For example, these are four different Gospel articulations that I’ve used repeatedly in speaking and teaching. They are not definitions or creeds. They articulations that summarize and balance the content of the Gospel as I understand it. It’s language I want my hearers to hear frequently. Sometimes in phrases. Sometimes in whole sermons or lessons.

Announcement: The Gospel is the glad announcement that God himself, through Jesus, has done everything necessary to rescue his broken world and save its broken people from judgment and ruin. All persons are invited to believe this glad announcement, to be forgiven and to become a disciple of Jesus who is King and Lord.

God: In the Gospel, God shows us that he is the loving and gracious Father revealed in Jesus Christ his Son. This is the face of God that the Christian will look upon for all of eternity. In our Father, there is no condemnation or rejection for his Son or those who belong to God in him. Everything the Bible says about God is true, but for the Christian, God is Jesus in our experience. The Glory of God is the majesty and Glory of Jesus in the incarnation, his sufferings/resurrection and the scriptures.

Jesus: Jesus is our salvation. We say with Simeon: “My eyes have seen your salvation” as he held the infant Christ. Jesus is the one mediator between God and man. He lived a life we could not live and and died a death in our place. He was raised to make us right with God and give us life in God’s Kingdom. By his life, death and resurrection, Jesus has defeated the power of Satan, evil and condemnation. Jesus rules the universe today as the one true King and will return to rule over a new heaven and a new earth. Jesus commands all persons to repent and believe in him.

Kingdom: The Kingdom of God was announced and established by Jesus and it continues in human history by his authority and power. Salvation comes into history as the Kingdom of God takes root in the world. The Kingdom of God is the beginning of the new heaven and the new earth where God’s righteousness lives and salvation is experienced. Jesus invited all persons to come into this Kingdom, to live in its new realities and to work for its inevitable triumph.

This is some of the “foundational content” that should underlie whatever applications we make and whatever we say that reflects on the Gospel.

It doesn’t seem that it would be particularly difficult to put the Gospel in a place where, for example, if we talk about God without Jesus or the culture war without reference to the Kingdom or salvation without reference to the person of Christ, it would sound wrong.

So why doesn’t it?

(By the way, I’m not offering these articulations for theological autopsy. This is how I talk and unless you are an ordination committee I’m seeking to get past, don’t treat me like my articulations are up for theological pinata practice.)

First, there is the level of scriptural definition. While I can answer the question “What is the Gospel?” it is the Biblical material that should form my definition. Before I give some simple Gospel articulations, what are the Biblical sources of Gospel definition?

Does the Bible give a definition of the Gospel? Or is the Gospel a theme that connects alll of scripture, yielding definitional material and language, but also context, meaning and significance for many other things?

Mark 1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Then in Paul’s Letters

I Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

In Galatians…

Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

The introduction to the entire book of Romans is…

Romans 1:15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Paul sees his entire life wrapped up in the Gospel.

2 Timothy 1:8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

Many passages seem to be talking about the Gospel, but do not specifically say they are doing so. For example:

Philippians 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

There are other sources, especially in John, that we should include.

If we look at the categories of foundational content and necessary consequence, the Gospel is foundational content. It may be stated in different because it is a thread making its way through the entire tapestry of the Biblical story, but the Gospel- the Good News- is what the scriptures exist to tell us. There are many voices telling the Gospel at different places in the Biblical story. It may seem strange to say that the Gospel was preached to Abraham without mentioning Jesus, that Jesus preached the Gospel as he came proclaiming the Kingdom and Paul heard the Gospel in the tradition of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But this is the case. The Gospel is the foundational content of the message the Bible is announcing all the way through.

As the Bible tells the Gospel, it tells it to each one of us. We are the hearers and responders. We are the nations that are blessed. We are those called to repent and believe. We are the ones asked to believe the testimony of the Apostles. We are the ones who will be willing to suffer and/or experience the power of the Gospel once we have heard and believed it.

Going back to the Gospel-less, often Christ-less content of much evangelicalism, there is the possibility that the Gospel is assumed and we have now passed from foundational content to application.

I do not believe this is the case, because the resulting application and articulation does not build on the Gospel, but on a foundation that often qualifies for Paul’s Galatians 1 warning of “another Gospel, which is no Gospel at all.” Does application always rest on some articulation of the Gospel, or is the Gospel assumed?

New Testament scholars often point out that the basic rhythm of Paul’s letters is explanation of the Gospel- or some emphasis within the Gospel- followed by specific application of the Gospel. If this is the basic movement of the great apostle as he communicated with the early churches, is it outlandish to see this as a kind of healthy example of how Gospel articulation and application should generally co-exist in a healthy Christian experience?

From these scriptures, I believe our Gospel articulation should include:

The Gospel as announcement of what God has done
The Gospel of God
The Gospel as a message about Jesus
The Gospel as the message of Jesus/The Kingdom
The Gospel as God’s redemption of his broken world (covenant story)
The Gospel as the foundation on which our responses- worship, missions, obedience, etc. – exist.

Next, I will build some specific articulations of the Gospel on these various levels.

I expect that this emphasis on my part will not endear me to some people, mostly on grounds that I am failing to see the significance of things like moral issues, behavior change and political causes. I’ve come to the point that I realize a discussion of the Gospel is going to have a predictable shape:

1) We all know the Gospel. It’s basic.
2) Once you’ve preached or taught the Gospel, then you need to deal with other things.
3) If you are constantly trying to bring the Gospel to the forefront as the main concern, you’re missing the importance of things like behavior change and obedience.

Or

1) Any message on any Biblical text is “the Gospel.”
2) You’re trying to push your theology over basic things like obedience and behavior change.

Or

1) The point is to get people to accept Jesus into their hearts, not turn people into theologians.

