A Few of My Favorite Things from 2018 (Repost from Dec. 31, 2018)

It’s that time when people list their favorite things from the year. Here’s mine.

Experiences

New Baby–The most exciting occurrence of 2018 is Laura and I getting pregnant with our first baby, Caroline. Caroline is slated to make her entry into the world in late February. I’m trying to enjoy my sleep now.

Ministry Fruit–It’s always a joy to see people make professions of faith in Jesus at our church and also through the First Priority ministry at Tanner High School. Here at Tanner UMC we’ve enjoyed using our new projector system, which has added more accessibility and versatility to our worship. I’ve enjoyed growing in prayer through the Book of Common Prayer and leading a crash course in the BCP for others. I liked helping in a Walk to Emmaus spiritual retreat for the first time. It’s really cool to see how God has used our church to bless others–listen to my Dec. 30th 2018 sermon if you want to hear some of the numbers on how our church has blessed others.

Trip to England–Laura and I enjoyed a great vacation to England in April. We flitted about in London, Oxford, and Bath. It was my first trip to Europe, and it was a blast.

Trip to Los Angeles–In the same month, I got to go on a trip to Los Angeles with some other pastors from our area to visit different ministries. It was quite an impactful time, replete with lots of jokes, ribbing, and laughter.

Smashing Pumpkins Concert–I got to hear my favorite band from my high school days perform some of their best hits in Nashville. My brother and a former youth from my old church, Ethan, came with me. The Pumpkins rocked hard and got me in my feelings. The show was one of the best I’ve ever been to.

Deer Hunting–While I grew up squirrel hunting with my dad on occasion, I never went deer hunting. A couple of guys at the church, Leeroy Gatlin and Joe Crumbley, are taking me under their wing and teaching me their ways. It’s peaceful and makes me feel better connected to my roots.

Books by Genre (favorites are highlighted)

Political Theology/Politics

Public Faith in Action–Miroslav Volf & Ryan McAnnally-Linz–Great, concise Christian examination of multiple political issues, ranging from wealth, poverty, work, education, healthcare, migration, criminal justice, healthcare, war, beginning life, marriage & family, ending life, policing, and more. I’d put Volf and McAnnally-Linz center-left when it comes to their politics and theology. They are a bit more liberal than me, but I find a substantial amount of agreement with them. They helped stimulate my thinking on a few issues, particularly healthcare. I would have presented differently on a few things, but overall this is a very good entry point that has the rare combination of good biblical reflection, brevity, and practical action steps.

• Just Mercy–Bryan Stevenson
• The New Jim Crow–Michelle Alexander
• The Third Reconstruction–William J. Barber II 
• The Benedict Option–Rod Dreher

Theology

Healing–Francis MacNutt–MacNutt’s reflections informed the Healing services we had at Tanner and Riddle’s Chapel UMC, as well as my portion of the revival services at Bear Creek UMC this year. He gives a fairly comprehensive theological and biblical look at healing, arguing that aspects of the salvation Jesus brings involve healing. He divides healing into four realms–spiritual, emotional, physical, and deliverance (aka exorcism). He also brings decades of experience in healing ministry to this book, which makes for some very good practical advice. MacNutt isn’t a dumb enthusiast, either–he has a a degree from Harvard and a PhD. This book has set the tone for me when it comes to healing ministry. 

• The Lost World of Adam and Eve–John Walton
• Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Need to Know–John Stackhouse
• Changes that Heal–Henry Cloud
• The Lost World of the Flood–Tremper Longman III & John Walton
• Disunity in Christ–Christena Cleveland
• Four Views on Hell–Edited by Preston Sprinkle, contributors Denny Burk (Eternal Conscious Torment), John Stackhouse (Annihilationism/Conditionalism), Robin Parry (Universalism), and Jerry Walls (a Protestant form of Purgatory). Yes, I read a book on hell. And I did a good chunk of it while at the beach, which made Laura’s family laugh at me. 
• Get Wise–Bob Merritt
• Barking to the Choir–Gregory Boyle

History

The Civil War as a Theological Crisis–Mark Noll–This is a deep dive into the white American church’s most painful sin. The largely Protestant nation of America could not agree on an interpretation of the Bible when it came to the issue of slavery. Our simple, Bible-focused Protestantism (The Bible says it, I believe it) seemed to work fairly well on things that were clear in Scripture, but slavery was an issue that created a crisis over the Bible–just what exactly does the Bible say? How are we to interpret? On complex issues where there was not an easy “biblical” answer, people tended to be more formed by the politics, science, and economics of their region. Noll lifts up the pro and contra arguments concerning slavery from leading American pastors and theologians of the day, and provides some outside perspective on the debate from Europeans and Canadians. Pro-slavery white Americans tended to let implicit assumptions, the faulty racial science of the day, and their economic interests cover over the biblical teaching of the image of God in all people and the equality of all in Christ. Denominations divided over the slavery question, politicians were divided, economic interests were divided, and the nation ultimately resorted to guns to resolve the conflict. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the belief of many white Americans, particularly in the South, did not change. The church lost steam in being able to speak politically, and the public became increasingly wary of basing public policies on what people purported to be biblical teachings. This fragmentation of the church and its failure to espouse a unified political vision paved the way for increased secularization in American politics, which has had some pluses and minuses. Overall, this was a very interesting look at some history that has a lot of bearing for where we are today.

• The Undivided Past–David Cannadine

Fiction

Americanah–Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie–Shoutout to Laura’s friend Laurel who gave us this book. This story contains a lot of good nuggets when it comes to examining culture and race. The story follows a Nigerian woman, her time growing up in Nigeria and her later travels to the United States, which creates ample opportunities for reflection. Adichie lifts up interesting thoughts on the intersection of African American culture, African culture, white culture, American culture, technology, education, mental health, and gender. While there are a lot of bright spots in the book, I didn’t particularly like the way it ended, which seemed shallow in contrast to the rest of the book and left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

(I know; I’m bad at reading fiction. Currently working on one other book loaned to me by a friend.)

Leadership

The Path Between Us–Suzanne Stabile–This book is based on the Enneagram personality system that has become the favorite personality tool for Laura and me. Stabile is a master Enneagram teacher, and she dives into the relational dynamics between different Enneagram types. This book can be helpful for better understanding interactions between different types in relationships and at the workplace. 

• Finish–Jon Acuff

Comedy/Fun

Stuff White People Like–Christian Lander–This book is a hilarious and biting satire of moderate-to-progressive white culture, written by an observant insider. It’s good to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes. Short, sweet, and still surprisingly accurate for having been written in 2008. Read it if you’d like a good laugh, no matter who you are.

• Based on a True Story–Norm MacDonald

Podcasts

• Woodland Hills Church–Pastor Greg Boyd is the planter and primary preacher at Woodland Hills. He is more of a “head” preacher than a “heart” preacher, which I enjoy sometimes. 
• United Methodist Church of the Resurrection–Adam Hamilton is a great preacher. I think differently from him on some issues, but he’s still one of the best preachers in modern United Methodism. 
• Revitalize and Replant with Thom Rainer–shoutout to Keith Shoulders for getting me into this podcast. Rainer and his friends offer leadership thoughts for pastors of small, often rural churches in need of revitalization.  There is a lot of practical leadership advice in the podcast to help move your church in a direction that best honors Jesus.
• This Cultural Moment–My wife learned about this podcast from some friends, and she got me into it. Pastor John Mark Comer is a church planter in Portland, Oregon, and he co-hosts the podcast with his friend Mark Sayers, who is a pastor in Melbourne, Australia. They talk about doing ministry in progressive, post-Christian cities and comment a lot on the current state of the West. Very interesting reflections on what is likely going to be the coming shape of doing ministry in the West.
• Typology–As mentioned before, Laura and I love the Enneagram personality type, and Ian Morgan Cron interviews different people who are different types and explores different intricacies related to their type. Laura and I already nerd out when it comes to the Enneagram, and this indulges our nerdiness.

