Getting Burned by a Sermon

Peter Rollins has this way of building you up to something emotionally. When he gives a talk, he leads you down a path, and you think you know where it's going. Part way through, you're often angry or uncomfortable with what he's saying. Then, at the end, you often realize you had no idea where you were headed at all. It all makes sense in hind-sight and the emotional reaction you had was all part of the experience.

He gave a talk last week at Mars Hill in Eastern Michigan. It's a perfect example of his style. I urge you to check it out. You can download an mp3 or subscribe to the podcasts of Mars Hill.

http://marshill.org/teaching/2011/02/20/pyro-theology/

You should know that he's from Belfast, Northern Ireland. When it sounds like he says "zed," he means Z. He's also a funny guy. As inflammatory as he can seem on the surface, I have yet to disagree with him, and I always enjoy the wild ride of emotion.

Josh Garrels video - Zion & Babylon

Diggin' this guy's music right now. Check it out:

The Bible

People making claims about scripture being black and white need to read the words in red. They make everything else grey with love.

Inspiration Tuesdays - Rob Bell

I want to get into a regular writing routine. I feel the need to stretch myself a bit. I thought perhaps a routine, a set subject matter for different days of the week might help me accomplish this. I've decided Tuesdays will deal with people, books, organizations, movies - whatever happens to inspire me regularly. These things might have to do with Spirituality, Parenting, Marriage. We'll see. Without further ado… here are some hurried thoughts on Rob Bell. Should you want more clarification, feel free to drop me a line.

Rob Bell

For about three years, Rob Bell has been a constant source of inspiration for me. It started with his book, Velvet Elvis. The title alone tells you something about the guy. He may be talking about serious things, but he doesn't often take himself too seriously.

One of the main thrusts of the book, for me, had to do with the idea that faith shouldn't be rigid. It should be open to change, open to questioning, open to the idea that we could be wrong at any given moment. The way he puts it, faith should bounce. It shouldn't be a brick wall, each piece relying on all the other pieces to survive. If you can't remove one piece without the entire thing falling apart, you're in trouble.

That was very affirming for me. I tend to question. I don't always expect answers to each question, but if you tell me I can't or shouldn't question, that tends to shut me down pretty quickly toward either you or what I'm questioning. Early in my faith, I also had trouble believing in all the individual pieces. It worked for me to temporarily ignore the things I had a problem with (Was this story literal? Global floods? Eaten by a whale?). It worked for me to put them off for future questioning. I have since had most of those pieces fall into some place, though not necessarily the traditional place.

I later started listening to Rob's weekly sermons online. I was blown away. Rob is pretty clear, he wants a sermon to be an experience. It should start conversations. It should keep you thinking and lead you to think about other things. You should walk away going, "Whoa!" He pulls this off quite often. Not always, but often.

I appreciate the way Rob looks at the Bible. It's not unique, or new, but it works well for me. For one thing, he explores the original language. Reading scripture in English is fine. You often get the overall message, but sometimes you miss the nuance. The word Abba doesn't just mean Father, it's more like Daddy. Daddy is much more familiar and intimate.

Rob likes to make connections between Old Testament and New Testament writings. He often asks, "Where have we read this before? What were they talking about in that section that would shed new light on this one?" In a lot of cases, the OT takes on a whole new light and sheds even more on the NT.

Rob also researches the time period he's talking about. The OT can sometimes come across very harshly. The way God is portrayed can easily be a turn off to anyone. If you take the time to understand what life was like back then, what other religions were being practiced, a lot things make much more sense. Things lose their harshness.

You may be reading this thinking, "Wow, Brian you sure are concerned with the details that don't necessarily mean all that much." Bell is also pretty vocal about the idea that the few answers we scratch out often lead to more questions. Some questions can't be answered. When asked whether we should believe in free will or predestination, Bell replies, "Yep." Maybe it's both. Maybe we'll never know. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Listening to these sermons, you also get to hear real life examples of people being influenced by these things. Some of the stories from his congregation are just as inspiring as any scripture based sermon. The people of Mars Hill (Grand Rapids, not the west coast church with the similar name) have done some crazy, amazing things. They don't just support the poorer areas of Grand Rapids, they move in to help change the culture there. They don't just try to teach kids not to join gangs, they take jobs working with the most troubled inner city kids. They get involved in their struggles and they experience life-changing tragedies.

The things is, these tragedies don't drive them away from the harder acts of love, it always drives home the importance all the more. Their stories show us that these acts of love aren't always about being a positive force in other people's lives, they're sometimes about transforming us into people who aren't too afraid to love. Reading this, you might be tempted to think that they put more emphasis on works than other churches, but I've never been left with that impression. In each case the works are preceded by strong convictions brought on by faith. The works are just a byproduct, love leading to love. Faith leading to circumstance.

I hear these sermons, sometimes given by Bell, sometimes added to by very personal stories, and I'm left struggling with these ideas. I'm left on the verge of tears, and in many instances, I'm left with a conviction to change myself. There are a handful of sermons that directly led to my family recycling on a regular basis. There are a handful of sermons that changed my opinion of what "turning the other cheek" means to me.

For many years, earlier in my faith, I would catch these glimpses of God, and I would hope that those glimpses were at the heart of what God was all about. Those glimpses involved love. In my life, God brought love, but there were these other stories in the Bible, these other viewpoints that Christians stereotypically followed that didn't equal love in my opinion. So, for years the studying I did, the prayers I prayed, had to do with God being all about love. Before I was introduced to Bell, that opinion was strengthened in many ways through many avenues and people. I think what I love about Bell the most is, at almost every turn, he does what he can to remind us of this: God is love. There is hope. Bell would go one further and finish up with, "Love wins."

I can get behind that message. I can't think of a point in my life where I would have been against that.

Rob's Website: http://www.realrobbell.com/

Mars Hill, Grand Rapids, MI: http://www.marshill.org

Angry with God

I feel the need for a disclaimer. The following view is my own. These beliefs are not necessarily shared by most Christians, Free Methodists, Evangelicals or otherwise. They are conclusions I have come to through years of living, studying, and probably over-analyzing.

I'm angry at God today. I'm angry even though I do not believe the situation that is upsetting me is God's fault. The issue of 'Why God Lets Bad Things Happen to Good People' has been front and center for about a week now because of the earthquakes in Haiti. Today I'm also upset about something a bit closer to home.

About a year ago, one of my brother's friends lost a baby. Last night, his girlfriend's cousin lost their three month old. These are people that he is close to, and I see that these things effect him. I don't even know these people, and I feel bad. I've been in their shoes.

I used to fall on the old idea of 'everything happens for a reason.' One person's pain might accomplish a greater good in some, often unseen, way. That never really sat well with me though.

I just can't imagine a loving deity sitting somewhere with a clipboard that lists our names with end dates printed next to them. I'm not saying that He's totally out of the picture, that He doesn't have a plan. I think there's a clear beginning and end for mankind, but I'm not so sure there's a clear end in mind for each of us. That idea seems to defeat the idea of free will for me.

The story that turned this idea around for me was the Adam and Eve story, one of the very first in the Bible. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, at one point mankind lived with God in near perfection, every need met without danger. Deciding to rebel against all that they are very clearly cast out into a world where every need isn't met, where death is possible. Anne Rice calls it the "Savage Garden" as if we live in a place that is a counter balance to the place we were intended to live.

The idea that we live in a realm where God can't protect us from every blow makes much more sense to me. It makes more sense if we're to believe that we truly have free will, that we're freely allowed to acknowledge God or ignore Him.

I must point out that I do believe God sometimes pulls strings here and there. I've been in situations where mere coincidence seems like an incredibly weak explanation. I've had prayers answered in ways that taught me more than my simple wishful imaginings could have done.

Some would argue that we have good reason to be angry with a god that would turn us out into such a harsh and cruel world instead of protecting us. I'm pretty sure it was more our decision than His. I'm sure, being Omnipotent and all, He knew we'd make the wrong choice at some point, but that whole 'free will' thing comes up again. I think living in a world that can be savage and cruel teaches us about love in a way we wouldn't have been able to learn if we lived in a paradise. I mean, could we really appreciate the goodness we're capable of if we were in an environment where everything falls into place for us?

I think I'm angry today because there's no one else to turn to with these emotions. I don't think anyone's to blame. We live in a world where the people we love the most die, sometimes for reasons doctors can't even explain.

I know it's not exactly your fault Lord, but it sucks.

Haiti

We don’t watch TV much anymore. When the box is on, it’s either fixed to the local PBS station or playing a DVD. When I went to bed last Tuesday night, I read a blurb about an earthquake in Haiti. The story didn’t say much. The headline didn’t hook me.

On Wednesday, my dad, brother Bob, and I went to see Avatar. My dad mentioned that they still were unable to contact anyone in Haiti, even those at the American embassy. I was shocked. I didn’t know it was that bad.

It’s hard not to be depressed when things like this happen. A lot of people ignore these things, close their emotions off from what is happening "so far away." I find it hard to do that. I dwell on my inability to help. If I had a job, if I didn’t have kids to care for right now, I believe I’d be on an airplane or at the very least, donating money.

My dad kept saying, "Oh, you wouldn't want to volunteer for that. It's not like they'd be putting you up in a hotel or anything." My dad and I differ a bit on these types of ideas.

“Evangelical” televangelist, Pat Robertson reared his ugly comments shortly after the tragedy. He claimed that Haiti had made a deal with the devil, and God was punishing them for it. That made me very angry. The Bible is full of scriptures that tell us that God doesn’t do those sorts of things. Jesus dispells the idea specifically. It angers me that someone portrays Christianity this way, with fear instead of love. Many spoke out against his comments.

Tony Campolo wrote:

"I don’t believe God called this disaster down on Haiti, but I do believe God’s grace and love, flowing through those of us who are surrendered to God’s will, can bring healing and redemption to our Haitian brothers and sisters."

One Christian blogger pointed out that none of us cared much for Haiti in past decades while its people lived lives of incredible poverty. Our politicians, our country has done little or nothing to help these people or their country. His plea was this:

“Please, please give generously to help Haiti get back on its feet. But in a week or so when the story has gone from our screens, let’s not forget them, and let’s try to get the systemic issues sorted out. They need debt forgiven. They need minimum wage agreements. They need symmetric fair trade agreements. They need to be given a fair chance, especially by the US.”
- Kester Brewin from his blog: // __ issues. in code. __ //

The problem, of course, is that there are tons of places all over the globe that need help. Individually, we can't help them all. I believe we could help most of them if we acted collectively, in an organized way, but I also realize that there are many that just don't care.

Unlike Mr. Robertson, I don't think God is currently reveling in revenge or anger. I believe He's in mourning. The Bible is pretty clear: He suffers with us and for us.