Flat-Lining Through Mortality?

Without a trace of melancholy, Pastor Dow's widow gushed excitedly to my mother, "I want to know what he's doing!"

The minister who married my parents received his eternal reward just after Christmas, at the age of 85. He and his wife, Mim, had spent their ministry serving throughout New England, including the coastal Maine congregation in Sedgwick where my Mom was raised, in the stately white church overlooking the village.

He had been a preacher from the old school, Pastor Dow, who lived and breathed his pastoral calling. Always studying, always memorizing, always visiting, always with a smile on his face, quick to encourage and loathe to despair, seemingly insatiable in his thirst for knowledge, wisdom, and faithfulness in all things Godly.

Just getting by on a retired pastor's pension in suburban Boston, a part of the country whose cost of living has become outrageously expensive, hardly seemed grievous enough a cause to move away. Besides, even in retirement, their own pastor valued his contributions to the small but faithful flock. Helping in worship services, leading prayers, teaching the children's Bible lesson; it's debatable whether the Dows ever actually retired at all.

Being diagnosed with cancer didn't seem to perturb Pastor Dow either, or Mim. The disease and its treatments posed grave prospects, yet little cause for angst, since they trusted implicitly in God's sovereignty. When my mother talked to them about it on the phone, they treated his cancer as a nuisance at worst, and at best, a gateway for Heaven.

Just Inside the Eastern Gate

So even when he died just before the New Year, his wife and daughters hardly seemed capable of mustering the requisite distress to mourn his passing. Indeed, Pastor Dow himself had gotten in the habit of advising his loved ones that if he passed away before them, he'd meet them "just inside the Eastern Gate." As if we were all booked on an exclusive vacation package, but we didn't know the date our ticket had stamped on it. If you get to go first, or I do, here's where we'll meet up. Like you'd do at a tourist icon in Paris or London.

It was in this vein of expectancy, certainty, and inevitability, then, that Mim exclaimed to my mother recently her wonderment at what her husband must be doing up in Heaven.

"I want to know what he's doing!"

Is he greeting family members and loved ones who had gone on before him? Organizing reunions of the Saints Triumphant from churches he'd pastored through the years? Meeting those who, unbeknownst to him, came to Christ through his ministry?

Or might he still be at the feet of Jesus, even two months into his eternal reward, spellbound with awe at His indescribable majesty?

Whatever Pastor Dow is doing at this moment in Heaven, we know theoretically that it pales in comparison to what even he, with all the expectancy and anticipation he'd exhibited throughout his lifetime for eternity, could have imagined. And Mim knows this. Beyond the pale lies glorious reality that defies mortal description, yet her thirst for her own reward - an almost literal thirst - cannot be quenched. The energy and desire emoted in the way she asked her question told my Mom that the promise of Heaven is as real to her as it could possibly be. Maybe now even moreso.

Yet, how real is it to you and me?

I Want to Want to Know

Sure, when we're at a loss for words at the funeral of a saint we knew was bound for Heaven, sometimes we fall into a hollow, churchy hypothetical conversation, pondering about what they're doing now. But we do so more out of wistful remembrance of the dearly departed, instead of an insatiable desire to join with those who have reached the farthest shore.

We're still too tied down here on Earth, with our aspirations, and even our anxieties. For us, Heaven can wait. Twenty-first century America is what we know.

We've got money to earn, families to raise, new things to purchase, employers to impress, and even a yard to mow and laundry that needs to get washed. Our lives are lived by clocks and phone calls, text messages and flight schedules. We operate on a horizontal plane, with a few blips upward on Sundays or when a crisis strikes. If you're anything like me, we're mostly flat-lining our way through mortality.

Except Mim.

Not that she's decided to cloister herself off from humanity and bide her time alone in a room, so caught up in the heavenlies that she's no Earthly good. And not even that she doesn't miss her husband terribly, and reminisce about sweeter days in his company.