That’s it. Hope you enjoyed it! What did you like about 2018?

'Tis the Season for Depression: 7 Steps To Battle Darkness (Repost from Dec. 5, 2018)

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.”     –Psalm 139:7-12

It was impressed on me to write about depression a few days ago. Seasonal Affective Disorder touches a lot of people this time of year, and the highest rates of depression occur during the holiday season. I had five different people either talk about or post something related to depression over the past few weeks. There definitely are folks in the Tanner and greater Limestone County communities who are battling depression. 

Depression is the common cold of mental illness. According to a study done by the National Institute of Mental Health, 6.7% of all adults age 18 and older reported a major depressive episode in 2016. That percentage goes up with younger generations: 12.7% amongst adolescents aged 12-17, and 10.9% amongst young adults aged 18-25. I’ve had several seasons when I’ve been down and emotionally numb. I’ve seen counselors a few different times in life, and probably will in the future. While I’m not a counseling professional, I wanted to share some things I’ve found useful in seasons of darkness and depression. I hope you find them helpful too.

1. Connect with God in the darkness–There can be a sweetness to the darkness if we face it with Jesus. We can have a deep connection with God and others in our sadness. Don’t walk away from God in your pain; rather, pour your heart out to him. We are invited to bring our negative emotions to God in the prayer book of the Bible, the Psalms. Many of the Psalms showcase experiences of darkness and have people pouring out their souls to God in complaint, anger, and confusion (read Psalm 22, 42, 43, 44, and 88 for starters). Sometimes God comes very close to us in our sadness and difficulties, as he did to a suicidal Elijah in 1 Kings 19, or to Paul concerning his thorn in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, or Jesus in Gethsemane in Luke 22:39-46. Pour out your heart to God; don’t cut yourself off from him in these dark times. He is near to the broken hearted (Psalm 51:17) and he will not break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick (Matthew 12:15-21). Are you sharing your struggles and negative emotions with Jesus, or cutting yourself off from him? He desires to strengthen and help us.

2. Claim the gifts that come from dark seasons–There can be gifts that come from being acquainted with melancholy. There is no experience or trauma that God cannot redeem and use for good in some way, according to Paul in Romans 8:28. That’s not to say that everything that happens to us is good or is part of the intentional will of God. Rather, God can turn around whatever we go through and bring good out of it, even if it is despicably evil. The darkest hour of Jesus’ life–his betrayal, suffering, crucifixion, and death–was redeemed by God to become the means of winning deliverance for all who would receive Christ in faith. God can redeem our situations of trouble too, if we cling to him in faith and don’t give up. God develops our endurance, character, and hope in situations of suffering (Romans 5:3-5). Similarly, going through trouble can lead to good art. I have always been attracted to gloomy songs because they help us feel our emotions, express our pain, connect with someone else over the experience of suffering, and the really good ones help orient us toward hope. These songs send the message that there’s someone out there who gets it and they’ve worked through it. Being acquainted with depression can help us connect with others in their times of despair. We are better able to be a calming, empathic, hopeful presence. Don’t lose sight of the gifts that can come from your experiences of despair. Those who run from sadness won’t understand or be able to wield these gifts as effectively. Have you claimed the gifts that come from the darkness?

3. Don’t fall in love with despair and wickedness–As a caution related to my previous points, while there can be growth and connection with God in the dark, there also can be a temptation to fall in love with it. Despair may be all we pursue or allow ourselves to feel. We can come to believe we are unworthy of love, we don’t deserve or can’t accept happiness, we are broken and really deserve hopelessness and pain. One of the effects of sin is that it corrupts our hearts and minds, so that we desire the wrong things and believe the wrong things. The sins of others also shape us–negative beliefs get written deep into us by abuse, rejection, pain, and frustration. There is often a measure truth to our negative thoughts and beliefs. I’m not going to tell you just to accept yourself, that you’re fine just as you are so just do you. In fact, it’s healthy to feel negative emotions and be challenged by God, because the Bible is pretty up front about us being sinners who don’t measure up to a holy God. Before I became a Christian, while I experienced the love of Jesus drawing me to himself, I also experienced conviction of sin, that I was jacked up and stood in need of God’s mercy. There are parts of us–not all of us, but parts of us–that really are quite unlovely. All of us mess up, all of us experience brokenness. But the good news is that God’s love for us doesn’t depend on us cleaning ourselves up. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). Jesus loves us so much that he died and rose again to heal our brokenness. By the cross he rids us of shame and guilt and radiates the Father’s pure love to us. This is not because we are worthy, not because we’ve earned it, but because of God’s overflowing generosity and grace that he freely gives to whoever will trust Jesus as Lord.

Sadness can help us be honest about our flaws and limits, but being consumed by it leads us to push away the love and grace of God. A tool of the enemy is to get us to acknowledge our badness but think that grace isn’t really available to us. The most devastating schemes of the devil are partial truths. Jesus can help us see ourselves as he sees us: people who are loved in spite of our sins, who are fearfully and wonderfully made, people whom God desires to bless, people meant to live for God’s glory and purpose.

This is really the heart of the internal battle. I can’t make you love God, have a healthy love of yourself, and want the right stuff. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job, and he can use Spirit-filled people to move us to that place. Do you allow yourself to experience love and joy? Have you fallen in love with darkness so much that it’s all you pursue anymore and you reject God’s love and grace for you? Do you believe you are a deeply loved person, someone Jesus valued so much that he died for you and lives to be in a loving relationship with you? Don’t let darkness lead us to smother hope and push away our extravagant God, whose grace is always greater than our sins.

4. Remember that where you are now isn’t where you’ll always be–Night isn’t mean to last forever–eventually dawn comes. Negative circumstances are what lead most people to depression. You may be suffering abuse. You may feel smothered by a dysfunctional family that you wish you could get away from. You may be experiencing conflict or mistreatment at work. You may have lost a family member, a friend, or a job. You may have done something you’re ashamed of and have a guilty conscience. You may be poor, struggling to make ends meet. People may make fun of you or pick on you. You may feel like you don’t fit in anywhere and no one is interested in you. You may be struggling with health problems. While these things probably won’t change overnight, some of them will. Where you are now isn’t where you always will be, and Jesus can bring us into seasons of favor and joy if we persist through the hard seasons. Sometimes we can get to those seasons by making a change–changing jobs, changing where we live, getting some healthy distance from our family, getting away from an abusive relationship, getting some distance from a particular friend group, investing in a relationship with Jesus, changing our habits, and so forth. Sometimes we can’t change our situation and we have to grind our way through a difficult season. Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer is useful in situations like this: “Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Whether we can make changes in our situation or not, we are not to lose hope. Hope is the ability to see how things could be better, to anticipate it, and to orient ourselves toward that future goodness. With Jesus, while we may have difficult seasons, there is always hope for things getting better. Don’t throw away the hope we have in Christ just because our present season is hard. And if your safety is being threatened and you’re being abused, there are ways to get you to a safer place. Just reach out.

5. Have friends–One of our students at First Priority last week shared how someone befriended her when she was going through a season of depression and helped her get through it. Now she wants to pay it forward and spread hope and joy to others. If you find a friend who will listen to you, care for you, joke around with you, and especially pray for you, you’ve found a treasure. I call on friends when I’m going through a hard time to share what’s going on and ask for prayer. Depression can lead us to isolate ourselves and display awkward behaviors that push people away. Resist the urge to isolate. Find some folks you can trust, who won’t betray your best interests. Proverbs tells us that there are friends out there who stick closer than family (18:24). You can be that friend for someone else, too. The important thing is to have friends you can trust and to have give and take in your friendships.

