Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts

“No one” is the most influential Christian leader in America these days, according to a recent Barna survey. Of those named, Billy Graham was top on the list with 19%. But an overwhelming 41% answered “no one” when asked to name the most influential Christian in America today. Is it just me, or do you see this as a sign of progress?

(HT/ Jeff Dunn over at iMonk)

The quote below is from Gavriel Gefen's "Jesus Movements," in Mission Frontiers, May-June 2011 (p. 7).  I found it over at NextReformation.  What I find particularly interesting here is the notion of following Jesus -- and not following him lightly -- without feeling a need to convert to Christianity.  Such a notion flies in the face of much of my own education and formation, where belief in Jesus and being part of "Christianity" (and, by default, a church) was a no-brainer.

I have, over the years grown in my understanding of what it looks like to be a Christian and not be part of a church.  I'm pretty comfortable with that at this point.  However, I'm not sure I've ever thought that one could be a follower of Jesus and actually not consider themselves to be part of Christianity.

Interesting quote.

“There is a growing phenomenon taking place concurrently within at least every sizeable region of the world today. People within numerous different tribal cultures and also people within the cultures of each of the major world religions are increasingly accepting Jesus without converting to Christianity and without joining churches. ” They are encountering Jesus in ways that change their lives forever, without them leaving one group for another.

“They are learning to discover for themselves what it means to be faithful to Jesus within their own cultures and within their own birth communities. Conversion for them is believed to be a matter of the heart and not one of joining a different, competing cultural community.

“It is usually the case that after a number of these individuals within the same community are following Jesus, they begin meeting regularly as a small group. Over time this expands into multiple small groups among the same people group or within the same country. Eventually, it becomes established as a full-fledged movement of believers in Jesus that is outside of Christendom. It becomes a Jesus movement within another tradition. Does this mean they are living their lives outside the boundaries of biblical faith? Or, are they merely living beyond the boundaries of Christendom as a competing community?

“How did Jesus live as a son of Israel? Did he create a separate and competing community from the one that was already there? Did he tell people to leave their synagogues? Did he start his own synagogues?”

No...the exclamation points just don't do it for me.  Let me try all caps.  Forgive me if it hurts your ears.

WHAT!  NO PRAYERS AT THE 9/11 MEMORIAL OBSERVANCE!?!?

Nope.  No matter how hard I try I just can't seem to get all worked up about this.

I don't know whether you've heard or not, but word on the street is that the ceremony of remembrance at the 9/11 memorial site is going to be free of any prayers, whatsoever.  There will be some moments of silence, which is always fitting for an occasion like that, but no prayers.  In fact, no religious leaders have been invited to speak.

This is, apparently, the same way it's worked for the previous nine anniversary observances in New York.  It's been geared to the families who lost loved ones there.

[New York Mayor] Bloomberg's office said the 10th anniversary ceremony would follow the pattern of previous observances on the date of the worst attack ever against Americans on their soil. Earlier anniversary events also have not included clergy, according to the mayor's office. The focus is to be on those who lost family members in the attacks.

"The ceremony was designed in coordination with 9/11 families with a mixture of readings that are spiritual, historical and personal in nature," said Evelyn Erskine, a spokeswoman for Bloomberg, in an email to CNN.

"It has been widely supported for the past 10 years and rather than have disagreements over which religious leaders participate we would like to keep the focus of our commemoration ceremony on the family members of those who died," she said.

There will be moments of silence in the 10th anniversary observance so people can have times of "personal and religious introspection," Erskine told CNN. (The Christian Examiner)

So, Bloomberg says this is how it's been done in the past. He said the planners don't want disagreements over who gets to be there and speak on behalf of this or that religion.  And he says that, everyone will get time for "personal and religious introspection."  OK, I get it.

But there is a point on the other side here that this was a religious attack on the US.  It was an attack by those who considered it a Holy War.  And, religion played a big role in how our country responded to the attack.  I can't deny that it was a different religious environment, even in Girdwood, for a few weeks.  There are others, however, who see this as a case of political correctness or the public square being hospitable to Christianity.


And there are some angry Christians making their responses known:


The Family Research Council has a petition with 55,000 signatures which says: "Your plan to exclude pastors and prayer from the Ground Zero commemoration is not only offensive to the families of victims, but strangely overlooks the role that faith played in bringing healing to countless lives."

Florida Pastor Joel C. Hunter also told The Christian Post in a prior interview that a 9/11 ceremony without church leaders or prayer paints an inaccurate picture of America. "It's going to be exclusionary, secularist only, and we are one of the most religious countries in the world. So, the bottom line is, this is not how we were founded. This is not who we are," Hunter said.


The American Family Association's Tim Wildmon, is encouraging its 2.3 millions subscriber to write to Bloomberg to protest.  He says: "I'm stunned. This event affected the whole psyche and soul of the country, and you are going to have no prayer? What's a memorial service if you are going to leave God out of it completely? It seems kind of hollow."

And, of course, we'd have to expect the Institute on Religion & Democracy.  Their Mark Tooley says:  “In a city where the most residents in recent memory now cite religious faith as strongly important, New York is tone-deaf to exclude all religion when remembering the slaughter of over 3,000 innocents.  To exclude clergy even at a memorial service implies that religion is not welcome in the public square, even in mourning.”

Look, I think I'd like a pastor or two to say some touching, maybe even important words at the service.  It would be cool if a rabbi and an imam were there as well.  No one can deny that the stories, the images, the words of faith took on new meaning to many people after the tragic acts of ten years ago.  Religion was very important...to many persons.

But it wasn't important to all.  And it wasn't my faith, the Christian faith, that was important to all of those for whom religion was important.  It may be political correctness on my part, but I'm not comfortable with lining up religious leaders from every faith under the sun...or at least every faith that responded that day or was represented among the victims.  And I'm not comfortable with having the big three (Christian, Jewish, and Muslim) speak and ignore the rest.

But, most important for me, I'm uncomfortable with the kind of Christianity that we normally see in our "public square."  It's a "safe" faith...avoiding the calls to confession for sins, avoiding language that might offend other faiths, prettying up the message of salvation and justice and hope.  It might make people feel better.  The words might be "nice."  But oftentimes we make it safe.

And so, sure, I lament that there won't be a prayer or Scripture read or the message of resurrection (a powerful one in the face of tragedy) proclaimed.  But that's because it would mean a lot to ME.

There will be many other places and times for us Christians to proclaim the good news in response to those attacks ten years ago.  I will do that in Girdwood next week as we, too, remember.

But forgive me if I'm not too angry that they won't be praying at the 9/11 memorial that day.  Well, the people up front may not be praying.  There will be a whole lot of praying from the folks in the crowd.

Image via WikipediaIf you want a religion to make you feel comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.

—C.S. Lewis

--John Piper

Image by Story Accents via FlickrYou know, I always thought Oprah was a little "New Age-y."  Well, actually, I always thought she was VERY "New Age-y."  I can't say I watched more than a dozen of her shows in full over the years, but I occasionally caught one when changing channels and finding an interesting guest or topic being discussed.  I'd think she was Christian, then maybe-kinda-sorta Christian, then I'd think she surrounded herself with magic crystals that affirmed her as human being and kept her in relationship with all of her followers in a little Oprah-cult.  Perhaps not that bad, but I think she's been purposely hard to pin down when it comes to her beliefs.  My guess is that's one of the things that makes her so accessible to millions of viewers.

Maybe she's a seeker who embraces the call to love and to serve and accept (some things those of us who call ourselves Christian everyday can struggle with).  And yet I can't help but think she'd have a hard time with some of standard beliefs of Christianity...such as the words of the Apostles' Creed.  Moreover, I know that she's ruffled more than a few Christian feathers with all of her various nods to self-help and individualism and her comment at one point, I believe, that Jesus isn't the ONLY way of salvation.  She always seems to be appealing to a much larger base than traditional Christianity would allow.

Regardless, when she speaks, she has a large audience.  Her words are taken seriously by lots of folks out there.   So, it is with some surprise that I read her comments on her final show yesterday.  You can read the whole thing over here. 

“People often ask me, What is the secret of success of the show? How have we lasted 25 years? I nonjokingly say, ‘My team and Jesus.’ Because nothing but the hand of God has made this possible for me. … I know I’ve never been alone, and you haven’t either. And I know that that presence, that flow—some people call it grace—is working in my life at every single turn. And yours too, if you let it in. It’s closer than your breath, and it is yours for the asking.
…

“I have felt the presence of God my whole life. Even when I didn’t have a name for it, I could feel the voice bigger than myself speaking to me, and all of us have that same voice. Be still and know it. You can acknowledge it or not. You can worship it or not. You can praise it, you can ignore it or you can know it. Know it. It’s always there speaking to you and waiting for you to hear it in every move, in every decision. I wait and I listen. I’m still—I wait and listen for the guidance that’s greater than my meager mind.
…

“The only time I’ve ever made mistakes is when I didn’t listen. So what I know is, God is love and God is life, and your life is always speaking to you. First in whispers. … It’s subtle, those whispers. And if you don’t pay attention to the whispers, it gets louder and louder. It’s like getting thumped upside the head, like my grandmother used to do. … You don’t pay attention to that, it’s like getting a brick upside your head. You don’t pay attention to that, the whole brick wall falls down. That’s the pattern I’ve seen in my life, and it’s played out over and over again on this show.
…

“So, audience, I want to keep in touch. I want you to jot down my new email address: Oprah@Oprah.com—easy to remember, huh? This is going to be my personal email account for all of you. When you get something in your in-box from me, it will be from me directly, and I’ll be reading as many of your emails as I can as I move to my next life on OWN. I want you to know that what you have to say matters to me. I understand the manifestation of grace and God, so I know that there are no coincidences. There are none. Only divine order here.
…

Until we meet again . . . to God be the Glory.”

"My team and Jesus."  "I've felt the presence of God my whole life."  "God is love and God is life."  "Divine order." "To God be the Glory."  There's a lot here.

Yet, I can't help but think it would be an interesting process to sit down and talk theology with Oprah.  I wonder just how dissimilar our understandings of God would be.

“Christianity, defined in very simplistic terms, can be summarized as ‘me moving out, God moving in.’”

- Eric Ludy | When God Writes Your Love Story

(Found over here at Godspace.)

Image via WikipediaDrinking beer is easy. 


Trashing your hotel room is easy. 


But being a Christian, that’s a tough call. 


That’s rebellion.


Alice Cooper

In some religions:

DEVOTION (of the faithful)  --->>> SALVATION  (by some deity)


In Christianity:

SALVATION (by THE Deity) --->>> DEVOTION (of the faithful)


Hmmmm....

All throughout Lent we'll be addressing devotion.

I wasn't there.  But, I've now seen the video.   And I'm concerned that this is the image that many persons in the world have of Christianity.  Yelling.  Even throwing small cross, apparently, at the feet of a praying Muslim man.

I don't know the back story.

I don't know all that took place before this.

This is a video without much context.

However, I am concerned that (with the media coming in to assist us), THIS is how many persons, particularly young adults, view Christianity.



Actually, as I watch it again it made me wonder what Jesus would have felt like with the crowd yelling at him and closing in on him.

Interesting that it's the Muslim man who represents Christ as my thoughts go this way....

Hmmm....

There has been a whole lot of ugliness coming out of Egypt.  You can see it on the faces of those yelling at the government, or the police, or the pro-Mubarak supporters, or the protesters.  You can see it in the blood-stained faces and the rocks flying through the air.  You can see it in the tanks and the sticks and the burning pictures.  You can see it in the reports of plain-clothes policemen and the reports of reporters getting roughed up.  A lot of ugliness.

This is not to say that what's happening there isn't a good thing for the people of Egypt, many of whom are eager to get out from under the 30-year rule of Mubarak. 

But it's ugly.

However, here's a good image.  It's an image of Christians protecting Muslims so they can pray. 

The above picture is from The Daily Mail and the article contains the following quote as well:

'Some Muslims have been guarding Coptic churches while Christians pray, and on Friday, Christians were guarding the mosques while Muslims prayed.'

Also of note are the comments on Reddit which you can read below:



So...you think there's something to be learned here?

About peace?

About Islam?

About Christianity?

About our world?

Cover via AmazonThat's what Ross Douthat wrote in an op-ed piece for the New York Times.  And, he makes some interesting points:

Christmas is hard for everyone. But it’s particularly hard for people who actually believe in it.

In a sense, of course, there’s no better time to be a Christian than the first 25 days of December. But this is also the season when American Christians can feel most embattled. Their piety is overshadowed by materialist ticky-tack. Their great feast is compromised by Christmukkwanzaa multiculturalism. And the once-a-year churchgoers crowding the pews beside them are a reminder of how many Americans regard religion as just another form of midwinter entertainment, wedged in between “The Nutcracker” and “Miracle on 34th Street.”

These anxieties can be overdrawn, and they’re frequently turned to cynical purposes. (Think of the annual “war on Christmas” drumbeat, or last week’s complaints from Republican senators about the supposed “sacrilege” of keeping Congress in session through the holiday.) But they also reflect the peculiar and complicated status of Christian faith in American life. Depending on the angle you take, Christianity is either dominant or under siege, ubiquitous or marginal, the strongest religion in the country or a waning and increasingly archaic faith.

Well, is it hard on us Christian folk?  I know that sometimes the understanding of Christianity comes under seige at this time.  We find it hard to distance the coming of Christ from middle-class consumerism and I do think it can run the risk of being a time when "Christianity-lite" takes center stage and Jesus gets reduced to a warm feeling in our hearts.  But perhaps the offers us a great oportunity each year to buck that trend, to show Christ in service and to downplay the consumerism of the season.  And, while it may be hard, that's what Christ requires of us.

I found this over at JesusNeedsNewPR.

I tried it myself, typing into Google "Why are christians so..."  What I came up with is the following: stupid, judgemental, hateful, mean, ignorant.  WOW!

Can we look forward to the day when we type in "Why are Christians so..." and it comes up with:  Loving, helpful, accepting, graceful?

Ron Cole, who writes "The Weary Pilgrim" describes the work of Jarrod McKenna as the "Australian version of Shane Claiborne."  "The Weary Pilgrim" highlights a podcast of Jarrod's.

What I wanted to quote, however, is how he describes Jarrod and this "radical fringe" of Christianity.

He is part of a radical element on the the fringe of the church that sees faith and works, the practice and action of faith as being critical. The teachings of Jesus put into practice must be lived out, as radically today... to dilute them, co-modify and embed them in western church culture is not the redemptive vision and imagination of Jesus. This radical fringe believes Christianity is in trouble because it has become to passive and culturally accommodating. They are stirring the luke-warm pot of status quo Christianity.

That's some powerful language there. 

And I am left with the struggle of determining how I should live this out when I have bills to pay, kids to pick up, a church to fund, construction workers to check in on, and a stewardship campaign to close out.

Sometimes I seem and feel so far from this "radical fringe."  I feel so...established...so diluted...so co-modified...so embedded.

Alas.

Image by james.thompson via Flickr

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia