The greatest singer/songwriter you've never heard of....

In yesterday's sermon, I made reference to "the greatest singer/songwriter you've never heard of: Ed Kilbourne."

Here's some background for Covenant-First members (and everyone else listening or interested). You may have heard me mention from time to time my involvement in the Salkehatchie Summer Service program when i was in High School (you can read the story here in this sermon I preached on Ruth 4).

The first three years I went on Salkehatchie, I attended the Penn Center Site in lovely Frogmore, SC. We worked on the homes of the Gullah people in the South Carolina Sea Islands. This was a time of the emotional highs and lows of being a teenager.... and the Holy Spirit moved powerfully in all of our hearts. The many adults who volunteered during those years poured their faith into us. I would go on to work with Dave Dillon, who was a professional carpenter. I would learn about guitar from Ross Cooke. After those early years, I moved my involvement to the Columbia camp...and those times are for a different story.

But Ed Kilbourne always came to perform for us at Penn Center Salkehatchie. His performances were heartfelt and stirring. He talked about Jesus as a real Person, not some abstract mathematical formula. Over the years, I purchased a couple of tapes, and during the long drives from college to home, Ed's lyrics were healing and strengthening for me. He sang of the great delight that Jesus has in his children....the great calling that God has on his people for righteousness and love and justice. He sang folksy down home songs. And he did covers of some of my pop favorites....showing me that non-Christian singers can inadvertantly write pretty good gospel songs (if you look at the songs from a slightly different point of view....consider Cindi Lauper's "True Colors"....with the perspective of the song being sung by Jesus to His bride the church).

But I had tucked away all my old cassettes and hadn't listened for years. Until I was ruminating on my sermon for Sunday.... and an old lyric sprung to mind that captured beautifully the sense of ceaseless activity that carries no real meaning "He's got eyes that do not see, ears that do not listen, and his hands have let the truth run through their fingers. And his feet are always moving, but they go in tiny circles. He's got it all. But he's got nothing at all." With the Isaiah imagery and the vision of perpetual busyness shuffling in tiny circles, Ed hit something right about human attempts satisfy a drive that only the Living God can fulfill. And thus, I thought to share it with everyone in the congregation.

And I'm listening to old tapes again....probably will order some new ones.

Thanks for the ministry Ed.... the Holy Spirit used you greatly.

Soli Deo Gloria

Russell

Off the Shelf: The Crucifixion of Ministry

Next month, our church plays host to Andrew Purves, professor of Pastoral Theology at Pittsburgh Seminary. He came for last year's fall conference. With him he brought wonderful teaching, pointing to Jesus as the center of our hope and faith.

Thus, it is good to prepare for Andrew's return by reading through his latest book, The Crucifixion of Ministry: Surrendering Our Ambitions to the Service of Christ. I requested the Cincinnati Public Library to stock a few copies...they purchased 6 and have them available.

The book is a 149 page medidation on this theme: Ministry isn't ours, it's His. It's all His. In every pastoral situation, Jesus is up to something. We need to kill our ambitions and desire to appear in control. Only then are we released to be used by Jesus in the unfolding work of His Kingdom.

Like a great Jazz artist, Purves weaves key themes through the text: the Mystic Union with Christ (that when we are His, we're united with him...thus his righteousness is exchanged for our rags, and vice versa) and the Vicarious Ministry of Jesus Christ (that even now he reigns, he continues to serve as the High Priest in the Heavenlies, and He offers His worship to the Father). Thus everything important is being done.

None of these are new to me....cognitively I was aware of them and their implications long ago. However Purves shows some great wisdom in making us aware that intellectually knowing a truth is not the same as living into it: “More elusive is the deep conversion of mind, will and heart where we know the inner reality of being laid hold of by Christ in the Spirit, so we share in his active obedience to, communion with and mission from the Father. From my observation it requires the pains of ministry in midcareer to prepare a person for the radical transformation of ‘I, yet not I, but Christ.’”(111)

From my vantage point, I see pastors who talk about the transformational power of Christ, but live as practical atheists....little prayer beyond the obligitory few sentences at the start of a committee meeting. Little brokenheartedness before the Lord. Sure we can pray, but then let's get on to something practical for Pete's sake. As though Jesus' work wouldn't get done without them. And there's a vast moneymaking industry of conferences, publishing houses, gurus, and seminars designed to give you the magic keys to effective ministry. I suggest that none of the people involved in this industry would deny the truths that Purves lays out. Yet in the room are palpable and false excitements that betray where the treasure is buried.

