#Rethinkchurch, Beer, and Siblinghood

It is hard to be part of an organized Christian denomination and not hear about “church growth” or more frequently this dilemma is framed as “church decline”. Hashtags have begun creeping up around the internet in recent times that say things like #rethinkchurch. Rethinking church has become something that many clergy and other individuals involved in the innumerable Christian denominations across the globe have spent countless hours contemplating.

In one of the poorest cities in the nation a church sits on the corner of poverty and drug trafficking. On the crossroad between single motherhood and not-enough-food-stamps-to-survive... on the corner of a pantry that needs reworking and a dad who isn’t able to see his children. On this corner, the corner of life, there’s a church rethinking the way it does church.

In a previous blog post I mentioned this same church, and again it seems important that this new information is shared. Hope Lutheran Church in Reading, PA is rethinking the way it does church. Hope is not the only church partaking in such a venture, but Hope is doing something incredible. Some time ago Hope began to reinvent worship in a way that spoke to its demographic, but if the church wants to continue existing in the future, the church must rethink what it’s doing.  

Hope Lutheran Church started a young adults group with individuals ranging from 21-mid30s that meets in a bar/restaurant every Monday night. This group began with an initiative by the pastor of the congregation to connect with individuals in the age range most missing from church on Sunday mornings. Slowly this group connected with one another and it was only a matter of time before this group began questioning faith and spirituality.

#Rethinkchurch becomes theological in nature when it is considered in the framework of Jesus’ logos about the Kingdom. Throughout the four gospels Jesus repeatedly begins sentences saying, “The Kingdom of God is like... or The Kingdom of Heaven is like...” and proceeds to inform his followers about the identity of this kingdom. In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus explains that "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” These explanations from Jesus tell us little about what the kingdom is like and lead to more confusion about what the kingdom might be like. Fortunately, there are other methods of understanding God and the words about God than sola scriptura.  Reason and more frequently experience allow individuals to connect with God and understand God’s work in this world.

The kingdom of God is like a monday evening group of 20 somethings and 30 somethings in a bar commiserating, sharing joy, laughing together, crying together, holding one another metaphorically and at times physically. This is what the kingdom is like. The kingdom is full of love, joy, hope, happiness, courage... the kingdom is life-giving. The kingdom is infinite, yet intimate. The kingdom is not superficial. This kingdom that Hope has created is a place where love can be shared amongst friends and it is a place where friends have become family. The true body of Christ, holy siblings drawn together by none other than the gospel and cold beer.

This is church. This is more like what the church will look like in the next ten years because simply gathering on Sunday is no longer enough. Ironically, this Monday group has aided in drawing individuals back into the Sunday assembly, which is always a victory. This group and other groups like this one do not seek to negate what happens on Sunday morning because logistically it is vital. The church cannot function without money, and people are not “giving” on Mondays at the bar. People are giving on Monday’s but they’re not giving monetarily. They are giving themselves over to the other. They are giving themselves into vulnerability. They are giving themselves to love. This is not something that can be done without courage.

A few weeks ago, this same group gathered in the Poconos for a weekend retreat. The theme of this retreat was “Where have you been? Where are you now? Where are you going?” This theme was specific to this group because many of the group members are experiencing times of transition in their lives. The group benefited greatly from this experience and many participants noted that they felt like their faith was nourished by this event. Time has passed and individuals are beginning to ask if there can be a retreat planned that focuses on anxiety and worry because many young adults are coping with significant amounts of anxiety and worry. This is how the church stays relevant. In a sense, these individuals are coming to the church asking what they can do to worry less. What a victory! What a chance that the church has to step up to the plate and stop hurting people! The church has a chance to gather individuals together and love them! The church has a chance to get the gospel out, to proclaim that the kingdom has come near, and to show people what true love can feel like.

More churches need to begin thinking outside the box to reinvent the church. To think closely about the church’s role in the life of the community and wider the world. The kingdom of God is like a group of people who love one another, love God, and want to experience God in new and different ways.

Same-Sex Marriage: Bearing One Another In Love

Today’s rulings on same-sex marriage by the Supreme Court—both the question of Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—are events that will go down in history books. These are also issues that, because of their direct connection with the institution of marriage, impinge on the life of the church.


Across the nation today, there were countless people rejoicing. The government has determined there is no constitutional reason for the federal government not to recognize marriages that were dully entered into by individuals of the same sex in those states where such marriages are performed. This recognition brings with it a whole host of privileges that to this point were denied such couples by the federal government. It is a moment of justice for gay and lesbian people.