Instead, for the Dows, Heaven's glories have been a palatable, even pungent mirage, shimmering just above the desert heat of human travail, of which they've experienced their share. Yet for all of the complications and rationalizations we busy post-modern believers can make of theology, theirs has been an incessant, childlike trust in God.

But childlike isn't really an adjective we Christian adults like, is it? Who wants to have their faith described as "childlike?" Doesn't that sound too immature and uneducated? Unsophisticated, unproven, unbalanced, and irresponsible?

Sometimes I wonder, though, who the more immature Christian is.

The one who marginalizes the literal glory of our Heavenly Father, or the one who basks in its promise?

I don't know about you, but I want to want to know what Pastor Dow is doing.
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Pro-Life Ad Stokes Gotham's Racist Ire

Sometimes, when a story comes together, it really tells another story.

Take, for example, the decision Thursday by a billboard company to remove a controversial pro-life advertisement in New York City.

Ever since the billboard went up, featuring a blank-faced black girl in a frilly pink dress, and the blunt assertion that "the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb," liberals have been howling.

Howling about the blatant racism. Howling about the exploitation of children. Howling about the hateful rhetoric directed at helpless black women. Howling about the temerity of right-wing Texas zealots to post such a bigoted thing in the heart of Manhattan's uber-hip SoHo neighborhood.

The Truth Hurts

Here's Part "A" of the story.

This past Tuesday night, Lamar Advertising set up the 29-foot-high billboard on a low-rise building near the exclusive loft apartments of urbane movie stars and hedge fund managers. Wednesday morning, sponsors of the advertisement, a non-profit called Life Aways which is funded by Heroic Media, held a press conference in New York to explain why they were making such a bold ethical statement in such an ultra-liberal community. They were joined by members of New York City's religiously conservative clergy, including evangelical Harlem minister and former congressional candidate Michel Faulkner.

You'll recall an earlier post of mine which discussed the horrific abortion rate in New York City, and how almost 60% of all pregnancies to black New Yorkers are terminated by abortion. It's this form of clandestine eugenics, practiced under the guise of female empowerment, that the Texas-based non-profit and its New York sponsors wanted to highlight.

As advertising campaigns go, this one proved to be relatively short-lived. After hearing word that workers at a Mexican restaurant beneath the billboard were being verbally assaulted by passers-by infuriated by its pro-life message, Lamar Advertising decided to take it down. Two days after putting it up. But by doing so, Lamar has fueled the flames by giving more media exposure to the pro-life movement than its liberal detractors had intended.

Get Real

Pro-abortion activists just can't catch a break. That's Part "B" of the story.

To begin with, Lamar has come under some suspicion for yanking down the billboard so early into its run. And their altruistic effort to protect restaurant workers holds little credibility. New Yorkers aren't exactly bereft of street-smart savvy. How many SoHo residents would think to blame the wait staff at their local Mexican bistro for the content of a completely unrelated billboard attached to the same multi-tenant building?

Second, for all their pride in being tolerant and open-minded, having New Yorkers react so viciously to this one billboard smacks of the very hateful rhetoric they accuse conservatives of perpetrating. What part of the billboard's message isn't factual? A 60% abortion rate for a particular race in one of America's most progressive cities sounds pretty heinous to me. What's wrong with pointing this out during Black History Month? How funny to hear some self-professed hard-core liberals actually complain that their indignant left-wing brethren are abdicating basic decorum regarding free speech in their responses to this billboard.

And then there's the mother of the girl portrayed in the ad. She has joined the furor, indignant that her child's image was used for such a disturbing message. What's curious about this little sideshow, however, is the fact that the mother had intentionally sold her daughter's image to a stock photo company. She had signed-off on the customary legal acknowledgements that the stock imagery taken of the girl could be used anywhere by anybody. Did the mother take advantage of her daughter by selling her image to a graphics company for unknown purposes? What a parallel to the bigger picture here, lady. Welcome to the real world.

In fact, speaking of the real world, let's cut to the chase: what part of this picture has elicited the deepest emotional backlash? The part about 60% of black pregnancies being aborted? No. The part about black pastors from New York City joining in support of the billboard? No.