I know, because I'm there too. I know better, but too often have I picked up Leadership Magazine with despair because I'm not on the cutting edge. Too often have I felt anxiety because we're not doing some cutting edge ministry. And time and again, I must repent.

A helpful illustration comes from Iain Murray's Revival and Revivalism. Murray looks at the history of the Second Great Awakening. He shows the difference between true revival of heartfelt religion and the manufactured kind of revivalism that relied on technique, tents, and snappy goodfellow preachers. Murray leans heavily on BB Warfield's history of Perfectionism, in which Warfield shows that the revivalist Finney was very good at using technique to get people to come forward, but very bad at making disciples who would last. The Ghosts of revivalism float around today, and they haunt me with their howling.

Purves, however aims his guns at the more prevalent model in the mainline churches...not revivalism, but Ministry as Chaplaincy. Purves describes the stereotypical Chaplaincy model of pastoral ministry: “Everybody…has something that oppresses them. Your job as a hospital chaplain is to assist people to bring the feelings from that oppression to the surface and then to draw from within themselves the strength to overcome it. You connect with people on the ground of their own agenda and needs. Ministry means drawing out latent possibilities for healing that lie buried within. It is not your job to introduce God language or to provide a theological commentary on the person’s situation.” (58)

Now don't get me wrong, I profited greatly from my Chaplaincy experience. That said, I'm with Purves that Chaplaincy is not the model for Pastoral Ministry. “….the only mission strategy which will encourage our congregations, usefully employ our clergy, enable history-changing and kingdom-of God anticipating ministry, and enable us to evangelize with any degree of faithfulness and power is the preaching that there is salvation in no other name.” (44).

Purves speaks of God who is not a frozen celestial iceburg, but rather a vital living active God. Perhaps the best part of this book for me is Purves' own story of God showing up in the midst of his own crisis:

“I remember lying in hospital after cancer surgery, wondering what the upcoming six months of chemotherapy would be like and whether I was going to make it through the process. What I need now, I thought, is not a theological treatise to edify my mind, though that has its place, not some sense that God in Christ is in solidarity with me in my suffering and fear, though that too is helpful. What I need is a God of power. I need a God who acts to change things.

As I cried out ‘Save me, Lord!’ I did not expect any rending of the heavens. What I did hear in an inner way was the quiet word of the God who acts. It was a voice heard by a lonely, fearful, pain-filled, morphine-dominated, fifty-six year old man.

God said to me that whether I lived or died, I did so unto the Lord, and he would not abandon me.Not everyone gets healed, and that is a great mystery, but the promise of his peace is not an empty promise, and it is given for all who know him. God acts. I believe it even when God acts in ways that utterly confounds my xpectations.” (49-50)

The most common error in critiquing Purves book is to accuse him of saying that pastors should do nothing. Far from the point, indeed. Rather, Purves calls us to be freed from distraction and throw ourselves with abandonment into the work that we're called to. “Grace does not leave us passive. In grace (charis) the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Grace (Hebrews 10:29) gives to each Christian his or her particular grace-gift (charismata), which is to be expressed in thankfulness (eucharista) in Christian service and ministry.” (67) Christ's grace is utterly transformational of us ministers too. Deep down we want to be useful. Grace frees us to be useful, rather than simply "productive"

I think that Purves' point could benefit from reflecation on the doctrine of Providence. Providence talks of God's superintending of all the Universe. And in His Providence, He delights to use His servants. Providence helps us see ourselves as agents, as pots in the hands of the potter, as an instrument in the hands of the musician. Michael Card captures this sense in his wonderful song "Poem of Your Life"



This is a book that could also profit anyone in the church. Too many people are burned out by church machines that chew up their gifts and then move on when the people are exhausted. Too many people buy into the idea that they can buy God's love by service to the institution. I would love to see Purves come out with a second title: "The Crucifixion of Church Membership."