6. Go see a counselor–When we get physically sick, we go see a doctor in hopes that they will help make us well. Unfortunately, we don’t always think the same way when it comes to emotional sickness. We may push ourselves away from seeing a counselor, telling ourselves that going to a counselor is a sign that we’re “one of those messed up people.” Being real about problems and seeking healing and wholeness doesn’t mean you’re weak; it actually takes courage. If you’re too proud to seek wholeness, it’s your loss. Counselors and psychiatrists, especially well-trained Christian ones, are like doctors of the soul. They have expertise in diagnosing emotional wounds and unhelpful behaviors/thought patterns. They can point us toward healing and give us concrete steps to get there. They can determine if our brains aren’t producing enough neurotransmitters to make us have a good mood, and can detect other neuro-chemical issues that affect our emotional states. Medicine helps heal, and there’s no shame in taking medicine for mental health when we need it. Before Thanksgiving, I talked with a stranger while I was getting my wife’s tires changed. As we talked about life and church, he eventually shared how the antidepressant he takes greatly helps his mood and helped him get through a difficult season in caring for his elderly parents. Antidepressants aren’t silver bullets that totally fix everything, but they can be tools to have in our toolkit. Medicine can help our moods and emotional states, but I would combine it with other healthy activities. It never hurts to go see a counselor, and I have a professionally trained Christian counselor I’d recommend in the Madison area if you’re interested. 

7. Cope with stress in healthy ways– We all have different behaviors we use to cope with stress. They all work for us to some degree, but some are healthier than others. I offer some brief Dos and Don’ts here:

Do: Do get enough sleep and exercise. Do pray and go to church. Do vent to friends. Do keep a journal where you write out all you’re dealing with–you can even turn it into prayer. Do get clean from any addictions. Do punch a pillow or punching bag. Do assertively handle conflict.

Don’t: Don’t regularly eat tons of awful food. Don’t isolate. Don’t rip someone’s head off in anger. Don’t run from healthy conflict. Don’t shoulder everything yourself and try to be a strong rock. Don’t self medicate with drugs, alcohol, or escapist behavior. Escapist behavior compounds problems, and while it may take the edge off for a while, it while lead you to crash down lower and lower.

Some days we do better than others when it comes to coping with stress and having healthy disciplines. I certainly don’t have perfect discipline. None of us do. The sooner we accept and even laugh about our foibles, the better it will be. If we mess up, ask God for forgiveness, forgive yourself, and try again.

So there you have it. I hope some of this resonated with you. My prayers are with you if you’re going through a season of depression. While the darkness is tough, and all of us will go through dark seasons in life, they don’t have to get the best of us. We can be good stewards of our dark times, and God can work in us through them. Just be easy on yourself and give it time.

What would you add to the list?

4 Questions for an Increasingly Secular Generation Z (Repost from Nov. 5, 2018)

Everyone cares about the important questions of life. But let’s be honest: most of us don’t have the passion or the drive to study them at a deep level. Plus, we probably aren’t enticed at the prospect of working at Starbucks after earning a degree in philosophy. (Sorry, philosophy majors. You know it’s true.) Still, it can be helpful to wrestle with questions and to see how people of different worldviews engage one other. In particular, I’ve been thinking about atheism. Atheism and agnosticism have been on the rise in younger generations in the US. According to research by Barna, Generation Z (the generation after millennials, born 1999-2015) is more than twice as likely to identify as atheist in comparison to the general adult population, although that statistic is still relatively low at 13%. Add to that those who consider themselves agnostic and of no religious affiliation, and the number rises to 35%, a large portion of a generation. Why are we seeing these trends? I’m sure there are several reasons, but for the purpose of this article, I want to pose four conversation starters that I believe bring to light some weaknesses of atheism in particular.

1. What Hope Does Atheism Offer in Comparison to Religious Hope? 

I like to make a distinction between generic hope and religious hope. Generic hope refers to the hopes just about every human being shares–hope for a good life, financial success, good health, a good family, our politics to win, our communities and people around us to do well, emotional fulfillment, etc. The nature of religious hope really depends on the religion, but speaking as a Christian, there is beautiful hope that Jesus adds to life. There is hope for personal calling and meaning in life. We are made for a purpose and can fulfill that purpose through a relationship with Jesus and in service to him. There is hope in the face of adversity. Even if my family struggles, I become poor, my politics loses, evil triumphs in my community or nation, my health deteriorates, people dislike me, and I die, Jesus gives me strength in the face of these difficulties and a positive expectation that God can turn bad things around for good. He gives me hope of eternal life after death. He gives me hope for God’s justice and goodness to break forth here and now and the conviction that his justice will finally prevail when Jesus returns to judge the world and evil will finally be put down. He gives hope even when he calls us to sacrifice for his sake, knowing that when we lose things for his sake, we find life and blessing in him. He provides peace, comfort, and growth in all things.

What hope does secular humanism offer in the face of adversity? Atheism seems easy to hold if you’re a person of privilege, but what does it offer you if your health fails, if your politics loses out, if you end up poor, if you experience evil triumphant, if you feel lonely and misunderstood, and, ultimately, when you face death?

2. What Is the Basis for Morality? 

I have a hard time seeing any unifying, universal moral code emerging from atheism. That’s not to say that people of no belief or of uncertain belief aren’t moral people–many of them are. They do some good things, and often they want to make the world a better place. But how would you describe what is good, what is right, and what we ought to do from an atheistic framework? Why should we do any of it? Where does the moral impulse come from? Surely the basis for morality is not indulging whatever desires I find inside myself; I see a lot of ugly impulses within me alongside some good ones. People do a lot of nasty things in the name of being true to themselves: divorcing a spouse we find boring, sloughing off responsibility, saying awful things about someone behind their back, or cutting corners to make money. Does morality come from group consensus and majority rule? That varies from place to place. In the early 20th century, the majority of Americans supported Prohibition. Then they didn’t. What about abortion, which continues to remain a closely contested issue in public opinion polls? Didn’t the majority of Germans go along with Hitler’s Nazism? Surely there’s more to morality than public opinion, and we often cling to our beliefs despite what the majority may think. Will you say there is no final truth or morality, that everything is simply subjective interpretations competing for supremacy, that it ultimately doesn’t make any difference which truth you choose? That makes sense to me in an atheistic worldview, but seems anemic in actually bringing people together, binding up the world’s wounds, and standing against evil. Plus, I haven’t met a soul who is totally relativistic in their morality–there would be no reason to critique anyone or anything. Total relativism seems simply to be an invitation to a life of inertia.

As a Christian, the notion of universal standards given by a sovereign creator God has much that is attractive to it. Our all-knowing, loving God designed things to be a certain way. We hurt ourselves, others, the created world, and God himself when we go against that way and sin. Not to mention God will hold us responsible for our choices. Things tend to go well and there is flourishing and blessing when we live according to the way God designed things to go. The basis for morality lies with an ever-present God who applies standards and truths to all people at all times in all places, and there are rewards and punishments according to how we measure up to God’s will.

That’s not to say all Christians agree on everything. If you look for 2 seconds, you’ll find that Christians don’t. We human beings are limited–we will not understand God fully, nor will we fully comprehend all reality. This invites us to humility, to acknowledging that we don’t know everything about God and the world, that we could be wrong about a lot of things, and that there’s always more to learn. I take comfort in knowing that I’m not the source and arbiter of all truth. Jesus is. Yet I trust that Jesus is able to make himself known to us in a way that we can understand sufficiently for God’s purposes for our lives. And the fact that God knows all truth and is the evaluator of all moral action gives urgency for us seeking truth and seeking to live a moral life, even when what’s right is not easily discerned. Jesus is the one who reveals what is true, who vindicates what is good and true in life, and ultimately he will judge the world according to his truth. I am called to always be learning the truth as best I can, to be shaped by his truth, and bear witness to his truth.

Further, many secular humanists in the West hold to a bastardized version of Judeo-Christian values. Consider the value of the equality of all people regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, socio-economic status, etc. That’s straight from Genesis 1:26-27, Romans 2:6-11, and Galatians 3:27-28. Apart from a belief in God making all people of equal worth, why might you believe human beings are of equal value from a secular perspective? Why might you think we should all have certain rights? The values of equality, family, justice, compassion, meaningful work, loving your neighbor, and more all make sense from a Christian framework. God created human beings and the world to be a certain way, and it’s easy to see how those values have made their way into our politics. But strip away the original theology from which these values arose, and suddenly it becomes a lot harder to justify exactly why we hold certain values from a secular perspective.

Again I ask, what is the basis for morality? Can you unify people and hold people accountable to some common standard from an atheistic perspective? What impetus is there for pursuing truth and goodness in secular humanism? Can it escape the center of truth being the individual?

3. What Caused Existence? 

I see secular humanism caught in a bind when it comes to origins–either it can’t break out of an infinite regression of causes, or it believes in an unconvincing necessary being. I’m referencing the cosmological argument, an argument for God’s existence that St. Thomas Aquinas appropriated from Aristotle concerning an unmoved mover/uncaused cause/necessary being. I think it has a lot of explanatory power when it comes to understanding origins. The argument utilizes deductive reasoning, saying it is more sensible to believe there is a creator who is eternal and exists outside the standard line of cause and effect than it is to believe in an infinite regression of causes. (An infinite regression of causes is never being able to break out of “What caused that? And what came before that? And what came before that?” on into infinity.) If there is not a being who is outside the standard chain of cause and effect, then it seems likely that time itself wouldn’t exist and life wouldn’t exist, because an infinite regression of causes would mean we never could get back to a definitive beginning of existence. Since we experience time, it seems likely that there was a definitive beginning to time. It makes more sense to believe there is an unmoved mover, an uncaused cause who is outside the standard conception of cause and effect, upon which all of existence depends, who by necessity kickstarted this thing we call life. We Christians and other theists call this being God, and given the nature of existence, the theistic conception of God seems to have a lot of explanatory power.

I once saw an atheist philosopher posit “Nature” as his necessary being and uncaused cause. I’m not sure he really defined what “Nature” is. Is it personal? Does it have a will? If so, “Nature” sounds a lot like God. Or is it just the laws of nature? How likely does it seem that impersonal laws of nature would exist outside the standard line of cause and effect, would start an interdependent world that evolved into creatures that feel and decide, much less human beings who have such high level intellect, emotions, and will? Creatures like human beings seem probable if they are the creation of a God who has mind, emotions, and a will, but to have these kinds of creatures produced by the impersonal, non-willing laws of nature? That seems quite unlikely.

Can secular humanists break out of an infinite regression of causes in their understandings of origins? If not, it seems likely that secular humanists will never be able to be anything but agnostic when it comes to origins. Can they believe in a sensible necessary being besides God? So far, I haven’t been convinced. I’m in favor of continued scientific exploration of origins, but it seems safe to infer that something powerful and personal, outside the standard line of cause and effect, got this whole thing going. God seems to be the most sensible candidate to me.

4. How Do You Make Sense of Widespread Religious Experience? 

In other words: are all of us religious folks foolish when it comes to understanding accurately our own experiences? That seems to be the impression we get from the New Atheists, though not all in the unaffiliated camp would be so antagonistic toward religious people. While I do confess that people can go weird places when it comes to religion, people also can go weird places in their atheism (look at Stalin, Mao, & Pol Pot). Surely the intuitions and experiences of the vast majority of the people throughout history and in the world today aren’t total rubbish. According to a 2012 study, Pew Research Center found that only 16.3% of the population of the world could be classified as “Unaffiliated,” their catch-all term for atheists, agnostics, and people who don’t subscribe to a particular religious tradition. But even within that 16.3%, some of them hold spiritual beliefs “such as a belief in God or a universal spirit,” which wouldn’t jibe with most expressions of atheism. Are the majority of people in the world mistaken when it comes to reporting religious experience and belief in a spiritual reality? 

What about miracles with medical documentation? A famous site of Catholic pilgrimage and devotion is the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, located in the town of Lourdes in southwestern France, where there have been 70 miraculous healing reports recognized by the Catholic Church. Several of these healings have medical documentation that has been evaluated by the International Lourdes Medical Committee, “an international panel of about twenty experts in various medical disciplines and of different religious beliefs,” who comment on whether the recovery is medically explicable or not based on the evidence available. Similarly, Dr. Candy Gunther Brown of the Religion Department of Indiana University published a study in Southern Medical Journal of research conducted at a Pentecostal meeting connected with Iris Ministries in Mozambique. They obtained permission from several volunteer subjects to use medical technology to measure the subjects’ hearing and vision. They later measured these same subjects after they received healing prayer, and recorded significant improvements to the hearing and sight of several.

Further, Christianity isn’t the only religion with reports of spiritual power encounters that change people. Dr. Edith Turner (now deceased) was an anthropologist who, along with her husband Victor, was studying the Ndembu people in Zambia. An anthropological practice is to “go native” and participate in the rituals of the people you study as though you believe in them yourself, even if you don’t. Dr. Turner went native, and throughout her career reported things such as healing, clairvoyance, a witch doctor extracting a bad spirit from a sick woman’s back (it came out in the form of a gray blob), trances, and more. She became an adherent to a shamanistic form of religion in the aftermath of her experiences. 

How would secular humanism respond to the majority of people in the world reporting spiritual encounters? What about the encounters that profoundly change people, and the ones with corroborating testimonies and medical documentation? I don’t deny that there are fakers out there when it comes to faith healing and spiritual power, but there are multiple stories that seem extremely difficult to controvert.

Conclusion

In conclusion, secular humanism struggles to articulate hope beyond the generic hopes everyone shares concerning life, with no hope after death. I have not seen it offer a believable concept of universal right and wrong, as well as a basis for a unifying morality. The origin of life is a mystery, and we cannot sensibly understand it or see an overarching purpose behind it. It is dismissive of widespread religious experience, spiritual power encounters, and documented healings. In short, I fail to see how this is a more compelling worldview than the Christian faith. In Christianity, you have strong hope, a sensible morality, a framework for understanding origins, and a loving God you can encounter by experience. Logic and argumentation alone cannot prove God, but it can lead us to to dip our toes into the waters of faith, to “taste and see that Lord is good.” My encouragement to Generation Z is to search, study, and give yourselves over to Christian spiritual practices for a few weeks. See if Jesus won’t meet you there.

Takeaways from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Repost from Oct. 8, 2018)

I recently finished reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (The word catechism means “instruction.”) It is a thorough grounding in Roman Catholic belief and practice. While I have read and benefitted from a few Catholic authors (St. Augustine, Henri Nouwen, Richard Rohr, Greg Boyle, Raniero Cantalamessa), most of what I’ve heard about Catholicism has come through Protestants, which is undoubtedly biased and selective. It has been a joy to get such a broad summary from an official Catholic source. Contrary to uncharitable comments I’ve heard from a few Protestants, practicing Catholics are our sisters and brothers in Christ. We are united in the ecumenical creeds (Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Chalcedonian Definition, etc.) We all believe salvation is in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith. We are united in God as creator, as Almighty, and as our Father. We are united in the saving work of Jesus in the cross and resurrection, the sending of the Holy Spirit, the unity of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, Christ returning to judge the world, and eternal life. Our consensus in doctrine and practice is much greater than our differences, but it’s often the differences that get the most attention. Here are some of my brief takeaways concerning pleasant discoveries, the most fundamental difference I see between Catholics and Protestants, and a list of some of the other differences that stem from this fundamental difference. 