It's that some tourists from Texas had the audacity to remind sophisticated New Yorkers that abortion is murder. It's not about the supposed morality of a woman getting to choose the medical procedures she undergoes. It's not even about the morality of educating women on how they can avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

Liberal New Yorkers hate it when cosmopolitanism doesn't obscure reality.

Who's the Racist?

You see, black-on-black shootings in urban America's toughest ghettos trouble liberals for a brief moment when they hear about them on the news. But comparing the gang violence killing America's blacks to the profitable, self-indulgent abortion industry strikes at the soul of abortion's wicked double-standard. Think about it: if 60% of black youngsters were being slaughtered on the meanest streets of Harlem or the Bronx, who'd be yelling the loudest for something to be done?

Which gives us the second story, told by parts A and B.

In advertising terms, this billboard hit a home run: it was on a prominent space in a celebrity neighborhood in the world's media capital. It was targeted at an audience whose very inability to ignore it would foment the word-of-mouth and press coverage necessary to propel its profile into the pop-culture stratosphere. Now, a world that until Wednesday had never heard of Life Always, or that 60% of black pregnancies ended in murder in New York, knew about both. And could hear the inane blather of left-wingers corroborate the discrepancy between how abortion rights are good for minorities.

The fact that this billboard lasted only two days hardly diminishes the cost of what should have been its three-week run. Indeed, Life Always and Heroic Media have told two stories from one billboard. Rumors that Lamar may not even bill them for it only adds icing to the cake.

True to form, Letitia James, a liberal black New York City councilwoman from Brooklyn, exclaimed "we won!" after learning that the billboard would be coming down.

Yeah, right, Tish. Guess again.
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Extremism Ain't Working For Us

I don't know why, but I'm always amazed when I discover yet another evangelical writer hammering nails into America's right-wing platform. Most of these guys - and they're mostly guys - get more excited and animated talking American politics and economics than they do the Gospel.

It makes me wonder what I'm missing.

When I was growing up, my parents taught me to rely on the Bible as my principle resource for developing my worldview. Maybe that's because my Mom is a Republican, and my Dad is a Democrat, and they didn't want to spend their marriage quarreling over politics.

For years, they didn't even register to vote, since it would have just risked creating unnecessary strife in the family.

Today, however, I look around me in my Christian environment and see just about everybody reading off of the same script - and it's not the Bible. It's the script co-authored by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, with Red Stater's and the Koch brothers as editors and publishers.

It's a Grand Story

It's a script based on the incompetency of government, the purity of unregulated economic markets, the immorality of people who don't earn an elite salary, and the supremacy of a nation that didn't even exist during any timeframe the canon of scripture was inspired by God Himself.

Instead of God and Jesus, two Beings many conservatives respect, their heroes are the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, the reluctant president George Washington, and the adulterer Thomas Jefferson. Maybe the reason God's Son doesn't get top billing is because He instructed a rich ruler to give his wealth away. Or because He's never voted Republican. Or votes, period.

Granted, the simplicity of right versus wrong, black and white, and conservative versus liberal make viewing the world a lot easier. Except things aren't always as simple as we think they are, are they?

Consider capitalism. Free markets give the illusion of working well until you get a crisis in the Middle East, and the price for a gallon of gas begins surging towards $4. Airlines then increase their fares, the value of SUVs tanks, and our tourism industry freaks out at the prospect of a ruined summer vacation season.

If capitalism was really as pure as some conservatives claim it to be, would the price of gas really be able to inflict so much damage on other industries which are equally legitimate?

Of course, at this point, right-wingers would say that volatility in foreign oil prices means we need to develop our petroleum reserves here in the United States. Which sounds logical until you remember that it would take the better part of a decade to get the necessary infrastructure up and running to replace our dependence on imported oil. Couldn't that time be better spent developing alternative fuels? What part of capitalism should be used to discourage innovation by favoring old-industry firms like oil conglomerates?