In my own tradition as I experience it in several hundred sermons a year, the Gospel is rarely articulated with Biblical priority or in Biblical balance with the rest of scripture. Good ideas from the Bible are common. Concerns of preachers and church leaders are heard every week. Frustrations with the decline of society or poor behavior of individuals is constant. Some form of the Gospel will frequently pass through these sermons in a place where the truth is seen, but it is also not uncommon to hear generic deism, pure moralism or behavior modification based on “Biblical principles.” Vague ideas like “living for God” or “being a good witness” are frequently referenced. As my readers have often heard, sermons without reference to Jesus are so common as to no longer be that shocking.

One of the most frustrating aspects of this decline is how often in 18 years of ministry I have addressed this topic of the Gospel specifically. Never underestimate the power of preaching to make little impact on deeply held beliefs. Clearly, this displacement of the Gospel is not perceived to be particularly problematic. Of course, these are people who have not been exposed to the Gospel-centric emphasis coming out of various places in evangelicalism or reformation traditions today. There is a reason so many of my good friends don’t emphasize the Gospel: to them “Gospel” is a word in front of singing. At most, it references a four step evangelism outline. It is not the central concept in the Christian life. Something like “Holiness” or “obedience” seems far more practical.

In the second post, I will share some of the ways I’ve tried to consistently articulate the Gospel over the years.

This will seem hard to believe, but I simply wanted a way to say I was moving past evangelicalism to something else, but that something else wasn’t what would cause me to say “non-evangelical,” at least using the generally accepted understanding of evangelicals. I wasn’t in any way trying to identify with post-modernism or the emerging church. The Ancient-Future Evangelicalism of Robert Webber really described me, but that label was unclear to me at the time and I still see it as being more ambitious than I ever want to be with “post-evangelical.”

The discernment blogosphere use of the term is synonymous with “apostate liberal in sheep’s clothing.” I notice a graphic at teampyro that says something about tours of the post-evangelical wilderness. Well, my post-evangelicalism is a way of navigating through the evangelical wilderness with the resources of the broader, deeper, more ancient church. I think the discernment blogosphere is talking about Mclaren, Bell, etc.

Let’s be clear about something: whatever post-evangelicalism means here at IM, it’s my own label used my own way, with a few friends along for the ride. There is no movement, no leaders, no conferences, no books. Tossing “post-evangelical” around as a term that describes the opposition from the reformed blogosphere’s point of view has nothing to do with me, unless you want to get down to issues like “are Catholics Christians?”, etc. My discontent with evangelicalism isn’t a rejection of the Protestant evangel.

2. How can you deny that the numbers of evangelicals are growing? How does that numerical growth affect your claim of a “coming evangelical collapse?”

First, if someone takes evangelicals seriously when they start talking numbers, they should know that at the sources, evangelical numbers vary wildly.

Second, what generally registers as an evangelical is someone who self-reports as an evangelical. Have you considered what this actually means?

What percentage of evangelical churches have membership? Meaningful church rolls? Are we talking about people who say they are evangelicals because when they do attend a church, it’s evangelical? Do they mean they vote for the GOP? Are they pro-life? Do they listen to evangelical media/ Like K-Love?

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that we’re talking the evangelical niche-market and not a seriously definable group of people? Why do I have the feeling that evangelical conviction and American self-definition are being mistaken for one another?

One of the reasons I am convinced we are going to have a collapse is because I am convinced no one really knows if most evangelicals are “there” at all. If they are “there,” what is the level of their loyalty? How easily can they not be “there?”

It’s more than a bit optimistic to say that evangelicalism is growing because of reasons that actually forestall an eventual collapse. Evangelical growth among Hispanics and immigrants is undeniable. Growth in selected small segments of evangelicalism is true and good growth. But megachurch growth is transfer and re-affiliation growth. Much of evangelicalism is spin and “low loyalty.”

Look at the numbers in the SBC. The denomination “grows” in various ways, even as it moves closer to generational free fall and the loss of thousands of churches. I’m grateful for the kinds of growth we have in the SBC, but if you are SBC you know what’s actually going on in most of that “growth”: rebaptisms, baptizing children and adding ethnic congregations.

3. Did I hear someone say you would see a Baptist becoming a Lutheran as making a “post-evangelical” turn?

Yes. I believe that the move from evangelicalism to Reformation traditions, such as we saw in the creation of the Reformed Baptist movement starting in the 1960s, is an example of discontented evangelicals looking at the theology of the larger, deeper, more ancient church and making a move in that direction.

That’s certainly true with evangelicals moving to Lutheranism and Anglicanism.

So, ironically, some of the Calvinists who are the most vociferous critics of what I’m saying are examples of a move in a post-evangelical direction.

One request: When you share how pastoral care is done in your tradition, please do so from what you know, not from what “the instructions” say should be done. And be constructive and helpful.

Tell us a little about yourself, your journey as a Christian and your current ministry.

I grew up in the Midwest, in a moral, Protestant home, attending United Methodist churches. During my senior year in high school, after a move across the country that shook my foundations, I had a spiritual awakening and responded to an altar call in a Southern Baptist church, where I was re-baptized. I went to Lancaster Bible College in Pennsylvania. There, I became convinced of a call to enter the pastoral ministry. My wife and I were married after graduation, and our first congregation met in one of those historic, quaint, white steepled churches in Vermont, and there the people taught me much more about how to be a pastor than I taught them about Jesus.

