Kneading Bread

For most of my “converted” life I’ve been attending Lutheran churches, but gradually it has become less of a community of worship for me and more of a community within which I must be a missionary. The doctrines, the treasures of Luther, the things he would say “everything hinges on this” exist abandoned on the side of the road as they make a anti-pilgrim’s progress back to the “city of destruction.” Reflecting on the reformation (since yesterday was reformation day) I am pained, the great teachers have long since gone home and I truly am weighted with the sense that the vineyard must still be worked, we still need workers – God, please call more workers, even at this late hour!

From Luther’s commentary on Galatians:

Or do I seek to please men?
“Do I serve men or God?” Paul keeps an eye on the false apostles, those flatterers of men. They taught circumcision to avoid the hatred and persecution of men.

To this day you will find many who seek to please men in order that they may live in peace and security. They teach whatever is agreeable to men, no matter whether it is contrary to God’s Word or their own conscience. But we who endeavor to please God and not men, stir up hell itself. We must suffer reproach, slanders, death.

For those who go about to please men we have a word from Christ recorded in the fifth chapter of St. John: “How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God alone?”

For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Observe the consummate cleverness with which the false apostles went about to bring Paul into disrepute. They combed Paul’s writings for contradictions (our opponents do the same) to accuse him of teaching contradictory things. They found that Paul had circumcised Timothy according to the Law, that Paul had purified himself with four other men in the Temple at Jerusalem, that Paul had shaven his head at Cenchrea. The false apostles slyly suggested that Paul had been constrained by the other apostles to observe these ceremonial laws. We know that Paul observed these decora out of charitable regard for the weak brethren. He did not want to offend them. But the false apostles turned Paul’s charitable regard to his disadvantage. If Paul had preached the Law and circumcision, if he had commended the strength and free will of man, he would not have been so obnoxious to the Jews. On the contrary they would have praised his every action.

What prompted this? Several things:

1. At a church event a whole table of women claimed that the word Sadducee was not in the Bible.
2. On Sunday a woman told my wife, “No, I don’t need to come to Wednesday night Bible Study; I already know the whole thing, I taught Old Testament for three years at Parochial School.”
3. And the constant trickle of theological mediocrity (at best) coming out of the synod, national, and international bodies. The current product of the ELCA is the religious equivalent of where’s Waldo – except it has become “where’s Jesus?” This is cumulatively the real death of a national church, the overwhelming man-pleasing and hypocrisy. I agree that certain things are important (I agree with most of the justice, environmental, and poverty issues), but the process which drives their opinions is not one of Jesus first, it is one of tacking on Jesus to an issue.

Ultimately, I’m deeply saddened, please pray for me to have the humility to listen to God’s directing – What is my Ninevah? What is my Galatia? Where Lord? Give me eyes to see!

Nothing says Prince of Peace like some slashed tires.

I fear to think that I could make this a regular feature – never search google news for the word “pastor,” you will only be saddened.

Tall Skinny Kiwi does a great job of pointing you to all the right places to go for information from this event, so I suggest you do so if you’re at all interested.
Understanding the dialogue allows us to define it, unfortunately folks with agendas have a bad habit of defining it before understanding it (a kind of name-it-and-claim-it for post-moderns.) I’ll be honest enough to say that I don’t quite get what “it” (emerging church) is, but I feel “it” and sense “it” in the conversations around me. The conversation is happening without definitions and that, perhaps, will bear the most fruit of all because it allows for God to be bigger than our definitions.

BTW: if you don’t already read TSK’s blog regularly and are interested at all in the emerging church, please check it out.

Enjoy the the biting satire of The Church You Know.

Underage drinking, violence, an arrest… all at a Lutheran Church. It’s a sad story – but most stories that come up when I search the word “pastor” on google news are. Sounds like this church needs prayer, remember them when you pray today.

<--Church info

Check out Mark’s post on his blog, it includes an exchange between he and Dr. Piper.

…these are important times and big issues are on the table and unity on what counts is critical.

Let us remember what is critical.

I admire both John Piper and Mark Driscoll, so it caught my attention that there seems to be a fair bit of chat in the Christian blog-o-sphere about this past weekend’s “Desiring God” conference. Flack is coming from both the more conservative and liberal ends of the spectrum. I use those terms to describe my observations, not as a value judgement. Although, for full disclosure, I have drifted away from the “emergent conversation,” as I find their jargon driven communications too distracting- I agree with what they want to do, just not how they are doing it.

Frankly, I’ve been thinking a fair bit about this since reading these two posts (Immoderate: Mark Driscoll The Impresario and Tall Skinny Kiwi: John Piper and the Desiring God Conference – as well as others, however these are the best representatives of the views I have come across.) I have a great respect for both of these bloggers, although I know neither personally and their views are vastly different.

When it comes down to it, I think Mark and John are espousing classic reformed theology. If reading Luther or Calvin gets you riled up, these guys will too (most emergents would have a hard time sitting at a table with the great reformers.) Mark has a little bit of an explosive personality, rich in contemporary cultural references (and not always condemning those things he is referencing,) which sometimes draws a negative response, so I will try an make a little foray into thinking about him.

The reason why I feel compelled to think about Mark Driscoll’s personality is that I believe he is preaching in the character of Luther; passion and effectiveness are natural by-products of his personality and mission, not a convenient marketing strategy meant to cash in on his hipster appeal. Mark might be a bit off color, but Luther himself was very much so, even while defending sound doctrine. I’ll grant that other times Luther’s theology was a little off, but my theology is also off and as we are all members of a fallen mankind anyone reading this suffers likewise… we are trying to get our collective head around the glories of God, infinite glories – glories that await us in eternity.

Anyway- check out the primary source material here. I’m blessed enough to have at least a two and a half hour daily commute so I’ve already listened to most of it and find it excellent, useful, and fruitful teaching.

Faith alone (Sola Fide)
Scripture alone (Sola Scriptura)
Christ alone (Solus Christus)
Grace alone (Sola Gratia)
Glory to God alone (Soli Deo Gloria)

But wait, there are now more calvinists!

Check it out here… I’ll let you all decide how you feel on the subject.

Fox is planning on targeting the “christian” audience with new movies under it’s new “FoxFaith” division, hoping to attract the evangelical world to increase their profits. I think that there can be two opinions on this. First, that this is a good thing that means increased safe viewing material with positive values. The second, and the one I believe, is that this is just disgusting… welcome the moneychangers into the temple (remember, our bodies are the temple!) There is this crazy mindset in Christians that seems to think that as long as it looks okay, it must be okay. Whether this is in the performing, visual, recording, literary, or any other art “christians” flock to it, this pale substitute. Wake-up-call, Jesus was more concerned with the inside of things than the outside… even if these movies look “christian” they have a rotten core. The more we encourage large media the more this tendancy will be exploited. I do not advocate removing ourselves from this world and these things, rather I propose that something new is happening.
I see inklings, like the sky before dawn, of an emerging Christian awareness to create media and that goes beyond the bizarre ‘evangelizing’ films produced in the later 20th century to an artistic Christian community that revels in the glory of God – in a way that neither conjures the image of moneychangers nor of washing the outside and leaving insides dirty. I pray that these are not my delusions, but rather a hopeful vision grounded in the reality of a resurging Christianity.