Conservatives have a far less dubious stance when it comes to unions, and the budget spectacle we're witnessing this week in Wisconsin. Back during the Industrial Revolution, unions helped secure health safeguards and employment standards that we take for granted today. However, whereas unions used to fight for basic worker rights, they've now lost their perspective as human workers have become liabilities to employers. It has become increasingly unrealistic for liberals to keep defending rising union wages and benefits when the private sector workforce is being decimated by corporate America's addictive hoarding mentality.

Oops. Even when conservatives are right, they can be wrong. You never hear their talking heads bemoaning the reality that most of the companies who've suppressed salaries and cut the most employees have done so with cash and profits to spare.

The Road to You-Know-Where is Paved With You-Know-What

Now, before anybody brands me as a fascist socialist, I think our democracy, despite it's flaws, is still the best government on the planet. Our economy, despite showing serious signs of weakness, retains enough integrity and remains dynamic enough to correct itself if we act prudently. Those things which are broken in our society have not malfunctioned primarily because the systems themselves have failed. Our economic and political systems were never perfect to begin with.

And that's what we need to realize. There is no perfect way to make money or govern people. Everything we create is flawed, relative to the degree with which we interact in it. We make mistakes. And we sin. The only part of world history that has been perfect was that indefinite timespan between Creation and the Fall.

So, since nobody's perfect, and since we do have some pretty stiff problems in our country, what's the best way to go about improving what needs improvement? Is it constantly casting blame, trying to legislate morality, and taking sides against each other working for us?

Since when have political and economic compromise become such dirty concepts? Who says our Founding Fathers didn't have to bury numerous hatchets before the great documents of our federation were signed? Why do the Nancy Pelosi's and Sarah Palin's of our modern pop-governance slug-fests need to be the standard-bearers of their supercilious minions?

If our problems are as grave as experts say they are, at what point should we recognize the need to quit cheerleading for our respective viewpoints and work to build upon common ground? By now, we all know what the right-wingers and left-wingers think about themselves and each other, and see how far we've gotten with this posturing and spin?

Parroting the evils of liberal economics won't do conservatives much good if our GDP gets swallowed up by the Chinese. Casting conservatives as evil won't save liberals if Social Security bankrupts our budget. As the saying goes, we're all in the same boat, and if it sinks, it won't matter what side you're claiming is the most righteous.

Politicians have already proven to be the most capable people at preserving their own self-interests. Why should conservatives - and people of faith, no less - continue to egg them on?

Remember: this world isn't ours anyway.

Not to waste - or keep.
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Delight in the Widow's Might

It's been called the "widow's mite," the tiny amount of money Christ watched the poor widow give to the temple treasury (Mark 12:41-44). Two small copper coins.

Much has been written and pontificated about how this offering by an impoverished, disenfranchised woman compares to the large sums of money being given by far wealthier people.

But how much of it do we take to heart? I, for one, struggle with this passage.

If poverty and wealth exist as relative terms, we can recognize that the larger theme of this scenario has less to do with the actual size of the offering, and more to do with how much money was left over afterwards.

For the widow, Christ observes that she gave all that she had. Whereas the wealthy put in money out of their surplus. Christ didn't put a dollar amount on what the wealthy gave, or a fixed percentage. Instead, He looked at their hearts. Indeed, God has never needed the actual currency that His people tithe and offer to Him. He wants to see how we arrive at the amount we release. Church offerings aren't so much a fundraising exercise as they are a demonstration of faith.

So, who had richer faith? The widow, who likely left the temple with nary a clue as to where her next meal or rent money would come from? Or the wealthy givers, who left the temple with considerably more confidence in their income stream? Which lifestyle begets greater faith? Some might want to argue that the more lavish the lifestyle, the greater faith you need that you'll be able to keep it going. But I'm thinkin' that ain't what Christ had in mind.

In fact, Christ knew that the widow's confidence did not come from what she had, but from something she could never purchase. There was little need for her to hoard money, since her trust lay God.

Now, we know that taken wholistically, the Bible does not teach that believers should intentionally become economically destitute. We are to provide for our families, be prudent in our saving, and be responsible for looking out for the needs of others. We can't do much of that if we're literally giving away every cent we earn.

But what Christ intends for His disciples to glean from this temple vignette involves recognizing that whatever we have is not ours. Whether we have a lot of whatever society values, or not. None of it is ours to keep, and it's not even really ours to give away. It's all God's. And to the extent that we're willing to return to Him all that He's entrusted to us, we should be confident that He will supply our needs.

Everything. Like we would be walking out of church, utterly dependant on our Savior for not only our salvation, but our daily bread.

The widow's might was God Himself. Would that we were so empowered.
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Judge Grace Amazingly

To many evangelical Christians, grace and judgement can appear to be polar opposites.

We deserve to be judged. We don't deserve grace.

Grace is what God gives us after we've been judged to be unworthy sinners. And, all thanks to our loving Father, that is true enough, of course.

But even though grace begins where judgment ends, judgment doesn't completely disappear from the scene, does it?

Oh, Conversations that Cometh from FaceBook!

I'm proud to say that I have an eclectic group of FaceBook friends. People post items from all across the social and political spectrum, including a heavy dose of serious religious content.

The other day, one of my FaceBook friends was musing about judgment and grace, eliciting a variety of responses; some, canned Sunday School fluff, and others more introspective. There were the conventional digs at judgmental Christians who don't dispense enough grace, a behavioral pattern I tend to emulate to my shame. Others wrote saccharine-laced catch phrases for enjoying life in freedom.

Now, granted, FaceBook hardly provides the ideal forum for deep theological dialog, but as I read the responses from other people, I got the impression that they were either not investing much thought into what they were saying, or they didn't have a lot of thought to say anything genuinely true.

Also, knowing my friend and recalling a conversation we once had about believers who use grace as a license for sin, I sensed that he wanted this to be an opportunity for shared conviction on the topic.

What Price Grace?

So, this is what I wrote:

Most of us under-appreciate the gravity of both grace and judgment. I think there's a weight to grace in that we're responsible for how we use the freedom from sin Christ purchased for us. Christians who consider grace a blank check need to review the debts and deposits in their account.

The thing about grace is that the freedom it provides us cost somebody something. In the case of our salvation, it cost God His Son. You are not your own; you were bought at a price. (1 Corinthians 19b-20a)

Although believers do not live under the law but under grace, we are not to use grace as a licence to do anything outside of God's will (Jude 1:4).

When you balance your checkbook, whether it's on the old-fashioned booklet you get from your bank, or it's on a software program, you have to reconcile your deposits and your debts. When it comes to our faith, where do all of the deposits come from? Here's a clue: none of them come from anything we do.

All we have comes from Christ. Whose sacrificial death was the only thing which could satisfy God's holy wrath.

Grace from judgment is free to us because it cost Someone else dearly. What joy to know God loves us that much! What gravity in knowing that love wasn't free.

"FaceBook Like?"
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Virtually Inferior Preaching

The de-construction of the evangelical church continues.

Perpetrated, as it has been for decades, by the church itself.

First came the abandonment of corporate worship elements subjectively interpreted as stuffy and culturally irrelevant. Then came the seeker-sensitive movement, in which church became little more than a morality country club.

The idolization of preachers leads the current charge, as congregations across North America jump on the satellite church bandwagon. This phenomenon can also be called multi-site, video venue, and church franchising. Whatever you call it, however, only serves to mask our renewed focus on preachers as celebrities.

Which cannot bode well for the future of America's evangelical church, can it?

High Tech Circuits Rider

Back in the early days of our nation's history, and even today in those few, rural, and sparsely-populated swaths of North America, the old circuit-riders would journey from tiny chapel to tiny chapel, preaching several times a day to several different congregations, none of which could afford a full-time pastor of their own. It wasn't really an ideal situation for anybody, but it worked; the Word was preached, and Christ's Kingdom was built.

Aside from the meager finances of many small churches, another of the reasons for the use of circuit riders in the United States involved the fact that few qualified seminary graduates were available for the multiple pulpits popping up across the newly-developing countryside. But today, our nation is saturated with seminary graduates, many of whom can't find employment as a professional minister because of all the stiff competition.

So for the most affluent, church-crowded, and seminarian-inundated country the world has ever witnessed to start farming out sub-congregations with video preaching seems goofy at best and self-aggrandizing at worst. Might this be just another rung on the trip to cultural irrelevance for the evangelical church?

It's not even just the usual suspects participating in this reckless popularity contest. Yes, Willow Creek does it, as do its Texas clones Fellowship Church and Gateway Church in suburban Fort Worth. Statistics put the number of churches running satellite locations in the hundreds. Even reformed congregations such as Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and Mars Hill Church in Seattle have developed multi-site ministries.

Granted, Gateway Church offers a pastor at each of its satellite campuses, and Redeemer Presbyterian rotates its preaching pastors through each of its Manhattan locations. So they're not exactly using technology to clone the senior pastor like other churches do. And Redeemer and Mars Hill have some extenuating circumstances, such as zoning and building regulations, high construction costs, and other urban-density factors inherent in their metropolitan locations that make constructing new worship facilities prohibitive. But still, Mars Hill and Fellowship Church have satellite campuses in New Mexico and Florida, respectively. Not even in the same states as their original, flagship congregations. How self-aggrandizing is that?

Celebrity Preachers

We knew this was coming. With the explosion of video and Internet technology, the idea of having one pastor preach to groups of people clustered in front of massive screens across the country is actually rather dated. At least in terms of cutting-edge technology. Is the fact that this idea has now taken off, however, cause for celebration?

First, we need to consider the concept of celebrity pastors. We've had them for centuries, from Martin Luther and John Calvin to John Donne, John Wesley, and Charles Spurgeon. But most of these guys would probably have been too humble to assume what today's mega-church preachers believe: that their preaching is better than anybody else's, so that's why they need to replicate themselves in multiple congregations.

And it's not just the preachers who think they're so good. It's their congregations, comprised of people so wrapped-up in our Hollywood culture that they think nothing of ascribing celebrity status to men of the cloth. Even if they won't admit it, parishioners have their favorite pulpit suppliers, and we all have become extremely picky about who we will let preach to us.

I used to volunteer at the information booth of an up-and-coming contemporary church, and every week, congregants would come up to us and ask who was preaching that Sunday. If it wasn't the senior pastor, some of them would actually turn around and leave. Their decisions had little to do with Biblical accuracy, doctrine, or even looks, but the idea that the senior pastor is the best by default.

Now, I'm not saying that some pastors aren't better communicators than others, nor am I saying that congregations shouldn't expect their preachers to teach well. Preaching elders, as most pastors are, must hold certain basic qualifications in terms of knowledge, competence, and gifting. But let's admit it: most preachers are average, some are exceptional, but few of them are actually bad. Hopefully, most bad preachers are diverted from the pastorate while still in seminary, or are gracious enough to realize their gifts lie elsewhere.

Within the Presbyterian Church in America, Tim Keller, senior pastor at New York City's Redeemer Presbyterian, has become a superstar preacher for one obvious reason: he's an excellent communicator. He's also wise, insightful, well-read, engaging, and just blunt enough to keep you following his line of reasoning. Personally, I'm amazed at how in virtually all of his sermons, Keller finds a way to wrap whatever topic about which he's preaching around the cross of Christ. Naturally, Keller's not perfect, but he hits so many nails on their heads, you can't help but admire the structural integrity of his sermons.

Why It's a Bad Idea

Yet even Keller has realized that he can't expect to replicate himself among the different clusters of worshippers that Redeemer has scattered across Manhattan Island. Instead of running live video feeds of himself preaching through all five locations, a team of pastors rotates along with him, sharing the preaching duties.

Why is that?