After five years, we moved back to Chicago to go to seminary at Trinity in Deerfield. I was studying under some of the finest teachers in the world, pastoring a small church, our children were being born, and we had many wonderful friends supporting and encouraging us. However, there came a point after I graduated that I felt I needed some mentoring and more experience on a church staff. We also were trying to determine where we would put down roots as a family. So, when the opportunity came, we packed up and moved to Indianapolis. Here I served in a non-denominational church as the associate pastor with an emphasis on worship and music, but I also did a lot of pastoral care, teaching, and leading mission trips. Then I became the senior pastor in a sister congregation. After a rather difficult experience there, God opened up the opportunity to serve as a chaplain in a hospice program. Soon it will be five years since that journey began.

God used many past experiences to prepare and equip me for this work. In Vermont, our small church was a parish church. Because we were the only congregation in the village, I visited the sick and did funerals for all kinds of people, including complete strangers who’d had vacation homes in the mountains and wanted to be laid to rest there. We also had a significant population of older folks and shut-ins that I learned to love visiting. That was also true in the other churches where I served—I just seemed to connect well with the senior citizens. Also, while in seminary, I took my first CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) course, and was introduced to the inner workings of the hospital and how to serve patients. Since then, I have always appreciated the strong connection between medical and spiritual care.

I consider my grandmother to be one of my greatest examples for ministry. After my grandpa died rather early in life, she devoted much of her adult life to caring for her elderly neighbors, friends, and fellow parishioners. Her simple and faithful service showed me what it means to be the salt of the earth.

I have always believed that pastoral ministry is about prayer, proclamation, and people-work. As my favorite pastoral author, Eugene Peterson, says, it is not about “running a church.” Frankly, I am appalled at how these perspectives have gotten turned around in today’s church, and how little attention is given to foundational ministries like pastoral visitation. It is a forgotten art.

That is why I am glad to be in a position now where personal work can be my primary focus. Every day I visit individuals and families in their homes, in extended-care facilities, and in hospitals. My job is to enter their worlds, befriend them, show them kindness, listen to them, answer their questions when I can, and provide various kinds of spiritual support that may help them find peace at the end of life. I have often imagined that Jesus’ earthly ministry must have been like this, as he went from village to village and house to house, engaging people in their own settings, exhibiting compassion, providing healing, giving hope.

Another reason I love my job is that I work with a team of skilled and compassionate professionals who all do their parts to serve our patients and families with regard to their medical needs, psycho-social needs, personal care needs, and, after a death, needs associated with the grieving process. Hospice is a wholistic service—covering body, soul, and spirit, and respecting the processes involved in the final season of life and beyond.

1. I first thought of this interview when it occurred to me that evangelicals don’t seem to have anything close to the resources of other traditions when it comes to pastoral care of the dying? Am I right?

In my experience, most people and churches in the evangelical world have their focus on fellowship and activism. The kind of work I do doesn’t fit the model very well.

I can’t tell you how many times I have had an evangelical friend or pastor ask me, with a sour look on his face, “Do you really like doing that?” They recognize that caring for those who are seriously ill and suffering is a part of life, but it’s a part they would rather avoid and deal with only when absolutely necessary. Not a regular part of the “mission,” you might say.

They know how to put people on the prayer chain. They know how to make a meal and bring it to a family that is going through a hard time. If there is something active they can do, like get a list together of folks to help the family with errands or cleaning house, etc., they might be able to organize some practical assistance. These things can be quite helpful, and should not be looked down upon. However, beyond that, there’s not much in the paradigm, especially if you’re talking about pastoral visitation. And we haven’t even talked about ministering to dying people who are outside the church, which is not even on the radar of most pastors or congregations.

It certainly was not an emphasis in my education. We had few pastoral care courses in my evangelical Bible College and seminary. Nor is it emphasized in churches. I don’t know many evangelical churches that have programs like the Stephen Ministry for equipping believers in caring ministry. The more pervasive model seems to be that churches will support a parachurch ministry and expect the work to be done by them. It’s not really part of the church’s mission.

With regard to care for the dying, most pastors and people have not been taught that it is a good use of their time, that it is Christ-like and genuinely helpful, to simply sit with people, actively listen to their feelings, and not feel like you have to give “answers” or put the situation in an understandable theological framework so that folks might know the divine “reason” behind what is happening. Evangelicals don’t usually have a great deal of good language with which to pray for these folks, either, and it may be the rarest of things to find an evangelical worship service (or even funeral service) that contains rubrics for lament or recognition of grief and loss.

Don’t get me started on “mega-church” pastoral care. From what I’ve seen, it’s non-existent.

Now, I don’t want to be too hard on evangelicals alone here. Other traditions have more experience and better tools for being pastorally present with people, but that doesn’t mean it always happens. Mainline pastors often drop the ball here too. I’ve seen many a Roman Catholic priest do a perfunctory anointing of the sick and never really connect personally with the family. One can read the most beautiful prayer from the Book of Common Prayer without feeling or expressing any empathy whatsoever. Nevertheless, I have found that pastors and parishioners in the older traditions at least understand that this is one of the things the church and her ministers should be doing.

Ultimately, in my view, this is another area where the church (at least in the white, suburban culture with which I am most familiar) has become conformed to the death-denying, suffering-averse, productivity-centered world we live in. How is sitting with the dying gonna help build my church?

2. Is a significant part of this deficit because of evangelicals’ lack of liturgical resources?

That lack certainly doesn’t help. When most of our prayers begin, “Lord, we just want to thank you for…,” it signals that we might suffer from a lack of language to appropriately relate to life’s awesome mysteries. Purely spontaneous prayer doesn’t work because we simply don’t have words when we are in a situation that overwhelms us.

But why do we rely on that? After all, we claim to be Bible-believing people. No book on earth contains human expressions of sorrow, pain, anguish, grief, disappointment, anger, guilt, loneliness, or fear like the Bible. We just have to read it! But because we haven’t really internalized the Scriptures, we don’t know how to be human, we don’t know how to pray as real people dealing with real life before a real God.

Walter Brueggemann writes about “the formfulness of grief.” One thing we learn from Scripture is that, in the chaos of suffering, we need a sense of clarity and direction in the midst of our disorientation. So, we lament. The lament form gives us a pattern by which we may express our grief, contemplate our faith, and make a way through the wilderness of suffering. We usually don’t have the words. We’re too overcome. It hurts too much to talk. Appropriate liturgies give us profound words to speak when we can’t, words that in turn speak to us, give us perspective, and help us survive.

3. Do evangelicals have a model of a “good death” or does their theology move them in the direction of asking God for miracles?

Coming to grips with the terminality of a loved one is a process for everyone, not just evangelicals. The difficulty of the process also varies depending on the situation. Losing my 90 year-old grandmother is sad, but I probably would not suffer undue shock or dismay, especially if her death followed a normal course. I would be happy that she had lived a long life. I would rejoice in memories of what we shared in life together. I would be grateful that she was able to be comfortable and peaceful, with her pain and symptoms managed well at the time of her passing. Most of us would probably call that a “good death.” We would be concerned and sad, we would offer prayers for her and the family, but I doubt if we would be calling all-night prayer meetings asking God to intervene.

However, a young person, a woman in the prime of her life, a robust middle-aged man, a person who is not at peace with God or others…in such cases the diagnosis of a terminal condition throws us all out of whack. And it should. The question then becomes—What are our options at that point? I’m not sure there is a single “evangelical theology” that speaks to the situation.

Those whose tradition emphasizes miracles, divine intervention, and healing would likely view the situation as absolutely NOT God’s will and would marshal all their resources to fight the devil they blame for the person’s illness. Others would be more stoic and submissive. Some might emphasize trying to understand what is happening, looking for “reasons” to satisfy the Christian perspective. Most all people will bounce up and down on a roller-coaster process of anticipatory grief, needing someone to be with them for support and encouragement all along the way.

In my view, that is the bottom line. No matter where people are with regard to their specific reactions to end of life issues, no matter their theology or conditioned response to tragedy or loss, they need support. They need a calm, reasonable, caring human friend to sit with them, who is available to listen and support them. I have sat with families that have all kinds of reactions, and my approach has been fairly consistent—BE THERE. Period. Trust the process, rely on the active presence of God, and walk down the road with them.

4. At what point is it appropriate for a minister to talk about death when a family may be refusing to speak about it?

The subject usually comes up naturally if folks have access to the kind of support I just talked about—a calm, reasonable, caring human friend to sit with them, who is available to listen and support them. Occasionally, a compassionate minister or friend may need to help someone face reality and speak the truth plainly when it is being denied. But most of the time, it is clear that people know what’s going on, and they just need time until they can talk about it.

We have all kinds of people who come into hospice care, and they come from a variety of faith and non-faith backgrounds. Some are on-board and realistic from the beginning. Others say “Don’t mention death or use the word hospice. Hide your badge so mom won’t know you are from hospice.” Some refuse to sign “Do Not Resuscitate” orders because they can’t imagine not trying to bring dad back if possible. They put off making funeral arrangements or getting necessary documents together. Some don’t want the chaplain to visit. A friend of mine said he once had a patient who called the chaplain, “the sky-pilot,” the person you only see when you’re ready to be launched into the afterlife! Other folks struggle when grandma doesn’t want to eat anymore, and so they keep trying to force food into her. Many people refuse to give or take pain medications, especially morphine, because they view that as crossing the line and forsaking life.

So, in hospice we have to be gentle with people and respect their journey. We pretty much don’t force anything but emphasize giving good information and the kind of supportive presence that will give people permission to talk about things they’d rather not face. I’d recommend ministers and friends do the same. Again, it’s not efficient. It takes time. But it is loving, and the “small miracles” we see every day of people being helped and supported through some of the toughest experiences of their lives are worth as much as seeing Lazarus come forth.

5. You deal with many people with little or no faith resources for approaching death. What is your pastoral care strategy in that situation?

First, let me make a foundational statement about what a chaplain is and is not.

Because I am not a pastor in a local church but work for a healthcare organization, I must approach things differently than a minister would. A church pastor has a covenant relationship with his people and serves them with a whole system of theological understandings and expectations in place. A chaplain, on the other hand, must honor the spiritual and religious commitments of patients (even those that he might deem wrong), and serve them according to their own faith traditions. So, if I get a Buddhist patient, unless she wants to talk about the Christian view of God and salvation, it is not my job to force that on her. I will ask if she wants support from someone in her own religious community. Only if she asks me, or I get her permission, will I share my faith with her.

Secondly, let me lay a theological foundation for the way I approach everyone.

The doctrines that have guided me from the beginning in this work are the Bible’s teachings on creation and common grace. God created each human being in his image, and by his grace and providence he sustains us all. I meet and deal with people first based on our common humanity under God. Every person is my neighbor, and I am called, simply, to love my neighbor. Being a chaplain means involves specific ways of doing that. It’s more of a “love your neighbor” ministry than a “win the lost” ministry (though I’m not always sure about the dichotomy).

Furthermore, because I believe in common grace, I do not understand my job as bringing God to people. He is already with them, and he is already working, no matter who they are. To reference Eugene Peterson again, my duty is (1) to recognize that God has gone before me in every encounter, (2) to discover some of what God is doing in that person’s world, and (3) to figure out how to best cooperate with God in what he is trying to accomplish.

So, when I have a new patient and family without a faith background, I meet them on their turf as neighbor and friend. I do not have an agenda, other than to listen and learn how I might be of assistance. I tell them I am available as a spiritual and pastoral resource, if that is what they want and need, but my main job is simply to be there with them for support. I always offer to pray for them (and ask their permission to do so), and I try to make my prayers personal, filled with Biblical language, and focused on God’s love for people and his promises to be with us in Christ.

I find that this kind of approach often leads to more discussion about “spiritual things” than if I would try to force the matter. One joyful consequence is that I have been asked to do many funerals for un-churched folks, and at the funerals I always try to clearly present the story of Jesus, his salvation, and the hope of eternal life.

I’m not sure evangelicals in general think in these terms. We are often weak on creation and common grace. Instead we see God mainly at work within the community that is separated from the world. We also identify his work primarily with specific “spiritual” matters that we focus on. We sometimes don’t do well simply as human beings living among fellow human beings who are our neighbors, all walking together through the common experiences of life. We are often too “spiritual” for our own good, and for the good of others.

6. What sorts of things make the process of grief difficult for evangelicals?

In my first grief support group, I learned something as I listened to folks talk—It is hard to go to church after losing a loved one. I’ve heard that particularly from those who’ve lost spouses.

* First of all, nobody knows how to relate to Joe anymore now that it’s no longer “Joe and Mary.”
* Second, few know what to say, and this leads to many awkward and some hurtful encounters.
* Third, you (the bereaved) don’t know what to say either, especially when the song leader keeps telling you to smile and be happy in Jesus, and all your brothers and sisters keep saying over and over again, “Remember, she’s in a better place.”
* Fourth, you have to sit through something alone that you had always done together; and if your spouse ever sang in the choir or did something up front regularly, then it’s hard to be there and watch others take her place.
* Fifth, the church revolves around fellowship and activism. But you would rather be alone, and you don’t have the strength to teach middle-schoolers right now. You don’t fit any longer.
* Sixth, since the church is “focused on the family,” you feel like a fifth wheel all the time when you are around other adults.
* Seventh, you have to sit and listen to the “7-Day Sex Challenge” sermon series and other such silly talks from the pulpit.

I have heard some incredible stories. A woman I know lost her young son in a tragic accident. Not long afterward, she went to church and stayed in the sanctuary after the service, crying there in the pew. The pastor came by and said, “Now, now, let’s not forget our witness.” That may be the cruelest sentence I have ever heard pass between one human being and another.

Other clichés or stupid remarks well-meaning Christians use include,

* “She’s in a better place.” That’s right. By faith we trust that our believing loved ones are being comforted in God’s presence. But what about the bereaved? Is he in a better place?
* “God never gives us anything more than we can bear.” Really? Then why does Paul exhort us to “bear one another’s burdens”? Some things must be too heavy for one person to carry alone. Don’t throw it off on God. He may be asking you to lend a hand.
* “I know exactly how you feel.” No you don’t. Not even close. If you did, you wouldn’t say that, you’d probably just join the crying and give the bereaved a hug.
* “I remember when so and so died…” Guess what? No one wants to hear your story right now. This is not about you, or someone else. This is about someone drowning in loss.
* “Just call if I can be of any help.” Let me clue you in on something. This person does not have strength to pick up the phone and ask for help. This is time for others to take the initiative. Help or don’t help. But be quiet about it.

I tell grieving people all the time just to expect that people will say stupid things and not to take it too personally. Most folks are downright pitiful when it comes to knowing what to say at times like this. Add to that our discomfort with the whole death and dying thing, and the fact that it doesn’t fit into our paradigm of church activities, and the result is usually not a pretty picture.

The overriding issue is that we have lost all sense of the time and energy involved in the process of grief, and we have not allowed space in our lives to let people grieve the way they need to. There is usually a big rush of caring and expressions of sympathy in the first week or two after someone experiences a loss, but then, since we have to get back to our lives, we expect that the bereaved will somehow just magically “get over it” and get back to his.

Other faith communities have learned to do it better. For example, Orthodox Jews have an entire 12-month process of tradition and liturgy for the grieving, which is lived out by the bereaved and faith community alike. However, in evangelicalism the issue again becomes, “How does allowing someone the time and space to grieve fit into our paradigm of fellowship and activism?”

7. If death has come in tragedy, how can evangelical ministers acknowledge that kind of loss while also upholding hope?

As a hospice chaplain, I don’t deal with a lot of sudden deaths, accidents, and the like. I have as a pastor. In the moment, helping people in these circumstances likewise involves finding a way to serve with true human compassion. By God’s grace, I want to be that reasonable, levelheaded, quiet and supportive presence, who can walk faithfully with those going through the tragedy.

A woman in our church had a grandson who died in an automobile accident. She asked me to come to the home where all the relatives, friends, and church members were arriving to be with the family. This was a very expressive bunch, temperamentally and theologically, and the room was filled with wailing and crying and people letting out their emotions in unrestrained ways. What did I do? For most of the evening, I stood with my back to a wall, off to the side and was simply present. Every once in awhile I quietly greeted someone with a hug or pat on the shoulder, but that was about it. I literally did nothing. Yet, if you would ask that woman today what she remembers most about me being her pastor for more than 9 years, she would tell you it was all the help I gave her that night.

After a tragedy, it is important that the pastor and folks in the church realize that the bereaved who are left behind will need support that may require extraordinary attention in the short-term and consistent loving care for the long haul. Hope doesn’t come through words alone, but through a solid and reliable support group that sticks with the hurting.

Having said that, words are also important. Regular participation in the liturgy, which rehearses the fundamental truths of the Gospel over and over again, week after week, and which enables people to feed on God’s saving and sustaining presence through Word and Sacrament, can provide genuine help in reorienting those whose lives have become radically disoriented by tragedy.

8. How does the Gospel inform your work as a hospice chaplain?

The Gospel is the announcement that, in Jesus, God’s new creation has broken into this fallen, dying creation. Through Jesus Christ, the promised new day of God’s rule has dawned, and because of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Spirit, he has dealt the decisive blow to sin, evil, and death, and is creating a new people who will be with him forever in a new heavens and new earth. Until that new creation is revealed in its fullness, those made new by Jesus are called to live in this fallen world as God’s representatives. It is through his new people that God fulfills his mission of taking this Gospel to all the hidden corners of the world, announcing and creating newness everywhere.

That is a grand plan and vocation, but its outworking could not be more down-to-earth. Jesus said the Kingdom unfolds in small, hidden, subversive, often undetectable ways. A primary way it spreads is when one person made new humbles himself to serve another person in need. The Gospel doesn’t set us above other people, it sends us to kneel before them so that we might wash their feet. It doesn’t make us less human, but more fully human; doesn’t separate us from the world around us, but sends us into every part of that world to love and serve our neighbors.

And that’s why I love what I do so much. As a hospice chaplain, it is my privilege to go into places where people are hurting, crying, dying. By God’s grace, I pray that I may announce and create a bit of newness each day for those bound by sin and death. That’s Gospel ministry to me.

I wish I knew better how to translate this into counsel for every church, pastor, and Christian. In my view we need to abandon the misguided missions that intoxicate us, and come back to Gospel basics. Forget “building a great church.” Share the good news. Visit the sick. Give relief to the suffering. Sit with the dying. Comfort the bereaved. Be generous to those in need. Be hospitable. Love your neighbor. Live in fully human ways among your fellow human beings under God.

This is not a new “law,” but the Gospel lived out, the “Jesus-shaped” way that the Spirit constrains us to pursue.

I would suggest that the IM blog and IM radio podcast audience are made up of people who may, at least at some point, have felt they were “the only ones,” or one of a few.

Slowly, as books and blogs and stories and coffee shop conversations proliferated, their view changed.

Now, they/we know. There are thousands of us at a thousand different places in the evangelical wilderness. Our experiences in evangelicalism weren’t exactly what we originally thought. Given a place to stop, listen and talk, it turns out there are many of us, not just a few. No one seems to have a map, everyone seems to have a story. Very few of us want to go back to whatever evangelicalism was when we were happily going along with the show.

We are simply here, and we’re greatly strengthened by the stories we’re hearing and the reality we’ve discovered can’t be questioned.

Whenever I write, I’m aware of this. An audience exists around this web site and around some of what I have written, who understand what the wilderness experience means. They do not all want or even understand the post-evangelical label. They do not all agree with me or my pessimism about the future. They are not a “movement.” (Good grief.) They are not all reading Brian Mclaren, or N.T. Wright or Don Miller. They are not all anything, any denomination or any common complaint. They are not some common hoard of emerging caricatures.

We are every denomination, every age, both genders, in and out of ministry, holding on to different parts of what we once were. We take encouragement from some of the same voices, but we are most definitely not anyone’s club of the discontented. We are tribes, hermits, monastics, liberals, conservatives, traditionalists, emergers, contemplatives, prophets, lamenters, artists, solo players and plodders. Most of us have found a place to live out this wilderness experience and we go to work every day doing something for Jesus.

The audience for what I write is very real and very there….having an experience that my critics will endlessly and tirelessly describe as nothing more than the whimperings and whinings of people who can’t get over some aspect of their fundamentalist past or can’t see the glory of the evangelical present and future.

This audience has found thousands of faithful and happy evangelicals, but it has also found those who have left, are leaving and will leave. The people with no where to go. The people who don’t know what to do with their experience in evangelicalism. The people who have found shelter in some half-way house, oasis or way station.

For eight years of blogging and for most of three years of controversy, this audience has grown every year.

I could name the names of other individual Christian bloggers with large audiences and no one would embarrass themselves saying they were illusions or insignificant. But my audience? Apparently this audience either isn’t there, doesn’t matter or should be labeled as the source of the problem.

Be that as it may, the audience for this blog is real. They can be diagnosed, shuttled off to the back lot with all the other wimps, cranks and troubled kids who won’t behave. You can dispose of this audience with a word and swish of your rhetorical wand, but this audience, its experiences and its place in and out of an evangelicalism gone sour is not imaginary.

This audience and their experience of evangelicalism is part of what is happening in evangelicalism, right there along side the culture war and the latest efforts to save everything with a conference. There is no amount of diagnosing me personally that is going to make one person in the IM/IMR audience cease to exist, cease to have their experience or cease to find themselves moving out of, through and beyond evangelicalism.

If you think it’s about me being “sensitive,” well have a coke and stay a while. Ask yourself if my lack of obsequiousness is the real core issue here. Ask yourself why the blogosphere would be such a pleasant place in some corners if I just closed up shop? Ask yourself what it is that this blog and its numbers represent? Ask yourself how the stories- and people- on this blog would be treated elsewhere?

Then go back to being REAL, IM audience. That’s what you do best.

COMMENTS OPEN!

Is it the Christian view of mental illness to categorize mental illness as the activity of demons and/or the result of sin?

This question really goes past a discussion of mental illness into questions of Biblical interpretation that have increasingly troubled Christians in the past century. The seeds for this controversy were sown as Protestant Christians expounded the doctrine of Sola Scriptura in their confessions. In order to keep Biblically authority sufficiently high to battle liberalism, words and concepts were applied to the Bible that have become more and more troublesome when the Bible interacts with secular ways of seeing the world. These claims for the sufficiency and inerrancy of the Bible inevitably come into conflict with the vocabulary and truth claims of science and medicine.

Without an interaction of scripture and tradition, or a view of Biblical authority that focuses on Jesus Christ rather than on a “total Christian worldview,” many conservative Christians have chosen to use their claims about the nature of Biblical inspiration to advocate a way of understanding the world that appears primitive and superstitious to many non-Christians.

(Roman Catholics have been less troubled by this conflict, because the “Galileo experience” had an impact on the way Vatican II and the later Catholic Catechism would frame the relationship of the Bible and science. Christians interested in a statement of Biblical authority that takes the insights of modern science into account should read the current Catechism of the Catholic Church. Some Protestant communions have avoided this as well.)

The problem is simple: The Bible was written in the narrative world of ancient, prescientific cultures that often interpreted reality and events through a grid quite different from our own way of looking at the same reality. When the Bible speaks to us from its ancient setting, it does not “update” its cultural interpretations of causation for commonly observed phenomenon. Instead, it speaks in the cultural norms of the time. Those cultures tended to see most of what we call mental illness as the result of demonic influence or as a punishment for sin.

Now, Christians have been entirely free, in their own settings and cultures, to appropriate, interpret or re-interpret these Biblical explanations. For example, the Bible sometimes credits demons and spirits with much of what we might call mental illness, and also much of what today would be called normally stroke, cerebral palsy, psychosis, manic depression and so forth. Even when a condition is identified, demonic causes are usually assumed.

Christians have a vigorous and ongoing discussion with one another on whether there is a spiritual component to what we call mental illness. Within Christianity, such a discussion happens on the premise that the scientific worldview is, to a certain extent, to be rejected in favor of the worldview of the ancient cultures in the Bible. My own experience tells me this is often not done consistently.

For example, at an “Alcoholics for Christ” meeting, I heard a recovering alcoholic admit that he was depressed. He was immediately told by a group participant that he had a “spirit of depression,” and was accordingly prayed for along the lines of exorcism. This kind of combination of psychological terminology and Biblical causation is very common among some Christian communities, but I do not believe it has Biblical endorsement. It appears to be a kind of “folk-syncretism” that allows persons to use psychological terminology and Biblical techniques of exorcism.

The Bible does present us with “mute spirits,” as explanations for a loss of speech, but I believe this is the way an ancient culture explains something that would be explained medically today. If the mute person were examined by a modern western physician, it is doubtful that exorcism would be suggested as a treatment. It is unlikely that anyone today would ask “Who sinned? This man or his parents?” when confronted with a medical problem such as blindness.

It is appropriate that Jesus was incarnated into this ancient world and its explanations, and ministered as an exorcist/healer in this world in ways ordinary people would understand. It shouldn’t alarm any Biblical interpreter that Jesus was not creating charts of the brain and nervous systems. The point of the Gospels is not Jesus’ opinion of ancient medicine or psychology. We do not expect Jesus to be giving modern explanations for conditions that we understand very differently. Jesus ministered as a person of his time, and he viewed and responded to mental and emotional illness as a person of his time.

This is not to deny that some Christians would still emphasize the spiritual- even the demonic- component in treating mental illness. The Christian understanding of the role of the demonic in human behavior is a controversial area, primarily because scripture is not trying to communicate medical/psychological truth, but the truth of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. (I would suggest that C.S. Lewis represented the Biblical teaching on the demonic most correctly in his portrayal of that “world” in “The Screwtape Letters.”)

There is an issue of causation that must be faced. When a human being has a particular behavior, response or feeling, are we prepared to say that the cause of that behavior, etc. is a demon spirit? Not the person before us, their genetics, experiences or illnesses, but a demonic spirit that inhabits or influences them? Are we prepared to say that it is not a learned pattern or something that resides within the relationship of mind and body, but that it is an intrusion of the spiritual world into that relationship, causing what would not be there otherwise?

Causation can not be swept under the rug or ignored. It is the heart of the issue of treating mental illness.

Our school once had a popular teacher who would regularly pronounce students who slept in class as demon possessed. This was funny, but if one contemplates the causation she was suggesting, it undermined much of what she, as a teacher, should want to emphasize: responsibility, thoughtful consideration of others, discipline and manners. If demons make these things impossible for that student, then we should approach classroom education quite differently.

Mental illness is particularly complex. It is often related to the wrong and evil actions of persons as actors or as victims of the actions of others. For example, I often deal with young people whose psychological make-up is affected by parents who abuse substances, who neglected or abused the child, and who may have not provided basic needs and nurture. These children are often psychologically affected. They can be very “messed up.”

Should I talk to these young people about sin? Demons? I would not deny that sin and spiritual factors are part of the situation, but the problems cannot be dealt with by exorcism. Imagine that the child is a victim of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. This is the result of parental sin, but the treatment is medical.

I am particularly concerned that conservative Christians have mistaken mental illnesses like manic depression as being demon possession, and put the victims of this illness through cruel and torturous journeys that could not cure them. Manic Depression is extremely responsive to medication, and if a person is told that what they are experiencing is demonic, or the result of “curses,” they will suffer needlessly. It is compassionate to treat manic depression. It is uncompassionate to identify it wrongly.

Are we prepared to reject all that psychology or psychiatry tell us about mental and emotional illness? Is it really necessary to come to conspiratorial and skeptical views towards mental and emotional illness in order to maintain Biblical authority? I do not believe that is necessary or wise. I am sad to constantly hear fundamentalist Christian radio and television preach the message that, in order to be a Bible believer, one must oppose psychology, modern education, much medicine and other kinds of knowledge. Christians have done much to contribute to a kind of hostility to knowledge that God has given for good and compassionate purposes. There is a dialogue between Christians and other worldviews, but only in extreme cases does that dialogue amount to an announcement that conspiracies and fundamentalist dogma are the answer to every question.

Scripture tells us that King Saul was tormented by a Spirit from the Lord. David’s songs soothed him. Eventually, he was driven to try and kill David as a result of paranoid delusions credited to this spirit. Whatever was God’s purpose in these events in Biblical history, I believe a contemporary Saul could be described and treated with modern psychiatric and medical help.

