put thousands of motorists at risk every day. I will not allow my people to continue in such bad taste.

“Instead, saith the Lord, I command my people to purchase Michael Spencer’s book, that they may learn to avoid this plague of ‘Mere Churchianity,” and learn how their lives may be shaped by Jesus. Yea, they shall buy multiple copies, and distribute them far and wide.”

Hey, it’s as clear as can be to me. Give me awhile, and I’ll find the verses to back it up. You’ll see.

Who says God doesn’t still speak?

Wait a minute… did you hear that thunder?

By Chaplain Mike

WARNING: As you read this update, the sound you will hear is the voice of cynicism. With a bit of sarcasm thrown in. As well as a healthy dose of antipathy. If I didn’t think the evidence deserves this kind of response, I would stay quiet. But this is bad news, a sorry caricature of what church should be. It deserves pointed ridicule. Sorry if you are offended. I’ll gladly take the flak.

From the Colorado Springs Gazette:

It was only supposed to be a launch party and focus meeting of St. James Church in Colorado Springs. But something changed since Wednesday’s press conference that officially announced the start of St. James.

On Sunday Ted Haggard presided over the first St. James service in his barn next to his home on Old Ranch Road.

So writes Mark Barna, the only reporter among the 160 or so who attended the “launch party,” uh . . . first church service AND launch party at Pastor Ted’s house. Oh yeah, the film crew was there too. Shouldn’t leave them out. Because this is about a movement of the Spirit. And everyone knows his favorite tool is the media and its marketing prowess.

“This is Easter morning for me,” the comeback “pastor” proclaimed. Excuse me, but I thought Easter morning was reserved for Someone Else. After the service, he continued, “”This was a resurrection party for me, I am out of the grave. And we are rolling.” (Cue praise band playing “Up from the Grave He Arose”.)

“I don’t know if you heard about it, but I had a tough time 3 1/2 years ago,” he continued, with a wink and smile. Cue audience laughter. This is how he summarizes what happened? I had a tough time? He can say that to elicit laughs? With his wife in the room? To the faces of former parishioners? Less than a mile from the church where he had resigned in disgrace?

Inviting people to enjoy the pool at the party following the service, Ted quipped, “But no skinny dipping,” he said. “I’ve got a bad enough reputation. Keep your clothes on.” Ah yes, nothing like the old pastoral scandal joke to bring the congregation together! Brother, that’s fellowship.

During the service, a 31 year-old massage therapist (ironically, the profession of Haggard’s gay prostitute friend) gave her testimony—“I believe in Ted,” she proclaimed. Was there an altar call for others to do the same?

Two gay men who gave testimony were there because they had answered a Craigslist ad placed by Long Pond Media, the company filming a documentary about the new church. The company paid their way to get to the service. Nothing like the Spirit gathering God’s people together, huh?

“I like Ted’s church because it’s open to everyone,” one of them said after the service. Ah, there’s the good ol’ evangelical formula—”Ted’s church.”

And that’s the bottom line, folks. It’s Ted’s church.

No thanks.

FOR FUTURE REFERENCE: I don’t plan on following this very closely. It is definitely not good for my digestion, or my sanctification. Nor do I want to inflict this on you, my friends, any longer.

By Chaplain Mike.

My interest in the first chapters of Genesis began to blossom when I was in seminary, studying under Dr. John Sailhamer. Over the years, I have come back to it again and again. My understanding has grown and been refined each time I’ve taken it up.

It saddens me that Genesis 1 has been so often co-opted for use in contemporary battles with science, particularly with regard to the age of the earth and the scientific model of evolution.

This has made it extremely difficult to simply teach Genesis. For while Christians need to stay informed and be able to interact with the findings of science (see, “Bruce Waltke on Staying in the Discussion“), such concerns were certainly not those of the Torah’s original audience, nor are they essential to studying what the Bible teaches.

Jesus said that the Bible’s central message is all about: (1) God’s Messiah and his redemptive work, and (2) God’s Mission of taking the Good News of forgiveness to all the world (Luke 24:45-47). The groundwork for that message is laid right here in Genesis 1.

Today, I would like to share with you the way I view this foundational passage from the Bible.

Let me begin with a warning. For many of you, my interpretation is probably quite different from what you have been taught.

If you asked me to categorize my view, I would say it has been influenced most by three OT scholars: John Sailhamer, Bruce Waltke, and John Walton, along with my own further study. (I hasten to add that these fine men should not be blamed for any of my errors.)

• Sailhamer showed me that Genesis 1 should be read first as the introduction to the Torah, which Moses gave to the generation of Israelites preparing to enter the Promised Land. Its themes reverberate through the rest of the Torah, and are summarized in Moses’ final message to Israel in Deuteronomy 29-30. Most people skip this step and read Gen 1 as the introduction to the entire Bible. It is that too, but failing to put it in its original context first causes us to miss much of its message.

• Waltke helped me grasp the genre of this material. Genesis 1 is a literary composition, not journalistic reporting as though someone were witnessing specific events. In exalted prose, the literary artist-author points toward the One to whom all creation owes its existence and loyalty.

• Walton pointed out that Ancient Near Eastern parallels, along with Biblical descriptions of the Garden of Eden, the tabernacle, and the temple show that in Genesis 1 God is portrayed as a King constructing a cosmic temple from which he will rule and extend his blessing to all creatures.

TWO STORIES
I am convinced that Genesis 1 contains two stories, not just one.

• Genesis 1:1 explains the origin of the Universe.
• Genesis 1:2-2:3 explains the origin of the Promised Land.

THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE (Gen 1:1)
The best translation of Genesis 1:1 is the traditional one: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Read this way, Genesis 1:1 states the most basic truth of all: There is one true and living God who created everything that exists.

What did God create in the beginning? “The heavens and the earth,” is the usual reading, but a translation like “the skies and the land” more accurately represents what the author would have been saying as a pre-scientific observer of the world around him. Don’t picture a globe in outer space amidst all the other heavenly spheres. That is not the perspective of the ancient observer. Rather, our author is standing with the reader and looking out on a landscape, motioning with his hands across the whole sweep of the view and saying, “God created all of this.”

This phrase is a merism, a figure of speech that uses two contrasting concepts to present a single idea. For example, in Psalm 139, David says, “You know when I sit down and when I rise up.” In other words, God knows every movement of his day. “The skies and the land” is likewise a way of saying, “Everything that is.” Genesis 1.1 thus affirms that there is one true and living God who created the universe, all that exists.

When did God do this? “In the beginning.” Beyond these words, the author does not specify when this occurred. He simply thinks back as far as possibly can be imagined, to a time when there was no sky, no land, no world as we know it. At that time God created the terrestrial world and the skies that surround it.

THE ORIGIN OF THE PROMISED LAND (Gen 1:2-2:3)
Grammatically, Genesis 1:1 stands alone. In Hebrew, it is clear that a new subject is introduced in Gen 1:2—“Now the land…” The author’s attention moves away from the cosmic scene and focuses on a “land,” a specific land in the world that God created back in the beginning.

English versions obscure this by translating the Hebrew word eretz as “earth” rather than “land,” which is its more common meaning. For modern readers, the word “earth” conjures up pictures of a globe that we know as the Earth, our planet as it exists in outer space among the other heavenly bodies. However, this is not nor could it be the viewpoint of the author of Genesis. As in Genesis 1.1, the author’s perspective is that of a person standing on the ground, looking out across a landscape. And the landscape across which he is gazing is the Promised Land.

After making the bold declaration that it was God and God alone who created this universe we know and observe—the land surrounded by skies—into existence, Gen 1:2 begins to tell how the God of creation at some later time provided a good land where his creatures might live in his blessing.

The preparation of this land is what the seven days of “creation” are about.