Probably for the same reasons Ed Young, senior pastor at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, shouldn't be beaming his tanned Boomer face to a group of people at Fellowship's congregation in Miami, Florida. Aside from the year-round tan, does Young have any business being a remote pastor?  Do other pastors who feel compelled to share their charisma with multiple congregations simultaneously?  Is there really a shortage of preachers in the United States?  Consider:

• Economies of scale only go so far in justifying satellite churches. How much money do congregations really save by sharing logos, Power Point graphic artists, and back office administrative staff?
• How convenient should attending church really be? If you don't want to travel an hour or half an hour to hear your favorite preacher, should you really expect him to come to you? Why don't you move closer to your church?
• How much discipleship takes place when you're physically removed from your teaching pastor? Granted, in most mega-churches, precious few people get to know their senior pastor, but still, if God wanted remote preaching, couldn't He just beam something down from Heaven every week? No, He created the gift of teaching and gave that gift to human beings. Presumably, so that human interaction could be a component of that teaching. Just because your mega-church is too large for you to get to know your senior pastor doesn't mean a video link is going to correct anything; maybe it means mega-churches aren't the best interpretation of Biblical community.
• What makes your favorite preacher better than somebody else you've never met? How do you know your preacher deserves to be broadcast from virtual pulpits, when his message could be taking the place of someone else God has gifted in a particular way that simply may not be your favorite?
• In this age of increasing reliance on technology, how wise is it to further remove congregations from the men who preach the Word of God? Social networking cannot generate personal relationships the way face-to-face interaction can. Even if the only digitized person in your congregation is the pastor, what does that say about a church's ability to fellowship well?

Indeed, technology can be a wonderful thing, but just because it gives us the ability to do something, that doesn't mean we should.

From Fad to Flame Out?

I'd have much less of an argument to stand on if the satellite church proponents were actually beaming their sermons to remote tribal villages in the African bush or Pacific islands, where seminary-trained preachers remain scarce. Of course, having an Internet connection to a sermon with Fellowship Church's Young preaching in front of a Rolls Royce wearing skin-tight clothing and highlighted hair would probably not be very effective even in Watts, let alone Sierra Leone.

Which is what I hope all of this really is: just another sappy trend. Like many other fads born of the Boomer popularity angst, such as intentionally-ripped jeans and two-tone hair, satellite churches may simply flame out when congregants begin to realize they can watch the video feed from their computers at home.

In the meantime, how effective will it have been for communities of faith to continue replicating the very societal patterns threatening to destabilize our society? Who says following the culture is mandatory? To what extent might off-site preaching mirror - if not facilitate - the interpersonal disconnect prevalent in our society, plus the virtual de-construction of western civilization as we know it? (And yes, the pun is intentional.)

After all, when you take the human element out of preaching, how much else is left for the church to do church?
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Making Money Less than Faith

How much money does your lifestyle cost?

What have you abandoned for the Gospel of Christ? Not just given up, or done without, but utterly forsaken?

Could you realistically live on $50,000 a year or less... and give the rest away?

In his disquieting book, Radical; Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, pastor David Platt asks bluntly, "what is Jesus worth to you?"

Givers or Takers?

To say such a question smacks of counterculturalism puts it mildly. I have never been to a church in my entire life that took such an aggressive tone against hedonism and affluence. Many pastors preach against the evils of consumerism, but it's usually based on a sliding scale of relativism.

Believers who live in Beverly Hills can, without feeling any pain, cut stuff out of their budgets that would probably fund an entire family in Tulsa, Oklahoma for at least a year. Many suburban families think sacrifice starts with foregoing cable TV. And who doesn't instinctively pine for higher-paying promotions, more luxurious homes, and a robust retirement portfolio?

Platt says that, basically, all we like sheep have gone astray, and the evangelical church has folded like wet cardboard into the sticky syrup of materialism and wealth-building. To be true disciples, we must eschew the trappings of conventional suburban society and devote ourselves to a style of servanthood which prioritizes ministry to the poor and disenfranchised instead of the accomplished and successful.

Hope or Hype?