Pleasant Discoveries

• The Catechism is thoroughly biblical, in spite of common Protestant accusations that Catholics basically don’t care about the Bible. Biblical references are teeming throughout.
• The Catechism is kinder toward Protestants than I was expecting: we are followers of Jesus and the Spirit does much good through Protestant churches, though they would say we aren’t properly related to God’s true church.
• The best and most thorough discussion of angels I’ve ever read is in the Catechism.
• There is a healthy respect for science and natural reason, and official teachings of Catholicism are much more open to evolution than some Protestant bodies are. I think we could learn a lot from them in this regard.
• There is a rich spiritual tradition with many encouragements toward a life of prayer and discipline. I see more emphasis here in Catholicism than I do throughout Protestantism.
• There is a continual focus on the poor and God’s love for them, and an appreciation for vows of poverty and singleness, which many Protestants tend to ignore.
• There is a lot of modern moral and political wisdom in the Catechism.

The Fundamental Difference: How Should We Do Theology?

The differences between Catholics and Protestants ultimately root in different ways of doing theology. We Methodists like to use the acronym STER to talk about the different ways people come to know God: Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason. Every person and every denomination weighs and uses these four sources of theological knowledge differently. For instance, charismatic and Pentecostal Protestants tend to give more emphasis to Scripture and experience (what I learned in the practice of prayer, what the Spirit told me, my experience trying to live out a particular biblical principle). The Reformed tradition tends to weigh Scripture and reason more heavily (what is the best way to go about interpretation, how does background of a particular Scripture inform our understanding of it, how does this interact with other sources of knowledge like science, philosophy, psychology, etc.) Anglicans would employ Scripture and tradition more heavily, while still giving primacy to Scripture. Roman Catholics put holy tradition (the ecumenical creeds, what Christians and teachers have said in the past, how the church has interpreted Scripture throughout history) on an equal level with Scripture, with the authority being given by God to the Magisterium (the pope and his bishops) to interpret Scripture and holy tradition, sometimes infallibly. See Article 2: The Transmission of Divine Revelation (paragraphs 74-95) of the Catechism to get the Catholic perspective of how they do theology. One of the reasons why they proceed this way is that the Scriptures themselves were given to us by the tradition of the church. The New Testament wasn’t finally canonized by the church until the 4th century, and the New Testament documents themselves were produced by individuals of the early church. Thus, this is used as an argument for the highest authority being given by God to the leadership of the church, guided by the Holy Spirit, to decide what God’s inspired and authoritative revelation is.

We Protestants would agree that we are dependent upon the tradition of the church for the initial production of the Scriptures by the apostles and their associates as well as the later canonization of the Scriptures by church leaders in the 4th century, but would differ on how much weight we gives these different sources when it comes to doing theology. Protestants would put Scripture as the more important and the most foundational source for how we come to know God, more so than tradition. Thoughtful Protestants aren’t anti-tradition, they simply are more critical of tradition, especially where later tradition has moved beyond the data from the earliest tradition of Scripture. We would say that the Holy Spirit gave the church the ability to recognize the Scriptures as the earliest, most pristine traditions of Jesus, the apostles, and their associates, but the church does not finally imbue all authority into those texts. In other words, the authority of Scripture doesn’t finally derive from the church, even though God used the church to give us Scripture, but final authority belongs to the God who inspired the Scriptures and who reigns over all existence.

To play with an illustration given by Anglican Bible scholar N. T. Wright in his book Scripture and The Authority of God (p. 69), let’s use the example of receiving orders from your commander through the mail. Consider Scripture being like the message from your commander in the mail, and the postal worker who delivers it being like the church. Just because a postal worker delivered your orders to you doesn’t mean your postal worker has the same authority as the message or the commander, and therefore you give all allegiance and obedience to the postal worker. Nor does it mean you worship the letter that the worker gave you, though it contains the official message from your commander and is the best way to come to know your commander (this would be an idolatry of the Bible). Both the letter and the worker are helping us be better connected to the commander, but they fulfill different roles. Protestants would say the letter contains the most pristine presentation of the commander’s orders, not necessarily the thoughts of any postal worker about the letter. We would argue that the earliest traditions of Christianity we have in the Scriptures should be the most fundamental criteria by which we evaluate all doctrines and practices of the church, because these are the closest documents we have to Jesus and his apostles, and they are the ones the early church recognized as being consistent with the faith handed down to them. If a teaching of the church is not evident from the Scriptures, at the very least it shouldn’t be required as necessary for salvation, and if it runs contrary to the Scriptures, it should be abandoned as contrary to the earliest traditions of the church. This is what led to the Protestant Reformation–a desire to reform the Catholic Church to align with the earliest traditions and teachings of the church as revealed through Scripture, a return to primitive, early Christianity.

In some ways, Protestantism released great potential for transformation within the church, but it also created a huge fracturing within the church, paving the way for disagreements and even fresh entries into error. Luther quickly discovered that any hopes of unifying Protestants around a common interpretation of Scripture was dashed at the Marburg Colloquy in his arguments with Zwingli, and it’s undeniable that people interpret Scripture in a lot of different ways still today. There are hundreds of different denominations, all claiming to be “biblical,” but coming to different conclusions on points of doctrine. We have something similar to individualized Protestant Magisteriums in the various denominations, where each rallies around certain ways of interpreting Scripture, and each gives hierarchical authority for enforcing those views. This is where the STER acronym can once again be helpful for navigating the differences amongst Protestants, because often you can trace the source of the disagreements down to differences in valuing and interpreting Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and/or Reason. In spite of the fracturing it has caused, we Protestants believe a foundational reliance on Scripture is a conviction worth arguing for, even if it hasn’t been able to produce ecclesial unity, because of the desire to pursue primitive Christianity as best we’re able to understand it.

As you can probably tell, unlike the Roman Catholic Magisterium, most Protestants wouldn’t claim infallibility for the church. This may seem scary for those who want definitive answers. If you deny infallibility within the church, then can we reliably know God at all? I think we can. I believe Jesus is capable of making himself known to us in a way that is sufficient to God’s goals, though I may not fully understand how we come to know God. I also take comfort in there being a huge amount of consensus when you start to look at all the commonalities among Christians of various stripes–stuff that has been believed by all people, in all times, in all places. But the best we humans can do is humbly and prayerfully make arguments–be witnesses–for why we think God is a particular way. We may get it wrong, and all of us probably are wrong about certain things when it comes to God. We always run into the limits of our own finiteness in the ability to know things, which should showcase that human beings are not the source and judges of all truth. Scripture tells us that Jesus is the source of all truth (John 14:6).  He is the one who has all authority, knows all things, is God’s infallible, inerrant Word, and will ultimately judge all things. So as fallible, finite human beings, we make our attempts and we seek to grow in our God-given understanding, but we shouldn’t be surprised if we can’t obtain infallibility and if the church can’t obtain it. Perhaps our limits are meant to point us beyond ourselves to a God wiser and greater than ourselves, where in faith we humbly seek more understanding, to quote St. Anselm. God gives us enough knowledge that we might have faith in Christ and serve him. And if Paul’s Body of Christ language in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 2 is any indicator, perhaps God loves diversity concerning some things more than we theological types care to acknowledge at times.

I say all that to say this: what you think is “right” or “wrong” really depends on how you do theology. If you accept the Roman Catholic method for doing theology, everything makes sense and checks out. If you don’t, then you have another method for understanding God and would use that theological framework in making your critique. Ultimately, these arguments and questions come back to us as individuals and lead us to ask: what seems most reasonable, convincing, and beautiful? People who are a lot smarter than I am on both sides could take this argument deeper, but these are my musings after reading the Catechism.

Some Other Differences

All of the following observations are presenting issues that really come back to the core issue in the previous section. Some differences particular Protestant traditions would have with Catholicism would also be differences they would have with other Protestants, so I won’t talk about mode of baptism, infant baptism, baptismal regeneration, providence, predestination, sacramental theology, women in ministry, gifts of the Spirit, etc. The list below are things that most if not all Protestants would have trouble with based on their way of doing theology.

• The Papacy
• Mariology
• Mandatory Celibacy in the Priesthood
• Praying for the Dead
• Purgatory
• Indulgences
• Divorce as Always Impermissible
• Consequences for Abortion–Why excommunication for abortion and not other mortal sins?
• Birth Control–Many Protestants would question the opposition of the Church to other non-abortifacient forms of birth control (besides the rhythm method) and would differ slightly on God’s purposes for sex within marriage.

Conclusion

All in all, there is a lot of room for Catholics and Protestants to pray for each other, worship together, and work together for the evangelization and discipleship of our world. The Catholic Church is a huge and beautiful boat from which to fish. I have benefitted much from reading the Catechism, and I’m sure I will continue to learn from and serve with Catholics in the future. I think John Wesley sums up best how we ought to treat each other in his sermon “Catholic Spirit”:

But although a difference in opinions or modes of worship may prevent an entire external union, yet need it prevent our union in affection? Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences. These remaining as they are, they may forward one another in love and in good works.

Review of Gordon Fee's God's Empowering Presence (Repost from Jan. 8, 2018)

I recently finished reading Pentecostal scholar Gordon Fee’s tome God’s Empowering Presence. I benefited much from his thorough exegesis of all the explicit and implicit references to the Holy Spirit in Paul’s letters. Fee, who belongs to the Assembly of God, is a welcome guide to me, a United Methodist, on the Holy Spirit and on Spirit phenomenon in Paul. Here are some things that I took away from reading most of his book.

The Charismata

Fee argues the Greek word charismata, often defined as spiritual gifts (think prophecy, miracles, healing, speaking in tongues, etc.), would have been more understood to original readers/hearers as “grace bestowments” or “grace endowments,” not primarily as "spiritual gifts.” The only passage that designates them “spiritual gifts” is in 1 Cor 12, in other passages there is no explicit mention of the Spirit in relation to the charismata (see Romans 12; Ephesians 4; 2 Cor 8:7; 1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6-7 and others), though it’s not wrong to see the Spirit under the surface in these other passages. John Wesley’s use of the terms “gifts and graces” for ministry may be nearer the mark of the language of the early church. Arguments against God giving charismata to people today (commonly called cessationism) are extremely exegetically weak and would have been foreign to Paul.

Prophets and tongue-speakers are in control of themselves (1 Cor 14). There is nothing to indicate they are out of control, for Paul believes them capable of speaking one at a time, whether speaking in tongues or prophesying (14:26-33). Glossolalia (glossolalia is the Greek term for speaking in tongues) was a regular part of Paul’s own spirituality (14:18). Tongues speakers should pray for the ability to interpret their own glossolalia (14:13). Fee makes good case that the “inarticulate/wordless groanings” of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8:26-27 are very likely a reference to speaking in tongues, and he also sees it as a possibility for “praying in the Spirit” in Ephesians 6:18. If Fee is right in seeing glossolalia in Romans 8 and Ephesians 6, then glossolalia, though unintelligible to its speakers without interpretation, encourages their spirits and can encourage the church when interpreted (1 Cor 14), the Holy Spirit intercedes through glossolalia to conform people to God’s will (Rom. 8:26-27), and glossolalia helps people wage spiritual warfare through effectively sharing the word of God (Ephesians 6:17-18).

Prophecy seems to be the chief charisma that Paul lifts up in his writing. It is not necessarily what we think of as modern day preaching, but a spontaneous utterance or word that comes from God for the community or for an individual. It needs to be tested (prophets are not immune to mistakes–1 Thes 5:19-22; 1 Cor 14:29). Some potential ways to test it are to run the message against what we know to be the content of the Christian faith, and Paul also gives a further the suggestion that prophecy should be done to encourage (1 Cor 14:31). I can't remember if I experienced this or just heard a story about it, but I have heard of prayer meetings that left an open mic for someone to speak a prophetic word, but there were people on either side of the mic who made you tell them what the prophetic message you were about to give was. Once they heard it, they would either give you the go-ahead to speak that word to the group, or they would say that might not be a word for this group. Such is one way of "testing" prophecy. Not allowing and despising the gift of prophecy actually serves to quench the Spirit (1 Thes 5:19-22).

The Holy Spirit and the Trinity

Salvation is Trinitarian in that it is initiated by the love of the Father, accomplished and demonstrated historically in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and applied to the believer in the Holy Spirit. Christianity is Christocentric–everything centers on and revolves around Christ. We should not lose that focus as we learn about and grow in the Holy Spirit. Preaching is made effective by the Holy Spirit, who uses our words to point people toward Christ (per Fee’s comments on 1 Thes 1:4-7). The Spirit drives us toward the character of Christ (see the fruit of Spirit in Galatians 5) and leads us to embody a cruciform lifestyle of God’s power displayed in weakness and love, not in triumphalist power apart from suffering (see especially 2 Corinthians, where Paul makes this point again and again). The Spirit is a “down payment” (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5 and Eph 1:14), a foretaste of God’s future and of the resurrection life we will have in Christ when he returns. The Spirit is also God’s seal–think of the seal of a signet ring pressed on wax, God’s official mark on his children connoting his ownership over those sealed by the Spirit.

The Flesh vs. the Spirit

Fee has great reflections on the flesh vs Spirit in Paul. The flesh represents our mindset and desires before we come to Christ; the Spirit is God’s future come into the present era and empowers us for a Christlike life. Both Spirit and flesh influence us, and we are not immune to temptation, but the Spirit is sufficient to overcome the flesh. We get no hint that the Spirit is weaker than the flesh in Paul–the Spirit is sufficient to live the life of Christ. Interpretations of Romans 7 and Galatians 5 that would give the flesh the “upper hand” in our struggles with sin have some significant exegetical problems, as Fee demonstrates in his work.

Baptism in the Spirit

Fee argues, I think convincingly, that baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a second work of grace subsequent to conversion, but rather refers to what happens to us at conversion. That’s not to say that we don’t grow after conversion by walking in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-25) and being filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18-21), only that in Paul, baptism in the Holy Spirit is referring to conversion.

Critiques

I am vastly in agreement with Fee’s work and interpretation, and have been greatly instructed by him. That being said, I have a couple minor quibbles and one major criticism of his work.

Minor Quibble #1: This book is not accessible to most people. Fee claims he is trying to speak to two groups: “pastors, students, and other church leaders; and the academic community” (p. xxii). I’m part of his intended audience, and I was struggling to stay engaged during the exegesis. I’d recommend you try another book on the Holy Spirit for those who haven’t been to seminary and who don’t have a great grasp on Koine Greek–about 800 pages of this book is in-depth exegesis, which isn’t always the most excited reading. This book is written mainly for Bible scholars.

Minor Quibble #2: I think I’m about 80-90% in agreement with Fee on how Paul understood and used the Law. Fee is right in letting us know that there is continuity and discontinuity in how Paul understood the Torah’s relevance for those who are in Christ. It seems to me he is too negative in his treatment of the Law in Paul. I tend to side more with some of the proponents of the "New Perspective" on Paul, salvation in OT and NT has always been by grace through faith. The Law is good (Rom 3:31; 7:7-12) and not totally done away with, but what Paul often is principally arguing against when he takes the Law to task are certain “works of the Law” and identity boundaries (circumcision, dietary laws, special days, animal sacrifice, Temple worship, etc). The coming of Christ and the work of the Spirit are foreshadowed in these works of the Law and are fulfilled by Christ and the Spirit, so they do not apply to Christians. Still, we are called to fulfill a “righteous requirement” of the Torah (Rom. 8:4). Fee seems to want to get rid of all Torah observance, but I rather think we should systemically reevaluate Torah and find which parts are in the “righteous requirement” we are called to fulfill.  Calvin’s demarcations of the Torah into three parts (moral, judicial, and ceremonial) are a step toward this systemic reevaluation of the Law in light of Christ and the writings of the NT. The OT is still Scripture, helping us see what God has fulfilled in Christ and the Spirit. It's useful in drawing out principals for how to live in Christ, and some of its commands very much still apply. After all, the Torah that commands circumcision and animal sacrifices is also the same Torah that commands love of God (Deut. 6) and of neighbor (Lev. 19), which Jesus made the heart of his teaching (Mark 12:28-34) and Paul makes the heart of his ethics (1 Cor 13; Gal 5:6; Rom. 13:8-10). So Fee making comments like Paul telling us to follow Christ “Torah-free” seems imprecise to me and unfaithful to what Paul is saying.

Major Concern: Fee is bent on trying to disconnect Spirit baptism from water baptism in this book. I’d like to hear his beliefs on what actually happens in water baptism, because he spends so much time arguing for what he doesn’t believe happens in water baptism: receiving the baptism of the Spirit. Baptism is tricky in the New Testament, since, as John Wesley says, there is an “irreconcilable variability” when it comes to what happens in baptism. While there are definitely instances of Fee’s view in the NT (Cornelius’ house in Acts 10 is the big example of people receiving the Spirit before getting baptized), I still believe baptism is the primary way God saves and gives his Spirit to people, and wouldn’t be so strong in disconnecting water baptism from Spirit baptism. I think Fee totally ignores some of the connections in Paul’s own language on water baptism and Spirit baptism (dying to sin and having Christ’s new life through baptism in Rom 6 connects with Rom 8:1-6 where the Spirit is “the Spirit of life” and we put the flesh to death by the Spirit; also circumcision made without hands by baptism in Col 2:11-12 and its connection with the Spirit circumcising the heart in Rom. 2:29; being made one in Christ and receiving adoption as sons through baptism in Gal. 3:26-29 connects with receiving the “Spirit of adoption” in Rom. 8:12-17 and being part of one body and “baptized into one Spirit” in 1 Cor 12:12-13; Eph. 4:4-6.) Paul seemed to believe that something happens in baptism–it’s not just a nice symbol. Also, as Fee repeatedly notes, the Holy Spirit is the “applicational” member of the Trinity, applying God’s grace experientially into the life of the Christian. Why wouldn’t we expect that when people undergo water baptism in faith in Christ (or a family member believes on behalf of an infant getting baptized), the Holy Spirit wouldn’t do the very thing signified by the washing/immersion in water? I agree with Fee that the Spirit is the reality that baptism points toward, that it is the Spirit who unites us in Christ and gives us new life, but Fee seems bent on disconnecting the Spirit from the sign of water baptism. Further, what would Fee make of other passages outside of Paul that connect water baptism and the Spirit, like Acts 2:38-40, water baptism and salvation in 1 Peter 3:21, or the Spirit descending on Jesus when he was baptized by John in the Gospels? I wouldn’t get my sacramental theology on baptism from Fee.

Conclusion

Fee’s encouragement is for us not to burn down existing traditions and denominations if they have crowded out the Holy Spirit in their theology, worship life, and/or personal spirituality. Rather, he encourages us to find ways to embrace the work of the Spirit today that were so obviously a part of the life of Paul and his churches. I am grateful for Fee’s exhaustive work, and pray the ministry of the Spirit will be more evident in my own life and in my own tradition, the United Methodist Church.

Top 5 Books of 2017: #1–The Day the Revolution Began (Repost from Dec. 22, 2017)

And now for #1. I'd love to see what your favorite books of the year have been as well, so feel free to comment!

#1 The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus' Crucifixion by N. T. Wright

Of all the books I read this year, this one has challenged, blessed, and shaped my thinking the most. It is a book about the cross of Christ written by a leading New Testament scholar. While Wright can be a bit repetitive and there are some portions of this book that were dry as dust, the content has led to some shifts inside me that I still don't think are quite settled. While it's impossible to summarize everything in this book in a few paragraphs, it has been very helpful in getting a deeper understanding of what Scripture says about Jesus' crucifixion. To examine the cross, you have to get down to the fundamentals of the Christian religion. What is the problem with our world and with humanity? How is the cross of Jesus an answer to that problem?

Many conceptions of the cross I hear and undoubtedly have said myself at one time or another make an angry God the main problem we need to be rescued from. The common line of thinking goes like this: God made the world good and made it with some random rules for his humans to follow. Sin is breaking those rules. Sin is bad because God gets really angry with us when we break the rules. In order to rescue us from this angry God who would blast us into oblivion if he could, the loving Jesus steps in and takes God's wrath upon himself, so God can blow off some steam. Now we can live at peace with a placated God if we trust in Jesus. 

Wright believes in substitutionary atonement (it's biblical), but the above conception of substitutionary atonement is a bit simplistic and, to be honest, a little problematic. I'm not sure if I'd trust my cat with a God whose primary characteristic involves blowing up in fits of rage over people breaking arbitrary rules. Don't get me wrong, sin does make God angry, but Wright has helped me see that an angry God isn't the principal problem we need to be rescued from according to Scripture. Rather, we need to be rescued from sin and the devil, the real culprits of evil in our world, and sin is something worse than breaking random rules that tick God off. Sin, in and of itself, is destructive and deformative. Sin is choosing to go against the grain of the universe, against the very fabric of how we are made to live, and there are natural consequences that arise from doing that. Take, for example, Genesis 3. Before God's punishment ever comes in, you see that the man and the woman give power over to the devil to define their world (scary!), they start trusting something other than God, they are filled with shame and fear, and they start blaming and arguing with each other over who's at fault. God disciplined them in wrath after that, but the damaging effects of sin were already at work. Or look at Romans 1:24, 26, and 28, where God displays his wrath, not by adding in some external punishment, but by simply giving people over to the natural consequences of sin. It's like he's saying, "You want this? OK, see how that works for ya." Sin isn't bad just because God punishes it. Sin by it's very nature is damaging to us, to the created world, and to God. This has helped me see that God's wrath and punishment are loving responses of a holy God to limit the spread of the cancer that is sin. The Father's discipline is meant to woo us toward the love, life, and light we can enjoy in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It's like a parent disciplining a child so they know not to go play in the street. The salvation we need isn't just getting God to take a chill pill. We need liberation from the enslaving, degenerating, and wounding powers of sin and the devil. 

The cross of Christ is God's ultimate answer to evil. It is Christ being our representative, facing the worst schemes of the devil and bearing our sins and the natural consequences they bring about–namely pain, isolation, betrayal, and death, all that we might have God's unending, joyful life. The cross showcases the power of love against the power of violence, lies, and shame. Further, Wright helped me see that most of the time people neglect the atonement theology of the Gospels and instead frame the conversation about the cross around what Paul says. The Gospels do have atonement theology, but, unlike Paul, it is more implicit rather than explicit. The Gospel writers set us up to understand Jesus' crucifixion in terms of the Passover. The Passover was God's final plague on Egypt (Exodus 12), the time when God delivered Israel in a mighty way from the evil, enslaving power of Pharaoh. In the cross of Christ, God has worked an even greater Passover, overthrowing a greater Pharaoh (the devil), and freeing all who trust in our sacrificial lamb, Jesus, into a greater Exodus from the enslaving power of sin, that we might live as we are meant to live. This revolution, this victory of God, this freedom from sin to live a life of cross-bearing love, is offered to all who would trust in Christ as their Savior and Lord. Of course, there's much, much more to the book, but this is the heart of what I took away from Wright. There are not many books I would read twice, but this is one of them. 

Top 5 Books of 2017: #2–You Are What You Love (Repost from Dec. 21, 2017)

Each day this week I'm going to post one book that made my top 5 list in 2017, building up from number five to number one. I'd love to see what your favorite books of the year have been as well, and I welcome your comments!

#2 You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K. A. Smith

While I have heard friends rave about Smith's Desiring the Kingdom trilogy, I never got around to reading any of them, and am grateful for this more accessible condensation of his ideas. Smith is a philosopher at Calvin College, and he convincingly argues that the Enlightenment's conception of human beings as primarily "thinking" creatures, or "brains on a stick," is deeply flawed. Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" is the epitome of this view of humanity. Smith says we aren't primarily thinkers, though that is a crucial aspect of our humanity, but lovers. The things we love control us more than our thoughts. For instance: everybody knows that diet and exercise are the best way to lose weight and maintain a healthy body. Yet in spite of such widespread knowledge, very few put this into practice. Why? Because we are more controlled by our desire for food and comfort than what we know intellectually to be good for us. Our habits are more telling of what we love and worship than our knowledge. One can be the most orthodox and biblically astute Christian out there and be wracked with lust, greed, anger, pride, and a whole host of other sins, because increased information doesn't automatically equate to life transformation. Jesus didn't come to make well-informed disciples who aren't any different from the world around them. He came to transform our lives and renovate our hearts. This is a kick in the rear for someone like myself who likes to read and think. The call of discipleship isn't a call only for more information (though much of modern discipleship seems to be based purely around learning new things intellectually), but to grow in love with Jesus and with neighbor through worship, service, and holy habits. Jesus wants to take our loves from being disordered (desiring the wrong things) to being properly ordered. This is a timely, challenging message, and Smith lays out ways we can grow in loving God, particularly through inspiring worship at church and family discipleship. You Are What You Love snags #2 on my list.

Top 5 Books of 2017: #3–Man Enough (Repost from Dec. 20, 2017)

Each day this week I'm going to post one book that made my top 5 list in 2017, building up from number five to number one. I'd love to see what your favorite books of the year have been as well, and I welcome your comments!

#3 Man Enough: How Jesus Redefines Manhood by Nate Pyle

I wish I wrote this book. I just finished leading a men's small group through both the Gospel of Mark and this book, and it has been a very rewarding experience. There is a ton of fluff in our culture and in the church about what it means to be a man. Real men are hyper sexual and sleep around a ton (or the Christian version: real men start families and really enjoy sex with their wives). Real men are providers. Real men are unemotional. Real men are warriors. Real men are leaders. Real men are (fill in the blank)–you get the picture. What I love about Pyle's book is that he challenges us to bring our focus back to where it should be: Jesus and the Bible. He is wonderful at exposing the danger of bias we can bring to reading our Bibles–if our culture says men should be strong warriors, should be financial providers, should be unemotional and hyper sexual, then it's easy to look for parts of Scripture that support our pre-existing conceptions of manhood and ignore those that don't fit. It's also easy to forget that how we "naturally" are wired isn't necessarily holy–there's this little thing called sin that should make us question our first impulses.

Have you ever thought about how Jesus doesn't fit a lot of what we lift up as "a real Christian man?" He didn't have a paying job or financially provide for his family during his public ministry–he actually left his family behind and depended on the support of wealthy women (Luke 8:1-3). Jesus didn't start a family of his own and he never had sex (!). We like to lift up Jesus driving animals and money changers out of the Temple as an example of masculinity, but not so much Jesus weeping for Lazarus (John 11:35) or weeping over Jerusalem's lack of repentance (Luke 19:41). Jesus never got in a fight, and rather than fighting his enemies, he died for them. Further, I often see men's ministry lift up David as an ideal warrior, but what about the artsy-fartsy side of David playing on his lyre and writing poetry? What about the fearful Jacob who stayed among the tents while his manly-man brother Esau was a hunter (and who was the one who got God's blessing?). What about Paul, the scholarly church planter who also never got married or had sex?

When we say "real men are X," the danger becomes affirming the masculinity of some men, while detracting from a sense of masculinity in others in a way that Scripture doesn't support. What about the scholar? What about the poet or artist? What about a same-sex attracted man willing to live in celibacy? Being a Christian man means loving Jesus Christ and seeking to develop his character, not trying to fit some cultural, unbiblical stereotype of what manhood is about. This book does a great job at tearing down what I believe is the heart of the masculine myth: men cannot be weak. Jesus Christ on the cross shows us that true manhood and womanhood–true personhood in general–isn't afraid of vulnerability. To be a man following after Christ, we don't need to be afraid of weakness, of emotion, of submission, of humility. Men's ministries, I don't care if you want to have a weight lifting group, a pickup sports group, a wilderness adventure group, a deer hunting group, a fishing group, or a ride-your-Harley-for-Jesus group. There's nothing wrong with any of those things or with using them to connect in friendship and to grow deeper in Christ. Just don't play into stereotypes that "real Christian men do this." 

Pyle wonderfully shows that there are two kinds of courage. There's the courage to upset the apple cart, to challenge others, to stand up for what's right and not cave in to the pressures of the world. But there's also the courage to be honest about our weaknesses and failures, the courage to be humble, the courage to submit to others. That's the kind of man I'd like to be and I'd like for the men around me to be. Bring it back to the Bible (all of it!) and to Jesus. Don't limit to men or to women things God clearly calls everyone to do, both male and female. Galatians 5:22-23 doesn't say that men should embody these particular fruits of the Spirit and women these others, but that everyone is called to embody the same fruit. Men and women are made to work together in Spirit-empowered harmony and mutual submission, as together we display the courage of Jesus and the character of Jesus to a world in desperate need of love. If there's one book I would recommend to men and women for getting a good picture of what Christian manhood looks like, this is it.

As a side note, I'd go further to say that the Bible doesn't teach that only men are to lead at the highest levels of the church, but women as well. 1 Timothy 2:8-15 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 aren't the only passages in the NT concerning women's ministry. I know that's a debated topic amongst different church traditions, but I'd invite you to look at Miriam in Micah 6:4, Deborah in Judges 4-5, a whole host of prophetesses in the Bible (which is a gift of higher authority than pastoring and teaching according to 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11), Phobe the deacon in Romans 16:1-2, Junia and Andronicus as a husband and wife apostle duo in Romans 16:7, and Priscilla along with her husband Aquila teaching Apollos God's way more fully in Acts 18:24-26... I'd encourage you to listen to my sermon on February 19th, 2017 if you're curious about a biblical case for women in ministry leadership. I think restricting women's leadership doesn't really put all the pieces of the Bible together well.