I believe it is always appropriate to pray for all the resources of God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit to come into the life of any hurting person. But I also believe it is appropriate to see every hurting person in a way that will bring about the most reasonable opportunity to help them.

When I deal with this chapter, I try to show that the parts of the chapter that are easily understood plainly give us instructions on what we are to be doing and not doing. Hope this message is helpful for you. I didn’t read all of the chapter but that would be helpful for you as you listen.

Preaching for Grown-ups is my lectionary preaching at a small Presbyterian Church where I am privileged to supply. It’s the one time during the week I’m not preaching to mostly or exclusively teenagers, hence the name.

Listen to: “Mark 13: What to do While the World Falls Apart.”

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Patrol Magazine is consistently on top of the current evangelical evolution. David Sessions and the Patrol staff have been doing outstanding journalism for two years now. It’s a young evangelical Rolling Stone, the magazine Relevant would like to be. There’s more to say, but this is a true note amidst the confusion that surrounds us. Expect this editorial to get the “people who criticize the beautiful bride of Christ are pathetic” treatment, but don’t be deterred. Evangelicals have their strong suits, strong churches and worthy messengers, but overall, this is what mainstream evangelicalism is cooking. Add Patrol to your feed and stop in frequently.

(Reprinted with permission from Patrol Magazine)

HOWEVER LONG it may take to relinquish its hold on American culture, evangelicalism in the United States—still probably best defined by the British historian David Bebbington as a movement whose members adhere to conversionism, Biblicism, activism and crucicentrism—faces near-certain extinction. It has been blinded by its symbiotic relationship with the Enlightenment, and has perpetually failed to see beyond its hopelessly Western perceptions. Confined to the paramaters of liberal rationalism, it has mounted no challenge to the present political order and offered no intellectually acceptable explanation for how one is to live and think in the postmodern world. As this magazine has chronicled, its brightest children are throwing up their hands in record numbers, defecting heavy-heartedly to less temporal churches, or to no church at all.

But rather than recognize evangelicalism for the sinking ship it is, its cheerleaders are calling in increasingly desperate tones for a regrouping. Last year, a collection of prominent leaders met in Washington, D.C. to consider an “evangelical manifesto” designed to clear up the theological and political confusion that is intrinsic in the movement. In January, the hard-right Web site WorldNetDaily offered a checklist for identifying “true Christians.” Southern Baptists assume the apocalypse is coming from within, and mobilized this year to draw lines between themselves and cussing drunkards like Mark Driscoll and Rob Bell. (Ironic considering that those same leaders, often perceived as “liberals,” are just as insistent on salvaging the term for themselves.) Most recently, the ecumenical journal First Things launched an evangelicalism-focused blog that devoted its first few days to further pulpifying the dead horse. Evangelicals simply cannot stop talking about who is and who is not an evangelical.

This definitional masturbation is frustrating for those who see many of the values typically associated with evangelicalism as worth preserving. First, it behaves as if evangelicalism were once a unified, coherent tradition to which Protestants can return. On the contrary, with its scatter-shot, authority-averse tendencies, evangelicalism has always been a concept in constant cultural flux, particularly in the democratic United States. Some evangelical denominations have kept a firmer grasp on their senses than others, but the broad sweep of American Christianity is hopelessly fractured, diluted, politicized, ideological, nationalistic, and often plain idiotic. The notion that the term and the culture it represents can be salvaged from this smoldering heap is naïve at best.

The fight to define evangelicalism in its latter days also operates on the mistaken premise that an imagined theological purity or conformance to a “lost” orthodoxy, rather than an emphasis on ethics, spiritual discipline and mystery, will revive the power of the Christian church. It is astonishing that so many intelligent Christians seem to believe there is a deficit in emphasis on evangelism and scriptural literalism, and that, if the hatches are just battened down on a more solid “worldview,” evangelicalism can resume explaining the universe to new generations of believers. In this respect, evangelicalism’s true believers resemble the faction of the Republican Party that asserts with a straight face that returning to “core principles,” and not a radical restructuring of priorities, will bring waves of Americans back to the right wing.

But so many twenty-somethings are not calling themselves “post-evangelical” because they know too little theology or have put too small an effort into synthesizing it with reality. They have come from the most apologetics-obsessed generation of Christians in American history, and have realized that many of their prepared answers are for questions that no one is asking. Adrift in the cultural sea, many turned to traditions and theological systems of the past, only to find those similarly unequipped to address the questions of our time. The only choice has been to begin the messy and at times overwhelming process of drafting something new.

The growing collection of post-evangelicals is what the defensive, definitional evangelical fears the most, and could by itself explain the recent obsession with protecting the label. Surely many of the intelligent professors, students, writers and bloggers rushing to its defense have also felt the naggings of cognitive dissonance and the inkling that the world might make more sense if they abandoned some of their cultural presuppositions. But haggling over the details of theology provides a psuedo-intellectual haven from real-world questions, where evangelicals can exercise their minds without coming to any unsettling conclusions. And thus the cycle of definition and redefinition continues, providing endless diversion as it cuts deeper and deeper ruts into what was once known as the Christian dialogue.

Refusing to align squarely with evangelical shibboleths requires courage, but the sooner it happens on a larger scale the better. All signs point to a near future where religion will play an increasingly climactic role in global culture and politics. Men and women who, as Mark Noll puts it in the final pages of The Evangelical Scandal, “think like a Christian”—by which he means “take seriously the sovereignty of God over the world he created”—should be leading the way on the meta questions that are already besieging society. But as long as they are busy drafting manifestos in their barricaded salons, hubristic rationalism will continue charging unchecked into the 21st century.

(Reprinted with permission from Patrol Magazine.)