But while some celebrate, others aren’t so excited. Some are worried. Some are angry. Some are confused. While I don’t share these feelings, I can appreciate that they feel this way. To say that I appreciate it doesn’t mean that I agree with them or even believe they’re justified in feeling how they do, but it says that I recognize that they have these emotions and feelings and that I want to be there for them as people. In this place, the words of Scripture offer a more concise expression of what I mean:

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

St. Paul wrote those words to the church at Rome in the first century, but they apply to us today—not just as it comes to bear on the question of same-sex marriage, but it’s especially helpful for us to consider them today for that reason. While we who rejoice at this decision from the Supreme Court express ourselves, we can’t forget there are many around us, many who are our brothers and sisters in Christ and perhaps even our own family, who don’t share our exuberance. Their reading of Scripture, while we might not agree with it or understand it, doesn’t allow them with good conscience to celebrate.

Evangelical Christians can recognize where others with different convictions are and appreciate their thoughts and feelings without conceding that they’re interpretation of Scripture is the “correct” one. What’s more important than singleness of mind is singleness of heart—a singleness that is directed at God through, with, and in Christ Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. In Christ, we can bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters without haughtiness, selfimportance, or vainglory. In Christ, we can accompany others who are different from us and love them as fellow pilgrims on the walk of faith.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Let’s celebrate this moment when the arc has bent a bit more, but at the same time, let’s remember that our celebration is in Christ—the one in whom divisions are no more and barriers no longer matter. Let’s remember those around us, known and unknown, who can’t celebrate. Let's pray that they can still sense a welcoming presence reflective of God’s love within the body that is Christ. And lastly, let’s not lord it over those who can’t share in our joy and pray for unity and harmony in the church and in the world—because we’re all God’s children loved and cherished beyond conceivable measure.

Book Review - "From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ" by Patrick S. Cheng

From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ is Patrick S. Cheng’s latest book. It was published at the end of 2012 by Seabury Books. It can be purchased in paperback for $16.93. ISBN: 978-1-59627-238-5

This book has merits and demerits. That much could be said about any book, but this particular book makes the difference between these two extremes vast. What is good is superb; what is not so good is grating.

The book begins in familiar theological territory by examining the traditional doctrine of sin vis-à-vis the Augustinian model. Cheng insists that this way of understanding sin is important to understanding the new model he proposes.* In some ways, he seems his attempt at objectivity, however, is thwarted by what appears to be an outright disdain for the traditional model. He writes: “The traditional crime-based model of sin and grace has developed into a sadistic paradigm in which our first parents fell from a state of perfection into eternal damnation, and all subsequent human beings have suffered the consequences of their crime”—hardly the verbiage of an objective excursus.

Cheng is right to point out the shortcomings of the crime-based Augustinian approach to understanding sin. He also sets the development of this harmatology—i.e. the study of sin—within its historical context in an effort to elucidate why in fact Augustine proposed such radical depravity for all humanity. Without this foray into history, however, the criticisms would appear to just hang their on their own without any real reason why they matter.

In light of his subject area, Cheng points out how the crime-based model of sin has led people to read the bible, theology, and church history through a lens that condemns LGBT folks as malefactors against God. Insofar he is right; but the danger here is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sin is not one-dimensional reality, and it can’t be reduced to our crime against God anymore than it can be reduced to “spiritual immaturity,” as Cheng would propose as a more appropriate alternative to the crime-based model. All people—whether straight, black, atheist, wealthy, poor, Christian, white, gay, etc.—have sinned against God and neighbor in the traditional Augustinian sense. To propose a model of sin that doesn’t account for human failing, conniving, and scheming is to remain silent about a very real part of the human experience. It’s foolhardy and myopic at best, and damning and murderous to souls at worst.

The Christ-centered model of sin and grace, however, that Cheng proposes has promise. Understanding our sin in relation to Christ’s sinlessness provides us good ground to go forward. Likewise, the list of new “seven deadly sins,” as well its corresponding “seven amazing graces,” offers fruitful food for thought as theologians struggle to speak of sin within the 21st-century postmodern reality. His lists, while focused primarily on the LGBT experience, are broad enough to address the realities of people who might not number themselves among the queer community. This reconceptualization of sin and its application within the contemporary context is the book’s most promising feature.

In addressing each of the seven sins and their corresponding amazing graces, Cheng systematically delineates seven different models for Christ for LGBT folks and others to consider when seeking to live faithfully to God and to themselves. In these models, he is routinely critical of the longstanding traditional modes of speaking of sin in a sweeping fashion. There seems to be no consideration for circumstance that might preclude particular individuals from living into the amazing graces he proposes (cf. the sins of “conformity” or “the closet”), and his amazing graces are offered up as unequivocal in and of themselves (cf. the amazing graces of “activism” or “coming out”). A bit more nuanced view—one that isn’t so categorically anti-tradition or so wholeheartedly pro-novelty—would be more reflective of the realities people find themselves in.