At first, it all sounds tantalizing radical, which plays into Platt's entire theme. Of course! We've all been sucked into the world's system of transient rewards and profits before principles. In many of my essays, I myself have struck out against America's dominant church culture which has become inbred with love of money, stuff, and importance. So, I thought, since nobody's listening to me, maybe they'll listen to some buff over-achiever. We've gotta re-prioritize ourselves!

Yet, the cynic in me wants to summarily dismiss Platt's Radical as simply the requisite book by another Type-A pastor trying to single-handedly change the world. Still in his early 30's, he already holds two undergrad degrees, two Masters degrees, and a PhD. He leads a large, hip, contemporary Southern Baptist congregation in Alabama. He's the next new kid on the block.

Plus, as I should know, it's SO easy to bash America's Christian culture these days. How really radical is Platt's premise? Our audacious affluence relative to the rest of the world, coupled with our relative stinginess - evangelicals reportedly tithe only 4% of their income annually - makes for plentiful opportunities to rub the noses of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in, well, something not entirely pleasant.

On his church and book websites, Platt ladles out a heavy dose of good-old-fashioned Baptist guilt and gushes with a trendy We-Are-The-World evangelism which appears to jive with what most of us have been taught about Christianity. Indeed, even Calvinists don't need Baptists to teach us about total depravity, nor is any believer excluded from the mandate to share our faith. But at what point does "love of money," which seems to be Platt's niche in this discussion, plague both the rich and the poor?

Counterpoint

In his review of Radical for World Magazine, Reformed scholar and author Anthony Bradley provides a well-reasoned counterpoint to Platt's exuberant poverty:

"Platt takes an appropriate sledgehammer to Christians who have refashioned Jesus into a middle-class, comforting and loving nice guy who hides in suburbia to avoid Samaritans, as well as to those who ignore the needs of the poor and serve the idols of self-advancement, self-esteem, individualism, materialism, and universalism. He nails the deadly consequences of these trends."

Bradley goes on, however, to enumerate some fallacies he sees in Platt's approach. Is discipleship, for instance, the sole purpose for us believers? Since when is materialism an exclusively middle class cancer? And how effective can the social gospel ethos be without an equally beneficial socioeconomic system? How you answer these questions depends on your Christian worldview, not necessarily on whether you're blatantly sinning by answering differently than Platt does.

As an ardent capitalist, Bradley draws some of the usual conclusions regarding wealth redistribution, but his overall perspective bears repeating here: "What releases people from loving the American Dream is radical obedience motivated by love in order to love others justly." In other words, we love others (not money) because Christ first loved us.

And, "God calls us to live radically for cosmic redemption but with wisdom and discernment." In other words, we need to be careful that what God provides us isn't wasted - either on ourselves, or on imprudent ideas for ministry.

What Do You Love?

While it takes someone who is truly deceived to deny that most American believers are narcissistic social-climbers, we all have to remember that the love of money cuts both ways. Poor people can covet wealth just as much as rich folks; their aspirations may simply be more unrealistic.

We also can't Biblically deny somebody gifted towards a high-income career the opportunity to pursue that objective, at least not as long as they want to honor God with it more than anything else.

How all of us spend what we earn from our vocations, however, remains the crucial question here, no matter how much money that is. You'll recall that Christ esteemed the widow's mite to be greater than the enormous sum boasted of by the wealthy Pharisee. Wealthy Christians like to gloss over that scripture, but we also need to remember that the widow's humility, not just the percentage, played a significant role in her gift's worthiness. Contentment remains an elusive quality no matter your net worth, and that's our own fault, not God's.

To the extent that Platt reminds all of us that the money we may - or may not - have isn't really ours anyway, then however more liberal we become in our charity could make the difference in how meaningful we find our lives to be. For Platt to claim that Christ expects us to relinquish everything He's given us for His sake is true enough. But just as we shouldn't recoil at such a mandate, neither should we release our access to worldly goods with feigned piety.

After all, can't benchmarks be exceeded with joy? Like one of my pastors liked to say: "ten percent is just a start."
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