For the sake of length, I can only give an outline of the seven days in this post. The seven days are divided into four sections:

1. There is a prelude describing the land before God prepared it (Gen 1:2)
2. The first three days describe how God formed the conditions suitable for life in the land.
3. The second three days describe how God filled the land with essential elements and living creatures.
4. The seventh day describes how God completed his work, hallowed the seventh day, and rested.

Prelude: The Uninhabitable Land (Gen 1:2)
This verse describes the land before God readied it for his creatures. It was “without form and empty,” a Biblical phrase that describes an uninhabitable wilderness. It was not yet “good” like God would make it. The problem was that it was covered by darkness and water. However, God’s Spirit hovered over the waters, ready to exert his creative power.

Days One through Three (Gen 1:3-13)
On the first three days, God forms the land, creating the environment in which his creatures might dwell.

• Day One: God overcomes the darkness and assigns functions to light and darkness so his creatures may live within the framework of regular days and nights.
• Day Two: God assigns places to the waters, so that his creatures may live within the framework of a regulated environment.
• Day Three: God parts the waters from the land and causes the land to bring forth food, so that his creatures may live within a framework of a home and regular provision.

Days Four through Six (Gen 1:14-31)
On the second three days, God fills the land he formed with essential elements and living creatures.

• Day Four: God fills the sky by hanging “lamps” to shine on the land, to regulate days and nights, and to prompt people to worship him in his designated seasons.
• Day Five: God fills the skies and seas with living creatures, giving them his blessing.
• Day Six: God fills the land with living creatures. Then, God makes human beings in his image, blesses them, and gives them responsibility for the land and its creatures, promising them his provision.

Day Seven (Gen 2:1-3)

• God completes his work and takes his place of rest (the throne of his temple)

SUMMARY
So then, the story of creation explains that there is one true and living God who created the universe back in the beginning. It also tells us that God prepared a special place in the world, a land, to be his temple. Like a King and master workman, he first constructed the outward form of this land so that it would be good for the creatures he planned to make. He then filled it with essential elements for life and worship, formed living creatures to inhabit it, and blessed them. He made humans in his image, blessed them, and made them his representatives to care for the land and its creatures. The blessing he gave to humans, to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” shows that he intended his blessing to be extended throughout the whole world. At the completion of his work, God took his place of rest, sitting down on the throne in his temple to rule and receive the praise of his creatures.

The land of Genesis 1, its preparation artfully described by use of the seven-day literary scheme, was made as God’s temple in the world, and people were placed there to live in his blessing and to extend that blessing throughout the rest of the world.

WHY THESE TWO EMPHASES?
Why does the author of the Torah begin his story with these two emphases: (1) that God is the one true and living God who created the universe, and, (2) that this God prepared a special land in the world to be his temple, from which his glory might extend over all the earth?

Because this was God’s message for the people of Israel who were about to enter their own land.

The one true and living God chose Israel to represent him in the world, just like those first humans. Like them, he prepared a good land for them to inhabit. That good land was rich and abundant and filled with his blessing. The tabernacle, and the temple that they would later build, housed the Ark of the Covenant, which represented God’s throne dwelling in the midst of his people, ultimately in Jerusalem.

The Promised Land was not simply God’s gift to Israel for their own sake. Their life in the land was meant to be a light to the nations. From them and through them, the knowledge of the one living and true God and his blessing was to extend to all people throughout the world.

And that is the story Genesis 1 introduces.

From iMonk in March, 2009. Replayed by Chaplain Mike.

David Wilkerson (Cross and the Switchblade, Times Square Church) is predicting a world changing disaster, and advises that you dust off those cans of Spam you still have from Y2k. It’s getting serious coverage by the unhinged conservative media.

I wrote about Evangelical anxiety about the end of the world in the “Evangelical Anxieties” series in February of 07. Not only have I not changed my mind, I’m more bothered by this than ever.

If eschatology were a multiple choice question, with answers like this:

a) be Christ centered
b) proclaim the Gospel
c) do missions and evangelism
d) look forward to the new heaven and the new earth
e) be idiots

…guess what a large chunk of Evangelicalism would choose?

Evangelicals really can’t get enough of this stuff. Wilkerson- and a thousand other end times prophets like Kim CLement- have predicted similar events before. The “end of the world” section of the bookstore is only the front end of the “end of the world warehouse” that stores all the books that have been predicting the end of the world as long as evangelical authors could find a pen.

In no other area of Christian belief are Evangelicals more irresponsible and bizarrely repetitive. If doing the same thing, over and over and over again with no result, qualifies as a form of mental illness, then we can fill up an entire chain of hospitals. We’re talking about people who will take their eschatology and turn it into a VIDEO GAME here.

The Bible is obviously too simple for Evangelicals at this point. The instincts of some Christians tell them that it never can just mean what it says. So when Jesus says “no one knows, not even the Son,” or “don’t believe people who say they know,” it actually means “Oh yeah, we can know ALL about future events. Just get the right teacher with a big chart and you’re in there.”

Maybe it’s the fact that weird eschatology is the closest thing Christianity has to the kind of material that shows up on the Sci-Fi channel late at night. Bad acting. Cheap special effects. Teenagers caught having sex. Maybe rapture anxiety just plays like a bad B-movie, so Evangelicals get it.

The history of Christian apocalyticism is a story in and of itself. I recommend Jason Boyett’s Pocket Guide To The Apocalypse. Seriously. Get it. Good book with lots of humor and even more information.

I am never more envious of Catholics/Orthodox than on the subjects of evolution and eschatology. Catholics simply don’t lose their minds over this sort of thing. The catechism is calm. If the pope has anything to say about the end of the world, it must be edited out. You’d never hear Benedict going on like Tim Lahaye. (Too bad Art Bell isn’t on Christian radio.)

I’m sure Catholics and Orthodox have their hysterical eschatology committees like every other religion, and I’m sure Fr. So and So is out there in the road with a placard proclaiming the end, but you just get the impression that Catholics are in the “it will all work out” camp, and they aren’t going to get in the bunker with Ned Flanders. Have a beer. Go to a Barbeque. Don’t start screaming. No one likes a religion with people screaming.

Evangelicals don’t seem to blink when they realize that the business of various apocalyptic scenarios is making millions of dollars for people convinced it’s all about to be over. They don’t mind that the people making these prophecies either abuse, don’t use, or no longer need to use a Bible. No, from Thief in the Night to 89 Reasons Christ Will Return in 1989, we just keep on keepin’ on.

My evangelical students read Left Behind with far more interest than they read scripture. If everyone who read Left Behind read ONE other decent Christian book, a Great Awakening would arrive. My students also assume that all Christians buy into this approach to the future. I haven’t met one yet, in 17 years, that has a pastor who even sent clue one that we might not be on the verge of the great tribulation because the stock market is zonked. Judgment house. Hell house. Rapture house. We really need an amusement park to get the whole show together.

Does it occur to most Evangelicals that their brothers and sisters around the world sort of LIVE in the Apocalypse? If we have a Columbine or a Katrina, John Hagee is on TV the next night with a chart so big you can see it behind him. Meanwhile, in Sudan, it’s all just another day at the office.

Americans are afraid of the end. They are afraid of losing their life here. They don’t want II Thessalonians 1 to happen. They want to keep running up their credit cards and driving the leased SUV.

Kingdom? New world? End of old world? Resurrection? Christ all in all?

Missional hope? Reach the nations? Gospel to every people group? Bible in every language?

Don’t be bothered by earthquakes, rumors of wars, bank collapses, elections, etc?

Nah. Put in the next Left Behind movie. The one where Kirk Cameron sings “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” to Carpathia.

[Comment ideas: 1) Catholics and Orthodox are allowed one comment to make fun of evangelicals. 2) What's your best story about Evangelicals and Apocalypse fever?]