Take for instance his first Christological model: the Erotic Christ. Here Cheng makes the erotic about more than mere sexuality. It is about meaningful interaction with others and all creation in a way that touches—not merely metaphorically, but also directly and physically—the rest of the cosmos. In this model, Cheng proposes sin as exploitation—where we fail to recognize the unique humanity of others or the exquisite vitality of creation and seek only to bend “it” to our own will for own benefit. His proposed amazing grace in this model is mutuality—where we look others around us and see “thou” instead of “it.”

This is all well and good, but especially as it comes to bear on his understanding of sin as exploitation and again on his understanding of grace as mutuality, the model seems to fall short because of its extremity. He makes sweeping pronouncements about the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church as an example of the sin of exploitation at work, and goes on to extol the grace of “the Erotic Christ during an anonymous sexual encounter in a Hong Kong sauna with another gay Asian man.”

Patrick S. Cheng is a professor of systematic theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also an ordained minister in the Metropolitan Community Church and a lawyer. He is the author of Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology.

One might argue that the former belies a lack of understanding or appreciation for long held traditions, while the other makes out of the gospel a license to do whatever we want in the moment. Is there no role for hierarchy whatsoever? Is sex with a nameless man I’ll never see again really the way God wants me to engage others? As St. Paul writes: “All things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial.” It is important to keep a critical eye toward not only our neighbor, but also and more importantly toward ourselves when proposing criticism.

The book challenges traditional views on sin and grace and offers up its own alternatives. It sparks a conversation, and an important one at that. In some areas, the criticisms leveled at the enduring Augustinian view of sin as crime against God are justified. We can’t simply look at sin through that lens. Looking at both sin and grace through Jesus Christ offers another way of seeing the situation. We must be careful, however, not to forego one for the other. In that way, we’d fall victim to the sixth deadly sin Cheng proposes: isolation. Instead, we should hold each of these models in tension—the crime-based model and the grace-centered model—and live in what Cheng calls the amazing grace of interdependence. For indeed—our understanding of our sin and of God’s grace is dependent on the prayerful wrestling of countless faithful people, and even then they’re only partial. Only through the exchange of ideas between interdependent models, theories, and ideas can we arrive at a fuller understanding of the reality that we find ourselves in and then speak more clearly, directly, and faithfully about the God who loves us abandon.

-DS

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*His model is hardly “new.” He rightly notes that it’s based on the Eastern Irenaean concept of sin and grace. He simply calls it new because it’s a new way of thinking for many from the tradition of Western Christianity.

Preaching the Devil: What the Pope Didn’t Say

On May 22, Pope Francis delivered a homily—like he does every day—where he said that even atheists could be redeemed. Of course, the (American) media erupted at this proclamation of apparent inclusivity and tolerance from the head of the Roman Catholic Church, arguably one of the most theologically exclusive communities this world knows. It behooves us to think more critically, however, than our everyday reporter about what the pope said—and what he didn’t say.

His Holiness is right. Redemption is for atheists as much as it’s for Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Buddhists, Taoists, etc. It’s the simple radicality of the gospel:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. –John 3:16

The redemption of Jesus Christ is for the whole world—not exclusively for those in a particular denomination. What gets hairy, however, is the question of salvation and whether the pope said all people are saved. That’s a question of soteriology—the area of theology dealing with how creation is saved. It might seem like a fine line, this line between redemption and salvation—because it is. The pope simply stated what Christians have long held to be true—Christ’s sacrifice on the cross avails for all people, no one is excluded.

What the pope didn’t preach, however, was the gospel of moralistic therapeutic deism. The kind of reaction from the American media and its consumers shows to what extent this way of thinking and believing have imbedded themselves into the collective psyche.

Moralistic therapeutic deism is the notion that God is on standby for times of trouble but doesn’t interfere with my life unless I need help. God’s greatest desire for my life and for all people and creation is that we do our best to do the greatest good. In the end, we all go to heaven because God is a merciful God and doesn’t damn anyone to hell—even if we don’t do as much good as God might like. This belief, especially as it pertains to salvation, allows people to jump directly from “God redeems atheists” to “the pope says non-believers are going to heaven!”

The idea is rooted in the false moralistic assumption that our salvation has something to do with our goodness. This is candidly and patently false. Our salvation comes completely and wholly as the product of God’s goodness—namely, through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ on the cross. No amount of our goodness earns us salvation, and no amount of our abstinence from evil does either. Our salvation rests completely and wholly in the nail-wounded hands of God’s son Jesus Christ.