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

For a more critical analysis of this text, check out Jesus Creed's take on it from last December: He points out that Purves doesn't interact with the Pastoral Epistles in working up his theology of pastoral ministry, and that there are an awful lot of "do" commands when the Bible actually speaks of pastoral ministry. I think that this critique misses some of Purves' point. It also misses out on how the Last Supper Discourse of John 14-16 is likely the most pointed treatise on pastoral ministry ever given .... Jesus to his twelve disciples who will carry on his ministry. I suggest that in dealing with John's discourse, Purves is deeply rooting his theology in what the bible says about Pastoral ministry. Even so, it's worth reading the critique.

On Thuggery, trolldom, and the Joker ethos

I've seen a strange, dare I say providential, convergence of articles and themes in the past week or two, all centering on what I am loosely dubbing the "Joker ethos". The Joker, for those not in the know, is the pasty faced amoral sociopathic villan of this summer's Dark Knight film.

In the film (forgetting for a moment the background we assemble from the comic book franchise), the Joker appears out of no-where. The police can trace no background on him, all his clothes are hand stitched. He gives different stories about how his face became horribly scarred. He uses terrorist plays directly out of Al-Jazeera's book. His interest is entirely in watching the world burn. As Batman/Bruce Wayne and his butler/advisor Alfred talk about dealing with the Joker, we get this very telling exchange that I believe is the most important in the film:

Alfred Pennyworth: When I was in Burma, a long time ago, my friends and I were working for the local Government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders, bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. We were asked to take care of the problem, so we started looking for the stones. But after six months, we couldn't find anyone who had traded with him. One day I found a child playing with a ruby as big as a
tangerine. The bandit had been throwing the stones away.

Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?

Alfred Pennyworth: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

[later in the film] Bruce Wayne: Did you ever catch that bandit in Burma?

Alfred Pennyworth: Eventually, yes.

Bruce Wayne: How?

Alfred Pennyworth: ...we burned the forest down.

Fair enough that the villan of a summer fantasy movie should be terrifying, glorying not in rational theivery, but simply in the thrills of destruction. However, Les Newsome has some interesting thoughts over on Common Grounds Online. He relates sitting in the theater watching the film as four teenage girls behind him talk about how awesome the Joker is. Les writes:

It would be wrong, however, to say that the Joker represents this culture’s fear of terrorists. That’s too shallow. No, the Joker is what we fear about terrorists. A terrorist comes without warning, without consideration, like a dishonorable kamikaze, set on nothing other than upsetting the plans of those who think they have a plan. They destroy hope and safety and the idea that your life will go well in pursuit of “the good.” Harvey Dent is driven to madness as Gotham’s “White Knight,” a crusader who must feel the futility of his best-laid plans and live in the insanity that flows from the knowledge that we are helpless before the darkness of fate.
Remember how the line goes, “Madness is like gravity.” The terror is in the inability to stop the evil that will come upon you if you believe in something, anything, to save you. (emphasis mine)

Les nails it....the Joker ethos lies in destruction, not just for kicks, but as a prophetic statement that belief in anything is an illusion. The Joker ethos aims to make us all jokers....it aims to reshape us all in its own image: "what which doesn't kill you only makes you.....stranger"

The troubling truth is that there are plenty of people out there who subscribe to their own version of this Joker ethos. I've been following for a while the efforts of Anonymous to take down Scientology. Anonymous is a nameless, faceless, and pretty amorphous group of hackers who play pranks, sabotage websites, and operate on the fringes of civility (and sometimes the law). However, someone in this group has decided to take down the church of Scientology. They have anonymously put together worldwide protests (with hordes of people showing up wearking Guy Fawkes masks), they have flooded YouTube with anti-Scientology propaganda. And they're scaring Scientology.

The question is 'who are these people?'. The New York Times Magazine ran this very telling article showing how these people (called internet trolls) harrass mock and ruin lives. They do it for the "lulz" ... a satirical way of saying there into it just for the fun of watching overly sensitive people get upset at them. The article gives an explanation of how this works "Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.”"

The author meets with one of these people and we get a telling reply to the whys of it all:

As [he] picked up his cat and settled into an Eames-style chair, I asked whether trolling hurt people. “I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Oh, God, please forgive me!’ so someone can feel better,” [he] said, his calm voice momentarily rising. The cat lay purring in his lap. “Am I the bad guy? Am I the big horrible person who shattered someone’s life with some information? No! This is life. Welcome to life. Everyone goes through it. I’ve been through horrible stuff, too.”

“Like what?” I asked. Sexual abuse, [he] said. When [he] was 5, he said, he was molested by his grandfather and three other relatives. [his] mother later told me, too, that he was molested by his grandfather. The last she heard from [him] was a letter telling her to kill herself.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Joker, live and in person. The abused who is so horribly scarred that he decides that he must remake the world in his own image....not because of some vengance thing, but simply because it is. There is no right and wrong, bad or good, there just is. Deal with it and quit your whining. That my friends is the essence of the Joker ethos. Beat you until you quit your whining and become a Joker yourself.

The full article is a must read....the stories are sobering. I could go on with stories about Chineese Hackers, Jihadists....all of whom, in some shape and form, are fascinated with watching the world burn....only to reshape it in their own image.

Thoughts

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

See other posts on the theme of builders vs. destroyers

A little levity: choice videos from my nephew

My Nephew, Jackson Smith, had some stellar videos to share with me last week. As a break from the seriousness of talking about JAARS, I thought I'd share them with you.

The first is "The Gospel According to the Ewoks" .... how can we forget that it was really the little fur creatures who saved the galaxy from the evil galactic empire? And we also see that Billy Dee Williams continues to have a career.....



The second is how the Lord of the Rings should have ended.....I wish I had thought of this...



Finally....one from mom about Christian the Lion....a lion that two men purchased from Harrods in London back in the 1970s, and then released into the wild.



Read the story behind the video here.

Excelsior
Russell

Mission Experience to JAARS: Vernacular Media Services

One of the more interestesting services we learned about at JAARS was the Vernacular Media Services Team.

This is a ministry that I had never considered. After a language is analyzed, a grammar is developed, and scripture translations completed for that language....there still remains the problem of disseminating the stories through the culture that uses that language. Realistically, only a fraction of any given language group will exert the effort to become literate so they can read the Bible for themselves. Therefore, missionaries need many other tools to help spread the truths of scripture. These tools need to be culturally relevant so as to have the greatest impact.

For instance....in cultures that are deeply musical, Bible songs can be written and recorded so as to teach the great truths of scripture. In storytelling cultures, there are various visual media that are available to teach the stories. In many ways, this is not unlike the Medeival Cathedrals in which the stained glass windows told all the stories of faith ... they were called the Bibles for the poor (because the poor were usually illiterate).

Without a doubt, we want people to be literate and be able to read God's word for themselves (hence the great value of an organization like Literacy and Evangelism) .... however we must also practially realize that the life giving truth of the Living Lord Jesus Christ doesn't wait on learning literacy (indeed coming to know Christ while illiterate may actually goad people into taking on the challenge of literacy so they can know Him better). The Washington Post gives us this great article about how these kind of vernacular media are used (things like the Jeuss film, MP3 players, cell phone audio, etc).... the closing story shows how the drive for literacy brings people in contact with Jesus Christ.

In Rong Domriex, the farming village where children play knee-deep in the rice paddies, a local Christian pastor said he believes maybe half of the 11 children in Im's literacy class will become Christian.

"Whether they follow Jesus Christ or not is up to them," said Dom Saim, the pastor and a former Buddhist.

Im's father, Sum Tel Thoen, 37, a fisherman, said he didn't care that Christians were teaching his daughter. "It doesn't matter if my daughter is Christian. My focus is education," he said. "I can't read or write. I want my daughter to." He said he was pleased that his daughter was dreaming of getting a job someday, now that she can read, instead of spending her days collecting firewood. Brushing her black hair away from her large brown eyes, she said matter-of-factly, "I am too poor to go to school."

Her father said that he, too, was learning about the new faith from Im. He stood next to his daughter as she described Jesus. "He says, 'Don't steal other people's property, and if someone scolds you, be silent and don't scold back,' " she said, holding tightly to a paperback Bible, the first book she has ever owned.

This video that accompanies the Washington Post article demonstrates how many mission organizations team together to make this work happen.



All this interest in Vernacular Media got my head spinning around reaching our own culture. What are the vernacular media that we need to be using to tell people about Jesus? How are we telling gospel stories through novels, film, video games, small group gatherings, social organizations. How are we analyzing the cultures that surround us to discern how best to bring the gospel to them? For this is our task as the American church. Perhaps we can learn best from missionaries in the field ..... learn from them how we are missionaries in our field at home.

UPDATE
I forgot to add this link before I posted. Vernacular Media Services cooperates with other mission agencies around the world in figuring out culturally appropriate strategies....and they've put together this resource wiki ... a database that is continually being updated from people working in these fields....it's a great resource for anyone interested in evangelism and missions:
so go visit www.vernacularmedia.org to see the resources that they share.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Church Mission Experience to JAARS

Just a few hours ago, three vans laden with twenty people from Covenant-First Presbyterian, crossed the Ohio River to return from a mission experience trip to the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS) headquarters in the booming metropolis of Waxhaw, NC. Our group was intentionally intergenerational, consisting of three families with children, three early retirement age couples, and two young married couples. We went to serve, to learn about mission, and to be inspired by the ministry of JAARS. We came home inspired.

JAARS is the logistical support arm of Wycliffe Bible Translators. There are over 6,000 languages spoken in todays world. Roughly half of these language are unstudied, having no alphabet, no written works, and no record of how they are spoken or the stories that they contain. Most importantly, the speakers of these languages have no access to the Bible in any way. Wycliffe has teams of people that do the whole range of language work: surveying, anthropology, creation of a written script for the language, creation of grammars, translation of scripture, creation of various media to communicate the message of the scriptures.

But part of the challenge is that these languages are usually spoken by a small remote population. These populations are deep in jungles and high in mountains. These language specialist missionaries need some serious logistical and technical support to enable them to do their work: enter JAARS.

JAARS trains and equips not just pilots, but drivers, maritime specialists, computer specialists, administrative support personnel, and any number of other logistical support people. And we had a chance to experience some of their work this weekend.

Friday morning, we spent half a day on a service project working with JAARS maritime services. Some of us cleaned and repaired donated boats that were destined for the jungles of Ghana. Others cleaned typewriters that were donated for the teaching of literacy in remote areas (believe it or not, they don't have laptops in many places deep in the African interior). We even assisted with updating their mailing list database so they could more effectively communicate with supporters.

And then we heard the stories. Stories of the Maritime work which included teaching swimming and personal aquatic safety skills to indigenous peoples (Ghana has one of the largest manmade lakes in the world, and every year thousands of people die from drowning because their boat sinks and they don't have the safety skills).

We heard firsthand stories of a remote tribe in the Amazon .... a tribe that didn't believe that women were human .... a tribe that routinely killed babies that were inconveneient. We heard how this tribe, after years of relationship building and translation work, gained access to God's word. We heard how God's word changed the lives of people in that tribe....how the men realized they couldn't beat the women anymore because the women too carried the image of God. They couldn't kill the orphans anymore because they too carried the image of God. Astounding and powerful stories.

The next day, we split up and learned about the many facets of the ministry, from the challenge of using various media to communicate the gospel (songs, storytelling, hand cranked tape recorders, visual storytelling techniques), to the logistical challenges of transportation. We had opportunities to fly with jungle aviators and learn about the difficulties of those parts of the world.

And we spoke with dozens of missionaries...those back from the field and those heading out freshly.

This week, I'll be reflecting on some of the experiences and what I took away. I hope you'll stick with us for the conversation

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Dignity and the stories of little people

I made reference yesterday to the dignity of humanity....Chirstianity teaches that each human being bears the dignity of the image of God...and that each human being suffers under the depravity of the curse of sin.

That said, we can emphasize a redeemed humanism. Not a humanism that puts man as the measure of all things, but a humanism that sees each individual's story as a mini-epic drama/comedy authored by the Creator. Our stories are significant because they're His stories (that is, after all, a part of believing in a sovereign God.)

There are any number of websites that strive to help people tell their stories....to reach behind the public facades that we put on to ease the social obligations to those around us. In the past I've profiled such interesting sites as:

* PostSecret -- the site where individuals make postcard artworks sharing a deep secret they hold within themselves. Some are touching, many are disturbing, and a few are just bust a gut funny. New postcards are posted online each week. (see my original 2005 post)
* Look at Me -- this site is a collection of "found photos"....vintage family photos that were either lost, stolen, or thrown away. They are nameless and we have no idea of knowing who the subjects are. Yet strangely there is great power in the pictures. (see my 2006 post)

Here's a new one for you. I saw this video of artist Jonathan Harris talking about several of his projects. It's an interesting 18 minutes or so.



His most interesting project is one called We Feel Fine, a web project that seearches all weblogs for the phrase "I feel" then it copies the whole sentence and any photo that might go with the post. The website allows the end user to creatively browse through these snippets of feelings. One can click on the montage feature and see photos, or one can organize by age, feeling type, location, even weather.

Again, we see stories of both dignity and depravity .... and they teach us of the deeper heart cries to which the healing balm of Jesus can be applied.

Excelsior

Russell

Joel Osteen ... can we move beyond the critiques

When I saw this link Tullian Tchvidjian's weblog, I was intrigued. Conde Nast Portfolio, the dreambook magazine of the wealthy and powerful, profiles one of the richest and most influential motivational speakers of our time: Joel Osteen.

I've held off of Joel for quite some time. Frankly, it's just too easy to satirize the carnival that his schtick has become. His Guy Smiley looks and featherweight message simply beg for some jester's lampooning. I've not read any of his books to date because of my refusal to read any book that features a toothy photo of the author dominating the front cover .... it's just a recipie for disaster. His routine isn't original; we can trace the lineage back through Robert Schuller, Norman Vincent Peale, and even to Henry Ward Beecher (see my review of last year's Beecher Bio for more on that lively character).

There is, however, another reason I've held off. Reformed Christians have become too good at whining for Jesus. We excel at adroitly skewering [insert popular religious figure] for his/her heresy/error/comedic value. Quite simply we've moved beyond being curmudgeonly to simply being cranks.

Yes, we must be discerning; yes we must call error what it is. Please don't take me for one who is advocating a watery blurring of doctrinal distinctions. Doctrinal conviction should inspire us to robust discussion and proclamation. We are dealing with truth here. Permit me to suggest however, that Reformed Christians are not in danger of going light on doctrinal error ....the danger we face is in failing to articulate the compelling truths that we hold. I don't want my writing to be focused on Joel Osteen....I want my writing to turn eyes to Christ.

For instance, let's look at the opening of the article:

Who will save us? Who will lift us up from crushing credit-card debt and resetting mortgage payments and impending foreclosure, from increasing gas prices and decreasing health-insurance coverage? We are a nation stumbling through our worst financial crisis in a generation and our worst housing market in a lifetime. And so we come, seeking gentle salvation, inspiring prayers, steadying words, soothing notions, and calming thoughts that will allow us to become, in Joel Osteen’s words, “victors, not victims.”

We are in Greensboro, North Carolina, making our way into the downtown arena through the hot, buggy air, to worship with the pastor who will save us, the man anointed, by one of his congregants, as “Reverend Feelgood.” Sixteen thousand will file in this evening, as have millions more to coliseums, concert venues, and baseball
stadiums around the country—all, in a way, his churches. We are a diverse, representative swath of troubled America: families struggling under debt, husbands and wives seeking reconciliation, young couples on first dates, children dragged by pious grandparents who promise them popcorn and BibleMan action figures. It is
religion as escapism, criticized throughout the Bible Belt as “Christianity lite” or “prosperity gospel.” But this murmuring crowd, slouching toward a kinder, gentler salvation, is a more telling indicator of the state of our union than consumer durables purchased or capital goods ordered. Unemployment they know; they don’t need to wait for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to publish a monthly number. O, but come to Joel, lift your hands to Jesus, banish your negative thoughts, and you can find in these dark times a beacon.