In his homily, the pope makes it clear that the goodness of atheists comes form their nature as creatures made in God’s image. It’s the image of God, not their own beings in and of themselves, that forces them to obey the commandment to do good over evil. Their goodness exists outside of themselves precisely because God made them, and what God makes is good. Evil comes from elsewhere.

The belief is also rooted in the false therapeutic assumption that all good people go to heaven. This is where the difference about redemption and salvation comes to bear. Redemption avails for all people, but salvation happens for those who have faith that Christ’s goodness is sufficient for them.

God’s promise to everyone is that salvation is sure on account of faith in Jesus Christ. It’s therapeutic—and idolatrous—for us to create a god of our own fashioning who behaves according to our own notions of goodness, mercy, and fairness. Theology that states “God saves all good people” is theology about such a god.*

Nailing Christ to the Cross: Gustav Doré

The vast majority of American society—and arguably the world—believes that good people go to heaven. This ties closely with the moralistic coloring of the whole concept. If I’m good enough, my salvation is secure. This way of thinking completely robs Christ of his sacrifice of the cross and renders it completely and utterly useless.

The other side of this same coin belies a completely anthropocentric understanding of salvation as opposed to a Christocentric one. Because I’m good, I go to heaven as opposed to because Christ was faithful, I experience heaven’s joys by the grace of God. American individualism that creates a culture of narcissism and self-centeredism allows this kind of anthropocentric salvation to flourish, and we see it in many a televangelist’s weekly sermon. Here, the preaching from Francis’s first papal homily rings poignantly—“Whenever we do not confess Jesus Christ, we confess the worldliness of the devil.” Insisting on our own goodness as necessary means to salvation is nothing more than the deceiver’s greatest lie.

This way of thinking about God is also deistic in so far as it sees God’s action as relatively limited beyond the moment of creation and the final judgment where my good actions are deemed worthy of admittance to my golden heavenly palace. Only if I need God and summon for aid does the divine helping hand swoop in and relieve me of all life’s burdens.

God is anything but a God who waits on standby for creation to ask for help. God is intimately involved with creation. The extent of God’s involvement in this world was shown most fully in the life and death of Jesus Christ. God loved the world so much to enter this world, become a human being in Jesus Christ, and die so that each and every person who believes in him would enjoy abundant life—both now and through eternity. God’s action in this world is not limited to when creation was first spoken into being and when we need help outside ourselves. God’s action in this world is continual and unending. God sustains this world and maintains it. Without God’s action, this world wouldn’t be.

The pope, in calling out atheists, doesn’t say that God’s activity in this world is moot. He’s saying the exact opposite. Even atheists are created in God’s image and by this nature they must do good. The commandment to do good is written on their heart by their creator. By calling out atheists who do good, the pope’s pointing to God’s action in this world, even in unbelievers, as very real evidence that God hasn’t stepped back and left the ticker keep time on its own. God is constantly adjusting the pendulum and gears so that the entire clock keeps perfect time—even when we don’t think we need sustenance or ask for help. God’s hand is active in this world, and the pope points to the good works of atheists, created like all human beings in the image of God, as hard and fast proof that this is a real truth.

The Gospel for May 22, 2013: Mark 9:38-40

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out dæmons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.

In light of the gospel for the day Francis preached this homily, the insistence to call the good works of atheists divinely inspired is hardly radical—especially for those who believe that God’s activity in the world is real and constant. The pope was merely stating the obvious and chiding self-righteous Catholics to regard even the good works of atheists as deeds done on account of God’s goodness. “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Atheists can’t do good deeds of their own will anymore than a good Catholic can because in the end, even though they’re both created in imago Dei, they’re natures are corrupted and turned in on themselves by the cunning machination of the Devil. Therefore, regard the good that atheists do as good, and don’t stop them. When someone’s casting out dæmons, no matter who they are, the world is just that much less evil. Who’d sanely complain about that?

For those, however, who believe God takes a hands-off approach to creation and will save all the good people in the end because they did their best—then when the pope says “God redeems atheists” they would be especially exuberant. It would appear to them, with their moralistic therapeutic deistic view of the world and God’s activity in it, that the leader of the world’s roughly one billion Catholics confirmed their system of beliefs. That is not what the pope preached to his flock. He preached Christ—namely, that the redemption of Jesus Christ on the cross avails for all, even the non-believer. To preach anything other, in the spirit of his own words, would be to preach nothing other than the Devil.

-DS

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*In the future, I hope to write about universalism. Are all people going to heaven, and if not, do some people go to hell?