If, in this country, there is great hurting, then Osteen is here to soothe that suffering.

In this well crafted opening (I love the WB Yeats allusion in the "slouching toward a kinder, gentler salvation"), the author points us to some of the criticism about the hope that Joel extends. Rightly so. It's not so simple as "banish your negative thoughts" and all will be well. It's not so simple as God wanting us all to be fat and happy.

But let's frankly acknowledge that there is indeed a great craving for hope in our land. So let's speak frankly about that hope. Our hope in Christ is a hope that carries us through tears, pain and suffering. Our hope lies in the truth that we can honestly belt out the raw throated cry "My God My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?" (Ps 22:1). Far from banishing such negative thoughts, our God gives us a scriptural example of actually bringing them to Him. We worship a living God who loves us so radically that we can bring to him our doubts, fears, anguish, bafflement, confusion, disappointment, dysfunction, and general messiness. We can cry out with the father of the demon posessed child "I believe, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). We can run to Jesus and say with Martha "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!" (John 11:21). We don't have to banish our negative thoughts .... we bring them to the Living God.

But then he doesn't leave us that way. By the end of Psalm 22, David is crying out "The ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord!) (v 17). Our hope lies in the truth that "All things work to the good for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:28) .... all things includes our pain, our cancer, our divorce, our unemployment, our mess. Jesus doesn't merely soothe our pain, he redeems it. He doesn't just make all the bad stuff go away, he transforms it into something greater and more glorious than we imagined. That is our hope. Not that everything will be painless, but that our pain will be transformed into something glorious for Christ!

Our hope lies in the truth that we're not abandoned in the midst of our pain...."Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." (Romans 8:26). The Holy Spirit never abandons us, even when we feel most alone.

Shifting from hope, let's move to the "prosperity" part of the critique of Joel. Rightly, we raise an eyebrow at the concept that God wants you to be wealthy. God has a great plan for your life and he's waiting on you to realize it. Again, the critique centers on the sunshine and promise of bliss.

However, we believe so much more, don't we? We believe that every human being bears the imago dei. Psalm 8 asks "what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor." The bible clearly teaches both human depravity but also human dignity. Our dignity is not rooted in wealth, accomplishment, titles, position, power, accolades or recognition. Our dignity is rooted in the bearing of the image of God. No amount of poverty, sickness, degradation or dehumanization can take that dignity away. No tyrant, potentate, huckster, mountebank, or con artist can coercie it from you. Even the dirtiest, toothless, withered crone on the street corner carries that dignity. It's not a dignity that is from our nobility at all....it is bestowed by the one whose image we bear. We believe God loves little people ... and He is glorified greatly through them.

Then there is the issue of preaching the god of Love vs the god of Wrath. Again, we Calvinists tend to cringe at such language. We rightly dismantle the arguments that draw a sharp distinction between the two. But can we truly articulate why it is good to believe in a God of wrath.

Can we not articulate that God's wrath is what upholds, protects, and defends his love. That love must be defended by his wrath against injustice, cruelty, manipulation, agendas, and the human propensity to consume all into the self. Miroslav Volf, in his Exclusion and Embrace, lays out this very idea that it is God's justice that ultimately gives us hope to live lives of love in the present: "Without entrusting oneself to the God who judges justly, it will hardly be possible to follow the crucified Messiah and refuse to retaliate when abused. The certainty of God's just judgment at the end of history is the presupposition for the renunciation of violence in the middle of it. The divine system of judgment is not the flip side of the human reign of terror, but a necessary correlate of human nonviolence."(p.302)

Let's actually believe our theology ... that it is the Holy Spirit operating through the proclaimed word that changes lives. Let's vigorously advocate for the truths we hold ... and may God be glorified through it.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell